Polaris Operations Complex
Albany, New York
It took Mitchell and Jackson the better part of four days to make it back home to New York. Between getting checked out at the hospital to make sure he could fly, the interviews with the local police about Reid’s murder, and a snowstorm closing the airport, Mitchell was a tense bundle of nerves ready to explode by the time he arrived at the complex.
Mitchell headed straight for the conference room. General O’Reilly and Fahimah were already there, waiting to debrief him on what he had learned in Alaska, then in turn fill him in on what they had been able to uncover on the Goliath.
Before boarding his plane, Mitchell had taken the opportunity to email Fahimah a series of questions and ideas he had come up with after thinking about what Reid had told him about the disappearance of the airship. The news that Jen’s mother had been taken from the safe house, and that three police officers had been killed further infuriated Mitchell. Someone was seriously pissing him off, and he intended to make that person pay.
As Mitchell entered the room, O’Reilly looked genuinely happy to see his protégé back and relatively unhurt. Fahimah gave Mitchell a quick smile and then handed him a briefing package that she had prepared about the Goliath for him to read over later.
It took over an hour for Mitchell to go over his run-in with the Russian thugs in Alaska. Both Fahimah and O’Reilly took copious notes, digging into the story to make sure Mitchell did not leave out any detail, no matter how insignificant it may have appeared.
Once Mitchell finished his debriefing, Fahimah picked up a remote and turned on a screen on the far wall. The first picture was a grainy black and white image of the airship Goliath flying over the shores of Dover on her way to Paris.
“The Royal airship Goliath, at over two hundred and fifty meters in length, was the greatest airship of her time and the largest ever built in England,” said Fahimah as she changed the image on the screen.
A picture of the planned route of the Goliath came up.
“From England, the Goliath headed first to Paris and then on to Rome. From there, it was scheduled to arrive at a French military airstrip on the outskirts of Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania, to refuel, but as history records, it never made it.”
Fahimah looked at Mitchell. “Ryan, I looked into Mister Reid’s hypothesis that the Goliath went down in the region known as the Eye of the Sahara and compared that with its original flight plan, and the difference is quite substantial,” explained Fahimah as she brought up a picture comparing the scheduled flight plan over Africa and the suspected location of the wreck. Mitchell took a deep breath as he studied the screen and saw that the navigational error, if it occurred, would have been well over one hundred kilometers.
“Winds could account for some of that,” pondered O’Reilly, “but I find it hard to believe that a seasoned captain would have allowed his airship to run that far off course.”
“Unless he wasn’t aware that someone was tampering with the navigational instruments,” said Jackson, as he walked into the room, holding a box of his favorite donuts.
Mitchell stood and shook his friend’s hand before helping himself to a less-than-nutritious breakfast.
Jackson took a seat and looked over at Ryan. “Before I took a trip up north to visit Santa and bring your sorry ass back home, Ryan, Fahimah, on a hunch, asked me to do some research on the navigational means available to the Goliath,” said Jackson. “I can assure you that there was no GPS in 1931. The poor, long-suffering navigator had to use a sextant to measure the angle between the sun, stars, or planets, and the horizon and then plot that location on his map. While you were on vacation in the great white north, I paid a visit to the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum and had one of the old hands there show me how a sextant works. I have to tell you it takes an experienced hand to work these finicky pieces of kit,” said Jackson before swallowing a donut in three huge bites.
“So you don’t think a navigational error could have sent them that far off course?” asked Mitchell.
“I doubt they hired any person off the street to navigate a multimillion-dollar piece of hardware around the world. So no, I don’t think so,” replied Jackson.
“There’s another possibility,” said O’Reilly. “Ryan, your email said that Reid believed that the airship’s builder, Lord Seaford, was up to his eyeballs in debt.”
“Yes, sir, that is what Reid believed,” said Mitchell.
“What if Lord Seaford tinkered with the sextant to ensure that they ever so slowly, over a couple of days flying, went inexorably off course?”
Mitchell looked over at Jackson.
“Don’t look at me; I needed my son to set up my new iPhone. I suppose anything is possible,” said Jackson, noncommittal. “Look, if there’s a will, there’s always a way.”
“Okay, so, if we go with the theory that the Goliath went incrementally off course and crashed in the desert, where could she be?” asked O’Reilly, looking intently up at the map on the screen.
Fahimah brought up a satellite image of the Eye of the Sahara.
Mitchell studied the picture as he took a sip of his coffee. The Eye of the Sahara looked like a series of massive concentric circles extending out from a large central dome. It appeared to Mitchell to be the result of an ancient meteorite strike.
Fahimah looked up at the image. “The Eye of the Sahara, located near the town of Ouadane, has a circumference of over forty kilometers and is made mainly of rock and sandstone. It may appear to look like an impact crater, but it is, in fact, the remnant of a collapsed geologic dome that has eroded away over millions of years to give the uniform shape that you see on the screen.”
“I’ll have to take your word for that,” said Jackson with a wink at Fahimah, as he reached for another donut.
Fahimah ignored Jackson and continued. “Captain Mitchell, I looked into the sandstorms that were described in Mister Reid’s notes and found several references to them in the diary of a French Foreign Legion Officer, and in the notes written down by a French merchant living in Ouadane at the time of the Goliath’s disappearance. I found credible evidence that there was, indeed, a massive sandstorm during that time that lasted for about a week. Roads, several villages, and many ravines that had been there before were all swallowed up by the storm.”
“So she could be out there still,” said O’Reilly, growing more intrigued by the minute.
Mitchell looked at his mentor. “General, I truly do believe that the Goliath is out there, and I have no doubt whatsoever that Jen’s kidnappers believe so, too,” said Mitchell. “I’d wager everything I have that that’s where they’ll go next.”
A grin appeared on O’Reilly’s face; he knew that Mitchell was already planning his next move. “So, what do you want to do?” asked O’Reilly.
“Sir, I know this isn’t company business, but I’m on leave, so I’m going to Mauritania to try to pick up Jen’s trail and get her and her mother back,” said Mitchell.
“You can count me in, too,” said Jackson, grinning. “You young officers always need supervision.”
“Well, Ryan, while you were away, it became company business,” O’Reilly pointed out. “Thanks to a certain Miss Alanis Kim—you remember her wealthy father, don’t you?”
Mitchell nodded. Although they had spoken only a week ago, it now seemed a lifetime.
“Well, somehow Miss Kim learned about Jennifer March’s kidnapping, and she convinced her father to put up the money to get her back. Mister Kim told me that money was no object, so it looks like your team just jumped from reserve to active status.”
“Captain, knowing that you would be heading out shortly, I took the liberty of putting together a country file for you and your team,” said Fahimah with a mischievous sparkle in her eyes. “I’ve also included translated copies of the two diaries describing the storm; it may help guide you to where Jen’s kidnappers could be going.”
Mitchell always felt himself a good judge of c
haracter. He looked over at Fahimah and knew a good thing when he saw it. “General, this is going to be the most complicated thing we’ve ever done on such short notice, and as I don’t speak Arabic as well as certain members of the organization, and since Mauritania is an Islamic Republic, I’d like to drag Fahimah along with the team as our intel expert. I promise not to put her in harm’s way.”
“The hell you don’t speak Arabic; you just don’t speak it well enough,” corrected O’Reilly. “Besides, French is widely spoken there as well, but I get your point.”
O’Reilly looked over at Fahimah. The excitement etched on her face was barely held in check at the prospect of her first field assignment. “Okay, you can borrow Fahimah, but you’d better promise to look after her,” said O’Reilly, shaking his head in defeat.
“Scout’s honor, General,” said Mitchell. “Besides, what could possibly go wrong?”
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