Terror Firma

Thirteen was a nice touch if I do say so myself. By then we were better prepared to properly stage the event – the entire production went down like clockwork. Not having to film the surface sequences made it less of a headache, and the fact that the ‘mission’ was a ‘near disaster’ meant that no one suspected a set-up. The simplest plans are always best.

One day I knew the story would make a good old-fashioned heart-warming patriotic film, we’d keep that one up our sleeve until we needed it most. Our Hollywood contacts were proving increasingly skilful at influencing mob psychology, and would only get better as the years progressed.

Needless to say, the later ops were an entire fabrication. Golf on the moon – I ask you! Filming them wasn’t cheap, but far less expensive than actually firing those Jet Jocks off into space. Our unofficial funding was given some modicum of support when the billions of dollars officially earmarked for the space programme were diverted to our cause.

If he hadn’t been such an arrogant son-of-a-bitch Frank could almost have grown to like the document’s shady author – a true professional in his chosen field. But Frank didn’t have to read far from any point in the manuscript to be reminded just what an insidiously evil, hard-assed bastard this guy was – the sort of faceless bureaucrat who usurped his nation’s power to weave his own personal web of lies and deceit, all the while, no doubt, believing himself to be a patriot.

Frank would nail him. Frank would nail them all soon enough, and he’d especially nail ‘Mr Frosty’. His secret weapon, in this most secret of black wars, currently gazed back at him lifelessly from his fridge.

‘Not long now, good buddy,’ Frank said, taking the first sip of beer as he closed the file. ‘You’re my grey ace in the hole.’

6. Publication

West Virginia, USA

At his remote mountain retreat high in the Appalachian wilderness Becker’s personal phone was ringing. He was much older now than he had been on that fateful night many years before when he’d initiated that wide-eyed fool Nixon into the darkest secrets of the Committee, but even carrying his advanced years Becker moved nimbly for a big man. There was more than one telephone receiver on his cluttered writing desk, but it wasn’t hard to know which one to answer.

One phone was so black it seemed to create its own gravity-field. A series of flashing lights along its extended surface indicated sophisticated scrambling circuits were in operation. It connected Becker to the Executive Section’s Head of Communications in a bunker deep under DC. It didn’t ring often – Becker’s underlings knew better than to disturb him when he was at the cabin. On the few occasions there had been call to answer it a superpower had been toppled or a pope had been shot.

The second phone was a translucent red. When it rang and flashed insanely it could only mean one thing, and it wasn’t that Gotham City needed Batman to pop a rolled-up sock down his tights. It could only mean the saintly head-of-state of Becker’s own ‘Great Nation’ had got himself into very hot water and needed bailing out. After all, everyone needed a legitimate day job, if nothing else to keep those IRS bloodsuckers off your back. What a waste of his talents, Becker often pondered, to be reduced to buying off two-bit whores and arranging ‘accidents’ for jewellery-encrusted pimps. Of late this second phone had done more ringing than the first. But today wasn’t to be its day.

The third telephone was shaped like Mickey Mouse. There was no good reason why this should be so, but some things were beyond explanation, as Becker knew only too well. Of the three it rang least often, but when it did the thing more than made up for it. The whole plastic mouse would vibrate and wobble, its receiver-holding arm pumping away like a body-builder. When Becker had first purchased the cabin, to allow himself to escape the tortured freneticism of his double working-life, he’d discovered the monstrosity in a box of junk pushed to the back of an outhouse. In a fit of whimsy, the sort that can only descend over a man under the mind-buckling pressure that he experienced every day, Becker had made it his own personal phone.

Today Mickey looked like he was having an epileptic fit. His eerily electric voice screamed, ‘IT’S FOR YOU! IT’S FOR YOU!’ Becker reached for the bright yellow handset in disgust, as much to put the radar-eared rodent out of his misery as to answer the call.

But when the caller introduced herself, the Dark Man’s face lightened considerably – it was an editor from Karl Popf Stein, the major New York publishing house whose address he knew only too well. Two months earlier Becker had sent her a very special package. But as the conversation progressed, the look of hope slipped from Becker’s face, badly staining his shirt in the process.

‘Look, Mr Decker. Time for a bit of honesty, I think. There’s no call for this sort of fiction anymore. The public don’t go for this heavy-handed the world’s in peril stuff. They want fluff, and I doubt very much you can do fluff. So please, stop harassing this office or I’ll be forced to call in the authorities. Your hysterical e-mails are giving our server a nervous breakdown.’

Becker’s face began to exude the sort of infrared radiation which had been known to cause men to spontaneously combust. This was too much to take, coming no doubt from someone who was a dope-smoking English Lit major, who probably wet her unbleached Nicaraguan-cotton panties at the first sign of a parking ticket.

‘It’s … not … fiction,’ he just about managed to stammer. ‘That manuscript covers my experiences running the Secret Government’s Black Operations Programme. It details why ‘‘what happens’’ happens. It’s all explained – from what really went on at Pear Harbor to the lies behind alien abduction. From the Gulf War to ‘‘daytime chat shows’’. It’s political dynamite. Have you got any idea what a risk I’m taking just sending it to you!’

She cut him off mid stride. ‘Quite frankly the only risk involved must have been to the poor Federal Mail employee who delivered it to our door – quite a tome, isn’t it. It needs severe pruning. I suggest you get yourself a ruler and a red pen and starting with the first line, get cutting. Then keep cutting all the way to the end.’

Darkest despair gripped Becker, as his cultured voice reached a thunderous new intensity. ‘But it’s all true! Don’t you recognize the blockbuster of the century when you read it? This book lays the secrets of the world bare and breathless, like a big-haired White House intern – one who’s just had done to her what you can do to your competitors.’

The editor sounded wary, perhaps suspicious of being further sucked in by the madman down the line. ‘But why would an individual in your position bare his soul like this? If half of what you say is true you must be crazier than if it isn’t.’

Becker couldn’t believe some people’s cynicism. The words tumbled forth in an avalanche that had been building for years. ‘Have you even bothered to read my conclusion on the last page? There’s a paralysis at the very top of our leadership. A reluctance to face facts. We can’t rule out the possibility that someone high up on the Committee has an agenda all their own!’

‘I’m afraid I didn’t get that far. I found your claim that the Vietnam protest movement was all part of some vast CIA mind-control experiment alarming and offensive. I was part of that movement and I can assure you that CIA agents did not supply any of the LSD I took. I suppose you’ll be claiming they were sleeping with us next to monitor our responses.’

Becker could only make strangled wheezing noises as the editor continued. He didn’t know whether to be impressed by her insight or appalled by her lack of vision.

‘And as for your prediction that ‘‘The Subversive Power undermining the Committee will soon up the stakes by staging ever-more irrational and paranoia-inducing events,’’ well, I found that simply bizarre. What is this ‘‘final killer blow prior to harvesting’’ you are forever alluding to? Our Science Fiction department might be interested, but we certainly couldn’t publish it as a biography, we’d be the laughing stock of the publishing world – and believe me that’s a hard-fought title. I suppose what I’m trying to say is please stop phoning us every day, you’re wasting our time and yours. I’d recommend a shrink but I don’t want to hurt him.’

Before Becker could respond the line went dead. His rage was frightening to behold. Mickey went flying through a window, braining a passing skunk as it ploughed into the needle-covered forest floor.

Slowly, and with many choice curses in several different languages, Becker got his reeling emotions back under control. When he was his normal Antarctic self he picked up the black phone and dialled a very special number. Half a mile beneath the Pentagon a four-star Air Force General sprang to his feet and saluted when he heard his master’s voice.

‘Start me a war. It doesn’t have to be big, but make it bloody and make it soon. Our friend in Baghdad is due another spanking.’

Perhaps sensing this wasn’t the best time to be the bearer of bad news, there was a note of agitation in the General’s voice. ‘That might not be a problem for long, sir – you haven’t heard the news from Urgistan? But there’s something even more urgent you should know. There’s been a Case Red incident in Nevada.’

Instantly Becker’s mood changed. ‘You know the drill, we’ve been through it enough times in the past.’

‘I’m afraid it’s different this time, sir. Some other agency beat us to the draw. One of the Visitors was abducted, along with certain papers of yours they had in their possession.’

The telephone line went ominously quiet. ‘What sort of … personal papers?’

‘We don’t as of yet know. But somehow, before the Visitors went AWOL from their holding area at the Mesa Facility, they broke into your personal apartment and rifled through your things. We have surveillance footage of them exiting the base carrying a large blue book. Image enhancement can just make out the letters ‘‘MJ’’ embossed on the cover. We ran checks but there’s no record of it being an official file. Sir? Are you still there, sir?’

The receiver slipped from Becker’s grasp. With a sob of rage he reflected that publication of his manuscript might not be a problem in the near future. The harm it would cause if it were done in the wrong way made him shiver.

7. Strange Harvest

Somerset, UK

Kate Jennings prided herself on her open mind, cool professional objectivity and the control she exercised over her career, but this job was beginning to get under her skin. There was something about it that made her brain itch, as if a thousand locusts were dancing on her scalp.

‘Maybe you should go through it again from the top, Mr Smith,’ she said.

The subject of her interview didn’t seem any more comfortable. The young man glanced around the untidy farmhouse kitchen as if expecting to be pounced on at any moment. ‘It was like I said to your researcher on the phone – not of this Earth.’

Kate tried hard to appreciate his guarded country ways for what they were – a charming aspect of rural life that would not survive the building of one more motorway but even that was beginning to irritate her now. ‘Start again – slowly from the beginning, and I’ll just turn on my tape recorder, this time without you getting upset.’

The young farmer looked at her oddly for a second. ‘There’s no need to patronize me, Miss Jennings. Just because I don’t live within gobbing range of a tube station and dodge hordes of muggers each time I go to work, to push bits of paper from one side of a desk to another, doesn’t mean I don’t know which way to sit on a lavatory. We have traffic jams and dog-shit pavements in the country too, you know. If you saw what I saw I’m sure you’d get ‘‘a little bit upset’’.’

Kate sighed wearily. ‘Look, I’m sorry. I’ve had a long day. Rest assured I’d very much appreciate any information you could give me for the show. Please go on.’

OK, she admitted to herself, a daytime true-life confession programme wasn’t what she’d thought she’d end up working on when she got into TV journalism, but Panorama wasn’t hiring at the moment. It didn’t mean the team of dedicated researchers she headed had no intention of doing a thorough job.

The worried-looking Mr Smith coughed weakly and began again. ‘Like I said, it all started last May eve. It was a beautifully clear spring evening, not a cloud in the sky. There’d been a meteor shower earlier but nothing else of note.

‘I’d just brought the cows in from the top field when Ned, my hired hand, points up to the southern sky and brings my attention to a bright light hovering in the far distance. Didn’t think much of it at the time, probably one of them new military planes they’re always testing up at the secret air base on the heath. But now I know it was the beginning of a nightmare that would come to haunt my family far worse even than that unpleasantness with Aunt Betty and the prize bullock from down Yeovil way.’

Kate leaned forward intently, determined to get some sense from her subject this time. The young farmer continued.

‘Anyway, me and Ned returned to the farmhouse without giving it a second thought. Just as we were entering for our tea Ned says, ‘‘Look, it’s still there, Smithy.’’ I told him to forget it before I gave him a sheep-dip shampoo. But all through tea Ned kept looking out the window, muttering to himself that it was coming closer, and something about ‘‘the CIA messing with his mind’’. Not much there to mess with, but there you go. After pudding, Ned was on his way. The funny thing was, as I saw him off, I could have sworn the light was nearer, though it was most likely my imagination.

‘After that me and the missis put the kids to bed. Little Gretchen said she wanted a story, so I read her one about a load of elves carting off a bitchy princess until some mad King paid the ransom. By then I was pretty tired myself, so I got my head down too. Don’t suppose you townies have an inkling what time cows set their alarms in the morning.’

Don’t suppose you have an inkling what time my neighbours get back from clubbing, thought Kate, but managed to look suitably unsure of herself.

‘All seemed normal enough till just past midnight. Tell the truth I had a funny dream about two nuns locked in a greengrocers, but that’s not the confession you’re looking for, is it? Anyway, come the witching hour I was awakened by a bright light hovering above the house. My first thought was that the roof was alight, but I could hear no sound apart from a low-pitched humming. The other thing that convinced me it weren’t a fire was its colour. It was the brightest white light you’d ever seen, not red like from flames, but tinged with blue as if from a welding torch. It seemed to be inside the attic. Shafts of light were streaming down the chimney and up through the cracks in the floorboards. I half expected a strange urge to build a copy of Glastonbury Tor in my front room, but oddly enough none came.

‘Now you might think any right-minded individual would be pretty keen to discover what had landed on his house, but not me. I was overcome with a strange lethargy. Dead casual, I got out of bed and wandered downstairs as if I didn’t have a care in the world. Didn’t stop to wake the wife. Didn’t stop to fetch the kids. Just plodded off as if this was a regular occurrence.

‘By the time I’d reached the back door the light had moved on. It seemed to have landed a hundred yards away in one of my arable fields, behind a line of trees. So I opened the back door and trekked towards it.

‘Now I’ve seen some pretty peculiar things in my time – a Ministry vet trying to explain to Twelve-Gauge Trev why all his cattle had to be slaughtered at cost price, that hunt-saboteur ravaged by fox-hounds last winter – but they were nothing compared to the debauched scene that met my eyes on that foul night.

‘The thing was as big as a barn. And not one of those cheap prefabricated modern monstrosities neither. This was like something from the days when they really knew how to build an outhouse, not that you’d want to keep your hay in this perversion against God and nature – not unless you were completely insane, that is.’

Kate lowered the levels on her mini tape-recorder as she tried to ignore the mindless cackling her host had broken into. ‘Do you think you can describe the craft?’

Mr Smith composed himself. ‘It was all silver looking, and shaped like a giant saucer. Hovering over my cornfield it was, just hanging in the air. Beneath it the crop was bent out of shape, as if by some sort of vortex. But that’s not all, see. There was this row of bright windows about half-way up the thing, and inside its occupants were doing a strange cosmic jig. Though if it’s dancing that tickles your fancy it wouldn’t have been those inside that caught your eye – no indeed. Between me and the ship was another group of them, and what they were doing was disgusting.’

Kate looked on seriously, intent on confirming this crucial point.

‘Morris dancing!’ stated her host as he barely suppressed a shiver. ‘Though no internationally recognized or authenticated routine was this. If the lads at the Amalgamated Federation of Traditional Country Stick Banging had seen them they would have had a fit – that’s if they hadn’t run screaming from the vicinity before a ‘‘hey’’ had even been ‘‘nonny nonned’’.’

Kate leaned forward as the farmer regained his breath. ‘And the Maypole, Mr Smith, can you tell me about that one more time?’

The young man winced. ‘Well, they were prancing about a sorry perversion of that traditionally wholesome symbol of English village life, though it was decorated in a fashion that makes me shudder. Atop its crown sat the head of my prize Guernsey milker, Daisy. All down its length were draped her still steaming innards. As the small grey pixies danced about its base they waved other bits of her in the air. Pig’s bladders are what we normally use, though it is customary to remove them from inside the pig first. Sickening it was, though at the time I just stood transfixed and stared.’

‘So what happened next?’

‘One of the little grey elves broke off from the pagan rite and skipped towards me. Led me by the hand it did, up into the belly of the saucer, into a dazzling bright light. That’s where I met … her.’

His voice dropped by several poignant octaves at that single menacing word. ‘Her, Mr Smith?’ Kate enquired.

‘Yes, her. Though no human woman was she. Tall, blonde, and with eyes like two burning sapphires. Not one word did she speak, but it were clear enough what she craved. Wanted me to perform … acts upon her.’

‘What sort of acts?’

Smith looked hesitant. ‘Strange … unnatural acts. The sort of perverted bedroom antics that no decent man should be asked to contemplate – not even if he marries a girl from Swindon.’

‘And that’s when you blacked out?’

Her host slowly shook his head. ‘Not quite. She pushed some sort of wriggling creature onto me forehead. Like a multi-legged small puppy, it was. The thing seemed to feed on my mental juices, sucking them out as if it needed them to grow. That’s when I finally blacked out. From what little I do remember that was a blessed mercy. Woke up the next morning in the empty field with nothing but Daisy’s mangled carcass and a screaming headache for company. But if only that were all. Had to forgo marital obligations for the best part of a month, such was me groinal discomfort.’

Kate tried to look sympathetic but failed. It wasn’t so much that she found this hard to believe, but rather the story seemed to strike some deep-rooted chord, a suppressed race memory best left untwanged. It wasn’t even as if the climactic top-self conclusion was the end of the matter. ‘So tell me about your second visitors.’

Smith took a deep breath. ‘Well, not much happened for a week or two, then things really started getting strange. The first day I’d felt well enough to go back to work I was having me tea when there was a banging at the door. Hurrying to answer it I found these three strangers dressed in black glaring back at me. Kitted out real odd, they were, – old-fashioned dark suits and hats to match. One of them was carrying a small black box. But the strangest thing about them was they were all wearing make-up, and none too subtly applied at that. They had white foundation smeared on good and thick, and each bore bright red lipstick too. Their eyes were hidden behind horn-rimmed shades.

‘Now as folks round here will tell you, I’m a bloke who likes his privacy. ‘‘That Smithy loves his privacy,’’ they say. When intimidating strangers come calling, as a rule, I’m more likely to send them packing with two barrels of buckshot than offer tea and drop scones. But on this occasion that’s just what I done. I’d lost my innate belligerence.’

‘What did they want?’

‘That’s just it. Nothing as such. Just asked me lots of silly questions. The one with the box was silent throughout; just stood there staring at me and holding his contraption as if it were some sort of gift. One of the others seemed fascinated by my TV. Asked me how it worked, then shut up after that. Their leader did most of the talking.’

‘What sort of questions did he ask?’

Smith looked genuinely baffled. ‘Mostly stuff about my nightly visitation. But not the obvious things, nothing to do with the craft, or the Morris dancers, or what I thought they were doing, just … odd things. He seemed obsessed with knowing if I had any physical scars to show for my adventures. Not so much a scarring, I told him, more of a soreness to be quite frank. Even to this day I have to be careful if I sit down at the wrong angle, and the sight of my dairy herd’s pendulous udders can spark off an excitement that leaves me doubled up in pain. Needless to say Mrs Smith ain’t as impressed as she used to be.’

The young farmer looked suddenly crestfallen down at his feet as Kate pushed. ‘And that’s when they made their threats?’

The farmer nodded. ‘Yeah, all suddenly the mood turned real nasty. Once they’d convinced themselves I bore no lasting marks they crowded round all threatening. The leader told me that if I ever mentioned their visit, or my enforced night of passion, terrible things would happen to me. After the terrible things that had already happened I was in no mood to argue. Then he handed me these.’

He showed Kate a selection of gaudy promotional fliers for what looked like a New Age mystic religion. The organization claimed to be able to make sense of the most bizarre psychic experiences – new recruits were always welcome. She wasn’t certain but she felt sure she’d heard of the Cult of Planet Love somewhere before.

Tearing her eyes from the strangely compelling, almost hypnotic symbols on the covers, she refocused on her subject. ‘But you feel able to talk about your ordeal now?’

‘Too bloody right,’ said Mr Smith, jumping to his feet and barely wincing in pain. ‘If their sort comes calling again I’ll be ready for them with my gun. I just … wasn’t ready at the time, that’s all.’

Kate stopped her tape recorder and sighed wearily. She had never heard the term ‘Men in Black’, but she had a close personal friend who knew only too much about them.

8. Aurora Bored-Me-Senseless

The star-speckled sky arched above Dave’s head like God’s very own dandruff-covered blanket. For the briefest of seconds he suffered a stomach-churning attack of vertigo, his reeling senses telling him he was falling headlong into the infinity of endless night.

With a jolt that almost threw him off balance Dave came crashing back to earth. The piece of earth he came crashing back to was a small patch of rocky desert, beside a dusty highway, eighty miles north of Las Vegas, Nevada. The wilderness around him was very still and very quiet, but he was not alone. Nearby a motley assortment of individuals from every walk and some stumbles of life stood silently, just as Dave did, peering up at the moonless night sky. They had only one thing in common. Hope shone from all their eyes like the light from a flickering candle flame.