The Gemini Divergence (19 page)

After a moment he asked apprehensively, “How
many people know of this paper and the Luftwaffe markings?”

“Just Gus and I,” answered Volmer, “Everyone
else that has been involved, even the officers back at Roswell,
think that it was merely a plane that collided with one of our
balloons, we have kept these two key pieces of evidence to
ourselves until now, since I have told you.”

“God, is that a relief,” exhaled Lemay. “Is
there anything else that may jump start my heart today?”

Volmer thought and answered, “Well, we were
also not able to account for one of our radio directional
detectors. We don’t know if it is still laying out in the desert
somewhere or if the visitors picked it up with the other
wreckage.”

“What?” queried an again startled Lemay,
“Visitors picked up what wreckage?”

Volmer explained, “Some of the wreckage of
their craft, notably the engine, controls and instrumentation, were
already extracted when we arrived there. We assume that they did
that when they retrieved the occupants of the craft; as we found no
bodies either.”

“Why would they bother to pick up only
certain parts?” Lemay pondered out loud.

“My guess is that they didn’t want us to be
able to identify them or for us to be able to reverse engineer
whatever we would have found there… They may have picked up our
detector by accident; but I am sure they will figure out that it is
not theirs.”

General Lemay walked around the plane
thinking for a few moments and then returned and said, “Mr. Volmer,
I am going to tell the President about this Luftwaffe-Nazi-space
theory of yours and all of the evidence that you have accumulated
over this last year or so, but I don’t want you to tell any one
else, not even General Ramey, or any other officer at the meeting
we are about to attend, about the Germans.”

“What about Airman Danuser?” asked Volmer, as
he pointed in the direction that Gus had left them.

“Tell him that it is from secret testing of
captured German aircraft, from the big war, and that he is still
not to tell anyone because we are still hiding it from the
Russians,” answered Lemay.

“Yes Herr General,” answered Volmer, “I think
he will believe that, and I think he will obey it as well.”

A truck access door opened as Gus started
guiding a truck, reversing into the hanger

“Good,” exclaimed Lemay as he started walking
for the open door, “Well, let’s get to this damn meeting. General
Ramey can be a real horses ass if he is kept waiting. You know how
pompous like prima donnas generals can be.”

Volmer reacted with confusion as he remained
behind the general for a moment, pushing his thick glasses back up
his nose, he didn’t know whether General Lemay was serious or if it
was his very dry sense of humor.

*~*

There were many officers of high rank and
influence gathered around a table with some selected pieces of
debris from the wreckage.

There were more pieces of Volmer’s balloon
than from the other craft, and the other craft was only represented
by small pieces of framing and molding.

In attendance were General Lemay, General
Ramey, the heads of SAC and 8
^th
Air Force
respectively.

At this time in history SAC was brand new and
the 8
^th
was the old power on the block They were in a
major power struggle over who would persevere as the biggest and
baddest boy in the up and coming independent Air Force.

Ramey was a traditionalist and thought that
the traditional power was the best, but Lemay who was head of the
8
^th
in the past, saw the future and knew that the
numbered Air Forces would probably go away and that the new Air
Force would be structured into highly specific commands.

So naturally they squabbled over whom would
sit at the head of the table, eventually they both agreed to sit at
opposite ends.

Others in attendance were Volmer and Gus of
Lemay’s team; Ramey had flown in some people from the
509
^th
at R.A.A.F; and Captain Ruppelt from the Grudge
project.

Ramey thought that he held all of the cards,
since a unit of his 8
^th
Air Force discovered the crash,
but he didn’t know that Lemay was withholding the most valuable
information, and was about to play him like a cat lets a mouse
believe that it is escaping.

General Ramey beat Lemay to the punch to
bring the meeting to order by announcing, “Gentlemen, if we may, we
need to get this show on the road.”

He picked up a small piece of debris in front
of him and as he inspected it he spoke again, “You two over there,”
he looked down at a piece of paper in front of him for their names,
“Airman Danuser and Mr. Volmer, you both claim that most of this
debris is from one of your research balloons.”

“Yes Herr General, that is correct,” Volmer
answered.

“That’s a lie,” interjected one of the
intelligence officers from the 509
^th
, “this is not the
same debris from the site. This stuff is different.”

Volmer defended himself, “We had to remove
the original balloon debris to send it to Los Alamos for
processing… It was a danger to be handled by the public because it
was contaminated with fallout particles; this debris is from
another wreck of an exact same model research balloon.”

“Why is this all so damn secret?” queried
Ramey.

Volmer looked to Lemay, who then rolled his
hand and signaled for Volmer to go ahead and tell him, Lemay hoping
that Volmer would only divulge what they had agreed upon.

Otmar then returned his gaze to Ramey and
answered, “We are doing background tests on detecting our own
atomic tests, so that we may develop ways of detecting other
nation’s atomic testing efforts, namely the Russians. We have to
keep it secret so the other world powers will not know that we are
monitoring them, much like police investigators don’t approach
criminals and announce where and when they are going to be watching
them.”

“Well I can appreciate that,” responded
Ramey, “but that leaves me with another problem, what in the world
do I tell the public now? …They are waiting for a press conference.
The first errant press release from the 509
^th”
… as Ramey
gave a venomous stare at his men from Roswell, “got the entire
world press wound up into a tizzy, now I’ve got to come up with a
pound of flesh to feed them.”

“Might I suggest, Herr General,” Volmer
interjected, “that you use our standard cover story, that it is
just atmospheric and weather research.”

“Weather research?”

“Yes Herr General, a weather balloon.”

“What then, is all of this other unknown
debris from?” interrupted Captain Ruppelt, “these aluminum pieces
are obviously not from a balloon… I wasn’t born yesterday.”

Volmer turned to Ruppelt and answered, “Well
Captain, I haven’t the foggiest. We have had a lot of thought about
this and we are all drawing blanks… We have had mechanics from many
Air Force disciplines examine it and none of them have recognized
the parts as being from any aircraft that they have ever seen,”
Volmer stated as he turned and pointed to Gus, who then shook his
head in agreement.

The officers from the 509
^th
were
also shaking their heads and agreeing, one even spoke, “Yes sir,
that’s true, none of our head mechanics recognized any of these
aluminum parts.”

Gus finally spoke by saying, “General Sir, we
don’t even know if it is an aircraft, there was no motor, no
control surfaces, no instruments; but aside from a canoe, I don’t
have any idea what else would be made of aluminum and rivets beside
an airplane. Canoes also don’t have mounted seat cushions and there
was foam cushion material in the debris.”

“What about an Airstream camper,” came a
voice from behind every one else.

They all turned their attention from the end
of the table where Ramey was seated, to see Lemay sitting at the
other end flicking his cigar into a glass tray. “It could have been
on the ground when the storm inexplicably wound the two together
and drug them across the desert floor… Most campers sit vacant for
the majority of the year anyway, the owner may have not reported it
missing because they may not even know its missing yet, Last time I
saw one, I don’t recall it having a motor, or a tailfin, nor any
cockpit controls …but it did have seat cushions.”

Ramey sat a while and thought, then decided,
“Go ahead and hold the press conference and use the weather balloon
story, tell them that the people at the 509
^th
released
the first statement because they didn’t know what it was and they
just quoted the rancher that found it.”

He then turned to Ruppelt and said, “I know
that I don’t have to ask General Lemay to keep the real story
secret, I trust that you will not divulge the actual research in
your report.”

“Yes Sir, you have my word,” answered
Ruppelt, “but I am still going to follow up with the local Sheriff
and try to figure out what this other debris is from.”

Ramey then turned to Volmer and asked, “Mr.
Volmer, you said that the actual balloon was contaminated, did you
send every single bit of it to Los Alamos for testing?”

“Oh, no sir, that would never have been
necessary, I only needed to send a small amount for testing,”
answered Volmer, “the rest is still in the aircraft awaiting
disposition.”

“Well what are we going to do with all of
it?” asked Ramey, “it’s contaminated, right?”

“Why don’t we just bury it in a hole
underneath that fancy new thirty six inch deep concrete runway that
you boys are building out there,” suggested Lemay as he was
reclining back in his chair, “nobody would ever find it in any of
our lifetimes.”

“That’s brilliant,” Ramey relented, “I’ll get
a CE crew on that right away.”

~~~**^**~~~

The Cold War / The Roswell Crash Press
Release

Finally the press conference was held.

General Ramey had insisted that his
509
^th
personnel be the ones to hold the conference.

The press showed up in force and General
Ramey, Colonel Dubose and Major Jesse Marcel, all happily posed for
photographs with pieces of a weather balloon given to them by Mr.
Volmer and Airman Danuser.

The press then retreated and dutifully
released the now famous pictures taken that day along with the
canned statements that General Ramey had approved.

Still unbeknownst to anyone in the press or
anywhere else in the Air Force was the information held only by
Volmer, Gus, and General Lemay.

General Lemay was seeking a way to bypass the
chain of command and take this information directly to President
Truman.

He figured that it was imperative that he use
this information to sell Truman on the need for a yet even more
secret strictly technology based information gathering agency than
the newly planned CIA, before it was made official by the National
Defense Act.

This new act would simultaneously fund the
new Interstate Highway System, desegregate the military, create the
newly independent Air Force, and CIA, and finally create the now
all encompassing Department of Defense, to be housed in the new
Pentagon.

All of these sweeping changes were to become
law in a sure to pass bill that would be finalized before the end
of 1947.

*~*

General Kreutztrager barged right into
Schwerig’s office without announcement.

Schwerig looked up, surprised, then snapped
to attention.

The General said nothing at first but walked
up to the desk while looking around at Schwerig’s office.

When he finally got to the desk he threw a
Buenos Aires Newspaper, with the Roswell press release on the front
page, down onto Schwerig’s desk and inquired, “Have you seen this
yet, Oberstleutnant Schwerig?”

Schwerig picked up the paper and scanned it,
then answered, “Nein, Herr General, this is the first that it has
come to my attention.”

“It still doesn’t tell us whether their Air
Force is truly aware of us. But it does let us know that even if
they are, they have decided to keep it from their masses,”
explained General Kreutztrager, “Have your men found anything new
about the device that you have found?”

“They have, General Sir. I was just reading
the report as you… walked in.”

Schwerig picked up the report and handed it
to Kreutztrager, “It is a little troubling, as it seems that the
device was tuned to not only listen to, but to triangulate on the
frequencies that we have been using, and those specific frequencies
only.”

“So they were trying to figure out if we are
actually in space?” Kreutztrager assumed.

“Yes, Herr General, it appears so,”
reluctantly answered Schwerig, “Very good thing that we eliminated
the creator of this device, but now we must figure out whom else
knows and what their new agenda may be?”