As Jerry Dills took this in, he felt the hair standing up on the back of his neck. There had to be more carnage waiting for the beam of his flashlight to illuminate. As he shone the light around, he heard the sharp intake of air by Thomas Tahchako. The bright light picked out the remains of the old Indian's herd. They were scattered here and there in different states of mutilation; for the most part, the bodies were gone.
"What in God's name could have done this?" Jerry asked, squeezing the handle of his nine millimeter tighter.
"Son of bitch, forty head of cattle, my whole western pasture," Thomas mumbled as his rifle slowly dropped from his hands. "Goddamn cattle mutilations! The government's behind this!"
The two troopers watched as the man broke down and started mumbling. Then they looked out into the desert and wondered what was out there. Their eyes met for a moment, sharing the same thought. They didn't believe for one minute the government was out killing this Apache's cattle. Whatever it was, they didn't think they wanted to meet up with it in the dark.
Suddenly the ground erupted skyward and a wave of dirt, sand, and uprooted brush screamed toward the three men. The wave smashed into their feet and tossed the men easily into the air. Tahchako, Wasser, and Dills came down hard and immediately tried to gain their feet. All three were shaking badly as they scanned the darkness, but all that could be seen was the wave dissipating in the distance as their invisible intruder crossed the dirt road and shook the lit cruiser violently before disappearing.
Around them, the desert grew still once again.
With the tire changed and the state troopers gone twenty minutes now, Harold Tracy anxiously climbed the steps into the huge Winnebago. He washed his hands in the sink and dried them on a towel. He walked to the driver's compartment and climbed around the center console. His wife was still reading the road map and shaking her head.
"All set?" she asked without looking up.
Harold looked over at Grace and gave her the bird quickly, while her face was still buried in the accursed map.
"That's not nice, Harold. That's why bad things happen to you." Her face was still hidden in the map.
"That cop told me we have to go the other way on State Eighty-eight to get even remotely close to the interstate." Digging it in the best he could. "You picked wrong again, Grace."
Finally she lowered the large map and carefully folded it. The smile she wore didn't reach her eyes.
"Who was it that wanted to come on this desert outing in the first place, Harold, me? No, it wasn't, it was you, the great adventurer who scoffed so heartily at going to my sister's in Colorado. So if you insist on pointing fingers, point them at yourself."
"Believe me, if I could get this thing to fly, Grace, I would get you there right now and drop you off!" He yelled the last three words as he started the camper.
She was about to tear into him when they were both suddenly thrown from their seats and into the RV's roof. Grace hit so hard she dented the aluminum in the overhead. Then the camper came down, bounced once on its ten wheels, and tilted to the right and slowly rolled onto its side. For a moment, Harold thought they were flying to Denver. The crunching of glass and mirrors drowned out Grace's screams as the huge Winnebago settled on its right side. Then all was quiet. Harold had fallen onto his wife, who was trying to push him off.
"Get off me!" she yelled into his ear.
But Harold wasn't listening. He was looking out of the windshield with his mouth hanging open. Grace followed his gaze, and the scream caught in her throat as she came eye to eye with something she couldn't have dreamed in her wildest nightmare.
The beast blinked at the two people inside who were frozen in terror. The green and yellow eyes reflected their image back at them.
As Harold fought the urge to scream, the animal roared at the windshield, bringing up the armored plates around its neck. The window immediately fogged and then cracked into a million tiny wavy lines. But the image of the animal could, unfortunately, still be seen as clear as day. They were face-to-face with the largest set of incisors they had ever seen. The mouth was wide, and every time it opened its bonelike mandibles the rows upon rows of teeth shone clearly in its mouth. The beast roared again; the glass, unable to take any more acoustic hammering, fell from the frame. The man and woman screamed and screamed, until they noticed the sudden silence inside the camper. When they opened their eyes, the animal was gone.
Harold looked down at Grace. She was still staring out the window, and the shakes had taken over, making her entire body quake. The curlers she had placed in her hair earlier after they had stopped at that small bar and grill had for the most part fallen out. Some hung on for dear life, half on and half off.
"Harold," Grace said quietly, "I think I peed myself."
Harold thought it better not to comment for the moment and just sat there and thanked God they were still alive. And also that Grace hadn't again brought up that they should have gone to her sister's in Denver.
TWENTY-ONE
Nellis AFB, Nevada, Computer Center, Event Group Complex
July 9, 0010 Hours
The Comp Center director, Pete Golding, and his tired team of techs hadn't found anything as of midnight and looked as if they were on a wild-goose chase in Arizona just as they had been in New Mexico. Boris and Natasha had burned most of its fuel and could not be retasked another time to a different orbit or track without running out. And that meant they would more than likely lose the bird because it was in such a low orbit now, it would soon come tumbling back into the atmosphere. Another move by the old and reliable satellite would be its last. It would take a shuttle launch to accomplish a refueling, and they all knew that couldn't be ordered like room service. Hours before, the president had been persuaded to give the NSA back its KH-11, Black Bird. The director of that agency was one of the few who knew about the Event Group and its front, the National Archives, and he was sympathetic and cooperative to a point, but with global terrorism still on the rise, their argument for having their bird back was valid and important to the nation.
Finally Compton had to sit at his desk and place his head down. The strain was finally catching up with him and he was on the brink of exhaustion.
Pete Golding, the head of the Comp Center and one of Niles's closest friends, saw him and shook his head. He would let his boss get as much sleep as possible because he knew from watching him he was close to collapse.
On the many screens lining the curving wall and on the main viewing screen high above them, the expanse of desert kept rolling by as seen and sent along by Boris and Natasha, and still it showed nothing but vast emptiness.
Niles Compton was snoring lightly at his desk, his first sleep in forty-eight hours. His feet were propped up on the desk blotter, and this time the overworked director was making real progress with the much needed rest his body craved. The shifts had changed twice since they had retasked Boris and Natasha, and the results had been nothing but clear desert throughout most of Arizona. They were now taking wide-angle views of the small range of mountains everyone in the West had heard of, the Superstitions.
Pete Golding yawned and then pulled up a U.S. Geological Survey map of Arizona and used his mouse to place it in the right corner of the live feed from Boris and Natasha so he could study it and the terrain on the monitor.
"Damn closest town isn't a town at all. Chato's Crawl?" He shook his head. Chato had been a big man with the Apache a hundred odd years ago, a close friend of Geronimo's, if he remembered right, but what was this Crawl crap that tagged the name?
"Bingo!" a voice from the floor shouted out.
Golding looked first at the display and then quickly down at the row of operators who were gathering around one computer console. He hadn't noticed anything on the green-tinted, twenty-foot-wide screen at the front of the room that was showing the real-time feed from the KH-11.
"All right, Dave, what have you got?" he asked the operator.
The loud exclamation had startled N
iles Compton from his slumber. He jerked awake with that odd feeling of falling one has when suddenly woken. He jumped to his feet and, wiping the sleep from his eyes, ran the three steps down to the main floor of the center.
"What have you got, Pete?" he asked, stretching his eyes wider as if this could make them less heavy. He slid his glasses on and looked.
"Nothing on the infrared, but look at the magnetometer from Boris, it's off the scale. Either we ran into an aboveground ore site or we have what we're looking for," Golding said as he stepped back so Niles could get a better look at the display.
The digital readout for indigenous metal was pegged out at over 442,000 parts per square mile. The metal detectors on board the KH-11 satellite were using a lot of power to focus on such a tight area of the earth, but the results, though now a little weak, were very positive. Compton looked at the big projection screen on the front wall. He could see the huge rocks and boulders this mountain range was made of. But the metal the detectors were picking up was nowhere to be seen, indicating it might be indigenous metal just below the surface.
"You know, Niles, I was just looking at the U.S. Survey map, and do you know where this signal is coming from?" Pete asked, but didn't wait for an answer as he had a horrible feeling that his boss was about to do something dumb. "That's the Superstition Mountain Range, you know, the historical myth of the Lost Dutchman Mine, it could just be either a gold or silver deposit we're picking up."
"Okay, I hate to order this, but let's take a chance and go to maximum magnification. Let's get us in close and maybe we can pick something up visually." Niles looked at the screen. "And I want it tight on that small valley right there, because Boris and Natasha is having a hard time seeing beyond the surrounding rock walls."
The other technicians looked at Golding, clearly expecting him to say something.
"Niles, a word please." Pete took him by the elbow and walked a few paces away.
Pete glared at the worried faces until they returned to their stations and the work they were doing. He removed his glasses and started to clean them with the white shirttail that had worked out of his black pants.
"Niles, we've used a lot of power on this. Boris and Natasha is damn near out of fuel and the batteries are down to darn near nothing. The solar cells can't keep up with the demands we're putting on them, and we have nothing going into the batteries." Golding looked at his boss and friend, then again at the main display as he put his glasses back on.
Compton removed his own glasses and used the earpiece to poke at his Comp Center director's chest. "Number one, Pete, we have to take this chance and use what's left in her batteries to bring the lenses to a nominal position. We need detail on that section. The metal could be in that valley or so small we can't see it. Number two, I don't give a flying fuck about the fuel state." He jabbed at Pete again, harder this time. "And number three, if you don't do as I say and we don't find that saucer"--he paused a moment to lower his voice--"we could be issuing a death sentence to everyone on this fucking planet. And four"--he gritted his teeth--"if we have to, we get into cars and planes and helicopters and go out there and find it ourselves if and when we lose REC-SAT." He put his glasses back on and stormed back onto the main floor.
"Lenses to full magnification on my mark," Golding loudly ordered, startling most of the technicians, who in turn started immediately complying. "Take communications to Boris and Natasha offline as soon as I give the word. I want a clear picture and I need that extra power when we reach maximum magnification." Out of the corner of his eye Golding saw his boss gently shake his head, whether feeling bad for his being a bully to his close friend or for sacrificing Boris and Natasha, he didn't know.
"Bringing maximum magnification onto site four two eight three nine, elevation four thousand three hundred feet," the man in control of optics announced. "Satellite altitude one two zero miles."
"Stand by to cut communications on my go. Remember, we'll have about three seconds of power from Boris to operate the lenses before he dies with the COM link. Another ten seconds of picture time from Natasha before everything goes, and with it, our picture, so be ready on infrared-and magnetometers, and I want video and stills on this. Let's fucking be ready."
Niles knew how upset Pete Golding was. He had just given orders to basically kill Boris and Natasha, because without fuel and electrical power, the KH-11 satellite would be lost forever with a decaying orbit and no way to boost her back up without immediate refueling from the shuttle. But it couldn't be helped.
After the hastily relayed commands were sent through to Boris and Natasha, the picture cleared and they could now make out the small valley they had centered their maximum effort on. The infrared and ambient-light devices showed only rocks still heated from the day's dead sunlight. As they watched, the magnetometer shot off the scale once again, and Niles winced when he didn't see the wreckage he had hoped for.
"We lose power in five, four, three, two--"
But that was as far as Pete's countdown went. The picture turned to snow just two seconds off their projected time. The room grew silent as every man and woman knew they had just witnessed the death of the reliable old KH-11 satellite. Pete Golding slammed the clipboard he was holding to the floor, then kicked it in anger.
On the main screen and on several consoles in the computer center they saw the exact moment of death for Boris and Natasha. After the snow replaced the once clear picture of the earthbound valley, the test pattern for a lost signal came on the large screen as the communication link with the satellite was lost, possibly forever. Pete found a chair and sat down hard. Niles stood in a frozen stance and prayed he hadn't just lost their only hope. He swallowed and waited. The magnetometers had peaked out, but that could mean anything from indigenous metal near the surface to a malfunction in an already overtaxed spy bird.
"Goddamn! Old Boris and Natasha may have kicked the fucking bucket, but it sure as hell scored on its last play. Look!" Dave Pope, technical specialist for optical enhancement, yelled, and clapped. He quickly stood and jumped up and down and started high-fiving his assistants.
Niles's heart raced as he focused on the still screen to the right of the main viewing monitor as the operator calmed down and punched a few command keys, then a crystal clear image appeared. It was a still shot of the small valley, and inside it was the wreckage. It was scattered in a roughly two-mile stretch. It was metal alright, twisted into all different shapes. You could even see the point of impact and the crater it had created and the earth that had been plowed up in its slide before it fell to pieces. There were war whoops and whistles, and every man and woman was on his or her feet.
Niles Compton closed his eyes and held them that way for a moment, content to let the others applaud and yell. He was still that way when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Niles opened his eyes and looked up into the smiling face of Pete Golding.
"You've got a pair of brass balls, Niles, my man," Pete said, shaking his head. "But dammit, Mr. Director, it was a good call."
Good old Boris and Natasha, Niles thought. He would have it refueled and powered back up if it was the last thing he did. He owed everything to the old KH-11.
Niles stood and took a deep breath, trying to compose himself as best as he could. He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes.
"All right, Pete, put a call in to Alice so she cm inform Senator Lee." Niles paused as Pete started to lift the phone. "Alert the complex and sound an Event signal and let's get the discovery teams in the air. Let's do it by the book."
Niles watched his computer technicians work quickly for a moment, never more proud of being a part of the Group. He replaced his glasses and started for the door as first one, then another, and then all the technicians were up tapping on their small consoles in a semi-silent tribute to a man who had just risked everything on a calculated hunch. Niles didn't acknowledge them, he just opened the door and left.
As Pete made the call upstairs, he watched his exhausted boss leave an
d wondered if he would ever have had the courage to risk a $485 million satellite. Then he shook his head no, he could never have done it But then again, maybe Niles knew something he wasn't telling him.
Pete looked at the crash site and wondered if there had been life on board. His eyes wandered over the hole at the center of the wreckage and wondered what that could be.
At the same time Niles Compton had ordered the retasking of Boris and Natasha, Jack had made his way to the cafeteria for some coffee. He wanted to think over the news of Centauras before giving it to Lee and Compton. The ramifications of what had been discovered would shake the Group and other areas of the U.S. government to its foundations, if what Jack thought had happened had actually happened.
It was obvious that Hendrix junior was involved in running the Frenchman. They obviously dealt in high and cutting-edge technology. And the best part was, the company that friends of the elder Hendrix's had more than likely founded, so soon after the event in Roswell, was the direct result of the technology that had been examined and analyzed. Was the Centauras Corporation responsible for the missing evidence from Roswell? Collins wasn't a big believer in coincidence. But the most disturbing factor was the possibility that a private company in this country was preparing for war without the backing or the knowledge of the government of the United States. He only hoped that Centauras had done nothing since '47 to have provoked the second attack.
Jack was mulling these thoughts over as he entered the cafeteria, poured himself a cup, and walked over to the closest table and sat down. He didn't see the figure as it approached his table until the shadow fell on him. Jack looked up and saw it was Sarah McIntire.
"Hello, Major."
"Specialist," he said in short greeting.
"Well, I just wanted to say... well, sir, you have a good--"
"What is your specialty again, Sarah?" he asked, then brought the cup to his mouth and sipped the hot coffee.
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