***
Blake’s Pizzeria was a small building just outside official Washington. The owner, who claimed descent from the great pizza cooks of Italy, didn’t advertise. Much of his clientele were federal employees working in the CIA or another intelligence agency who found the simple restaurant a convenient place to catch up with friends and – unofficially – share information from one agency to another. It worked about as well as could be expected, Toby knew; the FBI and the CIA still didn’t get along, even though their failure to coordinate had led to disaster on 9/11. The Pizzeria was secure, at least. It was regularly swept for bugs and its owner and his staff had been vetted by the CIA.
He saw Jason at once, waiting outside. The owner tended to be surly with visitors who didn’t come from Official Washington, particularly the media. Blake’s Pizzeria was an open secret to those in the know, but it had never slipped out into the public domain. Toby nodded to Jason, beckoned for him to follow Toby into the building and stopped in front of the counter. The waitress, a young woman with bright red hair and a wide smile, grinned up at them and then recognised the Discoverer. Toby had to smile at her expression. Compared to Jason, he was unnoticeable. But that was how he liked it.
“We’d like a private room,” he said, flatly. Blake’s Pizzeria had nine private rooms, all cleared by the CIA. There had been rumours that some of them were used for adultery and other matters that wouldn’t be approved of, if they came into the light. “And we’d like the menu.”
As soon as they had ordered, they went into the private room. It was the nicest secure room in Washington, at least outside the President’s bunker. The tables were neatly decorated, with enough condiments to suit any taste – and the staff had no access to the room, save through a dumb waiter. Toby knew better than to take that for granted, however, and he ran the improved model of Gillian’s detector around the room. There was one bug on Jason’s neck, which he removed neatly and dumped into a sealed compartment. Given the nature of the alien bugs, it seemed likely that any number of them were lost without any human interference at all. Or so they hoped. There was no way to know for sure.
“We’re as clean as we can be outside Fort Meade,” Toby said. He ran the detector over the pizza when it arrived too, just in case. “What have you discovered?”
Jason hesitated, and then plunged right into the story. “One of the aliens wants to defect,” he said. “He said that the world was in terrible danger.”
Toby blinked in surprise. He hadn’t expected that – but then, why would anyone expect an alien race to be a united entity? The human race wasn't united. There wasn't even a union of democratic states that could be counted upon to put the best interests of their people first. Why should the aliens have a monoculture? Having the vast gulfs of space certainly suggested that different cultures could have some elbow room.
His second thought was that it was a trick. “What assurances did he offer?”
“He warned me that everyone in the Welcome Foundation is under surveillance at all times,” Jason admitted. “They watch us everywhere, no matter where we go. He said he couldn’t give us much more without revealing his intentions; he’ll give us what we need to know when he’s safe on Earth.”
Toby swore under his breath. Defectors on Earth were handled under a series of largely unwritten rules. A defector who made it to a safe country was legally safe – although that hadn’t stopped the KGB from sending assassins after various Russian defectors during and after the Cold War. The Russians couldn’t demand that a defector be returned or vice versa – but that might not apply to the aliens. They had overwhelming power; if they knew that one of their people had defected, they might demand his immediate return on pain of planetary bombardment. And there was nothing the human race could do to deter them.
And yet…did they dare pass up the opportunity?
He scowled as he took a bite of his pizza. If it was a trick, the aliens might intend to allow them to take the defector and accept a great deal of false information at face value…or they might intend to turn the defection into a crisis they could use as an excuse for war. But why would they provoke a crisis so soon? If they waited for a year or two before coming into the open, humanity would be in a far poorer position to resist them; hell, they’d have a puppet in the White House. Logic suggested that the defection was real – but that might be just what the aliens wanted them to think.
“We need to know what he knows,” Toby said, slowly. He was starting to feel an odd flash of sympathy for the CIA officers who’d found that they blamed for every disaster that had ever struck the intelligence service. It was easy to do nothing if one developed a risk-averse culture, where the risks threatened one’s employment. “I’ll have to give it some thought. Do we even know how to hide him from them?”
“He suggested that it would be possible to fake his death,” Jason said. He swallowed the final piece of a pizza slice and took a gulp of coke. Toby had ordered coffee. “He seemed pretty sure that they wouldn’t look for him very hard…”
“Scratch that,” Toby said, flatly. “They will search for him. A dead body would tell us all sorts of things about him. If someone – one of them – dies on Earth, they’ll want every drop of blood returned. I’ll have to give it a great deal of thought.”
Jason nodded, sourly. “What should I tell him?” He asked. “He seemed pretty eager to talk to us quickly.”
“Tell him that we are considering how best to extract him,” Toby said. He shook his head. Extracting a Russian officer from Russia would be easier than trying to trick the aliens into believing that one of their people had died – and his body had been completely destroyed. A thought occurred to him and he made a mental note to look into it. If something were to happen at sea, the remains of an alien body might not be found at all, at least for some time. “And ask him if he wishes to take up water sports.”
The plan slowly came into focus in his mind. He would have to talk to his father – and some of his father’s friends – about it, but it would allow him to kill two birds with one stone. There were a number of SEALS who had been planning to fake their deaths; with a little work, they could vanish alongside the alien defector and never be seen again – at least until the shit hit the fan. And it would. Toby hadn’t doubted it ever since he’d looked into an alien pair of eyes.
“I don’t understand,” Jason said. “Water sports?”
Toby grinned. “They’ve been to see art galleries and museums and exhibitions,” he said. The aliens – those who seemed willing to visit Earth – spent half of their time playing tourist. The remainder of the time was spent making ambiguous statements to human interviewers. Why shouldn’t one want to try out Earth’s water sports? Their distant ancestors had probably crawled out of the water, just like humanity’s distant forbearers. “Maybe one of them would like to go sailing.”
He pushed the thought aside and turned to other matters. “Did you see the internet spam message?”
Jason nodded. The message – warning of the dangers of alien pod people and human politicians who were in league with them - had gone viral on the internet. Every attempt someone had made to wipe it had only spread it further, with copies being distributed right around the world. A number of politicians were embarrassed – although McGreevy, he remembered, hadn’t mentioned it when she’d been trying to seduce him to her side. It wouldn’t be in character for her to pay any heed to the message.
“I don’t think I’m a pod person,” Jason said, clearly anticipating Toby’s suspicions. “But would I know if I was?”
“I don’t know,” Toby admitted. There were plans afoot to snatch Joe Buckley and learn what they could from a scan of his mind, but the shadows who’d been attempting to follow him everywhere had lost him. Buckley had been in the military. He probably knew how to spot and break a tail. “I just don’t know.”
He shook his head. “I’ll get back to you as quickly as possible with the plan,” he said, grimly. “If we can get th
is guy out, it’ll be worth it. Even if he is trying to lie to us, at least we’ll know what they want us to believe.”
“I think he was quite nervous,” Jason said. “Time is running out.”
“It always does,” Toby agreed. The aliens had put one of their people in a very high place and they probably had influence over the remaining military officers. It wouldn’t be long before they made their move. “It always does.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Washington DC
USA, Day 47
Wilhelmina Potts was nervous.
She didn’t let it show on her face. Showing weakness in front of Young Children was always a bad idea, or so she’d been taught. The Washington Educational Foundation believed firmly in results-orientated learning, a focus placed on the staff by the wealthy billionaire who’d endowed the educational centre with enough money to ensure that the pupils received an excellent state in life. Wilhelmina and her fellow teachers taught children from the ages of six to twelve, ensuring that they learned to read and write by the time they reached six – and were ready for more advanced subjects at twelve.
And they’d been honoured with the promise of a visit from a real live alien! The other teachers were excited, but Wilhelmina was nervous. She’d never liked snakes and the thought of walking humanoid creatures that bore an uncomfortable resemblance to snakes chilled her to the bone. And then there was the heavy security surrounding the visit. Armed policemen were stationed on the sports field – where the children played and learned how to keep themselves fit – and the school’s security centre had been taken over by the Secret Service. The alien hadn’t even arrived and the whole building was already upside down.
She studied the long line of children carefully. They all wore their Sunday best, even though a pair of cynics on the staff had pointed out that the aliens probably wouldn’t notice if the children were naked. The girls and boys – carefully selected from ones who posed no behaviour problem – would welcome the alien with flowers, while the school’s choir would sing a hymn of greeting. It seemed rather like too much protocol for her liking, but it was important that it worked. The school needed more pupils and the visit from an alien would be good publicity. If only they hadn’t looked like snakes…
“Look,” one of the boys said. “Look up in the sky!”
Wilhelmina followed his gaze, sighing inwardly as the children fell out of line to point and gape as the alien shuttle flew into view. Beside it, a pair of fighter jets turned loop-the-loops before vanishing off into the distance, an escort intended more to keep the news choppers away than intimidate the aliens. The alien shuttle seemed to slow to a halt over the sports field, and then slowly start lowering itself to the ground. A gust of steam blew up underneath it – to the general delight of the watching children – just before it touched down. The gardener, Wilhelmina realised, wasn't going to be pleased. Nor was the Building Manager who attended to repairs to any damaged structures.
She swallowed hard as the ramp came down and the alien appeared in the hatch, staring down towards the children with bright red eyes. The children fell silent as they stared back in a mixture of horror and awe. As the alien advanced, some children began to giggle while others started to back away from the creature. There was something about the way the alien moved that was profoundly wrong.
Wilhelmina had to fight down her own fear as the alien came closer. A strange smell, almost spicy, touched her nose and she coughed. Oddly, it steadied her a little as the alien reached the children and stopped. Most of the children had stood their ground, while the others were still slipping backwards; the alien didn’t seem to notice. Instead, he reached into a belt and produced a small black device, which he passed to the nearest child. As soon as she pressed the button on top, a holographic image of her appeared in front of the crowd. The children laughed with delight as the alien straightened up and held out a hand to Wilhelmina.
She hesitated, unable to meet the alien’s eyes, and then somehow forced her hand forward. The alien’s palm felt hot and warm and uncomfortably scaly; the handshake was brief, almost perfunctory. He seemed to be waiting for her to say something and Wilhelmina remembered her manners. They’d certainly rehearsed enough over the last couple of days.
“Thank you for honouring us with your presence,” she said. “I am delighted to welcome you to the school.”
The device on the alien’s neck started to blink as he spoke. “And I thank you for receiving me,” he said. “I am happy to have received such a welcome.”
There was no trace of irony in his voice. Wilhelmina nodded urgently to the youngest girl and she came forward to offer flowers. The alien took them gravely and handed them to one of the human security officers. Wilhelmina found herself momentarily lost for words. What did one say, what small talk could one offer, to an alien?
“I would be delighted to show you around,” she said. The alien would visit all of the classrooms and see – and be seen by – the children. And then he would go and the visit would be over, or so Wilhelmina hoped. “If you would please come with me, we can start the tour.”
***
Danny Raytheon leaned by the side of his squad car as the alien craft came into land. Merely seeing the craft filled him with envy, the kind of envy he felt for the handful of humans who’d flown into space and returned. It had been a long time since he’d been the small boy who’d dreamed of walking on the moon, but the dreams still had their power. He would have sold his soul for the chance to fly into space, perhaps live on another world. Washington just wasn't what it had used to be, he sometimes felt; the economic crunch had taken its toll. Perhaps another world would be ideal.
He looked up as he saw a man making his way towards the crowd of onlookers. Danny stood up and gave him the look, watching his reaction. The newcomer was black, with a head partly covered with a baseball back. He was carrying a camera around his neck. Danny hesitated, and then stepped into his path. Something wasn't quite right.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said. “Might I see your ID?”
The man stopped for a moment, as if he hadn’t been aware of Danny’s presence until he’d spoken. He reached into his pocket and produced a wallet, complete with ID card that marked him as a Secret Service operative. Danny had to smile; the Secret Service goons might have been making a visible deterrent, but the ones in plainclothes might be better at spotting and intercepting threats before they became a problem. He stood back and allowed the man to keep walking. It was odd, though; he was running terribly late.
***
The child stepped into the alien’s path before Wilhelmina could wave him back.
“Sir,” the young boy said. He was tall for his age, with blonde curls that he found a little embarrassing. Nine was such a strange age for a boy. “Can I have a ride in your spacecraft?”
Wilhelmina flushed, despite herself. She should have known. Young Hal was flight-mad, so determined to fly that he’d even tried to convince her to take the class to flight school. It hadn’t been even remotely possible, of course, but it hadn’t deterred him from asking again and again. On every other issue, he was a model pupil.
“One day you will all be flying in starships,” the alien said. He lowered himself to Hal’s height and met his eyes. The bright red alien eyes met human eyes and neither flinched away. “And maybe you will be one of the first.”
“I want to see a picture of your home,” the boy said. “Is it anything like Earth?”
“There are many worlds like Earth,” the alien replied. “One day, you will visit them.”
Wilhelmina sighed inwardly. At least the alien didn’t sound irritated – or angry – at the childish questions. Maybe the visit wouldn’t be such a total disaster after all. And if they were the first to get a look at the alien’s home planet…they would be famous. Everyone would want to send their kids to the school.
***
Polly watched as the alien passed her seven-year-old daughter, feeling pride at how Cassie met
the alien’s eyes without looking away. She’d warned Cassie that she might be scared of the alien, who looked utterly inhuman, but she shouldn’t show it on her face. Besides, if judging people by the colour of their skin was wrong, so was judging people by their race. And now all the petty colour differences between humans seemed meaningless. What did it matter if someone had black skin, when someone else might have a completely different biology?
She nudged the person standing next to her. “My daughter’s over there,” she said, proudly. “She’s…”
And then she saw what he was carrying. She screamed aloud. “Look out,” she screamed, as the crowd recoiled. “He’s got a gun!”
***
Wilhelmina’s head snapped up as she heard the scream, too late. The first gunshot rang out, followed rapidly by two more. She turned to start pushing children to the ground, but something slammed into her back and sent her falling down to the ground. Her body hurt and she felt something choking her throat, almost as if she was going to be sick. It took her several minutes to realise that she’d been shot, just before something green and scaly hit the ground beside her. The alien had been shot!
The Trojan Horse Page 24
