by Brad Taylor
But I’m a little biased.
I got the pinpoint location from Crabtree and told him not to worry. I’d figure it out for myself. I’d left the hotel with only an hour before sunrise, sliding a note under Jennifer’s door. I knew she’d be aggravated, but I wanted to find out what was going on. At the time, I figured I’d be back before she woke up. Now, I hoped she’d just stay put.
Aegis had a sector of land on the old Walker Air Force Base that was now no longer used. Unfortunately, the base had also become the “international” airport of Roswell.
Ever wonder why every airport in America is called “international”? Yeah, me too. In this case, the Roswell airport had taken over the runways of the old Air Force Base, with most of the remaining land leased out. Walker used to be a strategic nuclear strike platform, with a bunch of old bunkers all designed to launch a bomber with nukes before the fateful ICBM struck from Russia. Aegis had taken over one such platform.
It was pretty ingenious, actually. Their back door was protected by the airport, which, after 9/11, had become a security nightmare. There was no way I was getting close by that route. So I went the other way.
I’d traveled around to the front, then parked in the desert, going dismounted for a closer recce. I saw the perimeter fence and began probing every hundred meters, but the place was sealed up tight as a drum. The fence itself had razor tape on the top, and telltale strips of aluminum threaded in the chain link. It was wired for disturbance. If I tried to climb it, a sensor would alert, much like a spider waiting for a vibration in a web. Which told me something big was going on inside. Why have such an expensive security system unless you were protecting something?
I’d worked in a lot of secure environments of three letter agencies—CIA, NSA, you name it. Very few had this level of security, and none were out in the middle of nowhere. It perked my interest, but I’d have to find another way to get inside.
Using a pair of cheap binos I’d purchased at an all-night Walmart, I could see the bunker-like building and the hangars outside, but nothing else. By the time the sun had climbed in the sky I was no closer to finding out what the hell was going on. All I’d seen was a roving mounted patrol that ripped along the fence line every hour.
I was considering heading back to the hotel when I saw a ribbon of dust in the distance. It approached the front gate and I ducked into the dirt. I was wearing drab clothing—a khaki shirt and some brown brush pants—so I was fairly sure they wouldn’t spot me in the ditch next to the gate, but it wasn’t a given.
I was even less sure of my dumb-ass idea, especially considering the video cameras at the gate.
The convoy advanced, a three-car motorcade, consisting of an SUV followed by a panel van and something else. The last vehicle came into view and I saw a black pickup truck with a large rear bumper. An arm came out of the SUV and punched a code. The chains began to move, the gate opened, and the convoy began to roll. The SUV cleared the fence and the panel van went forward, blocking the camera’s view of my side of the ditch.
Before my conscious mind could protest, I rolled out and leapt to the rear of the truck, holding on to the tailgate and crouching on the bumper, praying that whoever was watching the camera feed had lost interest when the SUV guy had punched the code. I rode forward, wondering how embarrassing it would be to get caught like this, when I reached the far side.
I dropped off, rolling in the dirt and waiting for the storm troopers to hit. Nothing happened. I scrambled into the bush.
Now what?
I wondered what the hell I was doing. Finding an alien experiment? Solving the X-files? What the was I hoping to accomplish?
I crawled forward and surveyed. At first glance, the ground was devoid of cover. A stretch of desert full of scrub, it was clear all the way to the bunker building and hangar. No way to get closer. And now no way to get out.
Studying the terrain, I saw it wasn’t as bad as I initially thought. It wasn’t possible to walk to the buildings, but, snaking forward on my belly, I could make it. There were enough folds in the earth to allow me to remain out of sight. It would suck, and I’d probably destroy my clothes, but I could cover the hundred meters on my belly without being seen. I’d be spotted for sure from the air, but I’d be invisible from the ground.
I started forward, inching along when I heard the unmistakable thump of rotor blades beating the air. I stopped moving and fixated on the sound.
There was a helicopter spooling up on the other side of the bunker. And it was going airborne.
Chapter 7
Jennifer sluiced the dirt in her makeshift seine, finding nothing yet again. Sweetwater scooped out another thin layer and flipped it to her. She began shaking the chickenwire again, sorting out the dirt from the potential evidence of human existence from a bygone era.
They’d been at it for about ten minutes, excavating around the small flag she’d placed earlier, and she was in heaven. Finally working toward a scientific find of an ancient civilization. She couldn’t help but feel the adrenaline of discovery. Something was down here, and, while she’d be disappointed if it ended up being a broken piece of fence line, she enjoyed the process. Much, much more than Pike would ever understand.
He talked a good game about Grolier Recovery Services, and wanted her as a partner, but she understood why. He only wanted to use their company in the service of the US government. To bastardize it like a whore to facilitate operations that were questionable at best. As she sifted the sand back and forth, she realized he’d never understand the thrill of the hunt. Never want to get dirty solely for the joy of the find.
She pitched the sand aside and waited for the next load, wondering if she was making the right decision. Wondering if Pike was worth the effort.
Sweetwater sank the shovel in again and hit something. He brought the shovel up, intent on driving it past the resistance and she shouted, “Wait!”
She scrambled over and pushed him aside. She grabbed a trowel and a paintbrush and went to work, scraping the ground with care. In thirty seconds she uncovered something. In sixty seconds, she was looking at her find in confusion.
Sweetwater leaned over her and said, “What’s that?”
She said, “I don’t know.”
She scraped again, lengthwise, then used her paintbrush to clear off the dirt. What appeared was a section of a black obelisk, dull and checkered, like a length of carbon fiber. She scraped some more and reached the end.
Sweetwater said, “Holy Jesus . . . Chris was right.”
She turned to him and said, “What? Who’s Chris?”
Before he could answer, a black SUV pulled up next to the riverbank from the access road, hitting the rough terrain full-on and spraying them with dirt, full of menace and unspoken power. The doors opened, spilling out men.
Jennifer stood, seeing the dull gray of gun barrels sprouting like a bad rash. All trained on her.
She raised her hands, confused, and heard Sweetwater say, “Chris, hey, she found it!”
The lead man swung his butt-stock, hammering Sweetwater in the head and driving him to the ground. Sweetwater wailed and clawed the dirt, saying, “Chris, wait!”
The man turned to her and said, “Get on your knees.”
She did so.
Sweetwater said, “She found it! Jesus, what are you doing? What’s with the guns?”
The men closed around the dig site and began working much faster than she had, unconcerned with any damage to fragile archaeological relics. In seconds, they brought out a five-foot section of something looking like the blade of a helicopter, one end torn and showing a honeycomb substance like Styrofoam.
The man called Chris said, “I told you to prevent the dam and that we would search. We would search.”
Sweetwater said nothing, cowering. Jennifer said, “Sir, wait. I was hired to confirm or deny the presence of an archaeologic
al site. That’s why we’re here. I’m not sure what we found, but it’s not his fault.”
Chris lowered his weapon, exhaled and said, “Shut the fuck up.”
A man behind him said, “What do you want to do now? They’ve seen it. They know we have it now.”
Chris whirled and said, “You shut the fuck up too! Let me think.”
Jennifer saw a trail of dust in the distance, from the other side of the creek, and thought she was going to be okay. The rancher coming to run them off again. An unexpected savior. She was wrong.
Two four-door trucks blasted across the shallow creek, one breaking right, the other left, pinning the SUV. The doors blew open, and more men armed with assault rifles appeared, all dressed in tactical clothing full of bellowed pockets and rip-stop nylon. A man wearing a blue windbreaker held out his hand, a wallet with some type of gold badge within. He shouted, “Federal agents! Put down your weapons.”
Still on her knees, Jennifer saw the man on her left drop his rifle and raise his hands. On her right, Chris said, “Bullshit! They’re Blackhorse!”
Jennifer heard a peculiar snap in the air, a crack like a whip, and knew instantly what it was. She was one of the unfortunate few who had experienced a supersonic bullet fired at her in anger. She dove into the earth, clawing forward toward the cover of the creek bank as the men around her started firing.
She went down on her belly into the creek and began crawling as the battle raged around her, rounds snapping over her head. She reached the far bank and scrambled upwards, peeking behind her. She saw a platoon of men, much more than the single SUV that had initially pulled up, all of them armed with assault weapons and firing. She heard a noise like a drowning hamster and saw Sweetwater behind her, begging for help.
She pulled him up and said, “Don’t say a word. I give the command, and we run.”
He nodded, eyes wide.
She watched the firefight, seeing the rounds spray the dirt and hearing the puncture of sheet metal. She waited for the initial shock to wear off and the men to form some plan of attack. There was a lull in the fire and she heard shouting from the pickup trucks.
Almost time.
She heard a groan and something like a burp. She turned to find Sweetwater on his knees, throwing up. She said, “Get ready.”
Sweetwater nodded, a sickly look on his face and a string of bile hanging from his lip to the ground.
The men in the truck all rotated forward and she knew what was coming. The first round cracked and she shouted, “Now!”
She began scrambling on her belly as fast as she could, knowing all the men would be focused on the fight. She went as far as she could on her stomach, then raised herself to her elbows, clawing the dirt and flying forward. Eventually, she rose into a bear-crawl and kept going. She looked behind her and saw the firefight a hundred feet away. She rose to a crouch and heard a noise. She whipped to her left and was surprised to see Sweetwater still with her. She stood up and started running.
They were fifty yards out, the sound of the fight behind them, when they heard the thump of the rotor blades.
Chapter 8
I crawled into the lowest terrain I could find, scrambling under a patch of scrub and held up fast, knowing that movement would expose me quicker than anything else. The helicopter lifted off from the other side of the bunker, a Bell 407, and came screaming across the terrain, skimming much faster than was necessary before it reached a good flight altitude. Apparently, it was going somewhere in a hurry.
The rotor wash passed over me, and I was glad for my choice of attire. Jennifer always complained that I dressed like I was going to get shot at on a daily basis, but today it had paid off. Had I been wearing some fashionable spandex jeans and a froo-froo shirt, I’d have been caught dead to rights. I would have to remember to tell her that.
When I saw her.
I waited a bit, then began crawling forward again. It was slow going. A sniper stalk. When most people think of a sniper mission, they think of the shot. The single commando on a patch of rock pulling the trigger on some general from a mile away. That was true, but that wasn’t the heroic part. Getting to the patch of rock was what separated the men from the boys. Anyone with a modicum of skill could take the shot. Very few could get in position.
I snaked forward, moving about a meter every minute, getting closer and closer to the bunker building. I saw men outside, milling about and smoking. Apparently, Aegis followed federal rules on tobacco. I waited until they went back inside and continued.
When the bunker building was fifty meters away, I studied it. Mostly concrete, it had no windows that I could see, and had ramps leading down as if most of the building was underground. The primary entrance was composed of utilitarian metal doors with a new, state-of-the-art access badge panel. When nothing interesting happened, I veered toward the hangar, doing my little lizard crawl through the brush.
I got close enough to see the rust on the old sliding hangar doors, like castle gates. Giant things, they gave off a sense of history that could have been Cold War majestic, but now were resigned to hiding some research project I wanted to see. The hangar was big enough for a blimp, but I doubted that’s what Aegis was involved in. Just above the rust was a balcony with a string of windows. I saw a man exit a door, walking on the corrugated metal and talking on a phone. He was agitated, waving his arms in the air.
I waited, seeing what he would do.
He punched the rail, shouted into the phone again, then hung up. He put both hands on the balcony and stared into the sky.
I heard the blades coming back.
I was now within fifty feet of the old alert tarmac and had nothing to hide me from the air but dirt. I was hidden from observation on the ground—and even the balcony, as I had some scrub in front of me—but I’d be easily seen by anyone looking down from the helicopter. I began clawing away from the hangar as fast as I could, snaking my way backwards and desperately trying to find a bit of cover. I saw a snarl of some sort of agave plant and curled around it just as the blades broke over me. I willed myself invisible.
The helicopter landed right in front of the hangar, the rotor wash bathing me in dirt. I closed my eyes and let it settle, praying I hadn’t been seen. I heard the pilot cut power and the blades wind down. I snuck a peek, expecting to see a squad of men running toward me. What I saw was A.J. Sweetwater exit the helicopter.
Followed by Jennifer.
At first, I didn’t believe my eyes, but it was true. Jennifer and Sweetwater were being led into the hangar by a guy with a gun. Definitely not guests.
What in the world?
I watched them enter a door on the right of the hangar and disappear. I sat in the heat, thinking. What the hell was I supposed to do now? Call Kurt? Call the police? Call the A team?
One thing was for sure: I couldn’t do anything from here. I needed to get outside the threat. Needed to come up with a plan. I was almost positive the gunslingers weren’t going to bring any harm to Jennifer or Sweetwater inside the facility. If they had wanted to hurt them, they could have done it at any time, landing the helicopter in the middle of the desert. The fact that they’d brought them here meant they weren’t going to kill them.
Unless the pilot didn’t have the authority to do anything.
Maybe he chickened out and punted to higher command. Maybe they’re going to kill them right now, then order the pilot to dump the bodies.
My back-crawl had made it within striking distance of the front gate when my indecisiveness was cut short by an SUV coming down the fence line on patrol. It circled the far side of the alert tarmac and headed my way. Not a big threat, as I could tuck into the earth and let it roll right by. Or I could use it to get me into the base, Indiana Jones–style.
Fucking crazy.
But not stupid.
I let the vehicle get within fifty meters and made my decis
ion. I stood up.
The SUV swerved, then hit the gas, driving straight at me. I acted disoriented. It slammed on the brakes and a man stormed out, screaming, “This is private property!”
He had a pistol on his hip, but hadn’t drawn it. I said, “Private property? This is a US Air Force Base. I’m allowed here. I’m a US citizen.”
He took a look at my disheveled appearance, dirt on my clothes, and relaxed, glancing at his partner. He said, “You can’t be here.”
I said, “Why not? I’m looking for UFOs. And you bastards are hiding them.”
He snickered and said, “There aren’t any UFOs here. Get in the truck old man.”
Which hurt more than he could know. The asshole was maybe twenty-five, and it wasn’t like I was using a walker. Something I’d be glad to show him in the next thirty seconds.
I got in the back, behind the driver, seeing a Blackhorse Tactical sticker on the window. I said, “Can you guys take me back to Roswell?”
The driver said, “We’ll take you back to the front gate, but first you’re going to tell us how you got in here.”
The other man closed my door and began circling to the passenger seat, going the long way around the bed of the truck. Leaving me alone, in the back seat behind the driver, free to do what I wanted.
Some security.
I snaked my arm around his head and cinched it into his neck, choking him out while the other man was still walking around to the passenger door. By the time he had opened it, I had the driver’s pistol out. I said, “On your knees.”
His eyes as wide as dinner plates, his hands in the air, he dropped, squeaking out, “You’ll regret this.”
