The Athena Project: A Thriller Read online

  Cahill had a bad habit of blaming his problems on others. He claimed that because the university didn’t give him enough support and leeway to pursue his research, he hadn’t been able to make greater headway. He saw other, far less intelligent professors soaring to academic heights and pawned it off on their ability to play “the game.” Everyone knew that university life was all about publish or perish, but until you could prove your hypothesis, there was nothing to publish. The more frustrated he became, the more depressed, and the more depressed, the more self-destructive.

  What Abressian offered him was an opportunity to be his own boss, to prove to everyone that he had been right; that he was smarter than everyone else. It was a chance for redemption. Abressian had appealed to both the man’s intellect and his ego, and Cahill had accepted.

  Cahill tendered his resignation at the university and with Abressian’s help, disappeared.

  When he arrived at the facility in Croatia, Cahill had been sober for a month and a half. He was filled once again with purpose. He had been given something people rarely ever receive in life: a second chance.

  The project began well, very well indeed. Cahill oversaw a team of brilliant scientists provided by the project’s funders, a mysterious organization known as the Amalgam. They were a group of powerful elite who kept their membership and their agenda secret.

  The only thing they demanded was results. To that end, whatever Cahill needed, Sanders and Abressian made sure he received. No matter how obscure or expensive a piece of equipment, all he had to do was ask and it would arrive within twenty-four hours. Cahill found it all so perfect that he felt it was like falling in love.

  Of course, his feelings of euphoria had everything to do with the fact that he had made significant strides in the beginning. With the schematics and other information the Amalgam had been able to secure, he had rebuilt Hans Kammler’s badly damaged Engeltor device. By manipulating the properties of certain “miraculous minerals” the scientists working at Zbiroh had discovered, he was able to transport small, inanimate objects to the Amalgam’s receiving site on a small island in the Andaman Sea.

  But then Cahill’s progress began to slow. When it came to a complete halt, his feelings of euphoria soon crashed and were replaced by depression.

  He began drinking again, heavily. He also began gambling. Much to his surprise, he was somewhat successful. Little did he know that Mr. Sanders had been arranging for the games to be fixed in his favor. Abressian had placed Sanders in charge of the project. It was up to him to make sure it succeeded.

  Sanders had rigged the games in the hope that if Cahill hit a winning streak, his creativity would be reignited and his mood would improve. But instead of focusing on work, Cahill focused on women.

  The Russians were all too happy to supply him with as many as he wanted. With Cahill getting lucky in cards and in love, Sanders encouraged him to refocus his energies on the project. The scientist, though, wasn’t “in the mood,” so Sanders cut him off. No more gambling and no more women.

  When Cahill went on strike, Sanders had him roughed up. His pride and his body wounded, the scientist dutifully returned to work, but made no headway. The only change was in his mood, which had become increasingly more malevolent; darker. The man probably needed to be under the care of a doctor.

  “Did you hear what I said, Armen?” Sanders asked, interrupting Abressian’s thoughts. “Viktor wants to see you personally about it.”

  Viktor Mikhailov ran the Russian mafia in Croatia. He was an extremely dangerous man, but he could also be very reasonable. A former Russian intelligence operative, he understood the art of compromise.

  Abressian closed his eyes and massaged the bridge of his nose. “I can’t leave Turkey right now,” he said as he closed the bedroom door and walked into the suite’s sitting room. “We’ll just have to pay off whatever debt the professor has again incurred.”

  “Armen, three of Viktor’s girls have gone missing over the last week,” said Sanders.

  Abressian opened his eyes. “Missing?” he repeated.

  “As in gone. Vanished.”

  “And he thinks Cahill had something to do with this?”

  “Apparently, the professor was the last one seen with any of them.”

  Abressian had known a lot of psychopaths during his life. In fact, he actively employed a good number of them, but Cahill didn’t fit the profile. He had problems, sure, but he wasn’t a killer. It didn’t add up. “Have you talked to George about this?”

  “After the first time Viktor’s men came around, I asked him.”

  “And?”

  “And,” replied Sanders, “he told me he had no idea what happened to them.”

  “Do you believe him?”

  “No. And there’s something else you need to know. There was a fourth girl. She went missing last night.”

  “Where was the professor?”

  “I don’t know,” said Sanders. “Out.”

  Abressian was silent for several moments before he exhaled and said, more to himself than to his aide-de-camp, “What has he done?”

  “I think you and I both know the answer to that question.”

  “No,” said Abressian. He refused to believe it. “Laboratory animals maybe, but not a human being. Not four human beings.”

  “Did anything come out on the other side?”

  “No,” replied Sanders. He didn’t say anything else after that. He knew his employer was thinking exactly what he was thinking. Whether those girls had stepped through the device willingly or had been pushed, they were gone. And they’d never be seen again.

  “I’m going to need time to figure this out,” Abressian said.

  “There’s no time, Armen. Viktor wants his girls back. The only reason he hasn’t snatched Cahill and started torturing him yet is out of respect for you. If he does get his hands on him, Cahill will tell him everything. And I mean everything,” said Sanders, drawing out the last word.

  Abressian didn’t need to be reminded what was at stake, or the price he’d be forced to pay if they failed. “We need to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  “What would you like me to do?”

  “For starters,” said Abressian, “lie. Tell him you know for a fact that Cahill couldn’t have done anything to those girls because he was with you.”

  Sanders laughed nervously. “I don’t think Viktor would believe me.”

  “Make him believe you.”

  “I’ll try. In the meantime, what should we do about Cahill?”

  “I don’t want him out of your sight,” replied Abressian. “If you have to handcuff him to your wrist, you do it.”

  “So I have your permission to restrain him?” asked Sanders.

  Abressian exhaled. “You have my permission to do what’s necessary,” he said. “But use your brain. That’s what I pay you for. Let’s not let the situation get any further out of control.”

  “And if Viktor calls and asks for you again?”

  “Tell him I am still out of town, but that I will meet with him as soon as I get back.”

  “I will do that,” said Sanders.

  “What about that other assignment we discussed?”

  “The new one in Prague?”

  “Yes,” said Abressian. “You were planning to use that same Czech again, Heger. Correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’ll run him through our man in Belgrade so it doesn’t trace back?”

  “That’s my plan. I expect to hear something tonight.”

  Abressian nodded. “Good. Any further word on what happened in Venice?”

  “Still nothing,” said Sanders, “but I have feelers out. I’m confident we’ll hear something soon.”

  Armen wasn’t so sure. Bianchi might not ever resurface again, and that meant they wouldn’t get their shipment. “Keep pressing. We need that delivery.”

  “I will,” replied Sanders, who then changed the subject. “How’s Istanbul?”

 
; “Don’t ask. Just do what I have requested. I will be back as soon as I can.” And with that Abressian hung up the phone.

  He thought about returning to bed and the beautiful young woman who would graciously and professionally perform any act he wished, but he wasn’t feeling aroused. He was feeling overburdened and stressed.

  He decided on a swim. Perhaps then he could clear his head and get answers to the problems that seemed to suddenly be mounting up against him.

  CHAPTER 24

  CZECH REPUBLIC

  Alex Cooper had no idea Heger’s men were there until their red dot lasers lit her up like a Christmas tree. Their message couldn’t have been any clearer—Make one false move and you die.

  She had been so well concealed that it took her a moment to realize how they had found her. Setting down her weapon, she stood and raised her hands above her head. That was when the men materialized.

  All of them were wearing night vision goggles. But unlike Cooper, they hadn’t activated their infrared illuminators. She might as well have been sitting there waving a flashlight back and forth.

  She had tried to communicate with Casey, Ericsson, and Rhodes, but the radio signal was too weak to reach all the way down into the complex. She caught the tail end of Gretchen’s message just as one of the Czechs, a tall man with a crew cut and pockmarked face, took her radio from her. He and his colleagues were wearing the same tactical boots she had seen on the men getting into the Range Rover with Heger outside the hotel earlier.

  Casey had said they were on their way out. Using their distress code—a word meant to convey that the operation had been compromised—was impossible. So, she did the next best thing and yelled for the rest of her team to run.

  The shooting started almost immediately, and Casey, Rhodes, and Ericsson dove for the ground. There was no cover to be had anywhere. They were sitting ducks, and what was worse was that tunnels had a bad habit of funneling gunfire right at you.

  They had all drawn the pistols Vlcek had given them, but they knew their weapons were no match for the fully automatic weapons they could hear being fired just outside.

  Casey tried once more to raise Cooper over the radio, but quickly gave up. There was no answer. If she was still alive, she’d be in the fight. The only problem was that none of the three women in the tunnel could hear Cooper’s pistol being fired.

  “We’ve got to get to Alex,” said Rhodes.

  Casey nodded and the trio popped up onto their feet, but stayed as low to the ground as possible. Rhodes charged right out in front.

  As the gunfire continued, all three of the women picked up speed. They could now see Alex Cooper engaged in serious hand-to-hand combat with what appeared to be one of Heger’s men. Another was already sprawled on the ground nearby.

  She delivered a series of punches, culminating with a jab that dropped the man right where he stood. Reaching down, she seized his CZ Skorpion EVO submachine gun, took cover behind a large rock, and began firing in controlled, three-round bursts.

  When Casey, Ericsson, and Rhodes ran up, they glanced at the two men. One had night vision goggles on and was bleeding profusely from his nose. There was no telling if he was alive or dead. The other man had had his head wrenched to the side and his NVGs thrown clear. He lay on the ground with his eyes wide open. He was definitely dead. Alex Cooper’s bad side was a very dangerous place to be.

  A fusillade of bullets erupted around them and the three women dove for cover near Cooper. Casey grabbed the pant leg of the dead man and dragged him behind the rock, stripped him of his weapon and extra magazines, and got in the fight with Alex.

  Casey didn’t have time to put on her NVGs, so Cooper called out where to fire. “Three o’clock! Eleven o’clock! Ten o’clock!”

  Rhodes dragged the other man behind the rock with them and felt for a pulse. He was still breathing. She stripped off all of his extra magazines and handed them to Ericsson so she could feed them to Casey and Cooper as needed.

  Rhodes found a bundle of plastic FlexCuffs in the man’s pocket and, rolling him onto his stomach, bound his wrists behind his back. She relieved him of his sidearm, an auto knife, and another knife in his boot, then put her knee in his back and got her NVGs on.

  Ericsson had hers on now, too, and took the Skorpion from Casey, who immediately pulled her NVGs from her pack. “How many are there?” yelled Ericsson as Cooper continued to fire.

  “At least six, maybe more,” she said.

  “How did they know we were here?” she asked as she engaged two men creeping up on their position and nailed both of them in the head. The men fell to the ground dead.

  Cooper swung her weapon to the right and nailed one of the Czechs in the throat. “There must have been an intrusion device we didn’t see.”

  Rhodes leaned her body well beyond the boulder and fired four shots. It was an overly aggressive move that almost got her killed. Dust and rock chips exploded all around her. One bullet missed her head by millimeters.

  “Let’s switch it up,” she said, tapping Ericsson on the shoulder.

  Casey and Rhodes were the team’s best shooters, and Cooper and Ericsson now handed the submachine guns over to them. Julie placed her knee in the unconscious man’s back.

  “How much ammo do we have left?” asked Casey.

  “One mag apiece,” answered Ericsson.

  “Let’s make them count,” she said, as she indicated to Rhodes what she wanted to do.

  Rhodes nodded and transitioned to her pistol. She counted to three and then said, “Go!”

  Leaning out from behind the rock, Rhodes swept the pistol in a wide arc and laid down a wave of suppression fire as Casey ran for cover on the other side of the tunnel entrance. Once she had fired her last round, she ducked back behind the rock and transitioned to the Skorpion. Now, Heger’s men were really going to get it.

  Seeing that the Czechs were using night vision goggles, none of the women had activated their illuminators. While that made it more difficult for them to see, it also made it more difficult for them to be seen. Cooper, who had learned the hard way that the men were wearing NVGs, had already shut her illuminator off.

  Casey and Rhodes waited for the men to show themselves. They had very little ammo left. They needed to use it sparingly.

  Cooper looked at Megan and said, “I’m going to flank them.” It was a good idea, especially as the men were probably planning on doing the same to them.

  Rhodes got Casey’s attention and signaled to her what Alex wanted to do. Casey gave them the thumbs-up. Ericsson wanted to go too, but someone needed to keep an eye on the prisoner. Rhodes couldn’t focus on Heger’s men and their prisoner at the same time. Besides, there was still a chance someone might come over the top of the tunnel behind them, and they needed Julie to be the eyes in the backs of their heads.

  No sooner had Rhodes given her the signal to watch their six o’clock than Ericsson’s pistol flew up and she pulled the trigger twice, double-tapping one of the Czechs, who had come over the hill behind them.

  His lifeless body toppled over and landed on the ground in front of the tunnel.

  Before the man had even made impact, Cooper took off running.

  Casey saw movement down the path from them and squeezed her trigger. “Gotcha,” she said as another Czech fell.

  Rhodes kept her weapon up and ready. She knew they were still out there; they were just too well hidden for her to see. That gave her an idea.

  “Jules,” she said. “When I say go, activate the illuminator on the dead guy’s NVGs and toss them off to my three o’clock.”

  “Roger that,” said Ericsson as she kept her pistol trained on the hill behind them and reached over for the abandoned night vision goggles.

  “Ready?” asked Rhodes.

  Ericsson felt along the device until she found the illuminator and then replied, “Ready.”

  Megan tightened her grip on her weapon and said, “Okay, go!”

  Ericsson tossed the NVGs as R
hodes had instructed and it had exactly the intended effect. One of Heger’s men fired and gave away his position.

  “Czech-out time,” whispered Rhodes as she pulled her trigger and nailed him with two rounds to the chest and one to the head.

  Her shots were immediately followed by multiple rounds from Cooper’s .40 caliber pistol.

  Minutes felt like hours as they sat with neither sight nor sound of any of Heger’s men. There was no telling how close they were, or how many remained.

  Suddenly, they heard Cooper’s pistol fire again, but this time it came from much farther off in the woods.

  Several minutes later, Cooper came back. “TNT,” she said as she approached, using their code for there’s no threat to indicate she was coming in alone.

  “I took out another one, but two others got away. I think one of them might have been Heger. I’m not sure.”

  With the toe of her boot, Rhodes kicked the night vision goggles off their prisoner. “We’re going to clear that mystery up real fast.”

  “But first,” clarified Casey, “we need to get out of here and get someplace safe.”

  CHAPTER 25

  PRAGUE

  Someplace safe” was the home of John Vlcek. And while Rhodes prepared their prisoner, whom they had driven to Vlcek’s bound and gagged in the trunk of their car, Gretchen Casey used Vlcek’s computer to Skype with Robert Hutton back at Fort Bragg.

  “You knew that stuff was there,” said Casey angrily. “All of it.”

  They were each wearing a headset and using a secure webcam feed. The digital encryption was quite good and Vlcek had several additional features enabled that helped to make sure their communication was as watertight as possible.

  “All I know is what I was told,” replied Hutton.

  Casey studied his face on her screen. She was looking for any indication that he wasn’t telling the truth. “Who ordered this operation?”

  Hutton hesitated and then, referring to the Special Operations Command, said, “SOCOM.”