David Golemon - Event

He placed Mendenhall's file aside in a group that included that of Everett and five others who would eventually compose his initial discovery team if the crash site was found. Across from that file was another larger grouping of paperwork that included lists of the equipment they would need to receive from logistics. He had been most impressed with the equipment the Group had buried deep beneath the sands, such as weapons and night-vision gear. His predecessor had been serious enough to at least know what was needed for field operations. Right now Collins was only guessing at what would be needed for this mission. But he did know that this site would have to be secured first at all costs. He took another sip of coffee and watched as Sarah McIntire turned to him as she took her coffee toward the door. He looked away quickly when she noticed him and smiled again.

Collins walked into the computer center cleaned and in a fresh blue jumpsuit after his post-breakfast mile in the athletic center. Alice had called and left a message for him to meet her there.

He stood and watched the buzz of activity. The whole time he had been studying his personnel files, his mind had been here, wondering how the search for the saucer was progressing. Technicians in white, static-free coats were at consoles, and others were walking around with printouts. Large flat-paneled screens lined the walls, while smaller ones were mounted at every workstation. The largest high-definition screen was located in the middle of the white plastic wall and was filled with a color map of the western United States, and as he watched, a computer-generated line started sectioning the various points into a grid. A small dotted line ran up from Panama through Mexico and then split off into several lines as it crossed the border into New Mexico. The major noticed that where the dotted lines entered the state, they had been changed to small question marks instead of dashes by some imaginative technician. On other screens he saw raw data and real-time images of desert locations that were obviously bouncing via satellites to ground stations. Niles was sitting at one of the technician desks and staring at the large screen as if he were hypnotized.

"Jesus, Dr. Compton had to pull a lot of strings and dish out favors from now until next century to get that many KH-1 Is on this," Everett said, coming in after Collins.

"He did. The NSA is screaming bloody murder at the use of their bird," Pete Golding, the Computer Center director, said. He was standing nearby, tapping at a set of computer keys.

Collins looked from Golding to the wall projections. "Nothing on the crash site?"

"No." Golding seemed irritated as he looked back at the two military men and then removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "Damn thing isn't where we thought it would be according to the track we initially calculated."

"Maybe it didn't go down at all," Carl said.

Golding just gave the navy man a sour look, then abruptly turned and walked away.

"Forgive Pete, he and Niles are a little tired and on edge this morning," Alice said.

"You look chipper," Collins said.

"Old people don't require the sleep you young ones do."

"It looks like Dr. Compton and Mr. Golding need to take five and get some shut-eye," Everett remarked.

Alice tilted her head for a moment watching Niles, knowing he had been shocked by the file the senator had given him to read. She turned and eyed the two men standing next to her. "He needs to be right here. You gentlemen better get used to the idea that we're basically on a war footing here. Never before has the center been placed on total lockdown and all departments deployed for one specific Event. Our need to find that crash site is paramount, absolutely paramount."

"Where is the senator this morning?" Collins asked.

She smiled. "He's sleeping, personal assistant ordered rest." She winked at the men, then walked over toward the middle of the room and looked closer at one of the satellite images for a moment, then shook her head and stepped back. "He may bellow and bark at the rest of us, but at least he still knows who is smarter. But I'm afraid both he and the president are taking tremendous heat from the Joint Chiefs about this incident. Everyone who's aware of our existence thinks we're way over our heads, and I'm afraid all the old agency enemies are coming out of the woodwork on this one."

They stood there for a moment, not knowing what else to say, then Niles started raising his voice about something.

"This is why I called you both," she said as Niles took a printout from one of the techs. "This doesn't look good."

Niles was calming when he noticed Alice, Jack, and Carl on the walkway above the desk area, and he hurriedly moved up the stairs to the three carrying the printout and handed it to Alice.

"See what you can do with this, will you?" He saw the blank expressions on Everett's and Collins's faces and tried to quickly explain while Alice read his findings. "That son of a bitch Reese was on the new system yesterday and observed the saucer attack in real time. Europa, our newest and most powerful computing system, says he made a damn copy of it!" Niles grimaced and snatched his glasses off, then looked at the faces before him. "Reese is missing! He didn't report for work this morning. Jack, he has to be found and found fast, there's no telling what he's up to." Then Niles abruptly turned and placed his glasses back on and irately called out to one of the computer team about scanning a search area too fast, then he turned back to face Collins. "I mean it, Jack, this is no good. It's against all our rules here in the computer center," he called out as he turned away and went back to the main floor to continue his search for the saucer.

Alice watched him go and shook her head. Then she again scanned the paper she held. She removed her glasses and looked at the two men in front of her, thinking for a moment.

She quickly walked to an empty workstation and seated herself in the large swivel chair, then opened a drawer, rummaged through it for a moment, then closed it. She repeated this with the other drawers until she found what she was looking for. The two officers exchanged a questioning glance as they watched.

Finally she looked up and smiled. "Reese may be working for a very dangerous enemy."

"He's on the senator's watch list, along with almost everyone with a clearance to the computer center," Everett said.

"I take it it's unusual for him to miss work like this?" Jack asked.

Alice thought a moment while staring at the darkened computer monitor on the missing man's desk. "Not in and of itself, no, but like everyone here, he does have his quarters inside the complex. The computer system would have notified him of an Event alert, so he hasn't checked his messages if he's off base, as per his orders." She wheeled around in her chair. "He's gone bad. Niles is right. He has to be found."

"What can we do?" Jack asked.

Alice turned back to the blank computer screen and tapped a few commands into the keyboard and the monitor lit up. At the same time she reached behind her chair without looking, offering to Collins the paper that Compton had given her earlier.

Collins took the offered printout. It was columns of military times and what looked like computer commands.

"That is a printout of the last few commands that were asked of this station. SOP for someone who doesn't show up for work, then signed off base and didn't return. We automatically check their computer for what its last commands had been."

Collins handed the paper to Everett, and he too looked it over.

"There," Alice said, straightening up. "All phone lines are monitored and recorded in this facility. It seems Mr. Reese used his security clearance and his position in the computer center to shut down the monitoring devices for a bank of phones in The Ark. He tried to cover his tracks, but doing that with someone like Niles and Pete Golding is a foolish thing. It took both of them all of three minutes to get through the firewall Reese had set up on this hard drive. Now, according to this"--she gestured at the screen--"there were only two calls made from the complex at the time the bartender noticed him inside the club. One was to a home inside Las Vegas City limits that we checked on already, made by a sergeant to a woman he met at Lake Mead. The other call went to a home in Vidalia, California." Alice picked up the phone and punched a few numbers and then waited. "Send the sergeant in, please," she said, and hung up. "I had Staff Sergeant Bateman in the security center run a few things for me using your network into the Europa XP-7, the new Cray system Niles was just speaking of."