David Golemon - Legacy

Mendenhall was the first to strike the water, followed by Ryan. The latter had lost the battle with keeping his body straight and fell face-first into the rush of the river, the impact breaking his nose and shocking him into near unconsciousness. Everett managed to stay upright and hit the underground river with an impact that sent him straight to the river’s bottom, where he jammed both knees on the coarse rock that made up the riverbed. Jack landed right beside him and veered off sharply after going under. The extreme angle allowed his feet to strike the left bank of the river. Collins thought he had broken his ankle as it came into contact with a large boulder, but he was aware enough to see red hot tracers stitch the water around him. He pushed with his legs and pulled with his arms, all the while assisted by the flow of the river. He finally managed to surface to the sound of rushing white water and the pings of bullets bouncing off rocks. In the darkness he bumped into someone who reached out and grabbed his right arm. Then he felt another man’s hands and another’s. Will and Jason were shaken as they coughed and spit out the freezing water.

“Damn,” Everett shouted. “Are we all here?” The words were almost lost in the din.

There was no answer as they picked up speed and the current pulled them around a bend in the river. They struck a rock wall and then spun back into the center of the current. Then there was nothing, the sound disappearing as the walls and ceiling vanished above them. They were completely submerged.

Jack tried to hang on desperately to the man he was holding, but the twisting and rolling water separated them. He knew they had followed the river underground and figured that was it. He thought they could travel for at least three of four miles without the benefit of drawing air into their lungs. As he twirled underwater, he was sorry about leading his men into such a simple trap as the excavation, but knew his people well enough that they would rather die like this than be shot in the back and dumped into the blackness.

As the four men were battered by the twisting river, Jack was amazed to see the clean, cold water brighten. As he registered this in his oxygen-deprived brain, he was suddenly free of the river. He felt a free-falling sensation as he was ejected from the underground river and into thin air. The fall was from a height he would never have volunteered for. The waterfall noise covered the screams coming from all four of the men as they finally struck the white water below the falls. Jack struggled to the surface and realized then that through the entire length of his free fall he hadn’t taken a breath. Finally reaching the surface of the roiling water, Jack took in the most wonderful breath of his entire life.

“Colonel, are you all right?”

As Jack gained his senses he felt hands lifting him up. When he looked to his right he saw it was Will Mendenhall who had taken his shoulder. In his other arm Will held Ryan by the back of his neck, keeping him afloat. There was a lot of blood clouding the water around Jason and that brought Collins back to complete consciousness as he reached out to see how badly hurt Ryan was.

“Mr. Everett?” Jack called out.

“Right here,” came the answer. The Navy SEAL had taken both the fall and the water in stride, great swimmer that he was.

“Is Ryan all right?” Carl asked as he joined the three men holding each other up.

“He’s breathing. I think his nose is broken.” Will looked around to get his bearings.

At that moment they became aware of eyes upon them. Jack looked to his left and that was when he saw a man and two small boys. They were staring at the strange scene before them with fishing poles in their hands. Their eyes were wide and they didn’t notice that the smallest child was getting a large strike on his pole.

Jack waved his hand at the three fishermen, and then out of the corner of his mouth said, “I think now may be a good time to get the hell out of here.”

Rev. Samuel Rawlins paced the floor with the cordless phone held tightly in his hand. He was irritated at the two-second delay in the voice signal caused by the scrambled transmission. That was just another thing James McCabe, or Mr. Smith as he was called, had installed that had become an incredible waste of time.

“And what do your people say? Who is this man?” he asked the person at the other end of the line. He waited in frustration for the scrambled reply.

“We don’t really know. We have a background check running right now and so far all we’ve come up with is that he was the highest-ranking student ever to come out of Harvard and MIT. After graduation in 1985, this Compton just fell off the map. That fact makes me suspect he’s CIA.”

“Mr. Vice President, you of all people should know that top MIT graduates do not go to work for low-paying intelligence agencies.” Rawlins wondered why he dealt with men who had to have the smallest things explained to them. “Now, what did their visit consist of?”

The silence on the other end of the line was far longer than the scrambling could account for. Rawlins squeezed the handset even tighter.

“They were asking questions about how fast the United States could get to the Moon.”

With the vice president’s answer, the whiteness of Rawlins’s hand on the phone increased and blood was forced out of it with the pressure he brought to bear.

“And?” he said, gritting his teeth.

“I don’t know. All of this information was passed to me as the head of the space program, but I’m being kept at arm’s length as far as the president is concerned. He’s not taking me into his confidence.”

“If that is the case, Harry, why the hell am I paying you so much money?”

“Look, this Compton can’t get any information that won’t eventually get back to me. Obviously the president has chosen this man to formulate a plan of some kind, possibly as a contingency only, so all we have to do is watch him.”

“No, we can’t take that chance. I want this man eliminated.”

“What? He works directly for the president of the United States, Reverend. I think that would cause some very serious consequences.”

Rawlins moved out from behind his desk and strode to a large couch fronted by an ornate coffee table. On the couch was a woman reading a magazine with her legs tucked underneath her. Rawlins placed his hands on her blond hair. The softness seemed to calm him considerably. He looked down at the family portrait sitting on the coffee table. It was a photo of Rawlins and his two daughters. The elder of which was sitting right in front of him.

“Use your imagination. If he is indeed on his way to Houston, as you say, any number of things can go wrong in flight. Am I correct?”

The young, beautiful woman on the couch, his daughter Laurel, lowered the Esquire and turned her head toward her father. She had a questioning look on her face. He smiled down at her.

“I wouldn’t even know how to go about ordering something like that. I can’t be caught committing what amounts to an assassination. That’s tantamount to treason, no matter what you-”

“Do you really think I would put such an assignment into your lap, Harold? I’m not a fool. Just keep me informed about what this Niles Compton learns on his trip to NASA. That will give me time to make the arrangements. With luck, NASA and DARPA will tell him the same thing you’ve told me for years, that our space program is tits up in the water.”

“Look, Reverend, we need to think this out. We need-”

Rawlins pushed the disconnect button on the phone and lowered it to his side. His hand continued toying with his daughter’s blond hair until she finally became irritated enough to push him away.