Now, it would seem as though it was he that had been the fool all along. The patsy. The gullible one. He’d been played for a total sucker; the government had—well, not the government, precisely. The pawns of the Publishers in the government. People like Colonel Dolan—and of course, Brian Richards of the CIA. They’d even controlled his books through their editor-connection-a real New York book editor, not their network of killer agents—his editor. God! That was probably why they were bestsellers! And he, with his absurd pride, had never even questioned why they’d all done so well. It was because he’d been the writer, of course!
What a chump he’d been. What a puppet... and if he’d listened to his friend Mac Mackenzie, maybe he wouldn’t be in this hole right now. And maybe, just maybe, Mac would still be alive.
Marsha brought him a steaming cup of coffee, black. He sipped at the aromatic, just-bitter-enough brew and almost immediately the potent stuff kicked into his system, upping adrenaline and doing all kinds of chemical housekeeping work.
“Thanks,” he said, clinking the I Love Arizona mug onto the Formica tabletop. He leaned back on the plastic cushion and sighed. “I guess I needed that more than I thought.”
“Well, does that make you feel any more like talking about that dream?” Marsha’s eyes were bright and caring—but there was more than a little curiosity there too.
“Wait a minute. One more sip. I feel it coming.”
“I hope it won’t take the breakfast as well.”
“You really want to know, don’t you?”
He told her the dream.
When he was finished, her eyes were wide. She reached across the table and put her hand on his.
“Some dream, huh?”
She nodded. “I understand now. I know how worried you are about Diane—but I didn’t truly realize how deep it went.”
“The Editors don’t have her, the Publishers don’t have her... and that tape…”
“The Others. Do you really think they’re aliens?”
“All I know is that I want Diane back, safe—and I want to clear my name… and I want to expose the people who have used me so.”
“And you’re feeling frustrated now.”
“Exactly. We’re just waiting around for those people to tell us what to do... operating in their Winnebago, spending their money... hanging onto their whims.”
“They said they’d reveal everything to us eventually.”
Scarborough banged his fist onto the table. “Eventually is not soon enough. We don’t know how much time we have... and look, even if the Editors or the government or whoever is behind all this don’t have Diane, they want her, just as sure as they want me and you and Camden. And they’ve got Tim.”
“Diane’s boyfriend.”
“Where the hell he is now and what the hell they’ve done with him, I don’t know—but all I know is that I just can’t wait around for them to call the shots.”
“I know how you feel. I feel the same way. I’ve committed court-martial offenses. I’m looking at years in Leavenworth,” said Marsha evenly.
“I appreciate your trust, Marsha. I appreciate your love...” God, he felt bad about all that… He loved her, he knew that now… and the woman had just thrown away her whole career, her whole life, maybe. But that was one... just one of the reasons he had to see this business through, vindicate himself, square himself with the law. Not just for his own reputation—but for Marsha’s as well.
“Okay,” said Marsha. “But we’re talking about you now. You’re the one who just had the trauma.”
“I am, aren’t I? Maybe I could take the trauma better on a full stomach. “
“I take it that’s the cue for breakfast?”
“I’ll make it.”
“No, no. You just sit there. I’ll cook. I can listen at the same time, you know. And talk. We liberated women of the nineties haven’t lost our old-fashioned skills.” She got up and went to the icebox. Rattled pans and dishes, turned on the gas, lit a burner with a safety match. “So then… Diane… I’ve told you before, Ev, how much I liked her. When I met her that time in Iowa. She’s a wonderful girl. It’s too bad you two are such opposites. Still, that doesn’t mean that you don’t love her dearly—I know that. All the same, I get the impression that you argue a lot.”
Scarborough remembered that lunch. That had been when they’d gone to pick Diane up at the airport. They’d been bickering that day about Diane’s meetings with Jake Camden, UFO reporter for the Intruder and a general gadfly in Scarborough’s life. Still, plainly their love and bond had shown clearly through.
Diane Scarborough was a character. There could be no question about that. Twenty-one years old-God, he’d missed her birthday amidst all this-she was a regular spitfire, sharp and intelligent and yet with totally opposite aptitudes to her father. Where Scarborough had been logical and pragmatic, his daughter was intuitive and spiritual. Not that he didn’t respect her abilities—he was very proud of her excellent academic record at the University of Kansas. It was just all the outré stuff she got into. At first he thought that it was that Tim Reilly fellow’s influence on her—but then, the more he thought about it, the more he realized that she’d been into that stuff since junior high school. Astrology, tarot, and poetry, it had been then, cheek to jowl with the usual teenage rebellion stuff like rock, boys, and motorcycles. Drugs, maybe. He wouldn’t put anything past Diane—the girl was her own person, no question about that. That was a part of the problem with their relationship: He felt a fatherly need to protect her, to shield her from the pain he knew that was in the world; and yet, because of the trust fund that her mother had left her, she was just so damned independent! He respected the way she used it—she was getting a good education before all this, after all—but at the same time it was frustrating not to be in control of his only daughter’s life. Or what he thought her life should be.
Control. Scarborough had always been a bit of a control freak. He realized that now, but with Diane he’d made the mistake of trying to control her, with a resulting backlash of rebellion from her. To the point, perhaps subconsciously, of her making a point of sticking it to him whenever she could if only to prove her independence.
Which was why, when she came to him that time and told him about the flying saucer and the missing time, he’ d naturally thought that this was just one more jab at Daddy.
If only he’d believed her.
“Believed her? Believed who? Diane?”
Scarborough blinked. “I must have been thinking out loud.”
“Apparently. When didn’t you believe Diane?”
“When she came to me with that story about the encounter with the flying saucer in that Kansas field.”
“What... Ev! In your capacity, your career...” She broke eggs into a bowl. The sizzle and smell of frying bacon was coming up from the aluminum pan, crackling and sweet-smokey. “How could you expect yourself to swallow a story like that?”
“I should have listened more closely. I should have gone out with her immediately to investigate. If I’d done that, then she and Tim wouldn’t have called Camden—and the whole deadly business involving Mac would never have happened! Maybe Mac would be alive today. Certainly we wouldn’t be in the fix we’re in now!”
The woman thoughtfully turned the bacon over in the pan, then turned off the gas. She walked back to the table and planted herself on the cushion opposite him. She reached over, took his hand in hers, stroked it softly and warmly, an applied measure of the Touch that made her so gratifying a partner in bed. “You really shouldn’t just forgive others, Ev. You should forgive yourself. “
He bowed his head. “That’s pretty heavy-duty.”
Marsha Manning patted his hand and then went back to making the breakfast. “Think about it. Drink your coffee. We’ve got lots of time to talk about it later.”
Think about it.
Scarborough drank the coffee. He realized that it was one of those generic supermarket chain blends. Maxwell
House or Chase and Sanborn or whatever. Better than his usual instant. It had been so when his first wife was around. She’d buy fresh coffee beans at the International Deli on Wisconsin Avenue, near his Bethesda home, and grind them herself fresh each morning. However, bitter and ordinary as this cup of coffee was, it seemed like it was just what he needed, and he embraced its warmth and its wakening power gratefully as Marsha bustled about in the tiny kitchen space.
Think about it.
There was a lot to think about.
Like how the hell he’d gone from a lecture podium at Tawes Auditorium at the University of Maryland, doing his grandiose UFO skeptic-lecturer tum, to ending up in a Winnebago on the run from the government and the bad guys, looking for his daughter who was likely being held hostage by extraterrestrials with their own peculiar and so far opaque agenda.
Yes, how? A good question.
It seemed more of a convergence of coincidences at first, but then a pattern began to emerge. Diane had brought her story of seeing that UFO in the Kansas field—about there being a significant reason they’d been trying to contact her, perhaps Scarborough as well. Captain Eric “Mac” Mackenzie had visited him shortly after with a letter from Walter K. Mashkin, an amateur UFO investigator from Albuquerque, New Mexico, concerning the disappearance of one Harry Reynolds, a crank ham radio operator who’d broadcast UFO news and views from his own private station. Mackenzie, who’d written popularly before on the subject, had of course worked with Scarborough on project Blue Book in the sixties. He’d noticed discrepancies in reports concerning sightings in the Iowa area. Since that was his backyard, he wanted to investigate this possible “cover-up” —and invited Scarborough along for his acute observational abilities and his immense intelligence. At first, Scarborough had said no, but then, when he realized certain of his own files had been stolen, and that his contact with the Air Force, a Colonel Dolan at the Pentagon, definitely did not want him poking his nose into the business, he decided that he would take a sweep of the Midwest. First, he’d visit Mac and help him out. Then he’d go down to Kansas and acquiesce to his daughter’s desire for him to investigate her experience, Unfortunately, during this investigation, they’d run into Jake Camden, also doing his own look-see in the area, taken from Diane’s cue that something hot was afoot in the depths of that com-fed state. They had discovered that, yes indeed; the government was covering up something there: Apparently it had been using a farm area, at one point, as some sort of base of operations for a clandestine project.
But what? Of course, Scarborough knew now it was a White Book operation. However, then it had all been very sinister and mysterious.
It was at Mac’s home outside Iowa City that he’d met Lieutenant Marsha Manning. She’d been assigned by Colonel Walter Dolan himself, along with her laptop and formidable computer skills, to “aid” him in his research. He’d never forget his first glimpse of her, standing at the front door in her starched Air Force blue, those green eyes blazing behind those thick black glasses. She’d looked severe and official then, but thinking back on it now, Scarborough realized that he’d been attracted to her from the first time he’d seen her. Sure, he’d tried to deny it. To himself and to Mac Mackenzie, who’d called his attention to it from the very start. Scarborough had never been one to admit to emotions beyond the male-allowable ones of anger, righteous indignation, and arrogance. However, looking back, he could see the obvious qualities in Marsha that had reminded him of his Phyllis—Diane’s mother—who had died of cancer over seven years before.
“God, I miss Mac,” he said as Marsha came over and warmed up his coffee.
“I know. I hardly knew him, but—well, he seemed quite a guy.” She examined him contemplatively. Sausage and bacon sizzled in the background. The air was sweet and salty with the smell. “I hope I don’t hear this ‘I feel so guilty’ song, though.”
“I can’t help but feel that if it wasn’t for me, Mac would still be alive. You know, I still haven’t read the book he dedicated to me.”
“It’s back safe at my house.”
“Like we can go back there.”
“We will. Once this business is cleared up, everything will be just fine, Ev. I’m positive of that. I feel it all the way down to my toes. “
“The toes know. Nice toes.”
“I like them.”
“Mac. Yes, I suppose I still feel bad about Mac. Mostly, though, I wish he were here. You know, this would be his element. What he always secretly wished for. An adventure. A chase. A Hitchcockian suspense thriller, with a lot more paranoia and strangeness than any of those action/adventure Immolator books he wrote for extra income beyond his Air Force pension.”
“A Hitchcockian suspense thriller. Hmmm,” said Marsha. “Does that make me Grace Kelly?”
“Right. And it makes me Cary Grant.”
“I’m glad we can still joke about things, considering the circumstances,” said Marsha going back to redistribute the cooking breakfast. “But seriously—about Mac. Wasn’t he the one who got himself involved? After all, he was the one who came to you with the Mashkin letter about Harry Reynolds.”
“True.”
“And he was involved in the UFO stuff from the very beginning.”
“Yes, but I was the one who dragged Woodrow Justine into the mix.”
Justine was the man, at one time Scarborough’s “protector”, eventually his would-be-assassin, who was a “Junior Editor” of the group called the Editors. He was the man who, looking for Scarborough, had found Mac instead. He’d shot Mac, and burned his house. His masters, the “Publishers,” had unleashed him on Diane when she’d gone for her rendezvous with the Others near Hoover Dam.
Scarborough and Camden had fought with Justine on top of the dam itself. Justine had been shot and had gone over the dam. At first Scarborough had thought that he’d shot Justine. But he wasn’t a good shot at all, and now he strongly suspected that it had been the Others, protecting him from afar. They’d certainly done a lot of that subsequently—so why not before.
In the meantime however, Diane had had her rendezvous...
And had disappeared.
At first, Scarborough, loath to admit to the possibility of extraterrestrials on Earth (after all, he was a die-hard skeptic) had thought that the same people who had killed Mac, committed the Blue Book cover-up, and indeed that whole UFO conspiracy, had kidnapped Diane.
However, that was apparently not the case by any means—which he had learned in the last three weeks.
The last three weeks…
Scarborough shivered. He felt a shaft of cold drive through him, and he took a sip of coffee as though that would drive the cold from him.
“Scrambled?” asked Marsha.
“Over easy, if you can manage it.”
“What, in this kitchen? This place is better equipped, better stocked, than my place back home. These RV’s are just incredible, and our friends, whoever they are, did not leave us unsupplied. “
“A distinct déjà vu situation.”
“Just call me short-order Marsha.” She cracked eggs into the skillet. The frying sounds were welcome, homey. “You know, I can cook a lot more than just this stuff.”
“I’m sure.”
“I really didn’t get a chance to show you back at Mac’s. He made the meals there. Man-style.”
“Right. Sandwiches!”
“Terrific sandwiches. Wondrous sandwiches. Varied sandwiches. But still, a soul cannot live on sandwiches alone. I look forward to cooking you different meals, Ev. We’ve got the staples and the spices. Anything else we can buy with that five thousand bucks they left us!”
“Looks like you’re going to get the chance. I think we’re going to be cruising around in this Winnebago for a while. I look forward to the gustatory adventure. I must admit—that breakfast you made for me back in Dayton was just about the best I think I ever had. “
“Appetite makes the best sauce. And I’d bet, Mister Scarborough, that you’re a lot m
ore hungry right now than you think.”
“I’m glad you’re with me now, Marsha. I really am.”
That was the truth. And the stuff about the meal she’d made for him back then was for certain the truth.
After the incident on Hoover Dam, Scarborough had gotten the word pretty quick that not only was he wanted for the supposed murder of Captain Mac Mackenzie, but for the murder of Woodrow Justine, CIA agent. He and Camden, in a truly unholy alliance, had agreed to stay in contact. Scarborough, convinced that the rogue government agency had his daughter, was determined to stay free in order to get her back; Camden, for his part, smelled a powerful story, a Pulitzer Prize, delivery from financial doom, and a new future in reporting respectability. With the questionable help of a purchased Ford Falcon, Scarborough had driven cross-country toward where he thought he could find answers: New York City. Along the way, he’d stopped at Marsha Manning’s, who agreed to serve as contact point for communications between him and Camden.
In the meantime, he’d attempted to contact his CIA friend, Ed Myers—a man he figured he could trust. Ed was elusive, and so Scarborough had headed for New York. His literary agent was gone on vacation. His speech-booking agent simply refused to help him. He’d turned to his last resort, his editor at Quigley Publishing. But it turned out that she’d been one of the bad guys, the puppeteers all along, stationed by the Publishers specifically to use him and his talents as their pawn.
The UFO Conspiracy Trilogy Page 77