The disclosure protocol, p.4
The Disclosure Protocol, page 4
part #8 of Warner & Lopez Series
As he closed the desk drawer with the folder in it, there was a knock at his door. Mackenzie raised a superstitious eyebrow.
‘Enter.’
The door opened and Deputy Director CIA Edward McCain walked in.
‘You got a moment, Scott?’ he asked. ‘We need to talk.’
McCain was a Vietnam veteran who had risen through the ranks upon his return from Asia, leaving the military for a command post at Langley. A soldier at heart and a man more than cynical of the Washington mill, Mackenzie liked him because he had experienced life on the front line in a dirty war and yet still retained his humanity. His grizzled looks and rough voice completed the image of the battle-hardened soldier.
‘Sure,’ Mackenzie replied. ‘What’s up?’
McCain sat down opposite, his expression somewhat furtive, uncomfortable.
‘Scott, I need you to look into something for me if you can, on your own time.’
Mackenzie nodded willingly for the DDCIA to continue, but inside his mind did a backflip. Having the DDCIA ask you to do something off the books was not a common occurrence, to say the least, even if they were old friends.
‘Name it.’
‘I need you to look into an event that took place yesterday in Scotland, England. We’re picking up a lot of chatter about it and have guys on the ground from Special Ops but the Brits are keeping us in the dark right now.’
‘Sure, what kind of event was it? Terrorist related, espionage, political?’
McCain shifted in his seat as though he was sitting on needles.
‘A bit of all three,’ he suggested, and then produced an image of something and laid it on the desk between them.
Mackenzie looked down at it and his heart skipped a beat. A black sky filled with sullen clouds, pierced by a fierce white light emanating from a boomerang-shaped object partially concealed in the cloud base.
‘You ever seen anything like that before?’ McCain asked him.
Mackenzie shook his head. ‘Russian? Chinese?’
‘None of the above, we’re pretty sure about that,’ McCain replied.
‘What do we know about it so far?’
‘I’ll give you the file details as soon as you’re ready,’ McCain said, apparently relieved that Mackenzie was taking him seriously. ‘You’ll get everything we know about this phenomenon. CIA wants a handle on this as soon as you can. This image was taken at the scene and sent to CIA, FBI and DIA last night from Scotland, England. No media coverage, no intelligence leaks, no nothing, yet someone shows up at the right place and time and takes this shot. It’s not the first, Scott. Someone’s up to something and we need to know how they’re doing it. The Director doesn’t want to muddy the waters with a paper trail that says we’re looking into UFO sightings again, we both know how that looks to the public. So, would you be willing to shoot off and take a look at this for me? Paid leave, all expenses, just get it done and quietly report back to me.’
Mackenzie took a breath. If this wasn’t the weirdest day that he’d ever experienced then he couldn’t remember the other one. He picked up the image and nodded.
‘Sure, I’ll look into it. I know some people in the British military and intel’ community. Let me make a few calls and I’ll see what I can dig up.’
***
VI
Detective Sergeant Andy McLoughlin drove east out of Bonnybridge, heading home after his shift had ended. The sun was not yet up over the cloudy horizon, but then at five in the morning not many things were up. Right now, he was tired and wanted nothing more than to get into bed and catch up on some sleep.
The night had been a long one, and in the wake of the extraordinary events of the previous week everything else seemed to be something of an anti-climax. Both he and Jenkins had spoken in anxious whispers about what had occurred, about what it all meant, but they had not made any headway and the military sure as hell wasn’t saying anything. Captain Chatsworth did not return any of Andy’s calls, and the military denied any knowledge of a deployment of troops to Bonnybridge on the night in question. “We know nothing” and “it didn’t happen” seemed to be the default position of the local military, and when he had used a Freedom of Information Act request for the radar data from a local Royal Air Force base, it had been denied, with the public relations officer reporting that nothing out of the ordinary had been seen that night either visually or on radar. Of course, “out of the ordinary” was something that held its own context depending on the opinions and experiences of the viewer – maybe such sightings were not uncommon for military observers in air control towers, and thus not deemed “out of the ordinary”.
Andy had finally found out about an organisation called the Mutual UFO Network, or MUFON, and had decided to send them a copy of Simon’s interview on condition that it was not distributed in any way. MUFON had agreed, and had soon gathered corroborating evidence from Bonnybridge witnesses who had seen the bright lights and the military presence on the night of the event. However, without any hard evidence the event was just that, and an interview with a strangely-dressed man with an archaic dialect was interesting but not proof of a major alien event and military cover-up.
Within days, Andy realised that he had absolutely nothing and that the event would be consigned to his memory as a remarkable, but unrecorded event.
Andy drove to his home and pulled up outside. The street was silent, houses dark and the street lights still casting pools of yellow light amid the blackness. It had recently rained and Andy could feel the chill of the night in the air as he stepped out of his car and locked it. He hurried to his front door and opened it, then stepped inside, eager to shut out the cold.
A hand clamped around his face in an instant and he was yanked over backwards. Strong arms grabbed him, pinning him down as the front door was closed and plastic restraints were fastened around his ankles and wrists, his arms pulled tight behind his back.
Andy squirmed and twisted, but the men were too many and he was hoisted aloft and carried through his own home into the living room. A single chair was placed on a sheet of plastic that now covered the carpet on the floor. Andy was dumped onto the chair and swiftly bound in place with lengths of gaffer tape that strapped him around the chest and thighs.
Satisfied that he was securely bound, the men stood back from him as another took their place. Andy blinked, the man before him half in shadow in the pale light of dawn. His face was blotchy and his skin oddly white, pasty and unhealthy looking. Squat, with broad shoulders and a barrel chest, the man was dressed in a black suit that contrasted sharply with his skin. He stood with his hands clasped before him, appearing both calm and on the verge of action.
‘Mister McCloughlin,’ he said in heavily accented Russian, ‘I do not wish to take up much of your time so I will be brief. Your wife and daughters are upstairs and they are safe. If you do that which I ask of you, they will remain safe. Do you understand?’
Andy wanted to leap up and batter the man to death with his bare hands but he nodded instead, fighting the urge to spit in his face.
‘Good,’ the Russian smiled, rather like a great white shark does just before biting into its prey. ‘You witnessed an extraordinary event recently that involved the British Army. You will tell me all about it.’
Andy’s mind raced. Damn, this thing had gotten far further than he would ever have believed possible in such a short space of time. Suddenly, despite the overt threat to himself and to his family’s safety, he understood that this was not about money or extortion or crime but about governments warring for information.
The Russian sat down on Andy’s dining room chair and folded his hands expectantly in his lap. Andy, careful to convey the absolute contempt he felt for the Russian as he spoke, detailed everything that had happened. He spoke of the killing on the moors, the discovery and interview with Simon, the UFO sighting and the disappearance of the man who had claimed to have come from medieval times.
The Russian listened quietly until Andy had finished, and then nodded sagely.
‘I see,’ he whispered softly after a few moments. ‘And the footage that you sent to the civilians at MUFON?’
‘The Army confiscated everything,’ Andy replied. ‘I kept the recording so that if information slipped out of my office and the army attemped to cover it up by slandering my officers, I would have proof to protect them.’
The Russian nodded slowly, watching Andy as though sizing him up.
‘And yet you sent it to MUFON anyway,’ he murmured.
‘They’re under strict orders not to broadcast it, to protect the careers of the officers involved,’ Andy replied. ‘It’s only the interview, not the sighting of a UFO. There is nothing on that camera footage that could be described as sensational on that front.’
The Russian smiled, his eyes as black as night, his skin creasing like old cloth left out to dry in the sun.
‘Not on your version,’ he replied.
‘What do you mean?’
The Russian glanced briefly over his shoulder, and one of his men came forward with a small laptop that he placed on the table beside Andy. The man pressed play, and Andy saw the footage from an observation camera in one of the police cells and Simon sitting within it, staring fearfully at the ceiling. Andy could hear the thundering Chinook outside the cells, could see Simon looking for the source of the sound.
The cell was otherwise still, and as Andy watched he realised that the footage was taken after he had left Simon to confront the army officers. Fascinated, he watched as Simon paced up and down, staring up at the ceiling, clearly afraid of the noise outside. Then, quite suddenly, the camera flared brilliant white, bright enough to illuminate the gloomy living room. Andy saw Simon shudder. He jerked to one side and then became bolt upright, his arms quivering by his sides as his eyes rolled up in their sockets as what looked like static electricity danced across his body. His jaw convulsed and his torso shook as though he was in the grip of some kind of seizure, and then the camera flared white again and the cell reappeared, utterly empty.
For a few moments there was nothing, and then Andy saw himself and Captain Chatsworth burst into the cell. The Russian leaned forward and switched off the footage, then leaned back and looked at Andy.
For a moment, Andy didn’t know what to say.
‘We didn’t see that,’ he finally blurted. ‘We were outside the cells. How did you get this footage?’
‘We have people in the Ministry of Defence,’ the Russian replied with supreme confidence. ‘Now, you will listen to me. I know that you are a former military man, a patriot, and that when I have gone you will seek to inform the authorities of this visit. I am here to inform you that doing so will be a very bad idea. Your contact at MUFON was not as forthcoming as you were and made it difficult for us to find out who witnessed these events, so that we could question them. That individual has since suffered an unfortunate accident and is in the morgue in Falkirk.’
Andy swallowed thickly, knowing somehow that the Russian was telling the truth as he went on.
‘You will not speak of this. You will give us the copy you made of the footage that you possess. You will never again send it to any agency, anywhere on earth. We know where you live, and we think that you have a very beautiful family. It would be a terrible shame if they were to suffer an accident of their own, don’t you think?’
Andy fought the urge to attempt to lash out at the Russian. He refused to appear intimidated, but he nodded while radiating silent rage. The Russian leaned back, and then reached into his pocket and produced a photograph. He laid it on the table between them and Andy’s rage vanished as he saw perfect images of the UFO that he and others had witnessed that fateful night. He could see optical images, infra-red, ultra-violet shots that revealed the vast object’s shape that had largely been hidden in the clouds at the time, the blinding light obscuring it from view.
Andy noticed that the image had been taken from some distance away, perhaps on hills to the south. The Russian leaned forward again.
‘These images were sent to the American CIA and other intelligence agencies by someone who was there, who knew that this was going to happen. They’re threatening to go public with these images if the Americans do not disclose everything they supposedly know about the UFO phenomenon. Time is of the essence, Mister McCloughlin, as the Americans will be equally keen to speak to whoever was behind that camera. We want to know who that person is, and you’re going to use every resource at your disposal to identify them before they left this area, understood?’
***
VII
Wild Beach, Cocos Islands
The silence was the best thing about West Island, and the one thing that Ethan Warner coveted the most. The islands were little known, two coral reefs that were hidden within literally hundreds of thousands of square miles of open ocean in the South Pacific.
The sky was almost always blue, and what little rainfall there was generally arrived in the evenings to cool the air. Most of the island’s sparse population were European, many of them people who appreciated the silence just as much as Ethan did, along with the white-sand beaches and coral reefs that surrounded the tropical paradise. Forests of palms swayed in the ocean winds as he walked toward the island’s south-eastern tip, just off Air Force Road.
Across a mile-wide lagoon and sand bar was Home Island, mostly home to native islanders. Beyond that, there wasn’t another land mass until Christmas Island, a thousand kilometres to the east. Australia was even further away to the south east, and represented the governorship of the island. The English native language and the remoteness of the spot suited him perfectly, as it did Nicola Lopez, whom he could see reclining on the beach as he walked across the warm sand.
It had been almost a year since their alliance with Doug Jarvis and Rhys Garrett had come to an end. With the government no longer hunting them, believing them to be dead, and with the cabal of Majestic Twelve no more, their work had been done. The billions of dollars that had been taken from the cabal had largely been repatriated to the government via Garrett himself, the billionaire businessman organising both the return of the funds and ensuring the freedom of both Ethan and Nicola. Jarvis too had vanished, along with Aaron Mitchell, although Ethan had heard through the few contacts that he maintained in the outside world that Doug had since passed away. The loss of the old man was something of a blow to him, despite all the trouble that Jarvis had caused them as he juggled his loyalty to his country and government with his friendship with Ethan and Nicola. Despite Ethan’s melancholy, that chapter of their lives was now over and, since Garrett had also ensured that not quite all of the money pilfered by Majestic Twelve had made it back into government coffers, both he and and Lopez were now wealthy enough not to have to worry about their futures any longer. A life on the beach sure beat hunting down bail runners on Chicago’s south side for a living.
‘Turned out nice again,’ Lopez murmured as Ethan sat down alongside her. She didn’t turn her head or open her eyes.
Ethan smiled wryly. She was lying on her back, wearing a nice little two-piece swim suit and a perfect tan. She had let her hair grow longer and now easily passed for one of the locals over on Home Island, though they rarely travelled there nowadays. West Island had a few shops and a small fishing industry that gave them everything that they needed, and it even had a small airport that provided scheduled flights to Australia and Sumatra twice a week. The little mall had Internet access and Ethan had a satellite link in their little home in Beacon Heights, on the island’s west shore.
‘We should probably do something more pro-active,’ he said as he leaned back on his elbows in the sand and watched the rollers shining in the sunlight as they tumbled gently onto the sand nearby. ‘This retirement thing is getting a little thin.’
Lopez nodded without opening her eyes.
‘You’re right,’ she murmured. ‘Let’s go back to being paid peanuts for being shot at.’
She turned to look at him and he burst out laughing. ‘Okay, I’ll shut up.’
‘Good.’
Ethan tucked his hands behind his head and lay back on the sand. Like Lopez, he ran around the island’s circumference every other morning to keep his fitness up, and they had a little gym in the house to work out on, but apart from that they hadn’t fired a gun between them in nine months. He didn’t miss it. At least, not mostly. Sometimes it did feel as though the world was moving on and that they had been left behind in a sort of vacuum, trapped in time, forgotten. But then he would see the news reports about the world outside and he realised that they were missing nothing at all. They didn’t use Facebook or Twitter, didn’t use their e-mails very much and would likely keep it that way as, apart from contact with their families, neither Ethan or Lopez had any real desire to be found.
Ethan had used to watch the scheduled flights come in, bringing tourists from mainland Australia and usually a few natives from Sumatra, who had first arrived here when the islands had been discovered two centuries before. For a few months after they had first arrived he and Nicola had routinely observed the incoming passengers, staking out the tiny airport to ensure that nobody coming onto the island was looking for them. As the weeks had turned to months, they had finally relented, fairly sure that if anyone was to come looking for them, it wouldn’t be to try to put a bullet in the back of their brains.
Therefore, Ethan was not too concerned when he glimpsed a tall man striding out onto Wild Beach in their general direction. It was only when he looked twice that alarm bells began to ring in his mind.
