Star Trek The Original Series From History's Shadow (12 page)

“Damn,” Sutherland said, picking up the ashtray and dumping its contents into the wastebasket on the floor behind him. Then, he lifted the basket and brushed into it the dozen or so butts that had fallen from the ashtray to litter the papers on his desk. How had he not managed to start a
fire in here? And where the hell was Glenda? Then, glancing through the open shades of his office’s dirty window, he saw how low the sun had dropped toward the horizon.

What time was it, anyway?

He looked to the clock over his office door and saw that it was nearly six o’clock. Glenda usually left for the day around five. Even though it was a Friday night with deadlines looming—there likely were a few other people working in other offices, or down the hall in the bullpen—most of the secretaries would already be gone unless their bosses needed something urgent.

Coffee, for example,
Sutherland thought as he examined the inside of the mug he did not remember draining. Grunting, he set the cup back down on the desk and picked up the cigarette pack, only to see that it, too, was empty.
Or some smokes
. Given the lateness of the hour, he considered the bottle of Scotch in his desk’s bottom drawer, but decided for the moment to resist imbibing. Once the article was finished, he would celebrate in proper fashion.

A knock on his door made him look up, and through the door’s frosted glass window he saw a burly figure waiting outside. “Yeah?” he called out, and the door opened to admit the robust form of Tom Larkin, his friend and colleague. He was wearing his suit jacket and hat, telling Sutherland that the other man was on his way out of the building.

“I’m hungry,” Larkin announced. “You?”

Sutherland nodded. “Yeah, now that you mention it.” So engrossed was he in the new article that he had skipped lunch. That happened a lot these days, particularly around deadline time. He knew he was running late with the article, and his layout editor had called him four times that afternoon to remind him.

Larkin hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “I’m going down to Mabel’s to grab a quick bite. They got meat loaf and pork chops on special tonight. Interested?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Sutherland replied. Mabel’s, a corner diner a few blocks down the street, was a favored lunch and dinner hangout for several of the people in the office. The coffee was always hot, and the waitresses always did commendable jobs filling out their uniforms. “I need a break, anyway.” Flexing his tired fingers, he leaned back in his chair and blew out an exasperated sigh. Then his gaze fell upon the page still in his typewriter and he smiled.

“What’s that about?” Larkin asked. “You finally done with that piece?”

“Almost, yeah,” Sutherland replied. Just a few more paragraphs to close it out and the new article would be finished, and with a little polish it would be the centerpiece of his magazine’s latest issue.

Stepping into the office, Larkin said, “When are you going to quit writing about flying saucers and get back to where the real action is?”

“This is the real action,” Sutherland retorted, pointing at the typewriter. “Just wait until you read this baby.” As editor in chief and the lone staff writer for
Watch the Skies,
one of six magazines written and published from the offices of Schlitz Periodicals, Sutherland strove to bring the magazine’s small yet loyal and growing readership actual, hard evidence proving the existence of beings from other worlds and the incredible craft in which they had traveled to Earth from some far-flung planet. “Sooner or later, more and more people are going to pay attention to all these pictures, and reports, and denials by the government. You’ll see.”

His current project, writing about sightings of unexplained
lights in the desert skies near Las Vegas, had taken him weeks to assemble. The interviews he had conducted, and even the road trip he had taken in order to take pictures of the witnesses as well as the area where the sightings had occurred, should really make the piece sing, he decided.

Larkin chuckled. “You really do believe that stuff, don’t you?”

Unlike Sutherland, the other man had long ago settled into his role as writer and photographer for one of the other Schlitz titles,
Tinseltown Tattler,
a Hollywood tabloid rag that had the distinction of having given Cal Sutherland his first writing job after his time in Korea.

“You’ve seen the same pictures I have,” Sutherland said, “and read the same reports and witness statements. Are you telling me you still don’t believe
any
of it?” Rising from his chair, he crossed to the coat tree in the back corner of his office. He pulled on his suit jacket before retrieving his favorite brown fedora from the tree’s top. He moved to straighten his tie, but then decided to leave it loose and his shirt collar unbuttoned. Mabel had seen him dressed in much sloppier fashion over the years, after all.

She’s also seen you dressed in a lot less,
he reminded himself, fond memories eliciting a small, knowing smile.

“How many times have we had this discussion?” Larkin asked, punctuating his question with a belch. “Nope, I really don’t think little green Martians are coming to suck out our brains.” Digging a finger in his left ear, he added, “Besides, after five years chasing stories and idiots around this town, I can’t figure out what any aliens would want with us.”

Watching his friend examine whatever it was he had extracted from his ear, Sutherland said, “Yeah, me neither.”

No matter their motivations for being here, he had
become convinced that such beings
were
here or, at least, had been here and might well be coming again. Bringing that truth to the public was not an easy task, what with every movie studio in Hollywood doing their level best to outdo each other and push the latest alien invasion and monster film into theaters. Martians bent on subjugating humans—the women, at least—seemed to be everywhere thanks to movies, comic books, and magazines sold on every corner and with stories written by anybody who could put their fingers to a typewriter.

Larkin wiped his finger on his trouser leg. “So, why keep doing this? Not for nothing, but downstairs was a lot more fun before you left.”

“I got tired of peeking through windows and rummaging around trash cans and sleeping in alleys or in the bushes, hoping for one decent picture,” Sutherland replied, noting his now steadily grumbling stomach as he moved for the door and opened it.

Chuckling, Larkin flashed him a wide grin. “Okay, I’ll admit the pot busts are getting old, but some of those crazy parties?” He whistled. “I never get tired of those. You should see some of the pictures I’ve been getting. Too many to use! That’s okay, though, because I’ve got me a little side business thing going, selling my extra stuff to a couple of those girlie rags. You know, like . . .”

Sutherland held up a hand. “I really don’t want to know. And don’t let Garner catch you doing that,” he said, referring to Larkin’s editor on the
Tinseltown Tattler,
an irritable, unpleasant man named Harold Garner. “He’ll toss your sorry butt down the garbage chute.” Sutherland had known Garner when both were working as staff writers on the
Tattler
and even then he had been an insufferable bastard. It only stood
to reason that he would be promoted when the magazine’s former editor, Chuck Elliot, retired the previous year.

“That’s okay,” Larkin replied, shrugging. “I think he knows already, but he also knows he can’t pay me what one of those other places would if I went to work over there full time. I’m still his best writer, so he cuts me a lot of slack.”

“Just watch your back,” Sutherland said, waiting for Larkin to follow him into the hallway before closing and locking his office door. “Garner’s probably just biding his time, waiting for the right moment to drop the hammer on you.”

The man’s elevation to management in the wake of Elliot’s leaving was just one of the reasons Sutherland had opted to change jobs when the opportunity presented itself.

That, and the job really was crap on a cracker
.

A combat correspondent for the United States Army in Korea after serving as an infantryman in Europe during World War II, Sutherland had seen and reported on the best—and worst—aspects of the latter conflict. Ready for a definite change once his time in uniform had concluded, he found his first real writing job thanks to Chuck Elliot at the
Tattler
. It had taken him a while to get used to the very different approach to “journalism” the magazine practiced. Still the best selling of all the Schlitz publications, the
Tinseltown Tattler
delighted in filling its pages with lurid pictures and gossip about the actors and actresses flitting about Hollywood. After a year spent toiling away for that magazine’s editor, during which he had photographed and written about all manner of drug busts, sex parties, shady business deals, tragic romances, and even a few unfortunate deaths, Sutherland came to realize that while he liked working for Elliot, the
Tattler
was eating at his soul.

Then,
Watch the Skies
came along.

A skeptic from the outset, Sutherland at first had accepted the offer from his publisher to write for the newest title in the Schlitz arsenal with the idea—and challenge—of approaching the work from a pure investigative journalism standpoint. He treated the subject with the same objectivity he believed to be practiced by another writer with whom he had become acquainted, Donald Keyhoe. Sutherland had read the other man’s books, including the notable
Flying Saucers from Outer Space,
which Keyhoe, who originally had professed doubts as to the possibility of UFOs being actual alien craft, had written using interviews and official Air Force reports as source material. Though appearing to possess at least as many critics as he did supporters, Key-hoe’s reputation was hard to impugn, standing as it did on the foundation he had built as a writer with an eye for detail and accuracy. Many of his more vocal detractors, including some from inside the Air Force, tended to point to his career as a writer of outlandish fiction stories featuring characters with superhuman or even supernatural powers as evidence of his overactive imagination and propensity for embellishment.

After digesting the book and spending untold months corresponding with Keyhoe via mail about the effort invested to write it, Sutherland became convinced the other man firmly believed every word he had written. With that in mind, he vowed he would hold himself to the same standards Keyhoe had exhibited when researching his books. Unlike the nonsense that fueled gossip rags around town like the
National Register
,
Hush-Hush,
and even the
Tattler,
Sutherland wanted
Watch the Skies
to be different; a lone voice of truth amid a mob of people content to be fed a diet of derivative fantasy and even outright lies, some of which were printed in
yet another of the magazines bearing the Schlitz Periodicals banner.

Down the hall from the
Watch the Skies
offices were those of sibling publication
Startling Universe,
which specialized in science fiction stories of the sort Sutherland had come to see as a hindrance to his own job. His irritation at the two magazines’ seemingly contradictory goals was only furthered by his publisher’s decision to use the same in-house artist to provide illustrations for both titles. In some instances, the same picture of a bizarre creature from outer space had graced pages in issues of each magazine, done solely as a cost-saving measure. Sutherland routinely fought this practice, but was overruled every time.

Remembering that he wanted to check to see if anything had come for him in the afternoon mail, Sutherland pointed toward the office mail room as they started down the hallway. “I’m expecting a package,” he said by way of explanation.

“Another top-secret delivery from your mole inside the Air Force?” Larkin asked, grinning again.

Sutherland scowled, glancing over his shoulder and then toward the lobby to see if anyone may have overheard the other man’s remark. “Why not just run downstairs and yell up at me from the sidewalk,” he said. “Not everybody needs to know who or where I get my leads.” Satisfied that no one was eavesdropping, he added in a lower voice, “But, yeah. I’m hoping for some new stuff.”

His passion for wanting truth, professionalism, and objectivity for
Watch the Skies
and the work he was doing only deepened when he began receiving help from a most unexpected source. One day, the afternoon mail had brought with it a large brown envelope with no return address but a postmark indicating it had been sent or at least dropped into a mailbox
from Dayton, Ohio. The envelope contained dozens of pages of mimeographed documents that Sutherland recognized as being military in nature, with each of them carrying the same single code name designation: PROJECT BLUE BOOK.

The package also contained a letter with no signature or other clues as to the sender’s identity, who purported to be someone placed within the Blue Book hierarchy and wanting to ensure that the truth continued to flow out from beyond the cloak of secrecy enveloping the project. Sutherland’s unknown benefactor—assuming he was not lying for some reason—seemed to share the same concerns harbored by those who denounced the military’s efforts as either insufficient, apathetic, or deceitful. To that end, he was providing the enclosed documents, and would continue to pass on other information if and when he was able.

Struggling to contain his excitement, Sutherland spent the rest of that night poring over the documents contained in that initial package. He read with disbelief the accounts of what really had happened in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947 as well as other sightings in the following years about which little more than rumor was generally known, particularly the controversial light sightings in Lubbock, Texas, in 1951 and the odd craft reports from Yuma in 1952. From the copious notes he assembled from his research as well as other information he obtained from interviews he conducted with witnesses to back up the supposed official reports, Sutherland produced what would be the first in a series of stories detailing the Air Force’s ongoing investigation of UFO sightings as well as the results of those efforts. Driving the meat of his feature were the details of the reports he had received from his anonymous sponsor, which often differed to a great extent from the information disseminated to the public.