* * *
“Second Black Hawk is down.” Colonel Zycki’s voice was flat. “All aircraft are down.”
Duncan pushed back from the control console and stared at Zandra. “There! Are you satisfied now? We have nothing!” She pointed at her watch. “Twenty-eight hours until the Airlia arrives and all we’ve managed to do is kill some damn good people.”
CHAPTER 33
The six talons were still crisscrossing each other’s paths as they moved toward Earth. The large open field in Central Park had been cleared and blocked off. UNAOC was busy preparing the format for the reception of the Airlia and determining the pecking order of world leaders who would get to meet Aspasia.
It was the middle of the night, four hours before dawn, the last dawn before the Airlia arrived. The headlines of the early-morning editions currently being printed trumpeted it as the last day the human race would stand alone on the face of the Earth.
Things behind the scenes in the Cube looked very different, though. Major Quinn had finally been brought fully into the loop by the Pentagon, based on the assumption that if anyone knew how to counter the foo fighters, it would be the personnel at Area 51. He also had forwarded intercepts from Zandra in South Korea to STAAR in Antarctica, and that was causing great consternation in the covert world in Washington as the CIA was denying she worked for them and no one could quite figure out who Zandra or her organization, STAAR, was, or how it had managed to gain such power.
Kelly Reynolds watched all this with dismay overlaid with grief over the news that Peter Nabinger and Mike Turcotte were dead. She was in the Cube conference room with Quinn, listening to the latter’s video-conference call with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the President in the War Room under the Pentagon.
“What about this STAAR person you have there, Major?” General Carthart, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, asked.
“She’s still in the hangar with the bouncer,” Quinn answered.
“Any idea what she’s up to?” Carthart asked.
“No, sir.”
“The hell with that,” Hunt, the director of the CIA, snarled. “If none of us in this room know, then something is seriously wrong.”
“I don’t think so,” the President said. “There is a presidential directive authorizing STAAR. It was signed forty years ago by Eisenhower but it is still legal and binding today. I have to believe my predecessor had a good reason for signing it and deliberately keeping us in the dark.” The President turned to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. “General?”
Carthart leaned forward. “We’ve got twenty-four hours until the Airlia land. I agree we ought to proceed a bit more cautiously. Our actions might be precipitating the aggressive actions of the foo fighters. I suggest we hold off on taking direct action until we know for sure what is going on.”
“What about China?” Kelly asked.
“I recommend we cut our losses there,” Carthart said.
“And the foo fighters?” the President asked.
“The two that downed our aircraft in China are heading southeast,” Quinn said, “and are currently over the Indian Ocean.”
“Their estimated destination?”
“We believe they are going to a site in the Rift Valley where UNAOC has uncovered other Airlia artifacts.”
“What about this Antarctica business?” the President asked.
Quinn had the answer for that. “I think that STAAR took over a place called Scorpion Base. It’s the only logical place for these messages from the STAAR operatives to be terminating.”
“Anyone know anything about this Scorpion Base?” the President asked those in the War Room with him. When he got no reply, the President jabbed a finger at his camera, pointing at Quinn and Reynolds. “I want you to forward all information about the location of Scorpion Base to the War Room. We’ll proceed cautiously,” the President finally said, the strain of the last week showing on his face. “General Carthart, move the forces you need to cover the Airlia and STAAR sites.”
“I have a suggestion.” Kelly Reynolds was frustrated with these people and their defensive reactions.
“Go ahead,” the President said.
“Why don’t we just ask the STAAR representative here at Area 51 who they are?”
“That’s a good idea, Ms. Reynolds. Major Quinn, you do that. We’ll do what we have to on our end.”
The screen went dead and Kelly turned to Quinn. “He made the right decision about taking things slowly.”
Quinn didn’t look very agreeable. “What if he made the wrong decision?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “He made that decision, Kelly, because there is no other decision to make. Every time humans have confronted the Airlia’s equipment we’ve lost. Our best weapons don’t do us any good, so it’s easy to make a decision to keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best.”
“It’s all been a tragic mistake.” Kelly’s voice brooked no dissent. “Aspasia will clear this up when he lands.”
“What about Turcotte and Nabinger?” Quinn asked.
“I told them not to go,” Kelly said. “They should have listened.”
“But—” Quinn began, but she cut him off, whirling on him and getting close to his chest, poking him with her finger.
“No one is listening! No one! Not the President. Not you. No one. Don’t you understand? If we would only listen, it would all be all right, but we’re screwing everything up!”
Reynolds stormed off toward the elevator, leaving Quinn staring at her rapidly departing back.
* * *
Turcotte took stock of the situation in the growing daylight. They were only thirty meters from where the helicopter had crashed. The explosion had scattered wreckage in a hundred-meter circle and scorched the forest.
Harker, Howes, and DeCamp were battered but ready for action. O’Callaghan, the pilot, was nursing a broken hand but other than that seemed all right. Turcotte knew it was only a matter of time before the Chinese had aircraft flying overhead, searching for them. The terrain in the immediate area was extremely hilly and unpopulated.
“We need to get a message out,” Turcotte said.
Harker gave a bitter laugh. “How? We don’t have any radios. We’re screwed. No one knows we’re down here, and I don’t think anyone really gives a damn.”
Turcotte was looking about the clearing the chopper had torn through the trees. “Someone gives a damn. Dr. Duncan will be looking for us.”
“So?” Harker snapped. “How she gonna know we’re here and alive? And then how’s she’s gonna get us out?”
“I don’t know how she’s going to get us out, but I trust her to come up with something. But I do know how to let her know we’re here and alive.”
* * *
“Goddamn!” Major Quinn was fuming as he reentered the Cube. He quickly dialed the War Room in the Pentagon.
“The bouncer and Oleisa are gone,” he reported to the duty officer who answered.
“Gone?”
“They just took off. I guess we can’t ask Oleisa who the hell she works for now.” Covering the phone, he looked at one of his men. “Put Space Command’s link on screen. I want to know where our bouncer is going.”
CHAPTER 34
“No survivors,” Zandra said, throwing down the faxed computer imagery in front of Duncan. “Nothing but wreckage at all the crash sites. The Chinese are already all over the area where one of the Stealth fighters went down.”
Duncan picked up the photos taken by the KH-14 spy satellite and looked through them.
She paused at one of the photos and looked more closely. Her hand began to shake as she realized what she was seeing. “Somebody’s still alive. Either Turcotte or Nabinger.”
Zandra’s head snapped up from her computer. “How do you know that?” Duncan tossed the imagery onto the keyboard. “Look.”
“What exactly am I looking for?”
Duncan pointed. “Someone’s traced out the same Airlia high rune symbol for HELP that
’s written into the Great Wall, using pieces of the wreckage. We have to get them out of there. And we have to do it without the Chinese or the foo fighters stopping us.”
Zandra nodded. “It is time to confront our enemies.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Duncan demanded.
“It means we no longer stand and watch.”
“We being STAAR?” Duncan asked.
“Correct. Things have progressed past the point of no return.”
“And?” Duncan was out of her patience with her enigmatic comrade. “Do you have a way of getting those people out of China?”
“Actually, I have just the thing,” Zandra said.
* * *
Larry Kincaid was all alone in the control center. JPL was a ghost town, everyone anticipating the arrival of the Airlia in New York the following morning. It was as if decades of work at JPL had faded away in just a couple of days.
He heard the door behind him open and slowly swing shut. Kincaid was not surprised when Coridan, still wearing sunglasses and black clothes, took the seat next to him.
“Surveyor in a stable orbit?” Coridan asked.
“Yes.” Kincaid didn’t ask how the man had come up with calculations that would have taken his own scientists and computers days to figure out.
“Is it still powered down?” Coridan asked.
Kincaid nodded.
“There’s something you need to do,” Coridan said.
Kincaid waited.
“Bring up the data link for Surveyor, please.” Kincaid finally broke his silence. “Why?” “Because we’re going to take care of some unfinished business.”
* * *
In the South Atlantic a U.S. Navy carrier task force headed by the supercarrier USS John C. Stennis was steaming due south toward Antarctica at flank speed. They had the location of Scorpion Base plotted, and the operations officer was busy figuring when would be the earliest the ship would be in range to launch aircraft to make it to that location and back.
In the other major ocean, the U.S. Navy was deploying its Pacific Fleet in two areas: half heading toward Easter Island, the other half heading for the spot in the ocean under which lay the foo fighter base.
Just above the foo fighter base the crew of the Greywolf huddled together, trying to draw warmth from each other’s bodies. They were still slowly descending, but after knowing what had happened to the Pasadena there were no more complaints from Emory.
Three thousand meters above the submersible, the two surviving Los Angeles-class submarines also waited, running silent and powered down, biding their time, the crews full of thoughts of revenge but without a clue as to how to wreak that revenge without suffering the same fate as their sister ship.
CHAPTER 35
“We’re not going to be able to hang around here much longer,” Harker muttered, looking about the countryside. They’d spotted some Chinese helicopters to the south earlier in the morning, but so far their position remained undiscovered.
Turcotte could sense the pessimism and unease in the Special Forces men he was marooned with. They wanted to start moving, get out of the area of the crash, and make for the nearest border. The fact that the nearest border was over a thousand miles away and with Mongolia didn’t faze them much. They just wanted to do something, rather than wait for the Chinese to show up.
But Turcotte knew their only chance to get out in time was to hope that the high rune symbol he’d put around the nearby crash site using wreckage would be picked up by a satellite and that Lisa Duncan would figure it out. Of course, he wasn’t too sure how she was going to get them out, but he figured anything was better than trying to walk out.
“What the hell?” O’Callaghan said, standing up and staring to the east.
Turcotte spotted what the chief was looking at: a bouncer coming in fast and low. The disk raced up to their position and halted. It slowly came down until it was resting on top of the wreckage of the Black Hawk. The Special Forces men raised their weapons and aimed.
“Hold your fire,” Turcotte ordered.
The hatch in top opened and a woman stuck her head out. “Hurry up!” she yelled.
Turcotte didn’t need a second invitation. He ran toward the bouncer, followed by Harker, O’Callaghan, and the other Special Force soldiers. He scrambled up the sloping deck and then down inside.
An Air Force pilot was strapped into one of the two depressions in the center floor, his hands on the controls. The woman who had called out to them was standing off to one side near the communications console that had been put in. She immediately reminded Turcotte of Zandra — in fact, for a second he thought it was her, but then he noted that she was a couple of inches shorter than the agent they had left behind in South Korea.
“Whoa!” O’Callaghan said as he dropped down next to Turcotte. Being inside a bouncer took a lot of getting used to. The hardest thing was the disorienting effect of the skin of the craft appearing to be transparent from the inside. Majestic had never quite figured out how the Airlia technology did that, but it was difficult to remain calm as, now that all were on board, the bouncer lifted, the ground seeming to move away under their feet.
“I am Oleisa,” the woman said.
“Are you with Aspasia or Artad?” Turcotte asked.
The woman had a blank look on her face. “I’m with STAAR. I’m here to take you to Zandra in Korea.”
Turcotte shook his head. “I need to get to the Rift Valley in Africa.” The pilot looked up from his seat.
“Osan Air Force Base,” Oleisa said. The pilot returned his attention to flying.
“Listen—” Turcotte began, but the woman raised a hand.
“We will go to Africa after we pick up Zandra. It will not take long.” “What about the foo fighters?” Turcotte asked.
“They haven’t picked us up yet,” Oleisa said.
“And if they do?”
“We’ll deal with that if it happens.”
* * *
Lisa Duncan was surprised when Mike Turcotte wrapped her in a big hug as she climbed down inside the bouncer that was now parked on the runway at Osan Air Force Base. The entire area was surrounded by flashing lights as the air police blocked it off.
“Thank you” was all Turcotte said, before turning away for a moment to collect himself. The stress of the last couple of days — all the losses, all the emotions he had kept at bay while trying to keep his mind focused on the mission — was finally breaking through.
Zandra had also come on board, the Special Forces men and helicopter pilot debarking prior to her getting on board, leaving the pilot, Turcotte, Duncan, Zandra, and Oleisa as the only passengers.
“We have to leave now,” Zandra said, sealing the hatch.
Turcotte turned back. “The Rift Valley?”
Zandra nodded. “Do you know how to release the ruby sphere?”
“Nabinger told me,” Turcotte confirmed.
“Good.”
“How come you don’t know?” Turcotte asked as the bouncer took off and the pilot accelerated to the southwest.
“What do you mean?” Zandra asked.
“You work for the Airlia. You’re part of them. How come you don’t know? Hell, for all we know, you’re Airlia yourself.”
“I’m not Airlia nor do I work for them,” Zandra said. “I work for the human race.”
“I thought you worked for STAAR?” Turcotte pressed.
“Yes, I do.”
“And it is?” Duncan asked.
“Strategic Tactical Advanced Alien Response team,” Zandra said. “When Majestic discovered the mothership and bouncers, President Eisenhower knew that Earth had been visited by aliens. It seemed perfectly logical for the government to consider what would happen if Earth made live contact with an alien life-form.
“A committee was formed of the leading experts at that time, including psychologists, military, scientists, sociologists; anyone who might be able to contribute was invited. They sat and brain-stormed for
several weeks, then issued what they simply considered an academic and theoretical recommendation for a hypothetical situation: that a secret government organization be formed to be in place to deal with live first contact.”
Zandra paused, those in the bouncer hanging on every word, as they flew over the South Pacific, heading south before they would turn east toward Africa.
She continued. “One of the most important stipulations of the report was that the organization, which was named STAAR, have the highest possible security clearance and have an authorization code to be able to take action when necessary without having to go through administrative channels. It was felt that time would be of the essence in case of live contact and STAAR, since it was dedicated to the mission, would be in the best position to decide on a response.”
“That’s circumventing the democratic process and our elected leaders,” Lisa Duncan said.
“It was felt to be necessary by the elected leader at the time,” Zandra replied. “The idea is quite logical if you think about it. Rather than divert a large amount of resources, and thus a large amount of scrutiny, to STAAR, Eisenhower simply gave it the authority to use resources that already existed, whether they be military or CIA or NSA or anything else, to gather intelligence and, when the time came, to take action.”
“So you’ve been waiting all this time?” Turcotte asked.
“Yes.”
“Why haven’t you done something before now?”
“Our charter and authorization for action under the presidential directive is very specific. Our jurisdiction is only over live contact with alien life.” “And now?” Turcotte asked.
“Now, since live contact is pending, we must act.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m not sure,” Zandra said. “Our course of action has not been decided, because we don’t have enough information. It might be to welcome Aspasia and the Airlia with open arms or it might be to oppose him with everything we can muster in a fight to the death.” She turned to the communications console. “I’d like to bring my superior, Lexina, in on this.”
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