“Camden!” he cried. “Hurry. I need some help.”
“What! I’m dying here!”
Nonetheless Camden in his black suit joined him, weaving a bit.
“Grab his jacket! Help me haul him up!”
“The bastard tried to kill me!”
“Just do it, damn it. We need to know who’s behind this!” cried Scarborough. He turned back to the man and strained to prevent him from falling. Sweat hung in beads from the man’s forehead. Blood flowed freely from the man’s wound, dripping down to splatter against the cement of the spillway. “Where’s Diane?”
“She’s back at some rock quarry about three miles away!” Change of interpretation of message. “She’s okay.”
Scarborough tugged. “Okay, who’s your boss? We can let you drop right now, or you can tell us who you’re working for!”
The man’s eyes were glassy and they looked up at Scarborough with pure hatred. “Get me up!” It was a demand.
“Geez, how did the guy know that I was a Man in Black!” quipped Camden as he reached down to grab hold of the man’s jacket.
The effect of the statement was immediate on the man hanging from the wall. His mouth opened and closed like a beached fish gasping for water. “Man in Black! No! Get—away—”
A spasm seemed to strike the man, and his fingers lost their grip. For a moment, Scarborough was able to hold him, but so strong was the attacker’s spasm that the man was wrenched free as well. Camden did not even try to grab hold at all.
The man fell.
“Shit!” cried Scarborough.
Screaming, the man dropped in what seemed like slow-motion.
He hit the spillway, and rolled down, leaving narrow smears of blood on the cement. Down and down he went, rolling and tumbling, until he stopped screaming, as the mists and water swallowed him up in their hungry, roaring maw of night.
Scarborough watched in horrified fascination, and then put his hands on his arms.
“I think I said the wrong thing,” said Camden. “Oh well. No big loss.”
Scarborough sighed. “Are you okay?”
“Oh yeah. Flesh wound. Stings like the very devil, but it’s not serious.”
“That was the man who killed Mac.”
“Are you sure?”
“Sure enough. He had pockmarks, which fits the description Mac gave before he died, and he acknowledged it.”
“Bastard.” Camden sighed, and held his wound. “Diane sent me back to pick you up.”
“How’d she know I’d be here?”
“She called her girlfriend back in Kansas, who reported you’d gotten the word that she’d flown the coop. Diane knew you were aware of her destination. But by then that destination changed ... Say, why was that guy so upset when he saw me?”
“That’s something we’ll never know. Why are you dressed in a black suit?”
Camden rolled his eyes. “Long story.”
“We can’t stand here gaping. You’ve got to lead me back to where you left Diane. A rock quarry, you say?”
“Yeah, about three miles northwest of here, just off the road, on the Nevada side.”
The scream of sirens was suddenly on the air. Scarborough whirled around and saw a stream of flashing lights coming their way.
“I think, though, it looks like we’re going to have to answer a few questions first,” said Camden.
“There’s no time!” said Scarborough. “They’ll get her! Come on! Back in your car.” He hurried Camden toward the rental car and they were about to get in, when another blast of flashing lights appeared from the other side of the dam.
“Everett, old buddy, it’s time for the old mouth here to go into high gear.” He patted the man’s back and they waited for the police to arrive.
Chapter 38
As she stood in the abandoned rock quarry with the cooling desert night settling in like the black satin from that Moody Blues song, Diane Scarborough for the first time doubted herself.
The place was like something out of a science fiction movie. God, it felt like an alien planet here, thought Diane as she surveyed the rugged, ragged landscape. The quarry was like a crater, cut in the face of granite, surrounded by straggles of desert growth, swathed here and there with sand. The stars were out now, bright pinpoints pricked into the hard sky, and they looked down mercilessly onto the bleak rock holding its tiny bit of humanity in its palm. The only sweetness about this place was the suggestion of desert flowers; the rest was the hard, nasty flavor of sand and rock and survival.
Maybe she shouldn’t have sent Camden back.
Maybe she needed him more than she realized.
She checked her wristwatch. He shouldn’t be much longer and then he’d back. She’d just wanted him to check the dam anyway, to make sure her father wasn’t there.
Why ever had she called Kathryn, anyway? If she hadn’t, she’d have remained in blissful ignorance, could have just gone through this experience with Camden—if there was even going to be an experience. The longer she waited, the more she doubted that this “vision” of hers was anything more than a mental defect, a brain-flicker.
And if that was the case, maybe she could just forget this whole thing and get on with her life ... but at least for now Diane Scarborough had to humor herself. She had to know. If these were alien creatures who had summoned her, she had to meet them.
“Goddammit,” she said, pacing by the large hunk of rock that thrust up from almost the very center of the quarry. “Hurry up, Camden. I don’t like it here!”
Who she really wanted, though, was her father. That she’d checked up with her girlfriend and made her spill the beans meant chances were pretty good that dear Doc Scarborough was on her trail. That was all right, but now he was on the wrong trail ... A trail that might get him in trouble with whatever group of sickos had kidnapped Tim Reilly. Besides, if there were aliens trying to contact her, and her father could be there when they did ... Well, that would indeed be wonderful.
Somewhere in the distance, a coyote howled. A breath of night wind came and flicked the scarf around her neck. It was a red silk scarf, edged in gold thread. One of her favorites. Her father had bought it for her in Italy. She buttoned up her jacket now, shivering with the surprising chill that the wind brought with it.
Instead of decreasing, the wind hissed up into a stronger gust, carrying with it a spray of sand.
“Dammit!” she gasped. Before she had been able to cover her eyes, a blast of grit had blown into them. It was painful too, and she bent over, struggling to remove the stuff.
It was then that the noise began.
It started as a low hum, and Diane Scarborough thought at first that it was the sound of this new and sudden wind, pushing through cracks in the stone-rise near the roadway. She had her eyes half-closed as she worked carefully to remove the sand so as not to scratch the corneas or anything. But then the noise got louder, and kind of strange.
It was a roaring sound, rising to a low hum, and soon it started to congeal into thrumming.
Wasn’t that the sound helicopters made? wondered Diane as the roar hit a crescendo and rolled through the quarry. She didn’t know, she’d never been around helicopters that much. Her tear ducts were working like hell, her eyes were tearing up, and even though she was managing to get her eyes open a little, she couldn’t see much.
That was when the light hit her.
It could have been a spotlight or a searchlight; she wouldn’t have known. To her, it was just a blazing blast of brilliance, filling her eyes and, seemingly, her whole being.
Now she could hear something slowly crunching ahead of her, but she could see nothing but the brilliance in which she was bathed.
She had a bad feeling about it. This was nothing like the experience in Kansas. Nothing at all. There was nothing mystical, nothing wonderful or hypnotic here.
Suddenly she was very frightened, and the only thing that seemed right to do was to turn and run.
She faced awa
y from the light, but things were just as bright away from the thrumming sound.
She started to run ... And then something struck her from behind. Abruptly the lights seeped away, and she felt herself slowly falling down onto a rock, and into oblivion.
Chapter 39
After Camden’s flesh wound had been treated and bandaged at the local hospital, Scarborough and Camden were detained for over two hours at the local police headquarters, answering questions, filling out forms and begging to be let free. They were not charged with anything, but they had to stay in the area and come in the next day for further interrogation. The first thing Everett Scarborough requested was that a patrol car be sent to the Mitchell Quarry. where he felt his daughter was in great danger. The police sergeant, a young and alert man named Ferrer who recognized Scarborough and had read one of his books, agreed.
A half hour later, though, when the patrol car reported in, it was with the news that no young woman of Diane’s description could be found in the quarry, or in the surrounding area.
Scarborough filed a missing persons report, and asked that a search be undertaken immediately. Sergeant Ferrer was very sorry, but no such search was possible until an appropriate number of hours had passed.
Before they were released, the results of the search for the body of the pockmarked man in the grey suit came in: no body had been discovered in the Colorado yet.
Then the keys to Camden’s rental car were returned, and the odd duo were released under their own recognizance, with orders to report what motel they were staying at the next day. There would be more questions then.
As soon as Everett Scarborough got into the passenger seat of his car, he said, “Camden, drive me to that quarry.”
“Ev, pal—she must have given up on us and hitched back to the motel in Vegas. Maybe she’s there by now.”
They stopped by a gas station and Camden used the pay phone.
“Well?” demanded Scarborough.
Camden shrugged. “They haven’t seen her.”
“The quarry,” said Scarborough tersely, and then he fell into a sullen silence.
“Camden,” he said softly. “I can’t shoot a gun.”
Camden said, “Huh? Oh—yeah, you mean with that killer on the dam. That was a damn lucky shot you pulled off. You saved our lives there, Scarborough.”
“Luck,” said Scarborough, puzzled. “Yes.”
Camden had some difficulty finding the place again in the dark, past midnight; but after a few wrong turns, he found the road and drove past the rocky up-thrusts that hid the large indentation in the ground from the view of the highway.
“Yeah, right. She was sitting on that rock just over there,” said Camden, pointing.
“Drive there, but stop about ten yards short and turn on your brights,” Scarborough said.
Camden obeyed.
Scarborough got out of the car and looked around. The cliffs of the abandoned quarry had turned into slopes over the years, and they surrounded an expanse of perhaps three hundred yards in diameter. Patches of desert vegetation grew here and there, and Scarborough could see the gleam of smooth rock rising up from sand and dirt blown into arroyos by the wind. The headlights of Camden’s car illuminated a stand of granite beside a stretch of sandy dirt.
Scarborough strode to it, careful of where he stepped, and examined the loose dirt. Camden followed respectfully behind him.
Scarborough pointed. “This was where she was?”
“Yeah! That’s right.”
Scarborough nodded. His face was as pale as death. His finger pointed limply at the story etched into the sandy dirt and the twisted branches of the bushes. Tire tracks. Footprints that were smeared. Just to make sure, Scarborough examined the treads of Camden’s car, comparing them to the outlines in the dirt. They did not match.
Jake looked at him. “Hey, it could have been the police car!”
Scarborough shook his head no.
They looked around a little longer. Camden found something behind the bushes. It was one of Diane’s shoes. Nearby was her purse. Scarborough took them, and examined them carefully using the light from the headlights.
“We’ll have a look at the purse’s contents later, at a motel,” said Scarborough.
“Geez—” said Camden, looking up at the cloudless sky, dominated by a moon. “You think that maybe Diane was right? You think that maybe a spaceship came down and picked her up like she said it would?”
Scarborough shot Camden an angry glare. “Of course not, you idiot! The proof is right here before our noses! Whatever group that pockmarked man who killed Mac was with—the group that Colonel Dolan belongs to.” His voice broke and became strained. “The people who have made a fool of me for over twenty years. “ A helpless sound cracked his voice. “They’re the people who have Diane. Not aliens. Project White Book, Project Black Book! A conspiracy!”
“Evvie, chum, settle down. You’re gonna bust an artery! We’ll get her back. I promise you.” He put a hand on Scarborough’s shoulder, but the man shrugged him off. “Boy, though,” said Camden in an awed whisper. “What a great story.”
Scarborough felt as though the very cosmos had cracked beneath his feet. A pain he had not known since Phyllis had died began to well in his chest, and he had to tum away from Camden. He walked back to the car and leaned against a fender, taking long, slow breaths, trying to recover his equilibrium.
He had to hold himself together. For Diane’s sake, he had to keep his head.
This was his fault that she’d been taken by those maniacs. His fault—and he knew that she was in very grave danger.
After a time, he turned, a look of pure defiance and determination etched on features suddenly very old.
“You bastards,” he cried, shaking a fist at the sky, toward the darkness that hid the foul snakes who had stolen his only daughter away from him. “I’ll get her back. And you’re going to pay! Do you hear me?! You’re going to pay!”
Jake Camden lit a cigarette, took a drag, got Dr. Everett Scarborough in the car, and drove back toward Las Vegas.
“Something tells me,” he said softly, as Scarborough stared out mordantly at the desert, “we’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.”
Epilogue
The two men dressed in business suits, who looked like lawyers but were not, watched the black car leave the quarry from their hiding spot behind a large rock on the edge of one of the cliffs.
One of the men had grey hair; the other, much younger, held a high-velocity rifle with an extravagant scope set on the gun barrel.
When the black car had dusted away into the night, the young man turned to his elder.
“All has gone well,” he said with a sigh. “I am glad.”
“Yes. Scarborough has run the first part of his maze well,” said the older. “His death has not been necessary, and this gladdens my heart tremendously.” He turned to his partner. “But do not think that all is settled now. There are many obstacles yet for Everett Scarborough. Many obstacles for us, to achieve our goal.”
The younger man nodded and put his rifle in the trunk of the car. He looked soberly at the other. “Yes, brother. How often I forget, as I have followed Everett Scarborough these past weeks, that much more is at stake than the life of a solitary man.”
The older man looked up at the desert stars for a moment, and then heaved a long sigh.
The two men in black suits got into their Cadillac and drove away into the cooling desert night.
Prologue
Roswell, New Mexico July 3, 1947
Lieutenant Todd Jenkins of the United States Air Force was sitting in the mess hall drinking a cup of what the service claimed was coffee, doing the crossword puzzle from an out-of-date edition of Stars and Stripes, when a private came barreling into the Quonset hut like a puffing bat out of hell.
“Lieutenant Jenkins, sir,” said the private. Jenkins recognized him as Marousek, one of the communication geeks from the radio shack. “This is just incredible, s
ir!”
“Hold your horses and hang onto your drawers there, pal,” said Jenkins, holding up a calming hand. “Unless the Russians just invaded Alaska, I think we can take a few seconds to catch our breaths.”
Marousek took in a few gulps of air, but it only seemed to make his chubby face redder. “Sir, it’s on the radio. We’ve got a report from the Roswell sheriff, about one of the local ranchers.” Marousek nervously ran a hand through his short brown, already disheveled hair, and let the rest out in a gust of words. “Sir, it’s a flying disk!”
Jenkins raised an eyebrow as he put down his cup of bitter coffee. Now, this was interesting. He didn’t believe a word of it, but it was damned interesting nonetheless, and interesting wasn’t a commodity one got much of here at the 509th Bomb Group of the Eighth Air Force. Roswell Army Air Field. Couple years ago, he thought he’d had his fill of action with Double-U Double-U Number Two. He’d served in both the European and the Pacific Theaters, merrily bombing the bejesus out of Kraut and Nip alike. But as a career officer still in his twenties, a whole lot of mountains, tumbleweeds, and rattlesnakes sure got boring after a while, even if you spent a lot of time flying above them.
“You mean a flying saucer?” he asked calmly, a hint of a smile dimpling his fair face below the blonde locks that still placed him in good stead with the ladies.
“Flying saucer ...” Marousek repeated. “Yeah, okay. Flying Saucer. Some farmer by the name of Brazel or something. Saw a light in the sky last night. This morning he wakes up to herd some cows or sheep or something, and he finds wreckage all over his range. And right in the middle of a field—a saucer. A crashed flying saucer. That’s it. I don’t know anymore, ‘cept we got orders from the Eighth Air Force along with the report to go check it out. And we got to bring a flatbed and a tow truck, ‘cause we’re supposed to pick it up. Major Marcel says he’s real busy this afternoon. He sent me over to you to take care of it.”
The UFO Conspiracy Trilogy Page 38
