Falling Star (41 page)

"You sound nice, Ted.  Are you single?"

"Y-Yes.  Y-you sound n-nice t-too."

"The other computer people in my department are all married, and are no fun at all.  They're such dweebs.  Where does a single hacker get to meet some interesting people?  Singles bars are so boring."

"S-Say, I know a computer club that's really great.  W-would y-you l-like t-to come?"

"Sure, will it be a problem?"

Grayson wiped his sweating brow, a big smile spread across his corpulent face, his right fist raised in jubilation.  "N-no, no.  I w-would b-be pleased to take you.  I'll m-meet you at the corner of F-Fourteenth and H Street, Northwest, at nine thirty tomorrow tonight, okay?"

"It's a little late, but okay.  I'll see you then, Ted."

Joyce put down the telephone and turned towards the others in the room with a great big grin.

"Okay, this is what we do," said Smith.  "Martha and Tom will stake out the corner of Fourteenth and H Streets.  We need someone who can recognize Grayson.  Mildred, you and Adams will be in a follow car.  If Grayson starts to drive away, nail him.  Joyce, we're going to wire you for sound.  Do you feel up to this?  We could nail him without you, you know."

"Come on, George.  I'm a big girl," said Joyce.

2130 Hours: Sunday, July 4, 1993: Fourteenth and H Streets, N.W., Washington, D.C.

Grayson, showered and in fresh clothes, walked along Fourteenth Street going north.  He was in heaven.  Someone wanted to meet him.

As Grayson walked north, a car turned left from Fourteenth Street on to H Street.  As the headlights of the car swung with the turn, the light swept the cars parked on the north side of H Street, particularly the nondescript tan sedan parked on Fourteenth Street at the corner of Fourteenth and H Street.

What was that? thought Grayson, as the light of the turning car illuminated the beautiful mass of strawberry blond hair belonging to the driver of the sedan.

"Shit!" he muttered as he slipped quietly into the shadow of a nearby office building's doorway.

0800 Hours: Monday, July 5, 1993: CSAC Offices, Washington, D.C.

"Shit! Stood up by a cretin.  There goes my reputation," lamented Joyce.

"What happened?" said Smith.

"Don't know, boss.  We waited until midnight and Grayson never showed," said Bateson.

"Anything at all happen?"

"Yeah, three different motorists from Virginia stopped and asked if I wanted to party," said Joyce, smiling.

"Joyce, they thought you were a teenage hooker," said Bateson, quietly.

"Oh," said Joyce, blushing.

1900 Hours: Monday, July 5, 1993: Arlington Heights Apartments, Arlington, Virginia

Returning to her apartment, Martha was as depressed as she had ever been.  She was sure that they would have caught Grayson last night, but somehow he had gotten away.  Was it something I had failed to do, she wondered.

Martha carefully checked the door to her apartment, something she had started to do regularly.  It looked okay so she unlocked the door and stepped in.  Turning on the light and locking the dead bolt security lock to her door; Martha took off her jacket and started to unbutton her blouse, thinking how nice a long hot shower would feel.  By the time she reached her bedroom door, she had her blouse and skirt off and was dressed only in her bra and panties.  As she entered her bedroom, she reached behind her back to unhook her bra, and her firm breasts fell free.

A large hand grabbed her by the mouth, and the point of a knife pricked the firm soft skin of her back. 

"Y-You thought y-you c-could play w-with m-my affections, d-didn't you!"

"Ted, let's talk about this.  All we want to do is help you."

"W-What do y-you think I am, stupid?"

"Come on, Ted.  Isn't there anything I could do to persuade you that we just want to help?" said Martha in her sweetest voice.

"N-no, you have to die for what you did!"  He pushed Martha out of her bedroom into the living room.  "You can't f-fuck around with me like that."

Grayson dragged the struggling Martha around the living room and came up with his plan.  "It's going to be an accident; you'll fall off your balcony."

Grayson opened the curtains to Martha's balcony and slid open the glass door.  He pushed Martha to the railing of her apartment balcony.

"What the fuck!" said Special Agent Joseph Garcia.  He bolted out of his car, simultaneously drawing his .40 caliber Glock 22 Pistol.  At the same time, his partner, Special Agent Tonya Jefferson jumped out of her side of the car and was running toward the apartment building, gun drawn.

Pinned against the railing of the balcony, Martha fought with the foul-smelling Grayson, struggling to get the knife.  Grayson kept trying to hoist the slim FBI agent over the railing to the hard concrete three stories below.

Garcia tried to get a clear shot of Grayson as Tonya raced upstairs to try to get into the apartment.  The struggling couple moved too quickly for him to squeeze off a good shot.

At the same time Martha struggled with Grayson to prevent him from throwing her over the railing, she fought for control of the knife.  Grayson kept the knife at her throat, Martha grabbed his wrist and tried to turn the knife toward him, but he was too strong.

Soon, Tonya was kicking at the apartment door.  The commotion briefly distracted Grayson.  That was all that Martha needed.  She maneuvered the knife toward Grayson and plunged it into his chest and with a twisting motion escaped from under his body.  The look on Grayson's face was one of surprise at this unexpected turn of events, his body doubled forward in pain, fell over the railings and struck the concrete below with a solid thud.

Her breasts drenched red with Grayson's blood, Martha rushed over to the door, unlocked it, and let Tonya Jefferson in. 

"You okay, Martha?" said Tonya as she rushed to the balcony.

Martha could only nod yes as she slumped down on the floor in fits of tears.

On the pavement below, the rotund face of Grayson stared out into emptiness; his rimless glasses lay broken at his side, a pool of blood spread under his head and under his chest.  His arms were spread apart as if he had expected to break the fall.

1993: The Future

1930 Hours: Tuesday, July 6, 1993: The White House

"Mr. President, I apologize for interrupting the dinner.  The message finally came in from the NSA and I knew that you wanted to review it as soon as possible," said Vice Admiral Francis Tillingham, the President's National Security Adviser.  Tillingham was calling from the reception area to the Oval Office.

"Yes, Frank, I'll be there in a few minutes," said the President.  "I figured that something was up with all that commotion outside."

Outside the White House, a battalion of heavily armed Marines had stationed themselves at critical points on Pennsylvania Avenue and on the South Lawn.  Overhead six Sikorsky HH-53H Super Jolly Green Giants languidly floated in the night air like hawks waiting for their prey.  Even higher, a squadron of A-10 Warthogs circled the sky above the White House.

Tillingham put the telephone down and turned to the small group of men hastily called to the White House.  The group included McHugh; his boss Admiral Thomas Oliver, the chief of CSAC; FBI director Judge James Alexander; the director of the National Security Agency, Admiral William Smith; the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Thomas Gooding; the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army General Emerson Ryder; the Secretary of State Jason Littleton; the Secretary of Defense Gavin McKnight; and Mike, who carried an aluminum suitcase in his left hand.  Mike was dressed in a Navy uniform.

"The President will see you now," said Maryanne Swanson, the President's executive assistant.

The group of men entered the Oval Office, quite small by modern executive office standards.  Miss Swanson had arranged for some extra chairs, knowing that this large group was on its way.  On the white couch in front of the fireplace was already seated Bo Reddington, a trusted adviser to the President, who had been a law partner of the President's and now served his former partner as a special assistant.  The heavy-set Reddington in typical fashion had his shirt collar unbuttoned and his tie loosened.

After the group had entered, the President entered through the door to the small private study off of the Oval Room.  The lean, athletic President was dressed in a tuxedo, having come from a formal dinner in the East Room of the White House.  With him was Thurgood Bensen, senior senator from Alabama, who was the chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence Oversight.  Bensen, also dressed in a tuxedo, was a long-time political ally of the President of over thirty years.

"Mr. President, I think you know everyone here but Mike Liu," said Tillingham.

"Hello, Mr. Liu.  I understand you work with my old friend, Seth Wickerspoon.  How is Seth these days?"

Seth Wickerspoon, chairman and chief executive officer of Franklin Smedley Associates, had served with the young Navy ensign, who eventually became President of the United States, during World War II in the Office of Strategic Services.  Mike's involvement in CSAC was well known to Wickerspoon.

"Seth is fine.  He sends his greetings, Mr. President."

"Okay, Frank.  What do we have?"

"Mr. President, you're well aware of CSAC and its missions.  As you're aware, surveillance was instituted in the early seventies to monitor the presence of four Sentinels located strategically in the waters of the United States.  Both Admiral McHugh and Commander Liu have been on this project since its inception.

"As you know, the four sites were suspected to be of extraterrestrial origin and were believed to be performing some monitoring function.  About four weeks ago, signals were emitted from three of the sites.  These signals were encoded and sent by courier to the National Security Agency where efforts were made to decipher the messages, if any, that we suspect were being sent.

"The fourth, Watch Station Three, off the California coast was partially destroyed by as yet unidentified hostile fire.  The majority of the crew apparently abandoned the station in
Benthic Ranger Two
, but we have not found any clue as to their whereabouts.  We don't know if the destruction of the station was by Russian or other forces using weapons developed by the KGB's Technical Directorate or by alien forces from the object.

"However, we're reasonably certain that the three intercepted messages were identical, leading to the conclusion that the fourth Sentinel would have sent a similar message.  The decoding of these messages was facilitated by a metallic plate discovered by Mike Liu.  Here, maybe Mike should pick up the briefing."  Tillingham nodded to Mike.

"Mr. President, the plate was left to me by a Navajo medicine man by the name of Johnny Thapaha, who apparently befriended an injured alien, who had survived the crash at the Socorro, New Mexico, location in the late forties."

Several heads jerked up on the disclosure of a surviving alien, a closely held CSAC secret until this moment.  Mike hesitated.

"Go on, Commander Liu," said the President of the United States.  "I'm aware of the fourth alien."

More heads turned toward Mike.  Several of the assorted men made notes in notebooks.  Tillingham noticed the note taking and whispered to the President, who nodded.

Quietly, the President said, "Gentlemen, I note that this news appears to be somewhat disturbing to some of you.  I'll tell you that the fact of the fourth surviving alien was considered so secret that only a few people in the United States other than the President of the United States were aware of its importance.  I trust that none of you will carry that information out of this room."

Wads of paper appeared from small notebooks and were put into the ashtray on the coffee table in front of the President.  Tillingham took out a gold cigarette lighter, flicked it on and set the wads of paper aflame.  The acrid smoke from the burning paper quickly filled the room and just as quickly dissipated.

"Now, Commander, please continue."

"Johnny Thapaha meant no harm by attempting to save the fourth alien from the crashed vehicle.  In the Navajo religion, the concept of four is very important.  There are four directions, four colors, and four seasons.  Because of this and, perhaps because this alien took four days and four nights to expire, Johnny Thapaha believed him to be an emissary from the Great Spirit.  Johnny Thapaha called him 'the traveler.'  Before the alien died, he entrusted the metallic plate to Johnny Thapaha.

"When you hold the plate at the correct angle so that the light skips across the surface, a hologram rises from the plate.  Keep in mind that Johnny Thapaha may have been the first human ever to see a real hologram, certainly one this clear and distinct.  The hologram displays the four points of the compass plus a translation of the Theban language to Greek."

"Why do you call it the 'Theban' language, Mr. Liu?" said General Ryder, who was a historian by education.

"The translation has allowed us to decipher much of the data that was rescued from the alien craft retrieved from the Socorro incident," said Mike.  "The hieroglyphics used in describing the alien's planet corresponds to the 'th' and the 'b' sounds in English.  The term 'Theban' arises from those hieroglyphics, not from any attempt to imply that there is an Egyptian connection."

"Thank you."

"Anyway, the code enabled us to interpret the messages from the Sentinels using the Cray Mark II Super Computer at the National Security Agency.  Johnny Thapaha's fascination with the plate apparently coincided with his sunrise worship ceremony."

"How's that?" said Senator Bensen.

"Johnny Thapaha apparently could get the hologram to appear by holding the plate up to the rays of the rising sun," said Mike.

"Where is the plate now?" said the President.

"I have it here," said Mike as he encoded an alphanumeric into the keypad on the aluminum briefcase.  Mike opened the case and then took out the velvet box in which sat the mysterious shiny plate that Johnny Thapaha had treasured for so many years.  As Mike opened the box, the lights of the Oval Office danced over the surface of the plate.