The UFO Conspiracy Trilogy

by David Bischoff

  “Have you got any idea, Clyde, what people used those barns for? We had a look at them—they’re not normal barns.”

  Clyde got suddenly stiff. He picked up the metal cup and knocked back the rest of the whiskey. “Hell if I know. Maybe you guys had just better go now. And keep your mouths shut, huh? I’ll lose my job if ... “

  “If what?”

  “Nothin’. Just go.”

  “Sure, Clyde,” said Scarborough. “Thanks very much for your help, and we’re sorry about the inconvenience.”

  “Oh, by the way,” said Mac on the way out. “The chain on your fence is busted. Might wanna get a new one.”

  Scarborough turned and saw Clyde Evans stuffing the twenty-dollar bills into the front pocket of his red-plaid shirt.

  “And we’ll just leave your gun right by the gate, okay?”

  Evans grunted. Scarborough thought the man looked very troubled and frightened indeed.

  Outside, Mac said, “So, what next? We go talk to this Brookings guy?”

  “You gotta be kidding me! A lawyer?” Camden chuckled derisively. “You’ll get nothing from a lawyer. So anyway, come clean, guys. What’s the mystery?”

  Scarborough looked at the man, puzzled. Camden seemed generally curious, not just professionally. He shrugged. “Well, I don’t think anything’s going to come of it actually—but we’ll tell you, since we’re not really worried about you scooping us. We just want to find out the truth here.”

  Mac nodded. “Damn straight we do. Yeah, maybe you can help us, Camden. But let’s not stand around here like sitting ducks. Ol’ Clyde might have another Winchester in there. I noticed a roadside cafe called Hungry Joe’s on the highway just outside of town. Let’s have some lunch, and we’ll tell you.”

  Camden grinned. “Yeah, let’s! I’m starved. Getting shot at is hard work.”

  Scarborough shook his head. “And maybe you can tell us what’s going on with my daughter in Kansas.”

  “That I will. Doc,” said Camden. He seemed immensely pleased with himself and Scarborough felt a surge of hatred well up, and the desire to pop the man a good one right on the chin, which he immediately quelled.

  No, he told himself. Not now. Maybe later. Meantime, maybe the loathsome yellow-journalist really could help them, and heavens knew, they needed all the help they could get.

  “Wow, oh wow,” said Camden around a mouthful of chicken-fried steak. “Am I in the clover this week. That’s some story, Mac. And Doc—the fact that you’re helping out here just speaks volumes to me. Volumes! You got some weight with me, pal.” Camden shook a greasy fork at his UFO-ological adversary. “You may not realize it, but I’ve always respected you a hell of a lot!”

  Mac raised an eyebrow. Scarborough shrugged. He couldn’t deny it; this rumpled bad excuse for a reporter had a certain rank charm to him, like old familiar moldy cheese.

  “Thank you, Mr. Camden. I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I’ve never respected you very much.”

  Camden laughed, showing a mouthful of half-chewed food. “Doctor Scarborough, you show an incredible amount of restraint! But so what if we work different sides of the same river. I bet you that not a lot of people in this world know what goes on in that brilliant head of yours the way I do.” Camden pushed the plate away from him and leaned back in the booth. “Besides, Doc. If people like me didn’t throw your skeet up in the air, how would you shoot ‘em down?”

  MacKenzie laughed. “He’s got a point, there.”

  Scarborough gave his friend a “Whose side are you on?” look. .

  “Anyway, we both stand to gain from this little adventure. I get a story and you get to dig up whatever truth you’re looking for. We can help each other out, like I say.” He lowered his voice. “If you ask me, chums, what we got here is just one more example of the great cover-up. Doc, Mac—you were Project Blue Book dupes. It was all just a scam to cover-up what the Air Force was really up to.” He slid off the blue-patched plastic-covered cushion. “Now if you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I’ve got to water some porcelain.”

  Joe’s was a classic-style diner that had seen better days, but served decent road-fare. From the streamlined metal-and-neon design, Scarborough estimated it was from the late forties or early fifties. As he contemplated the remains of his BLT on toast, and considered ordering another iced tea, Mac tapped him on the shoulder.

  “What gives, friend? Yesterday you’re gnashing your teeth about this guy, and today we’re in cahoots with him?”

  Scarborough nodded. “A little strange, yes. But logical.”

  “Oh, pardon me, Mr. Spock.”

  “No, really Mac, think about it. I’d like to sock him, yes. But what would happen? At best, I’d get arrested for assault. At worst, he’d write about it in his rag—and disgorge the whole story about Diane and her UFO. The devil you know and all that—if we shake him off, there’s nothing stopping him from following us and finding out what we’ve uncovered anyway. This way, we might actually get some help from him—and strange bedfellows that we make, we might actually create a temporary ally.”

  “Whatever you say, Ev. I got no problem with the guy.”

  Scarborough smiled slyly. “Besides, this way, I can plan a devious, painful murder for the scum-sucking bastard!”

  Mac did a double take on that one, but when he saw that Scarborough was just kidding, he guffawed.

  Camden scooted back into the booth. “Too bad they don’t have cocktails in this place,” he said mopily.

  “So guys, next stop the county-record’s place?” said Mac.

  “Hell no!” said Camden. “How do we know the records aren’t fixed? Look, two things you want to know here: One, what the hell happened to this Charles Higsdon character. Two, who owns that farm? Now if there’s a lawyer involved, you can bet that something shady is going on, so chances are damn good that we gotta look someplace other than the record’s office for the truth.”

  “Oh? And pray tell, where might that be, Mr. Camden?” asked Scarborough sarcastically.

  “The local newspaper!” said Camden. “Where else?”

  The Tipville Chronicle was a weekly paper, with an office in the center of town that looked like something out of an old movie based on a Sinclair Lewis novel.

  The middle-aged man in round spectacles who was the managing editor regarded the strangers with suspicion until Camden showed him his press credentials and put on a slick “We’re all brothers in ink” show. “We just want to look at your morgue, Mr. Hawkins. I’m trackin’ a real interesting story about a farm west of here, and we need some background on it. “

  The editor shrugged and allowed that it was a public-service paper and that Camden and cronies were certainly “public.” He showed them down to a dusty basement, filled with filing cabinets, warning them that the paper was seventy years old and had a lot of records.

  “That’s okay,” said Camden. “I’m like Br’er Rabbit in the briar patch among newspaper records, Mr. Hawkins. To show our appreciation, my companions here will make a significant contribution to your favorite local charity.”

  A smile appeared on Hawkins’s pinched face, “Well fellas, I reckon that’d be my newspaper!”

  Fifty dollars changed hands.

  “I don’t understand,” said Scarborough. “Are we supposed to go through every edition of the Tipville Chronicle?”

  “Doc, baby, this is a small town. It’s very easy for small town newspapers to keep some sort of records on everything. Now, let me see——what was the name of the road that farm was on?”

  With professional speed, the reporter found the appropriate file cabinet. A plume of dust rose as he pulled open the drawer, but he successfully found the right file. “Good thing this stuff isn’t on microfiche. I’m all thumbs with microfiche,” he said, thumping the thick folder under an old-fashioned lamp. “Let’s see what we’ve got here.”

  Camden whipped through the clippings, pulling out the appropriate ones, along with several typed pieces of pap
er which were dense with information. He clucked and hmmmed over these for a time, until MacKenzie grew impatient.

  “Well?” the burly man demanded. “You got something?”

  “Gentlemen, you’re surely familiar with government programs to regulate farm production; Department of Agriculture, and all that. Well, it would seem that in the fifties, a certain governmental office did more than just pay a few bucks to farmers to not plant com or beef up their soybean crops—they bought a few farms that were going out of business. One of these was the farm we were just on today.”

  Scarborough was aghast. “That place ... it’s owned by the government?”

  “Since the fifties.”

  “That’s right, gentlemen. In fact, your friend Higsdon, according to this information here, was just a government employee. He and his family apparently moved to South Dakota, oh, about fifteen years ago.”

  “Any kind of hint about what the government has been using that farm for, since then?”

  Camden waved the appropriate clippings. “Department of Agriculture soil-experiments is the official word, but lots of neighbors got upset in 1980 about all the helicopter activity—the noise, you know. They formed a coalition ... and then, up and dissolved themselves.”

  “Paid off,” whispered Mac.

  “That’s my guess.”

  “Those labs didn’t look like agricultural labs to me,” said Scarborough.

  Camden had produced a special lens attachment, and was busy laying out the clippings under the light to photograph. “Gentlemen, there’s something rotten in River City ... and it ain’t pool.”

  He turned and began clicking off his shots.

  Chapter 22

  It was late at night when the helicopter touched down, swirling up dust, landing neatly between the netless basketball hoops.

  You shouldn’t have called them, the man said to himself. You should have just kept your damn mouth shut and full of booze. But he knew, in his heart of hearts, that they would have found out sooner or later.

  Sooner, he had a chance for grace.

  Later, he was a dead man.

  Clyde Evans watched nervously as the government agents in their grey suits and ties disembarked. He was surprised to see a woman, wearing a lab coat, exit last. But not as surprised as he was when he realized that the man leading the group was the head of the whole operation. Brian Richards.

  The man walked toward him, the wind from the copter blades flapping the ends of his coat.

  “Evans,” said Richards. “First, what did they see?”

  Desperately wanting a drink, the man swallowed dryly. “I don’t know for sure. Two of them must have been exploring out back—the ones that got me from behind when I was trying to scare the other one off.”

  “Okay. What did you tell them?”

  “That I was the caretaker, of course. Hired by a lawyer from Tipville.”

  “Describe the trespassers.”

  Evans described them, and Richards nodded.

  “Now, how the hell did they get past you?”

  “Um—I was taking a nap.”

  “The alarm didn’t wake you? The hidden surveillance cameras didn’t alert you?”

  “Look, I’m sorry, okay? Hey I reported in, didn’t I?” Evans pulled out the money they’d given him. “They took my gun and they were going to use it on me. They thought they were bribing me.”

  Richards took the money, examined it, then threw it in the man’s face. “When they busted you out of the Agency, man, it was me, me, who picked your ass out of the garbage can and gave you a job.” He grabbed Evans by the collar.

  An agent came out, shaking his head. “Whew. This place reeks of whiskey.”

  “I thought we kicked you of that nasty habit,” said Richards.

  “God, it’s just so boring! It’s hell! I thought a little drink now and then wouldn’t do any harm.”

  Richards pushed him back contemptuously. “I’m afraid that we’re going to have to relieve you of duty here, Evans. We’ve lost our need for third-rate groundskeepers.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Get in the helicopter. We’ll send your things along after you. You’re going to dry out in a security arrangement for a time, and then we’ll decide what to do with you.”

  Evans’s shoulders slumped. “Yes, sir.”

  Another agent rejoined the group, flicking off his flashlight.

  “Looks like someone’s been in one of the barns, all right.”

  “Damn!” said Richards. “Scarborough, of all people—Fucking Sherlock Scarborough! Damn!”

  The woman stepped forward. “Don’t worry too much. They’re pretty well cleaned out.”

  “Yes, but it’s not exactly animal farm in there. It’s pretty obvious they weren’t being used as barns!”

  Evans started to trudge toward the copter. “Wait a minute, Mr. Evans,” said the woman in the lab coat. She pulled Richards off to the side and they talked in whispers.

  Evans couldn’t hear them, and he didn’t want to hear them. He hunkered back in the shadows, miserable beyond words. Dry him out—he’d get the DTs again. He couldn’t stand the thought, so he just turned his mind off. Maybe he could just sneak back in while the two talked. Sneak a bottle. One more drink ... one more drink for the road. Already his hands were shaking.

  Suddenly, he realized that Richards was regarding him with a peculiar expression. Richard—Mr. Fucking Sleaze-lA, some of the agents used to call him back in the old days. There was a hint of a smile on his face. “Yes, it’s a thought,” Richards was saying to the woman, whom Evans did not know. “You think it would help him?”

  “Without a doubt,” said the woman. “I’ve got him on a different chemical mix, and he seems to have calmed down a bit. But he needs some kind of release.”

  Richards nodded. He turned and yelled back at the copter, whose rotors were only slowly spinning now. “Mr. Justine. Would you come out for a minute, please?”

  A short-haired man wearing a plain grey suit like the others stepped from the plane, walking toward them just a little unsteadily. “Yes, sir.”

  “How are you feeling, Mr. Justine?”

  “Much better, sir.”

  Richards smiled at the woman. “I like it—he’s getting a ‘sir’ drug now? Not feeling so cocky anymore, huh? A little under the weather. Maybe you need a nice long rest, Justine! Maybe we should retire you for a while!”

  “I’m fucking okay, Richards, you torturing bastard!” The short-haired man Richards had called Justine said.

  “That’s the attitude I like to hear.” Richards walked to Evans and put a hand on the man’s back. “We’re pretty much your family, aren’t we, Mr. Evans?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. I hate to do this, Evans, but we just don’t need you anymore. Tell you what, though. In the way of a going-away present, we’ll forgo the gold watch. Instead, you’ve got a thirty-second head start on Mr. Justine here. Oh, by the way, Mr. Justine is the division mechanic.” Richards stepped away. “Good-bye, Evans. You’ve got half a minute from—now!”

  “What...?” Fear and confusion gripped him.

  “Twenty-eight seconds, Evans.” Richards turned to Justine. “Mr. Justine, I do hope you’re up to it.”

  Justine’s face was stone. “Sure thing.”

  “Jesus!” said Evans, more prayerfully than blasphemously. “You can’t do this. This is the U.S. government! We obey the law! We have rights! We’re not savages!”

  “As John Stuart Mill said, Mr. Evans: ‘The greater good for the greater number.’ But somebody has to be the judge of what’s best for everybody. What’s best for our nation, now, I fear, is that you be put out of the picture. Fifteen seconds.”

  Evans turned and ran. He didn’t think about what he was doing or where he was going, he just ran as hard as he could. His pulse pounded in his ear and the air whisked by his sweating face. He saw the fence up ahead, and then the open gate. If he could just get through the gate, maybe
he had a chance.

  He was only a matter of yards away from the fence when the flashlight beam struck him. With a whine, he jerked away from it, heading for the gate. The beam found him again. Something hard and stinging struck him in the shoulder, and, almost as an afterthought, he heard the sound of a gun. He was hurled straight onto the mesh of barbed wire, and the sharp, rusty ends gouged at his face and chest, clinging at his clothes and puncturing his skin, pinning him in place. He hung on the wire, crucified and whimpering.

  “You will forget about what you saw,” said the man named Justine, coming up behind him. “You will forget about the UFOs. Or you will pay the price.”

  What was the guy talking about? “Sure!” Evans spat through his pain. “Just get me off here, let me go! I won’t say anything to anybody about this place ... or about UFOs!” He added hastily.

  Footsteps. Evans sensed the man was very near. “Stop it!” the man growled to him in a tortured voice. “What’s wrong with you, Justine? Get a fucking grip!”

  There was a period of silence, and, for a moment, Evans thought that maybe the man was going to lift him off of the wire, tell him that this was all just a new form of punishment, and that he’d be sent along for detainment, detoxification, and then reassignment.

  But then the bullets tore through his head and chest, and Evans’s final neurological activity was nerve spasms.

  When Justine came back, he was smiling a private little smile.

  “Feel better?” asked Richards.

  “Much.”

  “Okay. Sit in the copter till we’re ready to go; take it easy. I’ll get the other two guys to take care of the body.”

  “Yeah—Richards.”

  “That’s the old Woodrow Justine we all know and love.” Richards watched as the hit man stepped jauntily into the helicopter cabin. He took Cunningham by the arm, and led her toward the farmhouse. “Just a quick word, Julia,” he said. He looked over and saw Jenkins and Marshall carrying Evans’s corpse toward one of the barns. When he judged they were out of earshot, he said, “Okay. He still seems operative. But it looks like we’re going to have to ask a great deal of him in the very near future. Should I call up another agent?”