Dragon Over Washington (The Third War Of The Bir Nibaru Gods) (11 page)

Thorpe’s grin widened. “This may have nothing to do with me, but it sure sounds interesting.”

He read the report with its attachments. Apparently, farmers had filed complaints that some kind of wild animal was breaking into their farms and killing cows and sheep. A few days later, tired of waiting for the police to find the animal, they took matters into their own hands. A party of seven farmers went out to illegally hunt the animal; policemen from the local sheriff office went out to stop them. Only two men survived.

Thorpe practically danced in his seat. They couldn’t identify the animal that did it.

He added under the Colorado circle ‘Farm break-in, cows butchered,’ ‘Farmers and cops killed in the mountains’ and ‘Unknown animal.’ He threw his tyrannosaur high in the air and caught it, whistling merrily.

A soft beep sounded. Thorpe blinked. He needed a moment to find the source. It was the Satellite Control System. The KH11 satellite, number five, was rising over the horizon as seen from Colorado. Thorpe looked eagerly at the clock. He had two minutes to spare. He ran over to the fridge at the end of the corridor, found the other Coke can he had hidden there earlier and ran back to his workstation. He didn’t even notice the cola spraying him when he opened the can. He was ready for the show. He lowered the lights in his cubicle and adjusted his seat. He was ready.

The first image started to appear, filling the screen gradually from top to bottom, as if god was looking down on earth. Thorpe held his breath. It was an infrared image.

Nothing.

Everything was as it should be, meadows, mountains and craggy valleys. The second image started to appear, downloading slowly. Now Thorpe jumped up from his chair. There were two white hotspots, one near the center of the image. The resolution was too low to discern any detail, but they were there, whatever they were, with a thermal signature equivalent to a tank.

“Wait! Wait!” Thorpe yelped as the satellite continued.

He replaced the targets he had previously entered with the coordinates for one of the hotspots he discovered, using high magnification. He waited for the confirmation of his command to appear, and sat on the edge of his chair, biting his fingernails.

An image started to appear of the area he had selected, centered on the hotspot. In this image, trees could be discerned and specific rocky formations were visible. Thorpe, dancing with excitement, planted another target, the same coordinates but with the highest magnification, ten centimeters resolution with the infrared camera.

While waiting for the satellite to transmit the new image, he watched the previous one. In this image, the hotspot was nicely defined: an elongated object, about twenty feet long, and with various extensions all over it. But more detail was impossible to make out. Thorpe frowned. It seemed that the thing, whatever it was, was cooling off, starting to blend with its environment.

A third image appeared and Thorpe bent closer to the screen. The target was almost invisible now, but its shape was crystal clear. Thorpe’s fingers danced, almost without conscious thought, activating the satellite’s real-time TV function. The screams over the bandwidth he was using would probably reach the sky. Thorpe didn’t care.

Some time later, Thorpe picked up his phone and dialed.

“Hi, Molly, how are things?” Thorpe grinned and held the handset away from his ear. He brought it closer three minutes later when the shouting dropped in volume.

“I need to see The Man. Can you get me an appointment?” Thorpe said, smiling. The angry tones at the other size were suddenly silenced.

“Yeah, you heard me. I want to see The Man. No, tomorrow is fine. No rush.”

***

The next day, Thorpe walked up past Molly’s desk. He peeked first, to see if it was safe.

“Brought a fresh shirt today, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I thought it might be prudent.”

“And a good thing too. With the shirts you usually wear I can smell you two corridors away,” Molly said.

Thorpe sniffed his shirt suspiciously and then smiled.

“Look, I worked out a great algorithm to find out when a shirt has to go to my mom to get laundered,” Thorpe said.

“Really?”

“Yeah, it’s really simple. All I have to do is put the shirt next to a wall. If it can stand by itself it has to go to my mom. Well, don’t have time to chat. Have to see The Man,” Thorpe said happily. Molly watched him, staring with amazement while he walked by smiling. Thorpe entered the office of the director of the M62 Division of Special Operations, closed the door behind him and looked around. Up until now, he had made it a point to see The Man’s office as little as possible.

The furniture was a blend of the new and old: a big, oak table supported an extra-thin computer screen, while a huge LCD wall display hung next to two oil paintings. There was wood around the office, tasteful panels next to microphones and black speakers. No doubt a liquor cabinet was hidden somewhere in the office.

Thorpe had time for a good look. The director, Mister D. Northman, an elderly gentleman in his sixties, was typing something, his fingers moving with uncommon grace on the keyboard. He had once been a powerful fighter, his six-foot-three frame sporting enough muscle to rival anyone today. However, even though old age made him thin, almost emaciated, he still had wide shoulders, a hook of a nose broken too often, and a solid chin.

Finally, the director raised his eyes towards Thorpe. Thorpe, still standing near the door, looked into the director’s eyes and remembered why it was he dreaded The Man, with those cold, grey eyes - eyes that made you feel as if you were a simple pawn easily sacrificed for a goal you’d never hope to understand. The director’s eyes impaled Thorpe for a moment and then his left hand pressed a button on his desk.

“Yes, Director?”

“Molly, please prepare an A19 form.”

Thorpe gulped. He cleared his throat and started talking as fast as he could,

“Ah, ah - Sir, I - a - saw a - There’s something you should see,” Thorpe stammered.

“We regret that Thorpe repeatedly proved unsuitable to work in the Special Operations Division,” the director went on, still staring at Thorpe.

“I - I - I sent a presentation. If you would open it - if you want, that is - you can see -”

“His conduct, behavior and standards are unsuitable to this highly specialized division,” the director continued talking calmly. Something in Thorpe’s stance made him scowl. He pressed several buttons and a presentation appeared on his LCD screen.

“Therefore, it is my sad duty to recommend that Mister Thorpe be transferred to a position better suitable to his -” the director’s voice died.

The director’s eyes had glanced at the LCD screen on the wall, seeing the thermal image from the weather satellite. The Beaver Flat Tops Mountains were clearly visible, their too-high surface temperature obvious, shining, radiator-like, in the midst of the Colorado Mountains. The director pressed a button and another slide appeared, the first KH11 image that showed the two hotspots. The next two images appeared, one after the other. Thorpe slumped, released from the director’s eyes. Making the presentation was an excellent idea, a must for summing up information for bosses.

“What’s going on?” The director asked, his voice seemingly leeching the air of warmth.

“Well, ah, sir, a few days ago I was shown a strange phenomenon. It was an area in Libya, a few miles in diameter, where radio died. I checked it with Trailmapper. Every kind of radio, including satellite communications, had died. There was no explanation, no reason for it. The phenomenon, which I named a Radio Blanket, because, you see, it blankets all - well, anyway, it started about nine days ago.”

“Nine days?”

“Yes. I ran a check in the Trailmapper database. As far as I could determine, the effect had never happened before. The Blanket also seems to block or hamper internet and land-line phone networks. I checked for similar effects and I found three more,” Thorpe said.

Thorpe looked at the LCD screen, which was much easier than looking into The Man’s cold, dark eyes. Out of the corner of his eyes, Thorpe could see the director moving his fingers through his well-tended goatee beard. “It happened on the ocean, near our eastern seaboard, and also in the Colorado Mountains. There was also a huge, and I am talking huge, similar region in the Ural Mountains in Russia.” Thorpe saw the director’s fingers freeze.

“I used our NOAA satellite imagery database, our police database and a KH11 satellite and I found this.” Thorpe glanced at the director’s unblinking eyes for a moment.

“The Beaver Flat Tops Mountains are somehow being heated up. I know it should be impossible. Nevertheless, it’s happening. There are several targets there, several objects with a highly distinctive thermal signature. They are hot, sir, hotter than a tank at full throttle. There are several in the mountains, I’m not sure how many, maybe half a dozen. I tried taking a high-resolution image, but the targets are somehow able to mask their infrared image. They disappear by the time I manage to locate them. I know this should be impossible too.”

“What do you mean they disappear?”

“Well, you can see here. At first they are hot, really hot. Like huge engines working, or maybe even a small tactical missile launch. But here, in the second image, they seem to be cooler. And when I get in really close, it’s almost invisible. I can’t explain it, sir. The camera is fine because the pictures it transmitted afterward, of targets in the Middle East, are fine. There’s something there, something that can somehow fool the satellite.” Thorpe stopped, but the director only grunted.

Thorpe went on. “In addition, police reports indicate that three days ago, five farmers and six cops were butchered in these mountains. They were after something that was attacking their farms, and breaking steel and log fences to steal cows. I mean entire cows, sir. And this started directly after the first Radio Blanket.” Thorpe breathed a little easier now.

“If you could please move to the next slide: Okay, these are images from an apartment in NY. The place had been torched. The police reported strange electrical scorch marks. In addition, an undecipherable message was found burnt into a wall. Beneath it was written ‘Seven Times Seven Days.’ We can see the symbol here.”

The director’s long fingers started tapping his desk impatiently. “What’s the connection to Colorado?” He asked.

“I searched for strange codes or languages. In Russia, the enemy there is also using some sort of strange language. I think this is more than coincidence.”

The director stopped tapping his desk. Thorpe swallowed.

“There are other similarities. Reports indicate that around the time of the fire, there was an area of several city blocks, more or less centered around the apartment, where radio transmissions died,” Thorpe’s voice weakened towards the end.

“Where are those reports from?” The director asked.

“Homeland Security and the police database,” Thorpe whispered.

The director’s eyebrows contracted. Thorpe tried surging on.

“In addition, in Owego, a small town in NY County, the police chief there, a Sheriff Hardy, called for help after a severe storm. He also reported a large number of people arriving in the town, strangers. Their cars had that symbol, here.”

Thorpe stopped to let the director look at a close up of the symbol burnt into the wall of the NY apartment, a pair of sharp massive horns.

“Then just a few hours later Hardy reported back that they could manage Okay on their own and didn’t need any help, thank you.”

Thorpe took a long breath. Tension was starting to leave his shoulders - the director still hadn’t bitten his head off. “The message said forty nine days?” The director asked, raising an eyebrow. “Yes, sir. And this must be important, because it was the only thing written in English,” Thorpe said.

Thorpe sighed and tried to catch his breath. The director was browsing through the presentation again, ignoring him. As time passed, Thorpe breathed deeper and started to relax. As more time passed, Thorpe stood taller, starting to grin.

Thorpe jumped as the director pressed a button.

“Molly, please get me Graham and Mathew in here. Now!” the director snapped.

“What about Libya?” the director suddenly asked Thorpe.

Thorpe jumped and cleared his throat.

“I have no idea. The Radio Blankets are happening every day, but I have no target, no coordinates, nothing to look for with the KH11,” Thorpe said. The director scowled. “Molly, call Winder as well.”

The door opened and two agents entered the room. Agent Graham and Agent Mathew were complete opposites. Mathew was a tall, muscular African American man with a military haircut. His suit barely stretched over his muscled physique. Agent Graham, on the other hand, was a small man, elegantly dressed.

They behaved differently, too. Thorpe saw Mathew marching into the room and stand at attention, back straight and eyes staring forward. Graham walked easily and greeted Thorpe with a small smile. Thorpe smiled back.

“Sit down, gentlemen. You all know Thorpe. He -”

“That’s Agent Thorpe, sir.” Thorpe’s eyes bulged. He realized he had spoken, before he could control his mouth. He shriveled under the gaze the director turned on him. “Thorpe has found some interesting events that may be related to the Russian crisis.”