David Golemon - Event

"It's a military incident involving an... an." He didn't know how to continue for a moment. He swallowed, then forged ahead. "An object, but you already know, I sent this to Centaurus already."

Farbeaux held his patience well as he blew smoke again at the redheaded computer supervisor. His eyebrows arched as he continued to stare at him with no comment.

"Two U.S. Navy planes were knocked out of the sky this morning."

Still the man said nothing.

Reese shrugged his shoulders and took a long swallow of his drink, not tasting any of it. "Now understand, whether you like the information or not, I still risked my job and freedom to bring it to the company's attention, and you people did leave me orders to report anything out of the ordinary, especially where this kind of incident is concerned."

"Why try to sell something to us that may already be on the evening news?" the man asked, snuffing out his cigarette in an ashtray that didn't have the name of this particular club on it, but that of another.

"The object that destroyed the two fighters probably came down, maybe in the Southwest somewhere, and believe me, the Event Group and the U.S. Navy are the only ones that know about it, there's no news on the wire, I checked."

"And I am to be interested in this because...?" The Frenchman rolled his manicured fingers in a circular motion urging Reese to answer.

Reese felt this man was dangerous, far more dangerous than the hirelings that fronted this club.

"My contact at Centaurus said when I was recruited for the Group that anything to do with a UFO attack or anything to do with 'Purple Sage' was of the highest priority, and that my payment would be substantial. Now, if you don't do what is expected here, then I'm walking out and you can answer to the company as to why you lost your number one contact at the Event Group."

The man suddenly but gracefully stood and slid into the other side of the booth, not too gently pushing Reese toward the center.

"Hey," Reese said in protest.

"Oh, we are interested my friend. I am also interested in finding out more about Purple Sage, and I suspect you have done a little investigating on your own on that subject where Centaurus is concerned." He placed his arm around Reese and squeezed his shoulder until he winced. "I need to know a few things about their interest and about possible Event staff disappearances." The man gestured toward the front of the club.

Farbeaux had done some investigating on his way to Vegas and found quite a bit of information available on the Internet about Operation Purple Sage. He had found out that the ambiguous title was the old code name for the Roswell Incident back in the forties and was popular with UFO nuts.

Reese felt his arms and legs go numb as he looked up just as three men arrived and were now standing beside the booth, appearing from seemingly nowhere. He saw that they were all rough-looking and recognized them as bouncers from the club, and Reese decided in an instant they had a definite air of harm about them.

The music was slowly but steadily turned up louder as the dancer onstage ripped her G-string off and placed a patron's face in her groin and was rotating to the beat as the men around the runway and stage gave a loud cheer for their lucky buddy, so not one of them noticed the big man in the white suit stand up, quickly followed by three others helping an angry and frightened man to his feet.

"Look, if you work for Centaurus or the Genesis Group, you should know about it," Reese said as he looked at the three greasy-looking men holding him.

Farbeaux squeezed the shoulder harder. "Indulge me, Mr. Reese."

"Look," Reese said, then softened his voice, "it's rumored in certain circles that Centaurus ended up with the technology from the crash in '47, even killing other Americans to get at it, and they're queer for anything concerning UFOs and incidents like the one today."

Farbeaux removed his hand, looked at the three men, and nodded quickly toward Reese, and they quickly but quietly pulled him away from the booth. Farbeaux then sat back down and thought as they took Reese away.

Reese looked around hoping to see at least a few of the patrons seeing what was happening, but they were all hooting and shouting at the stripper, who had gone far beyond a mere tease, and as Reese watched, he saw the men by the stage all jump as she shot her G-string into the crowd.

Farbeaux was quickly calculating what this information would be worth outside of Centaurus. He decided he needed more information. He needed to know exactly what the corporation knew, and Reese, when persuaded, might be able to tell him.

If the Event Group and Centaurus wanted it, Farbeaux knew he had to have it first.

The senator was lying on the couch in his office. Lee was under a doctor's care for his heart and had been warned time and again about stress, and after speaking to the president, even with his medication, he had felt depleted beyond his years. Niles paced by the huge desk and every other minute looked over at his mentor and friend and shook his head. Finally he slowly walked over to where the senator lay.

"You can't push yourself like this, Garrison, I mean that. I can't be here to make sure you stay down." Niles shook his head. "I've borrowed every damn recon bird we can get our hands on; we have depleted the inventory on unmanned drones and are scanning New Mexico like it's never been scanned before."

Lee raised a weak arm and put a hand up. "Shut up, Niles."

"Goddammit, I'm the director of this Group and all we need is for you to go and die on us while this thing is going on. Where would that leave you on proving your theory that this may be an attack?" Niles started to pace again, arms crossed and shaking his head.

The old man sat up. "I'm not going to prove anything. You are."

Niles stopped and turned as his normally red-tinged face was redder than ever. His glasses slipped down his nose and he made no attempt to push them back into place.

"The hell you say?" he said, nodding his head to look over his lowered glasses. Niles stepped up to the couch again and placed his hands on his knees and looked closely at the old man. "Look, Garrison, I need you, so don't you flake out on me."

Lee smiled as he looked at Compton. "I'll be here, but I want you to be aware you could be alone in this very soon. I'm very sick, if you hadn't noticed. Look, you're the most brilliant man I've ever worked with, Niles, you'll get it done."

Lee slowly laid a large file he had been holding weakly onto the coffee table in front of the couch. It was a secure file, red-bordered, and on its cover it read, "For Director's Eyes Only" and below that in bold, "Event #2120--Ros well."

Niles didn't pick up the file as he looked from it to Lee.

"I didn't tell you or the Group the whole story today about what was found at that crash site in 1947. I've wanted to show you this file for quite some time, since you were named director as a matter of fact. I didn't show the others because they don't need to know we may be at war."

Compton touched the red-bordered file and traced the red letters with his finger. And then he looked back at Lee's reclining form. He swallowed and picked up the thick file from the polished coffee table.

"You'll be better able to judge how important finding that crash site is after you've looked over the file. Share it with Virginia and Major Collins. Jack will be a real asset when it comes to getting advice from the military. If we're lucky, my theory is wrong and the damn thing didn't crash at all, but if I'm right and it did go down, for God's sake, find it and do it fast," Lee said slowly as he closed his eyes.