actually contact…and two of them, like Holloway, told him never to try to call them again, before hanging up on him. His research told him that there was something serious going on, but what? It seemed a riddle he couldn’t even begin to crack. His sources in the State Police, such as they were, seemed to think that they’d all been placed on alert as well…and warned that there might be riots, if not outright civil unrest. How did all of it add together?
“Damn them,” he muttered finally, and started to compose a story with what little he did know. He wasn’t supposed to know, but a few dozen stringers from major newspapers read his blog regularly…and they’d have much better sources. Whatever the military was trying to cover up, they’d uncover it…and reveal just what they were trying to keep hidden. If reporters existed to keep the government honest, Joshua was determined that they would find out what was wrong, or die trying.
From the outside, the building looked like a normal office block, owned by a company called International Developments, Inc. Visitors who entered, after passing through a security system that rivalled anything else used in a civilian building, found their way blocked by an attractive secretary, who informed them that the building was merely an office and gave them contact details for the higher-ups in Virginia. More inquisitive people, or job-hunters, were given addresses to visit, the latter warned, however, that recruiting was not underway, at least not at the present time. Even if a persistent visitor entered the main building, they would not be able to use the elevator or the stairs, not without passing through a biometric reader that guarded the doors. The company kept its secrets… and, as anyone could discover, had a long history of being trustworthy, partly because of the extensive security measures.
The man who strode in through the front doors looked like a casual visitor, at first, until he stepped up to the inner doors and pushed his hand against the reader. There was a brief pause, and then the doors unlocked, allowing him entry to the remainder of the ground floor. He marched through the corridor to the elevator, waited for it to open, and then stepped inside, pressing his hand against a second reader as soon as the door hissed closed. It was a nasty little trap, in its way; anyone who attempted to use the lift, without clearance, would find themselves trapped inside the cubicle. The newcomer waited for the lift to reach the fifth floor and stepped out as soon as it opened. Here, the trappings of a normal office block were cast away, revealing the heart of one of the foremost covert operations units in America. The men and women in the office might not wear uniforms, but there was no disguising their military bearing.
Captain Brent Roeder stepped into the briefing room and caught the Colonel’s eye. The Colonel had commanded SF34 for the past two years, although – unlike Brent himself – he hadn’t actually been on a mission for a while. The SF unit only accepted experienced officers, those who had seen the elephant and knew that there were times for breaking rules, but someone so senior could hardly be risked in Iraq, Afghanistan and a number of places where everyone would be surprised to learn that American soldiers had served. A month ago, Brent had been in Northern Pakistan, hunting the Taliban and the terrorist leadership hiding somewhere within the badlands. The recall to duty, two weeks ahead of his planned return time, had been a surprise.
“Now we’re all here, we can begin,” the Colonel said. Informality was the order of the day in SF34. The Colonel wouldn’t put up with any horseplay or the jokes that idle soldiers would sometimes play on each other, but he would allow a level of free discussion that would have been out of place in most units. “There has been a surprising development and we have been placed on alert to cope with it.”
Brent found himself leaning forward eagerly and pulled himself back. The grapevine had been suggesting, for the past week or so, that the Iranians had finally been caught with their fingers in the till…or, rather, accepting money from terrorists to host bases in their territory, safe from conventional attack. Brent and the remainder of SF34 represented a more serious – and
The Colonel’s next words shocked hell out of him. “NASA has detected an alien starship heading for Earth,” he said, shortly. “I have been given a classified brief – an extremely classified brief – that we are going to be going on full alert for their arrival. God alone knows how the world will change – hell, God alone knows if they are hostile or not – but if there is an invasion on the way, we’re going to be ready.”
Brent stared at him. He’d been told, months ago, that they would be conducting a secret mission in Germany…and he’d taken that calmly. He’d hiked over Saudi Arabia in local clothing and he’d taken that in his stride, but…
One of the other officers put it into words. “Sir…
“I’m afraid so,” the Colonel said. “This isn’t a drill. Ideally, you won’t have anything to do and all of these are just precautions, but if you have to act as stay-behind units, you’re going to find yourselves in the rear lines.”
There were some nervous chuckles. SF34 had been tasked as a stay-behind unit, but it had been generally accepted that they wouldn’t be staying behind in their own country; after all, America was generally impregnable. The war-gamers came up with endless contingency plans, but barring a Mexican invasion or a major civil upheaval, no one seriously expected to be operating behind enemy lines, on American soil. The closest any of them had come to such operations had been special – and highly classified – operations in Iraq. Aliens, on the other hand, might actually be able to invade America directly, something that no nation possessed the power to do.
“Hopefully,” the Colonel continued, once he had fielded a handful more questions, “you won’t have anything to do. However, you will spend the rest of this week working on covert operations procedures in the event of America falling under enemy attack.”
“Madness,” Brent said, shaking his head. “Are you sure it’s not a drill?”
Another soldier had a different question. “When is the President going to tell the nation?”
“We suspect in a few days at most,” the Colonel said. “We want to get as many of the preparations completed, out of the public eye, as possible before it hits the news channels. Once it does, there is going to be a
He didn’t bother to elaborate. “I’ll hold individual conferences with you over the next few days to sort out final preparations,” he concluded. “If nothing else, this will make for a particularly interesting exercise.”
“The shit’s about to hit the fan,” Deborah Ivey said, cheerfully, as she swept into the Oval Office. “We’ve had calls from a dozen major media outlets and other such bastards demanding to know just what the fuck is going on. I think we’re going to have to come clean about the aliens, chief.”
The President eyed her balefully. Deborah’s ability to swear like a drunken trooper never creased to irritate him. Days spent arguing with various world leaders about disclosure, let alone a united front to confront the aliens, hadn’t done anything for his mood. The Europeans and the Japanese wanted to move to informing the public, while the Chinese and the Russians wanted to keep it to themselves, for the moment. The NSA had informed the President, covertly, that the Chinese in particular were working overtime to block out the news, even to the point of restricting the Internet use rights of foreign-owned companies. He was morbidly certain that the Chinese, and probably everyone else as well, were already trying to communicate with the aliens.
“I see,” he said, finally. Deborah’s intelligence was both an asset and a curse. “How much do they know?”
“They’re pretty much figured out that we’ve calling a covert mobilisation…and that most of the other world governments are doing the same,” Deborah informed him. “No one has actually dropped the A-word yet, but ten gets you twenty that the thought has crossed their minds…and they might even be considering using it in public.”
The President smiled thinly. “How long do you think we have?”
“A day, at most, before it leaks out,” Deborah said. “It’s probably going to leak out from Europe – their security is pretty much crap – but as we brief more and more of our own people, we increase the likelihood of a leak from
