Runaway Heart (25 page)

     
In that split second before the light went on, Herman saw what he
thought were noise-cloaking panels on the belly. These "whisper
panels" had been described to him when he'd filed a class action against
the government on behalf of Tom Lawson and Gil Grant, two Marines who had
gotten horribly sick from something they'd contracted at Area 51, the
supersecret government airbase at Groom Lake, Nevada. It was Tom and Gil who
had originally gotten him interested in Area 51. He had hoped his lawsuit would
force the government to reveal what testing was really going on out there.

     
The helicopter hovered, blowing sand and dirt as it whispered
silently above the field. Suddenly, men appeared on the ground all around them.
They had either jumped from the low hovering helicopter or had been up here
already waiting. They converged from all sides. Herman felt hands
grabbing him as
ten or twelve soldiers swarmed them. They were all dressed in camouflage
jumpsuits with a strange, red Delta insignia sewn over the uniform's left
breast pocket.

I was right!
Herman thought,
recognizing the Dulce Base insignia that had been drawn for him once by Tom
Lawson.

     
Herman and Jack were quickly frisked. Jack's AMT Hardballer was
yanked out of his holster. They were both cuffed while Paul Nichols was
uncuffed, then they were hustled to a spot at the side of the field as the
strangely-shaped black helicopter landed, throwing dirt and stones everywhere,
stinging their skin and eyes.

     
Ten commandos dragged Herman and Jack toward the helicopter, but
Paul Nichols yelled something at the soldiers who had a hold of Jack.

     
"Huh?" one of the commandos yelled back, over the
windstorm coming from the idling futuristic chopper.

     
"Turn him around," Nichols demanded, pointing at Jack.
They did as he instructed, then Paul stepped up and fired a right cross.

     
Jack's lip split and blood flowed. "That all you got?"
Jack yelled at Nichols.

  
   
The commandos yanked Jack around, then
continued pushing Herman and Jack toward the helicopter.

     
Canvas hoods were snapped over their heads as they were forced
into the chopper. The roar inside was much louder than on the outside. Herman
and Jack felt the helicopter shudder and rise. As they took off they were both
pretty sure they would never be heard from again.

W
hile be breathed his own hot breath
inside the blackout hood Herman felt the annoying tickle in his throat. He felt
sluggish and without energy and knew his heart had gone into another
arrhythmia.

     
As he and Jack Wirta were whisked away into the night, Herman
cursed his heart. He was almost certain the strange, futuristic helicopter
taking them to God-knows-where was one of the new Aurora Hyper-aircraft that
Tom and Gil had told him about.

     
An hour later the helicopter began to slow. Herman felt the
vibration increasing as the pilot added power and pulled up on the collective,
making the chopper hover.

     
"Dreamland Control, this is Psych Twenty-seven. We are
downrange and entering The Box," the pilot reported.

     
Herman knew all about Dreamland.

     
It was the secret testing site at Groom Lake, Nevada. He also knew
that "Psych" was the call sign for all experimental aircraft being
tested at both Groom Lake and Papoose Lake, which was located ten miles to the
north. It was hard for Herman to believe, but it now seemed that he and Jack
were actually being taken to The Ranch, the nickname given to the ultrasecret
test facility encompassing the two five-mile-long runways on the two dry
lakebeds.

     
If that was true, they were about to land at the secret facility
known as Area 51. Only people with top Pentagon security could work there.

     
Herman had spent two months out there in the late eighties,
staying in a motel named the Little A-Lee-Inn. He had
been taking
sworn statements from government radiologists and toxic waste people at Area
51. He'd been refused entry to the base and was forced to take his depositions
off-site. His sinuses were always plugged while there, because he was allergic
to something that seemed to be perpetually blooming in the central Nevada
desert. It was the only place he'd ever had sinus trouble.

     
Once, when he was still working the case full-time, he'd taken a
rented, four-wheel-drive Jeep up to Bald Mountain, the highest peak in the
Groom Mountain range. He'd squatted in the old, deserted silver mine with his
tripod and long-lens camera pointed at the secret base almost four miles away.
All the while he was afraid that he was being observed by the telescopes
mounted on the top of the east-end Area 51 support buildings. Those roof scopes
were always pointed toward the mountains, surveying the growing crowds of
conspiracy addicts who were convinced that alien research was taking place on
The Ranch. In the nineties the government had finally taken over the Groom
Mountains, making them a part of Area 51. He'd heard stories about the CDF
troops that sometimes raided these hills to keep snoopers out. Luckily, he'd
gotten his photos before that had happened, snapping almost twenty rolls.

     
He blew them up and showed them to Tom Lawson and Gil Grant, who,
at the time, were sick and dying from some strange toxic waste or radio-electric
illness. They claimed they had gotten sick from working in S-4, a secure area
with test beds for the antigravity propulsion systems. These systems were later
called pulse-detonation wave engines, or hydrogen-powered scramjets. When
Herman had shown Gil and Tom the pictures he intended to use in court, the two
men identified much of what he had caught on film.

     
They pointed out a restricted block of military airspace located
in the center of Groom Lake. It was marked on all military and civilian air
charts, as R-4808-E, but it was known as "The Box." The two men
explained that a military Code 61 restricted all flights over The Box, from the
ground to deep space. Even most military pilots stationed
at Area 51 were
forbidden to overfly this zone. At the center of this flight-restricted area
was a small, insignificant building that looked to be only one story high, but
according to Gil and Tom had six levels underground. This huge, subterranean
facility housed the legendary Level Four, known as Nightmare Hall, where
bizarre genetic experiments were supposedly taking place.

     
Nightmare Hall was officially labeled the Secure Dulce Biogenetics
Lab. Tom said that he had worked there in the late eighties and had seen
grotesque, bat-like creatures that were seven feet tall. He described
lizard-like humans, gargoyles with scaly skin that he called drago-reptoids.

     
To be honest, Herman hadn't believed much of it because Gil and
Tom were both very sick and toward the end had been hallucinating. Back then it
was hard to believe that any of this was really going on. But Herman knew
without a doubt that both men had contracted their strange illnesses at Area
51—sicknesses that none of their civilian doctors had ever seen before.

     
Herman attempted to compel the Air Force to identify the project
the men had been working on so a cure might be devised. His secondary goal was
the total exposure of the illegal science he suspected was taking place out
there. He'd failed to even get his case to trial.

     
Through it all Herman learned that published reports of scientific
discoveries often lagged many generations behind what was really going on,
especially if the experiments were supersecret "black projects." As
more and more reports surfaced on gene splicing and hybrid animal
experimentation, along with the spectacular arrival of Dolly, the cloned sheep,
Herman began to suspect that unimaginable horrors might really be lurking in
Nightmare Hall.

     
Tom and Gil died of their illnesses in 1997, but Herman, working
pro bono, was still trying to get a lawsuit for damages into court on behalf of
their children. In the process he'd seen more redacted material than was in the
Warren Report. Ultimately, the government did what it always
did—claimed
national security and withheld all of his subpoenaed information.

     
Since the men's deaths Herman often studied his blowups of Area
51—particularly the secure Dulce buildings that were circled in ballpoint. He
pondered Tom and Gil's stories about the "igloos"—dirt-covered
hangars that hid the Psych Experimental Aircraft from the Russian satellites
that passed overhead twice a day. He wondered about their tales of the
antigravity flying machines that were supposedly reverse-engineered from a
flying saucer that had crashed on the Foster Ranch in New Mexico in July 1947.
He looked at his photos longingly, like a father studying shots of his dead
children. His sense of loss was profound, the dream of what his lawsuit might
have discovered running wild.

     
In the end it was hard to know what to think, hard to believe that
such grotesque experiments were taking place under our own government's
supervision.

     
Or was it?

     
One fact was certainly clear and rose above all others. Whatever
was happening at Area 51, the U.S. government was determined to keep it a
secret from its citizens. That fact alone fueled his suspicions.

     
Herman was jolted back to the present when the helicopter touched
down- The whining engine finally silenced and he heard people talking softly
outside. He became aware of Jack Wirta breathing next to him. The smell of fear
was sharp inside his hood. His eyes stared into the black cloth as he imagined
everything but saw nothing.

     
Suddenly, strong hands pulled Herman out of the helicopter and he was
led to a vehicle. A door was opened and he was pushed roughly inside.

     
"Where am I?" he said, to find out if they would
respond.

     
"Shut up," a voice growled. Then two doors were slammed
and the car accelerated. Then he heard someone say, "Dulce Lab."

     
The car stopped and he was taken out of the back seat and led
across poured concrete. He felt no seams or irregularities in the pavement as
he walked, deciding it might
be some sort of runway. An electronic beep sounded. A door hissed
open. He was led inside.

     
Cool air-conditioning. Even at night, this building was
temperature-controlled. Another airlock hissed, then he was in an elevator
descending fast, his stomach pressed up against his diaphragm as they went
down. Soon the elevator door opened and there was another long walk down an
air-conditioned corridor. Two security locks chirped. He was pushed into a
chair and finally the hood was snapped off. Herman blinked his eyes in the
harsh neon light.

     
He was looking at a man with a shaved head and thick glasses
wearing a white lab coat with a stethoscope around his neck. The lab coat had
an insignia on it similar to the one the Rangers wore, but slightly more
complicated.

     
Tom and Gil had drawn a bunch of different insignias for him, but
never one that looked like this.

     
"Take off your clothes."

     
"I beg your pardon?"

     
"We're giving you a physical exam."

     
"The hell you are!"

     
"Mr. Strockmire, you are going to have an examination whether
we give it to you in your present state or do it under anesthesia."

     
"You kidnapped me."

     
"I wouldn't know about that. I only have your name, medical
records, and instructions to verify your health. That's it. You want to know
more, ask the colonel. But either you take your clothes off or I'll get someone
in here from CDF."

     
Herman knew from his now-deceased clients that CDF stood for
Central Defense Forces. The secret police for Area 51. He began to unbutton his
shirt, then took off his pants. The doctor went over him quickly: blood
pressure— high, lungs—clear, heart . . .

     
"What's wrong with your heart?" the doctor asked,
concerned.

     
"I have a recurring arrhythmia. It started up again when they
kidnapped me," Herman answered. "It's why my blood pressure is—"

     
"That's not gonna work. Just a minute." The doctor
walked out of the room, leaving Herman alone.

     
The examination area had security cameras pointing down from two
corners. He could smell the air coming through the vents. It had some kind of
pleasant odor, faint, sweet, and medicinal.