The Rift (31 page)

Ms. Jones stared at the photo. The image of a young man smiled up at her. “Ah,” she sighed. He’d died at Chernobyl. Died trying to open a Rift. Perhaps he’d been right. After all these years, she now knew she might have been wrong. Then and every time since, when the Nightstalkers had slammed shut each Rift before a Portal opened.

Who knew? Who knew?

Why were humans always so afraid of the unknown even while some of the brightest minds probed into the unknown?

Ms. Jones closed her eyes, placing her hands over her chest, the photo clutched in her fingers.

Her heart slowed and then stopped. Lights flashed and Pitr came rushing in, but he halted short of the hospital bed and stared at the old woman.

Her orders had been strict and clear.

A single tear coursed down Pitr’s cheek. At least she was finally at peace.

Hannah sighed. “You’re not going to ask me to keep a journal or draw pictures or something like that?”

Dr. Golden had her pad out, pen at the ready. “No. You’re too smart for that.”

“But not too smart to become better,” Hannah said.

“Better?”

“At being human.”

The prototype Snake landed inside the Barn. The Nightstalkers off-loaded, stowing their gear and then packing into the Humvee. Eagle got behind the wheel while Roland took his place in the gun turret, holding the grips for the .50-caliber machine gun.

As they rolled out of the barn toward the Ranch, they began to sing, as if on cue, Warren Zevon’s “Werewolf in London.”

The Humvee rolled across the desert, while overhead the running lights of an old aircraft flickered by.

As they reached the chorus, Roland howled from the hatch and the team echoed him.

The Nightstalkers were back home.

Colonel Thorn’s hands were steady on the controls of the C-47 Skytrain as he flew over the Ranch and the team in the Humvee far below. Where they’d dug this relic up, he had no idea, but these folks sure were efficient.

He appreciated that.

He glanced over his shoulder at the German and Japanese scientists sitting on the web seating along both sides of the plane behind him. One of the Germans had somehow wrangled a couple of bottles of schnapps and was passing them down the line. The Japanese were partaking. Nero had told Thorn many years ago that the Japanese had gotten along quite well with their Nazi compatriots in Odessa.

No shit,
Thorn thought.

Peering to the right, Thorn could see the long runway at Area 51. The base around here had been built up, to be expected after so much time.

But he didn’t bank the plane to begin the long guide to the runway. Instead, he aimed due west.

It took a few minutes before those in the back became aware they weren’t going back “home” where they could perform more experiments in secret and under the protection of the U.S. government.

Thorn took it as a positive sign that some lessons had been learned and that this mistake, at least, wasn’t going to be repeated.

He flew directly over Papoose Mountain and then Papoose Lake. He heard some argument behind him as the scientists were looking out the windows, wondering why they weren’t turning.

Thorn saw the first blast craters of the Nevada Test Site as he cleared the next ridgeline. There were dozens and dozens of them. Hundreds as he looked to the left and right.

Even the scientists behind him grew silent as they saw the shattered landscape wrought by the hand of man.

“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee,” Thorn said in a clear voice. “Blessed art thou amongst women…” He skipped the next line and went to the end because there wasn’t going to be time. “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”

He nosed the C-47 over.

The airplane reached terminal velocity, heading directly for one of the large nuclear craters.

Just before it hit, Thorn whispered, “Amen.”

I write factual fiction. I gather real events and add in a fictional premise and characters.

Area 51, aka Groom Lake, does have the third-longest runway in the world, and it was an alternative landing site for the space shuttle.

On August 21, 1945, Harry K. Daghlian did receive a fatal dose of radiation at Los Alamos and died twenty-five days later.

On May 21, 1946, Louis Slotin did receive a fatal dose from what Enrico Fermi did call the demon core.

There have been sixty criticality accidents involving nuclear material. So far. That have been reported.

Operation Paperclip did exist.

Unit 731 did exist.

Photograph © Bob Mayer, 2004

New York Times
bestselling author, West Point graduate, and former Green Beret Bob Mayer weaves military, historical, and scientific fact through his gripping works of fiction. His books span numerous genres—suspense, science fiction, military, historical, and more—and Mayer holds the distinction of being the only male author listed on the Romance Writers of America Honor Roll. As one of today’s top-performing independent authors, Mayer has drawn on his digital publishing expertise and military exploits to craft more than fifty novels that have sold more than 5 million copies worldwide. These include his bestselling Atlantis, Area 51, and The Green Berets series. Alongside his writing, Mayer is an international keynote speaker, teacher, and CEO of Cool Gus. He lives in Knoxville, Tennessee.

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