The White House: A Flynn Carroll Thriller (25 page)

“Then you do your job, which is to evaluate the warheads at Malmstrom.”

“Are we in danger? Because we have a right to know that.”

He realized that he had to tell them something. He stood up in the aisle. “OK, listen up. We're going to be attempting to see if terrorists who infiltrated the 230
th
Missile Wing at Malmstrom succeeded in sabotage of the missiles, retargeting of the warheads, or any sort of systems revision designed to make the units malfunction in any way whatsoever. Now, with regard to danger. I cannot say that there won't be any danger. What has happened is that an infiltration unit has penetrated into the 230
th
command structure. We know that they deployed missile technicians, among others. They are no longer an actionable unit.”

“What does that mean?” Quint said.

“To be blunt, it means that they're all dead,” Flynn lied. “The 230
th
no longer has a terrorist component infiltrated into it.”

“Then why not use the USAF techs? They know their systems. I haven't been on a missile site in ten years. More.”

This was followed by a murmur of agreement.

Flynn said, As I've said, “we need people from outside. Out of an excess of caution, let's say.” He didn't want to go anywhere near the truth, which was that the airmen involved could be implanted, that there could be biological robots involved, and that therefore nobody at Malmstrom or any other missile site anywhere in the world was to be trusted.

There was silence, then. He could see the questions still in their faces, the uneasy anger there. He knew that they'd all been coerced in one way or another to leave their lives at a moment's notice to do this. None of them wanted to be here. None of them believed his lies.

He went back to his seat. Somewhere down there, the airwaves and the Internet were filling with the story of the mysterious crashes. Soon Diana would bleed his name into the list of victims.

The hours oozed past like dark lava, slow, deadly hours.

He remembered being naked on the moonlit beach at Port Aransas, the surf flinging its mystery up the uneasy strand, their bodies chill in the wind and the flying spray. Her hand in his, a dove at rest.

A partner dies, but the conversation continues on in the mind of the survivor. Slow words in the midnight … her whispered desires, his whispered desires.

Diana gleaming in the bath, her body oozing invitation.

How alone could a man be?

The plane slipped through the sky. Somewhere other minds, cruel, cold, full of the lust of greed, sifted through the sparking electronic threads of life on Earth, looking for a certain strand, the echo of a fragment that would lead them to him.

At the appointed time, they touched down. This once, he'd made it across the bridge of the sky without being attacked. He thought long, though, of the men and women dead in the fields of Ohio and Illinois, whose planes had mysteriously failed them.

On their first operation together, Diana had gotten her whole crew killed except him. He'd thrown it in her face a couple of times, but now that he knew how it felt, he would never do that again, not to her or to anybody else.

The cabin steward, who had hidden in the back when he realized that his plane was carrying civilians, now emerged and cracked the door. With a loud whir, the steps dropped. They had landed not at Malmstrom, but at Great Falls Airport in Montana. The Malmstrom runway had been closed for years, and the only air operations facility there was a heliport.

Flynn waited until the others were filing out, then crossed the windswept tarmac among them. As always, he kept his head down. He hunched to keep his height from being too noticeable from above.

At this hour, with dawn just a red glow on the bare edge of the eastern horizon, the airport was almost abandoned. They walked quickly through its silence.

Before they left the lobby, Flynn gathered them around him. He would not brief them in an air force facility. There was no way to tell who might be watching and listening in such a place. He always tried to brief in unexpected places, at unplanned moments.

“Quint and Bartlett, you're to proceed to Echo 1. Your mission is to choose one of the missiles at random and analyze it. Bartlett, I want the state of the warhead to be evaluated. What is it emitting? Does its condition suggest anything unusual about it? Quint, you determine if the control and navigation systems have been changed or even addressed recently. Is the missile correctly targeted? What is the condition of the system? Could it have been altered or redesigned to give somebody outside of the system access?”

“Hardy, you inspect the missile bodies on Oscar 1. At no time should the three of you be out of each other's sight. The team now present there has orders to stand down when you arrive. If you see anybody else nearby when you are working, all three of you leave the area and radio me at once. Is that understood?”

There was general agreement. “Are we expecting violence?”

“That's an unknown.”

“Shouldn't we be guarded?”

“We go in and out as quickly as possible. You'll be choppered to your sites. Fletcher and Berman, you're to visit each Launch Control Center and evaluate personnel. You've been briefed.”

“These things?” Berman held out one of the temperature sensors they'd been given by Diana before they left.

“Check their body temperature. Then you're to go onto the base itself and do the same with all missile staff there.” He did not add that anyone with an impossibly low body temperature would be dead before sunset.

The silence that fell after he was finished was absolute.

“I'll be with the commandant and available at once by radio. Everybody: If anything—anything at all—falls outside of protocols and standards, I'm going to want an immediate report. Do you all have radios?”

They all did. There was no question in his mind but that Aeon would notice these radio calls, and that was what he wanted. If they took action, he would be able to observe and see what they chose to do.

They proceeded to the Malmstrom flight line in a convoy of SUVs. The abandoned runway was a vast expanse of concrete gleaming in the morning sun, which had just come up over the horizon.

As he watched them go, he wondered which ones might be coming back. His best guess: none.

 

CHAPTER NINETEEN

COLONEL WILLIAM
Finscher had been commander of the 230
th
Missile Wing for four years. He sat across his desk regarding Flynn with a carefully neutral expression.

“I'm sorry to descend on you like this, Colonel. But I'm going to need to ask you a few questions.”

“May I know why you're here? I got notice from the Pentagon an hour ago.”

“It's unusual, I know, and I'm sorry about that. I need this conversation to remain in this room. The first thing I require is a list of all personnel changes on the wing in the past month. I need it in hard copy, handwritten. It must never pass through any electronic device. I need it as soon as possible.”

“Where are you from? Because if there's something amiss in my command, I have need to know on that.”

“Did the secretary brief you?”

“Yep, and never mind the chain of command, I guess.”

“This has to stay as small as possible. I can't tell you where I'm from, and if there is anything wrong here, it has nothing to do with you as a commanding officer and you do not have need to know, I'm sorry. Now, let's refer back to 1967. I assume that you're familiar with what I'm talking about.”

“I am.”

There had been a penetration of Malmstrom's missile systems by glowing objects that had hovered overhead and caused the missles to drop off-line by shutting down their guidance systems. “So my question is, has anything like that happened while you were in command?”

“No.”

“Recently, has anybody reported any glowing objects, disks, unusual events, anything like that near any of the Launch Control Centers or launch facilities?”

“I'm not aware of any reports like that.”

“Would such reports have been made?”

“Standing orders require security personnel to note any unusual event whatsoever.”

“What would happen to a report of a UFO hovering over an LF?”

“The report would be filed.”

“But not transmitted up the chain of command?”

“A flying saucer? No.”

“Then I want any and all security reports that have been filed in the past ten days. Again, hard copy. Nothing electronic.”

“Will you tell me what is going on here?”

“No.”

The colonel went to his feet. “I get an order from the secretary of the air force to give you every courtesy. You have a universal clearance and your people are cleared for all assigned tasks. And I have to say, I'm impressed. But now you sit in my office jabbering at me about flying saucers. Jesus Christ! So let me be frank. The little green men all left yesterday.” He threw himself back down into his seat. “You'll have the paperwork you need in ten minutes. I'd prefer you wait outside.”

Flynn had half-expected something like this, but the intensity of the reaction concerned him, as did its similarity to Bill Greene's reaction. Were both men implanted, and being controlled by the same mind control script?

He got up. “Thanks for your cooperation, Colonel. I'll be glad to wait in the anteroom. I'm sorry to be such a bother.”

“Pain in the ass, to be specific. You got me out of the sack at dawn. I didn't even get a chance at a damn cup of coffee before you're in here grilling me about flying saucers.” He shook his head. “Please step outside, now.”

The phone on the colonel's desk buzzed. He turned quickly to it and grabbed the receiver. For a moment, he listened. Then he said, “Are emergency measures in operation right now?” He hung up. “A chopper is down between here and Echo 1.”

That would be Quint and Bartlett, by far Flynn's most critical team.

“Any more information?” he asked.

“It's down! We'll know more in a minute.”

Flynn's first impulse was to reach out to his people and abort the mission, but he knew that he had to stay at the center of things.

“Are there any fighters in the area? That could get here immediately?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Fighters to escort the other choppers! Here, damnit!”

“No fixed-wing aircraft on the base,” the colonel said coldly. “The runway's been closed for years.”

Flynn knew that fighters probably wouldn't matter in this situation, but Aeon's ships were sometimes careful of them.

“Then I want the other choppers to land right now.”

“Where?”

“Wherever they are, Colonel!”

Finscher picked up the phone and gave the order. Immediately, another line rang. “Yes!” He listened, then slammed it down.

“My pilot and copilot are DOA. One of your guys is DOA. The other is shaken up, but unhurt. They're choppering him in to the base hospital as I speak.”

“Stop them! Do not move any more helicopters without my say-so. Which man is it?”

Finscher returned to the phone. “Keep the helicopter on the ground. Please give me the name of the survivor.” He turned to Flynn. “It's a she. And she's demanding an immediate return to base.”

“Continue her on her mission. Put her in a vehicle. Send vehicles for the others and continue them, also.”

“A man dies and you continue the mission? Without even evaluating your situation?”

“This is war, Colonel. In war you don't stop until you can't go.”

“War with whom?”

Flynn was silent. A moment later, his radio chirped. He listened. It was Will Berman. “We have—”

“Report to the commandant's office immediately. No chopper. Vehicle.” He turned off his unit. No more radio use. Aeon was right on top of this operation and as efficient as always. A moment later, his secure phone vibrated in his pocket. He took it out. “Colonel, leave the office, please.”

He smiled, incredulous, then laughed.

“Get out of here! Now!”

He pushed back from his desk. Regarding Flynn as he might a cobra, he withdrew.

“Go ahead,” Flynn said into the phone.

“I need you back here pronto. Something's wrong with Greene. Cissy just called. He's holed up in the Yellow Oval with the football. He's, like, guarding it.”

“Look, I can't move—we're under attack here.”

“Flynn, don't say that! I need you NOW!”

“I can't fly. They've got the air.”

“OK, look, there is a plane that might make it.”

“Not a TR?” This was a close-in surveillance aircraft that was responsible for half the UFO reports in the world. In fact, it had been developed to mimic some of the functionalities displayed by actual unknown objects.

“I'm pulling it out from Grady right now.”

Grady was an underground airfield that flew TRs up and down the West Coast. The TR was capable of perhaps two hundred miles per hour. “It'll be six hours before it even gets here, and twelve hours to Washington.”

“No.”

“Come on, I know the specs on the aircraft.”

“Not on this one. Get your socks packed, it'll be there in an hour.” She hung up.

He would obey her orders if it made sense to do so. He was in battle here, and maybe he'd be able to disengage and maybe not.

The situation was not only out of control, it was deteriorating fast. He was trapped between two urgent necessities, and that was not how you lost battles, that was how you lost wars.

Fletcher burst into the office, followed by Berman. “We've got a positive,” Fletcher said. “Public relations director, Major George Gleason.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Mobile infrared temp clocks him at eighty-eight Fahrenheit. Humans don't roll that low.”