* * *
Behind two trucks that lay beyond the cordon, and out of sight of any of the windows or doors of the Rolver Systems’ building, four soldiers dug into the desert soil. Beside them, a corporal sat on an ammunition box and prepared a number of explosive charges, fitting detonators and taping the charges together.
When the hole reached about four feet in depth, the explosives were carefully lowered into it, and a detonating cable attached. Then the soldiers began filling the hole up again, while the corporal backed slowly away from them, unreeling the cable as he went.
* * *
Keating responded to McGrath’s arm waving from the door of the Rolver Systems’ building, and trotted across to the intercom unit set in the compound fence next to the pedestrian gate.
‘Keating, sir.’
‘Detail four men to unload the explosives from the truck and bring them through the gate to this door.’ McGrath’s voice was scratchy, but clear. ‘Leave them outside the door and we’ll bring them inside the building. We’ll also need detonators and several hundred yards of cable because we’ll be blowing the charges from some distance away.’
‘Is that all, sir?’
‘No. The packages that were brought here on the bus need to be unwrapped and left in the seating area on the vehicle. They just contain tracksuits and trainers. Then wait for my instructions to bring the bus into the compound.’
‘Very good, sir,’ Keating said, and walked away, beckoning to the driver of the truck containing the explosives. Tracksuits and trainers? What the hell was going on inside there?
* * *
Twenty-eight minutes later, Reilly had completed laying the additional charges. A further one hundred pounds of explosive, by Reilly’s calculations, was in place, lain in most cases alongside the plastic explosive he had already positioned. Each had a detonator protruding, and Reilly had spent the last ten minutes running the cord from the packs of explosives to the building access door, and then placed the cable drums outside it.
On a command from McGrath, Keating sent two men into the compound. They picked up the drums and walked slowly backwards towards the perimeter cordon, unreeling the cables as they went.
Reilly walked around the charges again, making sure that each detonator – his as well as those which Keating had provided – was still firmly secured to the cord.
‘Reckon that’s about it,’ Reilly said, straightening up from his last check. ‘What now?’
‘Right, McGrath,’ Hunter said. ‘We’ll find the control that opens the vehicle gates, and you can instruct your driver to bring the coach inside. I don’t,’ he added, ‘expect to find it full of soldiers lying on the floor, so I’ll be sending Doctor Evans out first, just to check it. Is that OK by you, doctor?’
‘Well,’ Evans said. ‘I suppose so.’ He had followed Reilly and Hunter around the building as they’d set and checked the explosive charges.
‘Sorry, doc,’ Reilly said, ‘but you’re about the most expendable of all of us, so you’re gonna get all the shitty jobs.’
* * *
The control panel for the external vehicle gates was right where Hunter had expected to find it – beside the double doors set into the Rolver Systems’ building, and close to the processing room. He pressed the appropriate button, and the building doors swung open.
‘OK, doc,’ Reilly said. ‘Time to do your stuff. We’ll be watching you,’ he promised.
Evans looked profoundly unhappy, but walked through the doorway and stood outside, looking ahead to where the bus was parked, engine idling, just outside the compound gates. Behind him, Hunter pressed another button and the building doors closed again.
When they were both closed and locked, he activated the switch for the external gates. As soon as they were fully open, the bus drove in and stopped as close to the building as the driver could get it. Hunter closed the compound gates behind it, and then Reilly signalled to Evans to climb aboard the bus.
Two minutes later, having looked under every seat, Evans emerged and gave Reilly a thumbs-up signal.
‘OK,’ Hunter breathed. ‘Let’s get this show on the road.’
* * *
The grey alien culture was one based on equality, at least within the species: like most other intelligent animals, they acted with a cavalier disdain for the rights of any other creature. However, no advanced society can function without some form of leadership, and the greys were no exception. The alien who had entered Ketch’s office, and who had been killed for his trouble, was the local leader, and his failure to return was causing deep distress in the lower levels of the building. But precisely because he was the local leader, none of the others felt able to go and search for him.
And they were worried. Once processing had started it had never, ever, been interrupted before. Then there had been the loud noises, three of them, which none of the aliens recognized as being part of the normal sounds heard in the building. Something, they felt, was definitely wrong, but they had no idea what. Or what to do about it.
* * *
The girls filed slowly, with almost no talking, out of the Rolver Systems’ building and onto the bus, quickly dressed themselves in the tracksuits provided and then sat down. The bus had seats for thirty-eight, so some stood in the aisle between the seats while others squashed themselves in threes onto seats meant for only two. Doctor Evans was already on board the bus, and by the time the transfer was complete, only Hunter and McGrath remained inside the building.
‘What now?’ McGrath demanded, staring at Hunter.
‘Time we went as well, I think.’
‘You have your Pardon?’ McGrath asked.
‘Yes, thank you.’
‘If we don’t meet again,’ McGrath said, putting out his hand, ‘I’ll wish you the best of luck. It may not realize it for a while, but the government owes you a debt of gratitude.’
‘We aren’t parting company quite yet,’ Hunter said. ‘The girls are our second line of defence, but when you walked into this compound, you became our first. The troops out there might think twice about shooting down innocent women, but they’d think even harder about gunning down the acting head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. You’re coming with us.’
McGrath shook his head. ‘I can’t. I have to supervise the destruction of this building.’
‘No, you haven’t,’ Hunter said, a slight but knowing smile playing on his lips. ‘Anybody can do it. You just retire to a safe distance, light the blue touch-paper and watch the fireworks. Just brief young Keaton or whatever his name is.’
McGrath kept a smile on his face. In Hunter’s position he would have done very much the same thing, and he should, he realized, have foreseen this and tailored his plan to accommodate it. As it was, he would have to improvise.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’ll call Keating over to the other door and tell him to proceed without me.’
‘No,’ Hunter said. ‘We’ll get on the coach together, and you can talk to him as soon as we’ve left the compound. I really don’t want any nasty surprises a mile or so down the road, so Dick and I would like to listen in to what you tell him.’
Hunter activated the switch that opened the external gates, and then walked out of the Rolver Systems’ building for the last time. The two men climbed onto the bus, and the driver engaged reverse gear and began edging the vehicle slowly out of the compound.
‘Everything OK, Dick?’ Hunter asked.
‘No problem,’ Reilly replied. ‘We ready?’
‘Yes. McGrath will be coming with us, just to make sure we get where we want to go.’
* * *
In his office on the top floor of the building, Roger Ketch continued his struggle to free himself from the plastic cable ties that secured his wrists and ankles to the wooden chair. His arms and legs were bleeding where the ties had dug into his flesh, and as far as he could tell he hadn’t made any impression on them at all. The gag wasn’t helping because it interfered with his breathing, and
the more he struggled, the shorter of breath he became.
He looked desperately around the room, searching for something – anything – that would help him break free. His eyes alighted on his desk, and the steel letter-opener which lay beside the pencil tray. The blade, he knew, wasn’t particularly sharp, but it still might be enough to sever one of the ties. And, if he could get one free, he knew he could easily cut the others.
He took a deep breath, or as deep as he could, and began the long job of manoeuvring himself and the chair across the floor to the desk.
* * *
‘Is that all clear?’ McGrath asked.
‘Yes, sir,’ Keating said. ‘Proceed with the demolition of the building as previously briefed, once everybody is clear of the area.’
‘Happy, Mr. Hunter?’ McGrath asked.
‘Pretty much,’ Hunter said, and turned to the driver. ‘OK, let’s go.’
* * *
There is only one access road into the Groom Lake Air Base. A dusty track, it begins on State Route 375 – the so-called Extraterrestrial Highway – near Rachel and then runs southwest down into the heart of Area 51. Most of the rest of the terrain is desert and mountains, impassable except by four-wheel drive vehicles.
Following Keating’s instructions, a troop of soldiers had left the Air Base in two three-ton trucks, and had now reached their designated location, a point on the access road some two miles from the centre of Groom Lake. Once there, they manoeuvred the two trucks across the road, completely blocking it, and set up two half-inch machine guns on bipod mounts on either side of the road-block, pointing back towards Groom Lake. The remainder of the soldiers fanned out along both sides of the road, assault rifles at the ready.
Then they started waiting.
* * *
‘You a regular driver on this route?’ Reilly asked, conversationally.
‘Yup,’ the grey-haired man replied. ‘Been doing it for a little over four years. First time I’ve had a bunch of passengers like this, though,’ he added, gesturing with his thumb at the girls.
Reilly grinned at him. ‘Guess not,’ he said. ‘OK, you was probably expectin’ to drive all the way back to Vegas, but we’ve had a slight change o’ plan. Just take us to the dispersal. Think we’ll hop a Janet flight instead.’
‘You’re what?’ McGrath said, looking over at Reilly. ‘You were supposed to –’
‘Supposed to what, McGrath?’ Hunter demanded. ‘Forgive us for having nasty, suspicious minds, but Dick here reckoned you’d probably organized some little entertainment for us somewhere along the road, so we’re flying out. As you said back in the building, the government owes us a debt of gratitude, so one little 737 flight isn’t too much to ask in exchange, is it? I mean, do you have a problem with that?’
McGrath recovered quickly. ‘No, of course not,’ he said. ‘I can see,’ he added, ‘how you two managed to get as far as you did. You don’t trust anybody, do you?’
‘Nope,’ Reilly replied. ‘Not a soul.’
* * *
The deputy local leader of the grey aliens finally reached a decision. The local leader had been gone for far too long, and a search for him would have to be mounted. Four aliens were detailed to carry out the search, and they assembled in one of the larger rooms in the second level sub-basement, where they studied a detailed architectural drawing of the building.
The aliens almost never left the basement areas and none of them, except the local leader, had ever been into the above-ground floors. They were all part of a rotating three-duty group: they spent a little over one month working in the building, then two months away from Earth. All changeovers were done at night, when the departing group walked out of the Rolver Systems’ building through the double doors near the processing room, and the arriving group walked in the same way. Their knowledge of the building was entirely limited to the basement areas and the processing room.
* * *
The grey coach pulled onto the dispersal where the Janet flight Boeing 737 was parked. Sets of steps were already in place at both the forward and aft passenger doors, so Evans and Kaufmann immediately began shepherding the girls on board. Reilly and Hunter escorted McGrath over to the Flight Operations building to look for the flight crew.
* * *
Keating looked at his watch, nodded, and walked across to where a corporal stood expectantly, a cable drum at his feet.
‘Ready?’ Keating asked.
‘Ready, sir.’
‘OK. Do it.’
The corporal bent down and attached two wires to an electric detonator, then stood up again, the detonator in his hand. He checked all around him, ensuring that everybody was well clear, blew three times on a whistle, then pressed the button.
* * *
Reilly, Hunter and McGrath were just emerging from the Flight Operations building, the Janet 737 crew a few paces behind them, when the ground shook, and a huge cloud of dust rose into the air from an area well to the south.
‘That,’ McGrath said, with a kind of triumph, ‘was the sound of the Rolver Systems’ building being destroyed. As you can see, I’ve kept my side of the bargain.’
‘Maybe you have,’ Hunter replied, ‘but I still think we’ll do things our way.’
* * *
Keating coughed and spluttered as the dust billowed around him, and strained to see through the murk. When the visibility improved somewhat, he nodded with satisfaction at the substantial hole blown in the ground.
Just under one hundred yards away, the Rolver Systems’ compound stood unscathed.
Keating looked around, called out to the sergeant to get the men assembled, and prepared to enter the building.
* * *
Roger Ketch had reached the desk when the detonation occurred, and froze instantly, convinced that he was about to die. When he didn’t, he bent right forward, forcing the chair onto its front legs and his head down onto the desk, and pulled the letter-opener and pencil tray onto the floor.
The next part, he knew, would hurt, so he did it immediately. He toppled the chair onto its side, crying out in pain as the wooden side rail crushed the little finger of his right hand between it and the carpet. Then he felt around for the letter opener, manoeuvring the chair until his outstretched fingers grasped it.
He reversed the letter opener, forced the blade between the skin of his wrist and the cable tie, and twisted. Nothing happened, so he twisted it back the other way. Still nothing. With a strength born of sheer desperation, he forced the thin length of steel backwards and forwards, ignoring the pain as the skin of his wrist ripped and tore.
Finally, the tie gave, and Ketch slumped back on the floor in relief. Then he moved quickly, severing the ties around his left wrist and ankles, and stood up. There was no time to lose. He pulled open his office door, wrinkled his nose in disgust at the smell emanating from the corpse of the alien, and ran down the stairs.
He almost tripped over the wires running along the passageway, and realized instantly what they were. Swiftly, he traced them to the bundles of explosives and reached out to extract the detonators when he stopped. He knew nothing about explosives, and wondered if it would be safer to cut the wires instead.
He had a pair of pliers in his desk drawer, so he ran back upstairs to his office to get them.
* * *
The members of the grey alien search team were issued with weapons – small pistol-like objects which emitted a silent and invisible beam of sub-atomic particles which disrupted organic material – and began making their way towards the basement entrance. At the foot of the stairs leading to the door they stopped for a final check that all four knew exactly what they had to do.
Then the leader of the team reached for the door handle.
* * *
Reilly mounted the steps of the Boeing 737 slowly, his chest still hurting badly. Hunter and McGrath were waiting for him at the cabin door.
‘You OK, Dick?’ Hunter asked.
‘Yup,’ Reilly said, and r
eached into his pocket. ‘Still got one last thing to do,’ he muttered, and pulled out a small, black, plastic box.
* * *
Ketch glanced around the passageway, pliers in hand, and nodded in triumph. Every cable was cut, every bundle of explosive made safe. He had won, and Roland Oliver would be able to continue its vital work.
Where Hunter and Reilly had gone he didn’t care, but he knew that he would dispatch teams of men to find them and kill them. And Evans and Kaufmann too. In fact, they could all be brought back out to Groom Lake and fed through the system. That would be poetic justice indeed – having them killed by the very system they had tried their best to destroy.
With that pleasurable thought in his mind, Ketch started back up the stairs to his office.
* * *
The leading grey alien turned the door handle slowly to the left. He felt the catch release, and began to gently push the door outwards, his weapon held steady in his right hand.
* * *
‘What’s that?’ McGrath demanded.
‘A little radio-control gizmo we used to use in ’nam,’ Reilly said. ‘Good for a coupla miles, generally.’
‘What’s it used to control?’ McGrath asked.
‘Explosives,’ Reilly said. ‘See, Mr. Hunter and I don’t buy everythin’ you’ve been tellin’ us.’
‘For instance,’ Hunter interposed, ‘we’re not at all certain that the explosion we heard really was the Rolver Systems’ building getting blasted flat. Dick here thinks it might just have been a few sticks of dynamite buried in the sand and then detonated. So he’s arranged a small insurance policy.’
Trade-Off Page 37
