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Lachlan nodded, smiling as he said, “That’s what we thought too, so we conducted some aerial surveillance.”

He handed around some more photos.

Jason looked at the color images of the nuclear power plant from a variety of angles. Unlike the archetype nuclear plant with large cooling towers, North Bend was surrounded by cooling lakes. Large, artificial ponds dominated the landscape to the east, with roads running between them on raised embankments. A series of canals ran between the ponds and the power station.

“It’s situated on the banks of the Coos river,” Lachlan said. “We think that’s how they got the craft there. It’s an estuary system, with large mud flats. They must have floated the UFO in under wraps at high tide. Probably on a barge.”

“I thought the craft crashed in the sea off North Korea?” Jason asked.

“It did,” Lachlan said. “They spent twenty-two months raising the craft with submersibles, inching it away from North Korea while keeping it underwater. It took another year to tow the craft across the Pacific, all under the guise of ostensibly conducting naval training exercises. I’ve spoken to sailors on those exercises. They thought they were towing a crippled Chinese submarine. We think the sub was the cover story for the craft.

“From what we can tell, they towed the craft starting in late spring and went through most of the summer. There are public records of naval exercises off the coast of Washington and Oregon that coincide with power outages blanketing the North Bend area.”

“They wanted to move under cover of darkness,” Bellum said.

“Exactly,” Lachlan said. “And get this, the training exercises coincided with a new moon, and culminated with a Marine landing at Cape Arago, not more than 10 miles from North Bend.”

“So,” Stegmeyer said, “there’s no question that there were Navy ships in the area.”

“And look at this,” Lachlan added, holding up a photo of a barge. “They spent three months dredging the channel prior to the exercises. By this time, we think the craft was out of the water. They must have brought it in on barges similar to this one.

Lachlan held up another photograph, saying, “See that large, elongated building right here in the complex? That’s roughly twenty stories high and it houses reactors two and three. But it’s this one over here, with the old circular dome that houses reactor one. That’s where we think the craft is located.”

Stegmeyer interjected, saying, “It all sounds convincing, but you’ve got to have more than some fishy power readings to go on.”

Lachlan cleared his throat, saying, “That dome is over two hundred feet high. It’s within a few hundred yards of the river, but it’s part of a separate annex inside the complex. We’ve been watching the area for months. See that nearby parking lot? The cars there never move. They’re window dressing, just props. All the deliveries go to the administration buildings at the front, or the main reactors inland. No deliveries to the dome, and no external traffic. At least, none that we can see. There must be personnel moving around, but they’re doing so via internal walkways.”

“I don’t buy it,” Bellum said. “We need more to go on than a hunch. What are you proposing we do? Storm the place? What if the UFO isn’t there? We’ll have played our hand.”

“Everything we’ve observed,” Lachlan countered, “has revolved around Seattle, but even that seems to be a feint. Intercepted communiques, travel itineraries, credit card records. And it’s not just that Seattle is a hub for the Northwest, we think it’s more than that. They’ve got to have this thing nearby, and North Bend is the perfect location.”

“Why not New York?” Bellum countered.

“It would be too difficult to get the craft into the Atlantic,” Lachlan said.

“What about LA?” Stegmeyer asked.

“Too obvious. Too many people coming and going,” Lachlan replied. “No, they need to keep this some place sleepy, some place no one would suspect. Don’t forget, this thing has been causing international tension for decades. Oregon provides DARPA perfect cover: no one would take rumors from there seriously.”

“No one but you,” Stegmeyer replied.

Lachlan laughed.

The RV swerved suddenly, causing Lily to crash into Jason. Lachlan braced himself against the ceiling. Stegmeyer fought not to fall out of her chair.

“Shit!” came the cry from the driver.

The RV lurched, riding up over something on the road. The sound of breaking branches and wooden logs slamming beneath the chassis caused Jason to grimace, anticipating a sudden impact. The RV braked, sliding slightly, but the driver kept the bulky vehicle under control.

“What the hell happened?” Lachlan exclaimed as the driver pulled over to the side of the road. In the panicked confusion of those few seconds, Lachlan had dropped his folder, scattering photographs across the floor of the RV.

“There were fallen tree branches all over the road,” the driver replied. “I think we may have lost a tire.”

As he heard those words, Jason recognized the familiar thump of a lazy, flat tire. The RV leaned slightly to one side as the driver pulled onto the shoulder of the road.

“Stay here,” Bellum said, pulling out a revolver and stepping down into the footwell of the RV.

“Could it be a trap?” Lachlan asked.

“Not likely,” the driver said. “I doubt they’ve traced our movements yet. They won’t have picked up our trail.”

Bellum, Lachlan and Stegmeyer got out of the RV. Only Stegmeyer had the foresight to don a jacket against the rain. The other two seemed oblivious to the weather. Jason could see them standing outside, talking. Bellum moved out of sight. A few seconds later, Jason saw him moving through the trees, barely visible at the edge of the headlights as he crept in front of the RV.

“He’s moving into a covering position,” Lily said as though that was somehow supposed to make Jason feel better.

A few minutes passed, a cold draft coming in from the open door.

Spitting rain peppered the cabin, swirling in through the opening.

Jason looked at the photos lying scattered on the floor and thought he should pick them up before they got water damaged. He got to his feet. Lily seemed content to watch, which was nice. If she’d jumped up beside him he would have felt like a prisoner under her watch.

As he stepped out from between the chairs, Jason glanced at the photos.

Several of the pictures had fallen overlapping each other. Most of the photos were of scientific calculations, similar to those he loved to sketch on his notepads, only these formulas looked like they’d been carved into the hide of some dark animal. There were fine scratches crisscrossing a black hide with rough calculations carved into what looked like leather.

Jason started to pick one of the images up when he realized they had fallen in such away as to spell out a word. Each of the overlapping images formed part of a single word, a word that would only be visible if they fell in this exact manner.

fe ED b A ck

Ordinarily, Jason wouldn’t have thought of this as anything other than an unusual coincidence. He was well aware of the human tendency to read more into shapes and figures than was there. The overactive imagination of Homo sapiens has given us the Virgin Mary on a slice of toast, he thought, along with Elvis on a burnt cheese sandwich.

Jason wasn’t one to fall for such mental tricks, except that another bunch of pages had fallen to form another word.

d E st R oY

What were the odds?

He wondered just how much of a freak chance it was to see two English words being spelled out from a scattering of loose papers.