Linda pounded the table with open palms. “Mr. Edmonton! What the fuck do you want?”
Edmonton laughed, a loud, high-pitched chuckle that stumbled drunkenly up the stairs, then passed out on the landing. His face went slack. “First of all, Mrs. President,” he said, “my name’s not Edmonton. It’s Rice. Theodore Rice. And I am, indeed, here to brief you.”
Linda glanced around the table. Rice caught her question. “To my left is Antonin Gellow. It’s pronounced like the dessert, but spelled with a G and a W.” Gellow, a huge man with curly, dark hair and a full beard, nodded respectfully. “Across the table sits General Lowell.” The General was a small man, thin, no more than five foot six, his gray hair cut short and stubbly. His uniform looked too large, and sagged under the weight of more medals and ribbons than good taste would normally allow. The General nodded.
Rice went on. “And to your right, Colonel Phelps.” Linda would not have guessed him for a military man of any sort, let alone a Colonel. His blond hair was long and unruly, past his ears and nearing his neck. He was dressed in blue jeans and a t-shirt. He reminded Linda of a middle-aged surfer.
“Hey, how you doing?” said Colonel Phelps with a smile and a nod.
Linda did not respond to any of their greetings. She focused on Rice. “So, you’re not really Edmonton. And given your behavior here today, I can also assume that you’re not really one of my agents.” She indicated the others with a sweep of her arm. “And these gentlemen? Who are they pretending to be today?”
Rice stuck his face into the President’s. “Your worst nightmare!” he scowled. His head fell back and he laughed again, delighted at his own cleverness.
Gellow shifted his great weight in his chair and cleared his throat. “Stop playing with her, Rice,” he said, his voice surprisingly high and delicate. “Get to it.”
Rice considered that, then shrugged. “Okay.” He turned back to Linda. “Mrs. President, let me begin by saying that your life, and the universe in general, will from this day forward no longer be what you thought it was. Until the end of your days, you will be able to look back and remember this meeting as the moment your world changed forever.”
“Not if you never get to the point,” Linda answered.
Rice licked his lips. “Right.” He motioned toward Colonel Phelps, who grabbed for a remote to dim the lights. From a recessed control panel on the table before him, Rice flicked on the plasma screen that hung on the wall behind Lowell and Phelps. The two men swiveled their chairs to face the screen, which glowed a soft, contented blue.
Rice touched a button on the panel. On the screen came a blurry black and white photograph, almost impossible to make out. Rice turned a knob and the picture came into better focus, though still poor quality. There were two figures: one unmistakably Dwight David Eisenhower and the other a very small man, dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and a huge straw hat that covered his pale, seemingly bald head. Most of his face was hidden behind a large pair of sunglasses. The two figures sat in canvas folding chairs on what looked to be the rear deck of a yacht. Rice leaned over, mock-whispered to the President. “I love this part!”
Linda ignored him.
Rice advanced the slides. Eisenhower again, with his odd friend. The little man had taken off his hat for this picture, revealing a strangely deformed, hairless head, quite large and very pale, with no ears to be seen.
Linda looked at Rice. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“What?”
“Is this whole thing a joke? Did Bickle put you up to this? Are you guys with the Weekly Daily News?” Linda started to stand.
Rice held out a hand to stop her. “No joke, ma’am. Please, sit down. It always goes like this. Just give it time.”
The President stood anyway, pushed back her chair. “I’m outta here!” She took a step for the door but it opened before she could touch the knob. In stepped the woman she had seen before, her pistol out and aimed at the President’s forehead. Linda stopped. “You’re not going to kill the President of the United States in the White House,” she said, looking around. “You are not that stupid.”
Rice was at her side like a lawyer. “She doesn’t have to kill you. She can just make it hurt. Come and sit down.”
Linda looked at the woman. Her pale, oval face, a model’s face, was surrounded by long, straight, honey-hued hair, and studded with eyes that froze her heart. There was murder in those eyes. And something else: space. The President shuddered involuntarily and did not resist as Rice led her back to her chair.
Rice advanced the slide. There was a close up of the smaller man, sunglasses now off, holding up a fish and a pole.
“What is this?” Linda asked, her voice now hoarse. “Who is this freak?”
Rice patted the President’s arm gently. “That’s Asimov,” he said. “He’s not from around here.”
4.4
Linda’s eyes darted around the room, looking at each of her captors before turning back to the image on the wall. “What are you saying?” she demanded huskily. She dropped her gaze to the table.
General Lowell cleared his throat and spoke for the first time. “Mrs. President, the government of the United States of America has been communicating with, and working alongside of, a group of alien beings from a star many light-years away from our own for the better part of seven decades now.” He nodded shortly and turned back to stare at the wall.
“Yeah. Right.” Linda snorted. “And you guys are their best buddies.”
“We are known to them,” chirped Gellow in his vague Slavic accent. In the darkened room, his face cast in skewed shadows from the projector, Gellow looked just like Jackie Gleason in a fright wig and beard.
The President waved a hand at the wall. “And this guy, this thing here, Asimov, he lives in some big government mansion and rules the whole world with his death ray?”
“No, Asimov died in 1956,” explained Rice.
Linda shielded her face with her hands. “This is absurd.”
“It always has been,” said Lowell, still facing away. “We make it work.”
“You have no proof. Just a couple of photos my niece could make in Photoshop. This is all just bullshit.”
In response Rice picked up the controller again, started clicking rapidly through a series of slides. Linda stared at the images, unable to turn away, her fingers fluttering nervously in her lap. There were photographs of Eisenhower and Asimov in the Rose Garden. Photos of Kennedy, Nixon, Ford, Bush, Clinton, Bush the 2nd, all posing with more of the small, gray, bulbous-headed creatures. Linda looked at Rice as he pulled back from the control panel, leaving a full color image of George W. Bush hosting a trio of these alien things in the Oval Office frozen on the wall. “No proof,” she repeated.
“Soon enough,” said Rice. “Tomorrow.” He nodded to Colonel Phelps, who touched the remote to turn the light back on as Rice flicked off the screen.
“They come from a planet which circles a star in the Canis Major dwarf galaxy,” Rice stated matter-of-factly, “a galaxy which human scientists finally managed to detect in 2003, even though it’s right next door. We made first contact with them on November 3, 1938, when one of their scout ships landed in a cornfield near Port Huron, Michigan. In a hilarious display of cosmic humor, their arrival came just a few days after Orson Welles’ Scare-the-Rubes Halloween Radio Party. There was a brief meeting between the aliens, the local authorities, and representatives from a nearby Army base, at which time, according to the aliens, a “great gift” was given to humanity, though none of the humans attending had any memory of receiving anything.
“After that first contact they disappeared until 1941, at which time they began appearing in the skies over many parts of the world. Though we didn’t know it at the time, those sightings signaled the arrival in the solar system of their entire population. In 1946, they re-established contact with the U.S. government and struck a deal. We have had a continuous relationship with them since, as we’ve worked out the details.” Gellow nodded agreem
ent from time to time, but said nothing. The General had not yet turned back to the table, but sat picking at his fingernails as he faced the wall. Colonel Phelps seemed to have fallen immediately to sleep. Rice’s watch began to beep but he did not move to stop the sound. After half a minute it stopped by itself.
Linda sat in silence, looking down at her hands. They had shown her nothing. No proof. Just a bunch of terrorists with a pack of lies. Yet Linda knew, below her conscious thoughts, in a place where words were not allowed, that these pictures were not lies. She was neither happy nor surprised to see those strange faces on the wall.
She had seen them before.
4.5
The autumn night air had grown damp and cool, seeping into the house through the sliding glass door that Cole had cracked open, and covering the floor like wet leaves. The woods were quiet now, save for the occasional chirrup of a cricket and the distant queries of a barred owl: Who? Who? Who cooks for you? The phone had not sounded since Linda had begun speaking, gracing the evening with blessed relief.
Cole sat tightly in the rocker he’d pulled away from the woodstove, concentrating on his fingernails, tapping his heel nervously on the floor. Linda sat across from him on the sofa, watching him in silence. There was something like hope in her eyes. “So?” she finally said.
“So what?” asked Cole, looking up. He knew what, but he didn’t know how to respond.
“You think I’m crazy?”
Cole hesitated, checked his watch, scrunched his nose. “The thought has crossed my mind more than once today.” An apologetic smile flashed across his face. It was not polite to say such things.
Linda nodded. “Good. If it hadn’t, I’d think you were crazy.”
“So, you’re saying that all this UFO stuff is true. And the government knows all about it.”
Linda offered a soft sigh of agreement. “You’re half right.”
“This is very hard for me.”
“Tell me about it. I had a gun pointed at me.”
Cole cleared his throat. “So did I,” he said, his voice low and sad.
Linda’s mouth dropped open. She hadn’t seen the similarity until that moment. It scared her, to realize how far desperation had driven her. “Oh, Cole,” she said, almost moaning, “I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.”
Cole started to reply but stopped when he heard a noise from upstairs. Down the steps came Grace, her hair mussed, her eyes full of sleep, dragging her Minnie Mouse behind her. Minnie’s head thudded lightly on the steps as she descended.
Grace reached the bottom of the stairs and walked straight for her father, climbing onto his lap and nuzzling her face in his chest. Cole smoothed her hair and whispered into her ear. “What’s up, Boo?” he said.
“There’s a kid in my room,” she said, sinking quickly back toward sleep in her father’s arms.
“A kid?”
“He tried to take Minnie.”
Cole lifted Grace and laid her gently on the sofa next to the President. “Watch her for a second,” he said. He hurried up the stairs.
Grace wiggled to get comfortable on Linda’s shoulder. Her breathing softened almost immediately. Linda sat quietly, listening to the sounds Cole made as he searched Grace’s room above, to the grumpy complaints of Emily when he turned on the light, to floorboards creaking and doors pulled gently shut. She listened to the slow even music of Grace’s tiny inhalations. How wonderful it would have been, to have had a daughter of her own. Not that they hadn’t tried. But after three unexplained miscarriages, she and Earl had given up. The emotional cost was too high. She ran a hand along Grace’s back, stroked her hair.
Cole continued to clunk around overhead, whispering a curse. Linda left him to it. She knew what he was going through. And she knew that he had to go through it. After a few minutes, Cole crept softly back down the stairs.
Linda looked up to him. “Did you see anything?”
“Nothing,” answered Cole. He sat down, holding his still-shaking hands close to his stomach. His nose wrinkled and relaxed and wrinkled again. “God! I thought ... you know, those eyes, and ... and the things you’ve been saying. I just knew that one of those things was in her room.”
Linda hugged Grace tightly to her shoulder. “One probably was,” she answered sadly.
“You don’t seem particularly alarmed by that,” Cole growled.
Linda dropped her head, noting the smell of Grace’s freshly shampooed hair. She looked up at Cole blankly.
Cole looked Linda in the eye, shook his head. “I don’t believe any of this,” he said.
Linda raised a finger to her lips. “Listen.” Immediately the phone in the bushes began to ring again.
“Oh, come on!” said Cole.
“Go answer it,” said the President evenly.
Cole stared at her in disbelief. “I’m not going out there!”
“I thought you didn’t believe in any of this.”
Cole shot the President an angry glance.
“Just go answer it,” said Linda again.
Cole rose, stood, and looked down at the injured woman on his sofa. Fear and responsibility struggled for possession of his feet. Looping through his mind was a memory of Ruth hugging Grace at the airport, telling her daughter that she’d see her when she got back. With a fierce intake of breath, Cole walked across the living room and through the dining room to the front door. He opened it. The volume of the ringing swelled jarringly, as though the phone had leapt back into the room. Cole switched on the security light mounted near the door, illuminating a wide circle of walkways and bushes and trees. Grabbing the chef’s knife from the block by the sink, he stepped out, leaving the door open behind him. His knees felt wobbly as he walked. Fear trickled down his throat.
From inside, Linda could hear him push aside the various roses and viburnums that lined the cobbled walk. Thirty seconds later came a loud ringing crash, the sound of the phone smashing down upon the stone walkway. Cole came back inside and stood in the center of the room. His arms hung limply at his sides.
“Cole?” asked the President. Cole’s face was slack and white.
“Asimov,” said Cole, his voice far away. “The voice said ‘Asimov’.”
The President looked down at the sleeping child, then back up at her host. The look on her face was that of quiet acceptance.
“They know you’re here?”
Linda nodded and pointed up. “They do. They always know. But not the other ones, not the People I told you about.” The President shook her head. “Not yet. They don’t know yet.” She prayed she was right.
The two of them sat in silence, sipping their tea, watching the dark woods beyond the windows. Linda glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. Ten-thirty. Grace snored quietly, curled up on her lap. Cole had tried to put his daughter back to bed but Linda had asked him to let her stay. The weight of her innocence on Linda’s legs and stomach was comforting, a reminder of simpler times. Rice had been right. Linda could trace the moment her old world ended to that briefing in June. She kissed the top of Grace’s head. She would have given anything not to have brought such peril to this young child’s life. Yet she could not do this herself, especially now. And this child’s whole future could depend on what she did in the days ahead. She. Maybe Cole, if he would help her. And then there was Keeley, if Linda could find her.
Cole broke the silence, his voice soft and low. “So who are these people? The ones who briefed you?” he asked. “Tell me what happened. I need to know.”
“They call themselves ‘the People.’ To distinguish themselves from the aliens, I suppose. General Lowell - they all just call him the General - seems to head up the whole group. I think he’s for real. Military, I mean, though I could never find anybody in any branch of the service who had any record of his existence. Gellow’s a scientist. Astronomer, maybe. Same story. Nobody’s ever heard of him. Phelps I don’t know about. I never did see him again. Rice is one of their special agents, as is the woman, Bob. Her real
name’s Roberta Reese. They’re both pretty high up in the organization, I think.”
“How did this all happen, Linda?”
“Well,” she gently pulled a lock of hair from Grace’s face. “I got the whole story after the screen was turned off.”
4.6
Rice handed the President a thick, unmarked folder. Linda picked it up, started to leaf through the pages. “This is the history of our organization,” said Rice. “You can read it tonight. I’ll stop by at 8 tomorrow morning to pick you, and it, up.”
Linda thought of her mother, Ellen, with whom she was scheduled to meet for lunch in an hour. What would she say? And how could she read this all tonight? Wasn’t there some dinner she had to attend? “I can’t tonight,” she said. “There’s no time.”
Rice shook his head. “All taken care of, Mrs. President. Dinner tonight canceled. Mrs. Warren occupied. We’re very thorough. You’ll have time. But let me give you the highlights.” He nodded at Phelps, who went to the door and spoke in hushed tones to someone outside. A moment later Phelps returned with a glass of iced tea. He placed it in front of the President and returned to his seat. Linda ignored the drink.
Rice continued. “You’ve heard of Project Blue Book?”
Linda nodded. Of course she had. Everybody had.
“Before Blue Book were Projects Sign and Grudge. You may have heard of those as well. These ‘official’ projects collected information, filtered reports, interacted with the public, and interfaced with various scientific and academic groups. The projects were designed to ease fears and speculation by pretending to investigate and explain the UFO situation.” Rice leaned back in his chair and stretched his legs out under the table. “But even before Sign, we’d begun to take the real investigation off-line. Majestic was the first working version of what has now become ‘the People,’ but by the time Majestic was discovered and made public in the mid-80s, we’d long since left it behind.” Rice reached out and grabbed Linda’s iced tea and took a sip. “Basically, over the course of the past eight decades, the alliance between human groups and the aliens has sunk deeper and deeper underground, far out of reach of most of those who think they govern. Almost from the beginning, there has been a secret group working behind the scenes, dealing face to face with the aliens and their spacecraft, both of which were, as far as the ‘bewildered herd’ was concerned, still huge mysteries.
All of the Above Page 8
