“Tabloid Tycoon Throws UFO Reporter into Thrashing Pool of ‘Gators.”
Camden sipped whiskey.
“Nubile Newspaper Heiress: “I Cut Off UFO Reporter’s Genitals and Gave Them to the Saucermen!”
Camden sipped more whiskey.
“Extraterrestrials Beam Threatened UFO Reporter onto Hovering Craft, Rescuing Him From Irate Boss.”
“Yeah,” said Jake Camden, staring up to the ceiling and beyond. “Yeah, please. Come and get me, for pity’s sake. Now!”
He finished the whiskey.
Chapter 9
“There you are, you old son of a bitch!” growled the man in a deep bass bellow, as he stood up from the lobby couch, splashing some of his beer onto the old rug. “Didn’t think you were gonna make it, Scarborough, you absentminded skunk!”
Everett Scarborough extended his hand to shake the meaty paw proffered him, and grimaced as Captain Eric MacKenzie put his usual enthusiasm—and manly pressure—into his grip. “Well, Mac, like I told you on the phone, I’d almost forgotten all about dinner with you tonight. Whatever statistical laws of misfortune there are have ganged up on me.”
“Yeah! I heard about last night, that goon and that gun at your tent meeting ... Like to get that shithead out in the field. Just him and me and Betsy, my trusty twelve-gauge.” MacKenzie pointed at a spot on the couch. “Just get your ass down there and relax. I’ll rustle up a brewski for you. A darkie, if you promise to be good, and let me in on all the details.”
“Sure,” said Scarborough. “That’ll be fine, Mac. I could use a beer and a friendly ear.”
“Comin’ up,” said the gruff man agreeably. He strode off for the bar.
They had met in the reception area of the Tabard Inn because it was one of their favorite Washington hangouts. Just a few blocks from Dupont Circle, the inn was old, with much history, and an almost palpable sense of quaintness clinging to its wooden rooms. Scarborough sat back, relaxing now, enjoying the serenity of the setting. A fire burned low in an old-style brick hearth before him, crackling and muttering a breath of heat onto the plush and comfortable old chairs and couches in the lounge. Atop the mantle stretched a series of ancient bric-a-brac and pictures. From a nearby, dimly lit room, subdued sounds of diners and cutlery emerged. You could almost pretend it was a hundred years ago, and that was what made it so attractive to Scarborough when he and Phyllis had first been taken there by MacKenzie, in the mid-sixties when they’d first arrived in town. It was something you might find up in New England, this overwhelming charm ... only it was smack dab in the middle of Washington, D.C.
It also had great food and wonderful beer, thought Scarborough, taking in the scents leaking from the dining room. When Eric MacKenzie returned, bearing two brimming English-style imperial pints of Watney’s Red Barrel, Scarborough was more than happy to see him.
Scarborough accepted his drink, and sipped some of the froth off the top. “This place doesn’t change much, does it?”
“Hell, no, and thank God for that. Can’t hardly ever get one of the few actual rooms they offer—but hell, plenty of room to eat! ‘Sides, I like the Hilton just fine!”
Captain Eric MacKenzie was five years older than Scarborough, well into his fifties—but Scarborough thought he looked about five years younger. He was a broad-shouldered, bluff sort, with a vibrant head of Scottish red hair and a ruddy complexion from the many hours he devoted to his hobbies, hunting and fishing. Only the wrinkles below his eyes, the grey hair on his long, out-of-style sideburns, and the slight wattle below his chin attested to his age. Blue eyes looked out cheerfully onto the world, infinitely amused at what they observed. A bushy mustache underlined their vibrancy.
“Eric, you know you could have stayed with me,” said Scarborough. “You’re always welcome.”
MacKenzie took a long pull of Watney’s, wiped the foam from his mustache, burped, grinned, then slapped Scarborough’s knee. “Hell, Doc. I spend time enough at your place, what with those goddamn bacchanalian poker weekends you throw. ‘Sides, the conference is at the Hilton, and it’s much more convenient, since it’s just a weekend here. Still, haven’t seen you for a few months, so I thought we could sit around and swap lies for a while, just like old times—with no goddamn women dragging at our coattails!” MacKenzie took another deep draught. His wife—Tama—had left him six years before. Ran off with a sensitive poet with a professorship in English at some comfortable Midwestern college. Tama and Phyllis had been close friends since they’d met in 1965—the year Scarborough had moved to Washington to work with the air force. MacKenzie had worked with Project Blue Book awhile as well, and had taken it upon himself to make the new scientist-recruit feel welcome in the strange new city. They’d only actually worked together closely on a few UFO investigations—but they’d seen each other often at the Pentagon and at Headquarters in Virginia, and they’d socialized frequently. MacKenzie had retired a few years after the closing of Project Blue Book, and did something that he’d always swore he wanted to do, which was to become a professional fiction-writer. Secretly, Scarborough envied him. Part of what had driven him toward nonfiction was the allure and glamour of being a writer. Unfortunately, though he had tried, and though MacKenzie was always trying to collaborate with him on some oddball project, that was one thing the scientist found that he could not do. Maybe his critics were right, and maybe this was what made him such a top-flight debunker; he was devoid of imagination.
True, MacKenzie wasn’t exactly Saul Bellow. He was more of a poor man’s Ernest Hemingway, specializing in men’s adventure series filled with guns and babes, cars and boobs. Just for variety’s sake, he did the occasional article for men’s magazines on some nicety of the Uzi machine gun, or better yet, the merits of the color orange on dry flies for river trout fishing. But when the man wasn’t out tracking deer or casting lines into fresh water, you could bet your life he was tap-tap-tapping behind a hot word processor and listening to his favorite writing music, John Philip Sousa. Eric MacKenzie loved to write, and his prose had all the bravura and excitement—and alas, all the finesse—of his personality.
“What conference, Mac?”
“Oh, just some dreary magazine journalist stuff.” MacKenzie pulled out a big cigar from the pocket of his tweed coat. “Came to talk to some editors—hell of a lot better than trooping up to New York City where most of them are. God, I hate that place. And it’s funny, though I’d like to see all that scum and concrete just tip into the Atlantic, I’d be screwed if it did. That’s where my goddamn money comes from.” MacKenzie lit and puffed on his Ortega y Gasset cigar, then tossed the wooden match into the fireplace. “Hope you’re hungry. Our reservations are for fifteen minutes from now. I thought you’d enjoy just sitting here awhile, for old time’s sake.” Pause. Puff. “So. Pretty hairy, gettin’ blasted at, huh? I had my share of that in Korea, believe you me. I guess my series The Immolator has got enough bullets per page to ammunitionize a World War II and a half, but shit, I ain’t dumb. I may like guns, but hell if I wanna get shot at.”
An expression of sympathy and concern was about as close as MacKenzie was able to get to admitting how upset he was that his friend had almost been killed. Scarborough understood, and it touched him, as many things about this bear of a man did. Back in Project Blue Book, there had been an unspoken bond established, and though neither man was demonstratively affectionate, there was the unspoken agreement to keep that bond alive.
“It was damn awful, but it was worse to have that saucer-nut shot right in front of me.” Scarborough sipped at the faintly bitter, full-bodied brew. “You know, Mac, I may damn all their eyes, the UFOols and their brain-damaged ilk. But the bottom line is that they’re a form of humanity too ... And I don’t like to see them hurt, much less killed.”
“Ah, you old softie. Don’t give me this ‘form of humanity’ crap. You’re a crusader for science ... You’re just as bad as Jerry Falwell or Billy Graham. You’re a fuckin’ evangelist. You wanna see the U
FO freaks come trippin’ down the sawdust trail of science and kneel at your altar of logic. You want to save them from the darkness of fuzzy-thinking sin! Yep, Reverend Evvie Scarborough stands at the pulpit with his invitation for all the lost to come forward and be washed of their sins in the blood of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein!” Cigar sticking out obscenely from his mouth, MacKenzie raised his hands into the air and waggled his fingers. “Hallelujah!”
Scarborough chuckled. Mac was about the only man he’d allow to get away with such a lampoon. Still, it rankled a bit. “Oh, right. A blood-porn hack criticizes his better!” he said, riposting with a traditional insult.
MacKenzie wiggled his eyebrows. “Least I get my facts straight. “
Scarborough looked away and picked up his beer. Let that one pass. Clearly, Mac wanted to get onto The Subject again, and that was the last thing Scarborough wanted. Not after the kind of weekend he’d been having. “Oh yes? As long as Gun World doesn’t make any typos. But seriously, Mac. I’m a little rocked, and not just because of the attempt on my life last night.”
“So tell me exactly what happened.”
Scarborough gave his friend the details. MacKenzie listened carefully, nodding and grunting, and when the story was over, he said, “No, I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Sounds like an isolated crazy. And not professional at all. A handgun from so many yards away? He was lucky to get the bullets over the stage prompter!”
“Well, Abe’s got me in mothballs for a while. Just in case.”
MacKenzie shrugged. “Better safe than sorry, I guess. But I wouldn’t worry. In fact, I’m surprised this hasn’t happened to you sooner. I’ve always told you to pack heat!”
“Now who’s evangelizing, oh ye disciple of the American Rifle Association!” Scarborough leaned back in the chair, tapping his half-empty glass, staring off into the air. “But there’s more. And it’s just between you and me, right?”
MacKenzie’s voice turned serious. “Sure, Doc. You know you can trust me.”
“This one’s a lulu. And if it gets out to the media ... whewee. Won’t hurt my credibility, but I don’t want this kind of publicity.” In terse words, Scarborough told him about the UFO encounter that Diane claimed to have had with her boyfriend, Timothy Reilly.
“She wants me to investigate,” he said. “She really thinks they were abducted. I told her no, that she must have been on drugs or something. We had a terrible argument and she flew back to Kansas U. Going to investigate it herself, find someone else to help.”
MacKenzie sucked on his cigar a moment, then blew out a thick plume of smoke. “I can see why you had that reaction, Ev. Christ, Diane’s been a loose cannon on the deck of the U.S.S. Scarborough for years. But maybe you should just, you know, humor the girl a bit. I don’t mean patronize, I mean just take a trip out there, look around, pronounce your negative verdict and leave.”
“No!” said Scarborough. “She’s not going to bring me down. How do I know, for instance, that she’s not the unwitting accomplice in a plot to ruin my reputation? Someone took a shot at me last night; some others may be plotting my downfall. Mac, it didn’t take me long in the debunker biz to realize that I’ve garnered some serious enemies for myself.”
“Yeah, I see your point.” The big man blew some more smoke, drank some more beer. “Okay, but I still think you should go out there. She is your daughter. But then, you don’t listen to your good pal Mac, much, do you? And I really wish you would.”
Oh, dear. The Subject again. Well, thought Scarborough, might as well get it out of the way—he knew MacKenzie wouldn’t let him go tonight without a little wrestle at the very least.
“Mac, I got your packet last month, and I’m sorry, but I really haven’t had a chance to examine it closely.”
“The other one I sent close to six months ago, and you still haven’t given me an adequate answer on that one.”
“I’m very sorry, Mac. I just have other priorities. And something that happened over twenty years ago is just not a priority. “
“Boy, you’ve changed,” said MacKenzie, his whole body seeming to fall into a frown. “You used to be a top-notch investigator, Doc. You know what I think—I think you just don’t want to face up to the possibility that we were working for a bunch of scummy crooks back then. And you still are!”
Scarborough clucked his tongue. “A conspirator behind every bush. Mac. To paraphrase the Bard. You know what your problem is? You’ve been trying to imitate Robert Ludlum far too long. Your fiction is seeping through those holes in your head and getting all mixed up in your poor drink-sodden brain!”
It had all started about a year before, this argument, when MacKenzie had accepted an offer to do a series about his participation in Project Blue Book for True Magazine. Eric MacKenzie was never known for his thorough research, and when he’d announced the assignment, Scarborough blithely agreed to help out, expecting only the occasional phone call. But he hadn’t read his friend properly, hadn’t noted the signs that Mac betrayed all too well now—the ex-captain was restless. Slaughtering wild fowl and fauna, and snagging scaly creatures from rivers no longer fully satisfied his lust for adventure. MacKenzie yearned for bigger game, like in the old days when he hunted communists in Vietnam or Korea, or UFOs in Nebraska. He’d also read a great deal too much of the pro-UFO-ologists’ publishing of the past few years. Oh, no, he didn’t buy the idea of little men from other planets abducting people, or any of that garbage. But somehow, the idea that some government agency—or combination of government agencies—might be covering up some facts concerning their touted UFO investigations had taken root. Doubtless, it intrigued him to think of hidden puppet-masters behind oaken doors in Washington, burning papers, dispatching agents to destroy files, pulling strings on FBI or CIA operative minions. But mostly it galled him, even outraged him, to think that, as an employee of the U.S. government, the wool had been pulled over his eyes.
Essentially, MacKenzie had reread the official Project Blue Book reports, including the write-ups of the investigations that he had worked on, with and without Dr. Everett Scarborough. Then, from his old mammoth and battered file cabinets he’d stolen from Fort Meyer, he’d pulled out the actual files concerning those cases. Something had bothered him when he’d reread the official reports. Little details about this and that. He’d remembered them ... differently.
The details did turn out to be slightly different. Colors of lights described by witnesses on the flying objects ... numbers of people claiming to have seen the vessels. Nothing major on most of the cases, but still they niggled on MacKenzie’s mind, according to his letters to Scarborough, anyway. Two Investigations in particular were skewed in the final report. One of which MacKenzie had participated in himself in North Dakota. Top-secret stuff, since the sightings had occurred near Minutemen Missile Silos—with subsequent electrical problems in the military equipment. And one investigation they’d both worked on in Iowa. The Higsdon Farm business.
He’d Xeroxed his file reports and sent them to Scarborough for his comments. Scarborough had glanced at them. There was nothing terribly out of whack, as far as he was concerned. It had been a puzzling case anyway, and the principal witness—one Charles Higsdon—had given different versions of his story to different people. Nonetheless, Unidentified Flying Objects had been reported over the fields of southern Iowa by a number of people, and Project Blue Book people had been called in to investigate. Final conclusion: meteor showers had formed the UFOs, along with astronomical phenomena intensified by rare atmospheric conditions. And psychological difficulties were at the heart of the UFO abduction of Higsdon. The farmer had admitted that he’d reread the Look articles concerning the Betty and Barney Hill abduction by John Fuller. Doubtless, they’d impacted on his mind, since the “abduction” he described also included a medical examination by little creatures. Nonetheless, despite the conclusions of that investigation back in 1968, the original sensational story had gotten out and spread like wildfire. What M
acKenzie had noted were the inconsistencies between his notes and the published account of the investigation. He’d requested that Scarborough take a look at his own files on the subject. But, of course, Scarborough had never gotten around to it. He tried to order his life in terms of priorities, and checking on the Higsdon Farm business for sleazy UFO articles was very low on the list. Besides, you always had to account for small and insignificant mistakes in these kinds of field missions, especially when they were written up by bored bureaucrats who’d not participated in the operation. History was rife with clerical mistakes. You just had to accept it.
MacKenzie drained the glass and grinned. “Yeah. Maybe. But I’m not gonna let this one go, buster. If only because I want to bust your chops back into shape. Look at those goddamn notes, huh, Doc. At least give me a quote on them—so I can quote you as a government stooge!”
Scarborough sighed. “Okay, okay. I’ll look at them.”
MacKenzie leaned over confidentially. “Yeah, and maybe you can dig up something from old Dolan. You can bet I didn’t call him. We never got along very well. Still, you see him from time to time. Maybe you can pry something out of the old turkey.”
“Well, I can’t promise you anything on that score, but I’ll look at those files. I think I’ve even got some of my own, on the Litton case, anyway. I’ll cross-check, Mac. As long as you stop calling me a government stooge. You know that’s the battle cry of the UFOols. My employment with the government ended with Project Blue Book itself—my contacts in the past years have been purely for my benefit and elucidation. And Colonel Dolan has been especially helpful to me.”
Colonel Dolan had been their section chief back in the Blue Book days. Scarborough still maintained contact with the man, ensconced now in a Pentagon office—socially as well as professionally. He did not tell this to MacKenzie, though, for fear of further razzing. MacKenzie had always been an air force maverick—and he and Colonel Walter Dolan had butted heads more than once.
The UFO Conspiracy Trilogy Page 14