“Good God. Are you all that paranoid down here?” he asked.
“Good question. Ask me the same thing when we get ready to leave,” Devin replied.
The second door opened and as soon as he stepped into the room his mouth opened in shock for the second time. There was a large glass cubical inside the room and he could clearly see a strange chair with tubes and wires going into it. Sitting in the chair was an unrecognizable form.
“Is that…?” the President tried to ask.
“Yes sir. It is exactly what you think it is,” the general said.
“If you would put this over your clothes” the general said, handing him a white full length gown.
He then gave him a mask with filtering canisters to put on.
“Now Mr. President, when we go inside this room, it will cause you to feel a little light headed. The atmosphere has been altered slightly but you will be able to breath with the mask and it will not cause any health risk. Devin opened the door. The room was bright and everything was brilliant white.
“Oh my God,” he said, looking at the creature sitting in a chair that was reclined.
“That’s…that’s…real?” he finally asked.
“Yes sir. This is J. We originally called him J — Rod but now we just call him J.”
“Is it alive?”
“Very much. Not nearly as healthy as he was sixty years ago but he is still doing well. The atmosphere is a big help. His cells have started to degenerate and we have been trying to figure out how to keep him alive. We have a team working on that full time,” Devin told him.
“How old is he?
“Right at 250 years old now, by our time.”
The President couldn’t even think of something to say. He was dumbstruck. 250 years old. This was just too unreal. The creature called J, never moved while they were in the room and the President asked why.
“When he sleeps, it is different from you and me. He goes into a deeper state than we can accomplish. This is also when he gets his nourishment.”
“Unbelievable,” he said, shaking his head. “So he is asleep now. Can he hear us?”
“We don’t know for sure but it appears that when he is in this state, he does not know that we are present in the room,” the general replied.
“Goodness,” was all the President could say after they left the room.
A few minutes later Devin took the President to Level 3. Once again he was amazed at what he saw.
“Yes sir,” Devin said, “Those are more of the frozen bodies from the various crash sites. We have performed autopsies on several of them and are doing various other research.”
“Beings from another world. This is almost more than a person can fathom,” the President muttered.
“I understand sir. It is a little mind boggling when you encounter it for the first time. If it makes you feel any better, I understand that Eisenhower was feeling just the same as you. It is beyond the comprehension of almost anyone that does not work with this on a daily basis. It took me a little while to accept this as well,” Devin said.
He continued to show the President some of the experiments they were working on.
“What is below this Level?” the President asked.
“Staff quarters, a recreation facility, cafeterias, maintenance rooms, labs and that sort of support stuff. Would you like to visit each one?”
“I would, but I just don’t have the time. I need to get back before anyone knows I’m gone,” President Sampson said, looking at this watch.
“I understand sir. It really is something isn’t it?”
“More than that. Much more,” the President replied.
The general took him back to the Main level.
“General Devin, I’m sorry I seemed miffed when I told you to get to the White House. This is the most important secret since…hell I don’t even know what this would compare to. Maybe nothing in our world. The point I am making is that you will not have to be bothered with anyone else snooping around. You will report directly to me as you have to past Presidents. If anyone gives you problems, direct them to me.”
“Thank you sir. I’ll take that as a vote of confidence,” Devin said.
“You can indeed. Now, I have to get back. Thank you for the tour and I will want to talk to you again about this when you have the time,” the President said.
“Sir, my time is your time. Just let me know where and when,” Devin said, saluting the Commander-in-Chief as he stepped into the Blackhawk.
Devin waited until the chopper was well out of the area before he allowed himself a pat on the back. Presidents. They never know what is really going on. They want to feel and act like they are in charge but it was all just an illusion. The real power lay far below ground on Level 10. It wasn’t a country that was or would be the mightiest, it was his own BlackStar.
On the ride back to Colorado Springs, the President replayed over and over what he had just seen. It was almost too much to comprehend. He had just seen spacecraft, aliens and technology out of the realm of our own science. Would this change the way he dealt with problems that would crop up? Knowing that at some point we would have the potential to go to distant planets.
Now he knew without a doubt that other civilizations exist. Not only do they exist but they know we exist and have been visiting us for years. What was it that Devin said? The first pictorial representations of UFO were found in caves in southern France and are believed to be from 30,000 B.C.? Have they been coming here to check up on us? To see how we are progressing as a society? Maybe the 1938 War of the Worlds radio broadcast by Orson Wells wasn’t such a fabrication after all.
He drifted off to a fitful sleep, seeing the alien creature ‘J’ coming toward him as he lay naked on a table. This time J was in control and was going to probe him. He awoke with a startled reaction when one of the Secret Service men touched his shoulder.
“Sorry sir. We’re here,” he said.
The President shook his head for a second, “Good. Good. Now if we can only get back unnoticed,” the President said looking at this watch. It was only 4:45 a.m. He should be able to get back without detection.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“This looks good,” the commanding officer said, handing the folder back to Miller.
“Thank you. If we have a leak, I think this is where we will find it.”
“I hope you’re right. I have decided to make you Number One on this mission,”
“What about the others?”
“That’s my decision. It was your plan, you laid it out and you should lead the team.”
“Thank you,” Miller replied.
He hadn’t seen this one coming.
“Everything is arranged. You jump off at 0200. Pick the others besides yourself and Number Two and get them ready.”
He started to salute but caught himself. Old habits die hard. He had a lot of preparations to take care of with the jump off point being only a few hours away. When he got back to the barracks he put all of the team numbers in a helmet and drew out the ones that would be going with him. He informed them of the mission and immediately set up a briefing.
“So, if I got this straight, when we get to Aqa Seyyed Sharif, the four of us become the bait. Two will stay with the chopper pilots to make sure they stay honest. Our mission is to infiltrate the compound, even though we know for a fact that no Americans are inside and see if we get our asses shot off.”
“In a nutshell, that is correct. Number two and I will be covering you every step of the way. We will have M249 SAW machine guns to cover you when you enter the compound.”
Miller pointed to the aerial photographs of the site, “We will be here and here. As you can see, we will be able to cover your approach to the outdoor holding pin as well. If it is a trap, and I am ninety-five percent sure it is, they will come at you from here and here,” he said tapping the picture. We will both have unobstructed kill zones so when they pop out we can take them down.