Little Green Men (28 page)

greeting. And nothing in it that's going to come back and bite me in the ass."

"I'll have a draft for you tomorrow morning."

Banion was swamped. They all wanted him on, and all at the same time, it seemed. The morning shows, the all-day shows, the evening shows, the late-night shows, the late-late-night shows. He had dragooned Elspeth, his graduate-student Robespierre book researcher, into temporary duty as a press secretary. She was doing a good job in the face of demands by imperious producers.

Time
magazine was preparing a cover story. Banion was negotiating the terms of the interview with him when Renira, appearing unusually impressed, came in to say that the White House was on the line. It pleased Banion to tell the managing editor of
Time
that he had to hang up on him because the White House was on line 2. Just like the old days.

"Please hold for the chief of staff," the White House operator said. Banion counted. After ten seconds, he hung up.
Just
like the old days.

A minute later, Renira reappeared to say that the White House was again on the line. This time, they did not keep him waiting.

"Jack, Bill Dibbish. Long time."

"So it is."
My army is headed your way . . .

"This march of yours is coming along nicely."

"How about that?"
They are going to burn your house, ravish your women, pillage your land.

"If you'd like, I might be able to arrange for the president to speak to your people by remote from Shangri-la."

"Is that a fact?" Banion leaned back in his chair. At times like this, he wished he smoked cigars. 'And what would the president like to tell my 'people'?"

"You know, welcome to the capital, hope they get what they came for, that sort of thing."

"What they're coming for. Bill" - Banion chuckled - "is your ass. Sure you want to wish them well?"

"My ass?" The chief of staff laughed nervously. "Whoa.
We
didn't have anything to do with your satellite mix-up. To be honest, Jack, we have better things to do. We're in the middle of a campaign, you may have noticed."

"So I did. Eight points down. Not so good, for an incumbent." "It's not easy campaigning in the middle of a recession caused by reckless policies of the previous admin -" "Yeah, yeah. Spare me."

"So, would you like the president to address your event?" "We'd love it."

"Let me see what I can do. I think I can sell it."

"Of course, we would want him there personally."

"That's not - the Secret Service wouldn't go for that."

"Then tell them, tough tamales. you're calling the shots. Now, we do have a very full program. So what I would suggest is he make a short statement apologizing for the fifty-year-long UFO cover-up, then announce that he is personally directing that all government files on UFO's be opened."

"We're getting ahead of -"

"Then we can open it up to questions. You're always saying how he loves a good town meeting exchange with just folks. I can guarantee you a lively exchange."

"With all respect, Jack, your people aren't just folks. They're -" "Careful. You called to kiss my ass, not to make me mad. Now I'll admit, privately, that some of them are a little, well, rough around the edges. But then you probably seem weird to them."
Then we are going to cut off your head and play polo with it. What
fun we'll have!

"Jack -"

"Bye bye, Bill. Give my best to POTUS."* Yes, just like the old days.

"Creative Solutions, how may I
-" "It's Scrubbs. Put Asshole on." "Stand by, please."

"Scrubbs, where the hell have you been?"

"This other group you keep talking about. Tell me who they are, or this is my last call to you."

"I'm a little busy right now. They're estimating two million of these people. So right now 1 do
n't really give a rat's ass if I
never hear from you again."

"You say they might take out Banion?"

"I'd say at this point that is a very real possibility, yes."

"You can't let that happen."

"Don't download your bad conscience on me. None of this was our creation."

"Suppose I get Banion to back off."

"How are you going to accomplish that, exactly?"

"I'm not going to tell you that. But suppose I can get him to turn this around and send them home. Would that make this quote, unquote other group cease and desist?"

"I have no way of predicting that." His hesitation said otherwise. "But that might help. Yes. It might be a start."

"Why are we still pretending there's another group out there?"

"Because the world runs on arrangements like that."

"What if I do this?"

"Then your friend might not end up with a blood clot."

*
Acronym used by White House staff for President Of The United States.

"What's in it for me?"

Mr. Majestic laughed bitterly. "You expect a reward?"

"Safe-conduct and money. Get me a severance package - and I'm not talking about having my head severed."

"We might be able to work something out. But we'd have to see concrete results first."

'All
right." Scrubbs sighed. "Stand by."

Banion, Dr. Falopian, and Colonel
Murfletit
were at HQ going over the final schedule of events with the M
³
marshals, event coordinators, and security staff. Colonel
Murfletit
was wearing the uniform he had designed, a military jumpsuit with ascot and swagger stick. With his bald pate, thick, tinted eyeglasses, permanently wet. protruding lips, and general lack of chin, he looked slightly less formidable than General Patton. Dr. Falopian's eyes had taken on an alarming aspect. He looked like an unwashed Bolshevik revolutionary who had spent the week sleeping on a bench at the Finland Station waiting for Lenin's train to pull in so that they could start executing anyone who owned land. He had taken to chain-eating donuts - for energy, he claimed -which left his Falstaffian abdomen covered under a permanent snow blanket of confectioners' sugar. (Renira referred to his stomach as
le grand massif.)
Banion. too. was showing the strain. He had dark circles under his eyes and had lost almost ten pounds, he nonetheless presented a more reassuring image than his two top lieutenants.

Colonel
Murfletit
reported on his progress. The stage was being erected at the head of the Mall, in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol. It would make a splendid backdrop. The stage itself was in the shape of a large flying saucer, with a Plexiglas dome suspended overhead like a giant cockpit canopy. Huge speakers would broadcast cosmically themed music, the soundtracks from
Star Wars, Star Trek, 2001, The Day the Earth Stood Still, My Favorite Martian,
and other classics.

"Is it going to be finished in time?" Banion asked. Colonel Murfletit gave a weary nod. He might be a bit of an odd duck, Banion thought, but the Army got the job done.

Kathy Carr, who until Banion's abduction had been the nation's leading abductee, would kick off the Friday-night program by singing the national anthem. It had taken a lot of stroking on Falopian's part to get her. She chafed at no longer being number one.

"Do we know" - Banion rubbed his temples - "if she
can
sing?" The entertainment committee chair said she could probably get through it without making people wince. She said Kathy wanted to substitute some lyrics: "saucers flying through air" for "bombs bursting in air."

"No. no, no, no, no." Banion said, "we do
not
rewrite the national anthem. Please make that pellucidly clear to Ms. Carr. We are gathering as patriotic Americans petitioning our elected
representatives.
If
I
hear
her sing one word I don't recognize, I'm going to cut off her microphone."

Fina Delmar, Hollywood star, would then welcome the assembled. Renira, in her cherished capacity as liaison to Miss Delmar, said that the actress would make brief remarks about how her abduction had changed her life.

"Brief, please," Banion said. "No endless reminiscences about everyone being pushed in Darryl Zanuck's pool." "It was Jack Warner's swimming pool."

"Whatever. Okay, what's next?" He looked at the lineup. "Tall Nordic Singers. What are they going to sing?"

"We Are the World," the entertainment chair said. They'd been rehearsing all week. It promised to be very moving. Later in the program they would come back on and do a haunting vocal accompaniment to "The Ice Forests of Orion." That would be even more moving, she promised.

Next, Dr. Falopian would speak. Glancing over at his crazed-looking colleague, Banion could only hope that the good doctor would shave, comb his hair, and wipe away the blanket of sugar on his belly before standing up to address a crowd that was now estimated at over 2 million, to say nothing of a live television audience expected to be in the hundreds of millions.

"What themes will you be striking, Danton?" Banion cautiously inquired.

Dr. Falopian went into a long, not altogether linear tirade about the U.S. government's evil connivance in this new form of slave trade. Banion collegially urged him to try to keep it to five minutes. We have a long program, folks.

Next was Darth Brooks, the Grammy-winning sci fi/country-western singer. He would sing his golden oldie, "Momma Don't Go with Little Green Men" - always a crowd pleaser, then his popular sing-along number 'Ammonia and Cinnamon."

Next would come the film. It was a documentary featuring an actual alien named Freepo. It was controversial even within the UFO community. In it, Freepo declared that he had met with top U.S. government political and military leaders to warn them about El Nino's impact on global weather patterns and that they had ignored his warnings entirely. After watching a rough version of it, Banion pointed out that Freepo had a pronounced southern accent. Dr. Falopian, who staunchly championed the film, argued that Freepo hailed from the Ulnar-5P galaxy, where vocal patterns were, in fact -how astute of Banion to point it out - remarkably similar to those of the U.S. rural South. He insisted that they show it. Finally, he said, we have one of them on tape! The footage was too hot to hold - why wait until after it had appeared on
Tales of the Weird!
Banion was too tired to argue, but he did put the kibosh on the revolting cattle mutilation video they wanted to show.

Colonel Murfletit would speak next. He would describe how he had been personally ordered by shadowy Pentagon brass to change the fluid in the tanks where the alien corpses from Roswell were preserved, not a pretty story either. Banion urged him not to dwell in too great length on the details. His headache throbbed.

Much discussion had been given to who should introduce Banion. Murfletit and Falopian had both been jockeying Fiercely for the honor. Yet Banion felt - without putting it directly - that it should be someone of greater, well, stature. He had settled finally on Romulus Valk.

Dr. Valk was the father of the halogen bomb, whose development had changed the course of the Cold War. The halogen weapon had so alarmed President John F. Kennedy that he had Dr. Valk himself classified, causing the dwarfish, beetle-browed Czech
emigre
no little inconvenience. He was finally declassified by President Nixon, enabling him to use credit cards and telephones and other services Americans take for granted. Nixon and Kissinger consulted with him regularly on how to scare the shit out of other countries.

Valk had come late to the belief that dared not speak its name. One day, looking out his office window at the Valk Institute in Ojo, California, while calculating how many halotons it would take to incinerate the Chelyabinsk Red Army base, he saw funny, blinking lights, and that was it, he never looked back. Unfortunately, his health was now far from robust. He was in his late eighties and had a tendency, in conversation, to begin speaking in Czech. Banion earnestly hoped that Dr. Valk would not lapse into his natal tongue halfway through his introduction.

"Should we have a translator standing by, just in case?" Elspeth suggested.

"Excellent idea, Elspeth," Banion said. "All right, then I come on. I'll speak for fifteen minutes, max. I'll try to get the chant going. How does it go again?"

"Wee-ooo, wee-ooo, how much does the government know?"

"Right. Okay, then the Tall Nordic Singers come on, and we'll segue right to the fireworks. How are we coming with the fireworks permits?"

They were working on it. The Park Service, cheesed about having been overruled on the march, was being pissy about certain details, such as the possibility of undetonated ordnance landing on concentrated masses of people, or on the White House for that matter.

"Okay" - Banion yawned - "let's quickly run through Saturday's program."

It was almost three in the morning by the time he got home. He had just thrown himself onto the bed, too tired even to take off his clothes and get under the covers, when the phone rang.