The Dig: A Taskforce Story (4 page)

I watched the convoy of trucks enter through the gates and got an idea. Not the smartest one, but an idea nonetheless. Actually, outside of an Indiana Jones movie, the odds of it working were pretty much nil, but there was no other way to get closer, and I’d seen everything I could from outside the perimeter. It wasn’t like they were going to shoot me if I got caught.

I hope.

Before something like that happened, I would at least like the chance to make up with Jennifer. Last night hadn’t been exactly pleasant. She’d wanted to report our attack immediately to the police, but given the threat the men had said to me in the gym, I wanted to find out what the hell was going on, and the police would do nothing to break that down. Instead, we’d simply get tied up with some Barney Fife who wanted to know what we’d done to provoke the attack.

We’d had it out and she’d ended up slamming her door in my face. Pretty much like I was back in Guatemala chasing after her uncle.

I’d stomped off to my room and, using the wallet I’d taken off the lanky man, I’d started drilling down on the Internet to find out who our attackers were. I’d found lanky-boy on LinkedIn and it turned out that he worked for a security firm called Blackhorse Tactical. He was ex-military, but I couldn’t get to his records to see what he’d done. The company website showed the usual outlay of such firms: flat range tactical firearms instruction, close quarters battle courses for law enforcement and military, protective services, and an assortment of other training venues.

So I had the company he worked for, but no real linkage as to whether that was just a coincidence or actually tied to what had happened in the gym. Since the company was based out of North Carolina, on the surface it looked like coincidence. The guy was an independent contractor, so maybe he lived in Roswell in between jobs. Maybe.

I didn’t buy that, though. Jennifer was convinced I was forcing something so I could go play commando, but it was just the opposite: Playing commando for years had given me a sixth sense about these types of events. I had a skill at sniffing out bad things. And this positively stank.

Since I was at a dead end, I’d called the Taskforce, telling the intel weanie who answered to figure out if there was any connection. Within minutes, I’d gotten a call back from Kurt Hale, wanting to know what I was doing freelancing his intelligence cell. I laid out what I had and I’ll be damned if he didn’t side with Jennifer, saying I was seeing ghosts that didn’t exist.

I’d gotten aggravated, saying, “Sir, just tell me if Blackhorse has any contracts in Roswell. I can’t find that out, but you can. If it’s nothing, it’s nothing.”

He said, “Is this something to do with Jennifer? Are you trying to build up her resume with some contrived shit?”

That really poked a sore spot. “Sir, I don’t have to build up her resume, damn it. You let her have a slot at Selection and she’d show you that.”

“Pike, it takes more than a pretty face.”

My voice low, I said, “You don’t think I know that? She’s smarter than anyone on the teams, but you’re just as big a fuckin’ hater as the rest of them. Too blind to see it.”

I heard nothing for a second, then, “You’d better take a step back, sergeant-major. You keep talking about Jennifer, but I’m not even sure I want
you
back.”

I hammered my hotel room wall with the edge of my fist. Like a twelve-car pileup on an icy road, I saw the damage all around me but was powerless to stop what was happening. I was sliding inexorably into the wreckage. I said, “Sir. Please. I’m sorry. Look, don’t make this about me. And whatever you do, don’t let my big mouth hurt Jennifer’s shot.”

I heard him take a breath, once again becoming the commander I knew he was. “Okay, Pike. If you can show me that Jennifer’s got something to offer that I can’t get anywhere else, I’ll think about it. Maybe.”

“That’s all I ask. Really.”

He said, “Fine,” then nothing else. I waited, the silence drawing out to the point of becoming uncomfortable. Not knowing what else to say, I asked, “In the meantime, can you at least tell me if Blackhorse has a contract around Roswell? Something’s going on out here, and it stinks of government.”

I heard, “You are
killing
me.” Then, “Crabtree, get your ass over here. Pike has some questions.”

After five minutes with Crabtree, I’d learned that Blackhorse was a fairly small organization, without any cool-guy contracts. Far from what their website showed, they spent most of their time snapping up the refuse of government jobs. In this case, they had a perimeter security contract for a company called Aegis Solutions. An aerospace firm that did a bunch of top-secret things only alluded to on their website. And they
were
doing something in Roswell.

Setting up shop on the old Walker Air Force Base south of town, Aegis was hip-deep inside the contracting world of the US government, but the Taskforce stopped trying to get details when they saw how classified the project was. Something “Top Secret” and “Eyes Only,” which in the aerospace industry usually meant a ton of money being dropped for very little return. Crabtree could have poked harder, but it would have meant risking exposure of our own organization. Ironically, Aegis would probably call our unit a ton of money being dropped for very little return. They might have an argument except for the fact that we actually prevented people from dying as opposed to simply paying for congressional votes.

But I’m a little biased.

I got the pinpoint location from Crabtree and told him not to worry. I’d figure it out for myself. I’d left the hotel with only an hour before sunrise, sliding a note under Jennifer’s door. I knew she’d be aggravated, but I wanted to find out what was going on. At the time, I figured I’d be back before she woke up. Now, I hoped she’d just stay put.

Aegis had a sector of land on the old Walker Air Force Base that was now no longer used. Unfortunately, the base had also become the “international” airport of Roswell.

Ever wonder why every airport in America is called “international”? Yeah, me too. In this case, the Roswell airport had taken over the runways of the old Air Force Base, with most of the remaining land leased out. Walker used to be a strategic nuclear strike platform, with a bunch of old bunkers all designed to launch a bomber with nukes before the fateful ICBM struck from Russia. Aegis had taken over one such platform.

It was pretty ingenious, actually. Their back door was protected by the airport, which, after 9/11, had become a security nightmare. There was no way I was getting close by that route. So I went the other way.

I’d traveled around to the front, then parked in the desert, going dismounted for a closer recce. I saw the perimeter fence and began probing every hundred meters, but the place was sealed up tight as a drum. The fence itself had razor tape on the top, and telltale strips of aluminum threaded in the chain link. It was wired for disturbance. If I tried to climb it, a sensor would alert, much like a spider waiting for a vibration in a web. Which told me something big was going on inside. Why have such an expensive security system unless you were protecting something?

I’d worked in a lot of secure environments of three letter agencies—CIA, NSA, you name it. Very few had this level of security, and none were out in the middle of nowhere. It perked my interest, but I’d have to find another way to get inside.

Using a pair of cheap binos I’d purchased at an all-night Walmart, I could see the bunker-like building and the hangars outside, but nothing else. By the time the sun had climbed in the sky I was no closer to finding out what the hell was going on. All I’d seen was a roving mounted patrol that ripped along the fence line every hour.

I was considering heading back to the hotel when I saw a ribbon of dust in the distance. It approached the front gate and I ducked into the dirt. I was wearing drab clothing—a khaki shirt and some brown brush pants—so I was fairly sure they wouldn’t spot me in the ditch next to the gate, but it wasn’t a given.

I was even less sure of my dumb-ass idea, especially considering the video cameras at the gate.

The convoy advanced, a three-car motorcade, consisting of an SUV followed by a panel van and something else. The last vehicle came into view and I saw a black pickup truck with a large rear bumper. An arm came out of the SUV and punched a code. The chains began to move, the gate opened, and the convoy began to roll. The SUV cleared the fence and the panel van went forward, blocking the camera’s view of my side of the ditch.

Before my conscious mind could protest, I rolled out and leapt to the rear of the truck, holding on to the tailgate and crouching on the bumper, praying that whoever was watching the camera feed had lost interest when the SUV guy had punched the code. I rode forward, wondering how embarrassing it would be to get caught like this, when I reached the far side.

I dropped off, rolling in the dirt and waiting for the storm troopers to hit. Nothing happened. I scrambled into the bush.

Now what?

I wondered what the hell I was doing. Finding an alien experiment? Solving the X-files? What the was I hoping to accomplish?

I crawled forward and surveyed. At first glance, the ground was devoid of cover. A stretch of desert full of scrub, it was clear all the way to the bunker building and hangar. No way to get closer. And now no way to get out.

Studying the terrain, I saw it wasn’t as bad as I initially thought. It wasn’t possible to walk to the buildings, but, snaking forward on my belly, I could make it. There were enough folds in the earth to allow me to remain out of sight. It would suck, and I’d probably destroy my clothes, but I could cover the hundred meters on my belly without being seen. I’d be spotted for sure from the air, but I’d be invisible from the ground.

I started forward, inching along when I heard the unmistakable thump of rotor blades beating the air. I stopped moving and fixated on the sound.

There was a helicopter spooling up on the other side of the bunker. And it was going airborne.

Jennifer sluiced the dirt in her makeshift seine, finding nothing yet again. Sweetwater scooped out another thin layer and flipped it to her. She began shaking the chickenwire again, sorting out the dirt from the potential evidence of human existence from a bygone era.

They’d been at it for about ten minutes, excavating around the small flag she’d placed earlier, and she was in heaven. Finally working toward a scientific find of an ancient civilization. She couldn’t help but feel the adrenaline of discovery. Something was down here, and, while she’d be disappointed if it ended up being a broken piece of fence line, she enjoyed the process. Much, much more than Pike would ever understand.

He talked a good game about Grolier Recovery Services, and wanted her as a partner, but she understood why. He only wanted to use their company in the service of the US government. To bastardize it like a whore to facilitate operations that were questionable at best. As she sifted the sand back and forth, she realized he’d never understand the thrill of the hunt. Never want to get dirty solely for the joy of the find.

She pitched the sand aside and waited for the next load, wondering if she was making the right decision. Wondering if Pike was worth the effort.

Sweetwater sank the shovel in again and hit something. He brought the shovel up, intent on driving it past the resistance and she shouted, “Wait!”

She scrambled over and pushed him aside. She grabbed a trowel and a paintbrush and went to work, scraping the ground with care. In thirty seconds she uncovered something. In sixty seconds, she was looking at her find in confusion.

Sweetwater leaned over her and said, “What’s that?”

She said, “I don’t know.”

She scraped again, lengthwise, then used her paintbrush to clear off the dirt. What appeared was a section of a black obelisk, dull and checkered, like a length of carbon fiber. She scraped some more and reached the end.

Sweetwater said, “Holy Jesus . . . Chris was right.”

She turned to him and said, “What? Who’s Chris?”

Before he could answer, a black SUV pulled up next to the riverbank from the access road, hitting the rough terrain full-on and spraying them with dirt, full of menace and unspoken power. The doors opened, spilling out men.

Jennifer stood, seeing the dull gray of gun barrels sprouting like a bad rash. All trained on her.

She raised her hands, confused, and heard Sweetwater say, “Chris, hey, she found it!”

The lead man swung his butt-stock, hammering Sweetwater in the head and driving him to the ground. Sweetwater wailed and clawed the dirt, saying, “Chris, wait!”

The man turned to her and said, “Get on your knees.”

She did so.

Sweetwater said, “She found it! Jesus, what are you doing? What’s with the guns?”

The men closed around the dig site and began working much faster than she had, unconcerned with any damage to fragile archaeological relics. In seconds, they brought out a five-foot section of something looking like the blade of a helicopter, one end torn and showing a honeycomb substance like Styrofoam.

The man called Chris said, “I told you to prevent the dam and that we would search.
We would search.
”

Sweetwater said nothing, cowering. Jennifer said, “Sir, wait. I was hired to confirm or deny the presence of an archaeological site. That’s why we’re here. I’m not sure what we found, but it’s not his fault.”

Chris lowered his weapon, exhaled and said, “Shut the fuck up.”

A man behind him said, “What do you want to do now? They’ve seen it. They know we have it now.”

Chris whirled and said, “You shut the fuck up too! Let me think.”

Jennifer saw a trail of dust in the distance, from the other side of the creek, and thought she was going to be okay. The rancher coming to run them off again. An unexpected savior. She was wrong.

Two four-door trucks blasted across the shallow creek, one breaking right, the other left, pinning the SUV. The doors blew open, and more men armed with assault rifles appeared, all dressed in tactical clothing full of bellowed pockets and rip-stop nylon. A man wearing a blue windbreaker held out his hand, a wallet with some type of gold badge within. He shouted, “Federal agents! Put down your weapons.”

Still on her knees, Jennifer saw the man on her left drop his rifle and raise his hands. On her right, Chris said, “Bullshit! They’re Blackhorse!”

Jennifer heard a peculiar snap in the air, a crack like a whip, and knew instantly what it was. She was one of the unfortunate few who had experienced a supersonic bullet fired at her in anger. She dove into the earth, clawing forward toward the cover of the creek bank as the men around her started firing.

She went down on her belly into the creek and began crawling as the battle raged around her, rounds snapping over her head. She reached the far bank and scrambled upwards, peeking behind her. She saw a platoon of men, much more than the single SUV that had initially pulled up, all of them armed with assault weapons and firing. She heard a noise like a drowning hamster and saw Sweetwater behind her, begging for help.

She pulled him up and said, “Don’t say a word. I give the command, and we run.”

He nodded, eyes wide.

She watched the firefight, seeing the rounds spray the dirt and hearing the puncture of sheet metal. She waited for the initial shock to wear off and the men to form some plan of attack. There was a lull in the fire and she heard shouting from the pickup trucks.

Almost time.

She heard a groan and something like a burp. She turned to find Sweetwater on his knees, throwing up. She said, “Get ready.”

Sweetwater nodded, a sickly look on his face and a string of bile hanging from his lip to the ground.

The men in the truck all rotated forward and she knew what was coming. The first round cracked and she shouted, “Now!”

She began scrambling on her belly as fast as she could, knowing all the men would be focused on the fight. She went as far as she could on her stomach, then raised herself to her elbows, clawing the dirt and flying forward. Eventually, she rose into a bear-crawl and kept going. She looked behind her and saw the firefight a hundred feet away. She rose to a crouch and heard a noise. She whipped to her left and was surprised to see Sweetwater still with her. She stood up and started running.

They were fifty yards out, the sound of the fight behind them, when they heard the thump of the rotor blades.