Groom Lake (2 page)
Authors: Bryan O
GOVERNMENT SPOOKS
Summer 1994
Ben Skyles worked in a USAP (Unacknowledged Special Access Project). The government used USAPs to control sensitive research programs by segmenting the individuals and information involved. For Skyles, working in the USAP resembled a jail sentence: he had limited or no contact with his peers; incoming and outgoing information was controlled, monitored and regulated (as was Skyles himself); information about his surroundings was need-to-know; and the security was at times intimidating and brutal. Skyles often wondered what happened at the next stage of his USAP, how they used the materials and information he produced. But if he asked any questions, someone might ask questions about him.
Skyles glanced at a half circle of tinted glass in the ceiling. The camera inside wasn’t visible, but he knew it was there. Yet he didn’t know the camera was pointed at him.
In a nearby room—the White Room, codename for the Security Operations Center—a guard maneuvered a joystick to keep the camera trained on Skyles.
“Zoom on his face,” a man behind the guard ordered in a distinct raspy voice.
The guard obliged, bringing Ben Skyles’ face into full view, but he heard no additional instructions from the man for several moments. He turned his head slowly to the right, sensing the man’s presence but wondering if he might have left. The room was dim, lit primarily by video monitors, computer screens and desktop lamps. Despite the darkness, he saw the man’s arm, covered by a black suit sleeve, and noticed something in his hand—a smooth grayish object the man caressed with his thumb.
“Eyes forward,” the man said as he studied every twitch, stretch and nuance in Skyles’ facial expressions.
The checkout station was presided over by a muscular guard who always had a cup handy for discharging his tobacco-flavored saliva. On one occasion, his oral deployment spattered a worker in line, and someone had nicknamed him the Camel.
Approaching the Camel, Skyles pressed his face against an optical sensor that covered his eyes like a periscope’s viewing piece. A laser scanned his retinas, noting finite specs and lines in his eyes. Then a computer converted the results into a numerical code—Skyles’ identification number—and displayed his name and vital statistics for the Camel.
“I need you to step to the side,” the Camel said, pointing to a corner.
Alarmed, Skyles spurted out, “What’s the problem?”
“I just need you to cooperate and step aside for a minute.”
Feeling like a kindergartner being sent to the corner, Skyles waited, staring through an open exit door at his fellow base workers as they boarded an unmarked white 727 that would transport them back to Las Vegas.
When the last worker passed through the checkpoint, the Camel turned to Skyles and said, “I need your dosimeter.”
“Why?”
“Because they asked for it. I don’t ask questions; maybe you shouldn’t either,” the Camel said, with little concern for anything other than effectuating the task of delaying Skyles.
Skyles unclasped a radiation dosimeter—a small vial that measured exposure to radioactive elements—from his badge and handed it over. He hurried for the jet, pissed because he would be sitting in the rear, last one off in Vegas.
The man in the dark suit appeared at the security station. He nodded his appreciation to the Camel for delaying Skyles, then followed the same procedure as the others who had passed through the checkout station by having his eyes scanned.
The Camel had never experienced anyone pass through security without stopping for validation. In each case the computer identified the individuals by displaying their names and vital statistics before the phrase: CLEARANCE AUTHORIZED. This man was a rare exception. All that appeared on the computer screen was: CLEARANCE AUTHORIZED.
As the suit left the building, the Camel studied him, wondering as he always did, who the man was; but all he could do was wonder. The system was structured so support personnel would never know the suit went by the name Damien Owens.
With suave mannerisms and dapper in appearance, Owens rarely allowed himself to be seen without a suit, always dark, mostly black, and presented himself as an intelligence officer if pressed to answer such questions. But in this region of the country and in the circles Owens traveled,
intelligence officer
, was a vague response.
Owens typically avoided the commuter flights, opting instead for a lower profile. However, a phone tap alerted him to Ben Skyles’ scheduled rendezvous after work and he decided to make an exception. He boarded the plane last, waiting until a flight attendant closed a curtain leading to the main cabin so that no one—especially Skyles seated in the rear—would see him strap into a jump seat in the galley.
Upon landing in Vegas, Owens was first to disembark and hustled through a gated sidewalk alongside a small, private terminal at the west end of McCarran International Airport. In front, a black Suburban SUV with tinted windows idled curbside. Owens slipped in the passenger seat, determined to beat Skyles to his rendezvous.
Skyles remained in his seat for five minutes after the flight attendant opened the plane’s door. The base workers performed loading and unloading like a science; it helped that many of them had scientific backgrounds. Years back, a mathematician who frequented the base determined that taking the square of a row number, then dividing by two, told how many seconds one had to wait before being able to walk down the aisle without stopping. Skyles enjoyed testing the theory whenever he sat near the rear. But tonight he was too preoccupied with where he was going, and what he wanted to do, to bother.
Six minutes after Owens disembarked, Skyles passed through the gate to a spacious parking lot, surrounded by a chain link fence with v-shaped rows of razor wire on top. No signs indicated the parking lot and air terminal belonged to Janet Airlines—a pseudonym for Plain Jane Air Transportation, a fleet of Air Force planes bearing no service markings, which were leased as civilian aircraft and operated by a defense contractor.
Skyles left the lot driving the new BMW sedan his wife had insisted they buy—one of three in the fleet of yuppie-mobiles they owned—and followed flat Las Vegas streets to a neighborhood commercial complex east of the airport. The Oasis, a dimly lit restaurant and lounge, held the distinction of being the oldest and most profitable of the struggling proprietorships at the rundown strip mall.
When Skyles entered the establishment, Owens was already seated in a corner booth that offered him a convenient view of the seating area. Owens paid little attention to Skyles at this point, not even bothering to look up as he entered. Instead, Owens thumbed through a stack of newspaper and magazine articles his agents routinely collected and forwarded to him. Bold headlines atop the third article in the stack concerned him:
SECRECY OR DECEPTION IN THE NEVADA DESERT?
The federal government contends its secrets are for national security reasons. At what point does secrecy threaten the nation’s security?
He decided to read the story later when he could devote his full attention to it, and continued perusing some of the other articles as he kept half an eye on Skyles seated in an adjacent booth. From his coat pocket, Owens retrieved the small gray rock that he always carried, rubbing his thumb across the surface to help relax his mind from the new and ever changing job-related challenges that he could never seem to escape.
Through a miniature laser communicator clipped around his right ear, a soft female voice spoke to Owens. “I think our suspect just pulled up. I’m running the plates now.”
In the parking lot, Owens’ associate, Kayla Kiehl, worked inside the Suburban that also served as a mobile office. A retractable passenger side dash stowed a variety of computer and surveillance equipment. She had up-linked to a mainframe computer that accessed the Nevada Motor Vehicle and Public Safety Department’s database. “The car is a rental,” she informed Owens. “I’ll have details in a minute—she’s about to enter.”
The door to the restaurant opened, illuminating the room with rays of evening sunlight, followed by a gust of hot air. Owens squinted, allowing his piercing eyes to adjust to the outside light, then spied the woman, a silhouette at first, followed by her details: Asian, statuesque, hair pulled up and a snug white blouse revealing a canyon of cleavage. He watched as the woman made her way to Skyles’ booth, and noticed how she tried to discreetly glance at the other patrons on her way, taking a reconnaissance of the room.
Skyles was officially employed by the military defense contractor Global Resources and Technology Corporation (GRATCOR). He never envisioned that obtaining the coveted government security clearance required for GRATCOR’s Military Fulfillment Division, and working at the enigmatical Area 51, would result in such a mundane and boring job. Security stress was overwhelming at times—and unsettling on his nerves in recent months—but still he didn’t want to change jobs. GRATCOR retained its more valuable employees by using golden handcuffs; they offered salaries and benefits twice as lucrative as any competitor.
Somewhere along the way Skyles had started drinking a little more, and then more, until it became part of his routine to unwind. It helped him deal with the stress from work, but put additional stress on his marriage. When he returned home from work, Skyles just wanted to have conversations that focused on something—anything—other than nag, nag, nag, which was all he got from his wife lately. He wanted someone who would listen. Someone who would understand his stress. An outlet.
His outlet—Janice was the name he knew her by—now sat so close to him that he could feel her body heat. The scent of Janice’s perfume, combined with his alcohol buzz, made him want to skip dinner and have her for dessert.
From his table, Owens pretended to read his magazine articles, but instead listened to every word Skyles and the woman said through a small sound amplifier disguised as a pen.
Kayla interrupted, “I’ve got a trace on her car. It was rented ten days ago … Janice Yang … California license … LA address. I’ll have a bio any second now.” The computer’s search program began a comprehensive investigation of Janice Yang by leapfrogging from one database to the next. “Yee Yang,” she read. “A-K-A Janice Yang … Chinese foreign national … age 28. She’s here on a student visa.”
“A college student shouldn’t be spending ten days in Vegas,” Owens said, speaking from the edge of his lips like a ventriloquist.
“You think she’s MSS?”
“Sounds like it.” Owens was aware that the Ministry of State Security (Chen Di Yu—China’s equivalent of the CIA) had been flooding the US with sleeper agents. They lived passively in the States until called upon for espionage-related activities. Although this woman seemed to be more than a sleeper, student visas were an easy way to slip agents into the country. “Is this the same woman?” he asked.
Comparing the woman in the bar with an image on her computer screen, Kayla said, “Almost positive. She’s wearing those oversized sunglasses in the first photo, but it’s a close match.”
A week earlier, security cameras outside the unmarked Janet terminal had captured the woman on film. An attentive security officer had noticed the woman trying to wave down cars after they left the parking lot, including Ben Skyles who stopped to help her. The officer reported the incident and it was channeled through various levels of security, sounding additional alarms along the way because of Skyles’ involvement. Once the situation reached Owens, he gave it top priority and placed Skyles under constant surveillance. A taped phone conversation revealed Skyles had a drink with the woman after helping her. When Owens received word they planned to meet again, he wanted to handle the situation personally.
Owens continued to watch and listen as the woman flirted like a schoolgirl, tilting her head, batting her eyes and leaning her shoulder into his with gentle cajoling nudges as they bantered. Owens noted that a clear drink—vodka and tonic?—which she raised to her lips never lost its volume. Several times she stirred the drink with her index finger and then slid it in her mouth to suck it clean.
High cheekbones and a detailed jawline defined the woman’s exquisite face, but Skyles had trouble keeping his eyes off her blouse, unbuttoned to expose a sinful amount of skin.
“Tell me more about your job,” she stated, eyes bright with interest like a woman on a first date.
“I didn’t know I had told you anything,” Skyles said.
He hadn’t, but she continued as if he had. “Some technological information. Fascinating, but it didn’t make much sense. You were pretty vague. Said I’d have to wait until you knew me better.”
“I must have been drunk. At least I held out.” He grinned, then gulped the rest of his second cocktail.
