Close Up the Sky (45 page)

"And what
about you?" Matt asked. "You'll never get away with going back alone.
Or have you and your friends made up a convincing lie to cover that?"

"You’re not
listening, Matt,” Williams said impatiently. “Lies won't be necessary because
I’m not going back either. After I've disposed of the stellarite in a place
where it'll never be found, I intend to make my way to Babylon. Someone with my
talent and knowledge of modern technology should be able to live there quite
comfortably. After all, the people of this era
are
my ancestors."

"Aren't you
forgetting something?" Summerhour interjected. "What about the ships
and the people working the oil fields. There's no way you can dispose of all of
them."

“A good bluff,
Mike,” he replied, “but I think you already know the answer to that.” He looked
at Matt and Taylor, a smile on his face. "Has Mr. Summerhour not told you
two about the Fade Away Directive?"

From the looks on
their faces it was obvious they knew nothing about it.

"I didn't
think so," he said with cynicism. "Let me explain it to you. It's a
little doomsday plan that was designed by your military and its allies to cover
an eventuality just like the one facing them now. They considered every
possible contingency in their efforts to make Babylon Station a success, but
there was always a chance that something might go wrong one day. If it did, all
connection to the modern world might be permanently broken and the people
working the oil fields would be stranded in this time period forever. That's
where Fade Away comes in. It directs the captains of those ships down there to
disembark their crews and any supplies they have left. A few selected officers
will then take all but one of the ships out to deep water where the destroyer
will sink them. After that the warship will use its missiles, guns, and
helicopters to obliterate all traces of the oil fields. There won't be anything
left for archaeologists to find a few thousand years from now. Of course it’s
possible that some scraps of rusted metal might be unearthed, but that’s
considered a negligible risk."

"And the people?
What happens to them?" Taylor asked.

"Well, that's
the fun part," Williams went on. "The supplies and people will be
loaded onto the remaining transport. The captain of the destroyer has been
given authority over the other skippers. His orders are to escort the civilian
workers and navy personnel to any deserted island in the unpopulated world that
he selects. They leave the location up to him so no one in the modern world
will ever know where they went. After they arrive and the passengers disembark,
the two ships are to be sunk in deep water. The people will stay on the island
until they all die from disease or old age."

"And what if
they
don't
die out," Taylor
prompted. "What about descendants, like those of the Bounty on Pitcairn
Island?"

Williams laughed. "That's
just the point, Taylor. There are no women at Babylon Station or any of the
other sites. If the directive is initiated, no one will survive beyond fifty or
sixty years. That's why they call it the Fade Away Directive. It leaves no
trace of what happened here. So you see, the ships will be gone and the oil
field workers will automatically be taken care of by nature. Without the
ability to reproduce, they'll just fade away. And as far as the other agents
who are in the field, since they are working either in singles or small groups
in different time periods, they’re considered negligible. They’ll just blend in
with the local populations until they die." He couldn’t resist an amused
smile at the looks on their faces.

"You've got
it all figured out haven't you?" Matt asked.

"Looks that
way."

"Before you
shoot, just tell me one thing."

"What's
that?"

"If you
wanted me dead, why did you save my life in the desert back at Apache Point? The
sniper could have spared you all this trouble."

Williams pursed
his lips and said, "Oh yes, Osterman. He was supposed to be a professional
assassin, but he turned out to be a bumbling fool. You see
,
he wasn't privy to our plans. He was supposed to kill you, after which I was to
kill him, supposedly in self-defense. With you dead there was little chance of
ever recovering the stellarite, and this trip would have been unnecessary. Only
you moved just as he squeezed off the shot and he only grazed you. You were too
quick for him to get off a second round. Then when you fired the flare and
caught him out in the open I was afraid you might accidentally overpower him. We
couldn't afford for him to be taken alive because he might have talked to save
his own skin. After all, he was just someone who was hired to do a job. When he
failed I started to kill you myself, but then it occurred to me that by saving
your life I might gain your confidence and have an opportunity to tie up a very
important loose end. You needed a friend, and I hoped you might want to keep me
around; maybe even trust me enough to take me with you on this expedition if I
volunteered to go. That way I could not only eliminate you, but also take care
of your brother if we actually found him. His having the stellarite in his
possession was just luck. We never counted on that.”

"But the
sniper shot you, too," Matt retorted.

"That was
part of the plan. To avoid suspicion I had to have something to show when I got
back to Apache Point. And I also knew that the .223 caliber ammunition he was
using wouldn't penetrate the L-suit. It would just give me a large bruise to
prove that I was also a target."

"And what if
it hadn't worked out that way? What if I hadn't agreed to take you along?"

Williams gave a
soft laugh and said, "Then you would have gone the same way as Colonel
Pope. A few drops of a special drug manufactured in my country would have taken
care of that.”

Matt clenched his
fists at his sides. "You said
we
.
Who else is involved in this plot of yours.
"

Williams's eyes
narrowed. "You said tell you
one
thing. That's two." He glanced down at the pack Summerhour had tossed in
front of him. "That's enough talking. All of you move back! Head for those
rocks over there." He waved the gun toward the rocks behind them.

"You pull
that trigger and the sound will carry to the ships," Matt said between
clenched teeth. "They'll be on you before you can escape."

"Maybe, but
I'll have to take that chance," Williams answered. Judging by his smiling
expression, he did not seem to be overly concerned about the noise.

Matt glanced down
at the big knife in his boot. He realized that Williams might not be planning
to shoot them at all. The knife would be silent and equally effective.

Suddenly Summerhour made a break for the guns. Williams opened fire and
struck him twice in the side. The impact from the bullets sent him sprawling
before he reached the weapons, but did not disable him due to the L-suit. He
got to his hands and knees and began to crawl. Williams took aim and fired at
him again, hitting him in the lower jaw. At the same instant Matt grabbed
Taylor's hand and took off full speed toward the hilltop thirty yards away. Williams
spun toward them and rapid-fired several rounds, but missed the running
targets. They reached the crest and dove headfirst on their bellies down the
opposite side with Williams close behind.

Seaman First Class
Roger Hull slipped and fell into the water as he stepped from the rubber boat
onto the shore. He fought to recover his balance and was rewarded by only
getting wet up to his knees. He slapped his hand against his pocket and felt
the small bottle there. He said a little prayer of thanks that he had not
fallen against a rock and smashed it.

"Damn it
all!" he cursed under his breath. "It'll be a happy day in hell
before I volunteer for another one of these details!" But in fact, this
particular assignment was preferred duty and much sought after by the crew of
the
Talon
. He had bribed his shipmate
with two packs of cigarettes to let him take his place in the duty rotation. During
daylight hours the sailors alternated serving eight hours sentry duty on top of
the high hill that overlooked the sea. They had named it ‘Lloyd's Perch’ in
honor of the
Talon's
skipper. It was
the only time they were allowed off the ship, and most of them considered it
prime duty. There was no other way they could escape the crowded confines of
the destroyer and spend time alone. It was also the only time Hull could get
enough privacy to guzzle some of the whiskey he had managed to sneak aboard the
ship before sailing from Pearl Harbor. This was the longest time they had been
away from Pearl, almost six months, and he was running low on all his personal
supplies. Unless they departed for home soon he would be no better off than the
rest of the swabs in the things that really counted: Booze and cigarettes.

He took the
half-pint bottle of Jack Daniels from his pocket and unscrewed the lid. He took
a small sip and enjoyed the burn as the fiery liquid cut a path down his
throat. He sighed, recapped the bottle, and stuck it back in his pocket. He had
three more bottles wrapped in skivvies at the bottom of his sea bag. After
that, the well was dry.

He reached into
the boat and retrieved his food, an M-14 rifle, and two spare magazines of
ammunition. The gun was standard equipment for this assignment, but to him it
was just extra baggage to lug up the hill. The rifles the sentries carried were
all equipped with telescopic sights, and were capable of dropping an enemy at
five hundred yards. They were supposed to be used for self-defense in case any
locals got close to the hill and became a threat, but the land was visible for
miles in all directions from the summit of Lloyd’s Perch, and so far none of
them had seen anything through their binoculars but sandstorms and occasional
flashes of far-off lightning. Hull found it hard to believe that anyone in his
right mind would actually choose to live in such a God-forsaken place. While
standing watches on the hill he had seen lush vegetation growing along the
riverbanks, but a few miles from the water where the buff-colored desert began,
there was little to see. It had never seriously occurred to him that there
might be an actual threat of attack from anyone. It was just too deserted for
that.

He pulled the boat
ashore and tied it to a metal stake that had been driven into the ground at the
dockage. In times past, the skipper had allowed them to be transported to the
top of the hill by helicopter, but that practice had been discontinued two
months ago. It was rumored that the choppers were running low on fuel, and the
skipper did not want to waste any on routine transport. Since that time they
had been using the rubber boat and a small outboard motor for passage between
the observation post and the ship.

For several weeks
Hull had been suspicious that something was wrong. It was not just the
helicopters; there were other things you could pick up on if you were sharp. For
example, the ships in the fleet had been on station here for almost six months
without relief. U.S. Navy vessels did not stay in one place that long unless
they were in dry dock. Moreover, except for the helicopters aboard the
Talon
, the sky had been completely
devoid of any kind of aircraft since their arrival. That in
itself
was not impossible, but it was unusual. Then there was the rumor that a missile
had been fired by the
Broward,
a
destroyer that had been on post here in the past. No one knew who had been on
the receiving end of the missile, only that it had been necessary for the
defense of the construction camps scattered around the desert. The scuttlebutt
was that it was not the first time one of the warships had launched a missile
into the desert under the guise of maintaining the security of the fleet.

Another suspicious
item was all the equipment and personnel that had been landed from the
transports. The
Sidney James
had
unloaded enough gasoline, steel sheeting, pipes, and mechanized equipment to
build a small city. Yet no one knew what was going on upriver except the
officers, and they all had a bad case of tight lip.

Hull and many of
his shipmates also pondered another phenomenon. Six months ago, during a bad
storm, the captain had suddenly ordered general quarters. After the hatches had
been closed and dogged, the ship had heeled hard over. Less than a minute
later, the storm had abated and they were sailing in calm waters again. Some of
the crewmen in CIC said they had almost rammed the
Sidney James
, yet when the hatches were reopened, the other ship
was sailing along beside them. No one had been able to offer an explanation for
that little maneuver, and if anyone mentioned it the officers bit his head off.
But the most suspicious thing of all was the arrival of the submarine. Hull had
seen his share of subs, but he had never seen one cruising on the surface in
foreign waters in broad daylight. Three days ago it had steamed into their
anchorage and disembarked half a dozen men in civilian clothes. The sub's
skipper and the civilians had come aboard the
Talon
and gone directly to Captain Lloyd's conference room where
they remained for the rest of the day. A couple of them, a white-haired old man
and a chubby guy with red hair, were still aboard.

The fact that they
were civilians had caused a lot of buzz among the crew, but nobody had been
able to find out anything. In fact, Hull and the rest of the crew were not even
aware of where they were, and for some reason the
Talon's
navigation equipment would not operate here. His buddies in
the plotting room were unable to provide any information concerning what part
of the world they were in. It was undoubtedly the strangest cruise he had ever
been on. It was all damned unusual, and Hull did not like it.