Friday evening, 9:30 p.m. MT: Utah Test and Training Range, 11 miles northwest of Dugway Proving Grounds. Mike Stanton and Fred Rawlins scan the skies on lookout duty. Paperback! / Kindle!
“You know, one of these nights, I might get tired of saving you,” Fred said.
“I’m sorry. I forgot.” I wiggled in the gray blanket wrapping around us like a soft taco, the camouflage blending with the ground. I pulled the blanket to my shoulder, but Fred, with a flip of his powerful arm, shrugged it back like he was swatting away a fly. We continued to scan the sky, looking for freak activity.
“That’s what you always say.”
“Well, what do you want me to say?”
Fred shook his head and exhaled, which, of course, meant ‘I’m fed up with you.’ My third-grade elementary school teacher mastered that same condescending body language. Why did Mrs. Price pop into my head? Go figure. Then he glared at me.
“You know, I tell Black Wolf little white lies to cover for you, like ‘Yes, Sir. Mike is dependable. Yes, Sir. Mike is a great partner.’ And I remember your gear. And what do you do? You forget your phone! I mean, all the time!”
“I think I just said I’m sorry.”
Fred ignored me. He has a habit of doing that. It’s so annoying.
“Mike, what’s the requirement?”
“To keep my phone within reach at all times.” That was my best monotone. What a stupid question. This isn’t my first day on the job. Not my first rodeo.
“Right,” said Fred, ignoring the sarcasm. “And where is it now?”
“You love to see me squirm. You get some twisted pleasure out of it, don’t you?”
“Maybe.”
I didn’t respond. I counted backwards to myself. Ten, nine, eight. Fred didn’t say another word. Silence bores me. What am I waiting for anyway? More bugs to bite? Oh man. I gave in.
“Okay. You win. It’s in the Jeep. It’s still plugged into the stereo.” We listened to a podcast driving out tonight, Coast to Coast, Ground Zero, Fade to Black—something like that. I forgot to grab it.
“And what is the problem?” Fred asked.
The alligator’s question failed to grab my attention, which typically drifts anyway. The mention of my Jeep sent my mind off-roading. Man, I love that Jeep. Who wouldn’t? Perfect white paint—hasn’t faded in five years since I drove it brand new off the dealership lot. Black vinyl flared fenders cover oversized mudder tires: 35-inch beauties on black spoked wheels. I love those halogen lights on the bumper. They come in handy, and man, they look sharp! Yeah, that’s right. That’s my Jeep! And the military paid for it! Tax dollars at work. What’s not to love?
“Hello! Earth to Mike!” Fred interrupted.
How rude of him!
“I’m talking to you. Focus on your job!”
“What?”
“Focus Mike. Focus!”
“Sorry, Fred.”
“Now, if the freaks show up, we can’t call it in. Can’t, as in C-A-N-N-O-T. Because you forgot the most important thing, like, maybe your phone!”
“Okay. You can spell. Kind of. But I’m pretty sure there’s an apostrophe in there somewhere.”
“Shut up, Mike.”
Fred’s voice is low, full, and resonant. Fred could rap if he’d just talk a little faster. He talks slowly to hear his full voice reverberate back to him. He’d be a knock-out radio host with those pipes.
My voice is high, thin, and loud. I could replace most classic rock singers. Ever since I heard a dirty, distorted guitar with a high-pitched vocal riding over it, I’ve never been the same. Attention all bands searching for a killer lead screamer, call me! I can hit the high notes! I can. Okay, so there’s one small problem. If I could sing in key, I’d be dangerous.
“Uh, Mike?”
I’m a thin white dude; Fred is a strong black man. I’m not short, but he towers over my slim six-foot frame. I tried sports, but I mostly surfed in Southern California as a teenager. I miss that place. One day, I swear, I’ll buy a Spanish stucco house and plant a palm tree—no, two palm trees—in my yard. Then, I’ll live my best life. One day.
“Mike, is anybody in there? Mike?” Fred said.
But Fred, now there’s an athlete. He played college basketball until a torn ACL derailed his senior year and knocked him off the NBA radar screen. He had serious game.
“Mike, are you coming over tomorrow for the barbecue? At six?”
Now that got my attention. “Of course! When have I ever missed one of your barbecues?”
“Maybe you should text once in a while. I can’t read your scrambled mind.”
“Oh, come on. You know I’ll be there. What you cookin’?”
“Hamburgers.”
“And?”
“My slow-cooked ribs, of course.”
“Ribs? Oh man,” Fred’s ribs are the best. The meat just melts off the bone.
“Yup,” Fred said. “And you can’t have any. Unless you go get your phone!”
It’s funny how Fred got involved in all this. He attended a campus lecture: Hidden Government UFO Files. He saw the bookstore poster ten minutes before it started. I still can’t figure out why Fred went. He probably didn’t have anything else to do. Only nine people attended. The nuclear physicist presenter secretly doubled as a Black Ops military recruiter. I still see that guy at the briefings sometimes. Ted? Let’s go with that. Ted must have been impressed by Fred’s questions and his size.
“Look, is that a duck?” Fred asked.
He knows there aren’t any ducks out here. He’s just trying to get my attention. Sorry, that trick won’t work. Now, where was I? Oh yeah. So shortly after, a rogue general paid Fred a visit, and a lot of money, to join this renegade program. There’s big money in Black Ops and they don’t play by the rules or use a standard military pay scale, which is fine and dandy for me. That general is our boss: Aban Arsenio Romero. Black Wolf to us. Fred and I suspect that he is based at NORAD command in Colorado, but nobody knows for sure.
Now, most nights, we’re in the desert on lookout duty, or bug bites and frostbite assignment, as we like to say. The program’s a throwback to 1949’s Operation Lookout. It encouraged civilians to work in shifts, watch the sky, and report sightings of anything strange. Civil Defense for National Security they called it. Fred and I are specialized, overly trained descendants of that initial program with one important difference: We are highly paid. We’ve come a long way, baby.
Sometimes months pass and we don’t see a thing. Sometimes we see a silver dot or a red flicker or two around known freak hot spots. Sometimes, well, things can be more intense, even terrifying. I mean, it might be for other people. Yet, in a way, it’s no big deal. Still, tonight seemed different. That message from the Command Center didn’t help. High alert.
“Mike, space case, get your phone!”
Now unless you’re wondering, the common cell phone won’t work out here. Strangely, it’s one of those dead spots – after all, it is a military testing zone. But our phones? Well now. No problem.
I was tired of Fred’s pestering, so I hit him with my own secret weapon. I held it close to the vest. Now, it was time to let it fly. Let’s see what damage it can do. Here goes:
“Aw, let’s just use your phone.”
Fred shut up. Bam! Looks like my missile disintegrated the target in a flash! Just like that! The alligator is silent. I love blasting gators. Not just Fred, but anyone that snaps at me. I’ll tolerate it for a little while, until my joker kicks in to get me out of the heat. Fight fire with fire. Yeah. That’s me.
“Talk about glass houses!” I nagged. “It’s in your duffel bag in my dream machine over there. Right?”
I elbowed Fred. Poke the big bear, but not hard enough to rile him up. I’m not that stupid.
“Knock it off, little guy. I only tolerate you because if you weren’t such a joker, these nights could get pretty boring.”
He’s right about that. I pushed myself up from the blanket.
“Wait!”
The urgency in Fred’s voice stopped me cold, suspended in the push-up position.
“Here they come!”
Bright, streaking silver and red dots rose like flares above the horizon, through the nebulous red vapors distorting the space between the stars, and cut tracers through Orion’s belt, first one, then two, then five, until they consumed the western horizon. They danced against the black April sky, right, then left, then back, hard to track, like the shining eyes of a coyote caught in the headlights: beautiful, enchanting, but menacing and brutal.
We typically don’t see ostentatious displays of power like this. The show-of-force reminded me of a Mayday parade in Red Square at the height of the Cold War, the military hardware rolled out for all the free world to see—and fear. Tonight, thirty silver or red streaks cut across the sky, some darting in straight lines and then changing direction abruptly, some looping in wide arcs.
A bright red dot zipped over the Dugway Proving Grounds Army Base traveling north towards the Great Salt Lake. It stopped above us, paused for a second, and then disappeared.
“Did you see that, big guy?”
“Yup.”
“They know we’re here.”
“Yup.”
“You know, it might be time to worry now,” I joked as the situation became more threatening.
“Something’s wrong, Mike. Buddy, this ain’t good.” Fred adjusted the high-resolution camera.
Fred was right. I heard the briefings. Maybe I didn’t want to face it. Maybe I wanted to think everything would be fine—that the freaks would leave us in peace so we could continue to wage our senseless wars across the planet. That’s what we do. But what if the freaks intercede? Now that scares me.
“Let’s record ‘em,” Fred said. “We’ll call it in later.”
Fred snapped some pictures.
“Mike, you gonna freakin’ do something or just lie there with that dumb look on your face?”
“I got it.” I grabbed the video recorder, but it was too late. They were gone.
Under the tarp, rock music blasted from the idling Jeep that someone—well, that would be me—forgot to turn off. It was my phone ringing, or should I say, blasting from the speakers.
“Mike! Pick up, Mike! Where are you?” The woman’s agitated voice cut through the desert chill. It was my ex-wife, Meg.
“Why don’t you tell her you’re wrapped up in a blanket … with another man? Ha, ha,” Fred covered his mouth with his hand to mute the laughter.
“Shut up, Fred.”
“Okay, I really don’t care, but where are the child support checks?” Meg continued. “You’re two months behind! Did you forget? Your daughter is ten and her name is Kelly. You jerk! Where are they?”
“Meg, I just got a little behind. I’ll send them next week!” Even I didn’t believe it. How can I possibly come up with the money by next week? Fred’s pointy fingers prodded my ribs like an arrow to shut me up. It didn’t matter. She couldn’t hear me. I hope the freaks didn’t either.
“Mike, you better…”
The Jeep sputtered and died, interrupting Meg’s complaints with sudden, total silence.
“Fred,” I whispered, “even the crickets stopped chirping.”
Tentative, perfidious silence?
Bam!.