"What's wrong?" Alice asked.
Lee opened his eye and looked at her and handed her the last picture.
"Farbeaux?" she asked.
"No, not him, the rather tall gentleman standing behind him."
"Oh, God, is that the president?"
Lee didn't say anything.
"You mean the president knows Hendrix?" Compton asked as he took the picture and looked at it.
Jack had confirmed what Lee had suspected for fifty years or more, that their enemy from the time of the Roswell Incident to the present wasn't a foreign agency, but the mythical Men in Black who had always been but a rumor. It was now highly likely that their foe was a privately held company that existed with the help of some of the federal agencies, at least initially in the company's earlier formation hi the forties and fifties. The Centauras Corporation, and the think tank Jack mentioned, the Genesis Group, also led by Hendrix, were the people who sat in judgment on how to exploit the finds and discoveries they had gleaned from the crash wreckage they had stolen almost sixty years ago.
"Let's keep this knowledge to ourselves for a bit, shall we? We don't know how deep the connection goes between Centauras and the president. After all, it was a Washington event and the president was a young senator then, no crime in his being there. I suspect that maybe it's only certain elements that are assisting this corporation and not the entire federal community. I couldn't believe that the president would be an accomplice in this. But still"--Lee smiled-- "let's not take any chances."
Alice and Niles knew the look in Lee's eye. He was thinking about how to turn the situation in their favor.
"What do you think, Niles, did we find the saucer in time?" the old man asked tiredly, gladly changing the subject.
Niles stared at the far wall for a moment. Then he turned and removed his glasses and slid them into his pocket.
"I think I took too damn long to find it, Senator," he answered, walking toward the door.
Alice patted Garrison on the hand as they watched Niles leave the room to make his way to the briefing.
"Niles is too hard on himself," Alice said, "but Lord help us if he's right."
Lee used his cane to stand up; Alice quickly stood herself to help him into the briefing.
"I suspect we may need God's help, because for some reason I think it's going to happen this time around," he stated flatly. "Too damn many things happened differently, too many variables." He lightly took hold of Alice's arm. "And if the worst has indeed taken place, then God may be the only one who can stop it. Get the president and get Niles back in here. We'll find out real quick if the commander in chief is someone else's friend and not just ours, because we need to get Jack some help in securing that valley. Start working on a cover story for the army to move on. But make it one in which weapons, a lot of weapons, would be needed."
Nellis AFB, Nevada
July 9, 02.00 Hours
A Discovery team as laid down by Department 5656 protocol is an advanced team of required specialists and security personnel that will be present at the start of any field operation where security for the project and Group is of major concern. Deception to the general public is foremost to camouflage the nature of said Event.
Jack's team had gathered in the main conference room in order for the senator to observe. Jack's first brief was to Denise Gilliam, a doctor of forensic science from the University of Maine at Orono.
"Dr. Gilliam, besides your forensic duties, you will also be our field doctor. We're cutting back on initial personnel."
"But I..."
Jack shot her a look.
"Alright, I can do that," she said.
"That's exactly why I put you on the Discovery team, one person--two jobs."
Jack looked next to Josh Crollmier, a former member of the National Transportation and Safety Board, who would be serving as the crash expert.
"Mr. Crollmier, initially you will concentrate on the possibility of survivors, and you'll be starting without your team or equipment." Jack looked to the next in line after Crollmier just nodded.
"Signalman Willing," he said, looking at Lisa. "You will handle ground communications and set up video links to Nellis and Washington with your four-man COMM team. You will be issued sidearms and will double as site security until I get more people in theater, are we clear?"
"Yes, sir, we'll have COMMO up in five minutes."
"Dr. Robert Randall, you will handle the zoology aspect of the team. I know you served your time with the Group, but our zoologist is off base. In short, Doctor, it doesn't pay to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. You should never have paid a visit to the Group. Welcome aboard."
"I was drafted," he said.
"We need evidence of any life-forms that may have arrived with the vehicle ASAP. And the rest of you, don't ask," Jack said, heading off any questions about why a doc from the San Diego Zoo was coming along.
Then Collins looked at the rest of the security element of Everett, Mendenhall, Ryan, and Corporal Jackson. Everyone with the exception of Ryan had assault experience and heliocast jumps under their belt. Ryan would be backup cover along with the Blackhawk crew chiefs and gunners.
"Are two two-man teams on the ground enough?" Jason asked.
"Our initial Discovery team was kept to bare bones on my request due to continuing security concerns that have arisen in external matters outside the influence of the Group. But once we're in and secure, we'll get help on the ground. I have already initiated contact, with Dr. Compton's approval and through the office of the president, with certain elements of our armed forces, and they have been informed that they may be asked to take part in special desert operations. We can no longer wait until the last minute to have things to fall back on."
"Amen to that," Virginia Pollock said, wishing she were on the Discovery team.
"Besides the Event itself, there should be little collateral interference from the people who call the small valley home," the senator said from his seat on the couch. "There may be a few prospectors and maybe a camper or two about, but other than that, the desert should be void of onlookers."
"Okay, people, you know the plan. Site security will heliocast in first, and then we'll clear a spot for the four Blackhawks with the remaining Discovery team and equipment to land up valley from the bulk of the debris pattern. Believe me, we would have liked to have entered from outside the valley, but the slope is too steep and we just don't have the time."
The senator watched all this with a sort of sadness. Besides the anger he felt at his failing body, he knew he was meant to be on this mission. He slowly raised his right arm and motioned for Collins.
"Yes, sir?" he asked, leaning over so the senator didn't have to rise.
"Jack, I wish you would change your mind about the med team," Lee said.
Collins thought about the absence of the Group's medical team. It would be hard on any of the wounded aliens if they were found alive, but it would be just more people to get in the way if the worst-case scenario happened. "Well, sir, the medical team will be with the fifth Blackhawk just two minutes out from the site, and Dr. Gilliam can triage until the med team arrives. We will hurry the initial recon as much as possible, and if we find any of the crew still breathing, we'll get them help quickly enough."
Collins straightened and held out his hand. The old man weakly took it into his own.
Then Niles Compton approached and lightly patted Jack on the back. "Wish I were going with you, Jack."
Collins looked at Lee a moment longer, then turned to face the tired eyes and worn body of Director Compton. "Niles, for as short a time as I've known you, you've done the most god-awful amount of work I've ever seen. You need to rest and let us handle some of the load now. The president placed several calls out to contacts of mine in the private sector; Aberdeen Proving Grounds is one of them. They're going to send out a few items they've been working on that may help us out here. Some cutting-edge technology couldn't hurt. Also the army is send
ing some state-of-the-art body armor our way that the CIA higher-ups have hijacked for us, and it should arrive in the morning. I hope we won't need it, but... anyway, that's what you can do now, Niles, make sure we get this stuff ASAP. Until then, rest."
Jack reached out and shook Compton's hand, then turned and ushered the rest of the Discovery team out through the door. The first response to an attack of extraterrestrial origin was now operational.
TWENTY-FOUR
Ten Miles South of Chatos Crawl, Arizona
July 9, 0230 Hours
The beast was once again aboveground. Its hunger was sated for the time being and it had even more nourishment stored deep in the earth at its nesting site. Now it was watching its new surroundings. The animal saw the lights in the distance and blinked as it licked the area between its claws. The millions of pores in its purple and black armored skin took in the scent of more prey. Its body was adapting faster each time it fed on the strange and rich proteins. It was becoming much stronger.
It would use its nest soon to drop its young. They would be born already acclimated to this world.
The beast suddenly looked across the desert at the distant lights. The enticing aroma of food was carried by the warm wind from the north.
The beast then leisurely moved its claws to the ground and gently leaned forward. The armored plates on its neck spread and its throat started producing die hum from the concave voice box, bounding it off the animal's palate. The sound, unheard by man or animal, rippled the sand and dirt, once again changing the atomic dynamic of the soil. Then the beast gently dove into the earth. The scent of prey had been much too strong for it to ignore.
Every few minutes the Destroyer would rise from the ground as a dolphin would from the sea, bursting into the air fifteen and sometimes twenty feet in height to scan the area, then letting its massive weight send it back into the soil, and soon it was again parting the dirt in a massive wave as it drew nearer to its next food source, eventually going deep.
The small town in the distance was sleeping, oblivious to the threat and notoriety coming its way, as it would soon be on every news channel the world over as the beast had chosen the earth directly below the town as its nesting site.
The name of Chato's Crawl, Arizona, was about to become synonymous with the word terror.
The Superstition Mountains
Discovery Team Odin (Ground Assault)
The three Blackhawks were flying at terrain level. The collision-avoidance radars were on and running, freeing the pilot to stare in abject horror as the computers adjusted flight to avoid objects that loomed ahead through the windshield. Warrant Officer Jerry Brannon didn't care for the "hands-off" approach to piloting. He had been with the Event Group twelve years. Flying with your hands poised over the control collective of the huge helicopter was one thing he couldn't get used to doing. Technology, he reasoned with a pilot's mentality, sucked. He watched the collective, which was the control attached to his left that looked like an emergency brake. You twisted the throttle at the end and lifted if you wanted to go higher, or lowered it if you wanted to go down. Right now, looking at it operate itself was nerve-racking.
He glanced out the windshield at the passing terrain. The greenish image in the night-vision scope was eerily magical as it brought the desert to life around the streaking helicopter.
"Coming up on crash site in four minutes," he radioed back to his passengers.
The crew and security aspect of the Discovery team felt the sudden shift in the Blackhawk's powerful twin turbines, and the steep climb it had to adjust to as the black-painted helicopter flew up the mountainside. The three other Blackhawks of the Discovery team peeled away and would hover at station just below the valley above. Collins felt the slight slowing of forward momentum, then Brannon flipped on the anticollision lights, which cast a red strobe-light effect against the coarse terrain of piled-up rocks that passed for mountains in this region of Arizona, the Superstitions.
Collins felt the old adrenaline rush of landing in an LZ again. The interior lights flashed once, then went to red to allow the advance team's eyes to adjust better to the darkness. Mendenhall, on Jack's orders, loaded and locked his M16. Mendenhall watched as all elements of his short-manned squad followed suit as they too inserted a twenty-round magazine and pulled back the charging slide on their automatic rifles. The indicators on the weapons remained on safe. Lisa had a nine-millimeter automatic pistol in a shoulder holster, as did Jason Ryan, who had been surprised to learn that Collins had included him on the Discovery team. After all, he was a pilot and knew nothing of ground assault or the tactics members of this team used. But Jack had explained he needed people who reacted quickly, and he knew naval fighter pilots were quick-thinking and weren't afraid of taking chances. He was quite comfortable with assigning Ryan duties on the initial team and later for duty in town. He knew Ryan would have the personality to handle civilians in the initial stages.
The Blackhawk had two sliding-bracket-mounted, five-barrel, mini-rotary cannons on each side, manned by two crewmen wearing night-vision eyewear. The hoppers to their left were full of the rounds that could tear into any target and shred it before it heard the noise of the electrically driven weapon.
The powerful UH-60 Blackhawk slowed, then came to a stop still a hundred feet off the debris field and automatically held position.
"Going to manual flight, people, you are a go for egress. Good luck," Brannon called over the radio, then turned the red interior light off.
"Okay, watch your descent; don't land on anything if you can avoid it. We don't know what to expect down there," Collins shouted against the whine created by the twin turbines. "Are we ready?"
One by one his four-man security team gave the thumbs-up and answered into their built-in mikes, "Good to go!"
Collins slid the door back on its track, filling the compartment with a blast of cool desert air. He pulled his night-vision goggles down and adjusted the Kevlar helmet on his head. He also adjusted the harness holding extra magazines and water, then kicked out the first of four ropes, two on each side of the helicopter. They would make it a combat heliocast into an unsecured area; it would be as fast as you could do it, in the safest amount of time.
"Okay, let's go."
He grabbed the rope on the steel extension arm that was four feet beyond the open door, then fed the rope into the metal ring just below where his belly button would be, then turned and faced the inside of the compartment to the opposite side of the Blackhawk. Mendenhall mirrored his leader's movements exactly. Then they both pushed off at the same time. Everett and Jackson followed a second later. Up front, Brannon prepared to bring the power down a touch to keep the Blackhawk level due to the loss of weight.
The four men slowed their descent on the thick rubber-encased-nylon ropes as they approached the debris field. They came to a stop fifteen feet from the ground and let their eyes roam the area where each would set down. The drop zone was strangely cast in the green glow one never really got used to when using the ambient-light devices the military had developed for night operations.
Collins released pressure on both hands and traveled the rest of the way to the ground, narrowly missing a four-foot piece of strangely shaped metal. He quickly released the rope and unsnapped himself from the ring, then tossed the rope to the side and brought the short-barreled M16 up from his belly pack. Jack clicked the indicator from safety to semiautomatic and watched as Mendenhall followed suit, placing his weapon from safety to full automatic, as the second part of one team.
Collins then felt the huge Blackhawk increase power and rise back into the sky. Brannon was good and quick. He had watched the heliocast until its conclusion and hadn't waited for the all-clear before lifting the bird back up to a safe altitude so he could circle close enough to give the ground team cover fire if needed.
The major adjusted the small microphone to about an inch from his mouth. His voice would carry not only to his ground team and the helicopter, but a
lso to the Group in Nevada. "All right, ladies, spread out and keep your eyes open?"
Everett and Lance Corporal Jackson were teamed and walked side by side, weapons at eye level, sweeping the area before them. Carl couldn't believe the amount of wreckage before him. As he turned and scanned the area behind his team, he saw Collins turn over a big container, then move on. He thought nothing of it until he saw him repeat the same thing to another strangely shaped box. As he turned, wondering what Collins was up to, he didn't see the hole. The next thing Everett knew the ground gave way, and if it weren't for his quick reflexes, he would have fallen all the way. As it was, he was hanging on by his elbows. His M16 had come up and given him a good whack on the chin, putting a good two-inch gash just to the left along his jawline. He felt his feet swinging below him and knew immediately it was a deep crevasse he had almost stumbled into.
"Some help here," he called calmly into his voice-activated microphone.
Jackson quietly ran over and saw what was happening. He let his weapon fall by the strap to his belly pack and moved his hands to Everett's armpits and lifted. Once he was out of the hole, they both looked down into the black maw in amazement.
"Old mine shaft, you think?" Jackson asked.
"No," Everett answered, looking closer at the dirt and sand with the night-vision scope. "Look at the dirt piled around the top, this was dug recently."
As they stared into the deep excavation, they saw it was smooth around the sides and went straight down. Everett broke a fluorescent nightstick and tossed it into the hole. Through the green-tinted limits of their vision the light told them it curved off somewhere around forty feet or so. They wondered why this hole was here right in the middle of the crash site. As they thought about the strangeness of it, both glanced around and brought their M 16s up with renewed enthusiasm.
Gus's Cabin
03.20 Hours
Gus was sound asleep. His snoring was loud and had kept Mahjtic on edge, and the pain wasn't helping it either. But far more than Gus's snoring or the pain in its ribs was the fact it knew the small house was being watched. Mahjtic's eyes were wide as it pulled the old blanket up to its small chin as it heard a shuffling noise outside.
Event (event group thrillers) Page 28
