Dwight sighed, thinking of the recent spate of saucer sightings that had overturned his life in the past month: first the Harold Dahl and Kenneth Arnold sightings in Washington State, then the spate of sightings over various top-secret military establishments right here in New Mexico. Recalling those sightings, he realised that he was getting into something truly unknown, perhaps even dangerous.
He was also working too much for his own good, which was upsetting Beth. Imagining her back in their small house in Wright-Patterson AFB, Dayton, Ohio, breast-feeding baby Nichola, he swelled up with love and concern for her. Then, to distract himself from his feeling of loss, he went back to reading First Lieutenant Harris’s report.
Harris had included a brief resumé of Bradley’s career, so Dwight knew he was about to meet an impressive man. Bradley had been a biplane pilot during World War I, spent a good many years as a successful Wall Street lawyer, became a member of OSS during World War II, and was known to have been involved in a major intelligence operation in occupied Europe. The exact nature of that operation was still top secret, though it certainly concerned German secret weapons. Badly wounded in an explosion at Kiel harbour during the last days of the war, Bradley had recovered, been discharged from OSS, married a former Roswell Daily Record reporter, Gladys Kinder, and moved back to Roswell with her. Now, when not making a living by the drafting of contracts between the many US Air Force and civilian aeronautical establishments in the area, he was conducting his own investigations into UFO sightings.
Bradley's interest in UFOs, Dwight was convinced, related directly to what he had discovered during his intelligence gathering in Germany during the war. Why he had rejected First Lieutenant Harris’s invitation to check out the Socorro UFO crash site was therefore a matter for some concern.
‘Apart from the formal resumé contained in your report,’ Dwight said as the jeep crossed the sun-scorched flatlands between Roswell and Eden Valley, ‘what do you know about Mike Bradley?’
‘He’s been to the base a few times to discuss UFO sightings with me. He’s intelligent, good humoured and, given his background, unpretentious. A lot of experience in his face, a kind of air of quiet authority, but also something guarded, even secretive. He never talks about the war. Says his work is still classified. I wouldn’t call him the obsessive type, but he’s certainly obsessed with UFOs. That’s what keeps us in touch.’
‘And his wife?’
‘A terrific lady. Bit of a local character. Used to be a reporter on the Roswell Daily Record and was known to be as tough as any man. Still is, in fact. Likes to wear Stetsons and high-heeled boots. Pretty sharp with her tongue, too.’
‘How did she meet Bradley?’
‘He was out here in 1931, trying to run down a physicist – called Wilson, as I recall – who’d worked for Robert H. Goddard on his rocket experiments in Eden Valley. Reportedly, Gladys was briefly involved with Wilson and Bradley went to see her about him. I don’t know if anything occurred between them here in Roswell, but certainly they met up in London, England, during the war, after Bradley’s wife had been killed at Pearl Harbour. Bradley and Gladys seem unusually close and are popular locally.’
‘When did Bradley’s obsession with UFOs begin?’
‘For him it’s more specific than unidentified flying objects – it’s flying saucers. He’s been interested in them as long as I’ve known him. We first met a few weeks after he arrived here with Gladys, which was about four months after the war, about November or December, 1945. I met him at a welcome home party given for Gladys by her old buddies on the Roswell Daily Record. As soon as Bradley learnt I was the Flight Intelligence Officer at Roswell, he pinned me to the wall to enquire if I ever received reports of saucer or disc-shaped aircraft. This, mind you, was about twenty months before the first sightings by Harold Dahl and Kenneth Arnold. Of course I’d never had reports of any such thing - at least not until last month - and when I asked him why he wanted to know about them, he just murmured vaguely about his interest in unusual airplane configurations. After that, he regularly asked me if I’d received any unusual reports, but until last month, I’d nothing to give him.’
‘Then, remarkably, when you had that report on a crashed saucer, he failed to show.’
‘Right,’ Harris said. ‘Damned amazing - and he won’t tell me why.’
‘Maybe this time we’ll be lucky,’ Dwight said as the ranch-style house on the edge of Eden Valley came into view.
‘Yeah,’ Harris said. ‘Maybe.’
The driver braked to a halt by the gate of the front yard, causing a cloud of dust to boil up around the jeep. Dwight slipped out his side of the vehicle, waving the dust from his face, then was dazzled by sunlight as he walked up the yard path, beside First Lieutenant Harris. When Harris rang the bell, a woman came to the door. She was tall and lean, wearing a long belted dress with high-heeled boots, and had a head of short-cropped, greying brown hair, which made her seem slightly mannish. Her grey eyes were disconcertingly steady over a full-lipped, sardonic smile.
‘Bill Harris!’ she exclaimed as her gaze flicked inquiringly to Dwight. ‘What brings you here?’
‘We’ve come to see Mike.’
‘Who’s your friend?’
‘This is Captain Dwight Randall, of the Air Technical Intelligence Centre, based at Wright-Patterson AFB, in Dayton, Ohio. He’s here to investigate the Socorro sighting.’
‘Mike doesn’t know anything about that.’
‘Dammit, Gladys,’ Harris said, smiling with considerable charm, ‘stop giving us a hard time and at least invite us in for a coffee.’
‘It isn’t coffee you want, Bill.’
‘Okay, it isn’t coffee we want. But can we at least step inside and talk to Mike?’
‘What about? He knows nothing about the Socorro sighting. As you know, he didn’t go to the crash site with you.’
‘Yeah, I know,’ Harris said. ‘And what I now want to know is - why? He’s been hounding me about saucer-shaped aircraft since he came to live here - and then, when one actually crashes, he doesn’t turn up when he’s invited. Why?’
‘Who is it, Gladys?’ The man asking the question appeared in the doorway behind Gladys. In his early fifties, he was short but muscular in an open-necked sky-blue shirt and denims. Though grey-haired, he was handsome, but the skin on the right side of his face was livid from severe burning caused by the explosion at Kiel harbour in 1945. ‘Bill!’ he said, sounding pleasantly surprised. ‘Hi! Come on in.’
Gladys rolled her eyes, but opened the door and stepped aside. ‘This,’ she said, indicating Dwight, ‘is - ’
‘Captain Randall, of the Air Technical Intelligence Centre,’ Dwight said, holding out his hand. ‘Call me Dwight.’
‘Dayton, Ohio?’ Bradley asked, shaking his hand.
‘Correct.’
‘Welcome to Roswell.’ He started leading them into the living room, but when Gladys mentioned that they were here about the Socorro sighting, he stopped in his tracks, blocking their way. ‘The Socorro sighting? Why come to see me? I know nothing about it.’
‘That’s the point,’ Dwight said. ‘First Lieutenant Harris here tells me you’re fascinated by disc-shaped aircraft, or flying saucers, and yet you didn’t turn up at the crash scene when you were invited. Why was that, Mister Bradley?’
‘I just didn’t feel inclined.’
‘You hound First Lieutenant Harris for a year-and-a-half about disc, or saucershaped, aircraft and then, when he tells you one has crashed, you don’t feel inclined? Do you expect us to believe that, Mister Bradley?’
‘Why not? I just lost interest in the subject.’
‘But when I rang you,’ Harris said, ‘you didn’t sound like you’d lost interest. In fact, you sounded real excited and said you were going to meet me at the main gate of the air base to join me on the trip to the crash site. So what stopped you, Mike?’
Bradley glanced at his wife, then turned a closed gaze back to Harris. ‘I’m sorry, Bill, but I ju
st changed my mind. The reasons are personal.’
‘You must have changed your mind shortly after he rang you,’ Dwight said. ‘What kind of personal reason could make you change your mind so quickly?’
Now Bradley wasn’t smiling. ‘That’s my business, Captain.’
‘And you still insist you’re no longer interested in UFOs?’
‘You’re not deaf,’ Gladys said aggressively. ‘You heard what he said.’
‘I heard, Mrs Bradley, but I find it hard to believe.’
‘That’s your problem.’
Dwight turned back to Mike Bradley as Harris became embarrassed. ‘Would you mind at least telling me what stirred your interest in UFOs in the first place?’
‘Like a lot of folks, I was intrigued by the Kenneth Arnold sightings.’
‘Which took place a month ago. First Lieutenant Harris tells me you’ve been interested in disc, or saucer-shaped, aircraft from the moment you first came to Roswell, at the tail end of 1945 - about twenty months before the recent sightings.’
‘Okay, I’ll admit that.’
‘Long before there was any talk of so-called flying saucers.’
‘Right,’ Bradley said, looking uncomfortable.
‘Which means you picked up the interest during, or just after, the war. Is that also correct?’
‘I can’t answer that question.’
‘Because the job you did for OSS was classified?’
‘Correct,’ Bradley said. ‘Now, I think - ’
‘You better leave,’ Gladys said. ‘My husband doesn’t want to discuss this any further.’
Dwight ignored her. ‘What happened on the night of July second, Bradley, after First Lieutenant Harris called you about that crashed saucer. What stopped you from turning up to see what you’d been so desperate to find?’
‘I’ve nothing more to say,’ Bradley responded, his face more flushed than the livid flesh on his right cheek.
‘Whatever it was that stopped you, it also made you give up your UFO investigations. Isn’t that the truth, Mr Bradley?’
‘Goodnight, gentlemen. Goodbye.’ Bradley turned away and disappeared back into the house as Gladys, with a grim, no-nonsense expression, pushed them out through the front door. ‘You heard the man,’ she said harshly. ‘Now get the hell out of here.’
‘Does the name “Wilson” ring a bell, Mrs Bradley?’ Dwight boldly asked her.
She looked startled, then blushed.
‘Back in 1931, when you first met your husband, he was investigating a physicist called Wilson, who’d worked right here, in Eden Valley, with Robert H.Goddard. I believe you knew Wilson, Mrs Bradley.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Gladys said, then slammed the door in their faces.
Dwight stared at the closed door in amazement, then at the uneasy Harris.
‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ Harris said. ‘I knew Bradley wouldn’t be keen to talk, but I’ve never known him or Gladys to be that unfriendly.’
‘They’re both frightened,’ Dwight said. ‘They’re just trying to cover it up. Come on, let’s get out of here.’
They stepped down off the porch, climbed into the jeep, and let the corporal drive them away, back across the parched flatlands on the edge of Eden Valley. Dwight thought of the rockets that Robert H. Goddard had launched from this desolate area, then tried making the connection between Goddard, whom Bradley had visited once or twice with regard to the mysterious Wilson, and Bradley’s later obsession with disc-or-saucer-shaped flying objects. He came to a blank wall.
‘Bradley was obsessed with UFOs,’ Harris said like a man in a trance of bewilderment. ‘I just can’t figure what’s scared him.’
‘You’re scared,’ Dwight informed him. ‘First a flying saucer crashes, then it’s spirited away to Carswell, then the only civilian witness to its existence disappears, and now Bradley and his wife have clammed up and won’t discuss UFOs. So you’re scared... with good reason.’
‘Yes, sir, that’s right, I’m scared. What about you?’
‘Yeah,’ Dwight confessed, glancing up to be dazzled by the brilliant, vast, empty sky. ‘I’m scared too, I guess.’
Chapter Three Wilson, Ernst Stoll, Hans Kammler and Artur Nebe were together in the underground viewing bay as the Kugelblitz II, a twenty-five-foot diameter, piloted flying saucer, descended at hovering speed through the deep well formed by a circle of soaring, icecapped mountain peaks. Its lights were flashing kaleidoscopically around its sharp outer edge, but its bass humming sound, the infrasounds of its power source, which could tighten a human skull at a certain intensity, was blocked off by the thick plateglass window of the viewing bay. Eventually, the saucer started settling gently on the steel-plated landing pad constructed at ground level in the cavernous space hacked out of the snow-covered Antarctic rock.
The base seemed to be underground, but was actually at ground level and hidden from the view of pilots flying overhead by an umbrella of soaring, snow-capped mountain peaks. However, working from this valley floor, beginning during World War II, Wilson's Sklavenarbeiter, or slave labour, under the ruthless supervision of the former SS officers, Stoll, Kammler and Nebe, had worked night and day at hacking their way into the base of the mountain to create aircraft hangars, workshops, laboratories, the first two of what would be many landing pads for the flying saucers, offices, staff accommodations, and underground quarters for the slave labour.
The slaves had originally been shipped out from the occupied territories of Nazi Germany and, more recently, abducted from various countries and flown here in Wilson’s flying saucers. Only two were operating right now, but more were being constructed. Within five years there would be a whole fleet of them, each one better than the last, with no end to their technological evolution in sight. If not feeling pride (a redundant emotion) Wilson certainly felt satisfied as he watched the saucer rocking lightly on its base before finally settling down.
Its bass humming sound receded into silence, then its flashing lights winked off one by one. The arc lights powered by self-charging generators and fixed high up on the walls of solid rock, to illuminate the gloomy, cavernous landing area, gave the saucer’s metallic grey surface a silvery sheen. It looked alien and beautiful.
The other saucer was at rest beside it, but covered in a tarpaulin. Both were surrounded by white-coated technicians and slaves, men and women alike, dressed in identical, dark grey coveralls that just about kept out the biting cold. It was not the Antarctic cold, since that had been reduced by the installation of phase-change solarheat pumps that could store enough energy to also get the colony through the long Antarctic night; but it remained cold enough to be uncomfortable for the unfortunate labour force.
Now, as the Kugelblitz II settled down on the landing pad on its four retractable hydraulic legs, the technicians, armed guards and Sklavenarbeiter moved in to surround it. As the latter placed steel stepladders along the sloping sides of the saucer, to begin checking and polishing its seamless sides, a trap-door opened in the base, sloping downwards, and a slim man dressed in a pinstripe suit lowered himself to the landing pad and looked around in a dazed, disbelieving manner, before the armed guards closed in upon him. A second man emerged from the saucer almost immediately, this one big, bulky and wearing dirty bib-and brace coveralls. He, too, looked around him as if dazed, until he was surrounded by the armed guards and led away with the first man.
‘Good,’ Kammler said. ‘They caught both of them.’ Blond and blue-eyed, he glanced at the dark-eyed Nebe, who merely nodded solemnly and stroked the pistol strapped around his waist. Both men, like Wilson and Ernst Stoll, were wearing heavy roll-neck pullovers under thick coats and trousers. All of their clothing was coloured black.
Wilson nodded and smiled. He was feeling good today. He needed advanced prosthetic replacements for his artificial elbow joints and the man they had captured could do the job - that and many others. Sometimes it all seemed so simple. Faith could move mountains.
The two men surrounded by guards moved out of view far below, approaching the lifts that would carry them up to the upper level of the colony, occupied by Wilson and his most senior staff, including those now grouped around him. He glanced at Ernst Stoll, once an enthusiastic rocket engineer, then an SS policeman, now an embittered, therefore malleable, administrator responsible for the collection and welfare of the slave labour. Stoll was looking down at the parked flying saucer, showing little emotion. He had left his heart and soul in conquered Germany; now he lived for this colony. Wilson was satisfied.
‘Let’s go and greet them,’ he said, turning away from the window and leaving the viewing bay through doors that led into a gloomy corridor hacked out of the inside of the mountain. The corridor led into a larger, brighter room, which also overlooked the landing area for the saucers, but contained comfortable armchairs and settees on an Italian-tiled floor partially covered by large Moroccan carpets. The wall overlooking the landing area was mostly thick plate-glass framed by ugly reinforced concrete. The back wall had been hacked out of the mountain and was simply the original rock covered in concrete and damp-proofing black paint. The two side walls were also of reinforced concrete, but contained steel-plated doors, one of which was for the lift, with a row of indicator lights above it. As Wilson entered the room with his entourage behind him, the lights came on one by one, indicating that the lift was ascending. The light stayed on at the marking for the fifth level.
When the lift doors opened, the two captives emerged, being prodded by the automatic weapons of two guards wearing old SS uniforms. The slim, grey-haired man in the pinstripe suit and tie was, Wilson knew, Dr Paul King, of the Powered Limbs Unit of West Hendon Hospital, London, England. The bigger man in the dirty brace-and-bib coveralls was the farmer, Marlon Clarke, who had witnessed the crashed flying saucer near Magdalena, New Mexico. The sophisticated Dr King, while clearly bewildered and frightened, was in control of himself; the other one,
Clarke, was terrified and practically dribbling.
‘Dr King?’ Wilson said, as if this meeting and the circumstances were routine. ‘Yes,’ King replied, his voice admirably calm, though his eyes betrayed confusion
PHOENIX: (Projekt Saucer series) Page 3