The UFO Conspiracy Trilogy

by David Bischoff

  The shock of the reality of his situation lost its paralyzing aspects in Everett Scarborough, and all the rage and fury that he felt toward this man and what he represented coalesced into an uncontrolled reaction.

  Scarborough leaped toward him.

  “Wha... “

  The automatic weapons turned their dark nozzles toward Scarborough.

  “No! Don’t shoot him!”

  Scarborough grabbed Richards by the neck. His momentum and his anger drove them both down onto the tarmac. Squeezing for all he was worth, Scarborough tried to choke the life out of Richards. But before he could get anywhere near that goal, he was struck from behind by a heavy, hard object. A stunned moment full of disorientation later, he found himself spread-eagled on the hard ground, a terrible pain blooming in his neck and the back of his head.

  He heard the sound of running footsteps and he looked up in time to see Mashkin running toward the cab of his pickup truck. A brief flicker of hope came to him; if Mashkin could make it back to the Officers’ Club, tell Marsha Manning what had happened, there still might be hope...

  “Stop him!” barked Richards. “For Christ sake, stop that man!”

  A pause, and for a moment Scarborough thought that Mashkin would make it. He had the door open and was just climbing in.

  And then the guns chattered.

  Bullets stitched across the old truck, puncturing the worn Mashkin’s Plumbing letters. They tore up chunks of flesh and blood across Walter Mashkin’s back. The man arched backwards with a cry of pain, his hands fisted up toward the sky—and then he fell, slamming onto the road surface like a sack of potatoes.

  “Walter!” cried Scarborough, getting up to go to him. But the government men grabbed him and held him fast.

  Scarborough could see his friend was dead, though, now. His eyes were fixed up toward the blue and the clouds of the sky, as though even in death vigilant for another last glimpse of flying saucers.

  “You bastards!” Scarborough cried.

  Richards grunted, unbuttoned his shirt. “Yes, if necessary. We’ll take care of that body later. Right now, I want this man searched for any possible weapons and then placed in handcuffs and in a cell. Understood?”

  With the assistance of the guards, Scarborough was hauled away.

  “I’m going to kill you, Richards,” cried Everett Scarborough. “As God is my witness, I’m going to kill you!”

  “You see, Ed,” said Richards. “A very dangerous man. You did the right thing.”

  Ed Myers said nothing.

  Chapter 32

  Something was wrong.

  Lieutenant Marsha Manning sat in the Officers’ Club of Kirtland Air Force Base, with the terrible feeling in the pit of her stomach that things had gone terribly askew in Everett Scarborough’s mission at the CIA enclave. This wasn’t just intuition, either. It was getting on toward twelve-thirty in the afternoon.

  They should have been here at least an hour ago.

  She sipped her Coke and nibbled at the chef’s salad she had purchased so as not to look out of place; people had started rolling into the place for lunch about eleven-thirty, and she would stand out like a sore thumb with just a cola for company. So she sat now alone at a table, with some reports stretched out before her, seemingly immersed in work, and actually immersed in worry.

  She’d gotten to the base early enough and had checked into the appropriate channels. Ostensibly, she was here as a computer consultant, a duty that she had constructed with the help of a chief programmer friend at Wright-Patterson, and heavy string-pulling with communications bulletin-board buddies here at Kirtland. She was glad now that she’d had that lonely time last year, when she’d taken refuge in long-distance conversations through the medium of her computer screen and keyboard. The network of contacts she’d made had already paid off for her, and now it was paying off in a big way. Without these people’s help, she would never have been able to set up this “assignment,” let alone get off Wright-Patterson for a while.

  The computer consultant wasn’t supposed to begin until tomorrow; Marsha had the day to set things up, prepare. But of course she’d used it not for computer purposes, but to set the stage for the rescue of Dr. Everett Scarborough, his daughter Diane, her fiancé Tim, and of course Walter Mashkin, along for the ride. She had to admit, it was a good plan, and a smart idea of Scarborough’s. As rotten and corrupt as these Editors were, and as closely tied with the CIA and the Air Force, they were covert; American law still held sway. Scarborough planned to be unarmed once he gave himself up here at the Officers’ Club. They would take him, but he would still have all his rights as an American citizen, and he would be under the protection of a higher authority, which Marsha was determined would protect him. She already had a lawyer ready, and she knew just what MPs to call, to say nothing of the press. As soon as Ev walked through that door, she was going to be on the horn to both, and everything would be just hunky-dory.

  However, the key event—that selfsame spectacular entrance of the fugitive doctor himself—was simply not happening, and Marsha Manning’s stomach was beginning to act up. She pulled a package of Turns from her purse and chewed a couple of tablets. She looked around speculatively at the faces above the brass, eating and conversing.

  The smell of the kitchen’s special—some kind of veal cutlet—was strong in the air, and the place was filled with the din of cutlery, dishes, and talk. Much the same kind of scene as might have taken place ten, twenty, or even thirty years ago, with the significant difference that instead of martinis or bourbon and branches arrayed about the officers, now there was mostly soda-water and lime. The military was discouraging alcohol intake, much as everyone else was. After spending some time with a Jake Camden or a Walter Mashkin, Marsha could understand why. You didn’t want a hard drinker behind the controls of a jet or an Air Force base; the myth of the manliness of drinking was evaporating quickly among the military ranks, and thank God for it.

  By one o’clock, the place was almost full, and the waiter wondered if maybe Marsha wouldn’t like to sit at the bar; they hadn’t expected her to be this long, and they’d reserved her table for another party at one-fifteen.

  So Marsha Manning went to the bar. She ordered a ginger ale, no ice. She sipped it. And waited. She didn’t know what she could possibly do, until a certain man in a uniform entered.

  “Rick!” she called out, waving her hand. “Rick, over here!”

  Rick Hawkins was a slender, dark-haired man of perhaps thirty-five with a large Roman nose and a prominent overbite. He was a captain here, who did some work with computers, but his main chore was base construction supervision. Captain Rick Hawkins was one Marsha’s principle computer pen pals, and they had met once before, when he’d visited Wright-Patterson. It was obvious that he was very taken with her; he’d bought her dinner and come just short of propositioning her. With her feminine wiles, however, Marsha had managed to keep him at arm’s length without exactly discouraging him, so this morning he’d been very happy indeed to see her, and seemed to be even happier now, that they might have leisure time together.

  “Marsha! Taking a loooooong lunch, I see.”

  ‘I’m—ah—waiting for someone.”

  “Me?”

  “No, though I must say, I’m very happy to see you, Rick!”

  He brightened even further. “Have you reconsidered dinner for tonight, then?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact I have.”

  “Oh, terrific. I’ll cancel my bowling, then. How often does a guy get a visit from a beautiful and brilliant young woman he can actually gab heart-to-heart with, via the miracle of telecommunications?’ ‘

  “Not very often, Rick. Yes, I’ll have dinner with you tonight. But a friend of mine hasn’t shown up for an appointment, which means that I’m going to have to go and see him at his office, and that’s quite a distance.”

  “You need a ride?”

  “No. I’m going to be awhile and I need to come back.” She paused a
moment, looking deeply and sincerely into his bluish grey eyes. “I was hoping to maybe borrow that car. What did you say it was—a Toyota Celica?”

  He smiled. “Yes, that’s right. You remember!” He looked around, massaging his chin as though in thought, but Marsha knew that he was just playing a game, playing “Hard-to-get.” “Well, I guess I really don’t need it for this afternoon. I can just walk back to the office. Oh hell, yeah. Why not? That way, I’ll be able to see you for more than just dinner, huh?”

  Marsha smiled and tickled his ear teasingly. “Rick, you let me borrow that nice car of yours until four, and afterwards, I’m all yours!”

  Of course, Captain Rick Hawkins had no way of knowing it, thought Marsha, but the loan of his car could net him a good deal more than just a grateful Marsha Manning for dinner. But then, she had no choice in the matter. She was desperate.

  She batted her eyes at him prettily. “By the way, Rick. Is it at all possible you have a map of the base in your glove compartment?”

  Chapter 33

  They had him handcuffed and covered by several guns, and they’d shown their willingness to use those weapons by blowing away his friend. So Scarborough had no intention of trying to escape. Besides, he was simply too stunned, too shocked, by the suddenness of it all to take any kind of action. Not now, anyway.

  Nonetheless, after they’d marched him into one of the buildings and into a secured room, they hadn’t taken off the handcuffs. No, Brian Richards ordered for additional cuffs to be fastened from his legs to the chair in which they seated him.

  “You’re not being too careful, are you?” he muttered.

  Brian Richards surveyed the situation silently for a moment. Finally satisfied that Scarborough wasn’t going anyplace soon, he grunted. “Pardon me. Did you say something?”

  Scarborough said nothing. The surprise was beginning to wear off now, and the grief was beginning to leak from somewhere deep in his soul. The image of Walter Mashkin being shot down like some hunted animal stained his mind in shades of red and blood and death; and he knew it was indelible for as long as he lived. Which didn’t seem likely to be very long at this point.

  And Diane ... He’d failed her. Again, he’d failed his daughter when she needed him the most.

  All his insides felt clenched tight as a fist.

  Richards sighed and sat down in a chair opposite his captive. “This really is for the best, Scarborough.”

  Scarborough lifted his head and glared at the man. “For you! Why didn’t you just gun me down in cold blood, like you did to Walter Mashkin?”

  “Was that his name? Mashkin ... Mashkin ... Oh, yes, of course. The saucer aficionado from Albuquerque. We really should have guessed from the very first ... Oh well, it was a shame to kill him. But he tried to escape. Something which you were wise enough to refrain from.” Richards cleared his throat, stood, and stepped over to Scarborough. He cuffed the man’s ears much as a schoolmaster might a wayward student’s in the nineteenth century. “Because I swear to you, Dr. Everett Scarborough, if you try to escape before we’re done with you, we will have to kill you.” There was nothing in his slate grey eyes but stone and death.

  “What have you done with my daughter, you bastard!” spat Scarborough, swallowing back the pain and standing strong against this intimidation.

  “Daughter. Who, you mean Diane? You really think we’ve got her, don’t you?”

  “Who else would have her?”

  “So tell me. Suppose it all comes out that you get your beloved Diane back, Scarborough. Will you cooperate with us?”

  “I’d rather bum in hell!”

  Richards laughed. “That can be arranged believe me.” He stretched, cracking his knuckles in a way more banal than ominous. Keeping his face in its hard composure, he looked away, as though considering the situation deeply. Scarborough took the time to take note of his surroundings.

  He was reminded of a doctor’s examination room. The room was basically an off-white color, and there were cabinets that might well contain a doctor’s instruments, a doctor’s vials of drugs. There was no examination table however, and no telltale stainless-steel contraptions or stirrups in evidence. Neutral was the word that came to mind—but fast on its heels came another word, more intuitive: deadly.

  “I think you can leave us now, gentlemen. I don’t think he’s going anywhere.”

  “But sir—” said one of the suits. “You said he’s quite dangerous and shouldn’t be left alone.”

  “So I did. Very well, please post yourselves outside the door but first go and notify Dr. Cunningham that she’s needed.”

  “Yes sir.”

  The men turned and left, leaving them alone.

  “Now then, I quite assure you, we don’t have your daughter, Scarborough. Her disappearance is quite the mystery to us.”

  “I don’t believe you. And you’re about to tell me that you didn’t kidnap her fiancé?”

  “Mr. Timothy Reilly? Why, of course we did.”

  “What have you done with him?”

  “Actually, he’s in very good shape and just going through the last of his finishing touches before we let him venture out into the world. You see, Mr. Timothy Reilly up and decided to fly to Europe. To get away from it all, you understand. His parents have been receiving regular postcards from Munich, Florence, Venice, the French Riviera—all the usual touchstones of youthful peregrinations. And old Reilly is really very pleased about the whole thing. Seems that Tim has dumped your daughter and has straightened out quite a bit. Wants to go into the old man’s business, once he’s sown the last of his wild oats.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Tim! What have you done with him?”

  “Oh, suddenly you like Tim Reilly’s personality? He was sowing quite a few of those wild oats in her, as I recall, and you were not particularly pleased.”

  “Diane’s her own person. You didn’t answer my question.”

  “I don’t have to answer anything, Scarborough. I’m the one with the questions.” He put his face right up against his captive’s and fairly snarled directly into it. “Why did you betray us, Everett Scarborough? Why did you betray your government?”

  “I’ve betrayed nobody. I am loyal to my country. Illegal portions of that government have used me for their own ends. I mean to expose that!”

  “Oh yes, and you’re doing such a good job, aren’t you? No, Scarborough. You betrayed us. Surely, deep down, you realized that your fame and fortune were because you played the sycophant for a greater power than you. In a worthy cause, a worthwhile cause—national security!”

  “Am I going to find out why?”

  “I’m sure you have your suspicions. But that’s neither here nor there. What we need to know, now, is the extent of the damage you’ve caused to our project.”

  “I don’t know. Lots, I hope.”

  “Hmm. Stubborn. I thought you might be. No matter. You will be dealt with.”

  “What? With torture? Drugs?”

  “Please. That’s not my department. But I will say that you will make it a lot easier on yourself if you cooperate. Tell us the entirety of your activities.”

  “You know I didn’t kill Mac MacKenzie.”

  “Oh, of course. Our operative had to kill the captain. Rest assured as soon as this matter is cleared up and we feel you are again a trustworthy member of our group, you will no longer be a hunted criminal—not even for the death of that operative at Hoover Dam. You see, we can be quite generous.”

  “And if I won’t cooperate?”

  “Oh, you will, Scarborough, you will. But if we think you’re still a wild card ... Well then, I suppose your suspicions are entirely correct. We’ll just have to kill you.”

  “‘For reasons of national security.”

  “That’s quite correct.”

  “‘My country ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty’”

  Deep frown. “I do the sarcasm around here.”

  A cold anger swam in Scarborough’s
veins, a deep and powerful strength that he did not know he possessed. After all these moments of free-floating anxiety, all the fear and terror—now he was at rock bottom, caught and helpless in the web of his enemy, he now felt a strength that he did not know he possessed. Strength not of desperation, nor of nihilistic resignation—but of character.

  “Do what you want to. You’ll not get anything out of me while I’m still me.”

  “Lovely. I’m sure Dr. Cunningham will enjoy herself, then. Oh, by the way, we’ve got your friend Jake Camden. He cracked in very little time at all. Looks like we’re going to have another very cooperative journalist to work with!”

  “Fuck you!” shouted Scarborough.

  Richards coldly slapped him across the face.

  Scarborough could taste blood. He let his head hang for a moment, then sucked up the saliva and blood and phlegm, swung his head up, and spat the mess upon Richards’s clean shirt and jacket.

  “Jesus Christ!” said Richards, and he hit Scarborough again, harder. “I wish we did have your cunt of a daughter, you asshole. Then we’d control two whores from the same family!”

  The world seemed to go black. Scarborough lunged with all his might toward his adversary. Richards stepped back, allowing the chair to collapse upon the floor, with Scarborough in it, painfully sprawling as far as his confinement would allow. Frustrated, Scarborough lay there, desperately working against the impossible, to free himself and grab his tormentor by the throat. Peripherally, he heard someone enter. The female voice that followed somehow stilled him.

  “Well, I see you boys have been quite busy in my absence,” the woman said with total contempt.

  “I’m afraid our Dr. Scarborough has a bit of a chip on his shoulder,” said Richards, taking out a handkerchief and cleaning himself off.

  “Obviously. And your usually calm temper has flared somewhat. Well, I’m not going to be able to do anything with him lying there. Maybe you’d better call your goons in and set him up for me, hmmmm?”