That a former Soviet nuclear engineer was in charge of the Nightstalkers and had a former Soviet helicopter pilot as her aide was as improbable as an actor who had played the Gipper in Knute Rockne, All American becoming the fortieth president of the United States.
Probably less so.
“You suspect a plot?” Pitr asked, intrigued. Ms. Jones was not given to idle speculation.
“This weapon was listed as destroyed,” Ms. Jones said. “That’s not a simple oversight of forgetting it in the silo. Someone also deliberately wiped out any trace of it by recording it as having been dismantled. One event is an oversight. Two is a plan.”
“If it is a plan,” Pitr said, “it is a very old plan.”
“When I heard the year, 1962, I knew right away what the code name was,” Ms. Jones said. “Operation Ortsac is in the Nuclear Protocol binder. What is not in the binder is what didn’t happen. General LeMay was the chief of staff of the air force at the time. He advocated preemptive nuclear warfare from the moment he had any voice in the matter. Even after the Cuban Missile Crisis was resolved, he pressed for an invasion of Cuba anyway. His deepest desire was to take advantage of the missile gap.
“While publicly the military and CIA were claiming our former country was far ahead in terms of nuclear warheads, the truth was the opposite. If the United States had initiated a first strike in the fifties or sixties, the result would have been devastating to Russia. Indeed, Pitr, I would have to say if the generals in our old country had had the same advantage, many would have advocated the same thing. What good is such power if it is not wielded?” She did not wait for an answer.
“The first mention ever of a so-called ‘missile gap’ was by JFK in 1958 when he was up for reelection to the Senate. He then ran his presidential campaign based on trying to catch up to the Russians, when he didn’t know the United States was actually far ahead. That is how effective the propaganda of the CIA and the Pentagon and the military-industrial complex was. Only after he was in office and briefed by the Keep about the reality did he change his views.”
“You bring up an interesting point,” Pitr said. “If this warhead was kept there as part of a plot to secret away nuclear weapons in the face of mandated drawdowns due to the various treaties over the years, we are facing another critical era with RAD. You mentioned the Keep. Perhaps you should consult with Hannah? She might know something about this.”
“She might,” Ms. Jones conceded, but it was clear she was not warm to the idea. One did not go to Hannah with anything unless absolutely necessary.
“My thoughts,” Pitr said carefully, “are that this is more than just a mistake or an oversight.”
“Mister Kirk, of course, drove to the heart of the matter,” Ms. Jones said. “Pinnacle. It is not a term we have run across.”
Pitr glanced at his phone. “The Acmes haven’t reported back on it, which means it’s either completely black, completely forgotten, or worse.”
“I fear worse.”
“You always do.”
Ms. Jones did not respond, which Pitr took to mean she was considering his recommendation. They’d been together for so long they could read all the little signs in each other.
“They’re almost back,” Ms. Jones said, raising a single finger off the bed toward one of the many monitors that lined the wall.
One of them displayed the image from a video cam on the top of Baldy Mountain, which was fifteen miles northeast of Area 51. The Snake was flying fast and low, treetop level, except there were no trees to top here in Nevada.
In fact there was pretty much nothing here other than the government facility known to most as Area 51. Which is why it was out here. Founded in 1941 as an auxiliary base to Nellis Air Force Base, adjacent to massive bombing ranges, Area 51 gained its moniker by the simple fact that’s what the location was labeled on a map. There was an Area 50 and an Area 52 and so on in either numeric direction, but 51 held the distinction of having a dry lake bed that was perfectly flat and hard packed. On that lake bed was built a landing strip that currently held the distinction of being the fifth longest in the world at 23,270 feet, or almost four and a half miles. Why it needed to be that long, no one knew anymore, although it had been a backup landing strip for space shuttles and the lake bed made going longer easier. It was built in the days when the US government definitely believed bigger was better.
Interestingly, the officers’ club wasn’t built before the runway at Area 51.
Actually, there was no o’club at Area 51.
Nor was there a golf course.
That was because it wasn’t the air force that was pumping in the dollars, but rather an organization called Majestic-12 via a massive black budget.
As the years went on, more and more land in the emptiness of Nevada was gobbled up by various government agencies for various reasons. The Department of Energy grabbed over a thousand square miles to the west of Area 51 in 1951 to test nuclear weapons, and test them they did — over seven hundred. Many of those black-and-white reels of soldiers watching a mushroom cloud in the distance were filmed there.
The films still survive; the soldiers are another story.
To the north, Nellis Range is still used, and many conventional bombs are dropped there along with millions of rounds of ordnance being fired. Nothing living lasted out there long. Drone pilots, headquartered at Nellis, used the range to hone their skills so they could reach out to their worldwide network and attack with precision.
It was as if there had been a plan to even further isolate Area 51.
The Nightstalkers, under a different name, had been established at Area 51 when it became a hotbed of research and, as was inevitable, the scientists screwed up. Someone opened a Rift (scientists still don’t know what they are) and Fireflies came through (ditto on the not knowing). After many casualties and much consternation and blame, in 1948 a covert unit was formed to deal with Rifts, Fireflies, and the wide range of possible scientific misadventures, screwups, and accidents. The Nightstalkers were not formed, though, to deal with plots and counterplots within the US government. That was another unit’s responsibility, the Cellar, which Hannah ruled.
In fact, Hannah ruled an empire of Black Ops, of which the Nightstalkers were just one arm.
When Area 51 became so popular that tours were coming out on Extraterrestrial Highway — aka Route 375—to sit at the mailbox and stare at pretty much nothing other than a mailbox and a dirt road leading off toward a gate, it became time for the Nightstalkers to move to someplace less noticeable.
Still close enough to draw on the vast resources of Area 51 and have its support personnel based there, the operators moved into an underground bunker built below what appeared to be an old abandoned gas station. Actually, the bunker was built, then an “old abandoned gas station” according to specifications was built on top of it. Not far from the Ranch was the Barn, which was the hangar for the Snake.
Ms. Jones and Pitr watched another screen as the top of the Barn, which looked exactly like an old abandoned barn, split open, landing lights flashing inside as Eagle guided the Snake down. A sign on the outside boasted: SEE ALL THE POISINUS SNAKES 75CENTS. Though it was unlikely that anyone could make it this far into the Ranch, if they did dare enter the Barn, they’d run into things far more dangerous than poisinus snakes.
There were always twenty-six security personnel scattered around the Ranch, secure in bunkers that were not only invisible to the eye but had thermal shielding. They were armed beyond to the teeth, because the teeth put one back to pre-caveman days. Armament included automatic weapons, Hellfire missiles, surface-to-air missiles, and the ability to call in cruise missiles and air support from Nellis. Of more practical importance, they could exercise deadly force more easily and legally than the contract guards at nearby Area 51 because the Ranch was on “private” land.