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
“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.