by Dayton Ward
“We’ve taken a few pictures of him down at R-G,” said Sutherland. Lowering her own pistol, she reached up with her free hand to wipe her eyes. “He’s involved with something hush-hush down there. I mean, he was.” For the first time, she seemed to notice her state of undress. “I’m sorry. I should put some clothes on.”
Tanner heard her, but didn’t respond. Instead, he was studying the wounds to Walker’s chest, and the fluid that had come from the bullet holes.
“What the hell is this?” The blood was thicker than normal, Tanner concluded, and possessed a brighter, richer tint of red than one might expect from a . . .
From a human?
The thought came unbidden, taunting him, but Tanner had no time to process it before an odd buzzing sound rang in his ears.
“Do you hear that?” he asked, catching Sutherland in the corner of his eye as she moved to stand next to him. It took him an extra second to realize it was coming from inside Walker’s uniform jacket.
Leaning across the major’s body, Tanner unbuttoned the dead man’s jacket. His light blue uniform shirt had absorbed most of the blood—or whatever it was—leaking from the bullet wounds, but Tanner’s attention was instead on the source of the odd hum. Fastened to Walker’s belt at the front of his trousers was a metallic rectangular box, perhaps twice the size of a pack of cigarettes, and with a small window set into its face that reminded Tanner of a watch or gauge. The thing was far larger than any belt buckle had a right to be.
Unless you’re from Texas.
At the center of the small screen was what Tanner saw had begun as a circle of red light, though it seemed to be erasing itself one thin sliver at a time, with black overtaking the red in a clockwise fashion. Another red light was flashing, the frequency and intensity of the pulse increasing with each passing second.
“Get away from him!” Sutherland snapped, and Tanner felt her hand pulling on his arm. “I think that thing’s a bomb.”
Tanner’s eyes widened in realization as he pushed himself to his feet. “Holy shit. Move! Move!” Pushing Sutherland out of the office, he lunged into the hallway, slamming into the opposite wall before catching his balance and running after her.
“Wait!” said Sutherland, calling over her shoulder. “My files!”
“Forget them!” Pausing where the corridor ended at a T-intersection, Tanner spied the fire alarm switch set into the wall. He yanked on the red lever and was rewarded by the sound of bells wailing through the hallway. How many people were still in the building this late in the afternoon, at the end of the work week? How many would have fled at the earlier sounds of gunfire?
A bright flash lit up the hallway an instant before Tanner felt rushing air wash over him. The blast was compact, but the resulting concussion was enough to make him careen into the nearby wall. Ahead of him, Sutherland stumbled and fell to the corridor’s shabby carpet, and he lurched forward to help her back to her feet. Looking over his shoulder, he saw that the hallway behind them as well as the doorway leading to her office now was engulfed in flames.
“Stairs!” he shouted.
“Follow me!” Sutherland turned the corner with Tanner on her heels, and they both saw two people standing at the passage’s far end, their expressions masks of shock and fear, which were only augmented at the sight of a woman in her underwear who was wielding a pistol and yelling at them.
“Fire!” Sutherland shouted, waving her free hand toward the door behind them, which was marked with an exit sign. “Get the hell out, now!”
Any hesitation the other workers might have harbored vanished when the hallway’s fire sprinkler system kicked on, the sprinkler above Tanner’s head immediately dousing him and Sutherland.
Because why the hell not?
Chapter 3
Twisting his tie with both hands, Tanner watched water drip from the cheap polyester fabric, making a small puddle on the sidewalk at his feet.
“You should just pitch it,” said Danny Sutherland from where she sat next to him on the rear bumper of the fire truck, wrapped in a thick, gray, wool blanket. “It’s not your color, anyway.”
“Maybe not, but it goes with the suit.”
Sutherland frowned. “The suit’s wrong for you, too.”
“Thanks.” He could tell that she was putting up a front, doing her best to maintain an even emotional keel despite what she’d just endured. The shock of losing her friend and co-worker, to say nothing of her apartment and belongings, would hit her soon enough, Tanner knew, and hard. Though the speed and strength of such reactions might differ from person to person, no one was immune, not even him. He was due for his own gut punch at some point, perhaps whenever he found a quiet moment to sit and reflect on the events of the day. Until then, it was hard to accept that his friend and partner was dead.
Charlie. Damn it.
Forcing away the unwelcome thought, Tanner smoothed the still damp tie before folding it into a small package he could put in his pocket. He reached to where he’d hung his jacket on the back of the fire truck. Like the rest of him, it was waterlogged, as was the pack of cigarettes in one pocket.
Tanner sighed. “And thanks for saving my life up there.” He nodded toward the building across the street, which until a half hour ago had been home to Aliens Among Us magazine and various other tenants. Though the bomb or whatever Major Stephen Walker had been wearing had caused only a small blast, the resulting fire had managed to wreak significant damage to the floor containing Sutherland’s offices and apartment. The structure itself had been saved, thanks to the timely response of local fire-fighting crews, and no injuries had been reported. Kansas City police cruisers, other fire trucks, a trio of ambulances that had gone unneeded, and news vehicles were scattered along the nearby downtown streets and sidewalks, and gaggles of onlookers stood behind police barricades, watching the scene unfold.
Sutherland nodded. “Likewise.” Despite her disheveled appearance and with only the blanket to cover up her undergarments, which had become all but transparent thanks to the fire sprinklers, she seemed unfazed by the activity taking place around her or even by the nearby spectators. Tanner had given her his wet suit jacket to cover herself following their exit from the building, which she’d happily exchanged for the blanket offered by one helpful fireman.
“That’s a rather large knife, you know.”
Tanner glanced at the KA-BAR combat knife secured in its worn leather sheath on the portion of his shoulder holster that went around his right arm. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s something of a lucky charm.”
“I’m guessing that’s not FBI regulation.”
“Not even a little bit, but nobody’s ever given me grief for carrying it.” In truth, many agents and cops carried at least some kind of knife, but Tanner had never seen anyone else opting for one quite this size. The seven-inch fixed blade had been in his possession since he’d received it prior to his departure for Korea more than a decade earlier; the same model had been supplied to marines dating back to the Second World War. The blade had served him well, including a couple of occasions upon which he chose not to dwell.
As though sensing that this was a subject he would rather not discuss, Sutherland directed her attention to the blackened exterior surrounding what had been the windows of her office. After a moment, she sighed. “What the hell am I supposed to do now?”
“Well,” replied Tanner, wiggling his toes inside his wet socks and damp shoes, “I hate to be the one to tell you this, but you should probably still come with me to my office.” In truth, a junior agent had already arrived on scene, dispatched by Cushman and their special agent in charge, Thomas Dean, with instructions for Tanner to escort Sutherland to the field office, which was conveniently located just a few blocks from their present location.
How lucky we are.
Pulling the blanket tighter around her, Sutherla
nd frowned. “Why?”
“Because Major Walker might have friends.” It had been on Tanner’s mind from the moment things had gone crazy in her office, but then came the fire, and getting her and anyone else to safety had robbed him of any chance to follow up on that concern. Anyone who may have come with Walker was long gone, having escaped the building along with everyone else, or perhaps they had blended in with the crowd and now were watching him and Sutherland, waiting for an opportunity to make a move.
“Whoever he was,” Tanner continued, “he didn’t think twice about taking out two federal agents and your partner, and he wanted you, too. I doubt he was working alone. I also doubt it’s the air force, since they’re not in the habit of gunning down civilians.”
“You don’t think the military is capable of something like this?” asked Sutherland. “They’ve been investigating UFOs for twenty years, and part of that is keeping the public in the dark about the truth.” She shook her head. “No, Agent Tanner, you have no idea.”
“If you mean Blue Book,” replied Tanner, recalling what Wayne Cushman had mentioned during his briefing earlier in the morning, “those guys sound like a bunch of paper pushers.”
Sutherland rolled her eyes. “They’re the smoke screen, Tanner. Their job is to wave their arms and make a lot of noise while they don’t find anything, but they still keep people’s attention on them and away from where the real black ops missions and cover-ups are happening.”
“Okay,” said Tanner, holding up his hands. A discussion about government cover-ups and possible aliens from space wasn’t something he wanted to have standing here on the street. “I’ll concede that I have no idea what those people do, but that doesn’t change the fact that I think you’re in danger, and the safe play for now is for you to come with me. We can protect you.”
Sighing, Sutherland cast her gaze at her bare feet. “I’d like to believe that.” After a moment, she offered a dismissive shrug. “Sure, why not? It’s not like I have anywhere else to go.”
Chapter 4
His heart racing as he lay back on the pillows and tried to catch his breath, General Francis Crane watched his companion push herself up from the bed. She left her yellow dress slung across the arm of the nearby chair, all but flouting her nudity as she crossed to the circular table tucked into the hotel room’s far corner. Crane could only grin as he admired her unfettered beauty. Curvaceous and busty with smooth, tanned skin, she carried herself without even a hint of self-consciousness. Her hair, long and blonde, trailed down to the middle of her back. Standing before the table, she reached for the metal bucket containing ice that was chilling a bottle of wine, and then cast a glance over her bare shoulder toward him.
“How are you holding up, big boy? Ready for a drink?”
Crane nodded. “Maybe a couple. You were fantastic.”
Her eyes narrowed and she smiled. “I know.” Lifting the bottle from the ice bucket, she poured the wine into a pair of crystal glasses.
“Wow,” said Crane, glancing at his watch before clearing his throat. “I didn’t realize how late it was. I hope I’m not . . . keeping you from anything.” Dressed only in his white T-shirt, he reached for the bedcovers and pulled them up to cover his lower body.
Turning from the table, a glass in each hand, the woman regarded him with smoldering blue eyes. “Honey, are you trying to get rid of me? I thought we were just getting started.”
She’s like a goddess.
Although Crane had been married for more than two decades, his wife hadn’t spurred these sorts of feelings in him for many years, and though he had done his level best to remain faithful, he was only human. This wasn’t his first time wandering astray, although none of those other women came anywhere close to the beguiling seductress who now stood naked before him.
But why can’t I remember her name?
The general was sure the lady had offered her name during their initial exchange of pleasantries a few hours earlier in the hotel bar. He’d been sitting alone at a table following the last in a string of meetings at the Pentagon and the White House. It was to be his final evening in Washington before flying back to Kansas City, and he’d already dismissed his aide for the night when the lady all but appeared in front of him. Wearing a form-fitting, low-cut, yellow dress—and nothing else, as Crane later discovered—she was a vision, and her alluring gaze had left no doubts about her intentions.
That same dress now lay draped across one of the table’s four chairs, which also held her purse and his own leather attaché case. The briefcase was locked, wasn’t it? Had he opened it upon returning to the room? No, that wouldn’t have been prudent. He should verify it was secure, but that would require moving from the bed, and his companion was making her way back to him. He couldn’t resist staring at her gorgeous body, bathed as it was in the soft glow of the lamps on either side of the bed.
“Easy, tiger,” she said, her voice low and sultry as she moved to stand beside him, holding out one of the glasses. “I don’t want you spraining anything. We’ve still got a lot of night ahead of us.”
Taking the glass, Crane sat up in the bed and pushed one of the pillows behind his back. He gestured with his wine as though making a toast. “You’re quite something, you know that?”
What the hell is her damned name?
Crane really wanted to solve this mystery before things went any further than they already had. With that in mind, he gulped down most of the wine in his glass and attempted to muster the necessary courage to ask her the awkward question. She was in the process of moving back to her side of the bed when a faint, odd beeping sound echoed in the room.
“Did you hear that?” he asked, looking around for the source of the noise.
“Hear what?” His companion set her glass on the table next to the bed and crawled beneath the sheets. Crane felt her warmth as she pressed her bare skin next to his, and he couldn’t help the involuntary breath as her hand ran along his leg.
Then he heard the beep again.
Shifting on the bed, Crane rolled over and looked toward the table. “What is that? Is it coming from your purse?”
The hand on his thigh moved to his chest. “I guess you could say it’s an alarm.”
Crane turned to look at her as he felt her fingers caress the side of his face. “Alarm for what?”
“It’s telling me our time’s up.”
Pressing his right hand over the general’s mouth, Beloss Bel held the man against the headboard as he plunged the fingers of his other hand into the human’s right eye.
General Crane’s body began twitching and jerking, and he released a muffled cry of pain and terror as Bel dug deeper into the eye socket and felt his fingers close around the retinal vein at the back of the eyeball. He pulled the eye free, ignoring the accompanying splatter of blood. His prize secured, Bel snapped Crane’s neck and the general went limp. After verifying that the human was dead, Bel pushed himself off the bed and stood looking for a moment at his handiwork. Killing Crane had been easy. The older human was well past his optimum age and posed no significant physical threat. Bel could have killed him hours ago.
“So why the delay?”
Bel was forced to admit that it was an interesting question, realizing only after an additional moment that he had verbalized the query, despite there being no one else in the room to hear it. After pondering several answers and justifications, he concluded that the general was a brief, yet entertaining, diversion.
“I think I’ve been trapped on this planet for too long.”
Why was he talking to himself? It was a recent development, one that had come about almost without his noticing it. Bel had frequently caught himself giving voice to the numerous thoughts occupying his mind at any given moment.
Looking away from the body of Francis Crane, Bel caught sight of his reflection in the vanity mirror on the
other side of the room, and gazed into the eyes of “Veronica Lincoln,” the human female form he had adopted for the evening’s deception. After pretending to be an inhabitant of this planet for several months, Bel now understood why the general was so enamored with this facade, and the base instincts it had triggered within him. Seducing Crane and others like him, and convincing them to do or say anything while in pursuit of their lustful pleasures, was child’s play, and even more so in Crane’s case. It had taken but two drinks and some flattering wordplay before the general had invited to his hotel room the attractive woman who had so brazenly approached him. If the rest of the human race was as weak and compliant as those who touted themselves as their leaders, then conquering this planet would be easy.
“But we know it won’t be so simple, will it?” Bel asked aloud as he moved back to the table. Still holding the eye he had taken from Crane, Bel dropped it into the ice bucket. The organ would provide more than sufficient genetic material for him to create the necessary facade to impersonate the general, but that was a matter for later. Now Bel’s attention was on the purse he had used along with the yellow dress to complete Veronica Lincoln’s disguise. He extracted the communication device, which was very much out of place with the rest of the purse’s contents. One of the unit’s colored indicators was flashing red, signifying an urgent message. Pressing the control to retrieve and decrypt the communication, he waited several moments until the encoded, undecipherable glyphs transformed into native Martian text.
ATTEMPT TO CAPTURE HUMAN JOURNALIST FAILED. WOUNDED. CAPTURE IMMINENT. ACTIVATING SAFEGUARD PROTOCOL. VIN.
“Capture imminent?” Bel repeated the question to himself as he paced the hotel room. “What could’ve happened?” The mission he had assigned to his subordinate, Ajahl Vin, was as simple as it was important. Upon learning that the human reporter, Danielle Sutherland, had taken an interest in the military base south of Kansas City, Bel had grown concerned that she may have stumbled onto the presence of the team currently working there. The magazine she produced had already published grainy, blurred photographs of an object in the sky above the base, which Bel recognized as being the scout craft belonging to his subordinates. What else had the female seen? How much did she know? There was only one way to be certain, and that was to interrogate her.
