“We’re not reporters,” the Colonel said. The wife’s face twitched, suggesting that he’d guessed correctly. “We’re from the General’s former command, come to pay our respects.”
The General’s wife studied them carefully for a long moment. Military wives spent quite a bit of time around their husband’s commands and some of them were often quite familiar with the soldiers under his command. On the other hand, they had been living in Washington rather than a military base for the last few years. The Colonel quietly prayed that he looked old enough to pass muster as one of the General’s first subordinates. Thomas had been a junior officer when the Colonel had been mustered out of the army.
“Come on in,” she said, finally. “He’s in his office.”
The interior of the Colonel’s house was far more tasteful than the outside, with a number of paintings hanging from the walls, illuminated by glowing lights set into wooden panelling. There were no signs of children, which struck the Colonel as odd; he’d had a wife and a family while he’d been kicking Saddam’s ass in Desert Storm. Maybe the General’s wife was barren, or maybe she simply didn’t want children. The Colonel had met a few military wives who fretted about what would happen to their children if their husband died.
They stopped outside a wooden door. “Elliot,” the General’s wife called, “you have visitors.”
The Colonel braced himself as the door swung open. It was clear that the General had been allowed to decorate the room to his own personal satisfaction. A single bookcase, crammed with books, dominated one side of the room; a second wall was covered in plaques and other legacies from his former stations around the world. The Colonel noted that some of them came from Ranger and Delta Force units and nodded in approval. Anyone who had served besides or commanded such units would have to win their respect to get a plaque. Some other units could always be depended upon to produce something even if their former CO had been incompetent or cruel. There were sycophants everywhere.
General Thomas looked up at them from a desk covered in writing papers. The Colonel, who was old enough to recall the somewhat painful process of racial integration in the military, was pleasantly surprised. General Thomas might be wearing civilian clothes, but he managed to make it look like a uniform; his shaved head seemed to glisten in the light. There were plenty of officers who managed to look good everywhere, but the battlefield, yet Thomas had definitely seen the elephant. He had the look of a man who had little fear left in his soul.
“Visitors,” he repeated. He quirked one eyebrow. “You do realise that I’m legally allowed to shoot reporters?”
“Very funny, sir,” the Colonel said. He produced his notepad and held it out for the General to read. “Here are my credentials.”
He saw the General’s dark eyes narrow. The message read THE ALIENS ARE BUGGING YOU. NOD ONCE IF YOU UNDERSTAND.
The General nodded once, quickly. He picked up a pen and wrote a second message under the first in neat handwriting. WHO ARE YOU?
THE RESISTANCE, the Colonel wrote. YOUR LIFE IS IN DANGER. YOU NEED TO COME WITH US.
I CAN’T LEAVE MY WIFE, the General wrote. HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT WE WILL BE SAFE?
The Colonel almost smiled. THE US IS IN DANGER, he wrote. NO PROMISES OF SAFETY ALLOWED.
Thomas chuckled. “Well, that is all very interesting,” he said, aloud. He glanced down at the notepad and started to scribble another note. “I’m afraid I have no interest in serving as a lobbyist for your form.”
He passed the notepad over to the Colonel. WHEN DO WE LEAVE?
ASAP, the Colonel wrote. GRAB YOUR OVERNIGHT BAG AND YOUR WIFE’S BAG. WE NEED TO MOVE NOW.
It was at that moment that they heard the gunshot.
Julius Davenant disliked working with a partner, let alone three others, all of whom had dubious reputations for loyalty, but the orders from their employer had been strict. He also tended to dislike working on American soil — the FBI was one of the better detective agencies on Earth — yet he’d swallowed his fears. The money they were being paid was enough to allow him to retire to the Caymans or some other place where he could change his name and vanish into the multitude. Besides, he had to admit that all of the assignments so far had been ridiculously easy.
The car pulled up beside the General’s house and they checked their weapons automatically. Washington’s police department wasn’t the best in the nation, but no one expected the cops to hesitate when it came to sending cars out to see who was firing shots in one of the wealthier areas. The people who lived here were important; they paid taxes. A failure to get the cops out on time, even if it was physically impossible, would result in mutual recriminations and job losses.
“Target the thumper now,” he ordered, as he switched his cell phone off. He’d paid good money for a model that was almost impossible to trace, at least not very quickly. Given access to the full resources of the NSA, the Washington PD might be able to trace the phone — but by then it would be buried or somewhere under the Potomac. “Hit it as soon as you’re ready.”
One of his comrades looked up from the small device. “Thumper ready,” he said. “Now?”
Davenant scowled. “Now,” he ordered. The Thumper made a sputtering noise as the switch was pushed. “Come on; hurry.”
The four men climbed out of the car and headed for the house. If anyone had stopped to question them, they would have explained that they were federal agents — and they had ID to prove it. Their employers had provided the ID and, just out of curiosity, Davenant had had them run through the databases. They weren’t just impressively clean; they were real. And that meant that whoever was paying them was so highly placed in the government as to be nearly untouchable. His coat shivered around him as a blast of cold wind caught him in the face, but he didn’t let go of his weapon. The Thumper might have taken care of all the local security systems in the area, yet any professional knew how quickly things could go wrong.
He scowled as he saw the door. If he was any judge, the flimsy wood panelling would be concealing something a lot stronger, making it almost impossible to kick down. Instead, he pushed one finger against the buzzer and smiled to himself as he heard the machine playing inside the house. If they were really lucky, the General himself would come to the door. The contract only demanded the General’s death, but he wouldn’t hesitate to kill the General’s wife if it meant the difference between getting away clean and spending the rest of his life in a maximum security prison. Anyone who could identify them had to die.
The door slowly opened, revealing a black woman who scowled at them suspiciously. God alone knew what she thought they were, but as her eyes opened wide Davenant pushed his gun against her chest and pulled the trigger. The heavy bullet slammed into her chest and she tottered backwards and fell to the floor, blood splashing out of the wound in her body. Davenant was already stepping over her gasping mouth and heading inside. They had to find the General and execute him before he escaped, leaving them without their pay and a murder rap. Behind him, one of his comrades dragged the body inside and closed the door behind them. No one would find the General’s wife until it was far too late.
“That was a gunshot,” the Colonel snapped. He had his pistol out at once, looking for trouble. Someone was breaking into the house. He skimmed through his memory of their walk through the house to the study and realised that it would take several moments for the enemy to track them down — unless, of course, they had the General’s wife in their hands. She could tell them exactly where to find her husband. “How do we get out of here?”