Kelly had more than a glancing background in the field of UFOs, which was why, in addition to their friendship, Johnny had sent her the package in the first place. Her trouble eight years ago with the Air Force at Nellis Air Force Base had had to do with that subject and had for all practical purposes destroyed a promising career in the documentary filmmaking field. What had appeared at the time to Kelly as an excellent opportunity had turned into a disaster.
Kelly took the package Johnny had sent her and went through it one more time, this go-around making notes of key words on a legal pad. When she was done, she looked at what she had:
Las Vegas Postmark
The Captain
23 Oct. transmissions, Nellis AFB
Red Flag
F-15
“Mailbox”
Dreamland
Groom Lake
Kelly accessed her on-line database and set up a Boolean keyword search. She started with the date in question, combining it with Nellis Air Force Base, and drew a blank. Then she switched to both the twenty-third and twenty-fourth of October and accessed any news about F-15’s. This time she got a hit. She drew up the article, from the Tucson Citizen, dated the twenty-fourth of October:
F-15 Crashes, Pilot Killed
Officials at Davis-Montham Air Force Base confirmed last night that an F-15 fighter jet from the 355th Tactical Training Wing crashed during training yesterday on the Luke Air Force Base reservation.
The pilot, whose identity is being withheld pending notification of next of kin, was killed in the crash.
The aircraft went down in rough terrain and recovery operations are under way. (No further information was available at press time.)
Kelly checked, but there was nothing on the crash in the following day’s paper, which was unusual. Kelly flipped open her atlas. Luke Air Force Base was in Arizona, hundreds of miles from the Nellis Air Force Base Range. She hit the delete key. This had nothing to do with what she was looking for.
Then she paused. Or did it? How often did F-15’s crash? Not exactly every day of the year. Was it just coincidence?
Kelly did not believe much in coincidence. She felt her gut tighten further. What had Johnny stumbled upon? If this F-15 was the F-15 on the tape, the Air Force had gone through a lot of trouble to point the finger in a different direction from Nellis and Area 51. And not only was the plane reported as having crashed, the pilot was dead. He had been very much alive on that tape.
Next, Kelly tried mailbox in conjunction with UFOs. This produced three hits, all of which identified the mailbox as an actual mailbox along a dirt road outside of the Groom Lake complex where UFO enthusiasts gathered to watch for strange craft over the mountains. Obviously the man who had sent Johnny the tape — the Captain — was one of those people. At least she now knew where she could find that link in the puzzle if she needed it.
Trying Dreamland and Groom Lake brought her a wealth of stories about the site there. They were both cross-referenced to Area 51, which was another one of the many names for a place whose purpose was unknown and whose existence was officially denied.
There were many theories, and Kelly was familiar with most of them. There were some who claimed the government had contact with aliens at the site, and they were trading for information and technology. The more radical theorists stated that, on their side of the barter, the humans were allowing the aliens to conduct mutilations on cattle and other livestock and also — from the truly radical fringe — to abduct humans for various nefarious experiments. There were some who even claimed that the aliens were interbreeding with the humans. Kelly shook her head.
These were the sorts of stories that made headlines on the tabloid rags at the checkout counter, not something that legitimate journalists pursued. Another theory was that Area 51 was the place where the government was testing its own supersecret aircraft and that the F-117 Stealth fighter had been test-flown out there. The latest “secret” plane that was supposedly being tested was called Aurora and guesstimates had the plane — no one quite knew what it looked like — flying anywhere from Mach 4 to Mach 20 and being capable of going high enough to place satellites into orbit.
The official government line was that the Groom Lake/Area 51 complex didn’t exist, which was a most interesting position considering the fact that the Air Force had been gobbling the terrain around the area for the past five years as quickly as it could.
Obviously, something was going on at Area 51, Kelly decided from all the information in front of her. And she knew that Johnny must have done the same search, in fact, a much more in-depth one. And after completing that search he had felt it was worth going out there and taking the chance that the tape he had been sent was a fake or, given that Johnny knew about her own Nellis experience, a setup.
Shifting through several of the articles, two names kept popping up: Mike Franklin, a self-styled Area 51 expert living in the town of Rachel, just outside the Nellis Air Force Base range complex; and Steve Jarvis, a scientist who claimed to have worked in the Groom Lake/Area 51 complex and actually seen alien craft that the government was test-flying. Johnny would have seen the same names.
Kelly picked up the phone and got Franklin’s number from information. She dialed and waited as it cycled through five rings. Just as she was about to hang up, somebody came on the line. The voice on the other end was a woman’s and she sounded upset. “Yes?”
“I’d like to speak to Mike Franklin. This is Kelly Reynolds.”
“Mike’s not here,” the woman said.
“Do you know when he’ll be back?”
“He’s not here,” the woman repeated.
“I’m doing an article on UFOs for a major magazine,” Kelly said, used to occasionally getting the cold shoulder, “and I’d like to talk to—”
“I said he’s not here—” the woman snapped. Just as quickly the voice on the other end started sobbing. “Mike’s dead. He was killed in a car wreck last night.”
Kelly’s hand tightened on the phone. “Where did the wreck occur?” “On Route 375, about fifteen miles outside of town.”
“Was he alone?”
“What?”
“Was he alone in the car?”
“Yes. The state police say he must have run off the road, maybe trying to avoid hitting a deer. They acted like he must have been drunk. But Mike never drank that much. He didn’t like it. And someone went through all his stuff here at the house. When I got here this morning I could tell, even though they tried to put it all back in place. I’m scared they’re going to come back here.”
“Who are they?” Kelly asked. The woman gave a high-pitched laugh. “Them. You know.”
“No, I don’t,” Kelly said. “Who are you talking about?”
“Forget it,” the woman said. “Mike shouldn’t have been doing whatever he was doing. I told him.”
“What’s your name?” Kelly asked.
“I’m not talking to no one. I’m getting out of here. I don’t know what Mike was doing and I don’t want to know no more.” The phone went dead and Kelly slowly lowered the receiver.
“Oh, Johnny, Johnny,” she said softly. “You hit the nail on the head, I think, but it looks like the nail was harder than you thought.”
Kelly stood and looked at the dry-erase board where she kept all her appointments and job assignments for the next several weeks. There was nothing that couldn’t be put off for a while with a few phone calls.
After making her work calls she dialed a travel agency and booked a flight out of Nashville into Las Vegas, departing at noon. Then she called information and got the number for a Steve Jarvis in Las Vegas. A male voice answered. “Hello?”
“Is this Steve Jarvis?”