The old man didn’t blink at Dr. Cruise’s pronouncement. He nodded and rose to his feet, a black cane with a wide silver handle grasped in his withered left hand.
“Thank you, Doctor.”
“We can start the treatments tomorrow morning, Professor Von Seeckt,” Dr. Cruise hastily added, as if to cushion his earlier words.
“That is fine.”
“Would you like something—” Cruise paused as the old man held up his hand.
“I will be fine. This is not a surprise. I was informed this would most likely be the case when I was hospitalized earlier this year. I just wanted to confirm it, and I also believe I was owed the respect of your telling me yourself. My security will take me home.”
“I’ll see you at the meeting later this morning,” Cruise said, stiffening at the implied rebuke in Von Seeckt’s words.
“Good day, Doctor.” With that Werner Von Seeckt made his way out into the hallway of the hospital and was immediately flanked by two men wearing black wind breakers and khaki slacks, their eyes hidden behind wraparound sunglasses.
They hustled him into a waiting car and headed to the airstrip at Nellis Air Force Base, where a small black helicopter waited to whisk him back to the northwest. As the helicopter lifted off, Von Seeckt leaned back in the thinly padded seat and contemplated the terrain flitting by underneath. The American desert had been his home for over fifty years now, but his heart still longed for the tree-covered slopes of the Bavarian Alps, where he had grown up.
He had always hoped he would see his homeland before he died, but now, today, he knew he wouldn’t. They would never let him go, even after so many years had passed.
He unfolded the piece of paper on which he had written the message he had taken off his answering service while waiting in Cruise’s office. Power, sun. Forbidden. Home place, chariot, never again. Death to all living things. He remembered the Great Pyramid.
Von Seeckt leaned back in the seat. It was all coming around again, like a large circle. His life was back where it had been over fifty years ago. The question he had to ask himself was whether he had learned anything and whether he was willing to act differently this time.
Underneath the camouflage netting that Turcotte had helped rig during darkness, the mechanics made the three helicopters ready for flight, folding the rotors out and locking them in place. The pilots walked around, making their preflight checks.
On the perimeter of the primitive airstrip Turcotte was lying on his stomach in the middle of a four-hour guard shift, looking down the one asphalt road that led up to the airstrip. The road was in bad shape. Plants and weeds had sprouted up through cracks, and it seemed obvious this place had been abandoned for quite a while. That didn’t mean, of course, that someone in a four-wheel-drive vehicle couldn’t come wandering up and stumble over their mission support site. Thus Turcotte’s orders to apprehend anyone coming up the road.
The question that still had not been answered — albeit Turcotte had not asked it out loud — was what mission this site was set up to support. Prague had given orders through the night, but they had been immediate ones, directed to the security of this location, not shedding any light on what they would be doing once the sun went down this evening.
The conference room was to the left of the control center as one got off the elevator. It was soundproofed and swept daily for bugs. The Cube had never had a security compromise and General Gullick was going to insure that the record remained intact.
A large, rectangular mahogany table filled the middle of the room with twelve deep leather chairs lining the edges.
Gullick sat at the head of the table and waited silently as the other chairs were filled. He watched as Von Seeckt limped in and took the chair at the other end of the table.
Gullick had already been briefed by Dr. Cruise on the confirmation of Von Seeckt’s terminal condition. To Gullick it was good news. The old man had long ago outlived his usefulness.
Gullick shifted his attention to the youngest person in the room, who was sitting to his immediate right. She was a small, dark-haired woman with a thin face, dressed severely in a sharply cut gray suit. This was Dr. Lisa Duncan’s first meeting, and while inbriefing her on the project was one of the two priorities on the meeting schedule, it was not the primary one in Gullick’s mind. In fact, he resented having to take time out at such a critical juncture in the project to get a new person up to speed.
There was also the fact that Dr. Duncan was the first woman ever allowed in this room. But, since Duncan was filling the chair reserved for the presidential adviser, it paid at least to give the appearance of respect. The fingers of Gullick’s left hand lightly traced over his smooth skull, caressing the skin as if soothing the brain underneath. There was so much to do and so little time! Why had the previous adviser been reassigned? Duncan’s predecessor had been an old physics professor who had been so enraptured by what they were doing upstairs in the hangar that he had been no trouble.
A week ago Kennedy, the CIA representative, had been the first to notify Gullick of Duncan’s assignment and this visit. Gullick had ordered the CIA man to look into Duncan’s background. She was a threat; Gullick was convinced of that. The timing of her sudden assignment and this first visit couldn’t be coincidental. “Good afternoon, gentlemen — and lady,” Gullick added with a nod across the table. “Welcome to this meeting of Majic-12.” Built into the arm rest of his chair was a series of buttons and Gullick hit one of them, lighting up the wall behind him with a large-scale computer image. The same image was displayed on the horizontal console set into the tabletop just in front of Gullick for his eyes only:
INBRIEF PRESIDENTIAL ADVISER
CURRENT STATUS OF BOUNCERS
CURRENT STATUS OF THE MOTHERSHIP
PROJECTED TEST OF THE MOTHERSHIP
“This is today’s schedule.” Gullick looked around the table. “First, since we have a new member, introductions are in order. I will begin from my left and go around the table clockwise.
“Mr. Kennedy, deputy director of operations, the Central Intelligence Agency. Our liaison to the intelligence community.” Kennedy was the youngest man in the room. He wore an expensive three-piece suit. If they weren’t a quarter mile underground he’d probably have been wearing sunglasses, Gullick thought. He didn’t like Kennedy because of his age and his aggressive attitude, but he most certainly needed him. Kennedy had thick blond hair and a dark tan that looked out of place with the other men at the conference table.
“Major General Brown, deputy chief of staff, Air Force. The Air Force has overall administration and logistics responsibility for the project and for external security.”
“Major General Mosley, deputy chief of staff, Army. The Army supplies personnel for security support.”
“Rear Admiral Coakley, assistant director, Naval intelligence. The Navy is responsible for counterintelligence.”
“Dr. Von Seeckt, chief scientific counsel, Majic-12. Dr. Von Seeckt is the only man in this room who has been with the project from the beginning.”
“Dr. Duncan, our latest member, presidential adviser to Majic-12 on science and technology.”
“Mr. Davis, special projects coordinator, National Reconnaissance Organization. The NRO is the agency through which our funding is directed.”
“Dr. Ferrel, professor of physics, New York Institute of Technology. Our chief scientific counsel and in charge of our reverse engineering work.”
“Dr. Slayden, project psychologist, Majic-12.”