Table Of Content1980—Unidentified Flying Objects race through the skies like bats out of hell,
blasting . . . killing . . . vanishing to an unknown alien world.
With lunar missiles, orbiting satellites and manned supersonic warheads,
Supreme Headquarters, Alien Defence Organization, makes ready to seek, find
and destroy the intruders.
Only SHADO stands between an unsuspecting world and the terror unleashed by
a dying planet . . .
In the same series by Robert Miall
UFO 2
First published 1970 by Pan Books Ltd.,
33 Tothill Street, London, S.W.1
ISBN 0 330 02644 5
© Century 21 Merchandising Ltd., 1970
© Robert Miall, 1970
Printed in Great Britain by
Cox & Wyman Ltd., London, Reading and Fakenham
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registered under the Restrictive Trade Practices Act, 1956.
1
IT WAS in all the newspapers. But it was not all in the newspapers, not exactly the
way it happened.
Those men had come together for a purpose, and it was better that the world
should not know too much about it. Nationwide panic, worldwide hysteria
weren’t going to help. There were D notices and official censors, and censors
whom nobody knew existed. And all because of those other things which ought
not to have existed—the biggest headache in the history of mankind, a headache
that was going to cost more and more to treat, let alone cure.
The US Air Force plane made its landing in England that day without fuss.
Supply planes came in daily, training sorties went up so often that the villagers
were inured to their streets sounding like echo chambers for jets of all sizes and
shapes and decibel outputs.
There was a Rolls-Royce waiting, with two police motorcycles in attendance.
It had attracted a few glances as it swung in towards the gates of the airbase, but
no more than that: top brass often went through here in style, offered every
comfort at the taxpayers’ expense.
General Henderson acknowledged salutes as he left the plane, gave a
peremptory jerk of his head to cut short the formalities, and moved briskly
towards the Rolls. A young officer opened the door. Another young man was
behind Henderson as he slid into the interior.
The chauffeur stared straight ahead, flanked by an attentive but impassive
Special Branch man. In the back seat a man in his middle forties, with grey hair
and grey eyes and a stern mouth, held out a hand to the General.
Henderson said: ‘Minister, this is Colonel Straker.’
The younger man shook hands and settled himself on the pull-down seat
facing them, resting his left arm across his knees to adjust the weight of a
document case chained to his wrist.
‘The Prime Minister is already at Chequers. We’ll be there in thirty minutes,’
said the Minister.
The cycles throbbed into life. The gates opened, the little group turned out on
to the road, and a flicker of sunlight and tree shadows increased its tempo across
the Englishman’s grave features.
He went on: ‘We’ve been in constant communication with Paris, Moscow and
Bonn during your visits. I can assure you that my Government’s approval will be
a formality.’
‘The evidence is absolutely conclusive.’
The General nodded to his aide. Colonel Straker opened the document case
and passed a clip of typed notes across, together with two photographs. The
Minister winced at the mangled body shown on the first picture; caught his
breath at the incredible object framed in the centre of the other.
‘It couldn’t possibly be a fake?’
‘The film was found undeveloped,’ said Henderson, ‘still in the camera. It’s
genuine. Take my word for it.’
The sunlight faded. Clouds darkened the road and the fields and the interior of
the car.
The Minister shivered. ‘It’s . . . too much like some grotesque hoax. Men from
Mars . . . flying saucers . . . a music-hall joke."
‘No joke. I wish it were.’
There was a sudden blaze of lightning. Only it wasn’t lightning. There was an
explosion, a hundred yards back by the roadside, that buffeted the Rolls.
Straker’s hand was out. ‘I’ll take the file, sir.’
As the Minister handed the sheets back to him, there was another flash,
another brutal shock wave against the car.
‘Get down!’
Abruptly there was intolerable light all round them, a crackle of breaking
glass, and the howl of tires—and somewhere a man screaming in agony, and
then dizziness and a stomach-lurching moment as there was no weight, no
certainty, only the sensation of falling.
The Rolls came to rest against a tree, jarring to rest and exploding in a gout of
flame. Straker was hurled from a door as it sprang open. He got to his feet, fell,
crawled away. Then he forced himself to turn back towards the searing flames.
Henderson was groping to escape. Straker shielded his eyes with his arm,
stumbled up the ragged slope.
‘The Minister . . .?’
A charred, curling shred of photographic print fluttered across the grass. It
showed a corner of that impossible device. Impossible? But what else could have
blazed from the clouds; what else would have struck them down as it had struck
