First Thrills - Lee Child [85]
Bryant smacked a fist into the palm of his other hand. “Yes, the people of the saucers must have possessed an anti-aging drug, and the formula might be in this saucer’s computer.” The possibility of using such a drug in religious services gave him the sweats. He could found his own church. He could . . .
If the saucer crew were people.
Solo had assured him they must have been, based on the design and operation of the government’s secret saucer, the one no government official had ever admitted existed.
He glanced over his shoulder at Solo, who was flipping through the rest of the newspaper. He knew so much . . . or pretended to.
Bryant sighed. If Solo had been lying all along, he wouldn’t really have lost anything but some credibility, and in truth, he didn’t have much of that beyond the circle of the faithful. This whole expedition was financed with donated money. All Bryant had contributed was his time and lots of hot air.
From his pocket he pulled the photo of the saucer taken by a camera lowered over the side of the salvage ship. In the glow of the camera’s spotlight, he could make out a circular, round disk, thicker toward the middle.
Yes.
Bryant was staring at the photo when he heard Johnson, the captain, give a shout.
Out of the porthole, Bryant saw a shape even darker than the night sea break the surface for a moment, then ease back under.
“It’s up!” he said excitedly. With that he dashed through the door onto the bridge and charged down the ladder to the main deck.
Adam Solo slowly pulled on a cap and stepped onto the bridge. Ignoring the captain, who was still at the helm, Solo walked to the unprotected wing of the bridge and gazed down into the heaving dark sea as the wind and rain tore at him. The wind threatened to tear his cap from his head, so he removed it. Jim Bob Bryant was at the rail on the main deck, holding on with both hands.
Floodlights from both ships lit the area between the ships and the heavy cables that disappeared into water. From the angle of the cables, it was obvious that what they held was just beneath the surface. Snatches of the commands of the chief on deck shouted to the winch operators reached Solo. Gazing intently at the scene before him, he ignored them.
As Solo watched, swells separated the ships slightly, tightening the cables, and something broke the surface. It was a mound, dark as the black water; swells broke over it.
As quickly as it came into view, the shape disappeared again as the ships rolled toward each other.
It’s real and it’s there. We are so close, he thought, then remembered the other times when he had gotten his hopes up, only to see them dashed to splinters, leaving him bitter and forlorn. Yet perhaps this time . . .
Over the next five minutes the deck crews aboard both ships tightened their cables, inch by inch, lifting the black shape to the surface again, then higher and higher until finally it was free of the water and hung suspended between the ships. The spotlights played upon it, a black, saucer-shaped object, perfectly round and thickest in the middle, tapering gently to the edges, which were rounded, not sharp. It was huge—the diameter was about ninety feet—and it was heavy—the cables that held it were as taut as violin strings, and the ships listed toward it a noticeable amount.
Solo stepped back into the sheltered area of the bridge and wiped the rain from his hair with his hand, then settled the cap onto his head as he listened to the voices on the bridge loudspeaker. The deck chiefs of this ship and the other vessel were talking to each other on hand-held radios, coordinating their efforts as the saucer was inched over the deck of this ship. The ship’s radio picked up the conversation and piped it here so that captain could listen in and, if he wished, take part.
A moment later Bryant came up the ladder from the main deck.
“Well, we got it up, reverend,” Captain Johnson said heartily. “And they said it couldn’t be done. Ha! You owe us some serious money.