Tarizon: Desert Swarm Read online

  Chapter 47

  The Chase

 

  It was nearly noon when Joe, Linkh, George and Cindy finally made it to the borax mine near Death Valley Junction. It was a huge open pit mine that utilized enormous trucks and bulldozers to dig the ore out of the Earth. They stopped at the entrance to the mine and scanned the operation.

  “So, where do you think the Nanomites would go?” Cindy asked.

  “If they are looking for a ride out of here then they would go to where the oar was being loaded into trucks,” George replied.

  “Over there,” Joe said pointing to a line of trucks waiting to be loaded.

  “Okay. So, how are we going to play this?” George asked. “I doubt they are going to just let us drive down there and snoop around.”

  “No. There’s an operations shack over there. Maybe there’s a manager or supervisor in there we can talk to.”

  “Okay,” George said as he accelerated in that direction.

  When they got to the shack, George and Joe went inside. Joe flashed his FBI badge to the man sitting behind the counter. “Joe Spencer, FBI,” he said.

  The man stood up and came over to the counter. His name tag read: Harmon Smith, Supervisor. “What can I do for you?” he asked.

  “We need to look around your facility, if you don’t mind. There is a fugitive on the loose and he’s been reported in this area.”

  “Is he one of our employees?”

  “No. He may be hitching a ride on one of the trucks coming through here. If we could just look around we’ll try not to disrupt your operation in any way.”

  “Let me call the operations office and check with them. It will just take a minute.”

  Joe nodded and looked at George. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen such giant dump trucks,” Joe commented.

  “I know. They look double or triple the size of a regular dump truck.”

  The man behind the counter smiled. “The tires are twelve feet tall and weigh 6,000 lbs.,” he said as he picked up the phone.

  “Wow!” Joe said. “How deep does the mine go?”

  “Nearly five hundred feet.”

  “They’ve pulled a lot of ore out of this mine.”

  “Yes, they have. In the old days they carried it out with mules and wagons.”

  Joe shook his head. The man dialed a number and after talking with someone for thirty seconds hung up. “Okay, you’re good to go. Just pull off the road if you see one of those trucks coming. They have the right of way and they’ll drive right over you if you get in their way.”

  “Right. We’ll stay clear,” Joe said going to the door.

  They went back outside, gave the area a quick glance, and then got back in the car. Cindy and Linkh looked at them expectantly.

  “So, did you get permission?” Cindy asked.

  “Yes. I told them we were looking for a fugitive.”

  Cindy laughed. “Yeah, a few billion of them.”

  “Take me over to where the trucks are loading and I’ll see if I sense the Nanomites’ presence.”

  They drove over to the loading area and had to go completely off the road twice to avoid the huge dump trucks. Linkh got out, surveyed the area and then closed his eyes. After a moment he got back in the car.

  “They aren’t here,” Linkh advised.

  “Follow the trucks and let’s see where they dump the ore. It could be the Nanomites are where the ore will be transferred into smaller trucks for transport on the highways.”

  Joe nodded and followed behind the next truck that was loaded with ore. They followed the truck out of the mine to another loading site. Joe stopped again, Linkh got out and again tried to feel if the Nanomites were present. This time he felt their presence and could detect the debate with the Bat Mountain Nanomite delegation already in full bloom. Relief swept over him as his job was now done. He’d brought the swarmmasters together, so it was up to them now to avoid war with the humans.

  The humans want us to return to the place they call Bat Mountain. Of course they do, they want us in one place so they can exterminate us. We agreed to stay in that location according to the treaty. One of the humans killed thousands of our brothers and sisters. They claim it was an accident. Humans are evil. You cannot trust them. They promise to protect us. But others want to kill us. Why don’t they just leave us alone. They don’t understand us. The government has not told them of our existence. That’s no excuse. We killed some of their leaders. They want to get revenge. We cannot trust them. They claim they understand it was a misunderstanding. They are willing to forgive us. So they say. Humans are not trustworthy. We should kill them before they kill us. If we go to war millions will die and most of us will ultimately die too. You don’t know that. This is their planet. They know it better than we do and would have an advantage. We are only visitors. They will win the war. No they wouldn’t. They can’t see us. They haven’t even tried to find a way to communicate with us. They care nothing for us, only domination of the other nations of the world. It is their leaders who have hurt us, not the main population. We shouldn’t make them suffer for the mistakes of their leaders. What if they betray us? Then we go to war then, but we should give peace a try.

  After nearly an hour of argument back and forth, the Bat Mountain swarmmasters finally were able to convince their brothers and sisters to return to Bat Mountain. Unfortunately, the logistics of getting them back to the Bat Mountain site was difficult. They had to find somewhere private where the Nanomites could build cubes and Army trucks had to be brought in for transport.

  That night Jack and Dolly slept in the back of their truck in sleeping bags Jack kept for emergencies. Dolly was exhausted and fell right to sleep, but Jack was uncomfortable and upset that he wouldn’t be getting back to Shoshone in time to visit Jake. When he finally fell asleep he began to dream.

  The sound of an approaching truck woke him. The pickup swayed from the wind generated by the giant truck going by. Jack got up and saw the sun was just rising to the East. He shook Dolly.

  “Time to get up.”

  She moaned. “It’s still dark.”

  “I know, but we need to get an early start. We have a long drive.”

  “What’s for breakfast?”

  “I’ve got some pop tarts in the box behind the seat and I bet we can bum some coffee from the supervisor’s shed. I saw a community pot when I was there yesterday.”

  “Oh, wow! You really know how to treat a girl.”

  Jack smiled. “Sorry, I’ll make it up to you.”

  “Hmm,” Dolly said and turned over.

  Jack pushed the tailgate down and got out of the truck. Linkh and Agent Sanders were sleeping uncomfortably in the cab. Linkh immediately got out when he saw Jack up and about.

  “Good morning,” Jack said.

  “Morning,” Linkh said, a look of concern on his face.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Ah, I don’t sense the Nanomites.”

  “Huh? What do you mean?”

  “I don’t feel their presence. They haven’t built the transport cubes they promised.”

  “You mean they are not here?”

  “No. I can’t connect with them?”

  “What does the Bat Mountain delegation say about it.”

  “They’re gone as well.”

  “What? They’re not in their cubes?”

  “No. It seems they have all vanished.”

  “How can that be?” Jack exclaimed. “They said they would return.”

  “Apparently they told us that so we would let our guard down. I’m sorry. It was my fault. I shouldn’t have trusted them.”

  “What I don’t understand is why the Bat Mountain delegation left with them?”

  “They act by consensus. Apparently they decided they couldn’t trust us.”

  “But why?”

  “I would suspect it is because they killed General Thornton. They know he was an important leader—a friend of the President. They probably
didn’t believe that we would forgive them for that.”

  Agent Sanders door opened and she stumbled out. “What’s the commotion about?”

  “The Nanomites are gone. All of them,” Jack spat.

  “Oh, Jesus,” Agent Sanders moaned. “I thought we had the situation under control. We had a deal.”

  “Apparently they were leading us on so they could make a clean escape.”

  “They couldn’t have been gone long. I checked on them just thirty minutes ago,” Linkh advised.

  “They must have been in that truck that just left. Let’s go find out where it was going.”

  They packed up their vehicles and climbed in. A few moments later they were at the transport station. Jack went inside and emerged a few moments later. He went over to Agent Sanders who had her window down. Linkh was in the passenger seat listening.

  “It’s a Mack Truck, California license plate TSUX 733 and it is scheduled to go to their processing plant at Boron. That’s about two thirds of the way to LA.”

  “Oh, God,” Agent Sanders’ exclaimed.

  “You can’t let them get into the city. They’ll be impossible to find until they start bringing buildings down.”

  “Do you think that’s their intention?” Agent Sanders asked.

  “If they’ve decided to go to war, they’ll go wherever they can do the most damage.”

  “But how do they know about LA?”

  “I told them about Earth and I might have mentioned they would be near LA. But when they were on the ship they could have read the minds of any crew member who came within fifty feet. I’m sure they picked up a lot of information about Earth that way. And now whenever they get close to anyone, they can pick up local information.”

  “Hell, they probably read our minds,” Jack said.

  Dolly’s face turned ashen. “You think they read my mind?”

  Jack nodded. “Probably.”

  “Oh, shit. I may have had some negative thoughts about them last night when I woke up and found all the air had escaped from my sleeping bag.”

  Jack laughed. “I doubt that had anything to do with them leaving.”

  “Well, we better get going. They’re almost an hour ahead of us. I’ll call in and see if we can get the California Highway Patrol to track them down and detain them for us.”

  “Good idea,” Jack said. “I’ll follow you, but don’t wait if I fall behind. I can’t travel as fast as you with the trailer.”

  “Why don’t you ditch the trailer. I don’t want to get separated.”

  “I guess you’re right. We’ll get the Army to handle transport if we catch up with the Nanomites.”

  “There’s no if about it. We’ve got to catch them.”

  Jack nodded, unhitched his trailer and they all took off down the road. When they got to the highway Agent Sanders put on her siren and they raced to intercept the big eighteen wheeler. When they got to Baker, California Agent Sanders stopped and made a phone call. She didn’t look happy when she hung up the phone.

  “The truck has disappeared. The highway patrol hasn’t seen it and it hasn’t shown up at the processing plant at Boron. It should have been there by now.”

  “It has a radio, doesn’t it?” Jack asked.

  “Apparently it’s not working. Dispatch hasn’t been able to reach them.”

  “The Nanomites must have realized we’d try to stop the truck so they diverted it somehow.”

  “But how? How could Nanomites do something like that?”

  “I don’t know. But they are very cunning, obviously.”

  “So, what now?” Linkh asked.

  “Let’s keep heading toward LA. We can check all the truck stops along the way and see if anyone has seen the truck.”

  Several hours later Agent Sanders got a call on her radio. The truck had been located at a garage in Barstow, but when they got to the garage Linkh indicated the Nanomites were not present.

  “Is there any way they could have sabotaged a truck,” Agent Sanders asked.

  “Sure, it would be easy. They could cut through a fuel line or destroy a battery cable. There are a lot of different ways they could have done it.”

  “So, this repair was calculated. They wanted to lose this truck and get new transport.”

  “Possibly,” Linkh agreed.

  “So, we need to find out if there were any other trucks in the garage when this one pulled in.”

  Jack nodded and went inside the office to talk to the manager. He came back a few minutes later.

  “The manager says there was a truck loaded with sheet rock on its way to downtown LA when the borax truck rolled in.”

  “Oh, my God. They’re probably halfway there by now. Does he know the exact address?”

  “No. The driver just mentioned it in casual conversation.”

  “What was the name of the company?”

  “He doesn’t know. All he has is a make, model and license number of the truck.”

  “Good. I’ll call it in and find out who owns it,” Agent Sanders said picking up her radio. A few moments later radio squawked. “What you got?”

  “It belongs to a lease company,” the dispatcher said. “I’ve got a call into them but there’s nobody picking up the phone.”

  “Send somebody out there. We’ve got to find out where the truck was headed.”

  Agent Sanders hung up and shook her head. “Well, let’s keep moving. Hopefully before long we’ll have an address.”

  They got back in their vehicles and got on Interstate 5 heading toward LA. When they got to Victorville and still didn’t have an address they stopped for dinner at Denny’s. Exhausted and depressed they studied their menus.

  “Do you think we should warn the authorities in LA that their city is being invaded?” Jack asked.

  Agent Sanders sighed. “That’s up to my supervisor. He knows the situation and I assume he’s advised Mo and Mo has called the President.”

  “You know the President won’t allow a warning to go out. It would raise too many questions. He’ll just hope for the best and if buildings start collapsing he’ll come up with some lame story to explain it.”

  “So, you’re saying we should go ahead and warn the authorities ourselves?”

  “That would be the moral thing to do,” Jack said.

  “If we knew the goddamn address we could just evacuate the building and blame it on a gas leak or something,” Agent Sanders mused.

  “But we don’t,” Jack noted and then turned to Linkh. “How long is it going to take the Nanomites to sabotage a building?”

  “They could probably do it in eight to twelve hours once they get on site.”

  “So, if we don’t locate the building by morning it will be too late,” Jack said.

  “Assuming they are on site now?” Agent Sanders added.

  The waitress came over and took their orders.

  “We should split up and cover different parts of the city,” Jack suggested. “We might not have much time to warn the occupants of the targeted building before it collapses.”

  “Once I have an address, I’ll call the LA police and tell them I got a tip that a bomb has been planted there?”

  “That should work.”

  After dinner Jack and Dolly drove to Beverly Hills and Agent Sanders and Linkh headed to downtown LA. It wasn’t until 5 a.m. the next morning that they got the word that the sheet rock had been delivered to a Wilshire Boulevard hotel for a renovation project on the ninth floor. Agent Sanders immediately called the LA police and gave them the bomb tip. Jack and Dolly were the closest to the target so they drove over there as fast as they could. The police were just pulling up when there was a loud crack and then a thunderous roar. The ground shook and the twenty-six story building rocked back and forth. A cloud of dust suddenly swirled up from each side of the building. Jack and Dolly just stared in shock and horror as the building suddenly collapsed into a pile of rubble.

  Jack woke up with a start. Relief washed ov
er him as he realized he’d been dreaming.