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  * * *

  Admiral Hintzman followed General Cubit inside the conference room, the two men situating themselves in vacant chairs farthest from Colonel Johnston’s end of the table.

  Director Solis looked up from his iPad as the two senior commanders entered. “Admiral … General; my apologies for asking you to join us at this ungodly hour, but this is the third night in a row we’ve had activity off the coast of Maine and it’s becoming very difficult to keep stories and photos out of the paper.”

  The Admiral pinched the bridge of his nose, too tired to hide his annoyance. “What would you like us to do, Xavier? Ask the ETs to go home?”

  “I really don’t see a problem,” General Cubit said. “There’s ten thousand reported sightings a year; almost none of which ever get any traction. With our birds in the area, the ETs will slip back into transdimensional space and that will be that.”

  Director Solis powered off his iPad. “That’s part of the problem, General. The governor of Maine is demanding to know why our F-16s are buzzing his coastline. He’s pushing the White House, the White House is pushing the Pentagon, and the Pentagon is pushing me.”

  “In a few months we may not have to worry about dispatching fighter jets anymore,” Lillie Becker stated. “From what Dr. Kemp was telling me, the lead engineer working on Project Zeus has discovered a telltale zero-point-energy flux which appears just before these ET vessels pop out of transdimensional space … a possibly telltale indicator we’ve been looking for.”

  “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

  Washington, D.C.

  July 29, 2017

  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.
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  * * *

  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.”

  “Nothing but the best.” Jessica opened the front door for the driver. “You can take these two suitcases; I’ll be out in fifteen minutes.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She shut the door, turning to Adam. “Let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  “Upstairs for a quickie. It’s a private jet … they can wait.”

  * * *

  Adam opened his eyes, feeling refreshed from the afternoon nap. He was still naked in Jessica’s bed, his fiancée’s scent mixing with his own; her perfume lingering in the bedroom though she had kissed him good-bye over an hour before.

  Reaching for his prosthetic leg, he pulled the harness over his stump, making sure the electrodes commanding the smart joint were all aligned. Twenty minutes later he emerged from the bedroom in jeans and a polo shirt, wondering what there was to eat.

  Adam headed downstairs, his eyes glancing at the photos mounted along the wall on his right, the assorted colors and sizes of the frames laid out like a jigsaw puzzle.

  He was halfway down the steps when he saw the worn black and white image.

  The photo had been taken outdoors, the three women and a child posing in front of a Lockheed U-2 spy plane. The blonde on the right was a younger version of Donna Hare, one of the eyewitnesses who had testified in The Disclosure Project video. The dark haired, blue-eyed woman on the left appeared to be a test pilot, a jumpsuit tag identifying her as L. Gagnon.

  As for the attractive woman in the middle holding her two-year-old daughter—it was Dr. Barbara Jean Marulli, Jessica’s mother.

  * * *

  The 6,538-square-foot waterfront estate was located on a private two-acre lot in Annapolis, Maryland’s prestigious Wardour on the Severn. A housekeeper led Adam past the grand entrance and through the gourmet kitchen to the foyer. “She’s waiting for you out back by the pool.”

  “Thanks, I know the way.”

  Adam exited out the French doors. The late afternoon sun was at his back, the July heat at its worst. The emerald green waters of the Chesapeake were spread out before him, sparkling beneath a cobalt blue sky. Three small docks and deepwater slips were anchored along the private shoreline shaded by a cluster of towering pine trees.

  The stone path led to an Amish-built carriage home set between the main house and the waterfront. He found Jessica’s mother sunning herself in a padded lounge chair by the outdoor pool. She was dressed in a white and navy trim tennis outfit from an earlier match, her eyes concealed behind designer sunglasses.

  Dr. Barbara Jean Singleton-Marulli was in her mid-sixties, though she could have easily passed for fifty. A competitive gymnast in high school, it was her athleticism that had blossomed in Jessica … along with a passion for science.

  Adam scuffed his shoes on the cement, attempting to alert his future mother-in-law that he was there without startling her.

  “Hello, Adam. I heard you when you rang the doorbell. There’s a spread by the bar. Grab something to eat and join me.”

  He entered the cottage through the open sliding glass door. A deli platter and assorted rolls, breads, and desserts occupied the bar—leftovers from an earlier lunch. Tossing two slices of rye bread onto a paper plate, he made himself a turkey, mayo, and Muenster cheese sandwich, grabbed a bottled water from a cooler of melted ice, and headed back outside.

  Barbara Jean was finishing a text message on her iPhone with one hand, the other dabbing sweat beads with a towel.

  “Captain Marulli around?”

  “He’s at the club.” She looked up, offering Adam a cold smile. “So? How is my daughter? I hardly ever hear from her. You’d think she’d want to be more involved in her own wedding plans.”

  “She’s been busy.”

  “Frankly, my husband and I were surprised when she told us the two of you were engaged. Jessica is like me—a workaholic. I was twenty-three when Kelly Johnson recruited me straight out of Cal Tech. My first project was the F-117 Stealth Fighter, and I ended up marrying one of the pilots. Thirty-two years I worked at Skunkworks, spending fourteen-hour days in the lab right up until I went into labor with Jessica.”

  She powered off her cell phone. “Okay, Mr. Deputy Under Secretary, what was so important that you needed to drive all the way out here to talk to me about it?”

  “Jess has an old black and white photo of the two of you taken at Lockheed; she can’t be more than a few years old. There’s a woman standing next to you; her name is Donna Hare. I saw her on a YouTube video done in May of 2001 at an event called The Disclosure Project. She testified about seeing undoctored NASA photos taken on the far side of the moon which revealed … structures.”

  “What kind of structures? Oh, good God, you drove all the way out here to ask me about aliens?”

  “And other things.”

  “Adam, I didn’t know Donna Hare. We had a mutual friend in Lydia Gagnon, the test pilot in that photo. I don’t know anything about moon bases or aliens … Jesus.”

  “What about the F-117’s design?”

  “What about it?”

  “How much of it was reverse-engineered?”

  “Reverse-engineered from what?”

  “A downed UFO.”

  Barbara Jean covered her grin. “This is a joke, isn’t it? Did Juice put you up to this?”

  “You worked in Lockheed’s Skunkworks Division. I thought maybe you might have had access to the stuff Colonel Corso wrote about in his Roswell book.”

  “Adam, Phillip Corso was bat-shit crazy. Do I need to worry about you now?”

  “Someone I know wanted my opinion about the subject. I was curious if you knew anything.”

  “About UFOs?”

  “More about the energy source that supposedly powers them.”

  Barbara Jean wiped the sweat from the back of her neck. “It’s too hot out here, let’s go inside.”

  He grabbed his bottled water and paper plate and followed her inside the cottage, feeling foolish.

  Barbara slid the glass door shut behind them and locked it. “What do you know about wine?”

  “About as much as I do about UFOs, I suppose. Why?”

  “So your trip out here isn’t a total waste of time I’ll give you a quick lesson; that way you can impress my daughter the next time you two go out to dinner.”

  Barbara led him through a short alcove off the kitchen to an arching wooden door. Opening it, she felt for a light switch before descending a narrow spiral staircase that took them into the basement.

  Artificial legs were not designed to maneuver down tight spiral stairwells, forcing Adam to hop a step at a time. Sound seemed to mute as he followed her deeper into the bowels of the foundation and into an expansive wine cellar. The floor, racks, and cabinetry were made of cherrywood. Bottles of wine lined both walls.

  Barbara searched the racks for several minutes before selecting a dust-covered burgundy. “Clos de Vougeot, Grand Cru, Leroy 1961. It’s the captain’s favorite.”

  She placed
the bottle on a granite-topped island situated beneath a white panel of light in the ceiling. Opening a side drawer, she located a cork screw and expertly popped open the bottle. Sliding two inverted wine glasses out from an overhead rack, she poured just enough for a taste test into each one.

  “There are four basic steps in evaluating a wine. The first is color. It’s best to hold the glass up to a white background.” Barbara demonstrated, using the overhead panel. “With a red wine, we’re looking for a darker color which occurs during fermentation when the juice is left in contact with the skins. A dark color is associated with a more intense flavor. Brown means the wine is old. All red wines eventually brown with age, but you don’t want too much cloudiness. Blush wine grapes are fermented with only limited contact to the skin; white wines are fermented with no contact.”

  Adam nodded politely, wondering how they had gone from UFOs to judging wine.

  “Next is the smell test. Once the wine is poured you want to swirl it around in the glass to release its natural aroma. Immature wines carry little or no bouquet, while a mature wine carries a robust fruity aroma.”

  She inhaled, Adam following her lead. “Smells good.”

  “Can you detect a hint of oak? That comes from the barrel where the wine was aged. Older bottles may only exude an aroma for a few moments after uncorking, so it’s best not to let an older wine breathe too long before drinking it.”

  “Older wine, short breaths … got it.”

  “Finally we get to the taste test. Taste is totally subjective, but we’re looking for two things—a rich flavor and an aftertaste. A good wine made from ripe grapes will linger in your mouth; an unpleasant bitter aftertaste means the wine is high in acidity. Go on, drink up.”

  Adam drained the glass, the burgundy carrying a fruity taste with a bit of a kick.

  “Do you like it?”

  He didn’t, but he nodded anyway. “To be honest, I’m not much of a drinker.”