Groom Lake

by Bryan O

  Kayla’s birth name was Trisha Lawrence. Just over three years ago, Trisha Lawrence was a junior partner with a small New York City law firm. She had entered the intelligence community databases early in her career when the firm represented an East Coast defense contractor in a wrongful death case. The government required that all fifteen employees at the firm pass a background check before they could take the case.

  Unbeknownst to Trisha, her profile had intrigued several upper level operators over the years, but it wasn’t until Owens had the CIA offer her a lucrative package analyzing and overseeing contract negotiations between defense contractors and international clients that she took the bait.

  The CIA served as a microscope for Owens, allowing him to further analyze the candidates for his apprentice position. Kayla had never been in the military, and thus Owens considered her a soldier of different fortune. Kayla had lived her life as the legal professions’ version of a Navy Seal: a litigator. He saw her as a white-collar weapon, a valuable addition to his operation. Her beauty furthered her potency, and her beauty was the most dangerous kind: natural. Kayla didn’t own make-up because she didn’t need it; her skin was clear and her lips were full. She often brushed her long brown hair using her hand, and let it hang straight instead of primping with irons or other devices she viewed as a vain waste of time.

  As Owens’ apprentice, Trisha Lawrence was taught to live with a past consisting only of her most recent footstep. The name Kayla Kiehl, just like the name Damien Owens, was assigned like a piece of equipment. No paper trails linked them to the government of the United States, nor the Central Intelligence Agency.

  As Owens turned the Suburban onto Desert Inn Road, he fell behind a slow-moving truck and had to hit the breaks, sending Kayla’s mobile phone sliding from her lap onto the floor. She reached down to retrieve it and Owens found himself captivated by her hair as a lock fell across her cheek.

  “Have you ever worn your hair in a bun?” he asked.

  “A bun?” she chuckled. “I think old ladies wear buns.”

  “Well then … what do women wear to keep their hair up? Tight to their scalp, like when they’re in the military.”

  “Clips, or bobby pins. I haven’t seen a woman with a bun since my seventh-grade English teacher.”

  “Whatever it requires, keep some spares in the car. I’d prefer your hair high and tight.” The sexuality a woman brought to his work environment gave him an unfamiliar feeling—a new challenge he didn’t know how to process, as most of his adult life had been spent around men. He needed to be direct and consistent with her, the way he handled everything else.

  The Suburban’s onboard computer chimed, alerting receipt of an electronic mail message. Logging onto the computer under the roll-top dash, Kayla checked the message. “It’s from the DC team: ‘In recent actions the National Archives Annex in College Park, Maryland, has accelerated its fulfillment of FOIA requests. Declassification continues to be handled in-house; however many documents are being released to the requestor before we have an opportunity to review. A recent request for anti-gravity related documents was fulfilled without our usual perusal. By the time we received notice through the standard channels, the documents had already been shipped. Please advise.’”

  “Why do problems always come in clusters?” Owens asked.

  “Is this serious?”

  “I doubt it. A lot of classified documents are in storage, most outdated and harmless. But we double-check certain topics. Sometimes the slightest comment or word can be a clue for someone looking to expose our programs. Apparently procedural changes have cut the DC team out of the loop. Send a reply. I want copies of those documents and a background report on the requestor.”

  Owens turned left into a gated residential entrance at the Las Vegas Country Club. The homes surrounded a golf course in the shadow of the famed Las Vegas Strip. He gave a name listed on the Skyles’ visitor list and was granted access.

  “How does Skyles afford this?” Kayla asked, studying the exclusive homes on the street.

  “Barely. He’s cash poor. In 1992 he cashed out his GRATCOR stock options and put all the money, plus everything in his 401(k), into a stock account. Then margined the money so he had twice as much buying power and sunk it all into Starbucks’ IPO. It was the most financially reckless thing I had ever seen, but before I could intervene and protect him, the stock took off. So instead of telling him to stop, I bought into Starbucks too. This past April he cashed out with more than a three hundred percent gain on his original investment in two years time. He paid his capital gains and then put everything down on a house.”

  “Then how can he be strapped financially?”

  “He still has a mortgage, car payments, country club fees, and a wife who likes to spend.”

  “Nice of you to blame it on the woman.”

  “Skyles travels too much to participate in all the shopping that gets charged to their credit cards.”

  “He can’t spend money when he’s traveling?” she asked.

  Owens found her comment amusing. “His government trips are all-inclusive,” he answered, not offering to elaborate because it would only lead to more questions he didn’t have time for.

  Turning the car off in front of Skyles’ house, Owens hesitated before exiting, and faced Kayla. “Typically, when a person becomes a full-fledged agent of Aquarius, there is a ceremony with the other agents, at which point the books are opened to you, and you’ll eventually come to learn and understand all that we manage and why. I don’t know exactly what will go down inside that house, and need to prep you for some sensitive technological issues. So I’m sorry the official notification has to come in the front seat of a car, but consider yourself graduated to the United States’ highest security level.” Clearing his throat, he proceeded, “I’ll still hold some topics back so you aren’t overwhelmed, and until you learn to handle them properly, which only comes from on-the-job experience. But from this time forward, believe all that you see. When you ask yourself how something is possible, or how we can keep something so bizarre a secret, think about all the time, energy and resources that went into qualifying you. Then think about the security, the classifications, the segmentation, the surveillance, the monitoring, everything you have been exposed to thus far. When something surprises you, don’t think of it as new, but well-guarded. It’s only new to you.” He offered her a congratulatory handshake. “Are you ready?”

  With her hand holding his, she looked at the house and wondered what waited inside. Facing Owens, she studied his unique eyes, the same evil-looking eyes that had once intimidated her, the eyes she now trusted, and the eyes that now trusted her. She answered his readiness question by tightening her grip on his hand. Words seemed trivial to her at this point. The man had spent two years studying every facet of her life. He knew the answer before he had posed the question.

  Linda Skyles stood under a portico that marked the entrance to her golf course villa, glaring hatefully at the two strangers in dark clothes marching up her driveway.

  “Hello, Mrs. Skyles,” Owens said.

  Linda nodded. She had never seen the man before and unless he offered to introduce himself she wouldn’t ask his name. Linda knew little about her husband’s work other than its rigorous security. Ben had taught her to keep a low profile and structure her life around his demanding job. The compensation for her sacrifices was a discriminative lifestyle, but those rewards were losing their advantage, making her life less tolerable. Her husband’s work sometimes kept him away for days and weeks at a time. She had begun viewing their golf course community as a type of prison; they couldn’t travel more than fifty miles from home without filing a report. Excursions out of state required permission, and trips outside the country were not worth the bureaucratic hassles.

  “How’s he doing?” Owens asked.

  She started to cry. “He’s not making any sense.” Her swollen eyes suggested it wasn’t the first time that evening she gave into her fru
stration.

  Owens placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “You did the right thing by calling the hotline. We’re going to take care of your husband. Is anyone else in the house?”

  “No,” she wept.

  “I can’t have you around while we talk to your husband. Why don’t you go to the country club and relax with a glass of wine?”

  Her house was the one place Linda didn’t feel the shadow of Big Brother, and now they were kicking her out. “Are you sure having a drink is not against your stupid rules?” she blurted out through tears and a runny nose.

  “You won’t be breaking any rules, but if you were, I think I could make an exception under the circumstances.”

  Linda looked disgusted. She led them through the front door and retrieved her purse from a nearby table. “You’d better make him better,” she ordered. “Or I’ll go public. I’ll show what the government has done to my husband.”

  “Linnn-da,” Owens replied in a condescending tone while narrowing his penetrating eyes. “Don’t make idle threats. I came here as a friend. You don’t want to know me any other way.”

  “Lock up when you leave, asshole,” were her parting words.

  Kayla stayed a step behind Owens as they eased through a southwestern interior accented with knick-knacks from mail order catalog binges. Kayla thought the decor clashed with the Mediterranean exterior, but chalked it up to nouveau riche naiveté.

  They stopped outside double doors leading to the master bedroom. Not a peep came from the other side. The silence blanketed the situation with an eeriness that made Kayla question what she was doing there. Three years ago she practiced law, then she handled legal documents for the CIA, and now she was tiptoeing through a house with an agent the likes of which she thought only existed in the movies. His words in the car gave her the impression that she barely understood what this job entailed. Thinking about what was through the bedroom doors made her dizzy with trepidation.

  “You look a little scared,” Owens whispered before placing his hand on a brass doorknob. “Don’t be afraid of anything you see. It’s not supernatural; I can explain it later.” He twisted the knob and gave the door a push.

  Skyles glanced up from the edge of a king size bed where he had been sitting for two hours staring at the floor. He looked confused, lost. Perspiration around his armpits and chest had darkened his light blue shirt.

  “Hello, Ben.”

  Skyles stared back, a blank stare, catatonic.

  “Do you remember me, Ben?”

  “Not at the moment,” he mumbled.

  “What’s that mean, Ben? Not at the moment?”

  “It means what it means.” His speech was clear, but slow. “Sometimes I know things. Lots of things. Other times, I don’t know crap. Right now, for instance … I don’t know nothing.” Skyles dropped his head to a slumped position, his body physically and emotionally drained.

  “That’s why we’re here. We’re going to help you.”

  Skyles writhed his head back in a painful contortion. Dropping his mouth he bellowed a stifled, “Ahhhhh-”

  “Get the silver attaché from the back of the Suburban,” Owens instructed Kayla. Pulling a bench over from a makeup table, he sat facing Skyles. “Relax, Ben. I’m here to help.”

  Moments later, Kayla returned with the attaché. Owens retrieved a Dixie cup from the bathroom, then opened the case. Its bottom half housed an instrument panel with buttons, knobs and digital displays. From a compartment in the upper half, he pulled a vial of liquid and poured the contents into the cup. “Drink this,” he said.

  In the forties, the military and CIA began conducting mind control experiments that studied and tested every facet of the brain. For thirty years the CIA oversaw MKULTRA, a classified study that experimented with psychotropic drugs (mental stimulants). Other experiments tested hypnosis, sleep states, the subconscious mind, and psychic or remote viewing. By the late eighties, an effective procedure had been developed that allowed control of information within one’s mind. Certain information could be segmented from the normal memory, much like computer files could be saved to a floppy disk instead of the hard disk. The technology allowed for an unprecedented level of control over individuals, information and programs.

  Skyles worked in an advanced hypnotic state that made him oblivious to the information he handled when he was away from work. Several factors combined to make the process work, including large gamma wave transceivers that emitted intense 425-megahertz radio signals throughout the underground compound below Papoose Valley, where Skyles typically worked, and enhanced subconscious waves in his brain. Portable transceivers allowed the process to be enacted in remote locations.

  Owens turned on a small transceiver housed in the attaché. The 425-megahertz signal combined with the drugs to push Skyles into a limbo state between his conscious and subconscious. A state with no memory.

  Next, Owens strapped a band around Skyles’ head and pasted electrodes to his scalp. A cord ran from the band to the case and allowed the equipment to send extreme low frequency (ELFs) signals to his brain. The ELFs mimicked the low frequencies found in brainwaves, causing them to be mistaken as the brain’s own signals in a process Owens knew to be called bioelectric entrainment. The ELFs served as instructions that guided Skyles to a controlled subconscious state.

  Kayla was no longer afraid of what might happen to her in this house, but she was afraid of what was happening in the house. Is this mind control? she wondered. There’s no way I took a job controlling people’s minds—I’ll end up in jail.

  Owens sat on the makeup bench and slipped the small gray rock from his pocket. His thumb was lightly callused from rubbing it regularly, a meditative habit he started several years ago after the rock was given to him. His actions during the process with Skyles were so routine—including rubbing the rock while he waited the ten minutes it took for him to absorb and respond the ELFs—that he almost forgot Kayla was in the room. Owens turned to see a bewildered look on her face as she stood near the wall, staring at Skyles and the attaché.

  “Quite a profound situation we’re dealing with,” Owens said softly. He tried to offer Kayla a reassuring smile. “I was a little overwhelmed when I first learned about the technology and plans to use it. What’s really gut churning are the secrets we protect with this technology. That’s why I’ve eased you into this operation.”

  Owens returned his focus to Skyles. Kayla would have to wait. He had hoped that time at home would reveal the source of Skyles’ problems, but now there was no choice but to bring him in for treatment. To do that, Owens had to stabilize Skyles’ mental state.

  Each subject in the mind control program had a unique hypnotic suggestion, or password, that served as the final security measure before reaching the controlled state. The hypnotic suggestion had no effect in a conscious state, but when combined with the other elements, it acted like a deadbolt on the door to their operational state. “Listen to me, Ben,” Owens said, “Sidereus Nuncius.”

  Slowly, Skyles opened his eyes and straightened his posture. He seemed dazed momentarily, then snapped to life in a new and happier state of consciousness. “Copernicus,” he said to Owens, as if addressing a buddy by a codename.

  Skyles panned his head around the room, becoming cognizant of his surroundings. “Are we at my house?”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “Who’s the lady?”

  “My new partner.” Owens never took his eyes off Skyles, studying his every move and reaction. “What worries you about being at home?”

  “Does she have a name?”

  “Not a real one.”

  For a few seconds, Skyles tried to avoid Owens’ stare, knowing his problems were no longer a secret. “Well, if you’re here, I guess you know.”

  “Know what?”

  “That your little mind control machine has some glitches.”

  “You’re aware of the problems?”

  “Damn right I’m aware. It’s my noggi
n you’re messing with.”

  “You should’ve come to me. Do you realize the jeopardy you put the program in?”

  “I’m not stupid. And I’m also not your guinea pig. You assured me this psychological equipment worked. ‘Fully operational,’” he added trying to mimic Owens’ raspy voice. “But it’s not. And rather than become a lab rat at spook central, I wanted to try and fix it myself. So I risked my clearances. If my mind is tossed, you’d pull them anyway.”

  Owens focused hard into Skyles’ eyes.

  “I get the willies when you look at me that way,” Skyles said.

  “I doubt the problem is with the equipment,” Owens informed him. “You’re the only one having adverse reactions.”

  “I’m the only one you know of.” Skyles tried pleading his innocence. “About a month back, memory flashes started popping up in my dreams. Then the middle of the day. A few weeks ago I started blacking out.”

  Owens continued to listen and observe without saying much.

  “Two nights ago I woke up at three thirty in the morning … ass naked on the tenth green at the country club,” Skyles continued. “My biggest worry at the time was my wife’s reaction to having our membership revoked. That’s messed up.”

  Owens theorized that something, or someone, outside the operation had interfered with Skyles’ mind. “Do you know a man by the name of Desmond Wyatt?”

  “No. Should I?”

  “He lives in Los Angeles, but is a frequent visitor to the outskirts of our base.”

  “Why would I know a kook like him?”

  “He has an extensive knowledge about the facility. In fact, he gave someone hiking directions into Papoose Valley, including inside information about the perimeter security technology.”