Cold War

Chapter 15

“My government knows nothing of any clandestine activity of any sort in that area, Mr. Ambassador,” Grigori Komarinets had repeated, speaking not to Ridgely but directly into the CNN camera.

General Mavis stood with his hands clasped behind his back as he watched the report on the big TV in the situation room. This Ambassador Komarinets was good, no question-or maybe the folks in Moscow had lied to him, and he honestly didn’t know what was going on.

”Meeters,” he said, “call someone, make sure Ridgely gets a cookie for helping us out on this-an assignment in Vienna, a shot on Larry King, whatever makes him happy.”

”Yessir, “ Meeters replied. He stood where he was; Mavis hadn’t said to call now. And there wasn’t any hurry; these things were best done discreetly, not making the connection too obvious. Mavis glanced at him.

Meeters looked uneasy, preoccupied-but then, why shouldn’t he? According to CNN, they might be working up toward World War III.

And they might be, at that, but not the way any of these people thought.

Mavis turned back to the screen and watched for a few seconds more, until CNN cut to a commercial. Then he turned and headed down the corridor toward his office.

Meeters, after an instant’s hesitation, followed; when they were out of earshot of the officers still watching the TV, he jogged a few steps to catch up and said, “Excuse me, sir-might I have a word with you?”

Mavis glanced back at the other, then led the way into his office.

”Close the door if you like,” he said as he sat down on a corner of his desk. “What’s on your mind?”

Meeters stepped in and closed the door. “Sir,” he said, “I was there when the preliminary satellite reports came in-I was the one who released that first report, and at the time I was sure someone was hauling warheads out there.

”And?” Mavis said.

”Well, sir, I was wrong,” Meeters said. “I’ve been looking at the technical reports, and I don’t think we’re seeing missiles out there. The figures don’t add up.”

Mavis nodded. “You figured that out all by yourself, did you?”

”Yessir,” Meeters said. “And if those aren’t bombs or missiles, then Ambassador Ridgely and the rest could be stirring up a hornet’s nest over a threat that doesn’t even exist. We might be…”

Mavis held up a hand and cut him off. “Stop right there.” He stood up. “I like you, Meeters, you’re a good man, you take orders but you’re not afraid to make decisions. You’ve got a good brain. And that’s why I’m not going to have you arrested and thrown into protective custody.”

Meeters blinked. “Sir?”

”All right, that hot spot isn’t any Russian -missiles,” Mavis said. “Think it through, then. There’s something there, so if it isn’t nukes, what is it?”

Meeters looked blank.

”Think, man,” Mavis said. “What might it be?”

”I don’t know, sir.”

”Whatever it is, there’s a lot of energy being thrown around, right?”

”Yes, sir…”

”Well, then, maybe it’s something our weapons people wouldn’t mind getting a look at.” He decided to go ahead and let Meeters in on it if he picked up the clues.

”Maybe it’s something we’ve had a shot at before and didn’t get. Something you probably heard rumors about, but couldn’t get confirmed. Maybe you thought those rumors were bullshit, well, they weren’t.”

Meeters looked baffled. “I’m not following you, sir,” he said.

”Last time we saw something like this was six months ago, in New York,” Mavis said.

Meeters looked blank; then his jaw dropped. “Oh, my God,” he said, suddenly understanding. “I thought.. yes, I heard rumors, but I thought it was a hoax or a cover-up.”

”No,” Mavis said. “It’s real.”

”But, sir-aliens? A spaceship?”

Mavis nodded. “An entire fucking fleet of spaceships, actually. At least, in New York.”

”Then… excuse me, sir, but what do we hope to accomplish this time, when they’re in Siberia? What’s the point of blaming it all on the Russians?”

”The point is to keep the Russians busy, let ‘em know we’re watching them-and to keep our own people from figuring out what’s going on and spreading it all over the news. We don’t want anyone to know about these creatures-it’d cause panic if too much got out.”

”But these… Doesn’t the public…” Meeters paused, not sure where to begin; the whole issue was too large, so large that he couldn’t quite believe the military had a right to keep the public ignorant.

”Listen, Meeters,” Mavis said, “I don’t know how much you heard about the operation in New York, so let me tell you a few things. These aren’t cuddly little E.T. s come to invite us to join the Galactic Brotherhood. They’re a bunch of vicious bastards. We don’t know for sure why they come here, what they want, or how they’ll react to anything we do, but we do know that they have technology that makes us look like a bunch of aborigines. If we go ahead and tell everyone yes, we’ve been visited by monsters from outer space, and yes, they are monsters, then we can guess some of the reactions we’ll get from the public; we’ll have panics and new religions popping up and crazies blaming it on the CIA and people screaming at us for covering up and others saving it’s all a hoax. Right now we can’t even prove it’s not a hoax-those things cover their tracks. All that would be bad enough, but what worries us is how they would react.”

”They?”

”The aliens.”

”Oh.”

”Because, Meeters, we see three possible outcomes if word gets out that we have these nasty visitors dropping in.” He held up one hand and ticked off fingers.

”First, they might not care-they might go on just as they always have. That’s arguably the best case all around, though since they do kill people it’s not ideal.”

He raised a second finger.

”Second, they might just pack up and leave. That means no more killings, but it also means we have no chance of learning any more about them, or about whatever else might be out there waiting for us. We don’t like that much. But it still beats the third option.”

He raised his third finger.

”Third, they might invade. They might just decide that the cat’s out of the bag and there’s no more point in subtlety. And if they do, Meeters, we’re dead meat.”

Meeters frowned. “Sir, the way I heard it,” Meeters said, “we won in New York.”

”More of a draw, at best,” Mavis said judiciously. “We didn’t capture anything, and we didn’t beat them, but they’re gone. They went away-but they left because they were done with their visit, not because we really hurt them. And that was on our own territory, with everything in our favor. Those things play rough.”

”So it’s because of that third possibility that we’re keeping quiet?”

”That, and other considerations.”

”But what if they decide to invade anyway? Shouldn’t we be doing something…?”

”We are, Meeters.” Mavis sat down again. “That’s what this whole operation is about. We’re trying to get our hands on some of their technology, to see if we can’t take a few jumps forward so that if they do decide to take over, we stand a fighting chance.”

”You said they cover their tracks.”

”Sure they do. But they’re not infallible. We didn’t capture anything in New York or in the other visits we know about-and yes, there have been others-but this time it’s not a whole fleet. It looks like a solo, and one that’s run into trouble.” He pointed in the general direction of the situation room. “ That landing in Siberia didn’t look planned, Meeters. We might be looking at a shipwreck rather than an invasion, so this could be the best chance we’ll ever have. We want whatever we can get that’s out there. In fact, we’re sending a team in after it, General Philips and a bunch of his boys.”

Mavis stood again. “And that’s what the cover story is about Meeters,” he said. “If the Russians scream about an intrusion on their territory, we’ll just say we were responding to a terrorist threat. Our pal Ridgely just set that up for us, and Komarinets fell right into it by claiming his bosses didn’t know anything.” He grimaced. “If we get what we’re after, great; if we don’t, and the Russians don’t, because those things get their ship flying again and get away and cover their tracks as well as usual, we’ll live with that, too. If Philips and his team get killed or captured, well, it’s an embarrassment, but they were an embarrassment anyway, and legally that whole department doesn’t even exist, it’s all black budget-we could even claim they’re freelance. The important thing here is that we don’t want to wind up with those alien toys in Russian hands, and not in ours.”

That said, he stared at Meeters, awaiting a reaction.

Meeters stared back, unable to think of a reply; finally he simply said, “Yessir.”

The helicopter pilot called back, “General Philips? We’ll be on the ground in five minutes.”

”Good,” Philips replied. “Radio ahead, tell Lynch to have the men ready.”

Schaefer snorted. “Lynch,” he said. “Good name, Wouldn’t want to let any nasty little details like the law get in the way.”

Philips turned on him angrily. “Damn it, Schaefer,” he said. “I wouldn’t have hauled your ass down here if I didn’t think we needed you, and nobody else.”

Schaefer glared silently at him. He was tempted to ask whether they’d ever considered asking Rasche-after all, Rasche had pulled his own weight last summer, same as he always did, and Rasche might still be naive enough, or altruistic enough, or something enough, to have cooperated with Philips without this much hassle.

He didn’t mention Rasche, though, because he didn’t want to give the general any ideas. Rasche had his own life out there in Oregon, and Schaefer wasn’t about to do anything that could screw it up.

”I’ve got a good team put together,” Philips said, “but they’ve never seen actual combat with those things.”

”What about all those boys you had on Third Avenue last summer?” Schaefer asked. “Whatever happened to them-they all take early retirement or get hit by the last round of ‘Reduction in Force’?”

Philips shook his head. “Firing a few rounds at a spaceship isn’t what I had in mind as actual combat. You know something about those creatures, Schaefer. You have a feel for the way they think. My men don’t.”

”Teach ‘em.”

”We’re trying.”

”So what are you doing to prepare ‘em?” Schaefer asked. “Screening old Godzilla movies?”

”Damn it,” Philips shouted, “we’re hauling you down here to teach ‘em!”

”But why should I?”

Philips gritted his teeth and glowered silently at Schaefer for a moment. Schaefer glared back.

”You want the Russians to get their hands on one of those spaceships?” Philips said at last.

”I’m not sure it’d be any worse than you getting hold of one,” Schaefer retorted.

”Even if it’s Zhirinovsky’s crew that winds up with those shoulder cannon or with spaceships? Or if some of those starving scientists of theirs sell a few tidbits to the Iranians or the Serbs?”

Schaefer frowned and didn’t answer the question. Instead he said, “I’m still having a hard time buying this Siberia shit. General, you say you want me because I know something about what they’re like-well, one thing I know is that they hate the cold. So if you’re really planning to ship me out to the ass end of nowhere, to look at a spaceship somewhere north of the Arctic Circle, I’ll tell you right now that I’m not convinced it’s really the same things we’re dealing with this time as it was before. Maybe it’s some other goddamn alien tourists who dropped in on us. Maybe Earth suddenly turned into the trendy watering hole for half the galaxy, and instead of weapons we’ll just be picking up a bunch of cosmic beer cans.”

”Jesus, you really work at being a hard-ass, don’t you, Schaefer?” Philips asked. “You look for any reason you can find to make this harder on everybody. You think we’re all idiots? You think we didn’t check this out, didn’t think of the possibility that it’s somebody else? Sure, those things like it hot, but they don’t like it radioactive-the ships in New York didn’t leak neutrons when they landed. This one did. And the ones in New York weren’t spraying heat around like a fucking furnace, and this one is.”

”So it’s not the same gang,” Schaefer said. “If you can handle one species of alien showing up on our doorsteps, why not two or three?”

”Because everything else fits, Schaefer, So they were in trouble when they came down this time. Something was fucked up somewhere. It’s the same creatures; it’s just how they came down that’s different. We think it was a forced landing, Schaefer, maybe a crash. All the stories about the Roswell saucer are a bunch of bull, but this one’s real, which means we might have a good chance of getting a look at their technology-if the Russians don’t get it first.”

”And if they don’t blow it all to hell. Remember the one Dutch killed in Central America.”

”You think we could forget?” Philips eyed Schaefer thoughtfully. “You still won’t help?”

”You haven’t said anything to change my mind,” Schaefer said. “Why should I care whether we beat the Russians? We beat ‘em to the Moon, and all we got out of that was Tang.”

Philips nodded. “All right then, screw the patriotism approach,” he said. “If you won’t work with us because it’s best for the country, how about for your family? This team, these men, this whole project, they mean a lot to me. You help them, help me, and I’ll do what I can to get you some information on your brother.”

Schaefer stared silently at him for several long seconds. Then he asked, “If I go along on this little jaunt of yours, you’ll tell me what happened to Dutch?”

”I’ll try.”

Schaefer considered for another long moment, then said, “I’ll think about it.”

Philips looked at Schaefer’s face and decided not to push his luck. He sat back and waited for the chopper to land.