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Authors: Edward Lee

BOOK: Operator B
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Wentz swallowed dryly.
I’m walking on men’s graves. Every time I got behind a new stick…I was sitting in a ghost’s seat…
“
I wouldn’t dwell on it, sir,” Ashton offered. “Like General Rainier said. It’s all about service, it’s all about duty. You were too valuable to the country to risk in a plane that hadn’t been sufficiently tested. That’s the bottom line.”
“Yeah, well I don’t
like
 the bottom line. The bottom line eats sh—”
Two guards in unmarked black fatigues stood before a shiny personnel elevator, each brandishing M249 rifles with 200-round box drums. They eyed Wentz coldly, then parted when they noticed Ashton. A disturbing sign was mounted above the doors:
THIS ELEVATOR DE-POWERS
AT DEFCON ONE.
DO NOT USE IN THE EVENT OF FIRE
OR IMMINENT NUCLEAR STRIKE.
 
The elevator opened only after both sentries simultaneously inserted code cards into slots and pressed their right index fingers on an optical pad.
“This joint is serious business,” Wentz remarked once inside the elevator.
“Yes, it is.”
“But how come the guards didn’t ID me?”
“Because you’re with me.”
Wentz took the speculation further. “Well suppose I was holding you hostage, suppose I had dynamite under my flight suit and I’d ordered you to act normal or I’d set it off?”
“One of the screws in that warning sign was actually a digital lens connected to a cadmium thermograph. If it detected any heat fluctuations on my face—distress—an alarm would’ve sounded.”
“What then?”
“The guards would’ve machine-gunned you without hesitation.”
“Like I said,” Wentz repeated with raised brows. “This joint is serious business.” Then he noted no floor-indicator on the elevator, no floor buttons. “How do we know where we’re going?”
“It’s already been preprogrammed, but for your information, we’re going to the facility’s deepest level. I think you’ll like it: Level Thirteen.”
Wentz praised The Nix. “All right, Colonel, so what’s the rest of the scoop? Papoose is a total fake? They always said it was a toxic waste dump or something.”
“Yes, that’s the cover story we planted years ago.”
“I learn something new every day.” He stole a glance at her; she looked puny in the flight suit, preposterously young. “Now tell me something else. How’s a twenty-year-old manage to make full colonel?”
“Very funny, General. I’m twenty-nine, not that it’s any of your business. I’m just an admin officer.”
Wentz couldn’t help the chuckle. “Right, just an admin officer…with instant access to a black test site and a security clearance higher than the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.”
The elevator doors hissed open, leading them out into a white, antiseptic corridor. “Ready to find out why you’re taking the mission?” Ashton asked. She stopped next to a pair of white doors which read DRESSING UNITS - MALE - FEMALE.
“I’m not taking the mission,” Wentz assured her. “But I sure as shit want to find out what it is.”
“Then get into your fatigues and I’ll show you.” Ashton paused. “Oh, I almost forgot.”
“What’s that?” Wentz asked.
“Welcome to Area S-4, sir.”
CHAPTER 7
Dressed in white fatigues, Wentz and Ashton stood in an empty darkened warehouse hundreds of feet long.
“Area S-4, huh?” Wentz commented. “What’s it stand for.”
“Just a designation. It’s actually a federal land grid. And there’s no tagline for this facility—no Groom, no Dreamland, no Skunkworks. ”
Wentz looked down at his attire, frowning. “Well, so far I’m impressed, but I’m not exactly digging the white fatigues. Makes me feel like a house painter. And what are we just standing around for?”
“We’re waiting for someone…”
Hard footsteps clapped in the distance, growing closer.
Who’s this dweeb?
Wentz wondered.
He looks like Wally Cleaver.
A young collegiate-looking officer eventually appeared, wearing an Air Force Class-A uniform and major’s blossoms. No name plate.
“Great,” Wentz said. “Another Tekna/Byman Op. Let me guess—Major
Jones
, right?”
The two men shook hands. “Jones is as good a name as any, General Wentz,” the Major replied. “I’m honored to meet you, and I welcome you to Area S-4. If you’ll follow me please, sir.”
They began to cross the empty warehouse, their footsteps all clattering. But as Wentz squinted, he noted that the underground warehouse wasn’t as empty as he’d thought. Along the far walls, hidden in shadow, stood armed black-garbed sentries every ten feet. Moments later, then, he noticed machine-gun emplacements built into the walls high above them. The barely visible gun barrels followed them as they proceeded.
That’s some Welcome Wagon,
 Wentz thought. “Area S-4. And all this time I thought 51 in Tonopah was the blackest test site in the world.”
“There’s one blacker, General, and you’re in it,” Major “Jones” said. “I take it you’ve spent a lot of time at Area 51?”
“I practically lived there off and on for ten years. That damn sand-pit cost me my marriage.”
Jones glanced to Ashton, then nodded.
“General, you’re familiar with the cult UFO hype surrounding Area 51?” Ashton asked him.
Wentz smiled, bemused. “Sure. I read about it every time I’m in line at the grocery store. Dead alien bodies on ice. Crashed spaceships in secret hangars. The local residents have some sort of a club out there; they think the 0315 Black Goose flights are UFOs that we’ve captured.”
“But what is
your
 conclusion, General?” Jones queried.
What else could Wentz do but frown? “I’ve walked every square foot of every warehouse, hangar, and building at Area 51, and I’ve never seen any spaceships or dead aliens. Now would you
please
 cut the jive and—”
Jones stopped, handing Wentz a metal clipboard. “I’m sure you’re more than familiar with the National Classified Secrets Act, sir.”
“The Federal Secrecy Oath is like death and taxes.” Wentz didn’t need to read it; he just signed it and passed it back to Jones. “I’ll bet I’ve signed more of these than you’ve signed credit card receipts.”
They walked a ways further, then came to a halt before a huge steel bulkhead painted white. Blue letters read:
DEADLY FORCE PERIMETER
UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL
WILL BE KILLED
That’s putting it bluntly,
 Wentz thought.
Jones and Ashton exchanged odd glances, like an inside joke.
Wentz shot them both a hard look. “Wait a minute. Just wait. You’re not gonna tell me that you’ve got dead aliens in there.”
“No, General,” Jones said.
He inserted a tubular key into a small plate. The immense steel door began to rise almost soundlessly.
Ashton tapped Wentz on the shoulder.
“We keep the dead aliens in Ohio, sir,” she said.
««—»»
Back in Maryland, General Gerald Cawthorne Rainier, as he was known to, strummed his fingers on the desk blotter. He chain-smoked, knowing it would kill him someday, and he often hoped that day might come sooner than later.
Often, he felt he deserved it.
The smoke swirled before the desk lamp, the only illumination in the office. Rainier preferred the dark. It seemed vastly easier—and much more appropriate—to sit in the dark when he contorted and manipulated the lives of good men.
He stared down at the open folder, stared down at the personnel photo of Jack Wentz. Then he closed it and stared at the heading:
OPERATOR “B”
He pushed it aside as the gauzy air swirled before the lamp. How many dead faces did he see in the smoke, how many ruined souls?
He forced himself not to consider the questions—he was good at that. His fingers continued to strum.
Next he placed a single sheet of thin tractor-fed paper on the desk blotter.
READ AND DESTROY
TOP SECRET
(SI/HS) BYMAN/BYMAN/FARGO
AF-MILNET CIPHER:
PAGE ONE OF ONE PAGE
CRYPTMAIL CODE 49867-99-00
-25 JULY 1999 -0713 HRS
FROM: NSA/DIRECTOR OF ENCRYPTED OPERATIONS, FT. MEADE, MARYLAND
DE: LEVEL THIRTEEN, AREA S-4, TECHNICAL TESTING FACILITY, STAPLES, NEVADA
DE: NASA, ANALYSIS BRANCH, GREENBELT, MARYLAND
TO: IGA (INTER-AGENCY GROUP ACTIVITY) THE PENTAGON
SPECULATION AND ASSESSMENT: (CODENAME) QSR4
ELINT CONTROL BRANCH, CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE, LANGLEY, VIRGINIA.
PLEASE ADVISE.
END AF-MILNET CIPHER
READ AND DESTROY
General Rainier leaned back in his chair and dropped the sheet into the automatic paper-pulverizer. The machine grated for a split second, then fell silent.
Rainier lit another cigarette, watched the smoke unfurl before the light like so many homeless spirits.
One day, he knew, his own face would be floating in the smoke.
««—»»
As the heavy bulkhead door rose, so did a line of light across Wentz’s face. When the door had lifted completely, a loud
CLACK!
 was heard as steel pins locked it open.
No,
he thought, peering ahead.
No. No. No. No. No.
He was staring at what was clearly an air vehicle of some kind, but one with no configuration he could imagine as being capable of flight.
It was crescent-shaped, not circular or disk-like. Wentz imagined a giant heel. It was thirty feet long, twenty feet wide. Dull silver, like sandblasted aluminum.
No. No. No…
Armed guards walked a slow post around it, while still more guards looked down from gun emplacements high overhead in scaffolds. Floodlights beamed down, harsh as desert sun.
Wentz felt his astonishment sift away, replaced by something like numb shock. All the blood seemed to have drained from his face.
“No,” he croaked. “No way.”
“You know what this is, don’t you, General Wentz?” Jones asked.
Wentz stood dumb and mute, staring.
“General?”
A team of technicians approached the vehicle, brandishing aerosol paint tanks on their backs. They began to paint the object, tan on the topside, sky-blue on the underside.
“The paint burns off almost immediately,” Ashton remarked, “but it serves as sufficient camouflage during take-offs. The KH and RENSKY satellites can’t see it. Then we wait until after dark to bring her back, with the same auto-landing hardware that was installed in the F-15.”

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