“What is going—” Nabinger started.
“Quiet,” Turcotte said. “We’re going to be attacked in a few seconds. Go with her.” He had one of the flash-bang grenades he’d kept from the Nightscape mission in his hand. He pulled the pin and leaned against the door, listening.
Kelly took Nabinger’s arm and led him to the far corner of the room, where Von Seeckt also waited. She handed him a strip of dark cloth cut from the curtain. “Hold this over your eyes.”
“What for?” Nabinger asked.
“Just do it!” Kelly said.
The door exploded in under the impact of a hand-held battering ram and men tumbled in, their eyes searching for targets. They were greeted with a bright bang and flash of white light, immediately blinding all of them.
Turcotte dropped the dark cloth he’d held to protect his vision and stepped among the four men, his arms moving in a flurry of strikes, sending two of them down unconscious in less than a second. He scooped up one of the stun guns from an inert hand and finished off the other two with it as they tried to regain their senses.
“Let’s move!” Turcotte yelled.
Kelly grabbed hold of Nabinger and they headed out the door.
In the van the major tore the headset off and bounced it off the wall, his ears still ringing from the transmission of the flash-bang grenade going off in the apartment across the street.
“They’re coming out!” the lookout man in the front seat of the van yelled.
The major pulled open the side door and stepped out into the street, a silenced submachine gun at the ready.
Turcotte froze, the other three members of his group stacking up behind him. The officer with the submachine gun was joined by a man from the front seat, both pointing their weapons directly at Turcotte.
“Don’t move an inch!” the officer ordered.
“What’re you going to do? Shoot me?” Turcotte said, hefting the stun gun. “Then why’d you use these? You’re supposed to take us alive, aren’t you?” He took another step toward the two men. “Those are your orders, aren’t they?”
“Freeze right where you are.” The officer settled the stock of the gun into his shoulder.
“General Gullick will be mighty pissed if you put holes in us,” Turcotte said. “He might be pissed, but you’ll be dead,” the major returned, centering his sights on Turcotte’s chest. “I’ll make damn—” The major’s mouth froze in midsentence and a surprised look ran across his features.
Turcotte fired at the driver and the stun round caught the man in the chest, and he collapsed next to his leader.
Turcotte glanced over his shoulder. Kelly slowly lowered the stun gun she’d picked up on the way out. “Took you long enough,” he said, gesturing for them to get into the van.
“The conversation was interesting,” Kelly said. “So very macho.” They helped Von Seeckt and a thoroughly confused Nabinger into the back of the van. The street was still deserted.
“You drive,” Turcotte said, standing in the opening between the two front seats. “I want to play with the toys in the back.”
“Next stop, Dulce,” Kelly said, throwing the van in gear and pulling away with a squeal of tires.
“Sir, the team leader in Arizona reports that they’ve lost the targets.” Quinn carefully kept his eyes down, looking at his computer screen.
Three hours of sleep were all that General Gullick seemed to need to operate on. He wore a freshly pressed uniform and the starched edge of the light blue shirt under his dark blue coat pressed into his neck as he turned his attention from reading reports on the mothership. “Lost?”
“Professor Nabinger showed up and the Nightscape team moved in to secure all the targets.” Quinn recited the facts in a monotone. “Apparently, Turcotte was prepared. He used a flash-bang grenade to disorient the entry team. Then, using the stun guns from the entry team, he and the others subdued the van team and took off, driving the van.”
“They have the van?” General Gullick leaned back in his chair. “Can we trace it?”
Quinn closed his eyes briefly. This day was starting out very badly and it wasn’t going to get better as the new information scrolling up on his screen told him. “No, sir.”
“You mean we don’t have a tracer on our own vehicles?” Gullick asked.
“No, sir.”
“Why not?” Gullick raised his hand. “Forget it. We’ll deal with that later. Put out a ‘sight and report only’ to the local authorities. Give them a description of the van and the people.”
He looked up at the large display at the front of the room. An outline of the United States was currently displayed. “I want to know where they’re heading. We’ve got to prevent them from going to the media. Alert Mr. Kennedy to have his domestic people monitor the wires. We get a peep that Von Seeckt has gone to anyone, I want Nightscape there.” Gullick’s eyes flickered across the map.
“Tell those in Phoenix to stay there. I also want Tucson and Albuquerque covered. They’ll stay away from the airports, so we have them on the ground. The longer they’re out there the bigger the circle grows.”
Quinn plunged on. “There’s something else, sir.”
“Yes?”
“The Abraham Lincoln task force is reporting negative on any sign of the foo fighters. They’ve scanned the ocean bottom for a twenty-kilometer circle around where the first one went down and they’ve found nothing. The minisub off the USS Pigeon has combed the bottom and—”
“They stay there and they keep looking,” Gullick ordered.
“Yes, sir.” Quinn shut the lid on his laptop computer, then nervously flipped it open again. “Sir, uh…” He licked his lips.
“What?” Gullick growled.
“Sir, it’s my duty to, uh, well…” Quinn rubbed his hands together, feeling the knob of his West Point ring on his right hand. The questions had been building for too long. His voice became firmer. “Sir, this mission is going in a direction that I don’t understand. Our job is to work on the alien equipment. I don’t see how Nightscape and—”
General Gullick slammed his fist into the tabletop. “Major Quinn!”
Quinn swallowed. “Yes, sir?”
Gullick stood. “I’m going to get some breakfast and then I have to attend a meeting. I want you to relay a message to all our people in the field and everyone working for us.”
Gullick leaned over the table and put his face a foot away from Quinn’s. “We have three goddamn days before we fly the mothership. I’m tired of being told of failures and mistakes and fuckups. I want answers and I want results. I’ve dedicated my life and my career to this project. I will not see it be tarnished or destroyed by the incompetence of others. You don’t ask questions of me. No one asks questions of me. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
CHAPTER 23
“I think I’ll just stay here,” Nabinger said. They were stopped at a small rest area off Highway 60 on the Natanes Plateau. There was a brisk wind blowing out of the northwest and Turcotte was making instant cups of coffee for all of them, using the microwave inside the van and supplies he’d found in a cabinet there. They were seated in the captain’s chairs inside with the side door open.
“We can’t let you do that,” Turcotte said.
“This is a free country!” Nabinger said. “I can do whatever I want. I didn’t plan on being in the middle of a fight.”
“We didn’t plan it either,” Kelly said. “But we’re stuck. There’s more going on here than any of us know.”
“I just wanted some answers,” Nabinger said.
“You’ll get them,” Kelly said. “But if you want them, you have to stick with us.” Nabinger had not reacted too badly to being basically kidnapped and taken away in the van. But Kelly knew his type, as she’d interviewed scientists just like him. Many times the quest for knowledge became more important than everything else around them, including their own personal safety.