“Are you impressed?” Marcus asked Celeste who had been quietly sipping at her drink. She was wearing her low-cut red dress again, and he was trying hard not to look at her chest.
“I’m not an expert like the colonel, but I find it quite interesting,” she said. “I have a completely open mind. One must, in these circumstances, no?”
“Must one?” Marcus asked.
“Okay, last piece of info from CUFOM,” Carter said, “and I think it’s a winner too. The night the girls returned, a group of Italian university students were leaving a pizzeria in Naples close to midnight when one of them looks into the sky and sees a bright object moving fast toward the nearly full moon. By the time she whips out her phone and hits record, it’s seen here, in this video as a dark object streaking across the yellow moon.”
He clicked on a file and played the video.
“Now, here in slow motion, the object passes over the moon and now it’s bright yellow against the night sky. You can see that it’s the same color and shape as the UFOs in the videos from four years ago, and now, in normal motion, you can see it zips along at a similar incredible speed. Now, I maintain, that it is a distinct possibility that Victoria and Elizabeth Andreason were on that UFO when this was shot, just moments before they were returned to their house just up the road from here. That’s all I’ve got, but I feel like we’ve moved the needle on the investigation. And while I’ve got you, I want to say that I still haven’t gotten my interview with the girls.”
“A few things have taken priority, if you haven’t noticed.”
“I have noticed and it’s perfectly reasonable that I’ve gotten bumped to the back of the queue, but I just don’t want to get bumped out of existence. Will you please talk to Mickey?”
Marcus breathed out a couple of yeahs. A new drink arrived and he gave it his full attention for a few moments. “So, that was the appetizer,” he said. “I think I still have some room for the main course.”
“Yes, okay, my turn,” Celeste said, “although the colonel also has some things to say about the main course. What I find remarkable is that the two of us, a military man and a psychic have found common ground and are aligned on matters of importance. My vision this afternoon came about in the most ordinary of ways, although this is a common pattern with me. I had taken my lunch with the colonel in a small café nearby and when I returned to my room, I washed my teeth. While I was putting away the brush, I was seized by a powerful image that left me standing in front of the sink, motionless, for some considerable time. I was in a dense, dark forest, in an elevated place. It was the same forest in my earlier vision of Jesper—I told you about it on the plane. Initially, I had the sense I wasn’t alone; however, I could not tell you who I was with. I most certainly did not know why I was there until the thought came to me: they are coming back.”
Marcus knew what she was going to say, but he was content to play along. He was here already. He was in a bar. He had a drink in his hand.
“Then it came to me again, even stronger,” she said. “They are coming back. I was looking up at the dark, dark sky, searching for something, anything, to show itself in the blackness, and then I saw it. At first it was a tiny speck of light, like a star in a distant galaxy. Then it became larger and larger by degrees, and as it got closer, it got brighter and brighter, until the forest floor was bathed in pure light. My eyes hurt terribly and I was unable to shield them properly, so I closed them tightly. When I opened them again, I saw Jesper first and then Elena, standing close to one another, awash in white light—pure, white light. That’s when another thought flashed through my consciousness. Actually, it was more like signage, telling me the time and the place. Friday night. Torriglia. Monte Prelà. Then all was normal again. I was looking into the mirror. The toothbrush was in my hand.”
“What’s Torriglia?” Marcus asked.
“I didn’t know until I had words with the colonel. My goodness, the significance soon became apparent!”
Carter shifted in his chair and only then did Marcus see that he was wearing cargo shorts that exposed massive, hairy legs.
“I don’t mind telling you,” Carter said, “that I almost fell over when she mentioned Torriglia. For Italians, it’s like saying Roswell to an American. It is ground zero for UFOs in this neck of the woods. I guess you’ve never heard of it.”
“Guess not,” Marcus said.
“Then you won’t have heard of Pier Zanfretta either.”
“Doesn’t ring any bells.”
“Well, Pier Zanfretta is a fellow—he’s still alive as far as I know—who was abducted by aliens in the north of Italy, at Torriglia, in December 1978. More accurately, that was the first time he was abducted.”
“Poor guy got snatched twice?” Marcus snorted.
“More than twice. It’s a saga, to tell you the truth. Let me walk you through it, ’cause I’m sure Mickey’s going to have plenty of questions. He’s an inquisitive fellow, as you are well aware. The Torriglia incidents have some similarities and some differences to the Andreason case. For instance, Zanfretta wasn’t abducted by Grays. They were Reptilians. On the other hand—”
Carter’s mobile phone rang. He saw the ID, swore a little, and asked Marcus to hang on a second so he could take the call. He wandered off and returned with an exasperated look.
“I’m on mute,” he said. “It’s my daughter. Her husband, a sorry-ass turkey just got arrested. Again. I’ve got to deal with this, but
