Chapter Fifty
SPOOKS
1
Pike and Slaughter strolled along the boardwalk of Main Beach Noosa. They were dressed casually in floral shirts, Bermuda shorts, black-leather shoes, long, white socks, grey, narrow-brimmed, straw hats and wraparound sunglasses. Their noses were covered with white zinc cream. Pike licked on a gelato while Slaughter puffed on a huge Diplomatico No.2. It was Thursday, May 5, 2016.
‘What gets into all these bitches flauntin their tits all over the fuckin beach, Pike?’ ‘I can’t imagine, sir.’
This was their third trip to Noosa since they tracked the two saucers across the Pacific nearly eight months before. They were visiting Drek this time. They were there for two reasons. One, they were there for a de-brief from Drek, and two, they were really starting to like the place and any excuse was a good reason to go there again.
They stayed at the Sheraton Noosa Resort, the big hotel in the heart of Noosa. Drek was hunkered down a few miles away, at the Noosa Outrigger Beach Resort on Gympie Terrace, right on the river.
They all got together the next morning, Friday, May 6th. Drek drove his rental to the Sheraton and met the General and his aide by the pool. They ordered drinks, kicked back on some poolside lounges and began conversing in hushed tones.
‘Did you bring your report, Drek?’ Pike asked.
‘I did, sir.’
Drek handed Pike a folder.
Pike opened it and had a look. Slaughter requested,
‘Can you give us a rundown?’
‘Yes, sir. I arrived here on 5th December, 2015. I began reconnaissance as soon as I settled in. Have you been briefed on how I operate, sir?’
Pike answered, ‘The General has been briefed, but can you please describe your modus operandi in your own terms.’
‘Yes, sir. It’s quite simple really. I was born a natural, psychic intuitive. The Service recruited me because of my abilities. They then trained me in advanced psychic surveillance using the Proactive Entheogen Enhancement Program, PEEP, sir.’
‘Would you like to give that to us in English,’ suggested Slaughter.
‘Yes, sir. I take LSD to elevate my sensitivity.’
‘Oh yeah, I’ve heard of that program. Go on.’
‘Sir, to keep the effect up to the required potency, I can only use it one day out of three. The effect lasts about twelve hours, sir.’
‘OK, I got it.’
‘To date, sir, I have not come across any individuals active in the mind space.’
‘I see.’
‘Sir, I believe that I would have to walk right past one of them to detect them. They would have to be active in the mind space as well. I believe that they would register on my mind, sir. As that happened, I would then need to get a look at them in order to register their face, which I would then need to commit to memory. Ideally, I would get a photograph of them using the camera concealed in my sunglasses.’
‘Where do you look for them?’
‘I mainly sense for them in the busy tourist strips like Hastings Street, Main Beach or Gympie Terrace along Noosa River. That’s where most of the people are and I figure that that is where I have the best chance of bumping into one of them.’
‘And you feel that you would know if you passed one?’
‘Oh yeah … sir.’
‘It would be a pity if they stayed away from the tourist traps, Drek.’
‘I could walk right into one, sir, but if they weren’t actively engaged in the mind space, I wouldn’t recognise them.’
‘I won’t even pretend to understand what that’s like, Drek. Look, we’re here for another few days. What’s say we catch up one more time before we go back to the States.’ ‘Yes, sir. Tomorrow is my next active day, sir.’
‘OK, why don’t we get together here on Sunday, same place, same time. Will you be comprende enough by Sunday, Drek?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘If anything happens, anytime, call Pike. That’s anytime, Drek, 24/7.’
‘Yes, sir.’
After Drek left, Slaughter quietly commented,
‘It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack, Pike. The freaks might not even be here.’
‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained, sir.’
‘That’s true, Pike, and how nice is this place to visit, eh?’ ‘It is certainly an agreeable assignment, sir.’
2
Drek was hand-picked and carefully trained for Charismatic Telepathic Warfare, CTW. The Service needed a man who was attractive to both men and women alike. He needed to be extremely handsome, as well as charming, easy-going, communicative, likable and good-humoured. Drek was tall, dark, slim and fit. He looked like a cross between Cary Grant and George Clooney and was always dressed immaculately, even on casual occasions. As a consequence, he could attract women, and men, like a magnet if he willed. That was his external profile. Internally, however, he was a dark, cold, calculating black hole of a pre-programmed machine, devoid of any empathy and focussed only on the objective of the mission. On his active days he sat in cafés, or strolled the streets, spaced out of his brain on acid, sensing for anyone that might ‘register on his radar’.
He wore special-issue, wraparound sunglasses that incorporated a microscopic lens in the bridge between the eyes. The lens was part of a very sophisticated digital camera, which was embedded in the frame and controlled by way of a small remote device usually hidden in a pocket. When the button was pressed, the camera fired off twenty-four highdefinition shots per second.
It was Saturday, May 7, 2016, the day after his meeting with the General and Pike. It was another scheduled ‘active day’. He dripped two drops of Lysergic acid diethylamide into his morning coffee using an eyedropper. He drank the coffee, exited his holiday unit and caught a taxi out to Hastings Street for his day of enhanced reconnaissance. 3
That afternoon found Pike and the General sprawled on two lounge chairs next to the resort pool. They were both on their second beer as Pike’s phone rang. Pike recognised the incoming number as Drek’s. He flipped the phone open.
‘Drek.’
‘Yes, it’s me, sir. I’d like to report a positive contact.’ Pike sat up, instantly aroused.
‘Where?’
‘Aromas in Hastings Street, sir.’
‘Did you get a look at them?’
‘Yes, sir, and I got twenty-four shots. We’ve got them, sir.’
‘Are you still under the, er, influence?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘When will you be ready for a de-brief?’
‘Six hours, sir.’
‘OK, come to our room at 21.00 hours tonight.’
‘Yes, sir.’
That night they all sat on leather lounges around the coffee table with their laptops open and connected to each other via Bluetooth. Drek had already downloaded the twenty-four photos from his sunglasses to his computer. They were in turn transferred onto Slaughter and Pike’s laptops. They opened a beer each and examined the shots closely.
‘Them’s fine lookin bitches,’ commented Slaughter.
‘They are beautiful,’ Drek agreed, ‘like models or actresses. I didn’t realise how attractive they were until I looked at the shots. I only got a brief glance at them when I spotted them because they were onto me immediately. I had to turn and keep walking in order to not completely lose my cover.’ ‘They made you?’ Pike asked.
‘Yes, sir. Instantly.’
‘Do you think that it was your physical appearance?’
‘I doubt that, sir. I’m pretty positive they detected me in the mind space. As well, there was some kind of telepathic interaction, but I couldn’t define it.’ Slaughter sat up.
‘How long did you look at them?’
‘About two seconds, sir. I fired off the shots in a reflex reaction.’
‘Let me get this straight, Drek, the bitches recognised you faster than you recognised them?’
‘As fast, sir. As far as I can make out, they were communicating with each other in the mind space when I walked past. To them there would have been no one else present until I arrived. They became aware of me instantaneously.’
‘And something telepathic happened?’
‘Yes, sir. I felt a kind of telepathic link for a moment. I have no idea what it might have been though.’
‘We have the stills taken from the Green River surveillance video, sir,’ said Pike. ‘I’ll just bring them up.’
Pike was attempting to correlate the close-up shots of the female alien from the Green River incident with Drek’s shots. He brought up a close-up of Thebe.
‘You can’t make out her face because it’s completely covered by some kind of electronic, chameleon balaclava and, when you take a careful look, a pair of closely-fitting, chameleon goggles, but you can make out through the suit that she’s a woman.’
‘Yeah, she’s got a perky pair of titties,’ commented Slaughter. Drek smiled.
‘Er, yes, sir,’ said Pike. He continued, ‘It appears that the two women Drek photographed in Aromas have the same type of physique as the alien in the Green River surveillance photos.’
Pike activated a face-matching program and manipulated the photographs, superimposing the Noosa shots over the Green River shots. After about five minutes he declared,
‘Sir, I believe we have a match. Although both women in the Noosa shots have similar facial features, both perfectly symmetrical and perfectly proportioned, the software is able to clearly differentiate between them. The software is also capable of analysing the facial features of the alien in the Green River shots. It is capable of taking key measurements through the balaclava and simulating an approximation of the face beneath it. When the two shots are superimposed over one another, the software comes up with a 98 percent match with one of the women at the café. I think we have found our aliens, sir.’
‘Good work, Drek. Nice analysis, Pike. I can’t believe that we’ve found them. I have to be honest, I thought we were lookin for a fart in a hurricane. Which one is it, Pike?’
Pike brought forward the photo of the two women, sitting at the café, on Slaughter’s laptop and said,
‘It’s the one on the left, sir. Their sunglasses make it slightly more difficult to differentiate between them, but our software is designed to overcome such drawbacks.’ ‘They look completely human, Pike,’ observed Slaughter.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘They operate in a whole different place, sir,’ said Drek.
‘Expand, Drek.’
‘Sir, yes, sir. Imagine that we Earth humans are like people without radio communication and the alien humans have radio communication.’
‘Yeah?’
‘It actually even goes further than that, sir. Imagine that we Earth humans are all totally deaf, dumb and blind and the alien humans can see and communicate perfectly.’
‘So, what you are saying, Drek, is that you got people that can see, visiting a planet full of blind people?’
‘Precisely, sir, except that it’s not a 100 percent to zero ratio.’
‘Elaborate.’
‘Well, and the statistical details are a complete mystery, but I believe that there is a small percentage of Earth humans that may also be partially telepathic, like me, sir. These are probably a result of natural evolution. The other possible source of telepathic Earth humans would be hybrids, sir.’
‘You are now venturing into highly sought-after information, Drek,’ said Slaughter.
‘Yes, sir, although I’m only speculating. I believe that these types are extremely secretive and almost impossible to locate.’
‘Tell me something I don’t know, Drek.’
‘Sir, yes, sir.’
They analysed the photos and tossed around hypothetical ways of approaching the aliens. Slaughter repeatedly enunciated the primary goal.
‘We want the freaks’ technology, period, and we want to know what the fuck they are doing here. Everything else is secondary.’ He leaned back in the sofa, slipped off his shoes, lit a cigar and placed his feet on the coffee table. He then suggested, ‘Let’s take a break, eh; we’ve done some good work tonight. How about another beer, Pike, and let’s see what’s on TV.’
4
Pike grabbed some beers from the fridge and placed them on the coffee table. He then picked up the remote and switched on the large, flat-screen TV.
‘Let’s see the guide,’ suggested Slaughter.
Pike brought up the program guide on the screen and scrolled it down. Slaughter suddenly pointed at the screen.
‘What the fuck is that, Pike?’
‘Er, it’s the History Channel, sir. Er, 10.30pm it says that they’re showing a program called, Incident at Green River, sir.’ Pike clicked on the program and read out the blurb. ‘It says; Witness the closest close encounter of the fourth kind ever captured on film. The world will never be the same again after it sees this documentary, which is being premiered globally tonight.’
‘What time is it?’ enquired Slaughter.
‘It’s 22.20 hours, sir. The program will start in ten minutes.’
‘What are the fucking odds? Can we record this, Pike?’
‘Yes, sir. I can record it on my laptop. I’ll set it up.’
The program was scheduled to run for one hour. It began with an introduction, which was filmed in Las Vegas. The host, an unknown actor named Dirk DeRongo, entered the scene dressed like a rhinestone cowboy. He began,
‘What you are about to see, ladies and gentlemen, will change your lives forever. Eighteen months ago, a wandering loner, named Tommy Jones, witnessed and filmed the most Earth-shattering event that has ever transpired, possibly in the whole history of our planet.’
‘What the fuck is he talking about eighteen months ago, Pike?’ queried Slaughter.
‘Beats me, sir.’
‘The date was September 23, 2014 and the location was Green River, Wyoming. We will take a ride through the desert out to Green River, with a film crew in tow, and we will meet Tommy Jones and re-live with him his bizarre experience. Above all, we will all see the exceptional-quality photographic and video evidence which Tommy Jones shot during his amazing encounter with the unknown.’
The program paused for an advertisement. Slaughter asked,
‘Did we know about 2014, Pike?’
‘Not as far as I know, sir.’
Slaughter had a drink of his beer and looked at Drek.
‘You don’t say much, do you, Drek?’
‘No, sir. I have been trained to be a receptive, sir.’ After a few moments, the program resumed.
‘It is our intention to be at Green River, Wyoming, above ground zero, exactly twelve months, to the second, after Tommy Jones’s incredible encounter with what we believe were extraterrestrial beings from another planet. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you heard right, this is a UFO story, a UFO story like no other UFO story this planet has ever seen before. I, Dirk DeRongo, promise you this; after tonight you will forget about Roswell … after tonight you will forget about Area 51 … after tonight you will only remember one place … Green River … because that is the place, and this is the show, that in the following fifty minutes will change your lives … forever!’
Slaughter growled,
‘Fuckin Hollywood! Who writes shit like this? Is this really goin global, Pike?’ ‘I’ll check on it, sir.’
Pike picked up his phone and dialled a number. He spoke to someone for a few minutes then hung up.
‘This thing is being shown globally, to everybody that has a television, sir. It is estimated that it will be able to be accessed by over ninety percent of the world’s population. Apparently, it has been produced with subtitles for all languages, sir.’
‘This is too much bullshit, Pike. Why weren’t we in the loop? Somebody’s nuts are gonna swing for this.’
Pike took a nervous swig of his beer bottle. The three men watched in total amazement as the documentary team skilfully navigated through their story. They interviewed Tommy Jones, who was really Clint Rodgers, aka Cowboy, the stand-in actor. He told his story of how he witnessed the two UFOs descend and land on top of a butte on the far side of the river, just outside of town. He explained how he grabbed his iPhone and took off in his trike chasing after the silver discs. Just at that point there was a seamless break in the program. Snake stitched up a deal with Apple computers and got paid one million dollars for the strategic placement of a thirty-second segment in which Tommy Jones waxed lyrical about the incredible features of his iPhone.
The program showed maps and aerial shots of the area. On the maps they drew lines representing the flight paths of the UFOs. They then began showing Jonesy’s photos in the order they were taken. As the photos transitioned one into another, Dirk DeRongo gave a dramatic, running analysis of events as they unfolded. Even up to this stage, the documentary had already surpassed, in content, all previous documentaries of the same genre. Never had so much clear, irrefutable evidence been presented with such skill and dramatic effect.
‘Fuck this is good!’ exclaimed Slaughter.
The program paused for an ad with DeRongo promising the audience,
‘Hold onto your hats muchachos and muchachas, cause you ain’t seen nothin yet. When we come back, the aliens come out to play.’
The excitement in the room was palpable. There was no doubt that this documentary was going to become the definitive watershed in the long history of UFO/ET reportage. Pike suggested,
‘Sir, I suspect that the producers of this show intentionally kept it a complete secret, especially from all governments. I don’t think that there was any pre-publicity on it whatsoever.’
‘This is gonna catch everybody with their dicks hanging out, Pike. Nobody’s gonna be prepared for this. And now, cause the whole fuckin world has seen it, there’s nothin that can be done about it. We’ve been bamboozled up the ass, Pike, good an proper.’
The program continued. DeRongo stood in front of Jonesy’s trike as he delivered his lines. The butte on which the UFOs landed twelve months before was strategically framed over his left shoulder.
‘What you have seen so far, ladies and gentlemen, were photographs taken by Tommy Jones during his actual encounter with the two space ships and their occupants. What you are about to see next, though, is something completely out of this world. Now remember that we shot this documentary on 23rd September, 2015, twelve months to the day after Tommy Jones’s encounter. All the photographic evidence shown so far was taken on 23rd September, 2014. The photographs and video you are about to see was shot on that same day. Hold onto your grandma, Biff, cause this’ll blow her socks off.’
It began with stills. One of the aliens, dressed in some kind of full bodysuit that fluoresced like a TV set, launched into the sky and flew up to Tommy Jones who was flying circles above the landed spaceships. The whole amazing event was being presented from the point of view of Tommy Jones’s camera. One after another, crisp, clear close-ups of the levitating alien blew the boundaries of known reality into oblivion. Then the video started. It showed the alien, who appeared to be an athletic woman, posing for the camera and altering the patterns in her suit like a chameleon as she flew circles alongside Tommy Jones’s trike. Slaughter threw out a comment.
‘I said it before and I’ll say it again, that is one pretty pair of titties.’
‘Sir, we have no idea what kind of technology allows her to fly like that, seemingly completely unaided by any form of locomotion.’
‘Well, Pike, if you and your broke-dicks did some work instead of jerkin off in the latrine all day we might know somethin by now.’
‘Yes, sir.’
DeRongo mentioned the chameleon effect and they showed some stock footage of a chameleon and an octopus changing body colours and patterns and melting into a variety of backgrounds.
‘The chameleon effect may be alien, ladies and gentlemen, but it happens on Earth as well. The apparently-unaided levitation, however, doesn’t happen here. That technology is only theirs,’ he looked directly at the camera and dramatically declared, ‘so far.’
The program broke for another ad break. Slaughter asked,
‘Is everything we’ve seen so far from 2014?’
‘I believe so, sir.’
‘So, they haven’t even got to the part where we came in.’
‘Not yet, sir, but it can’t be far off.’
Pike was right. When the documentary re-commenced, DeRongo was sitting on a chair by the side of Snake’s pool. He began his dramatic explanation.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, when we planned to do this expose on the alien presence on Earth, it was our intention to do a road trip out to Green River, film the area and feature Tommy Jones’s dramatic 23rd September, 2014 footage. We wanted to do it on the twelvemonth anniversary of that epic day, which was 23rd September, 2015. I am sitting here in the house of one of the producers, back in Vegas. It’s Sunday, 27th September, 2015. What you are about to see, folks, will completely blow your minds. We will play our footage through, unedited and without ad breaks. I will make no further comments and will bid you a Jew and only say one final thing. It is the intent of the producers to return to Green River in twelve months’ time and record a two-year anniversary program of Incident at Green River. Bye folks.’
‘Here it comes,’ said Pike.
The footage that followed was raw, unedited and highly dramatic. It was all shot out of a helicopter. It showed Cowboy, who was playing Tommy Jones, launching out of a paddock in his trike and flying out across a river. The helicopter took to the air behind him and filmed him flying up the side of a tall butte. As they crested the top of the butte, two, landed, silver-disc UFOs came into view. Three alien occupants of the two UFOs could plainly be seen standing outside. Highly excited verbal exchanges, between what sounded like the director, the cameraman and the pilot, could be heard beneath the roar of the helicopter engine. The trike flew low over the ships and aliens. The aliens did not seem to pay any attention to the trike. Then another trike appeared. It flew low and slow over the three aliens. There was no explanation offered as to who was flying the second trike. The aliens clearly recognised the second pilot and waved to him. The camera zoomed in for some crisp, ultra-close-ups. One of the aliens appeared to hold up eight fingers. As the second trike pilot flew low over them, he gave them a thumbs-up. They gave him a thumbs-up in return, then waved goodbye and walked back to their ships. The director could be heard telling the pilot to back away slightly because the ships looked like they were going to take off. The camera skilfully followed as the ships rose into the air and flew off at incredible speed in a south-westerly direction. The camera kept rolling into an empty, blue sky as the director asked the cameraman, ‘did you get all that?’ and the cameraman replied, ‘yep, the lot.’ It was Ludwig’s idea to have the end credits backed by a montage of stills from the show and accompanied by the Carpenter’s version of the old Klaatu song, Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft.
‘Have you got all of that, Pike?’ Slaughter asked.
Pike checked his laptop, ‘Yes, sir, the lot.’
‘OK, here’s what we do. Number one, Drek, we want the technology. I don’t give a shit how we get it as long as we get it. Got it?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘We’ve never been this close to them before. We don’t want to have them slip through our fingers now. Be very careful. We don’t want to startle them. Got it?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘We want to find out where they live and where they hide their ships. Priority one, Drek, we want one of their ships. Pike …’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘When we get back to base, I want you to organise a meeting with The Shadows. I’ll want them to head up an infiltration and surveillance operation of Noosa Heads. We want eyes and ears all over this district without anyone, especially the freaks, noticing.’
‘Yes, sir.’
The Shadows were the most elite covert corps in the Service.
‘I’m gonna git them smartass bitches, with their perky little titties, an I’m gonna rip off their toys. Git me another beer, Pike … an let’s play that fuckin show over again.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Unbeknownst to the three men, two dark figures levitated just outside their open veranda door. They had been there for nearly an hour and a half and they heard everything that was said inside the room. They noticed that their location beacon, whose name they now knew was Drek, was not active in the mind plane. They assumed that he used a drug to sensitise himself.
‘They’re spooks from America,’ thought one to the other.
‘Yeah, we’ll have to be careful,’ came the reply.
As the three men settled down to watch the documentary over again, the two dark figures silently flew away and dissolved into the blackness of the night.
5
The documentary, Incident at Green River, rampaged around the world like a cultural tidal wave. Due to unprecedented demand, it was re-played on most channels, this time in prime-time, within two weeks of the first showing. The show received worldrecord ratings earning the networks obscene amounts of advertising revenue. Snake, being a self-confessed ‘cunning sunabitch hustler since my cradle days’ made sure that he and his small band of ‘compadres’ got their ‘fair slice of the cake’. The first thing Jonesy knew about it was when ‘one-million bucks’ appeared in his bank account. Although he wasn’t obligated to do so, Snake paid $100,000 bonuses to Ludwig, Cowboy, Ace, Melvin and DeRongo, and secured them for the follow-up documentary. He told Jonesy that this was just a part payment and that there would be ‘plenty more to come’. Snake split the money with Jonesy 50/50, just like he said he would. Interestingly, all of Snake’s agreements with his ‘crew’ were based on trust and a handshake. Snake wasn’t so ingenuous when dealing with the ‘bloodsuckers from the networks’ though. The deal he negotiated with them included a generous percentage of gross takings, without time limitations. He made sure that the money would keep rolling in for many years to come.
Jonesy gave all the money, except $50,000, to Lori. Although he still didn’t feel ready to settle down into any kind of ‘domestic situation’, he tried to visit his family at least once every month. Lori bought a nice house, with a pool, close to her parents’ house. She also bought a new car and enrolled the kids into a private school. As well, she was beginning to soften up on Jonesy to a fair degree. The most recent time he came to visit, he was allowed to, for the first time in a long time, sleep in the same bed with her.
6
In the following few months, Snake had a series of meetings with some key people from the networks. They decided that they would essentially replay a re-edited version of the previous year’s documentary. Snake convinced them into signing a three-year, three-program contract. The idea was that they would take a trip out to Green River every year and do ‘an anniversary shoot’ on the 23rd of September. They would edit that into the previous year’s show and release the updated version worldwide. Although they jokingly tossed around the idea, none of them seriously believed that they would ever see another UFO again.
…….