Chapter 8

Chapter Eight






"They’re here," Sandy Buerger said quietly. "Christ, she looks like a deer caught in the headlights."

"Has Glenn said anything to her yet?" asked the President.

"He’s been instructed not to," Sandy replied smartly, not taking her eyes off the couple seated outside the Oval Office. The President's chief of staff could feel her boss peering over her shoulder through the door she held slightly ajar.

"God, she’s even more beautiful than the first time I met her," said Libby Cole.

Liberty Ellen Cole was the first woman in the nation’s history to be elected to the highest office in the land. She sailed into Washington on the crest of a public retaliation against government waste and corruption. It had been a landslide, the Cole / Phelps ticket winning 41 states and an impressive 59% of the popular vote. The honeymoon lasted exactly one year. Coming off popular legislative victories to reign in the IRS, overhaul Human Services, reverse the trade imbalance and continue the endless fight against Islamic terrorism Libby Cole was riding high in the polls before the wheels began to come off.

When the UFO’s began lighting up the skies and the nightly news shows the President paid scant attention to it. The whole UFO phenomenon had ebbed and flowed for decades why should she think this cycle would be any different. The official line coming out of the White House simply parroted what ever the Pentagon said. As the frequency and the intensity of the sightings continued to grow, pressure was mounted from all sides for the President to address the issue. Still, nothing came out of the White House. All press conferences and "impromptu" media events were always prefaced with warnings forbidding the asking of UFO questions. Leaders of every nation for all intents and purposes marched in lockstep behind the President. The Internet was on fire with conspiracy theories and mad speculation of the end of the world. The networks devoted several hours a day to a variety of shows on UFO’s, including a weekly newsmagazine called S.E.T.I.’s Universe. All the major religions of the world pointed to it as evidence of the coming of judgment day. Still, the President said nothing.

They said she and her family were not in the White House when it happened, and that none of the first family saw it. Everyone in the world near a TV that day saw it, but they said the President did not. Everyone in the world would remember for as long as they lived exactly where they were the day the UFO landed on the White House lawn. It stayed there for exactly 13 minutes and then vanished. It was caught on countless home video cameras and FOX had a camera broadcasting worldwide by the seven minute mark. The President, after viewing the tapes, citing the way the image vanished so abruptly, said it was merely an elaborate illusion, a holographic magic trick and a criminal investigation was ordered. Liberty Cole’s popularity vanished that day as well. Re-election now seemed an impossible dream. Desperation was beginning to set in. She would need a miracle to turn her political fortunes around. She believed that miracle was at this very minute sitting just outside her door.

"Well, boys," the President began, "what’s the latest?"

"Well," John Carvin said hesitantly, "We still haven’t nailed it yet but we’ve got a good idea where it is."

"What’s the problem?" she asked her old friend from Alabama. "Is it there or isn’t it? Why is this thing so hard to find?" The man from Birmingham merely raised his eyebrows.

"It’s the damnedest thing, Mrs. President," Hunter McCloud said stepping in to fill the void. McCloud was the director of the NSA. He had been there long before Libby Cole arrived in Washington and would be there long after she left. "What ever it is, it defies physical detection. So far we haven’t detected any infrared silhouette, nothing. Like I said, it’s the damnedest thing."

"Well, you must have some idea," the President injected sharply. "Clearly our rivals do."

"According to the best intelligence we have no one has any better fix on this than we do." Hunter McCloud explained calmly. "All we do know, and this has been corroborated by our team on the Global Array staff, it appears to be in geosynchronous orbit some 23,000 miles up, sitting some where between Galaxy 11 and G-Star 17."

The President walked around the desk and sat down inviting the others to sit around her. "Let’s talk, shall we." She waited until all were situated. Sandy Buerger sat to her immediate left with Carvin and McCloud. Bert Mackay, the pentagon’s spokesman, was on her right with the two empty chairs reserved for their visitors. "I want your honest opinions, gentlemen. Is it ‘THEM’?" She said with her eyes tilted skyward. "Are they initiating some sort of contact?"

"I don’t know?" Bert Mackay offered first, "but, I can tell you that Glenn Stratton believes it’s them. I also can tell you unequivocally, it is not the Russians or the Chinese. We’ve intercepted several encrypted transmissions inside Russia indicating they’re scared shitless that we’ve got some super technology." 

"As for THEM initiating contact," Hunter McCloud said, "I think we can rule that out."

"Why?" asked the President.

"They’ve been here for decades, who knows, maybe even centuries for that matter. Why would they choose now to show themselves?" 

"What do you mean, now? They’ve been buzzing us relentlessly for two years."

Bert Mackay shifted in his chair and cleared his throat. "The first military reports go back to the Second World War. In fact, the activity in the southwest back then rivals what we’ve seen these last few years. Culminating, of course, in the crash near Roswell."

"That’s what started this whole mess," Libby Cole added sarcastically. "If you guys had come clean when it happened you wouldn’t have me backed into a corner today, fighting for my political life."

"You can thank Harry Truman for that," McCloud remarked coldly. "And he was absolutely right. He could have done nothing else. He was so worried about the Soviets and the communists in this country that this thing was never going to see the light of day as long as he was alive. He was one of only four presidents who ever knew the real truth about the Roswell story."

"If Harry was one, and I’m one, who were the other two?"

McCloud smiled as if recalling fond memories of presidents gone by. "They were Johnson and Reagan... LBJ was intrigued with it immediately. He understood the absolute need to keep it secret. He wanted desperately to contact them. He thought if he could strike a pact with the visitors he could crush the Soviets and the Red Chinese. Hell, it was Johnson who jump started the whole space program."

"I thought Kennedy did."

"Yeah, yeah, Kennedy made the speech, that’s what Kennedy did, " McCloud said sarcastically. "Why do you think it’s called the Johnson Space Center and why is it located in Houston and not Massachusetts? Kennedy took the ball and made it his own. Johnson was plenty pissed off about it, though he never admitted it publicly. When he took office after the assassination he pushed NASA hard. It wasn’t until after the ‘64 election did he start worrying about how was going to be perceived by the visitors. He came to the conclusion, the right one in my opinion, that they didn’t want contact with him or anybody else. Still, he knew they were watching him, judging him. He felt the need to be perceived as a good anti-Communist and a poverty fighter."

"And we got the Vietnam War and the Great Society. Both miserable failures," Libby Cole said. "What about Reagan?" She continued. "Why was he let in and not Carter or Ford?"

"The seventies killed us. The recession of the late seventies and early eighties tightened the purse strings. Glenn Stratton’s budget was slashed to the bone. He needed money badly. NASA could no longer funnel money his way like they did before. After Apollo, as you know, NASA took a political nosedive. We needed Reagan to keep us alive. He, too, was fascinated by it. The more fantastic we made it sound the more money he ‘found’ for us. He was dead serious about it. When we told him we wanted the Global Array, SDI was born. Hell, he just laughed when they began calling it Star Wars. His enemies had no idea how close that moniker was to the truth." McCloud giggled softly and shook his head. "I’m telling you, the whole time he was president we were just frozen with fear."

"What do mean?"

"Do you remember the famous Star Wars speech? God, I suppose it was back in ‘82 or ‘83, where he almost spilled the beans..." McCloud stopped and looked around. Of all the faces in the room his was the only one left from those days. "...Well, anyway, he was making his case for the SDI anti-missile defense system, pounding the podium, stirring up the rhetoric. He spoke of the need to eventually share the technology with all the nations of the Earth. Then he looked up toward the sky and referred to ‘THEM’. We couldn’t believe it. We thought it was over. Level 5 disaster plans were set into motion. The next day the liberals were so consumed with their horror over the very concept of space based weapons that the comment was very nearly overlooked. Oh, a few savvy reporters picked up on it but by then Reagan’s handlers simple countered it by saying the President was referring to nuclear missiles raining down us." McCloud wiped his hand across his brow and feigned a sigh. "Don’t get me wrong, we all loved Reagan dearly, but he scared the hell out of us."

"So, tell me Hunter... Bert, why was I let in?" She knew the Clinton's and the Bush's also knew or deeply suspected the deception of the deep state but she kept that to herself.

The two of them looked at each other, waiting for the other to start. Finally, Hunter McCloud turned and faced the President. "We had no choice, really. Believe me it would have been much easier not to divulge the secrets of the NSA to you or any of the presidents. We couldn’t live through another Ronald Reagan, too nerve racking. However, the UFO activity of the last two years sort of forced our hand."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Because of the type of person you are... You would have come looking for the answers."

"The way Clinton did?"

McCloud laughed. "Clinton was scared shitless of the NSA. He had so many skeletons in the closet that he knew if he put the pressure on us we would have had him breaking rocks in a federal penitentiary before his first term was up. No, Mrs. President, you are a different kind of person. You were someone who could be trusted, someone understood the reasons for keeping tightlipped."

The President smirked. "You know what I think? I think you guys needed a goddamn scapegoat that's what I think. All this UFO stuff and these shows on television have got you scared. How convenient for you that I take the heat. The problem for me is, you were right all along. You knew damn well that I would not blab to the American people what I know. At this point I’d come off as the worst kind of liar. But I will not watch my presidency go down in flames just to cover you jackasses. So, I guess it’s time for damage control, gentlemen. Sandy, bring in our guests..."

***

For the second time in as many weeks Julia found herself in Washington DC. For the second time it was on the invitation of the President. The event repeated itself just as Andy Gable had predicted. Within two days stories were all over the Internet about the anomaly. The major news outlets were reporting on it by the third day. The administration needed to respond and they were relying on Glenn and his friends to make a recommendation. Julia didn't know how she fit into the scenario but she knew it would somehow lead to the truth.

Everyone stood as they walked into the room. Everybody’s eyes were upon her. She recognized John Carvin and the President’s Chief of Staff, Sandy Buerger, having met both of them before. The President’s smile beamed as she walked around the desk to greet them. Her Alabama smile as genuine as southern sunshine. "Glenn, nice to see you again," she said in passing, her sparkling eyes transfixed on Julia. "And Miss Rayhied, I can’t tell you what a pleasure it is to meet you again."

"The pleasure is all mine, Mrs. President."

"Unfortunately we didn’t have much of an opportunity to talk the first time we met... Please, come in, the both of you, and have a seat." Everyone took their seats as the President stood and introduced the players. "Julia, I’m sure you know Mr. Carvin..." Julia nodded silently. She had met Carvin on the set having interviewed him several times for the show. "John and I go way back to the Alabama state house. Damn it John, you make me feel old when I think back that far. But we’re glad to have him here with us heading up NASA at this crucial time. To your left is Bert Mackay, our man at the Pentagon." Mackay nodded a simple acknowledgment. "And to your right is Mr. Hunter McCloud, the director of the NSA."

He towered over as he stood. "Pleasure to meet you, Miss Rayhied," he said extending his huge right hand to her. She politely accepted. " I love the show. Watch it every week."

She felt a sudden, overwhelming rush. She was used to the attention, in fact, had grown to accept it as normal. This, honestly, was not normal. Not everyday was one invited to sit in the Oval Office with the President of the United States and her closest advisors. Her palm felt clammy as she released Hunter McCloud’s giant hand.

"Well, Julia, Glenn, we might as well just get to the point," The President said bluntly, her voice ringing with parental overtones. "We’ve got trouble, and I think we all know what it is. To date we’ve had a three unpedicted cosmic events that no one can adequately explain. Am I right so far?" The President was treated to a chorus of nods. "Now, while not ruling out anything, we must consider that this may be the work of alien intelligence. Again, I reiterate, no one here is completely convinced of anything." She saw Glenn smiling out of the corner of her eye. "All right then, maybe one of us is. Politically, realistically, the window of opportunity to act is very short. In other words, we make a move now or we plan to hunker down... We do know this: the Russians have pulled their Buran prototype space shuttle out of mothballs. They plan to fly it!"

"They can’t do that?" Glenn said spontaneously. "I mean... I thought the Buran was a stinking tourist attraction now."

"It is," Bert Mackay answered sharply. "You’re talking about the one that actually flew. They’ve got a prototype in complete working order, but has never flown. This morning’s reconnaissance photo’s show pre-launch activity at their Omsk facility."

"How soon could they launch?" asked Glenn.

Mackay smiled. "If all goes well... A week. But we’re talking about the Russians." He held up two fingers. "Minimum."

"That’s not all," continued President Cole. "The ESA is as quiet as a church mouse today, and like the Russians, their African facility shows activity where there was none yesterday. People, our friends and allies are going up there to get a look at this thing. Not to mention the good folks from Iran, China, Israel and Japan, all with serious launch capabilities." 

"What’s the objective?" Glenn asked. "Identify it? Bring it back? Tag it for further study?’"

"Frankly, I don’t know. I do know this: whatever it is, we cannot let it fall into the hands of our enemies. Am I clear? It is imperative that we all understand this. It is my decision and no one else’s whether or not we launch the shuttle Patriot..."

The Patriot, the last of the retired shuttle fleet had been secretly turned over to the military and had been maintained for years. It was a contingency plan until the day the oft promised replacement system was ready. That day never seemed to materialize. 

"And it is my decision to launch at the earliest possible moment. John and Bert, I want you to get going on this immediately..."

"I have some questions," Julia said as John Carvin stood up to leave.

"Yes, Julia," said the President. "Go ahead."

Everyone was looking at her as if she had some great and ponderous point to make. She smiled briefly. "The Patriot? I thought the shuttle had a range of 250 to 300 miles. I understand the intended target is 23,000 miles out."

"That’s right," Carvin answered quickly. "Typically, that was the range the shuttle was designed for. In the design, however, there’s been an auxiliary fuel tank system developed that fits inside the cargo bay. It acts as an afterburner, if you will, when spent the tanks are then jettisoned to be picked up by a later mission. It’s liquid cooled with it’s own internal system that is completely independent of the shuttles power system, therefore it uses none of the shuttles resources. It feeds fuel directly into the main engines. The real beauty is the auxiliary tank design doesn't exceed the shuttles payload weight and therefore the original specs. It’s very clever, actually."

"And how has that worked?" Julia said, her eyebrows raised in anticipation.

"Well... It’s never actually been tried before... But the simulations..."

The room fell silent before Liberty Cole stood up to formally dismiss John Carvin. "Is there anything else, Julia?" she asked.

"There is one thing. Why are you telling me all this? Why am I here?"

"Yes, of course," said the President, "I suppose this is quite odd coming from your point of view. The truth is we need you. The country needs you. To be perfectly blunt, Julia, I need you."

"You need me?"

"Yes, Miss Rayhied, I need you. Now please, hear me out. I’d like to explain. By making the decision to launch I create for myself a real credibility problem. As you know we have taken a beating in the mainstream media about our stance on UFO activity. We’ve taken this stance after careful consideration. Getting pounded daily by UFO crowd is not something we enjoy. We grin and bear it because we really have no other choice. You see we don’t know what the hell is going on anymore than you do. Now, would you think us very wise if we came right out and said it? A nation, like an army, needs to believe that the generals know exactly what’s going on at all times. And like an army when the soldiers quit believing in their leaders the battle is over. The war is lost. We are the leaders of the free world; the other nations depend on us to be strong, we must continue to be dependable. Do you get my point?" Julia sat motionless letting her eyes answer the Presidents rhetorical questions. "I’d be lying if I told you I liked my chances for reelection next year. Right now, frankly, I don’t need another hit in the polls. Unfortunately, eventually, I am going to have explain to the American people why I’ve decided to launch the shuttle. I’ll be admitting this government believes in all this UFO stuff..."

"Do you?" Julia asked. At first the President said nothing. Julia shot a glance at Glenn as if asking him if she’d said something wrong.

"Honestly, I just don’t know what I believe. Yes, I’ve seen the videos, Yes, I’ve watched your show and the others. The truth is I have yet to see any real evidence, real physical evidence. Videos can be faked. I need something I can hold in my hand."

Something did not smell right, thought Julia. Either the President was a liar or she was being kept in the dark as well. Her hand slipped into to her jacket pocket and wrapped around a shiny little object given to her by Jerry Baines. Was it possible that they shielded the President from the whole truth as well?

"I think what the President is saying," Sandy Buerger interjected, "is that we, as an administration, have to be careful about what face we put on this very tricky situation. And we hope to be able to count on your support."

"By all means," Julia responded. "I’d consider it an honor to help, ma’am. After all, I did vote for you..." She looked and smiled at Glenn. "All our friends did."

"Well, I appreciate that. And I must concur with what Sandy just said; we really must be careful as to what face we put on this... And that brings me to the point of your being here today. We’d like to put your face on it, Julia."

"What does that mean?"

"We’d like to nominate you for an ambassadorship."

"Ambassador? Ambassador to what? To where?"

"To space, the final frontier, Ambassador to the Universe... I don’t know. Come up with your own title if you’d like."

"Why me?" said the stunned twenty-six year old. "Why not someone with some diplomatic experience? I'm mean... I'm just a TV host, right?"

"Experience with what? Aliens?" quipped Sandy Buerger. "The truth is, Julia you’re absolutely perfect for the job. You are the star of the most popular TV show in America. A show that is seen by hundreds of millions world wide, a show who’s premise is to search out this very phenomena, a show that has not attacked this administration or the President with baseless innuendo like the rest of the media."

Julia smiled at her boss once again. "We’ve always tried to keep politics out of it." 

"That’s probably why the show is so popular," laughed the President. "Listen, I want you to think about it, mull it over. It’ll be your decision and we’ll accept whatever you tell us. Just remember this my friend; the country needs you. The opportunity to serve your country in a profound way awaits this decision."

For a split second she felt wholly manipulated. The President of the United States of America seemed poised on the verge of begging. The whole thing seemed a staged act to wow and dazzle her using the ambient power of the Oval Office in the west wing of the White House to weaken her knees. Her head was spinning. Then she thought of her duty, not to her country, not to her President, but her duty to find the truth. Her duty to expose the murderers of Jerry Baines’ family. She looked at Glenn. He smiled a phony sympathetic smile and she knew he had been in on this from the start. She thought back to something Jerry Baines had eluded to: if Glenn Stratton wants it, then it points like a compass needle to the truth. Her decision was made.

"I have one question." Julia said, her voice raised in suspicion.

"Go ahead, ask anything," said the President glibly, sensing victory.

"Is this whole thing a cheap campaign ploy, a crass PR move? Or is it a serious effort to find the truth? Because I will not trivialize myself for a few votes."

"And I would never ask you to do that."

"I think what she’s asking," interrupted Glenn, "...are you using this as window dressing or do you intend to fully honor this position that you would bestow upon her?"

"Oh, honey, I’m sorry if I’ve given you that impression. Believe me, I have never been more serious in my life."

"I accept that, thank you." Julia said with a sigh. "Now, if I were to take this position what would my duties be? Would we have an embassy?" she shrugged her shoulders. "Has any of this been thought out?"

Her questions were met with stony silence. She scanned the faces in the room waiting for a response. Finally Glenn leaned forward in his chair and looked directly in her eyes. "We want you to go up there." She followed his eyes as he raised them skyward. "In the shuttle."

"What?" she said breathlessly. She smiled broadly hoping to elicit the laughter that would surely accompany such a grand farce. It did not happen. "You’re joking, right?"

"Actually," said the President, "we couldn’t be more serious. I know it sounds a bit crazy..."

"A bit crazy! It’s not ‘a bit’ anything. It’s totally insane. I’m no astronaut... Hell, I’m no diplomat, and now you want me to be both!"

"Want is the wrong word. We need you to be both." The president stood up and motioned her chief of staff to stand also. "Sandy... Gentlemen, could you excuse us? I would like to talk to Miss Rayhied alone for a minute." Sandy Buerger frowned at the President but obediently led the men out of the room.

When they were finally alone in the Oval Office the President motioned Julia to sit on the couch. "Bear with me a second," she said as she activated the drapes to come down over each of the windows. She then walked to the desk and pulled out the top drawer. Music suddenly filled the room. It was turned up loud. The President said nothing until she was sitting next to Julia on the couch. She leaned forward and with her body language invited Julia to do the same. "I don’t want anybody listening to us, if you know what I mean."

It became all too clear to Julia. Not even the President was safe from the reach of the insiders. She suddenly understood who really ran the place. A president was merely the White House caretaker in modern America. 

"I wanted to talk to you alone because there are things they won’t tell you that you deserve to know."

"I appreciate that," Julia replied, her curiosity rising proportional to her suspicions.

"First, I want you to know that everything that was said in this room was absolutely true. If there is an alien presence in the world they have made no overtures to this or any other government that we know of. However, the powers that be know more than they’re telling you or me. They dish out just enough to satisfy my curiosity for the moment. The one thing I do know for certain is that they take this UFO stuff very seriously. They’ve spent a lot of money and told a lot of lies suppressing the truth. They've been spreading rumors for decades to mask reality. They’d have you believe that the President and her family didn’t see the UFO that landed on the White House lawn. Well, the truth is I did see it. So did John and little Marty. Hell, the dog saw it too. Only they told us we couldn’t tell any one we saw it. It would cause too much panic and public consternation they said. That’s the kind of lies they like to tell. Tell me, do you know what the Global Array is for?"

"I thought I did," Julia admitted, "but I have a feeling you’re going to tell me something different."

"Indeed. It started out as a key part of the SDI anti-missile defense system."

"But it wasn’t solely for tracking nuclear missiles was it?"

"No, but the cold war justified it’s existence quite nicely. When the cold war ended and SDI failed to materialize the way Reagan had proposed it something had to be done to save the array from being buried with ‘Star Wars’ on the scrap heap of history. Under the first George Bush it was quietly repackaged as a scientific tool to benefit all of mankind and construction never lost a beat."

"Until Clinton."

"That’s right. After Bush was defeated and the Republicans were out of Washington it was all the media could do to keep from falling over themselves to aid the new administration in pillaging anything that had Ronald Reagan’s mark on it."

"The Global Array?"

"Oh yeah, they publicly yanked the funding because he knew it was tied to the SDI system and his cronies convinced him it would be an excellent political PR move with the Washington press. And it was. The Washington press always hated what Reagan stood for, but they were powerless to defy him while he was president. But the Global Array did not die then. It has been propped up by plenty of black budget money and private donations from certain concern citizens"

"I'm well aware of the secret annals of the project. You cannot work for Glenn Stratton and not know the history of the Global Array and it’s potential impact on scientific knowledge. And, of course, his undying gratitude for President Reagan."

The President laughed, "the man has a portrait of our fortieth president hanging above the mantle in his house, for God’s sake!" They both laughed for a time but the laughter faded quickly with the return of Julia’s expressionless face. "What is it, honey?" Libby Cole asked.

"Answer me this," Julia said softly. "Why me? Really? What do I have to do with all this?"

"You are the only one," the President said directly. "The only one that makes any sense."

She couldn’t believe her ears. First, Jerry Baines put his thumb on her and now. How did she find herself in this mess? Yet, strangely, it all seemed so right, as if this scenario was always predestined to be. Somehow, her every experience up to this day were merely preparations for some ultimate purpose. Something led her to be in this place. Perhaps the same force that now charted her dreams at night. Dreams of a jungle paradise. Dreams of an emerald sky and a soft breeze. Dreams of a man and a boy she did not know and yet somehow knowing that they deeply loved her and she them. She noticed her hand had slipped into her jacket pocket again and was holding tightly a piece of her destiny.


***

Long shafts of sunlight pierced the darkness of her room. No matter, she thought, sleep had long since eluded her. She lay awake most of the night learning to accept the fact that her life as she knew it was over. The naive, innocent girl that stumbled onto the set of a cheesy cable show almost three years ago did not exist anymore. Instead, she found herself friendless in the proverbial mean city.

In fifteen minutes Glenn would be calling from his room. At this moment the good scientist was online with the Mountain View facility waiting faithfully for the fourth event. It would happen, she assured herself, just as Andy predicted. And it would happen again tomorrow morning and again the day after that. Like a beacon it would guide the mighty Patriot as it roared off the Florida launch pad. Julia Rayhied would be there, strapped in and riding on the breath of hell, hurling into the frozen silence of space.

She reached over to the nightstand for the TV remote. She clicked the power button and the set flashed to life filling the room with an iridescent glow. She mindlessly began clicking through the channels. One by one the channels flew by condensing into a single disjointed image. Wait! What was that? She quickly backtracked to the all news channel. There on the screen she saw herself. The footage was grainy but it was unmistakable. It was Glenn and herself walking into the White House. She turned up the volume to hear the reporter's voice over...

"DCTV has learned that television's Julia Rayhied was invited to a high level meeting with the President and her closest advisors. No one is commenting on what the purpose of such a meeting was, but there is speculation that it involves the strange occurrences in Earth’s orbit we have heard about from the alternative news sources..." Alternative news sources was the mainstream media’s code word for the UFO news shows. S.E.T.I.’s Universe was often the target of scorn by the traditional networks and digital newspaper conglomerates. "That’s not all we are hearing here in the nation’s capitol this morning. Sources are telling DCTV that reconnaissance photos over Russia reveal that the Russians are preparing an unscheduled launch of their version of the space shuttle. Still different sources tell us that the European Space Agency has also stepped up activity at their African launch facility where no launch was scheduled for at least eight weeks..."

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. It was as if this reporter had been sitting right next to her in that meeting. The dialogue was nearly word for word. Something was stinking to high heaven. Who was the leaker? Hunter McCloud? Perhaps Bert Mackay was the informant, or maybe John Carvin himself. What if it was the President? Perhaps she was applying some pressure of her own. Julia had sensed that the President had been forced to comply, to remain silent against her will and better judgment.

"... There has been no comment from NASA or the Air Force whether the US will launch a mission to investigate this UFO, if you will." On the screen flashed a clip of John Carvin leaving the White House surrounded by dozens of reporters. Countless microphones were shoved in his face. "... Mr. Carvin," yelled a reporter, "is it true NASA’s going to launch the old shuttle Patriot to destroy the UFO?" __ "No comment," he declared in a calm manner. "President Cole will answer all your questions at her news conference later this morning..." __ "But, Mr. Carvin..." __ "That’s really all I have to say...."

The phone on the nightstand began to ring. She snatched it up before it could ring a second time. "Hello."

"Turn on Channel 13," Glenn said on the other end of the line.

"I’ve got it on."

"Can you believe this shit? Listen, I’ll be right over... Are you decent?" 

"Yes, I’ve been up for hours. Come on over."

She waited at the door, looking out the peephole until she saw his shadow on the hallway floor she opened the door. He thrust the Washington Post in her face. It read:

UNIDENTIFIED OBJECT ORBITS THE EARTH President to launch the shuttle Patriot to investigate

"How did this happen?" Julia asked in mock astonishment. "They didn’t waste any time after we left, did they?" She moved from the doorway inviting Glenn in with a wave of her arm.

"I would have warned you about it had I known," Glenn offered. She looked him in the eyes as if to say ‘really now’ . "You know I would have!" 

"I believe you, Glenn. It’s those bastards..." she pointed at the TV set.

"...The President and her gang. Damn it, Glenn, she set me up, didn’t she? Sucked me in with her sweet southern charm. I couldn’t say no even if I wanted to."

"But you don’t want to say no, do you?"

She blushed slightly and looked away. It was as if her father had caught her in a lie. "If I go it’s because I have a duty to uncover the truth once and for all. I told the President last night that I will not cheapen myself for a few lousy votes. It stinks what’s she’s doing. If I’m angry it’s because I walked right into it. I realize Liberty Cole will do what’s she’s got to do to win an election next year, and I... I’m here to find the truth." 

She realized how corny it sounded as soon as the words left her mouth. Like a cheesy movie heroine she positioned herself above reproach.

"It’s as simple as that, isn’t it..." Glenn offered with a wry smile. If he thought the same he wasn't about to say it.

The phone rang behind him. "Let me get that," he insisted. He picked up the phone and said nothing. He handed over the phone to Julia. "It’s the White House." Julia reluctantly took the phone from him and slowly raised it to her ear. Ten seconds later, without having uttered a word, she handed the phone back to Glenn. "Well," he said with wide-eyed anticipation, "what did she say?"

"She said she was glad to have me aboard and I’d better get my tail to Florida. They’re sending a car by now. We’ll be boarding Air Force One within the hour."