Saucer: Savage Planet (23 page)

The phone on his desk buzzed. His executive assistant. O’Reilly picked it up and grunted.

“That saucer that came in from orbit went back up, or so say the FAA and air force. They aren’t absolutely certain, but they think it’s probably the same saucer. Thing’s now in a polar orbit.”

“Has the press got this?”

“Not to my knowledge. We’re keeping a solid lid on information about saucer and starship movements. Should I inform the president?”

O’Reilly thought His Greatness had enough on his plate just now. “No, and don’t let this leak.” After all, even if hundreds of saucers were scattered from pole to pole in every pond, lake and fishing hole, what could the U.S. government do about it?

O’Reilly was meditating on what might happen if the aliens weren’t the space-cruising diplomats the president seemed to think they would be when the press secretary popped in without knocking. He handed O’Reilly a list of the points he intended to make with the press.

“The First Granddaughter will arrive in an hour,” the mouthpiece said brightly as the chief of staff scanned the list. He kept his job, the chief of staff knew, because he was a consummate actor who could make the most outrageous lies sound plausible.

“We’ve got television crews from every network on the planet out there,” he continued smugly, “to film Amanda coming down the stairs of the helicopter and the president waiting to welcome her. I called her mom to ensure Amanda is bringing her teddy bear. Having Amanda here for the alien arrival has really calmed down the crowds and pols. That teddy bear will be the icing on the cake. Her arrival will make her the most popular female on the planet. Great television, great politics.”

“Let’s hope the aliens don’t eat her first as an hors d’oeuvre,” O’Reilly snarled.

The press secretary’s smile disappeared. “Yeah,” he said slowly, his face growing pale. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Did anyone ever tell you that you’re a moron?”

“My ex-wife. She said that’s why I landed this gig.”

“Get out of here,” P. J. O’Reilly snapped, pointing toward the door. “And knock next time, dammit!”

“So the list is okay?”

“This administration has the situation well in hand—that’s the company line. If you panic the peasants, I’ll have your empty little head bronzed and use it as a paperweight.”

“What about the Russian government? The Russian president says they have known for dozens of years that aliens are here, sneaking around, planning to take over.”

“Aliens could probably do a better job of running Russia than those idiots in the Kremlin.”

“And what about the French government? They say—”

“The aliens can land in Paris if they want the French government’s considered, enlightened, progressive opinion. Or if they want to gobble garlic-flavored snail-eaters. By God, I wish they would make a French port call!”

After the door closed behind the press dude, he got out the Scotch bottle and had another swig. “Screw the French,” O’Reilly muttered.

With bottle in hand he sat staring at the saucer on the television screen. After two more snorts he swiveled his chair and looked out the window at the real thing.

*   *   *

There was a delegation of Philadelphia thugs waiting on the tarmac at Grand Canyon Airport when the Boeing 747-400 deposited Harrison Douglas, Johnny Murkowsky and their mercenaries, whose ranks were swelled by six men waiting for them. Nearby were parked two National Guard attack helicopters.

The two pharma moguls conferred with their troops.

“We know where they are,” one Philly soldier told Douglas. “Got them pinpointed with infrared. Used one of the choppers.”

Johnny Murk looked the choppers over. They had sensors and machine guns sprouting all over and looked rather fierce. “Where in hell did you guys get those things?”

“You can get anything on this planet if you are willing to pay for it. Douglas said you were.”

“Damn right. We want Adam Solo, dead or alive, and hang the cost.”

The Philadelphia contingent smiled benignly. It looked as if they had struck the mother lode. This was almost as good as having access to the U.S. Mint.

“What are we waiting for?” Harrison Douglas shouted, loud enough to be heard by all the troops. “Let’s man up and go get those bastards before the sun sets.”

Johnny Murk put a hand on Douglas’ arm. “Let’s you and me stay out of the choppers. I’ve got this feeling…”

“Bad vibes?”

“Those choppers look tough, but a saucer would make short work of them. Let’s let these guys earn their pay, and you and I will take a guy with a sniper rifle out as close as we can get to the edge. Now wouldn’t be a good time to wind up dead.”

Most days aren’t,
Douglas reflected soberly. They climbed into a van with a shooter with a rifle—his name was Vinnie, he said—and away they went. They were through the gate in the airport fence when the helicopters went over their heads, heading for the rim … and Adam Solo.

*   *   *

The helicopter carrying the first granddaughter landed on the White House lawn just a hundred feet from the stationary saucer. When the door opened Amanda emerged with her teddy bear clutched in her arms. The president was there to meet her. It was the most-photographed arrival at the White House in the history of television. Every network on the globe carried Amanda’s arrival live. The queen of England and Vladimir Putin didn’t get a reception like this, nor did the president of China.

A band played lustily. Amanda waved to the cameras and federal employee gawkers as she walked across the red carpet through a double line of saluting soldiers, sailors and airmen standing at attention, the honor guard, to her grandfather, the president. She gave him a hug, kept a firm grip on the bear with her free arm and took his hand to walk into the White House. Halfway there they paused to examine the hovering saucer. Amanda pointed at some feature, the president nodded knowingly, and they resumed their stroll toward the Executive Mansion.

Reporters shouted questions, which the president and First Granddaughter ignored, yet Amanda let go of her grandfather’s hand to wave. Then she again grasped the presidential appendage and they disappeared into the presidential mausoleum together.

The talking heads on television instantly began analyzing the Little Arrival. She had done it well, they agreed unanimously. The president looked relaxed, and everything seemed well in hand. Experts speculated about what saucer feature Amanda found interesting in light of the fact there were no obvious knobs or appendages protruding from that dark, perfect, ovoid shape.

Obviously the White House wasn’t sweating First Contact with the aliens, the Big Arrival, and the rest of humanity shouldn’t either. After all, they knew things at the White House that the rest of us didn’t. Or so the commentators said.

Perhaps, one curmudgeon suggested on Fox, the Russians had shared what they knew about the aliens with the United States government. This comment led another iconoclast to wonder why the Russians knew more about the aliens than the good guys in the white hats. Away they went on this tangent. One network segued away to various politicians for their thoughts. A competitor network sent its crew across the street from the White House to Lafayette Park for man-in-the-street interviews, carefully ensuring that they got a diverse sample of ages, races, genders and airheads.

Another producer, more enterprising, aired a live interview with a group of old farts forted up in Idaho. The aliens were already here, their spokesman said, and were probably running the White House and Congress. That was the only logical explanation for the last ten years of political theater in Washington. The militia in Idaho shook their rifles at the cameras and flipped the world the bird.

In his office, P. J. O’Reilly nodded in silent agreement at the comments of the forted-up crazies in Idaho, then used his television remote to surf on to yet another network.

Jim Bob Spicer’s face appeared on the screen, and his booming voice filled the room. “Washington is at the root of this
evil.
The wickedness of the sinners who inhabit this Sodom on the Potomac has dragged us to the edge of the pit. We must
repent
to earn salvation!” Spicer had more to say, a lot more.

There,
P. J. O’Reilly thought,
is a truly poisonous man.
He had another snort from his Scotch bottle.

*   *   *

The sound of the helicopters, faint at first but getting louder, alerted Charley, Rip and Uncle Egg. The sound began echoing from the cliffs of the great canyon and sounded somewhat like a percussion band gone mad.

Rip darted into the first room of the ancient cliff house and grabbed his old Winchester and the rest of his box of shells. He climbed to the top level of the house—it was only two stories—and knelt to look out a window. The first helicopter, an evil-looking Apache, circled some distance away.

Then he went back downstairs to join Charley and Egg. “What now, Ripper?”

“Better get that saucer here, Charley, if you can. We’re going to need it.”

“Take a while,” Egg suggested.

“Better late than never.”

Adam Solo dragged himself toward them. The bandage on his back, under his shirt, was leaking again, staining his shirt with blood.

“Just sit here,” Charley said, helping him seat himself against a wall. “You should have stayed where you were.”

“They want me,” Solo said. “Or my body. If they kill me, throw my body into the canyon, then use the saucer to shoot them down.”

Rip said nothing, merely checked that the Model 94 had a shell in the chamber and set the hammer on half-cock. He didn’t take his eyes off the helicopter. It flew out of view to the right.

“They’ll put people on the top of this little mesa,” Charley told him. “They’ll rappel down. When they’re on the ropes, shoot ’em.”

“Better to just scare them off until the saucer arrives,” Egg advised. He was worried. Who knew how many thugs the Big Pharma guys had out there? How, he wondered, had the bad guys found them in this aerie? If the thugs were here, were the U.S. government’s legions close by, coming fast?

Almost on cue, Rip said, “Those are Army or National Guard helicopters.”

“Maybe these are the good guys,” Egg said hopefully, his voice rising in pitch.

The Apache appeared again, this time from their right. Now a loudhailer could be heard. Amid the
whop-whop
echoes and exhaust noises, the words were hard to distinguish. “… Throw down your weapons and come out with your hands up … two minutes … we only want Solo … let you go.”

“I didn’t get all of that,” Rip muttered.

“They just threatened to kill us all if we don’t surrender,” Charley Pine said acidly.

“Saucer on its way?”

“Oh yes.”

Now they heard a chopper on the mesa directly behind them, just out of sight from the Anasazi ruin where they were.

“They’re rappelling down,” Charley shouted, because the engine and rotor noises were now very loud.

“Get your heads down,” Rip roared and settled in with his rifle on the sill of the window. Almost as if he had planned it, the chopper turned so that he had a good look at the right engine nacelle. About a hundred yards, he figured.

He cocked the rifle, aimed and fired. The report was almost lost amid the noise. He worked the lever, chambering another round, and fired at the engine nacelle again. Then a third time.

The chopper accelerated away to their right with its tail up and nose down.

Rip and Charley saw it at the same time: a wisp of smoke trailing behind the machine, which climbed straight ahead for the rim of the canyon, perhaps three hundred yards away and several hundred yards above them.

Charley Pine pounded Rip on his back.

Her second slap missed. Rip rushed through the low door that led outside. He kept close to the adobe wall of the Anasazi house and worked his way to the corner of the ledge. It sounded as if one of the choppers were right over his head.

What, he wondered, if Uncle Egg was right? Could these be army dudes? What if he shot some soldier? How would he live with that?

Rip scanned the ledge above as the sound of the helicopter changed pitch. It sounded as if it were moving away …

He leaned out slightly to see if he could see it above the mesa … and a bullet smacked into the rock just inches from his head, spattering him with rock chips.

Holy…!

Rip launched himself flat on his stomach as another bullet smashed into the wall—right where his head had been.

He got behind a pile of old stones that had crumbled from an Anasazi tower and looked through a small gap in the stones with one eye, examining the edge of the rim. Two men were standing … one with binoculars, it looked like.

Then he saw the prone man, obviously behind a rifle.

A bullet struck the rock just in front of him and threw rock dust in his eyes. He curled up in a fetal position and rubbed his eyes, trying to clear his vision.

That took maybe twenty seconds. The helo above the mesa was gone now. Soon someone was going to come down the ropes, trying to get onto this ledge.

His eyes were blurry … He blinked mightily and rubbed them some more. Eased up to look through the gap in the stones.

The two guys were still standing there like a couple of tourists from Iowa seeing the big ditch for the first time.

Rip eased the rifle through the gap. Cocked it. Rested it right on the stone. He put the front bead on the man with the binoculars and lowered the rear of the rifle so the bead was sticking up a little in the notch.

Then he squeezed that old Model 94 off ever so gently. He knew the muzzle flash would give him away, so he ducked down and was pulling the rifle toward him when another bullet smashed into the rock right above him and whined away.

*   *   *

“I’m hit!
I’m hit! The bastard shot me!”
Harrison Douglas fell to the snow clutching his right arm with his left hand. He looked down. Blood oozed between his fingers.

The prone shooter didn’t look up. He had his cheek weld and was trying to reacquire the kid on the ledge. Lucky. The kid was lucky. He was bobbing and weaving and staying down, showing himself too briefly for the rifleman to get a shot.