Quinn shook his head. "Someone's down there now. The only clue I have is the word STAAR, with two A's."

Von Seeckt's head twitched on the pillow. "STAAR?" He muttered something in German.

"What was that?" Quinn asked.

"I have heard rumors in the many years I was with Majestic," Von Seeckt said.

"Rumors of another organization. I have heard it called STAAR."

"What is it?" Quinn asked.

"I don't know. We knew at Majestic that someone was monitoring us. We also were under strict guidelines not to interfere. It was part of our founding charter." Quinn frowned. "Then why didn't this STAAR step in when General Gullick was taken over by the rebel computer?"

"I can't answer that," Von Seeckt said, "because I don't know if STAAR really exists."

Quinn backtracked. "But they could be using Scorpion Station, couldn't they?"167.

"Perhaps," Von Seeckt acknowledged. "It would be a good place to put an organization you wanted no one to find. Certainly much better than we did at Area 51."

"Who would know about STAAR?" Quinn asked.

Von Seeckt's frail shoulders moved in a shrug. "I don't know. Majestic was hooked in to all the intelligence agencies and none of them had any hard data on it. Just rumors and bits and pieces."

Von Seeckt coughed and took another drag of oxygen. "The interesting thing is," he continued, "that this STAAR, if it does exist, must not have been doing much, since it's never come into conflict with Majestic, the CIA, or any of the other various government agencies that are constantly bickering with each other."

"Then what is its purpose?" Quinn wondered out loud.

"Maybe it is just to wait and watch," Von Seeckt said.

"For what?"

Von Seeckt lifted his hand at the TV mounted on a wall bracket in his room. It was turned to CNN, the sound muted. The screen showed a picture of Mars. "Maybe for that. You say STAAR is taking action now?"

"STAAR's got someone in Area 51 in charge of one of the bouncers," Quinn told him.

"So STAAR is coming awake," Von Seeckt said.

"But who could they be?" Quinn asked. "A branch of the CIA? NSA?"

"Why do you think they are American?" Von Seeckt asked.168.

"Because Scorpion was built by Majestic and Majestic was American."

Von Seeckt cackled a laugh. "Ann, let me back up, young man. What makes you think they, whoever they are in Scorpion Base, are human?"169.

Chapter 16.

Kelly Reynolds felt a bead of sweat work its way down her back. She was standing on the hot tarmac of the Nellis Air Force Base runway arguing with a young lieutenant who did not want to let her board a helicopter that the display board in operations had indicated was flying to Area 51. She'd flown here on a departing military hop as soon as the 707 with the others had taken off. She knew the only way to stop them was to uncover more information, and the best place to do that was here, where Majestic had operated for half a century.

They both turned as a car pulled up and a blue-suited figure emerged with gold oak leaves on his shoulders.

"Major Quinn," Kelly Reynolds said by way of greeting. She still distrusted the Air Force, despite the openness of the last two weeks. Her early experience with an Air Force UFO disinformation campaign, when her budding career in film docu-170.

mentaries had been destroyed in the process, had left her wary of men in blue uniforms.

"Miss Reynolds," Quinn replied.

"Is that your helicopter?" Reynolds asked.

"Yes."

"Can I get a ride?" The lieutenant started to say something, but his mouth snapped shut as Quinn waved for her to accompany him to the craft. Reynolds knew Quinn was doing everything he could to stay on the good side of the media. All the other members of Majestic were dead, having killed themselves like Gullick, or were being held in prison. Quinn was riding a thin line, and she also knew from Lisa Duncan that he had been ordered by the President to cooperate fully with the press.

"I just left Professor Von Seeckt," Quinn said as they entered the side door and buckled in.

"How is he?" Von Seeckt was another person Reynolds felt little affinity for.

The former n.a.z.i had worked at Peenemunde and despite his claims of ignorance, Reynolds knew he had to have known about the Dora concentration camp, where slave labor for the missile facility had been housed. Reynolds's father had been one of the first who entered the camp and experienced the death and misery firsthand. He'd told his daughter about it and the desire to never again let such atrocities go unnoticed or unpunished had been the driving force in Kelly's path into a career in the media.

"Not well," Quinn said. "The doctors give him less than a week."

Kelly snorted. "They gave him that last week.171.

He's a tough old b.a.s.t.a.r.d." She glanced over as the chopper lifted. "Why'd you see him?"

Quinn met her eyes. "There's something weird going on." He related the story of the strange person, Oleisa, showing up and commandeering a bouncer, and the messages being sent to Antarctica. He left off Von Seeckt's last disturbing question, even though it had been the only thought rattling about his brain since leaving the old man.

"You really think Scorpion Base is being used by this STAAR?" Kelly asked.

"It's the only thing that makes sense."

"Could it really be kept secret?"

Quinn nodded. "Yes. There's no set satellite coverage of the land down there, and since the base was under the snowcap anyway, it wouldn't be hard at all to keep it hidden. Also, remember that international treaty bars any weapons from being deployed on the continent, so it's the least militarized place on the planet.

"Overflights are also virtually unknown because Scorpion Base is totally off any flight route to any of the other international bases. The vicious weather that's common most of the time down there also discourages visitors."

"I've never heard of a government agency that was able to keep a total veil of secrecy around itself," Kelly said, realizing the contradiction built into her words as soon as she said them. "I want to know more about this."

The helicopter was landing now, just outside the main hangar at Area 51. "I'll show you everything I've managed to uncover," Quinn said as they disembarked. As they rode the elevator down to the Cube,172.

Kelly reflected on the fact that just a few weeks ago Johnny Simmons had been captured trying to gain access to the very facility she was now being escorted into. If there was another secret government agency still at work, she promised herself that she would uncover it no matter what the cost.

The doors to the Cube slid open and Quinn led her to the raised desk at the back of the room. There was a subdued hum of activity from the rest of the room.

"I've had all our intelligence data links cued to pick up anything relating to STAAR," Quinn said as he sat down. "I've also done an exhaustive search of the cla.s.sified archives. There's not much."

"What do you have?" Kelly asked, the reporter part of her intrigued.

Quinn looked at his computer. "After the bouncers were removed, Scorpion Base remained empty for several years. Then in 1959, unknown even to Majestic at the time, someone moved in, taking over the deep chamber. I've got a report here from an engineering unit that put prefab structures deep under the ice, using the wide tunnel they'd dug to bring up the bouncers. I've checked and there's no sign of the base on the surface. Aircraft going there are guided by a transmitter on a constantly changing frequency."

"Who set it up?" Kelly asked.

"Scorpion was reestablished in 1959 by President Eisenhower. I've found a copy of the order and it's very unusual. The presidential directive authorizing the base also stipulates that none of his successors were to be briefed on the existence173.

of the station or the organization that ran it, known only by the acronym STAAR.".

"Jesus," Kelly exclaimed. "How could they keep this secret all these years?"

"The appropriation for STAAR is hidden inside the sixty-seven-billion-dollar- a-year black budget," Quinn explained. This was an area he was very familiar with from his work with Majestic. "By the same presidential directive that established it, STAAR took a specified percentage every year, no questions asked, and wired to a Swiss bank account. I bet you there's a good chance no one in present-day Washington knows that STAAR exists."

"Can that be?" Kelly wanted to know.

Quinn nodded. "As far as I can tell, STAAR appears to do nothing, which means it doesn't attract any attention. The operating budget is hidden inside the highly cla.s.sified budget of the National Reconnaissance Organization."

He tapped his computer screen. "Actually, the most interesting thing about STAAR that I could find isn't the budget but something that's missing: there's no personnel records for the people who make up STAAR." He leaned back in his seat. "As far as the personnel paperwork trail that any organization affiliated with the U.S. Government has to have, no matter how secret, STAAR is an organization with no people. h.e.l.l, even the CIA has some paperwork on a.s.sa.s.sins it hires."

Kelly stared at him. "What-" she began, but paused as Quinn suddenly leaned forward and began rapidly typing into his keyboard.

"Well, this is interesting. There's a live link be-174.ing picked up by the NSA involving STAAR," he said.

"From where?" Kelly asked.

He pointed up at the screen at the front of the room. "From Aurora." An electronic map of China appeared. A small flashing light on the wall screen sped across the overlay of the western edge of China, heading toward the safety of the ocean with surprising speed.

Kelly knew that Aurora was the top-of-the-line spy plane that the Air Force had, the successor to the SR-71.

"Data is being downlinked from Aurora to Scorpion Station," Quinn added. "I'm intercepting a copy. Maybe we'll learn something."

Inside the STAAR command center deep under the ice, the woman who had run the organization for the past twenty-two years sat in a deep leather chair, looking at the various display screens that ran across the length of the front of the center. When she had to make contact with those in Washington or elsewhere, she had the ST-8 clearance that could get her whatever she wanted, no questions asked, and she was known only by her code name: Lexina.

She'd been picked by her predecessor for her intelligence, her loyalty, and above all her willingness to exile herself to Scorpion Station and never leave.

She considered herself a soldier. A soldier who, like all soldiers, wished always for peace in her time but constantly prepared for the alternative and was willing to give her all if that alternative did occur.175.

"What is the status of Dr. Duncan?" Lexina asked.

"Airborne," Elek, her chief of staff, answered. In STAAR the code name was the only way one identified oneself or addressed another. "Should be landing in Korea in less than an hour."

"Who is on the ground waiting for them?" she asked. STAAR kept an active network of only twenty agents around the world. Add in the five members who ran Scorpion Base and they were an extremely small organization, which further added to their ability to maintain a veil of secrecy.

"Zandra is ready to meet the plane and brief them. Her cover is CIA," Elek said. "Turcotte knows her as CIA from the Rift Valley mission, so that works best."

The last was standard. STAAR used whichever government agency it saw fit as cover. Maintaining such covers had never caused trouble, due to their lack of intrusive activity over the years. Now Lexina saw trouble coming, but complaints from the CIA or NSA or any of the other alphabet-soup agencies were the least of her worries. She also knew it was just a matter of time before their initial veil of secrecy was pierced, but that didn't concern her either. They had a plan in place for that.

"What about intelligence?" she asked.

"We haven't heard anything out of China for-" Elek began, but Lexina cut him off.

"I know what we haven't heard. That's why we've authorized Duncan and her people to go in. How does it look for their mission?"

"We've got Aurora taking a look and gathering imagery," Elek said. He typed into his keyboard176.

and one of the screens cleared. An electronic map of China appeared. Shaped like a black manta ray, Aurora was cruising at forty thousand feet over China, at a speed of Mach 5. As it approached the target area, it slowed down to less than 2.5, still over two thousand miles an hours, but slow enough so that the reconnaissance probe could be deployed.

In the backseat the RSO, reconnaissance systems officer, made sure all the systems were ready, then he activated them as they pa.s.sed the target area.

"Anything on the HF or SATCOM frequencies we were told to monitor?" the pilot asked.

"Negative."

"I wonder who the h.e.l.l is down there," the pilot said. "You couldn't pay me to be on the ground in China these days."

The RSO noted a red light flash on the left of his console.

"We've got missile launches," he told the pilot. "I have what we came for.

Pod's coming in. Get us out of here."

"Roger." The pilot kicked in the afterburners. Both men were slammed back against their specially designed seats as the plane more than doubled its speed in less than fifteen seconds, leaving the missiles fired by the Chinese military well behind, the guidance systems electronically wondering where the target they had locked on to had gone.

"Downloading data," the RSO said as the red177.

light went out and the Pacific Ocean rapidly approached.

The data went through a scrambler and the garbled transmission was recorded onto a digital disk. The disk then played forward at two thousand times normal speed, bursting the message to an orbiting satellite. That satellite bounced the message to a sister satellite farther west and down to South Korea, where Zandra waited, the data also forwarded to Scorpion Base and intercepted by the NSA and sent to Major Quinn in the Cube.

"I've got a copy of the data," Quinn announced.

"Is it going anywhere else other than Antarctica?" Kelly Reynolds asked.

"A copy is being forwarded to Osan Air Force Base in South Korea," Quinn said.

"Looking through it, there seems to be mainly imagery of western China."

"Osan is where Turcotte and Nabinger are being briefed," Kelly said.

"I don't get it," Quinn said. "Who's handling their operation? I thought it was CIA."

"If you don't know," Kelly said, "I for one don't know. But this may mean that whoever is in Osan waiting for them isn't CIA but connected to STAAR."

"It's a possibility," Quinn agreed. "But whoever's there, they're obviously getting the best possible intelligence for the mission."