The Trojan Horse

Chapter Twelve<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

Near Mannington, Virginia
<?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comffice:smarttags" /><st1lace w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">USA</st1:country-region></st1lace>, Day 20

Toby was long gone by the time the Colonel returned from his wife’s grave.

His mind was spinning, both with the realisation that his country was under threat – and that his son had trusted him enough to bring him in on the counter-conspiracy. Maybe he hadn’t gone so badly wrong in raising Toby after all. The thought didn’t last long; if half of what Toby said was true, he’d endangered his old man and hundreds of other people. His entire clan of survivalists could have been targeted because Toby had unwittingly led the aliens right to their base. Not all of them had volunteered to be targeted by the aliens.

Night was falling rapidly and the stars were coming out. The Colonel remembered when his father had told him about the day they’d looked up and seen a Russian satellite crossing the heavens, high overhead. They’d felt naked that day; naked and defenceless, even though the Russian satellite was hardly dangerous. And now seventeen alien starships orbited the Earth, poised to do...what? The uncertainty was far more worrying than discovering that they were facing the Death Star; no one, but no one, knew what weapons the aliens might have to use against a defenceless world. It begged belief that they would be defenceless. The idealists might believe that the Galactic Federation was peaceful and war was a thing of the past, but the Colonel knew better. The key to survival was beating one’s enemies and he found it impossible to believe that the Federation had never had to go to war. If nothing else, they might have encountered a race so alien that communication was impossible and the only option was war to the knife. No one had any right to survive in an uncaring universe.

An object was moving across the heavens. The Colonel shivered, wondering if it was one of the alien starships – or perhaps the International Space Station, a bold effort dreamed up in the days before the aliens had taught the human race just how inadequate its imagination actually was. He stared at the blinking light, wondering if the aliens were looking back at him, before shaking his head and entering the farmhouse. The die had been cast the moment he’d agreed to allow Toby to speak to him and a handful of his most trusted associates. He could no more refuse to help form the resistance than he could refuse to serve his country in its hour of need.

Bob Packman met him in the sitting room. The others would have gone to eat – the Colonel’s daughter had promised them a feast and had been disappointed when Toby hadn't stayed – but he’d waited for the Colonel. He looked haunted, his eyes constantly glancing around like a man with a guilty conscience – or a man who felt terrified beyond belief. The Colonel couldn't blame him. The CIA trained its officers to look at the big picture and the big picture was terrifying. How could anyone hope to stick a spanner into the alien plan to take over the Earth? And what did the aliens really want?

“I'm terrified,” Packman admitted. The Colonel shrugged. He’d been terrified back in the Gulf, when Saddam had looked like a viable threat and the pundits were touting the Iraqi Republican Guard as the latest version of the Waffen SS. And then Desert Storm had rolled over the Iraqis and Saddam had survived by the skin of his teeth. The only thing preventing the Allies from removing his vile regime right there and then had been politics. “What do they want?”

The Colonel sat down beside him, ignoring the smell from the next room. A memory rose up inside his mind, mocking him. Every time she’d given birth, Mary had insisted on a full Thanksgiving dinner the moment she’d recovered enough to cook it. It might have been nowhere near Thanksgiving, but the Colonel had known better to disagree with her – and besides, she had cooked a wicked turkey. And then she’d died in childbirth and the Colonel had ordered the Turkey they’d bought for the feast thrown out, knowing that there was little to give thanks for. Mary had deserved better than to die giving birth to her youngest son.

“It isn't what we prepared for,” Packman said, softly. “We told ourselves that when the Crash came, we’d run away up here and hide from the chaos. We had guns and ammo and food – enough to ensure that we lived through the first few months. And we told ourselves that the only things we had to fear was mutant zombie bikers and government agents coming to take our food to feed the starving grasshoppers from the big cities, the fools who depended on the government to take care of them. How we laughed when we thought about lynching the government agents, hanging the fools who tried to tell us that the Second Amendment didn't apply to us – and standing in judgment over who we would let into our new paradise.

“We told ourselves that by running away and hiding, we would inherit the Earth,” he added. “And now there’s nowhere to hide. No hiding place down here.”

The Colonel didn't disagree. In truth, there had always been a degree of fantasy surrounding survivalist preparations, but having the ability to imagine the disasters that might consume the nation was a vital part of the survivalist mentality. And running away and hiding? There were some disasters so great that the only thing one could do was bunker down and hide, waiting for the chaos to subside and the vast starving hordes to die off. The Colonel’s Christian faith told him to help the helpless, but not at the cost of one’s own chances of survival. And besides, he had no faith in the vast masses who depended on the government for their daily bread to behave when the government fell apart.

“Look at us,” Packman said. “We’re just as dependent upon modern society as the rest of the world – and that makes us vulnerable. Every single goddamn cell phone is a potential spy. Anything we post on the internet – anything we download from the internet – becomes something they can use to track us. They can probably slip into our databases and alter details as they see fit, making it impossible for us to even remember the truth. How can we fight when we can’t even trust our own weapons or memories?”

He shook his head. “They’re carrying out a goddamned soft coup and half of our population is probably quite prepared to welcome the New World Order,” he concluded. “And what’s going to happen to us then?”

The Colonel nodded. He’d seen the studies. The Chinese Government had spent most of the Clinton Administration stealing every piece of computer software they could get their hands on, sometimes aided and abetted by members of an administration the Colonel considered a national mistake. And some folks in the CIA had wondered if that couldn't be turned to their advantage, if they couldn't penetrate systems the Chinese didn’t fully understand and take control of them. If they could do that, they’d thought, they could effectively control the Chinese nation – and no one would ever know what they’d done. How could the Chinese fight back when they couldn't trust their weapons?

Nothing had ever come of the plan, of course. There were too many risks involved for it to be anything other than a theoretical study. But he could see how it applied to their situation. If Toby’s friends were right and the aliens had calmly hacked their way into every government database, they’d know everything they needed to know to draw up plans for the invasion. The implications were devastating. A poker player couldn't hope to win if his opponent knew what cards he was holding in his hand.

“I’m in shock,” Packman said. “Twenty days ago, the world changed forever ; nothing has changed on the surface, but you can feel it moving underwater. This is the calm before the storm. God alone knows what will happen when the storm finally hits.”

The Colonel shrugged. Packman had always had an imagination. It was one of the reasons his superiors had asked him to leave. “We’ll need to think about it carefully,” he said. He disliked cell phones personally and insisted that they be turned off in the house. He’d even ordered his guests to leave them behind when Toby had briefed them, something that might have saved their lives. It was quite possible to turn a mobile phone on remotely and transform it into a spy. “And we need to find a way of operating under their radar.”

Susan stuck her head through the door. “Are you not coming?” She demanded. “The food is getting cold!”

The Colonel knew better than to defy his daughter over her cooking. Like her mother, Susan was tough and very determined to control the female sphere – which included cooking and wedding planning. If he’d skipped dinner, she wouldn't have forgiven him for months, just like Mary. At least Mary had understood when he’d been called back to his unit for an emergency drill that had led nowhere. Susan’s husband was on the other side of the world.

“Coming,” he said, hauling himself to his feet. He’d kept himself in peak physical condition for a man of his age, but he was suddenly chillingly aware that he wasn't anything like as strong or active as he’d been before his retirement. “Come on, Bob. You don’t want to get her angry at you.”

“Quite right,” Susan agreed. Standing against the light, she looked terrifyingly like her mother. “And if you don’t eat a full plate of stew, you won’t get any desert.”

***​

They reconvened in the living room after the dinner. The Colonel rubbed his stomach – he’d eaten more than was good for him, but it had tasted so good – and started to pour the coffee into a number of mugs. Susan and everyone else not directly involved with the resistance – for the Colonel had already determined to resist, whatever else happened – hadn't been invited to the meeting. There was no point in risking the lives of anyone who hadn't already committed themselves to the fight.

He thought, just for a moment, of Toby. His youngest son was right in the heart of enemy territory, Washington DC. The Colonel, like many survivalists, treated Washington with great suspicion, an attitude that had only hardened over the years that Washington's politicians had fiddled while the country burned down around them. It was one thing to talk – and political leaders could talk the hind leg off a donkey – but it was another thing to act...and nothing he’d seen had convinced him that Congress could pass an act to save its life, let alone the entire country. The first step in solving a problem was recognising that there actually was a problem and Washington’s stable of politicians would prefer to avoid admitting that for as long as possible. Who knew where the blame might fall?

“Let’s be clear about this,” the Colonel said. “We are at war with a force of unknown power. We don't know what they are, we don't know what they want and we don't know what they can actually do. They have most of our politicians in their pockets and large parts of our society trust them more than they trust any human. All of our data consists of little more than wild-assed guessing. If there is anyone here who wishes to back out and hide, rather than try to fight, say so now. It will not be held against you.”

“Respectfully suggest,” Coleman grated, “that you stop insulting us and get down to business.”

The Colonel smiled. “Right,” he said. “The aliens are telling us to disarm. There’s only one logical reason for them to want us to disarm and that’s because they intend to invade – and intend to deprive us of the tools needed to resist them effectively. We are staring down the barrels of an alien invasion. God alone knows what they want from us, but I doubt they think that it is anything that we would give to them willingly.”

“Perhaps they want to eat us,” Packman suggested. Food seemed to have restored his good humour, although his eyes still looked haunted. “Maybe diced human is the food of choice among the stars.”

“Doubt it,” Coleman said. “Does anyone here believe that the Chinese or the Russians or the Arabs wouldn't take the opportunity to sell troublemakers to alien butchers if it meant they would have access to alien technology?”

The Colonel couldn't disagree. There were plenty of governments on Earth that didn't put the well-being of their own citizens on their list of priorities, let alone anywhere near the top. It was one of the many reasons why he was glad to be an American. If African governments were prepared to allow famines to take place because the people starving belonged to hostile tribes, they wouldn't hesitate to sell living humans to the aliens. Africans had been selling their fellow Africans into slavery long before there had ever been a United States of America. And the Chinese...if they were prepared to carry out a religious and ethnic genocide in Tibet and other regions, they wouldn't hesitate to sell them off to butchers. Hell...he wouldn't have put it past his own government.

“No,” the Colonel said. “They want something and the only answer that makes sense is that they want humanity’s industrial base. Anything else they could get by wreaking the planet or exterminating the human race.”

“No offense, but that can't be right,” Packman said. “Why would they want humanity’s industrial base when we can barely lift a few tons into orbit? Building a ship like theirs would take at least fifty years; we’d have to build the tools to make the tools long before we even started work on the ship. What the hell do they want from us?”

Dawlish stroked his chin. “Maybe we’re more advanced than them in some areas,” he suggested. “The Japanese moved ahead in civilian computing technology...”

“Because we had all of our brightest minds going into the military,” Packman countered. “I find it impossible to believe that they don’t have everything we have and a great deal more...”

His voice trailed off, slowly. “Oh.”

The Colonel looked up at him. “Oh?”

“They need our industrial base because they don't have one of their own,” Packman said. He shook his head slowly. “If they need to use our industrial base, it suggests that theirs is somehow lost – or missing.”

“Or maybe they intend to upgrade ours once they have control,” Coleman suggested. “How long would it take them to boost what we have to a level that can be used for building something comparable to theirs? For all we know, it’s cheaper to build a new industrial base here rather than ship equipment in from thousands of light years away...”

The Colonel held up a hand. “As interesting as this is, we need to start building a resistance,” he said, firmly. “Bob’s pointed out that the aliens will have access to government databases. We need to build a network without compromising ourselves – thoughts?”

“Nothing gets put online, ever,” Packman said. “And we don’t make telephone calls – at least not ones where we discuss anything sensitive. We meet our potential allies face-to-face...”

“Which would blow us wide open if the aliens have tagged one of them,” the Colonel said. He was still reeling from the news about the alien surveillance devices. If they’d bugged the President they could bug anyone – and it would be almost impossible to locate the devices without specialised equipment. Perhaps Toby could get his hands on some of it...maybe. “I think we’re going to have to assume the worst.”

“The worst is pretty bad,” Packman said. “I keep up with a few friends of mine from the Agency. We have ways of tracking people, even in godforsaken Afghanistan and Pakistan, without them ever even knowing that they’ve been tagged. And then we call in a Predator and drop a Hellfire on their heads. We must be very careful; someone who works with us may unwittingly lead the aliens to our location. I think we need to start creating smaller cells, right ****ing now. The loss of one won’t destroy them all.”

The Colonel nodded. “We’ll reach out to anyone we know with real military experience,” he said. “We won’t touch anyone on active duty, not when their records are already in alien hands...”

“Our records will be in alien hands,” Packman pointed out. “We’re all former military or former intelligence...”

“We’ll have to pray that we’re not noticed,” the Colonel admitted. There were ways to pass unnoticed, even in modern society. He’d have to start tapping some of his more dubious friends for false ID and other counterfeit documents. The government had been more careful about identity fraud since 9/11. “If we allow fear to paralyse us, we won't get anywhere at all.”

The discussion lasted long into the night. After a few more ideas had been dropped into the mix, the Colonel started writing them down on a notepad. They’d have to shred the paperwork once they’d finished the discussion, if only because the farm might be raided by government agents. The Colonel still remembered the arrogant agent who’d turned up because of a vague report that the farm was selling unprocessed milk to locals – never mind the fact that everyone who’d bought the milk was an adult and knew the risks. Government treated people like children or criminals...

“And we will have to devise a secure link to Toby,” he added, almost as an afterthought. Toby was in the best possible position to know what was about to happen. “How the hell do we do that?”

 

COMMENTS?

Chapter Thirteen<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

Washington DC
USA, Day 24

“Federation, Federation, Federation...”

Jason could hear the chanting protesters through the taxi’s closed windows. The elderly Pakistani who was driving the cab looked nervous as the protesters came into view, a disorganised mob of young people – mainly students – with a hard core of professional protesters. There were a number of police officers wearing riot gear watching the protest nervously, wondering if it would turn violent. The radio claimed that it was the largest single protest in America; hundreds of thousands were thronging the streets, demanding that the Government immediately accept the alien terms for starting down the long road towards Federation membership.

He rubbed his tired eyes as the noise grew louder. The alien terms had leaked two days ago and since then, SETI had found itself at the heart of both pro-alien and anti-alien protests. SETI had always believed that ET would be friendly and there was a strong feeling running throughout the organisation that they should accept the Federation’s terms, but not everyone agreed with them. There was a core of protesters who believed that the alien terms were demeaning and should be rejected without further comment. The radio updates had started that there had been several violent clashes between the two sides and hundreds of protesters had been arrested. Rumour online had it that protesters from all over the United States were being bussed into Washington, where they were making their feelings known to the Government. Jason wouldn't have wanted to be a senator who stood against the aliens, not with tempers running so high.

“Foolish children,” the taxi driver snarled. A group of kids – they couldn't be more than fifteen years old – had run past the taxi, heading down to join the protest. They wore grey alien facemasks, the ones that had become the logo used by the Witnesses. It struck Jason as ironic – the legendary Gray aliens had never been friendly – but it did have worldwide recognition. “Don’t they know that people have to work to eat?”

“Probably not,” Jason agreed. He kept his other thoughts to himself. If he’d known that all that awaited him after he graduated was a hard scrabble to earn enough money to stay alive and in reasonable comfort, would he have worked so hard at college? It was easy to see why so many youngsters loved the ideal of the Galactic Federation; they knew nothing about it, apart from the fact it offered them hope. And hope was something that could warp and twist a person’s thoughts out of all recognition. “I don’t think we’ll get through in a hurry.”

He reached into his pocket and produced a handful of dollar bills. SETI had paid for his trip to Washington and they could afford the bill, particularly now that donations were going through the roof. Everyone wanted to claim that they’d had a hand in the Discovery, and First Contact, and if that meant pouring enough money on SETI to build an observatory on the moon, they’d do it. The taxi driver offered the change, but Jason told him to keep it and opened the door. The racket struck him full force the moment he stepped onto the street.

It was terrifying, almost like being caught up in a riot. As a student, Jason had gone to parties and matches where everyone had just been caught up in the music or game, but this was worse. Thousands upon thousands of people seemed to have formed a hive mind, the undertow of their emotions threatening to pull him into the mix. Their deafening shouts for Federation membership and an end to war seemed loud enough to shatter buildings. If any of them recognised Jason, they couldn't make themselves heard over the racket. Silently grateful, Jason hurried through the blocked streets to his destination. A handful of policemen guarding the streets looked as if they were going to block his way and then changed their minds. The entire street felt as if it was on a knife edge.

The chant changed, almost spontaneously. “No more nukes, no more nukes, no more nukes...”

Jason shook his head as the sound grew louder. His ears were starting to hurt, shivers of pain that threatened to generate a real headache. He started to move faster and then he burst into a run, although he wasn't sure what he was running from, or even where he was running to. His head started to spin, seconds before the sound finally – mercifully – started to fade. The numbers of policemen blocking streets was rising rapidly, almost as if they were trying to contain the protests. It felt as if they were on the verge of a riot.

High overhead, a line of helicopters roared over the city. Jason found himself wondering where they were going – and why. The White House wasn't too far from the protesters; the radio had said that the protesters intended to march down to the White House and present their demands to the President in person. Somehow, Jason doubted that it would go well. He kept his legs moving, heading towards the meeting place. Time was running out.

***​

SETI had turned into a lobbying organisation surprisingly quickly, which was part of the reason it had transferred its headquarters to Washington and even positioned many of the review sections – where Jason had worked before he'd become the Discoverer – in Washington. The easiest way to get funding from political leaders was to prove that the funding would help the politician’s chances of getting re-elected, and that meant pork – lots and lots of pork. SETI couldn't compete against the military-industrial complex when it came to building new factories in specific states, but it had had influence. And now it had a great deal more.

Jason sipped a cup of water gratefully as the meeting room slowly filled up. He shouldn't have been in the room at all – and wouldn't have been, if he had not been the Discoverer, the man who had become famous around the world. Crenshaw and the rest of SETI’s senior directors hadn't hesitated to take advantage of Jason’s fame, using him to attract funding to SETI and convince politicians to support SETI’s vision of the universe. And that fame came with a sting in the tail. If Jason went off-message – if he decided that the aliens weren't friendly – it would rock their little utopia. The money they’d received since the Discovery would be at risk.

He sat up sharply as a familiar scent intruded upon his nostrils. An alien had just entered the room, escorted by a pair of plainclothes officers from the Washington PD. Personally, Jason suspected that the officers were actually from the CIA, but there was no way to know for sure. The alien waved one hand at Jason – he’d learned that that was a loose greeting from a Snake – before sitting down on a weirdly-shaped stool. Jason had to take his eyes off the alien’s body as it moved and sat. It was so wrong to human eyes that he almost felt sick.

Fighting it down, he studied the alien carefully. It was still hard to tell them apart, but he was starting to realise that tiny indentions and colour patterns over their faces served to differentiate them from one another. There was still no way to separate the sexes; hell, no one even knew if the Snakes had two sexes. They could easily be functional hermaphrodites, with asexual bodies, or perhaps their females laid eggs which were then fertilised by the male. There was no way to know. One of the many subjects upon which the aliens refused to discourse was their own biology.

Jason frowned as the alien eyes turned to meet his. He had never considered himself a xenophobe – xenophobes never went into SETI – but there was something about the glowing red eyes that seemed to awaken old instincts long buried behind the veneer of civilisation. There were people in America who had trouble looking into the face of a black man; Jason understood, just now, what they must have felt. They could never have explained the feeling and perhaps concealed it, fearful of the dread accusation of racism.

“Thank you all for coming,” Crenshaw said. Jason looked up from the alien, surprised to see that the room had filled up without him noticing. Many of the faces were familiar from SETI, or political broadcasts, but a handful were strangers. He caught the eye of a Japanese woman of indeterminate age who winked at him when she noticed him staring. Feeling as if he didn't belong in the group, he sat up and tried to pay attention. “As you can tell, feelings are running high outside.”

Jason winced inwardly. The room was supposed to be soundproofed, but he could still hear the protesters as they thronged the streets of Washington. Their demands had blurred into a deep roar that was all the more chilling for being barely understandable. He wondered if someone had also leaked the fact that this meeting was being held; SETI had once needed all the publicity it could get.

Crenshaw nodded. “The Washington police tell us that we should be safe in here, but we do need to keep an eye on the situation,” he continued. “Without further ado - Jeannette McGreevy.”

Jason felt his mouth fall open as the Secretary of State stood up. She was shorter than he’d expected, somehow, which might have been why he hadn't recognised her. Even so, there was an air of bulldog determination in her face that suggested that anyone who got in her way was in for a very hard time. He hadn't seen anyone so determined since his mother had confronted his father over rumours that his father had been cheating on her. It wasn't a pleasant memory.

“I had a long speech with praise for the Discovery and the Discoverer,” McGreevy said, “but I’m afraid I will have to ask you all to take it as read.” She smiled at Jason, who found himself on the receiving end of an almost shark-like smile. “The Secret Service has taken the precaution of placing a helicopter ready for emergency evacuation, so I don't want to stress the poor dears. They work so hard to protect us from threats.”

There was an amused note in her voice that Jason didn't like at all. “It is my belief,” McGreevy continued, “that the Government will accept the terms offered by the Federation. After much intense negotiation, the Federation has agreed to bring forward the schedule for integrating Galactic-level technology into humanity’s general technical base – in exchange for prompt acceptance of their terms. It will help cushion us from the inevitable economic earthquake when the full effects of the terms make themselves felt.”

Jason nodded, impatiently. Disposing of the world’s nuclear stockpiles might not cost the world anything – particularly if the Galactics could be convinced to fly them into space and push them towards the sun – but every other term would certainly have an economic effect on America, as well as the rest of the world. There were trillions of dollars tied up in the defence industry – everything from producing tanks to training and hiring out mercenaries – and all of those dollars would be at risk. Some production plants could probably be retooled to produce components for space-based industries instead, but others would have to be scrapped. The protesters outside demanding that the human race join the Federation might not be so enthusiastic when they realised that they’d lost all prospect of getting a job in the economic crunch.

“It is our belief that SETI – the organisation that detected the Federation’s presence – should be reconfigured as the Welcome Foundation,” she concluded. “The Welcome Foundation will have two goals; one, it will prepare the world for membership in the Federation and two, it will help cushion the economic problems by suggesting new uses for our industrial plant.”

There was a long pause. “Any questions?”

Jason hesitated, remembered that he was the Discoverer, and held up a hand. “Our general tech base is well behind the Federation’s,” he said. “Why do you expect industrial corporations to retool for space when they will be effortlessly outmatched by Federation products?”

McGreevy looked, just for a second, angry. Oddly, it was the alien who answered. “The Federation will ensure that your economic base has a chance to adapt to the new situation by levelling protective tariffs on Federation technology entering your system,” he said. “There will be a number of incentives provided for shared development, but such incentives will depend upon Federation corporations working with their human counterparts.”

“That will be one of the roles of the Welcome Foundation,” McGreevy said. “I trust that this is acceptable to you all?”

Jason was unsurprised to see Crenshaw and the others agree at once. They’d wanted to be important and now they were. And his global fame would help them. Everything McGreevy had said had made sense, and yet...somehow, Jason was worried. Something didn't quite add up.

***​

“So why did you come here today?”

“Because the government, like, will cover it all up if we let them,” the young girl said. Jayne had her doubts that she was old enough to escape being branded jailbait. She was blonde, with a tight top showing off everything she had, carrying a sign that read NO NUKES NOW! “They cannot be trusted; we must, like, like them know what we feel.”

Jayne sighed inwardly. The BAN had sent several reporters to the protests and she'd volunteered to be one of them, although her true interests were different. A few hours of data mining had revealed that the protest networks were being funded by a wide range of different interests, all working together to ensure that the protests were as loud and noticeable as possible. The latest update from the Washington PD suggested that there were nearly a million protesters in Washington. It certainly looked that way.

“But who told you to come?” She asked, as the girl blew a bubble of gum. “Why did you come here?”

“Because this is, like, Washington,” the girl said. “The filthy thieves in Congress wouldn't notice a protest in Podunk, USA. They don’t, like, pay any attention to anyone outside Washington who doesn't have a big bursting wallet. We got together and made up our minds to take a trip here and we’re going to camp out until they give us what we want.”

Jayne watched the girl move back into the protest and vanish into the crowd, shaking her head. It had always struck her that most protesters might have a valid case, but they didn't have the slightest idea of how to actually go about getting what they wanted. The American Government was far from perfect, yet it actually listened to the results of election campaigns. A protest movement that concentrated on selecting the right politicians would go further than one that merely consisted of shouting and screaming.

Another protester was in front of her before she could move away, almost demanding to be interviewed. “I must say that we find the government’s decision to sit on the alien terms abhorrent,” he said. Jayne tried to keep the disgust from her face. He smelled as if he hadn't washed for a week. His outfit, a torn tunic that looked as if it had once belonged to a janitor, was marked and stained by dark liquids. She didn't want to think about what they might be. “Don’t we have a right to know?”

He grinned, revealing gaps in his teeth. “But we’re going to make them pay for deceiving us,” he added. “We won’t let up until those bastards are removed from Washington and we have a federal government that actually cares about the little people. Do you hear me up there?”

Jayne managed to walk away while he was making rude signs to the helicopters high overhead. The entire tone of the demonstration was growing darker by the second, threatening to turn into a riot. She caught signs of hundreds of black-clad policemen in riot gear moving forward, only to be greeted with a hail of abuse and stones from protesters who had clearly come prepared for a riot. The policemen raised their shields to protect themselves, while bringing up reinforcements. Jayne, who had been arrested before during a protest that had turned violent, turned and headed back to safety as fast as possible. It hadn't been a very enjoyable afternoon.

Behind her, the noise of the riot grew louder. More and more police vans were racing towards the scene. She spared a thought for the innocents in the crowd and then kept walking. She'd see it all on CNN or FOX once she was back in the motel.

***​

Later, after a shower and a quick meal, she logged on and checked the records. According to the mainstream media, the riots had begun when a group of anti-alien protesters had deliberately provoked their opponents into a battle. The police had been caught in the middle while trying to separate the two groups, making thousands of arrests before they’d been forced to pull back and let the rioters burn themselves out first. At least a hundred people were confirmed dead and thousands were injured.

She shook her head, bitterly. Someone was definitely manufacturing the news. She hadn't seen any anti-alien protesters deliberately sparking off a riot. Some of the bloggers were pointing that out, although she doubted that anyone would take them too seriously. One problem with witness statements was that the witness could believe they were telling the truth, but it would be only as they saw it. A hundred accounts of the same event could yield a hundred different versions from witnesses who only saw what had happened to or near then.

It hardly mattered, not now. The entire country would see anti-alien protesters as rioters – and anything they said would be ignored. The noose was tightening around the entire country...

Was there no one who could see it?

 

Chapter Fourteen<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

Washington DC
USA, Day 25

Toby followed the President into the conference room, watching as the Cabinet rose to greet their President. It was their second full meeting since First Contact and they’d been joined by the Majority Leader, Minority Leader and a handful of influential Senators and Congressmen. Personally, Toby would have been surprised if such a diverse group ever came to any conclusions, but most of them knew that their careers were at stake. The pro-alien lobby was growing rapidly – one of his allies had mentioned that someone behind the scenes was funding the protesters – and the political leaders were under immense pressure to deliver the goods. Normally, they could expect the fickle public to have forgotten about the issue by the time elections rolled around, but not this time. One way or another, the public would never forget.

“Please be seated,” the President said. He stood at the end of the table, his eyes travelling down the line of seated politicians. The Vice President, who was making a long-overdue visit to Japan, was linked in via videoconferencing technology, but everyone else was present in person. Toby knew that at least five of the politicians in the room had been tagged by alien surveillance bugs and that meant that the aliens would know everything that was said in the discussion. They’d know how best to target their resources to get what they wanted – whatever they wanted. “It is no exaggeration to state that whatever choices we make today will change the course of American history – of Earth’s history – for a thousand years.”

He pressed one hand against the table, a sign of nervousness. Politicians trained themselves to reveal as little as possible of their inner feelings – one never knew when a camera was trained on one, recording one’s reactions for posterity – but the President was at the end of his career. There were no higher positions to reach than President of the United States. After his departure, he would write his memoirs and go on the lecture circuit. He would never return to government life.

“You’ve all seen what the aliens are asking,” the President said. “They want us to sign up to a global government with transnational authority. They want us to discard – to disband – most of our military, including the nuclear warheads that have guaranteed peace and security for the past fifty years. And they want us to make the shift to a fusion-based economy as soon as possible. If we refuse to accept these terms, we will be frozen out of Earth’s upgrading process and find ourselves at a major disadvantage when it comes to competing with the rest of the world, let alone the Federation. The promised loans and technological upgrades will never materialise.

“The best-case scenario is that we will be able to join the transnational government later on,” he continued. “We already know that certain governments – North Korea, for example – will not be joining the world government, even though they will be guaranteed full internal autonomy. But the Federation is apparently convinced that they will eventually fall and when that happens, they will be allowed to join the world government. If that happens to us, however, we will lose all input into the negotiations surrounding the formation of the world government. We will have to accept whatever terms are dictated by the transnational authority.

“The worst-case scenario is that we will never be allowed to join the transnational government, which means that America will not be part of the Federation. It is quite possible that the effects of such isolation will be utterly devastating. The remainder of the world will soar ahead into space, their industrial bases upgraded by the Federation, while we remain mired in the gravity well. You all know what would happen to our economy if we lost the ability to trade with the rest of the world. At best, we’d be a modern version of pre-Perry Japan; isolated, backward and unheeded. At worst...”

“They’d take over,” Senator Hamlin growled. He was renowned for being excessively right-wing, but he was under a great deal of pressure from his home state. Elections were coming up and the deciding issue would be the Galactic Federation. Making the wrong choice could destroy his career. “We’d be ground away until we’d just collapse like the Ottomans...”

Toby wondered, as the President cleared his throat with a hint of irritation, if the Senator had just signed his own death warrant. He had no way of knowing that the aliens were watching the meeting, or that he ought to guard his words. On the other hand, a Senator was far better protected than an ordinary blogger and any assassination attempt, even an unsuccessful one, would run the risk of exposure. He started to lay plans in the back of his mind, wondering if the aliens could be pushed into exposing themselves, as the President continued to speak.

“At worst, we’d be looking at total social collapse,” the President said. Toby remembered the day, just before his inauguration, when the President had been shown some of the highly-classified contingency plans drawn up by government agencies. Some of them had been harrowing, warning of the dangers of racial and ethnic conflict in America, or of the sudden loss of all oil supplies from the Middle East. In theory, the United States could survive such an embargo, but in practice the results would devastate the economy. “I don't think that our public would thank us for condemning them to outright chaos while the French and the Russians get to go to the stars.”

There was a long uncomfortable pause. “Let’s be clear on this,” the President said. “We are talking about giving up almost all of our ability to influence the world. We are talking about giving up most of our ability to defend ourselves – even though the Federation has promised that any state that joins the world government will be protected by the Federation. And, most importantly of all, we are talking about giving up ultimate authority over ourselves. We have refused to work with the International Criminal Court and other such transnational entities because they would compromise our independence and our right to stand in judgement over our own people. If we join now, we will have some say in how the global government is organised, but we won’t have a decisive vote. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what is at stake here; America herself.

“Do we accept their terms and become part of a world government, or do we refuse and attempt to negotiate better terms for ourselves?” He asked “But we have very little to bargain with, don't we? They do not need our technology, or our food, or our industrial base. The space components we have seen them order from our industrial corporations can be just as easily be produced in China, or Russia, or even Africa. We are in a very weak bargaining position; on one hand, technology in exchange for surrendering part of our independence; on the other hand, isolation and inevitable decline.”

And the termination of a number of political careers, Toby thought, coldly. The mainstream media had been painting Federation membership in glowing terms. There was no constitutional basis for a national referendum or any other form of direct democracy, but if a referendum happened to be held, Toby was not sanguine about the prospects. The latest polls showed a massive upswing in pro-alien views. If any of the politicians took too strong a stance against the Federation, their careers would likely be terminated.

“The choice is ours,” the President concluded. “Where do we stand?”

Unsurprisingly, Jeannette McGreevy was the first to speak. The Secretary of State, according to the FBI’s counter-intelligence division, had had at least a dozen meetings with the aliens, during which they’d discussed...what? She’d been reluctant to allow the CIA or anyone else to debrief her afterwards, citing confidentiality concerns. As the Secretary of State, she’d been involved in any number of sensitive negotiations – including some with countries the American public regarded as one step below Satan himself – that would have caused a political catfight if any details were released into the public domain, but surely negotiations with an alien power were different. Toby would have given his right arm to know what the aliens had said to her – and what she’d said to them.

“I feel that our choice is obvious,” she said. “I think that we should accept the alien terms, without hesitation. We are a very strong and capable nation, even outside the military field. We will be very well placed to take advantage of the infusion of alien technology and the loans they’ve promised us to get our technology up to speed. Given ten years, we can make the switch to a fusion economy and start repairing the damage we've done to the Earth – and, just incidentally, see the Arabs try to drink their oil.”

There were a handful of nervous chuckles. “We should not think of this in terms of giving up our independence,” she added. “We have been told that we will have full internal autonomy and our local government systems will remain as we choose to keep them. There will still be a Senate, there will still be a Congress, there will even still be a President. And, given the time needed to develop our own industries, we have the ability, the drive, the determination, to take what the Federation can offer us and use it to take America to the stars. Is there any other nation on Earth as capable as we are of developing and deploying technology?”

She shook her head. “We are always scared of change, as a race,” she said. “There are people who prefer to remain in squalor rather than make a jump to an unknown destination, fearful of what might happen to them if they move. We see battered wives remaining with their husbands because they’re scared to leave. I tell you now that there is no reason to fear the future. We have the ability to take the alien technology and use it to our own best advantage. And the Federation will allow us to do just that!

“Yes, we are puny by their standards, but that will change. A bright shining future awaits America – awaits the entire human race – if only we dare to reach out and grasp it for ourselves. Don’t think of what we will be giving up, Mr. President; think of what we will be gaining by joining the Galactic Federation. We are no longer alone! We are children in a universe of adults. It’s time to put aside childish things and grow up into the adults we have always known we could be. It’s time to join the interstellar community.”

Her speech sounded good, Toby had to admit. Anti-alien bloggers had concentrated on the negatives, wondering aloud why the Federation would even care about human military forces when they could obliterate them from orbit with ease. By focusing on the positive, she made the negative seem absurd, a small price to pay for humanity’s leg up into adulthood. And if Toby hadn't known about the alien bugs, he would have wanted to believe her. The entire world would want to believe her, if only because the promise was so...promising. A bright shining future seemed to beckon, waiting for the entire human race.

The President cleared his throat. “Jeannette has spoken in favour of accepting the alien terms,” he said. “Would anyone like to speak against them?”

Toby watched, keeping his face expressionless. Several Senators who had been vocal opponents of transnational institutions in the past kept their mouths shut, seemingly unwilling to challenge the Federation openly. But then, modern Washington leaked like a sieve; a single leak, picked up and amplified by the media, could destroy a career. The blandness of modern politics contrasted sharply with the world it had created. No one dared to venture onto the record when it could shatter their hopes and dreams for the future.

There was the sound of someone clearing their throat. Toby looked down and saw General Elliot Thomas preparing to speak. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had been invited to what was, officially, a political meeting because he had his thumb on the pulse of military opinion. Whatever the Federation might have in mind, disbanding ninety percent of the American military machine would put hundreds of thousands of people out of work and onto the streets. That hadn't worked out too well in Iraq and it wouldn't be much better in America. Toby had heard that Congress was even debating a bill to ensure that all military personnel continued to receive their salaries for at least six months. It was a nice idea, but he doubted it would pass. Congress hated the thought of paying someone for nothing, at least someone outside the political circle.

“Mr. President,” he said, gruffly. “I would not say that the Federation’s promises are not extremely attractive. I would not argue that we are being offered something we should refuse, without consideration, even if we were the only nation on Earth. And, put bluntly, decisions regarding discussions with foreign powers are a political concern. It is my duty, however, to make you aware of the military implications of the Federation’s demands.”

“There are none,” McGreevy said, sharply. “The Federation is not planning to invade us, General. And even if they were, how much chance would we stand against someone who can cross the gulf of space?”

Thomas ignored her, but then; they were old enemies. Toby knew that Thomas had never forgiven McGreevy for her political interference during a brief crisis with Iran, nine months ago. He’d said that she’d intruded upon military affairs and almost cost America nine young lives. She said that she’d managed to negotiate a mutual stand-down that had avoided the need for violence. Toby knew that it had involved treating Iran, a nation that much of the American public regarded as the Great Satan, as an American equal. The Iranians had made much out of their political success at the UN – and it had made the United States look very weak.

“We know almost nothing about the Federation,” Thomas said. “They have been reluctant to tell us anything about themselves; we know nothing about their interstellar geography, their biology, their technology...some data, sure, isn't what anyone would choose to share when confronting a violent bunch like ourselves, but they have often refused to share data that would have no conceivable military value. All we know for sure is that they have seventeen starships orbiting over our heads and that those starships are crewed by one race. They tell us that the Federation includes thousands of races...so where are they?

“But that is outside my remit,” he continued. “They have demanded that we hand supreme authority over to a world government that will not be elected into power – even by the world’s population – and that we disband most of our military force. I see no logic to their demands. Why would they want us to cut the military when the military poses no threat to them – or any nation under their protection? We know almost nothing about the Federation, Mr. President; we are in a state of almost complete ignorance. And that is very dangerous.

“It is my feeling that agreeing to sign up to this alien-designed world government is not a constitutional action,” he concluded. “Even if the aliens meant every word they’ve told us, I would still recommend that we do not surrender our government to a global government that is not – cannot be – accountable to ourselves. There are other ways to integrate their technology into our society.”

Toby smiled, impressed. The General had summed up the problems he’d seen with the alien terms – problems that had been reported on the internet, before a number of bloggers had dropped dead. A tenth blogger had been reported dead in Texas in what looked like a drink-driving incident, although his friends had sworn blind that he was a strict Christian who never touched a drop of alcohol. And now the General himself might be targeted. Toby started reviewing the procedures he'd put in place for contacting his father. General Thomas was someone who could not be allowed to die.

“You are interfering in a political matter,” McGreevy snapped. “That is well outside your remit.”

The President looked uncomfortable. “General...”

“I understand,” Thomas said. He pulled one of his medals off his uniform and dropped it on the table. “I cannot go along with this, Mr. President. You’ll have my resignation on your desk by the end of today.”

He stood up and stalked out of the room. The President watched him go, a shocked expression meandering over his face, before he caught himself and turned back to the table.

“We need to take a recommendation to Congress,” he said, flatly. “How many of you are in favour of accepting the alien terms?”

Toby didn't get a vote, of course, but the remainder of the table knew that what they agreed upon would be pushed through Congress with ease. He watched as dispassionately as he could as the votes were tallied up. Only two politicians were prepared to put their doubts on the record; the remainder agreed that America needed to join the global government at the start. Toby couldn't quite believe it. They were signing away America's independence, for what? Alien technology, toys and gadgets – and a fear that if they refused, America would become a Third World state and their political careers would be over.

“The ayes have it,” the President said, flatly. He glanced towards the covered windows. Outside, the Witnesses and their throng of protesters had gathered, shouting their demands towards the White House. Parts of Washington reassembled a battlefield after protest marches had turned into riots. Rumour had it that the National Guard was on the verge of being called up to help keep the peace. “We will join the Galactic Federation.”

 

Chapter Fifteen<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

Washington DC
USA, Day 25

As the President’s Special Assistant – a term that covered a multitude of sins – Toby was technically entitled to a room at the White House. He’d declined the honour, choosing instead to set up his home in an apartment some distance from the White House. It allowed him to tell himself that he had some independence, while being close enough to the President’s residence to get back there within twenty minutes if there was an emergency.

He entered the apartment, checked the expensive security system to ensure that no one had tried to break in while he'd been at the White House and closed the door behind him. There were only four rooms within the apartment – the high rent came from being so close to official Washington – and he walked into the bedroom and threw himself down on the bed. He was tired, immensely so, yet he dared not rest yet. There was too much to do.

Rolling over, he stared up at the ceiling. It had never stuck him until now just how little he’d done in the apartment, even though he’d rented it for the last three years. A small shelf of books, a secure laptop from the NSA, a handful of DVDs and CDs...there was little to show that anyone lived and worked from the apartment. Some of the people he shared the apartment block with had money to burn, using it to outfit their apartments with tasteless paintings and decorations. Toby had treated it as little more than a place to sleep when he wasn't on duty, or catching a power nap on one of the White House sofas. His father would probably not have approved.

The President had wanted him to write a speech that he would use to address the nation as the sun set and darkness fell over the land. Toby had almost handed the task over to one of the official speechwriters in Washington; only the high security classification on the material had ensured that he kept it to himself. He felt beaten, almost defeated. Whatever else happened, the aliens would almost certainly get what they wanted. All of Earth’s major powers would join their global government, disband most of their military forces and destroy their nuclear stockpiles. It sounded like a dream. Toby knew that it could become a nightmare.

He would have shaken his head, if he hadn't been so tired. General Thomas had been right; the government was walking down an unconstitutional path, seduced by the promise of alien technology and threatened by the prospect of losing their political careers. The protesters thronging through Washington and every other state capital were a reminder that careers would be made or broken on this issue, an issue that affected everyone in the entire world. Toby had watched in numb disbelief how abortion and gay marriage had been moved from minor issues to political millstones, dragging political careers below the waterline and effortlessly drowning them before the politician ever had a chance to run for national office. And they’d been minor matters. Membership – or not – in the Galactic Federation affected everyone on Earth.

Slowly, he pulled himself to his feet. He’d acquired a taste for strong coffee from his father, one of the few things he'd kept since he’d left the farm. The coffeemaker had been one of his few expenditures since he’d moved to Washington, but it had been worth the price to have a cup of strong coffee available upon demand. He poured himself a cup, added a splash of milk and a spoonful of sugar, and then drank it in one gulp. It was hot enough to scald the back of his throat, which was how he liked it. The shock of hot caffeine brought him back to his senses.

Every week, a team of counter-intelligence experts from the Secret Service gave his apartment a careful check for bugs. Toby suspected that they would have missed the alien bugs; hell, he had no way to know if they hadn’t tagged him again, or if Gillen and her team would ever develop a small bug-sweeper that could be used to find and remove alien bugs without a full search procedure. Sitting down in front of his desk, Toby pulled out a sheet of paper and started to write a letter to his father. It was a risk, but it was impossible to do it mentally; he’d discovered that while he was a child. His father had been obsessed with codes and he’d taught all of his children how to create and decode basic ciphers. Oddly, the memory gave him a pang of homesickness. It would be wonderful to be a child again.

Every code could be broken, given enough time and computing power. Toby was counting on the aliens only paying attention to internet and cell phone traffic. They would find it much harder to keep track of messages hand-carried from place to place. The mundane cipher he’d used to encode his message was based around a book he and the Colonel both had on their bookshelves. With some effort, the message shouldn't arouse suspicion in alien minds, although a human might wonder if someone was trying to hide something. He wrote the message out in clear, wrote it again in code, and then fed the original message through the shredder. Anyone who worked in politics knew better than to keep embarrassing documents around when they could be shredded. Who knew what could prove embarrassing or career-destroying in the future.

Picking up his coat, Toby headed downstairs, nodded to the security guard on duty in the lobby and walked out onto the streets. He could hear the sound of chanting in the distance and knew it to be protesters, demanding immediate compliance with the terms of the Galactic Federation. How could they be such fools? But then, they knew nothing about the alien bugs, or any of the other signs that the aliens weren't being entirely straight with the human race. And the aliens had given them the most significant thing of all. They’d given them hope.

There were any number of bars and restaurants around Official Washington. Many of them served young lobbyists, reporters and others who existed on the outskirts of politics, rather than serving within the White House or Congress. Toby walked into one that served a number of lobbyists who were currently pressing for immediate acceptance of the Galactic Federation’s terms and ordered a whiskey and soda. His father’s friend was seated at a single table, all on his own. Officially, he represented a small company in Virginia that was hoping to get a piece of the vast funds everyone assumed would be doled out by Congress once the human race was enrolled in the Federation. It helped that he had a legitimate reason to be in Washington. And if he’d been marked by the aliens...

Toby cursed the uncertainty under his breath as he sat down. His father’s friend looked up, one cigarette drooping mournfully from the corner of his mouth. Toby said nothing; he merely unfurled the newspaper he was carrying and made a show of reading it. The paper was talking about the wonders of Federation membership. It was all they talked about these days. He finished his drink and put the newspaper on the table.

“Hey,” his father’s friend said. “Can I have the paper?”

“Knock yourself out,” Toby said.

He passed the paper – and the note concealed in its folds – to his father’s friend and left the table. Behind him, the man put the paper in his bag and headed off in the opposite direction. Toby silently prayed that the aliens weren’t following him closely. Given enough computing power, they could probably track everyone in Washington, or even the country. The ultimate national security state, all the more dangerous for being far less intrusive than anything the Soviet Union or the Nazis had devised. They wouldn't even know that they were under observation until it was far too late.

And that could be the most devastating thing of all.

***​

“Joe Buckley,” Matt Robertson said.

Jayne looked up, rubbing her tired eyes. They’d spent the last two days trying to track down the sources of funding for the protest movements that were mobilising hundreds of thousands of young Americans, but most of the money seemed to disappear in an official haze. Follow The Money was standard advice for journalists, yet the money trail seemed to have completely disappeared. It didn't help that the protesters had opened up a hundred different ways for their supporters to donate money electronically, ensuring that they no longer needed to rely on supporters who wanted to remain unseen.

“Who?” She asked. “I’ve never heard of him.”

Robertson leered at her, cheerfully. He was a computer nerd who might not have been cut out for the life of a blogger, but he was quite capable of supporting other bloggers. It helped that he had no visible link to the BAN. Rumour had it that he'd hacked a number of government databases and that the FBI was after his head, preferably not attached to his body. When not working on the computer, he was devouring junk food and watching pornographic material on his television. Jayne was privately surprised that he wasn't too fat to walk. Some people, she thought, remembering all the exercise she had to take, had all the luck.

“Joe Buckley,” Robertson said. “Famed for writing the Grand Fleet Saga, from Baen Books. Former US Navy crewman; former Navy brat...New York Times bestselling author...and former alien sceptic.”

Jayne looked up, lifting one eyebrow. “Former alien sceptic?”

“Yes,” Robertson said. “Buckley was one of the people who publically questioned the alien motives in visiting Earth. For some reason, they actually invited him to their base in Nevada – where he underwent a conversion. Since then, he’s been telling everyone he can reach just how wonderful the aliens are and how many benefits they will bring to Earth. It’s created quite a stir in right-wing circles. Everyone is asking if he’s been replaced by a pod person.”

Jayne blinked. “Pod person?”

“There was an old science-fiction movie that had everyone dropping asleep and being replaced with a pod version of themselves,” Robertson explained. “The pod people were...well, non-aggressive beings. I can’t remember the rest of the story; the point is that someone got to Buckley and turned him into an alien supporter.”

Jayne considered it. “But how do we know that he didn't see something that made him change his mind?”

“If you changed your mind about going out with me on Saturday night, you’d know why,” Robertson pointed out. “But what has Buckley told his friends, his family, his legions of fans...? Sweet ****-all. He’s said nothing about why he’s decided to convert to alien-worshipping; the platitudes he mouths to his fans are the same the aliens have been given us ever since they made that speech at the UN. So what happened to him and why?”

“You think they got to him,” Jayne said. “And what did they do to him?”

Robertson grinned. “You’ve never wished for the power to change a person’s mind? You’ve never wanted to force your editor to give you a massive raise? The CIA has been working on brainwashing techniques for decades; they talked about taking a Russian spy and brainwashing him into becoming a loyal American. And people like Joe Buckley reach a wide spectrum of Americans, even the ones who think he’s an insane right-wing nut who serves as a good advert for gun control.

“I bet you anything you care to put forward that your alien friends did something to him while he was at that base and turned him into their ally,” he concluded. “And if you could find proof of that...”

“We’d have proof that they meddled with people’s minds,” Jayne said. It wasn't hard to follow his logic. “But how do we prove something like that?”

“Carefully,” Robertson said. He made a show of stoking his chin. “It really depends on what they did to him. They might have stuck an implant in his brain – there was a whole series of novels based around a Nazi UFO base in Antarctica where they abducted people and stuck implants in their heads. Or they might have some kind of conditioning system that allows them to stamp new ideas into a person’s mind. Hypnosis doesn’t actually work like they have it in the movies. You can't actually program a person into believing something different without a great deal of preparation...”

“And I’m sure that that’s a big relief to all those girls who feared that someone would hypnotise their way into their pants,” Jayne injected. “What do you think we can do about it?”

“I’m honestly not sure,” Robertson admitted. “Most of the literature on this kind of stuff is highly speculative or highly classified. I think we could probably start by scanning his brain and looking for any foreign matter...but I don’t know if we could find a doctor with the right attitude for this. Hell, Buckley himself could be counted on to object.”

“If he’s under alien control, yes,” Jayne agreed. “How do we get access to Joe Buckley?”

Robertson grinned and pulled out a brightly-coloured sheet of paper. “Joe Buckley, world-famous science-fiction author, will be one of the guest speakers at the Welcome Foundation as it incorporates as a charitable organisation bent on ensuring that humanity joins the Galactic Federation,” he said. He passed her the glossy sheet and Jayne scanned it quickly. “We’d at least be able to talk to him there, assuming you’re up for a visit...”

Jayne nodded. “Why not? In fact...”

An alarm rang. “That’s the breaking news alarm,” Robertson said, with some alarm. “The President is going to be making a statement on Live TV.”

***​

The White House Press Room was as full as ever, with hundreds of reporters, television cameras and bystanders watching as the President made his speech. Toby noticed a number of familiar faces in the crowd, some of them political enemies of the President and his Party, others reporters who could be counted upon to put the best face on political disaster. But maybe all the old certainties no longer applied. The Mainstream Media had practically transformed itself into a cheerleading squad for the aliens. And a number of bloggers who had opposed the aliens, no matter how ineffectually, were dead.

He scowled as quiet gradually fell over the room. Outside, the shouting of the protesters could vaguely be heard, even though the soundproofing. If anything, the crowds seemed to be getting bigger; the Washington PD had reported that the protest organisers seemed to be funnelling more and more people towards the White House. There were even rumours that the Secret Service had ordered plans to evacuate the White House to be put into high gear, although Toby knew that the President would object strongly. Running from a crowd of his own citizens would utterly destroy his presidency.

“My Fellow Americans,” the President said. “One month ago, the world changed forever when we finally discovered that there was an entire universe of intelligent beings living beyond the solar system. They brought gifts and words of warning; we, the human race, were on the verge of destroying ourselves. We had trapped ourselves within the gravity well at the time we needed to be heading outwards and ensuring that we would no longer have all our eggs in one basket. The Galactic Federation has offered us help in climbing to the stars, but that help comes with a price. You have all heard the terms they have demanded in exchange for their assistance.

“Congress and the Senate have debated the matter intensively over the past week,” the President continued. That was, Toby knew, technically true. On the other hand, one of the Congressmen who’d been briefed had probably been the one who had leaked the details of the alien demands to the Mainstream Media. “We have had to make some hard choices. If we refused to comply with the alien demands, we would be frozen out of the new era – and flying in the face of public opinion. And yet, complying with the terms would be extremely difficult and costly. We would have to rid ourselves of nuclear weapons. Our proud Navy which has defended our freedom ever since our country was born would have to be scrapped; the military force we built will have to be discarded.

“And yet, the rewards promise to be literally astronomical in scope.

“My Fellow Americans, after urgent discussions on Capitol Hill, I can confirm that it is the intention of the United States Government to accept the alien terms. We will reach out and boldly stride into an shining future where everyone has enough to eat, where everyone has enough to drink and where everyone has the promise of Galactic technology to lift them to the stars. There are those who will say that we will pay a high price for those benefits, but we are looking at the realisation of mankind’s dreams! Peace, prosperity and challenges that can be met peacefully. There is a whole universe out there waiting for us!”

Toby watched the reaction of the Press Corps as the President finished his speech. Some seemed shocked, even though they’d clearly anticipated it; others seemed delighted, convinced that the President had just personally inaugurated a whole new era for the human race – and for them personally. Who knew what the Galactic Federation intended to do with the Earth? The President had just ordered the disbanding of the one force that might be able to slow, or even stop, the invasion.

He silently prayed that his father could get to General Thomas in time. The growing resistance was going to need him. They would need everyone they could reach before the **** really hit the fan.

 

Great read Chris.

 

awesome make you start thinking are they going to hid stuff or what, gov could become secret preppers. Or the colonel could end up with some rather large toys

 

Chapter Sixteen<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

<?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comffice:smarttags" /><st1lace w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Washington</st1:City> <st1:State w:st="on">DC</st1:State></st1lace>
<st1lace w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">USA</st1:country-region></st1lace>, Day 26

“I hate <st1lace w:st="on"><st1:State w:st="on">Washington</st1:State></st1lace>,” the Colonel commented to no one in particular. The city seemed to stink of the stench of politics – and pollution. There were thousands of cars on the roads, driving as if their drivers had to be at their destinations yesterday. “I really hope Toby was right when he gave us directions.”

No one said anything. <st1lace w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Washington</st1:City> <st1:State w:st="on">DC</st1:State></st1lace> seemed to be undergoing one of its permanent traffic jams. The van they’d driven all the way from <st1lace w:st="on"><st1:State w:st="on">Virginia</st1:State></st1lace> might not stand out among all the other unmarked vans, but the Colonel was grimly aware that being stopped by the Highway Patrol or the Police might prove fatal. Whatever the Second Amendment said, there were things in the van that would ensure that they received a hefty prison sentence, if they were caught and stopped. The Colonel had used a number of tricks to hide their trail as best as he could, yet simple bad luck had foiled more operations than anyone could count. And bad luck now would be disastrous.

“The General’s address is right up here,” Packman assured him. They’d already had a long argument about why a former <st1:stockticker w:st="on">CIA</st1:stockticker> field agent couldn’t read a map. “I guess the wife must be a wealthy girl. Look at some of these apartments.”

The Colonel shrugged. They were in one of the wealthier areas of <st1lace w:st="on"><st1:State w:st="on">Washington</st1:State></st1lace>, dominated by large houses and larger gardens. It was a far cry from the farm – and he’d never been very happy in any kind of city – but he had to admit that if one had to live in the city, there were worse places to live. Even so, he knew that it probably cost more money than he’d seen in his life to buy a house here – and he was fairly sure that Generals didn’t get paid that much, even the successful ones. But in <st1lace w:st="on"><st1:State w:st="on">Washington</st1:State></st1lace>, success was often measured by how many asses you could kiss at once, rather than actual combat prowess.

General Elliot Thomas had been a fighting soldier before being promoted to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Colonel had hoped that one of his little organisation members would know the General personally, but so far no one had admitted to serving beside General Thomas, at least in any position where the General might reasonably be expected to recognise him. At least there was nothing phoney about the man’s war record. He’d served in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region> and <st1lace w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Afghanistan</st1:country-region></st1lace> before being promoted to take command of CENTCOM and then the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Unlike so many uniformed politicians, he did know what end of a gun was the dangerous end.

And he was just who the growing resistance needed. General Thomas commanded respect, even from those who hated his guts. The Colonel had a high opinion of himself, but he’d left the military over a decade ago; almost all of the younger soldiers wouldn’t recognise him if they passed him in the streets. And General Thomas’s life was in danger. If the aliens were prepared to murder relatively harmless bloggers to silence anyone who might speak out against them, what would they do to someone who commanded national respect? There were people who even talked about General Thomas as a potential President.

“That’s his house,” Packman said. He nodded towards a moderate mansion that looked – to the Colonel – as if someone with too much money and too little taste had allowed the architect to drink while building the house. General Thomas – or, more likely, his wife – had little taste. “How are we going to make the approach?”

The Colonel scowled. Even if they’d had someone who knew the General, there was a second problem. The General was almost certainly under alien surveillance – and utterly unaware that there was any need to worry. And even if he had worried, could he get rid of the alien surveillance device? Somehow, the Colonel doubted it. Toby had gone through a full search to have his removed – and they’d only found it because the device had been broadcasting at the time. They would have to talk to the General without saying anything out loud.

“I’ll take the lead,” he said. “Bob; you’ll come with me. Blake, Sam, Jack; stay where you are and keep an eye on the situation. If we need help, we’ll whistle for it.”

“Gotcha, boss,” Sam Mason said. He was a former National Guardsman, but he hadn’t allowed his skills to lapse since his effective retirement. The sports bag slung under his seat contained his assault rifle and enough ammunition to fight a small war. Even if the cops let that past, they’d have real problems ignoring the grenades and the small quantity of C4 the team had brought with them. Blake had insisted that one could never have too little C4 and the Colonel was inclined to agree. “Just watch your back. You can never trust anyone who moves to <st1lace w:st="on"><st1:State w:st="on">Washington</st1:State></st1lace>.”

The Colonel scowled at him – Toby had moved to <st1lace w:st="on"><st1:State w:st="on">Washington</st1:State></st1lace> – before he opened the door and slipped out onto the pavement. Bob Packman slipped down beside him, one hand in his pocket where he’d concealed his pistol. They both had concealed carry licences, but they couldn’t afford to attract any attention. Gun carry laws changed so often that someone could become a criminal merely by driving over the state line. He scowled at Packman until the former <st1:stockticker w:st="on">CIA</st1:stockticker> agent took his hand out of his pockets and stood to attention. Wearing a civilian suit that didn’t quite fit him, he looked more like a gangster than a military man. The Colonel rolled his eyes, checked that his Sig Sauer was in a convenient position, and started to lead the way up the driveway.

General Thomas’s home address had never been made public. It was a security precaution that dated back to the days when terrorists had tried to harm the morale of American troops by hitting their families back home in <st1lace w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">America</st1:country-region></st1lace>. The media had probably been trying to bribe someone to disclose it, but for once the alien subversion of the media worked in their favour; they wouldn’t want someone of General Thomas’s statue publicly opposing the Galactic Federation. After the government had effectively signed away American independence, who knew what kind of reaction they’d have from the people? The Colonel had heard – from a drinking buddy who was still in the National Guard – that the Guard was being prepped for mass civil unrest. Rumours were flying everywhere, none of them good.

“I feel as if I’m in a bad movie,” Packman whispered, as they crunched their way up the driveway. General Thomas – or his wife – drove an expensive car. “Do you think he’ll have a butler and a maid?”

“Shut up,” the Colonel whispered back, not unkindly. Packman dealt with stress by making jokes; the Colonel grew colder and quieter. “Remember; we need to convince him to join us without any proof, or saying anything out loud.”

He pressed the bell and smiled as he heard a series of chimes from inside the house. A long moment passed slowly, and then the door swung open, revealing a middle-aged mulatto woman with grey streaks in her dark hair. Two sharp brown eyes examined the two visitors and found them wanting. Judging from the faint look in her eye, her husband’s resignation had shocked her. General Thomas had been a natural lifer, someone who would have been happy to spend their entire lives in the military. And now he was a civilian again, even if all the paperwork hadn’t been processed. The Colonel understood how he must have felt.

“He’s not in,” she snapped. The Colonel guessed that some reporters had already been to visit, even though they would have had problems finding the General’s address. But in <st1:State w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Washington</st1lace></st1:State> one could find out anything with a bribe to the right person. “He’s permanently out to you.”

“We’re not reporters,” the Colonel said. The wife’s face twitched, suggesting that he’d guessed correctly. “We’re from the General’s former command, come to pay our respects.”

The General’s wife studied them carefully for a long moment. Military wives spent quite a bit of time around their husband’s commands and some of them were often quite familiar with the soldiers under his command. On the other hand, they had been living in <st1:State w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Washington</st1lace></st1:State> rather than a military base for the last few years. The Colonel quietly prayed that he looked old enough to pass muster as one of the General’s first subordinates. Thomas had been a junior officer when the Colonel had been mustered out of the army.

“Come on in,” she said, finally. “He’s in his office.”

The interior of the Colonel’s house was far more tasteful than the outside, with a number of paintings hanging from the walls, illuminated by glowing lights set into wooden panelling. There were no signs of children, which struck the Colonel as odd; he’d had a wife and a family while he’d been kicking Saddam’s ass in Desert Storm. Maybe the General’s wife was barren, or maybe she simply didn’t want children. The Colonel had met a few military wives who fretted about what would happen to their children if their husband died.

They stopped outside a wooden door. “Elliot,” the General’s wife called, “you have visitors.”

The Colonel braced himself as the door swung open. It was clear that the General had been allowed to decorate the room to his own personal satisfaction. A single bookcase, crammed with books, dominated one side of the room; a second wall was covered in plaques and other legacies from his former stations around the world. The Colonel noted that some of them came from Ranger and Delta Force units and nodded in approval. Anyone who had served besides or commanded such units would have to win their respect to get a plaque. Some other units could always be depended upon to produce something even if their former CO had been incompetent or cruel. There were sycophants everywhere.

General Thomas looked up at them from a desk covered in writing papers. The Colonel, who was old enough to recall the somewhat painful process of racial integration in the military, was pleasantly surprised. General Thomas might be wearing civilian clothes, but he managed to make it look like a uniform; his shaved head seemed to glisten in the light. There were plenty of officers who managed to look good everywhere, but the battlefield, yet Thomas had definitely seen the elephant. He had the look of a man who had little fear left in his soul.

“Visitors,” he repeated. He quirked one eyebrow. “You do realise that I’m legally allowed to shoot reporters?”

“Very funny, sir,” the Colonel said. He produced his notepad and held it out for the General to read. “Here are my credentials.”

He saw the General’s dark eyes narrow. The message read THE ALIENS ARE BUGGING YOU. NOD ONCE IF YOU UNDERSTAND.

The General nodded once, quickly. He picked up a pen and wrote a second message under the first in neat handwriting. WHO ARE YOU?

THE RESISTANCE, the Colonel wrote. YOUR LIFE IS IN DANGER. YOU NEED TO COME WITH US.

I CAN’T LEAVE MY WIFE, the General wrote. HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT WE WILL BE SAFE?

The Colonel almost smiled. THE US IS IN DANGER, he wrote. NO PROMISES OF SAFETY ALLOWED.

Thomas chuckled. “Well, that is all very interesting,” he said, aloud. He glanced down at the notepad and started to scribble another note. “I’m afraid I have no interest in serving as a lobbyist for your form.”

He passed the notepad over to the Colonel. WHEN DO WE LEAVE?

ASAP, the Colonel wrote. GRAB YOUR OVERNIGHT BAG AND YOUR WIFE’S BAG. WE NEED TO MOVE NOW.

It was at that moment that they heard the gunshot.

***​

Julius Davenant disliked working with a partner, let alone three others, all of whom had dubious reputations for loyalty, but the orders from their employer had been strict. He also tended to dislike working on American soil – the FBI was one of the better detective agencies on Earth – yet he’d swallowed his fears. The money they were being paid was enough to allow him to retire to the Caymans or some other place where he could change his name and vanish into the multitude. Besides, he had to admit that all of the assignments so far had been ridiculously easy.

The car pulled up beside the General’s house and they checked their weapons automatically. <st1:State w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Washington</st1lace></st1:State>’s police department wasn't the best in the nation, but no one expected the cops to hesitate when it came to sending cars out to see who was firing shots in one of the wealthier areas. The people who lived here were important; they paid taxes. A failure to get the cops out on time, even if it was physically impossible, would result in mutual recriminations and job losses.

“Target the thumper now,” he ordered, as he switched his cell phone off. He’d paid good money for a model that was almost impossible to trace, at least not very quickly. Given access to the full resources of the NSA, the Washington PD might be able to trace the phone – but by then it would be buried or somewhere under the <st1lace w:st="on">Potomac</st1lace>. “Hit it as soon as you’re ready.”

One of his comrades looked up from the small device. “Thumper ready,” he said. “Now?”

Davenant scowled. “Now,” he ordered. The Thumper made a sputtering noise as the switch was pushed. “Come on; hurry.”

The four men climbed out of the car and headed for the house. If anyone had stopped to question them, they would have explained that they were federal agents – and they had ID to prove it. Their employers had provided the ID and, just out of curiosity, Davenant had had them run through the databases. They weren’t just impressively clean; they were real. And that meant that whoever was paying them was so highly placed in the government as to be nearly untouchable. His coat shivered around him as a blast of cold wind caught him in the face, but he didn’t let go of his weapon. The Thumper might have taken care of all the local security systems in the area, yet any professional knew how quickly things could go wrong.

He scowled as he saw the door. If he was any judge, the flimsy wood panelling would be concealing something a lot stronger, making it almost impossible to kick down. Instead, he pushed one finger against the buzzer and smiled to himself as he heard the machine playing inside the house. If they were really lucky, the General himself would come to the door. The contract only demanded the General’s death, but he wouldn’t hesitate to kill the General’s wife if it meant the difference between getting away clean and spending the rest of his life in a maximum security prison. Anyone who could identify them had to die.

The door slowly opened, revealing a black woman who scowled at them suspiciously. God alone knew what she thought they were, but as her eyes opened wide Davenant pushed his gun against her chest and pulled the trigger. The heavy bullet slammed into her chest and she tottered backwards and fell to the floor, blood splashing out of the wound in her body. Davenant was already stepping over her gasping mouth and heading inside. They had to find the General and execute him before he escaped, leaving them without their pay and a murder rap. Behind him, one of his comrades dragged the body inside and closed the door behind them. No one would find the General’s wife until it was far too late.

***​

“That was a gunshot,” the Colonel snapped. He had his pistol out at once, looking for trouble. Someone was breaking into the house. He skimmed through his memory of their walk through the house to the study and realised that it would take several moments for the enemy to track them down – unless, of course, they had the General’s wife in their hands. She could tell them exactly where to find her husband. “How do we get out of here?”

The General looked stunned. He’d never anticipated becoming a target in his own backyard, any more than anyone else in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">United States</st1lace></st1:country-region> had had to fear invasion. And his wife might have been shot and killed by the enemy. The Colonel could hear footsteps now heading towards them, footsteps that suggested that the enemy had abandoned stealth to search the house as quickly as possible. Someone outside might have heard the shot and called the police. He glanced down at his watch and discovered that it had stopped. So had the other two digital watches in the room, along with all the other electronic gear. The only thing that was still working was the clockwork watch the General wore on his right arm.

“Come on,” the Colonel snapped. Fighting inside a house was dangerous enough when one knew the lie of the land. He had no idea how to get the General out the back entrance, or if there even was a back entrance. “We can’t stay here!”

He opened the door, wishing for a grenade. The sound of enemy footsteps was coming closer; a moment later, a shadowy form came into view. The Colonel took aim and fired twice, feeling the satisfaction that came with scoring a direct hit when he heard a yell. He watched as the form tumbled backwards, just before someone half in hiding fired back towards him. They missed, but the shots forced him to keep his head down.

“Bob, get the General out the rear,” the Colonel ordered. The General had found a pistol from somewhere and looked ready to go down fighting, but he was too important to be allowed to die. The resistance would need him. “I’ll hold them off.”

 

Chapter Seventeen<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

<?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comffice:smarttags" /><st1lace w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Washington</st1:City> <st1:State w:st="on">DC</st1:State></st1lace>
<st1lace w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">USA</st1:country-region></st1lace>, Day 26

“They killed Kenny!”

“Good,” Davenant muttered back, as they pressed their way into the semi-darkness. “The bonus will only have to be split three ways.”

The Thumper had taken out all of the electric gadgets in the house. There was no lighting any longer, apart from streams of light shining in from uncovered windows and open doors. Davenant was starting to feel as if using the Thumper had been a tactical mistake, even though it prevented the target from holing up in a panic room and screaming for help from the police. General Thomas might have resigned – or been sacked; the press reports were contradictory – but the police wouldn’t hesitate to answer a call from his house. They might be on their way even now.

He glanced down at Kenny’s body and scowled. One of the shots had gone right through his forehead, which meant the person they were facing was either very good or very lucky. Handguns were rarely as accurate as the media made them seem and the shooter had been firing in the semi-darkness…and Kenny had been silhouetted against the light. If only they’d been able to find plans for the house…but the General had been able to get the plans put in the secure files. They had proved impossible to access without tipping their hand too much.

“Keep low,” he muttered, as they pressed onwards. Every shadow could be hiding an enemy gunman, ready to plug them both. He would have given anything for a grenade or ten, but grenades risked drawing too much attention. The false IDs might not stand up to a through scrutiny. “We have to catch them before they get out of the building!”

***​

“They’re blocking our way out,” the General muttered. His combat instints seemed to be kicking in, the Colonel noted absently. The enemy could be anywhere, hidden within the shadows. He hadn’t even considered the need to bring night-vision gear with him. And with the watches out, their cell phones were largely wasted too. They couldn’t call for help from the guys in the van. “Get up the stairs, quickly!”

The Colonel nodded, allowing Packman to take point. He glanced up once as the former CIA agent headed up towards the light, his lanky form coming into view once or twice. There was a gunshot flash as one of their enemies fired towards him, the slug smacking harmlessly into the plaster. The Colonel fired back, but heard nothing apart from a curse. He would have liked to believe that he’d hit the guy, yet he suspected otherwise.

“Go,” he hissed. The General nodded and crawled up the stairs, while Packman took up position to provide covering fire. It was a situation that called for grenades, the Colonel knew, and silently thanked God for the proof that the enemy weren’t carrying any grenades. He was tempted to hole up and wait for the police, but they’d have to explain what they were doing in the General’s house and why. The General reached the top and joined Packman, his handgun pointed at the enemy position. As soon as the Colonel followed him, they both fired twice into the darkness. There was no sign that they’d hit anybody, but it should discourage them from trying to give chase.

The Colonel was breathing hard when he reached the landing, but the old exhilaration was flowing through him. A dark shadow appeared and vanished back into the shadow when they fired at it, a pair of shots coming back at them and striking the back wall. The General motioned for Packman to follow him towards a large window while the Colonel blocked the stairs, struggling to open it. As soon as it was open, the General pushed Packman out and then waved to the Colonel, motioning for him to follow.

“Hang on,” the Colonel said. His hand had closed around a metal container. It smelled like something from a cosmetic bag. “GRENADE!”

He threw the container down the stairs, pulled himself to his feet and ran towards the window. Behind him, there was a crash as the object he’d thrown hit the stairwell and fell towards the ground. If they were really lucky, their enemies would dive for cover, convinced that a grenade was about to explode. How long would it be before they realised that they’d been duped?

The window opened up onto a smaller roof, covering an outhouse. Ignoring the dangers, the Colonel clambered out of the window and jumped down to the ground. Packman and the General had already taken up covering positions; at the Colonel’s angry shout, they beat feet for the van. Behind him, a face appeared at the window, glaring down at them. The Colonel snapped a shot off at it, but the face jumped backwards and vanished back into the shadows. Cursing, the Colonel turned and followed the other two towards the van.

Blake was already scrambling out of the van, assault rifle in hand. Unlike the Colonel and Packman, he was wearing black overalls and a mask that would protect his identity if anyone was snapping away with a cell phone camera. The Colonel had a feeling that the attacking team would have made sure to disable all local cameras before they struck, but it would only take one picture to put out a national alert. General Thomas was a national hero, after all. It struck him that they might end up being branded kidnappers or murderers – the police might assume that there was only one group of assassins – but it hardly mattered. Right now, they had to get the General to safety before the cops showed up.

There was a shout behind them as two members of the enemy force emerged from the house. They were both wearing suits that made them out to be federal agents, but even the Colonel – who regarded federal agents with as much enthusiasm as he viewed Islamic terrorists – would have conceded that federal agents wouldn't have started by gunning down the General’s wife. America wasn't a police state yet, thank God, and it would never be if he had anything to say about it.

Blake took aim and opened fire. The M16 barked twice; one of the enemy managed to throw himself to the ground and scramble to cover, but the other one was caught by repeated hits and almost flew over backwards before he hit the ground. Blake whooped as the General was hauled into the van and then turned to open fire on the remaining enemy agent. There was a roar of engines and two more cars appeared at the far end of the street, driving right towards their position. The Colonel cursed and bellowed at Packman to take the wheel. Reinforcements had finally arrived. The enemy’s reinforcements.

***​

Davenant had lost any sense of dignity when it came to self-preservation. He didn't bother to take time to appreciate the General’s garden – lovingly planned by the General’s wife, with the help of a set of landscape gardeners – as he crawled for safety behind the hedge. The bastard with the assault rifle would mow him down if he even showed a tiny part of his autonomy; dear God, how had the simple plan fallen apart so effectively? They’d killed the General’s wife for nothing. Worse, they’d exposed themselves to the police. There would be plenty of physical evidence in the house leading back to them – and it wouldn't be long after that when the FBI came knocking on his door.

Cursing, he found a gap in the hedge and peered through it. The reinforcements he’d ordered to come and help sanitise the house after they’d killed the General had run right into the prick with the assault rifle. He’d shot out their engines and caused both cars to skid and collide in the middle of the street. It was sheer luck that no one was caught in the crossfire, but even so...it looked as if a team he’d put together for several operations was going to be hacked to pieces on their first joint mission. Remembering why he hated working in teams, he drew his reserve pistol and took careful aim. The enemy holding the assault rifle was probably wearing body armour – even crappy civilian **** would be able to stop a handgun round – but he wasn't wearing anything covering his face apart from a mask. And Davenant had been handgun champion in his unit before he'd been forced to resign or face a general court-martial. Pointing the pistol, he fired a single shot...

***​

“Blake!”

The shot came out of nowhere. Blake Coleman stumbled against the van and then collapsed, blood pouring from a hole in his neck. The Colonel knew at once that it would be fatal, that there was no way they could save his life unless they could get him to an emergency treatment centre – and there was none within easy reach. Angrily, he fired several shots towards the place where the enemy lurked, but there was no way to know if he’d hit anyone.

Blake’s body thrashed once, and then lay still. His face seemed almost intact, compared to the mess his neck had become, but there was no escaping the grim awareness that he was dead. The Colonel swallowed hard, remembering that Blake had been the first one to accept the danger of getting involved with the underground – he hadn't deserved to die. And yet there was nothing he could do. They’d been careful to remove everything that might lead back to the survivalists, but the moment the FBI ran Blake’s fingerprints or DNA against the army database they’d know who he’d been. And then...? What would they be able to find from there?

“I’m sorry,” the Colonel said. The sound of sirens began to echo in the distance, coming closer. Someone had finally managed to call the police. “I’m so sorry.”

Grabbing the grenades from the van, he threw them towards where the remaining enemy were hiding. Explosions shattered the General’s shrubbery as the Colonel climbed into the van and barked an order. Packman put the van in gear and they drove away, heading in the opposite direction to the sirens. They’d already planned where they would hide the van, pick up a second vehicle and head down to the farm, precautions that Blake had helped plan. The Colonel swallowed hard, feeling an odd urge to sit down and collapse himself. He’d seen death before – it was one of the risks of military life – but Blake had seemed larger than life. He hadn't deserved to die.

“Get us to the garage as quick as you can,” he ordered. The van lurched as Packman pushed it right to the limits. How quickly would the police react? What would they be able to draw from security cameras, witnesses and forensic evidence? Would they set up roadblocks...? Or what? “We will not let his death be in vain.”

He looked over at the General. “I’m sorry about your wife, sir,” he said. Mary’s death was still a gaping wound, even though she’d been dead nearly twenty-eight years. The General had had ample reason to expect a long retirement, a chance to write his memoirs, and a quiet death in the arms of his wife. Instead...his life had been torn apart by the aliens. The thought made the Colonel grind his teeth. He’d never hated anyone as much as he did the Snakes, right at that moment.

And words were so inadequate, somehow.

The General looked up at him. His eyes were bitter. The Colonel had seen that expression before, written on the faces of soldiers who’d been pushed beyond their limits, where the only thing keeping them going was sheer determination. And soldiers in a war expected to be hit and to be able to hit back. The General had probably never anticipated that his wife would become a target, or that his peaceful suburban home would become a battleground.

“Who were they?” The General demanded. “What did they want?”

The Colonel hesitated. There was no way to know if the General had one of the alien bugs tracking him, monitoring his every word and motion. To hear Toby tell it, the devices could only be detected when they were active – and removing them was impossible without the right tools. Toby had said that NSA was working on a solution, something that could be deployed in the field, but the handful of technicians involved had refused to give any specific deadline. The Colonel found it hard to blame them. He wouldn't have wanted to make any promises either.

But the General had a right to know. And besides, the aliens should know that the human race had found a way to put a finger in their eerie bright red eyes.

“They wanted you dead,” he said. “I’m sorry, sir.”

***​

Davenant swore under his breath as he heard the sirens getting closer. Any thought of giving chase had to be abandoned. His few surviving men would have to get themselves out of the area, leaving behind too much physical evidence for anyone to ignore. God only knew what team had been covering the General’s ass, but it had done a very competent job and left him holding the bag.

“Get out of here,” he snapped. The bodies would have to be abandoned. They’d be traced, of course; luckily, even if they invoked the Patriot Act, they’d have problems tracking Davenant and the few survivors down by the time they’d escaped and covered their asses. “Move it, now!”

Jumping into the car, he started the engine and drove away from the scene. He’d barely turned the corner when two cop cars went screaming past, sirens blaring. Davenant tensed, preparing to shoot his way out, but the cops ignored him, thankfully heading towards the General’s house. He’d have to give his superiors a call, sooner rather than later. They’d be angry if they heard about it on CNN.

Parking the car beside a family car, Davenant broke in through the window and jump-started the car. It would be reported stolen soon, of course, but by then he would have swapped cars again, and again. By the time he got home, the trail would have been thoroughly obscured. Three cars down the line, he abandoned the last car in a service station and walked down towards a fast food joint, crammed with people. Once inside, he walked into the toilet, removed his suit and changed into a more casual look. Once he had tied his hair back, he looked completely different. A pair of glasses completed the ensemble.

Carrying his old clothes in a rucksack, he walked down until he found an isolated table and opened his briefcase. The briefcase had been provided by his employers, who’d claimed that it could protect anything electronic from the effects of a thumper. Davenant had stuffed a completely clean – and largely untraceable – cell phone inside and, much to his relief, it worked as soon as he switched it on.

There was no point in trying to hide what had happened. “We lost the client,” he said, and gave a brief account of the disaster. “What do you want us to do now?”

“Return to your home and wait,” the voice said, finally. Davenant disliked not knowing who he was working for, but the money was good enough to overcome his scruples. “We will deal with the situation.”

Davenant blinked in surprise. “But we had to leave bodies behind,” he objected. “The authorities will track us down.”

“There will be no bodies,” the voice said. “We will see to that. Return to your home and wait.”

***​

“...Breaking news in Washington DC,” the newsreader said. The Colonel tapped the volume control, turning it up so they could hear the speaker better. “General Elliott Thomas, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has been the victim of an attempted assassination by unknown personages. Thomas, who resigned from the Joint Chiefs over controversial government programs, was targeted by a number of terrorist gangs who intended revenge for missions carried out by men under his command. We can confirm that Mrs Thomas was murdered by the terrorists, while the General is critically injured and in an unknown location. Speaking at a hastily organised press conference...”

“Turn it off,” the General snarled. “My wife is dead and they blame it all on terrorists?”

“Quite understandable,” Packman said. “Islamic terrorists have one hell of a motive to hunt you down and behead you. It gives the people the sense that the story is already out, so they don't have to think about it much more. The vast majority of people are sheep...”

“Shut the **** up,” the General said. “I should go and tell them I’m alive...”

“And then you will be targeted again,” the Colonel snapped. He hadn't expected the General to be so balky, but then he hadn't expected the General’s wife to be murdered either. The General could simply walk into a military base, yet if he showed himself too soon he would simply draw a targeting crosshair on his head. And the aliens would be watching and waiting from high overhead. “Your country needs you to wait until we can confirm that you’re clean...”

He sighed. It had taken two hours to reach the safe house, a dingy little apartment of the kind normally rented to Chinese or East Asian illegal immigrants. The owner was the kind of person who would take a few hundred dollars in exchange for keeping his mouth shut and not insisting on any kind of documentation. It would suffice as long as the money kept coming.

“And then we can find a way to hit back,” he concluded. One plan was already going through his head, but it would require the help of a very old friend – and one hell of a lot of luck. “We can show them that humans won’t roll over so easily.”

“They’ll be laughing,” the General predicted, gloomily. “Or didn't you realise that the country just rolled over for them?”

 

Just to tell everyone - my new writing blog is here. Ideas, snippets and suchlike, but please read the 'about me' page before commenting. All welcome!

The Chrishanger

Chris

 

Chapter Eighteen<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

<?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comffice:smarttags" /><st1lace w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Washington</st1:City> <st1:State w:st="on">DC</st1:State></st1lace>/Virginia
<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">USA</st1lace></st1:country-region>, Day 27

“So you’re saying that you recovered no bodies?”

“I’m saying that the ongoing investigation prevents us from sharing any information with the press,” the officer said. He was a young Chinese man who bore an uncomfortable resemblance to a young Bruce Lee. Jayne might have been tempted to flirt with him if she hadn’t been convinced that he was trying to lead her up the garden path. “There is a very real danger that the terrorists who launched this cowardly attack will be able to escape using information released into the public domain.”

So if no one gets caught its our fault, Jayne thought, coldly. The once-peaceful <st1:State w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Washington</st1lace></st1:State> suburb had been shattered by a scene out of a gangster movie – and the Washington PD had, somehow, failed to respond within anything like an acceptable time. Apparently, Jayne had heard through a blogger who currently served in the police force, there had been a series of errors with the computerized system for directing patrol cars and SWAT teams to the scene of the incident. The locals weren’t happy at all about how the police force – paid for with their taxes – had failed to protect them. She could see several overweight men – lawyers or lobbyists – making that point to the nearest police officers. Behind them, lines of police tape kept them from returning to their homes.

Jayne shivered as she took in the scene. Someone had been tossing explosives around, according to her source, and a number of cars and gardens had been wreaked by the detonations. There were bullet holes everywhere, suggesting that someone had been indiscriminate with their fire. It was sheer luck that no one had been hurt, apart from General Thomas and his wife. There had been no official announcement of his death, but Jayne couldn’t see how anyone could draw any other conclusion. He’d definitely been the target of the terrorist attack.

“Of course,” she said. “I’d hate to help terrorists escape a police force that failed to react in time to the reports.”

The officer’s face darkened, but he refused to rise to the bait. Jayne smiled to herself, although she had to admit that something was badly wrong. Shaking her head, she turned and left the officer to brief the next curious reporter, while she walked up to one of the men who were trying to pick a fight with the policemen. He was balding, almost certainly in his fifties, bristling with righteous indignation. His children, after all, had been in the house when the **** hit the fan and all hell broke loose. It was a point he was making to the policeman with more force than was actually necessary.

“And when,” he demanded, “can we return to our homes? We cannot stay out here until you boys have finished your investigations – I have to get back to work and the wife has to cook. I tell you…”

“Excuse me, sir,” Jayne said. She held up her BAN card. “I’d like to ask you a few questions about what happened here…”

“World War Three breaks out on our street and the police don’t send anyone to do anything about it,” the man said. “I’m telling you that I will not stand for it! My neighbours and I will launch a joint suit against the Washington PD for failing to protect us from drug-dealing terrorists who turn our street into their private battleground!”

“I’m sure you will receive very favourable mentions in the press, sir,” Jayne said. The lawyer didn’t recognise the sarcasm, or he chose to ignore it. “What actually happened, from wherever you were?”

The lawyer took a more careful look at her, allowed his eyes to drift over the tops of her breasts, and then decided to be more cooperative. “I was in the study, working on the brief for the case I have to present at court next week,” he said, in a slightly calmer voice. “The next thing I know; the computer’s failed and my notes are lost. The lights have gone out, so I thought it was a power cut, but the batteries refused to work too. I get to my feet and shout for <st1:City w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Sofia</st1lace></st1:City> – that’s my wife, you know – to see if she’s lost power too. The boys are screaming because their latest video game projector has failed, so I yell at them to shut up…and at that moment we hear gunshots.”

He looked down for a moment. “I yell at everyone to get away from the windows and get my cell phone out,” he continued. “The phone’s dead. I check the landline and its dead too; they’re all dead. I go climbing for the gun I keep stashed away, fearing that one of my enemies has come to extract revenge for putting him in jail, and yell at the family to get under cover. And then the shooting grows louder and there are explosions…

“I stumble outside, gun in hand, and see the terrorists beating a hasty retreat in a van. And then the police finally arrive, too late to catch anyone. What were they doing? Giving the latest politically-correct course to deprived teenagers while we, the taxpayers, were under siege in our own homes?”

Jayne shrugged. “I’m sure that the courts will look favourably upon your demand for compensation,” she said, dryly. “Thank you for your time.”

She wanted to take a look at the crime scene itself, but the police weren't letting anyone through the barrier. General Thomas had been the target and that alone made it a federal crime. The FBI’s forensic teams were already crawling over the wreckage, pulling the spent bullets out of the building and trying to match them up with recorded weapons. It didn’t sound as if the assassins had been very professional, but what did that matter? She had a nasty suspicion about who had carried out the hit.

Who benefited? General Thomas had been the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – right up until the point when he’d resigned, over the belief that the Galactic Federation’s terms were unacceptable. Who benefited from his death? The aliens, of course; who else? And that meant, added to the deaths of various anti-alien bloggers, that they were eliminating their opponents one by one. But surely someone would notice a pattern…

Maybe they had. Maybe someone in the government was doing what they could to defeat the aliens. Or maybe they just didn’t care.

Shaking her head, she started to walk away from the scene. There was work to be done.

***​

One of the more curious aspects of the Presidency was that a single question, asked absently, could spur <st1:State w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Washington</st1lace></st1:State>’s colossal bureaucracy into action. If the President happened to ask about a minor matter, a full report would rapidly be generated and produced for his eye, often surprising the President who might have forgotten the whole issue by the time the report was produced and ready. Toby, as the President’s Special Assistant, was cleared for all kinds of information – and, very rarely, he could slip a query into the system under the President’s name. He hadn’t needed to run the risk this time, however; the President was also very concerned about General Thomas.

The report made curious reading. Trained interrogators had spoken to all the witnesses and tried to put together a picture of what they’d seen, while expert forensic teams analysed the physical evidence. Only years in politics had kept Toby’s face under control as he read the report, knowing that a single piece of physical evidence that led back to his father would also lead back to him. And yet…there was nothing. No sign of any blood traces that could point the way to Blake Coleman and his friends. Someone had sanitized the crime scene and done it at terrifying speed. What the hell had they done?

He skimmed through the final sections of the report, very carefully. The Washington PD had suffered a series of minor computer malfunctions that had managed to steer their cars away from the crime scene for a few minutes, long enough for the terrorists to make their escape. Toby – who didn’t believe in coincidence – had a suspicion that he knew what had happened; the aliens, hacking into police databases, had somehow manipulated the police control system to gain as much time as possible for their assassins to escape. There were no clues that would lead the police to either the resistance or the assassins. The FBI was investigating, of course, but all they’d found so far was little more than a motive. General Thomas had long been targeted for death by several terrorist groups and someone had taken advantage of his resignation to attack him before the General could organise additional security.

It was believable, Toby knew, but he also knew that it was inaccurate. The only body found on the scene belonged to the General’s wife, yet no one was asking what had become of the General. All of the media reports so far had merely reported that the General’s home had been attacked by terrorists. By the time any questions were raised, the lie would be planted so firmly that it would be almost impossible to dislodge. And if anyone happened to turn up claiming to be the General, they might not be believed. Or they’d be believed and someone would call the aliens. Toby felt the noose tightening, almost imperceptibly. Didn’t anyone else want to question the aliens?

The second report in front of him made grim reading, even for Toby. The American forces based in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Afghanistan</st1:country-region> and the <st1lace w:st="on">Middle East</st1lace> were preparing to pull out, honouring the agreement the President had signed with the Galactic Federation. Behind them, they left a seriously uneasy <st1lace w:st="on">Middle East</st1lace>; the anticipated switch to fusion power had sent oil prices plummeting across the world. The <st1:country-region w:st="on">United States</st1:country-region>, <st1:country-region w:st="on">China</st1:country-region> and several other nations were taking the opportunity to increase their stockpiles of oil, but there were dire rumours that <st1:country-region w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:country-region>, <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iran</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Iraq</st1lace></st1:country-region> were already considering an oil blockade against the Western powers. Without oil money flowing in, the regimes that ruled <st1:country-region w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Iran</st1lace></st1:country-region> would be unable to stand against their own people. And then chaos would consume the <st1lace w:st="on">Middle East</st1lace>.

He shook his head, bitterly. Soon, it wouldn’t be <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">America</st1lace></st1:country-region>’s problem any longer. No one would care about the <st1lace w:st="on">Middle East</st1lace> without oil. Let them kill each other, the average American would say, and they might even be right. Except...the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">United States</st1lace></st1:country-region> had escaped – was escaping – one dependency in exchange for accepting another. And the aliens were too big and strong to threaten with military force.

The reports made that clear. Already, soldiers were being told that their enlistments were on the verge of being terminated. The Pentagon was struggling with the need to cut the military down to only ten percent of its former self, while the economic shockwaves from cancelling military contracts and laying off support personnel were already starting to bite. Only a few days had passed since the President had signed the treaty and the counter-protests were getting more organised. They’d be much more organised if they realised just how badly some of their politicians had sold out the entire country.

He glanced at his email. Gillian had emailed him a light flowery email, the kind that would cause little more than raised eyebrows if anyone happened to intercept it. Toby picked out the underlying meaning without difficulty; Gillian wanted a meeting within the next twenty days. Who knew, he wondered; she might have found something that would give them hope.

If not, Toby had no idea what they were going to do next.

***​

The Colonel disliked funerals as a general rule, but he had always made a point of attending the funerals of his friends, comrades and former subordinates. Blake Coleman had definitely been a friend and it gnawed at the Colonel that they hadn’t been able to recover his body from the streets. They’d had to take Coleman’s wife into effectively protective custody, removing the guns, ammo and other supplies from Coleman’s house in Mannington, expecting the FBI and BATF to turn up at any moment. So far, no one had appeared to follow up the lead, something that puzzled the Colonel. Coleman’s fingerprints and DNA would be on file with the military authorities. A quick cross-check and the FBI would know exactly who had died in front of the General’s house.

“Blake was a good man, a loyal servant of his country,” the Colonel said. Coleman had always said that he wanted a small funeral, although he’d also joked that he wanted dancing girls and plenty of booze to cheer up the mourners. It hadn’t been a very edifying conversation. “He risked his life countless times to protect the innocents and kill the ****-heads who believed that they had the right to wage war on civilian women and children. I do not believe that he deserved to die.”

Coleman’s wife was weeping soundly, held by her eldest son. Jack Coleman had been talking about signing up with the Marines and following in his father’s footsteps, but the Colonel suspected that that plan had already crashed and burned. The politicians would probably eliminate the Marine Corps entirely when they started slashing the defence forces to meet the alien demands. God knew that Congress had always been trying to eliminate the Marines.

“He was the first to die in a war that threatens everyone on this planet,” the Colonel continued. “He will not be the last. But we will not forget him and we will remember him as he was in life; a brave man, a loyal husband and a good father to his children. We will not forget him.”

The group broke up slowly, the mourners heading back to the farmhouse for the wake. Coleman’s will had given specific instructions; he’d put money aside for beer and ordered the Colonel – who had been named as his executor – to invite as many of his friends and former comrades from the Marines. The Colonel knew that he couldn’t invite anyone outside the circle, but he’d silently promised himself that he’d hold a proper wake once the war was over – assuming he survived the coming struggle. If the aliens were prepared to launch a hit on a famous General, they were clearly preparing to come into the open.

“I’m sorry, Blake,” he said, quietly. It was a long tradition that American forces never left their comrades behind, dead or alive. He’d had no choice, but it still left him feeling as if he’d failed Coleman – and Toby. God alone knew what kind of **** would fall from high above – quite literally – if anyone drew the line between Blake Coleman and Toby Sanderson. They’d been careful not to leave any written notes lying around that could have attracted attention, but what if they’d made a mistake. The Colonel had no illusions. If the FBI had enough clues, they’d put the rest together in very short order. “Go with God, my friend. Perhaps you can remind Him whose side he’s supposed to be on.”

Leaving the unmarked – and empty – grave behind, the Colonel started to walk back to the farmhouse. There would be a wake. And then they would have alien butt to kick.

***​

The first impression was blinding white light, so bright that it seemed to burn into his skull. He closed his eyes as tightly as he could, but the light poured through, sending daggers of pain plunging through his eyeballs and into his head. It moved almost like a thing alive, shivering into his mind and burning through his thoughts. Blake Coleman screamed in pain as his eyes snapped open. The light seemed to be coming from everywhere, all around his body. He couldn’t even tell if he was lying on something, or floating in the air. His body seemed to have lost all sensation. Once, long ago, he’d volunteered for a session in a sensory-deprivation tank. It had been eerie and thoroughly unpleasant, but this was worse. The light seemed almost alive, flowing into his mind. And could he hear something…?

Hell, he thought, as the noise finally registered on his troubled mind. A high-pitched whining note, so loud that he honestly couldn’t understand why he hadn’t heard it at once, was tearing through his ear drums. Slowly, so slowly, a shadow appeared against the light, inching its way towards him. Discovering that he could move his eyeballs, even if nothing else, Blake turned his eyes and saw a form silhouetted against the light. It was so bright that he couldn’t make out any features, but it was clearly not human. The movements were all wrong.

Understanding dawned. He’d been hit – he’d known at once that the shot was fatal – and he’d been taken prisoner. Somehow, they’d saved his life. Had the Colonel’s son been wrong about the aliens, or did they merely want someone to interrogate? Blake had undergone extensive Conduct after Capture courses, but he knew that everyone broke eventually. The aliens could probably reach into his mind and extract the memories directly…

A new sound appeared from high above him. Blake’s eyes whipped away from the alien form and stared upwards, squinting into the light. A long thin needle was slowly emerging from high above, reaching down towards his skull. Absolute panic overcame him and he struggled desperately against the unseen restraints, but it was no use. His body simply refused to obey his orders. Inch by inch, the needle lanced down until it was right above his forehead. Blake braced himself as best as he could, watching helplessly as the alien form peered down at him. A hand touched his forehead – it felt almost like touching a lizard – and pushed his hair away from his face. And then the needle came down.

There was a long moment of absolute pain…and then nothing, nothing at all.

 

Chapter Nineteen<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

<?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comffice:smarttags" /><st1lace w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Washington</st1:City> <st1:State w:st="on">DC</st1:State></st1lace>
<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">USA</st1lace></st1:country-region>, Day 35

“…Gives me great honour to declare that this building is now open,” Jeannette McGreevy said. Sitting in a seat at the front, which he’d been assured was a great honour, Jason somehow managed to avoid looking at his watch. McGreevy had been talking for at least half an hour, touching on all the benefits the Galactic Federation would bring to Earth and how it would improve the quality of human life all over the planet. Beside her, a handful of smaller alien devices sat and waited for inspection. One of them cleaned and purified water; another broke down waste food and turned it into chewy bars that tasted funny, but provided all of the essential nutrients for human life. “It is my fervent prayer that the Welcome Foundation will assist the entire human race in uplifting itself to the stars…”

Jason snorted, inwardly. It was his fervent prayer, right now, that McGreevy would shut up and finish, allowing him to get some work done. Even before the Welcome Foundation had been officially announced, they’d been swarmed with lobbyists and lawyers demanding everything from a private look at advanced alien technology to bans on the spread of alien technology that might put humans out of work. Congress had voted the Welcome Foundation a huge budget – they’d used it to buy up a set of buildings in Washington and convert them to their use – but Jason had a suspicion that Crenshaw, Professor Cavendish and the remainder of the Board would have to use the budget merely to hire administrators to handle all the requests. And lawyers; Jason was already thoroughly sick of lawyers. Even being the Discoverer didn’t seem to deter them from calling him at all hours and nothing, including threats of dire retaliation, seemed to deter them.

He glanced over at the aliens and smiled inwardly. It was hard to read the expressions on their faces, but he was learning – and if he was reading them correctly, they were as bored as Jason himself. The bracelets they wore to denote rank glittered brightly in the sun, but their faces were twitching, unlike the inscrutable expression that normally showed to the human race. He knew that he could have just been imagining it, yet he was sure that he was reading them correctly. Maybe they could be talked into convincing McGreevy to keep her speeches down to thirty minutes only. He wouldn’t have bet against half the crowd needing the toilet.

There was a cough from the chair behind Professor Cavendish and Jason hid a smile that threatened to turn into a yawn. The Professor had brought along a young intern from the Witnesses called Vanessa Dawlish and she was clearly just as bored as himself and the aliens. Jason suspected that the Professor was studying something other than alien science with her – biology, perhaps – but in the end it hardly mattered. The Professor was the kind of tutor he’d loathed when he had been at College, a person more interested in his politics and grading classes by ideology, rather than concentrating on actual learning. He allowed himself to wonder if he might win Vanessa away from her tutor. Imagining sleeping with her was more entertaining than listening to a thoroughly boring politician.

“And with that in hand,” McGreevy finished, “I call upon the Discoverer, the person who made First Contact, to cut the ribbon and open the building.”

Jason stood up. They’d had four rehearsals before they’d invited the press and he could do it in his sleep. The cameras clicked loudly as he stepped towards the red ribbon, picked up a pair of silver scissors and snipped through the tape. There was a loud cheer from the crowd as it fell back, allowing anyone who pleased to enter the building. The Welcome Foundation had decided that one of the buildings would be always open to be public, allowing them to study the history of SETI on one side and drink in the promises made by the Federation in the other.

“Thank you,” the Secretary of State said. “And now we will proceed to the lunch.”

It was several hours later before Jason managed to get into his new office and sit down. The Welcome Foundation might be paying him, but they didn't seem to want him to actually do anything apart from exploiting his status to promote the Foundation to anyone who cared enough to listen. Jason didn’t feel special at all; the Discovery had been nothing more than a massive stroke of luck. He wasn't cut out to be a celebrity, rubbing shoulders with world leaders and the most eminent scientists on Earth. On the other hand, there would be more access to the aliens. Perhaps he could actually convince them to tell him more about their society, or their world. The chance to walk on an alien planet was something he wouldn't pass up for anything.

There was a cough at the door. Jason looked up guiltily, meeting the eyes of one of the CIA agents he’d met in the weeks since the Discovery. Like pretty much everyone who had contact with the aliens, he’d been debriefed extensively after each meeting by a mixed committee of representatives. The ones who had bothered to introduce themselves were from the CIA, the FBI and the DIA. He had no idea which particular agency employed the others. They were literally nothing, but silent listeners.

“I wasn't sleeping,” he said, not entirely truthfully. He’d been on the verge of dozing off. The agent, who was a brown-haired young woman who was remarkably intelligent, grinned at him. “What can I do for you?”

“There’s a meeting in a nearby building,” she said. She’d introduced herself as Daisy, but Jason wouldn't have put money on it being her real name. “I think you might be interested in attending.”

Jason shrugged and stood up, retrieving his coat and donning it in one quick motion. One thing that had been made clear to him was that failing to cooperate with the intelligence agencies would carry very heavy penalties. Jason wasn't sure what they could do to the man who had discovered intelligent life in the universe – apart from humanity, of course – but he didn't want to find out the hard way. Surprisingly, Daisy led him down the back staircase to avoid the crowds and into an unmarked car waiting for them at the rear entrance. Jason frowned as the car headed through official Washington, the driver taking every short cut he could find, before it pulled up outside a regular office block. They were a long way from Langley.

“Come on in,” Daisy said. “I think you’re expected.”

The interior of the building was unremarkable, a simple suite of apartments housing smaller corporate offices in Washington. Jason noted that the security guard looked bored, as if he wasn't paying any attention to what was going on about him, but there was armour plating on the walls and cameras everywhere. Security was a premium in Washington, yet it seemed a little excessive. But if the CIA had a presence in the building, or owned the whole building, they would want security. Daisy confiscated his cell phone, MP3 player and his watch, checking that he wasn't carrying anything electronic with him. He was mildly surprised that they hadn't insisted on a strip search before they entered the elevator and it took them down into a basement. Daisy held up a hand when it reached its destination and motioned for Jason to go ahead of her.

“I’ll be staying here,” she said. “Good luck.”

The elevator doors closed behind her before Jason could ask any questions. Puzzled, he stared around, looking for someone – anyone. A person was sitting in one armchair in a corner of a medium-sized room, waiting for someone. He stood up, revealing a brown-haired man with a shock of uncontrollable hair. Before Jason could say anything, he tapped his lips and beckoned Jason through a door and into a smaller meeting room. The door hissed closed behind them.

“I’m sorry about the cloak and dagger routine,” the man said. “Please allow me to extend my congratulations on your new role in the Welcome Foundation.”

There was something in his voice Jason didn't like at all. “Thank you, sir,” he said, stiffly. He still hadn't sat down. “Might I ask what this is all about?”

The man leaned forward. “Do you know where you are?”

Jason shook his head. “No sir,” he said, “and I don't know who you are, either.”

“Nor should you,” the man said. He shrugged, expressively. “My name is Sanderson and I have tried hard to stay out of the public eye. I trust I can rely on your discretion?” He inclined one eyebrow at Jason, who nodded shortly. “You may be interested to know that this building is designed to serve as a secure facility for various intelligence services. Among other things, the basement is surrounded by devices intended to ensure that any surveillance devices carried into the building are unable to record or transmit while inside the premises.”

Something clicked in Jason’s mind. “That’s why Daisy took my cell phone,” he said. “You were afraid I was going to record our conversation.”

“Not you,” Sanderson said. He leaned forward, intently. “I’ve been reading your debrief records from your sessions following your meetings with alien representatives. In all of them, you express frustration at their reluctance to share information – even information that has no military value. You’ve even implied that they’re not being completely honest with us. Would you care to comment on that?”

Jason frowned. He’d come utterly unprepared to the meeting, but he’d never said anything that he no longer believed. Besides, it was a chance to express his concerns to someone who clearly possessed some form of political power.

“They seem reluctant to talk about anything,” he said. “Every single person who meets one of the aliens has asked where they come from, which star gave them birth. And they refuse to answer, or they give us a vague answer that could point to any one of a million stars. They won’t tell us about their technology, even the technology they want to introduce into our society. We’re going to have to buy the fusion reactors off them to power our cities unless we figure out how they work. And if there are other races in the Galactic Federation, where are they? We don't know.”

Sanderson frowned. “What do you think about them?” He asked. “You’ve met more aliens than anyone else, I believe. What do you make of them?”

Jason hesitated, struggling to put his thoughts into words. “They look down on us,” he said, finally. “When I talk about SETI to them, they seem to view it as amusing, like a child playing with toys. They think we’re stupid for not advancing into space; they think we’re stupid for fighting wars all the time. And yet...there’s something just a little disturbing about it. I don't think they think very highly of us.”

He shook his head. “But they don’t tell us anything about themselves,” he added. “We don't know how they organise themselves, or how their government works. We don't know if we’re talking to big shots who can organise things to suit themselves or relatively minor officials. We don't know how many of them there are on Earth, or what they’re doing crawling all over our planet. And none of us, not a single one, has been allowed to visit any of their starships. We haven’t even been allowed to ride in their shuttles.”

“I see,” Sanderson said. “Can you keep a secret?”

Jason nodded. “Sure,” he said. “What kind of secret?”

“One that could get you killed,” Sanderson said. His eyes met Jason’s and refused to look away. “Understand this; whatever you decide, if you breathe a word of it to anyone, it could get you killed. It will get you killed. This is not the time to decide that information wants to be free or some other dumb belief like that, kid. This is the real world. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir,” Jason said. He swallowed, hard. “Do you want me to spy on the aliens?”

Sanderson’s eyes met his, again. “Among the other remarkable tricks built into this building,” he said, slowly, “is a security suite that is supposed to allow us to detect alien bugs. They’ve been stinging hundreds of people with tiny bugs, too tiny to see. You may be carrying one now, but if so...it’s not transmitting. They’ve been spying on us before they made First Contact. We don't think they come in peace.

“You may see something that can help us,” he added. “You’re going to be spending more time with the Snakes than almost anyone else in the future. Part of the reason we pulled strings to help you get your position was that you were willing to cooperate with the CIA’s debriefing team. We need you to serve your country by monitoring the Snakes for us.”

Jason stared at him, thinking fast. It seemed impossible to believe, yet...all of the alien words, all of their evasions and their reluctance to discuss anything of a serious nature with humanity’s scientists, pointed to one conclusion. The Snakes didn't come in peace. And that meant that humanity was staring down the barrels of an alien invasion.

“Why me?” He managed, finally. He’d dreamed of being someone important – until his dream had come true. He was the Discoverer; he’d done something that would never be repeated...and if it had been luck, it was his luck. But now the dream was becoming a nightmare and humanity – if it survived – might learn to start cursing his name. “Isn't there anyone else involved?”

“You mean; someone else we can insert into a place in the Welcome Foundation?” Sanderson shook his head, slowly. “I’m afraid not, Jason. Most of SETI’s upper board are people who sincerely believe that the Galactics come in peace. They don’t feel any urge to cooperate with our debriefing teams - and if we asked if they could keep an eye on the Snakes for us, they’d probably go confess all to the Snakes at the earliest opportunity.”

“Or make it worse,” Jason said, thinking of Professor Cavendish. He’d been talking about the utopia that would blossom on Earth once nuclear weapons had been dismantled and the military-industrial complex had been swept into the wastebasket of history. How long would it be before it occurred to him to start claiming that the military was hiding nukes somewhere in the United States? Coming to think of it, it was quite possible that Russia, or China, or Pakistan was considering cheating and trying to stash some nukes away somewhere safe. “What do you want me to do when I find something interesting?”

Sanderson reached inside his suit and produced a single business card. It read T SAMSON, INTERNATIONAL IMPORT/EXPORT and gave a Washington telephone number and email address. Below it, there was a neat line of text promising to deliver anywhere, anytime, and a sly note that the company was pleased to observe discretion in all of its business dealings.

“The company in question isn't important,” Sanderson said. “When you look at the numbers, switch each number with the number required to take it up to ten – and then dial that number and leave a time and place within the next two days where and when you can be contacted. If urgent, say so, but don’t say anything else. The chances are good that the Snakes are monitoring our communications. If anyone sees the card...”

“...Say that it’s one of the cards lobbyists are always giving me,” Jason guessed. “And what if I need to talk to you immediately?”

“Say so on the voicemail,” Sanderson said. “And don’t even think about saying something – anything – that might attract attention. We cannot afford to make even one mistake.”

Jason swallowed, again. “I understand, sir,” he said. “I won’t let you down.”

***​

Toby watched expressionlessly as Jason Lucas – a thoroughly decent young man completely out of his depth – was escorted out of the building and back to the Welcome Foundation. The schedule had called for more tours of the building, where the Foundation would attempt to impress both the media and the Galactics with their plans for the future. Some of the plans were even quite impressive. Toby might have been tempted to believe them if he hadn't known that the aliens were watching the human race, covertly monitoring the human compliance with their demands.

The thought made him curse under his breath. If the aliens were monitoring the human race closely, it might be impossible to stash more weapons – nukes in particular – somewhere where they could be used if necessary. The aliens seemed to be utterly paranoid about nukes, to the point where they insisted on counting every nuke in the arsenal and marking them off one by one. They seemed much less concerned about biological weapons, yet that made a certain kind of sense. It was highly unlikely that any virus known to humanity would be able to infect a Snake. So much for The War of the Worlds.

And there were other reports from Africa...

He scowled as he stood up. The human race hadn't been able – or, rather, willing – to do anything about the genocides in Central Africa. It hadn't been long before the Snakes became involved, running a refugee camp and actually providing some security for the thousands of displaced refugees. Hell, they’d won hundreds of admirers for actually helping people who needed help. And maybe they even deserved it.

Toby shook his head as he headed out the door. Gillian was waiting for him in another secure compound, only halfway across Washington. And then he had to meet with the President, and then exchange notes with the British and French representatives...his life was always busy. And interesting...

And if Jason Lucas was placed at risk, it was a risk Toby was willing to take. Before it was all over, God alone knew how many people would die.

 

You got me on the edge of my seat!Good story!
Matt

 

Chapter Twenty<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

<?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comffice:smarttags" /><st1lace w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Washington</st1:City> <st1:State w:st="on">DC</st1:State></st1lace>
<st1lace w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">USA</st1:country-region></st1lace>, Day 35

“He just isn't himself anymore.”

Callie Buckley was the type of woman Jayne tended to dislike. She was overweight, with an attitude that suggested that she didn’t believe that she was overweight and that anyone who dared point out the elephant in the room would earn an enemy for life instantly. Her hair was dyed and she wore clothes that tended to disguise her figure. All in all, Jayne was privately surprised that the marriage had lasted, but it was clear that she loved her husband and he loved her in turn.

“I see,” Jayne said. She’d been careful to visit when Joe Buckley was at the Welcome Foundation, just to ensure that she didn’t run into him. A certain kind of woman resented the presence of another woman when with her husband and she had a feeling that Callie would not have been amused if she had visited Buckley. “How is he not himself any longer?”

Callie gathered herself, visibly. “The Joe I married was a tough son of a bitch,” she said. “He was strong, determined and loved the Navy. There were times when I thought he loved the Navy more than he loved me. And when he left and started writing those books, he was still madly in love with the Navy, despite all its warts. I loved having him back, even if there were times when I felt as if he was still courting the Navy – his other woman.”

She laughed, nervously. “He wasn’t one of those hippie freaks who think that the Snakes are going to bring peace, prosperity and unlimited food and drink for people who have never worked a day in their lives,” she added. “He was certain that the aliens had their own reasons for visiting Earth and that we might not like them when we discovered what they were. And then he was invited to the alien base. I don’t even know why he went; he told me that he expected to be flattered, but not to be told anything useful.”

Jayne frowned, thoughtfully. “Do you know why he was selected?”

“The letter he received from SETI said it was because he was a famous writer,” Callie said. “He was always getting invitations to conventions and suchlike – he once told me that if he took up every speaking engagement he’d never have time to write. And I think a lot of his fans probably suggested him to someone. They used to write him such flattering letters, even the ex-military people. Joe kept each and every one of them.”

She shook her head. “So he went,” she said, “and now he’s not the same man anymore. They did something to him on that base, something that turned him into their dupe. He’s always telling people how much one can trust the Galactic Federation, how they have Earth’s best interests in mind and how we will benefit from their presence. And he won’t talk about what happened at the base. It’s like watching one of the brats from the Demon Headmaster! You ask him a question and he’ll rattle out a rote response…it’s like someone hypnotised him or something.”

“I see,” Jayne said. “Are you sure he didn’t just have a conversion when he saw what they could do?”

“I’m sure,” Callie said. “The old Joe loved food, drink, sex and – sometimes – fighting and it was my job to provide all four of them. Now he’s barely into any of them; he nibbles his food, avoids alcohol and seems uninterested in sex. And when I pry, as I do sometimes, he doesn’t even rise to the bait. He’s a ****ing pod person!”

“They did something to him,” Jayne said. It made a certain kind of sense. Joe Buckley was one of the people who shaped public opinion. If the aliens could convert someone into a loyal follower – and the <st1:stockticker w:st="on">CIA</st1:stockticker> had carried out all kinds of experiments into brainwashing – why wouldn’t they take advantage of the opportunity? Except…if Joe Buckley was no longer the man he’d been, the process obviously wasn't perfect. It might actually explain why the aliens hadn’t simply converted everyone who’d visited one of their bases; besides, there were plenty of people who took the aliens at their word without needing to be brainwashed. “Does he have nightmares?”

The look Callie gave her – a look of absolute terror – convinced her that she was right. “He does,” she confirmed. “You don’t understand; even when we were fighting, I felt safe with my Joe. And now he’s quiet, gets into bed without a bit of slap and tickle, and has terrible nightmares when he’s asleep. I watch him tossing and turning, but when he awakens he doesn’t remember anything – anything at all! He doesn’t even have the energy to argue with me over his dreams. I don’t feel safe with him any longer.”

Jayne reached into her pocket and produced one of her business cards. “If you have any problems, call me at once,” she said, firmly. “I think…”

“I already have a problem, you stupid bitch,” Callie snapped. She sounded as if she were on the verge of a breakdown. “I want my husband back!”

She stood up and stalked around the room. “God knows, I’d almost be happier if he was hitting me rather than being a…****ing pod person,” she said. Tears were streaking down her face. “He’s not human anymore! It’s like he’s joined one of those crazy cults and become one of their loyal followers and isn’t allowed to share anything with non-believers…”

“It’s going to be all right,” Jayne said, standing up and giving the older woman a hug. “Take my card; if you don’t feel safe any longer, perhaps you should leave and stay with a friend…”

“But Joe won’t care,” Callie protested. “The new Joe wouldn’t care if I stayed or left!”

Jayne asked several more questions, but Callie was too upset to answer properly. All she could do was offer Jayne a folder containing Joe Buckley’s correspondence for the last few months and a file of extracts from various novels. Most of them referred to a character called Joe Buckley meeting a horrific death at the hands of various enemy forces, including one where he was killed making love to his superior in a tank. Jayne put those aside and started to read through the letters. The letter from SETI was bland and largely uninformative. Joe Buckley had been invited to join one of the groups visiting an alien base; would he be interested. There was nothing else, apart from a pile of unopened letters. The date on the envelopes suggested that they’d been posted after Buckley returned from the alien base.

Shaking her head, Jayne bade Callie farewell. In some ways, Callie was alarmingly like some of the abused wives she’d met while looking for human interest stories. She was being tormented by her husband, but she couldn’t leave him – except Joe Buckley seemed to be showing no interest in her at all. Whatever the aliens had done to him had permanently damaged his mind in some respects, yet in others he could almost function normally.

She froze as a thought ran through her mind. What if the aliens were improving their technique? What if they were arranging for senior military officers to get a tour of their base – and brainwashing them into compliance with alien commands? The entire military was undergoing a massive reshuffle and reduction in force; with a little care, brainwashed officers would be left in high places, while free-thinking officers would be dismissed from the service. And then they’d own the military…

Cursing, she hailed a cab. It was time to start transmitting what she knew to the world – and pray that the aliens couldn’t track her down afterwards.

***​

“It looks,” Toby said dryly, “as if a ghetto blaster had been unfaithful with a television.”

Gillian snorted. The device on the table had clearly been put together in haste, with a dozen components linked together into one confusing mass. Toby could do basic computer repair work, but he’d never had to actually open up a hard drive and repair the interior, not when a replacement could be easily obtained from a computer store. Gillian and her NSA colleagues knew computers inside out. They could put one together by hand out of a remarkable selection of mundane devices.

“The next model will be sexier, I promise,” she said. “Whatever it looks like, the device is capable of detecting an alien bug when transmitting at several metres. I think that the devices actually respond to pings from the alien starships, so we’re attempting to trigger an automatic dump response from the bugs we have in the vault. Unfortunately, if we ping a device out in the open, the aliens will pick up the unscheduled dump and know that something’s wrong.”

Toby frowned. “Rather like having a rogue signal opening a garage door?”

“Something like that,” Gillian agreed. “The aliens don’t seem to use a constant stream of signals from their devices, which makes perfect sense when you consider that we might pick up a signal if it was constantly there – or it might scramble some of our transmissions. I think that given enough time we might be able to construct a jamming device, but I’m afraid that that will definitely tip off the aliens. There’s no other logical reason for us producing such a device.”

“Because the Chinese aren’t as capable as the aliens,” Toby agreed. The aliens would know that the device was aimed at them, if only because there were no other possible targets. And then they’d know that they’d been rumbled. “What are they playing at?”

He scowled down at the table. The aliens seemed to be toying with the human race; every day brought more and more reports of odd alien activity, activity that seemed to make little sense. They were buying up food surpluses from American farms, driving prices upwards; they were placing orders with American firms for technology that had to be remarkably primitive compared to anything they had developed for themselves. One scientist from NASA who had been quietly streamlined into the growing resistance had speculated that the aliens actually wanted to start mining the Moon and nearby asteroids. Once out of the gravity well, human technology might be just as capable as alien technology – and easier to repair if it broke. Surprisingly, no one seemed to be raising any objections to mining the lunar surface; the environmental groups seemed happy to concentrate on shutting down factories across the globe instead of fretting about humans polluting the moon.

“They want something from us and they can’t just take it,” Gillian said. She stroked her chin thoughtfully. “They clearly have a plan…”

“And we’re dancing to their tune,” Toby said, sharply. Already, military units were being disbanded or reorganised into the forces that would remain part of the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">United States of America</st1lace></st1:country-region>’s military machine. It would be a leaner, but meaner army – at least according to the Pentagon’s press releases. Toby knew that hundreds of military officers were protesting their orders in the strongest possible terms, if only because the pull-out of American forces risked destabilising the world. And once the military had been cut down sharply…

Some of the officers had received orders to preserve as much military material as possible. It was relatively easy to store tanks rather than dismantle them, or place aircraft in sealed hangers for later use if necessary. An alarming amount of military equipment seemed to have gone missing, although most reports indicated that it had been the result of miscounting or items being cannibalised to keep vehicles operating. Toby knew that most of the missing material – with the paper trail carefully fudged – had been placed into hiding, but he didn’t know precise details. God alone knew just how closely the aliens were monitoring the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">United States</st1lace></st1:country-region>. Once Gillian’s device went into full production, at least they might be able to start marking out some clear areas.

“The entire world is dancing to their tune,” Gillian said. “I heard on the grapevine that <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Iran</st1lace></st1:country-region> has been handing out contracts on alien heads.”

Toby nodded. The Government of Iran was seeing cash-flow problems as the implications of fusion power sank in. They’d been threatening everything from war to terrorism, but the world wasn’t paying much attention. For once, the <st1lace w:st="on">Middle East</st1lace> wasn't the centre of world attention – and they hated it. The Secret Service had quietly warned that there might be swarms of terrorists descending on alien bases, intent on avenging the loss of the oil weapon. Toby privately gave governments like <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1lace></st1:country-region> no more than a few more months before they were destroyed by their own people. And then they’d discover that they couldn’t drink oil.

“So far, no one has dared strike at the aliens,” he said. “What will they do when someone finally manages to take a shot at a Snake?”

He shook his head. No one knew, not least because no one knew anything about alien mentalities. The <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">United States</st1lace></st1:country-region> had been willing to tolerate a great deal of terrorism before finally attempting to take the war to the terrorists after 9/11. But then – everyone had known that raising the ante by invading terrorist-supporting countries could result in more trouble at home. And when the <st1:country-region w:st="on">United States</st1:country-region> had let <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iran</st1:country-region> get away with taking and holding hostages, everyone with a grudge had felt as if they could take a shot at the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">United States</st1lace></st1:country-region> and get away with it.

But no one knew how the aliens would react…

A thought appeared in his mind. It was a thoroughly nasty thought, one his father would probably have understood and approved. But then, his father had friends who believed that <st1:country-region w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Iran</st1lace></st1:country-region> were funding left-wing organisations that were undermining American freedoms and intending to replace the Constitution with Islamic Law. It was a crazy idea, yet it might just work…and if they were lucky, it would take some of the pressure off the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">United States</st1lace></st1:country-region>. And it might just force the aliens to show their hand.

“I’m going to need you to be on detached duty for a while,” he said. His father’s growing resistance organisation would need technical help. Besides, he would have felt happier if Gillian was out of <st1:State w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Washington</st1lace></st1:State>. The noose was growing tighter and he had an uncomfortable feeling that the **** was about to hit the fan. How could the people outside, thronging the streets of <st1:State w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Washington</st1lace></st1:State>, be unaware of the looming catastrophe? “Your superiors have already okayed it. You’ll be working with an underground unit without links to <st1lace w:st="on"><st1laceType w:st="on">Fort</st1laceType> <st1laceName w:st="on">Meade</st1laceName></st1lace>.”

Gillian blinked at him. “Why me?”

Toby considered several answers, and then settled upon the truth. “Because I trust you,” he said. “Because you already know what is at stake. Because you’re the one who developed these bug-detectors and we need you on site so we can ensure that we’re clean.”

“All right,” Gillian said, reluctantly. “And what will you be doing in the meantime?”

“You don’t want to know,” Toby said. He’d have to have a meeting with the CIA and NSA – and then probably a discussion with an ally in the United States Special Operations Command. At least there were so many units being moved around the globe right now; no one would even notice if one happened to be diverted. And he had just the right unit in mind. “Trust me; you really don’t want to know.”

“You can take me out to dinner tonight, then,” Gillian said. “I’ll have to get my files organised for the move, and then pick up a few hundred spare parts for this monster.” She tapped the detector with a long finger. “I think it will work fine in the field, but I’m not sure just how well it will work, if you take my meaning.”

Toby nodded. His father had been fond of complaining about expensive gadgets that worked perfectly in the lab and failed constantly in the field. The <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">United States</st1lace></st1:country-region> had had thousands of companies intent on getting military contracts, each one armed with thousands of lobbyists intent on convincing Congressmen that their device would change the shape of modern warfare – and, just incidentally, ensure higher levels of employment in the Congressman’s home district. It wouldn’t be the first time Congress had insisted that the military bought something that was of little use in the field. If nothing else, the military cutbacks would force those firms to switch to non-military production in a hurry. Their lobbyists would soon be out of work.

“You’ll be on hand to fix it,” he said. He’d miss her, he knew. Sharing the occasional dinner with her kept him going at times. There were still times when he wondered if he could take their relationship to the next level. But that would have to wait until afterwards – of there was an afterwards. “Remember; paper letters only, written in code…”

“Don’t teach your grandmother to suck eggs,” Gillian said, tartly. Toby flushed as she grinned at him. She knew more about codes and security than he’d ever learned, or would ever learn. Gillian might never have been out in the field in her life, but it hadn’t stopped her rising in the NSA. Sheer competence alone had forced her forward. “I know basic security precautions…”

There was a knock on the sealed door. Toby cursed as he opened the door and saw an NSA officer, holding a secure phone in one hand. “Mr Sanderson, sir, there’s been an emergency alert from the White House. You’re to make your whereabouts known to the Secret Service at once!”

Toby shared a long look with Gillian. Had the aliens decided to stop playing games and launch the invasion, or had something else happened?

“I understand,” he said. His secure phone had been left outside, but it would be easy to fetch it and place a call. “I’m on my way.”

 

Chapter Twenty-One<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

<?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comffice:smarttags" /><st1lace w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Washington</st1:City> <st1:State w:st="on">DC</st1:State></st1lace>
<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">USA</st1lace></st1:country-region>, Day 35

The Secret Service spared no expense. A helicopter picked him off the roof of the NSA building and carried Toby over towards the White House. Toby could see armed Marines patrolling the grounds, with Secret Servicemen staying well back and policemen working frantically to get the mob of protesters at the gates moved back for their own safety. As soon as the helicopter touched down, a mob of security officers surrounded him, checked his identity and then pulled him into the White House and down the steps to the bunker. The President was heavily protected at all times, but this was something greater. Toby had been a child the last time anyone had carried out an attack in <st1:State w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Washington</st1lace></st1:State>, when an airliner had been flown into the Pentagon. It had been chaotic back then too.

“It’s bad news,” the President said. He looked stunned, as if someone had hit him neatly between the eyes. It was hardly the most reassuring look for the most powerful man in the world, but then…all of the politicians who might be good in a crisis tended to be driving out of the running before they could even stand for President. And then those who survived often found that they were not up to handing crisis after crisis. “Air Force One has gone down in midair.”

Toby stared at him. Air Force One – actually, there were several planes decked out as Air Force One, but only one holding the title at any given time – was normally the President’s exclusive transport. But the President had had to send the Vice President to <st1:country-region w:st="on">Japan</st1:country-region> to reassure the Japanese about <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">America</st1lace></st1:country-region>'s commitment to certain treaties and, just to ensure that they took him seriously, he’d ordered him to fly on Air Force One. And now something had happened to his flight…he’d been over the Pacific Ocean, if memory served, escorted by a flight of Tomcats from a carrier heading home to the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">United States</st1lace></st1:country-region>.

“My God,” he said, finally. Why…who…if the President was the world’s number one target for terrorist activity, the Vice President certainly ranked as number five or six. His security was almost as good as the President’s security; there was literally no more secure aircraft than Air Force One. And the Japanese wouldn’t have played fast and loose with American security, not like some Middle Eastern nations he could name. It was already shaping up into a horrific nightmare. Fingers would be pointed everywhere…

He thought rapidly. Who benefited? Islamic terrorists would definitely be the prime suspects, but very few of the groups that had managed to remain active after the invasions of <st1:country-region w:st="on">Afghanistan</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Iraq</st1lace></st1:country-region> would have the capability to mount such a successful strike. Most of them had started to concentrate on soft targets, mainly outside the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">United States</st1lace></st1:country-region>. No halfway sane terrorist wanted to give the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">United States</st1lace></st1:country-region> an excuse to wage war on their host countries. And then there were the aliens…

On the face of it, the aliens didn’t benefit at all. The Vice President had been, like so many others in government, a compromise candidate. He’d brought valuable support to the President’s administration, but few other qualities of value. On the other hand, he had been a good sounding board for some of the President’s qualities and he balanced the ticket nicely against Jeannette McGreevy…

Toby would have sworn aloud if he’d been alone. Jeannette McGreevy, the Secretary of State, the woman who was using the aliens to build an impregnable power base for herself…and a woman who stood alarmingly close to the Presidency. After the Vice President, the Line of Succession ran through The Speaker of the House of Representatives and The President Pro-Tempore of the Senate before reaching the Secretary of State, but neither of them could be expected to serve as Vice President, if only because they had few backers. McGreevy was almost the only choice for Vice President, yet she couldn’t be trusted. And the President didn’t know it…

He looked down at the President, who seemed tired and worn. Somewhere on his person, or scattered around the room, was an alien bug, a surveillance device so tiny as to be literally invisible to the naked eye. He couldn’t reach out to the President, or tell him about the resistance…or, for that matter, convince him to invoke presidential authority to help the resistance. If he did, the aliens would know…and then what would they do?

***​

“We flew SAR aircraft out of Diego Garcia to link up with helicopters from the Truman,” Major Dalton said. He sounded nervous. Briefing the President was never easy at the best of times. Toby could hardly blame him. Washington sometimes operated on the ‘shoot the messenger’ theory of government. “They found nothing, apart from trace debris. The aircraft literally disintegrated in midair.”

The President seemed more composed now, but Toby suspected that it was partly an act. “What happened?”

“We have gun camera footage from one of the drones overseeing the flight,” Dalton said. Air Force One never flew alone, no matter what the movies claimed; there had been a powerful fighter escort from the carrier accompanying the flight. Terrorists might not fly in fighter jets, but one of the more persistent nightmares was a rogue state launching an attempt to shoot Air Force One down. But they should have been safe over the Pacific Ocean... “The footage suggests, after a preliminary look, that there was a bomb on the flight, which detonated with impressive force. They would all have been dead in the first few seconds after detonation.”

Toby frowned, inwardly. No one should have been able to slip a bomb onto the aircraft. The USAF only put the most reliable flight crew on Air Force One, and the ground crew were all specially trained and vetted. There might have been a lone Japanese terrorist who’d somehow managed to get onto the base housing Air Force One while the Vice President was in Japan, but Toby couldn't see how he would have been able to conceal a bomb onboard. The security sweeps should have picked up anything before the Vice President got anywhere near the plane. No one – no one human – would have been able to plant a bomb on Air Force One.

He would have expected the aliens to simply shoot the aircraft down from orbit, but he had to admit that this was more subtle. A laser-type directed energy weapon could have only one possible source, an alien starship. It would have been an open act of war. This way, there would be considerable doubt over who had carried out the bombings, rendering it impossible to extract revenge. The aliens had carried out a neat strike and there was no way to prove what they’d done.

“We’re currently organising a sweep to pick up what remains of the wreckage, but the surrounding environment will make that difficult,” Dalton continued. “Once recovered, the wreckage will be flown to the nearest base for analysis, while the FBI conducts interviews of personnel who could have conceivably planted a bomb on the craft. We’ll vet everyone who might have had any access at all, Mr President. We will find the people responsible.”

The President’s eyes crossed the room to the CIA Director. “Who,” he said, coldly, “was responsible for this?”

Toby winced. The CIA Director had almost certainly come to the same conclusion as himself, but they didn't dare say it out loud, not when the aliens might hear. No, they would hear. Gillian’s device might not be ready for mass-production yet, but the NSA had deployed a series of increasingly sophisticated detectors in the White House and they’d located at least nine active bugs. There could be dozens more that weren't transmitting to anyone.

And McGreevy, who was almost certainly a traitor, was sitting at the other side of the room.

“Well, we’re only just looking at communications intercepts and human intelligence sources, but the general conclusion is that the attack was carried out by Islamic terrorists,” the CIA Director said, finally. “Three of the crewmen assigned to Air Force One were Muslim; all three of them went down with the plane. There has been a considerable upswing in chatter between known terrorist cells over the past two weeks and it is quite possible that one of them has made the shift from plotting to action.”

“A very clever strike,” the President observed, bitterly. “How did this happen?”

There was an uncomfortable pause. “Well, Mr. President,” the CIA Director said, finally, “there are always problems with ensuring that the security barriers surrounding any target are impregnable. We are not allowed to discriminate against anyone just on suspicion, or because they practice a religion that includes terrorists who want to kill us all as brutally as they can. At times, people slip through the holes and managed to get into a position they can use to hurt us badly.”

“So these terrorists managed to join the USAF and operate undetected for years before they struck,” the President said. He sounded angry; Toby didn't blame him. The cock-and-bull story they’d given him made the USAF’s security division look very bad. And no matter what happened, chances were that three innocent crewmen were going to be posthumously declared the worst terrorists since the men who’d struck at America on 9/11. The lives of their families would be blighted by the investigators, trying to prove a link between their dead relatives and international terrorism. And it was quite possible that the aliens had turned someone on the plane into an unwitting traitor. “Why now?”

“The Middle East has been going through a series of political earthquakes,” the CIA Director said. “The price of oil has fallen dramatically ever since we started to turn to fusion power. We may not have made a complete shift just yet, but perceptions are important – and perceptions say that there won’t be more than two years before demand for oil falls sharply. And then the money runs out.”

Toby nodded. The latest alien miracle introduced by the Welcome Foundation was a set of batteries that could store vast amounts of power almost endlessly, turning the long-held dream of electric cars into a reality. All one had to do was plug the battery into the mains socket – power supplied by fusion, of course – and the car would be ready to drive within hours. The designers had pulled an engine out of a popular car, replaced it with a battery, and let the results speak for themselves. There were already ecological pressure groups getting organised to demand that all newly-produced cars were powered by fusion power, rather than gas.

“I think we will be looking at far more terrorism in the near future,” the CIA Director said. “Whatever they say openly, far too many Arab governments – Saudi and Iran in particular – back the terrorists. If they can force the Galactic Federation to abandon Earth, they could reclaim their former prominence as oil suppliers to the world.”

“So they’ll keep attacking the Federation,” the President said. “We may need to increase security at their bases...”

“I think there is another problem,” McGreevy said, sharply. “How do we know that this was an Islamic strike at all?”

“We don’t,” the CIA Director admitted. “However, the Islamic terrorists have been threatening the Galactic Federation...”

“And so they struck at the Vice President,” McGreevy said. “I’m not sure I follow their logic. They want to hurt the Galactic Federation so they kill the Vice President of America? Where’s the logic in that?”

“Terrorists,” the CIA Director said, carefully, “tend to look for spectacular strikes. Destroying an aircraft in flight is irritating, but largely harmless in any long-term sense. Assassinating the Vice President, however, gives the impression that they can strike anywhere – and if the Vice President isn't safe, no one is safe.”

“The fact remains that this serves no logical purpose,” McGreevy said. Her eyes fixed on the FBI Director’s face. “I think we should be looking closer to home. Is it not a fact that we have been seeing an increased number of threats against federal agents from home-grown right-wing militia groups?”

Toby kept his face impassive, but he was starting to see her line of logic. They’d lost Blake Coleman...and the only reason the FBI hadn't descended on Coleman’s family to discover what he’d been doing had been that the body hadn't been recovered. And no one human could have removed the body before the police arrived. If the aliens had worked out who’d intercepted their team of assassins, they might be trying to put the blame for the Vice President’s assassination on Toby’s father, ensuring that two of their enemies wound up fighting each other.

The FBI Director sighed. He knew little about the alien threat. “The FBI has been monitoring the militia movement ever since it became an issue,” he said. “We have placed agents and informants within most of the militia movements – and, quite frankly, most of them pose more threat to themselves than to others. Despite their often fiery speeches, the most serious criminal offense they do is hording illegal weapons – some of which are often illegal based on technicalities.”

“The law is the law,” McGreevy said. “And why have you not arrested them?”

“There is a general feeling that they’re largely harmless,” the FBI Director said. “You may recall Waco and other nasty incidents – I assure you that they do. If we were to crack down on them – over minor issues that take a weapon from legal to illegal – we would run the risk of transforming a marginalised bunch of nutcases into a serious movement that would pose a serious threat to the stability of the country. The vast majority of militias are peaceful – we have had some cases of people talking about striking back at the Feds – that’s us – and being pushed out of the movements.”

McGreevy snorted. “And they are the ones with a real grudge against the Vice President,” she said. “Wasn’t it he who took their money and then pushed for heavier restrictions on assault rifles? Wasn’t it he who personally put forward the money for interfaith centres in all American states? His reputation among the far right was lower than Bill Clinton’s – maybe, with the Galactic Federation offering us a way to live in peace, one of your harmless movements has moved from talking to action.”

“It’s a possibility,” the FBI Director conceded. “However, in order to carry out such an operation, they would have to plot it, put their people in place and conceal it until the time came to strike. None of the militias have that sort of patience – many of them would prefer to act at once rather than wait for the right moment. I think that the evidence will eventually lead to Islamic terrorists.”

The President held up a hand. “Enough,” he said, with surprising force. “We will double our security precautions everywhere – perhaps attempt to halt demobilisation until we can get better security networks in place.”

“The Galactics won’t like that,” McGreevy warned.

“Their timetable is too short anyway,” the President countered. “They’ll live.”

He looked up at her, grimly. “You’ll be sworn in as Vice President tonight,” he added. “I trust that that meets with your approval?”

McGreevy’s eyes glittered. “It does, Mr. President,” she said. “I’ll hold onto State until my Deputy is up to speed, and then transfer it to him.”

The President nodded. “We will not allow this tragedy to destroy us, or everything we hold dear,” he said. “America will endure, whatever happens.”

***​

“Am I making a mistake?”

Toby winced, inwardly. The President often asked him for advice on political matters; one of the many reasons he was so useful to the President was that he kept his finger firmly on the pulse of opinion, both public and political. Politically speaking, appointing McGreevy Vice President was a sound move. Her constituency would be happy, the feminist lobby would be delighted to see a woman in the Vice President’s position and it would limit her ability to take independent action. On the other hand, it would put her right next to the President – and if something happened to him, she’d be President. And she was working for the aliens.

But he didn't dare say it out loud. The aliens would know that he knew about them – and then they would act. If they drew a line between Toby and his father, they might be able to uncover most of the resistance and then destroy it. And they might be able to follow up by destroying the cells of resistance members in the government...Toby knew too much to be allowed to fall into enemy hands. He just hoped that he’d be able to commit suicide if the enemy ever did get their hands on him.

“I think that she would be an asset,” he said, untruthfully. And politically – he was right. “But her ambition does make her dangerous.”

The President nodded, slowly. Ambition was always dangerous in political subordinates; given a chance, they might see advantage in stabbing their superiors in the back. But if McGreevy took the Vice President’s position, she would take part of the blame for any failures by the President’s government. Whatever they might have said publically, Toby knew that certain members of the Democratic Party had breathed a sigh of relief when Gore had failed to beat Bush in 2000. Gore, a former VP himself, would have found himself taking much of the blame for 9/11.

“But there’s no strong alternate candidate,” the President said. He smiled with black humour. “I think we’re stuck with her.”

And hope that the aliens don’t use her to strangle us, Toby thought, sourly. By now, the entire world would know that the VP was dead. And America would want to see the President taking control, to remind them that life would go on.

Silently, he drew his plan together in his mind. If they had enough time, perhaps they could give the aliens a shock. And maybe, just maybe, expose them for what they really were.

 

Chapter Twenty-Two<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

Al Udeid Air Base/Virginia
Qatar/USA, Day 40

The heat slapped at Sergeant Albert Cunningham’s face as he double-timed it towards the Special Operations Command Centre and the promise of air-conditioning inside the building. Four months in the Middle Eastern heat had hardened him to some degree, yet he still disliked the temperature, the insects and most of the people. Maybe that was a little unfair – hell, it was a little unfair – but most of the people he met in his line of work tended to be terrorists, smugglers or religious nuts. SOCOM still ran operations all over the region, with remote-controlled Predators and covert operation teams hunting down terrorists and disrupting their networks before they could form. Most of the governments in the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comffice:smarttags" /><st1lace w:st="on">Middle East</st1lace> turned a blind eye. After the big pullout from the region – after oil became little more expensive than water – the Princes and Emirs and Dictators of the <st1lace w:st="on">Middle East</st1lace> were in for a nasty surprise from their own people. Their castles were literally built on sand.

He scowled as the noise of a heavy transport aircraft echoed overhead. American soldiers were being evacuated from the <st1lace w:st="on">Middle East</st1lace>, travelling back home as fast as an overworked transport network could deliver them. Albert had been expecting to be recalled himself, even though his Force Recon unit was blacker than black; there seemed to be little need to keep a major American presence in the <st1lace w:st="on">Middle East</st1lace>. Or at least that was what the government was saying publicly. Privately, Albert has his doubts. The terrorists who hated <st1:country-region w:st="on">America</st1:country-region> for being better than them were unlikely to just allow the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">US</st1lace></st1:country-region> to leave in peace. There had already been a series of nasty demonstrations that had almost turned violent.

The guard checked his identity carefully, scanning Albert’s eyes with a pocket retina scanner before allowing him to enter the command centre. Terrorists had proved themselves to be alarmingly capable of getting inside supposedly secure areas, even in relatively peaceful <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Qatar</st1lace></st1:country-region>. The buddies Albert had lost in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Afghanistan</st1lace></st1:country-region> stood as mute testament to the skills of the Taliban fighters, who combined a single-minded devotion to their version of Islam with fighting skills that relied on wearing down the enemy and breaking his determination to carry on the fight. No one should be inside the fence without clearance and nobody, but nobody, was allowed into the centre without a careful security check. And no one who wasn’t American was ever allowed inside. The reliability of people in the <st1lace w:st="on">Middle East</st1lace> couldn’t be predicted accurately.

And nor could the reliability of some Americans, he added mentally. The Vice President could have testified to that. No one knew for sure who was to blame for his death, but hundreds of terrorist groups were already claiming the credit. The grapevine claimed that the Teams would be sent after the loudest claimants, extracting revenge for the assassination before the pullout was completed. It was as good a theory as any other.

Inside, it was cooler. The handful of people within view worked at their terminals, muttering orders into their headsets as they struggled to coordinate the big pull-out. No one outside the military really appreciated how much material the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">United States</st1lace></st1:country-region> had stockpiled in the region, including weapons and supplies that would change the balance of power in the wrong hands. Some of it would probably be turned over to <st1:country-region w:st="on">America</st1:country-region>'s allies, but the rest of it would have to be transported back to the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">US</st1lace></st1:country-region>, left in secure storage or destroyed. It wouldn’t be an easy task.

“Sergeant,” a voice said. Albert looked up to see Brigadier O’Neil, a former SF soldier who’d been injured while on operations and confined to working in the rear until he could pass his tests and go back into the field. The SF troops appreciated working with someone who knew what they could do – and also what they needed to get their jobs done. Even the more secretive units like Albert’s team needed to draw supplies from the rear. “If you’ll come with me…?”

Albert felt an uncomfortable sensation in his gut as he was led into a small room. A man he vaguely recognised from a briefing rose to his feet as Albert entered, holding out a hand for him to shake. Albert shook it firmly, guessing that the man spent most of his time behind a desk back home. The thought jogged his memory into high gear and it produced a name. Albert Demeter, the Director of the CIA. They shared the same first name.

O’Neil shut the door firmly behind him, cutting off all noise from the outside world. Even the omnipresent roar of aircraft was gone. Albert’s eyes widened as the CIA Director picked up what was evidently a counter-surveillance tool and turned it on, carefully sweeping the entire room. He even checked Albert’s hair and equipment belt. Nothing about it made sense, Albert decided, and it left him with a bad feeling. Why would the Director of the CIA carry out a sweep he’d normally have an underling do?

“I’ve been told that you and your team are the best Special Forces operatives in the world,” the Director said, without preamble. “Is that actually true?”

Albert’s eyes narrowed. No one joined the Special Forces without the underlying certainty that they were the best at what they did; the toughest and most capable soldiers in the world, the men who made terrorists scared of the dark. In his years in Force Recon, he’d crawled through bogs and climbed mountains to slip into terrorist training camps and kill them all, or call in air strikes from a bomber loitering so high overhead that the terrorist scrum had no idea that they were there. He’d carried out missions in over a dozen countries, including several that it would have surprised the general public to know that American troops were operating there. And he’d come alarmingly close to losing his life on several occasions.

“Yes, sir,” he said, flatly.

“The Director will brief you on your mission,” O’Neil said. “The mission requires an operative with unique qualifications. Failure is not an option, Sergeant. These orders come from the very highest levels. Once you know the mission, you will either carry it out as you see fit or you will be placed into lockdown until the mission is completed.”

Albert nodded. As insulting as it seemed, one lesson the <st1:country-region w:st="on">United States</st1:country-region> had learned quickly was that it couldn’t really trust its allies in the <st1lace w:st="on">Middle East</st1lace>. The only way to keep operations from being blown – or raiding empty buildings – was to have them kept highly confidential until the mission was over. There were so many American units, helicopters and aircraft moving through the Middle East and <st1lace w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Afghanistan</st1:country-region></st1lace> that it was easy to put together a mission without letting too many people in on the secret.

“I must say that I have protested the orders,” O’Neil added. “You have the authority to determine if you want others to accompany you or if you want to operate alone.” His eyes darkened. “But if you get caught, we will deny all knowledge of you. Understand this; there will be no reinforcements or support from anywhere else. You’ll be effectively on your own.”

“And expendable,” Albert said. The nasty feeling in his gut was mingling with growing excitement. It sounded like a mission that would test him – and his buddies, if he brought them along – to the limit. Or, alternatively, an invitation to suicide, like several other missions that had gone badly wrong over the years. “I will carry out the mission.”

“Good,” the Brigadier said. “I will withdraw now. Once you’re done, you will receive your instructions, but remember – nothing is to be written down or stored in a database, no matter how secure.”

He left, closing the door behind him. “Sergeant, this will not be easy,” the CIA Director said. “The Brigadier was not kidding when he said that you and your team would be on their own – and expendable, if you get caught. If you want to back out…”

“No, sir,” Albert said, firmly.

“Very well,” the CIA Director said. “It has been announced that <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iran</st1:country-region> will receive a visit from one of the Snakes, someone who will negotiate with <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Iran</st1lace></st1:country-region> for the introduction of Galactic technology into their society. The Iranians have been pushing for this visit for some time and the Snakes have finally decided to grant it. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to assassinate one of the Snakes.”

Albert stared at him. “Sir?”

“You heard me,” the CIA Director said. “You have to get into <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Iran</st1lace></st1:country-region>, assassinate the Snake and then get out again, all without being detected.”

The thought was exciting – and terrifying. Albert had scant respect for <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Iran</st1lace></st1:country-region>’s security forces – they’d tangled with them before, on missions that were officially denied – but the Snakes might have all kinds of technology protecting their scaly behinds. He would have to travel into <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iran</st1:country-region> on his own, sneaking through the desert and into <st1:City w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Tehran</st1lace></st1:City>, before finding a place to strike at the Snake. It would be the thrill of a lifetime, if he pulled it off. Failure would mean certain death.

“Sir,” he said, “with all due respect, what has been done to determine how the Snakes will react to the death of one of their people?”

“Nothing,” the CIA Director admitted. “We need data, Sergeant, and we need to get it in such a manner as to ensure that someone else gets the blame…”

Albert saw it all, neatly. <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Iran</st1lace></st1:country-region> had been one of the countries threatening bloody retribution for losing its oil revenues. If he carried out the assassination, the Iranians would get the blame and the brunt of any alien retaliation. And it might distract the terrorists from going after American targets.

“I understand, sir,” he said. “I won’t let the country down.”

“I know you won’t,” the CIA Director said. “Under the circumstances, as your CO said, you have complete freedom to plan the operation as you see fit. Good luck.”

Albert was already considering it. It would be fairly easy to link up with smugglers and head east to <st1:City w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Tehran</st1lace></st1:City>. The Gulf was lousy with smugglers, despite the presence of the American Navy and – for that matter – <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Iran</st1lace></st1:country-region>’s naval patrols. <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iran</st1:country-region>’s forces were generally bought off with large bribes, a constant problem in the <st1lace w:st="on">Middle East</st1lace>, allowing smugglers to ship contraband all over the region. The Teams had used it before to slip in and out of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Iran</st1lace></st1:country-region>.

“I’ll need one other person,” he said. “Sergeant Bainbridge. We both speak fluent Arabic and Farsi; we can pass for Arabs or Iranians if necessary.”

“You have complete freedom to decide how to carry out the mission,” the CIA Director reported. “Just remember, if everything goes south…”

“We’re rogues,” Albert agreed. “And you will never have seen us in your life.”

***​

“They confirmed McGreevy as Vice President,” Toby said, grimly.

His father looked up from where he was poking the fire. Gillian sat at one end of the sofa, watching his antics with apparent amusement. Toby had only been able to slip out of <st1:State w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Washington</st1lace></st1:State> at very short notice and they hadn’t really had time to chat. His father had been eager to talk about his other plans, but Toby had refused to listen. The less he knew the better. With an apparent security breach opening up the path to taking down Air Force One, the FBI was gearing up to run checks on everyone who’d already been cleared. It might uncover the resistance’s growing network of cells.

“The bitch,” his father said. “The President should have appointed someone harmless, not someone who…”

He shook his head in disgust. “You want to bet that she planned the VP’s assassination herself?”

“No,” Toby said. The President didn’t understand his former Secretary of State, not really. He knew that McGreevy was ambitious – it was why he’d tried to co-opt her into his administration in the first place – but he’d underestimated just how far she was prepared to go to gain power. Now she had become Vice President, she was only one step away from the Presidency. The Secret Service had quietly strengthened the ring of steel around the President, but Toby wasn't sanguine about the risks. God alone knew what the aliens could do to assassinate the President. “I think we have to count her as an outright collaborator.”

“So we deal with her,” his father said. “Can’t you get a kill-team somewhere near her?”

“I doubt it,” Toby said. The Secret Service would be hardly likely to accept him vouching for anyone, particularly a group of old soldiers carrying weapons. “I think we have to assume the worst.”

He stared down at the fire. “The DHS is already in her pocket,” he said. “I think the Director is one of her people, which gives her a great deal of authority; more, I think, than the President recognises. They’re already gearing up for dealing with mass civil unrest – after the riots in <st1:State w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Washington</st1lace></st1:State>, they have ample justification to prepare for further trouble. I think the next step will be to clamp down on our freedoms down here.”

“Not until they’ve finished disbanding the army,” his father said. The Colonel spat into the fire, causing it to splutter back at the watching humans. “I cannot believe that so many military men so tamely complied with the government’s orders.”

“They swore to uphold the civilian government,” Toby pointed out. “Do you think they should turn their guns on Congress just because they find their orders unpalatable?”

The Colonel snorted, but said nothing else. “Besides,” Toby added, “there is a disquieting set of developments in military matters. A number of army officers attended a seminar on one of the alien bases. Apparently, it was to discuss the Galactic Federation’s military role…”

“And I thought they were pacifists,” the Colonel said. “Now they admit to having a military…”

“And they have since been confirmed as officers who will be retained by our much-reduced military,” Toby continued, ignoring his father’s interruption with the ease of long practice. “All of them have been willing to talk endlessly about how wonderful the Federation is and how we should be grateful for the chance to grow into a mature race – under the benevolent protection of the Snakes, of course.”

He waited to see if his father would draw the correct conclusion. “They’re being brainwashed,” the Colonel snarled. “God damn it – doesn’t anyone even realise that they’re being turned into alien serfs?”

Toby shook his head. “That’s not the only thing they have in common,” he added. “They’re almost all unmarried, which suggests that there won’t be anyone close enough to them to notice any alarming difference. In fact, most of them have few friends or allies…”

“But they can still give orders and be obeyed,” the Colonel said. “Unless they give an illegal order, who is going to question them?”

“The noose is tightening,” Toby agreed. “I’ve started something that might give the aliens a shock, but I think we need to work faster when it comes to collecting and storing war material. Now we can ensure that General Thomas isn’t being watched by the aliens, we can start using him to contact a number of officers. If we’re careful, we might be able to start stockpiling war material without the aliens catching on.”

The Colonel looked up at him. “And if one of those officers has been brainwashed?”

“We’re dead,” Toby said, simply. The whole issue was turning into a frightening nightmare, one without a parallel in human history. Anyone could be brainwashed into supporting the aliens, turning men and women with unimpeachable records into traitors who would betray their country – and escape suspicion until they carried out their work. The security vetting system had been badly broken in the past, but this was much worse. Who could they trust?

The aliens could watch anywhere, listen in to all communications…the slightest mistake might betray the resistance to their enemies. And then the cells would be wiped out, one by one. And then…perhaps the aliens would reveal their true nature? And perhaps then it would be too late.

“They’re not all-powerful,” Gillian said, sharply. “They can do things we can’t, sure. They have a more advanced technological base than ours. But we’re not as far behind them as we thought. Their bugs aren’t too different from those on the drawing board, their transmitters are not too far ahead of our own microburst transmitters…they’re not gods.”

“They don’t need to be gods,” Toby said, sourly. “They have seventeen starships hanging over our heads. Why are they ****ing around with us when they could just bombard us into submission and take the surrender of whoever is left when the rubble stops falling?”

“Maybe they can’t,” the Colonel said. “Or maybe they’re so advanced that they regard us with almost-total contempt. They may not consider us capable of matching them, or of seeing through their deceptions. I’ve seen that sort of arrogance before; the people who have it think that no one is as smart as them, or that anything they do is automatically smarter than anything anyone else can do. I wonder if they expect us to be able to understand their toys, or if they’re giving us tech confident that we lack the knowledge to understand it, let alone improve on the design.”

“Maybe,” Toby said. He thought, briefly, of all the gifts the Galactic Federation had given humanity. A food producer was helping to feed the homeless in <st1:City w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Manhattan</st1lace></st1:City>. A water purifier was helping to produce water in <st1lace w:st="on">Africa</st1lace>. And fusion power was starting to allow fission plants to be shut down, at least until they could decide what to do with them. And if the aliens had come in peace, how much could the human race have learned from them? 2I hope you’re right.”

“So do I, boy,” the Colonel said. “So do I.”

 

<B>Chapter Twenty-Threefficeffice" /><?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comffice:smarttags" /><?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com</st1lace><st1:City w:st="on">Washington</st1:City> <st1:State w:st="on">DC</st1:State>
<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">USA</st1lace></st1:country-region>, Day 45

Jayne looked down at the notepad with an expression of irritation. She had never fully appreciated how the legendary reporters of yesteryear had coped without word processors, laptop computers and even palmtop personal assistants. They’d had to scribble out their stories in shorthand and score out any errors, rather than simply pressing the delete key and retyping the section. Her hand was aching after writing out four versions of her story, each one of which hadn’t been good enough for the internet. But at least no one could hack into a sheet of paper.

She looked down at the paper and scowled to herself. It wouldn't be easy to read, but it should be difficult – in theory – for the aliens to even realise it was there, let alone read it unless someone pointed it out to them. The text would be scanned into a computer and then uploaded as a JPG image, stored on a hundred different fire servers. It was a fairly simple trick often used to outsmart child protection software on the internet and, she hoped, it would serve her purposes as well. Scowling, she started one final read through of the paper. As long as it was legible, she’d accept the flames she was likely to get if anyone found out she’d written the article.

It has been a truly remarkable week. The human race has started its advance towards joining the Galactics and reaching the stars. All over the world, small amounts of alien technology – with more promised soon – are already improving the lives of hundreds of thousands of humans. We have been promised far more benefits to come, from access to the boundless resources of space to a clean and safe environment for our children. And we have responded. In every city, the Witnesses flock to show our gratitude to the Galactics and the Welcome Foundation is opening buildings that will allow us to feast our eyes on the glory of alien technology. It is a bright new day.

The question we should ask ourselves is simple. Why are the Galactics really here?

Others online have questioned their reasons for visiting Earth. Many of those posters are now dead. It seems that our vaunted law enforcement sections have more to do with putting together what – I believe – is a murder case against the Galactics. Consider this; nineteen people who spoke out against the aliens are dead. There appears to be nothing linking the nineteen together – and certainly more than nineteen people have been murdered in the same time period – except one thing. They all spoke out against the aliens. And if we didn't see this before the attack on General Thomas, who resigned his commission rather than accept the effective dismantling of much of our country’s military, we should certainly see it now. The attack on General Thomas was a blatant slap in the face for those of us who have eyes to see. Who benefits from the deaths? The Galactics.

Ah, you might say; it is nothing more than a coincidence. To which I would reply; pull the other one, it’s got bells on. If nineteen people are dead, all of whom had one trait in common, is it not logical to suggest that that single trait was why they were targeted? I believe that if ten young African-American girls were to be targeted, the police and FBI would deduce that the killer’s primary targets are young black women, instead of saying that the deaths had nothing in common. So why the fear to draw the line between the deaths, I ask you; who does it benefit?

But if that is too much for you to stomach, consider this. A number of people who harboured – and expressed – anti-alien views have changed their minds in the last few weeks. Some of them have been convinced by the wonders the aliens have shown us, or have discovered that they can profit from the alien presence. I would not say that no one is allowed to change their minds; indeed, most of the bitterest arguments I have seen could have been resolved, if one side or the other was allowed to change their positions. Others, however, have changed their minds – and have been unable to articulate why they have changed their minds. Am I the only one who sees something vaguely sinister in this development?

I would refer you to the case of Joe Buckley, a well-known writer of military science-fiction. His works have been great successes over the past few years, with sales high enough to warrant a mention in the New York Review of Books. And Joe Buckley didn't trust the aliens. His posts, which I will have to quote from memory as they have somehow disappeared from the internet, asked why humanity should give up control to the Galactic Federation. Even if we concede that humanity has made mistakes – and we have, let us not be deceived into believing otherwise – why do we assume that the Galactics mean us no harm? Or, for that matter, why the Galactics can be trusted? We were not – and have not – been allowed to visit their ships. We still have no idea how many of them there are – and what we know, really know, about the Galactic Federation is insufficient. These, dear readers, were the questions that Joe Buckley asked.

Except he isn't asking them anymore. Does that seem odd to you? It may even seem sinister when you consider what happened just before he changed his mind – or had it changed for him. He visited one of the alien bases as part of a sanitized tour – and I can tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that the tour was definitely sanitized. We learned nothing of importance, but whatever Joe Buckley saw was enough to convince him to become an alien supporter, almost a Witness. He has joined a group he treated as objects of scorn, young men and women who chose to believe in glittering lights and insubstantial promises. His attitude changed completely.

But why? What happened at the alien base?

Some of the people who have joined the Witnesses have good reasons for supporting the aliens. Michaela Duval knew that her nine-year-old child would never walk again after she was badly injured in a road-rage accident. The Galactics cured her; a young girl can walk again. Can anyone blame Mrs Duval for practically worshipping the Galactics? And then there was Tommy Sinclair, who was certain to die of cancer within the next two weeks; the Galactics cured him. And now he is one of their most effective advocates, testifying to their prowess in a manner that would do an evangelist preacher proud.

And yet we have no comparable reason for Joe Buckley. Indeed, he is unable to articulate why he changed his mind. What was it? It may not surprise my more intelligent readers to discover that Joe Buckley was not the only one to change his mind. A number of others have recently been toeing the alien line, including several military officers, senior policemen and government officials. And – guess what? They all went to an alien base. Joe Buckley’s wife, who has fled her husband in fear for her life, called him a pod person. What are the aliens doing to them to turn them into converts to their cause? I do not know...

There are, however, some alarming possibilities. We have long known that it is possible to brainwash someone into something they would not normally do. The process – for humans, at least – is chancy. The never-to-be-sufficiently-damned hijackers of 9/11 were pushed into a belief that they had the right to launch a terrorist strike that claimed thousands of innocent lives. And they did that despite not being paragons of Islamic behaviour. The CIA is supposed to have perfected techniques for creating spies from enemy personnel. Is it too great a leap to suppose that the aliens might have developed a more advanced way to alter a person’s mind?

Let us consider the possibilities for a moment. The aliens are steadily taking over the minds of our top officials – and doing it in a manner that makes it very difficult to detect, let alone prevent. It will not be long before the country’s government is partly under alien control, or perhaps completely under alien control. Think about it – how could a soldier know that he was receiving orders from the legitimate government, or a government controlled by alien dupes and drones? And how could he solve the dilemma when you consider that both forms of government may be combined in a single unit?

I have attached a list of known people who have visited alien bases. In the absence of any real test for ‘pod people,’ I am forced to recommend that anyone who has visited an alien base be considered guilty until proven innocent. It is possible that a more advanced medical scan of their brains would uncover what was done to them and maybe even reverse it. It is certain that refusing to heed this threat will have disastrous results for human security, even survival.

You think not? Consider this – we just buried the Vice President, and saw the Secretary of State installed in his place. Guess who has spent time in an alien base? That’s right – the Secretary of State! And if that isn't enough, let me ask you a second question. The Vice President was travelling on the most famous – and well-protected – airliner in the world. Air Force One was not intercepted by a flight of Chinese fighter jets; no terrorists lurked with portable missile launchers on beautiful Pacific islands to take a pot-shot at Air Force One. The detonation that destroyed the plane was a bomb, all the experts agree – and yet how did it get through the security cordon?

Those who blame the attack on Islamic Terrorists refuse to ask how three Muslim crewmen managed to get a bomb onto the plane. They died in the explosion, so we will never know for sure – but I believe that the security was extensive enough to prevent anyone from getting a bomb aboard. The Secretary of State (now the Vice President) has been pushing the blame onto right-wing terrorist militias, yet they would still face the same problem. It’s worth saying again; Air Force One is the most heavily protected plane in the world. Any terrorists who could get a bomb through security would have waited for the President himself. Taking out the Vice President just isn't going to cut it.

Hundreds of terrorist groups have claimed responsibility for the blast, yet none of them have provided any proof. And the FBI has turned up no real leads, according to my sources. The destruction of Air Force One may be an unsolvable mystery.

I ask again – who benefits?

There are those who would tell you that anyone who writes a post such as this one cannot be trusted – after all, I’m not telling you who I am. But I am telling you that I know this for a fact, and I am trying to warn you. If you heed my words, don’t trust your computers or cell phones. They can listen to you through your most trusted possessions. Watch your back at all times.

They killed General Thomas. They won't have any hesitation about trying to kill you.

Good luck – and God bless America.

Jayne nodded as she reached the final section. It was alarmist, but at least anyone who reached the bottom would be warned about the dangers. And it was well to remind everyone that the country had been through tough times before and had come through them for the better.

Picking up the sheets of paper, she headed over to the scanner. Once the document was saved and moved to a USB disc, she would take it to an internet cafe and have it uploaded with the help of some software a handful of her seedier friends had put together. It wasn't quite hacking the BAN, but everyone who subscribed to any of the BAN’s blogs would receive a copy. The little program attached to the message would automatically access their email address book, transmit a copy of itself to everyone in their contacts, and then shut down. Given a few hours, it would be all over the world.

And then she would have to see how the aliens reacted. If they could track her down, she had no doubts about her fate. She’d be as dead as the other poor bastards who’d questioned the aliens, while the world continued on its merry slide towards doom.

***​

“Yes, I can confirm that the Junior Ambassador will be visiting your school,” Jason said, rolling his eyes. The frightfully-earnest headmistress had somehow obtained his number and was calling to confirm the arrangements – for the third time. Having a chance to boast that one of the Galactics was visiting her school was a major feather in her cap, assuming that everything went off all right. They’d offered to feed the Galactic visitor, but the Snakes had politely declined. Jason, remembering the food he’d had to eat at school, was privately relieved. They’d probably think that they were being poisoned. “They’re quite looking forward to it.”

He scowled as he thanked the woman for her call and put down the phone. Nearly a month and a half after First Contact, aliens were still not a common sight in humanity’s cities. Washington had played host to a handful of Galactics on sight-seeing tours, but most of the Galactics seemed disinclined to play tourist. Jason suspected that it was something to do with the crowds that gathered everywhere they went, watching the aliens with wide eyes. He’d heard from one of the cultural experts that westerners in Imperial China had been followed by curious crowds. It seemed likely that humans everywhere were the same, taking interest in novelty.

The Galactics, for reasons best known to themselves, had offered to send a set of visitors to schools and other educational establishments across the world. They seemed inclined to choose at random, finally deciding to send a representative to a school for young children in Washington. The oldest child was twelve, Jason had discovered while he’d been busy surfing the internet for details; they’d never have seen a live alien in the flesh. They’d probably wet themselves the moment they met the bright red eyes that marked the aliens as utterly inhuman.

“Twits,” he commented, sourly. The Welcome Foundation seemed to rely on paperwork; paperwork on alien activities, paperwork on alien technology and – ever popular – a list of applicants to visit the alien ships, once they finally agreed to allow humans to travel into space on one of their shuttles. Jason knew that hundreds of interns had been hired to help handle the paperwork, but most of them had been delayed until they’d been vetted by the FBI. The Witnesses in particular had refused to cooperate, seemingly convinced that they were being singled out for investigation. They might have been right.

He glanced up in surprise as the door opened and an alien inched into the room. They did move like humanoid snakes. He’d started to learn how to tell the difference between individual aliens, but this alien was a newcomer, wearing a simple gray tunic that was devoid of rank badges. It hardly mattered; they still hadn't deduced what each rank badge meant, leaving them uncertain who or what they were dealing with.

The door closed behind the alien as he came forward and placed a device on Jason’s desk. There was a faint click, followed by an uncomfortable sensation in Jason’s ear, as if he was on a plane that was steadily rising ever higher in the atmosphere. The alien sat down and stared at him with bright red eyes. Jason had read endless reports that speculated that the alien homeworld was actually some distance from its primary star, but he didn't really care. Familiarity had bred the awareness that it was still ****ing creepy.

“There are no communications devices active in this room,” the alien hissed. The voice was so incoherent that it took Jason a moment to understand what he had said. And then he realised that the alien wasn't using a voder. He was talking with his inhuman mouth, somehow making the words despite an oddly-shaped snout and very sharp teeth. “They cannot hear us.”

Jason stared, wondering if he’d heard correctly. “Who...who is listening to us?”

“Your people and my people,” the alien said. “Nothing happens in this building that they do not hear. Everything you do is recorded and studied for analysis. You must be very careful what you say in this place.”

Jason tried to think. His mind insisted on reminding him of all the times he’d gone to the toilet in the building, or of all the times he’d taken a shower...the aliens would have watched everything. It was absurd to believe that the aliens might be interested in his naked body, but his mind refused to accept it. They’d been watching everything...

Cold ice flared along his veins, reminding him of his duty. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because you must understand the danger,” the alien said. His red eyes seemed to widen slightly, although the expression on the scaly face was unreadable. But his words forced Jason to concentrate on him, without any real awareness of his alien nature. “Your world is in terrible danger. And I want to defect.”

Jason gritted his teeth. He’d have to call Sanderson...

“What danger?” He demanded. If the world was in danger...dear God, what had he unleashed upon the world? SETI had believed that aliens would be friendly, and yet...the Galactics had hidden much from Earth. “What’s going to happen?”

“Call your authorities, carefully,” the alien said. “I will speak only to those who are willing to assist me. Take me to your leaders.”

 

Chapter Twenty-Four<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

Washington DC
USA, Day 45

“It’s a beautiful day.”

Toby turned sharply as Jeannette McGreevy turned from the windows and peered towards him. She looked delighted to see him, which probably boded ill. And was it his imagination, or was there a glint of triumph in her eyes? The newly-confirmed Vice President had barely taken up the position when she had ordered a reshuffling of her staff, including dismissing several of the previous Vice President’s staff, even ones who’d been in Washington for most of their lives. She would soon be surrounded by her faithful. And then what would she do? She was one bad day away from the Presidency itself.

“Yes, it is,” he agreed. And it was; the sun was shining down on Washington from a clean blue sky. High overhead, he could see the contrail of a fighter jet patrolling the secure airspace surrounding the city. The defences had been surprised once on 9/11. It wasn't going to be allowed to happen again. “The President ordered me to brief you on a number of government programs…”

McGreevy waved her hand, casually. “We can go over those later,” she said, as if they meant nothing to her. “Right now, I want to know how we’re proceeding with the drawdown. We need to satisfy the Galactic Federation if we are to become an advanced race.”

Toby kept his face expressionless. Washington was known for a high level of political corruption – with hypocrites and double standards everywhere – but McGreevy was just…the worst he’d ever encountered. She wanted power – the power of the Presidency itself – and she would do anything to get it. Even before the Galactic Federation had arrived, she’d been dangerous; the President had only included her in his Cabinet because it would prevent her from sniping at the Administration from outside. The last thing the party – and the country – needed was a power struggle in dangerous times. And now she had the support of the Galactic Federation. Knowingly or not, she was watched by the aliens at all times. Gillian’s improved detector had shown that there were no less than four bugs on her person and five more scattered through her office.

“The drawdown is proceeding,” he said. “We’re shipping soldiers back home and discharging them, but we’re still paying their wages for the next three months while they look to find civilian employment. The President has ordered the creation of a number of schemes to keep the former soldiers gainfully employed, but some of those schemes are meeting powerful opposition in Congress. I must add that military morale isn’t particularly high at the moment and that there is a great deal of bad feeling – which will only get worse as the effect of soldiers entering the workforce in large numbers make themselves felt…”

“That doesn’t matter,” McGreevy informed him. She waved him to a seat and sat down facing him. There was something uncannily intimate about her position. “The important thing is satisfying the Galactic Federation. The Welcome Foundation predicts that we will be in a position to take advantage of the Federation-sponsored economic boom and we will see full employment not long afterwards. And then we will go to the stars.”

Toby wasn't so sure. All of the projections were based upon factors outside humanity’s control. The research programs had yet to find a way to duplicate alien drive fields – or however they lifted cargos from planetary surfaces to orbit – and without that technology, there were limits to how much could be lifted into space. And if the Galactic Federation refused to share, for whatever reason, the economic depression would become far worse very quickly. And all of that depended upon the Galactic Federation living up to its own words. If they had darker motives in visiting Earth, all of the projections would be useless.

“So we are told,” he said, neutrally.

“So we are told,” McGreevy agreed. She looked up at him, her bright eyes fixed on his face. “I’ve been studying your record, Mr Sanderson. You’re quite determined to stay out of the public eye.”

Toby felt a flicker of unease. Where was this leading? “I find that my work is easier without public recognition,” he said, finally. “I have never sought to be a political leader.”

“But you have had influence behind the scenes, as it were,” McGreevy pressed. It wasn't really a question. “The President’s campaign was largely run – and won – by you. You were able to create a President who appealed to just enough of the voters to scrape into the White House. He was almost your tame monkey.”

“The President is his own man,” Toby said, tightly. Even if she’d been entirely accurate, he wouldn’t have said anything else. The Presidency was surrounded by a host of contradictions; Americans disliked strong leaders, and yet they wanted them. Toby suspected that it was because they both wanted someone in charge and yet feared the damage a bad President could do to the country. The President had little power to make things better – a point that was conveniently forgotten by his opponents – but he had a lot of power to make things worse. “I would not presume to advise him on anything.”

“And yet you do,” McGreevy said. She placed one hand on Toby’s knee, just for a second. “Let’s not mince words. You advise the President on matters political. You serve as his representative on matters that he finds uncomfortable – secret intelligence, for example. You may not be the power behind the throne, but he listens to you – and so do others, who know that you are close to the President.”

Toby said nothing, waiting to see where she would go. If he’d been as immoral as he, he realised, he would have accepted the unspoken offer immediately. But then, it wouldn’t have been a wise choice. There was no way that McGreevy would trust him so close to her, not completely. It wouldn’t be long before he was removed from his position. An assassination in Washington didn’t have to leave someone injured or dead to be effective. And character assassination was an old art in Washington.

“I would like you to come and work for me,” McGreevy continued. “Let’s face it; the President is not going to run again. You’ve seen how he’s having trouble coping with the brave new world; I doubt he’d want to remain in his post for another four years. And besides, the National Committee isn’t going to re-nominate him. They’re going to put me forward instead.”

Toby considered it, thinking hard. The National Committee had quite a few of her supporters sitting on it, but there were also members who hated her, or feared her ambition. And yet…she might be right. Her work with the aliens had won her a large base of support within the party itself, something she could probably parlay into a nomination to run for President. And if the President refused to even try to run again…

“You may be right,” he conceded. He was mentally running through a list of committee members who could have their arms twisted. Perhaps he could built a counterweight…but it would all depend on the President being willing to stand again. It would be the political catfight of nightmares. The contest between Hilary Clinton and Obama would be nothing in comparison. “What do you have to offer me if I abandon the President?”

“Oh, I don’t want you to abandon the President just yet,” McGreevy assured him. “I want you to report to me on his activities…to prove your loyalty, so to speak.”

And get thrown under a bus when my usefulness runs out, Toby thought, wryly. Knowing McGreevy, it might even be literal. And the aliens had killed the Vice President…

“I will certainly take it under consideration,” he said, finally. “And I will expect a token of your loyalty in return.”

McGreevy smiled and they got down to bargaining. Afterwards, Toby felt dirty, even though there was little choice. The resistance would need a spy in the enemy’s camp – and McGreevy was unquestionably the enemy. Toby’s position could make the difference between life and death for millions of people. The thought didn’t help. He still felt dirty.

He was still fighting the urge to shower when he returned to his office and discovered that one of his phones was blinking alarmingly. Picking it up, he heard a message from Jason Lucas, the Discoverer. He wanted an immediate meeting. Nodding to himself, Toby called back, made the arrangements and then left the office. Whatever it was, it had to be better than worrying about McGreevy’s vaunting ambition, or if he’d sold her his soul.

***​

Blake’s Pizzeria was a small building just outside official Washington. The owner, who claimed descent from the great pizza cooks of Italy, didn’t advertise. Much of his clientele were federal employees working in the CIA or another intelligence agency who found the simple restaurant a convenient place to catch up with friends and – unofficially – share information from one agency to another. It worked about as well as could be expected, Toby knew; the FBI and the CIA still didn’t get along, even though their failure to coordinate had led to disaster on 9/11. The Pizzeria was secure, at least. It was regularly swept for bugs and its owner and his staff had been vetted by the CIA.

He saw Jason at once, waiting outside. The owner tended to be surly with visitors who didn’t come from Official Washington, particularly the media. Blake’s Pizzeria was an open secret to those in the know, but it had never slipped out into the public domain. Toby nodded to Jason, beckoned for him to follow Toby into the building and stopped in front of the counter. The waitress, a young woman with bright red hair and a wide smile, grinned up at them and then recognised the Discoverer. Toby had to smile at her expression. Compared to Jason, he was unnoticeable. But that was how he liked it.

“We’d like a private room,” he said, flatly. Blake’s Pizzeria had nine private rooms, all cleared by the CIA. There had been rumours that some of them were used for adultery and other matters that wouldn’t be approved of, if they came into the light. “And we’d like the menu.”

As soon as they had ordered, they went into the private room. It was the nicest secure room in Washington, at least outside the President’s bunker. The tables were neatly decorated, with enough condiments to suit any taste – and the staff had no access to the room, save through a dumb waiter. Toby knew better than to take that for granted, however, and he ran the improved model of Gillian’s detector around the room. There was one bug on Jason’s neck, which he removed neatly and dumped into a sealed compartment. Given the nature of the alien bugs, it seemed likely that any number of them were lost without any human interference at all. Or so they hoped. There was no way to know for sure.

“We’re as clean as we can be outside Fort Meade,” Toby said. He ran the detector over the pizza when it arrived too, just in case. “What have you discovered?”

Jason hesitated, and then plunged right into the story. “One of the aliens wants to defect,” he said. “He said that the world was in terrible danger.”

Toby blinked in surprise. He hadn’t expected that – but then, why would anyone expect an alien race to be a united entity? The human race wasn't united. There wasn't even a union of democratic states that could be counted upon to put the best interests of their people first. Why should the aliens have a monoculture? Having the vast gulfs of space certainly suggested that different cultures could have some elbow room.

His second thought was that it was a trick. “What assurances did he offer?”

“He warned me that everyone in the Welcome Foundation is under surveillance at all times,” Jason admitted. “They watch us everywhere, no matter where we go. He said he couldn’t give us much more without revealing his intentions; he’ll give us what we need to know when he’s safe on Earth.”

Toby swore under his breath. Defectors on Earth were handled under a series of largely unwritten rules. A defector who made it to a safe country was legally safe – although that hadn’t stopped the KGB from sending assassins after various Russian defectors during and after the Cold War. The Russians couldn’t demand that a defector be returned or vice versa – but that might not apply to the aliens. They had overwhelming power; if they knew that one of their people had defected, they might demand his immediate return on pain of planetary bombardment. And there was nothing the human race could do to deter them.

And yet…did they dare pass up the opportunity?

He scowled as he took a bite of his pizza. If it was a trick, the aliens might intend to allow them to take the defector and accept a great deal of false information at face value…or they might intend to turn the defection into a crisis they could use as an excuse for war. But why would they provoke a crisis so soon? If they waited for a year or two before coming into the open, humanity would be in a far poorer position to resist them; hell, they’d have a puppet in the White House. Logic suggested that the defection was real – but that might be just what the aliens wanted them to think.

“We need to know what he knows,” Toby said, slowly. He was starting to feel an odd flash of sympathy for the CIA officers who’d found that they blamed for every disaster that had ever struck the intelligence service. It was easy to do nothing if one developed a risk-averse culture, where the risks threatened one’s employment. “I’ll have to give it some thought. Do we even know how to hide him from them?”

“He suggested that it would be possible to fake his death,” Jason said. He swallowed the final piece of a pizza slice and took a gulp of coke. Toby had ordered coffee. “He seemed pretty sure that they wouldn’t look for him very hard…”

“Scratch that,” Toby said, flatly. “They will search for him. A dead body would tell us all sorts of things about him. If someone – one of them – dies on Earth, they’ll want every drop of blood returned. I’ll have to give it a great deal of thought.”

Jason nodded, sourly. “What should I tell him?” He asked. “He seemed pretty eager to talk to us quickly.”

“Tell him that we are considering how best to extract him,” Toby said. He shook his head. Extracting a Russian officer from Russia would be easier than trying to trick the aliens into believing that one of their people had died – and his body had been completely destroyed. A thought occurred to him and he made a mental note to look into it. If something were to happen at sea, the remains of an alien body might not be found at all, at least for some time. “And ask him if he wishes to take up water sports.”

The plan slowly came into focus in his mind. He would have to talk to his father – and some of his father’s friends – about it, but it would allow him to kill two birds with one stone. There were a number of SEALS who had been planning to fake their deaths; with a little work, they could vanish alongside the alien defector and never be seen again – at least until the **** hit the fan. And it would. Toby hadn’t doubted it ever since he’d looked into an alien pair of eyes.

“I don’t understand,” Jason said. “Water sports?”

Toby grinned. “They’ve been to see art galleries and museums and exhibitions,” he said. The aliens – those who seemed willing to visit Earth – spent half of their time playing tourist. The remainder of the time was spent making ambiguous statements to human interviewers. Why shouldn’t one want to try out Earth’s water sports? Their distant ancestors had probably crawled out of the water, just like humanity’s distant forbearers. “Maybe one of them would like to go sailing.”

He pushed the thought aside and turned to other matters. “Did you see the internet spam message?”

Jason nodded. The message – warning of the dangers of alien pod people and human politicians who were in league with them - had gone viral on the internet. Every attempt someone had made to wipe it had only spread it further, with copies being distributed right around the world. A number of politicians were embarrassed – although McGreevy, he remembered, hadn’t mentioned it when she’d been trying to seduce him to her side. It wouldn’t be in character for her to pay any heed to the message.

“I don’t think I’m a pod person,” Jason said, clearly anticipating Toby’s suspicions. “But would I know if I was?”

“I don’t know,” Toby admitted. There were plans afoot to snatch Joe Buckley and learn what they could from a scan of his mind, but the shadows who’d been attempting to follow him everywhere had lost him. Buckley had been in the military. He probably knew how to spot and break a tail. “I just don’t know.”

He shook his head. “I’ll get back to you as quickly as possible with the plan,” he said, grimly. “If we can get this guy out, it’ll be worth it. Even if he is trying to lie to us, at least we’ll know what they want us to believe.”

“I think he was quite nervous,” Jason said. “Time is running out.”

“It always does,” Toby agreed. The aliens had put one of their people in a very high place and they probably had influence over the remaining military officers. It wouldn’t be long before they made their move. “It always does.”

 

Chapter Twenty-Five<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

Washington DC
USA, Day 47

Wilhelmina Potts was nervous.

She didn’t let it show on her face. Showing weakness in front of Young Children was always a bad idea, or so she’d been taught. The Washington Educational Foundation believed firmly in results-orientated learning, a focus placed on the staff by the wealthy billionaire who’d endowed the educational centre with enough money to ensure that the pupils received an excellent state in life. Wilhelmina and her fellow teachers taught children from the ages of six to twelve, ensuring that they learned to read and white by the time they reached six – and were ready for more advanced subjects at twelve.

And they’d been honoured with the promise of a visit from a real live alien! The other teachers were excited, but Wilhelmina was nervous. She’d never liked snakes and the thought of walking humanoid creatures that bore an uncomfortable resemblance to snakes chilled her to the bone. And then there was the heavy security surrounding the visit. Armed policemen were stationed on the sports field – where the children played and learned how to keep themselves fit – and the school’s security centre had been taken over by the Secret Service. The alien hadn’t even arrived and the whole building was already upside down.

She studied the long line of children carefully. They all wore their Sunday best, even though a pair of cynics on the staff had pointed out that the aliens probably wouldn’t notice if the children were naked. The girls and boys – carefully selected from ones who posed no behaviour problem – would welcome the alien with flowers, while the school’s choir would sing a hymn of greeting. It seemed rather like too much protocol for her liking, but it was important that it worked. The school needed more pupils and the visit from an alien would be good publicity. If only they hadn’t looked like snakes…

“Look,” one of the boys said. “Look up in the sky!”

Wilhelmina followed his gaze, sighing inwardly as the children fell out of line to point and gape as the alien shuttle flew into view. Beside it, a pair of fighter jets turned loop-the-loops before vanishing off into the distance, an escort intended more to keep the news choppers away than intimidate the aliens. The alien shuttle seemed to slow to a halt over the sports field, and then slowly start lowering itself to the ground. A gust of steam blew up underneath it – to the general delight of the watching children – just before it touched down. The gardener, Wilhelmina realised, wasn't going to be pleased. Nor was the Building Manager who attended to repairs to any damaged structures.

She swallowed hard as the ramp came down and the alien appeared in the hatch, staring down towards the children with bright red eyes. The children fell silent as they stared back in a mixture of horror and awe. As the alien advanced, some children began to giggle while others started to back away from the creature. There was something about the way the alien moved that was profoundly wrong.

Wilhelmina had to fight down her own fear as the alien came closer. A strange smell, almost spicy, touched her nose and she coughed. Oddly, it steadied her a little as the alien reached the children and stopped. Most of the children had stood their ground, while the others were still slipping backwards; the alien didn’t seem to notice. Instead, he reached into a belt and produced a small black device, which he passed to the nearest child. As soon as she pressed the button on top, a holographic image of her appeared in front of them crowd. The children laughed with delight as the alien straightened up and held out a hand to Wilhelmina.

She hesitated, unable to meet the alien’s eyes, and then somehow forced her hand forward. The alien’s palm felt hot and warm and uncomfortably scaly; the handshake was brief, almost perfunctory. He seemed to be waiting for her to say something and Wilhelmina remembered her manners. They’d certainly rehearsed enough over the last couple of days.

“Thank you for honouring us with your presence,” she said. “I am delighted to welcome you to the school.”

The device on the alien’s neck started to blink as he spoke. “And I thank you for receiving me,” he said. “I am happy to have received such a welcome.”

There was no trace of irony in his voice. Wilhelmina nodded urgently to the youngest girl and she came forward to offer flowers. The alien took them gravely and handed them to one of the human security officers. Wilhelmina found herself momentarily lost for words. What did one say, what small talk could one offer, to an alien?

“I would be delighted to show you around,” she said. The alien would visit all of the classrooms and see – and be seen by – the children. And then he would go and the visit would be over, or so Wilhelmina hoped. “If you would please come with me, we can start the tour.”

***​

Danny Raytheon leaned by the side of his squad car as the alien craft came into land. Merely seeing the craft filled him with envy, the kind of envy he felt for the handful of humans who’d flown into space and returned. It had been a long time since he’d been the small boy who’d dreamed of walking on the moon, but the dreams still had their power. He would have sold his soul for the chance to fly into space, perhaps live on another world. Washington just wasn't what it had used to be, he sometimes felt; the economic crunch had taken its toll. Perhaps another world would be ideal.

He looked up as he saw a man making his way towards the crowd of onlookers. Danny stood up and gave him the look, watching his reaction. The newcomer was black, with a head partly covered with a baseball back. He was carrying a camera around his neck. Danny hesitated, and then stepped into his path. Something wasn't quite right.

“Excuse me, sir,” he said. “Might I see your ID?”

The man stopped for a moment, as if he hadn’t been aware of Danny’s presence until he’d spoken. He reached into his pocket and produced a wallet, complete with ID card that marked him as a Secret Service operative. Danny had to smile; the Secret Service goons might have been making a visible deterrent, but the ones in plainclothes might be better at spotting and intercepting threats before they became a problem. He stood back and allowed the man to keep walking. It was odd, though; he was running terribly late.

***​

The child stepped into the alien’s path before Wilhelmina could wave him back.

“Sir,” the young boy said. He was tall for his age, with blonde curls that he found a little embarrassing. Nine was such a strange age for a boy. “Can I have a ride in your spacecraft?”

Wilhelmina flushed, despite herself. She should have known. Young Hal was flight-mad, so determined to fly that he’d even tried to convince her to take the class to flight school. It hadn’t been even remotely possible, of course, but it hadn’t deterred him from asking again and again. On every other issue, he was a model pupil.

“One day you will all be flying in starships,” the alien said. He lowered himself to Hal’s height and met his eyes. The bright red alien eyes met human eyes and neither flinched away. “And maybe you will be one of the first.”

“I want to see a picture of your home,” the boy said. “Is it anything like Earth?”

“There are many worlds like Earth,” the alien replied. “One day, you will visit them.”

Wilhelmina sighed inwardly. At least the alien didn’t sound irritated – or angry – at the childish questions. Maybe the visit wouldn’t be such a total disaster after all. And if they were the first to get a look at the alien’s home planet…they would be famous. Everyone would want to send their kids to the school.

***​

Polly watched as the alien passed her seven-year-old daughter, feeling pride at how Cassie met the alien’s eyes without looking away. She’d warned Cassie that she might be scared of the alien, who looked utterly inhuman, but she shouldn’t show it on her face. Besides, if judging people by the colour of their skin was wrong, so was judging people by their race. And now all the petty colour differences between humans seemed meaningless. What did it matter if someone had black skin, when someone else might have a completely different biology?

She nudged the person standing next to her. “My daughter’s over there,” she said, proudly. “She’s…”

And then she saw what he was carrying. She screamed aloud. “Look out,” she screamed, as the crowd recoiled. “He’s got a gun!”

***​

Wilhelmina’s head snapped up as she heard the scream, too late. The first gunshot rang out, followed rapidly by two more. She turned to start pushing children to the ground, but something slammed into her back and sent her falling down to the ground. Her body hurt and she felt something choking her throat, almost as if she was going to be sick. It took her several minutes to realise that she’d been shot, just before something green and scaly hit the ground beside her. The alien had been shot!

And then she realised that the children, too, were being gunned down.

***​

Danny was moving as soon as he heard the gunshots. The crowd was scattering, terrified for their lives. He cursed the shooter under his breath as he ran towards him, wondering why the Secret Service snipers hadn’t taken him down. The answer was obvious the minute he posed the question. There were too many people around the gunman…Danny’s eyes opened wide in horror as he saw the gunman for the first time. He was the man he’d allowed through, the man with Secret Service credentials…

“Put down your gun,” he bellowed.

The gunman didn’t seem to be aware of his presence. He was still shooting towards the kids. Danny didn’t hesitate; he fired as soon as he had a clear shot. The gunman spun around, blood pouring from a wound to the head. Part of Danny’s mind thought – oddly – that there was too much blood. The next second everything went white and then there was nothing, but darkness.

***​

The explosion shook the ground. Rachael Davidson found herself lying on the grassy field without a clear memory of how she’d fallen. Her body felt as if it had been picked up and pummelled by someone far stronger than herself; her eyesight seemed to be permanently damaged. She’d been looking right at the gunman when his body exploded. The thought somehow galvanised her to her feet. She’d always wanted to be more than a hack writer doing feel-good articles for her local paper and this was her chance. She blinked her eyes rapidly, forcing them to tear up. Her head felt as if she’d been drinking more than she should, but sheer force of will kept her on her feet.

It looked like a warzone. There’d been children there, just a minute ago; children and adults and a living alien. Now there was a massive crater where the gunman had stood and there were body parts scattered around...she gagged as her eyesight zoomed in on what looked like a doll thrown carelessly across the room. The child couldn't have been more than six years old when she’d been murdered. Her body looked oddly intact, but it was clear from her posture that she was dead. Rachael gagged again and this time lost control of her stomach. The sandwich she'd eaten for lunch, along with a packet of crisps and a glass of coke reappeared. She spat it out and staggered towards the dead child, unsure of what she might do – if anything. Her mind was refusing to work properly. She could hear the sounds of sirens in the distance, but she couldn't remember what that meant. It was as if she was completely alone.

Strong hands caught her and held her. Rachael relaxed into their grip and felt her legs buckle. She collapsed a moment later and fainted into merciful darkness.

***​

Luke Villa had seen tragedy before. He’d served with the Marines who’d advanced into Iraqi cities and seen what happened when there was a tragic accident and civilians were killed. And then he’d seen how the insurgents in Iraq had gone after their own people, killing and maiming them by the thousands to convince them to submit to their brutal theocratic rule. He’d prayed never to see it in America, but his prayer had not been answered. How many children had died in the blast? There was no way to know.

He barked orders to his team of paramedics as they drove out of their vehicles and headed towards the scene. A medical team from the Secret Service was already doing what they could, but there were so many wounded children. The blast had shattered the school’s windows, blowing glass into classrooms that were packed with young kids. He ground his teeth as the team started to sort out the seriously wounded from those who could be left until additional medics arrived. It was a heartbreaking task when the victims were children. None of his team would feel comfortable leaving a wounded child to wait for medical attention.

A spicy scent caught his nostrils and he looked up towards the alien shuttle. He’d barely seen the craft when he’d arrived because he’d been so focused on the children. Now he could see a pair of aliens advancing towards the school, where their representative had fallen. Ignoring the humans, the two Snakes picked up the body of their representative and carried it back towards the shuttle. Even in death, the Snake managed to look utterly inhuman. There were few wounds on his body, but it was clear that there was massive internal injuries. The inhuman body hung from their grip like a sack of potatoes.

He turned back to the scene. A young girl was lying on the ground, crying desperately for help. Luke bent down to aid her, noticing that both of her legs were broken. Her face was bleeding, suggesting that she’d been hit by flying shrapnel or glass. Luke bellowed for two additional paramedics, handed the child over to them and then checked the next child. He was dead, beyond all hope of recovery. His neck had been broken in the fall.

The early chaos was starting to give way to a bitter kind of order as more police and ambulances arrived. For once, there was no jostling over who was in command; Luke managed to get his orders across without having to fight a turf war. The remaining wounded were sorted out quickly, the vast majority of them being rushed to hospital. Luke’s dispatcher called and noted that the private hospitals were offering to take patients, in accordance with post-9/11 emergency protocols. The ambulances would have to rush the children to the nearest medical centre and pray that they got there in time.

He looked up as he smelled the aliens again. A small team of aliens had appeared from the shuttle and were doing what they could to assist the wounded. They didn't speak to the humans; they just helped move rubble and uncover the dead bodies. It crossed Luke’s mind that the FBI would want to investigate the crime scene, but he didn't care. The first priority was saving the wounded. Anything else could wait – and if the aliens were willing to help, he’d take it. Besides, it was clear from some angry muttering being directed at the aliens that people blamed them for the blast. If they hadn’t come to the school, it would not have been destroyed. Luke had no patience for people who thought like that. Terrorists struck where they could and if their targets were prepared to blame themselves, so much the better.

A grieving mother was screaming at the air, demanding to know what had happened to her child. Luke intercepted her before she could start tearing through the wreckage with her bare hands, desperately trying to get her to sit down and wait for the recovery teams. God alone knew what had happened to her child. They wouldn't even know who’d been taken where until they managed to do the final count. And then they’d know how many had died.

***​

“God damn them,” he muttered, two hours later. A local emergency worker slapped a cup of coffee into his hand and he sipped gratefully. It tasted as if someone had poured something stronger than hot water into the mug. “Who the hell would do this?”

The scene had become more orderly now that all of the wounded had been removed to the nearest hospitals. A team of forensic scientists from the FBI were already on their way, followed by teams from all over the country. Behind the police line, a group of reporters were taking photographs, updating the stories flowing onto the internet and television channels. Luke glared at them, hoping that they’d sense his contempt. The reporters didn't care about the children, only their stories. They’d turn the tragedy into front page news. It wouldn't be long before they started trying to interview the children, the parents and anyone who happened to be anywhere near the scene. And then the disaster would be reduced to a series of sound bites. It would dominate the news.

But maybe that was what they needed, he told himself. Whoever did this had to pay. If they were hiding in terrorist camps in the Middle East or East Asia, the United States could send a military force after them. And the aliens might help as well. They’d lost one of their people in the blast.

Luke scowled. Whatever else happened, whoever was behind the bombing was going to pay.

 

Great so far ,can't wait to see we get out this !!

 

Chapter Twenty-Six<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

Washington DC
USA, Day 47

The President looked badly shaken, as well he might. Only a few hours had passed since the worst terrorist atrocity to take place on American soil since 9/11 – and one of the aliens had been killed. No one knew how the Snakes would react to losing one of their people, or what retribution they would demand for humanity’s failure to keep him alive. The United States had developed the bad attitude of allowing such failures to go unpunished, but the Snakes might take a different attitude. And they had the power to make all of humanity pay for the crime.

Seated behind the President, Toby kept his face under tight control. The terrorists – whoever they were – had accidentally pre-empted the plan to assassinate one of the aliens in Iran. Whatever happened would give the resistance a sneak preview of how the aliens would react, but if it was totally disastrous...there was no way to recall the covert team in Iran. A second alien was going to die, whatever happened...and Iran would get the blame. If the aliens were capable of discovering the truth, God alone knew how they’d react.

The Cabinet filed in, one by one. Security had been tightened ever since the Vice President had been assassinated, with several Cabinet members dispersed to other command posts in case of disaster. The new Vice President should have been with them, but she’d insisted on remaining in Washington to stay in touch with the aliens – and her followers. Toby knew that she was going to make political capital out of the disaster – if there was anything left of the United States after the aliens reacted to the event. He was mildly surprised that they hadn't said anything yet, but reports coming in from the alien bases reported that they had been sealed. The aliens had recovered the body of their fallen representative. They knew what had happened.

“I think we can disperse with formalities,” the President said. His voice was weaker than Toby had expected, suggesting that he was reaching the end of his tether. Presidents were made or broken by how they reacted to crisis after crisis; they rarely had a chance to shape events for themselves. “What happened and why?”

All eyes turned to the Director of the FBI. With an alien involved, the FBI had automatically taken the lead in the investigation, something that Toby suspected relieved the other intelligence and counter-terrorist agencies. The Washington PD was cooperating, even though police forces tended to resent the feds muscling in on their turf. This was too important for any turf battles between uniformed politicians.

“The latest figures state that there were fifty-one fatalities at the scene, including one alien and twenty-two children,” the FBI Director said. He sounded tired; he’d been in New York when the attack had taken place and had had to fly to Washington. His subordinates would have briefed him extensively, but he wouldn’t have had a chance to see the raw data for himself. “One hundred and seventy people have moderate to severe injuries requiring hospital treatment. There may be others who are as yet unidentified.”

He took a breath. “The attack was filmed live; the entire country saw,” he added. “The terrorist apparently got through the security cordon at one of the weak points, apparently through the use of false ID. When he reached the crowd, he drew his gun and opened fire on the alien while using the crowd to shield himself from Secret Service snipers. A local police officer – the one who was fooled by the fake ID – shot him in the head. At that point, the bomb he was carrying on his person exploded with terrific force, accounting for many of the injuries and deaths. The emergency teams responded with commendable speed and doubtless saved a good many lives. Once they’d recovered their dead body, the aliens provided emergency help for our wounded. They probably saved lives too.”

“I think we can all be grateful for them,” the President said. “And that leaves one single question; who did this to us?”

The Director of the FBI hesitated. “We managed to pick out some traces of the killer’s DNA,” he said. “It was extremely difficult to be sure that we had the right person. Eventually, we had to go through the camera footage and run comparisons to be sure that we’d eliminated everyone we knew had been there at the scene – apart from the killer. The DNA was run through the national database and we found a match. He was once one of ours.”

Toby knew what he was going to say before he said it. “His name was Blake Coleman,” the FBI Director said. “He was once a former Marine.”

Blake Coleman would have said, Toby knew, that there was no such thing as a former Marine. A retired Marine, perhaps...but it hardly mattered. Coleman had been killed during the mission to save General Thomas from the aliens. No one knew what had happened to the body, until now. And he’d definitely been dead. Toby’s father wouldn’t have left a man behind unless he was dead – and he would have been reluctant to leave the body. What had the aliens done to the body? Had they reanimated it somehow and sent it out to kill?

“A former Marine,” McGreevy sneered. “I think we have to realise, right now, that those who resent our willingness to deal with the Galactic Federation have decided to take the offensive. Those filthy bastards killed children! They might even have embroiled us in war against an alien race of terrifying power. We need to crack down on them, hard.”

“We’re running through the files now,” the FBI Director said. “According to covert surveillance, Coleman was a member of several right-wing militia groups scattered through the United States. He was noted as a training officer for several of the groups, training them in military tactics they could use against the federal government. His pupils have been linked to reported thefts of military materials from various military bases and facilities.”

And that, Toby knew, was an outright lie. Blake Coleman hadn't been involved in any militia, unless one counted the Colonel’s survivalist group. And the Colonel had been careful to avoid making waves that would be noticed by the feds. His paranoia might have saved his ass, even though Coleman’s reputation would be forever blackened by being linked to groups that were, at best, wannabe freedom fighters. Most of the militias were little more than men drilling aimlessly and talking themselves up as often as possible.

He was starting to see how the alien plan was designed. By creating a terrorist incident that could not fail to shock the nation, they would provide a ready-made excuse for clamping down on militias and any other groups that might pose a threat to the aliens. Their assets – their pod people – in high places could be relied upon to deal with the militias with extreme violence, sparking off conflict that would only weaken the United States. It was a pattern familiar throughout human history. The invaders disarmed a population and then started cracking the whip. Hitler had done it. So, more recently, had the Taliban.

And, worst of all, no one would know the truth. Blake Coleman’s remains had definitely been found at the scene. His altered computer records would link him to militia groups he wouldn't have lowered himself to visit, let alone train. And they would protest their innocence in vain. They’d be crushed...and anyone who could be linked to them, even on the most spurious of links, would be destroyed. The Mainstream Media would howl and demand new laws against militia groups...and the aliens, watching from high overhead, would wait until the chaos had subsided before revealing their hand.

“So we go after them,” McGreevy said, firmly. She wanted to be President. Right now, she seemed to believe that she was the President. Or maybe she was honestly shocked. She’d been the one to raise the issue of right-wing groups, after all. Maybe the aliens hadn't told her what they’d had in mind. Even McGreevy, surely, would hesitate at murdering children for political aims. And American children at that. No political career would survive even a hint of association with such a crime. “We take the bastards out, once and for all. We round up every member of every militia and put them behind bars...”

The FBI Director coughed. “There is such a thing as due process,” he said, flatly. “We will certainly be speaking to the militias as a matter of urgency, but we cannot imprison people just for shooting their mouths off...”

“God damn it,” McGreevy snapped. “I’m not talking about people who are shooting their mouths off – I’m talking about people who shot at innocent kids! And who killed one of the aliens! Do you have any idea just how badly that could reflect on us? We need the Galactics to help us, not cower in their ships for fear that some illiterate barbarian is going to take a pot-shot at them every time they show themselves. We have to crack down on this hard!”

She glared at the President. “The aliens are already offering assistance in hunting the bastards down,” she said. “I need not remind you that that assistance may not be optional, at least for us. Refusal could have the most severe consequences for us.”

The FBI Director leaned forward. “We could round up every known militia member,” he said. “The Department of Homeland Security has been tracking them for years. But I am telling you that any halfwit of a lawyer will be able to file charges of false imprisonment on their behalf. And then there will be a legal nightmare. Many of them could only be busted on relatively minor charges, if that.”

His eyes narrowed. “And it would certainly cause a major political upheaval,” he added. “We had enough problems after 9/11. This would be far worse. We would be breaking into the homes of ordinary Americans and taking them away to secret prisons. Some of these groups are not too tightly wired in the first place. Give them a cause and blood will be shed – and then we will have chaos as well as everything else.”

“We have chaos already,” McGreevy said. “One of these militia groups you seem inclined to coddle assassinated one of the aliens. Do you have any idea what that could mean?”

Toby frowned, inwardly. The aliens had put one of their own people in the firing line, sacrificing him to make the assassination look good. It suggested a cold calculating mentality, unless the alien had somehow survived the gunshot. Who knew? The body had been removed to the alien shuttle after the blast and the cameras hadn't been able to give any idea of just how badly the alien had been wounded. By accident or design, the alien recovery workers had sanitized the ground. There was no trace of alien DNA.

He stared at the President’s back, thinking hard. What if there had never been an alien at the site? What if they’d sent a robot? No human could have spotted such a deception, if only because the aliens were inhuman and rarely made small talk with humans. It struck him as chancy, but it might just have worked...and even if it hadn’t been a robot, the alien might have survived. There would be no way of proving it, one way or the other.

“I insist, and I believe that most of Congress and the Senate would agree with me, that we take the strongest possible measures against the militias,” McGreevy said. “They are in violation of a number of federal laws even without any involvement in the assassination. And we have to convince the Galactics that we are doing something. If they think that we’re not following up these leads to the terrorist groups behind the attack, they may take action on their own. And I don't have to remind you that any action they take would almost certainly be utterly disastrous. They have the power to destroy our nation as a remainder of their power. They could smash us flat!”

Toby doubted it. The aliens seemed interested in America's tech base – and that of the other First World nations – and wouldn’t want to destroy it, even though he had problems thinking of any logical reason why they would want something that had to be primitive to them. Any alien retaliation against America would be limited, although ‘limited’ might mean losing a city or two. Millions of lives were at risk. And McGreevy had brought them face to face with the reality that if they didn't crack down hard, the aliens might take action on their own. And then the **** would really hit the fan.

The President could have opposed her, but he didn't have the strength. One by one, the Cabinet members consented. McGreevy would get her way. The militias – and anyone remotely connected to them – would be targeted. Toby had no doubt that the media would work hard to ensure that the public largely supported enhanced security measures, even at the cost of a little freedom. The aliens would get a weak and disarmed population.

Bastards, Toby thought. He had to talk to his father, despite the risks. They had to find a way of hitting back – because, he had the nasty feeling, time had just run out.

***​

Jayne lay on the motel bed, wearing nothing apart from a light blue shirt and a pair of bedroom slippers. She’d moved from one motel to a second as soon as she’d uploaded her story, paying cash and using a fake ID she’d picked up from one of her more dubious contacts. In theory, there should be no way to trace her. In practice...she didn't know if they aliens had some magical gages that would allow them to track her down. Impatiently, she stood up and started to pace the room. Years ago, she’d wondered why journalists in the Middle East always looked nervous. She understood now; they’d been permanently aware that the wrong story could earn them a bullet in the back of their head. And she felt exactly the same way.

They were looking for her. She knew that for a fact. If the aliens were prepared to target harmless bloggers, they would definitely be prepared to target her. And they had hundreds of pod people, probably far more than she knew. One of them in the right place would see her and then she’d be dead. And if she stayed in the motel room and hid, eventually she’d run out of money. By now, they’d probably be watching her bank account for any sign she’d withdrawn money, using it to track her down. Every civilian in America left behind an electronic trail wherever they went, from paying in shops to appearing on security cameras. She’d once done a story about how the FBI could track someone down without ever showing their hand. The aliens would have far greater capabilities for accessing, collating and using data. They’d know everything about her.

She reached out and switched on the TV. Every channel had been running the same story, covering the attack on the alien ambassador – and the innocent children who’d been gunned down or blown up in the explosion. Jayne didn't need any help to recognise a put-up job, even without any inside knowledge. The aliens had probably used one of their pod people to carry out the attack and then destroyed the body to ensure that whatever they’d done to it remained undiscovered. In the absence of facts, the news networks were resorting to interviewing talking heads, each one with their own theory. The general trend was becoming alarmingly obvious very quickly. They seemed to be focusing on right-wing groups, rather than Islamic terrorists or any other threat. That made a certain kind of sense; first, disarm the military, second, disarm the population, third...invade.

The TV picture switched suddenly to an emergency broadcast from the White House. Jayne frowned as she saw the President. He looked terrible, like a man who hadn't got enough sleep in the past few days. His forehead gleamed under the light, suggesting that he hadn't had time to undergo the pre-broadcast sessions that applied makeup. It suggested a sense of urgency that was lacking from most political broadcasts. The news was not going to be good.

“My Fellow Americans,” the President said. He sounded weak, indecisive. It wasn't what Americans expected of their President in a time of crisis. Had the aliens gotten to him too? No, Jayne told herself, and hoped she was right. They wouldn't need any deception if they could break through the President’s security and turn him into a pod person. “A great disaster has struck our nation. Terrorists launched an attack on a school, killing and maiming hundreds of innocent children – and assassinating one of the representatives of the Galactic Federation. The assassin, who carried out a suicide bombing, was positively identified as a member of a right-wing militia movement that had been emitting loud threats towards the Galactic Federation. They finally put those threats into operation. They killed innocent children to make a political point.

“Desperate times require desperate measures. With the full consent of Congress, I have authorised the proper law enforcement agencies to go after those terrorists with all the means at our disposal. We will tear them out, root and branch; we will utterly destroy them. Whatever their political cause, they lost all legitimacy when they struck at innocent children.”

The President seemed to weaken, noticeably. “Please do not be alarmed,” he concluded. “The innocent have nothing to fear. We will track down and destroy these terrorists before they can do worse harm to our people. We will not allow fear to hold us in its thrall.”

Jayne shivered. It hadn’t been a good speech – and she suspected she knew what it portended. New security measures, which would somehow never be revoked. The entire country – the entire world – was marching towards disaster. Could they see it?

Of course they see it, her thoughts whispered. They just don’t care.