Russell glanced at the book. On the cover, two shadowy men faced an illustrator’s version of a flying saucer. The title was equally melodramatic: conspiracy- WHAT THE GOVERNMENT DOESN’T WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT UFOS.
Russell glanced up from the book and saw it in Jesse’s eyes, an unbearable dread. “They started taking you again,” he said.
“Yes.”
Russell drew his son quickly into his arms.
For a time, Jesse remained in his father’s embrace. Then, like one returned to his purpose, he pulled himself out of it. “It says it’s mostly the Air Force that knows about this sort of thing,” he said. “I was thinking. You were a pilot, so why don’t we go talk to them?”
It was a naive idea, Russell knew, the desperate hope of a frightened young boy who’d suddenly found his world dissolving around him. It was born of a need to find the truth, and Russell suddenly felt in league with his son, no less desperate to try anything, even the most far-fetched connection. “Yes, why don’t we,” he said with a quiet smile. “We can start with the son of my old bombardier. He’s in the Air Force. We can go talk to him.”
They’d done just that a few days later at Hill Air Force Base in Ogden, Utah, and with the result Russell could have easily predicted. Lieutenant Wylie had been nice enough, polite and open until the first talk of flying saucers. He’d tried to be indulgent after that, but Russell had seen the dreadful conclusion in his eyes, falling like a hammer: Wylie’s certainty that Russell and Jesse Keyes were a father-and-son nutcase. Still, Wylie had kept listening, and even offered to make a report. But there would be no report, Russell knew. Nor should he have expected Wylie to react any differently than he had. The problem was that there were moments when your own loneliness and desperation made you briefly hope that something might change, that someone, somewhere would believe you. Jesse had roused that hope in him. But Wylie’s response had returned him to reality, the sheer fact that only those who had truly been taken knew the truth, and that it was this anguished certainty that kept them in permanent isolation from their fellow man.
“He didn’t believe us,” Russell said now as he and Jesse sat in a local diner. “No one ever believes us.”
“Then what can we do?” Jesse asked.
Russell started to answer, but the searing pain in his head abruptly returned, silencing him. It was like a fire moving through his brain, a blade of boiling steel. “I… I…” He felt the room close in and then expand, the walls tip and slide. The last thing he saw was Jesse reaching for him as he fell.
It was night when he awoke again. Jesse stood beside his bed, along with a tall man in a white coat. He could see the worry in his son’s face.
“Tell me,” he said to the doctor.
“You have a brain tumor,” the doctor said. “In the frontal lobe.”
“Can you take it out?”
The doctor shook his head. “I’ve never seen one quite like it,” he said.
Jesse’s face tightened, and Russell realized just how deeply and permanently his son’s world had changed. Fear was the ever-rising water Jesse swam in now, fear and bafflement and the overwhelming sense that the visible world was little more than a whirling montage, film on film, the flickering windows of a passing train.
“What is it, Jesse?” he asked. “What are you thinking?”
“That if you have a tumor, I may have one too,” he said. He looked at the doctor. “Can you give me the same tests you just gave my dad?”
The doctor seemed to see Jesse’s fear and desperation. “All right,” he said.
The tests were conducted the same afternoon, the results displayed in stark black and white a short time later: two brains, each with identical spots at the front.
“Exactly the same size,” the doctor said. He seemed hardly able to believe his own eyes. “And in exactly the same place.”
Howard and Marty strolled alongside the vast gray hangar.
“One month,” Howard said. “One month to find Owen something he can give to Kennedy.”
Marty peered about glumly. “What are we going to do?”
“Do you remember Jacob Clarke?” Howard asked.
Marty stopped and looked at him, puzzled. “Sure. The only person I’ve ever seen that scared the colonel.”
“The day after the… incident, the kid’s brother drove to Montana,” Howard said. “He had no business dealings there, no known friends. I did a little research. Jacob Clarke disappeared right after Owen tried to nab him. The thing is, his mother still lives in Texas.”
“So where’s the kid?” Marty asked.
Howard smiled. “Turns out there’s a school in Wallace, Montana, for ‘special’ kids. Run by a Dr. Ellen Greenspan.”
Marty grinned back. “Let’s find out what it is that scares the colonel so badly,” he said.
Owen listened carefully as Dr. Kreutz concluded his report.
“Seventy-six encounters with our little gray friends,” the doctor said. “The nature of the encounters seems to be changing. We have stories of missing time. In a few cases, hypnotherapy has filled in those hours, and they appear to be abductions.”
“Missing time,” Owen said thoughtfully. “They’re exposed during this time?”
“Probably.”
“But in the past, exposure to more than ten minutes was fatal.”
“So they’ve learned from their mistakes,” Kreutz said. “Something has changed in their agenda. Or, if not in their overall view, certainly in their methodology. They are ‘upping the ante’ as I believe you say.”
“Why now?” Owen asked.
“Why not?” Kreutz replied.
“Can we prove this?”
Kreutz shrugged.
“I need the most credible of these people,” Owen said, almost to himself. “I need evidence that I can drop in Kennedy’s lap before he pulls the plug.”
Dr. Ellen Greenspan stepped into the corridor and faced the two men who’d accompanied her to the classroom. “I don’t know what else I can tell you,” she said. “He’s gone.”
Howard and Marty exchanged glances, then Howard turned back to Dr. Greenspan. “Do you generally just let your students go off like that without checking on them?”
“Of course not,” Dr. Greenspan replied. “Two federal officers came here. Their credentials looked every bit as genuine as yours… shall I notify the police?”
Marty shook his head. “We’ll take care of that.”
“Maybe I’d better,” Dr. Greenspan said. She looked at Marty pointedly. “Do you generally just let two sets of government agents do the same job without checking on them?”
Marty bristled. “Dr. Greenspan, we are from the United States Air Force. This is a matter of the utmost security. We need your cooperation.”
Dr. Greenspan shrugged. “I’m doing my best.”
The two officers stared at her silently for a moment, then turned and headed down the corridor.
Dr. Greenspan waited until they were safely outside the building, then walked quickly to her car, got in, then turned to the backseat.
“Jacob?” she said softly.
The small body rustled under the blanket. “Yes.”
“You’re going to have to stay under there a little while longer. I’m not sure I convinced our friends that you were already gone.”
She turned to the wheel, hit the ignition and pulled away from the curb. In the rearview mirror, she saw an old brown Ford draw in behind her.
“Dr. Greenspan?”Jacob said.
“Yes, dear.”
“Those men are following us.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Go a little bit farther. Don’t worry. I won’t let them hurt you.”