by George Noory
“Did Rohan tell you what the proof was that he’d gotten his hands on?”
“That’s what you’re wondering about, isn’t it? How much Rohan let out of the bag, whether he ratted you out? Well, there’s no more honor among conspiracy theorists as there is with thieves. He told me that you had the secret file and were going to broadcast it to the world.”
Murad whipped around as he was walking away and tapped his head. “I just got a message from my pals from Planet X. You can save yourself by giving them what they want.”
He howled with laughter as he climbed into his Mercedes.
45
Ali was getting as paranoid as Greg—she was double parked and had the motor running when he got back. She got the car moving as he was still closing the door.
“Any luck?” she asked.
“Yeah. He says Rohan told him I had the stuff to blow the lid off of Big Brother. But it’s okay, because Murad can broker a deal with the aliens if I just give them the evidence.”
“He said that?”
“Claimed he was joking, at least about brokering a deal. The only thing I really got out of it was that Murad knows more than he should. But he claims he has a friend in the police department. Also, he says he’s been hacked by Rohan. I’m sure that Ethan did it for Rohan. One interesting thing. He said Rohan had teamed up with a crazy old woman to rat him out. I didn’t dare show any interest because the woman might end up flying out a window if Murad is in league with the devil. Old woman, crazy or not, ring any bells with you? Something to do with Ethan?”
“Maybe. Ethan talked about a woman who was part of the government’s UFO investigations a long time ago. I guess that would mean she was old, at least to someone his age. And crazy to Murad probably simply means she’s allied with his enemies.” She thought for a moment. “Kaufman, Inez Kaufman. I’m sure that’s her name. He was going to visit the woman after we talked, so she must be in the L.A. area.”
“Did Ethan say what he was going to talk to Kaufman about? Is she linked to an NRO program?”
Ali shook her head. “He said she was a UFO expert. A long time ago.”
“Nothing about her having a connection to what he’d discovered hacking into the NRO system?”
“No.”
“And he never told you what he’d found?”
“I already told you he didn’t.”
“I don’t understand why you weren’t curious since you’d got him going on the God Project in the first place.”
“I didn’t get him going—okay, maybe I did, inadvertently, by telling him about the conversation I had over drinks with that guy. And yes, I was curious. And worried he’d hack into something that would come back and bite me. But when I called Ethan and asked what he’d discovered at the NRO he wouldn’t talk over the phone. Said he’d tell me later in person, but we never met up.”
“When was that supposed to happen?”
“The night he died.”
There had been a hesitation in her voice.
“What did he tell you about the Kaufman woman?”
“Nothing, really, just said she knew something about UFO investigations. Like I said, it got to the point where he was talking crazy more frequently, the kind of sound bites that came from whatever he’d been smoking. And he sounded exhausted. Said he’d been riding dirty.”
“Riding dirty is having illegal drugs in the car when you’re driving.”
“He was talking about the illegal hacking.”
“Probably meant he was hacking while on drugs. Do you remember at least what the subject matter of the gibberish was? Some clue to what Ethan had found at the NRO? It seems incredible that Ethan would have told so many people that he was getting information for me without disclosing what it was—even to me. Ethan doesn’t sound like he played things that close to the chest, especially when he was self-medicating.”
“What he said to me was all over the place. He said we’d been visited by aliens for thousands of years and that E.T. didn’t have to call home long distance anymore. I know it sounds like a joke, but when he said it he was really worried, even panicked. Then he said he couldn’t talk, they hear everything, and he hung up.” She threw up her hands. “It was so frustrating. It seemed like the deeper he got into the hacking, the more he got into bending his head with drugs, always going up or coming down, but never stable enough to get any real information from.”
To Greg it sounded like Ethan didn’t completely trust Ali. But drugs could have played a role in that. The drugs warped his thinking about him, too. Greg couldn’t think of any other explanation for the accusation that he had killed him.
“Ethan wasn’t on anything when he first started calling into my show, at least nothing that showed up in what he said or how he sounded, but the last couple of weeks he was, as he put it to you, riding dirty when he called in. And he focused on the presence of visitors, just as he did with you. But that we had or have visitors doesn’t ring any alarm bells for anyone who listens to my show. It’s pretty much a given.”
“Did Rohan mention Ethan’s UFO fixation?” she asked.
“No, but we spoke only for a few seconds before the doorbell rang.” He thought for a moment. “Sounds like we need to find out more about Inez Kaufman. Let’s see if we can track down an address for her with Franklin. And hope he’s right about this phone being untraceable.”
“Greg, you look bummed out. Like a man who has been running from demons all day.”
“My mind is too fried to sort it all out.” He rubbed his temples. “So far everyone I’ve run into knows more about this than I do and all of you believe I am much cleverer than I really am.”
He didn’t care if she heard the suspicion and irritation in his voice that included her. She gave him a look but didn’t say anything and he let the comment hang until she spoke as she pulled up to Sunset Boulevard.
“We need to talk.”
“Talk.”
“You’re reeking with suspicion of me.”
“Really? I can’t imagine why. You just dropped into my life from somewhere with a confession that you aided and abetted Ethan into breaking into a secret program, igniting a killing spree that’s left me running from the police and murderers.”
“I didn’t cause it—I’m as innocent as you.” She glared at him. “If you are innocent.”
The car behind them honked its horn. The light was green. She got the car moving down Sunset.
She said, “Ethan told me he gave you the file. You told me he got money from your account. I think I have a right to wonder about you.”
It was futile and he knew it. They would rehash the facts and accusations and end up at a dead end again. He made a peace offer.
“Whatever has come down, we’re both in jeopardy, so beating on each other isn’t going to help. I apologize for being suspicious of you.”
“That apology sounded as sincere as a car salesman when he apologized for selling me a lemon. But I accept your offer of not beating on each other until we have more proof.”
More proof of what? His guilt? Is that what she meant? He clamped his mouth shut to suppress a retort.
“Where to, Sherlock?” she asked. “At the moment I’m not clever enough to think of anywhere to hide out short of a five-star hotel with great room service. Think they’d be a bit suspicious if we paid cash? Not that I have enough on me. A little too late to hit a ready teller. I have less than a hundred.”
He took out his wallet and counted the money. “A hundred and eighty-six. Goes to show you what an amateur outlaw I am. If I had more practice being on the run I would have hit an ATM first.”
Taking out cash now would put helicopters into action scanning the area. Hell, what was he thinking—helicopters were for show—they would send nasty little drones that can come down and tap you on the shoulder when they see you and satellites that can spot ants on the ground.
“We need somewhere to stay, short of using a credit card. And think. Sort things out. W
e can’t go to Franklin’s under the theory of never going back to the same place.”
“More knowledge from your show?”
“Hard-earned experience gained from being a fugitive at the moment.” He grabbed the car phone. “Franklin says this can’t be tracked. Let’s ask him where he’d hide out.”
“Bob’s place,” Franklin said after they were connected.
“Who’s Bob?”
“A guy hiding in plain sight but so far under the radar that his mother doesn’t know he was born.”
“Bob have a last name?”
“Call him Bob.”
“Is that his name?”
“Call him Bob.”
“What’s Bob hiding from?”
“He keeps that under the hat, too.”
“One more favor. The home address to an Inez Kaufman. All I know is the name and she probably lives in the L.A. area.”
Franklin put the phone down as he surfed the Internet. He came back on and said, “An Inez Kaufman pops up. Clinical psychologist. Retired.”
Greg got the addresses for Bob and Kaufman and hung up.
“Bob or whatever his name is lives in the foothills, off the 210 near a place called Azusa. At the moment. Sounds like he moves around a lot, looking over his shoulder. Kaufman lives on Wilshire back near Westwood. She’s a retired psychologist.”
“What would a psychologist have to do with UFOs?”
“Maybe E.T. needs a shrink.”
46
Leon didn’t like the Topanga Canyon area. He got on the winding road from the Pacific Coast Highway a couple of miles back and hadn’t seen a town or even houses yet. He was used to city streets, traffic lights, buildings, fast food joints, cars and people.
He knew how to deal with a city, but he felt exposed, naked, with trees and bushes on each side of the road. It made him nervous but he didn’t let the Voice know. He maintained a pretense that he had endless courage when in fact he had the mentality of a bully, puffing up with courage and fortitude when the opponent was smaller and weaker, running away when it looked like the tables were going to turn on him.
Even though he hadn’t been there before, he wasn’t concerned about finding the dirt road he was to turn onto. He didn’t have GPS and never had a need for it because the Voice always gave him precise directions.
He had also been told that even though the sensors giving notice of intruders onto the property had been turned off, he was to make as little noise as possible, to park the car as soon as he saw the buildings on the property and go the rest of the way on foot.
* * *
Franklin was in his barn working on a replacement getaway vehicle for the one he gave Greg and Ali. The barn was as deceptive as the house: it looked rustic but was space age inside. From the outside the barn looked abandoned to mice, dry rot and the relentless Southern California sun, but on the inside it was as clean and modern as a high-tech surgical ward—except the tools, equipment and testing devices were for cars, security devices and Franklin’s other “toys.”
He was making revisions to a Jeep Cherokee he chose because it had been first sold in Mexico and was never officially licensed in the States. What he really liked about the car were the secret hiding places underneath and in the passenger areas, which once were used to transport cocaine but he would use as storage areas for his survival gear.
He used a two-post electric hoist to lift the car two feet off the concrete floor and then slid under it with a mechanic’s creeper, lying on his back to install a gas tank larger than the one that came with the car.
He didn’t know someone had entered the compound without triggering his state-of-the-art security system until he saw a pair of shoes and pants legs standing by the car.
“Who the—”
Leon leaned down and grinned at him. “Don’t look now, but the sky’s falling.” He pressed the button labeled “LOWER” on the hoist.
Franklin tried to push out from under the hoist in the opposite direction from the killer but the creeper stopped as its wheels hit tools in the way. He heard the whine of the hoist motor and screamed as the hoist descended and touched his body.
Leon stopped the car just as it pinned Franklin to the floor. He bent down to see Franklin’s face.
“God has some questions for you,” Leon said. “By the way, did I tell you your voice reminds me of my father’s?”
47
If there was a “main street” in Los Angeles, it would be Wilshire. The boulevard ran all the way from the heart of the city to the ocean in Santa Monica, slicing through Beverly Hills, Westwood, Brentwood and West L.A. on the way. It was a business district pretty much of the way, with scattered residential areas.
Inez Kaufman’s apartment on Wilshire near Westwood satisfied the real estate mantra of “location, location, location.”
The building where Kaufman lived was down the street and around the corner from Westwood Village, a small café and shopping area made interesting by the fact it was almost the front campus of UCLA. Bel Air and Beverly Hills weren’t far. Neither was the busy 405, the San Diego Freeway, one of those concrete and asphalt arteries that connected to everywhere else if you had the time and patience for traffic that often crawled.
They did a drive-by of the apartment building. It had whitewashed stucco walls and a red tile roof, giving it that faux-Spanish look that Ethan’s mother’s house and so many others in Southern California had. Not seeing any vehicles parked nearby that screamed “police” at them, they made a second drive-by and then used underground parking down the street and walked back to the building.
Coming up to the intercom at the front entrance, Greg suggested Ali identify them.
“Hearing a woman’s voice might put her more at ease.”
A sign above the communications panel told them they were on camera.
Ali pushed the button labeled KAUFMAN.
“Yes,” answered an older woman’s voice over the intercom.
“Ms. Kaufman, my name is Alyssa Neal. I’m here with Greg Nowell, the radio talk show host. We’d like to talk to you.”
During a long pause they could hear the woman breathing.
“Come up.”
The door buzzed and they pushed their way through to a small lobby and elevator. There was no security station.
Inez Kaufman was waiting for them by the elevator when it opened on her floor.
“Please hurry. I don’t have much time.”
She fluttered, a nervous bird, leading them into her apartment, looking up and down the hallway as if she expected her neighbors to be peeking out their doors. Greg wondered if Mond had been there already. Or whether she called Mond as soon as she got off the intercom.
The apartment’s bold colors created an Art Deco feel—a print of Wassily Kandinsky’s Composition X with its medley of bold colors was on the wall above an orange velvet couch that had blond wood trim. The large coffee table was round and mirrored with a bright brass frame. The place had a 1940s feel, reminding Greg of apartments in movies made during the Golden Age of Hollywood.
“Please … sit.” She gestured at the couch and took a seat in a brown leather club chair anchored by oversize arms on each side.
She folded her hands in her lap as if she was waiting to hear a lecture—or a confession.
“You’re not surprised to see us,” Greg said. “You never asked why two strangers were at your door.”
“No.” It was a nervous chirp. She appeared edgy, even harried. In her seventies, she had tightly drawn skin, a narrow nose, thin lips and dark eyes. Skinny, almost skeletal, she looked brittle.
“You expected us.”
“In a way. I recognized your name. Rohan told me that you want me on your show.”
Her statement implied that Mond had not paid her a visit and told her Greg was on the run.
“I understand Ethan Shaw had also been in contact with you.”
“Ethan? Yes, the young hacker. He asked me about the UFO invasion. Among o
ther matters.”
“What’s the UFO invasion?” Ali asked.
“When they came here to stay. Or I should say, when we first got proof of their visits in modern times regardless of the fact they had been visiting us for thousands of years. There got to be so many sightings it became apparent that they stopped being visitors and had started colonizing the planet.”
“Can you tell us about it?” Greg asked. “I know a bit because of my show, but Ali is new to the concept that we made contact with extraterrestrials long ago. And some of them have hung around. I, uh, understand you have been dealing with the situation for a long time.” A shot in the dark, he thought. He wanted her to talk, to get comfortable with them.
“It is coming back to haunt me now, but there was a time when investigating extraterrestrial sightings was my job. I’m a clinical psychologist. I worked for the government in its UFO investigation program.”
“Project Blue Book?” Greg asked.
“No, the one without a name, but I’ll get to that. To understand the invasion,” she said to Ali, “you should start with what Mr. Nowell said … we have had visitors for thousands of years. Some of the visitations were recorded by early civilizations, Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Peruvian, but even earlier than that Stone Age people left images carved on the walls of caves.”
“Flaming chariots flying across the sky, that sort of thing?” Ali asked.
“Flying machines, yes, but also many other images ranging from creations that appear to be elaborate landing sites that can only be seen from the air to technology that was too far advanced for its time. There are also specific historical records of sightings of airships going back to medieval times. Of course, you don’t have to go back hundreds of years to find records of UFO sightings. They happen frequently in our own time though it is interesting that even centuries ago the sightings often came in clusters, appearing in different parts of the world over a period of years. Then there would be no more reports for decades, even centuries. Suddenly the sightings would pop up again.”