“Sounds okay with me.”
“One last thing. Please call Doctor White and tell her to take a couple of days’ R&R as well.”
Gabrielle shuddered. “You’re giving me goosebumps. Who were those people following us? Are they dangerous?”
“I’m not one hundred percent sure, but if they’re who I think they are, the more distance we can put between them and ourselves, the safer we’ll all be.”
“I should notify the colonel.” said Hayes, pulling out his own cell phone.
“Yes, and let him know we’re coming back with a guest.”
14
Charlotte, Montana
Time seemed to stand still in the room.
Susan had gone to bed, leaving the three adults to stare at the clock and wait for Susan to drift off to sleep. Grant stood, walked into the kitchen, and filled a thermos full of coffee.
He looked back at his friends. “Tonight, I’m going to try something different.”
“How so?” asked Elena.
“I bought a folding chair when I was in town and intend to sit under the row of apple trees in the backyard and wait to see if our friend decides to come back tonight.”
“You’ll catch your death of cold out there,” said Rebeca.
“I’ll be okay. I’ve got a warm blanket to wrap around my body. Besides, this thermos of coffee should keep me warm and awake all night long.”
Elena scrunched her brow. “Why do you want to go outside?”
“I’ve a hunch about what happened last night and want to see if I’m right.”
“And while you’re doing that, Rebeca and I could take turns watching the computer,” said Elena.
“Sounds good to me,” said Rebeca.
“If anything goes wrong, just holler, and I’ll be here in less than ten seconds,” said Grant, putting on his coat. He picked up a pack from the floor, threw it over his shoulder, and stepped outside. There was a nip in the air. Grant strode over to the trees, opened his chair, and took a seat. He placed the thermos at his feet before opening his pack. Grant yanked out his blanket, a pair of night vision goggles, and three flares, which he laid on the ground next to his chair. He switched on the NVGs and placed them on his head, instantly bathing the world in various shades of green light. Grant looked at the sky and saw nothing but stars. He turned off the goggles, removed them from his head, and set them in his lap.
Grant exhaled loudly and tucked the blanket more tightly around himself. “Okay, now comes the hard part…waiting,” he murmured.
At precisely one minute to midnight, Grant’s phone buzzed. He dug it out of his pocket and saw there was a message from Sam.
Three lights flying in formation were just spotted fifteen kilometers outside of town, heading in your direction.
Grant sat up straight, his pulse quickening. He looked over at the house. The only light on was in the kitchen; the rest of the windows were dark. Grant slid the NVGs back on his head but left them up for now. He tapped the ground with his right foot, waiting.
For less than a second, an orange light lit up Susan’s room.
Grant yanked the NVGs down over his eyes and looked in the sky above the house. As he expected, there was nothing to see. He removed the goggles, picked up a flare, and unscrewed the bottom cap. A long cord dropped out of the tube he was holding. Grant aimed the flare high above Rebeca’s home and yanked down hard on the string.
With a loud whoosh, the flare shot up into the sky. A second later, it opened with a pop. Bright white light lit up the house as the flare slowly descended to the ground.
“I got you, you bastard,” said Grant when he spotted a massive, triangular-shaped shadow on the ground. Technology might allow a ship to bend light to make it invisible to the naked eye, but it still had mass and created a shadow when a light shone down on it.
Grant leaped up from his chair and ran back toward the house. He had gotten less than halfway there when an incandescent light shot down from the sky and enveloped him. In the blink of an eye, his world went dark. The alien light switched off before Grant’s unconscious body hit the cold, hard ground.
Light surrounded him. Everywhere Grant looked, brilliance glared. Even the floor seemed to be lit up. He squinted and held up a hand to help block the light.
“Hey, silly man, what are you doing here?” asked a familiar voice.
Grant lowered his hand and saw Susan standing there, smiling up at him. She was wearing the pajamas she had gone to bed in.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“I’m not sure,” Susan replied. “I think Ben sometimes lives in here.”
Grant looked around. “Is Ben here now?”
Susan shook her head. “I haven’t seen him for a few minutes. He may have gone to do something.”
Yeah, like zap me, thought Grant. “How do you get home once you’re done visiting with Ben?”
Susan shrugged. “I don’t know. I just do.”
“Is this all there is, or is there more to see?”
“Ben says the rest of his home is out of bounds.”
Grant felt another presence in the room with them. He took Susan’s hand in his and looked behind him.
A dark shape not much taller than Susan walked toward them. It stopped, raised a slender arm, and pointed a finger at Grant. “You’re not supposed to be here,” said a voice in Grant’s mind.
Before he could open his mouth to respond, his world once more turned dark.
“No!” screamed Grant as he bolted straight up and opened his eyes. His body was covered in a cold sweat. Adrenaline shot through his veins. He balled up a fist ready to strike blindly at whatever it was that had invaded his mind.
“Whoa! Easy does it,” Elena said in a soothing tone. “You’re okay.”
Grant swiveled around and saw that he was sitting on the couch in Rebeca’s living room. “Where’s Susan?”
“She’s upstairs, fast asleep,” said Rebeca.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I was just up there a couple of minutes ago.”
Grant tried to stand. Right away, his head began to spin. He sat back down and looked at his shaking hands. “What time is it?”
“It’s just after four in the morning,” replied Elena. “It’s a good thing we decided to check on you when we did. We found you passed out on the ground. You could have developed hypothermia lying there. David, what’s the last thing you can remember?”
Grant rubbed the back of his aching neck. “Just before midnight, I got a text from Sam telling me that a UFO had been spotted coming in our direction. There was a flash of orange light. I think I fired off one of my flares and then nothing. No, wait! I’m certain that I saw Susan in a brightly lit room. We talked for a few seconds before I blacked out.”
Elena sat on the couch next to Grant. “Can you recall what you spoke about?”
Grant struggled to remember. It was as if his memory had been erased. He shook his head. “Sorry, I can’t.”
Rebeca handed Grant a glass of water and a new drawing. “I found this on the floor when I checked on Susan.”
It was a near-identical picture of the mountain she had drawn previously. Only this time, there was a new set of numbers on it. Grant read the numbers aloud. “673151.”
“While you were sleeping, I took photos of the two pictures and sent them back to the duty officer,” explained Elena.
“Have they gotten back to you?”
“Yes. The numbers correspond with the latitude and longitude of a mountain in Bolivia.”
“Which mountain?”
Elena handed Grant her tablet. “It’s called San Fernando. The local villagers, however, have an entirely different name for it. They call it the Devil’s Lair.”
“Charming. I take it there’s some history behind the villagers’ name?”
“None that I could find on the web. I’ve asked the folks back home to do some digging into it.”
Grant attempted to stand again and was pleased tha
t this time the room wasn’t spinning as fast as before. He took in a deep breath to clear the cobwebs in his mind. “Were either of you ladies awake around midnight?”
“I was,” replied Elena. “And before you ask, yes, I lost an hour just like you did the other night. I was watching the screen when I thought I saw a bright light in Susan’s room and then the next thing I knew, it was already past one in the morning.”
“I take it there’s no video feed showing what happened during that hour?”
Elena nodded. “Not a thing.”
Grant walked out of the room and tiptoed up the stairs. He paused outside of Susan’s room, unsure of what he’d find when he opened the door. Grant took a deep breath before quietly opening the door and looking inside. He smiled when he saw her safely tucked in bed, cuddling with one of her stuffed toys, and snoring. He closed the door and rejoined the others in the kitchen.
“How is she?” asked Rebeca.
“Fast asleep.”
“Now what do we do?”
“Wait until Susan wakes up and see if she remembers seeing me.”
“How will that help?”
“I’m hoping she can tell me what happened. This case is beginning to give me the creeps.”
Grant waited until Susan had almost finished her heaping plate of pancakes before asking her about the previous night. He set her new picture down on the table and smiled at her. “Susan, I see you drew another picture of a mountain last night. Do you know why you did that?”
She scrunched up her face. “No. I don’t know what I’ve drawn until I see them in the morning.”
“Do you remember talking to me last night?”
“Yes. Ben wasn’t happy that you were there, and he sent you away.”
Grant shifted in his seat. “Why was Ben unhappy?”
“He didn’t say.”
“What happened after I left?”
Susan finished off her glass of milk and wiped her lips with the back of her hand. “Ben told me that he was going away for a while. He wasn’t very happy with you.”
“Why?” asked Elena.
“Ben said that he doesn’t like you snooping around.”
“Did he say when he’ll come back?” asked Rebeca.
Susan shook her head. “Grandma, after breakfast, can David and me play outside?”
Rebeca looked at Grant. “It’s up to David.”
“I’d like some fresh air, so why not,” said Grant.
Susan slid off her chair and ran to get changed.
Grant said to Elena, “While we’re outside, please see if the duty staff has come up with anything on San Fernando, and let the boss know we’re going to stay out here an additional day just to make sure Susan’s nightly visitor is no longer around before coming home.”
“What if the colonel asks what our intentions are when we leave here?”
“Let him know I’m leaning toward a visit to San Fernando. Susan wouldn’t have given us its precise location if it didn’t mean something to her.”
“David, what if it’s her friend, Ben, sending us a message?” said Elena.
“Either way, San Fernando is our next port of call.”
15
Gauntlet HQ
Colonel Andrews took a seat behind his desk and opened his secure laptop. While he waited for it to boot up, he skimmed the duty report from the night shift. There were more than two hundred alleged UFO sightings across the continental states that had come in, most of which were attributable to planes—both military and civilian—meteors, or the misidentification of something natural in the night sky. He was most interested in the paragraph detailing what had happened in Charlotte, Montana. Andrews made a mental note to call Grant right after the morning brief.
There was a knock on his open door.
Andrews looked up. In the doorway stood a woman dressed in the uniform of a lieutenant colonel in the Royal Canadian Air Force. She came smartly to attention and saluted Andrews, who rose and returned her compliment.
“Good morning, Lieutenant Colonel Mason,” said Andrews
“Good morning, Colonel, I hope I haven’t caught you at a bad time,” replied Mason.
“Not at all, please come in.”
Mason stepped inside and handed Andrews a folder with her posting instruction in it. She stood a head shorter than Andrews and had a lean runner’s build. Her brown hair was short, and she wore silver-rimmed glasses over her light brown eyes.
Andrews placed the paperwork down on his desk and offered her his hand. He had been expecting Sandra Mason for the past couple of days. As Project Gauntlet became larger and more international with its operations, she was joining Project Gauntlet as his new executive officer.
“Have any of your other personnel arrived, or is it just you today?”
“No, sir. Captain George, Warrant Officer Richaud, and Sergeants Pegg and Frost are upstairs filling out their security clearances as we speak.”
“A welcome addition to our staff. If you don’t mind me asking, how did you find out about your posting to this organization?”
“I thought I was going to be posted to NORAD headquarters, but things apparently didn’t turn out that way. When I was called in to see General Thomas, the head of our armed forces, I knew something was afoot. I was sworn to secrecy and then offered this assignment. Whether you’re tracking planes, missiles, or unexplained anomalies coming over the North Pole, you’re still defending North America.”
“We sometimes do more than just track these anomalies.”
“Yes, I was given a heavily redacted copy of your report about Alaska to read. Quite interesting, to say the least.”
Andrews glanced at the clock on the wall. “Lieutenant Colonel Mason, things here are a little more relaxed than in other military establishments in which you may have served before. How do you prefer to be addressed?”
“Sandra’s fine with me.”
“I’ll formally introduce you to the team before the morning brief. After that, I’ll take you on a tour of our facility. There’s not much to see right now, but it’s getting bigger by the week.”
“Sounds good. Is there somewhere where I can get a cup of coffee before the presentation? I’m no good without at least four cups of coffee in the morning.”
Andrews chuckled. “Here, let me show you our small canteen and rest area, where we can both grab a cup.” While they walked, his mind wandered back to a conversation he had with Maclean the night before about the men tailing them in Washington. Maclean was convinced there was a mole in the organization, but Andrews wasn’t so sure. However, an idea crossed his mind.
“Sandra, what are the specialties of your incoming personnel?” asked Andrews.
“Let me see, now. Captain George is an air combat systems officer, Warrant Officer Richaud is an aerospace control operator, as is Sergeant Pegg. Sergeant Frost is an information and communications specialist.”
“I’ll have to get used to your military’s specialty designations, but I take it that Sergeant Frost is an expert with communications security?”
“Yes, sir.”
Andrews poured out two cups of coffee. His plan began to jell in his mind. “Sandra, when Sergeant Frost is available, I’d like you and him to see me in my office.”
“Of course, sir. May I ask why?”
Andrews steered Mason to a corner of the room and lowered his voice. “We may have a security leak in the organization, and as your sergeant is new here, I intend to use him to comb through our computer systems to see if we truly do have a spy in our midst.”
“I don’t get it; who’d want to spy on you?”
Andrews raised an eyebrow. “You’d be surprised. I’ll fill you in later.”
“Five minutes to the morning brief,” announced the duty officer.
Andrews smiled at Mason. “That’s our cue to take our seats.” They walked out of the room and headed down the hallway to the conference room. Andrews stepped to one side and let Mason walk in before him.
Everyone in the room respectfully stood to attention.
“Good morning, everyone,” said Andrews. “Before we begin today’s presentation, I’d like to take the opportunity to introduce the first of several Canadian Forces members who will be joining our team. Folks, this is Lieutenant Colonel Sandra Mason, my new XO.”
“Morning,” said Mason, nodding her head.
The duty officer took her place behind the lectern and waited for Andrews to take a seat. As soon as he sat, the lights dimmed. An aerial photo taken by a satellite of Rebeca Dove’s home appeared on the screen behind her. “Sir, at 0500 hours this morning, Captain Grant reported in from Charlotte, Montana that there had been another incident involving Susan Dove. Ms. Leon forwarded to us another picture drawn by the child with numbers on it. We have been able to ascertain that the numbers from this and the earlier drawing correspond with the lat and long of a mountain in Bolivia.”
The picture changed to San Fernando.
“Sir, San Fernando is located in the Kisma Cruz mountain range, and has a height of 4,854 meters, or almost 16,000 feet. There is nothing unusual about the mountain, other than the name given to it by the local inhabitants before the conquistadors arrived in the sixteenth century.”
“And that would be?” Andrews asked.
“The Devil’s Lair.”
“Good Lord,” said Mason under her breath.
Andrews canted his head. “Welcome to Project Gauntlet.”
16
“Where’s Jeremy?” Grant asked as he walked into the nearly empty briefing room.
“He and Gabrielle are at another location, working on the map,” replied Maclean, handing his friend a cup of coffee.
“Thanks,” he replied. “So, who is Gabrielle, and how did she end up working with us?”
The Founders Page 8