the metal artifact his father kept in the safe in his study, but Eric betrayed no sense that he’d ever seen such markings.
“Any idea what they are?” Wakeman asked.
“They look like the glyphs from that excavation in Alaska,” Eric replied. “The one where my brother died.”
“That’s what I thought too. But these are dated 1947, and that burial chamber in Alaska wasn’t opened until 1970.”
“Did you translate it?”
“Can’t be done,” Wakeman said. “But we may be close, what with Jesse Keys under wraps. The genetic guys are finding out more and more about the implants. I think we’re near a breakthrough.” He stopped and looked at Eric darkly. “Is there something you’re not sharing?”
“You know everything that I know.”
Chet Wakeman looked at him, considering, then his gaze fell to Eric’s desk, two books by Tom Clarke. “What’s this?” he asked.
“Did you see him on TV the other day?” Eric asked. “Talking about a government conspiracy to cover up the presence of aliens here on earth?” He laughed. “Suddenly he’s the Woodward and Bernstein of alien abduction.”
Wakeman held his eyes on the books. “Hmm. Tom Clarke.”
“Tom Clarke,” Eric repeated. “The same guy who thought our entire program was a lie. The one who made that peace sign in the corn that cost my father his job. Now he’s suddenly a believer?”
“Evidently,” Wakeman said.
Eric turned Clarke’s inexplicable conversion over in his mind. “I think I’ll find out what made him change his mind.”
Eric stood, half-hidden by the morning light as Becky’s car drew to a stop before the traffic light. He knew the moment had come, and so he quickly approached Becky’s car and yanked open the door. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. He flashed his Army Intelligence identification. “Just drive to the park.”
“Who are you?” Becky demanded.
“Just drive,” Eric told her. “When we get to the park, I’ll tell you.”
Becky eyed him apprehensively.
Eric smiled. “If I were planning to hurt you, would I have you drive me to a public park?”
At the park, Eric escorted Becky to a bench in the open.
“You’re much prettier than I expected,” he told her. “Your surveillance photographs don’t do you justice.”
Becky stared at him edgily. “Is this visit about something more than good looks?”
“My name is Eric Crawford. I’m here because I understand that your brother Tom has switched sides-that now he’s a believer.”
Becky didn’t answer, only peered out into the park, her hands in her lap.
“You look a lot like your mother,” Eric told her.
Becky faced him. “That’s what they say.”
“My father was a bastard,” Eric admitted. “What he did to your mother was unforgivable. But he had a reason for doing it. He found a spaceship in the desert in New Mexico. There were four bodies in that ship. But there were five seats in the craft. He came to your home looking for the visitor who was sitting in the fifth seat. He never stopped looking. And when he died, I started looking.” He leaned forward slightly and his voice took on an unmistakable gravity. “This planet has been visited thousands of times since my father found that ship. People have been taken from their homes. Things have been done to them. But we still don’t know what they’re doing here, or what they want from us.”
Becky nodded softly, and he could see that she no longer feared him.
“My father was a ruthless man, Becky,” Eric added. “But the things he wanted to know were reasonable because these aliens are the greatest threat the world has ever known.” He lowered his voice like one confiding a deep secret. “You don’t have to tell me what changed your brother’s mind. At least not for now. There’s something else you can do instead.”
“What?” Becky asked.
The Crawford smiled slithered onto Eric’s face. “Have dinner with me,” he said.
Dr. Traub glanced up from his desk as Wakeman entered his office.
“There’s something new,” Wakeman said. He dropped a file on Traub’s desk. “My guys have found the signal the tracking devices give off. It’s incredibly weak, and so it has to be amplified somehow before it can be transmitted back to… our little buddies.”
“You mean to their transmitter?” Traub asked.
“Perhaps an organic one,” Wakeman said with a clever grin. “For example, a brain.” He sat down in the chair opposite Traub’s desk. “The energy of thought… of mind. That’s why Jesse Keys is so important to them. He’s their transmitter. Of course, there’s only one way to find out if he really is a transmitter.”
“How?”
“Shut him off.”
Dr. Traub was clearly shocked by Wakeman’s suggestion. “You mean, kill him?”
“Sooner or later the man had to go,” Wakeman answered casually. “A question of security, you know.”
Traub sat back in his chair and looked at Wakeman determinedly. “You’re not going to do that here.”
Wakeman laughed and waved his hand. “Oh, don’t get all hot and bothered, Doctor. I’m going to take him back to Nevada.”
“Good.”
“But I’d like you to pave the way a little, if you don’t mind,” Wakeman said.
“In what way?”
“Just tell him that you’ve done all you can for him, and that you think he should go to the Brazel Clinic.”
Traub nodded. “But if he’s a transmitter and you shut him down, do you really think our visitors might show up?”
Wakeman’s smile grew into a dark chuckle. “Wouldn’t it be a gas if they did?”
Becky was already waiting for him when he came to pick her up, and Eric took that fact as a sure sign that he’d already won her over.
“Nice blouse,” he said as he came up to her.
“It was my mother’s favorite,” Becky said.
He motioned her over to his car and opened the door. “I have a plane waiting for us.”
“Why would I get in a plane with you, of all people?” Becky asked him.
“I’ll have you back by two a.m.,” Eric replied with a joking smile. He knew that she wanted to resist him, but couldn’t. “Spook’s honor,” he assured her.
In the plane, a table had been set with food and champagne. Becky looked at it, then back at Eric. “You know how to show a girl a good time.”
The meal went quickly, and there was a lot of laughter, and with each glass of champagne, Eric could see that Becky was falling deeper and deeper beneath his spell. She laughed about the government, about the law, and even about some of Tom’s strange theories.
“Growing up in Las Vegas then, you met a lot of weirdos,” Eric said.
“I guess so,” Becky told him. She looked at her plate. “I’m used to leftovers.”
Eric laughed briefly, then grew serious. “I got married really young. First girl I slept with. First time I slept with her. She’s pregnant. I’m married. Anything to show my father I was grown up.”
