Desert Assassin (4 page)

CHAPTER FOUR

S
LOWLY PULLING AWAY FROM
T
HING
, he went back to the jeep and placed a call. “General, I have a situation. I need a portable biology lab, at least three Humvees, an exobiologist if you have one, a Florida biologist by name of Dr. Alice Fay Henderson, four soldiers for sentry duty and you here immediately.”

“What the hell, Bill?”

“This is serious.”

The General knew that for Williams to make a request of this magnitude there had to be a national security issue involved. However, as much as he trusted him, he needed more information from his friend. “Bill, this is a tall order. I need some facts.”

“I have an ET under surveillance.”

“An ET? What the hell do you mean?”

“Just what I said. I need help.” Williams went on to describe what he was witnessing.

“Give me what I need to get Henderson and directions to your place.”

Over two decades earlier when Williams was a private and the General, Thomas V. Barrington, was a major, Williams took a bullet for him. The taking of the bullet cost Williams two months in a hospital and two surgeries, but in all probability it saved Barrington’s life.

When Williams recovered, Barrington arranged for him to be given a commission as a 2nd Lieutenant. Williams turned it down and instead he was promoted to sergeant and remained under Barrington’s command for the duration of his service time. Every time Barrington received a promotion, shortly thereafter so did Williams.

Following the phone call, Williams muttered “stupid” to himself for not having bought a night vision camcorder. Fortunately, there was virtually no chance that Thing could wander off more than a few feet. Beyond that, it appeared to be a creature of habit and, as a result, it would probably remain in place for three to four days after attacking the shrub. What might be missed would be an attack on Thing by a desert animal. He retrieved the camcorder, started the jeep and returned to the house. Following a quick dinner, he condensed his daily video recordings into a slightly less than a one hour composite. There was then no Merlot and no doo-wop. Just sleep.

He awoke well before dawn. After shaving, showering, and putting on one of his African “consulting” outfits, he ate breakfast and was off to see Thing just as the sun began to rise.

The assault on the shrub was underway. Thing had its bottom side pressed up against one of the stems. Williams couldn’t tell exactly what Thing was doing; however, he had no doubt that the part of the shrub growing from the stem would soon crash to the ground. Crash it did a few minutes after Williams arrived. Thing then attacked the fallen part. Within thirty minutes, it reverted to its dome shape.

Williams was still observing Thing when just before nine he heard the sound of an approaching helicopter. Using the field glasses, he spotted a CH-47F Chinook coming in from the northeast. He made it back to his property just as the helicopter was landing four hundred feet behind his house. Two combat ready staff sergeants stepped out first. The General followed with a colonel trailing him. Finally, two sergeants emerged. The pilot stayed on board.

“This better be goddamn good,” said the General.

Williams responded, “It’s either good or bad. Nothing in between. I need you and the colonel inside.”

The composite was ready to go on his laptop. Williams looked at the General. “Watch this. I’m taking the two sergeants to stand guard.”

Stepping out of the house, he pointed at the two sergeants and told them to get in the jeep. They didn’t hesitate. He explained to them what they were going to do for the next few hours, including what to do if Thing started to move.

He stopped the jeep fifty feet from Thing and then brought the troops to within twenty feet of it. Pointing to the dome, he said, “Don’t get any closer than this. Again, if it starts to change shape, radio the General.”

The General and the colonel, James Rappaport, were watching Thing demolish the second clump of desert grass. They had replayed parts of the video several times. Neither one said a word as Williams walked into the house. Turning into the kitchen, he half filled two small glasses with single malt scotch. Neither officer protested as he handed them the glasses.

It wasn’t until Thing sealed in the assassin bug that the first words were uttered. “What the hell was that?” asked Rappaport in a voice which indicated that he expected no answer.

Minutes later after they watched Thing turn and point its antennae toward Williams, the General simply said, “Goddammit.”

There was a long pause before the General looked at Williams and said, “Christ, Bill, get rid of that clown suit you are wearing.” He then nodded to Rappaport who quickly left the house. Returning several minutes later, he handed Williams an Army Combat Uniform.

The General extended his right hand and said, “Welcome back to the United States of America Army, Major Williams. Now, let’s go see what that damn thing is.” It was no longer sergeant major, but major.

When on duty, which for the General often seemed to be twenty-four hours a day, he and the colonel were virtually inseparable. Both were just a fraction of an inch over six feet in height. The General carried about thirty pounds more than the trim colonel. Most of that was the result of their age difference. The General was two years shy of sixty, while the colonel was in his late forties.

The General would rarely make an important decision without first bouncing it off Rappaport. In return, the colonel did not hesitate to tell the General when he believed him to be wrong.

As the three officers approached the staff sergeants who were standing near the garage, Williams was caught by surprise when saluted by the two. He was noticeably late in returning the salute.

Williams took the wheel of the jeep; the General sat up front with him. Rappaport climbed in back and motioned to one of the staff sergeants to join him. He instructed the second one to be on watch for a convoy.

“Anything?” the General asked the sergeants on guard duty.

“No, sir, nothing.”

“I doubt we’ll see any movement for three more days,” interjected Williams. He then went on to explain what hadn’t been evident from the viewing of the abridged video – the “rest” periods following the assaults on the desert grass.

Looking at the dome, the General asked Williams, “Your best guess?”

“We have a genuine alien. It uses vegetation for nutrition, or so it seems, and apparently can incorporate into its body what it wants or needs from animal life – at least from insects.”

“If you are right, Bill, we have three days to figure out what we’re going to do. Easiest thing would be to kill it and forget it ever existed.”

All present heard the faint, but unmistakable, sound of the convoy coming from the north. It was fronted by two Humvees. Next came a communications van, four road tractors and two Humvees bringing up the rear. Towed by the road tractors were a supply trailer, two sleeper trailers and what was to be used as a biology lab once the necessary equipment arrived. Also included were three portable toilets.

The General motioned toward the jeep. Moments later, the four were racing back to Williams’ property. Upon their arrival, they found the convoy parked on the road in front of the house. Standing beside the first Humvee was Air Force Major Stanley Ling. Ling, stationed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, was an astrophysicist with expertise in exobiology. His first words to Barrington, Rappaport and Williams were, “What are we looking at?”

Williams wasted no time in getting Ling into the house to view the video. The General directed the placement and set up of the communications van, or comm van as it was most often to be called. Following his orders was a 2nd Lieutenant who supervised two corporals and three privates. These were the same soldiers who had driven the road tractors and the comm van. The van was parked next to the western facing side of the garage, thus blocking it from being seen from the road. Once in place, the interior was made ready. All electronic equipment was powered by a generator until the van was connected to the house power line via a cable which was buried a few inches under the sand between the van and the house. Once the van was fully operational, the General went inside and stayed there for the next two hours.

Rappaport ordered one sleeper, which was going to be used by him and the General, to be placed aside the comm van. Next came the second sleeper which was to house Ling and a 1st Lieutenant. The bio lab was placed adjacent to the second sleeper. The supply trailer completed, for the time being, the row of buildings which Williams later jokingly called his trailer park. Once finished, the 2nd Lieutenant and his five troops left, taking back with them the road tractors. Two generators remained to be used in case of an emergency.

The 1st lieutenant, Adrian Martin, took charge of eleven soldiers, including four military police, who also came with the convoy. Within an hour, tents were set up and the supplies, including food, were readied.

Williams stayed with Ling throughout the showing of the video. He fielded dozens of questions, often while pausing the video, and added information whenever he believed it to be of importance. Halfway through the viewing, Ling made the observation that if the meteor had landed anywhere on Earth absent nearby life, the odds were that Thing would not have survived. “I also doubt it would have survived had the meteor dropped in water.”

“On the flip side,” countered Williams, “imagine what might have happened if it landed anywhere with abundant vegetation and animal life and remained undiscovered.”

As soon as the viewing was complete, they headed out to the meteorite. Ling placed a small magnet on it to check for iron content and proceeded to examine it for twenty minutes. He then suggested to Williams that it be left in place rather than brought back to the lab. On to Thing, Williams had to caution Ling twice to keep a twenty-foot distance.

The General called a seven in the evening meeting to be held in the house. Present in addition to the General were the three senior officers. “Stan, what can you tell us?”

Ling was American born of Chinese descent with a doctorate in astrophysics. In his late thirties, he was in his fourteenth year as career Air Force. Small in stature compared to the other three, he nevertheless was a formidable presence by virtue of his intelligence and an unquestioned air of confidence.

“The meteorite is the most common type, a stone meteorite with iron. It was probably formed within the solar nebula that ultimately gave birth to our solar system. The black on the surface is the result of burning as it passed through the Earth’s atmosphere. I have absolutely no idea how Thing, as Bill calls it, came to be inside the meteorite. There is no way it could have been in there during formation.”

“So sometime, somewhere, that thing managed to get inside the rock?” asked the General.

“Almost certainly not Thing as Bill first saw it, but perhaps Thing in an embryonic state. This is just speculation, but it could be that the crack has been there for millions of years. Somehow the seed, to use a grossly inadequate word, of what has become what we are seeing, made its way through the crack into what was then a meteoroid. It remained dormant until exposed to the gases in our atmosphere.”

Calling on his newly acquired, and very limited, knowledge of exobiology, Williams asked, “Could it possibly have been created from amino acids within the meteoroid?”

“I can’t conceive of how that could happen without a reducing atmosphere,” responded Ling.

The General decided against jokingly calling Williams a smart ass. Instead, he asked, “How big can it get?”

“No way of knowing,” replied Ling. “I suspect it has a way to go. More importantly, how much can it transform itself? It seemingly has managed to create antennae from the encounter with the assassin bug. What would it create from a rat, coyote, mountain lion or a human being?”

“Son-of-a-bitch,” said the General.

Williams remained silent, but the same questions had already crossed his mind.

The General continued, “Maybe we should just kill the bugger.”

Beer in hand, Rappaport stood up. “We need to find out as much as we can about it, if nothing else from a military standpoint. Another option is to capture and secure it. However, we might never find out exactly what its capabilities are. Instead, why not surround it with perimeter fencing? We can monitor its movement. If it heads for the fence, we can be prepared to meet it if it tries to break through.”

“You’re probably right, Jim,” conceded the General. “How big?”

“Maybe the size of three football fields side by side,” replied Rappaport.

“Find out who controls the land and, if you need to, get clearance for the fencing. Also, bring in everything we’ll need for twenty-four hour surveillance.” Turning to Ling, the General asked, “What are the chances that there are more of these?”

“Here on Earth, I doubt it, but there is no way of knowing about the rest of our solar system.”

“Maybe it’s the proximity to Roswell and Hart Canyon that is coloring my thoughts,” said Williams, “but it would seem to me, Major Ling, that there is no way the embryo or seed or whatever it was that led to the creation of Thing could have accidentally made its way into a meteoroid zipping around the Sun.”