She tapped him twice on the forehead, and gave the command to rouse from unconsciousness and back into his hypnotic state.
“Now what is happening?”
She leaned over and whispered the word Pequod into his ear, unleashing the pre-established reality construct.
“I’m in the saucer,” he said. “I’m in the white room. The examination room. And standing before me ... Oh, Jesus! It’s here again! It’s Eve.”
“Eve is only your word for her, remember.”
The patient struggled. “They’ve got me tied down. Oh, God, what are they going to do to me this time?”
The doctor smiled grimly underneath the mask.
She took the lit rod and let it drift down the man’s chest, his abdomen, down to the pubic nest, where it briefly touched the man’s flaccid penis. The man squirmed and struggled, his palsied fingers wriggling like electrocuted worms. The rod slipped down further into the cleft of his buttocks, where it lingered for long moments.
“No! No!” cried the man. “Not that again! No, stop it! Who are you? What are you doing?”
The doctor pulled the rod away. She sat it down onto the tray. No, that wasn’t necessary for today’s session. He didn’t need that kind of reinforcement this time.
“Who are we?” the doctor said, using her high-pitched Eve voice. “You know that by now. We are visitors from the planet Draco. We are performing experiments upon you human beings. We need fertile sperm-plasm, Earth-one. We need to replenish our species with a stronger genotype, a hybrid species.”
So saying, the doctor unbuttoned her blouse and her skirt. She stepped out of her shoes and her underwear, and then unhooked her bra, freeing her large-nippled breasts.
“Oh, please. Please, don’t you understand? This hurts me. Don’t do it again!”
The doctor picked up the stainless-steel milking device from the tray. She considered lubrication—but no. There could be no pleasure in this session. Not in this delicate part of the treatment.
The patient began to screech pitifully.
“Please help us to help you stop screaming,” said the doctor as she advanced with her device toward her patient.
Yes, she thought. This was her favorite part.
That afternoon, the superior, who was also in charge of Operation White Book, came to Dr. Julia Cunningham in her office.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she told him as he accepted the cold mineral water she offered him. “We have some serious things to go over.”
“Yes, I’m sorry about the delay. We were scheduled for three days ago but what with all that’s happened ...”
Brian Richards had the chiseled good looks of a character actor usually cast in Westerns or hired to sell Marlboro cigarettes. He was slender and looked good in his expensively tailored but unassuming grey business suit and muted red tie, with a white handkerchief peeking up from the top of his pocket. His dark hair was peppered with grey, but rather than making him look old, the grey, along with the network of undoctored wrinkles over his face, gave him the look of steely and unquestioned authority. Now, as he sat in her chair calmly sipping the water she’d given him, he reminded Julia Cunningham of Dr. Preston Cunningham, her illustrious father.
And she hated him just as much.
“Yes. I’ve gotten the reports,” she said blithely, sitting stiffly in her chair, like a statue of cold metal. “But I’ve been busy with my other White Book projects. Would you care to give me a quick, relevant briefing?”
He smiled coolly and put his water down. He looked at her so piercingly with those flinty eyes with twin sparks of humor dancing in their darkness, that she had to divert her own eyes. There was a twisted smile on his face that demanded challenge.
“What are you looking at?” she asked defensively.
“I’m just wondering about that saying, ‘Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.’ Care to experiment, Doctor?”
“What are you talking about, man?”
“Dr. Cunningham, you must know that Woodrow Justine was killed in our little operation last week.”
“Yes. I was given that information. So?”
“So? Doctor, you of all people should have some kind of reaction to that news. Woodrow was your patient. You worked with him for years.” That wry smile again, damn his eyes! “You more than anyone else made him everything he was!”
“Richards, you’re the last person I have to remind that Justine was a hired killer. I merely adjusted his psychoses sufficiently to within malleable parameters, that the Editors could make use of his ... considerable talents. Need I remind you, Mr. Richards, that controlling killers is not my main function here at White Book? Now, perhaps you’d care to proceed with the more important matters of our operation.”
The smile faded. Clouds filled the man’s face. He licked his lips, turned away for a moment, and when he finally turned back to her, there was lightning of anger in his eyes. “You staked your professional reputation on Justine’s performance, Doctor!” he said through gritted teeth. “You said you’d swept the demons right out of his head. And then he can’t deal with a leftist-leaning, nonviolent chump like Everett Scarborough! He goes over the goddamned Hoover Dam for chrissakes! And we still can’t find the body!”
She stared at him for a cool moment, and then said, “Need I remind you, Mr. Richards, that there is no record of what occurred on the dam. It was you who endorsed Justine’s preference for solo operations. His backup was engaged elsewhere. Quite simply, we don’t know what happened. So, you cannot, in good faith, call in that particular card.” She stood up and leaned on her hands, putting her face a little closer to his, challenging his space. “Besides, Mr. Richards why should you? White Book is at a critical stage. You, more than anyone else, know that I am White Book, Mr. Richards. Why would you wish me gone at this point, anyway? Why are you acting in this aggressive manner toward me?”
Richards’s frown turned into a nasty grin. He sat back in a chair and crossed his legs carefully. “Mind if I smoke, Doctor?”
“Yes. You know my feelings on the subject.” She tapped the sign on her desk that read No Smoking Please right by the international symbol of a red-halved circle over a burning cigarette.
Richards pulled a pack of Benson and Hedges from his jacket pocket, mouthed the words “Fuck you, bitch” through a smile, and pulled a cigarette out. “You know, Julia, I can remember when we used to be a lot nicer to each other. Gee—way back, when I saved you from Stanford U. There you were, a waif in graduate school, bucking the system with your ideas, staring at a bunch of hostile teachers and psychiatric chumps. About ready to knuckle under so you could get that old diploma, as I recall. Then we stepped in and gave you all you dreamed for and more ... A quick degree from Johns Hopkins U. Some lab work at NIH, consulting at NIMH, a few experiments in the field ... And suddenly, the sweet little genius whose Daddy cut off without a cent was pulling down six figures, with perks coming out of her pretty rear-end.” He lit the cigarette, puffed a moment, and glanced at her with an appraising look.
“You mean, those times I let you sleep with me, Richards,” she said, contempt showing in her eyes and her words. “Is that what you’re talking about?”
Richards shook his head. He looked down at the cigarette, licked his fingers and put it out, tossing it into the waste bin by the desk. “No, Julia. No, that’s not what I’m talking about that was a mistake, on both our parts. I’m sorry.” He closed his eyes. “Pressure, Doctor. Pressure. That was long ago and far away, and I apologize that you thought I was bringing it up. I apologize for my anger, Julia.”
She relaxed despite herself. Damn him! He always did this to her, the bastard! Pushing her buttons so that up went the Shell—and then making her feel awkward, putting her off guard.
“It’s just a rough time, I guess. And with Scarborough not a pawn anymore, but a wild card ... Well, I guess I’m a bit on edge.”
“Would you like me to prescribe something for you, Mr. Richards,” she said t
ightly, still in control despite herself.
“No. No, thanks, Julia. Occupational hazard. Just keep a nice pair of lungs and a new liver for me on ice, should I need them.”
“I can’t guarantee anything on that, Richards. You shouldn’t smoke; you shouldn’t drink. Period. Doctor’s orders. Let me do an analysis, mix you up a pill suited just for your neurochemistry. You’ll think clearly but calmly. It’s very simple, really.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Julia?” His mouth was smiling but those cold eyes weren’t. “You’d like to be my pusher, wouldn’t you? More control over the old man, huh?”
“That’s not ...”
“Cat and mouse, Julia. And why not? Part of the fun. Part of the games. We’re a real pair, aren’t we?”
A sudden involuntary flash of recollection suddenly shot through her mind. She and Richards lying naked in her Silver Spring apartment bed, lit only by the light of her aquarium.
She clamped down a hard shutter on that memory, poured a glass of mineral water and sipped it, as though to wash it and all her unwanted feelings away. Dammit, she was the one who needed a new psycho-neural prescription! Physician, heal thyself!
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Richards,” she said. “I think it best, in light of the situation, to pare our conversation down to relevant points.” She leaned over and spoke tersely, with perfect diction and exaggerated intonation. “In short, let’s keep it professional.”
Richards nodded agreement. “Yes, and we are professional, aren’t we, Doctor? So then, to the specifics of our respective professions. I trust that you have your report on the progress of White Book?”
The folder was to her immediate left, appropriately colored a bright lambs-wool white. She handed it to him. He opened it and proceeded to peruse the neatly typed pages on the spot.
Project White Book, thought Dr. Julia Cunningham, watching Richards read, knowing that the information expertly sketched out in her excellent prose would please her superior. How much this project had changed over the years since its inception back in the fifties.
No, not changed.
Mutated.
That was the correct term for it, really. The verb, anyway. And the noun? The synonym?
Well, surely that had to be that wonderfully coined government term, that bit of bureaucratese that fit the bill so perfectly; it immediately became an integral part of that very nonspecific language.
Disinformation.
That’s what the CIA started calling what the KGB and the Russian media were doing back in the seventies. Only, of course, they’d all been doing it to some degree, ever since the cold war began. Disinformation. Turn the available intelligence material available into shit. Gobbledygook.
Project White Book. The program behind Project Blue Book.
When some the Air Force officials had spoken out later on just how little Project Blue Book had done to investigate the entire UFO phenomenon, they couldn’t have been more wrong. Project Blue Book had been a vital cover, the token effort by the CIA tools in the Air Force to placate the calls for official investigation for lights in the skies. But the true operations of importance, instigated very early on, were White Book and, of course, Black Book. Cunningham knew very little about Black Book; just enough to keep her department in White Book up to date. Besides, Black Book was pretty exclusively Richards’s department—and it was there that the bastard was an underling. He was Editor-in-Chief, sure ... But over him in Black Book were the Publishers. Maybe that explained his moodiness ... yes ... Julia Cunningham had to chuckle to herself. That was it! The Publishers were nailing his balls to the wall, and they could do it, too. They didn’t bother her much, and she was grateful for that. Richards didn’t scare her, the CIA didn’t spook her, not even the psychotic crazy Woodrow Justine scared her. But the Publishers ... She never admitted it to anybody, but they scared the shit out of her. They’d be the last people that she’d cross.
They were the ones, of course, to have invented the White and the Black. Oh, Richards claimed that the CIA had started it on some level or another. Top secret, hush-hush, and all that. But from what Cunningham knew and intuited about the Publishers, they were somewhere down in the dirt from the beginning.
Project White Book, of course, was the machine, surreptitious and circumspect, that had actually created many of those sightings in the fifties and the sixties. Oh, natural phenomena and human imagination made most of them—you planted one suggestion in one Arkansas hick’s mind, and suddenly, the whole town was seeing saucers over Farmer Jones’s silo. Plant enough sightings, and pretty soon you had some kind of control of the situation. That had been the theory back in the fifties, and it had worked for a while. But then, the business had changed, the mythology had grown ... Betty and Barney Hill had been abducted in the early sixties, John Fuller had written The Interrupted Journey back in 1966—and suddenly, direct extraterrestrial contact was the state of the art. By the time Travis Walton got picked up for his Enquirer prize-winning joyride in the mid-seventies (not a White Book project, but rather what the Company Branch dubbed “a grass-roots” hoax), the wave of UFO-ological future was written on the walls. It was in 1977 that Brian Richards, then just an Editor himself, had found that promising student at Stanford. By 1980, she and her methods were put into full service. When Richards was elevated in ‘82, she got her full Editorship, and reported directly to him.
The theory wasn’t hers. That had come down from the Publishers. But the methods were, including the science, the hard work, the gains, the failures—the outrageous successes that were the cornerstone to the entire program. Richards had explained it to her in blunt, simple terms. “I’m sure you’re aware of the office-full-of-women phenomenon. The pheromone leader has her period and it keys into the other women. You have a bunch of women in the same office, in close quarters, for a while, and pretty soon the janitor knows just when to stock the WC tampon dispenser every month. This is kind of what we’re doing, Julia.”
They’d been lovers then, and he had chosen that time, lying in bed twined in satisfied sheets, to tell her. “Back in the fifties and sixties, it was scattershot, but eventually we picked the right ‘leader.’ Only it wasn’t pheromones, it was kind of culturally psychic—a cosmic fashion-leader. You found him or her, you showed him a flying saucer buzzing his rooftop, you gave him the right suggestions—bingo, not only do you have a convert, but you have a ‘leader.’ And the magic is, he or she doesn’t even have to write about it or be on TV; the psychic ‘scent’ just sort of wavers through the zeitgeist, the collective unconscious-gets pounced on and ‘stepped up’ by the saucer freaks, the true believers, maybe even changes the very fabric of reality. And suddenly, there’s a new public awareness, controlled by us.
“We find the ‘leaders.’ We get them to you; give you the time you need. The complicated part is up to you. You give them a wild trip. You program them in such a way that they believe they’ve been kidnapped, then prodded and poked by aliens. We manufacture a continuingly bizarre and escalating scenario behind it, but mind we don’t get too consistent or make too much sense—that would rouse too much suspicion in scientific, government, and academic circles. A few of these, properly placed, every year. Voila! The bread falls upon the waters and disseminates! The pebbles become snowballs, which become an untraceable avalanche! Instant phenomena!”
The whole idea had been so exciting to her—such control, such an opportunity to experiment, such a wealth of knowledge of the human neuro-chemical system to be gained—that at first she didn’t ask the obvious questions. But eventually, the curiosity had gotten the best of her.
Why?
What was the reason behind all this?
“Oh, you’ll find out soon enough,” Richards had told her. “Just know that this is for your country, that there are forces we are fighting against in this vague but effective manner.”
But by the time she’d found out the entire truth, she was a full Editor, and far too
involved, emotionally, professionally, and otherwise, to back out.
Besides, she couldn’t back out now if she wanted to. Project White Book was her life, the things she was learning, accomplishing, were absolutely incredible. The sense of control over other human beings, over her own destiny, gave her an incredible sense of power, far better than drugs because it was real, because it lasted.
Anyway, if she left, they’d kill her.
“Good,” he said. “Very good, dear Doctor,” said Richards, pulling up his briefcase and neatly tucking the folder and its contents inside. “Things are coming along well here in the wild and wooly west.” He looked around the office, smiling. “Yes, this branch always seemed to bear the most fruit for some reason. You think it’s something mystical, Doctor?”
“I think it’s fairly isolated, Richards. Easier to operate, easier to keep secret ... more room to move around in.” She tapped her coffee cup. “Yes and all the other military operations going on— well, the locals are used to seeing helicopters swooping through the night and mysterious, draped military vehicles roll between the mesas and arroyos.”
“My dear, how unromantic. You’d never make a good saucer nut.” He got up from his chair. “Now, for my tour. And to attend to the reason for this little side trip. Your report sounds most promising. Is full implementation imminent’?”
She nodded. “Our subjects are responding quite well to the conditioning. The introduction of the Millennium factor was brilliant. I think we’ve got ourselves what amounts to a new religion on our hands. It’s very exciting to be a part of its birth. It’s a belief that has its beauties and elegances ... as well as its stark blacknesses ...” She stopped herself, suddenly realizing that she was expressing enthusiasm, revealing emotion. This would not do. “Scarborough,” she said, changing course. “He’s very dangerous to us now, you know. Very dangerous to White Book ... and I imagine that he is dangerous to Black Book as well.”
The UFO Conspiracy Trilogy Page 41