Illegal Aliens (2 page)

ONE

In imposing silence, the committee sat around the heavy oak table reviewing plastic-coated documents of extreme importance.

At the head of the table was a scholarly gentleman, a gray-haired diplomat from Iceland in a neat navy blue suit, the permanent leader of this special task force. To his left was an American general, splendid in his decorated uniform, with only a hint of ash on his right lapel, deposited there from his ever present cigar. Across from him was his Russian counterpart, possessing the solid body of a peasant heritage and a brilliant military mind that had earned him this position on the council. Next to him was a Scotsman, impeccably dressed in a tailored, three-piece gray suit that fit his bearing as a self-made millionaire and prominent sociologist.

Adorning the end of the table was a beautiful Chinese physicist in a soft summer dress decorated with a floral design, her long black hair worn loose about her shoulders. It was she who spoke first, breaking their somber concentration.

“Gimme two.”

“Nothing for me.”

“I fold.”

“Pass.”

General Nicholi G. Nicholi sneaked a peek at his fellow players from behind his cards. Their attention was where it should be, on their poker cards and not him. The three of them were calmly sitting there waiting for Nicholi to bid.

Cool as summer ice, the Russian general pretended to rearrange his cards while he studied their faces. Had they guessed? Did anyone know, that he, Nicholi Nicholi, had the ultimate in poker hands? A royal flush!

Always a cautious player, Prof. Rajavur had already folded from this game and was over by the kitchen unit of the command bunker making himself a cup of the bitter Icelandic coffee he loved so much. Nicholi grimaced. And some people complained about Russian food!

The lovely Dr. Wu though, was smiling contentedly at her cards. That meant Yuki was going to bluff again. Nicholi knew her tricks. Brigadier General Wayne Bronson was, as usual, unreadable, and Sir John Courtney was contentedly stroking that ridiculous little moustache of his. A bad sign that. The Scotsman must have an excellent hand indeed for him to be so complacent.

Then Nicholi grinned secretly. What matter? His royal flush was unbeatable. He held the winning hand for this round of cards, his friends just didn't know it yet, seasoned poker veterans though they were.

The final member of their group, Dr. Mohad Malavade, a noted linguist from India who seemed to dress purely as a matter of convention, was on duty right now in the Operations Room, and thus unavailable to partake in the game they knew so well. For these six, Nicholi, Rajavur, Bronson, Wu, Courtney and Malavade, were the United Nations First Contact Team: that august group of people designated to be Earth's official representatives when, if, or ever, alien beings from another star system came to our fair green orb.

Their fortified Command Bunker was located 20 stories below the furnace room of the United Nations building in Manhattan, New York. Despite its somewhat undignified position, the underground complex had a strong spacecraft feel to it, with cool metal walls, indirect lighting and softly humming life support machinery. This wasn't very surprising since NASA had designed and built the place, using its proposed Lunar base as a role model.

Theoretically hydrogen-bomb proof, the subterranean bunker was divided into three basic sections: a storage room fronted by a central corridor with private sleep rooms on each side, a full kitchen with a dining/recreation area; and beyond an iron-pipe railing, down a short flight of steps, was the Operations Room, with a TV monitor the size of a movie screen spanning the front wall. Grouped before the monitor were five desk-like control consoles, the center console twice as large as the others. Over in the distant corner, far outside the range of the wall monitor's video cameras, sat a lone sixth console that jarringly faced back into the room. Almost as if it had been placed there as an afterthought, or as if the console had a radically different function from the others.

Spacious and homey, the underground complex was equipped with everything the FCT needed to remain constantly on their saucer watch. Which they did, on a 3-out-of-4-week rotating schedule, with a floating pool of replacement personnel to cover whomever was absent. But today, the six original team members were present.

The bunker had cost $40 million to build, and the FCT had twice the national income of Belgium invested in themselves via training, training, and more training. They were deemed fully capable of handling any possible situation; from the crash landing of an alien lifeboat atop Mt. Everest with its crew in dire need of medical assistance, to the invasion of Earth by radioactive mutant Chihuahuas. Nothing was considered too far-fetched. The FCT was over-trained to handle it. Yes sir.

But in the last fifteen years since the team's founding, despite countless sightings of UFOs, the First Contact Team consistently never found anyone to contact. They were fast becoming like the first-aid kit you carry in the trunk of your car: as good as ever, but starting to gather a little dust, and sometimes you just plain forget it existed. The team found they needed something to keep its members from going crazy(ier), and that something was poker. Straight, stud, draw, anaconda and 137 other versions that they had invented over the years.

In point of fact, the FCT held the Guinness Book of World Records entry for the longest running non-stop poker game: eight straight years, easily beating the 4-year-long crap shoot of the Buckingham Palace Cleaning Staff, and dwarfing into insignificance the 18-month-old baccarat game of the Hong Kong Freelance Bodyguard & Assassins Union.

Nicholi tucked his cards together to hide them from any stray glances. “Twenty dollars,” the Russian said, confidently betting the maximum.

Suspiciously, General Bronson glared at the Russian general across the table from him and shifted the position of the unlit cigar in his mouth. Twenty, eh? Now what did that crafty Red bastard have up his sleeve? Sigerson was on the sidelines brewing coffee, Yuki was going to bluff, and Courtney had nothing, so this hand was solely between the two of them. But Nicholi was indecipherable, his craggy Russian face never showing anything he didn't want it to. Bronson thoughtfully chewed on the end of his panatela. What the hell, he decided, time to separate the men from the boys.

“Okay by me,” the American drawled. “And another twenty.” Ha! That’ll teach Comrade showoff who's in charge here.

“Fold,” Dr. Wu said, putting down her cards. The scientist had been planning to bluff again, but Yuki could see that her two generals were working up a head of steam, so she let discretion be the better part of valor and got out of the way of their forthcoming collision. Saved herself 4,000 yen in the bargain, too. Besides, there was always the next hand.

Just then the tantalizing smell of coffee tickled her nose and Wu glanced at the kitchen behind her. Nattily dressed in a two-piece blue suit and crisp white shirt, Prof. Rajavur was at the bunker's electric stove brewing a pot of his outrageously potent coffee. Before joining the FCT and engaging in their 24-hour poker fests, Wu had only thought of caffeine as an inferior medical stimulant. Now it was like the staff of life.

“Care for some?” Rajavur said, gesturing carefully with his brimming cup, an extra large tan ceramic mug marked: ‘TAKE ME TO YOUR LITER.’ When the Secretary General of the UN had last visited them on his yearly inspection tour, Sigerson had been forced to explain the joke to the pompous Frenchman.

The woman smiled gratefully. “Thank you, yes.”

Formally polite, the physicist excused herself from the table and left for the ladies’ room before joining the professor in a cup of his acidic brew. In private, Prof. Rajavur thought it a sin that Yuki added milk and sugar to the coffee; but since no other member of his team would even go near it, he forgave her that tiny perversion of Icelandic cuisine for the sake of camaraderie.

“Twenty is fine,” Sir John said, only a faint Scottish burr rounding his words. “And I raise you twenty more.”

A millionaire even before he had inherited his uncle's estate, high stakes meant nothing to Sir John; but taking these soldier boys down a peg or two did. The sociologist had a blockbuster of a hand, 4 nines, and he was highly doubtful that either of his associates could beat that. In Highlander confidence, he pulled crisp bills from a money clip bearing his family crest and added them to the growing pile of cash on the dining/poker table.

Recreational space was at a premium down here and almost everything had to serve two functions. Even the precious poker cards themselves often became twirling spaceships that invaded somebody's inverted hat during an impromptu strategy meeting.

Blatantly, the Scotsman left his money clip there on the table, signifying that he was in for the duration. Bronson ignored the bit of bravado, and Nicholi tried to do the same, but failed miserably. Sir John saw the Russian struggle with inner turmoil and incorrectly read the emotion as fear. Had he treed the old bear at last?

“Well, my friend?” Sir John grinned, positive that he smelled a kill.

Struggling to maintain a poker face, Nicholi pretended to think about the bet, while internally he was cackling with glee. Czar's Blood, they thought he was bluffing. Him! Bluffing! He could probably squeeze one more raise out of them before lowering the boom, but this had to be done carefully. No amateurs, these.

Radiating innocence, General Nicholi shuffled his cards around and loosened his Army-issue necktie. It was a good thing that he was here in the United States with these cards; back in the Motherland this hand would have had him sweating blood. Three times before Nicholi had possessed a royal flush, and each had ended in disaster.

The first time was as a private, new to army life, but old in the way of cards. As he drew the card he needed to complete his winning hand his entire platoon had been ordered out to build a stupid, useless wall. Nicholi had hated Berlin ever since. Next was as a lieutenant playing poker with his men over a combat lantern, when the winning cards had been shot out of his hands by enemy fire. He escaped that night physically unscathed, though his soul was deeply wounded. The last time had been in Moscow, where, as a major waiting for notification of his promotion to colonel, he had been unceremoniously busted back to a lieutenant for playing cards on duty. His royal flush had been confiscated for evidence.

Ah, but here it would be different. Nothing could stop him. At last, sweet victory would be his, and Nicholi Gagarin Nicholi would finally get to show someone his perfect poker hand. This was it!

“
Da
, Jonathan,” he happily agreed, unconsciously humming Wagner's ‘Ride of the Valkyrie’. “And I raise you another.”

Courtney and Bronson exchanged anguished glances. Ambushed! They should have known better then to trust a Muscovite.

“Sir?” a voice addressed the room.

Everybody chorused yes.

Down in the Operations Room, visually bisected by the iron pipe railing, a swarthy man in a badly fitting suit duly pointed at Prof. Rajavur.

“What is it, Mohad?” the Icelandic diplomat asked, taking a sip from his coffee mug.

“I have been receiving some very unusual radio transmissions on the New York police channel,” Dr. Malavade said, holding a tiny wireless earphone to his head. “Oh yes, most unusual.”

Winter ice formed on Nicholi's spine and his crewcut hair threatened to leave his scalp. Oh no! The only thing in the world that could interrupt this game was . . . Czar's Blood, did they have to land
today?

“Quiet, please!” the Russian barked, his left hand fumbling in his uniform pocket. “Do not interrupt game. Sir John, I meet that and bet another twenty.” Hurriedly he slapped the money down, raising his own raise.

“Interesting,” Bronson muttered, the strange double bet not going unnoticed. “Well, I’ll see that. How about you, Courtney?”

“In for a shilling, in for a pound,” Sir John philosophized, winking to the American on the sly. The general shrugged in return. “Okay, Nick, what have you got?”

Returning from the washroom, Dr. Wu paused in the act of drying her hands on a government issue paper towel. Something had happened in her absence. Rajavur was hurrying towards Malavade, who was crouched over his communications console; and the remaining poker players were in animated conversation. Curious, the scientist descended into the Operations Room, the hem of her cotton dress billowing about the trim calves of her nylon-clad legs.

“Is anything wrong?” she inquired of her colleagues as they began to jointly listen to an earphone.

“There has been a landing in Central Park,” Dr. Malavade announced crisply. “It has been confirmed by the traffic department of the NYPD. A unit of the National Guard has been dispatched for crowd control.”

Without hesitation, Dr. Wu rushed to her console and hastily began flipping switches. Prof. Rajavur was already at his desk.

Sluggishly at first, the liquid crystal TV monitor on the wall before them started to pulse with light as it warmed to operational temperatures. Prof. Rajavur pressed a button and a pair of small HD video monitors raised up from inside his control board. “Has there been any word from the—”

“Ship,” Dr. Malavade supplied, both hands busy on his own board. “One, round, white; approximately 400 meters in diameter.” Somebody whistled. “Yes, it is big. Reports suggest that the craft is protected by an energy screen of some kind, nobody can get close. At present, there has been no announcement from the occupants.” With a forefinger, he minutely adjusted a volume slide. “Just a moment, please.”

“Then let's finish game!”
Nicholi roared, catching everyone by surprise.

In the Operations Room, Wu, Rajavur and Malavade jerked their heads about and stared in astonishment, while Bronson and Courtney halted on the steps to see the Russian general still sitting at the poker table.

“Are you mad?” Sir John admonished. “There's a bloody spaceship in Central Park! Good Lord man, this is what we’ve been waiting 15 years for!”