by Bob Mayer
Yakov nodded. “The Nazis recovered a Swarm body from that crash. My people got it at the end of World War II. Ugly beasts.”
Leahy looked around to see if anyone else had anything to say, but they were listening. “Lisa Duncan said she came here near the very beginning, right?”
Turcotte considered that. “She said she arrived on this ship about ten thousand years ago, when the Airlia ruled the planet from their base in Atlantis. How long the Airlia were here before that, we don’t know.”
The Fynbar was still heading east but his hands had pulled back on the controls without conscious decision and the craft was going slower.
“She did the deep sleep for much of the time and also regenerated,” Leahy said, indicating the tubes behind her. “But this craft isn’t capable of going faster than light speed, right?”
“Right,” Turcotte said.
“So how did she get here?”
“She and her partner were dropped off by a mothership her people took from the Airlia when their home world successfully rebelled,” Turcotte said.
“And the mothership kept going,” Leahy said. “To drop other teams. So if that is true, there are other human worlds out there. Maybe that should be our focus. It seems this Mrs. Parrish is focused outward from the planet. I think that’s what we need to do. Especially given the current level of turmoil.”
There was a short silence before Kincaid spoke up. “If this Mrs. Parrish is going for the mothership and talon, why does she want this craft?”
“She wouldn’t say,” Turcotte answered. The Mississippi river flashed by below. “I think it could be because it’s much faster than anything she’s developed.” He noticed he’d slowed down and pushed the controls to speed up.
“You know,” Quinn said, “this started because the members of Majestic, the original Majestic I worked with at Area 51, made contact with the guardian computer at Temiltepac and were corrupted. They lost track of their mission.”
“Are you saying Kelly is corrupted?” Turcotte asked.
Quinn shrugged. “We don’t know. But we should talk to her more.”
Turcotte nodded. “That’s another thing I want to do.” Something occurred to him. “Mrs. Parrish said that the west coast of the United States has seceded. As has Texas.”
Quinn and Kincaid exchanged glances once more.
Yakov showed little interest. “I am sure Russia is falling further apart.”
“California’s economy is--” Leahy began, but Turcotte cut her off, tired of speculation.
“Just keeping you up to date.”
“Where are we going?” Yakov asked.
“North Carolina,” Turcotte said. “As Professor Leahy noted, we need some allies. I know some people we can trust.”
UNITED NATIONS, NEW YORK CITY
“We must unite as one people, as one species, now that it is certain we are not alone in the Universe and there are forces among the stars that mean us harm.” Deputy General Secretary Kaong’s voice echoed in the large General Assembly Hall. The majority of seats were empty. Those that were occupied were mostly low-level staffers representing their various countries. Most were looking at their phones or computers.
Kaong, and many others, had always speculated that aliens would be the one thing to unify the world. A common foe, except it had turned out the foe wasn’t common, it was among us all.
He tried to restart. “We must—“ he paused as the representative from China, an old acquaintance, and one of the few senior people to attend, stood. The man walked to the stage, a breach in protocol, but no one, least of all Kaong, was offended.
“My friend,” the Chinese rep said, pushing the microphone away. “No one is listening as you can clearly see. But, more importantly, you have it backward. Those in power, or those desiring power, see this is as a most opportune time to take actions in their own interests. Whether they be national, corporate, ethnic or individual. I admire your dedication, but it is over. The General Secretary has already advised me that your Committee will be reorganized in the coming weeks, which means disbanded. Perhaps we should not waste our time?”
The small group of attendees was already scattering, glad of the reprieve. Kaong allowed himself to be led from the stage.
*****
Four blocks from the United Nations, Deputy Kaong was relishing the early evening of New York City: the intermittent traffic, the siren in the distance, the distant roar of a plane overhead. Even the awful smell, a mixture of rotting food, sewage, vehicle exhaust and something else. But over-riding that was an aura that made it all enticing. A vibrancy, a mass of humanity
He loved New York City and he would not be happy when he was sent home. But he would be sent home. They would all be sent home, because the world was falling apart and the United Nations, the post World-War II Band-Aid, had never been anything more than that. If a country like the United States was dissolving, there was no doubt support for the United Nations would dissolve.
Kaong loved New York, but he loved his daughter more and he had to get her out of here. Had to get her some place safe.
He paused on the corner of 2nd Avenue and 44th.
Where was safe?
Not here. Not New York. Far away from people. That was best. He was done. Done with it all. He’d been a nobody who’d been given the head of UNAOC as a token to his country.
Until it turned out to be much more than that.
He entered the code on his brownstone and the door clicked open. He walked past the stairs. The nanny had her own small room next to the kitchen. Kaong checked the fridge and retrieved a bottle of wine. He poured a small glass, then made his way upstairs. He peeked in the partly open door. His daughter was a small bundle in her Frozen canopy bed.
Kaong stood still for several moments, watching the very slight rise and fall of the blanket as she slept.
He finally went to his own bedroom. As he entered, something hard and cold was pressed against the base of his skull.
“Quiet,” a woman hissed. “Stay quiet and everything will be fine.”
She pushed the gun, moving him several steps into the room while she shut the door with her other hand. Then she stepped back.
Kaong turned. He could barely make her out in the dark. Dressed all in black, short blond hair, nondescript features. The gun had a bulky suppressor on the barrel.
She was not worried that he could see her face.
Kaong closed his eyes for a moment and whispered a prayer. He opened his eyes. “Do not harm my daughter. She is innocent.”
The woman seemed slightly amused. “’Innocent’? What does that have to do with anything?”
“Who sent you?” The answer came to him as quickly as he asked the question. “Mrs. Parrish.”
The woman shrugged. “I don’t get names of employers. Just the package with the target.” She waggled the gun, indicating the small desk near the window. “Sit down, please.”
Kaong sat, his body numb. He felt very detached from the current reality. As if he weren’t here; just an actor playing out a role badly written.
He was jolted back to the here and now when he remembered his daughter down the hallway. “Please. Leave my—“
“Shh,” the woman said, one finger to her lips, the other aiming the gun at his forehead. “Your daughter will be fine if you do what I tell you.”
Perhaps, Kaong thought. Perhaps I will live to see her again.
“Your secure satphone, please.”
Kaong pulled it out of his jacket pocket and put it on the desk.
“Your access code, please.”
Kaong told her.
The woman indicated a piece of his stationery centered on the desk. A pen next to it. “I want you to write your daughter a goodbye note.”
Perhaps was gone.
“How can I trust you she will be safe?”
“You can’t,” the woman said. “But what options do you have?”
He hesitated.
“Pick up th
e pen,” the woman said. “If you don’t do what I say, this will get messy. And messy means involving your daughter. And the nanny.”
Kaong didn’t pick up the pen. Options. There was always negotiation.
“I took your gun out of the drawer,” the woman said. “If that’s what you’re thinking.” She sighed. “Listen, I’m only paid for you. Not your daughter. No upside for me to do anything to her or the nanny. Actually, a downside as it will clearly be multiple homicides, one of them a young girl, yada yada. Some cop will get it up his ass to dig and I don’t need that kind of crap complicating my life. Okay?”
Kaong picked up the pen.
“Tell your daughter good-bye,” the assassin ordered. “Simple. Nothing cute or fancy. Mention your despair over your position being phased out at the UN. The lack of unity. Then tell your daughter you love her and good-bye. That is all.”
Kaong watched his hand write the words, the flowing script on the page. The few words. All she would have for the rest of her life.
As if reading his mind, or having done this before, the woman said: “Its more than most people get.” She had moved to a position where she could look over this shoulder as he wrote. “Very nice. Very loving. Think of this in a positive way. You’re keeping her alive and she’ll never know. You’ve given her the greatest gift a father can give.”
Kaong tried to make sense of that, but his brain couldn’t wrap around it.
“Now you’re going to jump,” the woman said, stepping away and indicating the window. “They say that jumpers experience no pain. That death on impact is faster than the nerves can transmit pain to the brain. That’s a positive too.”
Kaong looked at her. “You’re crazy.”
“I’m the best thing that ever happened to you,” the woman said. “They could have sent a butcher. Someone who’d have killed the nanny downstairs, killed your daughter, then blown your brains out. You’re saving two lives. Not many people get to do that.”
She tapped a gloved hand against the window. “You need to open it. Fourteen floors. Clear drop. I could do the math for you, but trust me, it won’t take long.”
Kaong stood, but didn’t reach for the window.
“Your daughter?” the woman said.
Kaong opened the window.
“Best to be quick about it,” the woman said. “You’re time for thinking is over. Go!”
“Do I have your word on my daughter? You won’t harm her?”
The woman rolled her eyes. “Why do you think we’re going through all this? I told you. They could have sent a butcher. They sent a professional.” She raised the gun, aiming at his forehead. “But I can butcher too. I don’t have all night. Five seconds. Your choice.”
Kaong stepped into the open window. He looked out at the city. He could see the United Nations building only a few blocks away.
He stepped out.
AIRSPACE, WESTERN UNITED STATES
Mrs. Parrish picked up the cigar she’d unsealed earlier. She tapped it against her upper lip. “The Strategy anticipated this response as a possibility. Major Turcotte is reacting. I am acting. That is how Mister Parrish always did business. I am still ahead of the Major, even though he is not aware of it.” Mrs. Parrish’s tone changed as she addressed Maria. “Status of the Niviane and Nimue?”
Maria flipped up her flexpad and her fingers flew over the surface. The HD screen levered down from the cabin ceiling and came alive. It displayed the Earth and two red lines arcing up from the surface on divergent paths, each toward a red triangle. Numbers indicated time-to-target.
Niviane. mothership: 1:23
Nimue. talon: 1:57
“Status on Danse?”
Maria had the answer ready from the constant updates via her earpiece. “Still delayed at the vault. Drilling is proceeding. Slowly.”
“Double their bonuses if they achieve the established time table.”
Maria typed in a message.
“Any indication Vampyr survived the explosion on the Skeleton Coast?” Mrs. Parrish asked.
“Negative. Projections show the probability of his demise at ninety-nine-point-six percent.”
“I have the projections,” Mrs. Parrish snapped. “Nosferatu? Nekhbet?”
“Under observation, currently in Paris.”
“Wardenclyffe?”
“The system is operational.”
“Major Turcotte and the Fynbar?”
“Most likely, given the direction to North Carolina.”
“Returning home,” Mrs. Parrish said, more to herself than Maria. “It is the most likely projected course of action if he rejected the offer. So strange that he considers a military base his home.”
“I do not believe it is the place,” Maria said. “He trusts his fellow soldiers.”
Mrs. Parrish was slightly startled, but let it pass. “How long until we land at Dreamland?”
Maria tapped on the flexpad and a map of the southwest United States appeared on the screen. A red dot indicated they had crossed the Grand Canyon and were heading southeast. From the dot a green line extended to a spot in west Texas, above Big Bend National Park, but below Interstate Ten. A number was clicking down the flight time.
“Kaong?”
“Completed.”
Mrs. Parrish was studying her own flexpad. “Too many loose ends. We need to terminate the Paris and Hawaii threads.”
“Yes, Mrs. Parrish.”
“Have our people seize Area 51 and seal it off.”
Maria typed out the commands.
“Lights,” Mrs. Parrish ordered.
Maria hit a button on the wall and shades slid down over the windows and the lights in the cabin dimmed and then went dark.
Mrs. Parrish leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes.
Maria sat with her back against the galley wall, legs stretched out. George lay next her and put his head on her thigh.
She put her hand on his head and gently stroked his fur.
TRIPLER ARMY MEDICAL CENTER, OAHU, HAWAII
“Careful,” Nurse Cummings warned.
Kelly Reynolds tried lifting herself out of the wheelchair on thin, frail arms. Even though she weighed only eighty pounds, about half her weight before being trapped with the guardian computer underneath Easter Island, she wasn’t able to support herself.
She was a big boned woman and was skeletal with her clavicles prominent, her face drawn. Her hair had already gone grey before her recent ordeal. Now over half of it had fallen out.
She collapsed into the chair. “You could have stopped me. You knew I couldn’t stand.”
The two women were on a terrace of Tripler Army Medical Center, just north of Honolulu and east of Pearl Harbor. They had a commanding view of the south shore of Oahu.
“I could have,” Cummings said, “but trying counts. And you didn’t hurt yourself. One day you will stand. Then you’ll take some steps with the aid of the parallel bars. Then more with the aid of a walker. Then you’ll be running marathons. But it all starts with a try.”
Reynolds sighed and tapped the side of her head. “There’s so much in there that I can’t sort out. So much the guardian exposed me to.”
Cummings didn’t say anything, having learned long ago to let patients vent.
“The truth,” Reynolds said. “I told Turcotte the truth. But it’s very confusing.”
“You’ve been through a lot,” Cummings said.
“But I don’t understand so much of it,” Reynolds said. “It was like watching a movie played at fast forward, very fast forward, but parts of images were blacked out, so even if I could keep up, what I was seeing wasn’t complete.”
“And there was no closed captioning, I bet,” Cummings said. “I always have that on. My husband hates it when I turn the sound too loud.”
Reynolds smiled. “It was a really bizarre experience. I guess it’s what virtual reality will be like. As if I was in the midst of things, observing. Seeing and hearing.”
“Could y
ou smell?” Nurse Cummings asked.
Reynolds shook her head. “No. It was more like a movie. But all around me. As if I were immersed in it.’
“But it wasn’t real, if you didn’t smell anything,” Cummings said. “Smell is the strongest of the senses, even though we usually don’t focus on it unless something is truly striking.”
A tear slide down Kelly Reynolds’ emaciated cheek. “I’m scared.”
Nurse Cummings put a hand on Kelly’s. “You’ve been through a very difficult time. It’s part of the healing process to be scared.”
“No, you don’t understand,” Reynolds said. “I’m scared I lost my mind in that cavern under Easter Island. Or part of it. That I’m not all me any more. That the guardian took as much from me as it gave. And I don’t know what it took.” She looked up at Cummings with red-rimmed eyes. “I didn’t get a chance to tell Turcotte even a tenth of what I saw.”
“You’ll be able to,” Cummings said. “But you have to get healthy first.”
“I should be at Area 51,” Reynolds said. “That’s where this all started. That’s where Turcotte was headed. That’s where they caught my friend.” Her voice dropped to a murmur. “Johnny. Johnny Simmons. They took his mind. The people at Dulce”
Cummings had little clue what Reynolds was talking about. She indicated the terrace. “This is about as far as you’re going to get today. You have to remember, you were written off for dead not long ago.”
The nurse’s words were prophetic in a macabre way as a small black hole suddenly appeared in Reynolds’ forehead, her head snapped back and the back of her skull was blown away.
AREA 51
Lieutenant Colonel Rennie had served with the New Zealand SAS in Afghanistan, one of a handful of soldiers in his country’s military to have fired a shot in combat. More importantly, he’d been shot at, seen comrades hit, and had thus learned to respect what was only theoretical to those who had not ‘seen the elephant’.
That was a quaint phrase he’d first heard at an American Special Forces Forward Operating Base in Afghanistan. While some of his comrades had pretended to understand what it meant, he’d asked for clarification. The answer: to experience combat.