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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