Extinction Machine jl-5

by Jonathan Maberry

  In the ensuing silence, Church focused all his considerable personality on Junie.

  “Ms. Flynn,” he said, “we know that your source never made it to Congress. What happened to him?”

  “They got him,” she said.

  “Who got him?” asked Church. “Specifically who?”

  “The Closers.”

  “And they are?”

  “Most people call them the Men in Black.”

  Chapter Fifty-three

  The Harbor District

  Baltimore, Maryland

  Sunday, October 20, 10:25 a.m.

  The black Yukon drove at a sedate speed past the long double chain-link fence that bordered the street side of Cobbler Records Storage. At the corner, they made a turn and drove away, tucked into traffic, hiding in plain sight.

  “Okay,” said Aldo, “so that’s where it is. We could have seen it on the Ghost Box. There are pigeon drones all over the place.”

  Tull shrugged. “It’s always better to put eyes on something. Hard to tell about architecture and building materials from a video feed, and the building plans are no longer on public record.”

  “Church pulled them?”

  “He made them disappear,” said Tull.

  “Driving past the place is a piss-poor substitute for a blueprint.”

  “Not always,” said Tull. “And not in this case.”

  Chapter Fifty-four

  Turkey Point Lighthouse, Elk Neck State Park

  Cecil County, Maryland

  Sunday, October 20, 10:28 a.m.

  Dr. Hu said, “So you’re telling us that Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones abducted the president of the United States.”

  Junie gave him an arctic glare. The fact that she was taking a quick dislike to Hu made me like her even more.

  “Yes, Doctor,” she said icily, “we’ve all seen the movies, ha-ha, but in the real world the Closers are anything but wise-cracking heroes protecting us from the scum of the universe.”

  “Then who do you think they are?” asked Church.

  “They claim to be government agents.”

  And suddenly I thought about the four goons I met today. Four men in black suits claiming to be government agents. Church’s eyes flicked toward mine for a millisecond. He was right there with me.

  “They show up after significant UFO sightings or crashes,” said Junie. “That’s been happening since Roswell. They harass and even sometimes threaten witnesses.”

  “What kinds of threats?” asked Rudy.

  “It varies,” she said, crossing her arms under her breasts. “Sometimes they threaten to arrest people on the grounds of national security. Sometimes they hint that ‘accidents’ might happen if the witness doesn’t stop talking. Sometimes their threats are very direct.”

  Rudy frowned. “Threatening physical harm?”

  “Threatening to kill witnesses. Or the families of witnesses.”

  “Has anyone actually been harmed?” Rudy asked.

  “There are several cases in there about people who have been brutally beaten. Some people have gone missing. And there have been a number of unexplained or unexpected deaths of witnesses. Car accidents, heart attacks, cancer, viruses, street muggings … all sorts of things.”

  “Bug?” murmured Church.

  “Already on it. Compiling a list now.”

  “Have the Closers ever taken a run at you?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “I’ve never actually witnessed anything. Wish I could say otherwise. God, I’d give anything to know … to really and truly know.”

  “I thought you were a believer.”

  “The Pope believes in Jesus,” she said, “but I bet he’d like to actually meet him.”

  Everyone smiled at that. Even Hu.

  “True,” I admitted.

  “Who do you think the Closers are, Ms. Flynn?” asked Church. “And what do you think they’re trying to accomplish?”

  “I have theories, but that’s all they are. They claim to be from the Air Force, the CIA, or the FBI. Andrew Meyers, who used to be a major voice in UFO research, believed that these men are really members of the Air Force Special Activities Center, based in Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and working under operational authority of Air Force Intelligence Command centered at Kelly Air Force Base in Texas.”

  “Bug,” said Church.

  “On it,” Bug replied.

  “This guy, Meyers,” asked Rudy, “you said he used to be a major voice. Did he die?”

  “No. He retired from UFO research. No one seems to know why.”

  Before anyone could say anything, Bug said, “On it.”

  “You said that this was Meyers’s theory. What’s yours?”

  She said, “I think the Closers work for Majestic Three.”

  “Which could connect what happened this morning in Baltimore to this case,” said Church.

  Junie turned suddenly toward me. “The men who attacked you were Closers? How come you didn’t say that?”

  “I didn’t know who they were,” I protested. “I still don’t. As much as it pains me to say it, Junie, there are a lot of people who would like to see me dead.”

  Barely under his breath, Hu said, “And some of them work with you.”

  “Ms. Flynn,” interrupted Rudy. “What exactly happened to your ‘source’?”

  “He was in a car accident on the George Washington Parkway. His car was run off the road into an oncoming truck. He and his wife were both burned to death in the wreck.”

  “Whoa,” I said, “there’s a pretty significant median between opposing lanes.”

  “Not down by the foot of the Mount Vernon Trail, off the ramp from the Curtis Memorial Parkway,” said Junie, and it took me a moment to recall that part of the highway.

  I nodded. “Okay, but that’s a dangerous road, though, accidents happen all the time.”

  Junie gave another shrug.

  “So,” said Rudy slowly, “it’s your belief that your source systematically made a copy of the Black Book, and when M3 found out about it they sent these Closers to arrange a fatal traffic accident.”

  “Yes.”

  Bug asked, “Do you have any idea who might have a copy of the Black Book? I mean … Do you know the names of the current members of M3?”

  “Or any previous members?” I added.

  Junie laughed. “I’ve spent the last ten years of my life trying to figure that out. I have a list of about a hundred possibles. A lot of those names are going to be on the list of industrialists profiting from radical technologies your Mr. Bug is compiling.”

  “She called me Mr. Bug,” said Bug, apparently to himself.

  “Do any names stand out for you?” asked Church, and I knew that this was the key question. Church asked it casually because we didn’t yet know how far we could trust Junie Flynn, or how deep her true knowledge ran. If she was, after all this, just a conspiracy theory nut, then any guess she made could be worthless. Or, if she was as well informed as she claimed, then she might have what we needed. Either way we didn’t want to spook her. This all had to be done right the first time.

  Junie thought about it and then gave Church a careful nod. “There are seven living people that are on my ‘most likely’ list. They are Ernest Foster Gould of Gould Cybersystems; Charles Osgood Harrington III, Harrington Aeronautics, Harrington-Cheney Petrochemicals, Harrington and Mercer Fuel Oil Company; Rebecca Milhaus, president of Brantley-Milhaus-Cooper Aviation and wife of H. Carlton Milhaus, CEO of Milhaus and Berk Publishing; Howard Shelton, owner and CEO of Shelton Aeronautics; Reese Sunderland of Sunderland Biological and Sunderland Integrated Systems; Joan Bell-Pullman of MicroTek International; and David Robinette of Robinette Development Associates.”

  My breath caught in my throat and I cut a sharp look at Church. All of those names were well known to us. Laboratories, computer systems, and factories of every single one of them had been targeted by the cyber-attacks. Church gave me a tiny shake of his head. For now he didn’
t want that information shared with Junie Flynn.

  I think she caught something though, because her eyes darted from me to Church; however, Church asked her, “Is it your belief that one or more of these people are members of M3?”

  Junie shook her head. “No, I think that all the current members of M3 are probably on that list, and maybe one or two former members.”

  “Please explain.”

  “It’s circular logic,” she said. “In almost any industry, most companies develop products in a kind of dead heat. Company A might bring out a new widget that seems to be ahead of the market, but looking back you can see that it’s a natural step in the progression of research and development. Companies B and C tear that product apart to find what their own R and D missed, but they’re so close behind already that they can get a competing product out in the same calendar year. Look at the cell phone business and you see what I mean. The Samsung-Apple court case is a prime example.”

  Church nodded.

  “But every once in a while someone comes along with a product that is a radical jump,” continued Junie. “It’s so innovative that it’s freaky, and even if you take it apart and look at the science you can’t backtrack it to any kind of developmental process. It appears to be the result of an intuitive design leap.”

  “Right,” I said. “So?”

  “So, sometimes it’s only that. Someone has a dream about a new kind of widget and it’s nothing more than a true flash of intuition. However, the seven people on this list have done this time and again. They’re not doing it in ways that clearly build off each other’s research. The products are in totally different areas, as if they have agreed not to compete with one another. That’s not normal, and those design jumps definitely aren’t. An intuitive leap is really rare. It might make a fortune for a company, that’s happened plenty of times, but it’s usually going to be in a single area. Even if that kicks off a new avenue of design philosophy, it’s still a single line. The people on this list seem to be able to come up with patents for radical jumps in a lot of different areas of technology. Military and private sector stuff. Big jumps, where there’s no backtrack at all. Nothing.”

  “Unless,” I said, feeding her the prompt she wanted.

  “Unless he’s drawing on another source,” she confirmed.

  “Like the Majestic Black Book?” said Church.

  “Right. It’s more than just a catalog of parts. The Black Book has measurements, weights, schematics, information on material composition, stuff like that. It also has a complete list of the ACL.”

  “Isn’t that a ligament in the knee?” I asked.

  “Alien Code Language,” explained Bug. “Don’t you ever watch Nat Geo?”

  “I watch the Dog Whisperer,” I added. Beside me, Ghost whuffed at the mention of that show. Cesar Millan was a god to him.

  Junie smiled at me. “There are symbols on most of the T-craft and on all the parts recovered from crashes. They look like the pictograms you see on Egyptian tombs. A language based on images rather than letters or words.”

  “All of that’s in the Black Book?” asked Rudy.

  “Yes. That and a catalog of all the parts. Not just from Roswell, but from every crash. There have been a number of them. Kecksburg, Tunguska, Rendlesham, other places. Some estimates say that there have been as many as sixty crashes, some of them centuries ago, maybe longer than that.”

  Bug said, “I heard there was a black market for stuff from crashes.”

  Hu made a face of complete contempt.

  “There is,” said Junie. “My source said that occasionally the governor of Acquisitions would bring in a brand-new piece, something obtained from unnamed sources. My source believed that M3 was purchasing or bartering these D-type components.”

  “If this crap really existed,” said Hu belligerently, “why the hell would anyone ever part with any of it? That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Two hammers,” said Junie.

  “What?”

  “If you have two hammers and no saw, wouldn’t you consider trading with someone else who had a saw?”

  Hu glared at her, but he didn’t attack the logic. It was too sound. He sulked instead.

  There was a brief pause as we all considered this.

  Church said, “Could you put these seven names in order of most likely, by your estimation?”

  “No. I keep rearranging that list, but I really don’t have it locked down other than I think they’re all involved in some way. Some of them are old enough to have been governors who have since stepped down.”

  “David Robinette is pretty young,” said Hu. “I’ve seen him at trade shows. He’s not even thirty-five. And he’s no scientist.”

  “He’s one of my votes of the current governor of Acquisitions.” She shrugged. “He’s a wildcard, but his family has long-standing ties to Defense Department contracts, and he goes missing for long periods of time. No one knows where.”

  “You think he’s on buying trips?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  “One more thing,” said Church, and he hit the key to bring up the picture taken by the helicopter early this morning. “What can you tell me about this image?”

  Junie didn’t even blink. “It’s a crop circle — though it looks like it’s on a lawn somewhere.”

  “Do you recognize the pattern?”

  “Of course. It’s the pi crop circle, like the one that appeared in a field in Wroughton, Wiltshire, England, in June 2008. But this isn’t that one. Where was this taken?”

  “This appeared on the White House lawn at approximately the same time the president disappeared.”

  Junie stared at him. She was surprised, but not totally shocked.

  “There seem to be a lot of theories as to what crop circles are,” said Church, “including strong evidence that many of them are faked.”

  “Sure. Doug Bower and Dave Chorley have made a bunch of the ones in England. There are companies that pay to have them made with their logos as advertising gimmicks. There have been over ten thousand of them since the early seventies. All over the world, too, and probably eighty or ninety percent of them are faked.”

  “Not all?” asked Rudy.

  “You tell me,” she challenged. “Did a couple of pranksters put that one on the White House lawn?”

  No one answered that.

  “What are they?” Rudy asked.

  “No one knows for sure, but when you see something like this one, I think that the point is pretty clear.”

  “Tell us,” encouraged Church.

  “Communication,” said Junie. “Pi is a universal constant. Pi is math, and math is immutable. It will be the same here as it will be across the galaxy. Ten plus ten equals twenty no matter where you are. Same goes for, say, geometry? A circle is always a circle and its circumference is always calculated the same way no matter where you are. The same holds true for any other geometric figure like triangles, squares, or rectangles.” Her eyes shifted to Hu. “Isn’t that right, Doctor?”

  Hu grunted something unintelligible.

  Church nodded and gave Junie a pleasant smile. “Thank you. Bug, do you have enough to begin a comprehensive pattern search on the names Ms. Flynn provided?”

  “More than enough.”

  “I’ve run those kinds of searches,” said Junie. “Hundreds of them, with all kinds of software, but I hit too many walls, and there are simply so many variables.”

  Bug laughed. So did I.

  She looked from him to me. “What?”

  “We have a pretty spiffy computer,” I said.

  “I’ve used university networked supercomputers and—”

  “And we have a pretty spiffy computer,” I repeated.

  She stared at me, her eyes imploring me to explain but she didn’t ask. She understood that I couldn’t. After a few moments she nodded, then turned to Church.

  “Mr. Church,” she said, “this — all of this — is really about stopping a disaster? About savi
ng the country?”

  “Our country, England, and a good part of Africa.”

  “And you believe that if you get the Black Book you’ll really be able to do that?”

  “It’s our hope and belief, yes.”

  She sat there, chewing on her lip, fingers twisting nervously in her lap, clearing agonizing over a very difficult decision.

  “Maybe…,” she began hesitantly, “Maybe there’s an easier way…”

  Mr. Church opened his mouth to ask what she meant.

  Suddenly the MindReader screen went blank and then dissolved into the static of white noise.

  “Ah, crap,” I said, reaching for the controls.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Junie.

  “Looks like we lost the satellite connection. Damn it.” I tapped my earbud. “Bug, I need a new—”

  There was static in my ear, too.

  “Joe?” asked Junie, a note of doubt creeping into her voice.

  I pulled my cell.

  The display told me that there was no service.

  Junie looked down at the screen and then up at me. “Joe, what’s going on?” Doubt was turning into the first faint traces of alarm.

  Before I could say anything there was a knock on the door.

  “Must be my guys,” I said, rising and crossing the living room to reach for the knob. “Radio must be out on the Black Hawk, too.”

  But as I turned the knob I heard Ghost begin to growl. I told him to be quiet as I pulled the door open.

  Two men stood there.

  Big men. Strangers.

  Both of them were dressed in black.

  Both of them were pointing guns.

  Chapter Fifty-five

  The Warehouse

  Baltimore, Maryland

  Sunday, October 20, 10:37 a.m.

  Mr. Church sat in Joe Ledger’s leather chair and stared at the blank square of screen that moments before had held the image of Joe Ledger and Junie Flynn. Now all it showed was static.

  “Bug?” he snapped.

  “Working on it.”

  “Work faster.”

  Rudy Sanchez sat on the other side of Joe Ledger’s desk, fists balled in his lap.