The Arrival: A Military Sci-Fi Alien Invasion Series (Annihilation Book 1) by Joshua T. Calvert

Author:Joshua T. Calvert [Calvert, Joshua T.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aethon Books
Published: 2022-04-04T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 13

THE MEETING

Jacek waited patiently outside conference room A001 in the Chancellery across from the Reichstag. Since he had taken a long elevator ride down and been seated by the two federal police officers on a waiting bench in a modern hallway with cold white lighting, they were probably deep underground. The two men had been GSG 9 officers, or at least had been before they’d hired on as personal security for politicians. Predators recognize their own kind by smell, an Israeli colleague had once said when his unit had been trained in desert combat with the Sajaret Matkal in Israel. With over 250 training days a year, it was easy to get confused about where you heard what and when, but he hadn’t forgotten that quote. It summed up the lurking alertness and springy, leaping gait of anyone who had gone through commando or elite police training. No one passed through the harshest ordeals a democratic system allowed without baked-in behaviors.

The hallway he sat in was long and had few doors. There was no stairwell — at least none that he could see, and only the two elevator doors. The walls and floor were clinically white and unadorned, as was the bench with five uncomfortable seats, the far right of which he sat on next to a massive-looking door. There were no other people, and the few entrances that did exist had not opened since his arrival.

Jacek hated appointments like this. He didn’t like politicians and certainly not high-ranking ones because they embarrassed him. He knew he had to treat them respectfully but was never exactly sure how. Besides, he had a hard time treating fat, effeminate men and women who made decisions they knew nothing about with respect. Men and women who had never hauled seventy kilograms of combat weight over marathon distance. Men and women who never had to kill anyone, or starved and froze in the middle of enemy territory. Yet they were the ones who made decisions that cost others their lives — often because of their stupidity. But they were in charge, and he was just a pawn in their game, so he had to be here and answer his commander’s call.

When the door next to him opened, he jumped up and instinctively took a stance.

“At ease, Sergeant Major.” Jacek relaxed a shade and took his hands clasped behind his back to his front.

Brigadier General Georg Driedler was a wiry man in his mid-fifties with military short-shaven gray hair and the narrow cheeks of an ascetic. His steel-gray eyes resembled those of a hawk, especially since his eyebrows were arched and gave the impression that he was angry all the time. Yet Driedler was a shrewd, thoughtful man — at least that was how Jacek had always seen him so far. Besides, Driedler seemed to have a crush on Jacek, even if he didn’t understand why. Whenever there had been particularly sensitive missions coming out of the Ministry of Defense, he’d asked Jacek for an assignment.

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