Trade-Off

by Trade-Off (retail) (epub)

  ‘And then, sir?’

  ‘And then I’m going to go and talk to the two men in the building,’ McGrath said.

  ‘You said three choices,’ Christy-Lee said. ‘What’s the third?’

  ‘What we haven’t considered is the other group of people here,’ Hunter said. ‘Down in the processing room there are about forty young women who are probably starting to wake up by now. They’re all stark naked, and all strapped tight inside their caskets. Before the dawn chorus appeared to fuck things up,’ Hunter added, gesturing towards the window, ‘I’d planned to get them all aboard one of the coaches they use for transporting workers, and drive them out of here.’

  ‘Yes. And?’

  ‘Well, I’m quite sure that the guys outside would have little trouble emptying their weapons at Dick and me, but I think they may have a few qualms about doing the same thing to a crowd of forty naked young women.’

  ‘You’d use them as a shield?’ Christy-Lee demanded.

  ‘I certainly would,’ Hunter said, ‘because that offers them, as well as us, a chance of getting out of here alive. Don’t forget, if Dick and I hadn’t busted in here last night, they’d all be dead by now.’

  ‘Yup,’ Reilly said. ‘And five gets you ten that if we walk out of here with our hands over our heads, that bastard Ketch and his little grey buddies will just pop the lids back on the caskets and carry on right where they left off. Them girls may be our only chance of walkin’ away from here, but don’t forget we’re their only chance as well.

  ‘Speakin’ of which,’ Reilly added, ‘I’d better go see where to plant the plastic.’

  ‘Dick,’ Hunter said. ‘One thing before you go – can I borrow a cross-head screwdriver? There’s something I want to do before I leave this office.’

  Reilly fished a screwdriver out of a side pocket of his leather bag and handed it over without a word. Then he picked up the bag and carried it out of the office. The dead alien was lying in the corridor outside Ketch’s office, and was beginning to smell. Reilly looked at it with curiosity, and held his breath as he walked past.

  As well as trying to identify any structural weakness in the building that he could exploit, he also wanted to locate the entrance to the basement area, because he had special plans for that particular part of Roland Oliver.

  ‘If this is going to work, Christy,’ Hunter said, as the door closed behind Reilly, ‘we need to go down now and cut those girls loose. Are you happy to do that?’

  ‘Yes,’ Christy-Lee said. ‘“Happy” may not be exactly the word I’d use, but what you say makes sense. I’m certainly not prepared to leave them here to the tender mercies of Ketch and those ugly little grey bastards. How will you play it once we get outside?’

  ‘Assuming the whole bunch of us aren’t cut down immediately,’ Hunter said, ‘we’ll just walk as a group over to one of those three-ton trucks, get the girls up into the back, and I’ll just drive us out of here. The idea is to time our escape at the same moment as Dick’s plastic explosive knocks this place flat, so that the soldier boys will have something to take their minds off what we’re doing.’

  ‘What about Evans and Ketch?’

  ‘The doctor comes with us. Ketch can stay here. My only regret is that his death will be quick and easy compared with the suffering that Roland Oliver has inflicted over the last fifty years.’

  Hunter glanced again out of the window, then watched more closely as the encircling figures began moving back, away from the perimeter fence.

  ‘This may be ending sooner than we expected,’ he said to Christy-Lee. ‘They’re moving the troops back, which may mean that they’re going to use the APC to try to blast a few holes through the walls here.’

  ‘And that’s bad, right?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Hunter said. ‘That’s really bad.’

  Hunter saw a trooper walk forward from the line, watched him raise his assault rifle and heard the three shots quite distinctly.

  ‘What the hell is that all about?’ he muttered, then stiffened. A figure was walking slowly towards the pedestrian gate in the fence.

  ‘Looks like they’re sending an emissary. Someone to talk to us,’ he said. ‘We’d better go downstairs.’

  * * *

  William McGrath approached the gate set in the steel fence with some trepidation. He’d declined the offer of a Kevlar jacket, because he was aware that at the distance he would be from the Rolver Systems’ building the jacket would be clearly visible, and he would be within easy range of a shot to the head.

  He stopped beside the gate and looked for a few moments at the intercom system, then he reached out and pressed the button.

  ‘Steven Hunter or Richard Reilly,’ he said. ‘This is William McGrath of the FBI. Can either of you hear me?’

  * * *

  Inside the building, Hunter looked at McGrath on the closed-circuit television system, thought for a moment, then pressed the intercom button.

  ‘I hear you, McGrath. This is Steven Hunter. We’re kind of busy right now. What do you want?’

  ‘I’d like to come inside and talk to you,’ McGrath said. ‘I’m unarmed.’

  ‘You’ll need to prove that,’ Hunter said. ‘Take off your jacket, take five paces backwards and turn around slowly.’

  McGrath did as Hunter had instructed. As far as Hunter could see on the monitor screen, he had no hidden weapons.

  ‘Christy,’ Hunter called out. ‘Can you bring yourself and the Glock down here, please. We’re about to have a visitor.’

  Then he pressed the intercom button again, and simultaneously released the electric lock on the gate.

  ‘OK, McGrath. You can come in, but be advised we do have weapons aimed at you.’

  McGrath picked up his jacket and walked through the gateway. At the door of the building he waited again, until the lock clicked and it swung slowly open, then he stepped inside.

  * * *

  Christy-Lee Kaufmann stood fifteen feet from the door, her legs apart and holding Hunter’s Glock in a comfortable two-handed grip. Hunter approached McGrath from behind, keeping clear of Kaufmann’s line of fire.

  ‘Good morning, McGrath. Please stand still and hold out your jacket. I’m just going to frisk you.’

  Hunter ran his fingers expertly over McGrath’s body, then took his jacket and checked that as well.

  ‘Not even a wire,’ Hunter said. ‘I’m impressed. OK, Christy, you can relax.’

  McGrath turned to look at Hunter. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll bet you have.’

  ‘You must be Special Agent Kaufmann,’ McGrath said. ‘We heard you’d been killed.’

  ‘Not yet,’ Christy-Lee replied. ‘But not for want of trying.’

  ‘Where’s Sheriff Reilly?’

  ‘He’s fine. He’s just running a little errand at the moment. Now, what can we do for you?’

  ‘It’s more what I can do for you,’ McGrath said. ‘May I have my jacket?’

  Christy-Lee brought the Glock up to the aiming position again, as Hunter passed the jacket over. McGrath reached into an inside pocket and pulled out two envelopes. He selected one, opened it, pulled out a single page of white paper, and passed it to Hunter.

  * * *

  Reilly moulded the last piece of Semtex around a load-bearing pillar, inserted a pencil detonator and looked about him thoughtfully. The building was of a simple and strong construction, and he really wasn’t sure if the explosive charges he had placed would be enough to bring it down. Still, he had no more, so that would have to do.

  He reached into his bag, pulled out a small, black, plastic box, checked that its batteries were in place, and slipped it into his pocket. He left the bag lying on the floor, turned to go back down the short passage towards the stairs, and almost walked into Kaufmann.

  ‘Dick,’ she said. ‘Steve wants you. We have a visitor, and Steve thinks you’d be interested in what he’s got to say.’

  ‘This,’ Hunter
said, as Reilly approached, ‘is Dick Reilly. Dick, meet William McGrath of the FBI. He has a small present for you.’

  McGrath smiled at Reilly and handed him a sheet of paper. Reilly gave him a look of deep suspicion, but took the paper anyway and glanced over it. He read the first few lines and then looked up.

  ‘This is some kind of a joke, right?’ he said.

  ‘No, no joke,’ McGrath confirmed. ‘That document is exactly what it appears to be, and will stand up in any court of law. It’s been deliberately hand-written so that its authenticity can be established beyond any doubt.’

  ‘It seems, Dick,’ Hunter said, ‘as if we’re not entirely without friends at the moment. And I, for one, am glad.’

  * * *

  Major-General Thomas Williams was still steaming when he climbed down the steps of the Janet 737 and strode across the concrete into the Flight Operations building.

  ‘Get me a car,’ he snapped at a clerk, then walked over to the windows to watch a succession of bulky bags being unloaded from the baggage hold of the aircraft and piled into the under-floor storage area of a long, grey bus.

  The bus left the dispersal a couple of minutes before Williams’s car arrived, and they overtook it on the short drive down to the Rolver Systems’ compound.

  As soon as the car pulled up beside the APC, Williams got out. Lieutenant Keating ran over to him and saluted.

  ‘Who are you?’ Williams demanded, not bothering to return the salute.

  ‘Keating, sir.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Williams said. ‘You’re the office boy who woke me at two o’clock this morning. I’ll certainly remember you. What’s going on here? And don’t for God’s sake tell me you’re in charge.’

  * * *

  Reilly looked again at the White House crest at the top of the page and the Presidential seal at the bottom, and read through the whole text of the short document.

  ‘Never seen one o’ these before,’ he muttered.

  ‘Very few people have,’ McGrath said. ‘The number of Presidential Pardons that have been issued is very small indeed. They’re only ever used in exceptional circumstances. This,’ he added, waving a hand to encompass the Rolver Systems’ building, ‘I would certainly call exceptional.’

  ‘So basically,’ Reilly persisted, ‘this is a kinda “get out of jail free” card?’

  McGrath nodded. ‘Yes, it’s an immunity from prosecution for all past crimes, but you’ll notice it carries today’s date, and it’s retrospective. So you can’t rush out tomorrow and knock over the local branch of Wells Fargo and hope to get away with it.’

  ‘Shame,’ Reilly said, but he was smiling.

  ‘So what do you – or rather the President of the United States of America – want from us, exactly?’ Hunter asked.

  ‘We want you to do exactly what we think you were intending to do. We want you to close down this operation permanently. It’s been a thorn in the side of this nation for over half a century. It’s repugnant and appalling, and we want nothing more to do with it.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And nothing. Oh, we definitely don’t want you to ever talk about this, about what you’ve seen here. If you do, the Pardon certainly won’t protect you. Other than that, nothing.’

  ‘Sounds almost too good to be true,’ Hunter said, staring at McGrath.

  McGrath smiled back, but said nothing, because he knew that it was.

  * * *

  ‘He said what?’ Thomas Williams’s voice carried clearly on the still desert air. ‘I’m not even allowed to stand and watch what this jerk from the FBI does on my base? We’ll see about that.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, but Mr. McGrath was quite specific. He said if you had a problem with any of his instructions, you should contact the White House. He gave me a note of the number you can use to reach the President directly.’

  Keating held out a piece of paper upon which a number was written.

  Williams looked down at it, then at Keating, and deliberately knocked the paper out of Keating’s hand and down to the ground. He looked once more at the Rolver Systems’ building, then turned on his heel and walked back to his waiting car.

  * * *

  Reilly and Hunter worked swiftly, walking around the processing room and severing the fabric straps that held the girls inside the caskets. Christy-Lee followed, trying to soothe and calm over forty very frightened and embarrassed women. Hunter had pulled a couple of blankets off Ketch’s camp bed and had covered the remains of the girl on the processing table, so at least the freed captives were spared that sight.

  There simply weren’t enough clothes to go around, so most of the women had to stand naked, covering themselves as best they could, in the corridor outside the room. Hunter walked back to where McGrath was waiting.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘We need transport out of here. What had you in mind?’

  ‘No problem,’ McGrath replied. ‘There’s a bus out there waiting, and inside it are enough tracksuits and trainers for all these girls. We can ferry the clothes in and let the girls get dressed and then, if you can open the main compound gates, I’ll order the driver to bring the bus inside. The girls can get in the bus and leave, and then we can torch this place.’

  ‘You’d planned this, then?’ Hunter asked.

  ‘We weren’t sure what the situation was,’ McGrath said truthfully. ‘We didn’t know why you and Sheriff Reilly had been so tenacious and determined to get in here. We also didn’t know whether or not there would be any women here – we didn’t know what stage the processing would be at – so we hoped for the best and made some assumptions.’ McGrath smiled. ‘So, if it’s OK with you, I’ll get a couple of the soldiers to start bringing in the clothes and shoes.’

  ‘No,’ Hunter said.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I said no. You, Mr. McGrath, may be the world’s most upright and honourable man, though as you’re employed by the FBI I think that’s fairly unlikely. Right now, though, I trust you about as far as I could throw Dick Reilly, and that’s no distance at all.

  ‘I don’t like hiding behind women,’ Hunter went on, ‘but as far as I can see, the girls we’ve released from Roland Oliver are our ticket out of here. So when the girls leave the building and get on the coach, we’ll be right in the middle of them.’

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Sunday

  Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

  Lieutenant Keating turned away from the building as the sound of a truck engine became audible behind him. The three-ton truck stopped and parked well away from the perimeter cordon, and Keating watched as the driver climbed down from the cab and walked over to him.

  ‘Lieutenant Keating?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Keating said, returning the salute.

  ‘The explosives you ordered, sir. Where do you want them?’

  Keating led the soldier a short distance away from the compound and issued a series of detailed instructions. The soldier looked at first confused, but finally nodded his understanding and set to work.

  * * *

  McGrath hid his disappointment well. He’d hoped to be able to get the girls out of the way while he, Hunter and Reilly set explosive charges to destroy the Rolver Systems’ building, because that would give him the ideal opportunity to fulfil the President’s wishes. However, he had more than one string to his bow.

  ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘How do you want to play it?’

  ‘You’ve got tracksuits and trainers for the girls, right? And they’re probably in the luggage compartment of the coach?’

  McGrath nodded.

  ‘OK,’ Hunter said. ‘Get them moved into the seating area of the coach, and get the packages or whatever they’re in opened up. The girls will be making the walk from the building to the coach naked. And that’s not,’ Hunter added, ‘just because I like seeing naked women. It’s just that I think the grunts outside will be less likely to open up on a crowd of young nude women than they would at a bunch of anonymous fully-c
lothed figures.’

  ‘They won’t be fired on,’ McGrath said. ‘I can promise you that.’ That much, at least, was true.

  ‘Maybe,’ Hunter said, sounding unconvinced. ‘Aside from that, it’s easy. Dick here has already set his charges, right?’

  Reilly nodded.

  ‘You’ve already laid explosives?’ McGrath demanded. He hadn’t foreseen that. ‘What sort?’

  ‘Semtex, mainly,’ Reilly said, looking at McGrath, considering. ‘Gonna need a cable run outside the buildin’ to set ’em off, though. I’ve only got a hand detonator.’

  ‘No problem,’ McGrath said, the smile back on his face. ‘I’ve ordered charges to be brought here from the base explosives store. We can lay additional charges, then detonate the whole lot at once.’

  ‘What about Ketch?’ Hunter asked.

  ‘Where is he?’ McGrath demanded.

  ‘Tied up in his office.’

  ‘Leave him there,’ McGrath said. ‘He’s another loose end that we can tie up at the same time as we blow the building.’

  ‘Fine with me,’ Hunter said. ‘There’re some other Roland Oliver people as well. Reilly took care of them earlier. Where are they, Dick?’

  ‘Right where I left ’em,’ Reilly said. ‘They started getting ’uppity, so I kinda took care of them permanently.’

  ‘OK,’ Hunter said. ‘Right, McGrath, let’s get your charges laid.’

  ‘My people can do that after you’ve left.’

  ‘No, thanks,’ Hunter replied. ‘Dick and I have seen this thing through. It would be a real shame to miss the final act.’