“Affirmative.”
“She didn’t even try getting back to her car, did she?”
“No — I ducked down to surprise her if she did.”
“Don’t worry about it. She’s a crafty lamia, had her escape planned.”
“Lamia?”
“A female monster.” He returned to the restaurant to gather his articles and settle the tab. He wasn’t a cop, nor was he calling them to chase the woman and cause a scene that would only raise questions and outside interests. Instead, he reviewed the situation. Normally, he wouldn’t have confronted the woman without more backup. But her conversation with Skyles had entered what he called the majic zone — sensitive information he spared no expense in protecting. Although Janice had escaped, the information Skyles possessed had not. Owens knew with time and patience, his power and resources could not be beat. He would catch China’s lamia.
CHAPTER 2
SECRECY OR DECEPTION IN THE NEVADA DESERT?
The federal government contends its secrets are for national security reasons. At what point does secrecy threaten the nation’s security?
By William Moreau
Part I of III: GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY
No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law; and a regular statement and account of the receipts and expenditures of all public money shall be published from time to time. (United States Constitution, Article 1, Section 9.)
NEVADA, June 1994 — Government accountability, a constitutional requirement that informs and empowers the common citizen through public oversight, has steadily diminished since the beginning of the Cold War. Powers-that-be contend the secrecy is in the country’s best interest. However, a growing number of citizens believe secrecy has evolved into a subculture within the government, hiding an economic structure providing power, profits and technological superiority to those involved. Groom Lake, in the Southern Nevada desert, is a blatant example of the government’s expanding covert activities.
US Geological Survey maps show a dry lake in Groom Valley. Twenty miles east of the remote location lies the nearest paved road, an infrequently traveled two-lane highway traversing one of America’s loneliest regions.
Department of Energy maps of the adjacent Nevada Test Site once designated Groom Lake as part of a land quadrant called Area 51. Newer maps no longer identify the area.
Officials at Nellis Air Force Base acknowledge that Groom Lake is part of the Nellis Range Complex, but insist the land is a bombing range. Airspace above the valley is restricted — an extraordinary security measure for a bombing range.
No public accounting exists of appropriations for government activity at Groom Lake, although a secret airbase — a cooperative effort between the CIA and military agencies — has been in operation there since 1955. For over thirty years a select few knew about the base, often referring to the facility by one of many codenames: Dreamland, The Box, Watertown Strip. An official name never christened the site.
The base tested and developed advanced reconnaissance aircraft, from the U2 Spyplane in the fifties to the F-117 Stealth Fighter in the eighties. The current generation of test craft blew the lid off the base’s secrecy when eyewitnesses in Lincoln County Nevada reported seeing UFOs: illuminated orange colored orbs darting soundlessly across the sky. Government officials ignored the UFO reports and refused to acknowledge the existence of an airbase on the bombing range. Their denial of knowledge furthered speculation as curiosity seekers flocked to the area. UFO enthusiasts and aviation buffs invaded nearby public lands, but instead of seeing UFOs, most experienced a close encounter of the intimidating kind: guards wielding automatic weapons and thundering Black Hawk helicopters. A few brazen individuals challenged the forces and demanded to know what their government was doing at Groom Lake, and their search efforts produced a vantage point on public land that offered a view of the government’s airbase-that-did-not-exist. Some travelers to the remote location ignored signs posting federal law 18 USC 795, prohibiting photography of military installations without permission. The photos served as undeniable proof that Groom Lake was more than a bombing range, and that government factions can covertly operate outside the oversight process.
CHAPTER 3
From atop a cluster of boulders on a hillside in the high desert region of Southern Nevada, a diamondback rattlesnake woke from an afternoon of sun basking. With its blood warmed, the predator ventured off its perch, zigzagging from one rock to another like they were steps until it reached solid ground and slithered into a small crevice, passing undetected past a napping Janice Yang. Curled inside a tight hollow formed by leaning boulders and desert chaparral, Janice would await nightfall, hoping the intelligence agents from the Las Vegas bar would not think to look for her at Area 51.
Years of patient planning during the Cold War had positioned China to become a dominant superpower in the new millennium. In Cold War times, the United States intelligence community focused its efforts on the Warsaw Pact nations, leaving countries like China, with no immediate military threat against the US, room to conduct offensive espionage practices. In time China realized their efforts to acquire information from the nuclear and traditional defense industries were not enough to keep pace with the United States. The Chinese needed to expand by acquiring technology from America’s black programs: stealth engineering, the Aurora, and truths behind prevailing stories circulating in the UFO community that Area 51 was home to secret underground facilities where the Americans studied extraterrestrial technology.
Janice originally planned to extract information from Ben Skyles and other base employees, but she underestimated the control America had over its black programs. Her best hope now was to take detailed photos of the base, and if she got lucky, the technology being tested in the skies. Anything less and her mission might be deemed a failure. She had the wherewithal to assimilate into the American culture and leave China behind, but the Chen Di Yu might punish, or kill, members of her family if she disappeared. So she ventured through the desert, not for herself, but her loved ones.
After the sun dipped below the mountains and its orange hues disappeared from the western horizon, Janice woke and crept out of her hiding place. She looked down at Groom Lake and its seven-mile long runway where red landing lights defined the perimeter. At the far end of the dry lake, a small city of lights comprised the air base. Rumors about the happenings at Area 51 ranged from suggesting it was a simple facility used for fighter jet training, to tall tales that the base served as a command post for a secret relationship between the American government and a race of alien creatures. Although seemingly illogical, she couldn’t help but mull over the extraterrestrial rumors, especially the ones associated with a secret underground facility in Papoose Valley.
She turned one-eighty on her perch and studied the Papoose Mountains, which waited in silent darkness to be climbed. In a few hours she would be in Papoose Valley where she hoped to find some answers to salvage her mission.
CHAPTER 4