The Omega Sanction by Andrew Scorah (the best ebook reader for android .txt) 📕

Tonight was open house night, where people could call in about any subject they wished to discuss. He had just disconnected a caller who wanted to know if it was okay to have carnal relations with a goat of all things. Ralph was droning on about the qualities of two locally brewed beers, Murphy’s mind wandered off to thoughts of Christmas. His mother in law was coming to stay this year, and he was not looking forward to it. She came to stay two years ago, and spent the entire time moaning, and putting him down; that had ruined the festive season for him.

He was brought out of his reverie by the phone ringing.

“Hi, you're through to WHJB, what do you want to speak to Ralph about?”

“This is Frank Kelp, out at Jacobs Farm, I’ve just seen a ball of fire streak across the sky, I think it’s some kind of space-ship, or maybe a plane. Its crashed in the woods at the edge of my farm, I can see blue smoke pouring out.”

“Hi, Frank, you sure ‘bout this?”

“Damn straight, sir, me and my boys are heading over there, gonna see what’s what.”

“You need to call the local sheriff Frank, and maybe an ambulance, if it’s a downed plane there might be survivors.”

“I’ll do that, and I’ll get back to you, let you know what we find.”

The line went dead.

Ralph had put on a record while he grabbed a coffee. Murphy told him all about the call.

“Now that’s a story, where’s Carter?” he asked, referring to the stations on call reporter.

“He’s out at...covering that kidnapping story.”

“Ah, yes, okay, Murphy, get the spare camera from the back office and high tail it out there, time for you to shine my boy.”

Murphy stood up and shuck on his jacket.

“Yes,sir, you can count on me.”

With a cloud of excitement surrounding him he dashed out of the studio, grabbed the camera, a notebook and five minutes later he was in his Cammarro kicking up gravel as he shot out of the station's car park.

He made the normally three quarters of an hour journey in a little under twenty minutes. A red pick-up truck was parked on the verge next to the wood. He pulled alongside it.

As Murphy was climbing out of his vehicle, three figures emerged from the trees. Frank Kelp and his two boys came over to meet him.

“You must be Mr Kelp, I’m Jack Murphy from the radio station, we spoke earlier.”

“Yeah, it’s the darnedest thing let me tell you, ain’t seen nothing like if afore.”

“What did you witness sir?”

“We couldn't get too close, see, too hot, I called Sheriff Jackson, he told us to stay away.”

The sounds of approaching vehicles made them all turn.

A police squad car followed by eight tarp covered military trucks approached down the single lane track. The lights blinding them.

The squad car pulled up alongside them. The paunchy figure of Sheriff Jackson climbed out.

“Evening boys,” he said, touching the brim of his hat, “I got to ask you to go back to your homes, the army boys are going to handle this, seems like it’s a meteor come down. Don’t want anyone getting irradiated, you know.”

Murphy stepped forward, held out his hand. Jackson looked at it like it was a gone off piece of steak.

“Sir, I’m Jack Murphy from WHJB radio, how’d they know it was a meteor?”

“A full statement will be released later tomorrow.”

He walked away to speak to a man in the uniform of an officer. Other soldiers were out of the trucks and starting to tape off the woods.

Frank and his boys nodded at Murphy before climbing in their truck.

He kicked himself. He had to get in the woods and grab a closer look at what had crashed. He returned to his car, manoeuvring around the trucks he made his way to the far end of the woods. Once his car had gone around a bend in the track and out of sight of the soldiers he pulled off the road, driving a short way into the woods on the opposite side.

He would have to be as quiet as he could if he was going to get a look at the crash site, there was no way he was going to miss out on this story, possibly the biggest to have hit this county.

Checking his car could be viewed from the road he scooted across to the tree line on the other side. He would have to move in the dark, but there was a full moon up above so he was not moving entirely blind.

Moving as quietly as he could, he headed in what he thought was the general direction of the crash. After about ten minutes up ahead he saw a pulsating blue light in the forest. The sight made his skin tingle, and fear grips him. He had to push on through, this could be his big break, if he could get some pictures he would be famous if it did turn out to be some kind of craft from outer-space.

He ducked behind a tree as voices came to him from nearby. The voices faded away so Murphy moved off, staying low as he neared the glowing blue light.

The trees thinned out as he neared the crash site. His hair felt as though it was standing on end, the air around him seemed filled with static. The usual forest smells were tinged with ozone, and burnt metal.

The light came from a clearing. He pushed through some bushes and fear rooted him as firmly as the trees around him.

Laying on its side in the middle of the clearing. Small bolts of electricity leaping off it’s blue glowing metallic surface, sat what looked to Murphy like a giant black bell or acorn. He estimated it to be about ten to fifteen feet long with a diameter of ten to twelve feet with a hemispherical domed top. Around its base strange writing could be seen, it reminded Murphy of Egyptian Hieroglyphs, then his eyes were drawn to a large symbol on the body of the device, his eyes widened at the sight of a swastika.

He heard voices again, this time he could hear conversation, in German of all things. Murphy crouched, and edged around the clearing. A group of very confused looking men stood a few feet away from the base of the device. He could not understand what he was seeing. Some of the men were in Nazi uniforms, others in white lab coats.

From out of the trees across the clearing emerged several soldiers. Weapons raised. The group of men put their hands up. The officer he had seen earlier stepped out to join them.

One of the men stepped forward, clicked his heels, gave a curt nod of his head.

“I am Dr Hans Kammler, I believe you may have been looking for me,” he said in heavily accented English.

Murphy remembered the camera he was holding. He raised it and focussed in on the crowd. The flash added to the glow from the device lighting up the area. Murphy felt two strong arms grab him from behind, and before he could resist he was dragged backwards through the forest to the road.

He was placed in the back of one of the trucks, and a pistol was shoved into his face. The soldier did not say anything, just glared at him. He felt blood pour from his nose where the pistol had caught him.

The rear flap was pulled aside and they were joined by another officer.

“I’m gonna say this to you only once, you saw nothing in the woods, no people no crashed device, nothing. If you reveal what you saw we will kill you and your family, and anyone you tell, is that clear enough for you?”

Murphy was scared now, more scared than anytime in his life, he nodded his head.

“I can’t hear you, boy.”

“I won’t tell anyone,” he stammered.

The camera was wrenched from his grasp, and the officer removed the film before handing it back.

“Get him out of here.”

Murphy was dragged from the truck and led back to where his car was concealed. He looked over his shoulder at the officer who drew a thumb across his throat.

Not having any luggage, Bane quickly cleared through customs. Drawing out cash from a hole in the wall ,he arranged for his connection flight before grabbing a coffee. Bane sat in a seat that would give him an unobstructed view of the concourse outside the Starbucks window. He knew whoever was after him would be on the ball, and because he had used his own credit card back in London they would pick up on it, which is why he paid for his connecting flight in cash. There would be watchers out there, he just had to locate them. No matter how good they were he would spot them, Bane had received training in surveillance and counter surveillance by the best, both in 14th Intelligence, and MI5. Everybody gave off subtle signals, especially when pretending to do one thing when in actuality you were up to something else. He just had to search for those signals.

Taking his time, he scanned the crowd of people passing by outside. It was not long before he located the first watcher. A man in a suit, carrying a briefcase. He was trying to blend in with the crowd of people out in the concourse, and to the untrained eye he was succeeding. The man was walking back and forth, checking his watch as if waiting for someone who was late. Every once in a while his eyes would flick in the direction of the coffee shop, too many times to be a coincidence.

Scanning the concourse, again he soon acquired a second watcher, a man dressed as a cleaner who was paying too much attention to the first watcher and the door to the coffee shop.

Bane revised his opinion of them, sloppy, he thought.

Looking at his watch, he finished his coffee. He walked out of the door to the concourse, picking up a discarded paper on his way. He headed to his left towards the airports exit. After a minute, he stopped suddenly, doubling back. In his peripheral vision, he saw his tails stop to look in shop windows. The looks on their faces were the final confirmation for Bane. He had been correct. Time to take the fight to the enemy.

He headed across the concourse and took the moving stairs up to the second floor. After checking they were still following he headed for the men’s room..

Inside he checked all the cubicles were empty before positioning himself to the left of the door. Rolling up his newspaper, he waited.

Less than a minute after he had positioned himself, the door opened. The business man stepped into the toilets, a silenced pistol in his left hand. Bane lunged from his hiding place. Bringing down the rolled up newspaper on his gun hand, before striking out at the mans head with his elbow. The man was fast. The gun went skittering across the floor, but he dodged away from the elbow strike. He came back at Bane with two rapid punches, pushing him back into the cubicle. The man grabbed the back of his head with both hands, hitting him with crushing knee strikes. Bane grabbed the skin inside the man’s thigh, pulled and twisted. The man yelped. Using all his strength, Bane shot his head forward, butting the man in the chest, his hand shot up striking with his palm, the man’s head flew back. Still holding the newspaper he struck out at the mans throat as hard as he could. Blood exploded from his mouth, and he made a choking sound before falling to his knees, holding his ruined throat.

Bane snapped his neck