Area 51 (27 page)

"And remember, they put Sputnik up in 1957." General Brown was caught up in Kennedy's theory. "While we were dicking around with the bouncers and not pursuing our own space program as aggressively as we should have, maybe they were working on these foo fighters and reverse-engineering them with a bit more success than we had. Hell, those damn Sputniks looked like these foo fighters."

Gullick turned to Kennedy. "Do you have any information that might be connected to this?"

Kennedy stroked his chin. "There's several things that might be of significance.

We know they have been carrying out secret test flights at their facility at Tyuratam in southern Siberia for decades, and we've never been able to penetrate the security there. They do everything at night and even with infrared overhead satellite imagery, we haven't been able to figure out what they've got. So they could be flying foo fighters."

"But these things went down into the Pacific," General Brown noted.

"They could be launching and recovering off a submarine," Admiral Coakley said.

"Hell, their Delta-class subs are the largest submarines in the world. I'm sure they could have modified one to handle this sort of thing."

"Any sign of Russian submarine activity from your people at the site?" General Gullick asked.

"Nothing so far. Last report I had was that our ships were in position and they were preparing to send a submersible down," Coakley replied.

Major Quinn had to grip the edge of his computer to remind himself that he was awake. He couldn't believe the way the men around the conference table were talking. It was as if they had all halved their IQ and added in a dose of paranoia.

Gullick turned his attention back to Kennedy and indicated for him to continue.

"This might not have anything to do with this situation, but it's the latest thing we've picked up," Kennedy said. "We know the Russians are doing work with linking human brains directly into computer hardware. We don't know where they got the technology for that. It's way beyond anything worked on in the West.

These foo fighters are obviously too small to carry a person, but perhaps the Russians might have put one of these biocomputers on board while using magnetic flight technology such as we have in the disks. Or they simply might be remotely controlled from a room such as we have here."

"We've picked up no discernible broadcast link to the foo fighter," Major Quinn said, trying to edge the discussion back to a commonsense footing. "Unless it was a very narrow-beam satellite laser link we would have caught it, and such a narrow beam would have been difficult to keep on the foo fighter, given its speed and how quickly it maneuvered."

"Could Von Seeckt have been turned?" Gullick suddenly asked. "I know he's been here from the very beginning, but remember where he came from. Maybe the Russians finally got to him, or maybe he's been working for them all along."

Kennedy frowned. "I doubt that. We've had the tightest security on all Majic-12 personnel."

"Well, what about this Turcotte fellow or this female reporter? Could either of them be working for the other side?"

Quinn started, remembering the intercept of Duncan's message to the White House chief of staff. Gullick mustn't have gotten to it yet. Again, he decided to keep his peace, this time to avoid an ass-chewing.

"I have my people checking on it," Kennedy said. "Nothing has turned up so far."

"Let's see what Admiral Coakley finds us in the Pacific.

Maybe that will solve this mystery," Gullick said. "For now, our priorities are sterilizing the crash site at White Sands and continuing our countdown for the mothership."

Major Quinn had been working at his computer, reading data from the various components of the project spread out across the United States and the globe. He was relieved when information began scrolling up. "Sir, we've got some news on Von Seeckt."

Gullick gestured for him to continue.

"Surveillance in Phoenix has picked up Von Seeckt,

Turcotte, and this female reporter, Reynolds."

"Phoenix?" Gullick asked.

"Yes, sir. I ordered surveillance on the apartment of the reporter who tried to infiltrate the other night once I found out that Reynolds was asking about him.

The surveillance just settled in place this evening and they've spotted all three targets at the apartment and are requesting further instructions."

"Have them pick up all three and take them to Dulce," Gullick ordered.

Quinn paused in sending the order. "There's something else, sir. The men we sent to check out Von Seeckt's quarters have found a message on his answering service that might be important. It was from a Professor Nabinger."

"What was the message?" General Gullick asked.

Quinn read from the screen. " 'Professor Von Seeckt, my name is Peter Nabinger.

I work with the Egyptology Department at the Brooklyn Museum. I would like to talk to you about the Great Pyramid, which I believe we have a mutual interest in. I just deciphered some of the writing in the lower chamber, which I believe you visited once upon a time, and it says: 'Power, sun. Forbidden. Home place, chariot, never again. Death to all living things.' Perhaps you could help shed some light on my translation. Leave me a message how I can get hold of you at my voice-mail box. My number is 212-555-1474.' "

"If this Nabinger knows about Von Seeckt and the pyramid-- " began Kennedy, but a wave of Gullick's hand stopped him.

"I agree that is dangerous"--Gullick was excited--"but of more importance is the fact that it seems Nabinger can decipher the high runes. If he can do that, then maybe we can . . ." Gullick paused. "Did our people check to see if Von Seeckt has contacted Nabinger?"

Quinn nodded. "Yes, sir. Von Seeckt called Nabinger's service at eight twenty-six and left a message giving a location for them to meet tomorrow, or actually this morning," he amended, looking at the digital clock on the wall.

"The location?"

"The apartment in Phoenix," Quinn answered.

Gullick smiled for the first time in twenty-four hours.

"So we can bag all our little birds in one nest in a few hours. Excellent. Get me a direct line to the Nightscape leader on the ground in Phoenix."

WHITE SANDS MISSILE RANGE, NEW MEXICO

The engine on the crane whined in protest, but the earth gave before the cable, and inch by inch Bouncer Three was pulled up out of its hole. As soon as it was clear, the crane operator rotated right, bringing the disk toward the flatbed that was waiting. In the glow of the hastily erected arc lights, Colonel Dickerson could see that the outer skin of the disk appeared to be unscathed.

As soon as Bouncer Three was down on the truck, Dickerson grabbed hold of the side of the flatbed and clambered up onto the wood deck and then onto the sloping side of the craft itself. His aide and Captain Scheuler were right behind him. Balancing carefully, Dickerson edged up until he was at the hatch that Scheuler had thrown himself out of two miles above their heads.

The interior was dark with the power off. Taking a halogen flashlight off his belt, Dickerson shone it down on the inside. Despite having fought in two wars and seen more than his share of carnage, Dickerson flinched at the scene within.

He sensed Scheuler coming up next to him.

"Oh, my God," Scheuler muttered.

Blood and pieces of Major Terrent were scattered about everywhere inside.

Dickerson sat down with his back to the hatch, trying to control his breathing while Scheuler vomited. Dickerson had been a forward air controller during Desert Storm and had seen the destruction wrought on the highway north out of Kuwait near the end of the war. But that was war and the bodies had been those of the enemy.

Goddamn Gullick, he thought. Dickerson grabbed the edges of the hatch, and lowered himself in. "Let's go," he ordered Scheuler, who gingerly followed.

"See if it still works," Dickerson ordered. He'd sure as hell rather fly it back to Nevada than have to cover it up and take back roads by night.

Scheuler looked at the blood- and viscera-covered depression that Terrent had occupied.

"You can take a shower later," Dickerson forced himself to say. "Right now I need to know whether we have power, and we don't have time to dean this thing up."

"Sir, I--"

"Captain!" Dickerson snapped.

"Yes, sir." Scheuler slid into the seat, a grimace on his face. His hands went over the control panel. Lights came on briefly, then faded as the skin of the craft went clear and they could see by the arc lights set up outside.

"We have power." Scheuler stated the obvious. He looked down at the altitude-control level and froze. Terrent's hand was still gripped tightly around it, the stub of his forearm ending in shattered bone and flesh. He cried out and turned away.

Colonel Dickerson knelt down and gently pried the dead object loose. Goddamn Gullick, Goddamn Gullick; it was a chant his brain was using to hold on to sanity. "See if you have flight control," he ordered in a softer voice.

Scheuler grabbed the lever. Space appeared below their feet. "We have flight control," he said in a rote voice.

"All right," Dickerson said. "Captain Travers will fly with you back to Groom Lake. We'll have pursuit aircraft flying escort. Got that, Captain?"

There was no answer.

"Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir," Scheuler weakly said.

Dickerson climbed back out of the disk and gave the appropriate orders.

Finally done, he walked away from the lights and behind the sandy ridge that the disk had crashed into. He knelt down in the sand and vomited.

THE CUBE, AREA 51

The lights were dim in the conference room and Gullick was completely in the shadows. The other members of Majic-12 were gone, trying to get some long-overdue sleep or checking in with their own agencies--except for Kennedy, the deputy director of operations for the CIA. He had waited as the others filed out.

"We're sitting on a fucking powder keg here," Kennedy began.

"I know that," Gullick said. He had the briefing book with Duncan's intercepted message in it. It confirmed that Turcotte had been a plant, but of more import was the threat that Duncan would get the President to delay the test flight. That simply couldn't be allowed.

"The others--they don't know what Von Seeckt knows, what you and I know, about the history of this project," Kennedy said.

"They're in it too far now. Even if they knew, it's too late for all of them," Gullick said. "Just the Majestic-12 stuff is enough to sink every damn one of them."

"But if they found out about Paperclip--" began Kennedy.

"We inherited Paperclip," Gullick cut in. "Just as we inherited Majic. And people know about Paperclip. It's not that big of a secret anymore."

"Yeah, but we kept it going," Kennedy pointed out.

"And what most people know is only the tip of the iceberg."

"Von Seeckt doesn't know Paperclip is still running, and he was only on the periphery of it all back in the forties."

"He knows about Dulce," Kennedy countered.

"He knows Dulce exists and that it's connected somehow with us here. But he was never given access to what has been going on there," Gullick said. "He doesn't have a clue what's going on there." The right side of Gullick's face twitched and he put a hand up, pressing on the pain he felt in his skull. Even thinking about Dulce hurt. He didn't want to speak about it anymore. There were more important things to deal with. Gullick ticked off the problems on his fingers.

"Tomorrow, or more accurately this morning, we take care of Von Seeckt and the others there in Phoenix. That will close that leak down.

"By dawn we'll have the mess at White Sands all cleaned up and the aircrews involved debriefed and cleared.

"We have the eight o'clock briefing by Slayden, which should help get Duncan off our back for a little while.

Long enough.

"Admiral Coakley should be giving us something on these foo fighters soon.

"And last but not least, in ninety-three hours we fly the mothership. That is the most important thing." General Gullick turned, facing away from Kennedy to end the discussion. He heard Kennedy leave, then reached into his pocket and pulled out two more of the special pills Dr.Cruise had given him. He needed something to reduce the throbbing in his brain.

AIRSPACE, SOUTHERN UNITED STATES

Checking the few photos that he had not seen before helped Professor Nabinger's fledgling high rune vocabulary grow by a phrase or two. The seats on either side of him were empty and there were photos spread out all over the row. He drank the third cup of coffee the stewardess had brought him and smiled contentedly.

The smile disappeared just as quickly, though, when his mind came back to the same problem.

How had the high rune language been distributed worldwide at such an early date in man's history, when even negotiating the Mediterranean Sea was an adventurefraught with great hazard? Nabinger didn't know, but he hoped that somewhere in the pictures an answer might be forthcoming. There were two problems, though. One was that many of the pictures showed sites that had been damaged in some way. Often the damage appeared to have been done deliberately, as in the water off Bimini. The second, and greater, problem was that many of the pictures were of high runes that were, for lack of a better word, dialects.

It was a problem that had frustrated Nabinger for years.

There were enough subtle, and sometimes not-so-subtle, differences in the high rune writing from site to site to show that although they had very definitely grown from the same base, they had evolved differently in separate locales.

It was as if the root language emerged in one place, been taken at a certain point to other locales, then evolved separately at each place. Which made sense, Nabinger allowed.

It was the way language worked. It also fit the diffusionist theory of the evolution of civilization.

The real problem for Nabinger--beyond the fact that the dialect made translation difficult--was that the content of the messages, once translated, was hard to comprehend.