Two days passed before Zach returned to Site 23. He stayed with the three surviving prisoners until ground support arrived in the form of forty Seals. They parachuted a mile away onto the valley floor with a braided stream running through it. The terrain was mainly gravel and packed earth. The most serious injury to the jumpers was a sprained ankle and several wet and annoyed Seals. Zach then left one of the Seals with the ex-prisoners and guided the rest of the men toward where he had contacted the remaining Chinese. Then he left further action to the Seals, figuring he’d done his part. They were more than competent without him.
He scrounged a few MREs, meals ready to eat, from the Seals and fed Chunhua, John Albertson, April Weaver, and himself. He let them huddle for a couple of hours from the cold in the Seals’ thermal blankets, then they started walking back to the base. There were no helicopters available, but a snowcat dispatched by Jefferson met them partway back.
About thirty-six hours after the attack, a Seal patrol reported a possible figure sighting at a distance, but further sweeps came up empty. When Zach was satisfied that he was superfluous, he went to his room without talking to anyone, showered, shaved, and slept sixteen hours.
Similarly, Jill was busy, which included helping out with the wounded until they could be transported to Nanook International to be flown out. In a few cases, she thought Bobby was just as useful by letting people experience his irrepressible personality. There was something about being around his inveterate cheerfulness and obliviousness to what had happened that helped everyone forget the recent events and simply get a feeling of living from his presence.
Zach and Jill did not meet again for four days after the attack. They saw each other in passing or from a distance several times, but Zach was consumed with security issues. He also guided the Seals in running sweeps of the surrounding terrain for any lurking Chinese, wounded or not. The Seals who didn’t parachute down to deal with the remaining Chinese had landed at Nanook International and been transported to Site 23 by the snowcats.
Neither Zach nor Jill consciously avoided the other. Their eventual meeting came on the fifth day. After Kathy relieved Jill from providing companionship at the makeshift hospital, Jill took Bobby back to their rooms for a change of clothes before dinner. As she carried Bobby to the dining hall, she turned the corner of the main building and met Zach heading to Level 3 to check with Mueller and Willie. They stopped six feet from each other, staring for several moments. Jill was the first to break the silence.
“Well . . . it’s been a busy few days, hasn’t it?”
“Yes. We think we’ve cleared the island of any possible further threat, and now it’s time to see about what comes next.”
Jill smiled tentatively. “Yes, what comes next.”
Silence lay between them for several more seconds.
Finally, it was Zach who spoke. “Jill . . . what happened . . . we could agree that it was just one of those things. Something that happened due to the circumstances, and let it go at that.”
“And is that what you want? Just let it go?”
“Maybe that’s best,” said Zach.
“Best for who? For you?”
“Maybe best for you,” said Zach with a sad shake of his head.
“Why do you think that would be best for me?”
“Look, Jill. Let’s be honest. You’ve made it plain how you feel about me. I understand. But what happened can’t have changed the facts that I’m who and what I am, as are you.”
“So, you’re saying there couldn’t be something between us?”
“I’m saying I’m not the best for you. I’m older, and you should have someone of your own generation. Plus, my life has been so different. I’ve experienced and done so many things . . . many of them not pleasant. You deserve someone better.”
Jill frowned and her forehead wrinkled. “Don’t you think that should be my decision? Do you presume to know what’s best for me? And anyway—do you really have any idea what’s best for YOU? What is it that you want?”
He was silent for several moments, then looked off to the south, out to the valley and the surrounding mountains. He spoke as if only to himself, as if she were not standing in front of him.
“I won’t deny the feelings I have for you. For you and Bobby.” He paused. “But wouldn’t it be best for Jill and Bobby to move forward without me in their lives?”
Jill interpreted this as his unconsciously saying aloud what he was trying to convince himself of.
She didn’t know what to say next, and after a few moments of silence, he turned and walked away.
CHAPTER 46
AFTERMATH - 2
White House, Situation Room
James Chesterton wasted no time summoning generals Hardesty and Wallens to the White House as soon as he got word of the Ellesmere attack. Wallens arrived first, being at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington when he got the call. Hardesty had been in constant contact with the White House from his headquarters and hurried to a military version of a Gulfstream executive jet waiting at Tampa. Coincidentally, it was the same aircraft in which Sinclair had escorted Zach, Willie, Jill, and Bobby to Thule for the meeting with the Virtual-Reality staff from California.
Hardesty entered the Situation Room eight hours after the first alert came from Site 23. It was the most crowded meeting ever held about the Object. Besides the president and Wallens, the vice president, five cabinet members, the national security adviser, and the president’s chief of staff, Bob Neller, sat or stood looking at a large monitor displaying Ellesmere Island. Hardesty had never interacted directly with Philip Rennoux, the secretary of state, or Susan Hopkins, the vice president. During previous meetings with Chesterton, Hardesty had picked up vibes that the president trusted Rennoux, though he didn’t feel a justification to bring the secretary of state into the secret.
Hopkins was a different kettle of fish. When Chesterton added the liberal senator from California to the election ticket, it was to secure California’s trove of electoral votes and placate the party’s left wing, which considered Chesterton an appeaser for campaigning to work with the opposition.
Hopkins paced in the back of the room, a palpable physical and temperamental distance from the others. Hardesty intuited that she had been briefed on the existence of Site 23 and was not pleased. He was thankful the revelation had occurred when he wasn’t present, but he wondered what future problems she would cause.
Richard Hosseni, the Pakistani-descended chairman of the Joint Chiefs, quit watching the screen. He walked over to Hardesty and whispered.
“Well, kiss my ass, Justin. I knew something was going on, but Chesterton made it clear I was to ignore it. I imagined all kind of weird shit, and I wasn’t even close. I’ve been on the phone the last two hours trying to reassure the chief of naval operations and several army and air force generals about what the hell is going on.”
Hosseni glanced around to check whether anyone was close, then leaned closer and whispered even lower, “Is this all for real? Aliens on Ellesmere Island?”
Hardesty nodded.
“Well, kiss my ass,” mumbled Hosseni, quieter this time and with more a tenor of wonder.
“All right, let’s sit,” said Chesterton and sat at the table’s head.
Hardesty took a seat opposite Edward Ojeda, the national security adviser, and Paul Gilbertson, the secretary of defense. Hardesty wondered whether he was going to have a problem with Gilbertson over his being out of a loop that included one of his subordinates.
“General Hardesty has been out of touch while getting here,” said Chesterton. “Wallens, give us the update. Hardesty . . . many of us have already heard much of this, but go ahead and chip in to add anything pertinent.”
The air force general manipulated the console in front of his chair, and the image of Ellesmere zoomed in on the western portion of the island where Site 23 was located.
“Communications continue to improve. There’s still sporadic interference, but it’s
become more of an annoyance, causing the need for them to repeat some messages, rather than not getting through it all.
“Here’s what we know so far. A force of about sixty Chinese attacked Site 23, we assume to gather information about what was going on. We don’t know exactly what their intentions were, but to risk something like this, they must have had more intelligence about the Object than we can so far explain.”
“Well,” interjected Hardesty, “their information obviously wasn’t comprehensive. They must not have known the Object can’t be moved. That’s assuming they even know about the Object. I think it’s more likely they’d figured out something extraordinary was going on, and they somehow felt threatened.”
Wallens waved one hand. “Regardless of their motivation, it’s almost certain the planned future for the staff at Site 23 was not going to be good. We lucked out, though. The Chinese didn’t hit the site by surprise. Somehow there was a warning . . . we don’t have the details yet. A pretty intense fight led to significant casualties of our people, but the attackers were beaten back and lost most of their men.
“There was an original report of some of our people being taken prisoner. Two flights of F-16s out of Eielson were the first help to get there. They were too late for the attack, but they helped in recovering the prisoners. Following that, part of a Seal unit engaged the remaining Chinese. Again, no details are yet available, but we just got word the remaining Chinese were cornered, and all are dead. Bottom line, it’s pretty certain the crisis is over.”
“Maybe it’s true on Ellesmere,” said Rennoux, “but for my department it’s just about to begin. Our allies are going to just about shit a brick, the Russians will . . . hell, I don’t know what the Russians will do. At least with the Chinese, we have ’em by the short hairs, caught red-handed invading Canada and killing American and Canadian citizens.”
“Maybe. Maybe not,” said Ojeda. “Even if they didn’t succeed, the Chinese know something about this Site 23.”
“Something is the operative word,” said Hardesty. “I see no reason to believe they’re aware of the Object. Somehow, they learned we were up to something important enough at Site 23 to risk what they did.”
“That’s an issue we’ll have to take a serious look at,” said Ojeda. “As restricted as knowledge was about all this, we have to ask, what clued them in? An inside source is one strong possibility. We’ll need to check and recheck all the current and past staff members who’ve worked on Ellesmere. Same with looking at any possible modes of communication from the site, including letters that were supposedly censored.”
“No one is mentioning the UN,” said Hopkins, sounding agitated. “Too many countries already distrust the U.S., and here we are keeping secret something this significant. I don’t care why we claim we did it, everyone will believe we were planning on keeping new technology to ourselves.”
Hardesty noted that Hopkins was looking at Chesterton, and she didn’t see Bob Neller roll his eyes.
The president only nodded. “I realize we have major problems, Susan, but we have more immediate issues at the moment.”
She pursed her lips but didn’t respond.
“What about prisoners?” asked Hardesty, not interested in administration politics and wanting to hear more updates.
“Looks like we’ll have one, possibly two,” said Wallens. “They shot their own wounded, and apparently when the last few were cornered, they killed themselves. However, they missed finishing off two of their own men. Both are severely wounded. The first doctors on the scene think one of the men will live but are uncertain about the other one.”
“Ah. So, we did get medical care there,” said Hardesty.
“The Canadians did,” said Chesterton. “They were pretty efficient at emergency services. As you can imagine, Prime Minister Harper had an initial hissy fit, but once he got over that, he got things moving. I had another call with him not long ago to thank him for that. They got a C-130 with doctors, nurses, and medical supplies to Site 23’s landing strip far faster than we could have gotten help there. They also scrambled F-18s from their Cold Lake airbase in Alberta a lot faster than we thought they could do it. General Wallens tells me our air tankers refueled them en route until their own tanker got on station.”
“The air cover situation has stabilized,” said Wallens. “With the attacking ground forces eliminated and the submarine we assume they came in gone, we recalled the first F-16 flight back to Eielson. The second flight, which was reconfigured for ground support, is staying at Thule for now. Same for the Canadian F-18 flight. The two flights are taking turns with two planes providing constant air cover over Site 23’s section of Ellesmere.
“The crude airstrip at Site 23 is busier than it’s ever been—enough so that the Canadians are bringing in a flight control team. They also have one of their air-sea rescue helicopters on the way, a CH-149 Cormorant. It’s the longest-range helicopter they have, up to 600 miles with a light load. It’s hopscotching its way from Vancouver Island, refueling every 300 to 500 miles. Last we heard, it had taken off from Cambridge Bay on Victoria Island on the way to the settlement of Resolute on Cornwallis Island. From there, it’s about 260 miles to Site 23. The helicopter will have limited capability until we can get aviation fuel and a maintenance crew to the site. The Canadians are on top of that, too. They tell us they are working to have C-130s bring in fuel bladders to give the helicopter more operational range.
“The first thing the helicopter will do is transport the most seriously injured people from Site 23, both staffers and the two prisoners, to the airstrip to fly them out.”
“Any casualties reported for the Seals?” asked Sinclair.
“Nothing serious. One bad sprain among the forty men parachuting in to look for the remaining Chinese, and two walking wounded from the final firefight. Those three will fly out with the other casualties. The other thirty-seven Seals will remain at Site 23 until it’s determined what’s next. The rest of the Seals are being flown back to the U.S.
“The Canadians also have fifty men from their Special Operations Regiment on site. They are providing extended security away from the buildings. Prime Minister Harper agreed it’s best to keep everyone’s contact with the Site 23 staff to the minimum number of new people until we figure out what’s next. There are now more soldiers guarding Site 23 than functional staffers left.”
“I’m sure that’s going to change,” said Gilbertson.
“No doubt about that,” said Chesterton. “The situation seems under control for the moment, at least in the far north. Now we have to face how to handle all the fallout, especially about the Chinese.”
The vice president flashed an arm wave and blurted, “Are we sure it was the Chinese?”
“No question.” said Hardesty. “Confirmed by witnesses of the attack and examination of the bodies.”
“We’ve also been told one of the wounded attackers was delirious,” said Wallens, “but was speaking in Chinese, according to Site 23 Chinese experts. Their equipment seems to be all Russian, although some is not current issue. They obviously figured to point the blame at Russia, maybe even ‘accidentally’ leaving items to deflect attention away from themselves.”
“All right,” said Chesterton, “let’s return to what comes next. I think we’ll have to call a much broader cabinet meeting. I’ve had to agree to fully bring in Prime Minister Harper on everything we know. Then there’s our other major allies, the Europeans, Japanese, and Australians.”
“The American public is going to be outraged,” asserted Hopkins. “I have to say I’m more than disturbed about this being kept secret when we campaigned on openness.”
“I agree, Susan, but I only learned of this after taking office. In the months since I was informed about it, I’ve given major thought to how we can bring this all out into the open. I confess I hadn’t come up with a clear way forward. However, that’s all moot now. Our hand is forced. If it’s not practical to think we can keep this a secre
t, how do we buffer the reactions?”
Bob Neller raised a hand. He was not normally a participant in such meetings, merely an observer whom Chesterton could confer with later. Now the topic had moved into an area where he felt he had as much or more expertise than the others . . . politics.
“Mr. President, no matter how it’s put forth, there’s going to be a range of responses from our citizens. I’m afraid a major reaction will be fear of the unknown and what the consequences are of the Object’s existence. Everyone has seen movies and TV shows where the aliens come to conquer or exterminate us. The best way to soften that reaction is if we can show tangible benefits the average citizen can relate to.”
Chesterton turned to Hardesty and Wallens. “We’ve talked about this before, and I pushed you to get us something we can use to reassure people with. As soon as possible, I want you to communicate to Sinclair that this has gone from something we need as soon as possible to something we need right now.”
Ellesmere Island
The Navy Seal commander shook his head. “I have to say, sir, it’s a God-damn miracle that you lost as few as you did. Christ! These had to be the best of the best of the Chinese commandos, and your bunch of eggheads and maintenance people turned them into dogmeat.”
The comment annoyed Sinclair, even though he knew it was intended as genuine praise. He also appreciated the security provided by the Seals and the Canadian unit. It allowed Sinclair to relax as much as he could, and the conversation helped distract him from the pain in his leg. The Kalashnikov round had passed through his left calf, possibly nicking the fibula, but Doctor Wilderman told him she couldn’t be sure without X-rays.
“It seems to have missed major blood vessels, General. We’ve done all we can for now. If you need it, tell me or Jane, and we’ll give you more painkillers.”
He was now tempted by her offer, but he didn’t want his thinking to become fuzzy—at least, not yet. He felt duty-bound to be absolutely certain about the people he was responsible for. He wasn’t quite there yet. In addition, his mind raced with thoughts of what must come next.
Harbinger (The Janus Harbinger Book 1) Page 61
