aliens in there.”
“No, General,” Jones said.
He inserted a tubular key into a small plate. The immense steel door began to rise almost soundlessly.
Ashton tapped Wentz on the shoulder.
“We keep the dead aliens in Ohio, sir,” she said.
««—»»
Back in Maryland, General Gerald Cawthorne Rainier, as he was known to, strummed his fingers on the desk blotter. He chain-smoked, knowing it would kill him someday, and he often hoped that day might come sooner than later.
Often, he felt he deserved it.
The smoke swirled before the desk lamp, the only illumination in the office. Rainier preferred the dark. It seemed vastly easier—and much more appropriate—to sit in the dark when he contorted and manipulated the lives of good men.
He stared down at the open folder, stared down at the personnel photo of Jack Wentz. Then he closed it and stared at the heading:
OPERATOR “B”
He pushed it aside as the gauzy air swirled before the lamp. How many dead faces did he see in the smoke, how many ruined souls?
He forced himself not to consider the questions—he was good at that. His fingers continued to strum.
Next he placed a single sheet of thin tractor-fed paper on the desk blotter.
READ AND DESTROY
TOP SECRET
(SI/HS) BYMAN/BYMAN/FARGO
AF-MILNET CIPHER:
PAGE ONE OF ONE PAGE
CRYPTMAIL CODE 49867-99-00
-25 JULY 1999 -0713 HRS
FROM: NSA/DIRECTOR OF ENCRYPTED OPERATIONS, FT. MEADE, MARYLAND
DE: LEVEL THIRTEEN, AREA S-4, TECHNICAL TESTING FACILITY, STAPLES, NEVADA
DE: NASA, ANALYSIS BRANCH, GREENBELT, MARYLAND
TO: IGA (INTER-AGENCY GROUP ACTIVITY) THE PENTAGON
SPECULATION AND ASSESSMENT: (CODENAME) QSR4
ELINT CONTROL BRANCH, CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE, LANGLEY, VIRGINIA.
PLEASE ADVISE.
END AF-MILNET CIPHER
READ AND DESTROY
General Rainier leaned back in his chair and dropped the sheet into the automatic paper-pulverizer. The machine grated for a split second, then fell silent.
Rainier lit another cigarette, watched the smoke unfurl before the light like so many homeless spirits.
One day, he knew, his own face would be floating in the smoke.
««—»»
As the heavy bulkhead door rose, so did a line of light across Wentz’s face. When the door had lifted completely, a loud
He was staring at what was clearly an air vehicle of some kind, but one with no configuration he could imagine as being capable of flight.
It was crescent-shaped, not circular or disk-like. Wentz imagined a giant heel. It was thirty feet long, twenty feet wide. Dull silver, like sandblasted aluminum.
Armed guards walked a slow post around it, while still more guards looked down from gun emplacements high overhead in scaffolds. Floodlights beamed down, harsh as desert sun.
Wentz felt his astonishment sift away, replaced by something like numb shock. All the blood seemed to have drained from his face.
“No,” he croaked. “No way.”
“You know what this is, don’t you, General Wentz?” Jones asked.
Wentz stood dumb and mute, staring.
“General?”
A team of technicians approached the vehicle, brandishing aerosol paint tanks on their backs. They began to paint the object, tan on the topside, sky-blue on the underside.
“The paint burns off almost immediately,” Ashton remarked, “but it serves as sufficient camouflage during take-offs. The KH and RENSKY satellites can’t see it. Then we wait until after dark to bring her back, with the same auto-landing hardware that was installed in the F-15.”
“What’s it called?” Wentz managed to ask.
“We call it the OEV,” Jones replied.
Then Ashton defined, “Operational Extraterrestrial Vehicle.”
Jones went on to explain. “Since 1944, the military has documented over sixty instances of vehicles of extraterrestrial origin crashing within the continental United States. Most of these vehicles were completely destroyed upon impact. Four were recovered reasonably intact but rendered inoperable via crash damage… General Wentz? Are you listening?”
Wentz nodded slowly, his mouth open, his eyes flat.
“One vehicle, however, was recovered
