on detached service and your new commander is this man.' Lee gestured toward Collins.
Jack nodded at Ryan, looking the naval pilot over, and accepted his 201 file from him.
'Is your incident report in here, Mr. Ryan?' Jack asked.
'Yes, sir.'
'I'll debrief Lieutenant Ryan,' Lee said. 'I want you and Mr. Everett to see what you can do to give Niles a hand in the Computer Center. We just received word the NSA's pulling their photo-recon satellite, so that's going to leave Boris and Natasha and the National Weather Service as our only eyes out there. That's only two KH-1 Is to play with and five remote drones, and we need that ship found quickly,' Lee said, almost pleading. 'Jack, find out who's been piggybacking us since '47; you'll have full access to the Europa XP-7, and the best backdoor technician we have. Find out all you can, discover who's been on our back for sixty years, and then get the Cray back to Niles. God knows he's going to need it.'
Jack and Everett nodded, then turned to leave.
'I'll have to excuse myself, as well,' Alice said. 'We're having a very small memorial for Gunnery Sergeant Campos. You two have work to do, so you're excused. I'll make your apologies.' She too headed for the door.
Lee called after Collins, 'Jack, you have a moment?'
Jack stopped short and turned to Lee.
'We have an extensive file on the activities of Mr. Farbeaux. Somewhere there's a link to whom he is working for. If you can't find anything, study him; learn his tactics, because I expect him to show his face right when we don't need him to. That notebook you found tells me he's interested, either for himself or whomever he's working for. As you know, you and Commander Everett will lead the discovery team when the saucer is found. Niles has already ordered all of our security personnel off field duty and we're bringing them home. If the worst happens, we'll need everyone, so plan for it. And you had best start considering what we do if'--Lee looked at Ryan, then back at Collins--'if the animal is loose.'
'Yes, sir,' Collins said.
Lee turned to the young navy flier. 'We have a lot to discuss, and I'm feeling a little tired. May I just say, welcome to the Event Group, Lieutenant?'
'Will I fly here, Senator?'
'I think we can accommodate that, yes, Lieutenant.'
Ryan took the senator's hand again and gave it a brisk shake. 'My days were numbered in Tomcats anyway,' he said, just now realizing his naval aviation days were all but over. 'If you're offering me a job, I'll take it, sir. Now, what in the hell is the Event Group?'
Run you fathers and pick up your sons, for the night of the Destroyer soon comes.
-- ANCIENT HEBREW TEXT
SIXTEEN
The Arizona State trooper glanced over at his partner, then slowly removed his sunglasses and scanned the area. The heat of the day was settling down as was the sun in the west, its glare still blinding off the mountains. The trooper's right hand went to his service automatic as he stepped over the low wall that outlined the foundation of the old cavalry post. The feel of the steel hand-grip comforted him as he viewed the utter chaos in front of him, and that view made him slowly pull the nine millimeter from its holster. There were at least six motorcycles in different positions, some on their sides and others lying broken against the adobe walls. Their owners were nowhere to be seen.
The state trooper jumped when the crackle of his cruiser's radio broke the eerie silence that had settled into the old fort. He looked back at the open door of the patrol car, then at his partner, and let out the breath he hadn't noticed he had been holding. He had been by this location a hundred times before today, and the most he had ever had to do was chase kids away on their dirt bikes or have a maintenance crew come out and remove beer bottles and other garbage.
Tom Dills, his partner, had taken his hat off and was kneeling by one of the overturned bikes. He shook his head in wonder at the scratches in the fuel tank of the big Harley-Davidson. The gouges were long and ragged and penetrated the double-walled tank.
'What in the hell happened here, George?' he asked his sergeant.
Trooper George Milner looked from one of the bikes lying on its side to one that was upright, the kickstand still holding it in place.
'Damn strange,' he answered.
They were both startled by a dust devil that sprang up from the middle of the old foundation; Dills quickly pulled his weapon from its holster. Both men watched as it twirled against a low wall and then broke apart, only to reform on the other sight and move off into the desert. Milner tilted his Stetson back on his head and wondered if his partner was going to try to shoot the dust devil. He noticed another strange sight in a mess full of strangeness and stepped closer to a dirt mound that circled a large hole. It looked as if it had recently been dug. The earth looked freshly turned over, and as he kicked at it, he found only the top few inches had been dried by the desert sun.
'Think they had trouble with another group of bikers?' Dills asked, standing and holstering his automatic.
'No other tracks but theirs leading in, Tom.' Milner continued to look down. 'Come and look here.'
Dills walked over and looked down at the hole. Something wet had dried on the dirt mound and had hardened.
'What is that, oil?' he asked, looking around nervously.
'Or blood.' Milner holstered his weapon and leaned down on one knee. He reached out and felt the clump of drying sand. He rubbed his fingers together and they produced a bright red smear. 'Damn.' He stood, absentmindedly rubbing his fingers together harder to rid himself of the blood. 'Look around, it's all over the place.' He pointed to other areas where blood had been spilled and then left to dry in the sun. 'We better call this in.' He started to move toward the cruiser.
'There goes the damn weekend,' Dills said with all the bravado he could muster, but he wanted more men out here also.
Dills looked at a license plate on the rear fender of one of the bikes. 'Goddamn people are from California, Sarge, they may have been just stupid enough to walk off into the desert.' He grinned, but sobered when he saw his sergeant wasn't in the mood for California jokes, which was just as well because Dills had only said it to keep up the brave front that he surely wasn't feeling at the moment.
'Notice something else?' Milner asked, coming to a stop just inside the weatherworn adobe walls.
'What?' Dills looked around nervously.
'I haven't seen or heard any animal life out here at all, not even the damn crickets.'
The younger trooper spit his toothpick out onto the sand. 'Okay, you've succeeded in giving me the creeps here, Sarge. I could have gone all damn day without you pointing out that little matter.'
Both state troopers watched the desert for any kind of movement. Not hearing or seeing any intensified their already hardworking imaginations. They had both heard the stories about this place from that old geezer Gus Tilly down at the Broken Cactus and had laughed with the rest of the bar's regulars when he'd talked about the ghosts that haunted the old fort, laughed to his face even to the point of being hit with a wet dish towel by Julie, the owner. But looking around at the remains of the old adobe fort at this moment in broad daylight, you were able to believe just about anything, including ghosts.
'Well, we better call this thing... whatever it is, in.'
Milner stepped over the low wall and was ten feet from the cruiser when the dirt and sand erupted in front of him and then sped off in the direction of Dills. He turned quickly and followed the spewing earth until it disappeared
