Event: A Novel

by David L. Golemon

  Lee nodded, his thoughts turning to what the small being had said about the Destroyer. The director turned and walked away. His mind was traveling a hundred miles an hour. “The Destroyer” he mumbled to himself as he entered the hangar’s office once again. Could Brazel be right, could one of the saucers have brought the other down? Could this have been a… God, could this have been some freakish act of war?

  The room was empty and he walked to the phone and dialed fifteen numbers. He waited for the clicks and the chirps to stop and for the phone on the other end to ring.

  “Yes.”

  “Mr. President, Garrison Lee reporting, sir,” he said into the black handset. He rubbed the bridge of his nose with his left forefinger and thumb.

  “What’s goin’ on down there, Lee?” Truman asked.

  He hesitated a moment as he gathered his thoughts.

  “It seems, sir, our flying saucer may have been downed by a second, similar craft, and I believe it was brought down here, on Earth, on purpose.”

  “Downed! Downed by whom?” Truman asked in confusion.

  Lee waited until the famous “Give ’em hell, Harry” temper subsided a little.

  “It’s all pretty speculative right now, but the craft may have been some type of container or cargo ship… and…” He hesitated. “Hell, sir, I think you better sit down for this one.”

  Present Day

  Compton hadn’t moved from his chair throughout the whole of the senator’s story; he stared at his shoes, just listening. No questions had been asked by Jack or Niles, and the old man had finished uninterrupted. The senator had added more to the story than he had included in his written report those many years ago. After all, he had had years and years to theorize and piece things together to update his file. The theories fit. Throughout all of the recorded abduction reports made by citizens throughout the world, there had been two factions. One, the Gray beings that were encountered were aggressive and hostile, and two, the Green creatures were kind, gentle, and always benign. Therefore, Lee deduced there were two separate groups involved, one group aggressive and bent on invasion, the other passive and helpful, intent on stopping the Gray whenever they could. The theory fit the facts, and Lee embraced it.

  Jack stood and slowly walked to the credenza and poured a glass of water from the pitcher, then walked back and placed it before Lee, repeating the scenario from the day before, only in reverse. The senator lifted his tired eyes toward the major and accepted the water in silence.

  “Now you think the same thing has happened, another premeditated attack?” Jack asked.

  “Yes, I’m not a believer in coincidence,” Lee answered. “We don’t have much time if that creature survived the crash; I just wish we knew what it was and its capabilities.”

  Compton took a deep breath and stood. “Speaking of which, I’m not getting anything accomplished sitting in here.” He started to turn away, then stopped and looked at Collins. “I’m relieved the weight of this thing is not only on our shoulders now.” Then he left the conference room.

  “This Event has haunted me for almost sixty years,” Lee said to the remaining two people in the room. “Now another saucer is here again and we can’t find it. I guess we need a break and hope God favors the lucky.”

  “So what it boils down to is that we have to find the remains of this… Destroyer… and verify that it was killed by its present keeper or in the crash itself,” Collins said. “If it has indeed followed the same pattern as the incident in ’47, that would clearly explain the aggression of that second saucer yesterday and its attempt to keep our naval fighters out of the way.”

  “There are so many variables to consider, Jack. For instance, the master-slave relationship as told by the being in Roswell. What if this time the animal’s keeper isn’t as benign as the last?”

  There was silence for a moment and then Jack looked at the senator. “We have very little information to go on without the testing that needed to be done in ’47 on the animal’s remains. Someone out there, whoever stole the debris and murdered the Event personnel, has vital information that may help in saving this planet if it comes down to that. What about this Hendrix? Where did he vanish to?”

  Lee shook his head. “He was killed in an air force plane crash two weeks after Roswell. And, yes, before you ask, I know it was that son of a bitch that hijacked the debris and bodies from Roswell. After I turned in my final report, Mr. Truman, as I suspected he would, bowed to the pressure from the Pentagon and their intelligence communities. Then Eisenhower, completely paranoid about anything he didn’t fully grasp, buried it and we were out totally. The Event Group had essentially been pushed aside by the triumvirate of LeMay, Dulles, and Hendrix, and men like them, who ended up having the last say in the matter after all.”

  A knock sounded at the door, stopping the question in Jack’s head. Alice stood and walked to the huge double doors and pulled them open. Outside stood Carl Everett and a man in a green flight suit. Alice beckoned them in.

  “Commander Everett,” she said, smiling, “and you must be Lieutenant Ryan?” She stepped aside as the two men entered the room. “I hope you had a nice rest, Mr. Ryan?”

  “Yes, thank you,” Ryan said.

  The senator stood and, using his cane this time for support, walked to greet the newcomer.

  “Senator Garrison Lee, this is Lieutenant Junior Grade Jason Ryan, of the USS Carl Vinson” Alice said as the two men grasped hands.

  “I understand you have had a trying experience, Mr. Ryan,” Lee said sadly.

  Ryan was looking around the huge conference room while he shook the old man’s hand. “Somewhat, but I’ll live. Senator?”

  “I suspect you will live, son, and, yes, former senator,” Lee said, letting the man’s hand go.

  Ryan watched him turn and head back to the long conference table. Everett made the other introductions while Lee sat.

  “I must admit, I’ve never seen the back room of a pawnshop before, but this is a little much,” Ryan said while still looking around him. Then he smiled as he took in Major Collins.

  “I’m going to be blunt with you, Lieutenant,” Lee began. “Your flying for the navy? Those days are over. We need information from you and we’re also short on personnel. You are now a part of our group, so consider yourself on detached service and your new commander is this man.” Lee gestured toward Collins.

  Jack nodded at Ryan, looking the naval pilot over, and accepted his 201 file from him.

  “Is your incident report in here, Mr. Ryan?” Jack asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ll debrief Lieutenant Ryan,” Lee said. “I want you and Mr. Everett to see what you can do to give Niles a hand in the Computer Center. We just received word the NSA’s pulling their photo-recon satellite, so that’s going to leave Boris and Natasha and the National Weather Service as our only eyes out there. That’s only two KH-1 Is to play with and five remote drones, and we need that ship found quickly,” Lee said, almost pleading. “Jack, find out who’s been piggybacking us since ’47; you’ll have full access to the Europa XP-7, and the best backdoor technician we have. Find out all you can, discover who’s been on our back for sixty years, and then get the Cray back to Niles. God knows he’s going to need it.”

  Jack and Everett nodded, then turned to leave.

  “I’ll have to excuse myself, as well,” Alice said. “We’re having a very small memorial for Gunnery Sergeant Campos. You two have work to do, so you’re excused. I’ll make your apologies.” She too headed for the door.

  Lee called after Collins, “Jack, you have a moment?”

  Jack stopped short and turned to Lee.

  “We have an extensive file on the activities of Mr. Farbeaux. Somewhere there’s a link to whom he is working for. If you can’t find anything, study him; learn his tactics, because I expect him to show his face right when we don’t need him to. That notebook you found tells me he’s interested, either for himself or whomever he’s working for.
As you know, you and Commander Everett will lead the discovery team when the saucer is found. Niles has already ordered all of our security personnel off field duty and we’re bringing them home. If the worst happens, we’ll need everyone, so plan for it. And you had best start considering what we do if”—Lee looked at Ryan, then back at Collins—“if the animal is loose.”

  “Yes, sir,” Collins said.

  Lee turned to the young navy flier. “We have a lot to discuss, and I’m feeling a little tired. May I just say, welcome to the Event Group, Lieutenant?”

  “Will I fly here, Senator?”

  “I think we can accommodate that, yes, Lieutenant.”

  Ryan took the senator’s hand again and gave it a brisk shake. “My days were numbered in Tomcats anyway,” he said, just now realizing his naval aviation days were all but over. “If you’re offering me a job, I’ll take it, sir. Now, what in the hell is the Event Group?”

  PART FOUR

  THE STORM BREAKS

  Run you fathers and pick up your sons, for the night of the Destroyer soon comes.

  — ANCIENT HEBREW TEXT

  SIXTEEN

  Fort Platt, Arizona

  July 8, 1655 Hours

  The Arizona State trooper glanced over at his partner, then slowly removed his sunglasses and scanned the area. The heat of the day was settling down as was the sun in the west, its glare still blinding off the mountains. The trooper’s right hand went to his service automatic as he stepped over the low wall that outlined the foundation of the old cavalry post. The feel of the steel hand-grip comforted him as he viewed the utter chaos in front of him, and that view made him slowly pull the nine millimeter from its holster. There were at least six motorcycles in different positions, some on their sides and others lying broken against the adobe walls. Their owners were nowhere to be seen.

  The state trooper jumped when the crackle of his cruiser’s radio broke the eerie silence that had settled into the old fort. He looked back at the open door of the patrol car, then at his partner, and let out the breath he hadn’t noticed he had been holding. He had been by this location a hundred times before today, and the most he had ever had to do was chase kids away on their dirt bikes or have a maintenance crew come out and remove beer bottles and other garbage.

  Tom Dills, his partner, had taken his hat off and was kneeling by one of the overturned bikes. He shook his head in wonder at the scratches in the fuel tank of the big Harley-Davidson. The gouges were long and ragged and penetrated the double-walled tank.

  “What in the hell happened here, George?” he asked his sergeant.

  Trooper George Milner looked from one of the bikes lying on its side to one that was upright, the kickstand still holding it in place.

  “Damn strange,” he answered.

  They were both startled by a dust devil that sprang up from the middle of the old foundation; Dills quickly pulled his weapon from its holster. Both men watched as it twirled against a low wall and then broke apart, only to reform on the other sight and move off into the desert. Milner tilted his Stetson back on his head and wondered if his partner was going to try to shoot the dust devil. He noticed another strange sight in a mess full of strangeness and stepped closer to a dirt mound that circled a large hole. It looked as if it had recently been dug. The earth looked freshly turned over, and as he kicked at it, he found only the top few inches had been dried by the desert sun.

  “Think they had trouble with another group of bikers?” Dills asked, standing and holstering his automatic.

  “No other tracks but theirs leading in, Tom.” Milner continued to look down. “Come and look here.”

  Dills walked over and looked down at the hole. Something wet had dried on the dirt mound and had hardened.

  “What is that, oil?” he asked, looking around nervously.

  “Or blood.” Milner holstered his weapon and leaned down on one knee. He reached out and felt the clump of drying sand. He rubbed his fingers together and they produced a bright red smear. “Damn.” He stood, absentmindedly rubbing his fingers together harder to rid himself of the blood. “Look around, it’s all over the place.” He pointed to other areas where blood had been spilled and then left to dry in the sun. “We better call this in.” He started to move toward the cruiser.

  “There goes the damn weekend,” Dills said with all the bravado he could muster, but he wanted more men out here also.

  Dills looked at a license plate on the rear fender of one of the bikes. “Goddamn people are from California, Sarge, they may have been just stupid enough to walk off into the desert.” He grinned, but sobered when he saw his sergeant wasn’t in the mood for California jokes, which was just as well because Dills had only said it to keep up the brave front that he surely wasn’t feeling at the moment.

  “Notice something else?” Milner asked, coming to a stop just inside the weatherworn adobe walls.

  “What?” Dills looked around nervously.

  “I haven’t seen or heard any animal life out here at all, not even the damn crickets.”

  The younger trooper spit his toothpick out onto the sand. “Okay, you’ve succeeded in giving me the creeps here, Sarge. I could have gone all damn day without you pointing out that little matter.”

  Both state troopers watched the desert for any kind of movement. Not hearing or seeing any intensified their already hardworking imaginations. They had both heard the stories about this place from that old geezer Gus Tilly down at the Broken Cactus and had laughed with the rest of the bar’s regulars when he’d talked about the ghosts that haunted the old fort, laughed to his face even to the point of being hit with a wet dish towel by Julie, the owner. But looking around at the remains of the old adobe fort at this moment in broad daylight, you were able to believe just about anything, including ghosts.

  “Well, we better call this thing… whatever it is, in.”

  Milner stepped over the low wall and was ten feet from the cruiser when the dirt and sand erupted in front of him and then sped off in the direction of Dills. He turned quickly and followed the spewing earth until it disappeared beneath the adobe wall, actually exploding a six-foot section of mud brick into the air.

  “Watch it, Tom!” he shouted in fear, his right hand reaching for his gun and pulling it free.

  Dills had his back turned to the patrol car when the ground and old wall behind him flew skyward. He turned quickly, and both troopers watched in stunned silence as dirt, sand, and rock were thrown high into the air, obscuring their view of each other. Milner heard his partner yell something he couldn’t understand, and when the sand and dust settled, Trooper Tom Dills had vanished. Only his hat was rolling away from where he had been standing.

  Milner still had his automatic aimed in the direction he had last seen his partner and quickly started to run to where Tom had been just a moment before. He had gone three or four feet when he realized that he needed to call this in fast because no one knew they were out here. He turned and ran for the car, trying to find purchase in the thick sand as his cowboy boots fought for traction.

  The earth exploded into the air again right where Tom had vanished. This time whatever it was moved faster than it had before. The wave crashed into the low wall of broken foundation, again spewing the old mud brick in all directions. Milner screamed and tried to move faster, running for his life while dodging the airborne adobe. He glanced back, then took quick aim and desperately fired two shots over his shoulder into the dirt wave as it drew nearer. He saw the bullets strike, but the wave actually accelerated. He turned just in time to avoid crashing into the hood of the cruiser. The driver’s side door was open and he half closed it to get around. He threw his large frame into the front seat and reached for the radio, almost shooting himself in the head with his own weapon in his rush. Loud crashing noises came from above as adobe landed on the hood and roof of the cruiser.

  “This is Unit Thirty, Unit Thirty, goddammit!” he screamed into the microphone, but there was nothing but static in re
turn. He was about to repeat his frantic call for help when more sand and dirt were thrown onto the hood and windshield of the cruiser.

  Outside the car, dirt was being thrown up around the vehicle in an ever-accelerating circle. First it was three feet in diameter from the car, then five, then six. The area around the large cruiser was obscured by swirling dust as Milner tried in vain to see what was happening. The car shook from side to side, lifting and then dropping back on its springs. The microphone fell from his hand as he tried to steady himself, grabbing at the seat belt and dashboard simultaneously. He heard a sudden wrenching noise as the cruiser dropped down into the ground. As he looked out the side window, he saw through the swirls of dirt and flying rocks that the patrol car had sunk about four feet into the earth. He screamed again and fumbled for the car radio, finally grabbing the microphone, trying desperately to hit the transmit button. Suddenly he and the cruiser were tossed to the right violently. The driver’s-side door slammed shut hard enough to send a crack cascading through the glass. The closed door cut off most of the noise from outside. As the dust settled in the car, he felt the cruiser sink even farther into the ground. Soon the dirt and rocks covered the windows and he knew he had been buried alive. Again he tried to transmit, but again the microphone was knocked from his trembling fingers. In his haste to grab the elusive mike, he hit the overhead red-and-blues and they came on.

  Darkness filled the interior of the patrol car as a final crashing movement bounced him deeper into his seat, then suddenly shot him straight up, smashing his head against the roof of the car. Blood flowed from the crown of his scalp and lower lip as the vehicle finally settled. He fumbled for the dome light, and finally his shaking fingers found the switch. He pulled and turned on the headlights, then twisted the knob to the right and the interior was filled with light. He raised a hand to his head and it came away red with blood. Then he looked around himself and took stock of his injuries. That’s when he noticed he could see something outside the car. The headlights were cutting through the darkness and bouncing back at him through the swirling dust. The strobe effect of the overheads flashing against rock and dirt made the whole seem as if it were some strange light show. The swirling dust still obscured the light from the holes opening far above him.