by Bob Blink
"Let's get this done," The President said tiredly, directing his chief negotiator to come with him into the cold night air. He and the rest of those that had flown with the President wouldn't be returning to the White House. A series of dark SUVs were waiting off to one side to take them home once the President had departed and the cameras stopped rolling. The Secret Service team that had traveled with him would also be replaced by the team waiting below.
Ten minutes later the President grabbed the railing and climbed the three steps up into the chopper, turning to take his seat, happy that he didn't have to endure the cold any longer. He pitied those who had waited for his plane to arrive. As he sat down, he was surprised to find himself facing his Vice President. He was doubly surprised because he'd never been met this way before, and protocol had them always traveling on separate vehicles in case of mishap.
"Rod?" he said, "What are you doing here? You caught me by surprise. Why are you hiding out of sight?"
"I didn't want to mess up your photo-op, and I didn't want the reporters guessing why I might want to see you immediately upon your return."
The President was immediately concerned. "It must be important."
"It is."
"Tell me about it."
"Not here. For one thing it would take too long, and this isn't the place. You are also going to need to see some proof, which I don't have here. We are set up in the war room at the White House. As soon as your press conference is finished, I'd like you to meet us there."
"Us?"
"Senator Conroy and General Hunter." He didn't mention that the President's personal physician would be there as well. Despite the unlikelihood that the President could have been compromised, none of those in the know were going to be comfortable until that had been verified. The Presidential physician had been cleared, and was someone the President trusted implicitely, so they hoped he would go along with the man's suggestion.
"Damn! I'd hoped for a glass of scotch and a quick trip to bed."
"Bring the scotch. I think bed will be a long time off."
Further conversation was impossible as the chopper began to rev up for liftoff. They could have communicated via the sound headsets, but those were not secure, and the President realized whatever was up, it wasn't to be spoken of openly.
The four men had been waiting almost a half hour when the door opened and the President stepped into the room. They spotted the Secret Service team outside just as he closed and secured the door. The President looked at them, obviously surprised to see his doctor there as well.
"All right. What is this about?"
"Before we continue, we have a request," the VP said. "We'd like the doctor to run a simple MRI on you. I know that's an odd request, but I promise you the reason is very important, and that you'll understand after we explain."
"An MRI? What is hell for? I'm completely healthy. Ask the doctor there. I had my last physical not three weeks ago."
"We understand that," the Chairman agreed. "But not an MRI."
The President glanced at the four faces. Three of them were people he trusted more than almost anyone he knew. Conroy was the opposition, and he didn't particularly like him, and was surprised he was part of this. Normally Rod would have alerted the President to the details of any issue before someone from the opposition was present. He was also tired, and irritable, and in no mood for screwing around.
He took a sip of the expensive scotch, and said, "It doesn't work that way. I'm the President, and I decide how things are done. Now tell me what this is about."
"I told you that'd be his response," Conroy said.
The VP sighed, and nodded.
"Okay, but after we explain, you'll agree to the test. That's our condition. If you refuse afterwards, I'll personally make an announcement to the press that we've invoked the 25th amendment to remove you from office. We are quite certain with what we have to tell you, we can easily get eight members of your cabinet to agree."
The President was stunned by his old friend's words.
"Threats, Rod? What the hell?"
"Everyone here has had the MRI. All of us before we learned what is going on. You can't be different, and I believe you will see that once we explain. But if not, then we have to be suspicious of your reasons."
The President took another pull at his drink, a long one this time, and glanced at the door where his defenders waited. Then he sat down, and nodded. "Tell me," he ordered.
"The briefing this time went more quickly. They'd created an executive version of the situation, and allowed the President to decide when he wanted more background. Even so, the President's drink was long finished before they completed their report.
"You can back all this up, Chet?" he asked the General.
"Everything," the General agreed. "We can show you the video, and we have almost five hundred people on board already."
The President thought for a few moments, then said, "I want to meet with these three clones that are on our side. I don't need to see their proof of what they claim they are. I wouldn't understand it. I'll trust Doc here that what you say is true. We need to get the law off their asses if this is true and they've been working to help us all along. What about the FBI? Are we good there now that Baker has been taken care of?"
"We believe so, but the Director needs to be scanned like everyone else," Rod explained. "This is too important to take any chances. That holds for everyone who becomes part of the team."
The President nodded. "He can be scanned here in the morning, right after me."
The VP relaxed. He'd believed the President would see their concern, but now he'd voiced his agreement. That alone was almost proof he was clean.
The President wanted to know how many aliens, where they might be, how to contain or kill them, and if they were in other countries as well. He had more than two-dozen questions by the time he'd run down, ending with what action they might take now that their presence in the city had been revealed.
"All good questions, sir," General Hunter agreed, "and most we have no answers to. We have been working to build a team that can find some of the answers."
"Then here's what we are going to do," the President said. It took him almost fifteen minutes to explain his initial wishes. There might be some who didn't like him, but no one would ever be able to claim he didn't function well in a crisis.
Chapter 50
Three days Later
"What a change," Mark noted as he, Steph and Glen were escorted by a member of the White House staff to the limo that would be taking them back to the Pentagon. "A couple of days ago we were among the top ten most wanted criminals in the country. Today we spent an hour with the President."
"He made sure all of us were cleared of everything," Steph agreed smiling.
Actually, there had been no formal announcement to the news media. That was thought to be counterproductive. As quickly as the public forgot about such things, showing their photos could easily cause more to recall the old story than understand the change in their status. But every law agency in the country would now know they were not being sought and had been formally cleared of all charges. Even so, Mark intended to continue to lie low for a while until the information had a chance to circulate and sink in.
"Too bad Jessie didn't live to see it," Glen said.
Mark grimaced. He'd been having similar thoughts all through the meeting with POTUS. He still couldn't believe she was gone, and was having trouble adjusting to the reality of her loss. He wasn't even certain what their status had been. They spent that one night together, and never really had an opportunity to follow up on it. Only once had they discussed the matter briefly, and that was inconclusive in his memories. Even if they weren't destined to be together, it had been Jessie that had brought him fully into this, and made him realize what was happening. Without her, he knew he'd have been one of the casualties along the way. They'd lost others, but Jessie was the person whose death cut most deeply for him.
He
knew that Jessie hadn't been one for ceremony, but she would have liked to be here for today. To be formally cleared by the President himself would have been very gratifying for her. She also would have liked to see this through to the end, one thing that made Mark determined to find the enemy and see him eliminated. The dull ache inside was a constant reminder of his loss.
"Here you are," the Presidential aide said, interrupting his thoughts. Mark looked at the shiny limousine, comparing it to the vans and stolen vehicles that he'd become accustomed to of late. Then he slipped into the seat across from his companions. They'd all go back to the Pentagon, but then they'd go their separate ways. Tom Burrows had already returned to the FBI.
Steph would be going back to the labs where she was working with the other engineers that had been brought on board. Karl was there as well, which Glen wasn't too happy about, but finding the electromagnetic signature once again that Karl had initially spotted was key to finding the aliens. The strange fields had been carefully analyzed, and while the nature might be understood, no one could imagine how such complex fields could be produced, especially without rooms full of equipment dedicated to the task. Copies of what should be looked for had been sent to every power facility in the United States asking that measurements be taken and anything that resembled the strange signatures be immediately reported. Thus far, they'd found nothing. The Capitol Power Plant had, of course, been quite thoroughly examined, and nothing found. If the aliens had been there, they were gone now, and no trace of them could be found, nor how they'd come and gone.
Steph could think of other facilities that should be monitored, but at the moment their team was overwhelmed dealing with questions and the reports coming in. Once they caught up, an expanded search might have to be initiated. Thus far, no one outside our own government had been told of the strange encounters. Until the aliens themselves had been spotted, and hopefully killed or captured, the official position was to keep the matter secret.
Glen was working with a team assembled to investigate the alien weapon in greater detail. They had nine of the devices, three of which were now fully discharged and non functional. Engineers were struggling to decide what kind of destructive tests might reveal more than the previous efforts along those lines. Two shots were planned from the functional devices, one from each of the two different style of weapons, but once again, no progress had been made as discussions bogged down over what instrumentation should be in place for the tests. More shots had been vetoed since it was uncertain how many remained, and these were the only weapons that had been successful against the alien's energy weapons.
Mark was working with Colonel Jones' team to consider what kind of weapon might be fielded against the strange weapons. Mark wasn't a weapons designer, but he was one of two that had engaged the devices successfully using the alien blasters, and it was felt someone who'd been there ought to be part of any discussions. He thought his involvement was pointless, and felt very much out of place. He also wondered how they expected to develop something in a matter of days, which was probably all the time they'd have before Steph's team discovered where the aliens were actually hiding. He knew the three of them would be called at that time, since they were the only people that could use the one weapon that was known to be effective.
Mark thought about the meeting he'd been in just before being sent off to meet the President. Several eager military types were considering what in the available inventory might prove more effective than the assault rifle, which had been completely ineffective.
"How about grenade launchers?" one of the men asked. "Or even the FGM148? They might have enough explosive power to do some damage before the device is able to destroy them. The blast might strip away that electrical field and get at the guts of the things."
Mark knew the 148 was the current anti-tank weapon that was man portable. The problem was, they simply had no idea what might work, and there was nothing to run tests against. It was also a big weapon to carry around. Whatever they chose, and there was no time to develop something new, which would most likely fail, and which meant a lot of men were going to die uselessly.
"These things are electrical?" one of the Navy Chiefs asked. "Squirt water at the damn things. A fire hose or the like. Any fool knows that water and electrical equipment don't mix. Get some of the Navy's shipboard firefighters in here. They are used to fighting fires in closed spaces, much like the inner levels of these power stations."
Of course, the idea received a lot of ridicule.
"You expect the teams to haul hundreds of feet of hose and bring along a few fire trucks with a water supply?" one of the engineers said.
"I realize it wouldn't be a practical solution in most environments, but you've been saying we are likely to encounter these creatures in another power facility. Such places are well equipped against fire, and would have stations already in place. Someone would only need to move from fire station to fire station, and deploy what is already there. Those hoses have a significant reach. Bet the odds are better with the hoses than any of these other solutions you're coming up with," the Chief shot back.
The problem was, Mark wondered if he might be right. Other ideas had been put forward for a weapon that might be able to ground the strange spheres, a deployable wire mesh for instance, but even if that might work the time to develop and test made it unfeasible. Well, he'd find out when he learned how the argument had played out.
More days passed. Mark was impressed with the speed with which the team expanded and resources were brought to bear on the problem. A large military force was in place ready to respond. Only the military brass knew what the real enemy was. It was impractical to clear every soldier in the time available, and it was unlikely that many, if any had been infected. Besides, the secret would be lost if those at the fighting level learned what was being sought.
That was the positive side. On the negative side, no progress had been made on weapons, or more importantly, on finding the aliens. It was as if they had completely disappeared. None of the reporting facilities reported finding the strange electromagnetic emissions, and no attacks of any kind were forth-coming. The President was clearly pissed, and fearful they were going to look foolish. It didn't help that despite running literally more than a thousand scans, they hadn't found a single brain that had been altered with the strange nodes. Some were starting to doubt they existed, despite Mark and his friends that clearly carried them.
"What about those supposed clones you have men tailing?" he asked Colonel Jones. "And the one you said was inside NSA? What are they doing?"
"Nothing unusual," the Colonel admitted. "Since the day that the Johnson clone was taken, they have returned to their normal routine. One wouldn't know they were anything but normal people."
"Round them up," the President demanded. "Bring them in and test them and see what we can learn. The last time we grabbed some of them, it stirred up the aliens. Let's see what we can get going. I'm real uncomfortable with the way things are. They must be planning something we won't like."
"I'm not sure we have the authority to do that," the Colonel objected. "They haven't taken any action that proves they are what we believe."
"They were spotted with those alien guns, weren't they?" the President countered. "On my authority, go get them."
Over the next day a covert plan was put in place. All of the suspected clones would be taken at the same time. They would be apprehended at night, in their homes. Unlike the frontal assaults in the past, an odorless knockout gas would be used while they were sleeping. They'd go under without realizing they were being attacked, and then injected with a compound to ensure they remained under while they were transported and scanned. Their phones, iPads, and the like would be confiscated and checked at the same time. After verification of what they were, they'd be used to try to trigger a response from the hidden aliens.
The sweep of those they were watching went smoothly and as professionally as one might have hoped. Soon they were in the spec
ial medical lab and being tested. The results, however, were much different than expected.
"None of them?" the President said when the status was reported to him.
"None have the node," the Colonel confirmed. "None of their electronics have been altered like those we have checked before. These appear to be normal people, not clones."
"How do you explain the fact we have pictures of them with the alien weapons, and that woman at NSA was seen escorting Johnson around?"
"I can't," the Colonel admitted. "None of the weapons were found during the raids."
"Dr. Thompson once told me that the aliens could have modified the brains without resorting to the visible node," the VP noted. "Maybe these are a new variant, and our test isn't going to be effective?"
That was a possibility none of them wanted to consider.
"Have the brain scans checked thoroughly for any other modification," the President ordered.
"Dr. Thompson ran every possible test when we discovered there were no nodes. He has had three independent experts look for anything out of normal, and nothing has been found."
"They're cleaning house," Senator Conroy said after thinking about what they were finding.
"What do you mean?" the VP asked.
"These aliens can make clones with the control nodes whenever they want. Why can't they make a clone without, and put the person's normal memories in place. They must know these individuals could be suspect, so maybe they have replaced the controllable clones with these. These people will have no idea what we are talking about. We look, we find normal humans. They can be replaced later, or others can be made in their stead. We are also finding no sign of the aliens anywhere. They are covering up and going covert. How can we sell the idea of an alien invasion when there is no evidence? Will our allies believe us, or laugh at us? We can't even prove that the nodes that Mark and his friends carry are what we claim. We have nothing that says what the nodes do other than what people say."