Bob puffed his cheeks out and blew a gust of air. ‘I think one of us should go back,’ he said. ‘Hold the fort, so to speak. The teletype machines are bound to be going mad at the ATIC, so one of us should be back there to help Captain Ruppelt. If you want to stay here, okay, and I’ll go back and clear it with Ruppelt.’
‘Great,’ Dwight said. ‘You smooth matters out with Ruppelt and I’ll call Beth this evening and explain things.’
‘One call I wouldn’t want to make, partner. Rather you than me.’
‘I’ll be fine,’ Dwight said.
He and Bob returned to the ATIC office, picked up their briefcases, switched off the light, locked the door and then left the Pentagon. They took a taxi to the Washington National Terminal Airport Building. There Bob was dropped off and Dwight, still boiling mad, took a bus all the way to Andrews AFB, twenty miles east, in Maryland.
On the evening of July 26, Dwight was having coffee alone in the almost deserted officer’s mess of Andrews AFB, thinking gloomily that he had been here for exactly one week to the day, sharing a room with three other officers, phoning Bob Jackson or Captain Ruppelt every afternoon and Beth every evening, when he was inclined to feel most miserable, and had received nothing valuable regarding the UFOs in return for his suffering.
In fact, he was gloomily pondering the ironic fact that he was second-in-command of Project Blue Book and yet had never personally seen a UFO. Every evening since Bob’s departure, Dwight had been out prowling around the airstrip of Andrews AFB, scanning the night sky for UFOs, but so far he hadn’t seen a damned thing. Nor had the radar operators or pilots - a fact that only increased Dwight’s feelings of frustration and inadequacy.
Oddly enough, there had been a flurry of UFO sightings the previous day and evening, though none of them over Washington DC First, amber-red lights had been observed over the Guided Missile Long-Range Proving Ground at Patrick AFB, Florida. Next, a UFO described as ‘a large, round, silver object that spun on its vertical axis’ had been seen to cross 100 degrees of afternoon sky in forty-eight seconds. Then, in the late afternoon, interceptor jets had chased UFOs over Los Alamos and Holyoke, Massachussetts, losing them as they turned into the sun. Finally, that night, F-94s had tried in vain to intercept unidentified lights reported by the Ground Observer Corps in Massachussetts and New Jersey.
But nothing over Washington DC...
And not a thing over Andrews AFB, where Dwight, after a week on his own, was starting to feel that the whole business was some kind of bad dream that had almost broken up his marriage and might soon break him.
He was gloomily pondering this, at 10.30pm, when he heard his name being called out over the tannoy system, asking him to report urgently to the control tower. Dwight jumped up and ran.
The Andrews AFB control tower was in pandemonium, with most of the traffic controllers, eerily shadowed in the night lighting, grouped around the 24-inch radarscopes and staring at rapidly multiplying targets.
‘Same as last time,’ the captain in charge said, jabbing his fingers at the screens, ‘but this time they’re not just over Washington DC. Those UFOs are spread out in a huge arc from Herndon, Virginia, to here. They’re right above Washington National Airport - and also right above us. In other words, they have Washington boxed in.’
‘Jesus Christ!’ an Air force sergeant whispered.
With everyone else, Dwight glanced automatically at the sky above the darkened, lamplit airfield, but saw only the moon and stars. According to the radar, some of those UFOs were overhead, but they couldn’t be seen by the naked eye. To confirm that they actually existed, you had to look at the radarscopes... and there they were: all those white lights constantly on the move, forming a great arc around Virginia and Maryland, but closing in on Washington DC.
‘God damn it!’ someone else exclaimed softly, glancing up at the sky. ‘Where the hell are they?’
A group of F-94s were already racing along the airstrip and taking off into the sky, in pursuit of the targets on the radar screens. Even as they disappeared in the direction of Washington DC, the telephone rang. The chief traffic controller answered it, nodded his head, then lowered the phone and said, ‘The targets have just left the radarscopes at Washington National Airport, but already people around Langley AFB, near Newport News, as well as the radar operators in Langley Tower, are reporting weird lights that appear to be rotating and giving off alternating colours.’
‘Jesus Christ!’ the sergeant whispered again.
Increasingly excited, but also frustrated because he could actually see nothing other than the targets on the radarscopes, Dwight remained in the control tower as the drama unfolded.
By 11.30pm four or five of the targets were being tracked continually over the Capitol. F-94 interceptor jets tried and failed to catch them. Shortly after the UFOs left the sky over the Capitol building, more reports came in from Langley Tower, where the operators again described them as unidentified lights that were rotating and giving off alternating colours. Another F-94 was dispatched from Langley AFB and visually vectored to the lights by the tower operators. The pilot reported that as he approached one of the lights, it went out ‘like somebody turning off a light bulb’. No sooner had this happened, than the targets came back on the radarscopes at Washington National Airport. Again, F-94s were dispatched to locate them... but each time they were vectored into the lights, the UFO disappeared abruptly from the radarscopes and the pilots simultaneously reported that they had visually observed the lights blinking out.
Eventually too frustrated to take it any longer, Dwight tried dialling the Pentagon. Unable to get through because the lines were tied up - or so the frantic switchboard operator informed him - he phoned an old reporter buddy, Rex Ginna, Life’s UFO expert, operating out of the magazine’s Washington News Bureau.
‘I can’t get through to the Pentagon,’ Dwight said. ‘What can you actually see there, Rex?’
‘Fantastic!’ Rex exclaimed. ‘A real light show here! They could be lights - or silvery discs – it’s hard to say what - but they’re racing to and fro across the sky right above us. They’re also above the Capitol and the White House.’
‘Oh, my God,’ Dwight groaned, ‘and I’m trapped here. What are they doing?’
‘They look like bright stars from here. Small lights... or high up. They’re like light bulbs, but sometimes they spin so fast, they become a silvery blur. They’re flying in all directions. Sometimes they stop and hover. They rise and descend vertically, shoot sideways, perform all kinds of tricks. Sometimes they’re so low, they actually circle the Capitol and the White House, then they shoot up again at incredible speed and then just blink out like light bulbs. Damned amazing, I’m telling you.’
That phrase again, Dwight thought. They blink out like light bulbs.
‘Anyway,’ Ginna said, ‘they must be taking it pretty serious. All the reporters were ordered out of the radar rooms of Virginia as soon as the interceptor jets went after the UFOs. They told us it was because the procedures used in an intercept were classified, but we know that’s bullshit. Most ham operators can build the equipment needed to listen in on an intercept. No, the real reason they threw us out is that some top brass are convinced that this is the night some pilot’s gonna get a good, close look at a UFO - and they don’t want the press to spread the word. So here I am in the news bureau instead, watching the whole show. Too bad you can’t see it.’
‘Go to hell, Rex!’ Dwight hung up on Ginna's chuckling, then tried the Pentagon again. Getting through this time, he asked for Dewey Fournet and was surprised to get him. Fournet sounded harassed.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Right. No point in denying it. Those things are visible overhead and solid, metallic objects are causing the blips on the radarscopes. They can’t possibly be caused by anything else; and whatever they are, they can literally hover in the air, then accelerate to fantastic speeds.’
’And they definitely can’t be caused by temperature inversions?
’
‘No way. We’ve just checked out the strength of the inversions through the Air Defence Command Weather Forecast Centre - and there’s no temperature inversion strong enough to show up on the radar. Finally, no weather target makes a 180-degree turn and flies away every time an airplane reaches it. Like I say, those things are solid and metallic. They’re also controlled.’
‘Any indication of size?’
‘We don’t think they’re that big. In fact, we think they’re pretty small. Not big enough to be manned. Some of the ones our pilots are seeing seem much bigger, though we can’t be too sure yet. It’s the small ones that are coming down real low and winging around the Capitol and... Well, I might as well tell you... President Truman almost went apeshit when he saw them skimming right around the White House. This whole place is bananas.’
When Dwight put the phone down, he looked up at the sky and was again frustrated to see only stars. Looking at the radarscope, he saw that the screen was literally filled with the white dots, clearly showing that the UFOs were still high in the sky over Andrews AFB.
‘Damn it,’ Dwight whispered, ‘where are they?’
Even as he spoke, the lights on the radarscope raced in towards one another, to form a single, bigger light that flared up and then went right off the screen.
‘What the hell...?’ the chief traffic controller said, as his men all bunched up closer around the radarscope, wondering where all the targets had gone so suddenly.
At that moment, the floor of the radar tower shook briefly.
Everyone looked outside, as if searching for an earthquake, but they saw nothing but the darkened, lamplit airstrip.
The floor shook a second time, settled down again, and then an eerie yellow light filled the control tower, beaming in from outside, and gradually changed to an amberorange light that appeared to be beaming down from above. As everyone looked up, straining to see out through the windows, the floor shook a third time, a bass humming sound filled the silence, and the amber-orange light, now clearly beaming down from above, turned into a huge, fiery, orange-coloured sphere that was descending slowly, inexorably, upon the control tower, as if about to land on it and crush it.
With everyone else in the control tower, Dwight looked up at that dazzling apparition, paralysed by amazement and disbelief, his heart pounding dangerously.
Then everything went dark.
Chapter Fifteen The so-called UFO ‘invasion’ of Washington DC led to a secret midnight meeting in the Oval Room of the White House between Wilson and President Truman, General Samford, Head of Air Intelligence, General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, USAF Chief of Staff, and CIA agent, Sam Fuller, through whom the first approach to Samford had been made. Wilson, wearing civilian clothes and already almost fully recovered after his recent operations, was accompanied by the icy Artur Nebe. Truman was seated behind the ornate oak desk, framed by the Presidential flag and the flag of the United States, with Samford and Vandenberg, both in full uniform, at one side of him and Fuller, wearing a light grey suit, shirt and tie, at the other. All three men were standing just in front of the high French windows overlooking the West Wing’s Rose Garden.
Taking a chair at the other side of the desk, with Nebe just behind him, Wilson studied Sam Fuller’s cynical, sharp-eyed gaze and the wary faces of the two generals, then he offered President Truman an engaging smile.
‘So, Mr President,’ he said, ‘how did you like our two UFO displays over Washington DC?’
‘Very impressive,’ President Truman replied, not returning the smile.
‘I’m glad you think so, Mr President.’
‘I’m sure you are,’ Truman said with soft sarcasm.
‘I assume you know that not all of the saucers were mine.’
‘Weren’t they?’
‘No. During the second invasion some of your own saucers, the ones constructed in
Malton, Ontario, attempted to intercept, but failed dismally and were pursued back to Canada.’
‘We just thought we’d try it on,’ Fuller said sardonically.
‘Don’t do it again,’ Wilson told him, then turned his attention to generals Samford
and Vandenberg. ‘Can I take it that you gentleman are now convinced of the superiority
of our technology?’
Both men just stared at him, too speechless with rage to speak.
‘I take your silence as reluctant agreement. Can I therefore also assume that you will
now make no further attempts to thwart us, either in the skies or in Antarctica?’ ‘Damn it – ’ Samford began.
‘You can take it that for the time being, at least,’ Vandenberg said, sounding choked,
‘we accept that such moves would be pointless.’
Wilson nodded, acknowledging the oblique, temporary surrender, then he returned his
attention to President Truman. The President did not avoid his gaze, but took his time
before speaking.
‘Just tell us what you want,’ he said.
‘Antarctica is now the most valuable piece of real estate in the world.’ ‘I’m well aware of that fact, Mr Wilson, and also of the fact that you control it simply
by being there.’
‘Antarctica is also the greatest natural laboratory on Earth and the West now needs to
exploit it.’
‘Correct,’ the President said.
‘You also desperately need its water and mineral wealth, which is why you need me.’ ‘I am all ears,’ the President said when Wilson paused to let the import of his words
sink in.
‘If you wish to populate Antarctica with your scientists and research facilities without
being harassed by my saucers,’ Wilson calmly informed him, ‘you’ll have to agree to the
trade previously discussed that night in Virginia. In return, I’ll let those already in
Antarctica remain unmolested to engage in reasonable scientific research.’ ‘What’s your idea of reasonable?’
‘I’ll obviously monitor their activities and put a stop to anything that presents a threat
to my colony.’
‘You have no right – ’ Samford began, but was waved into silence by the President.
‘In return for the supplies I need,’ Wilson continued, intrigued to see how quickly even
men of great power and authority could be reduced to petty human behaviourial
patterns, ‘I will pass on valuable secrets of my technology, on a pro rata basis, though
only after my own technology has superseded what I choose to give you at any given
moment in time. In this way, my technology will turn the US into the most advanced
nation on earth, scientifically and militarily, while simultaneously ensuring that it will
never become advanced enough to threaten our own existence in Antarctica.’ The President stared steadily at Wilson for a moment, then swivelled around in his
chair to judge the reaction of his two generals. Samford looked enraged and helpless at
once; whereas Vandenberg, though normally a man of immense authority, was revealing
the first signs of shock and disbelief.
‘What if we say no?’ Fuller asked, his gaze direct and unafraid, his lips curved in a
slight, sardonic grin.
This man is like Nebe, Wilson thought. He thrives on intrigue. Though the one in this
room with the least authority, he’s the one I must watch the most.
‘Then I’ll trade with the Soviets,’ Wilson said, ‘and maybe even the Chinese. The
choice is entirely yours.’
Vandenberg opened and closed his fists, Samford turned a deep red, and the
President swivelled back in his chair to face Wilson again.
‘You’re an American,’ he said quietly.
‘A goddamned traitor!’ Samford exploded.
‘Right!’ Vandenberg added, almost choking with anger.
‘G
entlemen, gentlemen!’ the President admonished them, waving them into silence. Observing the two outraged, high-ranking military officers, Wilson recalled how, all
those years ago, the great, innovatory work of himself and Robert H. Goddard had been
ignored consistently by the US government and military establishment. He also
remembered how their negative reactions to his genius had forced him to destroy his great work, drop out of sight, and spend three decades of his life in lonely anonymity, until he saw his opportunity in Nazi Germany, where his work and that of Goddard was greatly respected, even if for the wrong reasons. Now this United States president and his generals and intelligence officers - the same breed of man who had previously tried to stop his work and failed to support Goddard - were accusing him of being a traitor to
his country, even as they hypocritically bartered to obtain his technology. ‘I’m a scientist,’ he told them. ‘Nothing more and nothing less. I’m not moved by
your patriotism, which is merely self-interest, and I won’t be a traitor to myself just
because you accuse me of being a traitor to my country. You have more blood on your
hands than I do - and for less admirable reasons. Now do you agree or not?’ ‘No!’ Samford exploded.
‘We’ve no choice,’ Vandenberg argued. ‘We can’t let the Russians or Chinese get
their hands on this traitor’s technology. I’m afraid we have to deal with him.’ There was silence for a moment while the President considered his options. Having
previously met Samford and Fuller, Wilson took this opportunity to study General Hoyt
S. Vandenberg. The general had been head of the Central Intelligence Group (later the
CIA) from June 1946 to May 1947 and his uncle had been chairman of the Foreign
Relations Committee, then the most powerful committee in the Senate. Clearly,
Vandenberg still had great influence in those areas, as well as all the authority inherent
PHOENIX: (Projekt Saucer series) Page 17