Free The Biofab War by Stephen Ames Berry Page A

blue cigar smoke. Lois’s encircling warmth that first time in the back of his old Chevy, under a full August moon, the air rich with the scent of wild roses. Inge’s startling blue eyes, that day in Berlin. Emmy-chan in the snow at Nikko, and much, much later, lying before their fireplace in McLean, the firelight dancing along her soft, golden skin. It all felt very fragile now.
    “Bakunin,” he said softly, “I think we’ve found a little green gremlin.” Unnoticed, his hands shook.
    Bakunin finally found his voice. “It is alien, intelligent, hostile and armed with superior weaponry. It can control minds. I urge you to summon reinforcements—cordon off the village.”
    His hand still shaking, Sutherland picked up the phone
    Major General James (“Big Jim”) O’Brien’s twenty-five years in the Air Force had added only slightly to his bedrock of Missouri skepticism. Thus he blinked twice at the situation board before startling the noncom next to him with a loud, “What the hell is that ?”
    “That,” to the thirty pairs of eyes in the Joint Chiefs of Staff Operations center, four hundred feet under the Pentagon, was a green dot moving fast—much too fast—across the North Atlantic toward the New England coast. As they watched, the computer tagged it “U1”: unidentified target, number one. Not yet “H” for hostile, just “U.” That “U” worried Big Jim far more than an “H.” “H” he knew how to deal with. “Sure it’s not Russian or Chinese?” he asked hopefully.
    “No way, sir,” said the Target ID officer, staring at his computer. “Too fast, too high. It originated in space, outside our radar range.”
    “Meteor?”
    “It’s changed trajectory eight times in the past minute and is now decelerating. Not to any speed we could intercept, though.” Before O’Brien could speak, the green dot entered U.S. territory and disappeared. “Wet landing?”
    “No, sir. Land. Just—the Cape Cod coast. There.” A red circle flashed a third of the way up the peninsula, itself enlarged on the situation board.
    Shit , thought O’Brien. A goddamned UFO on my watch. And it’s landed. He squeezed his eyes shut for an instant, then opened them. The red circle was still there, blinking. O’Brien picked up the green phone. In seconds he was listening to the Otis Operations Officer’s report. Yes, their radar had spotted it, too. F-15s had scrambled.
    Glancing at the board O’Brien saw a phalanx of red crosses, marked F1to F5, appear, cruising along the Cape’s Atlantic shore. “Get some choppers up, too, Major Jenkins,” he ordered. “If you’ve had no luck by dawn, we’ll reinforce you.” As he hung up the green phone, the blue one next to it rang: three brisk chimes, like a ship’s clock. Everyone who could turned to watch as O’Brien reached for it. The blue phone never rang. “General O’Brien,” he answered. It was going to be a long night.
    “General,” said a crisp voice, “this is William Sutherland, CIA. I’m declaring Situation Breakout. You’ll find the applicable challenge and countersign in your standing orders. This is not a drill.”
    O’Brien dutifully pecked “Breakout” on his laptop. “‘Cortez,’” he read off the screen. “‘Rome Falls,’” responded Sutherland, hoping to God he’d given the right countersign. There were seven he had to memorize and they changed every month. He was relieved to hear the general ask, “What are your instructions, Mr. Sutherland?”
    “I need infantry at Oystertown, Massachusetts—the Leurre Oceanographic Institute. Get help here as fast as you can from Otis—APs, air commandos, anyone who can carry a weapon. Things are a bit dicey. Then get a Rapid Deployment Force to Otis and quarantine Cape Cod. Maximum air vigilance in this sector. I’m calling the White House now. I’m authorized to instruct you to go to DEFCON 2. Please do so now. I’ll wait.”
    Mad dogs and the CIA, O’Brien thought, turning to