by Bryan O
The GPS indicated Blake was nearing Val’s campsite—less than half a mile. He couldn’t see anything yet. Stopping a quarter mile out, he used the zoom to pinpoint Val’s truck. The tent had blown over, but everything seemed as Val said it would be. Blake gunned the throttle, gripping tight on the handlebars as he shot toward the truck and trailer.
He aligned the ATV’s wheels with two wheel-ramps that extended from the rear of the trailer, then loaded and secured it as quickly as possible. He didn’t care about any of the camping equipment, only removing the Bio Suit and leaving.
“At least I don’t have to worry about sneaking you off the base,” Val had told him in parting, but Blake still didn’t have a Test Site identification badge. Retrieving Val’s from the glove compartment, he pinned it to his shirt and took Val’s cap off the dash and pulled it over his sweaty and matted hair. Val’s photo on the badge had a lighter shade of brown hair and narrower facial features, but Blake hoped the late hour, the darkness and his facial hair would be enough to make him a convincing Val, or Charles Eckert as the identification badge read. Blake stuck the key in the ignition and turned it. The engine hiccuped a couple times as the neglected battery struggled before starting the engine. “Next stop,” he said aloud, “the checkpoint at Mercury.”
Val’s stern instructions were clear about not speeding. Flooring the gas pedal wasn’t yet a temptation for Blake though because a rut-laden dirt road jarred at the trailer and sent vibrations through the truck’s shocks and into the steering wheel whenever he exceeded twenty miles an hour. He followed Nye Canyon Road to Mercury Highway where after fifteen miles of seeing nothing but pavement, he doubted Val’s directions, not realizing how expansive the Test Site was. As he continued, road signs reminded him this wasn’t normal desert land; Blake passed typical green and white road signs with atypical names like Plutonium Valley, Control Point-1, Radioactive Waste Management Site and Weapons Testing Tunnel Complex.
When he reached the town of Mercury, he followed the highway as it slowed and wound through the small government settlement. He saw no activity and few lights inside the buildings. The Mercury Highway descended a quarter mile from the edge of town to the security checkpoint that separated Blake from freedom. He could see the checkpoint’s large carport that spread across the road, illuminated in yellowish lights. One exit lane was open and a guard stepped outside his booth when he saw the truck and trailer approach.
“Hello,” Blake said through his rolled-down window, trying to be cheerful.
The young guard nodded, serious and straight-faced. He was a thin, but toned guy, not much older than Blake. “Kind of late to be pulling that trailer around.”
“First thing Monday I’m supposed to have a report done and I’m running behind,” Blake said, following a script Val had given him. “About an hour ago the motor on my generator blew. I’ve got another one at our shop in Vegas. The trailer was already hooked up so I figured I’d take the ATV back now since I don’t need it anymore.” He handed Val’s badge to the guard and kept rambling. “Besides, it’s not like I can go any faster without it. That Nye county sheriff already gave me a warning for speeding.”
The guard seemed disinterested. “Kill your engine,” he ordered. “We’re in the middle of a heightened security op. May be a drill, but either way, my CO has to clear you to leave, so sit tight.”
With the engine off, Blake watched the guard return to his booth and hunt and peck at a keyboard before picking up a phone. After a brief conversation he hung up and leaned his head outside, “They’ll get back to me in a few minutes.”
Thoughts raced through Blake’s mind. Where was Val? What happened to Trevor? Was the military looking for him? Should he take off? The unsettling knot in his stomach constricted further. He just wanted to be home.
The guard’s phone rang. Life suddenly slowed down for Blake. The ring seemed to last forever. His heart pounded. His brow started to sweat. A door from the distant security office flew open and two more guards, older, guns in hand, were sprinting the fifty yards to Blake’s truck. The younger guard dropped the phone and fumbled for a gun he had never removed while on duty. Blake reached for the keys to turn the ignition—still in slow motion. He heard the sound of metal tapping on glass, and a muffled scream: “Don’t do it! Don’t do it!” Looking back at the booth, Blake saw the young guard aiming his gun through the glass. “I’ll shoot if you move.”
Val hadn’t given him instructions for this scenario. And he couldn’t reach for the Bio Suit to activate the distress signal.
CHAPTER 52
“… vlek shaunt dars perbum …”
Damien Owens hit the pause button on an audio recorder, rewind, then he slowed the playback speed and listened again: “Dar ez a pro-blum,” the voice on the recording stated.
Owens was listening to a recording he took while interviewing Aaron Liebowitz. He played the section of tape in reverse a third time: “Dar ez a pro-blum.”
Owens switched directions and listened to the recording forward: “Everything has been good.”
Listening to a person’s speech in reverse was not as simple as pronouncing words backwards. Roughly one in twelve spoken sentences gave subliminal clues to what the person was thinking while they spoke. The phenomenon first became known when people played records backwards and heard phrases in the songs. They were not intentional messages, nor coincidences, but subliminal thoughts that transcended the mind. Reverse speech was a technique Owens used to analyze people without them knowing he was doing anything more than conversing.
Through one-way glass, Owens studied Liebowitz as he sat in an interview room at the Groom Lake facility. Owens knew there was a leak at the base. Someone on the inside was sharing details about security: how to bypass, when to bypass, where to bypass. He first suspected the leak when the Chinese agent was captured. Blake’s penetration across the perimeter furthered his suspicions, and the subsequent interrogation confirmed it, but Blake couldn’t tell him who it was. Now he wondered if Ben Skyles’ condition was related to the security leaks. He started interviewing other workers involved at Papoose. Casually. Looking for a clue, a hunch. Liebowitz had just given him his first clue.
Through an intercom, Owens asked Liebowitz, “Are you finished with that list?”
Liebowitz nodded his head yes.
Kayla left Owens’ side and retrieved the list of names from Liebowitz. Names Owens had told him to jot down. Names of all the people he recollected having contact with outside work the last two months.
Four names were on the list: Jimmy, Rebecca, Teneil, Trace Helms.
“Aaron,” Owens said through the intercom, “how long have you known Trace Helms?”
“I’ve known of him ever since I began working at the base.”
“And how long have you known him on a social basis?”
“He helped me when I had a problem with my badge. Turns out we both live near Alamo. He invited me over to play poker about three weeks back. The other people on the list were there too, but I don’t know their last names.”
“Are you a big poker player?”
“It was my first time.”
“You have anything else in common with Trace besides being neighbors and working here?”
Liebowitz thought for a moment. “Not really.”
Owens turned the intercom off. “I didn’t think so.”
CHAPTER 53
The last scheduled flights and buses had departed Groom Lake for the evening. A quiet night was on the docket. Trace readied himself to leave, thankful for having made it through the day unscathed. He was well aware of Blake Hunter’s capture, but clueless as to what happened to him, what information they extracted, and how or if it might come back to him. One last check of the security program and he’d take a slow drive home, but Trace’s computer showed that Aaron Liebowitz had not checked out for the day. Why is Liebowitz still here? That had greater implications than any connection they might make from Blake back to him.
> There was a point when Trace’s extracurricular investigations into the government transcended the realm of personal fascination and became what his superiors would consider a breach of his security oath. Trace was aware he had reached that point. He understood and accepted the risks and repercussions that might follow, but his disdain for the secrets he helped to protect had overcome his desire to protect them. As such, he had planned for the day when his actions would warrant reactions. He had cast stones on a dry lake and hit water, starting a rippling wavelength that had expanded and was now at his feet.
As Trace drove Groom Lake Road, knowing it would be the last time, he realized he had yearned for this moment. He had pushed further, contacted ever more individuals, leveraging his risks until his veil of secrecy could shroud him no longer.
Like many disgruntled employees, Trace wanted his superiors to recognize his frustrations and acknowledge their shortcomings. And most of all, Trace wanted his superiors to know they were now his adversaries. He had reached the pinnacle of employee revenge; he had outsmarted his employer and was now thumbing his finger by leaving with the last word.
Unlike a classical western ending would dictate, Chief Trace Helms drove east on Groom Lake Road, away from the sunset. His truck’s primary and secondary gas tanks could get him to Utah, maybe Colorado, before he needed to refill.
At Highway 375 he turned north, traveling away from Alamo and the ranch he had transferred into his father’s name a year earlier. His assets, including the bulk of his IRA and deferred compensation accounts, were liquidated and safe. He knew how to change his name, how to become reborn in the USA. All they could take from Trace was his pension, but after two decades of living alone, married to his employer, he had saved enough not to be reliant on his pension. That was a factor from the beginning; he didn’t need the government. Trace Helms had morals, and they weren’t for sale to Uncle Sam’s mind-control Gestapo.
Eventually he would have to stop and call Rebecca, tell her he was coming, but not for a while, not until he was far, far away. He felt a warm sense of giddiness inside when he thought of seeing her and sharing every day with her. Thoughts of Rebecca took his mind off of Aaron Liebowitz, but the mental vacation was short-lived, and so was his journey—a Pave Hawk helicopter zoomed past Trace as he drove along Highway 375, close enough that he made eye contact with a man staring at him through one of the side widows. The helicopter touched down in the road ahead. Trace slowed to a stop and in his rearview mirror noticed a second helicopter landing behind him.
CHAPTER 54
Owens had superiors, the men in charge, twelve to be exact. Once the majestic group was apprised that a congressional task force was attempting to investigate their operations, a decision was made to change a standard policy, a change that gave Owens greater discretion when protecting their secrets.
Time lost its relevance: Val Vaden was not sure how much had passed as he faded in and out of consciousness. His recent recollections were brief visions of hospital room ceilings, and straps securing his wrists and legs. He recalled his last conversation with the man in the black suit in silo four. He gazed to his right, and saw that his cement-wall surroundings hadn’t changed enough for him to consider himself free of his captors. As he gazed left, Val was horrified to see that now he was no longer alone. The FBI had been brought to him: Grason Kendricks lay unconscious only a few feet away. Beyond Grason were more occupied beds, but Val couldn’t make out the other individuals. How could his own military justify holding two FBI agents hostage, he wondered? Certainly there would be a culmination to this event, followed by nothing short of congressional hearings. How could they justify capturing and bringing Grason to this facility? By what right? Under whose orders? And for what legal reason?
With his hands strapped tight to the side of the bed, Val crunched his stomach muscles and lunged his chest up off the mattress, lifting his head high enough to see beyond Grason to the third bed. Upon seeing the man strapped to the third bed, Grason’s presence seemed insignificant: they had the congressman too. This would be worldwide news when they were released. Why would the military take actions to bring so much attention to the base and the situation, unless they knew this would not be leaked? But how would they, how could they keep anyone in the room from talking? An overwhelming feeling of helplessness and sadness struck Val when he considered the dismal prospects for his future—if he had a future at this point. Whoever was controlling the situation had confidence they could mitigate the potential damages, mitigate the kidnapping of an FBI agent, a US congressman and whoever else was in the room.
Watching his prisoners on surveillance monitors from the next room, Damien Owens saw Val wake and struggle to search his surroundings. He entered through a door behind the row of beds and approached Val, stopping behind him at a table holding a bank of electronics with cords attached to Val. Owens pecked at the control panel for Val’s IV and increased the dosage of medication.
Val tried to turn his head and see behind him, to see who was there, but his eyelids were getting heavier. His head sunk back into his pillow.
Owens had nothing to say to these men at this point. No debates, no arguments, no explanation and certainly no mercy: being weak would only make his job more of a mental challenge. The decision had already been handed down. They wouldn’t remember anything about this time anyhow, so there was no use in doing anything but the mechanics of the situation. His feelings and considerations for the men in the room were as relevant as feelings for cattle being led to slaughter. He would act humanely, but was there really humanity in what he had to do?
Owens strolled the length of beds, reviewing the medical devices monitoring each man. All were in a peaceful unconsciousness: Val Vaden, Grason Kendricks, the congressman, Blake Hunter, Trevor Sinclair, Professor Bertrand Eldred, Desmod Wyatt and Trace Helms. He felt no pleasure, eagerness or excitement about the daunting task in front of him. A task he would handle alone before burying the memories deep in his soul. A task that could keep him busy for days, or a week, and longer if he discovered there were more individuals involved. He spent extra time studying the congressman, contemplating the implications if his actions weren’t flawless.
Maybe someday there wouldn’t be the need for this type of security. But that day wasn’t today. For now Owens reminded himself of the larger picture: the military’s secret space program. A program designed to protect the country, and the need to keep it secret to limit other countries from following suit by trying to stake claims on the moon.
PART 7
CHINA MOON
CHAPTER 55
THE WORMMEISTER
May 2004
I don’t know if the literary gods would bless my style or presentation, or even say there is cohesiveness in the way I have asked my story to be told. Certainly my high school English teacher would challenge the switch in tense from third to first person, but I felt it important for you to understand the events of 1994 in a light that did not overtly manipulate you into bonding with a particular character. Instead I wanted you to see each for their independent patriotic beliefs, as they each believed them to be, and determine your own allegiance to a particular cause. Now, however, times and intentions have changed, and I find it imperative for you to understand the current state of affairs related to this quagmire.
In my Letter of Introduction, I told of my mental challenges, which lasted over a decade. What I did during that time, and what the others in the story did are really not relevant. But it did take a decade for me to remember the events of 1994, and I didn’t remember on my own accord.
I had been living with my mother in the house and room I grew up in. I subsided on a disability check my mother deposited and used for groceries and basic necessities. She still worked, not for money, but I suppose to give herself a break each day from seeing me stare at the television with little drive or care about my future and past. Diminished mental capacity from a nervous breakdown was how the government explained my condition to
my mother, and who was she to question or understand any more than that?
Sometime in 2003, I began seeing a therapist who paid house calls. I assumed my mother had arranged it, and she had assumed it was the government offering a caring hand, but the government stopped caring about me long ago. Jasmine, my therapist, was a beautiful Asian woman. She took me places, like field trips to San Diego and Nevada, sometimes meeting others she counseled.
My mind was like a storage facility, each memory locked behind rows and rows of steel doors. Jasmine was slowly beginning to open those doors, letting me sift through the memories sequestered in the doldrums of my mind. I won’t delve into the technological details of how she did it. The government’s mind control programs and technologies were addressed earlier. Rest assured, in the years after 1994, even with the national focus on the Middle East and presidential affairs and ineptitudes, a few groups around the globe furthered the science.
So Friday, May 21, 2004, I’m sitting on my bed watching television, a packed duffle bag at my side, and Jasmine arrived to take me on another field trip.
“Hello, Wormmeister,” she said, her usual greeting for me. At one point it had a subliminal implication, like a pass code, but no longer. I already understood the purpose of this trip. Jasmine had unlocked enough doors that I could put the pieces together.
We drove to the airport, neither of us saying much as we considered the seriousness and implications of our journey. I also knew while we drove that my bond with Jasmine was more than a therapist-patient relationship. I first met Jasmine in 1994. She went by the name of Janice back then. We shared the same psychological demise at the hands of the shadow government. I, Ben Skyles, knew Jasmine as the Chinese intelligence operative who tried to seduce and manipulate me when I worked for the government at Groom Lake.
