pyramids had not been discovered yet. It was perhaps hid-
                                                                den deep in the bedrock underneath the massive stone
  The pyramids drew tourists and archeologists and scien-       structures.
tists and evoked awe among all. For the tourist the size and      There were many theories, but none had yet been
age were enough. For the scientist the exact engineering        proven. It was a search to discover and prove the purpose
defied the technology of the time in which they were built.     of the pyramids that drew Peter Nabinger to them every
For the archaeologist not only was the architecture amaz-       year for six months. The leading Egyptian expert at the
ing, but there was the unsettling question of the purpose of    Brooklyn Museum, he had been coming here for twelve
the buildings. That was the question Nabinger had strug-        years.
gled with for years, not content with the answers offered up      Nabinger's area of expertise was hieroglyphics: a form of
by his colleagues.                                              writing using figures or objects to represent words or
  They were commonly assumed to have been tombs for             sounds. His philosophy was that the best way to understand
the pharaohs. But the problem with that theory was that         the past was to read what people of the time had to say
the sarcophagus discovered inside of each of the pyramids       about their own existence, rather than what someone dig-
had been found empty. For years that had been blamed on         ging up ruins thousands of years later had to say.
the plundering of grave robbers, until sarcophagi with the        One thing Nabinger found most fascinating about the
lids still on and the seals on those lids still intact were     pyramids was that if they had not been there now, in the
found, and they were empty also.                                present, for everyone to see, it was doubtful anyone would
  The next best theory, and one that logically followed the     believe they had ever existed, because of the almost total
previous one, was that perhaps the pyramids were ceno-          lack of reference to them in ancient Egyptian writings. It
taphs, funeral memorials, and the bodies had secretly been      was almost as if Egyptian historians of years gone past had
buried elsewhere to prevent the graves from being plun-         assumed everyone would know about the pyramids and
dered.                                                          therefore there was no need to talk about them. Or, Nab-
  A more recent theory took a totally different approach.       inger sometimes suspected, maybe even the people of the


42                             ROBERT DOHERTY
                                                                 AREA    51                                              43


time of the pyramids' building weren't quite clued in them-        Schliemann might have been convinced that Troy actu-
selves as to the reason they were being built. Or maybe,         ally existed and thus spent his life searching for it, but
Nabinger also wondered, maybe it had been forbidden to           Nabinger had no such convictions. Nabinger's work on the
write about them?                                                pyramids was one of detailing what was there and search-
  This year he was trying something different, in addition       ing for its explanation, an area that was perhaps one of the
to his main project of recording all the writing and draw-       most heavily studied in the field of archaeology. He had
ings on the interior walls of the Great Pyramid. He was          hopes that perhaps he might find something with the MRI,
using the magnetic resonance imager, the MRIr to probe           something that others had missed, but he didn't have a clue
deep underneath the structures where the eye could not go        as to what. Hopefully, it might be a new chamber with not
and physical excavation was prohibited. The waves emitted        only whatever was in it, but also new, unseen writings.
by the imager could safely invade the depths and tell him if       Welcher was looking at the readouts. "If I didn't know
there were more buried wonders. At least that was the            better, I'd say we're getting interference from some sort of
theory. The practice, as his graduate assistant Mike             residual radiation."
Welcher was pointing out to him, was not living up to the          Nabinger had been afraid of this. "Radiation?" He
anticipation.                                                    glanced across the chamber at the group of Egyptian labor-
  "It's like"--Welcher paused and scratched his head--             ers who had helped haul the MRI down here. The head
"it's like we're being blocked by some other emission            man, Kaji, was watching them carefully, his wrinkled face
source. It's not particularly powerful, but it is there."        not betraying a thought. The last thing Nabinger needed
  "For example?" Nabinger asked, leaning back against            was the laborers walking out on them because of the threat
the cool stone walls of the chamber. Despite all the time        of radiation.
he'd spent inside the pyramid over the years, there was still      "Yeah," Welcher said. "To prepare for this I worked with
a feeling of oppression in here, as if one could sense the       the MRI in the hospital and we saw readings like this once
immense weight of stone pressing down overhead.                  in a while. They came up when the reading was affected by
  Nabinger was a tall, heavyset man, sporting a thick black      X-rays. In fact, the technician told me they finally had to
beard and wire-rimmed glasses. He wore faded khaki, the          write up a schedule for the machines so they wouldn't be
uniform of the desert explorer. At thirty-six he was consid-     on at the same time, even though they were on different
ered young in the field of archaeology and he had no major       floors of the hospital and both heavily shielded."
finds to stake his reputation upon. Part of his problem, he        It was information not widely known, but Nabinger had
would readily acknowledge to his friends back in Brooklyn,       read reports from earlier expeditions that had used cosmic
was that he had no pet theory that he desired to pursue.         ray bombardment to search for hidden chambers and pas-
He only had his pet method, searching for new writings           sages in the Great Pyramid and their reports had been
and trying to decipher the volumes of hieroglyphics that         similar: there was some sort of residual radiation inside the
still remained untranslated. He was willing to accept what-      pyramid that blocked such attempts. The information had
ever they yielded, but so far his efforts had not turned up      not been widely disseminated because there was no expla-
much.                                                            nation for it, and scientists didn't write journal articles


44                             ROBERT DOHERTY
                                                                 AREA    51                                              45






about things they couldn't explain. Nabinger often won-          tion--enough had been found to cause some interest.
dered how many unexplained phenomena went unreported             What Nabinger had stumbled across were pictures of simi-
because those who discovered them didn't want to risk ridi-      lar high runes from a site in South America. After a year of
cule since there was no rational explanation for their find-     very hard work over the few samples available--combining
ings.                                                            them with those from Egypt--he believed he had manage
  Nabinger had hoped to have better luck with the MRI            to decode a couple of dozen words and symbols. He
because it worked on a different band-width from the cos-        needed more samples, though, in order to feel comfortable
mic-ray emitters. The exact nature of the radiation had          that the little he had achieved was valid. For all he knew,
never been detailed, so he had not been able to determine        his translation could be totally false and he had been work-
if the MRI would be blocked also.                                ing with gibberish.
  "Have you tried the entire spectrum on the machine?"             Kaji snapped some commands in Arabic and the labor-
he asked. They'd been down here for four hours already,          ers rose to their feet and disappeared back up the corridor.
Nabinger allowing Welcher to handle the machine, which           Nabinger cursed and put his notebook down. "Listen here,
was his specialty. Nabinger had spent the time painstak-         Kaji, I've paid--"
ingly photographing the walls of the chamber, the bottom           "It is all right, Professor," Kaji said, holding up a hand
of the three in the Great Pyramid. Although extensively          roughened by a lifetime of manual labor. He spoke almost
documented, some of the hieroglyphics on the wall had            perfect English with a slight British accent--a surprise to
never been deciphered.                                           Nabinger, who was often exasperated by the Egyptian tac-
  The notebook in his lap was covered with his scribblings,      tic of retreating behind a pretended ignorance of English
and he had been centered totally on his work, excited by         to avoid work. "I have given them a break outside. They
the possibility that there might be some linguistic connec-      will be back in an hour." He looked at the MRI machine
tion between some of the panels of hieroglyphics here and        and smiled, a gold tooth gleaming in the front of his
newly found panels in Mexico. Nabinger did not concern           mouth. "We are not having much luck, yes?"
himself with how such a connection could be, he just               "No, we're not," Nabinger said, used to the strange syn-
wanted to decipher what he had. And so far, a very strange       tax.
message was being revealed to him, word by laborious               "Professor Hammond did not have much luck with his
word. The importance of the MRI was diminishing with             machines, either, in 1976," Kaji noted.
every minute he studied the writings.                              "You were with Hammond?" Nabinger asked. He had
  A year ago Nabinger had made some startling discover-          read Hammond's report in the archives of the Royal Mu-
ies that he had kept to himself. It had always been accepted     seum in London. It had not been published due to the
that there were certain panels or tablets of markings at         failure to discover anything. Of course, Nabinger had
Egyptian sites that were not classical hieroglyphics but ap-     noted at the time, Hammond had discovered something.
peared to be some earlier picture language called "high          He had discovered that there was residual radiation inside
runes." While such sites were few--too few to provide a           the pyramids that shouldn't be there.
database sufficient to allow a scientific attempt at transla-      "I have been here many times," Kaji said. "In all the


46                              ROBERT DOHERTY                     AREA    51                                                        47







pyramids. Also many times in the Valley of the Kings. I            below that by a caliph in later centuries. Both linked up
spent years in the desert to the south before the waters           with a tunnel that descended through the masonry and into
from the dam covered it. I have led many parties of labor-         the rock beneath the pyramid. That tunnel ended in an
ers and watched many strange things at sites."                     intersection hewn out of the rock where two tunnels
  "Did Hammond have any guesses why his machine                    branched off. One headed up to the middle chamber and
didn't work?" Nabinger asked.                                      the Grand Gallery, which led to the upper chamber. The
  "Alas, no." Kaji sighed dramatically and ran his hand            other, more recently discovered tunnel headed down into
lightly over the control panel of the MRI, getting Welcher's       the bedrock to the lower chamber. It was the lower cham-
attention. "Such a machine is expensive, is it not?"               ber that Nabinger and his crew were presently working in.
  "Yes, it--" Welcher halted as Nabinger shook his head,
now partially seeing where this was leading.                                                     THE GREAT PYRAMID
  Kaji smiled. "Ah, Hammond, he had no readings. His
man on the machine, he, too, said radiation. Hammond did                          The Upper Chamber
                                                                                  or "King's" Chamber           The Grand Gallery
not believe it. But the machine, it would not lie, would it?"
He looked at Welcher. "Your machine, it would not lie,                          The Middle or
                                                                           "Queen's" Chambei
would it?"
  Welcher remained quiet.
  "If the machine does not lie," Nabinger said, "then
something must be causing the readings."
  "Or something was once here that still causes the read-                                  The Lower Chamber

ings," Kaji said. He turned and headed back toward the
other side of the chamber, where a large stone sarcophagus            "I was here in 1951," Kaji said. "Yes, the sarcophagus
rested.                                                            was empty then."
  "The sarcophagus was intact but empty when they broke               "Then?" Nabinger repeated. He'd worked with Kaji be-
the seals," Nabinger said sharply, referring to the first ex-      fore at other sites and the man had always been honest.
pedition into this chamber in 1951. There had been great           When he'd first hired the old man years ago, Nabinger had
excitement over the discovery of the chamber and particu-           checked with several others in the field and Kaji had come
larly of the sarcophagus found inside with its lid still intact     highly recommended.
and sealed. The mystery of the pyramids was about to be               "Hammond, he thought me an old fool, and I was young
solved, it was thought at the time. One could imagine the           then," Kaji said. "I am older now. I tried to talk to him, but
dismay when the seals were broken and the lid was opened,           he did not wish to talk." Kaji rubbed the fingers of one
and there was nothing in the stone box.                             hand lightly in the palm of the other.
  The interior of the Great Pyramid contained three                   Nabinger knew what that meant. Kaji wanted to be paid
chambers. One entered the pyramid either through the de-            for his information, as Nabinger had suspected, but that
signed polar entrance on the north side, or one blasted just       was only natural. The professor thought furiously. He had


48                             ROBERT DOHERTY                    AREA 51
                                                                                                                        49






rented the portable MRI. The contract was billed by day of       just wasted quite a bit of the museum's money and wonder-
use, and he had enough funds from the museum for eight           ing if he could make it up by skimping elsewhere on the
days of use. If he air-shipped it back tomorrow, he would        expedition fund. His mind automatically began figuring the
save five days of billing. That was a substantial amount of      exchange rate on the pound to dollar.
money, at least from an Egyptian standpoint. The only              Kaji seemed satisfied. "It was nine years before Martin's
problem was explaining his receipts and billing forms to the     expedition, during the Second World War. In 1942 the Brit-
accountant back at the university. But there was no sense        ish ruled here in Cairo, but many were not happy with that.
in continuing to use a machine in a place where it yielded       The Egyptian nationalists were willing to trade one set of
no information. He also considered the runes he was deci-        rulers for another, hoping that somehow the Germans
phering in this chamber. Those alone would make the ex-          would be better than the British and grant us our freedom.
pedition worthwhile. The MRI had been a long shot                In reality we did not have much say in the process. Rom-
anyway.                                                          mel and the Afrika Korps were out to the west in the des-
  Nabinger looked at Welcher. "Take a break."                    ert and many expected him to be here in the city before the
  Welcher left the chamber, leaving the two men alone.           end of the year.
  "Ten thousand pounds," Nabinger said.                            "It all began in January of 1942 when Rommel began his
  Kaji's face was expressionless.                                offensive. By June, Tobruk had fallen and the British were
  "Twelve thousand and that is all I have." Nabinger knew        in retreat. They were burning papers in the Eighth Army
that was over a year's salary to the average Egyptian.           headquarters here in Cairo in preparation to run. They
  Kaji held out his hand. Nabinger reached into his pocket       were all afraid. And Rommel kept coming. The British
and pulled out a wad of bills, the week's wages for the          army fell back on El Alamein.
laborers. He would have to go to the bank and draw on the          "I was working in Cairo," Kaji said, waving his hand
expedition account to pay them now.                              above his head. "Even in the middle of war there were
  Kaji sat down cross-legged on the floor, the money dis-        those who wished to view the ancient sights. The pyramids
appearing into his long robe. "I was here in 1951 with Mar-      have seen many wars. There were many people for whom
tin's expedition when they opened this chamber, but it was       the war was a fine opportunity to travel and make money. I
not the first time I was in this chamber."                       gave tours above. And sometimes, if the person paid
  "Impossible!" Nabinger said sharply. "Professor Martin         enough so I could bribe the Egyptian guards, I took them
broke through three walls to get into here in 1951. Walls        inside. Many wanted to see the Grand Gallery," he said,
that were intact and dated. The seals on the sarcophagus         referring to the massive passageway hundreds of feet above
were the originals with four dynasties marked--"                  their heads that had twenty-eight-foot ceilings and led up
  "You can speak impossible all you like," Kaji continued        to the center of the pyramid and the uppermost chamber.
in the same quiet voice, "but I tell you I was in here before      Kaji spread his hands. "I cared not who ruled Cairo. The
1951. You have paid for my story. You may listen or you          pyramids have seen many rulers and they will see many in
may argue, it matters not to me."                                the future. And the pyramids and the other sites, they are
  "I'll listen," Nabinger said, beginning to think he had        my life.


50                               ROBERT DOHERTY                    AREA 51                                                51








  "The Germans were only a hundred and fifty miles away            who were spying on Italians and around and around." Kaji
and it looked as if they could not be stopped. In early July,      chuckled.
General Auchinleck was relieved and Churchill sent a gen-             "There were fortunes made on the black market. It was
eral named Montgomery to relieve him. No one thought               no trouble for the Germans to send these men into Cairo.
much of it here. It was assumed the British would fall back         Especially that July when everyone was more concerned
to Palestine, where they would block the canal with sunken          about preparing to flee or how to ingratiate themselves
ships, and the Germans would get Cairo.                            with the invaders than about strange groups of men moving
  "That was when I was approached by a party wanting to             in the dark."
go inside this pyramid. They spoke strangely, but they paid           "Where did the Germans get their drawings from?"
well, which was all that counted. I bribed the guards and           Nabinger asked.
we entered, using the caliph's entranceway late at night,             "I do not know. They used me to get inside only. From
which was also strange.                                             there they took charge."
  "We moved through the descending corridor until we                  Nabinger asked the question closest to his heart. "Did
linked up with the original ascending tunnel leading to the         they know how to read what they had?"
Grand Gallery. But they did not want to go up, nor did                "I do not know," Kaji repeated, "but they had someone
they want to go to what we now call the middle chamber,             with them who could understand it in some manner, that
but was then called the lower chamber. They had paper               was for certain. There were twelve of them. We went to the
with them with drawings on it." Kaji pointed at the walls.          dip, where the tunnel turns and heads up toward the
"I did not get to look at it for very long, but the writing was     Grand Gallery, and halted. They searched and then began
very much like that on these walls. The symbols that cannot         digging. I became frightened and upset then. I would be
be read." His eyes turned to the notepad in Nabinger's lap.         blamed, because the guards knew me and knew that I was
"Perhaps you are starting to understand those symbols?"             leading this party in. They were destroying my livelihood
  "Who were these men?" Nabinger asked, flipping the                with their picks and shovels.
notepad shut.                                                         "The German in charge"--Kaji paused and his eyes lost
  "They were Germans," Kaji replied.                                their focus--"he was an evil man. I could see it all about
  "Germans? How could they have gotten into Cairo? The              him and especially in his eyes. When I complained he
British still held the city."                                       looked at me, and I knew I was dead if I opened my mouth
  "Ah, that was the easy part," Kaji replied. "Throughout           again. So I stayed silent.
the war Cairo was one of the major centers for espionage,             "They worked quickly, digging. They knew exactly what
and all sorts of people came and went freely."                      they were doing because inside of an hour they broke
  Kaji's voice became excited as he remembered. "Cairo              through. Another passageway! Even through my fear I was
was the place to be in World War II. All the whores worked          excited. Nothing like this had happened in my lifetime or
for one side or the other or many times both. Every bar             many lifetimes before me. This passageway led downward,
had its spies, most also working for both sides. There were         toward the ground beneath the pyramid. No one had ever
British spying on Germans who were spying on Americans              thought of that before. No one had ever considered if there


52                             ROBERT DOHERTY
                                                                 AREA    51                                              53


was a passage into the ground. They had always searched            "No." Kaji sighed and all the energy seemed to drain out
for ways to go up.                                               of his body. "I don't know what it was that they found.
  "They went into it and I followed. I did not understand        There was a box inside the stone. A box of black metal.
what they were saying but it was easy to see they were           Metal such as I had never seen before nor have seen
excited also. We came down the tunnel"--Kaji pointed be-          since." He gestured with his hands, indicating a rectangle
hind him--"as you and I did earlier today. There were             about four feet high by two in breadth and width. "It was
three blockages set up in the passageway. I could see the        this size."
original writings on the walls and knew we were entering           Nabinger shook his head. "This is all a story, Kaji. I
parts that had not been seen by a living man in over four        think you have taken my money for a story that is a lie."
thousand years. They tore through the blocking walls as            Kaji's voice was calm. "It is not a lie."
quickly as possible, leaving the rubble behind.                    "I've seen the pictures Martin took. All the walls were
  "The tunnel ended in stone, but the Germans didn't let         intact. The seals on the sarcophagus were intact and the
that stop them as they had not let the three other walls         original ones. How do you explain that if these Germans
stop them. They used their picks and broke through. And          did what you said? How did the walls get put back up? The
then we were in here. And the sarcophagus was there just         seals put back on? Magic? The pharaoh's ghost?" Nab-
like you see it in the pictures of Martin's expedition, with     inger was disgusted.
the lid on and the seals intact. In the air I could feel the       "I am not sure," Kaji admitted. "I do know, though, that
presence of--                                                     the Americans and the British sealed off the Great Pyra-
  Kaji paused and Nabinger blinked. The old man's voice          mid for eight months in 1945, while the war was ending. No
had drawn him in, the effect magnified by being in the very      one could go in. Maybe they put everything back. It would
room he was talking about.                                       have been difficult but possible. When I went down with
  Kaji looked at the center of the floor where the sarcoph-      Martin all the walls were back up as you say. It made me
agus had once been. "The Germans were not archaeolo-             wonder, but I knew I had seen them broken through ear-
gists. That was certain. The way they broke through the          lier."
walls showed that. And the fact that they broke the seals          "Why didn't you tell Martin?" Nabinger asked.
and lifted the lid. In 1951 Martin took six months before          "I was just a laborer then. And he would not have be-
his men opened the lid, carefully detailing every step of the    lieved me, as you do not believe me now."
operation. The Germans were into it in less than five min-         "Why are you telling me?"
utes after entering. They were interested in nothing but the       Kaji pointed at Nabinger's notebook. "Because you are
sarcophagus. Not the writings on the walls here, not the         interested in the special writings that no one can read. The
seals. Nothing but the stone box."                               Germans had those writings. That is how they found the
  "Was it empty?" Nabinger asked.                                chamber."
  "No."                                                            "This makes no sense," Nabinger exclaimed. "If the
  Nabinger waited, then could wait no longer. "Did they          Germans came in here and ransacked the chamber, then
find the pharaoh's body?"                                        why would the Americans and British cover it up?"


54                             ROBERT DOHERTY


                                                                  AREA    51                                               55

  Kaji remained silent.                                           were different. One was the man who read the symbols and
  "Ah!" Nabinger threw his hands up in disgust. "There            pointed the way. Two of the killers guarded him always. As
were no Germans in here in the first place. How many              if he was not there of his own free will.
times have you sold this story, Kaji? How many others have          "The second man: Von Seeckt--which is why I stole only
you stolen from? I tell you, I will not allow you to get away     from him--he was different also. He was not one of the
with it."                                                         killers but he wanted to be there. He was very excited when
  "I have not lied. I was here." He reached inside his robe       they found the black box. That was when I was able to take
and pulled out a dagger.                                          the knife. They gave him the box and he put it in a
  Nabinger started, thinking for a second he had pushed           backpack. He carried it with him when they left. It looked
the old man too far, but Kaji held it by the blade, offering      heavy, but he was a strong man."
the handle. Nabinger carefully took it.                             "That is all they wanted?" Nabinger asked. "Just that
  "I stole that off one of the Germans. They all wore             black box?"
them."                                                              "Yes. As soon as they had it we went back out. They had
  Nabinger felt a chill as he looked at the handle. A minia-      a truck waiting and drove away to the north. I ran and hid.
ture, very realistic ivory skull was at the end, and swastikas    I knew the guards would look for me when they found the
were carved into the bone handle along with the lightning         broken walls and the empty chamber. But they never came
bolts that indicated the infamous SS. He wondered what            for me. I never heard a word, which was strange also."
animal the bone had come from, then decided that was                Nabinger held on to the dagger. "How do I know you
information he was better without. The gleaming steel was         didn't get this on the black market? It does not prove your
intricately detailed. Nabinger squinted--there was some-           story."
thing written there. There was a word on the one side:              Kaji shrugged. "I know it is true. I do not care if you
                                                                  believe it is true. I am at peace with Allah. I have told the
      THULE                                                       truth." He pointed at the MRI. "I was reminded to tell you
                                                                  this story because when the Germans opened the sarcopha-
and on the other side a name:                                     gus and pulled out the box, the man I stole the dagger from
                                                                  had one of those"--Kaji paused as he searched for the
      Von Seeckt                                                  word--"a small machine that made noise when he pointed
                                                                  it at the big black box. It chattered like a locust."
  Nabinger had heard of Thule. A place of legend, written           "A Geiger counter?" Nabinger asked.
about by Ptolemy and other ancient geographers as the               "Yes. That is what I have heard it called."
northernmost inhabitable land, north of Britain. He had no          "The black box was radioactive?" Nabinger said, more
idea what that had to do with the Nazis or the pyramids.          to himself than Kaji. Nabinger looked at the Egyptian, who
  "Who was Von Seeckt?" Nabinger asked.                           returned his gaze levelly. Although there was no logical
  "He was the strange one in the group," Kaji said. "Ten          reason to believe the old man, for some reason Nabinger
of the twelve were killers. I could tell by their eyes. Two       did. What had been sealed in the sarcophagus? What had


56                               ROBERT DOHERTY


the ancient Egyptians possessed that was radioactive?
There was no doubting that the MRI was picking up some
form of residual radiation.
  Nabinger sorted the story out in his mind. There was
only one clue to pursue: the name on the dagger. Von
Seeckt. Who was--or probably more appropriately--who
had he been?
  "What are you doing?" Kaji asked, as Nabinger tucked
the dagger into his waistband.
  "I am keeping this," Nabinger said. "I paid for your
story and this is the only proof."                                  NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE
  "I did not agree to that," Kaji said.                             T-134 HOURS, 45 MINUTES
  "Do you wish me to tell your men of your deal? Of the
money I just gave you?" Nabinger asked. "They would                 "This is Johnny. I'm out of town for a bit. Back on the
want their share."                                                  tenth. Talk to you then. Leave a message at the beep. Bye."
  Kaji eyes narrowed. Then he stood and shrugged. "You                Kelly slowly put the receiver down, not bothering to
may keep it. It is an evil thing. I should have gotten rid of it    leave a message. It was after nine in the morning on the
long ago."                                                          tenth. "Oh, Johnny, you've done it now," she whispered to
                                                                    herself.
                                                                      There was no doubt in her mind that Johnny Simmons
                                                                    was in trouble. He had a strange sense of humor, but he
                                                                    wouldn't have sent her that tape and letter as a joke. She
                                                                    knew he was dead serious when he went on an assignment.
                                                                    After the little he had related to her about what had hap-
                                                                    pened in El Salvador, she could well understand his seri-
                                                                    ousness. He had listed nine in the morning three times in
                                                                    his letter. He would not have forgotten or blown it off. At
                                                                    the absolute minimum he would have changed his message
                                                                    by remote as he had said he would.
                                                                      She turned on her computer and accessed her on-line
                                                                    service. To find out where Johnny was, she would have to
                                                                    follow him, and information was the way to start.
                                                                      There were two avenues of investigation to pursue, and
                                                                    she knew they were the same two areas that Johnny would
                                                                    have looked into before he went on assignment. The first


58                            ROBERT DOHERTY
                                                               AREA 51                                                    59






would be to get background information about Area 51                        F-15 Crashes, Pilot Killed
and Nellis Air Force Base. The second would be to get
more specific and look into the UFO phenomenon as it             Officials at Davis-Montham Air Force Base confirmed
related to Area 51.                                              last night that an F-15 fighter jet from the 355th Tacti-
  Kelly had more than a glancing background in the field         cal Training Wing crashed during training yesterday on
of UFOs, which was why, in addition to their friendship,         the Luke Air Force Base reservation.
Johnny had sent her the package in the first place. Her            The pilot, whose identity is being withheld pending
trouble eight years ago with the Air Force at Nellis Air         notification of next of kin, was killed in the crash.
Force Base had had to do with that subject and had for all         The aircraft went down in rough terrain and recov-
practical purposes destroyed a promising career in the doc-      ery operations are under way.
umentary filmmaking field. What had appeared at the time           (No further information was available at press
to Kelly as an excellent opportunity had turned into a di-
saster.                                                          time.)
  Kelly took the package Johnny had sent her and went
through it one more time, this go-around making notes of         Kelly checked, but there was nothing on the crash in the
key words on a legal pad. When she was done, she looked        following day's paper, which was unusual. Kelly flipped
at what she had:                                               open her atlas. Luke Air Force Base was in Arizona, hun-
                                                               dreds of miles from the Nellis Air Force Base Range. She
  Las Vegas Postmark                                           hit the delete key. This had nothing to do with what she
  The Captain                                                  was looking for.
  23 Oct. transmissions, Nellis AFB                              Then she paused. Or did it? How often did F-15's crash?
        Red Flag                                               Not exactly every day of the year. Was it just coincidence?
        F-15                                                   Kelly did not believe much in coincidence. She felt her gut
  "Mailbox"                                                    tighten further. What had Johnny stumbled upon? If this
  Dreamland                                                    F-15 was the F-15 on the tape, the Air Force had gone
  Groom Lake                                                   through a lot of trouble to point the finger in a different
                                                               direction from Nellis and Area 51. And not only was the
  Kelly accessed her on-line data base and set up a            plane reported as having crashed, the pilot was dead. He
Boolean keyword search. She started with the date in ques-     had been very much alive on that tape.
tion, combining it with Nellis Air Force Base, and drew a        Next, Kelly tried mailbox in conjunction with UFOs. This
blank. Then she switched to both the twenty-third and          produced three hits, all of which identified the mailbox as
twenty-fourth of October and accessed any news about           an actual mailbox along a dirt road outside of the Groom
F-15's. This time she got a hit. She drew up the article,      Lake complex where UFO enthusiasts gathered to watch
from the Tucson Citizen, dated the twenty-fourth of Octo-      for strange craft over the mountains. Obviously the man
ber:                                                           who had sent Johnny the tape--the Captain--was one of


      60                             ROBERT DOHERTY                   AREA 51                                                61






      those people. At least she now knew where she could find        knew that Johnny must have done the same search, in fact,
      that link in the puzzle if she needed it.                       a much more in-depth one. And after completing that
        Trying Dreamland and Groom Lake brought her a wealth          search he had felt it was worth going out there and taking
      of stories about the site there. They were both cross-refer-    the chance that the tape he had been sent was a fake or,
      enced to Area 51, which was another one of the many             given that Johnny knew about her own Nellis experience, a
      names for a place whose purpose was unknown and whose           setup.
      existence was officially denied.                                  Shifting through several of the articles, two names kept
        There were many theories, and Kelly was familiar with         popping up: Mike Franklin, a self-styled Area 51 expert
      most of them. There were some who claimed the govern-           living i