Diablo Mesa(58)

She was, in fact, starving, but said nothing, her annoyance rising. A moment later Skip placed a plate of bacon and eggs in front of her. She tucked in right away, hoping she could finish and get out of there before he said more.

“You know, sis, I really like Lucas. He’s a good guy. He could have raked me over the coals for holding out on him about Bitan, but he didn’t.”

“You’re lucky, that’s all I can say.”

“I’d like to think it’s because I’ve proven to be an important member of the team,” Skip said with a note of injured pride.

“That’s true,” said Nora. And it was: Skip had risen to the occasion. Not only had he grown surprisingly knowledgeable about UAPs and become able to carry on deep conversations with the scientists, but he was curating the collection of artifacts well and keeping the library and archives in good shape. He had learned a lot in his time analyzing potsherds at the Institute.

Skip placed another plate down for himself. “Can I ask how serious this thing is with Tappan?”

“Is it really that obvious that we’re, you know…having a relationship?”

“Are you kidding? You go in there, supposedly for some quick meeting, and come back out two hours later, blooming. Yeah, it’s kind of obvious.”

Nora felt a wave of dismay. Of course, Skip was right, and in an ant farm like this, everybody would notice.

“Are people talking?”

“Not to me. But I’m sure they’re yakking it up among themselves.”

Oh God. It was a stupid thing they were doing—both for her and for Tappan—yet, once again, a part of her just didn’t care. It had been several years since Bill had died. She felt like something inside her was coming back to life—roaring back, in fact. At the same time, it was improper, inappropriate, and just plain reckless. Even more important, she had to be careful not to let her feelings cloud her professional judgment…and her objectivity. For example, she couldn’t let Lucas’s zealous belief in UFOs influence her own opinions.

On the other hand, life was short. And it was so much fun.

Skip laid a hand on her hand, suddenly serious. “Nora, you’re not going to let yourself get hurt, are you? I mean, Tappan must have a million girls chasing him: those dimples and gray eyes and all that money. I think it’s great you’re having a little amuse-bouche—you certainly deserve it—but I don’t want to see it go wrong.”

“It won’t.” Even as she said it, she had to admit to herself she’d fallen into the deep end of the pool. Where it was going, she had no idea—and she figured the best thing was to avoid thinking about it. It had only been two days, after all. They were both adults and knew what they were doing. Or so she told herself.

“Okay. Enough said.” Skip glanced at his watch. “Almost eight. Time for yet another meeting.”



They arrived at Quonset 1 a few minutes later. Banks had set up a digital projector and screen, and they all took seats. Tappan was already there, and as soon as everyone was seated, he rose.

“The lidar survey came in around five this morning,” he said. “Vitaly? Put it up.”

The lights darkened and an image flashed onto the screen, a grayscale map of the landscape in incredible detail. Tappan said nothing further, and the image hung there silently in the darkness.

Nora leaned forward, staring. She saw it almost immediately—an old disturbance in the Gigantes valley, the faint ghost of a road that went into the valley and ended in a circle. A large area, strangely blurred from this height, with nearly invisible tracks crisscrossing each other in the middle of the circle. It sure looked like an old crash site, covered up and undisturbed for decades.

An excited babble of voices rose in the room as everyone else saw it.

“A picture’s worth a thousand words,” Tappan finally said. “And this one represents good news and bad. The good news is this must be the real crash site. They covered it up as best they could, and time has done its work—but nothing is invisible to lidar. You can clearly see the scars even after all these years. The bad news is that all those old tracks and disturbances indicate the government found it long ago.” He looked around. “Any questions?”

“What’s that mark going through the upper corner of the image?” Banks asked. “Is that a road?”

Kuznetsov answered. “Yes. It’s not on our maps, but then there are a lot of old ranch roads that were never put on maps. I don’t think it has any relevance.”

“Could that be where Bitan got picked up?” Banks continued.

“It’s possible,” said Kuznetsov. “But at first glance, the track doesn’t look like it’s seen any fresh traffic. We haven’t examined it in detail.”

“Thank you,” said Tappan. “Nora? Your turn.”

Nora stood up. She looked around the table but didn’t detect any knowing smirks. “As soon as we grade a road to the site, we’ll transfer our equipment and proceed with immediate excavation. All indications are that this is where the, ah, object landed after the skip site—and was then, perhaps, retrieved by the government.”

“How long will it take to build the road?” Banks asked.

“We can almost drive there now, cross country. There are just a few small sections that need equipment to grade a safe passage for the jeeps. We’ll have to skirt those grassy hills, but that’s not a big deal. We should be able to complete a rough road in less than a day.”