by D F Capps
Peters dragged Andrews into the chamber and pulled him to a vertical position, while Carlos followed.
“Let me check him again,” Carlos said. After listening to Andrews’s heart and lungs he looked up at Peters. “We’re losing him.”
Peters turned to Agent James. “Now what, genius?”
James pointed to the lever.
Peters sighed, gripped the lever with both hands, and pulled back and up as hard as he could. The lever started moving very slowly.
“A little help?” Peters said, as he continued pulling.
Agent James wrapped his arm around Andrews as Carlos grabbed on and pulled along with Peters. With two of them the lever moved up to the horizontal position.
“There’s a recess in the wall above the lever,” James said. “The lever needs to go all the way up.”
Peters closed his eyes and breathed hard for a moment. “You’d think this would have been automated, or motor powered, or something. Why make it this hard?”
Agent James looked at the stone wall and the lever. “My guess is that if you ever had to use the escape tunnel, everything else would have been destroyed, maybe by a nuclear blast. Only something entirely mechanical and made of stone would survive.”
“Okay,” Peters said, panting for more air. “If you say so.”
He and Carlos gripped the lever and pushed it up into place in the wall. A deep rumbling began above them mixed with the sound of stone grinding against stone. The steel chamber jerked upward, moving rapidly to the surface, sparks showered down from the steel scraping against the stone wall, and the smell of hot metal permeated the air. The chamber jolted to a stop. Peters looked around. The stone wall gradually tipped away from them allowing fresh air in. Dust swirled in the air as the stone wall slammed against the floor of a dark and stuffy room.
Agent James and Carlos swept the room with their flashlights. No windows, but there was a barred door across from the chamber. Peters jogged across the room, removed the steel horizontal bars blocking the door, and pulled it open.
“It’s an alley,” he said. “Now we can get Andrews to a hospital.” He pulled his radio.
“No, no, no!” Agent James shouted. “As soon as you use that radio, they’re going to know we’re still alive and exactly where we are!”
Peters looked at the radio and nodded. “You have a better idea?”
Agent James looked down at Andrews. “He’s got some secret friends that can help us. We need an untraceable cell phone.”
“I have one,” Carlos said. “I use it to call my girlfriend. She lives with her snoopy mother.”
Peters gave him a disgusted look. “You’re not supposed to have a private phone. You know that! You could endanger the president!”
Carlos shrugged and looked down at Andrews.
Agent James dug Andrews’s wallet out and went through the cards.
“I think it’s this one. Dr. Cowen.”
He handed the card to Carlos, who punched in the number.
* * *
Dr. Cowen looked at the number on his ringing cell phone. It wasn’t a number he recognized. He was about to decline when he thought better of it.
“Hello.”
“Is this Dr. Cowen?” The voice sounded hesitant but desperate.
He frowned. Everyone who had his number knew who he was.
“Who is this?” he demanded.
After a pause the caller asked, “Is this a secure line?”
Dr. Cowen scoffed and started to disconnect.
“Wait, wait, wait!”
He barely heard the plea as his finger hovered above the button.
“What?” he answered in an angry tone.
“We need help. Now!”
Dr. Cowen frowned again. “Who are you and what kind of help do you need?”
This was the last thing he needed. Peregrine Base was in panic mode with the news story breaking about the death of President Andrews at the hands of the secret service.
“Sir, I’m a medic with a very special military unit. Your card was in my patient’s wallet. He needs emergency help, and he needs it now!”
Dr. Cowen thought for a moment: medic, special military unit, his card in the patient’s wallet.
Oh my God.
“Vitals?”
“GSW to the chest,” the medic began. “No lung sounds on the right. BP is sixty palp, pulse is weak and thready. Skin is cool and clammy. He’s bleeding out. Patient in and out of consciousness.”
Dr. Cowen closed his eyes and tried to control his breathing. “Where are you?”
Another pause. “I don’t think it’s safe for me to give you a location or mention any names. My phone has GPS. Can you track it?”
“We can.” Dr. Cowen ran for the command center. “Don’t hang up!”
Dr. Cowen burst in through the doorway.
“It’s him! I’ve got a medic on the line. Here’s the number.”
The shocked expressions quickly gave way to action. Captain Collier tapped on a keyboard. “Washington, D.C. I’ve got a location.”
“Local emergency services?” Diane asked.
Hollis shook his head. “This has to be done in secret. We don’t know who was in on the attack, so we can’t risk leaking that he’s alive or his location.”
Diane looked at the screen. “We can be there in eight minutes.”
“How many people are involved in this?” Hollis asked.
“Four,” Dr. Cowen replied.
“Six craft. Got it, sir,” Diane answered.
“Go!” Hollis shouted.
* * *
“We’re here. Just don’t drop the pig on us.”
“Copy that,” Chambers replied over the radio.
A few minutes later he could see the huge parachute moving slowly in their direction out of the east. When it was close overhead it turned north and bore down on the cave entrance. At a hundred yards from the cave something popped up from the top of the strange vehicle and rose eighty feet into the air before a small parachute opened. Bright red light appeared as the flare hanging from the parachute ignited.
“Here’s where it gets interesting,” Pedder said to his men.
A white cloud spread out from the back of the vehicle, then a yellowish orange cloud blossomed as it flew into the cave.
“Cover your ears!” Pedder yelled.
The flare ignited the tail end of the white cloud of fuel mixed with the air. The explosion followed the fuel-air mixture right into the cave, driving the cloud of iodine in front of it. The blast wave from the explosion would drive the iodine deep into the smallest recesses of the cave and the Zeta Grey underground base beyond.
“Let’s go! Move out!”
Commander Pedder led his men into the cave entrance following the same route the scout saucers had taken to get to the heart of the base. They used the rifle configuration for the flash guns set for kill. The yellowish-orange residue of iodine coated everything, including the alien cameras and defensive devices.
That’s got to help, Pedder thought.
His men turned on their night-vision goggles to identify the alien devices in the dark and began vaporizing them as they moved quickly down the slope to the main base.
The cave opened up into a large flattened area where seven Zeta Grey scout saucers sat on the stone floor. The doors of the saucers were all open and dozens of the small Zetas were dead on the ground. His team shot anything that moved.
As they moved deeper into the base they began to encounter a few Zetas that hadn’t died yet, but all of them were shaking and clearly not fully functional. At the far end of the alien base some of the Zetas were using flash guns to fire back at them. Ten of his men had grenade launchers and used them to fire 40mm grenades into the Zeta force. Some of the grenades were vaporized by the Zetas, but a few made it through. That method cleared halls and rooms as they swept through the base.
In all it took an hour to secure the base. The Zeta Grey body count was over a thousand. Pedder nodded as he
looked around. The Seabees had come up with a good plan. Wherever there was a cave entrance to an alien underground base, they would send in the flying pig.
Pedder keyed his radio. “Chambers, your plan worked. Knowing there may very well be a self-destruct device, do you want to bring your troops in?”
“People often think of the Seabees as just construction workers. Very few realize that a lot of the work we do is in combat zones. We’re going in.”
Pedder nodded. “We’ve got a whole new set of tunnels for you to spray.”
* * *
“We’re going to have to make this fast,” Diane said. “Choppers are in the air.”
Diane, Buddha, OB1, and Hellcat dived down into the alley in Washington, D.C. and glided to a stop just outside the door to the room where Andrews was. Two more fighter craft drifted above, giving them cover while they were on the ground.
Diane studied the large soldier leaning out of the doorway aiming an M16 rifle at her. She pulled her helmet off, shook out her hair, smiled, and waved at him, trying to put him at ease. He lowered the rifle a bit. She opened the canopy.
“We’re friends of Jason. We’re here to get you out safely,” Diane said.
The large man looked around and then back into the room. “Our ride’s here. Move out!”
He and a medic carried Andrews out of the building and gingerly placed him in the back seat of her craft.
“He needs oxygen,” the medic said.
Diane pulled a mask out of a pouch, stretched it over Andrews’s head, and plugged it into the oxygen connector.
“One spare seat in each craft,” Diane said. “Hurry up, we’re about to have company.”
She closed the canopy as the large soldier helped the medic and agent into two other craft. He then ran, jumped on the wing, and into the seat behind Hellcat. With the canopies closed the four craft bolted straight up into the night sky, formed up with the other two fighter craft, and headed west at sixty percent thrust.
Chapter 36
Diane swept into the flight deck of Peregrine Base and dropped down the access shaft to the ready deck. As soon as the landing pods were in place and the canopy opened, the medical crew gently pulled Andrews from the back seat. They put him on a gurney and headed to the medical bay as the rest of her flight crew landed. Two medics ran over to Agent James, helped him into a wheelchair, and pushed him through the blast door opening and on down to the medical bay.
The big soldier walked over to Diane. “How is he?”
She glanced at the door where Andrews had been taken on a gurney. “Weak, but alive.”
He looked worried. “Can I . . . ?”
“Sure,” she replied. “I’ll take you to the medical bay. You can wait for word there.”
He turned and stared at the fighter craft. “What kind of things are those?”
The medic walked over. “Where are we?”
Diane closed her eyes for a moment. These were the only two of the president’s personal military unit left alive, which also meant they had some of the highest security clearances in the nation. Besides, now that they were here, they weren’t going anywhere else.
“I’m Commander Diane Zadanski,” she said as she held out her hand.
He shook hands with her. “Master Sergeant Jimmy Peters, ma’am.”
“I’m Juan Carlos, ma’am,” the medic said.
She smiled. “It’s just Zadanski. I don’t like to be called ma’am.”
Peters gave her a half smile and looked back to the fighter craft. “They didn’t make any noise.”
“No, they don’t,” she replied.
“I don’t know where we are,” Carlos said, “but I suspect we’re not anywhere near Washington.”
“Okay,” she said. She took a deep breath, trying to collect her thoughts. “You’re in a highly classified base in southwestern New Mexico.”
“We’re where?” Carlos asked.
“New Mexico,” she said.
He looked at the fighter craft, eyes widening. “And it took us just a few minutes to get here?”
She nodded. “You ever hear much about UFOs?”
Carlos nodded. “My mom’s a big believer.”
Peters just stood there, staring at the fighters.
“Well, these are ours,” she said.
Peters turned to face her. “They’re real, aren’t they?”
Diane nodded. “All too real, I’m afraid. Both ours, and theirs.”
Peters shook his head and walked to the blast door with Diane and Carlos joining him. They walked for several minutes without saying anything.
“I’m so sorry about your unit,” she said. With so many lives lost and her teammates wounded from two attacks on the base, she could relate.
“It was a very special unit,” Peters said quietly. “Doc and I are the only ones left. It’s just not going to be the same, you know?”
She looked over at them. “You saved President Andrews. He’s not going to forget that.”
Peters tried to smile, but really didn’t make it. All she saw in his face was overwhelming sadness.
“You two are going to be part of another very special unit. It’s going to be okay.”
She watched Peters’s face and saw nothing but grief and depression. Carlos just stared at the floor.
“It just wouldn’t be the same,” Peters said. “We were the very top unit in the world. The best. I don’t think anything can replace that.”
She smiled. “You just might be surprised. I’ll introduce you to General McHenry.”
Peters looked over at her. “He was the top general of the army. I thought he got lost in the shakeup. He disappeared.”
“He got promoted,” she replied. She raised her eyebrows. “And I think he’s going to want to talk to you two.”
* * *
Dr. Cowen stood in back of the trauma team as President Andrews was rushed into the medical bay.
“GSW to the right chest, patient is unresponsive, breathing is shallow, pupils are equal and reactive. He’s tachy with cyanotic nail beds and mottling of the extremities,” Dr. Lundgren said.
“Sat is seventy-two,” the nurse added.
“No breath sounds on the right, left is diminished. Put him on a mask and transfuse three units of O-pos, now. Place a chest tube in the right and let’s get him into the OR stat!”
Dr. Cowen followed and stood just outside of the operating room door. Zadanski approached with two soldiers in dirty uniforms.
“Dr. Cowen, this is Master Sergeant Peters and Corporal Carlos.”
He smiled. “We spoke on the phone.”
“We did,” Carlos said.
Dr. Cowen nodded. “You did a good job. Smart not to mention names or location on an unsecure line.”
“How’s he doing?” Carlos asked.
“Low blood pressure, low oxygen saturation. We’ll know more after Dr. Lundgren removes the bullet. How long was he without oxygen?”
Carlos shook his head. “I had a small oxygen tank in my kit. It ran out just before your team arrived. He had a mask on during the trip back here.”
Dr. Cowen nodded. “So low absorption by the lungs. Not a good sign.”
* * *
Rosaq studied the recent reports of lost bases and dead workers. This level of losses was entirely unacceptable to the Insectoid above him in the chain of command. The Corporate Alliance would demote him at a minimum. The only mitigating factor would be the success of his plan to take complete control of the planet. He could still retain some degree of status and authority when they saw the benefits of his actions.
He ordered the strategic withdrawal of Zeta Greys into the more remote areas. It wasn’t necessary to engage the humans at this point. All of the progress the humans had made would be rendered useless in the next twelve to twenty-four hours. He had the workers transported by high-speed tunnel craft to the large base in the Andes Mountains, while quietly moving the scout saucers to the mountains of Eastern Europe.
* * *
Dr. Cowen looked up as Dr. Lundgren walked out of the operating room.
“How is he?”
“He made it through the surgery. Vitals are stable. Now we have to wait and see.”
Chapter 37
“Taz, grab your gear.”
It never seemed to matter what was going on, Taz thought, somebody has to ruin it. He glanced at the TV screen. “Harper is being sworn in as president. Can’t this wait for just two more minutes?”
“No,” FBI Supervisory Special Agent Cantrell replied. “You want to find out who killed Andrews; now is your chance.”
Taz shook his head and picked up his go bag that contained all of the specialized computer equipment he would need. “Who is it this time?”
“Sergei Anistov, deputy assistant to the Russian ambassador,” Cantrell said.
Anistov, Taz thought: the Russian spy master operating out of the Russian embassy in Washington, D.C. He’d be covered by diplomatic immunity, which meant they needed a deeply covert search of all electronic devices. Normal search warrants wouldn’t be approved. Taz was the only cyber-tech in the FBI who could break the Russian passwords and encryption in less than ten minutes, copy every file, and get out without leaving a trace.
“Anistov is arriving at an exclusive restaurant to have dinner with a paid consort,” Cantrell explained in the van on the way to Sergei’s apartment. “We have an agent installing the cell phone reading device into the leather folder that will be used to present the check at the end of the meal. You’re only going to have a minute or two to get into his phone while that folder is sitting on the table. It’s got to be within three feet of his phone in order to work.”
“I know,” Taz replied. “Let’s see what he uses for passwords and encryption at home. That should narrow down our approach to the phone.”
By the time they arrived at Sergei’s apartment, an FBI team had already picked the lock on the back door and disabled the alarm system.
“We’ll have the surveillance system looped back on itself in about twenty minutes,” an FBI agent said. “There won’t be any evidence that we were ever here.”
