Howard came to attention. “Yes, sir.”
Anne took the photo that showed her husband standing on the tarmac at Roswell and hurled it against the wall. Drunkenly, she tottered to Owen’s desk. “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” she sang blearily.
Outside the room, Eric and Sam huddled by the door, listening as their mother ransacked their father’s office.
“I’m calling Dad,” Eric said urgently.
“He’d just make things worse,” Sam replied. “Let me try to talk to her first.”
“Talk to her if you want to,” Eric said dismissively. “But I’m calling Dad.”
He rushed down the hallway as Sam opened the door to Owen’s office and stepped inside.
“What are you looking for?” he asked his mother.
“Evidence,” Anne said. Her head tilted slightly, like a vase about to topple.
“What do you mean?” Sam asked. “Evidence of what?”
Anne studied Sam’s face briefly, then said, “You’re your father’s favorite. Do you know that? You always have been.” She paused. “I hope that doesn’t ruin your life.” Something flashed in her eyes and she walked to the wall safe. “That’s it. Your birthday,” she said. “Seven twenty-eight fifty-one.” She dialed the numbers.
The door opened, and she peered inside. The interior of the safe was bare save for a small piece of metal. She turned the metal in her hand, her gaze fixed on the odd markings that had been carved into it.
“What is it?” Sam asked.
“Part of your inheritance,” Owen replied.
Sam turned to see his father standing massively in the doorway.
“Your mother and I need to talk,” Owen said.
Sam obeyed immediately, though Anne hardly seemed to notice. She was peering at the metal. “My father told me about this. It came from a spaceship.”
“Anne, your father had a drinking problem,” Owen told her. “He imagined things.” He took a small step toward her. “I’m an intelligence officer. If there were a spaceship, I would have heard about it. That piece of metal is from an experimental plane the Air Force is working on. I thought I’d get it mounted for Sam.”
Anne’s gaze remained riveted on the metal.
“Anne,” Owen said, taking another small step toward her. “Do you remember the first time I took you riding?”
Anne gave no indication that she heard him. Her gaze remained fixed on the metal.
“I want it to be like that again for us,” Owen said. He gently eased the artifact from her fingers and set it down on the desk, then took her hands and held them tenderly. “Anne, we have to do something about the pills and the liquor.”
She nodded slowly, her eyes slightly glazed.
“There’s a place in Minnesota. A six-week program. You can leave tonight. I’ll have Howard drive you there.”
She released a weary breath, and he saw that she had no will to resist him.
When Howard arrived Owen escorted Anne to the car, placed her on the passenger side, then gave Howard the necessary instructions and watched, waving sweetly to Anne, as they pulled away. See you soon, he thought coldly, both of you.
A short while later Owen pulled his car across Highway 50 and waited. Howard would have to drive down this narrow, lonely road to get to Minnesota with Anne. Finally, he saw the lights, heard the country music playing on the radio as Howard brought his car to a halt.
Owen got out and walked over to the driver’s side, where Howard sat, looking at him quizzically.
For a moment, he stood by the door, reminding himself of what it was all for, and that these were not the first to be sacrificed. Then he drew the pistol from his back pocket and fired,
Howard slumped to the right, a small hole in his forehead.
“He was always a little simple, that one,” Owen said to Anne.
She stared at him, her eyes wide with terror. Then she jerked open the door and rushed down the deserted road. Owen stood in place, drew her calmly into his sights, and pulled the trigger.
She fell like something from a great height, crumpling lifelessly to the ground. He picked her up, carried her back to the car, placed the gun in Howard’s dead hand and pulled the trigger a third time.
The blast seemed to echo among the mutely watching stars.
Jesse lifted the model of a spacecraft he’d fashioned out of small strips of torn paper plate. He didn’t know how the design came to him, only that it had risen spontaneously into his mind.
He looked about the bare shelter, the wall of sandbags that rose to the concrete ceiling, and thought of his father, how sad it would make him to know that his son was here, alone, imprisoned, waiting… for whatever they were going to do to him.
He heard a whispery rustle, like the sound of wind through winter corn, glanced toward the far wall and saw the upper line of sandbags move slightly, as if rocked by earthquake. But the floor of the bunker didn’t move. The earth was still, and yet a single sandbag suddenly shifted, tilted forward and fell to the floor, lifting a wave of dust into the air.
Jesse leaped to his feet and stood, powerless and terrified, as another sandbag toppled to the floor, then another, and another, bright shafts of light shooting into the dark bunker, so that the interior now glowed softly, the light building steadily as one by one, the sandbags fell, a wall crumbling to reveal a medical room, stainless steel tables ready and waiting, with four small creatures facing him, their slender arms dangling far below their waists, and a tall figure in between, lifting his arms in welcome to his son.
PART FOUR. Acid Tests
Chapter One
The gleaming government car came to a halt beside a vast field of corn. Other cars lined the road, and everywhere, excited onlookers were scrambling to get a view.
“I really appreciate you taking me along on this, sir,” Eric Crawford said.
“I thought it was time you… came on board,” Owen replied.
“You won’t regret it,” Eric assured him. He glanced about excitedly. “This could be really big.”
Owen said nothing, less pleased than irritated by Eric’s enthusiasm. It was not Eric he wanted by his side, but Sam, who’d gone in the opposite direction, and was now in journalism school. Sam had had the mind and the will and the sheer energy to keep up with him. Eric seemed able to do little more than ride precariously on his old man’s churning wake.
“We get these reports two or three times a week.”
Owen said dismissively. “It’ll probably be nothing of real interest. Mutilated cattle. Dancing lights.”
Eric persisted. “But for you to come personally… there must be some reason.”
Owen shrugged. “Well, these particular reports are a little better than usual,” he admitted.
Owen got out and surveyed the scene before him, a vast field of corn that waved green and lush in the spring breeze. People were streaming in and out of the field, eager to get in on the big news. He paused briefly, then pushed his way through the crowd and the waving stalks of corn, until he came into a clearing where the corn had been leveled and lay flat to the ground as if pressed down by a huge invisible hand.
A helicopter landed a few minutes later, bearing two fresh young government agents.
“Colonel Crawford, I’m Toby Woodruff,” the taller agent said. “Defense Department. This is Ted Olsen. He’s with the NSA.”
They were low-level officials, Owen knew, and their lack of seniority reflected the low esteem to which he and the project had sunk. It should have been President Nixon in that helicopter, he thought bitterly, not two snot-nosed kids.