The UFO Conspiracy Trilogy

by David Bischoff

  “Oh, you’re a seducer all right. Jake warned me. Well, I hope you enjoyed it, because it’s never going to happen again.”

  “So it would appear that the true pain is mine.”

  “Look, maybe I need coffee but I don’t need any more bullshit.”

  Davis laughed. “Oh, come on. We both had a good time. I’ve never seen someone laughing so hard before. You had a wonderful time.”

  She said nothing for a moment, and then asked, “Are Jake and Everett upstairs?”

  “No. I believe they’re both camped out at the Winnebago yet. It’s only eight-thirty. I thought you’d like to get up a little early... if only to go to a room of your own. You see, I am a person of some discretion.”

  “You’ll still help us?”

  Davis looked surprised. “Did I ever say I wouldn’t?”

  “No. I guess not… I just thought…”

  “The extracurricular activities are just that. They need not be mentioned again, if you like.”

  “I like.”

  He smiled. “Very well. But you are quite a delightful woman. After this business is resolved, you certainly are welcome to return on your own, for a more sober experience.”

  “Look, Lowell Davis. I’m with Everett Scarborough. What I did last night goes against my concept of loyalty.”

  “You aren’t married. What, you have some sort of commitment?”

  “Not in writing.”

  “Spoken then.”

  “Understood.”

  “Well, you see then... it really doesn’t exist. You really shouldn’t feel so guilty!”

  “I don’t believe it’s precisely your place to tell me what I should feel and what I shouldn’t feel!”

  Davis shrugged. “Be that as it may... Well, no harm done. You may still consider me an ally in your situation.”

  “Thank you. That’s quite considerate of you. Now, if you don’t mind, could you leave me alone for a moment with my clothes and my hangover? I’ll be right up!”

  Smiling, Davis essayed a deep salaam and backed from the chamber, closing the door behind him, leaving Marsha to her privacy.

  She grabbed for the aspirin.

  As soon as he saw the two of them, Scarborough sensed what had happened.

  It was strange. As much as he clung to his old identity, he had always belittled the degree of value and worth of intuition before, and now he could not deny the feeling, the sensory message.

  They slept together last night.

  “So then,” said Davis. “It’s settled. You’ll check in periodically and I’ll do whatever I can to aid you. And please remember that you can come back here at any time—just as long as you don’t bring the FBI with you.”

  “Yes, I’m sure we’d be more than welcome.”

  “You have to understand—this isn’t for you, Scarborough. It’s my dedication to the right cause—and to what I have worked on for years—the furtherance of the mission of the Others on the planet Earth!”

  “Yeah,” said Camden. “And when you talk to Mr. X, tell him that Jake Camden says to go fuck himself.”

  Marsha cringed a bit. She was sitting at a table, nursing some kind of tomato juice concoction. It wasn’t so much the way that she was looking at Davis as the way she wasn’t looking at Davis that pretty much told the tale. She’d been at the table when he and Jake had knocked on the door about nine A.M. It was clear she wasn’t feeling exactly one hundred percent. Well, neither was Scarborough. They’d just have to muddle through the day—and get past this whole minor but emotional business together.

  “Are you certain that’s wise, Jake? After all, you don’t seem to take well to receiving threats yourself!” Davis couldn’t help smirking a bit.

  “Yeah, and like I told you before, Lowell, that was probably one of the sickest practical jokes I’ve ever encountered!”

  “I’ve got the videotape. Would you like a copy for your collection? No? Well, be assured, it’s for my amusement only. I shan’t sell it to the Intruder. I do have a large amount of integrity, as many slurs upon my character you’ve managed to heap.”

  “Okay. I don’t think there’s anything else to be said. We’ll stay in contact from phone booths when possible, and we’ll call with the MCI calling card you’ve given us.” Scarborough tapped his top pocket to ascertain the card was still there, and then he turned to Manning. “Ready to go, Marsha?”

  “Yes,” she said. She finished the last of her drink and then rose.

  “I’ll look forward to your calls. I must say, my best wishes go with you. This is the beginning of the final part of a Great Adventure, I believe.”

  “Save the speech,” said Scarborough. “It’s our asses on the line.”

  “My goodness...” Davis said. “Doctor... your language has certainly degenerated to blue collarisms.”

  “Naw. Just ring-around-the-collarisms,” said Jake. “He’s been hanging around this foul-mouthed college grad too long.”

  “Can I give you anything else to take along with you besides my best wishes? Food? Weapons? Reading material?”

  “No thanks. We’ve been well provisioned.” Scarborough took a deep breath. “I’m sorry about last night’s unfortunate confrontation, though, Davis. I do appreciate your help here. I’m not sure exactly how correct you’ve been all these years, but clearly you were on the right track and I was certainly deceived—in many ways by my own intellect.”

  “That’s big of you to admit, Scarborough.”

  “When this is over, though... I can’t promise we won’t debate again.”

  “Doctor, my life would be the poorer if we didn’t.”

  Scarborough actually found reason to smile. That at least sounded genuine... as genuine as Davis’s honest and complete dedication to his writing and to the Others. “Count on it, Davis. And count on losing.”

  They shook hands.

  “I’ll look forward to hearing from you and I’ll be sure to report anything I get from… my sources.”

  “I can’t tell you why... but I’m not sorry we came.” said Scarborough, leaving it at just that.

  He collected the others and herded them out to the RV.

  If nothing else, he thought, now he had an agenda.

  And the first thing on it was to get out of Prescott, Arizona.

  Lowell Davis watched the Winnebago roar to life. He watched as it backed up and shuddered down the driveway toward the road. He did not watch from behind the eyes of one of his video cameras, but rather from the front window of the living room, pushing back a wing of curtain for a view, revealing himself to them.

  He even waved, though he could not tell if they waved back.

  When the Winnebago had puffed and growled its way out of the driveway, leaving only a plume of bluish-black exhaust behind, Lowell Davis stepped back and let the curtains drop.

  He nodded, smiled to himself, and went to a humidor on his desk, from which he plucked a Gasser y Ortega Cuban cigar, performing the rituals of rolling and crackling it between his fingers, savoring the parchment-dry tobacco smell. He struck a match to flint, lifted the flame, and slowly sucked the heat toward the edge of the tip, lighting the cigar with infinite patience and care.

  A few puffs then rewarded him with the taste of exquisite smoke. When he was certain that the cigar had caught, he extinguished the match and flipped it into an ashtray.

  He sat down at a desk, smoked contemplatively for a moment, letting the cigar smoke accumulate like a veil of mystery in the book-and ornament-choked room.

  Then he leaned forward and picked up an old-fashioned phone. He dialed a number—rotary style—and listened as the conduits clicked into place. The other end rang and a voice answered.

  “Davis,” it said.

  “Right in one,” said Lowell Davis, placing the cigar down in the ashtray designed to look like the opening jaws on a crocodile. “You were right. They came here.”

  “Yes,” said the voice. “We know.”

  Chapter 17
r />   They travelled south.

  After a brief stop on the roadside for a quick discussion of destinations, they drove south along Route 17 for two hours in silence. Scarborough drove, while the other two sacked out in the bunks. Marsha Manning had said maybe two words during the meeting, and Scarborough did not press her. He just wanted to get where they were going and then he could take the time—-if they had time—to determine what was going on inside her head.

  On the way down 17, he saw a sign that actually made him laugh, brightening his whole day:

  STATE PENITENTIARY: DO NOT STOP FOR HITCHIKERS.

  Again, he was amazed at the difference in the scenery caused by the decreasing elevation. As the RV passed New River, the rocky territory grew flatter and cactus could be seen. He could feel the temperature change as well—the cool in the air gradually became not only warm, but just short of hot.

  And the sky was incredibly bright.

  Scarborough stopped at a 7-EIeven where he quickly bought sunglasses for all of them, two pair each. He didn’t know about the others, but he tended to misplace his and he didn’t care to be stopping at convenience stores all the time in a state where the authorities were probably looking for him.

  Phoenix proved to be a large urban sprawl, baking in the sunshine and threaded with highways and the usual grid-work of streets, but decidedly neat-looking streets for such a huge city; streets with palms and cactus and Southwestern-style architecture, and a great many apartment buildings with swimming pools clustered around the usual glass behemoths in the central area. From Route 17 they wheeled onto Route 10, which angled through the rest of the Phoenix area and would take them the remainder of the 120 miles to Tucson.

  This, claimed Jake Camden, afforded them two major advantages.

  “Look, guys,” he’d said. “It’s like this. You know my old boss, Kozlowski? Over at the good old National Intruder? Well, he used to have ties with the mob and he likes to have... what would you call them... yeah, getaway spots. Just in case the heat got turned up from his past. He never used to get anywhere near New York City or New Jersey. His vacation homes, as he called them. This guy’s got lots of them seeded all through the North American continent. One of ‘em’s near Tucson.”

  “But I thought,” said Martha, “that we were supposed to avoid city areas!”

  “I said near city areas. This one’s in some mountains outside Tucson in a resort area. Ski stuff, you know? I know about it because he took one of his secretaries he was porking up there once. Then later she took me up there. And we did a lot more than ski, you can bet on that!” Jake had on one of his disgusting leers, which Marsha promptly objected to, and so it evaporated.

  “So?” prodded Scarborough.

  “So the Feds or the cops will never think of looking for us up there in the mountains. And it’s less than an hour from Tucson…”

  “And what’s so special about Tucson again?” said Martha.

  “Maximillian Schroeder,” Scarborough had answered. “It’s where the next stop of filming for Schroeder’s film is, right Jake?”

  “That’s it. And I think that he’s the one we’re going to be able to count on here... The one who’s going to help bust up this case for us. And get our butts outta hot water.”

  “That would be nice,” Marsha had agreed.

  It sounded fine to Scarborough. After all they’d been through, he could honestly use a place to hole up for a while, where he could plan out his next moves. An Arizona mountain sounded as good a place as any, he supposed, and close.

  Although he still hadn’t gotten used to it, Scarborough had to admit that the Winnebago was extremely fine camouflage for the Others to have chosen for them. Plenty of them on the Arizona highways; one more RV was barely noticeable. Besides, how would their pursuers ever guess that Scarborough and company were cruising around in a ten-ton portable house on wheels!

  True, this wasn’t exactly high-speed car chase material. If they were ever located, it would be damned hard to get away in the thing, and it would have to be abandoned.

  But for now, it was fine.

  After going through Guadalupe and Chandler, part of the Phoenix Valley of the Sun megalopolis, Route 10 took them along an increasingly barren stretch. There could be no mistake now; they were in a desert. The May sun was hot, the temperature was well into the nineties, and though it was a dry heat, not humid like in the Washington, D.C. swamp, Scarborough was glad of the Winnebago’s air-conditioning.

  They stopped for gas in a town called Eloy, paid cash, purchased sodas as well, and then got back into the RV to travel the rest of the way to their destination.

  The place was called Summerhaven.

  It was located on Mount Lemmon in the Santa Catalina Mountains at an elevation of 8200 feet above sea level, and usually about twenty-five to thirty degrees cooler than Tucson and the San Pedro valley.

  Summerhaven itself was a picturesque collection of stores, a post office, and a bed and breakfast establishment called the Alpine Inn, all surrounded by lovely ponderosa pine and slopes dotted with cabins of various shapes and sizes.

  Camden directed Scarborough up a slope to a winding road which took them away from most of the other cabins to a shady cul-de-sac where his former boss’s cabin stood, tucked away in a copse of oak and piñon trees.

  It was a large A-frame and looked rustic but at the same time luxurious.

  Scarborough was happy to see it, because he was exhausted.

  The highway driving had been all right, but after they’d skirted Tucson and started up the winding mountain road, it had been pretty tough going. The twists and turns were significant, and although the RV had a 454 V-8 engine with 230 horsepower and a 385 torque, Scarborough had to take the grade in a lower gear, pulling off onto the regular shoulder bulges frequently, to let faster vehicles past. By the time they’d reached the top of Mount Lemmon, he was drenched with sweat from the tension, and he wasn’t just looking forward to a rest, he was looking forward to a shower.

  “Not bad, huh?” said Camden.

  “Looks empty enough,” commented Scarborough in a monotone.

  “Just a little problem that’s come to mind,” said Marsha. Her long nap had perked her up considerably. “How are we going to get inside? Looks all closed up and locked!”

  “What, you think I’m stupid?” Camden said, a mischievous glint in his eye. “I’d take you guys all the way up here and not be able to get in?”

  “Jake, don’t tell me you’re going to break in!” said Marsha. “I mean, it’s lucky that no one else is using the place now! We don’t want to force our way in.”

  Scarborough said sardonically, “Let me. I’m already an alleged felon!”

  Camden scampered up the grassy, rocky slope. A wooden deck stretched out from the doorway, and Camden ducked under it. He picked up a mat upon which were stacked some logs, and pulled something out.

  He stood up, proudly displaying a dirt-covered plastic baggy holding a key.

  “Hmmmm? How’s that? Oh ye of little faith!”

  “I should have known,” said Scarborough. He checked to make sure the parking brake in the Winnebago was on, and then he trudged up the hill. Camden fairly capered up the steps, pulling the key from the bag and slotting it into the keyhole. A sliding door rolled smoothly open, allowing them entrance.

  Camden went inside and fumbled for the electric light switch. It clicked on, lighting up the pleasantly furnished cabin.

  “Nice,” said Marsha. “Very nice.”

  Scarborough agreed with her, but was too weary to say much.

  The cabin consisted of a large lower floor containing the living area, the dining room, the kitchen, and the bathroom. Upstairs was a large open loft with beds. Not a lot of privacy, but if that was really needed, Camden could be banished to the Winnebago or sent on an errand.

  Of course, with what Scarborough suspected had happened last night, he wasn’t thinking much about intimate subjects. He simply closed that part of
himself off for now; it could be dealt with later.

  “What more could you want!” said Camden. “You got your TV, you got your VCR, your stereo, and with a nice jazz CD collection, Scarb. Knew you’d like that! A real make-out joint, this!”

  Scarborough collapsed on the couch. “Great.”

  “You got your phone over there, too... Think I’ll try and make that phone call that didn’t go through earlier.”

  “You do that,” said Scarborough. “We’ve got to get this show on the road. Every day that goes by makes a difference.” But he was just mouthing the words; inside, he was feeling too burned out to really feel much conviction.

  “Hey there,” said Marsha, sitting down beside him. “You look pretty exhausted.”

  “Yes,” agreed Scarborough. “I suppose I could sleep for about a week. But as soon as I get motivated, I think I’ll wash up.” He kept his words low and noncommittal. Not exactly cold, but certainly not warm.

  “Hmm. Yes. You do seem a little ripe. Comes from sleeping outside, Ev.”

  “Could be.”

  “I suppose we could wait till later to talk about last night.”

  “I’d really appreciate that, Marsha.”

  “Okay. But I want you to know that—”

  She was interrupted by Camden, stomping back from the kitchen where the phone was. “Damn! Everything else is on in this place. You’d think the phone would be, too.”

  “Maybe it’s just as well,” murmured Scarborough. “With Kozlowski’s connections, the place could be bugged.”

  “I’ll just have to go down to the Alpine Inn and call from their pay phone—by the way, you got some change? How ‘bout some green too. Expenses you know.”

  Scarborough sighed. He dug into his jeans pocket, pulled out the roll of bills that was a portion of the money the Others had left for them along with the Winnebago. He peeled off two twenties.

  “This is going to have to hold you, Jake.”

  Jake fingered the two green portraits of Andrew Jackson with disdain. “I’m going to need more walking-around money than this in Tucson.”