Independence Day: Silent Zone (12 page)

"But Mr. Okun, I
must ask you in the strongest possible terms to keep this information
secret,
especially from Mr. Radecker. As unsavory as this might sound, I
promised him I
wouldn't tell you."

"We all
did," Freiling added. "If we didn't, he threatened to tell his bosses
about the extra paychecks we've been collecting. Next thing you know,
we'd all
be doing twenty years at Leavenworth."

Without endorsing
that last comment, Dworkin admitted, "Mr. Radecker has found our soft
spot. None of us wants to leave Area 51 at this late date. I hope you
can
understand that."

Again, Okun's head
bobbed up and down. He knew how scared the old men were and realized
he'd never
be able to betray them. Still, thinking ahead to his next encounter
with Radecker,
he could feel the urge to lay the whole matter on the table. "Why
doesn't Radecker
want me to know about the stupid Y?"

"We made a deal
with him. We're not to give you any information which might support
your theory
of a second ship. In fact, we're supposed to try and talk you out of
it."

"But why?"

Freiling and Dworkin
shrugged their shoulders simultaneously. "That's all the man wanted, so
we
agreed."

"It's especially
curious," Dworkin added, "when you consider that there really
isn't
much evidence to support such a theory. It's rather
far-fetched in
light of the accumulated evidence."

Okun narrowed his
eyes. "Are you trying to talk me out of it?"

"Don't take my
word for it. Ask Dr. Wells."

"What the hell
are you doing in here?" Radecker asked, poking his head into the vault.

Okun responded with
his Bela Lugosi imitation. "I have come to the crypt to visit my
long-lost
friends." He had developed a morbid fascination with the alien bodies
and
came into the secured room every couple of days to watch them floating
in their
tanks. "It's like having an aquarium full of really strange dead
fish."

"Well, I've got
the information you wanted. If you want to hear it, come outside. This
place
gives me the creeps."

Okun
stepped
into the hallway and fastened the thick steel dead bolt, locking the
bodies
inside. He'd asked Radecker for help in finding the whereabouts of Dr.
Wells.
None of the scientists knew what had become of him after he failed to
return
from his trip to the capital. There had been a phone call from Dr.
Insolo of
the Science and Technology Directorate saying that Wells was being held
for
psychiatric observation and that Dr. Dworkin should take over his
responsibilities as director during the interim. That had been four
years ago.

"The good news is I
found a copy of the report you asked for, the one Wells wrote in '47.
That
should be interesting. It's in Washington, but they're going to send us
a copy.
The bad news is he's dead." Radecker feigned disappointment. "The story
I
got from headquarters was he was in a meeting back in DC when he
snapped. Just
went berserk. Started shouting and throwing things at people. They took
him to
Seabury Psychiatric Hospital, where he was diagnosed as schizophrenic.
Then
about six months later, he was transferred to Glenhaven Home in
Richmond.
That's where he died about two and a half years ago."

Masking a wave of
authentic disappointment, Okun shrugged. "No biggie. Thanks for
checking
it out."

"Just doing my
job. I'll tell you when the report comes in."

Brackish
smiled pleasantly until Radecker disappeared around the corner. Then he
kicked
the wall and used language his mother wouldn't have approved of. He was
sure
Wells, demented or not, could have given him information about other
ships. He
had already imagined the scene a dozen times: him walking down the
deserted
institutional corridors with all the windows heavily barred, a pair of
body-builder
orderlies unlocking a heavy steel door and pulling it open to reveal
the insane
scientist, hair standing on end as if he'd recently been struck by
lightning,
eyes bulging wide as he struggled to escape from his straitjacket. Oh,
well.
Lenel had warned him about promising trails suddenly going cold. After
a moment
of consideration, he realized he had no other choice: he headed back to
the
stacks.

This time, he was
looking for something in particular. And even with Freiling's help, it
took the
next twenty-four hours to find it. Realizing it would take the rest of
his life
to read through the anarchic accumulation of archives in the stacks,
Okun
needed to limit the scope of his search. There had to be a way of
separating
the genuine reports from the rest. He had no idea how to do it, but
reasoned
that the logical place to begin would be with the one alien encounter
he knew
for sure had taken place: the one at Roswell.

The
incident
actually began two days before the crash. On July 2, 1947, radar
screens scanning
the skies above the White Sands Proving Grounds in New Mexico picked up
an
unsteady blip wandering back and forth. It appeared to pulse larger,
then
smaller, every few seconds, and the crew in the tracking room suspected
an
equipment malfunction. They called two other facilities, one in
Albuquerque,
the other in Roswell, and asked if they could confirm the sighting.
Within
hours, they had. There was no doubt that something was up there. All
three
tracking stations went on alert as Intelligence Officer Ian Leigh
boarded a
plane in Washington, DC. If the same phenomenon had occurred in another
part of
the state, there would have been less concern. But White Sands was a
highly
restricted area. Besides the secret rocket and missile tests being
conducted
there, White Sands had been the site, a couple of years before, of the
world's
first nuclear explosion. The Manhattan Project, led by Robert
Oppenheimer, had
caused a "controlled detonation" near Alamogordo in a quiet valley
once called Jornada de los Muerton, or Trek of the Dead.

On the Fourth of
July, the blip returned at approximately ten-thirty. This time it
didn't wander
across the radar screen; it tore across. According to those most
familiar with
the tracking technology, it reached speeds of better than a thousand
miles per
hour. What made these speeds all the more amazing was that the plane—or
whatever it was—seemed to accelerate, then come to a dead stop, then
accelerate
again, racing helter-skelter over the southeastern part of the state.
At 11:20,
the blip flared into a wide splotch of light and vanished from the
screens.
After communication between the various tracking stations, they decided
the
ship had gone down somewhere north of Roswell. The search began at dawn.

Caesar
"Corky" Riddle slammed the door of his pickup and started the engine.
He was frustrated, more
frustrated than his kids were, and now all of them were soaking
wet. For a month, he'd been promising his three daughters a big
fireworks show
on the Fourth. He'd driven all the way to Albuquerque and spent a
fortune at
the Red Devil stand. Then he'd put up with the girls' impatience all
day,
telling them to wait until dark. But by the time evening began to fall
over the
desert, a storm had blown in. Thirty- and forty-mile-per-hour winds
were
gusting, pushing a thunderstorm up from the Gulf of Mexico. The Riddle
family
gathered on their front porch and watched the situation grow worse.
Finally,
about ten-thirty, the winds died down. The girls wanted to light the
fireworks
out on the road in front of the house, but Corky insisted on sticking
to the
original plan. So they piled into the truck and raced toward the park
in downtown
Roswell. As long as they had all that gunpowder, Corky figured, they
ought to
put on a show for the whole town. But at nearly
11 p.m. on a stormy night, the streets were deserted, and
the park was
empty. As soon as they were ready to start lighting fuses, the winds
picked up
again, knocking the blast cones on their sides. They kept at it anyhow,
trying
various ways of anchoring them to the ground. Then the rain came out of
nowhere—it poured down in sheets—drenching the Riddles and their
stockpile of
fireworks.

They
rode home in silence, driving north along 268. A bright flash
behind the truck cast shadows of the family across the dashboard. Corky
assumed
it was another flash of lightning, but then a bright streak came over
the top
of the truck and shot away into
the distance. A bright sizzle of white light, tearing through
the night like a meteor. But it wasn't like any meteor they'd ever
seen. For
one thing, it wasn't falling. It was traveling parallel to the ground.
And
instead of a smooth stroke of light, this one was scattering
blue-and-green
energy. It reminded Corky of the shower of sparks created by a welder's
torch.
As it sank behind the hills and disappeared from view, he pulled onto
the
shoulder of the road and told the girls to stay inside. He got out and
climbed
onto the front bumper, expecting whatever it was to explode on impact.
He
cupped his hands behind his ears and waited. But everything stayed
quiet.

He climbed back
inside feeling a little better. His fireworks show had turned out to be
a
disaster, but at least they'd seen something unusual. The girls were
excited
again. They said it was God playing with a sparkler and talked about it
all the
way home.

Grant Weston had
spent the afternoon hunting for fossils. He was the leader of a group
of seven
archaeologists, vertebrate paleontologists to be exact, who had hiked
into the
desert and set up camp for the three-day holiday weekend. The sudden
rain had
nearly extinguished their campfire, and he was adding dry kindling to
it when
the sky lit up above his head. He looked up and watched the hissing
fireball
flash past. A few seconds after it disappeared behind the trees, the
group
heard two crashing noises in quick succession. The first was a hollow
thud,
while the second was a sharp echoing crack.

"What the hell
was that?" everyone wanted to know.

One of the graduate
students initiated a brief panic by proclaiming they had just witnessed
the
crash of a flying saucer. But Weston proposed a more plausible theory.
Familiar
with that part of New Mexico, he explained that nearby Roswell Field
was a
testing site for the Army's new and experimental aircraft. Residents of
the
area, he said, had grown accustomed to seeing strange-looking planes in
the
sky. That calmed the nerves of his fellow campers. They discussed
setting out
immediately to look for the wreckage, but decided it was too dangerous.
Judging
from the trajectory of the streaking light and the sound of the crash,
they
estimated the craft had gone down about five miles north of their
location. The
moon was new, and the terrain could be treacherous even in daylight.
There was
nothing they could do until daybreak.

In all probability,
Weston knew, there would be no survivors. But all night the possibility
of a
wounded survivor tangled in the wreckage haunted him. He couldn't
sleep, and he
wasn't the only one. Well before dawn, the archaeologists were sipping
coffee,
waiting for first light. They had packed up the first-aid kit and
enough food
and water for the day. As soon as they could see the edges of their
campsite,
they set out.

Progress
was
slow. The land was a mixture of rock, loose sand, and thorny scrub.
Flash
floods had cut steep ravines between the rolling hills, forcing the
group to
double back and find a new path every few minutes. About the time the
sun began
to rise, they noticed a spotter plane searching the area, a welcome
sign.
Within half an hour, the plane was circling over a spot about a mile
east of
them.

"They must have
found the crash site," Weston reasoned. "Let's head in that direction."

A set of steep hills
separated them from where the plane was circling. They followed a path
between
two peaks and came into an arroyo. A few hundred yards to their left,
they
noticed the tail of the craft. As they moved farther into the dry
riverbed, the
archaeologists, who had spent their lives studying earth's ancient
past,
stepped forward to meet its future.

'That doesn't look
like an Army plane to me, experimental or not."

"It looks like a
fat airplane without any wings."

Skilled in the reconstruction
of events, Weston deduced what had happened the night before. "See
those
flattened bushes on the crest of that ridge? The plane must have
bottomed out
there—that was the thud we heard—and then bounced up and come down
here."
The black, roughly circular ship had plowed nose first into a sheer
cliff. For
the amount of rock it had shattered, Weston was surprised it wasn't in
worse
shape. He headed up the incline for a closer look.

When Betty Kagayama
saw what he meant to do, she yelled after him. "Grant, what are you
doing?
Please don't go near it! Let's wait for help." She and Professor Weston
had developed a relationship that was something more than platonic. "I
don't care what you say; that thing isn't from earth."

"I've got to
check to see if anyone's still alive. Here, take this." He handed her
his
field camera.

"I'll climb up
there and pose like a big-game hunter. We'll laugh about it later."
Over Betty's
protests, he jogged up the hill.

As he got closer, he
knew she was right. The black ship hadn't been built by humans. He
stopped a
few feet from the tail section and examined the small markings cut into
the
surface. "Looks like hieroglyphics," he called down the slope. There
was a hole torn open along the side of the ship. He squatted down and
looked up
into it. "Hello? Anybody in there?" He could see sunlight on the
interior walls of the vessel. He considered squeezing through the gap,
but the
foul, acrid smell coming out of it drove him away. He walked around to
the
front of the ship and saw there were windows. To get to them, he began
clambering up the pile of debris caused by the crash.