Overlord (7 page)

“Then perhaps the president can explain it to an old Southern gentleman the difference between rumor and fact”—he smiled—“as
you
see it, of course.”

The president released Camden’s hand and was tempted to wipe it on his pants leg, but smiled instead and then looked at his watch.

“If you don’t know the difference between the two by now, Mr. Speaker, I would never have the time to explain it to you. If you’ll excuse me, I have a meeting.”

Speaker of the House Camden watched, stunned, as the president turned and walked away. The tension inside the reception area was cold and you could cut the atmosphere with a knife. He noticed the Secret Service agent gesturing with his hand toward the nearest exit. Camden grimaced and then angrily looked down to where his own assistant was waiting and gestured for her to follow.

In the corridor he turned fuming to his female assistant. “I want CIA Director Harlan Easterbrook to meet me for dinner. And be sure he brings our good friend Dan Peachtree with him.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea? I mean the director is squarely in the president’s camp on this issue”—the assistant corrected herself—“the rumored issue.”

“What goddamn issue? According to the president there is no issue, just an ugly rumor!” he hissed loudly and started getting looks from men and women lining the outer hallway waiting to see the man in the Oval Office. “Easterbrook knows who it is that controls the budget for his agency and I want Daniel Peachtree there to back us. Even Easterbrook can’t argue with his own AD of Operations on how screwed up this thing has become. Aliens, my ass! The president put one over on us four years ago with those damnable images of deep space and the so-called saucers. But where are they? We keep spending billions and what for?” He looked with wide eyes at his assistant. “I want details on what the president is up to and I want to be updated on Chinese and Russian military buildups. Hell, even the damn Brits have upped their naval budget by 100 percent as they are falling for the same crap the president did. And I want a full report on that little bald shit that the president bases all of his decisions on. National Archives, my ass!”

“On the foreign front I’m afraid, according to their governments, they also refuse to comment on rumors on their military. Now about this Niles Compton, Easterbrook and even our man Peachtree have no intel on Compton other than his educational background, which is of course extensive.”

“If Easterbrook doesn’t explain things to me far more clearly than they have been, I’m going to leak everything I have to the public and then let the president explain that.”

His assistant looked around and nervously leaned into her boss.

“Before you start making that kind of threat maybe we better get a better hold on the situation? After all, he is a lame duck president who doesn’t have a successor in any shape, form, or fashion unless you consider the spineless vice president, and Easterbrook will be looking for a job in two years.”

“I see. You’re saying a far more subtle approach is warranted?”

“It’s far better than the other rumors I’ve been hearing.” She again glanced at the faces now turned away from the two visitors.

The Speaker of the House stopped before reaching the outer door and faced the young assistant. “What, there are new rumors?”

“That two like-minded senators and backers of yours have just announced their sudden retirements.”

“Yes, Hastings and Schaller, Vermont and Texas respectively. Hastings is citing a pending divorce and Schaller is claiming health issues at age thirty-two.”

“Yes, well, some are saying after meeting with the president five weeks ago and them asking rather forcefully about those very rumors that you just mentioned, they suddenly announced their decisions on retiring the very next day.”

“Your point?” he asked, getting angry.

“My point is most people on the Hill are saying the president threatened them.”

“How do you mean?”

She didn’t respond but just looked into the older man’s face. He slowly but surely caught her ominous drift.

“Then that makes meeting with CIA Director Easterbrook and our friend Peachtree essential.” He turned and made his way to the door. “And remember, we can toss around threats also and Daniel Peachtree has just the man to issue those threats.”

The assistant exhaled deeply as she pictured the little creep across the river at CIA. “I can’t stomach that little bastard and I wish you would not be associated with him in any way. That Hiram Vickers reminds me of some slinking pedophile the way he looks at people.” She shivered at the thought of the little black operations guru over at Langley. “And one more thing, sir, what makes you think it wasn’t Director Easterbrook who backed up the president’s threat?” she mumbled as she raced to catch up with her boss.

House Speaker Camden only froze for a second at the door as he slightly turned and answered her.

“That will be Dan Peachtree’s problem, as he stands to gain the most from … complications in the chain of command at Langley.”

*   *   *

As the Secret Service agent held the door open for the president, the chief executive paused a moment, took a deep breath, nodded at the agent, and tried to confidently stride into the Oval Office. The president saw his friend immediately. Director Niles Compton was at the window behind the Lincoln desk, looking out onto Pennsylvania Avenue and the five thousand men and women protesting in the street. The placards were offensive to say the least and were saying that the U.S. was on a road to dictatorship. Niles Compton knew his friend was anything but dictatorial. Being a military man from the time he was in college, the president was always terrified of being labeled right wing when actually he thought as many generals do when they got to a certain age: that military power is a dangerous thing in the wrong hands—and even sometimes in the right ones. Niles Compton knew the problem could be in no more capable hands than those of his old friend.

“I’m really surprised you’re not out there with them protesting my supposed and
rumored
military moves.”

“Maybe they wouldn’t be protesting if they knew the whole truth,” Niles Compton said as he turned away from the window to face the president.

The president didn’t respond as he stood before his own desk. He gestured for Niles to move.

“Unless you want this screwed up job, do you mind if I sit at my own desk, baldy?”

Niles smiled and then moved. He kept his hands in his pockets as he paced to the front of the room. The president looked momentarily out of the window, then allowed the lace curtain to fall back into place as he turned and sat.

“My so-called good friends in the senate are starting to jump ship. The briefing I gave them four years ago is starting to wear off and now they’re running for cover. The key people I needed on the hawk side of things have completely flown the coop. My friends on the other end of the spectrum are now feeling the heat because of these rumors and the fact we haven’t even had one sighting of anything from space other than our own junk falling from the sky.”

Niles finally turned and faced the president as he sat in one of the double-facing couches. He opened his old briefcase and removed a file. “In one brief moment of time many years ago you asked me how I would handle it. I told you.”

“You didn’t understand the American psyche then as now. So, may I explain it again for you, Mr. Wizard?” The president saw his friend wasn’t going to respond so he quickly continued before he could. “Singly this nation is built of brilliant and smart citizens capable of immense kindness and compassion and a simple vision of the future. My people are smart, Niles. Oh, not like an egghead like you, but smart enough to know the situation and understand it when it’s explained to them. But go to the collective mind of those very same citizens and that’s where we run into trouble, and you know that. Collectively we can be the most frightened nation on this planet if things aren’t explained to the extreme point they can be.”

“Tell them everything now or call a press conference and deny all the military rumors as a lie, and then stop allowing the military to sway you into this supposed draft lottery. Come clean about everything from Roswell, to the incident with the destroyer in the Arizona desert, and even the moon landings from years ago. Everything.” Niles shook his head and then looked at his friend. “And what is this about keeping men and women in the military after their service is complete—is
that
one true?”

The president was silent as he turned his head away from the man he had known since college. Niles Compton was the director of the utmost darkened agency in the federal government. Their existence was known only to a few and answered only to the president of the United States since the time of Lincoln unofficially, and Woodrow Wilson by law. Department 5656, or what was known to a few outsiders as the Event Group, had a mission to uncover the truth about the shared history of the world, as the understanding of the past secured the future. Department 5656 advised the presidency of any correlation between past events and those currently unfolding in the present so he could make a calculated judgment on how to handle any repeat of that history.

“Yes, it’s true, Niles. I can’t fight a war if my military is stripped down to nothing because of a false sense of security after the war on terror.”

“Then explain
why
to the people of the country and of the world. For Christ’s sake we’re getting ready to watch the Chinese start killing themselves over their military expenditures. The same is happening in France, Russia, Germany, and England. We are the ones scaring the world, not them.” Compton pointed toward the high ceiling of the Oval Office and what he knew was the complete future of darkness beyond the high clouds.

“Why haven’t they moved on us, Niles? They’ve been sitting out there ten million light-years from Earth just waiting. I get new images from the Hubble every other day in my security briefing and they haven’t moved a light-year in any direction, they just sit there. This is why I have supporters jumping off what they now think of as a rudderless ship.”

“Our asset in the Arizona desert reports that the Grays are more than likely here already. They’ll strike when they see an opportunity to do so. Thus your military buildup could be a never-ending nightmare in the terms of time. When they come we have to fight them with the weapons we have already developed and the men and women trained to fight them. Not with new recruits or angry veterans.”

The president shook his head and abruptly stood; in so doing he pushed his large chair back hard enough for it to strike the wall.

“Niles, you and Garrison Lee came up with the plan for Operation Overlord. For the first aspect of that plan to come off I need warships and aircraft. To support our allies if the Grays strike at them first I need to get my army overseas, and for that I need control of the oceans. And I need enough men and equipment left over to secure our cities and train another army as fast as possible for our defenses here. For this I need experienced soldiers, and in order to have that I have to stop them from leaving their respective branches of service. I also need every aircraft we have mothballed in the desert and every obsolete warship in the navy yards at Philadelphia.”

“Then tell the people that,” Niles said, getting angry for the first time in the presence of the president. Compton watched as his friend turned and snatched the lace curtain back again to gaze at those very same citizens protesting the rumors that were running rampant. “But one thing you and the others are refusing to grasp—and you had better start facing it—is that the combined military strength of the entire planet may not last five days against a full-scale onslaught from the Grays.

“That’s why we have Overlord. If we can hold off an offensive strike until Overlord can come on line we have a chance, at least according to our little green friend out in Chato’s Crawl.”

“And you know damn good and well that Matchstick explained that part two of Overlord depends entirely on getting our hands on a power plant from a downed saucer.” The president released the curtain and turned to face Niles. “Your Group’s not confident at this point of possibly finding another crashed saucer?”

Niles opened the folder and pulled out his report.

“We have chased down every UFO report going back as far as the biblical Ezekiel. Outside of the two Roswell incidents we only have rumors of other incidents where a vehicle was recovered with an intact engine.”

“So it’s just as Matchstick says, then?” The president thought of the small alien who had been in U.S. custody since the Arizona incident in 2006.

“We’ll have to place a priority on getting our hands on a power plant when hostilities start … if we can knock the damn saucers out of the sky, that is.”

The president looked a little put out by Niles’s comment. “I believe your Mr. Ryan brought one down in the Pacific, if I remember correctly, with just a Phoenix missile. I think if he can do it we can at least get a few of the bastards for Matchstick to play with.”

“Touché,” Niles said as he slipped the report on the saucer search away. “We actually may have chance at getting at one early in any conflict. Then it’s just a matter of time constraints if we can literally get Overlord off the ground.”

The president raised his brows as he waited for any welcome news.

“Matchstick says they cannot come through their travel wormholes in any large force. Their energy is limited. A few saucers at a time, maybe five or six, and then the Grays have to recharge before they can continue sending their forces through from that extreme distance away. But if they punch us hard enough in the opening rounds their energy problems will be moot. As Matchstick says, it takes the power of an entire planet to produce the energy needed to produce a time-warp wormhole.”

The president slapped the top of his desk. “And that is exactly why I want my forces at full potential, Niles. Now, is Matchstick sure that this power that creates the wormholes is limited in scope?”

“Yes. As you know, the home planet of the Grays is dying. Their forces are growing old and their energy is used to maintain their fleet in space. They have stripped their home world in order to attack us. That is why there is a delay, as they wait for an opening that will be devastating to us.”