Ironhorse's smile widened just a hair. "I'd be honored, Gordon."
Damned if Reynolds' cheeks didn't take on a warmer, ruddier hue—the man was actually blushing! "Thank you, Colonel. It's set for Saturday the twelth, at 1500 hours."
"So noted. And, Sergeant—you've got one hell of a strange sense of timing."
"Yes, sir. I'm afraid Arlene's been after me—"
"Arlene." Ironhorse worked hard not to grin.
"Yes, sir. Well, she's been after me to ask you, and last night she put her foot down. With all due respect, I believe I mentioned it seemed inappropriate right now—"
"So you did," Ironhorse replied dryly. He forced every hint of warmth to vanish from his features. "Now, get your ass in gear, Sergeant, I want that remote van set up yesterday! Understood?"
Reynolds' eyes widened. He tried to snap to attention, bumping his head against the roof of the carrier. "Yes, sir, Colonel."
He exited the vehicle in a hurry, leaving Ironhorse to once again contemplate the grim mystery of what had happened here at Jericho Valley.
Morning faded into afternoon. Harrison and Suzanne stopped for lunch at a McDonald's before civilization petered out entirely, then drove through mile after mile after mile of rugged, sunbaked desert.
The scenery looked so much the same—rocks, sand, sagebrush—that when Suzanne opened her eyes after a short nap, it seemed as if they were still in the same spot they'd been in when she'd first shut them.
The air-conditioner droned away, causing a drop of ice-cold condensation to fall onto the instep of her foot. She moved it over to one side. Even though the air-conditioner had been blasting at full the past few hours, the temperature was barely comfortable. The sun beat through the Bronco's tinted windshield, heating the air inside.
About a mile from their destination, Harrison brought the Bronco to a halt.
Suzanne frowned down at the map in her hands, then back up at him. "We're not there yet. Why are we stopping?"
"Don't worry about it. Just stay here." He undid his seat belt and opened the door.
"Not so fast." She put a hand on his arm to stop him, then self-consciously removed it when he looked down at it, amused. "Where do you think you're going?"
"A mile down the road. When I told you to come along this morning," he said slowly, "I was too tired to think clearly. I needed someone to drive, and there you were. I've had a chance to mull it over, and I decided it would be best if I . . . checked it out alone. At least at first."
She was honestly annoyed. "I came all this way— almost seven hours, ran around like crazy this morning to get packed and find a baby-sitter, and now you're going to tell me to stay and wait? I wasn't aware the job description included chauffeur duties."
"Please, Suzanne," Harrison said wearily, staring ahead out the windshield. He wasn't teasing anymore; he was completely serious, and she wasn't at all sure she liked him better this way. "Let's not argue about this. What if something were to . . . happen?"
"Harrison . . . You're not going to tell me you think the aliens have come back, are you?"
"Yes," he answered, his tone firm. "We don't know what the hell is out there, and as you've so often reminded me, you have a daughter to think about."
"Okay, let's presume it was an honest-to-God extraterrestrial communication. How do you know it's not a group of friendly aliens? And if they're not friendly, then a mile will help me live only a little longer. I may as well get it over with now."
"Don't joke about it, Suzanne. It's not funny."
She raised an eyebrow. "You're certainly one to talk. You seem to have no problem joking about what other people take seriously. Close the door and put your seat belt back on. I'm not staying here. I can't run the air-conditioner if the car's off, and besides, what am I supposed to do in the meantime? Wait a few hours, and if you don't come back, drive home? How will I know if the heat got you before your aliens did? Chances are we'll die of heatstroke."
Harrison's lips thinned; he thought about it for a moment, then sighed and shut the door. "Look, the minute we spot anything dangerous, we get the hell out. Understood?"
"No problem."
He started the Bronco up and pulled onto the highway again. They drove for another half mile when Suzanne finally spoke.
"You know, we're not going to see anything," she insisted, but the words were barely out of her mouth when Harrison slammed on the brakes.
"What the hell—"
The road was blocked. At first she thought it was a mirage produced by the heat waves rising from the black asphalt. Two helmeted soldiers in camouflage fatigues, rifles resting against their shoulders, stood in front of a wooden barricade that stretched the width of the road. On either side of it were parked two army jeeps, and behind it stood a covered personnel carrier. As they approached, one soldier stepped forward and held his hand palm out to stop them.
"Shit," Harrison muttered, and rolled down his window as the soldier approached.
The soldier's eyes were almond-shaped; his round, light brown face was flushed and trickling sweat. He bent down and looked in the open window at Harri-
son; his tone was friendly but firm. Suzanne liked him without knowing him. "This is a restricted area, sir. I'm afraid you'll have to turn back."
"You must be terribly hot standing out in this sun," she blurted out. "Don't your superiors realize how dangerous it is?"
The soldier grinned suddenly, crinkling the corners of his deepset eyes. "Yes, ma'am, I'm sure they do." He patted the canteen on his belt. "We've got plenty of water—not that it makes us feel any cooler." He addressed Harrison. "But you're still going to have to turn this vehicle around."
"Just a minute." Harrison reached over and popped open the glove compartment in front of Suzanne. "Get your PIT ID," he said to her, and started fumbling through the compartment's contents: credit-card slips for gas, coins, flashlight, a Rand-McNally road atlas . . . His fingers finally grasped a plastic-laminated ID card.
Suzanne found hers in the navy bag behind her seat and handed it to him. He shoved both cards in the soldier's face.
"Here. We're researchers with the Pacific Institute of Technology. Show those to your superiors."
The soldier drew back a little, then took them gingerly. "It'll take a few minutes," he said politely. "Why don't you folks pull over?"
Harrison grunted and knocked the stickshift into reverse, then backed off onto the shoulder. He turned off the ignition and opened the door. "May as well get out. Like you said, no point in staying in here with the air off."
She got out and walked around to the driver's side while he opened the back hatch and started rummaging for something. "Well," she said, "I was right. It's a military base, and they're involved in some sort of secret project. Maybe Norton's transmitter isn't the only one around."
The soldier had gone back to the barricade; now he was reading from the ID cards into a walkie-talkie and nodding.
Harrison seemed too distracted to take offense; he st raightened, thermos in his hand, and stared past the barricade as if he saw something far beyond it, the soldiers, their jeeps. "It's more than that. The military doesn't set up a barricade a mile outside an installation if they're just broadcasting signals into space. No, something's happened here."
The way he said it made her frightened for an instant, but she shrugged it off; the man was clearly paranoid, in need of a good psychiatrist. Besides, if it were what Harrison suspected, it would take more than a military blockade to hold the aliens back. In the heat of the desert sun, Suzanne began to perspire under her gabardine dress. She fanned herself with her hand, a useless gesture.
Harrison noticed. "Here." He unscrewed the lid of the thermos, poured something into the top, and handed it to her. She took it eagerly; it was water, ice-cold, absolutely delicious. She drank while he pulled a couple of field stools from the back of the Bronco.
They were sitting in its shade when she saw a jeep pull up on the other side of the barricad
e. An officer stepped out: tail, with a broad, powerful build and square-shouldered military bearing. He emanated authority; the two guards quickly snapped to attention and saluted the instant they spotted him. He returned their salutes and strode with animallike grace through the barricades, past the wide-eyed guards, until he arrived inches short of Harrison and Suzanne.
She smiled up at him, doing her best not to be disconcerted. She despised people who enjoyed intimidating others, but mostly despised herself for being intimidated by them.
His skin was reddish-bronze, his hair jet black and close to the scalp; his eyes were hidden behind mirrored sunglasses. Above the left breast pocket of his perfectly pressed uniform was the inscription: ironhorse. An Indian warrior, and a formidable one at that. He didn't respond to Suzanne's smile, merely peered down at the documents he held in one large hand.
"Doctors McCullough . . . ?" His voice was deep, flinty, unyielding.
"Yes," Suzanne answered quickly.
"And Blackwood?"
Harrison rose so that he and Ironhorse stood toe-to-toe, like two sparring partners. There was coiled anger in Harrison's movements; he clearly resented Ironhorse more than the soldier resented him. "Present and accounted for," Harrison said, but there was none of his usual good humor in it. Suzanne began to honestly worry that a fistfight was about to break out, and scrambled awkwardly to her feet.
"I checked." Ironhorse sneered slightly. The lens of his glasses reflected two tiny Harrisons. "You're free to leave the area."
Harrison's expression was stony. "We don't want to leave. We want to travel east half a mile, then north another half mile."
"That's a restricted military installation."
"These are public roads." Harrison gestured, frustrated, at the expanse beyond the barricade.
Ironhorse was unimpressed. "And presently under military authority. There's nothing for you to see."
Suddenly, she shared Harrison's anger. Dammit, she wasn't going to let him intimidate them into leaving! They'd come a long way into the desert, and she wasn't going to get this far and then turn right around and head back without something to show for it. Besides, Harrison wouldn't be fit to live with if he didn't find out what lay beyond the barricade. Angrily, she blurted, "Which explains your reluctance to let us see for ourselves!"
Harrison shot her a swift, admiring glance, one corner of his m outh quirking up as he turned his face toward her, then settling into a grim line as he looked back at Ironhorse.
The military man was not amused. "We can do this one of two ways," he said. "You can turn around now and go home. Or you can force me to detain you until I've had a chance to recheck backgrounds. With the army, that's been known to take several days. Which is it, Doctors?"
She would have hit him if she'd thought it would
help things. She glanced over at Harrison, worried that he might have the same idea. But an inspiration seemed to have come to him.
He eyed the uniform casually. "Is it Captain Ironhorse?"
Ironhorse sounded disgusted at his ignorance. "Lieutenant Colonel."
"Does it matter, Colonel, that both of us"— Harrison nodded at Suzanne—"have Top Secret clearances?"
"Not to me, it doesn't. Around here it's 'need to know' . . ." His lips curved slightly in a coldly superior smile. "And you don't need to know. Now, if you'll excuse me . . ."
He turned to leave; Harrison reached out but stopped just short of touching the colonel's arm. Ironhorse stared down at Harrison's hand for a dangerous moment, then slowly moved his gaze up to the scientist's earnest face. Harrison's anger had vanished, replaced by good-natured cunning.
"Colonel, aren't you even the least bit curious about what it was that brought us here in the first place?"
Ironhorse turned back slowly, a muscle in his square jaw twitching; Suzanne felt the momentum of power shift to Harrison. "Officially, Dr. Blackwood, I have no authority to ask such a question."
"Last night," Harrison explained eagerly, "one of my associates intercepted radio transmissions originating from this location ... or, more accurately, the location one half mile east and one half mile north of here."
Ironhorse's expression never changed, but a hint of
interest warmed his tone. "What kind of transmission?"
Harrison's eyes lit up. He knows he's got him, Suzanne told herself triumphantly, and felt herself smiling. "For the moment," Harrison said, toying with him, "let's just say they were . . . highly unusual."
Ironhorse folded thick arms across his chest and asked with something suspiciously like resignation, "You wouldn't happen to have a copy of these unusual transmissions?"
Harrison grinned and produced a cassette tape from his shirt pocket. Ironhorse reached for it, but Harrison was too quick for him and pulled it back. Tauntingly, he asked, "Is this the beginning of a negotiation, Colonel?"
NINE
Harrison's mouth was dry, but it had nothing to do with the heat of the desert. He drove the Bronco, Ironhorse next to him in the front seat, Suzanne in the back. The second Harrison had seen the barricade, he knew with an inexplicable growing excitement that something had happened, and the grim set of Ironhorse's jaw told him that whatever it was, it wasn't good.
He listened quietly as Ironhorse spoke and tried not to look as though he were gloating about his little victory over the colonel (thanks to Norton's tape)— which he was, of course. He'd hated the colonel the moment he'd laid eyes on him. Clayton Forrester's experience had taught his adopted son to hate everyone involved with the military/government bureaucracy. Harrison hated them for their blind, unquestioning obedience, for their narrow preoccupation with details, for their disregard for the truth. It was the military who overrode all of Forrester's suggestions for dealing with the alien remains, who made it impossible for Forrester's warnings to be heard ... it was the military, Harrison had long ago decided, that drove his adoptive father to the verge of a complete mental breakdown.
But, much as Harrison distrusted Ironhorse, it was clear that for the moment at least, they needed each other. And it was clear that Ironhorse wanted the tape of the transmissions badly enough to start talking.
"The installation in question is the Jericho Valley Disposal Site," Ironhorse said, glancing over his shoulder at Suzanne to include her in the conversation. Harrison tilted his head to one side to hear better. Jericho Valley . . . The name sounded vaguely familiar; Harrison tried to place it, and failed.
Suzanne's eyes widened slightly. "Disposal of what, exactly?"
"Nuclear and toxic wastes," Ironhorse replied matter-of-factly. "Don't worry, we won't be exposing you to anything. At least, nothing significant."
"For some reason, I don't like the sound of that," Harrison said half under his breath.
The colonel paused to stare at Harrison from under his mirrored sunglasses, then continued in a detached tone. "Approximately thirty-six hours ago, Jericho Valley was attacked. Communications were cut off. When we checked it out, we found the gates wide open, and all seventeen soldiers stationed there dead. Killed."
Harrison caught Suzanne's horrified expression in
WAR OF THE WORLDSIronhorse stared out the window. "Most died when the barracks were blown sky high. I figure they used a rocket launcher. Poor bastards must have been asleep. Three were shot—automatic weapons."
Harrison wasn't exactly sure what he'd been expecting to hear, but that wasn't it.
Suzanne paled. "Terrorists?"
Ironhorse did not answer at first; he gestured for Harrison to turn. "Here it is."
The Bronco kicked up dust as it veered left onto a narrow gravel driveway. "Guess you could call them that, Dr. McCullough," Ironhorse said, answering her question. He shrugged. "But it's just a convenient label. Doesn't tell us who or why. Don't worry, ma'am, they're gone. Left fast—no threats, no demands, no calling cards. Just killed everyone and split—and left the bodies to rot where the birds could get at 'em."
Suzanne shuddered.
"And if they sent any transmissions"—the colonel looked over at Harrison—"they took their equipment with them."
"If they really were terrorists," Harrison asked, "then why didn't they take advantage of the fact that this was a nuclear waste dump?"
Ironhorse nodded. "Exactly. But they didn't. We found one barrel shot up, oozing radioactive waste. Still, it seems strange that they wouldn't have prepared for that contingency, that something like that
The Resurrection would have been enough to scare them off after they went to the trouble of killing seventeen men."
Maybe something else scared them off, Harrison almost said but decided against it. His mind raced over the possibilities. Maybe it wasn't a return of the unfriendly invaders at all. Could it have been the appearance of a UFO that frightened them off?
"There were radiation suits in the guard shack in case of accidents," the colonel continued. "They could have protected themselves." The Bronco pulled up in front of a military base surrounded by a high chain-link fence. As Ironhorse had mentioned, the gates were swung open. Inside, men wearing radiation suits and square white hoods of heavy lead-lined material wandered around taping with hand-held cameras.
Ironhorse directed Harrison to park the Bronco outside the gate, next to a personnel carrier, and climbed out. Before Suzanne could struggle out in her "unpractically narrow skirt, Ironhorse was already on the passenger side, offering a helpful arm. She took it reluctantly.
"So now," the colonel said to Harrison, who climbed out of the driver's side, "you can see why I'd like to have that tape analyzed. Could I ask how it is you happened to acquire it? Or don't I need to know?"
Harrison smiled. He still couldn't stand the man, but at least Ironhorse had the good grace to poke fun at his own terminology. "It's not classified. We broadcast radio signals into space and also monitor for transmissions."
"Who were these people trying to contact?" Ironhorse seemed more confused than enlightened by Harrison's explanation.
"I don't know." Harrison feigned ignorance. "Suffice it to say we managed to pick them up because they were using some serious equipment." If he gave Ironhorse the same explanation he gave Suzanne, that would be the end of the guided tour right there. She gave him a knowing look he interpreted as meaning that she understood.
J.M. Dillard - War of Worlds: The Resurrection Page 10
