The Stranded Ones

by Jay B. Gaskill

  “You have a lead on Ruth? When will you know?”

  “I’m afraid she is off the map right now. Finnegan is deeply angry with me and frightened and I don’t really blame him. I have not been candid with him for good reasons that I am unable to explain. I’ll need you and Springer to be mission-ready the second we learn more about Ruth. And I am very confident that we will learn more. I just hope we learn it in time.”

  “Okay. Where is Jay Robertson?” There was another pause while Falstaff thought that over.

  “…Right now?” Hugh doodled on the pad during another pause. “Robertson was sent on a mission in the field.”

  “You’re not serious. In the field?”

  “Unusual circumstances. I’d much rather have him here running things, but that’s a long story. Right now we need you and Springer to stand ready to rescue Ruth, possibly do something else in the meantime, but I can’t talk about that. Donald Wu will fill you in.”

  “How can I reach Springer?”

  “He has safely reached the Citisle. I’ll ring back in about seven hours and set up your rendezvous.”

  “Anything else?”

  There was a long pause. “Yes. Jay was betrayed in the field. The good news is that the event enabled us to narrow the search for the leak; it undoubtedly was the same that prompted the attack on Toad Hall. The bad news is that Jay’s mission has been compromised, and the backup plan is…not perfect. And…well…let’s say that the treachery matter is actively under investigation. Under the circumstances, I’m asking you to talk only to me or Donald Wu, about anything more sensitive than the time of day.”

  “No exceptions?”

  “That’s right, Hugh.”

  Samantha’s Mission to Nevada

  While Hugh was waiting for the next call, Dr. Samantha Delaney leaned over Hugh and gave him a kiss on the back of his neck. After further good-byes, she then disembarked with Uncle Jim for the airport. Eight hours later, Sam was picked up at SFO by Sherry, her former classmate and Steve, Sherry’s husband. The next morning, having spent the night with her friends in Mill Valley, she drove four hours on Interstate 80 to Reno, Nevada in a borrowed Toyota.

  The roads were clear over the Sierras and the snow sparkled under a brilliant blue sky as the casinos of Reno loomed in the distance. She pulled into a service station parking lot and killed the engine. As melting ice trickled down her windshield, Sam stepped into the bright, chilly mountain air and stretched. Hugh’s memorized instructions directed her to the UPS Terminal in the Reno Airport. She pulled out Steve’s map of Reno. The warehouse that concealed Big Bird was near some private hangars a couple of blocks away from the UPS building. Sam looked at her watch and considered eating first. Got to get this over with, she thought.

  Thirty minutes later she was parked by a large, squat, gray cinder block building. On the nearest side glowed the green words, “Western AERO.” This building was owned outright by one of McCahan and Springer’s clients and contained a small leased space that was elaborately secured. It was the home of Big Bird.

  The setting winter sun cast long shadows in the parking lot as Sam approached the building circuitously, giving the front door a wide berth. As she crossed the lot at the rear of the building, a very realistic and savage chorus of barking erupted from somewhere ahead. Unintimidated, Sam continued her approach to the outside circuit box. It was near the southeast corner of the building, a chest high metal enclosure.

  A service port was locked with a ten digit combination. Sam took a deep breath and confidently typed the memorized number string. The box opened at the first try, revealing a tiny view screen nestled next to the switch panels. She spoke softly, but clearly, “Courier ID. The red fox under the tree is here,” and recited another number string. The screen immediately displayed a bright schematic of the building, a red arrow flashing at a point about three meters to the right of the point where Sam was standing. The screen went dark.

  Sam paced carefully to the spot and waited in front of a blank metal wall. In a moment, the section parted to reveal a narrow opening. Another chorus of snarling dogs. She ignored the sound effects and stepped in without hesitation. The opening snapped shut behind leaving her in complete blackness. Hugh had warned her to wait patiently. Eventually a keypad lit up in front of her face. Failure to get the right combination in ten minutes could trap someone here for days. But the door opened to admit Sam to a heated, well-furnished office. The portal to the “recovered” data was disguised as a shredder on the corner desk.

  She sat down. From her jeans pocket she removed the data stick Hugh and given her. It slipped neatly into a slot in the back of the shredder. She repeated another memorized number series and waited. A small screen on the desk surface lit up with the image of the famous Sesame Street character. “Thank you,” Big Bird said. The sound was startling in the small room. She removed the stick and slipped it into her jeans. Why am I shaking so? Sam suddenly felt the impulse to run.

  Sam drew a cup of hot coffee from the universal dispenser in the wall. She sat down at a tiny makeup table in the bathroom and slid a plastic cover aside, revealing in series of numbers glowing in the table. She tapped in a memorized code.

  “Good afternoon, Dr. Delaney” The glowering face of a bald Asian man appeared in the mirror. “I am the Donald Wu you have heard about. I am on the Citisle making its way to the Florida coast, which is where we want you to go after you deposit your data.”

  “What do I do next?”

  “Stop by the General Technics Offices in Sacramento on your way back – we do a lot of business with them. Ask for Lillian Hammer, the COO. She’ll have tickets for you. You will leave from SFO tomorrow morning for Florida. You’ll be meeting me there, and Hugh, as soon as he arrives.”

  “What do I do with the memory stick?”

  “Leave it with Lillian. Make her repeat one of the codes to you first.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yes. Have a safe trip.” The image in the mirror dissolved into Sam’s own worried face.

  From Quebec to Florida

  Hugh’s extraction was straightforward. The GFE contract helicopter pilot arrived a few miles from the LeFevre ranch at three in the morning. The rendezvous, which took place in a moonlit field, lasted all of six minutes. The pilot hailed Hugh as he waited near a borrowed car; Hugh ran to the ‘copter, and got inside without ceremony.

  At dawn after a silent five hour ride, Hugh was dropped outside Quebec City at a private airport belonging to a bankrupt air courier service. He waited in a small office, drinking coffee, eating junk food, and staring at peeling paint and reading three-year-old magazines until a GFE executive jet arrived later in the morning. Five hours later, Hugh experienced his first Citisle water landing in the Atlantic off the coast of Northern Florida.

  The airstrip trailed the ship like a flattened, gray serpent outlined in florescent red stripes. The strip ended a hundred meters before the stern of the Citisle. “Don’t worry,” the pilot said, “it’s nothing like a carrier landing.” It was disconcerting to see only waves on each side of the plane as the jet skimmed toward the runway.

  “You never miss, right?”

  “Not so far.” After the plane hit the restraining barrier at the end of the runway, a conversation with the flight director aboard the Citisle ensued, and Hugh exited into a folding gate. The jet took off again and the runway was dropped below the waves. Eventually a ramp was lowered for the gate and Hugh was walked directly onto the ship. There he was met by a grinning Donald Wu, his powder blue sports coat and flowered shirt flapping in the wind.

  “Dr. Delaney is on the way,” Wu said. “You’re early for dinner…and I have something special to show you.” On the elevator to the captain’s tower, Wu made small talk. When Hugh tried to introduce a sensitive topic, Wu simply shook his head, holding his finger to his lips. So they rode in silence after McCahan asked, “Where’s Jay?” and Wu frowned, shaking his head vigorously.

  “I have a new toy,
” he said. “You’ve got to see my latest purchase, Hugh.”

  “I can’t wait to see it,” Hugh said insincerely. After the elevator opened, Wu led him to an open ramp just under the roof of the captain’s tower. Donald made a sweeping, theatrical gesture with one hand and Hugh suddenly noticed something red just behind him. There, hovering in the air next to the guard railing, six stories over the water below, was Wu’s candy apple red MitsubiKraft SkyDragon. Its engine was thrumming; the Sports-Hover’s lights were flashing in sequence.

  Even in his darkly curious mood, Hugh was impressed. “Not bad, Donald.”

  “The very latest. Wait ‘til you see what she can do.”

  “Paid for?”

  “Stolen. Get in Mr. Tech-spy. I need you to work up an appetite.” Hugh looked at Wu’s new toy, the distance to the deck below, and felt a pang of doubt.

  “You okay?” Wu asked.

  “Sure. It was just the sight of that shirt.” As soon as Hugh took a seat, Donald snapped his three-way seat harness and before Hugh could fasten his, an abrupt vertical acceleration jammed him heavily downward into the leather seat. Below, the garden roof of the captain’s tower swiftly dropped away. Seconds later, the acceleration abruptly stopped. In eerie silence, the craft hovered, then began to descend slowly over the ocean far below. Hugh frantically fastened his belts.

  “Notice how quiet she is,” Wu said. “Destructive interference acoustic damping.” Hugh nodded. “You strapped in?” Hugh nodded again. Then Wu pushed a button on the dash and the craft dropped like a bullet. Hugh sucked in a deep breath and prayed. With an almost inaudible whump the supplementary fans cut in and the craft stabilized at roof level. “One thousand meters,” Wu chortled.

  “I almost lost my breakfast…” Hugh gasped, “…such as it was.”

  “Then how about something cold?” Wu produced a bottle of ice water from a small refrigerator under the dash. He was stalling.

  “If you’re going to continue flying this thing, I’ll need something much stronger.”

  Wu turned in his seat to face McCahan. His expression was all business. “We can safely talk here, Hugh.”

  “Safely?”

  “There is a traitor in the mix. Somebody working for Torque. In case you didn’t notice, we have some very dangerous enemies.”

  “It didn’t escape my attention.”

  “Jack says that traitors are like termites; there’s never just one. Everybody in the organization is upset. No one trusts anyone, my friend. Falstaff and Gael are at each other’s throats.”

  “I picked up on that. But why?”

  “They are in total disagreement over three issues. Ruth’s kidnapping negotiations, the supposed lax security in Gael’s inner circle, and the really big one: that Jack hasn’t been telling the full truth to Finnegan.”

  “That is a big one.”

  “There are two sets of ETs, Hugh, arch enemies. One set, ugly, dangerous and mean, are in league somehow with Torque. Jack knew about this situation all along. And I’m caught in the middle. As you know, I’m considered a Falstaff guy…and that’s not entirely unfair.”

  “So you knew what Jack did?”

  “Not entirely. But I knew he had a side business when he first hired me and I actually saw one of the ugly aliens that we call the Others. But Jack has pretty much kept me in the dark as well.”

  “Do you still trust Falstaff?”

  “Of course. Hugh, I trust them both, but I have more confidence in Jack’s tough-minded approach. At first, honestly I thought Jack was paranoid about the leak. That changed when we figured out that the exact location of Gael’s Toad Hall had been leaked to Torque’s people. Think of the consequences: Mother Liz was killed, Ruth was captured; all hell is breaking loose and we didn’t have a clue how, who or when.”

  “What more can you tell me about Ruth’s capture?”

  “I confirmed that Torque was making demands directly to Gael.”

  “Demands for what?”

  “Shut down GFE. Betray everyone. It was ugly.”

  “What did Finnegan do?”

  “He agreed to talk to Torque’s people. Jack went ballistic. Apparently the first demands were made to Jack privately and he stonewalled. He felt that Gael was undermining him. Finnegan, in turn, was resentful that he was shut out.”

  “I’ll bet that went over well, considering that Jack had been holding out.”

  “No kidding.”

  “How did they get Ruth?”

  “They apparently forced her to ditch her plane, caught her on some highway in Montana hitching a ride. They knew that Gael is vulnerable and they’ve been playing it for all it’s worth.”

  “Crap. I have the picture.”

  “It gets worse. Jack has an inside contact with the ugly aliens. He’s been dealing with them for years.”

  “You are screwing with me, Donald.”

  “Truth. Please, please do not tell Finnegan. I need his trust. We all need these two guys to work it out.”

  “This must be a nightmare for you.”

  “Hey, this is just the Citisle. I’ve been back and forth to the Lake Disappointment facility. Things are far worse there. People are choosing sides, playing the middle, lying about it to each other. Anyway, Jay is happy to be away from all the politics.”

  “Wait a minute. Jay is in the field. What’s up with that?”

  “Turns out there was a surviving pod of the Little Ones in Argentina, five of them held captive by a drug dealer named Diablo. It seems that Torque or the Advisors or both have bombed the dealer’s compound, and Jay is trying to sneak the aliens out. He was betrayed in the field by our traitor. Somehow Torque’s people learned the number for Jay’s SatCom ID. They were able to track him and almost nabbed him in Patagonia.”

  “He’s okay, then?”

  “Yes. He has some help and we’ve come up with a plan B.”

  “He really found more aliens, then?”

  “He did and he’s taking them out through Chile. Can’t risk going by air.”

  “This is a lot to absorb.”

  “The point is,” Wu added, “that we are certain now, dead certain, that Torque’s people have a mole very close to Gael or Robertson. And Falstaff is playing his own game right now.”

  “Swell. What do you need from me?”

  “As Jack told you, you and Springer are to rescue Ruth…if we ever locate her. But right now I need you two to help me spring a trap. We hope to smoke out a suspect.”

  “Who is that?”

  “Keep an open mind. I’ll tell you when you need to know, okay?”

  “Okay. Where is Lew Springer right now?”

  “At the South Florida safe house, waiting for us. That’s where you and I are going, right after dinner.”

  “Good. I am hungry after all that stale junk food.”

  “Hugh, my friend, after a good meal, there always is hope.”

  “Does this thing land?”

  “Sure. You just turn off the power.” Wu turned ahead, shouting “Samurai!” and the MitsubiKraft went nose down, dropping like a stone. The ship’s superstructure rushed to meet it. Then with a wrenching blast of air Wu’s “Red Dragon” settled slowly into a shallow landing pattern over the Miserable Starfish, Citisle’s “Five Star” restaurant.

  Hugh was never told who had awarded the ships’ only dining room its five star rating. “You expect me to eat after that?”

  “Remember,” Wu said as the craft touched a grassy rooftop parking area, “I’m paying.”

  “It better be good, Donald, or next time, it’s take-out!”

  Florida

  After a few hours rest, Hugh was taken by helicopter to shore, then was driven to the GFE compound. It was still early morning. The dimly lit grounds, a decommissioned resort, ended at the paved airstrip, a ribbon of grass-infested concrete that was flanked by palm trees and ended distantly in a gray salt marsh and the black, flickering waves of the nighttime Atlantic Ocean. Donald Wu, having arrived ear
lier without rest, met Hugh’s car under the drive up canopy. “Springer is freshening up, if that’s even possible in his case. He wants you to stop by his room.”

  “Where’s Samantha?”

  “She’s due here in about an hour. You were right. The data pack transmission died with Toad Hall. She has done us all a great service.”

  “Excellent.”

  “Any luggage, Hugh?” Wu was dressed in shorts and a loose fitting, many-pocketed shirt that was rolled up at the sleeves. His joviality seemed forced.

  “Not a stitch. Any progress in finding out about that sensitive matter?”

  “We don’t talk about that now.”

  “Fine…” Once inside the lobby, lights came on and Wu pressed a wall button. A serving robot emerged from the adjacent kitchen area with a steaming tray of food. “This is headed to Springer’s room. Want to tag along?”

  “Sure.”

  The two men followed the serving robot across a grassy open space next to an empty swimming pool. “We have the use of two planes,” Donald said. “Jay’s personal pilot, Joe Dixon, will work for you. I have urgent business back on the Citisle.”

  “When do you leave?”

  “As soon as I get you and Springer squared away,” Wu said.

  “When do I get briefed?” Hugh asked.

  “Right now. Lew will fill you in.”

  “Fair enough. What can you tell me about Jay’s pilot, Dixon?”

  “He is a reliable, former commercial pilot with excellent skills. No ops experience as such, but he will take you directly from here to anywhere you want. I wouldn’t tell him anything more than minimally necessary to get where you are going. We have some suspects under detention, but officially Dixon can’t be ruled out.”

  Hugh thought that over for a second and decided not to comment. “Is this it?” Hugh watched as the serving robot rang the bell. When Springer opened the door, he broke into a wide grin. The ghost of his old mustache was outlined on his upper lip.

  “Food…and my old pal…safe and sound!” He slapped Hugh on the shoulder. “Plenty here for three,” he said, looking at Donald

  “Sorry. I must go,” Wu said.