The Bergamese Sect (8 page)

Here was a girl trying to convince him of something so ridiculous even
he
wouldn’t know where to start. Aliens? What the hell was he doing with these people?

‘
You said you can’t convince me of the reality of this,’ Matt said. ‘But you haven’t even tried.’

Clara smiled, looked away for a moment. ‘It’s like asking me to prove to an Amazonian Indian that man has walked on the moon,’ she said. ‘Where do you start?’

Matt just shrugged.

‘
Part of the problem is that you’re conditioned by the existing culture surrounding the subject. You’re an intelligent person. You accept the possibility that there may be other life-forms, even intelligent ones, in this enormous universe. But you don’t accept the notion of a government conspiracy or collusion. But this is exactly how the reality is protected. The whole culture of UFO secrecy is like a resistant virus; it evolves to survive. It doesn’t matter how many cases are proved false; it doesn’t matter how many times a government denies involvement; or releases so-called secret files. To those who believe it, the lack of evidence is itself the confirmation they need. It’s almost a form of religion. And like religion, it’s a faith with no boundaries, a faith that’s uncompromising, that requires no proof. But it’s exactly these people that allow the government to pursue their hidden agenda.’

Matt frowned at her.

‘
You see, you’re part of the majority that remains silent. You refuse to believe in the alien myth. In fact, you laugh at the crazy people who do. But the governments of the world are using them to control the majority; to control you.’

Matt’s confusion was growing. He thought she sounded just like one of those crazy people. ‘I’m not following you,’ he said.

She remained silent for a moment. ‘Okay, we all laugh at the chat shows, the lunatics who’ve been to Venus, the drunkard who’s missing an afternoon from his memory. These are the myths built by the culture of UFO secrecy. But the government also perpetuates those myths to detract from its real purpose. Its silence or its denial strengthens the mythology and that in turn strengthens the defence of its true motives. The reality is protected by the false culture that surrounds it. We’re all being doubly duped!’

‘
So what makes you so different?’ Matt said. ‘Aren’t you just part of the same mythology?’

‘
I like your reasoning, but no, we’re not part of it. People who claim they have implants in their heads, pseudo-scientists aligning their auras with the direction of the Dog Star and new-age prophets ranting about how aliens told them how to avert ecological disaster; these are not part of our organisation.’

‘
You’re somehow exempt?’

‘
We’re exempt from speculation, yes,’ Clara responded. ‘We have our origins in the very institutions responsible for these clandestine activities; as far back as the 1920s. When the people involved realised what was going on, they tried to expose it and paid with their lives. Our organisation went underground, continued to recruit from those federal programs and built itself a formidable covert capability. Our links with the government ended in the 1940s, but they’ve been continuing their secret research ever since.’

‘
Research involving aliens?’ Matt said.

Clara nodded. ‘That’s right, but it’s got nothing to do with flying saucers crashing at Roswell, recovered extra-terrestrial corpses, and nothing to do with anti-gravity machines flying over Area 51. Those myths are just part of the culture.’

Matt was shaking his head. ‘I just can’t see it,’ he said. ‘Don’t you think governments have enough to worry about – wars, terrorism, global recession, balancing the budget, getting re-elected. Why would they keep something like this from people? How could they? You’d think someone would notice. There’s no real evidence for this sort of thing; it’s just science fiction.’

Clara smiled again. ‘I know this is a lot to take in,’ she said. ‘That’s because the reality of extra-terrestrial life would change your perception of the world in the most radical way. It’s normal to have trouble in accepting it just like that. Look at it this way; if I said I believe in God you’d have no problem with that, would you? But where’s my evidence? I don’t have any. That kind of belief is irrational, but because it’s an accepted social delusion, you think I’m perfectly normal. But if I say I believe people are being abducted by aliens, and that I
do
have evidence for it, you call me crazy. Simply because that belief is outside our culture’s accepted range of delusions. Our organisation has lived with this revelation for a long time. It’s easy for us to overlook someone’s disbelief. I wish I could pull out a piece of paper and show you the truth. But I can’t. It’s a conviction gained from years of experience, both personal and collective, not something that can be shared over coffee.’

Matt looked up at the vast sky, now turning azure with the approaching dawn. He suddenly felt an unfamiliar longing for the tedious drudgery of daily life; rising early, rushing through crowds of equally hurried workers, convincing people about this, about that, returning to a sullen but comfortable home. The weirdness of his situation suddenly hit him. A flutter spread through his stomach.

‘
So what’s really going on?’ he said.

‘
That’s a difficult question. It’s probably not simple. We know that some abductions are real; that they involve government collusion. Other than that, we don’t know much. But we hope to find out.’

Matt frowned. ‘Why the hell would a civilisation develop the technology to cross the vast emptiness of space only to kidnap and manipulate a newly-discovered form of life?’

‘
I don’t know.’

‘
I mean, what would
we
do if we found intelligent life on some planet? Would we start abducting them? Would we collaborate with their leaders and keep our presence hidden?’

Clara was shaking her head.

‘
No,’ Matt continued, ‘we’d make sure they weren’t hostile then introduce ourselves as fellow life-forms. It would be the greatest moment in our history.’

‘
There are many possibilities. Perhaps their culture is naturally predisposed to manipulation, even more so than ours. The truth could be hard to understand. Conspiracy theorists have claimed all sorts of weird reasons why the aliens and the government are in collusion. Hybrid breeding programs, promises of the secret of eternal life, exchange for military technology. I suspect most of them are far off the mark. But we try not to speculate; we accept the reality that they are here and we are doing our best to find the truth.’

Matt shook his head and sighed, looked again at the unfathomable sky. ‘I still think this is a load of crap,’ he said.

‘
I’d expect you to,’ Clara answered. She flashed her blue eyes seductively and smiled. ‘Come, they should have finished refuelling.

Chapter 6

The orange sun was slipping gently below a line of poplars in the grounds of the mansion. It lit up the house like a huge, glowing pyre. The building had an oppressive splendour. A wide colonnade held three stories aloft, each with a row of huge sash windows. The eaves, window shutters and columns were a brilliant white, the brick a deep brown. Rising from the gravel courtyard, a broad semicircle of marble steps led up to an enormous oak door. The huge brass fittings glowed crimson. From a room within, a chink of light filtered out, casting dappled shadows through the bushes that skirted the lawns. The line of poplars descended gradually toward a wide, open space surrounded by sturdy oaks and elms.

As the sky faded into a deep blue, a black limousine appeared at the gates of the house, headed up the tree-lined avenue and drew up by the marble steps. It stood for several minutes, the engine running, its lights washing over the groomed lawns. A door opened and a figure quickly exited. He was surrounded by stern-faced men who whisked him into the safety of the house.

Dark figures pacing the roof watched him enter, laser-sighted weapons draped over their shoulders. Occasionally, they whispered into their lapels, fiddled with earpieces.

North of Hartford, Connecticut, the house stood in an area populated by the state’s most wealthy men. It nestled among other sizeable estates, secure in its seclusion, its real purpose hidden. Unlike its neighbours, this house wasn’t a playground for the rich or the hideaway of a reclusive millionaire. It was a meeting room for men who directed policy from behind the façade of federal government. A coffeehouse for the anonymous. They came and went at night, often in laundry vans or beaten-up Sedans, appearing just fleetingly and then dissolving quickly into the underworld that was their life.

―
§ ―

By ten o’clock, all the visitors had arrived at the secluded mansion. Inside, on the second floor, they gathered in a large conference room, dimly illuminated. Portraits of past Presidents and Connecticut Governors decorated the panelled walls and an eight-foot stone fireplace, never lit, dominated the room. The central table was immense, almost filling the room. It was oval, made of dense, black wood, almost greasy to the touch.

The ten men who sat at the table were well dressed, sombre and quiet. Each bore a disturbing seriousness. They stared at each other across the table, as if they were adversaries rather than colleagues. These were men of immense power and authority. But their purpose was never to wield it. The air in the room seemed thin, like all emotion had been sucked out of it.

Walsh pressed his back firmly against the brushed velvet of his chair. He knew only two of the men at the table, and only those two knew him. At the top sat Bob Sewell, chairman of the Daedalus committee. He was an ageing man, dangerously tanned and sported a grey, straggly moustache. Sewell was head of a federal investigation organisation, the name of which appeared on no official document. Opposite Walsh sat Ted Daintry, a high-flier within the intelligence community. Daintry could do with losing a few pounds and had the annoying habit of coughing viciously when about to speak. He was one of Walsh’s least favourite people. His attitude was egotistical at best, downright elitist most of the time.

The real identities of the other men were a mystery to Walsh. He knew them only by code words, for anonymity was the key to the committee’s effectiveness. Icarus had the look of California about him, minus the surf trunks. He was young, his black hair spiked but not seeming out of character with his dark business suit. Lupus, middle-aged, a Bostonian by the sound of him, dressed like Sherlock Holmes and insisted on smoking an acrid smelling pipe. Prospero, an obvious military type who would bang his fist on the table as soon as speak. The others were perfect incognito – Tantalus, Cervantes, Deimos, Praetorius. Characterless, groomed men in dark coats and tailored suits.

Walsh was part of this odd coalition, every bit as mysterious as the others. But as usual, he found himself shivering, perturbed in the presence of these candid and obscure figures.

Sewell looked up from the sheets of paper in front of him, tapped their edges together, and glanced around the table. All attention was on him.

‘
Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘I hope you had time to review the documents before you arrived. We don’t have much time.’ The chairman licked his moustache and glanced over at Walsh, eyebrows raised. ‘Dante, give us a summary, please.’

Walsh remained seated and fumbled among his papers on the table. Deciding he didn’t need them, he pushed them aside.

‘
Sebastian has moved,’ he said, ‘yesterday. Surveillance identified a transmission to a target in London, though we didn’t intercept the body of the communication. We’ve still no information on Sebastian’s location or what he plans to do. We can only assume he’s preparing to reveal what he knows. An unknown subversive group identified the target within minutes and picked him up. Three bodies were recovered at the scene. Two were Argent operatives; the third appeared to be a member of the subversive group. We’re tracking the subversives closely but have taken no other action.’

‘
Repercussions?’ Sewell asked.

‘
Hopefully none. I’ve got a man at ground level trying to keep British Intelligence out of the picture. He’s making it look like a gangland shooting, planting a few witnesses. We’ll get our agents’ bodies back through diplomatic channels once the police release them. I’ll make sure it’s all smoothed over.’

Sewell continued to watch him for a few moments. There was a hint of panic in his eyes. ‘And the subversives? What do you know?’ he said.

‘
Almost nothing. We think it’s the same group as before. But we have no names, no details of their hierarchy and no knowledge of their capabilities.’

Sewell pulled back from the table and took a long breath. ‘Okay,’ he said.

Daintry coughed. Walsh looked over; saw the man glaring directly at him.

‘
Dante, we are aware of the background,’ Daintry said. The pot-bellied bureaucrat turned to Sewell and continued. ‘Oberon, we should be discussing options.’

Sewell held up his hand to concede the point and looked around at the stern faces. Daintry followed his gaze, silently asking for affirmation. There seemed to be a glimmer of agreement in the men’s eyes.

‘
Very well,’ said Sewell, ‘there are two options open to us…’

Another interruption came, this time from Prospero. ‘Wait a moment,’ said the military man. ‘This is the worst possible scenario. Why wasn’t Sebastian intercepted? We’ve been expecting him.’

Prospero was asking an obvious question. All heads turned to Walsh, inviting an immediate explanation. Walsh thought of Petersen. He was one of his most trusted agents. If Petersen said the message could not be intercepted, then it simply wasn’t possible. He’d defend the man’s professionalism to the last.