When Banion opened his front door in Georgetown the next morning, he found a dozen television cameras. The four-block walk to his office became an ambulatory press conference of increasingly unruliness, as reporters barked undignified questions on the order of "Did they take sperm samples?"
On rounding the corner of his office on Dumbarton Street, Banion found another clutch of cloven-hoofed beasts waiting for him with their modern instruments of torture. He had to shoulder his way through. So
undignified.
Renira was waiting for him inside with a stern look. She had logged so far that morning over 150 phone calls.
"One-third were from what 1 would call reputable news organizations. One-third were from what I would call disreputable news organizations. The remaining one-third were from what I would call deranged individuals. One gentleman" - she handed him a phone slip - "says that he remembers you very clearly from the spaceship. Apparently, you met onboard."
"Was his name Cesar?"
"No," said Renira evenly, "A Mr. Hooper. He is eager to relive the experience with you. Mr. Mint called. He said it was rather urgent. And Mr. Galilee, also urgent. Mr. Stimple.
Extremely
urgent."
"You're having some difficulty with this?" said Banion, glancing at the tabloid newspaper Renira had thoughtfully spread over his desk. It showed him riding in a toy spaceship, with antennae sprouting from his temples.
None of the women in his life was taking this well. It had been a miscalculation, perhaps, to fly in Dr. Falopian after the show and to bring him, along with Colonel
Murfletit
, to his house in Georgetown. Bitsey, already in an agitated state, greeted them with something less than her customary hospitality. Dr. Falopian did not improve the situation by leaning over and kissing her hand moistly, in the manner of a slobbering Bavarian count. Colonel
Murfletit
tried to break the glacial ice by asking her if she ever went bowling. (His one pastime.) After several minutes of excruciating social intercourse, Bitsey stomped off, leaving Banion and his guests to discuss their strategy to the sound of upstairs doors being violently and serially slammed. Amidst these angry percussions, the telephone rang incessantly while outside could be heard the bruit of the encamping paparazzi.
A photograph appeared in the next morning's
Post
showing Bitsey, wearing a look of steely calm, fleeing to their Middleburg house at the wheel of her Mercedes. She reminded some of Madame Baby Doc Duvalier* driving to the airport to commence her exile.
"On the contrary," said Renira with regal British hauteur. "I'm thrilled, not to mention proud, to be so closely affiliated with someone who has just gone gaga on national television."
"So. you think I'm making this all up?"
"I'll get your tea," she huffed, exiting.
"Don't you want to discuss it?" he said to the closed door.
Maddening. Here he was, sitting on the biggest news story of the century, and what was everyone's response? Slammed doors, trenchant sarcasm, dripping scorn. He wondered if this was what the disciples went through.
But then, what could he expect? Were they supposed to run to the Nature Store and buy home telescopes? It
was
a strange tale. But it was true! And one way or the other, Banion was going to see to it that the truth got out. He was already working on that. Dr. Falopian and Colonel
Murfletit
assured him that the aliens would continue their contacts with him. They obviously had plans for him. This was the pattern. The next time, Banion would be ready to document the experience, with a hidden camera and tape recorder. Colonel
Murfletit
cautioned that it was not without risk; the aliens might not like being photographed and recorded.
Banion wrote his column, an urgent call for Senate hearings on alien abductions.
He finished it, gave it to Renira to copyedit and transmit to the syndicate in St. Louis, which would send it out to the 440 newspapers. After a few minutes, she appeared in the doorway, holding the column as if it were a piece of sneezed-into Kleenex.
"Question?" said Banion.
*
Tightly wound wife of former Haitian dictator.
"Yes. Paragraph three: 'There is no more urgent national priority than determining whether the thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of abductions of U.S. citizens by aliens is the vanguard of an invading force, or merely biological experimentation. Either way, this is no time for complacency.'"
"Yes?"
"Surely the Russian situation is more
urgent,
strictly speaking. I mean, there is apparently some chance of a dustup between their troops and ours. Point one. Point two, where do we get the business of 'thousands,' much less 'tens of thousands' of people being scooped up?"
"Those have been extensively documented."
"By whom, might I ask?"
"I refer you to volumes one through eighteen of the
Case
Histories of
Alien
Abductees,
published by the Congress of Alien Abductees."
'Ah." She went off with a dubious expression, coming back a moment later to inform Banion that Mr. Stimple of Ample Ampere was on the line.
"Jack." This time there was no braying note in Bill's greeting, no slap on the back, no inquiry about golf, only a forlorn "How are you?"
"Superb. Let me guess. You're calling to register alarm about the content of the show yesterday."
"You took us all a bit by surprise there. Little green men. How about that."
"Nothing little, green, or human about them. No, these were . . ." Banion described at length the physiognomy of his captors. Bill did not sound enthralled. He emitted a occasional wan "Really?" and "Whaddya know."
Finally he said, "Everything ate okay?"
"How do you mean?"
"Oh, you know, health-wise. What about taking some time off, work on that short game of yours?" So they were back to golf.
Banion laughed. "There's a presidential election going on, and I've been abducted - twice - by beings not of this world. At a time like this, would jow be worrying about your chip shots?"
"You've been working yourself so hard."
"Would it help if I told you that I'm having Dmitri Shmirkin, the Russian foreign minister, on the show next week?" "Oh, that's great! Fantastic. That'll be a great show." "Feeling better?" "I'm great. I was just. . ."
"By the way, you can tell the big guy that I've come around on
Celeste."
"No kidding? Gee, that's just aces. He'll be pleased. What brought you around?"
"This is hardly the time to be cutting back on America's space program."
"You're not going to -"
"I don't know how the appropriations process works on
their
planet, but I doubt that their space programs got slashed because their toilet seats were too expensive. Assuming the bug-eyed bastards
use
toilets."
S
crubbs was in heaven. Two John O
. Banion columns on abductions in one week, one calling for Senate UFO hearings, the other urging swift approval of NASAs budget. He was in his apartment watching Banion interview an ex-KGB official turned Russian foreign minister about the Alaska situation. From the kitchen, where he was making himself another Bloody Mary, he heard, "Now what can you tell us about your government's knowledge of so-called unidentified flying objects?"
Scrubbs hurried back to the TV Remote from Moscow, Minister Shmirkin pursed his lips while the question was translated for him.
The translator's voice replie
d. "There are no un
identified flying objects over Russia at the present time. But we have identified all flying objects over the Motherland, especially American spy planes and satellites."
"Yes, naturally," Banion countered, "but surely you are aware that the United States government is in possession of superior alien spa
ce technology. Doesn't this worry
your military people?"
Scrubbs stopped stirring his Bloody Mary with his forefinger.
"I have heard nothing of this business that you mention," came the response, with little pauses between words, "but I can inform you that Russia's military capability remains strong and ready in the event it becomes necessary."
Scrubbs was in the shower having a thoughtful, sobering soak when he heard the
chirrup
of his pager by the sink. He checked it, saw the number indicated - code for an incoming message of highest priority. He entered the passwords on his laptop computer, disarming the explosive within and converting it to a field communicator.
The message was signed MJ
-1.
In all his years he had never had a communication from MJ
-1.
Most people in the organization had never received a direct communication from MJ
-1.
It was short and to the point:
WHO AUTHORIZED CE-4 OF JOHN O
BANION?
Scrubbs entered his reply, trying to make Banion's UFO conversion sound like the Second Coming. Bypassing the question of authorization, he dwelled at length on what a triumph the Banion co-optation was for Majestic Twelve - a new dawn of respectability (as he put it). And how about the fact that Banion had just come out for tripling the space budget? Talk about
results
.
.
.
Scrubbs sent his message off into the ether and waited for a reply.
EIGHT
Not since he had taken up collecting canes had Banion plunged so wholeheartedly into a subject. His office turned into a command center. Gone from the walls were the portraits of presidents, statesmen, and generals. In their place were charts of the solar system and distant galaxies, color photos of crab nebulae said by Dr. Falopian to be alien Canaverals. On the wall across from his desk was a huge map of the earth with color-coded pins showing the locations of documented alien abductions. Formerly, it had been his Wall of Ego, the traditional Washington space festooned with signed photographs of oneself taken with (other) important people, interspersed with handsomely framed honorary doctorates proclaiming one's superior worth. The bookshelves, once filled with the Federalist Papers, biographies and memoirs of the founding fathers, presidents, statesmen, generals, histories of civilizations living and dead, were now home to such titles
as
Aboard
a
Flying
Saucer,
Above
Top
Secret:
The
Worldwide
UFO
Cover-Up,
Angels
and
Aliens,
and
Blue
Book
Special
Report
Number
14.
Banion had installed Dr. Falopian and Colonel Murfletit in rooms in his office. Renira protested their presence by pretending that they did not exist and speaking about them in the third person, creating a somewhat awkward atmosphere. Colonel Murfletit seemed content to be treated like a dead mouse on the living room floor, but Dr. Falopian, whose business card stated proudly, "Nuclear Physicist," chafed at this
lese-majeste
and complained to Banion.
"Look," Banion said to Renira after she refused to help the doctor unjam the paper in the copying machine, "I'm not asking you to make him tea and crumpets, just be civil. He's a man of science."
"Science!" Renira scoffed. "Have you actually
read
his book?"
"Of course I have. Seminal stuff."
"Seminal rot. He's using you, the goateed capon. And that colonel, with his
absurd
stories about alien autopsies. Mad as march hares, both of them, and a good bit less charming."
"They happen to be top people in their field," Banion said sternly.
"I've no doubt of
that."
"Just try to get along. Now. what do we have this afternoon?"
'At three o'clock you have the
Unsolved
Mysteries
taping. I don't know
why
you agreed to this. Do you know what their last show was on? Yeti."
"Who?"
"Bigfoot. The abominable snowman." "Well, I won't be talking about that."
"I don't see the
point.
Why do you have to give interviews to these fruity shows?"
"Because it's these 'fruity' shows that have been covering this story all along, while the so-called respectable media have stuck their heads in the sand. Anyway I
am
doing respectable media. Jerry Cramer called. He says
Time
may put it on the cover."
A look of doom came over Renira's face. "No good will come of that, mark my word."
Just once, thought Banion, it would be nice to get a little affirmation. She was becoming a magpie. But he did wonder about
Time.
So they were thinking about putting him on the cover, in the middle of a presidential campaign. Hm. He'd gotten a lot of ink lately, little of it what you'd call respectful. This was hard on someone who. up to now. had been treated with reverence and even awe by the press. Now he had to endure cruel caricatures and headlines like
earth to banion, come in
. He had become a bit prickly. The
Time
reporter who had interviewed him had tried to strike a sympathetic tone by telling him that she'd once seen "some lights doing weird things" while driving "stoned" across Nebraska as a college student. "Do not patronize me," he said icily, "with tales of funny lights in the sky. My experiences have been of another order entirely."