Speed — reading was an advantageous skill to any intelligence agent, the very nature of the business governed by how much information an individual could absorb, process, analyse and utilize in as short a time as possible. Jarvis’s eyes swept across the pages and words leaped out at him as others poured into his sub — conscious.
Disappearances. Nigeria. Specific excess heat anomaly. Siberia mass murder. Viktor Schauberger, Austria, implosion research. Zero point. Neutron pulse detection. More words flashed by his eyes as his brain soaked in the information on the pages before he reached a final line.
Clearwater, Missouri.
‘What happened at Clearwater?’ Jarvis asked.
‘Four days ago, a B–2 Spirit Stealth bomber of the 509th Bomber Wing operating out of Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, landed after a routine training mission and downloaded data from its reconnaissance computers to servers at the DIA for analysis. Most of what was there held little interest other than to confirm that the aircraft’s sensors were working correctly, however just before sunset as the aircraft was turning for home it detected an anomalous energy burst from the mountains down in the south east.’
Jarvis raised an eyebrow. ‘And that’s the big deal?’
‘The big deal,’ Nellis replied, ‘is that the energy burst registered on the aircraft’s systems as being equivalent to around fourteen thousand pounds of TNT.’
Jarvis, a former Marine, did not need an explanation of how much devastation would be caused by the detonation of such an enormous volume of high explosives. An airburst of fourteen thousand pounds would create a truly immense blast that would shatter windows for miles around. A below — terrain blast would cause shockwaves sufficient to level major structures and would be detected by the USA’s Advanced National Seismic System and the Seismological Service.
‘I saw nothing on the news, and there’s no way anybody could conceal a detonation that large.’
‘That’s because there was no detonation,’ Nellis explained.
‘What about laser pulses or other directed energy weapons?’ Jarvis suggested. ‘Could the B–2 have simply been in direct line — of — sight to a smaller energy beam that made it look much larger?’
Nellis grinned. ‘A great idea, but we already checked it out. There’s nothing out there that could have emitted such a pulse and besides, we have a secondary detection that confirms the magnitude and location of that made by the B–2.’
Nellis handed Jarvis a photograph that had not been in the file, and this one was clearly taken from orbit. Jarvis instantly recognized the data stream across the bottom of image identifying a NAVSTAR satellite, normally used for GPS navigation systems. A little — known secondary role of this satellite array was its ability to detect both surface and nuclear detonations via the disturbances they caused to the Earth’s ionosphere, which in turn created minute alterations in the signals relayed to and from the orbiting satellites. Part of the USA’s Integrated Operational Nuclear Detection System, the photo in Jarvis’s hand was backed up by a visual image captured by an orbiting KH–12 Keyhole spy satellite.
In the center of Missouri’s mountain territory, where deeply forested hills surrounded a network of creeks and rivers, a bright blue — white flare of light was clearly visible that matched the NAVSTAR’s time anomaly data.
‘Something went bang,’ Jarvis said finally. ‘Do we have any imagery post — blast?’
‘Yes we do,’ Nellis said as he handed Jarvis a final image. ‘We sent a B–2 over the sight the following day to take a single optical shot, and that’s where things got really interesting.’
Jarvis looked at the second image and frowned. This one, in full color and high resolution, showed the town of Clearwater in the aftermath of the intense blast. What bothered Jarvis about the image was that the town was entirely intact. He looked up at Nellis.
‘Has anybody spoken to the inhabitants of the town?’
‘We sent two agents down there yesterday to ask a few questions,’ Nellis replied. ‘When they got there they said that the entire town was deserted, that it looked like nobody had lived there for fifty or more years.’
Jarvis stared down at the photo in his hand and he saw flash through his mind the brief description of Clearwater in the original file that Nellis had handed him.
‘The US Population Census recorded Clearwater as having a seasonal maximum population average of three hundred or so residents,’ he said. ‘That census is only a few years old.’
‘Agreed,’ Nellis said, ‘and yet apparently within forty eight hours of this blast being recorded the entire population of Clearwater vanished and the town now looks like it was abandoned half a century ago. I checked the current Census records, and they’ve been altered: Clearwater is listed as abandoned. That would be odd enough, were it not for the fact that this isn’t the first time something like this has happened.’
‘Amelu Alam, Nigeria,’ Jarvis recalled from the file as he set it down before him on the table. ‘An entire village of nearly two hundred people vanished overnight, after witnesses in a nearby village reported seeing bright lights so powerful they couldn’t look directly at them.’
‘And Royenka, Siberia,’ Nellis added. ‘Eighty nine people disappeared after what was presumed to be an explosion of some kind. By the time emergency services were alerted and able to access the remote town, there was nobody there any longer. None of them were ever seen again.’
Jarvis sat back in his seat and thought for a moment. ‘Your two agents weren’t able to make anything of this, so why call me in?’
‘This is what your people specialize in, Doug,’ Nellis explained, ‘and there’s something going on here that I’m not being informed about. You and I both know that when it comes to matters of the highest security, both the DIA and my own office are being kept out of the loop.’
‘Majestic Twelve,’ Jarvis said. ‘You think that they’re somehow behind this?’
‘People don’t just disappear in their hundreds without a reason,’ Nellis said. ‘In Nigeria it could be put down to the actions of rebel factions slaughtering innocent villagers and in Siberia anything goes, even severe weather. But what interests me is that in all of these cases there has been an absolute and complete media blackout. Again, I could perhaps understand it in Saharan Africa or high in the Siberian wastelands, but here in the United States?’
Jarvis nodded his agreement.
‘These people must have had families outside of the town, friends, acquaintances — there must be a trail, but I don’t sense any reason to suspect a connection to Majestic Twelve.’
‘Look more closely at the first image, Doug, just outside the town.’
Jarvis peered closely at the photograph and after a moment he saw it. Barricades on the roads, what might have been jeeps alongside them.
‘Ours?’ he asked.
‘No deployment of military personnel to that location is recorded by any unit at the time that image was taken, meaning they’re under the Black Budget or paramilitary. And that’s not all.’
Nellis folded his hands beneath his chin as he spoke.
‘After my meeting with the president, he and his entourage are departing for Holland, as are the leaders of dozens of countries and a fair proportion of the CEO’s of the largest corporations in the USA and overseas.’
Jarvis raised an eyebrow. ‘I wasn’t aware of any major governmental gatherings scheduled for this month?’
‘That’s also because of a similar rigidly — enforced media blackout that occurs once every single year,’ Nellis explained. ‘The president and the rest are all attending an annual conference known as the Bilderberg Meeting.’