Free The White House: A Flynn Carroll Thriller by Whitley Strieber

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    â€œI don’t know exactly how much you understand about what’s happening, but I have reason to take you into my confidence. You might be able to help us in some important ways.”
    â€œI know that there were aliens on that ranch near Austin, and I know that you killed them all, you and Mac and Diana. There was some kind of an underground thing there.” She paused. “When it burned…” She stopped herself.
    â€œGo on.”
    She shook her head. He heard her murmur, “I smelled meat.”
    He hadn’t known that she was there, not until a few months ago when the newly minted First Daughter had showed up at Diana’s town house and demanded to know what was going on. She had naively imagined that her father’s election had given her some authority. Talk about a loose cannon. It was a miracle that she hadn’t told her parents or her younger sister, Lorna, Jr., who was presently burning up the base paths at Sul Ross University in Alpine, Texas.
    Fortunately, Cissy had been afraid to do any whispering, afraid she’d get Flynn in trouble and Mac in more. The detail had done voice analysis and a lie detector test on her, then an fMRI interview. She’d passed everything, so they’d hit her with the confidentiality agreement and let her go.
    â€œWhat we’re looking at is what we believe to be an alien presence that has negative intent toward mankind.” He didn’t mention Aeon by name. “Put simply, they want Earth.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œSame reason we would, I’d assume. Expand to a new planet, enrich themselves.”
    â€œYou’d think they’d be more spiritual. Ethical. Given that they’re more advanced.”
    â€œThe Nazis were far more technologically advanced than any previous generation of Germans, but Bach and Beethoven were far more civilized.”
    â€œWhy just you, Flynn? Where’s the air force, where’s the army?”
    â€œWhat do you know about Al Doxy?”
    â€œWe used to call him Dorksy in school. He was a geek whose glasses steamed up if you so much as blew on his ear. But he was—you know—a meatball.”
    â€œRich, though.”
    â€œNobody cared. We were all rich in our crowd. We didn’t mingle with the toads. They, like, didn’t exist.”
    â€œSo he showed up here. Did he say hello?”
    â€œHe took me to dinner. Told me how important his job was. He must’ve said ‘West Wing’ fifty times before dessert came. Totally boring, and he’d gotten even more enormous. He looked like a big, droopy elephant who’d lost his trunk.”
    â€œDid he tell you what he did?”
    â€œWouldn’t that have been illegal?”
    â€œYes, but he’s dead. We can’t put ghosts in jail.”
    â€œHe told me he was working on some kind of microwave project. Managing it.”
    â€œDid he ever mention any names? Mine, for example? Anything about aliens?”
    Her eyes widened. “Will you tell me what’s going on?”
    â€œHe died because of something he knew. I’m trying to figure out what that was.”
    â€œThere was something on his iPad in his office. ‘The United States is in danger of being destroyed, and along with it the whole of mankind.’”
    â€œThat was there? You’re certain?”
    â€œI heard Dad talking on the phone about it. Trying to figure out what it might mean.”
    He laid a hand on her cheek, then drew it away. “I need to do a round.”
    â€œNo you don’t, not really. If they come, you’ll know. Mac said you always know. You’re uncanny, he said. Also that you won’t share your secrets, or how you do your work.”
    â€œWe’ve got people in training. To share my work.”
    She chuckled. “Not you, Mr. Huge Ego. This is your baby. Only you and nobody else.” She tossed her hair out of her eyes. “The hero’s