David Golemon - Legacy

Collins, Everett, Mendenhall, and Ryan watched the small man turn away and gesture for the guards to bring them along. They headed down the tunnel where the overhead lighting disappeared to nothing as it sank into the ground.

Leave it to Ryan to anger McCabe even more with his last question.

“So I guess lunch is out of the question?”

Jack, Carl, Will, and Ryan watched as the excavation dug back in the thirties and forties slid by the windows of their tram. There were three cars attached to the motorcar and they were riding in the middle six-wheeled conveyance. The road they traveled on was old but well maintained. The concrete poured all those years ago must have cost the German government a small fortune. As Collins tried to examine some of the deep depressions where men had once dug into the base of the mountain, he saw no evidence of anything that had been taken out years before.

Finally their journey came to an end. Although they had stopped in front of a large steel-reinforced gate, the paved road continued downward at a steep angle, indicating that there were further excavations beyond. The guards in the front and rear cars motioned for them to get out. McCabe was there and he was again writing on his clipboard. As the guards herded the four men toward a Quonset hut in front of the large gate, Jack saw several items that chilled his blood. Lined up neatly against the stone wall were approximately a hundred crates of varying sizes. On several of the smaller ones, stacked thirty feet high and sloppily covered in tarpaulins, the crate’s markings had been exposed.

“Damn, Jack, do you see that?” Everett asked, just as he was pushed from behind.

Collins took one last quick look before he himself was jabbed in the back. FIM-92 was stenciled on several of the exposed plastic cases. Jack immediately recognized what they were seeing. FIM-92 was a Stinger missile system, an infrared-homing surface-to-air missile developed in the United States and licensed by the Raytheon Corporation to be built by EADS, the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company in Germany.

“Shit, there must be over eighty of those cases!” Carl said, as a door was opened and they were led into the hut.

James McCabe stepped in behind them and watched as Jack and the others were placed in seats. McCabe then gestured for the men and women who were sitting at several desks to leave. Once they were gone, McCabe sat on the edge of an empty desk and looked at the four men. He seemed confident, even though none of his captives was restrained. Jack supposed the eight large men in gray security uniforms holding AK-47s were a confidence builder for the former Delta officer.

“Okay, here we are. As you can tell, Jack, there’s nothing much to see here but an old German mining company that was once a promising site for recovering uranium. The mining attempt failed, and the new owner is particularly worried about others digging around and finding something the old boys from the war didn’t. A patriot, you might say, who doesn’t want any undiscovered material falling into the wrong hands.”

“I see, and that makes you a man who is concerned about the well-being of innocent people?” Jack asked, his brows raised.

“Ah,” McCabe said, raising his hand and swiping it through the air, “You know me far better than that, Jack. It’s the money, of course. I’m paid a lot by my employer to keep this place secure. It’s not the rest of the world I care about-it’s my world I’m concerned with, you should know that.”

McCabe stood from the desk and walked up to Will Mendenhall and looked down at him.

“Now, I need to know who you work for.” McCabe looked from Will to Ryan, and then down the line until his eyes rested on Jack. “Any volunteers?”

The room remained silent as McCabe glanced from face to face. He didn’t seem disturbed that all four men kept their mouths shut.

“It’s just a matter of curiosity. It makes no never mind to me. You came, you saw, and now you can report to-” He smiled. “- whomever it is you answer to that there is nothing in Quito that requires American involvement.” He looked at his wristwatch. “Well, I have to be somewhere else in a few hours. I think it’s time to feed you that lunch that my colleague promised you, and then you can get back to wherever you came from.” He slapped Collins on the right knee. “Jack, it was good to see you, old friend. Take care of yourself.”

They all watched as McCabe left the room. After he did, Jack and Carl exchanged a look and their unvoiced thought was that they would never see the light of the outside world again.

The security men gestured for the four to stand. The door was opened and they were escorted out into the massive cavelike gallery. Collins looked to the left at the large gate, and then to the right, where several workers were starting to load the crates and their contents onto the tram. The lead security guard pointed his AK-47 in the direction they had come from. Altogether there were just four of them and they had eight large men with guns. Jack was trying to think as fast as he could as they were led to a small excavated gallery that had been dug into the side of the large tunnel system. He remembered Sarah explaining to him that miners sometimes dug out side shafts for the discarding material that would save them loading it onto a conveyance to take topside. He knew this was where they would be shot and dumped. They were out of time.

“Colonel, I don’t think this is the way to the kitchen,” Ryan said from the front of the line as they were led into the darkened chute. “I hope you have a plan.”

“Nothing comes to mind,” Collins answered from the back. The security men were in two rows beside them, four on the left and four on the right.

“This job really sucks sometimes,” Mendenhall said from behind Ryan.

“Shut up and move forward,” the guard said. He turned around and faced Mendenhall. They could hear that he was one of the Americans in the security group.

As they moved further into the darkness, Jack could see that the excavation was getting smaller, and the walls rougher. He could also feel a much cooler draft on his face. Finally, they could see the end of the small shaft and the drop-off ahead. Jack kept his calm. He allowed his eyes to roam across the walls and the men that were watching them. He saw one advantage; most of the guards were aware of their surroundings and were uneasy in the semidarkness. Their eyes moved from place to place as they drew closer to the edge. Jack could smell water and hear the rush of a river somewhere far below. He closed his eyes as a plan formed. It was a long shot at the least and an expedient way to meet their death at the most.

The guards stopped and started pushing them toward the edge of a large rock outcropping-first Mendenhall, then Ryan, then Everett and Collins. They were being lined up.

“Gentlemen, it isn’t much, but I suggest we keep walking forward,” Jack said beneath his breath.

Before any of the eight guards could react, instead of stopping at the dark edge of the chasm before them all four men kept going and walked right off into the black void.

Falling side by side, Mendenhall cursed and Ryan prayed as the automatic weapons opened up above them. Tracers started filling the darkened shaft as they fell. One round hit Jack in the shoulder, barely grazing his shirt and taking an inch of skin with it into the blackness. Another three rounds struck the wall in front of them and ricocheted in all directions. It was like falling into an abyss with angry hornets buzzing around their heads. As they braced for a crushing impact, the four men were amazed as they kept falling, gaining speed as they fell feet-first into the great unknown death that awaited them.