His laissez-faire attitude made Andrej narrow his eyes at Misha. “It might to Kolya.”
Misha hefted his bag, grabbed his jacket, and made for the door, already halfway to Texas in spirit, if not body. “Then I suggest we don’t tell Kolya.”
Andrej rolled his eyes, but followed him into the corridor and made a beeline for his own room. “This is gonna end so badly,” he huffed. “Call the airport. I’ll grab my stuff. Meet you at the gate.”
And that was that. Misha smiled as he hurried down the stairs. He had Riley in his sights and Andrej at his back. Things were looking up.
TWELVE
GENERAL Nick Young was not known for emotional outbursts, but as he stalked down the corridors of the Basement flanked by his stony-faced aide on the one side and the base commander’s second-in-command on the other, he all but brought his own thunderclouds. High security transportation, armed guards and whatnot, and nobody had noticed an alien life-form claw a quarter-sized hole into a sealed, metal-coated hazmat container and take off. He hadn’t wanted to believe it when he’d been told. Talk about screwing the pooch. Heads would roll for this as soon as he’d dealt with the immediate crisis.
Camp Jackson had been thoroughly searched and apparently hadn’t been compromised, which seemed to be a relief to Brigadier General Mike Hampton, the nimrod in charge of the facility. Young was much less thrilled. Had the alien been trapped on the base, at least they’d have known where to look for it. As it was, the fucking thing must have gotten free on the road somewhere between the crash site in Texas and the New Mexico Army installation. They’d locked down the I-10 to minimize civilian involvement and were doing a grid search, but considering the head start it had, the critter could be anywhere by now. An extraterrestrial creature, almost certainly hostile, at loose among the already unnervingly paranoid American population because the military had dropped the ball. This wasn’t only a nightmare with regard to national security; it was also a public relations disaster waiting to happen. Forget Iraq. This was a grand-scale fuckup on home ground. Heads would roll if the press found out about it.
Important heads; one of them probably Young’s.
The president had gone off like a hand grenade when he’d received the report, and then he’d immediately called the head of the Special Operations Command. That happened to be one General Nicholas Zachariah Young. This was why Young was currently headed for the conference area with a deep scowl on his face and his escort scrambling to
keep up with his long-legged stride. Can’t hunt an alien without intel, and Young was coldly determined to squeeze every last drop of information out of the people involved.
A flustered-looking aide jumped up and stood at attention when Young marched in, six foot five of gimlet-eyed, smooth-moving Special Forces general radiating power and blistering displeasure. For a quiet professional, Young certainly knew how to make an entrance.