V - The Original Miniseries (2 page)

 

Donovan turned and grinned, his teeth flashing in his dirty face. "Hell, Tony, you're going to get another Emmy!"

 

"I'm gonna get a bullet in my earphone!" Leonetti shouted back, grimly keeping his sound equipment operating. "Tell my wife my last thoughts were of-"

 

"Look!" Donovan's shout cut through Tony's words. "Look at him!"

Carlos had run to a downed comrade just as the helicopter turned, bearing down on him. Bullets began peppering the ground before them. The guerrilla leader stood, his .45 automatic pistol in both hands, coolly sighting along the barrel at the approaching chopper. As it came within range, swooping even lower for the kill, he squeezed off several rounds, aiming for the pilot, clearly visible behind the glass bubble of the cockpit.

Just as it seemed that the next burst of machine-gun fire would destroy the leader, the gunship pilot sagged limply in his seat. The helicopter wavered, dipped, then slipped over the treetops, losing altitude with every second. The ground shook with the force of the explosion, and Donovan could feel a puff of warm air against his face, even at this distance. "Unbelievable! I don't believe it! Did you see that?"

Tony nodded vigorously, grabbing his arm. "What's really unbelievable is that we're still alive, chum! Come on!"

Donovan was still shooting as his companion dragged him into their beat-up vehicle, which was still, amazingly, intact. Leonetti gunned the motor, hearing the beating thunder of another helicopter closing on the camp, now blazing with gunfire and flames from exploded vehicles. Letting out the clutch with a jerk, he sent the jeep fishtailing through the camp, heading back toward the road they'd traveled earlier that morning. He glanced over at the cameraman, then grinned half in admiration, half in exasperation. Donovan was training his camera back the way they'd come, leaning backward to catch a shot of the helicopter as it followed them.

"I wish we had a Tyler mount!" he shouted as the camera bounced on his shoulder.

Tony Leonetti sighed. "I wish we had a tank." But Donovan, still shooting, didn't hear him. The jeep careened along the road, crossed a creek, raising a spray of water. Suddenly the vehicle lurched sickeningly as a rocket exploded near them, sluicing water over the jeep and its occupants.

Donovan's voice reached Tony dimly, though the soundman knew his friend must be shouting at the top of his lungs. "Hang in there, Tony! This isn't any worse than Cambodia!"

 

The Asian man laughed, shaking his head. "At least if you bought it there, I could'a passed for one of them! Where the hell did that chopper go?"

 

The question was answered as they topped a small rise in the road. The chopper was hanging a few feet above the ground, waiting for them.

Tony turned the wheel quickly, but not before the copter fired a burst. The jeep swerved again as Leonetti gasped, grabbing at his arm. Donovan quickly reached for the wheel, steadying the careening vehicle as the chopper lifted off overhead. Glancing quickly at his partner's arm, the cameraman saw a new blotch of scarlet staining Tony's hibiscus-flowered shirt. "You okay?" he shouted, as his partner took over the driving again.

"You kidding?" The wind whipped Tony's black hair back from his sweatband. "I'm loving every minute of this!"

Suddenly another rocket went off directly in their path. The jeep, already overbalanced, slipped sideways, overturning in the ditch beside the road. Overhead they could hear the thunder of the chopper as it homed in on them.

Donovan was thrown atop his partner, out of the overturned jeep, but the soft dirt of the roadside kept them from being more than shaken up. All of the cameraman's instincts reacted to the beat-beat of the helicopter blades. They had to reach the shelter of the trees!

Donovan scrambled up, camera still clutched firmly. Turning, he pulled the soundman to his feet, noting with part of his mind that the gas line had ruptured and that flames were licking along the splattered fuel.

He was alarmed by Tony's pallor beneath his tan. "Can you run?" Tony turned to see the fire. "I have a choice?"

"I'm g6ing to draw their fire. You haul ass over to those trees. They'll give you a little protection." He cast a quick glance upward at the helicopter, which had turned and was heading back for them. He threw himself forward. "Go, Tony!"

"No, Mike! We go together-" Donovan was already running. "Get your can in gear! Go!" Behind him he could hear Tony heading for the trees.

Donovan zigged across the mud flat, hearing the bullets beginning to spang almost on his heels. Even as he increased his speed, he realized that there was nothing ahead of him except another bend of the creek-broad, shallow, but nearly impossible to run in. Rusting in the middle of it was the hulk of a once-orange pickup, Swiss-cheesed with hundreds of bullet holes.

Hide in the shelter of that? he wondered, thinking that the truck would provide little cover from the bullets. But there was no place else to run.

He turned, cradling the camera, only to see the chopper settle down to within a few feet of the water as delicately as a broody hen arranging herself on her nest. Shit, he thought, this is it. In sheer defiance-with a wild thought that perhaps the chopper didn't realize he was a newsman-Donovan raised the camera and began shooting directly at the faces of the two men in the helicopter. His eye narrowed on the viewfinder of the camera as the chopper moved even closer and Donovan peered sharply at the man sitting next to the pilot.

It can't be! Ham Tyler-what the hell is he doing here? The former CIA agent was now part of a highly secret branch of covert U.S. security operations. He had dogged Donovan's heels before-in Laos. Donovan had heard rumors that the right-wing "patriot" (his term, not Donovan's) was responsible for some of the more notorious mop-ups of guerrilla forces here in El Salvador, but hadn't been able to verify them.

But even as Mike Donovan recognized the man in the copilot's seat, the helicopter abruptly lifted, turned, and went zipping away. Huh? Now why the hell

Donovan turned to see if by some miracle a tank had rolled up behind him (in total silence?! Don't be foolish, Mike ... ) and nearly dropped his precious camera. Even as he heard the low, pulsing hum, his startled eyes took in the huge shape drifting toward him over the distant mountains, dwarfing even their vastness.

Donovan felt his jaw sag; his mind screamed that he must've bought it-he couldn't still be alive and seeing this. Automatically his finger tightened on the shooting button, and he heard the camera record the incredible vision.

An oblate spheroid, just as he'd heard it described in those UFO stories, but it was 'so big! His fuddled mind tried to absorb the enormity of the ship, but as it loomed closer and closer, his sense of proportion simply gave out. A mile in diameter? More. Two miles? More- Big

Finally it stopped, hanging in midair like an impossible dream. Donovan heard Tony shouting behind him, and turned to wave reassuringly at the soundman. As he slogged through the water toward his friend, one thought ran through Donovan's head like a broken record: How many people in history have been saved from having their asses shot off by a flying saucer?

THE WHITE MOUSE SAT UP ON HIS HIND LEGS, WHISKERS TWITCHing, as he heard the cage door rattle. Food time? But his stomach told him no, it was not food time. Instead he felt a hand grasp him gently, lift him carefully, then turn him over. He recognized the scent, the voice that spoke, and did not struggle.

"Come on, Algernon. Show Doctor Metz your tummy." "Remarkable!" Doctor Rudolph Metz leaned over to scrutinize the mouse's furry belly, then picked up a magnifying glass to inspect it more closely. "The lesion's nearly healed!"

The blonde young woman in the lab coat smiled, pleased by Metz's reaction. "Yes. In a few more days it should be completely normal." She stroked the mouse's head with one finger, then gently put him back in the cage.

Doctor Metz raised bushy salt-and-pepper brows, regarding her as intently as he had the mouse. "You know how long my research staff has been searching for that formula, Juliet?"

 

Juliet Parrish smiled, but shook her head. "It wasn't all my doing. Ruth helped a lot." Ruth Barnes looked up from a microscope across the lab. "I heard that, and don't you believe it, Rudolph. She did it all."

 

"Well, I was very lucky." The fourth-year medical student carefully examined the latch on the mouse cage, not meeting the older man's eyes.

 

Metz nodded. "Luck happens in science, but usually only when accompanied by hard work and inspiration. The truth here, Juliet, is that you are very, very gifted. Research comes naturally to you."

Coming from Doctor Metz, this was an extraordinary compliment, and Juliet couldn't stop the flush of pleasure that warmed her face. Glancing over at Ruth, she saw the older woman give her a "thumbs up" sign of approval.

Metz watched the mouse as he frisked around his cage. "And furthermore, I warn you that Ruth and I are going to try and steal you from the med school. If you could devote your full time to biochemistry, you might-"

The laboratory door slammed back against the wall with a bang, making them all jump. Silhouetted in the doorway was a breathless young black man. "Have you heard about them?"

 

"Heard about what, Ben?" Doctor Metz was puzzled.

Doctor Benjamin Taylor flipped on the television set that sat high on a shelf in the lab. The small portable's face filled with Dan Rather's well-known countenance-at this moment, a very grave countenance:

"... but wherever the reports have come from-Paris, Rome, Geneva, Buenos Aires, Tokyo-descriptions of the craft have all been identical. And-" He broke off, plainly listening to a voice in his earphone. "I'm told that our affiliate station KXT in San Francisco now has this visual."

The screen filled with the image of a huge vessel looming in across San Francisco harbor, filling the screen, so vast that the Golden Gate Bridge below it looked like a Tinkertoy. The three in the laboratory could hear the awe in Rather's voiceover:

"Yes, there it is-Good Lord, the size of it! Ladies and gentlemen, this picture is coming to you live from San Francisco."

 

Almost at the same moment, the four scientists heard a low, pulsing hum, barely within the range of human ears. The mice, however, shrilled and began to race frantically around their cages. Juliet glanced over at Ben. "Do you think-" As if in answer to her question, Dan Rather spoke from the television screen: "I'm also getting confirmation that another of the giant ships is moving in over Los Angeles!"

 

"Oh, God," Ruth said. The four scientists stared at each other.

ANTHROPOLOGIST ROBERT MAXWELL LEANED CLOSER TO HIS prize, brushing carefully at a vacant eye socket with far greater gentleness than he used when bathing his three-year-old daughter. Even so, Arch Quinton put up a cautioning hand. "Gently, gently, Robert. She's a verra' special lady ..." His Scots burr was most pronounced when he was excited, and Maxwell grinned to himself, thinking that he'd never seen the older man more ecstatic over a discovery-though Quinton would die rather than break out of that "dour Scot" cover he affected.

"So your examination of the hip socket verified that she was female?" he asked. At Quinton's nod, he continued, dabbing carefully at the blackened, jagged teeth, "Upper Pleistocene, for sure, Arch. Much older than any we've uncovered at this site, wouldn't you agree?"

Quinton nodded. "The artifacts seem t' bear you out, lad. Also, look at her forehead, here-" His hand, which had been raised to brush gently at the wispy fragments of hair, paused, then turned into a point. "Robert, look at that!"

Even before Robert Maxwell could turn, he heard the sound-a vibrating pulse throbbing in his body as well as his ears. He turned to see a giant craft, silver-blue, sliding toward them as smoothly as if it ran on an invisible track. His hand tightened convulsively on the brush, and he pressed his body closer to the cliff, as though he would interpose himself between his find and the spaceship.

ELIAS TAYLOR SQUATTED ON THE FIRE ESCAPE, GLANCING QUICKLY around to make sure he was unobserved. Not much chance that anyone would be home, since it was the middle of the day, but Elias had never been caught yet, and didn't intend to break his record. Satisfied, he quickly taped the small pane over, his movements neat and economical. Then, a quick tap with a rock and-presto! The young man's teeth looked doubly white against his dark countenance as he grinned. Easy. Elias liked jobs that were easy.

Once inside the apartment, he trotted through the tiny rooms, looking for items that would be easy to carry, simple to fence. A Walkman caught his eye, and he flipped it on, listening intently to make sure that the tone was good.

A sock stuffed under the mattress of an unmade bed yielded nearly a hundred in cash. Elias grinned again as he counted it, shaking his head. They always hide the bread in the same places. Most folks have no imagination ...

The only other thing that interested Taylor was a portable television. He turned it on, grimacing as he saw it was only black-and-white. Cheap suckers, I swear, he thought, ready to turn it off and make his exit. Black-and-whites were so cheap that it wasn't worth his energy to steal them anymore. His fingers hovered over the "off" switch, arrested by the image on the screen, what looked like (but couldn't be!) a live shot of a big UFO! Hastily he turned the sound up.

along the Champs-Elysees. We repeat, this picture is coming live from Paris, where yet another giant UFO is moving overhead."

 

Elias sat, eyes widening, as the picture changed to a squadron of jet fighters scrambling into the air. The voice continued:

"The Pentagon reports that fighters from the Tactical Air Command bases around the United States have approached these monstrous UFOs, but all jets reported interference with their onboard guidance and electrical systems, forcing them to break off their attempts."

The scene shifted to a mob rushing madly along a street, cars jammed in the middle, honking insanely-complete and utter chaos. Even the cops looked spaced-out, and no wonder, thought Elias, seeing another of the giant ships hanging (how the hell did they do that trick?) overhead. The scene reminded him tantalizingly of another, something he'd seen in the past, in a movie. As the camera panned to reveal the Washington Monument, Elias whistled softly to himself. "Shit," he mumbled, "it's old Klaatu and Gort come to Earth for real this time!"