Alien Secrets

His debriefing at Yokosuka had been a lot less exciting than the interview with Walters on board the Illinois, at least to start with. They’d put him in a room with a bunk, desk and chairs, and its own head. He presumed the other SEALs in the squad had been sequestered this way as well, but he never saw them while he was on the base and so didn’t know for sure.

The next day, a couple of suits with badges identifying them as DIA—the Defense Intelligence Agency—had received him in a small and dingy office and questioned him about the mission. They’d asked him about what he and the others had seen, but when he told them truthfully they’d just nodded and jotted down something in their notebooks.

As he’d stood up to leave, however, one of them had stopped him. “I would keep your, ah, sighting quiet, if I were you, Lieutenant,” he’d said. “There are folks here who really, really don’t want you spreading wild stories about spaceships, y’know? Especially if you’ve been ordered to keep your mouth shut.”

“I saw what I saw,” Hunter said, his voice almost a growl. “I have video to prove it!”

The other DIA man had given him a tight-lipped grin. “Not anymore, you don’t.”

Of course. Everything they’d brought back from the mission—video, seismic and radiation readings, isotope sample—it all had been taken off the submarine at Yokosuka. Hunter was positive he wouldn’t see or hear of those recordings again.

“So—are you certain of what you saw?” the other agent said.

“Of course I am! Are you calling me a liar?”

“Absolutely not. But … well … your eyes could have been playing tricks. Or … just maybe … what you saw was some sort of very secret US aircraft. You know we have massive black projects going. Maybe someone way up the chain of command decided to send one in to have a look around.”

Hunter did know about black budgets and black projects. As a Navy SEAL, he operated in and around those shadows himself.

“What I saw,” he said, angry and stubborn, “was technology that must have been centuries ahead of anything we have now! Okay?”

“But how do you know that, Lieutenant? I understand they have some really spooky things going down back in Nevada. Real Star Wars stuff! Hey, you told us yourself you saw a human through that porthole, right? What would a human be doing on a spaceship if it was from another planet?”

The other agent nodded. “And you know … if you’re so certain it wasn’t an American secret aircraft … I don’t know. Maybe it was Chinese! Beijing was extremely concerned about the possibility of radiation leakage from that test site. And they could have some supersecret black-ops assets as well, stuff we don’t even know about.”

“Then God help us all,” Hunter had told them. “That thing we saw would fly rings around the Lightning II or anything else in our inventory!”

“Well … so you believe.” The agent opened a briefcase and handed Hunter several documents.

“What are these?”

“An oath of secrecy. You’ll swear not to tell anyone about what you saw.”

“But I’m already under oath. When I got my security clearance. I never de-oathed!”

“I know. But if you would, please.”

“Wasn’t my promise to Walters enough?”

“Who is Walters?”

“The CIA man—”

“There is no Walters.”

Hunter had looked at the two agents warily. They were serious about this fiction they were making him participate in. Serious enough to go to all this trouble.

The agent seemed to pretend the last part of their conversation hadn’t even happened, pulling out more papers. “And these are documents informing you of the national security aspects of this mission, and of the penalties you face if you divulge any information to anyone. We need you to read and sign them.”

With a sigh, Hunter had glanced through the papers … then signed.

“And initial here, please. And here. And here …”

Hunter had done as he’d been told, grumbling to himself a bit ungraciously, but obviously he would get nowhere with these people. They were nicer than Walters had been, certainly, but just as determined to enforce his cooperation.

The SEALs were reunited again when they were given orders to return by first-available military transport. Twelve and a half hours later, they’d touched down at Naval Air Station North Island and the complex of naval bases at Coronado, the Silver Strand just across the bay from San Diego.

And once again, he and his men had been separated, given solitary quartering, and interviewed by both military and civilian personnel. No one had even alluded to the UFO this time, and he just played ball to get it all over with. He read and signed more nondisclosure papers, and was reminded again both of the importance of national security interests, and of the severity of the penalties should any service member violate his oaths.

By this time, Hunter knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that whatever he and his men had seen out there at Mantapsan, it had been real—real as in a genuine spacecraft from some other world. Everyone who questioned him insisted that it might have been something out of some secret American program, something so secret it would be devastating to national security if he revealed it.

“Everyone knows,” one guy with FBI credentials had told him, “that the military has cooked up some pretty strange stuff. You know … Area 51, and all that.”

That secret base in the Nevada desert was notorious as the place where alien spacecraft were reverse engineered and tested, but it was also well-known as the site of flight tests of top secret human aircraft. The SR-71 Blackbird and the F-117 Nighthawk, the so-called Stealth Fighter, had been tested there, and scuttlebutt had it that there were other, newer, even more radically advanced aircraft there now.

“Maybe,” said the man who’d flashed a DIA card at him, “you saw a SAD/SOG op.”

Hunter scowled at that. The Special Activities Division/Special Operations Group was a highly secret organization working under CIA direction responsible for covert ops in which the US government wanted to maintain plausible deniability.

His interviewers had done their best to plant seeds of doubt in his mind. Had he really seen an alien spaceship? He couldn’t know … not for certain.

But although he said nothing, Hunter was by now certain that what he’d seen had not been built or deployed by any nation on Earth. Why would the government, which had deployed the SEALs in the first place—and deployed numerous high-value assets in support, including a USAF SpecOps transport and a Virginia-class submarine—turn around and send in that whatever-it-was to yank the rug out from under the people they already had on the ground? It made no sense!

Of course, Hunter was always more than ready to accept the fact that the government was a misnomer. The term implied a monolithic whole that always knew what it was doing. Bullshit! Hunter knew well that all too often, not only did the left hand not know what the right was doing, but the head didn’t know what either was doing, and the hands were wrestling with each other over interservice and interdepartmental turf wars.

Maybe …

No. He didn’t buy it. With technology like that, people very high up the ladder within the government would damn well know what it was doing … and who else was on the ground at the time.

So … aliens. By the time he left Naval Base Coronado on liberty, he was feeling distinctly paranoid. Renting a car, he drove east to El Cajon, frequently checking the rearview mirror for signs of a tail. Gerri lived in an apartment complex on Witherspoon. He parked on Chatham Street two blocks south from the place and walked, just so he could check and see if he was being followed.

Now he was there, and though he still hadn’t seen anyone out of the ordinary, he was almost certain he was being followed. But with no proof, there was nothing to do but go in.

Gerri Galanis lived on the second floor, Apartment 2D, and she was waiting for him when he buzzed from the lobby. “Mark!” she cried, opening the door. She was tall, brunette, and stunning in a microscopic bikini. “I thought you’d never get here!”

“Had to work late at the office, hon,” he replied, keeping his voice nonchalant. He’d phoned her when he’d arrived at Coronado two days ago, but had not been able to wrangle liberty until this afternoon. He’d called her again a couple of hours ago, and they’d made plans to go to the beach—hence the bikini.

Hunter was just glad they’d seen fit to issue him a pass. He’d seriously questioned whether they would ever allow him off base after the multiple grillings he’d received. His relief was palpable as he looked at the gorgeous woman before him, and he took Gerri in his arms and gave her a deep and thorough kiss.

Hunter had been divorced by his wife a year ago, and he was still wrestling with that. Eve had said it was because he was never home … though, damn it, she’d known he was in the Navy when she’d married him, and knew what it meant to be a Navy wife. Privately, he still wondered if she’d found someone else, but he also could admit that the role of Navy spouse was not for everyone. And the deployment schedules for the SEALs were worse than most, and DEVGRU—what used to be called SEAL Team Six—was the worst of all. You never knew when the phone would ring in the middle of the night, and twenty-four hours later you would be squelching through the mud in a swamp somewhere in Venezuela, or freezing your ass off on top of a mountain in Afghanistan.

Or dodging flying saucers in North Korea.

He’d picked Gerri up at a bar just two months ago. She was cute and she was fun and she didn’t ask too many questions. She cocktailed at the Kitten Klub downtown, with occasional gigs working the pole onstage. Hunter didn’t mind at all the idea of her displaying her body in front of noisy men; she actually liked what she did and she was good at it.

Just like Hunter.

“Ready for the beach?” he asked her.

“Well …” Her hand wandered on his torso and she kissed him again. “Maybe in a minute … or two.” Her grin was infectious.

Sex with Gerri was always fantastic, but even better was the relaxation, the decompression that Hunter had learned most to appreciate. Though he wouldn’t admit it even to himself, he was sore as hell from the brutal hike up and down those North Korean mountain slopes, and still felt washed out and rag-doll limp inside.

She made him feel alive once more.

After a long and pleasant interlude, they lay together in her bed, bare legs entangled, thoroughly wrapped in one another’s arms. “So, Mr. SEAL,” she said, playfully stroking him. “Can you tell me anything about where you’ve been this past week?”

“Uh-uh,” he said. With one finger, he stroked the curve of hair and skin just behind her left ear. She shivered, and cuddled closer.

“Mmmm. Not even where you’ve been?”

“Sorry, babe. You know I can’t.”

Especially this time!

He pushed the urgent thought away. He’d been trying not to think about … that.

Normally, the secrecy imposed on members of the SEAL teams wasn’t that big a deal. You simply didn’t talk about what you did at all—just said you were in the Navy. She’d seen him in uniform months before, though, and noticed the huge and clunky “Budweiser” badge that declared him to be a Navy SEAL. So she knew that much, at least.

Even so, that was all she would know. SEALs didn’t talk about their missions, even when they weren’t classified. The barflies who claimed to be Navy SEALs to any and all who would listen were fucking liars, every damned one of them.

“It’s just I worry about you,” she said.

“And if you knew where I was and what I was doing, that wouldn’t help one little bit, now, would it?”

She sighed. “I guess not.”

“So …” He gave her butt a stinging slap. “Let’s go to the beach!”

“Ummm …” She was working her way down his chest with kisses … then down his stomach. “In a minute,” she told him. “In just a minute …”

It took considerably longer than a minute, but eventually they worked their way down the steep slope and onto the sand at Black’s Beach, a tough-to-reach stretch of coastline just north of the Scripps Oceanographic Institute and Torrey Pines bluffs.

Gerri had brought him here a month ago. Divided between the city of San Diego and Torrey Pines State Park, the northern part of the beach had long been a secluded gathering place for naturists. Technically, public nudity was illegal in California, and the city of San Diego had banned nude sunbathing on the southern part of the beach in the ’70s, but the part of Black’s Beach belonging to the park was still clothing optional, unofficially at least. Gerri and Hunter found a good spot, put down a blanket, and peeled out of their shirts and swimsuits.

In the middle of October there weren’t many other people in evidence, either clothed or nude. The air was cool for Southern California—sixty-two degrees with a strong, offshore breeze—and the powerful surf pounded on the rocks. An underwater canyon out there funneled the incoming waves, and made the southern part of the beach a mecca for experienced surfers. A couple of surfers were out there now, riding in on a big roller.

Hunter glanced up at the sky … then back to the bluffs looming over the beach.

No one.

“Mark?” his companion asked. “What’s worrying you?”

“What makes you think anything is worrying me?”

“You asked me to drive in my car. You never do that. During the drive here, you kept checking behind us, like you thought we were being followed. In the parking lot you took your time checking out everything: the people on the deck over at Scripps, the other cars in the lot, even the sky. When we came down the trail, you kept looking back over your shoulder. And now you’re doing it again.”

“Sorry. Am I that obvious?”

“Yes! And it’s driving me nuts!”

He scanned the deep blue and empty sky overhead. Funny how he kept looking up, just in case …

“I just …” Damn. What could he tell her? That he was afraid government spooks were watching them, even out here?

They were getting an eyeful right now if they were.

“I just … I’m just having a bit of nerves,” he told her. “Where we were, what we did … it was really rugged. To get out, we hiked over thirty miles in rough terrain like you wouldn’t believe. Took us two days to do it, and that was just because we were really humping it. I’m still … I don’t know. Still getting my head together, I guess.”

She lightly caressed his leg. “If you want to talk about it,” she said. “You know I won’t tell a soul.”

He nodded. “I know, babe.”

He believed her. Last month, she’d taken him to meet her parents in La Mesa, and when her father asked them what he did for a living, she’d laughed and said, “Dad! He works in San Diego and he has a short haircut! What do you think he does?” About 30 percent of the working population in San Diego worked at the Coronado bases.

When her father pressed the issue, she’d told him, “He takes wonderfully good care of me! And that’s all that matters, right? Now quit pestering him about it!”

And there the matter dropped. By the end of the evening, her parents were assuming that he was Navy … but the SEALs were never even mentioned. She was good.

Yeah, Gerri could keep a secret.

But he wasn’t going to test it.

Instead, they lay down on the blanket and watched the sky—the blessedly empty sky—for almost an hour, as the sun slowly westered toward the horizon.

“Tell me something, babe.”

“Sure.”

“What’s your take on UFOs? Life on other planets?”

“Flying saucers?”

“I guess.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I believe there’s life out there. I mean, the universe is so big, right? There has to be other life … other intelligence. To assume anything else seems pretty damned arrogant.”

“Yeah …”

“But according to everything I’ve read, even the nearest stars are so awfully far away. You have to wonder how any of those races could make it all the way here. If you believe the saucer nuts, Earth must be like LAX, with thousands of UFOs zipping in from space every year. That just doesn’t sound very likely to me.”

“Yeah. That’s what I always thought.”

The words just slipped out. He’d intended them to mean simply that—that he’d long believed in extraterrestrial life, but not in UFOs. But the way he’d said it sounded more like, “I thought that before … but not now.”

“So … you saw a UFO?” she asked.

Damn. She was quick on the uptake. But one of the things Hunter liked about Gerri was how quick she was, how smart, so he wasn’t exactly surprised.

“I don’t know.” He didn’t like the idea of lying. Perhaps misdirection was the best way to go. “Remember, all UFO means is ‘unidentified flying object.’ Doesn’t necessarily mean spaceships. Lots of stuff in the sky could be unidentified, depending on circumstances.”

“Yes,” she pressed, “but you’re a trained observer, right? Disciplined. You know aircraft, especially military. You’re not going to mistake the planet Venus for a spacecraft.”

“Right now, babe, I don’t know what I believe.”

“Tell me about it?”

“Uh-uh. Not now. Just that I saw … something. But maybe I hallucinated everything.”

Hunter’s cell phone, tucked into a pocket of his shirt lying in the sand nearby, buzzed.

“Now, who the hell is calling you on your day off?”

“Don’t know,” he answered. “Unless they’re canceling liberties …”

He fished the phone out of the shirt and held it to his ear. “Hunter.”

“Well, well, well,” a voice said on the other end of the line. “Lieutenant Commander Hunter.”

“Yes …?”

“Right now, Commander, you are on thin ice. Very thin ice …”

Now, what the hell? “Who is this?”

“Never mind that. You should be more concerned about yourself. Or, if you’re not worried about being court-martialed, you might at least give some thought to the safety of that pretty little girl sitting next to you.”

“What the fuck!” He sat up, looking around, both nervous and angry.

And he was leaning toward “angry” more and more.

“Hey,” the voice continued, “we know you like Gerri Galanis. Pretty. Smart. An amazing dancer. And we know she’s fantastic in bed! We know. It would be such a shame if anything … unpleasant happened to her. Quite a waste.”

The threat, awful in its hackneyed melodrama, like something out of the pages of some cheap detective novel, left Hunter dumbfounded. He opened his mouth to reply—he had no idea what he was about to say—and then he realized the line had gone dead.

He lowered the phone, then glanced up at the bluffs over the beach. A solitary figure stood up there, silhouetted against the early evening sky.

The figure raised one hand … and waved.

Fuck!

“Mark!” Gerri cried with concern. “What’s the matter? You’re white as a sheet!”

He took a deep breath. “Never mind. C’mon. Let’s get out of here.”

“Why? Did they recall you?”

“Yeah. Something like that.”

He looked back up the bluff. The lone figure was gone.

They got dressed, gathered up the blanket, and started up the long and rugged trail back to the parking lot at the top of the bluff, the mood subdued. Behind them, in the distance, several naked people were playing volleyball while others watched, and a couple of wet-suited surfers cruised a thundering wave toward the shore.

Maybe, he thought, it would be best if he didn’t see Gerri for a while.

Hell, maybe it would be best if he never saw her again.

CHAPTER THREE

Decades ago, visitors from other planets warned us about the direction we were heading and offered to help. Instead, some of us interpreted their visits as a threat, and decided to shoot first and ask questions after … Trillions … of dollars have been spent on black projects which both Congress and the Commander-in-Chief have been kept deliberately in the dark.

PAUL HELLYER, FORMER CANADIAN DEFENSE MINISTER, 2010

21 February 1954

PRESIDENT DWIGHT D. Eisenhower stood on the deck outside the control tower, looking out into the night across the endless salt flats and hard-packed sands of Muroc Air Force Base in California. He’d been on vacation at nearby Palm Springs when his aides had arrived that evening to usher him off to this godforsaken stretch of emptiness. Not that it didn’t have its own austere beauty. The sky in particular was brilliantly clear, strewn with stars.

It might have been nice if several searchlights hadn’t been switched on, their beams aiming up into the sky.

“I don’t see a damned thing,” Eisenhower said, testily. “Did they stand us up?”

An aide checked his watch. “It’s only a little past midnight, Mr. President. Let’s wait a few minutes yet and see.”

Other people in the select group stood in a huddle nearby: Edwin Nourse, who’d been Truman’s chief economic advisor; Cardinal James Francis McIntyre, current head of the Los Angeles Catholic Church; Franklin Allen, an eighty-year-old former reporter with the Hearst Group, leaning heavily on his cane; and perhaps fifteen others. Eisenhower’s aides had rounded them up that evening and driven them up to Muroc as “community leaders,” asking them to witness what promised to be a spectacular event—the dawn, perhaps, of a new era for Humanity.

“We’ve got incoming,” a voice inside the tower called over a loudspeaker. “From the north-northwest, range fifty miles.” Eisenhower turned to face that direction and raised his binoculars to his eyes. He had not, he decided, been this nervous since he’d waited out D-day in his command post, code-named “Sharpener,” in a Hampshire woods.

A star just above the horizon grew steadily brighter. “There it is, sir!” an aide called.

“I see it.”

The star swelled rapidly to a brilliant light, like an aircraft’s landing lights, and it was accompanied now by four other objects traveling behind it. Through the binoculars, Eisenhower could see that the craft was flat and circular, perhaps sixty yards across. Windows across the leading edge were the source of the light, too bright for him to see inside.

Utterly silent, the craft came to a stop, hovering two hundred yards out from the control tower, extended four landing legs, then gently settled onto the hard-packed desert floor. Light spilled onto the ground as a garage-sized hatch slid open, and a ramp extended in apparent welcome.

“Well,” the President said, “I guess it’s showtime.”

“I still don’t like this, Mr. President,” Sherman Adams said. Adams was Eisenhower’s chief of staff, the first man ever to hold that title. “Not one bit. We can’t help you in there if they’re hostile—”

“I’ll be fine, Sherman.”

“Sir, if this is an invasion, what’s the first thing they would do? Take down the target’s leadership! They could kidnap you, hold you hostage. Or—”