Overlord by David Lynn Golemon Read Free Book Online

that’s coming, and along the way maybe we can work together and settle a few old scores.”
    The prisoner laughed. “You have made an enemy, I think, and whoever it is scares the hell out of you.”
    Vickers didn’t return the laugh as he started walking again. He stopped and looked to the blue Kansas sky.
    “My enemies are your enemies. Deal with the devil to get what it is you want most.”
    “Go ahead,” the federal prisoner said. He started to walk around his exercise yard once more.
    “The desert, the high desert—need I say more?”
    The prisoner looked up at the guard tower where the large officer’s eyes never left the two men strolling casually in the yard.
    “I don’t know what it is you’re talking about.”
    Vickers stopped cold in his tracks and chanced reaching for the prisoner’s arm, an action that drew the immediate attention of the armed guard, who shook his head at Vickers.
    “The people I seek are in the high desert—or should I say, under it?”
    “Again, I don’t know what it is you speak of.”
    Exasperated, Vickers nearly reached out and slapped the man but remembered the very lethal looking Mini-14 the guard had on his back.
    “Well, I thought I could count on a patriot such as yourself to want to get the hell out of here”—he gestured around him at the exercise yard—“and get into the fight that is surely coming at us.”
    “What’s happened?” the man asked, suddenly becoming interested.
    “Oh, that’s right, you’re no longer kept in the loop on Operation Magic, are you, Mr. Charles Hendrix II?”
    Hendrix wasn’t surprised at all that this man mentioned what in this prison was unmentionable: his name.
    “They deserve the fate they created for themselves. Nonetheless, Mr. Vickers, you have my attention.”
    “Good, that’s a start. Now, the name of the man who really put you here, who is it?” The two men commenced walking once more.
    “He’s dead … does that surprise you that I know this? Even I still have sources, my friend; my attorneys are not what they seem sometimes.”
    “The name, Hendrix,” Vickers hissed.
    “Lee, Garrison Lee. He’s quite an old enemy of my family—an enemy since 1947. But as I said, he’s dead and I curse the ground that particular Boy Scout is buried in.”
    “Garrison Lee, the former U.S. senator?”
    “One and the same.” Hendrix smiled and looked at his guest. “He was a little bit more than the history books will ever reveal.”
    “We’ll discuss that at length later, after you’re a free man. Now, what is the other name I need?”
    “Compton, Niles. He’s attached to the National Archives and works in that facility you mentioned underneath the desert in Las Vegas.”
    “Yes, I know, underneath Nellis Air Force Base. Niles Compton, huh?”
    “Dr. Niles Compton, yes. And do not, and I mean it, try to match wits with the man. He could outthink you in his sleep.”
    “A lot of people, much to their regret, thought the same thing about me, Mr. Hendrix.”
    Hendrix smiled down at the rumpled man. “Is that right? Well, this man has the muscle of the federal government backing him, and he hangs around with some very salty people.”
    “It’s one of those salty people I am seeking. Collins, Jack, colonel, United States Army. Ring a bell?”
    “Outside of his famous appearance in front of the senate oversight committee when he threw his commander and several high-ranking politicos underneath the proverbial bus, no. I take it he’s running the Group’s security for Compton. God knows military men are only good for little else.”
    Hendrix saw the disappointment in Vickers’s face and knew he had the man. “I do have a name that will lead you to this colonel you want so badly.”
    “Who?”
    “Well, at the time of my arrest he was a commander in the Navy.” Hendrix’s eyes narrowed to slits. “That is one arrogant son of a bitch I wouldn’t mind seeing…” He looked around. “Gone. His name is Carl