'Deception Point Page 97\r'

'Rachel inserted the entire throne into the hydrolabs fax elevator car. Knowing only a few fax numbers by heart, she had limited choices, barely she had already made up her mind who would be receiving these pages and her note. Holding her breath, she carefully typed in the persons fax number.\r\nShe touch â€Å"send,” praying she had chosen the recipient wisely.\r\nThe fax machine beeped.\r\n h each(prenominal)ucination: NO DIAL TONE\r\nRachel had expected this. The Goyas communications were still being jammed. She stood waiting and t allying the machine, hoping it functioned same(p) hers at home.\r\nCome on!\r\nAfter basketb t pop ensemble team seconds, the machine beeped over again.\r\nREDIALING…\r\nYes! Rachel watched the machine lock into an endless loop.\r\n misunderstanding: NO DIAL TONE\r\nREDIALING…\r\nERROR: NO DIAL TONE\r\nREDIALING…\r\nLeaving the fax machine in search of a dial tone, Rachel flash expose of the hydrolab just as helicopt er blades thundered overhead.\r\n119\r\n integrity hundred and sixty miles away from the Goya, Gabrielle Ashe was staring at Senator sacristans com pukeer screen in mute astonishment. Her suspicions had been right.\r\n alone she had neer imagined how right.\r\nShe was looking at digital scans of hemorrhoid of bank checks written to Sexton from private property companies and deposited in numbered accounts in the Cay hu humanityness Islands. The smallest check Gabrielle apothegm was for fifteen thousand dollars. several(prenominal) were upward of fractional a million dollars.\r\nSmall potatoes, Sexton had told her. both the donations are under the two-thousand-dollar cap.\r\nObviously Sexton had been be all along. Gabrielle was looking at illegal trial financing on an enormous scale. The pangs of betrayal and disenchantment habilitatetled hard now in her heart. He lied.\r\nShe felt stupid. She felt dirty. But most of all she felt mad.\r\nGabrielle sat alone in the darkness, r ealizing she had no idea what to do side by side(p).\r\n120\r\nAbove the Goya, as the Kiowa banked over the stern dress, Delta-One gazed down, his eyes fixating on an utterly unexpected vision.\r\nMichael Tolland was standing on dramatize beside a small submersible. Dangling in the subs robotic arms, as if in the clutches of a giant insect, hung Delta-Two, struggling in vain to free himself from two enormous claws.\r\nWhat in the name of God!?\r\nEqually as horrible an image, Rachel Sexton had just arrived on deck, taking up a position over a outflow and bleeding man at the foot of the submersible. The man could only be Delta-Three. Rachel held one of the Delta Forces machine guns on him and stared up at the chopper as if boldness them to attack.\r\nDelta-One felt momentarily disoriented, unable to fathom how this peradventure could stand happened. The Delta Forces errors on the ice shelf earliest had been a rare but explainable occurrence. This, however, was unimaginable.\ r\nDelta-Ones confusion would have been excruciating enough under recipe circumstances. But tonight his shame was magnified by the presence of another individual riding with him at bottom the chopper, a person whose presence here was exceedingly unconventional.\r\nThe accountant.\r\nFollowing the Deltas kill at the FDR Memorial, the ascendancy had request Delta-One to fly to a deserted public lay not far from the White House. On the ascendances command, Delta-One had set down on a grassy hill among some trees just as the comptroller, having parked nearby, strode out of the darkness and boarded the Kiowa. They were all en route again in a matter of seconds.\r\nAlthough a controllers plow involvement in mission physical processs was rare, Delta-One could hardly complain. The controller, distressed by the way the Delta Force had handled the kills on the Milne Ice Shelf and fearing increasing suspicions and scrutiny from a number of parties, had informed Delta-One that the final phase of the operation would be overseen in person.\r\nNow the controller was riding shotgun, witnessing in person a failure the likes of which Delta-One had never endured.\r\nThis must end. Now.\r\nThe controller gazed down from the Kiowa at the deck of the Goya and wondered how this could possibly have happened. Nothing had gone properly-the suspicions around the meteorite, the failed Delta kills on the ice shelf, the necessity of the high-profile kill at the FDR.\r\nâ€Å"Controller,” Delta-One stammered, his tone one of stunned disgrace as he looked at the situation on the deck of the Goya. â€Å"I cannot imagine… â€Å"\r\nNor can I, the controller thought. Their orchestra pit had obviously been grossly underestimated.\r\nThe controller looked down at Rachel Sexton, who stared up blankly at the choppers reflective windscreen and raised a CrypTalk device to her mouth. When her synthesized voice crackled interior the Kiowa, the controller expected her to demand that the chopper hold off or extinguish the jamming corpse so Tolland could call for help. But the words Rachel Sexton spoke were far more chilling.\r\nâ€Å"Youre too late,” she said. â€Å"Were not the only ones who know.”\r\nThe words echoed for a moment inwardly the chopper. Although the claim seemed far-fetched, the faintest possibility of truth gave the controller pause. The winner of the entire project required the elimination of all those who knew the truth, and as bloody(a) as the containment had turned out to be, the controller had to be certain this was the conclusion.\r\nSomeone else knows…\r\nConsidering Rachel Sextons temper for following strict protocol of classified data, the controller found it very hard to believe that she would have decided to share this with an outside source.\r\nRachel was on the CrypTalk again. â€Å" rachis off and well spare your men. Come any snuggled and they die. Either way, the truth comes out. Cut your losses. Back off.”\r\nâ€Å"Youre bluffing,” the controller said, knowing the voice Rachel Sexton was hearing was an androgynous robotic tone. â€Å"You have told no one.”\r\nâ€Å"Are you ready to instruct that chance?” Rachel fired back. â€Å"I couldnt get done to William Pickering earlier, so I got spooked and took out some insurance.”\r\nThe controller frowned. It was plausible.\r\nâ€Å"Theyre not buying it,” Rachel said, glancing at Tolland.\r\nThe soldier in the claws gave a pained smirk. â€Å"Your gun is empty, and the choppers sack to jar you to hell. Youre both going to die. Your only hope is to let us go.”\r\nLike hell, Rachel thought, trying to assess their next move. She looked at the bound and gagged man who lay at her feet directly in front of the sub. He looked frenetic from loss of blood. She crouched beside him, looking into the mans hard eyes. â€Å"Im going to yield off your gag and hold the CrypTalk; youre going to impel the helicopter to back off. Is that clear?”\r\nThe man nodded earnestly.\r\nRachel pulled out the mans gag. The soldier spat a wad of bloody saliva up into Rachels salute.\r\nâ€Å"Bitch,” he hissed, coughing. â€Å"Im going to watch you die. Theyre going to kill you like a pig, and Im going to enjoy every minute.”\r\nRachel wiped the hot saliva from her face as she felt Tollands hands lifting her away, pulling her back, becalm her as he took her machine gun. She could feel in his trembling touch that something inside him had just snapped. Tolland walked to a control panel a few yards away, put his hand on a lever, and locked eyes with the man lying on the deck.\r\nâ€Å"Strike two,” Tolland said. â€Å"And on my ship, thats all you get.”\r\nWith a resolute rage, Tolland yanked down on the lever. A huge trapdoor in the deck beneath the triton swing open like the floor of a gallows. The bound soldier gave a short whine of fear a nd then disappeared, plummeting through the hole. He fell thirty feet to the ocean below. The splash was crimson. The sharks were on him instantly.\r\nThe controller shook with rage, looking down from the Kiowa at what was left of Delta-Threes body drifting out from under the boat on the strong current. The illuminated water was pink. Several fish fought over something that looked like an arm.\r\n'