Extinction Machine jl-5 Page 15

  “Oh,” I said.

  “And there’s those Martian fossils they discovered in meteorite ALH80041, which was from where? Oh, wait, was that Antarctica? Oh no!”

  “Wasn’t that disproved?”

  “Challenged,” corrected Bug, “not disproved. Also, back in 2001 some brainiacs did a serious upgrade on the Drake Equation, and—”

  “The what?”

  “Did you skip every science class?

  “I was very hormonal and all the hot girls were in art class.”

  Bug snorted. “Uh-huh. Well, back in the early sixties this astronomer Frank Drake came up with an equation to try and estimate the number of planets in our galaxy that could reasonably host intelligent life and also be potentially capable of communicating with us. His estimate was that there had to be at least ten thousand earthlike planets.”

  “Okay … wow.”

  “It gets better. In 2001, scientists applied new data and theories about planets that could be in the ‘habitable zone’ around stars, where water is liquid and photosynthesis possible. They now believe that there are hundreds of thousands of worlds that could support life as we know it. And that’s just life as ‘we’ know it. What about life that exists outside of that range? After all, penguins can live in Antarctica. There’s a bacteria that thrives in the hot springs at Yellowstone — an environment where the waters are near the boiling point and acidic enough to dissolve nails. There’s another bacteria that lives at the bottom of an almost two-mile-deep South African gold mine in one hundred and forty degrees Fahrenheit. It fixes its own nitrogen, and eats sulfate. There are microbes thriving off the acid runoff from the gold, silver, and copper mines on Iron Mountain in California, and other microbes that live in the stratosphere miles above the Sahara. And there are some insanely complex ecosystems in utter darkness and under intense pressure way at the bottom of the ocean. I’m not talking fish, I’m talking about tube worms living in volcanic undersea vents, thriving in sulfur-rich waters. Down there you got the worms, all sorts of microbes, barnacles, mussels, and shrimp, in an environment that, prior to its discovery in the late seventies, scientists swore could not support life. Now, step back for a moment and let’s look at the red color of Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons. One of the leading theories is that the color comes from frozen bits of bacteria. Joe … you can’t be a rational person and tell me that there’s no chance at all that we’re alone in the galaxy.”

  I said nothing, digesting the implications.

  “Besides,” continued Bug, “over the past decade a slew of reputable scientists have begun making a case for the likely existence of extraterrestrial life. Guys like Stephen Hawking and Lachezar Filipov, director of the Space Research Institute of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.”

  “Wait, Hawking actually said he believes in aliens?”

  “Oh, yeah … and he’s gone as far as strongly urging against any attempts to engage them. He was on one of those Discovery Channel documentaries, and he referred to aliens as ‘nomads looking to conquer and colonize.’ That’s some heavy shit from a guy who everybody considers to be one of the top brains on the planet. You want to call him a fruitcake, or ask him if he wears aluminum-foil hats?”

  “Stop kicking me in the shins here, Bug. You’re making your point.”

  “Let me toss this in your lap, then. There was a theory advanced a couple of years ago by Arizona State University physicist Paul Davies, who said that he believed that some microbes on our planet may be derived from alien civilizations. Right after that, Chandra Wickramasinghe, a professor at Cardiff University, claimed there was new research showing that human life started somewhere other than the planet Earth. You see, a lot of this new interest in the possibility of alien life is growing out of the new technologies that are enabling a more thorough search for other habitable zones in the galaxy. You watch, Joe, as this movement keeps gaining momentum from the top minds, then we’re going to see skepticism about UFOs shrivel up and die.”

  “Maybe,” I said grudgingly, “but you’re talking about guys who are taking a careful approach. Are any of them saying that the aliens are actually here now? Are any of them talking about technologies looted from crashed vehicles? Or even saying that they believe that we’ve already been visited?”

  “Some,” said Bug, “but you’re right — they’re careful. They have to be, because they’re with universities and stuff like that, and one whiff of anything questionable and they lose their grants or their chair. This is why Junie Flynn is building such a strong case for full governmental disclosure. She wants our government to do it and if we do then others will follow suit.”

  “Not a chance,” I said with a laugh.

  “You don’t think they should?”

  “If it’s true? Maybe. But, I don’t think they ever will. C’mon, Bug, if flying saucers crashed and we actually did recover the wreckage we would never—ever—admit to it. We’d study that stuff in secret in hopes of building advanced craft, new weapons systems, and anything else that would put us out in front in the arms race.”

  There was a significant silence.

  “Bug…,” I said slowly, “tell me you didn’t just trick me into making your point for you?”

  “How’s that shoe taste, Joe?”

  I laughed again. “Okay, okay, you sneaky bastard, I can see the shape of it. I can build a good case for us creating secret R and D divisions to study this stuff, if it exists. That’s a logic exercise based on an understanding of how paranoid all governments are and how the military mind-set works.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said.

  “Doesn’t mean that there is actually something to disclose. Your Junie Flynn could be yelling in a windstorm.”

  “Or maybe she’s onto something.”

  “If she is, no matter how loud she yells it’s not going to make the government disclose. And maybe they shouldn’t. Imagine public reaction to the existence of aliens. You know what that would do to organized religion?”

  “Prove that the universe is a bigger and more wonderful place than people give it credit for?”

  His innocence was a wonderful thing. I think we need a lot more people who not only see the glass as half full, but half full and a waiter is coming with a pitcher. Most of the rest of society is so cynical and jaded that they think the glass is always half empty and filled with bacteria.

  “Where does the Black Book fit into the disclosure equation?” I asked. “Why does Junie Flynn rant about that? What set Junie on this path? What made her an evangelist for this particular cause?”

  “I really don’t know,” said Bug, sounding surprised. “She came onto the scene with a bang and she never talks about herself. She always keeps it about the message, about the need for disclosure, about how we need to believe the truth, and how the Black Book will set us free.”

  “Set us free? How?”

  “I don’t know that, either,” Bug admitted. “All I know is that she’s been building up to something lately. Whatever it is, it’s supposed to be big. She says that soon the governments of the world won’t be able to keep us in blinders and they won’t be able to hide the truth anymore. Or words to that effect. Maybe it was on her podcast last night. I’ll go through it.”

  “Okay, let me know what you find out. And, Bug? About this UFO stuff?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I do want to believe,” I said. “I just don’t yet.”

  “‘Yet’ is a pretty significant word, Joe.”

  He disconnected.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Blue Diamond Security Regional Office #5

  East Pratt Street

  Port of Baltimore, Maryland

  Sunday, October 20, 8:44 a.m.

  When Black Bess rolled off the AM General assembly line in South Bend, Indiana, it was a Humvee intended for use by the United States Army. This particular vehicle was purchased as part of a fleet by Mr. Church and turned over to Mike Harnick, the head of vehicle maintenance. Now she had ext
ended shock-absorbing crash-plate bumpers, a reinforced frame, and her already considerable fifty-nine hundred pounds was amped up to sixty-eight, most of which was the result of a retractable cannon platform for launching TOW missiles or a M134 Minigun. The sides were heavily armored and the advanced ALON window glass could take sustained fire from a fifty-millimeter heavy machine gun.

  Black Bess was neither a very fast nor highly maneuverable vehicle, but it was as close to a tank as Harnick could make it without putting an Abrams on the street. Black Bess also had faux spinner hubcaps, a vanity plate that read GAMER, and lots of decorative chrome. It looked like a big, expensive toy for a slacker who’d made some money.

  Sam Imura was behind the wheel. Top Sims sat beside him. Ivan and Peter were in the backseat. Bunny and Lydia were already on the far side of the Blue Diamond compound.

  “Call it, Top,” said Sam.

  The regional office of Blue Diamond Security was a short block away, a squat one-story box tucked behind a security gate with a barrier bar. Behind it, massive tower cranes lifted containers from cargo ships and stacked them into multicolored mountain ranges.

  A thermal scan of the building showed where everyone was. Most of them were clustered in neat rows in what was probably a mess hall. A few others were scattered around the building. No one in the receptionist office on a Sunday morning, and no one in the rear loading bay. Eighteen men in all.

  Top tapped his earbud for the team channel. “Okay, kids, we’re going in softball. Nobody dies but don’t take any shit. Combat call signs from here out. Hellboy, you’re on street sweep.”

  “Copy that,” said Ivan. He slipped out of the car and ducked down behind a parked Honda.

  “Prankster, as soon as we’re inside make some noise.”

  Pete Dobbs said, “Rock and roll.”

  “Okay, Ronin, let’s bust down some doors!”

  Sam Imura — Ronin — kicked down on the gas and Black Bess rolled forward, slowly at first, but as her mass got into motion the ponderous vehicle picked up speed. By the time it hit the drop-bar barrier at the front gate Bess was cruising at sixty. The barrier disintegrated into splinters. Two guards threw themselves out of the way, landing hard, rolling awkwardly, rising to their feet in shock but still reaching for their guns. Ivan dropped them both with beanbag rounds from his combat shotgun. Each round was a small cloth pouch filled with number-nine birdshot. They went down hard.

  “Green Giant,” growled Top, “knock loud and knock hard.”

  There was a five count of silence and then a huge whump shook the whole building as Bunny’s blaster-plaster blew the back door off its hinges and hurled it twenty feet into the loading bay.

  Black Bess was racing at her top speed of seventy-five miles an hour when she slammed into the front of the building. The double doors exploded inward across the empty reception office, smashing the desk flat against the far wall and then punching all the way through into the main room beyond. This room was a large empty training hall, with a walled pistol range, taped-off combat circles, free weights, and racks of practice weapons. Sam jammed on the brakes and spun Bess around so that she slewed across the gym in a big turn that destroyed equipment, vending machines and the outer wall of the shooting range. Then he threw it into park and he, Top, and Pete piled out.

  Pete pulled flash-bangs from his harness as Top yanked open the door to the next room — a crowded mess hall. The flash-bangs arced over the tops of the long mess tables. Men tried to dive out of their chairs, to turn and run, to crawl through each other.

  In all those things, they failed.

  The flash-bangs exploded with massive booms, filling the mess hall with blinding white light.

  Men screamed and fell, pawing at eyes, pressing hands to ears, temporarily blinded, deafened, and shocked.

  One man clung to the frame of the doorway, dazed but still on his feet as he clawed for his holstered pistol. Top drew his sidearm, an X26-A multishot Taser, which had a three-shot magazine with detachable battery packs. Top shot the man in the chest and immediately the battery sent fifty thousand volts into him. Top then released the battery pack to allow his gun to automatically chamber the second round. The dropped battery was still connected to the target by silver wires and would continue to send a maintenance charge through the flachettes until the twenty-second battery ran dry. As the man fell, Top saw that the back door of the mess hall was open and Bunny and Lydia were already rushing in to join the fun.

  Bunny grabbed one man by the sleeve and hair and whipped him around in a half circle, giving the swing a vicious upward tilt so the man left the ground and crashed into two of his colleagues. Then Bunny grabbed one of the big mess tables and with a growl like an angry bear upended it atop men who were trying their best to get out of his way.

  But Lydia was there. She was lightning fast, firing beanbag rounds as fast as she could pump, but when that ran dry she didn’t bother reloading or switching to the Taser. She waded in with wickedly precious kicks to calves and knees and groins, and used crosscutting palm strikes to wrench necks and smash noses.

  “Warbride,” Top called to her, “on your six.”

  She whirled to face a big man with a steak knife in his fist, but Top sat him down with the Taser, and took out a second man who was swinging his pistol up. Those were the last two charges of his Taser, so Top dropped it and drew a short black rod holstered at his hip. With a flick of his wrist it snapped down to the length of a baton. It was made of durable sponge rubber over a tight spring. The rubber kept it from being lethal, but it was not a toy. Bones broke and men screamed.

  One of the Blue Diamond men managed to get off a single shot, but suddenly he pitched back and out of the corner of his eye he caught Sam Imura leaning in through the window, a smoking shotgun in his hand.

  Counting the two men at the gate, there were eighteen Blue Diamond guards to Top’s six-person team.

  Eighteen wasn’t enough. The flash-bangs had changed those odds, and the brutal efficiency of Echo Team had skewed the math in their favor. When the last man fell — Ivan head-butted the man; Ivan wore a helmet, the other man did not — the room dropped into sudden silence.

  “Cuff ’em,” snapped Top, and everybody pulled out fistfuls of plastic flexcuffs.

  Some of the men were conscious and very vocal, threatening legal action, threatening worse. One, a shovel-jawed bruiser with a gray buzz cut and a livid bruise in the shape of Lydia’s fist over one puffed eye, seemed to be in charge.

  Top directed Bunny to bring the man into what was left of the other room. The man wasn’t yet trussed up, so Bunny hauled the man to his feet, screwed a pistol into his ear and said, “This one’s loaded with hollowpoints, dickhead.”

  When they were in the adjoining room, Top kicked a chair toward the prisoner and Bunny shoved the man down into it.

  “What’s your name?” asked Top.

  “Fuck you.”

  “Well, Mr. Fuck-you, would you like to tell me why four of your people thought it was a good idea to pull a car stop on a federal agent this morning?”

  The man’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t know who the fuck you think you are, Tupac, but I’m going to hang your balls from my rearview mirror.”

  “Is that a genuine fact?” asked Top, raising his eyebrows as if interested. “Bunny … why don’t you go in the other room. Mr. Fuck-you and I are going to sort out a few talking points. I believe he wants in his heart of hearts to tell me who ordered a hit on Captain Ledger.”

  Bunny looked from Top to the seated man, then he smiled and left.

  Top was smiling, too.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  VanMeer Castle

  Near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

  Sunday, October 20, 8:47 a.m.

  Mr. Bones knocked quietly and came into Howard’s bedroom. The old man was awake, sitting propped up, a Ghost Box on his lap and open file folders scattered around everywhere.

  “So much for resting,” said Mr. Bones, arching an
eyebrow.

  “I’ll rest next week.”

  “It’s Sunday, it is next week.” Mr. Bones dragged over a heavy hand-carved wooden chair, flopped into it, crossed his ankles, and laid his heels on the edge of the bed.

  Howard waved a hand. “You know what I mean. The doctor said it was stress and exhaustion. Big surprise. Said all I needed was some rest … so I’m resting.”

  “How are you feeling? No bullshit.”

  The old man took off his reading glasses and tossed them onto the bed. He rubbed his eyes and sighed. After a moment he said, “I know this is what I wanted,” he said. “I know this is what I’ve worked my life for … but sometimes getting what you want is such a goddamn pain in the ass.” He cut a look at his friend. “No, don’t say it: It’s like a man complaining because he has to count every penny in a heap of treasure he found. This isn’t something that’s going to take me off the path. I’m not going to come to my senses and devote the rest of my life to charity and good works. I’m a monster, Bones, and I like being a monster.”

  “But it’s still a pain in the ass to count all that treasure,” said Mr. Bones softly.

  “It is. Am I weak for saying that?”

  “You’re human. And I’ll bet every hero and every conqueror in history had these moments. Alexander the Great probably needed to hang out in his tent, get drunk, fart, read some trash scrolls.”

  Howard nodded. “They should show that in the history books. Downtime of the rich and powerful.”

  “We can fund a reality show,” said Bones, “Kicking Back with Kings.”

  They laughed about it. Quietly, respecting the needs of the moment. And then they sat in companionable silence for a time, listening to the drifting music from the speakers mounted high in the corners of the room. A playlist of old blues. All covers of Willie Dixon tunes.