“Four, sir!” General Herres scoffed again, though he’d leveled his tone somewhat — he was talking to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, after all — “with all due respect, sir, where are we going to come up with another team and train it in under four weeks?”
“You’re going to transition the team leaders you have now and put in some of the new men on each team.”
“But sir—”
“You listen to me, general — we don’t have a choice in this. That attack four years ago has gone unchecked long enough, we all know that. And we all know the extent to which they’ve expanded down there in Dulce too, now don’t we? So you listen to me, son, and you listen real good — we’re going in on the day we planned and the day that moon is right, and we’re doing it with four teams. You’ll have your new men overnight. Is that clear, general?”
“Yes, sir, it is,” General Herres said before swallowing.
And with that the Chairman hung up the phone and the commander of the United States Air Force Communications Command at Scott Air Force Base was left wondering what on earth he’d do.
4 — Kirtland AFB
Brigadier General Harry Anderholt took a sip from his coffee and immediately wished he hadn’t.
“Pttt!” he spit the coffee out and across his desk, which was thankfully clear this morning.
“I told you it was hot!” Lucille, his secretary, shouted through the cheap wood-paneled walls.
Harry frowned and blew onto the coffee and made to make another sip, then thought better of it and put it down. He was just turning to the back of the sports page when the phone rang. He stared down at it as it rang again, then called out to his secretary.
“Lucille, did a call slip by you?”
“I don’t know what to make of that, sir,” she called back.
“Don’t worry, I’ll get it,” Harry said, and grabbed the receiver.
“Harry, it’s Bob Herres here.”
“Bob!” Harry said, a bit louder than he’d have liked, and he immediately cupped his hand over the mouthpiece. “Bob… what the hell?”
“Harry, I’ve got something big, something I’d like to bring you in on.”
“Oh no, Bob,” Harry said, already shaking his hand in anticipation of what his sometimes-superior was going to say.
“I need your men, Harry, your special men.”
“Not for your mission, Bob, oh no, not for that,” Harry said, “I already know they’ll be wiped out to a man if you need ‘em for what I think you do.”
“We can’t just let what happened in ’75 go unpunished,” General Robert Herres said from his paper-strewn desk at Illinois’ Scott Air Force Base, “we can’t let those Grays get away with this.”
“Those aliens should never have been allowed to set up shop here in the first place,” Harry laughed.
“Not much we can do about that now, and besides, you had more access to Ike than anyone at the time.”
“Not that it did me much good, not on that one.”
On the other end of the line General Herres sighed. “Harry, we’re moving against Dulce in just a couple weeks. Last month one of our recon teams — six men in all — was discovered and wiped out.”
“So abort the mission and start retraining,” Harry said, “they should’ve never have been without alternates in the first place.”
“You know as well as I do that this is a need-to-know business we’re in here, Harry, and the less that you need to know, the better.” Bob sighed again. “Besides, we’ve got three combat assault teams trained and ready to go, plus all our residual forces.”
Residual forces, Harry hadn’t heard that one. “Like?” he said, his voice rising in anticipation.
“We’ve got our filter attack team, the one that’ll be flying that captured UFO we picked up back in ’76. Besides that, it’s our material acquisition team, victim assistance team, and of course the clean up team.”
“Of course,” Harry said, “and so it sounds like you’ve got all you need.”
“No, I need six of your boys, and you’ll have them on a plane heading to Blue Lake this evening.”
“Blue Lake… what the hell’s—”
“Go and see for yourself,” General Herres interrupted, “I want you on that plane tonight too, Harry.”
“Me,” Harry laughed, “what the hell would I be doing going to Blue Lake, whatever could possibly be there?”
“Because the Dutchman will be there.”
The smile was wiped from Harry’s face and seriousness came instantly back to his tone.
“When do you want us to leave?”
“The sooner the better,” General Herres said, “the sooner the better.”
5 — Blue Lake
Major Ellis Richards, Jr., known to his equals as ‘The Dutchman,’ gritted his teeth and got ready to hurl invective.
“God damn it,” he shouted, “don’t you tell me that we can’t get that tracking transponder fixed and back into patrol duty, don’t you tell me that for one goddamn minute sitting there with that glum look on your face and that smiley-tart haircut — god damn it, don’t you tell me that!”
The Second Lieutenant sitting across the desk from Major Richards had about the reddest face of anyone in a 30-mile radius of the secret Blue Lake naval base, and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat throughout the tirade, managing only a lame ‘yes, sir,’ when it was finished.
Major Richards chewed his gums and stared from the file folder on his desk to the Second Lieutenant and then back again. Finally he waved his hand in the air and spoke.
“Get the hell out of my sight — and get this mess figured out by Friday!”
The ‘yes, sir’ had a bit more pep behind it this time, and hung in the air longer than it took the Second Lieutenant to get up out of his chair and out the small base office too. Major Richards shook his head, grabbed the half-smoked cigar from the ashtray, and leaned back in his chair as ht lit it once again to life.
The Dutchman leaned back and enjoyed a puff, the Taos, New Mexico, mountain scenery showing out the window to his back, as well as the deep, blue lake that gave the base its name. His once-brown hair was now mostly grey, but his eyes still had that youthful twinkle and that smile still bedded women half his age, even the ones that knew better. He’d been doing so for more than two decades now, ever since his wife died of breast cancer when she was just 39 and he 42. He looked at her portrait sitting on his bookshelf across the office and gave a self-satisfied smile. Carol would be proud of him, and their son Mark, who was now a pilot himself… and a lot more.
Ellis shook his head and scoffed, but smiled despite himself. Following in the old man’s footsteps, he thought with a laugh as he pictured his son test-flying some of the Air Force’s more ‘challenging’ designs. Hell, I was the same when I was 32!
The intercom buzzer rang and a frown quickly replaced the self-satisfied smile that’d taken hold of Major Richards’ face, a rare sight indeed.
“Sir,” his secretary, Betty, said over the line and from the desk in the outer-office, “there’s a… General Herres here to see you and—”
“General!” Major Richards said as he threw open his office door, something he’d rushed out of his chair and around his desk to do, all while Betty was still speaking.