Little Green Men (15 page)

Stalin seemed convinced that it
was
of alien origin, if only because the American military had issued statements about the Roswell incident, saying first that it had recovered pieces of a flying saucer, then the next day retracting that and announcing that they were just fragments of a weather balloon after all.

Yes, Dr. Kokolev agreed, that was his reading as well.

Stalin wanted the analysis done immediately. Kokolev's instruments would be sent for.

When Stalin said immediately, you didn't tell him it couldn't be done until next week. Kokolev's scientific instruments were brought to the Kremlin. He made the best analysis he could under the circumstances and reported to Stalin, in artfully ambiguous language, that he could not positively identify the material and that, therefore (deep breath), it was almost certainly of extraterrestrial origin.

"So, 1 knew it!" Stalin said. "The Americans possess this alien technology!" He said this confirmed what they had found out from their other assets inside America. The KGB
rezide
nt
in Washington had recently reported the existence of a secret, high-level group called MJ-12, consisting of twelve top people from the American military, aerospace, and intelligence communities, whose purpose was to advise President Truman on how to contain knowledge of alien visits, as well as to develop the captured technology, so they would have an even greater advantage over the Soviet Union.

Kokolev did not flatter himself that Stalin was sharing this extraordinary intelligence with him simply out of comradeship. Sure enough, this was the end of his career in rocket development and the beginning of another career. Stalin informed him that as of this moment Kokolev no longer officially existed. That same day, he and the little fragment of shiny material - whatever it was - were taken off by the KGB to his new home on an island in the Arctic Circle, an island so remote that even the puffins committed suicide out of boredom.

There he remained until Stalin died
–
six
years
on an island where the temperature plunged to minus sixty degrees, six years of trying to reproduce the molecular structure of the fucking shiny piece of wreckage. Six years afraid to tell Stalin,
Never
mind
-
is
after
all
piece of
weather
balloon!

They released him following Stalin's death. Khrushchev apologized for the inconvenience and the two frostbitten toes and put him in charge of the Soviet Union's chief UFO project, codenamed Thread
Three, which spent most of the time trying to develop non
-
traditional propulsion fields, without success.

By now the Soviets were getting massive amounts of intelligence from their American assets indicating that the U.S. government not only was in contact with the aliens but was moving ahead with flying saucer development of its own, at an alarming rate.

Kokolev's work was carried on in the highest secrecy, but unlike his predecessor, Khrushchev had a human side. Thread Three's headquarters were outside Magnitogorsk, hardly cosmopolitan, but Paris compared with that godforsaken island in latitude 78 north. He could see his family at least. The vodka was better, and you didn't have to talk to puffins.

"What were you able to find out?" Banion asked, genuinely moved.

"Shit!" Dr. Kokolev said. They worked like kulaks, day in, day out, and in the end all they managed to produce was improved refrigerator coolant and smoother suspension for the Zil limousines.

At least the Party members who drove around in them were grateful. Billions and billions of rubles, immense resources that could have gone to feeding the Russian people, years of freezing his balls and toes in the cold - for what? Shit! And still antigravitational propulsion eluded them. All they could hope to do was steal the Americans' secrets, just as they had with the atomic bomb.

Dr. Kokolev smiled bitterly, revealing gleaming steel bridgework.

Khrushchev's successor, Brezhnev, impatient over his lack of progress in coming up with the Soviet Union's first operational flying saucer, fired Kokolev and installed his own son-in-law - an imbecile! - in the job. Kokolev was transferred to a nuclear power station in Smolensk. It was while there that he heard through the grapevine that the KGB had succeeded in planting a mole within the American UFO directorate called Majestic Twelve and had obtained a magnificent prize: actual blueprints of flying saucers!

Enormous economic resources went into developing one -
Brezhnev was obsessed by the flying saucer gap - but nothing ever came of it. Though they built it exactly to specifications, spending a fortune in the process, they could never get the fucking thing to fly, even lift ten centimeters off the ground. A disaster.

After the Soviet Union finally collapsed, Kokolev was brought to the United States by U.S. intelligence. The CIA, which ran a job counseling service for former Soviet scientists to keep them from working for employers like Saddam Hussein, found him work with a defense contractor in the Mojave Desert in California. Damn hot place.

Did Banion want to know
what
Kokolev spent the balance of his career designing?

Weather balloons! High-altitude weather balloons!

Only a Russian could appreciate this cosmic level of irony

It was, Banion reflected, an interesting story, but one with a lot of runway and not much in the way of take-off. He had been hoping for a spectacular revelation, something like:
Then
I
discover
dat
shiny material
is
containing
traces
of
Assinium-5,
found
only
one
place
else in
galaxy
-
Zeta
Reticuli!

On the whole, Dr. Kokolev seemed rather ambivalent about UFO's. And yet Dr. Falopian and Colonel Murfletit were purring over his story, as if he had just provided the elusive smoking gun that the UFO world, for all its tens of thousands of sightings, still lacked.

The most interesting detail to Banion had been his reference to this Majestic Twelve directorate. Falopian and Murfletit had lectured him at length, if inconclusively, about this shadowy agency that, some evidence suggested, had been set up in the 1940s in order to report exclusively to the president of the United States. Nothing else was known about it. A few smudgy documents had surfaced in the 1980s: briefing papers for Truman signed by Admiral Hillenkoetter, then head of the Central Intelligence Agency. File a Freedom of Information request on MJ-12 and you were told no such organization existed. Same old story.

Now it was Colonel Radik's turn to speak. He had been glowering at Banion for his impertinent remark about shooting down the civilian airliner. Colonel Murfletit said something to him in Russian. He grunted and began telling his story, in a bored, mechanical way that seemed at odds with its dramatic content.

His MI
G squadron had been stationed at Urmsk, yet another frigid, dreary outpost in the dreary, frigid vastness of the Soviet Union. One day air defense radar picked up the blip of an intruder. Another American U-2 spy plane, they assumed. His squadron scrambled to intercept it.

"Instead, was UFO," said Colonel Radik. He pronounced
yufo

.

The aircraft executed a series of angular, evasive maneuvers such as Colonel Radik had never seen any aircraft perform.

"Like so." He made rapid zigzag movements with his hand. The MiGs gave chase as best they could, requesting instructions from the base commander. At first, the base commander thought they were all drunk, not uncommon among the heroes of the WS.* But then, watching the erratic radar track for himself, he realized that something was indeed unusual. He requested instructions from his superiors, who requested instructions from theirs, all the way up, Radik supposed, to the Kremlin in Moscow.

By now they had been following the thing for almost an hour and were running low on fuel. The UFO then vectored toward a nearby ICBM base, the most hallowed womb of the Soviet Motherland. The base commander, forced to choose between waiting for Brezhnev to clear his head of too much Georgian wine and permitting an enemy craft to fly over a nuclear missile base, gave orders to shoot it down.

*
Voenno-Vozoushmiy Sily, Soviet Air Force.

Radik fired two AA-6 air-to-air missiles. The first missed; the second hit. The spacecraft trailed smoke and lost altitude.

He followed it down but then was forced to break off pursuit as it neared the ground, which was mountainous and covered by clouds.

Now, he said, the story became truly strange. Did he receive a medal for his patriotic efforts? He made an obscene gesture. No! The base commander demanded that he hand over the MiG's flight recorder and told him that nothing - nothing whatever! - had happened. Understand?
Nothing!
Forget
entire
episode.
If
mention
one
word
of
it, ever,
to
anyone,
even
member
of
the
Politburo,
spend
rest
of
life
in Siberian
work
camp
watching
piss
freezing
before
reaches
ground.

So? Banion said.

So, Colonel Radik said, Russia
has
flying saucer. I see, Banion said.

Two years later,
big
advances in MiG performance.
Huge
breakthroughs in speed and maneuverability. More zigzagging motions with his hand, this time with sound effects.

Colonel
Murfletit
was visibly excited. Radik's story dovetailed perfectly with his own revelations, described in his best-seller,
The Things
in
the
Crates.
It all fit - the alien craft the U.S. government recovered at Roswell had enabled all modern engineering advances, from the microchip to Tupperware. Now we know that the Russians also have their own captured craft! The implications were staggering.

"Maybe dey have
two
yufos." said Colonel Radik, crushing the stub of his cigarette out in such a way as to make Banion grateful he was not being interrogated by him.

The two Russians exchanged words. They seemed to be conferring on some minor point. Banion made out the word "Gagarin."

Colonel Radik continued. Yuri Gagarin? Cosmonaut, first man in space?

Yes, of course.

Radik blinked back tears. Greatest Soviet hero ever! His funeral in 1968 - a state occasion. Brezhnev, Podgorny, all of them there on the reviewing stand over Lenin's tomb, crying like schoolgirls. The official explanation was he crashed in his MiG jet trainer.

Radik wagged a finger. Lies!

Number one, when they find his plane, all his weapons - fired. Crashing pilot does
not
fire weapons. Number two, same day, fifty miles from where Gagarin goes down, is another crash, in the village of Smelyinsk. But crash of what? Immediately area is declared off-limits,
many
helicopters, Army. Vital national security area. Everyone to turn back, go away. But what is industry in Smelyinsk? He made an up-and-down motion with his hand. What was word? When shit is stuck?

Toilet plunger, Colonel Murfletit said.

Exact! And what is the great national security value of toilet plunkers - shit sticks - to the security of the Motherland? Much better explanation - Gagarin shoots at yufo. Yufo shoots down Gagarin!

Colonel Radik leaned back, emotionally spent. He wiped his eyes and lit a fresh cigarette.

It was left to Dr. Falopian to descant on the gravity of what they had just heard. It was now beyond question that the United States government and Russia both possessed alien technology. Imagine if the current Alaskan tension turned into a shooting war between the two countries. My God. Both countries already had nuclear weapons -but what
other
kinds of weapons did they possess? There were rumors of a ghastly new weapon called a Plasma Beam Device.

Dr. Kokolev nodded darkly. Whole cities
-fffffft
!

Radik cruelly ground out another cigarette.

The important question, the key to it all was - how much did each side know about the other's ATC?

ATC? asked Banion.

Alien technology capability. This was, apart from the issue of the Nordics and Grays, the most pressing issue facing the World UFO Congress, and, to be sure, the human race. It was vital -
vital.
Dr. Falopian and Colonel Murfletit stressed - that the U.S. government be pressured to reveal all that it knew, lest the two countries embark on what would surely be the Final confrontation.

"That was some briefing." Banion was pleased at having gotten Roz access to such a high-level discussion.

"Yes. I thought they were much more impressive in person."

"How do you mean, in person?"

"I caught them on
Tales
of
the
Weird,
a few months ago. That TV show. He told the story about shooting down the UFO a little differently, but it was better the way he told it today."

"They were on
Tales
of
the
Weird!"

"But I really enjoyed meeting them. It was nice of you to include me."

Banion sighed with disappointment. "I've spoken to Falopian about this. It does the cause
no
good
at
all
when our people go on shows like that."

"You were on
Unsolved
Mysteries."
"That's different." Roz smiled.

"It may not be public television, but it's certainly more mainstream than
Tales
of
the
Weird."
"I guess."

"They
pay
you to go on shows like that. If those two took money, it just looks . . . It's like those witnesses at criminal trials who go and blab to the tabloids and completely destroy their credibility."

"Um
."

"The
only
reason I went on
Unsolved
Mysteries
is I'm trying to reach people that 1 don't reach with my show. It's important that we get the message out to all segments of the public. The less educated. Like your readers. I'm sorry, that came out wrong." "You don't have to apologize."

"I'm not apologizing. I'm elaborating. Why are you smiling?" "No reason."

"Sunday
has very high demographics, you know. We have a very sophisticated viewership." "I'm sure you do."

"Seventy-nine percent college-educated. Ninety percent read newspapers. Two cars. Two-point-six vacations per year. Twenty-two percent own a second home. Over seventy thousand disposable income. Okay,
combined
household income. You're smiling again. Why are you smiling?" Banion was smiling too. He couldn't help it. This wasn't like him.

"You're not like the others here," he said.

"Is that a compliment?"

"Yes, it is. Don't get me wrong. I respect these people. I appreciate what they've been through. I've been through it myself, twice. But to be honest, they're not the sort of people I usually deal with. How did you get into this business, anyway?"

"My girlfriend was abducted. She said it was the best sex she'd ever had. Sounded good to me."

Banion was staring. All background noises momentarily ceased. They had arrived at a fork in the road. One way led to a
do not disturb
sign outside Room 1506, a bottle of champagne, and an afternoon of bliss such as he had not known in too many years, if indeed ever. The sign on the other said,
bitsey (your wife -
remember?)

They were in eyelock now, neither blinking. She was so desirable, the language so seemingly clear.
So,
how
about
it?
She was playfully fingering her pearl strand.

But though his hormones roared, Banion couldn't bring himself to make the first move. Then suddenly all that remained was a numbness, a draining sensation, a leaden feeling in the bowels. The moment had passed.

"Well," Roz said, "it was a pleasure meeting you." "We'll. . . have to do that interview sometime." "I'd like that. Perhaps over the phone."

Banion watched her walk away until she was another head in the crowd. His misery was interrupted by a man who wanted to show him the scars on the back of his thigh, where the aliens had implanted a wire, obviously, so they could regulate his sex drive. Banion was tempted to ask if he could borrow the goddamned thing for a few hours.

The ballroom normally held about one thousand, but there were twice that present tonight. They were spilling out into the foyer. Remote TV monitors had been set up there so that the overflow could watch. It was, according to a radiant Dr. Falopian, the largest WUFOC gathering in its twenty-five-year history.

Banion entered the hall like a politician come to accept the nomination of his party. A rumble went up. "He's here! He's here!"

"Where!"

"There!"

"Oh."

"He's shorter than he looks on TV!"

On his way to the podium inside a protective scrum of biceps and crew cuts, Banion saw the bank of TV cameras and spotted a CNN producer he knew from Washington, ]im Barnett.

"Take me to your leader!" Barnett said.

"What are you doing here?"

"Covering your speech. Can we do an interview later, maybe get some B-roll?"

Yes, by all means, fine, why not? After all, the whole point was to get the message out. Banion knew Barnett for a straight shooter, and it was good to have someone from the mainstream TV media. He was still smarting from Roz's comment about his appearance on
Unsolved Mysteries.
CNN would be fine, just fine. Even if he had been rather hoping for
60
Minutes.

Dr. Falopian, in his capacity as chairman of the World Unidentified Flying Object Congress, took the podium.

He welcomed the delegates warmly. Now, he said, they could hold their heads high. No longer did they have to be apologist UFOlogists. He denounced the late astronomer Carl Sagan, for calling him a "witch doctor" in his posthumously published book. He abjured the membership to be cautious in their comments to the press. For there was an
unusual
amount of press here tonight. The movement had come a long way from the early days. They had all worked hard to establish their organization's credibility and rigorous standards of proof.

But. he said in a lowered tone of voice, there had been problems caused by recklessness . . .

A murmur went through the crowd. They knew what he was referring to - the Milwaukee business.

The Milwaukee chapter of WUFOC had issued a press release, on national organization letterhead, without authorization from the Executive Committee, announcing that the president of the United States had been abducted and an alien look-alike substituted in his place.

The murmur grew. It was clear to Banion that some here tonight thought the Milwaukee contingent had been entirely justified.

"This sort of thing," Dr. Falopian continued sternly, with nervous tuggings on his goatee, "is
not
helpful."
He had had no choice but to revoke the charter of the Milwaukee chapter.

Boos.

The organization must be vigilant! It must be rigorous, it must be
scientific
in its discipline! Especially now, he said, looking warmly in Banion's direction, especially now that someone from the beating heart of the Establishment, the very belly of the corrupted beast, had come over to
their
side.

The crowd began to chant. "Ban-ion! Ban-ion!"

Yes, said Dr. Falopian, beaming goatishly in the spotlight, he
knew
why they had come in such numbers today - to hear from one whose credibility was above suspicion!