Whitley Strieber: The Grays

The phone rang. She looked at the incoming number. Base call. Could it be the guy from Dad’s funeral? Could he actually be pressing her this hard, on this day? She didn’t believe it.

“Hello?”

“Lieutenant—”

“Look, mister, are you somewhere in the chain of command, because if you aren’t, very frankly, I am here trying to deal with the death of my father and really my only friend, and I am just not doing this.”

There was a silence. It extended. “I am in the chain of command,” he said at last. “My orders are legal.”

Could this be real? Could this guy really, actually be on the phone pushing her around like this now?

“I’d like to do this tomorrow.”

“You have your orders, Lieutenant.”

She hung up the phone and wanted, very badly, to do something hurtful to this man. But that was military life, wasn’t it? You weren’t here to grieve.

She reported to an impressive but sterile office suite that had all the anonymous earmarks of being some kind of official visitor’s lair. She was called in immediately.

With Mr. Crew was the younger of the two colonels, Langford. She was just as glad—the older one had exuded something that had made her uneasy, Wilkes or whatever his name was.

The office was large and the furniture real wood, but there wasn’t a single citation on the walls, nor a photograph, nor anything that might identify him further. Obviously, a spook, but not Air Force or he’d be in uniform.

She saluted the colonel. He returned. “At ease, Lieutenant,” he said, smiling and shaking his head slightly.

“Please take a seat,” Crew said.

“I want to extend my sympathies, too,” Langford added. “Your father was a great man and a national hero. You should know that he’s going to receive the Intelligence Medal.” He paused. “And also the Medal of Honor.”

She knew that her mouth had dropped open, because she had to snap it closed. “The Congressional Medal of Honor?”

Crew nodded.

She was stunned silent. In awe. In sorrow that he had not been able to share what terrors must have beset him in his work, and had killed him.

“Do you remember the tests you took at Lackland?”

What in the world did that have to do with anything? “I took a lot of tests during basic.”

“One of them involved a page of numbers, and you were supposed to draw lines between them.”

“Sure, I remember it,” she said. The test had been tucked in among the standard battery of aptitude tests she’d taken as a recruit. “Sort of connect-the-dots type thing.” She’d sort of doodled it, as she recalled. “I messed it up.”

The two men stared at her, saying nothing. They looked, she thought, like people must look to an ape from inside his cage. “What on earth does it matter now?”

“I have another test for you,” he said.

“Another test? That’s what this is about? Because—”

“Lieutenant, it’s terribly important.”

Langford’s voice had an edge that told her to listen and keep her mouth shut.

“You need to fill out a consent.”

“I thought you were going to let me know something about my dad.”

“I am.”

She took the form he handed her, and was very surprised, as she read it, to see that it was no ordinary medical consent.

She looked at Langford. His face was bland. A dentist’s face—that is to say, a mask. She read aloud, “Any commentary or discussion or unauthorized record of any subject or meeting or action carried out within the context of the project is prohibited conduct and subject to prosecution under provisions of the National Security Act of 1947 as amended.” She tried to laugh. They remained silent. “This is very heavy stuff.” Still nothing. “Excuse me, but this is a very serious document, here.” She pushed the paper back toward Crew’s side of the desk.

“We can’t bargain with you,” Langford said, “and we can’t talk until you sign.”

“Volunteer or be shot, in other words.”

Langford pushed the paper back toward her. “Don’t miss this,” he said. “You’re first in line, Lieutenant Glass, but there is a line.”

“If I sign and don’t like what I hear, can I walk away?”

Langford turned toward Crew, who didn’t so much as blink. “I’m sorry, but the agreement is binding,” Langford said.

“It commits me to something I can’t learn about until I’m in it? And then I can’t get out?”

“I know it sounds unreasonable.”

“Unreasonable? It’s downright scary. More than scary. I mean, the Air Force doesn’t handle things this way.” She wondered if that was actually true.

“Sign it. It would be very helpful.”

Maybe her dad was looking down on her right now. Probably was, assuming there was anything left of him, any sort of a soul.

She picked up a pen off the desk… and had the odd feeling that these two guys were waiting, but in a funny way… like they were hungry, almost, and she was lunch.

“So, I don’t think I need to do this,” she said. “No.” And she was more than a little ashamed. Sorry, Dad, but this does not feel right .

Crew unfolded his long legs and leaned forward. She expected him to speak. But he did not speak. He just looked at her. It wasn’t a special expression, not at all. But it moved her. It did, definitely. A very serious, very important moment.

“I can’t very well jump off a cliff without knowing what’s at the bottom, can I?”

Crew sighed. Was it anger? Suppressed impatience? Boy, she could not read this guy. You thought saint, then you thought—well, something else.

“We want you to continue your father’s work,” Crew said. “If you pass this small test.”

“It’s urgent,” Langford added. “You’ll need to start this afternoon.”

Crew pushed the agreement back at her.

“But… what did he do?”

“Please help us,” Crew said. His voice was still as soft as ever, but the desperation in it was somehow terrifying.

“What if I… can’t?”

He smiled then, very slightly.

Suddenly she knew that she would not walk away from this. She could not live the rest of her life in ignorance of what her dad had done, knowing that she had passed up this chance.

He had been killed, though.

She grabbed the paper, signed, then thrust it back.

Colonel Langford took it, folded it once, and slipped it into a manila envelope. “You’ll get a copy countersigned by the Secretary of Defense,” he said.

“You’re kidding.”

“Lauren, you have a very unique ability,” the big man said, “inherited, we believe. That first test you took, you passed. You were the only person to have done so in the forty years it has been administered, in one form or another, to every military recruit in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand, and Australia. The only one who even came close. But we weren’t surprised, given who your father is.”

That sort of sounded… whoa. “Did you say, uh—what’s that?”

“You are one in many millions, Lauren. You have inherited an absolutely unique skill from your dad.”

What in the world could this be? “I have to tell you honestly, I have no unusual skills.”

“I want to warn you, you’re going to have a very extraordinary experience. I want you to understand that it will not be in any way pleasant or easy. I won’t pretend that there is no danger, because it must be obvious to you that there is great danger. What’s more, we’re not going to be able to help you. You have to do it on your own. And you are on your own.”

“But, uh, you said there was a list, Colonel Langford. And you were going to… you were going to the next person if I didn’t sign.”