"Mines and tunnels, soon to be an assistant director for the Geology Department. I get my master's in three weeks from the Colorado School of Mines."
"Think you'll stay in after you get your commission?"
"I believe so; I love the Group, but may be a tad intimidated going back out into the real army as a second lieutenant."
McIntire smiled and looked into Jack's eyes and was about to ask if he wanted to order something to eat, when the speakers tucked away in the far corners of the cafeteria cut her off.
"Will Discovery Team Odin report to the briefing room please? Discovery Team Odin to briefing," the computerized voice interrupted them.
Sarah lowered her eyes when the call came. Her team name was Hokkaido. The name had never once been called outside of drills since she'd begun at the Event Group.
Jack stood and pushed his chair back when he heard the code name of the advance Discovery team.
"If you have need for a geologist or a tunnel team, think of me and my geology team, will you? We're good, Major, we'd be an asset," she said, saving Collins the embarrassment of asking her out.
Jack noticed the sad smile and said, "Will do," and winked. "And, Sarah, if you weren't good, I doubt you'd be here."
Sarah watched him hurry through the double doors of the cafeteria and suddenly realized what the call for the Discovery team meant.
"I'll be damned, they found the crash site," she mumbled to no one but herself. She glanced around the cafeteria at cooks hurriedly making up box lunches and throwing together coffee for the Discovery team to take into the field. How she wished she could be going out there with them.
TWENTY-TWO
Gus jumped when Mahjtic suddenly sprang from the bed and ran to the window opposite the door. The quick movement had to have caused great pain in the small being's body.
"What in the sam hell are you doin'?" Gus asked, getting to his feet.
Mahjtic had almost ripped the blind away and was gazing outside into the night through the dirty window. The bald head turned first to the left, then quickly to the right, and its eyes were wider than normal. It first growled low under its breath, then became quiet again as it searched the area around the small house.
Gus had given his visitor one of his old white shirts (white when Lyndon Johnson had been president anyway) after the small alien had finished eating. The shirt was overly large and was bunched around its small, slender feet, and Gus saw the movement of the cloth as the small alien trembled. Its long, strange fingers were gripping the sill tightly as it watched the darkness outside.
"What's eatin' you, son?"
Mahjtic continued to scan the dark night, head moving to a spot, looking intently for a moment, then moving on to another area in the darkness. Again it moved its head and looked toward the pen where Gus had kept Buck, and the chicken coop that sat beside it. Then it finally turned away and glanced back at Gus.
"Maybe you heard that damn mule coming back."
The large lids slid closed from the side of its head as it blinked again. That strange tilt of the head followed. "Buck-kkk," it said in that cottony, buzz-sounding voice, trying to pronounce the word correctly.
"He's my mule," he finally said, then added quickly, "and my friend."
"He...is lost from... this... home?" Mahjtic asked, turning from the window.
Gus didn't know if not having the headaches and nose bleeds was worth the terrible noise of the alien's real voice. It was like scraping your fingernails across a chalkboard.
"Shit, Buck boy knows that damn desert better'n I do. Nah, he's not lost"
Mahjtic turned back to the four-paned window. It brought its hand to its bandaged head and touched it gingerly as its head turned left, then right, scanning the scrub and desert outside.
"The Destroyer is hunting"
The old man turned his eyes away from the window and looked at his strange guest, ignoring the pain its words caused. "You mean to say somethin's huntin' Buck?" Gus asked with raised eyebrows.
The small alien closed its eyes. The smooth nose twitched once, then it opened its eyes again and looked at the old man. "Destroyer hunts" it said in its irritatingly gravelly voice, then pointed at Gus, and then its long finger turned and pointed at itself.
"And just what is this Destroyer?" the old man asked, walking slowly away from the window.
Mahjtic silently went back to the old bed and crawled up its height and sat down. Its small, three-toed feet dangled two and half feet off the floor as it looked from the old man to the window.
"Aneemal," it said, mispronouncing the word. "Destroyer is an aneemal."
Gus went to the table and sat in one of the two chairs. He put both elbows on his knees and looked at Mahjtic.
"Never heard of no Destroyer, Matchstick."
It looked at Gus and tilted its head. "Maaaa-hJ-tiiic," it said, pronouncing its name phonetically and far more slowly.
The old man heard the correction and the indignant way it was said, but ignored it.
Mahjtic shook its head, then sat up and turned to the window above the bed and pushed the blind aside. "Mine animal... my animal," it corrected. "It is my animal captured for... work... other worlds, it is not from this... place?" It thought a moment. "It is not of Earth...It...not meant for your--world."
"You mean you let an animal loose from your spaceship or somethin'?"
The small head shook back and forth quickly. "Mahjtic not hurt life here. Destroyer escapes."
"You're savin' this thing, this Destroyer, is dangerous?" Then Gus felt stupid for asking if something called the Destroyer was dangerous.
The head bobbed up and down, up and down, still looking away from Gus and staring into the darkness outside. "It is danger, danger your world."
"That one animal brings all this danger? Then he better stay out of East Los Angeles," Gus said as a small joke.
Mahjtic looked away from the window and into Gus's eyes, confused. "Forty and eight units, danger, forty-eight units of time from when..." It was trying to think of the right word. "I... I... boom ship... crash in ship,... forty-eight... hours?"
"Why forty-eight hours?" he asked, not just a little nervously.
"Babies come."
"I don't follow you."
Mahjtic squeezed its eyes closed in exasperation. "Men come here, the mountain, tomorrow, maybe? Men help Mahjtic and Gus when sun comes again?"
"If you're askin' if the cops or army will be coming here, I don't know. In my experience the army sometimes can be a day late and a dollar short, and the cops will probably give you a ticket for crashin' your ship."
Mahjtic opened its eyes and looked at the old man long and hard. Then it slid from the bed and walked slowly toward Gus. It placed its small right hand on the table and looked at its host with its obsidian eyes. It tilted the large lightbulb-shaped head and concentrated, saying the words as clearly as its voice would allow it.
"The Destroyer has babies in ten more of your time hours. We need the many people of your species that will come to look for ship. When they find my ship, these mens will have to help find Destroyer soon, or too late, too many baby, overwhelm all life on this world. My Gray Masters live here then."
Gus blinked. The words had been pronounced slowly and clearly, even taking into account the bad quality of their vocalization.
"What makes you think the men will find your spaceship; maybe we should just walk into town and call for help."
"No, noooo, not in dark, never in dark. Never walk on ground in light-dark. Men will come to mountain, I feel it in here." The little green hand went to its head. "Must tell mans about Destroyer, the Talkhan, or too late your world. Some of my Master kind, the Gray ones, want planet, Gussss." It tilted its head and touched the old man's leg. "Gus will help Mahjtic?" it asked, eyes blinking.
Gus stood, the hand sliding away from his leg slowly. He felt Mahjtic's eyes on his back as he walked to the window once more and stared through the dirty panes.
"I s'pos
e I don't have much of a choice, do I?"
He turned from the window and looked at Mahjtic's downcast eyes and then shook his head.
"This is no way to impose on a new friend," he mumbled, "by extinctioning him, whatever you just said. But again I ask, I s'pose I haven't a choice, have I?"
It looked up and the small mouth formed the wondering O shape again. "Gus help?"
"Yeah, Gus will help you, you little shit," he answered angrily, and pulled down the yellowing blinds to shut out the darkness.
"Gus help little shit" it repeated with awe. Then it thought a moment. The brow furrowed and the eyes narrowed. "Not shit, Gus, Mahjtic name not shit. What is shit?"
"Shit is what I have a sinking feeling I just stepped into, son."
TWENTY-THREE
Las Vegas, Nevada
July 9, 01.30 Hours
Staff Sergeant Will Mendenhall placed the CLOSED sign in the window and turned the neon OPEN sign off, and for the first time in years the Gold City Pawnshop was closed for business. He glanced through the large plate-glass window as the buzz of the neon ceased, then he turned to the man standing beside him.
"Okay, that does it. This has to be something big for them to need all the security personnel," he said, looking at the lance corporal.
"What do you think it is?" the young marine asked.
"I don't know, but to close this gate down for the first time in twenty-some years is definitely out of the norm. The whole complex has gone on a war footing, or at least the highest alert level I've seen here since the attacks on the Trade Center and Pentagon."
Mendenhall had had little sleep that day and didn't feel like answering too many questions. The skeleton security staff they were leaving behind to guard the gate was on his mind more than whatever alert level they were currently on.
"That does it. We have to take one of the cars in through gate one to pick up some gear and then get to the briefing."
***
Henri Farbeaux watched the black man hold the door for the smaller one. He had come to full alert when the bright red OPEN sign had been turned off, leaving the area directly in front of the shop barren of light. After the information Reese had given him about the security gate that led to the Event complex and the security team there, he had been prepared to enter and do what he needed to do. But when the lights went out, he had to think on the fly. The pawnshop claimed to be open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, so Farbeaux instinctively knew this was the moment he had waited for. He would have either the complex location or the whereabouts of the crash site.
He placed two dental swatches into his mouth and firmly set them along his jawline, puffing his jowls out to the proper thickness, and then he smiled, not only happy with his disguise, but happy that the late Mr. Reese had been so forthcoming about this magical gate into the Event Group.
Farbeaux quickly opened the car door and crossed the street. As he moved, he took a tube out of his pocket and slid his thumb into position on the top of the small object and stepped to the sidewalk, narrowly avoiding a driver who swerved out of the way at the last moment. The Frenchman clicked the small button on top of the tube. He watched as the black man walked away from the door and toward a car parked in the front of the pawnshop. The other man went to the passenger side.
"Excuse me, gentlemen," Farbeaux called in his best down-home American accent. "This town's as confusin' as Houston in a snowstorm. Can you tell me where to find the Flamingo Hotel?"
Mendenhall looked closely at the stranger. The cowboy hat was cocked at a lazy angle on the man's head and his boots were the snakeskin sort he himself yearned to buy one day.
"Yeah, it's down three blocks. You come to an overhead walkway in front of Caesars Palace, make a right there, you run right into it," he answered.
Farbeaux was close enough, but to make sure, he stepped two feet closer to the big soldier.
"Three blocks you say?"
Mendenhall opened the car door. "That's right, can't miss it, buddy."
"Well, I'll be damned; I was right there and didn't ever see any walkway." The stranger turned to face Willie and held out his hand. "Thanks a bunch, partner, wife's gonna give me hell and rub it in eight ways to Sunday."
Mendenhall hesitated a moment, then took the man's hand and shook. "No problem, buddy."
The Frenchman coupled his other hand over the black man's, lightly pushing the button on the small tube. A fine mist of hydrochlorinolphysiline filmed the top of Mendenhall 's hand. It was nontoxic and dried immediately with no odor or color. The man never knew he had been "tagged" by a substance that could be tracked by the molecule-sized plutonium abstract that had entered the pores of his skin. A Centaurus satellite would relay the information to a ground station, actually a small backpack-sized unit sitting in Farbeaux's car that Centaurus didn't know he had taken from company stores before he left L.A. The amount of chemical would only be enough to track, and the big black man would feel nothing other than the smallest of headaches. It would be four hours before the abstract wore off, and Farbeaux hoped this man didn't fully shower until he got to the Event complex or, better still, the crash site.
Farbeaux released the sergeant's hand and nodded once. "You gentlemen have a good night and thanks again."
The two men climbed into the car and never gave the well-dressed cowboy another thought.
He walked back and opened the car door and sat behind the wheel. He removed the mustache and dental wadding and tossed them and the cowboy hat into the backseat. As he did this, his secure phone started to ring, but Farbeaux ignored it. It was his secure line, so it had to be Hendrix wondering about his second team of missing men. Or maybe he had found them, Farbeaux thought. No matter, he was hot on the trail of the Event Group and the ultimate prize, a whole new technology to be sold off.
"Now, Senator Lee, make my year and tell me you have the saucer."
Nellis AFB, Nevada
July 9, 01.35 Hours
Jack, Niles, Lee, and Alice were in the Group's command room located just below the main conference room. Maps of southeast Arizona lay spread on the massive planning board. Alice was furiously scribbling notes and writing down directives delivered by Collins for his planning of the Discovery phase of the operation.
"Now, when do I let the rest of the Discovery team in on what we are really looking for?" Jack asked, looking from Niles to Lee.
"Hopefully never," Niles said.
"I'm not one who likes putting people's lives at stake by not giving them the full story. Their thoughts on-site could be very valuable," Jack said as he straightened up from the map table.
"What we suspect can never become general knowledge, even among our own people, Jack. The mere thought of some race of beings trying to wipe us out would run like a cancer through the Group. We have duties here that need to be done. If the animal is dead, I want all our people concentrating on their jobs, not what's coming next." Lee looked up from the maps.
Collins saw that the old man was speaking slowly, with a drooping mouth on his left side, as if part of the muscles in his mouth were failing. The white shirt was unbuttoned at the top and his silver hair was shooting off in different directions. Jack looked at Alice, who sat stock-still while taking the briefing notes. A few minutes before they'd started the breakdown and logistics needed for this mission, Jack had informed Niles, the senator, and Alice about the connection with Farbeaux, Centaurus, and Genesis. Lee had had his worst fears confirmed about another element operating inside this country. That they now knew it had to have been these people who had eliminated the Group's team back in '47 only underscored the fear that this company, Centaurus, was operating with impunity.
"If I have even an inkling of evidence that this animal has survived the crash, I will immediately inform not only the initial Discovery team, but anyone who comes on-site what we may be up against. There can be no negotiation on that fact," Jack said, looking from face to face. "I have never kept troops in the dark or lied to th
em about what they're up against. I hope I'm clear and you back me on that. I've had some experience with people above me not giving my men and myself a clear picture of what we were up against, and it always turns out bad."
"You have my word, Jack. If it's alive, you have permission to inform everyone."
They were interrupted by a knock on the door. Niles called out and Commander Everett entered and held out a file folder to Jack.
"The Discovery team is assembled and waiting with the exception of Mendenhall and Jackson, who will join us at the airfield."
"Thank you, Mr. Everett, we'll be right in." Jack took the file folder.
Everett left the command room and closed the door. Jack turned and faced the three expectant faces.
"I explained earlier about Centaurus and Genesis. Now I think you should know who is behind them. But I believe you already have guessed. We had this package made up for you and just received it back from photo recon." Jack handed Lee the red-bordered Eyes Only file. He dipped his head and left the command room to brief his team.
Lee turned the file over and peeled away a red piece of tape and reached in and took out first the hard copy of the report Jack had already covered with him. This he handed to Alice. Then he pulled the blowups and computer-enhanced prints from the file. He looked at the first photo of a dark-haired man taken at a banquet. The only indication he recognized the face in the foreground was the momentary widening of his good eye.
"Now that's a face I never thought to see again," Lee said as he handed the picture over for Alice to see. "It has to be his son."
After a moment, Lee removed the last picture from the file and looked at the smiling face of the Frenchman. "Well, Jack and the boys earned their money. With this photo we have visual proof of just who it was Farbeaux's been working for all these years," he said, shaking his head. Then he sat up and looked at the picture more closely. Standing behind Farbeaux and unaware of the camera, die same as the Frenchman, was a face that Lee knew. He lowered the picture and closed his eye.
Event (event group thrillers) Page 27
