Area 51 (36 page)

The camera centers in and there's a saucer-shaped object.

It's hard to tell the size because there's no reference scale.

But I could see the desert and mountains in the background, moving. The disk cut across a lot of terrain. If it had just been against sky I might have questioned it more.

The disk looked to be about thirty feet in diameter and silvery. It moved in abrupt jerks back and forth.

"If it was a fake, it was a very good fake--not someone hanging a hubcap out the window of their car and taping it with a videocamera as they drove. Believe me, I've actually seen a couple of those." She walked a little farther along the edge of the overlook and Turcotte followed.

"So the camera tracks this saucer and it descends. I can see an airstrip at the base of some mountains come into view. At the time I thought it was Nellis Air Force Base, but now I know it must have been the airstrip at Groom Lake. The saucer goes down, almost to the ground, and the F-16 goes by and that's it for the gun camera. There's a splice in the film and then I get it in color from the ground.

Shot from the control tower, Prague tells me."

"Wait a second," Turcotte interrupted. "Give me that name again."

"Prague. That was the Air Force captain who I met and who sent me the letter.

Why?"

1 tell you when you're done," Turcotte said. "Go on."

So the saucer comes to a hover over the runway and stays there for a few minutes. I could see emergency vehicles being deployed--fire trucks with their lights on. I could see the reflection of the lights off the skin of the saucer--a very difficult effect to fake. Pretty much impossible to do, given the technology of the time. Then Air Force police vehicles being deployed. Then the saucer starts to go straight up and it just outraces the ability of the camera operator to track it and it's gone.

"I asked Prague why he wanted to give me this film, and he said the Air Force was trying to get people off its back concerning Project Blue Book. That they wanted to show that the Air Force wasn't covering things up and that there wasn't this great conspiracy that many UFO enthusiasts claim.

"So I left Nellis and went straight to two major distribution companies and told them what I had just seen. Of course they didn't believe me and of course, Prague hadn't given me a copy of the film. He had to clear release with his superiors, he told me, and for that he needed to know who I was going to distribute it through.

"So when these companies call Nellis and try to get hold of Prague, they're told that such a person doesn't exist.

When they mention the film, they get laughed at, which doesn't do their disposition much good. I got trashed. I was labeled a nut and nobody wanted to deal with me. I was bankrupt within three months."

"Describe the saucer you saw again," Turcotte said.

Kelly did.

"The film was real," Turcotte said. "That sounds like ones of the bouncers in the hangar. They really set you up good."

"I know," Kelly replied. "I wouldn't have gone to the distributors for financing if I didn't believe the film was real. That's what really pissed me off about the whole thing." The sky was getting noticeably brighter in the east.

"That's what's so cunning about what they've been doing there in Area 51. It is real, but they set up the people who could truly expose it as frauds or kooks."

Kelly pointed at the van, which was fifty feet away.

They destroyed Johnny the same way. In his mind, after hat they did to him in that tank, he thinks he was really abducted by aliens. And the fact is that he was abducted.

That he probably did see things they didn't want him to see But if he goes public with it, he's laughed at. Yet in his mind it is real. That's about the worst thing you can do to a person next to physically killing him. It can drive you insane."

She turned back to face Turcotte. "So now you know why I'm not too trusting."

"I can understand that."

"What was on sublevel one?" Kelly asked.

Turcotte succintly told her, leaving out his two phone calls after escaping.

Kelly shuddered. "These people have to be stopped."

"I agree," Turcotte said. "We've made a start on that.

You might be pleased to know that Prague was--" He paused as there was a thumping sound inside the van.

They both turned as the door to the van shot open and Johnny appeared, holding the arm of one of the captain's chairs in his hands and swinging it about wildly. "You won't get me!" he screamed.

Turcotte and Kelly ran forward, but Johnny turned from them and sprinted along the path.

"Johnny, stop!" Kelly yelled.

"You won't get me!" Johnny screeched. He halted, brandishing the chair arm. "You won't get me."

"Johnny, it's Kelly," she said, slowly taking a step forward. The others were piling out of the van, Nabinger rubbing the side of his head.

"I won't let you get me!" Johnny turned and climbed up on the railing.

"Get down, Johnny," Kelly said. "Please get down."

"I won't let them get me," Johnny said, and he stepped out into the darkness and disappeared.

"Oh, God!" Kelly cried out as she ran up to the edge and looked over. Turcotte was right behind her. In the early-morning light they could just make out Johnny's body lying on the rock, two hundred feet below.

"We have to get him!" Kelly cried out.

Turcotte knew there was no way down into the gulley without climbing equipment. He also knew Johnny was dead; not only could no one could have survived that fall, the twisted and still way the body was lying confirmed it.

He wrapped his arms around Kelly and held her.

Fifteen minutes later a very somber group was seated inside the van. Nabinger had a bump on his head where Johnny had hit him with the arm of the chair before bolting from the van. It had taken ten of the past fifteen minutes for Turcotte to convince Kelly that they couldn't get to Johnny and that he would have to stay where he had fallen.

"All right," Turcotte began. "We have to decide what to do. The first thing is to agree on our goal. I think--

"We get these bastards," Kelly said. "We get them and we finish them. I want to see every one of them—every single one out at Area 51 and in Dulce—be brought to justice."

"We have to stop the mothership from flying first," Von Seeckt cut in. "That must be our primary goal. I understand your desire for vengeance, but the mothership is a danger to the planet. We know that now from the translation of the tablets. We must stop that first."

"It's the one with the shortest fuse," Turcotte said. "We have to stop what they're doing there and in Dulce, but that can come after we stop the mothership test flight." He looked at Kelly. "Do you agree?"

She reluctantly nodded, her eyes red rimmed from crying.

"All right," Turcotte said. "If that's our primary goal, the way I see it, we got two choices. One is to go public with this. Head to the nearest big town--maybe Salt Lake city and try to get the attention of someone in the media.

That way we use public opinion to stop the test. The other option is to take matters into our own hands, go back to Area 51, and try to stop the test ourselves."

Turcotte turned to Kelly. "I know it's hard, but we need your input on this.

Will going to the media work?"

She closed her eyes for a few moments, then opened them. "To be blunt, going public is the way you would think we should go. It's the way I would like to go.

The problem is that going to the media does not guarantee that your story will get to the public. We have no proof of--

"We have the photos of the tablets," Nabinger cut in.

"Yes, Professor," Kelly said, "but you're the only one who can translate them.

And since you're with us, I think people are going to look at that a bit skeptically. There was a stone found in America--I think in New England--that the finder claimed showed that ancient Greeks were in the New World a millennium before the Vikings. Unfortunately, the man's proof rested on his translation of the markings on the stone. Other scholars, once they had a chance to study the stone, disagreed. Even if we find scholars who would agree with your translations, it would take too long. Certainly more than two days."

Kelly looked around the circle. "The same is true of all of us. Von Seeckt could tell his story but no one would believe it for a while, if ever, without proof.

People in the media don't report or print everything that comes to them, ecause a lot of what comes to them is bogus and our stories are, to say the least, somewhat outrageous." She looked out the window. "Johnny's dead now. We don't even have him."

"Another thing we must keep in mind," Turcotte said, remembering the conversation he'd had earlier that morning with Colonel Mickell, "is that we have committed crimes. I've killed people. We all entered the facility at Dulce illegally. We might not get much of a chance to tell our story before we're hauled off to jail, and once that happens we'll be under the control of the government."

"Then we must do it ourselves," Von Seeckt announced.

"It is what I said must happen all along."

"This isn't going to be as easy as Dulce," Turcotte said.

"Not only do they have better security at Area 51, but they are going to be prepared. You can be sure that General Gullick is going to tighten things down the closer the test gets."

"You know the area and the facility," Nabinger said, turning to Von Seeckt.

"What do you think?"

"I think Captain Turcotte is correct. It will be next to impossible, but I also believe that we must try."

"Then let's start planning," Turcotte said.

29

ROUTE 375, NEVADA

ADJUSTED T-33 HOURS

"I've got to make a phone call," Turcotte said. Things had been quiet for the past hour as they got closer to Area 51.

Nabinger and Von Seeckt were in the back, napping.

"To whom?" Kelly asked.

The dark pavement went by under their wheels with a soothing, rhythmic thump.

Turcotte had been thinking things through for the past couple of hours and he'd made a decision. He quickly told Kelly about Dr. Duncan and the reason he'd been sent into Area 51. He told her about trying to call twice and the line being disconnected and calling Colonel Mickell at Fort Bragg.

"So are you going to try her number again or are you trying Mickell?" Kelly asked when he was done.

"Mickell. We're going to need Duncan if she's legitimate."

"If she's legitimate, why is your line to her dead?" Kelly asked.

"That might be something out of her control and awareness," Turcotte said. He spotted an all-night gas station. He pulled over and left the engine running while he went to the phone booth. When he was done, he hopped back in the driver's seat, handing Kelly a slip of paper. "Duncan's phone number in Vegas,"

he said. "Mickell says that as far as he can find out, Duncan's legitimate."

"Do you trust Mickell?" Kelly asked.

"I'm not sure I trust anyone anymore," Turcotte responded.

Several miles went by, then Kelly spoke softly. "This is the road on which Franklin was reported to have been killed."

Turcotte glanced over from the driver's seat. "It's not your fault."

Kelly returned his glance. "Maybe we should have left him there. He wouldn't be dead at least."

"He'd be worse than dead if he was still in that damn coffin they had him in,"

Turcotte said. "We didn't kidnap him, we didn't take him to Dulce, and we certainly didn't mess with his mind. Gullick's people did that. Remember it.

Don't start what-iffing. We did the right thing."

"I'm going to miss him," Kelly said. "He was a good friend."

"You'll have to save that for later," Turcotte said. "Right now we have a job to do." The road was a long black ribbon in front of them, the headlights punching a cone of brightness down the center. "This might help. Remember that guy Prague? The one who set you up?"

"Yes."

"He was my commander in Nebraska."

Kelly sat up straighten "The one you killed."

"The very same."

"Good."

THE CUBE, AREA 51

ADJUSTED T-31 HOURS

"Utah State Police found Simmons's body thirty minutes ago " Quinn announced. He had been working in the conference room, away from the hustle of the control center, when General Gullick had walked in.

"Where?" Gullick asked.

"Capitol Reef National Park. It's in the south-central part of the state."

"Any sign of the others?"

"No, sir."

"How did he die?"

"It appears he fell off a cliff."

Gullick thought about it for a few moments. "They're heading to Salt Lake City.

Send some Nightscape people there. Have them watch all media outlets."

"If we send people out, we'll have to cut back on some of our security here, sir."

Gullick glared at his subordinate.

"I'll get right on it, sir."

"I want the body policed up, also," Gullick said.

"Yes, sir."

"One less loose end to deal with," Gullick muttered. He turned back to his computer and the after-action report from Dulce, which he had been reading.

"What's this rongorongo thing they took?"

"From Easter Island, sir," Quinn replied. "It's one of the rune sources."

"So they can read the damn thing and we were never able to?" Gullick asked.

"If Nabinger is legitimate, yes, sir, they can." Quinn had brought up the same file the general was reading. "They also took the photos of the tablets from Hangar Two."

Gullick tapped his large forefinger on the desktop.

"Nothing in the media?"

"No, sir."

"Nothing from any of our sources?"

"No, sir."

"They just disappeared and left Simmons's body there?"

The tone indicated it was a rhetorical question and Major Quinn remained silent.

"Where's Jarvis? Is he out of town?"

The question caught Quinn off guard. His fingers flew over the keyboard. "Uh, he's in Las Vegas, sir."

"I want him nearby. Tell him to monitor the kooks at the mailbox. We're too close to have some flake on the perimeter like we had during the last Nightscape mission—the one that helped start all this shit."