***
Ninety four minutes later, Dawn sat in the back of an F.B.I. staff car stopped on a stretch of deserted, country highway.
The driver climbed out and said, “This is where you get out, ma’am.” He opened the door for her.
“Why have those troops put up that road block?” Dawn asked as she stepped out.
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that, ma’am,” the driver answered.
“You hammer on my door, virtually drag me out of my apartment, refuse to answer any questions, drive like a lunatic” Dawn shouted. The driver merely shrugged and crawled back into the car.
“Step this way please, lady,” an agent called out. He was dressed in a navy blue driver’s uniform and peaked cap. He pointed to a Range Rover with blacked out windows.
Dawn could see a plume of black smoke on the horizon blotting out the rapidly-fading sun. “What has happened there?” she asked.
The driver opened the Range Rover’s rear door. “If you’d like to get in, ma’am,” he said as if her question had never been voiced.
Dawn stepped forward and stared him in the eyes. “Do I have a choice?”
Fire engine sirens drowned out his response but the manner of his arm gesture to the back seat made it clear that it was an order not a request. She watched the two fire trucks hurtle down the road then climbed in.
The dark, forbidding interior matched the mood of the solitary passenger. He switched off his reading lamp and quickly closed a folder but Dawn’s exceptional eyesight caught a glimpse of her name. No doubt it was her security evaluation, she deduced. She instantly recognized the craggy face, scuffed ears, and crooked nose, legacies of Gaelic football, of F.B.I. Assistant Director Franklin S. Langan.
“I didn’t disturb anything calling you at this time of night, did I?” He asked in a tone bearing the oppressive menacing atmosphere that usually signals a particularly violent thunderstorm.
She studied him carefully, trying desperately to get a reading of his true emotions and thoughts. His customary, impish smile was missing, replaced by a raging anger Dawn could almost touch, mixed with the focus of a bloodhound hot on the scent. She heard the door slam shut behind her.
“No!” she found herself replying involuntarily.
“Well this has sure as hell screwed my night up. I don’t like being lied to and I don’t like people hiding things from me!” Assistant Director Langan snarled.
“I was not expecting to see you until Monday,” Dawn hedged, desperately seeking to judge the assistant director’s mood and thoughts. She sized the driver up instantly. He was obviously a bodyguard and highly trained killer.
“Yes about your new job,” the assistant director interrupted her thoughts. “We’ve just had a major development.” Langan said tapping the back of the driver’s seat, “Drive on,” he told the driver.
To where Dawn wondered and to what? This section of road was cordoned off by state troopers. All other traffic had been diverted off onto country back roads. “Oh what sort of development?” she asked.
Langan’s phone rang. He flipped it open before the first tone died, and asked gruffly, “What’ve you got for me?” He paused to listen to the reply then added, “Miss Dempsey is with us now.”
Dawn’s left hand slowly withdrew a carbon fiber pin, concealed as part of her handbag. Her right hand nonchalantly touched a seemingly innocent metal hairgrip. She shuffled round to get both men in view. Precise fluid movements would neutralize their threat instantly.
Langan listened in silence for a few more minutes and then nodded his head. “We’ll treat her as hostile.” He slowly closed the phone.
Dawn’s fingers tightened on the hairgrip, her right arm poised like a praying mantis. The razor sharp points of the grip driven into a man’s neck would disable, if not kill, immediately.
“Are you alright?” Langan asked.
She would get only one chance. This was the moment. Grasping the eight inch pin tightly she turned to Langan, “Err what?” she asked, distracted.
“You look very tense, worried even.” He smiled reassuringly
“All this seems, um, well rather―”
“I must apologize for this rather melodramatic meeting. Two F-16s shot down an unidentified aircraft earlier this evening,” he informed her.
“So the air force has asked you to investigate?” She eased her grip on the weapons.
“No,” he replied. “They ignored clear protocol and decided not to inform me. I only found out about it from a contact at the Defense Department!” he thundered.
“It is probably just a light aircraft off course,” Dawn surmised.
“We’re pretty sure now that it is alien and almost certainly in this area for a specific purpose.”
“Oh really?” Dawn asked.
“There have been reported sightings from some of the sleepy, little towns scattered around these parts,” Langan reported
“Maybe it was a weather balloon. After all no alien contact has ever been confirmed.”
“You’ve never been to Area 51, have you?” the Assistant Director asked.
“No. Of course not! But I watched Roswell High on T.V.”
“Bit young for that aren’t you?” he asked, slightly amused.
“It was research for this job,” she replied. That and endless hours of tedious television and ludicrous sci-fi films, she thought to herself. Everything ever written or produced on the speculation of alien life.
“Well you didn’t bombard the T.V. studio with Tabasco sauce did you?”
“No,” she replied, confused. “Why would I do such a thing?”
He laughed at her bewilderment. “I’m just teasing.”
“Well the whole concept was just ludicrous anyway,” she replied self-consciously.
“In what way?”
“The idea that little grey aliens could possibly have offspring virtually indistinguishable from humans,” she scoffed.
“You seem quite certain of that.”
“Given the reported height and weight of these aliens, even a fully-grown female couldn’t possibly carry a human baby to full term,” she responded, logically.
“We know that from our examinations of specimens. Maybe they plant it in a captive woman after five or six months,” Langan suggested lightly.
“You can’t swap babies at that age!” Dawn said. “It’s a medical impossibility.”
“Maybe they’ve mastered the techniques,” Langan quipped.
“For one thing, the new host’s womb couldn’t―” She was jolted abruptly as the vehicle turned onto the field. “It couldn’t possibly expand to take a fetus that size,” she finished her augument.
“Then why do you think they’re carrying out so many experiments on humans?” Langan asked.
“Do you have any evidence they are?” she demanded.
“Maybe this spaceship is carrying their latest guinea pig.”
“What time did they shoot it down?” she asked, ignoring his last supposition as purely ludicrous.
“He didn’t tell me exactly but approximately four hours ago.”
“What direction did it come from?”
“South-westerly over Lake Michigan,” he reported.
“So probably a sightseeing trip,” she answered, feeling relieved.
“No. They’d chased it into commercial airspace. The missiles hit it over the lake then it turned back over land. Probably looking for―”
“Christ!” she exclaimed. “How could they let your puny aircraft get near them?”
“What?” he asked, startled by her outburst.
“Your aircraft are totally inferior to…” she bit her tongue and silently cursed herself.
“You almost sound like you’re talking for them,” Langan said, incredulously.
“What I’m trying to say,” Dawn stammered, “is that the velocity these craft would have to reach, from a vertical take off, to break out into space is phenomenal!” She threw her hands up in exasperation
but the gesture was futile in the dark. “No fighter plane is capable of matching that,”
The Range Rover bumped to a halt.
“Maybe we got lucky and caught the thing during take-off,” said Langan as he opened his door.
Dawn turned to open her door. A sickly feeling inside quashed her reply. “Or landing,” she thought. “Damn it” she muttered under her breath. It was landing, she realized.
The wall of noise hit Dawn as she stepped from the car. The downdraft blew back her hair and her jacket billowed open, her blouse pushed tightly against her body. Through the wailing of sirens and the din of the helicopter rotors, she could here the wolf whistles and lewd remarks. She grabbed her jacket, buttoned it, folded her arms across her chest, and turned away, grateful not to be wearing a skirt.
She walked around the back of the vehicle to join Langan. “Do you think the public will believe that the military is here in force just for an aviation accident?” she asked.
“No,” he admitted. “We’ll get a senior air force general to deny that a top secret prototype war plane crashed here. Then the media will draw their own conclusions.”
“Pretty smart,” she said. “Getting them to believe a lie by telling the truth.”
“They’ll never see that one coming,” he smiled.
An officer introduced himself to Langan. “Captain Groves U.S. Air Force,” he said saluting smartly. “If you’d like to wait in your car, sir, I’ll ask Colonel―”
“F.B.I. Assistant Director Langan,” he said, waving his badge. “I’m taking charge here so take us to the officer in charge.”
“What exactly is the F.B.I’s interest in this?” Groves asked.
“National security,” Langan replied.
“They’re spook hunters, Sir,” a lieutenant interjected.
“What?” Groves asked.
“The F.B.I.’s ‘Visitation team’ Sir,” the lieutenant responded. “They hunt for―”
“Don’t leap to wild speculation, soldier,” Langan interrupted. “Captain, I want this area sealed off. As soon as the flames are extinguished the fire crews can go.”
“They’ve got the specialist equipment to search the wreckage,” Groves replied.
“Seal the area,” insisted Langan. “I’m in charge of this operation, and my people will deal with the wreckage.” Langan looked across to where Dawn had wandered off alone staring intently at the crashed vessel.
Dawn could just make out the markings etched into the tail section. By the flickering light of the flames she could read parts of the symbols and piece together the all-too-familiar pattern. Fear and dread gripped her. No! Please don’t let it be, she prayed quietly to herself. She struggled to keep her emotions in check. Lost deep in her own thoughts, she was unaware of the figure silently approaching.
“Are you alright?” A voice interrupted her thoughts.
Dawn spun around, startled, and looked blankly at Langan.
“Sorry,” he said, “you seemed to be, err well, getting emotional. Are you alright?”
“Yes,” she lied then turned to look at the craft. “Do you think they can get the survivors out?”
“I doubt anyone could survive a direct missile hit or the impact of the crash.
“Maybe they were thrown clear,” she suggested, hopefully.
“Maybe,” he nodded to where Groves was waiting for them. “He won’t tell me anything but he’s going to take us to his senior officer.” They walked over to Groves. “Is Jackson still a brainless pain in the ass jerk?” Langan asked.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Sir,” Groves answered stiffly.
“Sure you do,” Langan probed. “Colonel Jackson is just a petty bureaucratic jerk doing a piss poor impersonation of a soldier.”
“I’m sure you’ve got the wrong man, Sir,” Captain Groves said.
“No!” Langan snorted, “I’ve got the right one, so cut the crap and take us to him.”
Groves pointed ahead and began walking. “I don’t understand, what reason you have for wanting to take control of the situation from the Colonel.”
“You understand perfectly well,” Langan said. “He sent you to do the cocky, super-tough, guardian of the realm business and prevent any access to the scene.”
Groves looked nervously at Dawn who was walking backwards directly in front of him and drilling into his skull with her eyes. He blinked and looked away. “What could the colonel possibly be trying to conceal from you?”
“The survivors,” said Dawn. She stopped abruptly.
Groves bumped into Dawn who stood nose to nose staring directly into his eyes. “Are you telepathic or something?” he stammered.
“Stands to reason,” said Langan. “That worthless piece of dung is trying to cover himself in glory at the expense of the greater good.” He jabbed Groves’ shoulder. “You’re an accomplice and I can lock you up under the Patriot Act. So spit it out!” He threatened.
Groves’s gaze flitted between the pair, and then returned to Langan. “He ordered a prisoner to be kept out of sight and nobody to be told, but―”
“Just the one?” Dawn interrupted.
“Yes, ma’am,” Groves confirmed. “Just one, strangest looking thing I’ve ever seen.”
Dawn was no longer listening. She looked around, worried and agitated.
“Honestly,” Groves continued, gesturing wildly, “body of like a ten-year-old kid and this great big, bulbous head with huge, black, almond-shaped eyes.”
Langan listened in stunned amazement.
“Lifeless soulless eyes they are, sir. Tiny ears and mouth, bit like you see in the movies, and―”
“You’ve captured a Graeae!” Langan exclaimed.
“Is that what these creatures call themselves, Sir?”
“It’s what we call them. From the Greek, meaning the grey ones,” Langan told him.
“Take us to him,” Dawn demanded.
“Isn’t that just incredible?” Langan asked her.
“Yes,” said Dawn, feigning bewilderment, “just incredible.”
Chapter Two
The Captive