Alan E. Nourse & J. A. Meyer

by The invaders are Coming

  Alexander took the opening advantage by putting Bahr on the defensive about the kidnapping.

  First he asked Bahr's attorney a few routine questions about why Bahr wanted the adoption, for which very reasonable and logical answers were presented. Then Alexander said, "And what was Mr. Bahr's reaction to the attempted kidnapping of Miss Allison's child?"

  The attorney turned to Bahr, who indicated that he would answer without taking the witness chair. "I was naturally concerned," Bahr said, "and I would like to add that I am exceedingly grateful to the Canadian authorities, who were alert enough to prevent what might have been an anxious ... or even tragic . . . incident."

  "Can you think of any reason why someone should have wanted to carry out this kidnapping, Mr. Bahr?" Alexander asked, persistently ignoring Bahr'*title.

  "I cannot, unless they knew he was my son and intended to bilk me for ransom. Certainly a ransom attempt would have been aimed at me," he added, "because Miss Allison has no money at all."

  "Then someone must have been aware of your earlier attempt to negotiate with Miss Allison?"

  Bahr reddened. "That's possible. It was a domestic matter, I made no attempt at secrecy."

  Alexander's voice was smooth. "Then possibly some over-zealous people attempted the kidnapping, thinking they were acting in your interests."

  "I think not," Bahr said sharply. "My people know I don't operate that way . . . and they are completely loyal."

  Alexander let that remark sink home; then he thrust the knife. "In that case, I'm sure you can explain," he said, "why every member of the kidnapping group was an agent in the New York division of your own DIA."

  During the recess Bahr had a background check run on Alexander, on a crash priority, intent on discrediting him as an imposter. Alexander was a passed-over major in the Army, a deserter, and wanted by the DIA for stability check and alien contact. A General! Bahr snorted.

  The background check altered his plans. The Army records were complete and perfect. Alexander, they said, had been on special CI assignment since the Wildwood raid; his promotion had been reconsidered, and he had been spot-promoted to General after directing a raid on Chinese Intelligence headquarters in Hong Kong two weeks before when an attempt had been made to blow up the White Sands rocket installation. Bahr remembered seeing the report on that raid, carried out with terrific daring and precision in Hong Kong and well publicized. He had even commended it publicly himself, though the names of the participants had not been noted. Bahr did not like it. It put Alexander in too strong a position, a military hero.

  The escape from Kelley was no help, since Alexander had been registered there under a John Smith label, for Bahr's convenience. As far as the records were concerned, the incident had never happened, and Alexander was legally scot-free. The recess was short, but by the time he went back into court Bahr was certain that some forgery and conniving had been carried out with the Army files. He smelled a rat, but he didn't know what to do about it at that time.

  After the recess, the unpleasantness of the opening session intensified. Bahr presented his claims for the boy. Alexander parried every inference against Libby's character and qualifications, but felt that he was losing ground nevertheless. Bahr's confidence was returning; he nodded to his counsel, and they began the long string of male witnesses testifying to Libby's immoral conduct during the past weeks. Alexander appeared confused as the picture developed inexorably. Finally, as though at a loss, he put Libby herself on the stand.

  She tensed herself for the ordeal, to do what she had to do. "I could deny what these men have been saying, but I can't see what difference their testimony could make in this matter anyway," she said sharply. "When DEPCO was closed down my apartment was looted, my bank account frozen, and I was turned out on the street and hustled around by the police for vagrancy. My education kept me out of low-skill jobs, and my red security card, a present from Mr. Bahr, kept me out of highly skilled jobs. When the currency was changed . . . well, show me one person in Federation America who didn't go through hell during that changeover. . . ."

  She saw Bahr's face go red with anger, saw him lean over to whisper to Braelow, saw the camera eyes watching her from four angles across the room, and she went on. Her voice was low before; now she raised it so it carried clearly across the courtroom. "But we're not talking about me, we're talking about this man's claim on my son, and there's one thing I'd like to make clear, and it just makes me furious. I've been insulted, and attacked, and my private life has been put under the spotlight, all on the strength of sanctimonious claims that Julian Bahr wants to do the right thing by his son and take him away ffgjn my evil influence. Well, I would like to ask Mr. Bahr if he has one shred of proof, even a single scrap of paper, that will prove that he is the father of my child."

  There was a stunned silence. Then Bahr was on his feet. "This is ridiculous," he roared. "There are the paternity papers . . ." And then he broke off suddenly, staring at the cameras, his mouth still open.

  He remembered then.

  There were no paternity papers.

  The judge adjourned for the day, to quiet the courtroom and give Bahr time to re-form his case.

  The following day, a barrage of evidence: blood typing, flesh and hair tests, fingerprint whorls, eye color. Alexander dismissed it all, pleasantly but firmly. "Hundreds of men could have produced a child with these characteristics," he said. "This is not conclusive evidence; it isn't even evidence at all."

  More testimony, not in especially good taste, but Bahr was desperate. He was committed now, he would not turn back. He would not lose a public battle to that red-headed slut. He was Julian Bahr, he had dragged himself up from nothing to the leadership of a continent, and she was nothing more than a common whore, like ... A wave of anger shut his mind against the past. That didn't matter now. All that mattered was that he was going to win.

  He verified the skiing vacation they took when Libby had become pregnant. Witnesses testified that they shared the same room.

  Libby shook her head. "What difference does that make?" she asked Braelow. "All you're proving is immorality, not paternity."

  "You admit you went on weekends with Mr. Bahr?" "Certainly."

  "That he was intimate with you?" "You mean that he slept with me?"

  "That's what I mean," Braelow said, beginning to color.

  "So have other men," Libby said, "according to you. You ran a regiment through this courtroom to prove it. Who was in bed with me doesn't matter. What matters is who got me pregnant. It was not Bahr."

  Braelow turned back to the table, confused. "All right," Bahr said angrily, "you've messed around long enough." He stood up and strode to the center of the room, glaring at Libby, raising his head to the cameras. He knew the eyes that were watching him, now, but he didn't care any longer; all he could see was her face, her eyes watching him with hatred; all he could feel now was the violent, overpowering urgency to break her, to beat her down and pound her into the ground. He didn't care if all the world was watching, she couldn't do what she was doing to him and get away with it. "Now," he said, his voice thick with repressed anger, "let's straighten out a few simple facts. I know what you've turned into in the last few weeks—that's why I'm involved in this filthy affair—but just for the record let's talk about the year 2022. That is when you became pregnant, right?" "In March, to be exact," Libby said.

  "And you recall I was on a special assignment in California during most of that month?" "Yes, I recall."

  "You recall that I phoned you every night, from California?"

  "Very clearly."

  "Specifically, did you not plead with me to come back to New York, because you were . . . lonesome?"

  "I didn't use those exact words," Libby said.

  "Did you arrange to meet me at the ski resort in Sun Valley, and did you not fly out there?"

  "Yes."

  "We were together for two week ends?" "Yes."

  "And it was during this time that you became pr
egnant?"

  "Well, a woman has to calculate backwards, but I'm certain I became pregnant during that ten days in Sun Valley."

  "Then it couldn't have been anybody but me," Bahr said, and stepped back triumphantly.

  Libby's answer was mocking laughter. "So I led you to believe . . ."

  "You slut!" Bahr screamed, and smashed his hand across her face. She fell out of the chair, and Bahr reached down, grabbed her by the shoulder, drawing his fist back savagely.

  Someone seized his wrist, twisted it and threw him off balance, and he was glaring into Alexander's face. Suddenly Bahr remembered the cameras. He gripped the table edge. "You're a dead man," he said to Alexander, in a voice so low only Alexander could hear. Then he shrugged loose from Alexander's grip and turned back to Libby. The 3-V lens caught a closeup of his face, hideous with the anger of death, facing Libby's scornful mask.

  Then Libby was turning to the judge, speaking in a voice that carried to the farthest corner of the courtroom, to every person there, to every microphone. "He could never have been the father of my child." She looked around the room, drawing full attention, and then looked at Bahr, and made a slow, deliberate gesture. There was a gasp from the courtroom; as Libby spoke, facing directly into the 3-V lenses, her mouth twisted in contempt.

  "He is a fraud," she said, "a magnificent fake. Julian Bahr is impotent."

  EPILOGUE . . .

  IT HAD BEEN predictable, and yet unpredictable; he had headed for the border, and then, abruptly, the BRINT patrol had lost him, and it was almost an hour before they realized that he had doubled back, that he had never intended to go to the border at all.

  Emergency Director Harvey Alexander arrived in his Volta just as the BRINT men were breaking down the door to Libby's apartment. "The guard," he groaned, "my god, didn't she even have a guard?"

  "She did have," MacKenzie told him. "The guard was killed by a silent stunner. A couple of DIA men who were still loyal to him blocked our way up here for fifteen minutes." The BRINT man put a hand on Alexander's shoulder. "I'm sorry," he said. "We thought Bahr would try to get across the border when he slipped away from our patrol."

  In the dark hallway the axe-blows on the door shredded the silence, and finally the door crashed in. Two BRINT men pushed through inside, stunners ready. Alexander tore away from the aides who tried to restrain him, and followed them in.

  They were too late. Alexander saw her on the floor, and he turned white, and closed his eyes with a sudden dizzy feeling of pain and loss.

  Her face had been beaten to jelly, the flesh and bones mashed beyond recognition as if some blunt heavy maul had been used. She was naked, until they put a sheet over her. Even in death her body was twisted in agony.

  Julian Bahr sat in darkness in the next room. The BRINT men surrounded him with drawn guns, but it was a needless gesture. He sat dull and silent, staring at the floor, and his hands were broken and swollen and bloody.

  Later, as they were strapping Bahr onto a stretcher, Alexander half listened to the aide speaking into his ear. ". . . rounded up most of the top DIA men, except those who got to the Southern Continent. No question about your confirmation in the appointment. The engineering people at White Sands have pledged loyalty."

  He nodded, but he was not hearing. He knew that presently he would have to think about it. There was so much work to be done. The frontier had been reopened; gradually, the pace would have to be slowed, the starvation economy improved, Project Tiger converted from a crash war operation to a long-range program of progress that would ultimately take men out to the stars. He would not have to do it alone; he would have able hands helping him. There was MacKenzie and a dozen, a hundred, men like MacKenzie.

  There were other details, and soon he would have to begin thinking about them, but now he could think only of Julian Bahr, and Libby Allison. Bahr was there, but Bahr did not see him. He did not see Alexander weeping silently and alone over Libby's body, nor turning back to the world and the overwhelming task he had undertaken—to hold the reins of power in firm and dedicated hands.

  Julian Bahr would not see the great spaceships rise, months

  and years later, nor would he see his son grow tall and strong. He did not die, but still he was not alive; something had broken within him. The world changed, the days went by, but he did not see, nor understand, for the eyes of Julian Bahr were the eyes of a madman.

  But someday, Alexander hoped, Bahr's son would see . . . and understand.

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  THE INVADERS ARE COMING

  BEWARE THE

  MASTERS OF PANIC!

  For a century America had been a securely isolated power without crisis, turmoil — or progress. Then suddenly super-security measures were shattered by the theft of fissionable metal from an atomic power plant. When it leaked out that the thieves had been invaders from outer space—alien monsters-chaos reigned.

  The crisis called for a leader and the ruthless security chief, Julian Bahr, seized the helm, only to find everything he did strangely thwarted.

  Was there an alien "Fifth Column" in his own organization?

  Were the aliens already in control of the night skies?

  Were his growing nightmares a new form of secret weapon?

  Not until the last gripping page will you know the amazing secret that threatened America with total disaster. And by then you will have read one of the most outstanding, vividly exciting science-fiction novels ever written.

  AN ACE BOOK

  Table of Contents

  PROLOGUE

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Part II

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  PART IV PROJECT TIGER

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen