V: The Florida Project Read online

  TREACHERY IN DISGUISE

  "We have the assistance of human scientists," said Dr. Morrow.

  "Excellent. You managed that even after our fleet was forced to leave Earth. That is remarkable. How did you manage to enlist their aid?"

  "Shall we say they are not in a position to turn us down?" He smiled. A most convincing human expression, Medea thought.

  With Morrow and his minions working for her back on Earth, it wouldn't be long before she would be ready to attack the humans once again. They had been beaten the first time by a resistance force—and some very bad luck. Now Medea had a resistance of her own working on Earth.

  She rose and stretched her leathery limbs. Discipline on the ship was getting too lax, she thought. She would see to it that everyone wore their human disguises while on duty.

  They would wear them until Earth was under her power ...

  Other V books from Pinnacle

  V

  EAST COAST CRISIS

  THE PURSUIT OF DIANA

  THE CHICAGO CONVERSION

  ATTENTION: SCHOOLS AND CORPORATIONS

  PINNACLE Books are available at quantity discounts with bulk purchases for educational, business or special promotional use. For further details, please write to: SPECIAL SALES MANAGER, Pinnacle Books, Inc., 1430 Broadway, New York, NY 10018.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  V: THE FLORIDA PROJECT

  Copyright 1985 by Warner Bros., Inc.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  An original Pinnacle Books edition, published for the first time anywhere.

  First printing/February 1985

  ISBN: 0-523-42430-2

  Can. ISBN: 0-523-43418-9

  Printed in the United States of America

  PINNACLE BOOKS, INC.

  1430 Broadway

  New York, New York 10018

  9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  An S522 ebook conversion

  To Nana and Dad, who loved to read,

  and to Dad and Charlie, who loved adventure

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to Somtow Sucharitkul, Bob Collins, and Sharon and Bryan Webb, beloved friends; to Phil and Jan Cox, for their invaluable research; and to Harriet McDougal, editor and friend.

  Special thanks to the courageous staff of the Columbia Pike Branch Library in Arlington, Virginia, who helped, whether they knew it or not.

  And finally, to Michael and Marion Dirda, who provided a quiet haven for me to write this book; and to their son Christopher, born wearing a propeller beanie midway through The Florida Project's gestation period.

  V: THE FLORIDA PROJECT

  Chapter 1

  A thick fog hung over the swamp. Vague shapes rose out of the mist as the canoe moved toward them. Billy Tiger, plying his oar through the still water, recognized them for what they were: cycads, cypress trees, banyans, palmetto clumps. After all, he had grown up in the Everglades, even if he had been away a couple of years.

  The morning silence was belied by a sinuous ripple just under the water's surface.

  Billy let the canoe glide to a stop near a banyan tree. He dropped his fishing line over the side and leaned back, pushing his Stetson over his eyes. The sun was just coming up, and it was very peaceful. He welcomed the opportunity to just drift and let his mind wander for a change, without thinking about his girlfriend Marie or his older brother John bugging him about one thing or another. John in particular harped on Billy's leaving college after only two years. Everybody on the Seminole reservation had expected great things from him, and John had sacrificed a lot to get Billy into school after their parents died. But things just hadn't worked out at the university, and ever since he'd come home, Marie had been talking about getting married. With only half a college education and not a penny to his name, Billy didn't consider himself the best prospect in the world. But he did love Marie, and she continually assured him that was all that really mattered.

  "Hey," he said to himself, his voice reverberating through the swamp, "I thought you were gonna go fishing, not soul searching."

  He heard a flamingo's screech in the distance. Scared by a 'gator? He heard splashing too, but it sounded as if the big reptiles were taking to water to hide, not to hunt.

  Billy felt a tug on his fishing line.

  "All right," he said, allowing the fish to swim out a little, playing him, waiting for the right moment to haul him in. For a few seconds Billy thought he'd lost him. He didn't feel the fish moving at all, but he sat tight, knowing that they sometimes doubled back under the boat. Billy peered into the murky water, smelling the rich, decaying odor of the swamp.

  Suddenly the line jerked spasmodically. The fish was fighting for all he was worth. Twenty yards from the canoe, there was a splash and the gleam of a silver back. Billy began to reel him in.

  Just as he pulled the struggling fish out of the water, he heard a low hum. A boat? He didn't have time to think about it as he dropped the flopping fish in the canoe.

  Billy was momentarily blinded by a flash of blue. When he could see again, the water next to his canoe was boiling. Another blue flash and then another sizzled the water around him. An energy bolt struck a banyan tree, blasting off a limb in a shower of sparks and a billow of smoke. The limb splashed into the water, rocking the canoe in its wake.

  A shadow passed over him. Billy looked up and saw silver disks gliding around a cypress tree with men clad in red uniforms riding them. They all wore sunglasses and—their faces were green.

  No, not men. Visitors.

  It couldn't be. The Visitors had been driven away. There was a toxin in Earth's ecosystem that should have killed them all. But the acrid smell of smoke told him what he saw was so.

  A blue laser beam whooshed by his head, convincing Billy that whatever he may have heard, these were definitely Visitors attacking him.

  He reached for the shotgun hidden under his backpack on the canoe seat. Drawing and cocking at the same time, he glanced up to see a Visitor swooping down at him, weapon at the ready.

  Billy fired, and the Visitor flew backward off his antigravity disk, slamming into the banyan and sliding down into the water. The disk wobbled and turned on its side, knifing neatly into the water. Billy let a second Visitor have it with the double barrel's second round, but there were so many of them now he had to choke back his fear as he plunged his fingers desperately into the backpack in search of more shells.

  Whump. The prow exploded in a burst of flame, and the canoe overturned. Everything went into the water: the shotgun, the backpack, the fish, the gear and tackle, the Stetson, and Billy.

  He swam underwater as far as he could, reaching the submerged roots of the banyan tree and pulling himself around the back of the swamp giant. When he couldn't hold his breath any longer, he bobbed to the surface.

  Three lasers were pointed straight at him.

  Billy shut his eyes tight and prayed, but the searing heat he expected never came. Instead, two of the disks descended, one on either side of him. From the third, the forked tongue of an alien darted as it spoke.

  "We don't want to kill you," the lizard man's rasping voice said. "If we had wished to kill you, we would have done so before you ever saw us."

  "What do you want?" Billy demanded.

  The green, scaly face twisted into an expression that might almost have been a smile. "We only want you to come with us."

  "Do I have any choice?"

  "No."

  The two Visitors knelt on th
eir antigravity platforms and pulled their weapon straps over their shoulders. Their clawlike hands free, they reached into the water and pulled the gasping Billy out by his armpits.

  "Why are you doing this?" Billy screamed. Water streamed from his clothing, and his black hair hung limply in his eyes. "What are you gonna do to me?"

  The Visitor who had spoken didn't answer this time. Instead, he turned on his antigravity disk and began to lead the way through the swamp.

  Billy was about to try to wrest himself free of the two who were carrying him, but he saw the water below turn to white foam. 'Gator tails thrashed as the bodies of the two Visitors he had shot were pulled under.

  He had no choice. Soaking wet and dangling from between two disks, he resigned himself to his abduction—and prayed there would be a way to escape later.

  Chapter 2

  Turning into the asphalt parking lot of Nutech, Inc., Jack Stern steered his 1985 Datsun 280-ZX into a parking space. There were already quite a few cars in the lot, and people dressed in tuxedos and gowns were getting out of vehicles and walking toward the monolithic buildings, new and pristine shapes rising out of manicured lawns. Sprinklers just out of range of the walk hurled miniature rainbows against the Florida sun.

  Inside the nearest building, Jack found himself in a milling crowd. The lobby was like a terrarium, with all sorts of trees and flowers under glass. Jack liked it, but he was too preoccupied to enjoy the pleasant sights and smells. He wondered where Sabrina could be. She should have met him right here, but there wasn't any sign of her. A lovely girl brought a tray with tiny sandwiches on it, crusts neatly trimmed from the bread. Jack was hungry after driving all the way from Miami up the coast, so he grabbed one.

  "Aren't you Jack Stern?"

  Jack turned to see a balding, middle-aged man with a deep suntan.

  "Yes, I am."

  "Maybe you could give me an autograph," the man said in a jovial voice. "I should probably tell you it's for my kid, but it's really for me, so why lie about it. I'm a big football fan."

  Jack politely signed a napkin for him, and the man engaged him in conversation. He was an investor in Nutech and was originally from New York. He didn't know Sabrina.

  "I hope the Dolphins make it to the Superbowl this year," the man, whose name had already slipped Jack's mind, said. "What brings you to Nutech anyway, Jack?"

  "I have a friend who's going to be employed here as soon as the laboratories open next week. The lady I mentioned—Sabrina Fontaine."

  "Oh? What does she do?"

  Jack smiled. "She's a biogeneticist."

  "Wonderful," the football fan said. "I have to tell you, though, that I don't know a thing about all this." He winked as he gestured at the building around them. "Except that all the market analysts say there's a fortune in it."

  As the football fan rambled on, Jack heard someone call his name, a female voice. He looked around the crowded lobby, expecting to see Sabrina.

  Instead, he saw one of the serving girls walking toward him. "Mr. Stern," she said, smiling prettily. "I recognized you from TV. There's a message for you here."

  She handed him a folded slip of paper, and Jack opened it as he thanked her and excused himself from the company of the man who had been talking his ear off.

  The message was short and sweet. It was from Sabrina, and it said that she couldn't come to Nutech's dedication ceremony.

  Great, Jack thought, she's going to be working here and she doesn't show up—and after I drove all the way from Miami.

  There was more. Jack felt a tightening in his chest as the note explained that she wasn't going to take the position with Nutech after all. She had been offered a job with another firm, and it promised to be the most exciting work she would ever find. She couldn't discuss it now, and she would be out of town for a few days, but she would be in touch. Love, Sabrina.

  Jack felt awkward and embarrassed standing around with all these businessmen and scientists, knowing that Sabrina wasn't joining. He loosened his tie and started toward the building's main entrance. This new job Sabrina was taking must really be something for her to stand him up like this. He trusted her, of course, but she would have some explaining to do when he saw her next or spoke to her on the phone.

  When he saw her next. When would that be? Jack felt a pain in the pit of his stomach. This was all wrong. Not that he doubted it was her handwriting or anything like that. But, dammit, it just wasn't like her to do this.

  "Aren't you a flanker for the Dolphins?" a young woman asked as Jack unlocked the car door. He absently signed an autograph for her and then got in. The upholstery and steering wheel were hot as hell as he started up the engine.

  Driving toward the interstate, Jack had a hunch that something was going to happen, and it wasn't going to be very nice.

  His hunches weren't usually far off the mark.

  Chapter 3

  Sabrina stood on the tarmac, her dark tresses blown by the wind. Two days ago she wouldn't have believed it if anyone had told her she'd be here at the tiny Lantana airport, waiting to be picked up and flown somewhere by somebody she didn't know. But she'd been told some amazing things over the phone, and the man she'd been speaking to, who called himself Dr. Morrow, had known what he was talking about. He'd spoken about a breakthrough in recombining the animal genes that she just had to see for herself. The only way Morrow would let her see, though, was as an employee for Visigen, which was his company.

  She'd never heard of it, but Morrow explained that they kept a low profile because of work they were doing for the government. Maybe it was all bull, but she had to know the truth. It wouldn't do any harm to look into it, and Morrow had offered a very decent salary, one that made Nutech's offer seem paltry by comparison.

  A low rumble presaged an afternoon thunderstorm. Well, it was 2:15 and her contact ought to be here any minute. If he was on time, she probably wouldn't get wet.

  As she waited, the doubts began to bloom like poisonous flowers. They always did about something like this, but every time she'd backed out of something important, she'd regretted it later.

  "Something like this," she whispered. "Who ever heard of something as secret as this?"

  The meeting was highly unorthodox, but how else was she going to find out if Morrow's claims were for real?

  only twenty or thirty yards from where she stood, a helicopter began to descend onto the landing pad next to an airstrip. The machine's rotors pushed warm air at her and a moment later it was resting on the ground. The cockpit was a dark glass bubble polarized so that nobody could see who was inside. The word "Visigen" was enclosed in a clever oblong logo on the helicopter's fuselage.

  A hatch opened and a man stepped out. He wore a laboratory smock and sunglasses, and his hair and beard were white. He walked toward her, smiled, and extended a hand.

  "Dr. Fontaine," he said in a pleasant voice.

  Sabrina shook his hand. "I'm delighted to meet you, Dr. Morrow."

  His handshake was firm, yet gentle. He still clutched her fingers as he said, "I see that you've decided to take us up on our offer."

  "I didn't have much choice," Sabrina replied. "In spite of all the intrigue, it's an offer I can't refuse."

  Morrow smiled again. "I see that you have your bag with you. That's good. Our compound isn't terribly far, but you will probably want to stay overnight so that you can see everything."

  "It will take two days to look the place over?"

  "Yes, I think that's a fair estimate."

  Another man emerged from the helicopter. He was younger than Dr. Morrow and also wore sunglasses. He picked up her suitcase and carried it back toward the landing pad.

  "Well, then," Dr. Morrow said, "shall we begin your orientation by climbing aboard?"

  Sabrina smiled. She was somewhat reassured by Dr. Morrow's courteous air. There was an almost hypnotic quality to his speech pattern that soothed her fears. He put his fingers on her shoulder and helped her step up into the chopper.
/>   Inside, there was seating for four, quite a lot of room for a helicopter. There was even a luggage rack behind the black vinyl upholstery. The man who had put her suitcase in the rack sat next to the pilot, and Dr. Morrow took his place in the seat next to her. He continued to make small talk as the pilot spoke to the tower and they slowly lifted off the ground.

  The thunderclouds were nearer now, and they headed right for them. Lightning played among the roiling gray woollike shapes as they passed over the storm and the copter banked, heading due west. That surprised Sabrina; she expected the labs to be either south in Fort Lauderdale or Miami, or north in Orlando.

  Dr. Morrow smiled at her as if he could read her mind. "Yes, our compound is a bit off the beaten path. This way, we don't have so many people around asking us questions we aren't authorized to answer."

  "I see."

  The storm was soon behind them, and the blazing afternoon sunlight returned, though it was dimmed by the polarized glass of the cockpit. They flew over rectangular pastures and the crisscrossing blue lines that Sabrina recognized as canals. At first the flat land extended to the horizon, but then the tops of trees began to appear. The growth became thicker until it was transformed into a jungle. Sabrina knew that the ground here was marshy, swamplike. They were approaching the Everglades.

  "Is your compound on the west coast of Florida?" she asked.

  "No."

  "You mean it's in the Everglades?"

  Dr. Morrow smiled charmingly at her. "We maintain our privacy this way. There are many prying eyes who would like to see what we're doing."

  They flew a little farther into the dark heart of the swamp. The chopper began to descend. All Sabrina could see were trees as they went straight down. In a moment they would collide with the uppermost boughs.

  Don't worry," Dr. Morrow said. "We'll be all right."

  Sabrina glanced at him. He was smiling again. He seemed to be amused by the panic in her eyes. "Nothing to worry about," he said.