"Sit, sit," he said comfortingly to B
anion, pointing out a five-thou
sand-dollar leather sofa behind which loomed the facade of the National Gallery.
"Now" - he smiled and spoke in the soothing baritone that set politician, criminal, and lobbyist alike at ease - their troubles were over, they were talking to the most connected man in Washington -"tell me what's on your mind and how 1 can help."
Suddenly Banion felt the terrible, and entirely uncharacteristic urge to burst into tears, something he had not done since scoring only 780 out of 800 on his college entrance English exam.
Steady,
he told himself.
Burton Galilee did have this effect on some people. Was it his enormous, big-shouldered, black heartiness? People were always bursting into tears around him. One president of the United States, a southerner, so constantly blubbered on Burton's shoulders that he had to have his London-made suits sent out to the dry cleaner.
Banion collected himself. "Burt, this is - this is difficult for me."
All right, the boy needed a little coaxing. "I know it is," said Burton more sympathetically than any psychiatrist could have. "You just take your time."
"I called you just after I left my doctor's
..."
Sweet
Jesus.
AIDS! God almighty, Jack O
. Banion! He did look a little gaunt, come to think.
"I
..."
Banion looked into Burton Galilee's eyes, twin oases of understanding. Any secret deposited in them would be swallowed up and buried deep in the earth. Yes, he could tell Burt anything.
Still, Banion could not bring himself to utter the words "I have been kidnapped by aliens." It was like trying to pronounce a phrase in a foreign language in which he had no ability.
". . . wanted to discuss the presidential debates with you."
Burton Galilee's enormous eyes bulged with no less surprise than if Banion had told him, "I've been abducted by aliens."
He stared at Banion. "You came to talk to me about the
debates!"
"Yes. I really value your input."
"Jack, after you called, I told a client who wants to pay us a great deal of money to help him build a pipeline across a country we recently bombed that I would have to reschedule his appointment. I did that because you sounded like you were ready to shit in your britches. Now what's the
matter!"
Banion nodded, closed his eyes the way he had the first time he went off the high diving board at summer camp, and said, "Burt, where do you stand on the question of intelligent life in the universe?"
Burton Galilee spent the remains of the day trying unsuccessfully to focus on how to sweet-talk a maniac Middle Eastern dictator about an oil and gas pipeline, when all he could do was wonder why Banion had fed him a cock-and-bull story about aliens at Burning Bush. Aliens, at Burning Bush. Burt Galilee knew all about being an alien at Burning Bush. He'd still be one there, along with those rich Jewish car dealers, if the media hadn't made a stink out of the president playing golf at a restricted club. Was that why he came to him - some sort of psychological transference?
What the hell was he up to? What was really on his mind? But he wouldn't budge. He'd just sat there insisting that was it. For once, Burt Galilee had been at a loss for advice. All he could do was tell him he'd done the right thing in coming to him. True enough - you couldn't take a story like that to just anyone in Washington. Maybe Jack had just taken too many of those sleeping pills, the ones that had made the secretary of state collapse headfirst on the table during the GATT talks in Brazil, then wake up and ask the French foreign minister to go wash his car.
"Sunday,
with
John
Oliver
Banion,
an
exploration
of.
.
."
Nathan Scrubbs watched on the TV in his office. He had to come in this weekend morning to supervise a triple they were staging in Ohio. (The computer, monitoring nationwide polls, had found a slippage in UFO belief in central Ohio.) The computer correlated that with an upcoming vote on the appropriations bill for the controversial new B-3 bomber - the ranking member on the committee represented central
Ohio - and promptly ordered up two abductions and a cattle mutilation. The targets had cred ratings of four and five, an inspector at a poultry-packing plant and a night watchman, fairly respectable by MJ-12 abduction standards. Clearly, the computer wanted those poll numbers back up in time for the vote.
Scrubbs's baggers were grumpier than usual. MJ-12 did not pay time and a half for weekend abductions. Mike had had to cancel a fishing trip. As for Scrubbs, he would rather have been at home, drinking Bloody Marys and scratching his delicates while watching Banion go public about aliens on nationwide TV
"Good morning. Our guest today is R. Talbott Wanker, assistant secretary of state. Mr. Wanker, you've been closely monitoring developments in the Russian situation. What in your opinion . . ."
Russia?
Goddamnit, this was the third Sunday after they'd abducted him and
still
no mention of UFO's? Nothing, not even in his syndicated column, though it had crossed his mind that Banion's vituperative attack on "heartless" managed care might have had something to do with his experience in the emergency room.
Okay,
pal,
you
want
to
play
hard
to
get?
Scrubbs typed in a staccato of passwords and clearance codes on his laptop. MJ-12's mainframe computer had been programmed weeks ago to tap into Banion's home and office, turning his telephones into listening devices and his computers into tattletales. He called up Banion's schedule for the coming week.
Hmmmm
..
.
Let's give him a FACE-IV* to tell his grandchildren about. Palm Springs? That might work out nicely. Lots of clear airspace. It was hard to do a FACE-IV in a city, especially in D.C., where you ran
*
Full aerial close encounter of the fourth kind, a later addition to the
alien encounter classification system originally devised by Dr. Allen Hynek.
into all the security airspace restrictions. Yes, this could do very nicely. Being Palm Springs, it fell outside his regular district, so he'd have to fill out a D-86 form and run that through MJ-9
and
MJ-4, with copies to MJ-3. The old boys in the chat rooms were always going on about what a bureaucracy it had become. In the old days, you just jumped in your car and drove out to the nearest facility, hopped in your bird, flew off into the night, and scared the bejesus out of the citizens. Now it was as much fun as doing your taxes. But MJ-12 was like any bureaucracy, you just had to figure your way around it.
SEVEN
The driver was waiting for Banion at the Palm Springs airport, holding up one of those dippy signs with the client's name, usually misspelled. Once he arrived for a speech in Kansas City to find the driver waiting for a Mr. Bunion. His lecture agent now took pains to make sure that the car company had the correct spelling.
The driver was a burly, pleasant Hispanic fellow who introduced himself as Cesar. Normally Banion engaged the drivers in a bit of conversation. Chauffeurs perform a useful function for some media figures, providing local color without the need to do any real reporting.
Cesar
Rodriguez
came
to
this
country
the
hard
way,
by
swimming across
the
Rio
Grande
...
But tonight Banion was too tired for chitchat about Cesar's views on immigration. Anyway, he needed to collect his thoughts for the dinner speech to the car dealers.
He handed Cesar his garment bag and followed him to the parking lot, inhaling the warm, fragrant desert evening. His alarm went off at the sight of the car. A sedan? Why had they not s
ent a stretch limousine? John O
. Banion's speech contracts were very specific, beginning with
stretch
limo.
"This
is the car?" he said, as if he were being asked to ride in the back of a pickup truck, with pigs and chickens.
"Yes, sir," said Cesar brightly, with such evident pride that Banion did not have the heart to complain. The car was probably his own.
It would have to do, Banion decided grumpily. It was only a half hour to the Marriott in Rancho Mirage. Tomorrow he would call Sid Mint at Enormous Talent and read him a riot act to make his head spin. Sedan. For God's sake, what were they thinking?
They drove off into the evening, the lights of expensive, gated communities twinkling in the distance. Cesar made no small talk. Good man. So many of them tried to start a conversation with a hearty "You have been to Palm Springs before?" Banion switched on the spotlight and read over his speech notes as they drove along boulevards named after comedians and singers. What a strange business it must be, giving directions in this place.
Stay
on
Bob
Hope
till
you
come
to Bing
Crosby,
then
take
a
left
on
Frank
Sinatra.
If
you
hit
Phyllis
Diller, you've
gone
too
far.
Tonight's event: a keynote after-dinner address to the AACA, the American Auto Consumer Association. In the best tradition of lobby obfuscation, this was the trade association representing dealers of imported foreign cars. The invitation to address them for the tidy sum of $30,000 had come shortly after the column he wrote blasting Michigan Congressman Hinkoler's "mindless xenophobia" in calling for stiffer tariffs on Japanese and German cars. The speech was AACAs way of saying
Domo
arigato.
*
Banion was tempted to wing it and speak from notes instead of his prepared text. Despite his fatigue, he felt a bit frisky tonight. This flying saucer business had him so rattled, and that
disastrous
meeting with Burt Galilee
...
What had possessed him to tell Burt? Would Burt tell the president?
Well, whatever had happened was over. He was back on track now, and in the mood to toss the crowd some red meat to bring them cheering to their feet. A standing ovation would be nice. He'd give
*
Japanese: "Thank you."
them their money's worth, a defense of free trade so vibrant, so muscular, so scathing that
..
.
He was aware of harsh bright lights outside the sedan. The desert around them was brilliantly illuminated. Strange.
Cesar was driving at a good clip, fifty miles an hour. Where was this light coming from? It seemed to be following them, keeping pace.
"Cesar?"
"Sir?"
"This light, what is it?" "I don't know."
Banion rolled down the electric window and stuck his head out.
"Cesar!"
"Sir?"
"It's
them'."
"Who, sir?"
Cautiously, as if inserting his head into a guillotine, Banion put his head back out the window. The lights hurt to look at, they were so bright. There was a soft thump on the roof of the- car. It rose off the road, into the air.
He awoke to the taste of ammonia and cinnamon and his limbs pinioned upon a table. Around him he saw familiar albino, bug-eyed faces. Again they were speaking cosmic gibberish at him. Again the hum of a moving craft. Again the blinking lights. Again the thing approaching with the -
-
oh
God,
not
that
again.
There was another table beside him. Cesar was on it, his eyes shut. "Cesar?"
He thought, Better try to get some dialogue going. Something, anything.
"You like be on my TV show?"
Movement, shaking, a voice.
Mr.
Banion
.
.
.
Mr.
Banion?
A dream, a hideous dream in which -
His eyelids snapped open. The driver - what was his name -Tiberius? Augustus? Caesar.
Cesar.
He swallowed, tasting the acrid-sweet flavors. His mouth was parched. His head throbbed.
"Mr. Banion? Sir?"
"Where are we?" he whispered, his body tensing to leap, if it came to that.
"At the hotel. You go to sleep."
Banion sat up. Had it been a dream? A flashback? Post-traumatic stress?
The pain - down there - hit him, a
screeching
feeling. It was no dream.
He clutched Cesar's arm. "How did we escape?" "Escape, sir?"