“And, boy?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Don’t think I didn’t notice that dust you knocked off your clothes back there,” Gus said with one eye closed against the late-afternoon sun.
“What dust?” Billy said, knowing full well what Gus was talking about.
“Before you come lookin’ for me, you were out ridin’ that thing at Soda Flats, weren’t ya?”
Gus had warned Billy about Soda Flats a million times. It was an ancient dry lake bed at the eastern end of the valley. The alkali deposit stretched for about two or three miles square and was as flat as a frying pan, which was perfect for riding at full speed on an ATV.
“I only skirted it, Gus, honest, I didn’t cross it.”
“Boy, that alkali will kill you eight ways from Sunday. It’ll eat the skin right off’n you if you fall into it. Now, if you choose to ignore me, you can’t come along with me no more, you got that?”
“I got it, Gus, I promise, no more.”
“Alright, now I have your word, no more Soda Flats?”
Billy held up his right hand. “Promise,” he said in all seriousness.
The old man watched the boy walk over to the mule and whisper something to him. Buck twitched his ears in agreement. Then Billy placed the red helmet on his head and started up the ATV; he revved the motor twice, then left for home.
Finished with his bedroll, the old prospector looked into his leather poke and pulled out a large bottle of bourbon, shaking his head at the way he was feeling and about the boy and his daredevil-may-care attitude about those damned alkali flats. He unscrewed the cap and took a long pull from the bottle, then looked at Buck, who was looking at him.
“What?”
The mule showed his teeth, then rotated his large ears.
“It’s m9edicine tonight, old boy. I think I wanna sleep the night through.” He looked at the mountain, then took another swig. “Too goddamn old to be afraid of the dark.”
Buck snorted, seemingly agreeing with him.
“Snort all you want, buddy, but I feel like a kid that knows for a fact that the bogeyman is out there somewhere.”
As he pulled on the bottle again, he looked at the mountains above him. For now, those mountains held a close-kept and dark secret that was about to be shared with the world. The bogeyman was starting to wake up.
The Event Group, Nellis AFB, Nevada
Jack found Everett waiting for him on level seven. “Glad Alice sent you. No one told me where the main conference room is.”
“The map is in your welcome packet, which you haven’t received yet,” Everett said as he gestured for Collins to go ahead.
“Now it sounds like the military,” Collins said. They laughed as they walked down the carpeted and circular hall.
As the two officers made their way up three floors to the conference room, another man rode a second elevator up to the thirty-third sublevel, to the Group’s small club known affectionately as The Ark. He had just left early from his shift on the fortieth level, the level that housed the main computer networking systems. The man was tall and heavy, his red hair uncombed, and his white shirt prominently displaying an ink stain on the left breast pocket. He had left the computer center just minutes after the call went out to the Event Evaluation Team for them to meet in the main conference room, taking advantage of the rush of people leaving their departments.
Robert Reese had been chosen for his ability to write programs and network them to various illegal links with other systems throughout the world, but most important he was there for his knowledge of the one-of-a-kind Cray computer known as Europa XP-7.
Reese was performing a routine test on the Event Group’s own KH-11 photo recon bird and was tying the systems into each other when he happened upon an incoming data stream that he hadn’t been cleared to see. It was supposed to be Eyes Only for Dr. Compton and Computer Center director, Pete Golding. He quickly made a copy of the data as the stream was encoded and had just minutes to decipher the information and debug it. Only after viewing the coded data did he know he possessed the most amazing piece of information he had ever seen.
Reese had been recruited for the Event Group and hired away from a cushy job and a good career in Seattle working as a systems manager for Microsoft. But for Reese it had been the job offer after the Group’s that interested him the most, and had come rather clandestinely, even more so than the Group’s. But the job would only take effect after he had been hired into the Event Center. The offer came from people that paid well and asked little, with his only commitment to this new company being to forward items and information when requested, or if he happened to come across anything that he found interesting.
Thus far it had worked out beautifully. He dealt with some lowlifes in Vegas once in a while and was paid well for the secrets of the past he delivered to them. But he was ordered to watch for one specific item on the corporation’s wish list, and that little item had come today through the recon bird.
The elevator doors opened and he stepped into the foyer across from The Ark and made his way inside the darkened club. Few people were there, mostly couples having a beer or mixed drink after duty. A rock-and-roll tune played from the jukebox, a song he didn’t recognize because he never had time for anything as mundane as music. He walked over to a bank of three pay phones sitting side by side against the far wall near the restroom. He knew that inept security division that macho navy asshole was currently running monitored the phones at the Group, but he could take care of that easily enough. Reese didn’t look around as he stepped up to the center phone. He knew what attracted attention and what didn’t. The computer specialist slid his credit card into the slot and pulled down. The card was a special one that Reese himself had designed. It really was a Sprint credit line, but he was most proud of a few extra goodies built into it. As he slid the card in and swiped, the magnetic strip on the back of the card imprinted directly through to the Sprint Telecommunications computer, then on into a leased AT&T telephone line. The microcomputer chip in the card started a chain reaction that would continue to scramble the charge numbers at random. It was totally untraceable, and some guy or gal perhaps in Wisconsin would receive the charge for the call. If anyone checked, the call number would actually come up as two thousand different numbers, therefore no one would ever know who had been called. Not only that, the call would have a telephone prefix three thousand miles away from where the call had actually gone. Smiling, Reese then punched in the numbers and waited for the phone to ring in Las Vegas. While he waited, he gestured for the bartender and made a drinking gesture and mouthed the word Budweiser. The man nodded and went to get his beer. The phone began to ring on the other end of the unmonitored phone.
“Ivory Coast Lounge,” a female voice answered.
“Yes, I would like to reserve a table for tonight please, the name is Reese. Bob Reese.”
There was a moment’s hesitation on the other end. “Yes, Mr. Reese, there should be no problem. At what time should we expect your party?”
Reese looked at his wristwatch and calculated. “Three hours.”
“That will be fine, Mr. Reese.”
“Thank you. Also, would you tell Simon the bartender to chill a bottle of champagne for me please?” Reese hung up.
He walked to the bar. He took slow pulls off the longneck bottle, made a face, and sat the beer down on the bar. Reese never thought of the things he did as treason. That was an ugly word, and a word that was lost on people like him because the only word that really mattered to Reese was a far simpler one, profit. And he knew this would be a highly profitable trip into town because in his many dealings with the Centaurus Corporation, he had never once given the code words he had just given to the Ivory Coast Lounge. Chill a bottle of champagne meant he was coming in with vital information from the number one item on their wish list, vital and expensive.
The bartender at The Ark, an off-duty marine lance corporal whose real job was in the security department
, shook his head as Reese walked out of the club whistling. “Hey, Dr. Reese, that’s three bucks you owe me.”
But Reese just kept walking, off in a world of his own. The bartender looked at his watch and noted the time.
After Reese left The Ark, the bartender decided to make a report on the man who had appeared on the security list this morning. He walked over to the phone at the far end of the bar and looked up at those who were drinking and talking. When he saw none of them were paying him any mind, he picked up the phone and quickly punched in three numbers.
“Security Center, Staff Sergeant Mendenhall,” the black sergeant said tiredly.
“Sarge, this is Wilkins. Is Commander Everett there, or the new major?”
“No, they’re hanging with the senator and Dr. Compton at the moment. Something big is happening,” Mendenhall said through a yawn.
“Well, would you note it in the security log that one of the people on our security watch list was in here about a half hour ago and made a call from the pay phones? It was the Comp Center assistant supervisor, that Reese guy. I only noticed because according to the Computer Center duty roster, he was still on shift when he came in here.”
“Okay, that’s a clear violation. I’ll note it in the log and pass it along to the commander and the new boss, and then I’m sure they’ll get Dr. Compton in on this, so Reese can probably expect a write-up or an ass-chewing in the morning.”
SIX
Alice Hamilton met Collins and Everett at the large double doors to the main conference room. She stood with two briefing folders in her hand and made a “hurry up” gesture at the two men, fanning the folders toward the doors.
“Niles, the senator, and the others are waiting for you to start.” She ushered them toward the conference room.
“What’s up, Alice?” Everett asked in a whisper.
“Not now, Carl, get in there. You have some things to discuss before they call the president.” She handed them the briefing folders, one each to Everett and Collins, on their way into the large room.
As they entered, Jack counted seven people seated around the huge oval conference table. The senator was at the opposite end, flipping through some papers in front of him on the polished table. He didn’t notice either Collins or Everett as they seated themselves. Alice took her place to the senator’s right, in between him and Niles Compton, who was sitting cross-legged reading a report and rubbing his forehead. He finally looked up.
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming on such short notice. But as you’ll see, it’s important that we put this thing in your hands as soon as possible.” Niles paused and looked straight at Jack.
“First off, Major Collins, I’m sorry for having to throw you into the fire on your very first day, but you’ll have to limp along the best you can.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Jack, looking at the faces around him.
“I assume the rest of you have seen the major’s 201 file and know his capabilities and qualifications?”
There were nods around the room. Collins noticed he and Everett were the only two out of the ten in blue jumpsuits. Everyone else wore either a lab coat or casual clothes.
“Major, we’ll save the introductions for later,” Compton said.
Jack just nodded in response.
Niles placed his papers on the floor and took a laser pointer from his breast pocket.
“We had a situation occur this morning over the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of Panama. It seems on the surface we had an incident involving two naval jets. The aircraft, two F-14 Super Tomcats flying off the USS Carl Vinson, were lost at 0640 hours this morning.”
The men and women around the table sat in silence at the news. Collins could see that they were accustomed to reports of field losses. He didn’t know if that was a comforting thought or not.
“The navy at the moment is very tight-lipped about the incident, as they always are.”
The senator interrupted, “Just to let you know, Major Collins, we don’t normally investigate every naval incident that comes along.”
“Uh, quite,” Compton said, clearing his throat again. “We only know something was different because at the time of the incident, we were retasking Boris and Natasha.”
Everett pulled his yellow notepad over and scribbled quickly, then slid it in Jack’s direction. It read, KH-11 satellite—we own it; code name is Boris and Natasha.
Collins raised an eyebrow at this new information. For anyone other than the military, the CIA, or NSA, owning a KH-series spy satellite was amazing. He now knew the director and the senator had to have some kind of reach; they not only had access to military personnel, but their equipment also.
“The lucky thing is,” Compton continued, “we left Boris’s ears on and Natasha’s eyes open. For the simple-minded among you, we left the damn thing running while we moved it, as we were recalibrating several of her systems. We were moving the satellite to observe an area of Brazilian rain forest that may be hiding some ruins we were interested in… so what we caught was by pure chance only.” Now he looked at his paperwork and shuffled it. “Okay, here’s what we know, people. The fighters were flying a standard combat air patrol, or CAP as the Navy terms it. They received a call about an intermittent contact closing on the carrier group position. We have that on tape for those of you who would like to hear it later. They were told the target kept blinking on and off the air-search radar of every ship in the group.” Compton paused again. “Boris and Natasha could see with her cameras what the carrier could not with its radar.” He removed the blank cover off the first picture on the easel.
“People, I want you to keep your cool about this and try to stay focused,” Lee said calmly, not looking up. “We here at Group have dealt with the extreme in history, nature, and strange science, but none of you have ever dealt with anything like this before.”
The gathered men and women exchanged questioning looks around the table. They had indeed had to deal with extreme Events, so what could be so shocking the senator had to put a disclaimer on it?
The first still picture was of the two navy Tomcats. Compton pointed them out with the laser pointer; the small red dot highlighted the aircraft. The picture showed them side by side, one slightly in front of the other, a good close-up shot. Then Compton removed the first picture to reveal the second high-definition shot.
“Here, we were checking the diagnostics on the satellite, and so we went to a more wide-angled shot to bring the optics to a nominal setting. It took us longer than I would have liked to wash these images through the computer afterward.”
As everyone took in the second picture after Niles stepped aside, their eyes widened and not just a few hearts beat a little faster. Gasps and exclamations were voiced from around the table. Most leaned closer trying to take in what was clearly something most had never considered possible. The room suddenly became like a vacuum, and a few of the Group even leaned back and closed their eyes, then looked again as if that would change the image they were seeing.
“What in the hell is that?” Walter Dickinson, the head of the forensic sciences, asked, knowing full well what was depicted.
“I’ll tell you what it looks like, Walter. It looks kind of like a flying saucer.”
Collins looked from the picture, then back to Lee. Then he studied the photo again. It was definitely saucer-shaped, round and flat like a plate, with what looked to be a smaller dome on top.
“I’ve been staring at these pictures since early afternoon and I still can’t believe what I see, but there it is, clear as hell. Those two fighters were chasing one damn big flying saucer.”
Collins stood and walked to the easel for a closer look at the computer-enhanced picture. The others calmed their chatter and watched. Jack brought his right index finger up and traced a nearly invisible line from the back of the saucer to about two hundred feet behind the craft.
“Any idea what this might be, Dr. Compton?” Collins asked from in front of the easel.
>
“Only speculation at this point, it may be damage of some kind. We believe it was leaking fluid.”
“Not caused by our fighters?” Jack asked, seeing the smaller Tomcats far behind the saucer.
“Not according to the chatter on the radio,” Niles answered.
Jack returned to his seat.
“At about one and a half minutes into this Event, the fighters believed they had a second contact approaching at several thousand miles per hour.” Compton let that sink in. “This speed estimate was confirmed by Boris and Natasha’s Doppler radar, and we have a printout of the actual speed of that second bogey.”
“I take it the carrier battle group was aware of the situation by this time?” Virginia Pollock asked. She was in her early forties and had accepted Dr. Compton’s offer to come from the General Dynamics Corporation and be assistant director. Now she was the department head of Nuclear Sciences.
“Negative, Virginia. All radio contact between the carrier and her aircraft were lost as they approached the object.”
Compton reached up, then hesitated before removing the picture.
“Now, this is where we believe the attack occurred.”
The room went deathly silent at the mention of the word attack. He took the picture of the two planes and the saucer down. The third picture showed the second Tomcat falling, really nose-diving, out of the frame. But there was something strange about it; this picture had a different color hue to it, a greenish color, possibly explained away by bad computer imaging.
“Right here the pilot of the second F-14, the wingman, called a Mayday. His engines had shut down, and before you ask, there’s nothing wrong with the picture. That light is from a source other than the planes or the craft they were chasing.”
“What source?” Everett asked, standing to see the image better.
“This one.” Niles Compton removed the picture, revealing the new image beneath. Everyone now stood to get a better look.
Event: A Novel Page 9