Overlord (29 page)

All the boy could do was turn his head toward the bunker. Jack released the kid and looked on at the continuing efforts to free all inside. Even Farbeaux was stunned at what he was seeing. Relief flooded their features as they saw the prime minister of Great Britain and then the Chinese president as they were assisted from what now looked like a grave. The Chinese leader looked as if his arm was broken and the prime minister was cut but unharmed. He was desperately pointing back toward the collapsed bunker and insisting that he be allowed to help the rest of the council.

Jack felt his body deflate as a man was brought out, his head and left leg missing. Jack looked around, fearing what was coming next. He glanced at Will Mendenhall and his heart ached for the young captain. Will was so angry that a single tear coursed down his face.

Collins was soon tapped on the shoulder and he turned to see the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He was ragged looking, with his uniform jacket ripped and his face bloodied. He tossed away an old M-16 and as it clattered to the ground he looked at the four men around him. He flinched when the roof of the main house collapsed and a shower of burning embers lit the night around them. The rescue workers were removing many of the house staff covered in sheets or curtains, anything they could find.

“How in the hell did they get so close without us knowing about it?” Jack asked angrily.

“As I’m not supposed to know about you people out in the desert, all I can say is that we were warned at the last second by that asset out there,
Magic.
If we hadn’t been warned none of us would have made it out alive.” General Caulfield wiped blood from his broken nose.

“But how did they get so close, goddamn it?” Jack insisted, as his eyes probed the site for Niles Compton.

“We think they may have arrived early this morning. It was purely a ground assault, which was why that damn wormhole wasn’t large like the others.”

Finally it was Everett who called out. “Niles!” All to a man they ran forward. Niles was covered in blood as he was helped from the rubble. His right hand was held over a large gash in his head that completely covered his eye. Will tore off part of his shirt and applied pressure to the wound. Jack and Carl and even Henri assisted the director over several of the fallen Grays. Will even managed to kick one of the dead beings in the head with brutal force. Suddenly Niles, acting delirious, turned and wanted to return to the smoking hole in the ground.

“The president—we have to get to him!” he cried as he struggled against the restraining arms.

“There he is,” General Caulfield said as he rushed forward.

Niles stilled his protests when he saw his best friend being carried out by five filthy Marines. His arms were hanging loose and as the men watched, doctors ran toward him. Jack’s heart froze as he watched the president of the United States laid on the ground. Caulfield turned and faced the men.

“He’s out cold, has a massive gash on his head, and he may lose an arm—it’s crushed bad. God, what are we…” The general looked up and grabbed the first Secret Service agent he could find. “Get the word out: the vice president needs to return ASAP to the capital.”

Niles collapsed into the arms of his men. The president was hurriedly rushed to a waiting Marine Black Hawk and was immediately lifted out, along with the Chinese president.

Caulfield again grabbed for a man. This one was a Marine medic who had been working on the president.

“Is he going to make it?” he shouted.

The young medic shook his head. “He’s bad, real bad.” The boy ran off to assist in the treatment of other wounded people.

Jack assisted the director to the ground and saw that Niles’s right side had taken a devastating beating. He knew the man was going to at least lose his right eye, and his left arm had to be shattered.

“General, you had better get to the vice president soon. This may not be over.”

“Look, we passed the information along, but—oh, hell, I would want to know if I were you,” Caulfield started to tell Jack, “because I know you have people in theater, Magic also relayed that there may be a massive wormhole forming over Iran.”

Jack stopped briefly as his thoughts went out to Sarah and Ryan. Then he just nodded his head once at the chairman and then pushed Everett, Mendenhall, and Henri forward.

The men started to assist the Marines, Secret Service agents, and firemen helping the survivors. Henri started to follow but a long-fingered hand wrapped around his ankle, stopping him. The others stopped and turned and saw that a surviving Gray had stopped the Frenchman. The being was uttering something Henri couldn’t understand. With a quick look at Jack and the others the former special operations man for the French army leaned down and pulled the long, spotted, and sickly fingers from around his ankle. He squatted over and stared at the Gray for a few seconds. Eyes much smaller than Matchstick’s obsidian ones gazed up at Henri with their yellow tint, the mouth working enough that he could see the creature’s small, clear teeth. The Gray had three bullet wounds to the chest and abdomen. The clothing it wore was jet black in color, highlighted with purplish hues.

“Let me be the first to welcome your kind to Earth,” Henri said as the others watched with interest. Even General Caulfield was interested in what the Frenchman was up to.

Henri Farbeaux slowly stood up and, with the eyes of an enraged mercenary, raised his right foot and brought it down on the Gray’s neck, easily snapping the strong spine.

They all realized at that moment just what kind of war was being brought to Earth’s doorstep.

7

SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

Before Vice President Sol Stevens knew what was happening, ten Secret Service agents and as many of San Francisco’s finest had whisked him out the back doors of the new terminal building he was dedicating. He was roughly shoved into the back of an SFPD SWAT van and moved to the east end of the airport. He was held in place by SWAT team members who hadn’t issued one word to explain the situation.

The van soon stopped and the rear doors opened and three men climbed in beside him. One of these men was his chief of staff, who was visibly shaken to a point that he looked like he was going to be sick.

“What in God’s name is going on, Stanley?” Stevens asked as the door was closed. The van once more sped off, followed by ten police cars and as many motorcycles with sirens wailing and lights flashing.

Stanley Whalen had been with the VP since he was twenty-two and was thrilled when the president had chosen his man after the former vice president was ousted before the last election. Now he wasn’t so sure it had been a good thing. He choked out something that was incomprehensible. It was the second man who answered for him when the assistant broke down.

“Sir, the president is close to death at this moment. Camp David was hit with a strike team as yet unidentified.”

“Who in the hell are you?” Stevens asked, straining to hear over the wailing sirens.

“I’m Frank Deveroux, special agent in charge of the San Francisco FBI field office.”

“Who hit Camp David?”

“That has not yet been confirmed, but the president is in surgery at this very moment. The German president is dead, the Russian president won’t make it, and the other members of the summit are bad off. Most of the president’s staff is dead. We have to get you to Oakland and a secure location ASAP. The president is unable to perform the duties of his office. Do you understand what I am saying, sir?”

Vice President Stevens sat heavily against the side of the large, black van as the eyes of every man inside looked toward him.

The VP looked into the agent’s face. “Was it…” He looked at the SWAT members guarding him, but thought he didn’t care about security, especially since the president was supposed to have explained to the world what was really happening. “The Grays?”

The agent nodded his head just once. “Right now we have an Air Force Pave Low waiting to take you to the Presidio. We have word out and the airport is going to close down immediately.”

The vice president, along with most citizens of the planet, had not fully understood the nightmare scenario the president had tried to explain to them. Now it hit home that this was not some fictional story or new game that just came on the market—this was going to be a war, one that he prayed they had prepared for.

*   *   *

Ten minutes later, with ten F-15 Eagle fighters flying overhead for protection, the Air Force MH-53J Pave Low III helicopter slowly lifted free of the tarmac as aircraft of every kind was being cleared from the skies. The giant five-bladed rotors crushed the air around it as it rose into the sky, flanked by two Apache Longbow attack helicopters. The helicopter dipped its nose and fought its way into the sky just out over the bay.

*   *   *

Flight leader Sam Ellington, better known as “Viper,” led his flight of ten F-15s as they supplied combat air cover for the Pave Low. He was flying low in, dangerously close to the commercial flights inbound to San Francisco, frightening more than one pilot until they screamed bloody murder to San Francisco control at the dangerous conditions.

“Hercules flight, we have an intermittent contact bearing three-five-seven degrees heading your way. Flight speed estimated at four-seven hundred kilometers per hour. Suspected contact is confirmed hostile. You are free to engage. Say again, you are weapons free,” came the call from the Naval Air Station in Oakland. “We have support coming in from USS
George Washington,
six Hornets on your six, over.”

The only answer from the Air Force flight leader was two clicks on his radio. He was thinking that the Air Force would not need support from the Navy on this one.

“Air Force Pave Low, hit the deck and scatter to dry feet, over.”

The giant helicopter dropped low and when only ten feet from the choppy bay waters leveled out and made a run for land.

The small saucer was almost invisible as it came in from the sea. It flew beneath the Golden Gate Bridge and swooped low over the waters of the bay. It capsized over twenty sailing vessels out for the beautiful evening as its V-shaped vortex shattered the waters around them. The flight of fighters turned to meet the incoming threat as it slowed to under Mach speed for its attack run. Flight knew immediately that the small craft was coming for the man they were protecting.

“Hercules flight, engage!” he ordered. The F-15s broke and peeled off in twos to meet the incoming threat. As the giant Pave Low made for the docks near Fisherman’s Wharf, the fighters started launching long range AIM-120 AMRAAM radar-guided missiles at the small attacker. The saucer jigged and then went low, confusing the seeker heads of the advanced missiles with its speed and maneuvering. The missiles struck water and several large container ships by accident. The evening sky was illuminated as an oil tanker exploded with a blinding flash. The saucer rose before a second volley of missiles could leave the rails.

The Pave Low never stood a chance as the saucer easily sidestepped the protection of the fighters as it made its attack run. The initial laser flash missed the helicopter and slammed into the sea with a loud hissing noise, but then the beam was adjusted until it contacted the aluminum housing of the giant Air Force bird. It sliced through the tail boom and the Pave Low spiraled into the sea, to break apart in the water.

As the small saucer, measuring no more than fifty feet at its widest point, turned nose up, five AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles struck its rear section, pushing it down into the sea. The saucer, now smoking, rose once again. Five more missiles struck and it wobbled, then briefly made for higher altitude. But its momentum ceased and the saucer crashed into a very crowded Fisherman’s Wharf and exploded, killing well over a thousand people.

The second assassination inside the American chain of command had taken place and the might of the U.S. Air Force had been powerless to stop it.

UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

BIRJAND, IRAN

Sarah watched as the massive alien power plant was lifted free of the science building, through the giant skylight that had been built when it first arrived five years before. The circular engine was taxing the crane used to lift it. The cables strained and the Russian engineers cringed every time the wind gusted to fifty plus miles per hour. Sarah glanced at the sky and then toward the plastic shrink-wrapped engine as it finally settled on the bed of the Iranian army’s largest transport. As she allowed her nerves to settle she felt the first drops of cold rain strike her face.

Jason Ryan and Mossad agent Anya Korvesky approached. Anya had now been officially cleared by the president and the Russian authorities to be officially on location. The Israeli prime minister, as well as Rouhani of Iran, had been thoroughly briefed on the new alliance of nations and were fully onboard. Egypt, Syria, Afghanistan, and India were not.

“I don’t care for the looks of this. The Russian military meteorologists said this formation of clouds has sprung up from nowhere.” Sarah felt the electricity in the air. She used her hand to brush the hair on her head back into place.

“I’ve never seen anything like this in this region. There are storms over the Caspian Sea quite often, but never anything that resembles a hurricane,” Anya volunteered.

They turned toward the sky and braved the unusually cold rain drops to see the clouds as they formed and then were snatched away, where they joined others in a massive swirling pattern that reminded Ryan of a vortex of draining water. They could see very clear sky at the exact center of the cloud formation. Small particles of hail started to fall.

“Jason, remember the Magic briefing about the formation of wormholes?” Sarah asked.

“You don’t think this—”

“Yes, that’s what I think. It’s a wormhole.”

At that exact moment sirens sounded and Russian and Iranian military personnel started to scramble around the university. Sarah was shocked to see over a hundred Iranian Zulfiqar tanks, the new armor built by Iran to combat the forces of the West, coming through the main gate of the university. What was even stranger was the fact the 106th Guards Division of the Russian army was riding on the tops of the tanks alongside the Iranian crewmen. They screamed left, right, and were in moments totally surrounding the many science buildings. Iranian infantry from the very units that had been assigned to attack them earlier that day were now on guard and ready to defend the power plant at all costs.