Saucer: Savage Planet by Stephen Coonts Read Free Book Online Page A

And there don’t seem to be any clouds or storms around.” Solo scanned the dawn sky, looking again at the fading stars.
    The man shook his head. “He okay, Pag?”
    The dog sat beside Solo and glanced up at his face.
    “Well, Pag seems to give you a good bill of health. As it happens, the woman and I are pulling out after breakfast, after we get packed up and police this campsite. Come in and have some breakfast. Then you can ride along.”
    “Thank you. I’d really appreciate it,” Adam Solo said and caressed the dog.
    “Damn weather in these mountains is weird as hell,” the man said. “We’ve been here too long anyway. Gonna snow soon, and we sure don’t want to be here when it does.”
    “Yes,” Solo replied and followed the man and dog into the trailer.
    *   *   *
    There were two FBI agents waiting in the outer office for Harrison Douglas when he arrived through his private door. The secretary was nervous when she told him about the visitors.
    Douglas merely grunted, “Show them in.”
    They were middle-aged and wore sports coats and cheap ties. After he examined their credentials, Douglas tried to look appropriately mystified. “What is this about?”
    “Just a few questions, sir,” the agent with the tired eyes said. “We understand you paid for the salvage of the flying saucer from the floor of the Atlantic?”
    “I didn’t. World Pharmaceuticals did.”
    “But you authorized the operation, and were there on the salvage ship?”
    Douglas acknowledged the truth of that statement with a nod of his head.
    “Could you tell us why you wanted the saucer?” the other agent asked.
    Harrison Douglas launched into his explanation, the same explanation he had given his board and expounded upon to the press after Solo stole his saucer. The search for scientific knowledge and all that.
    “Did you hope the saucer would have secrets that would be marketable?” the first agent pressed.
    “Of course.”
    “What secrets?”
    “Well, sir, if I knew that we wouldn’t have spent eight million bucks trying to raise the darn thing. We paid for the salvage on speculation. My attorneys assured me that my salvage of that thing was perfectly legal. Said it was abandoned. Sure looked like it to me, sitting down there on the sea floor. Have you people found it, or that thief Solo, who stole it?”
    No, they hadn’t.
    Twenty minutes later they left, knowing no more than Douglas had told the press.
    When they were gone, Douglas picked up the telephone on the desk and asked his secretary to ring up a number that belonged to one of the guys he knew in Philadelphia.
    *   *   *
    Adam Solo and Abe and Muriel Stephens rode along in splendor in the big Ford diesel pickup that Stephens used to tow his camper. Stephens produced a violin from a battered case, and Solo inspected it carefully.
    “It appears to be a Jacob Stainer,” Solo said, “but it has been altered. The neck angle has been changed.”
    Stephens took his eyes off the road to inspect Solo again. “What did you say your name was?”
    “Traveler. Adam Traveler.”
    “You know your violins, Traveler. Play us something.”
    “Ah, it has been a long time. And I haven’t practiced.” Actually, Solo hadn’t played the violin in ten years, but he wasn’t going to admit it. “I once played professionally,” he did say, “and they say muscle memory can be a great thing.”
    “Play something,” Muriel urged. “Anything.”
    Solo inspected the violin carefully, then the bow. He quickly tuned the violin, tightening the strings and plucking them until he was satisfied.
    Fortunately, he reflected, the suspension on the pickup was more stable than one would expect.
    He played a few chords to ensure the violin was in tune, then without ado began.
    The music filled the cab of the truck and mesmerized the small audience. Stephens pulled the truck over to the first wide place on the road he saw and stopped. He turned off the engine and closed his