Today’s excerpt is from Back
To China, the last of the three Bob Becker books. Sir Anthony Henry, Chief of England’s SIS
(MI6) schools some high-ranking men leftover from the just departed
administration while in conference with the new President. Enjoy and have a great day.
m.j.
With everyone
seated, the President looked at Tony. “Would you be kind enough to bring us up to
date, please?”
Tony, who had
his laptop open and on, glanced at the screen and answered, “Right now they are
passing over the coast of China. Little
doubt in my mind where they will wind up.
They have been on a straight line to the secret facility in Qinghai
Provence I’ve been expecting them to take our people to since early on.”
The CIA Director
cleared his throat and looked at the President, who nodded. The Director asked, “What secret facility are
you speaking of? I know of no such
place.”
From his attaché
case Sir Anthony took out a satellite photo showing an extra-wide two lane
paved road. Near the middle of it, he
had placed a nearly transparent yellow circle.
He pointed to it after he slide the photo in front of the Director. “The entrance to the facility is roughly in
the middle of the circle I drew.”
“What makes you
think there is some secret installation there?”
Sir Anthony
sighed and took out some more satellite photos.
The first one he slid to the Director showed the heavy equipment leaving
two days previously. The next showed
earth being scooped up and placed in truck to be hauled away. Other pictures showed various stages of
construction as material for same was driven to the entrance to the facility,
and some showed the construction of the road itself.
After the
Director looked at them all, the President held out his hand as Sir Anthony
answered, “These photos seem to indicate this location to be is a new facility
the Chinese are trying very hard to disguise what they’re about.”
After the photos
had been passed around the table without further comment until Sir Anthony had
them back, the Director asked, “Where did these come from, if you don’t mind me
asking, Sir Anthony?”
The ex-President
felt he knew what the answer was going to be…Jim knew what the answered would
be and he nearly smiled as he thought, “You
just stepped in it, big boy.”
Sir Anthony blew
out a mouthful of air and answered, “Roughly fifteen years ago an agreement
between the United States and Great Britain was reached whereby we would
exchange real time satellite photos…this to assist the War on Terror. Some of these photos, alas, those of lesser
quality are from one of our satellites, the ones of better quality came from
one of your satellites.”
The President
was taken aback and growled at the CIA Director, “Our own satellites took most
of these photos and you know nothing about it?”
The Director
swallowed and shook his head. “No, sir,
nothing. Evidently our people thought this
to be just routine construction.”
The President
held in check the growing anger he felt and softly muttered, “From what I can
see here, there is little doubt Sir Anthony is correct in his assessment.”
Deciding to give
the CIA Director some cover, or at least change the subject, the Homeland
Security Secretary asked, “Sir Anthony, if I may. How is it you are able to determine just
where our missing scientists are at any given time?”
“Before Mr.
Hogan traveled to America and Area 51, we implanted a GPS disc in him for just
such an eventuality as we now face.”
The President
quickly questioned all four of his people about if the same thing had been done
with Mr. Walendy, and if not, why not.
The Secretary and two Directors remained silent, but the general, much
to his pending regret, answered, “We didn’t because in America, we don’t force
our people to have anything implanted in them.”
Jim just closed
his eyes and waited for Tony’s response, which was soon coming. “My dear general, neither do we. We asked
Mr. Hogan if we could do so and told him why.
He immediately saw the wisdom of the implant…as I’m sure Mr. Walendy
would have if asked.”
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