“It has potential,” Michael Kemp replied. “Of course, we won’t know anything until we get Dr. Marulli to the Cube. My firm simply doesn’t have the necessary technology or support staff to complete the project.”
Director Solis seemed positively giddy. “Good God, man, let’s fly her out tomorrow!”
General Cubit shook his head. “Let’s not jump the gun. There’s absolutely no consensus among the voting members of Council to greenlight Zeus.”
“Agreed,” the admiral said. “Zeus was insanity back when it was called Star Wars. We’re dealing with civilizations that are tens of thousands… maybe millions of years more advanced than us. Up until now they’ve been incredibly tolerant, considering we took out a dozen of their vehicles, killing their crews in the process. Start blasting them as they come out of transdimensional space, and things could get ugly quickly.”
“Now just a damn minute,” the director said, swiveling in his wheelchair to face the two dissenters. “They’ve interfered with our ICBMs, they’ve declared the moon off-limits — last time I checked, this was our planet.”
“Which we’re systematically destroying,” Erin Driscoll interjected.
“Young lady, if we want to destroy it, then that’s our prerogative.”
General Cubit rolled his eyes. “That makes no sense at all, Xavier.”
“Enough,” Colonel Johnston said, his voice just above a whisper. “This isn’t about Zeus or F-16s or Jesus coming to fly the born-again Christians off to heaven. These ETs are buzzing Portland, Maine for the same reason they buzzed Joshua Tree and Lisbon… because Steven Greer is out there on the beach with his followers, conducting another one of his damn CE-5 camp outs.”
“They’re on private property, Colonel,” General Cubit said. “It’s not a crime to sit in a circle and meditate.”
“I heard there’s a reporter with them from the local CBS affiliate,” Michael Kemp added. “The last thing we want is another Phoenix Lights situation.”
“Then it’s agreed,” Colonel Johnston said. “We need to take Greer out, once and for all.”
Admiral Hintzman turned a menacing glare at the white-browed older man. “Get it through your head, Dr. Death, that is not going to happen. Greer’s set up a Dead Man’s Trigger; you incapacitate him or send a wet works team after him, and we’ll be dealing with something far worse than a bunch of UFO sightings.”
“He has a lot of supporters out there,” Cubit added, “including members of MAJI.”
The colonel shrugged, typing something on his iPad. “Shit happens, general. Maybe the metastatic cancer will return.”
Admiral Hintzman stood, his face turning red. “Pull another stunt like you did back in ’97 and I’ll make sure you and that witch you married are burned at the stake.”
Alexander Johnston smiled coldly. “You’re not my commanding officer, Admiral. I’ve met with several members of Council who share my concerns. Nothing will happen to Greer for now, but it’s interesting to see where your loyalties lie.”
Gathering his iPad and coffee, Colonel Alexander Johnston exited the conference room.
10
It was 11:15 by the time Adam finished his breakfast meeting with the board of directors at Northrop-Grumman. A valet delivered his silver Jeep Grand Cherokee and he drove off the corporate complex, taking the northbound ramp out of Fairfax onto Interstate 495.
Seventy-two hours had passed since his bizarre conversation with Dr. Manley in the sushi restaurant. The issues they had discussed had lost their sense of urgency in the wake of an itinerary with military contractors which kept him busy from seven in the morning through midnight, and now Adam just wanted to get back to Jessica’s townhome and crawl into bed — preferably with his fiancée.
The highway was free of traffic, allowing his mind to wander. Adam’s personal opinion about the existence of extraterrestrials had always come down to a combination of logic, simple mathematics, and time. In our galaxy alone, it was estimated there were 400 billion stars and a trillion planets. Even if the odds of intelligent life existing on other worlds were a million-to-one, there would still be over a million inhabited planets in the Milky Way. Scientists estimated there were 200 billion more galaxies in the observable universe. Then there was the age of the universe; surely 14 billion years was enough time for evolution to take hold within these unreachable alien worlds.
Adam corrected his thoughts. Unreachable to us, not for a civilization tens of thousands or even millions of years more advanced than our own.
Logic aside, it was the emotional component surrounding other beings visiting Earth that fueled his skepticism. While there were thousands of UFO sightings reported every year, most were ignored by the mainstream media, with the eyewitnesses shrugged off as either being drunk, mistaken, or a little crazy. That was what had made the testimonials in Steven Greer’s 2001 Disclosure Project so compelling. These eyewitnesses were not just credible; many of them were former members of the military entrusted with top security clearances. And yet the one constant that prevented Adam from “drinking the Kool-aid” was the fact that he had never personally seen an extraterrestrial craft himself.
Nor was he interested in looking for one now. The issue at hand was not whether flying saucers and little green men existed, but whether zero-point-energy systems were being deliberately kept out of the public domain by a cabal operating both within and outside of the government.
If this was true then the question was: Just how far had the cancer spread?
Shariak had no doubt that secretly-funded projects existed; the CIA and NSA had been operating unchecked and off-the-books for decades. As Deputy Under Secretary of Defense, he had the authority to investigate any matter involving weapon systems; the problem was that the applications of any secret technologies would have been farmed out to private corporate entities like the military contractors he had just visited. Before he started “shaking the bushes,” he needed some direction, and that meant a face-to-face with Dr. Steven Greer.
According to Greer’s website, he was on some kind of retreat in Portland, Maine until the end of the week. The good news was that he was scheduled to give a talk in D.C. the following Thursday. Adam had reserved a seat. After the lecture he would arrange a private get-together and lay his cards out on the table. If Greer could help — great. If not, Adam’s next meeting would be with Bill Clinton where he’d politely hand him back his baton.
It was just past noon when he arrived at Jessica’s home, excited to find her white Infiniti parked out front. Leaving his bag in the car, he knocked on her door to surprise her.
“It’s open.”
Adam entered to find two packed suitcases by the front door. “Jess?”
“Adam? I’m in the kitchen!”
He found her packing her laptop. “What’s going on?”
“Hey, baby. I thought you were the driver. General Cubit called; Lockheed-Martin moved up our timetable. I have to be at Martin State Airport in Baltimore in less than an hour. I tried calling you but—”
“My phone died on the way home and I packed the charger. Will you really be gone a month?”
“Maybe two. Aw, don’t look so sad; Cubit said he’d fly me back for a few long weekends if all goes well.”
“If I had known, I would have pushed my trip back.”
Adam heard a car pull up. He glanced out the kitchen window at the limo. “First class.”