but wait and see what we can find. We will send people into the nearest towns and secure them as best we can without causing panic; we have a Case One scenario as a cover.' He waited again for the president to respond. 'No, sir, I believe we can consolidate and coordinate better at this time with just my people. But it may be prudent to have the elements of the 101st, the Third Rangers, and Delta if we can get them, standing by at'--he paused and looked at the map sprawled on his desk--'Chato's Crawl, Arizona. It's not that big and we believe if nothing's found, a cover story would be easier if we didn't have that many people to convince.' Lee paused. 'The base commander here at Nellis is cooperating nicely, thank you, sir. Yes, a special air force operations team will be on the ground to make sure the C-130s will have a clear landing zone.
'I believe also that Special Air Operations out of MacDill in Florida should be brought in. They are cleared for Event Operations.' Lee paused. 'Yes, sir, it very well may be that bad. And thank the Security Council for alerting the Eighty-second Airborne Division to be in the air in readiness for deployment to either Phoenix or El Paso, and for telling them it's only an alert exercise,' he said, looking at the shocked faces around him. 'Yes, sir, thank you, I do think it prudent as we aren't sure of this
He took a deep breath and nodded at Niles.
Niles turned to Alice. 'Notify the Group teams that are getting ready to leave what they face. Tell the major to let his team in on what we're up against. And then tell them that Operation Orion is officially your backup plan. Special Operations out of MacDill Air Force Base will be bringing in special packages for use if needed.'
'Special packages?' Virginia asked.
'Tactical neutron weapons,' Alice answered.
'It won't come to that because we will find that damn animal!' Lee said, grimacing and then tightly squeezing his eyes shut.
Niles, Alice, and Virginia reacted with dreamlike slowness when Garrison Lee leaned forward against the edge of the desk and then slowly fell to the floor clutching at his chest.
War is all hell.
-- GENERAL WILLIAM T. SHERMAN, U.S. ARMY
TWENTY-FIVE
In most cases the higher echelon of the U.S. government moves slowly, like a glacier that covers ground in increments of inches measured by years and multiplied by aeons. The country found out early on that knee-jerk reactions to situations brought innumerable consequences in losses of personnel and material. But when faced with a moment in time that had been anticipated for years and planned for by a man of former senator Garrison Lee's genius, he had no fewer than fourteen five-inch-thick files on different military responses to the Event in the desert. They covered everything from urban warfare with the animal to the scenario they now faced, but he had never planned anything for subterranean scenarios.
But now the senator was rumored to be dying. The story of his collapse had spread like wildfire throughout the Event facility and even as far as the National Security Council, giving ammunition to those who wanted the Event removed from the Group's hands.
Sarah McIntire stood in the Group's small chapel on that Sunday morning, watching as Father Carmichael went through the mechanics of his delivery. A standing-room-only crowd lined the areas along the walls. As Sarah listened, the sermon droned on. But her mind was somewhere other than the chapel that morning; she was wondering if the Discovery team in Arizona had yet been told of the senator's collapse. She hoped the news had been passed on to her roommate and other members of the advance team.
As the congregation was rising for a hymn specially selected for the senator, she was suddenly pulled away from the wall. She turned and saw a member of the geology team she had trained with for the past year, Steve Hanson.
'Come on,' he said loudly just as her beeper went off.
Sarah closed the hymnal and handed the book over to a neighbor and followed the man out of the chapel. She raised the beeper and saw the word ALERT in small, neat letters across the top.
'What is it?' she asked, pulling her arm free of the excited man.
'Our team has been placed on full field alert status!' Hanson said excitedly as he hurried to the chapel doors.
Before they could open them, the sound of over a hundred other beepers started blaring around them, and others started to stand and leave.
The Event Group was going to war.
The site on the rock-strewn mountainside was astounding. It had been transformed from a crash site into a small city of tents and trailers in less than two hours. All had been airlifted in by Pave Low helicopters, the largest that could be supplied by the Twenty-third Special Operations Group out of Nellis and the Seventeenth SOG out of March Air Force Base in California. The ground was littered with people as well as debris. A thousand little red and yellow flags had already been placed to mark pieces of wreckage from the vehicle.
A three-way COMM and video link was hooked up between Nellis, Washington, and the crash site, so Compton could see not only Collins, but also the president and his national security staff in Washington. Jack could also view them on two monitors that Lisa had installed moments before the link was brought online. Jack had already given a preliminary report to Niles moments before the others joined in.
'So what have you got so far, Major Collins?' Compton asked for the benefit of Washington.
'What we have here is a high-speed impact on solid terrain of a vehicle of
'Any survivors of the crash, Major?' the president asked pointedly.
'Our forensic team, led by the Group's Dr. Gilliam, have recovered two bodies of what she calls 'extraterrestrial beings,'' Jack answered, removing the Kevlar helmet and wiping his brow with a clean handkerchief.
'Okay, Major,' General Wayne Crawford, Commandant of the Marine Corps said, the camera sliding over to his chair in the White House Situation Room far beneath the surface of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, 'we received your request on Delta and Ranger reinforcement and have approved, they are in the air. Now, what of this animal, any remains found as of yet?'
Collins explained about their not finding any remains in any of the cages and the finding of the acid canisters.
'From this information from our ground team, coupled with the fact we now have two missing state troopers and a mass of cattle slaughtered, and with the holes we have discovered, we must conclude we have at least one burrowing-type aggressor species roaming the desert, sir.'
'Damn,' the president said. 'Can you track this animal by using the tunnels it has dug?'
'Yes, sir, we are bringing tunnel and geology teams in and are going to reassess when they arrive. We are currently stripping all our department resources at the Group. Our security teams will be stretched the most, so the extra assault element of Rangers and Delta will be dispersed among them.'
'The Joint Chiefs would like to send more, but they haven't any. They're recalling several strike units from Afghanistan.'
Collins glanced over at his minimal security staff. Only fifty-two men sat at the tables inside the mess tent, not counting the twenty Event Group geologists and tunnel people getting ready to leave Nellis. He had dispatched
