Groom Lake (17 page)

“Cover your face,” Blake yelled. He and Trevor huddled low to the ground, gagging and choking on the dust.

The Black Hawk advanced on the ridge, hovering overhead, increasing the tormenting winds.

Blake recalled the professor’s warning about the government that he was failing to heed: Don’t bow to the feds by going to Area 51. Now he was
literally
disobeying the professor as he cowered on his hands and knees hoping and praying for mercy against the government’s menacing messenger in the sky. And he was led there by the government’s anti-Christ who was now silhouetted by the light, legs spread, arms outstretched, welcoming the ferocious wind attack.

Trevor stood, “I’m out of here,” and disappeared over the cliff.

Blinded by the rotor wash, Blake felt his way along the ground and retreated down the rocky slope until the flying debris no longer threatened him.

Trevor hadn’t gone far. Blake found him face down over some rocks. “You okay, Trev?”

“I’ll live.”

Several minutes later, the Black Hawk ascended, returning to the base. A wind battered Desmond stumbled down the slope. “That’s something you can tell your grandchildren about.”

“You knew that was going to happen,” Blake said, his anger apparent.

“I never know what’s going to happen out here, but I come prepared.” He raised the gas mask. “You don’t need to get upset. Soon you’ll be laughing about it.”

“What do we do now?” Trevor asked. “I’m not going through that again.”

“We’ll let them win tonight.”

Blake wasn’t sure what to make of Desmond. He had invited Blake on this trip so they could develop a trust, yet he spent the entire time drinking and acting like a lunatic.

“The night’s not over,” Desmond told them. “We can hike back to the Suburban, then drive out to the highway and watch from there.”

• • •

Fifteen minutes after the helicopter returned to the base, Val emerged from a thin crevice eroded into the hillside.

Viewing the base again, he noted a significant change. A squadron of F-16 jets, ten in all, sat at the far end of the runway.

A closer vantage point would’ve been preferred, but the activity concerned Val, and he was not comfortable traversing land he hadn’t charted for surveillance devices. His safety came before the photos or videos he sought. His success in avoiding detection thus far came from patience, moving conservatively, and taking few risks. For now he would hold his position and watch the activity. Then return to one of his bunkers by sunrise.

• • •

Safe inside the Suburban, Blake drove his dust riddled companions down Groom Lake Road, followed by a harassing Cherokee with its brights on. Reaching Highway 375 provided a mental relief that was equivalent to sneaking into a neighbor’s yard, retrieving a ball, and making it back across the fence without a dog bite. They were now out of the government’s
yard
, albeit with a few small tears in their clothes.

Trevor was the first to exit the Surburban after Blake had pulled to a stop alongside the highway and noticed the air show that had commenced while they drove Groom Lake Road. “Look at all the planes in the sky.” Ten jets were circling at different altitudes above the base, almost like they were trapped in a fifteen-mile-wide tornado.

“So they did have a specific reason for wanting us to leave,” Blake said, his interests and hopes renewed at the thought of possibly seeing an anti-gravity craft.

“They’re getting ready to test something,” Desmond said. “Those planes are fighter jets. Their job is to shoot down the test pilot if he decides to make a run for China.”

“Look, above the mountains,” Trevor said pointing.

Four white lights hovered in the northern sky like a classic cigar-shaped UFO.

“Don’t get excited,” Desmond said. “Those are flares.”

“Those aren’t flares,” Trevor argued. “That’s a craft.”

With an
I’ve seen it all before
demeanor, Desmond replied, “They’re high altitude flares, attached to parachutes. Decoys. Later, if someone reports a strange light in the sky, the Air Force will say they dropped flares during nighttime training.”

Still unconvinced, “If those flares are falling, then why do they appear still?”

“Same reason that helicopter appeared to be hovering above the base when you first saw it. It’s an optical illusion caused from being so far away.”

“Forget the flares,” Blake said. “Where should we be looking for the test craft?”

“Focus above the mountain range, but don’t get your hopes up. They’ll fly it at a low enough altitude that the mountains block our view, or they’ll fly west.”

• • •

The four white flares parachuting above the Groom Mountains caught Val’s attention. He knew they were decoys, and a signal that something else would soon be in the air. At the south end of the base he studied an enormous hanger, offset from the other structures. Unfortunately his fear of venturing closer to the base that evening prevented him from seeing inside the hangar like he had intended. He had hoped to determine if it was a possible access point to the underground tunnel.

Diverting his attention, four Black Hawk helicopters lifted off the tarmac. They leveled at twenty-five feet and slowly thundered toward the runway’s northern end before assuming positions like points on a compass—north, south, east and west—far enough apart so their rotors would not touch.

A bank of blinding bright light cast outward from each helicopter. Val hadn’t realized until now that the tentacle-like missile launchers extending from the Black Hawks’ sides had been retrofitted with stadium lights. He realized the lights were hiding something centered on the runway among the four helicopters.
Where’d that come from
?

“Activate video … activate recorder,” Val instructed to the voice activated computer equipment entwined in his outfit, then began to dictate: “Approximately 0100 hours. Groom Lake air strip. Test craft is on the north end of the runway. My vision is impeded by four helicopters surrounding the craft, casting a circle of light outward, apparently to limit sightings of the craft by nonessential base personnel. Craft appeared from nowhere. Must be some type of underground hanger with a lift platform, like on an aircraft carrier. Craft appears to be fifty feet in diameter. Possibly circular, but cannot confirm from my position. Ten Air Force F-16’s—I assume they’re Air Force, no one else flies F-16’s—are flying holding patterns in the airspace above the base at varying altitudes.”

Other than the helicopters surrounding the craft, there was minimal activity on the base. That reminded Val about historical pictures he had seen, taken after previous Air Force flight tests, like when they broke the sound barrier for the first time. They never had large crowds. Only the pilots, ground crew and a few key officials were present.

“The craft is emitting an orange-red glow, like a fireball,” he blurted. The craft shot straight up, beyond Val’s field of vision. Raising his head, he caught sight. “Craft is hovering approximately five hundred feet above the runway … Craft is now moving down the runway, holding its altitude, traveling maybe a hundred miles per hour … Oh, ninety-degree turn left—another to the right. This isn’t an airplane. The craft is similar to the object I saw land in Papoose Valley on my last trip. It’s movements are shakier, maybe a less expensive model.

• • •

“Over there,” Blake said with a pensive but calm reaction, like a seasoned hunter spotting his prey. He pointed toward a distant dip in the mountain range, “An orange light, circular, only for a second.”

“I saw it,” Trevor yelped with boisterous excitement.

“That’s what they’re testing tonight,” Desmond said.

“Was it the Roswell spaceship?” Trevor asked.

“They keep that locked up in Papoose Valley,” Desmond replied. “We just saw the government’s attempt to reproduce it. What do you think, Blake?”

“I think I need to see a little more to agree with you.”

They waited for fifteen anxious minutes, all eyes fixed above the mountains, hoping for another glimpse, Blake ready with the camera. Hope was lost when the F-16s began to land. The air show, what they briefly saw of it, was over.

On the drive back to Vegas, Blake had mixed thoughts about the trip. “What happens with that info the sheriff took from us?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Desmond reassured. “They’ll stick it in some file with all the other names they collect.”

Blake spent most of the drive back to Las Vegas in silence, assessing the evening, uncertain about Desmond. He knew the man wasn’t crazy, although he acted like it at times. Blake could tell Desmond was a thinking man, like himself, but wasn’t sharing all his thoughts and motives.

Chief Trace Helms, head of Air Force Security at Area 51, often had to clarify the pronunciation of his first name. “That’s Trace! Pronounced like mace. NOT, Tracey! My father didn’t name me after no woman.” After being corrected by the man’s baritone voice and feeling the grasp of his boxer’s stare, many of his subordinates refused to use his name at all, simply calling him Chief. His minimal interaction with other employees added to his daunting mystique. A lack of unbridled understanding about their boss led many to believe Chief Helms knew all about the inner-workings of Area 51, but that was far from the truth. Maybe someday, he hoped, someday sooner than his career path dictated.

Multiple layers of security guarded the Area 51 complex. The Groom Proper Patrol was the first layer: contracted security forces in white Jeep Cherokees who guarded the base’s perimeter. Their supervisor reported to Trace. The second layer, the Air Force Security Police, was also overseen by Trace. They guarded most of the buildings and hangars, and monitored base personnel.

Beyond the first two levels, security became more complicated. Some projects had their own security units. Trace had very little interaction with the higher levels, but that was fine, for he needed some privacy in his life, for his hobby, one his superiors wouldn’t condone.

Years back, when Trace started his stint at Dreamland—the codename his circle called Area 51—he wanted to know what the strange lights were in the sky; the
Unusual Things
he was told he might see and was forbidden to discuss. He never came close enough to see the lights on the ground, but he heard stories, rumors about alien spacecraft, and alien bodies. The thought of such incredible technology excited Trace, but he felt like a minority with his fascination. Day in and day out he watched certain high level employees at the base pass through security stations with stoic looks on their faces: no emotion, no excitement, no morale. Near hypnotic states.

An old Frank Sinatra movie—
The Manchurian Candidate
—eerily provided Trace with an explanation for some of the base-workers’ stoic attitudes: mind control. He thought his mind control theory sounded too sci-fi at first, but so did descriptions of the flying lights he had seen.

Few workers displayed the stoic symptoms, but with time, Trace could pick out those who acted differently. He never pursued his hunch until sitting in a doctor’s office one day, waiting for a routine physical, when he thumbed through a medical trade journal. An article on psychopharmacology caught his attention. It mentioned various new drugs, and others still being tested, that stimulated the mind. Trace knew this was an area the military had delved into decades earlier. He also knew the military rarely revealed new information. So anything in the public sector that the military had dealt with, more specifically, the drugs mentioned in the medical journal, stood a good chance of being ten to twenty years behind current top-secret programs.

In his spare time, Trace began conducting his own research. He started with trips to the public and university libraries in Las Vegas, checking out psychology books and studying the mind. His curiosity about the flying lights at Dreamland was also growing—a curiosity he shared with two old friends, buddies from the Air Force Academy: Jimmy “the Pimp” Casper and Desmond Wyatt.

Initially, Trace helped his two friends sneak onto the public land surrounding Dreamland so they too could see the bizarre lights in the sky. He told them ideal nights to be out there and where to hide to avoid patrols. But that was in the early days when few people knew about the base, before Trace’s mind control research became a personal mission.

Into the nineties, as outside visitors became more prevalent at the base, Trace insisted his friends stop their visits. Unfortunately, what had started as an inside secret shared with friends took a serious turn. Desmond Wyatt’s interests became far greater than a passive observance and escalated until Trace could no longer risk associating with him and they had a falling out.

In 1993, Trace discovered the Internet. A discovery that to him was similar to kicking over a rock and finding a mother lode of gold underneath. He studied the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency’s bid request website, a listing of requests for new technology development where the military proposed general theories for new weapons or equipment, and paid private contractors to invent or develop the technologies.

He also searched the National Technical Service databases for past military studies, using search words like: psychoanalytical compound, cranial vault, mental biopsy, isotropic radiators, psycho surgery, remote viewing. The core documents were still classified, but Trace pulled enough facts to determine what the military had been doing for decades. His research guided him to specific study projects that focused on topics such as: sleep-state alteration, beta-adrenergic blockers and monoamine oxidase inhibitors.

Trace had uncovered various pictures of the government’s past projects, enough to develop a reasonable understanding of their current capabilities. He became a self-educated expert on the topics, devoting so much time he would have earned professional degrees and praise had he been working in a collegiate environment, but that was not his objective. Ultimately he formulated a specific theory about the technology and how the government was using it. Learning what the government was capable of scared Trace. That was when his hobby turned into a mission. He realigned his friendship with Desmond Wyatt, seeing him as an asset in the mission, and used Jimmy as the go-between.

Trace considered himself a patriot: a career service man who devoted his life to the country he loved and defended. However, his loyalty now rested with an unassuming and vulnerable public, not its oppressive military.

• • •

Responding to a knock on his office door, Trace said, “Come in,” with his thundering baritone voice. Not a violent thunder, more like distant thunder during a warm summer rain.

Thunder was thunder to the evening shift commander, unable to differentiate between happy, sad or mad thunder. “You working late tonight, Chief?”

“One more thing to do. Should be a quiet night for you.”

“Unlike last night. I glanced at the reports. That crazy Desmond Wyatt was up to his shenanigans again. Funny how he always shows up on nights when we’re testing. Like he’s got a friend on the inside tipping him off.”

“He’s been out here plenty of times when nothing is going on,” Trace said, quick to point out the inaccuracy of the shift commander’s remark. “You keep saying things like that and you’ll start rumors.”

The shift commander might not have recognized happy or sad thunder, but he knew violent thunder. “Sorry, sir. I was just trying to make conversation.” He left and closed the door, cursing himself for pissing off the chief.

Trace leaned back in his chair and studied a video monitor on his desk. Its picture showed a shuttle bus loading outside the large hangar at the south end of the base. The hangar Trace yearned to explore, but was one of the few buildings outside his jurisdiction. Adjusting his monitor to play signals from different surveillance cameras, he tracked the shuttle as it ferried occupants north toward building 269—Trace’s building—where the workers had to check out before leaving for the day. He watched base workers exit the bus, enter his building and wait in line at the checkout station. Then he made a phone call: “Send Aaron Liebowitz to my office.”

A petite 32-year-old man stepped out of line and walked toward the operations center. He wore casual clothes, like most of the base personnel did when traveling to and from work. Even the military personnel dressed casually for the commute, not changing into uniforms until they reached their assigned work areas. Casual clothes minimized indications about what people did at the base.

Liebowitz was far from athletic, unlike Ben Skyles, another man Trace knew who worked in the hangar at the far end of the runway. Trace tried not to stereotype people. Being a callous muscular black man, he had endured his share of negative stereotyping, but stereotyping or not, Liebowitz was a nerd. The only thing missing was a pocket protector. What role he played in the hangar was still a mystery to Trace, but Liebowitz had the look, the same look Ben Skyles had. That bewildered expressionless face, like someone spent everyday screwing with his mind.

While Trace encouraged his security officers to maintain an intimidating persona, he selectively acted as the good cop in the psychological security game, but only behind closed doors.

Liebowitz felt somewhat relieved to learn Trace had beckoned him. He remembered how friendly Trace was when he had a problem with his badge a week earlier. After closing the office door behind him, he took a seat as Trace instructed. His eyes focused on Trace’s extra large uniform shirt that stretched at the buttons with each expanding breath.

“Here’s a new badge,” Trace said, exchanging it for the one Liebowitz was wearing. “You shouldn’t have any more problems.”

“I appreciate it. Every time I pass by a sensor I have this fear of tripping the alarm.”

“Any more problems you feel free to see me.”

“Thank you.”

“You live near Alamo, don’t you?” Trace asked. Not everyone working at the base lived in Las Vegas. Some individuals lived in nearby rural towns.

“Yes, sir.”

“Call me Trace, neighbor. Your file says you’re single. You get out much?”

“Usually just to come here.”

“I hear that—probably don’t live more than a few miles from you. A couple of us locals often get together for cards and barbeques.”

“I didn’t know they allowed that kind of stuff.”

“Who doesn’t allow that?”

“The powers-that-be.”

“Well, I’m one of them,” Trace said, “and I say it’s okay. Besides, we don’t talk about work. And we are allowed to have lives outside this place.”

Liebowitz didn’t wholeheartedly agree with that statement. And Chief Helms—Trace—fell short of the powers-that-be he was referring to. But friends were something he didn’t have. Most of his time at home was spent on the Internet and listening to Art Bell on late night radio. Liebowitz decided it would be good to meet some neighbors and maybe make some friends.