Sacred Stone

“You need to steal it from the archaeologist who found it,” Overholt said, “preferably without him knowing.”

Cabrillo paused for a second. “Have you looked in your den lately?”

“What den?” Overholt said, taking the bait.

“The den of vipers where you live,” Cabrillo said.

“So you’ll take the job?”

“Send me the details,” Cabrillo said. “I’ll leave in a few hours.”

“Don’t worry—this should be the easiest money the Corporation has made all year. Like a Christmas gift from an old friend.”

“Beware of friends bearing gifts,” Cabrillo said before disco

AN HOUR LATER, Juan Cabrillo was finishing his last-minute arrangements.

Kevin Nixon wiped his hands on a rag, then tossed it onto a bench in the Magic Shop. The Magic Shop was the department aboard the Oregonthat handled mission fabrications, equipment storage, specialized electronics, disguises and costumes. Nixon was the shop overseer as well as creative inventor.

“Without accurate measurement,” Nixon noted, “that’s the best I can do.”

“Looks great, Kevin,” Cabrillo said, taking the object and placing it in a box that he sealed with tape.

“Take these and these,” Nixon said, handing packets to Cabrillo.

Cabrillo slid the packets into the backpack.

“Okay,” Nixon said, “you have cold-weather clothes, communications gear, survival food and whatever else I thought you might need. Good luck.”

“Thanks,” Cabrillo said. “Now I need to head topside and talk to Hanley.”

Less than an hour later, after making sure Max Hanley, Cabrillo’s second in command, had the operation in Reykjavik progressing properly, Cabrillo caught a ride to the airport for his flight to Greenland. What seemed like a simple matter would grow increasingly complex.

By the time it was over, a nation would be threatened, and people would die.

6

PIETER VANDERWALD WASa merchant of death. As the former head of South Africa’s EWP, or Experimental Weapons Program, under apartheid, Vanderwald had been overseer of such horrific experiments as human chemical sterilization through food additives, the spread of toxic airborne plagues and biological weapons in public areas, and the introduction of chemical weapons into the population in liquid form.

Nuclear, chemical, biological, auditory, electrical—if it could be used to kill, Vanderwald and his team built it, bought it or designed it themselves. Their classified trials showed that a combination of agents, judiciously applied, could be used to sicken or kill thousands of the black South African population within thirty-six hours. Further studies detailed that, within a week, 99 percent of the unprotected population from the Tropic of Capricorn south, or half the entire tip of Africa, would eventually perish.

For his work Vanderwald received an award and a cash bonus of two months’ salary.

Without long-range delivery systems such as ICBMs or SCUD, and with only a limited air force to call upon, Vanderwald and his team had perfected methods of introducing the death agents into the population, then had them spread by the victims themselves. The name of the game had been seeding the water supplies, allowing the wind to carry the plague, or using tank trucks or artillery shells for dispersal.

EWP had been masters at the game, but as soon as apartheid ended they were quickly and secretly disbanded, and Vanderwald and the other scientists were left to fend for themselves.

Many of them took their payoffs and retired, but a few like Vanderwald offered their specialized skills and knowledge on the open market, where an increasingly violent world was interested in their unique talents. Countries in the Middle East, Asia and South America had sought his counsel and expertise. Vanderwald had only one rule—he didn’t work for free.

“YOU GOT A piece of that one,” Vanderwald said easily.

A light breeze was blowing from the tee box toward the hole. The temperature was an even eighty degrees. The air was as dry as a bag of flour and as clear as a pane of glass.

“The breeze helped,” Halifax Hickman said as he walked back to the cart and slid his club into the bag, then walked to the front and climbed into the driver’s seat.

There were no caddies on the course, nor any other golfers. There was just a team of security men that drifted in and out of the trees and brush, a couple of ducks in the lake and a ski

“So,” Vanderwald said, “you must really hate these people.”

Hickman stepped on the accelerator and the cart lurched forward down the fairway to their distant balls. “I’m paying you for your knowledge, not for psychoanalysis.”

Vanderwald nodded and stared down at the photograph again. “If that’s what you think it is,” he said quietly, “you have a gem. The radioactivity is very high and it is extremely dangerous in solid or powdered form. You have a variety of options.”

Hickman pressed on the brakes as the cart approached Vanderwald’s ball. Once the cart had stopped, the South African climbed from his seat, walked around to the rear and removed a club from his bag, then approached his ball and lined up to take a shot. After a pair of practice swings, he stopped and concentrated, then made a smooth arcing swing at the ball. The ball blasted from the clubhead, gaining altitude as it traveled. A little over a hundred yards distant, it dropped to the grass less than ten yards from the green, just missing the sand trap.

“So a powdered form introduced from the air would do the trick?” Hickman asked as Vanderwald climbed back into his seat.

“Provided you could get a plane anywhere near the site.”

“Do you have a better idea?” Hickman said as he accelerated away toward his ball.

“Yes,” Vanderwald said, “striking at the heart of your enemies. But it will cost you.”

“Do you think,” Hickman asked, “that money is a problem?”

7

SOMETIMES TEMPERATURE ISas much a state of mind as a condition. See waves of heat rising from the asphalt and chances are that you will think it is hotter outside than if you see the same road lined with snow. Juan Cabrillo had no illusions as to what he was seeing. The view out the window of the turboprop as it made its way across the Denmark Strait from Iceland to Greenland was one that could chill a man’s heart and make him rub his hands together in pity. The eastern shore of Greenland was lined with mountains, and it was a desolate and barren sight. In all of the thousands of square miles that comprised eastern Greenland, there was a population of less than five thousand.

The sky was deep blue-black and roiling with clouds that held snow. One did not need to touch the white-capped waters far below to know the water temperature was below freezing and the tossing torrent was in liquid form only because of the salt content. The thin rime of ice on the wings and the edging of frost on the windshield added to the image, but the thick ice cap that covered Greenland, barely visible through the windshield ahead, lent it the most chilling and ominous feel.

Cabrillo made an involuntary shiver and stared out the side window.

“We’re ten minutes out,” the pilot noted. “The report advises wind of only ten to fifteen. It should be a cakewalk landing.”

“Okay,” Cabrillo said loudly over the noise from the engines.

The men flew along in silence as the rocky outline loomed larger.

A few minutes later Cabrillo heard and felt the turboprop slow as it neared the outer edge of the airport’s pattern. The pilot steered the plane from his crosswind leg onto the downwind leg that would take them parallel to the runway. They flew for a short distance and Cabrillo watched the pilot adjust the flight controls. A minute later the pilot turned on his base leg, then flew for a short distance and turned again onto his final approach.