The disclosure protocol, p.9
The Disclosure Protocol, page 9
part #8 of Warner & Lopez Series
Ethan almost laughed. ‘You think that Harry Potter’s wand was inspired by extra terrestrial visitors?’
‘History records such encounters,’ the doctor replied, not taking offence at Ethan’s mirth. ‘They of course could not understand what they were seeing and so wrote it down in terms that they recognised, but unknown creatures or people holding wands and staffs and directing great energy is a common theme in many historical accounts and is backed up by the vast literature describing encounters with forest people, fairies and other phenomena written off by modern science as fanstasy.’
‘Fairies?’ Lopez asked.
‘Almost any supposedly mythical creature of lore could in theory be an eye-witness account of an extra terrestrial being, although of course they could be anything else but, we simply cannot tell from the records themselves as by definition the witness did not understand what they were seeing. However, given the sheer number of sightings and experiences, it’s perhaps fair to say that they were seeing something, and these accounts go right back into ancient history.’
David and Rachel moved to join them.
Ethan looked at David. ‘Can we see the video you recorded of these things appearing in Sophie’s room?’
David beckoned them to follow him. They walked into the cool of the house, and David produced a laptop computer.
‘We’ve got a few seconds of footage. It’s weird, the camera seems to malfunction whenever they’re around it and we only get snippets of imagery before everything goes blank.’
Ethan watched as David selected the video and hit the play button. Ethan saw Sophie’s room and the little girl asleep in her bed, her body clearly visible curled up beneath the sheets. For a moment nothing happened, the bedroom dark and the camera shooting in black and white with a rudimentary night-vision setting active. The footage was a little grainy but everything was clear to see in the room.
The image flickered slightly and then Ethan saw it appear in the doorway to Sophie’s room.
‘Jesus,’ Lopez murmured.
Ethan knew that something like this could easily be faked, but he was equally certain that the family were in earnest and more concerned about their daughter’s safety and well-being than making hoax videos.
The creature was about Sophie’s size but it’s features were unmistakeably those of the classic alien “grey” that had become synonymous with abduction events. Big, slanted black eyes stared silently at Sophie as she slept, and then it advanced into the room. It moved with awkward steps, as though automated in some way, and then the image flickered out and the screen went black.
‘That’s it,’ David said. ‘When the screen comes back, Sophie’s still in her bed and it’s like nothing happened.’
True enough, moments later the screen came back to life. Sophie was still in her bed asleep and appeared not to have moved. Ethan frowned as he looked at the image. Something wasn’t right but he couldn’t put his finger on it.
‘How many times has this happened?’ Lopez asked.
‘As far as we know, Sophie has been taken six times this year,’ Rebecca replied as she stood alongside them. ‘It’s affecting her in a lot of ways; her school work is deteriorating, she’s shutting out her friends and family, she’s not talking, she’s…’
Rebecca choked on her own grief and turned away from them. David watched her go and then turned to Ethan.
‘We just want this to end,’ he said. ‘I don’t know how these things are getting into our house, how they’re doing it without us knowing.’
‘Is Sophie staying in your room now?’ Ethan asked.
‘She sleeps with us in the living room until we go to bed, and we bring her with us. We don’t have any video, but she says it still happens even when we’re in the room. I don’t understand it: we don’t hear a thing, it’s as if nothing’s happened, but in the morning when she wakes up she’s crying.’
David clenched his fists, anger radiating from his every pore as he stood before Ethan. Ethan had known many people suffering as David now did, not from alien abductions but mothers and fathers whose children had vanished, victims of abductions for money in Mexico or slaughter in Africa and the Middle East or dropped ordnance in Palestine or the Ukraine. They all looked the same, their bodies wired for action but their faces begging for help, their rage impotent, their worlds ruled by frustration and helplessness.
Ethan could not be sure that Lopez would want to join him, but in that moment he knew that he wouldn’t be heading back to the islands any time soon.
‘We’ll do something,’ he promised David. ‘I don’t know what it is yet, but we’ll figure something out.’
Ethan led Lopez out of the house, and when they reached their car he turned to her.
‘Call Rhyss Garret. I don’t know if we’ll need him, but I don’t want to walk into another investigation unprepared. Ask him to meet us in Las Vegas.’
***
XVI
Vernon, Utah
Kyle Trent huddled alongside a trash dumpster near a mall, the shadows of the night concealing him from the cameras he could see surveying the parking lot. The city lights glowed in the darkness but their light was hollow, like the lights within the mall or the soulless heart of Las Vegas, the bright lights blinding tourists to the uncaring greed of the giant casinos. They represented a world of which he was no longer a part, and now the desert night was turning cold again and he shivered.
He was still wearing his black camouflage gear, which was a bonus at night when he wanted to remain undetected but would make him stand out like a sore thumb once daylight arrived again. He had made it into Vernon without being detected, at least as far as he knew, but his first course of action, to return to his parents’ home and gather what he could, had been derailed when he had seen the black vehicles parked outside.
Kyle did not know how the soldiers at Dugway had identified him so fast, but now he knew that he could not return home. They had killed Greg and now he felt sick with fear over what they would do to his parents. Would they kill them also? How could he stop them? What could he do?
Kyle had always been a fan of stories of lone warriors standing up to the “man”, to the government, the solitary and uncompromising voice of mercenary truth in an uncaring world. Now, he was that man, but the world he inhabited was unpleasant and lonely. He was cold and hungry, had little money and nobody that he could turn to. The troops would by now know the names of the few friends that he did have, and they would probably put a watch on all of them in case he showed up there. Kyle was a fugitive from the most secretive armed forces in the world, but unlike most fugitives he could not expect due process if he was captured. His fate would be a shallow grave on some lonely desert plain miles from anyone.
Kyle didn’t feel like the lone, mercenary warrior. He felt like crying.
He shoved his hands deeper into his pockets and his fingers brushed against the memory stick onto which he had downloaded the footage. That was all he had. Video of Greg’s shooting. His only hope was to show the enemy, which was what they now were, that he was in possession of proof that his friend had been shot and killed by soldiers working for the United States Government, and that he had video of UFOs over Dugway Proving Ground to boot. That was, of course, if they didn’t already know that he was in possession of such material.
Kyle cursed. There really was no way out of this. He couldn’t bargain with them because he’d already taunted the government with his images and threats of disclosure to the public. There was nowhere left for him to go. His only hope was that going public now, before they could find him, would make his name quickly enough that to kill him would simply draw more attention to the government than they would have wanted.
Yeah, that was it. Full disclosure. That was the only way for him to get this out there, to protect him from the killers who had iced Greg. Proof that he was being hunted. Proof that he was a victim of a conspiracy that went all the way to the top; ruthless, savage military leaders intent on silencing the heroes, determined to keep a lid on the truth.
Kyle felt his resolve stiffen and he took a breath. All he had to do was find a media outlet that he could talk with and who would hear him out. He could admit to trespassing on a military installation, confess everything. Sure, the use of deadly force would be the military’s standard fall back, but he could at least ensure that they wouldn’t be able to come after him, and he could then reveal the UFO footage that would change the world.
Kyle nodded to himself and checked his meagre financial funds. He had enough to get him out of Vernon and away to Vegas. From there, he could start discreetly approaching journalists to see if any of them were interested in his story.
*
Rico Savage stood in the living room of the house and looked down at Mr and Mrs Trent.
They were in their sixties, he guessed, ordinary folk who were clearly nervous about the uniformed man towering over them. Savage stood with his hands behind his back and spoke in clipped, terse tones that betrayed no emotion.
‘When did you last see Kyle?’
The man’s father spoke, his voice trembling with what might have been fear and his eyes wide with uncertainty, the deer caught in the headlamps.
‘Two nights ago. He said he was going to stay with a friend in Vernon.’
‘Do you know the name of this friend of his?’
The man shook his head, but the mother nodded.
‘Greg,’ she said confidently. ‘He said he was staying with Greg.’
Rico Savage considered this for a moment. The body they had found up on the hillside had been without any form of identification, not surprising considering the boys had been trespassing on federal land where troops were cleared to use lethal force. They wouldn’t have wanted to be easily identified. Still, it was kind of unusual to find civilians that far inside the base perimeter and he knew that he simply had to find out both how they had done it, and how they had done it at the same time as the uniquely classified event that had occurred. Rico had served in several war zones during his career and had seen at first hand the suffering inflicted by governments willing to wage war on each other. He didn’t believe in coincidences.
‘Do you have a surname for this Greg?’ he asked the mother.
‘I’m sorry, no I don’t,’ she replied. ‘Kyle met him at work in the convenience store, we never actually met him ourselves.’
‘The convenience store?’ Rico echoed, sensing a lead. ‘Which one?’
‘Old Joe’s, in Vernon,’ the mother replied, but then she seemed to tense up. ‘What kind of trouble is Kyle in?’
Rico considered his response. It was clear to him that Kyle was operating alone and that his family knew little or nothing of what he had been up to. They had been shocked to know that he was at Dugway and not with his pal in Vernon playing video games as they had believed. Rico relaxed himself by force of will and took a seat opposite Kyle’s parents, pressing his hands together as he spoke.
‘Mrs Trent, your son is in tremendous danger and we need to find him as quickly as we possibly can. I need access to any phones and computer equipment that he possesses.’
‘Danger?’ Kyle’s father echoed. ‘What kind of danger?’
Rico chose his words with care. He knew that he needed the parents on his side if he was going to locate Kyle and the sensitive data he possessed.
‘We found a body at the scene where we believe Kyle and his friend were camping,’ he explained. ‘Although I can’t be sure, I suspect that it will be identified as your son’s friend, Greg.’
The mother’s concern collapsed into fear and grief as tears spilled from her eyes. Her husband held her shoulders as he looked at Rico.
‘He’s only twenty-one, he doesn’t know what he’s doing.’
‘He knows enough,’ Rico countered. ‘Greg is dead from a gunshot wound to the head and your son has disappeared. I don’t have to tell you how that looks both to us and to law enforcement. If they encounter your son before we do, they will believe him to be armed and may well open fire.’
The father struggled to keep his features from collapsing into the same grief that had consumed his wife.
‘Kyle’s a lot of things, but he’s no killer. He’s never had a violent streak.’
‘It doesn’t take a violent streak to mis-use a gun,’ Rico countered. ‘Often, it doesn’t take anything more than a mistake.’
A group of troops behind him were walking out of the house carrying a home computer and two laptops, along with a pair of cell phones that the officer presumed must have also belonged to Kyle. He knew from experience that anyone walking around with more than one cell phone was usually up to no good.
‘He doesn’t even own a gun,’ his mother bleated. ‘How could he have killed someone?’
Rico knew that as Kyle was old enough and had no criminal record, he could walk into a store in the United States and buy an assault rifle that was more usually the preserve of the military, along with ammunition sufficient to take out a city block. Tragically, it was no secret that civilian access to military-grade firearms in the United States had resulted in some of the worst atrocities against ordinary people in the world. That said, Kyle had no history of ownership of weapons or any connection with gun clubs, terrorist networks or anything of the sort. Overnight psychopaths were not unknown but they were uncommon, and again Kyle displayed none of the traits known to such individuals.
‘Greg may have owned the gun, or one of them may have bought it that night, we just don’t know right now. All I can say is that we need to find Kyle and fast. If he were on the run and afraid, where would he go and what would he do, do you think?’
The parents looked at each other, and the officer saw them share the glance and with it certain knowledge.
‘He would go to the media,’ the father said. ‘He’s passionate about that kind of thing, freedom of speech, the truth movement, all of it. If he thinks he’s in danger, he’ll try to use the media to get the message out and protect himself.’
Rico Savage nodded once and stood to leave. This was going to be worse than he had thought.
‘You will find him?’ the mother begged. ‘You’ll find him and protect him?’
Rico nodded without smiling. ‘We will find him.’
***
XVII
CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia
General Mackenzie sat at a long table in a room filled with half of the country’s top brass facing a projection screen on one wall. There was enough military might within the room to launch a war, all branches of the armed forces represented as they were briefed by a CIA operative known only to them as Forty-Eight. The numerical moniker was merely for protection in the field; high–ranking officials were open targets for abduction by foreign powers and thus knowing the names of operational agents was forbidden in order to protect assets in the field.
Mackenzie was looking at the screen, where an image of Dugway Proving Ground in Utah dominated. The agent leading the briefing had been called in after a momentous event the previous evening out in Nevada, one that had gone horribly wrong in more ways than one.
‘The breach was on the eastern border of the airbase perimeter, via high-level computer hacking, and it resulted in two individuals gaining access to the Dugway ground. Although the individuals were spotted by surveillance teams within the base and an armed team approached their location, before they could be reached and apprehended a gunshot was heard. When they reached the location they found a single, dead male in the vicinity who had been hit with a rifle shot to the head from medium to long range.’
Mackenzie began to feel a creeping sense of doom overshadow him as he listened. Civilians gaining access to locations as remote and well protected as Dugway was almost unheard of, meaning that whomever these interlopers were, they had devised some cunning means of avoiding the plethora of cameras and sensors that protected the perimeter. However, even then it would be extremely rare for patrols to carry out the threat of lethal force – such an action would itself draw unwanted attention to the site from the media. Threats of lethal force were more of a deterrent than a literal consequence of incursions onto military land. Mackenzie knew that in reality trespassers would be locked up, perhaps roughed up and certainly made to fear for their life before being released into the custody of local law enforcement, the military well aware that word of a trespasser’s treatment would get out onto the street and help to prevent further transgressions.
‘We have a team on site right now who are identifying the individuals at the scene and they’re due to report in within the hour. This is a containment exercise, and as such we absolutely need to prevent any access by the media and ideally prevent them from learning anything about the incident. Should such media awareness become an eventuality, then it is our purpose to ensure that we play up the fact that the individuals were trespassing on an area known to be protected with the threat of lethal force, while playing down the fact that our troops were in any way hostile to the interlopers.’
Mackenzie frowned as he made notes, glancing up at the other brass around him and noting the same veiled confusion on their expressions.
‘Do we know what their purpose at the Dugway grounds was?’ Mackenzie asked the question that everyone else was thinking. ‘And why are we coming down so tightly on this? Did they see something that they shouldn’t have?’
The agent thought for a moment before he replied, hesitating just a little too long for Mackenzie to entirely believe the explanation.
‘From their vantage point it is considered possible that they might have witnessed the transportation of a covert spy drone across the airbase.’
There was a long silence as the military chiefs digested this piece of information.
‘It was nightime when the shooting occured,’ Mackenzie noted. ‘Did these witnesses possess any kind of photographic equipment or some kind of recording device?’
