The Doomsday Conspiracy (10 page)

"What's going on over there?"

he asked.

Mothershed was busy grabbing his camera equipment.

"Come and see for yourself."

The two men moved across the highway to the wooded area, and Mothershed pushed his way through the circle of tourists.

"Excuse me," he said.

"Excuse me." He adjusted the focus on his camera and started snapping pictures of the UFO and its eerie passengers. He took pictures in black and white and in color. As the shutter clicked each time, Mothershed thought, A million pounds ...

another million pounds ... another million pounds. The priest was crossing himself and saying, "It's the face of Satan." Satan, hell, Mothershed thought exultantly. It's the face of money. These will be the first pictures that prove that flying saucers really exist.

And then, suddenly, a terrifying thought occurred to him. What if the magazines think these pictures are fake? There have been a lot of faked photographs of UFOs. His euphoria vanished. What if they don't believe me? And that was when Leslie Mothershed had his second inspiration. There were nine witnesses gathered around him. Without knowing it, they were about to lend authenticity to his discovery. Mothershed turned to face the group.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he called out.

"If you would all like to have your photographs taken here, just line up Page 56

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and I'll be happy to send each of you a print, free." There were excited exclamations. Within moments the passengers from the tour bus, except for the priest, were standing beside the remains of the UFO.

He was reluctant.

"I can't," he said.

"It's evil!" Mothershed needed the priest. He would make the most convincing witness of them all.

"That's just the point," Mother~he'd said persuasively.

"Don't you see? This will be your testimony about the existence of evil spirits."

And the priest was finally persuaded.

"Spread out a little," Mothershed ordered, "so we can see the flying saucer." The witnesses shifted their positions.

"That's it. Very good. Excellent. Hold still, now." He snapped half a dozen more pictures and took out a pencil and paper.

"If you'll write down your names and addresses, I'll see to it that each of you gets a print." He had no intention of sending any prints. All he wanted was corroborating witnesses. Let the bloody newspapers and magazines try to get around that!

And then, suddenly, he noticed that several people in the group had cameras. He couldn't allow any other photographs but his! Only photos that had the credit "Photograph by Leslie Mothershed" could exist.

"Excuse me," he said to the group.

"Those of you who have cameras, if you'll pass them to me, I'll take a few pictures of you so that you'll have some taken with your own cameras." The cameras were quickly handed to Leslie Mothershed. As he knelt to frame the first shot, no one noticed that Mothershed clicked open the film compartment with his thumb and held it ajar. There, a little bit of nice bright sunlight will help these photographs no end. Too bad, my friends, but only professionals are allowed to capture historic moments.

Ten minutes later, Mothershed had all their names and addresses. He took one last look at the flying saucer and thought exultantly, Mother was right. I am going to be rich and famous.

He couldn't wait to return to England to develop his precious photographs.

"What the hell is going on?"

The police stations in the Uetendorf area had been inundated with telephone calls all evening.

"Someone is prowling around my house. -.."

"There are strange lights outside...." Page 57

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"My livestock is going crazy. There must be wolves around. .

"Someone drained my watering trough. -.." And the most inexplicable telephone call of all: "Chief, you'd better send a lot of tow trucks out to the main highway right away. It's a nightmare. All traffic has stopped."

"What? Why?"

"No one knows. The car engines just suddenly went dead." It was a night they would never forget.

ow ~ng ~ the assignment going to take? Robert wondered, as he strapped himself into his first-class seat on the Swissair flight. As the plane rushed down the runway, its huge Rolls-Royce engines hungrily swallowing the night air, Robert relaxed and closed his eyes. Was it really just a few years ago that I took this same flight with Susan to London? No. It was more like a lifetime ago.

The plane touched down at Heathrow at 6:29 P.M., on schedule. Robert made his way out of the maze and took a taxi into the sprawling city. He passed a hundred familiar landmarks, and he could hear Susan's voice commenting excitedly on them. In those golden days, it had never mattered where they were. It was simply enough that they were together. They brought their own happiness with them, their own special excitement in each other. Theirs was the marriage that would have a happy ending. Almost.

Their problems had started innocently enough with an overseas call from Admiral Whittaker while Robert and Susan were traveling in Thailand. It had been six months since Robert had been discharged from the Navy, and he had not talked to the admiral in all that time. The call, reaching them at the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok, was a surprise.

"Robert? Admiral Whittaker."

"Admiral! It's good to hear your voice."

"It hasn't been easy tracking you down. What have you been up to?"

"Not very much. Just taking it easy. Having a long honeymoon."

"How is Susan? It is Susan, isn't it?"

"Yes. She's fine, thank you."

"How soon can you get back to Washington?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"It hasn't been announced yet, but I've been given a new assignment, Robert. They've made me deputy director of 17th District Naval Intelligence. I'd like you to come aboard." Robert was taken aback.

"Naval Intelligence? Admiral, I don't know anything about-"

"You can learn. You would be doing an important service for your Page 58

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country, Robert. Will you come and discuss it with me?"

"Well-"

"Good. I'll expect you in my office Monday at oh nine hundred. Say hello to Susan for me."

Robert repeated the conversation to Susan.

"Naval Intelligence?

That sounds so exciting."

"Maybe," Robert said doubtfully.

"I have no idea what's involved."

"You must find out."

He studied her for a moment.

"You want me to take it, don't you?"

She put her arms around him.

"I want you to do whatever you want to do. I think you're ready to go back to work. I've noticed in the last few weeks how restless you've become."

"I think you're trying to get rid of me," Robert teased.

"The honeymoon is over."

Susan put her lips close to his.

"Never. Did I ever tell you how crazy I am about you, sailor? Let me show you.

Thinking about it latertoo late-Robert decided that that was the beginning of the end of their marriage. The offer had seemed wonderful at the time, and he had gone back to Washington to meet with Admiral Whittaker.

"This job requires brains, courage, and initiative, Robert. You have all three. Our country has become a target for every little tinhorn dictatorship that can breed a terrorist group or build a chemical-weapons factory. A number of these countries are working on atomic bombs at this moment so that they can hold us at ransom. My job is to build an intelligence network to find out exactly what they're up to and to try to stop them. I want you to help me." In the end, Robert had accepted the job with Naval Intelligence, and to his surprise, he found that he enjoyed it and had an aptitude for it. Susan found an attractive apartment in Rosslyn, Virginia, not far from where Robert worked, and busied herself furnishing it. Robert was sent to the Farm, the CIA training ground for Secret Service agents.

* * * Located in a heavily guarded compound in the Virginia countryside, the Farm occupies twenty square miles, most of it covered in tall pine forest, with the central buildings in a ten-acre clearing two miles from the front gate. Dirt roads branch off through the woods, with locked swinging barricades, and No Entry signs posted. At a small airfield, Page 59

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unmarked aircraft arrive and depart several times a day. The Farm has a deceptively bucolic setting, with leafy trees, deer running in the fields, and small buildings innocently scattered around the extensive grounds. Inside the compound, however, it is a different world. Robert had expected to train with other Navy personnel, but to his surprise, the students were a mixture of CIA inductees, marines, and Army, Navy, and Air Force personnel. Each student was assigned a number and housed in a dormitorylike room in one of several Spartan two-story brick buildings. At the Bachelor Officer Quarters, where Robert stayed, each man had his own room, and shared the bathroom with another. The mess hall was across the road from the BOQ cluster. On the day Robert arrived, he was escorted to an auditorium with thirty other newcomers. A tall, powerfully built black colonel in Air Force uniform addressed the group. He appeared to be in his middle fifties, and he gave the impression of quick, cold intelligence. He spoke clearly and crisply with no wasted words.

"I'm Colonel Frank Johnson. I want to welcome you here. During your stay you will use only your first names. From this moment on, your lives will be a closed book. You've all been sworn to secrecy. I would advise you to take that oath very, very seriously. You are never to discuss your work with anyone-your wives, your family, your friends. You've been selected to come here because you have special qualifications. There's a lot of hard work ahead of you to develop those qualifications, and not all of you are going to make it. You're going to be involved in things you have never even heard of before. I cannot stress enough the importance of the work you will be doing when you finish here. It has become fashionable in certain liberal circles to attack our intelligence services, whether it's the CIA, the Army, the Navy or the Air Force, but I can assure you, gentlemen, that without dedicated people like yourselves, this country would be in one hell of a lot of trouble. It's going to be your job to help prevent that. Those of you who do pass will become case officers. To put it bluntly, a case officer is a spy.

He works under cover.

"While you're here, you're going to get the best training in the world. You'll be trained in surveillance and countersurveillance. You'll have courses in radio communications, encoding, and weaponry and map reading.

"You'll attend a class in interpersonal relations. You'll be taught how to build a rapport, how to draw out an individual's motivations, how to make your target feel at ease."

The class was hanging on every word.

"You'll learn how to meet and recruit an agent. You'll be trained in how to make sure meeting places are secure.

"You'll learn about 'dead drops,' how to covertly communicate with your contacts. If you're successful at what you do, you will carry out your assignments unnoticed and undetected."

Robert could feel the excitement that charged the air.

"Some of you will work under official cover. It could be diplomatic or military.

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Others will work under unofficial cover as private individuals-as businessmen, archaeologists, or novelists-any profession that will give you access to the areas and types of people likely to have the information you're looking for. And now I'm going to turn you over to your instructors. Good luck." Robert found the training fascinating. The instructors were men who had worked in the field and were experienced professionals. Robert absorbed the technical information easily. In addition to the courses Colonel Johnson had mentioned, there was a brushup course on languages and one on cryptic codes. Colonel Johnson was an enigma to Robert. The rumor circulating about him was that he had strong connections at the White House and was involved in high-level covert activities. He would disappear from the Farm for days at a time and suddenly reappear.

An agent named Ron was conducting a class.

"There are six phases to the clandestine operational process. The first is spotting. When you know what information you need, your first challenge is to identify and target individuals who have access to that information. The second phase is assessment. Once you have spotted your target, you have to decide if he really has the information you need, and if he might be susceptible to recruitment. What motivates him? Is he happy in his job? Does he have a grudge against his boss?

Is he over his head financially? If the prospect is accessible and there's a motivation that can be exploited, you move along to phase three.

"Phase three is development. You build up a relationship with a prospect. You manage to run into him as often as possible and build a rapport. The next phase is recruitment. When you think he is ready, you go to work on him psychologically. You use whatever psychological weapons you've got-revenge against his boss, money, the thrill of it. If a case officer has done his job well, the prospect usually says yes.

"So far so good. You have a spy working for you. The next step is handling him. You must protect not only yourself, but him too. You will arrange surreptitious meetings and train him in the use of microfilm and, where appropriate, clandestine radio. You will teach him how to detect surveillance, what to say if questioned, and so on.

"The last phase is dl-sconnecting. After some period of time, perhaps your recruit will be -erred to a different job and no longer have access to the information, or maybe we will no longer need the information to which he does have access. In any case, the relalionship is ended, but it's important to end it in such a way that the recruit doesn't feel he has been used and is looking for vengeance. -.." Colonel Johnson had been right. Not every one made it through the course. Familiar faces kept disappearing. Washed out. No one knew why. No one asked.