Wild UFOs couldn’t keep us away. Well, maybe they could, but little else.
The colonel had mercifully driven us to the conference room in a large electric sand buggy. And while he had acted as a human crutch for both of us, the ten-yard trip to where he had left the vehicle had been slow and awkward. Tessa and I moved as if we were a hundred years old and in need of walkers, but, to be fair, getting shot will age someone in a hurry.
Schoenfeld had needed to excuse himself for a few minutes to attend to some pressing matters, but returned just after we had finished our meals carrying two mid-size nylon duffels. He handed one to each of us and placed a tablet computer face up on the table in front of him.
“What’s in the bags?” I asked as he took a seat across from us.
The colonel smiled. “Apparently, you and the major left your wallets behind in San Diego. Along with the remains of your crushed cell phones. Somebody did a hell of a job on them.”
“Yeah, that would be me,” said Tessa with the hint of a smile. “Sometimes you just can’t help yourself. Literally.”
“Well, your wallets and a few changes of clothing are in the bags. Along with new cell phones, with all of your data fully restored from the cloud.”
“Thanks,” I said. “But isn’t our data supposed to be password protected?”
“It is,” said the colonel. “You know—theoretically.”
Tessa and I traded glances but didn’t pursue this any further, both just relieved to have these key items back in our possession. We each lowered our duffel to the floor beside us and focused once again on Colonel Schoenfeld.
“If I’m remembering correctly,” I said, “you told us that we’re now on an island in the Tasman Sea.”
“That’s right.”
“That doesn’t really help me,” I admitted with a self-deprecating smile. “Because I never even knew that such a sea existed.”
“Given all the research you do for your novels, I thought you knew everything.”
“Yeah, not so much. And geography isn’t my strong suit. If only I had access to my phone sooner, I could have looked a lot smarter.”
“It’s a subdivision of the Pacific Ocean.”
“Ahhh,” I said sagely. “That’s an ocean I’ve actually heard of.”
Schoenfeld laughed. “The Tasman Sea covers about a million square miles, located more or less between Australia and New Zealand. And east of Tasmania, which is a large island with over a thousand smaller islands around it. But we aren’t on any of these.”
I nodded, not at all surprised to learn that we were Down Under. After all, we had begun body surfing through the sky in pitch-darkness and had ended up in bright sunlight a handful of minutes later, having crossed any number of time zones.
I glanced at the local time shown on the top right corner of the tablet computer in front of the colonel. It read just after ten in the morning. Sandwiches weren’t my usual breakfast fare, but given how confused my body was when it came to the time, they had really hit the spot.
“Now that we know where we are,” said Tessa, “how in the world did we get here? I mean, I know how we got here. Hanging out below a UFO at thirty thousand feet. You know, the usual,” she added with a quick smile. “But did you arrange it? And if so, do you have aliens on call? And what about—”
“I’ll explain everything,” said Schoenfeld. “And I know you’re impatient. But let me go through this organically, in some sort of order.”
We both nodded.
“First, let me apologize,” he said. “I was caught with my head in the sand. It’s inexcusable. I was paying careful attention to your recent mission, since you’re both so damn important, but I took my eye off the ball. I knew you wouldn’t have to fight off any aliens. And since I thought you had enough good men and tech to see you through, I briefly attended to other matters once you had your Taiwanese prisoners fully secured inside the warehouse.
“I didn’t expect them to be rigged with undetectable explosives. Or for the Taiwanese to have a Chinese mole in their camp.” He shook his head in horror. “And I certainly didn’t expect one of our own men to betray us.”
No one spoke for several seconds. “There’s a lot to unpack there,” I said finally. “First, did you really just say that Tessa and I are so damn important? Why is that?”
The colonel winced. “Yeah, mentioning your importance was a little premature. I can see where it might pique your curiosity. I’ll need to provide a bit more context before I can tell you why. But it won’t be long.”
“You also said you weren’t worried about aliens attacking us,” pointed out Tessa. “Why? Because you’re allied with them?”
“That’s right. Another piece of the puzzle I’ll be getting to later.”
“Okay then,” said Tessa, looking somewhat surprised by his quick and direct admission. “That’s sure to be . . . illuminating.”
She paused. “But getting back to what you were saying. While I appreciate your apology, even if you had watched the entire op and never blinked, would that have changed anything?”
Schoenfeld considered for several long seconds. “Actually . . . no,” he said, a bit shocked by this realization. “Once Ming turned the tables on you and you were the hostages of men with suicide vests, any intervention on my part would have been too risky.”
“That’s right,” said Tessa. “So there was nothing you could have done.”
The colonel nodded at Tessa appreciatively. “Thanks for that,” he said.
Tessa smiled. “Glad I could help.”
“What I did do,” continued Schoenfeld, “when I realized what had happened, was call on our alien allies for help. But when Chen took over and it became clear that China would be your final destination, we decided that the safest, most inconspicuous option would be to intervene over the ocean at night. My allies would need to have a UAV pull the jet apart, but since the Gulfstream didn’t file a flight-plan, no one would miss it. Extracting you in this way would create much less of a spectacle than extracting you from mainland California.”