Douglas Bunger's Blaze Of Glory

Chapter 7



 
 
 
    After his conversation with Major Dandridge, Brad's feelings were oscillating between elation and suspicion. The Major had given him some information that had tied several unrelated details together, but in the back of his head, he still heard a little voice that told him the man was lying about something. The little voice sounded unusually like Wheeler's.
    Dandridge had confirmed his hunch that 'Goblin' was a code word, but he had never hoped to find out what the code word meant. Of course the major could have been bluffing-- Goblin might not have anything to do with the Stealth program. Yet, if it were true, it would answer several questions he had about Gatewood.
    Gatewood had said that the Goblins were invisible, but that he could see and hear them. Brad knew very little about airplanes other than the fact that they sometimes crashed. That one piece of information was sufficient to keep him from flying if it was at all possible. He did, however, know what he read in the newspaper, and the paper said that the Stealth fighter and bomber were alleged to be radar proof. That would mean that they would be invisible to an air traffic controller, but someone on the ground (like Gatewood) would still be able to see and hear it.
    To Brad, this meant that Gatewood probably wasn't as crazy as he seemed. He was actually telling the truth about the Goblins, but he was telling it in such a way that he sounded insane. So, if he was right about Stealth, could he have been right about the aliens or space birds? Surely not, thought Brad. Gatewood had claimed that the aliens took his wife, yet the Air Force was sending her his disability check. If the address Dandridge had given him was real, then Gatewood was wrong. But if the address was a trick...
    There was only one way to find out. Brad collected his notes, picked up his steno pad, and headed for Wheeler's office. His editor was in the process of whittling away on another reporter's piece, and happily set it aside when Brad entered the room. "Any good news?" Wheeler asked.
    "I'm not sure. Gatewood had told me about invisible Goblins flying around, but had said that he could see them. The guy at Nellis that I talked to, Major Dandridge, said that a Goblin was a Stealth fighter. If that's the case, then it would be invisible, but Gatewood would be able to see it."
    "So, you think Gatewood was assigned to Stealth?"
    "The Major said that Gatewood had worked on aircraft radios and Gatewood said that he helped the Goblins communicate with radios. He also claimed Air Force personnel never called them Woblin' Goblins, yet he knew what I was talking about and confirmed that Gatewood was Air Force personnel."
    A faint smile crossed Wheeler's face. "Now you see what I mean about the military."
    "There's something else I forgot to tell you the first time. I told you Gatewood said he saw aliens, what I didn't tell you was that he claimed his wife was kidnapped by these aliens."
    Wheeler raised an eyebrow. "Kidnapped by aliens?"
    "Actually... he said the Air Force stole her and gave her to the aliens."
    "What did the Air Force say about that?"
    "They gave me her address."
    Wheeler snapped to attention in his seat. "The Major gave you an address? Where?"
    "Las Vegas; that's where Nellis is."
    "The Air Force isn't allowed to give you information like that over the phone. No matter who that Major was, he wasn't authorized to give you Gatewood's wife's address." Wheeler removed a phonebook from his desk drawer and opened it to a map that showed long distance area codes. He found Nevada's area code to be 702, and dialed long distance directory assistance.
    "Yes, I need a number in Las Vegas. Gatewood." There was a short pause. "Four listings, hold on I've got the address here somewhere." He snapped his fingers at Brad, who hurriedly found the page in his notes, and handed it to Wheeler. "It's Foronia Road.... Yeah... Yeah... Okay, thanks." He hung-up the phone and stared at the sheet of paper he'd been scribbling on.
    "According to the phone company, there is a Mrs. Elizabeth Gatewood at that address." Wheeler paused and fell deep into thought. "This isn't right. Why would an Air Force Major give you this woman's address when he doesn't know you from Adam? Hell, you could have been a communist agent out to kidnap Gatewood's wife and ransom her for Stealth secrets from the Sergeant"
    "I was wondering if he was bluffing, giving me a fake address to throw me off track, but I guess not. I guess it's real."
    "Well now, don't give up that easy. I think you may be on to something here. An Air Force sergeant who worked on one of the most secret projects since World War II goes crazy, but they let him live on the streets. He says the Air Force stole his wife..."
    "And gave her to aliens," interrupted Brad, but his boss ignored him.
    "An Air Force Major breaks a cardinal rule of government red tape, and cooperates fully with the press. He knew how easy it would be to check to see whether or not this Mrs. Gatewood was really at that address or not." He leaned forward and looked deep into Brad's eyes. "He wants you to talk to Mrs. Gatewood. He thinks that will prove that Gatewood's story about aliens is false. He intends to use her to discredit the Sergeant."
    A cold chill ran down Brad's spine. "You mean... you think there could really be aliens?"
    "Shit no!" laughed Wheeler. "The only aliens in Nevada are the illegal kind. Aliens! The aliens are part of his hallucination. The Major's worried about the Stealth fighters. Gatewood must know something big enough and bad enough to drive him crazy. That's the real story: what is it about Stealth that causes a man to go mad."
    For several seconds Wheeler looked at Brad without a word, as if waiting for him to say something. Brad couldn't think of what it was that he was suppose to say, and began to worry. "I guess, then, that I should talk to Mrs. Gatewood."
    "There you go!" called the editor as he leaned back his chair. "Why don't you go to Vegas tomorrow, and sort of drop in. If you call first, she might contact the Air Force to see if they knew what you wanted. It would be better for you to catch her off guard."
    "What if she's not home?"
    "Then ask around the neighborhood to see if she even exists. I can't imagine the Air Force setting up a fake address and wife for a man who they'd let walk the streets, but it's a distinct possibility." Wheeler reached into his desk's file drawer and searched through the folders, then removed a two-part form. "Here's an expense voucher. I'll put you down for staying two nights, just in case. Do you want to fly?"
    "No, I'd rather drive. That way I can check out the base if I want."
    "You know I can't pay you mileage."
    "Yeah, I'd still rather drive."
    "Okay. Take this to the comptroller's office; they'll give you three hundred dollars for expenses. Save your receipts, and be back Friday afternoon." He handed Brad the signed form, and wished him good luck.
    As he weaved his way through the maze of desks, he started making a mental itinerary. If he left LA before six, he could probably get to Las Vegas by ten thirty. He'd have to stop about seven thirty to catch Mrs. Gatewood before she went to work. If he could arrange to meet her around lunch time, he'd have the rest of the afternoon free to check out the base.
    It helped his self-esteem to know that Wheeler thought the story might amount to something. He had waited so long for his moment of glory, and now, it seemed, the moment was upon him. Before they'd give him his Pulitzer Prize and honor him at any journalism conventions, he had to find out what it was that caused Gatewood to snap.
    Mr. Wheeler had thought it was something about the Stealth program that had pushed him over the edge, but Brad couldn't imagine what it could have been. Perhaps Gatewood found-out that the plane really wasn't radar proof and that the government had spent billions on a project that was a failure. Surely not. The Stealth had flown during Operation Desert Storm without any losses... or at least none the military would admit to. Besides, it wasn't as if he'd invented it. His job didn't depend on the plane working. It had to be something else.
    Maybe he realized that the Russians had Stealth bombers, too, and was concerned about the threat of nuclear war. Surely not. Americans had lived with the threat of atomic destruction for decades. With the virtual extinction of the Soviet Union, that couldn't have been that a big deal.
    But what if Gatewood had seen an alien? That could definitely cause a man to doubt his own sanity, and if he doubted it enough, he could go crazy. Maybe the aliens told the Air Force how to make a plane radar resistant, and Gatewood saw them. Brad looked at the picture the man had sketched for him, and (for a moment) questioned his own sanity. After all, what did Brad know about aliens or flying saucers?
    Nothing.
    Nothing, but what he read on the covers of the gossip rags they sold at the check-out counters of the grocery store, and you couldn't believe any of that stuff. The only way Brad Dartmouth was going to believe aliens existed, was when they turned up on the front page of the Herald. Of course that would never happen-- the Los Angeles Herald was a respectable newspaper.
    By the time he reached his desk, Brad had a strange thought forming in the back of his mind. If Gatewood could be trusted to work on Stealth fighters, then he must have had an extremely high security clearance. What if he had been transferred to another project with an even higher security level? What if he had been assigned to help build a satellite communication station to talk to aliens? Maybe Gatewood didn't actually meet the aliens, but saw them on a two-way video transmission.
    Surely not.
    It had to be a hallucination; a paranoid delusion. Brad couldn't believe that there were aliens from outer space visiting Earth. He tried to ignore the thought, but the harder he tried, the harder it fought its way to his conscious mind. What if there were aliens? Could Gatewood have seen one?
    Brad didn't know if it was possible, but he knew someone that might. He needed to talk to 'The Answer Man.' If anyone on the planet would know, it would be Harry Jennings.


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