The Alarmists (3 page)

December 4, 2012, 7:21 A.M.

Brent walked out of his hotel room at 7:21 a.m. and by 7:29 was sitting in the back of a blue Ford Expedition headed for the Pentagon. The driver was a private, and beyond asking about Brent’s flight and then loading his single bag into the truck, he hadn’t said a word. He kept his hands at ten and two and his eyes on the road. From the hotel they made good time down the I-395, traveling the thirty-five miles in under an hour, which was good considering the traffic clogging the area regardless of the time of day.

It had been almost six years since his last trip to Arlington, and at least two since he’d been called to Washington. In fact, while it seemed silly to think it now, he’d begun to wonder if someone else was being called on to consult here in the Capitol. He’d been confident that was not the case, however. He kept up with the literature and so knew who was doing what in the field. The last few years had seen nothing groundbreaking—no hotshot bursting onto the scene to take any high-profile jobs being offered. To the best of his recollection, he was the last young hotshot to have upset the establishment. And while he was a good many things,
young
was no longer one of them.

The driver
exited I-395 and took Brent the rest of the way on Washington Boulevard. As the
professor watched out his window, the structure he could see from the freeway for the last few miles came into sharper focus. The driver maneuvered the Expedition around the mammoth building and through the security checkpoint that, once navigated, saw them arrive at the Mall entrance. The driver had the truck parked and had exited into the cool December air almost before Brent could reach for his briefcase.

“If you’ll follow me, sir,” the private said before pivoting on a heel and heading into the building, Brent’s bag in his hand.

Inside, Brent and his escort were funneled to a security checkpoint, where the professor was forced to relinquish his briefcase, his belt, and the few coins in his pockets. The PFPA personnel who vetted him and his belongings did so with courteousness and businesslike efficiency. Soon he and the private were on the other side of the checkpoint, where they were met by a civilian who, despite the fact that she wore a mid-length skirt and a blouse, seemed no less professional than the soldier from whom she took the transfer of human cargo.

“Hello, Dr. Michaels,” she said, extending her hand. “I’m Penelope Bridges, Colonel Richards’s assistant. If you’re up to it, the colonel would like to meet with you right away.”

Brent took her hand and was surprised by her grip. “That’s fine,” he said. He bent down to retrieve his bag. “Lead on.”

Ms. Bridges turned on her heel with much the same sharpness as Brent’s driver and took off at a rapid pace. They were in the outer ring—the E ring—and Brent knew enough about the layout of the Pentagon to know that Colonel Richards likely occupied an office in E. Windows came with rank. What he didn’t know was which floor the colonel might merit. His guide began to answer that question when she reached a ramp that, to Brent’s surprise, led down to the Pentagon’s two basement levels. The ramps were a throwback to a different era. As an attempt to preserve valuable steel for the construction of WWII-era battleships and weapons, the Pentagon had gone up without elevators. Instead, concrete ramps bridged the spans between floors. The one Brent and Ms. Bridges were taking led to the mezzanine level.

Exiting the ramp, Bridges led Brent along the E ring until they reached a corridor that turned toward the Pentagon’s inner courtyard. A sign on the wall designated it as Corridor 3, which Bridges took toward the D ring, where she made a right. Brent dutifully followed his guide until they reached an office with bay number 29 affixed to the open door.

When they passed through the door, it took Brent a few moments to understand why it looked so strange. He’d been in standard Pentagon offices and the larger briefing rooms, even a few of the auditoriums, and the room he was in now was at least as large as the briefing bays. Yet the size had been accomplished by combining three or more offices into one large one. In the expanded space were a half-dozen desks, a few tables loaded with a variety of tools, electronics, and various items Brent couldn’t identify, a large bookshelf, and other markers that spoke of the dual influences of scientific curiosity and military protocol. The place was a mess, but even the mess had strict rules.

As soon as Brent stepped into the room, at least four pairs of eyes shifted to him, yet only one man started in his direction.

“Dr. Michaels,” Colonel Richards said. He crossed the room quickly and took the professor’s hand in a stronger version of his assistant’s solid grip. “Thank you for coming on such short notice.”

“Not at all, Colonel,” Brent said. “From what you told me over the phone, this one sounds pretty interesting.”

It was as those words left his lips that something happening in the corner of the expanded office turned his head as if it were on a swivel. From the moment he’d entered the room he’d been hearing a noise, something like a low frequency hum. But such was the subtle nature of the sound that he hadn’t realized he’d heard it until the last few seconds, although once it registered he realized he’d picked up on it right away.

At a large table in the corner, two military personnel—he could see uniforms under the lab coats, though he couldn’t determine their ranks—were bent over a beaker that hung suspended over a Bunsen burner. Whatever was inside the beaker began to glow a strange green color. The two suddenly pulled back, looking undecided about whether they should remove the beaker from its place or pull the burner from beneath it. As the humming from the vicinity of the beaker increased, it became apparent that the time to countermand whatever was about to happen had passed. An instant later, the contents of the beaker spewed upward. It happened fast enough that Brent could only ascertain from the aftermath what had taken place—from the glob of green on the ceiling and the fine spray that coated everything within a few meters, including the two lab techs.

Taking his cues from those around him—all of whom had regarded the incident without alarm—Brent decided there was nothing to worry about. He watched as one of the lab techs removed his goggles, raised them up to study their slimed surface, and then wiped them on his coat. That done, he glanced toward the colonel.

“Well, now we know it doesn’t like heat,” he said matter-of-factly.

Colonel Richards appeared to digest that before answering.

“Lesson learned,” the colonel said, then turned back to the visiting professor.

“It appears you have quite the operation here,” Brent said.

Richards followed Brent’s line of vision to the cleanup effort underway in the corner. “If you think this is something, Dr. Michaels, you should see the lab.”

—

“So what kind of colonel are you?” Brent asked once he’d seated himself opposite his host’s desk.

Richards raised an eyebrow, not a trace of humor on his face. “The regular kind,” he said.

The dry delivery caused Brent to release a nervous chuckle. He gestured toward the closed door of the colonel’s office, referencing the activity beyond. “There’s nothing normal about what’s going on in that room.” He paused, shook his head. “Did I see someone out there levitating metal balls?”

“Strong magnets,” the colonel replied.

“And the pile of junk that looks like a disassembled bomb?”

“Is a disassembled bomb.”

“Who are you people?” Brent asked. “I mean, if it’s not classified.”

“Actually, it
is
classified,” Richards said. “But not rigorously so for outside consultants.”

The colonel’s phone rang, and after a glance at the caller ID, he waved an apology to his guest and picked it up. “Richards,” he said.

While Brent couldn’t hear the other end of the call, he could hear the sound of the caller’s voice. Whoever it was sounded excited—and loud.

After listening for several seconds, Richards cut into the caller’s monologue. “Alright, follow secondary protocol until I get down there. Keep the room locked off. Understood?”

Brent didn’t say anything after the colonel had hung up. From what he’d heard, he expected the man to bound up from his chair and go running from the room. Instead, the military man leaned back in his leather chair as calm as could be.

“We’re army officers, Dr. Michaels,” Richards said. “In addition to that, we’re scientists. What you see going on out there is science, but with a twist.”

“A twist,” Brent said.

Richards nodded. “At your university, you have a science department, right?”

“Of course.”

“And they’re busy dealing with all the things that people are interested in—things that can either be marketed and sold or can put your school in a good journal somewhere, right?”

“Right . . .” Brent said, his responses coming slower now.

“Yes, well, we deal with the other stuff,” the colonel said.

Brent attempted to parse that.

Richards, seeing the confused look on Brent’s face, asked, “Are you familiar with Roswell?”

“You mean you investigate UFOs?”

“No, Professor,” the colonel said flatly. “UFOs don’t exist. You don’t seriously think there are little green men at a military base in New Mexico, do you?”

“Well . . . I . . .”

“There aren’t. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t investigating the possibility.”

Brent let that sink in. When he felt he had a handle on what the colonel was saying, he said, “So your team investigates unexplained phenomena. You’re ghost hunters. At least the army equivalent.”

“My team investigates anything my superiors ask me to investigate,” Richards said. After a pause he added, “And there are no such things as ghosts.”

Brent pursed his lips and nodded, thinking this may have been the most interesting interview he’d ever experienced. “I’m confused,” he finally said. “Why exactly do you need me?”

“Because we need a sociologist, Dr. Michaels.” Richards leaned forward then, placing his elbows on the desk. “And from everything I’ve heard, you’re the best.”

Although it was flattering to hear something like that, what Brent was most interested in was what Colonel Richards hadn’t said. Brent had been in the colonel’s company for going on an hour and still he had no idea about the job he’d been called in to do. He was just about to bring this to Colonel Richards’s attention when the colonel’s desk phone rang again. Richards glanced down at the display and then back up at Brent.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, Dr. Michaels, I have to go see about a fire.”

—

“You realize I can’t show you all of it.”

“Classified?” Brent asked.

“Classified,” Richards said.

From what he could gather through a combination of Colonel Richards’s comments and his own impressions as he’d walked through a series of narrow corridors and past several nondescript rooms, the section of the subbasement the colonel’s team occupied was a small portion of a much larger space. In fact, Michaels was now certain the perimeter of the subbasement—the Pentagon’s basement’s basement—expanded beyond the boundaries of the building above. Yet the professor had no idea how many
other
levels existed beneath this one.

What he did know was that the “all of it” the colonel couldn’t show him must have been something, because what Brent had already been privy to was enough to keep him wondering for years. In one room—the first through which they’d passed after descending from the last of the official Pentagon floors—piles of disassembled hardware, computer parts, books and scattered papers, balls of wiring, copper coils, and electronic bits and interfaces he couldn’t identify. And what looked like an Apollo-era space capsule occupying perhaps seven hundred square feet.

“What is this place?” Brent had asked.

“The Junk Room,” Richards replied without breaking stride.

Now, having passed through a number of different but equally bizarre rooms, the professor realized that whoever Colonel Richards was, and whatever the purpose of his team, the job they had for him was also likely to be bizarre in nature.

The room they were in now stood apart from the others, primarily because of its cleanliness. The surgical table and the specimen jars filling the rows of metal shelving units spoke to the need for order and precision. As Brent followed Colonel Richards into the room, a woman dressed in scrubs was sliding a jar into place next to other jars just like it. They contained a dark, viscous substance. Brent couldn’t begin to guess what it might be. But the truth was that he didn’t need to understand everything he saw—didn’t even need to know where he was in the building. He was there to entertain a job offer; whatever else happened around him was incidental.

That resolution remained with him for exactly two seconds, disappearing just as the colonel was about to step through the door opposite the one they’d entered. Before Colonel Richards could clear the doorway, a man met him going the other direction, holding a jar similar to the ones the woman behind them was arranging on the shelves. To avoid a collision, both men came to a sudden stop. That was when Brent got himself a good look at the pair of eyeballs sloshing around in the murky liquid, bumping up against the glass.