Authors: Bryan O
“Maybe I wasn’t persuasive enough,” she said with a testing smile.
Skyles enjoyed the conversation he was having with her breasts. “I imagine a woman like you can be pretty persuasive.”
“There’s no point imagining when you can see first hand. I’ve got a few secrets of my own that might interest you.” She raised her glass and dribbled a few drops of vodka and tonic over her white blouse, making the fabric transparent against the left side of her chest.
Skyles’ eyes widened in ecstasy; she wasn’t wearing a bra. He paid his respect with a six-inch salute. “Speaking of secrets, I know things that would send shivers up the President’s spine,” he admitted.
The remark disturbed Owens. “He shouldn’t be making references like that,” he muttered.
“Maybe it’s a coincidence,” Kayla said. “It could be a line.”
“There’s more to it than you understand,” Owens told her. Kayla was new and not yet privy to all that Owens understood. “And I don’t think he needs to use a line at this point.” Owens now suspected that there might be more to the incident than he had anticipated. “This woman may have opened our eyes to a serious problem in our security. I don’t want this going any further.” He retrieved a laser pointer from his lapel pocket and trained it on Janice’s wet blouse, keeping it pointed there as he rose and walked toward their table.
Skyles saw the dancing red dot from the laser and turned to find its source. He made eye contact with Owens who did not stop his approach until he was staring down on Skyles, glaring with cold blue eyes made even stranger by a double set of pupils—one black circle on top of the other, almost reptilian. Owens’ birth defect was rare, with no physical limitations—just aesthetic challenges that often helped him to intimidate those he exchanged scowls with.
“Ben Skyles, I thought that was you. And this must be your lovely wife Linda,” he said, shifting his stare to the Chinese beauty next to Skyles.
Dumbfounded, Skyles stammered, “Oh, no. This is Janice—she’s an old friend. Do I know you?” Skyles asked, knowing too well who the man might be. He tried to remain calm, but began sweating, realizing that the man might have overheard their conversation.
“We’ve crossed paths before. I suppose you forgot. A few too many drinks maybe?”
“Just a couple while we reminisced about old times,” Skyles managed.
Owens sneered at Janice as she blotted her shirt with a napkin. “Apparently you have a leak,” he said with a devilish grin. “I hope they’re saline and not silicone.”
Janice ignored his insinuation. “The ice cubes were stuck at the bottom of the glass and fell forward while I was taking a sip,” she said with English that barely hinted at a native tongue. She attempted to look embarrassed, appeasing.
“No they didn’t,” Owens replied. Losing his smile, he shot Skyles a sinister look. “Did you see the full moon last night, Ben?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Good answer.” Owens offered Janice a parting wink before retreating to his table. His comment about the moon was bait for her more than anything else, and she had responded with a subtle double-blink that spoke volumes to a seasoned professional like Owens.
“I always knew the Chinese would come after us,” Owens said for Kayla to hear. “They have the greatest need for the technologies.”
“What do we do next?” Kayla asked.
“Wait until they leave, then take the woman. I don’t want to do it in here. Be ready to confront her.” Owens reclaimed his seat, turning in time to see Skyles drop cash on the table and hurry for the door. “Skyles is on his way out.”
“It’s okay to let him go?”
“We can deal with him later.”
Janice got up and walked to the restroom, passing Owens along the way. Their eyes met. Neither one broke the stare until she disappeared through the bathroom door.
“Get the hunting knife from the equipment trunk and puncture two of her tires,” Owens instructed Kayla. He waived the waitress to his table and flashed a billfold with Department of Justice credentials that could be validated, but were not a true marker of his identity, “A woman just went into the bathroom,” he said to the waitress. “Is there any other way for her to exit?”
The waitress paused, trying to process the credentials and questions in her mind about what might be happening, and then thought about the bathroom, “No—there’s a window, but it’s too small for someone to fit through.”
Minutes passed as Owens waited in his booth with a malevolent calm, wondering what Janice was doing in the bathroom—maybe calling for help. “Let me know if anyone enters the parking lot,” he told Kayla.
Moments later the waitress exited the kitchen and returned to Owens’ table, breathing heavy with excitement. “That woman just dropped through a ceiling panel in the kitchen and ran out the back door.”
“She’s outside,” Owens advised Kayla. He ran, bursting through a swinging kitchen door and spotted the exit. He dashed outside into a rear parking area that bordered a low-rent apartment complex and offered half a dozen flight paths that would not return Janice to the front of the restaurant. “You still at her car?”
“Affirmative.”
“She didn’t even try getting back to her car, did she?”
“No—I ducked down to surprise her if she did.”
“Don’t worry about it. She’s a crafty lamia, had her escape planned.”
“Lamia?”
“A female monster.” He returned to the restaurant to gather his articles and settle the tab. He wasn’t a cop, nor was he calling them to chase the woman and cause a scene that would only raise questions and outside interests. Instead, he reviewed the situation. Normally, he wouldn’t have confronted the woman without more backup. But her conversation with Skyles had entered what he called the majic zone—sensitive information he spared no expense in protecting. Although Janice had escaped, the information Skyles possessed had not. Owens knew with time and patience, his power and resources could not be beat. He would catch China’s lamia.
By William Moreau
No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law; and a regular statement and account of the receipts and expenditures of all public money shall be published from time to time. (United States Constitution, Article 1, Section 9.)
NEVADA, June 1994 - Government accountability, a constitutional requirement that informs and empowers the common citizen through public oversight, has steadily diminished since the beginning of the Cold War. Powers-that-be contend the secrecy is in the country’s best interest. However, a growing number of citizens believe secrecy has evolved into a subculture within the government, hiding an economic structure providing power, profits and technological superiority to those involved. Groom Lake, in the Southern Nevada desert, is a blatant example of the government’s expanding covert activities.
US Geological Survey maps show a dry lake in Groom Valley. Twenty miles east of the remote location lies the nearest paved road, an infrequently traveled two-lane highway traversing one of America’s loneliest regions.
Department of Energy maps of the adjacent Nevada Test Site once designated Groom Lake as part of a land quadrant called Area 51. Newer maps no longer identify the area.
Officials at Nellis Air Force Base acknowledge that Groom Lake is part of the Nellis Range Complex, but insist the land is a bombing range. Airspace above the valley is restricted—an extraordinary security measure for a bombing range.
No public accounting exists of appropriations for government activity at Groom Lake, although a secret airbase—a cooperative effort between the CIA and military agencies—has been in operation there since 1955. For over thirty years a select few knew about the base, often referring to the facility by one of many codenames: Dreamland, The Box, Watertown Strip. An official name never christened the site.
The base tested and developed advanced reconnaissance aircraft, from the U2 Spyplane in the fifties to the F-117 Stealth Fighter in the eighties. The current generation of test craft blew the lid off the base’s secrecy when eyewitnesses in Lincoln County Nevada reported seeing UFOs: illuminated orange colored orbs darting soundlessly across the sky. Government officials ignored the UFO reports and refused to acknowledge the existence of an airbase on the bombing range. Their denial of knowledge furthered speculation as curiosity seekers flocked to the area. UFO enthusiasts and aviation buffs invaded nearby public lands, but instead of seeing UFOs, most experienced a close encounter of the intimidating kind: guards wielding automatic weapons and thundering Black Hawk helicopters. A few brazen individuals challenged the forces and demanded to know what
their
government was doing at Groom Lake, and their search efforts produced a vantage point on public land that offered a view of the government’s airbase-that-did-not-exist. Some travelers to the remote location ignored signs posting federal law 18 USC 795, prohibiting photography of military installations without permission. The photos served as undeniable proof that Groom Lake was more than a bombing range, and that government factions can covertly operate outside the oversight process.
From atop a cluster of boulders on a hillside in the high desert region of Southern Nevada, a diamondback rattlesnake woke from an afternoon of sun basking. With its blood warmed, the predator ventured off its perch, zigzagging from one rock to another like they were steps until it reached solid ground and slithered into a small crevice, passing undetected past a napping Janice Yang. Curled inside a tight hollow formed by leaning boulders and desert chaparral, Janice would await nightfall, hoping the intelligence agents from the Las Vegas bar would not think to look for her at Area 51.
Years of patient planning during the Cold War had positioned China to become a dominant superpower in the new millennium. In Cold War times, the United States intelligence community focused its efforts on the Warsaw Pact nations, leaving countries like China, with no immediate military threat against the US, room to conduct offensive espionage practices. In time China realized their efforts to acquire information from the nuclear and traditional defense industries were not enough to keep pace with the United States. The Chinese needed to expand by acquiring technology from America’s black programs: stealth engineering, the Aurora, and truths behind prevailing stories circulating in the UFO community that Area 51 was home to secret underground facilities where the Americans studied extraterrestrial technology.
Janice originally planned to extract information from Ben Skyles and other base employees, but she underestimated the control America had over its black programs. Her best hope now was to take detailed photos of the base, and if she got lucky, the technology being tested in the skies. Anything less and her mission might be deemed a failure. She had the wherewithal to assimilate into the American culture and leave China behind, but the
Chen Di Yu
might punish, or kill, members of her family if she disappeared. So she ventured through the desert, not for herself, but her loved ones.
After the sun dipped below the mountains and its orange hues disappeared from the western horizon, Janice woke and crept out of her hiding place. She looked down at Groom Lake and its seven-mile long runway where red landing lights defined the perimeter. At the far end of the dry lake, a small city of lights comprised the air base. Rumors about the happenings at Area 51 ranged from suggesting it was a simple facility used for fighter jet training, to tall tales that the base served as a command post for a secret relationship between the American government and a race of alien creatures. Although seemingly illogical, she couldn’t help but mull over the extraterrestrial rumors, especially the ones associated with a secret underground facility in Papoose Valley.
She turned one-eighty on her perch and studied the Papoose Mountains, which waited in silent darkness to be climbed. In a few hours she would be in Papoose Valley where she hoped to find some answers to salvage her mission.
By William Moreau
NEVADA, June 1994 - Secrecy in the military and intelligence communities exists primarily through the black budget: appropriations not revealed to taxpayers. The method originated in 1941 when the White House, fearing opposition against the costly development of the atomic bomb, secretly paid some costs with outside funds, deceiving taxpayers by making the project appear less expensive. While political strategists might claim the ends justified the means, they cannot deny the constitutional violation that cracked the foundation supporting America’s political ideology.
Formation of the Central Intelligence Agency in 1947 furthered the rift by asserting a new standard in government affairs: SECRECY. Certain secrets are necessary to protect America’s sovereignty, but there exists a threshold and once crossed the secrets can pose a threat by creating a tyranny of power within certain government circles.
The black budget soared above $35 billion annually during the eighties. Current estimates place the annual outlay near $28 billion, translating into a 1.5 percent skimming of the federal budget for projects outside the constitutional chain of command.
Congress stamps its seal of approval on federal budgets. Congressional representatives serve on various committees where most considerations for funding are made. Two congressional committees sanction the funds for most of the black projects: the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the National Security Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee. Yet even the demigods on Capitol Hill often know little about how the money is used. Most had never heard of the Groom Lake airbase until it made its way to the mainstream press, further proof that the black programs lack proper oversight.