The young man was pulled aside abruptly by shaking hands. When he saw who had broken his spell of wonder, he was shocked. It was Professor Azeri. The man was in a state. He was sweating and his beard looked twisted and dirty. His lab coat was askew on his slight frame. He removed his wire-rimmed glasses and looked him in the eye.
“You have a million apologies from me for getting you involved in this. Someday I hope you can forgive me.”
“Professor, what is all of this?” The student couldn’t help it—he moved his gaze away from the rattled older professor and once more looked down upon the saucer. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
The sixty-five-year-old professor stepped up beside his best student and replaced his glasses.
“How could I tell you I was working on a special project for the shah?” He leaned in closer to him and whispered, “Isn’t my execution enough? I didn’t want you involved.” He shook his head, “And now I’ve involved you anyway.” The professor closed his mouth and suddenly froze when he noticed the man in the black suit and half-collared white shirt watching them from the opposite side of the viewing platform, far away from the clerics. The eyes seemed to glow in the darkness.
“Who is that man?” his student asked as he too noticed the medium-sized man with the well-trimmed beard.
“I pray you never find out, my boy.” Azeri faced him and sadly looked past his shoulder at the ayatollah as the man in turn was watching him. “At least as well as I will soon come to know him.”
His student was about to ask about the strange statement when he saw that Khomeini was slowly walking toward them. His clerics and guards stayed behind. He approached and both student and teacher lowered their heads. The ayatollah placed his hands on top of their heads. Then he used his fingers to gently raise their faces toward his own.
“The demon known as Shah Pahlavi wanted to use this apparatus that was unearthed in the desert?”
The professor swallowed and tried to speak.
“I have heard the tale, but from mouths that are unlearned in this area. Perhaps you can enlighten the unworthy?”
The boy looked at his professor and thought the man was going to have a stroke before he could hear the story that he himself wanted desperately to understand.
“The incident…” Azeri paused as he tried to recall the details. “The incident occurred over southern Soviet airspace in 1972. Their border defenses scrambled fighter planes to assist in identifying an object that refused all transmission with ground stations.” The professor seemed to relax as he started to remember the event. “Our own air force, that is, the shah’s air force, tracked the object that was heading for our northern border. The thought was that the Soviets would get to it first, but then the pursuing Russian aircraft vanished from the radar screens of both countries at the same moment.”
The ayatollah closed his eyes as he listened. The young man was hoping the old cleric hadn’t dozed off as it seemed the professor was relating chapters from a bad science fiction novel.
“Soon the object passed over our northern and joint border with the Soviet Union. The path brought it into one of the most heavily trafficked air zones in Iran. The air force watched as the object”—he turned and looked at the saucer—“collided with a commercial 727. Everyone onboard the airliner was killed instantly but this object survived. Its crewmen were never found. It was assumed it may have been a drone of some kind. We are still not sure of that.”
“A drone?” Khomeini asked as his eyes opened and took in the old professor.
“Yes, unmanned.”
“A mindless demon, you mean?”
“Uh, yes, that is a drone. Well, I was contacted as the only man inside Iran who could possibly understand the technology involved … that is, without asking our allies at the time, the Americans, for assistance, of which the shah … Excuse me.” He looked up into the stark features and swallowed as he corrected himself. “The Satan Pahlavi would not do. You see, he wanted the technology to stay inside our borders.”
“Yes, I would imagine this object would interest that fool beyond measure.”
Both men watched the ayatollah turn away and then he gestured the stranger from across the way to come forward into the weak lighting. He spoke in whispers to the dark man, who stood a full head taller than Khomeini. The stranger nodded several times and then looked over at the two waiting academics. Ayatollah Khomeini tiredly turned back to face Professor Azeri and his prized student. He didn’t smile; he didn’t even look as if the two men interested him in the least. He looked at them with raised brow that hooded his dark eyes.
“Do you believe in the greatness of God?” he asked as his eyes bore into theirs.
“Yes,” both mumbled humbly.
“This…” He turned and gestured toward the railing of the platform and the flying saucer beyond. “This apparatus must be destroyed and its mechanics scattered to the sands of our most barren lands. I will not start our world with this … this thing of the shah. I wish it burned to nothing.”
The professor looked as if he were about to say something in protest, but his student shut him down with a slight touch of his hand and spoke before the Great Leader could see the protest from the older man.
“Of course we agree. This thing cannot be a part of our world revolution. God is Great, and this … this machine has to be from Satan.” He looked directly into the ayatollah’s hard eyes. “It must be burned and its ashes hidden from the sight of men.”
Ayatollah Khomeini turned and looked at the man he had spoken to, then placed a hand on his shoulder. The old cleric moved off into the group of religious men, who nodded their heads and left the viewing room.
The bearded man then smiled and walked up to the physicist and his student. He placed his hands behind his back and stopped in front of them. He half-turned and looked to make sure they were alone. Then his smile vanished as he turned back to face the two scared men.
“Did you understand the ayatollah’s orders?” he asked.
The men didn’t say anything but just stood there waiting for him to continue. Instead of continuing he removed a gold case from his suit jacket, opened it, and lit an American cigarette. He blew smoke out and smiled at the two men.
“Secrets amongst friends,” he said with a smile as he held the American brand into the air for them to see. “Now, I have been issued the same orders as you—orders that have to be followed to the letter.” The man turned his back and walked over and looked down at the saucer. “Conflicts can arise in any given situation. And I have a conflict.” He faced the two men once again. “I have been charged with the security of our new country. That is my job and I do it very well.”
The young student started to see the flicker of daring in the man’s eyes.
“No one will ever know my name. The clerics here tonight do not even know who I am. But you gentlemen will. I have need of you. Are you both familiar with another revolution which occurred not so very long ago—something called the Cultural Revolution?”
“China, Mao, yes we have heard of it,” the young man answered, anxious for the man to get to his point.
“And what was the Great Leader’s biggest blunder in this so-called revolution?”
The two remained silent.
“It was detrimental to his nation because he set Chinese technology back a hundred years and they are just now fighting to catch up. Gentlemen, Iran cannot make the same mistake no matter what our great man of God says.” He watched for a shocked reaction, but was soon pleased to see the two men just waiting for him to finish. “Yes, I am not about to destroy a thing that can guarantee the future of this country.” He leaned over into the younger of the two. “When these madmen are finished with it, of course.”
“What are you saying to us? You want us to disobey our leader and commit what amounts to treason?” the young man asked, his eyes boring into those of the internal security man.
“Precisely; that is why you were brought here. Your politics are we
ll known in the circles I frequent. You would have been rounded up if it had not been for my protection from afar.” He looked at the old, tired man of science. “You and the good professor here.” He paused and then seemed to think something over. “To demonstrate how serious and compassionate our new and fearless leader is, your roommate is at this moment being buried in a shallow grave not far from here. The rest of the technicians assigned to this building are meeting the same fate.” He saw one of the younger lab-coated science technicians walk past while averting his eyes from the three men. “As soon as it is more convenient, of course.”
The anger the young man was feeling was clearly demonstrated on his face after his gaze followed the tech off the scaffolding. He took a menacing step toward the man.
“Take hold of your emotions, boy, it was not I who ordered this. I don’t kill children and close my eyes to science. But secrecy must be maintained, so I did not argue the decision that was made.”
“But if we do not go along with your treason you will have no such concerns when it comes to killing us?”
“Again, you are precise in your assumption and your reasoning.”
“What do you want of us?” the professor asked as he twisted his hands together.
“Nothing other than to study and bring this machine back to life, as I believe it may be very beneficial for military use in the future. Oh, we will bury it, but we will be the only three to have a map to its location.”
“Yes, we must protect this find,” the student said reluctantly, agreeing to this one point as he watched the man standing resolute before him.
“Someday this will make you a great man, my young friend.” The bearded enforcer and traitor to his nation’s newest cause slapped the student on the back. “The professor is right; you are a very bright student.”
With that quick smirk and gesture a deal was struck. The flying saucer was hidden from sight and the minds of those who thought it evil.
The young beardless student looked from the man to the saucer below and its cold silver-colored beauty.
The future president of the Republic of Iran smiled slightly. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a boy with very high political aspirations, and now one of three men who had knowledge of a captured UFO in his country’s possession, turned and walked confidently into his and his nation’s suddenly brighter future.
CENTRAL ANTARCTICA
1987
The four men tried in vain to find shelter from the sudden storm that had erupted around them. They fought the gale-force wind as they crawled through the thick snow and ice. They had been on a British government–sponsored survey of the Bartle Slope, hoping to take core samples of the area they had long suspected of covering an ancient inland sea. Their equipment was now behind them and was no doubt three feet underneath the blowing snow and ice. If it hadn’t been for the safety lines attached at their waists they would have been separated to each die alone.
Professor Early Standish of Oxford University finally fell to his knees as a sudden gust of wind that would have clocked in at over a hundred miles per hour struck him. He tried in desperation to hold on as the other three men in his small party hit the snow beside him.
“We have to dig in!” he shouted as loud as he could. “This will bloody well end us if we don’t—”
The snow and ice vanished beneath the team as his words fought their way through his frozen mouth. The professor dropped first, followed by the other three as solid earth became thin air in a split second of blurred motion. The four men hit solid ice and then the sensation of speed hit them as they started to slide. Soon the sun and light vanished as they fell away into darkness as the world seemed to open up underneath them. Bump after horrid bump bruised their already frozen bodies as they continued to slide into the open abyss. The safety rope connecting the men together tightened and then snapped as man after man hit his own speed as the hell ride continued.
The professor felt the ice slide give way again to air as he fell from a small cliff and farther into darkness. He hit with a bone-crunching impact. He had his breath knocked from his lungs as he rolled onto his stomach and then felt his eyes burn in pain as he realized his goggles had been shattered. He felt the others strike the ice near him. Several screams of pain and thuds of bodies announced the arrival of his team.
He finally managed to draw a breath.
“Henson, Goodfellow, Wiley, are you all right?” he called out in a coughing fit as air filled his lungs.
He tore at his parka hood and slapped away his broken goggles. Suddenly a bright flare of red-tinted light filled the frozen spaces around him, and he quickly closed his eyes to the harsh light.
“I think Henson may be hurt bad,” Professor Wiley said. He was kneeling beside a prone man with the smoking flare alight by his face.
Standish took a cue from his partner and struck alight his own flare. It sputtered and flamed to life as he assisted the others. Wiley stood and shook his head.
“Henson is out like a light—he must have hit his head a good one on the way down. Concussion possibly.” The tallest of the group adjusted the light of the flare and looked back at the ice tunnel they had blindly stumbled into in their fight to find shelter from the sudden storm above them.
“Looks like some sort of water runoff maybe, or just one hell of a big crack in the ice strata,” Professor Standish said as he examined the area high above them. The blue-tinted ice had not a hint to the daylight that was now possibly a mile above their heads. “Wiley, old man, please tell me your radio is still working and that we have a signal.” Standish removed his broken walkie-talkie from his belt and tossed it onto the ice.
Wiley tossed down the flare he was holding and retrieved his radio. He called the basecamp and was happy to get an answer. After telling base to stand by, he nodded at the leader of the survey team.
“Thank God for that, now we better—” Standish stopped when he saw both Wiley and a limping Goodfellow looking past his shoulder. Goodfellow slowly removed his goggles and then allowed them to fall to the ice at his feet.
“Oh, bloody hell,” Wiley said as he quickly struck another flare.
Professor Standish slowly turned around as the shock registered on his boys’ faces froze his blood far more than the temperature ever could have. His eyes widened as the newly struck flare erupted into a hellish tint of red.
The giant object rose far above them and eventually disappeared into the thick, three-mile ice. The steel was frozen solid and looked as if it was buried in a long-ago green sea. His eyes traveled down its partially hidden length as he felt his bladder threaten to let go of its contents.
“I bloody well think we found our prehistoric inland sea, Professor.”
Standish didn’t answer as his eyes kept roaming over the giant before him.
The British-sponsored survey team had found far more than an ancient sea. They had stumbled upon the greatest discovery in the history of mankind.
* * *
The small rail line had taken the British government almost six months to complete. The steepness of the ice-water runoff that had created the tunnel had to be shored up and the engineers had finally declared it safe enough to allow the scientific experts access to the site. The five gentlemen of the darkest sections of British Intelligence now stood looking at the object that was estimated to have been buried over a hundred million years before man began scrambling from the trees.
“Well, now the Americans are not the only ones to have something like this to hide,” said the young man from MI6. He was portly and stood with his cold-weather clothing masking the heaviness of his body. He smiled and rocked back and forth from heel to toe as he studied the giant object buried inside the ancient sea before them.
“You speak of the Roswell vehicle?” asked his aide. The question only elicited a look of disdain from the science advisor to Her Majesty.
“From this moment on, gentlemen, the need to know on this project is absolutely being apprised through my offices.”
“We cannot hide this from the men and women who need to know,” said his aide.
The man removed his parka and in the harsh lighting of the portable lamps he glared at the three men before him.
“You will remove the survey team from Antarctica and sequester them until they can be debriefed by me, and me alone. Is that clear?”
“But—”
“Is that clear?” he insisted. He turned his gaze from the men before him back to the object. His eyes traveled the length of the find and he could not help but be amazed at its sheer size.
“Yes, sir,” the aide finally said.
“Not even the palace is to know what we have here. This find may make the American discovery from 1947 seem trivial. It seems that strange group headquartered underneath Nellis Air Force Base in their Nevada desert that we suspect is there is not very forthcoming as far as secrets are concerned.” He turned toward the other three men from British intelligence. “It seems we now have a bargaining chip to trade for the future.” He smiled. “I love secrets, don’t you?”
PART ONE
THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM
Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.
—Ambrose Redmoon
1
UNITED STATES PENITENTIARY, LEAVENWORTH
LEAVENWORTH, KANSAS
PRESENT DAY
The man in the rumpled three-piece suit waited in front of Warden Hal Jennings’s desk. He stood with his battered briefcase clutched in both hands and was using it as if it were a talisman of some sort as he waited for his ruse to either pass muster, or for his deception to be found out. If he was found out it would be nothing more than an embarrassing episode and predicament he would eventually talk his way out of.
He watched the warden’s eyes as he read the letter. Without looking up at the man in the light blue suit, horn-rimmed glasses, and thinning red hair, the warden—who had been running the federal side of Leavenworth—placed his hand on his phone and picked up the receiver.
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