Reyna shook his head slowly. "And who watches over our intel teams? I heard that they're multinational too."

  "We're working on contingencies," Perry said. "In the meantime, treat everyone with some suspicion."

  "That's a hell of a way to foster morale and teamwork."

  Perry let out a deep breath. He didn't like to have to say this next bit either. "One other thing, General—we'll be placing a multinational senior officer in charge once the base is operational."

  Reyna was taken aback. "What? You can't be serious!"

  "I'm afraid so. The Russians were especially adamant that their personnel would not be under an American officer's command. It was one of the conditions we had to abide by in order to get them onboard."

  "Who did you place in charge of this unit then?"

  "His name is Brigadier General Heino Jokinen," Janet said. "He's Finnish, and he formerly commanded their Utti Jaeger Regiment. His staff will be flying in tonight to relieve you."

  Reyna couldn't believe it. "Relieve me? I'm supposed to be in charge of this task force, not some goddamn Finn!"

  "I'm sorry, General," Perry said.

  Reyna hissed before turning around and stomped out of the room. His aide just stood there, confused for a few seconds, before he too followed the general and left.

  Perry rubbed the back of his neck before turning towards Jane. "That could have gone better."

  "At least most of the work in setting this base up is done," Jane said. "If we had told him about this earlier then morale wouldn't have been very good at the beginning."

  Dutton stood a few meters away and had witnessed the entire conversation. Now he raised his hand. "Am I to be relived as well?"

  "No, Major," Perry said. "Your team of engineers is pretty damn good. We're still in the process of expanding this base, so we'll need you."

  "Very good, sir."

  As the major moved away to get back to his work, Perry got a text on his phone. He read it and frowned.

  "What is it?" Jane asked.

  "The president is asking why we didn't give out any advance warning for the Nevada attack last night," Perry said. "It was the first alien incident that occurred on home soil in more than six months, and he's taking flak in a lot of the news media outlets again. Even Congress is planning to hold hearings on it since he went on TV assuring everyone that we had an early warning system in place."

  "I briefed Reese Fulton about it already," Jane said, referring to the president's national security advisor. "For some reason we didn't schedule any satellite or Constant Phoenix sweeps over Nevada for the past forty-eight hours, so there was no way we could have detected the radiation field before it happened."

  "Why the hell not?"

  She shook her head. "I don't know. Most of the intel staff thought it was a glitch."

  "Are you kidding me? A glitch in both the satellite programming and in the mission orders for Constant Phoenix?"

  "Jacob Baum actually thinks it's something else."

  "What then?"

  "He thinks the fifth column sabotaged our early warning system," Jane whispered. "He's looking into it."

  Perry closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. "Jesus Christ. Are you saying Task Force Zero has already been infiltrated by this... fifth column?"

  "We honestly don't know at this point. We're reviewing our security procedures and checking who has access to change the satellite programming and mission orders to Constant Phoenix."

  "Okay, keep me in the loop and fully updated on this," he said. If Task Force Zero has already been compromised, then we've lost this war before it's even started.

  3 Manhattan

  TAPPING HER PEN ON the workstation's countertop, Jenna Bates adjusted her glasses while staring into the monitor screen. The alien attack out in the Nevada desert had generated a torrent of brand new speculative news content, and she was busy trying to find some evidence to corroborate her own findings.

  The other reporters around her were busy typing away at their keyboards, and the normally bustling main room of the New York Herald was quieter than usual. After a slight rebound over the past few months, the stock markets had once again collapsed as investor confidence in the entire country had yet to bottom out.

  Colton Napier got up from his chair and walked over until he stood beside her desk. "Hey, what's up with our star UFO reporter? Got any tidbits for me?"

  Jenna gave a half smile as she continued to scan through various conspiracy sites on her computer. "Here's one for you, how about doing an investigative piece on the disappearance of Larry Bielenda?"

  "Who's he?"

  "You want to know why you're pretty much assigned to do the foo-foo stories, Colton? Because you're totally clueless as to who the big movers are."

  "Okay, seriously. Fill me in."

  "Bielenda is Mr. Conspiracy. Anything to do with government secrets, you go to his website for info. The guy gets millions of hits, which means a lot of people read his stuff—until his sites just suddenly stopped updating a few months ago, and no one's heard from him since."

  "But aren't all these conspiracy theory people just nuts?"

  "I'm not so sure. I know a guy who was doing undercover work, trying to expose the Etherians, and I think some of his findings made it to Bielenda's sites, and they seem to paint a compelling story about how the Etherians are behind all of this."

  "Yeah, but Jenna, the moment your article on that cult came out, we got sued for libel. Didn't our editor tell us to hold off on publishing new articles about them?"

  "You weren't listening very well. Marty said we can still write stories on them as long as we’ve got solid sources to back it all up."

  "Okay, so you want me to help you out?"

  "Yes. You can help me out by figuring out what happened to Bielenda."

  "How do I do that?"

  "Ask Marty to see if he can include you in the pool of reporters who are going to Portland for the follow up story. Once you're there, see if you can talk to any of Bielenda's friends since he was from that city. Try to find out where he is."

  "But, but he assigned me to head over to Nevada and do a story on the massacre out in the desert."

  "Look, I'm telling you this is the bigger story. If you go to Nevada, you'll end up writing just another sob article on how those hipsters got slaughtered and all that. Everybody else is already doing that exact same story."

  Colton pursed his lips. "You sure this is the bigger scoop?"

  "Yes, because no one else is doing it. The way to get noticed in this business is to drop an investigative bombshell on everybody."

  "Uh, okay, I'll talk to Marty about it then."

  "Good, now stop bothering me," Jenna said as Colton turned and moved away. Damn, would I love to expose that UFO cult, but I need more sources!

  The lights on her landline phone started blinking so she quickly answered it. "Jenna Bates here."

  The voice at the other end of the line sounded hollow and distant. "Jenna, it's me."

  She quickly recognized who it was. "Elsner? How are you?"

  "I'm using a burner phone so I can't talk to you that long. Did you get the emails?"

  "Yes, I did. Thank you. All that stuff you gave me was an eye opener."

  "That was a few months ago. Why haven't you blown the lid off the Etherians yet?"

  Jenna leaned forward, deeper into the back of the low divider and lowered her voice. "After I did my first article they sued us, Elsner. We had to settle. My editor told me I can't use anonymous sources anymore, which means I have to confirm each bit of information you gave me."

  "What? That's gonna take a long time."

  "Yes, it is. My hands are tied, but if you can point me to a second source to confirm all this stuff, then they can't sue us for libel anymore."

  "What about the families of those cult members that got killed in Mordrake's house on Vashon Island? Have you tried talking to them?"

  "You only gave me a couple of names I could follow up on," Jenna said. "And the families refused to talk about it. They won't even admit that their loved ones are missing."

  "Goddamn it. What about the Geneticus Lab building in Portland?"

  "No reporters could enter the scene in that part of the city since it was declared a federal disaster zone. My own contacts in the government told me that CDC and USAMRIID went through everything."

  "Damn it!"

  "I can tell you that I personally witnessed several semi-trailer trucks belonging to Mordrake Holdings going in and out of that area when I was there. If what you said is true then they’ve surely hauled all the evidence away by now."

  There was a heavy sigh on the other end of the line. "Then it's back to square one for me."

  "Are you okay? Where are you?"

  "All I can tell you is that I'm safe, for now. I'm with my family. I managed to get them out in time."

  "Elsner, why don't you go out in public? I can do a story on you."

  "No, no! My family's life is already in danger."

  "Why not go to the cops or the Feds and ask for protection? I'm sure they could help."

  "No, don't you see? The Cabal controls everything. I'll be killed if I let myself get caught. The only way for me to fight back is by exposing them to the general public."

  "I believe you, Elsner. I know you didn't murder your own cousin and his family, but you can't just keep running away forever. If you tell your story then maybe there's a chance the truth will come out."

  There was a brief sob on the other end. "I-I can't. My family will be killed along with me. No, I can't do that to my wife and son."

  "Elsner, there must be something—"

  The line went dead.

  4 British Columbia

  LOCATED AT THE SOUTHERN tip of Salt Spring Island, Methuen Farm overlooked the scenic views of Fulford Harbour. The community was started by American draft dodgers of the Vietnam War and had since become a fully functional commune where drifters and tourists would spend a year or two doing farm work to keep the place running and make a bit of money before moving on.

  Blinking his eyes open, Michael Ripley sat up on the bunk bed before getting to his feet. It was mid-morning, and the chronic pain he had been feeling along the sides of his skull for the past several months had now largely subsided.

  Stripping off his thermal underwear, he slipped into his working clothes: worn jeans, plaid cotton shirt, and dirt encrusted heavy boots. For the first time in as many months he now felt alright, and he needed to get back into shape.

  Walking out of the cabin, he was greeted by a tanned woman carrying a basket full of newly harvested vegetables in her thin yet muscular arms. "Hey, you feeling better?"

  Ripley smiled while rubbing his beard. "Yeah, a whole lot better. My headaches are pretty much gone now."

  "That's great. I'll see you later."

  "See you."

  Making his way past the stables, Ripley kept going until he got to the chicken coops. Several women were there, holding wooden baskets while scooping out the eggs from the various lined nests along the wooden shelves.

  He caught the eye of one of them, and the middle-aged woman smiled while giving him a friendly wave. "If you're looking for Piper, she's working at the compost heap today."

  "Thanks," Ripley said before he turned and began hiking up along an inclined path by the side of the shack. The trail continued on for almost a hundred meters as he passed through lines of pine trees and huge, shrub-like ferns. By the time he got closer, the earthy smell of rotting leaves and dirt filled his lungs.

  Piper Torres was leaning against the tree, her callused hands still clasping the top handle of a shovel. Ripley strode closer, impressed by her transformation from a scared teenager to a hardened young woman.

  She locked eyes with him, yet kept her relaxed stance. "How's your head?"

  He stood right next to her, watching a small group of youths a few meters away using their shovels to flip over parts of the massive compost pit. "The pain is pretty much all gone now."

  Piper gave a slow nod, but didn't say anything.

  "I couldn't think straight most of the time, but the past few weeks have been great. Now I'm close to a hundred percent."

  "So what does that mean?"

  He lowered his voice so that the others wouldn't overhear them. "We can get back to what we were doing."

  Piper let out a deep breath. "You mean go back?"

  "Yeah."

  "Wouldn't they be looking for us?"

  "I know a guy in Los Angeles who might be able to get us some new identities."

  "Can you trust him?"

  "He was a low level informant, but I don't think the other special agents in the field office would be using him lately, since the FBI is now completely focused on the aliens."

  "And if we get new IDs, then what?"

  "We get back on the trail," Ripley said. "Find evidence that the aliens have human spies helping them out."

  "I bet all the stuff we found in Portland would have been taken away by now."

  "Yeah, but we know about those front companies, and we know this billionaire is behind it all. That's a big piece of information we could give out to the proper authorities."

  Piper scoffed. "Yeah, right."

  "Look, I know the FBI might be compromised, so we bypass them and go directly to DHS," Ripley said.

  "And how do you know the Department of Homeland Security isn't working with the aliens either?"

  "We'll just have to find a way to pass the information over to them anonymously."

  "You may not remember this, but we tried that already," Piper said.

  "Yeah, I remember," he said softly. They had tried sending anonymous emails and even used payphones to call in to the DHS tip lines, but nothing seemed to have come out of it.

  Piper looked down at the ground. "We don't have a chance. If the human spies knew where we are, we'd have been killed by now."

  Ripley crossed his arms. "We've got to do something. We can't stay here forever."

  She looked up and scanned the nearby forest. "I like this place. It's peaceful. The people are nice."

  "I understand you feel safe here, Piper, but if we don't do our part, then the whole world is screwed."

  Piper bit her lip. "I did my part. Both my parents are gone. And Jeff..." Her voice trailed off.

  "He was a good kid," Ripley said. "He gave up his life to save us both."

  Piper trembled slightly, remembering the ordeals she had gone through. At one time she had cried every night for two weeks straight, until she could finally weep no more.

  Ripley placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "Okay, if you want to stay, that's fine. I'm going back."

  She looked at him, the fear in her eyes returning. "No, please don't leave me."

  "Look, I have to go back. I owe it to my partner, and I owe it to my fiancé. I can't live the rest of my life as a fugitive. I've got to make this right."

  Piper placed the shovel along the side of the tree trunk she was leaning against. "If I go with you, the chances are we'll both die."

  "It's a chance I'm willing to take. I took an oath to uphold the laws of my country, and I'm not shying away from it."

  Piper nodded. "Do you have a plan?"

  "Yeah," he said. "Go raid another one of Mordrake's labs, get an alien corpse or two, and make sure it gets seen by a whole crowd of people with smartphones who'll send it out across the internet."

  "That's a crazy plan."

  "Yup, it's so crazy they won't be expecting it."

  5 London

  SITTING IN HIS CUBICLE inside MI5 headquarters at Thames House, Liam Holland frowned while staring at the virtual reports on his computer screen. He had been tasked to look into a possible intelligence leak at the behest of Task Force Zero, and the long hours were beginning to wear him down.

  Although the Americans have control over their own satellites, our own cybersecurity division does have the codes to override them, he thought. So far we and the Israelis are the only agencies outside of the US that currently have full access to Task Force Zero's early warning system.

  Earlier in the day he had firmly believed that the security breach had to have come from the American side, but now he wasn't so sure. Even though the commands to alter the satellite trajectory sweeps did come from the American servers in Virginia, it looks like somebody slipped in a counter order directly from our computers here.

  Liam rubbed his grizzled chin. He had been sitting in his cubicle for longer than a day now, and his personal hygiene was beginning to deteriorate. It was by sheer luck I was able to track the commands through the servers before they self-deleted. But who could have possibly done this on our end, and why?

  A series of beeps from his phone pushed his mind back into the real world. Checking his messages, he ended up texting a friend back, telling him he wouldn't be home until later that evening. There was too much work to be done.

  The door to his supervisor's office opened up, and Paul Forbes-Jones stuck his head out into the main room. "Liam, I want to see you. Now."

  Getting up, Liam logged off from his console before making his way into the office at the other end of the room.

  Forbes-Jones was equally fatigued as he wearily slumped on his chair, eyeing the younger man with tired eyes. "I'm just about to file a report with the Yanks, and inform them that the breach didn't come from us. Are you in agreement with that?"

  Rather than taking the easy way out, Liam shook his head instead. "I think the breach might have indeed come from our end, sir."

  His subordinate's words were enough to jolt Forbes-Jones into a fully upright position on his chair. "What did you say?"

  "We have a number of backdoors that were in place on the American satellite network, sir," Liam said. "I have reason to believe that one of them was used to relay a command to make slight alterations on two of their patrol sweeps."

  "Good God. Are you positive about this?"

  "Not entirely, sir. The script sort of deleted itself so I can't trace where exactly it was executed from."

 

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