Runaway Heart

by Stephen J. Cannell

  He blew them up and showed them to Tom Lawson and Gil Grant, who, at the time, were sick and dying from some strange toxic waste or radio-electric illness. They claimed they had gotten sick from working in S-4, a secure area with test beds for the antigravity propulsion systems. These systems were later called pulse-detonation wave engines, or hydrogen-powered scramjets. When Herman had shown Gil and Tom the pictures he intended to use in court the two men identified much of what he had caught on film.

  They pointed out a restricted block of military airspace located in the center of Groom Lake. It was marked on all military and civilian air charts, as R-4808-E, but it was known as "The Box." The two men explained that a military Code 61 restricted all flights over The Box, from the ground to deep space. Even most military pilots stationed at Area 51 were forbidden to overfly this zone. At the center of this flight-restricted area was a small, insignificant building that looked to be only one story high, but according to Gil and Tom had six levels underground. This huge, subterranean facility housed the legendary Level Four, known as Nightmare Hall, where bizarre genetic experiments were supposedly taking place.

  Nightmare Hall was officially labeled the Secure Dulce Biogenetics Lab. Tom said that he had worked there in the late eighties and had seen grotesque, bat-like creatures that were seven feet tall. He described lizard-like humans, gargoyles with scaly skin that he called drago-reptoids.

  To be honest, Herman hadn't believed much of it because Gil and Tom were both very sick and toward the end had been hallucinating. Back then it was hard to believe that any of this was really going on. But Herman knew without a doubt that both men had contracted their strange illnesses at Area 51 sicknesses

  that none of their civilian doctors had ever seen before.

  Herman attempted to compel the Air Force to identify the project the men had been working on so a cure might be devised. His secondary goal was the total exposure of the illegal science he suspected was taking place out there. He'd failed to even get his case to trial.

  Through it all Herman learned that published reports of scientific discoveries often lagged many generations behind what was really going on, especially if the experiments were supersecret "black projects." As more and more reports surfaced on gene splicing and hybrid animal experimentation, along with the spectacular arrival of Dolly, the cloned sheep, Herman began to suspect that unimaginable horrors might really be lurking in Nightmare Hall.

  Tom and Gil died of their illnesses in 1997, but Herman, working pro bono, was still trying to get a lawsuit for damages into court on behalf of their children. In the process he'd seen more redacted material than was in the Warren Report. Ultimately, the government did what it always did claimed national security and withheld all of his subpoenaed information.

  Since the men's deaths Herman often studied his blowups of Area 51 particularly the secure Dulce buildings that were circled in ballpoint. He pondered Tom and Gil's stories about the "igloos" dirt-covered hangars that hid the Psych Experimental Aircraft from the Russian satellites that passed overhead twice a day. He wondered about their tales of the antigravity flying machines that were supposedly reverse-engineered from a flying saucer that had crashed on the Foster Ranch in New Mexico in July 1947. He looked at his photos longingly, like a father studying shots of his dead children. His sense of loss was profound, the dream of what his lawsuit might have discovered running wild.

  In the end it was hard to know what to think, hard to believe that such grotesque experiments were taking place under our own government's supervision.

  Or was it?

  One fact was certainly clear and rose above all others. Whatever was happening at Area 51, the U.S. government was determined to keep it a secret from its citizens. That fact alone fueled his suspicions.

  Herman was jolted back to the present when the helicopter touched down. The whining engine finally silenced and he heard people talking softly outside. He became aware of Jack Wirta breathing next to him. The smell of fear was sharp inside his hood. His eyes stared into the black cloth as he imagined everything but saw nothing.

  Suddenly, strong hands pulled Herman out of the helicopter and he was led to a vehicle. A door was opened and he was pushed roughly inside.

  "Where am I?" he said, to find out if they would respond.

  "Shut up," a voice growled. Then two doors were slammed and the car accelerated. Then he heard someone say "Dulce Lab."

  The car stopped and he was taken out of the back seat and led across poured concrete. He felt no seams or irregularities in the pavement as he walked, deciding it might be some sort of runway. An electronic beep sounded. A door hissed open. He was led inside.

  Cool air-conditioning. Even at night, this building was temperature-controlled. Another airlock hissed, then he was in an elevator descending fast, his stomach pressed up against his diaphragm as they went down. Soon the elevator door opened and there was another long walk down an airconditioned corridor. Two security locks chirped. He was pushed into a chair and finally the hood was snapped off. Herman blinked his eyes in the harsh neon light.

  He was looking at a man with a shaved head and thick glasses wearing a white lab coat with a stethoscope around his neck. The lab coat had an insignia on it similar to the one the Rangers wore, but slightly more complicated:

  Tom and Gil had drawn a bunch of different insignias for him, but never one that looked like this.

  "Take off your clothes."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "We're giving you a physical exam."

  "The hell you are!"

  "Mr. Strockmire, you are going to have an examination whether we give it to you in your present state or do it under anesthesia."

  "You kidnapped me."

  "I wouldn't know about that. I only have your name, medical records, and instructions to verify your health. That's it. You want to know more, ask the colonel. But either you take your clothes off or I'll get someone in here from CDF."

  Herman knew from his now-deceased clients that CDF stood for Central Defense Forces. The secret police for Area 51. He began to unbutton his shirt, then took off his pants. The doctor went over him quickly: blood pressure high, lungs clear, heart…

  "What's wrong with your heart?" the doctor asked, concerned.

  "I have a recurring arrhythmia. It started up again when they kidnapped me," Herman answered. "It's why my blood pressure

  n

  is

  "That's not gonna work. Just a minute." The doctor walked out of the room, leaving Herman alone.

  The examination area had security cameras pointing down from two corners. He could smell the air coming through the vents. It had some kind of pleasant odor, faint, sweet, and medicinal.

  After a minute the doctor returned with two CDF men wearing camouflage. "Lie down. Take off your underwear and spread your legs."

  "Ain't gonna happen," Herman said.

  "I'll give it to him," the doctor ordered. Immediately the two CDF commandos jumped Herman and held him while the doctor gave him a shot. In seconds he was asleep.

  Herman didn't often dream, or at least he didn't remember much if he did. But now he dreamed a strange, terrifying tale. The nightmare was populated with half-reptile, half-human monsters and large bat-like creatures.

  He also dreamed of Gino Zimbaldi relived his trip to JPL, talked with Zimmy about the Ten-Eyck Chimera file, explaining Roland's death and his desperate need to get the fifty pages decoded. As he was talking to Zimmy the huge monster bats hovered over him.

  Herman woke up.

  He was back inside Barbra's car with a terrible headache.

  He squinted out the window at the little baseball diamond. The sun was already up. He looked at his digital watch. The battery was dead. Strange, he thought. The watch is only six months old. His groin was killing him so he unbuttoned his pants and looked down at his abdomen.

  He had a bandage there. Herman slowly peeled it off. Underneath were four sutures closing a tiny incision.
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  They'd done some kind of operation on him!

  Shaken, he opened the car door and stumbled out, leaning against the silver Mercedes, fumbling with his pants while he tried to remember what had happened. The dreamlike nightmare was receding quickly, but he tried hard to recall it so it would stay in his conscious. Everything up to when the doctor gave him the shot was clear. After that only the hateful dream. When he got to the part about Zimmy it seemed less like a dream and more like a memory.

  Herman took his pulse.

  His heart was normal, beating a steady seventy-eight beats per minute. He'd had the arrhythmia when he went to the base and now it was gone. From everything he'd learned from his doctors, once an arrhythmia started it had to be converted in order to reverse the condition. But this one had gone away on its own. Herm wondered how that could be.

  He was pretty sure he had been on the fourth level of Dreamland, somewhere near Nightmare Hall. Gil and Tom had said that the experimentation unit was on the same level as the medical facility. Of course, he had no physical evidence, and he couldn't prove any of it. Except for one thing.

  His sinuses.

  Whatever was blooming in the central Nevada desert always got him. Every time he was there his sinuses ended up packed tighter than a Midas muffler, and right now they were completely plugged.

  Herman pushed away from the Mercedes and walked across the baseball diamond looking for Jack Wirta's Fairlane. He found it parked a short distance down the dirt road. Wirta was sleeping in the back seat.

  Herman reached in and shook his shoulder.

  "Jack… hey, Jack. Wake up!"

  The P.I. opened his eyes and looked up at Herman. "Shit," he said and sat up. "What happened? Where am I? What time is it?"

  "I'm not sure what happened. We're back at that little baseball diamond in the Malibu Mountains. My watch is fried, so I don't know what time it is."

  Jack looked at his watch. "Mine's dead, too." He shook his head. "One minute I'm pissing in a cup and getting a shot, next thing I'm back here and I got some fucked-up dreams."

  "I think I know at least, I have an idea. But we gotta make sure Susan's okay first."

  "Susan?"

  "If they took us, I'm worried they mighta snatched her, too."

  Herman ran back to the Mercedes. It was strange, but he ran as he hadn't been able to run in years.

  He climbed in the car, started it, then drove past Jack, who made a k-turn and followed.

  Herman sped down the small road heading toward the beach and Susan, dreading what he might find there.

  Chapter Twenty-five.

  What they found was Susan sitting in the guest

  house with a strained, worried expression. She had been half-heartedly working on a UCLA application for student aid, and sprang to her feet as they came through the door.

  "Thank God you're all right," Herman said. "Where the hell have you two been? I called the cops, but they said they don't investigate missing persons cases for forty-eight hours."

  "Honey, you remember Gil and Tom?" "Of course I remember. How could I forget them?" But she was furrowing her brow.

  "Honey, you won't believe it. You won't, but you have to."

  "What?" She was getting impatient now. "We… Jack and I were kidnapped by CDF

  troops. We were taken away in an Aurora Hyper Whispership a prototype, I think."

  "A what?" Jack mumbled. His split lip where Paul hit him was sore and causing a lisp.

  "It's a prototype aircraft. An Aurora Whispership."

  "You sure it wasn't a Klingon Star Fighter?" Jack blurted.

  "I heard the pilot calling Dreamland Control. He said, 'We're entering The Box.' He said, 'this is Psych Twenty-seven.' Tom and Gil told me that Psych series aircraft were Aurora prototypes being tested at Area Fifty-one. They said the government was working on noise-cloaking devices for aircraft called 'Whisper-ships.' "

  "Wait. Hold on a minute' Who went to Area Fifty-one?" Jack asked.

  "We did."

  "We did?"

  "You bet we did. What kinda detective are you? We were out there inside the secure Dulce Genetics Lab on Level Four." He turned to Susan. "You remember what's done down there,

  honey?"

  "Nightmare Hall," she said. But the way she said it was disbelieving and incredulous.

  "It's where the government is doing research on aliens," Herm said. "At least, that's what Tom and Gil thought."

  "Whoa! Hold it! I'm not doing any X-Files shit."

  "Look, Jack, that's where we were."

  "That's where you were. I was at a plain old military base in the desert with guys wearing standard GI camouflage. There were no Star Fleet salutes and no aliens. Trust me, I saw everything."

  "We had on hoods. How could you see it?"

  "My hood was leaking. They got a moth problem they need to address."

  "You're kidding? You saw what was out there?"

  "Kinda." Now Jack was taking a step backward because Herman was moving in on him, that intense look back on his raccoon face.

  "Like what?" Herman challenged. "What did you see?"

  "Like what? Like miles of runways. Looked like they went all the way to the horizon."

  "The long strip on Papoose Lake! What else?"

  "I don't know… little dirt-covered hangars. Calm down, will ya?"

  "The igloos!" Herman shouted and spun triumphantly toward Susan. "He saw the igloos!"

  "No igloos. No Alaskans, no polar bears, no ice. Just little hangars built into mounds of dirt."

  "They're called igloos. They drag the prototype aircraft off the runways and hide 'em in there when the Russian satellites go over." Herman was really getting excited. "This proves what Tom and Gil were saying."

  "Really?" Susan seemed less sure.

  "We were there, honey. I know it! My sinuses… my sinuses were plugged when I got back. You know that's the only place I get sinus allergies."

  "You use your sinuses for global positioning?" Jack sneered.

  "Dad, slow down a minute."

  "We were there. Right inside Dreamland, right where Gil said they were doing tests on the aliens."

  "Herm, you've gotta stop with this alien stuff," Jack pleaded. "You sound like some lunatic who just took a ride in a spaceship. Keep it up and you're gonna start getting your meals delivered under the door."

  "Roland was killed by something that went right up the side of a glass tower, hung there, and pried open a window. A feat requiring superhuman strength. Then whatever it was ripped Roland apart. Shredded him."

  Jack turned to Susan. "Make him stop."

  "I think a hybrid, a Ten-Eyck chimera did it. Yes some halfman, half-space-alien, gene-spliced by using DNA from a dead intergalactic traveler.

  "From the planet Ten-Eyck?" Jack said sarcastically.

  "Maybe. Yeah… why not? A hybrid made at Dreamland in Nightmare Hall."

  "Excuse me. I gotta go outside and cough up a furball." Jack turned and walked out of the room onto the porch.

  He sat in one of the Brown Jordan deck chairs, his ass right there, pressed against the same white plastic that Barbra Streisand and Jim Brolin pressed their asses against. Not much of a thought, admittedly, but he was trying for some earthly reality. He decided that regardless of his attraction to Susan, he had to dump this gig.

  His memory of the trip was nothing like Herm's. Okay, the helicopter had been strange. He'd seen something with angled sides and all kinds of panels hanging off it. And, yes, it had been incredibly quiet, and he'd heard the Dreamland Control radio transmission, same as Herm. But that was a long way from hybrid aliens.

  What Jack remembered about their kidnapping was a little out there, but certainly not from some George Lucas epic. He remembered seeing the guys in camouflage with little round patches on their pockets. He remembered being put in a car and driven across the base, seeing the whatevers the igloos, and the little one-story building with all the security. He had caught a glimpse of that door
lock, squinting through the pinhole in his hood. There was a unique procedure for getting into the place: Everybody was dressed the same and each had an ID card that, he guessed, must have been reissued every morning, because it confirmed the individual's exact weight. The soldiers stepped on a scale and were weighed along with their weapons, then they inserted the card into a slot to verify the scale weight. Jack guessed nobody got to take a piss or sweat on duty. Next there was some

  kind of eye scan where a laser went into the left eye and read capillaries or indecent thoughts something. After which the door slid open.

  Jack remembered the ride down in the elevator, going to the little medical room, and the doctor with the bushy brown hair. Then Jack Wirta, private eye, was pissing into a cup like an NFL wide receiver. DNA?

  Then came the shot and the strange dream. The dream was sort of a replay of the trip he and Susan took to San Fran. He never remembered having a dream that seemed like a memory before. He and Susan were back in Alioto's Restaurant. He'd been telling her what the coroner's report said… He'd also dreamed about several of the conversations he'd had with Herman.

  He stood up and walked over to the patio wall, propped his foot up, and wished he hadn't stopped smoking. While he was having these thoughts he looked down and saw it.

  The sand was still wet from the rainstorm that had passed through after making its way south from San Francisco. The midnight downpour had darkened the sand and hardened it. Just outside the low brick wall there were a bunch of footprints. He leaned over and studied them. They all had the same sole markings, but appeared to be three different sizes. That meant three men.