Vostok Read online

  Taking the whiskey again from Ming, he took a long swig. “I’m a fighter pilot. It’s in our blood. My grandfather flew B-29s over Normandy; my dad flew F-16s during Desert Storm. Even my best friend, John Rodsenow, flies test planes for Skunkworks. The Air Force was all I knew.”

  The sound of dirt piling up on our hull grew more muffled as our burial deepened. I wanted to scream.

  Instead, I grabbed the whiskey from Ben and swallowed until my stomach burned. “Sorry. You were saying?”

  “Everything started with my grandfather. After WWII he was transferred to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and OSI, the central investigative agency for the Air Force. Did you know the United States Air Force wasn’t even established until 1947? That was the year an unidentified airborne object crashed on a ranch in Roswell, New Mexico. My grandfather was part of the official investigation, assigned to Project Grudge, which later became Project Blue Book. Data was sent to his office for analysis: reports of sightings, radar signals—all made by reputable people like military pilots and radar techs and police officers. Back then, no one had ever even used the term UFO. OSI kept a lid on everything.”

  “Wait,” I said. “Are you seriously talking about UFOs?”

  “Says the man who hunted the Loch Ness Monster. Sorry, ‘biologic.’ Wouldn’t want to paint you as a nutjob. May I finish my story?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  Ben ignored me and continued. “My father, Lieutenant Colonel Mark Hintzmann, experienced two close encounters. The first happened fourteen months after he retired from piloting jets. At the time, he was training as an aircraft control and warning operator stationed at the 753rd Radar Squadron at Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan. One night his phones lit up with calls from cops who claimed they were chasing three UFOs from Mackinaw Bridge up I-75. Dad checked his radar and sure enough, there they were.

  “There were no written instructions for how to deal with a UFO, so my father called NORAD’s chief of staff, a Major General Todd Coleman. Dad told Coleman there were two inbound B-52s en routed to Kincheloe Air Force Base minutes away from a head-on encountered with three UFOs and asked what he should do. The general ordered the bombers diverted to another AFB; then he told my father that if any reporters or cops asked, he was to tell them there was nothing on radar and to keep everything to himself.

  “A few years later, Dad was stationed at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. Cool place, Nellis, very high security. It’s the site where my buddy tests highly classified aircraft, designed and built by Lockheed Skunkworks. Anyway, one night around one-thirty in the morning, my father was walking back to his barracks when he noticed a crowd had gathered, everyone watching the northwest sky. Dad looks and sees flashing lights moving at incredible speeds that he estimated to be well over three thousand miles an hour. But here’s what really blew him away—the UFOs would trek across the sky at super-high speeds, then suddenly stop dead and change directions. They were moving and changing directions so quickly that Dad said they were leaving blurs of light in the sky. As he and the others watched, these E.T. vessels aligned with one another to form a circle in the airspace just east of the Groom Lake Flight Test Facility, more commonly known among us alien conspiracy guys as Area 51. The UFOs began rotating in their circle when poof—they suddenly disappeared.

  “Dad hurried inside to check with the radar techs on duty, who confirmed seven UFOs were flying back and forth through the radar beam, with an eighth vessel hovering at about eighty thousand feet. Everyone was watching it onscreen. It remained stationary for a good ten minutes, and then slowly descended until it dropped off the radar. It disappeared for another five minutes, then instantly re-appeared at eighty thousand feet, again just sitting in the sky, completely stationary. On the next radar sweep it showed up again, only now it was two hundred miles away. It hovered there for another ten minutes before repeating the pattern two more times.”

  We were down to our last fifty-two minutes of air, yet I was on the edge of my seat, buzzed and listening. There was nothing to question here. Ben was repeating classified information on his deathbed before all three of us suffocated.

  Ming was listening too. “What happened over Pakistan?”

  Ben turned to her, close to drunk. “Give me a kiss and I’ll tell you everything.”

  She leaned over his seat, and I became the third wheel as they made out in the darkness.

  I stared at the air gauge: forty-three minutes.

  After a minute Ben continued his story. “Pakistan. In the fall of 1998, I was assigned to an air division in the Persian Gulf. I had all the top security clearances and was one of the control officers who had access to the nuclear launch authenticators. One night our radar detected a UFO hovering over a Pakistani nuclear site, and yours truly was sent to be our eye-in-the-sky.

  “This wasn’t our first close encounter with E.T.s over nuclear facilities. Many insiders shared the belief that it was our nuclear tests, combined with the bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that summoned them to Earth in the first place. Over the years I’d seen top secret SAT photos taken of both U.S. and Soviet nuclear sites. Sometimes in the process of verifying a SALT Treaty we’d find objects in those pictures that shouldn’t have been there. In fact, on my first tour in the Middle East I was briefed about a 1976 UFO incident over Tehran. Two F-4s from the Iranian Air Force had tried to intercept the E.T. vessel. When the Iranian pilots turned on their fire control systems, their electrical systems went out, and they had to return to base.

  “Anyway, I was in my jet approaching Pakistani airspace when I received word that the UFO was hovering a thousand feet over their nuclear facilities and everything had gone black—no power. Since the Pakistani radar was dead, my supervisor decided it was politically safe to take a closer look. I executed a steep dive and leaped down from forty thousand feet. I had the UFO painted on my radar; I could see his lights in the distance. Then I saw it—a saucer as big as a city block with a four-story-high dorsal-fin-shaped conning tower. At least that’s what it looked like to me. The vessel was hovering over the nuclear weapons facility while four Pakistani JF-17 interceptors bore down on us from the southeast. Without warning, the UFO took off like a speeding bullet and disappeared into orbit, leaving yours truly in Pakistani air space on Pakistani radar over their powerless nuclear weapons facility.

  “The Pakistan government blamed the United States, and I took the fall. A falsified psychiatric evaluation all but sealed my doom. Six months after I received my walking papers, a guy named Steven Greer contacted me.

  “Dr. Greer had left his career as an ER physician to dedicate his life to persuading military and government officials to come clean about UFO sightings—not just to convince the public they were real and meant us no harm, but to release extraterrestrial technologies, which the military industrial complex had been suppressing, that could supply society with an endless supply of free, clean energy. In 1993, Greer had met with a group of military advisors to find a way to poke holes in the dam of secrecy and disinformation that had obscured the truth about extraterrestrial contacts since 1947.

  “Greer had been selected to carry the disclosure baton for multiple reasons, not the least of which was the access he gained to military and political leaders. He and his lawyer used the Constitution to create a legal loophole in the Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement signed by all military and civilian personnel with top-security clearances. Greer was able to convince hundreds of individuals with top secret clearances who’d had encounters with UFOs to come forward to testify on May 8, 2001, at the National Press Club Meeting in Washington, D.C., at an event called The Disclosure Project.

  “Armed with classified photos and testimonials from hundreds of seasoned Intel and military commanders, pilots, and NASA and FAA officials, Greer put together the briefing materials requested by President Clinton. He personally briefed James Woolsey, Clinton’s first CIA director, along with the heads of the Defense Intelligence Agency, members of the
Senate Intelligence Committee, and a select number of congressmen. To his shock, Clinton was denied access to MAJESTIC-12, which was operating on an annual multi-billion-dollar black budget, free of congressional oversight. Greer learned that there is a shadow group—a cabal—made up of the four largest banks, which also own and operate the four largest oil companies. These cartels work hand-in-hand with the defense industry and orchestrate the wars that finance their entities. They own every major newspaper, magazine, radio, and television network, which allows them to black out news stories that run counter to their enterprises. When inquiries are made, people turn up dead, and no rank is too high to be assassinated. CIA Director William Colby agreed to support Greer’s investigation—until his body turned up in the Potomac River.

  “That was a warning to Clinton and other members of the cabal who might think of defecting. President Obama received his warning while in Norway to receive his Nobel Prize. On December 9, 2009, MJ-12 fired off a scalar burst over Oslo from one of their satellite weapons. A scalar weapon uses gravitic waves to vaporize targets, and the Norway blast left behind a blue spiral in the night sky that was witnessed by thousands. Obama was put on notice that he may be President, but the cabal is still in charge. This group has one singular objective—to acquire E.T. technologies for weapons applications while keeping a tight lid on clean, unlimited power-generating systems that would essentially solve the planet’s energy crisis and put the fossil-fuel industry out of business. The powers-that-be don’t want that… do they, Ming?”

  “No.”

  My eyes widened. “This is true? This conspiracy stuff is real?”

  She nodded. “I was sent to East Antarctica to determine the feasibility of accessing Lake Vostok from Prydz Bay. The Loose Tooth Rift is opening above a subglacial river that runs west beneath the Avery Ice Shelf before forging south to connect with Vostok’s northern basin. As for your involvement, Ben is right; we used the discovery of the Miocene fossils as an excuse to mount an exploratory mission into the lake. And your presence legitimized the ruse.”

  “I don’t get it. What ruse? What mission?”

  Ben took another swig of whiskey and passed the near-empty bottle back to Ming as another swath of sand rained down upon our sub. “A few years ago SOAR, the Support Office for Aero-physical Research, sent a reconnaissance flight to conduct magnetic resonance imaging over Antarctica. When they flew over Lake Vostok, their magnetometers went nuts. Scientists from Japan and Germany later confirmed the presence of a magnetic anomaly in the subglacial lake along a rise located in its eastern sector. The affected area spans a sixty-five-mile radius. Whatever’s responsible for throwing us off-course probably packs enough juice to power every city in the world for the next hundred years.”

  “That doesn’t mean it’s an extraterrestrial spaceship.”

  “What else could it be?”

  “Any one of a dozen things—from a localized variation in the earth’s magnetic field to the magnetism of the geology due to the impact of an asteroid. Antarctica got walloped by a huge one about 250 million years ago—killed just about every life-form on the planet.”

  “Believe what you want, Zach. Eighteen months ago, my buddy at Skunkworks told me he saw engineering schematics for a thirty-seven-foot submarine named the Tethys. He told me it was a black-budget project designed for one purpose—to access Lake Vostok by traveling beneath the East Antarctic ice sheet through a network of subglacial rivers. The sub’s bow is equipped with a Europa-class Valkyrie laser, an energy-sucking beast designed specifically for Jupiter’s frozen moon. The E-class is powered by its own nuclear reactor that superheats its exterior hull plates. The conductor plates are composed of a calcium isotope that can maintain temperatures of fifteen hundred degrees Fahrenheit without compromising the metal.”

  “And your friend saw this sub being built?”

  “No, just the plans. The moment it gets funded, Dr. Greer will go public with photos of the E.T. ship I was assigned to bring back with me.”

  Ming drained the remains of the whiskey. “The Chinese have a similar project in development. The project gets funded or derailed based on my report.”

  “So you used me, the two of you. Thanks for nothing.”

  “Sorry, Doc.”

  “Zachary, if it means anything to you, your family will be compensated.”

  I thought of Brandy raising William alone and teared up.

  Ben whispered something to Ming. Then I heard him climb back into her cockpit.

  A million lightyears from home, sitting alone in the dark, I watched the minutes count down, still too sober to cope with what was coming—the futile gasps, the panic. I thought of Brandy and our final minutes alone together by Urquhart Castle. I thought of William—

  —my memory disrupted as the sub started rocking and filled with the sound of Ming and Ben groaning.

  Great. My last few minutes on Earth will be spent listening to these two getting it on in the backseat.

  The cockpit began spinning in my head.

  Less than six minutes of air left.

  I decided to record my final goodbyes on the Barracuda’s black box and my audio journal before I lost consciousness.

  “This is Dr. Zachary Wallace. We’re marooned on Vostok’s plateau, caught in a low tide, our air supply nearly exhausted. Please tell my wife that she was the only woman I ever loved. Brandy, please forgive me for not being a better husband. To my son, William: Willy, I was so blessed to have met you. I wish… I wish I had the chance to see you grow up. I wish there was a happier ending. Just know that Daddy loves you so very much and that I’ll watch over you and Mommy from heaven. I promise.”

  The countdown approached two minutes.

  I closed my eyes against the whirling darkness.

  “Brandy, when you see Joe Tkalec, please tell him that he was a great teacher and I should have been a better student. This whole mission, it was ego-driven. Had I acted like a real scientist instead of a celebrity—so stupid, so selfish. Forgive me.”

  AUDIO ENTRY: FINLAY MACDONALD

  25 SEPTEMBER 01:26 HOURS

  Testing… test. This is Finlay MacDonald, True tae my Mukkers. If yer hearin’ this, then I’m deid or worse. Or maybe I’m just prepping fer my own memoir… seemed tae work for my friend, Zachary Wallace.

  Zachary’s the reason I’m recording this entry, which I hereby authorize to serve as my Last Will and Testament, whereas I leave all my worldly belongings tae my sister, Brandy MacDonald-Wallace, and her son, my nephew William. Brandy, be sure tae check my savings account, as there’s a sizeable deposit jist come in. Which leads me tae tonight’s adventure and why I’m blabbing intae this device like a schoolgirl on prom night.

  As I dictate this story, I’m confined inside an ADS. An ADS, William, is an Atmospheric Dive Suit tha’ looks like something an astronaut might wear fer a walk on the moon. Being self-contained and pressurized, it protects the diver against extreme pressures and the bends. But it’s a bit like carrying a cow tae market, so the joints have oil in them tae assist with movin’ aboot.

  The ADS I’m standing inside of right now is called a SAM suit, which is a newer, less confining version of the JIM suit I once made my living in, workin’ oil rigs in the North Sea. I was a deep-sea plumber of sorts, fixin’ leaks in two hundred meters of water. Not a job fer the squeamish.

  Wouldnae recommend this job neither, truth be told. The SAM is packed inside an aluminum pod slightly bigger than our fat Aunt Lizzy’s coffin. The pod’s attached to a sled, and the sled’s attached tae a torpedo-looking laser device called a Valkyrie which, as I speak, is burnin’ its way through a bloody mountain of ice wit’ yers truly stowed and towed as baggage.

  Ben Hintzmann, tha’ bloody bastard, the moment I saw him I teld Zach he was too full of himself tae be trusted as a pilot. Made a muck of this mission, he did. Now yers truly has tae take the plunge intae Antarctica’s frozen arse like a warm suppository jist tae save my boy and keep my sister from bein
’ a widow. Bloody hell.

  Jist so ye ken, Brandy, t’was the gents from NASA who recruited yer brother fer this rescue mission and not Ming Liao’s team. The eggheads woke me up from a hard night’s sleep tae tell me they had lost contact with Zachary’s submersible, which had run aground. “Run aground?” says I. “How do ye run aground in a bloody subglacial lake?”

  The lead gent, whose name fer any lawsuits was Stephen Vacendak, yammered about tides and volcanic rock and such, and then he put it simple: either we get Ming and the boys some air, or they’ll be deid by mornin’.

  Next thing I ken, I’m bein’ dressed and hustled out of the dome intae the frigid night. A helicopter lands and they shove me in the cargo hold. Vacendak, who’s apparently a colonel, talks tae me aboot his kayaking and mountain climbing adventures in some place called Ketchum before he hits me with the mission. “It’s easy,” he says. “The laser burns through the ice, towing the supply sled and pod. You’ll be inside the pod wearing the ADS. The laser, sled, and pod are attached by steel cable to a surface winch. Once the laser melts through the ice you’ll be lowered to the lake’s plateau. Touch down, climb out, and we’ll direct ye to the sub.

  “Power is the first priority. You need to connect the fiber-optic cable to the Barracuda so we can remotely open the aft hatch and give you access to change out the sub’s empty air tanks. Once you save yer friend, you’ll need tae reverse the cable connections. The Valkyrie is the first thing we’re hauling up tae the ice sheet, followed by the sled and your pod. You’ll be topside before the hole freezes over.”

  Maybe these rocket scientists took me for a dumb Highlander, but I had questions—like exactly how long will I be cramped in the pod, to which he says, “Not long at all. We’ve already burrowed through, so you’ll shoot straight into Vostok. Simple.”

  “Simple?” I says. “Colonel, simple is pickin’ yer nose. Carrying yerself inside an ADS on land is more akin tae pickin’ yer mate’s nose whilst the two of ye are riding high-speed motorbikes down a mountain road. One wrong move and yer on yer belly, pinned under the suit’s weight.”