The man with the gold tooth-'T'-opened the lap top. The black screen of the hibernating computer came to life and showed line after line of numbers.
'Tell Gordon that his suspicions are correct. These are back up files from two tracking stations in New Jersey, understand? Something did trip the alarms way up there but no one seems to know nothing. Well, except for you and I now, I think.'
She peered at the data tables, easily translating date and times while assuming the rest to be coordinates.
'I'll tell you what it says so that you can get off this little boat of mine before the men start going crazy. They have been at sea for a month so it would be best if we speed this along, understand? One something trips the wire in New Jersey not long before the assassination. Then not long after, another something trips the wire again on the way out.'
Nina said, 'But this doesn't tell me what that something was. I'm just saying, this is all a bunch of numbers. Nothing concrete.'
'Oh, now I would not be saying that, I think. It tells you that there was an unidentified flying object that slipped its way into our air space and then out again, all on a heading that would have taken it first right toward D.C., and second right away from D.C., if you start drawing lines on charts and whatever. But what it really tells, I think, is that someone who was operating the switch for all this high tech mumbo jumbo decided not to report these numbers.'
Nina wondered, again, why Ashley entrusted her with this job.
'T' popped open the laptop drive, slipped the disc in a jewel case, and handed it to Nina.
'And there you are. Now as much as I enjoy a visit from such a lovely woman, I think you should be leaving now. I have a trip to make to Trinidad with a hold full of weapons for the resistance. Quite a problem for the Hivvans, I think.'
She stood but paused, remembering, 'Gordon wanted me to ask where you were.'
The man with the dreadlocks smiled again and stooped to grab something. He handed an unlabeled bottle of red liquid to Nina who accepted the unknown substance with caution.
'Wine from the Rhone Valley. Tell him that our friends at Camelot are waiting, but with all that has happened here in the last month I think they may be waiting a long while for us.'
She studied the bottle for a moment then hardened her face, opened the door, and marched past the leers of the sailors again, climbing from the humid, shadowy confines of the submarine's interior to the warm, sunny deck.
Nina jumped into the Sleekcraft where Gordon Knox waited.
'I think your friend gave us some good stuff, but I'm not the expert. He says it's evidence of a second plane or ship of some kind entering our air space then leaving again.'
Gordon powered on the engines and moved them away. Nina heard that klaxon again and the fast attack sub slipped below the waters.
'Good, that's what we needed,' Knox increased speed to hurry for shore. 'But there's a lot more work to do.'
'Yeah, like your pal Ernie is going to have to come forward and tell us who his friend is. Maybe then we can figure out exactly what happened. I mean, this data doesn't change much about what we know, it only makes things more complicated.'
'Ah, but it does tell us that there's a cover up going on,' Knox pointed out as the Sleekcraft gained more speed. The nose bobbed so fast that Nina had to hold on tight. 'That means there's more here than meets the eye.' 'So now what?' 'So I think you're right. We're going to see Ernie again.' — Much to Nina's dismay, traffic nearly cluttered all five of the northbound lanes on Interstate 95. Dump trucks, pickups, commercial vans and 18-wheelers hauled citrus, seafood, fuel, and other goods between the docks, warehouses, and train stations.
Scooters were a popular choice for couriers and individuals commuting to the fishing wharf or industrial centers. Most everyone moved along at a comfortable seventy miles per hour, a few slower and a few faster with lumps of like-minded drivers attached together to form herds of a sort. Gordon, much to her surprise, kept his foot light on the accelerator as they cruised with the flow on their way for Ernie's home in Miami Shores, a suburb north of downtown.
She glanced out the window, noting the Miami skyline. Several signs of battles fought dotted that cityscape, but not nearly the type of wounds other metropolises showed. She wondered if the early years of Armageddon would have been different had other people joined together with the same tenacity as the people in Dade County. She recalled her own home-Philadelphia-and how chaos, conflicting orders, and panic turned neighborhoods into isolated islands, law enforcement into small groups, and the chain of command into a joke.
Gordon grabbed her attention saying, 'We get to Ernie's, he gives us the name of his contact, and then we have someone to corroborate this data.' 'So what? What does this mystery ship have to do with the assassination? I'm just saying, it could be a coincidence.' 'Someone is covering it up,' he reminded. 'That means it's something more.' 'Will he help us? Is he even home?'
'He'll help us. He owes me big time. If he's not home…if he's not home…' Gordon peered first in his rearview mirror, then a side mirror before finishing, '…then we wait.'
She asked, 'Problem?'
'I don't know, but I think I just saw something silver flying around back there.'
He did not have to say 'Witiko' for her to understand but the overpasses of the Dolphin Expressway disrupted their view as they drove through the sprawling arms of a concrete cloverleaf.
With their attention distracted to the sky, neither Gordon nor Nina noticed the black Suburban loitering on the grassy median alongside the Interstate. Chief Hobbs sat behind the wheel with sweat gleaming on his forehead; Ray Roos occupied the passenger's seat watching traffic through dark sunglasses.
The Witiko Skytrooper Gordon and Nina failed to spot-the one with the portable rocket launcher-landed on the roof of an old office building to the east of the thoroughfare, joining another of his breed. The first alien nodded his head toward the SUV. Roos responded by pointing his finger at the aliens
The Skytroop with the rocket launcher reacted to the gesture. As he watched the target car-the black BMW 540i-drive northbound, the alien opened a small panel on a heavy gauntlet and sent a signal.
It began.
They came from the shade alongside the ramp connecting 395 west to I-95 northbound, following the curve of the on-ramp toward the interstate. An old, half-drunk hitchhiker wearing a tweed sport jacket over a Hawks jersey stood at the end of the on-ramp with a cardboard sign reading 'Atlanta or Bust'. The first blur went by him so fast that his sign flew from his hands; the second blur knocked him off his feet.
The Suburban watched the attackers race forward and then the SUV joined the pursuit from a safe distance. The Witiko Skytroopers rocketed away from their perch…
…Fast. Faster. The urge to find and destroy so complete, so compelling…an intense addiction that muffled the hatred for those who had enslaved them.
Like guided missiles, they burst onto the crowded freeway ignoring anything they had not been programmed to kill. A small passenger car-an obstacle-powered by a makeshift steam engine got knocked spinning across three lanes of traffic and over the concrete barrier into the southbound lanes where it sheered the side of a commercial van. That van careened over the west guard rail, disappearing toward Northwest 20 ^ th street below.
A man dressed in a suit and tie wearing a white helmet road an electric scooter with his briefcase tied to a rear luggage rack. One of the living guided missiles rammed his ride, propelling the man off the seat into the air while sending the scooter bouncing away where it smashed the windshield of a speeding Toyota that, in turn, skidded and rolled end over end…
…Gordon glanced in his mirror and saw a sedan rise up as if shoved from behind and nearly fly toward his car. He shifted the manual transmission down a gear and slammed the accelerator, speeding from seventy to eight-five in a heartbeat. The tumbling car fell onto and crushed its roof in a veil of sparks. A chain-reaction ensued, sending more vehicles sideways, skidding, and crashing into one another.
Nina panicked at the sudden jolt of speed.
'What? What is it?'
'We've got a problem,' he calmly relayed as he steered the car from the left-most lane to the center of the five, between two big trucks, then to the left again. 'Get your rifle and open the sunroof. You're going to have to
