Everett stood first and handled Private Gianelli with gentle and agile movement. Waiting EMTs started working on the boy as soon as he was laid on the stretcher. Private O’Connell walked alongside talking softly to his friend as they moved him to the elevator.
Others on the platform moved aside as Collins lifted the body of the old marine out into waiting arms. There was a surreal silence at that moment as the major looked into faces of men and women he didn’t know. He bent over and with the help of Everett lifted up the lifeless body of Reese. They handed him over to the EMTs, then stood and stepped out of the transport. All the while Collins felt the wetness of the blood of both Reese and Campos soaking through his nylon jacket. He smelled the coppery odor he had smelled a hundred times before this terrible day, in fields and towns around the globe, but never here in the streets of his country.
He looked at Everett, who was now speaking in low tones to a woman whom he recognized as Signalman Willing. Next to her was Sarah McIntire, whose eyes followed the body of the gunnery sergeant as it too was laid on a gurney next to the one in which they had laid Robert Reese. Then both bodies were covered with red sheets and wheeled away.
Sarah looked back at Collins, hesitated a moment, and then, gathering courage, walked toward him. She was dressed in the standard blue jumpsuit, and her hair was under a red baseball cap all the geology team wore. She had books under one arm.
“Are you all right, Major?” she asked, seeing all the blood that covered him.
Collins looked at Sarah, then beyond her for a moment, then met her eyes. “I’ve been better, Specialist.”
She looked back at Lisa, who had finished talking with Everett and was looking at her curiously. Even Carl raised an eyebrow in their direction.
“You weren’t hit or anything? I mean, you are absolutely covered in blood.”
Collins continued to look at her and then down at his jacket and pants. “No, it’s not mine. Why is everyone here?”
Sarah looked around and then back into the army officer’s troubled face. “Word spread pretty quickly, and before you think it, we’re not morbid, it’s just that we all knew Gunny and liked him very much. He was a fixture here for a long time. This is a pretty small and very tight organization. Everyone knows everyone.”
Collins looked at her a moment, sadness etching his hard features, then he turned and left.
Sarah watched him leave as she brought her books to her chest and breathed deeply. Everett and Lisa joined her.
“How’s the major doing?” Lisa asked.
Sarah just shook her head and then looked at Carl. “Does he have any idea he’s just a man, Commander, and not immune to feeling for his men?”
Everett watched the elevator doors slide closed.
“No, Sarah, he knows he’s a man, but he’s also a soldier that’s seen too much shit and wants people under his command to go home at night.”
Sarah turned and looked into the blood-smeared transport for a long time before she turned away and followed Carl and Lisa, waiting for the next elevator to take them down into the complex.
Jack had cleaned up and changed into a fresh jumpsuit. He had tossed the civilian clothes he had been wearing into the garbage can next to his desk and stuffed an entire newspaper over them. He wanted rid of the clothing that was still damp with the blood of Gunny Campos. He looked at himself in the mirror and rubbed a hand through his short hair. He was numb inside. He felt the inevitable guilt he always felt at not being the one who didn’t return alive. A knock at his door interrupted his thoughts.
“Yes,” he said a little louder than he wanted to.
“Major, it’s Niles, you have a minute?”
Jack again ran a hand through his dark hair and walked the few paces to the door as if it were ten city blocks away and opened it.
“What is it, Doctor?”
“Major, you need to come with me; the senator wants you to hear this yourself.”
Jack saw that Niles was in a far worse state than he had been this morning.
“You find the crash site?” he asked.
Niles looked around behind him; after seeing no one in the dormitory hallway, he looked back at Jack. “No, not yet, but now I know the reasons behind why it’s so important we find it, and that’s what the senator wants to explain. He wants me to sit in, even though I have already read the file. It may explain to you the reason why lives were lost over this. Hell, maybe you should have known from the beginning, but as you’ll see, Jack, this is a first and there are no rules written for this kind of thing.”
“What file?”
“The file containing reports on what really happened that night in Roswell. Major, please, hurry.” Compton turned and left. Ten paces from Jack’s door, he turned and looked at Collins again. “Hurry, Major.”
Five minutes later, Collins was in the director’s spacious office with Niles, Alice, and the senator.
“Thank you for coming. I’ll make sure to tell you this as fast as I can,” the senator said. “Before you go after the Frenchman and his employers using Europa, Jack, I think it’s time you know what we may be up against. I didn’t tell the Group the whole story of what happened that night in ’47, but you need to know now, because it’s looking more and more like the worst-case scenario I have always feared is happening. And the extreme violence that occurred against your team this morning tells me the situation has turned for the worse.”
Jack looked from the old man to Niles, then took a chair as the senator started speaking.
FOURTEEN
Las Vegas Army Airfield (Nellis)
July 3, 1947, 0300 Hours
The former OSS general watched the silver-haired president as he stood just aft of where the dragon’s-head prow used to be attached to the ancient hull. He placed a hand where the ancient carving used to sit it and drawled, “I just can’t believe they sailed this thing across the Atlantic Ocean all the way up the Mississippi River! Damn it, that’s amazin’!”
Garrison Lee removed his brown fedora and stepped up to the edge of the gunwale. The scaffolding that surrounded the vessel was a little shaky, and with only one eye he had to be more careful than most.
“We believe the voyage may have been made as early as AD 856, Mr. President. We have a team in Norway now, researching some information we came across last year that indicates it was an entire village uprooted by civil war that came across and tried to settle in the New World over six hundred years before Columbus. We should know more this time next month. Right now we believe this is the largest longship ever to be constructed, and that there may have actually been six on this voyage. According to some rune stones discovered nearby, each carried close to a hundred souls and their supplies.”
Truman looked over at Lee and just shook his head. “Son, your people have done one hell of a job here, one hell of a job! This is absolutely magnificent!” He ran his fingers along the jagged edge where the headpiece had once been attached. “To think about the voyage they must have endured and the spirit they had to have shown to make it. Goddamn, they weren’t Vikings, son, they were just as American as you or I with the spirit of adventure they’d shown.”
Garrison Lee smiled at the simple way Truman put it. It may not have been the spirit of adventure, but perhaps desperation that drove them from their homeland, but he didn’t correct the president. He then watched as Truman grinned at the technicians looking up at him from the scaffolding surrounding the ancient ship. The visiting president had drawn a large crowd at three in the morning.
“Didn’t think you would be doin’ this back in ’41, did you, Lee? Just like I didn’t think I’d be president, but I guess we both got our hides nailed to the barn wall with jobs that sometimes go beyond the ability for a man to believe.” Truman looked at the men and women around and above him as he spoke. “This man”—he gestured with his hat outstretched at the much taller Lee and looking at Lee’s Event Group— “had a record with the OSS that read like a damn adventure novel, on
e of them serials they have at the by-God movies. I met the young Mr. Lee when he was just out of law school, knew he was going to be something different from the bloodsuckers that usually hold to that particular profession.” A sad look clouded the man from Missouri’s features and he looked down for a moment. “Then the war came, and off he went.”
Lee touched the eye patch and the scar that ran under it. Yes, he thought, off I went.
“I just wanna tell you all that this is one hell of a piece of work.” Truman patted the ancient and stone-hardened wood again. “It’s nice to see that the entire federal government isn’t made up of people that fear the future and scoff at the past. I can see you people here are trying to make it better for us all, and it’s appreciated, I assure you.”
His predecessor had warned Garrison that it would take something like this to get a president to come around and support this hidden branch of government. If that was true, then he should receive funding for at least the next four years. Lee smiled as he looked at Harry Truman.
“Mr. President, this wasn’t only a ship of exploration, it was also a warship, one of the most technologically advanced and swiftest afloat at the time. And as I’m sure you know, the United States has the right of salvage to her, and thus she can be renamed. Which is not an uncommon occurrence in a situation such as this.”
Truman stood there silently with his hands on his hips, the gray suit now a little muddy from his crawling around the interior of the great longship.
“I wasn’t aware of that, no, sir. Right of salvage, huh?”
“That’s the truth, sir. Even if it weren’t, it’s ours, an American vessel on American soil.”
A smattering of applause came from the people observing the president and his first Event.
“Well, sir, it’s our honor to present to you the longship USS Margaret Truman.”
The president let his hands fall to his sides and he looked astounded. He watched as a white cloth was pulled from the vault’s rear wall. The name of the ship was inscribed in gold on carved wood with a dragon’s head fronting the words. The president looked at the plaque a moment, then slapped his hat against his thigh and broke out clapping with the rest of the men and women. He shook his head and stepped deftly to the scaffold and took Lee’s hand in his own in a powerful grip.
“Goddammit, son, I’m proud of you and your people. And this”—he gestured to the nameplate—“is a real honor that I can only say is thrilling to me and would be to my wife and daughter, if I could just tell them about it.” He winked and laughed as they shook hands.
Lee’s young new assistant, Alice Hamilton, walked up and gave the grinning Lee a Teletype message. The woman had come to work at the Event Group because Lee felt he owed her something. Her husband had been with him in South America after the end of the war, and he was still there, buried in an unmarked grave.
Lee read the message she had given him, trying not to be thrown off-balance by the president’s overzealous handshake and trying to keep the Teletype in focus as he was jostled. When he was done, he leaned over and whispered in the president’s ear. Truman’s face wrinkled into a puzzled look, and he took the yellow paper. He too read it, then asked a question, to which Lee nodded his head in response. Then they both hurriedly left the top of the scaffolding and used the stairs to reach the bottom of the newly installed vault.
The men and women, all security or technicians of the Event Group, watched in curiosity as their boss and the president of the United States left with looks on their faces that told them something wasn’t right in the world.
Garrison Lee saw the president to a secure area lining the new level of vaults so he could call the Pentagon situation room.
The president hung up the phone and joined Lee in the corridor outside the secure communications room.
“Mr. Lee, I’m very pleased with what I’ve seen here today.” He paused long enough to place the now crumpled fedora on his head, and Lee helped the older man into his coat. He noticed that the president had a distant look on his face. “After the things you’ve shown me, I think I can guarantee your current budget and maybe a little more, although I know for a fact that the brass-hat sons of bitches are going to scream that I’m stealing from them. To hell with them, I say. What’s a couple of overpriced bombers when it comes to doin’ good for the American people?” Truman walked toward the main elevator. “After all, who am I but a country boy just following in the footsteps of great men? Tell your people, Lee.” He turned and shook the senator’s hand again. “I’ll talk to you soon.”
Garrison Lee took President Truman’s hand and firmly shook it, pleased by the minimal promise of the Group’s current budget. But he had to risk the next question, which was burning him up inside.
“Mr. President, I believe the Event Group may be better equipped to handle the situation in New Mexico, if you would allow us.”
A Secret Service agent cleared for the Event Center held the elevator doors for Truman. The president turned and gave a quick shake of his head.
“Sorry, Lee, I have to stick with the boys who won the war on this one. I have to assume they know what they’re doing.” The last words were almost cut off by the closing doors.
Lee stood at those same doors for a moment and watched the green indicator light glow. He felt as if he was being left out of the biggest event since the coming of Jesus Christ, and there was nothing he could do about it.
Garrison Lee hadn’t heard from the president of the United States for almost five days and was assessing field assignments when Alice stepped into his office. She quickly opened the right bottom drawer of his desk and removed a bulky red phone. There was a small handle on the top that she practically punched with the palm of her hand, instantly freeing the device from its security holder. She lifted the receiver and held it out to Lee.
“It’s the president and he doesn’t sound happy,” she said quickly.
“Mr. President, this is Lee.”
“Mr. Lee, I want you to get your ass with your best security team and science people and get control of that goddamn situation in Roswell.”
“What do I need to know, Mr. President?”
“Know? Know, Lee? Haven’t you read the goddamn papers?”
“Been busy here, sir”
“Well, damn, man, the Army Air Corps just released a press statement that they have a flyin’ damn disk in their possession. I had General LeMay, General Ramey, and Allen Dulles on the phone and all they gave me was the runaround! Sons of bitches don’t know who they’re dealin’ with!”
“LeMay and Dulles will do that, Mr. President, if they think you’re treading on their turf.” Lee knew Allen Dulles and knew the man always had ulterior motives for everything he did. Every move was calculated for what good it would do him and whatever group he was working with.
“Let me tell you something, Mister Lee”—Truman spread the word mister out for a month—“it’s all my goddamn turf, you get me, son?”
“Yes, sir, I hear you and agree, Mr. President, it’s your backyard.”
“Damn right, mine and the people of this nation who pay our salaries. I think sometimes the damn generals and spooks need to be put in their place, no offense, Lee. I take it you have an aircraft available to you?”
“We have twelve, four converted C-41 Dakotas, three P-51 Mustangs, and several scout craft, sir.”
“P-51s! Who in the hell gave you those? Ah, never mind. As I was saying, you and a team of scientists or whatever eggheads you need get there and get control of that crap in the desert, now!”
“Yes, sir.”
“And, Lee?” The president sounded as if he was grinding his teeth. “I’ve sent you a letter with my signature on it, authorizing you to do what you think is right, and I’ll back you one hundred percent. If you have to hang someone, I’ll supply the rope!”
“I’m on my way, Mr. President, and thank you, sir.”
“Thank you nothin’, get there and find out what’s going on
. You tell them if I have to come down there and fire some butts, I will.”
“I’ll pass along the message, Mr. President,” Lee replied, but found that the call had already been terminated.
Alice handed over a sealed envelope. “This was just wired over from the White House,” she said.
Lee opened it and scanned the words. It did indeed authorize him to do anything just this side of murder to gain the cooperation of the air corps and army.
“What’s going on, Garrison?”
“Well, Alice, I guess that’s what I’m flying to New Mexico to find out.”
FIFTEEN
Roswell, New Mexico
July 8, 1947, 2000 Hours
The four converted C-41 war-surplus Dakotas touched down on the runway at Roswell Army Airfield at eight that night. They passed row upon row of Boeing B-29 bombers lining the runway and taxied to a small hangar, all the time under the watchful eyes of air police, who escorted them in four jeeps. Lee wasn’t concerned with their presence. As he looked out his window, he saw the giant Boeing bombers and noticed how the aging birds still looked lethal. The 509th Composite Bomb Group was world famous for a plane that was once listed among its ranks, named the Enola Gay.
The bomber-group intelligence officer, Colonel William Blanchard, stood at the bottom of the staircase after it was rolled into place by the base ground crew. The high wind was flapping the bottom of the officer’s trousers, and he held on to his hat as he waited for Lee to descend.
“General Lee, I had heard you were a private citizen after your service during the war.” The colonel extended his hand. The offered handshake was ignored by Lee. He was followed down the staircase by men who carried bags and boxes full of equipment. The second, third, and fourth Dakotas were unloading larger pieces of equipment, and the Event Group’s security teams exited through the rolling side door used for cargo. Garrison wasn’t at all surprised the base’s intelligence officer knew of him and whom he used to work for.
Event: A Novel Page 19