Sky Ghost by Mack Maloney Read Free Book Online Page A

him, everyone just wanted to go home once the war was over. No one wanted any kind of loose strings, and any excuse to give the military a reason to keep them in after the impending cease-fire and armistice. But, on the other hand, this Hunter guy was so weird, so convincing, he just couldn’t be dismissed lightly.
    Finally Zoltan said to the three elderly officers: “I know it sounds nuts, but this man, in some manner, is telling the truth.”
    “That is nuts,” Captain Pegg scoffed.
    “Yes, that is nuts,” X said in his best old guy voice from behind the mirror.
    Z sat a little closer to the one-way glass, as if he might hear better.
    “But is it?” he asked X cryptically. “Wasn’t there a case a few years ago that…”
    X reached over and literally put his hand across Z’s mouth.
    “Cool it, my friend,” he told him coldly. “You never know who is listening in.”
    Z pushed his hand away. “Do you really think someone is bugging us even as we are bugging these people outside?”
    X leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. The subject was closed.
    “Let’s just listen,” he suggested.
    Zoltan was lighting yet another cigarette.
    “That machine of yours has been wrong before?” one of the looies was asking him. “Hasn’t it?”
    “Nope,” Zoltan replied emphatically.
    “Nope,” X parroted him.
    A silence descended on the room again. It was broken only by the erratic puffing of Captain Pegg’s pipe.
    “Well,” the very senior officer said finally. “What should we do now?”
    Another silence.
    “Get some coffee?” one of the looies asked.
    “Talk to him again,” Z said into the microphone and thus into Pegg’s bad ear.
    “Let’s talk to him again first,” Pegg said.
    The looie looked at Zoltan, who crushed out his cigarette and got up to retrieve Hunter.
    “I think this has to go higher up the ladder,” Zoltan told them.
    “Save your breath, Swami,” X said from behind the mirror. “That’s the last place this is going.”
    But just as Zoltan was about to go out the door, it suddenly swung open and the sleepy corporal left to guard Hunter rushed in.
    The three elderly officers were shaken. Behind the mirror, Agents X, Y and Z quickly sat up again.
    “Shit, now what?” Z exclaimed.
    “What’s wrong?” Pegg asked the young soldier.
    “He’s gone,” the corporal replied.
    “Who’s gone?” Pegg asked.
    “That guy,” the soldier replied shakily. “The weird guy. He just got up and ran out of the room. Pushed me aside like I wasn’t even there.”
    Behind the mirror, X reached over and quickly pushed the button on his phone bank.
    “Alert security,” he barked into the phone. “We have an unauthorized individual on this base…”
    “Damn, I don’t need this,” Z grumbled. “Who the hell is this guy that he’s causing us so much trouble?”
    Agent Y, the one who had stayed silent all this time, remained so. But in his head he thought: Now that’s a good question.
    Two seconds after that, the airfield’s attack warning siren went off.

Chapter 4
    H UNTER WAS RUNNING.
    He wasn’t sure exactly why, but he was running, full-out. Out of the red brick building, across the road, and toward the air base’s longest runway. His body was shaking so much, it felt like his head was going to burst. It was as if he had no control over what he was doing. Something very deep, very primal was telling him to run, toward the runways. Toward the airplanes that sat nearby.
    He didn’t hear the base’s attack warning sirens begin to blare. Didn’t hear the Intruder Alert Klaxons either. It was as if all sound was shut out of his head, all except his own huffing and puffing. All around him, people were running towards shelters, building basements, even slit trenches that seemed to be dug everywhere. Everyone was running in the opposite direction as he.
    It took him less than a minute to reach the runway. Now, without breaking stride, he ran over to a line of Pogo