Close to midnight, and the rooftop's emergency elevator fell rather than descended toward the War Room, leaving Dr. Jack Dosch's stomach somewhere between the chaos on the landing pad above and the promised bedlam far below. Sure he was going to be sick, he ran the back of his hand across his mouth, hoping to hold in what wanted so desperately to come out.
Really should ease up on the scotch.
Almost morning, and he was still in his suit, tie askew, the collar of his starched-white shirt like sandpaper against his neck. He hadn't bothered to stop by home to change his clothes, to make the transition from workday to night. Instead, he'd slipped from his office at Universal Resources—UR for short—climbed in his Range Rover and wandered. Just as he did most nights now that she had left him.
Hours earlier, he'd found his way to the back patio of his favorite restaurant whose name he suddenly couldn't remember. He'd rolled back the canopy and unscrewed the tiny lights twined around the canopy's frame. He'd wanted to see the stars. Wonderful things, his old friends the stars. So constant.
That was where Ensign Fitzgerald had found him with his companion for the evening: a half-empty bottle of fifty-year-old Balvenie.
"So, what do you think of Mr. Bennett's little science project, Ensign?" he'd asked, searching the table, and then his pockets for his car keys. But they'd disappeared long ago with the restaurant's owner. One of the few friends his black mood hadn't alienated.
At least, not yet.
"I'm not required to think anything, Dr. Dosch," The ensign had said, studying him over the top of her gold Aviators, her young face expressionless. But her eyes. There was something hidden and somewhat sad just behind her pale gray eyes. The most unusual shade of gray Jack had ever seen.
"However," she'd gone on, "I am required to relay a message to you from Mr. Bennett. He would like you to join him at UR, ASAP. Dr. Ironhorse has found something."
Jack had scoffed. Eddie Ironhorse was undoubtedly the most brilliant astrophysicist on the planet. Though lately, it seemed every blip in the sky he'd searched for, and then spotted, had proved to be just that. Certainly, not the extraterrestrial they all wanted so desperately to find.
Poor Eddie. Working obsessively from his mountain-top observatory in New Mexico, it was as if he were waiting for something to come. Expecting something to happen beyond his usual searching. Whatever his obsession, it had turned his serious nature into something downright depressive, straining relationships at home as well as at work.
So rumor said.
Jack thumbed his wedding ring. Unfortunately, he also knew a thing or two about screwing up a relationship. If obsession could make a thing so, he'd have wished his heart's desire into being at the ripe old age of eleven when an alien spaceship flew over his father's ranch. But obsession had its limits. As did how far you could push the person you once promised to love more than life itself.
How can two such smart guys like Eddie and me be so stupid?
"Sir," Fitzgerald had said. "Mr. Bennett is waiting."
Jack's jaw had twitched. Walter's request had been reasonable given the gargantuan salary he paid him. Good corporate dog, he should've bounded from his chair and put his ass in the waiting helicopter. But Walter's request had just pissed him off, as did most things these days.
"Tell Mr. Bennett, with my compliments," he'd said, saluting Fitzgerald with the scotch bottle, "to go screw himself."
Unimpressed, Fitzgerald had continued to regard him over the top of her Aviators. "Mr. Bennett thought you might say that, sir. So, he told me to tell you the Bug Tussle is rising."
The elevator shuddered to a stop, and his stomach did a flip, shaking Jack back into the present.
Damn, I hate heights and short drops down long elevator shafts.
"Almost there, sir." Fitzgerald's solid touch on his shoulder was reassuring, and Jack had to smile: Somewhere between delivering Walter's ultimatum and the helicopter ride back to UR, she'd stopped being his persecutor and had become his protector.
So petite, she couldn't be much more than five feet, a hundred pounds tops. With her long blond hair pulled back in a braid reaching to the middle of her back, she looked more cherub child than woman. Especially if you considered he was a good foot-and-a-half taller than her. Still, despite her size and young years, she gave the impression of dependability. Reliability.
Jack had questioned Walter's decision to borrow the ensign from the Governor of California's entourage. Now he was glad he'd acquiesced.
She was raw calm.
The elevator grounded to a stop. The doors slid open onto a maze of silvery-blue metal walls, floors, and ceilings. Sterile, antiseptic smells cut the air. Medical personnel dressed in dark-blue scrubs and cross-trainers scurried about with an impressive lack of purpose. Jack counted heads: all three shifts present.
A surprise and a first in his ten years as UR's medical director. Whatever Eddie had found, Walter Bennett was taking it seriously.
The Bug Tussle is rising.
YOU ARE READING
3 Days
Mystery / ThrillerA UFO crashes just north of San Francisco. Aren, the seventeen-year-old disembodied soul inside, has come to Earth to find his child. Only she can put his soul back inside his body and return home with him to rescue the galaxy. Dr. Jack Dosch is hea...
