“Use your army and supplies to get us there,” Alex told him.
“Why not have the director send a helicopter? It would be a lot faster.”
“There just isn’t any place for them to refuel.”
Blackwood smiled. “Well, I just happen to have a tanker full of jet fuel that was taken by mistake. I was planning to use it for heating this winter. You can have it, but on one condition.”
Alex sat up, more optimistic about his mission. “I’m listening.”
“I might be in trouble with the law. You see, we hijacked the interstate for supplies. Everex took it upon himself to start killing the truckers, but I know I’ll get blamed for it.”
“Everex did a lot of nasty things on his own,” Grady spoke up on Blackwood’s behalf. “I’ll testify, if need be.”
Alex nodded in understanding. “I’m sure a prosecutor will take that into consideration, but I don’t have the authority to make any promises. I can tell them about your assistance in this crisis, but that’s the best I can offer.”
Blackwood looked at Marcia for confirmation, and saw her smile.
“He’s a man of his word, George,” she assured him.
“Take all the fuel you need.”
Alex nodded and left the others on the porch as he went inside to contact Donner and Bull. When he finished, he walked back outside. “The helicopter will stop and pick up Bull and the oil before heading here to refuel for the trip to Nevada. It should arrive in about four hours.”
Blackwood noticed Jerry Monroe walking across the parade ground and waved him over. “I’m going to be arrested in the near future, Jerry. I’ll accept my punishment, but I’m hoping you might take over for me. It may be a while before these people can go back to a regular life, and I want them to feel safe here until that happens.”
Monroe was surprised by the offer and looked Blackwood in the eyes. “If I do this, there are going to be some major changes. Anyone who wants to leave may do so, and no more special services.”
Blackwood nodded vigorously. “Of course. That was Everex’s doing, not mine.”
Monroe held out his hand to Blackwood. “Then we have a deal.”
* * *
Chapter 35
GROOM LAKE, NEVADA:
Alex and Christa were cordial to each other on the flight to Nevada, but there was a constant strain between them. Marcia and David were in the seats between them, and all conversations were drowned out by the high pitched whine from the engines of the gigantic Sea Stallion helicopter as they taxied down the runway toward the hangars. The rotors slowed to a stop and the tail ramp opened before the engines shut down. It suddenly seemed deathly quiet on the taxiway.
Bull followed the last person down the ramp and stopped when he was next to Alex and Christa. “Well, we made it. What are we supposed to do next?”
“You can just relax for a while,” Christa told him. “Now it’s up to us scientists to figure things out.”
The side door from the hangar opened, and two men walked out. One, a small, gray-haired man in civilian clothes, the other in an Air Force uniform, who introduced them to the group. “I’m Colonel Sterns, the base commander, and this is Doctor Henry Heinz, the head scientist here at the base.”
Christa stepped forward and handed the crystal to Henry. “I found this in the empty oil tanker.”
When Henry held the crystal in his open palm, his eyes began to water. “I have been looking for this since 1949,” he told them with a slight German accent.
“And what’s that, Doctor Heinz?” Alex asked.
The doctor smiled. “Please, call me Henry. It is best if I show you and Miss Avery. Come with me.”
“What about me and my men?” Bull asked.
“I’ll take you to the barracks,” Sterns told him. “You can clean up and get something to eat.”
Bull looked at Alex for confirmation. “I don’t like leaving this oil here, without guards.”
Alex smiled. “It’ll be safe, Bull. We’ll meet up with you later.” Bull nodded reluctantly as he and his men followed Sterns past the hangar to a separate building.
Henry led Alex and Christa away from the others. “In 1948, we found something very interesting out in the desert,” Henry told them as they walked past more hangars. “We’ve been studying it ever since, but our studies stopped about three years ago. There was nothing more we could do, until now.”
Henry stopped at the locked door in the side of another hangar, and while he sorted through a ring of keys, Alex studied the exterior. There were no windows in the building and the big sliding doors were chained shut. At the top of the hangar was a large white sign, with the number 18 in black letters. Alex tapped Christa on the shoulder and pointed up at the sign. He saw her eyes grow wide as she realized the significance.
Henry opened the door, turned to his guests, and saw them looking up at the sign. “That is right,” he said and smiled. “This is the infamous hangar eighteen you have obviously heard about.” He stepped through the doorway.
Alex and Christa followed him into the dark interior of the hangar and stopped when Henry did. Henry began flipping switches and the high-pressure sodium lights glowed soft pink before they bloomed into a bright white light. Alex and Christa’s jaws opened slightly at what they saw. A massive, disk-shaped object with a mirrored surface sitting in the center of the hangar.
*
TWO HUNDRED MILES WEST OF GROOM LAKE:
The desert was illuminated in a pink glow from the setting sun and the air was filled with the sweet odor of sage as the limousine carried Menno and Elizabeth Simons along an abandoned dirt road. Brush and sand stretched away in all directions, bordered by low hills.
The driver pressed a small button in the dashboard and a large area of the sandy road began tilting up at an angle. A horizontal line of dull yellow light appeared on the road, growing taller by the second as a gigantic door opened up on the desert floor. The limousine entered the opening and the front end dropped at an angle as the driver followed the cement driveway under the desert. The door closed above them, and the overhead lights illuminated the square cement tunnel. They descended another two-hundred-foot and stopped in front of a steel door in the cement wall.
Menno helped Elizabeth out of the limousine, and the driver held the steel door open for them. “Replace the crystal in the engine,” Menno instructed the driver. “I’m sure it is nearly used up after the many miles we have traveled.”
The driver nodded and they all stepped into a huge, brightly lit chamber, two-hundred-feet square and two-hundred-feet high. In the center was a massive disk with a mirrored finish, one-hundred-feet in diameter. A dozen men and women in white smocks were moving about the room.
The driver walked away and a man who looked as though he were in deep deliberation approached them. His age, body, and facial features were nearly identical to Menno’s. “Hello, Reverend, Mrs. Simons,” he said as he stopped a few feet away.
Menno smiled, hoping to evoke the same from the man, wondering why Lewis Norton never smiled. “Always so serious, Lewis,” said Menno. “Don’t you ever relax and enjoy life?”
“I am enjoying life, sir.” Lewis replied seriously. “One does not need to smile to be happy.”
Menno chuckled at his chief engineer. “All right, I’ll take your word for it. How many crystals have we collected?”
“Four-hundred and eleven-thousand, three-hundred and seventy-nine, sir. Come. I’ll show you.”
Menno smiled again. It was like having his own Mr. Spock, he thought, hearing Lewis’s precise numbers.
Lewis led them across the chamber to a metal pipe railing forming a ten-foot square around a metal hatch in the floor. When Lewis pressed a button on the wall, the hatch opened and dazzling light radiated from the inside, and when Menno and Elizabeth looked into the hole, it was like looking at a pile of sparkling diamonds.
“It’s so beautiful!” Elizabeth exclaimed.
Menno smiled. “Yes, and t
his is only a fraction of what we will get when we recover the rest of the crystals from the ocean floor, and even more from the dry oil fields.”
“Sir, the aircraft is a magnificent piece of engineering,” said Lewis, “and you have never told me how you acquired it. Until now, I have not asked, but now that we are near the end of our mission, I thought perhaps you would enlighten me.”
Menno placed his hand on Lewis’s shoulder. “You’re right. I think it’s time. Let’s go into the spaceship and I’ll explain everything.”
They walked across the chamber to the craft, and Menno placed his hand on its mirrored surface. A three by six-foot section near the bottom shimmered for a moment and suddenly became transparent, exposing a narrow alcove inside the spaceship. Menno stepped inside, and his mother and Lewis followed him to the control room. In the center of the room, four back-to-back chairs were facing the outside walls in four opposite directions. The most fascinating aspect of the room they stood in, however, was the transparent roof and sides of the ship, through which they could see the outside chamber and the people walking below.
Menno sat in one of the chairs, his mother in the one to his left. Lewis stood in front of him, hands clasped behind his back.
Menno looked up at Lewis. “Do you know why this facility is in this area of the desert, Lewis? Because we are so close to what the military calls Area 51. That’s where the remains of my parents are. You see, they were space travelers.” Menno studied Lewis for some sort of surprised response, but true to his nature, Lewis remained impassive and waited for further explanation.
Elizabeth was taken by surprise and snapped her head around toward Menno and Lewis, as if she’d heard wrong.
Menno chuckled. “Have you ever wondered why I sought you out, Lewis? Or why operating this craft came so easily to you?”
“I assumed it was because of my exceptional intelligence,” Lewis said stone-faced, without a trace of the seeming egotistical.
Menno laughed at his response. “Yes, I guess you could say that was part of it. But, actually, it’s because you are my younger brother.”
This time, Lewis did respond, but only by raising a questioning eyebrow. “I see.”
Elizabeth stood, staring wide-eyed and open-mouthed at Menno. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?” she demanded.
“I didn’t know myself, until I was fourteen earth years old. That’s when I left you for two weeks. Remember?”
It had been so long ago she had forgotten, but now it all came back to her, and she remembered how desperately she had searched for him. Even the police hadn’t been able to find him. Then one morning, two weeks later, he simply walked out of his bedroom and asked for breakfast as if nothing had happened. When the police had questioned him about where he had been, he had shrugged and said he couldn’t remember. Elizabeth nodded. “How did you come to be on my porch the morning I found you as an infant?” she asked.
“I don’t know if it was fate or simply bad timing,” Menno began. “Our race was the original inhabitants of this planet. 180 million years ago, their experiments with artificial gravity started a chain of events that caused a super volcanic eruption they were helpless to stop. The eruption was killing all life on the planet and they were forced to evacuate this world. They sent one spaceship back with four devices capable of cleaning the atmosphere, but it was never heard from again.”
Lewis’s eyebrow went up. “Did our race evolve on this planet?”
“No, our race evolved on another planet and began colonizing many different worlds.”
“Then how come you look just like we do?” Elizabeth asked.
“That was one of the reasons our scientists came back to investigate. They began receiving primitive radio signals, and once they deciphered the language, they realized another race of humans had evolved on this planet. In the year designated by this current race of humans as 1948, two ships like this one came back to this planet to learn about the new inhabitants. Four scientists were in this one, and we were in the other one with our parents. They were passing over a section of desert about four-hundred-miles from here, but they didn’t realize it was directly over a nuclear test site, and were caught in the explosion and lost control. Both spaceships were damaged in the crash, and our parents were killed. A few weeks later, the military found the other spaceship and took it to hangar 18. It’s still there, but they haven’t been able to repair it, and they won’t be able to learn its full potential without the crystals.”
“And somehow we survived?” Lewis asked.
Menno nodded. The four scientists couldn’t take care of us while they tried to make repairs to this spaceship, so they decided to let the people on this planet raise us. They thought it best not to burden one human family with two infants, and split us up. They left me on your front porch, Mother. Lewis was taken to another home, in another town.”
“I see,” said Lewis. “And my adoptive parents moved to California a year later.”
“Yes. The four surviving scientists built this underground facility and managed to repair this spaceship, but soon they became infected by microorganisms for which they had no immunity. Before they died, I was brought here and had their knowledge downloaded into my mind, with instructions on how to convert this planet’s fossil fuel into these energy crystals.”
“What are your plans now?” Lewis asked.
“My main intent was to rid this planet of the machines that have been polluting the atmosphere. I’ve accomplished that, or at least set it in motion. I was going to share the crystals with these people, but now I’m not so sure I should. I haven’t liked the way they are always fighting each other. If I let them have access to the crystals, they will start fighting over them the way they fought over the crude oil. Only this time, the power of these crystals could annihilate entire civilizations.”
“Since we have all the crystals,” Elizabeth began, “we can pick who we give them to. That way, only one country will have the power and be in complete control of the planet. We can decide which country should be the victor.”
“And who would you choose, Mother?” Menno asked.
“This country, of course. We stand for freedom all over the world.”
Menno shook his head. “Not as long as they have just one leader. Even the most noble of men can be corrupted by the lust for power over their enemies.”
“He’s right,” Lewis added. “Perhaps we should wait and see which nation becomes the most compassionate toward their fellow beings.”
Menno smiled and nodded agreement.
“So what do we do in the meantime?” Elizabeth asked.
Menno smiled and held her hand. “There will not be a moon tonight. Would you like to go for a ride, mother?”
Elizabeth nervously looked around the inside of the spaceship for a moment, and then her eyes settled in blind devotion on her son. He’s a miracle from God, she thought. No harm could possibly come to me as long as I’m with him. “I’m a little frightened by all this, but I think I’d like that.”
* * *
Chapter 36
HANGAR 18:
“So it’s all true?” Christa asked in amazement as Henry led her and Alex across the floor of the hangar. “All the rumors I’ve heard. I didn’t believe them.”
Henry smiled. “Not all of it. This is the only spacecraft we’ve found. As you can see, it’s badly damaged. I seriously doubt if it will ever fly again.”
The twenty-eight-foot-tall exterior of the ship was smashed in several places, and some of its surface had been torn away, exposing unrecognizable pale blue machinery, with silver tubing surrounding it.
When Henry placed his hand on the side of the ship, the mirrored surface shimmered for a few seconds before a section became transparent and exposed a small entry. He stepped through and Christa and Alex followed, fascinated as they climbed the metal steps following the curved side of the ship, and stepped onto the floor at the top.
“This is the control room.�
� Henry explained as he stepped between the chairs and indicated for Alex and Christa to look at the flat surface of the square structure in the center. They did, and saw four small circular-shaped depressions in the surface, one behind each chair.
Henry’s hand began to shake as he held the crystal above one of the depressions and saw it was the same size. “When we first entered this ship, there were small remnants of these crystals in each of the depressions. We did not know what they were, at first, but over the years of tests they kept getting smaller, and we realized they were the power source. We had no idea what they were made of or how to get more. There is only one small fragment left. Just enough to power the lights and the door we entered. We decided to end our experiments lest we deplete it and end a way to get back inside.”
With a sense of reverence, Henry slowly placed the new crystal into an empty depression. It immediately began to glow, and overhead the ceiling and sides shimmered for a few seconds before becoming transparent. Suddenly, the interior was brightly illuminated by the sodium vapor lights in the hangar, and they could see the walls and floor around the ship. Henry smiled and clasped his hands together, as if praying.
Christa smiled as she looked around, and her eyes settled on Henry. “This is absolutely incredible! What else can the crystal do?”
Henry smiled at her. “We will find out when we have three more new crystals. Let us go see what the others are doing.”
Henry led them down the steps and out of the hangar, locking the door behind them.
*
Lewis sat in one of the chairs in the ship, his fingers pressing different lighted buttons on his console. “We are ready,” he said to Menno.
Menno nodded. “Clear the area,” he said into a hand-held radio, and watched as the people in the chamber outside the ship walked to the exits. “Secure the lights and open the roof,” he instructed.
The lighting in the chamber blinked out and the flat ceiling began sliding open. Elizabeth watched in rapt fascination as a black velvet sky dotted with sparkling white diamonds grew larger overhead as the roof slid farther open.
The Alex Cave Series. Books 1, 2, & 3.: Box set Page 27