ICCRU headquarters - London
“I’ll die before I lose another team, General! Find them. I don’t care what you do or how you do it, but I need that plane located and fast!”
Matt slammed the receiver back in its place on his desk. Loosening his tie and his shirt’s top button he turned to look out the large windows. Rage flooded his tall athletic body as he contemplated the crisis. His hands were clammy on his hips and his heart pounded against his ribs. His inclination to be more active in the field challenged him once again. But against his better judgement he conceded to his board who insisted that he was of more value to their missions being commander in chief from behind his desk. It was at times like these he found himself fighting hard not to exchange his tie for a gun. Perhaps it was his perfectionist nature or being raised as a military brat that he felt the missions would run more smoothly had he been doing them himself. He ran a tight ship and his impeccable ability to always find a way around a problem was one of the reasons ICCRU was so revered in the industry. Matt pulled his tie out from underneath his collar. The thought of failing with this mission strangled his already tight throat. He forced the thought from his mind. It simply wasn’t an option. Matt Fletcher was the best in the business.
“Matt, we have a situation,” Jean-Pierre DuPont yelled across the room as he barged into his office.
“I know DuPont. We’re trying to locate their plane.”
“No-no Matt, it’s much more serious than that,” the French man replied in a hastened tone and shoved a large manila folder against Matt’s chest.
“What’s this?” Matt replied as he pulled a brown file out from the envelope and moved to the boardroom table.
Red letters on the file marked it as Top Secret. He flipped the bulging file open and skimmed through the pages and several photos.
DuPont was silent as he waited for Matt to catch on to the information he had just given him.
A white rim erupted around Matt’s mouth. “Tell me this is a mistake,” he said in an emotionless tone through tight lips.
“Unfortunately not.”
“You’re absolutely certain your Intel is correct?”
“But of course!” DuPont replied with a typical Gallic shrug and French pout.
Matt shut the file with force and paced around his desk.
“Do you realize what this means, DuPont? Will this fool stop at nothing?” he vented before continuing. “Do we know why?”
“Apart from feeding his own selfish ego, no. He’s a billionaire, Matt. Does he need a reason? Has he ever?”
Matt sat down at his desk and allowed his eyes to take in the detail of DuPont’s extensive file. DuPont was right. The man never acted in anyone’s best interests but his own. Matt rubbed his hand over the back of his neck and then reached for the intercom.
“Sally, get me the general and patch it through to my secure line please.”
Turning his attention back to where DuPont still stood at the boardroom table, he walked around his desk and towered over the small French man. “Who else knows about this?”
“Just us, of course,” he said raising the tone of his voice while pulling his shoulders into his typical shrug again.
“Keep it that way, DuPont. We need to keep this under wraps. If word gets out this thing could blow up before we even come close to getting a handle on this. Not to mention jeopardizing the safety of Hunt and the rest of the team. Get as much Intel on him as possible, DuPont. We need to establish his motive and exact location; and cover your tracks. No paper trail, got it?”
“Oui Oui; on it,” DuPont replied in French as he left.
Matt moved in behind his desk and slung the folder across the clear glass top. He was angry. Matt Fletcher wasn’t a man who failed at anything, much less be defeated by a self-serving Russian billionaire who thought the world was his for the taking. ICCRU had power and influence and hell would freeze over before he allowed Ivan Volkov to exert his demented ambitions over the world.
The sound of his secure line propelled his reflexes into overdrive as he scooped up the receiver on the first ring.
“General?” Pausing for confirmation that it was him before continuing. “Any news?”
“Negative, Matt. There’s no sign of the plane and zero response on our communications.”
Matt swore under his breath.
“How did this happen, General? I thought we were better prepared this time. Are they even alive? What was their last recorded location?”
“We were as best prepared as we could have been, Matt. May I remind you we’re at war here? At this stage we don’t know how close they came to landing. We had a distress call come in through a smaller airfield controller. The line was very poor and all he made out was that they were under fire and diverting off course prior to landing. We lost all comms shortly after that. I deployed a ground team but without knowing which direction they diverted to, it’s impossible to know where to start our search. It could take months scouting the variables.”
Matt shut his eyes in anguish and squeezed the top of his brows under his hand.
“Do we have reason to suspect a crash?”
“There’s a distinct possibility, but again, no evidence of it at this stage. It’s a waiting game, Matt but Commander Burger and his team are one of the best my army has. If the plane went down, I assure you, they survived it. Miss Hunt’s ingenuity isn’t to be forgotten either.”
The general sensed Matt was holding out on him. “What’s really going on, Matt? Is there something I should know?”
Matt glanced at the file on his desk and stared at Ivan Volkov’s photograph that had slid out halfway onto his desk.
“We have verified Intel that Ivan Volkov is after the tooth too. We’re uncertain of his motives at this stage, but we do know he will stop at nothing to get what he wants.”
“Volkov? As in the billionaire from Volkov Industries?”
“One, and only.”
“I don’t understand. What would an aeronautics engineer want with a fossil?”
“That’s the million dollar question. Or in his case, four billion dollars. The man is somewhat infamous for his absurd inventions and theories and let’s not forget suspected of being involved with the KGB. If this relic holds any significance to him, Hunt’s life is in danger. He’s a heartless savage that goes hard after what he wants. But with his Russian ties we’re going to have to tread lightly around this. I don’t want the Russian government at our door. I have DuPont seeing what he can dig up, but we need to find Hunt. We can’t have Volkov blindside her. They’re going to need reinforcements, and General, I don’t need to remind you it’s classified, right?”
“Affirmative Matt, I’m on it. I’ll find them.”
Alone with his thoughts Matt studied the folder. Volkov was squeaky clean with a reputation that preceded his brilliance in space engineering. NASA had contracted him on several occasions and it was no secret recent explorations to space and the Mars expedition were mostly accredited to his technology. Volkov Industries defied the ordinary; a clear frontrunner, and their recent success with the launch of an airborne vehicle didn’t disappoint. The man was lightyears ahead in research. But Matt held fast to his suspicions that Volkov was dirty underneath his untarnished facade. No one gets in bed with politicians and governments across the world without hiding skeletons in their closet.
Matt’s anger turned to annoyance as he failed to find something in the file that would get him closer to knowing why Ivan Volkov would want to get his hands on a three hundred thousand year old fossil’s tooth. He was up to something, Matt knew it.
ICCRU had the power and resources of every government agency in the world at its fingertips and if it meant he had to get as dirty as his enemies, then so be it.