Sara has made her way off of the roof and is walking down the alleyway, when she spots the rival gang. She is too far away to hear the conversation the leader is having with Mac and Ava but decides if they have not already killed them, then they must want something else. She slowly closes the distance between them, close enough to pick up the end of the conversation, but they are unaware of her presence.
The leader of the gang, a six-foot-tall, dark-skinned man, is laying out his terms of passage through the city, when Sara interjects, “Maybe we don’t want to give you our bikes. Ever thought of that.”
The group turns around and sizes up the short girl, noticing she has the revolver in one hand and the bowie knife in the other. Sara grins at the group standing in front of her.
“Not sure you have much choice in the matter, young lady. There is no law now. We are the law. What we say, goes,” the man who seemed to be the gang’s leader says. “But we are willing to negotiate, being as we are a democratic group. Let’s say you guys leave a bike here, and we will let you go, no questions.”
Sara holds the pistol up to let them know she means business.
“Mac, Ava, you guys all right?”
The leader looks back at Mac and Ava and then pays Sara a complement.
“Good shooting, I must say; .308?”
Sara strains to look through the group but cannot see Mac or Ava.
“Thanks, and yes, it is a .308, and no, it’s not up for negotiation. Take the other bike. We’ll leave on this one,” she says, pointing over to the bike with the sidecar.
“Pretty sure you can take five or six of us out with that pistol, but then we would be on you from this distance, maybe even get you with an arrow.”
Sara sizes him up before answering, “If you are so inclined, let’s get to it. Tired of all this bullshit tonight.”
“Boy, you are a handful, aren’t you? I would give a million dollars for a dozen just like you. Guts, that’s what I like, guts. You’ve got ’em, and I will have to say, I’m impressed. Take your friends and get out of here before I change my mind.”
Sara steps forward another twenty yards as the group splits apart revealing a stunned Mac and Ava. They stumble forward, hanging onto each other as they walk between the group to Sara. Returning the pistol to her belt, she hangs onto the bowie knife, keeping it visible for the thugs to see. Mac and Ava make their way over to Sara as she walks backward, keeping her eyes on the group the whole time. Mac helps Ava get into the sidecar; she took the brunt of the attack and is still out of it. Straddling the bike, he pushes the kick-starter, and the bike rumbles to life. Pulling up next to Sara, Mac slows down to a walking pace as she grabs his shoulder and swings her leg up onto the seat behind him. He slowly accelerates the bike forward and keeps the speed slow as he starts to pass the group, wary of them and wondering if they will keep their word. Looking over her shoulder, Sara looks directly into the leader’s eyes.
“Until we meet again,” she yells.
“You bet, Sara Jean . . . You bet.”
She is not sure how he knows her name but is happy to be rolling out of town to the north to Roswell.
The rain subsides a few miles north of town as they ride on.
In town, the leader takes a close look at his prize. The vintage bike glistening in the rain makes him happy.
“Was it her?” a voice from the gang says.
“Must be. How many Sara Jean Robinsons do you think are left in the world?”
Retreating inside one of the closest buildings, the gang steps out of the rain. Pulling a paper flyer out of his coat jacket, the leader unfolds it revealing a wanted poster of Sara, a photo of a younger Sara printed in the middle of the page:
SARA JEAN ROBINSON
WANTED: ALIVE
REWARD for the capture and
delivery of S.J. Robinson.
Exercise extreme caution.
CALL SOAC HQ—Contact EDWARDS
DIAL: +699 7767 839487
“What’s the reward?” The thug behind him asks.
“Going to find out soon enough. Where did we leave that satellite phone? Time to make a call.”
9
FIFTY MILES SOUTH of Roswell at 6:30 in the morning, just outside the small town of Artesia, the trio continues its onslaught north to its first objective. A bit chilled by the night air with soaking wet clothing, Sara has retreated into the sidecar and is snuggled up with Ava, sharing a wool blanket. Mac stares blankly ahead, shivering from the cold as he strains to see down the dimly illuminated highway in front of him. The next town comes and goes in a blur. Not wanting to slow down or repeat the previous early morning adventure, Mac keeps the bike moving as he pushes onward to Roswell. A loud bang shatters the low rumbling of the bike engine, followed by a lot of clunking noises, sending the three occupants off to the side of the road.
“Damn it,” Mac says as the bike quietly coasts to a stop.
Ava and Sara are looking up at him by now and wondering what happened. Mac looks around at the side of the engine and can see a hole in the side of the block and a piece of metal sticking out of the side of the open hole.
“Yep, that’s it. She’s done for.” He says.
“How far is it to Roswell?” Sara speaks up.
“Not sure; last town we rode through was about fifteen miles back. That probably puts us somewhere between twenty to twenty-five miles away.”
Still rubbing a sore head, Ava stands up and gives Sara a boost out of the sidecar. “Guess we are walking.” Ava says.
“No problem. Twenty, twenty-five miles, about eight or nine hours of walking if we don’t stop. Should make it by tonight,” Sara replies as she starts gearing up to make the hike on foot.
“At least the sun is coming up.” Mac is still uneasy on his feet after getting hit in the head. Looking down the road to the north, Sara checks her watch as she adjusts the straps on her backpack. Turning back to her friends, she gives them a nod up with her head while motioning with her left arm for them to follow her. With nothing else holding them at the motorcycle, the trio abandons it and continues single file up the road. Mile after mile, Sara outpaces them and is soon out of sight. Mac is a few yards in front of Ava but continually checks on her to see whether she is still making forward progress. Satisfied that she has not fallen behind, he turns his head back to the front and continues placing one foot in front of the other. The early morning sun quickly traverses the sky and is directly overhead before the duo makes half the distance to the town.
“Got to stop. Too hot to keep walking with no water,” Ava yells in a raspy whisper to Mac. She stumbles off the road and down into the ditch, landing on the upslope side.
Barely hearing her speak, Mac does not turn in time to see her fall. Walking slowly up to her, he sits at her side.
“You okay?”
“Just need a rest break; been going for hours and no relief from this blazing sun.”
“Yes, better to stop now instead of walking until we drop.”
“How far is Sara ahead of us?”
“Not sure; last I saw her was about two hours ago.”
Mac and Ava continue their slumber on the side of the road and are unaware of the footsteps coming to them. It is a rhythmic thumping from a short stride, but steady and would seem to come from the north.
“Do you hear that?” he says, but it does not elicit a response from Ava.
Mac stands and is relieved to see Sara running up to them.
“Taking a break on me?” Sara laughs before kneeling down and removing the backpack. She opens the top of the pack and pulls out a couple of used two-liter plastic soda bottles.
“Here, this water is okay to drink.” She hands a bottle to Mac, who in turn opens the cap and pours some into Ava’s mouth. Half out of it, half-awake, Ava stirs from near comatose to doing quite well in the next fifteen minutes. Satisfied that she will be okay, Mac takes a couple of huge swigs of water, then asks Sara how far she made it.
“Just south
of town. Maybe two or three miles, but I didn’t see anyone. Found this water and knew you could use some.”
“Thanks. Just in time. Pretty sure we would have died of dehydration by tomorrow if you had not come back. Give the rest to Ava.”
Pulling the journal out of the backpack, Sara opens it up to the hand-drawn map page, tracing her route from Luckenbach all the way past Carlsbad, New Mexico, and half the distance to Roswell.
Pointing with her finger to the center of the map, she says, “Looks like we are right about here. We can rest off the road up there.” She points behind them at a small rock outcropping above them and fifty yards away. “Looks like there will be some shade by this afternoon, too; then we can push on this evening into Roswell.”
Mac puts Ava’s arm around his shoulder and helps her up. Scrambling up the short incline to the top of the next small hill, the trio make their way over to the rock outcropping before Ava collapses in a heap on the ground. Mac kneels next to her and checks her pulse and breathing.
“She’s still breathing. Probably has a bad concussion from getting hit by that freight train of a fist.”
Sara is kneeling next to her holding her other hand. “She just needs to rest. I’ll be back in a while after I find us something to eat.”
Sara drops the backpack, opens the top, and assembles the rifle, this time making sure the silencer is tightly positioned on the business end. Mac continues to attend to Ava and does not realize that Sara is gone. As he looks up, scanning right and left, she is nowhere to be seen.
Sara makes her way around the rock outcropping and climbs another 200 feet up to the top of the bluff to get a bird’s-eye view of the valley. The sun continues to blaze overhead as the temperature climbs above eighty-five degrees Fahrenheit, adding to the trio’s misery. On top of the bluff, she turns 360 degrees surveying the area around her. The desolation of the New Mexico desert is endless, and even more so with the lack of inhabitants from people leaving the area after the demise of civilization. Removing her backpack, and unslinging the rifle, Sara lies down in the prone position and opens the bipod leg attachment on the rifle to prop up the barrel. Looking through the scope, she scans the valley floor and roadway to the north of them. The heat radiates off the asphalt and gives way to a mirage of water far off in the distance. Scanning to the west and left side of the road, she carefully, slowly, and methodically checks every rock, cactus, and piece of dirt for signs of life. The minutes give way to hours as the afternoon sun begins to set in the west. With no luck on the afternoon hunt, Sara gives up, throwing her backpack on her back and slinging the rifle across her chest in front of her. Scrambling back down the scree-filled slope, she slides most of the way back to where she left Mac and Ava.
“Did you see anything?” Mac says as he sees Sara walking up to him.
“Nothing! There’s nothing out here. Looks like we will have to go into town to find something to eat.”
Ava is looking better and is finishing off the last bit of water.
“I’m ready to go as soon as you guys are. Can’t stay out here another day without shade or food.” Her raspy voice trails off as she speaks.
A low rumble hits their ears as they are standing up. “Get down.” Sara unslings the rifle and looks up the road to the south.
Looking through the scope, she sees a motorcycle with a single rider on it. The motorcycle and rider grow larger and larger as it gets closer. At less than 500 feet away, Sara recognizes their new friend who just relieved them of their transportation. Her right finger gently squeezes the trigger of the rifle, sending a cloud of dust up in front of the barrel. The rider is knocked off the bike before the sound of the rifle shot gets to him, the bike skidding across the pavement before landing in the opposite ditch.
“Now we got wheels. Go ahead, Mac, grab the bike. We’ll be right down.”
She ejects the spent shell casing, with a grin coming across her lips. Sara looks at Ava, who is just staring at her, a defeated look on her face.
“C’mon, let’s hit it; we will be eating out on the town before the sun goes down.”
Ava struggles to get up, eventually regaining enough strength to stand up and stumble out to the roadway. Mac is ready and waiting on the bike as Sara climbs onto the front of the bike between him and the fuel tank. Ava stumbles over and straddles the seat behind him, wrapping her arms around his chest, head buried in his back. The little Triumph strains under the weight of three passengers as Mac adds some throttle to get them going. A bit wobbly at first, he leaves his legs off the pedals and close to the ground until they get up to speed. In no time at all, the outskirts of Roswell present themselves in front of the trio as more houses and businesses materialize on both sides of the road. Just to the left of them, the international airport passes by, but they decide to continue into town, opting for a location that could have a restaurant and place to stay the night. Mac slows the bike down to twenty miles an hour as they pass by the local cemetery.
“Don’t think that’s been used for a while.” Mac drives the bike into the center of town. Up ahead, Sara spots the UFO museum and starts pointing. Knowing that’s his cue to pull over, Mac eases the bike up to the sidewalk and just under the marquee of the museum. Looking up, Sara stares into the large eyes of an alien that is the display for the museum.
“We got to go inside. This is it! This is it!”
She jumps off the bike and runs up to the doors, finally noticing a Closed for Business sign on the front door. Placing her face up against the glass door, she peers inside at the oddities that are in the lobby. She shakes the door, and it is locked. “No worries; got this.”
Pulling out the lock picks, she has the door open in less than a minute. Looking over her shoulder at Mac, she motions for him and Ava to follow, before disappearing inside the building.
“Well, I guess we are taking a tour,” he says as he steps off the bike.
“Yes, aren’t we lucky to have such a distinguished colleague such as Sara?” Ava chokes out before putting her arm around Mac’s shoulder. Mac helps her inside the building and sets her down on a staircase just inside. The museum looks as though it could have been an old theater, but now is oddly decorated with alien information from the 1940s and up. On display are things you would likely find in a state that is steeped in alien mystery after the cover-up in the late ’40s of the alien spacecraft crash and the refusal of the US government to acknowledge aliens.
Posted on a display board on a far wall is a poster: “Dulce Base—Fact or Fiction? The true alien base in Northern New Mexico.”
Sara has searched the whole building looking for anyone who could pose a problem later. Rounding a corner back into the main lobby, she comes out and startles Mac.
“Don’t do that.” Mac’s heart races. “Check that sign out Sara.”
Sara gives it a quick glance before turning back to face him. “That’s where we are headed.”
Sara pulls out the notebook, turning it to a page that has Dulce printed across the top of the page. “Here, look, my dad put this in here. It must be important, or he wouldn’t have put it in here.” Mac walks over and looks over the page. Just under the word Dulce is a set of GPS coordinates:
N36˚ 58’47.24 W106˚ 58’.
“Okay. So there is a secret base that nobody but your dad knows about, except for half of the world and most of Roswell, New Mexico, and he has most of the coordinates for said base entrance?”
“Hey, dip shit, the alien story is just a cover, a cover for a secret base where military medical experiments are conducted.” Sara is a bit ticked but presses on with her explanation. “Medical experiments that my dad uncovered when he was working with the CDC in Washington, DC. He wrote about it in his journal. It’s all in here. I think it has something to do with what is going on in the world right now with the Ebola virus.”
She finishes off her statement as she walks past the duo and up to the glass doors, staring outside and across the street. “I’m getting hungry; I
need to find something to eat.”
“Wait a minute,” Mac pipes up. “You mean to tell me that coming here was planned all along?”
“Yep.” The only reply he gets out of Sara before she swings the door open and steps out into the street. Armed with only the pistol and bowie knife, Sara scans the deserted street left and right before spotting a café sign two blocks to the south. Stepping back inside the building while still partially holding the door open, she yells to Mac and Ava. “There’s a café just down the block.”
“Probably no food there, but worth a try,” Mac says to Ava.
“Let’s go; kids got to eat, and I’m hungry, too.” Ava replies.
They exit and follow Sara, who has already crossed the street, a block ahead of them. They watch as Sara enters the café.
A few minutes later, Mac and Ava are at the front door of the café. They swing the door open, and a bell attached to the top of the doorjamb rings. The 1950s diner seats are tattered and worn but in relatively good shape for a restaurant that has been open for more than half a century. From behind the counter, they hear the small hands rummaging around in the kitchen. Pots and pans are clattering as Sara looks through the pantries and freezers. Mac helps Ava get seated at a booth and then heads into the kitchen. Swinging the door open, he sees Sara with two large, one-gallon-size cans of food. The labels have been torn off, but they still look as if they may contain some food.
“May be something good. May not,” Sara says.
Mac looks at her, then searches for a can opener. “Here, the can opener is over there.” He points to the end of a stainless prep table where the industrial can opener with a large spinner knob is still attached to the table. Handing him the can, Sara stands off to one side as he slides the can opener up and then down on the top of the can. Rotating the device around the edge of the can slices the lid open in fewer than ten turns of the handle. The smell of tomatoes instantly hits their noses. Mac pulls the top of the can off to reveal a tomatoey surprise of spaghetti and meatballs. Sara looks down at it as though it is a delicacy, the likes of what would be served in one of the finest restaurants in New York City.
Seven Days To Brooklyn: A Sara Robinson Adventure Page 8