The president seemed assured. He turned back to the vice president. "Alan, do you think tomorrow morning might be too late?"
Alan shuddered at the question. "Sir, if it is, there's nothing we can do about it now. Some smaller searches are already happening. But it's going to take us that long to set up this size of operation."
"My people," Foster said, "with help from anyone we can find, are mounting searches today throughout the world. But we don't have the manpower to do it right."
"Well, we do," the president said. "Alan, I see no reason to bring the Joint Chiefs in at this point. You and I can brief them later. Much later."
"I look forward to that, sir," Alan said, smiling.
John laughed. "All right," he said, slapping the folder on his desk. "Let's do it."
Alan felt a surge of relief pass through him. Even with two bombs found, there had been no telling what the president would decide to do.
John chuckled to himself. "Everyone knows I've only got one term in me. I might as well go out chasing aliens as anything else. Alan, I want you to write the executive order yourself and have it on my desk here in ten minutes. And I want you to run the operation, keeping me directly informed. You'll need to talk to the mayors and governors. And if any of them give you problems, I'll talk to them. Okay?"
"Yes, sir," Alan said.
"One more thing," John said. "David. Alan. No one outside this room knows of the bombs or mentions the word aliens. I want to keep this job at least through the end of the week. Understood?"
He looked at David and then Alan in turn and each nodded agreement.
"Good hunting, gentlemen," he said. "Now please excuse me. I have a lot of phone calls to make to other world leaders. I need to tell them what's happening, so they can do some searching of their own."
Eight minutes later Alan Wallace handed the president the executive order that would start the biggest search in American history.
The president signed it while talking to the prime minister of Japan
Chapter Twenty-Nine
What we were, never was. What we did, never happened.
—-DONALD HAMILTON
FROM DEATH OF A CITIZEN
2:25 P.M. JUNE 25.
PORTLAND, OREGON
Portland mayor Janet Osborne sat down behind her big desk. Even with her small stature, McCallum was always amazed how in charge and powerful she looked there. And what a good job she was doing with the problems of the city.
Claudia stood to Janet's right, leaning against an oak bookshelf full of law books. McCallum, Henry, and Portland Chief of Police Harold Pellegrino sat in chairs facing the mayor.
McCallum had had a busy few hours since his and Henry's return to Portland. He had briefed Tina Harris's father on the chance of a lead, but didn't tell him what it was. Just that there was a lead on his daughter, a slight one, but better than nothing. Mr. Harris had left with a slight glimmer of hope in his eyes. McCallum hoped he hadn't led the man on too much.
Then McCallum had called Earhart at the FBI office in Seattle for any updates, but got nothing from him, as expected. Three more phone calls got the same results, including one to Neda's lab in Bellingham.
Nothing. No news.
Then the mayor had called her meeting.
"I want to remind everyone here," Janet said when everyone was settled, "but mostly you, Chief, that everything said in this room is completely secret, at least for the time being. Maybe forever."
The chief of police nodded as everyone else did. But McCallum could tell he was half insulted by Janet aiming that warning at him. Of course, the chief had very little idea of what was to come next. Actually, neither did Janet and Claudia. But McCallum hadn't decided just how much of the morning visit to Neda Foster's Bellingham lab he was going to tell them about. He'd mentioned that problem to Harry and they'd decided to play it by ear.
"Good," Janet said. "I just got a phone call from the vice president. The president has authorized a countrywide search of every city starting tomorrow morning at eleven eastern time."
"Thank God," Claudia said. The relief in her voice and on her face was exactly how McCallum felt at hearing that news.
"I'll drink to that," Henry said. Actually Henry never drank, but on the plane back this afternoon from Bellingham he had threatened to start. After Neda's story, McCallum was tempted to buy the first bottle and join him.
"Search for what?" the police chief said. "And what does this have to do with finding that guy yesterday?"
"Doesn't know, huh?" McCallum said to Henry, and Henry smiled. It always felt good for a detective to have more information than his chief. It was sort of a job security issue.
"My fault," Janet said, smiling at the chief. "No one but the four of us, the regional director of the FBI, and the vice president knew that an armed hydrogen bomb was found in the Sundown Hotel yesterday."
"What?" the chief shouted at Janet, almost coming out of his chair. He then glanced at Henry. "She's kidding, right?"
"Afraid not, Chief," Henry said. "The FBI flew it to a Navy ship and disarmed it there."
"Why wasn't I informed?" the chief asked.
"National security reasons," the mayor said. "But we'll try to bring you up to speed as quickly as possible."
Her smile pushed the chief of police back into his chair. Janet Osborne had the ability to do that with a smile. McCallum always found it amazing and this time was no exception. She was just a born leader.
"I'm afraid that's not all, Mayor," Henry said, looking at McCallum.
"Henry's right," McCallum said, taking his cue. "Another armed hydrogen bomb was found in Tucson this morning."
This time it was both Janet and Claudia's turn to jump with surprise. Claudia took a step forward, her mouth open to ask a question, then she thought better of it and stepped back.
"So it's happening," Janet said. "Just as Neda Foster feared."
"I'm afraid so," McCallum said.
"Who the hell is doing this?" Janet said, more to herself than anyone in front of her. "I just don't understand."
"Trust me, Mayor," Henry said. "You don't want to know what some people think is behind this."
"Yeah," McCallum said, holding up his hand for Janet to stop before she could ask Henry what he was talking about. "Some people have some wild theories, but for the moment those theories aren't that important. What's important is safeguarding our city. Right?"
Janet studied McCallum's face. She knew he was holding back. He could tell. And he could tell she was trying to decide whether or not to press the issue. Finally she said, "You're right."
"I'm afraid," McCallum said, pushing on, "that we can't assume the city is safe just because we found the one bomb yesterday. There may already be another one planted. Or going to be planted, which I think is more likely."
"Have there been any more elderly men abducted from the area?" Claudia asked.
"I checked the missing person files this afternoon," Henry said. "No elderly man has come up missing besides Albert Hancer in the last month in this area, from Eugene through Vancouver. I checked a one hundred mile radius, including all coastal towns."
"Good," Janet said.
McCallum knew there was something, important about what Henry had just said. But for the life of him he couldn't put his finger on it. He made a mental note to come back to it later.
"What does a missing elderly man have to do with the bombs?" the chief asked.
"Someone who looked like Albert Hancer was found with the bomb," Janet said.
McCallum was impressed how she stepped around the thing-on-the-bed problem with that answer.
With the chief still looking puzzled she went on. "The theory is that elderly men are transporting the bombs into the cities using baggage carts. No one notices elderly, or checks them."
"Neda Foster told me this morning," McCallum said, "that they will be sending us pictures tomorrow morning of elderly men gone missing from the Seattle, Tri-Cities, and Boise areas
. In the national search tomorrow morning we're to look for them, unless we have a new one of our own."
"Maybe we should stop a new one from happening," Henry said.
"My plan exactly, old partner," McCallum said.
"So maybe you could let the rest of us in on the plan?" Claudia said.
McCallum smiled at her. "Neda's organization learned that almost every elderly person abducted this last week around the world was taken from a nursing home or retirement center. And all were at night."
"So we stake them all out," Henry said. "Every nursing home and retirement center. Simple."
The chief looked at him. "Do you know how many nursing homes and retirement centers there are in this area?"
"Sure do, Chief," Henry said. "It's a three page list. But do you know what a hydrogen bomb would do to this city?"
The police chief's face paled and he said nothing.
McCallum couldn't imagine what the poor chief of police was going to think when he suggested that every stake-out have an antitank weapon with it.
Chapter Thirty
When there is only one possibility, it can't be wrong.
—-C. DALY KING
FROM THE CURIOUS MR. TARRANT
8:03 P.M. JUNE 25.
SHEEPEATER CAVES,
EASTERN OREGON
Another day of intense heat had left Tina drained, even though she had slept through most of the day. Her water was almost gone and her stomach ached from hunger. For the first time the aliens hadn't bothered to bring any more food or water and she didn't know why. From what she could tell with a quick look around the cave, another five people had died. Now there were less than twenty with her, and half of those were barely breathing.
A middle-aged woman lying ten feet away was one of the dead. Big black flies buzzed around the curled-up body. Tina wondered for a moment why she was no longer bothered by the smell of the dead. And all the human waste. She couldn't imagine that she had gotten used to the odor.
But it must have happened, because she couldn't smell anything, it seemed.
She stood so she could get a better look around while there was still light. It seemed that she and Cobb were the youngest, and in the best shape by far. It was clearly on their shoulders to go for help if they could. No one else in the cave was going to be able to.
Cobb moved over beside her. He was black with dirt, and a large scrape showed signs of dried blood along his right shoulder. His hair was matted with salt and sweat and his face was almost black.
She imagined she didn't look much better. She didn't even want to look down at her own body to check. It was better at this point that she just keep her body detached from her mind as much as possible. Otherwise the hunger, thirst, and pain would drive her insane.
"I checked out the hole in the light," he whispered. "I can't see the back of it, so it might go into another room. A little bit of widening and I should be able to get through."
"I'm a lot smaller than you are," Tina said. "Could I make it now?"
"I think it's going to take widening for either of us," he said. "But that shouldn't take very long. Maybe an hour or so."
Tina glanced at the light coming in from the crack in the cave roof. "If we start now we might make it with some light to spare."
Cobb nodded. "Exactly what I was thinking."
She bent down and retrieved the last bottle of water from under the rock where she had been sleeping. There was less than a quarter left of it.
She drank half, letting the feel of the water in her throat fill her every sense for a moment. Then she handed the bottle to Cobb. "Finish it."
"Thanks," he said. She watched as he tipped up the bottle and downed the last of the water, obviously relishing the taste and feel of it as much as she had.
"Okay," he said, tossing the empty bottle down beside a rock. "Let's get to work."
A moment later he was on his stomach, head down into the hole in the rocks, working out stones with his bare hands and passing them back to Tina.
Chapter Thirty-One
Judge not—at least until the evidence is unequivocal.
—-COLIN DEXTER
FROM SERVICE OF ALL THE DEAD
10: 18 p.m. JUNE 25.
PORTLAND, OREGON
McCallum and Claudia sat on folding chairs just inside the glass front door of Hilltop Retirement Center, in the western hills above Portland. From where they sat they could see the front, tree-lined parking lot, and the short front sidewalk. The streetlights cast circles of safety, pushing the darkness back into the surrounding forest.
At McCallum's feet an antitank missile launcher lay waiting, two missiles beside it. McCallum had fired one of the launchers a few years back at an army test show, and had been given a quick refresher course on it when he picked it up at the National Guard armory. "Simply load, aim, and pull the trigger," the soldier had said.
McCallum remembered it not being so easy.
There was one such antitank weapon, with someone who sort of knew how to use it, at each of twenty-six major nursing and rest homes in the Portland area. No one knew what they might be shooting at, but they had permission to use the weapon if someone tried to abduct an elderly man. McCallum shuddered at the thought of an antitank missile accidentally hitting a house, but at the moment none of them, including the mayor, could think of any other choice.
The rest of the nursing homes were guarded by men and women with rifles. McCallum had no idea if rifles would even dent a Klar ship, if such a thing existed. He doubted it. Neda wasn't sure if even an antitank missile would dent one. When he asked, she said, "No one has ever fired at a Klar ship before."
The waiting area around McCallum and Claudia smelled of lilacs and dust. From the neat look of the magazines, no one had used this small waiting area in years. Claudia's right shoe had tapped lightly on the floor for most of the last hour, a nervous habit that McCallum had never noticed in all their years together. He supposed that if any nervous habit was going to come out, it would do so tonight. He wondered what she was noticing for the first time about him.
As they sat there quietly, the words of Dashiell Hammett's character Sam Spade echoed in his head, over and over: Once a chump, always a chump. At the moment, he felt like a chump. The chance of anything happening here was beyond slight. He and Henry had spent most of the evening going over the location of each rest home, trying to figure out which would be the most likely for the Klar to hit. They had eliminated all of the homes in the bright, downtown section of the city since Neda said Klar ships never went into cities. Albert Hancer had been taken from a home up in the hills, away from the lights. So they focused there.
The Hilltop Retirement Center was perched near the very top of one of the highest peaks near Portland, tucked back in the pine trees. It was the most logical place for them to watch, and the one McCallum decided he would stake out himself. Henry took the second most logical, just a short distance along the ridge from where McCallum now sat.
McCallum glanced down the hall to his right. He could see one of the national guardsmen standing watch at the side door, his rifle cradled across his arms. There were other guardsmen at the remaining two outside doors, each with rifles. The home's interior garden court had been locked so no one could go out there. None of the guards knew what they were guarding against. They just knew they had to stop anyone or anything that tried to take a resident.
Claudia grabbed McCallum's leg and he turned back to face the front. An old Nash Rambler rolled up the driveway and into the parking lot. Moving slowly it carefully parked in the closest open space to the front sidewalk.
Claudia picked up a paper from the coffee table in front of her and quickly scanned down it, looking for the make of the car to match a resident name. The Hilltop wasn't a nursing home, but more of a managed care facility. Many of the residents had their own cars and were free to come and go as much as they liked.
"That's Mr. Ashley," Claudia said, "coming back from dinner with his family. He
's the next to the last one still out."
McCallum bent and picked up the heavy antitank weapon and one missile. Outside, the sky was pitch black and there was only a sliver of moon to help light the night. If anything was going to happen, it was going to be now.
"Call for the other guards to come down here." They had already done this exact same drill three times in the last hour. Claudia ran into the hall past him as the Nash Rambler's lights clicked off and then the door opened.
Mr. Ashley looked to be in his early seventies. He wore a light brown jacket, dark slacks, and a baseball cap. He remained slightly stooped as he turned and locked up his car. McCallum felt as though he was using Mr. Ashley as bait, but in reality he was only guarding him. If they all walked out there and the Klar were above, the aliens would freeze all of them and that would do no good for anyone.
McCallum laughed at himself. He was thinking as if the Klar really existed. His core belief system knew that wasn't possible. But he was taking no chances. And if that white light was just some terrorist's helicopter picking up people like Albert Hancer, it wasn't going to be in the air long if it came around here.
Beside McCallum, the three guards and Claudia appeared and took up their positions. Claudia picked up the extra missile for the antitank launcher.
McCallum held his breath as the elderly man moved slowly up the sidewalk. The antitank weapon seemed extra heavy in his sweating hands.
Time seemed to stretch.
Mr. Ashley was the slowest human alive. Every step seemed to take a lifetime.
Then the night lit up as if someone had turned the lights on at the baseball park.
And the world went into quick time.
The white light covered the front lawn and sidewalk like an intense spotlight. From where McCallum stood inside, he couldn't see any more than the light coming from the sky.
There was absolutely no noise.
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