Harbinger (The Janus Harbinger Book 1)

by Olan Thorensen

  In another surprise, Zach actually enjoyed being a patrol deputy most of the time. Not that he liked every aspect of the job, such as responding to traffic accidents, but most of the time, he patrolled the roads outside incorporated towns and was busy with other miscellaneous duties. Today was fairly typical. He’d done perhaps eighty miles of driving. Much of it involved routine coverage of the major roads, but he also made a point of cruising through unincorporated neighborhoods so the residents could see a representative of “law and order.” Outside of the driving, today had included serving a summons for a court appearance, giving a warning to a rural residence about a complaint that their dogs were harassing joggers, investigating a possible domestic violence report, and taking his turn at a thirty-minute talk to the North Bend High School student body on “a topic of current community concern”—bullying being the current topic.

  The county sheriff’s department and the Coos City police rotated giving such talks to local schools and other community groups. Zach rather liked talking to the kids, instead of to adults, and therefore convinced Allen that he hated talking to high schools. Naturally, whenever it was the sheriff’s department’s turn, Allen scheduled Zach. He sometimes felt as if he should feel guilty at manipulating Allen so easily and on such matters, but then again, it was fun, and, after all, Allen was . . . you know.

  Not that all of Zach’s routines had started out smoothly. When he first began, the other deputies informed him that his district was considered one of the worst. It included a reputedly rough roadhouse, plus a section of hills known for local marijuana production. The roadhouse was the easiest problem to solve. Zach made it clear to the owners and the customers to tone it down to a dull roar. The owner initially ignored Zach, only to find himself inundated with fire code violations, delays in renewing his liquor license, and customer and employee traffic tickets for everything from missing taillights to traveling one mile over the speed limit. The owner got the point.

  Some of the customers needed a more direct approach. The first disturbance report Zach responded to resulted in no arrests, but four male citizens needed minor medical attention. No witness reports were filed, and none of the injured came away doubting the results could have been much worse. Suffice it to say, the message was delivered. This was not to say the disturbances ended, but their frequency declined, and when they occurred, Zach’s appearance strangely coincided with the perpetrators having made peace.

  Zach also made a point of having an occasional beer or two with the customers who most likely needed counseling—including the more exotic farmers in the area. There, the message also got through. Zach would not bother with small marijuana growers, but any expansion that came to the attention of either higher (a.k.a. federal) authorities or organized criminal elements would be discouraged.

  Zach’s being a member of the local NRA chapter and a regular at the local shooting range helped reinforce the image of him as not someone to mess with. It had not taken long for the local sharpshooters to stop laying money on bets related to outshooting Zach at the range. He wondered what the locals would have thought if he could have persuaded Logan to come occasionally.

  His recollections ended when the other half of his brain registered his turnoff coming up. Two minutes later, he pulled into the driveway and stopped in the carport. Their single personal car had the privilege of staying in the one- car garage.

  “Both kids are sleeping,” came a voice from the kitchen. “They both fell asleep on Bobby’s bed. They played so hard today I gave up trying to keep them awake, so they went to bed early.”

  Jill stopped chopping vegetables when he came up behind her, put his arms around her, and nuzzled her ear.

  “None of that now. People might start showing up anytime, and there’s still work to do.”

  He laughed. “Let me take a quick shower, then I’ll check on the kids and come back to help.”

  She stopped him before he left the kitchen. “Do you really think the president is going to do it tonight?”

  “Willie and Carolyn seem to think so, but I don’t know.”

  “I just worry how people are going to react,” she said, using the back of her wrist to push hair out of her eyes.

  “Well . . . I guess I’m glad we’re out of it,” said Zach.

  “Aren’t you even a little curious what’s been going on up at Ellesmere?”

  “Curious? Sure. Not curious enough to be back in the Arctic. Anyway . . . I’m far too busy here. On Thursday, I visit Bobby’s kindergarten class and convince them that policemen are their friends. Then there is goose-hunting season coming up. It’s important that the citizens know the Sheriff’s Department is ready to defend them against the invasion.”

  “We talking about the birds or the hunters?”

  “You’re right. That many humans with guns congregating in only a few places is a far bigger danger to the average citizen than the consequences of bombardment by geese flying overhead.”

  “Birds poop,” contributed Bobby, who’d suddenly appeared. “Why?”

  “I’ll let Daddy explain it to you,” said Jill. “Right now, he has to clean up and change so he can help me get ready for tonight’s dinner.”

  It was 5:17 p.m. Guests were told to show up at 6:30, but Jill expected Kathy and Willie at any moment. The next-door couple didn’t consider themselves guests, and Kathy showed restraint by coming only an hour early to help. Willie would visit with Zach, and the two men would amuse the three children to keep them out of their mothers’ hair.

  The Marjek and Larson families regularly ate together once a week, sometimes more often. Socializing with other Level 3 alumni occurred either individually or in various groupings, but gatherings of everyone like this evening were rarer.

  Logan Porter had recovered from his wounds and did odd jobs around the area: painting, repairs of buildings and machinery, and plumbing when he could avoid the union or state inspectors. He had found a partner in Reedsport, and the two men lived a quiet life on the banks of the Umpqua River.

  Carolyn Graham lived in North Bend, fourteen miles to the south, and taught computer science at the Southwest Oregon Community College. She also contracted jobs that interested her—taking advantage of remote work from clients in the United States and several other countries. She was vastly overqualified for the teaching, but she insisted it relaxed her to watch younger minds become enthralled with computers. The school had succumbed to community pressure and expanded the size of her classes. Even then, a waitlist testified to her popularity. Recently, Carolyn shyly confessed that she was seeing a science teacher from the Coos Bay High School—the city abutting North Bend.

  Timothy Kolzlowski—a.k.a. Whitey—was a newly hired police officer in Reedsport, twelve miles north—despite being old for a new recruit with no formal law enforcement experience. Zach assumed that somewhere in the hiring process lay a federal hand tipping the scales.

  Whitey had stayed in the army for two years after Sinclair retired for the second time. However, he didn’t fit in with any of the three postings the army tried to slot him into. He never knew the name of the lieutenant colonel who apprised him of the advantages of retiring to the Oregon coast. The combination of feeling out of place in the army, the opportunity to be near people he already knew, and the implied pecuniary advantages made the decision an easy sell.

  None of the alumni from Site 23 worried about earning a living. Whatever work they did was determined by their personal interests and was part of their cover story. Their “severance packages” had been generous enough to ensure financial security, though not excessive luxury. Each month, a comfortable stipend appeared in their bank accounts. In addition, sufficient funds were provided to start two small businesses for Kathy and Willie. Kathy was always an early riser, and she now owned and ran a small breakfast diner that had quickly become a local landmark. From 6 a.m. to 11 a.m., it served the best breakfasts for a hundred miles around. Willie ran a greenhouse business behind the diner and supp
lied flowers to businesses as far away as Roseburg to the east and a hundred miles up and down the coast. Kathy was also about five months along with their second child.

  Neither family worried about mortgages. They were given their preferred home situations. The Marjeks and the Larsons chose adjacent family homes, Carolyn a neat cottage, Logan a rustic but good-size log home, and Whitey picked a medium-size hilltop home with an ocean view.

  One person the women wished had settled nearby was Bre Huddleston, though Jill and Kathy had regular contact with her. Andrew Jefferson had gotten his slot in the War College and had served time on a brigade staff. The last they’d heard from Bre, he was slotted to go to lieutenant colonel and a battalion command early next year. Bre maintained regular contact with Jill and Kathy and had ensconced herself as the officer’s wife, taking care of him and their twin daughters, along with volunteering for and organizing various base functions.

  Zach didn’t know who was still involved with Simeon and the Object. Whoever they were, he had no contact with them. Nor did Zach and the others have any knowledge of the status of the Object and further developments. All of the Level 3 ex–Site 23 staff living on the Oregon coast kept one eye on the news, but nothing definite had come out. Instructions had been clear. They could live their lives unconstrained, as long as they kept quiet.

  Willie often voiced to Zach and Logan his opinion that they were under constant surveillance, but they hadn’t confirmed who the observers might be. Zach agreed with Willie but didn’t press it because it would only make Jill and Kathy nervous. Anyway, who cared?

  If they leave us alone, good enough, Zach thought.

  Why worry about things over which they had no control? Life was good. The Marjek and Larson houses never lacked for fresh flowers or baked goods. Jill had admitted her limited culinary skills, but Kathy was an enthusiastic teacher, and Zach had taken to cautioning his wife that while he might not eat as much as was available, it wasn’t because of the quality but to avoid putting on excess pounds.

  Similarly, yard work was a new experience for Zach and remained one of his least favorite pastimes. However, he humored the other three adults in their two nearby houses in their enthusiasm. Under Willie’s tutelage, Jill and Kathy had turned into gardeners—both flowers and edibles. The two houses were constantly undergoing landscape tweaking. The latest major project was due to Kathy and Jill discovering that the Oregon coast was an ideal climate for blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries. Two husbands were informed that enough space needed to be cleared to grow generous patches of all three berries. Willie was an enthusiastic convert and decided the ideal ground was a relatively flat area that included land on both properties. The project might not have been high on Zach’s list, but he wondered whether it was part of his transformation that he found he enjoyed working with the others and anticipating the crops.

  All in all, it had turned out better than Zach first anticipated. He discovered that he had a valuable place in the community, he spent most of his workdays either directly helping people or contributing to maintaining order in the community, and the occasional more active aspects of the job kept him alert.

  Part of him missed his previous life, but only part. He was more satisfied than ever before in his life. Yes, he was relatively “out” of the excitement of his fieldwork years and the still somewhat unbelievable time at Site 23, but the relative quiet of this small coastal community soothed him more than he would have thought.

  And most of all . . . home. A few years ago, he could not have envisioned the domesticity of his current life. Jill and the children. He still vacillated from feeling she had picked wrong in choosing him to feeling he was incredibly lucky. Bobby was five now and in kindergarten. Karen was only a few months’ toilet trained, talked nonstop, and insisted on helping Bobby with any task. Soon there would be three. Jill was three months along and doing well, according to both her and the doctors. Zach and Willie commiserated fondly on dealing with two very pregnant women.

  Although all the local Site 23 alumni got together a few times a year, tonight was special. After eating, they would gather in front of the TV and watch Chesterton’s address. Whitey, the newest member of their coterie, had been in contact with Sinclair after retiring from the army and moving to Oregon. No specific information was transferred, but Whitey thought Sinclair hinted that big changes were coming with respect to the Object.

  From the start, Carolyn Graham assumed the role of the group’s primary news monitor, watching for clues about when the Ellesmere subterfuge would finally end. She believed there was no national or international issue that warranted the president speaking in prime time, so she predicted the topic would be aliens on Earth. It wasn’t the first time for her predictions, all of which had subsequently proved baseless.

  Presidential Address

  The president could see the press room full of reporters and cameras in the anteroom monitor. One way or another, he was about to make history. What he said and how he said it would be iconic forever. It was a daunting thought, even for someone who had spent the last several decades in front of cameras and crafting every word.

  The media had not been enthusiastic about the president requesting airtime during their evening viewing hours and particularly when not informed of the speech’s topic. There had been enough times in the past when presidents had used such occasions for purely political purposes. Some media outlets had even quit accommodating presidents altogether. Tonight was different. No word of the topic leaked out, but insiders dropped hints about something BIG. Plus, Chesterton announced yesterday that two living former presidents would be in attendance and would be available to answer a few questions after Chesterton spoke. Their participation was planned to help prevent political posturing by both parties and to give the public more confidence in the government . . . in theory.

  Getting ex-presidents to attend had raised concerns. Bush and Obama knew of the Object and agreed to support Chesterton, as they had promised during the luncheon shortly after he took office.

  Not attending were ex-presidents with health issues or who had not known about the object. The latter was particularly dicey, and Chesterton felt pleased with himself for how he’d handled the problem.

  Someone touched Chesterton’s elbow. It was time. An aide nodded from the door, and the president walked into the White House press briefing room. A voice announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States.” He walked toward the podium, passed the ex-presidents, and exchanged greetings and handshakes. Flashbulbs flashed, reporters wrote, and some fired questions, even though they knew he would not answer until after his speech. He waited a few moments for the flashing, questions, and murmuring to die down, and then began.

  “My fellow Americans and fellow citizens of the world, . . . “

  Okay . . . Now What?

  “Is this for real?” asked Kathy as soon as the president signed off.

  “As real as it gets,” said Zach.

  Her face was pale, and she looked at her husband. He shrugged and nodded.

  “That’s what you guys were up to in that hush-hush building,” said Logan. “The Chinese were what? Trying to make off with the aliens?”

  “I guess they thought they could,” said Zach.

  Logan looked at Kathy. “Did you know about this?”

  She shook her head.

  “Well . . . I guess I don’t feel quite so out of it, in that case,” Logan said. “The rest of you did a good job of keeping your mouths shut.”

  “Now the shit storm starts,” said Willie, as soon as cameras switched from the Oval Office to reporters who prepared to analyze the momentous announcement.

  Kathy slapped her husband’s leg playfully, having recovered from her initial shock. “Right to the point, as usual, although this time I think he’s right.”

  “That’s why I went and stocked up soon as I heard Chesterton wanted prime time,” said Whitey. “Zach warned there’d be a run on essentials.”r />
  Carolyn’s skeptical look matched the one Jill had had when Zach told her to make a list of foods they didn’t want to run out of in the next two or three weeks.

  “It doesn’t hurt to be prudent,” said Zach, exchanging a look with Jill. “Shock radio will go ballistic, especially since Chesterton’s effort to make it sound like there’ll only be positive consequences wasn’t that convincing. I think things will die down within a month in the U.S., but there are parts of the world where it could get ugly.”

  For the next two hours, hidden secrets were laid out for those previously in the dark about Site 23’s real purpose, and common experiences were shared from different points of view. The kitchen trashcan, which had started the evening empty, was nearly full of empty beer and wine bottles by the time the gathering broke up.

  Jill and Zach were distributing coats to the departing guests when Porter asked the same question Jill had posed to Zach earlier.

  “I can see how this must’ve been exciting, at least on some level. Do any of you wish you were still up at Ellesmere Island?”

  The terse negative answers that followed were unconvincing to Jill. Even Zach’s.

  When the rest of the family was asleep, Zach stood on the porch. A fog had rolled through and the air was chill. Not that he noticed. Chesterton had left out something Zach had wondered about. There was no mention of Athena. Even the name “Simeon” was omitted. Only “the Object.” Was it a deliberate attempt to depersonalize? Why?

  He remembered the meeting where Huxler talked about the Roman god Janus. Zach had looked it up later.

  “Well,” he whispered to the darkness, “we’re certainly on a journey and a transition is underway, but where will it lead? Whatever happens, the Object and Simeon are taking us somewhere I hope is a soft landing.”

  As for Athena, he was the only one of the Oregon group who knew about direct contact. He had restrained from telling Jill—a remnant from his “need-to-know” days.