The Gemini Divergence (78 page)

*~*

The scene was vastly different within the
young Raumsfahrtwaffe pilot’s craft, as the novice aviator had
never experienced any in flight emergencies before, except in
training.

His mind was racing with horrific scenarios
of what may become of him; clouding his thoughts and robbing his
concentration of the ability to deal with the dire situation.

He was apathetic to the chorus of emergency
buzzers and tones that accompanied the myriad of flashing lights
and beacons.

The overwhelming assault on the senses caused
his mind to nullify the intended purpose of the seemingly futile
emergency devices.

At first he instinctively looked for land,
but then realized that it would be safer to crash into the water…
Then conversely, he thought, he shouldn’t crash too far from land…
So he picked a spot in a large harbor on the coast of the island
that he saw quickly coming up before him.

People on the coastline surrounding Shag
Harbor, Nova Scotia began to see the bright spectral streak of the
troubled craft screaming towards the water. Then… splash!

Panicked people called the authorities to
report a crashed aircraft, as others scrambled for boats to travel
out to the still floating light, out on the water.

As they approached the object, the lights
submerged into the harbor… then went out. Only a blanket of
floating foam remained on the water at the crash site.

*~*

Confusion, delirium… slowly cohesive thoughts
began to piece themselves together into a return to
consciousness.

As Hughes began to regain control of his
limbs as well as his vision, he tried to brush away the annoying
salt that had deposited itself into the road rash on his forehead;
obviously from skidding across the desert floor.

He looked around to see burning wreckage
scattered for yards behind him, as he wondered how far he had
rolled or skidded before coming to a stop.

As he fought the pain and stood up, he
noticed that even though he had left the seat behind somewhere, the
seat belt was still fastened tightly around him, so he loosened it
and let it fall to the ground.

He walked around, lightly kicking pieces of
debris over to figure out what they where, until he found his hat
smoldering beneath some rubble.

He pushed the debris from his hat and bent
over to pick up the smoking fedora, repeatedly whipping it onto his
thigh to extinguish the diminishing smoke, then placed it onto his
head and scanned the horizon for lights.

There was nothing… and he had no idea where
he was.

He knew that he needed to find or make some
sort of shelter before the sun came up, or he would be in an even
worse predicament, so he set about collecting whatever he could
find to aid with his survival.

*~*

At first the Canadian Authorities thought
that they were confronted with a typical search and recovery of a
wrecked airplane, submerged in the harbor. But, after their coast
guard divers surfaced and reported what they had actually
discovered under the water, the entire situation changed.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Coast
Guard, which had been the first responders, escalated the call to
the Royal Canadian Air Force as well as the Royal Canadian
Navy.

Soon after, Naval diver teams began diving
and requesting a myriad of underwater drilling and welding
equipment.

Then, the object shocked them by coming to
life and moving.

They tracked the object as it traveled out of
the harbor, under the water, up the coast towards Shelburne, until
it sat down right on top of an underwater magnetic grid beneath
Berry’s Bay, right off of the Joint U.S.-Canadian Government Point
military installation at the very tip of the Sandy Point peninsula
in Nova Scotia.

Government Point was another Navy-AFOAT SONUS
listening/detection station, very similar to AUTEC on Andros Island
far to the south, only a smaller version. They had straddled
Berry’s Bay and Deming’s Island with listening devices to create
another giant artificial ear cavity, created to listen to the North
Atlantic Ocean.

Now, whether deliberately alerted or by the
outlying of events, the U.S. and AFOAT were now, deeply
involved.

*~*

Once Hughes had gathered up all of the water
he could carry, along with a tarpaulin for shelter from the sun and
a crash survival pack, he set out to summit the closest ridge to
his location, which looked to still be miles away.

He had walked for hours through the night,
but that was his plan. He would rest through the day and walk at
night to preserve his body moisture by perspiring as little as
possible.

Once he reached the small mountain ridge,
jutting from the desert floor like an island in the ocean, he was
elated to discover that it would not be that technical of a climb,
but merely a stout hike to the apex.

He reached the top just as the sun was
dawning in the East.

Intuitively he quickly built an arrow out of
rocks on the ground pointing towards the rising sun to mark the
direction of East, to serve as a reference when he set out after
darkness arrived again.

Sadly, as he sat with a disgusted sigh, there
was nothing in sight; not a single peloric tree line, fence line,
or road, nor any other sign of human life.

*~*

Gus and Jack quickly found themselves on a
WC-135 coming into Dow AFB in Bangor, Maine. They were ordered to
use Dow for a support base to fly the 135 out of while they
investigated the Shag Harbor incident because it could support
135’s and was only 150 miles, over water, from Shag Harbor.

Once on the ground, they quickly changed into
their dress civvies and caught a civilian puddle jumper over to
Nova Scotia to interview witnesses.

Before they left, Jack tried to call Howard
in Las Vegas, but was told by one of Hughes’ assistants that he had
not returned from Groom Lake that day.

Jack just assumed that Howard was working on
something that he didn’t want to walk away from. He knew that it
was very common for Howard to sleep on a cot right next to whatever
problem he was trying to solve until he figured it out.

*~*

After sleeping all day beneath the tarpaulin
that he had stretched between two large rocks, he awoke shivering
after the sun had already set.

Rummaging through his survival kit, he found
a small packet of food and quickly opened and devoured it… saving
the others for the next day.

He folded up the tarpaulin and glanced at
the arrow of rocks that he was thankful that he had constructed
earlier in the day, since the sun had already set before he could
use it for a bearing.

He didn’t know exactly where he was, but he
knew that he was in Nevada and was most likely to the north of or
still on the vast NTS.

If that were the case, then traveling west
would be the wisest choice, because it would be the shortest route
to a road, eventually running into either Highway 95 or Highway
6.

So, glancing down at his stone arrow that
was pointing east to where the sun had set, he set out in the
opposite direction.

*~*

After a long day interviewing witnesses with
the Canadian Mounted Police, Jack and Gus returned to Dow to
discover Naval P-3 Orion crews bustling with activity fueling and
arming P-3s as they were suddenly on a feverish rotation, flying in
and out of the base.

The flight line of the base was now on alert
because the object in the water had been approached by another that
came from somewhere in the Atlantic and they both departed
underwater towards the south.

Canadian, British, American, and even Soviet
Naval vessels were all scrambling in an unprecedented cooperative
effort to locate the two USOs and report their position to the
prowling P-3s.

As they stepped out of their plane, Volmer
was there to greet them and said, “No one has seen Howard since he
left on a test flight the night before last… Groom Lake is saying
that even though it is common for Howard to disappear on the base,
his saucer is still not in the hanger.”

Gus spoke first, “Well, what do you suppose
happened to him?”

“I don’t have the slightest idea. I hope that
he is alright.”

Jack commented, “I just tried to call him
before we left this morning… no wonder I couldn’t reach him.”

Volmer sighed, “Well, we’ll just have to wait
for him to show up… Anyhow, this situation is now out of our hands.
The saucer in the water has been assisted by another and they have
both departed to the south. Now every Navy on the planet with a
ship on our east coast is scampering to locate them so that we can
blow them out of the water. There are P’3s flying out of every
Naval Air Station and Air Base on the east coast… In a slightly
humorous but serious change of normality, the Soviets and the
British are giving us constant updates about the locations of their
submarines in the Atlantic so that we don’t errantly sink one of
their vessels during this sudden madness…”

Volmer was suddenly interrupted by the high
pitched whining of a departing P-3 growling off the runway and into
the air.

Gus commented, “I always thought that those
things looked like mad hornets flying into the air with that tail
boom that they have… Don’t you think that they look like giant
stingers?”

“I always thought they looked like stingers,”
chuckled Jack.

“Actually they are called ‘MAD’ tails by the
Navy,” answered Volmer, “it stands for Magnetic Anomaly Detector.
That part is not actually a weapon, but a sensor to locate enemy
submarines… But not to worry, they have more weapons than most
fighters… I pity the Overseers when they find them.”

Gus added, “I’ll bet the Navy is dropping
more sonobouys in the water than a farmer sewing seeds in the
spring.”

Jack laughed, “Yeah, we could probably use
them to walk over the water to wherever those Overseers are
hiding.”

Volmer smiled, “Well… maybe not that many,
but I’m sure that they are in overkill mode, and will drop them to
listen underwater until they find them… They’ll be washing up on
shore for weeks.”

“Where do you think that those Overseers are
headed? Why don’t they just fly away?”

Volmer answered, “I imagine that the one that
initially crashed into Shag Harbor is still unable to fly… I would
imagine that they are trying to get to the Raumsfahrtwaffe’s secret
base near Puerto Rico… Maybe we will finally discover its exact
location.”

“Maybe…” replied Gus

“Anyway… I’ve got to get on a plane and get
back to work on Project Clear Sky.”

“What is that?” asked Gus.

“You’ll both know soon enough. We’re
deploying it this coming February and I’m sure that General
Fitzpatrick will pull you boys from whatever you are doing to help
us roll it out.”

*~*

It had been days since Hughes had seen a
glimpse of human influence, and he had run completely out of food
and water.

He wondered if anybody had even noticed that
he was missing, or even began looking; but he still had no regrets
of his preference at being a loner.

Just a few yards ahead he could see the top
of the latest ridge that he has was hiking over and soon he would
be able to see the other side.

Most of the ridges in Nevada run from north
to south, so his decision to hike west meant that he had to
overcome ridge after ever again another ridge.

As he finally reached the top, he fell to his
knees in relief, at the site that now lay before him.

Even though there were no cars in sight… It
was a highway… a paved highway, running from north to south.

It would just be a matter of time before a
car came along, so he made his way down to the highway and found
billboard sign to lean up against and rest until someone came
along.

Howard lost track of time dozing in and out
of consciousness, but after a longer wait than he had expected, he
could see a dark fuzzy spot appear through the heat waves on the
horizon… It was a car.

He wanted to get up and run to it, but he
could barely muster the energy to wave his arm at the approaching
vehicle.

As the driver was approaching, he could see
the movement of Hughes’ arm.

If it hadn’t been for Howard’s waving, he
wouldn’t have noticed him at all. After days in the desert,
Howard’s tan clothing had been soiled with sweat and desert filth
to become almost perfect camouflage. He blended right into the
landscape.

The man stopped the car and walked over to
the man, slumped against the road sign and asked, “Can I help you
sir?”

Howard could hardly gasp the words out, he
was so thirsty, “Could you please give me a ride to Las Vegas?”

“Are you a hitchhiker?”

“No… an aviator.”

“Where’s your plane?”

“In pieces… a couple of days back there in
the desert.”

“Oh my God… You crashed?!”

“Crash landed,” Hughes corrected him. “I
survived… as you can see.”

“Let me get you to a hospital!”

“No… No thank you. If you could just drop me
off at The Sands, I would be eternally grateful.”

“The Sands? Buddy, I think that you may have
a gambling or drinking problem. Why would you want to go to The
Sands after your ordeal?”

“Because, I live there.”

“You live there?” replied the confused
Samaritan, then he suddenly realized… Aviator, The Sands, lives
there, “Are you… Howard Hughes?”

In a gruff and parched tone, as he looked up
from under his fedora, he uttered, “Why yes, I am.”

Hours later the Samaritan’s car pulled up in
front of The Sands. Hughes thanked the man as he climbed out of the
car, “I really mean it… I am eternally in your debt. I’ll pay you
back somehow. I never go back on a debt.”

“Mmm… Mr. Hughes?” exclaimed an extremely
surprised valet.