“My so-called good friends in the senate are starting to jump ship. The briefing I gave them four years ago is starting to wear off and now they’re running for cover. The key people I needed on the hawk side of things have completely flown the coop. My friends on the other end of the spectrum are now feeling the heat because of these rumors and the fact we haven’t even had one sighting of anything from space other than our own junk falling from the sky.”
Niles finally turned and faced the president as he sat in one of the double-facing couches. He opened his old briefcase and removed a file. “In one brief moment of time many years ago you asked me how I would handle it. I told you.”
“You didn’t understand the American psyche then as now. So, may I explain it again for you, Mr. Wizard?” The president saw his friend wasn’t going to respond so he quickly continued before he could. “Singly this nation is built of brilliant and smart citizens capable of immense kindness and compassion and a simple vision of the future. My people are smart, Niles. Oh, not like an egghead like you, but smart enough to know the situation and understand it when it’s explained to them. But go to the collective mind of those very same citizens and that’s where we run into trouble, and you know that. Collectively we can be the most frightened nation on this planet if things aren’t explained to the extreme point they can be.”
“Tell them everything now or call a press conference and deny all the military rumors as a lie, and then stop allowing the military to sway you into this supposed draft lottery. Come clean about everything from Roswell, to the incident with the destroyer in the Arizona desert, and even the moon landings from years ago. Everything.” Niles shook his head and then looked at his friend. “And what is this about keeping men and women in the military after their service is complete—is that one true?”
The president was silent as he turned his head away from the man he had known since college. Niles Compton was the director of the utmost darkened agency in the federal government. Their existence was known only to a few and answered only to the president of the United States since the time of Lincoln unofficially, and Woodrow Wilson by law. Department 5656, or what was known to a few outsiders as the Event Group, had a mission to uncover the truth about the shared history of the world, as the understanding of the past secured the future. Department 5656 advised the presidency of any correlation between past events and those currently unfolding in the present so he could make a calculated judgment on how to handle any repeat of that history.
“Yes, it’s true, Niles. I can’t fight a war if my military is stripped down to nothing because of a false sense of security after the war on terror.”
“Then explain why to the people of the country and of the world. For Christ’s sake we’re getting ready to watch the Chinese start killing themselves over their military expenditures. The same is happening in France, Russia, Germany, and England. We are the ones scaring the world, not them.” Compton pointed toward the high ceiling of the Oval Office and what he knew was the complete future of darkness beyond the high clouds.
“Why haven’t they moved on us, Niles? They’ve been sitting out there ten million light-years from Earth just waiting. I get new images from the Hubble every other day in my security briefing and they haven’t moved a light-year in any direction, they just sit there. This is why I have supporters jumping off what they now think of as a rudderless ship.”
“Our asset in the Arizona desert reports that the Grays are more than likely here already. They’ll strike when they see an opportunity to do so. Thus your military buildup could be a never-ending nightmare in the terms of time. When they come we have to fight them with the weapons we have already developed and the men and women trained to fight them. Not with new recruits or angry veterans.”
The president shook his head and abruptly stood; in so doing he pushed his large chair back hard enough for it to strike the wall.
“Niles, you and Garrison Lee came up with the plan for Operation Overlord. For the first aspect of that plan to come off I need warships and aircraft. To support our allies if the Grays strike at them first I need to get my army overseas, and for that I need control of the oceans. And I need enough men and equipment left over to secure our cities and train another army as fast as possible for our defenses here. For this I need experienced soldiers, and in order to have that I have to stop them from leaving their respective branches of service. I also need every aircraft we have mothballed in the desert and every obsolete warship in the navy yards at Philadelphia.”
“Then tell the people that,” Niles said, getting angry for the first time in the presence of the president. Compton watched as his friend turned and snatched the lace curtain back again to gaze at those very same citizens protesting the rumors that were running rampant. “But one thing you and the others are refusing to grasp—and you had better start facing it—is that the combined military strength of the entire planet may not last five days against a full-scale onslaught from the Grays.
“That’s why we have Overlord. If we can hold off an offensive strike until Overlord can come on line we have a chance, at least according to our little green friend out in Chato’s Crawl.”
“And you know damn good and well that Matchstick explained that part two of Overlord depends entirely on getting our hands on a power plant from a downed saucer.” The president released the curtain and turned to face Niles. “Your Group’s not confident at this point of possibly finding another crashed saucer?”
Niles opened the folder and pulled out his report.
“We have chased down every UFO report going back as far as the biblical Ezekiel. Outside of the two Roswell incidents we only have rumors of other incidents where a vehicle was recovered with an intact engine.”
“So it’s just as Matchstick says, then?” The president thought of the small alien who had been in U.S. custody since the Arizona incident in 2006.
“We’ll have to place a priority on getting our hands on a power plant when hostilities start … if we can knock the damn saucers out of the sky, that is.”
The president looked a little put out by Niles’s comment. “I believe your Mr. Ryan brought one down in the Pacific, if I remember correctly, with just a Phoenix missile. I think if he can do it we can at least get a few of the bastards for Matchstick to play with.”
“Touché,” Niles said as he slipped the report on the saucer search away. “We actually may have chance at getting at one early in any conflict. Then it’s just a matter of time constraints if we can literally get Overlord off the ground.”
The president raised his brows as he waited for any welcome news.
“Matchstick says they cannot come through their travel wormholes in any large force. Their energy is limited. A few saucers at a time, maybe five or six, and then the Grays have to recharge before they can continue sending their forces through from that extreme distance away. But if they punch us hard enough in the opening rounds their energy problems will be moot. As Matchstick says, it takes the power of an entire planet to produce the energy needed to produce a time-warp wormhole.”
The president slapped the top of his desk. “And that is exactly why I want my forces at full potential, Niles. Now, is Matchstick sure that this power that creates the wormholes is limited in scope?”
“Yes. As you know, the home planet of the Grays is dying. Their forces are growing old and their energy is used to maintain their fleet in space. They have stripped their home world in order to attack us. That is why there is a delay, as they wait for an opening that will be devastating to us.”
The president saw the concerned look briefly cross his friend’s face. “What is it?”
“In the briefings with Matchstick and Gus, they both get extremely quiet when we talk about the Grays’ home world. It seems something has been concerning the little green guy for a few years, but we at the Group cannot explain it, nor will he discuss it.”
The president held Niles in his sight and then lowered his head in near
despair.
“God, I pray he’s not hiding anything from us.”
EVENT GROUP COMPLEX
NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, NEVADA
At 1.7 miles beneath Nellis Air Force Base, the Event Group complex was at its usual brisk pace. Thirteen field teams were crawling through deserts, mountains, and oceans searching for a historical record of downed alien aircraft in ancient times. The push to find an intact alien power plant had stripped the Event Group of most of their divisions and military security personnel, so much so that gate number two inside the Gold City Pawn Shop had been closed due to the lack of viable military personnel to secure the Las Vegas entrance. And with so many scientists and historians in the field the complex was near empty.
The man in charge of complex security on a temporary basis was First Lieutenant Will Mendenhall. Naval Commander Jason Ryan officially outranked the lieutenant but the naval aviator stepped aside due to Will’s advanced training in black operations. Both men were standing inside the computer center with Pete Golding, the man responsible for the supercomputer Europa. They stood in front of Pete’s personal Europa terminal, and it was Golding who gestured angrily at the six-foot monitor.
“Look, there it is again. What in the hell are he and Gus Tilly working on that’s using so much computer time? I have people searching for ancient saucer wreckage and sometimes they can’t even log in as Matchstick has usurped the Europa system. Niles and I gave him complete access to the computers but even that wasn’t enough. Our green friend is locking out my own teams.”
“Have you called out to Arizona to ask Matchstick why he needs so much computer time?” Will looked over at a bored Jason Ryan, who just shrugged his shoulders.
“Gus won’t say. He says that Matchstick isn’t communicating with him about this suddenly urgent project he’s working on outside of the saucer power plant search. Gus also says Matchstick isn’t sleeping and barely eating, and Gus is afraid he’s going to get sick.”
“What does the director have to say about this?” Ryan offered. “I mean, the last I heard Matchstick has total control of Europa whenever he wants it, so why is this upsetting you to the point you’re whining like a schoolgirl?”
“The director doesn’t know,” Pete said as he turned off his monitor and the view of the computer center out in Arizona. They watched the small green alien known as Mahjtic as the monitor faded to nothing. The Group called him the Matchstick Man, as Gus Tilly had been calling him since the old prospector saved the life of the small being after it had crashed in the Arizona desert.
“Well, I would suggest bringing Virginia in on this and get a jump-start on getting some answers while Dr. Compton is in Washington,” Will said as he straightened and stretched his back. Pete nodded and started to reach for the phone on his desk, but Will and Jason stopped him by clearing their throats at the same moment.
Pete Golding finally thought he knew what the two military men wanted. He nodded his head and then released the phone. He turned and spoke softly into the extended microphone, and the large monitor above them came to life with a live picture of a giant ice cave. The video was stark as the lights of a surveillance camera glared off the crystalline blue ice.
“Europa managed to break into the British security cameras in the Antarctic. As you can see the ice has been excavated quite extensively in the area of the find. After the initial discovery of the wreckage and the finding of Captain Everett’s wristwatch with his and Colonel Collins’s DNA upon it, the site has yielded little else.”
Three months before they had been informed that a watch had been discovered inside the wreckage of an unknown type of aerial vehicle of Earth origin, no craft like it was now in existence. The plum in that little information was the fact that the British Antarctica expedition that discovered the wreckage found the artifacts under more than a mile of ice. And the kicker to that statement was the fact that the ice it was buried in was more than two hundred thousand years old. Thus they were now in the state they were in three weeks before with Captain Everett in retirement and Colonel Jack Collins suspended from all field operations as per presidential order.
“Are the British going to allow American examination of the craft?” Jason asked before Will could in their never-ending competition to be first in everything.
“Thus far they think the turning over of the watch was enough. Until they have thoroughly examined the ship, or whatever it is, they won’t budge. It seems the fight to get the most technology is ongoing. But the strange thing is, Niles, Matchstick, and even Colonel Collins know what the British are up to under the ice but they are keeping it close to the vest.”
“Does it have something to do with these strange names floating around security, Overlord and such?” Mendenhall asked.
“Details of that operation will get anyone fired around here for even mentioning it. So, your guess is as good as mine.”
“Dr. Golding,” Europa announced, “Chato’s Crawl has requested restricted satellite weather data from the NASA mainframe.”
“Damn,” Pete hissed as he shook his head. “Name of asset requesting data stream?” he asked.
“Identification code: Magic.”
“Matchstick again?” Jason asked as his smile grew. “The little fella is working overtime, I guess.”
“But on what?” Pete asked. “When he requests military data from anywhere he is usually forthcoming about what he’s looking for. But now I make requests for verification as to why he wants that data, and he clams up.”
Will Mendenhall looked at the clock readout in blue numbers that was projected onto the white plastic wall of the computer center.
“Well, get Dr. Pollock to sign off on Matchstick’s request, and I think it’s time we pay our friend in the desert a visit. Pete, please keep up on the Antarctic surveillance.” Mendenhall hesitated and then faced Pete again. “Without stepping on toes and mentioning this Operation Overlord, whatever it may be.”
“Will do. Also, when you get out to Chato’s Crawl, ask Matchstick what is so important about Charlie’s cryptozoology department. He’s been spending an inordinate amount of time running through Crypto’s files and Charlie Ellenshaw hasn’t figured out a pattern to Matchstick’s research yet. If he’s interested in Crypto, he should ask Charlie directly; he could be more of a help.”
“Okay.” Mendenhall turned to Jason. “Feel like flying out to Arizona?”
“Sure, beats sitting here listening to Pete,” Jason said as he slapped Golding on the back. “But as a field team we need two more security people, buddy, and guess what? We’re fresh out of live bodies. Everyone we have in security is either in the field chasing down leads to crashed saucers or on security duty here. As you know, even with gate two shut down we’re still shorthanded.”
“I’ve got that covered. Since we need Charlie on this trip he’ll be listed in the field report as added security.”
Jason smiled as he knew right where Will was heading. “Besides Charlie, who’s they in that equation?”
Will started to walk up the stairs that led to the theater-style seating above the main floor.
“The last I heard, Antarctica was still way down south. I think Chato’s Crawl is safe enough for our intrepid Colonel Collins to join us.”
Jason Ryan looked at Pete.
“After finding Captain Everett’s watch in two-hundred-thousand-year-old ice I don’t find very much safe about anything.”
“I hear that.”
* * *
The knock sounded loudly on his door. His eyes never left the screen full of information that scrolled across his face inside the darkness of his private quarters. The eyes scanned a document he had stared at for hours on end. It was an image of the only scrap of evidence in the murder of a thirty-one-year-old CIA agent. The internal memorandum was of U.S. government origin and was known to be used by three of the top agencies in the country—the FBI, the National Security Agency, and the CIA. The memo directed the young agent to a meeting she never
returned from. The key to the document was the small dash-dot system in the left-hand corner. Pete and Europa finally deciphered the code and broke it down to indicate the memo originated at the desk of someone at the CIA.
The subject of the memo was the very man looking at the image supplied by Europa. It was a memo listing his name and day and dates of where he was at. It was a tracking report from a bug that had been planted covertly on his person, and the memo was an order to the contracted satellite company doing the tracking—Cassini Space-Based Systems—by the person or persons responsible for the young agent’s and another female’s death. The eyes scanned the document one last time and then Jack Collins shut off the monitor and turned his unshaven face toward the steel door of his quarters—or as he had come to think of it, his prison.
“Come,” he said as he stood. He paced to the bathroom and splashed water on his face just as the door opened. Will Mendenhall stuck his head inside.
“Feel like getting the hell out of here for a while, Colonel?” Will asked as his eyes studied the usually immaculate quarters. His eyes fell on the empty Jack Daniels bottle and several glasses that lined his desk. The room was a mess and so unlike Collins that Will shook his head.
Jack came out of the bathroom drying his hands on a towel. When he was finished he allowed it to slip through his fingers and onto the carpeted floor.
“What is it, you busting me out?” Jack started to slip into an olive-drab-colored T-shirt over his bare chest.
“Something like that. We’re shorthanded on a routine detail and it should afford you to get a little air since it’s nowhere near the South Pole.”
Collins looked at Will for the longest time.
“Still nothing on the origins of Mr. Everett’s watch?”
Mendenhall’s silence was enough of an answer. Jack angrily slipped into a wrinkled white dress shirt and started buttoning it. As long as he was restricted to base because of this archeological find in Antarctica he could not get out of the complex to find the killer of the young CIA agent—his sister, Lynn Simpson Collins. He knew the watch had to have been discovered in the efforts to free the largest part of Operation Overlord from the ice, a fact he couldn’t share with Will or anyone else who wasn’t in on the planned response to a possible Gray invasion.
Overlord Page 6
