Genomorph

Chapter 57

CHAPTER 57

MONDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2005
1800 EST/1500 PST

Melissa paced restlessly in the room they had locked her in. She desperately wanted a cigarette, but they had taken everything but the clothes she wore.

~ It’s a good thing they didn’t try to take those, ~

She looked around the room and sighed. There wasn’t a lot to it; a hospital style bed, a night stand and dresser and a tiny bathroom.

~ It would have to be this room. Well it is Halloween, that’s kind of appropriate. ~

She had been taken by the van to a waiting helicopter, and then to a small airport where a jet was waiting. The flight to Nellis had taken three hours, and then another half hour by helicopter to the lab. She had been locked in the room now for several hours, and it was now just after three PM local time. The plan was to wait as long as possible, and she figured she had five or six hours before things started happening. By then, it would be almost eighteen hours since she was taken.

She needed to do what she could to conserve her energy, so she crawled on the bed and began meditating, forcing herself to relax. It was not easy; she was extremely worried about Susan; during the flight, she had been able to feel the frustration and horror within her, but it was buried deep, totally dominated by the personality that had been imprinted upon her. That personality was growing stronger by the minute, and she knew Ryan had been wrong; they did not have weeks or even days, but hours at best. If the programming was not removed by morning, Susan would be lost forever.

She pushed the worry and fear from her mind; she had to be ready. At last, she was able to slip into a state very close to Zen sleep, and her energy consumption decreased dramatically. She set her internal alarm clock to bring her out of it in five hours. Then it would be time to go to work.

*****

“November Two Five Seven Alpha Zulu, you are cleared to land on runway 35R,” senior air traffic controller Fred Knowles drawled as he watched his display. “Wind is out of the west at four knots.”

Knowles leaned back as the pilot acknowledged. He heard the door to the tower control room open and looked up to see Ken Harrison, the manager of Jean Airport, enter. Jean was a small facility a few miles south of Las Vegas. It served mainly small private aircraft, but today it was getting a very big visitor.

“Do you have anyone else inbound after that Beechcraft?” Harrison asked.

“Got a Cessna due in twenty minutes,” Knowles said.

“Hold him at the outer marker,” Harrison told him. “If he can’t hold for at least thirty minutes, divert him. After this plane is down, we are closed to all traffic until further notice.”

“What the hell for?” Knowles demanded.

“How should I know?” Harrison said. “The FAA called and gave me the word to shut down and wait for someone from the Pentagon to contact us. They called as soon as I hung up and said we are to clear the runways for an incoming C-17 Globemaster III.”

“Our runway isn’t wide enough for a Globemaster,” Knowles protested. “Even if it was, it will never take the weight.”

“That won’t matter,” Harrison told him. “The plane isn’t actually touching down.”

*****

“Well this is a new experience,” Brandi said as she checked her restraints. She was buckled into the front passenger seat of a Humvee, which was loaded in the cargo hold of the massive C-17 Globemaster III along with three others. Matt Branch sat behind the wheel, and in the back were Chief Wright and Ryan Sanders. The rest of the platoon was in the other vehicles, all of which were secured to cargo pallets made of shock absorbing material.

“For us too,” Branch said. “This isn’t a standard, or approved, method of insertion.”

“The loadmaster said they do this all the time,” Ryan shouted as the ramp on the back of the plane began lowering.

“They do,” Branch shouted back, “just not with people in the vehicles!”

Brandi opened her mouth to speak, but at that moment the loadmaster hit a switch and the cargo chute attached to the pallet beneath the Hummer deployed. With a mighty yank, the four ton vehicle was pulled back and out of the cargo hold, and her words were twisted into an adrenaline charged scream.

The Globemaster bounced up slightly as the Hummer left the hold, doubling its altitude of ten feet above the ground, before settling back and releasing the next Hummer as the first hit the grass of the infield between the runways of the small airport. The pallet bounced once and then slid about eighty feet before stopping, leaving a huge gouge in the grass. Chief Wright hit the button on a remote detonator, and with a series of loud bangs the straps securing the vehicle to the pallet were released.

As Branch put the Hummer in gear and moved off the pallet, Brandi looked back. The last of the four Hummers was just hitting the ground, the C-17 already climbing away from the airport.

“That was fun!” Brandi shouted as they sped towards Interstate Five, which ran parallel to the airport less than two thousand feet away.

“I wonder if they would let us do it again?”

*****

Admiral Hammerstein turned to Amanda as he set the phone down.

“They’re on the ground,” he said. “Do you know why Brandi changed the plan at the last minute?”

Amanda smiled. “Remember, Michael, despite the way she acts, Brandi thinks much faster than the finest computer. I believe she suspected that Susan would be turned.”

A smirk spread across the Hammer’s face as he said, “And she was afraid we might be too. If we just had a dozen like her ….”

“Be careful, Michael,” Amanda cautioned. “That’s the way the people we are fighting think. The Forerunners too thought the Genomorphs could put an end to their war, but in the end their world was still destroyed. Weapons are a necessity of the times we live in, but the way to peace is in creating harmony, not destruction.”

*****

The Hummer carrying Brandi and Ryan split off from the other three at a rest area south of Las Vegas. Matt pulled the Hummer up next to a Kenworth tractor with a refrigerated trailer hooked up behind it. Arnie Belcher stepped down from the cab when he saw the pretty blonde and walked over and gave her a warm hug. She made quick introductions and then climbed into the passenger seat of the tractor. With the Hummer in the lead, they pulled back out on the interstate and headed north once more.

“It’s really great to see you again,” Arnie said. “How ya been doin’, Brandi?”

The blonde looked at him a bit apprehensively and said, “There was something you weren’t told on the phone, Arnie. We were pretty sure they couldn’t listen in, but just in case we had to keep part of the plan secret until now.”

Arnie listened as she explained the rest of the elaborate plan, a smile slowly creeping to his face.

“Well, I guess them folks are gonna be sorry they ever messed with you girls,” Arnie said when she had finished.

The other three vehicles with the bulk of the platoon continued north into Las Vegas and exited onto US 95. They took the highway northwest, out of the city and into the desert. Just west of Indian Springs, they turned north on a dirt track that took them into the Nellis Air Force Bombing Range. The area was vast and patrols were sparse, but the SEALs maintained a careful watch.

The secrecy of the lab played into their hands here; heavy security patrols along the dirt road would only attract attention. The organization had long relied on the mask of anonymity, and it had worked well. It also helped that the lab was located close, but not too close, to Area 51, which tended to attract all the attention. Area 51 was big and flashy; easily visible in numerous satellite photos on the internet. The facility where the real alien artifacts were kept was tiny in comparison, at least on the surface.

The dirt road took them north and west, winding through the ridges and canyons until it crossed into the Nevada Test Site southeast of Frenchman Flat. They pulled off the road and concealed the Hummers in the rocks. Ten minutes later, Arnie’s truck and the fourth Hummer arrived. Arnie pulled his truck partially off the road, turned on the flashers and then climbed down from the cab and raised the hood. The last Hummer pulled up the road well past him and then stopped. Ryan placed a small dish antenna on the roof of the Hummer and started his laptop. Through the satellite link, he hacked into the tracking system for the disbursement center at Nellis Air Force Base.

“Got him,” he said. “He’s about fifteen minutes out.”

Matt Branch nodded and ordered the SEALs into position over the radio.

“What if the truck doesn’t stop?” Ryan asked.

“We’ll stop it,” Matt said. “Don’t worry, he’ll stop. The drivers don’t have a clue about where they’re taking these loads; they think it’s just an Air Force monitoring station.”

Precisely on schedule, an eighteen wheeler appeared to the south, and when it neared Arnie’s truck, the driver hit the brakes. The semi came to a halt and both trucks were enveloped in a cloud of dust. The driver didn’t even bother trying to call in; it was pointless in the desolate location.

The swirling dust settled as he climbed down from his cab, revealing the SEALs in desert pattern camo, their weapons visible and ready though not pointed directly at him.

“Sorry, hoss, but we gotta borrow your rig for a bit,” Arnie said.

The outraged driver was bound and gagged and put in the cab of Arnie’s truck; which was then pulled around and backed up to the other trailer. The seal on the Air Force truck was broken and the doors opened, and then the SEALs laid a pair of steel ramps between the two trailers and began transferring some of the cargo.
Ryan meanwhile collected the paperwork from the Air Force truck and then set up his lap top in the sleeper of Arnie’s rig. Arnie had a compact but well equipped office in the sleeper, complete with a multi-function laser printer. Ryan scanned the manifest into his computer, and then proceeded to alter it; he changed the seal number to match the one they would affix when the transfer of cargo was complete and changed the departure time to account for the delay they were causing. Finally, he altered the driver’s name and information to match the ID he had prepared for Arnie.

About twenty minutes later, the job was done. Arnie’s truck was pulled well off the road and concealed in a canyon. The Hummers disappeared into the desert as Arnie started up the truck. He paused to look west, where the sun was dipping low towards the horizon, and then pulled the truck and its slightly altered cargo onto the road.