“It’s bittersweet. There were some security problems. Val wasn’t close enough to analyze the craft in detail.”
“Security problems? Didn’t the Bio Suit work?”
“The suit worked, but it’s untested. The security in Papoose was greater than Val had anticipated. He had to move slowly, test the suit and learn the land as he went. To make matters worse, a trespasser was in the area jeopardizing his position. Val tripped a motion sensor, which led to her capture, but in the commotion he was unable to film the craft.”
“Her? Who was the trespasser?” the congressman asked.
“There’s no trace of an apprehension. He has some photos, but not detailed. She’s Asian, maybe Chinese. Maybe a spy. Don’t know.”
“If they can keep an entire base secret, hiding the apprehension of a trespasser is nothing,” the congressman said. “I don’t imagine she’s the first person caught out there. For now we shouldn’t be concerned unless it’s our man.” He had hoped just one undercover mission would be necessary. Even with the sophisticated life support and surveillance equipment they provided for their agent, forcing a man to trek around the Nevada desert for two weeks at a time was perilous. “You’ve got to send him back,” he continued. “Especially now that we know there’s something to film.”
“I know. We’re going to Joshua Tree this Friday to run more tests on the equipment. I want him to rest another week after that before returning.”
“You ever hear of gravity anomalies?” the congressman asked.
“No.”
“They’re changes in density below the surface that affect the gravitational pull above ground. Oil companies measure them to find new drilling sites.”
Grason understood the congressman’s angle. “Sounds like they could pinpoint an underground base.”
“That’s what I’m thinking. There are a variety of ways to measure. Our best option is through one of several European companies that run satellite observation programs; check it out.”
“I was thinking the other day,” Grason said, “an outsider might not view Operation Patriot any differently than the other black programs.”
“Are you having second thoughts about our intentions?”
“No, but they may be ambiguous in certain circles.”
“That’s why I use my own money. I’m not in bed with any outside interests. But that’s enough talk about getting caught. Let’s get what we need and move on before they know who we are.”
“I’m working at it,” Grason told him.
“Do you need me to do anything?”
“Try doing nothing for a while — let me handle things.” Grason admired his friend’s passion and his ability to muster the same passion in others, but he feared the ramifications if those passions were not contained. The people they investigated had remained invisible for decades. How they handled probing outsiders was unknown, and he didn’t care to find out.
“I read the other day about another Mars probe,” the congressman said. “We had the means to send probes twenty years ago. I’ve got a suspicion that whatever is hidden below the desert will show that our space program didn’t stop with the shuttle.”
CHAPTER 12
Damien Owens lived a reclusive life as an elite intelligence agent. He preferred thinking to talking, so the fact he had no friends outside work was not a problem, but a preference. His psychological traits helped qualify him for his unique position in the intelligence community.
In 1966, Owens became a member of the Navy’s Seal Team One based in Coronado, California, where he underwent extensive training that prepared him for the war in Vietnam. Dehumanization of the enemy was a technique instilled in the soldiers, and it taught Owens to think less of a person by not concerning himself with feelings.
Owens’ first kill came one week after stepping off the rear ramp of a C-130 Hercules transport plane into the Rung Sat Special Zone. A Viet Cong courier paddling his sampan through a swampy region, forty miles southeast of Saigon, never knew what hit him. From the dense mangrove saplings and vines at the water’s edge, Owens ambushed him with automatic gunfire. Four days later, he dropped grenades into a narrow tunnel entrance after seeing two Viet Cong soldiers enter. The tunnel led to a small underground cavern where his unit searched for intelligence documents. Besides the soldiers, they discovered two young women in the demolished remains, “casualties of war,” Owens told his troops without remorse.
Shadow killings left Owens with no stories of chivalry to brag about, but his low-key approach achieved the desired results and kept him alive. His technique and mental tolerance for situations that could drive many men to insanity made him stand out.
After a successful first tour of duty, Owens was placed on TAD (Temporary Additional Duty) and the Navy loaned his services to the Phoenix Program, a clandestine CIA operation intended to undermine the political forces controlling the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong by conducting search and destroy missions behind enemy lines. Political constraints ultimately limited the Phoenix Program’s actions, and Owens learned first hand that involving politics in military operations inhibited the results.
Owens never returned to the Navy after the Phoenix Program. The Central Intelligence Agency wanted him, and had the power to make such a move happen. Anonymity, power and clandestine operations — he couldn’t have imagined a better job.
The CIA first assigned him to Information Management. Boring, he thought, but soon learned, in the black world, names were deceiving. Summer of 1968, Owens returned to Vietnam disguised as a NILO (Naval Intelligence Liaison Officer) stationed at the Binh Thuy Air Base. The CIA wanted him to investigate reports made by American troops throughout Vietnam of unidentifiable lights in the sky. He anticipated spending most of his time looking for more work to do. However, reports of strange flying lights began pouring in nightly from demilitarized zone outposts along the Ben Hai River. Soldiers in remote radar outposts first reported the sightings, but additional incidents and subsequent rumors and paranoia started spreading across the region.
The situation reminded Owens of World War II stories he had studied about Foo Fighters: mysterious balls of red and green light that American pilots sometimes claimed had chased them. Since the Foo Fighters never attacked, the assumption was made that they were some type of enemy reconnaissance drone. After the war, military intelligence learned Japanese and German pilots had reported the same sightings and attributed them to advanced technology used by American and allied forces. The phenomenon was never officially explained.
Owens knew from the Foo Fighter reports that offering an explanation, any explanation, helped the troops deal with the situation. He reported that communist helicopters were shining the strange lights as a scare tactic. Although the North Vietnamese Army didn’t possess helicopters, the propaganda offered the troops a logical explanation and led them to believe they could conquer the strange lights in hostile situations.
Owens’ ability to control a situation — and people — using perceptive manipulation scored more points for him with his superiors. He had proven his physical and psychological abilities in the jungle, and now had exposed his intuitive mental aptitude.
For fourteen months after Vietnam, he worked various assignments with the CIA. Unbeknownst to Owens, each was a further test of his abilities. In 1970, Owens met the family he never had: the team members of Aquarius.
Aquarius existed under the auspices of the CIA, but the organization was its own entity, and operated as such. Unlike other branches in the intelligence community, Aquarius was not regulated by typical bureaucratic checks and balances; an elite committee of twelve individuals had been overseeing the organization since its inception in the fifties.