Overlord (44 page)

“I am here to represent the asset you now know as Magic. To preserve his rights as a free citizen of this country, and his right to remain anonymous in the face of the situation he is involved in. He is a private citizen. I represent Mr. Mahjtic Tilly, and his legal guardian, Augustus Tilly, both residents of the State of Arizona.” He took his seat once more.

Daniel Peachtree was shocked but kept the emotion in check, as he had just confirmed the fact that this Magic
was
the asset that was being hunted by Hiram Vickers and his Black Team. He placed a hand on the president’s arm and patted it lightly, indicating that he should hear Lee Preston out.

“As to Dr. Virginia Pollock, she is here because she has been tasked, through presidential order, to look after and secure the subject known as Magic. And at this moment she is under the protection of that same presidential order.”

Camden didn’t like the smug look on Preston’s face as he held eye contact with the counselor. He quickly decided to allow the matter to rest as he knew that Peachtree wanted to pass something along to him later.

Before Preston could continue the men inside the glassed-in conference room saw the activity in the strategic center below pick up as several screens came alive with a satellite view of Texas. At that moment a Marine courier entered the room and passed a note to the president.

“This is why we are pulling out of any agreement my predecessor has made to this council.” He held up the note just as the red alarm lights started flashing below in the information center.

“What is it, Mr. President?” the prime minister asked, fearing the worst.

“First, the Pakistani Air Force has gone to full nuclear alert for preparations to defend themselves against the attack in India. They say they will not allow the saucer to move on them after they have finished in Mumbai. They said they will destroy the landing craft before they can move against Pakistan. They claim the Indian government has not done everything in their power to stop the enemy. Thus, the Indian government has reciprocated and brought their border forces to red alert for action against their neighbors if they move to strike at the alien assets at Mumbai.”

The prime minister lowered his head as he saw Overlord vanishing before his eyes.

“What else, sir?” Peachtree asked. His assessment of the situation as explained to the president earlier had come to fruition.

“Houston, the Johnson Space Center in particular, is now under full-scale enemy attack.”

With that short and blunt announcement that history may never record, the coalition of allied nations disintegrated.

11

JOHNSON SPACE CENTER

HOUSTON, TEXAS

Admiral Carl Everett watched the drill being conducted by SEAL Team 5 out of San Diego. The action was taking place underwater in the large Space Center pool. Everett was there also, wearing the bulky spacesuit that had been trimmed down from its nominal requirements for space excursions. He hated the feeling of restriction the suit added to an already difficult training exercise. This was coupled with the simple fact that he was still in the dark as far as his mission parameters were concerned. He was working closely with a mix of navy personnel and Delta Force of the U.S. Army.

The specialized commando force was working as a team. The SEALs were the access assault team and the Delta personnel the action team that would enter the target and set an explosive device that the military had yet to explain. Carl’s job was to make whatever their mission truly was go off without a hitch. Thus far they had been training in a near-weightless environment against a mockup of a metallic access point that the SEALs would breach and then secure the interior compartments of an as of yet undisclosed alien location. Before breaking ties with the coalition, the Chinese had forwarded the specs for the entranceway through photo recon of the Beijing craft. Still, Everett came to the conclusion that because of security, or the fear his units would be captured because of the events at sea and in Iran, his mission would undoubtedly fail because of a lack of free-flowing intel.

He had spent very little time with Master Chief (retired) Jenks as the mad engineer was off in the simulator area working on one of his strange vehicles. Everett thus far was not pleased at what he had been seeing as far as cooperation between the Army and the Navy. The Delta men complained bitterly that it was taking the SEALs far too long to gain access to the mock-up of the two large metallic doors, and that they, the interior team, were being left exposed outside whatever craft it was they were assaulting. Instructors inside their small cubicle kept blowing horns when the team, in their estimation, had been wiped out before entering. Where these fail-pass parameters came from Carl didn’t know, but he was determined to find out. He could not train men like this.

The Delta team was limited as far as the weapons they carried and complained bitterly that the SEALs had all of the serious firepower. Delta carried strange-looking sidearms that were mocked up in plastic and they resembled no handgun they had ever seen. The SEALs had a much stranger shoulder-fired assault weapon and had no idea how it worked. Again, training blind was the way Carl looked at it. He was becoming furious at the strange compartmental way the secret project was being run.

The design bureau at the DARPA—Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency—complex next door said they would have working weapons within the week. Everett wasn’t so sure about the estimate when he saw Master Chief Jenks raise his brows in doubt at the claim while attending a design meeting. When they asked the master chief about the progress of the assault platforms he shook his head and smiled.

“Well, if you consider the fact that we have blown up in simulation no less than fifty-seven times, and the two ships have collided only twelve times with the simulated loss of all onboard, if that’s progress, then yes, the
Asimov
and
Heinlein
are almost certainly ready to go.” That comment was the forbearer of the explosion of temper from the master chief claiming that he couldn’t run his shop like this.

Carl was as lost as ever as Jenks had refused to divulge the nature of the project he was in charge of. He had hints when Jenks had claimed on more than one occasion that the NASA, Boeing, Lockheed, and DARPA engineers he was working with were a bunch of candy-asses that were good for nothing other than protecting their own skins. He knew it was a vehicle of some kind and that his men, his uncooperative assault element, would use the two vehicles to enter some sort of alien craft. He was lost after that as the “need to know” was driving him crazy.

Everett slapped the side of the clear visor–encased helmet when his communications shorted out. He shook his head inside the environmental suit as this was the fifth time he had lost communications with his assault teams.

As he slapped his helmet again, he saw one of the SEALs turn and shove away the Delta commando who was looking over his shoulder and giving his unwanted advice as he was trying to assist laying the explosive against the mock-up of the entrance point. Several other SEALs joined the first and then they were soon at odds with five more Delta team members as they all came together in a shouting match. Everett shook his head and then pushed off from the bottom of the giant water-filled tank. Two navy divers hooked his breathing pack to a hard point and then hoisted him up and out of the pool. As the divers released him to the deck team, Everett pointed harshly to the helmet as it was removed.

“The goddamn radio shorted out again. Tell whoever designed this fucking thing that it’s for shit. It may work well in space, but a water environment? It leaves a lot to be desired. Now someone get on a radio that works and get those idiots to the surface!”

The assistant handlers had never seen the admiral lose his temper before and they were humbled as they moved off to get his commando teams out of the pool.

As Everett was stripped out of the tight-fitting environment suit he was approached by the man running this insanity, General Perry Cummings, commander of the Space Center special training unit.

“Look, Perry, I need to know what in the hell this fucked-up team is supposed to assault. I haven’t a clue and don’t hand me this ‘need to know’ bullshit. In case these boys or I are captured before the mission sets off, we’ll blow our own damn brains out. Now get me some answers.”

“Carl, I really don’t know. This shit is so compartmentalized we’ll be lucky to have men that speak the same damn language.” The general, a Marine Corps two-star, the same rank as Everett, helped him slip on a white robe with the NASA emblem embroidered on the breast. “All I know is that the men we were given is all the Army and Navy can spare. The Air Force commando teams have been secured for whatever project is happening with the alien power plant. The rest of the Navy and Army units are off gallivanting around with a general named Collins somewhere in the world.”

“Collins? You mean Jack Collins?” Carl’s astonishment was written on his face.

“That’s the scuttlebutt I hear. Do you know him?”

“Yes, I do know him, and now I wonder what new and inventive way the Army has designed for killing him.”

“Probably not as inventive as what NASA has planned for you, would be my guess.”

Everett nodded and smiled briefly at the general as he tossed the man his towel. He heard the argument reconvene on the surface of the pool between the SEALs and Delta teams. He regained his land legs and slowly and deliberately walked to the far end of the giant pool as the men were hoisted from the water.

As the admiral approached the men still arguing over the finer points of ingress into a sealed target, they noticed the admiral had a very serious scowl on his face. The large, former SEAL took in the men as they were mostly in a state of undress. They turned and halfheartedly stood at attention. Everett saw the sloppiness their basic training was displaying.

“Is that how the Army teaches you to stand in the presence of your commanding officer?” he asked the young Delta captain in the center of the group. “You assholes have been off in the wilds of Afghanistan far too long. Back in the world you are soldiers again.”

The man stood ramrod straight, as did his bearded Delta team. Everett turned next to the lieutenant commander leading the SEAL detachment.

“And the last time I commanded a team, we didn’t start fights with other team members.”

“I … I…”

“What, Commander, are you having trouble speaking?” Everett admonished. “This crap has to stop and stop now. Delta, you stay clear of those hatchways until you are called in. SEALs, get that damn hatch open faster, these men are sitting ducks to enemy fire while you play with that explosive. If you don’t work together you’ll all get your asses flamed in the first minute of the assault!” He saw a young SEAL with a blond beard that had yet to see any thickness to it. He was too damn young. “What is it?” Carl asked, making the boy flinch back.

“I … well, we heard, sir, that this was a one-way mission.”

“So, aren’t SEALs and Delta used to that? Every time you put on assault gear someone is trying to kill you, both on the enemy side and ours. Now get over it. We have millions of people dying out there and they expect you to do something about it. You want out?”

The young SEAL looked insulted. “No, sir, of course not.”

“Do any of you want out?” Everett demanded as he looked from bearded face to bearded face. No one moved or answered. They all looked at their bare feet. “Now get that fucking gear back on and the next man that doesn’t cooperate with his brother—and you are all brothers regardless of pretty uniforms,”—he thought of Jack, Will, and Ryan—“I will personally make sure his life is a living hell, because I will ship all your asses off to military reservation land reclamation. That means you’ll be draining swamps for the rest of your worthless careers. And believe me, gentlemen, it will take approximately a decade to process your resignation requests. Am I getting through to you prima donnas?”

The two officers leading the assault teams stood rigid and that told Everett they did indeed understand. The two captains were stunned to be dressed down in front of their men.

“Now, get back in the water. And remember this, you assholes: you’re not going up against a bunch of backward-assed terrorists on this one. These things will have new and inventive ways of killing every one of you. Then after that they will come down here and use the same methods on little Sally and Billy and Mom and Pop, got it?”

Before the men could answer alarms started sounding throughout the complex. Air Police and NASA security personnel started running and warning men to get to their designated shelters.

Everett grabbed ahold of the first passing airman he could reach. “What is it?” he yelled over the din caused by the alarms.

“Houston and the Space Center are under air attack. All of your men must get to the hardened shelters immediately!”

Carl didn’t know how, but the enemy had discovered the fact that a plan was being worked out, no matter how bad that plan was, and decided to put up a fight.

The Grays were striking at the heart of the American space program.

Everett, instead of running for the designated deep shelter for his command, made sure his men were secured and then sprinted for the roof of the large training facility. He had to be witness to the defense of the Center. He had to know the capabilities of what his team was up against firsthand.

The first explosions rocked him as he struggled to climb the steel stairs. Carl lost his balance and started to fall backward as the loose-fitting robe tangled his legs. He thought he would tumble down the two flights of steps when two large hands grabbed him and pushed him forward.

“Come on, twinkle toes, don’t want to lose you now,” Jenks said, and ruthlessly pushed him up the stairs.

The master chief too was climbing to the roof to see what they were up against.

*   *   *

The twisted form of the wormhole had started over the Galveston area. It had snaked and crawled the distance between the island and the outskirts of Houston. This time as soon as the formation of clouds was recognized for what it was the combined strength of the 149th Fighter Wing lifted off the ground. The Air National Guard unit had been brought together in one spot for a combined strength of over forty fighters, eighteen F-15 Eagles, and twenty-two F-16 Fighting Falcons. They would support the ground element made up of the Army’s 3rd Cavalry Regiment.