Area 51 (13 page)

satellites blanketed the entire surface of the earth from an altitude of over twenty thousand miles up in geosynchronous orbits. The system had originally been developed to detect ICBM launches during the Cold War. During the Gulf War it had picked up every SCUD launch and proved so effective that the military had further refined the entire system to be effective enough to give real-time warnings to local commanders at the tactical level--a valuable system that those in the Cube could tap into. Through the other members of Majic-12 Gullick had access to systems like DSP and many others.

Every three seconds the DSP system downloaded an infrared map of the earth's surface and surrounding airspace.

Most of the data was simply stored on tape in the Warning Center, unless, of course, the computer detected a missile launch, or, as in this case, an authorized agency requested a direct line and keyed in a specific target area to be for warded on a real-time basis.

"Is it a Fast Walker?" Gullick asked, referring to the code name for unidentified valid IR sources that the system occasionally picked up and could not be explained.

"It's definitely a bogey, sir. It doesn't match anything onrecord. It's too small to be even a jet aircraft."

The unspoken question was, what was that small yet fast enough to stay on the tail of Bouncer Three, which was moving at over thirty-five hundred miles an hour toward Nebraska?

"Put it on up front," Gullick ordered, turning his seat back to the main screen. He briefly touched the right side of his skull, then looked at the hand as he pulled it away. It was shaking slightly. Gullick gripped the edge of his chair to stop that.

Quinn transferred the information to the large screen in the front of the room. There was a small glowing dot just behind the larger dot indicating Bouncer Three.

"How far behind Three is it?"

"Hard to tell, sir. Probably about ten miles or so."

"Have you told Three?"

"Yes, sir."

Gullick spoke into the boom mike just in front of his lips, keying the send button strapped to his belt. "Bouncer Three, this is Cube Six. Do you have a visual on the bogey?

Over."

"This is Three. Negative. We see nothing. Whatever it is, it's too far back.

Over."

"This is Six. Give me some evasive maneuvers. Over."

The pilot of Three answered. "Wilco. Wait one. Over."

On the screen the dot representing Bouncer Three suddenly darted to the right just north of Salt Lake City. The smaller dot just as quickly followed. A quick series of zigzags didn't faze the bogey.

"Should I order an abort, sir?" Quinn asked.

"No," Gullick said. "Let's ride this out. Get Aurora on alert. I want to be on top of this bogey." He keyed the radio. "Three, this is Six. Forget about it.

Just continue the mission. I'll take care of the situation from this end. Out."

Quinn's worry showed through and it irritated Gullick.

"Should I inform Nightscape Six?"

"Negative, Major. Let these people do their job and let me worry about the bogey. You let me do the thinking and informing around here. You got that?"

Gullick glared at the junior officer.

"Yes, sir!"

VICINITY BLOOMFIELD, NEBRASKA

T - 1 1 8 HOURS, 15 MINUTES

"We have multiple heat signatures to the left," the pilot of the AH-6 announced, immediately swooping in that direction.

"Go get 'em, cowboy," Prague yelled into the intercom as he flipped up his goggles. He reached into the backseat, across Turcotte's lap, and grabbed a rifle that had been strapped down there. Hooking his arm into the sling, Prague leaned out of the helicopter, his safety harness keeping him from falling out to the ground below. Turcotte leaned forward and watched the same scene that Prague was following--cattle scattering in all directions from thesound of the helicopters.

Prague put the rifle to his shoulder and looked through the night scope mounted on top. He fired twice and two of the cows collapsed immediately. "Nerve agent," he said, glancing over his shoulder at Turcotte. "Knocks 'em down, but leaves no trace. We recover the dart."

The AH-6 pulled up and assumed a stationary position a hundred meters away from the two animals. The UH-60 Blackhawk came to a hover directly over the two bodies and Turcotte watched as ropes were thrown out of the Blackhawk and four men with rucksacks fast-roped down.

The four men gathered around the bodies and there was an occasional flash of light as they worked on the cows.

"Time hack?" Prague asked.

"Six minutes, thirty seconds until Bouncer Three is on station."

"Okay," Prague said. "We're all right."

"What are they doing?" Turcotte finally asked.

Prague turned to the rear, looking like a mechanical demon with a wide grin beneath the protruding bulk of his night vision goggles. "They're getting some prime filet down there. You like heart? Or maybe eyeballs? How about cow ovaries? We come back with all sorts of good stuff.

"They have top-of-the-line surgical lasers to make clean cuts. They also have suction to clean the blood up. What the locals are left with is a couple of dead cows with specific body parts surgically removed, yet no sign of vehicle traffic in the area. Also no blood, which is kind of disturbing. No one can explain it so no one really looks into it too hard, but it serves its purpose."

Which is what? Turcotte wondered. He had heard about cattle mutilations. It was in the paper every so often. Why was such a sophisticated operation being run just to do this? Was this why Duncan had sent him out here? To find out that the government people at Area 51 were behind cattle mutilations?

The Blackhawk had moved away while the men worked.

Now it came back in, letting down two harnesses on winches--one on either side.

The first two men were up with their gory load in thirty seconds. Then the next two.

"Initiate phase two," Prague ordered and they were heading farther to the southwest.

"You hear that?" Billy Peters asked.

"Huh?" Susie replied, her mind on other matters—in this case Billy's arm around her shoulders and her head on his broad chest. She could hear his heart beating, that was for sure.

"Sounds like helicopters or something," Billy muttered.

He reached out with his free hand and wiped some of the fog off the front windshield of his '77 Ford pickup and tried to look out. They'd been parked here for a long time--since just before it had gotten dark, but there'd been a lot to say. Susie was leaving her folks and Billy was on the spot, not quite sure whether to go for it and invite her to live in his trailer down in Columbus or punt and go along with her plan to move to her sister's in Omaha.

He'd picked this spot because he was sure there'd be no one to interrupt them, but now he was almost glad there might be an interruption because he sure couldn't make his mind up tonight, not with her pushing up against him like she was: how was a man supposed to think clearly under those circumstances?

"Something's coming this way," Billy said, looking out the window into the night sky.

THE CUBE, AREA 51

T-118 HOURS, 4 MINUTES

Gullick was watching the large map. The bogey was still behind Three. Both dots were currently near the conjunction of the Wyoming, Colorado, and Nebraska borders.

"Aurora's status?" Gullick asked.

"On the runway, ready to take off."

"Give her the go."

"Yes, sir."

"TOT for phase two?"

"Eighty-six seconds," Quinn answered.

Gullick flicked a switch on the console in front of him and watched the video feed from the control tower on the surface. A curiously shaped plane began rolling forward.

Shaped like a rounded manta ray, the most significant features of the two-man reconnaissance plane were its huge intakes under the front cockpit and large exhausts behind the engines. Capable of Mach 7, over five thousand miles an hour, or almost a mile and a half a second at maximum speed, it could get to a target in a hurry.

The successor to the famous SR-71 Blackbird, Aurora had made its maiden flight in 1986. At a billion dollars a plane there were only five in the inventory, and they were used only when all other systems were exhausted. To the public that had financed it, the plane didn't exist. It was one of the most closely guarded secrets in the Air Force and Gullick had one at his disposal around the clock, an indication of the importance of this project to the Air Force.

W i t h sufficient thrust built up, Aurora suddenly bounded up into the air and accelerated w h i l e climbing at a seventy-degree angle, swiftly turning toward the northeast and disappearing from the screen.

VICINITY BLOOMFIELD, NEBRASKA

Turcotte's AH-6 was holding at two hundred feet while the Blackhawk passed them by and came to its own hover over a cornfield in front of Turcotte and to his left. The other AH-6 slid over and took up security four hundred meters in the opposite direction. The Blackhawk slowly lowered until it was about eighty feet above the ground, just above the point where the rotor wash would permanently disturb the stalks of corn.

A bright light flashed out of the cargo bay of the Blackhawk, the beam angling to a terminus in the field below, cutting through the corn and burning into the ground.

"The laser's computer aimed," Prague explained through the intercom, proud of his men and their toys.

"Makes a perfect circle. Confuses the shit out of those eggheads who come and scratch their heads over it in daylight. Dumb fucks. They figure it's related to the dead cows in the next field, which it is," he said with a laugh, "but they don't know how and they'll never figure it out."

And? Turcotte thought. Why did Prague want to confuse people?

"Nightscape Six, this is Bouncer Three. ETA forty-five seconds. Over."

"Roger. Out." Prague turned to Turcotte. "You're going to love the last act of this play. Watch to the south."

Turcotte checked the Calico one more time. This was all so strange, but the thing that disturbed him the most was the way Prague was showing him everything now, but hadn't explained it before. What did Prague know about him? Turcotte wondered.

"Jesus, Susie, you see that!" Billy furiously wiped the windshield as the beam of light played down a quarter mile to their left into the field.

"What is it?" Susie asked, her living problems forgotten for the moment.

"I don't know, but I'm getting the hell out of here." He turned the key and the Ford's engine started up.

"I've got a heat source in the trees to the southwest!" the pilot of the other AH-6 announced. "It's a car engine!"

"Shit!" Prague exclaimed.

A bright glow came flying in from the south, low on the horizon, moving faster than anything Turcotte had ever seen. It swept by silently, followed closely by another,smaller glowing dot.

"What was behind Bouncer Three?" Prague asked out loud, his composure cracking for the first time since Turcotte had met him. Turcotte was surprised by both craft that sped by. This whole scenario was getting weirder by the second.

Turcotte watched as the large disk that Prague had called Bouncer Three made an abrupt jump move to the right, changed directions just short of 180 degrees in a split second, and did a pass over the small town of Bloomfield on the horizon before heading back toward the southwest.

"Get me to that heat source!" Prague ordered. The pilot of the AH-6 complied, pointing the nose toward the stand of trees. "You other guys, head for the MSS,"

he added.

The Blackhawk banked right and headed back to the northj, to the secure area of Devil's Nest, the other AH-6 flying escort. Turcotte flipped off the safety on the Calico as they headed toward the treeline. Whatever was going the on, it was clear to Turcotte that it wasn't going according to Prague's plan.

THE CUBE, AREA 51

"Pass complete. Three's coming home," Quinn announced.

All eyes were on the screen. The bogey was still behind Three. It continued that way for about a minute, then suddenly the second dot broke away, heading back to the northeast, where it had just come from.

"Get Aurora on that bogey!" Gullick ordered.

VICINITY BLOOMFIELD, NEBRASKA

"We've got to get these people," Prague ordered as the helicopter banked toward the rapidly fleeing pickup truck.

"They're civilians," Turcotte protested, leaning through the door and checking out the truck.

"They saw too much. We can't have them talking about seeing helicopters here.

Fire across the front of the truck," Prague ordered the pilot, who expertly sideslipped his helicopter so that they were now flying sideways, with the nose of the aircraft--and the chain gun hung off the skidpointed toward the pickup. A stream of tracers arced out, right across the headlights of the pickup, and the brake lights flared.

"Goddamn!" Turcotte yelled. "Are you crazy?"

"Put us down on the road in front of them," Prague ordered, ignoring Turcotte.

"Who are these people, Billy?" Susie screamed. "Why are they shooting at us?"

Billy didn't waste time trying to explain. He slammed truck into reverse as the helicopter settled down in front of him in the glow of the headlights, blowing dirt and debris up into the air, blinding him.

The pickup's rear tires slipped into the drainage ditch on the side of the road. Dirt flew as Billy threw the gear into first, but they didn't move.

The skids touched ground and Prague was out the door, leaving the dart rifle behind in favor of his Calico. Turcotte followed, right on his heels. Turcotte's mind was trying to sort out all that had happened and was happening.

"Hands up and out of the truck!" Prague yelled.

The doors opened and a man stepped out, a woman following, hiding herself behind the man's bulk.

"Who are you people?" the man asked.

"Cuff them!" Prague ordered Turcotte.

"They're civilians." He stood still.

Prague shifted the muzzle of his Calico in Turcotte's direction. "Cuff them."

Turcotte looked at the weapon, looked at Prague, then pulled out two plastic cinches from his vest and secured the couple's hands behind their backs.