GUSEN

The flight was smooth as the five-foot, ten-inch man reclined in the plush seat of the corporate jet. He finally relaxed when he realized the plane was over international waters. He knew it would be several hours before they landed, so he pulled his hat over his eyes and tried to sleep. It was dusk when the flight landed at Easterwood Airport near College Station, Texas. The G-5 went to a private hangar. Tired from the long flight from Austria, archeologist Dr. Jake Steiner loaded his bags and gear in his truck and headed home through the Hill Country just outside of College Station. During the drive, he wondered what he would find in the notebook he had discovered upon closer inspection along with the other artifacts, but that would have to wait until tomorrow. Tonight's agenda was just to unpack, put the artifacts in the safe, and go to bed. However, he couldn't sleep because of the thoughts that kept racing through his mind. I don't like doing side jobs for the CIA because almost everything I find becomes "classified" or "top secret," and I can't share them with my students, he thought. I guess I'll have to look a little closer at the nondisclosure agreement in the morning and see if there's a loophole I can take advantage of.

The next day, as he was leaving to go to work at Texas A&M University, he saw the familiar car of his cleaning lady, Maria. Jake had hired her on the recommendation of his colleague and assistant, Frank Logan. She was a single mom desperately trying to put her oldest child through school. Several of the professors had hired her and tried to help her daughter get any scholarship or grant that would off set the expense of going to A&M. She waved as he drove off.

Frank was waiting in the parking lot as Jake pulled up. "You been here long?" Jake asked.

"Nah, I had just parked when I saw you, so I waited," Frank said. "By the way, did you get a chance to get a closer look at those artifacts and the notebook yet?"

"Nope. I've got a staff meeting, but I'm gonna go home right after the meeting and get to it."

Frank looked more like Jake's bodyguard than his assistant. He was a stockily built, six-foot three-inch former Golden Glove boxer with a master of education degree in history who was working with Jake to get his PhD in archaeology. He taught history to undergrads and tutored athletes. Some of the athletes called him "Big Hoss" because of his physique, but none of them dared tease him about being prematurely bald.

The mention of the notebook flooded Jake's mind with images of their little excursion. It was one of Frank's friends, who was also part of the CIA presence at A&M, who had gotten the two involved in the site in Austria. They had received a tip that there was an underground laboratory in a mountain just outside Gusen, Austria, that was a relic from World War II. This lab was suspected of having developed an atomic bomb. Of course, the CIA couldn't ask a foreign government to grant them access to this place. The problem was that the Austrian government had restricted access to the known entrance to the tunnel system that led to the lab. Besides, the radiation in the tunnel was at a level high enough to cause serious health issues after only a couple of hours. However, the lead they were following was that an individual had discovered an uncharted tunnel that had a side tunnel with elevated radiation levels in it. So, he offered Jake and Frank the best technology in radiation suits and asked them to find the source of the radioactivity.

The entrance tunnel that Hans Ingersol had found was discovered after a storm had caused a small landslide. Although this tunnel was big enough for three men to walk side by side, it was dangerous because it had been dug in pure sandstone without reinforcement. Hans had thought he was guiding two professors and a small group of students into the labyrinth of a base called Bergkrystall. Frank had thought, Man, this guy would freak if he knew he was guiding two professors and three CIA operatives. He had found contractor's receipts and other memos that suggested that the five known miles of tunnels were actually twenty-five miles. What they found was a multilevel facility that had been developing advanced jet aircraft, bombs, and an ion propulsion system. Next to the main lab was a small room with lab equipment that seemed to have been abandoned quickly. The CIA wasn't interested in this room because it was dedicated to antiquities, so they allowed Jake to take items from it for further analysis.

Jake told Frank, "Okay, this stuff makes this trip worth the danger!"

"Yeah, but why is there an antiquities lab in a military facility? And why is it right next to where they were working on nuke stuff?" Frank asked.

"I don't know, and I'm not gonna ask 'em! Get the things that you can carry. Don't worry about the rest," Jake said.

"Hey, Jake, what's this metal container? The stuff in it ain't radioactive!"

Jake was preoccupied with an open journal near an extremely large bone. "Okay, seal it in a bag. I have a friend I'll send it to for analysis. Since this isn't nuclear, let's keep it between us until I can find out what it is, okay?"

He could barely keep his focus during the staff meeting. Another thing vying for his attention was the formal debriefing from the CIA director on campus. They were good acquaintances; the director had even sat in and monitored several of Jake's lectures on ancient Mesopotamia. The staff meeting took only about thirty minutes, but it felt more like three hours to Jake.

Okay, one down and one to go, he thought as he walked across campus to the George Bush Presidential Library. Two young men in suits were stationed near the elevator.

"Good morning, Dr. Steiner," one of the men said. "The director is expecting you."

After Jake went down to the second basement level, the doors opened onto a small lobby with "Central Intelligence Agency" in bold print on the far wall. To the right was a small desk and an attractive middle-aged woman, who made a quick phone call and politely asked Jake to have a seat.

"The director will see you in a minute. May I get you some coffee while you wait?"

"No, thanks," Jake responded.

A minute later, a young agent appeared and walked Jake back to the director's office. Director Joseph M. Fredrickson was the name on the nameplate on the desk — although Jake always wondered if that was his real name.

"Jake, on behalf of the CIA and your country, I want to say thank you for your help and expertise in discovering what was going on in that mountain. I've seen some of the photos my team shot. Man, that lab was way ahead of its time. It's a good thing the war ended when it did, or who knows what they would have developed?"

He opened the folder on his desk and looked at Jake...