V06 - Prisoners and Pawns

by Howard Weinstein

Tyler shook his head. "Horseback or foot. I vote for the horses."

  Donovan's mouth tightened. "Where the hell are we going to get horses up there in the middle of nowhere?"

  "Just so happens I know some trail guides up there," I lam said. "One of 'em worked with the Company a little in Central America a couple of years ago. I was part of that

  job."

  "You sure they'll remember you?" Donovan said.

  "Oh, they'll remember" Ham said with a mysterious half smile. "They'll remember. Okay, then—Chris, you're going to make this trip with me and Donovan. Kid," he said to Kyle, "you're going to head south with Julie and back her up on the weapons pickup. You and Chris keep bitching about his baby-sitting you—well, you're going to be on your own. You blow it, you'll regret it. You do what Julie says—she's in charge down there."

  Kyle cocked his head. "What d'you want, a salute?"

  "Not from you, kid."

  Barry walked along the catwalk above the Mother Ship's hangar deck. His human contours conformed to those of his own reptilian body—short and stocky—and certain narrow sections of the catwalk were a squeeze for him. He wondered if Donovan and the humans had managed to get the liberated intelligence agents to safety yet. As long as they were anywhere near Los Angeles, he expected Lydia and Diana to be exerting extra efforts to recapture them. It was sometimes the fate of fifth columnists like himself to remain in the dark as to how helpful they'd actually been to the humans fighting the Visitor reinvasion. He reached a laddei; hauled himself up, and emerged into a main ship's corridor The junior officer on guard duty, in full body armor; saluted him.

  "May I see your security clearance. Captain?" the young female guard asked.

  "Is this part of Lydia's new procedure, Lieutenant?" He reached into a pocket and pulled out his ID card.

  She inserted it into a square scanning device the size of a deck of cards. It flashed yellow, then green. She handed the card back. "Yes, sis" she said. "It's been a lot of extra work for us, but I suppose there's a lot at stake."

  Barry nodded. "That there is. Carry on, Lieutenant."

  She saluted and he moved on. The crackdown had made things uncomfortable for the fifth columnists, he thought. There'd been no direct contact with the resistance since Lydia and James had lost the prisoners and returned to face Diana's fury. If anything important came up now, it might be impossible to help the humans without risking revelation of the secret Visitor network sworn to help the people of Earth.

  Deep inside the massive Mother Ship over Los Angeles, Lydia entered the security computer section. Its entry corridor had three sets of code-locked doors, and only crew members with special clearance knew the three codes to be punched into the digital pads on the wall.

  Lydia tapped in the final numbers and the last set of doors parted to allow her to enter She nodded a silent greeting to Barry, already working at a console, and proceeded to her private cubicle in the corner. Halfway across the dimly lit room, she stopped.

  "Barry, I'd like to discuss something with you."

  He switched his terminal to standby mode and came over to her work station. She gestured toward an extra seat, and he took it.

  "Yes, Lydia?"

  She took a deep, dramatic breath. "When I handpicked you for this section, I had every reason to believe you'd become a valuable asset to me, Captain."

  Barry lowered his head in self-deprecation. "I hope I've lived up to your expectations."

  "Oh, you have—and more. That's why I'm trusting you with information no one else can know about. Now, then— you're probably well aware of my recent run-in with Diana over the loss of those three human prisoners. Your work in correlating information was one of the key components in our successfully capturing them in the first place. I blame Diana's misallocation of manpower for our eventual failure. And 1 aim to reestablish the honor of fleet security. We've all been tainted by this incident, and we don't deserve it."

  "Do you have a plan in mind, Commander?"

  She nodded. "Yes, I certainly do. Diana is too foolish to ever attempt anything as bold as this. She's too wrapped up in her power games with Nathan Bates. We don't have time for that—we've got a mission to accomplish on this planet, a mission for the Great Leader. When he sent us here, he didn't plan for Diana to be in charge. Now that she is, there's nothing he can do about it."

  Barry smiled. "But we can?"

  "Exactly. I like the way you think, Barry. I've created a basic strategy, but I'll need you to work out the details and make it work. I can't think of anyone who's more skilled at this than you."

  "Thank you, Lydia. I must say you've piqued my curiosity. What's your idea?"

  She touched several keys on her computer panel. The screen flashed a global map of the planet Earth turning on its axis, looking as it would from space. Red covered the land masses dominated by Visitor forces—areas where the weather was warm all year; making the red-dust toxin ineffective for more than one annual life cycle. Barry wondered fleetingly who had been more surprised to discover that the bacteria in the toxin needed a dormant cold-weather season to flourish and reproduce—the invaders or the humans who'd created the deadly stuff. No matter-

  Yellow filled in the countries under human control, and Lydia froze the graphic with the continent of North America centered on the screen. "As you can see," she said, "most of the industrialized world has a winter season, making it very difficult for us to dominate those variable climate zones. But much of the United States is now toxin free— and we know that the U.S. is the most powerful nation on earth. If we could conquer the warm parts of this continent, we would have a very real chance to finish off all resistance, or at least force humanity to kneel to us and beg for peace on our terms. Do you agree?"

  "Yes, but how do we do that?"

  "I have a plan to disrupt electrical power across America. Deprived of power; the humans would be at a distinct disadvantage. Their computers, their manufacturing facilities, much of their communications system—none of it would work without electricity."

  "Are you sure we could disrupt the whole national power grid?"

  "That's your job—to tell me if it's possible. I think it is. I did some preliminary research and found that they've had major blackouts—that's what they call them—which have cut off power to vast sections of the industrialized nations. With our resources, we should be able to cause such results from coast to coast."

  "But much of their communications equipment can be run by generators or batteries."

  "Not if we detonate a small number of nuclear warheads high overhead. It'll cause an electromagnetic pulse that will disrupt all communications without exception. Then we can invade the continent under cover of night and chaos. Fallout will be minimal."

  Barry was silent—Lydia's plan might just work! He made an effort to look fascinated, not horrified, by what he'd just heard.

  "Well, what do you think?" she prodded.

  "It could work," he said honestly, noncommittally. "Would you like me to get to work on it right away?"

  "Yes. Here's the preliminary strategy," she said, handing him a small cassette. "You'll need this to get into the bank containing my research. It's under exclusive security lock, and this cassette is the only key that can unlock it. Don't lose it," she said with a cold smile.

  She pushed back her chair and stood, and Barry got to his feet to return to his own work console. "When do you want a report, Lydia?"

  "By the start of the next duty shift. You have seven hours. I suggest you get to work." ,

  When she was gone, Barry allowed himself to feel stunned for the first time. Somehow he had to contact Donovan!

  Chapter 5

  Julie slipped her lab coat off and hung it over her desk chair. The grumble in her stomach told her she should have taken a lunch break at least an hour ago, but her current bioresearch project was nearing the stage where she hated to leave it for such mundane needs as sleeping and eating. She glanced briefly at the small, framed snapshot
of Mike Donovan next to her phone and realized she might make an exception where sex was concerned, but all she could muster now was a longing sigh. She and Mike hadn't had much time for their personal lives lately. She thought back to their excited discussions of building a life together after the Visitors had been driven from the planet the first time, but somehow her life never worked out that simply. Really horrible things don't usually happen to me, she mused, but neither do happily-ever-afters.

  The chiming of her phone snapped her attention back to the present. She picked up the receiver. "Parrish here."

  "Hi, Julie—Nathan here. I was wondering if you'd had lunch yet."

  "Umm, as a matter of fact, no. I got lost in work this morning and forgot all about the time. 1 was just on my way out to get something."

  "How about joining me for lunch in my office? I'll have something sent up and we can eat on the terrace."

  "But it doesn't have golden arches," she said in mock protest.

  "I can have the food served in little Styrofoam containers, if that will make you feel any better."

  "Well, since you're so anxious to please—"

  "What'll it be, Julie?"

  She closed her eyes to think for a second. "Oh, fruit salad, I guess."

  "I'll have the cafeteria send it up. Diet Seven-Up as usual?"

  "You know me so well, I'll have to make some changes."

  Nathan Bates laughed, and she thought he sounded almost boyish for an instant. She wondered quickly what he might have been like before he became one of the world's most powerful men.

  "I'll be waiting for you," he said, and the boyish moment was gone. It sounded like a command.

  "I'm on my way, boss."

  As Bates hung up the phone, his other line rang. He put this one on intercom. "Yeah, Caroline, what is it?"

  "McDougal from security, sii;" said his assistant's voice from the speaker on his desk.

  "I'll take it. McDougal, what's up?"

  "Well, sii; we've managed to come up with some information on a weapons shipment heading for this area— from Central America, of all places."

  "Why so surprised? We've sent so many guns down there over the years, they had to filter back sooner or later. You said you got some information. What does that mean?"

  "It means we know it's coming, but we don't know exactly where or when."

  "Then that doesn't do us a hell of a lot of good, does it?" Bates said testily.

  "Uh, no, sir I guess it doesn't."

  The office door opened slightly and Julie came in. She saw she was interrupting and started to back out, but he motioned her to the chair opposite his desk and indicated the intercom.

  "When you get me some useful information, you let me know. And it better be fast."

  "Yes, sis" McDougal said.

  Bates punched the intercom switch, then smiled at Julie. "Our lunches are on their way. Why don't we start with some wine on the terrace."

  He stood, put an arm around her shoulders, and ushered her through the sliding glass doors to the redwood and concrete balcony overlooking the grounds of Science Frontiers. There was a telescope mounted on the railing. For Los Angeles, the air was relatively fresh. Bates poured some wine, but Julie shook her head.

  "No wine for me—my blood sugar's so low from not eating, one glass'll go right to my head."

  "Okay then, have a seat." He pulled out a white wrought-iron chair and they sat at the glass-topped table.

  "This is the first time I've seen you since your meeting

  with Diana the other evening," Julie said. "How did it

  g°?"

  "Well, obviously I survived my encounter with our alien dragon lady. Not that it was particularly pleasant."

  "What was so urgent that she absolutely had to see you?"

  Bates took a sip of wine. "Well, you see, Diana doesn't have a fondness for being shot at or having her people blown up by the resistance. Seems she thinks weapons are being run in on some kind of underground pipeline to help your old resistance buddies right here in L.A. And we all know who's supposed to be in charge around these here parts, little lady," he said in a mock cowboy accent.

  "You."

  "Bull's-eye. Which incidentally is what Diana said she would turn L.A. into if I didn't put a stop to the gun-running under my jurisdiction. So the combined forces of Science Frontiers are being applied to breaking this gun-running pipeline as soon as humanly possible. If I don't succeed, Diana says she'll level the city, and she doesn't give a damn how much red dust we throw at them. She'll have her say, then just walk away from the ruins."

  Julie bit her lower lip and her face telegraphed her concern before she could cover it up. Bates saw it. Damn, she thought, he notices everything!

  "1 can understand you'd be worried about what might happen to some of your former colleagues. Yes, some of them could get killed. This is no game we're playing here. The survival of L. A. as a free and open city is at stake. And I don't plan on giving it up without a fight."

  "But we're supposed to be fighting the Visitors, not each other; Nathan!"

  "There doesn't have to be a fight, Julie. If you're still in touch with anyone you fought with in the resistance, I'd suggest telling them to forget the weapons shipment that's coming in. Oh, yes, we know a big shipment is due. And in very short order; we'll also know when and where it's due. We'll stop it—and if some people get killed, that's the way it goes." His dark eyes bore in on hen "Tell them, Julie. Tell them to give it up and lay off the Visitors in my territory."

  She thought of looking away. In the pit of her stomach, she felt completely intimidated. But she wouldn't give in. "Nathan, you know they can't do that. They knew the risks when they decided to pick up the fight again. You do things your way because of who and what you are. Well, they're just doing the same thing, but their own way. That's how I would feel if I were still with them."

  Bates smiled. "Which, of course, you're not. If they could pump your brain for the things you hear from me, I'd be in a lot of trouble. But I know I can trust you from top to bottom."

  He patted her hand, and she felt like slithering away. But their lunches had arrived on a cart sent up from the company commissary, and they began to eat.

  Donovan was pacing on a hillside above the city when he saw Julie's red Mazda climbing the road. She parked next to his Blazer and walked over to the stone wall bordering the overlook.

  "How're you doing?" he asked.

  She nodded and shrugged simultaneously.

  "Are you sure about that?"

  She managed to laugh, and they slowly, gently leaned into each other's arms. "It's nice to get a cuddle, Donovan."

  "Yeah—nice to get one back. I wish we could do it more."

  She looked up at him with a deep sigh. "I do too. But wishing's not everything."

  Donovan raised an eyebrow. "That could be our epitaph, kid."

  Julie pushed him back to arm's length. "My, we're sounding defeatist today."

  "Sorry. It just gets hard to keep looking for silver linings when there's this many clouds around."

  "Well, Michael, my love, I've got another cloud for you."

  "Oh, no."

  "Bates is onto the gun-running network."

  Donovan swung away from her. "Goddamn him. What's it to him?"

  "What do you mean, 'What's it to him?'" she asked incredulously. "You know damn well. He thinks this is his city and he thinks that what you do—what we do—is going to destroy it. Diana's lit a fire under him. She ordered him to stop the weapons shipments to us or she'll destroy L.A. herself."

  "And she'll do it too. She's just crazy enough to do it out of spite," Donovan said angrily.

  "Maybe we should cool it for a while. Lay low, conserve our resources."

  He whirled to face her, eyes flashing. "Julie, we don't have any resources to conserve! That's the problem. Did you enjoy attacking that skyfighter with no extra ammunition? Well, I sure as hell didn't enjoy watching you do it, knowing ..." His voi
ce trailed off.

  "Not forever; Mike—just for a while. We can hold our own."

  "And what if we can't? What if Diana's got something planned that we don't know about? What if she pops a surprise attack somewhere important and we've got our fingers up our noses instead of on rifle triggers? We can't do it—no way."

  "Then we run the risk of Bates's tracking us down and putting us out of business for good."

  "Can't you do something? You're such good buddies with the man. Talk him out of it."

  "I can't talk him out of anything."

  "Then do more than talk—do what you have to do. You want to anyway."

  With a roundhouse swing, she slapped his face hard. The stinging blow knocked him off balance, and he rubbed his jaw.

  "I'm sorry," Donovan said in a low voice. "I shouldn't have said that."

  "No, you shouldn't have," she said in ice-tinged tones. She glared at him. She wanted to hit him again, pummel him for being so gaddamned crude and insensitive, but she'd settle for a verbal attack. "I walk a tightrope every day I go to work, Donovan. I go in there and work for that man, and he not only pays me well, he trusts me, and confides in me. And even if I thought he was the worst bastard in the world, which I don't—right now you're creeping up in that category—even if I thought he was the worst, I'd still feel like I was betraying someone who trusted me. Do you know what that does to me every time I have to do this?" Her voice was shaking and so were her hands. She hated being so emotional and thought, Why the hell can't I be a tough son of a bitch like these men?

  Donovan couldn't look her in the eye. "Yeah, I know, I'm sorry—I really am. I had no right to—"

  "You sure as hell didn't."

  "Look, we're not discussing this very intelligently, thanks to my big mouth. We should talk it over with the others tonight."

  "Fine," she said, then turned, got into her cat; and drove off without looking back.

  Donovan's shoulders slumped as he watched her go. He'd wanted to say something but decided silence was better at (his stage. "Donovan, you stupid ass," he mumbled to himself.

  "No way," Ham Tyler said firmly. His manner made it clear that he wanted no arguments from the other resistance members gathered downstairs at Club Creole.