“It’s heap-big trouble out there, right, Tonto?” Kent asked.
I could have hit him.
The old man glared at Kent and said, “Watch your mouth, ass-basket.”
“Whoa, sorry, man,” Kent said sheepishly. “No offense.”
“Yes, I’ve been there,” the man said. “For decades it was closed off. You couldn’t get to within a few miles before the military police came out of nowhere to stop you. After the attack, our cell phones went out, so a few of us went to the base looking for answers.”
He glared at Kent and added, “Yes, cell phones. We haven’t sent smoke signals for a couple of years now.”
Kent stared at his shoes.
The old man continued, “We weren’t stopped at the outer security perimeter or the main gate. We drove right onto the base. What we found . . .”
His voice caught. It seemed as though he was trying to gather his thoughts. Or come to grips with what he had seen.
“What we found was the angel of death. Only there were hundreds of them, lined up in perfect rows, waiting to fly and spread their poison. The ones we approached were silent. No lights. No hum of engines. But we saw several come to life in the distance and take their turns taxiing to the runway and taking off to . . .”
He couldn’t finish the thought. It was too disturbing.
“There weren’t any people there at all?” Tori asked. “How is that possible?”
The old man shrugged.
“I don’t want to sound like some crazy Indian, but I swear it was like the place was being controlled by an unseen hand. These planes were being moved and manipulated like toys. Giant, deadly toys.”
“And nobody tried to stop you?” I asked.
“We never got close to any of the planes that were active. If we had, it might have been different. I know the plan your Chiefs have put together. Chiefs. I love that.”
I looked at Kent, who shrugged. “I didn’t say anything.”
“It can work, so long as you don’t come upon a plane that’s alive.”
“We know that,” I assured him. “We’ve already crossed paths with a few. They can see.”
“They cannot see,” the old man said sharply. “But they have eyes. They are merely the tools of someone who is not of this earth.”
“You mean, like . . . aliens?” Kent asked.
“I mean no one from this earth is capable of committing such wicked crimes against their own kind.”
Sobering words, and completely true.
“You must go quickly,” the old man said, suddenly all business. “Who will drive?”
“I’ll drive Olivia,” I said quickly. “Tori, you drive Kent.”
“I’m driving,” Kent said and sat down in the driver’s side of one of the buggies.
It didn’t matter to me who drove. I just didn’t want Kent and Olivia to suddenly disappear.
“I will wait here until you return,” the man said. “If you are not back by midnight, I will assume you will not be coming.”
“We’ll be back,” Kent said cockily. “Once you start hearing the booms, be ready.”
He fired up his buggy while Tori slid next to him and strapped on her safety belt. Olivia and I got into our vehicle and strapped in. The old man passed helmets to each of us.
“Once you reach the other side, you might consider leaving the road. It is wide-open space over there.”
“Thanks,” I said.
The old man reached out his hand and gave me a firm handshake. He tapped Olivia on the shoulder in a grandfatherly gesture.
“Any Indian blessing you can give us?” Kent called out.
“Sure,” the old man said. He raised his arms to the heavens and chanted, “O great God of the sky, look over these children and offer them protection so they do not get their asses shot off.”
He looked to Kent and added, “How’s that, kemosabe?”
Kent gave him a thumbs-up.
With that, I started our engine. It was like being behind the wheel of the go-karts in Denver—times a hundred. These buggies had juice. We were fully encased by a roll bar, though I didn’t plan on doing any driving that might end in a roll.
Kent had said it best. Get in fast, get out even faster.
I hit the gas, spun the wheel, and the buggy lurched forward. I led the way, driving back for the dirt road and the hills beyond. The vehicles were so loud that there was no way we could talk without screaming. Just as well. Olivia wasn’t in the mood for conversation. She was curled up in her seat in the fetal position, hugging the roll bar. I was worried that when it came time for her to move on her own, she’d freeze. But there was nothing I could do about it, so I kept quiet and focused on driving.
The old man was right. The moon was full, so the desert was lit up like daytime. Good news was that we didn’t have to use our headlights. Bad news was that it would be easier for us to be seen from the sky. Or the base.
The road gained elevation quickly as it snaked through the hills. A look back showed me that Kent and Tori weren’t following closely. Our tires were kicking up a lot of dust, and they had to hang back or choke on it.
We all had our small packs with the charges between our legs—a vulnerable place to hold explosives, to say the least. I had to keep reminding myself that there was no way they could go off. I envisioned Cutter on that stage dropping the charge and stomping on it. It helped to manage my panic.
We passed a few signs that were difficult to read because of our speed, but the bold headlines were clear enough. I caught the words “Restricted Area” and “No Trespassing.” That meant we were inside the first security boundary that had kept curious alien-seeking tourists away for decades. All it did was amp up my adrenaline.
After ten minutes of twisting, bouncing, and coughing through kicked-up dirt, we crested the ridge and got our first view of the desert floor beyond. I skidded to a stop and killed the engine. Kent drove up right next to us and stopped as well. It was going to take a few minutes to process what we were seeing.
I could understand why the military had chosen this place to test their planes. The desert floor stretched out in front of us for what looked like hundreds of miles in every direction. It was a dead-flat natural airfield surrounded by protective mountains.
Straight ahead, maybe thirty miles away, was the air base known as Area 51. It was nestled at the base of a small ridge of mountains that loomed up behind it.
The base was lit. It had power.
The buildings were dark, but the lights on the ground outlined the runways. It looked like a medium-sized airport, complete with large hangars and many smaller buildings that could have been for maintenance, or manufacturing, or offices, or vaults to hide aliens, for all I knew. There was nothing about the physical base itself that seemed out of the ordinary.
The stunner was what we saw on the runways.
They were there. The black planes. Hundreds of them. Many hundreds. They were lined up, curved wing to curved wing, looking like a massive school of dark stingrays waiting to wipe out what was left of mankind.
“If we’re primates,” Tori said, stunned, “what are they?”
Olivia was whimpering. I didn’t blame her. The sight of these murderous planes was beyond disturbing. Knowing that they were preparing to set out on another killing spree to wipe out those they missed the first time around was almost too much to comprehend.
Almost.
Seeing these planes may have been sobering, but it also forced me to focus on the job at hand.
“We came here to fight back,” I said. “I never thought we’d make it this far, but here we are. We’ve got the chance to shut this place down, and I believe we’re going to do it.”
“Now you’re talking, commander,” Kent said and clapped me on the back.
“But for how long?” Tori asked. “Are these all the planes they have? Or can they just build more?”
“We aren’t the only survivors,” I said. “There are millions of others. T
aking out these planes might buy time for a real counterattack. Who knows? Maybe it’ll come from SYLO. If we knock the Retros off-balance, it might give SYLO a chance to finish them off.”
“SYLO?” Kent said, surprised. “Since when did you start rooting for those jack wagons?”
“We think they were trying to protect Pemberwick Island, Kent,” Tori said.
“By trying to kill us?” Kent asked, incredulous.
I wasn’t about to tell them what Granger had said about one of my friends being an infiltrator.
I said, “All I know is that the planes from this base wiped out three-quarters of the world’s population. Who would you rather side with? Monsters who consider us to be worthless animals? Or the people trying to stop them?”
“I’ll side with the winner,” Olivia said sadly.
“All right,” I declared. “Then let’s win.”
“No!” Tori cried.
“No?” Kent echoed.
“Shut up!” Tori shouted. “Something’s in the air.”
We heard it before we saw it. It was a helicopter. The sound of the engine was unmistakable, and it was getting louder.
“Let’s go!” I shouted and ran for the dune buggy.
Kent and Tori jumped into theirs, and we all strapped in quickly.
“It has to be SYLO,” Tori called out. “The Retros don’t fly choppers.”
“Let’s hope they really are trying to protect us,” Kent shouted.
“Let’s hope they don’t lure out any Retros,” I called back.
“There!” Tori called out and pointed to the sky.
All we could see was a black shadow moving across the star field, for the chopper had no lights. It was flying high—too high to spot us. I hoped. It drifted in from the direction we had come from and hovered directly over us.
I held my breath, for whatever good that would do.
All of our eyes were on the black shape. Even Olivia looked skyward.
The chopper hovered there for several seconds, then peeled off and flew back the way it had come.
“What if it saw us?” Kent asked nervously. “It could be going back to get more choppers.”
“Why?” Tori asked. “Why would they be worrying about us?”
“Seriously?” Kent said incredulously. “Did you forget how Granger tried to gun us down? I don’t care why he was doing it, he did it.”
I knew why he was doing it, but I kept quiet.
“If Kent’s right, we don’t want to be here,” I declared. “If not, we still don’t want to be here. We’ve got a job to do.”
“Then let’s roll,” Tori declared and popped on her helmet.
“When we hit the desert floor, we’ll go off-road,” I called to Kent. “We can travel next to each other to avoid the dust storm and then stop a few hundred yards from the closest plane. Make sense?”
“Yippee ki-yay!” Kent called.
We fired up our engines, and the sound of powerful motors once again filled the desert night. I hit the gas and launched forward, careening down the road that snaked its way from the ridge. It took only a few minutes before the road leveled out and we were back on the desert floor. Another huge sign was displayed next to the road that said, not too subtly, that we were in a restricted area and were subject to arrest. There was also a sign that said: NO PHOTOGRAPHY.
I yelled to Olivia, “Good thing we don’t have a camera or we’d really be in trouble!”
She didn’t find that funny.
Kent and Tori caught up, and Kent gave me a thumbs-up.
I motioned that I was headed off-road, and he nodded in understanding. I jammed my foot to the floor, turned the wheel, and rolled onto the dry, flat lake bed that would lead us to the infamous Area 51.
There was no way to know if we’d have success, or what that success would mean in the larger war. There was every reason to believe that we would never make it out of this place. Only one thing was certain: We were on the last leg of a journey that began on Pemberwick Island, brought us through the nightmare that our country had become, and found us knocking on the gates of hell.
What we would find once we got inside was anybody’s guess.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Driving across the desert floor was exciting . . . and terrifying.
It was a breakneck dash across wide-open terrain that left us totally exposed as we moved closer to the death machines that had changed our lives and forever altered the natural course of human events.
I was glad to be behind the wheel. It helped me stay focused. There were too many conflicting thoughts racing through my head. For the longest time, I had put a face on the enemy. Captain Granger. He had held us prisoner on Pemberwick Island and coldly murdered those who crossed him, including Tori’s father. But as the scope of the conflict revealed itself, it seemed possible that Captain Granger and SYLO might have been using their extreme tactics to battle an even greater enemy: the Retros.
I had come close to murdering Granger. That’s how deep my rage went. It was confusing to try to refocus that anger onto a fleet of faceless machines. I needed to hold someone responsible. But who? Was it Feit? I didn’t think so. He was just a cog in the machine, like Chris Campbell or Jon Purcell. I wanted to know who was behind the heinous plan. Was it an individual? A rogue group of Air Force officers? An extremist arm of the government that took control of the Air Force and its most advanced, lethal technology? It might even be a foreign government that was intent on bringing down the United States.
Or was Kent’s theory the truth? Were we battling an invasion from another planet? As strange as it sounds, that would be the easiest explanation to accept, based on the impossible technology they had. It went back to what the old Paiute man said. He couldn’t believe that anyone of this earth could commit such horrible crimes against their own people. We might be battling an advanced civilization from another world that considered the people of earth to be primitive and expendable.
I wanted to hate somebody. I wanted a villain. I wanted somebody to suffer for what was happening. I would have to settle for putting the villains out of business and hope that someday, somehow, the guilty would be brought to justice.
I scanned the desert to both sides, looking for signs of the other teams that were doing the same thing we were. The Chiefs’ plan called for the base to be surrounded by dozens of teams that would converge on Area 51 like a tightening noose. I thought I saw a couple of kicked-up dust clouds in the distance, which would mean that other teams were racing for the planes. We would need every one of the teams to get through, because after seeing all those black planes, I worried that we wouldn’t have enough charges to damage them all.
As we drew dangerously close to the base, I realized that there wasn’t a fence surrounding it. I guess it wasn’t needed. Nobody got this far when it was officially in operation.
I wanted to get close enough to our targets to avoid a long walk but didn’t want to get so close that we might alert someone. It was a strange game of chicken. I finally couldn’t take it anymore and waved to Kent that we were stopping. I gradually slowed as Kent pulled up next to me. We both killed our engines, and the silence of the desert returned.
I pulled off my helmet and listened for any signs of life from the base. There was nothing. I did hear what could have been the engines of other dune buggies off in the distance. Or was it the mysterious helicopter that had checked us out? I couldn’t tell, but it made me realize that as much as we hadn’t seen a single soul since the Paiute man and were in the middle of nowhere, we definitely weren’t alone. But there were no alarms. No counterattack. No defensive move from the base whatsoever.
It was looking as though the base was truly unmanned.
I got out of the buggy, tossed off my helmet, and grabbed the pack with the charges.
“Rest of the way on foot,” I announced.
Kent and Tori joined me, ready to go.
Olivia didn’t move.
Uh-oh.
�
��We gotta go, Olivia,” I commanded.
She took off her helmet but stayed curled in the fetal position.
“I can’t,” she replied in a small voice.
“We can’t leave you here,” Tori scolded.
“Yes, you can,” she whined. “One less person won’t make any difference. Take my stupid bombs. You can still use them.”
Tori gave me a concerned look. “We’re not leaving you alone,” she said more forcefully. “It’s too dangerous.”
“More dangerous than going into that place?” she cried. “I don’t think so.”
She could have been telling the truth and was too scared to move—or she could have been stubbornly pretending to be scared so we’d leave her alone so she could warn the Retros. Either way, I didn’t know how to force her to come.
“Jeez, enough, Tucker,” Kent said. “You already bullied her into coming this far. What’s the difference if she stays here or not? I’ll take her charges and set them.”
“Thank you, Kent,” Olivia said.
I looked to Tori for help.
She had an idea, but it was a drastic one.
She had taken out her pistol.
If Olivia was an infiltrator, she could jeopardize the entire mission. If she refused to come with us, there was one thing we could do to make sure she wouldn’t give us up.
Tori raised the gun.
“No,” I commanded sharply.
It was meant for both Kent and Tori.
I grabbed Olivia’s pack of charges.
“I’ll set her charges.” I then looked right at Tori and said, “Olivia will be here when we get back.” I looked at Olivia and added, “Right?”
“Where else would I be?” she asked innocently.
Tori gave me a grave look and returned her pistol to her belt.
I could only hope that I wasn’t making a horrible mistake. I wanted to believe that Olivia was exactly who she said she was, but I had to accept the fact that she could have been lying. But so what? What could I do about it? If I couldn’t pull the trigger on Granger, I sure as hell couldn’t pull it on Olivia. Or let Tori do it.
But what if I was wrong? No, I had to go with my gut and let her stay behind. I told myself that the operation was already too far along. Even if Olivia was an infiltrator, there wasn’t much she could do to stop it.
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