"Sounds good." Bobby replied.
"Right." Joe checked his watch; it was just past nine thirty. "I'm off to the briefing; I'll see you all this afternoon."
With the SETI team set in motion, Joe set off after the President's delegation, which included the National Security Advisor, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and various other officials, many of whom looked out of place on a runway in central Paraguay in their dark business suits.
Catching up with the Chairman, Joe executed a quick salute. "General. Nice to see you again, Sir."
The four-star general shook hands with the Major. "How are you holding up?"
"Good, Sir. Things are going well. The visitors are very open on all fronts, and our relations with them are developing. I think that after the incident with the Russians we've earned their trust."
"Good." The General was striding, trying to catch up with the leading group of people trailing the President. "I've got some news that might excite you." The General smiled as he looked over at Joe. "Some people are considering promoting you to Lieutenant Colonel."
Joe was speechless. He had only made Major two years ago and planned on staying at that rank for quite some time.
"Nothing is finalised yet, but we might be able to push it through in the next few months. I know you've just made Major, but a lot of people at the Pentagon are saying we need someone with a bit more rank running the show down here, and we all know that you're the President's man."
As they approached the giant tent which held the American Command Centre, Joe waited and let the General enter first. He stood outside for a few minutes to collect his thoughts. Joe hadn't seen this development coming, but he wasn't going to complain. Weeks ago he had been another Special Forces advisor helping train foreign troops, not to mention he was in a country that didn't carry much weight around the halls of power in Washington. He had always assumed that he'd make Lieutenant Colonel just before retiring. Things were looking up. His relationship with Rhea was getting better, and things with the visitors were going very well. Add to that his new heart; he was on cloud nine.
19
In the small town of Glazov, word had reached the three Russian generals that the American President was going to be visiting the crash site later that day. Their operative within Tohil Technologies had given them a broad idea of when the US leader would visit the crash site, and seising upon the intelligence; they played their second of three cards, the Typhoon missile submarine commanded by Lieutenant General Zaytsev's young brother, Captain Second Rank Iriney Zaytsev.
Using a fifth-generation cipher machine, the trio of conspirators sent an encrypted transmission to the submarine TK17, which was currently positioned off the coast of French Guiana, ordering her captain to launch a single R-39 ballistic missile at the crash site, and with any luck, take out both the alien pestilence, and the too liberal American President.
What the trio didn't know, and would never learn, was that thirty minutes after sending the order to attack, Captain Second Rank Zaytsev was killed by a single gunshot wound to the head, fired by his executive officer who, like the rest of the crew, was not about to start a nuclear war without orders from the Kremlin. Something that Iriney had never considered.
When it became apparent that the attack on the alien spacecraft was not going to happen, the trio realised that they were down to their last card: the Spetsnaz team in New York. Major General Ferdoranko knew that Major Pullinski would not fail him. Fedoranko had handpicked the assault team that had been sent to the United States and knew that their loyalty was not in question.
Sitting down at the cypher machine, Fedoranko sent a coded transmission to a bank in the Cayman Islands that the group was using as a middleman to transfer messages to the assault team. Since the messages were coded, and the bank was unaware of contents of the message, they were not the least bit bothered when a weekly telephone call came in requesting the most recent message. Fedoranko's message was simple: proceed with a strike on target when the opportunity presents itself, no further transmissions to follow, the mission is now under your autonomous command.
Standing up from the machine, he looked over at Lieutenant General Zaytsev who was sitting in a large leather chair, slowly smoking a cigar, a look of detachment on his face. Colonel General Yaroslav looked over at Fedoranko with a pale look on his face.
"I didn't see it ending like this." Yaroslav commented.
"What? Huddled in this lousy town in the middle of nowhere?" Fedoranko barked. "We took a gamble, and it didn't pay off. We've still got Major Pullinski in play."
Zaytsev stood up, cigar in mouth and looked at the two other men. "I'm leaving."
"And going where?" Asked Yaroslav.
"Why do you care? There is nothing more that can be done."
Yaroslav couldn't believe what he was hearing. He never thought that it would get to the point when one of the senior members of the conspiracy group would want to go his own way. Fedoranko, on the other hand, agreed with Zaytsev. There was nothing more than the trio could do. Their final orders had been sent, they were out of cards to play, and they were without allies.
As the debate got more heated, and their voices raised, they failed to notice that a key had been slipped into the lock, and they didn't hear the click of the catch on the door opening. They never saw the two men who entered the room carrying PP-19 Bizon submachine guns, and no one in the building heard the noise of the suppressed weapons being fired.
The two senior Federal Security Service operatives that had been sent weren't subtle about their shooting, firing a large number of rounds into the trio of traitors. Closing the door behind them the two plain-clothed officers went to work. Laying a large duffle bag on the ground near the door, they placed all the items that the trio had brought into the bag. The most valuable item recovered was the cypher and the identification cards that the men carried. They then stripped the bodies of their clothes and cut off the hands and heads of the traitors to ensure that they could not be identified quickly, leaving huge pools of blood on the rooms carpet. The FSB had wanted the hit to look like it was mafia related. In that objective, the operatives were triumphant.
After checking the room over one last time for any missing items, the men zipped up their duffle bag, and as a final touch lit the curtains on fire. The amateurish nature of destroying their work would give credence to the suggestion that this was the work of organised crime thugs. With an intense flame developing, the two men slipped out of the room, leaving three naked, mutilated, bullet-ridden bodies. They moved down the small hallway to the rear staircase and made their way out to a waiting Lada sedan. The car was driven by the director of the FSB, who was a friend of President Pasha Konev. In total, the hit took less than ten minutes.
20
The flight aboard the VH-60N Whitehawk known as Marine One would only take 30 minutes and was a much smoother option of travel than the bumpy roads that the rest of the President's staff were suffering through. The Beast, the famed limousine of the US President, would not have ridden smoothly over the old roads of Paraguay, which was much more suited for off-road vehicles. As the helicopter raced north over the 130 miles they needed to cover to reach the crash site, there was a buzz of excitement and anticipation in the President that his staff hadn't seen since election night at the end of his first run for public office. Ever since the convoy had left the airport, he had been chatting quickly and munched on Altoids.
Riding along with the President was his National Security Advisor, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and John Riley, the head Administrator of NASA. John Riley was perhaps the only person who was more enthusiastic than the President about the prospect of meeting the visitors.
"I want to thank you again for inviting me on this trip Mr President." John gushed.
"I couldn't possibly not invite you, Mr Riley. You boys at NASA have been kept on the sidelines for too long since that ship fell out of the sky." The President replied.
Looking out of the w
indow, the President knew that while SETI had done a brilliant job establishing cordial relations with the visitors, his presence would significantly enhance the level of trust and understanding between the two cultures. Major Hunt had told the President that the visitors were well aware of the status of the United States, and how it had been American warplanes that had stopped the attack on the ship the previous month.
This visit would be the next step in cementing relations, and would hopefully give the President the opportunity to make sure that nations, and not corporations, stayed at the forefront of this discovery, because in the back of the President's mind was the lingering worry that Tohil was planning its next steps to ensure that it could monopolize the control and direction of this discovery.
As the helicopter began its descent towards the landing pad that had been set up near the Tohil Technologies facilities, the sense of excitement and anticipation inside the cabin grew as the wheels of the aircraft finally touched down on the rubber landing pad. As the passengers waited for the rotor blades to stop spinning, they undid their safety belts, and watched as a member of the flight crew emerged from the cockpit, and moved to the passenger door. Looking up to check that the blades had stopped spinning, the Marine opened the sliding door, and stepped to one side and saluted as the President left the helicopter, and stepped down onto the landing pad, which was adorned by a giant Tohil logo.
The group was met by Major Hunt who had departed the airport before the President and had Lieutenant Colonel Almada drive him back to the clearing at top speed, ensuring that he could arrive well before the President.
"Welcome to what we call Tohil Town, Mr President."
The President looked at the giant Tohil logo under his feet and surveyed the landscape. All of the buildings that had been erected had Tohil labels on them, and there was even a flagpole with a large red flag with a giant black T in the middle, which bore a striking resemblance to the Canadian flag, and gave the impression that Tohil was claiming this area in their name.
"What do you make of these Tohil people? John Robert, your thoughts?"
With the President's team trailing, the pair started to make their way towards a line of Tohil employees who had lined up outside their headquarters building. "Very sharp, Sir."
"No doubt."
"He's planning something, Mr President. Not sure what, but he's plotting." As they got closer to the Tohil employees, Joe noticed that the khaki suited Secret Service agents were sprinkled around the area, along with members of Lieutenant Colonel Almada's Special Forces team. The security perimeter that had been established around the crash site after the forced landing was still in place, along with the security fence that had been erected, probably giving the visitors the feeling that they were trapped in some form of wildlife park, which was completely devoid of animals, most of which fled the area after the crash and ensuing firefight, leaving only birds, giving the place a creepy feel to it.
Stepping out from a group of Tohil personnel waiting for the US delegation, John Robert moved towards the approaching American's. "Good afternoon, Mr President."
"Mr Robert. Excellent to meet you." The pair shook hands. "This is a very impressive set-up you've got here."
The Tohil CEO looked around the camp. "Thank you. We've gotten quite good at setting up these temporary little cities. I think that we'll start work on something more permanent in the next few months."
"You expect to be here for quite some time then?"
"That's right, Mr President. I hope that this region could become a major global hub for technology and innovation. Once we've gotten access to more of the visitor's technology, we'll be able to make huge leaps forward in almost every field, and if the ship is repaired, and made flight ready, this area could become a major spaceport. The sky is the limit."
It was evident to the President and Joe that the Tohil CEO had long-term plans, and some of his wording did not sit well with the American leader. It seemed that Robert assumed that he was going to continue to get access to the alien technology. What would happen if that access was suddenly halted? How far were they willing to go to achieve whatever aims they had set themselves? These were the questions that rested heavily on the President's mind.
"Let me introduce you to my senior scientists." The President made his way down the line of scientists and noticed that there wasn't a single American among them. The group consisted of several Europeans, Asians, but mostly Canadians, but the absence of a single American struck the President as odd.
After the President had met the team, he was taken into the Tohil headquarters, where he was shown several charts and images documenting the discoveries they had made. The President noticed a map on the wall of the operations room and mentioned his concern that the Paraguayan military had not pulled back their army units that had ringed the crash site. Seeing that there were no military representatives present, John Robert felt obliged to comment on the matter.
"Some of the local military commanders still feel that it is in the country's best interests to keep its troops in place, for the time being. It also helps keep anyone who is not authorised out of the area."
"That's another question I had for the local authorities; I would have suspected that there would have been thousands of people trying to reach the crash site. There was almost no one at the airport, and on the flight up here, I didn't notice any large campsites or any signs that the throngs of people attempting to get here."
"That's because the government in Asunción have closed the country's borders to non-essential travellers." Robert replied.
"Mr President, we've received reports that there are huge numbers of people massing at the borders trying to get in. And for right now, they're just waiting." Major Hunt looked at the map that the President had just been looking at. "The Paraguayan's have also set up roving patrols just inside and outside of the fence to ensure that no one gets in, or that anything unwanted gets out."
"Got the place locked down pretty tight." The President glanced down at his watch; it was approaching half past twelve. "I believe that Major Hunt and I need to be leaving you now, Mr Robert." Bednarik stuck his hand out, which the Canadian took and shook.
"Thank you for visiting, Mr President."
The President gave a short nod, and followed Major Hunt out of the building, and back out into the warm August weather. "What's your take on that map we were looking at, Joe?"
"Well, Sir, it sounds like either the locals don't trust the visitors enough yet to ease the security, or they've left those forces in place to make it easier to move against the crash site if they wanted to."
"Let's keep your speculation to ourselves for the time being." The President stopped and pulled a pack of Altoids out from his safari jacket. "I suppose it's time to go meet your friend Ranix."
"Yes, Sir." Joe spotted Rhea walking up the pathway from the crash site. He flashed her the thumbs-up sign, and she replied in kind. "Looks like we're ready to go, Mr President." Confirming that his entire party was with him, including the cameraman, Jose Berengeur, Joe gestured for the President to lead the way.
Rhea stopped at the edge of the clearing and waited for Joe to reach where she was standing. "Everything's ready to go. Bobby's at the crash site with Agent Sneed and the crew are waiting for us to arrive."
Joe gave Rhea a gentle pat on the shoulder. "Perfect." The two proceeded side by side down the walkway towards the spacecraft admiring their surroundings. The forest was abuzz with birds flying overhead, and a light breeze rustled the leaves on nearby walnut trees. It was a rather splendid day, with the bright rays of the sun's light creating a very peaceful ambience.
As they neared the ship, the chatter among members of the President's delegation dropped off, as their mouths dried, and palms grew moist with nervous anticipation. The first thing that the new visitors to the crash site could see was the hulking frame of the ship with its dull grey paint, and numerous scarring and dents. Standing near the end of the walkway was Agent Sneed,
white Raybans still on, waiting for the President's party.
"Mr President." Was all the agent said as the President passed by. Sneed quickly took up a position just to the rear and right of the American leader, keeping the man under his protection within arm's reach.
As the group approached the ship, they were able to start making out the visitors, all of them who were lined up next to the ship, along with the towering Sentinel Commander, who was standing like a statue close to the hangar bay doors. Joe noticed how the robot wasn't carrying a weapon, and no other Sentinels were in view.
Doctor Temple, who was standing next to Ranix, and a hovering translation device, moved towards the American President with the alien by his side. Stopping ten feet from the President, he made the historical introduction.
"Communications Officer Ranix, may I introduce the President of the United States of America, President George Bednarik."
The President had spoken with Joe at length about how the translation systems worked, so he knew to wait for the little device to do its job. Hearing the Universal spoken to Ranix by the machine for the first time got the President's heart racing. The creature he was standing across from, whom he had seen many times in images sent to the White House from the SETI team was still something to awe in person.
"It is an honour to meet you, Mr President." the response from the translation device was crisp and clear, and in the voice of an adult male. Joe had told the President that Ranix had programmed the device to replicate the sounds of a man of roughly the same age as Ranix.
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