The Trojan Horse

Chapter Twenty

Washington DC

USA, Day 35

“He just isn’t himself anymore.”

Callie Buckley was the type of woman Jayne tended to dislike. She was overweight, with an attitude that suggested that she didn’t believe that she was overweight and that anyone who dared point out the elephant in the room would earn an enemy for life instantly. Her hair was dyed and she wore clothes that tended to disguise her figure. All in all, Jayne was privately surprised that the marriage had lasted, but it was clear that she loved her husband and he loved her in turn.

“I see,” Jayne said. She’d been careful to visit when Joe Buckley was at the Welcome Foundation, just to ensure that she didn’t run into him. A certain kind of woman resented the presence of another woman when with her husband and she had a feeling that Callie would not have been amused if she had visited Buckley. “How is he not himself any longer?”

Callie gathered herself, visibly. “The Joe I married was a tough son of a bitch,” she said. “He was strong, determined and loved the Navy. There were times when I thought he loved the Navy more than he loved me. And when he left and started writing those books, he was still madly in love with the Navy, despite all its warts. I loved having him back, even if there were times when I felt as if he was still courting the Navy — his other woman.”

She laughed, nervously. “He wasn’t one of those hippie freaks who think that the Snakes are going to bring peace, prosperity and unlimited food and drink for people who have never worked a day in their lives,” she added. “He was certain that the aliens had their own reasons for visiting Earth and that we might not like them when we discovered what they were. And then he was invited to the alien base. I don’t even know why he went; he told me that he expected to be flattered, but not to be told anything useful.”

Jayne frowned, thoughtfully. “Do you know why he was selected?”

“The letter he received from SETI said it was because he was a famous writer,” Callie said. “He was always getting invitations to conventions and suchlike — he once told me that if he took up every speaking engagement he’d never have time to write. And I think a lot of his fans probably suggested him to someone. They used to write him such flattering letters, even the ex-military people. Joe kept each and every one of them.”

She shook her head. “So he went,” she said, “and now he’s not the same man anymore. They did something to him on that base, something that turned him into their dupe. He’s always telling people how much one can trust the Galactic Federation, how they have Earth’s best interests in mind and how we will benefit from their presence. And he won’t talk about what happened at the base. It’s like watching one of the brats from the Demon Headmaster! You ask him a question and he’ll rattle out a rote response… it’s like someone hypnotised him or something.”

“I see,” Jayne said. “Are you sure he didn’t just have a conversion when he saw what they could do?”

“I’m sure,” Callie said. “The old Joe loved food, drink, sex and — sometimes — fighting and it was my job to provide all four of them. Now he’s barely into any of them; he nibbles his food, avoids alcohol and seems uninterested in sex. And when I pry, as I do sometimes, he doesn’t even rise to the bait. He’s a fucking pod person!”

“They did something to him,” Jayne said. It made a certain kind of sense. Joe Buckley was one of the people who shaped public opinion. If the aliens could convert someone into a loyal follower — and the CIA had carried out all kinds of experiments into brainwashing — why wouldn’t they take advantage of the opportunity? Except… if Joe Buckley was no longer the man he’d been, the process obviously wasn’t perfect. It might actually explain why the aliens hadn’t simply converted everyone who’d visited one of their bases; besides, there were plenty of people who took the aliens at their word without needing to be brainwashed. “Does he have nightmares?”

The look Callie gave her — a look of absolute terror — convinced her that she was right. “He does,” she confirmed. “You don’t understand; even when we were fighting, I felt safe with my Joe. And now he’s quiet, gets into bed without a bit of slap and tickle, and has terrible nightmares when he’s asleep. I watch him tossing and turning, but when he awakens he doesn’t remember anything — anything at all! He doesn’t even have the energy to argue with me over his dreams. I don’t feel safe with him any longer.”

Jayne reached into her pocket and produced one of her business cards. “If you have any problems, call me at once,” she said, firmly. “I think…”

“I already have a problem, you stupid bitch,” Callie snapped. She sounded as if she were on the verge of a breakdown. “I want my husband back!”

She stood up and stalked around the room. “God knows, I’d almost be happier if he was hitting me rather than being a… fucking pod person,” she said. Tears were streaking down her face. “He’s not human anymore! It’s like he’s joined one of those crazy cults and become one of their loyal followers and isn’t allowed to share anything with non-believers…”

“It’s going to be all right,” Jayne said, standing up and giving the older woman a hug. “Take my card; if you don’t feel safe any longer, perhaps you should leave and stay with a friend…”

“But Joe won’t care,” Callie protested. “The new Joe wouldn’t care if I stayed or left!”

Jayne asked several more questions, but Callie was too upset to answer properly. All she could do was offer Jayne a folder containing Joe Buckley’s correspondence for the last few months and a file of extracts from various novels. Most of them referred to a character called Joe Buckley meeting a horrific death at the hands of various enemy forces, including one where he was killed making love to his superior in a tank. Jayne put those aside and started to read through the letters. The letter from SETI was bland and largely uninformative. Joe Buckley had been invited to join one of the groups visiting an alien base; would he be interested. There was nothing else, apart from a pile of unopened letters. The date on the envelopes suggested that they’d been posted after Buckley returned from the alien base.

Shaking her head, Jayne bade Callie farewell. In some ways, Callie was alarmingly like some of the abused wives she’d met while looking for human interest stories. She was being tormented by her husband, but she couldn’t leave him — except Joe Buckley seemed to be showing no interest in her at all. Whatever the aliens had done to him had permanently damaged his mind in some respects, yet in others he could almost function normally.

She froze as a thought ran through her mind. What if the aliens were improving their technique? What if they were arranging for senior military officers to get a tour of their base — and brainwashing them into compliance with alien commands? The entire military was undergoing a massive reshuffle and reduction in force; with a little care, brainwashed officers would be left in high places, while free-thinking officers would be dismissed from the service. And then they’d own the military…

Cursing, she hailed a cab. It was time to start transmitting what she knew to the world — and pray that the aliens couldn’t track her down afterwards.

“It looks,” Toby said dryly, “as if a ghetto blaster had been unfaithful with a television.”

Gillian snorted. The device on the table had clearly been put together in haste, with a dozen components linked together into one confusing mass. Toby could do basic computer repair work, but he’d never had to actually open up a hard drive and repair the interior, not when a replacement could be easily obtained from a computer store. Gillian and her NSA colleagues knew computers inside out. They could put one together by hand out of a remarkable selection of mundane devices.

“The next model will be sexier, I promise,” she said. “Whatever it looks like, the device is capable of detecting an alien bug when transmitting at several metres. I think that the devices actually respond to pings from the alien starships, so we’re attempting to trigger an automatic dump response from the bugs we have in the vault. Unfortunately, if we ping a device out in the open, the aliens will pick up the unscheduled dump and know that something’s wrong.”

Toby frowned. “Rather like having a rogue signal opening a garage door?”

“Something like that,” Gillian agreed. “The aliens don’t seem to use a constant stream of signals from their devices, which makes perfect sense when you consider that we might pick up a signal if it was constantly there — or it might scramble some of our transmissions. I think that given enough time we might be able to construct a jamming device, but I’m afraid that that will definitely tip off the aliens. There’s no other logical reason for us producing such a device.”

“Because the Chinese aren’t as capable as the aliens,” Toby agreed. The aliens would know that the device was aimed at them, if only because there were no other possible targets. And then they’d know that they’d been rumbled. “What are they playing at?”

He scowled down at the table. The aliens seemed to be toying with the human race; every day brought more and more reports of odd alien activity, activity that seemed to make little sense. They were buying up food surpluses from American farms, driving prices upwards; they were placing orders with American firms for technology that had to be remarkably primitive compared to anything they had developed for themselves. One scientist from NASA who had been quietly streamlined into the growing resistance had speculated that the aliens actually wanted to start mining the Moon and nearby asteroids. Once out of the gravity well, human technology might be just as capable as alien technology — and easier to repair if it broke. Surprisingly, no one seemed to be raising any objections to mining the lunar surface; the environmental groups seemed happy to concentrate on shutting down factories across the globe instead of fretting about humans polluting the moon.

“They want something from us and they can’t just take it,” Gillian said. She stroked her chin thoughtfully. “They clearly have a plan…”

“And we’re dancing to their tune,” Toby said, sharply. Already, military units were being disbanded or reorganised into the forces that would remain part of the United States of America’s military machine. It would be a leaner, but meaner army — at least according to the Pentagon’s press releases. Toby knew that hundreds of military officers were protesting their orders in the strongest possible terms, if only because the pull-out of American forces risked destabilising the world. And once the military had been cut down sharply…

Some of the officers had received orders to preserve as much military material as possible. It was relatively easy to store tanks rather than dismantle them, or place aircraft in sealed hangers for later use if necessary. An alarming amount of military equipment seemed to have gone missing, although most reports indicated that it had been the result of miscounting or items being cannibalised to keep vehicles operating. Toby knew that most of the missing material — with the paper trail carefully fudged — had been placed into hiding, but he didn’t know precise details. God alone knew just how closely the aliens were monitoring the United States. Once Gillian’s device went into full production, at least they might be able to start marking out some clear areas.

“The entire world is dancing to their tune,” Gillian said. “I heard on the grapevine that Iran has been handing out contracts on alien heads.”

Toby nodded. The Government of Iran was seeing cash-flow problems as the implications of fusion power sank in. They’d been threatening everything from war to terrorism, but the world wasn’t paying much attention. For once, the Middle East wasn’t the centre of world attention — and they hated it. The Secret Service had quietly warned that there might be swarms of terrorists descending on alien bases, intent on avenging the loss of the oil weapon. Toby privately gave governments like Saudi Arabia no more than a few more months before they were destroyed by their own people. And then they’d discover that they couldn’t drink oil.

“So far, no one has dared strike at the aliens,” he said. “What will they do when someone finally manages to take a shot at a Snake?”

He shook his head. No one knew, not least because no one knew anything about alien mentalities. The United States had been willing to tolerate a great deal of terrorism before finally attempting to take the war to the terrorists after 9/11. But then — everyone had known that raising the ante by invading terrorist-supporting countries could result in more trouble at home. And when the United States had let Iran get away with taking and holding hostages, everyone with a grudge had felt as if they could take a shot at the United States and get away with it.

But no one knew how the aliens would react…

A thought appeared in his mind. It was a thoroughly nasty thought, one his father would probably have understood and approved. But then, his father had friends who believed that Saudi Arabia and Iran were funding left-wing organisations that were undermining American freedoms and intending to replace the Constitution with Islamic Law. It was a crazy idea, yet it might just work… and if they were lucky, it would take some of the pressure off the United States. And it might just force the aliens to show their hand.

“I’m going to need you to be on detached duty for a while,” he said. His father’s growing resistance organisation would need technical help. Besides, he would have felt happier if Gillian was out of Washington. The noose was growing tighter and he had an uncomfortable feeling that the shit was about to hit the fan. How could the people outside, thronging the streets of Washington, be unaware of the looming catastrophe? “Your superiors have already okayed it. You’ll be working with an underground unit without links to Fort Meade.”

Gillian blinked at him. “Why me?”

Toby considered several answers, and then settled upon the truth. “Because I trust you,” he said. “Because you already know what is at stake. Because you’re the one who developed these bug-detectors and we need you on site so we can ensure that we’re clean.”

“All right,” Gillian said, reluctantly. “And what will you be doing in the meantime?”

“You don’t want to know,” Toby said. He’d have to have a meeting with the CIA and NSA — and then probably a discussion with an ally in the United States Special Operations Command. At least there were so many units being moved around the globe right now; no one would even notice if one happened to be diverted. And he had just the right unit in mind. “Trust me; you really don’t want to know.”

“You can take me out to dinner tonight, then,” Gillian said. “I’ll have to get my files organised for the move, and then pick up a few hundred spare parts for this monster.” She tapped the detector with a long finger. “I think it will work fine in the field, but I’m not sure just how well it will work, if you take my meaning.”

Toby nodded. His father had been fond of complaining about expensive gadgets that worked perfectly in the lab and failed constantly in the field. The United States had had thousands of companies intent on getting military contracts, each one armed with thousands of lobbyists intent on convincing Congressmen that their device would change the shape of modern warfare — and, just incidentally, ensure higher levels of employment in the Congressman’s home district. It wouldn’t be the first time Congress had insisted that the military bought something that was of little use in the field. If nothing else, the military cutbacks would force those firms to switch to non-military production in a hurry. Their lobbyists would soon be out of work.

“You’ll be on hand to fix it,” he said. He’d miss her, he knew. Sharing the occasional dinner with her kept him going at times. There were still times when he wondered if he could take their relationship to the next level. But that would have to wait until afterwards — if there was an afterwards. “Remember; paper letters only, written in code…”

“Don’t teach your grandmother to suck eggs,” Gillian said, tartly. Toby flushed as she grinned at him. She knew more about codes and security than he’d ever learned, or would ever learn. Gillian might never have been out in the field in her life, but it hadn’t stopped her rising in the NSA. Sheer competence alone had forced her forward. “I know basic security precautions…”

There was a knock on the sealed door. Toby cursed as he opened the door and saw an NSA officer, holding a secure phone in one hand. “Mr Sanderson, sir, there’s been an emergency alert from the White House. You’re to make your whereabouts known to the Secret Service at once!”

Toby shared a long look with Gillian. Had the aliens decided to stop playing games and launch the invasion, or had something else happened?

“I understand,” he said. His secure phone had been left outside, but it would be easy to fetch it and place a call. “I’m on my way.”