‘I’m a policeman,’ Nebe said. ‘That’s what I’m reduced to here. I’m not a man cut out for peaceful work and long-term commitments. I’m being destroyed by boredom. I need something more to do. Let’s go to war against the Americans, I say, and prove the worth of our saucers. We will soon rule the world, then.’
‘You have the instincts of an animal,’ Wilson said, ‘and the mind of a caveman. This subject is closed.’
He saw the flash of anger in Nebe’s dark, primal gaze and knew that he had struck through to a nerve that would make the man murderous. Glancing at Kammler, he saw that he too was angry, though trying to conceal it with a smile that did not reach his eyes. Wilson knew what they were after: the glory of immediate conquest. He also knew that they now wanted to get rid of him, divide the colony between them, and use the flying saucers to resurrect the Third Reich and ensure that it would finally become their beloved Thousand Year Reich.
It was a pitiful dream, one which filled him with contempt, making him realise that these Nazis had served their only useful purpose and that the time had finally come to put an end to them. He would do it this evening.
‘Well, perhaps you’re right,’ he said. ‘The gamble may be too great. Let me sleep on it tonight and make a decision tomorrow.’
‘Excellent,’ Kammler responded, smiling, all charm, while Nebe simply stared in a stony manner, which was normal for him. Wilson raised his glass of wine in the air and smiled falsely at both men.
‘I can tell you both miss the war,’ he said. ‘Peace can often be boring. So - to the war!’ They toasted the war by touching glasses. When they had drunk, Wilson said, ‘Ah, yes, they were indeed good days.’
As sunlight stroked the frozen peaks in the bright night of Antarctica, Kammler and Nebe nostalgically recalled the days of World War II while Wilson listened, pretending to be interested, but practically twitching with impatience. When, a few hours later, after brandy and cigars, they returned to the subject of how best to deal with the outside world, Wilson pretended to agree with them and promised to let them devise a strategy for war, starting with an immediate attack on the United States, initially targeting Washington DC.
Satisfied, Kammler and Nebe retired to bed.
Understanding that no matter what he agreed to, they would eventually turn against him, Wilson had no intention of doing what they wanted. Therefore, instead of considering their request, he sat at his desk and turned on the TV screens that showed them in their separate rooms, Kammler already sleeping, Nebe naked and straddling one of the comfort girls, his bloated body heaving up and down in a joining devoid of love.
Shaking his head in disgust at what they had forced him to do, Wilson pressed a button located under his desk, releasing jets of lethal gas into their rooms - killing them exactly as they had killed so many others in the gas chambers of the Nazi concentration camps.
Kammler didn’t waken up. He died in his sleep. Nebe rolled off the girl, covering his mouth with his hands, tried to open the front door and failed, then attempted to climb through the window as the girl, also realising what was happening, started pounding on the door with her fists, obviously screaming for help. Nebe fell back from the window, rolled on the floor, clambered back up. He grabbed the girl by the hair, jerked her away from the door, then frantically tried to pull the door open until the gas overcame him. The girl went into convulsions first, writhing naked on the bed, vomiting. Nebe slid down the door, turned away, fell forward, started crawling towards the window on his hands and knees, then collapsed face down on the floor. He went into convulsions as the girl became still, then he too vomited profusely and shuddered his way into the final stillness of death. The dense gas had become a cloud of smoke that obscured his body and made it look like a bloated, hairy animal lying on its side. That carcass did not move.
Wilson picked up his phone and called the Rubbish Disposal Unit. He ordered them to remove the bodies from rooms 2 and 3 and incinerate them and all their belongings. Then, immensely relieved and satisfied, he had a good sleep.
Chapter Nineteen Dwight awakened from a restless, dream-haunted sleep in which he had been pursued by a flying saucer while driving from Wright-Patterson AFB to the town of Dayton. The saucer was immense, with a fiery orange-coloured base, and it came down on Dwight’s car, blotting out the whole sky, to make the vehicle’s engine malfunction and then swallow it whole. Dwight looked up in terror, his heart ready to burst, as the fiery orange-coloured base, now a bizarre, swirling furnace, spread out all around him and suddenly blinded him.
His scream of fear tore him loose, casting him back to the real world, and he jerked upright on the bed, opening his eyes to the morning sunlight, realising that he was covered in sweat and that Beth and Nichola were in the kitchen, having breakfast already. Breathing deeply, trying to still his racing heart, he slid off the bed, wriggled out of his soaked pyjamas, and gratefully went for a cold shower.
Feeling better after the shower, he put his uniform on and went into the kitchen. Beth and Nichola were facing each other across the dining table, having a breakfast of cornflakes, toast, orange juice and, in Beth’s case, black coffee. Nichola was now six years old and as pretty as a picture. Beth, though no longer the young, longhaired beauty he had married, was still, with her short-cropped auburn hair, full lips and slim figure, an exceptionally attractive 27-year old woman. She was also a woman who spoke her mind, as Dwight knew only too well and was reminded of once more when he joined her and Nichola at the table.
‘Groaning and tossing in your sleep again,’ Beth said for openers. ‘More nightmares, Dwight.’
Dwight sighed. ‘Yeah, right.’ He helped himself to some cornflakes. ‘Sorry if I kept you awake. I wouldn’t want to disturb you.’
‘No need for sarcasm, Dwight. I was only making an observation. Those nightmares are becoming more frequent and that can’t be a good sign.’
‘I hate nightmares,’ Nichola informed them, ‘but dreams are okay. Why can’t we have ice cream for breakfast? I’m fed up with cornflakes.’
‘I’m okay,’ Dwight said, spooning his cornflakes up too quickly. ‘Everyone has nightmares from time to time. There could be lots of reasons.’
‘Like what?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What else could be causing the nightmares? Is it me? Something I don’t know about? Another woman, perhaps?’
Shocked, Dwight glanced at Nichola, but clearly she wasn’t listening. She was running her finger around the inside of her upper lip while lethargically stirring the cornflakes into various shapes. ‘A duck,’ she said, addressing herself. ‘A dog. A.... Mmmmmm.’ Dwight turned back to Beth.
‘Are you serious? Is that what you think?’
She gazed steadily at him, measuring him, then lowered her eyes. ‘Well, you haven’t exactly been attentive lately. Not yourself at all, Dwight.’
‘I’m under a lot of pressure. You know that as well as I do. I wouldn't even have time for another woman, so it isn’t an issue.’
Beth reached across the table to squeeze his hand. ‘Get out from under that pressure, Dwight. Neither of us needs it. I know you tried before, but try again to get out of this work. If you can’t, leave the Air Force.’
Flushed with guilt and wanting to hide it, Dwight glanced out the window. He was guilty because he understood why Beth would be worried, but when he looked outside, at the planes parked on the airstrip in the inky shadow of the great hangars, wing-flaps and hangar doors shuddering in the August wind, he knew that he couldn’t live without the Air Force and become a civilian. Also (and the thought of this made him feel even worse), though Project Blue Book was certainly putting pressure on and giving him nightmares, it was also exerting a dreadful fascination that he couldn’t resist. It wasn’t ordinary work, after all.
‘I can’t eat what’s left,’ Nichola said. ‘They’re too mushy and messy.’
‘That’s ‘cause you made them that way stirring them,’ Beth retorted.
Dwight placed his free hand on Beth’s wrist. ‘I can’t leave the Air Force. What would I do out there? I’m in it for life. Besides, it isn’t as bad as you think. Half the things you hear about UFOs are nonsense. Hysteria and wishful thinking have a lot to do with it. You know? The planet Venus, comets, meteors, clouds, plasmoids, corona discharges, parhelia and paraselenae, the sun and moon and stars, even lightning and birds, can all look like bright, solid objects moving at high speed. So people see those, misinterpret what they see, then hysteria or wishful thinking comes into play. As for the UFOs being flown by extraterrestrial beings... well, maybe they’re not. Maybe they’re just some kind of extraterrestrial phenomena - a kind of mirage. We’re frightened of what we can’t understand, so we tend to exaggerate.’
‘That doesn’t stop your nightmares, Dwight. Also, you’re losing weight. We hardly ever see you anymore, and when you’re here, you’re not here – you’re at the ATIC in your thoughts, still beavering away there.’
‘The nightmares will go away with time. I’m pretty damned sure of that.’
‘Look, Dwight, I don’t know if we’re being invaded by flying saucers or not. I only know that my husband is having bad nightmares, is losing weight, and is often too exhausted and distracted to even make love to me. I’m worried about that and also about your future. You say you’re an Air Force lifer - well, I agree with that - but that being so, what’s going to happen to you if they consistently deny you promotion, as they seem to be doing,? We both know why that is, Dwight. It’s nothing to do with your competence. It’s because most of those who get involved with UFOs are given a hard time. You should have been in charge of Project Blue Book, but Ruppelt got it instead. Now there are rumours that Ruppelt’s in trouble and may get pushed out. That’s the way it runs, Dwight.’
‘They’re just rumours,’ Dwight said, though he thought they might be true. ‘Some folks talk too much. We all know that today the official recommendations of the Robertson panel will be released, and that knowledge has encouraged a lot of wild speculation, mostly to do with the fate of Project Blue Book in general and Captain Ruppelt in particular. They’re just rumours, Beth.’
‘It isn’t a rumour that you’ve been repeatedly denied promotion from as far back as Project Sign. Before that you were everybody’s darling; since then they’ve made all kinds of excuses to put other, less experienced officers in front of you. Those aren’t rumours, Dwight. And it isn’t just a rumour that a lot of people involved in UFO investigations have had even worse things to contend with, such as being posted to Alaska or even having bad, inexplicable, sometimes fatal accidents, like that World War Two hero and UFO expert, Mike Bradley, and his unfortunate wife.’
Dwight gulped the last of his coffee and then put on his Air Force captain’s tunic. ‘There’s no proof for that,’ he lied, looking guiltily from Beth to Nichola, secretly convinced that he was placing both of them in danger and feeling bad because of it. ‘It’s just more wild speculation.’
‘Oh, yeah? Then how do you explain the men in black?’
Dwight had been about to kiss Beth on the cheek, but her words stopped him, making him straighten up again, feeling a chill wind pass through him.
‘What do you know about the men in black?’ he asked.
‘Lots of gossip, Dwight. I prefer to call them stories. Folks are talking about people involved in UFO investigations receiving visits from groups of men dressed all in black. Some say they wear black suits. Others say they’re coveralls. Most agree that they’re not with the Air Force and though human seem strange. Unusually pale, folks say. Oddly inexpressive faces. They usually visit in twos or threes, generally arrive in a black limousine, and always warn those they’ve come to see to stop discussing or investigating UFOs. They tell them that if they continue to do so, they’ll find themselves in real trouble.’
‘More tall stories,’ Dwight said, though in fact he had been receiving an increasing number of such stories, many from reliable sources. ‘These tall tales spread like wildfire. You believe all that garbage?’
‘I’m only telling you what I heard,’ Beth replied cagily, though certainly not joking. ‘Most of these stories come from pretty reliable sources - mostly Air Force personnel - and some came from folk who had the visitors themselves, ignored what they were told, then got into serious trouble shortly after. In at least one case, the person who received the visitors and told Adele Walters about it - saying he thought it was a hoax - later vanished and hasn’t been seen since.’
‘If it was a friend of Adele’s, it could only have been Ben Little,’ Dwight informed her.
Little was an amateur astronomer and fanatical UFOlogist, resident right here in Dayton, who had frequently, perhaps too loudly, claimed that the flying saucers could be man-made secret weapons of the US and Canadian governments. After receiving a lot of local press coverage for a couple of days, Little had just upped and disappeared, leaving a wife and three kids. Adele’s husband, Ralph Walters, an Air Force Flight engineer, was a close family friend.
‘Yeah, that’s the one. Obviously, you heard about it, Dwight.’
‘Yes. And I also heard that the marriage was in trouble and that Ben Little may simply have fled the coop. I lean towards that hypothesis.’
‘I bet,’ Beth said. She had his number and he knew it. Though he simply couldn’t admit it even to himself, he believed that something bad had happened to the loudmouthed Ben Little and that the mysterious ‘men in black’ had something to do with it. He now believed that the ‘men in black’ existed; he just didn’t know who they were. Extraterrestrials? The CIA? Foreign agents? There was no way of knowing.
Trying to hide the shock that Beth’s knowledge had given him, he leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. ‘See you later,’ he said. Then he kissed Nichola on the forehead, tickled her under the armpits, and left her giggling hysterically as he hurried out of the house, to walk the short distance to the ATIC, across the airstrip of Wright Field.
The ATIC operations room was not as spartan as it had been during Project Sign. Now, a lot of UFO photographs and drawings of their ‘alien’ occupants had been added to the many incident maps, charts and graphs on the walls. The two teletype machines hardly ever stopped clicking and the single secretarial assistant, WAC corporal Thelma Wheeler, was now a sergeant with a couple of other secretaries under her command.
Though putting on a little weight, Thelma was still blonde and pretty. She had eyes only for Captain Bob Jackson, who had somehow managed to carry on an affair with her for years without actually tying the knot, let alone becoming engaged. Even now, as Dwight entered the cluttered room, Bob was sitting on the edge of Thelma’s desk, leaning towards her and whispering into her ear. Thelma burst into giggles and slapped Bob’s knee, then turned away by swivelling around in her chair and went back to her expert typewriting. Bob looked up, saw Dwight and stopped smiling, so Dwight knew the news was bad.
‘Morning,’ he said, approaching Bob. ‘I take it from the look on your face that the recommendations of the Robertson panel have come through.’
‘Yeah,’ Bob replied. ‘I don’t know what’s in the report, but Ruppelt doesn’t look happy and said we were to go straight in and see him as soon as you got here.’
‘Then let’s go in, Bob.’
Seated behind his desk, Ruppelt, in his Air Force uniform, still looked like a darkhaired adolescent whose slightly plump, smoothly handsome face showed decency and good humour. Nevertheless, gazing down at the thick folder on his desk, he was clearly not in a good-humoured mood and, indeed, looked decidedly troubled - so much so, in fact, that he didn’t notice their arrival and was only distracted from the report when Dwight said, ‘Morning, Cap’n Ruppelt. I believe you wanted to see us.’
Ruppelt glanced up as if confused, trying to collect his thoughts, then he smiled as if it was something of an effort, indicating that Dwight and Bob should take the c
hairs at the other side of his desk. When they had done so, he glanced down at the Robertson panel report, then looked up again and spread his hands over the file as if casting a net.
‘What can I say?’ he asked rhetorically. ‘Where do I start?’
‘Just come out with it, Cap’n,’ Dwight said. ‘It’ll be easier for all of us.’
‘It’s not good.’
‘They’ve shafted us,’ Bob said bluntly. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’
‘Yes, Bob, I’m afraid it is.’ Ruppelt massaged his forehead with his fingers, glanced distractedly at the file, and then looked up again. ‘I should warn you that this isn’t the full report. It’s merely a summary of their major recommendations.’
‘So when are we getting the full report?’ Dwight asked him.
‘We’re not. We’re only getting what they want us to know and this is it, gentlemen.’
‘What...?’ Dwight began, glancing at the equally shocked Bob.
‘Don’t ask me,’ Ruppelt said wearily, then lowered his head again, to scan the document. ‘First, despite the conclusive evidence offered by me and Major Fournet, the members of the panel have concluded that the evidence is not substantial, that the continued emphasis on the reporting of the phenomena is resulting in - I quote - a threat to the orderly functioning of the protective organs of the body politic - unquote - and that the continuing UFO reports are clogging military channels, could possibly precipitate mass hysteria, and might encourage defence personnel to misidentify or ignore actual enemy aircraft. In other words: the real problem isn’t the UFOs – it’s the UFO reports.’
‘That much I knew already,’ Dwight said. ‘What bothers me is what they’ve recommended.’
‘It’s pretty startling,’ Ruppelt said. He glanced at the many posters on the walls around his desk, mostly enlargements of frames from cinetheodolite movies or stills taken with amateur cameras, the UFOs mostly no more than blurred, round-shaped objects. He appeared to be trying to take some solace from them, though not with success. Sighing, he went back to the report. ‘As I say, based on the assessment, the Robertson panel has made some unexpected, even startling, recommendations.’
PHOENIX: (Projekt Saucer series) Page 21