Encounter Group, page 11
“I hope she has good news,” Martin Cannell said. “I’m getting tired of waiting around.”
“Shut up, all of you!” Amanda barked when the others crowded around her like eager children. “We’ve got new orders.”
“What are they?” one woman named Marsha asked warily.
“We’re going to steal what’s left of the nuclear warhead we wrecked,” Amanda said sternly.
There was a long moment of breathless silence in the farmhouse.
“Isn’t that kinda…risky, Amanda?” Ethel asked.
“It’s got to be done. And we’ve got to move fast. The Air Force could move the warhead to another location at any time. I want half of you to come with me, and the other half will stay here until I call. Volunteers step forward!”
There was another uncomfortable silence.
“I said, volunteers step forward, damn it!”
But no one stepped forward.
“All right, what’s wrong?” Amanda demanded of the fidgeting group.
“Ummm. Some of us feel bad about the people who got killed last time,” Ethel Sump said slowly.
Amanda frowned. “I feel bad, too.”
“Yeah, but you did some of the killing yourself,” someone muttered. “And you got one of us by accident.”
“That’s right,” Ethel said. “And you shot that nice officer. He didn’t do anything. And he was handsome, too.”
“I had no choice, you know. Our glorious work must go on. Or have you all forgotten what this is all about? We’re trying to save the world from itself. If a few people have to die, that’s a small price to pay to keep all the military idiots from blowing the whole freaking world up.”
The others looked at one another sheepishly. No one looked directly at their blonde leader.
“Now I need six people,” Amanda said, placing a hand on the automatic clipped to her Sam Browne belt.
“Okay, I’ll go,” Ethel said. “But no more killing.”
“Me, too.”
“Count me in.”
“Good,” Amanda said, relieved that a full-scale mutiny had been avoided and she wouldn’t have to shoot anyone as an example. Shooting people didn’t seem to solve problems as much as she expected it would. Sometimes it even made things worse.
Giving that realization more thought, she ordered the group to load weapons and equipment into the FOES van.
· · ·
Thad Screiber had chased Unidentified Flying Objects across 47 of the 50 states in his time and had never experienced a close encounter of any kind. Yet he had grossed $25,000 last year alone.
Thad was a writer, and a specialist in UFOs. He had never seen one, didn’t care to ever see one, and if the truth were ever to be known, he did not even believe in them. But he made his living interviewing people who said they saw flying saucers, so he took the subject seriously when he was in the field.
The field this time was Oklahoma, where a flurry of wire service copy about motorists sighting strange objects in the sky brought him running. But in two days he had not been able to locate any one of these people. That was bad. Without interviews, he couldn’t write articles for any of the various magazines that published his work under his various pen names. It didn’t matter who he interviewed, so long as that person could be quoted as having seen something. Thad Screiber was not paid to judge the reliability of those he interviewed.
Instead, frustrated, he drove his Firebird along the highways south of Oklahoma City. He had just decided to return home when he pulled into a roadside gas station.
“Ten bucks, regular,” Thad instructed the attendant, and turned on his pocket tape recorder just in case. “Lot of people claiming to see some strange sights around this area, I hear,” Thad remarked casually.
“Could be,” the attendant said absently, running the hose to the car. “But I ain’t one of ’em.”
“No? To hear some people tell it, the air is thick with flying saucers here.”
“Well, about the only funny thing I’ve seen lately was one of those jazzed-up vans come barreling down the road not twenty minutes back. Come to think of it, it had flyin’ saucers and such stuff painted on the sides.”
“That so?” asked Thad, who decided that “Mystery Van Linked to Oklahoma UFO Sightings” might make an article. “Could you describe it?”
“Well…it was brown, had one of them bubble tops, lots of doodads and the like. Goin’ pretty damn fast, too.”
“That’s interesting,” Thad said as he tendered a $10 bill. “What’s your name?”
“Bill.”
“Okay, Bill. Thanks a lot.”
Thad drove off, dictating into the recorder: “While no one knows the true motives of the mystery van, a gas company official who fearfully declined to give his full name, described the vehicle as brown and covered with cryptic designs. More importantly, his description mysteriously lacked any references to wheels or the driver of this ‘van,’ which he claimed, in awestruck tones, was traveling unusually fast. Was this phantom really an earthly van, or could it have been a drone scouting craft disguised to resemble…”
A roadblock interrupted his narrative. Thad had only to see the sawhorses and military vehicles and uniforms down the road before he hung a U-turn and went back the way he came. A detour brought him west of the roadblock, where trees were thick.
Something tall and metallic glittered beyond those trees and, his curiosity aroused, Thad pulled over, dug out his high-powered binoculars, and clambered to the roof of his car.
What he saw through those binoculars made him forget about Unidentified Flying Objects.
Thad Screiber saw the sun reflecting off a giant crane, which held up what was left of a Titan II missile, while a team of men attempted to maneuver the burnt weapon into one end of a giant canister. The canister was part of an eight-wheeled truck, and Thad recognized it as the kind of truck they used to ferry rockets to launching pads for NASA. Except that this missile was being secretly handled in an Oklahoma wheat field and was shattered beyond repair. Whatever had happened here, Thad knew, the world should know about.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“IT’S AWFUL BIG,” Martin Cannell said for the seventh or eighth time.
“It’s bigger than big,” Ethel Sump breathed. “It’s humongous!”
“Shut up, both of you! I’m thinking.”
“Well, I hope you can think of a way to steal that missile without anyone being killed,” Martin said ruefully. “Especially us. The tires on that missile-carrying thing are about as big as our whole van, Amanda.”
For hours, they had watched the missile-loading operation from a safe distance. They had known something was happening at the SAC base when they were turned away from a military roadblock, so they turned back, stashed the van in a clump of foliage, and infiltrated the cordoned-off area on foot. It had not been difficult because the government had simply blocked all approach routes to the base to discourage traffic. They hadn’t expected foot traffic in such a sparsely populated area.
Amanda had felt good about that, but now she was nervous, contemplating the task of commandeering something the size of a missile-carrier. But now, with the missile loaded and the carrier getting ready to trundle its cargo onto the highway, she was at a total loss for an idea that might work. The truck’s diesel engine sounded like faraway thunder.
“Look! It’s leaving,” Ethel said.
Laboriously, the carrier got underway, its massive tires gouging and chewing the soft earth. A smaller truck followed in its wake, and was in turn tailed by an unobtrusive stepvan. The three vehicles joined up with a number of others on the main read and formed a slow column.
“Wait a minute!” Martin said, grabbing Amanda’s field glasses. “Let me—Hah! I was right. Look—on the side of the thing like a delivery truck.”
Amanda looked. “So? It’s some symbol or some—”
“That’s the symbol for nuclear stuff. You see them on fallout shelters all the time.”
“So what?” Amanda snapped, pulling at her nose.
“I’ll bet the warhead is in that small truck! Sure, they wouldn’t load the whole missile if the warhead was still attached. It would be too dangerous.”
“I think Martin is right, Amanda,” Ethel said loudly. She was beginning to like Martin. And he was single.
“Quiet,” said Amanda, who didn’t like the idea of Martin being right about something for the second time in two days. “Even if that’s true, we’re still going to have to take on that whole group of trucks and soldiers.”
But a moment later, they all saw the moving column divide, with the small truck that presumably bore the warhead taking another fork.
“This is our chance, everyone!” Amanda shouted. “Back to the van. We’re going to head that truck off.”
Even at a dead run, it took a while to return to the waiting van, which was outside the military cordon. Then they had to figure out where the truck was going in order to intercept it.
“Go south, and take the second exit,” Martin told Amanda. “That should take us exactly where we want to be. You know, I’ll bet they deliberately sent the warhead off in another direction. You know, that missile truck is so big, it’s bound to attract attention. But who’s going to notice a dinky little truck?”
Amanda pushed the accelerator to 80. “Maybe,” she said.
There was no sign of the truck in question when they reached the road where they expected it to show up. Amanda stopped, and swerved the van so it blocked the road.
“Okay,” she said. “Weapons at the ready. We’ll just wait for it.”
“I’ve a better idea,” Martin said.
“I don’t want to hear it,” Amanda growled.
“But what’s to stop the truck from backing up and going the other way when they see us?”
That made sense even to Amanda, who was doing a slow burn. Why were men such egotists, she asked herself. Always showing off and grabbing at the credit for everything.
“We’ll split up and hide on either side of the road,” Amanda said quickly, before anyone could make another suggestion, “then jump out and surround them when they stop.”
“I was going to suggest that,” Martin said.
“I’ll bet you were,” Amanda said sarcastically. “C’mon, let’s get to it.”
They got to it, and before long the stepvan with the black-circle-and-three-yellow-triangle symbol for nuclear energy rolled into sight. It stopped close to the gaudy FOES van, and the driver honked his horn twice sharply.
When half a dozen armed commandos jumped out of the trees, he stopped honking and threw the gears into reverse. A bullet knocked the passenger window all over the cab, and he ceased that effort, too. He threw up his hands as the black-clad group surrounded him.
“I’m unarmed,” he called out, which was true. He noticed that most of his assailants were women, and at least two of them were on the chunky side. What the hell’s going on? he thought, as he touched a floor button with his toe, causing a light to go on in the back of the truck, where it would alert a radiation-suited guard.
“Out of the truck,” Amanda ordered.
The driver got out, and as he turned his back on her, Amanda clubbed him unconscious with a rifle butt.
“See? No killing,” Amanda said to all concerned, as they dragged the driver off to the roadside, where he would later be run over by a drunken motorist.
That done, they tried to open the back of the truck. It was padlocked. Standing off to one side, Amanda fired three shots at the lock, two of which caused it to snap open.
When they opened up the back, they found a scarred and blackened nuclear warhead. They also found a guard whose white plastic radiation garments were streaked with his own blood. He gurgled once, dropped his rifle, and then dropped dead.
“Gee, Amanda,” Ethel said, small-voiced. “You must have got him by accident.”
“I couldn’t help it,” Amanda complained. “They should buy them bullet-proof vests or something. Anyway, we’ve got the warhead. Let’s get out of here.”
They shut up the truck. Amanda took the wheel. Ethel and the others returned to the van, and the two vehicles rapidly left the area.
· · ·
At first, Thad Screiber was going to give his story to one of the wire services because they paid more than a newspaper would. But years of writing articles for Destiny magazine and Flying Saucer Factual had earned him plenty of money and little glory. So Thad decided to go for the glory and called the editor of the New York Times from the first pay phone he came across. After haggling for a minute, they struck an agreement, and Thad began dictating his eyewitness account of the salvage of a destroyed American nuclear missile, which would carry his actual byline—something that had not happened since his first reporting job on a hometown weekly.
It was a good feeling, Thad reflected, as he returned to his car. Perhaps this was what writing was really all about. You write what you believe in and are proud enough to sign your right name to it. Maybe it was time to retire all those phony pen names and go back to real reporting.
Then, just as he started his car, a brown van with a bubble roof and emblazoned with scenes right out of Thad’s own articles sped past. It was followed by a stepvan plainly—but disturbingly—marked with the nuclear symbol.
Some long-dormant reporter’s sixth sense told him that he should follow them both. It was only a hunch, but something about what he’d seen made him wonder if there might not be a connection between UFO activity in Oklahoma and the mysterious nuclear accident that had incapacitated a Titan missile.
Thad fell in behind the two trucks.
CHAPTER TWELVE
IT HAS BEEN THE WORST two days of Remo Williams’s life.
Chiun had been mad at him before. Someone who didn’t know the old Korean well could easily get the impression that Chiun was always mad at Remo, but that wasn’t so. Chiun scolded Remo because that was Chiun’s responsibility as Remo’s teacher. To err might be human, but to err in Sinanju was to die. Chiun knew this and Remo knew this. And there had been a time or two when Remo had seriously offended Chiun. At those times, Chiun became a stranger, and Remo knew that his relationship with the man who was both father and teacher to him was in jeopardy. Usually, Remo’s serious offenses were offenses against Sinanju and its traditions and not against Chiun himself. Not even Remo’s close relationship with Chiun protected him there. But Remo, who respected Chiun and now belonged to Sinanju, never knowingly insulted Sinanju traditions and was always forgiven for what Chiun called his “unfortunate ignorance.”
But this time it was different. Seriously different.
From the time the UFO had taken everyone except Chiun away, the Master of Sinanju had refused to speak to Remo. Remo had tried to convince Chiun to return to their hotel with him. Chiun had not refused. He had simply walked off. No abuse and no arguments. He just started walking in the general direction of Oklahoma City.
Remo had followed him.
“Don’t tell me you intend to walk all the way back, Chiun,” he said. “It’s gotta be at least thirty miles. C’mon back to the car.”
Chiun walked along in stiff silence.
“Look, if you want to be mad for some reason, you can be just as mad riding in the back seat as walking.”
A breeze stirred Chiun’s sparse hair as he walked.
“Then at least you can tell me what you’re mad about.”
No answer.
“Look, Chiun. I think you owe me an explanation at least,” Remo said, touching Chiun’s arm.
No swirl of robes betrayed Chiun’s intent, but the Master of Sinanju spun fully around without breaking stride, his right arm slashed once, and he continued on.
“Begone, vile one,” Chiun called back.
Remo looked down at his chest where Chiun’s deadly fingernail had laid open his T-shirt and created a thin pressure mark across his chest. A quarter-inch more and Remo would be leaking blood.
In shocked silence, Remo returned to his car alone.
It had been no better when, hours later, Chiun found his way back. Remo looked up as Chiun entered the hotel room, but the old man ignored him and walked to the telephone.
“I wish to speak to someone in charge. Good. I have a complaint. There is someone in my room who does not belong. You will send someone to remove him? Thank you.”
“This has gone far enough, Little Father,” Remo had said.
“I am no one’s father,” Chiun retorted. He opened the door to the hall and waited.
When the manager arrived, looking harried, Chiun leveled a trembling arm at Remo and cried, “I found this stranger in my room, and now he refuses to leave. I demand his removal.”
“Little Father…” Remo began, angrily.
“See? He is claiming that I am his father. Anyone can see this is not so,” Chiun shouted loudly enough to carry into the hall. A crowd collected at the door.
“Well?” the manager asked Remo.
“Aw, he’s just ticked at me for some reason.”
“Are you this man’s son?” the manager asked levelly. The crowd muttered their skepticism.
“I’m registered in this room,” Remo said. “You can check it out. Remo Williams.”
“He lies!” Chiun crowed. “He told me his name was Remo Greeley. This is proof of his deception.”
“This room is registered to a Remo Greeley,” the manager pointed out.
“Okay, okay,” Remo said, throwing up his hands. “I’m leaving. This old coot is right. He’s not my father. I don’t have a father. And what’s more, I never had a father.”
Remo pushed past the crowd, who roundly jeered at him. He registered in another hotel, angrier with Chiun than he’d ever been before. He didn’t sleep that night, but by morning his anger had drained. He called Chiun’s number, but when he said, “It’s me,” Chiun hung up without a word. It was not Chiun’s way to be so brittle, and Remo felt a growing fear. Perhaps this time he had done something so unforgivable that Chiun really had disowned him. But what? And what did UFOs have to do with it?
