he had been wearing into the garbage can next to his desk and stuffed an entire newspaper over them. He wanted rid of the clothing that was still damp with the blood of Gunny Campos. He looked at himself in the mirror and rubbed a hand through his short hair. He was numb inside. He felt the inevitable guilt he always felt at not being the one who didn't return alive. A knock at his door interrupted his thoughts.
'Yes,' he said a little louder than he wanted to.
'Major, it's Niles, you have a minute?'
Jack again ran a hand through his dark hair and walked the few paces to the door as if it were ten city blocks away and opened it.
'What is it, Doctor?'
'Major, you need to come with me; the senator wants you to hear this yourself.'
Jack saw that Niles was in a far worse state than he had been this morning.
'You find the crash site?' he asked.
Niles looked around behind him; after seeing no one in the dormitory hallway, he looked back at Jack. 'No, not yet, but now I know the reasons behind why it's so important we find it, and that's what the senator wants to explain. He wants me to sit in, even though I have already read the file. It may explain to you the reason why lives were lost over this. Hell, maybe you should have known from the beginning, but as you'll see, Jack, this is a first and there are no rules written for this kind of thing.'
'What file?'
'The file containing reports on what really happened that night in Roswell. Major, please, hurry.' Compton turned and left. Ten paces from Jack's door, he turned and looked at Collins again.
Five minutes later, Collins was in the director's spacious office with Niles, Alice, and the senator.
'Thank you for coming. I'll make sure to tell you this as fast as I can,' the senator said. 'Before you go after the Frenchman and his employers using Europa, Jack, I think it's time you know what we may be up against. I didn't tell the Group the whole story of what happened that night in '47, but you need to know now, because it's looking more and more like the worst-case scenario I have always feared is happening. And the extreme violence that occurred against your team this morning tells me the situation has turned for the worse.'
Jack looked from the old man to Niles, then took a chair as the senator started speaking.
FOURTEEN
The former OSS general watched the silver-haired president as he stood just aft of where the dragon's-head prow used to be attached to the ancient hull. He placed a hand where the ancient carving used to sit it and drawled, 'I just can't believe they sailed this thing across the Atlantic Ocean all the way up the Mississippi River! Damn it, that's amazin'!'
Garrison Lee removed his brown fedora and stepped up to the edge of the gunwale. The scaffolding that surrounded the vessel was a little shaky, and with only one eye he had to be more careful than most.
'We believe the voyage may have been made as early as AD 856, Mr. President. We have a team in Norway now, researching some information we came across last year that indicates it was an entire village uprooted by civil war that came across and tried to settle in the New World over six hundred years before Columbus. We should know more this time next month. Right now we believe this is the largest longship ever to be constructed, and that there may have actually been six on this voyage. According to some rune stones discovered nearby, each carried close to a hundred souls and their supplies.'
Truman looked over at Lee and just shook his head. 'Son, your people have done one hell of a job here, one hell of a job! This is absolutely magnificent!' He ran his fingers along the jagged edge where the headpiece had once been attached. 'To think about the voyage they must have endured and the spirit they had to have shown to make it. Goddamn, they weren't Vikings, son, they were just as American as you or I with the spirit of adventure they'd shown.'
Garrison Lee smiled at the simple way Truman put it. It may not have been the spirit of adventure, but perhaps desperation that drove them from their homeland, but he didn't correct the president. He then watched as Truman grinned at the technicians looking up at him from the scaffolding surrounding the ancient ship. The visiting president had drawn a large crowd at three in the morning.
'Didn't think you would be doin' this back in '41, did you, Lee? Just like I didn't think I'd be president, but I guess we both got our hides nailed to the barn wall with jobs that sometimes go beyond the ability for a man to believe.' Truman looked at the men and women around and above him as he spoke. 'This man'--he gestured with his hat outstretched at the much taller Lee and looking at Lee's Event Group-- 'had a record with the OSS that read like a damn adventure novel, one of them serials they have at the by-God movies. I met the young Mr. Lee when he was just out of law school, knew he was going to be something different from the bloodsuckers that usually hold to that particular profession.' A sad look clouded the man from Missouri's features and he looked down for a moment. 'Then the war came, and off he went.'
Lee touched the eye patch and the scar that ran under it.
'I just wanna tell you all that this is one hell of a piece of work.' Truman patted the ancient and stone- hardened wood again. 'It's nice to see that the entire federal government isn't made up of people that fear the future and scoff at the past. I can see you people here are trying to make it better for us all, and it's appreciated, I assure you.'
His predecessor had warned Garrison that it would take something like this to get a president to come around and support this hidden branch of government. If that was true, then he should receive funding for at least the next four years. Lee smiled as he looked at Harry Truman.
'Mr. President, this wasn't only a ship of exploration, it was also a warship, one of the most technologically advanced and swiftest afloat at the time. And as I'm sure you know, the United States has the right of salvage to her, and thus she can be renamed. Which is not an uncommon occurrence in a situation such as this.'
Truman stood there silently with his hands on his hips, the gray suit now a little muddy from his crawling around the interior of the great longship.
'I wasn't aware of that, no, sir. Right of salvage, huh?'
'That's the truth, sir. Even if it weren't, it's ours, an American vessel on American soil.'
A smattering of applause came from the people observing the president and
'Well, sir, it's our honor to present to you the longship USS
The president let his hands fall to his sides and he looked astounded. He watched as a white cloth was pulled from the vault's rear wall. The name of the ship was inscribed in gold on carved wood with a dragon's head fronting the words. The president looked at the plaque a moment, then slapped his hat against his thigh and broke out clapping with the rest of the men and women. He shook his head and stepped deftly to the scaffold and took Lee's hand in his own in a powerful grip.
'Goddammit, son, I'm proud of you and your people. And this'--he gestured to the nameplate--'is a real honor that I can only say is thrilling to me and would be to my wife and daughter, if I could just tell them about it.' He winked and laughed as they shook hands.
Lee's young new assistant, Alice Hamilton, walked up and gave the grinning Lee a Teletype message. The woman had come to work at the Event Group because Lee felt he owed her something. Her husband had been with him in South America after the end of the war, and he was still there, buried in an unmarked grave.
Lee read the message she had given him, trying not to be thrown off-balance by the president's overzealous handshake and trying to keep the Teletype in focus as he was jostled. When he was done, he leaned over and whispered in the president's ear. Truman's face wrinkled into a puzzled look, and he took the yellow paper. He too
