The booth reacted. Around them curious faces turned to look over at the hysterically laughing group.
“I don’t know, Mark, you’ve always been a creative guy!” TJ managed in between his fits of laughter.
Paul waited for the jovial waves to dissipate before pressing the question with Jake. “But seriously, what do you need?”
Jake shot a disconcerted look at Mark before drawing a deep breath. “Look, it’s serious stuff. We know that I’m now being watched, so it may not be entirely safe for you guys.”
“Watched? What do you mean? By who?” Natasha’s face clouded with worry.
Jake offered his best reassuring smile. “I don’t know, NSA maybe?”
“Shit! You’re kidding right?” Chris spat with a surprised look.
Jake didn’t answer. He held Chris’s gaze long enough for him to get the message, ‘I’m not joking!’
Jake paused, as if the words were physically hard to say. “Look, I never talk about it, but it has to do with something my grandfather found when he was an intelligence officer in the army. But I don’t know,” Jake said, shooting a grim look at Mark. “I don’t feel comfortable asking you guys for help. This is no joke. It could end up being dangerous.”
Jake could see the expressions of disbelief and apprehension filling his friends’ faces. Natasha’s haunting blue eyes flashed with fear.
Jake continued, “I don’t want any of you to get caught up in any of this shit my family has been carrying around from when my old man was a boy.”
The table fell silent for a long moment as concerned looks were exchanged around the booth.
It was TJ who spoke first. “Look, Jake, I don’t know anything about little green men or shit like that. All I know is if you’re in trouble, no matter what it is, and someone’s watching you then us getting mixed up in it isn’t your decision to make. It’s ours.”
“Yeah, whatever it is,” Paul agreed, “I’m in.”
Chris was nodding. “I agree; when do we start?”
Jake leaned back, contemplating their responses silently. As he looked around the table he was filled with an unexpected surge of confidence. He couldn’t help but smile; each of his friends was different in their own unique way. Their banter and cheap shots at one another had been polished into a fine art over the years. And yet if one of them were to ever find themselves in trouble then the entire group would step in to help. No questions asked, no matter the situation.
A passing bouncer caught Mark’s attention. Jake followed Mark’s gaze; he was watching the bouncer work a concealed radio. The microphone was a sensor fixed against to his voice box, no doubt preferred over traditional microphones because of the loud music.
Mark was fixated on the bouncer. “I think we’re going to need a few of those fancy comm units.”
With that, Mark promptly slid out of the booth, disappearing into the crowd to rush after the bouncer.
Turning to Natasha, Jackie’s eyes remained on Mark. “There is something wrong with that one!”
Jake recaptured the table’s attention. “Okay then, it’s settled. The rest of you listen very carefully; this is what I need to help pull this off.”
CHAPTER 37
Jake stood over the grave of his grandfather, Lieutenant Colonel Jesse Marcel (Ret.), more widely known in his day as Major Jesse A. Marcel. Glancing up, he noticed a nearby family gathering around their deceased loved one. An elderly priest preformed their burial ceremony as the soft sound of their collective sobbing carried across the sea of tombstones.
Pausing to allow the family to reflect, the priest raised his eyes to look in Jake’s direction. Jake held his gaze for a short moment then returned his attention to his grandfather’s tombstone.
Something his father mentioned kept echoing in his mind: Your grandfather took his secret with him.
What did that mean? Jake asked himself. Did he die without sharing his secret?
“So it would seem that your time in the 509th is still making waves, Grandpa!” Jake held a crooked smirk as spoke to his grandfather.
He shook his head. “I know, I know…you would have wanted me to walk in your footsteps, just like Dad. But I remember what they did to you…to us. We all had to keep our mouths shut about what you thought you found.”
Jake drew in a delicate breath, feeling tears beginning to brim. “Did you know they used to tease me in school about you? They used to say our family was crazy for believing you. But we weren’t allowed to talk about it, so we just had to agree with them.”
Glancing back up at the nearby burial ceremony, Jake wiped away an escaping tear. He felt a rising anxiety at the painfully reminiscent scene.
For an instant he was seven years old again. An honorary line of soldiers flanked his grandfather’s coffin. Jake didn’t know many of the faces gathered at the cemetery; only a few of the older men in full military uniform were familiar, friends of both his grandfather and father. In the background stood men in dark suits, theirs eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses.
Draped over the coffin was a large flag blazed with stars and stripes. Sobbing softly, Jake watched as one of the soldiers folded the flag into triangles with crisp military precision. Then in sharp precise movements a soldier marched the flag to his father, Jesse Marcel Jr.. With both hands the soldier presented the folded flag to his father, who accepted it with a salute.
Jesse Marcel Jr. looked down at his young son, who had been clutching his leg. His eyes were sad, but warm and proud. “Your grandfather would have wanted you to have this.”
With tears edging down the sides of his checks, little Jake held out his hands to accept his grandfather’s folded flag. On top of the flag rested his grandfather’s military ID dog tags. Little Jake watched as his father gently took the tags, and with a reassuring smile, draped the necklace around little Jake’s neck. Jake’s tears were now streaming as he held his grandfather’s ID tags in his small hands.
“I hated how I couldn’t defend you. That I couldn’t defend us,” Jake continued, not realizing he was now clutching his grandfather’s ID tags still hanging from his neck. He would never ride without his grandfather’s dog tags; they had become his lucky charm.
“So in the end I started believing them, and I hate myself for it!” He wiped the tears that now strayed down the side of his face, but couldn’t help but give a lopsided smile. “And yeah, okay… I still miss you!”
He paused a moment to compose himself. “Now I have this scientist visiting me, telling me things that I don’t think I want to know. They had visited you, they used to visit Dad, and now they’re on my back! I don’t know what to believe anymore, but according to this guy we have something that can prove what you and Dad saw was the real deal.”
His eyes dropped to study the inscribed plaque that lay at the foot of the tombstone:
AND YE SHALL KNOW THE TRUTH, AND THE TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE.
“So, what is the truth? Dad said you took it to your grave. Well…here I am!”
Crouching down now, he inspected the gravestone more closely. The marble headstone was engraved with his grandfather’s name; it looked no different than any other. Placed at the foot of the grave, on the front face of the gravestone, was a large flat piece of polished marble that held the inscribed metal plaque. It was also similar to the surrounding gravestones around him. There didn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary.
“So what do I do?”
Jake found himself becoming fixated on the metal plaque.
“He took his secret with him,” he slowly repeated to himself.
Jake gripped the metal plaque. The size of a small pencil case, the plaque was polished and firmly fixed to the polished marble by small metal screws.
Cocking his head to the side, Jake considered the metal screws.
He retrieved his motorbike keys from his pocket then scraped along the edges of the plaque, trying to pry it from the stone. It wouldn’t budge.
Jake looked around to see
if anyone was looking in his direction before giving it another try. Careful not to damage his keys he tried again, this time with more force.
Then it happened.
The plaque moved ever so slightly.
It can be removed, Jake thought.
Again looking around to see if anyone was watching, Jake gave it another try. This time he kicked the plaque with his heavy motorcycle boots.
It dislodged a little bit more.
He kicked at it again with a firm controlled blow. The plaque broke loose.
Breathless, Jake froze for a handful of heavy heartbeats, staring at the loosened plaque. It had rotated on one side to reveal a hollow compartment hidden beneath.
Crouching now, he worked the metal plaque in an attempt to rotate it a little further, trying to expose the concealed compartment.
No good.
Using one of the thinner keys he pried loose the last screw that was determined not to reveal the last legacy of Colonel Jesse Marcel.
Jake worked the screw gently, persuading it to loosen. The compartment was small enough to be hidden by the plaque but large enough to house what seemed to be a small cylinder. It was 12 inches long and slightly less than an inch in diameter.
Using the key to pry the tube free, Jake flicked off the dirt and dust that had accumulated over the years. It was made of old cardboard, and reminded Jake of the tubes sometimes used by couriers to transport drawings or rolled-up documents. It felt light in his hands, possibly empty.
Jake twisted off the lid without hesitation. The years had rendered the adhesive tape wrapped around the lid useless and it twisted off with the slightest effort.
Peering down the inside of the cylinder his heart rate climbed; he could see there was in fact something hidden inside. As his eyes finally gazed upon the contents, he knew in an instant what it was. It felt as if the earth shifted beneath him.
In a moment of compelling realization, Jake knew he had just crossed over. He had become a believer.
CHAPTER 38
“Can I be of assistance, my son?”
Startled, Jake instantly slipped the cylinder-shaped container into his jacket. He spun around to find a priest standing behind him, Bible in hand. It was the same priest who had been giving the nearby burial when Jake had arrived at the cemetery. Their eyes met for a few seconds before Jake responded.
Jake detected a deep reservoir of authority beneath the priest’s courtesy. He found humility and warmth in the older man’s soft eyes. But there was also something in his expression that echoed suspicion at Jake’s presence.
He opened his mouth to speak, but his words failed him.
Oh my God, it’s real!
Overwhelmed by the object now in his jacket, the gravity of its impact hit him in waves. There were no words. He felt the breath leave his lungs as the revelation struck him again. In that instant the truth finally solidified. He went numb at the impossible reality that had stared back at him from inside the cylinder.
Jake managed to summon a semi-polite smile, fighting hard not to show the explosive revelations detonating inside him. He took off for the cemetery gates in a sprint, leaving the priest standing beside his grandfather’s grave.
*
Across the memorial park two dark-suited agents stood in the shade of a large tree among another group of mourners who were committing their loved one to rest. If not for the coffees in hand and the high-powered binoculars in their possession, they could have blended into the surroundings.
The senior agent had been tracking Jake as he left the cemetery in a rush. He watched as Jake crossed the road to join a group of youths huddled on their motorbikes. The group seemed to have been waiting for him.
He activated a microphone hidden within the lapel of his suit. “The target is leaving the cemetery.”
*
“Did you find what you were looking for?” Chris asked as Jake approached the group leaning on their machines.
Mark mounted his bike, about to fire his engine. “We’ve got some familiar friends hanging around in the cemetery. They kinda look interested in us.”
Jake didn’t hear them; he was in another world. Mark noticed the unmistakable expression on Jake’s face as the group gathered around him – he was almost glowing.
Mark immediately understood. He found something!
*
After a few pensive moments watching the young man hurry away, the priest turned to redirect his attention to the tomb. He had spotted Jake earlier, but had waited till the end of the burial ceremony before approaching to investigate what the young man was doing crouching down at the retired colonel’s gravestone.
Still holding his Bible firmly against his chest, his eyes found the grave’s metal plaque. A wave of shock rolled over him as he realized that the commemorative plaque commonly placed at the foot of most gravestones had been disturbed. The plaque hung askew, held in place only by a single screw.
Beneath the plaque had been a compartment hidden from view. The compartment, the priest realized, was now empty.
CHAPTER 39
In the middle of the road in front of the cemetery entry gates, Jake’s friends now circled him on their bikes. They all leaned in as Jake reached into his jacket to retrieve what had been concealed.
The young men exchanged curious looks, their excitement growing as they all dismounted to surround Jake. Each felt a tremor of apprehension as they watched him twist off the lid. When he revealed its forbidden contents hidden inside, the entire group all drew audible breaths. Speechless, they stared at the shiny object being slid from the tube into Jake’s hand.
In a breathtaking reveal, he pulled it from the cylinder for the entire world to see.
The object glistened with a reflective purplish hue across the group’s faces as Jake rotated it in the sunlight, inspecting it closely. Jake knew in an instant that it was the object spoken of during childhood bedtime stories. It was the small I-beam that his father once held as a boy. Surprisingly, it reminded Jake of the countless terrestrial, and far less sensational, steel I-beams he often specified when designing buildings. But this small piece felt like it was lighter than air. It was three-eighths of an inch wide and just under an inch deep – about the length of a student’s desk ruler. Each end was fractured, suggesting it was once part of a much longer beam.
As he turned it the light caught what resembled small hieroglyphic symbols, similar to Egyptian, Sumerian or Mayan hieroglyphics along the inside length of its web. Some symbols also consisted of geometric shapes: circles, pyramids, crescent-shaped arcs and squares.
Jake noticed a ridge along its top and bottom flanges. When he looked at the broken I-beam end on, in cross-section the flanges got wider in the middle, resembling very long, thin diamond shapes. It was exactly how Jake remembered his father describing it, and not too far off Jake’s own attempt at manufacturing a terrestrial version.
Not exactly like the one I sketched, but the engineering principles were similar, he thought.
Jake passed the I-beam around for his friends to look at, watching the amazement register in their eyes. He noticed that the hieroglyphics symbols were not imprinted or engraved but solid, as if the I-beam were somehow cast together in a three-dimensional mould. Thus the circles were in fact semi-spheres, and the pyramids were truncated and three dimensional.
Jake struggled to think of a manufacturing process that could produce an I-beam with such raised symbols, but knew of none. Milling machines used to make I-beams extruded and rolled hot tempered steel into shape; they could not produce raised symbols or shapes.
He cast his mind back to old engineering lectures on materials. The I-beam’s sharp angles, the thinness of its web and flanges, as well as the fine detailed definitions in the raised hieroglyphics, could all only be produced with a very high density metal, if it had indeed been moulded.
But it’s impossible; it weighs next to nothing!
The highly reflective appearance of the I-beam’s surface, as w
ell as the crystalline nature of the fractured ends, all pointed toward a metal with an extremely fine crystalline structure. Jake was certain that this type of metal or alloy can’t be moulded.
The color of the solid hieroglyphics differed somewhat from the rest of the beam. They were a shiny metallic violet against the beam’s overall color of dull metallic gray, with the brightness of its purplish hue changing depending on which angle it was held up against the sunlight.
The color combination was unlike any steel, aluminum or alloy Jake had ever seen. It’s definitely not of this earth, he thought.
“This thing won’t budge, but it’s light as a feather!” TJ strained as he tried to bend the metal piece being passed around.
His friends exchanged wide-eyed looks. Nobody needed to verbalize the collective thought racing through their minds – the object was something none of them had ever seen before, and more to the point, something most people on earth had never seen before.
In that moment Jake realized how historically profound the object was. Its implications would change the way every single human would look up at the night sky.
He locked eyes with Mark, who was now glowing with excitement. Each knew what the other was thinking.
Mark was the first to finally speak. His words added to the nervous energy building within him. “What are you going to do??”
Jake looked back down at the object that had now been returned to him. The little I-beam had brought him clarity unlike anything he had ever felt. He was holding definitive proof that the extraterrestrial crash that his grandfather investigated over half a century ago actually happen. But more profoundly, Jake Marcel was cradling in his hands the answer to “are we alone in the universe?” He was holding something that was manufactured somewhere else other than on earth.
Jake felt his mind now open to the thrill of unthinkable possibilities. It would prove that the government had been lying all along, and that his grandfather was not mistaken about what he had found out in the desert in the summer of 1947. That there was a reason why our technology seems to accelerate with every passing year, that perhaps there was another clean energy source that could break our dependence on oil, that the government had been complicit in the abduction of its citizens.
Disclosing the Secret Page 17