Diablo Mesa(100)

Lying curled up on the carpeted floor at Skip’s feet was Mitty, the hair of his tail still singed. Somehow, he had escaped the inferno at the camp, to be found later by first responders, cowering in a nearby arroyo. When the general had arrived at their house, with almost no advance notice, to take them on this mysterious outing, Skip had refused to leave Mitty, who he claimed was suffering from PTSD. He raised all kinds of arguments and crazy pleadings, finally getting the two-star to cave.

The general had told them nothing. Not even where they were going, or what was to take place. It had been made clear that no questions would be answered or explanations proffered until they arrived at their destination.

Nevertheless, Skip—with his vast knowledge of conspiracy theories and urban legends, recently enhanced by browsing through Noam Bitan’s library—was smug.

“We’re on Janet,” he murmured sotto voce to his sister.

“Excuse me?”

“Janet airlines. A top-secret shuttle the air force uses to ferry spooks from their local airports to classified locations and back again. Apparently, it stands for ‘Just Another Non-Existent Terminal.’” He cackled. “The only airline where the flight attendants need SSBI clearances.”

Nora didn’t reply. If this was true, she wondered why he wasn’t just a little more nervous.

A minute later, the wheels touched down on an endless runway laid out along a perfectly level salt flat. “Welcome to Groom Lake,” said the general, nodding out the window.

“Otherwise known as Area Fifty-One,” Skip said. “I knew it!”

The general merely smiled. In the seat beside her, she could almost feel Skip puff up with braggadocio.

The plane taxied and came to rest. Two jeeps were waiting for them on the edge of the tarmac. The late-July sun burned down from an empty sky as they climbed in and were whisked away, past row after row of hangars and giant Quonset huts, to a small, nondescript building without windows. The general, entirely silent, led them through several sets of guards and into the building, which proved to be no more than the housing for a giant freight elevator. Mitty’s leash was passed off to a soldier at the entrance, to await their return. “No canines allowed,” was the only explanation given. Nora could hear the dog barking piteously as Skip vanished inside.

They got on the elevator, its massive doors boomed shut, and they descended for a disconcerting length of time before it halted. The doors opened to reveal a vast underground hangar. Nora, for whom all this had an unpleasant feeling of déjà vu, stared in shock. There, directly before them, was the alien probe, resting on a graphite cradle.

“We are now free to talk,” said the general.

“What’s this?” Tappan exclaimed. “Another one?”

The general gave a small, dry smile. “Do you really think an object that had spent ten million years crossing the galaxy would be so easily destroyed? We found it quite intact amid the smoking wreckage of Pershing.”

Tappan almost staggered. “Thank God. I thought we’d lost it!” He took a step forward—then turned around, face shining. “Have you had a chance to study it?”

“We have,” said the general. “That’s why you’re here. I know you’ve already been warned about the highly classified nature of what you…experienced. I want to emphasize that warning—and to remind you it applies just as much, if not more, now.”

“You know I disagree with that,” said Tappan. “There’s been far too much secrecy already. The world is ready to handle this information.”

“That’s not your decision to make. In any case, once you hear what we’ve found, I think you’ll agree that the world is not ready.”

“Can we get closer?” Nora asked.

“As close as you like. It’s no longer dangerous.”

Despite this assurance, the four approached warily. The air smelled faintly of electricity and ionization. Nora tried to remember what the probe had looked like before, because it was now clearly different, more a dumbbell shape with unequal weights on its ends. It still had the swirling, angry oval patch near the bow, but even that miniature storm seemed to have abated somewhat. The rest of its surface also looked quieter, less manic, almost as if at rest. It lazily cycled through various colors, some quite strange, before returning and beginning again.

“I’ll start with Atropos,” said the general.

“Good idea,” said Tappan. “Who the hell were they? They murdered most of my team in cold blood—the bastards.”

“Yes. And we’re very sorry for the loss. Some of this you may have already heard—from the source—so forgive me if I cover any old ground. But much of it will be as new to you as it was—regrettably—to us. Atropos was a counterespionage organization that went awry. It had its roots in the OSS, founded by presidential order in 1942. The first OSS agents were primarily members of U.S. Army and Navy special forces, secretly trained in psychological warfare, sabotage, and assassination. They were billeted at the Special Training School Number One Oh-Three, ‘Camp X,’ set up by the British thirty miles over the Canadian border.

“The OSS was terminated in 1945, with several of its branches subsumed into the Strategic Services Unit, then the Central Intelligence Group, and finally the CIA in 1947. During this confused period of transition, we had an acute problem with Soviet espionage. Several scientists working on the Manhattan Project, and later, on the H-bomb, were passing on secrets. In mid-1946, a certain zealous and patriotic officer convinced his superiors to spin off a tiny, top-secret intelligence branch, composed of hand-picked members from the old Camp X and paramilitary branches of the OSS. That, we now know, became Atropos. Its mission was simple: to protect U.S. assets against foreign espionage, with ‘fire free’ license to torture and kill spies and others as necessary. In other words, they could bypass the cumbersome and ineffective court system and take justice into their own hands. The secret Mossad execution team Kidon—the ‘tip of the spear’—was later modeled on a similar philosophy.