by Jerry Ahern
Later that evening, in his hotel room with a solid meal under his belt, Rourke had detail stripped the Detonics CombatMasters, using only the slide stops to begin the process, needing no other tools. The same could be accomplished on an ordinary 1911, but not as easily as with a CombatMaster. Using Break Free CLP, he’d re-lubricated, and then re-assembled the guns. The Alessi shoulder rig he’d carefully dried with a hair dryer he’d purchased earlier for the purpose. When the leather was nearly dry, he’d placed the CombatMasters in the holsters, so the leather would finish air-drying around them. He’d lit one of his thin, dark tobacco cigars, and then sat in a chair by the window, watching the lights of Bogota’s business and entertainment district for a time.
The television incorporated a music only channel. He tried it and, to his delight, one of Antonio Carlos Joabim’s magnificent sambas was playing, then still another played after that. He didn’t question his musical good fortune as he returned to his chair by the window, lit a second cigar and continued reading the copy of Gun World Magazine he’d picked up when he’d changed planes in Miami, on the way down.
Rourke had been contacted “in transit” while returning from the job in Latin America, picked up at Atlanta’s Hartsfield and driven in a police car—sirens, flashers and all—to Dobbins Air Force Base, just north and west of the city. He’d almost felt like a kid again. From Dobbins, he’d been flown north and west to an airbase quite near the Canadian border. That flight was a uniquely memorable experience, Rourke never having flown in an SR-71 before, albeit the aircraft was an SR-71B trainer.
He’d ridden in the elevated instructor’s mid-fuselage cockpit and realized two things. First, he would never forget the experience of flying in the famous Lockheed Blackbird, the fastest plane in the world, by all accounts. Second, whatever he was supposed to do when he got out of the plane had to be of extreme importance, in order to merit the cost and speed of the transportation.
Rourke considered himself either on a fool’s errand or privy to what may well be the most important discovery in the history of mankind. Ever since he was a kid Rourke had been told he was smart and a quick study, snaring a perfect 45T Score on the MCAT (Medical College Admission Test) and 1600 on the SAT. Had he done poorly on the MCAT, he was prepared to deepen and broaden his casual but abiding interest in astronomy and what lie beyond Earth, and aim his academics at the Astronaut Corps. Because of this never realized bent, Rourke had acquainted himself—as much as allowed—with the generally disappointing findings of Project Bluebook and its antecedent, Project Sign, as well as the Roswell Incident and the supposedly top secret projects at White Sands.
There were still persistent rumors concerning Hangar 18, either the one at Area 51 or the one at Wright-Patterson. He’d even learned much of what could be gleaned concerning Majestic Twelve and the rumored UFO crashes and other incidents which Rourke felt were generally too fantastic to be believed without a great deal of proof—which, if it existed, was unavailable to him.
He was reminded of a famous remark attributed to Napoleon. “History is a set of lies agreed upon.” He knew the last leg of this trip was not going to be unique.
The low end temperature range for Break Free CLP was minus fifty-eight degrees Fahrenheit. Conventional lubricant couldn’t be trusted at the temperatures Rourke was about to be experiencing, and he still had to go further North. Wind chill was only a factor on living things, of course, flesh and blood—not machines. The wind chill factor was something Rourke didn’t want to dwell upon, however.
“How much longer until we reach that spot you showed me on the map, Cal?” Rourke asked the man behind the wheel of the four-wheel drive Chevy Suburban.
“Not much longer, Doctor Rourke.”
“It’s ‘John,’ Cal,” Rourke reminded the considerably younger man. Cal French was an ex-Army Intelligence sergeant who worked as a contractor for the CIA. Many contractors had some of the highest security clearances, of course, but Cal’s apparently wasn’t high enough for this mission, one that Rourke had determined would be his last assignment before resigning his position as a Case Officer in the Central Intelligence Agency. He’d decided to resign while listening to “Desafinado” and smoking a third cigar back in Bogota. Ostensibly, he’d be resigning in order to devote his full energies to writing about and teaching survival skills and weaponcraft. But, more importantly, it would be a way, he hoped, to spend more time with his wife, Sarah, and their two young children, Michael and Annie, at their home in rural north-east Georgia—hopefully saving his crumbling marriage to Sarah in the process.
Once Cal stopped at the co-ordinates they’d both checked on the map, it would be Cal’s job to keep the Suburban from freezing up while waiting for Rourke to return from what was either a fool’s errand or the potentially most momentous discovery in human history. He didn’t know which to hope it was. The orders he’d received when the SR-71 landed had sounded like the set-up for a science fiction movie. Depending on what he found, he might not be allowed to leave the CIA alive. But, he’d cross that bridge when and if he came to it. If there were anything to find at all, he might be in on the prelude to global destruction or a new age—maybe both.
Spending his adult life preparing for the violent collapse of civilization, which he’d always seen as almost inevitable, hadn’t been easy on Sarah at all. She was the classic liberal, her pretty head in the sand. Sarah found even the contemplation of what she laughingly parodied as “…the end of civilization as we know it” abhorrent, let alone preparing for it.
Rourke sat in the Suburban’s front passenger seat on his way into a near blizzard because of a CIA mole in the Soviet KGB. The man had alerted his CIA handlers that Soviet radar had detected an unidentified object crashing in the northern most reaches of the common border between The United States and Canada, in the most remote part of Yukon River Valley, an area once disputed between the USA and Canada. Canadian authorities, supposedly, knew nothing of the suspicious object. In a rare example of interagency co-operation, NSA had confirmed Soviet chatter concerning a hastily assembled “working group” that included the KGB’s top UFO expert, Vassily Batrudinov.
The snow fell relentlessly, a howling wind from the North blowing it into drifts several feet high in many areas along the dirt track Rourke and Cal traversed. That the Suburban was still on what passed for a road at all was attributable both to Cal’s driving skills and Divine Intervention, Rourke thought.
“Any chance I can ask, John, what’s this is all about? I got a phone call, telling me to call in on the Covert Operations secure line and ask for Mary. The Covert Ops Director’s Secretary?”
“I know Mary. She’s a tiny thing. Good hearted person.”
“And, she’d tell me the assignment,” Cal pressed. “She gives me this laundry list of stuff I need to round up and do and told me where the snow tractor guy was going to meet you and—”
“And, Cal,” Rourke grinned, cutting him off, “I’d say you did a darn good job.”
“So, ahh—I don’t get to know a thing.”
“I’ll tell you this, Cal,” Rourke began. “What we’re doing is either going to be quite important or totally stupid.”
“What do you bet on, John?”
“The smart money’s on totally stupid; but, I’m not a betting man, anyway. Life’s enough of a game of chance.”
“Will you at least tell me?” Cal asked. “I mean, if it’s quite important or totally stupid?”
Rourke laughed. “Yeah; but, if it’s ‘quite important,’ I probably won’t tell you. Great job we’ve got, isn’t it?” Rourke laughed again.
Cal lit a cigarette. Rourke very much wanted to light one of his thin, dark tobacco cigars, but the smell of a cigar in a car with the defrosters blowing and the driver and passenger side front windows each cracked less than an inch would have become unpleasant relatively quickly. He wouldn’t have smoked at all; but, since Cal hadn’t asked before lighting up, Rourke mentally shrugged and asked, “What are
you smoking, Cal?”
“Ohh! Sorry, John.” Cal extracted the pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket. Unfiltered Camels. Rourke didn’t particularly care for cigarettes, but felt Camels were the best to be had. He took the offered pack, shook out a cigarette. “Need a light, John?”
“I’m good.” Rourke rolled the striking wheel of the battered Zippo under his right thumb, watching the laboring windshield wipers over the lighter’s flame. Rourke inhaled, exhaling as he said, “If we don’t get there soon, pull over and I’ll get out and get some of that snow off the windshield.” The snow was falling faster and colder than either the windshield wipers or the defroster could keep up with.
Racing sled dogs could travel at better than twenty miles per hour, Rourke knew, sustaining that pace for twenty miles or better. Once the Suburban stopped at the rendezvous point, no sled and dogs would be waiting—only a man and a machine, the man apparently with a security clearance more or less equivalent to Rourke’s own TS/SCI Access rating. Rourke and the other man would still have another forty miles to go before they reached the suspected crash site. A dog team would not be quick enough to beat the Soviet “working group,” if, indeed, there were one. With a typical ten-dog team, one could cover the forty miles in two and one-half to three hours, without risking pushing the team. With a snow tractor, they could cover that distance in less than two hours easily and have sufficient room to bring back anything they could from the possible crash site. Wind chill—he couldn’t help but think about it. Blizzard conditions killed. With a snow tractor, all other factors being equal, although he might be a bit more conspicuous, he’d have a better chance of getting out alive.
Rourke guessed they had about another ten more minutes before reaching the rendezvous. He ran a mental checklist. A rifle he would have neither time nor opportunity to test would be provided for him. A knife larger than his A.G. Russell Sting IA Black Chrome would be available. There would be emergency food and Thermos jugs of water and coffee. He reminded himself to urinate before getting underway again…
Chapter Two
The vehicle was red—not exactly inconspicuous. The extremely tall, skinny looking man standing beside it and shouting over the howling wind told Rourke, “It’s a 1972 Snow Trac ST 4. It’s got a flat 454 horsepower air cooled VW engine. Great machine! Drives just like a pickup truck—more or less.”
The Snow Trac was fully tracked, the sort of thing used to clear ski runs and well suited to more or less flat terrain. Importantly, the cab appeared to have great visibility. “I’ll show you the controls, in case something happens to me. We’ve got plenty of fuel. Any idea what we’re supposed to look for at the coordinates?” The man’s name was Dave Roth, his speech just a little Canadian sounding. Rourke guessed the man was a contractor, like Cal, but had the high enough clearance that he could see whatever was out there.
“Dave, I’m supposed to tell you when we’re nearly there. And, after we’re in route for a short while, I’m supposed to give you the final numbers for the coordinates. This is either pretty important or the guy who’s planned the operation is some asshole who reads spy novels too much. So, bear with me on this. Rifle and gear in the cab?”
The tall, thin man opened the door and Rourke stepped inside, Dave Roth right behind him. It was pleasantly warm out of the wind, albeit the Snow Trac trembled slightly just then in a heavy gust. Rourke opened his parka and shrugged out of it. Rourke noticed Roth eying the Detonics .45s. “Best I could do rifle wise was this.” Roth reached over to the rear of the cab and produced an H-K 91, the semi-automatic version of the G3 battle rifle. A dozen twenty-round magazines—obviously filled—were in a brown cardboard box the man lifted off the floor to show Rourke. “A couple of extra boxes—twenty-rounders—of ammo, too. Food, Thermos jugs, a First Aid kit. There’s a radio on the dash—there. It’s on one of the standard frequencies; so, be careful if you have to say anything en Claire.”
“I like H-K rifles. What kind of weapon you have?” Rourke asked, ignoring Roth’s admonition concerning communications security.
“Same thing. In the box there. If the Canadian government stumbles onto us, though, we’re somewhat fucked, Doctor Rourke.”
“Call me John. Why?”
“I can maybe talk us out of problems with the rifles. Your handguns? They can mean trouble this side of the border.”
“Well, we’ll just have to try to avoid trouble, won’t we?” Rourke changed the subject. “Navigation?”
Roth laid out maps…
The wind howling, near-blizzard conditions surrounding him, Rourke trudged the last quarter mile toward the crash site, his borrowed Heckler & Koch rifle in his right hand, a Geiger counter in his left. With the crash site in Canada, Rourke and the Russians—if there were any—were all violating Canadian territory.
The driving snow obscured almost all signs of anything out of the ordinary. He moved on toward the coordinates, stopping after another few minutes, taking a compass reading. He made it that he had another couple hundred yards or so. Cold, despite the borrowed parka and Wooley-Pulley, Rourke stopped, leaned the rifle against his hip and rubbed his double gloved hands together. With the wind chill, the temperature was already deadly. Off to his right, Rourke spotted a stand of pines. As the wind slackened for an instant and he was teased with momentarily better visibility, Rourke saw that several of the trees on the farthest edge of the stand appeared to have been damaged. Slinging the rifle from his right shoulder muzzle downward and forward, Rourke walked on, leaning into the wind.
As he neared the damaged trees, Rourke stopped, his right leg almost twisting as he stepped into a hole. Catching himself in time, Rourke drew back. The ground dropped precipitously where it shouldn’t have dropped at all. As he looked to his left, he understood. The crashing object had gouged out a trench in the ground. Rourke heard nothing from the Geiger counter, but the wind could have prevented him from hearing anything short of a shot. The needle moved but little, a normal background radiation reading. Edging away from the trench—doubly dangerous, covered with snow—Rourke followed along what he presumed to be its edge, contents of the two largest of his jacket pockets clinking.
It was then that John Rourke saw something remarkable. He had seen both of his children born, Lamazed with Sarah. In all his life, the instant of Michael’s and Annie’s births would always be more amazing than anything he could imagine. What he beheld a mere twenty yards or so from him was nearly that fantastic: major fuselage pieces of a wedge-shaped craft that was unlike any aircraft he had ever seen, bore markings he could not even fathom.
“UFO,” John Rourke whispered. He blinked. Rourke had a folding trench shovel in one of the cargo pockets of the parka. He slung the rifle across his back, opened the trench shovel and began to clear snow away from the largest piece of debris, guessing there was a debris field all along the trench.
There was still no sign of the KGB. Perhaps they weren’t coming, Rourke told himself, almost laughing. They would be coming. There was no time for subtlety. He was to find whatever he could that could be brought back for study, smuggled out of Canada. For everything else, explosives. He told Roth by radio, “Get in here; do what you can and get back here. Out.” The “do” part referred to videography. When he’d received his orders after disembarking the SR-71, Rourke had asked, “What if I find little green men?”
“They probably won’t be green,” the man in the suit and fedora hat, who looked like a politician had said.
“Okay. Not green, then.”
“If they can be returned for study—and, of course, treatment of any injuries sustained, well—remember, Doctor Rourke; it’s your medical background that makes you so well-qualified for this mission. You’ll have to determine what to do. Your country will support you, whatever your choice. We’d love to study—and help, of course—any survivors, should there be survivors. But, remains cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of our Canadian friends—we don’t want them alarmed—or our adversaries. A
nything—or anyone—you can’t bring back? Well, don’t leave anything alarming or incriminating behind, Doctor Rourke.” Rourke nodded.
Ice spicules stung at his face and pelted his goggles as he surveyed the possible debris field. Roth approached. It was a very good thing Dave Roth had lots of explosives in his snow tractor. Roth started taping, after a moment or two asking, “What’s that gray thing?”
Rourke put down his shovel and looked in the direction Roth’s camera was pointed. “I believe that’s possibly a dead alien life form,” Rourke responded after a moment. He picked up his shovel and started carefully picking his way across the debris toward the slender, arm-like appendage. He removed special gloves from one of his pockets, past elbow length, designed for reaching well up into the carcass of an animal. They were elasticized at the top. Rourke followed the arm toward a neck and a disproportionately large head. He felt everywhere he could think of for a pulse or some other sign of life. There was none.
The arm was exposed because some sort of clothing—a coverall, apparently—had partially ripped away. Roth was filming. The alien pilot wore no helmet, his spacecraft apparently all the environment and protection he usually needed. Rourke had a specially prepared medical kit, which would allow him to rapidly take tissue and blood samples. He also took one cornea, the eye large, brown, and soulful-looking. Familiar with a wide range of religious beliefs concerning the afterlife, he left the other, orders be damned.
“Aren’t you supposed to get everything you can? Gonna take his head?”
Rourke looked hard at Ross. “No. Start mining the wreckage and take your explosives back as far as you can along the debris field. All one frequency and I’ll have the detonator. Time permitting, I’ll open the skull and remove the brain—or, as much of it as I can.” Rourke started checking as quickly as he could for artifacts. The coveralls had a self-belt. There was a design on the buckle, most reminiscent of the overturned figure eight that stood for “Infinity,” but incorporating something eerily reminiscent of the mathematical symbol for “pi.”