Asset Five by Jack Mars

Author:Jack Mars [Mars, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jack Mars
Published: 2025-04-18T00:00:00+00:00

***

The next morning, before breakfast, they met with Manfred and Lucrèce in her housing unit. As Lara and Thomas told of their previous night’s adventures, skipping the part about the guards, they couldn’t even look at each other.

Lara felt mortified, and only discussing the ramifications of their findings with the other two agents kept her from sinking through the floor.

“This is highly disturbing,” Lucrèce said once they finished. “Coupled with the oversized payload capability of the rocket nosecones, I am highly suspicious of this company’s motives.”

“What do you think they’re up to?” Lara asked.

“I think they want to send something else up in orbit with Western money,” Lucrèce said.

The Frenchman shrugged.

“Whatever it might be, I have a feeling we won’t like it,” Lara said.

“The question is, what do we do about it,” Manfred said.

Lara grimaced. "We can mention the disparity in the building's interior and exterior length, but we can't mention the hidden pavement on that end of the factory without revealing we were there."

“That was a neat trick,” the Frenchman told Thomas. “I’m not sure counting your steps will hold up as convincing evidence to a bunch of politicians trying to placate the electorate.”

“No, it won’t,” Thomas said. “We need to get into that factory somehow.”

“They’ll never let you, and they’ll deny there’s a disparity in the measurements.”

They sat around for a minute, trying to find their way around this problem.

Lara spoke first. "Last night at dinner, our hosts said that once we were satisfied, they would fly us back to Riyadh. When the chief inspector objected that he wanted to stay to observe the launch, he got shut down. The head engineer said that the launches were strictly private."

“Proprietary information,” Lucrèce grunted.

“Yeah, I don’t believe that either,” Lara said. “I’m thinking we’re going to have to take that flight back to the capital, and then come back here, but this time better equipped. We need to break into the factory and find out what they’re hiding.”

Manfred and Lucrèce looked at each other and grinned.

"It's been too long since I did fieldwork," the German said.

“Me too,” the Frenchman agreed.

That was something Lara had worried about. These two were both getting close to retirement, and as capable as they were, both had been riding desks for decades.

Still, they were satellite experts and Lara and Thomas were not.

“We discussed this possibility with our respected agencies,” Manfred said, “and they both agreed that we could take any measures we saw fit.”

“Nice to have understanding bosses,” Thomas said with a smile.

I wish my bosses understood basic human decency, Lara thought.

“So what do we tell the inspectors?” Lucrèce asked.

Lara took a deep breath. “I’m thinking we tell them nothing. Certainly not about the extra space in the factory or the fact that those rockets can carry more of a payload than the company reps say they can. I’m thinking the Al-Idrisi reps will have thought of glib answers to both those questions. They’ve been pretty slick so far. I don’t think we’re going to

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