“Like what?”
“Don’t worry about that now. Take a few days to mull over continuing your education. If it sits well with you, I’ll tell you more.” The professor was still waiting to hear from Special Agent Kendricks on the specifics of their deal, and that determined the extent he would include Blake in his work for Operation Patriot.
CHAPTER 14
To fully understand the government’s darkest secrets, Operation Patriot needed unadulterated reports about the happenings at Area 51. But spying on the Central Intelligence Agency and Air Force at their most guarded facility proved challenging, and Special Agent Grason Kendricks devoted six months to researching, following leads and considering various contingencies before developing a game plan: sneak a man in through their back door.
Grason needed a field operative in exceptional physical condition who could withstand harrowing walkabout journeys across the desert. The candidate also needed to be self-sufficient — a survivalist — capable of spending weeks on his own, outdoors, with minimal amounts of food, water and shelter. And most importantly, Grason needed someone he could trust, a loyal confidant from within the FBI. From inception, Grason had a particular agent in mind. Val Vaden was a third-generation agent whose father worked on cases with Grason in years past, and Grason had known Val since he was as a boy.
In addition to the personal connection, Val’s age — twenty-seven — meant he didn’t have the rigid mindset of a veteran agent. Grason viewed the vigor of youth as an asset when investigating the gray area of legal interpretation with which Operation Patriot dealt. Val would have fewer biases than a veteran, and a strong desire to prove his commitment to the FBI’s motto: Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity.
Due to the advanced security protecting Area 51, Grason knew Val could not simply sneak onto the base. A tout ensemble of high-tech surveillance, counter-surveillance and life support equipment called the Bio Suit allowed Val to sneak through Grason’s idea of a back door.
Like many technological advances in recent decades, the Bio Suit originated in the space program, replicating principles of the Extravehicular Mobility Unit worn by astronauts on space walks. The military began developing land-based units after the Gulf War to reduce challenges soldiers faced while fighting in the heat.
Properly using the Bio Suit and living for days at a time in the remote desert required training. Grason had selected a practice site where they could test Val’s equipment and develop effective methods for his mission.
Two hours east of Los Angeles, and thirty minutes outside Palm Springs, on an expansive elevated plateau, was a region known as the high desert. Prevalent across the plateau was the Joshua Tree, a cactus species that thrived in the higher desert elevations, often growing upwards of ten feet. In some areas, the succulents dotted the reddish brown sand in a motionless landscape, like skinny leafless trees in a windless forest. A forty square-mile region of the high desert was named Joshua Tree National Park. This remote camping area typified the altitude and terrain of Area 51. Grason and Val spent weeks testing the Bio Suit in the southeast section of the park, which was accessed via a four-wheel-drive trail. It was here they traveled again, this time with a more thorough understanding of the surveillance equipment in use around Papoose Dry Lake because Val had seen it during his first excursion.
Through a contact at the Pentagon, the congressman had arranged for the Drug Enforcement Agency to field test two suits in San Diego County’s remote border regions. One suit found its way to the DEA office in San Diego. But the second went to Grason, at which point he had some modifications made. Currently, the various components of the second Bio Suit were stowed in the back of a truck Val was driving. After this latest bout of testing, Val would again put the Bio Suit to use in Southern Nevada, investigating the establishment that had created it.
CHAPTER 15
Faith in America’s two-party political system had faded from the congressman’s mind long before he bought his way into the Republican Party. He felt that somewhere between republican and democratic ideology existed the American people, and their true needs suffered while politicians bickered over party lines. And the bickering served as a distraction, keeping the politicians and mainstream America from giving necessary attention to other facets of the government.
The congressman knew the federal government held too many secrets. A subculture existed — a subculture of control and power, hidden behind classified designations. He didn’t aim to destroy or expose every classified program, only observe them. Make the leaders accountable for their actions. The same way his constituents were accountable for their taxes. Taxes that paid for the classified programs.
While working in naval intelligence, the congressman realized the murky depths that the vast sea of classified information reached. Who controlled it was another story. Officials compartmentalized information. He rarely knew the bearing his work had on anything, why he was doing it or who called the shots. The anonymous individuals in charge were labeled by some as The Secret Government because of their ability to operate outside the normal parameters set by the federal government’s system of checks and balances.
Over the years the congressman tried paying close attention to these elusive forces, spending many nights studying the laws and various presidential orders passed to govern the intelligence community. He discovered how this unique polity was assigned new tasks and given greater responsibilities out-of-view from the public eye.
Illuminati. The Bilderbergers. Secret Government. MJ-12. The congressman stumbled across a variety of names and speculative scenarios used to describe the secrecy pipeline, but labels were not a concern. He wanted to unlock the doors closed by these omnipotent individuals and assure his constituents, and himself, the government’s secrets were being kept with the best interests of the people in mind.
Joining the House Oversight Committee — a group of nine congressional representatives — was the congressman’s first step in implementing his agenda. It was through this committee he transformed Operation Patriot from an idea to a congressionally sanctioned cloak-and-dagger task force. Rather than attempting to join the prestigious House Select Committee on Intelligence or the Appropriations Committee — both known for their black budget involvement and typically reserved for those with tenure — he wanted to investigate these committees, their actions and the money they approved.
The congressman formed what he called “an elite group of patriots,” whose priority was to ensure the power and security of the United States remained in the hands of the people as the Constitution guaranteed. He cast doubt over the National Security Council and other oversight committees, and showed how Operation Patriot would take the watchdog process a step further by conducting undercover operations. Only then could the congressman be satisfied that the label TOP SECRET FOR REASONS OF NATIONAL SECURITY was not being misused.
Operation Patriot also had a secondary objective — an objective too outlandish to be approved by politicians whose opinions on the subject were manipulated by Air Force press releases and chuckling news anchors. The congressman and Grason Kendricks selectively spoke about the secondary objective: uncover current intelligence opinion on extraterrestrial life, and determine if there was any truth behind stories the government possessed information proving the existence of an alien race. They used knowledge from their experiences in Naval Intelligence and Project Blue Book to theorize the investigation did not lack merit …