The home was a smallish two-bedroom. The exterior was painted with a green so faded that it seemed to blend in with the surroundings like camouflage. Unlike all the adjacent properties, with their brightly flowered yards and welcoming, sunny lawns, Grandpa Clayton’s home was an uninviting black hole. Its only notable color was a red Dodge pickup in the driveway, which sat alongside a tarp-covered sports car. Not surprisingly, the tarp lay covered in cedar needles and rotting leaves. It had been so long that Alyssa couldn’t remember what sort of car lay hidden underneath, and she wouldn’t have been surprised to find that no one had maintained the property since her last stay here.
“I can tell the man values his privacy,” quipped Theo as he tucked the manila envelope under his arm.
Alyssa nodded. “Oh, yeah. You two are peas in a pod. I’m sure you’ll become instant best friends. Or he’ll kill you within ten minutes. Let’s find out.”
They left Theo’s car at the curb, walked up the amply cracked driveway, and stood at the door, which featured two peepholes. The second eyepiece stood sixteen inches lower than the other. Grandpa Clayton had installed it specifically for Alyssa, although it was now at the level of her collar.
She took a deep breath, steeled herself, and rapped on the glass outer door three times.
Before she could even lower her arm, the inner door opened, and her grandpa stood on the other side of the glass. Of course, he had watched them approach and waited.
He looked much as she remembered. At five foot ten, he was still nearly a head taller than her. It might have been the dim light around and behind him, but she thought his close-cropped hair might have gone a little grayer, a bit thinner, with the hairline retreating even farther up his scalp. He hadn’t shaved in a couple of days, and his eyes were narrow with suspicion. He’d gained a few pounds, too, although even a bulging gut still seemed to fit his wide, powerful frame. Grandpa Clayton exuded strength. Even now, despite everything that had happened, Alyssa still found herself filled with respect and wanting to be like him.
“Alyssa.” He said the word with neutrality, neither a question nor a reprimand.
“Hi, Grandpa,” she said stiffly. “I’m sorry to bother you.”
Silence fell between them. Theo shifted his weight uncomfortably.
“Who’s he?” her grandfather asked as he made no secret of eyeballing Theo’s manila envelope.
“A friend,” she said. “We…” Her voice choked for a moment as she recalled Winston’s sudden appearance and desperate pleas in her bedroom. “We have something important to ask you about.”
His left eyebrow arched high up his forehead. The expression always reminded her of Mr. Spock.
“Oh?”
The monosyllabic question was one of his favorite interrogation tactics. It forced his opponent to keep talking, but the amount of skepticism carried in that single word seemed to cut away any possibility of partial truths or outright lies.
“I know I should’ve called,” she said.
“Yes.”
“But I think once you hear what we have to say, you’ll understand why we didn’t. I don’t know that we can trust phones anymore.”
This time, both eyebrows went up. She had him hooked, but he wasn’t going to make it easy for her.
“Important enough that you couldn’t call…” He checked his watch. “…and skipped school. With a grown man. This should be good.”
“Are you going to invite us in?” she asked.
Without missing a beat, he answered, “Are you going to tell me to get lost again?”
She wasn’t going to dignify that with an answer and only stared at him stonily. With a curt nod, he slowly opened the glass door and stood aside for them.
As gloomy as the house’s front step had been, the inside was worse. The walls were covered with dark brown wood-grain paneling, and only an occasional clock or small plaque broke the murky monotony. The hardwood flooring was nearly the same earthy tone, and every footfall cast echoes that made the place feel empty and abandoned. Grandpa Clayton kept only a few pieces of furniture. He was a man who lived for honor and ideals, not stuff or anything as fleeting and inconsequential, he would say, as happiness.
He allowed himself two exceptions to this philosophy. A squat analog radio sat on the unpopulated kitchen counter. Grandpa Clayton typically kept this tuned to jazz or classical FM, but the radio also brought in AM and shortwave bands, and Alyssa recalled on one particularly clear night tuning in a man broadcasting from his garage in Virginia.
Beside the radio rested the home’s only apparent touch of beauty: a single, drooping white rose in a slender crystal bud vase. Every Sunday on his way home from church, Grandpa Clayton stopped at Anne’s Flowers on Frontage Road to buy one white Commonwealth Glory rose, a tradition he’d kept since Granny Rose had been killed by a drunk driver when Alyssa had been in the fifth grade.
As they entered the main room, he pointed at two wooden chairs located by the far wall separated by a small, circular end table. No couches here. That would be too comfortable. Alyssa and Theo each took a seat. As there were no other chairs in the room, Grandpa Clayton stood in the room’s center, surrounded by emptiness, arms folded across his chest.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s have it.” Alyssa wasn’t sure if he meant her story or an apology, but she preferred the former.
Theo suddenly stood and took two steps toward Grandpa Clayton with his right hand extended, the left still gripping his envelope. “By the way, my name is Bob Smith. I’m a retired Air Force researcher.” Grandpa Clayton took his hand, but their shake looked more like a squeezing battle, and it wasn’t until the first flicker of discomfort crossed Theo’s features that her grandpa let him go. Theo’s hand fell to his side, where he flexed his fingers a couple of times to bring the blood back into them.
“Of course,” Theo added, “one of those two facts is wrong. I figure, it’s pretty clear that you’re the distrustful type, so I thought I’d just make it easy right here at the beginning.”
Theo returned to his seat, and Alyssa had to fight back a smile of approval. The old man had lost the handshake war, but he had gone even further in arousing her grandfather’s interest and made it clear that he didn’t hold all the cards in this conversation, no matter where it went.
“Research, huh?” asked Grandpa Clayton. “Where at?”
“Edwards,” said Theo, and he let the word dangle between them.
Grandpa’s eyes held Theo, then flicked to Alyssa. “Edwards. I suppose my granddaughter told you I served there, as well.”
“She did.”
“When were you there?”
Theo rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck. “Before you. I understand you saw some interesting things in your time.”
Grandpa Clayton stood even more erect, and the muscles in his jaw tightened into bulging strips.
“A few,” he said.
“So did I,” offered Theo. “And more than a few.”
Alyssa checked the time on her phone. School let out twenty minutes ago, and she would normally be stepping off at her bus stop in five minutes. Within fifteen minutes, her mom would be on the phone with neighbor moms, and the fact that she was missing in action would become obvious. Alyssa had to get in front of that looming train wreck immediately.
“Look,” she said. “I’m new to this whole military veteran, let’s-be-cool-and-dance-around-the-subject thing. Grandpa, my world is gonna explode here if you don’t call my mom. I know we left on bad terms. I know you and her aren’t talking. But can we come back to that later?”
Both men stared at her, which she took as an invitation to continue.
“OK. Bombshell number one.” She exaggerated the name with clear sarcasm. “Bob here has pictures taken at Area X.”
Grandpa Clayton eyed the envelope skeptically. “Area X?”
“The site that came before Area 51,” said Alyssa. “Show him.”
Theo held out the packet. Her grandfather too
k it, lifted the flap, and, without removing any of the photos, fingered his way through them. At first, his movements were quick and cursory. After a moment, though, he slowed and began withdrawing them from the envelope one by one for closer scrutiny.
“Where did you get these?” he asked.
Before Theo could answer, Alyssa said, “We’re going to tell you some stuff you’ll have a hard time swallowing. I’m promising you right now, on the Bible or anything else you want, that this is not a hoax or a joke. I brought this to you because I knew you’d care more than anybody else I can imagine. What happened between us…” She gestured at the space between them. “…was big. But this is a lot bigger. This is life or death for millions of people kind of bigger. But if you don’t call Mom right now and keep her from calling the cops or coming after me, this whole situation is blown. Can you do that?”
Grandpa Clayton inhaled sharply, eyes narrowed to slits. Alyssa didn’t know if he was debating whether to believe her or how he might approach his daughter after all this time. His attention repeatedly flicked from the pictures back to her.
“I don’t recognize this warehouse,” he finally said, holding up one of the shots. “And this thing? I assume it’s supposed to be an alien. I’ve seen better Photoshop jobs than this.”
At last, Theo stood again and said, “I took those images myself. I assure you, they are original and undoctored.”
The corner of Grandpa’s mouth drew back in the start of a sneer. “And I should believe you why?”
When Theo stood toe-to-toe with Grandpa Clayton this time, there was no trace of humor in his manner. He stood with his thin shoulders pulled back and his head high. He clearly meant no physical threat to the man, but his attitude conveyed dignity and hard-won wisdom.
“Because Area X was destroyed by an underground nuclear blast in 1948,” he said. “I’ve been under a fake identity and hiding from the government ever since. I’m risking my life by coming to you like this, especially knowing your military connections.”
Grandpa Clayton held Theo’s stare for a long moment, then asked, “If this Area X was destroyed in 1948, do you mean to tell me you were a toddler when you worked there?”
“No, sir,” replied Theo without so much as a blink. “I was hired on there in my early thirties.”
Grandpa Clayton offered another eyebrow lift, but Alyssa could see that his manner of grumpily rejecting everything they said had passed.
“We don’t have long,” Theo continued, “but we’ll tell you enough to answer your main questions, starting with what I suspect is the big one you’ve wondered all this time: Yes, that was part of an alien spacecraft you saw. The alien in the picture you’re holding crashed that ship in the New Mexico desert.”
For the first time Alyssa could remember, Grandpa Clayton broke first in a standoff. Still, his expression remained guarded and dubious.
“Too easy,” he said. “I will not be bamboozled by some hokey story cobbled together out of—”
Theo sighed with exasperation. “May we skip all that? Where do you keep your kitchen knives?”
No way Grandpa had been ready for that one. He pointed toward the kitchen sink. “Drawer on the right.”
Theo fetched a small paring knife along with a couple of paper towels and brought them back. He pulled up his sleeves and motioned with one hand over his body. “Where? Pick a spot.”
Grandpa Clayton practically recoiled. “I will do no such thing. Look, I don’t know what sort of gimmicks you two—”
Theo made a shallow, inch-long slice along the back of his left forearm. He winced at the sharp pain. Immediately, blood welled up and dripped down his arm. Theo pressed the paper towels on the wound.
Grandpa shook his head. “What was the point of that?”
“I was born in 1914,” Theo said. “I am ninety-nine years old. In 1948, while at Area X, I received an injection of something we called QVs. These QVs were originally harvested from the Roswell alien’s bloodstream.”
Theo pulled away the paper towels, which were now stained with a strip of red. Blood began to rise within the incision again, but not as quickly. More significantly, Alyssa saw that the skin around the wound now glowed a bright blue. She couldn’t imagine how they might have faked that.
Apparently, neither could Grandpa Clayton. He blinked several times, took a step back, and unconsciously held the photographs to his chest.
“Roswell?” he finally rasped, still staring at Theo’s cut. “It was all real? And covered up?”
Theo nodded.
“Good God.” Grandpa Clayton began to pace the room. “I…I have a storage locker in town. It’s filled with decades of maps, photos, books, articles…everything I could ever find. It was never enough.”
Alyssa fetched the cordless phone from the kitchen and dialed in her mom’s number. She offered the handset to him. “Today’s the day we decided to make up. Bury the hatchet. Whatever.”
He took the phone from her and gazed at the screen with an indecipherable expression between deep sorrow and hope.
“I have to leave soon,” he said. “I’m volunteering at the VFW tonight, and I’ll be back late. You two can stay here, but…we are going to continue this conversation bright and early.”
“That’s fine,” Alyssa said. “And thank you. But first things first.” She pointed at the phone still in his hand. “You showed up at my school. Because I don’t have practice tonight, I agreed to go with you and chat, maybe grab dinner. I might even spend the night, for old time’s sake. But you’ve got to buy us a day or two. We need your help. Everything depends on it.”
Grandpa Clayton swallowed, and the sinewy cords in his neck flexed. “All right.”
He tapped the green button and put the phone to his ear.
Alyssa heard the line ring twice, followed by the buzz of a tinny female voice.
“No, this is your father, Betty. No, everything’s fine. Alyssa’s here with me. But I’ve…” His jaw clenched again, and he had to take a deep breath before continuing. “It’s been almost three years, Betty. I want to… I mean, it’s time to make things right.”
24
When Recon Goes Wrong
The bike ride wasn’t that bad. Being farmland, Tillamook was mostly flat. The Wilson River Loop was well paved and nearly empty of traffic. They paused once for water after crossing Highway 6 and double-checked the map in the faint light of passing traffic. Winston wondered what sort of freaks they would have looked like studying a paper street map if they’d been back in the halls of Shifford Middle School.
They rode single file along the white line at the road’s right edge. Whenever a car approached from behind, Winston steered as far as he dared into the two-foot strip of slippery, loose gravel between the lane and the gutter. Each time, Winston felt like he was playing Russian roulette as he fought the urge to close his eyes at the looming possibility that he would be struck by the next pickup.
At last, after over an hour of pedaling, Winston saw Long Prairie Road widen and develop a left turn onto Blimp Boulevard. Just beyond the turn, train tracks cut across the street. A sign immediately at their left noted that the collection of squat, white buildings behind it was the Port of Tillamook Bay Industrial Park. Far beyond this, barely visible against the dark sky, sat the squat, sawed-off cylinder of a blimp hangar. A massive concrete crossbeam ran above the main door on the hangar’s end, leaving small, blocky wings jutting from its top corners.
The boys pulled off the road and set their belongings down on the embankment near the industrial park’s entrance sign, which left them screened from direct sight by anyone at the blimp hangar. Winston wanted to remain vigilant if not paranoid, even though he strongly suspected that they had outrun Bledsoe. That freighter had been swarmed by press, police, and Coast Guard. Surely, Bledsoe would be embroiled in all kinds of political explaining and paperwork, if only to defend Lynch’s presence there. Moreover, they had made good time coming directly south. Even if people were tra
cking them with those scanners, Winston had to believe they operated at least a little like metal detectors, trying to differentiate between strong and weak signals, using triangulation to determine a target’s direction and distance. It wouldn’t be an instantaneous process. They might not have much time, but Winston guessed they had at least some. The trick was not to take that lead for granted.
“Now what?” asked Shade.
Despite their brief catnaps on the bus, Winston found himself starting to feel deeply weary. He was glad they had picked up waterproof jackets, but his hair hung in damp clumps across his forehead, and the light drizzle carried a chill with it that he found ominous.
“We should have grabbed binoculars,” he said.
“From what?” asked Shade. “A cereal box? In case you didn’t notice, that last stop tapped us out unless you want to cash in that gold coin.”
Winston barely made out the shape of vehicles next to the hangar, but there was no way to discern their type or color at this distance. If he and Shade biked into the parking lot, they might be spotted anywhere along the way, which Winston figured to be about five hundred yards. Even now, Winston wasn’t sure if someone with night-vision goggles could see them sitting in the road. He growled with frustration.
“I wish we could get a better look at those cars,” he said.
Shade took in the flat terrain and scrunched his mouth into a flat line. “Possible. I mean, we could keep going and maybe find a better approach on the far side. Although…that would bring us back to the main highway. If I remember right, it’s even flatter and more exposed than this side.” Shade leaned forward and squinted into the dim distance down Blimp Boulevard. “If you wanted to be super paranoid like me, we could backtrack and find a way up onto that hill. The forest would give us cover for a while. But no, dude. I don’t see any way we’re getting to that hangar without being spotted if someone’s waiting for us.”
Winston Chase and the Theta Factor Page 18