Abducted (The Kwan Thrillers Book 2)

by Ken Warner

  “The feeling is mutual,” said Sydney.

  Another man joined them moments later—the very last person Sydney had expected to see here: Agent Babcock.

  Chapter Twelve: Fireworks

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Sydney demanded.

  “Such a pleasure to see you again, too,” he replied with a leer.

  “I contacted him,” Brian told her. “I saw the Malor capture the two of you. I couldn’t reach any of my military contacts, so I called Agent Babcock. He said he could get the military involved for a rescue operation, and so he did.”

  “Well, then thank you, I guess,” said Sydney.

  “You’re very welcome,” said Babcock. “If you’ll both come this way, the sergeant in charge of this operation needs to speak with the two of you.”

  “Now hold on,” said Miguel. “We’re gonna need someone to get these laser handcuffs off of us first!”

  “Wait here,” said Brian. “I think I know someone who can take care of that.”

  He ran off and returned a minute later with one of the soldiers, who was holding a small black device in one hand.

  “This is a short-range EMP generator,” the soldier said, showing them the device.

  “What does EMP stand for?” asked Miguel.

  “Electromagnetic pulse,” the soldier replied. “It’ll fry the circuits on that alien tech binding your wrists, but we’ll need to move away from our vehicles and equipment to make sure we don’t take out any of our own stuff at the same time.”

  They followed the soldier away from the vehicles. Using the EMP generator, he removed Sydney’s handcuffs first, and then Miguel’s.

  When they were done, they rejoined Babcock, who led them across the plateau, where they met another soldier.

  “Step into my office,” the man said, taking a cigar out of his mouth and indicating an area behind a Humvee.

  Babcock left them with the sergeant. He went back and boarded the helicopter, which took off again moments later.

  “So, tell me exactly how this went down, from the moment you encountered the hostiles until right now,” said the sergeant.

  They recounted the story for him.

  “Now, did you see any other humans inside that building?” he asked once they had finished.

  “None,” said Sydney. “We didn’t encounter any other humans anywhere in their compound.”

  Miguel nodded in agreement.

  “If there are any abductees in there,” he added, “they’d probably have them in the underground bunker I saw when they took me.”

  “Come again?” said the sergeant.

  Miguel told him about his abduction experience.

  “And you say the entrance to the elevator was inside of a butte somewhere over there?” the sergeant asked.

  “Yeah, that’s right,” he said.

  “Can you point it out to me?” asked the sergeant.

  “Sure, you can see it from the ridge over there,” said Miguel.

  They walked over to the ridge, and he pointed it out to the sergeant.

  “Very well,” he said. “We’ll take it from here.”

  “What are you going to do?” asked Miguel.

  “Hopefully, we’ll be rounding up the hostiles and getting them transported to a holding facility with the rest of their kind,” the sergeant replied. “If that doesn’t work out… well, you’ll see. You’ve got front row seats up here.”

  He walked away.

  Sydney and Miguel regrouped with Brian. They found a couple of rocks to sit down on and watch the military operation unfold.

  “My understanding is that they’ve planned this operation in three phases,” Brian told them. “First was your rescue. Next is going to be an air assault to take out their saucers and power station, and then they’ll be going in with ground forces.”

  A few minutes went by, and then the sergeant came jogging over to them.

  “Turns out that camp of theirs doesn’t show up on our satellite imagery,” he said. “I hear you might be able to help?” he added to Brian.

  “I might,” he replied and headed off to the command post with the sergeant.

  A few minutes later, Sydney spotted an airplane flying in low over the area. It launched two sets of missiles—two toward the building, and the other two toward the power station and saucers.

  All four exploded in the air, well before reaching their targets.

  “Uh… I’m guessing that wasn’t supposed to happen like that,” Sydney observed.

  “No, I imagine not,” Miguel agreed.

  Two fighter jets swooped out of the sky next, laying down gunfire on the Malor camp. Sydney couldn’t tell if that had had any effect, but moments later, the three Malor saucers streaked off into the sky in pursuit of the jets.

  “Uh-oh,” said Sydney.

  The aircraft had all moved out of range. Several minutes passed without their being able to see what was happening.

  Suddenly one of the fighter jets came back into view—it was on fire. The pilot ejected moments before the plane crashed into a mesa in a fiery explosion.

  One of the saucers shot by moments later and then disappeared behind the same mesa. It came back into view on the opposite side, shooting off into the sky.

  “Oh, look!” said Miguel, pointing off to the south.

  Sydney could make out a formation of six more fighter jets moving into the area.

  For the next several minutes, they had a view of the jets engaging the three Malor saucers. It was chaotic and challenging to follow. Then, one of the saucers crashed to the desert floor. A whoop went up from a group of soldiers watching the action from their command post.

  Two more fighter jets went down—the pilot was able to eject from one, but Sydney did not see anyone eject from the other.

  They shot down a second saucer a few minutes after that. The remaining fighters took another twenty minutes to eliminate the third and final saucer.

  “Well, that was quite the show,” said Miguel.

  “I hope the pilots who ejected are okay,” said Sydney.

  Several minutes went by, but they couldn’t tell what was happening. The Malor were scurrying around their camp, but it was impossible to tell what they were up to.

  “I wonder what they’re waiting for,” said Sydney. “Brian said there would be a ground assault.”

  “I don’t know, but I can tell you this is the most excitement this area has probably ever seen,” Miguel replied.

  “Have you always lived here?”

  “Nah,” he said. “Lived up near Vegas for most of my life. Came down here about six years ago now.”

  “And the trailer is your… uh… primary residence? Like, you live there?”

  “Sure do,” he said with a chuckle. “I did the whole get married, buy a house thing. That didn’t suit me, so after the divorce, I bought the trailer and moved down here. I love it, though—the freedom. I couldn’t stand being tied down, ya know? This way, I go where I want, when I want. Don’t gotta worry about being strapped down with mortgage payments or nothing like that. Feel like I want a different view out my front window, I pick up and move. Just like that,” he said, snapping his fingers.

  “I can see that,” she said with a nod. “How long were you married for?”

  “Oh, God, let’s see… Eight years, I guess.”

  “What happened?” she asked, but then immediately added, “I’m sorry—that’s way too personal, you don’t have to answer that!”

  “Oh, I don’t mind. Thing was with Katie and me, we were high school sweethearts. Went to UCLA together and then got married right outta college. We’d been together so long, grew up together, really, that getting married was something of a foregone conclusion, right?

  “But looking back, I think that was a mistake. I mean, we weren’t ever a great match. She always liked structure, and following a plan, and that sort of thing. I’ve always been more of a free spirit.

  “I ended up being a financial
planner, and getting my masters in finance if you can believe it, but that was mostly because of her.”

  “You don’t strike me as the financial planner type,” Sydney said with a grin.

  “Aw, it was hell. Couldn’t stand it. I was good at it, made a ton of money. Socked a good bit of that away, and that’s sure come in handy. But the work was pure tedium, and being cooped up in an office all day. Screw that.”

  “What did your wife do?”

  “Katie’s a mechanical engineer. She did physics in school but wasn’t interested in academia or anything like that. That’s what finally split us up—she had an affair with this guy at her company.”

  “Aw, I’m sorry,” said Sydney.

  “Don’t be, worked out for the best. We’d had plenty of problems before that—never got along, not since high school,” he said with a chuckle. “I think we’re both way happier now. Know I am.”

  “What do you do now?” she asked. “I’m guessing you’re not doing financial planning from your trailer?”

  “Oh, hell no,” he said. “I’m an author.”

  “Nice,” she said. “What types of books do you write?”

  “Westerns mainly, and crime thrillers. But I don’t know, everything I’ve seen, might be switching to more of a sci-fi genre!”

  “Hah, you’ve certainly got the life experience for that!”

  “What about you?” he asked. “You’re from somewhere out east, right? Near Washington?”

  “Yeah, I’ve lived in Maryland my whole life. Just outside of D.C.”

  “So, your place wasn’t hit in the attack, was it?”

  “No, luckily not. But it’s only a few miles from the destruction zone.”

  “Wow,” he said. After a moment, he added, “You got a significant other waiting for you back home?”

  “I do not,” she said with a grin. “I’m kind of like you, I guess you could say. I mean, I’m still doing the bought a house thing, but I’m way too independent to settle down with a guy.”

  “You mean you’ve never been married?”

  “I was engaged once,” she said. “The guy I was with in college proposed about a year after we graduated. I went with it, only because I always thought that was just the way life was supposed to go. But man, the thought of spending my whole life with just that one person… I don’t know—it was overwhelming. I mean, I loved him, but at the very least, I figured maybe we should live together for a few years first. You know, make sure it was right.”

  “He didn’t like that idea, I’m guessing?”

  “Ah, no. I called off the engagement and suggested we try living together for a while first. But he wasn’t having it. So, that was the end of that.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Hmm, what?”

  “Well, I’m just thinking he was a fool. It’s not every day you meet such a beautiful woman, who’s smart, and funny, and passionate…”

  “Aw,” said Sydney, feeling her cheeks flush. “That’s sweet of you to say!”

  Just then, she saw a commotion off to the north.

  “Looks like the ground assault is starting,” Miguel observed.

  Two columns of soldiers moved into view to the north. Over the next thirty minutes, more and more poured into the valley, surrounding the Malor camp.

  “Looks they’ve got at least four times as many troops as we saw aliens in that camp,” said Miguel.

  “More than that, I think,” said Sydney. “They’re certainly not screwing around down there.”

  They watched as the soldiers took up positions around the camp. Suddenly a group of Malor opened fire on the soldiers to their west—the ones positioned closest to Sydney’s vantage point.

  The soldiers returned fire. More Malor joined the fight. Before long, they overwhelmed the soldiers in that area. The Malor filed out of their camp in single file, hurrying along the dry stream bed. They had snipers stationed in key locations to lay down covering fire.

  “Oh, shit,” said Miguel. “They’re headed this way!”

  Sydney took a closer look and realized he was right.

  “We should be safe here, though, right? I can’t imagine they’d be able to climb that ridge…”

  “I don’t know about that,” said Miguel. “They seem pretty nimble. We should probably get out of here!”

  Just then, Brian joined them.

  “The Malor are headed this way,” he told them. “We need to leave—follow me!”

  They ran back to the military vehicles. The sergeant they’d met earlier was there, and he ordered the three of them into one of the Humvees. He sat up front, and one of the other soldiers took the driver’s seat.

  Moments later, the vehicles took off through the desert. Sydney found herself bouncing around in her seat as the Humvee sped across the uneven terrain.

  They drove for several minutes but then came to a stop. The driver got out of the vehicle.

  “Stay inside the Humvee,” the sergeant ordered them as he stepped out, slamming the door behind him.

  “What the hell is going on?” asked Sydney, staring out the windows, trying to get a look behind them.

  The soldiers had taken positions flanking the vehicles. They were armed, pointing their weapons back down the path they’d taken.

  Only a few moments later, Sydney heard gunfire. The soldiers were firing, but she couldn’t see their targets.

  Then she heard the metallic crackling of the Malor weapons. Dozens of them crested a nearby hill, swarming toward their position.

  The soldiers fired into the crowd. A couple of Malor went down; the rest pressed ahead.

  “Holy shit!” yelled Miguel.

  The Malor were on them. Sydney ducked down into the footwell, trying to keep her head below the windows. Brian and Miguel did the same. The gunfire outside their Humvee intensified, and she heard the sergeant shouting orders at the soldiers.

  Things quieted down after a couple of minutes. Sydney poked her head up to get a look outside. The Malor had moved on.

  The sergeant and the driver climbed back inside the Humvee.

  “We’re clear,” he reported. “They rounded up about half of them back there by their camp. The half that got away just overran us.”

  “What now?” asked Brian.

  “Calling in air support,” said the sergeant. “We’re gonna blow them away before they get to any populated areas.”

  “That didn’t work back at their camp,” said Miguel.

  “They had some sort of energy weapon back there,” said the sergeant. “But that thing ain’t mobile. They’ve got nothing with them now that can take our missiles down like that. We’re gonna stay put right here for a few minutes and stay out of the way while the planes do their job.”

  Minutes went by, and then Sydney heard and felt a series of three massive explosions. They could see the top of a large dust cloud rising above the nearby hills.

  “That’s it; we got ’em,” the sergeant reported. “Let’s move out,” he added to the driver.

  “You got them all?” asked Brian. “Half rounded up back at the camp, and the rest taken out with the missiles?”

  “There are a few lone stragglers, I’m told, run off on their own,” the sergeant replied. “But we’ll have them taken care of in no time.

  “Oh, and by the way, we checked out that butte you pointed out, where that cave entrance and elevator were supposed to be?”

  “Yeah?” asked Miguel. “And what did you find?”

  “Whole lotta nothing,” said the sergeant. “The side of the butte was recessed—that was causing the shadow we could see from the ridge. But there was no opening—it was solid rock. Our boys had a good look around the whole area down there and found no sign of any kind of underground bunker or anything.”

  The convoy made its way back to the road. They went right by the parking area where Sydney had parked their rental car, so they let them out there.

  “I don’t know about you two,” said Sydney, “but I’m starvi
ng!”

  “After what we just went through, how can you possibly be thinking about food?” Miguel asked.

  “What can I say? High-stress situations always make me hungry,” Sydney replied. “And besides, we haven’t eaten all day!”

  They agreed to stop at a nearby diner to eat.

  “I don’t understand it,” said Miguel once they’d sat down and ordered their food. “Everything else about that place matches what I remember from my abduction, but I don’t see how there could not be an underground bunker there.”

  “You said your memories of the whole ordeal were fuzzy, like a dream, right?” asked Sydney.

  “Yeah, it’s all fuzzy,” he confirmed.

  “Maybe you saw the shadow on the side of the butte, and your brain filled in the rest,” she suggested. “You were right about most of it. Did the inside of the building look anything like the exam room they took you to?”

  Miguel considered it for a moment. “Yeah, more or less,” he said, sounding uncertain. “The metal walls, and all.”

  “So maybe they performed the exams right there in that building,” she said.

  “I don’t know. The elevator didn’t seem any more or less real than the rest of it. Could there be another alien camp nearby?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Brian. “I was able to help them with their satellite—the Malor had set up a kind of cloaking shield over their camp—it dampens light waves in the visible spectrum, effectively making the area invisible to satellites. But their shield doesn’t block infrared, and the satellites could detect them in those wavelengths. They did scan the surrounding area, out to a 100-mile radius, and found no other camps.”

  “This is it, then,” said Sydney. “We shut down the camp, so that should be the end of the abductions, right?”

  “I believe so,” said Brian. “I’m guessing that that camp had been here for a very long time. Some rogue Malor probably joined them after the invasion, enabling them to increase the frequency of their abductions. But that’s it. We shut down their entire operation.”

  They finished their meal, and Sydney dropped Miguel off at his trailer. She and Brian went back to their motel. They said goodnight, and she retired to her room.

  But no sooner had she collapsed in her bed than Sydney got a text message from Miguel.