by Iain Benson
“I may be able to offer insight,” Vera said.
“Go on?” Rivers said.
“He will focus human ingenuity into science,” Vera said. “He probably needs a new space craft, so that he can escape. Additionally, with the army he has built, he could take control of the milk supply.”
“How did he get here?” London asked.
“He may have hitched a ride with a milk raider,” Vera said. “He knew I would catch up with him eventually. On a non-spacefaring planet is a very good hiding place, as I would not have looked here. This would have provided him time to build up resources to defeat me.”
“Milk?” asked Keyes.
“Think crack cocaine, but for aliens,” said London.
“It’s like a nick name for a drug?” Keyes asked.
“No,” London said. “It’s actual milk. If we get into space, we’re going to make the opium wars look tame.”
“I’ve got to ask,” Rivers asked. “Aliens? You’ve been out there?”
London laughed. “Yes. I hated it. It’s boring.”
Out of the window, London saw the glint of a lake.
“We’re here,” said the pilot over his shoulder. “Where shall I set down?”
London directed the pilot to the small village nearest their ship. When they were clear, Keyes slapped the side of the helicopter, and it lifted off, heading over the lake. London led the party back up to the boathouse, Keyes and Rivers were wary, but they didn’t encounter any soldiers. If Keyes and Rivers were shocked, surprised or impartial at the sight of a bona fide alien spacecraft, they hid it well. London and Xia put their weapons on the charge pad as they got into the cockpit.
“To where are we going?” Vera asked, as London came into the bridge, followed by Rivers and Keyes.
Xia sat in her seat, London sat in his, and Bonbon finally hopped off Vera’s shoulder. London noted a slight flicker of surprise cross Rivers’ face at the sudden detachment of part of Vera; especially when it turned to him and blinked.
“Sixteen hundred, Pennsylvania Avenue,” London said.
“Think about the location,” Bonbon told him, so London thought about where Washington DC was.
“Got it,” said Vera, pressing a few on-screen buttons. The displays showed the hills of the Lake District fall away below them, the sky turning from pale blue to deep blue.
They rocketed across the Atlantic at speeds that would make Concorde weep in envy. Like the UK, air traffic had been grounded across the USA, allowing them an easy approach towards Capitol Hill.
“They have a lot of weapons around that building,” said Vera before they were in visual range of the White House.
“Don’t you have shields or anything?” London asked.
“Shields?” asked Vera. “What are they?”
“Like force fields or energy shields that deflect incoming weaponry?”
“Humans have such a thing?” Vera asked.
“No, I was hoping you did though.”
“It does not sound technically feasible,” Vera said. “I cannot work out how deflecting a high speed missile or energy weapon might be possible.”
“So if they shoot at us?”
“They will put a hole in my ship,” said Vera, simply. “Or rather, it would if the projectile can penetrate the asteroid plates.”
“So you do have shields?” London said.
“Only if they are throwing rocks at us,” Vera was beginning to pick up sarcasm.
“I suggest we land elsewhere,” said Major Rivers. “We’ll find an alternate route in.”
“There! A warehouse district,” said London.
“I see them,” Vera said. His ship stopped dead in a fashion that should have left the crew plastered on the forward display screen. Vera scanned around looking for a suitable location. They spotted a group of warehousing arranged around a central loading area. Some loading bays were occupied, but there was enough space for Vera’s craft. There were people about, pointing up at them.
Vera brought his ship straight down, neatly between two trucks. It was tight, but his parking was perfect.
“Vera will stand out,” Keyes said.
“I believe I can help,” Bonbon thought in London’s head.
In front of their eyes, Vera became a broad, tall, black man with hair in dreadlocks wearing a sharp looking grey suit, dark grey shirt and white tie. He still had presence, but now looked more ordinary.
“What? How?” Major Keyes said.
“Nice one, Bonbon,” Xia said.
“I have worked out how to tap into something human’s call mass hallucination,” Bonbon told them. “Human perception is quite rudimentary, so now people that see Vera will see this image of him.”
“Brilliant,” said London.
“What can you see?” Vera asked.
“How did you do that?” Keyes asked.
“Do what?” Vera asked back.
“Make yourself look like Shaft,” Keyes told him.
“I have not changed my appearance at all,” Vera said, looking at the back of his hand.
“It’s clever technology,” London explained to Keyes.
Bonbon was scooped up onto Vera’s head, grasping Vera’s mane, before becoming a slightly jaunty hat. London made an appreciative face. Vera would easily blend.
“I got the image from your head, James,” Bonbon thought at him.
“I do like that film,” London thought back. “But I also like Bambi, and you haven’t made him look like a deer.”
They emerged from the craft down the ramp. Keyes and Rivers were both now armed with the recharged energy weapons. The logistics workers on the docking bays stared open mouthed as two SAS officers took up defensive positions as a middle-aged bearded white man in a black jacket and jeans, a young Chinese woman in a grey jump suit and a large black man in a sharp suit sauntered down behind them.
“Shall we get a taxi?” London asked.
“Hey!” said a bald guy in a chequered shirt, large forearms and no neck.
“Yes?” Vera asked. He was still intimidating, but in a more human way.
“You can’t leave that plane there,” the bald guy said.
“It is a spacecraft, not a plane,” Vera told him. “We will move it once we have dispatched the being you call Wishbone.”
“You’re here to kill Wishbone?” The man’s demeanour changed immediately. The other truck drivers and dock workers also relaxed.
“Yes,” London said.
“Do you want any help?” the man asked.
London had an idea: “Does anybody have a panel van? We need to get to the White House and we won’t get two blocks without his mercs seeing us.” He’d learned the English-English to American-English dictionary from the A-Team, and conversed like a native.
“I’ve got one,” a lanky man, in blue overalls, open to the waist revealing a brilliant white tee-shirt came forward. He had slicked back blonde hair. “The name’s Craig.”
“James,” said London, quickly introducing everybody else.
Craig led them to the corner of the compound by a chain link fence. On the other side, against the kerb was a white roll-door box van with Global Delivery in large letters on the side. Craig pulled up the roll-door. Rivers and Keyes jumped in, pulling in London and Xia. Vera made the step up like he was stepping up a step ladder. Craig pulled the shutter down, leaving the group in darkness. A small sliver of light outlined the door, a second small window slanted sunlight in a beam from the front. The van shuddered into life; the two SAS officers remained standing as the van set off, whilst everybody else was thrown sideways.
There were wooden slats for fastening loads to inside the van. London grabbed hold, as did Xia and Vera. They rocked around corners, swayed around bends and rolled around turns. The distance Vera’s craft could cover in seconds took a nerve racking forty minutes in the back of the van. Every time they stopped at stop lights, stop signs and crosswalks, London was on edge, his energy weapon in his hand, expec
ting the back of the van to be ripped open and a sea of identical faces looking up at them.
From the tense silence, London thought that everybody was feeling the same, but when London looked round, it appeared that Vera was having a snooze and Xia had found the game mode on her gun. The final stop was different to the others, in that Craig got out. They heard the door open shortly followed by the roll door clattering into a roll, allowing the light to poor in.
“I can’t get you closer to the White House,” Craig said, as they dropped out of the back off the van. “The street’s closed to traffic.”
They were in an alley behind a Surf and Turf restaurant that smelled divine. The creamy walls of the buildings on either side rose up several stories, casting the alley into darkness. The van took up most of the alley’s width. London squeezed between the van and the wall and trotted to the corner to peer around. The street had more of the several storey cream buildings with regularly spaced tinted windows. Trees lined the sidewalks. To the right, the restaurant’s outside seating area had midmorning customers enjoying a coffee and spring sunshine. There were a group of nine soldiers at the street corner London wanted. Unlike most of the other soldiers, these were armed. London had no doubt that they were crack shots.
There were a lot of people out on the street, doing whatever their schedules demanded and acting like the country wasn’t occupied. Xia joined London at the mouth of the alley.
“I don’t think Bonbon’s disguise will work on the soldiers,” London whispered, wondering why he was whispering.
“It will not,” Bonbon’s thoughts floated in their heads.
Keyes and Rivers appeared in the shadows.
“Our clothing does not really blend in,” Major Rivers said, looking up and down at the suited and booted pedestrians. “We will take high ground and provide cover.”
Keyes handed London a compact walkie-talkie. “Channel six is the encrypted band,” he said. “When we’re in position, we’ll let you know.”
London still had the urge not to reveal Bonbon’s existence, so respected the wishes of the small blue fur ball. He accepted the walkie-talkie despite knowing Bonbon was an even more secure communication channel.
“What a romantic way of describing me,” Bonbon said to London.
“I’m buying a tinfoil hat off the first conspiracy nut I encounter,” London thought back. Out loud he said: “Xia and I will scout out what’s ahead, you two go high, and once we know how we’re going to get there, we’ll contact you.”
“How are we going to get there?” Xia asked.
“Act natural,” London said. He put the gun in his jacket pocket, zipped up his jacket, stuck his hands in his pockets and stepped out into the street.
Ten seconds passed and nobody shot him. Xia stepped out beside him.
“What is that heavenly smell?” she asked.
“Difficult to tell, it being your nose, not mine,” London said. “But my guess would be coffee.”
Side by side, they walked nonchalantly down the road, past the umbrella shaded tables. At the corner where the soldiers were standing, the pair kept their faces away from the soldier’s gaze, walking swiftly passed them amid a huddle of other pedestrians. More trees lined the road. Beyond, there was an open expanse of grass, fences, surface to air missile installations and soldiers. There were lots of soldiers. They had vehicles, weapons and numbers.
As they walked along the sidewalk circumnavigating the block, a gap in the trees appeared opening up a vista of the rear of the White House. It was some distance away down a straight path. A small squat dun coloured building was situated to one side of the path. It had no windows, and one door. Its position and structure screamed that it was ominous. All along the sidewalk were metre high, six metre long concrete blocks. Even a tank would struggle to get over those. A box van had no chance. Nobody was walking on the other side of them in the park.
“Do you think Wishbone is here?” Xia asked.
London took in the array of personnel and weaponry between them and the White House.
“I think it’s like video games,” London said. “The big boss is always the hardest route, protected by the most dangerous enemies.”
“So, that’s a yes, then.” Xia made a tutting sound and they carried on walking.
The walkie-talkie made an almost silent hiss. London lifted it to his ear.
“We’re in position,” said Keyes’s voice. “We have a visual on you.”
“Aren’t you supposed to say ‘over’? Over.”
“No,” Keyes replied. “We are in the white apartment block behind you, behind the bell tower building on the corner.”
London looked around and saw the tower immediately. Behind it, rose an apartment block with balconies for the penthouse rooms. A shadow detached, waved briefly, and vanished again. London resisted the urge to wave back. Xia and London resumed their perambulation. A black woman in a grey suit appeared at London’s elbow, touching it and talking quietly barely moving her lips.
“Do not look at me and keep walking,” she said, so London stopped looking at her, suddenly noticing she had a peculiar odour. “You stand out like a Maasai in Beijing.”
“Who are you?” London asked, trying to mimic her speech.
“I was going to ask you the same question,” she said. “I am Mary Curr, current head of what’s left of the CIA.”
“I am James London,” said London, “I am a lecturer at London University.”
“Your cover is irrelevant,” Mary said. “Why is your picture on the security screens in the White House command bunker? And her picture, and some kind of blue hulk.”
They reached the corner, crossing on the opposite side to the group of soldiers. Mary stayed with them.
“It’s complicated,” said London. “I appear to have accidentally become Wishbone’s number one enemy.”
“We’ll save the story for another time,” said Mary. “Why are you here?”
“We’re after Wishbone,” said Xia. “My friend has a significant grievance with him.”
“Is his grievance more, or less, significant than taking over every country on Earth?” Mary asked.
“More,” said Xia. “And more importantly, he can do something about it.”
“I’d like to meet your friend,” Mary said.
Back at the mouth of the alley, they found Vera sitting in the back of the van with Craig, their legs dangling over the back. Craig’s were dangling; Vera’s were on the floor.
“Who is this?” Vera asked.
“Mary,” London said. “Beyond that, I don’t know much.”
London got onto the walkie-talkie and told Rivers and Keyes to return.
“Are you here to help us kill Wishbone?” Vera asked.
“I would prefer it if he was brought to justice for his crimes,” said Mary. She paused and then added: “Who am I kidding? Yeah, kill the S O B.”
London lifted himself to sit next to Craig. “I don’t know how we’ll get there. There is an entire army between us and him. There’s no cover. We wouldn’t get a quarter of the way there.”
“Do you have a bear hunt idea?” Vera asked.
London scratched the side of his face. “Not right now. I’ll have to think.”
“I have a way into the White House,” said Mary.
“Go on,” said London, as Keyes and Rivers silently appeared.
“There is a subway tunnel that goes underneath straight to the White House.”
“Won’t it be guarded?” Rivers asked.
“It is guarded at both ends,” Mary told them. “But not in the middle.”
“What about CCTV?” Keyes asked.
“There is CCTV all the way down.” Mary gave a smile. “That would be a problem if those watching the feed were on Wishbone’s side, but they’re on ours. I’ve been getting in and out of the White House this way now since Wishbone took over. I’ve been getting intelligence in and out in a way that Wishbone cannot monitor. I memorise it.”
“Once we’re inside, we can fight a running battle,” said Keyes. “We get to Wishbone, and lop off this serpent’s head.”
“A small strike force is the best sort of force for this,” Rivers said. “Six is an ideal number.”
“You said the entrance was guarded,” London pointed out.
“I don’t go in that way,” Mary replied. “I use the sewers. It takes you into the central part of the subway.”
London nodded, finally recognising the smell. It was cabbage.
“How did you find us?” London asked.
“I saw you on the street, you were pretty obvious, hiding your faces from the soldiers and ogling like tourists,” she replied. “I was taking info to the rebels, I saw you. The rebels can wait. I’ve never seen any of the rebels faces on the security screens. You are on all of them.”
“I am probably more attractive and make a better screen saver,” London said.
“Have a shave and maybe,” Mary said. “You currently look like you ran into a hair brush covered in glue.”
“And you smell of cabbage,” London said.
“Save the flirting until later,” Keyes said. “We need to get a move on.”
“Do you want me to wait here?” Craig asked.
“Either we’re not coming back, or we will be able to walk back safely,” said Vera. “I believe your presence is no longer required. Thank-you for the ride, you have been instrumental in freeing your world.”
“He means ‘no’,” said Xia.
“Right,” Craig hopped down off the truck. “Good luck.”
Mary didn’t lead them back onto the street, but took them further into the alley. It opened out into a wider area, the sky a distant square. All around them were the backs of apartments and restaurants. Air conditioning vents and units provided a background hum. They passed an open door with a cook from one of the many restaurants leaning against it. He watched them with interest, but no comment. Hidden on all sides from view, Mary lifted a large square grating that led down into the darkness. She carefully descended the metal steps. London was right behind her.