Next he placed a single sheet of thin tractor-fed paper on the desk blotter.
READ AND DESTROY
TOP SECRET
(SI/HS) BYMAN/BYMAN/FARGO
AF-MILNET CIPHER:
PAGE ONE OF ONE PAGE
CRYPTMAIL CODE 49867-99-00
-25 JULY 1999 -0713 HRS
FROM: NSA/DIRECTOR OF ENCRYPTED OPERATIONS, FT. MEADE, MARYLAND
DE: LEVEL THIRTEEN, AREA S-4, TECHNICAL TESTING FACILITY, STAPLES, NEVADA
DE: NASA, ANALYSIS BRANCH, GREENBELT, MARYLAND
TO: IGA (INTER-AGENCY GROUP ACTIVITY) THE PENTAGON
SPECULATION AND ASSESSMENT: (CODENAME) QSR4
ELINT CONTROL BRANCH, CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE, LANGLEY, VIRGINIA.
PLEASE ADVISE.
END AF-MILNET CIPHER
READ AND DESTROY
General Rainier leaned back in his chair and dropped the sheet into the automatic paper-pulverizer. The machine grated for a split second, then fell silent.
Rainier lit another cigarette, watched the smoke unfurl before the light like so many homeless spirits.
One day, he knew, his own face would be floating in the smoke.
««—»»
As the heavy bulkhead door rose, so did a line of light across Wentz’s face. When the door had lifted completely, a loud CLACK! was heard as steel pins locked it open.
No, he thought, peering ahead. No. No. No. No. No.
He was staring at what was clearly an air vehicle of some kind, but one with no configuration he could imagine as being capable of flight.
It was crescent-shaped, not circular or disk-like. Wentz imagined a giant heel. It was thirty feet long, twenty feet wide. Dull silver, like sandblasted aluminum.
No. No. No…
Armed guards walked a slow post around it, while still more guards looked down from gun emplacements high overhead in scaffolds. Floodlights beamed down, harsh as desert sun.
Wentz felt his astonishment sift away, replaced by something like numb shock. All the blood seemed to have drained from his face.
“No,” he croaked. “No way.”
“You know what this is, don’t you, General Wentz?” Jones asked.
Wentz stood dumb and mute, staring.
“General?”
A team of technicians approached the vehicle, brandishing aerosol paint tanks on their backs. They began to paint the object, tan on the topside, sky-blue on the underside.
“The paint burns off almost immediately,” Ashton remarked, “but it serves as sufficient camouflage during take-offs. The KH and RENSKY satellites can’t see it. Then we wait until after dark to bring her back, with the same auto-landing hardware that was installed in the F-15.”
“What’s it called?” Wentz managed to ask.
“We call it the OEV,” Jones replied.
Then Ashton defined, “Operational Extraterrestrial Vehicle.”
My God, Wentz thought.
Jones went on to explain. “Since 1944, the military has documented over sixty instances of vehicles of extraterrestrial origin crashing within the continental United States. Most of these vehicles were completely destroyed upon impact. Four were recovered reasonably intact but rendered inoperable via crash damage… General Wentz? Are you listening?”
Wentz nodded slowly, his mouth open, his eyes flat.
“One vehicle, however, was recovered completely intact, and that would be the vehicle you’re looking at. It was recovered outside of Edgewood, Maryland, in 1989. It is our estimation that the OEV didn’t crash but instead landed near the U.S. Army’s Edgewood Arsenal. The vehicle’s two occupants then disembarked upon what we believe was a field survey of several weapons depots on the Edgewood installation, whereupon they were shot and killed by post sentries. In other words, General, the OEV is—”
“Undamaged,” Wentz dully replied. “Still flies.”
“That’s correct, sir. It is fully operational as we speak… General? Are you listening?”
Wentz mutely nodded again. He could not divert his stare.
“Give him a break,” Ashton said to Jones. “It takes time.”
Jones seemed exasperated. “I know this is difficult, General, I know this comes as the biggest shock of your life. But you must listen carefully. Will Farrington was the OEV’s primary operator.”
“Will Farrington is dead,” Wentz guttered.
“Yes, sir. And that means that you are now the vehicle’s primary operator—”
Snap out of it! Wentz shouted at himself. Jesus Christ, this is serious. You’re looking at a fucking UFO! Snap out of it! He broke from his paralyzed stance and quickly approached one of the guards.
“You,” he ordered.
The guard snapped to attention. “Yes, sir! Good afternoon, sir!”
“Fuck that good afternoon shit. Slap me in the face. Hard.”
The black-suited guard blinked. “Sir, I can’t strike an—”
“Do it!”
The guard lowered his M-17 4.4mm ACR rifle and—
CRACK!
—slapped Wentz across the face so hard he saw stars. “As you were,” he bumbled, shaking off the rest of his stupor. Wow, that hurt. He blinked out the bright spots, then paced briskly back to Jones and Ashton.
“All right,” he said. “My shit’s square and I’m good to go. Now…show me the inside of this bird.”
««—»»
They’d climbed aboard via a standard Air Force hull ladder. The OEV sported a circular hatch a yard wide, and next Wentz was stepping in, following Ashton down another ladder that clearly was not manufactured by the Air Force—the rungs and siderails of this ladder were thin as wire but supported Wentz’s weight without so much as bowing. Now Wentz stood at the bottom of a yard-wide tube, the same dull silver as the pre-painted hull. An airlock, he guessed. Red instructions had been stenciled:
CAUTION: SET DECOMPRESS
(30-SECONDS EGRESSION TIME)
ACTIVATE DETENT, THEN DEBARK
Wentz stepped through the airlock’s oval manway; Ashton stood waiting for him.
“Sweet Jesus,” Wentz murmured when he glanced forward, starboard and port.
The interior stood stark, smoothly featured. There were no signs of original flight controls in the “cockpit,” though several banks of indicators had been mounted by Air Force technicians, as were two high-tech flight chairs installed over two contoured humps that clearly were the pilot and co-pilot seats of the vehicle’s original operators. Wentz leaned over and peered through two prism-shaped windows beyond which he could see the maintenance scaffolds and the interior hangar. The small windows bore no indication of casements, seams, frames, or sealant—as if they’d somehow been grown into the front of the craft. Aside from the sparse man-made additions, everything inside was the same color as the outside, that dull, lusterless silver.
“I don’t know if I believe this,” Wentz said.
“Once you fly it, you will.”
He examined the aft section. Some supply compartments had been installed, a SNAP-4 nuclear battery and water cell, and an EVA rack, but he didn’t notice anything that might resemble an engine compartment, nor fuel stores.