Groom Lake (24 page)

He decided not to retrace the tire tracks back to the drop point because the guards could track him more easily if they discovered the Jeep. Instead, he plotted Blake’s first waypoint into his GPS and hiked in that direction. Trevor assumed if he dropped Blake off at waypoint A, and Blake went to waypoint B while he went to waypoint C, and all three waypoints were east of the base, then he could travel from C to B without crossing the perimeter. And he was correct. The problem with Trevor’s new route was it deviated from the validated instructions given to Blake.

Trevor’s walk had become monotonous, but suddenly he was forced to freeze in his footsteps. Deep, slow breaths were his only movement. From behind his night-vision headset, his eyes trained on a man-made object ahead. He suddenly realized the directions for he and Blake were specific for a reason—to keep Trevor off the base,
and
in surveillance blind spots, so he wouldn’t attract attention on the public lands

Paces ahead to his left, in an open area with a view in every direction, a metal tripod supported a camera, which at the moment faced away from Trevor. Like two gunslingers waiting for the other to make the first move, he and the surveillance device squared off—both motionless. The camera drew first: it panned its lens left, sweeping in Trevor’s direction. Trevor charged at the camera, hoping to disable it before being seen.

• • •

Blake felt as though his heart pounded five times for each step he took. His minute trek stretched to almost ten as he progressed in increments—jogging, pausing, searching; jogging, pausing, searching—as he kept a watchful eye out for surveillance equipment, too afraid to move any faster. He knew he could retrace his steps at a rapid pace on the way back.

Upon reaching the plateau with no indication from his frequency scanner that he had triggered a sensor, he dropped to the earth, removed his night-vision goggles and situated his elbows to brace the camera. He immediately noticed a light lifting off from the tarmac near the hangar, a helicopter, and it appeared to be moving in his general direction. Although it was about two miles away, he panicked, thinking it was coming for him. His heart raced faster. He felt it harder to breathe
. Did I trigger an alarm and they are coming to investigate?
He quickly peered through the camera and zoomed for a closer view of the helicopter.
Something is wrong,
he thought, seeing nothing through the camera. Before he could pull away, he sensed everything around him go dark, like a blanket had been thrown over his head. He heard shuffling in the dirt and tried to react, to turn. An excruciating pain bit into his right shoulder blade like a bolt of electricity. Too much was happening for him to understand, and the pain halted his thoughts and reactions, shooting up his neck, down his right arm, and through his midsection, paralyzing his body. He struggled to pass air in or out of his lungs. A faint and prolonged “Ughhhhh,” came from his lips, and droplets of cottonmouth saliva spewed across his chin. The piercing bite-like pain ceased, but the aftereffects lingered. He lay motionless, trying to regain his senses. Only a brief second passed before he felt someone grab the shoulder strap on his backpack and drag him forward until he slid over the plateau’s edge and down a short embankment.

Another brief piercing bite to his back sucked the air from his lungs. His face was forced into the dirt by someone holding a blanket or cloth across his head and upper body, restricting his movement and pinning his arms to his side. He didn’t need to see to understand what was happening, what had happened, to know he was captured. But Blake thought it odd when his captor dropped on top of him, covering his body and legs.

“Don’t move,” Val Vaden’s muffled voice said through the Bio Suit helmet shielding his face. “We don’t want that helicopter seeing you on its thermal imaging system.”

“Who are you?” Blake asked, wondering if he wasn’t the only person his new friends sent on a mission this evening.

“Just relax until it passes. Then we’ll talk.” Val had been hiding in the Groom Valley for several days, hoping to film inside the large hangar. His nearest bunker was several miles south—on more vegetated land—and he trekked each night to their present location hoping to film activity. When Val spotted Blake traversing an area laden with electronic surveillance, he feared Blake was some crazy kamikaze base watcher. If a sensor was triggered, he knew his own chances of sneaking to a safer sector were slim. In trying to prevent a problem, his predicament became compounded. Blake now knew that he was out there.

“Chief,” a sentry manning surveillance controls in Groom Lake’s White Room said. “Tower is asking for status.”

Trace Helms stood pensively, arms crossed, an unlit cigar clenched in his mouth, with a scour on his face that told the men under his command not to upset him further. “Tell them it looks false, but we’re still doing a quick flyby. If they want a response team to investigate, they should expect an hour delay by the time we get everyone back and sequestered again.”

“SP-1 says it looks like a false alarm, Tower. We’re sending a mongoose to do a flyby. If you want us to deploy a response team, you’re looking at an hour delay on the test.” The sentry hung up the phone and turned to Trace. “He said something about shooting all the coyotes out here and slammed the phone down.”

Trace moved behind another sentry seated at a video control panel and said, “Play it again.” Watching the surveillance video again, Trace prayed not to see any sign of Blake in the picture, or anyone else for that matter. The night-vision-enhanced footage started with a view of barren sand and desert scrub, then began sweeping left toward the motion detected by the camera’s sensor. A sudden and sporadic movement spun the image backwards, blurring the view, until the camera appeared to be resting on the ground with its lens in the dirt.

All personnel were accounted for and the Groom Proper Patrol had reported no visitors at the perimeter that evening. Trace would wait and send a ground patrol to reset the camera at dawn, buying some time for Blake. Nobody would question the Chief’s insistence that the disturbance was a false alarm. Trace was concerned, but also relieved it was a mobile camera off base and away from areas frequented by civilians; Blake was safe for the moment, as long as the helicopter crew didn’t spot him.

Val raised himself, keeping a knee in Blake’s back, and studied the hilltop horizon behind them, in the direction the helicopter disappeared. “Don’t move,” he ordered as he fiddled with the controls for his radio transceiver, trying to pickup the communications between the base and helicopter crew.

After listening for a few minutes, he said, “You aren’t alone out here, are you?”

Blake hesitated, wondering who this man pinning him to the ground was, and then said, “No, I’ve got you watching my back.”

“Don’t be a smartass,” Val said, digging his knee deeper into Blake’s back. “Something, or someone, knocked over a mobile surveillance camera. Fortunately for us it was off the base and they are calling it a false alarm. If they knew you were out here, they would probably investigate a little further. We got lucky. But I think you’ve got company out here. Let’s hope they don’t cause us more trouble.”

Blake suspected that because someone affiliated with security did indeed know he was out there, they weren’t investigating further. He did wonder about Trevor though, and suspected he was somehow involved in the alarm.

“That chopper’s going to be on top of us again.” He repositioned himself on top of Blake and spread his ghillie suit as additional cover, hoping to fully hide Blake’s heat signal. “Sorry for the intimate moment—it’s purely self-preservation—but as long as we have this time together, why don’t you tell me what you’re doing here?”

“I’m lost,” was the prepared statement Blake had hoped he wouldn’t have to use, crinkling his nose as he said it from the strong smell of sweat and body odor his captor emitted.

“Wrong answer.” Val triggered his stun gun and gave Blake’s nose a quick zap that sent a burning pain through his sinuses. “Who are you?”

“I’m just a college student. I was hiking and got lost. The next thing I knew I was right in front of the base.”

“Nice try—you’re wearing black, night-vision, and that’s a five-thousand-dollar lens on your camera. You’re not lost. I can’t believe you made it this far without being detected. It’s like a minefield with all the sensors around this sector. You almost screwed us both.”

“Sounds like neither of us should be here.”

“I don’t want your stupidity getting me caught.”

“A stupid person wouldn’t make it this far,” Blake said, feeling some relief that he wasn’t in the hands of security. “Let me go and I’ll get out of here. I have a route.” Blake was crunching the minutes and hours in his head. He’d lost valuable time from this delay, and was losing more. He needed to start back now and at a faster pace. The return trip required more time because a good portion was at an incline.

“Are you heading east?” Val asked.

“What’s it matter?”

Val was considering Blake’s route off the base when he heard the helicopter. He tensed his body, trying not to move, keeping his legs balanced atop Blake’s. “Stay still,” he said. The chopper was on a different line and passed over further north, but still close enough that they could have detected Blake on a thermal imaging screen had he been in the open.

Once clear, Val raised himself off of Blake and let him sit up for the first time. “You entered the base near where that helicopter just came from. That’s further south than most base watchers venture. There are no vantage points on public land, so they typically don’t have to worry about visitors in that sector, but obviously there’s a breach in the security that allowed you to cross over. This ordeal slowed your pace. Now you’ll be lucky to make the perimeter by dawn, and you can bet they’ll be sending ground patrols at first light to reset that camera if they aren’t on their way already. And they’ll see your friend’s footprints, won’t they?”

Blake realized there was no point in lying. He needed to think this through and take the correct steps. “I’ve got someone waiting for me, but he shouldn’t have crossed paths with a surveillance camera.”

“So you have inside information about the surveillance out here?”

“Maybe I thought I did.”

“Even if you get off the base, they’ll stop you. They’ll see the dust trail from your vehicle, and they’ll stop you. Then they’ll question you, and you know about me.”

“So you shouldn’t have introduced yourself.”

“That chopper would have seen you, and you’d be hogtied and unconscious right now. I’ve seen it done.”

Blake didn’t know where the situation was going, but he sensed he might have to fight his way out of it. He studied the complexity of the equipment on the man’s body and head and figured he could land an uppercut or shot to the throat—that seemed to be the only vulnerable area. Then he could twist the man up in his poncho and take him to the ground. He only needed a head start. The man couldn’t catch him with all the equipment he wore. “So what do you propose?” Blake asked as he continued to rehearse his strike in his head.

“What’s your friend going to do if you don’t show up on schedule?”

“He’ll leave. Drive out of the valley so they can’t see him through the surveillance telescopes, and find a place off-road to set up a radio antenna and wait for me to call him.”

“How long will he wait?”

“A day. Just in case something happened and I needed another night of darkness to flee.”

“You’ve thought this through.”

“Not interested in failure.”

“Well,” Val said, having devised a plan, “it looks like you’re going to use that extra day. I’ll get you to safe cover tonight. We’ll lay low during the day, and if I’m comfortable with the situation, we’ll go our separate ways tomorrow night. You’ll be close enough to make your crossing point with time to spare.”

Blake eased off on his attack plan and considered this strategy. It was certainly more logical than fleeing for the perimeter with what looked like a sci-fi action figure on his tail. Blake cursed his luck. First he trusted the strangers that got him into this mess. Now he needed to trust a more obscure stranger to get him out, but it seemed like the most reasonable answer at this point.

Blake took one last look at the hangar, still in some sense of disbelief that he was viewing it in person, but his mind was shrouded with a greater sense of surrealism about what was now happening. He didn’t get his pictures of the hangar, but didn’t much care at this point.

Considering the added weight from the Bio Suit components and gear affixed to Val’s body, he moved quickly across the desert. Blake led so Val could keep an eye on him and holler instructions:
Left! Right! Slower!
Aided by level terrain, they covered their first mile in nine minutes, traveling south, away from the base.

“Stop!” Val ordered, pausing for a quick breath.

As Blake looked back at the base, he noticed a number of lights on the runway. “What about the test?” Blake asked. Snapping photos of a test craft could be of benefit to the professor, and might just salvage the trip.

“How do you know there’s going to be a test?”

“Just guessing.”

“I doubt that. And just because I’m helping you off the base, it doesn’t mean I condone you taking photos of this place.” Unconcerned with the testing at Groom Lake, Val guided Blake on a journey southwest, skirting a dirt road that ran parallel to the runway.

For over four miles Val followed the directions from the GPS in his helmet, saying little to Blake. They ventured away from the access road and up steeper terrain. With fatigued bodies, they reached their refuge for the time being: a makeshift hut fashioned from chaparral brush and camouflage netting, secured between two boulders.

Val grabbed a lightstick from his vest and snapped the center, mixing its chemicals to generate a blue light. Pulling back a piece of the netting, he revealed a cramped hut and handed the lightstick to Blake. “You first.”

Holding the lightstick in front of him, Blake entered, but kept his night-vision goggles on until he was certain the nooks and crannies were free of snakes and other critters.

“It’s not much, but you get to call it home for the next fifteen hours,” Val said.

“Then what?”

“I haven’t decided.” Val pressed several buttons on his computer before disconnecting the wires leading to his helmet. He lifted it off to reveal a white face-hood with black tubing that crisscrossed his cheeks, forehead and chin, giving him an intimidating tribal look.

“Is that a cooling system?” Blake asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” Val said, reclining and sipping water from a canteen.

“You ever take it off?”

“I don’t need you seeing my face.”

“Fifteen hours is a long time to keep that on.”

“It’ll be more than that by the time I take it off again.”

“When’s the last time you had a bath?”

“Hygiene takes a backseat out here.”

“I can smell.”

“I think it would be best if you didn’t ask a lot of questions.”

“Just trying to make conversation.”

“We can talk about the weather. Or you can tell me how a college student sneaks onto one of the most secure military bases in the world.”

“Sure,” Blake agreed, “after you tell me where you got the superhero costume.”

“It’s going to be a scorcher today,” Val answered.

“With that technology, I’d say you’re a serious spy.”

“Aren’t we both?”

Blake had not thought of himself as a spy. “I guess the military would see it that way.”

• • •

With each passing minute, dozens of stars faded from view as dawn advanced in the east. Staring through a crack in the camouflage netting, Blake concentrated on a small patch of sky and pondered his predicament. His eyes had watched the crack like it was a television set, helping to pass his time in the hideout.

“Does anyone know you and your friend are out here?” Val asked. “In case he’s lost, or hurt?”

Blake found his concern comforting. “Yeah, people know we’re here.”

“Let’s hope they don’t do anything stupid, like call Nellis or the sheriff and inquire about your release.”

“It won’t go down like that,” Blake said.

“Sometimes under pressure people deviate from the plans.”

That comment made Blake realize he no longer had a plan.
How am I going to get out of this
? He knew rigorous hiking was ahead. His provisions were low. A few protein bars and enough water to keep him hydrated that day, but his supply would be dry by night unless he rationed. Either way, his body would start tiring after a few miles of hiking.

Knowing he was at this man’s mercy, Blake decided it was time to address these issues. “I’ve been considering my situation and what must happen next. You may feel my presence forced you to confront me last night, but you forced me to stay with you. And now given the extra miles you are making me travel, I don’t think I have enough water to make the alternate rendezvous with my friend.”

“I thought about that,” Val said. “Tonight we’ll head to a bunker in the Papoose Mountains with ample provisions. We’ll pick up extra water along the way.”

“And then what? It doesn’t sound like we’re getting out of here tonight?”

“The final leg around Papoose Lake is tricky. We’ll need an entire night to complete it.”

“So you’ve decided to guide me out of here.”

“It’s either that or leave you for dead.”

“So I should plan on being in Vegas in two days?”

“Barring any problems. I’m still working out the details.”

“What details?”

“It’s not as simple as hiking to a vehicle and driving away. I’ll let you know more when I think it’s important.”

Accepting his predicament, Blake decided to take advantage of his travel companion’s apparent knowledge and the opportunity to see Papoose Dry Lake. Visiting Papoose was extraordinary; in recent decades more people had set foot on Mount Everest’s peak. Whether Papoose’s sequestered location protected national secrets or merely encouraged the rampant spread of unverifiable rumors, Blake would partake in a dream hike for many ufologists, aviation buffs and conspiracy theorists.

“So we’re going to Papoose,” Blake said. “That’s why you didn’t care about the test last night. You want the secrets they keep at the second base. What’ve you seen?”

“I’ve seen the place where they keep the aliens,” Val said in a deadpan response.

“
Really
?”

“No. I was just testing your beliefs.” He offered his first chuckle and said, “It’s best if you don’t know much about me.”

“I’m beginning to understand quite a bit about you. If you were interested in the large hangar at Groom Lake, but not the test craft, you must have been looking for the tunnel entrance.”

His mentioning of the tunnel surprised Val. “How do you know about the tunnel?”

“Same way I learned how to sneak on the base.”

“Which is?” Val asked.

“This is where our conversations seem to reach a stalemate. Neither of us wants to trust the other.”

“You’re already trusting me—with your life!”

“My actions may be illegal,” Blake admitted, “but I consider my intentions morally correct. I don’t agree with the way the government conducts business out here. I’m not looking to subvert the government. I just don’t want the government subverting me.”

“Are you saying you would talk to me if you thought it was for a good cause?”

“Something like that,” Blake said.

“I’m going to have to divulge certain information to you about my situation. You’ll see things that a resourceful person—as I believe you to be—could piece together and use to figure me out.” Val was thinking ahead, what he would have to tell Blake about his cover at the Nevada Test Site. He figured the best option to force Blake’s continued obedience was pulling his trump card, flexing muscle with his identity. Grasping hold of the mask still covering his face, Val pulled it off, revealing his matted sandy-blond hair and a narrow, unshaven face that tightened a little more each day as his body burned more calories than it consumed. “My name is Val Vaden. I’m FBI.”

“FBI!” Blake took a moment to consider the ramifications of the FBI sneaking around Area 51. “So are you spying or conducting surveillance?”

“I guess that depends on who you ask?”

“I’d love to see those congressional hearings,” Blake said, imagining various branches of the intelligence community squaring off before Congress. Then the thought of Val being an FBI agent caused a more personal realization. “So, am I going to be arrested when we get out of here?”

“Arresting you would raise some interesting questions about jurisdiction, and even more questions about my presence here.”

“You’re spying on the spooks—the checks versus the balances.”

“Once we get out of here I’ll expect more cooperation.”

Making a friend at the FBI appealed to Blake, and would lend credence to his actions. “You’re the contact I need,” Blake told him. “Maybe fate brought us together.”

“I tend to believe in positive visualization.”

“It gets better,” Blake said, his enthusiasm evident in his voice. Pointing toward the base, “People are down there looking for someone like you.”

“How did you find them?”

“They found me.”

“Why you?”

Blake considered the professor’s FOIA documents. “It started with some information that fell into my hands, then triggered a bizarre chain of events. You doubt my background as a student, but that’s all I am. I start work on a PhD this fall.”

“And what do you study?”

“Antigravity propulsion.”

Val had a feeling, an intuition, a lingering sensation that befuddled his thoughts and made him sick to his stomach. He thought about Professor Eldred and the background investigative work he had conducted on him, and his assistant. He looked into the eyes of the young man sitting with him and stated his name: “Blake Hunter.”

Blake started to speak, but didn’t know what to say. He paused a moment, then stuttered, “I … I know I didn’t tell you my name.”

“You study under Professor Eldred?”

Now Blake was beginning to feel queasy. “Something like that. Why?”

Val shook and dropped his head again. Blake posed an immediate threat to the entire operation. He didn’t understand how or why he was out there, but it presented many challenges, including the future secrecy and safety of his investigations. The motivation that had sustained him in these harsh conditions was instantly diminished and he now wanted to be anyplace other than the middle of the desert.

“Why does the FBI know who I am?” Blake asked, almost panicked, suddenly realizing there was much more to the research with the professor than he had understood.

“The professor is helping a congressional task force that’s investigating black budget funding. I helped with the background check that cleared you to work for him.”

“Eldred never told me about the FBI.”

“He wasn’t allowed to. He also wasn’t allowed to include you in anything beyond assisting with his research. I’d say venturing out here is more than research.”

“Eldred forbid me from coming out here, but he didn’t know the opportunity I had. And I didn’t know the total scope of his work. This is good though. We’re fighting for the same cause, and I’ve made contacts for you on the inside.”

“I don’t know if it’s good. How did you end up out here?”

“It was an accident. I dug a little too deep with my research. But wait a minute. Eldred told me last week that his sponsors pulled out. Something has him all shaken up. He’s become even more of a recluse.”

“I don’t know what might have happened,” Val said. “I’ve been out here.”

“The people that led me out here, they suspected Eldred was working for somebody important, someone in government who would do good with the information they offer.”

“How did they know that?”

“Beats me. I was skeptical until now. But so far, everything they’ve told me has been correct. They’re promising a lot more if I can prove it’s going to the right cause.”

“If you get caught out here,” Val said, “it’ll kill this operation. Assuming that hasn’t already happened.”

“How could my capture jeopardize the operation?”

“It’s not like you accidentally strolled a few yards over the perimeter. They’ll interrogate you, double-check every answer with lie detector tests and piece the facts together. Now you know about me—the FBI. That’ll come out too. I definitely have to get you out of here.”