Star Trek The Original Series From History's Shadow (32 page)

Wainwright replied, “We’ll take it from here, Cal. Just get those pictures and the rest of the information from your friend to me as quick as possible.”

“Getting ready to put it in the mail right now,” Sutherland said, eyeing the brown envelope into which he would be inserting the photographs along with a copy of the note his source had included with the film. The original note along with the negatives and a full set of prints already were tucked away in one of Sutherland’s usual safe places. “It’ll go out tonight. Same address?” As part of their clandestine dealings, Wainwright had established a post office box well away from Wright-Patterson, in the rural town of Wapakoneta, Ohio, north of Dayton. Prior to the first time he had mailed a parcel there, Sutherland never had even heard of the place. It was the primary delivery point, but Wainwright also had set up others, each in another of Ohio’s numerous small communities.

“Use the first alternate address I gave you. I think someone might be watching the other one.”

“Okay, you got it. You’re going to go after these guys again, aren’t you?”

“Eventually,” Wainwright replied. “I already know what you’re going to ask, and yes: I’ll try to make sure you’re around to take the pictures.”

Chuckling, Sutherland reached for the pack of cigarettes lying atop his desk. “I’ll make it the cover story! Talk to you in a week or so.”

“Sounds good,” Wainwright said. “Thanks.”

There was a click and the line went dead, and Sutherland returned the phone receiver to its cradle. To no one, he said, “You’re okay, Wainwright.” Despite the man’s reluctance to offer up any real details regarding the various Blue Book
cases he had worked, let alone something like this one, Sutherland on rare occasions had still been able to glean some information from the veteran investigator. He often got the sense that Wainwright was becoming disenchanted with the “establishment” that gave him his orders and might be looking elsewhere for support and assistance. Was that the reason he and Marshall had sought him out five years ago and provided him with real, hard data on the existence of the Certoss and how the aliens were working in secret?

With the photographs and the notes from his source bundled within the parcel and a cigarette stuck between his lips, Sutherland rose from his desk and reached for his jacket and hat. Glancing at the clock, he reasoned there still was time to get down to the mail room before it closed before heading over to Mabel’s for an early dinner.

“Peach cobbler for dessert?” he asked himself. “Count me in.” It would be a nice treat to round out what had been a busy workweek.

He thought his heart might burst from his chest as he opened the door to find a man standing before the entry.

Not a man, Sutherland realized, his mouth opening and letting the cigarette fall out. It was the thing from the pictures.

•   •   •

The apartment was a cluster of forgotten papers, books, and magazines along with overflowing trash receptacles and dilapidated furniture. Bottles containing varying amounts of liquor were arranged in haphazard fashion on the counter of the small kitchen, and the square table pushed into one corner by the main room’s largest window supported a typewriter along with stacks of paper, handwritten notes, photographs, and newspaper clippings. Everything was imbued
with the stench of cigarette smoke, old coffee, and sweat. Elizabeth Anderson wrinkled her nose, eager to be out of there.

“I’m not finding anything,” she said, pulling herself to her feet from where she had been kneeling in order to examine the contents of a quartet of file boxes stashed beneath her table. Sighing, she wiped a lock of her auburn hair from where it had fallen across her eyes and took another look around the apartment that—until tonight—had been the residence of Cal Sutherland, editor in chief, senior writer, and, by all accounts, the only employee of
Watch the Skies
magazine.

Emerging from the apartment’s bedroom dressed in a gray business suit and carrying a portable scanner, her partner, Ryan Vitali, replied, “Nothing in here, either. It seems as though the safe deposit boxes were his big contingency plan. Anything else he might’ve known?” He shrugged. “Those secrets died with him.”

“That, or our mysterious friends managed to get here first, too.” Elizabeth and Ryan had been acting on information that an associate of Sutherland’s had obtained and shared with the tabloid journalist photographic proof of at least one of the Certoss aliens working in disguise at McKinley Rocket Base and other NASA and military installations. With the identity of Sutherland’s source a mystery, Elizabeth had hoped to learn the photographer’s name in order to track down and question him. Such a task might prove daunting for the most skilled and resourceful detectives, and she and Ryan had experienced no small amount of difficulty even with the tools at their disposal. Their search had taken them to Sutherland’s office at
Watch the Skies
magazine, only to find the journalist dead, and no sign of any information pertaining to the Certoss he may have held there. A scan of
Sutherland’s office revealed residual traces of an energy discharge consistent with a particle beam weapon, suggesting that the reporter had been killed by one of the aliens.

“At least the Beta 5 was right about the deposit boxes,” Ryan said, patting the leather satchel he wore slung over his left shoulder. An examination of Sutherland’s background had yielded the secret safe deposit boxes, which Elizabeth and Ryan had investigated prior to visiting Sutherland’s office. Given the recent turn of events, that choice may well have proven invaluable. Returning his scanner to the satchel, he said, “With what we recovered, we should be able to find Sutherland’s contact in Florida.”

“If he’s even still alive,” Elizabeth replied, reaching beneath her blue jacket to retrieve her servo from where she kept it along her left hip, inside the waistband of her slacks. The device, a match for the one Ryan carried in his pocket and looking like an expensive silver fountain pen, emitted a short, high-pitched beep as she adjusted its setting and held it close to her mouth. “Beta 5.”

“
Computer on. Recognize Agent 201,
” replied the stilted though feminine voice of the supercomputer hidden behind a false wall in the office Elizabeth and Ryan shared in New York.

“I wonder if it misses us,” Ryan mused.

Ignoring the comment, Elizabeth said, “Request data search. Collect all available information on a man named Joshua Langsford. All we know is that he’s probably a resident of Florida and works for NASA in some capacity.”

“
Despite the lack of useful information, I will endeavor to compile a comprehensive dossier
.”

Ryan smirked. “Now,
that’s
the Beta 5 I know and love.”

“Don’t let it hear you,” Elizabeth said. “You know how
moody it can get.” While the Beta 5 was an invaluable tool, it could at times be damned irritating. Elizabeth had become familiar with this model of computer during her final training stages just prior to the Aegis sending her and Ryan to Earth as replacements for Agent 6, Cynthia Foster. The artificial intelligence algorithms inhabiting the machine seemed at times possessed of an insufferable ego. Whether that was an unintended side effect of its programming or a deliberate choice by those who had created it, Elizabeth did not know.

As for Elizabeth and Ryan’s predecessor, Foster had asked to be relieved of her duties after spending several years here, even after the death of her partner, Ian Pendleton, working undercover in pursuit of the Aegis initiative to monitor and influence events in order to keep humanity on the path to eventual technological and sociological enlightenment. Elizabeth and Ryan, possessing the same degree of genetic enhancements as any other human raised and trained by the Aegis over the course of millennia and already in preparation to be sent to Earth as replacements in a year’s time, had seen their transition activities accelerated in order to accommodate the changeover. The agents had only been on planet and settling into their new roles for three months upon learning of Cal Sutherland’s proof of Certoss activities in Florida.

“
Agent 201,
” said the voice of the Beta 5. “
Preliminary information on Joshua Langsford: civilian employee for the Department of Defense, currently assigned to special projects division at McKinley Rocket Base in Florida. Report submitted by his supervisor two days ago indicates Langsford has not reported for work. Current whereabouts are unknown
.”

Ryan grunted. “That doesn’t sound good.” He stepped closer to Elizabeth in order to speak into her servo. “Beta 5, have you checked with local law enforcement agencies as well
as any hospitals in the area for reports of suspects in custody or patients matching his description?”

“
I am familiar with the proper procedures for conducting a missing persons search, Agent 347
.”

“That’s not a yes,” Ryan pressed.

The Beta 5 sounded almost chagrined as it replied, “
Search procedures are under way. Stand by
.”

“It’s not going to find anything,” Elizabeth said. “If he’s missing, then we both know what happened to him.” Common sense told her that Joshua Langsford, like Cal Sutherland, had fallen victim to the Certoss’s need to keep their existence hidden until such time as they could finish their mission.

The debriefing she and Ryan had received from Agent 6 during their transition period had been eye-opening, to say the least. Their predecessor, thanks to several covert infiltrations of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and the headquarters of the top-secret Majestic 12 committee and Project Blue Book, had learned about those organizations’ knowledge of the Certoss and their goal of disrupting humanity’s technological development at whatever cost to the planet and its inhabitants. The hard evidence the groups held was lean, but still informative, in that while they were aware of the Certoss and their activities—at least to a point—their efforts at tracking the renegade aliens had been far from successful. Only with the help of unlikely benefactors, namely Cal Sutherland and even a Vulcan, Mestral, who had been living on Earth in secret for more than a decade, had they achieved even fleeting, infrequent success. The Certoss seemed able to frustrate every effort at locating them. As for Mestral, he also had managed to elude detection even from Aegis agents, only coming to their notice after he began collaborating with one of the Air Force officers assigned to Project Blue
Book. A message dispatched to their superiors on the Aegis homeworld had been answered with strict instructions not to interfere with Mestral’s activities, and to render whatever anonymous assistance might be required to preserve his true identity. She had no idea what the situation was with the Vulcan, but her directives on the subject were clear: Leave Mestral alone.

“
Agent 347,
” said the Beta 5, “
I find no record of arrest or hospital admittance for anyone matching Joshua Langsford’s description
.”

Ryan frowned. “It was a long shot, anyway.”

“Agreed,” Elizabeth said, sighing. She cast another look around Sutherland’s apartment, willing some clue to present itself.

What did surprise her was the figure standing outside the window over the kitchen table, pointing some kind of weapon at her.

“Down!” Instinct took over and she threw herself to the floor, rolling to one side an instant before the ear-splitting whine of an energy pulse filled the room and something punched through the window’s single glass pane. To her left she saw Ryan diving for cover behind the slumping couch in the middle of the room, just beating the second salvo that ripped through the furniture’s fabric covering. The stench of burned foam rubber and cloth assailed Elizabeth’s nostrils and she rolled farther out of the line of fire. Adjusting the servo in her right hand with practiced ease, she brought up the multipurpose tool and aimed it at the shattered window. A burst of blue energy spat from the compact weapon, just missing their attacker. The figure vanished from sight as Ryan aimed his own servo at the window and fired a second shot, hitting nothing.

“Come on!” Elizabeth yelled, bounding to her feet and running for the apartment’s back door. She yanked it open and lunged out onto the narrow catwalk running the length of the apartment building’s second floor. Aiming her servo ahead of her, she looked for any sign of their assailant but saw nothing. Darkness had fallen, with dim light bulbs set into fixtures at regular intervals along the catwalk’s ceiling providing the only illumination.

“He couldn’t have gotten away that fast,” Ryan said, coming up behind her.

Movement below them caught Elizabeth’s eye and she pointed at a shadowy figure running across the apartment building’s parking lot. The runner avoided the street lamps casting light across sections of the lot, and he was putting distance between himself and the building, fast.

“Let’s go,” Elizabeth said, thanking herself for remembering to wear flat shoes instead of heels as she placed her free hand on the catwalk’s wrought iron railing and vaulted herself over the waist-high barrier. She dropped the dozen or so feet from the second floor to the asphalt, her genetically augmented muscles absorbing the impact with ease. No sooner did Ryan drop from the catwalk than they set off at a sprint, ignoring the curious stares of other residents looking through windows or poking their heads out of doorways in response to the odd, raucous sounds coming from Sutherland’s apartment. Their assailant rounded the corner of another building up the street, having already put more than fifty meters between them.

“Split up!” she snapped, waving for Ryan to proceed down the building’s near side as she continued the pursuit. Hoping to catch the fugitive between them, she drove her feet into the pavement and pumped her arms, increasing her
speed, which already was beyond that achievable even by the fastest human runner. She turned the corner of the building in seconds, seeing nothing ahead of her but empty street. A few cars were parked along the curb, but she detected no activity within any of them. Keeping her servo out and aimed ahead of her, Elizabeth searched for any signs of movement.