Event

TWENTY-FIVE

In most cases the higher echelon of the U.S. government moves slowly, like a glacier that covers ground in increments of inches measured by years and multiplied by aeons. The country found out early on that knee-jerk reactions to situations brought innumerable consequences in losses of personnel and material. But when faced with a moment in time that had been anticipated for years and planned for by a man of former senator Garrison Lee's genius, he had no fewer than fourteen five-inch-thick files on different military responses to the Event in the desert. They covered everything from urban warfare with the animal to the scenario they now faced, but he had never planned anything for subterranean scenarios.

But now the senator was rumored to be dying. The story of his collapse had spread like wildfire throughout the Event facility and even as far as the National Security Council, giving ammunition to those who wanted the Event removed from the Group's hands.

Sarah McIntire stood in the Group's small chapel on that Sunday morning, watching as Father Carmichael went through the mechanics of his delivery. A standing-room-only crowd lined the areas along the walls. As Sarah listened, the sermon droned on. But her mind was somewhere other than the chapel that morning; she was wondering if the Discovery team in Arizona had yet been told of the senator's collapse. She hoped the news had been passed on to her roommate and other members of the advance team.

As the congregation was rising for a hymn specially selected for the senator, she was suddenly pulled away from the wall. She turned and saw a member of the geology team she had trained with for the past year, Steve Hanson.

"Come on," he said loudly just as her beeper went off.

Sarah closed the hymnal and handed the book over to a neighbor and followed the man out of the chapel. She raised the beeper and saw the word ALERT in small, neat letters across the top.

"What is it?" she asked, pulling her arm free of the excited man.

"Our team has been placed on full field alert status!" Hanson said excitedly as he hurried to the chapel doors.

Before they could open them, the sound of over a hundred other beepers started blaring around them, and others started to stand and leave.

The Event Group was going to war.

The site on the rock-strewn mountainside was astounding. It had been transformed from a crash site into a small city of tents and trailers in less than two hours. All had been airlifted in by Pave Low helicopters, the largest that could be supplied by the Twenty-third Special Operations Group out of Nellis and the Seventeenth SOG out of March Air Force Base in California. The ground was littered with people as well as debris. A thousand little red and yellow flags had already been placed to mark pieces of wreckage from the vehicle.

A three-way COMM and video link was hooked up between Nellis, Washington, and the crash site, so Compton could see not only Collins, but also the president and his national security staff in Washington. Jack could also view them on two monitors that Lisa had installed moments before the link was brought online. Jack had already given a preliminary report to Niles moments before the others joined in.

"So what have you got so far, Major Collins?" Compton asked for the benefit of Washington.

"What we have here is a high-speed impact on solid terrain of a vehicle of other than Earth origin. The wreckage was spread out in a V pattern, indicating a high-velocity crash," Jack said as he looked into both monitors, which showed Niles at Group Center and the president in Washington. He knew the president had flown back to the White House in the middle of the night and was most likely in no mood for lengthy reports. He guessed right.

"Any survivors of the crash, Major?" the president asked pointedly.

"Our forensic team, led by the Group's Dr. Gilliam, have recovered two bodies of what she calls 'extraterrestrial beings,'" Jack answered, removing the Kevlar helmet and wiping his brow with a clean handkerchief.

"Okay, Major," General Wayne Crawford, Commandant of the Marine Corps said, the camera sliding over to his chair in the White House Situation Room far beneath the surface of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, "we received your request on Delta and Ranger reinforcement and have approved, they are in the air. Now, what of this animal, any remains found as of yet?"

Collins explained about their not finding any remains in any of the cages and the finding of the acid canisters.

"From this information from our ground team, coupled with the fact we now have two missing state troopers and a mass of cattle slaughtered, and with the holes we have discovered, we must conclude we have at least one burrowing-type aggressor species roaming the desert, sir."

"Damn," the president said. "Can you track this animal by using the tunnels it has dug?"

"Yes, sir, we are bringing tunnel and geology teams in and are going to reassess when they arrive. We are currently stripping all our department resources at the Group. Our security teams will be stretched the most, so the extra assault element of Rangers and Delta will be dispersed among them."

"The Joint Chiefs would like to send more, but they haven't any. They're recalling several strike units from Afghanistan."

Collins glanced over at his minimal security staff. Only fifty-two men sat at the tables inside the mess tent, not counting the twenty Event Group geologists and tunnel people getting ready to leave Nellis. He had dispatched Ryan and Mendenhall to the small town below to assist the air force in their drops.

"Thank the Chiefs for me, sir. We'll definitely need them as we don't exactly know what we'll run into down there, and I also suspect we'll find other points where the animal has entered and exited the earth, like out at"--he looked at his notes--"this Tahchako ranch that was hit last night and a few others that were also struck. We may have to break our geology and tunnel specialists into groups and divide a serious amount of security around them."

"What about secrecy matters at this point, Major?"

"Well, it shouldn't pose a problem due to the fact that they'll be led by actual military line officers from the Event Group. No need in telling them anything more about our little complex under Nellis. Also I have requested air cover for the valley until my teams can get into action, just in case the animal comes shallow before we're ready. Also, after they come in contact with the animal, Niles and the senator suggested not disclosing the animal's origin to the troops outside of the Group. We'll just say it is an engineered species."

The president turned and conferred with General Maxwell Hardesty, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "Can you take care of the air request, General?"

The air force general grimaced. "Yes, sir, air won't be a problem. The town will be secured by a company from the 101st Airborne. They will also control access to the town; we are now in the process of shutting the door with the cover story. As the major stated, the 101st need not know about the nature of the agency leading them, and they have already signed secrecy and disclosure papers. Also I already have a fighter element in the air that will be on station over the valley momentarily."

"Very good, it's a start," said the president.

"What was the other item at the crash site, Major?" someone out of view of the camera's lens asked.

"Who is it I am addressing, sir?"

"This is Director Godlier of Central Intelligence."

"Well, Mr. Director, we have footprints. They were obviously made by a man likely arriving sometime after the crash as the prints are recent. We believe he may have possibly helped the surviving crewman, if there was one, escape the area."

The president looked around him, then at Collins two and a half thousand miles away. "Then we may have caught a break?"

. "Yes, sir, this man may have been of some assistance to the survivor. We do suspect the crewman may have been injured because of the severity of the crash, but of course we would only be guessing at the extent of that injury or injuries."

"Very well, keep us informed." The president hesitated a moment. "Major, here is what we have done on our end. If our teams fail to contain the animal, I suspect we'll have a full-scale war on our hands that we can't keep from the American public. The Eighty-second Airborne is now on alert and already in transit for positioning in either Phoenix or El Paso in case the animal escapes containment. The Fourth Marine Expeditionary Force is on alert for possible action in Los Angeles and the bulk of Southern California. Fort Hood has been alerted and elements of armor CAV are being loaded onto trains as we speak to block any possible movement north into Colorado. That's it, Major, I'm afraid, as the general said, we are spread thin. So try and come up with a plan that will utilize those men we can get to that valley, and for God's sake, contain whatever this thing is." The view of the president and the Situation Room blacked out.

On the other side of the split screen, Niles looked grave.

"How is the senator?" Jack asked Niles as he tossed his Kevlar helmet to Everett, who had stepped out of the mess tent.

"Alice is with him at the center's clinic. He's due to be transferred upstairs to the Nellis base hospital in a while."

"Not good then?" Jack asked.

"No, I'm afraid not."

"Niles, we need to speed things up. Besides the special material I've requested from the private sector"--Jack looked at his notes again--"Dr. Gilliam here at the site has asked for a connection to be made to Helicos BioSciences in Cambridge. They have a high-speed DNA sequencer they've been working on that just may fit the bill here to get a firm grasp on this animal. She says our portable stuff is prehistoric when compared to what Helicos has in the works."

"I'll get on it right away"

Niles saw Josh Crollmier approach Jack from the side and tug on his sleeve, pulling him away from the camera. Compton looked at Alice in confusion as the voices off camera were muffled. But he was pretty sure it was Crollmier, speaking rather adamantly. He could also hear other members of the ground team shouting and carrying on. Suddenly an ashen-faced Collins stepped back into camera view. He ran a hand through his hair again and looked into the lens.

"What now, Jack?" Niles asked.

Jack once again focused on the camera. Others around the site stopped and watched him, eavesdropping for any information they could get. Collins reached out and snatched something from Crollmier and held it up. It was a piece of wreckage.

"The doc here says we have a problem. He says we don't have the wreckage of one saucer here, we have two. Ryan's Phoenix missile must have caused the attacking craft catastrophic damage, enough to bring it down right next to the other ship."

Niles sat hard on the edge of the conference table.