“Ma’am, Sergeant Maclean and I ran into things out at the Munroe farm that I’ve never seen before. They were huge, flightless birds which tried to kill and eat us. Thankfully, the sergeant took care of them.”
“It wasn’t just me,” said Maclean. “Officer Tibeluk brought one down herself.”
“Good shooting is what we may need shortly,” said Black. “I’d like you two up on the roof to help keep the animals at bay, should they make their way into town.”
“I’ll grab my shotgun,” said Tibeluk.
“Any word from my people?” Maclean asked Black.
“Professor Hayes is on the roof with my son and his girlfriend,” said Black. “As for the other two, I haven’t seen them since they left.”
“Well, no news is good news, according to my late grandmother, so I’ll go with the power of positive thinking for now.”
On the roof, Hayes let out a whoop when he saw Maclean alive, and ran to shake his hand.
“Sergeant, thank God you’re alive. I was beginning to fear the worst.”
“No need to worry about me, Doc,” said Maclean, waving his MP7 in the air. “As long as you keep me supplied with the latest and greatest toys, I’ll be all right. By the way, do you have any more ammo?”
“I brought what was left of the ammunition with me,” replied Hayes, indicating to a couple of black plastic containers stacked by his feet.
“Good call, Doc.” Maclean looked around the roof, and spotted two young people sitting down watching the feed as it came in from the UAV flying in a tight circle above the school. He walked over and smiled at the youths. “See anything?”
“No, sir,” replied the boy.
“Since we’re going to be trapped up here for the foreseeable future, please call me James, or Jim if you like,” said Maclean.
“My name is Sam, and this is my friend Reba.” At the boy’s feet was a Winchester hunting rifle with a telescopic sight mounted on it.
“Are you any good with that?” said Maclean, pointing to the rifle.
“Yes, sir. I mean, Jim. My mom taught me how to shoot. I can bring down a deer at three hundred meters.”
Maclean nodded. “Three hundred meters, that’s not too shabby.”
“So what’s the plan?” asked Hayes.
“We wait it out until someone comes to rescue us,” replied Maclean.
“That’s not much of a plan.”
“Yeah, but it’s all we’ve got right now. Doc, you may wish to chat with Officer Tibeluk. She had car problems while driving to Valdez. I think there’s a powerful invisible shield around the town, stopping us from getting out or anyone else from getting in.”
“Yes, that does sound interesting.” Hayes waved at Tibeluk and walked over to introduce himself.
“Sorry, Tracey,” Maclean muttered to himself. He unslung his weapon and walked the perimeter of the roof. There were woods on three sides of the school, making it fairly easy for a predator to get close without being observed. He glanced up at the UAV as it gracefully banked over in the air, and hoped it would prove up to the task as their early-warning eye in the sky.
Chapter 45
The size of the abandoned copper mine was staggering. There were at least a dozen red-painted, wooden buildings all built on the side of a hill. The largest was the mill, which had once been used to extract the ore from the rocks. It stood ten stories high.
You could hide in there, and no one would ever find you, thought Grant, as he left the wooded trail and walked to the closest building. He drew his pistol, made sure it was loaded, and peered through a smashed-in window. Broken glass, rust-covered tins, and old papers littered the floor. Grant was surprised to see that much of the old machinery was still there. Although the machines had long since been picked over and were covered in rust, it looked like the place could start up at any time and resume mining copper from the hills behind it.
Grant’s stomach rumbled. He dug through his pockets, found a crushed granola bar, and wolfed it down. Nadia had said that she had hidden her ship inside the mine, so he reasoned checking out the mining camp would be pointless. Still, he wanted to be careful. He was outnumbered and outgunned by the opposition. Grant walked along, using the buildings for cover, until he came to a dirt road leading up to the mill. He was about to follow the road, when he spotted his stolen car parked outside of a three-story structure about sixty meters up the hill. Grant ducked back and waited a couple of seconds to see if he had been spotted. When no one called out or took a shot in his direction, Grant nipped inside the building he was hiding behind, and tiptoed through the maze of debris on the floor. Each step he took, Grant feared he would crush something underfoot, alerting the mercenaries to his presence. He barely breathed until he reached the far end of the building. Grant got down on one knee and peered through a crack in the wall. Outside, there was a dry riverbed, which ran past his location, and the building the car was parked against.
“You’ve come this far,” Grant said to himself. “There’s no point in turning back now.”
He placed his hand on a half-open door and pushed it open just wide enough to let him slide out. Grant hunched over and ran to the riverbed as fast as his injuries would allow. He scrambled down between the rocks and took the time to catch his breath. His wound was taking more out of him than he had expected. After a short pause, he rose, and wound his way through the rocks, until he was next to the three-story building. He crawled up and took a quick look around. Apart from the car, there was no other sign of life. Grant hauled himself up, and dashed to the side of the building. He moved down the side of the structure until he was at the back of the building. He spotted a door and tried opening it. The door creaked slightly, making him cringe. With his weapon held tight in his right hand, Grant slipped inside and dropped to one knee, ready to engage any targets.
He was alone.
Grant stood, and looked around for any sign that someone had been there recently. When he didn’t spot any footprints on the dust-covered floor, Grant pushed on deeper inside the old workshop. The place looked to be frozen in time. He walked past tables still covered in tools, and a bandsaw with a piece of lumber lined up, waiting to be cut in half.
Up ahead, someone coughed.
His heart raced. Grant brought up his pistol, crept to one side of the room, and moved in the direction of the sound. Grant hugged an old furnace, hidden in the shadows, for cover as he edged forward. A second later, he froze when he spotted a stocky man with a black beard sitting on a box, wiping down his dissembled pistol. Grant paused to make sure there wasn’t anyone else in the room with the mercenary. Certain the man was alone, Grant walked out from behind the furnace and strode straight at the killer.
The man saw Grant coming at him and panicked to put his pistol back together.
“Don’t!” warned Grant, aiming his pistol at the man’s head. “Drop it.”
The mercenary gnashed his teeth and let his disassembled pistol fall to his feet.
Grant kicked the weapon parts away with his foot. “I recognize you. Your name’s Raoul. You’re one of the goons who threatened to kill my family, before a bear decided to make a late- night snack out of your friend.”
Anger flashed in the killer’s eyes. “Yeah, that was me.”
“Where are the others?”
“What others?”
Grant took a step forward. “Don’t play games with me. There were three of you left after the fight with the alien. Now where the hell are they?”
Raoul smiled. “If you kill me, my friends will hear the shot and come running. Besides, you’re a soldier. You live by rules and regulations. You can’t kill an unarmed man. You’ve got to take me prisoner.” Raoul raised his hands in mock surrender.
“Not today,” replied Grant, coldly, as he pulled the trigger. The sound of the pistol firing inside the room sounded like a cannon going off. Raoul fell straight back, with a hole in his forehead.
Grant had never killed a person in cold blood b
efore. He felt a mix of shame and guilt for what he had done. It was something he knew he would never get used to. Shoving the feeling deep inside, Grant dropped to one knee and searched through the dead man’s clothes for anything he could use.
“Hey, Raoul, are you all right?” called out a man’s voice.
Grant stepped back from the corpse and melted back into the shadows. He held his breath, when a bald-headed man entered the room with a gun in his hand.
“Damn,” said the man, looking down at his dead comrade.
Grant went to raise to his pistol, when he heard a pistol’s hammer being pulled back right next to his head.
“You’re good, but not that good, Captain,” said a man right behind him with a slight German accent. “Toss your pistol on the floor right next to Carter, and then place your hands on your head.”
Grant couldn’t believe someone had been able to sneak up on him so fast without making a single sound. He lowered his right arm, threw his pistol away, and slowly placed his hands on his head.
“You seem to know who I am,” said Grant. “Care to let me know who you are, and who you work for?”
“My name is Max, and who we work far is beyond your comprehension. Now walk,” said the man, jamming his pistol barrel hard against Grant’s head.
Grant clenched his jaw and walked out of the darkness.
Carter saw Grant and let out an angered cry, before smashing him across the face with his pistol.
Pain flashed through Grant’s head, as he tumbled to the ground.
“You’re going to die, you son of a bitch!” screamed Carter, thrusting his pistol against Grant’s temple.
“Wait,” ordered Max. “We may yet need him.”
“He’ll kill us if he gets the chance,” protested Carter.
“Then let’s not give him one.” Max looked around the old workshop. “Captain, where are your companions?”
“I honestly don’t know,” said Grant, rolling over and looking up at his captors. “We were crossing a bridge when a bear attacked us. I was knocked into the river, and blacked out. The women could have gotten away, or they could be dead, for all I know.”
“He’s lying,” snarled Carter. “They’re hidden somewhere nearby.”
Blood trickled from a gash on Grant’s cheek, onto his jacket. “Tear this place apart, if you want. But I guarantee you won’t find them.”
“I hope for your sake, Captain, that they’re still alive,” said Max. “If not, then you’re of no value to me.”
“Do what you must. I don’t want to die, but I’m telling you the truth. I don’t know where they are.”
Max tapped his foot on the floor for a few seconds. “Captain, my gut tells me that they are both still alive. Like you, they will come here, and when they do I need you to convince the female alien to give me what I want.”
Grant snickered. “You’re fooling yourself. She’d rather die than let her technology fall into our hands.”
“Then you’re going to have to persuade her otherwise,” said Max. “Your life depends on it.”
“I hope whoever you work for has a good life insurance policy, because she doesn’t expect any of us to come out of this alive.”
“If this is a suicide mission, then why are you here, Captain?”
“Because it’s my job. That’s why.”
Max tutted. “Your foolish Boy Scout mentality is admirable, but you should know that I never fail to get what I’m after.”
Grant looked directly into his opponent’s ice-blue eyes and smiled. “Well, as they say, there’s always a first time for everything.”
Max shook his head. “Carter, tie him up and bring him with us.”
A pair of rough hands hauled Grant to his feet. For a brief second, he thought about trying to grab Carter’s pistol. However, before he could act, the mercenary shot his fist into Grant’s stomach, doubling him over. White light flashed in front of his eyes, as he fought to breathe.
“Damn,” said Carter, shaking his hand. “He must be wearing some kind of body armor under his clothes. I nearly broke my hand.”
“Don’t worry about that right now,” said Max. “Tie him up, and let’s get going.”
“Did you hear that?” said Elena. “It sounded like a gunshot.”
“It sounded like weapons’ fire,” agreed Nadia. “Come on; we can’t stop now. We’re almost there.”
“Nadia, perhaps we should take a five-minute break so I can check your wounds. You’re bleeding pretty badly,” said Elena, looking at the blood seeping out of the bottom of Nadia’s boots.
“I doubt there’s anything you can do for me. We have to push on and stop the general from getting away.”
Elena nodded, and helped her companion continue on the path leading up to the mine’s entrance. “Nadia, where exactly did you leave your ship?”
“I found an old shaft, and brought my ship to rest in a cavern near the bottom of the mine.”
Elena thought of the fifty-meter-wide diameter of the first disc, and tried to reconcile what Nadia was saying. “Your craft can’t be that big, if you were able to fly it down a shaft.”
“It’s not. It’s a very slender, one-person ship, which is designed for speed and nothing else.”
“Nadia, have you given any thought about what we’re going to do when we catch up with this general?”
“If I can, I’ll shoot him with my phase pistol. If that fails, I have a highly explosive charge on my belt which I will set off, hopefully killing me and the general.”
“Wonderful,” said Elena. “Are there any plans floating around in your mind in which we all come out of this alive?”
“No. In the grand scheme of things, our deaths are unimportant. Stopping a genocide is all that matters to me, right now. I’ll deal with my sins in the afterlife.”
“I, for one, don’t share your pessimism. If that was gunfire, then it could mean that David is still alive. If he is here, I know he won’t stop until he has killed your general and gotten us all to safety.”
Nadia stopped in her tracks, bent over, coughing, and spat out a mouthful of blood. She gasped in a large breath. “That animal must have hurt me far worse than I thought. I don’t think I have long to live. Please, let us hurry.”
At the mine’s entrance, General Nagan lowered his binoculars and nodded his head. The government assassin looked to be hobbling along in a considerable amount of pain. He had no idea what had happened to her. As far as Nagan was concerned, the gods were smiling on him and his project, and had shifted the odds considerably in his favor. His handheld detector told him what he already knew—that the girl had flown her ship into the mine, as its plasma fuel signature still lingered in the air. Where it was, was still a mystery. He knew he’d find it given enough time, but he wanted to be away from this backwater planet with his findings before his deep-cover allies in the military lost their nerve and branded him as a renegade and a traitor.
Out of the corner of his eye, Nagan spied three humans coming up the road to the mine. He flashed his razor-sharp teeth and let out a hiss. He didn’t need anyone else trying to interfere in his mission. The general reached for his pistol and silently cursed his luck when he saw the power was almost drained. He had wasted too many shots killing the large animals so he could test his DNA regression chemicals on one of their young. Nagan turned around and walked inside the dimly lit mine. The darkness would be his ally while he dealt with the interlopers and searched for the assassin’s ship.
Chapter 46
“Like a coffee and donut?” asked Tracey Tibeluk, as she sat down next to Maclean with a plastic tray covered with Styrofoam cups and assorted donuts.
“Thanks, and I promise not to make any cop jokes about what we’re having for breakfast,” he replied with a boyish grin, helping himself to a beverage and frosted donut.
“You had better not make any snide remarks, since that’s all there is for breakfast.”
Maclean took a sip of coffee and glanced do
wn at his watch. “You know, I thought the animals would be here by now.”
“Perhaps they’ve bypassed the town completely and will never come our way?”
“I wish that were true. However, they’re biological weapons, designed with only one purpose in mind, to kill,” said Hayes, sliding into the conversation. “I just hope we can hold them off. I only counted three civilian gentlemen with firearms in the gym.”
“We’ll be okay, Doc,” said Maclean. “All we need to do is keep them from getting too close to the school, and we’ll come through this all right.”
“Sergeant, Reba’s got something on the monitor,” said Sam. His voice did little to hide his nervous anticipation.
Maclean, Tibeluk, and Hayes walked to where Reba was sitting.
“What have you got?” Maclean asked.
“This,” replied Reba pointing at the screen. The display showed three terror birds standing on Main Street, looking around. The tallest of the three predators lifted its head and sniffed the air. It let out a loud squawk. The three creatures turned and moved as one. Their heads bobbed back and forth as they walked.
“What the hell are those things?” asked Sam.
“It’s complicated,” said Maclean. “Just think of them as really big, pissed-off turkeys. They can’t harm you or Reba, if you kill them first.”
Sam picked up his rifle, walked to the edge of the roof, and got down on his stomach.
“Everyone who isn’t armed, inside, now!” said Maclean to Hayes. The professor nodded, and ran to pass the word.
Maclean moved over next to Sam. “Nervous?”
“Yeah, you could say that.”
“It’s only natural to be scared. Just try to relax and watch your breathing.”
“You sound just like my mom.”
Maclean chuckled. “She’s a smart person.”
“Here they come,” said Tibeluk, pointing down Main Street.
Sam brought his rifle up to his shoulder and took aim. A second later, he took up the slack on the trigger, held his breath, and fired. The sound of the weapon firing echoed down the deserted street. The lead bird staggered forward for a few paces, before falling over on its side. Its two companions, startled by the gunfire, ran for cover behind the nearest building. The dying bird’s legs kicked in the air before the animal finished convulsing, and died
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