Hunter waggled the Smith and Wesson in front of him. ‘I don’t give a flying fuck about what you or the President of the United States thinks about this, or what bits of paper you’ve got. We’re closing you down, permanently.’
Oval Office, White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.
Charles Gainey walked across to his desk and sat down in the big leather chair. He picked up the internal phone and pressed one of the buttons on the console.
‘It’s always been the Big Lie,’ he said thoughtfully, looking across at McGrath while he waited for the telephone to be answered. The capital letters were obvious from the way he said it. ‘If we can’t salvage it, maybe it really is time for a change.’
‘Mark?’ the President said into the phone as Rogerson answered. ‘Sorry it’s so late, but I need a couple of things doing immediately. I have William McGrath of the FBI with me now, and he has to get down to Nevada as quickly as possible – and that means tonight. So, first, can you please contact Quantico and get a Marine Corps helicopter here within the hour.’
Gainey paused and listened for a few seconds.
‘Yes, the usual landing spot on the White House lawn. You’ll need to organize lights and a ground marshaller, as well, from the staff. Second, get onto Andrews Air Force base and get a jet warmed up. Doesn’t matter much what it is, as long as it’s got the range to reach Nevada. The captain should flight-plan for McCarran Air Base at Las Vegas, but the airfield of destination will actually be different. Mr. McGrath will brief the pilot in the air, and they can file an en route change by radio. Got all that? Right, please let me know when the helicopter’s airborne from Quantico.’
Gainey replaced the telephone handset and walked back across the office. ‘The chopper will take about forty to fifty minutes to get here, if past performance is anything to go by. What else do you need from me?’
McGrath thought for a few seconds. ‘A Presidential Order, sir, couched in fairly wide terms, but making it quite clear that I’m acting with your full authority and approval, but leaving all decisions about the actual implementation of your wishes to me.’
‘No problem. Anything else?’
‘A call to Groom Lake Operations, or whatever the area controlling authority is called, telling them that I will be arriving. I’d hate to get shot down by our own fighter aircraft in the middle of Nevada.’
‘I’ll have Groom Lake briefed long before you get anywhere near the state boundary,’ Gainey said, then got up again and walked back to his desk. He selected headed paper and a fountain pen, thought for a few moments, then wrote rapidly. He read through the text, then called McGrath over to check it.
‘Excellent, sir,’ McGrath said.
Gainey signed the Order, folded it and slipped it into an envelope, and handed it to McGrath.
‘While you’re at the desk, Mr. President, there are two other papers that you should prepare, assuming that Hunter and Reilly are still alive.’
‘Yes,’ Charles Gainey said, and wrote for a few more minutes.
‘The only other matter,’ McGrath said, ‘are the supplies I’ll need to make this work. Most of it is regular military-type equipment, which I should be able to find out at Groom Lake. The only special items are the tracksuits and trainers, and I would appreciate it if they could be flown out from McCarran on the first Janet flight of the day.’
‘No problem,’ Gainey said.
Henderson, Nevada
Major-General Thomas ‘Hank’ Williams had run the Groom Lake base for a little over two years, and he knew exactly how many times he’d been telephoned at his home by members of his staff during that period. The number was precisely seven. Of those seven, only one had occurred after midnight, and that had been to report the crash of an experimental aircraft and the death of the pilot.
His reaction to that call had been typical. He’d informed the Operations Officer – a USAF major – in a deceptively calm voice, that the aircraft would still be crashed and the pilot would still be dead when he, Williams, arrived for work on the first Janet flight the following day, and to tell him about it then. Three days later the major had received a totally unexpected posting to Nome, Alaska, and nobody believed that the two events were unconnected.
Williams believed that work was work, and home was somewhere else, and the two didn’t, at least as far as he was concerned, mix.
‘This,’ he growled into the telephone when Lieutenant Keating had identified himself, ‘had better be real good, otherwise you’re going to find yourself working in a real hostile environment for a real long time. What is it?’
Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada
Evans shook his head. He’d been silent for most of the time since Ketch had started talking, but now he felt compelled to speak.
‘I still can’t believe all this,’ he said.
Ketch fixed him with a look of contempt. ‘Look around you, doctor,’ he said. ‘Can you think of any other reason why a place like this should exist? Why it should be stuck out here in the middle of the Nevada desert? Give me another – any other – possible reason.’
Evans shook his head stubbornly.
‘OK, then,’ Ketch said. ‘I can’t actually prove that we’ve obtained these technological advances from aliens, but I can prove to you that the aliens exist.’
‘How?’ Hunter asked.
‘By introducing you to them.’
‘What?’ Reilly demanded. ‘You mean some of those little grey bastards is here?’
‘You didn’t realize?’ Ketch asked. ‘I thought I’d made that clear. This building has two stories above ground, but another three below. A group of grey aliens live and work right here. They monitor the machinery in the processing room, handle the product and organize its dispatch.’
‘I suppose you think using words like “product” and “dispatch” somehow sanitizes what you’ve been doing here, Ketch,’ Hunter said, ‘but I can assure you that it doesn’t. And what exactly do you mean by “dispatch” anyway?’
‘I thought you’d realized that, too,’ Ketch said. His confidence was growing as he realized that Reilly and Hunter weren’t just going to kill him out of hand, and might even have to keep him alive to ensure they themselves got out of the building in one piece.
‘The market for the product, and I can’t think of another suitable word for it at the moment –’
‘I can,’ Reilly interjected. ‘How about human flesh, body parts, even shrink-wrapped shin?’
Ketch grimaced slightly. ‘Whatever,’ he said. ‘The market is out there –’ he gestured up towards the ceiling with his chin ‘– not anywhere down here. The product is prepared here, but the aliens ship it up to a craft in high Earth orbit, and from there out to distribution centres.’
Ketch looked over at Reilly. ‘You know something about this, surely? You know about the UFO-watchers out at Rachel and Silverbow and Indian Springs?’
Reilly nodded. ‘Yup, I’ve heard of them. See all manner of lights in the sky.’
‘Most of them would still be able to see UFOs if they were locked in a steel box and buried six feet underground,’ Ketch said contemptuously, ‘but in fact every second or third night a small planetary craft takes off from Groom Lake and heads into orbit, carrying the processed product. It comes back about four hours later, and that’s what a lot of these watchers have been seeing.’
‘So,’ Reilly said, his thoughts taking off at a tangent. ‘The government’s known about UFOs for years?’
‘Yes, of course. All the so-called investigations like Project Sign, Grudge and Blue Book were simply disinformation exercises run by the government to try to convince the American people that UFOs were just figments of their collective imagination.
‘Blue Book was started in 1952, some time before Roland Oliver got under way here at Groom Lake, and they finally shut it down in 1969. All the people involved were instructed to find a mundane explanation for every sighting, no matter how ridiculous or inconceiva
ble that explanation was. That’s why you’d find Blue Book officials trying to explain away perfectly clear radar paints as sunlight glinting off marsh gas or something equally stupid.’
‘Why?’ Hunter asked.
‘Why what?’
‘Why did they choose such obviously ridiculous explanations?’
‘Because they had to,’ Ketch said. ‘Their orders were to discredit every single sighting that was reported to them. OK, a lot were genuine misidentifications of aircraft, planetary bodies like Venus or various types of meteorological phenomena, but a small hard core weren’t. These either had any old explanation tacked onto them, or they were dismissed as having insufficient details to determine what the object was. And that allowed the American military to shut down Blue Book in 1969 because, basically, they’d proved – entirely to their own satisfaction – that there wasn’t anything to investigate in the UFO field.’
‘So,’ Hunter said thoughtfully, ‘some of the architects of this horrendous program are actually here in the building? That could be very convenient, because I think Dick and I would really like to meet them.’
‘Why?’ Ketch asked, but he’d already guessed the answer.
‘So we can blow their fuckin’ heads off,’ Reilly said.
Henderson, Nevada
Just over seventy-five minutes after Williams had put the phone down on Lieutenant Keating, it rang again. Williams had literally just got back to sleep, and snatched the receiver from its rest with an angry gesture.
‘And what the fuck do you want now?’ he shouted down it.
There was a brief but eloquent pause, and then Williams heard the unmistakable voice of Charles Gainey, the President of the United States of America.
‘I’ll thank you, Williams, not to use language like that to me.’
Williams sat up in bed, his head spinning. ‘Sir?’ he said.
‘That’s better. I have a couple of questions for you. First, have you received any reports of security breaches out at Groom Lake?’
‘Sir,’ Williams replied, his mind still fogged with sleep, ‘I really can’t answer that, not on an open line.’
‘Screw the security considerations, Williams, and just answer the question.’
‘Yes, sir. Yes, there has been an incident.’
‘Does the incident involve the Rolver Systems’ building?’
‘Again, sir, I –’
‘Just answer the question.’
‘Yes.’
‘Right. Those were the questions. These are your instructions. Have you a paper and pencil ready?’
Williams cast about on the bedside table, and finally found paper and a pencil with a reasonable point.
‘Ready, sir.’
‘Right,’ Charles Gainey said. ‘William McGrath, acting Director of the FBI, is en route to Groom Lake at this moment. When he arrives he will assume command of the security incident. He will be acting as my personal representative, and will be carrying a Presidential Order to that effect. Any and all orders and instructions that he gives are to be obeyed immediately and without question. Is that perfectly clear?’
‘Yes, sir. Perfectly clear.’
‘You are to immediately ensure that all necessary clearances are issued to McGrath’s aircraft for it to land at Groom Lake. I don’t have the call sign or type, but the pilot will initially be flight-planned to McCarran, and will issue an en route change. Is that clear?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Williams said, scribbling furiously, and wondering just how the President of the United States of America seemed to know so much about operations at Groom Lake.
‘Finally,’ Gainey said, ‘you are to report to Groom Lake as soon as possible, so you’ll need to organize a Janet flight to transport you. Once you arrive, you are to take no actions whatsoever in respect of the security incident, except to follow immediately and without question any orders McGrath may issue. Your only function at Groom Lake in respect of this incident will be to support McGrath’s operation and to keep everybody else out of his way. Is that also clear?’
‘It’s my base, sir,’ Williams said, somewhat petulantly. ‘I should be directly involved.’
‘You aren’t, and you won’t be,’ Gainey said, and disconnected.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Sunday
Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada
‘A word with you, Mr. Hunter,’ Reilly said quietly, and got up and stood by the window, gazing out at the floodlights which illuminated two sides of the Rolver Systems’ building.
‘Yes, Dick?’
‘May not be the right time to bring this up, but that bastard Ketch has got a point. You may not have noticed, but we are stuck in the middle of an armoured building in a real high security area surrounded by guys with guns just waitin’ to pull the triggers. You have got a plan to get us outta here?’ he asked hopefully.
Hunter grinned mirthlessly at him. ‘I had,’ he said, ‘but it rather depended on there not being a bunch of soldiers holding assault rifles standing around outside this building. The way I see it, the Area 51 security system is designed to stop people getting in, not getting out. Back in Vegas you mentioned that some of the staff here are driven to and from the base each day in coaches. I was going to take one of them, load everyone here on board, and drive out.’
Reilly raised his eyebrows. ‘Sounds easy when you say it quickly – which I think is what I said about catching a Janet flight in here. Don’t think gettin’ out’s gonna be anythin’ like as easy as hoppin’ on that Boeing.’
‘No,’ Hunter said. ‘Somebody, somehow, has found out that we’re here. Maybe the Las Vegas PD found Harris or Morgan and put two and two together. I definitely don’t think we’re going to be able to just wave a couple of Omega cards and walk past those soldiers.’
‘So what do we do?’
‘What we can’t do is shoot our way out of here, so we’re going to have to think our way out. It’s time for Plan B.’
‘Which is what?’
‘I’ve no idea, but I’m working on it.’
Above Frankfort, Kentucky
The government Learjet reached its cruising level within minutes of taking off from Andrews, and the co-pilot walked back into the passenger cabin as soon as the aircraft had reached top of climb.
‘Mr. McGrath, sir?’ he said to the sole passenger. ‘We need to ask you for a revised destination. We’re flight-planned into McCarran at Las Vegas, and that’s where we’re heading at present, but I understand we’re actually supposed to land somewhere different.’
McGrath looked up from the document on his lap and nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Our destination is Groom Lake Air Force base.’
‘Oh.’
‘Have you flown in there before?’ McGrath asked.
The co-pilot shook his head. ‘Nope,’ he replied, ‘and I’m pretty sure Chris – the captain – hasn’t either. In fact, I don’t know anybody who has, apart from a couple of regular Air Force jet jockeys I met last year. Those Groom Lake guys are really secretive. OK, I’m going to need to get on the radio right now to ensure we’ve got all the right clearances. Is there anything you need, sir?’
‘A scotch or something when you get a minute, if there’s any on board, otherwise I’m fine. There shouldn’t,’ McGrath added, ‘be any problem with clearances. This flight was authorized by the White House, and the President has personally approved it.’
Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada
‘Seems to be a bit more activity out there now,’ Reilly announced, squinting his eyes against the glare of the floodlights. ‘I can see two more trucks and a bunch more people. Seems like we’re the most interestin’ thing happenin’ on the base this mornin’.’
Ketch looked at Hunter with a kind of triumph in his eyes.
‘You have to realize,’ he said, ‘that there’s nothing you can do about Roland Oliver. Too many people, who are far more powerful than you realize, have a vested interest in keeping it going. You might hinder our operat
ions for a short while, but there’s no way you can stop it. Your best option is to let me go, put down your weapons and walk out of here. That way you might just get to live.’
‘Maybe,’ Hunter said. He walked behind Ketch and took out the switchblade, which he opened with an audible click. He bent down and sliced through the cable ties holding Ketch’s ankles to the chair, then released his hands. Ketch stood up cautiously, conscious of his broken ribs, and rubbed his wrists to get the blood circulating.
‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘I thought you’d see sense eventually.’
‘We haven’t yet,’ Hunter said, pulled Ketch’s arms behind his back and locked his wrists together with another couple of cable ties. ‘We’re just going to take a little walk.’
As Dick Reilly got to his feet, Hunter turned to Evans. ‘Can you stay here, please, and keep an eye on the women. We won’t be long.’
Evans nodded, and watched as the procession made its way towards the door of Ketch’s office.
‘Where are you taking me?’ Ketch demanded.
‘We’re not taking you anywhere,’ Hunter replied. ‘You’re taking us to see these aliens that you claim are living in the basement of this building.’
McCarran Air Force Base, Las Vegas, Nevada
Major-General Thomas Williams paced angrily back and forth across the concrete outside the Janet Terminal at McCarran. He was annoyed on several levels, and for several different reasons.
His night’s sleep had been ruined, and he always got snappy if he didn’t get his full eight hour quota. He hadn’t enjoyed being told what to do by the President of the United States, despite the fact that Charles Gainey was undeniably his ultimate boss. He hadn’t agreed with passing what was certainly classified information over an open telephone line, even to the President. He didn’t like the fact that some sort of a security breach had occurred on his establishment, and that this breach had been brought to the attention of the President himself by some person unknown.
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