David Golemon - Event

"Ivory Coast Lounge," a female voice answered.

"Yes, I would like to reserve a table for tonight please, the name is Reese. Bob Reese."

There was a moment's hesitation on the other end. "Yes, Mr. Reese, there should be no problem. At what time should we expect your party?"

Reese looked at his wristwatch and calculated. "Three hours."

"That will be fine, Mr. Reese."

"Thank you. Also, would you tell Simon the bartender to chill a bottle of champagne for me please?" Reese hung up.

He walked to the bar. He took slow pulls off the longneck bottle, made a face, and sat the beer down on the bar. Reese never thought of the things he did as treason. That was an ugly word, and a word that was lost on people like him because the only word that really mattered to Reese was a far simpler one, profit. And he knew this would be a highly profitable trip into town because in his many dealings with the Centaurus Corporation, he had never once given the code words he had just given to the Ivory Coast Lounge. Chill a bottle of champagne meant he was coming in with vital information from the number one item on their wish list, vital and expensive.

The bartender at The Ark, an off-duty marine lance corporal whose real job was in the security department, shook his head as Reese walked out of the club whistling. "Hey, Dr. Reese, that's three bucks you owe me."

But Reese just kept walking, off in a world of his own. The bartender looked at his watch and noted the time.

After Reese left The Ark, the bartender decided to make a report on the man who had appeared on the security list this morning. He walked over to the phone at the far end of the bar and looked up at those who were drinking and talking. When he saw none of them were paying him any mind, he picked up the phone and quickly punched in three numbers.

"Security Center, Staff Sergeant Mendenhall," the black sergeant said tiredly.

"Sarge, this is Wilkins. Is Commander Everett there, or the new major?"

"No, they're hanging with the senator and Dr. Compton at the moment. Something big is happening," Mendenhall said through a yawn.

"Well, would you note it in the security log that one of the people on our security watch list was in here about a half hour ago and made a call from the pay phones? It was the Comp Center assistant supervisor, that Reese guy. I only noticed because according to the Computer Center duty roster, he was still on shift when he came in here."

"Okay, that's a clear violation. I'll note it in the log and pass it along to the commander and the new boss, and then I'm sure they'll get Dr. Compton in on this, so Reese can probably expect a write-up or an ass-chewing in the morning."

Alice Hamilton met Collins and Everett at the large double doors to the main conference room. She stood with two briefing folders in her hand and made a "hurry up" gesture at the two men, fanning the folders toward the doors.

"Niles, the senator, and the others are waiting for you to start." She ushered them toward the conference room.

"What's up, Alice?" Everett asked in a whisper.

"Not now, Carl, get in there. You have some things to discuss before they call the president." She handed them the briefing folders, one each to Everett and Collins, on their way into the large room.

As they entered, Jack counted seven people seated around the huge oval conference table. The senator was at the opposite end, flipping through some papers in front of him on the polished table. He didn't notice either Collins or Everett as they seated themselves. Alice took her place to the senator's right, in between him and Niles Compton, who was sitting cross-legged reading a report and rubbing his forehead. He finally looked up.

"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming on such short notice. But as you'll see, it's important that we put this thing in your hands as soon as possible." Niles paused and looked straight at Jack.

"First off, Major Collins, I'm sorry for having to throw you into the fire on your very first day, but you'll have to limp along the best you can."

"Yes, sir," replied Jack, looking at the faces around him.

"I assume the rest of you have seen the major's 201 file and know his capabilities and qualifications?"

There were nods around the room. Collins noticed he and Everett were the only two out of the ten in blue jumpsuits. Everyone else wore either a lab coat or casual clothes.

"Major, we'll save the introductions for later," Compton said.

Jack just nodded in response.

Niles placed his papers on the floor and took a laser pointer from his breast pocket.

"We had a situation occur this morning over the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of Panama. It seems on the surface we had an incident involving two naval jets. The aircraft, two F-14 Super Tomcats flying off the USS Carl Vinson , were lost at 0640 hours this morning."

The men and women around the table sat in silence at the news. Collins could see that they were accustomed to reports of field losses. He didn't know if that was a comforting thought or not.

"The navy at the moment is very tight-lipped about the incident, as they always are."

The senator interrupted, "Just to let you know, Major Collins, we don't normally investigate every naval incident that comes along."

"Uh, quite," Compton said, clearing his throat again. "We only know something was different because at the time of the incident, we were retasking Boris and Natasha."

Everett pulled his yellow notepad over and scribbled quickly, then slid it in Jack's direction. It read, KH-11 satellite -- we own it; code name is Boris and Natasha.

Collins raised an eyebrow at this new information. For anyone other than the military, the CIA, or NSA, owning a KH-series spy satellite was amazing. He now knew the director and the senator had to have some kind of reach; they not only had access to military personnel, but their equipment also.

"The lucky thing is," Compton continued, "we left Boris's ears on and Natasha's eyes open. For the simple-minded among you, we left the damn thing running while we moved it, as we were recalibrating several of her systems. We were moving the satellite to observe an area of Brazilian rain forest that may be hiding some ruins we were interested in... so what we caught was by pure chance only." Now he looked at his paperwork and shuffled it. "Okay, here's what we know, people. The fighters were flying a standard combat air patrol, or CAP as the Navy terms it. They received a call about an intermittent contact closing on the carrier group position. We have that on tape for those of you who would like to hear it later. They were told the target kept blinking on and off the air-search radar of every ship in the group." Compton paused again. "Boris and Natasha could see with her cameras what the carrier could not with its radar." He removed the blank cover off the first picture on the easel.

"People, I want you to keep your cool about this and try to stay focused," Lee said calmly, not looking up. "We here at Group have dealt with the extreme in history, nature, and strange science, but none of you have ever dealt with anything like this before."

The gathered men and women exchanged questioning looks around the table. They had indeed had to deal with extreme Events, so what could be so shocking the senator had to put a disclaimer on it?

The first still picture was of the two navy Tomcats. Compton pointed them out with the laser pointer; the small red dot highlighted the aircraft. The picture showed them side by side, one slightly in front of the other, a good close-up shot. Then Compton removed the first picture to reveal the second high-definition shot.

"Here, we were checking the diagnostics on the satellite, and so we went to a more wide-angled shot to bring the optics to a nominal setting. It took us longer than I would have liked to wash these images through the computer afterward."