Shanifrey Doe switched off the feed contentedly. In another minute, when the gas had fully cleared, the five commandos would rush into the room. But the alien leader had no need to watch further. Not even a clairvoyant could resist capture while unconscious.
Besides, it was time to begin planning for his upcoming journey to Arizona.
47
After Frey had signed off, the three inhabitants of Conference Room D struggled to come up with an escape plan, but it was an exercise in futility. The room was now silent as each of the three furiously searched their minds for Hail Mary options they might have overlooked.
Anna suddenly bolted upright. “The door’s about to open,” she blurted out with great urgency. “They’ll be gassing us.”
“A vision?” said Redford.
“No. A strong hunch. And another says that if we hold our breath when the door opens, and fall to the floor, we won’t be knocked out.”
“Right,” said the Vorian chief scientist, “because gas rises.”
“When your face is on the floor,” said Redford hurriedly, “encircle your head with your arms to create a tiny pocket of breathable air.”
“What’s the plan if we do stay awake?” asked Kaitlyn.
Redford was about to respond when the door was thrown open a crack and a gas canister was tossed inside, right on cue.
Anna gulped in a giant breath of fresh air and fell to the floor as the door slammed shut, happy to note that the colonel and Kaitlyn were doing the same. She held her breath until her lungs were on fire, and then held it longer, pushing off panic and the irresistible primal need to inhale. Finally, when she couldn’t fight it any longer, she sucked in a breath from the tiny pocket of unpolluted air she had made and held her breath again.
But this time, the agony returned almost immediately.
***
Lieutenant Antonio Russo slammed the conference-room door closed and checked the time. In two minutes the gas would disperse enough through vents in the room that they could enter without masks. Russo had been on many dozens of missions with his fellow SEALs in hellholes around the world, and he had thought he had seen everything.
But he had been wrong.
There had never been a mission like this one. Not ever. Commanding a team tasked with protecting the secretary of defense, himself, was wild enough. But Russo had been told they’d be protecting him from possible extraterrestrials.
It seemed so insane.
But at the same time he felt as if he had won a lottery. Those SEALs who had brought down bin Laden had been the previous lottery winners. Nothing could top that. What could be more professionally gratifying? And there were no better bragging rights in all the world.
Until now. Until a team had been formed to protect the secretary of defense from being killed by aliens intent on invasion. Now this was truly incomparable.
“Weapons up,” commanded Russo to the men behind him. He had been told that the gas would work on those inside the room, but he wasn’t about to take any chances. “We’re going in single file on my mark. Three. Two. One . . .
“Mark!” barked Russo as he threw open the door and rushed inside, being sure to continue moving to leave room for his comrades behind him.
Russo’s mouth dropped open, unable to believe what he was seeing. The two women were standing along the left wall of the room, very much awake and alert. Colonel Stephen Redford was sitting on the floor with his back against the back wall, and Secretary Stinnett was unconscious on top of him, facing outward. It was as though Stinnett was using Redford as a chaise lounge. Only the colonel’s arms were visible. His right arm was wedged under the secretary’s neck, and his left arm and hand encircled Stinnett’s head like a python.
“Lieutenant Russo!” barked Redford from beneath the unconscious secretary of defense. “Make one false move and I’ll snap his neck.”
Russo’s mind raced. “Let him go!” he demanded. “Or we’ll kill your two friends. You have five seconds!” He turned and pointed his automatic rifle at Anna and Kaitlyn. “Four. Three—”
“Don’t try to bluff me, Lieutenant!” shouted Redford. “We both know you have orders not to hurt us. Nice try, but I’m not biting.”
Russo sighed and lowered his weapon.
“Good choice, Lieutenant,” said Redford. “You do know that I’m a colonel and in command of this facility, correct?”
Russo didn’t reply.
“Who ordered you to breach this room?” demanded Redford.
“I don’t answer the questions of enemies of the state,” said the lieutenant.
Redford began applying pressure to Stinnett’s head, twisting it so hard it seemed a miracle that Stinnett’s neck didn’t snap, but he stopped just short of the breaking point and held it there. “Do you really want to explain to President McNally how you watched his secretary of defense die just because you were too stubborn to stop it?”
“Okay!” shouted Russo hurriedly. “The order to breach came from Admiral Gerald Simms, US Special Operations Commander.”
Redford released some of the pressure on Stinnett’s neck. “That’s better, Lieutenant. But the order didn’t come from Simms. It came from an AI system housed within the NSA that we call Nessie. Which is under hostile control.”
Russo shook his head. “It was Admiral Simms,” he insisted. “I’m positive. It was a 2D video call. I know what the admiral looks like, and I know his voice.”
“Trust me,” said Redford, “perfect impersonations are child’s play for Nessie. Call Admiral Simms and confirm the order. Do it!”
“What you’re trying to do won’t work,” said Russo. “We aren’t letting you escape, even if it costs the secretary his life. He told us before you arrived not to trust anything you said, or even our own eyes. He said that you’re an alien and a threat to humanity, and had to be contained no matter how many lives were lost. Including his own.”
“I’m an alien?” said the colonel incredulously. “Really? It’s true that I’m wearing Stinnett like a suit so you won’t shoot me, but trust me, if you got a good look at me, you’d know that I’m fully human.”
“The secretary told us that all three of you were aliens. Extremely dangerous. That you could reach into our minds and distort how we see you. So that you appear human, even though you aren’t.”
“There is an alien threat to humanity,” said Redford, “but we’re not it. You and I are on the same side, Lieutenant. The aliens who are responsible have a drug that compels human beings to do whatever they say. Stinnett was under its influence.”
“Nice try,” said Russo. “But I’m not buying it. So release the secretary and give yourself up. Like I said, this will only end one way, with you contained, no matter what the collateral damage.”
“Come on, Lieutenant,” said Anna. “Use your head. Suppose aliens really can fool you the way you’ve been told. What’s more likely, that Stinnett is under alien control and we had to take him out like we said? Or that all three of us are aliens? Including the man in charge of finding and investigating extraterrestrials on Earth?”
She paused to let Russo mull this over. “And if we really did have the power to reach into your minds and make you see us as human, why wouldn’t we just make it so you couldn’t see us at all? Or cause you to see phantom monsters behind you? Or cause you and your men to see each other as horrifying aliens about to attack, so you’d all be shooting at members of your own team?”
Russo blinked in confusion. She made some good points.
“And why did we keep Stinnett alive?” added Anna. “Why would we willingly come to the very government agency best able to see through us?”
Russo’s mind was spinning. What if they were telling the truth? What if Stinnett was under extraterrestrial control, such that everything he had told Russo and his men was a lie before any of this had even begun. How could he tell for sure?
The answer was that he couldn’t. With stakes this high, he could only do one thing. Conta
in everyone in the room, including Stinnett. Lock them all up in the inescapable prisons installed in the facility. Until he could be sure of what he was dealing with here, he couldn’t let anyone go free, no matter what the cost.
“Steve!” said Anna suddenly. “Let Stinnett go! Do it! Russo can’t be persuaded.”
Redford hesitated, staring into her eyes.
“Trust me!” she demanded, nodding slowly. “Give yourself up. Now!”
The colonel rolled Stinnett off his body and rose to a standing position.
“Jackson and Wenzel,” commanded the lieutenant, “bind his wrists and ankles with zip-ties. Norwood and Fry, do the same to the two women.”
As Norwood and Fry approached to carry out their orders, Anna pulled off a series of martial arts moves that were as rapid as they were mesmerizing, and in seconds both men were on the floor, unconscious.
Russo couldn’t believe his eyes. She moved as if Norwood and Fry were in slow motion, as if avoiding their attempted rapid-fire blows was effortless. When she had come at the two men, they had thought they could defend themselves and take her down without firing, but they hadn’t been able to lay a glove on her. Whatever part of her they attempted to strike was no longer there when their blows arrived, devastatingly quick though they had been. It wasn’t her speed, which was impressive, it was her anticipation. It was as if she knew their next move before they did.
The being calling himself Redford attempted to fight off Jackson and Wenzel as the woman had done, but he was incapacitated almost immediately by a rain of blows. Once the two commandos had ensured he was no longer a threat, they spun around to face Anna and their two fallen comrades.
“Finish tying him up!” shouted Russo, raising his automatic rifle and pointing it at Anna. “I’ve got this handled.”
Russo set his rifle to semi-automatic. He had seen enough to know this woman outclassed him in hand-to-hand, which was really saying something, since he was elite in this discipline, even among his fellow SEALs. He might be under orders to take her alive, but that didn’t mean she had to be perfectly intact.
Russo aimed for her leg and pulled the trigger. After missing with the first shot, he pulled the trigger again and again, squeezing off several shots per second. But he continued to miss each time while she raced closer, distorting her body like a herky-jerky ballet dancer to somehow dodge the bullets. At this range, he should have been able to hit her every time, yet he might as well have been shooting at a phantom.
The lieutenant finally stopped firing and assumed a defensive stance, but she breached his defenses as if they weren’t there, knocking him to the floor, groggy and barely hanging on to consciousness.
Not wasting a moment, the berserker woman raced over to Jackson and Wenzel, who had just finished ratcheting the zip-ties tight, and after she put on yet another impossibly choreographed display of fighting brilliance, they joined the others on the floor.
Russo regained just enough of his senses to reach and grip his rifle. But just as he finished setting it to fully automatic, the heel of a shoe descended from above and slammed into his head like a hammer, knocking him into oblivion.
48
Redford stood while Anna cut his restraints with a knife she had taken from a fallen commando, his cheek and lip bleeding from his feeble attempt at resistance. He couldn’t help but feel slightly emasculated, no matter how much he tried to fight it. He was crazy about this woman, and he felt as if he should be rescuing her, not the other way around.
Even so, he had nothing to be embarrassed about. He had been up against two men who were combat specialists, while he was a geeky desk jockey at heart. And even though the script hadn’t played out the way he might fantasize it would, it made him even more in awe of the LA detective.
She was extraordinary in every way. And not just because of her intuition and precognition. Even without these gifts, she was a force of nature, composed, tough, and uncannily smart and quick on the uptake.
The moment he was free, he and his two companions began rifling through the pockets and vests of the fallen commandos, taking handguns to re-arm themselves. Redford found two additional items he was searching for, a backup canister of gas and a handful of zip-ties, which he shoved into his pocket. He held up the canister for the two women to see. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.
As they exited the room, Redford pulled the pin from the canister and sent it back inside to ensure the men didn’t regain consciousness too early.
Redford scanned his surroundings, relieved to note that the hallway was still uninhabited. “We’ll give the gas a few minutes to dissipate,” he told his companions, “and then go back in for Stinnett.”
He turned to the detective and shook his head in awe. “Jesus, Anna. You made that look easy.”
“I know,” she replied, grinning in delight. “I was amazed myself. I really didn’t think I had a chance.”
“Did you have visions of where the men would be?” he asked. “How they would move?”
“I must have. But not any that hit my conscious mind. I wouldn’t have had time to sort it all out if they had. My hidden mind is a genius. I went blank and let it control everything. I was just along for the ride.” She shook her head in amazement. “But what a ride.”
“If this whole admiral thing doesn’t work out,” said Redford, “you might consider a career on the mixed martial arts circuit.”
Anna smiled. “Do you think anyone heard the gunfire?” she asked as her smile vanished.
“No. The room’s soundproofing system contained most of the noise. Not all, because no system is that good, but a healthy percentage. Enough of it must have been blocked so that it didn’t make it through to the adjoining sector. If it had, this corridor would be swarming by now, even if only ten percent of my people are here.”
Redford decided he had waited long enough and reentered the room. He rushed over to Stinnett, lifted him, and draped him across his shoulders in a fireman’s carry, not without considerable exertion, as the secretary of defense was a looming hulk of a man.
“Kaitlyn, under no circumstances is anyone to be killed while we try to get out of here,” he said, assuming that Anna was already aware of this. “These people are our friends. It isn’t their fault they’ve been turned against us.”
“I understand,” said the alien chief scientist.
“Follow me,” he said to his companions. “I have a plan.” He shot them a pained expression, and not just because he had a sequoia tree draped over his shoulders. “A really, really poor one,” he admitted. “But I figure, with Anna on our side, anything is possible.”
“Way to not put too much pressure on me,” said Anna wryly as he began leading them away from the conference room.
“You do realize that the Vors expect you to literally save the galaxy, right? And you’re complaining that I’m putting too much pressure on you?”
Anna winced. “You just might have a point there,” she allowed as Redford reached his destination nearby, a large, well-stocked infirmary.
They entered the room and closed the double doors behind them, and the colonel lowered the secretary of defense carefully onto one of two stainless steel gurneys. “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he said. “Gather wound-healing spray and a bunch of bandages.”
Redford made his way to a surgical suite nearby, procured two scalpels and a medical bag, and then rushed back to the infirmary. When he entered he collected the items that Anna and Kaitlyn had gathered and put them in the bag.
He then picked up one of the two scalpels and walked over to the secretary of defense, explaining his intentions to the two fellow inhabitants of the infirmary. He pulled Stinnett’s shirt up past his navel, blew out a long breath, and then carefully made a long incision across the secretary of defense’s stomach, too shallow to cause any lasting damage, but deep enough to bleed profusely. He quickly lowered the secretary’s shirt back down so it would become soaked in blood, and then covered him from head
to toe with a lightweight bedsheet.
“My turn,” he said, sitting on an identical stainless steel gurney and lying down on his back. “Anna, I’d like you to do the honors.”
Anna gritted her teeth and shook her head.
“Anna, we can’t afford for you to be squeamish right now. And we need to get moving.”
She nodded and lifted the second scalpel, which was unused. “You’re right,” she said unhappily.
“I want you to cut the side of my neck,” he said. “But very, very carefully.”
Anna swallowed hard. “Of course,” she said weakly. “Although I’m usually not the kind of girl to sleep with a man and then stab him in the neck the next morning.”
“Quit stalling, Anna,” he said, bracing himself. “And no one said anything about stabbing,” he added, forcing a smile.
“I was wondering if you would catch that,” she said, returning a forced smile of her own.
She paused for a moment to muster up her resolve, and then reluctantly put the scalpel to his neck, doing as he asked, although she looked to be in far more pain than he did. When she had finished, more than enough blood had leaked from the cut to make both his and Stinnett’s act properly convincing—as long as no one inspected their wounds too closely.
Anna covered the colonel with a bedsheet, and she and Kaitlyn began rolling the gurneys to the facility’s entrance.
When they reached more populated sections of the facility, Anna whispered instructions to Kaitlyn, which had been provided to the detective in the form of hunches by her clairvoyance-aided subconscious mind. She would order the alien to halt abruptly, speed up, or duck into empty rooms and offices. They made it almost all the way to the entrance without coming across a single soul, but Anna’s expression as they approached the finish line made it clear that their luck had run out.
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