Area 51 (31 page)

"Excuse me?" Von Seeckt said.

"Why does it have to be aliens? All along everyone is assuming that these craft were left by another species, but why couldn't they have been developed by some ancient civilization of man that perished, and we're the recycles?"

Nabinger smiled. "I have considered that, but the facts argue against it's being even a remote possibility. The level of civilization needed to develop craft such as they have out at Area 51 would have left much more of a trace than simply those craft and the bomb found under the Great Pyramid. We have been scouring the surface of the planet for a long time. Certainly an advanced human civilization would have left more of a trace. No, these things had to have come from an alien culture."

In the rearview mirror Kelly could see Turcotte raise his hands, ceding the point.

"However, it is good that we not close our minds to other possibilities," Von Seeckt said. "As I was saying, it appears that we are back at the original problem. We are not any closer to understanding why the ships were abandoned by the aliens."

"Maybe they had no place to go," Kelly offered. "Maybe their home world was destroyed and they came here on a one-way colonizing mission, and that is why the mothership was hidden in that cave--so they couldn't go back."

"But what about the bouncers?" Turcotte asked. "They were still capable of flight. Hell, we're flying them now.

Surely they wouldn't have hidden them like that."

"And why the bomb hidden in the pyramid?" Kelly asked.

That question was one Nabinger must have been pondering. "No one has ever really determined why the pyramids were built. Originally they were assumed to be burial monuments, but that theory was debunked when no bodies were found in the chambers inside. Then it was assumed they were cenotaphs--monuments to dead pharaohs whose actual burial place was hidden to guard against future grave robbers.

"But with this new information there's another theory we ought to consider. It is a bit strange, but as Doctor Von Seeckt has said, we must consider all possibilities. Let me give you a little information about the construction of the

Great Pyramid.

"There are two small tunnels coming out of the uppermost chamber, also known as the king's chamber. The exact purpose of these tunnels is not clear, as they are too small for people to go through. An interesting fact, though, is that if you follow their exact azimuth out to the stars, one is aligned with Alpha Centauri and the other with Alpha Draconis, two nearby star systems."

"Maybe our aliens came from one of those systems," Von Seeckt said.

"Another interesting theory, but one previously considered outrageous," Nabinger said, "is that the pyramids are space beacons. Originally, the entire exterior of all three in the Giza group was covered with very finely crafted flat limestone." He looked at the other two men in the back of the van. "Can you visualize what they must have looked like then?"

Turcotte nodded. "I imagine you would probably have been able to see them from space."

"Visually, yes, when they reflected sunlight," Nabinger said. "But even more importantly, given the angle of the sides of the pyramid, if they are viewed above thirty-eight degrees from the horizon--i.e., from space--they would have painted a radar picture with a directivity factor of over six hundred million for a two-centimeter wavelength."

"Not exactly the Stealth bomber," Turcotte noted.

"No. Such a radar picture could be seen from a long way away from the planet, to say the least." Nabinger leaned forward. "The first question I asked myself when I originally saw the pyramids many years ago was the most basic.

Why did the ancient Egyptians choose that form? No one has ever been able to give an adequate reason. If, given the building capability of the time, you wanted to build a massive structure that could be detected from space, the pyramid is the best choice."

The archeologist was warming to his subject matter.

"Hell, think about all the other symbols that have been etched into the surface of the Earth by the ancients! The giant bird symbols on plateaus in South America. Symbols

in chalk in England. We've always wondered why early man was so intent on drawing symbols that could only be seen from above when they themselves would never have been able to see it from that perspective."

"That still doesn't answer any of the questions that we need answers to,"

Turcotte said. "If we don't come up with something to support Von Seeckt's contention that the mothership mustn't be flown, all we've done is put ourselves in a deep shit-pile with no way out."

"That is what we will find at Dulce," Von Seeckt said.

"Well, we're just about there," Kelly said. "I hope someone's got a plan."

"I'll have one by the time we get there," Turcotte said, looking in the drawers below the console and checking out some of the equipment stored there.

He glanced up at Von Seeckt. "Mind telling us what's at Dulce?"

Kelly nodded slightly to herself. She was beginning to like Turcotte more and more. There was a lot of fog swirling about this situation: different agendas by the four people in this van, unclear government objectives, secrets piled on top of secrets. She just wanted Johnny and then she was going to break this wide open. To get Johnny, though, she was going to have to trust Turcotte's skills.

She knew that Turcotte was going to have to trust Von Seeckt to the same degree-

-and he didn't. She didn't either. Her reporter's sixth sense told her the old man was holding back.

"I told you," Von Seeckt said. "It is another government installation, an offshoot of the installation at Area 51."

"Have you ever been there?" Turcotte asked.

"I told you. Once. Just after the end of World War II. It was very long ago and my memories are not that good."

"I know you said that," Turcotte said. "And I asked you again because I don't understand why you never went there again if this place was such an important part of Majic-12 and you were one of the founding members of the board, so to speak."

The sound of the van engine and the tires rolling sounded abnormally loud in the silence. Kelly decided to see if she could keep the ball rolling. "Want to hear what is suspected to go on there?" she called out.

"I'd appreciate any information, even rumors, at this point," Turcotte said.

Kelly brought her research to the forefront of her brain.

"Among the UFO community it's said that Dulce is the site of a bioengineering lab. That it's a place where our government turns over people to the aliens whose craft we are flying at Area 51. We know the first part is true."

"And we know the part about turning people over to aliens isn't true,"

Turcotte noted.

"Are you sure?" Kelly asked.

"No, it cannot be!" Von Seeckt cried out. "I would have known if we'd had contact with whoever left the bouncers and mothership. We would not have had to struggle so hard for so many years. We just got into the mothership this past year. It sat for so long, a puzzle we couldn't break."

"Maybe something changed this year," Kelly suggested.

She had Von Seeckt off balance and she knew from experience that she had to keep up the pressure. "I have heard that the government is doing testing on mind control at Dulce. They are supposedly working with memory-affecting drugs and EDOM."

"What's EDOM?" Turcotte asked.

"Electronic dissolution of memory," Kelly said. "I did an article on it a few years back. Of course, the people I interviewed were only talking about it theoretically, but it always seems that our government likes to take theory and see if it can work. EDOM is used to cause selective amnesia. It creates acidic croline, which blocks the transmission of nerve impulses, which in the brain stops the transmission of thought in the affected area."

"Ever hear of that?" Turcotte asked Von Seeckt.

"I have heard . . ." Von Seeckt began, then he paused.

When he spoke again, his voice was hesitant. "I will tell you the truth. I will tell you why I never went back to Dulce after my visit in 1946."

They all waited.

"Because I knew who was working there." Von Seeckt's voice dripped disgust. "I met them. My fellow Germans.

The biological and chemical warfare experts. And they were continuing their experimental work that they had started in the concentration camps. I could not go there. I could not stand to see what they were doing." Von Seeckt told them about Paperclip.

"Surely most of these people are dead now," Kelly said when he was done. "But I imagine that the work is still continuing there and that explains a lot of the Nightscape stuff and why everything is classified. But what's the connection with the mothership?"

"I have not been there, true," Von Seeckt said, "but Gullick and the others he trusted--they traveled to Dulce often. Something changed this year. They changed."

Kelly sensed blood in the water. "Changed? Changed how?"

"They began acting irrationally," Von Seeckt said. "We always had secrecy in Majic-12. And Dulce has existed for many years, as Captain Turcotte says. But something is different now. The urgency to fly the mothership. What is the rush? Even getting into it. For so many years we could not penetrate the skin, then suddenly they pick a certain spot and try a new technique, and they succeed after decades of trying.

"Even how quickly they have mastered the controls and the instruments. It is as if they know much more than they should."

"Could they have broken the code on the high runes?"

Nabinger asked. "That would explain some of it."

"Some of it, yes," Von Seeckt agreed. "But I do not think they have broken the code, or if they have, it does not explain why they are acting so strangely and in such a rush." Von Seeckt threw his hands up in the air. "I do not understand."

"Do you know where the facility is?" Turcotte asked.

"Not exactly. Just somewhere on the outside of the town of Dulce. I do remember a large mountain behind the town and that we went around the mountain on a dirt road.

Then we went into a tunnel and it was all underground."

Turcotte rubbed his forehead. "So you don't exactly know where it is and you don't exactly know what goes on there?"

"No."

Kelly looked up in the rearview mirror. Turcotte met her eyes, then spoke.

"Well, we'll be there shortly. And we'll find out what's going on and get Johnny Simmons out of there."

Kelly opened her mouth to say something, then shut it.

She turned her eyes back to the road and drove.

VICINITY, DULCE, NEW MEXICO

Johnny Simmons could see. He didn't know how long ago it had started, but it had begun with the slightest tinge of gray infiltrating the blackness surrounding him. Then the difference between light and dark grew, and he was able to make out some forms moving around on the periphery of his vision. He couldn't move his head, nor could he move his eyes.

But as time went by, he wished the slight improvement that had occurred had not. Because there was something wrong about the forms he caught glimpses of.

They were human shaped, but they weren't human and that is what scared him. The silhouetted forms were all wrong—heads too large; arms too long; torsos too short. Once he thought he saw the outline of a hand, but there were six fingers instead of five and the fingers were much too long.

Johnny was concentrating so hard on his eyes that it was a while before he noticed other changes in his environment. There was a scent in the air. A very unpleasant scent.

And he could hear sound, albeit as if from a long distance away. It was a clicking sound, but not mechanical. More like insect clicking.

The copper taste flooded Johnny's mouth and his world went black again. But this time he could hear his own screams, sounding as if it were some other person a long way away. But the pain was close.

25

ROUTE 64, NORTHWEST NEW MEXICO

T-79 HOURS

The road curved around a small lake to the left and passed between tree-covered hills. Turcotte checked the map.

They were close to Dulce. According to Rand McNally the town was just south of the border with Colorado, nestled between the Carson National Forest and the Rio Grande National Forest. The terrain was rocky and mountainous, with occasional clusters of pine trees adorning the hillsides.

It was the sort of relatively unpopulated area the government liked to build secret facilities in.

They hit a straight section of road and a long-distance view opened up directly ahead. Von Seeckt leaned forward between the seats. "There. That mountain to the left. I remember that. The facility is behind it."

A long ridge extended from left to right about ten miles ahead, culminating in a peak slightly separated from the main body of the ridge.

"Where should I go?" Kelly asked.

"Stay on this road," Turcotte said. "I'll tell you where to stop."

As they got closer, the town of Dulce appeared at the base of the ridgeline, a scattering of buildings along the valley floor running up to the base of the large mountain.

Route 64 passed along the south side of the community, and Kelly carefully kept to the speed limit as they drove through. As the town slipped behind them, Turcotte told her to pull off on a dirt road and stop.

"You say the facility is behind that mountain?" he asked Von Seeckt.

"Yes. It was night when I came here and over fifty years ago, though. There wasn't much here in those days. I don't remember all these buildings."

Turcotte looked to the north. "All right. We have about two hours of daylight left. Let's check out what we can see from the van." He pointed back toward town and Kelly turned them around.

They cruised in past the sign marking the city limits and took a right, going past the local elementary school. The road slowly sloped up. Within a quarter mile they were at the base of the ridge. Turcotte kept Kelly taking turns that directed them to the right. It was the only way he could see around the mountain. Left would only run along the south side of the ridgeline.