Groom Lake (15 page)

Val lifted a casing on his left forearm that exposed a small keypad and LED display. He entered a code and the system initialized.

Removing a helmet from its carrying case, he slipped it over his head and wiggled it to a comfortable position before connecting its water tubes and power cord to the shoulder casing. Finally he zipped and clasped the suit across his chest.

A voice activated microphone processed basic commands so Val could input instructions on the move and not fuss with the keyboard. “Headset on,” he said. The computer lit a head-up display on the helmet’s face shield. Small readouts above and below Val’s field of vision displayed information like a computer screen.

The final complement to Val’s ensemble: a frayed burlap poncho. Primitive, but effective against the naked eye.

With the night vision in his helmet guiding the way, Val drove the ATV across a dark desert valley toward the Papoose Mountains where he would hide it under a camouflage tarp then continue on foot.

Blake approached any new situation methodically, taking extra precautions not to overlook details that would leave him unprepared. Venturing to Area 51 presented a horde of new challenges to consider where previous life experiences didn’t exist and couldn’t be drawn upon. He purchased a desert survival book, maps and Nevada tourism brochures to help educate himself for the desert journey. But his gravest concern stemmed from disobeying Professor Eldred’s orders not to go. He spent several long distance jogs along the beach pondering what events might alert the professor of his journey. Aside from somehow being arrested, he figured the next greatest threat came from the license plates on their vehicle. Desmond was reluctant to drive for that reason, claiming his plates would bring them immediate and unwanted attention, which only compounded Blake’s concerns about the trip. So he needed to do something about the plates.

A horn blared from the street in front of Blake’s apartment. He walked out to see Trevor attempting to parallel park a Chevy Suburban that would be their means of transportation. Trevor stopped long enough to roll down the window, “Look at this badass vehicle. It’s loaded.” He shifted the car into reverse and tried to finagle the proper angle that would allow a clean parallel maneuver, but ran the back tire into the curb. “Screw it,” he yelled to Blake. “Grab the bags and let’s go pickup the alien hunter.”

To alleviate his concerns about the plates being traced to him, Blake arranged to rent an SUV through a company that specialized in providing vehicles to the entertainment industry for filming. Their records weren’t stored in a mainframe computer like the major car rental companies. As an added buffer, Trevor put the vehicle in his name. In exchange for the favor, Trevor insisted that Blake buy him a six-pack of beer for the ride to Vegas.

“Can I have one of those beers?” Desmond asked from the backseat once they were on the freeway and Trevor cracked open the first can from his shotgun position in the front seat.

Appreciating anyone who drank beer in the morning, Trevor passed him a can.

As they neared Barstow—the halfway point between Los Angeles and Las Vegas—Blake realized that Trevor and Desmond had finished the beer. “Hey, we have a serious hike ahead of us tonight.”

“It’s not that serious if you’ve done it as much as me,” Desmond bragged, his senses easing just a bit from his three-beer buzz. Having made the hike countless times, he knew what was in store, and like most who drank frequently, Desmond didn’t think the alcohol affected his senses.

“So, Blake said you got us a casino rate at the hotel,” Trevor interjected. “What’s your game?”

“I don’t bet much,” Desmond replied. “I’ve got contacts at The Sands.” He paused momentarily, wondering if he should elaborate, and figured
what the heck
? “There was a time—it could still be going on in some capacity—when certain defense contractors made monetary contributions to the Pentagon.”

“Payoffs?” Blake asked.

“We called them nickel jobs. I was the bagman. They would send me to Nellis on some smokescreen Air Force project and I’d get a room at The Sands. I’d stay for a few days and have as many as a half dozen visitors delivering money to my room. I must have carried a million in cash over the years. Anyways, I lived it up at the hotel, making a few friends in the back office.”

Blake gave him a discerning look through the rearview mirror.

“Don’t look so surprised,” Desmond told him. “Mobsters come in a variety of shapes and sizes, including a few in military uniforms.” He leaned his head back and rested his eyes, hoping the alcohol would put him to sleep for a while and he could forget about his recent tangles with the government.

The morning sun seeped into Professor Eldred’s family room where he was still asleep on a sofa that had become his permanent bed. Clutched in his arm was a feather pillow that comforted him in his sleep as his wife once did. Rousing, he sensed Constance’s soft touch caressing his face. Opening his eyes, he still felt her touch, crawling down his neck. Swatting at the sensation, he scooped a roach that had been exploring his body. Disgusted, he threw it.

His son had encouraged him to sell the large home; cash in on his ocean view investment and move somewhere more manageable. He even offered to come visit and help organize for a move, but the professor said no. Too ashamed of the way he had let the house deteriorate, and that was when it still looked admirable. Now he could never let his son in.

At the kitchen counter, he poured a glass of Ensure, then personalized it with a shot of Kahlua. He continued to study his living conditions in dismay, and noticed sunlight squeezing through the curtains.
They weren’t like that yesterday
, he thought. He hadn’t touched them.
Could it have been Blake
? The professor decided to ask Blake if he’d used the sliding glass door, then remembered he wasn’t coming in today. He couldn’t understand how the curtains became askew.
Certainly nobody else has been here
. Pouring another glass of Ensure, he personalized it even more this time. His files. He needed to check his files.

Inside his lab, he walked straight to a large, fire-proof cabinet in the corner. Yesterday, he and Blake spent the day on campus with a mathematician who helped them crunch some formulas. It had been over a day since he opened this cabinet; the cabinet where he kept his most cherished documents. The cabinet’s lock required a special key with a half-inch extension at the tip. He inserted the key in the lock, but it stopped short. Jiggling it didn’t help.

The lock looked like a typical tumbler bolt design, but was actually two locks, one behind the other—same keyhole. The key’s extension, with delicately engraved notches, unlocked a second tumbler that opened a trap door in the cabinet’s floor. If anything but the key was inserted in the lock, a small plate dropped between the first and second tumblers, jamming the floor release and warning that someone had tampered with the keyhole.

Beginning to panic, he ran his hand along the top of the cabinet, felt a piece of cellophane tape and retrieved it. The tape had turned purple, a chemical reaction caused when the sticky side was exposed to oxygen for longer than a few seconds. Someone had opened his cabinet!

He felt uncomfortable, vulnerable in his fortress. Squatting at the cabinet’s base, he inserted his key in a small seam near the corner. Turning the key reset the lock.

Unlocking the cabinet properly caused the base to hydraulically lower six-inches so it could be slid under the floor joists, exposing a two-by-two opening, and a ladder. He backed into the closet, lowering his aging body to a small storage room under the lab. Feeling for a light switch on the wall, he flipped it on and saw the room with his documents still in tact.

Returning to the lab, he locked the cabinet, then stared at the phone, afraid to use it. His whole house felt different, like the walls had eyes. After throwing clothes and shoes in an overnight bag, he grabbed his keys and fled.

From the east, darkness advanced on a clear desert sky and exposed a growing sea of stars with each mile Blake clocked in the Suburban. Thinking about the night ahead made his gut churn like it used to before a high school football game. He recalled rumors about harassing treatment from the guards at Area 51: large men donning beige commando uniforms who stalked visitors to the remote area like a cheetah hunting zebra, playing games of cat and mouse that helped pass time during an otherwise mundane guard duty. He remembered hearing about signs that threatened use of deadly force against trespassers, and how easily a person could become disoriented in the dark, accidentally crossing the unfenced perimeter and losing any rights that might have protected them from the guards. Any rational person would live an entire life hoping to avoid such a menacing ordeal. Purposely putting himself in such a predicament, knowing the opposition waited for him in the desert, intensified Blake’s fears, but his desire for knowledge outweighed his fear.

They followed Highway 15 north of Las Vegas through light traffic. Most people flocking to the city of sin via automobile came from California, not the sparsely populated Northern Nevada and Utah regions. Then US 93 was an even lonelier strip of blacktop.

Trevor retrieved a camera from his bag and loaded a fresh role of film.

“Keep that camera out of sight once we get there,” Desmond told him. “They don’t allow photos.”

“That’s ridiculous. How are they going to stop me?”

“Arrest you.”

“For taking pictures?”

“They’ll call the Sheriff. If you don’t give him the film, he’ll confiscate your belongings and put you in jail. You’ll get your camera back, minus the film. It’s a blatant disregard of your civil rights.” Animosity in Desmond’s voice hinted that his knowledge came from personal experience. “We’ll be on public land. But what are you going to do? You’re in the middle of nowhere. They’ve got guns and a bad attitude.”

Like a lonely lighthouse beacon, the Suburban’s headlights blazed a trail through the dark desert, with only an occasional car passing in the opposite direction. Blake cruised at ninety, never considering the possibility of a speeding ticket. Besides the uncomfortable temperatures, only a narcissistic cop would enjoy sitting alone on a dark road, miles from help, in a region of the world popularized by its purported extraterrestrial activity.

Desmond broke the long silence, “America’s Extraterrestrial Highway.”

“What’s that?” Blake asked.

“Highway 375 is coming up. Folks around here call it America’s Extraterrestrial Highway. They coined it after people started seeing strange lights in the sky while driving the road late at night.”

Blake peered upwards through the windshield as he steered. “A lot of stars out tonight.”

“This is beautiful country,” Desmond said proudly, as if he was responsible for discovering it. “Not your typical desert. We’re at a high altitude—5000 feet in some areas—so there’s snowfall sometimes during the winter. A series of mountain ranges run north to south across the upper portion of the state creating a variety of remote valleys, home to nothing more than cattle ranches and military bases.”

Blake followed 375 through a mountain pass that opened to a wide valley—Tikaboo Valley—bordered to the west by the Groom Mountains. They were near.

The road followed a crescent descent to the valley’s floor where Joshua Tree silhouettes stood motionless across the barren lowland in a bewitching atmosphere that warned passersby to stay on the road.

“This place feels lifeless,” Blake commented.

With a snide chuckle, Desmond said, “That’s a feeling you’ll lose soon enough.” Pointing ahead to a dirt road on their left, “Slow down—that’s the main entrance.”

“Should I just turn in?”

“Yep. Set your mileage counter and keep it slow. The Bureau of Land Management leases most of the valley to cattle ranchers. If we hit a heifer, it’s expensive.”

“They get to this base by a dirt road?” Trevor asked, as if questioning Desmond’s directions.

“A well maintained dirt road,” Desmond pointed out. He retrieved a pair of night vision glasses from his bag in the back and handed them to Trevor. “Here, keep an eye out.”

“What am I keeping an eye out for?” he asked hesitantly.

“You’ll know when you see it.”

Blake maintained a slow speed that allowed the engine’s noise to be overwhelmed by the crunch of gravel under the tires. He tried keeping an eye in every direction, but only saw black, except the dirt road immediately ahead, illuminated by high-beams. His knuckles turned white from the tight grip he kept on the steering wheel. Each revolution of the tires moved them closer to an inevitable confrontation with security, and he felt it in his churning stomach.

“Where are the guards?” Trevor asked.

“Usually they hang out at a guard station just across the perimeter, but they already know we’re here. Sensors alert them when a car is on the road, and they got infrared telescopes on one of the nearby mountains.”

Trevor studied the reflection in the passenger-side mirror. “I think there’s a truck behind us.”

Blake looked in the rearview mirror, seeing only a cloud of dust illuminated in soft red from his taillights. “I don’t see anything.”

“He’s driving with his lights off,” Desmond said. “Pull over.“

Blake eased to a stop at the side of the road. A white Cherokee stopped ten yards behind them.

“I thought you just said they hang out at the guard station,” Blake said.

“That’s when nothing is going on. This is a good sign. Either of you want to get out and say hello?”

“Are you serious?” Blake responded.

“Yeah, walk up to them and say hello,” he replied, knowing the probable outcome.

“Are they going to bust me if I get out?” Trevor asked.

“No. You’ll be fine.”

Feeling a new level of trepidation, far greater than his first face-to-face encounter with a traffic cop, Trevor stepped into the road, which was more like a stage with Trevor the focal point as a spotlight from the Cherokee lit him up. From a plateau left of them another spotlight hit him. A second Cherokee. He paused, gathering his cocky courage, and walked into the light from the first Cherokee. He reached the front bumper, holding his hand over his eyes to block the spotlight trained on his face. The Cherokee’s engine made a shifting noise. The engine roared. Dust exploded from all four tires as they spun, gripped the dirt road, and sped the Cherokee past Trevor. The vehicle continued around the Suburban until it disappeared into the night.

With his hands cupped over his nose and mouth, Trevor managed to open his eyes enough to see through the dust cloud and find his way back to the Suburban.

Inside, “What was that all about?” he hollered at Desmond.

“They aren’t allowed to make unnecessary contact. If we didn’t approach them, they’d stick to us like flies on the cow dung out here. As it stands, you called their bluff, and won the first hand.”

Blake continued along the dirt road, furthering their advancement toward the perimeter. At the end of thirteen dusty miles, he pulled off the road and parked. They were at the base of the Groom Mountains, a quarter mile from the perimeter. Further up, the road wound through a pass in the foothills to a guard station on military property, then continued into Groom Valley, and the heart of the base.

Desmond passed out canteens and binoculars.

“Is the Suburban going to be okay?” Blake asked.

“BLM land is public domain. Anyone has the right to walk, drive or camp on this land for up to fourteen days at a time. That’s not to say the guards would let you enjoy yourself for fourteen days. A few hours is tough enough. But they don’t mess with the vehicles. They want you to drive away in them.” With that said, Desmond began the trek that would show Blake and Trevor America’s bureaucratically invisible military installation.