Warzone: Nemesis: A Novel of Mars (5 page)

“Chairman Jones, would you excuse me while I make a call? I don’t have the authority to agree to your asking price.”

The older man smiled, took his hat in hand and walked to the front office. Betty offered the chairman a cup of coffee, which he accepted. The White House switchboard put the chief through to his son.

“Hi, Dad, how’s God’s country?”

“Jesse, an alien spaceship crashed on the Navajo reservation. The Navajo Council Chairman is in my office, and wants to sell it to us. I need authorization to negotiate a price.”

“Okay, Dad, hang on.” His father waited for a few minutes.

“Chief Wallace, this is the President. Is this real, or a hoax?” He recognized the president’s voice from television.

“It’s real, sir. I’ve seen the pictures, and the chairman has never lied to me. In any case, we’ll not pay them unless our experts verify the disc is genuine.”

“Okay, but keep a lid on this and report only to me. Try to get a good deal on the disc. I need men to work for me who are loyal and discreet. When this business is concluded, I’ll have a job lined up for you here in Washington.”

“I appreciate it sir, but bestow any favor upon my son.”

“Very well, I’ll find a good job for Jesse that will last beyond my administration.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Goodbye and God bless.”

Wallace thought of walking to the front of his office and personally inviting the chairman to accompany him back, but reconsidered. Negotiating was sometimes as much posturing as anything else. His desk was his symbol of authority; he would have Jones approach the seat of his power.

“Betty, send Chairman Jones in.”

“Yes, sir.” To the chairman she said, “Chief Wallace will see you now.”

Two pots of coffee later, at noon, they stuck a deal. The white man had never negotiated with anyone who drove so hard a bargain. He tried once in the negotiation to stall some road improvement projects on the reservation, but it didn’t faze the Navajo a bit. The elder man held all of the cards, and he knew it. It was a sweet deal for them. It cost them only forty dollars so far to bury the sky travelers, and it held great value to the bilagaana government. The government would authenticate the find, transport it out, and then pay the council. The price was four backhoes, twelve GMC pickups, well-drilling equipment for each district, road improvements for the reservation, and twenty college scholarships to a United States college of their choice. A mutual agreement of secrecy was agreed to by both sides. Neither the Navajos nor the government would profit from public disclosure. Ben continued to have recurring dreams of space and aliens, but told no one.

CODE NAME DESERT JEWEL

GEN Carter F. Colson, the commanding officer of Presidential Nuclear Command Center 4 in southwestern Utah, had been summoned to see President Eisenhower. The general thought he might be given new orders concerning his facility. One of the fighter aircraft covering his facility flew him into the nation’s capital. He arrived in his dress greens and was escorted to the Oval Office.

“The president will see you now, General,” said the president’s secretary, a cute brunette with big brown eyes and a heart shaped face, pert and very polite.

“Thank you, miss.” He opened the doors to the Oval Office to find his old army buddy standing to receive him. He clasped his old friend’s arm warmly.

“General, how have you been?”

“Good, how’s Mamie?”

“Good, as always.”

“And John?”

“He’s as well as can be expected. He never liked the restrictions his military career took on once I ran for president. He’s now serving in division headquarters. It isn’t easy being a soldier when your father is the president.”

“Well, he’s still serving his country, and you both know it can’t be helped.”

“I know. How are Esther and your daughters?”

“Well, thank you. I’m a grandfather now for the fifth time.” The two old friends visited for a while, reliving their glory days as young officers, then settled down to business.

“Mr. President, you didn’t call me here for a social visit. What’s on your mind, old friend?”

The president walked over to his desk and retrieved a file marked
Classified
and handed it to him. The cover read TOP SECRET–OPERATION DESERT JEWEL. The general opened it up and looked through the material, stopping to examine the photographs of the aliens very carefully.

“I have a large disc that needs transported discreetly to your command center, and I don’t want any outside paper trail. It’s probably a spacecraft of an alien race. America cannot afford to have its public engrossed with an extraterrestrial infatuation. We have enough trouble worrying about the possibility of the Soviets developing a nuclear bomb. The object is too large to drive down the highway in a crate, and I don’t want any other military involved in its transport. It will be taken to the edge of Navajo land through the Shiprock district. You’ll need to assist the transport vehicle to cross the San Juan River west of Bluff, Utah. I want you to use a tank to tow the flatbed and crate through the desert, avoiding any contact with people if possible.

“That’s a lot of land to navigate across quietly.”

“If you need assistance closing down any roads or highways, we will assist you, though we’d prefer to do so at night. You must, of course, arrange for refueling along the way, and you’ll need aircraft from your facility to provide air security for the trip. Other than that, I don’t want this discussed or reported to anyone save me. You’ll take possession of the disc for study and possible repair. Only necessary eyes should view the disc. If you can salvage any technology of any value to help us against the Soviets, let me know. As of now, I’m decommissioning Presidential Nuclear Command Center Four. Your main function there will be to study the disc and keep it secure and secret. The new name for the center will be the Alpha One Test Center, maintained as a top-secret and high-security facility. You’ll answer and report only to me, and only through dispatched courier with sealed letters. This file must be kept under lock and key, and any correspondence is to be destroyed.”

“Understood, Mr. President.”

The two men chatted about the implications of the file&rsquos photographs and the possible trouble if the information reached the wrong hands. GEN Colson left the Oval Office with a new job and purpose.

Captain Fowler oversaw the crew of white men that took the spaceship down from the mountain. They had to cut a few trees at the crash site, put the disc on skids and pulled it with log skidding mules to a dry wash. From there, they used twelve teams of mules, six in front and six in back, to pull the disc down the wash to the base of the mountain. The mules in the back of the disc controlled the sliding in places so the disc couldn’t run over the mules pulling in front. More white men were waiting at the base of the mountain, where they had a very large trailer with large tires and high clearance. The mules pulled the disc up the ramp, where the white men constructed a large crate around it and strapped it down to the trailer. They hooked up a large tow truck to the trailer, likewise built high off the ground with huge tires. The NTP closed the roads in front of the procession and they hauled it north to the Utah border.

THE REAL SPACE RACE

AP news release—Oct. 17, 1959

Both Soviet and American scientists are investigating a meteor shower off of Alaska’s coast which covers an area from Alaska’s Seward Peninsula to Poluostrov, USSR. No details are known at this time, but the material is thought to be a man-made alloy.

PASSING THE TORCH

Washington D.C.—June 12, 1961

This was GEN Colson’s first trip to Washington since Ike had left office. He was unsure of his mission now. The disc they’d been studying for almost two years had yielded many technological secrets, but there was no material to construct a new engine core. The hull and engine core were made of an alloy of unknown composition. The alloy had an element not in their elemental charts, something they referred to as
element x
. The computers revealed a wealth of information, including the construction plans for a new engine core, but they had none of the alloy with which to build it. Ike was gone, and supposedly the test center had been a secret.

The young new president from Massachusetts had summoned him. He was picked up at the airport by presidential limousine and driven straight to the White House. Upon arrival, the president’s aide escorted him to the Oval Office. The young president greeted the older general and warmly shook his hand, motioning to the general to sit down and to his aide to close the door. After the formalities were over, the general spoke.

“Mr. President, how may I be of service to you?”

“Good, straight to the point. I like it,” he said, smiling the broad, warm smile that got him elected. “GEN Colson, recent events have unfolded that the
cold war
with the Soviets may be heating up soon. Vice-President Johnson just returned from his fact-finding tour to Vietnam. His findings were clear. If we do not intervene in Vietnam, communism will spread throughout Southeast Asia and then the nations of the earth will fall one by one, like dominoes. But, that’s not why I’ve called you here today. After I was sworn in, Ike came to my office. He handed over to me a top-secret file of an alien disc his people had recovered, but had kept secret from congress and the intelligence communities. It was code-named Desert Jewel. Ike advised me to contact you.”

The president showed GEN Colson the file marked DESERT JEWEL, proving the secret was also his. The general glanced at the file and waited for the young president to speak. The president continued. “A recent meteor shower in 1958 that fell on Alaskan and Soviet soils revealed a treasure beyond our wildest dreams. At first we didn’t pay it much attention. The material from meteor showers have always been studied by our scientists, but have never before been of any military importance—until now. Our scientists, as well as Soviet scientists, collected a few tons of meteorites and took them to study. Ike’s notes in this file indicated the composition of the disc. This appears to be the same material we’re studying from the meteor shower. It is now hoped that we may finally repair the alien spacecraft at your facility.

As you know, I’m not particularly popular with the CIA since the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Ike had already kept your program from the intelligence communities, and so have I. This was assumed to be a routine collection of rocks anyway, so neither agency should be suspicious. Since this was assumed to be a routine collection of rocks, no intelligence agency was alerted.

The reports from the scientific team confirmed that the metal was of the same composition as the disc in this report. Ike’s original report said that the disc might be reparable if they had more alloy-x. I want you to confiscate all the alloy-x being studied and shred all evidence of its existence. The only record of its existence will be yours alone. Please transport the alloy-x to the Alpha One Test Center to be stored there.

The Soviets have also salvaged alloy-x of their own. It is of the utmost importance that we act quickly, with as much secrecy as possible. Once you’ve accomplished this, I’ll give you further orders. This has to be kept secret from the American public. I don’t want to alarm them with the uncertainties of alien beings that are more advanced than we are. In our struggle with the Soviets, it is imperative that the American public believes that Americans are the most advanced race in the universe. If they believe that, we will prevail.” The young president awaited a response from the older man.