Robert Doherty - The Citadel

"Are you the masseuse?" Kaito asked.

Fatima dropped the towel, revealing the gun. "No."

Kaito stared at her. "Do you know who I am?"

"I know your name," Fatima said. "I know where you live. I know you killed one of my men, Ruiz."

A lifted eyebrow was the only reaction. "You are Abu Sayif." It was not a question.

"Yes. Where is the rest of the Golden Lily? I believe you owe us payment."

Kaito shook her head. "You received payment enough, especially considering the Golden Lily was ours to begin with."

"There you are wrong," Fatima replied. "The original owners of everything in it would disagree with you on that."

Kaito shrugged. "It is not even worth discussing." She pointed at a towel and indicated the sweat on her brow. "Might I?"

Fatima nodded. Kaito walked to the rack and took the towel.

"You haven't asked about your guards," Fatima noted.

"I assume they are dead. If they are merely incapacitated, they will be dead shortly for failing." Kaito looked at her. "It was a nice attempt by Abayon to try to attack Hawaii, but he failed. As you will fail in whatever foolish thing you are trying now."

"The Golden Lily," Fatima said.

"What of it?"

"There is still much that is missing."

"So?"

Fatima noted that Kaito was slowly moving, taking small steps while talking, getting closer to the wall where various swords and spears were racked. Fatima reached inside her sweatshirt pocket and pulled out a picture. She held it up. As Kaito paused to peer at it, Fatima lowered the barrel of the gun and fired.

Kaito cursed as the round tore into her thigh, knocking her to the ground. She put both hands on the wound, trying to stop the bleeding. "You bitch!"

Fatima tossed the picture toward Kaito. It showed a group of men in winter gear standing in front of a sign: A COMPANY: THE CITADEL.

"I received that from an anonymous source," Fatima said. "Along with other information. There was a note in the packet. It said this Citadel was connected to the Golden Lily. That important pieces of the Golden Lily are hidden there. Where is the Citadel?"

"I will never-" Kaito began, but her words changed to a hiss of pain as Fatima fired a round into her other thigh.

"I will see you dead for this," Kaito said between clenched teeth.

"Where is the Citadel?" Fatima demanded. She aimed the gun at Kaito's stomach.

Kaito stared at the barrel. "I have never heard of this place."

Fatima was tempted to pull the trigger, but held back. "Who would have heard of it? Who exactly do you work for?"

Even in her pain, Kaito smiled. "You would not survive five minutes going up against them."

"I'm standing here with a gun and you're lying there bleeding," Fatima noted. She inwardly sighed, knowing that Kaito actually knew very little. It was the same pattern that Abayon had faced over the decades as he tried to penetrate the Organization. She had received the package from FedEx through one of her cutouts in Manila. Who sent the package was unknown. How that unknown had also known the Abu Sayif cutout was also troubling, as it indicated a high level of access to intelligence information in both directions: about her own group, the Abu Sayif, and about the Organization.

"Who do you report to?"

"I will never-" Once more Fatima fired, the round hitting Kaito in the elbow, tearing the bone and nerve junctions. The Japanese woman screamed in pain, the sound echoing off the padded walls. Fatima went over to Kaito and ripped off her training gi, leaving the woman naked and bleeding on the floor. Fatima 's focus was on the tattoo in the middle of Kaito's back. It was an intricate design of an octopus centered at the base of her spine, the tentacles spread across her back, two of them trailing down her buttocks and one even between her legs, indicating complete dominance. Fatima had seen it before and knew what group it represented, so she had the next step in her quest.

"I gave Ruiz an honorable death," Kaito hissed through her pain. "He died with a sword in his hand. I request the same."

"Ruiz, who probably had a hard time figuring out which end of the sword he was supposed to hold?" Fatima asked. "I'm sure fighting against you was most fair." She walked over to the weapons rack and withdrew a samurai sword. She tossed it to the bleeding, naked woman, who caught it in her one good hand.

Then Fatima fired once, the round hitting Kaito in the left eye. The small bullet shattered inside her skull, tearing her brain up and killing her. She slapped back on the mat, a small trickle of blood seeping out of the socket.

Fatima pocketed the gun and left the room.

Oahu , Hawaii

"The Citadel is in Antarctica, as you can tell from Truman's document, which David included in the packet," Royce said. "Where, exactly, though, is the problem. Antarctica is a very large place."

"Why is this Citadel so important?" Vaughn asked. "Besides the fact it might hold four hydrogen bombs, each capable of destroying a major city?"

Royce stared at him. "Majestic-12 built two bases when they were established. One was Area 51. Do you want to try to infiltrate it?"

Vaughn shook his head.

"And the other," Royce continued, "is the Citadel. Since no one has heard of it, perhaps it might be a little easier to approach, at least in terms of security. I'll grant you the terrain and weather are probably the most brutal in the world." He paused. "But the main reason is that David Lansale sent me-and someone else-this information. From the equivalent of his death bed. Actually from beyond his death. So I'm going to take a leap of faith and think it's important, very important. And that David wanted to poke a stick into the ant's nest that the Organization is and see what happens."

Poke a stick? Vaughn stirred irritably, not thrilled with being the stick.

Tai reached up and put a hand on Vaughn's arm. "Let's hear him out."

" Antarctica is ice-covered," Royce said. "The actual extent of the land underneath the ice is a best guess to a certain extent. A lot of people don't realize it, but the North Pole is ice on top of the Arctic Ocean -not a landmass. Antarctica is a true landmass, and it holds ninety percent of the world's ice and snow. And, interestingly enough, it is the only continent not to have its own native population."

Vaughn looked at the picture once more and the mountains in the background. "How well-mapped is Antarctica? I mean how could this Citadel, if it's there, have remained hidden for all these decades?"

Royce didn't seem to appreciate the "if it's there" qualifier. "If you wanted to hide something, the best place in the world would be Antarctica. Plus, according to the photos, it was built under the ice and buried. Although Antarctica is the size of Europe and the United States combined, less than one percent of it has been seen by man."

Vaughn was skeptical. "Even with overflights?"

"Even with overflights. From 1946 through '47 the U.S. Navy ran a mission called Operation High Jump using over five thousand men, thirteen ships, and numerous planes and helicopters. They took so many pictures that some of them haven't even been developed yet. Despite all that equipment and manpower, their coverage of the interior was very limited. With all that manpower, they managed to photograph about sixty percent of just the coastline."

"And build the Citadel," Tai said.

Royce nodded. "I think High Jump was just a cover to put the Citadel in place in Antarctica or it was used as a convenient cover once the exercise was planned. And it looks like they put it under the ice. The war was just over and the material and men were available. The government made no secret of the operation. You can look the mission up. It was well-documented. However, what no one seemed to wonder was why the government was so interested in Antarctica. And why did they dispatch dozens of ships and airplanes to the southernmost continent so quickly after the end of the war?"