“With our own sword,” Turcotte said, more to himself than Yakov.
“What?” The Russian leaned closer.
“We were attacked with our own weapon.”
“What was in there?” Yakov asked.
“The bodies of the two STAAR personnel we killed. The scientists were still working on the bodies, trying to figure out how much was human and how much was alien. Eight people were killed in the blast.”
“It is the price of war,” Yakov said.
“We’re not winning the war,” Turcotte said.
Yakov didn’t reply to that. He reached up and made sure his hat was still attached. “We could have waited in the hangar.”
“Too many prying eyes and inquisitive ears in there,” Turcotte said. Yakov laughed, a deep rumble that was ripped away by the wind. “You are learning. Paranoid is good. Paranoid keeps you alive.”
“Major Quinn is doing an electronics sweep of the Cube… the underground operations center for Area 51 where you met him. Once he’s sure it’s secure… and Dr. Duncan gets here… we’ll meet there and figure out what we’re doing.”
“Do you trust this Major Quinn? Was not he a member of Majestic-12?”
“I don’t trust you, never mind Major Quinn,” Turcotte said, turning from the destroyed hangar to watch the runway, or at least the small portion he could see. “Quinn wasn’t on the inner circle of MJ-12, just their military liaison in the Cube… more of a technical guy than an actual operator. And you were a member of Section Four, right? Which was the Soviet’s equivalent of Majestic, so I don’t think you have much right to be questioning Quinn’s loyalty.”
“I may be all that is left of Section Four,” Yakov said. “And we did not try to fly the mothership. Your Majestic was infiltrated by the Tiahuanaco guardian computer. I do not know if Section Four was infiltrated, but I do know it was destroyed by these aliens or their minions. I no longer know what is what and whom to trust.”
Turcotte nodded. “That’s something we need to talk about when Duncan gets here.”
“Do you trust anyone?” Yakov asked.
“Do you?”
“No one completely. You did not answer my question. Is there anyone you trust?” Turcotte’s answer was brief. “Dr. Duncan.”
“Why?”
Turcotte didn’t reply.
“You must think with your head, not your heart,” Yakov finally said. “I am,” Turcotte said shortly.
“I have seen the way you two look at each other. Such feelings can interfere with… ”
Turcotte turned, looking up at the Russian. “I’m thinking with my head, but I trust with heart. Maybe that’s something you could learn.” He reached out and tapped the large man’s chest. “I almost trust you after what happened at Devil’s Island.” Turcotte returned his attention to the runway.
Yakov smiled. “Almost. That is good. That is as far as we should take things. In our profession it is never good to deal in absolutes.” The smile disappeared. “Let me ask you something, my almost trusted friend. Dr. Duncan got you involved with Area 51 and Majestic-12 in the first place, correct?”
Turcotte nodded, then realized the other man couldn’t see the gesture as a blast of wind reduced visibility to zero. “Yes!” he yelled.
“How did she know of what was going on here? Of Majestic-12?”
Turcotte had never really thought about that, and he hesitated answering. He decided to get to the other thing on his mind. “What about Tunguska? Why did General Hemstadt mention that just before he died? That we didn’t know what caused it?”
Yakov shook his head. “I have not been able to find out much. Maybe Hemstadt was trying to misdirect us. You have to understand… ” Yakov began, but his attention was diverted; something was moving in the storm.
“There’s the bouncer.” Turcotte waved a flashlight, glad that the conversation had been interrupted. A silver-skinned, disk-shaped object hovered ten feet over the runway, moving slowly toward them. There was no visible means of propulsion and no windows in the skin of the craft, although Turcotte knew those on the inside could see out, the alien technology allowing light to pass through via a technique that those who had worked on the craft at Area 51 had yet to unravel. The bouncer, the nickname for the craft among the Air Force pilots who trained on them, descended until it came in contact with the runway twenty feet in front of Turcotte and Yakov. The official designation for the nine atmospheric alien craft was MDAC, or magnetic drive atmospheric craft. Two had been recovered nearby during the early days of World War II, parked in a cavern along with a massive mothership. That discovery was the reason Area 51 had been located at this remote site, since they had had no way to move the mile-long mothership from its hiding place.
Eventually, from clues discovered in the mothership cavern, the other seven had been recovered from a cache deep under the Antarctic ice. Each bouncer was about thirty feet wide at the base, sloping up to a small cupola on top. There was no doubt that the numerous test and training flights of the craft had led to many UFO sightings and contributed greatly to UFO folklore.
Turcotte had never learned if the craft had gotten that nickname because the people inside could get bounced about so badly or because the craft seemed to literally bounce off an unseen wall when changing direction. The propulsion system was something else that Majestic-12 had been unable to reverse-engineer despite decades of trying. They had determined that it worked off the planet’s magnetic field, and Turcotte knew from personal experience that the bouncers lost power if they were too far from the planet’s surface, but beyond that, they could not duplicate or reverse-engineer a working model.
A hatch on the top of the bouncer swung up and a slight figure climbed out, then down the side of the craft. Turcotte ran forward and handed Duncan a set of goggles, which she pulled down over her eyes.
“The Cube isn’t secure yet?” She was between the two men, their bodies giving her some relief from the dust storm.
“Quinn said any minute now.” Turcotte held up a cell phone. “He’ll call us when it’s ready.”
Duncan nodded. “Good, I wanted to talk to just the two of you alone first anyway.” She looked past them at the ruins of the hangar. “I had a private meeting with the President just before coming here. Cutting through the political double-talk the bottom line is we’re on our own. The destruction of the two space shuttles has shaken the entire administration. Everyone’s afraid to find out how deeply we’ve been infiltrated by either the alien representatives… the Guides/Mission and The Ones Who Wait/STAAR… or the human group, the Watchers. Losing Warfighter and having it used against us was the final straw.”
“Who directed Warfighter to attack the talon?” Turcotte asked.
“The President acceded to the demands of his National Security Council to have Warfighter target the talon. Payback for the destruction of Columbia. It didn’t work the way they had planned. Now they’re afraid of two things. One is that Warfighter can hit any target on the face of the planet. I think the President has visions of a laser blast right through the roof of the Oval Office. The other is they don’t want to admit Warfighter exists. There’s already infighting at UNAOC and among the members of the Security Council. The Russians and Chinese might walk out if they know we put a weapon into space two years ago.”
“So, as usual, they hide the truth?” Turcotte asked.