The Pandora Directive: A Tex Murphy Novel (13 page)

It sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it. “Wasn’t it some kind of scandal in the testing department at the Naval Academy?”

The old man shook his head, smiling, then coughed again. “No. It was a government-appointed study started in 1952 to determine whether or not aliens had ever made contact with Earth.”

I remembered now. I’d always been somewhat interested in the idea of aliens but had never really gotten into the whole UFO scene.

“It was the first time the government publicly addressed the possible existence of UFOs. Of course, the findings were negative, and all reported sightings were determined to be fraudulent or misinterpreted. Most UFOlogists consider Project Blue Book to be the first step in a massive government cover-up.”

Malloy coughed again and turned to the desk behind him. He grabbed a can of Crown Cola and took a drink. The desk was littered with books and papers, some of which were covered with symbols like those I’d seen back at the boarding house.

“Anyway, the government made an official announcement that Project Blue Book had been closed.”

He paused poignantly.

“It wasn’t. The truth is, the military had found something at Roswell — I’m assuming you’ve heard about Roswell — and it wasn’t a @#%$ weather balloon. It was a spacecraft, and it sure wasn’t Soviet. The Roswell incident was the greatest disinformation campaign of all time. Sure, there were allegations and investigations, books written and witnesses interviewed, but not a shred of tangible evidence was ever released to the public.”

I’d heard this kind of talk before, mostly from UFO crackpots. I believed Malloy more than I would believe most people on this topic, but he hadn’t told me anything that wasn’t already in print.

“So what does this have to do with Project Blue Book?”

Malloy grinned. “Project Blue Book turned into Project Blueprint. I seriously doubt you’ve heard of it, seeing as how you’re still alive. The military made it their top priority and never allowed a leak.”

“What is Project Blueprint?”

“The wreckage in Roswell was taken to a nearby underground base. A handful of top researchers with the highest security clearance were essentially given lifetime assignments to the Roswell complex. The spacecraft was not large, but was chock full of goodies to analyse. Of course, their first thought was of finding weapons, or technology to help build a better bomb. Remember, we were still in the middle of the Cold War and looking for any advantage possible.”

“Seems to me the military hasn’t changed a whole lot.”

Malloy smiled grimly and nodded.

“You got that right. Anyway, Project Blueprint was the operation concerned with gleaning new information and/or technology from the wreckage. The research continued well into the 1980s. Small advances were made, but it took time for our analysing technology to catch up the alien data. Eventually we got there.”

“You said ‘We”’

Malloy leaned back and took another sip of cola.

“So I did. I joined Project Blueprint in 1984. As a promising graduate student in linguistics and symbology, I was recruited by the military and given the assignment at age 21. In retrospect, that particular year was an interesting time to join, seeing how Big Brother was firmly in place, and the Peacekeeper was the most powerful weapon on the planet. It now strikes me as being very Orwellian. Anyway, I went to work at the Roswell complex. My job was to carry on the work of deciphering hieroglyphics. Very little — or I should say, no — progress had been made over the previous thirty-two years. In the years since the Roswell incident, the military had found no other spacecraft, though plenty of sightings were reported.”

The old man was besieged by coughing spasms, which took him a minute to recover from.

“Excuse my hacking. It’s become a problem lately.”

I waited, impatient to hear the rest of the story. Eventually, Malloy caught his breath and went on. “I’d been working in Project Blueprint for about fourteen years when word came through the complex that there’d been a breakthrough. I never got all the details, but apparently someone had discovered that one of the alien instruments would generate minute quantities of antimatter. Of course, this was technology we were capable of — in theory — in 1998, but the operation was impractical, not to mention potentially devastating. The alien technology worked much more efficiently.

“Naturally, the military was ecstatic about the breakthrough and set about using the antimatter generator to build a new and improved bomb. If you will remember, the Desert Standoff was in effect by then, and we were looking for a technology edge on the Middle East Bloc. Well, the military had what they needed and started the war. Unfortunately, as you know, things went wrong.”

“That’s the understatement of the century.”

“Yeah, well, the military didn’t think it had time to do any testing. Instead, they started a political incident and let it boil until they could plead probable cause. Then they flew a squadron out and dropped a few bombs. I don’t know all the details, but apparently the bombs hit someplace they weren’t supposed to and started a chain reaction. It ended up being like Chernobyl back in the early ‘80s, only on a scale a hundred times bigger. As the war raged on, radiation clouds drifted across every continent, seeding the atmosphere to the point of saturation. The military had screwed up big, and even they realised it. They stopped producing the bombs and destroyed the generator, but it was too late. The war ended, but irreparable damage had been done.”

Malloy paused for a moment, pondering the sad, stupid, tragic story.

After a short time, the old man leaned forward and spoke, his voice low. “During all this, as I said, I’d been working on the hieroglyphics found in the Roswell spacecraft. We had quite a bit of raw material to work with, but of course, we had no key. The collective set of symbols was an interstellar Rosetta Stone, a cryptic code just waiting to be broken. I spent the first sixteen years obsessed with the hieroglyphics. At least a dozen times, I felt like I was on the verge of discovery when, suddenly, everything would fall apart.

“After the war ended, Project Blueprint was disbanded. The military was embarrassed and decided to terminate the whole operation. I ended up being reassigned to China, where I translated Chinese documentation. Fortunately, I had managed to smuggle out all my notes, records, and physical reproductions from Roswell. In China, I secretly continued my research, always certain that I would eventually make sense of the cryptic symbols… and I did.”

If Malloy was telling the truth, if he wasn’t just a crackpot driven mad by a lifelong obsession, I could become one of the first people to hear the words of an alien race. According to some people’s beliefs, I could essentially be hearing the word of God. I waited breathlessly.

The words never came. With a terrific crash, the door on the far side of the room was kicked open. A masked figure, dressed completely in Black, burst through the doorway. Cradled in his arms was an assault rifle. Almost majestically, Malloy stood up and turned toward the figure. Through the open door, I could hear the sound of pounding footsteps. There were a lot more of them coming. Malloy turned back toward me and motioned toward another door.

“Get out of here! Save yourself!

I hesitated instinctively. I couldn’t just leave Malloy. The gunman was levelling his rifle at the old man — he was as good as dead. As I bolted from my seat, I caught sight of Malloy rushing in the direction of the masked figure and heard the rifle go off. Malloy screamed as I tore open the door and plunged into the darkness. As I ran like a madman down a dark corridor, bullets sprayed the door I had just passed through. A dimly glowing Exit sign appeared, and I hit the door at full speed. Rounds of ammunition came flying down the passageway, sinking into the walls around me. I was through the door and into a cement stairwell. I leaped down the stairs, oblivious to any pain or lack of oxygen. Above me, I could hear footsteps in pursuit, and they sounded faster than mine.

Finally I reached ground level and burst through the door. I was on the side of the building. I ran to my left, around the corner to my waiting speeder. No one was waiting for me; whoever they were, they must have never considered that I would make it back this far. I jumped into the speeder and lifted off. Several bullets struck the back of my speeder, but too late. The sound of rounds being fired died out slowly as I sped off into the early red sky.

Malloy was dead. A guilty voice in the back of my mind said that the NSA had followed me to the warehouse. As I guided my speeder over the city, I tried to think clearly. During our conversation, I’d learned something about the man and felt like I owed it to him to finish whatever it was he’d started. Unfortunately, I had no idea what it was.

I landed at a convenience store and went in to buy a couple packs of cigarettes. Malloy had just been gunned down, and I’d barely escaped, but life went on, and I was out of smokes. I slid back into the driver’s seat and decided that my next move should be back to the Garden House. That would be the last place anyone would expect to find me, even if I’d been followed from there in the first place. I wanted to get Malloy’s things. Maybe I’d find a clue as to why someone wanted him dead. My only concern was that maybe the bad guys had gotten there first.

I parked the speeder and walked to the front door of the boarding house. My knock was answered by the sweet little lady I’d met earlier.

“Back again?”

“Yes… we found Uncle Thomas. I came back to pick up his stuff.”

The plump woman stepped aside and let me in. “How is he? Is everything OK?”

She must have sensed that something was wrong. I tried to sound positive. “Sure. Everything’s fine.”

I didn’t think it would be appropriate to tell her that Malloy had been blasted into hamburger. I followed the woman up the stairs to the bedroom. She let me in and left. I looked around the room, realising that its contents might be the last earthly possessions of Thomas Malloy. An old watch lay on the nightstand. I picked it up and read an inscription on the back. It said: I love you Daddy.

I’d faced death before and had several people close to me die. It was never easy. I tried to be optimistic. Maybe Malloy had gone out the way he’d wanted to. He’d taken death like a man. His actions may have even saved my life. I thought of Shakespeare’s observation that a man dies once, but a coward dies a thousand times. Was I a coward for escaping? Shakespeare had also said that discretion is the better part of valour. It wouldn’t have done either of us any good if I’d been killed, too. Besides, I personally had never fancied the thought of going down on the wrong end of an automatic rifle. I’d always envisioned my death involving being smothered by a Jayne Mansfield Twin, but that was just another one of my twisted little secrets.

I opened the nightstand drawer and saw a pair of reading glasses, a copy of Reader’s Digest, and a wad of cash. The bills added up to about two thousand dollars — not a lot, but not chump change, either. I stuffed the bills into my pocket. I’d pay Malloy’s board and take the rest to Emily, along with any of Malloy’s stuff I couldn’t use. She probably appreciate the money, but it wouldn’t be much of a trade off. I wasn’t looking forward to telling her what had happened.

I found a suitcase under the bed and began throwing everything into it. One of the desk drawers contained two old, stained notebooks. I wanted to look them over but had to keep reminding myself that there would be time for that later.

Ten minutes later, I shut the door behind me and went down the stairs. Everything in the room had fit into the suitcase. The plump 5th landlady came up to meet me.

“Did you get everything?”

“I think so. It’s certainly will be good to get this whole situation straightened up.”

“I’m sure.” The little woman smiled pleasantly.

“Oh… nothing. He paid ahead through the end of the week.” She reached into her apron pocket and pulled out a hundred dollar bill. “This is how much he overpaid.”

I patted her on the shoulder. “Please. I know Uncle Thomas would want you to keep it.”

She hesitated, then folded the bill back into her pocket. She reached out and took my free hand warmly. “Tell him thank you, and that he’ll always be welcome here. He’s such a very nice man.”

I nodded and turned to leave, then turned back. “Do you remember anyone else coming by here looking for on Uncle Thomas?” the woman thought for a moment, then shook her head. “Not that I know of.” My speeder lifted off Valencia and hovered for a few moments. I wasn’t sure where I should go. My office sound like a bad idea. If the guys in masks had been NSA agents, they could have recognised me, and word might be getting back to Jackson Cross. Even if the hit squad hadn’t been NSA, I could be tracked down by the licence plate on my speeder. I was also carrying a recently murdered man’s belongings and didn’t want be apprehended by anyone, including the police. I had to go someplace safe, and fast. Almost automatically, I set course for Chelsee’s apartment.

Fifteen minutes later, I was standing outside the door to Chelsee’s digsn. A note was taped to the door, my name written on the envelope. I pulled the envelope off the door and examined it. The flap was not stuck down, but tucked inside. It looked as though the envelope may have been sealed, then reopened. I pulled out a note from inside and read:

Dear Tex,

By the time you read this, I’ll probably be on my way to Phoenix. I’m sorry for the way I’ve been over the last few days. As I’m sure you’ve guessed, I’m having a hard time deciding what I want right now. Sometimes I think I’m in love with you, and the next time I see you, we’re pals. Other times, I get upset and never want to see you again. I’ve decided to take a break for a while, think things through, try to figure out what’s best. I hope you aren’t hurt by my decision, but I wanted to leave while things were going well. I’ll give you a call soon and let you know how things are going.

Love Chelsee