‘A word with you, Mr. Hunter,’ Reilly said quietly, and got up and stood by the window, gazing out at the floodlights which illuminated two sides of the Rolver Systems’ building.
‘Yes, Dick?’
‘May not be the right time to bring this up, but that bastard Ketch has got a point. You may not have noticed, but we are stuck in the middle of an armoured building in a real high security area surrounded by guys with guns just waitin’ to pull the triggers. You have got a plan to get us outta here?’ he asked hopefully.
Hunter grinned mirthlessly at him. ‘I had,’ he said, ‘but it rather depended on there not being a bunch of soldiers holding assault rifles standing around outside this building. The way I see it, the Area 51 security system is designed to stop people getting in, not getting out. Back in Vegas you mentioned that some of the staff here are driven to and from the base each day in coaches. I was going to take one of them, load everyone here on board, and drive out.’
Reilly raised his eyebrows. ‘Sounds easy when you say it quickly – which I think is what I said about catching a Janet flight in here. Don’t think gettin’ out’s gonna be anythin’ like as easy as hoppin’ on that Boeing.’
‘No,’ Hunter said. ‘Somebody, somehow, has found out that we’re here. Maybe the Las Vegas PD found Harris or Morgan and put two and two together. I definitely don’t think we’re going to be able to just wave a couple of Omega cards and walk past those soldiers.’
‘So what do we do?’
‘What we can’t do is shoot our way out of here, so we’re going to have to think our way out. It’s time for Plan B.’
‘Which is what?’
‘I’ve no idea, but I’m working on it.’
The government Learjet reached its cruising level within minutes of taking off from Andrews, and the co-pilot walked back into the passenger cabin as soon as the aircraft had reached top of climb.
‘Mr. McGrath, sir?’ he said to the sole passenger. ‘We need to ask you for a revised destination. We’re flight-planned into McCarran at Las Vegas, and that’s where we’re heading at present, but I understand we’re actually supposed to land somewhere different.’
McGrath looked up from the document on his lap and nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Our destination is Groom Lake Air Force base.’
‘Oh.’
‘Have you flown in there before?’ McGrath asked.
The co-pilot shook his head. ‘Nope,’ he replied, ‘and I’m pretty sure Chris – the captain – hasn’t either. In fact, I don’t know anybody who has, apart from a couple of regular Air Force jet jockeys I met last year. Those Groom Lake guys are really secretive. OK, I’m going to need to get on the radio right now to ensure we’ve got all the right clearances. Is there anything you need, sir?’
‘A scotch or something when you get a minute, if there’s any on board, otherwise I’m fine. There shouldn’t,’ McGrath added, ‘be any problem with clearances. This flight was authorized by the White House, and the President has personally approved it.’
‘Seems to be a bit more activity out there now,’ Reilly announced, squinting his eyes against the glare of the floodlights. ‘I can see two more trucks and a bunch more people. Seems like we’re the most interestin’ thing happenin’ on the base this mornin’.’
Ketch looked at Hunter with a kind of triumph in his eyes.
‘You have to realize,’ he said, ‘that there’s nothing you can do about Roland Oliver. Too many people, who are far more powerful than you realize, have a vested interest in keeping it going. You might hinder our operations for a short while, but there’s no way you can stop it. Your best option is to let me go, put down your weapons and walk out of here. That way you might just get to live.’
‘Maybe,’ Hunter said. He walked behind Ketch and took out the switchblade, which he opened with an audible click. He bent down and sliced through the cable ties holding Ketch’s ankles to the chair, then released his hands. Ketch stood up cautiously, conscious of his broken ribs, and rubbed his wrists to get the blood circulating.
‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘I thought you’d see sense eventually.’
‘We haven’t yet,’ Hunter said, pulled Ketch’s arms behind his back and locked his wrists together with another couple of cable ties. ‘We’re just going to take a little walk.’
As Dick Reilly got to his feet, Hunter turned to Evans. ‘Can you stay here, please, and keep an eye on the women. We won’t be long.’
Evans nodded, and watched as the procession made its way towards the door of Ketch’s office.
‘Where are you taking me?’ Ketch demanded.
‘We’re not taking you anywhere,’ Hunter replied. ‘You’re taking us to see these aliens that you claim are living in the basement of this building.’
Major-General Thomas Williams paced angrily back and forth across the concrete outside the Janet Terminal at McCarran. He was annoyed on several levels, and for several different reasons.
His night’s sleep had been ruined, and he always got snappy if he didn’t get his full eight hour quota. He hadn’t enjoyed being told what to do by the President of the United States, despite the fact that Charles Gainey was undeniably his ultimate boss. He hadn’t agreed with passing what was certainly classified information over an open telephone line, even to the President. He didn’t like the fact that some sort of a security breach had occurred on his establishment, and that this breach had been brought to the attention of the President himself by some person unknown.
And to cap it all, the special Janet flight that he had ordered was, by his watch, at least twenty-three minutes late.
‘That’s not a good idea,’ Ketch said, stopping abruptly about three feet from the door.
‘Why not?’ Hunter asked. ‘You said you’d be happy to introduce Doctor Evans to one of them.’
‘That was a joke,’ Ketch said.
‘I didn’t think it was funny,’ Hunter said. ‘How about you, Dick?’
‘Nope. Not funny at all,’ Reilly agreed.
‘Look,’ Ketch said, a note of desperation creeping into his voice, ‘the fact that there are aliens inside this building is highly classified.’
‘So’s everything else around here.’
‘I know, but this is different. I’m the only one who’s supposed to have any contact with them. Nobody else on the base knows they’re here at all. I can’t just walk in with you two behind me. It would be a total breach of security – their security as well as our own.’
‘I don’t think,’ Reilly said, ‘that we’ve been makin’ ourselves quite clear. Basically, if we say “jump”, the only thing you get to say is “how high?” You got that?’
Before Ketch could reply, a faint musical bell-like note echoed around the office, coming from Ketch’s desk. Hunter swiftly strode over to it and looked down.
‘What is it?’ Reilly asked.
‘It’s this grey panel on the left here,’ Hunter replied. ‘A light’s come on, and the tell-tale reads ‘Confirmation of processing status requested.’’
‘OK,’ Reilly said. ‘Looks like your little grey chums is gettin’ agitated, Mr. Ketch. Really think the three of us oughtta go on down and see what the hell they want.’
‘Where are we now?’ McGrath asked as the co-pilot returned to the passenger cabin of the Learjet.
‘We’re coming up on Salina, Utah, Mr. McGrath, and we’ve just passed over the Wasatch Range. I thought you might like to know that we’ve had no problems with the clearances,’ he said, ‘and we’ve been cleared for a straight-in approach at Groom Lake. We’re now about twenty minutes out.’
The co-pilot took the glass and empty bottle from the table in front of McGrath, walked towards the front of the cabin into the galley, stowed the glass in a rack and put the bottle in a disposal bin.
‘We’ll be starting descent in about three minutes, sir, so could I ask you not to leave your seat from now on, and to keep your seat belt on. Met reports some possible clear air turbulence ahead of us, so it may get a little bumpy on the way down.’
As he spoke, a soft chime sounded, and the ‘seat belt’ sign illuminated. A few seconds later McGrath felt, rather than heard, the change in the engine note as the pilot throttled back and the Learjet began to lose height.
The processing room had been in semi-darkness and total silence since Reilly had closed and locked the door, but small sounds were now becoming audible as the girls in the caskets began to wake up.
The air/gas mixture was carefully controlled by the monitoring system, and subjects could be revived in a matter of fifteen to twenty minutes by high concentrations of oxygen, which was what happened when they were processed. Left to breathe air containing the normal proportion of oxygen, and with the oxygen/nitrous oxide mixture still being pumped out into the lidless caskets and from there into the atmosphere of the processing room, it took far longer for them to wake up.
But it wouldn’t be long before some of them would start trying to climb out of the caskets, and would find themselves still strapped in.
‘And about fucking time too,’ Williams muttered angrily as the Boeing 737 taxied to a stop in front of the terminal building.
Without waiting for instructions, he strode forward and arrived beside the forward passenger door before the motorized stairs had been positioned. As soon as the steps were in place, Williams ran up them and pushed forward into the cabin.
‘Let’s get going,’ he snapped, as the pilot stuck his head out of the cockpit.
‘Where’s everybody else?’ the pilot demanded. Like all the Janet pilots, he was a civilian, employed by the private company that worked under contract to the Air Force providing air transport services to and from Groom Lake. Like Williams, he too had been dragged out of bed – someone else’s bed, in fact – and wasn’t in the best of tempers. Irritated senior military officers impressed him not one jot.
‘There isn’t anybody else,’ Williams said. ‘I’m the only passenger.’
The pilot looked him up and down. ‘Seems mighty wasteful to me,’ he said.
‘So sue the fucking Air Force,’ Williams said. ‘Now get this aircraft moving.’
‘Not yet,’ the pilot said. ‘We’ve got some cargo to collect.’
‘Cargo?’ Williams demanded. ‘What cargo? This is supposed to be a priority flight.’
‘I know,’ the pilot said, ‘but this cargo has exactly the same priority as you, so I suggest you go and sit down somewhere. We’ll get airborne as soon as we can.’
‘Steve,’ Christy-Lee called across the room.
She was finally sitting up on the camp bed. Her headache had finally receded, and she was feeling more or less normal.
Hunter turned towards her. ‘Feeling better?’ he asked.
‘Much better, thank you,’ she said. ‘Now can you please just tell me what the hell is going on here. And for starters, where exactly is “here”?’
‘Groom Lake Air Base in the middle of Area 51 in Nevada is where we are right now,’ Hunter replied. ‘The really short version is that this bastard –’ he gestured towards Ketch ‘– has been administering a kind of barter program, swapping human flesh for leading-edge technology.’
Christy-Lee gave a weak smile. ‘I like it. Good story. Straight out of the “X-Files”. Now, what’s really going on?’
‘That,’ Hunter said, walking over to her, ‘is the truth, and I wish to God it wasn’t. The icing on the cake is that the technology doesn’t come from anywhere here. It comes from out there,’ and he pointed to the ceiling.
‘What?’
‘The technology this operation has been obtaining since the late 1940s comes from alien civilizations. They like to eat people, and they bought the rights to harvest human beings with advanced technology. You,’ Hunter added, ‘were scheduled to be a part of that harvest.’
‘You are joking?’ Christy-Lee asked, but the look on Hunter’s face silenced her.
‘Dear God,’ she muttered. ‘Are you sure? I mean – aliens? You haven’t been watching too many bad movies?’
‘Nope,’ Hunter said. ‘At least, I don’t think so. We haven’t yet seen one of the aliens, but that is the next scheduled attraction in this interesting establishment.’
‘And who are these two?’
‘Toni Welsh, who’s been looking after you since I pulled you out of the room downstairs, was also intended to be a part of the same harvest. The man in the rather fetching dark blue shorts is Doctor Evans, formerly part of this program, who’s now turned state’s evidence, so to speak, and who’s been helping us.’
Reilly gestured suddenly and walked towards the window. He’d heard the sound of additional vehicles arriving outside.
‘More company,’ he said laconically. ‘A coupla three-ton trucks and what looks like an APC.’
‘An Armoured Personnel Carrier?’ Hunter asked, leaving Christy-Lee and joining Reilly at the window. ‘Looks like they’re getting serious. And it’s almost dawn,’ he added. ‘We need to make some decisions soon.’
Ketch peered towards the window, the smile slowly returning to his face, as he realized that the odds were steadily and inexorably altering in his favour.
Behind him, and unobserved by anybody in the room, Ketch’s office door handle slowly began to turn.
The Learjet passed a couple of miles due south of Rachel in its descent into Groom Lake, the pilot manoeuvring to intercept the extended centreline of the runway for a straight-in approach. Simultaneously, the Janet Boeing 737 carrying Major-General Williams was passing above Mercury, and just about to enter the restricted airspace of Area 51.
In the Learjet, William McGrath ran his eyes for the last time down the checklist that he had prepared, then put the paper into his briefcase and closed his eyes. He was tired, absolutely worn-out, and the temptation to sleep was enormous, but he knew that until he’d resolved the situation at Groom Lake he would get no rest.
The sound Toni made wasn’t a scream, but it was close to it. She’d been sitting on the camp bed, her gaze wandering erratically around the room, when she’d seen the door opening. She’d watched it with idle curiosity, then jumped up as the creature had walked through the doorway, what looked like a small pistol in its right hand.
Hunter and Reilly spun around, but it was Christy-Lee who moved the fastest. Hunter’s Glock was lying on the end of Ketch’s desk, and she’d picked it up, aimed and fired two shots before anybody else had even started to react.
‘Jesus alive,’ Reilly whispered, as he looked across the room towards the door.
The alien wasn’t dead, but was certainly dying. Christy-Lee’s shots had taken it twice in the chest, close to where the heart would be on a human being, and the front of the light blue coveralls was already soaked with what looked like blood. It was darker in colour, closer to black than red.
Christy-Lee was white and shaking, her eyes wide and staring, the Glock still pointing towards the door.
‘Fuck,’ she shouted. ‘Fuck, fuck. What the fuck is that thing?’ Her voice was quavering with shock. ‘Is it dead? It had a gun. What the fuck is it?’
Ketch had sprung back, away from the alien, as soon as Christy-Lee had fired, and it was Hunter who stepped forward, gently took the Glock from Kaufmann’s hand, walked towards the door and looked down. The object Christy-Lee had thought was a pistol looked like that to Hunter as well, so he picked it up and slid it into his pocket, then stared down at the thing on the floor.
The huge oval black eyes looked up at him from the expressionless face, the small mouth opening and closing steadily. Hunter’s gaze was steady and contemptuous as he looked down.
‘Do these things speak English?’ he asked Ketch, without taking his eyes off the alien.
‘Yes,’ Ketch replied. ‘Most of them have some telepathic skills, as well.’
‘We’re going to finish you,’ Hunter said, staring down at the creature on the floor. ‘Your foul little operation here is over.’
The voice, when it came, was reedy and high-pitched, but perfectly comprehensible.
‘You are vermin, less than nothing. The harvest will continue. You cannot stop it.’
‘We’ll give it a try,’ Hunter said, and raised the Glock.