Scarborough turned away from these dreadful floppings and twistings to attend to Myers; Cunningham could do no harm now. Myers lay on the floor, breathing slowly and shallowly. Scarborough knelt down by him, taking the gun from his hand.
The man’s eyes fluttered open, gazing dimly at Scarborough as though from a far distance. “This is best ... Family ... safe now ...” he said in a low voice. “Scarborough ...”
“Yes, Myers. What is it?”
“Camden. Down the hall. Tum left. Four doors. I left it open. Your friend, Jake Camden. Not in good ... shape ... but better than I am.” He coughed up a gout of blood. His eyelids trembled and it looked as though the little light left in the eyes was guttering out.
“Myers ... no!” Don’t ... wait ... You have to tell me ...”
“Tell you?” A slow muttering of lips.
“Diane! My daughter. Where’s Diane!”
The head shook slightly. “They never took Diane, Ev. That wasn’t the CIA, it wasn’t ... the Editors and Publishers ...”
“Jesus Christ, then what happened to her ...?”
The last words gurgled up from Myers’s lips like the amen to a benediction. “The Others have her, Scarborough. The Others ...”
“Others? What the hell are you talking about, man?”
But the lips were still now, the light all gone from the eyes.
Edward Myers was dead.
“Goddammit!” cried Scarborough. He looked up. Julia Cunningham was still feebly moving in the spray of glass and drugs and blood, her hands clawing at her face.
Scarborough got up and went to her.
“The Others, Dr. Cunningham,” he said between her moans, kneeling by her. “Who are the Others?”
She opened her eyes and there was nothing but fear and horror in them.
“Get away! Get away from me!” she gasped.
“The Others, woman. Who are they? Where are they? Where is my daughter! Who are the Others?”
“You are, Scarborough,” she said in less than a voice, more of a croak. “You are.”
And then with one final racking paroxysm of pain, the woman died.
The woman had been crazed with the drugs. She wasn’t making any sense. Nonetheless, there was something he could do, and he did it. He went to the top of the desk where he had seen her poring through that sheaf of papers that was the report on him. He folded them up and stuck them in his pocket.
Myers was right, of course.
He had to get out of here.
He found Camden exactly where Myers had told him he would be. The man lay upon a table, looking as though he had just been through the bender of his life, and was about to check out of this veil of tears for good.
“Camden! Camden, man! Are you all right?”
“No. No, I’m not.”
There had been no sirens in the halls, no alarms, no running of booted feet. In fact, Scarborough had seen nobody. This part of the installation must be relatively understaffed. That made sense, considering the top secrecy of what went on here.
This was good. It meant that they had a chance to get out. If he could get Jake Camden here moving.
“How about a glass of water?”
“How about a glass of whiskey?”
“Water will have to do.”
Scarborough went down the hall, found a toilet which conveniently included a drinking-water facility complete with paper cups. He poured out two. The first he fed to Camden slowly. The next he dashed into Camden’s face.
“What’d you do that for?” Camden said, spluttering.
“Come on. No more time for fooling around. If we don’t get out of here now, I’m afraid we’re going to be stuck here for a very long time.”
That got Camden moving. “You’re right.” Weaving a little and clearly still not entirely oriented with the real world, Jake Camden got up and started wobbling toward the door. Scarborough grabbed his arm and steadied him. “Glad to see you’ve got that piece, though.”
“Too bad I can’t shoot very well.”
“You want me to take it?”
“Camden, thanks, but I’m afraid you’d accidentally shoot me!”
“Maybe you’re right.”
“Now the question is how do we get out of here.”
“You want to take a look at these facilities first? It’ll explain just a hell of a lot to you about what they’ve been doing;”
“You describe them to me later. Right now, I just want to get out of here.”
“What about Diane?”
“Myers says they don’t have her.”
“What about Myers?”
“Dead.”
“Shit. And that blonde doctor?”
“Very dead.”
Camden grunted. “I think I feel lots better.”
“I think she does, too.”
They hurried down the hall, not quite knowing where they were going but wanting to get there fast.
Chapter 37
The wind blowing through her hair, the map of the base flapping on the seat, the borrowed Toyota Celica smoothly eating up the miles, Marsha Manning drove toward the CIA installation at the far end of Kirtland Air Force Base.
Of course, it wasn’t marked as such on the map. In fact, it wasn’t marked at all—the only indication of buildings on the periphery of Kirtland was unmarked blocks. For all the map-reader might know, they could just be outhouses. There was absolutely nothing else close by, so it had clearly been the perfect place to house a secret operation.
Marsha just wanted to get there, as quickly as she could. By now, there was absolutely no question in her mind that Scarborough had run aground. There was no other explanation for his not getting to the Officers’ Club either on time, or late. She’d even given him the phone number that she could be paged by: no call, either.
And she kept an eagle-eye on the road for vehicles going the other way. This was the only road to the place, and the whole half hour she was on it, not one car or truck passed.
She just prayed that he wasn’t dead.
Somehow, though, she couldn’t believe he was. Whatever bond that they’d developed over their time together didn’t feel broken and Marsha knew, she just sensed, that he was still very much alive and with her.
He was just in deep trouble.
When she arrived and saw the fence and the gate, she knew there were going to be problems. But she’d suspected that there would be, so she had a plan of operations.
“Good afternoon, Lieutenant,” said the airman first class at the gate after the appropriate salute. “May I see your identification and your pass?”
“Certainly.” She gave him her ID, which he scrutinized much more carefully than they usually did at these points.
“And your pass.”
She handed him her specialist’s card, the one identifying her as a top computer systems analyst for the Air Force.
“That’s very well and good, but that’s not what I need. Who are you visiting here?”
“The computer people. They’ve got some sort of emergency, and they just sent me out to take care of it.”
“I’ve no notification here to expect you, Lieutenant Manning. In these situations, that’s the usual procedure.”
She sighed. “What, am I going to have to go all the way back to the main base to get something in writing?”
“Do you have a name I can call?”
“Yes.” Desperately, she wracked her brain for one of the names that Scarborough had used. “Doctor ...” she began, not quite sure what might follow. “Doctor Julia Cunningham. Please call her and she’ll come out personally and make sure I get in. Will that be sufficient?”
The guard did not smile or even nod his head. He just went back into his booth, and began to page through a book. He lifted a phone from its cradle and commenced dialing.
So what does the heroine do now? she wondered. Put the pedal through the medal and crash through the gate post? Not especially smart, really, as they weren’t exactly making them out of e
asily breakable wood anymore, but rather of a quite sturdy alloy. No, the thing to do was just to wait, and bluff if she could. .
Yes, wait it out. Play it as it came.
About a hundred yards past the gate was a squat and spartan-looking building. From a side door two figures were emerging, and Manning immediately noted that they definitely did not look either Air Force or CIA.
Indeed, they looked rather ragged and furtive. They began walked the opposite way as though they were looking for something.
“I’m sorry, Lieutenant. But no one seems to be answering Doctor Cunningham’s line. I’m afraid that—”
“Airman, wait, I see a man I’m supposed to be working with. Walking out of that building over there. I don’t especially want to go all the way back to the main base. Is there any way that we can contact him?”
The corporal looked startled. “That’s highly irregular.”
“Airman, I happen to know that bullhorns are standard issue for guard gates. You could use that. Quickly.”
“I’ve never—”
“Airman, I appreciate the confidential nature of this installation. However, we are presently actually on military property, and I am your superior officer. Consider this an order!”
The airman reached down and pulled out the bullhorn. “What’s his name?”
“Captain ... Captain Everett. Mention my name.”
The airman put the horn to his lips, flicked the switch and projected his voice out into the compound.
“Calling Captain Everett. Attention, Captain Everett. Lieutenant Marsha Manning requests your assistance at the gate.”
Marsha could see the two figures tum around. For a moment, it looked as though they were about to bolt...
No, Everett. No, Everett, don’t! It’s me! Me!
... But they did not.
Instead, after a moment of conference, they started walking toward the gate.
“Thank you, Airman. I’ll make sure to commend you to your superior.”
“Wait a minute. He’s not in uniform! That’s no captain. I recognize him. That’s ...”
Marsha Manning took the gun from her purse and aimed it at the airman. She hadn’t wanted to do this, but this was a definite situation involving no choice.
“If you’ll turn around, you’ll see that it would be best for you to shut up and keep your arms where they are.”
The guy turned and his eyes started from their young head. Suddenly, at the sight of the bore of a gun directed at him, all his training drained away. He tried to say something, but apparently could not.
“Good. I want you to stay exactly like that, or I’m going to have to kill you.” A strong threat should be enough to keep him quiet for the minute or so it took for Scarborough to get there.
Whether they sent her to Leavenworth or not, her Air Force career was over now, anyway.
So what the hell?
“ ... Attention, Captain Everett! Lieutenant Marsha Manning requests your assistance at the gate.”
When the first electronically boosted words broke like distant thunder, the first impulse Scarborough had was to run. Camden, recovering rapidly, was right on his heels. But the man grabbed Scarborough by his arm and hauled him back to a halt.
“Hey, man! I think they’re calling you!”
That was the precise moment that the “Marsha Manning” part of the message sunk in.
He turned around.
There, some distance away, a blue Toyota Celica stood in the shade of the guard-post awning. Scarborough’s eyes were good, but not that good—he could not see who sat in the car. But he could see that it was a female by the fall of long hair.
Marsha! She’d come for him after all! And there she was, right on the edge of escape.
All they had to do was to get there.
“Come on!”
Camden did not have to be prompted further. In an incredible burst of speed for a man in his state of health and mind, he virtually loped ahead of Scarborough’s more stately run.
Ah, for the energy of youth, thought Scarborough as he gamely increased his speed.
The race proved to be a tie, with Camden’s energy all but shot by the time they reached the car. An infusion of joy almost overwhelmed Scarborough when he saw that the woman was indeed Marsha Manning—and that she was holding a gun on the guard, preventing him from calling for help.
Camden staggered to the other side of the sedan, opened a back door and flopped into the back seat.
“Marsha! Am I glad to see you!”
“Don’t get too excited. Who’s the guy in the back seat?”
“Jake Camden.”
“What happened to Walter?”
“Dead. A trap, not far from here. Tell you later. Right now, we gotta go.”
“You’re Scarborough,” muttered the guard. “You’re the guy out here ...”
“That’s right, my friend. Did you enjoy the show?” Anger bubbled up in him like a tide. He took the gun from Marsha Manning and struck the airman hard on the back of the neck. The man went down hard, but Scarborough caught him and propped him back up in the booth.
“What did you do that for? You’ve just assured my court-martial!”
“He’ll be all right. I just don’t want him making any calls any time soon.” Scarborough swung around, checked the periphery. He saw a couple men walking between buildings and a loading vehicle moving in the far distance and that was all. That was one of the fortunate things about this place—little activity, few people. They had a chance to put some miles between them, but in order to do so, this guy in uniform here had to be put out of commission, unobtrusively. Back in the booth there was a stool. Scarborough propped the man on the stool. He unplugged the telephone and used the cords to tie the man’s hands and feet.
“You got a handkerchief?” he asked Manning.
Marsha fished one from her purse. Scarborough used it to gag the man, making sure his nostrils were free so that he could breathe.
“Let’s just hope he stays out for a while,” said Scarborough. He ran around to the other side of the car, opened the door and got in.
“Okay,” he said. “Back this thing up and let’s get out of here.”
“I’ll second that motion,” groaned Camden from the back seat.
Chapter 38
When Marsha hit the main roadway, she pushed the accelerator all the way down to the floor and pushed the Celica as hard as it would go. They drove through the arid and deserted part of the base, a rooster-tail of dust trailing in their wake, as though the devil himself were chasing them.
Which wasn’t far wrong.
The problem with escaping from an Air Force base in a car in a wide-open place like New Mexico is that, once the Air Force finds out (or rather the CIA with Air Force facilities), it’s simply a matter of dispatching a few of the many helicopters doubtlessly on hand, bristling with hyper trained men and weapons, and either bringing you back or blowing you off the face of the earth.
Scarborough was more than aware of their dilemma.
He knew that to have any hope of escape, they had to get to a populated area as soon as possible. They had to ditch the car as soon as possible as well—but preferably not before they made it to the populated area. The latter would have to be Albuquerque. No other place close enough would fit the bill the way Albuquerque would.
According to the map of Kirtland Air Force Base that Marsha Manning had been smart enough to bring along, there was a gate at the southerly end of the base much closer to the CIA installation—and probably safer in the bargain.
It was toward this gate that Marsha now sped.
“I thought that something had gone wrong. I just had to come out, even though you told me not to.”
“Thanks,” said Scarborough. He was glad for the period of silence that had passed between them. It gave him time to catch his breath.
“You’re not going to scold me.”
He took a deep breath. “I do believe that whatever stubbornne
ss and pride left in this aging body has been thoroughly trampled out.”
“I’m so sorry to about Walter. And Myers ... He betrayed you? And where did Camden come from?”
Scarborough told her the whole story as best he could in the ten miles or so they had before they reached the south gate. When he finished, it was in view, about a mile away.
“My God. That’s incredible,” she said. “That doctor ... She sounds like she was just awful.”
“Bad chemistry, maybe,” said Scarborough. “We’ll have time to go through it all later.” He hadn’t told her the business about the aliens and his supposed connection to them. That was a little too much to deal with right now—he couldn’t even think about it.
“I trust you have the necessary identification?”
“You bet.”
“I’m afraid we don’t.”
“You don’t really need ID to get off a base. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he just waves us on through.”
“I’m sure we don’t look so hot.”
“You look serviceable enough, though. Your friend in the back seat, though ... wish I had a blanket to throw over him.”
Scarborough angled around and spoke to Camden.
“Jake, I want you to sit up straight and stay in the part of the seat farthest away from the guard. I want you to look straight ahead. If we are stopped, I don’t want you to move, I don’t want you to talk, I don’t want you to do anything but stay absolutely still and act as though you are in perfectly normal shape. Do you have that?”
“Uhnnnnh,” said Jake, mouth mashed against the black vinyl of the back seat.
“Jake ... Get up!”
Reluctantly, Jake’ got up. Scarborough smoothed down some of his fright-wigged hair and straightened his shirt the best he could. Thank God the guard wouldn’t be able to smell the guy—poor Jake smelled absolutely awful.
“Guard post, dead-ahead,” said Marsha. She hauled in a deep breath and braced herself for anything as she drove toward it.
The guard—another man in the usual uniform—flagged them down, signaling them to halt.
“Well,” muttered Marsha sotto voce. “At least he’s not waving his gun.”
The UFO Conspiracy Trilogy Page 73