The Shimmer by David Morrell Page A
Authors: David Morrell
Tags: Fiction, Suspense, Thrillers, Action & Adventure, Suspense fiction, Espionage, supernatural, Texas, Military Bases, Spectators
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at their ears until they were bloody.
That glitch had been corrected so that no person or animal could hear the low vibration, and Raleigh had enjoyed the power of being able to make people irritable enough to lose their tempers--even attack one another--simply because he had flicked a switch.
But no project had ever offered so much baffling promise as this one. It had been in development for decades, since long before Raleigh had maneuvered his career so that he'd been put in charge of it in 1995. It dated back to before INSCOM had been established in 1977, and even before the National Security Agency itself had been created in 1952. This was the culmination of something that had obsessed him since he was a boy, and it presented the chance for him to fulfill a lifelong ambition.
Finally it's my turn.
Leaning over the console and staring at the flickering lights, he addressed his next question to the entire team.
"Usually all we get is static. Why is this happening all of a sudden?"
"It's not just Rostov," a woman scientist murmured as she shook her head as if to free herself from the strange music.
Raleigh turned toward a large computer screen on which a world map showed four widely separated red dots. Each of the dots was pulsing.
"Rostov started first," a man with thick spectacles said. "But then the others began doing the same thing. The static dissolved, and . . ."
The man gestured in mystification. "And then we heard this."
"The others?" Continuing to taste orange juice, Raleigh moved closer to the map on the screen. One of the flashing dots was situated in west Texas. That was the one he'd automatically looked toward because that was the site on which the research had always been focused. But now he peered at the other locations. Norway, Australia, and Thailand--all sites known to display phenomena similar to those in west Texas.
"What you're hearing is the one in Australia," the woman continued.
"But those areas are even more out of the way than Rostov,"
Raleigh objected. "Hell, the one in Thailand's on a riverbank in a jungle. The one in Australia's hundreds of miles into the outback.
And we don't have monitoring equipment anywhere near them, let alone a radio observatory like the one in west Texas."
"In this case, there's no need," the man with thick glasses explained.
"The signals are so powerful they're leaking out into the atmosphere.
We're capturing them off special frequencies on our satellites."
"You said Rostov started to do this first?"
"Yes. Then the others became active."
Raleigh pulled his cell phone from his belt and quickly tapped numbers.
"Sergeant, assemble a team. Civilian identities. Concealed weapons. We're leaving for west Texas at dawn."
Chapter 17.
"It's dark enough now," Costigan said, his figure indistinct in the police car. Neither of them had spoken in so long that his voice seemed extra loud.
"Finally," Page told him. "It's about time I got the answers you promised."
"I didn't promise answers," the police chief replied. "What I promised was that you'd understand."
Page shook his head in annoyance, opened the passenger door, and stepped onto the gravel parking area. He stretched to ease the tight muscles in his legs and shoulders. His companion walked to the back of the cruiser, where he opened the trunk and pulled something out.
"Here." Costigan reached across with a windbreaker. "In a couple of hours, you'll want this. It gets cold out here."
"A couple of hours?" Baffled, Page took the windbreaker but didn't put it on. Everything was shadowy in the dusk. A faint light was mounted on the sidewall of the observation platform, but its effects were minimal. The last glow of sunset disappeared below the horizon.
As he walked past Tori's Saturn, approaching the observation platform, he heard a vehicle behind him and looked back toward the headlights of a Volkswagen van that steered from the road and stopped a short distance from the police car. Puzzled, he stopped to
That glitch had been corrected so that no person or animal could hear the low vibration, and Raleigh had enjoyed the power of being able to make people irritable enough to lose their tempers--even attack one another--simply because he had flicked a switch.
But no project had ever offered so much baffling promise as this one. It had been in development for decades, since long before Raleigh had maneuvered his career so that he'd been put in charge of it in 1995. It dated back to before INSCOM had been established in 1977, and even before the National Security Agency itself had been created in 1952. This was the culmination of something that had obsessed him since he was a boy, and it presented the chance for him to fulfill a lifelong ambition.
Finally it's my turn.
Leaning over the console and staring at the flickering lights, he addressed his next question to the entire team.
"Usually all we get is static. Why is this happening all of a sudden?"
"It's not just Rostov," a woman scientist murmured as she shook her head as if to free herself from the strange music.
Raleigh turned toward a large computer screen on which a world map showed four widely separated red dots. Each of the dots was pulsing.
"Rostov started first," a man with thick spectacles said. "But then the others began doing the same thing. The static dissolved, and . . ."
The man gestured in mystification. "And then we heard this."
"The others?" Continuing to taste orange juice, Raleigh moved closer to the map on the screen. One of the flashing dots was situated in west Texas. That was the one he'd automatically looked toward because that was the site on which the research had always been focused. But now he peered at the other locations. Norway, Australia, and Thailand--all sites known to display phenomena similar to those in west Texas.
"What you're hearing is the one in Australia," the woman continued.
"But those areas are even more out of the way than Rostov,"
Raleigh objected. "Hell, the one in Thailand's on a riverbank in a jungle. The one in Australia's hundreds of miles into the outback.
And we don't have monitoring equipment anywhere near them, let alone a radio observatory like the one in west Texas."
"In this case, there's no need," the man with thick glasses explained.
"The signals are so powerful they're leaking out into the atmosphere.
We're capturing them off special frequencies on our satellites."
"You said Rostov started to do this first?"
"Yes. Then the others became active."
Raleigh pulled his cell phone from his belt and quickly tapped numbers.
"Sergeant, assemble a team. Civilian identities. Concealed weapons. We're leaving for west Texas at dawn."
Chapter 17.
"It's dark enough now," Costigan said, his figure indistinct in the police car. Neither of them had spoken in so long that his voice seemed extra loud.
"Finally," Page told him. "It's about time I got the answers you promised."
"I didn't promise answers," the police chief replied. "What I promised was that you'd understand."
Page shook his head in annoyance, opened the passenger door, and stepped onto the gravel parking area. He stretched to ease the tight muscles in his legs and shoulders. His companion walked to the back of the cruiser, where he opened the trunk and pulled something out.
"Here." Costigan reached across with a windbreaker. "In a couple of hours, you'll want this. It gets cold out here."
"A couple of hours?" Baffled, Page took the windbreaker but didn't put it on. Everything was shadowy in the dusk. A faint light was mounted on the sidewall of the observation platform, but its effects were minimal. The last glow of sunset disappeared below the horizon.
As he walked past Tori's Saturn, approaching the observation platform, he heard a vehicle behind him and looked back toward the headlights of a Volkswagen van that steered from the road and stopped a short distance from the police car. Puzzled, he stopped to
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