Author: James Becker
Date: 2018-08-20 01:33:33+00:00
Keywords: Mystery & Detective; Thrillers; Crime; Police Procedural; Fiction
Description: In this thriller series debut, a British policeman hunting for a killer in rural Montana finds himself up against a deadly conspiracy. Seconded to the FBI, British policeman Steven Hunter is assigned to a baffling case when a gruesome murder is discovered in rural Montana. Someone has lodged a human femur into the victim’s skull. With local authorities out of their depth, it’s up to Hunter to find out who committed this heinous act, and why. But someone high-up doesn’t want the case solved. With a corrupt government moving in the shadows and a deadly killer on the loose, Hunter faces the deadl
Publisher: Canelo

Trade-Off

Table of Contents

1. Cover
2. Title Page
3. Prologue
4. Chapter One
5. Chapter Two
6. Chapter Three
7. Chapter Four
8. Chapter Five
9. Chapter Six
10. Chapter Seven
11. Chapter Eight
12. Chapter Nine
13. Chapter Ten
14. Chapter Eleven
15. Chapter Twelve
16. Chapter Thirteen
17. Chapter Fourteen
18. Chapter Fifteen
19. Chapter Sixteen
20. Chapter Seventeen
21. Chapter Eighteen
22. Chapter Nineteen
23. Chapter Twenty
24. Chapter Twenty-One
25. Chapter Twenty-Two
26. Chapter Twenty-Three
27. Chapter Twenty-Four
28. Chapter Twenty-Five
29. Chapter Twenty-Six
30. Chapter Twenty-Seven
31. Chapter Twenty-Eight
32. Chapter Twenty-Nine
33. Author's Note
34. Also by James Becker
35. Copyright

Guide

1. Cover
2. Start Reading
3. Also by James Becker

Prologue

Friday

When Kathy Morrell woke up, she was eight days short of her twenty-seventh birthday and had exactly seventeen minutes of life remaining.

At first she thought it was the glare that had awoken her, but she was wrong. Her first waking sensation had been the lights, banks of them located high above her recumbent body, so brilliant that looking up at them quite literally hurt her eyes. But although the lights were all she could see and all she was aware of for the first few seconds after consciousness returned, they weren’t what had interrupted her sleep.

Her return to wakefulness was due simply to chemistry, to a change in the relative concentrations of the gases she was breathing, and had been breathing continuously for just over four days. The oxygen and nitrous oxide mixture had been carefully regulated by the automatic monitoring systems to keep her deeply unconscious during her transportation to this, her final destination. Around thirty minutes earlier, the system had begun to reduce the concentration of nitrous oxide, with a corresponding increase in the proportion of nitrogen, and her drugged brain had slowly returned to life.

For several minutes Kathy just lay still, tentatively exploring her memory and wondering why on earth she felt so ravenously hungry. The nitrous oxide had left her with a blinding headache which showed no immediate signs of abating, and she guessed that if she tried to sit up or stand the pain would probably knock her back down again. So she lay still, collected her thoughts and tried to work out the answer to a single, very simple, but very important question – just where the hell was she?

She dug back through her memories. She remembered dining alone in the hotel restaurant, and the dark-haired man, also unaccompanied, sitting at the adjoining table. She remembered his polite request, and her casual acceptance of his company for coffee and liqueurs. They had talked, exploring each other’s lives as her eyes studied his face, and the coffee cups and the liqueur glasses were filled and refilled, and the restaurant emptied around them.

Kathy remembered Richard’s tentative, almost shy, offer to walk her up to her suite on the tenth floor, and the lingering embrace at the door which had led them, with an inevitability which they had obviously both recognized, through the doorway and straight into the bedroom, shedding clothes and inhibitions on the way.

Richard had been good, very good, and she felt herself moistening with the recollection. But that, she realized with a puzzled frown, was the last thing she could recall. She had no memory of him leaving her suite, and no memory of what she had done after they had lain close together in the afterglow, no memory of anything after that.

Well, that wasn’t precisely correct, she realized. She remembered snuggling up to him, remembered him stroking her long blonde hair, remembered the cigarette he had offered her, and which she had taken.

She was going to give up, she’d told him, but there were times – and without question that moment on that evening qualified as one of them – when smoking a cigarette was simply the only possible thing to do.

The cigarette. Kathy remembered that Richard hadn’t joined her, hadn’t taken one for himself, which had struck her as odd. Yes, she realized. The absolute last thing she had any recollection of was lying back in her bed, smoking the stranger’s cigarette.

At that moment, Kathy Morrell had a little over eight minutes left to live.

She glanced carefully around her, moving her eyes only and taking care to keep her head as immobile as possible. The one place she wasn’t, she was absolutely certain, was in the queen-sized bed in her tenth-floor hotel suite.

She was lying in what appeared to be a casket or box, almost coffin-shaped. The inside was padded, the cover had a large glass faceplate through which the lights above her still blazed, and she was lying on a thin mattress or pad.

She noted without any real surprise that she was quite naked. She had no recollection of dressing after her love-making with the dark-haired stranger, so her nakedness was probably what she would have expected. But where on earth was she?

She wondered if she had been taken ill, and was in a hospital or clinic somewhere but, she rationalized, if that were the case her surroundings would be quite different. She would have been on a gurney or in a bed, surrounded by nurses and doctors and other medical staff. And, she added to herself, she would be wearing something – a gown or nightdress or some other garment – or maybe just covered with a sheet for modesty. She certainly wouldn’t have been left lying naked in some kind of a box.

For the first time Kathy felt unease, and began the slow process of sitting upright. But she discovered immediately that she couldn’t, because of restraints – padded fabric bands or straps – positioned around her wrists and forehead. A few seconds of exploration revealed other bands around her hips and ankles. She was locked in the box, pinned to the base.

The box jerked suddenly and Kathy sensed movement. She also became aware, almost subliminally, of a faint but definite vibration through the floor of the casket. And then she relaxed, because she knew she must be in a hospital. She’d seen patients being fed into CAT scanners and other equipment before, on TV, and she was suddenly sure that she was undergoing some form of test. She couldn’t imagine what for – she was almost never ill – and as soon as they’d finished the examination she’d get the whole situation straightened out.

A couple of minutes later the box jerked again, and she felt the vibration increase in intensity. Obviously they were getting ready to position her in the scanner, or whatever the hell the machine was. Then she noticed that the lid of the casket was lifting off, hoisted into the air by a type of mechanical arm.

‘Hello,’ she called out. ‘Anyone there?’

There had to be someone in the room. Someone had to be operating the machinery that she could hear.

‘Hey! Anybody there?’ Kathy called again.

The sounds she could hear were much louder. A piercing, howling, almost-human scream suddenly cut through the air, and her body tensed involuntarily, then relaxed slightly. A piece of machinery, she thought, and in need of a good dose of lubrication.

She began to discern other sounds, and tried to fit them all into a scenario that made sense. The hissing of something like a hydraulic system was clear enough, and a strange grinding vibration that she felt through the base of the casket almost more than she heard it. And loudest of all were the screams from what she guessed were inadequately lubricated wheels.

‘Hey!’ she shouted again, but without any real conviction. If there had been anyone there, they would have heard her the first time and responded.

The casket jerked again and moved about six feet forward. Kathy felt the fabric straps tighten about her body, and then the casket tilted upwards, pivoting from the foot until it stopped at an angle of about forty-five degrees to the horizontal. For the first time she had an unobstructed view of the whole of the room in front of her.

Nothing that she saw made sense, not at first. The room was about two storeys high, and as far as she could see lined entirely with steel. Ranged on the ceiling were banks of lights, shining down. About five feet in front of her was another casket, lying horizontal and empty, and beyond that was something else.

Knowing is prerequisite to seeing. The human brain takes a considerable time to identify any object which is totally unfamiliar, and adult humans never expect to see anything that they haven’t seen before. That was why Kathy just lay there staring and squinting into the glare for almost ten seconds before she started to scream.

It looked like a machining table in a carpenter’s shop. A flat bed of steel, about eight feet long and three feet wide, with equipment she didn’t and couldn’t recognize positioned along one side of it. Directly behind the equipment was what looked to Kathy like a booth, pretty much like a cashier’s booth on the turnpike, with small glass windows.

But it wasn’t the table, the equipment or the booth that provoked her scream. It wasn’t even the viscous red splashes and smears that covered most of the machinery and a good section of the floor around the table. It was the pinkish-white object on the table, and what was happening to it. It was the realization of what that object was, and of what was about to happen to her.

That was why she screamed.

Chapter One

Tuesday

Helena, Western Montana

The small black alarm clock beside the bed emitted a series of faint ticking sounds, then four loud and penetrating beeps. The fifth was cut short as Steven Hunter’s hand slapped down on the protruding button, and the room fell silent again. After a few seconds, Hunter squinted his eyes to focus on the digital read-out, groaned softly and switched on the bedside light, then closed his eyes again. Three minutes later, he threw back the covers and climbed out of bed.

Hunter padded silently across the room to the windows, hauled back the drapes and peered out, blinking in the early morning sunlight. The TV forecaster the previous evening had got it right, as usual. It was going to be another hot day in another hot month.

He walked into the bathroom, pulled the cord to switch on the fluorescent overhead light, used the toilet and then turned on the shower. He glanced round the room and shook his head. He’d been in America for nearly eighteen months, and he had still to discover why a room that contained a shower stall, sink, toilet and even a bidet – everything, in short, except a bath – was called a bathroom.

A little under an hour later, having dressed and breakfasted on two cups of instant coffee and three McVitie’s Digestive biscuits – an English habit he stubbornly refused to break – Hunter pulled shut the apartment door and headed for the elevator. The Glock 17 in its belt holster now felt familiar and comfortable, which it certainly hadn’t done the first few times he’d worn it, but he had quickly got used to it.

He was also, Hunter realized, as he pulled the dark grey Ford out into the light early morning traffic in Helena, getting used to American driving. For some reason, that thought depressed him, and reminded him that he wasn’t particularly enjoying life.

It wasn’t the actual work, he thought, though he was getting somewhat bored with the minor narcotics cases that were all that Michaelson, the Helena Senior Resident Agent, seemed to push in his direction. It wasn’t even the mountain of paperwork that the Federal Bureau of Investigation required from him virtually every time he took a crap. It probably wasn’t even the fast food – fast it certainly was, but it wasn’t food in Hunter’s opinion – that he ended up consuming almost every day. And it certainly wasn’t Christy-Lee. She was about the only thing that kept him going.

It was probably, he thought, just being in America. Hunter had decided he didn’t like America, and was actually looking forward to getting back to Britain and Lincolnshire. Now that, he thought, was certainly some kind of a first – he’d never heard of anybody getting homesick for Lincolnshire.

Hunter pulled out and eased the Ford around a taxi that had suddenly stopped, double-parking without warning. The driver of a Chevrolet coming towards him hooted angrily. Hunter grinned and waved. Take it easy, he told himself, only another three or four months to go. He’d said the same thing the previous week. And the week before that, in fact.

In short, whatever sort of time Steven Hunter was having in America, the one word that really couldn’t be applied to it was ‘good’.

Beaver Creek, Western Montana

Andy Dermott glanced left and right as he eased the big John Deere tractor through the narrow gateway which led into the top field. The right hand wheel only just cleared the fence post, and Dermott again reminded himself that he would have to get the entrance opened up before the crops ripened if they were going to get the new harvester through.

Dermott had worked the land for nearly thirty years, and had inherited the farm on the death of his father nine years previously. He was proud of his small property, eleven hundred acres of good, productive, arable land that curved protectively around the southeast end of the forest on the western outskirts of Beaver Creek. The town was small, lying not quite midway between Helena and Great Falls, just west of the Missouri river and at the southern end of the Lewis Range, at the very foot of the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains.

Once through the gateway, Dermott looked ahead again, and what he saw made him bring the tractor to a sudden, shuddering halt. At first he couldn’t make out what the black, heaving mass was, then he realized it was birds – crows, in fact – scrambling on and over something lying on the ground.

He pressed the horn button three times, and was rewarded by half a dozen or so of the black birds hopping away and then flapping awkwardly into the air. He climbed down from the cab and walked over to the shape on the ground, clapping his hands to disperse the remaining crows.

Dermott knew something of the law and crime scene investigation, and had served as a temporary deputy to Sheriff Dick Reilly some five years earlier, so he stopped about six feet away and looked down at the figure on the ground.

What he saw sent him running back to the John Deere and the cell phone clipped to the dashboard. But before he made the call to the sheriff’s office, he locked the cab door and looked all around, and made sure that the pump-action twelve-gauge in the rack behind him was loaded.

Dermott stayed in the tractor’s cab for nearly fifty minutes, until he saw Reilly’s white Cherokee Jeep bouncing towards him over the adjacent field. Then he got out, clutching the shotgun, and walked across to meet the sheriff. He didn’t say anything, just nodded in recognition and gestured to his right. The two men walked together across the field towards the body.

They stopped a few feet away, and just looked.

‘Holy shit,’ Reilly muttered. ‘You haven’t touched him?’

‘Nope,’ Dermott replied. ‘I haven’t gotten any closer than we are now.’

‘Those marks on the ground?’

‘Crows,’ Dermott said, economically. He was tall and seemed almost too thin for his height, slow and measured in his speech, but Reilly knew he was by no means slow-witted. ‘Chewed him up pretty good, I guess.’

Reilly nodded.

‘See the bone?’ Dermott asked, pointing.

Reilly nodded again. ‘Difficult to miss.’

‘See the footprints?’

‘I see his prints,’ Reilly replied, looking carefully at the ground around the body. ‘I don’t see no others.’

Dermott nodded. ‘Me neither. That’s the point.’

‘OK,’ Reilly said. ‘Try and keep the birds off of him. I’ll get the wheels turning.’

Helena, Western Montana

The Federal Bureau of Investigation maintains fifty-six Field Offices scattered across America. These Offices are effectively the Bureau’s regional capitals; unusually, Montana’s Field Office is out of state, at the Towers Building in Salt Lake City in Utah.

In all states, authority for local investigations is deputed to smaller subsidiary offices known as Resident Agencies, each responsible for a specific geographical area, generally comprising two or more counties. Montana is usually, from a criminal activity point of view, quiet, the number of Resident Agencies small, and their areas of responsibility correspondingly large. Beaver Creek is in Lewis and Clark County, and the Resident Agency responsible for that county, as well as Beaverhead, Broadwater, Gallatin, Jefferson, Madison, Meagher, Powell and Silver Bow, is at Helena, the state capital.

The call from Sheriff Reilly was received just as Special Agent Kaufmann was closing up for lunch. Some people would have ignored it, but Kaufmann had never been able to walk past a ringing telephone, so she unlocked the door and picked up the receiver before the answering machine could cut in.

Twenty minutes later she strode briskly across the street and into a fast-food restaurant. She walked straight to a secluded booth at the back, stopped, and looked down at a tall fair-haired man in his early forties, who was studying a menu with a marked lack of enthusiasm. After a moment, the man looked up and stared levelly back at her.

‘What?’ he asked.

‘Lunch is postponed, Hunter,’ she said.

‘That’s the first good news I’ve heard all week. I still can’t believe you eat this stuff from choice,’ Hunter said, pointing at the menu.

Christy-Lee Kaufmann grinned down at him. ‘You’ll get used to it.’

‘That,’ Hunter replied, as he stood up and reached for his coat, ‘is what really worries me. OK, what’s up?’

‘I’ll tell you in the car,’ Kaufmann said. ‘And it’s not all good news – we’ve still got to eat.’

On the way out of the restaurant she picked up a couple of burgers each, to go, and four cans of soda. Ten minutes later the two of them were in the Bureau Ford heading north out of Helena for US91 and Beaver Creek.

Beaver Creek, Western Montana

Dick Reilly was short and stocky, broad across the shoulders and, increasingly in recent years, broad in all directions around the waist, a legacy of his too-regular coffee and donut stops at the Main Street Diner. His hair was greying and getting somewhat sparse, and his face was ruddy from exposure to the sun and wind. He had been sheriff of Beaver Creek for almost nine years, and in various types of law enforcement for twenty-three years before that, but the body in the field was a first for him.

He looked carefully around the crime scene once again, as he had done at least six times since he had arrived there, cataloguing and searching.

About two hundred yards to the west lay the edge of the woods which formed a transition between Dermott’s farmland and the Helena National Forest. The open field in which Reilly was standing extended roughly four hundred yards to the north, fifty yards to the south and about fifty to the east. The gate was in the north-east corner, and beside it stood Dermott’s John Deere tractor and Reilly’s Cherokee Jeep.

As Reilly looked towards the gate, a patrol car lurched into view, tyres scrabbling for grip on the earth, roof lights flashing. The County Medical Examiner and the police photographer had arrived almost simultaneously at Dermott’s farm, and Reilly had sent the police cruiser to ferry them out to the field.

‘Good afternoon, Dick,’ Roy Walters called out cheerfully as he walked towards the sheriff. ‘What’ve we got here?’

Reilly nodded, and held out his hand. ‘Afternoon, doc. A corpse, and I only need you to confirm that officially, but I don’t want you anywhere near it yet. First we need pictures.’

He gestured towards the photographer. Joe Nyman was a police cameraman by inclination. He owned the oldest camera shop and picture studio in Beaver Creek, and had worked with the local police department for nearly twenty years. Thirty minutes earlier he had been telephoned by one of Reilly’s deputies. He had grabbed his camera box and closed the store immediately, glad of the break in his routine.

Nyman walked over to the sheriff and gazed with frank curiosity at the supine figure, now protected by half a dozen wooden stakes driven into the ground in a rough circle about fifteen feet in diameter around the body, and with yellow ‘Crime Scene – Do Not Cross’ tape wound around them. He put his camera box on the ground, opened it up and pulled out a Nikon.

‘Ready when you are, Dick.’

Reilly took Nyman by the arm and pointed towards the body.

‘No closer than the ring of stakes, Joe. I want general views of the whole field, then middle-distance pictures of the body from all sides. When you’re done with that, I want a bunch of close-up shots of the body, from every side, including the bone. Use two different data cards, same series of shots on each, just in case one gets a fault. You keep one card, and give me the other one.’

Nyman nodded and peered more closely. ‘Is that bone what I think it is?’

‘We don’t know for sure yet, but Roy will be able to tell us.’

‘So this might be two murders, not one?’

Reilly smiled for the first time since he had climbed out of his Cherokee. ‘I guess that’s one way of puttin’ it,’ he said.

Twenty minutes later Nyman stepped back from the body and replaced the Nikon in his box.

‘That’s it, Dick. I’ll print enough of the pix to set the scene as soon as I get back to the shop, and I’ll get them to your office no later than –’ he glanced at his watch ‘– oh, say, about three thirty. With the data card,’ he added.

‘Thanks,’ Reilly nodded and waved farewell as Nyman walked off towards the cruiser. Then he turned to Roy Walters. ‘OK, doc, do your stuff. Walk over to him, confirm he’s dead, and then walk back. Nothin’ else, and try not to leave any unnecessary prints on the ground.’

Walters looked slightly surprised. ‘What about the cause and approximate time of death?’ he asked.

Reilly smiled bleakly and pointed at the body. ‘You and I already know the cause, Roy, and he’s been dead at least a day. Crows won’t touch a body ’till it’s good and cold, and this guy’s got no face left. That means he’s been dead awhile.’

Walters nodded, pulled on a pair of rubber gloves and a surgical mask, and walked across to the crime scene. He ducked under the tape and walked the last few feet with exaggerated care. Then he knelt beside the corpse and, out of habit not expectation, briefly felt the side of the neck. There was no pulse, and the flesh was cold but not hard.

‘Rigor mortis has faded, Dick,’ he called over his shoulder, ‘so you’re right – he’s been dead well over twenty-four hours.’

Before he straightened up, Walters looked carefully at the skull. Like Reilly, he had seen a lot of dead bodies in his career, but never before had he seen anyone killed quite like this.

The top of the skull had clearly been shattered, and the weapon that had done the damage was unmistakably a human thigh-bone, driven vertically downwards, and still protruding like a bizarre and obscene head-dress from the dead man’s greying hair. From the amount outside the body, Walters estimated that about six to eight inches of the bone had penetrated and was still lodged inside the skull. The impact would have pulverised the brain completely.

Death had obviously been instantaneous, but Walters couldn’t imagine how any assailant could have done it. The dead man was heavily-built and well over six feet tall – Walters estimated six feet three or thereabouts – and was lying on his back. That suggested that the blow had been struck from the front and downwards, and to deliver a killing blow with such a weapon an attacker would need to be both immensely strong and very tall. Real tall, Walters thought, like eight to nine feet.

He shivered suddenly and looked around nervously. Reilly and Dermott were behind him, and Dermott, the doctor noticed, was still carrying his shotgun. Walters bent again to the corpse and looked closely at what was left of the man’s face.

‘Hey,’ he called out, ‘I think I know this guy.’

‘Bingo, doc,’ Reilly said. ‘We all know him. Now, don’t touch anythin’ else. Just get the hell away from him.’

Walters stood up and walked backwards, retracing his steps as accurately as he could until he was standing outside the ring of stakes. ‘Damnedest thing I ever saw,’ he commented briefly, pulling off his mask and gloves. ‘When are you moving the body – when can I do the post?’

‘I ain’t movin’ the body,’ Reilly said, ‘and probably you won’t get to do an autopsy. I’m not gonna to mess around with somethin’ as weird as this. I’ve already called the FBI, and as soon as they get here I’m leavin’ it to them.’

Oval Office, White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

Presidential Aide Mark Rogerson paused outside the partially-opened door of the Oval Office, looked up at the green light glowing above the doorway, and leant forward, listening intently. Standing instructions forbade him to enter the room if the President was on the telephone or in conference. The green light meant that he was able to enter, but a couple of times the President had forgotten to press the switch, hence Rogerson’s cautious double-check.

Satisfied, he straightened up, gave a brisk rap on the door with his knuckle, waited a moment for the call to enter, then pushed it open and walked inside.

The President of the United States of America was sitting at his desk, a thick report open in front of him. A short, grey-haired man whose ready smile had been rather less evident – at least in private – since he had taken office, Charles Gainey was, unlike many of his predecessors, both a consummate politician and an intellectual. He had a firm grasp of the realities of politics that had led him to the White House but, perhaps more importantly, he could talk mathematics, economics and finance with almost anyone. He read everything that crossed his desk, and seemed able to remember most of it. Rogerson found him quite unnerving, an almost frighteningly competent man, a rare description to apply to any politician.

‘James Dickson is here, Mr. President.’

Charles Gainey nodded. ‘Good. Send him in, please.’

The Secretary of Defense, who had followed Rogerson down the corridor, nodded and walked past him into the room. The aide pulled the door closed and retreated to his own office.

‘Good afternoon, James,’ the President said. ‘Please take a seat,’ he added, gesturing towards the three leather armchairs in front of his desk. He picked up the report he’d been studying and held it up so that Dickson could read the title.

‘This report,’ Gainey began. ‘I presume you’ve read it?’

Dickson squirmed slightly. There was no right answer to that question. He’d not actually read the report, just the three page summary at the end, but he had signed off on the distribution list. Whatever he said, he guessed he was going to be in trouble.

‘Well?’

‘Yes, Mr. President, I’ve read it,’ Dickson replied, mentally crossing his fingers and hoping for the best.

‘And your conclusions were what?’

‘It’s a complex matter. What particular aspect is concerning you?’

Charles Gainey shook his head. ‘It’s not that complex. The CIA, in my experience, isn’t capable of producing anything very complicated – at least, not in writing. The aspect concerning me, as you put it, is the analysis of birth figures in Appendix Six.’

Dickson was already lost. ‘Birth figures?’

Gainey nodded patiently. ‘These conversations would take a lot less time if you just admitted you didn’t know what the hell I was talking about right from the start. This report,’ Gainey continued, tapping the dark blue cover in front of him, ‘is the CIA’s annual analysis of –’

‘I do know what the report is, Mr. President,’ Dickson interrupted. ‘What I still don’t know is what aspect of it is bothering you.’

‘What bothers me, James, is the fact that the annual statistics for births in America are showing a small but measurable anomaly.’

Dickson looked blank. ‘Birth statistics? I’m sorry, I don’t –’

‘It’s not in the summary, James, which is no doubt why you missed it,’ Gainey said, revealing his knowledge of Dickson’s professional routine with uncomfortable accuracy. ‘In fact, it’s not actually mentioned specifically in the CIA report at all. It was detailed in the AMA Annual Medical Statistics report, which I note you’ve also signed as having read.’

‘I have to read a lot of reports, Mr. President,’ Dickson said, somewhat irritably, ‘and I still don’t see what you’re driving at.’

‘What I’m driving at is that these two separate reports both refer to birth statistics, but with obviously different emphasis. The American Medical Association just gives the numbers with some simple mathematical analyses. The CIA report doesn’t cover total figures, but does contain one very interesting – or disturbing – fact. What concerns me is the conclusion you can draw if you correlate the two reports.’

Dickson had endured similar conversations with Charles Gainey over the two years he had been in office. Usually the easiest and fastest response was to play dumb and let the President work his way through the arguments and make whatever point he had in mind.

‘And what conclusion is that?’ he asked.

‘According to the AMA’s figures – and they should be right – the number of female babies born is increasing every year, with a corresponding decrease in the births of male children.’

Dickson shrugged and relaxed, though he still couldn’t see where Gainey was going.

‘I’m sure that’s just a minor statistical anomaly, Mr. President. No doubt if you looked back at the analyses from previous years you’d see similar fluctuations.’

‘I agree, James. Taken by itself, it’s totally insignificant, although the same kind of bias has been evident since about nineteen-ninety. What worries me is the other factor mentioned in the classified footnote to Appendix Six of the report from Langley.’

The President paused, looking at Dickson in silent appraisal. The Secretary of Defense shook his head.

‘I don’t think –’ Dickson stopped, comprehension suddenly dawning. ‘This hasn’t got anything to do with Roland Oliver, has it?’ he asked.

Charles Gainey nodded. ‘Yes, it has. According to the CIA report, every woman who claimed to have had any close contact with Roland Oliver has subsequently only produced female offspring.’

Beaver Creek, Western Montana

The FBI arrived in force, if two people in one car could be described as ‘force,’ some two hours later. Dermott and Reilly were sitting in the front seats of the sheriff’s Cherokee, drinking beer and eating the sandwiches that one of the deputies had brought out to them, when the grey Ford sedan nosed into the field, preceded by one of the Beaver Creek police cruisers. Reilly got out of the Jeep and walked towards the car.

The Ford stopped, and a tall, well-built man in his early forties climbed out of the driver’s seat. He had short-cropped fair hair and a craggy face that stopped just this side of being handsome. Reilly was used to sizing up people at a glance, and could tell by the way the man moved that he was very fit.

Reilly looked at him for a few moments, then switched his attention to the blonde woman who was just emerging from the other side of the car. She was twenty-eight – no older – and had the kind of face and figure that could stop traffic, just as she had stopped Reilly.

Steven Hunter grinned. He was starting to get used to the effect Christy-Lee Kaufmann had on middle-aged men.

‘I was kinda expectin’ Mulder and Scully,’ Reilly said, extending a large and horny hand.

‘They don’t work for us any more, sheriff,’ Christy-Lee Kaufmann replied politely, and walked over to Reilly. Even long after it had ended, the hugely popular ‘X-Files’ television series still seemed to entitle all US citizens to make smart remarks about the Bureau, but she smiled anyway. She shook his hand, then pulled out her identification and showed it to the sheriff.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘Let’s cut to the chase. I’m Special Agent Kaufmann of the FBI and this is Steven Hunter. What’ve you got for us?’

Chapter Two

Tuesday

Beaver Creek, Western Montana

Christy-Lee Kaufmann put her hands behind her back and surveyed the crime scene, much as Sheriff Reilly had done earlier that day, and came to pretty much the same conclusions.

Kaufmann had joined the Bureau straight from college, and although she’d only worked in Montana, she’d been assigned to investigate over twenty murder cases already. Some had been unusual for one reason or another; a handful had been frankly bizarre, but most of them had just been boring and predictable – at least for the investigators. They had had a somewhat different effect upon the victims’ families, not least because in the vast majority of cases another family member had been the perpetrator.

But this case was a first for her, and she was entirely in agreement with Sheriff Reilly.

‘What we have here, Special Agents Hunter and Kaufmann – I get that right, miss? – is a murder that couldn’t have happened.’

Reilly had taken them to the edge of the ring of stakes, and all three of them were standing and looking down at the body.

‘Do you know the victim?’

Hunter spoke for the first time, and Reilly looked up sharply.

‘You’re British,’ he said, almost accusingly. ‘What’s a goddamn limey doin’ in the Bureau?’

Hunter just looked at him, and it was Kaufmann who replied.

‘A good question, sheriff. Mr. Hunter is British, but I didn’t actually say he was in the Bureau. He’s a policeman who’s been seconded to the FBI for a couple of years.’

‘What kind of a policeman?’

‘Does it matter?’ Hunter asked, deflecting the question and looking straight at Reilly.

The sheriff stared back at him for a few seconds, then dropped his eyes. ‘No, I guess not,’ he said, and after a moment turned back to look again at the body. ‘OK, we do know the deceased. Name was Billy Dole. Lived on the northern edge of town. He worked in the prison service in Texas and retired out here two or three years ago. Never married, and he kept himself pretty much to himself. Told me he’d spent almost his whole life cooped up behind concrete walls just like a convict, and aimed to enjoy his retirement in the open air – huntin’, shootin’ and fishin’.’

He looked down at the husk of the man. A 30.30 rifle with a telescopic sight lay beside the body, and he had a heavy-calibre pistol and a hunting knife on his belt.

‘Up here after deer, I guess.’

‘You ever go hunting together?’ Hunter asked, looking at the rifle with professional interest.

‘Yeah, coupla times. Why?’

Hunter ignored the question. ‘Was he a good hunter? You know, aware of what game was around, a good shot, that sort of thing?’

Reilly paused for a moment, then nodded. ‘Yeah, I see where you’re goin’ with that,’ he said. ‘He was good enough, I guess, so nobody could sneak up on him and punch his lights out with a goddamn human leg bone.

‘And,’ Reilly continued, ‘the doc thinks the attack was from the front, ’cause he’s lyin’ on his back, and there’s no sign of the body bein’ turned over. As far as we can see, Billy Dole died right where he fell.’

Hunter and Kaufmann looked at each other, but neither spoke.

‘There’s the height problem, too.’

‘Height problem? What height problem?’ Kaufmann asked.

‘Billy Dole here was a big guy – around six two, six three,’ Reilly said. ‘Whoever smashed that bone into his head drove it straight down through the top of the skull. He used it like a dagger, not a club. That means, according to the doc, that the attacker had to be at least two feet taller than the victim. Unless o’ course Billy Dole bent over to let him do it, and I can’t think of no good reason why a man carryin’ a rifle and pistol would let that happen to him.’

Reilly grinned, but there was no humour in his face. ‘The doc’s mutterin’ about Bigfoot and all sorts. He reckons the force needed to drive that bone six inches into the skull ain’t somethin’ any human could do, not even a guy nine feet tall and built like Arnie. And,’ he added, grinning again, ‘we don’t get too many of them around here.’

‘Arnie?’ Hunter asked.

Reilly glanced at Kaufmann and smiled before replying. ‘Big Arnie – Arnold Schwarzenegger. I guess you don’t get out to the movies much, Mr. Hunter.’

‘Apparently not,’ Hunter muttered.

‘There’s also,’ Reilly went on, looking back at the body, ‘the footprints.’

Hunter nodded. ‘We see Dole’s prints clearly enough. The soil was obviously soft when he walked up here, what, two days ago?’

‘The doc reckons he’s been dead thirty hours minimum, fifty hours maximum. He can’t be more accurate without an autopsy.’

Hunter pointed towards the body. ‘And that single line of footprints was made by the doctor, right?’

Reilly nodded. ‘Yeah. I had to get him up here just to confirm death – it’s the law,’ he added, somewhat unnecessarily. ‘But before I let the doc go to him I had everythin’ photographed, so’s we got a permanent record of what the crime scene looked like ’fore folks started tramplin’ the place up.’

Christy-Lee smiled at him. ‘That was good thinking, sheriff.’ She pointed at the ground around the dead man. In a rough circle that more or less followed the outline of the body, the grass had been almost flattened, and the three-toed prints of the crows were clearly visible where the mud showed through. Around the corpse’s head, the ground was soaked with blood, and small scraps of flesh and blood were scattered about – the remains of the crows’ last, unfinished, meal. ‘No sign there of any prints except those made by the deceased, I suppose?’

Reilly shook his head decisively. ‘Nope. I cast around the whole area when I first got here. The only prints I could find were made by Billy himself and Andy Dermott – he’s the farmer who owns this land – when he found the body this mornin’.’

Hunter turned away from the corpse and looked steadily at Reilly. ‘You do realize what you’re saying, sheriff?’ he asked.

Reilly smiled again. ‘Sure I do. This man’s been killed by a guy nine feet tall and as strong as a gorilla, who did the job with another guy’s leg bone, and who didn’t leave no footprints anywhere near the corpse. We are talking seriously weird here, and I’m real glad we got an FBI, ’cause I sure as hell don’t have any idea where to start.’

Reilly hitched up his trousers and tightened the belt a notch. ‘I know a lot of law enforcement officers bitch about it when the Bureau gets involved in local crime,’ he added, ‘and I’ve got a bit uppity about it myself a coupla times. But now, it’s different. Anything you want, all you gotta do is ask. I’m real happy to be able to just walk away from this and leave it to the professionals.’

‘Thanks a lot, sheriff,’ Hunter said, sarcasm dripping from his voice, and turned back to look again at what was left of Billy Dole.

Oval Office, White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

President Charles Gainey looked steadily across the gold-embossed green leather top of his desk at the Secretary of Defense.

After a few moments James Dickson closed the CIA report with a snap and replaced it on the desk in front of the President. ‘It may be nothing,’ he said, ‘or perhaps just a coincidence. The CIA’s witnesses are hardly the most reliable of people.’

‘Agreed,’ Gainey said, ‘but we do know they’re not deluded. What they’re reporting is, at least in some cases, actually happening to them, despite the lack of any credible supporting evidence.’

‘I know,’ Dickson replied. ‘But it could still be just a statistical anomaly,’ he repeated.

Gainey shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. The CIA could well make a horse’s ass of the figures, but I doubt that the AMA would. And before you go any further down that road, I know that the AMA report deals in national and international trends, while the CIA’s contribution is specific, but the trend is certainly there. Small it may be at the moment, but the consequences could be serious.’

Dickson sat in silence for a few moments. ‘Have you discussed this with any of your scientific advisors, Mr. President?’

‘No, not yet. For obvious reasons – Roland Oliver’s security classification for one thing – I want to keep this tight and in-house for the moment.’

‘So what do you intend to do, Mr. President?’

‘For the moment, nothing, but if further evidence emerges that Roland Oliver is tampering with the gene pool of the American people for its own purposes, we will have to take steps. What steps, exactly, I don’t know, but I’d like you to give it some thought and come up with appropriate recommendations.’

‘They do have the technology, I suppose?’ Dickson asked, somewhat doubtfully.

Gainey actually laughed. ‘Of course they have. We could almost do it ourselves, so there’s no doubt Roland Oliver can.’

Reno, Nevada

The two-storey office building sat among a dozen others just like it on the northern edge of Reno. Between the building and the road was a small parking lot which could house a dozen or so vehicles. The exterior of the building was rough brownstone under a tiled roof, with rows of small square windows marking the level of each of the two floors. The main entrance was a double door, but the left-hand side was kept permanently bolted, and the right-hand door was always locked. Beside the door was a faded plaque which announced, to anyone who could decipher the wording, that the building was the Nevada office of the North American Professional and Allied Trades Health Insurance Company Inc.

Next to the plaque was a doorbell, but there were almost never any visitors, because the company did all its business by mail. The mailman visited every day, and other tradesmen when they were summoned, but they never got beyond the ground floor and basement utility rooms. Those few people who ever ventured into the building were met in a drab and poorly-lit reception area, and were escorted wherever they went. If they thought about it at all, they assumed that the upper floor housed offices full of clerks working on files and letters.

In fact, upstairs, it was all rather different.

First, there were only nine people on staff, because almost all the operations conducted there were effectively run by the computer system. The five technical-specialist employees worked shifts which meant that one of them was always on the premises, and they were simply there to minister to the computers and solve any hardware or software problems as soon as they arose.

The other four staff did what the computers told them, which generally involved mailing letters to hospitals, clinics, doctors, and potential clients of the company, and handling the incoming mail. The computers selected the people to whom client letters were sent, based upon strict demographic criteria and other factors, and then printed the letters and envelopes.

The envelopes were plain and unadorned, anonymous in every way, but the paper that ran through the printers was very special. The surface layer contained a combination of specially-modified silver salts, which made the paper highly light-sensitive. The printers were normal commercial lasers, and when the paper went through them, the text of the letters was printed in the usual way.

What was unusual was that the printing process, which exposed the paper to extreme heat when the laser toner was fused to its surface, also activated the silver salts. From the moment the paper emerged from the printer, it had a life of about one month – the actual time varied with its subsequent exposure to light. At the end of that period, the paper would have turned completely and impenetrably black, making the text totally illegible. It had been calculated that it would take at least one month from the date of mailing before any sort of investigation would be likely to begin.

The other benefit, from the point of view of the Reno program, was that any attempt to photocopy, scan or photograph the letters using a flash camera would result in the immediate blackening of the paper. That, as far as anything could be considered a guarantee for such a sensitive operation, was one of the safeguards of the program.

The problem with all computers is that the data you get out is only as good as the data you put in. The data used in Reno was derived from a number of different sources, including the Internal Revenue Service and the Census Bureau, and most of it was accurate.

But in one case and in one important respect, the data was flawed. PC (Potential Client) 73418 was not quite without family. Her parents were dead, and so was her husband, but she had decided to keep her married name, and for some reason that had thrown the system. If she had reverted to her maiden name, the fact that she had a sister would have red-flagged her. As it was, the letter had been sent out to the address in Utah, and that was a mistake.

Beaver Creek, Western Montana

Ninety minutes later the top field was almost empty. The body of Billy Dole was starting to chill in the hospital mortuary, laid out on a dissecting table and covered with a rubber sheet held down with ice-packs, because the protruding thigh-bone made the corpse too long to fit inside the refrigerator. The FBI-retained specialist pathologist had been summoned from Helena. Reilly was starting on his second donut of the afternoon at the Diner. Dermott had given up the idea of ploughing the top field, for a while anyway, and was checking all the ground floor doors and windows at his farm house, just in case.

Three of Reilly’s deputies were taking plaster casts of Dole’s last half dozen footprints, visible now that the body had been removed. In fact, one deputy was pouring the plaster and lifting the casts when they’d hardened, while the other two stood on either side of him holding pump-action twelve gauge shotguns loaded with rifled slugs. They didn’t know who or what they were watching out for, but they were watching out anyway. They were actually looking in the wrong direction, but that didn’t matter, because Billy Dole’s killers were long gone.

Hunter and Kaufmann had carried their overnight bags, which they always kept in the Bureau Ford, into their adjoining single rooms at the Rest-A-While Motel just outside Beaver Creek, and were wondering what the hell to do next.

‘We’ll have to wait for the results of the autopsy, obviously,’ Hunter said, sitting down on the edge of Kaufmann’s bed.

Christy-Lee nodded agreement. ‘When in doubt, stick to standard procedure,’ she said, and picked up a small tape recorder. ‘We’d better make notes as we go along, just in case either of us has a brainstorm.’

‘Right,’ Hunter said. He lay back on the pillows and stared at the ceiling for a couple of minutes. Then he sat up again and began ticking off points on his fingers.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘We need the pathologist to confirm the cause of death, and also to estimate the force needed to drive that bone into Dole’s skull. It’s probably a waste of time, but I want him to check that Dole hadn’t got an unusually weak skull or anything like that, and that the bone is what we think it is – a femur, a human thigh-bone.

‘We’ll ask the sheriff to start the usual next-of-kin tracing, and to find out who last saw Dole alive. Then we need to talk to his friends, if he had any here, and find out if he had any enemies, owed any money to people he shouldn’t, that kind of thing.’

‘He was a prison guard,’ Christy-Lee pointed out. ‘He wouldn’t have made many friends in the pen, but it’s real easy to make bad enemies. We should find out which prisons he worked at and check all recent releases. Maybe somebody big and nasty got out and came looking for him.’

‘If Reilly and the doctor are right,’ Hunter interrupted, ‘they’d have to be really big and really nasty and really light on their feet.’

‘Yeah,’ Kaufmann agreed, ‘and none of these standard procedures are going to achieve anything until we can work out the answer to just one simple question – how the hell did Billy Dole get himself killed?’

She stopped and looked inquiringly at Hunter. He looked back at her and shook his head.

‘Right now,’ he replied, ‘I haven’t any idea.’

Helena, Western Montana

The Helena FBI Resident Agency office possessed five computers linked in a Local Area Network, an email computer attached to the LAN but with client-only access and a firewall for security reasons, three printers, and a part-time secretary, Gloria Gray, who worked from two to five in the afternoon, Monday to Friday. Kaufmann could type, but not well, and much preferred to scribble notes which Miss Gray, an elderly and somewhat irascible spinster, then attempted to read and type into her computer. This operation was made easier if Kaufmann was in the office, because she could usually read most of what she had written.

Gloria Gray got to Kaufmann’s scribbled notes of the call from Sheriff Reilly at about four thirty that afternoon. In accordance with standard procedure, she took a new file cover, allocated a file name that was an amalgam of the date and reported location of the incident, and inserted Kaufmann’s hand-written notes. Then she created a new file on the computer and transcribed the notes into that. She printed a copy of the finished text and inserted that in the file as well, so that Kaufmann could check it for errors when she was next in the office.

When the FBI had been run as Herbert Hoover’s private kingdom, the Bureau had nearly submerged in the sea of paper that he had insisted upon. Every action, every day, by every agent in the Bureau, had to be reported and passed up the chain of command.

With the departure of Hoover, the requirements had lessened, but the Resident Agencies still reported to the Field Offices, and the Field Offices to Headquarters in Washington D.C. That was why almost the last thing Gloria Gray did before she left the office that evening was to email encrypted copies of all the notes and reports she had typed that day to the Salt Lake City Field Office.

She should really have waited until Kaufmann had seen her transcription of the Beaver Creek incident and approved it but, she reasoned, if there were any errors in it she could always send a revised copy the next day.

FBI Headquarters, J. Edgar Hoover Building, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

The email report from the Helena Resident Agency was downloaded onto the Salt Lake City Field Office email computer at five fifty that evening and automatically decrypted. The Duty Special Agent read it, noted its points of interest, and included it in the Field Office bulk email to the Hoover Building that evening, where it arrived at eight ten.

All email messages received at FBI Headquarters are automatically scanned by a program designed to search for keywords in the text, and to flag all messages which contain such words. Two of the words contained in the text from Helena matched those in the program’s look-up table, and by nine the message had been printed as hard copy and automatically allocated a Top Secret classification. By eleven fifteen the Helena email message had been inserted in a red folder and was in the hands of the Director of the Criminal Investigative Division, who had been called-in by the duty staff.

At eleven forty-five, having checked the original message text and noted the instructions contained in a file he hadn’t seen before, but which bore a classification of Top Secret/Omega, he reached for the telephone.

When he received the call, the Director of the FBI was in bed, and with his wife, which would have surprised some people who knew him well.

‘Donahue,’ he said.

‘Please go secure, sir.’

The Director grunted with annoyance but pressed the button on his bedside telephone base unit.

‘What is it?’

‘William McGrath, sir. Sorry to call you so late, but we have a possible Omega Incident.’

‘Oh, shit.’

George Donahue had only headed the Bureau for a matter of months, and few people, even McGrath who worked with him on a daily basis, knew him well. But he usually displayed mild manners and even temperament, and his expletive surprised McGrath.

‘Sorry, sir?’

‘Never mind.’

Donahue glanced at his bedside clock. ‘Do nothing about it until I get to the Bureau,’ he said. ‘Send a car for me immediately. I’ll see you in my office in about half an hour. Get me the original text of whatever message or messages you’ve received, plus whatever data you’ve got on any personnel involved in the incident – that’s Bureau, law enforcement and civilian.

‘Lastly, get a file called Omega Procedures from the Central Registry, on my authority, but don’t, under any circumstances, unseal that file.’

Chapter Three

Wednesday

FBI Headquarters, J. Edgar Hoover Building, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

George Donahue pushed open the door to his office with his left arm and backed in because he had no hands free. His briefcase dangled from his left hand, and in his right he was balancing a paper cup of coffee he had collected from the machine down the hall. He walked across to his desk, put down his coffee and briefcase, and then sat down and pressed a button on his desk intercom unit.

‘Bill – I’m here. Let’s get to it.’

William McGrath walked into the Director’s office just over a minute later. Under his arm he carried two files, one bulky and heavily sealed and both stamped Top Secret/Omega, two personnel files, and a red cardboard folder from which several sheets of paper protruded.

Donahue gestured to the chair in front of his desk and McGrath sat down. ‘OK, Bill. Give me the Omega Procedures file, and tell me what happened.’

McGrath passed the sealed file across the desk.

‘Director,’ he said, a frown on his face, ‘what exactly is “Omega”? The email syntax checkers flagged up the data we received as a possible Omega Incident. The duty officers followed the instructions that the computers gave them, and called me in. I’d never heard of Omega before, so all I could do was exactly the same – I just did what the computer told me. That meant I collected the Omega Incidents file from the Registry, read what it said, and called you.’

Donahue smiled briefly. ‘You’ve never heard of Omega because you’re not cleared for it,’ he said. ‘In fact, nobody in the Bureau’s cleared for it except me. That’s why the Procedures file is still sealed, and it’ll stay sealed until I’m certain I need to open it and implement the measures it specifies.’

McGrath was still frowning. ‘But what’s so special about Omega?’ he persisted.

Donahue shook his head. ‘Trust me, Bill. You really don’t want to know. Now, what happened?’

Las Vegas, Nevada

She hadn’t come to Vegas to work as a hooker, but that was how she’d ended up. Not down on the streets with the other sad relicts of humanity, but working the hotels and casinos, living off the euphoria and winnings of the men – and sometimes the women – who had been attracted by the bright lights and the money.

Carol Class – her real surname was Leischmann, but she’d dropped that as soon as she’d started working the Strip – was known to all the doormen and bouncers: they’d nicknamed her the ‘Class Act.’ They let her through their doors for twenty bucks a time to look for Johns, and if she had a good night they might get another twenty or even a fifty from her when she left.

She had few regular customers. She preferred the passing trade because the winners, and even the losers, were usually more generous, and there were never any serious complications if she walked out of the hotel room with a watch or ring, or maybe a wallet, that didn’t actually belong to her.

Carol’s greatest asset was that she didn’t look like a hooker. Her eyes were wide and such a deep brown they appeared almost black, and her shoulder-length auburn hair framed a face of serene beauty and a flawless complexion. Her figure had curves in all the right places, and she invariably wore elegant designer clothes when she was working. She looked like a successful businesswoman, and many of her clients hadn’t realized what she was until after they had invited her up to their hotel bedrooms.

Only once had that ever been a problem. She had taken off her jacket and was unbuttoning her blouse when she told the John her fee. The man had stopped dead in his tracks, turned red in the face and began shouting abuse at her. She thought it was probably the implied insult that he should have to pay for something he thought he was getting for free. She’d shrugged, put her jacket back on, and got out of the room fast. The John had chased her all the way down the corridor, and the elevator doors had closed only seconds before he reached them. She’d gone straight home, and hadn’t gone back to work in Vegas for five days, just in case.

In recent months, Carol Class had actually begun to realize that she preferred women to men – Janes rather than Johns – so when the well-dressed woman at the casino bar smiled at her, Carol smiled back. Three minutes later, they were sitting together and talking over Martinis, eyeing each other with cool appraisal.

FBI Headquarters, J. Edgar Hoover Building, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

‘Briefly,’ William McGrath said, ‘we have a dead man in a field near a place called Beaver Creek – that’s in Western Montana on the eastern slopes of the Rockies – who’s been killed by having a human thigh-bone driven vertically downwards through the top of his skull. There were no footprints anywhere near the body, apart from those of the deceased, and the dead man was armed with a hunting rifle and a heavy-calibre pistol.’

McGrath paused and looked across at Donahue.

‘You have to remember, sir, that this report has come direct from the Helena Resident Agency, but before the incident was investigated, so what we have is based entirely on what the local law enforcement officers reported. Once our agents have looked into it, it’s quite possible that other facts may emerge which clarify things.’

Donahue grunted. ‘By “clarify”, I assume you mean make less weird?’ McGrath nodded. ‘Who’s the Senior Resident Agent at Helena?’

‘John Michaelson,’ McGrath said, checking his notes.

‘Don’t know him,’ Donahue murmured. ‘Which officers are investigating it?’

McGrath looked down at the sheets of paper. ‘Special Agent Christy-Lee Kaufmann took the initial call,’ he said, ‘and went out to Beaver Creek in response, so at the moment she’s heading up the investigation. Her partner is a man called Steven Hunter, and he’s not actually a member of the Bureau.’

Donahue looked up sharply. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘He’s British, and he’s over here as part of the exchange program. You remember – the Bureau started this a few years ago to give our agents experience working with other law enforcement agencies around the world. This guy Hunter is one of three non-Americans we have working here in the States at the moment.’

‘That could be real awkward,’ Donahue murmured.

‘Awkward, Director? Why?’

‘Never mind,’ Donahue said. ‘Have you pulled their files?’

McGrath nodded, opened the first personnel file and took out a sheet of paper on which he had made some brief notes. He looked up inquiringly and Donahue nodded.

‘Kaufmann’s been in the Bureau for nearly seven years, and Helena is her first assignment. Her annual assessments have been consistently good. She’s enthusiastic and imaginative, and she’s been seconded to a number of previous homicide investigations. I think she’ll handle this well.’

Donahue grunted and took a drink of his coffee. ‘And this Hunter guy?’

McGrath shook his head. ‘He’s not a Bureau Special Agent, so all we have about him is a biographical summary from London’s New Scotland Yard – that’s the headquarters of –’

‘I do know what New Scotland Yard is, Bill,’ Donahue interrupted.

‘OK,’ McGrath said. ‘He’s forty-two years old, spent most of his career as an officer in the British Royal Navy, and entered law enforcement just over four years ago. He holds a rank equivalent to a police inspector over here, and he’s been with the Bureau about eighteen months.’

He stopped, and Donahue looked at him. ‘And?’

‘And nothing. That’s pretty much it. Apart from the usual contact details for his people back in London.’

‘Who does he work for? The Metropolitan Police?’

McGrath looked at the file again. ‘Yes, but it doesn’t say which branch.’

Donahue sat musing for a few moments. ‘I don’t like this,’ he said, finally. ‘I don’t like not knowing more about this guy and I particularly don’t like somebody with a military background who reaches the rank of police inspector within three years. Get onto London and get a full bio sent out immediately.’

‘You think he’s a spook?’ McGrath asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Donahue said, ‘so we need to find out, quickly. OK, Kaufmann. What about her family?’

‘Family?’ McGrath asked.

‘Family,’ Donahue repeated. ‘Kaufmann – is she married, or what?’

McGrath glanced back at his notes. ‘No,’ he said. ‘She’s twenty-eight and still single. Her parents are both dead. They were killed in a car crash out in San Diego about four years ago. She has one sister, who lives in Cedar City. She’s almost five years younger than Kaufmann, and she’s been a widow for two years. Her husband was a policeman in Los Angeles. He had a massive coronary at the age of twenty-seven and was dead before he even reached the hospital.’

‘What about the law enforcement side? Who called this one in?’

McGrath consulted his notes again. ‘The sheriff of Beaver Creek alerted the Resident Agency at Helena,’ he said. ‘We have nothing on him yet except his name – Richard Reilly.’

‘How did the message reach us?’

‘Standard procedure, Director. The Helena Resident Agency staff emailed details of the initial report to the Salt Lake City Field Office at close of business, and they sent it to us.’

‘Who else knows about this?’ Donahue asked.

‘There’s no mention of any other personnel, but it’s safe to assume that there will be at least one civilian involved – the person who found the body – plus various deputies, a local doctor, a mortician and maybe a photographer.’

‘So we’re looking at, what, maybe ten or twelve people in total who might know about this already, including the agents on the scene, but not counting Bureau staff here or at Salt Lake City?’

McGrath nodded. ‘About that many, I guess. Why? Is it important?’

‘It could be,’ Donahue answered. He drained the last of his coffee, grimaced as he tasted the bitter dregs, and tossed the paper cup into the waste basket beside his desk.

For a few minutes he said nothing. He read through the information McGrath had brought with him, and glanced at the personnel files. Then he jotted some notes on a scratch pad and leaned back in his chair.

‘OK,’ he said, finally. ‘It seems unlikely, but it is barely possible that some more or less logical explanation for this might be forthcoming once our agents have looked into it. In that case, we can forget about it.’

Donahue paused.

‘My gut feeling, for what it’s worth, is that there won’t be any such explanation, and we’ll have to run the procedures. Let me know as soon as Kaufmann checks in with the Helena Resident Agency – she should do that later today. Don’t make a big thing of it, but tell the Montana staff to get as much as they can out of her, and then you brief me.’

The Director looked across at McGrath, who was looking distinctly puzzled.

‘Bill,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you anything about Omega, now or later. All I can say is that you are to accord this incident, and any documentation generated about it, the highest possible security classification – that’s Top Secret/Omega, your eyes and my eyes only. And until this incident is resolved, one way or the other, it is to be your highest priority task. All other considerations are secondary.’

Las Vegas, Nevada

The blonde woman at the bar – she had introduced herself simply as ‘Suzanne’ – glanced round. The tables and slot machines were only feet from where they sat, and the constant clattering of the drums was loud and intrusive.

‘It is rather noisy here,’ she murmured. ‘Perhaps we could continue our talk in my suite?’

The question, and all it implied, dangled in the air between them. Carol Class looked at her companion. The woman was about thirty, she guessed, well dressed and impeccably made-up. There was a kind of look in her eyes that told Carol she knew exactly what she was about, and suggested a lot of experience. This one, Carol thought, would probably be a lot of fun. If she was, Carol might even give her a freebie.

‘I’d like that,’ she said, and smiled gently.

The two women walked over to the elevator beyond the bar. When the doors closed, Carol reached out tentatively for Suzanne’s hand, and was rewarded with a reassuring squeeze.

The suite was on the fifteenth floor, large and spacious. The room was dominated by the huge bed, and had a sitting area next to the picture window with a table and two chairs. The door to the bathroom was next to the main door, opposite the closets.

‘Would you like a drink?’ Suzanne asked.

Carol shook her head.

‘No, thank you. At least, not yet. But perhaps we could make ourselves more comfortable?’

It was Suzanne’s turn to smile. She reached out for Carol’s hand and led her towards the bed.

Beaver Creek, Western Montana

Alan Parker had been qualified as a doctor for more years than he cared to remember, but he had forgotten when he had last seen a live patient. His specialty was forensic pathology, and he had been retained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for nearly twelve years. He worked in fields and woods, looking at the rotting debris left by killers and rapists, and in mortuaries where he extracted every available piece of evidence from decomposing corpses.

Kaufmann had requested a specialist from Helena pretty much as soon as she had seen the body in the field, and the Agency staff had paged Doctor Parker. He had been unable to leave Helena until mid-evening, and didn’t reach Beaver Creek until a little after midnight.

His first call was at the sheriff’s office, and ten minutes after he had told the deputy who he was, he was following a cruiser through the deserted streets to the Rest-A-While Motel.

Parker knocked on Hunter’s door at twelve forty. The Englishman was still up and dressed, sitting in one of the living room chairs in front of the closed and curtained window. Christy-Lee Kaufmann was lying on the bed, eyes shut, but still awake and fully dressed.

‘Glad to see you, doctor,’ Hunter said, checking Parker’s identification and extending a hand. ‘I’m Steven Hunter and this is Special Agent Christy-Lee Kaufmann.’

Christy-Lee bounced off the bed and shook Parker’s hand. The pathologist was looking at Hunter with a puzzled expression on his face.

‘I know, I know,’ Hunter said. ‘If I stay over here much longer I’m going to have to take elocution lessons. I’m British, not American, and I’m not FBI. But you can treat me as if I was.’

Christy-Lee nodded agreement. ‘Coffee, or can I get you something stronger?’ she asked.

‘Alan Parker,’ the pathologist replied. ‘No, nothing, thank you. I stopped for a late dinner on the road. The deputy –’ he gestured towards the door, beyond which they could hear the sound of the police cruiser accelerating away, ‘– seemed to think this case was somewhat unusual.’

Christy-Lee Kaufmann snorted in amusement.

‘That,’ Hunter said, with a thin smile, ‘is one way of putting it. Please have a seat.’

Parker sat down in one living room chair and Hunter in the other. Christy-Lee resumed her recumbent position on the bed.

‘The local sheriff described this as a murder that couldn’t happen, and he wasn’t kidding,’ Hunter began. ‘A heavily-armed man out hunting was killed by having a human thigh-bone driven vertically downwards through the top of his head. The force involved was so great that the local doctor thinks maybe six to eight inches of the bone penetrated the skull.’

Parker’s eyes widened, but he said nothing.

‘And to complicate matters from our point of view as the investigating officers, there were no footprints anywhere near the body, apart from those of the deceased himself.’

Parker smiled, and shook his head. ‘I can’t comment on the lack of footprints – that’s strictly a matter for the Bureau and the local law enforcement officers – but my initial reaction is that the sheriff was quite right. A human thigh-bone can make quite a serviceable club, but not a dagger or spear. What you’ve described simply can’t happen, because both ends of the thigh-bone – the femur – are rounded. Which end penetrated the skull?’

Hunter paused, and Christy-Lee answered. ‘The lower end – the knee joint. The hip joint is real distinctive, and I remember seeing that at the other end of the bone.’

‘OK,’ Parker said. ‘The knee joint is the heavier end of the femur – I mean, if you were going to use a thigh-bone as a club you’d naturally pick it up by the hip joint end – but that makes what happened even more unlikely, because the lower end of the bone is extremely blunt. The only way it could penetrate a human skull is if somebody cut off the knee joint and then sharpened the shaft of the femur. Had that been done?’

‘We’ve no idea,’ Hunter said. ‘The body was removed to the local mortuary intact, with the bone still in place.’

‘OK,’ Parker said, ‘just outline the circumstances for me. The location of the incident, how the body was discovered, that kind of thing.’

‘Right,’ Hunter replied. Parker opened up his briefcase, pulled out a notebook and ballpoint, and sat forward attentively as Hunter went through the incident in chronological order. Ten minutes later the pathologist looked at his watch.

‘Well, there’s not much I can do tonight,’ he said. ‘I’ve never actually heard of a truly impossible murder, but from what you’ve told me this might just qualify. I think the autopsy’s going to be real interesting. OK, I guess I’ll get to bed now,’ he added, and stood up. ‘The sheriff’s office booked me a room here. I’ve asked the deputy to organize a car to take me to the mortuary at nine tomorrow morning – or rather this morning,’ he amended. ‘I should have the preliminary results for you by lunchtime.’

‘This motel seems to have a reasonable restaurant,’ Kaufmann said. ‘How about we meet here at around one?’

Parker nodded agreement, and left the room.

‘Perhaps, Christy-Lee,’ Hunter said, as he closed the door behind Parker, ‘he’ll get us some answers, because I really don’t have any idea what’s been going on here.’

‘Maybe,’ she replied, ‘but I somehow think he’ll just give us a bunch more questions.’

Las Vegas, Nevada

Fifty minutes after Carol Class and Suzanne had skilfully undressed each other and slid into the big bed, Carol was sound asleep. This was partly due to the two massive orgasms that Suzanne – making love with a skill that left Carol both breathless and envious – had induced in her, and partly because of the post-coital cigarette that Suzanne had offered her. The cigarette had been laced with a cocktail of chemical sedatives which ensured sleep would follow rapidly.

As soon as Carol’s body relaxed and her breathing became deep and regular, Suzanne removed the cigarette stub from between the unconscious woman’s fingers and got out of the bed. She pulled a wrap around her, then reached for the telephone and dialled the number of a nearby room.

Three minutes later there was a gentle knock at the door. When Suzanne opened it, a middle-aged man smiled briefly at her, glanced up and down the corridor, then entered. He was slightly overweight and balding at the temples, wearing a dark suit and carrying a black bag slightly larger than a briefcase. He put it down and looked with undisguised carnal interest at the unmoving naked figure lying on the bed.

‘You screwed her?’

It was more a statement than a question. The woman called Suzanne nodded.

‘Yup,’ she replied.

‘I don’t know why the hell you don’t just give ’em the smokes and be done with it.’

‘Perks of the job,’ Suzanne snapped. ‘Get on with it.’

‘You use anything? Lubricant, I mean?’

The woman grinned. ‘No need. This one was a real juicy Lucy.’

The man walked across to the bed and pulled off the sheet which had been covering Carol’s legs from mid-thigh down. He reached out and spread her legs wide, then walked back and opened his bag. He took out a box of Q-tips, bent over Carol’s body and with deft, experienced strokes, took two vaginal swabs.

‘With you, it’s always the same, isn’t it?’ Suzanne said. ‘Never blood or saliva, always you go straight for the cunt.’

‘Taking a blood sample causes bruising, and getting a saliva specimen can scratch the inside of the mouth,’ he said defensively. ‘This way’s safest – and a lot more fun,’ he added.

He stepped back from the bed, reached into his black bag and took out a metal object about the size of a shoe box. What it did would have been instantly familiar to any medical laboratory technician, but the machine itself would not have been. It was a highly sophisticated body fluid and DNA analyzer with its own internal power supply and computer display.

The man inserted the end of the first Q-tip into the receptor and pressed the ‘Analyze’ button. The machine hummed and purred for a couple of minutes, and then data began appearing on the colour display.

Suzanne stood behind the man’s shoulder, and both watched with professional interest as the information appeared. She nodded as she read the lines of information printed in green lettering, which indicated that Carol Class was basically healthy.

Suddenly, a line in red appeared, and Suzanne stiffened as she looked at it. ‘Oh, shit,’ she said. ‘She’s HIV Positive. No good for us.’

The man nodded. ‘I’ll run the second swab, but if it’s confirmed, that’s it.’

Four minutes later he snapped the machine closed and replaced it in his bag. ‘Confirmed,’ he said. ‘She’s no good.’

Suzanne straightened up. ‘I’d better get back downstairs,’ she said. ‘We need to find five more this week, and it’s Wednesday already.’ She shook her head. ‘Shit,’ she said again, looking towards the bed. ‘She looked clean – maybe she’s a hooker and I didn’t realize.’

‘Yeah,’ the man agreed, ‘she does look clean, and she is beautiful.’ He paused, and glanced somewhat slyly across at Suzanne. ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘You mind if I –’

Suzanne shook her head. ‘Help yourself. I’m going to take a shower – make sure you’re finished before I get out. Remember – no anal, no oral, and use a condom.’

‘Because she’s HIV Positive?’

‘No,’ Suzanne said. ‘I don’t care what you catch. I just don’t want her finding your semen running down her legs when she stands up.’

As she headed for the bathroom, the man took off his jacket and tie, unbuckled his belt, dropped his trousers and jockey shorts on the floor and walked towards the bed.

Ninety minutes later Carol Class woke up alone, got dressed and let herself out of the suite. She was to die of an AIDS-related illness twelve years later, but she would never know how lucky she’d been.

Chapter Four

Wednesday

Beaver Creek, Western Montana

Hunter was up just after seven thirty, and by eight he was shaved, showered and dressed. He collected two cups and a pot of coffee on a tray from the motel restaurant, and pushed open the door to the adjoining room at eight ten. Christy-Lee was awake, but still in bed, so Hunter put the tray on the bedside table and sat beside her.

‘Good morning, again,’ he said. ‘Any bright ideas?’

Kaufmann sat up and shook her head, her blonde hair tumbling in an unkempt swathe across her face. She brushed it away with her hand and reached for the coffee. Hunter kissed her on the cheek.

‘Not,’ Christy-Lee said, with a sleepy smile, ‘during the working day, please. Save it for tonight.’

She and Hunter had been sleeping together at Helena for nearly six months, in direct contravention of FBI standing orders, which forbid liaisons of any sort between agents. Hunter contended that, as he wasn’t actually an FBI agent, the rules didn’t apply to him. Kaufmann said that didn’t make any difference, but she slept with him anyway.

They each had their own apartment, were scrupulous in never spending an entire night together in Helena, and at work they had developed a kind of professional coolness towards each other which had fooled everyone – even Gloria Gray, who had a nose for scandal that would have made a National Enquirer reporter envious. Almost everybody thought they simply didn’t get on with each other.

‘The FBI’s working day,’ Hunter said, ‘begins at eight thirty. That gives us –’ he glanced at his watch ‘– another eighteen minutes. People like us can do a lot in eighteen minutes.’

Christy-Lee smiled at him, but shook her head. ‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘I have to shower and do all my other stuff. Wait until tonight, and then –’

The knock at the door of Hunter’s room was loud and abrupt. He slid off the bed, walked back into his own room and pulled back the corner of the curtain.

‘It’s Sheriff Reilly,’ he said, and closed the connecting door.

‘Good morning,’ Reilly said, walking into the room as Hunter opened the door. ‘You and the lady sleep well?’

Reilly sat down uninvited in the living room chair. He was carrying a round object in a black garbage bag, which he placed carefully on the floor beside the chair.

‘Good morning to you, sheriff. Thank you, I think we slept well enough. What’s in the bag?’

Reilly smiled up at him. ‘Another little puzzle for you,’ he said. ‘You two seem to be the official custodians of the weird around these parts, so I came to you. Agent Kaufmann not here?’

Hunter gestured to the connecting door. ‘She’s not dressed yet,’ he said. ‘Would you like to tell me about it?’

Reilly shook his head, and Hunter realized for the first time that the sheriff was actually enjoying having the FBI around. Having somebody he could dump his problems on made for an easier life.

‘It’ll keep,’ Reilly said, ‘until Agent Kaufmann can join us. Say, you wanna get some breakfast? I’m hungry and I’m buying.’

Hunter nodded, opened the connecting door and called out to Christy-Lee that they would be in the motel restaurant, and then the two men left together.

On the way across the parking lot to the restaurant, Reilly opened the passenger door of his Cherokee Jeep and placed the black bag carefully inside on the floor. Then he locked the vehicle.

‘Definitely don’t want to be carrying that into a place where there’s people eating,’ Reilly said, with a grin that he probably thought was enigmatic, but which just made Hunter want to punch him in the mouth.

They were half way through their hash browns, ham and eggs when Christy-Lee joined them. She declined food, and just asked for orange juice and fresh coffee.

‘So, what’ve you got for us this time, sheriff?’ she asked, when the waitress had moved out of earshot.

Reilly finished his mouthful of ham and leaned forward. ‘What we got this time,’ he said, ‘is a human skull half-way up a tree.’

Hunter put down his fork. ‘Are you putting us on?’ he asked, his voice low and dangerous. He’d already picked up quite a lot of American expressions.

Reilly shook his head. ‘Nope,’ he said. ‘Got in it the Cherokee right outside.’

‘You brought it here?’ Christy-Lee asked, incredulously. ‘That won’t exactly help the forensic pathologist, will it? You should have left it and let him examine it in situ.’

Reilly put the last forkful of hash browns in his mouth and chewed in silence for a minute or so. ‘You trying to tell me I don’t know my job, Agent Kaufmann?’ he asked, finally. ‘I’ve been in law enforcement a long time. I know what should be done, but there’s times when you can’t do it, and this was one of them.’

He took a drink of coffee.

‘Happened yesterday,’ he said. ‘A kid over at Williamsburg – that’s about five, six miles southwest o’ here – was out shootin’ squirrels in the woods. He saw this round thing way up in a tree, and so he took a shot at it. He hit it a coupla times with his twenty-two, and the third time it fell out. When he saw what it was, he put it in the bag he’d got his sandwiches in and took it back to his father, and he brought it to me first thing this morning.’

‘Did you get –’ Hunter started to say.

‘Yup,’ Reilly said, nodding. ‘I took a statement from the kid and his father. The kid doesn’t think he could locate the tree again, but he says it was a Douglas fir, and the skull was stuck about twenty feet off the ground. He didn’t think anyone could climb up that high, not without special gear, anyway.’

Reilly paused, wiped his mouth with a paper napkin, then belched and pushed his empty plate away from him.

‘I’m not a doctor,’ he said, ‘but I looked at the skull. Know what struck me as odd about it?’

Hunter shook his head. ‘No, sheriff. Go ahead, surprise us.’

Reilly leaned forward again. ‘It was fresh,’ he said. ‘Like the bone you get in a joint of meat. It hadn’t been there long. And you know the other thing?’

Hunter shook his head again.

‘I reckon the brain’s still inside,’ Reilly said, with relish.

Christy-Lee Kaufmann shuddered slightly.

‘Anyways,’ Reilly finished. ‘I brought it along so’s you and your tame doc can take a look at it. Probably not related to the Billy Dole thing, but you never know.’

FBI Headquarters, J. Edgar Hoover Building, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

William McGrath knocked on the Director’s door a little after eleven, and walked into the office when he heard a muffled call. George Donahue was sitting behind his desk, working on a bulky blue file, but when he saw McGrath he closed it with a snap.

‘Yes, Bill?’ he asked.

‘We’ve just heard from Helena. Kaufmann used her laptop to email an initial investigation report to the Field Office this morning. Her report confirms the Beaver Creek sheriff’s statement. Do you want the details, sir?’

Donahue nodded.

‘Kaufmann and Hunter visited the crime scene and inspected the body. The sheriff had done a good job, keeping everybody away from the corpse and taking plenty of photographs of the scene. Kaufmann’s report substantiates all the details we received last night – the way the victim was killed, the lack of footprints and so on. Kaufmann requested a forensic pathologist from Helena last night, and he’s at Beaver Creek now, doing an autopsy.’

McGrath paused and turned the page of his notes. ‘And there’s something else,’ he said.

‘Yes?’ Donahue asked. ‘What?’

‘This is a little strange,’ McGrath began. ‘The sheriff arrived at Kaufmann’s motel early this morning carrying a human skull in a garbage bag. Some teenager out shooting had found it in the woods yesterday, and he and his father delivered it to the sheriff this morning.’

Donahue looked keenly at McGrath. ‘Was it a fresh skull?’

McGrath nodded. ‘According to Kaufmann, yes. Hunter and the sheriff seem to think that the brain is still inside it, but we won’t know that for sure until the pathologist’s had a chance to see it. He’s going to examine it as soon as he’s completed the autopsy of Billy Dole – that’s the name of the murder victim.’

McGrath looked up then and noticed that Donahue’s expression had changed. A look almost of resignation had settled on his heavy features, and his voice when he spoke was dull and low. ‘Where was the skull found?’ he asked.

McGrath again glanced at his notes. ‘In woods in the vicinity of Williamsburg – that’s a few miles to the southwest of Beaver Creek.’

Donahue shook his head. ‘I didn’t mean that,’ he said. ‘I meant where did this teenager find the skull – on the ground, half-buried in the earth, or what?’

‘That’s the oddest thing of all, Director,’ McGrath replied. ‘According to the statement of the boy who found it, the skull was lodged about twenty feet up in the air, in the boughs of a Douglas fir. If he hadn’t been out shooting squirrels, and looking up into the trees, he’d never have seen it.’

Donahue nodded, almost as if that was the answer he had been expecting. ‘OK, Bill,’ he said. ‘Leave everything you’ve got with me, and let me have the file you opened. Then forget all about this.’

McGrath was surprised, and said so. ‘Forget it, Director? That’s not so easy. What about this Omega business?’

Donahue shook his head. ‘That’s why you have to forget it, Bill. What you’ve told me is a confirmation of what I feared. This matter is now officially an Omega Incident, which means I’m the only one at the Bureau cleared to handle it. You just forget everything about it and leave me to take the necessary action.’

McGrath nodded, put his notes on Donahue’s desk and left without saying another word.

As soon as the door had closed behind McGrath, Donahue walked across to his wall safe, spun the combination wheel and opened the door. He took out the sealed Omega Procedures file, walked back to his desk and sat down. Then he took a desk knife, sliced through the binding tapes, opened the file and began to read.

After twenty minutes he closed the file and leaned back in his chair. Then he pulled on his suit jacket, picked up the file and left his office. Ten minutes later he was in a sound-proof booth in the Communication Centre, talking on a secure and scrambled telephone line to a man on an unlisted number in Nevada.

Beaver Creek, Western Montana

‘Subject is a well-nourished male, age about sixty-five. Height six feet three inches, weight two hundred and twenty pounds. Dead approximately three to four days. External examination shows extensive damage to the surface tissues of the face, head and neck, and lesser damage to the hands, apparently caused by vermin. The top of the skull has been shattered, and protruding from it is what appears to be a human femur.’

Even as he said the words, Alan Parker was aware of how bizarre they would sound in any court of law. He stopped talking and moved back from the dissecting table so that the photographer could use his camera.

‘Several of the skull, please,’ he said, ‘and the bone.’

When the photographer had finished, Parker moved back to the body and looked carefully at the femur. He reached out and touched the shaft of the bone gingerly, then stroked the tip of his forefinger along its length.

‘Odd,’ he muttered, and looked at the shaft more closely.

He placed his left hand on the corpse’s forehead, gripped the shaft of the femur firmly and attempted without success to move the bone. He spoke again into the over-table microphone.

‘The femur appears genuine, but requires separate investigation, and the distal end is wedged firmly into the base of the skull. My initial assumption is that the knee joint of the femur has jammed itself into the mouth and lower jaw of the skull. The bone of the femur is visible through the mouth of the deceased, which is locked slightly open.’

Parker turned to the technician. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Take the x-rays as we discussed, then I’ll start cutting.’

Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

The longest runway in the world is also the world’s least known. It’s six miles in length and is located virtually in the centre of the Groom Lake Air Force Base, which itself lies near the middle of Nellis Air Force Range and Nuclear Test Site, a chunk of the Nevada desert the size of Switzerland. The popular name ‘Area 51’ is derived from the numbering system used on US military maps of the area.

The complex was established in 1955, funded in part by the CIA, specifically to facilitate flight-testing of the top secret U-2 spy plane, which had been designed and built by the Lockheed ‘Skunk Works’ black project design team. The CIA’s willingness to contribute financially to a United States Air Force facility was entirely due to the fact that the U-2 was to fly CIA-directed missions over or close to hostile territory for almost its entire working life.

After the development and eventual deployment of the U-2, Area 51 was used for the covert flight-testing of a number of other secret high-technology aircraft, including the A-12, forerunner of the SR-71A Blackbird; the F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter; the B2 stealth bomber and the Aurora sub-orbital spy plane – all so-called black projects.

In 1984, immediately before a period of expansion and enlargement that was to last more than two years, the American Government decided that the area was so secret and sensitive that it was to be omitted from all maps, and its existence was officially denied until 1992. The ostensible reason for this was that black project development, by its very nature, required the ultimate in secrecy and security.

This was the truth, but not the whole truth, because Groom Lake also housed a number of other classified projects. The one most likely to cause international embarrassment to the United States was the existence of the so-called ‘Red Hat’ squadrons. These were squadrons of US Air Force pilots who flew only Soviet-Bloc aircraft that had been obtained intact, usually by the CIA, from air forces around the world. Having access to an enemy’s principal weaponry bestows a huge advantage upon any fighting force, and the US Government was determined that this aspect of Groom Lake’s operations would remain as secret as possible.

Embarrassing though disclosure of ‘Red Hat’ would have been, Groom Lake also concealed, and still conceals, another secret – the last and greatest secret that has ever been withheld from the American people. The magnitude and nature of this secret are so great that if it had ever become public knowledge, no government of America, whether Democrat or Republican, would have survived its disclosure.

Even after the admission of its existence in 1992, no official statements about operations carried out at Groom Lake were made by the American Government or any other body, and the area is subject to a cloak of secrecy and extreme security regarding access even today. This security is reinforced by constant patrols of its perimeter by armed guards who have instructions to shoot to kill if trespassers get too close to Groom Lake. Red-lettered notices warn that the ‘use of deadly force’ is authorized.

Predictably enough, this secrecy has attracted its fair share of UFO enthusiasts, conspiracy theorists and the usual lunatic fringe, who between them believe that the base houses everything from the Ark of the Covenant to a dozen or so crashed flying saucers from alien planets. As is so often the case, the truth is actually more sensational and more frightening.

At the southern end of the Groom Lake Base, on the west side of the main runway, is a high-security compound, containing a large two-storey hanger-like structure within an electrified fence. Only a handful of people who work at Groom Lake have access to it, and nobody else there has any idea what goes on in the compound. Written on the building above the main door is the name ‘Rolver Systems’. The name is a contraction of the two proper names ‘Roland’ and ‘Oliver’ and is, to anyone familiar with Rolver Systems’ function, a cruel joke.

Four or five times a week, a specially-modified United States Air Force C-130 Hercules transport aircraft arrives at Groom Lake. Unlike most aircraft, which taxi off the runway and park on one of the hardstandings to the north and south of the Flight Operations Centre building, this aircraft leaves the runway almost directly opposite Hangar 18. Then it takes the taxiway which runs down to the southwest, close to the Rolver Systems’ compound, and parks at the back of the building, where there are wide steel gates set into the boundary fence.

Once in position, the flight crew leave the aircraft and are driven away in a USAF van to the Flight Operations Centre. Only then is the Hercules rear cargo door opened and unloading started. Rolver Systems’ personnel carry out the unloading operation alone.

The cargo is always the same: between thirty and fifty oblong aluminium caskets about eight feet long, three feet wide and two feet deep. At one end of each casket is an advanced monitoring system, which constantly checks its internal temperature, gas concentrations and pressure, and other parameters. During the flight, all the caskets are connected to a central monitoring system in the sealed hold of the Hercules.

The caskets are placed carefully and individually on small forklifts and driven into the Rolver Systems’ building. When the last casket has been delivered, and the aircraft has been loaded with the now-empty caskets delivered by the previous flight, the gates and the doors to the building are locked. The flight crew return to the aircraft an hour or so later, and the Hercules climbs back into the air.

The same routine has been followed at Groom Lake, with only fairly minor changes, since late in 1957.

Beaver Creek, Western Montana

Removing the femur proved more difficult than Alan Parker had expected. Even with the top of the skull – or rather what was left of it – removed, and the brain cavity emptied of all remaining tissue, the femur still wouldn’t budge. Eventually, Parker had to sever and remove the entire lower jaw. Only then could the femur be moved laterally, rotated, and gently eased out.

The technician took the bone from Parker’s gloved hands – it was lighter than he had expected – and placed it on a stainless steel tray on a side table. Parker would examine it in some detail once he had finished the autopsy because it was, after all, evidence of a second death. Next to it, the newly-discovered skull sat in a steel dish, awaiting its turn.

Parker glanced across at the bone and skull, and then continued his examination of the mortal remains of Billy Dole.

Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

The telephone almost never rang in the Rolver Systems’ building, not least because none of the numbers were listed in any directory, confidential or otherwise. In fact, the only people who had access to the numbers were the dozen or so men outside Rolver Systems whose positions required them to be given Omega One clearance and indoctrinated into Project Roland Oliver. These included the President of the United States, the Secretary of Defense, the head of the United States Air Force Military Airlift Command, which operated the Hercules, and the Directors of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency.

So when the telephone rang in the top-floor office that morning, Roger Ketch answered it almost immediately.

In 1957, when Rolver Systems began operations, the officer in charge had remained in the post for almost six years, a record unbeaten until Roger Ketch had taken over. Most had applied for transfer a year or two after their appointment, and in some cases within a matter of months, weeks or even days.

Ketch was the exception. He had headed Rolver Systems for nearly eight years, after a less than illustrious career in the FBI, and had no intention of requesting a transfer to other duties. He was also exceptional in that he actually enjoyed the work or rather, to be absolutely accurate, the power that his position conferred on him.

Ten minutes after completing the call, Ketch was briefing a former SEAL officer in Texas on another secure and scrambled line. Thirty minutes after that, the SEAL officer had assembled his three Alert Team members. Three-quarters of an hour later, they were all en route to the airport at Fort Worth where a government jet was waiting to take them to Helena, Montana.

In accordance with the FBI Director’s Omega Procedures file, Procedure One had been initiated.

Beaver Creek, Western Montana

Alan Parker didn’t get to the motel restaurant until nearly half past one, because of the extra time he had taken over the femur and the skull. Hunter and Kaufmann were sitting at a back table over a pot of coffee, waiting for him, when he arrived. After they’d ordered lunch, Hunter asked him what he’d found.

‘OK,’ Parker said. ‘Let’s keep it simple and start at the beginning. First, Billy Dole. He died instantly from the blow to his head.’

‘No surprise there,’ Hunter muttered.

Parker nodded. ‘Quite. I did a full autopsy, as you requested, and apart from a duodenal ulcer in its early stages, Dole was in very good shape for a man of his age. There was no evidence of any organic disease, although there was some hardening and thickening of the artery walls near the heart. But that’s pretty normal, and certainly wasn’t life-threatening. If somebody hadn’t crowned him with a femur, Billy Dole could have looked forward to a long and healthy retirement.’

‘And his skull?’ Hunter asked.

Parker took a sip of water before he answered. ‘I did some impact tests on the unbroken fragments,’ he said, ‘and the results show that Dole’s skull wasn’t weak – if anything, it was unusually strong. Dole was a big man with a heavy skeletal structure.’

‘Then that’s one theory out of the window,’ Kaufmann said.

Hunter nodded. ‘What about the force needed to drive that femur into his head? And I assume it was a real femur?’ he asked.

‘Oh, yes,’ Parker replied. ‘It was a normal femur, in most respects. It hadn’t been sharpened or anything like that. Getting it out,’ he went on, ‘was quite a struggle. The distal end – that’s the knee joint – had lodged in Dole’s lower jaw, and I had to take the jaw off completely to release it.’

He paused for a moment.

‘Trying to estimate the force needed to drive it right through the skull, the brain cavity, the sinuses, and then down into the mouth is difficult, maybe even impossible. At least, without replicating the impact with another skull. What I can say is that I’m quite certain no human being could have done it in the circumstances you described. And there’s something else.’

‘Yes?’

‘Billy Dole was standing on one leg when the femur hit him.’

‘What?’

Parker smiled, pleased with the effect of his remark. ‘Actually, that’s not strictly true. What I found were compression fractures at the ends of the bones of Dole’s left leg, and some evidence of damage to the vertebrae as well. There was also a fracture of the head of his left femur. All the sort of injuries that you find in bodies that have suffered a severe fall. Or, in this case, a massive blow to the head.

‘In short,’ Parker finished, ‘Billy Dole was walking when the femur hit him, so he had no warning at all.’

There was a silence at the table as Hunter and Kaufmann digested that. The waitress appeared with their starters, but none of them touched the food or even looked at their plates.

‘That isn’t very helpful, doctor,’ Hunter said.

Parker shook his head. ‘You asked the question. The answer I’ve given you is my professional opinion.’

Hunter looked at Kaufmann.

‘I was right,’ she said. ‘No answers, just a bunch more questions.’

Hunter grinned at her, briefly. ‘If a human being couldn’t have done it, how the hell did the femur get driven into Billy Dole’s skull?’ he demanded.

Parker shrugged. ‘I have no idea. You’re the investigators, not me. I’m just a simple pathologist. And,’ he said, ‘just to rain on your parade some more, there were no fingerprints of any sort on the femur, and no indication of any trauma to the other end of it – the hip joint.’

‘Which means?’ Hunter prompted.

‘Which means that nobody, for example, held the femur against the top of Billy Dole’s head while somebody else drove it home with a sledge hammer.’

‘So,’ Hunter said, ‘we’re back to the solution according to Sheriff Dick Reilly – it was a murder that couldn’t have happened.’

‘Except that it did,’ Christy-Lee Kaufmann said quietly.

Parker picked up his spoon and took a mouthful of his soup.

‘Anything else, doctor?’ Hunter asked.

‘Oh, yes,’ Parker said, smiling. ‘I was saving the best bits for last.’

‘And what are the best bits?’

‘I examined the femur, and the skull that Sheriff Reilly brought along. First, the femur. I said that it was normal in most respects, which it was. It hadn’t been out of the body for long – probably no more than three or four days – and when I touched it I noticed something odd about the surface texture, even through the surgical gloves.’

Kaufmann had picked up her fork, but put it down again.

‘So I looked at the bone under a microscope, and I saw something I’ve never seen before, or not on a human bone, anyway.’ He paused and looked across the table at Hunter and Kaufmann. ‘The flesh,’ he said, ‘had been flayed off it.’

‘What’s that mean?’ Hunter growled.

‘It means that every single scrap of flesh – muscle, tendon and connective tissue – had been stripped off the bone using some sort of equipment. Whatever had been used had left tiny indentations in the bone that were quite unmistakable.’

‘Isn’t that what they do to animal bones?’ Christy-Lee asked. ‘You know, to cattle and pig bones?’

Parker nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘They call the product “re-constituted meat” or something like that, and then make it into sausages and burgers, or sometimes dog and cat food. It’s normally done with a kind of high-pressure wash, but this wasn’t. Whatever was used was a mechanical device of some sort.’

‘Why,’ Hunter asked, leaning across the table, and mentally losing all interest in the double cheeseburger he’d ordered as his main course, ‘would anyone want to remove all the flesh from a human thigh-bone?’

‘I haven’t the faintest idea,’ Parker replied.

Kaufmann leaned back in her chair and pushed her untouched plate away from her. ‘I’ve kind of lost my appetite,’ she said. ‘Anything else about the femur?’

Parker had almost finished his soup, and put his spoon down before replying. ‘Well, there wasn’t too much to go on,’ he began. ‘You can’t,’ he said with a smile, ‘expect much of a photofit from a thigh-bone, but there are a few things I can tell you.’

Hunter and Kaufmann looked at the pathologist expectantly.

‘The victim was a young woman,’ Parker said. ‘My estimate is that she was at least twenty years old, but less than thirty, and the bone shows no signs of any illness or disease. Of course,’ he went on, ‘that’s not to say she wasn’t riddled with soft-tissue cancer or some other disease that wouldn’t leave any evidence on a long bone.’

He paused for a moment. ‘Apart from the absence of flesh, the femur appeared normal in every way, at least at first sight.’

‘Yes?’ Hunter said.

‘There was a small hole, around six millimetres in diameter – that’s about a quarter of an inch – drilled at each end of the shaft of the femur. And what do you think I found inside?’

Hunter was getting tired of guessing games. ‘Suppose you tell us, doctor,’ he said.

Parker smiled again. ‘Nothing at all,’ he replied.

‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’ Christy-Lee Kaufmann asked.

‘The shaft of the femur was empty. No bone marrow. That means somebody sucked the marrow out through the holes.

‘Look,’ Parker said, leaning forward. ‘I really don’t know what we’re dealing with here, but that bone appeared to have been processed. You know, like you’d do with a beef bone at a slaughterhouse. The flesh stripped off, the marrow sucked out, and then the bone discarded. Whoever did it has access to some quite sophisticated equipment, and I don’t like to even think about why he’s doing it.’

The three of them sat in silence for a few minutes. Parker finished his soup – as a pathologist, it took a lot to make him lose his appetite. Hunter toyed with his starter, but Kaufmann simply couldn’t eat.

‘OK, doctor,’ Hunter said finally. ‘What about the skull?’

‘As you and the sheriff thought,’ Parker replied, ‘the brain was still inside. Like the femur, there was no sign of any disease or obvious cause of death. There was one bullet hole and evidence of a second bullet which had hit the side of the skull but failed to penetrate, but these were presumably caused by the teenager who found the artifact. The lower jaw was missing. The neck had been severed directly below the base of the skull, probably by a very sharp knife, but I have no idea if that was the cause of death or occurred post-mortem.’

‘But the neck was severed, so we’re dealing with a probable murder?’ Hunter asked.

‘I can’t say that for certain,’ Parker replied, ‘but obviously that’s the most likely scenario. The other point of interest is that the scalp, facial muscles, and all other external tissue had been removed.’

The question was obvious, and Kaufmann asked it. ‘How was it removed?’

‘Just like the femur,’ Parker replied, nodding. ‘The same kind of mechanical device was used. I found indentations in the skull that were identical to those on the femur.’

Kaufmann leaned across the table. ‘Would I be jumping the gun to suggest that the skull belonged to a young woman, aged twenty to thirty?’ she asked.

Again Parker nodded. ‘Exactly right,’ he said. ‘And to save you asking the next question, yes, I do think these two specimens came from the same victim. I’m taking both the skull and the femur back to Helena. Once I get a DNA test carried out, I hope I’ll be able to confirm that.’

Chapter Five

Wednesday

FBI Headquarters, J. Edgar Hoover Building, Pennsylvania Avenue,

Washington, D.C.

Donahue had been expecting the incoming call, and had gone down to the Communications Centre to receive it. The staff officer there looked curiously at Donahue as he entered the soundproof booth. To have the Director visit the CommCen once a month was unusual enough. Twice in one day was unheard-of.

‘Yes?’ Donahue said into the telephone handset when the call was connected. ‘This is Donahue.’

Roger Ketch didn’t introduce himself. ‘We’re running,’ he said. ‘Omega Procedure One has been implemented. We expect the Alert Team to arrive in Beaver Creek in about three hours. Have you completed all the actions required for Phase One?’

Donahue nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’ve already instructed the Senior Resident Agent at Helena to recall the two agents. They should be out of Beaver Creek and back in Helena by this evening at the latest.’

‘Good. We don’t want any interference while we’re cleaning this up. Anything else from them?’

‘Nothing yet,’ Donahue replied. ‘The autopsy results should be available any time now, but the Resident Agency hasn’t had anything else from the agents in the field.’

‘OK. We have their names and addresses, so we can attend to them once we’ve finished in Beaver Creek.’

‘I don’t like this,’ Donahue said. ‘I told you that Steven Hunter isn’t an FBI agent. In fact, he isn’t even an American citizen. There could be international repercussions.’

‘You’re not being asked to like it,’ Ketch said sharply. ‘Just follow the procedures. Hunter is going to have an accident. It could happen to anyone. As soon as you hear anything, let me be the first to know. While we’re sorting this out, it’s essential that our team has access to all the latest data as soon as possible.’

‘I understand. I’ll be in touch as soon as I get anything.’

‘Right.’

It was a moment before Donahue realized that he was listening to a dead phone.

Beaver Creek, Western Montana

Kaufmann’s cell phone rang as she and Hunter walked out of the restaurant. She pulled it out of her pocket, stroked a finger across the screen and held the phone to her ear. Just under a minute later, she replaced it in her pocket with a gesture of irritation.

‘Who was that?’ Hunter asked.

‘That,’ Kaufmann said, ‘was Michaelson.’

‘And what does your beloved Senior Resident Agent want with us?’

Kaufmann grunted. ‘We’re off the case as of now, and we’re to return to Helena immediately. Apparently some hot-shot investigation team has been assigned to take over, and we’re to surrender all our notes to them this afternoon. In fact, we don’t even get to do a hand-over. We just give everything we have to Sheriff Reilly and they’ll pick it up from him.’

Hunter just looked at her. ‘But this is our case,’ he said. ‘It’s the first interesting investigation that’s come our way since I arrived on this side of the ocean. I want to find out what’s the hell’s happening here.’

‘So do I,’ Kaufmann said, ‘but orders are orders. We’d best go and pack.’

Cedar City, Utah

Maria Slade checked her bag carefully, one last time, to make sure she had everything she could possibly need. She knew the examination should be simply routine, but you never knew how long a hospital stay might last. Her boyfriend was working down in Florida for another three weeks, and there was nobody else who could bring her anything from her home if she found she needed it later.

She had only lived in Cedar City for a couple of months, and she really hadn’t had much of a chance to make friends. She had acquaintances at work, of course, but there was nobody in the office that she liked enough to want to see outside her job.

She checked all her windows were closed, and locked and bolted the door to the yard. She put her small suitcase down by the front door, then picked up the telephone and rang a number in Montana. As she expected, the answering machine cut in, so she left a brief message and replaced the receiver.

As an after-thought, she selected two more paperback novels from the bookcase in the hall. Then she picked up her suitcase, walked out of the house and locked the door behind her. She put the suitcase in the trunk of her car, started the engine, engaged the automatic transmission and turned left out of her driveway.

Beaver Creek, Western Montana

Back at the motel, Hunter asked Christy-Lee to pack for him, and spent a little over an hour transcribing their hand-written notes into Kaufmann’s laptop computer. He could have produced a copy on their portable ink-jet printer for the new team, but decided not to. He was annoyed they were being replaced and didn’t really see why they should be that co-operative.

They were ready to leave by three. Hunter put their cases in the Ford and turned east towards Beaver Creek and Dick Reilly’s office.

‘What kind of a new team?’ Reilly wanted to know.

‘No idea, sheriff,’ Hunter said. ‘Some sort of a special investigation unit.’

‘But from the FBI, right?’

‘To be honest, we don’t know,’ Kaufmann replied. ‘I assume so, but the Helena Resident Agency didn’t tell me.’

Reilly grunted. ‘Shame,’ he said. ‘I was kinda gettin’ to like havin’ the two o’ you around.’

Christy-Lee smiled at him, but said nothing.

‘Anyway,’ Hunter said, ‘you have all our notes for these people, and we’re going to drive back to Helena now. If anything comes up and you want to talk to us, you can reach me on these numbers.’ He handed over a card. ‘The top one’s the office, the second is my apartment, and the third is my mobile. Try them in that order, and you’ll always reach me on one of them.’

‘Thanks,’ Reilly said. ‘You’ve got my numbers here, right?’ Hunter nodded. ‘OK, Mr. Hunter, Agent Kaufmann. I’ll let you know what these new guys come up with. If they come up with anything at all, that is.’

Helena, Western Montana

The Helena Regional Airport is in the north-east section of the city, around two and a half miles from the city centre. The unmarked black Learjet touched down a little after one thirty local time, and taxied off the runway to a hardstanding well away from the main passenger terminal building. Four men got out of the aircraft and climbed down the steps, carrying bulky bags.

As soon as the four men had moved clear of the aircraft, the passenger door on the Learjet closed, and it began to taxi back towards the active runway.

Two black Buicks were parked at the edge of the hardstanding, and three men stood waiting beside one of them. The four men walked across and had a brief conversation, after which the three drivers walked over to a third Buick, this one grey, and immediately drove away.

The four men put their bags in the trunks of the two Buicks, then all got into one of the cars.

‘Everybody clear on what we have to do?’ the Alert Team leader asked. The name on his passport was Harris, but that wasn’t what his birth certificate said. The three men nodded, but the leader pointed a finger anyway.

‘OK,’ a bulky man called Morgan said. ‘Me and Wilson drive straight to Beaver Creek and grab the evidence the FBI guys collected.’

‘The body?’

‘We instruct the mortuary staff to cremate it as soon as possible.’

‘You have the authorization?’ Harris asked.

Morgan nodded and tapped the breast pocket of his jacket.

Harris pointed at the fourth man.

‘You and I take care of the pathologist,’ Rogers said.

‘OK,’ Harris said. ‘We’ll meet at the mall parking lot at Beaver Creek at eight fifteen this evening. Any problems, call me on the mobile. The talk-code for this operation is Delta Five, and the overall classification is Omega Seven. Any questions? No? Right, let’s get on with it.’

Morgan and Wilson climbed out and got into the second car, and both vehicles drove off the hardstanding two minutes later.

Highway US91/Interstate 15, Western Montana

‘I still don’t see why we were taken off this case,’ Christy-Lee Kaufmann said. It was a theme she had returned to several times during the journey, but without reaching any positive conclusion.

‘We certainly didn’t request any help,’ Hunter said, ‘and nor did Sheriff Reilly or Doctor Parker. What about the reports you sent to Helena? What was in those?’

‘Only what we’d found,’ Kaufmann replied. ‘Just the facts as we saw them. No suggestion that we couldn’t handle the case or that we needed any help.’

Traffic was light, and Hunter was able to relax at the wheel as they drove south. ‘I’ve been thinking about the femur and the skull,’ he said after a few minutes, almost tentatively. He had been silent for much of the journey, which Kaufmann guessed meant his mind was elsewhere.

‘And?’ she prompted him.

‘Look,’ Hunter said. ‘This is real off-the-wall stuff, but as far as I can see there’s only one way that the femur could have hit Billy Dole hard enough to do what it did.’ He glanced across at Christy-Lee.

‘How?’ she asked.

‘It’s kind of logical,’ Hunter said. ‘There were no footprints anywhere near the body, so no-one could have stood next to him and driven it into his head. Doctor Parker said that the other end of the femur was undamaged, so it couldn’t have been hammered through his skull and, even then, there’s still the problem of the footprints, not to mention Billy Dole’s two guns.’

‘So what are we left with?’ Christy-Lee demanded.

‘We’re left,’ Hunter said, with a brief, almost apologetic, laugh, ‘with the femur falling out of the sky.’

FBI Headquarters, J. Edgar Hoover Building, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

George Donahue sat at his desk and opened the Omega Procedures file again. He ran the tip of his pencil down the list labelled ‘Phase One – Immediate Actions,’ and nodded. Everything listed had either been completed, or was in the process of being done. He turned the page and looked at ‘Phase Two – Follow-up Actions.’ Again, almost everything necessary had been, or was being, done. All except the last item, which he had to complete in person.

Donahue opened his desk address book and noted a number. Then he picked up the phone and dialled.

‘White House. How may I help you?’

‘This is Director Donahue of the FBI. I need an appointment to see the President as soon as possible.’

‘One moment, please.’

There was a short pause as Donahue’s call was transferred to one of the President’s staffers.

‘Director Donahue,’ a male voice said. ‘This is Mark Rogerson. We met at a White House reception a few weeks ago.’ Donahue remembered the voice, but not the name. ‘The switchboard operator told me you want an appointment to meet with the President. May I ask what it’s about?’

‘No,’ Donahue said firmly. ‘You may not ask. Just advise the President that it concerns an Omega Incident and it is Priority One.’

‘Never heard of Omega,’ Rogerson said cheerfully, ‘but I’ll pass that on. Hold the line, please.’

Four minutes later he was back. ‘That certainly got the President’s attention, Director. This afternoon at five thirty, if that’s convenient.’

Donahue agreed and rang off. Then he called for a fresh pot of coffee and started working on the briefing he was going to have to give the President, and his answers to the questions he knew he was going to be asked.

Highway US91/Interstate 15, Western Montana

Hunter had pulled off the Interstate and he and Kaufmann were sitting at a table in the corner of a restaurant drinking coffee.

‘You’re right,’ Christy-Lee Kaufmann said. ‘It is an off-the-wall suggestion. On the other hand, if we ignore where the hell the femur fell from, it does make some kind of sense.’

‘I know,’ Hunter said. ‘You’ve read Conan Doyle?’ he asked.

‘What?’ Kaufmann was puzzled.

‘Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. You know, Sherlock Holmes. “The Hound of the Baskervilles” and all that?’

Kaufmann’s face cleared and she nodded. ‘Some,’ she said. ‘He’s a little old-fashioned for my liking. I’m more into Barrington and Clancy.’

Hunter nodded and smiled. ‘He’s bound to be old-fashioned. He was writing over a hundred years ago, but what Sherlock Holmes said – or rather what Conan Doyle wrote – often makes very good sense, even today. Conan Doyle was stressing the importance of fingerprints and proper crime scene investigation at a time when almost every police force in the world relied on either catching criminals red-handed – which meant with blood on them – or using informers. He was way, way ahead of his time.’

‘OK,’ Kaufmann said. ‘Maybe I’ll read some of them again. What’s your point?’

‘In one book Holmes says something like “when you’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.” Apply that to this situation. We have a dead body in a muddy field. The only footprints are those of the victim, and he’s been killed by impact with a human femur from directly above. Nobody else approached him, because they would have left traces on the ground. Therefore, the femur had to have been dropped or thrown at him from above – from the sky. QED.’

‘QED? What the hell’s that? Some kind of British police shorthand?’

Hunter laughed and shook his head. ‘Sorry. It’s a Latin tag – Quod erat demonstrandum. It means “that which has been shown or demonstrated.” A proof, if you like.’

Hunter leaned forward. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘gravity accelerates an object towards the earth at thirty-two feet per second, every second, and the terminal velocity for something as smooth as that femur would be pretty high. I reckon it would impact with quite enough force to kill anyone. Billy Dole was just a guy standing in exactly the wrong place at precisely the wrong time. And Doctor Parker said that the heavier end of the bone was the knee joint, so that would be the end which would strike the ground, or whatever, first, which is exactly what it did.’

Kaufmann thought for a few moments, then took a drink of her coffee and waved for the waitress to refill their cups.

‘And if I’m right,’ Hunter said, ‘this might also explain how a human skull, probably from the same body, came to be found miles away and twenty feet up a tree. Nobody climbed the tree to put it there. It fell from above, and the only reason it wasn’t smashed to pieces is because the branches of the tree broke its fall.’

‘We don’t know it’s from the same body,’ Kaufmann said, nodding her agreement, ‘but I think it probably is.’ She paused as the waitress poured more coffee. ‘If you’re right,’ she went on when the waitress had moved away, ‘that leaves two questions that need answering. The first is the easy one. Where’s the rest of the girl’s body?’

‘Scattered over a biggish area of western Montana is my guess,’ Hunter replied. ‘Don’t forget, if you look at them individually, a lot of the bones in a human body aren’t that different to animal bones. People walking the woods or out hunting may have seen them but not realized what they were. And some of the bigger bones might have fallen into rivers or driven themselves deep into soft ground, or just fallen where nobody’s been recently.’

‘The second question’s the biggie,’ Christy-Lee said. ‘Where did the bones fall from?’

‘Obviously from an aircraft,’ Hunter replied, ‘but I know that answer’s a bit of a cop-out. I have no idea why anyone’s jettisoning the dismembered corpse of a young woman from an aircraft, or what aircraft it was. But I do know one thing – if I’m right the aircraft had to be flying fast or high, or both.’

‘Because,’ Christy-Lee finished it for him, ‘of the distance between the places where the femur and the skull were found.’

‘Exactly,’ Hunter agreed, ‘and I intend to find what that aircraft was, special investigating team or not.’

‘How?’

‘That should be easy. An aircraft flying fast or high would show up on radar. Air traffic control units are required to keep tapes of the radar picture in their area for some time – at least a month, I think. I’m going to see a playback of those tapes for the time when Billy Dole got himself killed.’

Oval Office, White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

‘Director Donahue, Mr. President,’ Mark Rogerson said, as he opened the door to the Oval Office.

The short grey-haired man behind the large desk in front of the window was familiar to Donahue. They had met on several previous occasions, though rarely at the White House, during the two years that Charles Gainey had been in office, and more often since Donahue’s appointment as FBI Director.

‘Hullo, George,’ the President said, and gestured Donahue to a comfortable chair on the opposite side of the room. Then he turned back to Rogerson, who was waiting by the door.

‘Mark, go see if the Secretary of Defense is free, and ask him to step in here, would you? Then organize us some refreshments, please.’

Rogerson nodded and left the room. Gainey walked across and sat down beside Donahue.

‘I’ve asked James to sit in on this, George. I’m sure you know why.’

Donahue nodded. ‘Anything involving Roland Oliver is serious enough that we should keep each other informed,’ he replied.

There was a brief knock on the door, then it opened and James Dickson walked in. Donahue stood up to greet him.

‘Take a seat, James. Mark,’ the President called out, ‘no interruptions unless it’s vital.’

Donahue and Dickson shook hands and both men sat down. The door opened again and two stewards brought in trays of coffee and tea, which they placed on the low table in front of the three men.

‘Now, George,’ Gainey said, when the stewards had left. ‘What’s happened that’s caused you to initiate a Priority One Omega Procedure?’

Highway US91/Interstate 15, Western Montana

It was a long straight stretch of road, and they saw the flashing red lights ahead of them even before the brake-lights of the cars in front started coming on. Kaufmann was driving, and she switched on her headlights and hazard flashers, moved over to the inside lane, and then onto the hard shoulder. She checked carefully that there were no emergency vehicles coming up behind them, and drove slowly past the stationary traffic.

There were three police traffic cars, an ambulance and a fire rescue vehicle at the scene, and a state trooper walked briskly over to them as Kaufmann stopped. Before the trooper could say a word, Kaufmann had produced her FBI identity card.

‘FBI,’ she said. ‘Need any help?’

The trooper shook his head. ‘Naw,’ he replied. ‘Just an auto accident. Guy drove off the side of the freeway straight into the trees. They’re cutting what’s left of him out of the car now.’

‘He’s dead?’ Hunter asked, getting out of the passenger side of the Ford and looking over at the wreck. Something about the car seemed familiar to him.

‘Yup,’ the trooper said. ‘I guess he just fell asleep at the wheel.’

‘Have you identified him yet?’

The trooper pulled a notebook out of his pocket. ‘Guy’s name was Parker, according to the license.’

‘Oh, shit,’ Hunter said.

Oval Office, White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

George Donahue sat back in his chair and waited for the questions. The President and the Secretary of Defense had listened carefully and without interruption to his explanation of the Beaver Creek incident and the measures he had implemented.

‘Well,’ James Dickson said slowly, ‘I guess we always knew something like this could happen, Mr. President.’

Charles Gainey turned to look at him. ‘Have there been any problems with Roland Oliver?’ he asked.

Dickson shook his head. ‘None that I’m aware of,’ he replied. ‘As far as I know the quotas are being met. They have the concession, and we’re getting what we want.’

Charles Gainey shook his head. ‘I never liked this,’ he said. ‘I never liked it from the start. How it was ever agreed to in the first place I’ll never know.’

Dickson shrugged. ‘It’s been with us a long, long time, Mr. President. You have to remember the international political climate after the end of the Second World War. We had the bomb, sure, but the Russians were starting to build a massive military machine, and the Communist philosophy was, and always has been, world domination. Any technological advantage we could get, we went for. And Roland Oliver offered us technology that we simply couldn’t develop ourselves.’

The President nodded. ‘I know the history, thank you,’ he said, somewhat coldly, ‘and I’m well aware of what we’ve gained from this business, but that still doesn’t mean I have to like it. Roland Oliver is, and always has been, the trade-off from hell, not to mention political suicide.’

‘But we needed it then, and we still need it now,’ Dickson said stubbornly.

‘I know, I know,’ Gainey said irritably. ‘On a possibly related note,’ he went on, turning to address Donahue, ‘James and I have been discussing a CIA report that you probably won’t have seen yet. There’s some reasonably compelling evidence that women who’ve been in close contact with Roland Oliver are only producing female children. That worries me.’

Donahue looked at him. ‘That’s news to me, Mr. President, but if it is true it’s certainly worrying. That suggests that they’re manipulating the gene pool for their own purposes. I don’t recall any agreement that they could do that.’

‘You don’t recall one because there never was any such agreement,’ Dickson said. ‘Once the present situation has been resolved we’ll have to sort this out.’

‘Now,’ the President said, looking back at Donahue, ‘what’s your view of the Beaver Creek incident?’

‘I presume,’ Donahue said, ‘that we’ve got a problem with trespassers, for want of a better word. Some other group has started poaching here.’

‘That’s correct,’ Dickson said. ‘I know something about this from our own people and also from Roland Oliver itself. A freelance group did start operating here, but they were quickly detected. The word from Roland Oliver is that the problem has been dealt with, and there should be no repetition. There was a confirmation of that from independent sources.’

‘Independent sources? What independent sources?’ the President asked.

‘A couple of reports on the Internet from astronomers,’ Dickson said. ‘They detected a high-intensity flare of light, well out beyond the satellite belt. Roland Oliver confirmed that the location tied in with their action against the poachers.’

Gainey nodded. ‘As long as they didn’t do it in our own backyard, I don’t care,’ he said. ‘So, all we have to do now is clean up the mess at Beaver Creek. And you are confident that that, George, is being done right now?’

‘Yes, Mr. President,’ Donahue replied. ‘Like you, I don’t like this business, and I don’t like what we’re having to do in Montana, but I do recognize the necessity for it.’

‘How long before the team finishes?’ Dickson asked.

‘Unless they meet any problems,’ Donahue said, ‘the operation should be completed no later than tomorrow afternoon.’

‘That’s longer than I would have expected.’

‘I know, Mr. Secretary,’ Donahue replied, ‘but the people involved in this incident live in Beaver Creek and Helena, and we’re only using a four-man team. We always try to use the smallest number of people possible. It will take longer simply because of the distances they’ll have to travel.’

‘What’s the progress so far?’ the President asked.

‘I got a report from the team leader immediately before I left Headquarters,’ Donahue said. ‘The body of the victim will be cremated within the next twelve hours – the mortuary people will be given an FBI authorization and instruction – and the pathologist has already been eliminated. I’m still waiting to hear about the law enforcement officer and the other physical evidence at Beaver Creek, and the team will clear up everything there before moving on to Helena. They can’t get to the FBI agents until tomorrow.’

Highway US91/Interstate 15, Western Montana

‘Hey, you know him?’ the trooper asked, interested.

‘Yes,’ Hunter replied. ‘We were working with him up in Beaver Creek. Would you mind if I took a look at the wreck?’

‘No. No problem.’

Hunter opened the driver’s door of the car. ‘It’s Doctor Parker, Christy. He’s dead.’

Christy-Lee gasped and put her hand to her mouth. ‘God,’ she said. ‘We only saw him, what, four or five hours ago.’

Hunter nodded. ‘The trooper thinks he may have fallen asleep at the wheel. Stay here. I’m just going to take a look at the car.’

He scrambled down the incline and walked over to the wrecked vehicle. It was a late-model Lincoln, dark blue in colour.

‘What happened?’ Hunter asked.

The trooper pointed. ‘The car left the Interstate and hit a pine tree hard, real hard. That didn’t kill him, as far as we can tell, ’cause his airbag deployed. Looks like the car was going so fast that it snapped the tree clean off, and the trunk fell onto the car’s roof. The driver got his head crushed by the roof collapsing on him.’

Hunter looked at the car and the figures working around it. The roof had already been cut away by the rescue team, and the figure in the driving seat was covered by a red blanket, while they worked on freeing the legs.

He walked closer to the car, careful to keep out of the way of the men working on it. He didn’t disagree with the trooper’s reconstruction of the accident, but his training had taught him to always check, never assume, so he looked carefully. He walked completely around the car, looked at the tyres and wheels, glanced into the trunk and inside the car, and knelt for several seconds by the driver’s door, which had been cut off and tossed aside. Then he walked back to the car and looked carefully along its left hand side.

‘Thanks,’ he said to the trooper. ‘That’s a hell of a way to go.’

The trooper nodded and turned away, but as Christy-Lee watched from the passenger seat of the Ford – she didn’t feel like driving any further – Hunter called him back to ask a question.

She saw the trooper’s emphatic shake of his head, then Hunter climbed back up to the road. Before he got back in the Bureau Ford, he looked carefully at the road surface in the nearside lane and hard shoulder.

One of the troopers there stopped the traffic to let Hunter drive past the parked cars, and he accelerated away towards Helena. Christy-Lee’s eyes were moist, and she stared straight ahead through the windshield.

‘We hardly knew him,’ she said finally, ‘but I really liked him. It’s such a stupid waste of a life.’

Hunter shook his head. ‘It wasn’t a waste, not exactly.’

Christy-Lee looked at him in disbelief. ‘What?’ she demanded.

‘Doctor Parker didn’t fall asleep at the wheel,’ Hunter said. ‘Somebody drove him off the road. He was murdered.’

Chapter Six

Wednesday

Cedar City, Utah

When Maria Slade showed her appointment letter at the reception area of the Cedar City General Hospital, she was directed to the Special Unit at the rear of the main building. Carrying her case, she walked through the cool blue and white painted corridors until she reached a door labelled ‘Special Unit – No Admittance Without Appointment.’

‘I’m Maria Slade,’ she said to the receptionist. ‘I have an appointment for some routine tests.’

‘Maria Slade,’ the girl murmured, running her pencil down a list on the desk in front of her. ‘Oh, yes, here we are. You’re to see Doctor Stevenson.’

She glanced at the wall clock and noted Maria’s arrival time in the correct column, then looked up. ‘Did you drive here, Miss Slade?’

‘Yes,’ Maria replied, slightly puzzled.

The receptionist smiled. ‘No problem,’ she said. ‘I’ll just need your car’s license plate number for security purposes. We have to tell the security staff which cars belong to our patients.’

‘Oh, I see,’ Maria said.

The receptionist noted down the number that Maria gave her, then stood up and walked around the desk. ‘I’ll just show you to your room. Please follow me.’

The room Maria was given was light and airy, with the sun streaming in through the large window. The view from the window was disappointing: it just looked onto the parking lot.

‘Please get undressed and get into bed. Doctor Stevenson will be along to see you later this evening. We’ve already served dinner, but would you like a cup of coffee?’

‘Thank you, yes,’ Maria said, putting her case on a low table near the window. ‘That would be lovely.’

The receptionist left the room and walked down the corridor to a small kitchen. She unlocked a tiny steel wall cupboard, reached inside and took down a jar labeled ‘Coffee – Dr. Stevenson ONLY’ and spooned granules into a mug on a tray. Then she replaced the jar and re-locked the cupboard. She poured in boiling water, took a sealed individual container of cream from the refrigerator, added three wrapped sugar lumps and two small packets of biscuits, and took the tray to Maria’s room.

The girl was in bed, propped up on the pillows and flicking through a magazine she’d found in the bedside locker.

‘Here you are, Miss Slade,’ the receptionist said, and gave Maria the tray.

Back at her desk, the receptionist sat down and dialed a local number.

‘Miss Slade has arrived, Doctor Stevenson,’ she said, when the phone was answered. ‘She’s one of your special patients.’

The coffee was good, Maria decided, as she put the empty mug back on the bedside locker. She picked up the magazine again and began to read. After a few minutes she yawned, then yawned again. She was finding it difficult to concentrate on what she was reading. In fact, she was finding it difficult to even focus on the words. She put the magazine down, snuggled further down in the bed and closed her eyes. Three minutes later she was sound asleep.

Highway US91/Interstate 15, Western Montana

Christy-Lee Kaufmann was silent for a couple of minutes, then spoke. ‘How do you know he was murdered? The state trooper thought he’d just fallen asleep at the wheel. How come you know different?’

‘I know different, as you put it,’ Hunter said, ‘because I know what to look for. The police find a car that’s run off a straight road and smashed into a tree. The driver’s dead. There are no witnesses, and no other vehicles are around. What other conclusion can they come to?’

‘Exactly. So what did you see that they didn’t?’

‘This,’ Hunter said, pulled a small clear plastic evidence envelope from his inside jacket pocket and passed it over to her. Kaufmann took it, switched on the map-reading light and peered at the contents curiously. It appeared to be a flake of very dark paint.

‘What is it?’ Christy-Lee asked.

‘What does it look like?’

‘Paint?’ she replied.

‘That’s what it is,’ Hunter said. ‘Black, I think, but it could be very dark blue. There were traces of it all the way along the left side of Parker’s car. I picked that fragment off the driver’s door.’

He glanced over at Kaufmann, then turned his attention back to the road.

‘The way I see it,’ he said, ‘somebody who knew what they were doing followed Parker and waited until there was no other traffic around. Then they pulled alongside his car, and pushed him over to the right side of the road until he drove off it. That’s the way a professional would do it – no dents, no broken glass, just match speed and then steer to the right. Parker’s car has very little panel damage on that side, but there are black paint marks all the way along it.’

‘It couldn’t be just a parking accident?’

‘No, Christy, it couldn’t. The damage would be completely different. And beside, I saw the skid marks back there. Parker was braking hard when he crossed the hard shoulder. His car’s tyre marks are quite clear, and so were two others, just to the left of where the Lincoln left the road.

‘And there’s something else,’ Hunter added. ‘Doctor Parker said he was taking the skull and femur back for DNA examination in Helena. You probably didn’t notice, but the trunk of his car was open, and there was no sign of either the bones or his baggage in it.’

‘Maybe they flew out when the car left the road,’ Christy-Lee suggested.

‘No,’ Hunter shook his head. ‘I checked with the trooper. His team looked around the whole area when they arrived, just in case anybody else was lying injured in the woods, and they didn’t remove anything from the car.’

‘So somebody else must have removed them?’

‘That’s what I think,’ Hunter said.

Christy-Lee was silent for a few moments. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘You saw the paint and the damage, and I didn’t, and you’ve obviously got far more experience in this kind of thing than me, so I guess you’re right. But why? Why kill a forensic pathologist?’

‘That,’ Hunter said, ‘is a very good question. And another very good question is the one you asked earlier. Why pull us off this case?’

‘You think they’re connected?’

‘I don’t know, and I hope not, but I’m getting a real bad feeling about all of this.’

Cedar City, Utah

Doctor Stevenson was a tall thin man of middle years, his face dominated by a large hooked nose that, together with his slightly hunched shoulders, gave him the appearance of a large predatory bird. He opened the door to Maria Slade’s room a little after ten that evening, and peered inside.

The girl was sleeping peacefully, the covers rising and falling slightly as she breathed, her long ash-blonde hair spread over the pillows. Stevenson walked over to her and gently lifted her left eyelid. She didn’t stir.

He left the room and returned a couple of minutes later with a dish containing two small syringes. He pulled Maria’s right arm out from under the covers, swabbed the crook of her elbow with a cotton wool swab, and deftly extracted two samples of blood. Then he folded her arm back to hold a clean swab in place and left the room.

Stevenson carried the dish to a laboratory on the other side of the corridor, switched on the lights and placed the first blood sample in a sophisticated analysis machine. Ten minutes later he repeated the process with the second sample. Then he took both sets of printed test results over to his desk and looked carefully at them. He nodded in satisfaction, and reached for the telephone.

A little over ninety minutes later an ambulance arrived at the rear entrance to the Special Unit. Two attendants got out, opened the rear doors, extracted a gurney and pushed it into the building. Five minutes later they re-appeared. On the gurney was a female figure, covered in a white sheet and red blanket. The attendants loaded her into the ambulance, then closed the rear doors. Both got into the front of the vehicle, and it drove quietly away into the silent streets of Cedar City.

A little later, a male figure walked out of the same entrance carrying a small suitcase. He walked about two hundred yards down the street until he came to a group of six trash bins by the roadside, opened one, threw the suitcase inside and then returned to the hospital.

Doctor Stevenson left the Special Unit an hour or so later, Maria Slade’s car keys in his pocket. He would drive the car out of the parking lot and leave it in some anonymous back-street, with the keys in the ignition. Somebody would notice it eventually and drive it away, and there was a good chance it would never be found. After all, nobody was going to be looking for it.

On his way out, Stevenson made a notation beside the name ‘Slade, Miss Maria’ on the receptionist’s admissions sheet. The notation read simply ‘Discharged.’

Helena, Western Montana

‘Where are you going, Steve?’ Christy-Lee Kaufmann asked. ‘This isn’t the way to my apartment.’

‘I know,’ Hunter said. ‘I’m not letting go of this, orders or not. I’m going to take a look at the Helena Airport radar tapes and see if I can identify the aircraft that dropped those bones.’

Eight minutes later Hunter pulled up at the gateway to the Helena Regional Airport technical site. Christy-Lee Kaufmann leaned across him and showed her FBI identification to the guard.

‘We need to speak to somebody about a radar tape replay,’ she said, as she signed the paper on the guard’s clipboard.

‘No problem. Just go straight ahead and park next to the control tower.’ He pointed at a tall building topped by a green-glazed visual control position directly in front of them. ‘I’ll give them a call and tell them you’re on your way.’

As they walked towards the building, a door opened and a short, rotund figure peered out, saw them and beckoned.

‘You’d be the FBI agents George called about?’ he asked.

Hunter nodded, and Kaufmann again showed her identification.

‘Maurice Moore, radar supervisor. Call me Morry. You were lucky to catch me – I was just about to leave for home. Now, how can I help the FBI?’

Moore’s face was round, eager and open. Hunter got the feeling that helping the FBI was the kind of thing he’d still be telling his grandchildren about in forty years time.

‘It’s very simple, Morry,’ Hunter said. ‘We’re investigating an incident that took place a little way north of here a few days ago, and we believe an aircraft may be involved. We’d like to see your radar tapes. You do keep radar tapes?’

‘You bet we do,’ Moore replied. ‘FAA – that’s the Federal Aviation Administration – rules. We hold them for a month, then recycle them unless there’s been some kind of an incident. Follow me.’

Moore led the way down a cream-painted corridor to a blue door. He reached into his pocket, took out a bunch of keys, selected one and turned it in the lock. The room he led them into had three huge tape decks, almost five feet tall and two feet wide, ranged along one wall. Each carried tape spools about a foot in diameter, carrying one inch recording tape. Only one of the machines was running, the spools rotating slowly.

‘That’s the in-use recorder,’ Moore said, pointing. ‘We run them in sequence, and the next one will start recording automatically as soon as the tape on the first one runs out.’

He walked to a table in the centre of the room and sat down. Hunter and Kaufmann followed him. The table was dominated by a computer screen and had both a conventional computer keyboard and what looked like a mixing console built in to its surface.

Moore punched letters on the keyboard, and the computer screen lit up. He gestured to Hunter and Kaufmann to draw up chairs and sit beside him. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘when did this incident take place, and what am I looking for?’

‘We’re not sure,’ Hunter replied.

‘About which?’

‘Both.’

Moore grinned at him. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘Kinda vague on the details, I guess. Well, I have to have a date, because that’s how the tape data is stored.’

‘OK,’ Hunter replied, and took out his notebook. He looked over the dates and times he’d written down.

‘My guess is not earlier than last Saturday,’ Christy-Lee said, looking over Hunter’s shoulder, ‘bearing in mind what the pathologist told us.’

Hunter nodded. ‘Yes, that’s as good a starting point as anywhere.’

Moore input the date into the keyboard, and looked at the result on the screen. ‘No problem,’ he said. ‘The in-use recorder started operating on Tuesday – yesterday – and the tape covering Saturday is still in number three. I’ll just wind it forward.’

He pointed at the third recorder, then pressed buttons on the console. The recorder’s tape drums began to rotate, slowly at first, then increasing speed to a blur.

Seven minutes later the three of them were looking intently at the computer screen, which was displaying the picture the airfield radar had seen immediately after midnight the previous Saturday. In the bottom right of the screen a small counter showed the date and time.

Kaufmann had expected to see a rotating time-base, just like in the movies, but the picture was clear and steady, more like a computer game, with symbols moving slowly around on it.

‘It’s a fully processed radar picture,’ Moore explained. ‘No time-base, no crap. Much easier to work with. Now, what should I be looking for?’

‘We don’t know,’ Hunter said, ‘but probably a fast-moving aircraft travelling east to west or vice versa.’

‘OK,’ Moore muttered, and moved a small lever on the console. Immediately the symbols on the picture began moving much faster, and Hunter noticed that the numbers on the counter were spinning rapidly.

‘What was that?’ Hunter asked, pointing at the screen. Moore reversed the direction of the lever, and the picture began playing backwards. ‘There,’ Hunter said.

At the top right hand side of the screen was a single unmarked radar return. Moore ran the tape forwards and backwards, but the return appeared only for a few seconds.

‘Probably just an angel,’ Moore said.

‘A what?’ Christy-Lee asked, smiling.

‘Anomalous propagation, a spurious return. You get things like that caused by temperature inversions and other atmospheric phenomena. Usually the processing takes them out, but occasionally they slip through.’

Ten minutes later, Moore sat back. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I didn’t see anything, did you?’

Christy-Lee shook her head. Hunter didn’t. ‘Can I look at that angel again?’ he asked.

‘Sure,’ Moore said, and rewound the tape.

The three of them studied the screen.

‘There,’ Moore said, pointing. He ran the tape forwards, but nothing else appeared anywhere near the return.

‘There’s another one,’ Christy-Lee said, ‘near the middle of the screen. And another.’

Where she was pointing, five unlabelled returns appeared, one after the other, apparently tracking due west. The first was about forty miles east of Helena, and the fifth and last about ten miles east.

‘Forget them,’ Moore said. ‘They’re just more angels.’

‘Are you sure?’ Hunter asked.

‘Positive. First, it can’t be an aircraft, simply because of the speed it’s travelling.’

Moore paused and did some rapid calculations on a piece of paper.

‘Better than two thousand five hundred miles an hour – that’s close to Mach four, and we’ve got nothing that travels that fast. Second, it’s not radiating a secondary radar return, which is against the law. Third, where does it go after we see the fifth return? It vanishes into our radar overhead, where we can’t see anything, but unless it’s still up there it has to come back into cover sometime. Finally, it’s in the wrong place. You’re investigating an incident to the north of Helena – even if that return is an aircraft, which it isn’t, it’s much too far south.’

Hunter nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I guess you’re right,’ he said. ‘What’s the coverage of this radar?’

‘The radius is fifty miles. At the edge of cover the bottom of the lobe is five thousand feet and the top’s at about forty five thousand feet. Why?’

‘Just thinking aloud,’ Hunter said, and stood up. ‘Thank you, Morry, you’ve been very helpful. It’s just a shame we didn’t find what we were looking for.’

On the way out, Hunter asked Moore if there was a meteorologist on duty. Moore directed him up a flight of stairs, then escorted Kaufmann to the door.

Five minutes later, Hunter reappeared. The two of them shook hands with Moore and walked back to their car.

‘The meteorologist?’ Kaufmann said, inquiring.

Hunter turned the key in the ignition and looked at her. ‘He’s wrong about a few things,’ he said.

‘Who – Morry?’

‘Yes,’ Hunter nodded. ‘I’m sure that was an aircraft, going very high and very fast. I’m quite familiar with radar pictures, raw and processed, thanks to my previous employment with Her Majesty The Queen, and those returns looked good and solid to me. Angels usually stay in more or less the same place for a while, then vanish or dissipate slowly.

‘And, according to the meteorological officer, the wind on Saturday afternoon when those five radar returns were detected was strong and from almost due south. Anything dropped from the track those returns were following would have been blown well to the north.’

‘But Morry said it vanished in the radar overhead – whatever that is.’

Hunter nodded. ‘It’s the piece of sky directly above the radar antenna, where the radar signal isn’t transmitted. I don’t think he was exactly right. I don’t think it vanished in the radar overhead; I think it climbed above it. We were looking at an unidentified aircraft that passed through the lobe of the airfield radar, and then climbed above forty-five thousand feet and out of cover.’

‘But the speed,’ Christy-Lee said. ‘What the hell kind of an aircraft can travel at that speed and go that high?’

‘Morry was almost right about that,’ Hunter said, ‘but he’s a civilian controller. There aren’t any civil aircraft that can travel that quickly, not even Concorde could do that, but there are plenty of high-performance military aircraft around. The SR-71A Blackbird – that was a surveillance aircraft that first became operational in the nineteen sixties – had a cruising speed of Mach three and routinely operated at about ninety thousand feet, and most of the US Air Force’s air superiority fighters can climb to seventy or eighty thousand feet and exceed Mach three.’

‘Morry worked it out at Mach four,’ Christy-Lee pointed out.

Hunter shrugged. ‘He was working it out on a piece of paper. Maybe he got it wrong. The point is, there are military aircraft here in America that routinely operate above fifty thousand feet and which can travel at over Mach three, which is close enough to what the radar recorded.’

Christy-Lee looked at him. ‘Are you serious? You really think the military are dumping human bodies from jet fighters? What the hell for?’

‘That’s another question I don’t have the answer to, Christy,’ Hunter said, ‘but I’m sure as hell going to find out.’

Beaver Creek, Western Montana

The two black Buicks were parked side-by-side in the far corner of the mall parking lot. The four members of the Alert Team stood in a loose circle beside them. Harris glanced round to ensure nobody else was within earshot before he spoke.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘SITREP. The pathologist was no problem. I checked with his office in Helena and found out from them what time he expected to leave Beaver Creek. Then Rogers and I parked at a rest area on the Interstate a few miles north of Helena and waited for him to drive past. We were going to follow him back to Helena and take him out there, but there was an opportunity on the Interstate, so we drove him off the road. Just a freak accident.

‘We pulled the femur and the skull out of the trunk of his car, and took his luggage as well. We got rid of the bones in a lake just off the road near Beaver Creek, and I’ll have his notes and other stuff incinerated.’

Harris stopped and nodded to Morgan.

‘Wilson and I went to the mortuary as soon as we arrived here,’ Morgan said. ‘The staff accepted the authorization for disposal of the body without question, and it should be in the oven right about now.’

‘That’s good,’ Harris said. ‘Right, next one on the list is Sheriff Reilly. He should have the notes the FBI agents left. I’ll go see him with Wilson, collect the stuff, and then the two of you –’ he pointed at Rogers and Wilson ‘– can take him later tonight. I’m thinking maybe a burglary that went wrong?’

The two men nodded at him.

‘As soon as that’s over, you head back to Helena. Morgan and I will leave for Helena as soon as we’re through here. First, we’re going to go through the notes and photos we’ll get from Reilly and make sure there’s nobody else that we need to take care of. Any questions?’

‘Yeah,’ Rogers said. ‘Don’t forget about the doctor, the mortician and the deputies here.’

‘They shouldn’t be a problem,’ Harris replied. ‘As far as I know, the only people who saw Dole’s body, and the skull, and who knew all the circumstances, are the pathologist, Sheriff Reilly and the two FBI agents, so those are the only ones we’ve been instructed to take care of. Unless the Fibbies’ notes tell a different story, once they’re eliminated, that’s it.’

Helena, Western Montana

Hunter drove the Ford to Christy-Lee’s apartment building along the side roads, and stopped on the street behind.

‘Why park here, Steve?’ Christy-Lee asked. ‘What’s wrong with the underground garage?’

Hunter looked across at her and smiled wryly. ‘Just a feeling. I don’t want anyone watching the front of the building to know we’re here.’

‘You really think somebody’s out there watching?’

‘Probably not, but until I’m sure nothing’s going on, I’m taking precautions, OK?’

‘Sure. Whatever you want.’

They both got out.

‘We’ll leave the bags for the moment, Christy,’ Hunter said, and led the way to the rear entrance of the building.

At the door to Kaufmann’s apartment Hunter stopped. He looked closely at the lock, but could see no evidence of picking or forced entry. Then he listened carefully, his ear pressed hard against the door. Finally, he stood back and nodded to Kaufmann.

Hunter drew his Glock automatic from his belt holster, worked the slide to chamber a round, and inserted Christy-Lee’s key in the door lock. Kaufmann stood on the other side of the doorway, drew her Colt revolver and cocked it, then signalled she was ready.

Carefully, Hunter turned the key and the handle, then eased the door open and slid inside, flattening himself against the wall to the right of the door.

Beaver Creek, Western Montana

Sheriff Richard Reilly looked up from his desk at his visitors, and didn’t particularly like what he saw. There were two of them, both big and solid men dressed in almost identical dark blue suits. They were smiling at him, but they were the kind of smiles that never reached their eyes.

‘Yes, gentlemen?’ Reilly said, with an affability he didn’t feel. ‘And what can I do for you?’

‘Good evening, sheriff,’ Harris said. ‘We’re members of the special investigation team that’s replaced the two regular FBI agents, Kaufmann and Hunter.’

Harris and Wilson flipped open perfectly genuine FBI identity cards and showed them to Reilly.

‘We understand that you’re holding the notes made by the Helena agents while they were investigating this case. We’d like those, please, and also any photographs that they, or your team here, took of the crime scene.’

Reilly got up and walked across to a filing cabinet. He opened the third drawer and took out a large brown envelope. ‘Here’s the notes,’ he said, passing it over. ‘The pictures they took are in there as well.’

‘And the photographs you had taken, sheriff?’ Harris prompted. ‘And the data card from the camera the photographer used.’

‘Got ’em right here,’ Reilly said, reaching into his desk drawer. ‘I’d like these back when you’re done with ’em,’ he added.

Harris took the second envelope and nodded briskly. ‘I’m sure that can be arranged, sheriff. Thank you for your time.’

‘How do I reach you?’ Reilly asked. ‘Where are you staying?’

‘We haven’t decided yet, sheriff,’ Harris said. ‘But we’ll be in touch with you, real soon.’

Reilly stared for a few seconds at the door Harris had closed behind him. Then he took a card out of his desk drawer, looked at it, reached for his desk phone and dialled a number.

Helena, Western Montana

Christy-Lee Kaufmann’s apartment looked just it had when she had left it the previous morning, but she and Hunter went through it room by room, pistols drawn, until they was certain it was safe.

‘Good thing the neighbours weren’t watching,’ Kaufmann said as she holstered her Colt. ‘We must have looked like a couple of real dipsy doodles.’

‘Yes,’ Hunter agreed with a grin. ‘It’s better to be safe, though. OK, I’ll go and get your bag.’

He was almost at the door when his mobile phone rang.

‘Hunter,’ he said.

‘Mr. Hunter,’ said a familiar voice. ‘Just thought you’d like to know your special investigation buddies have arrived and picked up your notes and stuff.’

‘Hullo, sheriff,’ Hunter replied. ‘Glad to hear that. Were they FBI agents or what?’

‘Accordin’ to their cards they was from the Bureau,’ Reilly said. ‘Names was Harris and Wilson, as I recall. Mean-lookin’ sons of bitches, I thought.’

Hunter covered the mouthpiece of the telephone and called out the names to Kaufmann. She shook her head.

‘Christy-Lee doesn’t think she knows them,’ Hunter said.

‘I tried callin’ your apartment a while ago,’ Reilly said, ‘but I got no reply. You get held up on the way back?’

‘In a manner of speaking, yes,’ Hunter said. ‘There was a road accident. Doctor Parker’s dead.’

There was a long silence on the line.

‘Dead?’ Reilly said, finally. ‘How?’

‘The state troopers think he fell asleep at the wheel,’ Hunter said, ‘but I’m not so sure.’

‘Are you tryin’ to tell me somethin’ here, Mr. Hunter?’ Reilly asked.

‘I don’t know, sheriff,’ Hunter said, and sat down in the chair next to the desk. ‘Look, there’s just something about this whole thing that smells bad to me. The impossible murder of Billy Dole; us getting pulled off the case for no reason; Doctor Parker dying in a car crash, and now this special investigation unit turning up. I mean, I know I’m a new boy, but Christy-Lee’s been in the Bureau for seven years, and she’s never even heard of a unit like that.’

‘So what are you sayin’ to me?’

‘I’m not saying anything – yet. Just be really careful in dealing with those men, sheriff. OK?’

When Reilly had rung off, Hunter collected Kaufmann’s cases from the Ford and brought them up to the apartment. Christy-Lee took them through to the bedroom to unpack, and Hunter headed for the kitchen to make a pot of coffee. Only then did he notice that the answering machine light was flashing.

‘Christy,’ the slightly tinny female voice said, ‘It’s Wednesday afternoon and I guessed you’d be at work. Now don’t try to call me for the next couple of days, because I’ll be in the hospital. Don’t worry, it’s nothing serious. In fact, it’s rather good news. There’s a new health insurance company operating here and they’re offering very low rates for people who join this year. All I have to do is go along and have some routine tests done, and as long as those are OK, I’ll be able to join the scheme. Great, eh? Anyway, if you do need to talk to me, or just send me chocolates and flowers and stuff, I’ll be at the Cedar City General Hospital, OK? Bye.’

Christy-Lee switched off the machine and stood up.

‘Who was that?’ Hunter asked, walking back into the room.

‘My sister, Maria,’ Kaufmann said. ‘She’s in the hospital having tests for some new medical insurance company thing. I think I’ll just give her a call.’

She picked up the phone and dialled the operator.

‘That’s strange,’ Kaufmann said twenty minutes later.

‘What is?’ Hunter asked. He was sitting on the couch drinking coffee and flicking through a copy of a gun magazine.

‘I’ve just had the run-around at Cedar City General Hospital,’ Kaufmann said. ‘Maria was supposed to be admitted this afternoon, and she was, but not to the hospital itself. Seems they’ve got a special testing unit of some sort attached, and she went there.’

‘So?’

‘So first they didn’t have a number for it, then when they found it and I rang, the number didn’t answer, and when somebody finally picked up the phone, they said Maria had already been discharged.’

Hunter put the magazine down. ‘And?’

‘Maria said on the phone that she was going to be there for a couple of days. I’m going to ring her at home.’

Hunter glanced at his watch. ‘Isn’t it a bit late for that?’ he asked.

Kaufmann shook her head. ‘No. Maria’s always been a bit of a night owl.’

Two minutes later she put the phone down. ‘There’s no reply,’ she said. ‘Where the hell is she?’

Chapter Seven

Thursday

Beaver Creek, Western Montana

Dick Reilly had lived alone since his wife had died eighteen months before. He had a small house, single-storey, standing by itself at the edge of a wood just outside the town limits. His nearest neighbours were the better part of a mile away, which was just the way Reilly liked it.

The house had a good-sized yard and large garage. Reilly didn’t do much in the yard, just the occasional cop-type barbecue in the summer, but he liked the house and especially the garage, because he enjoyed working on cars. Most Sundays you’d find him under the hood of his old Dodge, tinkering.

His wife, Alice, had died at home after a long illness, and in the last six months of her life Dick Reilly hadn’t got a lot of sleep because he had had to give her medication every couple of hours throughout the night. The legacy her illness had left him, apart from the aching void in his heart that he knew he would never fill, was an inability to sleep for more than about two or three hours at a time. Which was why, when Rogers and Wilson climbed in through his living room window at a little after two in the morning, Dick Reilly wasn’t lying asleep in the double bedroom at the back of the house.

He was sitting in his pyjamas in his den – a tiny book-lined and windowless room next to the kitchen – drinking a cup of decaffeinated coffee and reading a book on hand-loading rifle ammunition. When he heard the glass break, Reilly reacted instantly. He switched off the desk lamp, got silently to his feet and carefully pushed the den door shut. For a big man, he moved like a cat.

His official-issue revolver was where it always was when it wasn’t buckled around his waist; unloaded and in its holster in a drawer in the sideboard in the living room. But a revolver wasn’t what Reilly wanted.

He walked over to the corner of the den, sure-footed in the dark, and eased open the door of a tall cupboard. He reached inside and his hand searched for and then found a smooth cold metal tube. Careful to make no noise, he pulled it out and cradled it in his arms, his right hand closing automatically around the pistol grip. His thumb reached for, and then released, the safety catch.

Once he had done that, he smiled into the darkness. Whoever, or whatever, had come in through his living room window was in big trouble.

Many people think that a pistol is the ideal weapon for close-quarter work, but it isn’t. Most pistols are too inaccurate, even in experienced hands, to be serious weapons at any range. Reilly carried a revolver because he was told to by the state, but what he preferred to use, and what he always carried in the front of his Cherokee Jeep, was a shotgun.

In his home, he held the same view, but instead of an official-issue Remington pump-action 12-gauge, Reilly owned a SPAS-12 combat shotgun, probably the ultimate close-quarter weapon. He always kept it in the unlocked cupboard in his den, and he always kept the magazine fully loaded. Just in case.

Manufactured by the Franchi company, the SPAS-12 – the initials stand for ‘Special Purpose Automatic Shotgun’ – is a devastating weapon. It can operate as a conventional pump-action shotgun, but also has semi- and full-automatic capability. On full-automatic it fires fours shots a second and could almost literally blow a house to pieces, especially if it was loaded with the three inch magnum buckshot shells that Reilly favoured. That wasn’t what Reilly wanted – it was his home, after all – so he selected semi-automatic.

He held the shotgun in both hands, and walked softly to the door. He put his ear to it and listened. He heard the quiet footsteps of two people moving around, probably in the short corridor between the living room and the bedroom, and so he waited. He knew the house, and they didn’t, and they certainly didn’t know about the rusty hinge on the bedroom door, which Reilly still hadn’t got around to oiling.

When he heard the squeak at the back of the house, Reilly knew exactly which door they’d opened. He slipped silently out of the den and walked quickly into the living room. In the moonlight he saw the broken pane, and the wide open window. He crossed to the far side of the room, crouched down behind his favourite armchair opposite the television set, and waited.

He heard them muttering to each other as they came back up the corridor, the beams from their pencil flashlights dancing on the walls and floor.

‘Where the hell is he?’

‘His goddamn Cherokee’s outside. He must be in here somewhere.’

The two figures walked back into the living room, past Reilly, and were almost at the other door when Reilly stood up and hit the switch for the overhead light.

Highway US91/Interstate 15, Western Montana

‘We should be there in a couple of hours,’ Morgan said.

The Buick was travelling fast on the almost deserted road, heading south towards Helena and what should be the final part of the clean-up operation.

Harris had studied Hunter’s and Kaufmann’s notes, and was satisfied that nobody else needed to receive the attentions of the team. With all operations of this sort, it was always a difficult judgment call to decide who else had to be taken out. The principal witnesses obviously had to be eliminated, but when the numbers started multiplying it was sometimes safer to walk away than cause unnecessary speculation over a rash of ‘accidental’ deaths in the same area.

Morgan drove while Harris sat in the front passenger seat studying a map of Helena by the light of a small flashlight. In one hand he held a piece of paper which listed the addresses of Hunter and Kaufmann.

‘OK,’ Harris said. ‘I’ve located them both. Kaufmann’s the nearest, so we’ll take her first.’

‘Fine,’ Morgan nodded. ‘If we don’t hit any problems, we could be back home this afternoon.’

Harris put the map down and leaned back in his seat. A sudden thought struck him, and he reached into the door pocket and pulled out the profile of Christy-Lee Kaufmann. He studied her personal details and abstract of her FBI medical reports – supplied to them on Donahue’s orders – for a minute or two, then replaced the file.

‘It’s only just occurred to me,’ he said. ‘She’s the right age for the program, and her medical condition seems OK.’

Morgan glanced over at him and grinned. ‘You mean we can earn ourselves a bounty?’

‘Why not?’ Harris replied. ‘It’ll take us a while longer, but we’ve got the time.’

Beaver Creek, Western Montana

Both men spun around, bringing their pistols to bear, but they were too slow – a lifetime too slow. Rogers was fastest, and he’d actually started to squeeze the trigger when the blast from the SPAS-12 took him full in the chest. His pistol dropped harmlessly to the floor, and he was catapulted back against the opposite wall, but he was dead long before he reached it. As he slid down to the floor, the massive exit wound in his back left a broad vertical red smear on the light-coloured wallpaper.

Wilson looked straight down the smoking barrel of the shotgun and thought twice about doing anything in a hurry.

‘Drop it, now,’ Reilly snapped, ‘unless you want some of the same.’

Wilson dropped his revolver and, obeying a gesture from Reilly, kicked it across the carpet into a corner of the room.

‘Now,’ Reilly said. ‘We’d better introduce ourselves, seeing as how you’re in my house. So take off the mask.’

Both Wilson and Rogers had been wearing black balaclavas. Reluctantly, Wilson reached up and pulled it off his head.

‘Well, now, this is a surprise, Agent Wilson,’ Reilly said, the tone of his voice making it clear that the one thing that he wasn’t, was surprised. ‘Would that be Agent Harris over there makin’ a mess all over my carpet?’

Wilson shook his head.

‘Another guy from this so-called hot-shot FBI investigation team?’

Wilson nodded.

‘You can talk, can’t you?’ Reilly asked. ‘Cause I might wanna ask you a question or two that needs more than a “yes” or a “no”. OK?’

‘I can talk,’ Wilson said, snarling. ‘You’re in big trouble here, Reilly, bigger than you know. That’s a federal agent you’ve just killed.’

Reilly laughed. ‘Really? You guys ever hear about search warrants, due process, that kinda thing? Or do you always come callin’ in the middle of the night, breakin’ into folks’ homes wavin’ pistols and wearin’ masks?’

‘There were reasons,’ Wilson said.

‘I’ll bet there were.’

Reilly considered for a moment.

‘OK, Agent Wilson. Here’s what we’re gonna do. I can’t stand here all night holdin’ this here shotgun. I might wanna take a leak or grab a coffee or somethin’, so I guess I’m gonna have to restrain you.’ He pointed with the barrel of the shotgun towards the sideboard. ‘Just you walk across there,’ he said, ‘open the top drawer and take out my handcuffs.’

Wilson said nothing, and didn’t move.

‘Now, Agent Wilson,’ Reilly said. ‘I hope you ain’t gonna be difficult about this, ’cause I really ain’t got a lot of patience. The way I see it, you and the dead guy are masked intruders who broke into my house wavin’ pistols, and I’m pretty much within my rights if I shoot you as well as him. ’Course, I might have to go to court over it. Might even lose my job or my pension, but I’d still be alive, and you’d still be dead.

‘So what I’m sayin’ is, you wanna live a little longer, or you wanna take it right now in the chest like your boyfriend over there?’

Wilson was thinking furiously, weighing up the angles and his choices. The shotgun never wavered, and he had no doubt Reilly would use it again if he had to. Rogers’s pistol had fallen half under the front of the couch, well out of his reach, and his own pistol was about twelve feet away in the corner.

But Wilson had an ace in the hole – his ankle holster and the five-shot Smith & Wesson .32 strapped into it. Even with his wrists cuffed together, he could still reach his ankle, and once he was cuffed, Reilly would be much less alert.

‘OK,’ Wilson said. ‘I’m moving.’

He walked slowly across to the sideboard and pulled open the drawer. The first thing he saw was the butt of Reilly’s .38 Special, but even as he looked, he heard the sheriff’s chuckle behind him.

‘Don’t even think about it, Agent Wilson. It ain’t loaded. Just get the cuffs out and close the drawer.’

Wilson snapped open the belt pouch and pulled out the handcuffs, then closed the drawer and walked back to the centre of the room.

‘OK,’ Reilly said, ‘just put them on. Right wrist first, nice and easy. Then wait.’

Wilson stood, right wrist locked in the handcuff, wondering what Reilly wanted. The sheriff backed away towards the other corner of the room, still pointing the shotgun directly at Wilson, and picked up a dining chair with his left hand. He carried it back towards the centre of the room, and put it down about four feet from where Wilson was standing.

‘Now,’ Reilly said, ‘sit on the chair, facing the back, and put your left arm through the openin’ in the back of the chair. Then put the other cuff on.’

Clever, Wilson thought, but not clever enough. Even with his wrists locked through the chair back, he was sure he could still reach his ankle.

Once the cuff clicked closed, Reilly walked over to his captive and carefully checked that both handcuffs were properly locked. Satisfied, he walked backwards across the room to Rogers, the muzzle of the SPAS-12 still pointed straight at Wilson, then reached down and pulled the balaclava off. He looked down briefly, and without recognition, at the face of the dead man.

‘Nope, don’t know him at all,’ Reilly said. ‘So, Agent Wilson, you wanna tell me who the hell you really are?’

‘We’re federal agents,’ Wilson insisted. ‘And like I said, you’re in real trouble.’

Reilly didn’t reply, just walked across to him, rested the muzzle of the SPAS-12 on his chest, and reached into Wilson’s inside jacket pocket. He pulled out a bulky wallet and two leather card folders, and carried them back to his chair.

Holding the shotgun in his right hand, Reilly used his left hand to open each card folder in turn, then the wallet. His eyes left Wilson for under a second each time he looked down. Then he sat back in the chair and whistled softly.

‘Well, Agent Wilson, I sure wish I had your pension rights. Accordin’ to these, you do work for the FBI. You also work for the CIA, the DEA, the DIA, the NSA and even the goddamn IRS. There’s even a coupla sets of names and initials I’ve never heard of. What the hell is this, a do-it-yourself bureaucracy kit?’

‘We’re federal agents,’ Wilson repeated. ‘That’s all you need to know.’

‘Read my lips, Agent Wilson,’ Reilly hissed. ‘Who are you, and why did the two of you bust into my house carryin’ pistols?’

Wilson shook his head.

‘You’re gonna answer me,’ Reilly said. ‘Your choice. Hard or easy?’

Wilson said nothing.

‘OK.’

Reilly got up and backed across the room again, this time to the sideboard. Without taking his eyes off Wilson, and without allowing the muzzle of the SPAS-12 to drift more than an inch or two off target, Reilly reached into the top drawer and pulled out a telescopic steel baton.

‘I always liked this,’ he said conversationally, snapping it open and walking back towards Wilson. ‘Light, easy to conceal, and stings like a rattler.’

In a single fluid motion he transferred the shotgun to his left hand and swung the baton in a sharp, vicious arc. It connected with Wilson’s left arm just above the elbow, and Wilson knew immediately from the crack and agonizing stab of pain that his arm was broken. Despite himself, he howled in anguish.

‘Talk to me, Agent Wilson,’ Reilly said sharply. ‘Next time it’s your right arm.’

Wilson doubled over, trying to support his broken arm with his left thigh. He ignored Reilly until the sheriff walked in front of him and lifted the truncheon again.

‘OK, OK, you bastard,’ Wilson said, through clenched teeth and sobs of pain. At all costs he had to keep his right arm intact, otherwise he’d never get to use the .32.

‘I’ll tell you,’ he began. ‘We’re a clean-up team.’

Helena, Western Montana

‘You’re over-reacting, Christy.’

Kaufmann shook her head. ‘I don’t think I am,’ she said. ‘Look, you don’t know what Maria’s like. Ever since Roger died she’s been shy and nervous. She rings me two or three times a week, and she’s got all my numbers. If she’d been discharged from the hospital, she’d have rung to tell me. She isn’t at the hospital, and she isn’t at home, so where the hell is she? Something’s wrong, and I’m going to find out what.’

Hunter shook his head. ‘I’m sure there’s a simple explanation,’ he said. ‘It’s probably some kind of administrative screw-up.’

Kaufmann was throwing clothes and other stuff into a leather carry-on bag.

‘OK, I’ll go with you,’ Hunter said.

Christy-Lee stopped and looked up at him. ‘If you want to, of course, but there’s really no need. I’m just going to hop a flight down to Cedar City, find out what the hell’s happened, and then fly home. I should be back Friday evening latest.’

‘It’s no problem, Christy,’ Hunter said. ‘Two heads are better than one. Look, I’ll just drive over to my place and pick up a change of clothes. I’ll see you back here in an hour or so.’

Christy-Lee smiled at him. ‘Thanks, Steve. I really do appreciate it,’ she said.

Beaver Creek, Western Montana

Over the throbbing agony of his broken arm, Wilson had reached a decision. It didn’t matter, he reasoned, what he told Reilly, because sooner or later the sheriff’s concentration would slip, and then he’d get the chance to go for his ankle holster. And then Reilly would be dead, and it wouldn’t matter what he had known or what he’d been told.

The Buick was parked a quarter of a mile up the road, and Wilson could drive it one-handed, no problem. As soon as Reilly relaxed and gave him the opportunity, he could finish it. The problem was, Reilly showed no signs of relaxing.

‘So what exactly was you and your buddies cleanin’ up, Agent Wilson?’ Reilly asked.

‘We were just following orders,’ Wilson said. ‘The killing of that guy Billy Dole had connections to a classified government project.’

‘What project?’ Reilly asked.

‘I can’t tell you,’ Wilson said, ‘because I don’t know.’

‘What do you know about it?’

‘Only the name,’ Wilson replied. ‘It’s called Roland Oliver.’

In fact, Wilson knew far more than just the name. Everybody on the clean-up team knew at least some of the details about how Roland Oliver worked, but that was one thing he certainly wasn’t going to admit to Reilly.

‘OK,’ Reilly said. ‘I’ll buy that – for now, anyway. What was your orders?’

‘We were instructed to remove or destroy the evidence and eliminate all those people who had been closely involved with the case.’

Reilly’s voice betrayed the surprise he felt. ‘You was just gonna go out and kill a half a dozen folks?’ he said. ‘Just like that?’

‘Greatest good of the greatest number, sheriff,’ Wilson said. ‘You have to put it into perspective. More people than that die in car wrecks in this state every day. We were acting on behalf of the government, and it had decided that the risk of you people talking to somebody you shouldn’t about the Billy Dole killing was unacceptable.’

‘Who shouldn’t we have talked to?’

Wilson shrugged, then stiffened as the pain from his broken arm lanced through his body.

‘Newsmen, TV people, FBI, other cops. Anybody who might have taken a real interest in the case.’

Reilly mulled that over for a few moments. ‘Who gave you your orders?’ he asked.

‘Harris was in charge.’

‘No. I mean, who gave Harris his orders?’

Wilson shook his head. ‘I can’t tell you that,’ he said.

‘You mean you can’t tell me, or you won’t tell me?’ Reilly asked

‘OK, I mean I won’t tell you.’

Reilly looked at him across the room and picked up the steel truncheon again. ‘I think I have to explain the facts of life to you, Agent Wilson,’ he said. ‘When you and your boyfriend climbed in through my window, you both died. Your buddy, he died quick. You’re dyin’ slow. How slow, and how much it hurts, is up to you.’

Wilson cringed back in the chair as Reilly walked over and stood in front of him.

‘I guess your arm’s throbbin’ pretty good, now?’ Reilly asked, almost conversationally. He lifted the end of the baton and prodded it sharply at the left sleeve of Wilson’s jacket. The injured man howled in pain, his head slumping forward onto the back of the chair.

Reilly waited a minute or two for Wilson to recover, then he pushed the muzzle of the SPAS-12 under the chin of his captive and pushed his head back.

‘I don’t like doin’ things behind people’s backs,’ Reilly said, ‘so you can watch this.’

The baton hissed through the air and slammed into the left side of Wilson’s chest. Almost before the thud of the impact had died away, Reilly had swung the weapon up again and repeated the blow.

Wilson’s face went white and he gasped for breath. His chest felt as if it had been hit by a truck.

‘Probably got a coupla ribs broke there, Agent Wilson,’ Reilly said, in the same sort of tone as he used for ordering donuts at the Diner. ‘Dare say there’ll be another few broke on the other side in a minute or so. Unless, o’ course, you wanna change your mind and talk some more.’

Wilson could hardly see – when he opened his eyes it was like looking down a narrow, circular red tunnel, and the blood roared in his ears. But he heard enough, and as Reilly moved round to his right side with the baton, he nodded feebly.

‘That a yes, is it?’

Wilson nodded again.

‘OK,’ Reilly said, and walked back to his seat. ‘Let’s try it again. Who gave you your orders?’

It was nearly five minutes before Wilson could speak coherently.

‘It’s called Omega Control or Rolver Systems, or sometimes just Roland Oliver,’ he said, finally. ‘And before you beat the crap out of me again, I’ve never been there and I don’t know anything about it. All I know is it’s based somewhere in Nevada. We’re just a quick-reaction team, permanently on alert.’

‘You done this kind of thing before, then?’

Wilson nodded, almost imperceptibly. ‘Never quite like this,’ he said, ‘but we’ve cleaned up other incidents, yes. It doesn’t always involve termination, but we’ve done that as well. We just do whatever we’re told.’

‘Just followin’ orders, eh, Agent Wilson?’

Wilson leaned forward, then eased back as pain flooded his senses. ‘I’ve spent my entire adult life serving this country, sheriff,’ he spat. ‘I was a SEAL for twenty years. I was recruited to work for Roland Oliver when I left the military, and I was proud to be selected. I love this country and I’ve always served it to the best of my ability.’

Reilly nodded. ‘Don’t seem to have a stars and stripes on me right now,’ he said, ‘but soon as I find one I’ll run it right up the nearest flagpole and salute it.’

Wilson glared at him. ‘It’s easy to make fun of a patriot,’ he said.

Reilly shook his head. ‘I don’t think you’re a patriot, Wilson,’ he said. ‘Patriots don’t go ’round the country killin’ American citizens just ’cause some secret squirrel outfit in Nevada tells ’em to. I think you’re just a hired killer. You may have been hired by Uncle Sam, but that don’t make a whole heap o’ difference, far as I can see.’

‘I’m doing my job, sheriff,’ Wilson said, ‘the best way I can. I don’t care what you or anyone else thinks of me, and I know that what we’re doing is right for America. You know how I know that?’

Reilly shook his head. ‘Why don’t you tell me,’ he suggested.

‘Because of the people who are involved with Roland Oliver. You saw the ID we carry. All those identifications are genuine, because the heads of all those agencies are a part of the programme. That’s how I know we’re right.’

Reilly grunted, but didn’t comment. Instead, he charged tack. ‘Who was on your kill list?’

Wilson said nothing, and looked away. Reilly hefted the baton again and slapped it sharply down on the arm of his chair. ‘Talk to me, Wilson,’ he said, the threat unmistakable in his voice.

‘OK,’ Wilson said, reluctantly. ‘We were ordered to eliminate you, the two FBI agents and the pathologist.’

‘I heard the pathologist got himself killed in a car wreck.’

Wilson smiled grimly. ‘That’s what you were supposed to hear. Anytime we have to terminate somebody we try to make it look like an accident.’

‘What sort of accident was I going to have?’ Reilly asked.

‘Harris told us to make it look like a burglary that went wrong.’

Reilly grunted. ‘You got that bit right, Agent Wilson. It definitely went wrong. What about the FBI agents? They had some kind of accident already?’

‘I don’t know,’ Wilson said. ‘Harris and Morgan set off for Helena early this evening. They may have taken care of things already.’

Still covering Wilson with the shotgun, Reilly walked sideways across the room to the telephone on the wall.

‘That won’t help, sheriff,’ Wilson said, watching Reilly. ‘We cut the wires before we broke in here. Standard procedure.’

Reilly picked up the phone anyway, but got no dial tone. For the first time in his life, he wished he’d brought his mobile phone home with him from the office. He sat down again, but he knew he had to end this quickly, and get to a phone that worked.

‘You got anybody else on your kill list?’

‘We had discretionary authority.’

‘What’s that mean?’

‘It means we had clearance to eliminate anybody else we thought necessary. The decision was left to Harris – he was in charge of the operation.’

‘And what did Harris decide?’ Reilly asked. ‘Who’d he put on the kill list?’

‘As far as I know, nobody. He didn’t think anybody else knew enough about the case to be a real danger.’

Reilly rested the shotgun across his lap, lowered his head and rubbed his eyes. Wilson watched him closely, and then seized the moment. He dived forward, reaching for his right ankle and simultaneously lifting his leg. The sudden movement twisted the broken bones in his left arm, and he cried out as his fingers closed around the butt of his .32.

Dick Reilly had a code, and he could never have shot an unarmed man. He’d seen the ankle holster when he’d checked Wilson’s handcuffs, and guessed that Wilson was going to try to use it, which was the reason he’d laid down the SPAS-12.

As Wilson brought his pistol to bear, he found himself looking straight down the barrel of the shotgun again. He knew he was too late, but he was committed and he had absolutely nothing to lose. He squeezed the trigger of the Smith as he pushed his body to the right. The last image his mind registered was the slight smile on sheriff Reilly’s face, and the whitening of the joint of the first finger of his right hand as it tightened on the trigger of the SPAS-12.

Las Vegas, Nevada

The ambulance with Utah plates drove up to the main gate of McCarran Air Force Base, just outside Las Vegas. As requested by the sign on the gatehouse, the driver switched off his headlights as he approached. The armed guard leaned down, and the driver handed him an authorization chit.

The guard checked it carefully against a printed list on a clipboard, and signed the chit.

‘Know where you’re going?’ he asked.

The driver nodded. ‘Yup,’ he replied. ‘This is a regular run.’

The ambulance drove on into the base, following the line of the main runway, until it reached an unmarked building set a little apart from its neighbours, and close to an aircraft hardstanding.

While his partner opened the rear doors of the ambulance, the driver pushed the buzzer beside the door to the building, then stood in full view of the security camera until he heard the door unlock. A man in a white coat, wearing a badge with the word ‘Evans’ on it, opened the door, checked the documentation carried by the driver, then walked over to the ambulance and looked inside.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘Bring her this way.’

The two men lifted out the gurney, dropped its wheels, and pushed it into the building.

Inside, Evans led them into a large open area containing about fifty closed aluminium caskets. He stopped beside one, checked its number and pressed a button to open the lid.

‘Here,’ he said.

The two ambulance men carefully lifted the woman off the gurney and placed her inside the casket. As they gently lowered her head onto the pillow, she moaned slightly, and her eyelids flickered.

Evans grunted in annoyance, and pushed the lid down firmly. Then he walked to the end of the casket and adjusted one of the gas flow-control knobs.

‘A little more nitrous oxide for a few minutes,’ he said, almost to himself.

The other two pushed the gurney back out of the room and over to the ambulance. Six minutes later they were driving through the main gate at McCarran, heading for Las Vegas. They had less than thirty minutes before the next pick-up was due, at a hotel on the outskirts of town.

Helena, Western Montana

At his apartment, Hunter emptied his overnight bag, tossed the dirty washing into a pile in the bathroom, and selected clean clothes. He checked his answering machine for messages and picked out a couple of novels. Less than half an hour after he’d arrived, he picked up his bag, locked the apartment door and headed for the elevator.

Four minutes after he’d walked out of the apartment building, the phone started to ring in Hunter’s flat. It rang for thirty seconds, stopped and then rang again. Then it fell silent for the rest of the night.

Chapter Eight

Thursday

Helena, Western Montana

Hunter sat in the Bureau Ford on a deserted street in downtown Helena, waiting on a red light. In reality, he could have done without the trip to Utah, but Christy-Lee’s obvious concern about her sister was quite enough to persuade him to accompany her.

His mobile phone, when it rang, startled him. Hunter pulled it out of his pocket and swiped the screen. ‘Christy?’ he said.

There was a silence from the caller, then a familiar low fruity chuckle. ‘I was still a guy last time I looked, Mr. Hunter.’

Hunter recognized the voice immediately. ‘What can I do for you, sheriff?’

‘This time it’s more what I can do for you, and you gotta move fast,’ Reilly said. ‘First, where are you?’

‘In Helena,’ Hunter said, ‘sitting waiting at a red light. Why?’

‘OK,’ Reilly growled. ‘You got anyone else with you at the moment?’

‘No,’ Hunter said. ‘Why?’

‘Nobody at all?’

‘No, no-one. Look, what is this, sheriff?’

‘Best you get over to Agent Kaufmann’s place then, soon as you can,’ Reilly said, ‘and then the both of you get the hell away from there. I’ve just had a visit from two guys in this here special investigation team. They bust in through my living room window ’bout an hour ago wavin’ pistols, and they definitely hadn’t come for a beer.’

‘What?’ Hunter exclaimed. ‘What happened?’

‘I had an exchange of views with one of them,’ Reilly said, ‘but they was both out-gunned. Anyway, it ain’t an investigation team at all – it’s a clean-up squad. They’re takin’ out everyone who got deep involved with the Billy Dole thing. That’s Doctor Parker, you, me and Agent Kaufmann. Maybe even the mortician and photographer and my deputies. The other two guys in the team are on their way to Helena right now, maybe there already.’

‘What do you mean – “taking out”?’ Hunter asked, but he knew the answer even before Reilly started speaking.

‘What the guys in the CIA used to call “terminate with extreme prejudice”, Mr. Hunter. The simple word is “kill”. These two guys is under orders to kill you and the lady.’

McCarran Air Force Base, Las Vegas, Nevada

It was a busy night at the base. At various intervals during the early hours of the morning, three different ambulances ferried unconscious patients to the unmarked building near the aircraft hardstanding.

The routine was always the same: the documentation was checked, and then Evans supervised the transfer of each new arrival to one of the aluminium caskets. Once the patient was secured inside, the flow and percentage of each gas was carefully regulated to ensure that the occupant didn’t regain consciousness.

The only characteristics shared by the occupants of the caskets were that they were all female, all very healthy, and all between the ages of eighteen and thirty.

Helena, Western Montana

Hunter snapped the mobile phone closed and tossed it onto the seat beside him, then gunned the engine of the Ford. The lights were still red, and Hunter checked both directions before he powered across the intersection.

The Ford surged forward as he pushed the speed up to sixty-five. He reached over for his mobile phone, held it against the rim of the steering wheel and pressed the speed-dial code for Kaufmann’s number. He wedged the phone between his chin and shoulder because he needed both hands to control the car. The number was busy.

Two minutes later he tried again, just in case, but with the same result. He snapped the phone closed and dropped it onto the seat.

The Ford was still doing nearly sixty miles an hour as Hunter approached Christy-Lee Kaufmann’s apartment building. Three blocks away he dropped the speed down to twenty-five, then took a turn that brought him around the back of the building. He switched off the engine and lights, left his mobile phone on the seat and got out of the car, closing the door as quietly as he could.

Every fiber of his being told Hunter to run, to hurry, but his mind was working the way it had been trained to work. He walked to the corner of the apartment building, peered cautiously round the corner and checked the street, looking for anything unusual. A car parked with people inside it, a parked car with lights switched on or the engine running. Anything out of the ordinary at that hour of the morning.

There were cars along both sides of the street, but he saw nothing suspicious about any of them. Hunter checked twice, then walked swiftly towards the building entrance. The lobby was dimly illuminated, with just the emergency lights showing, and he could see no-one inside. He pushed open the outer door, and the lobby lights flared on, triggered automatically by the opening door. Still nobody.

Hunter fumbled for his key – Christy-Lee had given him copies of her front door and apartment door keys months ago, and he kept them on the same ring as his own. The inner door clicked open, and Hunter stepped inside.

He paused for a moment and listened. The elevator lights were out, and there was no sound from the stairwell. Christy-Lee’s apartment was on the third floor. The fastest way up was the elevator, but Hunter never even considered using it. There is no better way to advertise your arrival than to climb into an elevator. He’d take the stairs.

He pulled his Glock 17 from the belt holster, chambered a cartridge from the seventeen-round magazine, and took up the first pressure on the trigger. Pistols manufactured by the Austrian company Glock GmbH are unique in that they have no conventional safety catch. The first pressure on the trigger cocks the striker and disengages the trigger safety, and at the same time releases the firing pin lock and the safety ramp, two other internal safety devices. All it takes is a further pressure on the trigger to fire the weapon.

Hunter took a deep breath, held the pistol out in front of him, and began to climb.

At the first floor, he stopped and peered left and right down the corridor before stepping onto the landing. Nothing. He did the same on the second floor, with the same result. Approaching the third, he thought he heard something, something metallic, and stood motionless for a heart-stopping thirty seconds, pistol held out in front of him, ready for he knew not what.

He heard nothing else and continued, taking infinite care to step silently on the concrete treads of the stairway. Kaufmann’s apartment lay to his right at the end of the corridor, so that was the direction he looked. He peered around the corridor wall for less than half a second, then withdrew his head. Outside her door, he had seen a bulky shape.

Beaver Creek, Western Montana

Sheriff Dick Reilly put down the mobile telephone he’d found in Wilson’s pocket and picked up his address book. He was sitting in his den again, going through the numbers he knew he had to call.

First he’d called Hunter. Then he’d called his office and set the wheels in motion to sort out the two bodies still lying in his living room. Then he’d noted down the names of everyone who’d come into contact with Billy Dole’s body and started ringing them.

Four of his deputies had been involved in the Billy Dole case, and he wasn’t prepared to take Wilson’s word that they weren’t on the clean-up squad’s kill list. Then there was the doctor, the photographer and the mortician. Reilly knew them all, knew them all well, and wasn’t about to risk any one of them.

Helena, Western Montana

Hunter mentally reviewed what he’d seen in that brief glance. He realized that there had to be two figures. One crouching by the door, the other standing, watching and waiting. Even as he listened, Hunter heard a faint metallic clink. It sounded like one of them was using a twirl – a lock-pick. So they couldn’t have got inside yet, which meant he had a chance to stop them.

In an ideal world, Hunter thought, he would simply be the man at the top of the stairs, the man leading the assault team. He’d be wearing a bullet-proof vest, and carrying an assault rifle or combat shotgun. In an ideal world, he wouldn’t be crouching by himself on a stairway wearing no protection at all, clutching a Glock nine-millimetre pistol and facing two armed and highly dangerous men.

Hunter was a good shot, and he undoubtedly had the element of surprise in his favour, but he doubted he could take them both. In the dimly-lit corridor, he might not even hit one of them. Especially not if he followed the correct procedure, and warned them he was an armed FBI agent – or at least the next best thing – before he fired. Not that he would bother.

He crouched on the stairs for over a minute – it seemed much longer to him – weighing the options. Then he eased up into a standing position and crept back down the stairs to the second floor. The beginnings of a plan were forming in his mind.

If he could split the two men, get one over to the elevator, he could probably take him from behind, from the slight protection offered by the darkened stairwell. Then it would be one against one, odds which Hunter greatly preferred. And he figured that if he sent the elevator up to the third floor, one of the men would certainly go over and check it out. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was the best he could come up with.

He walked silently across to the elevator and reached out his hand to the call button. But a split second before his finger could press it, the ‘in use’ light illuminated. Hunter stepped back, startled, and watched as the elevator passed the second floor and continued upwards.

He walked back to the stairwell and started to climb the stairs, conscious all the time of the sounds coming from the elevator shaft. He heard the elevator motor stop and the doors open, and from the suddenly increased illumination ahead of him he realized it had stopped on the third floor. It looked as if somebody else was providing him with the distraction he needed.

He climbed more quickly, but the doors had already closed before he reached the third floor. The motor started again, and the elevator began to descend.

Hunter cautiously peered around the corner of the stairwell, towards the elevator doors, but there was nobody in sight. Then he looked to the right, but that corridor was deserted as well.

Hunter suddenly realized that the clean-up team had failed to get in. Christy-Lee had two locks on her apartment door, he remembered, a self-locking Yale and a deadbolt, and this combination had obviously defeated them. Once they’d realized they couldn’t get in, the assassins had simply walked over to the elevator and left the building.

Despite his mental reconstruction of what had happened, Hunter was still cautious. He checked the corridor twice, then walked across to Christy-Lee’s door, Glock held ready. He pulled the keys out of his pocket, turned the deadbolt back, then opened the door with the Yale key.

He backed into the apartment, covering the corridor with the Glock, and pulled the door closed behind him.

It was the smell that hit him first. Faint, but undeniably there. He sniffed the air. Chloroform or maybe ether. A hospital smell.

And then Hunter knew that he’d read the situation completely the wrong way. The realization hit him like a hammer-blow. He’d thought the two men were trying to pick the lock on Christy-Lee’s door to get inside. They hadn’t been. They’d been using her keys to re-lock the deadbolt behind them on their way out. The bulky shape he’d seen outside her door had actually been three figures – and one of them had been Christy-Lee.

‘Christy?’ Hunter called out, his voice urgent and loud in the silent building.

He snapped on the lights and ran across the living room to the bedroom. He knocked on the door – his subconscious mind was already telling him that was a fruitless, pointless gesture – and then opened it.

Hunter spun around, ran to the bathroom and kicked open the door. Empty. He knew she’d been taken, but he had to check, had to make absolutely sure.

He ran back into the living room, heading for the door to the corridor. If he ran down the stairs, perhaps he could catch them. Pointless, he knew, because they had far too big a lead over him, but he had to do something.

Then he remembered that the windows over-looked the street. He stopped dead, switched off the overhead lights, ran to the window and tore back the drapes.

He looked both ways, then saw what he was expecting. On the other side of the road, seventy or eighty yards away, a car’s lights came on. After a few seconds the vehicle pulled away from the curb and moved quickly off down the street. The distance was too far for Hunter to make out the license plate, but he could identify the make. A Buick, dark in colour, maybe black.

Chapter Nine

Thursday

Helena, Western Montana

Hunter turned on every light in the apartment and went through it as carefully as he could, looking for anything that the clean-up team might have dropped. He didn’t expect to find a damn thing, and wasn’t surprised when his prediction turned out to be absolutely correct. Whoever they were, they were professional, beyond any doubt.

The signs of a struggle were obvious. Chairs over-turned, ornaments scattered like autumn leaves, the desk slammed against the wall hard enough to dig a half-inch gouge in the plaster. The telephone was lying on the floor, the handset under a chair, emitting a faint buzzing sound. Almost without thinking, Hunter picked up the handset and replaced it on the base unit.

But there was no blood, Hunter noted, and Christy-Lee’s Colt revolver was still in its belt holster on the sideboard, unfired. He guessed that the intruders had picked the lock on the door and Christy-Lee, expecting only Hunter, had either ignored the noise or perhaps even opened the door for them.

He walked across to the window and looked out at the street below, his eyes sightless, his mind in turmoil. What puzzled him was not why this group had been tasked with killing people involved in the investigation of Billy Dole’s murder – that was a larger issue that he would have to address later – but why they’d taken Christy-Lee. If Dick Reilly had got it right, and Hunter had no reason to doubt what the Montana sheriff had said, then he and Christy-Lee were both on a hit list, so why wasn’t she lying dead in her bed?

Taking her out of the building, even unconscious and in the early hours of the morning, seemed to Hunter to be a stupid and unnecessary risk, when they could simply have killed her right there and walked away. So there had to be a reason. The trouble was, Hunter had no idea what that reason might be, or how the hell he could find out.

He would have to talk to Reilly again, find out exactly what the bogus FBI agent had told him. But in the meantime? What could he do, if anything? Hunter turned and looked around the apartment again, seeing everything, but noticing nothing.

Something was missing. There was some other part of the puzzle that wasn’t registering with him. What he was certain about was that Christy-Lee was, at least in the short term, alive. Otherwise kidnapping her made no sense at all. What he had to do was find her. Or find the clean-up squad. It didn’t much matter which, because one would inevitably lead to the other.

Hunter was good at prioritizing. There were three situations he had to deal with. First, and most important, the kidnapping of Christy-Lee; second, the actions of the clean-up squad in Beaver Creek and Helena, and finally, and by far the least important to Hunter, the apparent disappearance of Kaufmann’s sister, Maria Slade. He didn’t even spare a thought for the other cases he was supposed to be working on at the Helena Resident Agency.

Maria Slade, Hunter thought, rationalizing without any data to back him up, was probably fine. Maybe there had been some kind of a fault on her line, or with her home telephone. Maybe the hospital had got it wrong, maybe they’d looked up the wrong name or something. There could have been some kind of screw-up in the administration section.

He could get the local cops to visit her house and run a check on her, just in case, but for the moment he pushed her to the back of his mind.

The most pressing problem was Christy-Lee, and linked to that the clean-up squad. Hunter toyed with the idea of returning to his own apartment to wait for the killers to call on him, but rejected it. They might have been there already, before they snatched Christy-Lee, or they might be taking her somewhere out of state. Either way, going back to his place might mean waiting for hours or even days before they appeared, and even then he might be out-gunned or surprised. That was no good.

Hunter came to a decision. He snapped off the apartment lights and headed for the stairs and the street at the rear of the building where he’d parked the Bureau Ford.

The case had started in Beaver Creek, and Hunter thought it might well end in Beaver Creek. But whatever the outcome, Sheriff Dick Reilly obviously knew far more than he did about what the hell was going on, so Beaver Creek was where Hunter was going.

Beaver Creek, Western Montana

Reilly waited at his house with two of his deputies until the ambulance men had bagged the bodies and taken them away. Then the three of them tried to clear up the worst of the mess. It took them nearly two hours, and at the end of it the living room still looked like a slaughterhouse.

‘Certainly gonna need a new carpet here, Dick,’ one of the deputies said, finally, ‘and it’s gonna take a while to pick all the shot and bits of bone outta that there wall.’

‘Yup,’ Reilly agreed. ‘Planned to decorate it next spring anyway. Just get it done a bit sooner, I guess.’

Thirty minutes later Dick Reilly sat at his office desk looking through the multiplicity of identity cards in front of him. Rogers had duplicates of those he had taken from Wilson’s pocket, and as far as Reilly could tell, they were all completely genuine.

That worried him, because it meant that Wilson might have been telling the truth. Maybe Reilly had stumbled upon part of a classified government operation, and maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea for him to have killed the two of them. On the other had, Reilly shrugged, they had certainly been going to kill him, so what the hell. He’d just have to watch his back, that was all.

The desk phone rang and Reilly picked it up. ‘Beaver Creek Sheriff’s Office,’ he said.

The line was scratchy and at first Reilly couldn’t tell who was calling.

‘It’s Hunter,’ the distant voice said. ‘I’m calling from the Interstate, heading your way. We have to talk.’

Something in the tone of his voice made Reilly pause before replying. ‘How’d it go?’ he said, finally.

‘Not good,’ Hunter replied. ‘They’ve snatched Christy-Lee.’

Helena, Western Montana

Harris didn’t like it, but he had no choice. The operating regulations for the program were absolutely rigid. All subjects had to be collected by one of the dozen or so specially-equipped ambulances operated by Roland Oliver, and the closest one was over four hours away, doing a pick-up at Pocatello in Idaho.

If they wanted the bounty for handing over Christy-Lee Kaufmann as a Roland Oliver subject, they had to follow the rules.

‘We could just forget about the bounty,’ Morgan suggested. ‘Just pop her and dump the body somewhere.’

Harris shook his head. ‘She’s an FBI agent. We could have knifed her and trashed her apartment, made it look like a burglary or sex killing, but now we’ve snatched her we’ve got to carry it through. We’re committed. If her body gets found by a roadside somewhere, there’d be an FBI and police investigation, and Roland Oliver wouldn’t like that at all. This is the best way.’

Morgan grunted, and turned his attention back to the road. They were making the best of it, and had arranged to meet the ambulance at a rest area on the interstate just north of the Idaho/Montana border. That way they would get rid of their passenger as soon as possible. The sooner they could off-load the unconscious woman, the sooner they could get back to Helena to take out Hunter, and wrap up the last part of the operation.

Highway US91/Interstate 15, Western Montana

‘Tell you what, Mr. Hunter,’ Reilly said. ‘I guess you could maybe use some back-up?’

Hunter shifted the phone slightly under his chin as he accelerated past an eighteen-wheel rig that was cruising at a steady sixty.

‘Right now, sheriff, I reckon I need all the help I can get.’

‘OK,’ Reilly said. ‘I can’t think of any good reason for sittin’ here in Beaver Creek and waiting for the other guys from that squad to come lookin’ for me, so how’s about we team up?’

Hunter was silent for a moment or two, but it wasn’t a difficult decision. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘That’s a good idea.’ He looked at the dashboard clock. ‘I’ll be with you in about half an hour,’ he said, then ended the call.

McCarran Air Force Base, Las Vegas, Nevada

The man in the white coat moved silently around the main open area in the building, clipboard in hand, checking the instruments and gauges that were fitted to the ends of the aluminium caskets.

There wasn’t much need for any kind of physical inspection, because each casket was connected to a central monitoring system that would have sounded an alarm and shown an alert on the central display in the office if any of the gas concentrations or vital signs had exceeded their specified parameters. The monitoring system would also have made any necessary changes to keep the subjects alive, but deeply sedated and unconscious.

But Evans had qualified as a doctor almost twenty years previously, and the habit of actually looking at his patients, rather than letting a computer system do it for him, died hard. He still thought of them as patients, though he was never allowed to actually treat them.

In the early days, when he had first begun working in the building, he had been puzzled both by the exceptionally high salary he was paid for such a simple task, and by the raft of secrecy forms and non-disclosure agreements he had been required to sign. Once he had deduced the reality of the operation, he understood the reason for both.

These days, he just took the money and tried not to think too much about what he was doing. Sometimes that was difficult, especially when he found himself actually looking at the faces of the subjects, rather than just at the monitoring equipment. That personalized the whole thing, and it was that which gave him the sleepless nights that he’d come to dread.

As he looked down through the clear glass faceplate at the still, peaceful face surrounded by a halo of ash-blonde hair, he knew without any doubt that tonight the nightmares would come again. He glanced once at her tag number – 73418 – and walked slowly back to his office.

Beaver Creek, Western Montana

‘They had all these?’ Hunter asked, almost to himself. He was looking at the identity cards Reilly had liberated from the two intruders he had killed.

‘Yup,’ Reilly said, sliding a chipped mug across the desk towards Hunter and sitting down. ‘Wilson – or whatever the hell his real name was – claimed they was all the real thing.’

Hunter picked up the mug, took a sip of the coffee, and nodded. ‘They certainly look genuine to me.’ He leaned back and looked across at the sheriff. ‘Wilson said we’d got involved with a classified project. Did he say what?’

‘Nope,’ Reilly shook his head. ‘He said it was called “Roland Oliver”, and was run by some outfit down in Nevada, but that was about all. I got the feelin’ he knew more than he was tellin’, but I don’t think he knew more than he needed to, if you see what I mean.’

‘Yes – need to know. It’s standard procedure in most government agencies. Never tell anyone more than the absolute minimum they need to know to do their job.’

Hunter spread the ID cards out on the desk in front of him and looked down at them for a couple of minutes.

‘I don’t know what the hell this one is,’ he said, picking up a dark blue and white card. The logo in the top left hand corner was the omega, the Greek letter ‘Ω’: to the right was a name – in this case ‘John Wilson’ – and below that a small and indistinct photograph of the dead man. On the bottom left of the card, directly below the logo, was a large number thirteen. The card was blank on the reverse, apart from a black strip across the centre.

‘This looks like a machine-readable card,’ Hunter said. ‘You know, like your bank card for an ATM machine. I’ve never seen anything like it before, though.’

‘Me neither,’ Reilly said. ‘They both had them. The only difference on the other one is the name and the number. That says “Mike Rogers” and the number’s eighteen.’

‘The question,’ Hunter said, putting the card back on the desk, ‘is where do we go from here?’

Reilly shrugged his ample shoulders. ‘The way I see it, we only got one choice. We gotta find the clean-up team, and they’ll lead us straight to Agent Kaufmann.’

Hunter shook his head. ‘That’s going to be difficult,’ he said. ‘How do we find them? We can’t put out an APB to trace their car, because I don’t even know the model or colour, let alone the registration. I think it was a Buick, but even then I could have been mistaken. We don’t know where they’ve taken Christy-Lee, or why, so we can’t intercept them. We could go back to Helena and wait for them to break in through my apartment door, but that could take hours, or maybe even days.’

‘OK,’ Reilly said. ‘So what do we do?’

Hunter smiled for the first time since he’d walked into Reilly’s office. ‘We don’t try to find the people carrying out the orders,’ he said. ‘We go and talk to the people that are giving the orders.’

Highway US91/Interstate 15, Western Montana

Harris took the off-ramp into the rest area just south of the Dillon interchange, and slotted the Buick into a space at one side of the parking area. As he switched off the engine, Morgan turned round and lifted the edge of the blanket covering Christy-Lee’s body on the rear seat. Her breathing was deep and regular, and when Morgan lifted her left eyelid he saw that the pupil was still fully dilated.

‘Still out cold,’ he muttered, and replaced the blanket.

For a few moments the two men sat silently, staring through the windshield. Then Harris glanced down at the dashboard clock.

‘Should be here in about thirty minutes, I guess,’ he said. ‘You want to get some coffee?’

Morgan nodded and pulled open the door.

‘OK,’ Harris said. ‘Mine’s black, and get me a couple of Danish or donuts or something. Don’t seem to have eaten all day.’

Morgan was half-way through his second donut when he suddenly looked down at the dashboard clock. ‘Hey,’ he said, pointing at the time. ‘You heard from Wilson or Rogers?’

Harris shook his head and took another sip of coffee. ‘Nope. They should have checked in as soon as they’d finished with Reilly. Wonder what’s keeping them? If they haven’t called in ten minutes, I’ll ring Wilson.’

Beaver Creek, Western Montana

As Reilly and Hunter walked out of the sheriff’s office towards the FBI Ford, the mobile phone in Reilly’s pocket rang.

Almost without thinking, Reilly answered the call. ‘Yup?’

There was a silence at the other end, then a harsh voice, little more than a whisper, spoke. ‘Who is this?’

Reilly looked at Hunter, who shrugged, and then nodded. ‘This is Sheriff Reilly. Would I be talkin’ to Special Agent Harris?’ The lack of response told Reilly he was right. ‘You was probably lookin’ for Special Agent Wilson,’ Reilly said. ‘He can’t come to the phone right now, on account of the fact that he’s had a small accident.’

‘Accident?’ Harris asked.

‘Yup,’ Reilly said. ‘Ran into a load o’ buckshot when he climbed in through my window. Gonna be pretty difficult to talk to him, ’less you know a real good medium.’

‘And Rogers?’ Harris asked, his voice betraying no emotion at all.

‘Funny you should ask that,’ Reilly said. ‘He kinda got the other barrel. Sure hope they wasn’t good friends o’ yours?’

‘No, sheriff, they weren’t good friends of mine,’ Harris said, ‘but they were people I liked and worked with. And sheriff,’ Harris went on, menace palpable in his voice, ‘we’re going to be finishing the job they were sent to do. So I’ll be seeing you soon, real soon.’

‘You gotta find me first, asshole,’ Reilly snapped.

FBI Headquarters, J. Edgar Hoover Building, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

George Donahue closed the file on his desk and leaned wearily back in his padded leather chair. He’d not left the building since his return from the White House the previous afternoon, and the Omega Procedures file instructions made it clear that he wasn’t to leave again until after the operation had been concluded.

He’d tried to take a nap in the early hours of the morning, stretched out on the couch in his office, but despite his exhaustion, sleep wouldn’t come. Eventually he’d got up, ordered himself a fresh pot of coffee, and begun working through the contents of his in-tray.

He was called to the CommCen at just after ten thirty.

‘Kaufmann’s been taken care of,’ the voice from Nevada said, without preamble, ‘but we have a problem.’

‘What?’ Donahue asked.

‘The Beaver Creek sheriff took out the two members of the Alert Team sent to terminate him. He obviously knows he’s on our kill list, and it looks like he’s running.’

‘Shit,’ Donahue said. ‘I thought your people were supposed to be professionals?’

‘They are, Donahue,’ Ketch snapped, ‘but sometimes the mark gets lucky, that’s all. We have to retrieve this situation as soon as possible. Reilly is now classified as a Priority One Termination. Notify all Bureau offices that he’s armed and extremely dangerous, and he’s to be shot on sight. Under no circumstances is anyone to approach him or attempt to interrogate him. Even if he’s shot and wounded, he’s to be killed immediately. Is that clear?’

‘It’s clear, yes,’ Donahue said, ‘but the Bureau doesn’t operate like that. I’m going to need some kind of cover story to justify it.’

‘So invent one,’ Ketch snapped. ‘That’s your job so just get it done. When the Bureau’s alerted, tell the CIA the same, and then get an APB out to every police force in the country. You’ll get a copy of Reilly’s mugshot and personal details within the hour. I want this wrapped up today.’

Beaver Creek, Western Montana

Hunter followed Reilly’s directions and pulled into the driveway of the sheriff’s house on the outskirts of Beaver Creek. He turned off the engine, got out and followed Reilly’s stocky figure in through the front door.

‘Suggest you don’t go in there,’ Reilly said, gesturing towards the living room door with a nod of his head. ‘Been picking buckshot and brains outta the wall most o’ the night. Not a pretty sight.’

Reilly led the way into the kitchen, then walked across and opened a door in the corner.

‘The den,’ he said, without elaboration. He walked over to the corner of the tiny room and opened a tall cupboard. From it he took a SPAS-12 shotgun, an AR-15 assault rifle, a Colt Commander semi-automatic pistol with two spare magazines and several boxes of ammunition.

‘You going hunting, sheriff?’ Hunter asked.

‘Manner o’ speakin’, yes,’ Reilly said.

At the bottom of the cupboard were a number of bulky packages wrapped in brown paper. Reilly picked out six of them as well.

Hunter looked at them quizzically, picked up one and hefted it in his hand.

‘Plastic explosive,’ Reilly said. ‘Semtex, in fact.’

‘Where the hell did you get all this stuff, Dick?’ Hunter asked, hurriedly replacing the package on the floor.

‘Here and there. I kinda hoard things. Never know when you’re gonna need ’em.’

Reilly went into the bedroom and came back with a small black leather soft bag and a rigid gun case secured by combination locks. ‘Just hold the top open while I get this stuff stowed,’ he said, opening the gun case.

Three minutes later Reilly snapped shut the locks on the case and closed the zip on the bag. He’d selected a few clothes, some underwear and washing gear and put that in the soft bag.

‘You reckon we’ll need that stuff?’ Hunter asked.

‘I dunno, really. But judgin’ by the cards that these two guys was carryin’ when they busted in through my living room window, I reckon we’re going up against most of the law enforcement organizations operatin’ here in the States. There’s exactly two of us, so I reckon the more guns ‘n’ stuff we’ve got, the better.’

Chapter Ten

Thursday

Helena, Western Montana

Hunter parked the Bureau Ford in the short-stay parking lot at the airport, and then he and Reilly walked separately into the terminal building. The sheriff went straight to a ticket counter, carrying his gun case and leather bag, and paid cash for a single ticket.

Hunter joined the line at a different counter. When he reached the front, he bought a single ticket to Washington D.C. and, like Reilly, paid for it with cash. What they didn’t want was to leave any kind of a paper trail for anybody to follow.

After obtaining their tickets, both men showed the counter clerks FBI identification in the names of Wilson and Rogers and advised them that they were carrying firearms in holsters, and Reilly also confirmed that the locked gun case contained unloaded firearms.

The legalities taken care of, the two men sat separately in the bar and ordered drinks. Hunter bought coffee and a sandwich. He hadn’t slept since the previous night, or eaten in over twelve hours, and the strain was beginning to tell. When he’d finished his snack, he reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out his wallet and looked through it. The germs of an idea were stirring in his mind.

Hunter picked up his carry-on bag and left the bar, glancing once towards Reilly, who looked at him incuriously. Twenty minutes later he walked back, ordered another coffee and sat down.

On the other side of the building, a tall, fair-haired man sat in the departure area waiting for a flight to Denver to be called, Hunter’s ticket clutched in his hand. There was no paper-trail leading from Helena to Washington, but thanks to Hunter’s purchase of a ticket by credit card, and subsequent immediate cash sale to the stranger – for under a half of what he had paid for it – there was now a clear indication that Hunter was heading for Colorado.

That, he thought, might keep the pursuers off their backs for a few more hours.

Helena, Western Montana

John Michaelson had not been a popular choice as Senior Resident Agent at Helena, but his appointment had clearly been justified on the basis of his experience and time served in the Bureau. What most people didn’t like about him was his manner and attitude. He was perennially fussy, giving undue attention to details and, in the opinion of most people who had worked with him, not nearly enough attention to the overall picture. In short, he usually seemed more concerned that all the forms were correctly completed than whether or not a case was actually solved. J. Edgar Hoover would have loved him.

Christy-Lee Kaufmann should have appeared at the Agency that morning at nine, as she was the Duty Agent for the week, and all the other agents apart from her and Hunter were out on assignment. Michaelson was taking a couple of days’ leave, but he still rang the Agency from home at five past nine, as he always did unless he was actually going into the office, to check that the Duty Agent was there. He got no reply, so he tried again at nine ten, nine fifteen, nine thirty, nine forty-five, and at ten exactly.

At ten fifteen, he rang again, and then rang Agent Kaufmann’s home number. When he got no answer there either, Michaelson took off his casual clothes, put on his office suit, and drove in to investigate further.

When he unlocked the door, he could see at once that nobody had been in that morning. The fax machine had spewed paper in a stream onto the floor, overflowing the basket, and the answering machine light was winking. Michaelson tightened his lips and set to work to clear up the mess, mentally rehearsing the dressing-down he would enjoy giving Kaufmann when she finally did turn up.

Highway US91/Interstate 15, Western Montana

The estimate from Omega Control of four hours for the arrival of the special ambulance from Pocatello, Idaho, turned out to be somewhat optimistic. Harris had calculated that they could be on their way north back to Helena no later than noon, but the ambulance didn’t appear until well after one thirty. Then the ambulance staff had to carry out the mandatory blood tests and sort out the paperwork. By the time they’d done all that, and transferred Christy-Lee’s still unconscious body to a gurney and loaded it into the back of the ambulance, where there was already one silent and sleeping patient, it was nearly two o’clock.

Harris and Morgan climbed back into the Buick and headed south for the next interchange, where they could get onto the north-bound freeway to Helena.

Randy Douglas closed the double rear doors of the ambulance, watched the Buick accelerate away, then walked round to the driver’s side door. ‘C’mon, Bill,’ he said. ‘Let’s get moving. Got a hell of a long way to go now, ’cause of this little diversion.’

His partner, Bill Robbins, nodded agreement and climbed into the front passenger seat. As Douglas started the engine and the air conditioning kicked in, bringing a welcome blast of cold air into the vehicle, Robbins reached for a road map and began studying it.

‘We’ll have to overnight somewhere pretty soon,’ he said. ‘We started at six this morning.’

Roland Oliver’s rules about driving hours would have done credit to any transport company. A maximum of two hours’ driving before a mandatory twenty-minute stop; a change of drivers at least every four hours, and a maximum of twelve hours travelling per vehicle per day. The vehicle was speed-limited to sixty miles an hour, and was fitted with a tachograph to ensure compliance with the rules by the drivers. All tachograph records were scrutinized at Roland Oliver, and dismissal was mandatory for even a single infraction.

The drivers liked it. They would perhaps have been less impressed if they’d realized that Roland Oliver’s rules were not designed for their comfort and convenience, but were simply intended to ensure that the precious cargoes the ambulances carried were never involved in an accident or subjected to excessive noise and vibration.

‘Yup,’ Douglas said, slipping the auto selector into ‘drive’ and heading towards the pumps. ‘We’ll gas-up here, get out of Montana into Idaho, and then look out for somewhere.’

Beaver Creek, Western Montana

The fax machine in the corner of the sheriff’s office emitted a faint ping, announcing the arrival of a message. The Deputy sitting at the reception desk stood up, walked over to the machine and tore off the sheet. He looked at it and stopped in mid-stride.

‘Jesus H Christ,’ he muttered, walked back to the desk, sat down and reached for the telephone.

FBI Headquarters, J. Edgar Hoover Building, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

Hunter paid off the taxi and he and Reilly climbed out.

‘OK,’ Hunter said, as they stood together on the sidewalk, looking down the Avenue. ‘You know what to do?’

Reilly nodded. ‘Yup,’ he said. ‘Good luck in there.’

Hunter nodded once, and turned to walk away. As he did so, Reilly’s mobile phone rang. Hunter stopped as the sheriff answered it.

‘Yup?’ Reilly said, and listened. After three or four minutes, he ended the call and looked at Hunter.

‘One of my deputies,’ he said. ‘Been tryin’ to reach me for a while, but the phone was switched off in the aircraft. There’s an APB out for me, issued by the Fibbies, attention all agencies, plus a shoot-to-kill order. Seems I’m a carrier of some kind of a goddamn fever called Ebola Reston-Zaïre.’

Reilly said the unfamiliar words slowly, getting the pronunciation right.

‘The APB says it’s highly contagious,’ Reilly went on, ‘has better than ninety per cent lethality, and can spread through the air. The only way to eliminate the possibility of a major epidemic is to gun me down on sight. I’m not to be approached except by properly trained personnel wearing protective clothing. The fever’s also making me delirious, paranoid and unpredictable, and liable to acts of random violence. Funny,’ he finished. ‘I feel pretty good, all things considered.’

‘Might have guessed,’ Hunter said, nodding. ‘They were going to have to come up with some compelling reason for issuing a shoot-to-kill order. In the circumstances, that’s not bad.’

‘That’s easy for you to say,’ Reilly said. ‘What the hell’s Ebola?’

‘Ebola’s a very nasty little filovirus that first surfaced in the Sudan in 1976 and killed about one in every two people it infected. Two months after the Sudan virus appeared, another filovirus emerged from the rain forest in northern Zaïre. That was much more lethal, and killed almost everybody it touched. All the filoviruses – and that group includes another one called Marburg – are classified as Biosafety Level Four hot agents.’

‘How many levels are there?’ Reilly asked.

‘Just the four,’ Hunter said. ‘Level Four is the most dangerous.’

‘And what about Reston?’ Reilly asked. ‘The name’s kinda familiar, but I can’t place it.’

‘Reston’s about ten miles west of here,’ Hunter said. ‘At the end of 1989 a monkey quarantine unit there became infected with a new strain of Ebola. Ebola Reston looked virtually identical to Zaïre under the microscope, but differed from it in two ways. First, it was lethal to monkeys but apparently harmless to human beings. That was the good news. The bad news was that this variant of the virus seemed to be able to spread itself through the air, maybe even in exhaled breath, though that’s never been confirmed. The others – Marburg, Sudan and Zaïre – could only be spread through body fluid exchange. A marriage of the two strains,’ Hunter finished, ‘would be spectacularly unpleasant.’

‘Seem to know a lot about bugs, Mr. Hunter,’ Reilly said.

Hunter nodded. ‘I studied them at Staff College in Britain, with a view to their use as terrorist weapons,’ he said.

‘Now that’s a real nasty thought,’ Reilly said.

‘Anyway,’ Hunter grinned at him, ‘just take two aspirins and try not to over-exert yourself.’

‘Very funny,’ Reilly replied, then looked serious. ‘OK. You take care of yourself in there. If you don’t come out, I ain’t quite sure what I’m gonna do.’

Hunter nodded and turned away. He walked off down the Avenue towards the looming bulk of the J. Edgar Hoover Building. He’d visited Bureau Headquarters maybe half a dozen times, when he had been doing familiarization training at Quantico, and he still remembered the basic layout and the security procedures.

The uniformed security guards stopped him, as they stopped everyone, at the entrance. Hunter took a deep breath and produced Wilson’s FBI identity card. The guard looked at it, glanced twice at Hunter’s face, nodded and handed it back.

‘Thanks,’ Hunter said, trying an American accent on for size, and pushed his way through the turnstile.

He walked across the atrium and took the elevator, getting out at the seventh and top floor. Hunter walked down the corridor until he reached a wide oak door bearing the legend ‘Office of the Director’ in large gold print, with ‘George Donahue’ in slightly smaller letters underneath. He pushed open the door and found himself in an airy and spacious office, looking directly at a male agent sitting at a mahogany desk. The only other occupant was a female secretary sitting in front of a computer terminal in the right hand corner.

The male agent looked up. He didn’t look pleased. ‘Yes?’ he asked.

‘I need to see the Director, immediately,’ Hunter said.

The man pursed his thin lips, smiled mirthlessly and shook his head. ‘Not a chance, unless you’ve got an appointment, and you haven’t, because if you had, I’d know about it.’

Hunter walked over to the desk, picked up the agent’s nameplate, looked at it and then replaced it, his movements slow and deliberate.

‘OK, Timothy,’ he said, leaning both hands on the desk and looking straight at the seated man, deliberately intimidating. ‘Let me explain things to you. I’ve come here all the way from Roland Oliver in Nevada to see the Director. What I want you to do is go in to him and tell him exactly that. Nothing more, nothing less.’

Out of the corner of his eye Hunter noticed that the typist was smiling broadly, and he guessed that very few people ever walked into the room and showed so little respect for Special Agent Timothy Myers.

Myers looked up at Hunter for a few seconds, then dropped his gaze. ‘You’re from who?’ he asked.

‘Roland Oliver,’ Hunter said, ‘but it’s an organization, not a person.’

‘I’ve never heard of it.’

‘I’d be surprised if you had,’ Hunter replied. ‘Don’t worry, the Director will know all about it.’

‘What’s your name?’ Myers demanded. ‘Let’s see some ID.’

Hunter shook his head. ‘My name isn’t important,’ he said. ‘It’s who I represent that matters. Just go tell the Director.’

‘OK,’ Myers said, getting up reluctantly. ‘I’ll see if he can make time for you.’

Helena, Western Montana

‘He’s not here,’ Morgan said, stating the obvious.

He and Harris were standing in the middle of Hunter’s living room. The door hadn’t given them any trouble, but their entry had still been very cautious. If Hunter had somehow found out about Kaufmann’s disappearance, or if he had been contacted by Sheriff Reilly, then he would certainly have been on his guard, and might even have been waiting for them in the building.

Harris had first rung the apartment phone from the telephone booth down the street. Then he’d pressed the bell in the lobby and waited. Neither action had produced any response at all, so they’d used a twirl on the deadlock and a strip of celluloid on the Yale, and eased open the door.

What they’d found was nothing at all. No Hunter, for openers, but no sign of hurried flight either. The place looked as if the occupant had just gone off to work or out for the day.

‘Maybe he’s at the Agency?’ Morgan suggested.

Harris nodded. ‘Could be,’ he agreed. ‘Let’s get out of here and call.’

The two men walked calmly out of the building – nobody attracts attention quite as much as someone who sneaks around – and Harris re-entered the telephone booth down the street. Morgan stood nonchalantly outside, apparently reading a newspaper but actually looking closely at everyone who entered or left Hunter’s apartment building.

Harris checked the Agency number from a contact list he had prepared earlier, and dialled. When the phone was answered, he spoke for a little over a minute, then replaced the receiver and stepped out. Morgan looked at him inquiringly, but Harris shook his head.

‘Some guy called Michaelson,’ he said. ‘He’s the Senior Resident Agent. He’s no idea where Hunter might be, and from the sound of it he doesn’t much care. He also,’ Harris added, with a slight smile, ‘doesn’t seem to know where Agent Kaufmann is.’

FBI Headquarters, J. Edgar Hoover Building, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

As Hunter had expected, Myers re-appeared from the Director’s office in less than a minute, and beckoned him over. Hunter inclined his head in a barely perceptible nod, walked past him into the inner office and closed the door behind him.

Donahue was sitting at his desk, two open files in front of him, but stood up as Hunter approached.

‘Mr. –?’ he asked, somewhat hesitantly.

‘My name isn’t important,’ Hunter said, echoing his statement to Myers of a few minutes earlier. He ignored Donahue’s outstretched hand and sat down in front of the desk. After a moment, Donahue sat down again.

‘I need to know who I’m dealing with,’ Donahue persisted.

Hunter shook his head firmly. ‘My FBI identification was checked when I walked into this building,’ he said. ‘All you need to know is that I’ve come up from Nevada and I represent Roland Oliver.’

As he said the words, concentrating on sounding as American as possible, Hunter wondered whether that really would be enough, whether Reilly had extracted enough information from Wilson. All he actually knew about the project was its name and the state where it was located, so that was literally all he could use. He watched closely, but the Director didn’t seem particularly uneasy or surprised by what he’d said.

Donahue stared across the desk for a long moment, considering. His dealings with Roger Ketch had been brief and somewhat unpleasant, and he was keenly aware that the head of Roland Oliver was not a man who would take kindly to having his instructions challenged, even by the Director of the FBI. And there was an undeniable presence – or perhaps more accurately menace – about the man sitting opposite him which suggested that he was the genuine article. Somehow, he looked like just the kind of man Ketch would employ.

But still the Director wasn’t satisfied, wasn’t completely certain. He shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I accept that your name may not be important, but I have to be certain that you are from Roland Oliver.’

Hunter shook his head in apparent exasperation. ‘How many people know about Roland Oliver?’ he asked. ‘The fact that I’m here at all is proof enough that I’m genuine.’

Donahue thought that through for a few seconds. ‘No,’ he said, finally. ‘I still need proof. Ketch didn’t tell me he was sending anyone to Washington.’

Hunter noted the name without expression. ‘He didn’t think it would be necessary to advise you,’ he replied, mentally crossed his fingers, and took a sudden gamble. ‘Call Ketch right now, if you like, and confirm it with him. Otherwise, all I’ve got is this.’

Hunter fished inside his jacket pocket and brought out the Omega card Reilly had obtained from Wilson and tossed it onto the table in front of Donahue.

The Director picked it up, examined both sides, and then extracted an almost identical card from his own wallet and compared the two. Then he nodded and passed the card back.

‘OK,’ Donahue said. ‘Now, what exactly do you want with me?’

‘We have to talk, Director,’ Hunter said. ‘This operation has started coming off the rails, and we need to recover it. But we can’t talk about it here.’

Donahue looked surprised. ‘Why not?’

‘Walls can have ears, Director,’ Hunter said. ‘You know the classification of this project. Roland Oliver procedures mean that we have to talk outside, in a totally secure environment.’

‘We have secure briefing rooms here. What’s wrong with using one of those?’

‘They’re not secure enough, Director. Ketch is worried, and time’s running out. He’s given me instructions for you that have to be implemented within hours, and there’s another man here in Washington that you have to meet. I’ve got a car waiting outside. Let’s go.’

Hunter stood up and walked to the door, then stopped and looked back expectantly. If Donahue stayed where he was, Hunter’s only other option was to try to frog-march him out of the building at gunpoint, and he had no illusions about how successful that might be.

‘OK,’ Donahue said, got up and walked to the door leading to the outer office.

‘Myers,’ he said, as he walked through the room. ‘There are two Secret files on my desk. If I’m not back in an hour, lock them in my safe.’

Myers looked up, surprised. ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘you have a meeting with the CID Assistant Director in forty minutes.’

‘Cancel it. This is more important,’ Donahue snapped and walked out of the office, Hunter three paces behind him.

Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

Roger Ketch slammed the telephone receiver back into its rest with enough force to crack the plastic of the base unit.

‘Fucking idiots,’ he shouted, stood up and stalked round the office. Then he sat down again. He was a man quick to anger, but calculatingly rapid in his recovery from it.

Harris had been apologetic, but unhelpful. To add to the fiasco of Sheriff Reilly shooting his way past – or rather through – two of the Alert Team, he now had to contend with the disappearance of Hunter. Ketch closed his eyes for a moment or two, then reached for the phone and dialled a number in Washington, D.C.

FBI Headquarters, J. Edgar Hoover Building, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

Agent Myers was in a less than good mood. He hadn’t liked the look of the man from Nevada from the moment he walked in through the door, and his arrogant attitude had made him, Myers, look a fool. He’d expected that the Director would have refused a meeting and told him to throw the man out, but that hadn’t happened.

Four minutes after Donahue had left the office, Myers heard the Director’s telephone ring. From the distinctive sound, he knew it was the internal line that meant Myers could and should answer it. He pushed through the door and picked up the receiver.

‘Director Donahue’s office. Agent Myers speaking.’

‘This is the Communications Centre. We have a Priority One call on a secure line for the Director.’

‘He’s not in the office,’ Myers said, thinking fast. A Priority One call had to be answered by somebody. ‘He’s stepped out for a few minutes. I’ll come down and take it.’

Three minutes after that, Myers walked into the soundproof booth and closed the door behind him. ‘Special Agent Myers.’

The voice in the earpiece was harsh, grating and unfamiliar. ‘Where’s Donahue?’

Myers liked and respected the Director, and didn’t much care for the caller’s tone of voice. ‘Director Donahue has left the building for a few minutes. I’m his assistant. Who’s calling?’

‘Jesus wept. He isn’t supposed to leave the fucking building. Where’s he gone?’

Myers was confused, and not a little alarmed. The voice radiated authority, and Myers frantically tried to identify it. The number of people who could order the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to stay in the building, or to do anything else for that matter, was extremely small, and Myers wondered for a brief moment if he was actually talking to the President. He discounted that – he’d never spoken to Charles Gainey in person, but his voice was familiar enough from any number of presidential broadcasts.

‘Just a moment, please,’ he said, and leaned out of the booth.

‘What’s the origin of this call?’ he shouted across to the Communications Officer.

‘Origin? You mean where it’s from?’

‘Yes.’

The officer checked the display in front of him for a moment, then looked up. ‘Nevada,’ he said. ‘Groom Lake Air Force Base, to be exact.’

Myers nodded his thanks and closed the door again. ‘Who are you?’ he asked into the mouthpiece.

‘Who I am doesn’t matter, and is no concern of yours.’

Myers was getting a little tired of hearing that.

‘All that matters is where the hell the Director’s gone,’ the voice continued.

‘I can’t tell you,’ Myers said, ‘because I don’t know.’

‘Listen. This is a Priority One call concerning a subject classified above Top Secret. You do know what that means, I hope?’

‘Yes,’ Myers replied, ‘but it doesn’t help. I still can’t tell you what I don’t know.’

‘OK. Did he have an appointment outside the building?’

‘No. In fact, he had a meeting scheduled for this afternoon that I’ve had to cancel.’

‘So why did he leave?’

Myers pondered for a few seconds, shrugged, and answered. ‘Somebody arrived to see him, and they left together. And before you ask, I don’t know his name because he refused to give it. All he said was that he was from Roland Oliver.’

‘Oh, fuck,’ the voice said, surprisingly softly.

In his office in Nevada, Roger Ketch leaned back in his chair and held the telephone handset away from his ear for a few seconds. The operation was going wrong in spectacular fashion.

What he knew for certain was that no authorized Roland Oliver personnel were in Washington, which meant that whoever had called on Director Donahue was not authorized, but obviously knew something about the project. The only people who fitted that description were Sheriff Dick Reilly and Steven Hunter. With the APB out for Reilly, Ketch was prepared to put money on the man being Hunter.

He reached a decision and spoke urgently. ‘Listen, Myers. You have to find the Director, and as soon as possible. The man who called on him is an impostor, and the Director’s life is definitely in danger. I’ll call you back in half an hour.’

Sitting in the booth, Agent Myers found himself listening to a dead line. He replaced the receiver, glanced at his watch and walked quickly out of the booth. There was just a chance that he might be in time. He picked up an internal phone and called the front entrance security.

‘This is Agent Myers. Has the Director left the building?’

There was a brief pause as somebody else was consulted, then the guard replied. ‘Yes, sir. He left with another man about three or four minutes ago.’

‘OK,’ Myers said. ‘This is an emergency. Take any available guards and get outside now and see if you can spot him. If you find him, tell him to return to the building immediately. Carry weapons – the man with the Director is armed and dangerous. Now do it.’

Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

Roger Ketch slumped back in the leather chair in his office, weighing the options open to him.

He was certain that the man in D.C. who’d kidnapped the Director was Hunter, simply because there was nobody else it could be, except Sheriff Reilly, and Ketch doubted very much if the Montana sheriff could even have talked his way into the FBI Headquarters Building, far less managed to persuade Donahue to walk out of it with him.

No, it had to be Hunter. But the chances were good that Sheriff Reilly was with him, simply because Hunter would need help to get the Director away from Pennsylvania Avenue.

Of course, Ketch mused, it was always possible that Myers might be able to get agents out on the streets and locate Donahue before whatever escape plan Hunter and Reilly had in mind could be implemented. On past form, though, Ketch doubted it. This operation seemed to be a perfect demonstration of Ketch’s version of Murphy’s Law – ‘if anything can go wrong, it will, at the most inconvenient moment, and with the most unfavourable possible consequences.’

Hunter and Reilly, he guessed, would kill or injure Donahue in an attempt to get him to tell them what he knew about Roland Oliver, and they would then dump him and try to get out of Washington as quickly as they could.

In that case, it was pointless having Harris and Morgan cooling their heels in Helena. The quarry was in Washington D.C., so that’s where the hunters should be. He nodded to himself, checked the number of Harris’s mobile and reached for the telephone.

Washington, D.C.

Hunter and Director Donahue stood on the pavement about seventy yards from the front entrance of the J. Edgar Hoover Building. Donahue wanted to talk, but Hunter just ignored him: he was too busy checking the traffic for the car Reilly should be driving.

Hunter glanced at his watch. Reilly was late. He was supposed to have pulled up nearly three minutes ago.

As he stared up the Avenue, Hunter saw two uniformed guards run out of the entrance of the J. Edgar Hoover Building and look up and down the road. One of them looked straight at Donahue, gesticulated to the other, and they both began running towards Hunter, grabbing at their holstered pistols.

‘Oh, shit,’ Hunter muttered, and looked again into the traffic for Reilly. Then he eased back slightly, so that Donahue was between him and the approaching guards, and extracted the Glock from his belt holster.

When the first guard was about twenty feet away, Hunter grabbed Donahue round the throat, stepped clearly into view, and levelled his pistol straight at the guard. The man stopped dead.

‘What the hell –’ Donahue spluttered.

‘Shut up,’ Hunter said, and moved the barrel of the Glock slightly to include the second guard. A brief flash of headlamps caught his eye, and he saw a black Ford easing in to the curb.

‘Stay right where you are,’ Hunter shouted. ‘Keep your hands away from your weapons.’

The Ford drew up. Hunter pushed Donahue over to the curb, reached out and opened the rear passenger door with his left hand. Then he motioned the Director towards it.

‘Get in,’ Hunter snapped.

The Director looked at him, but didn’t move. Hunter glanced back at him, and with a single backward blow smashed the barrel of the Glock across Donahue’s face. Donahue staggered back, blood streaming from his nose. The pistol was back in position, covering the two guards, long before either of them could react.

‘I said, get in.’

Donahue bent almost double, but crawled into the back seat of the Ford, his hands covering his face. Hunter wound down the rear window, never taking his eyes off the guards, and climbed in beside him. He closed the door, but continued to cover the two men with his pistol through the open window.

‘Go,’ he said, and the Ford surged away from the curb. Only when they were lost to sight in the traffic did Hunter relax slightly, wind up the window and look again at his captive. Donahue was hunched in the seat, a handkerchief held over his face.

‘You son of a bitch,’ he muttered. ‘You’ve broken my goddamn nose.’

Hunter shrugged. ‘You should do what you’re told, when you’re told,’ he said indifferently, and turned to look out of the windshield.

‘Better late than never,’ he said to Reilly.

‘Sorry ’bout that. The traffic’s a bitch. Where to?’

‘First, find somewhere to change the plates. Then get across the Potomac, past Arlington Cemetery and pick up Interstate 95,’ Hunter said. ‘Stay on the Interstate past Springfield, then take any exit you like. Director Donahue and I are going to have a little talk while you drive.’

‘’kay,’ Reilly said, then tossed his handcuffs to Hunter. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘make sure he don’t go nowhere.’

Hunter placed the muzzle of the Glock against Donahue’s neck, snapped one handcuff around his right wrist, then pulled the Director’s arm across his body, and secured the other cuff around the elbow rest on the left-hand door.

‘Just who the hell are you?’ Donahue asked. ‘And who’s the driver?’

Hunter grinned at him. ‘I said there was another man here in Washington that you had to meet, Donahue. Can’t you guess who he is? You don’t know him, but you’ll know his face.’

Reilly turned round and look straight at Donahue.

‘Jesus Christ,’ the Director said. ‘You’re Reilly.’

The sheriff grinned at him, but there was no humour in his face. ‘You got it, Donahue,’ he said. ‘Thanks to you, I’m a dead man walking, but I still think I’m gonna live longer than you.’

Donahue turned slowly back to face Hunter, who nodded at him.

‘Correct, Director. He’s Reilly and I’m Hunter. We’re right at the top of the Roland Oliver kill list, so it really doesn’t seem to make a hell of a lot of difference what we do. Or what we do to you.’

Chapter Eleven

Thursday

FBI Headquarters, J. Edgar Hoover Building, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

By the time the two guards got back to the building, Myers was down in the entrance lobby and waiting for them.

‘You saw the Director?’ he demanded, without preamble. ‘What happened?’

‘Yes,’ the older man said. ‘We got right to him, but the guy with him pulled a gun on us. Then the son of a bitch smashed the Director across the face with his pistol, and they drove off in a black Ford. The only other occupant was the driver.’

‘I got the plate number,’ the younger guard said eagerly, and handed over a slip of paper.

‘Fat lot of good that’ll do,’ Myers replied, his voice sour. ‘Anything else?’

Back in his office, Myers alerted the Assistant Directors and put out an APB for the black Ford with three occupants. He had little hope that the plate number would help, and he was quite right.

Even as the number went out on the wire, Reilly was crouching at the back of the Ford in a quiet shopping mall parking lot, replacing the plates with ones he’d taken from a parked Honda.

Woods south of Donovan’s Corner, Virginia

‘You’re in real trouble now,’ George Donahue said, without a great deal of conviction, as Hunter and Reilly dragged him out of the car.

‘Tell me about it,’ Reilly snapped. ‘I already had two hired killers bustin’ into my house wavin’ pistols in my face. Just luck I ain’t dead already.’

There was a small clearing in the woods where Reilly had stopped the car, and the two men marched Donahue over to a tree to one side of it and stood him against its trunk. Hunter pressed the muzzle of the Glock into the Director’s chest as Reilly snapped the handcuffs into place, securing Donahue’s arms behind the tree trunk. With Donahue immobilized, Hunter relaxed, and holstered his pistol.

‘Right, Donahue,’ he began. ‘Dick Reilly and I have got a bunch of questions to ask you, but basically they all come down to exactly one – just what the hell is Roland Oliver?’

‘I can’t tell you,’ Donahue said, shaking his head.

‘Is that can’t, or won’t?’ Hunter demanded.

‘OK. I mean I won’t tell you.’

‘Funnily enough,’ Reilly said, chuckling, ‘that’s pretty much what that guy back in Beaver Creek said to me, but I finally persuaded him to tell me what he knew.’

Donahue peered around Hunter at Reilly, the apprehension that had been obvious on his face ever since he’d been forced into the car giving way for the first time to an expression of naked fear.

‘What do you mean – ‘persuaded’?’ he asked, a tremor in his voice.

Reilly didn’t answer, just pulled the telescopic baton out of his jacket pocket and snapped it open. He walked over and prodded Donahue lightly in the stomach with the end of it, then swung it sharply back and forward, stopping the swing within inches of the man’s groin. Donahue tensed, and beads of sweat sprang onto his forehead.

Hunter stepped forward, and motioned to Reilly.

‘Later, Dick,’ he said. ‘Perhaps Mr. Donahue might help us without all that.’ He turned back to the Director. ‘I’ll ask you once again. What exactly is Roland Oliver?’

Donahue looked from one to the other of his captors, his face white and tremors running through his body. Then he shook his head again and closed his mouth in a firm and stubborn line.

Hunter looked at him without speaking, then motioned to Dick Reilly. The sheriff closed the baton, crossed over to the Ford and opened the trunk. He reached inside for something and walked back towards the tree. Donahue’s eyes never left him.

Behind the tree, Donahue felt Reilly’s hands touching his, and heard the clink of something metallic. For the briefest of instants, he believed, or almost believed, that the sheriff was going to release him. Then the serrated jaws of the pair of pliers clamped tight around his left thumb and he realized that the nightmare was just beginning.

‘What is Roland Oliver?’ Hunter asked again, his voice expressionless.

Donahue shook his head. Hunter stepped forward to the tree, pulled a roll of black tape from his pocket and roughly stuck a strip over the Director’s mouth. He leaned forward and spoke quietly, almost compassionately.

‘Just nod when you’re ready to talk,’ he said. ‘Take your time,’ he added. ‘We’ve got all day.’

Then Hunter stepped back and nodded at Reilly to begin.

Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

The C-130 Hercules landed a little after two that afternoon and by three thirty local time unloading was complete. Once the doors were closed and locked, and the caskets moved into the large central room of the building, Roger Ketch left his office and walked down the stairs. Ever since he’d assumed control of Roland Oliver he’d always checked the new arrivals. In the beginning, he’d watched the first stages of processing on the monitor in his office, but he didn’t do that any more.

Even with his mind on Hunter and Reilly, Ketch still followed his usual routine, walking round the room, glancing through some of the faceplates on the caskets and occasionally at the attached tags. Almost in the centre of the third row was one he didn’t look into. The tag bore the number 73418.

When Ketch left the room, he closed and locked the door, then walked a few feet to a small grey box secured to the outside wall of the room at eye level. In the centre of the box lid was a combination lock and a keyhole. Ketch undid one of the buttons of his shirt and pulled out a small stainless steel key on a fine chain, which he always wore around his neck. He put the key in the lock and rotated it a half-turn counter-clockwise.

Ketch spun the combination lock until he felt resistance. Ketch stopped and turned the key the rest of the way, listening for the click as the mechanism unlocked, then seized the handle and pulled open the door.

Inside were three gated switches, each with a green light glowing above it. Ketch flicked the first switch and glanced up. Through the frosted glass internal windows he could see the electrically-powered and sound-proofed steel roller shutters descending down the inside walls of the room he’d just left. He waited until the green light extinguished and a red light glowed in its place, then flicked up the second switch.

Out of his sight, more steel shutters rolled across the ceiling of the room to cover the skylights, sealing it completely from the outside world and any prying eyes. As the last shutter locked into place, banks of floodlights switched on inside the room. Ketch waited until the second green light turned red, then he tripped the final switch. This time there was no delay – the red light illuminated almost instantaneously. Ketch nodded, shut the door, turned the key and removed it from the lock, then spun the wheel to scramble the combination and walked away.

When he’d flicked the final switch into the up position, Ketch had effectively relinquished control of the room and the fate of its unconscious occupants to a different authority.

Woods south of Donovan’s Corner, Virginia

Donahue screamed silently, the tape reducing the sound of his agony to little more than a muffled grunt, but still he didn’t nod his head. Behind the tree, Reilly released the pliers from the Director’s thumb and clamped the jaws around the index finger of Donahue’s left hand.

‘What’s Roland Oliver?’ Hunter asked, his voice soft and emotionless.

Donahue’s head shook once, briefly, then his whole body tensed in a silent howl of pain as the jaws of the pliers bit deeply into the nail bed of his finger. Reilly released the pliers, adjusted their position slightly, then squeezed firmly on the handles again.

‘What’s Roland Oliver?’

The sweat poured down Donahue’s face and bitter tears sprang from his eyes, misting his vision, and he realized for the first time that he couldn’t take it, that he wasn’t going to be able to hold out.

With every passing minute, he’d been telling himself, the chances of his rescue from the clutches of these two psychopaths had been improving. FBI agents and local police would already be combing the area for him, and they’d have helicopters in the air. Once they’d spotted the Ford, that would be it. They’d take out Hunter and Reilly as easily as swatting a couple of flies. All he had to do was hold on, tell them nothing, and everything would be fine.

But suddenly he knew that it wasn’t going to be fine. Hunter and Reilly, he realized, had nothing to lose. Even if FBI agents burst into the clearing at that moment, weapons drawn, he doubted if he would survive the encounter. Hunter or Reilly would kill him without a second thought. And there was no sign of the FBI, or anybody else. No cars, no helicopters. As Hunter had said, they had plenty of time, and he knew that Reilly could and would reduce both his hands to mangled lumps of broken and bleeding flesh if he didn’t tell them what they wanted to know. And God only knew what they’d do to him then.

The realization sent Donahue slumping forward, head bowed, as the pain from his broken hand increased. He lost control of his bladder, and felt the warmth of urine soaking down the front of his left leg. Hunter looked closely at him, nodded in satisfaction, and called out to Reilly, loudly enough for Donahue to hear.

‘He’s tougher than I’d expected,’ Hunter said. ‘I think we need something a little different, Dick, something to really get his attention. Leave his hands and start on his testicles.’

Donahue snapped upright as the pliers released, and pressed his legs close together in a protective gesture that was as pathetic as it was pointless.

Reilly walked around the tree, snapped open his baton and prodded Donahue sharply in the groin.

‘Goddamn it,’ he muttered, ‘the guy’s pissed hisself. Gonna have to be real careful them pliers don’t slip.’

And then Donahue looked up, looked straight at Hunter, and nodded. Hunter stepped forward, ripped the tape off his face and waited. The Director slumped down, sliding down the trunk of the tree until he was in a sitting position.

Hunter waited a couple of minutes, allowing Donahue to compose himself. Then he asked the same question again.

‘It’s a medical research programme,’ Donahue said finally, his voice quavering and weak.

‘That’s bullshit,’ Hunter said. ‘Medical research goes on all the time, but people who find out about it don’t get themselves killed. Or,’ he added, ‘allow somebody to mutilate their fingers rather than talk about it.’

Donahue shook his head, his face twisted in pain. ‘This programme is different,’ he said. ‘It’s not so much research as experimentation. The subjects are taken to a secret facility in Nevada, and a lot of the tests they undergo there are very unpleasant.’

‘What kind of experimentation?’ Hunter asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Donahue lied. ‘I’ve never been there, and the unit doesn’t issue reports about its work. At least, not to me.’

‘Are the subjects volunteers?’

‘Of course not. Most of them are derelicts, the dregs of society. They take tramps, drug addicts and prostitutes. You could argue that the project performs a useful service, getting these people off the streets.’

‘I can think of a bunch of hookers who probably wouldn’t agree,’ Reilly observed.

‘Whatever,’ Donahue said. ‘That’s what Roland Oliver is and that’s what it does.’

‘Strange name,’ Hunter said. ‘Where did it come from?’

‘I’ve no idea.’ That was a small lie from Donahue, to go with the big ones he’d already told and the even bigger ones he was probably going to have to tell later.

‘OK,’ Hunter said. ‘How does it work – exactly?’

Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

Maria Slade woke slowly and with difficulty. She felt awful, with a throbbing headache, dry mouth and aching limbs. She tried opening her eyes, but the lights were so bright that they hurt, so she kept them closed, collecting her thoughts, and trying to remember where she was. She recalled the Cedar City hospital, and the nurse, but almost nothing else.

Finally she forced her eyes open, expecting to see the ceiling of the room she had been given at Cedar City, but what met her eyes was totally unexpected. She wasn’t lying in a bed, but inside some kind of a casket, almost like a coffin, with a clear glass faceplate. She looked through the glass, squinting her eyes against the glare, but could see virtually nothing. Only an impression of a ceiling, apparently lined with steel, a long way above her, and the lights. She was lying on a thin but resilient mattress, and she felt warm and – apart from the aches all over her – comfortable enough.

She turned her attention inwards, and tried to move her hands over her body. With a start, she realized she was naked, apart from what felt like fabric bands around her wrists, ankles, forehead and hips. She wondered if she was in some kind of specialist medical equipment, a scanner or something, but it didn’t seem like it, somehow. She could feel a thin tube snaking across her thigh, so obviously her bladder had been catheterized for some reason. This puzzled her, but she didn’t feel panic, or even unease, not then.

She felt a slight jerk, as if her casket were being moved, and she realized, from looking at the lights above her head, that the casket was actually in motion. Then the movement stopped, and for several minutes she sensed, rather than heard, the sound of machinery of some sort, close at hand.

Then the jerk came again, but this time it was different, and the noise of the machinery was much louder. After a few seconds she realized why, as the top portion of the casket lifted smoothly off the lower section she was lying in, and she could begin to see where she was.

At first, nothing made very much sense. By craning her neck upwards to the limit imposed by the fabric band around her forehead, and peering over the rim of the casket, she could just see the tops of other caskets on both sides of her, all with the lids in place. They appeared to be positioned on a sort of conveyor belt. The noise of the machinery was much louder, and seemed to be coming from beyond the foot of the casket which was supporting her feet. The noise was a strange amalgam; grinding and popping, the hissing of hydraulics, and very loud high-pitched squeals from what she supposed might be drive belts of some sort.

Then the horizontal movement of the casket stopped, the fabric bands tightened on her body to hold it firmly in place and she felt the catheter slide smoothly out of her urethra. The head end of the casket began to rise slowly, until she was lying at an angle of about forty-five degrees and was, for the first time, able to see everything in the room.

She looked down at what lay directly in front of her, at what she was supposed to see. She saw the table and what was on it, and realized suddenly that the noises she had heard hadn’t been made by any kind of drive belts.

Then she began to scream.

Woods south of Donovan’s Corner, Virginia

‘I don’t know everything,’ Donahue began, ‘but I can tell you something about it.’

Hunter nodded encouragement.

‘Project Roland Oliver started over fifty years ago, just after the end of the Second World War. It was different then, of course. It began as a very small operation, just taking a handful of people a year. As time went on the benefits began to far out-weigh the risks of disclosure, and the operation expanded.’

‘And what benefits would they be?’ Reilly asked.

Donahue shook his head. ‘I don’t know, exactly, but I understand that a lot of the drugs and the hospital equipment that we take for granted these days were developed directly as a result of Roland Oliver.’

That much, at least, was true.

‘You know the power of the medical fraternity in this country,’ Donahue went on. ‘Once the results started coming in, there was increasing pressure to expand the program, to engage in even faster development. Everything about Roland Oliver was shrouded in secrecy, and there seemed no real danger of the American people finding out about it, so the number of subjects was increased every year.’

‘Nicely anonymous, that word,’ Hunter said. ‘Calling them “subjects” kind of distances you from the fact that every one of them is a living, breathing human being. What happens to them?’

‘I’ve told you,’ Donahue said, ‘that I don’t know the details.’

‘No,’ Hunter replied. ‘I don’t mean what happens to them while they’re held by Roland Oliver. I mean what happens to them afterwards.’

‘There’s some kind of a resettlement program,’ Donahue said. ‘As far as I know, after the research and treatment are complete, they’re relocated.’

As he said the words, Donahue mentally crossed his fingers. Resettlement and relocation did describe what happened to Roland Oliver’s subjects, but only if you stretched the truth absolutely to breaking point.

‘How do they get to Nevada?’ Hunter asked.

Donahue relaxed slightly. He was on safer ground. ‘They’re collected from wherever they live by ambulance, like regular patients, and taken to Las Vegas. They –’

‘Hang on a minute,’ Hunter said. ‘They collect people from all over the United States and deliver them to Las Vegas by ambulance? Why don’t they fly them down? Travelling by road must mean some of them are in transit for days at a time.’

Donahue nodded. ‘Some of them are, but it’s considered safer – more secure for Roland Oliver, that is – to only use ambulances. Transporting patients by air always means questions get asked that have to be answered.’

‘OK,’ Hunter said. ‘Then what happens?’

‘There’s an Air Force Base at Vegas called McCarran, where the subjects are assembled and checked, and then they’re flown out to the facility in batches.’

‘Where is it, this facility?’

Donahue shook his head. ‘That I don’t know,’ he said, ‘other than that it’s somewhere in Nevada.’

Hunter stood silently for a few moments. ‘I’m not sure I’m buying this,’ he said. ‘The secret experimentation, yes – the fucking American Government’s corrupt enough for that, no problem – but why the kill orders on anybody who finds out about it?’

Donahue smiled slightly over the pain from his crushed and bleeding fingers. ‘You’re not a politician,’ he said, ‘in fact you’re not even an American. It’s different over here. If word of what’s been happening in Nevada for the last fifty years ever leaked out, it would be political suicide for any government, no matter what party held power. It was decided that a few ‘accidental’ deaths were less of a risk than disclosure.’

‘So why not shut down Roland Oliver and remove the risk altogether?’

‘We can’t afford to. The advances in science which have resulted from this project are enormous. It’s the single most valuable source of technology in the world today. We simply can’t shut it down.’

FBI Headquarters, J. Edgar Hoover Building, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

William McGrath, Assistant Director of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division, walked into Myers’s office and sat down.

‘Any progress?’ he demanded.

‘We know where they got the car from,’ Myers said. McGrath nodded for him to continue. ‘They hired the goddamn thing from Avis, just a few blocks away,’ Myers said, scowling. ‘One of them paid for it with a credit card in the name of Wilson.’

The name meant nothing to either of them.

‘Anything else?’

Myers nodded. His recollection of the second call from Nevada was still distressingly fresh in his memory. ‘We know who they are.’

‘Really? How do you know?’

Myers shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Mr. McGrath, but I can’t tell you that. The information comes from a source outside the Bureau that only Director Donahue has clearance to access.’

‘So how come you know about it?’ McGrath demanded. ‘You don’t have any special clearances that I’m aware of.’

‘No,’ Myers said, with a rueful smile. ‘I’m cleared to Secret only. I was just the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time. Shortly after the Director left the Headquarters, there was a Priority One call for him, and I took it. Now the only person in the building that this source will talk to is me, and I really wish I could pass the buck. This is getting real serious.’

‘OK,’ McGrath grunted. ‘So what has this higher source told you?’

Myers glanced down at a sheet of paper on his desk. ‘The names of the people who snatched the Director are Reilly and Hunter. Reilly is the sheriff of a town called Beaver Creek in western Montana and –’

‘I know the names,’ McGrath interrupted. ‘I briefed the Director about an incident at Beaver Creek a few days ago. There’s an APB out for Reilly, isn’t there? Isn’t he carrying some kind of disease?’

Myers shook his head. ‘Right perp, Mr. McGrath, but that story was just a device. He got himself involved in this classified project, and the APB was issued to try to get somebody to bring him in, or preferably take him out.’

‘But Hunter? He’s supposed to be working for us, isn’t he?’ McGrath said, almost to himself. ‘What the hell’s he doing mixed up in this?’

‘I don’t know,’ Myers said, ‘but it’s obvious that Reilly and Hunter are working together. What I also don’t know, and we probably won’t find out until we catch these two bastards, is what the hell they’re trying to achieve by kidnapping the Director of the FBI in broad daylight off Pennsylvania Avenue.’

‘Any progress in finding them?’

‘No,’ Myers said bluntly. There’s an APB out, of course, we’ve got helicopters covering the area, and we’ve got the local airports sealed up tight, but so far there’ve been no confirmed sightings since they left the Avenue.’

‘So now we just sit and wait.’

‘I guess so,’ Myers said, then paused. ‘There’s just one other thing, Mr. McGrath.’

‘Yes?’

‘This source has issued Priority One Termination Orders against Reilly and Hunter. They’re both to be shot on sight. No warnings, no deviations.’

McGrath just looked at him in silence for a few moments. ‘What the hell kind of authority has this goddamn source got if he can do that?’ he demanded.

‘The highest, sir. He holds a Presidential Directive – and before you ask, yes, I have checked that out with the White House. Compliance with his instructions are mandatory for all law enforcement agencies, including the FBI.’

Woods south of Donovan’s Corner, Virginia

‘Another matter, Director Donahue,’ Hunter said. ‘I have – or rather I had – a partner. Christy-Lee Kaufmann. Is her name familiar to you?’

Donahue nodded, but couldn’t meet Hunter’s eyes.

‘You know where she is?’ Reilly asked.

‘What?’ Donahue said, his head snapping rapidly round to stare at the sheriff. ‘I was told she was –’ His voice died away.

‘Yes?’ Hunter said. ‘You were told she was what, exactly?’

The Director cleared his throat. ‘It was just procedure,’ he said, his voice high and rapid with nervous tension. ‘We follow a series of steps whenever we feel that Roland Oliver is in danger of being compromised. She was – er – she was supposed to have been eliminated.’

‘That’s “eliminated” as in “killed”, right?’ Reilly demanded.

Donahue nodded again.

‘But she wasn’t,’ Hunter said, his eyes boring into the other man’s face. ‘She was snatched from her apartment. Or do your hired thugs always drag their victims off somewhere before they kill them?’

‘No, they don’t. They should never do anything like that,’ Donahue replied, shaking his head. ‘Their orders are simple enough. Every elimination – and we only do this if we feel there’s a real danger of Roland Oliver’s operations being exposed – is supposed to look like an accident. You know, a mugging that ends up with the victim’s death, or a road accident, something like that.’

‘So why the change of routine?’

Donahue looked genuinely puzzled. ‘I don’t know,’ he said slowly, ‘unless … How old was she?’

‘Twenty-eight,’ Hunter said. ‘Why do you ask?’

Again Donahue couldn’t meet the Englishman’s stare. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘she probably meets the criteria for Roland Oliver. If she hasn’t been eliminated, it’s just possible she’s been fed into the system.’

Idaho Falls, Idaho

Randy Douglas braked the ambulance smoothly to a halt outside the motel around five miles south of Idaho Falls a little after five thirty, local time. While Robbins walked into the reception area to book two rooms, Douglas climbed into the back of the vehicle and began checking the life support systems.

Unlike a conventional ambulance, each Roland Oliver vehicle contained what amounted to a miniaturized intensive care unit, capable of keeping the subjects alive and in perfect health, but deeply unconscious, until their arrival at McCarran air base. The rear section of the ambulance was completely self-contained, powered by an independent bank of batteries that was backed-up by a fuel cell about the size and shape of a shoebox. Without any external power being applied, and without the necessity for manual intervention, the life-support systems could operate fully autonomously for a little over a week.

Douglas and Robbins were well-used to over-nighting, leaving the ambulance outside the building, and had no qualms about doing so. The locks on the vehicle’s doors were electronically-keyed deadlocks, capable of resisting literally any attempt at picking or forcing. Towing the ambulance away was impossible, because the wheels were locked electrically from within the transmission and brake assemblies. Cutting the handbrake cable would achieve nothing.

About the only way the vehicle could be removed was by using a crane or a specialized car-recovery vehicle, and the highly-sensitive alarm system ensured that any attempt to do that would awaken the entire neighbourhood. And in any case, who would want to steal an ambulance?

Robbins emerged from the motel reception with the room keys as Douglas stepped out of the ambulance with two small overnight bags. He gave one to Robbins, turned and aimed a remote control at the driver’s door, listened for the double ‘beep’ which indicated the doors were locked and the alarm set, and followed his partner towards the bedrooms.

Woods south of Donovan’s Corner, Virginia

Reilly and Hunter left Donahue and walked across to where they’d parked the Ford. The sheriff checked that he was well out of earshot, then spoke softly to the Englishman.

‘So what do we do with him?’

‘We let him go,’ Hunter said.

‘You sure ’bout that?’ Reilly asked. ‘The minute he reaches a phone we’ll have the cops in every state of the Union lookin’ for us, with a pretty good idea where to start.’

Hunter nodded.

‘We’ve probably got that problem already,’ he said. ‘We’re letting him go because eventually I want to walk away from this, and so far we haven’t committed any capital crimes.’

‘You’re forgetting the two stiffs I left behind me in Beaver Creek.’

‘No, I’m including them,’ Hunter said. ‘They were masked intruders who broke into your house waving pistols. You were perfectly within your rights to shoot them down. Donahue knows more than he’s telling, but I think he’s given us enough to go on. Trying to get anything else out of him would be messy and time-consuming, and right now time’s not something we’ve got a lot of. If he’s right and Christy-Lee’s on her way to Nevada to be fed into some medical research program we need to get after her, and quickly.

‘What we have to do now is get the hell out of here before some cop with a shotgun and a wanted poster turns up and ruins our day. So we let Donahue go, and maybe even try to get him to help us.’

Reilly laughed shortly. ‘Yeah, I can see him giving us every assistance.’

‘Just watch,’ Hunter replied. ‘All we need is a small diversion.’

He bent forward and muttered a few words in the sheriff’s ear, then turned and walked back to the bound man. He looked at him for a few moments before he spoke.

‘OK, Director Donahue,’ Hunter said. ‘We’ve got to move out pretty quickly, and the way I see it, we’ve got about three choices here. We can let you go, we can take you with us, or we can finish you right now the way you want some cop to finish Dick Reilly here. What do you think we should do?’

Donahue looked up at the FBI agent, defiance showing again in his eyes, and he shrugged his shoulders as far as he was able. ‘What I say won’t make a damn bit of difference, Hunter, and you know it. But if you kill me you’ll have every cop in America looking for you by nightfall.’

Hunter grinned at him. ‘As I said to Sheriff Reilly a couple of minutes ago,’ he said, ‘I reckon we’ve got that situation right now. So, whether we kill you or not won’t make any difference at all.’

Hunter reached inside his jacket, pulled out his Glock and slid back the slide to chamber a round, never taking his eyes off Donahue’s face, which grew paler by the second.

‘You got that silencer, Dick?’ he asked.

‘Yup, it’s in the trunk,’ Reilly said, playing along, and walked across to the Ford.

‘Director, listen to me,’ Hunter hissed urgently, as the sheriff moved away. ‘Reilly’s totally flipped about this, and if I don’t kill you, he will. I just want out, and so far I’ve done nothing, apart from bringing you on this little excursion. Reilly’s already killed two Federal agents.’

Hunter looked over his shoulder, where Reilly was still rummaging around in the trunk of the Ford, looking for the non-existent silencer.

‘He says he’s got nothing to lose. He knows there’s a kill order out on him, and he blames the FBI for that, because the guys who busted into his house were carrying Bureau identification.’

Hunter saw no reason to mention the other identity cards the men had been carrying.

‘We can cancel the kill order,’ Donahue muttered, a faint note of hope in his voice, ‘and I can guarantee you immunity. Immunity for both of you.’

Hunter shook his head. ‘I don’t know if Reilly would go for that. I don’t think you’ve got a lot of credibility where he’s concerned.’

Donahue was thinking furiously, knowing that his life quite literally depended upon him coming up with some plan that would satisfy Reilly. ‘Suppose I brought you in myself?’ Donahue said. ‘You keep your weapons and use me as a shield until we get to Pennsylvania Avenue?’

Hunter considered that for a few moments, then nodded slowly. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘That might work, and Reilly might go for it.’ He looked down at Donahue. ‘You give me your word that there’ll be no tricks?’

‘Yes,’ the Director said, holding Hunter’s gaze. ‘You have my word, and my guarantee.’

‘OK,’ Hunter said again, then turned round. ‘Dick, forget it,’ he called. ‘I think we may have a way out.’

Reilly slammed the trunk lid down and walked back towards them. He stopped a few feet away and looked down at Donahue. ‘You ain’t gonna trust this bastard, are you?’ he asked.

Hunter shook his head. ‘Not really, but we have to get this situation under control, and I think Director Donahue might be our ticket out of here.’

Hunter quickly outlined Donahue’s proposal to Reilly, who nodded.

‘OK,’ he conceded, ‘that might do it.’ Reilly looked keenly at the Director. ‘Any tricks, or you do anything I don’t like, and I’ll pop you myself, deal or no deal.’

Donahue shook his head. ‘You have my word,’ he said. ‘There’ll be no tricks.’

Reilly nodded again, then pulled out a key, reached down and unlocked the handcuffs around Donahue’s wrists.

‘On your feet,’ he ordered, and pulled the Director up.

‘Let’s go,’ Hunter said curtly, and led the way to the parked Ford.

Chapter Twelve

Thursday

Virginia

Ten minutes later Reilly pulled the Ford onto the side of the road.

Donahue, sitting in the back seat with Hunter alongside him, looked around him apprehensively. ‘Why have we stopped here?’ he asked.

Reilly looked over at him.

‘Well, we’re not just going to drive straight down Pennsylvania Avenue and park outside FBI Headquarters. Not with every cop in D.C. holding a riot gun and looking out for a black Ford with three men in it. That would be real dumb, right?’

Hunter unlocked the handcuff on Donahue’s right wrist, then reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out his mobile phone and passed it over.

‘Call your office,’ he instructed, glancing at his watch, ‘and tell them that we’ll be arriving in two hours. By then I want the Avenue closed to all traffic except this car within one hundred yards of FBI Headquarters. And no pedestrians are to be on the street either. I don’t want any innocent civilians in the firing line.’

Donahue stared at him. ‘I can’t close Pennsylvania Avenue.’

‘As the only alternative you have is that we shoot you right now, I think you’ll find that you can,’ Hunter said. ‘More importantly, I don’t want to see a single cop within half a mile of the Hoover Building. If I do, you’ll find that this evening finishes really early, and very painfully, for you.’

Donahue nodded, punched numbers into the mobile phone, wincing from the pain in his mutilated fingers, and held the instrument to his ear.

‘This is Director Donahue,’ he said, when the call was answered. ‘I’m coming back to the building in two hours, and I’ll have Agent Hunter and Sheriff Reilly with me.’

The squawk from the other end of the line was even audible to Hunter.

‘Did you copy that, Myers?’ Donahue demanded. ‘Right. I want the lowest possible level of security in the area. That means no uniformed officers within half a mile of the building, and no armed guards in the foyer or outside.’

Hunter passed Donahue a piece of paper. ‘That’s the car number, and tell them it’s a black Ford sedan.’

Donahue glanced at the paper and read out the registration plate number. ‘It’s a black Ford,’ he said, once Myers had confirmed he’d copied the number. ‘And I don’t know or care how you do it, but get Pennsylvania Avenue closed to all traffic, vehicle and pedestrian. Those are the conditions imposed by Hunter and Reilly and they’re non-negotiable.’

The Director paused.

‘No,’ he said, in reply to a question from Myers. ‘I’m not speaking under duress. I’ve reached an agreement with these two men, and I’ve guaranteed them full immunity. Is that clearly understood? No duress, and full immunity as long as their conditions are met.’

Donahue terminated the call and handed the phone back to Hunter.

‘OK, Dick,’ Hunter said to Reilly, re-locking Donahue’s handcuff. ‘Let’s roll.’

FBI Headquarters, J. Edgar Hoover Building, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

Myers slammed the phone down and ran through into his own office. He stopped in front of his safe and spun the combination wheel to open it. He missed the third digit on the first attempt and had to start over again. The second time he tried it the door swung open. Myers reached inside, pulled out a slim red file, opened it and walked to his desk. The title of the file was ‘Bear Trap.’

He scanned swiftly through the code-words listed on a page on the left hand side of the file, running his finger down them until he reached ‘duress.’ He read the entry opposite the word, scanned down the page to read the entry opposite ‘immunity,’ then slapped the file shut and reached for the telephone.

Two minutes later William McGrath walked into Myers’s office.

‘I’ve just heard from the Director,’ Myers said. ‘He’s coming back to the building with Hunter and Reilly. He used the code-words ‘duress’ and ‘immunity’ twice during the call. They decode simply enough. The suspects are armed and highly dangerous, and he wants them taken out without warning at the first opportunity.’

Virginia

Six minutes after Donahue had finished the call they reached the outskirts of Burke. Reilly slowed down, then turned off the main road into the side streets.

‘OK,’ he said, ‘you know what to look for.’

Hunter nodded agreement. Two minutes later he pointed at a building on the opposite side of the road: the sign above the shop doorway read ‘Harvey’s Rod & Gun.’ Reilly slowed down, pulled smoothly to the curb, and switched off the engine.

‘What’s going on now?’ Donahue demanded.

‘It’s like this,’ Hunter said. ‘Sheriff Reilly here doesn’t really trust you. He thinks you’re going to double-cross us the first chance you get, so he wants to organize some insurance.

Donahue relaxed slightly in his seat. ‘What kind of insurance?’

‘Just hope you don’t get to find out,’ Hunter said. ‘OK, Dick, watch him.’

Hunter got out of the car, looked both ways, then crossed the street. He pushed open the shop door and walked inside. There were no customers. The man behind the counter was big and broad, and didn’t look like he smiled a lot.

‘Yes, sir?’ he asked. ‘You’re going to have to be real quick – I’m just closing up.’

Hunter pulled out Wilson’s FBI identification and showed it. ‘This is just a routine enquiry, Mr. Harvey,’ Hunter said, hoping his American accent sounded fairly convincing.

‘I ain’t Harvey,’ the man said. ‘I just work here. My name’s George Wright.’

‘Sorry, Mr. Wright. As I said, it’s a routine enquiry into recent sales of explosives in this area. Do you hold stocks of any kind of explosive on the premises?’

Wright nodded. ‘Sure we do. A lot of guys these days prefer to load their own ammo. We carry black powder, slow- and fast-burning smokeless, and just about anything else you can use.’

‘OK. What about sales? Have there been any larger than usual sales of powder of any sort within the last month?’

‘I dunno,’ Wright said. ‘I’ll need to check.’

‘Please do,’ Hunter replied.

Wright reached up to a shelf behind him and pulled down a blue-bound ledger, which he opened on the counter. He ran his finger down the columns of names and figures, then shut the ledger with a slap and replaced it on the shelf.

‘Nope,’ he said. ‘Nothing out of the ordinary.’

‘So what sort of stock level have you got at the moment?’ Hunter asked.

Wright rubbed a large hand over the stubble on his chin. ‘I guess about seventy or eighty pounds, tops. What’s all this about?’

‘It’s just a routine enquiry, Mr. Wright. Now, can you show me where you keep the powder?’

Wright nodded and led the way behind the counter and down a corridor to a room secured with a steel-barred door. He pulled a bunch of keys from his pocket, unlocked the door, swung it open and walked inside. Hunter peered in. The room was lined with shelves on which stood drums of powder of various sorts.

‘You work here alone, Mr. Wright?’ Hunter asked, looking around the shelves.

‘Yup, but I’m only here Monday to Thursday. Friday and Saturday Harvey comes in and runs the place while he checks the books.’

‘That’s good,’ Hunter said, pulled out his Glock and levelled it at Wright’s ample stomach. ‘In the corner, please, Mr. Wright.’

‘What in hell d’you think you’re doing?’ Wright spluttered.

Hunter shrugged. ‘I’m sorry about this, but I need to take some of your powder and some other stuff, and I really don’t have time to argue about it.’

Still covering Wright, Hunter picked up a five pound drum of powder and put it outside the door of the storeroom. He repeated the action three times, which netted him twenty pounds weight of powder in all, then closed and locked the door on Wright.

‘Sorry about the accommodation,’ Hunter said, as he pulled the door to, ‘but Harvey will be along in twelve hours or so to let you out. I’ll lock up when I leave.’

‘You’re no goddamn FBI agent,’ Wright snarled.

‘Oddly enough,’ Hunter said, his English accent re-asserting itself. ‘I am, sort of, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to be a long-term career for me.’

He holstered the Glock, walked back into the shop, locked the door and snapped the ‘closed’ sign into place. Then he walked round the store and completed his shopping list. He selected two polystyrene heads which were modelling camouflage caps, two dark coloured hunting jackets, six oblong steel plates used for manufacturing bullet traps, several feet of insulated wire, a roll of insulating tape, a gas-powered soldering iron and solder, two rubber bungees, and a handful of flashlight batteries. Then he opened his wallet, pulled out two hundred dollars in twenty dollar bills and left them on the counter top.

Six minutes later all the items were in the Ford’s trunk and Reilly was driving away from the store.

FBI Headquarters, J. Edgar Hoover Building, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

The phone on Myers’s desk rang and he snatched it up immediately. ‘Yes?’

‘Everything is in place in the building, sir. The estimate from the outside teams is thirty minutes, tops, before every approach is covered. We’ll get the Avenue closed off by the DC police fifteen minutes before the deadline.’

As well as snipers in FBI Headquarters, the Bear Trap operational plan also specified five more sniper teams located inside, and on the roofs of, adjacent buildings, and these always took longer to deploy.

‘OK,’ Myers said. ‘Stay alert, and call me when all the teams are in position. I’ll be down well before the Director’s due to get here.’

Virginia

Reilly stopped the Ford on a deserted track off a quiet lane a few miles outside Burke, and turned round to look at Donahue.

‘This bit’s kinda complicated,’ he said, ‘and we don’t want anythin’ to go wrong, so you’d best get out.’

He waggled his pistol to emphasize the point. Donahue looked at Hunter, who nodded agreement. Hunter released the handcuff from the Ford’s elbow rest, led Donahue over to a sapling, and snapped the handcuff around its trunk.

A little under an hour later Reilly and Hunter stood back to admire their handiwork. In the back seat of the Ford were two dark silhouettes. Each was formed from three steel plates held together in a rough pyramid by one of the bungees, at the apex of which was perched one of the polystyrene heads, and each had a jacket draped around it, the shoulders supported on short branches pulled out of the undergrowth and cut to length. The central core of each comprised ten pounds weight of powder in two drums, lashed together with wire, and with a rudimentary detonator inside each.

Making the detonators had taken the longest. Hunter had experimented, and the best he had been able to come up with was a single strand of wire which, when connected to the batteries he had taken from the gun store, burnt out immediately with a satisfying flare of light and heat.

The batteries were taped together, and Hunter had soldered pieces of wire to link their terminals in parallel. From the terminals two lengths of insulated wire extended. One wasn’t attached to anything, but lay coiled on the rear seat. To arm the device Hunter would attach it to another length of wire already soldered to the steel plate lying against the back of the rear seat of the Ford. The other battery terminal was attached to the wire which connected one side of the two detonators. The wire which comprised the other terminal of the two detonators was soldered to each of the other two steel plates.

The steel plates were kept separated by the polystyrene head. If it were removed with the device armed, the steel plates would touch, the battery circuit would be completed and the detonator would ignite the powder. That, at least, was Hunter’s plan.

From close range it was perfectly obvious what the silhouettes were, but from anything over twenty yards, they looked surprisingly life-like.

Donahue had watched the work with increasing incomprehension, and called out to Hunter when he walked away from the car.

‘What the hell are those contraptions supposed to be?’

‘Those,’ Hunter said, as he led Donahue back to the front seat of the Ford and shackled both of his wrists to the dashboard grab handle, ‘are our insurance policy. Just pray you don’t get to see how they work.’

Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

The machinery finally stopped at a little after seven thirty, local time. Roger Ketch knew the exact time it stopped because his computer told him. He had just completed inputting the identities of the latest batch of subjects into the system database when a dialogue box popped up in the centre of his screen. The box was headed ‘Processing Status,’ and the label underneath announced, with extreme brevity, ‘Completed – 1932.’

Ketch moved his mouse pointer to the ‘OK’ button and acknowledged the message. Then he entered the time in the correct box in the database and closed the program.

He turned back to the notepad in the centre of his desk, glanced at his watch and reached for the telephone. Surely the idiots at Pennsylvania Avenue would have some news by now.

Washington, D.C.

On the southern outskirts of the District Capital, Reilly slowed the Ford down and then pulled into a parking lot. Hunter looked left and right and then gestured to Reilly to stop. He climbed out and walked across to a dark blue Lincoln with New York plates. The car had a thin layer of dust on the roof.

From his inside pocket Hunter pulled out a thin flexible length of flat steel which Dick Reilly had given him. Known in the trade as a ‘Slim Jim,’ it could open almost any car door.

Hunter slid the length of steel down into the inside of the door, between the rubber seal and the window glass, and felt for the door catch. The hook on the end made contact, and Hunter pulled upwards. There was a click, and Hunter saw the door catch lift. He looked round him, pulled the Slim Jim out and opened the door.

Sitting in the driver’s seat, Hunter pulled a fat bunch of keys from his pocket – another thing Reilly had supplied. In other circumstances, Hunter would have been curious about, and maybe even curious enough to investigate, Reilly’s criminal talents. As it was, he was just grateful. He pushed a key into the ignition and tried to turn it. Nothing happened, and the second and third keys also failed to work. The fourth one turned easily, the ignition lights came on, and in seconds the Lincoln’s engine was running.

Hunter gestured over at Reilly, who grinned at him through the windshield of the Ford, and the two cars moved out of the parking lot in convoy.

Ten minutes later, the Ford and Lincoln were parked one behind the other at the curb, engines idling, in a back street less than a mile from Pennsylvania Avenue.

FBI Headquarters, J. Edgar Hoover Building, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

Myers looked at his desk clock, stood up and left his office. Three minutes later he walked into the foyer of the building, peered out at the uncannily empty Pennsylvania Avenue with a satisfied expression, pulled out a secure-speech two-way radio and spoke into it.

‘This is Goldcrest,’ Myers said, using the call-sign specified in the Bear Trap file. ‘Rooftop sniper team, check in.’

‘Sniper One.’

‘Two.’

‘Three.’

‘Four.’

‘Five.’

‘Six.’

‘Second floor team, check in.’

Calling the roll took just under two minutes. The FBI Headquarters had three six-man sniper teams deployed, one on the roof, the others in first and second floor offices, to cover Pennsylvania Avenue. The other five sniper teams were deployed and ready in nearby buildings. Myers left the radio on standby, and pushed it into his inside jacket pocket. All they could do now was wait.

Washington, D.C.

‘OK, Director Donahue,’ Hunter said. ‘This is where we find out just how reliable your word of honour really is.’

Hunter had slid into the back seat of the Ford, taking care not to disturb either of the two dummies. He hadn’t connected the batteries, but he didn’t want to have to start re-arranging the plates or anything else.

‘You’ll be driving, and you’d better remember you’ve got two really nervous passengers back here.’

Reilly climbed out of the driver’s seat, walked round to the passenger door, leaned in and unlocked Donahue’s handcuffs.

Hunter gestured with his Glock for Donahue to slide across the seat and sit behind the steering wheel. When the Director was seated, Reilly snapped one set of handcuffs on each wrist and attached the other cuffs to the rim of the steering wheel.

‘How the hell do you expect me to drive like this?’ Donahue demanded.

‘It ain’t far,’ Reilly snapped. ‘Reckon you’ll manage.’

‘Now, Director,’ Hunter said. ‘Let me just tell you what’s going to happen. You called your people and told them you were bringing us in. You also told them that you’d agreed to give us full immunity.’

Donahue nodded. ‘Yes. So what’s your point?’

‘Dick Reilly doesn’t trust you to keep your word. He thinks you’ll try and double-cross us, which is why we’re not going to be in the car with you. But we don’t want you to feel lonely, and we don’t want your people on Pennsylvania Avenue to be disappointed, which is why we’ve spent so long rigging up these two passengers for you.’ Hunter gestured towards the back seat.

‘What we’re going to do is really simple. We’re going to follow you in the Lincoln and watch you drive up to FBI Headquarters. If nothing happens, and you stop the car outside, and your people let you out, then that’s good. We’ll drive up in the Lincoln and give ourselves up. So,’ Hunter concluded, looking straight at Donahue, ‘if you haven’t arranged any little surprises, everything should work out really well.’

Donahue matched his gaze, but a sheen of sweat started appearing on his forehead.

‘There’s no need for all this,’ he said. ‘I gave you my word.’

‘I know,’ Hunter said, ‘but I’ve only got this far by checking everything twice, so we’ll do it my way.’

‘Look,’ Donahue began, ‘I – ‘

‘Forget it,’ Reilly said, leaned over and stuck a length of tape roughly across Donahue’s mouth. ‘Time’s short. We wanna wrap this up.’

Hunter reached into his pocket and pulled out a small ear-piece.

‘It’s part of the hands-free kit for the mobile phone,’ he said to Donahue, ‘because we’ll need to keep in contact with you.’

He put the ear-piece in the Director’s ear, clipped the microphone to his jacket lapel and attached the lead to his phone. Hunter nodded to Reilly, who dialled a number on his mobile. As soon as Hunter’s phone rang, he swiped to answer the call and slipped the phone into Donahue’s jacket pocket.

‘OK,’ Hunter said. ‘We’ll be following behind you, with Dick’s AR-15 assault rifle loaded, so it would be a real good idea if you didn’t take any turns we don’t expect. If you do deviate from the route, we’ll detonate the bombs with the rifle. One shot should do it.’

Reilly used the butt of his pistol to break the glass in both the exterior mirrors, then walked back to the Lincoln. Hunter reached up and snapped off the Ford’s interior mirror, then reached into the back seat and twisted the wires together to connect the two battery packs.

‘The bombs are now armed,’ he said, ‘so you’d best drive really slowly and really carefully.’

Hunter glanced back at Reilly, who nodded and climbed into the driver’s seat of the Lincoln. The Englishman took a last look around the street, then leaned forward through the driving window of the Ford.

‘It’s time. Stick to the main road, and remember we’ll be behind you. Without the mirrors you won’t see us, but you’ll hear us through the mobile.’

Donahue’s eyes rolled wildly and his hands clutched convulsively at the steering wheel. Hunter looked down at him, something like pity in his eyes.

‘Just drive,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘We’ve all got to take our chances sometime.’

FBI Headquarters, J. Edgar Hoover Building, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

Myers looked at his watch, then checked it against the clock in the foyer. The Director was late, but Myers doubted if he was in any position to dictate the schedule to his captors. He raised the radio to his mouth.

‘All positions, this is Goldcrest,’ he said. ‘Stay alert. It should be any time now.’

Washington, D.C.

Reilly pulled out into the evening traffic about fifty yards behind the black Ford, and Hunter put the mobile phone to his ear.

‘Keep going, Director,’ Hunter said. ‘We’re still behind you, and still watching.’ Then he covered the microphone of the mobile phone with his palm. ‘How long before he gets there?’ he asked.

Reilly shrugged. ‘In this traffic, I guess about five or six minutes,’ he replied.

‘OK,’ Hunter said. ‘That will give us a bit of a head start. Take the next left turn and get us out of here.’

‘Good,’ Reilly said. ‘I thought for a minute you believed the line of crap that bastard was peddlin’.’

Hunter shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I know better than that. I knew he was going to double-cross us.’ He put the phone to his ear again. ‘You’re nearly there, Director,’ he said. ‘Keep it slow, keep it steady.’

‘How did you know?’ Reilly asked.

‘Before the Bureau let me loose on the American public, they put me through a very short and very intensive training course at Quantico,’ Hunter said, ‘so I’d know which shirts and frilly underwear Mr. Hoover would have wanted me to wear and so on. The normal FBI training program lasts sixteen weeks, and I was pushed through about half of it. I read my way through most of the rest, and I’ve got a very good memory. There’s a classified operation called Bear Trap which is implemented when any FBI officer is snatched. It includes code-words which can be used without arousing the suspicions of the kidnappers. If the captive says the word twice, that means he’s using it as a code-word.’

‘Yeah,’ Reilly said, as he pulled out to overtake a stretch limousine. ‘I remember Donahue emphasizing a couple of words.’

‘Duress and immunity,’ Hunter agreed. ‘I can’t remember the decode for ‘duress,’ but ‘immunity’ means, basically, take out the bad guys. In this case, that’s us.’

Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

‘Goldcrest, this is Sniper Four. Black Ford approaching slowly from the south-west. Single male in the driving seat, two figures visible in the back seat.’

‘Acknowledged. This could be him now. All positions, stand by. Wait for my order.’

Myers had taken up position in a first floor office that offered a commanding view of the Avenue. He put a pair of compact binoculars to his eyes and looked down at the approaching vehicle.

He could see the driver clearly enough, and immediately recognized the features of George Donahue, even with the strip of dark grey tape across his mouth. He could even see the glint of the handcuffs round his wrists.

The figures in the back seat of the car were indistinct. He could see no sign of weapons, but that meant nothing. He wouldn’t have expected Hunter and Reilly to be waving pistols around in Washington D.C. – they were more likely to have shotguns pointing at the Director’s back through the front seat.

It was his call.

‘All positions from Goldcrest. Identification is confirmed. Director Donahue is driving the car. The two perps are in back, presumably holding weapons on him. Teams Two and Six only, call when you have clear shots at both occupants of the back seat.’

Myers released the transmit key and waited. He had picked the sniper team on the first floor of the FBI Headquarters and that in the building on the opposite side of the Avenue, to eliminate the kidnappers in a cross-fire. There was no traffic and no pedestrians so getting a clear shot shouldn’t be difficult.

‘Two is clear.’

‘Six is unsighted.’

Myers looked down at the car again. Donahue was approaching very slowly. Something didn’t feel right. The figures in the back seat still hadn’t moved.

‘Two is still clear.’

‘Six unsighted. Wait. Six is clear.’

‘Two is clear.’

Myers reached for his radio again, his mind racing. ‘Double-check,’ he ordered.

‘Two clear.’

‘Six clear.’

Myers paused again, just for the second he needed to push his misgivings aside, then thumbed the transmit button. ‘Execute,’ he snapped.

The first bullet shattered the off-side rear window of the black Ford and smashed into the steel plate just below the polystyrene head. The impact popped the head neatly into the air, and the three plates moved steadily and inexorably together.

A tenth of a second later the near-side window shattered as the Team Six lead sniper fired, at exactly the same moment as the detonator wire fused into oblivion.

For Myers, the nightmare came true as he watched the rear of the car arch upwards as some immense force took it. Then a second and third detonation filled the air as the remaining tubs of powder exploded. Flames blossomed from the ruptured fuel tank.

The green bullet-proof window in front of Myers crazed, shook and then imploded, showering him with shards of glass and throwing him across the room. His head hit the opposite wall and he fell unconscious, blood dripping steadily from a dozen puncture wounds.

Chapter Thirteen

Thursday

Washington, D.C.

The stolen Lincoln was nearly two miles from Pennsylvania Avenue when they heard the dull rumble of the explosion. Reilly didn’t even blink, and Hunter’s only reaction was to switch off the mobile phone he was still holding. He opened the Lincoln’s glove compartment and tossed the phone inside.

‘We won’t need that again,’ he said. ‘I guess Donahue’s little ambush worked out real well, for us if not for him.’

‘His choice,’ Reilly said. ‘If he’d played straight with us, he’d be alive now.’

‘Well, we’ve bought ourselves some time with that diversion,’ Hunter said. ‘A few hours at least.’

Reilly nodded, but didn’t take his eyes off the road. He was keeping the Lincoln as close to the speed limit as possible, trying to get out of Washington as fast as he could.

‘With that blast, every cop in D.C. will be heading for Pennsylvania Avenue,’ Hunter went on. ‘At least I hope they will, which should keep them off our backs.’

‘It’ll take a while for them to sort out what happened in the Ford,’ Reilly said. ‘With the amount of powder we put on the back seat, Donahue woulda been pretty well shredded, I guess. It’s gonna be a hell of a job working out if what’s left is one body or three.’

Hunter snorted. ‘It won’t take them that long,’ he said. ‘When in doubt, they’ll assume the worst, which is that we weren’t a couple of suicide bombers, and that we’re still alive and kicking somewhere. What they won’t know is how we’re travelling, or where we’re going.’

‘They’re not the only ones,’ Reilly said. ‘Just where in hell are we goin’?’

Hunter looked at him. ‘We’re following this through,’ he replied, his voice cold and bleak. ‘I’m following Christy-Lee until either I get her back from the bastards who snatched her, or I know she’s dead. Either way, the trail leads to Nevada, so that’s where we’re going. Have you got any problems with that?’

‘Nope,’ Reilly said. ‘I like the lady as well, and I got nothin’ better to do right now.’

Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

On Donahue’s instructions, dictated by Hunter, road blocks had already been positioned to keep Pennsylvania Avenue closed to traffic and the police simply left them in place. After the blast, officers closed in on the Hoover Building and began checking the ground around the wreckage of the Ford while they waited for the first ambulances to arrive.

The scene outside the FBI Headquarters was one of total devastation over a roughly circular area about seventy yards in diameter. The epicentre was the wreck of the rented Ford. The floor-pan chassis lay flat on the road, but nothing remained of the bodywork apart from the windshield pillars and the two rear wings, which were crumpled and twisted into surrealistically unrecognizable shapes. Even the engine had been blown a few feet forward clear of the wreckage.

Scattered around the chassis was the rest of the car. The heaviest pieces, like the doors, were closest to the wreck, and were still largely recognizable. Lighter debris had been thrown further away, just twisted pieces of steel and torn fabric, unidentifiable.

Donahue had taken the full force of the blast in the centre of his back, and had died instantly. The human body is surprisingly resilient, but Donahue had been sitting unprotected within four feet of a detonation of twenty pounds weight of mixed powder, and his head, torso, arms and upper legs had virtually disintegrated. The area around the Ford was liberally splattered with blood-stained clothing and small pieces of flesh and bone. His shins and feet, shielded to some extent from the blast by the seat squab, had suffered much less damage, and were lying about five feet apart some twenty yards in front of the wreck.

Thirty minutes after the ambulances had arrived and a triage unit had been set up, the figures began to emerge. Apart from the obviously deceased occupant or occupants of the Ford, the smoking remains of which were already being picked over by six FBI forensic experts, there had been no deaths. But several serious injuries had been sustained by evening and night staff in the J. Edgar Hoover Building, caused by flying glass splinters that had speared through shirts, blouses and light jackets.

Myers had regained consciousness, and was spitting fire, not least because he was acutely aware that when the dust finally settled he was the one most likely to be blamed for Donahue’s death. He waved away the medical orderly as soon as he’d bandaged his forehead, and took the elevator back up to his office.

Once inside, he sat down at the desk and rested his head in his hands. His forehead was throbbing like some demented machine from the puncture wounds, and he had the mother of all headaches to go with it. No question, it had been a bitch of a day, and the bad news was it could only get worse. His phone rang and he picked up the handset.

‘Myers,’ he snapped.

‘This is the CommCen, sir. We have an external origin Priority One call for the Director.’

Myers shook his head angrily, then stopped as the throbbing intensified. ‘The Director’s dead, for Christ’s sake.’

‘I know that, sir, but I have no authority to tell that to the caller. And CommCen rules stipulate that a Priority One call must be accepted.’

‘So what the fuck do you want me to do – call a medium?’

The Communications Officer was patient. ‘No sir, but you or an FBI officer of Assistant Director level or above must take the call.’

Myers stared blankly in front of him for a few seconds. He was almost certain that the call would have originated in Nevada, and he wasn’t relishing explaining how he – Myers – had ordered a sniper to open fire on a car driven by the Director, and had then watched as the car blew itself to pieces in front of him.

When he’d first come round, Myers had wondered if by any chance a sniper’s bullet had holed the Ford’s fuel tank, which would mean he could blame someone else, but one look at the wreck had told him that that was a blind alley.

‘OK,’ he said, calm once again. ‘I’ll come down.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

He’d barely replaced the handset when the office door opened and William McGrath walked in. For once, Myers was pleased to see him.

‘I think the source in Nevada is on the line again, sir,’ he said. ‘The CommCen’s holding a Priority One call for the Director.’

Myers paused, then stood up slowly and painfully. He smiled almost apologetically. ‘This is all getting a bit heavy for me,’ he muttered. ‘I know this source said he’d only speak to me or Director Donahue, but I really would appreciate it if you could maybe take over the dialogue.’

McGrath nodded. ‘That’s pretty much what I came to tell you,’ he said. ‘I’ve just got off the line from the White House. I’m authorized to stand-in as Director of the Bureau until a new appointment is announced. That includes handling Omega and liaising with whoever the hell it is pulling the strings down in Nevada.’

He turned back towards the door. ‘Come on. We’d better get down there.’

Montgomery County, Virginia

‘Shit,’ Hunter said. ‘I forgot to ask Donahue about Billy Dole.’

Reilly looked at him. ‘Yeah. What the hell’s a corpse in a field in Montana with a thigh-bone sticking out of its head got to do with a secret clinic in Nevada?’

Hunter shrugged. ‘Well, it’s definitely too late now,’ he said.

He looked at the road ahead. They’d kept off the main roads as far as possible since leaving the centre of Washington D.C., Hunter giving Reilly directions from a tourist map he’d found in the glove compartment of the Lincoln, because the car had no satnav fitted. They’d headed up towards Tacoma Park, then turned west through Chevy Chase and Bethesda, then north-west through Rockville, their route running more or less parallel to Interstate 70.

They’d seen only three police cars since they’d turned off Pennsylvania Avenue, and they’d all been going in the opposite direction, lights flashing and sirens blaring.

‘Lots of roads,’ Reilly had said, ‘only so many cops, and they’ve got a bunch of other things on their minds right now.’

At Gaithersburg Hunter had directed Reilly right, towards Laytonsville, and after about another eight miles left for Goshen.

‘I hope you know where the hell we’re goin’,’ Reilly said, ‘’cause I sure don’t.’

Hunter grunted, his brows furrowed in concentration as he studied the map. Finally he folded it and sat up. He knew they were in the right area. It was just a question of recognizing landmarks.

FBI Headquarters, J. Edgar Hoover Building, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

Myers nodded at the Communications staff officer, who had straightened noticeably when William McGrath walked through the soundproof door of the Centre.

‘Which one?’ Myers asked.

‘Booth Five, sir.’

‘What’s the origin of the call – Nevada again?’

The staff officer nodded.

‘OK,’ McGrath said. ‘Get me an extra headset. We’re both taking this call.’

Thirty seconds later the red light came on outside the closed door of the booth as the call was patched through.

‘This is Myers.’

‘About time. Where’s Donahue?’

‘Director Donahue’s dead,’ McGrath said.

Roger Ketch immediately noted the new voice on the line. ‘Who are you?’

‘William McGrath. I’m acting Director for the time being. Who are you?’

This should be good, Myers thought.

‘You don’t need to know,’ Ketch grated. ‘Jesus, all you suits seem to want is names and numbers.’

‘I need to know who you are,’ McGrath repeated.

‘You don’t need anything from me. I’m running this operation, which means you do what I tell you. Donahue didn’t have a problem with that, so why should you? By the way, how’d he die?’

Myers, sensing McGrath’s increasing irritation, explained what had happened.

‘We don’t know,’ he finished, ‘if Hunter and Reilly died in the explosion as well as the Director.’

Ketch laughed – a short, unpleasant bark. ‘Take my word for it,’ he said, ‘they didn’t. But they’re probably still in your area, which means we’ve still got a chance. OK, Mr. Acting Director McGrath, here’s what I need you to do. You listening?’

‘Yes,’ McGrath said, shortly.

‘There should already be an APB out for these two bastards. Reinforce it by saying that they’re now wanted in connection with the assassination of the Director of the FBI – which has the useful bonus of actually being true. You should have got the background on Reilly by now –’ McGrath looked at Myers, who nodded ‘– so go through it with a fine tooth-comb. Look for anything that we could use against him – family, friends, weaknesses of any sort. Do the same for Hunter, though I don’t think there’s a lot of data available.’

‘Is that it?’

‘No,’ Ketch replied. ‘That’s what you do when you’ve done everything else. First, I want a watch kept at all seaports, airports, railroad and bus stations. I want all roads – that’s every road, not just the Interstates – watched, plus all navigable rivers. I want a blanket of FBI agents to smother D.C. You start in Washington and work your way outwards. We have to find these guys, and then we have to kill them. Failure is not an option.’

There was a brief silence as McGrath digested what he’d heard. ‘Do you realize how many men an operation like that will take? Do you have the slightest idea what you’re asking?’

‘Two things, McGrath. First, I’m not asking, I’m telling. Second, I don’t care. This operation has the highest possible priority. Whatever it takes to achieve, you do it. Whatever other tasks you have to shed to get it done, you dump. If you have to recruit, fire, cripple or kill anybody, from the Vice-President of the United States downwards, you just do it. All other considerations – and I do mean absolutely all other considerations – are secondary. Do I make myself clear?’

Myers stayed silent. It was a real good time, in his opinion, to be just a fly on the wall.

‘You make yourself clear,’ McGrath said, ‘but –’

‘There are no buts, McGrath, and in an hour or so you’ll know why.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Donahue showed you a sealed file, right? Marked “Omega Procedures”?’

McGrath nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I got it out for him as soon as news of that Beaver Creek killing reached us. Why?’

‘You’re the Acting Director. The speed the goddamn wheels turn in Washington it’ll be weeks before a new Director’s appointed, so I authorize you to read the Omega Procedures file. Just you. No-one else, not even Myers.’

Myers tried to look irritated, but was secretly pleased. He had a very, very strong feeling that he really didn’t want to know anything more than he had to about Omega.

‘How can you possibly authorize that?’ McGrath asked. ‘It’s an FBI file with the highest possible security classification.’

Ketch laughed again. ‘Of course I can authorize it,’ he said. ‘I wrote the fucking thing.’

Montgomery County, Virginia

It was almost midnight when Hunter finally spotted what he had been looking for.

‘This is it,’ he said, and directed Reilly to turn off the side road down a narrow track. Leaves and branches brushed the sides of the Lincoln as the car moved slowly over the rutted surface, which was marked by the tires of four-wheel-drive vehicles.

‘OK,’ Reilly said. ‘And where exactly is ‘this’?’

Hunter grinned at him. ‘It’s just a field with a building on it,’ he said.

‘Oh yeah?’

‘Yup. A long, narrow field with a real big building on it.’

Comprehension dawned on Reilly. ‘An airstrip?’

Hunter nodded. ‘I learnt to fly when the Queen employed me – I was in the Royal Navy and ended up flying Sea Harriers. When I was training over at Quantico I got to know the owner of this place – a guy called Dave Charles. I got down here whenever I could and took a few spins in some of the aircraft he had here.’

‘He still around?’

‘Who?’

‘This Charles guy. You gonna persuade him to fly us out of here?’

Hunter shook his head. ‘Nope. I hope the aircraft are still here, but Dave should have gone home long before now. And he wouldn’t fly us out of here without filing a flight plan and all the rest of it.’

‘So what are we doing?’

Hunter looked at him. ‘The plan is for us to find the airfield deserted, for you to break into the hanger using whatever clever little devices you’ve got in that bag of yours, and for us to borrow an aircraft and get the hell out of here.’

‘I know I’ll regret askin’ this, but exactly who’ll be drivin’ the damn thing? You?’

Hunter grinned again, his teeth a white slash in the semi-darkness of the Lincoln. ‘Yup,’ he said. ‘That’ll be me.’

‘Jesus,’ Reilly muttered. ‘Kinda wish I stayed behind in Beaver Creek, or even D.C.’

FBI Headquarters, J. Edgar Hoover Building, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

Ketch had been right. When William McGrath closed the Omega Procedures file some ninety minutes later, he knew exactly why Reilly and Hunter had to be found and killed. What he had read in the file and seen in the package of photographs and on the short video tape must never become public knowledge.

His face ashen, McGrath picked up the file, crossed his office to his personal safe, put the file inside and spun the combination wheel to lock it. Then he went into his bathroom to wash his hands. Even reading it had made him feel unclean, tainted. He was drying his hands when one of the images he’d seen swam into his mind again, and he spent the next eight minutes retching uncontrollably into the toilet.

Chapter Fourteen

Friday

Montgomery County, Virginia

It took Reilly only three minutes to pick the lock on the side door of the hangar, but when he’d done it he didn’t open the door. Instead he stopped and stepped back.

‘What’s the matter?’ Hunter asked.

Reilly shook his head. ‘Too easy,’ he said. ‘Planes are expensive, right, so why hasn’t this Charles guy got more than one lock? He’s gotta have some kind of a security system as well. Somethin’ we haven’t noticed.’

Reilly took the flashlight from Hunter and played the beam over the walls and eaves of the hangar.

‘No motion sensors or anythin’ like that,’ he muttered, ‘which is just as well ’cause by now we’d have triggered ’em all.’

He turned his attention to the door frame, and then focused the flashlight beam on the top left hand side of the door.

‘There,’ he said. ‘See that grey wire?’

Hunter looked closely. The thin wire was almost invisible against the faded and weathered grey paint.

‘Five gets you ten it’s connected to a magnetic catch somewhere on the inside of the door. Open the door, the catch breaks contact, and ten minutes later the place’s surrounded by bad news and black-and-whites.’

He rapidly traced the route taken by the thin grey wire. It ran vertically upwards to a height of about ten feet, then horizontally towards the left-hand corner of the building. Just around the corner it descended vertically and vanished out of sight behind a couple of warped planks leaning against the wall of the hangar.

Reilly handed the flashlight to Hunter and moved the planks to one side. Bolted to the wall at waist level was a small square black box. The grey wire looped around it and then entered its base. The front of the box contained a slot for a key, a green light, not illuminated, and a small red light which glowed faintly.

‘Can you turn it off?’ Hunter asked.

Reilly was looking closely at the key-hole. ‘Don’t think I can,’ he said. ‘Takes a custom-made key, and I reckon it’d take a coupla hours just to get a rough shape.’

‘So?’

‘So we bypass it, I guess.’

‘Will that work?’

Reilly stood up and replaced the planks.

‘Depends on just how worried your old buddy Mr. Charles is about security. What he’s got here is a nice low-key protection system that’d keep most people out. The lock on the door’s good quality, and it’d keep out the kids and the drunks. A thief who could pick it would probably just kick the door open and walk in, triggering the alarm. What I’m hopin’ is that the guy who fitted it never expected a professional to tackle it, and didn’t use screened cable.’

Hunter looked appraisingly at Reilly. ‘I’ve got a question,’ he said. ‘Just where the hell did you ever learn so much about locks and security systems? It’s not exactly normal training for a county sheriff, is it?’

‘Thought you’d never ask, Mr. Hunter,’ Reilly replied, with a grin, as he led the way back to the side door of the hangar.

‘I was Special Forces in ’nam. I specialized in safe-cracking and midnight shopping – that’s burglary to you. A guy learns a lot in Special Forces.’

‘Obviously,’ Hunter said. ‘So what’s with this screened cable stuff?’

‘The best way to do a system like this is to use screened cable to connect the magnetic catches with the control box. That way, if somebody tries to cut into the cable to short out the catch, the control box detects the break and triggers the alarm anyway.’

Reilly paused, dragged an empty oil drum to the hangar wall and clambered up onto it. He reached up, tugged a short section of the grey cable away from its fastenings, and rolled it carefully between his forefinger and thumb. Hunter aimed the flashlight at the cable, keeping the beam out of Reilly’s eyes.

‘Don’t feel screened to me,’ Reilly said. ‘I can make out five, maybe six, internal wires.’

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a switchblade knife, which he snapped open. With a single fluid movement, he ran the tip of the blade along the wire for about six inches, then closed the knife, peeled back the cable’s outer insulation and looked at the inner wires.

‘We’re OK,’ he said. ‘It’s a non-screened three-pair phone cable. I just gotta sort out which wire’s doin’ what. Can you get my bag?’

Hunter walked across to the Lincoln, which they’d parked out of sight beyond the hangar, and pulled Reilly’s voluminous black leather bag out of the trunk. They’d already discarded the gun case, so the contents of the bag resembled a small arsenal. Following Reilly’s instructions, he felt around inside it until he found a small brown leather case with the embossed name ‘Micronta.’

‘It’s a digital multimeter,’ Reilly explained, ‘with a few special functions. I can use it to check which wire’s carrying what current, without havin’ to strip the insulation off any of ’em.’

Hunter held the flashlight as steady as possible while Reilly ran his tests. Ten minutes later he was done. Reilly identified the red and the green wires as those connected to the door’s magnetic catch, carefully measured the current they were carrying, and adjusted the multimeter to act as a conduit. Then he inserted the sharpened ends of the multimeter’s probes into the wires until they made contact with the conductors, tucked the multimeter under the cable so that it wouldn’t fall, and climbed down off the oil drum.

‘Is that it?’ Hunter asked.

‘I sure hope so. To find out, we open the door.’

FBI Headquarters, J. Edgar Hoover Building, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

‘It’s pretty much in place, sir,’ Timothy Myers said, as the Acting Director walked into his office and sat down.

McGrath nodded. ‘Good. Any problems?’

‘Not really,’ Myers said. ‘A bit of grumbling from some of the local cops who weren’t in the loop earlier, but when I explained about the Director I got all the help I needed.’

Myers paused. Despite his relief at having been side-lined by William McGrath, he was still curious.

‘You know more about this than I do,’ he continued. ‘Apart from being wanted for the Director’s murder, what makes these two guys so special? Christ, one’s just some British cop working over here with the Bureau and the other’s a sheriff from Hicksville, Nowhere County. Why the kill order? What have they done?’

‘It’s not what they’ve done,’ McGrath said. ‘Until the Director was kidnapped, neither of them had committed any kind of crime that I’m aware of.’

‘But the kill order,’ Myers interrupted. ‘That was in place long before that happened.’

‘I know,’ McGrath replied. ‘As I said, it’s not what they’ve done. It’s not even what they know. The reason for the kill order was because of what they might have found out.’

Myers digested this in silence for a moment or two. ‘That seems like a pretty extreme response,’ he said, finally, ‘if the reason for this whole operation is just to stop them possibly finding something out. What the hell could be that important? And just who the hell is that irritating asshole in Nevada?’

McGrath shook his head. ‘I can’t tell you,’ he said. ‘And even if I could, I wouldn’t. When the shit first hit the fan over that weird murder in Montana, Director Donahue told me that I wouldn’t want to know. Now I’ve read the Omega file,’ he went on, ‘and I know exactly what he meant.’

McGrath shuddered slightly, as hideous images formed in his memory. If Myers noticed, he gave no sign.

‘And the guy in Nevada?’ Myers prompted. The one, he could have added, who’s now pulling your strings, Mr. Assistant Director McGrath.

‘He’s the lynchpin of the whole operation,’ McGrath said. ‘He’s the only one who knows exactly what’s going on, and whatever he wants, he gets. You can consider that, Myers, to be Bureau policy until further notice.’

McGrath stood up. ‘I’m not using the Director’s office,’ he said, motioning to the closed door. ‘I’m going to stay in my old office until this situation gets resolved. Don’t call me on the phone unless you need me urgently, but bring me a progress report on the search at least once every two hours.’ McGrath glanced at his watch. ‘I’ll be out of the building for about ninety minutes,’ he said. ‘If you need me, you’ll have to leave a message on my pager.’

‘You’re not taking your mobile?’ Myers asked, surprised.

McGrath nodded. ‘I will be, but it’ll be switched off most of the time. I have to go and brief the President. That’s another job I can do without right now.’

Montgomery County, Virginia

Hunter ran the beam of the flashlight around the inside of the hangar, then reached for the light switch.

‘You sure that’s a good idea?’ Reilly asked.

‘I didn’t see any sign of other properties anywhere near here,’ Hunter said, ‘and in any case, thieves work in the dark, with flashlights. If anyone round here does see the hangar lights on, the chances are they’ll just assume it’s some mechanic who’s working late.’

The two men looked around the interior. As hangars went, it wasn’t very big, about thirty yards by fifty yards in size, but more than adequate for the three aircraft parked inside. Hunter recognized an Aztec and a Cherokee, both in red and white livery, and a smaller, dark-coloured plane at the rear that he couldn’t immediately identify.

‘You can fly these things?’ Reilly demanded.

‘Yeah,’ Hunter said, and walked past the sheriff to look at the third aircraft.

He’d been expecting to find two or three small single-engine planes, and to take one of them, but the sight of the third aircraft stopped him and set him thinking.

It wasn’t pretty. A short, wide fuselage with stubby wings and a rugged undercarriage. On top, a bulbous canopy offered the pilot an excellent all-round view.

‘Hey,’ Reilly said, walking up beside Hunter. ‘We get those round Beaver Creek.’

Hunter nodded. ‘You would have,’ he said. ‘It’s a crop-duster.’

‘Right. Noisy little bastards. Always flying real low and setting down just about anywhere they please.’

Hunter looked at him. ‘You said it. It’s just what we need.’

‘That thing? I thought we was takin’ one of the other two.’

Hunter shook his head. ‘No. Think about it. We’re going to have to stay low, really low, because every radar unit in the country is going to have instructions to track and identify every airborne contact. If we take the Aztec and fly that across Virginia at fifty feet, we’ll be below radar cover, but every driver or pedestrian on the ground is going to wonder why the hell we’re dragging the weeds. And one or two of those concerned citizens will start ringing their local airfield or their local sheriff or their local FBI office. And once that happens, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to guess that we’ll suddenly find an Apache or Cobra helicopter gun-ship sitting waiting for us at a bend in the road.’

Hunter paused for breath.

‘But with a duster, it’s different. They’re effectively invisible. People see them all the time, flying at treetop height, or landing in fields to top-up the chemical tanks, but they never notice them. They’re a part of America’s farmlands just the same as a tractor or a harvester. They’re also tough, and we’ll be landing to refuel in pretty much any field that looks empty and long enough, even if it’s newly ploughed – do that a few times in a Cessna and you’ll break the undercarriage. That’s why we’ll take the duster.’

‘OK,’ Reilly said. ‘I’ll buy that.’

Oval Office, White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

‘So what went wrong?’ Charles Gainey asked, his voice surprisingly quiet and controlled, given what William McGrath had just told him.

‘We’re not sure, Mr. President,’ William McGrath replied. ‘Quite obviously Hunter and Reilly have discovered something about Roland Oliver –’

‘Something!’ the Secretary of Defense snapped. ‘Something! That’s some kind of a fucking understatement, isn’t it? They knew enough to identify the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation as one of the handful of people in America who was fully indoctrinated into Roland Oliver. They walked into FBI Headquarters, snatched him in broad daylight, and then they killed him!’

‘James,’ the President said soothingly. ‘This isn’t helping. What’s done is done. What we have to do now is decide how best to retrieve the situation.’

Dickson lapsed into silence, and sat glowering in the large armchair.

‘Mr. McGrath?’ Charles Gainey prompted.

‘Actually, we’re not sure how much they do know, but we don’t think they know as much as it might appear.’ McGrath glanced over at James Dickson before continuing. ‘What we do know is that Sheriff Reilly managed to kill the two members of the clean-up team who were sent to eliminate him. How, we don’t know, and it really doesn’t matter now. With them dead, we have to assume that Reilly took possession of their identity cards which are, of course, completely genuine documents. Hunter has worked with the Bureau long enough to recognize a genuine FBI identity card, and it isn’t too great a leap of logic to assume that they decided to question the people issuing the orders, rather than the people carrying out the operation.

‘We surmise that the two men decided to interrogate the Director of the FBI simply because Hunter is reasonably familiar with Bureau Headquarters. He underwent training at Quantico, which of course included several familiarization visits to Pennsylvania Avenue, and he may well have been there since then in connection with ongoing investigations. It would probably have been more difficult for him to have gained access to CIA Headquarters at Langley, simply because as far as we know he’s never been there, but he could conceivably have targeted the Director of Central Intelligence instead of the head of the FBI. Or you, Mr. Secretary,’ he added, turning to James Dickson.

Dickson stirred uncomfortably in his chair.

‘In summary, Mr. President,’ McGrath concluded, ‘we don’t think they actually know a great deal about Roland Oliver. Of course, we don’t know what Director Donahue told them, but I believe that if he had explained the full scope of Roland Oliver, either Reilly or Hunter would have killed him out of hand.’

Charles Gainey shuddered slightly.

‘I just hope to Christ they don’t work out what’s really going on,’ he muttered.

‘So,’ McGrath continued, ‘our best estimation is that Reilly and Hunter probably know that Roland Oliver operates out of Nevada, but don’t know exactly what the project does. Our guess is that they’ll try to get out to Nevada as soon as possible. Obviously there’s no way they can actually get into Roland Oliver, purely because of its location, but we still want them apprehended and taken care of as soon as possible.’

‘And what are you doing to achieve that?’ Charles Gainey asked.

‘Everything we can, Mr. President. We have teams of armed watchers at all airports, harbours and railroad stations, and roadblocks on all routes out of D.C. We know they haven’t left by air, water or rail, and we believe they’re still in the Washington area. They’re probably driving a stolen car, so we’re collating all vehicle theft reports with the police. Personally, I think they’ll lie low for a while somewhere here, then try and slip out of D.C. when they think the pursuit’s died down.’

‘And when will the pursuit die down?’ James Dickson asked.

‘It won’t,’ McGrath said. ‘Roland Oliver Control has been quite specific. These two people are to be found and eliminated. It doesn’t matter what it costs or how long it takes.’

Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

Roger Ketch sat at his desk with his head in his hands. His project – for he had always regarded Roland Oliver with a somewhat proprietary attitude – was going wrong in a fairly spectacular fashion. He didn’t understand how Reilly and Hunter had managed to elude the clean-up team and make it as far as Washington, far less how they’d managed to abduct and then kill, albeit indirectly, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The only good news was that Christy-Lee Kaufmann was dealt with: he’d had confirmation that she was en route to Las Vegas as a part of the program. And the actual operation of Roland Oliver would be unaffected, because the one thing he was sure about was that Reilly and Hunter definitely couldn’t get anywhere near him or the processing plant. The base security was literally unbreachable. But if they found out what was going on, and then went public with it and were believed, the consequences would be catastrophic for him personally and would certainly terminate Roland Oliver, permanently.

The latest report from Pennsylvania Avenue was that the two fugitives, for so Ketch had labelled them, were still believed to be in the D.C. area, but he was even beginning to doubt the truth of that assumption. Their arrival in Washington had been unexpected, and impossible to predict, as had been their actions there. But their ability to improvise, to persuade the Director of the FBI to leave the safety of his office – despite Ketch’s and the Omega Procedure file’s specific instructions to the contrary – argued a level of competence that Ketch found almost frightening.

And that same level of competence, Ketch was slowly coming to believe, would strongly argue against them still being in the Washington area, despite what McGrath thought. They would have had an escape route of some sort pre-planned, though Ketch had no idea what it might be. However, he did agree with McGrath’s opinion in one respect – if he’d been in Hunter’s or Reilly’s shoes, his next move would have been fairly obvious. They almost certainly now knew that Roland Oliver operated out of Nevada, so that’s where Hunter and Reilly would be heading.

Ketch nodded to himself, and reached out for the telephone.

Montgomery County, Virginia

Fifty minutes later they were ready to roll. Hunter had checked the duster’s documentation and discovered it had just been purchased and had a new radial engine fitted, and was only at the field because the new owner wanted a different paint job. Brand new chemical tanks had been fitted, and were empty, but the machine was otherwise ready to work. Dave Charles had his own fuel bowser in the hangar, and Hunter filled the duster’s tank to the brim once he and Reilly had pushed it towards the front of the building. Then he filled the chemical tanks with fuel as well, and packed several five gallon fuel cans into the storage section behind the pilot’s seat.

The duster had a fairly small tank, and Hunter guessed that it would have a range without refuelling of only about four or five hundred miles. He took a notebook from his pocket and scribbled down some figures. If he was right, they could cover almost three thousand miles with the total fuel he would have on board at take-off. He made a very rough calculation of the distance from Goshen to Nevada – he was aiming more or less for Las Vegas – and came up with around two thousand five hundred miles. He hoped they’d even have a little in reserve.

‘OK,’ Hunter said, ‘I’ve good news and I’ve got bad news. The good news is that I estimate we’ve more than enough fuel on board this baby to make it to Nevada. We’ll have to put it down a few times to top up the tanks, but we won’t run out.’

‘And the bad news?’ Reilly asked suspiciously.

‘This duster is only a single-seater. That means there’s no seat for you, so you’ll have to cram yourself into the storage compartment behind the pilot’s seat.’

‘Great,’ Reilly muttered, without noticeable enthusiasm, ‘and we can’t even change places because I can’t fly the thing.’

‘Sorry,’ Hunter said. ‘At least you’ll be able to sleep. I won’t, and with about twenty hours in the air ahead of us, I’d definitely change places with you if I could.’

They filled the fuel cans behind the pilot’s seat, and Hunter put a large funnel and some rags beside the drums in case any of the fuel spilled. Reilly dug around in the hangar and found an old padded jacket and a blanket which he spread out on top of the cans. Their bags went in there as well, plus a dozen cans of coke, six beers and a handful of chocolate bars which Hunter had found in the office, and finally Reilly tried it out for size.

Hunter busied himself selecting cross-country charts. What he particularly wanted to do was avoid straying into any kind of military or civilian restricted airspace, so the charts were essential. There weren’t enough to detail the whole route, which was no surprise, but he found three low-level charts that covered the first six hundred miles, and a couple of air navigation planning charts that would provide basic details for most of the rest of the flight. After that, he’d have to trust to luck, his eyesight, and the GPS mapping application on his smart phone, and that would only work as long as the battery lasted, though he did have a back-up charger powered by photo-electric cells that he could use to charge the unit once daylight came.

Reilly had unlocked and pushed back the double hangar doors by the time Hunter emerged from the office. Together they manoeuvered the duster through the doors and out onto the grass strip. Then they re-entered the hangar, locked the double doors and emerged through the side door, which Reilly also locked. He retrieved his multimeter and pushed the wire back under its clips.

‘Today’s Friday mornin’, just,’ Reilly said, climbing down. ‘You gotta reckon your old pal Charles will be workin’ here later today. There’s a good chance he’ll blow the whistle on us within about eight hours.’

‘Maybe,’ Hunter said. ‘Whatever. But whether he notices or not, we’ll be long gone.’

Reilly climbed aboard and squeezed his not inconsiderable frame into the storage compartment. Hunter followed him and strapped himself into the pilot’s seat.

‘You OK back there?’ he called.

‘Nope, but there’s nothing you can do about it, so let’s get goin’.’

Hunter grinned and began the ignition sequence. When he pushed the starter, the big radial engine coughed once, then rumbled smoothly into life. Hunter didn’t know much about the duster, but he expected it to have a maximum speed of around a hundred and twenty miles an hour and a ceiling of about twenty thousand feet.

He taxied to the end of the grass strip, pushed hard on the left rudder pedal to swing the aircraft round, and prepared for take-off. Hunter hadn’t been able to find a check list, so he did what any experienced pilot would have done. He checked all the controls for full and free movement, tested the magneto drop, set the altimeter sub-scale so that it gave him a negative reading of two hundred feet, to provide a slim margin for error, and hoped for the best.

He selected maximum flap – he thought that gave him fifteen degrees, but the lettering was virtually illegible – applied the brakes and pushed the throttle smoothly forward. When the engine revolution counter was almost entering the red section, he released the brakes and the little duster surged forward.

The aircraft was heavily laden, but struggled into the air earlier than Hunter had expected. He climbed to an indicated fifty feet – really about two hundred and fifty – raised the flaps in stages, trimmed the duster for level flight and looked again at the first chart. It was still dark, but the landscape was faintly visible in the light of the moon, and he had no trouble making out the lights of vehicles on the Interstate off to his left, or the street lighting in Neelsville.

Hunter turned the duster to port and settled on a westerly heading that would take him across Interstate 70 between Neelsville and Clarksburg. He was flying higher than he wanted, but he was unfamiliar with both the area and the aircraft, and was prepared to risk fleeting civilian radar contact rather than the possibility of colliding with an electricity pylon or some other obstacle.

There was also another problem, which he hadn’t mentioned to Reilly, but the sheriff raised the question himself. Hunter felt a tap on his thigh and looked down to see Reilly peering around the back of his seat.

‘What is it?’ he shouted.

‘I just thought,’ Reilly yelled back. ‘Are you qualified to fly at night?’

‘I am,’ Hunter replied, ‘but the aircraft isn’t. Dusters don’t fly at night, so they haven’t got any IMC instrumentation.’

‘And what the hell does that mean?’

‘It means we’re chancing our arms up here. What I’m hoping is that we don’t need to land to refuel before dawn. And if we hit low cloud or fog, we’ve got real problems.’

‘Jesus H,’ Reilly muttered, and retreated into his storage compartment.

Hunter grinned and turned his attention back to the view out of the cockpit canopy.

Chapter Fifteen

Friday

Parkersburg, West Virginia

The duster touched down in a deserted field surrounded by trees around thirty miles southwest of Parkersburg a little after dawn. It was a bumpy landing, a fact explained partially by Hunter’s lack of experience with the aircraft, but mainly by the uneven and rutted grass-covered ground, which even the duster’s softly-sprung undercarriage could do little to absorb.

Hunter throttled back, then gently pulled on the brakes to slow down the little aircraft. Before it stopped, he swung it around through one hundred and eighty degrees. At a fast walking pace, he taxied the aircraft back up the field and turned it round again so that it was correctly positioned to start its take-off run. Only then did he lock the parking brakes and switch off the engine.

‘OK, Dick,’ he said, into the sudden and welcome silence. He removed his harness, opened the canopy and climbed out onto the wing. Reilly peered out and looked warily around.

‘You need to work on your landings, mister,’ he said. ‘Felt like a pebble in a tin can back there. And where in hell are we?’

‘Sorry,’ Hunter said, ‘It wasn’t one of my best. We’re in West Virginia, near Parkersburg.’

Reilly’s face showed no comprehension.

‘It’s nowhere, it’s just a point on the map,’ Hunter added. ‘The important thing is it’s about three hundred and fifty miles from Washington D.C. and we’re still alive.’

He reached into the storage compartment of the duster and pulled out the hand-pump. Then he and Reilly man-handled the first of the fuel cans out onto the ground. They took turns to work the pump, transferring the aviation spirit into the duster’s fuel tank. When the cans were empty, Hunter carried them over to the ditch that ran along one side of the field and tossed them in.

‘No point in leaving an obvious clue that we’ve been here,’ he said to Reilly, as he accepted a can of Coke. ‘The good news is you’ll have a bit more room for the next leg.’

‘Huh,’ Reilly grunted, taking a swig of beer. ‘And that takes us to where?’

Hunter spread a chart out on the wing, and pointed.

‘We’ll pass close to Dayton, Ohio, and I’m planning on our next refuelling stop somewhere beyond Indianapolis. So far, consumption’s been better than I expected, and it’ll improve more as we lighten the on-board load.’

‘Right,’ Reilly said. ‘Reckon I can help a little with that straight away,’ he added, unzipped his trousers and urinated copiously.

Hunter grinned, and did the same.

Idaho Falls, Idaho

At five past six local time, Christy-Lee Kaufmann stirred slightly on her gurney. Her respiration rate increased very slightly, her left leg twitched with a brief muscular spasm, and her eyelids flickered as her eyes moved rapidly behind them.

The monitoring system picked up the change in her level of consciousness immediately, and increased the level of nitrous oxide she was breathing by exactly one point five per cent. Two minutes later, the nitrous oxide level was increased by a further zero point five per cent, and a minute after that Christy-Lee Kaufmann’s body ceased all involuntary muscular activity. Her breathing returned to normal, and her body relaxed.

The monitoring system analyzed the data it had collected about her over the last twelve hours, and adjusted the nitrous oxide feed to deliver a slightly higher percentage of the gas continuously.

At nine ten local time, Douglas and Robbins checked out of the motel, climbed into the ambulance after inspecting their two unconscious patients, started up and pulled out of the parking lot.

They had a long drive ahead of them – about two hundred and fifty miles south-west across Idaho, maybe just clipping the north-western corner of Utah, and then a further five hundred miles down through Nevada to Las Vegas. Even as Douglas steered the ambulance south out of Idaho Falls, Robbins was already looking at the road map and planning a second overnight stop somewhere near McGill or Ruth, in the vicinity of the Great Basin National Park, Nevada.

FBI Headquarters, J. Edgar Hoover Building, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

William McGrath sat at his desk and turned over the reports one at a time, as he had done three times before, looking for something – anything – he might have missed. But all were depressingly negative – airports, harbours, railroad stations and roadblocks – all of which could mean only one of two things. Either the fugitives were still in the D.C. area, lying low somewhere and just waiting for a chance to slip away, or they’d already made it out of Washington.

Despite his earlier confidence when briefing the President, McGrath was slowly coming to the conclusion that the continuing efforts of the law enforcement agencies were a complete waste of time, because Reilly and Hunter were already long gone.

What he didn’t see was how they’d done it. Even without the instructions from Nevada, he would have swamped Washington with law enforcement officers in his search for the two men, and that should have been enough to flush out the fugitives. The fact that it hadn’t meant that he was missing something.

He tossed the reports to one side and picked up the abstract of Hunter’s personal file which had been faxed to the Federal Bureau of Investigation from London. He’d already read through it twice, and nothing in it seemed much help, except that he was increasingly certain that Hunter wasn’t just a British policeman.

The one piece of hard information he had acted upon was that Hunter had spent sixteen years as an officer in the British Royal Navy, leaving with the rank of Lieutenant Commander. This fact had reinforced McGrath’s decision to increase the teams of watchers covering the water frontages, as Hunter’s obvious familiarity with ships and boats strongly suggested that the two fugitives might chose that route out of Washington.

He was looking again through the fax when a sudden thought struck him. He’d made the assumption – perfectly understandable, but an assumption nevertheless – that Steven Hunter had been a regular Naval officer, a seaman, but he suddenly realized there were other possible specializations in the Royal Navy. He checked the details listed at the top of the fax page, then reached for the phone and dialled a London number.

Eight minutes later he leaned back in his chair. ‘Oh, shit,’ he muttered to himself. ‘He’s a fucking pilot.’

He depressed a key on the intercom unit. ‘Myers, get in here – right now.’

McCarran Air Force Base, Las Vegas, Nevada

Morgan and Harris walked out of the terminal building carrying overnight bags and nothing else. Harris hadn’t been happy about being pulled out of D.C., just hours after arriving there, but Roland Oliver was calling the shots, and he had to admit there was some sense in what Ketch had said. If, somehow, Reilly and Hunter did manage to make it out of Washington, Nevada is where he’d expect them to appear.

He also wasn’t particularly happy about having two additional men from another Roland Oliver team seconded to him. He’d protested to Ketch, but without success.

‘We can handle these two comedians,’ he’d said.

‘Like the way your men handled Sheriff Reilly?’ Ketch had responded. ‘This is too important to fuck up, Harris, so put your ego to bed and just get the job finished.’

Outside the building a bulky figure in a dark suit was waiting. Harris recognized him immediately – Joe Kline had been with him in the SEALs eight or nine years earlier, but he hadn’t known he’d since become involved with Roland Oliver. Another new name to remember, Harris thought. He made eye contact, and Kline walked over to him.

‘Work-name’s Templeton,’ Kline said, without elaboration. ‘The car’s over there.’

As the three men walked to the parking lot, Harris introduced Morgan. The car was a dark grey Lincoln with Nevada plates, another man sitting behind the wheel. Harris and Morgan tossed their cases into the trunk and climbed into the back seat.

‘Grant,’ the driver said, turning round to look at them. Then he turned back, started the engine and drove away towards the main gates of the Air Base.

‘It’s a mess,’ Templeton said flatly. ‘How come this hick sheriff managed to take out two of your team?’

‘I don’t know,’ Harris snapped. He was getting a little tired of people blaming him for the deaths of Wilson and Rogers. Ketch had spent the better part of ten minutes draining all over him about it the previous evening. ‘I wasn’t there, so how the fuck do I know? Sometimes the mark gets lucky, that’s all.’

Templeton grinned mirthlessly. ‘Actually, it wasn’t just luck,’ he said. ‘We got a faxed copy of Reilly’s service record this morning. He was in Special Forces over in Vietnam, and he’s quite a tough cookie. If he got the jump on your guys, they wouldn’t have stood a chance.’

Harris shook his head. ‘It would have helped if we’d known that ahead of time,’ he said, exasperation evident in his voice. ‘The guy just looked like a typical small-town sheriff – beer belly and all. If I’d known his background we’d have handled him way differently.’

‘Right,’ Templeton said. ‘Water under the bridge. The point is, we know now, so we’ll know how to handle him when we do find him.’

‘Any news on that?’ Morgan asked.

‘Nope,’ Templeton said. ‘The last update we had from the Bureau placed the perps still in Washington D.C., but nobody really believes that any more. They slipped out somehow, and it’s my guess they’re heading our way. Roland Oliver concurs.’

‘Agreed,’ Harris said. ‘We don’t know how they’re travelling, but that really doesn’t matter. All we have to do is sit here, wait for them to show up, and then take them down.’

Templeton grunted. ‘Sounds real easy if you say it quickly, but the one thing it isn’t going to be is easy. Reilly’s background was news to us, but Hunter’s going to be a handful as well. He’s supposed to be a British cop, but according to Roland Oliver he’s a bit more than that.’

‘What the hell does that mean?’

‘He’s working as a police officer now, but he spent most of his career in the Royal Navy. It took the Bureau until this morning to find out that he trained in the military as a pilot, and reading between the lines of his service record it looks like he had two stints with the British Special Air Service as well. The Bureau’s estimation, based on data received from London, is that he’s possibly now working for British Intelligence, but they don’t know any more than that. If the details of his record are anything like accurate, we’re going to have to assume he’s just as competent as Reilly, maybe more so.’

‘Shit,’ Harris said. ‘That’s all we need.’

FBI Headquarters, J. Edgar Hoover Building, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

‘You got that?’ William McGrath asked.

‘Yes, sir,’ Myers replied. ‘Every flying club, flying school and aircraft owner within fifty miles radius of D.C., plus all companies in the area which own, operate, maintain or repair aircraft. It’ll take a while,’ he added.

‘I know. So get started now.’

As soon as Myers left the office, McGrath reached for the telephone. He wasn’t quite sure who was going to be more irritated by what he was about to tell them – the President of the United States of America or the anonymous man in Nevada.

Oval Office, White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

‘So what you’re telling us, Mr. McGrath,’ Charles Gainey said, ‘is that these two men could be anywhere by now?’

McGrath nodded. ‘Yes, Mr. President. We’ve yet to confirm that an aircraft is actually missing, but the lack of any sightings of the fugitives and the fact that this man Hunter is a qualified pilot suggest that they could have escaped by air. I believe that the police and FBI presence in this area would have located them by now if they were still here.’

‘You believe,’ Gainey said, emphasizing the word, ‘but you don’t know?’

‘No, we don’t know, but we have to work on the basis of probabilities. I’ve instructed a blanket check to be made of all flying clubs and flying schools within fifty miles of the District Capital, plus checks run on all companies which own, operate or maintain aircraft. I’m assuming that Hunter stole an aircraft, but it’s also possible that he even hired one. I mean, Reilly went to Avis for the car they used to snatch the Director, so I wouldn’t put anything past them.’

‘I’m not sure I’m hearing this right,’ James Dickson growled, ‘so let me just recap. These two guys – one of whom had an APB and shoot-to-kill order out on him – just flew commercial into Washington, casually wandered into FBI Headquarters and walked out with the Director. They then rigged a bomb in the car they’d goddamn well hired from Avis and made the Director drive it back to Pennsylvania Avenue, where some no-brain FBI officer obligingly instructed a sniper to fire at the car and detonate the bomb. Is that right so far?’ He glared at McGrath.

‘We don’t know they flew here commercial,’ McGrath said, ‘but that’s what we believe, given the timings involved.’

‘Whatever,’ Dickson said angrily. ‘Then, with every cop, FBI, CIA and Secret Service agent in Washington out on the streets and looking for them, with every road blocked and every other means of exit covered, they calmly climbed into an aircraft and flew off into the wide blue yonder? Is that what you’re saying?’

McGrath nodded. ‘That, Mr. Secretary, is our best estimation.’

‘Jesus wept,’ Dickson muttered. ‘When this situation’s been resolved there’ll be some heads rolling in the gutters, I can tell you.’

‘That’s enough, James,’ Charles Gainey said. ‘Assuming you’re correct, Mr. McGrath, where do you think Reilly and Hunter will be heading?’

McGrath spread his hands wide. ‘As I said at our last meeting, Mr. President, our best guess is that they’ll try to get to Roland Oliver. They’ll be heading for Nevada.’

‘And what can they do when they get there?’ Gainey mused.

‘I don’t know,’ McGrath said. ‘Security at the base is tight enough to ensure that they can’t get inside, not even by air, so I don’t think there’s much they can do.’

‘Suppose they find out – never mind how – what Roland Oliver actually does? Suppose they go public and release it to the press?’ James Dickson said. ‘What then?’

‘We’d deny it, of course,’ the President said. ‘And anyway, knowing what Roland Oliver actually does, who’d believe them?’

Cassia County, Idaho

Douglas and Robbins hadn’t made the kind of progress they had thought they would, and took their second compulsory stop at just before one o’clock local time at a small roadhouse a few miles south of Burley, still inside Idaho.

They had decided not to route south through Utah, because that would have taken them to the east of the Great Salt Lake. Instead, they were avoiding the more populated areas and were going to travel more or less straight to Montello in Nevada, then down through McGill and direct to Las Vegas.

They weren’t bothered by their comparatively slow progress. Roland Oliver never objected to lengthy deliveries, and they were paid by the hour, plus expenses, so the longer the journey took, the more money they made.

Even with the delays they’d encountered, they should still make Vegas no later than about midday Saturday.

Montgomery County, Virginia

Dave Charles wasn’t pleased at being dragged away from his TV set. He’d been looking forward all week to the Friday afternoon game, and had given himself and his mechanic the day off the better to enjoy it, but the cops who knocked on his door at the end of the first quarter made it clear that he had absolutely no option.

He stuck a video tape into his VCR, pressed ‘Record,’ and hoped Lucy and the kids didn’t start pressing any buttons they shouldn’t. He pulled on boots and a plaid jacket, and walked out to the cruiser.

‘So what’s the big rush?’ he asked the patrolman in the front passenger seat as the cruiser pulled away from the curb.

‘Just a routine check, sir,’ he said. ‘We’ve received information to suggest that somebody’s stolen an aircraft from this area, and we just need you to inspect all the aircraft at your field. You’re the eighth person we’ve checked this afternoon,’ he added.

Dave Charles started to laugh, then stopped. ‘And I guess all those other people found all their aircraft present?’

The police officer nodded.

‘I’m not surprised,’ Charles said. ‘Look, stealing an aircraft’s not like heisting some Ford off a street corner. You don’t just hot-wire it and drive it away. You need flying skills – expensive flying skills – plus there are always security systems to get around.’

‘Even at a small operation like you run?’

‘Absolutely,’ Dave Charles said. ‘Especially at a small operation like mine. I don’t own the aircraft, so I take even more care of them than most people would. The hangar only holds six aircraft maximum, and I never accept more than that number at any one time. I never leave aircraft out on the field, and the hangar’s got its own security system.’

‘How many aircraft have you got at present, Mr. Charles?’

‘Three. A Cherokee and an Aztec, plus a crop-duster that’s being collected next week.’

‘Are they all flyable?’

‘Yes,’ Charles said. ‘We haven’t started work on the two Pipers yet, and the duster’s only just been finished.’

Eighteen minutes later the cruiser bounced into Dave Charles’s field and stopped in front of the closed doors of the hangar.

‘Looks OK to me,’ one patrolman said, glancing round.

‘The main doors can only be opened from the inside,’ Dave Charles said, and led the way round to the side door. He tried the handle, and confirmed that the door was still locked. Charles pointed out the grey wire leading to the key box, inserted his security key in the box and disabled the alarm system. Then he unlocked the side door, hit the light switch and led the patrolman inside.

‘There you are,’ he said, but his voice trailed away as he looked towards the back of the hangar.

Three minutes later one of the patrolmen emerged from the side door and began speaking rapidly into his personal radio.

Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

Roger Ketch put down the telephone handset, got up and walked across to the corner of his office. He’d had a temporary bed installed there as soon as he’d received the first call from Director Donahue about the Beaver Creek incident, and he hadn’t left the building since.

He stretched out on the bed and closed his eyes. He’d expected the call from McGrath, and he’d also anticipated the result of the manhunt in Washington, but that hadn’t done anything to lessen his irritation with what McGrath had said.

The fact that Hunter was a pilot was unwelcome news, but as far as Ketch could tell, the situation was more or less unchanged. There was no way that Hunter or Reilly could get into Nellis, and there was a real limit to what they could do outside. Quite apart from anything else, if they did something stupid, like trying to tell their story to the press, they’d have to expose themselves and that would be enough to let the clean-up team locate them and take them out.

He called Harris’s mobile phone and advised him about the missing crop-duster. Not that there was anything they could do about it until Reilly and Hunter showed themselves – trying to locate a crop-duster in a country filled with them was pointless. Better by far to wait. Sooner or later the two fugitives would have to try to get into McCarran Air Base or Nellis, and once they did, they could be dealt with.

Ketch had already ordered heightened security at McCarran through his contacts in the US Air Force, and issued detailed descriptions of Reilly and Hunter. Area 51 security wasn’t directly his problem, but he was happy with the standard measures.

Area 51 occupies an area of the Nevada desert about the same size as Switzerland. Fencing it would have clearly been impossible, or at least prohibitively expensive, so the Air Force has taken a different approach. The boundary is marked in all accessible areas by notices – which included a warning that the use of deadly force is authorized – and the entire perimeter is ringed by masts which carry infra-red and conventional cameras and motion sensors.

This passive security system provides the Area 51 guards with total surveillance of the boundary by day and night and in all weather conditions. Anything bigger than a rabbit is detected by the motion sensors, and the cameras can then identify exactly what has triggered the system. There are no breaks in the boundary, and no way around the sensors.

Active security is in the hands of a large team of guards who are linked by radio to the main security complex. These guards wear camouflage uniforms without insignia and are heavily armed: they patrol randomly around the perimeter in white, unmarked four-wheel drive Cherokee Jeeps with roof-mounted light bars.

If anyone does wander inside the perimeter, the guards react immediately. If the intruder is genuinely lost or just curious, he or she will be picked up by the guards, taken to a security building located well away from any sensitive parts of the Groom Lake complex, roughed up, and then escorted out of the area. A prosecution for trespass may or may not follow.

Serious attempts to gain access to Area 51 have been few, but in at least one case a small group did penetrate over five miles inside the perimeter. Their bones are still whitening in the Nevada sun where they were shot.

The only ground approach to Area 51 is along Groom Lake Road, a ten-mile long unmade track accessed from Highway 375 – the recently-renamed ‘Extraterrestrial Highway’ – and buses carrying workers to and from Groom Lake regularly travel at speed along it. No other road traffic is permitted without pre-notification and armed escorts.

Ketch wondered for a few moments if he ought to advise his counterparts in Roland Oliver about what was going on, but decided not to. He rationalized his decision by reference to the low risk of anything actually impeding the ongoing operations, no matter what Reilly and Hunter did, and by the impossibility of the two fugitives getting close enough to Groom Lake to find out anything concrete about the project.

Those were good enough reasons, he decided. But unspoken at the back of his mind was the real reason – that any close or face-to-face contact with his counterparts was still, despite the length of time he’d been involved with Roland Oliver, totally repugnant to him.

Four Corners (intersection of Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico)

Hunter’s original calculations of the duster’s speed and endurance, and the distance they were having to travel, had necessarily been based on estimates and approximations. Because he had flown long enough to subscribe to the adage that there were old pilots and there were bold pilots, but there were no old bold pilots, he’d erred on the side of caution, under-estimating the duster’s speed and over-estimating its fuel consumption and the distance to be covered.

With the duster parked neatly behind a tangle of scrubby trees some fifty miles to the southwest of Four Corners, Hunter and Reilly sat on the ground, leaning against their bags, Hunter drinking a Coke while Reilly sank the last but one of the cans of beer, and eating chocolate. Around them, the light was fading and Hunter could see the first stars beginning to appear against the darkening sky.

‘Hate to think what this diet’s doin’ to my complexion,’ Reilly said, wadding a chocolate bar wrapper into a ball and tossing it to the ground.

‘You’ll survive,’ Hunter said.

‘How’re we doin’?’ Reilly asked, as Hunter studied a chart.

‘Pretty good, all things considered. After Parkersburg and Indianapolis, I’d planned to refuel near St Louis, Kansas City, Wichita and Trinidad, Colorado – that’s a total of six stops today – but the duster’s been a lot more economical than I’d expected. We stretched each leg to better than four hundred and fifty miles, which meant only four refuelling stops and saved us time. It also reduced the risk of some farmer seeing us parked on his land and asking a lot of awkward questions.’

Hunter stretched his arms and yawned. ‘I’m not sorry to have stopped, though,’ he added.

‘You and me both,’ Reilly said. ‘If I never see another crop duster again, that’ll be just fine with me. And tomorrow?’

‘We’ve still got the fuel in the chemical tanks,’ Hunter said, ‘but it doesn’t look like we’re going to have to use it. The main tank is about three quarters full, so that gives us a range of around three hundred miles. From here, we’ll follow the state boundary to the north of the Grand Canyon, then head down towards Las Vegas. We’ll need to park the duster somewhere where it won’t be noticed too quickly, then borrow a car – that’s your department – and get ourselves into Vegas.’

‘And then?’ Reilly asked.

‘And then we start asking questions,’ Hunter said. ‘The only lead we’ve got is that the Roland Oliver subjects get shipped out from McCarran Air Force Base, so that’s where we’ll start.’

‘Yeah,’ Reilly said, doubtfully.

‘Have you got a better idea?’ Hunter asked.

‘Dunno,’ Reilly said, ‘but getting into McCarran could be a bitch. The Air Force’s security’s gonna be real tight, especially where these Roland Oliver people are concerned. And don’t forget that if the guys running these clean-up squads have got an ounce of brain between ’em, they’re gonna expect us to pitch up at McCarran.’

‘Agreed,’ Hunter said. ‘So?’

‘Well, I’m just wonderin’ if maybe we can kinda sneak up on the problem from a different angle. Make Roland Oliver come to us, rather than us trying to find them.’

‘Oh, yes? And how?’

Reilly drained the last of his beer and dropped the can on the ground.

‘I’m gettin’ fed up with this stuff, too,’ he said, inconsequentially. ‘Not sure, yet. I got a glimmer of an idea, but I’m gonna sleep on it. What time’s breakfast?’

‘First light,’ Hunter said. ‘Beer and chocolate do for you?’

‘Guess it’ll have to,’ Reilly said, lay down and closed his eyes.

Chapter Sixteen

Saturday

McCarran Air Force Base, Las Vegas, Nevada

Roger Ketch had also initiated a dedicated radar watch at McCarran AFB to try to detect the duster as it approached Las Vegas, as he was sure it was going to. It was a monumentally boring and probably fundamentally pointless task, which was one reason why the most junior air traffic controller on watch was given the job. The Chief Controller had attempted to explain to Ketch exactly why it was going to be a complete waste of time.

‘Unless these two guys fly at above three thousand feet within thirty miles of our radar head here at McCarran,’ he’d said, ‘we’re not going to see them. And from what you’ve told me, they’re definitely not going to be that stupid. If this guy’s an ex-military aviator, he’ll be real used to flying at low level – that’s not going to faze him at all – and anyway he won’t bring the duster anywhere near Vegas. He’ll put it down somewhere out in the sticks, steal a car and drive in. You know it, I know it, and he knows it, so why are you wasting my time?’

The lack of sleep was beginning to tell on Ketch, and his notorious short temper was even less controlled than usual.

‘I don’t give a flying fuck about your time, or your opinions. You’ll do what I say, or I’ll have you out of McCarran and permanently out of work in twelve hours, and that’s not a threat – that’s a promise.’

‘OK, OK, I’ll set up a watch. Just don’t hold your breath waiting for a call from us.’

Northwest Colorado/Southern Nevada

In fact, they were both right. Hunter was flying the duster the way anybody who saw it would expect a duster to be flown – low. But Las Vegas lies more or less in the centre of a valley virtually surrounded by high ground, so ‘low’ was actually nothing like as low as Hunter would have liked.

The map he was using for this last leg of the flight wasn’t the best, by a long way. In fact, it was an A3 format road map of the United States that Reilly had produced from his voluminous bag – fine for a motoring tour, a lot less helpful in the cramped cockpit of a crop-duster. Before take-off that morning Hunter had spent some minutes studying the depiction of the Las Vegas area on the map and the mapping app on his phone, and hadn’t much liked what he’d seen.

He’d realized immediately that his landing options were fairly limited. He didn’t want to get closer than thirty miles to Las Vegas, precisely because he was worried about the duster being detected on McCarran’s radar. Landing points north and west of Vegas were few because of, respectively, the Sheep Range and Spring Mountains, and to the south lay the McCullough Ridge, which only left an approach from the east, over the fairly well-populated area around Lake Mead.

Finally, Hunter had decided to dog-leg south of the Virgin Mountains, then turn west, crossing the northern arm of Lake Mead to pass between Muddy Peak and Overton, and look for a landing site somewhere between Crystal and Moapa. That would avoid the duster flying over or close to most of the populated areas, and still get them to within thirty or forty miles of Las Vegas.

It would also keep them at least thirty miles clear of the McCarran radar head, and hopefully below radar cover.

McCarran Air Force Base, Las Vegas, Nevada

The height/range equation for most radar equipment is simple enough: it’s roughly ten miles per thousand feet, a ratio which is a function, primarily, of geography, of the curve of the Earth’s surface. This means that an aircraft will have to be at two thousand feet above ground level to paint on a radar set twenty miles away; four thousand feet to be detected at forty miles, and so on.

The radar equipment at McCarran is typical of most airfield radars, except that it has one or two more suppression circuits than normal to eliminate the returns from the high ground surrounding Las Vegas. The principal suppression tool is MTI – Moving Target Indicator – which is both simple and effective. It electronically compares each radar return from a target with the subsequent return from that target, and if there is no detectable movement either towards or away from the radar head, the return is deemed to be stationary, and so is not displayed. That very effectively eliminates all ground returns.

Unfortunately, MTI suffers from a problem well-known to air traffic controllers – tangential fade. If an aircraft’s track is at a precise tangent to the radar head, there is no relative motion for the MTI circuitry to detect. The return is moving, but neither towards nor away from the head, and so will be eliminated. This is only a minor problem, because most aircraft radiate secondary surveillance radar, or SSR, which constantly displays the aircraft’s position.

Crop-dusters don’t carry SSR, and the McCarran Chief Controller knew that the aircraft would be actively trying to avoid detection, so he’d instructed his junior controller to deselect the normal processed radar display and revert to a raw picture. Of course, MTI had to be selected, otherwise the picture would have been completely swamped by ground returns.

As the duster emerged from behind Muddy Peak, thirty-seven miles northeast of Las Vegas, and began tracking northwest at a little over three hundred feet above ground level – but at nearly four thousand feet above the radar head at Las Vegas – the McCarran radar detected it. The return painted twice, then vanished, but the junior controller was keen and enthusiastic – both traits that would vanish with experience – and noticed it. He immediately marked the position and exact time of each paint on the radar screen with a chinagraph wax pencil. He’d done exactly the same thing thirteen times previously that morning, and in each case nothing further had appeared.

He took a plastic ruler, aligned it as accurately as he could with the two marks, and drew a faint dotted line across the screen in the direction the return had been traveling. Then he watched the screen intently, his eyes roaming along the faint line, looking for any indication of another radar return. He noted that the short track was almost exactly at right angles to the rotating time-base, so tangential fade was to be expected.

Twenty-three seconds later the return reappeared, slightly to the left of the line he’d drawn, and about three miles southwest of Moapa. It painted three times, then vanished completely. As before, the controller marked the location of each return, and watched the radar tube intently for a further two minutes, in case it reappeared. When it didn’t, he pressed one of the buttons on the telephone panel to his right.

Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

‘Give me the grid references,’ Roger Ketch snapped. ‘First contact and last contact, the times of both and the direction of travel. Right. Thanks,’ he added, somewhat grudgingly.

Roger Ketch replaced the telephone handset. He hadn’t seriously expected that the radar watch at McCarran would yield any positive results: putting it in place had just been prudent, another base which he’d covered. And, of course, there was no proof that the contact the controller had so fleetingly detected was the crop duster, but Ketch had a gut feeling that it was.

And, right or wrong, he was going to act on the assumption that it was Hunter and Reilly. If nothing else, the contact was in pretty much the right place, and at pretty much the right time. Ketch had earlier spent some fifteen minutes with a piece of paper, a map of the United States and the calculator on his desktop computer, working out the time envelope within which they could reasonably expect the duster to reach Nevada. It looked as if Hunter had made slightly better time than he had expected.

The pigeons, as it were, were coming home to roost. All Ketch had to do was to make sure that the two men never left Nevada, and that, on his home turf, shouldn’t be difficult.

Ketch smiled briefly, reached for the desk telephone and punched in a speed-dial code that he’d got written on a slip of paper in front of him. His call was answered in less than ten seconds.

‘Briefing room.’

‘Scramble,’ Ketch snapped, and immediately depressed the button to end the call. He glanced down again at the piece of paper and dialled a second number. When the call was answered Ketch dictated the information he’d been given by the McCarran controller and then put the phone down.

He smiled again, looked up a mobile phone number in his desk diary, and reached out once more for the telephone.

McCarran Air Force Base, Las Vegas, Nevada

The sudden high-pitched whine of a jet engine spooling up cut across the silence of the hardstanding, and a few people walking along one of the nearby paths stopped to look at the unfamiliar sight. The US Marine Corps AH-1W Super Cobra looked ugly, dark, mean and threatening, and that was before it was even airborne.

Ketch had requisitioned the tank-busting helicopter the previous evening, and it had flown over, together with a chase C-130 Hercules carrying spares and ammunition, as well as a second flight crew, from the New River Marine Corps base at Jacksonville in North Carolina late the previous night.

He’d thought about using one of the F-15 or F-16 fighters based at Groom Lake, but he’d rejected them, because the duster flew too slowly. The Cobra carried pretty much the same armament as the fighters but, more importantly, it could match speed with anything below a hundred and forty knots, which meant it was the ideal weapon to take out the duster.

The rotors began to turn, slowly at first, then swiftly picking up speed until the disk became just a blur. In the tandem cockpit, the pilot obeyed the ground marshaller’s waved batons, lifted off and turned northeast, towards the active runway.

‘McCarran Tower, Cobra Three is airborne.’

‘Cobra Three, roger. Break, break. Janet Two Six Two, line up and hold. Helicopter traffic crossing the active runway. Acknowledge.’

‘Two Six Two, roger.’

The white-painted Boeing 737 with a red horizontal stripe along the fuselage turned slowly off the taxiway and onto the end of the active runway, and then braked to a halt.

‘Cobra Three is clear to cross the active. Your initial vector is zero four zero. Climb to two thousand feet and call your discrete frequency when clear of the airfield boundary.’

‘All copied, Cobra Three,’ the gunship pilot responded, then pulled up on the collective and accelerated the helicopter across the airfield towards the northeast.

Crystal, Nevada

When Hunter switched off the duster’s engine for the last time, he heaved a long sigh of relief. It had been, by any standards, a tremendously tedious and nerve-wracking journey. The better part of three thousand miles in an entirely unsuitable aircraft, numerous refuelling stops, each fraught with the possibility of detection: it was an experience he had no wish to repeat – ever.

Behind and below him, Reilly emitted a long low groan. ‘Is that it?’ he muttered.

‘Yes,’ Hunter replied. ‘That’s it. We’re a mile or so outside Crystal, if your road map’s accurate. You’ll appreciate that I didn’t actually stop and read the road signs on the way over the highway.’

‘I dunno why the hell not,’ Reilly countered. ‘You was certainly low enough.’

The two men clambered stiffly out of the tiny aircraft and looked around cautiously. Hunter had circled the area twice before picking his landing spot, and he was satisfied that the aircraft was invisible both from the road and from any sign of habitation. Of course, somebody could have seen the duster descending, but that was always going to be a risk. And, even if somebody had seen it land, that’s what dusters did. Hunter just hoped that country people were sufficiently familiar with the aircraft to effectively ignore it. That, after all, had been the main reason for choosing the duster in the first place.

‘So now what?’ Reilly demanded.

Hunter didn’t reply immediately, but looked carefully at a group of scrubby trees about fifty yards from where they were standing.

‘I think,’ he said, ‘I’ll just tuck this baby into those trees over there. Just in case anybody’s had the bright idea of sending up a reconnaissance aircraft to look for us.’

Hunter climbed back into the duster’s cockpit for what he fervently hoped would be the last time, started the engine and taxied the aircraft across the rutted ground. Ten feet short of the clump of trees he stopped, turned off the engine but didn’t apply the brakes. With Reilly shoving on the starboard wing, the two men eased the duster close in amongst the trees.

‘That should do it,’ Hunter said. ‘Now a short walk to loosen you up a bit, then we find a car or truck and borrow it for the ride into Las Vegas.’

They pulled their bags out of the duster, checked that their pistols were loaded, holstered them, picked up their bags and set off in the general direction of Crystal. As they walked, they munched on the last of the chocolate bars.

‘Easier to eat ’em than carry ’em,’ Reilly said.

They were less than a quarter of a mile from the duster when Reilly suddenly stopped.

‘What is it?’ Hunter demanded.

‘Chopper,’ Reilly said. ‘Heading this way. Best we get out of sight.’

There were no trees anywhere near them, but plenty of low bushes, and the two men ran swiftly across to a group lying off to their left. In less than a minute, both had burrowed under the branches and were invisible from above.

The distinctive sound of the helicopter’s rotor blades slicing the air was louder, and within seconds both men could see the aircraft.

‘Cobra,’ Reilly called out. ‘That’s one serious mother of a chopper. If they spot us we’re coyote meat.’

The Cobra was flying at about two hundred feet, moving slowly, the crew obviously searching the ground below. As Hunter peered at it through the covering of branches above him, the helicopter suddenly accelerated.

‘They must have seen the duster,’ Hunter said.

‘Yup,’ Reilly replied, squinting after the retreating aircraft. ‘Guess they’ll –’

His words were drowned by a sudden roar, followed by an explosion that both men felt through the ground as well as heard.

‘They’ve used a missile,’ Hunter shouted. ‘Probably a Hellfire, in which case the duster’s going to be nothing more than a pile of scrap metal.’

‘Jesus! Are these guys playin’ for keeps or what?’ Reilly demanded, looking at a plume of black smoke ascending vertically upwards from the clump of trees where the duster had been parked. Squinting into the glare, Hunter could clearly see a section of one wing lying on the ground.

‘Yup,’ Hunter replied, nodding. ‘I guess Dave Charles is going to be really pissed about this.’

They watched the Cobra circle the clump of trees twice, then land about fifty yards away from the remains of the duster. One of the crew got out and walked cautiously, a pistol held in his right hand, towards the wreckage. Thirty seconds later he ran back to the helicopter and climbed into his seat. The Cobra lifted off almost immediately, and began flying slowly around the area at low level, searching.

‘Guess they know we weren’t still sitting in it,’ Reilly said.

‘Right. Let’s hope they don’t spot our footprints heading this way.’

‘Not on this soil they won’t,’ Reilly said.

Eight minutes later the Cobra flew directly over them. Reilly and Hunter stayed absolutely still, their faces turned towards the ground, until the rotor blade downwash had passed, then cautiously looked up. The helicopter was receding, heading towards Crystal. As they watched, it suddenly began to accelerate and climb away from the area.

Reilly peered around until he saw the reason. ‘Cops,’ he said, ‘and a fire truck.’

Hunter raised himself on his elbows and looked towards Crystal. A black-and white, roof lights flashing, was heading towards the plume of smoke, followed by a fire truck. Behind them, a handful of cars and utility vehicles were also making the trip. Obviously somebody had seen the fireball and had raised the alarm, and a section of the population of Crystal obviously had nothing better to do than drive out into the desert to see what it was all about.

‘OK,’ Hunter said. ‘We’ll just stay here nice and quiet until they’re behind us, then we’ll move.’

Five minutes later they were on their feet and walking as quickly as the rough and hard-baked ground would allow. It took them almost twenty minutes to reach the outskirts of Crystal, and another fifteen to find a suitable vehicle. Most cars were parked directly in front of the shops, bars and diners, and they couldn’t take the risk that they would be seen taking one.

They found the Ford pickup parked down a side street. It was old, but looked in good repair, and it had obviously been standing in the same spot for a while, judging by the layer of fine dust covering the windshield. Better still, the driver’s door wasn’t locked, and Reilly found the ignition key in the glove compartment.

‘Just too easy,’ he muttered. ‘Takes all the fun out of it.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Hunter said, as Reilly started the engine and pulled the Ford away from the curb. ‘You’ll have plenty of chances to demonstrate your talents before we’re done with this.’

Reilly drove slowly through Crystal, following the signs for Interstate 15 and Las Vegas. At the outskirts of the township, and well before the I-15 interchange, he pulled over to the side of the road and stopped.

‘What is it?’ Hunter asked.

‘Just had a thought,’ Reilly said.

Hunter nodded encouragement.

‘We’re about thirty miles outside Vegas, right, and I guess that Roland Oliver or whatever the hell the outfit’s called will be expecting us to pitch up there real soon?’

Hunter nodded again.

‘Well, maybe just tooling on down the Interstate, getting to Vegas and asking for directions to McCarran might not be such a bright idea.’

‘I hadn’t planned to do exactly that,’ Hunter said, ‘but what do you suggest?’

‘If I was runnin’ this outfit, and I reckoned two dangerous dudes – that’s us, by the way – was comin’ into Vegas, at the very least I’d put a coupla watch teams on the Interstate. That way, I could maybe take ’em out before they got anywhere near the place.’

‘OK,’ Hunter said. ‘I think they’d have a job spotting us in this old heap, but it’s a good point.’

‘So,’ Reilly went on, jabbing a grubby finger at the road atlas open on Hunter’s lap, ‘why don’t you just take us on a little country drive, so we hit Vegas from the south or north or somewhere?’

‘Right,’ Hunter said, and looked down at the map. ‘OK, I don’t want to take too long getting to McCarran, but there is a detour we can take. Head for the I-15 Interchange, but go straight over it and head for Echo Bay and Lost City. When you get to the T-junction, take a right for Echo Bay. We’ll follow the west shore of Lake Mead and then come into Vegas through Henderson or Paradise.’

‘Oke,’ Reilly muttered, put the Ford into gear and moved off.

Las Vegas, Nevada

In fact, there wasn’t a watch on the Interstate, simply because Harris had realized the complete futility of it, and managed to persuade Roger Ketch of the same thing. It didn’t take a genius to realize that Reilly and Hunter could be travelling on or in anything from a motorcycle to a bus, singly or together. They could also be arriving in Vegas from a different direction, on a different road.

What both Harris and Ketch were sure of was that the two men would have to end up at McCarran, because that was the only lead to Roland Oliver they were likely to have. So that was where Harris and the other three members of his group had positioned themselves.

Harris was unhappy. He spent quite a lot of his time being unhappy, but he was especially unhappy with what Reilly had done to Rogers and Wilson, and Reilly, in particular, he wanted to see lying dead in a gutter somewhere. After he’d reconnoitred the area around the McCarran Air Base main gate, he called Ketch.

‘We can take them out right here,’ he said. ‘As soon as we get a recognition signal from the guards, we can hit them right at the gate using a sniper rifle. They’ll be stationary targets sitting in a parked car in a brightly-lit area. Two shots, that’s the end of the problem and we all get to go home.’

Ketch didn’t reply for maybe thirty seconds.

‘No,’ he said finally. ‘Something could go wrong – one of the guards could get in the way, or some other person arriving or leaving the base. It’s too risky. And even if everything went as planned, there’d be too much blood, and too many awkward questions.’

‘OK,’ Harris said. ‘What about using the guards? They’re armed. They could take out Hunter and Reilly as soon as they stopped their car.’

‘Forget it,’ Ketch snapped. ‘The guards are just a bunch of civilians who happen to carry weapons and sit in a booth looking at names on clipboards. From what we know of Reilly and Hunter, the first guard who grabbed at his pistol would find himself dead long before his fingers touched it. And then the two perps would know we’re right behind them and get the hell away from McCarran real quick. And that would put us right back to square one.’

‘Suppose we substituted a couple of our guys for the guards?’

‘That’s better,’ Ketch said, after a few moments, ‘but I still don’t think it would work, just from the logistics point of view.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Simple. If we knew exactly when the two of them were going to pitch up at the gate it wouldn’t be a problem, but we don’t. Suppose they arrive there in five minutes, or decide to lie low in Vegas for a couple of days before they make an approach? Or just bypass the main gate altogether and come over the wire?’

‘Yeah,’ Harris said, slowly. ‘I guess that makes sense.’

‘Just do what we agreed before,’ Ketch said. ‘Use your FBI identification and issue copies of their pictures to the gate guards. Supply the guards with two-way radios locked on a secure frequency, tell them to call you as soon as the perps are recognized, and to refuse them entry but delay them at the gate as long as possible. That way, you should be able to follow them when they leave and take them out somewhere nice and quiet.’

‘OK.’

‘One last thing,’ Ketch added. ‘I don’t think it’ll be a problem, but it’s just possible that Hunter or Reilly have written down what they know somewhere with the usual instructions about what to do if they die suddenly. Before you finish them, make one of them talk and just check that out, will you?’

Harris’s chuckle echoed down the line. ‘It’ll be a real pleasure,’ he said.

Caliente, Nevada

The ambulance made what Douglas hoped would be its last stop before Las Vegas at Caliente, on the Meadow Valley Wash. He and Robbins took an early lunch at a roadside diner, filled the fuel tank, and then continued south.

Las Vegas, Nevada

The Ford pickup rattled down the road past the McCarran Air Base main gate without slackening speed. Reilly was driving, his features partially obscured by his blossoming beard – it had stopped being designer stubble a couple of days earlier – and by a large grey Stetson hat he’d purchased in a general store on the outskirts of Henderson.

They’d also stopped at an office equipment company to make a purchase. In fact, they’d had to stop at two companies because the first one hadn’t got what Hunter wanted, and the second company only had one example in stock. That purchase, together with two other small cartons, was now sitting on the rear seat of the truck.

Hunter was crouching on the cab floor, invisible except to somebody looking directly through the side window.

‘Anything?’ Hunter asked when they were about a quarter of a mile past the gates.

‘A coupla guys in a dark grey Lincoln parked across the street from McCarran. Seemed to be watchin’ the gate, but that ain’t conclusive.’

‘Right,’ Hunter said, easing himself up into the passenger seat. ‘That’s probably them. My guess is they’ll have one or two people watching the gate, plus two or four others as backup. They’ll just be waiting for us to do something real stupid, like drive up to the gate guards and ask the way to the Roland Oliver reception centre.’

Reilly grunted.

‘Time for Plan B, I guess.’

Chapter Seventeen

Saturday

Las Vegas, Nevada

‘You wanna do it now?’ Reilly asked.

‘No,’ Hunter said. ‘Let’s go and grab a bite somewhere. Once we start this, I’ve no idea when we’ll get a chance to stop and eat again. And the longer a team’s on surveillance, the less alert they are. In a couple of hours there’ll be a lot less of a risk of our little operation being spotted. And we need to change cars,’ Hunter added. ‘I doubt if details of this one are out on the street yet, but we need something a bit more conventional for the next stage.’

‘OK with me,’ Reilly said. ‘And I sure could do with a change from beer ’n’ coke ’n’ chocolate.’

Fifty-five minutes later the two men drove out of a diner parking lot, threaded through the light early afternoon traffic and headed northwest on US95. A few minutes out of Vegas, Hunter pulled off the highway into the North Las Vegas Air Terminal, and turned into the passenger parking area.

They cruised slowly up and down the lanes, scanning the parked cars and looking for an anonymous, late model vehicle, preferably one that looked as if it had been parked for a while. They found the dark blue Ford compact in the far corner of the parking lot, and Reilly had the doors open and the engine started inside three minutes.

Back in Vegas, they cruised past McCarran again, Hunter driving, Reilly crouched low on the back seat. The Lincoln was still there, two dark figures visible behind the tinted glass windows.

‘That confirms it, I guess,’ Reilly said.

‘Yes. They shouldn’t be a problem, though.’

Hunter pulled the Ford into a parking bay at the side of the road around a quarter of a mile from the main gates of McCarran. They were far enough away that the Roland Oliver surveillance team wouldn’t be likely to spot them, and would have a good, but distant, view of vehicles entering or leaving the base. They weren’t close enough to identify individuals, even with the compact binoculars Reilly had produced from his bag, but that didn’t matter. All Hunter was looking for was one, particularly distinctive, vehicle.

‘Anything?’ Harris asked into the two-radio radio.

‘Nothing.’ Templeton’s voice was crackly and slightly distorted, but even that couldn’t hide his boredom.

Hunter had been right. Of all the work undertaken by police and security forces, surveillance – and especially long-term surveillance – is probably the least liked and certainly the most tedious.

Templeton and Grant had been sitting in the Lincoln since eight that morning. It was a hot day, and every twenty minutes or so Templeton had to start the engine and give the interior a blast from the air conditioning, just to keep the temperature inside the car bearable. There were cans of soda and packets of sandwiches in a cardboard box on the back seat: both had eaten, but neither man had drunk much. Quite apart from anything else, there was nowhere nearby where they could conveniently take a leak.

Pictures of Reilly and Hunter were taped to the dashboard, and every time a vehicle approached the main gate the two men peered through binoculars at the driver and any other occupants, seeking a match with their quarry.

Harris and Morgan were sitting in a motel bedroom about a block away. In fact, Morgan was asleep, stretched out on one of the twin beds, while Harris sat at the table by the window, which offered a reasonable view of the road outside. As well as the two-way radio and his Smith and Wesson automatic pistol, he had a street map of Las Vegas in front of him, plus pictures and biographies of Reilly and Hunter, which he had been studying for the last hour. The team’s other car, a maroon Chevrolet, was parked directly outside the door of the room, fully fuelled and ready to roll.

‘OK. Stay alert,’ Harris warned. ‘Morgan and I will relieve you at about three.’

‘Heads up,’ Hunter said. ‘That could be it.’

He peered intently through the binoculars at the McCarran main gate, then handed them to Reilly.

‘Yup,’ Reilly muttered. ‘Looks like our boy. Now we just wait.’

McCarran Air Force Base, Las Vegas, Nevada

The barrier opened in front of him, and Randy Douglas accelerated steadily down the access road. At the first junction he turned towards the main runway, then turned again to parallel it. Close beside an aircraft parking area, he braked the ambulance to a stop and backed it up to the double entrance doors of an unmarked building.

Bill Robbins climbed out of the passenger side of the ambulance, opened the vehicle’s rear doors and then pressed the buzzer on the wall of the building. After a few moments the door was unlocked from the inside, and a man in a white coat appeared.

Eight minutes later, Douglas swung the vehicle out through the main gate at McCarran while Robbins checked the schedule sheet for details of the next pickup – their last that day.

Las Vegas, Nevada

‘That’s it,’ Reilly said, lowering the binoculars. ‘The show’s about to start. They’ve turned away from us, so you’d best get moving.’

‘Right,’ Hunter said, putting the Ford into drive and easing it away from the curb. ‘At least we don’t have to make a U-turn to follow them.’

As they passed the Lincoln, Reilly ducked down below the level of the passenger window, and Hunter pulled the Stetson a little lower over his face, but they needn’t have bothered. Templeton was looking straight at the McCarran gate, and stifling a yawn, while Grant rummaged around in the box on the back seat, looking for a beef sandwich. Neither of them even noticed the dark blue Ford.

Douglas and Robbins hadn’t noticed it either, until Hunter pulled alongside the ambulance and sounded the horn. Douglas looked to his right and saw Reilly staring straight at him, holding up Wilson’s FBI identification.

‘Shit,’ Douglas muttered. ‘What’s the fucking FBI want with us?’

‘Only one way to find out,’ Robbins replied. ‘Best you pull over and we’ll ask them.’

Douglas pulled the ambulance smoothly in to the side of the road, and Hunter stopped the Ford ten feet behind it. Reilly and Hunter climbed out at the same time as Douglas and Robbins. Hunter glanced at the rear doors of the ambulance, at the small black-painted logo ‘RMS,’ the letters intertwined, and at the legend ‘Rolver Medical Services’ directly below it.

‘Afternoon,’ Douglas said. ‘And how can we help the FBI?’

‘We’re not FBI,’ Hunter said. ‘That’s just a cover.’

The puzzled look on Douglas’s face was turning slowly to alarm. He and Robbins were unarmed and he had already seen the butt of the Glock at Hunter’s belt.

‘It’s OK,’ Reilly added. ‘We work for the same people you do.’

He and Hunter displayed the ‘Ω’ cards Reilly had liberated from the bodies of Rogers and Wilson. Hunter didn’t look unlike Rogers, but Reilly bore no resemblance at all to Wilson, so he carefully kept his forefinger partially obscuring the photograph on the card.

Douglas peered at the cards and relaxed visibly. ‘So what do you want with us?’

‘With you, almost nothing,’ Hunter said, ‘and you’ll be on your way in less than ten minutes. We’re running a security check on the Roland Oliver system here at McCarran, and we need to speak to the medical officer on duty. Who is it today?’

Neither Douglas nor Robbins reacted to the name ‘Roland Oliver.’

‘It’s Dr. Evans,’ Douglas said. ‘Why don’t you just go inside and talk to him?’

‘No can do,’ Hunter said. ‘Our instructions are to remain outside McCarran. There’s another team inside handling matters there. Didn’t you notice the increased security around the building?’

Douglas paused for a second, then nodded his head. Hunter would have been amazed if he’d done anything else.

‘OK. Can we just see your pickup schedule for this week?’

‘Sure.’ Robbins walked back to the ambulance and returned with a clipboard on which half a dozen or so sheets of paper were clipped. Hunter took the clipboard, barely glanced at the forms, and handed it to Reilly, who walked back to the Ford compact.

On the back seat was the portable photocopier they’d had some difficulty buying earlier that morning, powered from the car’s cigar lighter. Reilly unclipped the sheets and ran them, one at a time, through the copier. The whole process took less than three minutes. When he returned the clipboard to Robbins, Hunter was still talking to Douglas.

‘How many do you collect each day?’ he asked.

‘Depends,’ Douglas said. ‘We mainly cover Nevada, but sometimes we have to go out of state. If they’re all local – all from the Vegas area, say – we might collect five or six. If they’re out of state, we might only manage one or two. Sometimes we do real long trips, like this week. We’ve only collected two since Wednesday, and we’ve only got one more this afternoon, then we’re off-duty for five days.’

‘How long have you been doing this?’

‘Me – a bit over three years. Bill here has only been working with us for about six months.’

Hunter nodded. ‘You ever see any of the patients again? I mean – do you ever get to transport them from McCarran back to their homes?’

‘Nope,’ Douglas said. ‘I guess there’s a different crew that handles the return transport. We just ship ’em out. They’re all out of it, you know.’

‘What do you mean – ‘out of it’?’ Hunter asked.

‘In comas. Deep unconscious. I guess this program’s the last hope any of them have.’

Hunter nodded. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘That’s all we need from you. Now we have to get Doctor Evans to come out here and meet with us. You have a radio to contact him, right?’

‘Yes,’ Douglas said. ‘We have to call the duty doctor when we’re about ten minutes away from McCarran to let him know we’re about to arrive, and to give him the case number.’

‘Right. Get on the radio, call Evans and tell him two Roland Oliver senior security staff need to talk to him immediately, outside the base.’

Douglas walked over to the cab of the ambulance, picked up the radio, contacted Evans and relayed Hunter’s instructions.

There was a pause before Evans replied. ‘I can’t,’ he said, at last, his voice tinny and distant through the tiny speaker. ‘I’m not permitted to leave the base. Can’t they wait until tomorrow when I’m off-duty?’

Douglas looked over at Hunter and shrugged his shoulders.

‘Tell him,’ Hunter said, ‘that this is a Priority One instruction, which overrides all Roland Oliver Standing Orders. Compliance is mandatory. We need to see him immediately.’

‘OK,’ Evans said, his voice crackling and fading. ‘I’ll have to check over everything in here first. Where and when?’

Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

Roger Ketch was getting nervous. He’d berated the Cobra pilot for abandoning the search for the two men when the police car and fire truck had appeared, which had served to relieve his irritation, but hadn’t achieved anything else. At least the crop-duster had been destroyed, which meant that Hunter and Reilly couldn’t fly it anywhere else, and also confirmed that they were definitely in the Las Vegas area.

And that was what worried Ketch. The two men had obviously been somewhere nearby for almost six hours. So why hadn’t they tried to get into McCarran?

He’d called Harris three times, but nobody on the clean-up team had seen the two men. Harris was adamant that if they tried to effect an entry through the main gate, his people would see them. Therefore, they hadn’t tried – yet.

Harris figured that they were just lying low for a while, checking out the opposition and working out what they were going to do next, but Ketch was beginning to wonder if they’d all missed something.

Las Vegas, Nevada

Hunter and Reilly were sitting in the blue Ford in the restaurant parking lot when Evans appeared, driving a cobalt blue Jaguar XJ6.

‘Looks like Roland Oliver pays pretty good,’ Reilly said, as he and Hunter climbed out of the Ford.

‘Doctor Evans?’ Hunter asked, as they approached the tall, spindly man wearing black-rimmed spectacles who emerged from the Jaguar. His white coat lay over the back of the passenger seat, and Hunter could see the ‘Evans’ nametag through the car’s side window.

Evans nodded. ‘Yes. And you would be?’

Hunter let the question hang in the air between them. ‘Let’s go inside, shall we?’ he said, took Evans’s elbow in a firm grasp and led the way into the restaurant. Lunch had finished over an hour ago. Almost every table was vacant and there were only four or five people at the bar. Hunter shepherded Evans to a large round table in the corner of the room next to the window and the three of them sat down, Reilly and Hunter flanking Evans.

A waiter appeared, and Reilly ordered coffee all round.

‘What’s all this about?’ Evans asked, as the waiter moved out of earshot. ‘I’ve never seen either of you before. Let me see some identification, please.’

Hunter reached into his jacket pocket, deliberately letting Evans see the butt of the Glock, and pulled out Rogers’ FBI ID.

‘We apologize for deceiving you, doctor. We’re not actually from Roland Oliver.’

Out of the corner of his eye Hunter saw Reilly’s eyebrows climb up his forehead. They hadn’t discussed the details of what they were going to say to either the ambulance staff or the Roland Oliver doctor, but Reilly was already wondering just who the hell Hunter was going to claim to be next.

‘In fact,’ Hunter continued, ‘we’re not only not from Roland Oliver, we’re part of a special FBI task force which is investigating Roland Oliver’s operations.’

Evans leaned back in his chair and sighed, apparently with relief, then sat forward. ‘Thank God for that,’ he said. ‘I’ve been praying somebody, somewhere, would take some notice and do something about it.’

Hunter glanced across at Reilly, who gave him a puzzled frown.

‘Can you guarantee me full immunity?’ Evans asked.

‘That depends, doctor,’ Hunter said smoothly, ‘on what information you can give us. Start at the beginning, please. What’s your involvement with Roland Oliver?’

Evans looked up as the waiter appeared with cups and coffee pots. When they all had drinks in front of them, Evans started talking.

‘I thought it was just a regular job, to start with. The qualifications they required were minimal – a medical degree was about all they wanted – but the salary was excellent. I thought it was just additional pay because of the long hours involved, you know, being in the building for twelve hours at a time. Twelve on, twelve off, for six days, then a three day break. There are three of us working shifts at McCarran.’

‘But you found out differently?’ Hunter asked.

Evans nodded.

‘OK,’ Hunter said. ‘We’ll get to that later. What does your job consist of?’

‘Almost nothing,’ Evans said. ‘All I do is monitor the subjects. They breathe a special oxygen-nitrous oxide mixture to keep them unconscious. I’m responsible for monitoring their respiration, body temperature, pulse and so on, and make any changes necessary to maintain them in a stable, but unconscious, state. In fact, I don’t even really need to be there – there’s an automated monitoring system that reacts a lot faster than I can to any change in a patient’s condition – so I’m really there just in case the automated system falls over. That’s it, until their transport arrives.’

Hunter nodded, as if Evans was just confirming what they already knew. ‘Tell us in general terms what you know about Roland Oliver’s subjects,’ he asked.

‘I asked that when I was first recruited. What they told me was that most of the subjects are what you might call “lost souls”. They’re young women, aged between eighteen and thirty, usually without family or close friends. A lot of them, they told me, are prostitutes or drug addicts. That’s more or less it.’

‘What medical research is Roland Oliver involved in?’

‘Medical research?’ Evans asked, a puzzled frown appearing. ‘What do you mean – “medical research”?’

‘We know from other sources that the subjects who are processed through McCarran are used in some kind of medical research program,’ Hunter replied. ‘We know they’re shipped out to a secure clinic somewhere.’

‘Groom Lake,’ Evans interrupted. ‘It’s out at Groom Lake.’

‘OK, Groom Lake,’ Hunter said, noting down the name in his notebook. ‘Now, what we need to know is what sort of research is done with them, and why the people running it are apparently prepared to kill anybody who gets close enough to find out anything about it.’

Evans turned noticeably pale at Hunter’s words. ‘It’s not medical research,’ he said, looking nervously from Hunter to Reilly. ‘If you’ve been investigating Roland Oliver, surely you must know that?’

Hunter recalled the explanation of Roland Oliver’s functions that they’d forced out of George Donahue.

‘OK, perhaps that’s not the right way to put it,’ he said. ‘Maybe medical experimentation would be a more accurate description?’

‘No, it’s not,’ Evans said, shaking his head, and Hunter noticed a slight tremor in the hand holding the doctor’s coffee cup. ‘It’s not research or experimentation.’

‘So what is it? What does Roland Oliver do?’

Evans shook his head again. ‘I don’t know what the purpose of the facility actually is,’ he said. ‘But I do know that none of the subjects of the program ever come back from Nevada.’

‘What do you mean, they never come back?’

‘What is done to them is terminal.’

‘Terminal?’

‘Terminal,’ Evans said. ‘The subjects are taken out there to be killed.’

A long silence followed. Hunter didn’t take his eyes off Evans. ‘How do you know that?’ he asked.

‘I know what happens to them, because when I tried to get out of the program, they flew me out to Groom Lake and they showed me.’

Evans swallowed twice before continuing, and his hand was shaking so badly that hot coffee slopped over his fingers. But he didn’t seem to notice as his eyes bored into Hunter’s face.

‘They told me that if I ever told anyone what really happens there, or if I tried to leave the program again, they’d put me through the same process.’

Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

Straight-line or logical thought patterns suffer from one significant disadvantage – because the problem being tackled has to be clearly defined from the start, certain facts or assumptions have to be taken as givens, and it is difficult, if not impossible, to arrive at a solution which ignores these givens.

The classic example is what might be termed the ‘pebble in the bag’ problem. The scenario is simple enough: an evil landlord has a tenant with a beautiful daughter. The tenant falls well behind with his rent payments and finally the landlord faces him and offers him a stark choice – pay the back rent in full, immediately (which he knows the tenant cannot do), or let him sleep with the tenant’s daughter for one night and he’ll forget about the back rent.

The tenant protests, but under increasing pressure from the landlord he eventually asks his daughter. She agrees, but with the caveat that the final outcome will be determined by chance, by her picking one of two coloured pebbles from a bag. If she picks the black pebble, the back rent will be forgotten and she’ll spend the night with the landlord, but if she picks the white pebble, the rent will still be forgotten but she won’t have to sleep with him. The landlord agrees to this, but the girl sees that he actually puts two black pebbles into the bag.

Conventional thinking doesn’t help solve this problem, and normally offers only two possible solutions. Either the girl can cry foul, but that still leaves the problem of the rent to be paid, or she can bite the bullet, pick a black pebble and simply sleep with the landlord and get it over with.

Lateral thinking provides the ideal solution immediately, by approaching the problem from the ‘wrong end,’ by imagining the best possible result and working backwards from there. If the landlord had played fair and put one white and one black pebble in the bag, and the girl had picked the white pebble, there would be a black pebble left in the bag. That is the ideal result – either a white pebble in the hand or a black pebble in the bag, and it doesn’t actually matter which. So all the girl does is pick either one of the pebbles, and then drop it. That leaves a black pebble in the bag so, logically, the girl must have picked the white one.

Roger Ketch had never heard of the ‘pebble in the bag’ problem, but he had occasionally unconsciously employed lateral thinking with marked success.

With Reilly and Hunter still refusing to show themselves anywhere near McCarran, he had tried to put himself in Hunter’s shoes and work out what he would do.

‘Oh, shit,’ he said suddenly, and reached for the telephone.

McCarran Air Force Base, Las Vegas, Nevada

All the monitoring systems were on automatic, as usual. What wasn’t usual was the state of the telephone system, which Evans had switched over to answering machine before he left the building. He hadn’t left a new message saying where he was going, so Roger Ketch was none the wiser when he angrily replaced his receiver.

Roland Oliver standing orders were quite clear. The duty doctor was never to leave the building, except for overseeing the reception of new subjects, during his shift. That meant, Ketch realized, that somehow Hunter and Reilly had got into the base and might even then be in the Roland Oliver building.

He reached for the telephone and had actually begun dialling the number of Harris’s mobile phone when he suddenly stopped and replaced the handset.

‘That’s not it,’ he muttered to himself. ‘If Hunter and Reilly were in there, why would the answering machine be switched on?’

After another few seconds, he pulled a telephone directory off a shelf next to his desk and flicked through the pages. Then he dialled a different number at McCarran, and within moments was talking to one of the main gate guards.

‘Has Doctor Evans left the base?’ he demanded, after identifying himself as a senior USAF officer – one of several cover identities he held.

‘Wait, please,’ the guard replied, and ran his finger down a list on a clipboard. ‘Yes, sir. He was checked through the gate at fourteen twelve local time.’

‘By himself?’ Ketch demanded.

‘We can’t tell. He was driving his own car, according to the log, but there’s no record of a passenger with him. We normally only record passengers coming into the base,’ the guard added.

‘Great,’ Ketch grated, and slammed his hand on the phone cradle.

The moment he got a dial tone he called Harris’s mobile phone number.

Las Vegas, Nevada

‘What process? What do they do to them?’ Hunter asked, again.

‘I won’t tell you,’ Evans said, shaking his head. ‘I won’t tell you unless you can guarantee me full immunity, officially and in writing. And give me a guarantee that I can just walk away from this – never go back there. Maybe even put me in the witness protection program.’

Hunter looked at Reilly. They’d both noticed the trembling in Evans’s hands and realized that he was absolutely terrified. Probably no matter what they did to him, or threatened to do to him, he wouldn’t tell them much more.

‘OK, Doctor Evans,’ Hunter said. ‘We can’t give you any guarantees right now, but if you cooperate fully I’m sure we can work something out. Now,’ he added, ‘we have a more immediate problem. We need to trace one particular subject who may have been fed into the Roland Oliver program.’

‘When?’ Evans asked.

‘This week,’ Hunter said.

‘No problem. I’ve got copies of the last week’s admissions in the trunk of the car. I’ll go and get them,’ Evans said, and stood.

Hunter reached up and pulled him firmly back into the seat. ‘My colleague will do that, doctor,’ he said. ‘Just give him the keys, please.’

‘It’s a grey folder labelled “Admissions”,’ Evans said, as he passed Reilly a leather key fob. ‘On the left hand side of the trunk, next to my medical bag.’

‘Why do you keep copies of the records, doctor?’ Hunter asked, as Reilly left.

‘For a situation exactly like this,’ Evans said. ‘Ever since I found out what Roland Oliver actually does, I’ve kept copies of the admission sheets. I thought that if the operation was ever going to be shut down, knowing exactly who had been through the system might help bring those responsible to justice.’

Hunter smiled for the first time since he’d walked into the restaurant. ‘That was good thinking, doctor. Can you give us access to those records? Where are they?’

‘At my bank,’ Evans replied, ‘in a safe deposit box. Here, I’ll give you the details.’

He handed Hunter a slip of paper bearing the name of the bank and the safety deposit box number and passed it over as Reilly walked back in. Evans took the folder, opened it and spread the sheets of paper across the table.

Hunter and Reilly looked at them. The pages were ruled into five columns, containing the subject’s name, date of birth, address, social security number and Roland Oliver number. Several of the columns held blank spaces. Evans caught his glance.

‘The documentation for lots of the subjects is poor. You must understand that Roland Oliver harvests –’ Hunter grimaced at Evans’s use of that particular word ‘–subjects from a wide variety of sources and locations. Sometimes we have little more than a name, and sometimes not even that.’

‘Why do they record these details at all?’ Hunter asked.

‘In case there’s ever any need for a denial about one of them. We need to know if that person was ever processed by us.’

Reilly had taken the list and had scanned through it, looking for the name Christy-Lee Kaufmann. He got to the last page, checked it and looked up at Hunter, shaking his head. A gust of relief swept over the Englishman. Wherever Christy-Lee was, at least she wasn’t on her way out to Groom Lake.

Hunter took the pages from Reilly and flipped through them, just for confirmation. He turned the second to last page, then skipped back to the previous sheet. Something had caught his eye. The fourth name from the bottom was ‘Maria Slade.’

Chapter Eighteen

Saturday

North Las Vegas Air Terminal, Las Vegas, Nevada

Kenneth Arnold walked slowly, head down and lost in thought, across the concrete, a light-weight suit jacket slung over his left arm and his briefcase in his right hand. It hadn’t, he rationalized, been quite as bad as he had feared. Not quite. At least he still had a job.

The summons from the head office in Tucson, Arizona, had been abrupt, almost peremptory, but they usually were. The company operated on results. The bottom line on the spreadsheet was what counted, not the sensibilities of its employees. Not even the sensibilities of the head of the Nevada office. And sales figures were down – he couldn’t deny that. Certainly not with the chief accountant sitting on the other side of the long conference table with two fat ring-binders open in front of him.

The problem, really, was the local market. Companies selling air-conditioners in Nevada weren’t exactly rare, and the ones sold by Arnold’s company were among the most expensive. That meant good profits and a hefty commission for every sale, but getting sales was difficult – why should Joe Q Average spend five hundred and fifty dollars for a basic conditioner if the store down the street could sell him one that looked pretty much the same for only three thirty-five?

Arnold switched mental gears, and returned to a familiar theme. Maybe the company’s marketing slant really was wrong, despite what the head office gurus claimed. The company had been targeting the domestic and small business market for years – maybe it was time to start looking at the big corporations, the guys with the money to spend on the right product. That, Arnold reasoned, might be the best way forward. He’d work on a tactful presentation over the weekend and email a proposal to Tucson on Monday.

He nodded to himself, quickened his pace, and then came to an abrupt halt. He looked around, puzzled, then pulled his airline ticket folder out of his jacket pocket and glanced at what he’d scribbled on the back. Bay 453.

Arnold looked behind him, then back at the number painted at the front of the empty parking bay in front of him. 453.

‘Aw, shit,’ he muttered, opened his briefcase and pulled out a mobile phone.

He didn’t even glance at the old Ford pickup sitting in bay 457, almost next to where he’d left his blue two-year-old Ford compact three days earlier.

McCarran Air Force Base, Las Vegas, Nevada

Harris parked the Chevrolet in the ambulance bay next to the Roland Oliver building, turned off the engine and looked around. The parking lot had only five marked spaces, and there were no vehicles in any of them.

‘I guess Ketch was right,’ Morgan said, opening the passenger side door. ‘Hunter or Reilly must have talked him into leaving the base and meeting him somewhere outside.’

‘It’s Hunter,’ Harris said, as he closed the driver’s door.

‘What?’

‘It’s Hunter who’s pulling the strings,’ he said. ‘Not Reilly. The sheriff’s just along for the ride. The brains behind this operation belong to Hunter, and we’ve got to find him and shut him down real quick.’

Morgan rang the bell, which elicited no response, and they tried the doors of the building, but all were locked, and Harris didn’t know the codes required by the touch-pad entry system.

‘OK,’ Harris said. ‘Let’s go. There’s nothing inside there we need to see. What we do know is that Evans has left the place, presumably because Hunter spun him some yarn that sounded good. What we have to do now is find them.’

‘What do we do about Evans?’ Morgan asked.

‘Ketch was quite specific,’ Harris said. ‘Today is the last day of Dr. Evans’s life.’

Las Vegas, Nevada

Hunter bowed his head and stared down at the list on the table in front of him, his eyes fixed on the name ‘Maria Slade,’ and for a long moment nobody spoke. Then slowly Hunter raised his head and turned to face Evans and Reilly.

‘When you called me on the mobile in Helena, Dick,’ he began quietly, his eyes cold and hard and fixed unblinking on Evans’s face, ‘I was on my way to pick up Christy-Lee. We were going to catch a flight and head out to Cedar City, Utah. Her sister, Maria Slade, had vanished after what was supposed to be a routine medical check-up in the local hospital.’

Hunter stopped for a moment, glanced down at the list, then looked up again at Evans. Despite his icy calm and perfectly controlled speech, both Evans and Reilly could feel the anger growing within him.

‘I told her not to worry,’ Hunter continued, still looking straight at Evans but addressing Reilly. ‘I said it was probably just some sort of administrative screw-up. Maybe a problem with her records or something like that. Perhaps a transfer to another unit for further tests.’

He tapped his forefinger on the list in front of him. ‘I guess I was wrong,’ he said, his voice rising. ‘She was transferred, but not for any kind of tests. She was fed into this fucking programme that you’ve been working in, doctor.’

The contempt in Hunter’s voice as he spat the title at Evans made the older man flinch. Three of the men at the bar turned and glanced curiously in Hunter’s direction.

‘It may not be her,’ Evans said, his voice quavering. ‘Maria Slade’s not that uncommon a name.’

Hunter gave a brief, dismissive shake of his head, his voice low and controlled. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It is her. Maria Slade, Cedar City, Utah. Nice complete set of data for her – it’s even got her date of birth.’

‘Do you know her date of birth?’ Evans asked, clutching at any possibility of a misidentification.

‘Yes,’ Hunter said. ‘I’ve got a very good memory for some things, especially numbers and dates.’

He fell silent and just looked at Evans. The doctor glanced to his right, and met the equally hostile stare of Dick Reilly.

‘Is she dead, doc?’ Reilly asked softly.

Evans reached for the sheets, his hands trembling as he checked dates and times. ‘She – er – she arrived at McCarran early on Thursday morning,’ he said. ‘So she would have flown out to Groom Lake just after my shift ended at lunchtime.’

Reilly glanced at his watch.

‘So that’s only, what, forty-eight or fifty hours ago, so she’s probably still alive, right?’ he demanded.

Evans looked at him, then back at Hunter, and slowly shook his head. ‘No, I’m afraid she isn’t,’ he murmured, his voice barely audible. ‘It’s a very efficient system. She was probably dead within about two or three hours of her arrival.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ Hunter said, leaning forward, his voice hard but still level and completely controlled. ‘What in the name of God are those bastards running out at Groom Lake? These subjects – victims is a better word – arrive at the base and they’re dead within two hours? That just makes it an extermination facility. What the hell is the purpose of that?’

‘I don’t know,’ Evans spluttered. ‘I just don’t know. It’s given me nightmares ever since they took me out there and made me watch the processing.’

‘Processing? Processing? What the fuck do you mean “processing”?’ Hunter demanded, his right hand clamped painfully around Evans’s left arm. ‘And don’t give me any crap about immunity or what Roland Oliver will do to you if you tell anyone.’ Hunter tightened his grip. ‘If you don’t tell us, right now, what the hell happens out at Groom Lake, we’ll take you outside and I will personally blow your fucking brains out. Is that clear enough for you?’

Evans looked at Hunter, and what he saw in the Englishman’s eyes made him drop his gaze almost immediately.

‘OK, OK. Look, I’ll tell you what they showed me,’ he began, his voice low and quavering. ‘It’s almost like a conveyor belt.’

Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

A telephone rang in the office and Roger Ketch automatically stretched out his arm towards the desk phone, then registered that the ringing tone was different. Beside the desk unit was a mobile phone, with an unlisted number that Ketch had supplied over the last couple of days to an ever-increasing number of people.

All members of the clean-up team had already been given the numbers of both the classified landline and the mobile, but the mobile’s number was now known, amongst others, to the air traffic control facility at McCarran, the gate guards at the same place, and the Las Vegas police department.

Ketch had identified himself to the military as a senior USAF officer – and any but the most thorough and detailed check of the relevant records would confirm this identity. As far as the Las Vegas police department was concerned, Ketch was an Assistant Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

He picked up the mobile phone and pressed the green button. ‘Yes?’

‘Is that Director Ketch?’ the voice asked.

‘Yes, officer,’ Ketch responded, immediately aware that the caller had to be from the Las Vegas police department.

‘This is Captain Dawson, sir, Las Vegas PD. I’m not sure if this is of interest, but we’ve had a report of a car stolen from the passenger parking area at the North Las Vegas Air Terminal.’

Ketch had compiled a list of the kind of things he predicted Reilly and Hunter might do in Las Vegas and then requested details of any such events from the Vegas PD. He had already received fifteen similar reports that day, all of which he had dismissed after an initial investigation, and he wasn’t particularly interested in another one unless there was something unusual about it.

‘Any special circumstances?’ he asked.

‘Kind of. Pretty much in the next bay to where this Ford was taken we found another stolen car. An old Ford pickup.’

Ketch sat up straight. This could be the break they needed. ‘Where was the other car – the one you found in the next bay – stolen from?’ he demanded.

He heard the sound of rustling paper as the officer looked through the reports.

‘Here we go. The pickup was stolen sometime this morning from a back street in Crystal, right here in Nevada.’

‘Right,’ Ketch said, reaching for a pencil. ‘Let me have the details of the car stolen here in Vegas.’

Two minutes later he put down the mobile and reached for the desk phone.

Las Vegas, Nevada

‘OK,’ Hunter said, leaning back in his seat, his face pale and drawn. Even Reilly’s normally cheerful countenance was clouded and troubled.

‘I think,’ Hunter continued, ‘that I’m getting a handle on this now. There’s only one explanation that makes any sense – and at the same time it doesn’t make real sense, because I still can’t see the motive. Or, to be exact, the only motive that fits is so totally repugnant that I simply can’t believe it.

‘My partner and I got involved in this,’ he went on, ‘because Sheriff Reilly here had a murder on his patch that couldn’t have been committed except, of course, that it had been. A man out hunting was killed by having a human thighbone – that’s a regular thighbone, not one that had been sharpened or anything – driven vertically downwards through his skull.’

‘What?’ Evans demanded. ‘That’s not possible. The force required is immense. I don’t think any human being could do that – at least, not without using a hammer or something on the other end.’

‘We know that,’ Hunter said, wearily. ‘That’s what I meant when I said it was an impossible murder. Anyway, Dick called in the FBI to help handle the investigation, and a couple of things turned up during the autopsy that might help confirm what you’re saying happens to these women at Groom Lake.

‘Probably the oddest thing the pathologist found was the fact that the thighbone had two small holes drilled in it, one at each end. And the bone marrow had been sucked out, presumably through these holes. The inside of the bone, he said, was quite dry.

‘He also found peculiar marks on both the thighbone and a skull found in the same general area. His opinion was that something – some sort of mechanical device – had left a minute pattern of etching on the bones, which were quite fresh. The only reason he – or we – could come up with for using such a device would be to remove every vestige of flesh from the bones.’

Reilly and Evans were both staring at Hunter with a curious fascination, but something in Evans’s eyes told Hunter that the doctor had already made the connection.

‘You mean,’ the doctor began, then stopped, swallowing nervously. ‘You mean like in –’

Hunter nodded, and pointed a finger at Evans. ‘That’s exactly what I mean. What you’ve been a part of, Doctor Evans, is a human abattoir. How does that make your Hippocratic oath sound now? First, do no harm? Jesus Christ.’

McCarran Air Force Base, Las Vegas, Nevada

The two-way radio crackled inside the Lincoln parked close to the McCarran main gates. Templeton reached out a hand to pick it up. ‘Templeton,’ he said, and sat up slightly straighter in the seat.

‘We’ve had a break,’ Harris’s voice sounded tense. ‘Ketch believes they’re driving a dark blue Ford compact. It was lifted from the passenger parking lot at the North Vegas Air Terminal sometime today, and right next to it was an old Ford pickup that was reported stolen in Crystal this morning.’

‘Crystal? That was pretty much where the duster landed, right?’ Templeton asked.

‘You got it,’ Harris said, and passed the registration details of the Ford.

‘You want us to stay here?’ Templeton asked, replacing his notepad on the dashboard.

‘Yes. Evans may well return to the base once Hunter’s finished talking to him. If he does, or if Hunter and Reilly are with him, follow him inside. You and Grant know what to do then.’

Templeton nodded. ‘OK,’ he said.

‘Morgan and I will cruise around and see if we can spot Evans or the two perps – we may just get lucky. There’s an APB out for the Ford and Evans’s Jaguar, so every cop in Vegas will be eyeballing the streets, as well. If either are spotted, we’ll be told immediately, and then we’ll finish this.’

Las Vegas, Nevada

Jim Reese hadn’t been on the Las Vegas force for very long, but he’d been a cop for over fifteen years. Most of his career had been spent on the streets, riding a cruiser because that was what he enjoyed, but at Vegas he’d made the jump to detective and hung up his dark blues.

The APB for the Ford compact and Jaguar had come in just before his shift ended and, like everyone else, he’d noted down the registration details just in case. He’d thought at the time that it wouldn’t be that easy to find either vehicle. Fords were ten-a-penny, and there was always plenty of money in Vegas, so Jaguars weren’t exactly uncommon either.

So he was kind of surprised when he pulled into his usual stop on the way home for a couple of beers to find that he was parking his car directly opposite both suspect vehicles.

One reason Reese had made detective was that he always kept his head. He recognized the registration on the Jaguar immediately – Evans had a personalized plate – and quickly cross-checked the one on the Ford with the details he’d recorded in his notebook. The APB had said that the two occupants of the Ford were armed and extremely dangerous, so Reese wasn’t about to do anything stupid like burst into the restaurant waving a badge and a gun. There comes a time when you really do have to call the cavalry, and this was definitely one of them.

Instead, he looked at his watch, as if he were late for some appointment – just in case one of the perps was watching him from a window – then eased his car into reverse and pulled out of the restaurant parking lot and headed back uptown.

A hundred yards further on he made a turn and parked the car where he could see the restaurant entrance, and only then did he reach for his mobile phone to call in his sighting.

Reilly stepped back from the window. While Hunter had been questioning Evans, he had been watching the restaurant door and keeping an eye on the parking area through the windows. Reilly had seen Reese’s dark grey Lincoln pull into the restaurant parking lot, and he’d stood up and moved over to the window to get a clearer view.

Neither Reilly nor Hunter expected that details of either of the cars they had stolen would have been promulgated this early, but they weren’t about to start taking any chances.

When Reese drove away, Reilly walked over to the table. ‘May have a problem, here,’ he said.

‘What?’ Hunter looked up at him.

‘Guy just pulled in, sat in his vehicle for a coupla minutes, then pulled out again.’

‘Could be he just changed his mind.’

‘Don’t think so,’ Reilly replied. ‘Never even looked at this place, but he did spend a minute or so looking across the parking lot.’

‘At where the Ford’s parked?’

‘Yup. And he looked down a coupla times. Coulda been lookin’ at a notebook or somethin’.’

‘You’re thinking off-duty cop, maybe?’

‘Right again. And even if it was just some guy who changed his mind about takin’ a drink here, reckon we’ve been in this bar long enough. Get kinda nervous if we spend too long in one place, ’specially this close to McCarran.’

‘We’re on,’ Harris said, punching a button on his mobile phone to end the call from Ketch, and tossing the Chevrolet keys to Morgan. ‘Go get the car started.’

Harris put the phone into his jacket pocket, holstered his pistol, picked up the two-way radio and pressed the transmit button. ‘Templeton – you there?’

‘Here,’ the disembodied voice answered.

‘Get moving,’ Harris said, ‘and head downtown. We’ve had a sighting at a restaurant and bar. Both cars are outside as of –’ Harris glanced at his watch ‘– four minutes ago.’

‘We got lucky. How?’

‘You’re right – it was just luck. A cop on his way home pulled in for a beer and saw the two cars parked right in front of him.’

‘He still on the scene?’ Templeton demanded, and Harris could hear the increasing sound of the Lincoln’s engine through the radio’s speaker as Grant accelerated away from the curb.

‘Nope,’ Harris replied. ‘Cool guy. He ID’d the cars, pulled out of the parking lot and stopped down the road a piece, where he could see the restaurant entrance. Then he called the report into the local PD. They called Ketch, and he called me.’

‘OK,’ Templeton said. ‘We’re mobile. Give me the address.’

Lieutenant James Reese, Las Vegas Police Department, sat in his car, watching the driveway which led into the restaurant parking lot, his mobile phone in his left hand. The instructions relayed from Headquarters had been very specific. He was not to approach either the perpetrators or the doctor. He was just to watch and, if the perps drove away, follow them at a distance. If Doctor Evans left, he was simply to let him go.

‘Three things, Evans,’ Hunter said, as Reilly stood beside the table, ready to go. ‘First, please write an authorization for me, Steven Hunter, to allow me access to the safe deposit box at your bank. We need those records, and I don’t want to have to wait for some court to decide if we’re allowed to take a look at them.’

‘No problem,’ Evans replied. ‘I hate the sight of the things.’ He took out a notebook, wrote a dozen or so words on a page torn from it, signed it with a flourish and gave it to Hunter.

‘Next, give me your home address and telephone number, plus the phone number of the Roland Oliver facility at McCarran, plus any other numbers you have for people or places within the organization.’

Evans wrote quickly, and comparatively legibly for a doctor. ‘That’s all I have. I never call Roland Oliver – somebody there calls me.’

‘Suppose something catastrophic happens? The monitoring system fails, or a truck drives into the building?’

‘There’s a button,’ Evans said. ‘It’s tested once a week. If you press it, somebody at Groom Lake calls on the telephone.’

‘What about the flights that transport the subjects? Who coordinates those?’ Hunter asked.

‘Roland Oliver,’ Evans answered promptly. ‘I just receive notification of when the subjects will be collected. About thirty minutes before that time, I go round each casket and switch the monitoring system to internal. Then they’re ready to go.’

‘“Casket” is the right word, here, doc,’ Reilly said, sourly.

Evans shrugged helplessly.

‘OK,’ Hunter said. ‘The last thing may not be so easy for you. It’s possible we may have been spotted – at least, that’s what Dick thinks, and I’m not about to take any chances – so we’re not going to be leaving here the same way we arrived. We’ll be taking your Jaguar. If everything works out, we’ll return it to your home when this is all over.’

Hunter reached into his pocket and took out a single key, which he dropped on the table in front of Evans. ‘It won’t be what you’re used to, doctor, but you’ll be driving away from here in a blue Ford compact.’

‘Which happens to be stolen, doc,’ Reilly added, helpfully. ‘But with all the other things your conscience has been real busy takin’ care of, I guess that shouldn’t bother you none.’

Reese tensed in the driver’s seat of his Lincoln as the nose of the dark blue Ford compact appeared in the restaurant driveway. He checked the direction indicator on the Ford and realized he was perfectly positioned to follow it – the car was clearly headed downtown. Reese started the engine and waited for the Ford to accelerate away. The Jaguar followed the Ford onto the street, but turned in the opposite direction, directly towards him.

The only mistake Ketch had made was not supplying a description of Doctor Evans to the Las Vegas PD, so when Hunter swept past in the Jaguar with Reilly crouched down on the floor in the back, Reese barely gave him a second glance.

Chapter Nineteen

Saturday

Las Vegas, Nevada

‘They’re on the move.’ Harris’s voice crackled out of the speaker of the two-way radio. ‘The cop who spotted the cars is following the Ford. It’s heading downtown. Evans left at the same time, but he’s going uptown.’

‘Up-town?’ Templeton asked, puzzled. ‘Why would Evans head uptown? McCarran’s in the opposite direction, and that’s where he should be going.’

‘So?’ Harris asked.

‘So I reckon they’ve pulled a switch.’

Harris was silent for a moment, weighing the options. ‘Good thinking,’ he said, finally. ‘You could be right. OK, we’ll leave the cop to follow the Ford. Find the Jaguar.’

‘We’re nearly there,’ Templeton said. ‘Wait. Yes,’ he added, his voice rising. ‘The Ford’s just passed us heading in the opposite direction. Definitely not Hunter or Reilly driving it.’

‘You sure?’

‘Not unless your mugshots are way out of date. The driver looked to be tall and thin, and was wearing glasses.’

‘That’s not Hunter or Reilly,’ Harris said. ‘OK, keep going. We’ve got to find that fucking Jaguar.’

The ‘fucking Jaguar’ was going to take some finding. Two miles after leaving the restaurant, Hunter had pulled in to a multi-storey parking lot, driven up to the top floor and parked it. Then they’d grabbed their bags and other belongings and walked down three levels before Reilly produced his Slim Jim.

‘How about that Camaro?’ the sheriff asked.

Hunter barely glanced at the bright red two-seater. ‘Great fun,’ he said, ‘but not exactly what we want. Try to find us something that nobody’s going to look at.’

Six minutes later, Reilly leaned out of the driver’s window of a black Lincoln town car and paid the exit toll using Wilson’s credit card. What neither man had noticed were the cameras above both the entry and exit lanes, and even if they had, there wasn’t anything they could have done about them.

Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

The mobile rang again and Ketch leaned forward and picked it up.

‘Yes,’ he barked.

‘It’s Captain Dawson again, sir. Our officer followed the blue Ford as far as the main gate at McCarran, and confirmed that the suspect car entered the base. He’s now parked outside, watching as you instructed. Do you have any further orders for him?’

‘No,’ Ketch answered, shortly. ‘We now know that the perps did a switch, and drove away in Doctor Evans’s own car, a blue Jaguar. That’s what we need to find now, and that is to be your highest priority.’

‘We’re on it, sir. These two offenders seem mighty adept at swapping vehicles, so I’ve instituted a watch at all the parking garages in Vegas. Most of them have some sort of security surveillance system in place. We’re asking them to check their tapes for any sign of the Jaguar after it drove away from the restaurant.’

Ketch nodded approval. Dawson’s idea had real merit, and Ketch realized he should have thought of it first.

‘That’s good,’ he said, somewhat grudgingly. ‘Keep me informed.’

Las Vegas, Nevada

Willie Betts had been employed as a security guard for most of his adult life. He enjoyed the work, mainly because he had to do almost nothing, just sit in a booth and keep one eye on the TV or a book and the other on a bank of video screens, and that suited Willie just fine.

The shoulder bag he carried to the job contained a sandwich lunch, a flask of coffee, a selection of candy bars, and at least one book. Willie got through about three books a week. He was probably the best-read security guard in Las Vegas, but as his taste ran mainly to westerns and pulp horror, you’d never have thought so from talking to him.

Axelrod Parking wasn’t quite Willie’s idea of an ideal number, but he was sixty-three years old, arthritic and slow, and he had to take pretty much whatever he could get. At least there was nobody around to bother him in the tiny booth next to the exit lane on the ground floor. Almost all he ever did was help out drivers who had lost their tickets or who for some reason wanted to pay in cash rather than use a credit card. It was simple, undemanding work.

When the phone rang it startled him, simply because it had only ever rung about three times since he’d started working at the garage nearly two years previously, and he picked it up cautiously, like a long-dead fish.

‘Axelrod Parking,’ he muttered.

‘This is Sergeant Callaway of the Las Vegas PD. I’ve got a couple of questions for you,’ the voice began.

FBI Headquarters, J. Edgar Hoover Building, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

William McGrath had tried, as far as possible, to forget about Roland Oliver. In truth, he was extremely busy as acting Director, reading files, making decisions, chairing meetings and handling all the other tasks required of the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. That was, as the saying goes, the good reason for pushing Roland Oliver to the back of his mind.

The real reason was something else. Twice he had woken up, hot and sweating, with one of the images from the video tape vividly imprinted on his mind. He had re-sealed the Omega Procedures file and replaced it at the back of the Director’s personal safe – he was now occupying Donahue’s former office pending the appointment of a new Director – and with every day that passed without a call from Nevada, he breathed a little easier. No news, he reasoned, was good news. Obviously Reilly and Hunter had been taken care of, and with any luck he would be able to hand over the reins of the FBI to somebody else without ever having to be involved with Roland Oliver again.

That hope was shattered by the call from the CommCen early that evening, just as McGrath was tidying his desk before heading home.

Las Vegas, Nevada

Willie Betts began pressing buttons on the video console, running back the entry lane camera tape to the time Sergeant Callaway had told him to start looking. It hadn’t been a particularly busy afternoon, and Willie had only thirty or forty cars to check. He froze the image of the eighteenth car on the screen and peered closely at it.

‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ he said, and stretched out his hand for the telephone.

Oval Office, White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

‘I’m sorry to trouble you so late, Mr. President,’ McGrath began.

Charles Gainey smiled gently at him and waved him to an armchair by the coffee table. James Dickson, the Secretary of Defense, had already taken a seat, summoned by the President as soon as he knew McGrath was coming to see him.

‘No trouble, William,’ he said. ‘I take it you have news?’

‘Yes, I have, and I’m afraid it’s not good. Roland Oliver is certain that Reilly and Hunter are in Las Vegas – there hasn’t been a physical sighting of either man, but all the indications are that they are there.’

‘Be more specific, William. What do you mean by “indications”?’

‘That’s also bad news, sir. The Roland Oliver duty doctor was enticed away from his post at McCarran and actually left the base, which is in complete contravention of his Standing Orders. The supposition is that Reilly, or more likely Hunter, fed him a convincing enough story over the telephone to persuade him to leave. How he got the number of the Roland Oliver building we don’t know, but that seems to be the only explanation that fits the facts.

‘The doctor was later seen driving back into McCarran in a stolen Ford, and his car – a fairly distinctive Jaguar sedan – has vanished, although there’s an APB out for it and we believe that it’s still somewhere in Las Vegas. The Ford was stolen today from the passenger parking area at the North Las Vegas Air Terminal, and parked close to where the Ford had been left was an old pickup truck that had itself been stolen from Crystal, Nevada.

‘And,’ McGrath concluded, ‘to complete the circle, as it were, the crop duster that was reported stolen from Virginia landed near Crystal early this morning. It is, I agree, a chain of nothing more than circumstantial evidence, but Roland Oliver believes it’s enough to locate these two men.’

‘We had hoped, Mr. McGrath,’ Dickson began, anger apparent in both his voice and face, ‘that you were coming here to tell the President that this matter had been successfully concluded. From what you’ve said, it looks like we’re in a worse state now than we were when this whole mess started. What you haven’t said is why Reilly and Hunter wanted to talk to this doctor. You do realize the implications, I hope?’

McGrath nodded. ‘I’m afraid I do. The fact that they knew that this doctor – any doctor – was working for Roland Oliver at McCarran means that somebody, presumably Director Donahue, told them something about what Roland Oliver does. And, I’m also afraid, we have to assume that they now know a whole lot more about it. This particular doctor – his name is Evans – is one of the few who have actually seen the processing being carried out at Groom Lake.’

‘What?’ Dickson demanded. ‘Why the hell was he shown that?’

‘Roland Oliver didn’t give me details,’ McGrath said, ‘but I gather Evans wanted out of the program and they flew him to Groom Lake to show him what they’d do to him if he didn’t toe the line.’

‘Jesus wept,’ Dickson said, his voice rising. ‘So now we have to assume that Reilly and Hunter also know what Roland Oliver does.’

McGrath nodded again, miserably. ‘Yes, but what they don’t know, of course, is why.’

Las Vegas, Nevada

Willie Betts had put away his sandwiches, flask and book, and had done his best to straighten his somewhat crumpled uniform. He’d even tidied away some of the rubbish that regularly accumulated in the booth, and had prepared the tape recorder so that the black and white image of the Jaguar was frozen on the screen.

‘Mr. Betts?’ the uniformed officer asked, when Willie opened the door of the booth to his knock.

‘That’s right. Come right in. Got everything ready for you.’

The patrolman sat down where Willie indicated, and looked at the monitor. He compared the registration number in his notebook with the one displayed on the screen, and then nodded.

‘That’s excellent, Mr. Betts,’ he said. ‘Thank you for finding it so promptly. Now, can I see the exit lane camera footage?’

Willie Betts looked puzzled. ‘Why do you wanna see that?’ he asked.

‘Simple,’ the patrolman replied, pointing at the screen. ‘We need to find out what car these two offenders were driving when they left the parking lot.’

‘Well, the Jaguar,’ Willie said.

‘Afraid not. These two guys have heisted more cars over the last week that you’ve probably ever owned, Mr. Betts. They’re experts at it. Whatever car they left in, the one we’re quite sure it won’t be is that Jaguar.’

Ten minutes later, the patrolman left the booth, walked out to his cruiser and called in the number of a black Lincoln town car. In his pocket he had a fairly clear Polaroid image, taken from the TV set, of Sheriff Reilly’s face as he fed a credit card into the exit barrier toll machine.

McCarran Air Force Base, Las Vegas, Nevada

Doctor Evans stood irresolute by the door of the large open area in the Roland Oliver building and looked across the rows of caskets. He knew exactly what fate awaited all of these young women, and talking to Hunter and Reilly had only sharpened his awareness. Tears swam in his eyes as he turned away. Whatever it took, he vowed, he was going to get out of the program, even if the FBI wouldn’t offer him protection.

Evans was expecting the ring on the outer door, but out of habit checked the video camera feed just to make sure. Two Roland Oliver technicians stood outside waiting, a large white closed van visible behind them. The last C-130 Hercules transport of the week had arrived just over an hour earlier, and it was time to start the loading process.

Evans opened the door and walked back towards the rows of caskets, leading the two men. One of them tapped him on the shoulder and smiled at the doctor.

‘Before I forget, doctor,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a message for you from Roland Oliver.’

‘Yes?’ Evans asked, trepidation evident in his voice.

The technician smiled again, glanced past Evans, and nodded. His partner, acting with a skill born of long practice, reached over the doctor’s shoulder and whipped the chloroform pad swiftly over Evans’s mouth. The doctor struggled briefly against the fumes, then his eyes closed and he slumped to the floor.

‘OK, that’s enough,’ the first technician said. ‘Not too deep unconscious – Ketch wants him to know what’s happening.’

The two men dragged Evans across the room to an unoccupied casket and opened the lid. They swiftly stripped him naked, put him into the casket, attached the fabric bands around his wrists, ankles, forehead and hips, and closed the lid. Then they adjusted the gas concentrations to the levels that Ketch had specified, and walked away to begin the loading.

On the far side of the room, Christy-Lee Kaufmann lay silently unconscious in her casket, her breathing shallow but regular. If either Hunter or Reilly had told Evans the name of the person they were looking for, it’s just possible that he might have remembered it. But the discovery of the name Maria Slade, and the realization of what had already happened to her, had made Hunter forget. And now, of course, Doctor Richard Evans would never make that connection.

Six minutes later Evans slowly began to recover consciousness, his brain at first fuzzy and troubled by the effects of the chloroform, his memory confused. His eyes widened as he looked at the glass faceplate six inches in front of his face, and he finally realized where he was and what was going to happen to him. Then he started to scream.

Oval Office, White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

The ring of William McGrath’s mobile phone sounded unnaturally loud in the silence of the Oval Office. He had forgotten to switch it off as he entered the White House. ‘I’m very sorry, Mr. President,’ he began.

‘Answer it, William,’ Gainey said. ‘It may be good news.’

McGrath pressed a button and listened intently, then turned the phone off and replaced it in his pocket. Charles Gainey looked at him inquiringly.

‘Not good news, exactly, but better news,’ McGrath said. ‘Roland Oliver tried to reach me at the Hoover building, and then used the mobile because I wasn’t there. You’ll appreciate that he couldn’t go into detail because of the security implications of using a mobile, but I gather that the car the two men are driving has been identified, and the Las Vegas Police Department has obtained a still photograph of Reilly from a security camera located in a Vegas parking lot. So we do know they’re still in Las Vegas.’

‘And all you have to do now is find them,’ Dickson finished for him.

‘Basically, yes.’

‘Much like all we had to do here in D.C. was find them,’ Dickson added. ‘You’d better hope the Las Vegas cops are a whole lot better that the combined resources of the FBI, CIA, secret service and the police here, hadn’t you?’

McGrath nodded, but said nothing. He and James Dickson looked across at Charles Gainey.

‘Why are we worrying about this?’ the President asked, of no one in particular. ‘What can just two men do?’

Las Vegas, Nevada

Three and a half thousand miles away, Steven Hunter was asking himself pretty much the same question. He and Reilly had driven a short way out of Las Vegas, down beyond the entrance to McCarran, and had pulled off the road into the empty parking lot of a shut-down diner. Reilly had pulled the car around the back of the building, so they were invisible from the road.

‘If you’ve got any ideas, Dick,’ Hunter said. ‘Now would be a real good time to share them.’

Reilly was staring pensively through the windshield into the gathering dusk, his fingers tapping a meaningless tattoo on the rim of the steering wheel.

‘Two problems, as I see it,’ he said. ‘First, we still don’t know where Christy-Lee is, ’cept we know she hasn’t already been shipped out to Groom Lake, so I guess she’s still on the road somewhere. Second, I don’t see an easy way into McCarran, and I definitely don’t see an easy way into Groom Lake.’

Hunter stirred uneasily. ‘What the hell is Groom Lake, Dick? I’ve heard of it, I think. Isn’t that what some people call Area 51?’

Reilly nodded, then reached into the back of the car and picked up the papers they’d gotten from Doctor Evans and the sheets they’d taken from the ambulance crew and photocopied.

‘Know a bit about it,’ he began, spreading the sheets out in front of him and flicking through them. ‘It’s a piece of the Nevada desert about the size of Switzerland, and the Groom Lake base – it’s a dry lake – is pretty much in the middle of it. It’s called “Area 51” ’cause of the numbering system on some military maps. Believe it was started in the fifties, but it wasn’t ’till the nineties that the government even admitted it was out there. You can trust me, there’s no way in or out unless you’re supposed to be goin’ in or out.’

‘Why?’

‘That’s classified. Everything about the fuckin’ place is classified, and they’re real serious about it. It don’t have a fence, but what it has got are motion sensors and cameras the whole way round it, and a bunch of armed guards driving ’bout the place all the time. These guys is real mean, by all accounts. They call ’em the ‘cammo dudes’ ’cause they wear these camouflage uniforms and stuff, and they’re allowed to shoot you.’

‘They’re what?’

‘Yup,’ Reilly nodded. ‘Step over the border and these guys is allowed to gun you down. Believe they’ve done it a few times, too.’

‘Jesus,’ Hunter said. ‘I see what you mean. I hope we don’t have to try to get in there.’

Reilly suddenly sat up straighter, looking down at the papers in front of him, and shook his head.

‘Gonna have to disappoint you there,’ he said, his voice low and thick, and passed Hunter a single sheet of paper.

‘Should have looked at these earlier, I guess,’ he said.

The paper Hunter was holding was the transport notice from Montana to McCarran Air Base for one Christy-Lee Kaufmann, signed by Doctor R. Evans and time-stamped at thirteen forty-two that day.

The APB for the Lincoln had hit the streets three minutes after the patrolman had closed the door of Willie Betts’s security booth, together with an instruction to observe, but on no account to approach, the vehicle.

A black-and-white parked outside a gas station on the east side of I-15, just south of The Excalibur, had seen the Lincoln drive past, heading south, but couldn’t follow because of the traffic. The driver called in the sighting report and left it at that.

Two minutes later, another black-and-white north-bound on I-15 had seen a black Lincoln town car pull into a diner parking lot, but the driver hadn’t been able to confirm the registration number.

Harris was cruising south past Caesar’s Palace when the Las Vegas PD dispatcher called him. He put the two reports together and accelerated down the highway. Templeton and Grant were still near the middle of Vegas, around twenty minutes behind him.

Hunter sat silently for a long moment, his eyes staring blankly at the sheet of paper Reilly had given him, then he shook his head. He looked again at the paper, and at the time Christy-Lee had arrived at McCarran.

‘She’d been in the ambulance we stopped, hadn’t she?’ he asked, his voice quiet and controlled. ‘We watched them deliver her through the main gate at McCarran, and then stopped them on the way out. Christ, the driver even told us they’d just done an interstate pickup, and it never occurred to me it could be her.’

‘Me neither,’ Reilly said. ‘Sure wish we’d stopped that ambulance on the way in.’

‘That’s it, then,’ Hunter said. ‘Christy-Lee’s probably already on her way out to Groom Lake, so whatever it takes, we have to get inside, and we have to get inside tonight.’

‘OK,’ Reilly nodded, reached down and started the engine. He pulled the shift lever into reverse and turned the car to face the entrance. Headlamps blazed briefly across the parking lot as another vehicle entered and then stopped, completely blocking access to the road.

‘Dick,’ Hunter said urgently, but Reilly was way ahead of him, already halfway out of the Lincoln with his pistol in his hand.

Chapter Twenty

Saturday

McCarran Air Force Base, Las Vegas, Nevada

The airport was busy, and the Hercules had to wait in the dispersal for almost thirty minutes before the pilot received permission to taxi. At the end of the runway, the pilot pushed the four throttles forward and the C130 swiftly gathered speed down the concrete, then lifted slowly into the air before making a climbing turn to the west towards the setting sun, turning northwest for Groom Lake.

In the rear compartment, the lid of one of the caskets was vibrating rhythmically as the occupant did his best to force it off, despite the restraining straps. A moment’s rational thought would have been enough to convince Doctor Evans that the fabric was effectively unbreakable, but he had long since passed the point at which he was thinking rationally. He was driven by sheer, stark and unreasoning terror, because he knew, absolutely and without the slightest doubt, what was in store for him at Groom Lake. He knew, because he’d seen it, and he knew that for him the nightmare was about to become a reality.

Once during the flight one of the Roland Oliver technicians came over to his casket and peered inside through the faceplate. Evans briefly stopped his attempts to force off the lid and began shouting, but the caskets were soundproofed. The technician grinned down at the doctor and waved a hand at him before returning to his seat and his book.

Las Vegas, Nevada

The first shot drilled straight through the laminated windshield of the Lincoln directly above the steering wheel, puncturing the air where Reilly had been sitting less than a second before, and shattering the glass of the rear window. The second bullet applied the same treatment to the passenger side of the car half a second later, but Hunter was long gone.

Harris and Morgan were both out of the Chevrolet, which Harris had stopped, with doors wide open and lights blazing, right in the entrance to the diner parking lot. Special Forces’ training is thorough, and even before Harris had seen Reilly and Hunter bail out of the Lincoln, he and Morgan had already abandoned their vehicle.

Only an amateur gets himself stuck in a car in a fire-fight. Cars may look strong, but the metal is invariably thin and offers almost exactly the same protection against small arms’ fire as a sheet of cardboard. So, Harris dived left, and Morgan went right.

The diner hadn’t been operated in quite a while, and the vegetation around the edge of the parking lot had sprouted out of control. When Hunter’s crouching, weaving run on the blind side of the parked Lincoln brought him to the edge of the tarmac, he vaulted over a low bush without a pause, and landed virtually on top of Reilly.

The sheriff put a finger to his lips, then pointed at his own chest, and then off to the left. Hunter nodded, and as Reilly crept away, he began moving silently through the scrubland in the opposite direction.

Morgan lay flat on the ground about fifteen feet clear of the Chevrolet, his right arm outstretched and his Smith and Wesson automatic pistol pointing in the general direction of the abandoned Lincoln. He’d seen the two perps run from the car, but they’d both dived behind it and he’d been unable to get a shot at either of them. Then he’d glimpsed them vanishing into the undergrowth at the back of the parking lot, and he’d seen no movement at all since then.

He glanced to his left, saw Harris crouched down behind a low wall, and whistled softly. Harris looked across, nodded and pointed, and then the two men moved as one but in different directions, crouching low and burrowing silently through the undergrowth around the perimeter of the lot towards where Hunter and Reilly had to be hiding.

Hunter had watched, amazed, as Reilly moved away from him. Despite his considerable size, he moved like a snake, swift and silent, and Hunter thanked his stars, and not for the first time, for putting the two of them on the same side.

When Reilly had vanished into the gloom, Hunter sat for a few moments on his haunches, looking cautiously across the parking lot, but preserving his night sight in the gathering dusk by taking care not to look anywhere near the lights of the Chevrolet. He saw nothing, no sign of movement, but knew that the two men would even then be working their way towards him.

Hunter smiled grimly, pulled the magazine out of his Glock and checked that it was fully loaded – he knew that it was, but checking twice never hurts – and then melted backwards into the darkness, away from the edge of the lot and deeper into the undergrowth. Their two attackers, he judged, would probably follow the perimeter, so that was the one place he wasn’t going to stay.

A little over fifty feet away, Reilly sat crouched behind a bush. Like Hunter, he’d moved deeper into the undergrowth and then stopped moving, and was content to wait for the hunters to come to him, rather than trying to find them. He was listening intently. The sound of traffic passing on the road beyond the deserted diner provided a constant background noise, and Reilly was trying to tune that out and listen for the cracking of twigs or the rustle as a body moved past a bush.

Reilly saw Morgan before he heard him. A deeper shadow moved slightly, out of synch with the shadows around it. Reilly did nothing, just aimed his Colt Commander in the direction of the shape, stopped breathing and waited. When the shadow moved again, he whistled softly.

Morgan turned quickly, his right arm raised, but he didn’t shoot because there was nothing to see, nothing to shoot at.

‘Harris?’ he said, his voice soft and questioning.

Reilly had, since his time in Vietnam, a horror of friendly fire, and that single word told him all he needed to know.

‘Nope,’ he said, and squeezed the trigger of the Colt.

Morgan reacted instantly as Reilly spoke, throwing himself backwards and on to his feet, and pulled the trigger of his Smith and Wesson as he did so. Reilly’s shot caught his left shoulder and spun him around, but Morgan’s second bullet returned the favour, ploughing a furrow across the sheriff’s chest and tearing through his pectoral muscles.

Reilly grunted in pain, but fired twice more. His first shot missed, but the second found its mark, taking Morgan square in the chest, and he toppled like a falling tree.

On the far side of the lot, Harris stopped moving at the sound of the first shot, and flattened himself on the ground. As the last echoes of the gunfire died away, silence fell. One man lay dying, and three men lay waiting.

Hunter moved first, quietly easing his head around a bush and staring out across the parking lot. He’d counted five or perhaps six shots, but he couldn’t tell whether or not they’d all been fired from the same pistol – different calibres do make different sounds, but the shots had been so close together that identifying them was virtually impossible.

On the opposite side of the parking area, Reilly was watching the lot as well, as he cautiously explored the damage to his chest with his left hand. As far as he could tell, the bullet had only grazed him, ripping open the skin of his chest and tearing the pectoral muscles apart. His chest ached and throbbed, but it was a numb, detached kind of pain that he knew would pass soon enough, to be replaced by the searing, stabbing agony that he had experienced once before, in Vietnam. He wasn’t looking forward to the next twenty-four hours.

The more immediate problem was the second killer. Morgan was out of it, either dead or dying, and could be discounted, but somewhere, probably within fifty or sixty feet of where Reilly sat, the second killer lurked, pistol in hand, waiting to finish the job.

Then Reilly grinned through the pain as an idea suddenly occurred to him. The man he’d shot had called out the name ‘Harris,’ a name which Reilly remembered from Beaver Creek. Harris was obviously the second killer, who would even then be wondering exactly who had shot whom on the other side of the parking lot. Reilly grunted, kicked the bush next to him a couple of times, and then let out a loud and somewhat theatrical groan, to be rewarded only by silence.

‘Harris,’ Reilly said, after a second or two, his voice hoarse and distorted. ‘I got them both, but I’m hurt bad. You’ve got to help me.’

Harris swivelled his head, listening intently. It didn’t sound like Morgan, but his voice would change if he’d taken a shot in the chest or stomach. He paused in indecision, then slowly rose to his feet, his eyes scanning the parking lot from side to side, and listening intently.

‘Morgan?’ Harris called, and moved towards the edge of the undergrowth.

He’d taken two steps across the tarmac when Hunter brought the butt of the Glock crashing down on the back of his head.

Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

Roger Ketch paced his office, waiting. Harris had called over an hour earlier with the news that Reilly and Hunter had been spotted in Las Vegas and given details of the car they’d been seen driving, but since then he’d heard nothing from anybody.

When his internal telephone rang he grabbed it immediately, although he knew it couldn’t possibly be anything to do with the search for the two perps.

‘Ketch.’

‘Control Tower, sir,’ the voice said. ‘Your Hercules is fifteen minutes from the runway.’

Ketch spun around and looked at the schedule pinned to the wall behind him, his eyes tracing the horizontal columns. He’d almost forgotten, but the last scheduled delivery of the week was due almost immediately.

‘Thanks,’ he replied. ‘Let me know when it touches down.’

‘Affirmative.’

When he’d replaced the receiver Ketch made a call to the staff room in the building, alerting the handlers that the arrival of the Hercules was imminent. Then he pressed a button on a light grey console on the left hand side of his desk and passed on the same message. The answer was little more than a high-pitched squawk, but Ketch had become used to interpreting the sounds from the tiny speaker, and knew that his message had been understood.

Las Vegas, Nevada

Hunter had always been good at prioritizing. As soon as Harris had hit the ground like a sack of cement, Hunter kicked his pistol well out of reach and then frisked him, removing Harris’s wallet as well as a large pocket knife and two spare magazines for the Smith and Wesson. Then he’d lashed Harris’s hands together behind his back with a couple of large plastic cable ties.

Only then had Hunter called out to Reilly and made his way cautiously across the parking lot when the sheriff answered.

‘Dick?’

‘Here,’ Reilly replied, his voice racked with pain.

Hunter crouched beside the sheriff, pulled a small flashlight from his pocket and switched it on. What he saw made him catch his breath. The whole front of Reilly’s shirt was soaked with blood.

‘Jesus Christ, Dick,’ Hunter said. ‘We’ve got to get you to a hospital.’

To Hunter’s surprise, Reilly shook his head and smiled. ‘Looks a whole lot worse than it is,’ he said. ‘Bullet just creased my chest. All I need is some strapping and a bandage, and maybe a coupla pain-killers.’

‘And maybe a new shirt, too,’ Hunter added, relief in his voice.

‘Yeah, that’d be good.’

Hunter braced himself and hoisted Reilly to his feet, which caused the sheriff to call out in pain as his chest muscles pulled apart.

‘You OK?’ Hunter asked.

‘Yup. Not gonna be doin’ any aerobics for a while, that’s for sure.’

Once Reilly was on his feet, the pain from his chest eased considerably. Hunter unbuttoned Reilly’s shirt, pulled it off and dropped it on the ground, then looked closely at the wound.

‘You’re right, Dick. It is just a scratch. A deep scratch, but just a scratch,’ he said, and walked across to the Lincoln. There was no medical kit, so he selected a towel from his overnight bag and tore it into three strips. One strip he doubled up as a pad for the wound, and the other two he tied together as a rudimentary bandage, which he wrapped around Reilly’s chest and knotted at the back.

‘Not exactly Mayo Clinic stuff,’ he said, ‘but that should stop or at least slow down the bleeding. You OK to get into the car?’

‘No problem. Guess we’ll be taking the Chevy?’

‘You got it,’ Hunter said.

Reilly walked slowly over to Harris’s Chevrolet and carefully eased himself down into the passenger seat.

Hunter checked Morgan – he was dead – and frisked him as he had done with Harris. Then he pulled and rolled the body deeper into the scrubby undergrowth, well out of sight of the road.

The Lincoln wasn’t going anywhere, with the smashed windshield and rear window, so Hunter transferred his and Reilly’s bags onto the back seat of the Chevrolet, along with the contents of Morgan’s and Harris’s pockets and their pistols and ammunition, then walked across to where Harris was lying.

He was still unconscious, so Hunter hoisted him onto his shoulders using a fireman’s lift, walked over to the Chevrolet and dropped him into the trunk. Then Hunter climbed into the driver’s seat, started the engine, turned the car around and pulled out into the highway traffic, heading south and away from Vegas.

Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

The Hercules landed nearly forty minutes late, but that didn’t matter. As usual, it taxied off the runway opposite Hangar 18, then followed the southwest taxiway to the Rolver Systems’ compound, and parked near the back of the building, adjacent to the steel gates in the boundary fence. The USAF van was already waiting when the pilot shut down the engines, and five minutes later the crew was in the van and en route to the Flight Operations Centre.

Once the crew had left, the two Rolver Systems’ employees who’d flown in the cargo compartment of the Hercules opened the rear cargo door to allow unloading to start. The steel gates were swung wide and two small forklifts were driven out of the compound and up the C-130’s loading ramp. In the Hercules, the caskets were detached from the central monitoring system, and transfer of them to the Rolver Systems’ building began. Nobody took the slightest notice of the casket containing Evans, who was still trying to punch and kick his way out.

Three quarters of an hour later, once the last casket had been removed from the aircraft and a consignment of empty caskets loaded aboard, the compound gates and the doors to the building were locked. Seventy minutes after that, the flight crew returned to the Hercules, and within twenty minutes the aircraft was on its way back to McCarran Air Base. The next planned delivery was Monday afternoon.

Las Vegas, Nevada

From the moment the Chevrolet had appeared at the entrance to the parking lot to the time when Hunter accelerated away, a little under eleven minutes had elapsed. Templeton and Grant pulled their Lincoln into the diner parking lot exactly eight minutes later, and got out cautiously. They looked all round the parking lot, using their flashlights sparingly, just in case Hunter or Reilly were lurking in the bushes aiming pistols at them, but found nothing. Then they checked the abandoned Lincoln, and looked at the bullet holes in the glass.

‘Maybe Harris and Morgan got them,’ Grant murmured.

‘Not in the car, they didn’t,’ Templeton said. ‘Not a trace of blood anywhere. Keep looking.’

Grant found two empty shell cases near the parking lot entrance, and the two men examined them.

‘This one’s a hand-load, by the looks of it,’ Templeton said, peering at it closely in the light of Grant’s flashlight. ‘Could be Morgan’s – he rolls his own.’ He paused and looked around the lot, mentally figuring angles. ‘My guess is, they pulled up here at the entrance, surprised the perps who were still sitting in the Lincoln, and got two or three shots off. Then all four of them rolled out of the cars and shot it out somewhere in the lot.’

‘So what happened then, and where are they now?’ Grant asked.

‘Search me,’ Templeton said. ‘The only place I know they’re not is here. Whatever happened in this parking lot, they’re long gone.’

‘We can try the two-way radio,’ Grant said, heading back towards their Lincoln, ‘and if there’s no response we can call Groom Lake and see if Ketch has heard from them.’

‘OK,’ Reilly said, as the Chevrolet barrelled south at exactly sixty miles an hour. ‘So now what do we do?’

‘Good question,’ Hunter said, changing lanes to overtake a slow-moving Dodge. ‘We’ve still got to get into Area 51, and quickly, before Christy-Lee gets fed into the system.’

‘I know you’re real good at this kind o’ thing,’ Reilly said, ‘but you can’t just steal another plane and fly in. The whole place is under radar surveillance, and any unknowns get intercepted. If they don’t get the hell out of the airspace, they get shot down. These guys is real serious about security.’

‘I know it won’t be a walk in the park, Dick, but one way or the other I’m going to get in there. How’s your chest?’ Hunter added.

‘Stingin’ like a bitch,’ Reilly said, ‘but I can live with it.’

Hunter was silent for a few minutes, then nodded, as if a decision had been made. Reilly looked at him speculatively as the Chevrolet speeded up, but didn’t say anything. Hunter waited for a stretch of road that was clear of traffic, swung the car around in a wide U-turn, and powered back up the road towards Las Vegas.

‘So the plan is what?’ Reilly asked.

‘Simple,’ Hunter said. ‘You said they’ll intercept and shoot down any unknown aircraft that enters the restricted airspace?’

‘Yup.’

‘So how about getting in on a known aircraft, then? Or maybe a known vehicle?’

Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

‘Yes?’ Ketch snapped as he pressed a button on his mobile phone. ‘Who is it?’

‘Templeton.’ The voice sounded tinny and distant.

‘Where’s Harris?’ Ketch demanded.

‘Ah,’ Templeton said. ‘We were kind of hoping you could tell us. We’ve heard nothing from him since he and Morgan went to intercept the Lincoln down to the south of Vegas.’

‘Nor have I.’ Ketch wasn’t in the best of tempers. ‘So what the fuck happened when they intercepted this goddamn Lincoln. I presume you have checked the scene?’

‘Yes,’ Templeton replied. ‘The Lincoln’s been abandoned, with a couple of bullet holes in it, and there’s evidence of a fire-fight in the vicinity. But there’s no sign of blood and no indications of what happened. Or at least, no indications we can see in this light. Harris isn’t responding to calls on the two-way radio, and his Chevrolet is missing.’

‘Absolutely incredible,’ Ketch almost shouted. ‘So these two guys have slipped away again, and maybe killed Harris and Morgan? Jesus, I thought you were supposed to be Special Forces?’

‘Ex-Special Forces, Mr. Ketch,’ Templeton said smoothly, ‘and we don’t know that anything’s happened to Harris or Morgan. There could be other explanations.’

‘Like what?’ Ketch snapped. ‘Oh, don’t bother. Just find Reilly and Hunter and for fuck’s sake kill them.’

Las Vegas, Nevada

‘I mean,’ Hunter said, ‘Groom Lake is a big base, right? Not everybody lives out there all the time, so there must be some kind of transportation system, some way of getting shift workers to and from the place.’

‘Right,’ Reilly said. ‘I’ve read a bit about Area 51. Supposed to be about a dozen flights a day out there from McCarran, using Boeing 737s.’

‘That,’ said Hunter, ‘is a lot of people. Do you know anything else about the aircraft?’

‘Not a lot. Nobody does, outside the guys who work out at Groom Lake. Believe the Boeings are white with a red stripe along the side, an’ I do know they’re called “Janet” flights.’

‘Janet?’ Hunter almost laughed. ‘You’re putting me on.’

‘Nope. Even got a Janet Terminal over at McCarran.’

‘Who the hell dreamed up that name?’

‘Dunno. The flights is supposed to be run by some classified outfit called somethin’ or other Special Projects, as I recall.’

Hunter was silent for a few moments. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘what about road access? Any other way of getting in there?’

‘Not so’s you’d notice. The cammo dudes in their Cherokees keep out anybody who tries to get inside the base from the hills. Lots of guys have tried it, but far as I know none of ’em ever made it. Some outfit runs buses into Groom Lake to carry other base workers, but I dunno where from.’

‘Well,’ Hunter said, ‘there’s always a first time.’

‘Don’t much like the sound of that. What d’you mean?’

‘You said lots of people have tried to get inside but these cammo dudes or whatever the hell you call them have stopped them. I reckon that between us we could take on a couple of these guys no problem. We just drive to some part of the boundary of Area 51, hang about there for a while and wait for these cammo dudes to show up. Then we take them out.’

Reilly grunted. ‘May not be one of your better ideas, that. So, assumin’ we don’t get our asses shot off in the process, what do we do then?’

‘Easy. We put on their uniforms, take their Cherokee and just drive right over to Groom Lake. Don’t forget, cops are invisible – people see the uniform, not the man inside it – and they can go anywhere.’

Reilly was silent for a minute. ‘Figure there are three things you haven’t thought of, Mr. Hunter. First, I’m still bleedin’ like a stuck pig here, and I’m not gonna be much help to you in a fire-fight. Second, I’m a big guy. Suppose one o’ these cammo dudes ain’t obligin’ enough to weigh two hundred and twenty five pounds?’

‘Details,’ Hunter said. ‘If you just act like an intruder, I’ll take out the two guys who come to arrest you. If the uniform doesn’t fit you, just take off your shirt and I’ll pretend I’m taking you to the base hospital or medical centre. What’s the third?’

‘You’re right,’ Reilly said. ‘Those two are just details, but the third’s the biggie. You got any idea how long it’ll take us to drive over to Area 51? By the time we get up there and find ourselves a Cherokee Jeep an’ a coupla you-can’t-see-me suits, and get our asses over to Groom Lake, your lady will be sliced and diced.’

Chapter Twenty-One

Saturday

Las Vegas, Nevada

Hunter’s knuckles showed white as he gripped the steering wheel of the Chevrolet, then he slowly relaxed.

‘I don’t like the way you said it,’ he muttered, his voice low and harsh, ‘but you’re absolutely right, Dick. We don’t have any options. Somehow, we’ve got to fly in.’

‘Not gonna be easy,’ Reilly said.

Hunter eased his foot off the accelerator pedal and let the Chevrolet coast in towards the side of the road, then turned into the parking lot of a small shopping mall that showed no sign of life whatsoever. He pulled the vehicle to a halt on the side of the parking area furthest from the road, and switched off the engine. Reilly just looked at him.

‘You got an idea?’ Reilly asked.

‘Maybe,’ Hunter said. ‘First, let me take another look at your chest.’

Reilly levered himself slowly and painfully out of the passenger seat and leant against the side of the Chevrolet while Hunter undid the towel and lifted the makeshift pad off Reilly’s chest. Fresh bleeding was evident along almost the whole length of the furrow carved by Morgan’s bullet.

‘Hold on,’ Hunter said, leant into the Chevrolet and opened the glove box. He’d checked the Lincoln for a medical kit, but hadn’t thought to look in the other car.

‘Bingo,’ he said, and pulled out a small oblong white metal box with a red cross on the lid. He popped the lid off and pulled out two three-yard bandages, a selection of felt pads and medical tape. Reilly held the pads in place as Hunter strapped the bandages tightly around him. The result wasn’t perfect, but was a whole lot better than the towel he’d applied previously.

‘Better?’ Hunter asked, as he used a safety pin and tape to secure the end of the second bandage.

‘Yup,’ Reilly replied. ‘Having it tighter helps a lot.’ He glanced down at his chest and two small patches of reddening on the white bandages. ‘Bleedin’ seems to have slowed down some.’

As Reilly waited beside the car, Hunter opened the rear door and rummaged around in the sheriff’s overnight bag until he found a red and dark grey check shirt in heavy cotton.

‘Here,’ he said, ‘put this on. If you bleed onto it, it shouldn’t be too obvious.’

‘OK,’ Reilly said, as Hunter helped him do up the last buttons, ‘now I’m not gonna bleed to death, what’s your idea? I’d like to know,’ he added, with a flash of his old humor, ‘just so’s I can arrange to have the details carved on my headstone when it all goes tits-up.’

‘We’ll hop a Janet flight,’ Hunter said calmly.

‘I knew it,’ Reilly said dismissively. ‘Say it quickly and it sounds real easy. Just one small question. How? And suppose the last one’s already left? In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s not exactly the middle of the workin’ day round here.’

‘Simple. We’ll get them to lay on a special aircraft for us.’

Reilly just looked at him. ‘You bang your head or somethin’ back in that diner parkin’ lot?’ he asked. ‘’Cause you ain’t makin’ a heap of sense right now.’

Hunter turned suddenly at a sound, like a muffled thump, from behind them. ‘Hear that?’ he asked.

‘Yup,’ Reilly said. ‘The guy in the trunk musta woken up.’

‘Exactly,’ Hunter said, ‘and he’s our ticket onto a Janet flight, or he will be by the time I’ve finished with him.’

‘Still nothing?’ Templeton asked, and Grant shook his head as he replaced the two-way radio in its carrier on the dashboard.

The two men were driving around the southern outskirts of Las Vegas. Templeton had put out an APB for the Chevrolet as soon as he’d finished talking to Ketch, but so far no police officer had called it in.

‘Nothing,’ Grant said. ‘Guess his radio’s still turned off.’

‘I don’t believe Reilly and Hunter could have got the drop on Harris and Morgan,’ Templeton said. ‘I worked with Harris in ’nam. He knows what he’s doing. My guess is, either they took out the two perps, or they’re in hot pursuit. They turned the radio off before they confronted the two bad guys, and they’ve just forgotten to switch it back on again.’

‘Yeah, right,’ Grant said, but he didn’t sound convinced.

But as if in confirmation of Templeton’s hypothetical scenario, the squawk of the two-way radio cut brusquely through Grant’s last sentence.

Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

Ketch was exhausted. He sat at his desk with his head slumped in his hands, and looked longingly across the office at his camp bed. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept properly, the last time he’d not been woken up by a ringing telephone or a buzzing intercom unit. He just had to rest for a while.

As he got up to walk over to the bed, he noticed an amber light glowing on the light grey console fitted on the extreme left hand side of his desk. The legend under it read ‘Permission to commence processing requested.’

‘No,’ Ketch muttered to himself, ‘they can fucking well wait.’ He reached out and snapped down the switch which bore the tag ‘Permission to process denied.’

Las Vegas, Nevada

Reilly sat comfortably, or as comfortably as his torn chest would allow, in the centre of the rear seat of the Chevrolet, an automatic pistol pressed lightly against Harris’s left temple. Harris was sitting on the extreme right hand side of the seat, his hands still firmly lashed behind his back, the door beside him wide open.

Hunter had taken pains to explain to Harris this meant that, if Reilly had to pull the trigger, most of Harris’s blood and brains would be ejected outside the car, which would save them having to take too much time cleaning the back seat.

Leaning over from the front seat, Hunter held the two-way radio in his left hand close to Harris’s face. In his right hand, the Glock was trained steadily on the centre of the bound man’s chest.

‘Talk to them,’ Hunter instructed.

‘No way. Go fuck yourself,’ Harris replied, his words slurred and indistinct.

Hunter said nothing, just looked at him. Then he put the Glock down on the seat beside him and reached into his jacket pocket. His hand came back into Harris’s view holding Dick Reilly’s switchblade, which he snapped open.

‘Talk to them,’ Hunter said again.

Harris shook his head, but didn’t take his eyes off the knife. Hunter leaned towards him and placed the point of the blade directly under Harris’s left collarbone. He changed his grip so that the heel of his hand was directly behind the end of the switchblade’s bone handle. Then he looked at Harris again.

‘Talk to them,’ he said.

Harris shook his head, then cried out in pain as Hunter began to exert pressure on the knife. The end of the blade slid perhaps half an inch into the tender flesh below the bone. Blood flowed, reddening Harris’s shirt, and he writhed in agony. Hunter twisted the knife within the wound, then pulled it out.

‘Talk to them.’

Harris looked at him, and shook his head again.

Hunter leaned over the back of the seat and repeated the treatment, this time under Harris’s right collarbone.

‘Look,’ Hunter said, when Harris had stopped yelling, ‘I can do this all day, picking a fresh spot each time, but you’re making a lot of noise and we’re running out of patience. So, I’m going to ask you just once more. Then it’ll probably be too late to convince your friends that you’re OK, and we’ll just kill you anyway, but good and slow. Maybe a gut shot, or perhaps I’ll just rip your stomach open with this knife and let you bleed to death. This really is your last chance. Talk to them.’

Harris stared at him for a long moment, then, as Hunter extended the switchblade again, he nodded.

‘Good,’ Hunter said. ‘Remember to say what we want you to say, and you’ll live a little while longer.’

Hunter pushed the microphone of the radio a little closer to Harris’s face and thumbed the transmit button.

‘Templeton,’ Harris said.

‘Yeah, I’m here. That you, Harris? We were getting worried. What the hell happened?’

Reilly pressed the muzzle of Morgan’s Smith and Wesson harder against Harris’s head, and Hunter nodded encouragement from the front seat.

‘Tell him,’ Hunter said softly, ‘and remember you’ll be making a slow and painful journey to meet your maker if you say anything either of us doesn’t like.’

Hunter depressed the press-to-talk button on the two-way radio and Harris leant forward and began to speak.

‘We switched the radio off before we turned into the diner parking lot. Morgan forgot to switch it on again – he had other things on his mind.’

‘Like what?’

‘I’m coming to that. Where are you?’

‘Cruising around in the south of Las Vegas,’ Templeton replied. ‘By the way, we put an APB out for your car when we couldn’t contact you.’

‘Tell them to cancel it,’ Hunter muttered, then pressed the transmit switch again.

‘Cancel it,’ Harris snapped. ‘I don’t have the time or the inclination to start arguing with some hick cops right now.’

‘No problem. Grant will call in and terminate it.’

‘Now tell them the tale,’ Hunter said, and leant back towards Harris, pointing the switchblade at his bleeding left shoulder. The injured man cringed as far back in the seat as he could, but nodded again.

‘You found the Lincoln?’ Harris asked, into the radio microphone.

‘Yes.’

‘OK. We pulled into the lot at the diner, saw the Lincoln and ventilated it, just in case, but the two perps had gone. We checked out the lot, and found a young guy pretty badly beaten up and dumped in the bushes.’

The radio squawked in Hunter’s hand. ‘Who was he?’

‘Just some guy. Never even asked his name. We got him into the car and took him to Vegas General Hospital. On the way there Morgan talked to him. Seems he’d just pulled into the parking lot with his girl friend for a little horizontal jogging when the two perps arrived. They beat the crap out of him, and took his car and the girl.’

‘Oh, shit,’ Templeton said. ‘So now we’ve got a hostage situation as well.’

‘Doubt it,’ Harris said. ‘I don’t think these two are into that. I think they’ll dump her pretty soon, somewhere out in the wilds. But this guy overheard the two perps talking after they’d beaten him, and thanks to him we do know what they’re going to try to do.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘They’re going to try to get into Groom Lake.’

For a moment, Hunter couldn’t make out what the noise was. Then he realized it was the sound of Templeton’s laughter through the radio speaker. He raised the switchblade and gestured to Harris again.

‘Templeton,’ Harris said.

‘Yeah. Good one. Save us all a job if they try that.’ Templeton was still laughing.

Hunter waggled the switchblade at Harris in encouragement.

‘Listen to me,’ Harris hissed into the radio microphone. ‘So far these two guys have taken out two of my team back in Beaver Creek, abducted the Director of the FBI, and flown out of Washington D.C. with every cop, FBI, CIA and Secret Service agent in the place looking for them. What you don’t do is underestimate them. If they say they’re going to get into Groom Lake, I reckon they’ll find a way.’

Hunter smiled bleakly at Harris, and nodded approval.

‘OK,’ Templeton’s voice sounded tired, and entirely unconvinced. ‘So what do we do now?’

‘You and Grant fuel the car and drive up to Rachel. These two guys may be trying to get in by road and that’s the only access to Groom Lake. In any case, we’ll need wheels in the area. They’re driving a dark green Dodge sedan with Montana plates.’

Harris read out a registration number from the piece of paper that Reilly was holding up in front of his face. Reilly was certain they wouldn’t find the car, because it was parked in his garage back at Beaver Creek.

‘OK,’ Templeton said. ‘Got that. What are you and Morgan going to do?’

‘Fly out to Groom Lake,’ Harris said. ‘That’s where the two perps are trying to get to, so we’re going to arrive first and wait for them out there, just in case they do manage to get in.’

Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

The mobile phone rang again in Ketch’s office. It rang six times before the sound penetrated his troubled sleep and dragged him into a sitting position on the camp bed in the corner. Then he stood up, reached the desk in two strides and picked up the phone.

‘Ketch,’ he said, smothering a yawn.

‘Harris.’

‘Harris? And where the fuck have you been?’ Ketch snapped, waking up rapidly.

‘Getting closer to Reilly and Hunter.’ That, Harris thought inconsequentially, was certainly true.

‘OK. What’s the situation?’

‘We just missed them in Vegas, and we believe they’re on they way out to Groom Lake.’

‘They’ll never make it,’ Ketch snapped.

‘I’m not so sure,’ Harris said. ‘They’ve done pretty well so far in getting to places where they shouldn’t be.’

‘Groom Lake is different. You know what the security’s like here.’

‘Yes, but do you want to take a chance?’

There was a brief silence as Ketch mulled this over. ‘No, I guess not. OK, what do you suggest?’

‘Morgan and I should fly out to Groom Lake immediately. That way we’ll be on the spot and we can take these guys out if they do manage to get past the boundary patrols. We’ll have Templeton and Grant on the ground outside the base, in radio contact.’

Ketch looked at the clock on the opposite wall of his office, then swung round and checked the flight schedule on the wall behind his desk.

‘Today’s last scheduled Janet flight leaves Vegas in about ten minutes. I’ll call McCarran and tell them to hold it until you and Morgan arrive.’

‘Right,’ Harris said, ‘we’ll get to McCarran as soon as we can.’

Las Vegas, Nevada

‘You did very well, Harris,’ Hunter said. He’d been holding the mobile phone midway between Harris’s ear and his own, and he’d heard both sides of the conversation. He switched the phone off and put it in the glove box of the Chevrolet.

‘And now I suppose you’re going to kill me anyway?’ Harris said. He knew his usefulness to these two was pretty much at an end, and he had no illusions about what they might do to him.

‘No,’ Hunter said, ‘or at least, not yet. You could still be useful to us. Have you ever visited Groom Lake?’

‘Only once.’ Harris nodded.

‘Tell us about it, and quickly,’ Hunter said.

‘What do you want to know?’

‘We want to get into the building which houses the guy who pulls your strings – the one who runs Roland Oliver. Have you been there?’

‘Yes,’ Harris said. ‘It’s called Rolver Systems, and it’s down at the southern end of the base, on the west side of the main runway. The building looks kind of like a small hangar.’

‘And what’s the name of the man we need to see?’

‘Ketch,’ Harris said. ‘Roger Ketch.’

‘Right. What about security out there? There’ll be armed guards, I guess.’

‘No,’ Harris replied, ‘the whole point about Groom Lake is that it’s in the middle of an area that unauthorized people simply can’t get into, so the actual base security presence is pretty light, except around some of the hangars.’

‘Hangars? What’s in the hangars?’

‘I don’t know,’ Harris said, realizing that as long as he kept talking, he’d stay alive. ‘And I mean I really don’t know, so there’s no point in trying to beat it out of me. Hundreds of people, maybe thousands, work at Groom Lake, but they’re all doing very specific jobs. The whole system is compartmentalized, and workers are not allowed to talk to people from different sections. If you work there and you need to know something, they’ll tell you. If you don’t, they won’t. I didn’t need to know what was in the hangars.’

‘OK. What about the Rolver Systems’ building?’

‘It’s in a secure compound, which means it’s got solid access doors with electric locks and it’s surrounded by a high steel mesh fence which is electrified. To get in, you ring the bell. The guard will tell you to insert your ID card in the slot below the bell, and if the card checks out, the gate will open automatically to let you into the compound. You do the same thing at the building door.’

‘No cameras, retinal scans, voice checks or fingerprint comparisons?’

‘Nope. I told you: the whole area is protected, so there’s no need for high security actually at Groom Lake.’ Harris paused and looked at Hunter. ‘You mind if I ask you something?’

‘You can ask,’ Hunter said.

‘What’s driving you? Ever since Beaver Creek you and Sheriff Reilly have taken on most of American law enforcement, and you’re still doing it. You’re both either real lucky or real good at this kind of thing. And if you’re real good at it, what the hell were you doing counting paperclips in the FBI and why was Reilly working as a sheriff at some no-account town in the middle of Montana?’

‘It’s a bit of both, I suppose,’ Hunter said, ‘but there is one very good reason why we’re still running and we’re still fighting. Somebody we care about was snatched and fed into this programme being run out at Groom Lake.’

‘That’d be Kaufmann, right?’ Harris said, then stopped, realizing what he’d said.

Hunter nodded slowly. ‘I wondered if you’d pick up on that. Yes, Christy-Lee Kaufmann is exactly who I mean. And the fact that you know her name means it was probably you and Morgan who snatched her and organized her transport out here. Do you know what they do to these girls out at Groom Lake?’

Harris nodded. ‘Yup. It’s a medical research program.’

‘Nope,’ Hunter said. ‘It’s a kind of human abattoir. You snatched Christy-Lee Kaufmann and had her put in a box to be shipped out to Nevada and then killed and dismembered, for God only knows what reason, and the fact that we think she’s still alive right now is why we’re going to Groom Lake.’

‘I didn’t know that,’ Harris said, his face visibly pale in the dim glow of the Chevrolet’s interior light.

‘Maybe you did, and maybe you didn’t,’ Hunter said, ‘but where I come from, ignorance is no excuse.’

He climbed out of the front seat of the Chevrolet, reached into the back and pulled Harris to his feet. Hunter stood in front of him, and stared straight into his eyes.

‘I won’t say I’m sorry about this, because I’m not. You and your buddies killed the pathologist we summoned to Beaver Creek. You tried to kill Dick here in his home. You sent Christy-Lee to be slaughtered like some kind of animal, and you’ve been doing your best to kill me as well.’

Harris shook his head. ‘I was just doing the job I was paid to do,’ he said.

‘So were the Nazis who ran the concentration camps,’ Hunter said. ‘The only thing you’ve done right, as far as I can see, is that you’ve given us information about Groom Lake that might be useful. Even then, we don’t know if you were just making it up as you went along.’

‘Look, I’ve told you the truth. I’ve told you what I know. As for the rest, it was just business. It wasn’t anything personal,’ Harris said.

‘Neither is this,’ Hunter replied. He lifted the Glock to Harris’s forehead, but it was Reilly who pulled the trigger of Morgan’s Smith and Wesson. The bullet hit the left side of Harris’s head, and exited in a spray of blood and brain matter. Harris tumbled to the ground but was dead before he hit it.

‘Shoulda thought you’d know better than to use an FBI-issue pistol to waste someone, Mr. Hunter,’ Reilly said. ‘Don’t you know nothin’ ’bout forensics?’

Hunter looked down at Harris’s body, then grinned at Reilly as he holstered the Glock.

‘I was just waiting for you to finish the job, Dick,’ he said. ‘I figured that if Harris was standing there looking at me, you’d have a shot that even you couldn’t possibly miss.’

Reilly grunted, carefully unloaded the Smith and Wesson, wiped it for fingerprints, then wrapped it in a shirt taken from his overnight bag.

Hunter dragged Harris’s body to the edge of the parking lot and tumbled it down the shallow incline abutting the tarmac. Then the two men climbed back into the Chevrolet, drove out of the mall parking lot and headed uptown, back towards McCarran. Half a dozen blocks away from the mall, Hunter stopped the car near some grey, plastic garbage bins. He took the shirt with the Smith and Wesson wrapped inside it, checked to see that nobody was taking any interest in what he was doing, opened the lid of one of the bins and pushed it deep down into the garbage. Reilly’s bloodstained shirt went into another garbage bin two blocks further on.

Six minutes later, Hunter drew the Chevrolet to a halt beside the gate guard at the main entrance to McCarran Air Base.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Saturday

McCarran Air Force Base, Las Vegas, Nevada

Hunter pulled the car to a halt but ignored the notice on the front of the guard house and kept the headlights of the Chevrolet switched on. As the guard leaned out of his booth, Hunter wound his window down and passed up the Omega cards he’d taken from the two dead men.

‘We’re Harris and Morgan,’ he said. ‘You should be expecting us, and can you make in snappy – they’re holding a Janet flight for us.’

The guard took his time looking down at the list on his clipboard, but eventually appeared satisfied and handed the cards back to Hunter.

‘Know where the Janet Terminal is?’ he asked.

‘Nope,’ Hunter said, quite truthfully. ‘I’ve never been here before.’

‘OK,’ the guard said, reached into a drawer on the desk in front of him and handed down a simple photocopied map of McCarran Air Base. ‘Just follow the route marked in red,’ he said, pointing at a section of the map with a pencil. ‘I’ll tell the Terminal staff you’re on the base and on your way.’

Las Vegas, Nevada

Templeton pulled the Lincoln into an all-night gas station, stuck the pump nozzle in the tank filler and squeezed the lever. Grant climbed out of the passenger seat and walked slowly round the car, finally stopping next to Templeton.

‘Something on your mind?’

‘Yup,’ Grant said, ‘I dunno, but to me there’s something about all this that doesn’t smell right.’

‘Like what?’

Grant shrugged. ‘Like, well, like Harris and Morgan taking the guy they’d found to the hospital. That sound like Harris to you? I’d have figured he’d just question him and leave him where he was. The most I’d expect him to do is maybe call for a paramedic unit. Harris just ain’t the compassionate type.’

The flow of fuel stopped as the safety valve cut in. Templeton glanced at the figures on the pump, squeezed the lever again to get an extra half gallon into the tank, then replaced the pump nozzle. He bent down and put the cap back on the Lincoln’s fuel tank.

‘No, maybe he isn’t,’ Templeton conceded.

‘And why send us up to Rachel?’ Grant continued. ‘Why would the two perps pick there to start from? I know the access road from Route 375 begins near the town, but they could try to cross the boundary anywhere.’

‘So what do you think?’ Templeton asked, opening his wallet and selecting a credit card to pay for the fuel.

‘I think Harris was telling us what the perps wanted him to tell us, because they were sitting looking at him over the barrels of their pistols. I think we’re being sent out into the desert to get us out of the way, and I think Reilly and Hunter are calling the shots.’

Templeton tapped the credit card on his teeth, then came to a decision. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure I agree with what you’re saying, but it’ll do no harm to check it out. We’ll go take another look at that Lincoln, and see what else we can find at the parking lot. Get on the horn to the Las Vegas PD and put the APB back on Harris’s Chevy.’

McCarran Air Force Base, Las Vegas, Nevada

Reilly called the directions as Hunter drove, as quickly as he could, along the almost deserted network of roads inside McCarran Air Base. Within a matter of minutes, Hunter braked the Chevrolet to a stop outside the Janet Terminal and the two men climbed out.

‘I’ll do the talking,’ Reilly said. ‘Don’t want nobody wondering why a Brit’s on his way out to this here Groom Lake place.’

‘Fine by me,’ Hunter replied.

Reilly was moving easier, thanks to the second bandage Hunter had applied, and there were only two or three small red discolorations on the front of his shirt where blood had seeped through. They were both wearing lightweight jackets, and as long as Reilly kept his zipped up, the stains couldn’t be seen.

Reilly couldn’t carry anything because of the torn muscles on his chest, so Hunter took Reilly’s black leather bag from the Chevrolet. They’d already stopped to check the contents, and had removed all the clothes in favour of Reilly’s choice of hardware. This included half a dozen packages wrapped in brown paper, a long bundle wrapped in a blanket, which contained Reilly’s SPAS-12 shotgun and AR-15 assault rifle, and several boxes of ammunition. Hunter had put in the Smith and Wesson pistol he’d taken from Harris, plus a silencer, the spare magazines he and Morgan had been carrying, the two-way radio from the Chevrolet, and Harris’s mobile phone, both of which were switched off.

A bulky man wearing a dark blue suit was waiting at the terminal entrance, and held up a hand as Reilly and Hunter approached.

‘You Harris and Morgan?’ he demanded.

‘Yup,’ Reilly said, and proffered the two Omega cards.

The man barely glanced at them, just turned and led the way through the building. ‘You got any idea how long we’ve been holding this aircraft for you two?’

Attack, Reilly thought, was usually the best form of defence. ‘Nope,’ he said, ‘but it ain’t our problem. Until about an hour ago, we didn’t even know we was supposed to be on the flight. You got a problem with that, mister, you’d better take it up with Groom Lake, not us.’

The man grunted in disapproval, then pulled open one half of a set of double doors and simply pointed out into the night. Hunter looked down a short flight of steps and across a concrete parking area where a white Boeing 737 with a red horizontal stripe running along the fuselage waited, the starboard engine already running.

‘Guess that’s our ride,’ Reilly muttered, as they walked across to the single set of access stairs just behind the cockpit.

Nine minutes later, the 737 taxied past the holding point, swung off the taxiway and straightened up on the main runway at McCarran. The pilot ran the engines up to full power, released the brakes, and the Boeing lifted smoothly off the ground, then swung northwest for Groom Lake.

Las Vegas, Nevada

Templeton had stopped the Lincoln to fill it with fuel on the northeast outskirts of Las Vegas, and the late-evening traffic was heavy and slow-moving. The diner where Hunter had abandoned the Lincoln was only about fifteen miles from the gas station, but it took them nearly fifty minutes to make it back there.

‘Should I call Ketch?’ Grant asked, as they accelerated away from a set of traffic lights.

‘No, not yet,’ Templeton replied. ‘If we find something at the diner, then we’ll set the wheels in motion. I’m not convinced,’ he added, ‘and even if you’re right, Hunter and Reilly have still got to get into Groom Lake, which they won’t find easy. What I don’t want to do is set a hare running and then have Harris draining all over me when it turns out that he was right and you were wrong. OK?’

‘OK,’ Grant agreed, somewhat grudgingly.

Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

In his office, Roger Ketch had consumed almost a pint of strong black coffee, and was feeling more awake. He sat behind his desk, mentally rehearsing the dressing-down he was going to give Harris when he and Morgan eventually arrived.

The combined weight of the entire United States of America’s law enforcement machinery had been directed against two men – only two, for Christ’s sake – and they’d just walked into wherever they wanted to go, and done whatever they wanted to do. Hunter’s ability to avoid detection he could maybe understand if he was, as McGrath at the FBI suspected, some kind of a British spook, but Dick Reilly, sheriff of Hicksville, Nowhere U.S.A.? That was something else. Heads, Ketch had already promised himself, were going to roll. Lots of heads.

He glanced at the clock at the front of the desk. He calculated that the 737 should land in about ten minutes or so. Then he noticed that the amber light on the grey console on the left hand side of his desk was glowing again.

‘OK, OK,’ he murmured. ‘We’ll get the system running in a few minutes.’ Then he smiled, remembering the identity of one of the occupants of the caskets downstairs. ‘And we’ll have a little fun as well,’ he added.

Two minutes later, Ketch closed his office door behind him and walked down the staircase towards the large room located in the middle of the building. He took a key from his pocket, opened the access door and stepped inside.

He walked first to the table positioned in the centre of the room, and looked closely at the equipment which was located on and around it. Knowing exactly what the system was designed to do, he always experienced a thrill of almost sexual excitement when he stood close to the table.

The very first time he’d been present in the building when a processing run was carried out, he’d actually stood beside the table and watched the operation, but he’d found it just too much to take. Then he’d begun watching it on the monitor screen in his office, but after a while he found he couldn’t stomach even that. But he still occasionally turned the monitor on and watched for a few minutes, and he always looked at the occupants of at least some of the caskets before each run.

Ketch walked around the room, looking in through the faceplates of some of the caskets. His progress appeared random, but actually he knew exactly where he was going, and precisely at which casket his inspection was going to finish. He’d left very specific instructions about the placement of that one casket.

‘Janet’ flight Boeing 737, above Shoshone Peak, Nevada

A little over twenty minutes into the flight, the co-pilot left the cockpit and began walking slowly up the centre aisle towards the rear of the Boeing, scanning faces as he did so. The aircraft was far from full – only about a third of the seats were occupied.

He stopped beside Reilly and looked down at him. ‘You Harris?’ he asked.

‘Nope,’ Reilly said. ‘I’m Morgan. He’s Harris,’ and he jerked a thumb to his left, where Hunter sprawled in his seat, apparently asleep.

‘OK, whatever,’ the pilot said. ‘Got a message for the two of you from Groom Lake. There’ll be a car waiting for you at the dispersal to take you down to –’ he looked at a piece of paper in his hand ‘– Rolver Systems, wherever the hell that is.’

‘Mighty civil of them,’ Reilly said. ‘Much obliged.’

Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

With one exception, all the caskets were lying horizontal on the complex conveyor belt system that ran around almost the whole floor area, and the occupants were deeply unconscious.

The single exception was a casket supported by a frame which held it upright against the left-hand wall. The occupant was conscious, breathing normal air, and the front of the casket was placed so that the faceplate looked directly at the vivisection table. Ketch had also instructed that two small speakers and a simple amplifier were to be placed within the monitoring equipment section at the head of the casket, and a microphone had been taped to the front of it, directly above the faceplate.

Ketch was quite determined that Doctor Richard Evans would both see and hear every subject go through the processing system before his turn came around.

‘Good evening, doctor,’ Ketch said, as he walked up to the casket and peered in through the faceplate, an ironic smile on his face. ‘I hope you’re not too uncomfortable. Still, if you are, at least you know it won’t be for too much longer. We’ll be starting the processing run in a few minutes.’

At these words, the sides of the casket began vibrating as Evans made further futile efforts to break out.

‘It’s no good,’ Ketch said. ‘The casket’s virtually soundproof, and it’s certainly strong enough to hold you. We had a conversation, if you remember. Last year, I think it was. Your principles got the better of you, and you wanted out of the program. I told you then what would happen to you if you talked to anybody about Roland Oliver, and I even let you watch the processing so you’d know what we’d do to you if you tried to leave.

‘And now,’ Ketch swung his arm expansively to indicate the whole room, ‘you’re here, an hour or so from death, simply because you couldn’t keep your fucking mouth shut.’ Ketch’s voice rose steeply as he enunciated the last three words, and in the casket Evans actually flinched.

‘It might interest you to know,’ Ketch went on, his voice returning to normal, ‘that the people you talked to aren’t FBI or CIA or whatever they claimed to be. They’re just a couple of bums who’ve been lucky so far, but their luck is just about to run out. So, if you were expecting some kind of eleventh hour rescue, forget it.’

Ketch turned away, then swung back for a final jibe. ‘Once the doors close, we’ll start the processing,’ he said. ‘But I’ll be thinking of you. In fact, I’m even going to watch your last couple of minutes in my office, on the monitor. Pleasant dreams.’

Evans suddenly stopped struggling. His body, limp from his exertions and covered in sweat, seemed to sag, and he closed his eyes. There was, he realized at last, no hope, no hope at all.

Ketch closed and locked the door behind him, then walked over to the grey box fastened to the wall at about eye level to the right of the door. The box was secured with a combination lock and a keyhole. Ketch inserted the key he always wore around his neck in the lock and turned it counter-clockwise for half a turn to unlock the guard on the combination lock wheel.

He seized it and swiftly ran through the sequence of numbers which released the door lock. Then he turned the key fully counter-clockwise, listened for the click as the lock released, seized the handle on the left hand side of the door and pulled it open.

The three green lights met his gaze, each located above a gated switch. The three had to be activated in sequence, and were the last actions that had to be performed before the processing began. Ketch flicked the first switch and waited for the red light to illuminate, showing that the sound-proof wall shutters were in place. Then he activated the second switch that controlled the ceiling shutters and switched on the floodlights inside the room.

Once the second red light switched on he tripped the third and final switch. The red light illuminated almost instantaneously and transferred control of the room away from Ketch and allowed processing to commence.

Ketch shut the door of the grey box, turned the key clockwise one turn and removed it from the lock, spun the wheel to scramble the combination, and walked back towards the staircase and his office.

Inside the processing room, the gas mixture being breathed by the subjects closest to the processing table began to change, as the concentration of nitrous oxide was gradually reduced to zero and was replaced by nitrogen. Within fifteen to twenty minutes, the first subject would have regained consciousness, and processing could start.

The Boeing 737 touched down with barely a bump, and pulled off the runway having used only a fraction of its six-mile length. Five minutes later, the Boeing was parked on the hardstanding to the south of the Flight Operations Centre building. As the noise of the engines died away, the front and rear passenger doors were opened and sets of steps were positioned outside the aircraft.

When Hunter and Reilly reached the bottom of the forward steps, they looked around and noticed a USAF van parked about fifty yards away.

‘Not a car,’ Reilly said, ‘but it could be our transport.’

The two men walked over to the van and knocked on the driver’s window. ‘We’re Harris and Morgan,’ Reilly said. ‘You waitin’ for us?’

‘You going to Rolver Systems, right?’ the driver asked.

‘Yup,’ Reilly said, and he and Hunter clambered into the rear compartment of the van.

Three minutes later, the van drew up outside a secure compound, and both men got out. As they walked towards the closed and locked gate in the perimeter fence, the USAF van drove away.

‘Here we go,’ Reilly muttered. ‘Sure hope Harris was giving us a true bill.’

Las Vegas, Nevada

‘I’ve just remembered something,’ Templeton said. ‘There is one thing we could do to check this out. Harris gave us the number of a car – a Dodge – that Hunter and Reilly are supposed to have stolen. Run the number through the Las Vegas PD and see what you get. I’ll take another look around the perimeter.

Templeton was making his way through the undergrowth at the back of the parking lot, his flashlight swinging steadily from side to side, when he stumbled over something long and dark. He pointed the beam of the flashlight downwards and followed the cone of light with his eyes.

A couple of minutes later Grant looked up from his mobile phone as Templeton came jogging back to the Lincoln.

‘What is it?’

‘It’s Morgan,’ Templeton said, panting slightly, ‘shot to death and dumped back there. They must have dragged him into the undergrowth so he wouldn’t be found too quickly. I guess you were right after all.’

‘Damn right I was,’ Grant said, and held up the mobile phone. ‘Las Vegas PD just got back to me. That Dodge that Hunter and Reilly are supposed to have stolen? According to Motor Vehicle Records, the registered owner is one Richard Reilly, resident of Beaver Creek, Montana. These bastards have just been playing with us.’

Templeton reached over, took the mobile phone from Grant, and searched in his pocket for the piece of card on which he’d written Roger Ketch’s telephone number at Groom Lake.

Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

Hunter reached out and pressed the button on the communications panel. After a few seconds, the speaker grille crackled and a voice asked him his name.

‘Harris and Morgan,’ Reilly said.

‘OK. Insert your ID card.’

Hunter fed Harris’s Omega card into the slot below the speaker grille, and watched as electric lock clicked open and the gate swung wide. He retrieved the card and they walked the twenty yards or so to the Roland Oliver building itself. As they got to the access door it swung open. A man dressed in a dark grey coverall beckoned them inside.

‘Best you hurry,’ he said. ‘Mr. Ketch, he don’t like to be kept waitin’. His office’s on the second floor. There ain’t no lift, and the stairs are round the corner.’

Reilly and Hunter climbed the broad staircase side by side, up to the second and top floor of the building. A short corridor opened in front of them, at the end of which was an office door, standing slightly ajar. The sign on the door read ‘Officer In Charge,’ and underneath that ‘Roger Ketch.’

Through the door they could hear the sound of somebody talking on the telephone, then heard the receiver being slammed down into its cradle.

‘Fuck,’ the same voice said, as Reilly eased his Colt Commander from his shoulder holster, and pushed open the door and walked in.

Ketch was sitting behind his desk, his face black with fury. He had the internal telephone in his hand and was in the act of dialling the number of the Flight Operations building when he heard the door open and Reilly’s footsteps.

‘You’re not Harris,’ Ketch said, looking up.

Hunter walked in immediately behind Reilly, Morgan’s Smith and Wesson, with the bulbous black silencer fitted, held steadily in his right hand, and Reilly’s black leather bag in his left.

‘No,’ Hunter said, ‘and I’m not Morgan, either.’

Chapter Twenty-Three

Saturday

Las Vegas, Nevada

‘Ketch is really pissed,’ Templeton said, pressing the button on his mobile phone to end the call, ‘and he’s scared shitless as well. Seems he authorized Harris and Morgan to fly out to Groom Lake on a Janet flight in case Reilly and Hunter somehow got into the base. He even had the flight held on the ground at McCarran to give them time to catch it. And as we know Morgan was lying dead in a ditch here in Vegas when Ketch approved the flight, that means it was actually Reilly and Hunter who climbed onto the aircraft. My guess is, they’re already out at Groom Lake, probably in the Rolver Systems’ building.’

‘So what do we do?’

‘There’s almost nothing we can do – at least for Ketch. There aren’t any other flights out to Groom Lake until Monday, and even if we get Ketch to authorize a special aircraft, it’d take at least two hours to get it prepped and actually make the trip. If we drive it, we’re looking at maybe four to six hours.’

‘And by that time,’ Grant finished for him, ‘Either Reilly and Hunter will be dead or they’ll have killed Ketch and trashed Roland Oliver.’

‘Exactly. All we can do is call Groom Lake security and let them know a couple of intruders are on the base, and run through the Omega Level One Contact List until we find somebody who’ll tell us what the hell they want us to do.’

Templeton fished in his pocket and brought out a small red leather-bound book with an Omega symbol embossed in gold on the front cover. To an outsider, the information it contained would be meaningless, as the whole text was enciphered, and could only be decrypted by the use of two randomly-chosen keywords, which were known only to the holder.

The book contained the private telephone numbers of every senior official who had been indoctrinated into Roland Oliver, as well as overt and covert recognition procedures, dead letter box locations and abort signals

‘Let’s go get a coffee somewhere,’ Templeton said. ‘This could take some time.’

‘Remind me,’ Grant asked. ‘Who’s on that list?’

‘About half a dozen people,’ Templeton said, ‘starting with the Director of the FBI and finishing with the President of the United States.’

‘In view of what’s happened,’ Grant said, ‘I’m real glad it’s going to be you making those calls, not me.’

Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

Ketch wasn’t dead, but he was looking more than somewhat like a corpse. His face had gone grey as he realized the identities of the two men standing in front of him.

Reilly was feeling the strain from his wounded chest, and had settled himself as comfortably as he could in an armchair on the far side of the office from Ketch’s desk. Hunter was standing opposite Ketch, but automatically keeping clear of Reilly’s line of fire, and looking straight at the man he’d been pursuing over half of America.

‘One question, Ketch, before anything else,’ Hunter said, his voice cold and clipped. ‘Have you completed the processing of the latest batch of subjects?’

‘How do you know about that?’ Ketch demanded.

Hunter said nothing, just raised the Smith and fired one round through the corner of Ketch’s desk. The cough of the silenced weapon was barely audible, but splinters of wood flew everywhere.

‘I’m asking the questions,’ Hunter said. ‘You’ll live a little longer if you just answer them. I’m waiting,’ he added, raising the muzzle of the pistol.

‘No, no, it’s not finished,’ Ketch stammered. ‘In fact, it’s only just started. There were some delays.’

‘Good,’ Hunter said. ‘So stop it – right now.’

‘I can’t,’ Ketch said. ‘Once we hand over control, we’re not permitted to take it back until processing’s complete.’

What he’d said made little sense to either Hunter or Reilly, but the inference was clear enough.

‘I don’t believe that,’ Hunter said. ‘Any operation can be stopped, if there’s sufficient incentive. I’m going to provide you with all the incentive you need. Dick, are you OK to walk, or do you want to stay here for a few minutes?’

‘Reckon I’ll come with you. I’ve come this far, ain’t I?’

Hunter nodded. ‘OK, Ketch, take us down to wherever it is this processing takes place.’

Prodding Ketch in front of him with the pistol, Hunter walked down the stairs, alert for signs of interference from any workers in the building. Reilly was three or four paces behind him and just as alert, but they saw nobody. Ketch turned left at the foot of the staircase and walked across to a solid wooden door. Reilly stayed a short distance away, keeping an eye on the corridor.

‘It’s in here,’ Ketch said, ‘but the door’s locked and there are steel shutters on the insides of the ceiling and walls. You can’t open the door with the shutters in place. Here,’ he added, pointing at the frosted glass internal windows in the wall above him, ‘you can see them. It’s a completely sealed room.’

‘So unseal it,’ Hunter said, raising the Smith and Wesson.

‘I don’t think I can,’ Ketch said. ‘It’s never been done before.’

‘There’s a first time for everything,’ Hunter said. ‘Just do it.’

Ketch looked at Hunter and realized that discussion was useless. He produced the key on the chain around his neck and inserted it into the lock on the wall-mounted box. Then he spun the combination lock wheel. Whether through nervousness or simply sweaty fingers, he failed to get the sequence right the first time, and had to do it all over again.

The second time, his fingers felt the usual resistance in the lock, and he turned the key and opened the box.

‘You have to make these in sequence,’ Ketch said, pointing at the gated switches below the three glowing red lights. ‘When they’ve finished processing these go back to green.’

‘What’s the sequence?’ Hunter demanded.

‘What?’

‘You said the switches had to be made in a certain order. What is it?’

Ketch pointed. ‘Simple. You start from the left hand side and wait for each light to change from green to red before you make the next one.’

‘Right, so we’ll do the same thing in reverse,’ Hunter said, reached past Ketch and snapped the right-hand side switch up, into the ‘off’ position. Instantly the red light turned to green, and Hunter felt an almost imperceptible vibration through the floor suddenly cease.

‘You can’t –’ Ketch began.

‘You just watch me,’ Hunter said, and flicked the second switch.

A dull rumble echoed through the building as the steel shutters covering the ceiling of the processing room retracted. As soon as the second light glowed green, Hunter snapped up the third and final switch. Again they heard the dull rumbling sound and, looking up, Hunter saw the steel shutters ascending the inside of the walls of the processing room.

‘Seemed easy enough to me,’ Hunter remarked. ‘Now open the door.’

Ketch looked from Hunter to Reilly, and reached into his trouser pocket for the door key. He found it, inserted it in the lock, turned it and pushed open the door.

Hunter looked inside, and saw and heard and smelt the stuff of nightmares.

His eyes took in the line of caskets, which followed a serpentine path around the room and terminated at the table in the centre. They were horizontal, apart from the one immediately adjacent to the processing table, which was tipped up at an angle of forty-five degrees. A single casket was standing upright on the left hand side of the room, but Hunter ignored it, because his attention was riveted by the thing on the table.

The processing had stopped at the instant Hunter’s fingers had flicked the right-hand switch, but for the girl on the table it was too late – much too late. An arm powered by hydraulic rams was paused directly over her, two cutting wires attached to it. Her legs and arms had already gone, severed and dropped through a hatch at the end of the table to be mechanically wrapped and bagged. The electrically-powered cutters had just opened up her abdomen. The neck wire was in place over her throat, ready to slice through her cervical vertebrae. She was technically still alive, but no team of surgeons anywhere could do anything to save her.

The floor around the table, out to a distance of some eight or ten feet, was covered in splashes of red, and the top of the table was swimming in blood. Spurts had even gone upwards, leaving scarlet slashes on the dissection machinery.

From somewhere in the room came a sound like a distant wind – a thin, high-pitched keening – that rose and fell abruptly.

‘Oh, sweet Jesus,’ Reilly muttered, and out of the corner of his eye Hunter saw him cross himself.

Hunter stepped forward to the side of the table and looked down. The girl’s mouth was open, but she’d stopped breathing, and Hunter had never seen so much pain in any human face. With some unimaginable final effort, her eyes flickered open and for the briefest of instants she looked straight at Hunter. His eyes filled with tears, and he helped her in the only way that anybody could. He put the muzzle of the pistol gently against her temple and pulled the trigger.

Manassas, District of Columbia

William McGrath had bought his house at Manassas, about twenty-five miles southwest of the centre of Washington D.C., when he’d reached the rank of Special Agent In Charge. He hadn’t been working at the Headquarters building then, but he’d told himself he’d be there within five years. It had taken him only three.

Manassas was a good location for anyone working in Washington, and particularly at FBI Headquarters. It was pretty much midway between Dulles International to the north and Quantico to the south, and it was far enough out of the city to be fairly quiet, but close enough to allow him to reach Pennsylvania Avenue in about thirty minutes if he had to.

McGrath was a night person, usually climbing into his bed no earlier than midnight, and often at one or two in the morning, but it had been a hard week and the strain of acting as Director was beginning to tell on him. At eleven thirty he kissed his wife, who was sitting in the living room engrossed in a period drama on the wide-screen TV, walked upstairs and took a shower. By eleven fifty he was in bed, and was asleep just after midnight.

The call from Nevada was taken by the Senior Duty Special Agent at Pennsylvania Avenue, and the caller had left him in no doubt that the Director – or Acting Director McGrath, to be pedantic – was to be informed immediately. The Special Agent called McGrath’s home number at Manassas, and at twenty-eight minutes to one McGrath was shaken from a deep sleep by his wife.

Fifteen minutes later, he backed his Oldsmobile out of the garage and headed northeast towards Washington D.C. His mouth was dry and his hands were sweating, and it wasn’t just because he was going to have to wake up the President.

Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

As Hunter fired the Smith and Wesson, the keening sound stopped, and for the first time he realized that it was human in origin. He looked left, at the casket tipped at an angle with its lid removed, and stared into the terrified eyes of a dark-haired girl. She was naked, her arms, legs, head and torso held securely in place with some kind of straps, and she had obviously been forced by the angle of the casket to watch the dismemberment of the girl in front of her.

Hunter looked up at her. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘It’s all over.’

But for a long moment, Hunter didn’t move. He just stood there beside the table, arms hanging limp at his sides, staring downwards at the wreck that had minutes earlier been a healthy young woman. Then he straightened up, transferred the Smith to his left hand, walked back to the main door and smashed his fist with all his strength into Ketch’s stomach.

‘You fucking bastard,’ Hunter shouted, as Ketch doubled up on the ground. ‘Evans told me about this, but I didn’t really believe him. What the fuck is going on here? What in the name of God is all this for, you contemptible piece of shit?’

He launched a kick which caught Ketch in the ribs, and cracked two.

‘Easy,’ Reilly said, stretching out a hand. ‘He’s gotta be able to talk.’

Hunter looked down at him, breathing hard. ‘Yes. Yes, you’re right, Dick. Just watch him, will you?’

Hunter turned and walked back towards the table, but stopped beside the open casket containing the dark-haired girl. She was crying, great racking sobs that shook her entire body. Hunter took out Reilly’s switchblade, snapped it open and cut through the straps. As her arms were released, she reached up and clung to him with a strength that spoke eloquently of the nightmare she’d lived through.

‘It’s OK,’ Hunter said. ‘You’re safe now.’

He lifted her effortlessly out of the casket and carried her over to the door, away from the smell of blood and death, and lowered her to her feet. He took off his jacket and draped it around her shoulders, covering her nakedness. She sobbed, and clung fiercely to him, but Hunter gently freed her arms, all the time whispering soft encouragement to her.

Ketch still lay on the floor, gasping for breath. Hunter reached down and hauled him to his feet.

‘Right,’ Hunter said. ‘We need answers, and we need them right now. Can this fucking machinery start again without somebody making those switches outside?’

Ketch still couldn’t speak, but shook his head emphatically.

‘OK,’ Hunter said. He walked outside, closed the door of the grey box and turned and removed the key which still protruded from the lock. Then he spun the combination lock wheel and walked back into the processing room.

‘I don’t want to stay in here a second longer than I have to,’ Hunter said, ‘but I’ve got to find out if Christy-Lee is here.’

He turned again to Ketch and with a scything motion swept his feet from under him. Ketch crashed to the floor, and Hunter handed Reilly the silenced Smith and Wesson pistol.

‘If he tries to get up, shoot him,’ he said to Reilly. ‘Preferably in the leg.’

‘You got it,’ Reilly said, and Hunter walked away, down the line of caskets, undoing and lifting off the lids, and peering into each one in turn.

‘Who is this, and how did you get this number?’

The voice at the other end of the telephone line was crystal clear, and the exasperation in it was clearly evident.

‘My name doesn’t matter, because you won’t find it listed anywhere, but if you really must have it, it’s Templeton. I’m an employee of Roland Oliver, and I’m advising you formally that you have two intruders at Groom Lake, probably in the Rolver Systems’ building. My authority, I say again, is Omega Seventeen.’

‘I’ve never heard of Omega Seventeen, or Roland Oliver,’ the young USAF lieutenant said. He was sitting at the Duty Officer’s desk in the security office adjacent to the Flight Operations Center building.

‘Maybe you haven’t,’ Templeton replied, ‘but you do know where the Rolver Systems’ building is, don’t you?’

‘That’s classified information,’ Lieutenant Keating snapped.

‘So sue me. Look, all you have to do is log this call, get a squad together and drive down to the Rolver Systems’ building, ring the bell and demand to see Roger Ketch. If he opens the door and chews you out for disturbing him, that’s fine. If he doesn’t, then you’d better check your weapons, because you’re going to have a real fire-fight on your hands.’

Keating was silent for a moment. He had heard of Roger Ketch, and didn’t particularly relish the thought of crossing him.

‘OK,’ he said finally, ‘I’ll look into it. Give me your number.’

FBI Headquarters, J. Edgar Hoover Building, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

McGrath made it to Pennsylvania Avenue in a little under twenty minutes, a time he would previously have thought impossible. He ignored the ‘no parking’ signs and simply left the Oldsmobile with two wheels on the pavement, then ran into the building. He paused in the foyer only long enough to tell the uniformed guards that it was his car, and that it had better still be there when he came out again.

He walked across to the elevators, waited impatiently for the doors to open, and then pressed the button for the seventh floor. He walked down the corridor to the Director’s office, pushed open the door and went straight to the wall safe. Once the door opened, he reached inside and pulled out the Omega Procedures file, sliced through the binding tapes and seals with a pocket knife, then sat down at the desk and opened the file at the beginning.

Six minutes later he lifted his telephone handset and dialled a long-distance number. He listened to the ringing tone for nearly three minutes, then replaced the handset. Then he dialled a local number that was answered immediately.

Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

Keating still wasn’t certain if the call he’d received was for real. It wasn’t unheard of for other guys who worked the security details to occasionally make spoof calls, but they were usually fairly obvious. And this call had originated from a mobile phone using one of the Las Vegas cells – the call tracing software had made that clear enough – not from some empty office at Groom Lake, which was normally the case when somebody was trying to get a rise out of a colleague.

He sat at the desk for a few minutes, weighing his options then, decision made, stood up and walked out into the squad room.

‘You six men,’ he called out to a group in the far corner hunched over a game of poker. ‘Mount up. We have a report of possible intruders.’

‘Yeah, right,’ the sergeant muttered, ‘like that’s possible out here.’ But he stood up with the other five and followed Keating out of the room.

In the armoury, they strapped on bullet-proof Kevlar jackets and buckled on sidearm belts, then seized AR-15 assault rifles. Outside the building, a light grey USAF van stood waiting. Five of the men climbed in the back. The lieutenant took the front passenger seat, and the sergeant drove.

‘Where to? Sir.’ The last word was clearly something of an afterthought.

‘The Rolver Systems’ compound. That’s down by the –’

‘It’s OK, sir,’ the sergeant said. ‘I know where it is.’

Hunter found Christy-Lee Kaufmann in a casket on the far side of the room, still deeply unconscious and breathing the nitrous oxide/oxygen mixture. Hunter slipped the four catches, tossed the lid away from him, and listened for a few seconds to the sound of her breathing. Then he quickly removed the lids from all the remaining caskets before returning to Christy-Lee’s. He cut the fabric straps and reached inside for her.

Christy-Lee was a dead weight in his arms, but still seemed to be breathing easily enough. Hunter gently kissed her unresponsive lips, then carried her across the room and stopped by the door. Without a word, Reilly put the Smith and Wesson on the floor, well out of reach of Ketch, who still lay squirming, took off his jacket and wrapped it around Christy-Lee’s shoulders.

‘Thanks, Dick,’ Hunter said. ‘Now let’s get out of here,’ he added, then stopped suddenly, listening.

‘Yeah,’ Reilly said. ‘I heard it too. A thumpin’ sound. Comin’ from somewhere over there,’ and he pointed to the left hand side wall of the processing room.

Hunter looked where Reilly was pointing, then with an exclamation he gently lowered Christy-Lee to the floor and walked over to the upright casket. He undid the catches, pulled the lid away and sliced through the straps. Doctor Evans almost tumbled out, fully conscious, but babbling, foam flecking his lips and chin.

‘Thank God, thank God, thank God,’ he muttered, making no attempt to cover his nakedness and clinging to Hunter’s arm with all his strength. Hunter took him by the shoulders and shook him, then slapped him across the face.

‘Evans,’ Hunter said. ‘Doctor Evans. You’re safe. Listen to me.’

In a few seconds, reason seemed to return to the doctor, and he quieted down and obediently followed Hunter across the room to the main door.

‘I’ll bring Ketch,’ Reilly said.

‘Thanks, Dick.’

Hunter picked up Christy-Lee again, and motioned to Evans and the dark-haired girl to follow him. Behind him, Reilly kicked Ketch to his feet, then closed and locked the processing room door.

A strange procession, Hunter thought, as they made their way up the stairs to Ketch’s office. Two naked girls, one unconscious, a naked man, a man with a couple of broken ribs, and another with a bullet wound across his chest. Dear God, he thought, I’m the fittest one here.

In the office, Hunter lay Christy-Lee down on the camp bed, then rummaged around in Ketch’s cupboards and found a small store of clothing, presumably used by Ketch when he couldn’t leave the base for long periods. Hunter pulled out two pairs of old jeans and a pair of what looked like running shorts. He tossed the shorts to Evans, and passed one pair of jeans to the dark girl.

‘Thank you,’ she said, speaking for the first time since Hunter had lifted her out of the casket. She turned her back and pulled the jeans on. They were several sizes too big for her, but did the job.

‘Could you help me?’ Hunter asked, gesturing at Christy-Lee.

‘Leave her to me,’ the girl replied, took the second pair of jeans and walked across to the camp bed.

At that moment Ketch appeared at the door, Reilly two paces behind him. Ketch was gasping for air and clutching his stomach with both hands.

‘Sit him down there,’ Hunter said, pointing at a hard upright chair, ‘and tie him to it.’

Reilly nodded, pushed Ketch into the chair and lashed his arms and ankles to the wooden frame with plastic cable ties. When he’d finished, Ketch sat slumped, his head on his chest, still having difficulty breathing.

Hunter looked around the room and nodded his satisfaction. Christy-Lee was lying on the camp bed, the jeans done up loosely around her waist and her torso covered with Reilly’s light-weight jacket. The dark-haired girl was similarly attired and sitting beside her on the corner of the camp bed, holding her hand. Evans was standing in the corner leaning against the closed door, just wearing the shorts which covered little of his lanky frame.

Reilly walked behind Ketch’s desk and sat down in the leather office chair with a sigh of relief. Hunter picked up a second hard chair, reversed it, and sat directly in front of Ketch. He picked up the Smith and Wesson, moved the end of the silencer under Ketch’s chin and forced his head upwards. ‘Some answers, Ketch,’ Hunter said.

Ketch leaned back slightly, though the effort clearly caused him pain, and glanced swiftly around the room. His eyes widened as he recognized Evans, but he looked with puzzlement at the two girls on the camp bed.

‘Yes,’ Hunter said, ‘it’s probably time for some introductions. Doctor Evans you already know, I believe. I’m Hunter, and the man behind your desk is Reilly – we’re the two men your goons have been trying unsuccessfully to kill for the past week.’ He paused and looked inquiringly at the dark-haired girl.

She tried a smile that didn’t work, then spoke softly, a quaver in her voice. ‘My name’s Toni Welsh,’ she said. ‘I live in Spokane, and I’ve no idea where I am or what I’m doing here.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Hunter said reassuringly. ‘We’ll explain it all later.’

‘And the other girl?’ Ketch gasped out the words.

‘Oh, yes,’ Hunter said. ‘Let me introduce Miss Christy-Lee Kaufmann, FBI Special Agent and my partner in all senses of the word. She’s the reason we’re here.’

‘Oh, I see,’ Ketch said, after a pause, his voice hoarse and strained. ‘You mean you haven’t come about the aliens?’

Chapter Twenty-Four

Sunday

Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

In the long silence that followed Ketch’s remark, Hunter heard the sound of an approaching vehicle. He got up, walked to the window and peered out. A grey USAF van was just pulling up outside the main gate of the compound and, as he watched, a group of men, heavily armed, climbed from it and fanned out in a loose semi-circle around the gate in the compound fence. One walked across to the gate, pressed the buzzer and waited for a reply.

‘We got company?’ Reilly asked.

‘Yes,’ Hunter said. ‘About half a dozen men, all wearing body armor and carrying assault rifles and side-arms. Ketch,’ he snapped. ‘How secure is this building?’

‘Very,’ Ketch said, his breathing now almost normal again. ‘There’s no external access without an Omega card. The compound fence is electrified, and the outside walls and roof of the building are lined with half inch steel plate. The windows are bullet-proof. We’re secure against anything short of armour-piercing rounds.’

‘Unless,’ Reilly said, standing up with an obvious effort, ‘somebody down there obligingly opens the door to let those goons in. I’ll go down and make sure all your people understand that that would be a real bad idea.’

He reached down into his black leather bag and straightened up with a grunt, his SPAS-12 held in his right hand, the collapsible truncheon in his left.

‘Thanks,’ Hunter said, somewhat distractedly, as Reilly headed for the door.

After the door closed, another long silence settled over the room, a silence finally broken by Doctor Evans.

‘Aliens?’ he said. ‘What aliens?’

Oval Office, White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

‘Mr. President,’ William McGrath began. ‘I’m sorry it’s so late, but the matter is vital and extremely urgent.’

Charles Gainey nodded and shook McGrath’s hand. The president was wearing dark green silk pyjamas under a maroon dressing gown. When the substance of McGrath’s telephone call had been relayed to him, he had been on the point of climbing into bed.

‘I’m sure you wouldn’t have come here if it wasn’t,’ he said, gesturing McGrath to a chair next to the coffee table. ‘What is it?’

‘I’m afraid, Mr. President, that the situation with Roland Oliver is now critical. All the evidence we have suggests that Hunter and Reilly have not only penetrated Area 51 and Groom Lake, but they’ve even gained access to the Roland Oliver building.’

‘This is not good news, Bill,’ Gainey said, leaning forward and characteristically using understatement to underline his concern. ‘What evidence are you talking about?’

‘Earlier this evening Roger Ketch approved the transport of two of the clean-up team – Harris and Morgan – out to Groom Lake in case Hunter and Reilly managed to penetrate the Area 51 security system. We know from another member of the team – a man named Templeton – that at the time Harris suggested this course of action to Ketch, Morgan was already dead. The obvious conclusion is that Harris was speaking under duress, on the instructions of Hunter or Reilly.’

‘And then?’ Charles Gainey asked.

‘We know that two men did board the last Janet flight of the day from McCarran Air Base to Groom Lake. We have to conclude that these two men were Hunter and Reilly, using Omega identity cards they’d taken from Harris and Morgan. And,’ McGrath added, ‘I’ve tried contacting Ketch by telephone at the Rolver Systems’ building, but there was no reply. I also tried other telephone numbers in the building and finally reached a loader. He confirmed that two men identified as Harris and Morgan had entered the building some thirty minutes earlier.’

Charles Gainey stood up and paced back and forth for a couple of minutes.

‘What do they hope to achieve?’ he muttered, almost to himself. ‘What can they achieve?’

Gainey walked across to his desk, pressed a button on the intercom unit, and ordered coffee for two.

‘You’re acting Director of the FBI, William,’ Gainey said, as he crossed the Oval Office and sat down again. ‘What are your recommendations?’

That was the one question McGrath had been hoping the President wouldn’t ask.

Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

‘I’m not interested in fairy stories about aliens,’ Hunter said, and reached into his jacket pocket. He pulled out a small Sony tape recorder, switched it to ‘record’ and placed it carefully on the edge of the desk, the internal microphone pointing at Ketch.

‘Let’s keep it simple,’ Hunter continued, ‘and start with an answer to just one question. Why the hell is the American Government snatching women off the streets and killing them?’

Ketch shook his head and looked at the tape recorder, then replied anyway. ‘It isn’t as simple as that,’ he said. ‘And it’s not actually the government doing it, although every President since Eisenhower has known all about it.’

‘What, exactly, is “it”?’ Hunter demanded.

Ketch looked at the silenced muzzle of the Smith and Wesson, then at Hunter’s expressionless face behind it. He knew he had no choice, really no choice at all, and as he began speaking he experienced a kind of strange catharsis, as if by finally telling the tale to a third party, somebody outside the tightly-regulated community of government officials with Omega One clearance, he was somehow able to distance himself from the true reality of the situation.

‘It’s like this,’ he began. ‘It’s a kind of trade-off, and it’s been going on for over fifty years. Since 1947, to be exact.’

Hunter just looked at him. The door opened suddenly, and Reilly walked back into the office. Hunter glanced up at him.

‘OK?’

‘No problem,’ Reilly said. ‘They’re sleepin’ peacefully.’

‘Good. You’d better listen to this, Dick. Ketch is just about to tell us what the hell’s going on here.’

‘Look,’ Ketch said. ‘You’ve heard of Roswell, New Mexico?’

Hunter nodded, but it was Reilly who replied. ‘Yup,’ he said, sitting down again behind the desk with a grunt of pain. ‘Where that weather balloon thing happened, right? Back in the forties?’

Ketch shook his head. ‘It wasn’t a weather balloon,’ he said impatiently. ‘It wasn’t even a secret kind of goddamn balloon from Project Mogul, despite what you may have heard and what the American Government and military have claimed ever since. On the third of July 1947, a ranch manager named William Brazel found a pile of debris from an unknown object on his land, about seventy-five miles northwest of Roswell.’

‘I thought he was called “Mac”,’ Reilly said.

‘What?’

‘That Brazel guy. I thought his name was Mac Brazel.’

‘His name was William, but he was known locally as “Mac”. Does it matter?’

‘No, I guess not,’ Reilly said.

‘OK,’ Ketch continued. ‘Brazel alerted the local sheriff and eventually a Major Jesse Marcel visited the site. He was the intelligence officer from the 509^th^ Bomb Group Intelligence Office at the Army Air Force Base at Roswell Field. He collected some items of the wreckage and took them back to Roswell with him, and reported seeing a crashed ‘flying saucer’ type vehicle. Some fool at the base authorized a press release saying they’d found an alien craft, and a couple of days later the Eighth Air Force issued a statement that the wreckage was actually from a weather balloon.’

Reilly nodded. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Like I said, it was a weather balloon.’

‘But it wasn’t a weather balloon,’ Ketch said, ‘and what happened next proves it. The Brazel ranch was completely sealed off by the military. Every scrap of debris from the ranch was collected – a huge operation involving hundreds of men – and all the pieces that Jesse Marcel had collected were taken away from him. Every other bit of wreckage that had been removed from the ranch by Brazel or anyone else was recovered. And all that debris was flown under armed guard to Wright Field.

‘People in Roswell who’d actually seen the wreckage, or who’d talked to people who had, were intimidated and threatened. In at least one case a family was told they’d be taken out into the desert and shot if they didn’t fall into line. The local radio station was told its broadcasting license would be pulled immediately if it broadcast any more stories about the incident. The local newspapers were promised total, immediate and permanent closure if they published anything else about it.

‘You don’t,’ Ketch finished, ‘need to be a rocket scientist to work out that not even the US military would do all that just for a weather balloon.’

‘There’s no reply, sir,’ the sergeant reported, stating the obvious.

Lieutenant Keating stared thoughtfully at the building. It seemed deserted, although there were a few windows behind which lights were burning, but that was normal in secure buildings. Behind him, the men were growing somewhat restive, and he heard muttering, followed by muffled laughter, as one of them cracked a joke – probably, he realized, at his expense.

‘Your orders, sir?’ the sergeant inquired.

‘How many ways are there into this place?’ Keating asked.

‘Two, sir.’ The sergeant had already walked all the way around the compound, and pointed with the beam of his flashlight. ‘This one here’s a pedestrian gate, and there’s a vehicle gate over there, by the hardstanding. On the building itself, a similar arrangement. A single door here, and double doors over there.’

‘OK,’ Keating said. ‘Detail three men to cover each entrance. Get the flood lights out of the van and set them up so that both sets of gates and doorways are illuminated. Anybody trying to get out of the building is to be stopped, by force if necessary.’

‘Deadly force, sir?’ the sergeant asked.

‘Only if absolutely essential. I’m taking the van and going back to the security office. I’ve got some calls to make.’

‘So what was it?’ Hunter asked.

‘It was exactly what the press release said it was – an alien spacecraft, complete with a group of dead aliens. There’d been a violent storm a couple of nights earlier, and the craft seemed to have been hit by lightning. But whatever happened, it crashed.’

Hunter said nothing, but looked at Ketch through narrowed eyes.

‘Are you puttin’ us on?’ Reilly demanded.

Ketch shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘That was the first contact, but it sure as hell wasn’t the last. Since the end of 1947, the US Government has been cooperating with the EBE’s – that stands for Extra-terrestrial Biological Entities – and we’ve been making use of their technology. We’ve got alien spacecraft, bodies and all sorts out here at Groom Lake.’

Hunter shook his head, then stood up as the desert outside suddenly blazed with light. Reilly got up and crossed to the window. He took a brief glance in both directions, then walked back to his chair and sat down.

‘No problem,’ he said. ‘Just the grunts playin’ war games. Got a coupla sets o’ floods aimed at the gates just in case we try to sneak out without tellin’ ’em.’

Hunter nodded, then turned his attention back to Ketch. ‘Are you seriously trying to tell us that there’s a bunch of little green men working with American scientists out here in the Nevada desert?’

‘They’re grey, not green, but that’s pretty much it, yeah.’

Hunter shook his head again. He really couldn’t get a handle on this. ‘Can you prove any of this?’

‘Not here and now, no,’ Ketch said. ‘But just look at the way our technology has advanced. At the end of the Second World War we were still flying around in prop planes, using valve radios and so on. Real primitive stuff. Almost exactly six months to the day after Roswell, the invention of the transistor, the first solid-state electronic device, with no well-known or obvious precursors, was suddenly announced by Bell Laboratories. It was as if it had just popped into existence.

‘Since then,’ Ketch went on, ‘we’ve had fiber optics, tunnel diodes, more solid-state electronics, night-vision devices, holographs, advanced ceramic technology, superconductors, lasers and masers, not to mention integrated circuits – the so-called silicon chip – and supertenacity fibers.’

‘What in hell are they?’ Reilly demanded.

‘Materials that retain whatever shape they’re originally made in. They resist bending, tearing and crushing. Anyway, none of these were invented here – they all came from out there. We just adapted the concepts for materials we could work with here. And all these devices were new – new in the sense that they weren’t just developments of some existing technology.’

‘So what? New technology gets developed all the time,’ Hunter said. ‘That’s what research scientists do.’

Ketch actually laughed, then gasped as the pain from his broken ribs lanced through him. After a moment, he recovered and shook his head.

‘You have no idea what you’re talking about,’ he said. ‘Most scientists wear blinkers. Their focus is incredibly narrow, and they disregard anything that doesn’t fit into their own cosy little world view. Since the beginning of this century almost every major advance in science that hasn’t been derived from alien technology has been made by either a non-scientist or by a scientist working in an unrelated field.’

‘Like what?’ Reilly demanded.

‘Like powered flight, telephones and television, and that’s just for starters,’ Ketch said. ‘And you know why cold fusion got rubbished by the scientific community? Because the people who discovered it were chemists, not physicists, and that broke the rules.’

‘Cold fusion doesn’t work,’ Evans said. ‘MIT proved it.’

‘See,’ Ketch said to Hunter. ‘That’s the power of negative publicity generated by the scientific community. The only way the Massachusetts Institute of Technology could “prove” that cold fusion didn’t work was by tampering with the results of their own experiments. Since then, at least two patents have been filed for cold fusion devices – by MIT scientists.’

Hunter realized they’d strayed somewhat from the point. ‘So what are you saying?’ he asked Ketch.

‘What I’m saying is that every time anybody uses a CD player or makes a trans-Atlantic phone call or switches on a computer, they’re using alien technology.’

‘Sounds like bullshit to me,’ Reilly said.

‘I don’t care what it sounds like,’ Ketch retorted.

‘Hang on,’ Hunter interrupted. ‘You said it was a kind of trade-off. Let’s assume for the moment that this fantasy of yours about aliens is actually true. Just what are they getting in return for giving us CD players and all the rest of the stuff?’

For a moment, Ketch said nothing, and Hunter’s face went pale as the ramifications suddenly hit him.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Reilly said. ‘You mean our fuckin’ government’s tradin’ human beings in return for alien technology?’

Oval Office, White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

‘Well, Mr. President,’ McGrath replied. ‘First, let me just outline the obvious problems. I’ve looked at the plans for the Rolver Systems’ building, and it is very well protected. The walls and roof are armoured, the external windows are bullet-proof and the boundary fence is electrified. It has its own electricity generating plant, because of the power requirements of the fence and the processing room.

‘It’s got adequate water stocks, again because of the processing operation, a small canteen, and limited stocks of food and drink. It could withstand quite a long siege against conventional troops. Armour-piercing rounds could penetrate the walls, but that would risk destroying the Roland Oliver operation in its entirety.

‘In short, as long as Hunter and Reilly are inside the building, they’re fairly safe. A direct frontal assault using military small arms would be futile, just a waste of ammunition, and calling in heavy artillery would risk destroying the entire Roland Oliver operation.’

Charles Gainey nodded slowly. ‘A Mexican standoff, then?’ he asked.

‘Exactly,’ McGrath agreed. ‘Somehow, we have to get Hunter and Reilly out of the building.’

‘So what options do we have?’ Gainey asked.

‘As I see it, Mr. President,’ McGrath replied, ‘a lot depends upon what Hunter and Reilly actually want, and that’s something we still don’t know.’

‘What could they want?’

‘Revenge, perhaps. The clean-up team tried to kill Reilly, and they did assassinate Hunter’s partner, Kaufmann. Maybe they just want to kill the person they perceive as being ultimately responsible, and that’s probably Roger Ketch.’

A discreet knock at the door heralded the arrival of a steward with a tray of coffee, which he set down on the low table between the two men. Gainey smiled at the steward as he left the room, but the smile vanished as soon as the door closed behind him.

‘Any other possibilities?’

McGrath shook his head.

‘It’s difficult to say. I suppose they could have embarked upon some sort of a crusade to destroy Roland Oliver, assuming that Director Donahue told them exactly what the program involved, but I would have thought they could do that more effectively using other means. Telling the newspapers, that kind of thing. Whatever the reason, these two men have proved to be incredibly dedicated, and extremely competent, in their actions.’

‘Yes,’ Charles Gainey said, ‘and that’s what worries me. So what can we do?’

McGrath paused for a moment before replying, realizing that he was certainly taking his career, and perhaps even his life, in his hands.

‘I think we have two choices, Mr. President. Groom Lake is a secure area, which our military machine controls completely. We can simply wait them out, even if it takes weeks or months. Set up a cordon around the Rolver Systems’ building, cut off the main water supply and external power, and wait around for Hunter and Reilly to finally give up and walk out. Then we can arrange for them to disappear quietly, and permanently.

‘If they come out shooting, well, we’ll shoot back and finish them that way. In either case, Roland Oliver can continue operations as before.’

Charles Gainey nodded, and reached for the coffee pot. ‘And the second choice?’ he asked.

McGrath swallowed before replying. ‘It’s somewhat radical, Mr. President,’ he began.

Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

The sound began behind Hunter, and it took him a second or two to realize what it was. Toni Welsh was on her feet, staring at Ketch and moaning softly.

‘You bastard,’ she said simply and quietly. ‘You total fucking bastard. You mean you were swapping me for a fucking CD player?’

Her voice rose to a scream on the final words and then, with a speed that took everyone by surprise, she launched herself at Ketch, fists flying, nails going for his eyes. Hunter grabbed her and dragged her off, Evans helping, and together they led her back to the camp bed.

‘Quiet, now,’ Hunter said to her. ‘We need him to help us get out of here. Just sit quietly, and look after Christy-Lee. OK?’

Toni nodded, suddenly calmer, and sat down again.

Evans remained standing beside the camp bed. ‘She’s coming out of it,’ he said, bending down and stroking Kaufmann’s brow.

Hunter resumed his seat, and faced Ketch again.

‘I can’t believe this,’ Evans said.

Even as the words left the doctor’s mouth, Hunter suddenly realized that if Ketch was telling the truth, most of the pieces of the puzzle that had started in the field outside Beaver Creek would fall into place.

‘You –’ Hunter started to say, but Reilly interrupted him.

‘I can,’ he said.

‘Actually,’ Hunter agreed, after a moment, ‘I think I can too. So what was the deal, Ketch?’

‘Look, you have to understand that this started long before I came out to Groom Lake. None of it was my idea. I just administered the system.’

‘Yeah, right,’ Reilly growled.

‘Just answer the question,’ Hunter said wearily to Ketch. ‘What was the deal?’

‘OK. After the first few contacts with the EBEs, the American Government was presented with an offer from one particular race of aliens – what are commonly known as ‘greys.’ The aliens offered the government access to a whole range of technology in return for the right to harvest some of this planet’s natural resources.’

Ketch paused and looked around the office. He had the undivided attention of everyone there.

‘You must appreciate the political climate at the time,’ he went on. ‘The Second World War was over, but the Iron Curtain was coming down, and we knew that the Russians either had nuclear weapons, or were about to develop them. Communist domination of the world seemed a real possibility. I guess the government decided that it was worthwhile allowing limited alien exploitation of the planet in return for the kind of technology that allowed these creatures to fly from star to star.

‘The problem was,’ Ketch went on, ‘that it didn’t stop there. The American Government agreed an exclusivity deal with the aliens, to avoid them dealing with any other nation, and started paying for the technology with whatever resources the aliens wanted. At first it was just rare earth elements, minerals, and so on, but soon it was made clear to the government that what the aliens really wanted, what they’d wanted all along, was human beings. Like it or not, human flesh is regarded as a highly-prized delicacy by several alien species.’

‘You mean it never occurred to anyone that the aliens could simply mine the moon or Mars or some other planet, or capture asteroids, for these elements they were supposed to need?’ Evans asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Ketch replied. ‘Possibly, but back then scientists didn’t know what was on the moon, and maybe they thought that some minerals were unique to the Earth. Maybe they did realize that the aliens must have had an ulterior motive, but were so desperate for the technology that they just ignored their doubts. I really don’t know,’ he repeated.

‘OK,’ Hunter said. ‘That’s another matter. So what happened when the aliens demanded their pound of flesh?’

‘The government was appalled at the idea, but by that time the American industrial machine had got used to these ‘breakthroughs’ that were actually being provided by the aliens, and the threat from Russia seemed even more acute than before. So, reluctantly, the government agreed. At first, the aliens were only allowed to harvest tramps, drifters, drug addicts, prostitutes, alcoholics, mental patients and long-term prisoners who would ‘die’ in captivity. The kind of people that nobody would really miss.’

Reilly snorted in disgust, and Ketch glanced over at him. Hunter waved the pistol for Ketch to continue.

‘But once the aliens had established the principle, once they’d got the concession, as it were, for this part of the universe, they began to alter their demands. Initially, the changes weren’t too significant. They insisted on proper medical checks to ensure the subjects weren’t suffering from any disease or illness that might adversely affect their ‘trade-in value,’ then they asked for an increase in the quota. And all the time, the technology kept being provided, and the government kept agreeing to more and more.

‘The final change the aliens insisted on was the biggest and most controversial. They only wanted to harvest women, because the flesh tastes sweeter.’

Hunter heard a low moan behind him, and raised a calming hand to Toni.

‘And the government agreed?’

‘Yes. By that time, they were so deep into the relationship that they couldn’t not agree. The aliens made it very clear that if their requests were refused, they would just take their business elsewhere, to Russia perhaps. The government simply couldn’t allow that to happen. So this place was constructed, to streamline the whole process. We provide the subjects, assemble the quotas here, and then pass them on to the aliens for processing.’

Everyone in the room was hanging on Ketch’s every word.

‘That’s totally horrendous,’ Hunter said. ‘Absolutely fucking appalling. It’s completely unacceptable on every possible level, and I believe it completely. There are just two questions I’d like answers to.’

Ketch looked at him warily. ‘Yes?’ he said.

‘Why “Roland Oliver” and “Omega”?’ Hunter asked.

‘Roland Oliver’s easy, if a bit sick,’ Ketch said, relaxing slightly. ‘The expression “A Roland for an Oliver” means an exchange, a quid pro quo. It derives from Roland, the legendary nephew of Charlemagne, and his comrade Oliver, celebrated in the Chanson de Roland. Somebody just took the two proper names and added them together to make the name “Roland Oliver”. I guess it seemed funny to him at the time. And “Rolver” is just a contraction of the same two names.

‘The whole matter of alien contact has its own security classification in the American system. It’s all classified as “Omega”, which is the last letter of the Greek alphabet, because it’s the “last secret”. “Omega” is so highly classified that even the name Omega is omitted from all tables of security classifications. Is that it?’

‘No,’ Hunter replied. ‘That was the first question. The second is about the processing. Why is the casket next to the table tipped up at an angle, so that the occupant can see what’s happening?’

Ketch peered nervously past Hunter at Toni Welsh. ‘You’ve got to keep her off me,’ he said.

Hunter looked around at Toni. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘try to stay calm, OK?’

She looked at him and nodded.

‘It’s all to do with hormones,’ Ketch said. ‘Apparently, a rush of adrenaline improves the flavour of the meat, and the easiest way to generate that is to terrify the subjects. The aliens worked out that they would achieve this quite easily if they just showed the next subject what was happening to the one before them.’

Not even Evans’s restraining hands were enough to stop Toni as she launched herself at Ketch, and it took the combined efforts of Hunter, Evans and Reilly to drag her off him.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Sunday

Oval Office, White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

Charles Gainey lay back in his chair, stretched his arms above his head and looked up at the ceiling, deep in thought. McGrath sat on the edge of his seat, his cup of coffee untouched on the table in front of him. The President’s eyes had widened when McGrath had outlined his alternative plan for dealing with the situation at Groom Lake, but he hadn’t said a word in response.

Minutes ticked away, then Gainey sat forward and fixed McGrath with a penetrating gaze. ‘It’s worth looking at,’ he said. ‘But first give me your reasons for suggesting it.’

McGrath heaved a sigh of relief. ‘There are really three, Mr. President,’ he began.

Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

Lieutenant Keating tossed his cap onto the coat rack and sat down at the desk. He would never have admitted it to the sergeant, but he was somewhat at a loss to know what to do next.

The call about the intruders hadn’t come from any recognized source, although it had obviously been from somebody outside Groom Lake who knew about the base itself. More importantly, the caller had known about the existence of the Rolver Sytems’ building, which was probably the most secret location on the base. That severely restricted the number of people who could have made the call, and forced Keating to take the substance of the message seriously.

The building didn’t look as if anything untoward had happened there – he had seen no sign of forced entry. On the other hand, it was apparently deserted, although it was marked in the Groom Lake security notes as being in use twenty-four hours a day.

He had to call somebody. The question was, who? When he’d decided there was only one person he could telephone, he sat behind the desk for several minutes before reaching for the receiver.

‘That really is sick,’ Hunter said, to nobody in particular.

‘I know, I know,’ Ketch replied, his left cheek bleeding steadily from two deep scratches inflicted by the nails of Toni Welsh’s right hand. ‘But you have to appreciate that this is, from the point of view of the aliens, just another commercial operation. They want to do everything in the most efficient and cost-effective way. The tipping casket cost them almost nothing to implement, but achieves the objective very efficiently. It’s just good business.’

‘I’ll give you “good business”, you bastard,’ Reilly spat, and Hunter raised a calming hand.

‘We got involved in this because of a murder in Montana,’ Hunter said. ‘A guy out hunting died when a human thigh-bone got driven vertically downwards into his head. A fresh human skull was later found in the same general area. According to our pathologist, both bones had had all the flesh stripped off them by some sort of a machine. Did that have anything to do with this operation?’

‘No,’ Ketch said, puzzlement in his voice. ‘At least, not directly. But there was some poaching reported a few days ago.’

‘Poaching?’

‘The grey aliens aren’t the only ones operating in this area,’ Ketch said. ‘There was an incident involving an unauthorized landing somewhere in the mid-west. It’s possible the occupants of the craft jettisoned the bones of one of their victims as they left the atmosphere. That could have been the source, I suppose.’

‘How do you know about these poachers, as you call them?’

‘The greys keep us fully informed,’ Ketch said. ‘They detected the landing, and destroyed the craft when it was well clear of the Earth’s atmosphere. They’re keen to protect their concession here.’

‘I’ll bet they are,’ Reilly growled.

‘Where am I?’

The voice was small and soft, and galvanized Hunter. He jumped up, spun around and walked over to the camp bed. Christy-Lee was awake at last.

‘How do you feel?’ Hunter asked.

‘Awful,’ Christy-Lee murmured. ‘I’ve got the mother and father of all migraines, and I can barely remember who I am.’

‘Do you know me?’ Hunter asked.

‘Of course I know who you are, you ugly bastard,’ Christy-Lee said, with the ghost of a smile, and Hunter grinned down at her.

Reilly appeared at his shoulder holding out a couple of white tablets.

‘Aspirin,’ he said, ‘courtesy of our host. Found a bottle in his desk drawer. Good to see you again, Agent Kaufmann.’

‘Thanks, Dick,’ Hunter said, and passed the tablets to Christy-Lee. ‘Sorry we’ve no water, but see if you can swallow them anyway.’

‘So where am I?’

Hunter stroked her brow gently. ‘It would take too long to explain now,’ he said, ‘and Dick Reilly and I are sort of busy at the moment. Just lie still and rest, and I’ll come and talk to you when I can. OK?’

‘OK,’ Christy-Lee said. She gave Hunter’s arm a squeeze, put the two tablets in her mouth, and closed her eyes.

‘Now,’ Hunter asked, sitting down in front of Ketch again. ‘The machinery down in the processing room or whatever you call it. Who designed it?’

‘The aliens,’ Ketch said. ‘They wanted a system that would cope with a range of different sizes of subject, and which would work with speed and efficiency. There were no existing designs which could be adapted –’

‘Well thank God for that,’ Reilly muttered, and Ketch glanced at him.

‘So,’ he continued, ‘the aliens designed their own, and we built it. Most of it was fabricated in workshops right here on the base, and then we just assembled it in this building.’

The Sony tape recorder clicked, and Hunter opened it, flipped over the tape and pressed the record button again. Hunter looked behind him at Toni, who was sitting on the camp bed holding Christy-Lee’s hand.

‘I’m sorry about this,’ he said, ‘but I’m going to have to ask Ketch some other questions about the processing equipment. Do you think you can sit there and talk to Christy-Lee, or think of something else, or at least keep your hands off him until I’ve finished?’

Toni glared at Ketch, but gave Hunter a brief smile. ‘I’ll try,’ she said.

Hunter turned back to Ketch. ‘OK, for the record, how does the processing equipment work?’

‘This isn’t pleasant,’ Ketch said.

‘I know. I’ve seen it. Just get on with it.’

‘Very well. It’s quite simple and efficient. First, the casket is canted at an angle in front of the table, and the lid is removed while the previous subject is processed. Then the casket is moved by the conveyor belt to the end of the table, and the subject is pulled by the securing straps onto the bed of the table itself. The casket slides down to the floor, and another conveyor belt carries it away to be cleaned and disinfected.

‘The table is stainless-steel, and has slots for the fabric straps to slide into. The lower limbs are severed first, joint by joint and starting at the feet, by thin steel wires which are pulled down through the joints by hydraulic rams. Each wire carries a powerful electric current which cauterizes the severed blood vessels and stops most of the bleeding. The sections of leg are dropped through an opening beside the table where they’re cleaned and bagged, ready for shipment.

‘The hands and arms are removed in the same way, and usually by that stage the subject is dead from pain and shock. Then the trunk is opened up by power-operated cutters, and all the internal organs are clipped off and bagged. The alimentary canal is stripped out and discarded, and this is the only part of the body which isn’t used. The head is severed from the trunk and packed separately. Human brains are a particular delicacy to some alien species, and I understand they’re usually served straight from the skull.’

Ketch’s matter-of-fact explanation silenced the office. Although, apart from Christy-Lee, they’d all seen the processing room, none of them – except Toni – had seen processing in action, and even she hadn’t been aware of what happened to the human body parts after the vivisection had taken place.

Hunter straightened up in the chair and shook his head. ‘Monstrous,’ he said. ‘Absolutely, completely, fucking monstrous. I don’t care what the benefits have been to home consumer electronics, or whatever fucking section of American business has made most use of alien technology, this is completely unacceptable.’

Ketch smiled at him. ‘There’s nothing you can do about it,’ he said, ‘and in my opinion the programme is a good thing.’

‘It’s what?’ Hunter snapped.

‘A good thing. Most of the population of this planet achieve absolutely nothing during their lifetimes. They’re born, they spend seventy or eighty years converting food into shit, and then they die, and they contribute nothing at all to anything or anyone. We don’t even get to use their bodies for fertilizer. At least with Roland Oliver we get some benefit from their deaths.

‘Even worse, the bastards breed like rabbits. A woman with an IQ of one twenty plus will be satisfied with a couple of kids she’ll hope will actually do something with their lives. Trailer-park morons and Mrs. Average American Woman don’t feel fulfilled, whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean, unless they produce six or seven kids, each of whom will be just as stupid and useless as their parents and who’ll lead the same totally pointless existence. They consume, they don’t contribute, and we’re much better off without them.’

Hunter simply stared at him. ‘Hitler, I seem to remember,’ he said slowly, ‘had much the same idea, but I thought the sickness had died out with him and his Nazi friends. I really can’t believe you mean what you’ve just said.’

‘Oh, but I do,’ Ketch replied, his confidence growing, ‘and it’s time you woke up to the facts of life out here. There are just the two of you, plus some passengers.’ He nodded towards Evans and Toni. ‘You’re stuck in the middle of the most secure military establishment in the United States, surrounded by armed men, and no doubt with more on the way. The project you’ve stumbled on has been approved by every American President since Eisenhower, and I even hold a current Presidential Order which authorizes any action that I care to take.’

Hunter waggled the Smith and Wesson in front of him. ‘I don’t give a flying fuck about what you or the President of the United States thinks about this, or what bits of paper you’ve got. We’re closing you down, permanently.’

Oval Office, White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

Charles Gainey walked across to his desk and sat down in the big leather chair. He picked up the internal phone and pressed one of the buttons on the console.

‘It’s always been the Big Lie,’ he said thoughtfully, looking across at McGrath while he waited for the telephone to be answered. The capital letters were obvious from the way he said it. ‘If we can’t salvage it, maybe it really is time for a change.’

‘Mark?’ the President said into the phone as Rogerson answered. ‘Sorry it’s so late, but I need a couple of things doing immediately. I have William McGrath of the FBI with me now, and he has to get down to Nevada as quickly as possible – and that means tonight. So, first, can you please contact Quantico and get a Marine Corps helicopter here within the hour.’

Gainey paused and listened for a few seconds.

‘Yes, the usual landing spot on the White House lawn. You’ll need to organize lights and a ground marshaller, as well, from the staff. Second, get onto Andrews Air Force base and get a jet warmed up. Doesn’t matter much what it is, as long as it’s got the range to reach Nevada. The captain should flight-plan for McCarran Air Base at Las Vegas, but the airfield of destination will actually be different. Mr. McGrath will brief the pilot in the air, and they can file an en route change by radio. Got all that? Right, please let me know when the helicopter’s airborne from Quantico.’

Gainey replaced the telephone handset and walked back across the office. ‘The chopper will take about forty to fifty minutes to get here, if past performance is anything to go by. What else do you need from me?’

McGrath thought for a few seconds. ‘A Presidential Order, sir, couched in fairly wide terms, but making it quite clear that I’m acting with your full authority and approval, but leaving all decisions about the actual implementation of your wishes to me.’

‘No problem. Anything else?’

‘A call to Groom Lake Operations, or whatever the area controlling authority is called, telling them that I will be arriving. I’d hate to get shot down by our own fighter aircraft in the middle of Nevada.’

‘I’ll have Groom Lake briefed long before you get anywhere near the state boundary,’ Gainey said, then got up again and walked back to his desk. He selected headed paper and a fountain pen, thought for a few moments, then wrote rapidly. He read through the text, then called McGrath over to check it.

‘Excellent, sir,’ McGrath said.

Gainey signed the Order, folded it and slipped it into an envelope, and handed it to McGrath.

‘While you’re at the desk, Mr. President, there are two other papers that you should prepare, assuming that Hunter and Reilly are still alive.’

‘Yes,’ Charles Gainey said, and wrote for a few more minutes.

‘The only other matter,’ McGrath said, ‘are the supplies I’ll need to make this work. Most of it is regular military-type equipment, which I should be able to find out at Groom Lake. The only special items are the tracksuits and trainers, and I would appreciate it if they could be flown out from McCarran on the first Janet flight of the day.’

‘No problem,’ Gainey said.

Henderson, Nevada

Major-General Thomas ‘Hank’ Williams had run the Groom Lake base for a little over two years, and he knew exactly how many times he’d been telephoned at his home by members of his staff during that period. The number was precisely seven. Of those seven, only one had occurred after midnight, and that had been to report the crash of an experimental aircraft and the death of the pilot.

His reaction to that call had been typical. He’d informed the Operations Officer – a USAF major – in a deceptively calm voice, that the aircraft would still be crashed and the pilot would still be dead when he, Williams, arrived for work on the first Janet flight the following day, and to tell him about it then. Three days later the major had received a totally unexpected posting to Nome, Alaska, and nobody believed that the two events were unconnected.

Williams believed that work was work, and home was somewhere else, and the two didn’t, at least as far as he was concerned, mix.

‘This,’ he growled into the telephone when Lieutenant Keating had identified himself, ‘had better be real good, otherwise you’re going to find yourself working in a real hostile environment for a real long time. What is it?’

Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

Evans shook his head. He’d been silent for most of the time since Ketch had started talking, but now he felt compelled to speak.

‘I still can’t believe all this,’ he said.

Ketch fixed him with a look of contempt. ‘Look around you, doctor,’ he said. ‘Can you think of any other reason why a place like this should exist? Why it should be stuck out here in the middle of the Nevada desert? Give me another – any other – possible reason.’

Evans shook his head stubbornly.

‘OK, then,’ Ketch said. ‘I can’t actually prove that we’ve obtained these technological advances from aliens, but I can prove to you that the aliens exist.’

‘How?’ Hunter asked.

‘By introducing you to them.’

‘What?’ Reilly demanded. ‘You mean some of those little grey bastards is here?’

‘You didn’t realize?’ Ketch asked. ‘I thought I’d made that clear. This building has two stories above ground, but another three below. A group of grey aliens live and work right here. They monitor the machinery in the processing room, handle the product and organize its dispatch.’

‘I suppose you think using words like “product” and “dispatch” somehow sanitizes what you’ve been doing here, Ketch,’ Hunter said, ‘but I can assure you that it doesn’t. And what exactly do you mean by “dispatch” anyway?’

‘I thought you’d realized that, too,’ Ketch said. His confidence was growing as he realized that Reilly and Hunter weren’t just going to kill him out of hand, and might even have to keep him alive to ensure they themselves got out of the building in one piece.

‘The market for the product, and I can’t think of another suitable word for it at the moment –’

‘I can,’ Reilly interjected. ‘How about human flesh, body parts, even shrink-wrapped shin?’

Ketch grimaced slightly. ‘Whatever,’ he said. ‘The market is out there –’ he gestured up towards the ceiling with his chin ‘– not anywhere down here. The product is prepared here, but the aliens ship it up to a craft in high Earth orbit, and from there out to distribution centres.’

Ketch looked over at Reilly. ‘You know something about this, surely? You know about the UFO-watchers out at Rachel and Silverbow and Indian Springs?’

Reilly nodded. ‘Yup, I’ve heard of them. See all manner of lights in the sky.’

‘Most of them would still be able to see UFOs if they were locked in a steel box and buried six feet underground,’ Ketch said contemptuously, ‘but in fact every second or third night a small planetary craft takes off from Groom Lake and heads into orbit, carrying the processed product. It comes back about four hours later, and that’s what a lot of these watchers have been seeing.’

‘So,’ Reilly said, his thoughts taking off at a tangent. ‘The government’s known about UFOs for years?’

‘Yes, of course. All the so-called investigations like Project Sign, Grudge and Blue Book were simply disinformation exercises run by the government to try to convince the American people that UFOs were just figments of their collective imagination.

‘Blue Book was started in 1952, some time before Roland Oliver got under way here at Groom Lake, and they finally shut it down in 1969. All the people involved were instructed to find a mundane explanation for every sighting, no matter how ridiculous or inconceivable that explanation was. That’s why you’d find Blue Book officials trying to explain away perfectly clear radar paints as sunlight glinting off marsh gas or something equally stupid.’

‘Why?’ Hunter asked.

‘Why what?’

‘Why did they choose such obviously ridiculous explanations?’

‘Because they had to,’ Ketch said. ‘Their orders were to discredit every single sighting that was reported to them. OK, a lot were genuine misidentifications of aircraft, planetary bodies like Venus or various types of meteorological phenomena, but a small hard core weren’t. These either had any old explanation tacked onto them, or they were dismissed as having insufficient details to determine what the object was. And that allowed the American military to shut down Blue Book in 1969 because, basically, they’d proved – entirely to their own satisfaction – that there wasn’t anything to investigate in the UFO field.’

‘So,’ Hunter said thoughtfully, ‘some of the architects of this horrendous program are actually here in the building? That could be very convenient, because I think Dick and I would really like to meet them.’

‘Why?’ Ketch asked, but he’d already guessed the answer.

‘So we can blow their fuckin’ heads off,’ Reilly said.

Henderson, Nevada

Just over seventy-five minutes after Williams had put the phone down on Lieutenant Keating, it rang again. Williams had literally just got back to sleep, and snatched the receiver from its rest with an angry gesture.

‘And what the fuck do you want now?’ he shouted down it.

There was a brief but eloquent pause, and then Williams heard the unmistakable voice of Charles Gainey, the President of the United States of America.

‘I’ll thank you, Williams, not to use language like that to me.’

Williams sat up in bed, his head spinning. ‘Sir?’ he said.

‘That’s better. I have a couple of questions for you. First, have you received any reports of security breaches out at Groom Lake?’

‘Sir,’ Williams replied, his mind still fogged with sleep, ‘I really can’t answer that, not on an open line.’

‘Screw the security considerations, Williams, and just answer the question.’

‘Yes, sir. Yes, there has been an incident.’

‘Does the incident involve the Rolver Systems’ building?’

‘Again, sir, I –’

‘Just answer the question.’

‘Yes.’

‘Right. Those were the questions. These are your instructions. Have you a paper and pencil ready?’

Williams cast about on the bedside table, and finally found paper and a pencil with a reasonable point.

‘Ready, sir.’

‘Right,’ Charles Gainey said. ‘William McGrath, acting Director of the FBI, is en route to Groom Lake at this moment. When he arrives he will assume command of the security incident. He will be acting as my personal representative, and will be carrying a Presidential Order to that effect. Any and all orders and instructions that he gives are to be obeyed immediately and without question. Is that perfectly clear?’

‘Yes, sir. Perfectly clear.’

‘You are to immediately ensure that all necessary clearances are issued to McGrath’s aircraft for it to land at Groom Lake. I don’t have the call sign or type, but the pilot will initially be flight-planned to McCarran, and will issue an en route change. Is that clear?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Williams said, scribbling furiously, and wondering just how the President of the United States of America seemed to know so much about operations at Groom Lake.

‘Finally,’ Gainey said, ‘you are to report to Groom Lake as soon as possible, so you’ll need to organize a Janet flight to transport you. Once you arrive, you are to take no actions whatsoever in respect of the security incident, except to follow immediately and without question any orders McGrath may issue. Your only function at Groom Lake in respect of this incident will be to support McGrath’s operation and to keep everybody else out of his way. Is that also clear?’

‘It’s my base, sir,’ Williams said, somewhat petulantly. ‘I should be directly involved.’

‘You aren’t, and you won’t be,’ Gainey said, and disconnected.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Sunday

Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

‘A word with you, Mr. Hunter,’ Reilly said quietly, and got up and stood by the window, gazing out at the floodlights which illuminated two sides of the Rolver Systems’ building.

‘Yes, Dick?’

‘May not be the right time to bring this up, but that bastard Ketch has got a point. You may not have noticed, but we are stuck in the middle of an armoured building in a real high security area surrounded by guys with guns just waitin’ to pull the triggers. You have got a plan to get us outta here?’ he asked hopefully.

Hunter grinned mirthlessly at him. ‘I had,’ he said, ‘but it rather depended on there not being a bunch of soldiers holding assault rifles standing around outside this building. The way I see it, the Area 51 security system is designed to stop people getting in, not getting out. Back in Vegas you mentioned that some of the staff here are driven to and from the base each day in coaches. I was going to take one of them, load everyone here on board, and drive out.’

Reilly raised his eyebrows. ‘Sounds easy when you say it quickly – which I think is what I said about catching a Janet flight in here. Don’t think gettin’ out’s gonna be anythin’ like as easy as hoppin’ on that Boeing.’

‘No,’ Hunter said. ‘Somebody, somehow, has found out that we’re here. Maybe the Las Vegas PD found Harris or Morgan and put two and two together. I definitely don’t think we’re going to be able to just wave a couple of Omega cards and walk past those soldiers.’

‘So what do we do?’

‘What we can’t do is shoot our way out of here, so we’re going to have to think our way out. It’s time for Plan B.’

‘Which is what?’

‘I’ve no idea, but I’m working on it.’

Above Frankfort, Kentucky

The government Learjet reached its cruising level within minutes of taking off from Andrews, and the co-pilot walked back into the passenger cabin as soon as the aircraft had reached top of climb.

‘Mr. McGrath, sir?’ he said to the sole passenger. ‘We need to ask you for a revised destination. We’re flight-planned into McCarran at Las Vegas, and that’s where we’re heading at present, but I understand we’re actually supposed to land somewhere different.’

McGrath looked up from the document on his lap and nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Our destination is Groom Lake Air Force base.’

‘Oh.’

‘Have you flown in there before?’ McGrath asked.

The co-pilot shook his head. ‘Nope,’ he replied, ‘and I’m pretty sure Chris – the captain – hasn’t either. In fact, I don’t know anybody who has, apart from a couple of regular Air Force jet jockeys I met last year. Those Groom Lake guys are really secretive. OK, I’m going to need to get on the radio right now to ensure we’ve got all the right clearances. Is there anything you need, sir?’

‘A scotch or something when you get a minute, if there’s any on board, otherwise I’m fine. There shouldn’t,’ McGrath added, ‘be any problem with clearances. This flight was authorized by the White House, and the President has personally approved it.’

Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

‘Seems to be a bit more activity out there now,’ Reilly announced, squinting his eyes against the glare of the floodlights. ‘I can see two more trucks and a bunch more people. Seems like we’re the most interestin’ thing happenin’ on the base this mornin’.’

Ketch looked at Hunter with a kind of triumph in his eyes.

‘You have to realize,’ he said, ‘that there’s nothing you can do about Roland Oliver. Too many people, who are far more powerful than you realize, have a vested interest in keeping it going. You might hinder our operations for a short while, but there’s no way you can stop it. Your best option is to let me go, put down your weapons and walk out of here. That way you might just get to live.’

‘Maybe,’ Hunter said. He walked behind Ketch and took out the switchblade, which he opened with an audible click. He bent down and sliced through the cable ties holding Ketch’s ankles to the chair, then released his hands. Ketch stood up cautiously, conscious of his broken ribs, and rubbed his wrists to get the blood circulating.

‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘I thought you’d see sense eventually.’

‘We haven’t yet,’ Hunter said, pulled Ketch’s arms behind his back and locked his wrists together with another couple of cable ties. ‘We’re just going to take a little walk.’

As Dick Reilly got to his feet, Hunter turned to Evans. ‘Can you stay here, please, and keep an eye on the women. We won’t be long.’

Evans nodded, and watched as the procession made its way towards the door of Ketch’s office.

‘Where are you taking me?’ Ketch demanded.

‘We’re not taking you anywhere,’ Hunter replied. ‘You’re taking us to see these aliens that you claim are living in the basement of this building.’

McCarran Air Force Base, Las Vegas, Nevada

Major-General Thomas Williams paced angrily back and forth across the concrete outside the Janet Terminal at McCarran. He was annoyed on several levels, and for several different reasons.

His night’s sleep had been ruined, and he always got snappy if he didn’t get his full eight hour quota. He hadn’t enjoyed being told what to do by the President of the United States, despite the fact that Charles Gainey was undeniably his ultimate boss. He hadn’t agreed with passing what was certainly classified information over an open telephone line, even to the President. He didn’t like the fact that some sort of a security breach had occurred on his establishment, and that this breach had been brought to the attention of the President himself by some person unknown.

And to cap it all, the special Janet flight that he had ordered was, by his watch, at least twenty-three minutes late.

Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

‘That’s not a good idea,’ Ketch said, stopping abruptly about three feet from the door.

‘Why not?’ Hunter asked. ‘You said you’d be happy to introduce Doctor Evans to one of them.’

‘That was a joke,’ Ketch said.

‘I didn’t think it was funny,’ Hunter said. ‘How about you, Dick?’

‘Nope. Not funny at all,’ Reilly agreed.

‘Look,’ Ketch said, a note of desperation creeping into his voice, ‘the fact that there are aliens inside this building is highly classified.’

‘So’s everything else around here.’

‘I know, but this is different. I’m the only one who’s supposed to have any contact with them. Nobody else on the base knows they’re here at all. I can’t just walk in with you two behind me. It would be a total breach of security – their security as well as our own.’

‘I don’t think,’ Reilly said, ‘that we’ve been makin’ ourselves quite clear. Basically, if we say “jump”, the only thing you get to say is “how high?” You got that?’

Before Ketch could reply, a faint musical bell-like note echoed around the office, coming from Ketch’s desk. Hunter swiftly strode over to it and looked down.

‘What is it?’ Reilly asked.

‘It’s this grey panel on the left here,’ Hunter replied. ‘A light’s come on, and the tell-tale reads ‘Confirmation of processing status requested.’’

‘OK,’ Reilly said. ‘Looks like your little grey chums is gettin’ agitated, Mr. Ketch. Really think the three of us oughtta go on down and see what the hell they want.’

Overhead Salina, Utah

‘Where are we now?’ McGrath asked as the co-pilot returned to the passenger cabin of the Learjet.

‘We’re coming up on Salina, Utah, Mr. McGrath, and we’ve just passed over the Wasatch Range. I thought you might like to know that we’ve had no problems with the clearances,’ he said, ‘and we’ve been cleared for a straight-in approach at Groom Lake. We’re now about twenty minutes out.’

The co-pilot took the glass and empty bottle from the table in front of McGrath, walked towards the front of the cabin into the galley, stowed the glass in a rack and put the bottle in a disposal bin.

‘We’ll be starting descent in about three minutes, sir, so could I ask you not to leave your seat from now on, and to keep your seat belt on. Met reports some possible clear air turbulence ahead of us, so it may get a little bumpy on the way down.’

As he spoke, a soft chime sounded, and the ‘seat belt’ sign illuminated. A few seconds later McGrath felt, rather than heard, the change in the engine note as the pilot throttled back and the Learjet began to lose height.

Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

The processing room had been in semi-darkness and total silence since Reilly had closed and locked the door, but small sounds were now becoming audible as the girls in the caskets began to wake up.

The air/gas mixture was carefully controlled by the monitoring system, and subjects could be revived in a matter of fifteen to twenty minutes by high concentrations of oxygen, which was what happened when they were processed. Left to breathe air containing the normal proportion of oxygen, and with the oxygen/nitrous oxide mixture still being pumped out into the lidless caskets and from there into the atmosphere of the processing room, it took far longer for them to wake up.

But it wouldn’t be long before some of them would start trying to climb out of the caskets, and would find themselves still strapped in.

McCarran Air Force Base, Las Vegas, Nevada

‘And about fucking time too,’ Williams muttered angrily as the Boeing 737 taxied to a stop in front of the terminal building.

Without waiting for instructions, he strode forward and arrived beside the forward passenger door before the motorized stairs had been positioned. As soon as the steps were in place, Williams ran up them and pushed forward into the cabin.

‘Let’s get going,’ he snapped, as the pilot stuck his head out of the cockpit.

‘Where’s everybody else?’ the pilot demanded. Like all the Janet pilots, he was a civilian, employed by the private company that worked under contract to the Air Force providing air transport services to and from Groom Lake. Like Williams, he too had been dragged out of bed – someone else’s bed, in fact – and wasn’t in the best of tempers. Irritated senior military officers impressed him not one jot.

‘There isn’t anybody else,’ Williams said. ‘I’m the only passenger.’

The pilot looked him up and down. ‘Seems mighty wasteful to me,’ he said.

‘So sue the fucking Air Force,’ Williams said. ‘Now get this aircraft moving.’

‘Not yet,’ the pilot said. ‘We’ve got some cargo to collect.’

‘Cargo?’ Williams demanded. ‘What cargo? This is supposed to be a priority flight.’

‘I know,’ the pilot said, ‘but this cargo has exactly the same priority as you, so I suggest you go and sit down somewhere. We’ll get airborne as soon as we can.’

Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

‘Steve,’ Christy-Lee called across the room.

She was finally sitting up on the camp bed. Her headache had finally receded, and she was feeling more or less normal.

Hunter turned towards her. ‘Feeling better?’ he asked.

‘Much better, thank you,’ she said. ‘Now can you please just tell me what the hell is going on here. And for starters, where exactly is “here”?’

‘Groom Lake Air Base in the middle of Area 51 in Nevada is where we are right now,’ Hunter replied. ‘The really short version is that this bastard –’ he gestured towards Ketch ‘– has been administering a kind of barter program, swapping human flesh for leading-edge technology.’

Christy-Lee gave a weak smile. ‘I like it. Good story. Straight out of the “X-Files”. Now, what’s really going on?’

‘That,’ Hunter said, walking over to her, ‘is the truth, and I wish to God it wasn’t. The icing on the cake is that the technology doesn’t come from anywhere here. It comes from out there,’ and he pointed to the ceiling.

‘What?’

‘The technology this operation has been obtaining since the late 1940s comes from alien civilizations. They like to eat people, and they bought the rights to harvest human beings with advanced technology. You,’ Hunter added, ‘were scheduled to be a part of that harvest.’

‘You are joking?’ Christy-Lee asked, but the look on Hunter’s face silenced her.

‘Dear God,’ she muttered. ‘Are you sure? I mean – aliens? You haven’t been watching too many bad movies?’

‘Nope,’ Hunter said. ‘At least, I don’t think so. We haven’t yet seen one of the aliens, but that is the next scheduled attraction in this interesting establishment.’

‘And who are these two?’

‘Toni Welsh, who’s been looking after you since I pulled you out of the room downstairs, was also intended to be a part of the same harvest. The man in the rather fetching dark blue shorts is Doctor Evans, formerly part of this program, who’s now turned state’s evidence, so to speak, and who’s been helping us.’

Reilly gestured suddenly and walked towards the window. He’d heard the sound of additional vehicles arriving outside.

‘More company,’ he said laconically. ‘A coupla three-ton trucks and what looks like an APC.’

‘An Armoured Personnel Carrier?’ Hunter asked, leaving Christy-Lee and joining Reilly at the window. ‘Looks like they’re getting serious. And it’s almost dawn,’ he added. ‘We need to make some decisions soon.’

Ketch peered towards the window, the smile slowly returning to his face, as he realized that the odds were steadily and inexorably altering in his favour.

Behind him, and unobserved by anybody in the room, Ketch’s office door handle slowly began to turn.

Nellis Air Force Range, Nevada

The Learjet passed a couple of miles due south of Rachel in its descent into Groom Lake, the pilot manoeuvring to intercept the extended centreline of the runway for a straight-in approach. Simultaneously, the Janet Boeing 737 carrying Major-General Williams was passing above Mercury, and just about to enter the restricted airspace of Area 51.

In the Learjet, William McGrath ran his eyes for the last time down the checklist that he had prepared, then put the paper into his briefcase and closed his eyes. He was tired, absolutely worn-out, and the temptation to sleep was enormous, but he knew that until he’d resolved the situation at Groom Lake he would get no rest.

Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

The sound Toni made wasn’t a scream, but it was close to it. She’d been sitting on the camp bed, her gaze wandering erratically around the room, when she’d seen the door opening. She’d watched it with idle curiosity, then jumped up as the creature had walked through the doorway, what looked like a small pistol in its right hand.

Hunter and Reilly spun around, but it was Christy-Lee who moved the fastest. Hunter’s Glock was lying on the end of Ketch’s desk, and she’d picked it up, aimed and fired two shots before anybody else had even started to react.

‘Jesus alive,’ Reilly whispered, as he looked across the room towards the door.

The alien wasn’t dead, but was certainly dying. Christy-Lee’s shots had taken it twice in the chest, close to where the heart would be on a human being, and the front of the light blue coveralls was already soaked with what looked like blood. It was darker in colour, closer to black than red.

Christy-Lee was white and shaking, her eyes wide and staring, the Glock still pointing towards the door.

‘Fuck,’ she shouted. ‘Fuck, fuck. What the fuck is that thing?’ Her voice was quavering with shock. ‘Is it dead? It had a gun. What the fuck is it?’

Ketch had sprung back, away from the alien, as soon as Christy-Lee had fired, and it was Hunter who stepped forward, gently took the Glock from Kaufmann’s hand, walked towards the door and looked down. The object Christy-Lee had thought was a pistol looked like that to Hunter as well, so he picked it up and slid it into his pocket, then stared down at the thing on the floor.

The huge oval black eyes looked up at him from the expressionless face, the small mouth opening and closing steadily. Hunter’s gaze was steady and contemptuous as he looked down.

‘Do these things speak English?’ he asked Ketch, without taking his eyes off the alien.

‘Yes,’ Ketch replied. ‘Most of them have some telepathic skills, as well.’

‘We’re going to finish you,’ Hunter said, staring down at the creature on the floor. ‘Your foul little operation here is over.’

The voice, when it came, was reedy and high-pitched, but perfectly comprehensible.

‘You are vermin, less than nothing. The harvest will continue. You cannot stop it.’

‘We’ll give it a try,’ Hunter said, and raised the Glock.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Sunday

Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

The Learjet touched down smoothly, and the pilot taxied it off the huge main runway, following the directions given by the ground controller. After a few minutes, the aircraft stopped in a dispersal close to the Flight Operations building, and the pilot shut down both engines.

When William McGrath stepped down onto the concrete, he was approached by a young Air Force lieutenant, who snapped him a crisp salute.

‘Mr. McGrath? I’m Lieutenant Keating, sir. I’m your guide and escort.’

McGrath extended a hand, and Keating, after a moment’s hesitation, took it.

‘Have you been briefed on the current situation, sir?’ Keating asked as the two men walked towards the Flight Operations Center building.

McGrath glanced at his watch. ‘The last update I received was about four hours ago,’ he said. ‘Have there been any new developments?’

Keating shook his head. ‘Not really, sir. The Rolver Systems’ building is still apparently deserted, with just a few lights showing. No telephones are being answered, and there’s no response to the main gate intercom. There were what sounded like three shots fired, two very close together then another a few moments later, inside the building about thirty minutes ago, but we can’t confirm this. As I’m sure you know, the building is effectively armoured, so all sounds within it are very muffled and indistinct.’

‘OK. You know there’s an unscheduled Janet flight this morning?’

‘Yes, sir. I believe it’s bringing the commanding officer out here.’

‘It is. More importantly, it’s also bringing out a special cargo. As soon as the aircraft has arrived, I want the packages – there’ll be about twelve or fifteen of them – delivered to me at the Rolver Systems’ compound. Have them loaded into a bus, not a truck. Got that?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Keating replied, suppressing a smile. He wondered just how Major-General Thomas Williams would feel if he knew that he came second in importance to a bunch of packages.

‘You have explosives here, presumably?’ McGrath asked.

‘Yes, sir, of course. What sort did you want?’ Keating asked, clearly puzzled.

‘The type isn’t important. Just get enough together to level a building and get them delivered to the Rolver Systems’ compound, please.

‘Finally, and this may not be too easy for you to do, I don’t want or need Major-General Williams cluttering up the place while I’m trying to sort out the situation at the Rolver Systems’ compound. Can you tell him that I’ve left explicit instructions with you that he’s to take no part in the operation, and he’s not welcome even as an observer. As far as I’m concerned, you’re in charge of the military cordon.’

‘I’ll try to be tactful, sir, but it will be a pleasure,’ Keating said.

‘Right. You’ve obviously got a vehicle ready. Let’s go down to the Rolver Systems’ building. I want to see what the place looks like.’

Dawn had come. The troops outside had switched off the floodlights and had deployed slightly further away from the compound boundary fence in a rough circle, covering the whole of the perimeter. As far as Hunter could tell, there were probably fifty or sixty troops in all, plus their vehicles and the APC.

‘It’s time,’ he said. ‘The longer we stay here, the less tenable our situation becomes. We need to decide, and decide now, what we’re going to do.’

He was seated on the end of Ketch’s desk. Reilly was still sitting in the leather swivel chair and Christy-Lee was standing beside Hunter. Ketch was again lashed to the upright chair, and Reilly had gagged him for good measure. Toni Welsh was lying on the bed, eyes closed: shock had set in, and she hadn’t spoken in over an hour. Doctor Evans sat slumped in another chair, his eyes watchful as he listened to their conversation.

‘I also think,’ Hunter went on, ‘that we need to be quite clear about the facts of life as they apply here. We’ve seen what goes on inside this building. If we try and just walk away, we may not get shot down immediately, but I’d be willing to bet that we’d all be dead in a week. We know too much, and they simply couldn’t take the risk of us telling anyone else what we know.’

‘Gotta agree with that,’ Reilly said. ‘That guy from the clean-up team was willin’ to kill the doctor who did the autopsy on Billy Dole’s body, and he knew nothin’, really. We know everything. I wouldn’t even give us a week. I think they’ll cut us down as soon as we step out through the door.’

William McGrath looked carefully at the Rolver Systems’ building through the compact binoculars Keating had given him. It wasn’t full daylight, but the light was good enough to allow him to see the building clearly.

He put down the binoculars and motioned to Keating to follow him. He led the way to a parked USAF van and stepped on board. When Keating had climbed in beside him and shut the door, he took a single sheet of paper out of his inside jacket pocket and looked down at it, checking the points that had to be covered.

‘What I want doing is this,’ McGrath began, and spoke quietly to Keating for almost five minutes.

Christy-Lee looked sadly down at Hunter.

‘Not exactly the most successful rescue operation I’ve ever heard of,’ she said.

Hunter glanced up at her. ‘Better by far to go with a bullet through the chest than to suffer the processing they had in mind for you,’ he said.

‘So, what do we do?’

‘We’ve got three choices, the way I see it. We can just walk away and risk being cut down, or go out shooting and make certain of it. In either case, I vote we terminate Roland Oliver before we open that door.’

‘You can do that?’ Christy-Lee asked.

Hunter grinned. ‘I can’t, but it turns out that Dick Reilly here travels with C4 and Semtex the way other people carry spare shirts. He’s got enough to level this building and trap those grey bastards in the basement permanently.’

Keating and McGrath emerged from the USAF van, and Keating hurried over to a soldier carrying a radio set. Three minutes later he was back beside McGrath, looking at the building.

‘All done?’ McGrath asked.

‘All done,’ Keating confirmed.

‘Right. Order your troops back another fifty yards. When they’re in position, order one of them to walk a few paces forward until he’s clearly visible from that window over there –’ he pointed at the illuminated window on the top floor of the building ‘– and then instruct him to fire three well-separated shots into the air. He’s to make it quite obvious what he’s doing. I don’t want there to be any possibility of a misunderstanding. I especially don’t want a fire-fight to erupt.’

‘And then, sir?’

‘And then I’m going to go and talk to the two men in the building,’ McGrath said.

‘You said three choices,’ Christy-Lee said. ‘What’s the third?’

‘What we haven’t considered is the other group of people here,’ Hunter said. ‘Down in the processing room there are about forty young women who are probably starting to wake up by now. They’re all stark naked, and all strapped tight inside their caskets. Before the dawn chorus appeared to fuck things up,’ Hunter added, gesturing towards the window, ‘I’d planned to get them all aboard one of the coaches they use for transporting workers, and drive them out of here.’

‘Yes. And?’

‘Well, I’m quite sure that the guys outside would have little trouble emptying their weapons at Dick and me, but I think they may have a few qualms about doing the same thing to a crowd of forty naked young women.’

‘You’d use them as a shield?’ Christy-Lee demanded.

‘I certainly would,’ Hunter said, ‘because that offers them, as well as us, a chance of getting out of here alive. Don’t forget, if Dick and I hadn’t busted in here last night, they’d all be dead by now.’

‘Yup,’ Reilly said. ‘And five gets you ten that if we walk out of here with our hands over our heads, that bastard Ketch and his little grey buddies will just pop the lids back on the caskets and carry on right where they left off. Them girls may be our only chance of walkin’ away from here, but don’t forget we’re their only chance as well.

‘Speakin’ of which,’ Reilly added, ‘I’d better go see where to plant the plastic.’

‘Dick,’ Hunter said. ‘One thing before you go – can I borrow a cross-head screwdriver? There’s something I want to do before I leave this office.’

Reilly fished a screwdriver out of a side pocket of his leather bag and handed it over without a word. Then he picked up the bag and carried it out of the office. The dead alien was lying in the corridor outside Ketch’s office, and was beginning to smell. Reilly looked at it with curiosity, and held his breath as he walked past.

As well as trying to identify any structural weakness in the building that he could exploit, he also wanted to locate the entrance to the basement area, because he had special plans for that particular part of Roland Oliver.

‘If this is going to work, Christy,’ Hunter said, as the door closed behind Reilly, ‘we need to go down now and cut those girls loose. Are you happy to do that?’

‘Yes,’ Christy-Lee said. ‘“Happy” may not be exactly the word I’d use, but what you say makes sense. I’m certainly not prepared to leave them here to the tender mercies of Ketch and those ugly little grey bastards. How will you play it once we get outside?’

‘Assuming the whole bunch of us aren’t cut down immediately,’ Hunter said, ‘we’ll just walk as a group over to one of those three-ton trucks, get the girls up into the back, and I’ll just drive us out of here. The idea is to time our escape at the same moment as Dick’s plastic explosive knocks this place flat, so that the soldier boys will have something to take their minds off what we’re doing.’

‘What about Evans and Ketch?’

‘The doctor comes with us. Ketch can stay here. My only regret is that his death will be quick and easy compared with the suffering that Roland Oliver has inflicted over the last fifty years.’

Hunter glanced again out of the window, then watched more closely as the encircling figures began moving back, away from the perimeter fence.

‘This may be ending sooner than we expected,’ he said to Christy-Lee. ‘They’re moving the troops back, which may mean that they’re going to use the APC to try to blast a few holes through the walls here.’

‘And that’s bad, right?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Hunter said. ‘That’s really bad.’

Hunter saw a trooper walk forward from the line, watched him raise his assault rifle and heard the three shots quite distinctly.

‘What the hell is that all about?’ he muttered, then stiffened. A figure was walking slowly towards the pedestrian gate in the fence.

‘Looks like they’re sending an emissary. Someone to talk to us,’ he said. ‘We’d better go downstairs.’

William McGrath approached the gate set in the steel fence with some trepidation. He’d declined the offer of a Kevlar jacket, because he was aware that at the distance he would be from the Rolver Systems’ building the jacket would be clearly visible, and he would be within easy range of a shot to the head.

He stopped beside the gate and looked for a few moments at the intercom system, then he reached out and pressed the button.

‘Steven Hunter or Richard Reilly,’ he said. ‘This is William McGrath of the FBI. Can either of you hear me?’

Inside the building, Hunter looked at McGrath on the closed-circuit television system, thought for a moment, then pressed the intercom button.

‘I hear you, McGrath. This is Steven Hunter. We’re kind of busy right now. What do you want?’

‘I’d like to come inside and talk to you,’ McGrath said. ‘I’m unarmed.’

‘You’ll need to prove that,’ Hunter said. ‘Take off your jacket, take five paces backwards and turn around slowly.’

McGrath did as Hunter had instructed. As far as Hunter could see on the monitor screen, he had no hidden weapons.

‘Christy,’ Hunter called out. ‘Can you bring yourself and the Glock down here, please. We’re about to have a visitor.’

Then he pressed the intercom button again, and simultaneously released the electric lock on the gate.

‘OK, McGrath. You can come in, but be advised we do have weapons aimed at you.’

McGrath picked up his jacket and walked through the gateway. At the door of the building he waited again, until the lock clicked and it swung slowly open, then he stepped inside.

Christy-Lee Kaufmann stood fifteen feet from the door, her legs apart and holding Hunter’s Glock in a comfortable two-handed grip. Hunter approached McGrath from behind, keeping clear of Kaufmann’s line of fire.

‘Good morning, McGrath. Please stand still and hold out your jacket. I’m just going to frisk you.’

Hunter ran his fingers expertly over McGrath’s body, then took his jacket and checked that as well.

‘Not even a wire,’ Hunter said. ‘I’m impressed. OK, Christy, you can relax.’

McGrath turned to look at Hunter. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you,’ he said.

‘I’ll bet you have.’

‘You must be Special Agent Kaufmann,’ McGrath said. ‘We heard you’d been killed.’

‘Not yet,’ Christy-Lee replied. ‘But not for want of trying.’

‘Where’s Sheriff Reilly?’

‘He’s fine. He’s just running a little errand at the moment. Now, what can we do for you?’

‘It’s more what I can do for you,’ McGrath said. ‘May I have my jacket?’

Christy-Lee brought the Glock up to the aiming position again, as Hunter passed the jacket over. McGrath reached into an inside pocket and pulled out two envelopes. He selected one, opened it, pulled out a single page of white paper, and passed it to Hunter.

Reilly moulded the last piece of Semtex around a load-bearing pillar, inserted a pencil detonator and looked about him thoughtfully. The building was of a simple and strong construction, and he really wasn’t sure if the explosive charges he had placed would be enough to bring it down. Still, he had no more, so that would have to do.

He reached into his bag, pulled out a small, black, plastic box, checked that its batteries were in place, and slipped it into his pocket. He left the bag lying on the floor, turned to go back down the short passage towards the stairs, and almost walked into Kaufmann.

‘Dick,’ she said. ‘Steve wants you. We have a visitor, and Steve thinks you’d be interested in what he’s got to say.’

‘This,’ Hunter said, as Reilly approached, ‘is Dick Reilly. Dick, meet William McGrath of the FBI. He has a small present for you.’

McGrath smiled at Reilly and handed him a sheet of paper. Reilly gave him a look of deep suspicion, but took the paper anyway and glanced over it. He read the first few lines and then looked up.

‘This is some kind of a joke, right?’ he said.

‘No, no joke,’ McGrath confirmed. ‘That document is exactly what it appears to be, and will stand up in any court of law. It’s been deliberately hand-written so that its authenticity can be established beyond any doubt.’

‘It seems, Dick,’ Hunter said, ‘as if we’re not entirely without friends at the moment. And I, for one, am glad.’

Major-General Thomas Williams was still steaming when he climbed down the steps of the Janet 737 and strode across the concrete into the Flight Operations building.

‘Get me a car,’ he snapped at a clerk, then walked over to the windows to watch a succession of bulky bags being unloaded from the baggage hold of the aircraft and piled into the under-floor storage area of a long, grey bus.

The bus left the dispersal a couple of minutes before Williams’s car arrived, and they overtook it on the short drive down to the Rolver Systems’ compound.

As soon as the car pulled up beside the APC, Williams got out. Lieutenant Keating ran over to him and saluted.

‘Who are you?’ Williams demanded, not bothering to return the salute.

‘Keating, sir.’

‘Oh, yes,’ Williams said. ‘You’re the office boy who woke me at two o’clock this morning. I’ll certainly remember you. What’s going on here? And don’t for God’s sake tell me you’re in charge.’

Reilly looked again at the White House crest at the top of the page and the Presidential seal at the bottom, and read through the whole text of the short document.

‘Never seen one o’ these before,’ he muttered.

‘Very few people have,’ McGrath said. ‘The number of Presidential Pardons that have been issued is very small indeed. They’re only ever used in exceptional circumstances. This,’ he added, waving a hand to encompass the Rolver Systems’ building, ‘I would certainly call exceptional.’

‘So basically,’ Reilly persisted, ‘this is a kinda “get out of jail free” card?’

McGrath nodded. ‘Yes, it’s an immunity from prosecution for all past crimes, but you’ll notice it carries today’s date, and it’s retrospective. So you can’t rush out tomorrow and knock over the local branch of Wells Fargo and hope to get away with it.’

‘Shame,’ Reilly said, but he was smiling.

‘So what do you – or rather the President of the United States of America – want from us, exactly?’ Hunter asked.

‘We want you to do exactly what we think you were intending to do. We want you to close down this operation permanently. It’s been a thorn in the side of this nation for over half a century. It’s repugnant and appalling, and we want nothing more to do with it.’

‘And?’

‘And nothing. Oh, we definitely don’t want you to ever talk about this, about what you’ve seen here. If you do, the Pardon certainly won’t protect you. Other than that, nothing.’

‘Sounds almost too good to be true,’ Hunter said, staring at McGrath.

McGrath smiled back, but said nothing, because he knew that it was.

‘He said what?’ Thomas Williams’s voice carried clearly on the still desert air. ‘I’m not even allowed to stand and watch what this jerk from the FBI does on my base? We’ll see about that.’

‘I’m sorry, sir, but Mr. McGrath was quite specific. He said if you had a problem with any of his instructions, you should contact the White House. He gave me a note of the number you can use to reach the President directly.’

Keating held out a piece of paper upon which a number was written.

Williams looked down at it, then at Keating, and deliberately knocked the paper out of Keating’s hand and down to the ground. He looked once more at the Rolver Systems’ building, then turned on his heel and walked back to his waiting car.

Reilly and Hunter worked swiftly, walking around the processing room and severing the fabric straps that held the girls inside the caskets. Christy-Lee followed, trying to soothe and calm over forty very frightened and embarrassed women. Hunter had pulled a couple of blankets off Ketch’s camp bed and had covered the remains of the girl on the processing table, so at least the freed captives were spared that sight.

There simply weren’t enough clothes to go around, so most of the women had to stand naked, covering themselves as best they could, in the corridor outside the room. Hunter walked back to where McGrath was waiting.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘We need transport out of here. What had you in mind?’

‘No problem,’ McGrath replied. ‘There’s a bus out there waiting, and inside it are enough tracksuits and trainers for all these girls. We can ferry the clothes in and let the girls get dressed and then, if you can open the main compound gates, I’ll order the driver to bring the bus inside. The girls can get in the bus and leave, and then we can torch this place.’

‘You’d planned this, then?’ Hunter asked.

‘We weren’t sure what the situation was,’ McGrath said truthfully. ‘We didn’t know why you and Sheriff Reilly had been so tenacious and determined to get in here. We also didn’t know whether or not there would be any women here – we didn’t know what stage the processing would be at – so we hoped for the best and made some assumptions.’ McGrath smiled. ‘So, if it’s OK with you, I’ll get a couple of the soldiers to start bringing in the clothes and shoes.’

‘No,’ Hunter said.

‘Sorry?’

‘I said no. You, Mr. McGrath, may be the world’s most upright and honourable man, though as you’re employed by the FBI I think that’s fairly unlikely. Right now, though, I trust you about as far as I could throw Dick Reilly, and that’s no distance at all.

‘I don’t like hiding behind women,’ Hunter went on, ‘but as far as I can see, the girls we’ve released from Roland Oliver are our ticket out of here. So when the girls leave the building and get on the coach, we’ll be right in the middle of them.’

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Sunday

Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

Lieutenant Keating turned away from the building as the sound of a truck engine became audible behind him. The three-ton truck stopped and parked well away from the perimeter cordon, and Keating watched as the driver climbed down from the cab and walked over to him.

‘Lieutenant Keating?’

‘That’s right,’ Keating said, returning the salute.

‘The explosives you ordered, sir. Where do you want them?’

Keating led the soldier a short distance away from the compound and issued a series of detailed instructions. The soldier looked at first confused, but finally nodded his understanding and set to work.

McGrath hid his disappointment well. He’d hoped to be able to get the girls out of the way while he, Hunter and Reilly set explosive charges to destroy the Rolver Systems’ building, because that would give him the ideal opportunity to fulfil the President’s wishes. However, he had more than one string to his bow.

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘How do you want to play it?’

‘You’ve got tracksuits and trainers for the girls, right? And they’re probably in the luggage compartment of the coach?’

McGrath nodded.

‘OK,’ Hunter said. ‘Get them moved into the seating area of the coach, and get the packages or whatever they’re in opened up. The girls will be making the walk from the building to the coach naked. And that’s not,’ Hunter added, ‘just because I like seeing naked women. It’s just that I think the grunts outside will be less likely to open up on a crowd of young nude women than they would at a bunch of anonymous fully-clothed figures.’

‘They won’t be fired on,’ McGrath said. ‘I can promise you that.’ That much, at least, was true.

‘Maybe,’ Hunter said, sounding unconvinced. ‘Aside from that, it’s easy. Dick here has already set his charges, right?’

Reilly nodded.

‘You’ve already laid explosives?’ McGrath demanded. He hadn’t foreseen that. ‘What sort?’

‘Semtex, mainly,’ Reilly said, looking at McGrath, considering. ‘Gonna need a cable run outside the buildin’ to set ’em off, though. I’ve only got a hand detonator.’

‘No problem,’ McGrath said, the smile back on his face. ‘I’ve ordered charges to be brought here from the base explosives store. We can lay additional charges, then detonate the whole lot at once.’

‘What about Ketch?’ Hunter asked.

‘Where is he?’ McGrath demanded.

‘Tied up in his office.’

‘Leave him there,’ McGrath said. ‘He’s another loose end that we can tie up at the same time as we blow the building.’

‘Fine with me,’ Hunter said. ‘There’re some other Roland Oliver people as well. Reilly took care of them earlier. Where are they, Dick?’

‘Right where I left ’em,’ Reilly said. ‘They started getting ’uppity, so I kinda took care of them permanently.’

‘OK,’ Hunter said. ‘Right, McGrath, let’s get your charges laid.’

‘My people can do that after you’ve left.’

‘No, thanks,’ Hunter replied. ‘Dick and I have seen this thing through. It would be a real shame to miss the final act.’

Behind two trucks that lay beyond the cordon, and out of sight of any of the windows or doors of the Rolver Systems’ building, four soldiers dug into the desert soil. Beside them, a corporal sat on an ammunition box and prepared a number of explosive charges, fitting detonators and taping the charges together.

When the hole reached about four feet in depth, the explosives were carefully lowered into it, and a detonating cable attached. Then the soldiers began filling the hole up again, while the corporal backed slowly away from them, unreeling the cable as he went.

Keating responded to McGrath’s arm waving from the door of the Rolver Systems’ building, and trotted across to the intercom unit set in the compound fence next to the pedestrian gate.

‘Keating, sir.’

‘Detail four men to unload the explosives from the truck and bring them through the gate to this door.’ McGrath’s voice was scratchy, but clear. ‘Leave them outside the door and we’ll bring them inside the building. We’ll also need detonators and several hundred yards of cable because we’ll be blowing the charges from some distance away.’

‘Is that all, sir?’

‘No. The packages that were brought here on the bus need to be unwrapped and left in the seating area on the vehicle. They just contain tracksuits and trainers. Then wait for my instructions to bring the bus into the compound.’

‘Very good, sir,’ Keating said, and walked away, beckoning to the driver of the truck containing the explosives. Tracksuits and trainers? What the hell was going on inside there?

Twenty-eight minutes later, Reilly had completed laying the additional charges. A further one hundred pounds of explosive, by Reilly’s calculations, was in place, lain in most cases alongside the plastic explosive he had already positioned. Each had a detonator protruding, and Reilly had spent the last ten minutes running the cord from the packs of explosives to the building access door, and then placed the cable drums outside it.

On a command from McGrath, Keating sent two men into the compound. They picked up the drums and walked slowly backwards towards the perimeter cordon, unreeling the cables as they went.

Reilly walked around the charges again, making sure that each detonator – his as well as those which Keating had provided – was still firmly secured to the cord.

‘Reckon that’s about it,’ Reilly said, straightening up from his last check. ‘What now?’

‘Right, McGrath,’ Hunter said. ‘We’ll find the control that opens the vehicle gates, and you can instruct your driver to bring the coach inside. I don’t,’ he added, ‘expect to find it full of soldiers lying on the floor, so I’ll be sending Doctor Evans out first, just to check it. Is that OK by you, doctor?’

‘Well,’ Evans said. ‘I suppose so.’ He had followed Reilly and Hunter around the building as they’d set and checked the explosive charges.

‘Sorry, doc,’ Reilly said, ‘but you’re about the most expendable of all of us, so you’re gonna get all the shitty jobs.’

The control panel for the external vehicle gates was right where Hunter had expected to find it – beside the double doors set into the Rolver Systems’ building, and close to the processing room. He pressed the appropriate button, and the building doors swung open.

‘OK, doc,’ Reilly said. ‘Time to do your stuff. We’ll be watching you,’ he promised.

Evans looked profoundly unhappy, but walked through the doorway and stood outside, looking ahead to where the bus was parked, engine idling, just outside the compound gates. Behind him, Hunter pressed another button and the building doors closed again.

When they were both closed and locked, he activated the switch for the external gates. As soon as they were fully open, the bus drove in and stopped as close to the building as the driver could get it. Hunter closed the compound gates behind it, and then Reilly signalled to Evans to climb aboard the bus.

Two minutes later, having looked under every seat, Evans emerged and gave Reilly a thumbs-up signal.

‘OK,’ Hunter breathed. ‘Let’s get this show on the road.’

The grey alien culture was one based on equality, at least within the species: like most other intelligent animals, they acted with a cavalier disdain for the rights of any other creature. However, no advanced society can function without some form of leadership, and the greys were no exception. The alien who had entered Ketch’s office, and who had been killed for his trouble, was the local leader, and his failure to return was causing deep distress in the lower levels of the building. But precisely because he was the local leader, none of the others felt able to go and search for him.

And they were worried. Once processing had started it had never, ever, been interrupted before. Then there had been the loud noises, three of them, which none of the aliens recognized as being part of the normal sounds heard in the building. Something, they felt, was definitely wrong, but they had no idea what. Or what to do about it.

The girls filed slowly, with almost no talking, out of the Rolver Systems’ building and onto the bus, quickly dressed themselves in the tracksuits provided and then sat down. The bus had seats for thirty-eight, so some stood in the aisle between the seats while others squashed themselves in threes onto seats meant for only two. Doctor Evans was already on board the bus, and by the time the transfer was complete, only Hunter and McGrath remained inside the building.

‘What now?’ McGrath demanded, staring at Hunter.

‘Time we went as well, I think.’

‘You have your Pardon?’ McGrath asked.

‘Yes, thank you.’

‘If we don’t meet again,’ McGrath said, putting out his hand, ‘I’ll wish you the best of luck. It may not realize it for a while, but the government owes you a debt of gratitude.’

‘We aren’t parting company quite yet,’ Hunter said. ‘The girls are our second line of defence, but when you walked into this compound, you became our first. The troops out there might think twice about shooting down innocent women, but they’d think even harder about gunning down the acting head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. You’re coming with us.’

McGrath shook his head. ‘I can’t. I have to supervise the destruction of this building.’

‘No, you haven’t,’ Hunter said, a slight but knowing smile playing on his lips. ‘Anybody can do it. You just retire to a safe distance, light the blue touch-paper and watch the fireworks. Just brief young Keaton or whatever his name is.’

McGrath kept a smile on his face. In Hunter’s position he would have done very much the same thing, and he should, he realized, have foreseen this and tailored his plan to accommodate it. As it was, he would have to improvise.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’ll call Keating over to the other door and tell him to proceed without me.’

‘No,’ Hunter said. ‘We’ll get on the coach together, and you can talk to him as soon as we’ve left the compound. I really don’t want any nasty surprises a mile or so down the road, so Dick and I would like to listen in to what you tell him.’

Hunter activated the switch that opened the external gates, and then walked out of the Rolver Systems’ building for the last time. The two men climbed onto the bus, and the driver engaged reverse gear and began edging the vehicle slowly out of the compound.

‘Everything OK, Dick?’ Hunter asked.

‘No problem,’ Reilly replied. ‘We ready?’

‘Yes. McGrath will be coming with us, just to make sure we get where we want to go.’

In his office on the top floor of the building, Roger Ketch continued his struggle to free himself from the plastic cable ties that secured his wrists and ankles to the wooden chair. His arms and legs were bleeding where the ties had dug into his flesh, and as far as he could tell he hadn’t made any impression on them at all. The gag wasn’t helping because it interfered with his breathing, and the more he struggled, the shorter of breath he became.

He looked desperately around the room, searching for something – anything – that would help him break free. His eyes alighted on his desk, and the steel letter-opener which lay beside the pencil tray. The blade, he knew, wasn’t particularly sharp, but it still might be enough to sever one of the ties. And, if he could get one free, he knew he could easily cut the others.

He took a deep breath, or as deep as he could, and began the long job of manoeuvring himself and the chair across the floor to the desk.

‘Is that all clear?’ McGrath asked.

‘Yes, sir,’ Keating said. ‘Proceed with the demolition of the building as previously briefed, once everybody is clear of the area.’

‘Happy, Mr. Hunter?’ McGrath asked.

‘Pretty much,’ Hunter said, and turned to the driver. ‘OK, let’s go.’

There is only one access road into the Groom Lake Air Base. A dusty track, it begins on State Route 375 – the so-called Extraterrestrial Highway – near Rachel and then runs southwest down into the heart of Area 51. Most of the rest of the terrain is desert and mountains, impassable except by four-wheel drive vehicles.

Following Keating’s instructions, a troop of soldiers had left the Air Base in two three-ton trucks, and had now reached their designated location, a point on the access road some two miles from the centre of Groom Lake. Once there, they manoeuvred the two trucks across the road, completely blocking it, and set up two half-inch machine guns on bipod mounts on either side of the road-block, pointing back towards Groom Lake. The remainder of the soldiers fanned out along both sides of the road, assault rifles at the ready.

Then they started waiting.

‘You a regular driver on this route?’ Reilly asked, conversationally.

‘Yup,’ the grey-haired man replied. ‘Been doing it for a little over four years. First time I’ve had a bunch of passengers like this, though,’ he added, gesturing with his thumb at the girls.

Reilly grinned at him. ‘Guess not,’ he said. ‘OK, you was probably expectin’ to drive all the way back to Vegas, but we’ve had a slight change o’ plan. Just take us to the dispersal. Think we’ll hop a Janet flight instead.’

‘You’re what?’ McGrath said, looking over at Reilly. ‘You were supposed to –’

‘Supposed to what, McGrath?’ Hunter demanded. ‘Forgive us for having nasty, suspicious minds, but Dick here reckoned you’d probably organized some little entertainment for us somewhere along the road, so we’re flying out. As you said back in the building, the government owes us a debt of gratitude, so one little 737 flight isn’t too much to ask in exchange, is it? I mean, do you have a problem with that?’

McGrath recovered quickly. ‘No, of course not,’ he said. ‘I can see,’ he added, ‘how you two managed to get as far as you did. You don’t trust anybody, do you?’

‘Nope,’ Reilly replied. ‘Not a soul.’

The deputy local leader of the grey aliens finally reached a decision. The local leader had been gone for far too long, and a search for him would have to be mounted. Four aliens were detailed to carry out the search, and they assembled in one of the larger rooms in the second level sub-basement, where they studied a detailed architectural drawing of the building.

The aliens almost never left the basement areas and none of them, except the local leader, had ever been into the above-ground floors. They were all part of a rotating three-duty group: they spent a little over one month working in the building, then two months away from Earth. All changeovers were done at night, when the departing group walked out of the Rolver Systems’ building through the double doors near the processing room, and the arriving group walked in the same way. Their knowledge of the building was entirely limited to the basement areas and the processing room.

The grey coach pulled onto the dispersal where the Janet flight Boeing 737 was parked. Sets of steps were already in place at both the forward and aft passenger doors, so Evans and Kaufmann immediately began shepherding the girls on board. Reilly and Hunter escorted McGrath over to the Flight Operations building to look for the flight crew.

Keating looked at his watch, nodded, and walked across to where a corporal stood expectantly, a cable drum at his feet.

‘Ready?’ Keating asked.

‘Ready, sir.’

‘OK. Do it.’

The corporal bent down and attached two wires to an electric detonator, then stood up again, the detonator in his hand. He checked all around him, ensuring that everybody was well clear, blew three times on a whistle, then pressed the button.

Reilly, Hunter and McGrath were just emerging from the Flight Operations building, the Janet 737 crew a few paces behind them, when the ground shook, and a huge cloud of dust rose into the air from an area well to the south.

‘That,’ McGrath said, with a kind of triumph, ‘was the sound of the Rolver Systems’ building being destroyed. As you can see, I’ve kept my side of the bargain.’

‘Maybe you have,’ Hunter replied, ‘but I still think we’ll do things our way.’

Keating coughed and spluttered as the dust billowed around him, and strained to see through the murk. When the visibility improved somewhat, he nodded with satisfaction at the substantial hole blown in the ground.

Just under one hundred yards away, the Rolver Systems’ compound stood unscathed.

Keating looked around, called out to the sergeant to get the men assembled, and prepared to enter the building.

Roger Ketch had reached the desk when the detonation occurred, and froze instantly, convinced that he was about to die. When he didn’t, he bent right forward, forcing the chair onto its front legs and his head down onto the desk, and pulled the letter-opener and pencil tray onto the floor.

The next part, he knew, would hurt, so he did it immediately. He toppled the chair onto its side, crying out in pain as the wooden side rail crushed the little finger of his right hand between it and the carpet. Then he felt around for the letter opener, manoeuvring the chair until his outstretched fingers grasped it.

He reversed the letter opener, forced the blade between the skin of his wrist and the cable tie, and twisted. Nothing happened, so he twisted it back the other way. Still nothing. With a strength born of sheer desperation, he forced the thin length of steel backwards and forwards, ignoring the pain as the skin of his wrist ripped and tore.

Finally, the tie gave, and Ketch slumped back on the floor in relief. Then he moved quickly, severing the ties around his left wrist and ankles, and stood up. There was no time to lose. He pulled open his office door, wrinkled his nose in disgust at the smell emanating from the corpse of the alien, and ran down the stairs.

He almost tripped over the wires running along the passageway, and realized instantly what they were. Swiftly, he traced them to the bundles of explosives and reached out to extract the detonators when he stopped. He knew nothing about explosives, and wondered if it would be safer to cut the wires instead.

He had a pair of pliers in his desk drawer, so he ran back upstairs to his office to get them.

The members of the grey alien search team were issued with weapons – small pistol-like objects which emitted a silent and invisible beam of sub-atomic particles which disrupted organic material – and began making their way towards the basement entrance. At the foot of the stairs leading to the door they stopped for a final check that all four knew exactly what they had to do.

Then the leader of the team reached for the door handle.

Reilly mounted the steps of the Boeing 737 slowly, his chest still hurting badly. Hunter and McGrath were waiting for him at the cabin door.

‘You OK, Dick?’ Hunter asked.

‘Yup,’ Reilly said, and reached into his pocket. ‘Still got one last thing to do,’ he muttered, and pulled out a small, black, plastic box.

Ketch glanced around the passageway, pliers in hand, and nodded in triumph. Every cable was cut, every bundle of explosive made safe. He had won, and Roland Oliver would be able to continue its vital work.

Where Hunter and Reilly had gone he didn’t care, but he knew that he would dispatch teams of men to find them and kill them. And Evans and Kaufmann too. In fact, they could all be brought back out to Groom Lake and fed through the system. That would be poetic justice indeed – having them killed by the very system they had tried their best to destroy.

With that pleasurable thought in his mind, Ketch started back up the stairs to his office.

The leading grey alien turned the door handle slowly to the left. He felt the catch release, and began to gently push the door outwards, his weapon held steady in his right hand.

‘What’s that?’ McGrath demanded.

‘A little radio-control gizmo we used to use in ’nam,’ Reilly said. ‘Good for a coupla miles, generally.’

‘What’s it used to control?’ McGrath asked.

‘Explosives,’ Reilly said. ‘See, Mr. Hunter and I don’t buy everythin’ you’ve been tellin’ us.’

‘For instance,’ Hunter interposed, ‘we’re not at all certain that the explosion we heard really was the Rolver Systems’ building getting blasted flat. Dick here thinks it might just have been a few sticks of dynamite buried in the sand and then detonated. So he’s arranged a small insurance policy.’

Reilly lifted the box and extended a short retractable aerial, then flipped a switch on the side. In the centre of the box, a small red light glowed.

‘But the detonators you used,’ McGrath said. ‘They weren’t the radio-controlled type. They were conventional, current-activated.’

‘See,’ Reilly said, turning to Hunter. ‘I told you he wasn’t as dumb as he looked. That’s what they was supposed to look like, so that if some boy scout came along and cut the wires, they’d still work. That sort were specially made for Special Forces’ guys out in ’nam. The wire just acts as an aerial.’

Reilly extended his forefinger to the button below the switch.

‘Stop!’ McGrath cried out. ‘You can’t do that. The information we’ve been getting from Roland Oliver is priceless. You just can’t destroy it all.’

‘Just watch us,’ Hunter said. ‘Whatever you’ve been getting, the price is too high. Do it, Dick.’

‘No,’ McGrath shouted and lunged forward, grabbing for the box.

Hunter raised his Glock and caught McGrath just behind and below the left ear, and he slumped to the floor of the aircraft cabin.

Reilly looked down at him. ‘Fuck you, McGrath,’ he said, ‘and fuck the horse you rode in on,’ and he pressed the button.

As the leading grey alien pushed the door fully open, the first of Reilly’s charges went off, and the doorway instantly collapsed. The joist above the entrance fell vertically and almost decapitated the alien, but the blast had already killed him, and the three others behind him.

Ketch was sitting at his desk when the first charge detonated, and was still alive when he reached the door. He died less than a second later, as the floor below him collapsed and the weight of the perimeter armour-plating caused the walls to fall inwards, crushing him to death.

Just beyond the compound fence, Keating watched in horror and amazement as the building, that William McGrath had told him was to be preserved at all costs, simply crumpled and fell in on itself like a house of cards.

On the main runway, the Janet Boeing 737 turned into wind and began accelerating to take-off speed. From one of the side windows, Hunter watched as the base fire service vehicles left the shelter of their buildings and began racing towards the site of the explosion, lights flashing and sirens wailing.

On the seat across the aisle, Reilly grinned at him. ‘Guess we showed ’em, didn’t we?’

‘I guess we did, sheriff,’ Hunter said, put his arm round Christy-Lee and sank back into the seat.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Monday

Oval Office, White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

‘James,’ Charles Gainey said, ‘I frankly don’t care about your opinion. William McGrath offered two possible options to me.’

‘McGrath is an idiot,’ James Dickson snapped, his face flushed with anger. ‘He should never have been made Acting Director of the FBI. He –’

‘James,’ Gainey said firmly. ‘I’m talking. You will listen, and not interrupt. William McGrath suggested two possible options. The first would have basically restored the status quo and allowed Roland Oliver to continue its operations, but would have required the killing of Steven Hunter, who I remind you again is English, not American, with all the potential diplomatic issues that that might have raised. We would also have had to kill Sheriff Reilly, FBI special agent Kaufmann, Doctor Richard Evans and forty-three women whose only crime was that they happened to be under thirty, more or less unattached and healthy. That I was not prepared to agree to.’

Gainey was stretching the truth to within an inch of its life, but he knew that Dickson would never realize it.

‘So you wrote off Roland Oliver instead. You let your conscience dictate your actions. You didn’t think through all the consequences, and as a result we’ve lost the single most valuable source of technological development this country has had for half a century.’

Charles Gainey nodded.

‘Quite right. I did let my conscience decide, but I did think through the consequences. I believe that Roland Oliver had reached the point where it was hindering, rather than helping us. For the last fifty years, American industry has got used to being handed new ideas on a plate every few months, and it’s effectively stopped bothering about research and development. The same applies to our academic institutions. It’s time they all stood on their own feet and stopped waiting for handouts. I think we’ll be stronger, not weaker, as a result of abandoning Roland Oliver.’

‘I can’t agree with you, Mr. President,’ Dickson said, his face taking on an even deeper shade of red. ‘I think you were wrong, and I’m frankly appalled that a decision of such moment was apparently taken by you alone and without any form of consultation or proper consideration.’

‘I consulted William McGrath, and we considered it together. And,’ Gainey went on, ‘it wasn’t a difficult decision to make. McGrath and I have both seen the video of the processing operation – you haven’t. If you had, I very much doubt whether you would be sitting here in front of me complaining quite so loudly.’

Dickson made an impatient gesture.

‘And finally,’ Gainey added, ‘the buck stops right where I’m sitting. Ultimately, the decision was mine to take, whether you or Congress or anybody else likes it or not.’

Dickson sat silent for a few moments.

‘What’s done is done,’ he said at last. ‘We can’t change your decision, even if we wanted to, but I would like my objection noted.’

‘So noted,’ Gainey said. ‘In fact,’ he added with a slight smile, ‘I’ll make that two objections from you, as I’ve also decided to confirm William McGrath as the new Director of the FBI.’

Beaver Creek, Western Montana

‘It’s good to be back,’ Reilly muttered to nobody in particular. He was sitting in the Main Street Diner, his white Jeep Cherokee parked outside, waiting for his lunchtime order of double ham and eggs to arrive.

On the table in front of him he had a piece of paper on which he was jotting down the things he had to do. Top of the list was redecorating his living room.

‘Here y’ go, Dick,’ the waitress said, plopping a plate of protein and grease in front of him. Reilly looked at it with enthusiasm and picked up his knife and fork.

‘You have a good holiday?’

‘Holiday?’ Reilly asked.

‘Yeah. Didn’t see you all last week, so I figured you’d taken off somewhere.’

Reilly leaned back in his seat, looked up at her and chuckled. ‘I did take off somewhere,’ he admitted, ‘but I sure wouldn’t call it a holiday.’

She could still hear his laughter when she got back to the counter.

Helena, Montana

Christy-Lee Kaufmann replaced the telephone handset on its rest and walked back into the bedroom. Steven Hunter was lying in bed, one hand behind his head, the other holding a small metallic object, shaped something like a pistol, which he was looking at closely.

‘I wish you’d stop playing with that damned thing,’ Christy-Lee said.

‘I was just looking at it,’ Hunter said defensively. ‘It might come in useful in the future, if ever we have to prove what happened at Groom Lake. Being able to demonstrate a genuine alien weapon to the world’s press would be a pretty big attention-getter.’

‘Right, but just stop playing with it, OK?’

‘OK,’ Hunter said with a grin and placed the object carefully on the bedside table. ‘That was Michaelson, our esteemed leader, on the telephone, I presume?’

Christy-Lee nodded, and climbed in beside him.

‘He wanted to know where you were, and when I thought I might be going back into the office.’

‘What did you tell him?’

‘Oh, the usual. I said I had a migraine and that I hadn’t seen you since last week.’

‘You think he believes that?’

‘Probably not, but he’s too stupid to make the obvious connection.’

‘Screw him,’ Hunter said.

‘No,’ Christy-Lee replied. ‘Screw me.’

Oval Office, White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

‘Not quite the result we had hoped for, William,’ the President said, as he and McGrath settled into two comfortable armchairs in the Oval Office.

‘No, sir, it wasn’t.’

A steward appeared with a tray of refreshments, and Charles Gainey waited until he had left before speaking again.

‘I read between the lines when we talked on the telephone,’ Gainey said. ‘You obviously had to alter the original plan more than somewhat?’

‘Yes, sir. Hunter is really sharp, or extremely cautious, or both, and Reilly’s as cunning as a fox. I suggested moving the Roland Oliver subjects out, then destroying the building and the aliens as a team, and Hunter simply wouldn’t wear it. From the look he gave me, I think he guessed that we’d decided he and Reilly should never leave the compound. As the two of them were packing enough artillery to take on a squad of men by themselves, there wasn’t much I could do about it.

‘And Reilly’s radio-activated detonators were a real shock. If it hadn’t been for those, we could have saved Roland Oliver and nobody would have been any the wiser.’

‘What happened at McCarran when you landed there?’ Gainey asked. ‘I know the Roland Oliver building was destroyed, but surely you could have held Hunter and Reilly?’

‘That was the final part of the plan, Mr. President, and it would have worked well if we had actually landed at McCarran. Hunter knocked me unconscious before we left Groom Lake, and when I came round he’d already told the pilot to divert to Pulliam Airport in Flagstaff, Arizona. By the time I realized we hadn’t landed at Las Vegas, it was too late to do anything about it.’

‘C’est la vie,’ Gainey muttered. ‘As it is, if any of this ever leaks out, at least I’ll be able to claim a political victory as the man with the courage to shut down Roland Oliver because the price of keeping the program going was unacceptably high. You and I will know that my intention was completely different, but it’s what people think, not what they know, that’s important.’

Gainey picked up a glass from the table in front of him and took a sip of scotch.

‘Do you think Hunter or Reilly will be a problem to us?’

McGrath shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. They know better than to open their mouths. Hunter told me that if we didn’t cause him any trouble, he’d forget what he’d seen. And there’s something else. Hunter told me he’d removed the hard drive from Ketch’s office computer – in fact, he even showed it to me. The drive contains the names and personal details of everyone who’s been processed to date, right back to the start of Roland Oliver, and a whole bunch of supporting data. I have no idea where Hunter has stored it, but I’ll bet it’s already in some computer somewhere, and that he’ll be making a whole lot of copies of the data for safe-keeping. If we make waves, that information will appear on the Internet and in the press, and that will finish us.’

‘We could have Hunter and Reilly taken care of,’ Gainey suggested.

‘No, sir, definitely not. Hunter’s final message to me was quite unequivocal. He said that he, Dick Reilly and Christy-Lee Kaufmann would be keeping in constant contact with each other. If any one of them died anything other than a natural death within the next ten years, the remaining two would ensure that you and I both suffered the same fate.’

‘That’s preposterous. They couldn’t possibly reach either of us,’ Gainey said, but his voice trailed off at the end of the sentence.

‘Exactly, Mr. President. They managed to eliminate my immediate predecessor, and to get into the very heart of the most secret and secure military establishment we operate. I think if either Hunter or Reilly really wanted to take either of us out, they’d find a way to do it. They’re both very resourceful and Hunter, in particular, is quite ruthless. It’s far better to have him as a friend – or at least neutral – than as an enemy.’

‘OK,’ Gainey said. ‘It’s not the ideal solution, but I guess we can live with it.’ He took another sip of his drink, then continued. ‘I had James Dickson in here draining all over me this morning. He thinks Roland Oliver was the greatest thing since sliced bread.’

‘He was right, in a way, Mr. President,’ McGrath said, reaching for his glass. ‘It was an unrivalled source of technology, but we both know that the cost was far too high. In every sense of the word. I wonder,’ he added, ‘if the Secretary of Defense would have been quite so enthusiastic if his daughter had been chosen for harvesting?’

‘Interesting thought,’ Gainey said. ‘I’ll mention it next time he gets on his high horse.’

Both men drank in silence for a few moments.

‘Actually, I’ve got a real sense of relief about this whole thing,’ McGrath said. ‘Just knowing that the operation’s been closed down permanently is enough. I’m sure I’ll sleep better in the future.’

‘I know I will. I know it’s not your concern, but the whole thing was political suicide. I mean, if the American people had found out what was going on, they’d probably have lynched me, or at least tried to.

‘And I’ll tell you something else,’ the President added, warming to his theme. ‘I actually don’t think Roland Oliver was that much of a benefit. I got fed up with those slant-eyed, stumpy, little grey bastards drip-feeding us the technology that they thought we should have.’

McGrath smiled.

‘But there’s a downside as well,’ Gainey added, ‘and that’s what really gives me the shivers.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Suppose the bloody aliens haven’t gone. Suppose they’ve just opened up their deli somewhere else.’

‘Like where?’

‘Like India, for instance. Plenty of live-stock there that nobody would miss. The population’s – what – about a billion?’

‘A little less, I think,’ William McGrath murmured.

The President shook his head irritably. ‘Whatever. The point is, if they do the same deal over there – technology for food – we could see the biggest economic turnaround in the history of the world. And that’s not to mention the defence implications.’

‘You mean –’

‘Yup. We had no option. The aliens wouldn’t give us weapons technology, so we had to be satisfied with peaceful applications – fibre optics, lasers and so on. Now that human flesh is a traded commodity out there with a growing demand for it, the Indians might be able to strike a better bargain.’

Eleven weeks later. Sunday

Chang Village, north of Mangnai Zhen, Central China

Several of the villagers had reported seeing a falling star the previous night, but that was a common enough occurrence. What marked these particular reports as being somewhat different was the insistence of three females – two middle-aged women and one girl barely out of her teens – that this particular star had fallen to earth.

Chiang Ho-Sek had been born in the village in 1975, and had been an academic rising star. Quickly out-growing the local education system, he had taken a degree in geology at Beijing University, and had followed that up with post-graduate studies in the geology of the solar system at Berkeley in America. It was to him that the three women turned, arriving at his small three-roomed house just after seven in the morning.

Chiang had several times paid bounties to local farmers for the discovery of fragments of meteorite on the lands they worked, and it was well-known that he had an extensive collection of ‘star-rocks’ in his modest residence at the southern edge of the village.

Chiang listened with interest as the women described exactly what they had seen. They talked rapidly, and with obvious excitement, frequently elaborating, or sometimes flatly contradicting, what each other claimed. The light had been white, or blue, or perhaps yellow with a blue tinge. The star-rock had made a roaring sound, or a whistling noise, or had been completely silent, as it fell.

But what they all agreed on, without hesitation, was that the object had fallen to earth somewhere in the low hills that lay to the northeast of the village. All three offered to accompany Chiang if he wished to search for the object, but he declined. His head already spinning slightly from the incessant chatter, Chiang announced that he would search the area himself, but agreed that all three women would be rewarded equally if he found and recovered the star-rock.

Chiang Ho-Sek had returned to Chang Village after Berkeley for the time and peace he needed to complete his thesis on asteroid geology. During the week he taught at the local school, the school at which he had once been the star pupil, but at weekends his time was his own.

After a hasty breakfast, Chiang assembled the tools of his trade – a collapsible shovel with a rudimentary pick opposite the shovel blade, a Fuji bridge camera with an extra data card and two sets of spare batteries, a notebook and two pencils, a hammer, a dozen marker pegs, a tin of red spray paint, powerful binoculars and heavy gloves – and packed everything securely into a well-used rucksack. He added a two-litre container of water and three of the candy bars for which he’d developed a taste whilst at Berkeley, and which he obtained in bulk from a colleague whose girlfriend worked as an airline stewardess.

By eight fifteen he was ready, and five minutes later was peddling his bicycle, a ten-year old model originally designed for a female rider, away from the village and along the dusty track that led away to the northeast.

He had no accurate bearings to follow, because none of the chattering women had thought to take one during their observations, but they had all thought that the object had fallen somewhere between the two most westerly summits, so that was where Chiang was heading. He was hoping that the meteorite was fairly large, because that would make the impact crater much easier to find, and would also considerably increase its commercial value.

Chiang, though a scientist, had no illusions about the world of commerce, and knew that large meteorites were sometimes worth hundreds, and even occasionally thousands or tens of thousands of U.S. dollars, and he was quite prepared to sacrifice his scientific endeavours in return for instant wealth.

At mid-morning he stopped beside the track, leaned his bicycle against a rock, ate one of his candy bars and drank a little water. With some reluctance he climbed back into the saddle – which had clearly not been designed for long-term comfort – and began pedalling again.

He reached the foot of the most western of the hills a little before noon, and abandoned the bicycle with relief when the slope and terrain precluded further riding. He ate another candy bar and drank some more water. Then he hitched the rucksack more comfortably on his shoulders and began striding up the slope towards the summit of the hill. From there, he hoped, he might be able to identify the impact site using his binoculars.

The slope increased the closer he got to the summit, and Chiang was panting when he finally reached it. He sat down to rest for a few minutes, then pulled his binoculars out of the rucksack, rested his elbows on his knees, and began scanning the valley in front of him.

After about ten minutes he stopped and rubbed his eyes. There was nothing visible anywhere within sight that looked anything at all like an impact crater. The only thing that appeared to be worth investigating was in the stunted trees and bushes at the very bottom of the valley where something, some small object, or some small part of a larger object, glinted a dull silver in the early afternoon light.

Chiang shrugged his shoulders, pulled the rucksack back on and started walking down the slope towards the bottom of the valley.

When he was about fifty yards from the bushes where the silver object still glittered enigmatically, Chiang suddenly stopped.

Emerging from the bushes in front of him was a small grey figure, human-like but unmistakably not human. Chiang stared at the figure for a few seconds, then decided very quickly that discretion was certainly the better part of valor, and turned to run. But he didn’t, because standing directly behind him was another, apparently identical, figure, and now Chiang could clearly see the tear-drop shaped face with the massive slanting black eyes which seemed to burn into his very soul.

Even later, Chiang wasn’t sure if the small grey creature with the huge black eyes had actually talked to him, or if the words had simply appeared, fully formed and in perfectly fluent Mandarin, in his mind. Either way, the message was clear enough.

‘We have,’ the small grey figure announced, ‘a proposition for you.’

Author's Note

The book you have just read is a work of fiction, with all the usual disclaimers about people living or dead. However, the idea for the book was not derived solely from the typically fevered imaginings of a writer sitting scribbling in a lonely garret, but at least in part from an analysis of technological development in America in the second half of the twentieth century.

At the end of the Second World War, the Manhattan Project had created the first nuclear weapons after quite a long gestation period which owed its origin to the work of Albert Einstein who, some forty years earlier, had conceived the mass-energy equation, usually written as e=mc^2^. The Manhattan Project was a massive undertaking involving thousands of people, the dedicated work of the best brains in the free world and a budget which ballooned from an initial $6,000 to a massive $2 billion (1945 figures) before the first working weapon was produced.

With the end of the war, and with Germany and Japan defeated, the need – rather than the desire – for new technology effectively vanished, but curiously enough the pace of technological development actually increased.

Radio valves were suddenly rendered obsolete by the announcement from Bell Laboratories of the invention of the transistor, the first solid-state electronic device, which had no known precursors. Over the following years, the American industrial machine, apparently with little development time or effort, produced fibre optics, tunnel diodes, holograms, lasers, masers, supertenacity fibres, and hundreds of other devices including the ubiquitous silicon chip. The one common factor about most of these devices was that they were all new – that is, new in the sense of being completely novel, rather than just logical developments of existing technology.

It is almost as if some organization was drip-feeding American industry with technology which had already been developed elsewhere.

That premise led to this book. Though it is – one certainly hopes – unlikely that the kind of exchange program described in these pages is actually functioning in America (or anywhere else), it is certainly possible that somewhere in the vast western deserts of the United States some kind of a trade-off is taking place, and has been since 1947.

Readers who think the concept of a trade-off too far-fetched to be worthy of serious consideration are recommended to refer to the book The Day After Roswell by Colonel Philip J Corso, which they will find in the non-fiction section of a good book shop.

So do UFOs exist? Are there really little green (or grey or any other shade) men working with the Americans or the Russians or the Chinese or the Indians? Possibly, perhaps even probably.

Independent evidence for UFOs is strong, with hundreds of photographs and video films, inexplicable radar sighting reports, some physical traces and thousands of witnesses. The fact that these witnesses are almost all dismissed by the ‘establishment’ and by the professional debunkers as crackpots or worse is not too surprising if what they are saying is actually the truth.

Reference is made in this novel to Blue Book, and Projects Sign and Grudge. These actually existed, and were precisely as described in these pages – simply exercises in whitewash with a remit to ‘explain’ every single UFO sighting in purely terrestrial or known astronomical terms.

The techniques employed were simple. If there was the slightest possibility that the object seen was any kind of heavenly body, aircraft, weather balloon, marsh gas or anything like that, then that was accepted as the official explanation. The fact that Venus, say, wasn’t visible from the witness’s location at the reported time of the incident was deemed to be irrelevant.

If the object or the sighting described was so bizarre that no conventional explanation fitted the bill, then clearly the observer had been hallucinating. If several people had all seen the same thing, then they were obviously suffering from a mass hallucination.

And if neither of the above explanations could be employed without people openly laughing, then obviously there was insufficient data to categorize or explain the sighting. What was made perfectly clear by all the explanations offered was that there was no extra-terrestrial – in the sense of alien beings or technology – component.

But despite these efforts by the American Government and federal agencies, there were and are numerous photographs and video films showing inexplicable objects. Many of these images have been subjected to exhaustive independent analysis and are demonstrably not fakes or hoaxes. There are numerous radar sighting reports which have been correlated with visual sightings. Occasionally, strange metallic debris is found in areas where objects have been seen. Subjected to metallurgical analysis, frequently the debris appears not to have originated on Earth.

Belief or non-belief in UFOs and little green (or little grey) men is, like belief in God, entirely personal, and most people are highly prejudiced for or against. However, any truly open-minded and independent analysis of the evidence collected is almost bound to conclude that there is certainly something ‘out there’ that needs investigating. And nobody, not even the most closed-minded of the debunkers, really believes that we’re all alone in the vastness of the universe.

Let us just hope that whatever creatures are out there have a substantially different agenda to those described in this book.

Time is running out to catch a gruesome killer in this pulse-raising thriller

Find out more…

First published in the United Kingdom in 2012 by Endeavour under the name Tom Kasey

This edition published in the United Kingdom in 2018 by

Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
57 Shepherds Lane
Beaconsfield, Bucks HP9 2DU
United Kingdom

Copyright © James Becker, 2012

The moral right of James Becker to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781788631778

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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