Paradise Hacked (First Circle Club Book 2) (29 page)

"Black market. We paid cash."

"You would think aliens, or whatever you are, wouldn't have to buy weapons off the street," Kyle said.

"That would be my assumption, too," Virgil replied bitterly, "but our upper management doesn't always provide the enthusiastic support I would expect. Sometimes it's more like benign neglect. I have Cat Lady's number. We need to call her."

"I have new phones in my briefcase," Mei said.

"Are they secure?"

"I can make them secure. I just need a place to work with good lighting and internet access."

"I'll find a motel," Virgil said.

* * *

The phone on Colonel Knox's desk rang.

He grabbed it, "Yes?"

"Sir!" a man said. "You need to come to the security room!"

Knox put down the phone and ran through the church. The security and communications center was on the bottom floor of a bell tower. Cool air greeted him when he opened the door. The men and women working at the consoles wore jackets.

"What is it?" Knox said.

"We lost Chinatown, sir," an older lieutenant said. "The surveillance feeds are dark. No response on the tactical radios."

"Power outage?"

"Unknown. We're trying to get through using regular cell phones."

"Got one, sir!" a woman said.

She handed a headset to Knox, and he slipped it over his head.

"Report!" he said.

"Yes, sir," a man replied over the headset. "We received an order to go to the river. A moment later, we lost contact with the base station. Only short-range communication is working."

"Is anybody hurt?"

"Not as far as I know, but I can't speak for the two men at the base station."

Knox clenched his jaw in anger. The aliens had obviously returned to Chinatown on some errand. Captain Kyle had told them exactly where and how to strike. There was no other possible explanation.

"Return to your posts
cautiously
," Knox ordered. "The enemy is probably in the area. Send a squad over to the base station to assess the situation. Weapons hot. Don't hesitate to shoot."

"Yes, sir."

He returned the headset and left the bell tower. He walked slowly back to his office, thinking deeply.

The aliens were a serious threat to his operation, and Captain Kyle's treachery made the situation much worse. His head was full of classified information. He knew exactly how the Crusader Special Unit operated.

Knox was bringing in more resources from Washington to deal with the situation, but he had to be careful. If he raised the alarm too much, some Army general would swoop in and steal his command. He was lucky it hadn't happened already. He had to maintain the illusion everything was completely under control.

Knox stopped walking. He was in the middle of Harlow's laboratory. The doctor and his assistants were crowded around a table with sketchpads in hand. They were designing the suit which would keep Harlow alive during his journey through the portal.

Knox wished them luck. The project was teetering on the edge of disaster and desperately needed some good luck. The colonel wouldn't pull the plug though, no matter how bad things got. He never surrendered.

* * *

Virgil tapped his foot impatiently.

The team had rented two adjoining rooms in a roadside motel. A connecting door made them effectively one suite. Cheap furniture had scuff marks and dings, and the style looked antiquated even to Virgil's eyes. Lisa and Kyle were watching the news on a television in the other room.

Virgil was with Mei. She was performing delicate surgery on a cell phone. Every portable lamp available was placed to give her as much light as possible.

Virgil glanced over his shoulder. The sack containing Alfred was leaning against the corner of the room. Leaving it in the car hadn't seemed right even though Alfred wouldn't know the difference. The sack was motionless.

Virgil recalled his own similar experience months ago. He had needed a long soak in Hell mud to recover from profound injuries. During those eight hours, he had experienced a kind of peace he hadn't known in a very long time. He envied Alfred a little.

"I think I got it," Mei said. "You can make your call now, but don't yank out the wires."

"The call will be untraceable?" Virgil said.

"Yes, but don't ask me to explain how I did it."

He gently picked up the phone which was attached to the laptop. He referred to his notepad and dialed Cat Lady's number.

She answered after two rings. "Yes?" she said cautiously.

"This is Virgil. I need your help."

"So soon?"

"Unfortunately, yes," he said. "It's a messy, dangerous situation. You still want in?"

"Sure. Sounds fun."

"I'm glad you feel that way. Take a cab to the Sears in Glendale Heights. I'll meet you in front. After I make sure nobody is following you, I'll bring you to the team."

"You're paranoid," Cat Lady said. "I like that. Should I pack for a trip?"

Virgil considered the question. He was worried about tracking devices on her clothes or in her luggage.

"No," he said. "I'll provide what you need. Don't bring anything, not even a purse. Certainly not a phone."

"Give me two hours."

"OK. Bye."

He gave the phone back to Mei.

"Do you think I'll like this Cat Lady?" she said.

Virgil shook his head. "I doubt it. Whenever she opens her mouth, she's lying, but that doesn't mean she can't contribute to the team."

Chapter Seventeen

Sara heard somebody unlocking the door of her safe. She hoped her long, tedious journey had finally come to an end.

She pushed on the door, and it opened. She climbed out of her safe and stood up.

Sara was in a circular room with stainless steel walls and a very high roof. The floor appeared to be solid, polished rock. Bright lighting made her squint after the darkness inside the safe. A single, square window was about twenty feet up.

Four soldiers were also in the room, and their assault rifles were aimed at her head. Gas masks and goggles covered their faces. They backed cautiously to an open door, and one by one, they left. The door slammed closed with a heavy metallic thud. Sara heard huge bolts engaging. There was no handle on her side.

"Sara, is it?" a male voice said through a loudspeaker mounted on the ceiling.

She turned her head. "Yes."

"Up here."

Sara looked up at the window. A tall man with a beard was standing behind the glass. He was wearing an Air Force uniform.

"Who are you?" she said.

"You may call me Dr. Z. You should feel honored. This facility was built at great expense in the 1950's to house aliens, but it's never been used... until now. We had to sweep out decades of dust."

"Is it some kind of secret prison?"

"I suppose you could call it that," Dr. Z said, "but I prefer to think of it as a research laboratory."

"And I'm the lab rat."

"Exactly. That enclosure will be your home for the rest of your life. If you're thinking about escaping, don't bother. You're two hundred feet beneath the surface of a barren wasteland. There are many layers of security between you and freedom, and all of that security is focused on you. You're the only prisoner here, the sole object of everybody's attention."

For the hundredth time, Sara regretted letting herself get captured. She should've stayed with Lisa or at least fought harder.

Her best hope lay in making contact with Barachiel. The stainless steel walls, polished to a mirror finish, gave her an idea.

"Can I have some water, please?" Sara said. "Clean water in a clean cup?"

"Of course," Dr. Z said. "You are my guest, after all." He walked off.

After a few minutes, a hatch in the ceiling opened. A small table suspended on ropes descended through the hole. The ropes were too thin to bear Sara's weight. A steel cup stood on the table.

She grabbed the cup. The table immediately rose back to the ceiling.

The cup was full of water. She walked over to a wall and splashed some onto the shiny surface.

"Barachiel!" Sara said. "Barachiel!"

Nothing happened. She frowned. She didn't understand what she was doing wrong. Making contact had always been easy in the past.

"Who is Barachiel?" Dr. Z said.

"That was just a ceremony we aliens like to perform. Barachiel is the name of our god. I was sacrificing a little water to honor him."

"I see. Are you going to drink?"

Sara couldn't actually drink the water. If she tried, she would cough it up.

She set down the cup. "I only needed it for the ceremony."

"Then let's get right to business. You're going to tell me everything. What planet did you come from? How did you get to Earth? What kinds of technology do you have?"

"I'm not inclined to cooperate."

Another hatch in the ceiling opened. A vertical steel pole descended, and it was making a buzzing noise. Blue sparks danced on the top.

"In that case," Dr. Z said, "we'll perform an experiment. I was told your kind is extremely tough. Even bullets can't slow you down. Let's test your sensitivity to electric shock."

A giant spark shot from the pole to the wall. It made a sound like a gunshot, startling Sara.

"I have friends, you know," she said.

"Yes. I've seen the pictures."

"They'll find me."

"I doubt that," Dr. Z said. "Only a handful of people know where you are."

"You just told me all your security folks are watching me," Sara said.

"But they don't know who you are or exactly why you're here."

She realized stubborn defiance wouldn't serve her well. Electricity probably couldn't hurt her, but he would find something that could. A damaged body would only make her situation worse.

She needed to play for time. Virgil and the rest of the team
would
rescue her eventually, even if the task required moving Heaven and Earth. It was just a question of when... and how many people died in the process.

"OK," Sara said. "You win. I already told the colonel we come from the planet Nibiru. Our species is known as the Zetas. We have three genders and live for five hundred of your Earth years. We travel on laser beams fired from guns a mile long...."

* * *

Virgil watched from the roof of the Sears in Glendale Heights. He had an unobstructed view of the entire parking lot. It was getting late for shopping, but a few cars remained. Tall lamps created pools of light on the vast expanse of black asphalt.

A fitful breeze blew chilly air on his face. The cold didn't bother him, and he wondered what kind of temperatures his body could handle. He knew he could swim in molten lava if he wanted, but maybe extreme cold would be an issue.

A yellow cab drove into the lot, and Cat Lady stepped out. She was the prototypical skinny blonde bombshell. Her snug black jacket was partially zipped, allowing some cleavage to show. White slacks clung to every curve from her narrow waist down to her high heels. Virgil knew she had dressed sexy just for him. She was trying to muddle his mind.

He waited until the cab left. Cat was alone in the parking lot, and he didn't see any suspicious cars in the vicinity. He judged it was safe enough.

Virgil leapt off the roof, dropped thirty feet, and landed softly. Cat turned at the sound, and her eyes widened in surprise.

"Where did you come from?" she said.

"Never mind. Let's move. Follow me."

He looked around again but didn't see anything suspicious. He jogged to a neighboring parking lot. Cat had difficulty keeping pace in her ridiculous high heels.

Virgil's minivan was parked behind a bank building. He opened a side door and took out some clothes lying on the seat.

"Now strip," he said.

"What?" Cat said.

"Take it all off, including underwear. Leave your clothes on the ground. They may be bugged."

"They aren't!"

"I don't know that," Virgil said. "Come on. You don't have anything I haven't seen on other women."

"But it's freezing!"

"Then move fast."

She gave him a murderous look, but she complied. She stripped off her clothes as quickly as she could.

She stood before him with goosebumps on her naked body. "Satisfied?"

"Turn around. Hands up."

"Come on!"

"Just do it," he said.

Cat clenched her jaw and made a slow turn. He tried to maintain a professional demeanor as he inspected her for bugs, but she did have a very fine body. She obviously spent a lot of time working out.

Virgil gave her the clothes he was holding. She inspected a black sweat suit and cheap white running shoes with a critical eye.

"I'll look like a soccer mom," she said.

"Just put them on before you get hypothermia."

Cat put on the clothes with a frown. The two of them climbed into the minivan, and Virgil drove off.

"Are you going to tell me what this is about?"

"Some of it," he said. "Sara has been captured, and we're trying to rescue her. Did you meet her? Short brunette."

"I saw her. Who took her?"

"The US Army, and they're probably holding her in a top secret location. They think she's an alien."

"Oh." Cat bit her lip. "That's tough."

"If the job were easy, I wouldn't need you."

"Last time we met, you told me I wouldn't get paid. Is that still true?"

"Yep," Virgil said. "It's a charity mission. And if you try to con me or sell me out, there will be no place on Earth that is safe for you. For once in your life, you'll have to be trustworthy. You want to bail out now?"

She stared out the window. He waited patiently for her to respond.

"This will help me be a better person?" she said softly.

"It's a big step in that direction."

She sighed and nodded. "OK. I'll stick it out."

"Good," he said. "We'll discuss the rest when we get to the motel."

A few minutes later, Virgil parked in front of the motel. It was a single-story building with just twenty rooms. White paint covered the brick walls. The doors opened directly onto the parking lot, an advantage when moving weapons in and out.