Brad arrived at the headquarters of Pacific Office
Services, Inc., half an hour early in hopes of impressing
Baker with his punctuality. Every little bit of
professionalism was going to help, and Brad felt he needed
all the credibility he could get.
The office building was five stories high, had a blue,
mirrored glass exterior, and joined a two-story warehouse
that extended two or three football fields to one side. On
the opposite side of the offices was a large automobile
parking lot, to the front was a immaculately landscaped
park, and to the rear was a four lane private truck route.
Even the most casual observer could see that Baker had gone
to great lengths to locate the loading docks to the rear of
the building. Of course, the casual observer would have
assumed it was in an effort to beautify environment. Baker
had actually done it to make it more difficult for
industrial saboteurs to keep track of his shipping
practices.
Upon entering the building, Brad found himself in an
atrium that rose the entire five stories to a skylight.
Again, the area was immaculately landscaped, showing Baker
had both pride in his workplace, and money to burn. In one
corner of the pristine garden was an armed guard, three
elevators, and a building directory. Brad explained his
business, the guard checked his roster and issued a
visitor's pass. Before boarding the elevator, Brad
nonchalantly glance at the directory. There was no mention
of the Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence Network.
Baker's secretary made Brad wait in the lounge for
twenty minutes. Though it was somewhat annoying, he
dismissed this as the brand of arrogance customary to
corporate heads. They all believed that since they had
money, they were above commoners like Brad. They thought
their money and power could buy and sell people like stock,
and those that were above giving into their greed could be
killed. Large corporations were no better than the
government... they were all hiding the truth from the
people. The thought made Brad ill.
At ten after ten, the secretary announced that Mr.
Baker was now available.
Brad entered the corner office and was surprised that
instead of viewing the atrium or park, Baker's office
overlooked the warehouse and loading docks. The thought
crossed Brad's mind that maybe Baker was a little strange
after all. That's when he realized that Baker wasn't even
in the office. Brad barely had time to sit in one of the
leather chairs in front of Baker's desk, when someone opened
the office's side door.
The man who entered was perhaps a year or two older
than Brad, wore slacks, a starched button-down shirt with
tie, and round, wire rimmed spectacles. His build was not
muscular, but he obviously worked out to tone and define his
body. Had Brad seen him on the street, he wouldn't have
given him a second look. Neither would many women, as Baker
was not especially attractive. The glasses made him look
like any one of the tens of thousands of fledgling
executives who flocked to Los Angeles to earn their fortune.
What Brad couldn't see, was that Baker was wearing contacts
also.
"Mr. Dartmouth, I'm Michael Baker," he started as he
offered his hand. Brad stood in mock respect, and shook
hands with Baker. "I'm afraid I have a tight schedule
today. I only made room for you since you were referred by
Don Ralston."
"I took the liberty of verifying that you are employed
by the Los Angeles Herald. I read the Times myself. The
Herald reflects too much of the liberal bias that has been
proliferated by the press in recent years." Brad let the
statement pass without comment. He knew that only right-
wing, warmongering, neo-nazi pigs regarded the truth as
'liberal bias.'
"Since you were referred by Don, I assume you are here
in regard to my interest in UFO's. For that reason, I will
tell you the same thing I've told reporters from Forbes,
Fortune, and all other publications: I do not go on record
about my personal life or hobbies. There is no up-side to
my making public statements about UFO's as it can only
negatively impact my corporation's public image."
"What about EX-TIN?" asked Brad. "Don't they make
public statements?"
"EX-TIN employs two investigators who are paid to
attach their names to such statements."
"And the reward?"
"The twenty-five thousand dollar reward is held in an
escrow account in EX-TIN's name. This is possible, as it is
a separate, nonprofit corporation. Now that we have
established the ground rules, please state your business."
"You are, of course, familiar with the MAJESTIC
project?" started Brad.
"Of course," replied Baker.
"I have information from four separate sources, two of
them very reliable, that have allowed me to pinpoint the
location of the MAJESTIC research compound where two live
aliens are being held."
"Live?" inquired Baker.
"Yes."
"Is there any precedence for the existence of these
aliens?"
"They were stranded after a crash in Death Valley in
August of 1949."
"I see. And in exchange for the reward, you will
disclose the location of this compound to me... Do you have
any idea how many time I've heard this story?"
Brad sensed Baker's skepticism, and chose a tactic to
counter it. "The compound is located in the Nellis Air
Force Base bomb range, fifty miles southwest of the town of
Alamo, and eighty miles northwest of Las Vegas."
Baker sat silently, and Brad could tell that his shock
tactic had worked flawlessly.
"Mr. Baker, I am not interested in your reward."
To Baker, that was obvious, since Brad had just told
him the location of compound. What confused him was Brad's
motivation. If the reporter wasn't motivated by money, then
what? Why tell him about the aliens instead of simply
printing his findings. That's when it hit him.
"Now, Mr. Dartmouth. What good is knowing the location
of these aliens? You could print the location in your
paper, but the Air Force would move them. You could sneak
into the compound and take a picture, but the government
would hire someone to claim it was a fake. What do you hope
to accomplish? Where is your profit margin?"
"My profit comes in after I go public-- and I have a
plan that will prevent the Air Force from sweeping the
aliens back under the rug."
"But, somehow, you need my help to carry out your plan.
What is it you need? "
"I have spoken with a man who has certain skills that I
think are necessary. His price is ten thousand dollars--
five up front. I have three."
"You want me to provide the other seven?"
"No, just two. I'll take the rest out of what I make
afterward."
"I see." Baker considered Brad with a critical eye,
and wondered if this was a setup to humiliate him or just a
simple con. He knew Brad wasn't wearing a bug, because
everyone was scanned by a broad-band receiver as they passed
through the doorway. To counter anyone from using a laser
listening device to sense vibration of the window panes
caused by speech inside the room, Baker had installed units
that caused midrange disturbance. The devices vibrated the
windows in such a way that anyone trying to eavesdrop, would
hear what sounded like the hum of fluorescent lights. Baker
had a another advantage in the respect that he was taping
everything that was said himself.
"This plan of yours, how exactly are you going to prove
the aliens' existence?"
"We're going to sneak into the compound and rescue the
aliens."
Baker would have laughed, if he hadn't sensed that Brad
was completely serious. For two-thousand dollars this guy
was going to provide Baker with information that he'd spent
hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to get. Maybe that
was part of the scam. Baker thought not. Not for two
thousand dollars. Hell, Baker made half that in a day.
"A rescue mission is quite an intriguing concept. Of
course, I wouldn't want to assist anyone in carrying out an
illegal act, and I'd only invest in such an endeavor for the
entertainment value," stated Baker to protect his
reputation, "but it is interesting. Leave your number with
my secretary, and I'll get back with you."
Baker offered his hand once again, watched as Brad left
the room, then turned to watch the trucks at the warehouse.
It was an interesting concept; and it was right up Baker's
alley. He had never planned on being president of a multi-
million dollar company, but once the ball started rolling,
he figured he'd keep it going. He had inadvertently managed
to integrate his first love into his business, but knowing
there was no viable method of integrating the second, he
started EX-TIN.
Since he was a child, Baker had wanted to be a spy.
When all the kids in the neighborhood were playing war,
Michael would always be his team's spy. He would sneak
through the woods searching for the enemies hide-out and
listening in on their plans. By the time he was sixteen, he
knew the words to Goldfinger almost as well as Sean Connery.
During his final years of high school, he ran a junior spy
service who would follow rivals, snoop on girl friends, or
try to find a copy of a teacher's upcoming test. The
service wasn't profitable and got Baker's ass kicked more
than a few times, but it did teach him a thing or two about
spying and intelligence work.
The main thing it taught him was not to get caught.
He tried to enlist in the armed forces after school,
but was told that his vision was too bad. Even wearing
glasses that looked as if they were cut from the bottom of a
soda bottle, Baker couldn't pass the eye test. Needless to
say, he was heart broken. For lack of anything better to
do, Baker entered college to study political science (the
closest thing to spying he could find).
It was in college that Baker first became interested in
UFO's. One evening, an author was scheduled to lecture on
the subject of aerial phenomenon to publicize his new book.
The lecture cost three dollars for the public, but was free
to students; so Baker attended. The author talked about
mass-hysteria, weather balloons, and claimed that half of
all sightings were actually the planet Venus. The more
Baker listened, the less he trusted the man.
For about a year he studied every book in the school's
library that even mentioned flying saucers. He studied
microfilm records, prepared maps, and attempted to write his
own articles for the cult magazines that he had found. It
was bad enough that his glasses were a turnoff to any
attractive co-ed that he might look at, but when he opened
his mouth and started talking about aliens and space ships,
it immediately pegged him as a weirdo.
Then, about a month into his sophomore year, something
unusual happened that changed his life. On his way home
from school, he was passing a small office and noticed two
dozen people standing in the parking lot and another man
speaking to the crowd. Thinking it was something political,
Baker stopped to listen. He found, instead, that it was a
bankruptcy auction.
For several minutes he listened and watched. The next
item up for bid was a pallet containing twenty-four cases of
computer paper. The auctioneer explained that they wouldn't
sell it by the box, since it was a full pallet. He started
the bidding at two-hundred dollars. Two people bid until
one offered two-forty. Baker estimated the boxes would
retail for twenty a piece, figured he could sell them
himself for fifteen, so he bid two-fifty.
Luck was with Baker that afternoon, as the other man
didn't try to top the bid. Michael wrote a check, loaded
half the paper in his truck, unloaded it in his garage, and
went back for the second load. His father called him a
fool, since his family didn't have a personnel computer.
Michael explained that he would put an add in the classified
section of the Sunday paper and sell it all in a day.
Sunday came, and there was not a single call. Baker
couldn't imagine why not-- he'd called around and found the
best price offered was six dollars higher than his. For a
week he sulked over twenty-four boxes of paper that his
father complained about every night at dinner. He had to
sell the paper, but he didn't know how.
The following Monday, Baker learned the only piece of
useful information he gained from college: it was the
concept of rifle marketing. Rifle marketing is the strategy
of targeting your advertising at the specific group that
will buy your product. You don't put adds for hair relaxer
in the Ku Klux Klan's news bulletin and you don't offer two-
for-one tickets to the latest porn movie at a church social.
What Baker had to do was hit only people who used computer
paper.
Normally, a person would have advertised in a data-
processing trade journal or sent out a mailing list, but
Baker wasn't normal. He realized that using traditional
methods, he'd still be hitting people that didn't need his
product. What he did was diabolically simple. It was so
clever that its effectiveness surprised even himself.
He noticed that the edges of the paper at the bottom of
the box was colored red to warn the operator that he was
about to run out of paper. That night, after midnight,
Baker went to the service entrance of one of the large high-
rises in town, and dived into the tractor-trailer sized
dumpster in search of paper. The trash reeked of cigarette
ashes, the dumpster was sticky with leftover soft drinks,
but he managed to find twelve pieces of paper with red edges
and the name of the company that had printed it.
After two hot showers and a nap, Baker called the
companies, explained he knew they had finished a box of
paper yesterday, and asked if they would like to buy one to
replace it. After the initial hostility died down and they
heard the price, they immediately placed their order. Baker
delivered all twenty-four boxes of paper that afternoon.
With little effort Baker found that he could get
companies to let him work on commission. To make the deal
sweeter for the buyer, Baker would use half his commission
to discount the product. He could afford this because he
wasn't wasting time on needless sales calls. When the
companies saw his effectiveness, they would assign him to
move old stock at a discounted rate.
Baker found his tactic worked with anything. In large
office buildings, a single janitorial service often cleaned
all the offices. When an office ran out of pens, they threw
the empty box into their wastepaper basket along with pieces
of paper that displayed their company name. Invariably, the
janitors used a new trash sack for each office, thus
whatever name was on the forms in the sack with the empty
box, was the company Baker had to call. When Baker started
his own business he paid the janitors to tell him when they
saw the empty boxes in the trash.
After Christmas, Michael didn't go back to school. He
worked full time for another six months before he made his
biggest move. While rummaging through a dumpster, Baker
found a sack belonging to a computer store. In it he found
carbon copies of receipts from sales and service, notes
where a customer and salesman had been discussing prices,
memos of upcoming price hikes and sales, along with all the
information he could ever need about selling computers.
He studied the systems available, located four other
dealer's dumpsters, and found a straight commission job with
another company. Within a month, Baker was the leading
hardware salesman in California. No one could understand
how he did it, not even two of the other stores that went
under due to lost sales. Baker thought about feeling bad,
but in the spy business, there's no time for conscience.
Over the years since then, Baker had diversified to
cover all sorts of office services. He had also honed an
network of moles, bugs, plants, wiretaps, janitors, and
dumpster-divers, into what was one of the world's top
intelligence agencies (The CIA and KGB still insist they're
the top two). Before long, Baker was a millionaire, and
started showing up at all the right parties. What amazed
the hosts was that he hadn't even been told where the
parties would be.
By wearing the strongest contacts he could find, then
wearing glasses to make up the difference, and working-out,
Baker had made himself one of the most desirable catches in
LA. He was often seen with the most gorgeous young
actresses and models, but was known as the venerable
bachelor. Even though he was rich and successful, Baker's
greatest love was his study of UFO's. He knew it was
eccentric, but he didn't care: curiosity was one of the side
effects of being an intelligence agent.
Perhaps he was so infatuated by UFO's because no matter
how hard his intelligence network tried, they couldn't find
any evidence to categorically support or deny their
existence. Regardless of the reason, Baker had to find out.
If this reporter could provide help him with evidence, for
only two thousand dollars, it was worth the money. After
all, Baker had spent that much investigating claims he
suspected were false to start out with.
Baker was willing to risk two thousand dollars on this
reporter, but not his reputation. He knew he was going to
give the man the money he wanted, but only on his terms. He
picked up his phone and pressed the intercom button. "I
want you to run a check on Dartmouth, Bradley. Check
everything: credit, priors, mailing lists. Find out who
we've got snooping around at the Herald, and see what they
say."
Bradley Dartmouth didn't know it yet, but he was about
to get just what he wanted... whether he needed it or not.
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