by Peter Parkin
The Pentagon is the home of the U.S. Department of Defense, and a lot of people are surprised to hear that it's not actually located in Washington, D.C. But it's darn close. The Pentagon actually resides in Arlington, Virginia, which is just across the Potomac River from Washington. So, a different state, but close enough to be considered part of the metropolis of Washington.
It's the largest office building in the world with about 6,500,000 square feet of space. A mind-boggling small city of about 30,000 people work here. The building has five sides, five floors above ground, two basement levels and five ring corridors on each floor. Doing the math, there are almost eighteen miles of corridors.
The Pentagon was a mysterious but oddly ignored building until September 11th, 2001. Most people knew little about the structure until that infamous day. The official story was that a hijacked American Airlines 757 jet slammed into the western side of the complex that day, killing 374 people.
Fiona grimaced as she thought of that day. She didn't join the Pentagon staff until a year after that incident, but she and many others still stuck their tongues solidly in their cheeks whenever they heard the official story spouted. She didn't believe for a second that it was a jet—she was convinced it was a missile. And who fired the missile? She didn't want to think about it.
But, she couldn't believe how anyone could think that a massive jet could soar over Washington's perimeter, swoop in over busy thoroughfares and come in as low as just a few feet off the ground to ram a hole in the Pentagon shell. And no one got a photo. That's why she couldn't believe it—this day and age, no one got a photo?
A missile flying at warp speed would be a little harder to photograph— but a jet, flying so close to the ground that it could have been shaving the grass, was not captured on camera? She shook her head in disbelief as she walked—she suspended belief almost every day on this job, she reflected. If it wasn't one thing, it was another.
She remembered a coincidence that was almost too weird to be true— but it was true. Construction on the Pentagon commenced on, of all dates, September 11th, 1941.
The building was erected during WW2, so compromises on materials were made due to steel being needed more in the manufacturing of warships.
Couldn't be wasted on buildings, even a war building. So, concrete was used extensively instead of steel. And the outer walls were made of limestone instead of the usual marble that would typically have been used for a government building of such majestic caliber. President Roosevelt insisted that marble would not be used, as Italy was the major supplier in the world of marble products. Since Italy was one of the three countries the U.S. had declared war against, they couldn't be seen as buying their products while bombing the shit out of them.
Fiona thought back to when she first joined the Pentagon, almost ten years ago now. She had been recruited as a junior staffer, and worked her way up to the position she now held: Deputy Director of Press and Public Relations. Before joining the government she had been an up and coming reporter at The Washington Post. A job she thought she'd enjoy doing forever—a perfect application of her Masters degree in journalism from the University of Southern California.
But Uncle Sam had called, or more appropriately, summoned. They appealed to her sense of duty and patriotism and it had worked. She was forty-two years old now, and perfectly in line for the top job in Public Relations. And the money was good too—much more than she could have ever made at the Post.
She wasn't surprised at the money she was making, knowing what deep pockets the military establishment seemed to have at their disposal. The DOD budget accounted for a whopping 25% of the entire U.S. Federal budget, and 53% of all Federal discretionary spending. The total budget for the Department of Defense was now approaching 1.5 trillion dollars, an amount that made Fiona shake her head in dismay.
And despite the feigned fretting about energy consumption and government efforts to make lowly consumers think of their responsibilities for conserving energy, the Department of Defense was the largest single consumer of energy in the country, a fact that the government certainly didn't ever talk about. The DOD spent almost 2.5 billion on energy each year, enough to power millions of homes. And fuel was another story—the DOD burnt an average of 12.6 million gallons of fuel every single day.
She looked through the glass corridor windows as she walked, and remembered being told on her tour ten years ago that there were a total of seven gleaming acres of glass in the Pentagon. There were also thirteen elevators and 131 stairways. Everything was big and over the top in government, especially the U.S. government where image was everything.
Fiona wondered whether or not anyone on today's tour would ask why the building was basically an occult-symbol pentagram. And whether it was true that the man who commissioned the building construction, Franklin D. Roosevelt, the thirty-second President of the United States, was a Freemason inaugurated into that secret society way back in 1933. And was there any occult significance to the fact that the Pentagon was a five-sided building, with five floors, each floor made up of five concentric pentagrams, separated by five interior courtyards, with a five acre courtyard in the middle. And did the number five and pentagrams not have some significant attachment to Satan?
Fiona chuckled at the thought—she knew it wouldn't be the first time some smart-ass university student who belonged to the Bush-era hate club asked questions that made the tour leaders cringe and squirm.
Finally arriving at the lobby area, she was just in time to see her visitors being screened through the metal detectors. She waved at them and they waved back. Looking at her watch, she realized that time was once again tight today. After this group, she had two more meetings and one press conference before her day was over. She loved it...and hated it at the same time. Well, hate was a strong word—she felt uneasy. For some reason, she felt uneasy— about the words she had to deliver, about the stories she was told to believe. At times they were, well, unbelievable.
Today she was meeting with two representatives from CNN. They wanted updates from her on the Pentagon's plans for outer space. This meeting was triggered by recent reports that she had had to produce for the media relating to yet more satellites that were on their way to terra firma. Two of the beasts had lost their orbit and were on their way down. She had no choice but to admit that they were nuclear-powered and had small amounts of plutonium on board. All indications were that they would crash safely into the Pacific... but who knew for sure? The public was nervous, and CNN loved it. They wanted to milk it. Fiona would keep her cool as she always did, and spout the company line: "These satellites had nothing whatsoever to do with the military. They were put into space for mapping and communication purposes. They were not, I repeat, not spy satellites."
Of course the media wouldn't buy it—and Fiona couldn't blame them. She didn't really buy it either.
Today, CNN didn't just want to talk about the satellites that were ready to return to earth. This meeting also pertained to an ongoing series they were doing on the 'future weaponization of space,' going back to the Reagan years when 'Star Wars' became the topic of the day. Fiona would have to handle that one gingerly, because it was still a taboo topic around the Pentagon. She didn't know what to believe and really didn't know what to say. In her heart of hearts, and being a bit of the cynic that ten years at the Pentagon would make one, she didn't really believe at all that weapons weren't already out there. She shuddered at the thought.
While she was waiting patiently for her visitors to finish being screened by the USPPD, she caught a quick glance of herself in the lobby wall mirror. Fiona adjusted her skirt a bit, which was being plagued by a bit of static today. She smiled contentedly. At forty-two, she knew she didn't look her age, and that made her feel good. She took care of herself. Today she was wearing a very proper beige blouse, with a stylish black skirt. Her hair was down today—sometimes she wore it up, but liked it best when it hung to her shoulders. Auburn hair, hazel eyes that sometimes looked green,
and a body that still betrayed the athlete that she had been in her youth. And still was, but to a lesser extent—aging did have its limitations, unfortunately.
She was still attractive and she knew it. But she wasn't obsessed with it. And Fiona hated the leers that she would get from time to time—did those clowns really think that girls were flattered by tongues hanging out in mock horny? Making her feel like a piece of meat?
Her brain was such that she could talk rings around almost any man. Yet, most of them would never take a good-looking woman seriously. She still attracted admiring glances from younger and older men alike, and while flattered to have those glances, she didn't care all that much. She was a confident woman, secure in who she was, and didn't need the flattery of men to make her feel good about herself.
Weary of dating, she'd dropped herself out of the race over the last two years. She had a social life, but it was with her girlfriends or groups of people. She had grown tired of the one-on-one games.
Older men had baggage and were usually two-time losers. Younger men just wanted to have sex right away—bing, bang, boom. And wanted to brag about bagging a cougar. She hated that term. She wasn't a cougar, and she certainly wasn't going to spend an evening listening to some shallow little snot-nose bragging about himself and hoping to impress her enough to take him to bed.
She sighed—where were the real men? Where were the modest guys who showed respect towards a girl, wanted to know her and not just her body? She didn't know if she'd ever meet one again.
She had one, was married to him for twelve years until a drunk driver killed him on his way home from work. That was five years ago now and Fiona knew she still wasn't over it. And the shallow self-centered men she had met since, convinced her even more that she would never be over it. Had Matt been the only one for her? She sniffed and wiped away a tear.
Then she remembered. Tonight she was meeting a man. But it wasn't a date, thank God. Her old friend Barb Jenkins had asked her to meet one of her friends, the son of a legendary DOD lawyer, Lucy Chambers. His name was...Dennis, yes, that was it. She would enjoy this. A night out with no pretensions. A non-threatening evening with a man. No games. Just dinner and a chat.
She saw the CNN predators heading her way. She smiled her biggest Pentagon smile and walked towards them. Fiona Perry would charm them today into thinking that the Pentagon was the equivalent of Winchester Cathedral. They'd be putty in her hands...and then afterwards she would wash her hands thoroughly.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
While painstakingly adjusting his tie in front of the hallway mirror, a sweet voice called out from the kitchen. "Don't you look handsome tonight!"
Dennis turned his head and smiled at Felicity. "Well, thanks. I guess I can still dress myself up once in a while, eh?"
"Oh, you look handsome even in your shorts and T-shirt."
Dennis blushed. While it was nice to get this kind of attention from a young twenty-something, he felt uncomfortable at the same time.
"So, if you don't mind my asking, do you have a hot date tonight?" Dennis laughed. "No, no, nothing like that. I'm just meeting a friend of Barb's for dinner—to talk about some of the strange stuff that's been coming out of my mom's mouth."
"Male or female?"
"Well, female—but it's just a dinner meeting. Nothing more."
Felicity smiled her coy little smile. "Hmm...lucky girl."
Dennis blushed again.
"Is she pretty?"
"I don't know. I'll report back to you after I meet her."
"Make sure you do that. Does she have a pretty name?"
Dennis finalized the tightening of the knot on his tie and walked to the kitchen where Felicity was standing in a flirty little pose.
"I guess she does, yes. Fiona Perry. Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?" Felicity sighed in frustration. "Dennis, your tie is not right at all!" He noticed that she was no longer calling him 'Mr. Chambers.'
She walked up to him and wrapped her fingers around his collar, sliding them against the skin of his neck. She pulled, twisted, and tightened.
"There, that's better." She stood back and admired her handiwork. Dennis felt drips of sweat forming where her fingers had just been.
"Thanks. I think I'm ready to go. Wish me luck."
Felicity walked with him to the front door. "Don't worry, I'll take good care of your mother while you're gone. And good luck—but what am I wishing you luck about? The girl? Or the information?"
"Felicity, I told you—I just want information."
She put her hands on her hips. "Okay, I believe you. But what makes you think this Fiona girl can help?"
"Well, she works at the Pentagon where my mother used to work. And she's a little unhappy with things over there, so she might be disgruntled enough to help do some digging around for me. The Department of Defense is a pretty secretive organization. I could use someone who cares enough to search out a mystery."
Felicity nodded. "Makes sense. But Lucy's only mentioned two things to you so far: that package thingy, and something about a moon mission that everyone knows never happened. And as you pointed out, not only did an Apollo 19 never happen, but neither did an Apollo 18. How can this girl possibly help out with these things?"
"I have no idea—I'm just shooting blanks right now. Any place to start would be nice. I have nothing to go on. Except that in addition to those two things my mom mentioned, I know that she left the Pentagon at fifty years of age with a huge severance payment. What that means, I don't know."
Felicity scratched her chin. "Would you like me to try from time to time to get your mother to open up about some of these things? She seems to trust me more now."
Dennis suddenly realized he'd been talking too much. He looked at her hard. "Don't ever suggest something like that again, Felicity. I think I've told you too much already. I don't want anyone prying into my mom's brain without me being here. Understand?"
Felicity pouted, but Dennis noticed that it was more of a flirty pout than a sad pout. "I'm sorry, Dennis. I was just trying to be helpful. As a nurse, I have special training and usually develop a rapport with my patients. You might be able to use me that way." She reached up and began brushing some specks of dust off the shoulder of his suit jacket.
Dennis grabbed her hand and lifted it gently off his shoulder. He spoke in a low soft tone to her. "I think you should go back to calling me 'Mr. Chambers,' okay?"
*****
As soon as he walked into Luigi's Italian Eatery on Constitution Avenue he saw her, and knew it was her. Not because he knew what she looked like, because he didn't. And not because she was the only one sitting alone, because she wasn't. He just knew. There was something instantly familiar about her, and he knew that it was her table that he was supposed to be walking towards. Which he did.
The hostess tried to stop him. "Sir, can I help you find your party?" He ignored her and kept walking as if in a trance.
"Fiona?"
She looked up from her menu and smiled at him. Then she stood and held out her hand.
"How did you know it was me?"
"Didn't Barb tell you? I'm a cop."
She laughed as they shook hands. Dennis slid into a chair across from her and smiled. In fact he couldn't stop smiling—felt like a little schoolboy. She was so pretty. And so strangely familiar.
First order of business was ordering wine. Fiona deferred to Dennis so he ordered his favorite Merlot from the Sonoma Valley. They toasted to new friendships, and began the mandatory small talk.
But the small talk grew to big talk, and Dennis was astounded to discover how much he was opening up to this complete stranger. And she was opening up to him. The time just flew by. By the time dessert was served, they had pretty much shared their entire life stories with each other. And Dennis was still smiling.
"Dennis, I must say I've really enjoyed this dinner with you. But...we haven't yet talked about why we're even having this dinner. So...why are we here?"
Dennis l
eaned his elbows on the table and gazed into her hazel eyes. "I need your help."
"In what way? I know of course about your mother—sad about the Alzheimer's especially considering how brilliant she was. They still talk about her over at the Pentagon, and how brave she was to just throw it all away at such an early age."
"Can I tell you some things, Fiona? I mean, you barely know me and if you can't help me I understand totally. But I'll need to share some things with you that might make you uncomfortable. So...thought I'd warn you first. If you'd rather not, I won't and we can just say we had a nice dinner together. And maybe do it again sometime."
She cocked her head. "Oh, that's so sweet: warning me and giving me the opt-out option. Let me just say first that I would love to have dinner with you again, regardless of what you might tell me. So...that being out of the way, share whatever you want with me and we'll see if I can make any sense out of it. Remember, I deal with the press all the time, and I handle PR for the largest, most powerful military machine in the world. There's little that can shock me." She smiled warmly at him.
Dennis caught his breath. Not because he was nervous about what he was going to tell her, but because she left him breathless. He had never ever gazed at such an expressive face before. She made little motions with her mouth, little expressions that were hard to describe and impossible to forget. The twinkle in her eyes and the way they opened wide when she talked about something she was happy about.
There seemed to always be something going on in that pretty little head, and she would shake that head in adorable little ways when she was trying to make a point. He could see that she would be a dynamo in meetings— her animated way of expressing herself was both charming and disarming. And one thing he liked that surprised him—she wasn't flirty in the least. Fiona was classy and professional. He could tell she liked him though, and maybe she was indeed flirting with him in her own subtle way. But she wasn't like a lot of the other women he had met—where the flirting was obvious, brazen, and sometimes nauseating. Fiona kept it classy and he found that nicely refreshing.
