An object was moving across the heavens. The Colonel shivered, wondering if it was one of the alien starships – or perhaps the International Space Station, a bold effort dreamed up in the days before the aliens had taught the human race just how inadequate its imagination actually was. He stared at the blinking light, wondering if the aliens were looking back at him, before shaking his head and entering the farmhouse. The die had been cast the moment he’d agreed to allow Toby to speak to him and a handful of his most trusted associates. He could no more refuse to help form the resistance than he could refuse to serve his country in its hour of need.
Bob Packman met him in the sitting room. The others would have gone to eat – the Colonel’s daughter had promised them a feast and had been disappointed when Toby hadn't stayed – but he’d waited for the Colonel. He looked haunted, his eyes constantly glancing around like a man with a guilty conscience – or a man who felt terrified beyond belief. The Colonel couldn't blame him. The CIA trained its officers to look at the big picture and the big picture was terrifying. How could anyone hope to stick a spanner into the alien plan to take over the Earth? And what did the aliens really want?
“I'm terrified,” Packman admitted. The Colonel shrugged. He’d been terrified back in the Gulf, when Saddam had looked like a viable threat and the pundits were touting the Iraqi Republican Guard as the latest version of the Waffen SS. And then Desert Storm had rolled over the Iraqis and Saddam had survived by the skin of his teeth. The only thing preventing the Allies from removing his vile regime right there and then had been politics. “What do they want?”
The Colonel sat down beside him, ignoring the smell from the next room. A memory rose up inside his mind, mocking him. Every time she’d given birth, Mary had insisted on a full Thanksgiving dinner the moment she’d recovered enough to cook it. It might have been nowhere near Thanksgiving, but the Colonel had known better to disagree with her – and besides, she had cooked a wicked turkey. And then she’d died in childbirth and the Colonel had ordered the Turkey they’d bought for the feast thrown out, knowing that there was little to give thanks for. Mary had deserved better than to die giving birth to her youngest son.
“It isn't what we prepared for,” Packman said, softly. “We told ourselves that when the Crash came, we’d run away up here and hide from the chaos. We had guns and ammo and food – enough to ensure that we lived through the first few months. And we told ourselves that the only things we had to fear was mutant zombie bikers and government agents coming to take our food to feed the starving grasshoppers from the big cities, the fools who depended on the government to take care of them. How we laughed when we thought about lynching the government agents, hanging the fools who tried to tell us that the Second Amendment didn't apply to us – and standing in judgment over who we would let into our new paradise.
“We told ourselves that by running away and hiding, we would inherit the Earth,” he added. “And now there’s nowhere to hide. No hiding place down here.”
The Colonel didn't disagree. In truth, there had always been a degree of fantasy surrounding survivalist preparations, but having the ability to imagine the disasters that might consume the nation was a vital part of the survivalist mentality. And running away and hiding? There were some disasters so great that the only thing one could do was bunker down and hide, waiting for the chaos to subside and the vast starving hordes to die off. The Colonel’s Christian faith told him to help the helpless, but not at the cost of one’s own chances of survival. And besides, he had no faith in the vast masses who depended on the government for their daily bread to behave when the government fell apart.
“Look at us,” Packman said. “We’re just as dependent upon modern society as the rest of the world – and that makes us vulnerable. Every single goddamn cell phone is a potential spy. Anything we post on the internet – anything we download from the internet – becomes something they can use to track us. They can probably slip into our databases and alter details as they see fit, making it impossible for us to even remember the truth. How can we fight when we can’t even trust our own weapons or memories?”
He shook his head. “They’re carrying out a goddamned soft coup and half of our population is probably quite prepared to welcome the New World Order,” he concluded. “And what’s going to happen to us then?”
The Colonel nodded. He’d seen the studies. The Chinese Government had spent most of the Clinton Administration stealing every piece of computer software they could get their hands on, sometimes aided and abetted by members of an administration the Colonel considered a national mistake. And some folks in the CIA had wondered if that couldn't be turned to their advantage, if they couldn't penetrate systems the Chinese didn’t fully understand and take control of them. If they could do that, they’d thought, they could effectively control the Chinese nation – and no one would ever know what they’d done. How could the Chinese fight back when they couldn't trust their weapons?
Nothing had ever come of the plan, of course. There were too many risks involved for it to be anything other than a theoretical study. But he could see how it applied to their situation. If Toby’s friends were right and the aliens had calmly hacked their way into every government database, they’d know everything they needed to know to draw up plans for the invasion. The implications were devastating. A poker player couldn't hope to win if his opponent knew what cards he was holding in his hand.
“I’m in shock,” Packman said. “Twenty days ago, the world changed forever ; nothing has changed on the surface, but you can feel it moving underwater. This is the calm before the storm. God alone knows what will happen when the storm finally hits.”
The Colonel shrugged. Packman had always had an imagination. It was one of the reasons his superiors had asked him to leave. “We’ll need to think about it carefully,” he said. He disliked cell phones personally and insisted that they be turned off in the house. He’d even ordered his guests to leave them behind when Toby had briefed them, something that might have saved their lives. It was quite possible to turn a mobile phone on remotely and transform it into a spy. “And we need to find a way of operating under their radar.”
Susan stuck her head through the door. “Are you not coming?” She demanded. “The food is getting cold!”
The Colonel knew better than to defy his daughter over her cooking. Like her mother, Susan was tough and very determined to control the female sphere – which included cooking and wedding planning. If he’d skipped dinner, she wouldn't have forgiven him for months, just like Mary. At least Mary had understood when he’d been called back to his unit for an emergency drill that had led nowhere. Susan’s husband was on the other side of the world.
“Coming,” he said, hauling himself to his feet. He’d kept himself in peak physical condition for a man of his age, but he was suddenly chillingly aware that he wasn't anything like as strong or active as he’d been before his retirement. “Come on, Bob. You don’t want to get her angry at you.”
“Quite right,” Susan agreed. Standing against the light, she looked terrifyingly like her mother. “And if you don’t eat a full plate of stew, you won’t get any desert.”
***
They reconvened in the living room after the dinner. The Colonel rubbed his stomach – he’d eaten more than was good for him, but it had tasted so good – and started to pour the coffee into a number of mugs. Susan and everyone else not directly involved with the resistance – for the Colonel had already determined to resist, whatever else happened – hadn't been invited to the meeting. There was no point in risking the lives of anyone who hadn't already committed themselves to the fight.
He thought, just for a moment, of Toby. His youngest son was right in the heart of enemy territory, Washington DC. The Colonel, like many survivalists, treated Washington with great suspicion, an attitude that had only hardened over the years that Washington's politicians had fiddled while the country burned down around them. It was one thing to talk – and poli
tical leaders could talk the hind leg off a donkey – but it was another thing to act...and nothing he’d seen had convinced him that Congress could pass an act to save its life, let alone the entire country. The first step in solving a problem was recognising that there actually was a problem and Washington’s stable of politicians would prefer to avoid admitting that for as long as possible. Who knew where the blame might fall?
“Let’s be clear about this,” the Colonel said. “We are at war with a force of unknown power. We don't know what they are, we don't know what they want and we don't know what they can actually do. They have most of our politicians in their pockets and large parts of our society trust them more than they trust any human. All of our data consists of little more than wild-assed guessing. If there is anyone here who wishes to back out and hide, rather than try to fight, say so now. It will not be held against you.”
“Respectfully suggest,” Coleman grated, “that you stop insulting us and get down to business.”
The Colonel smiled. “Right,” he said. “The aliens are telling us to disarm. There’s only one logical reason for them to want us to disarm and that’s because they intend to invade – and intend to deprive us of the tools needed to resist them effectively. We are staring down the barrels of an alien invasion. God alone knows what they want from us, but I doubt they think that it is anything that we would give to them willingly.”
“Perhaps they want to eat us,” Packman suggested. Food seemed to have restored his good humour, although his eyes still looked haunted. “Maybe diced human is the food of choice among the stars.”
“Doubt it,” Coleman said. “Does anyone here believe that the Chinese or the Russians or the Arabs wouldn't take the opportunity to sell troublemakers to alien butchers if it meant they would have access to alien technology?”
The Colonel couldn't disagree. There were plenty of governments on Earth that didn't put the well-being of their own citizens on their list of priorities, let alone anywhere near the top. It was one of the many reasons why he was glad to be an American. If African governments were prepared to allow famines to take place because the people starving belonged to hostile tribes, they wouldn't hesitate to sell living humans to the aliens. Africans had been selling their fellow Africans into slavery long before there had ever been a United States of America. And the Chinese...if they were prepared to carry out a religious and ethnic genocide in Tibet and other regions, they wouldn't hesitate to sell them off to butchers. Hell...he wouldn't have put it past his own government.
“No,” the Colonel said. “They want something and the only answer that makes sense is that they want humanity’s industrial base. Anything else they could get by wreaking the planet or exterminating the human race.”
“No offense, but that can't be right,” Packman said. “Why would they want humanity’s industrial base when we can barely lift a few tons into orbit? Building a ship like theirs would take at least fifty years; we’d have to build the tools to make the tools long before we even started work on the ship. What the hell do they want from us?”
Dawlish stroked his chin. “Maybe we’re more advanced than them in some areas,” he suggested. “The Japanese moved ahead in civilian computing technology...”
“Because we had all of our brightest minds going into the military,” Packman countered. “I find it impossible to believe that they don’t have everything we have and a great deal more...”
His voice trailed off, slowly. “Oh.”
The Colonel looked up at him. “Oh?”
“They need our industrial base because they don't have one of their own,” Packman said. He shook his head slowly. “If they need to use our industrial base, it suggests that theirs is somehow lost – or missing.”
“Or maybe they intend to upgrade ours once they have control,” Coleman suggested. “How long would it take them to boost what we have to a level that can be used for building something comparable to theirs? For all we know, it’s cheaper to build a new industrial base here rather than ship equipment in from thousands of light years away...”
The Colonel held up a hand. “As interesting as this is, we need to start building a resistance,” he said, firmly. “Bob’s pointed out that the aliens will have access to government databases. We need to build a network without compromising ourselves – thoughts?”
“Nothing gets put online, ever,” Packman said. “And we don’t make telephone calls – at least not ones where we discuss anything sensitive. We meet our potential allies face-to-face...”
“Which would blow us wide open if the aliens have tagged one of them,” the Colonel said. He was still reeling from the news about the alien surveillance devices. If they’d bugged the President they could bug anyone – and it would be almost impossible to locate the devices without specialised equipment. Perhaps Toby could get his hands on some of it...maybe. “I think we’re going to have to assume the worst.”
“The worst is pretty bad,” Packman said. “I keep up with a few friends of mine from the Agency. We have ways of tracking people, even in godforsaken Afghanistan and Pakistan, without them ever even knowing that they’ve been tagged. And then we call in a Predator and drop a Hellfire on their heads. We must be very careful; someone who works with us may unwittingly lead the aliens to our location. I think we need to start creating smaller cells, right fucking now. The loss of one won’t destroy them all.”
The Colonel nodded. “We’ll reach out to anyone we know with real military experience,” he said. “We won’t touch anyone on active duty, not when their records are already in alien hands...”
“Our records will be in alien hands,” Packman pointed out. “We’re all former military or former intelligence...”
“We’ll have to pray that we’re not noticed,” the Colonel admitted. There were ways to pass unnoticed, even in modern society. He’d have to start tapping some of his more dubious friends for false ID and other counterfeit documents. The government had been more careful about identity fraud since 9/11. “If we allow fear to paralyse us, we won't get anywhere at all.”
The discussion lasted long into the night. After a few more ideas had been dropped into the mix, the Colonel started writing them down on a notepad. They’d have to shred the paperwork once they’d finished the discussion, if only because the farm might be raided by government agents. The Colonel still remembered the arrogant agent who’d turned up because of a vague report that the farm was selling unprocessed milk to locals – never mind the fact that everyone who’d bought the milk was an adult and knew the risks. Government treated people like children or criminals...
“And we will have to devise a secure link to Toby,” he added, almost as an afterthought. Toby was in the best possible position to know what was about to happen. “How the hell do we do that?”
Chapter Thirteen
Washington DC
USA, Day 24
“Federation, Federation, Federation...”
Jason could hear the chanting protesters through the taxi’s closed windows. The elderly Pakistani who was driving the cab looked nervous as the protesters came into view, a disorganised mob of young people – mainly students – with a hard core of professional protesters. There were a number of police officers wearing riot gear watching the protest nervously, wondering if it would turn violent. The radio claimed that it was the largest single protest in America; hundreds of thousands were thronging the streets, demanding that the Government immediately accept the alien terms for starting down the long road towards Federation membership.
He rubbed his tired eyes as the noise grew louder. The alien terms had leaked two days ago and since then, SETI had found itself at the heart of both pro-alien and anti-alien protests. SETI had always believed that ET would be friendly and there was a strong feeling running throughout the organisation that they should accept the Federation’s terms, but not everyone agreed with them. There was a core of protesters who believed that the alien terms were demeaning and should be rejected
without further comment. The radio updates had started that there had been several violent clashes between the two sides and hundreds of protesters had been arrested. Rumour online had it that protesters from all over the United States were being bussed into Washington, where they were making their feelings known to the Government. Jason wouldn't have wanted to be a senator who stood against the aliens, not with tempers running so high.
The Trojan Horse Page 12