Dark Target (18 page)

“Nine years ago, I started interviewing people who said they were abducted by aliens, taken aboard space ships, studied, probed,
specimens taken, sperm from the men and eggs from the women, frozen by light and lifted bodily from their beds and cars and
homes. I listened to hundred of stories. Young, old, men, women, kids, doctors, farmers, children two and three years old.
You can imagine what the Godzilla brains at Harvard thought about that when I began my work…”

He stomped around the lectern, imitating Godzilla, to much laughter and applause.

“You gotta admit he’s fun,” DeLuca said.

“There’s a reception afterward if you’d care to be further amused,” Burgess whispered back.

Hilton Jaynes spoke for another half hour, offering the proofs to his conclusion, that alien spacecraft had, for a number
of years, beginning about the time man first started bouncing radio signals off the stratosphere, been visiting earth, taking
human beings bodily into their ships and using them for what appeared to be a breeding program to create a hybrid race, not
motivated by any sort of Mars-needs-women mentality but to save the planet Earth, a place that was rapidly and irreversibly
despoiling itself. DeLuca couldn’t tell how many people in the audience (not dressed in red overalls) were buying it, but
the man at the podium had a convincing way about him, and enough charisma to warrant suspicion as a “Traveler,” along with
Frank Sinatra and Elvis. Jaynes cited five factors that argued against abduction as an endogenous phenomenon produced purely
in the psyche: the extreme consistencies from story to story and person to person; the lack of experiential basis for such
stories, nothing in the lives of the Chosen to give rise to what they said happened to them; the physical proofs, cuts, lesions,
scars, and so forth, following their abductions; the independent observations of spacecraft in the areas where abductions
occurred by members of the media and impartial witnesses; and the fact that the phenomenon had been observed by children too
young to be aware of the cultural references from which such reported experiences might be falsely drawn.

When he was done, he opened the floor up to questions.

“Dr. Jaynes,” a young woman in the third row said, standing as she spoke. “Have you been to the Groom Lake facility at Area
51, and how do you explain the fact that several of the people who worked there later showed up in doctors’ offices with evidence
of genetic cross-pollination with aliens?”

She sat down.

Jaynes sipped from his water bottle.

“You’re talking about the ‘Fish People,’ I gather?” he said, looking at her and then nodding. “To answer the first part, no,
I have not been to Groom Lake. I’ve driven the length of Alien Alley, Nevada Route 375, and I was brought in the darkness
illegally one night to Freedom Ridge by a group of interceptors, after the government closed it off, and we looked through
binoculars and night vision goggles, but I didn’t see anything remarkable. Saw a delta-winged craft that we now know as the
Stealth bomber, but that’s old news. As for the so-called ‘Fish People,’ I believe the scaly skin you’re talking about, that’s
it, is it not? That’s what you’re referring to? My understanding is, that’s been proven to be a kind of epidermal eczema caused
by the burning of toxic materials upwind of the facility. I’m good with that explanation. You see, dear, when there is a scientific
explanation, I’ll take it. It’s when science is misapplied or applied unevenly to serve the Godzilla brains that I take umbrage.
Yes, sir—you in the back row.”

“I’d like to read you some statistics… ” the young man began.

“Oh-oh,” Hilton Jaynes said, to laughter. “There’s one in every crowd. Yes, sir. I apologize for interrupting you.”

“I’d like to address a comment you made about the lack of common experiential basis,” the questioner said, “because you very
frequently talk about the lack of any psychological consistencies between the selectees—that their stories have consistency,
but there’s no one type of person who consistently gets abducted…”

“Son, we’ve gotten identical stories from aboriginal tribesmen in Australia and Inuit people in Canada and a village in Ghana,”
Jaynes said, “people with widely disparate cultural and experiential circumstances. I’ve interrupted you again—what is your
question?”

“My question is this. I’m referring to the study you’re probably aware of done by Bascomb and Halvorsen…”

“Yes, yes.”

“Where the majority of your test subjects were reinterviewed. Bascomb and Halvorsen compared the statistical probabilities
of abductee personality types against the general population. So let me give you and the audience the statistics. Sixty-six
percent of the abductees had imaginary friends as children, against 12 percent in the general population. Nearly 100 percent
were susceptible to hypnosis, which you used during your own interviews, though only about 30 percent of the general population
is thought to be susceptible. Seventy-six percent said that at some time in their lives, they’d heard voices or things talking
to them, against 7 percent general. Eighty-three percent claimed to have had psychic experiences, premonitions, telepathic
experiences, and so on. Eighty-eight percent had what they described as ‘out-of-body’ experiences, either floating sensations
or full astral projections. Ninety-two percent said they’d sleepwalked or had waking dreams, night terrors, hallucinations.
Half said they been communicated with by some kind of spirit or higher intelligence, and about three-quarters said they’d
seen ghosts. In all of these aspects, the rate for the general population is between 10 and 15 percent. So my question is,
how can you claim there is no consistent psychological type of abductee, when statistically it seems pretty clear they are
all quite prone to fantasy, as it’s been historically regarded by the psychological community?”

Jaynes paused, smiling at his accuser.

“I’ll bet you were up all night working on that one,” Jaynes said, drawing more laughter. “No, no, people, don’t laugh. This
young man has a very good point. A very good point. I would take issue with some of his numbers, but let’s assume that in
general he’s right. He has a valid point, but he’s nevertheless missing mine. Let me give you one more statistic, sir. You
wanna know what’s going on in the sky, maybe we should talk to the people who live in the sky, who work there. Four years
ago, there was a survey of airplane pilots. Done at Columbia University by a man named Jacobs, if you want to check his work.
He asked over a thousand pilots whether or not they’d ever seen any unidentified flying objects, but he gave them two ways
to answer. One was anonymously, the other wasn’t. In the one that wasn’t anonymous, 2 percent said they’d seen UFOs. In the
one that was, 54 percent said they had. I’ve been standing up here talking about the difference between the people who are
open to the unseen and people who aren’t. We know what happened to those police officers in Millstadt, Illinois, and I think
you know what would happen to an airplane pilot who said he saw a flying saucer, don’t you, son? The selectees who came forward
to speak with me were the selectees who had indeed already exhibited receptivity to the unexplained and were comfortable with
a higher level of ambiguity. It can be statistically proven that I have only spoken with a very small percentage, just the
tip of the iceberg, because the vast majority of the Chosen aren’t going to come forward now, are they? Years ago we thought
child abuse was rare, until people started coming forward and we find out that sadly, it’s not so rare at all. There is much
we do not speak of. Just as there is much we do not know. My message is that we must be open to the mystery if we are ever
to penetrate it.”

He fielded a few more softball questions and then thanked his hosts. Penelope Burgess said his speaking fee was seventy-five
hundred dollars—she hoped the students got something out of it. DeLuca caught sight again of Sami. Apparently Brother Antonionus
had stayed home.

“So what’d you think?” DeLuca asked her.

“I think it’s significant that the funds to pay for this are coming out of the student entertainment budget,” Burgess said.
“Some people were upset that they gave him a room in the science building, but he’s still a Harvard psychologist.”

“So what’d you think?” DeLuca repeated.

“I think I want to flatten Tokyo,” she said. “Wanna go down and meet him? I’m skipping the reception.”

They made their way to the stage, where Jaynes was surrounded by people asking him to sign their copies of his book. Three
were dressed as
Star Trek
characters, and another wore an alien Halloween mask. It seemed fairly clear, by the way Jaynes hugged two of the Brethren
of the Light members, that they knew each other already. When Penelope Burgess introduced herself, his eyes lit up and he
told her he’d read the last three papers she’d published and was interested in reading more—the idea of measuring extraterrestrial
life fascinated him—would she be interested in having lunch? She politely begged off, but he seemed sincere and earnest in
his praise. She introduced DeLuca as her date, though it was DeLuca’s impression she’d used the word
date
to let Hilton Jaynes know she wasn’t interested in him the way the three flirty coeds standing next to her evidently were.
Judging by the way Jaynes smiled at them, it seemed equally evident that despite his advanced age, he probably didn’t have
much trouble scoring groupies.

“How are you, sir?” Jaynes said, shaking his hand. “Thank you for coming.”

“What do you make of the Brethren of the Light?” DeLuca asked him in his friendliest voice. “I’m guessing it’s not unusual
for such groups to attend your lectures.”

“Not unusual at all, Mr. DeLuca,” Jaynes said. “All are welcome. What do I think of my more eccentric fans? Sir, I grew up
in a little town called Falling Waters, West Virginia, right on the Potomac—the Winchester and Western Railroad ran through
my backyard, and later my father moved us about forty miles northeast, to the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. And you know
what happened there. My whole life, I saw crazy men dressing up in costumes to reenact all the various battles from the War
of Northern Aggression. I recall a friend of my father’s who cut up a wool bath mat to make a vest and splashed battery acid
on a pair of gray work pants from Sears to affect the tattered and scruffy look of a true Johnny Reb, and he used to stand
in his backyard, practicing his rebel yell, prior to the reenactments he attended. Ended up shooting his own hand off with
a cannon he tried to build from a section of sewer pipe. Thought he was channeling the spirit of his great-grandfather. Believed
that with all his heart. I have seen men inspired to the point where they behave quite foolishly, but that doesn’t mean the
Civil War didn’t happen now, does it? That answer your question?”

“That pretends to answer the question, but actually it evades it,” DeLuca said. “I was asking something quite specific.”

“Well, in that case,” Jaynes said, “I shall have to recuse myself, because Malcolm Percy was a classmate of mine at Yale,
and a fellow Bonesman. A few years behind me, so I cannot say that I knew him. He was recently voted the second most embarrassing
Bonesman in the history of the organization. I’ll leave it to your imagination to guess who the most embarrassing one might
be. Goodnight, Mr. DeLuca.”

Jaynes was swallowed up by groupies as he made his way toward the door. Penelope Burgess said she had papers to grade but
would love a drink first and wouldn’t mind company. DeLuca wasn’t sure what kind of hint that was, but he scratched his nose,
just in case, long enough for her to see his wedding ring, just in case she was interested, and then said he needed to get
back to his motel.

“No luck finding Ms. Escavedo?” Burgess asked.

“Nothing so far,” he said. “Oh, yeah—does the name ‘Bartleby’ mean anything to you?”

“Bartleby?” she said. “Wasn’t that a wine cooler?”

“You’re thinking of Bartles and Jaymes,” DeLuca said.

“Bartleby,” she repeated. “I can’t think of anything. I remember a short story I read in college called that, but don’t ask
me to remember any more than that. Why?”

“Just a name that came up earlier,” he said. “Probably not important.”

He excused himself and made his way across the room, to where the woman who’d washed his car the day before was standing,
her back to him.

“Hello, Rainbow,” DeLuca said. “How are you? David DeLuca—we spoke at the mansion.”

“Oh, yes,” she said, as if she suddenly remembered. “How are you?”

“David DeLuca,” he said, extending his hand to Sami.

“This is Sami,” Rainbow said. “He’s an initiate and that means he has to observe seventy-two hours of silence, but I’m sure
he’s pleased to meet you.”

DeLuca shot Sami a look, then turned to Rainbow.

“I was worried about your daughter,” he said. “Ruby?”

“Oh, that,” she said, “oh, no, don’t worry, Ruby’s fine. She was just with a friend but she’s great. We’re not allowed to
use cell phones or she would have called. Anyway, thank you. Have a great evening.”

Brief eye contact with Sami told him the things Rainbow had just said were not true.

An hour later, he was back at the motel. He’d pounded down a Whopper and fries (wondering why on an unlimited expense account
he wasn’t able to eat better), showered, and was standing on the balcony when the phone rang. It was Dan Sykes, wondering
how the lecture had gone. DeLuca did his best to summarize. Sykes hadn’t learned much at Foxies, other than that there was
an awful lot of what he thought was illegal contact during the lap dances, with the owners and bouncers looking the other
way.

“Going from there to prostitution doesn’t seem like that big a leap,” Sykes said. “Or vice versa, I suppose.”

“You were an English major at Stanford, right?” DeLuca asked. “Do you remember a short story called ‘Bartleby’?”

“‘Bartleby the Scrivener,’” Sykes said. “Herman Melville. Why?”