Engage at Dawn: First Contact

by Edward Hochsmann

  “Fuck you!” was the muffled reply.

  “Go ahead, give me a reason, bitch!” Frankle spat. “Right hand back! Do it now!”

  As her right hand came back, Frankle grabbed her thumb, laid down the M4, and snapped and tightened a handcuff on the woman’s right wrist to another yelp of pain. He then seized her left arm, took his foot off her hand, drew the other wrist back, and applied the other handcuff. He reached into his pocket, drew out a syrette, popped the cap, and jammed it into his prisoner’s thigh. Within about ten seconds, the woman’s body went limp. Frankle checked her pulse and then turned to Bell, gently helping him over onto his back. “Talk to me, partner!” he said, noticing the gunfire from the house had ceased.

  “Shit.” Bell groaned, gasping for breath while trying feebly to raise his head. “Took one,…, in the arm,…, the other in,…, the vest. Tasting blood,…, busted rib, lung.”

  “Okay, Okay. Lay back; I’ve got you.” Frankle grabbed another syrette holding a morphine dose and jammed it in the younger man’s unwounded arm. “Just gave you a dose of the good stuff, hang in there.” He pulled out a handkerchief, found and applied direct pressure to the arm wound, feeling Bell tighten in pain at first and then go slack as the morphine took effect. “Billy! You there?”

  “Yo!”

  “Lashon’s hit! Get the medics back here; my comms are down!”

  “Shit, Art! Everybody’s comms are down! Kelly’s running to get someone! I’m coming back. Hold your fire!”

  “Come ahead, hurry, I need a hand. Follow the path!” Frankle drew his Glock with his free hand. In the dark and fog, he was taking no risks.

  “On the way!” After a few seconds, a figure appeared in the fog.

  “Beagle!” Frankle challenged, his Glock at the ready.

  “Baron!” came Gerard’s reply. Both agents, who had scoffed at spoken passwords in the digital age, gave silent thanks for the resilience of the old habits. Gerard approached and kneeled beside Bell. “How is he?” he asked with deep concern.

  “Not good. Besides this, he took one in the chest. Looks like he cracked a rib and punctured a lung. I gave him a shot, so at least he’s out of it. I don’t want to move him without a stretcher.” Frankle nodded toward the woman. “Help me watch that piece of shit. I gave her a 30-minute amp, but you can never tell with them.”

  “Damn, you still got it, old man.”

  “Not hardly. Bell tackled her after getting shot to hell. I just cuffed and scuffed her.”

  “Okay. Man, this was one shit sandwich. I heard at least two ‘Agent Downs’ from up front.” Gerard continued staring at the woman. “I don’t get it. We nailed the only one coming out the rear door. There’s no way in hell anyone else got by us.”

  “When it gets light, I’ll bet we’ll find a bolt hole between here and your position. Gotta give ‘em credit, that might have worked. If it wasn’t for this hardhead.” Frankle gazed hard at his stricken partner. “Where the hell is that medic? Billy, run over there and tell them we have an agent down, critical. I don’t want to hear that they’re up there patching up bad guys. Bring back a litter by yourself if you have to. And tell her nibs we have the HVT. That should produce some attention.”

  “On it,” Gerard jumped up and trotted forward.

  After the junior agent disappeared into the dark and fog, Frankle turned back to his friend. “It will be OK, hang in there, partner.” Goddammit! I AM getting too damn old for this crap!

  19

  Contact

  Conch Inn, Room 118, Marathon, Florida

  0618 EST, 19 January

  “Holy Shit!” Ben bolted awake. Simmons rolled out of his bed with a thud, grabbing for his gun. “Wait, wait, it’s OK,” Ben blurted.

  “Dammit, friend, you’d better find a more peaceful way of rousing yourself!” Simmons exclaimed. “What the hell is going on?”

  “I think I may know where they are.” Ben opened the laptop on the table. After a brief boot period and logon, he opened two files they were looking at last night. “Something was bothering me, like I was missing something, but couldn’t put my finger on what. I guess I was too tired to think straight. OK, here—Resolution Key, the Park Service comparison set from three months ago.” He turned the screen to Simmons.

  “OK. Same thing I looked at a dozen times, I don’t see anything,” Simmons said with irritation.

  “Exactly! The dog that didn’t bark! Where’s the shack?”

  Simmons leaned down, and after a second, a broad smile opened on his face. “Where indeed! Well done, Sir! That crafty little bastard was the lookout. I’ll bet he called in an ‘ultra-quiet’ order every time some of us showed up.” He clapped Ben on the back, and then turned and grabbed for his cell phone.

  Ben had folded up the laptop and finished dressing when he noted a concerned expression on Simmons’s face. “What’s wrong?”

  “I can’t get Frankle or Bell or anyone on Team 3,” Simmons replied with concern. He turned back to his phone. “Hello, Gypsy-1 here. I need Gypsy-2 and Gypsy-3’s status now.” He covered the microphone and glanced at Ben. “They’re pinging them now. Get ready to go—we may have to bolt.” Turning back to the phone, he answered, “For how long? OK, OK, pull your heads out of your asses and get everything else moving! Target is Resolution Key—north end of the island. We’re on our way, ETA in 35. Right.” He punched off the phone and turned back to Ben. “Leave it! They’ve been down for at least 65 minutes, and they can’t raise or even ping them. At last comms, they were moving in to assault, and then everything went dark. They’ve sent a unit down to investigate, but somehow it didn’t occur to them to tell the guy the two teams were covering! If they’re down, the odds are good the opposition has eyes on us, and they’re calling in the heavies. Move!”

  Grabbing the weapons bags and leaving the rest, both men darted to the car. With Simmons driving, they sped out of the parking lot onto U.S. 1 westbound heading for Resolution Key.

  ◆◆◆

  About a minute later, a second car pulled out from across the highway and started following Ben and Simmons. The driver and his companion had taken heed of the mistake their predecessors had made—they would not show themselves. A tiny tracking transmitter they had attached to the rear bumper earlier that morning allowed them to track the Americans’ vehicle while following out of sight in the foggy twilight.

  The car’s passenger called in to alert the assault team the targets were moving. With luck, they were following the lures to the prepared ambush point. If their destination were elsewhere, the two men would call in the new position and keep watch until the assault team arrived.

  The coordinated operation to the west had worked perfectly. Dozens of federal agents who could have provided support were now out of play, and Simmons was on his own except for his military companion. And he was not even special forces, given his grooming. For the first time, the Organization had both a positive lock on the nettlesome agent’s position and an overwhelming advantage in force. Simmons was the prize, perhaps even worth the cost of the shipment lost through his interference.

  U.S. Route 1, 2 Miles West of Marathon, Florida

  0626 EST, 19 January

  It was misty on the U.S. 1 bridge with fog in either direction. Ben worried about what the impact could be on air surveillance and surface support if they ran into trouble before it burned off. He pulled out the handheld radio to make contact, hoping the fog was a localized issue today.

  “Kauai, Shore-One, radio check in the green, over.” Ben released the press-to-talk switch. After a brief pause with no response, he tried again. “Kauai, Shore-One, radio check in the green, over.”

  “Shore-One, Kauai, read you lima charlie in the green, how me, over?” Bondurant’s voice replied.

  Ben was relieved their high-altitude UAV still provided communications relay. “Kauai, Shore-One, have you the same. Need to talk to Charlie Oscar in private, please, over.”

  “Standby One,” Bondurant replied. Wi
thin a minute, Sam’s voice came on the radio.

  “Shore-One, Kauai Actual, on the headphones with speaker off, over.”

  “Kauai, Shore-One, we believe we have a lead. We are on U.S. 1, en route Resolution Key. The target is the shack we saw on the spit on the northern tip of the island, estimate possible contact in 25 minutes, over.”

  “Shore-One, we are about 15 west right now in moderate fog. We’ll make best low-vis speed toward you, but it will be an hour and a half before we can get to you. Can you hold on making contact until then? Over.”

  Ben looked over at Simmons, who shook his head. “We can’t wait. The other guys may be en route by now, and we can’t allow them first contact. This is a no-shit national security priority. Tell them to hurry, because we’re committed.”

  Ben nodded. “Negative, sir. It’s a race between us and the other side. We’ve lost comms with Simmons’s teams about an hour and a half ago, and he’s sure the opposition is on to us. We have to attempt contact ASAP, over.”

  After about half a minute, Sam replied, “Shore-One, Kauai, roger, proceed at discretion. National Defense ROE now active, acknowledge, over.”

  Ben noted the stress in Sam’s voice, understandable, given he had just approved Ben to use deadly force at discretion. “Kauai, Shore-One, acknowledge National Defense ROE, over.”

  “Shore-One, Kauai, maintain contact, if practicable. We will transmit situation reports in the blind every 15 minutes starting on the hour. Godspeed Ben, over.”

  “Kauai, Shore-One, roger, thank you, sir, out.”

  “Just to be clear,” Simmons began. “We’ll be going in with weapons drawn and rounds in the chamber. We don’t want to shoot, but if it looks like him or us, we take him out, OK?”

  “Yes, Doc,” Ben tried to keep his voice even. “That’s what National Defense Rules of Engagement means. You’d better be right about this. My CO’s and my asses are really hanging out right now.”

  “Same as all the rest of us, friend.”

  Ben pressed the point. “Doc, are you sure extraterrestrials are responsible for this?”

  “What?”

  “Look, the evidence is all circumstantial. There are some fearsome assumptions behind the conclusion aliens have landed. What if you’re wrong?”

  Simmons continued staring ahead and took a deep breath before answering. “OK. Am I 100% sure this is an extraterrestrial event? No, obviously not. But it’s the best theory I have to explain everything. You need to approach this from a risk management perspective rather than a criminal justice, ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ view.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “If no aliens landed and we waste our time, what’s the harm? Negligible. If aliens are here and we let the 252s get to them, it’ll be a catastrophe.”

  “And if we get bottled up by the 252s before Kauai or your guys show up to support us?”

  After a slight pause, Simmons replied, “OK, I guess ‘negligible’ wasn’t the best word to use, but the risk calculus is still the same.”

  The excitement of his discovery disappeared. Between Sam’s response and Simmons’s cold reasoning, Ben felt like he was being carried along by events he was powerless to control. It was the car chase all over again, and he hated it. But, after a few more seconds, the rational part of his brain won out, and Ben conceded. “OK, I guess I can see the logic of that point.”

  “One last thing that may ease your mind, about this being a 252 ambush, anyway. Think back to our earlier visit to the shack. Do you remember any mosquitoes?”

  “No.”

  “Given the little blood-sucking bastards have been all over us everywhere else we’ve been, don’t you think that’s noteworthy?”

  “So? He has bug repellent or a fogger.”

  “Negative. There was none in the truck or the shack—I searched hard and would have seen it. I thought of it yesterday when I gave you the DEET. If that old man were hanging out there, repellent or not, bugs would have followed his CO2 trail and swarmed that shack. Why weren’t they?”

  “OK, that’s another tick in your UFO column. I suppose I should feel a little better the balance of probability is shifting from getting shot towards getting eaten by an alien.”

  “See, good news! Hey, I get this is scary—remember what I told you about fear? This is one of those times when you hang it out there, trust your colleagues, and hope the breaks come your way.”

  “Right,” Ben concluded, staring forward as they drove through the fog.

  ◆◆◆

  Twenty minutes later, they reached the turnoff of the highway on Resolution Key. Ben’s head had been on a swivel throughout the trip, scanning for trailers while Simmons drove. Nothing. He hoped that was a good sign, and they weren’t waiting to pounce when they arrived at the shack. Time for one last check-in. “Kauai, Shore-One, over.”

  “Shore-One, Kauai, go ahead, over,” Sam’s voice answered almost at once.

  “Kauai, Shore-One, turning on to Resolution now. Estimate contact in one-zero minutes, over.”

  “Copy. We’re still in fog here. Our ETA is one hour, 15 minutes, over.”

  “Roger that, sir. We’ll look forward to seeing you then, over.”

  “Take care, Ben. Out.”

  Simmons nodded and said, “Now, what we will do is pull up next to the shed and step out with our guns drawn and held behind us. If he’s outside, we’ll try to get close enough to keep him from getting inside before we make our move, but if he goes for the door, we jump him. Clear?”

  “Clear.”

  “If he’s not outside, well, we’ll just play it on the fly. It will be hard, but don’t shoot if you have a choice.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  “OK, that was a little condescending, sorry.” Simmons smiled sadly. “Just stay cool and keep your head in the present.”

  After about six minutes, the car rounded a dense patch of bush and coconut palms. Once clear of the vegetation, the ground formed a natural causeway leading to the spit on the northern tip of the island. The fishing shack lay near a copse of palm trees, invisible in the light fog. A minute later, Ben could see the shack a quarter-mile away, the view becoming clearer as they approached. When the car pulled up to the structure, no one was in sight, and the two men quietly got out, drawn pistols held behind them.

  “Should we split up and flank him?” Ben whispered as he walked carefully through the soft sand.

  Simmons shook his head, whispering back, “Too much chance of getting in each other’s line of fire. Let’s move about five feet apart and advance in line abreast.” Simmons glanced at Ben and received a thumbs-up in return.

  As the two rounded the shack, they were suddenly facing the old Newfoundlander. All three men stopped in their tracks about 20 feet apart, and Simmons said, “Hello again, friend. We have more questions for you.”

  After a brief instant, the man dropped the pail and fishing rod he held and bolted toward the door. Ben reacted on instinct, holstering his weapon as he ran in pursuit. “Stop, Federal Officer!” Simmons followed just a step behind.

  The squatter was stepping through the door when Ben leaped for a flying tackle. He seemed to hang in the air for an unusually long time in complete darkness. He then fell to the ground—in a brightly lit, white room. A half-second later, Simmons tumbled on and over him. It felt like the world was spinning rapidly and he was about to become violently ill. Then, he heard a pleasant voice state firmly in what sounded like a high-class English accent, “Gentlemen, close your eyes and shake your head rapidly to clear the disorientation.”

  Ben complied, the world righted itself, and the contents of his stomach settled back into their regular place. He sat upright and saw Simmons doing the same. Then, he saw a figure in a tan, flight suit-like garment standing across the white, featureless room. He gingerly stood up, wary of the effect on his balance, and drew his sidearm. Simmons still held his from the chase.

  The man held his hands out to his sides and smiled.
“Welcome aboard, gentlemen. You will not need your weapons. They will not function in here, so you might consider storing them. Oh, and do not bother to try a direct assault. Although you are both physically larger and probably stronger than I am, there is an electronic screen between us, as you can see.” To illustrate his remarks, he picked up a small rod-shaped object and tossed it in their direction. About halfway between them, it stopped and fell to the floor.

  Holy Shit! This thing’s for real! Ben thought, looking around and then checking his pistol. The trigger, hammer, and slide were all frozen in place. He saw Simmons going through the same check on his handgun. Both men glanced at one another, slowly holstered their weapons, and then turned toward the man talking—a man who was definitely NOT William Witson.

  Swallowing hard to regain some measure of composure, Ben stated as formally as he could, “I’m Lieutenant Junior Grade Benjamin Wyporek, United States Coast Guard. I demand to know who you are and where we’ve been taken. Where is the man we were following?”

  “Why Lieutenant, I suggest you are hardly in a position to demand anything,” the figure replied with a raised eyebrow. “Would you care to rephrase? And I am the elderly gentleman you followed into the portal.”

  As Ben stared back in befuddlement, Simmons stepped forward. “Our apologies. If you please, we ask to know where we are, how we came to be here, and, if you don’t mind, your name so we can address you correctly. Oh, and I’m Dr. Peter Simmons of the United States Defense Intelligence Agency.”

  “Yes, I suspected your identity was fabricated in our earlier meeting.” The man smiled again. “The lieutenant and the other young man were open and, ‘honest minded.’ You are what ‘Old Bill’ would refer to as someone ‘as deep as the grave.’ Anyway, it is a mixed pleasure to meet you both again. Where to start? You are on board a survey vessel, around 500 meters north of the portal you entered a few moments ago. You came here via a matter conveyor connecting two separate points in spacetime for instantaneous transposition. Finally, while I have a name, it would be an incomprehensible jumble of squeaks and clicks to your ears. I will be happy to answer to ‘Bill’ for now.”