Diablo Mesa(53)

Tappan waved his hand. “Please stand up so everyone can see you.”

Skip got to his feet, nervously smoothing down his hair. “Well, as I mentioned earlier to some of you, Bitan decided—I mean, his observations and calculations indicated—that this site, the traditional Roswell site…was not where the UAP crashed. He believed the spaceship came in at such a shallow angle that it basically skipped off the ground, went airborne again, and crashed somewhere else. His calculations indicated where it might have landed. We were looking for that place when…when he disappeared.”

“I assume you didn’t find it?” asked Tappan.

“No.”

“Thank you, Skip. Is there anything more?”

Nora saw Skip hesitate. “No, that’s all.” He sat down, his face covered in a sheen of perspiration. She was glad he hadn’t gone on to share Bitan’s story of alien abduction.

“The Three Engineers have gone over Bitan’s calculations,” Tappan said. “They’ve confirmed he was right: the UAP did indeed skip off the ground and keep going. What’s more, the idea that this is a skip site is consistent with Nora’s excavation of the groove, or trough, and its lack of substantial evidence. And this afternoon, Greg Banks did refined calculations of the UAP’s possible trajectory. Greg?”

Banks rose, holding a sheaf of papers. “We reran Bitan’s calculations using computer modeling of the presumed shape, speed, and angle of the object, along with its mass, air resistance, and so forth. Obviously, we’re lacking quite a few data points. But the model indicates Bitan was somewhat off in his calculations of where the thing might have landed. We believe its trajectory would have taken it farther, beyond the hills. It probably would have landed somewhere in the vicinity of the Los Gigantes buttes or in the foothills of the mountains beyond.”

“How certain are you?” Tappan asked.

“About eighty percent, within the elliptical area we’ve outlined on our map. That’s the area being overflown with the lidar plane as we speak.”

“Thank you. And now Vitaly will cover that. Vitaly?”

Kuznetsov rose, smoothing down his hair. “Once we had Greg’s calculations, we called in a lidar survey of the area. Fortunately, both aircraft and pilot were available at the last minute—for a price, of course. The plane flew up from Albuquerque around four and, as Greg just mentioned, should be on-site around now. It’ll take about three hours to scan the five-square-mile target area. We should have the data processed by tomorrow morning. There is a little bit of a twist, however.”

“What’s that?” Tappan asked.

“There’s an area in the eastern part of the Los Fuertes Mountains where the airspace is closed. It’s quite a ways outside the projected landing area, so I don’t think it will impede our discovery of the true crash site. But our pilot is having to fly a rather circuitous route to avoid that airspace.”

“Closed?” Tappan asked sharply. “Why?”

“It’s not as significant as you might think. About thirty percent of the airspace over New Mexico is closed to civilian overflights, for many reasons. Holloman AFB, White Sands Missile Range, large areas over Los Alamos and the Sandia Mountains, where nuclear weapons are designed and stored. It’s basically a patchwork.”

Tappan eased back. “I see. Thank you, Vitaly. Excellent and efficient work, all of you. If this lidar survey pans out, tomorrow we’ll move our base of operations to the new crash site. Not the entire camp, of course—that’s too complicated—but the excavation team. I’ve already spoken to Nora about this, and she’s on board. We have the heavy equipment necessary to grade a road, so we can essentially commute back and forth from what will become a base camp—here—to the new dig site. It’s all government land, so it’s still covered by our permits.”

Another sweeping gaze over the room. “Any questions?”

There was a general murmur, and Nora could sense the undercurrent of fresh enthusiasm and excitement.

“Do you think it might still be there?” Toth asked. “That maybe the government didn’t find it, after all?”

“It’s a possibility,” Tappan said slowly.

“What about Bitan?” Emilio Vigil asked. “What are we supposed to do about his disappearance?”

“We’ve done all we can and reported it to the relevant authorities. The problem is now in the hands of the professionals. We’ll cooperate with them. But in the meantime, we need to move forward full speed with our own project and leave the search to them.” He paused, and said, his voice lower: “Earlier, I said it wasn’t clear whether or not this development was an accident. But it’s my opinion Bitan may have disappeared as part of a premeditated plan.”

“Why?” Vigil asked.

“Who knows? He was keeping secrets, he suborned a member of our staff—I don’t take kindly to that.” His gaze turned to Skip, who turned red. “Skip, however, is contrite; he’s leveled with us; and up to this point he’s proven a valuable member of the team. So I’ve decided to keep him on the project. But I won’t tolerate any more secrets. I hope that’s understood.” He checked his watch. “Six o’clock! That’s happy hour for me. If there are no further questions, see you all tomorrow.”