He hit the button, and was gratified to hear the timer engage. He counted.
One second.
Two seconds.
Three seconds.
“Chew on this, spacewarts!” he growled softly and tossed the camera-grenade.
The device hit the floor right between the aliens at their posts. They neither moved nor reacted, even though the clack of impact was loud. They just stood there, staring into their control panels as the grenade slid into the dark space beyond them, beneath the ledge of instruments.
Four seconds.
Harry, though surprised at their lack of response, did not watch any further. He turned his back on them and curled into a ball, hands and arms wrapped over his head.
Five seconds.
The room shook.
The blast was deafening. A flare of heat blasted Harry’s bare back, and then he was pelted by debris.
He braced for a half—suspected lurch of the ship as it lost control and plunged for the ground. Or maybe even for the quick death that awaited him if they were in outer space and the grenade had cut a hole into vacuum. But neither thing occurred—the floor remained steady.
He waited a few more moments, and then turned to check the damage.
Black smoke coughed from the wall, speckled with sparks from the electrical fires, dying down. But the smoke was sucked away by the hole the grenade had blown in the wall, and above the acrid fumes rode the familiar smell of fresh air and—
No, it couldn’t be!
Manure?
It smelled like Iowa farmland! Could the ship have been on the ground all this time?
A flash of hope spurred Harry up onto his feet. His instinct for survival had returned, and now he knew he had a chance. But he had to get out of here ... He just prayed that the hole he had blown in the side of the ship was big enough to get through.
By the fitful sparks of the dying fire and the lights that still flashed, Harry could see that the explosion had literally blown the heads off the aliens. Whatever satisfaction he felt, though, departed as he realized that the things shouldn’t be standing at all—and that a few of the guttering electrical fires actually sparked in them! Fascinated, he was drawn forward.
From charred torsos emerged burnt insulation, the color—coded spaghetti of wires, the blackened shapes of cogs and gears. Were they robot drones? Were the aliens that had picked him up actually mechanical creatures?
Further inspection proved that they were indeed robots. But by the sputtering flickers of the lights, Harry Reynolds’s electronic expertise rapidly determined another fact.
These things were robots, all right, and the stuff they were built out of was as American as Radio Shack.
“What the hell is going on!” he murmured.
Then he looked down and saw the cable connecting the “alien” robots to the control panel. One of the “alien’s” hands twitched in the same pattern, over and over again. Reynolds had seen these kinds of things in Disney World! They weren’t even legitimate, self—contained robots!
He looked over to the closed doorway, half expecting Allen Funt to come charging in, screaming, “Smile! You’re on ‘Candid Camera!’”
It was then he heard an alarm finally cough to life. Though muted, it sounded just like the Volunteer Fire Department’s siren down the road. The smoke was clearing away from the hole in the wall. The explosion had torn away the instrument panel, revealing guts of cheap forty—gauge wire. This wasn’t any alien ship! This was some kind of elaborate hoax.
He stepped forward toward the hole. It was big enough to step through. He could see a smudge of dawn paling the horizon through a copse of nearby trees. Off to his left, he made out the bulky form of a grain silo.
Harry knocked away a splintered section of old wood and corrugated cardboard (so that was where the smell had come from!) and then fitted himself through the hole, coughing a little from the smoke. Outside, the grass was littered with blown-out debris, and the morning cold made Harry shiver, but nonetheless it was good to know he was on solid, genuine earth ground!
“Hey!” cried a voice behind him. “Hey! You! Stop!”
He turned around, and saw the door opening up like the iris of an eye. Then he saw a brief flash of suit.
But Harry kept on going. He had the feeling that if this was one of the guys who had kidnapped him, they wouldn’t be too thrilled with him, now that he’d blown up part of their grim little play.
A haziness still hung inside his head, and he realized that a lot of what had happened to him was because they’d drugged him. But they’d left his Chuck Taylors on, and the adrenaline from the past couple of minutes was enough to boost him on. He ran far enough away from the building to see that it was a barn, but he didn’t stop long enough to study it. He chuffed along around it, running from that suit.
Gotta get help, he thought, gotta find the cops.
Around the bam, a large farmhouse came into view, but that wasn’t what attracted his attention. On a square stretch of tarmac the size of a basketball field was a Bell Air Force helicopter, and beside it was a military jeep.
Harry was seriously considering trying to hotwire the jeep when a man opened the back door of the farmhouse and stepped out toward him. He wore the blue uniform of the air force. His hair was short, gray, and grizzled, and he had a puzzled expression on his face. But he was unarmed, and regarded Harry with such surprise, even shock, that Harry didn’t think he could possibly have anything to do with the business in the barn.
“Help!” Harry said, “There’s a man after me! The aliens ... They aren’t aliens...! Help me ... Gotta get out ... “
“Who are you?” asked the man. Harry could see by the arrangement of the colored bars that the man was a full colonel.
“Reynolds,” he returned. The mere sight of a military uniform triggered ingrained responses of respect. “Harry Reynolds, sir! I’ve been abducted! And ... And I don’t know why!”
A pained expression crossed the colonel’s face. “That explosion.“
“Yeah. I escaped. But there’s a guy, he’s—“
Even as he spoke, a young man wearing a suit rounded the corner and ran at full gallop.
Alarmed, Harry turned to run. But the colonel raised his hand and spoke in a reassuring tone. “Stay put, Mr. Reynolds. I’ll get to the bottom of this.”
The suit stopped a few yards away from them. He lifted a walkie—talkie and spoke into it. “Junior here. I’ve got him, right by the pad.” He was a tall man with short hair and a deeply pitted face that was sallow against eyes alive with blue, reflecting the awakening dawn.
A filtered voice murmured, “I’ll be right there.” It was a woman’s voice.
Harry didn’t know what to do, and so when the authoritative military bass instructed him to stand still, he did just that, until he could figure out something better.
“Mr. Reynolds, I’m sorry about all this. I’m going to put things right immediately, I promise you,” the colonel said. “Just stay here a moment—we’ll get you out of this chilly morning in a moment.” The air force officer turned to confront the man in the suit. “Woodrow. I demand to know what’s going on in this establishment! This is a civilian, man! With rights!”
The man in the grey suit sighed, rocked back on his feet, getting in control. He actually shook his head and laughed. “I don’t believe it. I don’t fucking believe it! You must have had a bomb. Where the hell did you get a fuckin’ bomb?” he said to Harry.
A door in the side of the barn opened and a blonde woman in a lab smock walked out toward them, carrying a clipboard. She wore glasses, was in her thirties, very pretty. But her mouth was set into a hard, severe frown.
“I’ll get to the bottom of this, Mr. Reynolds,” said the colonel. “But you’re shivering. Here—“ The colonel walked over to the jeep, pulled an army blanket out. “Wrap this around you for the time being while I kick some ass.”
What Harry wanted more than anything now was just to get away, b
ut the colonel’s tone was so reassuring he figured he was in good hands.
The colonel wheeled upon the woman in the lab coat.
“Well?”
“Big trouble,” she said in a small voice, looking distinctly troubled at the man’s presence. “Snafu. How could we know Mr. Reynolds received Treatment Express Double A. Drugs, subliminals, the works—“
“Jesus Christ!” said the suit. “Not in front of the mark!”
The woman seemed to turn even paler, even colder. “You don’t understand. It doesn’t make any difference what he hears now. The process was interrupted mid—procedure. We’ve got an abort situation on our hands.”
“Colonel,” said Harry, sick to his stomach, but grateful for the blanket. “I don’t know what they’re talking about. I’m a veteran. I’m a citizen. I’ve got rights. And as an employee of the U.S. Government, it’s your duty to see that I am placed under proper protection!”
“You don’t understand, Mr. Reynolds,” said a voice from the back of the farmhouse. Startled, Harry turned to see a man standing there in a bathrobe, smoking a cigarette. “We all work for the U.S. government.” The man, fortyish, gray at the temples and smiling, turned to the young man in the suit. “Justine, Mr. Reynolds is ambulatory. Could you correct this, please?”
“You bet,” said the suited man, and before Harry could move, the man ran up to him, struck him at the juncture of his neck and head with the metal walkie—talkie. Abruptly, Harry found himself face-first in the dirt and grass, groaning, his head feeling as though someone had driven a spike through it. He rolled around, groaning. But he remained conscious, and he could hear everything that the people had to say.
“That wasn’t necessary!” said the colonel.
“Yeah,” said the man in the suit. “But it felt good. You should see the mess back there. How the hell—“ Harry could feel himself being roughed up, searched. Someone tugged hard on his right leg—and then yanked it off. “What have we here? A goddamn fake leg! Hey, beautiful, a really wonderful research job you did on this bozo. He smuggled a goddamn grenade inside a prosthesis!”
“That’s not what concerns me now,” the colonel’s bass rang challengingly. “Cunningham, can you fix him up? Can you make him forget all this? You guys are the Editors.”
“I’m afraid the negative reality-input is too great. I don’t even think we can implant a screen.” The woman’s voice was cold, monotone. “He’s seen too much, done too much. Drugs and hypnotherapy, compu-suggestion; far too risky.”
“Wha——“ groaned Harry through the fog of pain.
The colonel said, “The Publishers will not be pleased.”
Harry lifted his head a bit, rolled over. He could see the four of them, standing around him like judges, trying him for a crime he did not commit. “Help,” he managed to say. “Hosp—“
The man in the bathrobe stooped down. Reynolds coughed from the gust of smoke the man blew into his face. “Harry, we had high hopes for you. High hopes. You coulda been a star.” The man made a tsk—tsk sound, stood, and flipped the cigarette away. “Terminate,” he said to the younger man, then walked away.
“Jesus,” said the colonel. “Wait! I do not authorize this! I will report that other options were available.”
Harry made a superhuman effort to stand. But his leg was gone, and he flopped back onto his back, groaning.
The man in the suit stepped up closer to Harry, while the woman watched, the impersonal expression on her face replaced by a gleam of sudden interest, even enthusiasm in her eye. The man they called Justine reached into his suit jacket, and pulled out a silenced .38 caliber Smith and Wesson automatic.
“It’s time for the big sign-off, Klatuu,” said the man, a death’s—head grin on his face. “Your ratings were just terrible.”
The first bullet thunked hard into Harry’s chest, driving the breath out of him. He saw a gout of blood splash over the woman’s shoe.
The second bullet was just a whisper to him as the darkness set in, and by the time the third and fourth bullets struck him in the head, everything was as black as the nothingness between the night-time stars.
Chapter 1
Washington, D.C., is perhaps one of the most unusual cities in the world, filled with beauty, covered with paradoxes, and stocked with secrets that could tear the very country apart or heal a wounded planet.
Each April, bright pink-and-white blossoms bloom on trees surrounding a man-made tributary of the Potomac River, gifts from a country defeated by the nation governed by this capital: cherry blossom trees, from Japan. Although categorized in the 1800s by the British Foreign Service as “subtropical” duty due to its summer heat and humidity, the city’s spring is a beautiful celebration of the flowers and trees and parks strewn amongst the official buildings and stately houses, its temperature moderate and pleasant.
It is a city of facades, Washington, D.C. For behind the marble columns of the Capitol Building, behind the grey doors of the ugly Executive Building growing from the White House like some Victorian tumor, behind the military-drab walls of the Pentagon, secrets and whispers and subterfuges susurrate unheard beneath the press releases and official reports. Power moves here like invisible currents beneath a seemingly tranquil river.
Here, the democratic power of the citizens of the United States of America is legally exercised by duly elected representatives, and officials and their appointees, executive, legislative and judicial.
The power of groups, clatches, and cliques, old and new, are struggling for true control of the country, perhaps of the entire world.
And should the truth ever be unearthed, the secrets revealed, the very fabric of the civilized world of mankind would fracture.
As it happened on that mid-April day, the cherry blossoms were just making their appearance, justifying the Sunday parade that would soon celebrate their arrival. A cold and wet March had given way to a tranquil, sunny April.
The two men who entered Dominique’s Restaurant on Pennsylvania Avenue in Northwest Washington, D.C., at 12:10 in the afternoon looked like a pair of the brokers of power in the nation’s capital. From all appearances, they seemed to be K-Street lawyers, out for a typical power lunch. They wore tasteful Brooks Brothers grey pin-striped suits, red ties and spit-shined black shoes. The taller one was clearly the older, grey brushing the sides of his razor-cut hair, and a spider web of wrinkles just beginning to show below his eyes. The younger looked to be newly graduated from law school, a sparkle to his eye, an eagerness to his smile, as he opened the glass door of the posh establishment for his companion. Yes, here was the prototypical canny senior partner it seemed of X, Y, Z, and Associates, squiring the cub counselor, showing him the ropes of legal schmoozing territory.
This was exactly the impression the men wished to create. A kind of Gentleman’s Quarterly camouflage. For these men were not lawyers.
They were brokers of a different kind of power that had nothing to do with legality.
The glass door closed behind them, muffling the roar and horn honks of the traffic outside. Soft strains of Chopin’s Preludes played from masked speakers; the piano gently dominated the blur of luncheon conversation, the clink of glass, the clatter of cutlery. The older man took a moment to let his eyes adjust from the sunny-day dazzle of Washington in spring, then he casually surveyed the discreetly lit dining room, filled with the scent of lilies and French cooking. It took him a few moments, and the maître d’ had already approached them and inquired if they had reservations, before he found his quarry.
“Sir, might we be seated over in that corner there, near where that gentleman and the young woman are sitting? I like the feel of that area. Not too close to them, but in the general area.”
The younger man pulled a twenty-dollar bill from his pocket and tucked it into the maître d’s pudgy palm. “For your trouble.”
The fortyish man in the tuxedo smiled. “Of course. This way, please.”
They were placed at a small table besi
de a potted palm tree. The older man directed his companion to sit in the chair that had a view of the two diners, while he chose the spot in the shadows, near the palm fronds. He placed the Gucci leather briefcase he was carrying upright on the floor beside him, and took the proffered menus from the maître d’.
“That is Dr. Everett Scarborough, “ the greying man told his associate in a low voice. “Our mark, if you will.”
The younger man turned his blonde head a moment, and studied the man called Scarborough for a few seconds. “Central was correct. He definitely has a certain charisma. Observe how he charms the young woman.”
“Look away,” instructed the older man, opening his plush and outsized blue menu. “Listen for a time. Absorb.”
The two men studied their menus in silence, listening to the conversation taking place just yards away from them.
“Another thing I’m sure our readers would like to know,” said the young woman, a petite brunette with long slim legs and an overbite, dressed in a pale blue business suit. “Don’t you think that there’s at least a possibility that we are being visited by aliens from another planet? This is a pretty large universe, after all, and the odds would seem to dictate that if there’s intelligent life on the planet earth, there’s bound to be lots elsewhere.”
“Intelligent life on the planet earth?” said Scarborough brightly. “That’s news.”
The woman chirped with laughter. “Please, Dr. Scarborough. The magazine that’s commissioned me to interview you is perky and upbeat. Let’s not be too cynical.”
“Ms. Ennis, you haven’t met the whackos that I’ve met. In this field of endeavor they literally crawl from the walls!” Dr. Everett Scarborough was a dark, glibly handsome man, slender and fit, with a keen cast of awareness to his hazel eyes. He wore a dark blue blazer, a white shirt, red-striped tie, and dark wool slacks. He had the easygoing air of a professional entertainer, not the aloof introspection one might expect from a scientist of his caliber. On his wrist was a Rolex watch, which he studiously ignored, keeping his attention focused fully on the young journalist before him.
The UFO Conspiracy Trilogy Page 3
