Chapter 29 Kian
KIAN
The conference room smelled like Shai's latest coffee acquisition, which was either Ethiopian or Guatemalan, and either way was excellent. Kian made a mental note to find out where Shai was getting these beans before Jackson caught wind of it and bought the entire plantation.
Turner was already seated at his usual spot, yellow legal pad in front of him, pen uncapped, the first two lines of the page filled with his cramped, precise handwriting. Whatever he'd been thinking about on the drive over had been important enough to commit to paper before the meeting started.
Toven sat across from Turner, looking surprisingly alert for a seven-thousand-year-old god who had just told them he hadn't slept at all because he'd been kissed by the muse and had written furiously through the night, finishing his latest romance novel.
Onegus sipped on his coffee, waiting patiently for the rest of the team to arrive, and right now it meant only Lokan because everyone else was already there.
Over the last few calls, Losham hadn't asked to speak with his brother, and Lokan hadn't contributed much, but Kian still wanted him there. The guy knew the island and was indispensable for the planning stage, even though he hadn't known about the secret tunnel and the cove with the submarine.
Lokan entered the office, murmured an apology for being late, and slid into the chair beside Toven. He looked troubled, and understandably so. He had big dreams for the island, and this operation was not going to make them come true. Nothing short of conquering it would do that.
"We have a lot to cover after the call, so let's get to it."
Shai set the coffee carafe on the conference table along with an assortment of mugs and left the room, not because he wasn't invited to stay, but because he had a lot of work unrelated to this latest mission.
Someone had to keep the clan business running while Kian was busy saving Khiann and his companions.
Toven reached for the phone, dialed Losham's number, and activated the speaker.
It rang three times.
"Yes." Losham sounded more composed than he had in recent calls, which was either a good sign or a performance. With Losham, it was difficult to distinguish between the two.
"Good evening, Losham. Please report," Toven said, the compulsion threading through his voice not as heavy as it had been in the beginning because there was no need. Losham assumed it was there and responded accordingly.
"The structural engineers have completed the retrofit. Steel beams and reinforced bracing are in place, and the chief engineer has signed off on the site as safe for work to resume. The crews return tomorrow morning."
Kian leaned forward. "That's good news. What's your timeline for reaching the chamber?"
"Two weeks. Give or take."
Give or take. The qualifier had applied to every previous estimate that had been blown to pieces, sometimes literally. Two weeks had been Losham's default answer.
"What are you basing your estimate on?" Kian asked.
"I'm using immortal crews this time. They're faster, stronger, and don't need as many rest periods as the humans I was using before.
It looks as bad as, or worse than after the first booby traps were sprung, so I assume it will take about the same time at most. It's always better to overestimate than underestimate. "
Generally, that was true, but not in this case. Kian needed exact timing, and thanks to the enhanced soldiers, he would get it. Provided that they were legit and this wasn't an elaborate setup.
"What about your brothers?" Onegus asked. "Are they still causing trouble?"
"Kolhood has backed off since the support structure was approved by the engineers. He can't argue with a professional assessment, and attempting to would make him look obstructionist. The other two are following his lead."
"For now," Lokan said.
"For now," Losham agreed. "My brothers are predictable. Kolhood will find another angle of attack eventually, but the excavation gives him nothing to work with as long as the engineers maintain their clearance and nothing else collapses."
"Anything else we should know?" Toven asked.
"Like what? You need to be more specific."
"How is life on the island without Navuh?"
"His recorded devotions are still playing five times a day. I would love to shut them down since they are not doing any good when they are not actually broadcast with his live voice, but their absence would raise questions, so I keep them going."
"Smart," Kian said. "The more normal things appear on the island, the better."
"On that we agree. Is there anything else you need from me tonight?"
Toven looked at Kian, who shook his head.
"That concludes our call," Toven said. "We will contact you tomorrow at the usual time."
The line went dead without a goodbye.
Not a surprise since Losham did that each time.
Kian let out a breath. "We all know that Losham's two weeks do not really mean fourteen days. Fortunately, we will now have better progress reports from the enhanced soldiers."
That was the single biggest advantage of having an inside channel. Losham's estimates were too general and lacked any concrete basis. The Eight, on the other hand, could thrall the excavation crews and obtain precise information on the remaining debris quantity and the rate of progress.
Onegus nodded. "I'll coordinate with Number One to establish a reporting protocol. The daily updates on excavation progress are great, but an immediate notification when they're within forty-eight hours of the breach is even better."
"Right." Kian drummed his fingers on the table. "Now let's move to the operation itself." He shifted his gaze to Turner. "Where do we stand?"
"The plan has three phases. Phase one is preparation. Phase two is infiltration and extraction of the chests. Phase three is withdrawal. Let me walk you all through each one."
He drew a rough diagram as he spoke. "As we've discussed, the entry point is Navuh's secret submarine cove.
It's connected to both the harem and the mansion basement by a tunnel.
The submarine itself is a four-person vessel, but I doubt we can load the five chests inside even if we remove the seats, which means that we will have to bring waterproof casings for the chests and drag them underwater to our own submarine. "
"Is it the same one you used for Tula's rescue?" Lokan asked.
Turner shook his head. "I'm in the process of getting us something much better that has full EMP shielding, in case we end up using it.
It won't be much of a contingency if our people are affected by the blast. We need everything to remain operational.
The submarine, the diving gear, and the communication equipment all need to be EMP hardened so our people can complete the mission and get out of there. "
That was exactly the kind of foresight that made Turner invaluable. He was thorough and planned for failure, and for the failure of the plan that was supposed to fix the first failure.
"I'm glad you're not cutting corners," Kian said.
Turner's expression didn't change. "I never do. Corners are where people die."
"The cove entrance is underwater," Onegus said.
"We estimate that it's about eight meters below the surface at mean tide.
The cove itself is an underwater cavern with an air pocket large enough for Navuh's submarine and some docking infrastructure.
It was designed as a last-resort escape route, so the entrance is concealed and doesn't appear on any charts or surveys. "
"What about the tunnel?" Kian asked.
"According to Eluheed, the tunnel runs from the harem to the mansion, and there's a branch that goes to the cove.
Navuh kept it a secret and used it exclusively, so supposedly no one else on the island knows about it.
Eluheed and Tony also provided intel on the security systems." Onegus opened his laptop and looked at those notes.
"The tunnel has surveillance cameras and a proximity alarm.
They believe that the tunnel surveillance runs on a closed circuit that feeds only to Navuh's private computer because no one on the island was supposed to know that the tunnel or the cove existed.
Not that it was hard to guess, since Navuh was journeying between the harem and his mansion twice a day, and I doubt people believed he used an invisible magic carpet to do so.
Still, it's safe to assume that the feed is not connected to the island's central monitoring station. "
Toven leaned back in his chair. "Who has access to those feeds now?"
"Probably just Losham," Onegus said. "But I wouldn't stake the lives of Guardians on it."
"Neither would I," Kian said. "We proceed on the assumption that the tunnel feeds are isolated, but we plan as if they're not. I want the cameras dealt with regardless."
Turner nodded. "It's a straightforward operation.
The tunnel cameras monitor a static environment.
Nothing moves in there. No personnel, no activity, and no traffic.
That makes it easy to loop the feeds. We capture a static image from each camera and feed it back into the system, replacing the live feed.
To anyone watching, and almost certainly no one is, the tunnel looks exactly as it always has.
Empty and undisturbed. The loop takes less than two minutes per camera to install once we have physical access to the hardware. "
"Two minutes is nothing, but there are many cameras," Onegus said. "We need to account for that in our projected timeline."
"Did Eluheed and Tony specify what kind of alarm is used in the tunnel?" Turner asked.