Just like me, Dwight thought bleakly.
Sighing, trying desperately to stay awake, he was just about to fall asleep when he thought he saw something.
Rubbing his eyes, he sat up straight, preparing himself for another trick. What he saw was a streak of light, very low on the horizon... Impossible to tell the altitude from here, but it was definitely moving.
Left to right - no: up and down - a streak of white light, then two lights. Perhaps two lights blending into one and advancing towards him.
He rubbed his eyes and looked again. Maybe just a shooting star. No, it was too low for that, so it had to be something else. Perhaps a temperature inversion. Lights from somewhere far away. The headlamps of a car that was moving uphill, its lights beaming into the sky, hitting a temperature inversion, and being sent on for miles to another temperature inversion that bent it again and relayed it back to Earth to form what Dwight was seeing...
No, not that. Not mock moons or moon dogs either. The light, maybe two lights - sometimes two, sometimes one - was growing longer and thinner, stretching out like chewing gum, as it advanced across the desert floor at very low altitude.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Dwight whispered, wondering if he should waken the others. ‘What the hell..?’
No, not low altitude. Not a single light either. Two separate lights, now bobbing erratically, beaming down on the desert floor.
Damn it, they were close. Too close to be high up. They were only a couple of feet above the ground, maybe not even that. Approaching. Coming towards him. Not accidentally at all. Not bobbing - bouncing - a sort of rattling in there, too... Then settling down and beaming over the track that led right to Dwight.
A car engine and squeaking springs.
‘God damn it!’ Dwight whispered.
His three companions sat up. ‘What the fuck - ?’ a dim voice queried. ‘I’ll kill the bastard in that jeep,’ Corporal Mathers said. ‘Thought we had us a UFO.’
The jeep took shape in the night, even blacker than the darkness, its headlights blinding Dwight as it turned off the road again and headed straight for him and the others. He was shading his dazzled eyes with his hand when the jeep squealed to a halt right in front of him, churning up clouds of sand.
His friend and sidekick, Air Force Captain Bob Jackson, waved at him and jumped down to the sand.
‘Hi,’ he said. ‘How’s it goin’?’
‘You came at four in the morning to ask me that?’
‘Not exactly,’ Bob said. He glanced down at the others, all sitting upright in their sleeping bags. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Go back to sleep. This is not for your ears. Happy bedy-bize, boys.’ When they had moaned and cursed and were settling back again, Bob looked directly at Dwight and said, more seriously, ‘I’m sorry, but this can’t wait.’ He took Dwight by the elbow and walked him away from the others, out of earshot. ‘You look cold,’ he said. Before Dwight could reply, Bob withdrew a hip flask from his flying jacket and unscrewed the cap. ‘Brandy,’ he said. ‘You’re going to need it... And not just for the cold.’
Grateful, Dwight had a good slug of the brandy and felt it burning down inside him. He had another slug, felt it going straight to his head, took note of the wondrous lustre of the stars and handed the flask back.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘What the hell is this?’
‘Your official Estimate of the Situation,’ Dwight replied.
Dwight nodded his understanding. The UFO-related death of Captain Thomas F. Mantell over Godman AFB, Kentucky, in January last year, combined with the extraordinary UFO sighting made by Eastern Airlines Captain Charles S. Chiles and co-pilot John B. Whitted near Montgomery, Alabama, on the evening of July 24, had prompted Dwight, as head of Project Sign, to write an official, top-secret Estimate of the Situation. That Estimate had outlined the whole history of UFO sightings, including the fireballs, Scandinavian ‘ghost rockets’ and American sightings before 1947. It had concluded with Dwight’s earnestly held conviction that the UFOs were of extraterrestrial origin.
‘So why the brandy?’ he asked, gazing with instinctive, growing despair over the star-covered, dark, barren desert.
Bob sucked his breath in, then let it out again. ‘Our venerable Chief of Staff, General Hoyt S.Vandenberg, has rejected the report.’
‘What?’
‘On the grounds that it lacks proof.’
Dwight was stunned. ‘Lacks... proof?’
Bob shrugged and spread his hands in the air as if begging forgiveness. ‘That’s what he said. It’s on an official, top-secret memorandum. That... and something even worse.’
‘What could be worse?’
Bob took another deep breath and let it out slowly. ‘There’s to be a whole new policy at Project Sign. In the future, Sign personnel are to assume that all UFO reports are hoaxes. Not only that, but we’re to check with FBI officers, and with the criminal and subversive files of police departments, looking into the private lives of the witnesses to see if they're - quote, unquote - reliable.’
Dwight was livid with anger. ‘By doing that,’ he said, ‘we’ll be shifting the investigations away from the actual UFOs and on to the poor bastards who report them.’
‘You’ve got it, buddy. That’s absolutely correct. As for your official Estimate of the Situation, it’s going to be incinerated and our project will be renamed Project Grudge.’
‘Is that a sour joke?’
‘No, it’s not - though it may be a sign of General Vandenberg’s displeasure with us.’
‘What he’s saying in effect is that we’re to discourage further UFO reports and keep a low profile.’
‘Right.’
‘We now exist in name only - and that name is Project Grudge.’
‘How bright you are,’ Bob said.
He handed Dwight the hip flask. Dwight took it and walked out into the darkness and sat on the sand. He had a stiff drink, then another, trying to still his racing heart. Then he looked up at the vast, starry sky, which reduced him to nothing. Eventually, Bob came to sit beside him, trying to offer some comfort.
‘What the hell’s going on?’ Dwight asked him, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice.
‘It doesn’t need spelling out,’ Bob said. ‘It’s fair warning to us all that it’s no longer wise to open your mouth too wide about UFOs.’
‘Why?’ Dwight asked, feeling increasingly confused and nervous, looking up at the night sky.
‘You tell me,’ Bob said.
Chapter Nine With some native guides and a modest contingent of General Stroessner’s armed Federales, an unhappy Ernst Stoll had endured a seemingly endless journey from the dusty streets of Asuncion, along the Paraguay river by gunboat, to this jetty looming out over the muddy water. His guide, a young, gap-toothed Paraguayan called Juan Chavez, pointed proudly at the jetty and the cleared compound beneath it, as if that motley collection of thatched shacks and muddy enclosures would actually bring a smile to Ernst’s face. Instead, Ernst removed his hat, wiped the sweat from inside it, spat on the deck near Chavez’s feet, then put the hat back on and wiped his face.
‘Scheisse,’ he exclaimed, ‘what a filthy hole!’
‘Have a beer, senor Stoll. It will help cool you down. Do not let the sun dry you out. You need plenty of liquid.’ Juan Chavez was smiling, a sly, gap-toothed grimace, his dark, youthful eyes bright with mischief and the urge to be sly. Ernst nodded and took the beer, the bottle cold in his sweaty palm. He drank, wiped some beer from his lips and then glanced over his shoulder. A group of captured Ache Indians were at the aft end of the deck, all small, emaciated, their narrow eyes dulled by fear, dressed in rags and huddling close to oneanother as if for protection. Two Federales were guarding them, wearing jackboots, holding rifles, both gaunt-faced and bored, chewing gum, their eyes hooded beneath tatty peaked caps, their uniforms threadworn. Ernst studied them at length, feeling only contempt, recalling his own disciplined, immaculate SS troops during the war. These Federales were not like that
. They were a bunch of murderous morons. Corrupt and led by a corrupt leader, General Stroessner, they were men whose only purpose was survival in the most expedient manner. The scum of the earth.
‘This is your first time in Paraguay, senor?’ Chavez asked, smiling slyly to reveal his missing front teeth.
Ernst stared coldly at him. Chavez was still a teenager, but he looked twice his age. This was due to his missing teeth, the scars on his cheeks, and the cunning in his old man’s brown eyes. He would make a good pimp.
God, Ernst thought, these people!
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I have never been here before. This is the first time.’
‘You will have to get used to it, senor. Strangers often go crazy here.’
Ernst had another drink, cooled his forehead with the bottle, and then surveyed the widening clearing as the boat inched towards it. This was a waterside village, its jetty thrusting out from the tangled shrubs and liana at the edge of the forest, where the banks of red mud angled down to the dark, muddied river. Some men were waiting on the jetty, wearing filthy shirts and pants, nearly all with cigarettes in their mouths, not one of them smiling.
‘Heaven on earth,’ Ernst said sarcastically. ‘I’m sure I’ll be happy here.’
‘You are staying long, senor?’
‘Unfortunately, yes.’
‘A lot of Germans, former soldiers, live in the jungle, so you may find some company.’
‘That’s nice,’ Ernst said, though he wanted no German friends, having been warned by Wilson to avoid them and keep to himself. What would happen here must remain a secret, no matter how much that cost him in emotional terms. His own regular company could only be the scum of this village; his only form of relief the occasional visit from those in Antarctica. He would live here as if in a monastery, though with some compensations.
‘I trust there are some women here,’ he said.
‘Ah, yes,’ Chavez replied, grinning lasciviously. ‘You can take your pick, senor.’
The gunboat growled and shuddered, turning in towards the bank; it inched forward and then bounced against the tyres along the edge of the jetty. Ernst glanced back over his shoulder. One of the Ache women was wailing. A Federale slapped her brutally across the face and screamed a torrent of abuse. The woman’s wailing became a whimper. Ernst yawned and turned away. One of the crew had thrown a rope to a man on the jetty and the latter was tying it around an upright, bending low, shouting inanely. The boat’s engine cut out. A crewmember removed the gate. A plank was thrown across the space between the deck and the jetty, then tied to some uprights to form a crude gangplank. Ernst moved towards the plank, wanting desperately to get off, but Chavez tugged at the sleeve of his shirt and motioned him back.
‘No,’ he said. ‘First the Ache.’
Ernst stopped and stared at him, repulsed by that gap-toothed grin, but he stepped back as Chavez went to the Federales and bawled his instructions. The Federales were quick to move, venting their boredom on the miserable Indians, screaming abuse and kicking them to their feet, herding them towards the gangplank. The Indians were not so quick, weak from hunger, confused, so the Federales encouraged them along with vicious blows from their rifles. The women wailed and held their children, cowering from the swinging rifles, while their menfolk, uncommonly small and frail, tried in vain to protect them.
It was a familiar sight to Ernst. He recalled similar scenes from the war: the night they had left Kummersdorf and herded their slave labour, mostly wailing Jews, onto the trains in Berlin. He smiled at the recollection, feeling a stab of nostalgia, but managed to suppress it as the first of the Indians stumbled across the gangplank with their hands on their heads. Chavez was leading them down, his shirt unbuttoned and flapping loosely, his broad hat tilted over his eyes as he gave his instructions. Ernst felt the sun’s fierce heat as he studied the village, a drab collection of leaning huts made from palmetto trunks and vines, dogs and goats sniffing lethargically at the dust, babies lying on corn shucks. The poverty was total, the old and young emaciated, sunlight falling on scattered gourds, woven baskets and banana leaves, on the giant rat that raced across the clearing and vanished into the forest. Ernst looked along the jetty. The Ache Indians had just left it. They were now at the edge of the clearing with the Federales surrounding them. Chavez was waving his hands, telling Ernst to disembark; so Ernst finished his beer, threw the bottle overboard, watched it glinting as it bobbed along the river and was swept out of sight. Then he went to the gangplank, crossed without enthusiasm, above the muddy, oil-slicked water, and finally stepped onto the soil of what would be his new home.
God, he thought, what a piss-hole!
Chavez, an adolescent martinet, was standing beside an emaciated native in short pants and a torn, filthy shirt. Chavez waved Ernst forward. When he reached the pair, he noted that the man was elderly, had rheumy eyes, and seemed nervous.
‘This is Salano Valentinas,’ Chavez said. ‘The head of the village. Anything you want, you ask him. He is here as your eyes, ears and hands.’
‘Welcome, senor,’ Valentinas said, his voice as rough as sandpaper. ‘I trust you had a good journey.’
‘Never mind my journey,’ Ernst said. ‘Just show me where I’ll be staying.’
‘Yes, senor, of course.’
He turned away to lead Ernst and Chavez across the clearing, past the captured Ache Indians, who were now being herded up into the backs of two trucks, the men being punched and thumped with the butts of rifles, the women and children wailing.
‘What happens to them?’ Ernst asked.
‘They will be sold as workers and whores to those living in compounds in the jungle - mostly Germans, of course. Some of them are being taken to your compound. You can do what you want with them.’
‘Does President Morínigo know about this?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe not. The Federales who collect them are controlled by Morínigo’s hatchet man, General Stroessner. General Stroessner knows everything.’ More than you can imagine, Ernst thought, as they crossed the clearing, surrounded by the huts of palmetto leaves and vine, scattering goats and chickens, passing Indians roasting sweet potatoes, eventually stopping at a small, badly battered, opentopped truck that was parked at the edge of the narrow track snaking into the forest.
‘I’m not staying here?’ Ernst asked.
‘No, senor,’ Chavez replied. ‘Your compound is ten kilometres away, hidden deep in the forest. There, even aircraft cannot see you. You will feel safe there.’
The headman, Valentinas, climbed up onto the open rear of the truck, Chavez took the driver’s seat, and Ernst clambered up beside the latter. Chavez turned on the ignition, accelerated inexpertly, and then the truck lurched off into the forest, where the trees kept the sun out. Imagining that it would be cooler in the interior, Ernst was shocked to find that it wasn’t: that the humidity was much worse, overwhelming him, almost making him gag. Feeling ill, he glanced about him, taking in the riot of vegetation, tangled vines and soaring trees in the chattering green gloom relieved only by shafts of sunlight beaming down on the steaming banana leaves. The narrow track was pitted with holes, coiling snake-like between the trees and disappearing ahead of them. Chavez was beaming with pleasure, clearly enjoying the drive; this made him look more like his proper age, which was, Ernst surmised with disbelief, not much more than eighteen. The truck growled and coughed, bouncing roughly over potholes, racing through shafts of sunlight that beamed down through the trees and illuminated the steaming vegetation. Ernst was suffocating. He was sweating and felt feverish. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw the old man in the back, leaning forward with his chin on his raised knees, his rheumy eyes fixed on nothing.
My new companions, Ernst thought with revulsion. I’ll go mad in this hellhole! The drive seemed to take forever, an endless journey through heat and gloom, but eventually the truck burst into the sunlight of another cleared area. Lines of barbed wire formed a fence around an expansive wooden buildi
ng, its sloping roof supported by tree trunks and covered in woven vines and banana leaves. Chavez drove the truck through the open gates in the fence and braked inside the compound, creating a cloud of dust.
‘Scheisse!’ Ernst barked, coughing to clear his throat of the dust as he climbed down from the truck. ‘Are you trying to choke us, you fool?’
Chavez just laughed, then led Ernst and Valentinas across the clearing towards the big house with the open veranda running all the way around it, under a roof raised above the top rooms, which were open to the elements and obviously used only by the servants. The compound was busy, filled with men, women and children, most gathered around open fires, roasting sweet potatoes. Though watching Ernst’s arrival with nervous curiosity, they made no move towards him.
‘The barbed wire is electrified,’ Chavez informed him. ‘Make sure you don’t touch it. So, senor, here we are!’
They climbed the steps of the veranda to stop under an awning of vine and leaves. A table and chairs had been placed near the entrance to the house. A native woman, too stout to be healthy, as ugly as a bat, stood by the table, wearing a white blouse and long skirt, a towel draped over her right arm. She bowed to Ernst. He simply grunted and glanced about him. On the table were two bottles of brandy, half a dozen empty glasses, and a cup filled with fat, white, wriggling worms.
Seeing what Ernst was looking at, Chavez grinned and picked up a worm. He watched it wriggling between his fingers for a moment, then bit off its head, spat it out and swallowed the rest of it. ‘Koro worms!’ he explained, picking the cup off the table and holding it out to Ernst. ‘Try one, senor!’ When Ernst shuddered with revulsion, Chavez chortled and put the cup back down. ‘You will soon learn to enjoy them,’ he said. ‘You will learn to enjoy many strange things here. Please, senor, take a chair.’
PHOENIX: (Projekt Saucer series) Page 11