And that was an odd coincidence. Because at that moment word came down from the secure line in the house above that there was a call for Johnson Smith.

And when he answered it, he found himself speaking to the third-ranking director of the KGB.

"Johnson Smith," he said.

"We have a locus for you."

"If you aren't here to act out the Second Coming," asked Eli, "what the devil do you think you are trying to accomplish?"

"We only wish to know you," Roni Tahr responded.

"To know you and to love you."

Eli sneered.

"And doesn't it occur to you that your presence just might have an effect of its own?"

"We come in peace," said Roni Tahr.

"We mean no harm."

"You're turning us into a world of mind-numbed idiots!"

Blink. Swallow. Blink.

"I never could," said Roni Tahr.

"I never would."

"What do you think it does to people, having you show up here, acting like an angel? You think they can make their own decisions in any sensible way with some half-divine watching over their shoulders?

Protecting them from harm?"

Pause, "You are mad, Eli. No evil comes of kindness."

"I'm not," Eli said.

"I've seen them. They're already losing all their pa.s.sion for the world, their will to thrive. They need a challenge, alien. And the fact that you are here to comfort them removes it."

"Show me," the alien insisted.

"How could that ever be?"

"d.a.m.n you," Eli said.

"I will!"

And Eli grabbed the alien by the wrist, and dragged him to the kitchen.

Stepped onto the ladder at the far corner of the kitchen--and started to climb.

At the top of the ladder there was a portal secured by a wheel-lock--the sort of lock they use on battleships, and tanks, The kind of lock they use in the construction of bomb shelters.

For they were in a bomb shelter--a deep shelter designed to withstand the force of many megatons of thermonuclear force; a place intended to take a direct hit on Washington-As Eli opened the hatch, to lead Roni Tahr out into the world and show him the ennui of the earth---he opened the hatch into the face of six FBI SWAT agents.

And another dozen from the KGB, n.o.body's sure who started shooting first. Was it Igor, who'd spent six years in Lebanon during the civil war? Was it Leroy Watkins, who'd stood inches from the hatch as it opened into his face?

Some people say that it was Johnson Smith, who'd got in so far over his head that he was high-strung and overwrought, beyond the exercise of his best judgment.

Others still clam that it was Eli himself, surprised and caught off guard, who started shooting first. The EMTs who dragged Eli and Roni Tahr from the tunnel found a pistol in his hand--but there's no record of that pistol in the data cube and the general wisdom is that it was a drop gun, the sort of unmarked and untraceable weapon law enforcement personnel carry to cover themselves for occasions just like these.

Whoever started the shooting, the outcome was straightforward: a dozen and a half FBI and KGB agents dressed in SWAT armor fired down into that shelter.

And in a matter of some moments both Eli and Roni Tahr lay on the floor in seeping b.l.o.o.d.y heaps of flesh.

And how the world grieved and mourned that hour!

As the EMTs descended into the miles-deep tunnels, and came out in a concrete courtyard just off the Washington Mall, bearing stretchers soaked with blood and unearthly ichor, and the children in the crowd wailed, and a woman screamed in despair for she knew that she could not go on.

"Roni Tahr," she shouted, "Roni Tahr awake, awake. The world is lost without you!"

And then the strangest thing began to happen.

As the woman forced her shrieking screaming hysterical way through the soldiers and the guards and the FBI types pressed around the corpse; as she cast herself upon the shattered alien corpse-As she embraced Roni Tahr and screamed that all life on earth was lost without him, the alien began to stir.

And Roni Tahr woke to see the broken woman mourn him.

And he said, "No, no, no, this is not what I meant, this is not what I meant."

And he tore away the straps that had fasted his seemingly lifeless form to that stretcher.

And stood.

And lifted the woman roughly by the arms, and shouted to her.

"You could never be more wrong," he said.

"I am not here to save you. I never could! I could destroy you without intending, don't you see?"

And the woman wept, and she kissed his bloodstained cheek.

"No, Roni Tahr," she said.

"We believe in you."

As Roni Tahr screamed and shoved her from him, roughly.

"You must not!" he shouted.

"You may not!"

The woman, shaken but none the worse for wear, shook her head.

"We always will," she said.

"Then I will stop you," said the alien.

As he seized the M16 from the arms of the Marine beside him.

And fired and fired and fired into the crowd, until the entire Mall ran red with blood.

by Mike Stotter

Having written five pulp western fiction novels and two children's historical nonfiction novels, Mike Stotter has now turned his hand to the crime and thriller genre. Having written for Mystery Scene and The Mystery Review he now also edits Shots--a British magazine for crime and mystery. What spare time he has is spent writing western and mystery short stories. He lives in Ess.e.x and is married with three sons eating him out of house and home.

DOWN here he was a ghost.