Defeat Read Free

Eva they were a specific set of instructions. Instructions she
had never received before, but had reviewed in her head every time
she went into the field, and now she processed all those reviews,
all those plans, so she would know exactly what to do and when to
do it.
    She found her rental car and got
in, planning out how close she could take it to her destination and
where she would have to ditch it so no one could trace her location
from the car.
    This is crazy, she thought in a
moment of clarity. What does it mean?
    She shrugged and backed out of her
parking space. The mission is what mattered. And her mission was to
follow the instructions the number on the phone implied.
    Get to a safe house.
Now.
     
    “ Jayla, why are
you watching news?”
    Jayla looked up at her younger
sister, then back at the monitor. She ran through a million
thoughts, trying to process what was happening.
    “ Jayla!”
    She looked back up. Jada stood in
the entryway to the den, already changed into hiking shorts, hiking
boots, carrying Dad’s hiking staff, and wearing a ridiculous
hat.
    “ I’m ready,” she
said.
    Jayla shook her head. “Give me a
minute.”
    “ No.”
    Younger sisters could be so
annoying.
    “ Look. The alien
ship just disappeared. I mean, it was right there in front of the
United Nations, and it just disappeared. They have it on
video.”
    “ Magic
trick.”
    “ It’s on a lot of
videos. And phones. Look.”
    Jayla flipped the monitor to
multi-screen, and scrolled through a variety of uploaded videos.
Scenes of the Hrwang shuttle simply vanishing were the first hits
on most sites.
    “ Can you explain
that?” she asked her younger sister.
    “ Who
cares?”
    “ They’re aliens,
Jada. This happened over ten hours ago. We’ve been completely cut
off driving up here. We should’ve listened to the
radio.”
    “ Do you know what
kind of hick music these people listen to? No
way.”
    Jada had repeated several times
that drives up to the cabin were supposed to be accompanied by open
windows, arms and legs hanging out of them, and loud, thumping,
modern music. Jayla had finally given in, then had enjoyed the long
drive up the mountains to her father’s cabin. It was a beautiful
summer day.
    “ Besides,” Jada
added, “up at Daddy’s cabin, we’re supposed to be cut off. It’s
called being in Nature.”
    The cabin was well stocked with
non-perishable foods. They had brought the perishables, milk,
cheese, eggs, bread, and other items, up with them, filling their
four wheel drive SUV. Daddy had insisted they bring enough for two
weeks minimum, and they probably had enough food for four. They
were physically cut off from the rest of the world now, and
completely self-sufficient for at least a month.
    Was that Daddy’s plan the whole
time?
     
    Wolfgang Riebe knew the three
Americans in his German Alpine hiking club called him the Nazi and
he didn’t care. Today was too good of a day to let idiots bother
him.
    Wolfgang wasn’t old enough to have
known any Nazis, but his grandfather had always told him that his
father, Wolfgang’s great grandfather, had been part of the
resistance, and Wolfgang had always been proud of that. Until he
studied history at the University. There he learned that most
Germans claimed to have resisted the Nazis in some form or another,
and that most of those claims were false.
    It had been a depressing
day.
    But today was
beautiful.
    Steep terrain, a warm sun with an
occasional cool breeze, large trees, interesting rock formations,
and the odd castle ruin combined to make the perfect hike, and
everyone in his club had shown up. The renovation of the castle
restaurant at the top of the mountain had finally been completed
and everyone looked forward to an invigorating hike with a fine
lunch in the middle.
    Some, especially the Americans,
grumbled because of his quick pace, but a quick pace did not make a
man a Nazi, did it? What had made men become Nazis and do such
things? he wondered for