Area 51: The Mission-3 by Robert Doherty Page A

do that right away. Instead he pulled a set of binoculars up to his eyes, letting the sunglasses he wore fall to the end of their cord. He scanned the compound. "How many people work there?"
    "Forty."
    "Security?"
    "Half of them. The rest are scientists. This is the core of Section Four."
    "It is smaller than I thought," Coridan noted.
    "Most of it is underground. Those buildings are just quarters for the security force and supply sheds. That gray concrete building holds the elevator access to the main facility."
    Coridan lowered the binoculars, revealing eyes that

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    were the same as Gergor's—elongated dark red pupils set against a lighter red eye. His hair was cut short and pure white. His skin, the little that was exposed, was pale.
    "We are only two," Coridan noted. He threw his backpack down.
    "I have had many years to prepare," Gergor said. "Do not worry. We are enough."
    The two sat still for several minutes as Coridan caught his breath.
    "It is time." Gergor pushed aside the white sheet and stood, snow falling off of him. He began walking down the hill. Coridan scrambled to gather his gear together.
    Gergor was halfway to the Section IV compound by the time Coridan caught up to him.
    "What are you going to do?" Coridan asked. "Knock on the front door?"
    "In a manner of speaking," Gergor said. He pulled a slim black controller from inside his heavy coat. "Let us knock." He pressed the number one on the numeric pad.
    Coridan staggered as the surface buildings erupted in violent explosions.
    When the smoke cleared, only the gray building that housed the elevator to the complex was still standing, the other buildings leveled.
    "What did you do?" Coridan demanded.
    "I told you I have had many years to prepare," Gergor said. He continued walking. "I believe they heard our knock. But I don't think they will open the door. So we must open it."
    He pressed the second button on the controller. The steel door on the front of the gray building blew open with a flash. Gergor led Coridan inside.
    Two large stainless-steel doors stood at the end of a

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    corridor. A security camera was above them, the light on it a steady red.
    "The doors are six inches thick," Gergor noted as they walked up to them. "The shaft is eight hundred meters deep. There are emergency explosives planted along the shaft designed to go off and bury the entire complex."
    Gergor smiled, revealing very smooth, even, white teeth. "Of course, I disabled the destruct long ago. I imagine someone down there is pressing a red button quite futilely, yet at the same time secretly relieved that it doesn't work."
    "There will still be guards below," Coridan said.
    "They will be dead guards," Gergor said. He walked to a vent shaft and ripped it open. He pulled a glass ball from inside his bulky clothes. A green, murky liquid filled it, glowing as if it were lit from inside. He dropped the ball into the shaft.
    "It will take less than a minute," Gergor said.
    Almost immediately screams echoed up the air shaft, horrible undulating cries of pain. As Gergor had promised, though, within a minute there was only silence.
    "How do we get down?" Coridan asked.
    "We ride," Gergor said, hitting another button on the remote.
    The doors slid open.
    "Will it be safe?"
    Gergor stepped into the elevator and Coridan followed.
    "It is safe now," Gergor said as he pressed the down button and they descended.
    The elevator came to a halt, but Coridan did not open the doors. He waited, checking his watch, until finally he was satisfied the gas had dissipated. Then he opened the doors.

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    "There's Antarctica."
    Turcotte looked over the pilot's shoulder, out the front windshield. Dark peaks, streaked with snow and ice, poked through the low-lying clouds, overlooking the ice-covered ocean.
    "We'll parallel the shore, then punch in when we're closest to Scorpion Station," the pilot added.
    UNAOC had confirmed the location of the secret base STAAR had been headquartered in with a flyby.