“And who would have suspected,” said Scarborough, “that in actuality, aliens were quite… well, close to human.”
“Just like us.”
“No. There are significant differences. These faces—” James tapped his face. “There are slight differences, forcing us to use a kind of prosthetic to walk amongst you. But we need not go into this... We are aliens to this planet, but as I said, we are genetic cousins.”
“But go on,” said Marsha. “What I don’t understand is why these Publishers or Colleagues and their Panorama are necessary?”
“Why else?” said Scarborough bitterly. “To maintain the status quo.”
“Status quo?” Marsha put her hand on his shoulder. “What do you mean?”
“Power. They have some kind of control over this world now. Financial, cultural, political power—I really don’t know for sure...”
“We have a better idea, of course,” said James, “and it is far too deep and pervasive to attempt to root out totally. Indeed, whole governments may collapse if that happened. No, we do not wish that… We merely wish for something very simple, and for which you can be an invaluable tool—”
“You want to expose them.”
“We want to expose White Book and Black Book. We want to eradicate the fear that people might feel about the possibility of intelligent civilizations in the galaxy other than theirs.”
“But you don’t want evidence of your existence?”
“No. We have discovered that the people of Earth are not ready for us—not yet. Development is needed. Emotional progress, intellectual progress—conscious as well as subconscious. It will take a great deal of work, but the rewards for humankind will ultimately be wisdom and maturity.” James looked at Robert, then back at Scarborough. “A summary at best. Further elucidation will be available later. But it will be enough to work with, we feel. Enough to make a decision with. Everett Scarborough—will you help us in our cause?”
Scarborough didn’t even have to think about it—everything fell into place, everything that this alien... no, this man said. It all made sense now. Finally.
“Yes, James,” said Dr. Everett Scarborough. “Yes I will.”
Chapter 27
A bottle of whiskey was on the table of the hotel room, good Jim Beam alongside a nice fancy bucket of fresh ice.
The woman took something out of her purse that he recognized immediately and placed it on the table: a vial of his favorite vice, cocaine.
She took off her coat, revealing perfectly molded bare shoulders. She folded the coat neatly and placed it on a nearby chair and turned her heavenly figure toward him; her pouting lips, her gorgeous eyes.
“So glad you could stop by, Jake,” she said. “Now then... how about that drink?”
“Uh—yeah. Sure, Emily. Thanks.”
She picked up the Jim Beam, cracked the seal. With her bare hands, she reached into the ice bucket and pulled out a handful of ice. She licked it. “Hmmm. Nothing like ice in a hot climate, eh, Jake?”
A rivulet of water ran down her chin and she licked her red lips with a smooth glistening tongue.
“No,” said Jake, his tongue getting dry.
She put tinkling ice into a glass, and then poured a large measure of whiskey in the glass.
“That’s enough,” said Jake.
She nodded and then poured an equal amount into her own glass. She handed him his glass, and toasted him by knocking her drink against his. “To our new partnership. May it be outrageously profitable for us both.”
“I’ll drink to that.”
Jake sipped some of the drink, but only enough to moisten his mouth.
She smiled at him and then down at the cocaine. “I hope you don’t mind. It’s a little thrill of mine... I only use it occasionally. And then when I feel particularly… sensuous.”
“Oh.” Jake found himself, again, uncharacteristically speechless. This Emily Elliot woman was, quite simply, one of the most beautiful creatures he’d ever laid his eyes upon, and she was getting more gorgeous by the moment.
“You’re an interesting man, Jake Camden.” She said, sitting down on the bed, looking up at him through dark, sexy half-closed lids. “I like you. You’re handsome... and yet you’ve got this interesting spark to you.”
“Thanks.” Camden moistened his mouth again, felt the usual warmth of the alcohol inside him, along with the familiar wakening of glandular secretions. “Now what was this separate business item involving Scarborough you wished to speak to me about?”
She smiled mischievously, crossing her legs and bending forward so that Jake could see the bulging top of her décolletage. “Actually, no more business quite yet, Jake. I just wanted to get you to myself so I could ask you if you’d care to fuck.”
The English accent made the Anglo-Saxon suggestion particularly surprising, explicit, lascivious, and exciting.
Jake almost dropped his drink.
When Scarborough and Manning never showed up, Jake had had to improvise. Since of course Schroeder hadn’t been expecting them and hadn’t the faintest that he’d been very close to another abduction, albeit of a quite terrestrial nature, there was no problem there. And certainly Emily Elliot had simply thought she’d walked into a business meeting in a bar.
After telling them that yes, he indeed could communicate with Scarborough, Camden rallied enough to negotiate a continuing deal on movie rights to the story, and strike up a deal with Emily for a book and magazine series. The business duo had even promised to throw in the very best of legal help, once Scarborough accomplished what he wanted and turned himself in. There was a large amount of money involved, and it should have been one of Camden’s great days. Christ, yes, he was going to have some money in his bank account for a change. Serious money!
But he could take precious little pleasure in it now, because he was worried. What the hell had happened to those two, for God’s sake?
And what should he do?
Finally, at the end of negotiations, the answer seemed plain enough. The only reason Schroeder would be willing to meet again was if Scarborough showed up, so Camden suggested just that. Perhaps, he’d said, maybe even tomorrow. He’d call and set the time up. Emily Elliot had wanted to know if she could be in on this meeting, but Camden nixed that: He was sorry, he’d said, but although he was sure that Dr. Scarborough would enjoy meeting with Emily sometime in the future, the meeting should only be with Schroeder, since the two knew each other already. That seemed to satisfy them both, and that was that. Hands shook. Glasses clinked.
So how had he gotten here with a glass of whiskey in his hand, a vial of coke on a table, and a beautiful woman propositioning him?
Schroeder had been eager to get back to Old Tucson to work on plans for the next day’s shoot, which had been fine with Camden, since he wanted to get back to Summerhaven anyway. However, even as Schroeder was departing Emily Elliot had said, “Jake, I’m staying at the Hyatt just down the road. I’m impressed with you, and have been impressed with your journalism that Max has showed me. I’d like to discuss the possibility of further work down the road—perhaps some sort of consulting contract, as it were, for my company.”
It seemed too good to be true. He’d tried to beg off, he had other places to go, but Emily pointed out that this may be the last time they’d be able to meet for a while, just the two of them. “And meetings go so much better in person, don’t you think?”
Camden had had to agree. He supposed an extra half hour or so wouldn’t hurt. The more he thought about it, the more he figured that clunky old RV must have had motor problems. Most likely they were just stuck up at Summerhaven and he’d find them back at the cabin.
He had to look out for his future, right? And how often did this kind of offer for financial security pop up—to say nothing of the golden chance to write about something other than goddamned UFOs!
So he’d followed her back to the Hyatt, parked, and went to her room. And now, here he was with the dilemma of his l
ife.
“Excuse me,” he said. “I’ve got to go to the bathroom.”
She smiled demurely at him, her eyes full of confidence. No way you’re going to be able to turn down this offer, those eyes said. “Sure.” She stretched out languorously on the bed, lighting a cigarette. “Take your time. I’ll be here.”
He went into the bathroom.
He didn’t have to pee. Surprisingly enough, he just needed some time. He turned on the faucet in the sink and splashed some water on his face. He looked up blearily at his red eyes in the mirror and then down at his drink.
He wanted that drink so bad. All of it. Just to chug it down to steady his nerves. He reached for it, held it in his hand, lifted it off the porcelain sink.
Then put it down.
He put some more water on his face, and slowly toweled it off. No, what he needed now was a clear head. A clear head to decide what to do, and this head of his was notoriously foggy when whiskey was swimming through it.
Although, truth to tell, a little sex would certainly clear his mind. Maybe not that coke... but a little in and out... And she was the foxiest, classiest babe his red eyes had seen for a damned long time. And some hot sex would certainly seal this deal she was talking about, because if a chick had sex with Jake Camden, she was certain to want to do it again.
However, despite the two margaritas, despite the whiskey sips, despite the prospect of a couple of lines of coke, Jake Camden felt surprisingly sober, and something about this babe was bothering him.
When he walked out into the room, she had some coke lines cut on the mirror.
She was also stretched out naked on the bed.
“Well, hello there, Jake! What took you so long?”
Her body, if anything, looked even better than her clothing had promised. Her skin was smooth, supple, and beautiful—the curves were perfectly proportioned and her breasts were just the right size with firm jaunty nipples. She displayed her assets with the confidence and ease of a practiced model, and her soft brunette hair flowed down over those perfect shoulders—oh! so majestically.
Her perfume seemed to waft toward him like an enticing finger.
Even as he looked at her Jake felt a pang in his groin and a pain in his soul.
What was happening to him?
He didn’t know himself anymore.
“Sorry, Emily. I really can’t do this. There’s someplace I have to be. I’ll get in contact with you some other time. Maybe some other time, some other place for both business and this... but I’ve got other obligations.”
And so saying, he turned and bolted from the room.
“What the bloody hell!” the astonished woman said as he left. “What are you doing?”
You idiot! cried a voice inside of him as he hurried down the hall and then the stairs toward where his car was parked. That’s the finest piece of ass you’ve ever been offered! And what about the work!
He told the voice welling up inside of him, nattering at him—the voice of old reprobate Jake, the voice that had been getting weaker and weaker since the hell he’d gone through at Gamma Base in Kirtland—to shut up.
He had to go and find his friends.
April Hardesty sat, gape-mouthed and feeling foolish and naked and suddenly cold, for a full ten seconds before she could even move.
He’d left!
He’d just taken off!
This wasn’t in the script! She’d studied the file on Jake Camden. What she’d offered up was everything that tempted him the most. Booze, drugs, a sexy woman—not necessarily in order of preference. After all, the seduced male was so much easier to mold...
And he’d just walked out, leaving her in the lurch.
Men just didn’t reject April Hardesty. It was new to her experience. They usually pursued her, and if she cared to request their presence in her bed they jumped eagerly.
Not Jake Camden, though.
After she got over her shock, she jumped up and started struggling into her clothing.
He hadn’t just walked away, though.
He’d run away.
Which meant, she realized even as she was slipping her boots on, that he was probably all the way down to his car by now.
No way in hell to catch him, let alone follow him personally.
“Damn!” she said, abandoning the second boot. She leaped to the telephone, grabbed it up, and dialed a quick number.
“Yes?” said a man’s voice at the other end.
“Camden. Has he reached his car?”
“Just getting in it.”
“Follow him. He’ll take you to Scarborough. Keep in radio contact.”
“Got you.”
“Kill Scarborough. Kill Manning,” she spat viciously. “But Camden—if you possibly can, save him for me!”
“Right.”
The man hung up, and April Hardesty attended to her boot.
Chapter 28
The sun was hanging low over the horizon as Jake Camden started up the winding Santa Catalina road back toward Summerhaven.
One of the things that Jake always liked about deserts were the sunsets. He’d heard that dawns were real nice, but he’d never been up early enough to see one, so the sunsets had to do.
And they were glorious indeed, magentas and puces and crimsons and ceruleans and yellows flung willy-nilly across the horizon like God’s spilled paint factory. The dust in the atmosphere kicked up those colors, books said—nothing more than that.
But it sure looked incredible.
Fortunately, sunset was a couple of hours away—Jake didn’t care to negotiate the way back to Mount Lemmon and Summerhaven in the dark, with only the aid of the pop-up lights of his sports car.
No, the road was much too twisty and winding for that to be much of a pleasure.
And there were no streetlights here.
The road lifted up immediately from the flat desert, leaving behind the saguaro cactus and the last houses of the valley and vaulting gradually up through the mountain range. No railing on the sides either, and further up there were some pretty damned deep precipices—Jake had noticed that on the way up and he certainly noticed it on the way down.
The Nissan Z took the grade and the turns like a champ though, and pretty soon Camden calmed down a bit and let some of the tension drain out of him.
He didn’t even think that the car he would glimpse occasionally across canyons might be following him.
Not at first, anyway.
No, he was thinking about that woman, Emily Elliot.
Funny thing—he wasn’t sorry he’d left her. True, she was one of the hottest things he’d ever encountered, and part of him wondered why he didn’t take up her offer. But the larger part of him—the part above his waist—was glad.
Something about her bothered him, definitely.
Well, if she was serious about lusting after him, maybe she’d try again in less tense circumstances. And certainly if she was really interested in him working for her at a later time beyond this whole business, he’d hear from her again. But right now, there were other things to attend to.
He had to get back up to the cabin to see what the hell was going on with Scarborough and Manning.
He was worried about them, and tried to take the road as fast as he dared. Still, this road made him nervous and by the time he was fifteen minutes up, whatever alcohol was left in his system had been shoved aside by adrenaline, and he felt absolutely stone-cold sober.
He was just coming out of one of those hairy turns around a bend and starting up a slope when he noticed the car in his rearview mirror. It was the car he’d seen before, maybe a half-mile back—a red Cougar. Those mothers were road machines, all right, with big tires and V-8 engines and horsepower to spare. But Jake hadn’t exactly been crawling up the hill either, so it made him rather suspicious.
Well, it was an all too appropriate time to be paranoid, he figured.
And it was easy enough to take measures.
So after a while, when he loo
ked again and saw that red Cougar still hovering there in his rearview mirror, he decided to check.
He took the nearest turnout.
The turnouts, of course, were designed to allow for slower vehicles to pull off and let backed-up traffic pass by. Scarborough had used them a lot with the Winnebago when they’d been going up here the first time.
This one was a shallow stretch of dirt, hollowed into the side of the hill. Jake pulled the Nissan Z in it and came to an idling halt.
The red Cougar passed by.
Inside, there were two men. They did not tum to look at him.
Hmm. Well, so much for that.
Jake waited a full minute. Then, after checking his rearview mirror to make sure there wasn’t another car swerving around the bend—lots of bends on this road, lots of crazy drivers in this country—he released his emergency brake, put the manual transmission into first gear, eased off the clutch, and crunched through the gravel back onto the macadam. He accelerated back up to thirty-five miles per hour gradually. After a few more minutes, he passed a sign announcing another increment of a thousand feet in elevation.
In another few minutes, he’d forgotten the red Cougar entirely. His mind was wandering onto other matters. His worry and paranoia lessened somewhat, he was wondering if maybe he shouldn’t have taken that Emily Elliot up on her offer. Sheesh, he could have made it quick—and he could have postponed their business meeting to some other time.
Hell, Scarborough and Manning were probably sitting snug back up at that Summerhaven A-frame, drinking martinis and having a good laugh at his expense.
Hmmm. And she was most definitely a piece of work in the sack… Now, everything career and financial depended upon the outcome of this UFO craziness and God alone knew where this stuff was leading…
Oh well. Like that Grateful Dead song said, so what if he was going to hell in a bucket…
At least he was enjoying the ride.
Yeah, Scarborough and Manning were probably okay. Most likely just mechanical problems.
The UFO Conspiracy Trilogy Page 99