United Nations emergency act A Zero A (informally known as the old Snatch-n-Run), all important civilian personnel were being evacuated from the greater metropolitan area. Whether they wanted to be or not.
Prof. Gregory Ketter, a particle physicist of world renown, was whisked out of his Park Avenue penthouse, flown off to Washington DC, and then the Pentagon.
In Mt. Sinai Hospital, Dr. Michael Walsh was stopped in front of his operating room and was dragged off to a police car. He left behind his startled assistant, who was only the second best brain surgeon in the United States of America, and a prepped patient waiting in the operating theatre.
A highly embarrassed team of FBI agents removed Dr. Daniel R. Lissman from New York's most infamous house of ill repute, failing to bring along his Frankenstein mask, his whips, or his tutu, but retaining the doctor's battered briefcase that contained his latest treatise on Biological Warfare Counter-Weapons.
Specially appointed federal agents, many of whom just minutes before had been ordinary firemen and police officers, went scurrying every-which-way throughout the Big Apple, tracking down their prey any-which-way they could, be it bribery, blackmail, or busting heads. Time was important, not method. The agents had 40 minutes to find 100 people and get them 200 miles away from New York. It was a mad scramble from the start, but they did it, and by the dint of what Herculean efforts only their fellow agents ever knew.
In lower Manhattan, a fleet of Federal Depository bank trucks with an escort of heavily armed Army helicopters was discreetly pulling away from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, its last stop on a frightfully long list, racing off for Canada and safety, carrying a paltry few hundred paintings and statues, and leaving behind far too many. One poor, half-crazed curator had to be forcibly restrained from throwing any more Rembrandts into the back of the last truck.
The immense United Nations building stood deserted, but for a squad of U.S. Marines left behind to deter looters. On every floor, doors gaped wide, furniture was overturned and the warm, black ashes of hastily burned secret documents billowed along empty corridors like autumn leaves. The entire cadre of attending delegates were already at Kennedy Airport, being herded aboard specially commandeered jetliners and flown off to Geneva, Switzerland, the UN's alternate headquarters. The FCT were left quite alone in their sub-sub-sub-sub-basement Command Bunker. Even their honorary security guards were gone, leaving the external hallway unattended.
Seated shoeless at his defense console, General Nicholi finished the arduous procedure of keying in his identification code, and The Button lit up on his board, its glaring red light leering at him like the eye of some demented devil from Hell.
Parcheesi? Why couldn't he have learned Parcheesi, for God's sake?
Doggedly holding the blue phone to his ear, the pained expression on Prof. Rajavur's face told a story that Julius Caesar would have understood completely, even though it wasn't March 15th. Et Tu, Secretary General?
“Mr. Secretary, how did you get on the White House hotline?” the professor asked.
“I have friends, Rajavur,” Emile Valois said rudely. “Friends in important places who do not want to see you usurp my authority. The first contact with an alien species must logically be the responsibility of the United Nations.”
“I agree, sir.”
“Then give me back my goddamn computers and stop ordering NATO around like a bunch of ribbon clerks! I run the UN, not you. This diplomatic nonsense must stop! These creatures are a threat to Humanity and must be eradicated.”
“No, sir,” Rajavur said firmly. “I agree that the situation should be handled by the United Nations, and it is. The FCT is a duly chartered division of the UN Security Council, answerable only to ourselves once activated. Please try to understand, sir, that we have been
Prof. Gregory Ketter, a particle physicist of world renown, was whisked out of his Park Avenue penthouse, flown off to Washington DC, and then the Pentagon.
In Mt. Sinai Hospital, Dr. Michael Walsh was stopped in front of his operating room and was dragged off to a police car. He left behind his startled assistant, who was only the second best brain surgeon in the United States of America, and a prepped patient waiting in the operating theatre.
A highly embarrassed team of FBI agents removed Dr. Daniel R. Lissman from New York's most infamous house of ill repute, failing to bring along his Frankenstein mask, his whips, or his tutu, but retaining the doctor's battered briefcase that contained his latest treatise on Biological Warfare Counter-Weapons.
Specially appointed federal agents, many of whom just minutes before had been ordinary firemen and police officers, went scurrying every-which-way throughout the Big Apple, tracking down their prey any-which-way they could, be it bribery, blackmail, or busting heads. Time was important, not method. The agents had 40 minutes to find 100 people and get them 200 miles away from New York. It was a mad scramble from the start, but they did it, and by the dint of what Herculean efforts only their fellow agents ever knew.
In lower Manhattan, a fleet of Federal Depository bank trucks with an escort of heavily armed Army helicopters was discreetly pulling away from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, its last stop on a frightfully long list, racing off for Canada and safety, carrying a paltry few hundred paintings and statues, and leaving behind far too many. One poor, half-crazed curator had to be forcibly restrained from throwing any more Rembrandts into the back of the last truck.
The immense United Nations building stood deserted, but for a squad of U.S. Marines left behind to deter looters. On every floor, doors gaped wide, furniture was overturned and the warm, black ashes of hastily burned secret documents billowed along empty corridors like autumn leaves. The entire cadre of attending delegates were already at Kennedy Airport, being herded aboard specially commandeered jetliners and flown off to Geneva, Switzerland, the UN's alternate headquarters. The FCT were left quite alone in their sub-sub-sub-sub-basement Command Bunker. Even their honorary security guards were gone, leaving the external hallway unattended.
Seated shoeless at his defense console, General Nicholi finished the arduous procedure of keying in his identification code, and The Button lit up on his board, its glaring red light leering at him like the eye of some demented devil from Hell.
Parcheesi? Why couldn't he have learned Parcheesi, for God's sake?
Doggedly holding the blue phone to his ear, the pained expression on Prof. Rajavur's face told a story that Julius Caesar would have understood completely, even though it wasn't March 15th. Et Tu, Secretary General?
“Mr. Secretary, how did you get on the White House hotline?” the professor asked.
“I have friends, Rajavur,” Emile Valois said rudely. “Friends in important places who do not want to see you usurp my authority. The first contact with an alien species must logically be the responsibility of the United Nations.”
“I agree, sir.”
“Then give me back my goddamn computers and stop ordering NATO around like a bunch of ribbon clerks! I run the UN, not you. This diplomatic nonsense must stop! These creatures are a threat to Humanity and must be eradicated.”
“No, sir,” Rajavur said firmly. “I agree that the situation should be handled by the United Nations, and it is. The FCT is a duly chartered division of the UN Security Council, answerable only to ourselves once activated. Please try to understand, sir, that we have been
Similar Books
Ferine Apocalypse (Novella): 4 Hours
John F. Leonard
Boots
Angel Martinez
A Hole in the World
Sophie Robbins
Cometh the Hour: A Novel
Jeffrey Archer
The Touch of Sage
Marcia Lynn McClure
Kane
Loribelle Hunt
Instruments of Night
Thomas H. Cook
The Glycemic Index Diet for Dummies
Meri Raffetto