Free Area 51: The Mission-3 by Robert Doherty Page A

said.
    "What do you mean?"

    67

    "They're Indians. Natives. People like the governor, they consider the ones who live in the jungle to be less than animals. They die, no one here cares."
    "They're human beings," Harrison said.
    Ruiz looked more closely at the American. "There is nothing to be done," Ruiz said. He had a pain in his left temple. The beginnings of a headache.
    "That is where you are wrong," Harrison said. He walked off toward the river.

    "See and know and understand that the end of the world is near." The voice was deep and full of power. "Mankind's crimes are too great! Death will come.
    Nation will fight against nation. A monstrous plague will purify, and only those true of heart will be saved." There was an echoing silence before the voice continued. "Do you believe?"
    "We believe!" a hundred voices echoed back.
    "Do you believe?" the man repeated, his voice testing the people massed on the floor of the auditorium. The lights were turned low, only a spotlight blazed, centered on the screen behind the speaker, ten feet above his head. The light outlined a ten-foot-wide circle that had a representation of a small blue and white Earth in the center. Coming out of the Earth were lines that led to bright silver stars that made up the circumference of the circle. It was a symbol that was becoming more and more familiar around the world: the sign of the progressives.
    "We believe!" The people shouting back were all dressed in brown pants and shirts.
    "Ours is the only way. Our path is the path of enlightenment and the future,"
    the speaker continued. The auditorium was in the center of Melbourne, but the 68

    meeting had all the aspects of a church revival in the Deep South of the United States.
    "It is not a path for everyone," the man continued. A placard on the front of the podium identified him as Guide Parker. He was a dignified-looking man, with thick white hair framing a patrician face. "It is a path only the chosen can be led to. I have been designated to guide you there. If you believe and trust in my guidance, you will survive the coming darkness!"
    "We believe!" the audience screamed back. "We trust you!"
    Parker's voice lowered, becoming even deeper. "Your trust must be absolute.
    The darkness will take all who do not trust and believe! It will consume the disbelievers. It will consume the enemy of those who came from the stars and tried to help us. We must ask for forgiveness of man's sins against the stars and our own planet. To be helped we must be true. We must believe. Do you hear me?"
    "We hear you!"
    "Mankind will be blotted from the face of the ground. But we—we have found favor and grace for our belief. We are the righteous. We will be taken up and protected, and then freed once more to populate the world."
    A nerve on the side of Parker's face twitched and his eyes lost their focus for the slightest of moments. He raised a hand to the side of his head as a spasm of pain passed through his brain. Then the face was calm once more. He smiled. "We will take action soon. You must be prepared or else the darkness will take you!"
    Around the world, in a dozen other rooms like this one, a similar sermon was being preached.

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    There was no doubt that the wreckage was American—the Chinese lieutenant could still see the "U.S." painted in black on a section of the tail boom. He spit in the direction of the marking. Foreigners, invading the sovereign borders of his country. China had been neglected on the power scene of the world for too long.
    Its place was at the top, not second to anyone.
    He kicked aside a piece of metal as he stepped into what had been the main compartment. The Chinese lieutenant pulled the notebook out of the dead man's hand. He ignored the corpse as he thumbed through the pages. He noted the drawings of the high runes and the photos. The English writing scrawled on the last page he didn't understand, but there were those in intelligence who could translate it. The one thing