“We study them,” Danny said. “It’s important to determine how this happened to them and whether it’s preventable, or even reproducible. And if they’re willing — they are American citizens, after all — we can deploy them as assets.”
Forrestal leaned forward. “While this idea has my conditional recommendation, based on the cooperation of those involved and a thorough assessment of their conditions, I want to state something very plainly, Mr. President: I strongly recommend that these individuals be detained for the foreseeable future. We simply do not know where this energy has come from, why it has affected these particular individuals, how it will affect them, and whether there is any kind of ulterior agenda behind it all.”
This prompted a short bark of a laugh out of Truman, which seemed to surprise everyone else in the room. “Whose agenda, Jim? God’s? The devil? Aliens? Stalin?”
Forrestal persisted. “We simply don’t know, so I would prefer to assume there is one, until such time as we can determine otherwise.”
Truman shook his head in slight disbelief. “Well, Jim, that’s why I have you here. Now, meantime, I want this thing kept incredibly secret. I shouldn’t have to tell you what might happen if the general public, not to mention the Reds, got a whiff of what we were up to.”
Hillenkoetter’s eyebrows went up. “It’s already a top secret operation, Mr. President. Less than fifty people are involved.”
“Right, but what we’re talking about here is of astronomical… I mean, just the… plus, I see here you want to recruit one of the PAPERCLIP men, too. Not only are we harboring superhumans out in the middle of nowhere in Nevada, but you want to throw a disgraced Nazi into the mix. God help us all if people start poking around that Groom Lake base.”
Something suddenly occurred to Danny, and against his better judgment, he cleared his throat and spoke up. “You know, sir, we had that surveillance balloon crash out in Roswell, New Mexico. Caused a bit of a local stink. Someone reported that the Army Air Field there found an alien spacecraft. We were having a good laugh over it, actually, in the office.”
“Commander Wallace—” Forrestal began.
“Let the man speak, Jim,” Truman said. “What are you suggesting, Commander?”
“Well, sir, it’s just that this thing is already unbelievable as is. So, if we bury a little-green-men story at the bottom of all the secrecy, to put it completely over the top, maybe folks will dismiss it out of hand. There might be a few yahoos who’ll even take this alien business seriously, and that’ll lead them away from the Variants. It sounds ridiculous, but it could be enough to provide a legitimate distraction from our actual operations.”
Truman was stone-faced for a moment, and Danny realized he’d spoken out of turn and just put forth to the President of the United States a preposterous, potentially career-ending idea.
But then the President began to smile, and he looked over at Hillenkoetter, whose practiced calm was briefly broken with an amused grin, and then to Forrestal, who seemed to be suffering through a migraine. “I like it. What do you say?”
“We can make that happen, Mr. President,” Hillenkoetter said.
Truman rose, prompting everyone else to their feet. “Good. I’m going to need to read this over a few more times. I’ll be back to you in a few days with a final decision on all this. Thank you, gentlemen.”
Pleasantries were exchanged, and Forrestal lingered in the Oval Office to go over other matters, leaving Hillenkoetter to lead Danny outside.
“Christ, Danny… aliens?”
Danny smiled and relaxed for the first time all day. “Well, if the secretary’s right, sir, maybe the little green men really are behind it all.”
That earned him a laugh from his boss. “All right. How many more to go?”
“Just one more that I know of,” Danny said.
7
Brennivín was a beautiful, horrible thing.
Passed off to tourists as a kind of homemade liqueur with birch and licorice flavors, it was marketed as something that little Viking grandparents would have in little glasses before an early bedtime under the Northern Lights.
But among themselves, local Icelanders called it the “Black Death,” which was very typical of their dark but good-natured humor. Brennivín went down with all the grace and subtlety of strong vodka.
The fisherman at the bar on Laugavegur Street was already several shots deep by 6 p.m. — although that wasn’t particularly noteworthy given that the sun was already down. In the few short months he’d been working on the Reykjavik waterfront, he’d become a regular, and one that his fellow patrons had grown to tolerate. He wasn’t from around there, and never would be; Iceland was a small country, and either you were from Iceland, or you’d always be from somewhere else.
It didn’t hurt, though, that he had a biting wit, and an eagerness to smooth over ruffled feathers with alcohol. After the Black Death, it just didn’t seem all that important, and so the outsider grew to suit many of the locals just fine. They were fishermen and dockworkers, laborers and tradesmen, all hard workers who drank just as hard and smelled vaguely of salt and crud at the end of the day anyway.
The fisherman knew where he stood, and he’d worked hard to earn the locals’ respect, even if it was a rather begrudging one. So, he was irritated this particular evening when two military men entered the bar. It wasn’t the first time the British and Americans had ventured into local establishments like this one, but most saw the woolen-clad fishermen — and the distinct lack of women — and turned right around, or stayed for a single drink if they were feeling particularly polite or brave. It didn’t feel like these two were going to do either.
The fishermen slowly lowered his eyes, fixed on the brennivín in front of him. He desperately wanted a beer, but Iceland was a curious and antiquated place; prohibition laws forbade it. Leave it to the descendants of Vikings to outlaw beer but wholeheartedly embrace the stronger stuff.
“Excuse me,” came a voice from behind.
The fisherman didn’t look up. “Láttu mig í friði,” he replied, hoping they’d take the hint or at least be confused by the language. None of the Allied troops really bothered to learn Icelandic, anyway.
He could hear the chatter behind him. “You sure about this, Commander?” the stern voice said.
“Yes, sir,” a younger man replied. “It’s him, all right.”
Aw, hell. The fisherman turned around and looked at the two, trying not to register surprise when he noticed the older, lanky fellow had two stars on his collar. “Ég veit ekki hver þú ert. Þú ert rangur maður. Leyfðu mér að drekka í friði.”
The younger man — a Navy guy, glasses, nebbish-looking — smiled. “Your Icelandic almost fooled me.” He held up a file folder with, presumably, the fisherman’s photo in it. “The beard ages you, Lieutenant.”
“Fuckin’ hell,” Frank Lodge grumbled, grabbing his shot glass and downing another Black Death. “I’m discharged fair and square, guys. Medical discharge, in fact. Section 8. So, I don’t know what you’re looking for or why you think I have it. But you’re barking up the wrong tree.”
The two-star wasn’t having it. “I’m Major General Bob Montague, and this is Commander Dan Wallace. And you know damn well you never really leave the Army, son.”
Frank shrugged. “And here I thought the Army left me. Got more shock therapy in mind, General? Or did that English shrink come up with something worse? I ain’t your guinea pig anymore, fellas.”