Fallout by Huston James W

Author:Huston, James W. [Huston, James W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: thriller, Politics
ISBN: 9780061807640
Goodreads: 11136337
Publisher: HarperCollins e-books
Published: 2001-06-05T07:00:00+00:00

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The young guard sitting in the large guardhouse behind the high chain-link fence had been there almost every night since the base opened. It had sounded like an easy, exciting job. A guard in the middle of the beautiful Nevada desert at a new fighter base with privately owned jets. It had in fact turned out to be quite boring. As he was the most junior guard, he’d drawn the worst duty. Since he’d started his job as the night watchman at the main gate three weeks before, not one car had come through the gate. Not one person, not one pickup truck, not even a coyote. He’d seen some deer cross the road in front of the gate on the second night, but nothing even as exciting as that since then.

He wasn’t allowed to watch television, so he spent most nights listening to the radio, to a show broadcast from a man’s house in the middle of the night, and transmitted to the world. His name was Orel Spellman, and he dwelled in the belly of the night talking in hushed tones of conspiracy to those who were still up, alerting them to the growing evidence of UFOs and the government conspiracies to hide them. Orel was really on a roll tonight. The guard was listening so intently to the radio that he was actually staring at it.

Four white trucks drove down the dark, deserted moonlit road just north of the guard. They hadn’t seen another car or truck for twenty minutes. It was the darkest, loneliest part of the night in the darkest, loneliest corner of the United States. The nearest Nevada Highway Patrol officer was 130 miles away at a rest stop investigating a pungent smell coming from one of the trash containers.

The lead truck stopped in the dirt on the side of the road until the other three trucks caught up, stopped behind it, and extinguished their lights. They knew exactly what to do. They’d practiced it so many times the plan had grown stale, but now that it was under way their enthusiasm returned. The driver of the lead truck, the one with the beard, watched the digital clock on the dash. They were five minutes early. The other drivers sat motionless with their hands on the steering wheels. Two more men sat to the right of each driver.

Several of the men put on night-vision goggles and adjusted the focus. They wore dark clothing and latex gloves. Each had an AK-47 in his hands.

As the digital clock changed to exactly 4:00 a.m., the lead truck pulled back onto the road. The other three followed carefully, swaying back and forth from their heavy loads. They turned south off Highway 6 at the missile with the sign underneath that announced the Tonopah Test Range Road.

They drove the twenty miles together with their lights off. The lead truck turned on its lights as it rounded the one curve in the long road, two miles before the gate, careful to control his speed.

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