It was an old black and white photo, fading and curled at the edges. On the back, a date was stamped in red ink: 10/23/53. The front showed a stack of shiny, unpainted steel drums, all bearing the same legend across their sides:
classified: 1951-1953
She stared at it silently for a long time.
Harrison was watching her keenly. "Those barrels are empty now, Suzanne, and they looked as if they'd been forced open from the inside. . . remember?"
She remembered. An old terror welled up inside her, clutched at her throat, the same terror she'd felt as a child after Uncle Matthew's death, as she waited in bed beneath the covers for the aliens to make their way across the country and come for her too. When she could speak, she whispered, "My God. Oh, my God . . ." She put her hands to her face. "It can't be true . . ."
"I wish I were crazy," Harrison said sadly. "Six of
these same barrels are now empty, and the rest of them are missing. Hundreds of them, gone." He came around the desk and crouched next to her chair to gaze up into her face; she could see his concern about the effect this revelation was having on her.
"That's why I hired you," he told her. "To help me continue Forrester's research. To try to find out if it's possible the aliens aren't dead, but forced by the bacteria into a state of estivation or suspended animation or anabiosis. But something has happened to bring them out of it. The whole way home I was trying to figure it out, and I think I've got an idea. I wanted to bounce it off you."
She nodded, still stunned, and with that one little gesture she felt as if she had somehow stepped over an invisible line, that from now on things could never go back to being as safe and familiar and comfortable as they had always been.
He put a hand on the arm of her chair and leaned forward, his face excited and alive, suddenly free of fatigue, the face of a man doing what he was born to do. "Jericho Valley was hot with radioactivity, right? Maybe that did it. Maybe the microbes that infected the aliens were wiped out from the exposure." He paused, and when she didn't answer immediately, asked: "Well? You're the microbiologist. Am I way off base?"
She found her voice at last. "I suppose it could be possible, depending on the circumstances." She paused. "Have you ever heard of the African lung-fish?"
He shook his head.
"The lungfish can survive without water for at least four years and maybe as much as ten. It goes into such a profound state of anabiosis that the average person would think the fish was long dead. But if you pour water over it, it's like a resurrection. The fish is alive and swimming again."
His eyes lit up hopefully. "So you don't think I'm a nut case."
"Definitely a nut case," she answered dryly. "But that doesn't make you wrong. Still, the radiation would have to have been extremely intense to kill off all the microorganisms inside those steel drums. Far too intense to permit those soldiers to wander around inside that base, even with their radiation suits."
"The barrel I saw looked corroded, as if something had eaten away at it. Ironhorse said one of the new barrels was leaking radioactive waste. If it leaked onto one of the older barrels . . ."
"That sounds like a real possibility. That alien corpse you want dissected—we could irradiate that and see what happens. Now, that would be ironclad proof—"
"I'm afraid not." Harrison shook his head. "Remember, it's been frozen for years . . . and its head— or the area that should correspond to its head—was crushed somehow, probably in a collision when it became ill and lost control of its ship. I doubt we could get a rise out of it."
"Damn," she said softly. "Then where do we start?"
"We'll think of something." Harrison stood up. "We've got to figure out a plan of action to stop them quickly. They don't have their ships and their weapons this time, but they're organized—and they're intelligent."
"Any specific suggestions?" She got up from the chair and put the report under her arm, intending to take it home, then yawned, surprising herself. She clamped a hand over her mouth. "Sorry."
"Don't apologize—we're both tired. In terms of specific recommendations, I think we'd better start by getting some rest. I'm about three naps behind, myself."
"I can't just go home and go to sleep without knowing we've got some kind of plan to stop them."
"We'll figure something out." Harrison shrugged. "Time may be of the essence, but I'm frankly too tired to think straight right now—"
She kept talking without hearing him. "We've got to contact the government and get help on this."
He sighed and nodded reluctantly. "I know. I hate doing it because they're the ones responsible for this mess in the first place, but I was going to look through Clayton's files and see if I could find a name, someone, anyone to contact at the Pentagon— But I'm afraid they'll all be retired or dead by now, in which case we have to start at the bottom." He shook his head, frustrated. "Dammit, it's all going to take too much time."
The idea descended on her full-blown. "Wait a
minute. I know a very important general back east at the Pentagon. He'd be more than willing to do me a favor."
He raised a sardonic brow. "And now you're going to tell me he's just a good friend, right?"
"Of the family," she snapped. "Let's just say he knows my father very well. He could be of enormous help to us. General Wilson. His job is to cut through red tape."
Harrison sighed and rubbed his face wearily. "Only if he's a good enough friend to keep from getting us caught up in the bureaucracy. I want free rein in this. If it looks like a government agency is going to tie our hands, I'll run the other way."
"I believe I could get us free rein," she replied, correcting him.
"All right then. Get in touch with him."
"Just give me time to make arrangements with the sitter and get some sleep. If we could leave tomorrow night—I mean tonight—" She broke off, suddenly overwhelmed by it all.
"That's the spirit." He put a hand lightly on her shoulder and glanced pointedly at the report. "I take it you're not still thinking about that transfer?"
She pulled the envelope from his shirt pocket and, smiling, ripped it in two.
Suzanne got back home at three a.m. The hallway was an obstacle course of half-unloaded moving boxes, so she snapped on the light in order to get to her bedroom without waking the entire neighbor-
hood. At least she'd be able to unload the boxes with a greater sense of finality now: this was home after all. She would stay in California and she would work with Harrison Blackwood. The certainty brought with it a sense of relief.
She slipped her flats off and held them in one hand as she tiptoed past the guest room. The door was cracked open; a strong, wheezing snoring came from inside. Mrs. Pennyworth. Suzanne smiled. Apparently, the elderly woman was a sound sleeper.
A few steps down, the door to Deb's room was ajar. The hall light was shining right into Deb's face, but the kid never stirred. Took after her dad, who always slept like the Rock of Gibraltar, regardless of the circumstances. Suzanne had always envied them that particular talent. She leaned against the doorway and watched as Deb breathed through parted rosebud lips in regular little sighs. The girl was sprawled on her side, clutching her pillow, her forehead puckered into a frown, her hair, glinting gold where the light caught it, spilling over her face.
Suzanne was overcome by enormous guilt at the thought that by the time Deb woke up, she'd find out her mother was going to be leaving again that night . . . but then the guilt was counterbalanced by a stronger, more savage emotion. She thought of what Harrison Blackwood must have been like as a kid. Young, so much younger even than Deb. And what it must have been like for him ... so young, and all alone.
It'll never happen to you, kid, she promised Deb silently. If I have to spend the next year traveling around the country in cars and planes, I swear, I'll never let it happen again.
It was a very long time before she finally got to sleep.
THIRTEEN
The tracks at
the Jericho Valley site matched up with those of a vehicle stolen from a trucking company warehouse two days earlier. A missing employee, Lena Urick, was suspected. It wasn't reported stolen until the next day, but amusingly enough, the police had stopped it shortly after it was stolen, before the bulletin was released.
And then just a few hours ago, HQ had monitored a call in to the San Bernadino County Sheriffs Office: The big white rig had been spotted at a gas station just off Route 15. The attendant was missing, presumed kidnapped.
A hostage, Ironhorse decided as he rode in the jeep alongside Reynolds, who drove silently while the colonel leaned back and felt the cool night air on his face.
The jeep was followed by a troop carrier full of
soldiers; not his own men, not Delta force, but they would have to do. Might as well relax while he could; there would be no sleep for any of them tonight. But Ironhorse's mind remained restless; he couldn't quite pin down what the terrorists were up to. His best guess was that they had taken the nuclear waste to either (a) contaminate the drinking supply of a large city, or (b) threaten to release it somewhere near the center of a large town.
The Nevada state police were ready and on the lookout: there was no way the rig was going to make it across the state border on any of the main roads without being stopped at a checkpoint, but there had been no sign of it yet. Which made no sense; surely they realized by now that they had the entire military, the state police, and every sheriff within a radius of two hundred miles ready and waiting for them. They'd missed their chance.
That was what bothered him so much about the attack on Jericho Valley. If the terrorists had any brains—and obviously, these folks' combined IQ was a match for a head of iceberg lettuce—they'd have stayed put in the Jericho Valley spot and made their demands from there. Transporting that much highly radioactive material was an unnecessary risk; if they wanted to grandstand, they could easily have done so from Jericho, especially if that nut Blackwood had been right about their having sophisticated transmission equipment.
The tape was being analyzed now, and Ironhorse was impatient for the results, though regardless of whether a message had been sent or not, the whole
scenario still didn't make any sense. And if there was one thing Ironhorse hated, it was an unsolved riddle.
A weird bird, Blackwood. After the man's hysterical departure, Ironhorse decided to dismiss the whole business about a transmission. But then, once inventory was taken on the barrels, it turned out Blackwood was right. Three hundred twenty of them were missing; the terrorists obviously had packed them into the rig. And something about the sight of the empty barrel had terrified Blackwood enough to send him running. Just a nut case, Ironhorse told himself again.
But instinct told him there was something wrong about this whole incident, something he definitely didn't like. He shook his head silently; next to him, Reynolds kept his focus straight ahead on the flat stretch of road illuminated by the jeep's headlights.
The headlights swept to the right as Reynolds maneuvered off the highway onto the graded curve of the exit ramp. The troop carrier's lights reflected off the rearview as it followed suit. The tiny gas station— four gasoline pumps, one diesel—lay just off the exit, in such easy view the owner hadn't invested in a neon sign. Next to the gas island, under the fluorescents, the sheriff and his deputy were interrogating a seedy-looking witness who gesticulated wildly to punctuate his story.
Reynolds pulled the jeep up just behind the sheriffs cruiser.
"Get me a reading with the Geiger counter," Ironhorse ordered, and climbed out of the jeep without waiting to hear Reynolds' faint, "Yessir, Colonel." Reynolds was tough, disciplined, command material;
if Ironhorse trusted anyone in the world other than himself to get things done, it was Gordon Reynolds.
Both the sheriff and the deputy regarded Ironhorse and his soldiers with a mixture of mistrust and awe. The man they were interrogating—a greasy-looking little alkie who reeked of stale booze and well-aged sweat—folded his arms triumphantly. "See? See what I tole ya? They've sent the army in."
"Evening, Sheriff," Ironhorse said without offering his hand. "Lieutenant Colonel Paul Ironhorse." He didn't address the deputy, a slight, weak-chinned individual; this was business between two superiors.
"Colonel." The sheriff nodded, tilting the brim of his Stetson slightly downward. He was a husky man with a broad face and shrewd, narrow eyes. "Sheriff Bobby Deak. This here's my deputy, Ernest Jenkins."
Ernest touched the brim of his hat; Ironhorse ignored him. Where he came from, a grown man would have called himself Robert or Bob, not Bobby, but this sheriff did not seem a stupid man. Perhaps the name and the casual good-ol'-boy demeanor were tactics to make others underestimate him.
"What brings the army out this way?" Deak asked with a trace of surprise.
"Your report that a stolen truck was sighted here," Ironhorse answered plainly. He would have said little more, except to start questioning the old drunk, but Reynolds came forward to scan the area. The Geiger counter in his hands buzzed loudly as he moved closer to the fuel pumps.
"They've been through here for sure, Colonel," Reynolds announced.
Ironhorse grunted. "Go ahead and scout the area."
"Yessir." Reynolds moved back to the parked troop carrier and started barking orders at those inside. The soldiers jumped out and began scattering.
"That doesn't really answer my question, Colonel," Deak said pleasantly, watching a dozen different flashlights swinging as the troops fanned out into the darkness surrounding the station. He was smiling, but there was an edge to his words. "If I can be of any help to you, I'd like to know."
Ironhorse relented. The guy seemed sharp enough; maybe it'd be best to work with him rather than around him. "We've had an incident involving suspected terrorists," he said finally. "There's a good chance they've been through this area."
"Terrorists!" the alkie exclaimed, taking a step closer to Ironhorse. The colonel caught a whiff of his breath—sour, putrid, reeking of booze. Ironhorse hated the smell of liquor; he was particularly sensitive to it, since he never touched the stuff himself, but had been exposed to it as a kid too damn many times on the reservation. He wanted to turn his head away but restrained himself in Deak's presence.
"Hot damn, I knew it!" The alkie's eyes glittered feverishly. "There's something strange going on here, Colonel, and I'm glad to see they've called the army out."
Deak rolled his eyes skyward. "Orel Ralston here says he was a witness, Colonel, but . . . I'm afraid even he admits he wasn't too sober at the time."
Orel pointed a scolding finger at Deak and shook it
with gusto. "I may have been drunk at the time, Sheriff, but you're leaving out something very important—what I saw sobered me right up!" He hung his head, his sharp features contorted suddenly with grief. "I saw Doc Waller, my only real friend in the whole world, killed." He covered his face with yellowed bony hands. The fingernails had black dirt under them.
"You can't believe anything Orel tells you," the deputy interjected, his tone one of contempt. "He's just an old drunk—"
"Go to hell, Ernie Jenkins," Orel said, peering up between spread fingers. "I know you. You went to high school with my daughter, Sally. She used to tutor you in English, remember? You woulda flunked right out of eleventh grade if it hadn't been for her."
Ernie's face colored, and his thin lips pursed so tightly they almost disappeared. He fell silent.
Ironhorse folded his arms; quietly he stated, "I'd just like to hear what Mr. Ralston has to say . . . without any interruptions. From the beginning, please, Mr. Ralston."
Orel looked up gratefully, his dirty face streaked with tears. "Thanks, Colonel. 1 was sleepin' over in that Ford over there"—he pointed to a large white car parked over in a corner of the station—"and I woke up suddenlike. See, Doc—he's the station owner here—he lets me sleep . . . usedta let me sleep in one of the cars on the evenings I was too . . . inconvenien
ced, you might say."
"Drunk as a skunk, you mean," Deak interjected.
Orel ignored him and went on. "Anyway, I woke up suddenlike because I heard this big truck pull up to the station. Don't ask me why, but I looked up to see what was goin' on . . . and I seen this big truck at the pump, fillin' 'er up with diesel."
"Describe the truck and any passengers," Ironhorse said.
"Well. . ." Orel gazed up and to the right, remembering. "It was a big tractor-trailer. White, I think—at least the trailer was. I couldn't see the plates."
"What was the name on the truck?" Ironhorse asked. A trick question; so far the guy had the description down pat.
Orel thought. "Weren't no name. Just a plain white trailer."
Bingo. A perfect match for the police description, except for the California plates. Orel Ralston may have been drunk at the time, but he'd remembered all the important details. Ironhorse persisted, pleased with his luck so far. "What about the people?"
"This is the terrible part. There were two men— one of 'em wearing a white overall thing, one of 'em all in black. And a blond-haired woman, dressed in white. They were walking toward Doc like they were fixin' to kill him. It was awful. . ."
Orel grimaced and made a noise like a sob, then ran a shaking hand over his red, rheumy eyes. "They looked . . . awful. Awful sick. Pale. Like they was dyin'. I thought maybe they worked at one of them newkewler dump places and there'd been an accident or somethin'. And . . . well, I don't like to mention
this, but. . ." He gave the colonel an embarrassed glance, ducked his head, and lowered his voice. "The folks in white, I could see—looked like they puked or shit all over themselves. Woulda puked myself at the sight of 'em if I hadn't been scared to death for poor Doc."
Good God, a description. And of people suffering from radiation sickness to boot—it had to be the terrorists who overran Jericho Valley. This was better than Ironhorse had expected. He leaned forward with interest. "Three people. Can you describe them in more detail?"
J.M. Dillard - War of Worlds: The Resurrection Page 14
