Free Carpathian by David Lynn Golemon Page A

frantically searched the scattered papers on her usually neat desk.
    “Where is it, where is it!” she asked herself, almost fearing the letter itself was part of her sleeping remembrances.
    “Calm down and think,” came his voice. This was a tool she used many times. Garrison always told her think and then act.
    Alice stopped her searching and then squeezed her eyes closed and thought. She opened them suddenly and reached for her robe’s front pocket. She took a deep breath as her fingers touched the two-page letter that had been overnighted from Rome.
    “Thank you,” she said as she pulled the letter from her pocket and opened it, sitting back in her chair as she did. Alice again closed her eyes realizing that she just thanked a man gone from her for what seemed an eternity. She swallowed and then caught herself and mentally shook the tears from her eyes before they fully developed and then opened the letter. She read it once more for the umpteenth time in the twenty-four hours since receiving it.
    “Europa, am I still signed in?” she said aloud as she folded the letter but this time held it tightly in her hand as she forced herself to relax. Alice was finally feeling her age after many years of keeping up with the best of them.
    “Yes, Mrs. Hamilton, User 0012 is still logged on,” came the sexy Marilyn Monroe–voiced Cray supercomputer located at the secure center inside the Event Group complex underneath Nellis Air Force Base ten miles from her house.
    “My apologies for being rude and dozing off on you,” Alice said as she pulled her robe tighter around her.
    “Computer center activity is light, access should be uninterrupted until 0600.”
    “Well, thank you anyway, Europa. Now, can you…” Alice stopped briefly to stifle a yawn, making herself realize she was getting far too old for these all-night research digs. “Excuse me, can you give me the status of security element Goliath please?”
    “Security element Goliath has not reported in as of this time.”
    “Europa, I am expecting a package through the complex communications system and I want that e-mail package to come straight to me and is not, I repeat, is not to be entered into the incoming communications log. Is that clear?”
    For the first time in many years Europa didn’t answer right away. Alice thought maybe her systems were still being disrupted from the troubles a few months earlier when her mainframe was attacked from an outside source.
    “Mrs. Hamilton, your request cannot be granted due to security regulations.”
    Alice closed her eyes knowing that she could seal the incoming e-mail off from everyone—except one man, and that was the head of Event Group security and the smartest man outside of Garrison Lee and Director Niles Compton that she had ever known—Colonel Jack Collins. As far as she could see there was no way around Jack not seeing the e-mail, especially from a source as important to Department 5656 as anyone could ever remember—Goliath, a code name for one of the security departments and Director Compton’s most guarded deep operatives. The information this agent gives the Group is as important as any historical intelligence they had ever received from any one source. Goliath was deep—the deepest any security element had ever been before, and only Jack, Niles, deputy director Virginia Pollock, Captain Carl Everett, and Alice knew who it was and where he, or she, was buried.
    “I understand, Europa, but no one else gets copied on the package. I hope I can handle Colonel Collins on this one security oversight.”
    “Incoming packet has arrived, Mrs. Hamilton.”
    Alice was stunned at how fast her requested data from their deep operative came as a follow-up to the first communication, which had set Alice on a course of action she had wanted to take since 1951.
    “Put it through, please,” she said.
    The coded pictures sent by Goliath slowly started coming up on her monitor as fast as Europa could decipher