As soon as Clark and Lois walked onto the news floor, Jimmy handed Lois a file folder. She sat at her desk and opened it so both Cat and Clark could look at it over her shoulders.
She paged through the contents, looking for something to pop out at her, when Clark said, “Hold it!” and put his finger on a photo of nine men in Air Force uniforms. “Project Bluebook?” he muttered. “How old is this picture? And why is it here in the first place?”
Cat reached out and touched a different part of the photo. “See this guy? He was in charge yesterday, giving orders and asking questions. He was a lot younger when this photo was taken, but this guy’s name is – where are the names—”
“Jason Trask,” Clark read from the caption below the photo. “This lists his rank as staff sergeant. Lois, what does that rank represent? What kind of responsibilities would he have?”
“He was an E-6, basically an administrative assistant to a captain or major and/or squad leader. It’s two pay grades above my old slot with more responsibility than I had. Still, there’s no way the Air Force would give a former E-6 the kind of authority he was throwing around yesterday. Whatever that was, it was definitely outside the normal chain of command.” She lifted her head and found her target. “Jimmy!”
He pivoted on his toes and hustled to her desk. “You bellowed, milady?”
She frowned and said, “Be funny later and not around me.” Then she indicated the photo. “You have anything else on these guys?”
He pointed to a slender white-haired man seated to one side. “This guy is Captain George Thompson. He retired as a full colonel in 1982.” He pointed to a craggy-faced man wearing eagles on his collar. “Burton Newcomb, then a colonel, retired 1992 as a Major General. Highly decorated for both valor and leadership.” He indicated the man who’d led the invasion the previous day. “This guy, Jason Trask, is a ghost. When Bluebook was terminated in 1969, he disappeared from the Air Force’s ranks with no ceremony. Nobody seems to know where he lives or who he works for now.”
“So he’s our most likely suspect,” Lois said. “Do the other six have any connection to Trask?”
Jimmy shook his head. “I haven’t found anything connecting them yet. Two of these dudes are dead now. I can find cause and circumstances if you need them. The other four survivors are located out west in various places – two in Texas, one in Arizona, and one in Oregon. They don’t seem to be linked to each other or to the government in any way. Thompson is a traveling troubleshooter for Bessolo Industries, basically a lobbying firm whose headquarters are in Washington D.C. If any of these guys are connected to Trask, it’s one or both of those two.”
Cat straightened and flexed her shoulders. “Do we know where Thompson and Newcomb are now?”
He nodded. “Newcomb lives here in Metropolis, does consulting on the side for the Air Force and the entertainment businesses here. Thompson lives in Chicago, but he’s here this week on unspecified business.”
“Business for the Air Force?”
“I haven’t been able to pin that down yet, Cat, but it seems likely.”
“Okay,” said Cat. “I think Jimmy should keep digging while Lois and I go see George Thompson. That sound good to everyone?”
Clark said, “Why don’t we try to get Thompson to come see us? It might be better if he’s on our turf.”
Lois stood. “I like it. Jimmy, can you get in touch with Thompson and try to get him down here?”
He nodded. “Will do. He’s in the company’s local office today, so I should be able to find him.”
Jimmy left on his errand. Cat, Clark, and Lois all looked at each other for a couple of heartbeats, then Clark said, “You want to play good cop/bad cop with him? I can be the bad cop.”
Cat shook her head in the negative. “Lois and I will play against type, with me as the bad cop. You sit at my desk next to us and do some real research while Lois and I whipsaw this guy. If he acts like he’s seen Lois’ airhead impersonation, he’ll let us know in a hurry. If not, Lois can do her Betty Boop act while I get all up in his grill with a terrific Bogart. Either way, we can crack him like a peanut, and if he gets physical you can step in and shut him down.”
“Wait just a danged minute!” Lois objected. “I can shut him down myself! There’s no need for Clark to step into the crosshairs!”
“Hey,” Clark broke in, “I can handle myself just fine. Thompson’s got to be in his 60s by now, and I don’t care how good he used to be in a fight. I know I can take him.”
Lois spun on her toes as if executing a “right face” command. “Put the testosterone back in the bottle, Kent!” she hissed. “We don’t need you to come across like a nine-hundred-pound gorilla! In fact, I’m not sure we need you at all!”
“You need me for deli deliveries if nothing else.”
“A lot of the time that’s all you’re good for!”
Clark’s eyes narrowed and he crossed his arms. “Catharine was right. That day we met was one of your good days.”
Lois took in a breath that threatened to become a full-throated yell, but Cat stepped between them and pushed them apart. It was harder to move either one of them than she’d thought it would be.
“That’s enough, both of you!” she growled. “I’m still senior on this team and what I say goes! We go after Thompson like I outlined a minute ago! Got that?”
Neither Clark nor Lois answered her, but at least they were only staring at each other and not yelling. “Clark!” Cat demanded. “You got that?”
He took a deep breath and released it slowly, then nodded. “I got it.”
“Good. Lois, how about you? You got it?”
Lois bared her teeth and sucked in a sharp breath, then said, “Copy that, command.”
“Good. Jimmy’s calling Thompson to get him down here. Clark, you get with Lois for as much information about Newcomb as you can find. Whatever we get from Thompson, we’ll have to verify it with Newcomb. Worst case scenario, he admits nothing but gets spooked into letting us follow him.” She clapped her hands twice. “Let’s get to it, people.”
Cat mentally sighed in relief as her teammates turned to work on their assigned tasks. For a moment, it had felt to her as if the two of them were going to come to blows over the interview. And not because of a byline or to score points with Perry, either. They had behaved like two people trying to protect each other.
Like two people who were starting to care deeply about each other but who were unwilling to admit it to each other – or even to themselves.
It was not a satisfying deduction.
*****
Lois grabbed her purse, made sure she was carrying one of the Planet’s new mobile phones, and sprinted down the stairway. Her last view of Cat and Clark showed her the two of them hunched over the computer on Lois’ desk, looking for information on Thompson’s current job responsibilities.
The interview had rattled the retired colonel but hadn’t produced anything solid. He’d been pushed off-center by Lois’ squeaky Marilyn Monroe airhead impersonation, then whipsawed by Cat’s pile driver questioning style. But his most visible reaction – intimidation – had been to Clark’s silence, especially when Clark stood, handed one of the women a printout, and pointed to the pertinent section. Even Lois, who believed that she was getting to know Clark well, had been startled once by his stare combined with narrowed eyes and crossed arms. Fortunately, Thompson hadn’t seen her react.
On the street, Thompson – who, Lois was certain, was up to his neck in illegal activities – ignored Sherlock Holmes’ admonition to ignore the first cab to stop for him. She climbed into the next taxi and said the magic words every driver longs to hear but very few ever do.
“Follow that cab!”
The dark-skinned driver tugged on his multi-colored watch cap and grinned at her. “Hey, lady, you hang on, okay, cause we gonna go like crazy fast now!”
Lois stopped counting the traffic laws the man bent long before he pulled up and stopped half a block away from the first cab’s destination. “We gonna follow the cab now when it leave, yes?”
“I don’t know yet.” She dug in her purse for the mobile phone. “I’ll let you know when I do.”
“Okay, so long as you know de meter he gonna keep runnin’.”
“I won’t hold you here for long.”
*****
Cat leaned back in her chair and let out a long breath. “If I never hear about Project Bluebook again, I’ll die a happy woman.”
Clark began gathering the papers they’d been working on. “And here I thought I was the only one who had fits like that.”
“You’re not. I just hope Thompson leads Lois some place we can get into and learn something.”
Just then the phone rang and Cat answered. “Daily Planet, Cat Grant – Lois? Great! What have you got? Uh-huh.” She turned to Clark and mimed a pen and a notebook. “Hang on, I’m getting one – got it! Give me the address again – it’s a what? Bessolo Industries? Why would a consulting firm need a warehouse? Yeah, Clark’s here with me now. We’ll try to track it down – wait a minute, that building’s in Jimmy’s research under some other name.” She flipped open the folder and quickly found a printed sheet with written notes in Jimmy’s hand. “Yeah. When Bluebook shut down in 1969, they transferred a bunch of assets to something called Bureau 39. That warehouse was one of the properties. Let the cab go. We’ll be down there ASAP so we can all go in together.”
Cat hung up the phone and turned to Clark to fill him in, but stopped when she saw his face. “Clark?” she said. “You look pale all of a sudden. You okay?”
He leaned on the desk with both hands. “Not sure. Did you get a glimpse of the papers Thompson had with him when he came in?”
“No, he kept them turned away from me. Lois may have seen them. Why?”
He seemed to rally as he spoke. “There was a folder on top labeled ‘Smallville – 1969’ with the notation B39 stamped on the front. I’m sure it stood for Bureau 39. My parents told me that some government men came through Smallville just after they started taking care of me, asking questions about me and asking one of our neighbors for permission to dig up one of his fields. My folks tried to deflect the questions but they weren’t sure how successful they’d been. But I haven’t heard anything about these clowns since then.” He straightened and his voice turned hard. “I’ll have to talk to my parents about this tonight.”
Cat stood beside him and gently grasped his elbow. “The only thing we’re sure of right now is that these idiots are worried about finding Superman. We’ll stop them, I promise.”
Clark’s color was back, along with his determined expression. “Let’s go find Lois and keep that promise, Catharine.”
*****
Individually, the three of them cased the warehouse for nearly half an hour, then met up at a coffee shop down the street to compare notes. Cat doodled on a legal pad while Clark and Lois talked through infiltrating the building.
“I wonder how long Bureau 39 has been there?” said Lois.
“At least five years,” Clark answered.
“How do you know?”
“The sign out front is untreated lumber, quality wood but weathered pretty well. It’s been there a while. And there’s no indication that it was mounted anywhere else.”
“It could have been artificially weathered.”
Cat took a sip of her lukewarm coffee. “Jimmy found the warehouse – same business name – in the business directory from six years ago. I think Clark’s right about how long they’ve been there.”
Lois nodded. “I’ll accept that as a working hypothesis. I couldn’t tell what kind of security they had. Either of you know?”
Cat shook her head, but Clark said, “There’s a card reader beside the front door. There are two side doors, but they look newer than the building itself. I’d guess they’re the kind that auto-locks from the outside and opens from the inside with a push bar, basically just emergency exits.”
“So we’d need a card key to get in,” mused Lois. “Who would have one?”
Cat and Clark both brightened at the same time. Together, they said, “Newcomb.”
Lois flipped the folder shut. “Then he’s our next stop. Everybody hit the head and then let’s go see him.”
*****
Clark was impressed once again with his co-worker’s efficiency and drive. Cat hadn’t lost a step since his freshman semester at Met U.
But that shouldn’t have been on his mind at the moment.
A quick call told them that Newcomb had gone home for the night and would be in his office in the morning. When Cat asked what the retired general did that required an office, the young man who answered the phone told them that he was a technical advisor for TV shows, movies, and books. The young man also divulged that he had a late morning appointment the next day on a Korean War history about the Pusan perimeter. Cat asked for and received a tentative appointment for two people the next morning at nine-thirty.
She hung up her phone and scowled at it. “I hate waiting. The universe is trying to teach me patience by making me wait and I hate it.”
Clark grinned at her. “You talk like the universe has a will and a memory.”
“Sometimes I think the universe actively dislikes me.”
He chuckled. “Stephen Crane, the author of The Red Badge of Courage, would disagree with you. In fact, he wrote a poem about it.”
Lois caught his eye and smiled slightly. “Really? How does it go?”
Clark straightened and declaimed the poem as if he were presenting an Emmy-winning speech on Broadway.
A man said to the universe, “Sir, I exist!”
“However,” replied the universe, “that fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation.”
As the two women stared at him, he resumed his folksy manner and said, “Crane was apparently something of a cynic and fatalist. His point was that the universe doesn’t care about the individual people living in it.”
Cat tilted her head and asked, “What do you think?”
“I think that there is someone out there who cares a great deal. It’s just not the universe.”
Lois crossed her arms and frowned. “You’re talking about God?”
“Maybe.”
Her voice turned brittle. “If that’s true, tell me where God was when my patrol was ambushed and we had three men killed and two crippled and I nearly lost my leg!”
Clark took in a breath, then let it out. “God didn’t do that, Lois. Bad people did that. They chose to attack your column. And if you think God should take away all the bad people in the world, you need to know where to start and where to stop.”
“So we’d need to know who’s bad enough to take out before they do their nasty worst?”
“Yes. And we’d need to know the good that person might do later in life, too. History is full of people who start out mean and selfish but end up helping others. I don’t know about you, but that knowledge is above my pay grade. On top of that, if you take the position that God should prevent the bad people from doing bad things, you’re telling God to force them to do good. Unless you’re also willing to be forced to do good, you can’t honestly and sincerely do that to someone else. It would eliminate freedom of choice from the human race.”
Both Cat and Lois looked like they were thinking unfamiliar thoughts. And he felt like he’d shared enough philosophy for the evening. So he moved back a half-step and said, “Ladies, it’s late, we can’t get to Newcomb until tomorrow, and we’ve pretty much read the ink off Jimmy’s notes. I suggest we each go home and get some sleep, then come back in the morning ready to hit it again.”
Cat blinked once, then again, only slower, then said, “Sounds like a plan to me. We’ll meet back at my desk at seven o’clock tomorrow morning and plan our assault on Bureau 39.”
*****
Martha watched her son play with his food. It was unusual for him not to eat, so her natural mother’s curiosity got the better of her. “Clark, what’s bothering you now?”
He looked up at her. “I need you to tell me all about the night you found me. I want to be certain I’ve got the details straight in my mind.”
She sat up. “Your father and I were on our way back home just after dusk when we saw what we thought was a meteorite crash down in Schuster’s Field. We walked up on it and found a long furrow in the ground. At the end of it was a small glowing pod with your Superman symbol on the front.”
Jonathan took up the tale. “I was in front of your mother, so I saw it first. When we got about ten feet from it, the glow faded to nothing until a seal cracked open and a – I guess it was a door, or maybe a hatch – a door just above the red Superman crest opened upward and we could see a baby inside.”
The only indicator of Clark’s emotions was the metal fork he slowly folded in his hand. “So you don’t really know where I came from. I might be a Russian baby or an American space experiment.”
“Oh, honey,” his mother said, “we didn’t care if you were Russian or some science experiment or from Mars. All we knew was that we loved you the minute we saw you.”
Jonathan nodded in agreement. “That’s right, Clark. And that’s why we cooked up that story about the cousin in Idaho. We didn’t want anyone to take you away from us.”
Clark suddenly noticed the bent fork. He put it on the table gently. “Sorry. Guess I – forgot what I was doing.”
Martha squeezed his hand. “It’s just a fork. We can get more.”
He picked it up and his hands flashed and suddenly the fork was as good as new. He blew on it for a moment to cool it, then said, “There. All fixed.”
“Thanks, honey.”
He sat back and looked at his mother. “What happened to the ship?”
Her eyes dropped to her plate and she sighed. “I had your father destroy it. We were afraid that one of those men—”
“I didn’t.”
Clark and Martha both dropped their mouths open. Martha recovered first. “Jonathan, what do you mean? What didn’t you do?”
His eyes met his wife’s with something of a challenge in them. “I didn’t destroy the ship. I – I couldn’t! It was all we had of Clark’s birthplace, his history, and I was sure he’d want to know everything he could about his original family.” He turned to his son and put one hand on Clark’s shoulder. “I especially wanted you to know that you weren’t some science experiment that lost its way.”
“How could you tell, Dad? How can you possibly know that?”
Jonathan lowered his hand. “I opened it up and looked at the instrument panel. None of the markings are in any Earth language that had space capabilities then. It’s not English, Russian, French, or Chinese.” He hesitated, then said, “I’ve never seen anything else that looked like those markings did.”
“What did you do with it? Can we go look at it now?”
Jonathan gave him a half-smile and stood. “It’s under the floor of the barn. It’s late enough so that no one should see us.”
*****
But it wasn’t there.
Clark watched his mother’s face fall as they discovered the theft. “Oh, Jonathan, now what do we do? Those government men must have searched the farm when we were both away.” She turned to her husband, anger painting her face. “I told you we should destroy it!”
Jonathan’s voice was forceful but calm. “How was I supposed to do that? The thing survived a trip through the atmosphere and a crash landing in Schuster’s Field without a ding or scratch that I could find. Even if I had been able to blow it up, it would have thrown debris all over the area. We had nothing that would burn hot enough to melt steel, much less whatever that thing was made of, and we didn’t have anything heavy or powerful enough to crush it. I did the best I could. I’m just sorry it wasn’t good enough.”
Martha put her fists against her mouth and walked around the pit where the ship had once rested. “Okay, I guess when you put it that way, I agree with you. But why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you trust me?”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Because you’re the worst liar in the state, Martha. If anyone had asked you straight out if we had that ship or if we knew where it was, you would have tipped them off that you knew something. I was trying to protect you.”
She closed her eyes and let out a long breath. “Okay, I agree with that too. But there better not be any more important secrets between us. Not ever.”
Her husband lifted his right hand. “You have my word.” He turned to Clark. “Son, someone’s got that ship, and whoever it is has probably connected it with Superman. The symbol on your uniform is the same as the one on the front of the ship.”
Clark leaned back in thought, then nodded in agreement. “You’re probably right. And I may know where it is, Dad. I’ll call you guys tomorrow and let you know if we find it.” He moved between them and hugged them each with one arm. “Right now I need to go back to Metropolis. Cat, Lois, and I have an early appointment in the morning.”
“To do what?”
His eyes narrowed and his voice hardened. “We’re going hunting for a group of alien hunters.”
*****
At sixteen minutes till seven, thinking himself early, Clark exited the Planet’s elevator to see Cat and Lois sitting at Lois’ desk. Their body language was too glum for a simple break and enter. Something was very wrong. Their expressions reminded him of the subjects of a story he’d done about Columbian soldiers who had been getting set to attack a cocaine cartel’s main camp.
A quick scan of the desks told him that they pretty much had the floor to themselves. Even Perry hadn’t yet arrived.
Before he got to the desk, Cat threw down a notepad and rubbed her face with her hands. “Now what do we do?”
Lois put one hand on Cat’s shoulder and squeezed. “We do what we were planning on doing. We have a chance to put these guys under the jail, Red. Let’s keep our feet under us and aim for the finish line.” She glanced up and saw Clark approaching. “Here comes the rookie,” she whispered. “Let’s see what he’s got.”
He slowed, then stopped about four feet away. “Whatever happened, it wasn’t good.”
Cat slowly turned in her chair. “No,” she sighed, “it isn’t. Thompson’s body was fished out of Hob’s Bay about four this morning. Henderson said he’d been shot twice in the back of his head with a small-caliber pistol, a .22 or .25.” She leaned forward and put her elbows on her knees. “I don’t mind telling you that I’m just a little bit scared.”
Clark took a small step closer. “Anyone with any sense is scared sometimes, Catharine. That fear can make us back away from danger, but it can also push us away from doing right. The right thing to do is usually the hardest thing to do. It’s why so few people do the right thing consistently.”
Cat’s hands twisted into fists. “Lois isn’t afraid of anything.” When Clark didn’t respond, she lifted her pale face to his and said, “Tell me I’m wrong.”
Clark blinked. “I don’t speak for Lois, just for me. And I’m more than a little scared about the prospect of going up against guys who don’t mind killing people.”
“But she—”
“I’m scared, Cat.”
Lois’ quiet declaration broke the tension. Cat snorted and said, “No you’re not. I’ve never seen you scared of anything.”
Lois seemed to withdraw into herself. “I’m not all that afraid of getting hurt or even killed. But I am afraid of letting down the people I care about. I’m scared of letting Clark down, of not being the reporter Perry keeps telling me I can be, and I – I’m afraid of losing you.” She dug in her purse for a moment, then pulled out a tissue and dabbed at her nose. “You’re my best friend, the friend who helped me find my way when I came to work here, the friend who wasn’t afraid to correct me when everyone else was scared I’d go off like a pressure mine if someone said the wrong thing to me. I honestly don’t know how I’d deal with life without you beside me.”
Cat smiled and patted Lois’ knee. “You’d do just fine, Annie Oakley. You’d be fine.”
Lois sat up and crossed her arms, then sent Clark a glare of warning. “That’s all off the record, Kent. Now I think we should figure out how to get into that warehouse. Newcomb is the way in, so let’s go see him.”
*****
The retired general arrived at his office just after seven-thirty, riding in a cab with his assistant. The younger man unlocked and opened the front door, then held it for the general.
Lois, who was standing in the alley across the street, muttered, “Please tell me you can read lips better than I can, Kent.”
“Not unless I can see their mouths. They’re both facing away from me. All I can tell you is that I can see their jaws moving, so they’re talking about something. I hope Catharine has better luck watching the warehouse.”
Lois fidgeted and obviously tried not to pace. “You think five minutes is enough time for them to get settled?”
He stifled a laugh. “Most people can barely get coffee in five minutes. Let’s allow ten.”
Exactly ten foot-shifting minutes later, Lois marched to the sidewalk with Clark trying to keep up. “This man is a decorated veteran, Kent,” she snapped out. “Show him the proper respect.”
“I won’t embarrass you, I promise.” They stopped at the curb to allow a bus and a half-dozen commuters roll past. “Major General, that’s two stars, right?”
“Yes. It also means when he retired he was a plan designer and decision maker, not just somebody carrying out orders. He put together the battle force I was with overseas.”
He frowned as he skipped across the street behind her. “That conflict wasn’t exactly the country’s greatest military triumph.”
“It also wasn’t another Vietnam, in large part thanks to General Newcomb. It’s not his fault that some of his planning was rejected. Now hush and let me do most of the talking.”
The moment Lois crossed the threshold into Newcomb’s outer office, she transformed from a reporter ready to interview a source back to a non-com about to address a general officer. She looked at the young man sitting at the front desk and said, “Lois Lane and Clark Kent of the Daily Planet to see General Newcomb.”
The young man stood, smiled, and nodded. “I’d be glad to set up an appointment with the general. I believe he has a half-hour window open next week on—”
“It’s about Bureau 39,” Clark broke in.
And there it was, that moment of recognition, the moment that told her that this young man knew more than he wanted to let on. The man hesitated a fraction of a second and his eyes widened slightly before he could regain control. “Let me ask the general if he has some time earlier than that.”
“Please thank the general,” Lois replied.
The man nodded and knocked on the inner office door. “Invite our guests in here, Robert,” came the reply.
Robert opened the door and stepped aside, then smiled at Lois and Clark as they entered the inner sanctum.
It was something of an anti-climax. The bookshelves around the room held histories of wars, descriptions of major battles, and accounts of small-unit actions on one wall. The next set of shelves held military biographies alongside models of jeeps, trucks, tanks, and aircraft. A large bizarre hybrid plane with swept-back wings, six propeller engines facing to the rear, and a pair of jet engines in pods near the wingtips was suspended from the ceiling. Lois recognized the B-36 as the first production bomber in history designed from the beginning to carry nuclear weapons. At first glance, the room looked like any other military history nerd’s basement.
But the man standing behind the desk was no nerd. He was Major General Burton Newcomb, one of the officers deeply involved in the initial formation of the US Air Force as a separate branch of military service. He was the man who’d been awarded the Silver Star for his heroism and service during both World War II and the Korean conflict. He’d received a bronze Oak Leaf cluster to go with the Silver Star at his retirement ceremony, presented to him personally by President Heston, for his commitment to ending the Middle East conflict as quickly as possible with the fewest number of casualties on either side.
Lois Lane, reporter, had stepped through the door. But Specialist Lois Lane had all but come to attention when she stopped in front of the desk.
Newcomb smiled at her. “Specialist Four Lois Lane, Silver Star, Purple Heart, Mideast conflict, right?”
She swelled with pride that he remembered her. “Yes, sir! You awarded me both honors, sir.”
“How’s the leg doing?”
She deflated a bit. To someone who didn’t know her, she’d looked as if she’d just been adjusting her stance for comfort. “I can function as a civilian, General, but I’m out of the service due to my disability.”
Newcomb sighed. “I’m sorry about that, but you are luckier than many others.” Then he chuckled. “Please sit down, both of you. We’re all just civilians here. Now what can I do for you?”
They sat. Lois found herself tongue-tied, so she looked at Clark and nodded once. “General,” he said, “you said we’re all just civilians, but I’m under the impression that I’m the only one who really is. Lois still respects you highly for your service and your former rank, and quite properly, I believe. But there are some questions to which we need answers, and we believe that you’re the best source for this information.”
Newcomb smiled and leaned back in his chair. “In that case, please, feel free to ask. As long as you know there are certain things I still can’t discuss for national security reasons.”
Clark nodded. “We understand, sir. The first thing we’d like to ask is what you know about Bureau 39.”
The general stiffened for a very brief moment, as if he’d expected them to sneak up on the subject. The moment came and went too briefly for an inattentive person to notice.
Lois saw that Clark also saw it.
Then Newcombe leaned forward and put his forearms on the desk. “Bureau 39 was a part of Project Bluebook until 1969. The project was searching for evidence of alien life on and in the vicinity of Earth. When Bluebook ended, Bureau 39 also shut down.”
“That’s the official story, sir,” Clark replied. “But we’ve got evidence that Bureau 39 is still active. Former Staff Sergeant Jason Trask seems to be running the show now.”
“Hmm. I would have assumed that, if what you claim about Bureau 39 is accurate, George Thompson would be heading them. If it hadn’t been deactivated, that is.”
Lois frowned at him and said, “The police pulled George Thompson’s body out of the bay early this morning. He’d been shot in the head execution-style, still had his watch, wedding ring, and wallet.”
This time anyone would have seen the general’s reaction. “George Thompson is dead?” Lois nodded. “Well.” He opened a drawer and took out a folder, then opened it and laid it on his desk. “That does change things.” He looked at Lois again, then over at Clark. “I need to stand up and look for a book on the shelf behind me. I’ll be looking for a slow count of three. Because I’m older now, I’ll be counting aloud. I’d expect the two of you to be gone by the time I find that book.”
The former general slowly came to his feet. Lois looked down and saw the card key resting in the open folder.
“One.”
She glanced at Clark, who frowned back and jerked his head toward the folder.
“Two.”
Her hand shot out and palmed the card, then she followed Clark out of the office. She heard the general say “Three” as the door swung shut.
On the far curb near her Jeep, she tucked the card into her purse beside her weapon. “Warehouse?” he asked.
She nodded. “Warehouse. Best speed.”
She hoped Clark knew that meant sharp accelerations, sudden stops, and an angry determination to get to the truth while it could be found.
