Tina was beyond exhaustion. She couldn't even feel her feet and legs anymore and the cave around her already felt hot.
"I need to sleep," Tina said, slumping down with her feet out in front of her.
"I'll be right behind you," Cobb said, doing the same beside her.
She let her head rest against his shoulder and almost instantly she was asleep, dreaming of Jerry.
And of dark caves.
And hot, hot summer days without relief.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Who feeds on hope alone makes but a sorry banquet.
—THOMAS W. HANSHEW
FROM CLEEK, THE MAN OF THE FORTY FACES
:42 p.m. JUNE 26.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
The president of the United States couldn't stand another minute on the phone. The search for bombs in American cities had been going on now for almost two hours. Around the world there had already been eighteen hydrogen bombs found that he knew of, all of which had been disarmed. He was far beyond thinking that there wouldn't be any more bombs in American cities. Now the only question was how the search was going. And if he had made the right decision, running it the way they were.
So far this morning he'd forced himself to stay in his office, out of the way, and call the leaders of other countries, letting Alan run the search. But now he couldn't stand it anymore. He had to know what was happening.
He strode through his private office and into the hall. A few strides later he was in the vice president's office. FBI Director Barns sat at a table, his jacket off and his sleeves rolled up, typing into a laptop computer plugged into a phone line. He glanced at John and nodded, but didn't stop typing.
Alan sat behind his desk, a phone against his ear. He also nodded to John, then pointed to the wall.
On the wall opposite the door, the vice president's pictures of his hometown had been taken down and a huge map of the United States had been tacked up.
John moved over in front of it. On the map were nineteen green pins stuck in cities. Almost all the cities were the smaller ones. There was still no pin in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, or San Francisco.
"Thanks," Alan said. "Good work." He hung up the phone, grabbed another green pin and came around the desk.
"Green means clean cities, or bombs found?" John asked.
"Bombs found," Alan said. He stuck the pin in Boston. "That makes twenty."
The president dropped down into an armchair. "My God," he said. "Are we doing this right? Should we be running this out of the war room, with the full army involved? This is a huge attack on our country."
Alan moved back over behind his desk and dropped into his chair. "Sir, with the army involved, we'd have set off a panic that would have cost thousands of lives and billions of dollars in damage. A panic we might never have recovered from."
John nodded. He had used the same argument earlier. But he was having trouble remembering it.
"As it is," Alan went on, "so far the press are baffled as to what's happening. There is no panic. And with only local police and FBI involved, we're finding the bombs. We may decide to get the army involved with the next step, tonight, at the meeting with the Joint Chiefs."
John looked at Alan. He was right and John knew it. But a paper map tacked on a wall instead of the big computers in the war room? It just spooked him, made him feel as if they were running a partial operation when a full-scale one was needed and called for.
But the full-scale operation would come into play once the cities were safe. Once that was the case they had to keep them that way.
The phone rang again and Alan picked it up with only a curt "Yes."
After a moment he said, "Great," and hung up. He smiled at John, grabbed two more pins, and moved around to the map. He stuck one into New York City and the other into Washington, D.C. Then he turned and said, "We're safe for the time being."
John stared at that green pin sticking in Washington for a moment, then started laughing. It had not occurred to him at any point that he should leave the White House. His place was here. The thought of danger had not really crossed his mind when he knew he had a job to do. If the Secret Service knew what he and Alan had just done, by both staying here, they would throw a massive fit.
"I guess we're a little more alike than I thought," the president said, still chuckling to himself, thinking of how he'd chewed Alan out for doing basically what he had just done.
Alan laughed as the phone rang again. "Maybe that's why you picked me as your running mate in the first place."
"Maybe it was," the president said as Alan grabbed the phone, listened for a few seconds and then picked up three more green pins.
Chapter Thirty-Six
There are always exceptions to every rule, but only if you really know what you're doing.
—-ELIZABETH PETERS
FROM DIE FOR LOVE
12:58 p.m. JUNE 26.
PORTLAND, OREGON
McCallum sat in Binky's Doughnuts off Front Street. The place was Henry's favorite doughnut shop in the entire city, and one day he hoped to either buy it or start one of his own. It had orange plastic seats, plastic plants, and bright fluorescent lights. McCallum hated the doughnuts, but had to admit it had good, basic coffee, not that Seattle stuff. Henry had bought a half dozen doughnuts and two coffees, dropped them at the table, and then went to call in. At the moment there was no one else in the place besides the teenage girl behind the counter.
McCallum sipped on his coffee and thought about the events of the day while Henry talked on the phone near the cash register. The search of the Portland area had turned up nothing, and was pretty much winding down. The Oregonian this morning had called his missile shots in the western hills "Unexplained Explosions." And had no real details.
At lunch not one word had come out over the national news services about alien attacks, hydrogen bombs, or massive manhunts in the core of every city.
Nothing. Not one word.
So far they were pulling this off.
From what the mayor had told him thirty minutes ago, the vice president said they were finding the bombs in every city. She had said that in each city they were sealing off the room the bomb and thing-on-the-bed was found in, and then bringing in a special elite crew from the FBI to deal with each one. That kept the number of people involved down to a very few, even though there were thousands helping in the manhunts.
McCallum took a sip of coffee, amazed that this could even happen in an instant-news society. It made him wonder what else had happened over the years that the general public hadn't heard about.
Henry hung up the phone and came back over to their table, smiling as he wound his thick bulk through the maze of orange plastic chairs.
"The mayor just held a news conference," he said, grabbing a doughnut and talking between bites. "She told them that the search of the downtown area this morning was for people possibly associated with the blasts in the western hills last night. That nothing was found, and there are no new leads. She's smooth, huh?"
"That she is," McCallum said. "But what happens tonight? And tomorrow night? Are we going to just keep staking out nursing homes with antitank weapons? We're missing something here that I just can't put my finger on. Something we need to be doing and aren't."
Henry shrugged. "Can't tell you what it is, old partner." He washed down the doughnut with a full gulp of his coffee, then grabbed another white-frosted doughnut, holding it up to stare, at. "Amazing how this guy manages to get these so perfect."
As Henry took a bite of the doughnut McCallum reached over and picked up another doughnut from the box, staring at it. Something about the doughnut seemed to tie into all this.
The saucer he saw was round, but that wasn't it. There was something else. Then he remember Henry's words about radius the day before.
And last night the Klar ship, when hit, had gone east, not up into space.
Radius.
Neda Foster's group had been assuming that the Klar woul
d put the abducted elderly people back in the same city they were taken from. And the assumption had been right. Which meant the Klar ships were staying close to certain areas.
Why would the Klar do that? The answer to that question was the solution to slowing down the Klar even more than they already had been.
"Thought you didn't like those," Henry said, pointing to the doughnut in McCallum's hand.
"I donk. But I do like the shape," McCallum said, dropping the doughnut back into the box, standing, and turning for the phone near the counter. "Better order some more," he called out to Henry. "We're heading for Bellingham again."
"You know," Henry called out, "sleep would be nice someday."
McCallum agreed. But the flight to Bellingham on the Harris jet wasn't even long enough to take a nap.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
How can anyone decide whether a given fact is important or not unless one knows everything about it-and no one knows everything about anything.
——FREDRIC BROWN
FROM NIGHT OF THE JABBERWOCK
1:47 p.m. J U N E 26.
BELLINGHAM, WASHINGTON
Neda Foster sat at her desk. She felt sticky with sweat and grime, and the taste in her mouth was of one too many cups of coffee. She couldn't remember the last time she had slept. The Klar attacking the cities had all happened too fast, and in such an odd way. Never had anyone in her organization thought that the Klar would plant bombs in the cities.
Never.
And never had she expected anyone to fire on a Klar ship. Now the president and vice president were involved and the fight was going beyond this lab. That thought made her sad and at the same time very relieved.
Cornell dropped down into the chair facing her desk.
"They're an organic constructed shell with a miniaturized computer to run them," he said, assuming Neda knew that they meant the things-on-the-bed. "An acid substance fills tubes throughout their bodies."
"They're robots?" Neda said, letting the shock fill her question as the doctor's words sank into her tired mind.
"Basically, yes," Cornell said. "Organic robots. My guess is the face and outside are formed by pouring an organic substance over the model, like a mold, then forming the finished product around a form of plastic skeleton, run by small motors controlled by a small computer."
"And the voice?"
Cornell shrugged. "Easy," he said. "Recorded and digitized. We can do that now ourselves. Just a certain number of voice tracks set to respond to certain things. A watch-sized computer could run the entire thing and most likely did."
"So why'd it melt?"
Cornell smiled. "That's the interesting part," he said. "They filled the entire body with tubes of acid, and when the program was short-circuited, the acid flooded the inside of the body, melting the entire thing into a pool, destroying all evidence."
"Standard Klar conservatism," Neda said. "They were still afraid of being discovered right up until they thought we could no longer stop them."
"Sure seems that way," Cornell said. "But now that we spotted their elderly carriers and stopped that, they can shift to having anyone carry those bombs into the cities. I figure they can make these robot-things in about a day's time. And heaven only knows how many bombs they can make."
The tiredness overwhelmed her. Somehow there had to be a way of stopping the Klar. Otherwise they'd be fighting this underground war against bombs for years and years, with the Klar ultimately winning.
The phone rang on her desk and she managed to pick it up, even though her arms felt like lead.
"Neda," the voice said. "This is Alan Wallace." She sat up straight. She'd talked to the vice president just a few hours ago, and the search had been going fine. Had something gone wrong? "Yes, sir," she said. "Alan, I mean."
He laughed, but she could tell, even over the phone, that his laugh was a tired one. "Just wanted to tell you that we've found and disarmed the bombs in every major city but Los Angeles and Dallas. And the searches are continuing there."
"Great to hear," she said, relief flooding through her, making her seem even more tired, if that was possible.
"Also," he said, "as of this hour eighty-four bombs have been found in other countries. And many more searches are still happening, especially in China, Japan, and Australia."
"Wonderful," she said.
"So, for the moment," Alan said, "we seem to be past the crisis. Is that what your group feels, also?"
"Yes, it is," Neda said. "The Klar are far too careful to try anything now, with most of the bombs gone. But sir, they will keep going. They won't stop. Dr. Cornell has figured out how the things-on-the-bed were made, and we think the Klar will just start using regular people as patterns. Anyone they can abduct."
There was a long pause on the other end of the line, then Alan said, "We were afraid of just that. Which brings me to my second question. We're leaning toward keeping this completely silent, as much as possible. And denying anything that does leak out. Do you agree?"
Neda glanced at the tired-looking Dr. Cornell, then said, "Yes, sir, I think that's critical."
"And why's that?"
Neda laughed. "About a thousand reasons. But first is that the press will hang you and your boss out to dry, even though you saved the world today."
"True," he said.
"Sir," she said, very bluntly, "we need you where you are for the moment."
"Okay," Alan said. "I won't argue that point. What's the second of the thousand reasons?"
"A double-sided point," Neda said, forcing herself to sit up straight and clear the tiredness from her mind by sheer will. What she said now might affect how the entire fight against the Klar went for years to come. "First off, millions will not believe aliens are really here. Bombs or no bombs, we have no real proof."
"True," Alan said.
"Just read any tabloid," Neda continued, "or watch any science fiction movie to see how aliens are thought of in this world. They don't exist because we as humans can't have them exist. We humans must be the center of the universe."
"Agreed," Alan said.
"And if you tell the public about the hydrogen bombs in the cities, and that there might be more at any time, you'll start a panic that will kill millions. The cities will become ghost towns, and the Klar will be on their way to winning that way."
Again there was silence on the other end of the line for a long time. Finally the vice president said, "That's exactly the conclusion the president and I had come to. We're going into a meeting with the Joint Chiefs in a few hours. We've decided we're going to keep them in the dark for now. I just wanted to run that past you."
"I think that's for the better," Neda said. "But what did the president tell all the foreign heads of state? How'd he get them to search without telling them about aliens?"
Alan laughed. "He said nothing about aliens. He figured they'd all have hung up on him. He told them he had knowledge of a sophisticated terrorist group planting bombs in cities. He told each to keep it very quiet, and had, in all but five cases, special CIA two-man teams take care of the carrier and the bomb once they were found."
"Amazing," Neda said. "So very few people actually know about the bombs. And even fewer know about the Klar?"
"That's correct," Alan said. "It is amazing."
"And the press?"
"We're giving them nothing. And if they press it too hard, or discover anything about the Klar, they'll look like the tabloids and no one will believe them."
"Nice," Neda said. She was massively relieved.
"Look," Alan said, "over the next few days the president and I will be setting up a very secret group to deal with this threat. We want to work with your group as much as possible."
"That would be fine with us," she said. "The more the merrier, as the old saying goes."
The vice president laughed. "I'll agree with you on that. I'll be in touch."
And with that he hung up.
Neda dropped the phone into its pl
ace and looked up at Cornell. "It seems we're still in the undercover alien-chasing business."
"Good," Cornell said. "I think where the Klar are concerned, it's safer for everyone that way."
Neda glanced around at the two huge statues towering over her and could only agree.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
When you have a bee in your bonnet, you don't start swinging a fly swatter.
——MICHAEL AVALLONE
FROM THE TALL DELORES
2:19 P.M. JUNE 26.
BELLINGHAM, WASHINGTON
McCallum and Henry walked into Neda Foster's Bellingham lab and were shown inside immediately. No waiting around in the outside room this time. McCallum had called from the Harris jet and told Neda he had an idea and was on his way. She had just gotten off the phone with the vice president, so she filled him in on what was happening and the president's decision to keep everything quiet.
McCallum found on hearing that news that he was very, very relieved. For some reason the thought of having his picture plastered all over the tabloids as the first human to ever fire a weapon at an alien ship didn't please him.
Inside the lab the two statues of the Klar stopped both him and Henry cold again. McCallum doubted he would ever get used to seeing them. The two monsters seemed to be staring down at him with their snake eyes. It made his skin crawl.
"Think maybe you made them mad last night?" Henry whispered.
"Maybe," McCallum said. He gave the two statues one long look and then headed, for where Neda Foster waited at her desk. Dr. Cornell waited with her.
"Nice shooting last night," Cornell said. "I've been wanting to ask you what reaction you saw when the antitank missiles hit their ship. It might help us figure out what the things are made of."
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