J.M. Dillard - War of Worlds: The Resurrection (19 page)

"But the bacteria—" she interrupted.

Harrison smiled hollowly at her. "Ah, yes, the famous bacteria. Clayton led a team of scientists whose intent was to do exhaustive research on the aliens, learn everything possible about them. The microbiologist and zoologist working with him both noted that the alien remains—even the tissue samples —didn't show any decomposition. They suggested that perhaps the aliens weren't dead—at least, not death as we know it. Forrester released their preliminary report to the government. It begged for more funding so that an adequate investigation of this phenomenon could be conducted." He pulled a thick document out from under a box and handed it to her.

She took it somewhat skeptically and glanced through it. It seemed to be what he said it was.

"The government's response to this report?" Harrison asked, his voice full of irony. "They didn't like what Forrester and his people were saying. Instead of expanding the research, the government cut Forrester off, then confiscated all alien remains and sealed them in steel drums. Out of sight, out of mind. What you've heard—the party line that we know everything there
is to know about the aliens—is an outright lie, Suzanne. You wouldn't be repeating any research that's already been done; after all these years, we know virtually
nothing
about them." He leaned forward with such urgency that Suzanne, still scanning the report, jumped a little. "But you saw those barrels at the Jericho Valley site."

"Yes, I saw them," she said gently. "That's where my charge of paranoia comes in. I admit, the government was wrong to ignore Forrester, and maybe you have some reason to be a little paranoid after all. But as far as Jericho Valley's concerned, it seems clear to me that terrorists removed those barrels for their own purposes. To think that aliens popped out of them . . . well, I admit, the barrels were old and rusty—they even had
1953
stamped on them. But that doesn't mean
they're
the barrels that contained alien remains."

His ice-blue eyes shone with such fierce intensity that she thought,
He
is
mad ... at least a little.
"Can you remember what was stamped on those barrels? It's important, Suzanne. Can you remember?"

She closed her eyes. She had an excellent memory for visual detail, and as the image of the monitor close-up of the rusty, overturned barrel coalesced before her, she read aloud:
"classified:
1951-1953. That's all."

She opened her eyes to find him grinning hugely at her. "Very impressive, Dr. McCullough. You've just made proof very easy."

"I'm waiting. It's already been two minutes." But

her tone was kinder; maybe he was a little nutty, but he was somewhat justified in it.

Harrison jumped up and riffled through one of the cardboard boxes on the desk, found what he wanted, and presented it triumphantly to her. She took it from him and squinted at it.

"This,"
he said emphatically, "is what the barrels looked like when they were new. Clayton tried his best to document for history's sake what the government did with the remains. Most of
those
records were destroyed by the government. . . but this picture remains."

It was an old black and white photo, fading and curled at the edges. On the back, a date was stamped in red ink: 10/23/53. The front showed a stack of shiny, unpainted steel drums, all bearing the same legend across their sides:

classified:
195
1-
1953

She stared at it silently for a long time.

Harrison was watching her keenly. "Those barrels are
empty
now, Suzanne, and they looked as if they'd been forced open from the
inside
. . . remember?"

She remembered. An old terror welled up inside her, clutched at her throat, the same terror she'd felt as a child after Uncle Matthew's death, as she waited in bed beneath the covers for the aliens to make their way across the country and come for her too. When she could speak, she whispered, "My God. Oh, my God . . ." She put her hands to her face. "It can't be true . . ."

"I wish I
were
crazy," Harrison said sadly. "Six of

these same barrels are now empty, and the rest of them are missing.
Hundreds
of them, gone." He came around the desk and crouched next to her chair to gaze up into her face; she could see his concern about the effect this revelation was having on her.

"That's why I hired you," he told her. "To help me continue Forrester's research. To try to find out if it's possible the aliens aren't dead, but forced by the bacteria into a state of estivation or suspended animation or anabiosis. But something has happened to bring them out of it. The whole way home I was trying to figure it out, and I think I've got an idea. I wanted to bounce it off you."

She nodded, still stunned, and with that one little gesture she felt as if she had somehow stepped over an invisible line, that from now on things could never go back to being as safe and familiar and comfortable as they had always been.

He put a hand on the arm of her chair and leaned forward, his face excited and alive, suddenly free of fatigue, the face of a man doing what he was born to do. "Jericho Valley was hot with radioactivity, right? Maybe that did it. Maybe the microbes that infected the aliens were wiped out from the exposure." He paused, and when she didn't answer immediately, asked: "Well? You're the microbiologist. Am I way off base?"

She found her voice at last. "I suppose it could be possible, depending on the circumstances." She paused. "Have you ever heard of the African lung-fish?"

He shook his head.

"The lungfish can survive without water for at least four years and maybe as much as ten. It goes into such a profound state of anabiosis that the average person would think the fish was long dead. But if you pour water over it, it's like a resurrection. The fish is alive and swimming again."

His eyes lit up hopefully. "So you
don't
think I'm a nut case."

"Definitely
a nut case," she answered dryly. "But that doesn't make you wrong. Still, the radiation would have to have been extremely intense to kill off all the microorganisms inside those steel drums. Far too intense to permit those soldiers to wander around inside that base, even with their radiation suits."

"The barrel I saw looked corroded, as if something had eaten away at it. Ironhorse said one of the new barrels was leaking radioactive waste. If it leaked onto one of the older barrels . . ."

"That sounds like a real possibility. That alien corpse you want dissected—we could irradiate that and see what happens. Now,
that
would be ironclad proof—"

"I'm afraid not." Harrison shook his head. "Remember, it's been frozen for years . . . and its head— or the area that should correspond to its head—was crushed somehow, probably in a collision when it became ill and lost control of its ship. I doubt we could get a rise out of it."

"Damn," she said softly. "Then where do we start?"

"We'll think of something." Harrison stood up. "We've got to figure out a plan of action to stop them quickly. They don't have their ships and their weapons this time, but they're organized—and they're intelligent."

"Any specific suggestions?" She got up from the chair and put the report under her arm, intending to take it home, then yawned, surprising herself. She clamped a hand over her mouth. "Sorry."

"Don't apologize—we're both tired. In terms of specific recommendations, I think we'd better start by getting some rest. I'm about three naps behind, myself."

"I can't just go home and go to sleep without knowing we've got some kind of plan to stop them."

"We'll figure something out." Harrison shrugged. "Time may be of the essence, but I'm frankly too tired to think straight right now—"

She kept talking without hearing him. "We've got to contact the government and get help on this."

He sighed and nodded reluctantly. "I know. I hate doing it because they're the ones responsible for this mess in the first place, but I was going to look through Clayton's files and see if I could find a name, someone, anyone to contact at the Pentagon— But I'm afraid they'll all be retired or dead by now, in which case we have to start at the bottom." He shook his head, frustrated. "Dammit, it's all going to take too much time."

The idea descended on her full-blown. "Wait a

minute. I know a
very
important general back east at the Pentagon. He'd be more than willing to do me a favor."

He raised a sardonic brow. "And now you're going to tell me he's just a good friend, right?"

"Of the family," she snapped. "Let's just say he knows my father
very
well. He could be of enormous help to us. General Wilson. His job is to cut through red tape."

Harrison sighed and rubbed his face wearily. "Only if he's a good enough friend to keep from getting us caught up in the bureaucracy. I want free rein in this. If it looks like a government agency is going to tie our hands, I'll run the other way."

"I believe I could get
us
free rein," she replied, correcting him.

"All right then. Get in touch with him."

"Just give me time to make arrangements with the sitter and get some sleep. If we could leave tomorrow night—I mean tonight—" She broke off, suddenly overwhelmed by it all.

"That's the spirit." He put a hand lightly on her shoulder and glanced pointedly at the report. "I take it you're not still thinking about that transfer?"

She pulled the envelope from his shirt pocket and, smiling, ripped it in two.

Suzanne got back home at three
a.m
. The hallway was an obstacle course of half-unloaded moving boxes, so she snapped on the light in order to get to her bedroom without waking the entire neighbor-

hood. At least she'd be able to unload the boxes with a greater sense of finality now: this was home after all. She would stay in California and she would work with Harrison Blackwood. The certainty brought with it a sense of relief.

She slipped her flats off and held them in one hand as she tiptoed past the guest room. The door was cracked open; a strong, wheezing snoring came from inside. Mrs. Pennyworth. Suzanne smiled. Apparently, the elderly woman was a sound sleeper.

A few steps down, the door to Deb's room was ajar. The hall light was shining right into Deb's face, but the kid never stirred. Took after her dad, who always slept like the Rock of Gibraltar, regardless of the circumstances. Suzanne had always envied them that particular talent. She leaned against the doorway and watched as Deb breathed through parted rosebud lips in regular little sighs. The girl was sprawled on her side, clutching her pillow, her forehead puckered into a frown, her hair, glinting gold where the light caught it, spilling over her face.

Suzanne was overcome by enormous guilt at the thought that by the time Deb woke up, she'd find out her mother was going to be leaving again that night . . . but then the guilt was counterbalanced by a stronger, more savage emotion. She thought of what Harrison Blackwood must have been like as a kid. Young, so much younger even than Deb. And what it must have been like for him ... so young, and all alone.

It'll never happen to you, kid,
she promised Deb silently.
If I have to spend the next year traveling around the country in cars and planes, I swear, I'll never let it happen again.

It was a very long time before she finally got to sleep.

THIRTEEN

The tracks at the Jericho Valley site matched up with those of a vehicle stolen from a trucking company warehouse two days earlier. A missing employee, Lena Urick, was suspected. It wasn't reported stolen until the next day, but amusingly enough, the police had stopped it shortly after it was stolen, before the bulletin was released.

And then just a few hours ago, HQ had monitored a call in to the San Bernadino County Sheriffs Office: The big white rig had been spotted at a gas station just off Route 15. The attendant was missing, presumed kidnapped.

A hostage, Ironhorse decided as he rode in the jeep alongside Reynolds, who drove silently while the colonel leaned back and felt the cool night air on his face.

The jeep was followed by a troop carrier full of

soldiers; not his own men, not Delta force, but they would have to do. Might as well relax while he could; there would be no sleep for any of them tonight. But Ironhorse's mind remained restless; he couldn't quite pin down what the terrorists were up to. His best guess was that they had taken the nuclear waste to either (a) contaminate the drinking supply of a large city, or (b) threaten to release it somewhere near the center of a large town.

The Nevada state police were ready and on the lookout: there was no way the rig was going to make it across the state border on any of the main roads without being stopped at a checkpoint, but there had been no sign of it yet. Which made no sense; surely they realized by now that they had the entire military, the state police, and every sheriff within a radius of two hundred miles ready and waiting for them. They'd missed their chance.