Groom Lake (23 page)

“They assured me there’s a way. I didn’t like it at first either, but it makes sense. It’s a good way for me to confirm they are who they claim to be.”

“It’s also a good way for you to go to jail. They could prove themselves just as easily by giving you the photos.”

“I argued that too, but they don’t have the photos. They need me to get them, and in the process, prove my integrity.”

“What about theirs?”

“I’ll know that answer a few feet across the perimeter.”

“Do you honestly want to do this?”

“I think so.”

“NASA won’t hire you if you’re caught.”

“NASA already rejected me. I’m not going to wait for something that may not happen when I can make things happen.”

“Well … I know you aren’t asking for my permission, but there’s obviously a reason for this discussion.”

“I need you to drive.”

“I see.” Trevor smiled at the irony of Blake asking him to do something unlawful. “What about that fool Desmond? He’d be into this.”

“He’s with them.”

“And you still trust what they say?”

“Am I ever wrong?”

Trevor wished he could say
always
, but had to be honest, “Rarely.” Next he thought of the risks and implications on his own life. “I don’t have to sneak on the base, do I?”

“Just wait in the SUV.”

“Maybe it would be safer if I shadowed you.”

“It means a lot that you would do that for me, Trevor, but you couldn’t keep up. I need to do it alone.”

“So when do we go?”

Dusk. Nevada Highway 375. Blake eased a white Jeep Cherokee he had rented to a stop along a sandy shoulder atop Hancock Summit in the Pahranagat Mountain Range, a mile shy of the high-desert interstate’s descent into the Tikaboo Valley.

Blake and Trevor exited the Cherokee and began unscrewing its brake light covers.

“Remember that time I backed my old man’s truck into a parked car and busted out his tail light,” Trevor said reminiscing. “The dealership wanted sixty bucks I didn’t have to fix it. And you said I should steal one off a new truck in their lot.”

They always laughed when talking about past shenanigans, but neither was in a laughing mood. The conversation helped ease the tension, however. “That was one of the few unlawful thoughts in my life,” Blake confessed. “I never thought you’d do it.”

“What you’re about to do tops anything I’ve ever done.”

“You got your light disconnected?” Blake asked, ignoring his statement. “I don’t want to be on the side of the road very long.”

“I thought they can’t see us until we enter the valley.”

“They can’t, but two guys in black, disconnecting brake lights, looks a little suspicious if anyone passes by.”

Studying the western sky, Blake saw that the last tinge of sunlight had faded, replaced by a bluish hue on the horizon from the bright Las Vegas lights almost one hundred miles away. In all other directions a black sky was upon them.

Trevor drove, keeping them a couple speedometer notches under the posted speed limit, eager for the night to be over, but in no hurry for it to begin. The Cherokee’s purring motor and its tires whirling on the pavement made the only non-indigenous sounds for miles. As their elevation dropped, Highway 375 straightened as far as the headlights shined across the vast Tikaboo Valley. The two buddies had entered the watchful arena of the security forces.

“Here’s our mile marker,” Trevor said, aware of his duties.

The directions given to Blake referenced a narrow four-wheel drive path at the southern end of the valley, miles before Groom Lake Road, that they were to follow under the cover of darkness. Trevor slowed the Cherokee and cut the lights. They both put on night vision headsets that strapped in place behind their heads and under their chins.

Spotting the path, Trevor turned left off the highway. “Fifty feet, right?”

“Yeah, but stop here,” Blake said. “Let’s not take chances.”

The security forces used roadside sensors throughout the valley to alert them of any vehicles turning off the highway. Blake jumped out and walked ahead until he found a round device semi-buried a few feet off the path. The sensor detected ground vibrations caused by vehicles, but was not sensitive enough to register Blake’s presence as he approached it. Popping the top revealed a battery pack, which he pulled a set of wires from. He walked another twenty feet and found a second device, disconnecting it as well. The units were always set in pairs because the sequence in which they were triggered signified the direction of travel.

Time would tell if Blake had disconnected the units properly. The night vision eased the tension by eliminating the blackness from their immediate surroundings. In every direction they saw a green-hued open desert.

Trevor steered the Cherokee off the path, venturing into unadulterated terrain. Using a rented Global Positioning System for guidance, he steered over pristine sand, around shrubs and cactus, and toward the coordinates for Blake’s drop point near the Jumbled Hills, a mountainous range south of the Groom Mountain Range.

Little was said during the drive, and little more would be said until they returned. They had prepared and rehearsed almost nonstop for two days, committing most of the plan to memory, with Blake bearing much of the memorization burden—his duties were more complicated with numerous GPS waypoints and sequences to remember.

After fifteen miles on a roundabout route, they approached the first destination, near the extreme southern end of the region covered by the Groom Proper Patrols.

“Get your gear on,” Trevor said, studying a digital temperature gauge on the dash—it read ninety-four—and realized the temperature had not dropped much since the sun disappeared. Blake climbed to the rear of the vehicle. He had dressed in black: combat-style hiking boots, BDU pants from a military surplus store and a tank top. Now he added to the outfit: elbow and wrist guards normally worn for inline skating; a water-stowed back pack; and a large fanny sack stocked with camera equipment, protein bars, first-aid gear and various tools and items Blake considered essential in emergencies.

“We’re here,” Trevor informed him, seeing the proper longitude and latitude coordinates on the GPS. He slowed to a fast idle.

“See you around five,” Blake said as he eased out the side door, bracing himself on a running board for a second before jumping off, then jogging alongside until he managed to close the door and bang an all-clear knock.

Trevor accelerated, leaving a blast of dust in his wake, and disappeared over a short ridge, heading for a rendezvous point where he would park and stay the night.

Blake could jog a sustained seven miles an hour on a track or city street, but crossing uneven terrain, at night, he hoped to average two and a half miles per hour. Heading toward the perimeter, he concentrated on his footing, hopping rocks and rivets in the dirt, dodging brush and Joshua trees. Trudging, high-stepping and pumping his arms added momentum while he conquered the first of several hills. He limited the uphill pace to a brisk walk because of the additional energy climbing required from the muscle fibers in his thighs.

Checking a GPS device strapped to his forearm, he saw he had arrived at the first waypoint, although the device had a variance of plus or minus thirty feet. To combat this problem he had visual descriptions and landmarks to use for additional reference; he searched for a silver ball on top of a pole, like ones he had seen on the first trip. Without night vision, finding the encased camera would have been next to impossible, but he soon spotted its dim silhouette twenty feet away, a stark reminder that this wasn’t simply barren desert. The inanimate object was his first encounter with his adversary. Although he had been assured the camera and motion sensors encased inside the silver ball would not detect him if he followed the plan, he found it as reassuring as somebody telling him it was okay to poke a pit bull: poke—grrr—poke—grrr. Proceeding past the camera was no different on his nerves: step—grrr—step—grrr. He paid a great deal of attention to a frequency scanner attached to his belt, listening for a chirp, which would sound if the camera began emitting a signal.

He neared an outcrop of rocks, tire-sized and smaller, except for three larger boulders, two leaning against another and forming a crevice—a passage—just large enough for a person to crawl into. The silver balls, spaced in quarter mile increments, shot a fence of invisible laser beams along the perimeter, but were unable to penetrate the rocks and detect motion in the crevice, thus creating a hole in the surveillance system—and Blake’s red-carpet entrance into the government’s black world.

• • •

Trevor’s combined lifelong experience of driving a four-wheel-drive vehicle across rugged terrain at night now amounted to a total just under four hours, which included time spent practicing in the days leading up to this adventure. Soon after leaving Blake, he faced a rut cutting at an angle across his soft, sandy path. The width didn’t affect his tires, except where his right front tire met the opening; sand gave way and the narrow rut became a large enough gap to swallow the tire. The Cherokee sank to the earth until the front right bumper touched down with a bellowing thud.
Oh crap,
he thought, and eased on the gas pedal, but the engine only revved. Panicking, he pressed hard on the gas, throttling the engine as all four tires spun, dug and sank the rear end until the underbelly of the jeep was flat on the earth.

After stepping out, he realized this wasn’t a situation he could dig his way out of in the dark. The original plan called for Trevor to drive about two miles away from where Blake would cross the perimeter and wait until four in the morning, then he would return to the drop off point and meet Blake around sunrise. The possibility of getting stuck in the sand did arise in their contingency discussions. He would now have to double-back on foot to the rendezvous point, and during the daylight he and Blake would try to dig their way out, or seek help. But Trevor still had a number of hours to kill and decided it best to spend them in the Cherokee, hoping to remain unnoticed.

• • •

Once through the crevice in the boulders and on the base, Blake picked up his pace, eager to distance himself from the perimeter surveillance.

After a mile of brisk uphill trotting he crested the Jumbled Hills and had his first view of the base, illuminated like a not-too-distant city. The topography changed as he descended into the valley. Far fewer rocks made travel easier and faster. He worked his way to a wash that carried water to the lakebed when it rained. Like a miniature canyon, the wash provided walls—varying from two to twelve feet in height—that offered a shielded path to the next waypoint. He jogged faster and with greater confidence about his immediate bearings.

As he approached the dry lakebed, the surrounding hills flattened into rolling, open plains interspersed with occasional low plateaus and mesas caused by converging streambeds, like the one he was running through. The distant base lights now illuminated faint outlines of structures and towers.

With each progressive footstep on the streambed’s compact sand, the sheltering sidewalls diminished until Blake was no longer hidden, but at the next waypoint, a dirt road, which served as an artery for security vehicles to travel around the lakebed to Groom Valley’s southern end. He stopped, crouched, stretched and paused for a breather. He sipped water for the first time and was confident he had the physical wherewithal to reach his destination and return with water to spare.

Blake studied the base as he rested, knowing he could use his zoom lens to snap detailed photos of the base from his present position, but the money shot required him to push further. Soon he would be in position to use his zoom lens and see inside the large fabled hangar.

The next jaunt required Blake to cross the road and be exposed for several hundred yards before reaching the cover of another gulch that would guide him the rest of the way. He had been reassured that as long as the coast was clear, he should not worry about detection as he crossed the road.

• • •

Every horror film Trevor had ever seen replayed in his mind while he tried to pass time in the stranded Jeep. The slightest wisp of wind or creak from a critter spun his head in near panic as he strained to see if someone lurked amongst the chaparral scrub and Joshua trees. The rumors about aliens at the base started playing in his head; he eased forward in his seat, craning his head over the steering wheel and glanced upward through the windshield at the night sky. The stars were plentiful, and all appeared steadfast in their positioning on the galactic canvas, meaning there was nothing more than stars in the sky above, he hoped. But that wasn’t reassuring enough for Trevor as the anxiety of the situation strangled his patience with claustrophobia. The sideboards and dash of the Jeep’s interior suddenly seemed confining. He eased the door open and slid out into the airy desert, ready to begin his hike to meet Blake, figuring he would just sit and wait when he got there early.

• • •

Blake dashed across the dirt access road in solid strides, feeling as exposed as a streaker, and continued at a feverish pace into a shallow gulch that led him to the final waypoint. Situated atop a rocky knoll near the east side of Groom Lake, Blake found himself elevated sixty feet above the dry alkalescent lakebed. The base was still two miles away, across the runway. Contoured details of the buildings, hangers, control tower, satellite dishes and radar towers were now perceptible through the unmagnified enhancement of his night-vision goggles.

The airbase that had taken on mythological proportions in underground circles, and
did not exist
for many years, was proving itself a factual entity. Years of government denial, sidestepping and misinformation had compelled civilians to ask more questions. The powers-that-be wanted to keep the remote assemblage of buildings a secret, but instead altered mere brick and mortar structures into an alluring dragon’s lair.

Blake removed his night-vision goggles and began attaching a nine-inch lens and camera that were stowed in his fanny pack. He had rented the most powerful lens he could find, designed to photograph far-off images using a thousand-millimeter reflex lens. With the lens attached, he fell to his stomach, using his elbows for a camera stand, and took his first close-up view of the base.

He wasted no time launching a photographic assault, sweeping left to right, searching for his primary objective. He saw no signs of activity, no signs of life other than building lights. After scanning a third of the base, he spotted his first person, then a second: two guards stationed in front of the large hangar.

The hangar doors were cracked open, but only about ten feet. He adjusted the focus, trying to see inside, but his angle was bad, all he saw was a corner wall. He had about twenty minutes before it was time to head back in order to reach public land by dawn, and knew that if the doors didn’t open further in that time, his pictures and the journey would have been in vain. Setting the camera down, he put his night-vision goggles back on and studied an adjacent plateau just a short dash from his current position, but potentially capable of giving him the camera shot he sought. He hesitated because the detour wasn’t part of the plan.
Nothing in life comes without a catc
h, he thought. What was the correct choice at this point? Come so far and give up, or deviate slightly? The path was clear. A fast jog would put him there in a minute; no point wasting two minutes thinking about it.

• • •

Trevor’s primary concern as he hiked to the rendezvous point was not being discovered. If the guards found the stranded Cherokee they would search for the passengers. And if they found him, they would want him back in the Cherokee and on his way; he would have trouble meeting Blake.