“How could I forget?” said Eric, and didn’t look up.
“Oh my, we really are in a mood today.”
Leon was quiet after that. Eric finished his scanning, assembled the formal looking proposals for five non-existent galleries, and sent them away. Purchase requisitions would return within a day, all suggested prices realized, and Eric would be a local hero again.
It was nearing eleven, and Eric’s skin was crawling with anticipation. He reached for the telephone, but it rang before he touched it.
It was Nataly.
“Hi. I was about to call you,” he said. “Do you have time for lunch?”
“Pick me up at the shop,” she said. “I called your house, but the line was busy.”
Alarms went off in Eric’s head. “Must have been another call coming in. I came in early this morning. How about going to that veggie place down by the high school? I can leave right now.”
“Fine. I’ll be waiting. Did you sleep well last night?”
“Sure did.”
“No strange dreams?”
“Well, there was one I thought strange, just before it woke me up.”
“You’ll have to tell me all about it. See you soon.”
“Bye.” Eric hung up the phone, feeling lightness in his chest, not excitement, but a kind of apprehension.
Leon grinned at him. “Bet I know who that was. Another date so soon? Oh, my.”
“Did you call my house this morning?”
“No.”
“Well somebody did, and only you and Nataly have that number. The line was busy when Nataly tried to call.”
Leon’s grin disappeared. “Interesting.”
Eric pushed away from his desk. “I should be back by one. My contribution to the art world is done for the day. I have to wonder what happens to the paintings we’re supposed to have sold.”
“There’s a cover story for each, if the artists ask questions,” said Leon. “Otherwise, I don’t have a clue. Say hi to Nataly for me, you bad boy.”
Leon was reaching for the telephone as Eric left the office.
It was seven blocks to Nataly’s shop. She was waiting outside. Her hair hung well down her back and she was dressed in black sweater and a peasant skirt with swirls of orange and red. When she got in the car he immediately smelled pine. “Hi,” he said, and heard the softness in his own voice.
She didn’t answer right away, but smiled beautifully and fastened her seat belt after putting a book in her lap.
“Some reading material for lunch?”
“It’s for you,” she said. “You’ll probably find it amusing.”
It was only four blocks to the deli, and they parked on gravel, and went inside. A young woman was behind a counter, chopping up something on a board. Eight tables in the room, three now occupied by people eating sandwiches and reading magazines or books. Nobody looked up.
They ordered sandwiches, organic chips and bottles of juice. Nataly handed Eric the book she’d brought along. “Yours. Part of your education in our mythology.”
“Aliens Among Us?” Eric riffled some pages.
“Now, now. You promised you’d keep an open mind. I think it’s fascinating to think that aliens are actually living here among us, and we’re all blissfully unaware of it.”
“They’re probably just here for our women,” said Eric, and blinked rapidly at her. “Can’t say that I blame them.”
Nataly smiled, and punched him gently in the arm.
They sat down on high chairs at a round table, their knees touching. Eric bit into a sandwich of cucumber, hummus, and sprouts on dark, wheat bread. Nataly uncapped her bottle of juice.
“So, tell me about your dream,” she said.
Eric told her everything, in detail, as much as he could remember.
Nataly nodded. “Good. You’ve had a connection with your inner self, your higher self. As you go from one lifetime to another, he is the constant. What did he tell you?”
Eric chewed thoughtfully. “He said something, but I don’t remember it. He just floated there, with that green eye above him. What’s with the eye?”
“I don’t know,” said Nataly, and then her eyes seemed to sparkle. “It could have been the Earth Mother, watching over you.”
Eric shook his head.
“Well, you have to admit it’s imaginative. It’s that kind of atmosphere that attracts so many creative people here. There are no stigmas about beliefs in our town.”
“Including UFOs and little green men,” said Eric.
“I’ve read that some are more like a bluish gray. Graylings, and there’s more than one kind. If you read that book, you’ll see there are as many as sixty different alien species living with us at the moment. Some are real friends, especially the Paladians. It’s said we’re descended from them, but their home world is in another universe in another dimension. It’s all in the book, Chapter six.”
“God,” said Eric, and turned some pages.
“Other species are hostile to us, like the shadow people and the reptilians, but fortunately for us they don’t have the power the Paladians have. Chapter nine. The Trills and the Kraal live in a kind of uneasy truce with us that was made by the Paladians and is enforced by them.”
“Lord, how do they think up these names?” Eric had turned to chapter nine, was skimming a page.
“The names differ from book to book. When you get into it, you find many divergent opinions among those who believe in an alien presence here. Even the differences are fascinating.”
Eric was actually reading a page in chapter nine. Nataly ate silently for a moment, then said, “I’ll give you the book if you promise to read all of it. I’ll try to answer any questions you have.”
“You make it sound important,” said Eric.
“We take our mythologies seriously. If you’re going to live here, you should at least know what they are.”
“I really don’t know how long I’ll be here,” said Eric.
“I want it to be a long time,” said Nataly, and she reached over and put a hand on top of his.
Eric looked down at her hand on his. “All you know about me is that I can’t stay awake after a beer and a brandy.”
“I know more than you think. I really like you, Eric.”
He looked at her. Up close, the lighting seemed to make her dark eyes a mixture of purple and phalo-green. “I like you, too,” he said softly. “I still remember you from last night, glowing in the darkness. You’re magical, Nataly.”
She squeezed his hand. “That’s sweet. Sometimes I feel much less than magical. I’m a sensitive, Eric. I feel things, sense things I often don’t understand. Right now I’m feeling apprehension, a feeling I’ve had before when someone was watching me and I didn’t see it. This time the feeling involves you, and Leon. It started last night, right after you left. I really called you this morning to see if you were all right. For some reason, it frightened me when I couldn’t reach you at home.”
Her hand was tight around his. He put his other hand over it, looked closely at her. “Be patient with me, Nataly. There are things about me I’d like to tell you, but I just can’t do it right now.”
“I know,” she said. “Just be careful, and promise to call me when you can. Please.”
“I promise.”
“Good. So, let’s get back to the book.”
“Oooo, Trills, and Kraals, and Paladians, oh my!”
“What?”
“Lions, tigers and bears?”
“Oh—yes. I saw it on television. If you accept the mythology, all these species have disguises of one kind or another. The Kraals are reptilian, but can telepathically control what we see by suggestion. The Trills use cloaking devices that make them seem like shadows or blurred movement in open air. The Paladians, of course, are our distant cousins, and look much like us. They’re said to be beautiful people.”
Eric ran a thumb over the palm of her hand, and smiled. “Do you ever have a chance to get back to t
he mother ship?”
Nataly smiled back, and sighed. “I’m trying to be serious. Haven’t you ever thought something was moving at the edge of your vision, but when you turned, nothing was there? Read chapter eleven. How was your sandwich?”
“Excellent, but meatless, and I’m a carnivore.”
Nataly narrowed her eyes, and Eric’s heart skipped a beat. “I believe that,” she said, “but it was your choice, this time.”
“Next choice is yours.”
“No hamburgers. They sit in my stomach for a week. When?”
“I’ll have to call you, maybe late in the week. I’ll give you a couple of days warning.”
“Okay, We’d better go. Marie is running the whole shop for me. Thanks for lunch.”
She squeezed his hand. They got up, left the deli, and made the short drive back to Nataly’s shop. She unbuckled herself, turned and kissed him firmly on the mouth. Her eyes were open and, so close, he could see flecks of emerald green in their depths.
“Bye,” she said, got out of the car and went into her shop without looking back.
Eric sat there stunned for a moment, looking at the door to the shop, then darted into the steady stream of traffic on 89A for the drive back to his office.
Leon was waiting for him. He scowled when Eric came through the doorway. “Hope you enjoyed your lunch. I have some news to share with you.”
Eric put Nataly’s book down on his desk. “Lunch was great,” he said, and then a small lie, “Nataly says hi.”
Leon’s smile was more of a smirk. “It’s about your home phone line being busy this morning. I’ve done some research on it, and have a confession to make.”
“You called me,” said Eric.
“No, I didn’t, and neither did anyone else. It wasn’t an incoming call. Someone was in your house, and placed a call from there. I even have the number called. I was about to check it out, but maybe you’d like to do it.”
“And just how do you know all of this?” asked Eric, and his heartbeat quickened.
“Oh, that’s the confession part, dear boy. Nothing personal, but your home phone is tapped, and so is mine. The recorder is in the tunnel between our houses. Orders, need to know, you’re new on the project, and all that. I called the Phoenix office while you were at lunch. They downloaded the recorder, located the call, and gave me the number. Here it is.”
Leon handed Eric a piece of paper. “We really are a mistrusting lot, aren’t we? In fairness, I think you should check this out.”
Eric looked at the paper. “This is a local number.”
“Yes it is. Maybe someone ordered a pizza for you.”
“Funny,” said Eric.
Leon went back to his desk. Eric sat down, took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then punched in the number on his desk phone. Leon watched him closely. Eric listened a few seconds, then looked up at the ceiling, and said in a high, falsetto voice, “Oh, I’m terribly sorry, sir. I have the wrong number.” He hung up, sat back, and smiled.
Leon looked astonished. “What?”
“A man answered,” said Eric, “asked who was calling, please. A familiar voice, Leon, especially since he was supposed to be out of town today.”
“Damn it, Eric, who was it?”
“It was John Coulter, our friend and benefactor.”
Leon steepled his fingers in front of his face. “Well, well,” he said.
* * * * * * *
Eric returned home at six with a bucket of deli chicken from the market. Nothing seemed disturbed, and there were no strange odors in the rooms. His computer was in hibernation, as he’d left it. The telephone answering service was cleared. He checked closets and drawers. Nothing seemed displaced, no marks on doors or windows. The tunnel door in the basement was still locked from his side. If someone had searched his house it had been done by a professional, or not at all. Eric spent two hours searching under tables, in lamps, air vents, any place conceivable in which to hide a surveillance device. He found nothing, including the tap on his own phone, which was disturbing.
He called Leon, found him at home. “Everything’s clean as near as I can see, but I need an electronic scan for bugs. Do you have the equipment?”
Leon didn’t have it, said he’d have it in a day. “Sleep tight,” he said, and hung up.
It was midnight before Eric got to bed. He’d eaten too much chicken, and his stomach was protesting the overload. He chewed up a handful of antacid tablets and read from Nataly’s book for over an hour. He wanted to read more, but the van would arrive at six in the morning to take him to the base.
That night his sleep was mangled with dreams about switches and control panels, little gray men with bulbous eyes, and snakes crawling over his legs as he lay paralyzed on soft ground that sucked at him. When he awoke at five, the room smelled musty, and it took him minutes to sleepily untangle himself from the bed sheets.
“Oh, this is going to be a terrific day,” he said, and staggered to the bathroom.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
MISTER BROWN
The ever-present Sergeant Nutt opened the door for Eric, and Davis scowled at him from behind his desk. “Don’t bother sitting down. I’ve just been informed we’re meeting down the hall. There’s too much light in this room.”
“What?” said Eric, as Davis stood up.
“Our Mister Brown, as he calls himself, wants the room to be darkened for your meeting. I guess he doesn’t want you to see him clearly, which seems silly to me because I’ve seen him in full light and so have several others. Or maybe he’s just jerking my chain again. Let’s go.”
Davis pushed past Eric at the doorway, and Sergeant Nutt quickly closed the door behind them. Davis led them down the long hallway to a door marked ‘Conference’ and rapped on it softly.
There was a muffled reply from inside, and Davis opened the door. They stepped inside and Nutt shut the door, plunging them into near darkness. Overhead light panels had been turned down to dim, and there were no other lights on the long conference table that filled half the room. A man was seated at the far end of the table, a silhouette in the gloom.
“Where would you like us to sit?” asked Davis.
The man’s voice was soft, with a heavy, Slavic accent. “No reason for you or sergeant to remain, Colonel. My business is with Doctor Price. Thank you for bringing him to me.”
Eric was surprised when Davis didn’t argue for at least leaving Nutt to take notes. “Very well, if you feel there’s nothing I can contribute, but I’d like to see Doctor Price right after your meeting is concluded. Sergeant Nutt will remain outside in the hall to accompany him back to my office.”
“It will only be few minutes,” said the man known as Mister Brown.
Davis and Nutt left, and the door closed. Eric was suddenly aware of the soft sound of air flowing from a vent in the ceiling, and a high-pitched tone at the edge of his audible perception.
“Please sit,” said the man, and a black-gloved hand pointed to a chair near the end of the table. Eric sat down two places away from his host, his eyes adjusting rapidly to the low light.
“You may call me Mister Brown,” said the man, “but is not my true name.”
“I understand,” said Eric. “I’m grateful for this meeting, Mister Brown. I have several questions I hope you can answer for me.”
“I’m sure you do. One moment, please,” said Brown. He leaned forward, and Eric could see a small nose, sharp, a well-sculptured, handsome face wearing what looked like sunglasses in the low light. Brown placed an object shaped like half an ellipsoid on the table in front of him, and pressed something on it with a long finger. Eric felt a kind of pressure in his head, and immediately the sounds of air flowing from the vent, the high tone from something else, both were gone.
“We are private, now,” said Brown. “Our conversation is not to be shared with anyone, including our dear Colonel. Do you accept this?”
“If you feel it’s necessary.”
“I
do. There are so many players in this little game of ours. It has become complicated. You must wonder why I want meet with you.”
“Yes.”
“You’re new to base personnel, but have demonstrated interesting insights.”
“If you mean what I think, insights are usually generated by trial-and-error experimentation. It doesn’t take genius to do that.”
Brown smiled in the gloom. His lips were thin. “Ah, you uncover my reference quickly. I’ve done my research, Doctor Price. I know who and what you are, and why you’re here. Our good Colonel only knows a partial truth.”
“Maybe you can explain what you mean by that. I’m a scientist, an analyst, and I’ve been sent here to troubleshoot a project that appears to be deliberately stalled by the people who originated it. I believe that includes you, Mister Brown.”
“To say the project is stalled, Doctor Price, is inaccurate, as is your description of yourself. The project has been sabotaged, and you’re here to stop it. We want to work with you.”
“We?”
“The organization I represent. We brought you the star craft at great risk to our lives and our government. It was supposed to be a cooperative effort to solidify a union of states. If the project fails, the effect will be the exact opposite, and we believe that is the motive behind the sabotage. We have suspicions, but no proof. It is the kind of thing you’re expert at, Doctor Price, both you and your partner, though we’re not certain about his loyalties.”
“You mean Leon?”
“I mean one of the deepest agents ever put into the field by your government. You, of course, are also on that list. The trust you’ve been granted is extreme. We want to make use of that. I will not show you the credentials of your partner; it would not be proper protocol. But this is what we know about you, and your assignment here.”
Brown fumbled at something at his feet, came up with a thick file and pushed it across the table to Eric with a gloved hand. The sleeve of his jacket pulled up on his arm, revealing ivory white skin that seemed to glow in the dull light.
Eric read the file quickly, was astounded by the detail. His entire career was summarized there, from Russia to Viet Nam to Turkey, then Germany and a killing mission to Israel that had only been known by Gil and whoever had given the orders.
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