"What's that?" Julie asked.
Elias raised his hands. "I just gotta picture this. See, I've seen Durning and Coopersmith. Durning looks like a bus driver and Coopersmith looks like a Playboy Bunny. Who's gonna believe they're married? I mean, what would be in it for her?"
"He's great in bed," Ham said.
"You CIA guys would know," Elias said with a shrug. "But what about the Japanese dude?"
"That's more of a problem," Julie said.
"Why?" Elias asked. "I mean, can't we ship him home right from here?"
"Yeah," Julie continued, "except that in New York, because the red dust works there, it's Earth-controlled territory. So once we get Durning and Coopersmith there, they're home free. But, except for L.A. being Bates-controlled territory, most of the West Coast is Visitor dominated. We've got to figure out a way to get him out of the country. It would be great if we could fly him out, but the Visitors' patrols make that too risky."
"Now that you're through retelling the Bible," Ham said, "are you ready to hear the plan I got worked out?"
"Sure, since you asked so politely," Julie said.
Ham gave her a dirty look. "It's not so tough. We've got some resistance people up the coast. We've also got a few
Navy subs patrolling the coast. We sneak Maragato up to one of these fishing villages, take him out on a fishing boat, and once we're out in the ocean where the Visitors and Nathan Bates's spies aren't, we transfer him to the sub. They sail to Japan, and voila!—he's home." Tyler looked at his colleagues for reaction. For several long moments, there wasn't any as they chewed over his idea. He drummed his fingers impatiently. "Well? It's a simple plan—there's not that much to think about."
Donovan raised his eyebrows. "It is a simple plan, relatively speaking. I hate to say it, but I think we should go with it."
"Don't bowl me over with your enthusiasm," Ham growled.
Diana's real eyes burned their angriest red; her human-eye contacts were out, sitting in their container on her cabin countertop.
"You found them where?" she said to the intercom.
"Wandering in the desert outside of Los Angeles," a male voice said from the speaker. "They're being flown back to the Mother Ship now, Diana."
"I want to see them, Captain."
"I thought you would. I've given orders that Lydia and James should report to you as soon as they've had a chance to change into fresh uniforms."
"I want to see them immediately, Captain. I don't care if they're dirty, hot, and tired. They report to me the instant they set foot aboard this ship. Is that clear? If there's any delay whatsoever, you will be held responsible."
"Yes, Diana. As soon as they come aboard." His voice betrayed fear now. "I'll see to it myself."
"Good," Diana said sweetly. "I'm counting on you."
As ordered, Lydia and James were hustled directly to the supreme commander's quarters. Their uniforms were tattered and dusty from a day and night of traversing rugged desert terrain. The hot, dry air had even caused "some cracking in their bioplastic skins. Diana made them stand at attention as she circled them.
"We are fighting for our very survival here," she said, in ;t perfectly controlled voice. She was enjoying Lydia's discomfort too much to allow her own fury to dilute the moment of dominance. "We have no room for extreme incompetence of the sort you two displayed in this incident. There'll obviously be a full investigation by a command tribunal—charges may be brought at any time. But I have questions of my own right now. Why didn't you have more backup than a single skyfighter?"
Lydia broke her face-front pose to glare at Diana. "It was your order to minimize the amount of personnel used for this phase of the mission. You complained about how much time and energy we were wasting tracking these human spies down and capturing them."
"I do not complain, Lydia. I command—or have you forgotten that? James, you're dismissed. Consider yourself on probation. If I were you, I'd be extremely careful what I do until the tribunal investigation is complete."
He nodded curtly and left the room. Lydia started to slump her shoulders and Diana snapped a sharp look at her. "You are still at attention, Lydia." Diana placed her hands on her hips, then abruptly turned and sat in a lounge chair; reclining, a purposeful contrast with Lydia's formal posture. "I could have you executed for this bungling, but I won't. I need you too much. But I don't want any misunderstanding, Lydia. If you ever commit another error of this magnitude, I'll do everything I can to destroy your career—and I can do a lot, Commander. I can also take your life any time I choose. Dismissed."
Without a word, Lydia marched out. Diana knew the security chief was seething, and when her door slid shut, the supreme commander allowed herself a cold smile.
James sat on his bunk, his dirty uniform stripped off. He'd had a lot of time to think about things while walking in that forsaken desert. He and Lydia hadn't talked much during their trek back to the nearest Visitor outpost. He was a young officer with high hopes for his future. He'd cast his lot with Lydia because he believed her to be more pragmatic and less volatile than Diana. Had he made a mistake?
His door chimed and he pressed a button to open it. Lydia, still in her torn uniform, stepped in and the hatch closed behind her. She took a deep breath. "We've had better days, eh, James?"
He managed a smile and motioned her over to. the bed. She came to him and their arms closed around each other They kissed, their long reptilian tongues intertwining, clashing playfully, then drawing back. He began to unsnap her uniform fastenings and slid it off her shoulders. He trailed kisses down her face to her neck and shoulders. It had taken some time to get used to making love to a human body, but it wasn't so bad now. The human shape and the simulated skin had a certain pleasurable softness their own bodies lacked.
"I'm not going to let Diana get away with this humiliation of us," Lydia purred, her breathing becoming quicker as James caressed her. "We're going to strike back, solidify our own power Maybe I'll even replace her as supreme commander "
That made James pause, and his eyes met hers question-ingly. "What are you talking about?"
Lydia smiled, pleased that she had his attention in more ways than one. "I'm talking about something spectacular, something bold. But I'll need you with me." She stood and slipped her uniform off. As it fell to the floor, she reached over to dim the lights.
"I'm always with you—you know that," he said as she lay back on the bed next to him.
She raised her eyebrows tolerantly. "Are you? Sometimes I wonder. You're a mercenary at heart, James. So am I. Maybe that's why we work so well together It doesn't really mattei; though. If I'm successful, we'll be successful together."
"Just what do you have in mind?" he asked, his fingers tracing lightly from her shoulder down over her breasts, past the curve of her hip.
"What do I have in mind? Nothing less than the capture
of one of our most formidable enemies, one of the humans Diana hates the most—Michael Donovan." James smiled. "Oh, I'm with you, Lydia." Their reptilian tongues snaked out sensuously and their mouths met in a deep kiss.
Chapter 3
Downstairs at Club Creole, Donovan spread the California map out as Tyler, Chris, and the others gathered around. "Okay, here's the plan. We've got people in a little town out near San Luis Obispo."
"North of Vandenberg Air Force Base?" Ham Tyler said.
Donovan nodded. "Yeah. It's called Castillo Beach. It's so small, it's not even on the map." He stopped and glanced around. "Hey, where's Julie?"
The door to the secret corridor swung in and Julie rushed over to them, breathless and grinning. "Hi, sorry I'm late. I've got great news!" she blurted.
"What news?" Donovan said.
"Elias just gave me the message. Ham's Central American connection is coming through with a heavy shipment of weapons and ammunition for us!"
The group burst into cheers, and Julie held her hands up for attention. "We've got Uzis, more heat-seeking shells and launcher
s, lots of Teflon-coated bullets—the works! It'll be coming by boat. We don't know exactly when or where, just that it'll be in the next couple of days and it'll be on the coast just south of San Clemente."
"Ah, yes, good old San Clemency," Donovan said with a reminiscing smile.
"Huh?" Julie said.
"That's what we called the place when Richard Nixon still lived there after he got pardoned by Jerry Ford back in 'seventy-four, after Watergate."
"Whoa," Tyler said. "Maybe that's what you pinko liberals in the media called it, but some of us more patriotic types had a little more respect for the Commander-in-
Chief."
"I wasn't in the pinko liberal media back then," Donovan countered. "I was a student—"
"Ah-ha!" Tyler interrupted.
"—and a little respect is more than the man deserved!"
Julie couldn't help laughing. It happened to be great fun to watch Donovan and Tyler argue, but this wasn't the time. She waved her arms emphatically. "Ancient history, guys! We've got details to work out here"—she saw the map— "which I see you've already started."
"Actually," Donovan said, "we were working out how to get Maragato back to Japan. Your little piece of news may mean splitting our manpower and doing both at once."
"We should be able to swing it," Tyler said, "if we get everybody pitching in. Right, Elias, my man?"
He turned to glare pointedly at Elias Taylor, who'd brought Julie down and was now hanging back near the exit.
"Hey, man," Elias protested, "I got a restaurant to ran. I got people expectin' me to be upstairs when they come to hobnob with the rich and powerful—people like Nathan Bates."
"Speaking of shit-for-brains Bates," Tyler said, "where's that kid of his?"
"I know where he is," Chris said.
"Go get him," Tyler said. "I've got an assignment for the two of you."
"You want him, you got him," Chris said amiably. He headed for the door.
The trail bike jumped up over the hillock and skidded for a perilous moment as its wheels hit the grass. But Kyle Bates handled his favorite mode of transportation with the skill of a jockey on a thoroughbred. Behind him on the seat, Elizabeth Maxwell sat pressed against his back, her arms locked around his waist as she screamed with a combination of fear and glee. Her blond hair whipped in the wind. Kyle steered the bike toward a wood-fenced corral and braked to a gentle halt. The pair of horses inside the enclosure moved away to graze at a safe distance from the noisy new arrivals.
"Hey, you don't have to squash me!" Kyle said in mock anger.
Elizabeth didn't catch the humor. She broke the embrace and recoiled as if she'd done something awful. "1—I'm sorry."
Kyle turned and grinned. "Hey, I was just kidding." He wiped the beads of sweat off his handsome face. Elizabeth slid off the bike and wandered toward the corral. Kyle stood for a moment, not following, just watching.
Elizabeth, the star child, he thought. She looked like any other pretty eighteen-year-old girl. But of course she wasn't just another teenager, she was a hybrid—part Visitor, part human. Ever since he'd met hei; Kyle had wondered just how much she was of each—and what did the total add up to? And he had to keep reminding himself that she might physically look like a full-grown woman, but she was really only eighteen months old! She was brilliant beyond measuring, she had some pretty strange psychic powers that lulie was still trying to catalogue, but she'd only been born a scant year and a half ago—and her life had hardly been normal. So Kyle knew he had to be extra careful with the way he treated her She wasn't just another girl to be taken to dinner and then to bed. Not that he wasn't physically attracted to her. He'd been disappointed when she quickly broke the bear hug on the bike. But he also felt like a big brother to her. He wanted to show her some of his world, share it with her. He knew she felt as if she didn't belong, didn't fit in, and he'd always felt the same way. That sense of alienation had been even worse since the Visitors had come back and his father had struck his deal with Diana-becoming, in many eyes, the most brazen human collaborator on the planet.
Kyle had thought of changing his name. He and his father had been fighting since Kyle was a kid anyway. This was just the latest in a long line of last straws. But he'd settled for having nothing at all to do with the old man and becoming a sometime resistance fighter.
Since meeting Elizabeth by accident one day at Club Creole, he'd been spending more time with the underground group as an excuse to be near her and he'd won permission to be alone with her, even take her away from resistance headquarters, as long as someone knew where they were going. Kyle was only too aware that Diana badly wanted to get Elizabeth back under her control, to see what her bioengineering experiment had wrought. Kyle found himself feeling fiercely protective when it came to Elizabeth's safety. Even out here he was always alert for any sign of trouble.
He finally joined her at the corral. Both horses had come over to her and she petted them and fed them handfuls of long hay from bales just outside the fence.
"Where are we, Kyle?"
"My dad owns this land, but don't worry. He never comes up here."
"Then why does he own it?"
Kyle shrugged. "I think he's saving it for me. You know, sort of a bribe to make me be the kind of kid he wants me to be. I'm a good boy, and he gives me the land."
"Do you want it?"
"Not like that," Kyle said, looking into her eyes. "Did you have fun on the bike?"
"I was scared sometimes."
"But I heard you laughing sometimes too. I think it's the first time I've ever seen you laugh."
"Sometimes I laugh," she said with a defensive pout.
"Not often enough—but you're getting better. I know it hasn't been easy for you, but you know we all care about you—a lot."
"I know," she said softly. "You're the first friends I've ever had. I think it's getting easier to feel like you won't all go away and leave me, or that the Visitors won't kill you all."
He hugged her impulsively. Tentatively, she hugged him back. "We're not gonna leave you," he whispered. "And we won't let the Visitors get you, that's for sure."
The sound of a motor caught his ear and he whirled to search for the source. Down the hillside, he spotted a tiny dust plume approaching. As it got closer, it resolved into a man on a motorcycle—Chris. He skidded to a stop a few yards away.
"Hey, they want you back at the club," Chris called. "You didn't ride all the way up here on that itty-bitty bike, did you?"
"No," Kyle said. "I've got my Blazer." He pointed to the four-wheel drive parked nearby in the shade of a tall tree.
"Okay, let's move out then," Chris said.
Nathan Bates never tired of the panoramic view from his office in the high-rise headquarters of Science Frontiers, once simply his corporate empire and now the seat of Los Angeles' tenuous provisional government. He stood at the expanse of glass, tinted just enough to cut down the heat of the California sun but not enough to alter the brilliant colors of sunrise or sunset.
Back in the simpler days when he'd been chief executive of the company he'd built into one of the world's most successful and innovative scientific, research, and development entities, he'd found he needed to have those two times a day set aside for meditation, silence, and solitude. He'd arrive early to watch the sun come up before any of his employees got in. And if he was still working at sunset, he would order his office cleared so he could watch the day end.
Now, with the very survival of the planet partly in his hands, he needed those quiet moments even more. He needed to wrestle with his own thoughts, sort them out, place them in perspective, and he needed to observe something made by God, not by Nathan Bates.
He often wondered what the outcome of his agreement with Diana would be. When the deal was struck, he really
hadn't thought much past the moment. And what a moment
it was. ...
Diana had led the Visitors back to take another shot at destroying Earth. Bates had
discovered that the red-dust toxin Science Frontiers had helped develop and manufacture wasn't going to save humankind after all. It worked in some areas of the globe, but not in others. The military situation was critical. We were losing, Bates thought now. We were on the brink.
He'd had Diana in his hands, and she'd escaped. And when she saw him again, it was she who was holding all the high cards—except one: he threatened to fill L.A.'s air with a massive dose of the toxin that might not last long, but would kill every Visitor in the vicinity. So they'd agreed to a peace of sorts, a local peace while the war raged elsewhere in the world. And Bates was potentate here. What he did, how he dealt with Diana, could prolong the human world, save it, or destroy it,
"Nathan."
He turned slowly to see Julie Parrish, wearing a denim skirt and her white lab coat. Only a few years older than Kyle, Julie was young enough to be his daughter, but his feelings toward her were definitely not of the fatherly variety. Not that he'd done anything about the situation yet. But he would, when the time was right. For now, Julie was still one of his top scientists.
"Yes, Julie, what is it?"
She looked confused. "That's what I came to ask you. I got a memo that you wanted to see me."
"Oh, that's right. I've been preoccupied lately."
"Anything I can help you with?"
He smiled. "No, no, it's—"
He was cut off by the chiming of his intercom. He reached across the massive desk and touched a button.
"Yes?"
"Sorry to disturb you, sir," said his secretary, Caroline, "but Diana is on the tie line. She wants to talk to you— now."
Julie started for the door of the plush office, but Bates
waved her to a seat. "Stay. Okay, Caroline, I'll take it." He sat back in his tall leather chair and touched another button on the desk-top control panel. A section of the wall slid aside to reveal a large video screen. He punched in the line code and Diana's chilly features appeared on the screen.
Every time she saw that face, Julie's blood ran cold. No matter how she tried to fight the reaction, she couldn't help it—couldn't forget the tortures she'd endured as a prisoner on Diana's ship almost two years ago, as a victim of the Visitors' demonic conversion process. She'd survived it, but not without psychic scars, and the shivers she felt seeing Diana life-size, even on a TV screen—that was something she'd just have to live with.
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