Lost Dawns: A Short Prequel Novel to the Lost Millinnium Trilogy Page 3

  Leaning back in his seat, he rested his eyes on the ceiling before giving voice to his thoughts. "Everything will have been lost already."

  They sat in silence the rest of the flight to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the sandwiches forgotten.

  Interlude One

  Bakuza Qwabes did not shiver as he approached the Leader this time. Where he worked in this vast building the heat of the day never reached. He did not leave his desk before sunset and was always back as first light creased the sky. Two nights he had slept at his desk.

  This was important work for the Leader and the people.

  As Bakuza neared the Leader, he could not see the man upon whom the future of Africa and all its peoples hung. A ray of the sun pierced through the stained glass windows above the nave. Its light enveloped the leader and dazzled Bakuza's eyes.

  "You have word for me on what the Americans are doing?" The Leader's voice boomed from the light like a god from of old. Bakuza Qwabes fought the urge to fall to his knees.

  "Yes, my Leader. We still do not know what the Americans are about, but we have information concerning a woman working on the project."

  "Can she be trusted?"

  "She does not know it yet, but she can be made to walk as we tell her."

  "Very good."

  3

  Launa awoke, heart pounding, from a nightmare she could not remember. The phone was ringing. By the dim light of the clock -- 0500, local -- she surveyed her surroundings. It took a moment to remember why she was not in her room at West Point – and never would be again.

  She reached for the phone. "Yes?"

  "O'Brian?" He sounded chipper for the hour.

  "Yes, Captain."

  "Want to join me out front for PT? Say in ten minutes?"

  "I'll be there." The phone clicked from his end as she hung up.

  Launa rolled out of bed and dressed quickly. She finished tying her jogging shoes with five minutes to spare. With luck, she would be half way through her warm up before he got there.

  As she closed her door, she turned to see Jack close his.

  They exchanged silent waves.

  Behind her, she heard two more doors click shut. Turning, she saw a man and a woman. Their t-shirts blazed with Special Forces emblems, their camouflaged sweatpants rode above tightly laced combat boots. The man gave Launa an appraising once over. The woman too paused to study her.

  Before Launa could respond, the two turned and strode to the back exit.

  Launa joined Jack. As they went down the red tiled stairs she whispered. "Who are they?"

  Jack made no answer as they hastened past the immense gray stone fireplace that towered from floor to beamed ceiling. The noise of breakfast preparations came from the dining wing.

  Pushing the heavy oak front door open, Jack finally spoke. "They're Captains Dick Miller and Marilyn Brunner, Green Berets. Sometimes they're plan A, sometimes we're plan A. I don't know who's who this week."

  Launa frowned. She had lulled herself to sleep last night counting, like sheep, the alternative ways out of this crisis – submission, diplomacy, compromise, bombers, commando raids. The list was endless. But if her group was committed, she wanted to be on the team to go. She knew a good plan allowed for redundancy, but she hated the idea of being second best.

  As they crossed a stone veranda and parking lot she turned to Jack. "Should we check out with security?"

  "I suspect they know where we are." Jack paused to look around. "When the ranch isn't busy like this, I understand it actually is a dude ranch and turns a profit. The electronic surveillance is so tight and the cover so solid with the locals that routine military security is unnecessary." Launa frowned and Jack continued. "I often think the `purloined letter' approach more elegant than having guards running around with M-16's. I suspect if anything out of the ordinary happened, the easy going ranch hands would be anything but."

  He led her away from the stables and out buildings to a dusty area between the parking lot and lush grass surrounding five large willows. Facing east, he started stretching his legs.

  Launa wanted to ask more questions, but he did not seem disposed to answer. She joined him in the warm up. After a moment, he began talking, still looking east. "We're over 4,000 feet up. The air's a tad thin. I was at Schofield Barracks before here and about destroyed myself the first week trying to keep up my old pace. I've had time to adjust. I'll call the sets, but you might want to set your own pace."

  Launa was on the verge of snapping she could keep any pace he could, when the concerned undertone in his voice got through. She studied him for an instant. He continued his warm-ups, eyes fixed on the still dark horizon. She had met putdown artists in the Army and she had put them in their place, but Jack's suggestion seemed sincere. She had never been stationed this high and had no idea what to expect.

  When they finished warming up, Jack turned north. "Let's start with running in place." He did not call cadence, but Launa could see him out of the corner of her eye and matched him step for step. By the time he called the switch to jumping jacks her lungs burned and her breath was coming in gasps.

  With a wry shrug she turned south and slowed her pace. Her competitiveness would never let her knowingly be out done. Jack was right.

  He did not want to see her go slow and she could not watch him go fast.

  When he called the next change, her blood was not screaming for oxygen. She started to pick up the pace. Slowly, her body settled into a harmony of its own. Midway through the morning workout, the rhythm was solidly in place. This was fun. This was pleasure.

  This worked the kinks out of the body and fear out of the mind.

  When it came time for the final run in place, Jack turned back to her. "Feel up to six miles cross country?"

  "In beautiful country like this?"

  "I missed my runs yesterday. So if you don't mind, I'll take the shorter of the four trails."

  "Go ahead. Take it easy on yourself." Launa would have laughed if she had the air.

  First light painted the east. The clean morning air smelled of sagebrush and juniper. Birds called to each other. A pair of jack rabbits scurried out of their way.

  "We're going to make a right," Jack called back fifteen minutes later. In a moment she saw why. They jogged into a clearing.

  The view was enough to take away what little breath she had.

  The edge of the rim rock plunged five hundred feet to the valley floor. They trotted along parallel. Just as the sun nudged its way above the mountains, Jack called a halt at the crest of a rise.

  Launa's eyes swept to the horizon and every point of the compass. Gray rugged peaks soared to the west. The clear morning light etched every detail. The mountains to the east were still draped in soft shadows. The valley below showed in dazzling hues of gold, purple and green. The wooded plain they stood on rolled away from them.

  Launa's eyes drowned in the beauty.

  Jack turned slowly, easily catching his breath, a soft smile on his lips. Launa wondered what went on behind that smile, those eyes. They watched together, breathing deeply as the colors passed from fairyland to merely spectacular.

  Jack stretched, touched his toes. "Ready to head back?"

  Launa trailed him. Who was this man? She had answered his questions. When would she learn something about him?

  * * *

  Showered and dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt, Launa joined Jack and headed for the dining room. The place was empty except for the two cooks. One of them, an elderly, round Mexican woman, met Jack with a big hug and a kiss. Stepping back, she laughed. "I've got two bowls of your breakfast special."

  "Ah Maria. I can always count on you and the sun."

  "Oh!" She swatted him with her dishtowel, "and who is your friend?" Maria turned and Launa found herself greeted with a smile and arms that were as open as the sky.

  "O'Brian, meet Maria. If ever there was a mother to nourish the world, it's Maria."

  Maria engulfed Launa in a hug tha
t left the Lieutenant disconcerted. Hugging had not been a thing to do where she grew up. Just one of Maria's caught Launa up on twenty-one years of missing.

  Jack led Launa down the food line. Beside the boxes of dry cereal stood two large bowls filled with – something.

  Jack took one. She picked up the second one like she might a snake and frowned at it.

  "You'll like it, trust me." He picked up a large bowl of mixed fruit and pointed her toward the tables.

  She chose a table in a corner by a window; they sat on opposite sides. Between them, the salt and pepper shakers supported a one-page news sheet. Launa made a note to read it. They took in the window's spectacular view of horses frisking in corrals, rolling plains and mountains.

  Jack paused as he picked up his spoon. "I enjoyed working out with you this morning. I'd like to do it regularly."

  Launa was not used to conversation like this before breakfast; her mind went blank. "I, uh, don't like running alone. I'd enjoy sharing your morning jog." That was not what she had meant to say; it sounded so impersonal. To cover her embarrassment, she pointed at the bowls before them.

  "What's this?" She tried to reinforce her question with a funny face. She must have succeeded; Jack pushed back from the table with a laugh.

  "It is not twigs and nuts. What people eat these days is so over- processed you have to read a label to know what it is. You and I have to get use to eating food raw, tasting the grains, roots and berries the way nature meant them."

  Launa gave the griddle a wistful look. "No more pancakes drowning in maple syrup?"

  "You couldn't have drowned many and kept the figure you've got."

  "I bet you say nice things like that to all the girls you're taking for a 6,000-year ride." There, that sounded better.

  She looked around. "Will the others be joining us?"

  Jack shook his head firmly. "Each team is pretty much freelancing. Their exercise usually goes twice as long as mine. If we're lucky, we'll have the place to ourselves."

  Launa started to relax. Then, from the corner of her eye, she caught motion on the stairs. A woman in red descended into the great room. The sound of four inch heels tapping on the tiles reinforced the impression of self-assuredness and power.

  The cut of her dress was enough to raise Launa's eyebrows. Where did some businesswomen find the tailored designs that came out so damn sexy? The full, mid-calf length skirt swirled with purpose and strength. Somehow the cut between collar and waist managed to officially hide while blatantly emphasizing a pair of full breasts that any high school girl would kill for.

  The woman stopped at the entrance, her eyes sweeping the room. She hardly noticed Launa, but her face lit with a predatory smile when she spotted Jack. "Jack Bear. You're back and you didn't tell me."

  Her voice came out a grating soprano. Launa disliked high pitched voices, but this woman she hated. All her life boys had forgotten she was in the room when one of these gorgeous, over-developed tanks swept in.

  "Marie, a grapefruit and two pieces of dry toast today." The woman began issuing orders. "I'll be eating with Captain Bear and his little cadet."

  With that, she moved on them with the pomp of a reigning monarch. "Oh hell," Jack breathed as he got to his feet. Launa stood, as she might for a senior officer. Jack brought a chair and held it for the woman.

  "Oh, you needn't have stood for me, honey. You must be Lora O'Brian, the cadet Jack brought back from West Point." She took the seat as he slid it beneath her. Jack got a kiss on the cheek for his effort.

  He wore a pleasant, if stiff, smile as he sat down.

  Launa struggled to keep her face neutral. She hated being called "Honey." Furthermore, she was a Second Lieutenant now.

  And the woman had gotten her name wrong.

  "I..." Launa started, but got cut off.

  "Oh dear, I haven't introduced myself. I'm Samantha Tanner. You can call me Sam. I'm project manager for the Neolithic Task Group. I report directly to Robbie Prather, the Deputy Secretary of Defense for Research. He is personally overseeing this project, the boys at Livermore and RAND and each time period's assigned groups. There are six teams like us getting ready."

  Launa suspected this woman could talk non-stop all day.

  "RAND? The RAND think tank?" Launa slipped in.

  "Why of course. Jack darling," Samantha put her hand on his arm, "didn't you brief this poor child on my project?"

  Jack stopped a spoonful of Maria's special halfway to his mouth and glanced at Launa. "I sketched out the tactical situation for her."

  "Oh you strong silent men, always trying to out John Wayne each other. Well, I'll just have to fill her in on the big picture. The RAND Corporation has several of the world's biggest supercomputers working on this project. They've stuffed those poor dears full of every known historical fact. Not just the normal ones of who's doing what to whom, but the way out stuff like the size of the polar ice caps and weather reports and things like that. They're running all this under some kind of program called self-organization or chaos theory. They want to find what I call cusp points. Places where civilization turned a corner. It's kind of like you and me, honey."

  Launa saw Jack dig into his breakfast, finishing looked like the only escape. She took a nibble; Maria's special tasted quite good. She started shoveling it in.

  Samantha kept right on talking.

  "You get up every morning, put on your face and go to work. The same old drudgery every day. Then two guys want to marry you. One's a ball to be around, the life of the party, but you'll probably end up supporting the poor dear. The other's a solid citizen, money in the bank, the right connections, but baby, is he a bore. You'll be on your own for kicks. And once you make your choice, that's the freeway you drive until you come to another interchange. The boys at RAND say it's a long way between interchanges for civilization."

  Maria brought a tray and sat it before Samantha. "Anything else, Ms. Tanner?"

  "No, thank you. Oh Marie, if you have any of that delicious Kiwi fruit, I'd love two of them." Maria had not turned away. She seemed to expect the second request.

  "I'll look in the refrigerator, Ma'am."

  "Now where was I?" Before Samantha could roar off in another direction, Launa decided to steer this Niagara of words toward something she was concerned about. "Can you tell me more about the other groups? Is one of them likely to go?"

  "Oh, heavens no, child. One of my teams will be picked. The others have too low a chance of success. How could two people stop the fall of the Roman Empire? There are forty-four possible outcomes from intervention by my group and eighteen would be successful. All the other groups combined don't have half as many chances. No, I'll choose the team that goes."

  Samantha positively glowed at the prospect.

  "But really, this world situation will work itself out. We have the best people working on it. Several close friends of mine, in fact. I'm sure the Movement will be reasonable when given the right offer. All the African leaders I ever met were very reasonable men."

  There was not much Launa liked about Samantha, but she liked that idea.

  Maria's arrival with a bowl full of Kiwi fruit drew Samantha's attention. Jack took advantage of the distraction to pocket two pears and stand up.

  "Launa and I have got to be running."

  "Jack, darling, you're always running. Do come by my room sometime and rest your feet. I've got several things I'd like to talk over with you before I decide which team gets the final go ahead."

  While Samantha's attention was on Jack, Launa picked up the whole bowl of fruit and headed for the door.

  Maria gave her a knowing wink on the way out.

  Once past the door, Jack made a beeline for the far end of the veranda. He stopped only when he was out of room.

  "Who is that woman?" Launa blurted when she caught up.

  Jack traded the pears for a banana. "She's the political appointee that someone made boss of this group. God only knows what we need with a political
hack."

  "She keeps saying `my team,' and `my group.' Is she going with us?" "If she goes," Jack growled, "I don't. No way!"

  He peeled his banana, took a bite and resumed in a calmer voice. "Don't worry; her idea of roughing it is carrying her own briefcase. She would never leave the halls of power; she loves possessing things too much. Here, she holds our souls in her carefully manicured hand. But where we're going," he clinched a fist and grinned, "it's our mission. I like that."

  Launa had spent the night trying not to think about where and why they would be going. To avoid examining that too closely, she picked the first thing that came to mind. "What does she do around here then?"

  "What needs to be done," Jack snorted. "She takes care of the budget and logistics. If we need anything, she makes it appear. She spends her day overseeing all kinds of exciting administrative junk that save us from wasting our time. I guess she earns her keep, but she does like twisting men around her little finger. I've got too stiff a backbone for that."

  Launa found a wooden chair and sat. She put the bowl on a small table, picked a pear and bit into it. Juice sprayed.

  Jack sat on the guard rail, munching his banana, his legs swinging back and forth.

  "Yesterday, Lieutenant, you asked why we didn't just send an assassin. Would you take a one-way ticket to go back, rent a car and run down a six-year-old kid on his way to school?"

  Launa did not need long to find that answer. "That's not why I joined the Army. Couldn't the government find someone who does that?"

  "Right, the Mafia has plenty, but there's a catch. Who do you get when you hire a murderer? Once he jumps, does he do what you paid him for? What else does he do?"

  The two exchanged thoughtful nods.

  "Soldiers hold the ancient civic trust. We're disciplined and loyal. After the jump, you and I are going to give new meaning to the word free agent. Better to send an ethical team."

  Launa was getting plenty of food for thought. A Colonel's daughter learned early the Army was much more complex than civilians assumed. Still, what she’d been dragooned into was way past complex. She licked juice off her fingers and changed the topic.