"Heavy!"
Okun sounded impressed. "What's the maximum penalty?"
"Have
you ever heard of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg?"
"Oh.
Heavier than I thought." Brackish gulped, hesitant to sign something that
could land
him in the electric chair.
"Don't
worry. Just think twice before you go
selling any information to the Russians." Radecker grinned.
Nodding,
Okun scribbled his name at the bottom of
the page.
Radecker
turned to Saylene. "Whenever someone
asks about your son, you tell them he's taken a job as a safety
inspector with
the Bechtel Corporation. This job requires him to travel around the
world, so
you don't know where he is at any given time. Sign here." Reluctantly,
she
did as she was told.
Then
the agent packed up all the documents and told
the family, "I'll give you a moment to say goodbye. I'll be outside in
the
car."
Brackish
and Saylene smiled at one another, both
calm on the outside, as waves of feeling crested and crashed inside.
They spent
their last five minutes together crying and hugging. When Radecker
tooted the
horn outside, Okun looked down at his mom and promised her he'd come
back as
soon as he could. It was a promise he would keep, however briefly.
Life
got sweeter and sweeter for
Okun. When
Radecker told him where they were
headed, he had prepared himself for a long ride in the car, but instead
they
went to Burbank Airport and signed in at the desk of a small cargo
transport
company, SwiftAir. He'd only flown twice before, once to Chicago when
he'd won
the Westinghouse competition, and once to New York, for a whirlwind
weekend in
the Big Apple.
Today
they
lifted off in a small twin-engine Cessna. Once they got out over the
desert,
the captain invited him to come up and sit in the cockpit. It was a
warm spring
day, and, as soon as they left LA's smog behind, the view was superb.
Okun
pressed his nose against the glass and imagined spotting a crashed UFO.
He felt
lucky. Radecker had told him they were headed for "a very important
laboratory
near Las Vegas." Based on what the old man had told him three weeks
earlier in his dorm room, he assumed that meant one of the national
labs in New
Mexico. Visions of sparkling equipment and gleaming multistory
buildings danced
in his head.
It was a Thursday,
and Okun wondered what the Mothers, sitting through Professor Frankel's
theoretical physics lecture, were thinking about his sudden
disappearance. He
would see if there was a way to sneak a postcard out to them once he
got
settled.
"There she
is," the pilot announced forty minutes into the flight, "Lost Wages,
Nevada." Okun had only a moment to study the narrow city built up along
both sides of a highway before the plane banked north. A few minutes
later, the
pilot turned and called back to Radecker over the noise of the engines,
"We're coming up to the Nellis Range perimeter, sir."
Okun looked down and
saw they were flying over double fence, one inside the other.
I hope this
isn't where we're headed.
The pilot flew over a decent-sized
military base,
a cluster of a hundred or so buildings and a dozen hangars, but kept
going. As
Okun's heart began to sink in disappointment, the pilot pointed to a
sharp hill
rising a thousand feet off the desert floor, and said, "Wheelbarrow
Peak." At the base of this hill was a dry lake bed with a pair of
landing
strips that formed a big X across the cotton-colored sand. Near the
center of
the X stood a single airplane hangar and a few dozen small buildings.
When Okun
realized this was where they were going to land, he immediately marched
back
and piled into the seat next to Radecker.
"Man, tell me
this isn't where we're going, man."
Radecker, who was
just as disturbed by what he saw out the window as Okun was, said
nothing. Two
days ago, before leaving Washington, he'd asked around and learned that
Area 51
was "a backwater facility." But the dusty collection of weathered
buildings he saw from the plane didn't even deserve the name backwater.
It was
more like tiny-scuzzy-pond-water about nine million miles from where
the action
was. This wasn't a promotion; it was exile.
As the plane came in
for its landing, they could nee that most of the buildings were
boarded-up
rthacks, the sleeping quarters of some long-departed army. A large 51
was
painted in black on the doors of the corrugated-steel airplane hangar,
before
which a contingent of perhaps twenty-five people stood waiting to greet
the new
arrivals. A pair of antiaircraft guns stood guard over either end of
this dusty
little ghost town.
"Welcome,
gentlemen. I'm Lieutenant Ellsworth," rasped the man who opened the
plane's passenger door for them. "I'll be responsible for your security
while you're here. My instructions are to escort you directly to the
labs and
try to answer any questions you might have." Soldiers came forward and
helped unload the luggage and other cargo. Ellsworth's tough-customer
face was
obscured by reflective sunglasses and a baseball cap with a Groom Lake
patch
sewn on the front. As they marched across the warm tarmac, he explained
that
the base was under twenty-four-hour guard, and that someone would
always be
stationed at the phones in case there was any emergency. Everyone who
worked in
the underground lab was free to come topside whenever he wished, but,
for
security reasons, would the gentlemen please refrain from fraternizing
with the
soldiers. When they arrived at the hangar doors, they were met by a
group of
elderly gentlemen whom Ellsworth introduced as the scientific staff.
There were
four of them, all about seventy years old, dressed in lab coats and
sporting
beards. "This is Dr. Freiling, Dr. Cibatutto, Dr. Lenel, and I believe
you
already know Dr. Dworkin."
Sure enough, standing
there with the same avuncular smile Okun recognized from the interview
in his
dorm room, was Sam Dworkin. Standing next td the sun-darkened soldiers,
the
quartet of aging scientists looked extremely pale. After a round of
handshakes
and hellos, the party moved inside.
The hangar was empty
except for a few jeeps. They came to a stairwell and began to descend
the
stairs in silence. Four flights down, it felt like they were preparing
to enter
an excavated tomb, and Okun could feel himself getting claustrophobic.
He took
comfort in the sight of telex cables and phone lines snaking up the
bare concrete
walls of the stairwell. Finally, after six steep flights of steps, they
came to
a set of heavy steel doors. Okun and Radecker both noticed that these
could be
bolted closed from the outside.
Okun stopped walking
and raised his hand in the air. "I have a question."
"Yes, sir?"
"Is it just me,
or is this whole situation starting to feel like an Edgar Allen Poe
story? You
aren't planning on locking us inside those doors, are you?"
Okun chuckled
nervously, hoping the others would chuckle with him.
Ellsworth answered
mirthlessly. "The doors are never locked, sir. The bolts are there just
in
case there's an emergency."
"Has there ever
been one?"
"Not yet."
Ellsworth handed Okun's suitcases over to him. "This is as far as I go.
I'm not allowed inside the lab."
"Except in case
of emergency," one of the scientists added.
Inside, each of the
four elderly scientists carried a crate of new supplies that had been
left by
the door and led the new arrivals into a long, dimly lit room. Every
few paces
they moved into a pool of light cast by the lamps mounted on the
ceiling.
Although half of the light bulbs had died, Okun and Radecker could see
the room
stretching out to the length of a football field. Other than a few
hundred
crates and dusty filing cabinets, it was empty.
"Don't mind this
mess," Dr. Cibatutto told them in what was left of his Italian accent.
"It's only a storage area for obsolete equipment and a lot of old
documents nobody cares about. Someday we'll clean it up, and put in a
bowlin
galley."
"Put in a
what?" Okun asked.
"A bowling
alley," repeated Cibatutto, shortest and plumpest of the scientists,
enunciating carefully.
"This
way, gentlemen." Dworkin turned into one hallway, then another, leading
them into the most often used room in this top-secret government lab:
the
kitchen. In contrast to the murky light and cobwebs of the entrance
hall, this
room was brightly lit and tastefully decorated. A long table with
picnic
benches was elegantly set for six diners.
"We take turns
cooking down here and, over the years, we've developed into rather
adequate
chefs, but none finer than Signor Cibatutto," Dworkin told them,
setting
down the crate he'd carried in. "And, in honor of your arrival, he has
prepared one of his most mouthwatering specialties."
Cibatutto beamed
proudly. "Tonight we're gonna have a mushroom risotto with salmon and a
delicious chicken cacciatore."
"Dr. Lenel and I
will show you to your rooms," Dworkin said, picking up one of Okun's
bags.
"We'll give you a chance to relax from your journey, and then dinner
will
be served."
Radecker wasn't in
the mood for a dinner party. "Is it just the four of you down here?
Isn't
there anyone else?"
All the doctors
glanced at one another nervously. "No, just the four of us. Were you expecting others?
"No, I didn't
know what to expect," Radecker retorted.
"I remember
now!" Freiling erupted. He'd spent the last few minutes staring at
Brackish, scrutinizing him, but now he turned around toward Dworkin.
"This
is that hippie kid you were telling us about. I been standing here
thinking it
was a damned girl, but it's not. It's that hippie kid, isn't it?"
Okun grinned sourly
at the old man, not nodding.
Dworkin
chuckled in blithe amusement and tried to dismiss the incident. "Dr.
Freiling's eyesight isn't what it once was."
"Look,
gentlemen"—Radecker felt there was too much nonsense going on—"I
appreciate the effort you've gone to, but Mr. Okun and I would like to
get
oriented right away. Why don't you give us a tour."
The old men stared at
the young men, their feelings bruised. "Now, now," Dworkin said,
"there will be more than enough time for a tour later on. Whenever we
show
the place to visitors, there are invariably a thousand questions. It
takes hours.
Hut first thing tomorrow morning, we'll be sure and—"
"Show us the
vehicle!" Radecker demanded with a vehemence that surprised everyone,
including himself. He was getting very nervous about the idea of being
marooned
in this concrete bunker for who knew how long.
The high-spirited
mood in the room crashed like a tray full of fine china. The stunned
scientists
looked at one another.
Who is this guy?
Dworkin
led
them through another set of hallways
until they came to a steel door with a wheel lock,
the same type found at a bulkhead in a submarine. He pulled the door
open and
stepped into the pitch-black room beyond. A second later, dozens of
fluorescent
tubes sputtered to life, illuminating the interior of a giant concrete
cube,
six stories deep. In the center of the room was the alien ship that had
crashed
at Roswell many years before. Okun's jaw fell open, and his eyes glazed
over.
In the photograph, the thing had looked somehow ordinary, a machine and
nothing
more. But now, looking it in the face, there was an animal quality to
its
appearance, like a great black-gray stingray sleeping peacefully at the
bottom
of this large concrete tank. It rested seven feet off the ground on a
series of
wooden trestles. A pair of windows facing the visitors seemed to stare
back
like sharply focused eyes.
Gulp.
They stepped through
the doorway and onto an observation platform, as Dr. Lenel made his way
along
the underside of the beast and scampered up a ladder into its belly. In
a
moment, lights came on inside the ship, and Lenel could be seen behind
the windows
standing in the cockpit.
"This,"
Okun said to no one in particular, "is far beyond cool." Then,
nodding for the first time since he arrived at Area 51, he stepped off
the
observation platform. Moving closer, he examined the large projection
running
along the ship's backbone. "The fin," as the scientists called it,
started
out some six feet tall just behind the windows, then tapered gracefully
to a
needle-sharp point at the tail. The ship's exterior surface was
composed of
several armored plates which were etched with thinly cut grooves and
embossed
designs that looked somewhat like Egyptian hieroglyphs. "I don't
recognize
this material. Do you know what kind of metal it is?"
"The
vehicle's carapace is composed of a very rigid material, but it isn't
metal," Dr. Dworkin explained, moving past Okun to reach up and run his
hand over the surface. "If you look very closely, you'll notice
something
curious. Can you see these very small holes? We think they're either
pores or
hair follicles. This armored plate was once the shell of a living
animal."
"Outta
sight," the younger scientist commented softly.
Lenel beckoned him
even closer to the ship, pointing into the gap between two of the
plates. In
the crevice, Okun could see countless pieces of intricate machine
tooling, tiny
metallic gadgets set in place with the same extraordinary precision as
the
muscles in the human hand. This outstanding workmanship received a
large and
approving nod.
Mounted on the ship's
underside were what looked like a couple of thruster rockets. One of
them had
been sheared away in the crash and was currently held in place by an
awkward
network of spot welds and metal plumber's tape.