Dragon Over Washington (The Third War Of The Bir Nibaru Gods) (32 page)

“Feeling better, Reimer?” Montoya shouted. Reimer didn’t reply, busy pouring fire into the creature below. The helicopter shuddered like a furious thing, shaking as the two machine guns fired into the ground below, their endless staccato noise deafening even with helmets.

Benson turned his eyes to the creature on the ground. It kept moving and slithering up the ravine.

“The bullets can’t hurt it -” Benson shouted, but then he saw the creature stagger. Its left front leg seemed to be hurt, yet it continued moving upwards, crawling on its belly, pushing itself upwards with its three working legs. It jerked as a stream of bullets hit its tail, and then crashed into a tree, bringing it down. An instant later it righted itself and continued moving upwards, leaving a long, black, wet trail behind it, its tail hanging behind, broken. Fire hit the creature on its back, bullets digging into its armor and breaking the creature’s back crest into shreds. The creature reached the top of the ravine, pulled itself up and disappeared into a clump of trees. It could barely move anymore, its ruined body full of smoking holes, its head dragging through the earth.

“You killed it,” Benson whispered, tears in his eyes, slumping down in his seat.

“Cease fire. Maintain contact with the target,” Agent Mathew commanded.

“You’ve killed Mother Nature’s child,” Benson murmured.

“Say again,” Agent Mathew said.

Montoya stopped whooping and turned to Benson, gesturing at him to stop talking.

The helicopters slid forward carefully, hovering above a small forested area between two hills southeast of Bellyache Mountain. Benson, gripping his seat tightly, craned his head fearfully, trying to see the remains of the creature on the other side of the small clump of trees.

“Blackbirds, do you have eyeballs on the target?” Agent Mathew asked tersely.

The creature was nowhere to be seen. They could only see trees, shrubs and rocks below them. Small dust storms rose as the helicopters hovered lower.

“Blackbird Delta, we don’t have visual on the target,” one of the helicopters transmitted.

“Roger. Standby for troops off. We need to get -” Agent Mathew stopped talking. The helicopters had come round to the other side of the small forested area and their spotlights were shining down on the area, which  was filled with thick, black, blood smeared on the rocks and trees. Claws and torn scales were strewn everywhere. It seemed that nothing remained of the creature larger than one foot across, as if it had been shredded in a meat grinder.

“What the hell happened here?” Agent Mathew asked, angrier than anything.

The officer sitting opposite Benson looked at the bespectacled farmer as Benson glanced outside, his attention riveted to the area lit by the helicopter spotlights. Then the officer locked eyes with Benson.

“Blackbird Delta, this is Blackbird Foxtrot. Be advised, there’s another one there. Repeat, there’s another creature out there,” the officer said into his helmet microphone.

Benson’s eyes widened. Somehow the officer guessed what he was thinking.

“Roger that. Blackbirds, move forward one click. Search pattern,” Agent Mathew commanded.

Benson avoided the officer’s eyes and looked outside. The helicopters flew slowly above the craggy terrain, their spotlights crawling over rocks and trees, searching. Benson thought about the fight between the creatures he had seen outside the camp. Were these things eating each other? Benson shivered.

“Man, that’s hard on my mind,” he murmured.

Something made Benson raise his eyes. He looked towards the right side opening of the helicopter and something looked back at him. A huge green eye, as large as a human head, was outside, looking at Benson and focusing its vertical reptilian pupil on him. An instant later the eye moved away and a long tail swung around, the sharp triangular tip brushing against the helicopter, making it quiver.

“I can’t see anything here. What about you, Reimer?” Sergeant Montoya yelled.

“Riemer?” Sergeant Montoya repeated a moment later, but Reimer didn’t reply. The sergeant turned to the corporal and saw him frozen,  his face horror-stricken.

“Captain!” the sergeant yelled. Captain Anderson glanced up from his laptop, looked at Benson and then at Reimer. The captain undid his clasp, got up and moved to the left, looking over Reimer’s shoulders. He could just see the long tail swishing in the night, heading right towards Blackbird Echo.

“Incoming bogey! Break! Break!” Anderson yelled into his microphone.

All the helicopters increased speed. Benson was pushed into his seat.

“It’s coming right at you!” Anderson yelled, holding onto the cabin over Remier’s shoulders and looking outside. Benson, too, looked outside, and saw huge black wings beating once and a dark shadow speeding onwards. The dark shadow hid one of the helicopters, which then changed direction sharply to the left, trying, somehow, to avoid the shadow.

However, the helicopter wasn’t fast enough. The shadow jumped away and a shower of sparks fell to the ground while the helicopter spun madly out of control.

“We’re hit! We’re hit!” a voice yelled into Benson’s ears, but he only looked at the dark shadow, fading in and out of visibility. Long wings beat once and the shadow sped away, disappearing into the night.

The stricken helicopter slowly righted itself, losing altitude and bleeding white smoke.

“Blackbird Echo, hold position,” Agent Mathew commanded, his voice calm.

“What? It’ll get them for sure!” the officer in Benson’s helicopter called out.

“Blackbird Foxtrot, ready weapons. Prepare to engage the creature when it returns.”

“But -”

“Captain Anderson, you have your orders.”

The officer stopped talking, but Benson saw his hands were white, shaking with anger.

“On your nine o’clock!” the officer suddenly shouted.

Benson managed to glimpse a dark shadow swoop from above, its reptilian jaws open. Huge flat, veined wings gathered close and then suddenly opened, and as the creature passed close to the stricken helicopter, it struck the damaged aircraft again, releasing another shower of sparks, accompanied by a small explosion. The wide wings opened again and , beating powerfully, carried the creature away. Benson saw that the creature was shorter than the fifty-foot long helicopter, but its wings were wider.

Long traces of machine gun fire flew from the two circling helicopters after the creature, but it evaded the fire easily, fading into the dark night and disappearing.

“We have damage to the hydraulic system and the left engine. Attempting to land.”

The limping helicopter slowed down and approached a level area on the down slopes of a ragged, forested hill.

“Blackbird Foxtrot, take the north side. We’ll take the south. When that thing comes again, nail it,” Agent Mathew called out.

Again the creature came, extending its claws forward, its talons grabbing the damaged helicopter from the side, its wings striking it repeatedly.

“Going down! Emergency landing!”

“Foxtrot! Can you fire? Do you have a clear field of fire?” Agent Mathew demanded.

“Negative!” Captain Anderson shouted.

The creature didn’t let go this time. It held on as the helicopter descended, sinking down to the rock-filled gorge down below. An orange fireball lit the night a moment later. The two remaining helicopters circled the burning crash area, flying slowly above it, their occupants peering down. A lot of urgent talk followed, but it all passed over Benson’s head.

“Sir, we’re low on fuel. We have to go back now,” one of the pilots shouted to Captain Anderson.

“Blackbird Delta, we have to retreat. We flew here too fast,” Captain Anderson said into his microphone.

Benson kept watching the crash area even as his helicopter flew away, seeing the helicopter’s remains burning, and the trees and bushes nearby blazing with a morose, orange light. He caught glimpses of the huge reptilian creature as it landed near the fire, its wings flapping. Then it curled around the crash site, covering it with its wings, a wide spiky crest rising up around its head as its jaws opened, engulfing the flames, and eating one blazing fire after the other.

***

Benson staggered to his hiding place behind the boulder and fell down, crashing to the ground. He panted, breathing heavily and rapidly, his eyes full of tears.

What a waste of lives!

Then Benson shook his head. He had come to be a farmer here because he just wanted to live close to nature, grow living things, and take care of the children of Mother Earth. And now this has to happen to him. Talk about bad karma.

A small squeak nearby made Benson raise his head. He blinked, trying to see through his tears. It was the broken-tailed lizard, sitting in the grass next to him, watching him with its big, green eyes. Benson looked at it, seeing how at first its color was so similar to the dark green color of the grass he could hardly see it, and then gradually changed to a pale color, as if it felt the sorrow Benson felt.

Slowly the other lizards made themselves visible in the high grass in front of Benson. And while the biggest one kept shyly away and the thick-bodied lizard pointedly ignored him, the others were all around him, all looking at him with green, reptilian eyes.

“I’ve lost my farm, everything I worked for years destroyed. My sheep are dead, as are my two sheepdogs. My crop has been burnt,” Benson murmured. He breathed in, the scene of the fight between the creatures the previous night in front of him. “I dig it, man. That’s nature. The creatures eat one another. But what made it happen was not natural. It was man with his guns and helicopters.”

Benson watched the small bumps on the little lizards’ backs. Vestigial wings. Benson’s eyes rose, tracing the wire fence and the new spotlight near him. “No one is going to take you away from me!” Benson said.

The little lizards watched Benson with bright green eyes.

Day 16 after Earth Barrier Breach.

Endicott Airport, Tioga County, New York State, United States. Tuesday, 04:52.

“Hey! Wake up!”

“Leave me alone.”

“Rise and shine! There’s coffee and donuts for the wicked!”

“Go away.”

“On your feet, soldier!”

Thorpe jumped up from his seat, banging his forehead against the baggage compartment above him, and then sank back down. He was on an agency Learjet, taxiing along the runway of an airfield. Thorpe rubbed his head and glared at the man who had woken him, Agent Graham. Sniggers were coming from other agents, ready to disembark, who were moving about in the jet.

“Thanks a lot, man,” Thorpe grumbled.

“My pleasure. We landed three minutes ago. Tri Cities Airport in Endicott, fifteen clicks out of Owego. We have agency vans waiting for us.” Agent Graham smiled at Thorpe. Thorpe looked and felt as if he were a collection of rumpled rags, but Graham looked as fresh and tidy as ever, his suit looking freshly ironed. Thorpe looked out through the small oval window and saw a small airport with one main runway and a squat control tower. A small building served as a terminal and there were several hangars, mostly harboring small airplanes. Trees and lawns were everywhere. The airport was dark; yellow landing lights lined the runway and a few large torches cast light on the control tower and the terminal.

“How much time have I been sleeping? I must check with the office. I need to get the images from the last satellite pass and there may be news from Africa and Russia. Also, I need to call my mom,” Thorpe finished in a murmur. He looked up and saw Agent Graham looking at him, raising an eyebrow.

“She worries if she doesn’t hear from me at least once a day. My parents only had one child. They worry.” Thorpe said.

“Well, you can use the airplane’s satellite phone, but don’t give her any details of your location or the mission. Besides, think about it. Maybe calling her now will make her more nervous,” Agent Graham said. Thorpe looked troubled. Maybe calling his mom would only make her worry, but he felt a small lump in his throat when he thought about her sitting and not hearing from him for several days. He could call her and lie, say he was still at Fort Meade, but she always saw through his lies.

Thorpe felt the small airplane stop. He looked down. A group of black vans was waiting near the airplane. Black-suited agents stepped off the plane and started hauling cases and suitcases to the vans. One large case being carried caught his attention. It wasn’t being handled too delicately.

“Hey! You muscle-bound gorillas! That’s my equipment! Be careful!” Thorpe screeched, his face glued to the airplane’s window. Thorpe picked up his backpack and rushed outside, almost bumping into The Man as the elderly director stepped off the airplane. Five minutes later they were driving through Endicott, each van taking a different route to their motel.

***

Out on County Road 17, a black van stopped next to Ellis. She looked right and left and then boarded the vehicle. The van took off, driving sedately towards Endicott. Ellis had left her bags behind; Susie believed Ellis had just left for an early morning jog around town.

“Alpha”

“Guardian.”

“How many donuts have you been eating lately, Fred?”

“Look who’s talking! She’s having the time of her life, even going out on dates, while I sit on my butt in this van,” the big man behind the wheel, Fred Stratman, said. Ellis punched him on the shoulder.

“Ouch! And she even hits me, too! After all I did for her!” Guardian said. Ellis grinned, but after a moment her smile faded.

“How’s Benny?

“He’s not good. There’s nothing physically wrong with him. He’s in some sort of catatonic state, so the doctors say. He’s been flown to Fort Meade,” Fred said.

“Why was I pulled out? What’s going on?”

“We’re going in, that’s what’s going on,” Fred said. The Enoco Lodge was on the outskirts of Endicott, far from most other buildings. It was situated in a convenient location, between the airport, the Endicott sport facilities and West Endicott Park. The lodge had a big, three-story main building with reception, dining hall and kitchen on the first floor and rooms on the other two stories. There was also a large parking lot, mostly empty. Small living units lined the parking lot, two on each side. A man in a suit stood nonchalantly next to one of the units. Fred drove the van towards him and parked it.

“Real undercover work, this is,” Ellis said.

“Behave yourself, Ellis,” Fred said, killing the engine.

“Don’t I always?” Ellis said. They walked towards the man, Fred still grumbling. The man nodded at them, and knocked twice on the door behind him. It was opened from within and they entered the room. The small flat had been transformed, filled with communications gear, including a small satellite dish coming out of one fat suitcase and pointing towards a window. There were two large-screen laptop computers on the large double bed. A large satellite picture of Owego covered by a transparent plastic cover hung on one wall. Ellis smiled as she saw Agent Graham, her supervisor. The agent walked over and shook her hand.

“Hi Ellis, how are you?”

“Fine, thanks.”

“Fred.”

“Hi, boss,” Guardian said. They shook hands with Rodney, another one of Graham’s agents.

“I’d like you to meet Robert Thorpe, our analyst. He’s the driving force behind this investigation - when he can be bothered,” Graham said. He pointed towards a red-headed man sitting in front of one of the laptops, working frantically.

“Thorpe, come here!” Graham said. The man shook his head irritably and finished typing something on his laptop. Then he looked towards them. His red hair was trimmed short, and his rimless, round spectacles was pressing a small mark onto his nose. He had a T-shirt on with the motto ‘In love and Internet all is possible.’ Ellis saw Thorpe glancing at Fred disinterestedly, but then he looked at her, and seemed to be almost swallowing his tongue. Thorpe walked towards them, hitting his foot on a chair leg. He shook Fred’s hand, and then Ellis’s. Ellis noticed he avoided looking into her eyes.

“Hi, I’m Ellis,” she said. He looked like he was trying to talk, but nothing was coming out.

“He’s rather shy around people. Probably because computers don’t talk back,” Graham said, smiling widely. Thorpe threw him a furious glance, his face red.

“Your clothes look like you’ve slept in them for several nights,” Ellis told him lightly. The red-haired man looked at her for the first time. He finally smiled.

“Um - ah - it’s a kind of a new look, the latest thing,” Thorpe said and Ellis laughed. Then she turned towards a door leading to a small room. The tall form of the director talking on a cellular phone could be seen walking to and fro.

“You got the director here?” Ellis exclaimed.

“Yeah. The big, black shadow of doom,” Thorpe muttered as he went back to his computers. Ellis laughed and Thorpe shot her a surprised glance. A moment passed and The Man entered the room, stowing his cellular phone in his pocket.

“Everybody’s here, sir,” Agent Graham said. The agents gathered before the director, all of them standing, except Thorpe, who sat on the bed.

“I’ll be brief. I want the situation here diffused. Quickly. This is the first priority. The second is information. I need to know how this thing started, and why,” the director said.

“Sir, can we just attack the cult? What about legal issues?” Fred asked. He took a step back as the tall, wide-shouldered director turned to him.

“Harboring criminals and abducting citizens, Agent. And there was the attack on a

Agent Christensen,” the director said. His dark eyes were on the big agent, making sure no more arguments were forthcoming. “Out target is the leader, Allan Rodell. Without their leader, the cult should quickly fall apart. Plus, he is most likely to be the one holding the information we need. Thorpe.”

Thorpe paled and jumped up as the cold voice addressed him.

“Ah - yes. This is a satellite's thermal image of the cult’s compound, taken two nights ago. Look.” Thorpe manipulated the gray-shaded image. Details were easily visible. Thorpe pointed to an area on the big photograph on the wall. People were sleeping on the ground, their hot bodies clearly visible against the colder earth. There were several big tents and further away was a smaller tent with a man standing in front of it, apparently guarding it. Thorpe pointed at a large, half-completed wooden structure near the tent.

“That’s the closest tent to their temple, and there’s a guard at the entrance. So we are assuming that that is the leader’s tent,” Thorpe said, beaming. He glanced at the director, wilting under his cold stare.

“That’s a tent. How can you be sure who’s inside it?” Fred grumbled.

“It’s logical; the perfect place for their leader. Look, every other tent is far away from it. The loneliness of leadership. It must be it,” Thorpe said.

“Okay, but how can you know if he’s in it when we attack?” Fred did not relent.

“Well, we won’t be able to use the satellite. It has only two passes a day, ten minutes long. But, I’ve brought a SUAV system. It will give us more then an hour’s worth of surveillance. No problem,” Thorpe said.

“What about their temple?” The director asked.

“We don’t know much about it. Ellis couldn’t get close to it and we weren’t able to get good reconnaissance on it. There’s something hidden inside it, but we don’t know what,” Thorpe answered.

The director grunted, looked at the large satellite image of the town and then turned to Graham.

“We don’t have much time. Your mission is to get inside and get the man. If it’s the target, pull him out. Even if he’s not the target, pull him out anyway. If it’s the target and he gives you trouble, pop him. I want a quick, precise operation. We will stop this thing right here and now,” the director said. His phone rang. He looked at the number and then looked at Graham.

“Agent Graham, it’s now eleven hundred hours. By fourteen hundred hours I want to see a plan, checked and verified. The operation commences at two hundred hours tonight,” the director said. He re-entered the second room.

Ellis sat next to Thorpe on the large bed while the other agents were arguing next to the large satellite image on the wall. Thorpe’s sure keystrokes began to falter.

“You don’t actually look like an analyst,” Ellis said after a long silence. Thorpe grinned.

“Um - I am, I am. Really.” Thorpe winced, trying to think of something more meaningful to say. “You don’t look like a martial artist yourself,” he finally said. He closed his eyes, but relaxed as Ellis laughed.

“Oh? Should I take it as a compliment?”

“Martial artists on TV usually have more scars,” Thorpe said.

“Oh, then I might as well tell you we also don’t run on rooftops and treetops. Unless we want to, of course,” Ellis said. “Beside, I’m not really good enough to be called an artist. I think being called a student of the martial arts is good enough for me,” Ellis said. There was a pause. Ellis looked at the arguing agents while Thorpe moved the image on his laptop aimlessly.

“How was it inside the town?” Thorpe said slowly.

“It was weird. The people there are perfectly normal, living out their lives just like the rest of us. But that cult has managed to enter almost every home in there. That was quite frightening. I can see why the director is worried,” Ellis said. Thorpe stopped working and looked at her in amazement.

“The Man? Worried? Are you kidding me?”

“He’s worried, all right. He wouldn’t have come here if he weren’t worried,” Ellis said. She looked at the other room, where the director was still walking to and fro.

“Well, I wish he’d start calling me ‘agent.’ I am sick and tired of being called Thorpe. It reminds me of school,” Thorpe said.

“Don’t let him get to you. He’s a big softie inside, you’ll see.” Ellis winked and joined the other agents, leaving Thorpe staring at her. He returned to his laptop, downloading the last images from Colorado on a secure link and frantically searching through them, looking for anything new on the elusive targets there. Whenever he closed his eyes he saw that deadline, as the time was steadily running out. He felt he wasn’t progressing fast enough.

***

At fourteen hundred hours the agents were assembled. The director, standing stiffly, nodded at Graham.

“Agent Graham.”

“Yes, sir. We will use four teams. Alpha team with an Agency van. Bravo team with a rented pickup. Guardian will be an observation and sniping team overlooking the target area, and Delta will be the backup team, in a van. We will have a mobile HQ in our fourth van.” The agent drew a mark on the plastic covering the satellite image on the wall.

“Alpha team is the main infiltration and extraction team. Agent Christensen will lead it. Their van will enter the town from the north, along Route 38. They will position it on Elm Street, three hundred yards east of the compound. From there, agent Christensen and three other agents will go on foot, infiltrate the camp, locate and apprehend the target and get away using the van. Two other agents will be in the van at all times.” Agent Graham drew another mark on the map.