On top of all of the aforementioned, there was the fact that stressful situations made Smithy’s thing flare up. He had taken to referring to it as his “thing” because it sounded better than “the voice in my head that claims to belong to God but I, as a devout atheist, believe to be PTSD”.
I SAID THIS WAS A BAD IDEA.
“Will you shut up,” whispered Smithy.
“What was that?” asked Dionne.
“Nothing,” said Smithy, and silently cursed. He had to get used to being on comms.
“Thought you said something?”
“Nope. Definitely did not.”
“So, how’s it coming?”
Smithy gave a tug and the final bit of wall came away. “Done.”
He leaned over and peered inside. The cable was exactly where he’d been told it would be. “Looks good. Just got to position the gizmo.”
He really hoped to meet this Zoya lady at some point. He considered himself pretty handy, but this was some serious next-level stuff. The gizmo in question was a black half-tube that curved around the cable. All he had to do was put it into position, set the timer, and it would cut in and hijack the feed at the allotted time.
“How long until they’re in range?”
He was referring to the Winnebago driven by his partner, with the tech whiz in the back. There was a mile radius on the thing, so she had to be within it for this to work. Despite his firm policy on not getting involved in other people’s stuff, he also found himself wondering how their first “date” was going.
“Set it for two minutes,” said Dionne.
He did so. “Confirmed.”
“OK, time for the next bit.”
Smithy put his tools neatly back in his backpack. He walked back over to the crate in which he’d snuck in on. Using it as a way of getting him in, with the false compartment underneath – that had been crazy smart. This bit, though, this was some combining-peanut-butter-and-chocolate-level genius.
The crate was now against the wall, six feet in the air thanks to its telescopic legs. He’d just had to move it into position with a remote control. It had then locked on to its target, like a NASA spaceship docking with the International Space Station. Only the ship was a crate full of snakes and the International Space Station was a four-inch-wide air vent.
Smithy picked up the remote that he’d left on the desk, took one last look at everything and then pressed the big green button.
He heard a hatch slipping open.
From somewhere deep down in the caveman psyche, Smithy felt a shiver run down his back.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Tony Rawlins held the phone to his ear.
“They’re putting me through to someone else. When the Air Force gives you a number to call in case of something like this, you’d think it’d put you straight through to the person you need to talk to. I’ve been transferred three times.”
It had been a running joke in the control room since day one: the number they had been given in case they experience any “unexplained phenomena” around the base. There were noises at night. They’d all heard them. Everybody knew that the military tested new planes around here. The stealth bomber and all that.
Tony looked at the screen again. The thing currently heading straight for Longhurst didn’t look like a stealth bomber. Stealth bombers flew faster, higher, and weren’t trailed by a convoy of what looked like over a hundred vehicles.
“This is unbelievable.”
“Gary, will you stop just saying, ‘This is unbelievable’, and actually do something?”
Gary spun around in his chair. “Like what?”
“Holy shit,” said Tony. “Turn off the thing.” He pointed wildly in the air. “The thing.”
“The what?”
Tony ignored him and snatched up the microphone. “Control to all COs, there is a situation outside. There is a … object. Do not shoot at the object, and Miguel, that goes double for you on the roof. Do not fire upon the object. I repeat, do not fire upon the object.”
The last thing he wanted was to be the guy in charge when the prison shot down some high-tech piece of air-force technology that was having a bad day. And, well, if it wasn’t something like that, it was all the more reason not to shoot it down.
Tony turned off the comms as a clamour of voices came back asking a million questions. He had no answers. Instead, he asked a question.
“Hello, is anyone there? Yes, I’m still waiting to be transferred. I got Close Encounters of the Third Kind here and I’m on hold. Yes, I will wait. What else am I going to do? Call the Canadian Air Force instead?”
“This is unbelievable,” said Gary, again.
“No shit, Gary. This is unbelievable. This is unbelievable. There’s a UFO outside the fucking gate. I think we all now appreciate that this is unbelievable.”
Tony shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.
He opened them when Gary screamed.
Snakes had started dropping from the sky.
Tony had to admit that really was unbelievable.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Dr Stephen Grant was fuming.
He wasn’t long out of medical school, which was why, along with his work as an ER resident, he was covering shifts at Longhurst Prison. He was drowning in debt, and so giving up his weekends when the chance arose, in order to pick up a few extra bucks, seemed like a no-brainer. Most of the time he got to catch up on some study or some sleep, both of which he desperately needed.
Still, he’d been assured that when an emergency happened, he would be the one in charge of it. Having assessed the injuries sustained by the three patients who had just been admitted to the infirmary, his decision had been that an airlift to Mountain View Hospital was required. He’d informed the on-duty commander, but the guy had been weirdly evasive, and had then come back and told him that he’d spoken to the warden and that wasn’t possible.
“This is
