‘I’ve been reading about that Robertson panel in American newspapers and assumed that it might be a threat to you.’
Wilson gave one of his rare chuckles of pleasure. ‘All part of a planned, CIA-backed programme of disinformation. Even though the Project Blue Book evidence on UFOs proved conclusively that the saucers exist, the panel stated in their report that the evidence wasn’t substantial, that the continued emphasis on the reporting of the phenomena was resulting in a threat to the orderly functioning of the protective organs of the body politic, and that the reports clogged military channels, could possibly precipitate mass hysteria, and might encourage defence personnel to misidentify or ignore actual enemy aircraft. Naturally, as the United States has just finished fighting the war in Korea, the Soviets have exploded their first hydrogen bomb, and the Cold War is presently at its chilliest, the American public, and the top brass of the armed forces, swallowed that all too readily.’
This man is truly a genius, Ernst thought, helplessly swelling up with admiration. There is nothing he can’t do.
‘What will the immediate results of this be?’ he asked.
‘We’ve already had the results, Ernst. Last August, the Pentagon issued Air Force Regulation 200-2, which the civilian UFO organisations are already describing as notorious.’
‘For good reason?’
‘Of course. Drafted purely as a public relations weapon, AFR 200-2 prohibits the release of any information about a UFO sighting to the public or media, except when the sighting is positively identified as a natural phenomenon. In addition, while AFR 200-5, the previous regulation, stated that sightings should not be classified higher than restricted, the new regulation ensures that all sightings will be classified as restricted. Then, in December, the Joint Chiefs of Staff followed AFR 200-2 with Joint-ArmyNavy Air Force Publication 146, which made the releasing of any information to the public a crime under the Espionage Act, punishable by a one-to-ten-year prison term or a fine of ten-thousand dollars. Even better, the most ominous aspect of JANAP 146 - at least from the point of view of those who might fall foul of it - is that it applies to anyone who knows of its existence, even including commercial airline pilots.’
‘In other words,’ Ernst said, ‘to all intents and purposes, and contrary to public Air Force pronouncements, the UFO project has been plunged into secrecy.’
‘Correct.’
‘It’s nice to be protected by our enemies,’ Ernst said.
‘Very nice,’ Wilson replied with a slight, chilly smile, gazing out from the veranda to where the Ache Indians were being herded at gunpoint from the cages to the flying saucer. Often they became hysterical when they were actually under its wide base, at the foot of the sloping ramp, but they always scurried up the ramp when they were thumped by rifle butts or, as Ernst now noted, by small metallic devices strapped by the wrist to the knuckles of some of the troops. When the troops merely touched the Indians with such devices, the latter screamed in pain.
‘What are they?’ Ernst asked.
‘Experimental stun guns,’ Wilson replied. ‘At the moment, they do no more than give severe electrical shocks - not severe enough to kill, but certainly enough to burn and hurt. But soon we’ll be able to use them to stun, as well as merely hurt, and eventually, with fine tuning, they can be used as mesmerising devices when applied to certain points on the anatomy. Time will bring us everything.’
Ernst felt the great wave of his loss rolling over him to wash him away. Trembling, he finished his tea, placed the cup back on the saucer, and wiped his lips with the back of his hand.
‘I only wish I could be part of it,’ he said, secretly wanting to scream for release, but too frightened to do so. ‘I mean, being here... this jungle... these filthy natives... I feel like an outcast. I was trained to be an engineer, a scientist, and yet now...’
In a rare gesture of affection, Wilson placed his hand gently on Ernst’s wrist. ‘No, Ernst, never think that. Such thoughts are for common people. It’s vanity that makes you talk this way, and you should be above it. As individuals, we are nothing. Our desires are mere conceits. We only exist to serve the whole, which is past and future combined. You must suppress your own desires, cast off ephemeral needs, and learn to take pride from your small part in life’s grander purpose. Man is still essentially animal. His only true worth is in the mind. The mind is the doorway to immortality and the secrets of being. You are part of that, Ernst. What you do here has its purpose. Like a monk in a monastery, like a hermit in his cave, like a mystic contemplating in his mountain eyrie, you will learn to accept this. Discipline brings freedom. Self-sacrifice brings fulfilment. What you lost in the past - your career, your wife and children, your hopes for the Third Reich - and what you feel you’re losing now - the comradeship and esteem of your fellow engineers in Antarctica – you’ll get back multiplied when what you are doing here has been completed and you see the results of it. Then, and only then, will I bring you back to the Antarctic. When I do so, you’ll be twice the man you are now - ennobled by knowledge. Believe me, Ernst. Eventually this will come to pass and then you will thank me.’
Desperate to believe him, needing the healing hands of hope, Ernst tried to forget his lost wife, children, early ambitions and dreams - and all else in his dark, squandered history. Trembling, he picked the bell up from the table and violently rang it, calling for Maria.
‘Yes,’ he said, startled at how deeply he had been shaken by Wilson’s softly spoken, unemotional, mesmeric monologue. ‘As always, you’re absolutely right. All else is vanity.’
When Maria appeared on the veranda, trembling as much as Ernst, he thought of how often he had forced her obedience by threatening to put a bullet into her mother - there and then, right in front of her. Naturally, it had always worked - a child’s love knows no reason - but even that threat was unlikely to stop idle gossip. Vanity: yes, it was a dreadful human vice, but one he had not yet learnt to conquer when it came to his potency. To preserve her mother’s life, Maria had submitted to every one of his vile demands - unimaginable sexual activities, not mere vice, beyond pornography - and yet none of it, certainly in the past weeks, had helped him to find release. Now, Maria was bound to talk - silence would be impossible for her - and when Ernst imagined the talk spreading around the compound workers, all of whom loathed and feared him, he could not bear the thought of the humiliation he would then surely suffer.
They would thrive on his failure.
‘Yes, master,’ Maria said, falling to her knees before him, lowering her head, and not daring to look at him without permission. Ernst thought of all she had done to protect her mother and finally knew what would pleasure him.
‘Please take her with the others,’ he said to Wilson. ‘She cannot be trusted.’
‘Of course,’ Wilson said.
As Maria, sobbing and pleading, was dragged into the great saucer by the armed men in black, and her mother, also sobbing and pleading, was dragged back into her shack by some other Indian women, Wilson stood up and squeezed Ernst’s shoulder, then shook his hand.
‘Don’t worry, we’ll put her to good use. Now I must be off, Ernst. Thank you. You’re doing excellent work here. Take your pride from that knowledge.’
‘I will.’
‘Until the next time, Auf Wedersehen.’
‘Auf Wedersehen,’ Ernst said.
The lump returned to his throat when the great saucer took off, rising slowly, vertically, until it was the size of a silver coin, reflecting the sun. There it hovered for a moment, a silver coin spinning, then it suddenly shot off to the south and vanished in seconds, blinking out like a light bulb.
When the flying saucer had gone, Ernst looked around the compound, taking note of the shadows being cast by the soaring trees, the awe-struck eyes of the native workers, unwashed, in tattered rags, the pigs in their muddy pens, the chickens frantically flapping wings, the naked children rolling in mud and water silvered by sunlight, the guards at the machine-guns in
the towers that looked out over the jungle. Choking up with despair instead of pride, he turned back into the house, desperately needing a drink. Without Wilson, he took his strength from the bottle and yearned for escape.
He just couldn’t admit it.
Chapter Twenty-One On the evening of March 7, 1954, Jack Fuller drove along the ten-mile causeway that led from Patrick Air Force Base, Cape Canaveral, Florida, across the Banana River, Merritt Island and the Indian River, to the Starlite Motel in Cocoa Beach, located in the swampy lands around the original village and now a rapidly growing town of ten thousand souls. From here dozens of missiles, as well as Explorer 1, America’s first earth satellite, had been fired into space. Many of the motels in the area had been given appropriate names - the Vanguard, the Sea Missile, the Celestial Trailer Court - but the Starlite had gone one better by having a flashing neon rocket as its roadside sign, which made it easy for Fuller to find it. Amused by the sign, he was further amused when shown into his room, where the floor lamp was shaped like a rocket with its nose cone balancing a globular satellite, the walls were decorated with celestial crescents, spheres and orbital paths, and even the towels were embroidered with the legend, ‘Starlite Motel’.
‘Oh, boy,’ Fuller said as he tipped the crew-cut kid who showed him to his room, ‘it’s a whole different ball game here.’
‘It sure is,’ the kid said.
Fuller had a shower, shaved, changed his clothes and then went to meet Wilson in the Starlite motel’s bar. He was not surprised when it turned out to be a dimly lit, L-shaped room with murals showing the moon as seen through a telescope and Earth as seen from the moon. Nor was he surprised to find that Wilson was already there, drinking what looked like lemonade. He had always been punctual.
Fuller ordered a whisky-and-water from the barman, waited until he had it, then joined Wilson at his table. He was startled to see how young Wilson looked. He seemed to get younger every year, though in this dim lighting it was difficult to ascertain whether or not he’d had more plastic surgery.
He was studying the drinks menu, but when Fuller joined him, he looked up and smiled coldly.
‘The town of Cocoa Beach,’ he informed Fuller, ‘has clearly become obsessed with space. What’s that you’re drinking?’
‘Whisky with water.’
‘I note that the drinks include a Countdown - ten parts vodka to one part vermouth - and a Marstini. Being here is like being in Disneyland, but it’s all about space.’
‘Yeah,’ Fuller agreed, ‘I know what you mean. They have a women’s bridge club called Missile Misses, a Miss Satellite contest, a fishing boat called Miss L. Ranger, a settlement called Satellite Beach, and even a museum, the Spacarium, that has burnedout components of Cape Canaveral rockets on display. Also, not ignoring the launch of Explorer 1, the Chamber of Commerce is already accepting reservations for space aboard what it’s describing as the first globe-circling satellite. That’s American knowhow.’
‘It’s always nice to meet a patriot.’
‘I’m not ashamed of it,’ Fuller said. ‘The fact that I have to deal with you doesn’t change that one jot. What name are you travelling under this time?’
‘Aldridge,’ Wilson said. He put the menu down, sipped some lemonade, then added, ‘This is certainly an encouraging place for a patriot.’
‘Sure is,’ Fuller agreed. He had spent the previous night in Patrick Air Force Base, two miles from Cape Canaveral, and was still thrilled by the concept of dozens of Atlas, Thor, Titan and Snark missiles, as well as the orbiting satellite, being launched from that restricted military zone of about fifteen-thousand square acres, much of it in uncleared jungle where deer and puma still roamed wild. Now, the formerly untouched land of sand dunes, palmettos, orange groves and swamps had a rapidly swelling population, scores of new businesses, and many housing developments, containing the fourteen thousand people now employed at Cape Canaveral and Patrick Air Force base.
‘Cocoa Beach,’ Wilson said, ‘was once a small village of a few dozen families, but it’s presently in the process of becoming the US government’s largest and most important rocket-launching site.’
‘This bothers you?’
‘Yes.’ Wilson glanced at the cosmic murals on the dimly lit walls, then shook his head from side to side, as if baffled by the childishness of it all. ‘Of course for me there’s a certain irony in the fact that most of the rockets being fired from here could not have been constructed without the assistance of Wernher von Braun and his other Nazi scientists, who in turn based their work on the theories of Robert H.Goddard and me - both neglected Americans.’
‘Ah, gee, the man’s bitter!’ Fuller said. ‘My heart’s breaking for him.’
‘I could break your mind and body,’ Wilson rejoindered, ‘and don’t ever forget it.’
The icy remove in his voice made the threat even more chilling, but Fuller was not a man to be easily frightened, so he just grinned and sipped his drink. ‘So,’ he said, placing his glass back on the table, ‘why are you here?’
‘I thought I’d check on the progress being made here and, if necessary, slow it down.’
‘I don’t know why you’re concerned. As you just said yourself, what we’re achieving here couldn’t have been done without your assistance.’
‘I dole that out carefully. You know why I do so. If NASA moves ahead more quickly than I deem fitting, I’ll take firm measures to slow them down. I won’t let you trick me.’ Fuller couldn’t suppress his pleasure. ‘Boys will be boys and scientists will be scientists. You know that if you give us assistance, we’re bound to try and exploit it. You’ve known that all along.’
‘Never imagine that you’re ahead of me,’ Wilson warned him. ‘If you do, I’ll be forced to prove you wrong - and that could be expensive.’
‘I know damned well how ruthless you can be,’ Fuller said, keeping his gaze on Wilson’s face, though relieved that his remorseless, icy eyes could not be seen too clearly in the gloom. ‘You don’t have to remind me.’
‘I would remind you that your own organisation, the CIA, with or without the full knowledge of the government, can also be fairly ruthless - as shown by the murder of various American citizens, such as Mike Bradley and his wife, who knew too much about me, my base in the Antarctic, and the US-Canadian saucer projects. Those murders were not committed for my benefit. Nor did I commit them. How ironic that Mr Bradley was frightened of me... when it was you who murdered him in the end.’
‘A casualty of war,’ Fuller said, proud to have done his duty, ‘and not one to give you cause for concern. You didn’t come here to talk about that, Wilson - sorry, Aldridge - so what do you want?’
‘A week ago the United States exploded a thermonuclear bomb over a lagoon at Bikini Atoll, thus dangerously contaminating seven thousand square miles of land and sea, injuring people nearly a hundred miles away from the area, and, even worse, making the world fall-out conscious for the first time. That test explosion, combined with the unseemly haste with which you’re expanding Cocoa Beach and Cape Canaveral, makes me suspect that certain people in the Pentagon or the White House are no longer taking my threats seriously. If you don’t slow down your rate of scientific progress, particularly regarding the Apollo space programme, I may have to give you another demonstration of my own, still much greater, capabilities.’
‘We must be catching up with you,’ Fuller said calmly. ‘Otherwise you wouldn't be so damned worried.’
‘I don’t worry, Fuller. I simply apply reason. And when that tells me you need some kind of warning, I’ll make sure you get one.’
‘Okay, I’ve been warned. I’ll take your message back to those in charge and I’m sure they’ll take heed. Anything else?’
‘Not really. I take it that UFO witnesses are still being harassed, ridiculed and thwarted at every turn?’
‘Correct.’
‘What’s the state of Project Blue Book?’
‘Not good, you’ll be pleased to hear
. The project leader, Captain Edward J.Ruppelt, was transferred to Denver and has since left the Air Force in disgust. However, he’s now working for the Northrop Corporation and is rumoured to be planning a book that will substantiate the reality of the UFOs, though siding with the extraterrestrial hypothesis.’
‘I’m not keen on the idea of a UFO book written by someone with that kind of credibility. Keep your eyes on him.’
‘I will.’
‘And the others?’
‘All of the staff, except for the original two officers, have been scattered far and wide, which others obviously view as a form of official punishment, or warning. As for the two remaining officers - captains Dwight Randall and Robert Jackson –we’re keeping the pressure on them all the time and consistently denying them promotion. In fact, by deliberately putting Ruppelt in charge of the former Project Blue Book, instead of Randall, who rightfully should have had the job, we were clearly slighting Randall. By putting him back in charge of the project only when it’s been decimated and rendered virtually inoperative, the slight seems even more brutal. To Randall, as well as to those who know of his involvement with Project Blue Book, it must seem that UFO work is the kiss of death. I believe this is already having bad psychological repercussions on Randall. With him as an example, not too many others will be keen to investigate UFOs.’
‘He still might need something, another little push, to tip him over the edge. I’ll keep him in mind.’
‘Yeah, you do that. Anything else?’
‘No. Not for now.’ Wilson stood up to leave. After studying the cosmic murals on the walls of the bar, he said, ‘America is a nation of children - a gigantic nursery. There’s nothing worth having here.’
‘Rather here than the Antarctic,’ Fuller responded. ‘What kind of life can you have there?’
‘A life of work,’ Wilson said. ‘And work is the true function of man - the use of the mind. All else is a waste of time.’
PHOENIX: (Projekt Saucer series) Page 23
