Operation Rock of Ages: Triumphant Illumination

ORA: TI Chapter 1

"I am so stupid!" Mr. Duncan Sterling ranted at Claire, his wife, who was watching his little tirade, as he paced the room in agitation. "In rushing those people down there I may have compromised the whole dang project!"

Claire just nodded. He was right, he could have, but even if he did, this rant wasn't going to fix it. She let him get it all out, and when she thought he might be ready to listen she said, "Ok, let's look at both sides. If they were compromised, let's fix it and ... if they were not, let's come up with a plan so this doesn't happen again." Her soothing tone made him realize that his anger at himself was not going to fix anything, just as she has intended.

He sighed and ran his fingers over his hair. "You're right, as usual," he smiled lightly at her. She grinned back because she loved it when he admitted it. "So, what's your plan?" He knew she always had a plan.

"If they are compromised, we make it look like they escaped through the tunnel and then to the outside at some point. We collapse anything that leads the direction we are going and just keep tunneling as planned. If we aren't compromised, we make it a priority to scan everyone who is to go down to the tunnels ... before they go down."

Claire and Mr. Sterling were living in a small apartment in an underground high security military research facility. Mr. Sterling was assigned to run the project by the President of the United States, Brian Lukas, and Claire was heading up security on the project. The project, Operation Rock of Ages, was a top secret plan to build a society underground on foreign soil without that government's knowledge. They had made it to the building stage and had managed to get their diggers in place and started, and in a rash and rushed decision, Mr. Sterling had approved some civilians to go below before things were ready. Hence, the current angst.

Mr. Sterling sat down next to Claire and watched the puppies eating in the next room that his female dog had recently given birth to, "You make it sound so simple."

"You're right, because it doesn't have to be complicated to work," she said with conviction. "We just have to give a plausible reason for the people to be there and then not there. It was the same trick we pulled with Shoshana, we can use the tracer to point the movement to the surface and then kill the tracer. We would need to send a dentist and plenty of Novocain to get the tracer out of the poor victim first but it will work. We just have to realize that we need to slow down in our rush to make this happen. When will you know if those poor people might have been compromised?"

Shoshana, the Israeli President's wife, had a tracker in a filling in her tooth discovered during an escape from a dangerous situation. Once the tracker was found, Shoshana insisted the tooth be pulled in the back of a chopped in primitive fashion and it was flown away in a different direction from the way she, and her children, were flying.

"Eight hours ... soonest ... maybe longer. This time of day they are already sleeping, most likely they won't be able to do the scanning until tomorrow morning their time."

"Good, then you need to get your shower so we can go to lunch, you really stink," Claire exclaimed, laughed, and threw a pillow at him. Mr. Sterling had been working out when he got the call from the small base they had created in Israel. It was going to be a long day of waiting. "Duncan, you know I am going to need to go there sooner than later. We need more boots on the ground for security, and as soon as possible. The twelve we have there now are not going to be enough if we plan to move Omar's group down too."

"I know, I know, plus more food and cooking supplies and tents. This is getting to seem like too much too soon." He kept talking to her as he got ready for his shower. "Maybe I was wrong to send them down there to make room for Omar's people."

"No, other than the potential security breach, I think it was the right move. You could have mentioned it to me first, and I would have asked about the security stuff. That's not your specialty, but it is what I eat, sleep and breathe. Now, what about the cave? Who's going to work on that? I don't think the underground crew should but it is your call," Claire expressed strongly. William and Christina on the digging crew found a crystal cave that they said was glorious but had been found long before them. Somewhere, perhaps centuries before, men had accessed the crystal cave from a cave above that they seemed to have sealed with a rock. They asked for someone on the outside to check it out if possible. Having a cave that could be accessible to the crystal cave from the outside world was very disturbing to Claire.

"I got up with Jensen, he said he would take care of it," Mr. Sterling said, which calmed Claire immediately. "I should hear about that later today as well. He knows which cave, it is the only one near him. He told me if it is empty and hasn't been recently used, he will back fill it, caves on his property make him nervous."

"Don't blame him on that one," Claire replied. "Shower, now," she ordered pointing at the bathroom, "I'm hungry."