Azalea Bluff

A strange object lands on a football field. A young reporter vanishes without a trace.

Olivia Claven lives in the Carolina beach community of Azalea Bluff.

She’s trying to regroup, but a flooding tide of setbacks has dashed her dreams. The love of her life died in a mysterious crash. The local news website she started in her hometown could fail at any time, too.

A mysterious object has crashed onto her high school’s football field.

She sneaks to the cordoned-off site and views the odd, bell-shaped object.

To her disbelief, she is abducted. Fighting madness in captivity, the story unfolds into a page turning novel you can’t put down.

Azalea Bluff

“Azalea Bluff is sci-fi thriller par excellence, packed with the kind of cover-ups and conspiracies that have come to define the genre's accessible side. Dennis Hetzel's seminal effort conjures Nazis, aliens, lost secrets and found heroes in stitching the tapestry of a tale over a doomsday landscape. Reminiscent of Ray Bradbury at his best and reading like a great episode of ‘The X-Files,’ this is science fiction writing of the highest order for fans both old and new.”

—JON LAND, USA Today bestselling author of The Rising

ED GALLOWAY was a respected, popular broadcaster in his native Charlotte area and across the country, known as “the man with a thousand voices” for his impersonations and command of his voice. Ed’s audio story, “Incident in Mint Hill,” saluted the radio dramas created during the early decades of broadcasting and served as the foundation for Azalea Bluff.

DENNIS HETZEL with ED GALLOWAY

DENNIS HETZEL, media consultant, freelance journalist, and award-winning author of political thrillers, Season of Lies and Killing the Curse. In earlier lives, he was an editor, publisher, journalism professor, trade association executive, and lobbyist recognized nationally for his work on First Amendment issues. A Chicago native, he lives in Holden Beach, North Carolina. Learn more at www.dennishetzel.com.

DENNIS HETZEL

with ED GALLOWAY

“Azalea Bluff is the rare kind of yarn that transcends genres—part science fiction, part action adventure, and all fun. Dennis Hetzel keeps you guessing until the last, breathtaking page!”

—DON BENTLEY, author of the bestselling Matt Drake novels

Azalea Bluff

Dennis Hetzel with Ed Galloway

Publisher Page

an imprint of Headline Books, Inc.

Terra Alta, WV

Azalea Bluff

by Dennis Hetzel with Ed Galloway copyright ©2021 Dennis Hetzel All rights reserved. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents, except where noted otherwise, are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any other resemblance to actual people, places or events is entirely coincidental. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any other form or for any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage system, without written permission from Publisher Page.

To order additional copies of this book or for book publishing information, or to contact the author: Headline Books, Inc. P.O. Box 52 Terra Alta, WV 26764 www.HeadlineBooks.com Tel: 304-789-3001 Email: mybook@headlinebooks.com Publisher Page is an imprint of Headline Books ISBN 13: 9781951556365

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020944384

P R I N T E D I N T H E U N I T E D S TAT E S O F A M E R I C A

… to the late Ed Galloway, whose twin passions for broadcasting and the mysteries of UFOs led to the story that became this book. … to the families of Marguerite Dargan and Sherman Dutch, my birth parents. You lifted the veil hiding my own vanished story.

“Perhaps we need some outside, universal threat to make us recognize this common bond. I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world.

“And yet, I ask you, is not an alien force already among us?

What could be more alien to the universal aspirations of our peoples than war and the threat of war?”

—President Ronald Reagan, Speech to United Nations, Sept. 21, 1987

1 Olivia Claven stands alone in the woods.

She pauses to wipe damp sweat off her face and scratch the no-see-um bug bites that dot her exposed ankles like small red peppercorns. She knows that’s a bad idea. The itching will get worse, but she can’t resist.

As dark-blue nails scrape across inflamed ankles, she rewinds the day’s events in her mind, noting how a boring afternoon in the office somehow mutated into this situation.

That’s what it feels like now. A mutation.

She has walked in stealth mode for hours in a dark, swampy North Carolina forest less than a mile from the crashing waves of the Atlantic Ocean and maybe two miles from her parents’ home.

This is taking too long. Am I lost? I should be there by now, she thinks, but her surroundings make it obvious she’s wrong.

She can only hope that her smartphone’s compass and Girl Scout navigation skills have kept her pointed correctly. Her confidence declines another notch as she observes clouds crossing what had once been a helpfully bright moon.

She knows her objective well, but she’s never approached it from this direction. It’s the high school where she once stood on the football field and received an honor student’s diploma before everything changed in her life.

There will be no diplomas awarded tonight, just a mystery to solve. The authorities have closed all access to a large area around the school, something she confirmed shortly after a tipster interrupted her quiet day. She still recalls some of his words: 7

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“It’s locked down so tight, it reminds me of my Marine base in Afghanistan,” he had said. “What the hell could be so important to require that much security?”

She stops scratching and sighs in frustration as she prepares to start moving.

“No clues yet on what’s going on,” she says in a whisper under her breath. “Nothing. Zip. Nada. Well, why the hell did I go to journalism school if not for times like this?”

That’s the goal. Get the story. Maybe find a big scoop. Make a name for yourself. Get a fresh start on a real career. Simple enough. It just takes some initiative. She just has to do her job.

Besides, this is my town. I know these people, she thinks to herself.

Hey, what’s the worst thing that can happen?

But her effort to calm herself fails when a rattling sound punctuates the stillness. She can definitely think of worse things.

Still, she moves forward, trying to wrestle her fears into something controllable as she sloshes through murky, shallow water, praying she won’t step on a rattlesnake, copperhead, or some other venomous creature. It’s hard not to vomit from the stench of swampy decomposition that permeates the stagnant air. The overall stillness magnifies every sound she hears and every noise she makes. Even the noisy insects seem weary. She wonders if crickets ever sleep.

She thinks about how sweet it would be to turn back, though retracing her steps might be even more difficult than going forward. She imagines returning to the parking lot in Azalea Bluff and plopping into the driver’s seat of her Subaru. She sees herself doing nothing for 10 minutes except starting the car, just to enjoy the air conditioning. She can almost feel the chilly, dry air blowing across her face.

Stay focused. You’re a reporter. Keep your eyes on the story, she thinks, remembering a line one of her favorite professors always used.

And then it happens. Fifteen minutes later, almost magically, she recognizes the lights of the clubhouse of the Old Maple Country Club, which is visible from the school. Other unfamiliar lights are closer and piercing the sky. It happens so unexpectedly 8

Hetzel/Galloway

she almost messes up and walks into the open. From the edge of the woods, she can’t quite tell what seems to be commanding great attention on the football field.

With slow and careful movements, she’s able to shift to a better spot with a clear line of sight to the high school football field. The Brinkley High School grounds look ominous, with spotlights cutting through the black sky.

She observes as much as she can like a good reporter. Almost mindlessly, she alternates between wiping the dripping sweat from her eyes with her right hand and brushing insects off bare skin. She can see a little better now. What she can see from her vantage point borders on unreal, like something out of a Hollywood movie overflowing with special effects. Using a voice recorder, she starts to quietly describe her observations in the softest voice the recorder can detect, trying not to miss anything.

One thing she knows for sure: The frightening hike has been worth it. This could be the story that gets her out of her parent’s bedroom and puts her stalled career back on track. She briefly pictures herself on national television or with a byline in The New York Times. Suddenly she’s Olivia Claven, Media Star.

Michael would be proud of me for going through all this, so I could see what I’m seeing right now, she thinks to herself. She allows herself to linger a few moments on what she calls “Michael memories.”

Suddenly, she hears rustling noises from behind. She jerks herself out of drifting thoughts to concentrate on the noise, but only hears scattered insect clicks and the crinkling leaves. Then she hears the rustling sound again. Worried she might have to flee as fast as she can, she stuffs the phone in the back pocket of her jeans and slips the small voice recorder into a hard-to-find, internal pocket of her backpack, protected by hidden Velcro closures. She carefully and quietly slips the pack off her shoulders and pushes it under a bush surrounded by tall grass next to her feet. She can always come back for it later.

She stands in front of the bush and tries to be perfectly still as she rotates her head and field of vision. She senses more movement behind her and hears sounds of branches being 9

Azalea Bluff

forcefully separated. She feels the adrenaline jolt to flee and starts to run an instant later. There’s really no choice but to accept the consequences of appearing in the open and maybe getting arrested.

Just as she starts to enter the clearing near the football field, two armed men rush in front of her, blocking her path. As she turns to the side, two other men burst from the brush and grab her from behind. Her efforts to fight quickly become futile as her flailing succumbs to greater strength and training. One man covers her mouth and nose as his other arm wraps tightly around her right side. With wide eyes, she glimpses one of her attackers reaching for a syringe.

She shouts, “No!” but it’s not really a yell or scream that emerges. Instead, what comes out of her mouth is a muffled and incomprehensible mumble into the man’s big hand. Olivia begins to feel consciousness slipping away.

“Good thing we were scanning this area with infrared,” she hears one man say as the gauzy fog in her mind begins to thicken.

“Do you think there’s anyone else around?” another asks.

“Nah,” the first man says. “We’ve got it covered like a blanket.

Speaking of blankets, I’m sweating like I’m covered with one in these thick woods. And these bugs are driving me crazy. Let’s get going.”

“Yeah, right.”

Those are the last words she hears that night.

For the rest of her life, the everyday phrase “yeah, right” will give her chills.

10

2 Just a few hours earlier, Olivia had been sitting in her makeshift office, occupying too much time cooking a mental stew of boredom and self-pity.

There was plenty of work to do, but it was almost too easy.

Dealing with the full folder of news items on her laptop that needed review and editing barely taxed her skills. Her personal agenda kept whirling in the background of her mind as she multi-tasked, uploading press releases and routine community events to her news website. Today she was a young widow in all but the legal sense of marriage and the part-owner of a failing business. She usually made her student loan payments on time, but only because she was living with her parents again.

She was host, guest of honor, and center of attraction to a major pity party.

She knew nostalgia wasn’t healthy for someone only in her late twenties. Still, she remembered when she had an actual career. She remembered when colleagues remarked how she could out-hustle anyone for a story. Her once-overflowing tank of motivation ran on empty more often lately.

Her cell phone rang. She gave the ceiling a big eye-roll. The ceiling did not reply. She tugged some loose strands of hair, exhaled, and answered.

“Hi, this is Olivia at the Brunswick Advocate.”

“Uh, you might want to check out the roadblock on the Red Swamp Road.”

“Oh, and why would I want to do that?”

11

Azalea Bluff

“Because it’s got traffic backed up for several miles,” the caller said. “They ain’t letting anybody through that one section around Brinkley High School. It’s locked down so tight, it reminds me of my Marine base in Afghanistan.”

The caller continued along that line before she interrupted.

“Well, it’s pretty quiet around here,” she said. “Do you know any more about what’s going on?”

“Nope,” the caller said. “I saw the traffic backup, turned around, and went home a different way. Just thought you might want to know.”

“Okay, thanks,” Olivia said. “It probably won’t amount to much, but we’ll check it out.”

She closed her laptop. She set her half-finished cup of coffee onto her desk, grabbed her backpack and a bottle of water, and headed for her Subaru.

As Olivia drove into the area, her mind started wandering.

She missed the excitement of bigger stories and people she found more interesting than those around the sleepy town she called home. She didn’t wish anyone harm, but she couldn’t help but hope for something juicy – a story with a few twists, mystery, and some drama, something that might get state, regional, or even national attention.

After a good start, traffic to the Advocate website had started declining. Community interest seemed to be eroding faster than they could develop fresh ideas. Her college friend, Nate Kellogg, had a marketing degree and had taken charge of sales and the business side of things – thank God it wasn’t her. It was getting harder to convince advertisers to promote on a start-up website.

Their efforts to develop other ways to generate revenue weren’t yielding much either. The buzzy ideas that were starting to work in larger markets weren’t connecting in this county yet. Some readers asked why they weren’t publishing a “real” physical newspaper, and they figured if something was on the Internet, they shouldn’t have to pay for it. Not a good business model.

Olivia knew how this story could end, but she couldn’t make herself quit.

12

Hetzel/Galloway

On top of that, she wasn’t ready for any excitement in her personal life, and she certainly wasn’t ready to give her dad a win by shifting to pursue what he called “a career with an actual future.”

She loved her father. He was basically a good person, but he was too traditional and small-town comfortable to suit her restlessness and her passion for journalism.

“Dad, what do you think will happen if journalists can’t make a living?” she had asked him recently during one discussion.

“And no jokes about the world being a better place.”

They both chuckled.

As brake lights started flashing and cars around her slowed, her attention snapped back to the nearby high school off the Red Swamp Road – her former school. The name itself had inspired her to pursue journalism. The late David Brinkley was a native of nearby Wilmington who started his career at the Wilmington Star newspaper and gained worldwide fame as one of the most respected broadcast journalists in America.

As soon as she turned onto the Red Swamp Road, she saw her tipster didn’t exaggerate. Cars, trucks, and vans were backed up for as far as she could see.

She was probably the only driver in the long line who was glad to be stopped because she wanted to talk to people. Whatever was happening had to be newsworthy for this usually quiet area to be congested beyond anything she’d ever seen. She was confident the Advocate was in the best position to report it if this incident really amounted to something.

She wondered if the local newspaper, the Brunswick County Courier, even had a reporter on duty. Probably not in these times of staff cutbacks, she figured. The paper was a sad shadow of its former self. Of course, a huge crash or some other big incident would lure the larger newspapers and television stations in Wilmington and nearby Myrtle Beach like Winnie the Pooh to honey. She looked around and didn’t see any TV vehicles.

Still, this was only a good story in her imagination at this moment. The reality was she didn’t know anything except she was observing a traffic jam.

13

Azalea Bluff

Suddenly Olivia saw someone she knew. Ted Jenkins was a volunteer for the local fire department. She had caught a glimpse of the big man in her side mirror, but she didn’t recognize him until he got closer to her car. Ted was a good dude, a family man, a deacon in his church, and a connected guy locally. That made him an occasional helpful source. He had been a star forward on the Brinkley High basketball team, and she vaguely recalled her father saying Ted had done well playing ball at a small college.

She had just posted a photo of him driving to the basket in the local church league on the Advocate website. In his firefighter gear, he made quite an imposing figure, all 6 feet, 7 inches of him.

Olivia said, “Ted. Hey, Ted. I’m glad to see you still have some hoop moves. What on earth is going on?”

“Hey, back at ya’, Olivia. I’ve gotten so much ribbing over the photo you posted, I’m not sure I should thank you. Next time, I need you to Photoshop about 20 pounds off my gut,” he said before laughing. “As far as this thing goes, I’ve got no idea. All I’ve been told is to help keep everybody away from the football field.”

“You mean at Brinkley High, right?”

“Yeah, best I can figure, something came down over there and they’re not letting anybody in right now.”

“What do you think my chances are?”

“Of getting in there?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, if it was anybody but y’all, I’d say zero. You? I don’t know. I suppose I give you one shot in a hundred.”

“I’m flattered,” Olivia said. “Thanks a lot.”

“Don’t mention it. That’s what I’m here for.”

“What, to give me shit? Maybe I’ll add 20 pounds in the next photo. Seriously, thanks.”

Olivia liked a challenge. One chance out of a hundred was worth a try.

14

Hetzel/Galloway

*** On any normal day, Jim Claven would have been three minutes or less from his home on the edge of the Old Maple Country Club, not far from the oceanfront beaches that lined the narrow barrier islands along the Intracoastal Waterway marking Brunswick County’s southern boundary. Then he saw a line of squad cars forming a bumper-to-bumper roadblock across the Red Swamp Road.

“What the heck?” Claven said aloud, and he used the palm of his left hand to quickly pound the top of the steering wheel of his Range Rover like a rock ‘n roll drummer. Delays on the two-lane road near his waterfront home were rare, most likely caused by school buses, deer, an occasional snake, or, just recently, a bobcat that didn’t know any better. This was different. Way different, whatever the cause. He braked to a stop behind at least a dozen cars and pickup trucks ahead of him with no idea of what was happening or why. A panorama of flashing orange and red lights at the front of the stopped vehicles reminded him his needs and comments didn’t matter at this moment.

He was hungry, he had to take a piss, and he missed his family after several days out of town. He wanted nothing more than to sit on the deck of his home that overlooked the Old Maple Country Club, sip a vodka-and-club soda on ice, and chat with his wife and daughter to recap the past few days while he was out of town.

Instead, he was stalled with about two miles to go to the entrance of his neighborhood. He contemplated leaving his vehicle on the side of the road and walking home, but he had a big suitcase and a laptop bag. He looked to the sky, saw gray clouds and smelled the scent of rain. For now, he’d sit it out.

He counted three vehicles forming the makeshift barricade – a Ford Expedition SUV from the Brunswick County sheriff ’s office and two gleaming Dodge Chargers, the latest addition to the Azalea Bluff city police fleet. His memory flashed to an article on his daughter’s website two days ago that included a picture of the police chief smiling alongside a silver Charger that had a Carolina-blue stripe across its length and a city crest on the door 15

Azalea Bluff

with the stems of blooming purple azaleas draped gracefully over the shape of Brunswick County, North Carolina.

The photo memory only served as a momentary distraction.

Ah, man, Claven thought. Try to be patient. Be an adult. Hey, maybe there’s something on the news about this mess.

Claven shifted his radio choice from “Outlaw Country” on Sirius XM satellite radio to local stations. Most local stations played canned music and paid scant attention to local news.

WSLE, a news-talk station in nearby Ocean Isle Beach, still had a small staff of reporters. It probably was the best bet, and Claven was in luck.

“We’ve reached a stranded motorist on the outskirts of Azalea Bluff,” the reporter was saying, obviously speaking from his studio. “He says he’s fairly close to where an unidentified object went down. Let me throw it to Clyde Brown, a local resident who lives nearby. Clyde, you told me you were close to the apparent crash site. What did you see?”

“Uh, man, it was like a, uh, big polished ball or something,” Clyde said in the thick native drawl of seacoast Carolinians.

“Seemed like sort of an odd bell shape, actually. It came across the sky from maybe above Myrtle Beach or the ocean, then it stopped and circled around. Then it went down like a lead balloon. My best guess is that it was over the field.”

“Well, Clyde, I’m looking at a map right now, and I think you’re saying the unusual object came across the sky from the southeast, then changed directions before it went down, perhaps landing right on the Brinkley High football field. Do I have that right?”

Just after Clyde said, “That’s right,” which came out sounding more like “dats riot,” the sound from the Range Rover’s eightspeaker system trailed off into scratchy fuzziness until Claven heard nothing but static, as though there was sudden interference with the signal.

Claven clenched the steering wheel without thinking again.

Since he lived only a few minutes from the high school, he wondered if his home and his family were safe. He grabbed his iPhone from the cup holder and punched “home” on his speed 16

Hetzel/Galloway

dial. Nothing happened. He tried calling Kim, his wife, on her cellphone. Nothing. Maybe he could text Olivia, his 27-year-old daughter. He knew the odds of Olivia answering an unsolicited phone call from him were about the same as him winning the Powerball jackpot, though he always was expected to promptly answer her rare calls. However, Olivia usually responded to text messages, and he knew this would interest her. She had been inquisitive -- nosy, to tell the truth -- for as long as he could remember.

You weren’t supposed to play favorites with your kids, but he loved his only daughter more than he loved anything or anyone, and his frustration with her choices didn’t stop him from feeling the deep sadness any parent feels for a struggling child.

Claven texted a quick note: “You okay? Know anything about what’s going on at Brinkley HS?” No luck. He looked at his dashboard screen. No bars, which designated no phone signal. No communication. Maybe the text would go through later. That brought another fist-pound on the steering wheel and a bruise to remind him anger rarely changed anything for the better.

17

3 About six miles to the west, Brunswick County Sheriff Keith Hendricks didn’t know much about what was happening at the high school and that bothered him. A lot. This was the county he was sworn to protect. He paced through the office complex like a caged animal.

Hendricks usually didn’t mind dealing with the media whether they were local, regional, or even national, in the rare cases when that happened. He had worked hard to become a smooth and confident interview subject, knowing it was good for both the office and his career. This situation tested him. His communications director couldn’t keep up with the social media onslaught of rumors, gossip, questions, and innuendo. And the phones kept ringing. Every reporter in the region who had his cell number wanted a moment with him, too. He hated sounding like politicians who looked for clever ways to dodge questions.

His personal phone kept ringing, too. It wasn’t just the media.

Most significant local officials knew his mobile number. It seemed like everyone who had it was trying to reach him, along with the local power brokers and business leaders on whom the office’s support and his political future depended. He hated admitting to other elected officials when he didn’t have information they’d rightfully expect their sheriff to have.

“No, we haven’t got an idea yet what exactly came down, but you know there’s a small airport just a few miles away at Ocean Isle Beach. Maybe that’s what this is all about,” he had told one of the county commissioners. “I appreciate your concern. We’ll 18

Hetzel/Galloway

keep you posted.” He ended the call, but the line was already dead.

Did this guy just hang up on him? That seemed like an annoying lack of respect. Then he realized it was something worse: The office phones were dead, something that should never happen at a police agency.

Suddenly the only thing he heard was the hum of the air conditioning and short-burst announcement barks from Jake and Elwood, the office’s German Shepherd canine deputies.

The dogs had been lounging in their outdoor pen next to the building after a morning of delighting local school children.

Always on duty and excited when they had jobs to do, the dogs also never filed grievances and were happy to work for a little bit of attention and lots of beef and treats. Whenever a deputy pulled into the parking lot, they’d recognize the car and provide a quick, “not-a-threat” bark. They always heard vehicles before any human could, and it fascinated him how they could distinguish the sounds of squad cars from other vehicles.

He looked out the window to the parking lot, hoping the barks meant one of his deputies was returning from the high school, so he was disappointed to see one of the 911 call operators arriving.

He’d reluctantly ordered overtime for the operators to deal with the call volume. It was hard to assess how much urgency was needed, and urgency inevitably busted law enforcement budgets.

Now the phones weren’t working. It was hard to know what to do.

The Sheriff ’s Office was part of the county government complex near the tiny coastal town of Bolivia. His resources weren’t bad in a county with a fast-growing tax base, but it still was a challenge to keep up with the needs. Growth also attracted thieves, drug addicts, and scammers. The opioid problem had nearly spun out of control the previous year.

He had pulled a deputy, Chris Hollings, off a potential drug bust to station him at the roadblock with specific instructions to provide regular updates. By this time, the sheriff guessed traffic was probably backed up from the Red Swamp Road near the high school all the way to Highway 17 and toward the Intracoastal Waterway in the other direction. Should I go out there myself? he thought.

19

Azalea Bluff

It annoyed him that Hollings hadn’t yet returned calls by phone, police radio, or text.

Or, maybe Hollings couldn’t respond because now communications weren’t working. The law-enforcement chatter he heard earlier was odd and troubling, unlike anything in his experience. He had ordered the local officials to establish a perimeter around the field as soon as the first reports of a crash came in, but some unknown federal officials got there faster, as though they had been tracking the plane or whatever it was.

Citizens reported helicopters swooping into town. He wondered if the Army special operations center in nearby Fayetteville was somehow involved. How or why could that be?

He jolted when he heard the ringtone of his phone. It was the song “Every Breath You Take” by The Police. This was an inside joke that worked on multiple levels, particularly the lyric line, “I’ll be watching you.” Most cops had dark, ironic senses of humor. You needed that to stay sane during the toughest days.

His ringtone always got a laugh at the North Carolina Sheriff ’s Association convention.

He answered.

“Sheriff Hendricks?” the male voice on the other end said.

“Yes.” “Someone will be there in person any minute now. What I have to say can’t wait. This is a Homeland Security alert.

Verification D, that’s D-as-in-dog, 8-1-9-B. Go ahead and check if you need a second.”

Hendricks, like all law enforcement leaders in America, had been given a series of verification codes. There were too many to memorize, and even if you could, it would be irresponsible not to double-check.

“Okay. Give me a sec,” Hendricks said. “I’m glad the phones are working again. Were you guys behind that?”

The reply unsettled him. “Well, let’s say they work for us and leave it at that.”

Hendricks moved quickly into his small office, unlocked a file cabinet, and removed a binder. Paper records might be old-fashioned, but these were purposely held that way in case 20

Hetzel/Galloway

the Internet crashed in a crisis for any reason – like now. Plus, they couldn’t be hacked. He thumbed to the tab marked by the letter “D” until he got to protocol 819B. The summary statement was this: “Immediately follow all instructions and await further direction. Take no independent action regarding current incident.”

Hendricks skimmed through the details, put his phone back to his ear and said, “Okay. I’ve read what it says, but I don’t like it. I’m basically being told to sit on the toilet until you tell me to wipe myself.”

“That’s kind of irrelevant right now, Sheriff. We appreciate your cooperation. All I can add, between us, is we must invoke national security to keep a lid on what just happened in your community. You must do all you can to help us in that regard.”

“Well, all due respect, to help you most effectively, I need to know what the hell crashed here. And I think it’s my right. It’s my county,” he replied. “What kind of national security are we discussing here? Are you telling me it was some Area 51 secret spaceship or something? We can’t do our jobs without some answers.”

Hendricks heard a sigh on the line. “Sheriff Hendricks. Stop.

Just stop. Let’s keep it friendly,” the voice said in a firm tone that weirdly reminded him of the tone his wife used when he launched into an untimely rant. “We have a situation we must keep under control, and we must stop wasting time we don’t have. Trust me, there are consequences for you if this conversation stays unfriendly and you don’t follow the directions. This is for your own good, your community, your country, and maybe even the world.”

Hendricks shook his head and scanned the large work area through the glass window in his office. Before the new government complex opened, his investigators had operated in a room in the old sheriff ’s office with dingy wood paneling and ceiling tiles still yellowed from the days when smoking was part of the deputy lifestyle. They also shared desks, so a secondshift detective had a locked drawer on the left side while first shift got the right. It all reminded Hendricks of his service on 21

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Navy submarines. That provided perspective. Compared to his former life on a sub -- where every square inch was precious -everything was an upgrade.

Hendricks put himself into Navy mode – the good sailor who knew when a situation required obedience because it might be critical to do so. He accepted the reality. The feds were in charge.

He wasn’t going to know what went down, and he and his officers would do their best to make sure others didn’t know either.

22

4 Standing next to her car in the traffic jam, Olivia quickly realized it would take some creative thinking to get near the football field to see what she wasn’t supposed to see.

“Innovate,” she thought. “I know this area as good or better than anyone and there’s more than one way to skin a cat. Geez, where’d that tired cliché come from? Plus, I like cats. My journalism profs warned me to stay away from clichés, and there I go.”

She smiled briefly, imagining how Woodward, her black cat, would have nothing to do with any attempt to skin him. Then she returned to the challenge of planning. It wouldn’t be the first time she had gone somewhere unauthorized. She tried again to call and text Nate Kellogg, just so her colleague would know what she was doing. Plus, Nate could help her brainstorm the next steps. Nothing went through; she couldn’t even leave a voicemail message. She left the text in attempt-to-send mode, assuming it would be delivered eventually.

She got into her car, an aging but seemingly indestructible Subaru Impreza, and turned back, driving out of the traffic the way she came. It was a slow trip along the shoulder, and she received stares ranging from anger to jealously from motorists who either weren’t being allowed to leave or had to stay on the Red Swamp Road to reach their destination. Once, an official tried to get her to swing back around and stop. She flashed her media credentials and he waved that she could continue. “Good riddance! We don’t want you media assholes here anyway,” she heard the man yell at her through her open window as she drove past him.

23

Azalea Bluff

Like all reporters, Olivia had dealt with angry people. She had covered her share of controversial, emotional stories in her young career. You only had to interview the parents of a murdered child once to have an experience you’d never forget. The ugliest memories involved angry faces along with shoving, spitting, and raised middle fingers from political followers whipped into a mob frenzy against all media-related humans during campaign rallies.

Even in those situations, she was surrounded by colleagues and security officers who could come to her aid. Typical authoritarian crap, she thought.

As she entered the outskirts of the town of Azalea Bluff, she took note of the late-afternoon sun and glanced at her watch.

She estimated maybe two hours of daylight remained. When she drove past Walmart, she noticed the full parking lot. With no phone service or internet, she supposed everyone had decided they might as well go shopping. As a growing community near lovely beaches, Azalea Bluff wasn’t trendy like Asheville or Charleston, but the city was far more fortunate than many smaller North Carolina cities whose downtowns had been reduced to dollar stores, consignment shops, and walk-in clinics while a Walmart on the outskirts vacuumed consumer dollars.

The nearby beaches brought locally-owned restaurants, craft breweries, and various retail shops. That made for interesting stories as well as potential ad dollars for the Advocate.

She drove past the newly refurbished town square, which had a gazebo and pretty landscaping nicely maintained by the Azalea Bluff Rotary Club. She pulled the Impreza into a small parking lot for a strip shopping center that had been converted to two law offices, an insurance agency, and a mortgage broker.

Making sure the Impreza wasn’t isolated or obvious, she parked between a nondescript Ford F-150 pickup truck and a matte black BMW with the license plate – BEACH LAW. No doubt the BMW belonged to one of the lawyers.

Behind the former shopping center was mostly undeveloped land, though she could see some low fences amid the bushes, pine trees, twisted oak branches, and underbrush. She knew she’d find the school and the football field pretty much straight east 24

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from this spot. The compass on her phone could help her, but the map and hiking apps on the phone weren’t working with internet access knocked out. Well, she’d just have to trust her instincts and the direction of the setting sun. She was thankful she was an experienced hiker – maybe not shrewd enough to survive on her own in the wilderness for a month, but certainly smart enough to hike a mile or two in some swampy woods where she grew up. She valued the knowledge learned in Girl Scouts and various hiking trips in the Smoky Mountains, the Appalachian Trail and her most favorite – Sedona, Arizona.

The Arizona hike happened in the fall after she graduated from Northwestern. It was a great experience except for the nicebut-forgettable boyfriend who was with her. Live and learn.

She also made a mental note to watch for snakes and ticks.

With that in mind, she used two elastic hair ties to seal the legs of her jeans against her socks, and she switched from her flipflops to the hiking shoes and socks she always kept in the back of the Impreza. She had a fleeting thought that she had just bought her white capri jeans and liked them a lot. They were stretchy, comfortable, and tight in just the right places. She didn’t have replacement money to buy another pair if they ripped or suffered too much from grass or mud stains on this little jaunt.

It was a typical hot, muggy day in the Carolinas, so Olivia had only been wearing a loose, light-green tank top with thin straps over a sports bra. That might not be enough in the woods.

She grabbed her purple Northwestern University rain hoodie and knotted it around her waist in case she needed it later. She made sure she had her keychain with the dangling Mace pepper spray canister she always carried and stuffed it in a pants pocket where she could quickly grab it. Then she opened a small blue backpack she used for yoga workouts to grab her workout T-shirt and a bottle of water. She tossed the T-shirt and water bottle into her work backpack and also grabbed an LED flashlight and pocketknife she kept in her glovebox.

The knife was open, and the blade nicked her thumb as she moved too hastily to close it. A few drops of blood dripped onto the floor mats. Swearing under her breath, she grabbed a bandana 25

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off the passenger seat and wiped the blood off her thumb. She was relieved to observe the cut wasn’t going to amount to much. She tossed the bandana, knife, and flashlight into the work backpack.

It already contained a portable battery backup for her cellphone, a fresh notebook, her small micro-voice recorder, and two pens.

Finally, she pulled her curly hair back into a ponytail, which was beyond hope for this day anyway, and grabbed her Chicago Cubs baseball cap. The blue cap was a pleasant, leftover memory from her college days just north of Chicago. It might keep bugs out of her hair.

Then it was off to the woods.

26

5 Jim Claven looked at his watch for probably the 500th time.

It was almost 8 p.m. He had been sitting in traffic for more than three hours. His car was the fourth back from the giant makeshift barricade. And besides wanting to get home for food and sleep, he had another problem. He really had to use the restroom in the worst way. The authorities frequently warned everyone to stay in their vehicles. Drivers and passengers couldn’t leave or turn around. He could hear children crying a few vehicles behind him. A big highway patrolman with a bullhorn had given the instructions around 6:30 p.m. and promised that porta-johns would arrive soon. None were in sight yet.

Claven eyed his empty plastic water bottle, trying to calculate the degree of grossness and difficulty if he had to resort to using it as a receptacle. Would they really arrest him if he left his vehicle?

It might be worth it and bring a good laugh at the country club if his name showed up in the paper when he paid his fine for public urination. To make matters worse, Jim’s cellphone still lacked a signal, and he couldn’t call his wife to let her know what was going on. He was at the breaking point of his patience and willpower when someone tapped on his window.

It was Robert Towns. Robert would know what was going on.

Hell, he knew everything and everybody in town. When Robert returned to his hometown with a business degree after getting a golf scholarship to attend North Carolina State, he opened a small restaurant and ended up owning a dozen franchise submarine sandwich shops. Claven knew Towns from the golf club, where he was twice the club champion.

27

Azalea Bluff

“Uh, man, Robert, am I glad to see you. What the hell is going on?”

“You got me, Jimbo. Have you tried calling home?”

“Yeah, but I’ve got no signal.”

“Join the club, pal. I don’t think there’s a landline or cellphone working anywhere around here.”

“What? How could that be?”

“Hey, if they don’t want you to communicate, they can fix things to make sure you can’t.”

“They?” Claven asked. “Who the heck are they?”

Towns stared back at him and paused before answering.

“Hey, what do I know?” he replied, arching his eyebrows upward. “I just take orders and sell sub sandwiches. But something’s not right.”

Claven said, “Hey, they told us to stay in our cars. I can’t believe they won’t even let us get out to go into the woods for a minute to pee. Those kids in the car behind me have been screaming for an hour and driving me nuts. How did you walk up to me without being assaulted or something?”

“That’s because I’ve got this right here.”

Towns pointed to the police volunteer badge overlapping the front pocket of his blue, button-down shirt.

“Oh, I forgot,” Claven said. “You’re a big, connected local celebrity. Still, you better turn around.”

Towns looked puzzled. Before he could turn, he felt a finger poke his shoulder sharply.

“Hey,” Towns said, rotating as fast as he could on his chunky frame. An armed man he didn’t recognize, dressed in khaki military garb, faced him.

“Sir,” the man said. “I’m going to have to insist you get back in your vehicle right now!”

“I’m with the Azalea Bluff Police,” Towns said, pointing to the badge. “I’ve got a badge, and ...”

“Stop and shut up.” The man sharply cut him off, and his hand moved closer to the sidearm on his holster, a none-too obvious signal he wanted obedience. “I don’t care who you’re working for. They’ve got no authority here right now. Don’t turn this into 28

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something you don’t want, and I’ve got more important things to do. So, please move back to your vehicle and away from the situation.”

“Okay. Okay,” Towns replied, backing down. “See you around, Jim.” He shook his head, turned, and headed back towards his Mustang, pausing for a moment to observe a big truck driving along the shoulder carrying ten portable toilets.

With military precision, the mysterious guards allowed everyone to go to the bathroom. The routine was to stand next to your vehicle if you needed to use the porta-potty and wait for an escort. Claven didn’t complain. The kids had stopped screaming for the moment, and his empty water bottle would stay that way. *** Now it was 2 a.m. The only sounds Claven could hear were crickets and the distant noise of a generator by the roadblock.

He’d been stranded for nine hours. He couldn’t turn around because the Red Swamp Road was the only way to enter his golf course neighborhood.

His mind started wandering as fatigue began to overtake anger – not only for being stuck for so long without explanation but about the stress the delay surely was causing his family. His wife, Kim, and his two kids would be worried sick. Maybe they’d heard reports and figured it out. But maybe not.

He heard a crackling sound out of the car speaker. The radio came back on. He heard the tail end of a commercial for Tar Heel Toyota. Excited, he picked up his phone. No bars. No signal.

Hungry for news, with late-night radio signals strong, he found an all-news station from Charlotte, more than 150 miles away. “… now a mysterious report from Brunswick County on the Carolina coast,” he heard the newscaster say. The signal was fading in and out. There was a reference to “barricades” and a “no-fly zone for miles around the site.” He heard thunder and saw lightning. Fat raindrops begin pelting his windshield. The electrical storm interference ended any chance to pick up the Charlotte station’s signal.

29

Azalea Bluff

This was too bizarre. Claven felt like a character in the classic television series “Twilight Zone,” or maybe Neo from “The Matrix” movies. But, unlike Neo, he had no special powers.

He was just a middle-aged man trapped in an SUV on a Southern road. He gave up and shut his eyes, hoping to get some rest. Maybe he’d wake up and things would be better.

And then he heard a loudspeaker blare from one of the nearby emergency vehicles.

“Attention! Attention, please! We’re going to let you get on your way shortly. We apologize for the tremendous inconvenience, but please rest assured it could not be helped. Everything done here tonight was totally for your safety. Now, you will be directed out of the area in an orderly fashion. So please obey the officer directing traffic.”

Claven heard applause from the other drivers, the way airplane passengers applauded after the pilot flew them through turbulence. He joined in, though skeptical these federal troops really deserved his clapping. He started his SUV. Time to head home. Time to get some sleep. Maybe tomorrow this mess would make sense.

30

6 It took more than three hours before Olivia peered through the brush and saw the lights of the Old Maple clubhouse, which wasn’t far from the back of the football field. She noticed her white jeans had a small rip in the thigh area, lots of dirt and major stains on both knees from a slip she took on a swampy section of terrain. They might be beyond repair. So much for Olivia rocking her hot jeans.

She stopped again to catch her breath, knowing she also needed a few minutes to listen and observe as intensely as she could. She didn’t have far to go.

The moment of reflection in the woods also brought a fresh sense of fear that surprised her by its depth.

She pushed the feelings aside. Maybe this would be a big enough story to get her out of Azalea Bluff to a good, lasting gig, maybe even a network news job. It had happened to others, like the young reporter who broke the Penn State football scandal story at the daily paper in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Sara Ganim won a Pulitzer Prize and landed a job with CNN. Her persistent coverage helped expose assistant coach Jerry Sandusky as a child molester and led to the downfall of the legendary head coach, Joe Paterno. HBO even made a movie about it.

Still, Olivia didn’t want to be arrested, detained, or sued. It wasn’t like she worked for a news organization that could spend thousands of dollars to bail her out of jail or fight for her in the courts. The Advocate couldn’t even afford insurance against such things, which she knew was a huge risk. Any legal mess would bankrupt their seat-of-the-pants operation.

31

Azalea Bluff

She spoke aloud one more time, though still at a whisper.

“Screw it,” she said. “I can’t be more than a few minutes away now from being able to really see what’s happening out there.” *** The woods behind the football field were thick with brush, briars, bugs, and strange noises, but this vantage point would have to suffice. She could observe much of what was happening without being detected.

Olivia saw red and blue lights flashing. She could hear the heavy engine noises of large vehicles. She thought she detected the whip-whip-whip sound of at least one set of helicopter blades swirling the air. “What the hell is going on?” she said aloud, though barely at a whisper. She realized it was stupid to speak, no matter how softly, so she froze in place for a moment. It didn’t take long to decide this wasn’t an ordinary plane crash. There was too much evidence to the contrary. You only had to cover a few plane-crash disasters to know there were similar protocols for each one – even extraordinary situations.

At Northwestern, one of her journalism professors had spent three weeks at Ground Zero covering the 9-11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York for the Associated Press.

He walked the class through a complex case study on how to navigate the multiple challenges that horrific events created for journalists. How do you protect yourself from toxic fumes?

What’s the best approach to land interviews with families of missing firefighters? How fast can you gain an accurate-enough understanding to clearly explain the science behind what happens when a huge quantity of aviation fuel ignites in the interior of an already damaged skyscraper?

Olivia knew to expect fire trucks, police, FAA personnel, news helicopters, and emergency vehicles on the scene of airplane crashes. In the case study, one of the characters was a demanding editor who never stopped pushing to “give me something … we’re getting our butts kicked.” Some of the students succumbed to the lure and reported false information without fact-checking.

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The professor gave a failing grade on the assignment to those students. Powerful lesson learned.

When the class discussed the exercise, the professor admitted he had purposely not told them that how they reacted to the unrelenting push to beat the competition was the most important part of the exercise.

With that in mind, one of the first things Olivia did when she started the Advocate was to develop a solid foundation of source relationships. That definitely included Sheriff Hendricks and his top deputies. Hendricks usually made sure his presence was obvious at scenes far less serious than this one. Olivia suspected he had larger political ambitions, not that anything was automatically wrong with that.

Whatever the sheriff ’s motives, she would expect him to be here with other deputies in a major way. There were no signs of anyone from the office at the scene, let alone the sheriff. This absence was one example among many of the oddity of the scene.

She mentally checked other reasons why this was far different than the normal scene of a major disaster or similar event in a public place, such as the football field of the local high school.

The area wasn’t just sealed in the immediate area but blocked for miles around. She saw none of the other usual actors such as various local officials, first responders, reporters, and curious onlookers. Instead, she was watching what appeared to be a federal takeover.

Blinding, white spotlights also swept across the field. With her eyes blinking from the spotlight glare, she saw an all-male world of guys in green-and-brown military camouflage and about eight men in civilian garb entering and exiting black SUVs. She pictured the movie “Men in Black,” in which the government operatives wore black suits, white shirts, and thin, black ties. She half expected to see Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith step out of one of the Chevy Suburbans. But these officials were dressed more casually. No black suits visible, but everyone must have received the “wear black or gray” memo. There were lots of black jeans or slacks, gray polo shirts, and black windbreakers. Casual dress was logical since they were walking around on a football 33

Azalea Bluff

field that was a crash site. She couldn’t make out many words, but the tone of command in the voices made it clear the civilian group was in charge.

She realized she had grossly underestimated the difficulty she would face in returning to her car any other way than how she came. It had been naïve to think she’d see a friendly source once she got to the area, gather information for a great story, and hitch a ride back to the parking lot with someone. She imagined “Black Widow,” the female superhero of Marvel Comics fame, swooping into this macho party, using a big-ass load of girl power to help Olivia, her reporter friend standing in the woods.

That caused her to smile briefly and took the edge off her jangling nerves. The sweeping lights illuminated an area closer to her now. She heard machinery, men’s voices, and some sort of humming or vibrating sound. Spotlights had been erected in a circle that went from about the 35-yard-line on one side of the field to the 30-yard-line on the other. There was something centered by the lights. The glare made it hard to see and her eyes were watering from strain and exertion. She used her bandana to wipe sweat from her eyes, sharpening her focus.

She stared at a temporary barrier that was at least 15 feet high. It was some sort of makeshift wall that protected whatever was behind it on three sides. She could see men walking into the area from the open side, which faced the high school’s gym and main building. A big Army vehicle, larger than a Humvee, was parked between the building and whatever was behind the makeshift walls. She saw a gun turret on top of the vehicle.

My God, Olivia thought, they’ve put up a giant barricade to keep people out and prevent them from seeing anything. How quickly could they have done that? I mean, somebody had to hear or see something when that thing came down.

She knew she needed to see what was behind the walls, but that magnified the risks. She scanned the area and noted she was standing in a wooded, swampy area shaped like a bent arm along the perimeter of the field. She was in the forearm section. After the arm shape made its 90-degree bend, there was an area – she called it “the bicep” – that bulged closer, maybe close enough for 34

Hetzel/Galloway

her to hear and see better while remaining hidden. That’s where she wanted to be, but she would have to move at the pace of a wary, scared forest creature to avoid being heard. She figured it would take about 20 minutes.

She was wrong by a factor of nearly three. About 50 minutes later and feeling about 10 pounds lighter in the stifling heat and humidity, Olivia stood in “the bicep,” noting that activity seemed to continue at the same focused-but-not-frantic level she had first observed. She had just enough of an angle to glimpse whatever the officials were trying to hide.

The object’s size failed to match her extreme expectations. It wasn’t particularly big, and it had a brownish color or maybe a little closer to a dull orange. It was in the shape of an acorn. There were odd markings and small symbols along the side, but she wasn’t close enough to see any detail. Then she realized the acorn shape wasn’t quite right. No, no. It’s more like a bell, she thought.

Yeah, that’s it. More like a bell.

Olivia remembered her small digital recorder. She reached into her backpack, fumbling around to find it while she tried to make as little noise as possible. After what seemed like too long a time, she felt the familiar shape, about the length of a smartphone but much narrower. She carefully examined the device and noted with satisfaction her anal approach to journalistic preparation made sense again. Early in her career, other reporters challenged her use of a separate recorder. “Why don’t you just use the voice recorder app on your phone?” they asked. Her answer was straightforward. “That’s fine sometimes, but I don’t want to tie up my phone when all I need is audio. What if you’re waiting for a call, but you don’t want to move the microphone away? What if you need to shoot a video all of a sudden?” Two weeks later, she was doing a courthouse interview when a suspect charged at a judge in the hallway. She was the only one who captured the footage.

The battery-life indicator showed the voice recorder was ready to operate. She started recording. Before speaking, she cautiously extended the recorder outward in her hand, holding it so the microphone might pick up some of the noise around the 35

Azalea Bluff

field. Then she pulled the recorder back near her mouth. A large drop of sweat dripped onto the recorder. She wiped it off with the back of her arm and then cleared perspiration from her eyes again before she started talking.

“Um, this is Olivia Claven and I’m investigating the crash of a mysterious object that came down on the football field at Brinkley High School in Azalea Bluff, North Carolina. I can see the object now. It is shaped like a bell. It’s made from some kind of metal, obviously, and I would say it’s nearly 30 feet long and about eight feet wide. I think that length is pretty accurate because one end is on the 40-yard line of the football field and the other end is just short of the 50-yard line, so that would be 30 feet. There’s a hum of some sort emitting from the object – kind of a low bass vibration. It’s hard to describe. You can sort of feel it as much as hear it. This thing, whatever it is, I don’t know. It’s surrounded by military personnel and civilians who appear to be in charge. The security is like nothing I’ve ever seen before and …”

Minutes later, she was gone.

36

7 When he finally arrived home, Jim Claven was too tired and stressed to do more than give Kim a brief summary of events. She had waited up for him, worried and desperate for information, particularly since hours had passed with no communications before he was able to text he was on his way.

“Now they’re saying it was a plane, and it sounds like they were concerned about it being some sort of national security issue,” she said. “What the heck was going on?”

“I don’t know any more than you do,” Jim said. “Probably less. What I do know is that I still have amazing bladder control, and that I’m about ready to fall asleep standing up.”

“Okay,” she said, pushing her brown hair out of her eyes and grabbing his hand as they sat at the table in their breakfast nook.

“I’m just glad you’re home. I’ll hear the rest of the details after we get some sleep. I’m exhausted, too.”

“Have you heard from Olivia?” Jim asked.

“No, but I imagine she’s all over this story,” Kim replied. “She stinks at staying in touch. Someday when she’s a mom, I’ll laugh when she tells me how annoying it is when her kids don’t stay in touch.”

“Well, let’s hope she gets married first and finds a decent job,” Jim said. “I’m sure we’ll hear from her tomorrow.”

The next morning, he found himself standing in the uncovered portion of his back porch with a cup of steaming coffee in a red-and-white North Carolina State University mug.

He sniffed the sweetness of fresh morning air. Birds chirped. He 37

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noticed a few tiny hummingbirds swarming around the feeder at the other end of their deck.

Peering onto the golf course, he heard the sound of a mower along the fifth fairway. He saw a morning foursome on the tee, which bordered his yard. He thought he recognized Rod Kraft, who owned the local Chevy dealership and never let him forget his decision to drive to Raleigh to buy a Range Rover instead of purchasing a Chevy Tahoe from him. As soon as the mower cleared the area, he heard a metal driver hitting a tee shot with the clarity and explosive “thwop” you only hear when such a golf club makes contact in precisely the right way. He looked up, but the ball was already out of sight or lost in the glare of the sun. He wondered if Rod’s shot was as good as it sounded. Or, maybe the player had let his right hand overpower the left, sending his ball hooking 50 yards into the woods. Beautiful sounds just showed up as another stroke on the scorecard after all.

The completely normal morning made Claven wonder, Did all that really happen last night?

The Clavens had an impressive, custom-built home described by their builder as “a modern interpretation of the Southern plantation style.” That was most obvious in the front, where tall columns created a large porch, complete with white rockers and a table for lemonade, iced tea, or something stronger. Small pine groves surrounded both sides, creating privacy with his neighbors. Jim actually liked the back porch better because he enjoyed watching the golfers. Most of the year, it was a great place to relax with morning coffee or an evening cocktail. For his birthday last year, Kim had bought speakers for both porches that pumped in music from the entertainment system in the living room. But today felt different than most days. Last night the world, at least the portion of it he cared most about, had turned upside down, and Jim still didn’t know why.

A ringing phone snapped him from his thoughts. Glancing at the caller ID, he saw it was Tom Albert, a good friend. Everyone called him Al. As an elected official, business owner, and former cop, he knew a lot of people in both high and low places. Maybe he’d have a clue as to what happened last night.

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Instead, to Claven’s surprise, it was Al who wanted answers.

“Hello, Al.” “Top of the morning, Jimbo.”

“Al, tell me, man, if anybody would know something, you’re the one I’d call. What in the hell happened last night?”

Al sighed. “Bro, I wish I could tell you. Fact is, I was calling to ask you the same thing.”

“Pretty much all I know, beyond the little bit we’ve heard on the news, is that I was in the middle of something weird. I got caught in the roadblock and almost peed my pants,” Claven replied.

“Yikes. Did you sit out there all last night?”

“Almost, and I still have no idea why.”

After the call ended, Claven wondered again if it was time to worry about Olivia. For all their disagreements, he knew she had picked the right career in terms of following her passion.

Whether she could make a respectable living doing it was another matter, and that’s why he pushed her to find a different option.

He thought he had proven his case after she was laid off from two newspapers and one television station within a few years of graduating from one of the nation’s top-and-most-expensive journalism schools -- the Medill School at Northwestern University near Chicago. She had been forced to humble herself like too many young adults. She returned home to regroup, living in her old bedroom with $65,000 in debt from student loans and credit card overruns.

It tested Claven’s resolve to avoid “I-told-you-so” discussions, particularly since he had offered to pay her college costs if she stayed in the state. There were several perfectly fine, respected journalism programs, particularly the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. They made it clear she’d need to make up the difference if she went to the Chicago area to pay Ivy League prices to study the same thing.

Soured on traditional media, Olivia had joined three others in creating the online Brunswick Advocate. With energy, skill, and digital wisdom that marked their generation, they had made some waves, scooping the local paper on several big stories 39

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and even forcing the TV stations in nearby Wilmington and Myrtle Beach to follow their lead. He was proud of that but kept reminding them of the evidence that online news didn’t work as a business concept except for the giant search engines and social media sites. Olivia countered that experiments around the country were starting to show results. They just needed to hang on and keep trying things, she said.

He was a certified public accountant, and he helped them with their bookkeeping whenever they had questions. He had examined their financial statements, and he kept telling her you didn’t need to be a CPA to see that any winning strategies needed to come quickly. The four paid staff members were already down to two: Olivia and Nate.

That’s why, despite her impressive talent and strong work ethic, Olivia lived in the bedroom next to the one her younger brother, Sean, used when he was home from college. Sean, to Jim’s relief, was a lot more focused on a “real” profession that would lead to a good job – the construction management program at Eastern Carolina University. Meanwhile, Olivia had changed the color of her bedroom walls from little-girl pink to trendy gray to feel like more of a grownup. She put on a great show of positive energy, but it was obvious to Claven his daughter wrestled with the failure feelings that emerge from flickering dreams.

The one subject that was off-limits was any discussion of her boyfriend, who died just before their scheduled wedding. She simply said it was too painful. “Talking about Michael would only make it harder for me to keep moving forward,” she told him.

Olivia was adamant about that.

And, while it wasn’t unusual for Olivia to work all night and sleep at a friend’s house or on Nate Kellogg’s couch, he had to admit he was worried.

40

8 Olivia was trapped inside a small sterile room somewhere.

She sat on the edge of a full-sized bed, holding her head and sobbing.

How did I get here? And where the hell is ‘here’? she asked herself.

As she looked around the room at the chair, couch, bed, small bathroom, and television monitor, she thought how it reminded her of a typical, low-cost chain hotel. All the towels were white.

All the walls were beige. The furniture was nailed to the walls.

Nothing to give you a hint of location. It was a place to plop down for a night, maybe halfway to your vacation destination, indistinguishable from any other.

Some vacation. At least they have free breakfast, she thought.

She tried to ignore one big difference: This room had no windows. She kept conjuring scenarios to keep fear from overwhelming her like a hurricane flood. By her count, she had been in the room for three days but couldn’t be certain. She hadn’t been mistreated, unless you counted kidnapping as mistreating, of course.

She had no clues to answer the “where am I” question, so she considered the available choices to answer the “who took me” question. She didn’t consider herself naïve. She had a lot of journalism experience. Most of her past encounters with government officials had gone well enough. When they couldn’t or wouldn’t comment or give her the public records she needed, she usually understood why. Sometimes, the motives were less than 41

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noble. You didn’t have to operate at the level of the investigative reporters who exposed corruption, crimes, and cover-ups at the highest levels of government, business, or religion to deal with a major amount of bullshit.

Still, even with the keen skepticism of a reporter, she found it hard to believe her own government would kidnap her from the edge of a football field. That would raise too many questions. The First Amendment and other freedoms hadn’t been rescinded, at least not yet, in her country. She kept circling back to the same questions: Who took her and what was going to happen? She could guess why, but only in the most general terms: She had seen something that someone didn’t want her to see and share. It wasn’t like she was a celebrity commentator whose disappearance would concern many people. She felt very expendable.

Her eye twitched, something that had been happening more often. Fatigue, fear, and stress were the likely causes. She couldn’t let fear overwhelm her. This was maddening.

Olivia reconstructed the last moments as she stood in the woods on the edge of the Brinkley High School football field when she was surrounded by soldiers, or people who appeared to be soldiers. They injected her with some drug. She recalled seeing the oddly shaped object that looked like a bell. Dozens of men, or maybe it was hundreds, hovered around the bell-like mother hens guarding their eggs. The difference was when you cracked an egg, you knew what you’d find inside.

So, what did they find inside that bell?

The next thing she remembered was waking up in this strange room. She had been given three meals a day and movies to watch. Her captors had provided a flat-screen monitor mounted on the wall next to the bed and an old-school DVD player to keep Olivia from losing her mind. She was convinced this was the reason, and it helped. If you wanted to torture someone or drive them crazy, you would practice deprivation; not put you in a room that was like a decently appointed Hampton Inn. Each morning she received a list of movies from the same slot at the bottom of the door that was the source of her food. The isolation was the hardest part. All normal humans hungered for contact from others. Maybe, she thought, this was the long-term torture 42

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they had in mind. But to what end? No one acknowledged any cries, door-pounding, or shouts for conversation.

She had quickly concluded by working through the buttons on the side panel of the monitor and the remote control that the monitor would operate the DVD player, but that was all.

It wasn’t a “smart” television with access to the Internet or outside channels. It received no signals, so her only source of entertainment was the discs she selected from a pre-approved list. They also provided a menu from which to choose her meals.

She had used the pencil that came attached to the clipboard to request a notebook, writing instruments that she could keep and some books to read. So far, there had been no response, just DVDs and food. Coffee came in the morning. A carton of 2 percent milk and a bottle of water came with every meal. In a small act of rebellion, she had pulled the pencil off the string that attached it to the clipboard, but the only thing she could use as a writing surface was toilet paper, and to what end? The next time the clipboard appeared under the door, it contained a new pencil – the tiny size that golf courses used with scorecards.

They hadn’t bothered with a string. Instead, the clipboard’s clasp held the food menu, the DVD list, and the small pencil to the clipboard surface. She examined the pencil closely, hoping to see the name of a golf course or country club on it as a clue to where she was being held, but the pencil was yellow with no lettering at all. No surprise there.

She concluded her captors were sending an all-too-obvious message: She apparently could keep as many damn little pencils as she wanted, which meant it was a futile exercise of no consequence. They apparently knew her well enough to realize she had no intention to use the pencil to poke her eyes out, stick it in an orifice or otherwise damage herself. Plus, the pencil lead was always dull. About all it was good for beyond writing was as low-rent eye shadow. She was not so inclined. She had no other makeup. That was less consequential but still a big adjustment.

The one time they did respond was when she felt her monthly period starting in an unusually strong and painful fashion. “My ‘cycle’ is starting, and it’s going to be rough,” she wrote on the back of the menu. “If any of you are women or have daughters, 43

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you know what I’m talking about. Please provide tampons and some ibuprofen.” The next time food came under the door, two tampons and four pills appeared on a small, separate tray.

She was genuinely grateful. Olivia took it as a hopeful sign of humanity by her captors. Maybe they were just keeping her until some unknown problem that her presence in the world would create dissipated.

With no books to read, and her eyes growing bleary from movies, Olivia made it a point to exercise for at least an hour a day, or at least as close to an hour as she could estimate with no way of knowing the time until she realized that the counter on the DVD player as it played through a movie could serve as a crude timer to track everything she did and how long she did it. Plus, she figured staying in shape could improve her chances of surviving or even escaping if such an opportunity ever came.

With the tiny pencils, she made notes on toilet tissue. She went through her Yoga moves. She held plank exercises until she thought she would pass out. She did dance exercises to whatever music was playing to the closing credits of the movie she watched. Working out had one other important benefit: Physical exhaustion was the best way to help her fall into a troubled sleep.

She clung to the belief her friends and family members would seek her, and the thought occurred that even though she was nobody of consequence, her strange disappearance might still be a decent story worthy of regional news coverage. She thought about Nate Kellogg, her business partner, and friend, and she thought about her parents. Her saddest thoughts came as she considered how worried her mom and dad must be. Memories of loved ones led her down an even more painful road, but traveling that road in her memories helped pass the time.

One memory dominated her thoughts because there are no memories stronger than the pendulum swings of love found and love lost.

She could never forget Michael Starling. Maybe thinking about Michael would keep her from shuddering uncontrollably; maybe it would block her fear about what might happen next.

The scariest thought of all was she’d die in this room and never even know why.

44

9 Olivia first met Michael in New York City. Later they would laugh about what a cliché, what a stereotype, a first encounter in a Manhattan bar turned out to be. She had taken the Amtrak train from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to New York City to go to a party celebrating her friend’s master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University. When the group of four young women returned to the apartment, Olivia realized she wasn’t ready to crash. It really wasn’t that late. “I’m going to grab one more drink before coming up. I might even get something to eat. I only nibbled on a few appetizers at the party,” she told her friends. She turned away and entered Ranger Rick’s Irish Pub, a tavern that occupied the first floor of the apartment building.

The bar was nearly full and had the typical Manhattan vibe -low lighting but not too dark. A handful of older patrons nursed bourbons and beers at the bar. Most of them were white boomer guys with gray hair and goatees. There was one guy dressed all in black with a “soul patch” of hair on his chin, a treble clef symbol tattooed on his left forearm and a long, gray ponytail. She guessed he was trying too hard to look like an important person in the music industry. Then a friend slapped him on the back and asked if he was “still driving that UPS truck.” Olivia noted a reluctant “yes” nod that he gave in return. Busted.

Nearly all the other patrons were in their early-to-late 20s.

They represented a diverse ethnic stew of white, Asian, Latin, and Black. That was one of the things she liked most about New York. She pegged them as young professionals hoping to 45

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get ahead in the early stages of their careers. Olivia thought that described her, too, except they lived in New York and she toiled in the obscurity of central Pennsylvania. Advantage: them. The multiple televisions behind the bar were tuned to sports of all sorts, a basic requirement if you were going to be in the pub business these days. At least the announcers weren’t screaming through the sound system. Instead, the owner obviously shared her taste in Irish rock and Americana music. A bar that played Flogging Molly and Jason Isbell could lure her back.

With the wariness of all attractive single women and zero interest in getting anything but a quick bite and a drink, she tried to find a spot at the bar that would provide two open stools branching out from her in either direction. The crowd made that impossible, so she settled for a stool that had an empty seat to her left and a gay couple enjoying themselves on the two stools to her right.

Olivia was still wearing a party outfit that included a lower-cut top and a much-shorter-and-tighter skirt than she’d usually wear.

Several guys quickly took notice as she sat down. She responded by closing her legs tighter and tugging the green skirt down as far down as she could. She sighed inwardly and gave herself a mental reminder to avoid eye contact to minimize the potential some drunk guy would take any acknowledgment, real or imagined, as a signal her late-night appearance at Ranger Rick’s was designed to fulfill anyone’s fantasies. The one exception to her “eye contact rule” was the bartender. She signaled him, ordered a Tito’s vodka and tonic and made it a point to appear fascinated by whatever she was viewing on her phone. The goal: Reinforce and radiate signals of disinterest.

She got absorbed in catching up on the news of the day on her phone and ordered a second drink. By that time, despite her best efforts, she already had rebuffed interest from three male patrons. About 15 minutes and one more pathetic pickup line later, she was reading a New York Times story on her phone and chewing on three small chunks of ice from the end of her drink when her effort to send “ignore me” vibes utterly failed.

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A good-looking guy, maybe a few years older than her, plopped onto the stool next to her with the casual ease of a confident person. Olivia noticed he glanced at her as he settled himself, but he was careful not to pull his stool too close to hers.

That probably meant he was either unusually polite or unusually smooth. Or both. She chuckled to herself as she thought this guy had a low hurdle to jump to win a courtesy contest versus the competition from the bar behavior occurring around her.

“Hey,” he said. “I don’t mean to intrude on your stool space, but this is the only seat left at the bar. I’m Michael, for whatever that’s worth.”

It wasn’t likely to be worth much as far as Olivia was concerned, but it would be rude to completely ignore him. Was that even his real name? She liked that he was at least perceptive enough to act polite and comprehend the vibe she was trying to send. Olivia contemplated her response as she scanned the bar area to see if “Michael” also demonstrated enough class to tell the truth. He did. There indeed were no seats left, and the higher background noise volume matched the growing crowd.

She decided to keep her response simple.

“That’s okay,” she said. “No worries.”

There was no avoiding at least a minimal amount of eye contact, and Olivia had to admit she liked what she saw. He was dressed simply, wearing an untucked, light blue dress shirt and jeans. The shirt fit snugly on an obviously well-maintained body but not so tight as to appear like he was showing off. His wavy brown hair was fairly long on top and cut short on the sides, it matched the color of his eyes, which were a deep shade of brown that reminded her of a Hershey’s chocolate wrapper. That thought made her smile inside. His face had a warm, friendly quality.

Olivia had set her iPhone on the bar, open to the story in the Times she had been reading -- an article about U.S. military defense spending. She saw “Michael” look at the phone.

“It’s none of my business,” he said, “but I don’t meet many women who’d be reading an article about our military budget in a bar at midnight.”

Before Olivia could respond, he spoke again.

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“Put a hold on that comment,” he added. “That was really kind of sexist, wasn’t it? I basically implied a woman couldn’t be interested in such things.”

“Yeah,” she said, but not in a snarky tone. “It was kind of sexist. That was exactly my first reaction.”

“I should’ve said you don’t meet many people -- people, not women -- who’d be reading this right now. I was going to say I might be the only other person in this bar who’d be interested in the discussion. It has nothing to do with gender. Honest. Will you give me a pass on that?”

She looked at him and decided she would.

“Just this once,” she said, offering him a tiny hint of a smile.

“Actually, I’m a reporter, and I just got assigned a story on the importance of military spending to a number of companies in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where I work. I’d like to know the impact and the back story on how some of these contracts get awarded. They’re not all Amish farmers, you know. When you’re a journalist, I guess you’re always on duty. Plus, I’m just a curious person. I’m interested in lots of stuff. Some people might say nosy.”

He laughed at that. “Well, we definitely have an overabundance of curiosity in common,” he replied. “Probably too much sometimes. Maybe I can help you out.”

The floodgates opened for 15 minutes of conversation. This Michael guy was obviously conversant with military spending and how government worked. He gave her several interesting suggestions on sources that would help her track spending and perhaps offer interesting interviews. She opened the notes app on her phone and tapped the contact names for follow-up later.

“Okay,” he said as that conversation ran its course. “I’m going to go where maybe you don’t want me to go. Just say ‘no’ if you don’t like this idea, and we can keep talking about foreign policy, food, or favorite bands. Whatever you want. Or, if you’re done with me or just want to leave, I understand. I’ll sit alone at the bar and hang my head. I might go home and cry myself to sleep, but I’ll understand.”

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They both smiled at that. He continued, “Would it make you feel guilty to know I’m actually not kidding all that much? I’ve really enjoyed this conversation. Meanwhile, while you think about that, I can’t help but notice your drink is nearly empty.

Can I buy you another drink?”

Olivia wasn’t surprised by the invitation. Any woman knew what was coming at this point in that situation. After all, they were sitting in a bar late at night. A small caution flag waved in the background of her mind. Maybe the two drinks on top of what she consumed at the party had lowered her guard. But she liked this guy and felt a connection she rarely felt with anyone.

He definitely had interests as well as a sense of humor in sync with hers. What the hell? How often does that happen? Like, not ever, lately. We’re still in low-risk territory, she thought.

“I don’t want a drink,” she said, waiting for the expression of disappointment to pass through his face before speaking again.

She was rewarded as she saw his eyes briefly droop. Then she smiled and raised her eyebrows, signaling she was toying with him a little bit.

She said, “But we could get something to eat. It looks like they have some decent pub food here. I haven’t eaten much today. Then maybe I’ll think about that drink once I get some food in my stomach.”

“Sold,” he said. “That deserves a full-name intro. I’m Michael Starling. Let’s get a table, order two burgers, and learn more about each other.”

They ate dinner, talked non-stop, and made a date for the next night. It only took a few outings before they realized they were falling in love, and every meeting seemed to deepen their feelings. It began with long conversations and shared tastes in music. Michael was more than Olivia’s intellectual match. They soon realized their first instincts were true: They had much in common. They loved concerts, smooth vodka, good books, and spontaneous, quick vacations. They didn’t agree about everything, especially when it came to politics, but they were always respectful of the other’s point of view. They enjoyed the intellectual gymnastics of debating each other and occasionally 49

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found the satisfaction of getting the other person to admit, “You have a point. Slight possibility, but maybe I’ll change my position.” They shared their anger at politicians who wouldn’t or couldn’t do the same.

They expressed their feelings in the bedroom as well.

Michael was a thoughtful and responsive lover. Olivia’s scattered experiences with other partners had left her vaguely disappointed.

She definitely liked sex, but not for its own sake. She needed to feel a connection, and she wanted someone who’d make her comfortable about surrendering and even experimenting a bit.

She wanted to experience a deeper level of passion that some of her friends claimed to have found. She kidded, sort of, with them that the existence of that guy was fake news, at least for her. With Michael, it was different. While Olivia knew physical attraction wasn’t enough to sustain a long-term relationship, it certainly was part of the puzzle. She vowed to enjoy every moment with the first man who made her comfortable enough to discover those places as a woman.

It was, she felt and hoped, the kind of relationship you might find once in your life, and only then if you were blessed, lucky, or both. Her female friends were happy for her and, once they got a look at Michael, envious at the same time.

The only nagging problem was Michael’s unwillingness to talk much about his job or his family. She had learned to accept he had some type of high-security clearance. That was particularly hard for a reporter to do. As for his family, he told her he had a brother he didn’t see much. They were raised by an alcoholic father and painfully shy mother who had fled their respective families for the isolation of the small city of Bellefonte, Ohio, where his father worked in a nearby Honda auto plant until his drinking led to his dismissal. The family broke apart, and both his parents were dead by the time he was 22. College scholarships and the military got him out of Bellefonte, and he claimed no interest in looking or going back.

Nearly a year after they first met, they planned to make it official with a June wedding. She would quit her job in Lancaster and look for work in New York after they got married. Her 50

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parents really liked Michael, and the details consumed Kim Claven. It would be a storybook beach wedding at the pavilion in Holden Beach, a barrier island near Azalea Bluff that attracted thousands of vacationers each summer. No tux for Michael; no wedding dress for her. They’d both wear pure white with Olivia in a silky beach dress, and a white rose in her hair. Michael would wear an elegant white linen shirt designed for beach weddings and white pants. No shoes. They wanted to get married in bare feet with toes entwined in the sand. The band her mom hired for the reception at her father’s country club would specialize in beach music with shag steps and line dancing Carolinians loved.

The wedding was 13 days away when Olivia got a call she could never forget. *** The caller was a work associate, Ben Fishel. Ben was Michael’s choice for best man and, as far as Olivia knew, Michael’s only close friend. She had met Ben a few times. One night in New York, while she was with Ben in a bar as they both waited for Michael, she bought him five rounds of drinks, hoping to get him drunk enough to talk more about Michael and their mysterious occupations. However, Ben’s wall was as indestructible as Michael’s. She only succeeded in getting so wasted herself that both guys deposited her at Michael’s apartment early before they went back out. Everyone had a good laugh the next morning.

There was nothing funny about this call.

“Hey, Olivia. This is Ben,” Fishel said.

The tone in his voice alarmed her. Ben always sounded upbeat around her. This time he was speaking almost in a whisper. She heard him gulp.

“What’s up?” she asked with a growing sense of dread.

“There’s no good way to say this,” Fishel replied. “Please sit down.” His voice got softer and Olivia heard him take a breath as she sat, already thinking the worst. “Michael’s gone. Dead.”

“No,” Olivia said loudly, fighting an adrenaline burst that made her want to scream. “Ben, just tell me this is one of his crazy jokes.”

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She knew it was no joke, but she had to hang onto that sputtering possibility for a moment.

“What happened?” she asked, a choke grasping every word.

“How can he be gone?”

“A car accident. It was a damn car accident,” Ben said, speaking rapidly as though he had to seize the words he needed to say and spit them out as fast as he could. “It’s unbelievable.

After all, the two of us have been through, all those things I can’t tell you about, all the ways either one of us might’ve died. It was a random car. It hit him crossing the street in lower Manhattan.

To make it worse, the driver left the scene. The police are looking for him, but there weren’t any witnesses. They’ve got nothing to go on.”

He anticipated her next question before she could ask it, speaking more slowly now.

“Olivia, I’m so sorry. That’s all I know. I’ll let you know more when I know more. I just found out.”

Olivia said nothing. Suddenly she felt an indescribable tightness in her chest that forced her to gasp for air. A few seconds passed before she felt like she could take another breath.

The next time she exhaled, it seemed like her hopes and dreams joined the carbon dioxide that fled her body. Finally, she spoke, but the only words that came out were, “Oh, my God.” In the weeks and months that followed, she struggled to find comfort in the knowledge they had extracted as much as any couple ever could from their months together. There was passion, thoughtfulness, commitment, and no room for doubt about how they felt about each other. She knew Michael would want her to move on with her life. That phrase would be more than a cliché to him, but she grew increasingly skeptical she would ever meet someone who could force fresh air into the vacuum Michael’s death created. When she talked to her mom about her feelings, one poetic line brought them both to tears: How many soulmates can you find in one life? ***

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She stared at the walls of her room, trying to shut down the memories. But here she was again, facing another crisis controlled by unknown forces outside her ability to make any difference.

Olivia hated these new walls around her existence; she hated she had no control of the situation. Even if they appointed this room like a posh resort, it was still a cell. Frustration and hate burned inside like a raging fire and threatened to drive her insane. She pounded her left fist as hard as she could on the heavy, locked door and nearly broke her hand. Emotion flooded through her like a bursting dam. Michael could never return, and she was helpless and alone. She jumped on her bed, laid on her back, grabbed a pillow, spread it over her face, and began crying.

She wondered if it was possible to suffocate herself. Maybe that was the only way to stop them from using her in whatever way they were planning.

Maybe, she thought, that’s what “they” want to drive me to do. Who knows? Panic, confusion, and helplessness caused her to scream at the top of her lungs to walls that would not hear or to those outside who didn’t care even if they heard. She cried some more.

Then a thought came alive in her head. It wasn’t a voice as much as something that appeared with utter clarity. Was it Michael? Was it God? Was it just some thought her subconscious brain yanked from deep recesses to point her somewhere?

“Channel your emotions,” the voice said. “You know how.

Stay strong.”

The three sentences seemed to hover in her mind and then evaporate like melting ice under a summer sun at the beach. The extraordinary experience startled her out of her fog of feelings and forced her to collect her thoughts. She didn’t have much control, but she hadn’t lost all of it. She’d battle to stay sane and stay focused to capitalize on even the smallest glimmer of a chance to escape this situation.

She vowed to use her memories of Michael and what he’d expect of her as her foundation. She’d never let anyone take those memories away.

53

10 Olivia had no idea there were 12 men nearby and below her room, meeting eight levels underground in a fortress embedded into the Nevada desert.

These men had one and only one agenda item: the incident in Azalea Bluff. It was on all their minds as they walked past two metal plates bolted to the thick concrete walls designed to withstand a nuclear attack. The plates faced each other and added some color to a gray décor unchanged since the early days of the Cold War between America and the former Soviet Union. There was lettering, etched in white on the bronze plaques, containing two quotes attributed to the Wernher Von Braun, the brilliant rocket scientist who was secretly moved to the United States after World War II along with other captured Nazi scientists and engineers. He became the father of the U.S. space program and lived to see Americans walk on the moon.

This one was a reminder message for men who often had to bend the rules to achieve their goals: “Conquering the universe, one has to solve two problems: red tape and gravity. We could have mastered gravity.”

Even more memorable was the quote on the facing wall: “My experiences with science led me to God.” These men didn’t have to offer explanations or apologies to the public or even the commander-in-chief as they entered a heavily secured conference room. It was better for everyone that way. They saw themselves as patriots. Their presence, duties, and occupations at this facility were classified. They were special, and they knew it.

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Their singular mission was to do whatever was required to ensure that perhaps the greatest secrets held by the United States government stayed that way. They had each been chosen for intelligence, discipline, patriotism, and a willingness to follow orders quickly and without question when necessary. They were convinced those secrets had influenced multiple world events for decades, maybe centuries, and public knowledge of those secrets would be devastating to their country and world peace. Best to confine the secrets and the evidence supporting them to this underground space.

Of course, there was outside speculation or suspicions that came close sometimes. There was no way to prevent it, especially in the late 1940s through the early 1960s when reports of unidentified flying objects were constantly in the news.

Science-fiction writers often wrote about these topics, but they weren’t seen as much of a problem. After all, their work was clearly labeled as fiction and only a handful of authors ever sold more than a few hundred copies of whatever they wrote.

Then there were self-styled UFO experts and alien invasion buffs. Many were passionate and had followers with the relentless passion and fervor of true believers. But the men in the room were highly skillful at using propaganda and media to undermine them. Messages crafted in dozens of different ways reinforced the notion these folks were harmless, geeky kooks with tinfoil hats who had never matured from youths spent reading comic books and watching “Star Wars.” It was easy since many citizens believed this about UFO buffs already. They made it a point to boost the profiles of the craziest, geekiest members of that small world.

Though the use of propaganda had moved into the cyber world, nothing fundamental had changed about its goals. What had changed was that the internet weaponized the ability to rapidly push alternate “facts” and sow skepticism, scandal, and fears for whatever purposes you had in mind.

Their tactics went back centuries. Teachers teach the students.

Then students teach the teachers.

Around 500 B.C., the Chinese military genius Sun Tzu described in his classic book, “The Art of War,” how to defeat 55

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opponents by exploiting weaknesses and learning from strengths.

Disinformation was time-tested. Other nations saw how Adolf Hitler mastered the dark arts of propaganda to come to power in Germany, which led to World War II and the horrific deaths of millions of Jews in the Holocaust. Hitler’s horrors still rippled with hundreds of modern-day anti-Semite and pro-Nazi groups serving as microphones of hate.

Still, the explosion of internet and cable television content made their jobs harder. It was easier to expand your audience, and many of these so-called geeks clearly weren’t wearing tinfoil hats. They grew up to become consultants or producers of popular, sensationalized cable-network programs about alien landings and sightings. Some shows, like “Project Blue Book,” a program that fictionalized true accounts of UFO sightings in the 1950s, were particularly well done.

The group quickly embraced the potential of social media shortly after Facebook launched, and they idly wondered if the Russians knew about their work and recognized its potential to shift public opinion, replace truth with phony facts and generally mess with the world. By the 2016 presidential election in America, the Russians had gotten so good at it, they had won grudging admiration from these men.

Protecting secrets also meant having a strong physical location for their work, and they had an excellent one. The Von Braun quotations were in a place where few would ever see them – beneath the blinding sun, vast flatness, and deadly heat of one of the loneliest spots in the Nevada desert. It was one of the most heavily protected facilities in the world.

The most startling and closely held secrets involved Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler’s scientists.

It was documented, common knowledge the Nazis had many of the world’s best scientific minds at their disposal to mesh with the Third Reich’s considerable manufacturing resources to significantly advance the weapons of war. The Allies worked feverishly, often in vain, to try to match Nazi tanks, planes, rockets, and other weapons during World War II. What the public didn’t know beyond the easily debunked suspicions of a few fringe groups was this: By the start of World 56

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War II, the Nazis had access to stunning alien technology, and they worked feverishly to harness and understand what they found. The Third Reich just ran out of time.

It sounded crazy in 1945 and still did. As the war receded into history and technology advanced, the concept that a bunch of German scientists in the 1940s knew more than modern physicists and engineers in the 21st century didn’t make sense.

To be sure, there were clues in the public record. Von Braun, the famous scientist who reinvented himself as a space-flight hero despite his Nazi past, helped U.S. leaders understand. Once, Von Braun was asked how Germany got so far ahead of the rest of the world in rocket technology. His simple response: “We had help.” Herman Oberth, Von Braun’s one-time teacher and later a colleague, was even more specific: “We had help from people from other worlds,” he once said.

For years, the men in this subterranean room had done a remarkably good job of containment. They had no doubts the world wasn’t ready for what they knew and what the few who knew hoped to develop with that knowledge. Their immovable position was the only one that mattered. They had the powers of guardians, and they weren’t about to let it go. *** Everyone sat down briskly as soon as the leader walked into the conference room. Most of them skimmed notes and reports on their laptop computers. Wall-mounted monitors showed various scenes, including the football field at Brinkley High School.

The man at the head of the table lightly tapped a coffee mug with a spoon and the few murmured conversations reverted to complete silence. He uttered a single sentence with a tone that somehow conveyed his concern, sharp focus, and veiled anger all at the same time.

“So, gentlemen, we now know they had two.”

Air Force Colonel Henry D’Antonio was three seats to the left of the speaker. The group leader was a civilian, but everyone 57

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called him General Connelly because Harlan Connelly had been an Army general before accepting this classified assignment at considerable sacrifice. And, truth be told, he missed what had been a pleasant lifestyle in Washington, advising cabinet secretaries and presidents on matters of the most intense national security while enjoying his season tickets to the Washington Capitals hockey team. “My sense of duty gives me no choice,” was what Connelly told his wife about moving to Nevada. He bought a condo for her in the Las Vegas suburb of Henderson and visited every weekend he could.

Connelly nodded to D’Antonio to continue. D’Antonio shook his head slightly before speaking without making eye contact with anyone.

“You know, we all thought Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, was the end of that story,” he said. “That’s a long time ago now. What was it, 1965? Other than some flare-ups, we’ve kind of had it easy since then. This Azalea Bluff situation is a light-years bigger problem than dealing with the new season of ‘Project Blue Book.’

I’m sure everyone understands that.”

“Roger that. The story has a new chapter,” Connelly replied.

“But we’re still responsible for how the story ends. Any thoughts or questions before we really drill into this?”

A voice from the other end of the table spoke: “Sir, what’s the status of our visitors? What are we learning?”

Connelly leaned back in the mesh conference chair before answering, finding relief from the support it gave his troubled lower back. The chair was a top-of-the-line Herman Miller Aeron that retailed for around $900 and was purchased courtesy of the American taxpayers. The job was tough enough that a few special items were easy to justify.

“We’ve got a scared young woman who knows next to nothing but saw too much. And we’ve got a seriously damaged and befuddled Nazi on our hands,” he finally said.

“And, we need to get past any sense of damage or befuddlement on our parts as soon as possible,” D’Antonio added. “Contain the damage. We’ve never had a containment challenge this big; never had an incident that will raise so many questions. Worries are for losers. We have to work on the problem. Close any gaps.

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“As for our guests, eventually and regrettably, their continued existence hinges on their ability to provide more value in life than death. It’s what we’re called to do.”

No one disagreed. It took an hour more to finalize their next steps.

59

11 The day after the longest day of Jim Claven’s life was a Saturday, which would normally have found him and his friends drinking beer and traversing green fairways in the unattainable quest for golf perfection. Jim had no appetite for golf or beer today.

Kim and Jim had talked for hours, analyzing the bizarre events and, most of all, agonizing about Olivia. Calls to Nate Kellogg and a quick conversation with their son, Sean, had yielded no information.

“Well, she’s a grown woman, and she can be headstrong,” Jim said for perhaps the third time in the conversation. “I’m still not going to panic just yet.”

Kim wasn’t so sure. She knew her daughter. No matter how many times Jim tried to explain all of this away, it just would not make sense. It was now 1:30 in the afternoon. Jim realized he had spent most of the past six hours pacing around the house or sitting on his back porch. He felt exhausted and was drifting off when the phone rang.

A young female voice was on the other end. “Hello, is this Mr. Claven? Jim?” “Yeah,” Claven answered, more gruffly than he intended.

“Who’s this?”

“This is Lindsay Siewert. I don’t think we’ve ever met, but maybe you remember Olivia and I went to school together at Northwestern. We were really close.”

“Oh hey, yeah. I remember Olivia talking about you. So, how are you?”

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“Well, I’d be a lot better if I knew where Olivia was. I don’t guess you’ve seen her?”

“Olivia? I haven’t. Truth is, we’re very worried.”

Claven heard a slight gasp on the line, followed by a pause in the conversation.

“She was supposed to have breakfast with me this morning,” Lindsay said. “I work for a marketing company in Cincinnati now, and I had an assignment in Wilmington. We haven’t seen each other in ages, though we text and stay in touch on Instagram and Snapchat. You know it’s not like her to forget or not communicate. I can’t get through to her.”

Claven said, “Lindsay, where are you now?”

“I’m at Bluffs Beanery, the coffee shop on Main Street, where we’re supposed to meet.”

“Okay. Listen, do me a favor. I’ve got your number now in my phone. Please stay in town a bit longer. You can come by here if you want. Let me call around, see what I can find out, and I’ll get back to you. And if you hear from her before I do, please call or text me right away.”

“Thanks, Mr. Claven. Something’s wrong. I hate to say it, but I just feel it.”

“Hey, we’ll find her. I’ll call you back. And call me Jim.” He knew he sounded more upbeat than he felt. After he ended the call, his wife stared directly at him, waiting for him to explain, which he did.

“They were like Best Friends Forever,” Kim said after Jim described the conversation. She was using a withdrawn, slightly annoyed tone of voice Jim had heard in the past, but it puzzled him for a moment. “Olivia talked to me about Lindsay all the time, and they’re still in regular contact. I guess you never knew that. She might take us for granted sometimes, but she’d never stand up a friend like that. Olivia would let Lindsay know something came up if she couldn’t make it on time. She texts people when she’s five minutes late.”

That was true, though he’d never focused on that. Claven felt slightly ashamed he hadn’t paid more attention. Like a lot of men absorbed in their jobs and hobbies, he knew a lot less 61

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about his kids and their friends than his wife did. It wasn’t the right moment to defend his ignorance by saying, hey, he was the one who had the responsibility of being the primary wageearner. Plus, he knew in his heart his parental sins and flaws far exceeded anything his wife had done – not that anything even came to mind when he thought about Kim as a parent. She was and always would be the family glue. With little to offer verbally, he did the only thing he could think to do: He put his arm around Kim and squeezed her right shoulder.

“She’ll be okay,” he said a few moments later.

“Thanks, but you don’t know that,” she said. “You can’t.”

Kim stood up and slid out of the embrace. She stared a hole through the patio door, fighting the urge to cry.

Claven could sit still no longer. He had to feel like he was doing something. One thing he did know was Olivia rarely stayed out all night and would at least text them if she did as a courtesy to the parents who were providing her a rent-free home. Then he had an idea, briefly kicking himself for not thinking of it sooner.

He used his phone to look at the Advocate website and was disheartened to see Olivia hadn’t filed any stories in the past 24 hours. Olivia was prolific and took pride in not only the quality of her work but the amount of news she could generate for the site. He saw a brief article, bylined simply as an “Advocate report,” about yesterday’s crash on the football field that added nothing to what he already knew. It appeared to have been written, probably by Nate Kellogg as a pinch-hit editor, based on reports from other media outlets.

Claven saw the Advocate’s skimpy coverage as a fresh flag of concern. Olivia would swarm over a story like that and work furiously to stay ahead if some other media outlet had it first.

He didn’t say this out loud for fear Kim would worry even more, though she probably had the same thoughts. He loved Kim, but they both sensed there was a staleness and lack of communication in their relationship they’d have to fix at some point if they wanted to stay happy together for the years to come. He saw no upside in sharing his latest observation.

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“Look,” he finally said to his wife. “Why don’t you hold down the fort here in case anyone calls on your cell or the landline? I can’t just sit here. I’m going to go get some gas for the Rover and a cup of coffee, okay? Let me see what I can find out; maybe I’ll pick up some helpful gossip if nothing else. I’ll be back in about an hour.”

“Sure, Jim,” she responded. “Do what you need to do.”

He wasn’t sure what she meant by that. He already planned to stop at the Advocate’s small office to see what he could learn. *** About 10 minutes later, Claven stopped the Range Rover in front of Pump 4 at “Mike’s Minute Market,” a local, family-owned convenience store where, on any given day, he likely would run into someone he knew. Today was no different because the first vehicle he saw was Ted Jenkins’ Ford F-250 pickup. As Ted pumped gas, Claven got out of his SUV and tapped him on the shoulder.

“Hey Ted, how’re you doing, brother?”

Jenkins said, “Tired man, after all that crap yesterday.”

Claven replied, “I was in the middle of that mess, too. Did you see what came down and what all the hoopla was about?”

“Nope,” said Jenkins. “For a while, they had me up on Highway 17, keeping traffic from heading toward Brinkley High.

They didn’t tell me much. Feds were everywhere. Never seen anything like it.”

Claven said, “What the hell happened? Do you know anything?”

“No, not really.”

But then Jenkins paused and spoke before Claven could ask a follow-up question. “And I’m sure this won’t surprise you, but I saw Olivia. She was trying to get down there close to the crash site. Damn nosy reporter,” he added with a smile on his face.

Claven was in no mood to return the smile, despite his friend’s good intentions.

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“Olivia?” he said. “That’s what I was going to ask you about.

You saw Olivia yesterday?”

“Yeah, I can’t remember the time exactly, but the roads already had been closed for quite a while. She asked me what I thought her chances were to, you know, sneak in closer for a better look.”

Claven said, “This is important, Ted. Do you think she tried to get to the field some other way?”

“Hey, you know Olivia better than I do, but that’s what she said she was going to do. “ Claven said, “Oh, God.” “Jim! What’s wrong, man?”

“I think I’d better go to the sheriff, Ted. Olivia’s missing.”

“Missing?”

Claven said, “Yeah, her best friend from college is in town from Ohio and Olivia is nowhere to be found. She wouldn’t stand her up like that. Something’s just wrong. Kim is beside herself with worry.”

“Well, I’m headed to Little River this afternoon for my brother-in-law’s birthday party, but if you need me for anything, call me on my cell. For anything. I mean that. And I’ll give Sheriff Hendricks a heads-up call.”

“Thanks, Ted,” Claven said, with a quiver in his voice that surprised him. “I need to talk to him, too.”

“She’s a smart girl Jim. She’ll turn up.”

“I hope so.”

64

12 The call from Ted Jenkins piled onto Hendricks’ growing frustration about the investigation and his list of questions about what happened at Brinkley High School.

It was time for real police work, not sitting on the sidelines as an errand boy for the federal men-in-black. That meant pulling at strings until you found the ones that unraveled the mysteries in whatever case you were pursuing. It might be something someone said offhand during an interview. Sometimes it was something as simple as a red scarf on a bedroom floor that yielded a tiny drop of blood the crime lab found under a microscope -- he had solved a murder that way. And sometimes, you ran out of strings to tug for years or maybe forever.

Some cases nagged you relentlessly. One of Hendricks’ fellow sheriffs described it as the equivalent of having a woodpecker on your shoulder, constantly pecking your neck. In the early years of any good cop’s career, the major unsolved cases would keep you up at night. Understandable, but that made things worse. The insomnia added weight to the already heavy burden of the case until you stumbled through each working hour with the damn bird as your unwanted, pecking companion. Later, experience tempered by both successes and failures taught you enough detachment to channel the burden into a challenge.

Burdens slowed you down. Challenges kept you focused without going crazy. Sometimes you even slept a little better.

Hendricks knew all about those kinds of burdens, and he was confident there was no investigative burden he couldn’t turn into a challenge.

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What he couldn’t handle was when he knew people who possessed helpful information -- particularly colleagues in law enforcement -- and they wouldn’t share. And this was his county.

He had no patience for that or the arrogance federal officials sometimes brought to local jurisdictions. He couldn’t do his job, couldn’t protect his people if he didn’t even know the basic details.

He had fought with the FBI in the past, once telling an agent from Raleigh: “Look, let’s get real. I’m not Harry Bosch, and you’re not James Bond. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be sitting in southeast North Carolina, and you wouldn’t be in Raleigh. Let those of us who know this community a helluva lot better than you help you out.” The agent laughed and it loosened him up enough to share information on background. Six hours later, armed with information about a girl’s last known whereabouts, one of his deputies provided the key clue to find a kidnapped child. Better yet, the agent became one of the few men Hendricks counted as a real friend.

Hendricks knew one of his weaknesses was a hard time controlling his temper whenever he felt disrespected. This was one of those times. This investigation was like nothing he had ever seen. He could make no headway while being told to keep his mouth shut and follow orders like a child – or maybe as a seaman recruit in the Navy.

He wasn’t exactly sure what went down on the Brinkley High School football field, but he knew what it wasn’t. The possible causes the feds were pushing to the public for their unknown reasons amounted to a pile of horse manure. But he couldn’t say so publicly.

It wasn’t a small plane. Of that he was certain. Nor was it some other type of aircraft carrying harmful chemicals that would have endangered an entire community, but that’s exactly what was being reported on the local news as the two most likely theories from “unnamed investigators.” That was the cover story and that’s what the men from the government had instructed Hendricks to say.

What really disturbed and then scared him was what happened when he pushed harder.

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An hour earlier, the same federal operative who had called him the previous day called again, identifying himself as Special Agent Andrew Storey, who was just “checking in” as to how things were going.

“Special agent with who?” Hendricks had asked.

“Well, we can say the FBI.” The conversation deteriorated from there. As Hendricks saw it, he was on the receiving end of a “play ball” conversation – the kind he often had with criminal suspects in which you suggested what might happen if the likely defendant didn’t “play ball” with the authorities. The courts gave police lots of latitude in the way they handled suspects. If they crossed the line, veterans knew they usually could deny it happened the way the defendant described and win any “he-said, she-said” battles. Hendricks didn’t appreciate being the one on the receiving end of a “play ball.”

Hendricks first reiterated his concern about being out of the loop.

“You shut down my county. We know this county, Agent Storey,” he said. “You need to let us in. We can help you with whatever the hell it is you’re doing over at Brinkley High. I’m also tired of looking like an idiot when I get calls from the media, the county commissioners, and everyone else I run into.”

Storey was unmoved.

“Sheriff, you simply are not in a position to be told more,” he said. “I’m not sorry about that. If you care about your county and your country, you need to follow our lead. You were in the Navy.

You know something about national security. You know how to follow orders.”

“People are going to see through this,” Hendricks responded.

“They’ll find out there are no planes missing, or something else will blow a hole in your cover story.”

“Don’t be so sure about that,” Storey said. “Here’s something you can know confidentially. There’s a record now of a small plane carrying toxic chemicals leaving from the Winston-Salem area about 40 minutes before the event. We expect an enterprising reporter from Charlotte to find it within the next few hours.”

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Before Hendricks could respond, Storey spoke again.

“It’s regrettable your cooperation is needed, and your knowledge must be limited. But you need to deal with it.”

“You’re asking me to lie to my community,” Hendricks said.

“People get thrown out of office for that. What the hell is so important you not only won’t say what it is and you need a fake cover story?”

“Stop, Sheriff,” Storey responded sharply. He began speaking quickly. “Stop now. I didn’t want to go down this road, but here it is. If staying in office is what worries you, if running for the state Senate or even Congress is on your mind, which we know it is, you might not want people to know about the time you slugged your first wife in that Georgia tavern. Don’t bother giving me lame excuses or regrets for what you did. In the police report, you’re playing dumb and selling some bullshit story about her falling and getting a concussion. Didn’t the local sheriff look the other way on your behalf? You know what else? There are pictures of her face in a file locked in that sheriff ’s desk. I’ll bet one of the local TV stations would love to see the police report, or maybe the newspapers in Raleigh and Charlotte. Or, maybe you’re concerned about your older son, who’s in rehab now. Isn’t he the boy the deputies kept bringing home when anyone else’s kid would have been arrested and booked?”

Storey didn’t stop there. Before Hendricks could say anything, he added this: “Oh, and then there’s the affair Wife Number Two is having with your fishing buddy.”

“What!” Hendricks yelled, making no effort to hide his anger and surprise.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Storey said, his vocal tone dripping with fake, snarky sympathy. “I’ll bet you didn’t know they were doing that.

In the back of his boat no less. Want to see some of the pictures they took? I can email them to you. She’s a very striking woman for her age, with or without that blue-and-gray bikini, I must say. I like how she’s highlighting her hair, but I must confess that ain’t the first thing I noticed. Hey, do you know the swimsuit I’m talking about? I’ll bet you do. I can see why your buddy finds her quite attractive.”

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Hendricks wished with every particle in his body. Storey was in the same room, so he could play Whack-A-Mole with the fed’s head. A local jury might give him a medal instead of convicting him for decking the arrogant agent under these circumstances.

With great effort, he tried to control his anger.

“This is crap. How the hell do you know this stuff?” Hendricks said.

“Sheriff, are you really asking me that question? Have a good day.”

The call ended. Hendricks calmed himself down. He didn’t have to think long before concluding reluctantly that, yes, it was time to play ball unless and until he found a way to change the game.

Storey had accomplished something else, probably on purpose. He had terminated their conversation before Hendricks had a chance to ask his immediate question: Where was Olivia Claven, and what did the feds know about it? Based on what Ted Jenkins had told him less than an hour ago and his own police instincts, Hendricks knew her disappearance almost certainly was connected to the situation at Brinkley High, but that was all he could surmise.

His phone beeped he had a text message. It was Storey, sending him the clinching reminder that he was the target in a “play ball” scenario. There was no text, but the photo spoke volumes. Trent Hawkinson, his soon-to-be-former best friend, was standing with Sonya, his wife, next to the center console of Trent’s Grady White boat. The boat, a gorgeous, 33-foot vessel outfitted for cruising and fishing in the Atlantic Ocean and Intracoastal Waterway was, until now, Hendricks’ favorite place in the world. It was a respite and getaway spot when he needed to chill with his friend, a fishing pole, a few beers, and an artist like Brad Paisley or Dwight Yoakam on the boat’s big speakers.

The picture Storey sent was a selfie. Hawkinson, wearing only swimming trunks, a backward Myrtle Beach Pelicans baseball cap, and his ever-present Ray-Ban sunglasses, stood behind Sonya. He appeared to hold out a phone camera with one arm to take the selfie while his other arm was draped around Sonya’s 69

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back and strategically across her bare breasts. Sonya’s fingers were wrapped around the neck of a dripping-wet bottle of Modelo Especial beer. In her other hand, she was grasping her skimpy, blue-and-gray bikini top between her thumb and index finger by a single, thin strap, so it hung vertically, and she had a mock “whoops” expression on her face. Their smiles indicated they were having just a wonderful time.

Hendricks remembered Sonya said she had bought the bikini as much for him as her. He thought that was true. He remembered when she walked out of the bathroom, modeling it for him. “I think I look pretty good in this, don’t you think?” she said with a teasing, expectant tone of voice. Hendricks certainly agreed, and he quickly demonstrated just how sexy his wife was to him. Now he had to look at a picture with her in that bikini and another man. He didn’t feel slapped in the face. He felt like he had been sacked from his blindside by J.J. Watt or some other super-sized pro football lineman.

He realized he was gripping the phone so hard in his dominant hand it might break. And he knew that once the photo got snapped, it was stored somewhere in the internet cloud. It didn’t matter if the fun couple had no plans to share the picture; it would have been child’s play for Storey or those around him with the appropriate hacking skills to gain access to it.

The realization the feds would go to this much trouble to keep him in line gave him a momentary chill that interrupted his efforts to process the implications of his wife and best friend having an affair behind his back. Then there was the stupidity of taking pictures that could be used as evidence in divorce proceedings or, in this case, to blackmail a politically ambitious county sheriff into cooperation. He’d be in no position to wage a custody battle for their twin daughters.

Hendricks’ marriage hadn’t been the best lately. Like most men, he kept postponing bringing sensitive marital issues to the kitchen table for discussion. Now he understood Sonya’s uncharacteristic recent silence, but he hadn’t imagined a scenario like anything approaching this. He was mad at his wife and disgusted by his best friend. More than anything, though, he was 70

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mad at himself, a seasoned investigator, for missing the warning signs he had seen many times with other couples that sometimes ended badly with domestic calls for law enforcement help.

He had to get away to think and clear his head. He decided to drive to a diner in nearby Leland that always took good care of him. He’d order homemade meatloaf and mashed potatoes.

As he made his way out the door and to his patrol car, an SUV pulled into the parking lot. The power window on the driver’s side went down and the driver shouted his name.

“Sheriff Hendricks?”

“Yeah. Can I help you?”

“I’m Jim Claven. I think we’ve met at some fundraisers and maybe at the Old Maple. I can see you’re on your way somewhere, so sorry to interrupt, but this is important. My daughter, Olivia, is missing.”

Hendricks started to say something about the call from Ted Jenkins. Then he thought about Storey’s warning and the usual caution required at the start of any potential investigation. You couldn’t be sure who the real suspects would turn out to be. He decided to play dumb. Still, he paused longer than he intended before responding to Claven.

“Yeah, Jim, good to see you again,” he said, which he knew was the right answer to a potential supporter who might have money for campaign contributions, though he really had only a vague recollection at best of crossing paths with Claven a few times. “I know Olivia from that internet newspaper-thing she’s doing in Azalea Bluff. She’s a bright young lady, though I don’t see how they can make any money. How old is she? Is she single?”

“She’s 27, and, yeah, she’s single,” Claven said. “And, I’m really worried. This isn’t like her. She was looking into that object that landed on the field at Brinkley.”

Hendricks paused again, and Jim watched as the sheriff took extra seconds to straighten his collar before fiddling with his dark brown tie.

“Well, Jim, I understand, but she’s an adult. If it makes you feel better, I can tell you this isn’t unusual with young adults these days,” Hendricks said. “I’d be pretty certain she left the roadblock 71

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area. And that’s because I can tell you there’s no way any of my people would have told her much, and there was no way to get through. Most likely, she went out on the town and had a little too much to drink. No offense intended, but maybe she even met someone, if you know what I mean. Happens all the time. I suspect she’ll show up sooner or later.”

“All due respect, I don’t think it’s that simple,” Claven responded with a sharper tone than he intended. “Olivia isn’t replying to our calls and texts, and I know she doesn’t have a boyfriend. The last one was quite a while ago now, and he died unexpectedly. She didn’t show up to see her best friend today.

Even if she stayed out without checking in with her mother and me, she wouldn’t blow off a close friend from out of town.”

“All right then,” Hendricks said, trying to figure out the fastest way to end the conversation. “I’ll informally get the word out. Let’s give it another day. If she still hasn’t shown, you can file a missing person’s report.”

“I don’t want to wait that long,” Claven said. “I’m headed over to see her friend and make some other stops now to see what I can find out. When will you be back?”

Hendricks decided it made sense to concede. There was no harm in letting a concerned father and potential future supporter file a report. He also had to think through the two sides of this. On the one hand, maybe Claven’s personal probing would unearth some helpful information that he’d want to know. On the other, he needed to put a lid on Claven’s efforts, which might put both of them in danger. The best answer was to slow him down.

“Okay, I’ll do it for you, though normally I make folks wait a few days when it’s an adult who’s missing.” Hendricks finally said.

“I’m going to Leland and need to get a bite to eat. I’ll see you back here in about an hour-and-a-half.”

“You got it, Sheriff.”

The sheriff ’s attitude puzzled Claven. Hendricks had gained respect for running a solid, ethical shop, being a good steward of taxpayer dollars and displaying a can-do attitude. This was no good-old-boy operation where officers decided to enforce the law depending on who you were or the color of your skin.

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Hendricks took pride in the fact he had professionalized the office. It was well known that two of his most recent predecessors had done prison time – one for involvement with drug traffickers and the other for using deputies to “help him around the house” on the taxpayers’ dime.

He had been sheriff for nearly a decade now. Like many white Southerners, he had grown up in the Democratic Party but switched parties later in life. He was running as a Republican in a county where the joke was Republicans fished WITH friends and Democrats fished FOR friends. Claven had supported Hendricks without worrying about party labels.

The sheriff only faced token opposition in Republican primary elections until just recently, when he lost the endorsement of gun groups for his suggestion, there were a few logical changes that might be a good idea for some of the world’s most relaxed gun laws.

“I respect what you believe, and I expect you to respect me for what I believe and to believe me when I tell you I support the Second Amendment,” he responded to his critics at a candidate forum at the VFW hall in Southport. “You know me. Hell, I’ve gone hunting with some of you and drawn my gun to protect your families on more than one occasion. I’d ask you to judge me on more than some minor differences on one issue. Believe me, if the federal folks ever come for your guns, they’ll have to first come through the constitutional office of the Brunswick County Sheriff.

“But, if this is a deal-breaker for you, I understand. If the voters throw me out of office, I’m prepared to live with that.

“Hell, it ain’t like I’m some damn Democrat or something,” he added as an afterthought, trying to take some heat out of the issue.

The sheriff ’s response was recorded and shared across social media, especially his offhand joke. That got coverage across the state, including the major media markets of Raleigh and Charlotte; then the controversy hit the radar of national political websites that helpfully provided links to the video posted on his campaign’s website and Facebook page. Hendricks won the 73

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primary by 175 votes, including the votes of the Clavens and most of their friends. Hendricks easily defeated his Democratic opponent in the general election to no one’s surprise. After the election, Olivia Claven interviewed him and asked how he survived the primary challenge.

“Well, much as I’d like to think they voted for me because I know what I’m doing, I’m glad I came up with that joke,” Hendricks said. “That seemed to take at least a little bit of heat out of things.”

That was old news now. As Hendricks drove away, Jim Claven replayed the conversation, and it gave him a bad feeling.

He’s not acting right and what’s wrong with me? I didn’t even ask him what he knew about last night, Claven thought. God, I must be exhausted. My mind’s not working. Okay, I’m going to connect with Lindsay. Maybe Olivia will be there.

Claven swallowed hard because he knew that didn’t seem likely.

About 15 minutes later, he learned he was right. Olivia wasn’t with Lindsay Siewert, who had nothing new to share. He promised Lindsay he’d stay in touch. She promised to do the same if she heard anything at all from Olivia.

74

13 At 7:33 p.m., on the day after the incident at Brinkley High School, a missing person report was filed in the Brunswick County Sheriff ’s Office for Olivia Catherine Claven. Hendricks told his deputy, Chris Hollings, to take the report and anticipate the father would pump him with questions.

“Under no circumstances should you share any information about the Brinkley High incident,” Hendricks cautioned. “You can say we just don’t discuss ongoing investigations. You can wink and tell him we’re also dealing with federal officials, so, hey, he must be patient. And you definitely can’t say anything about what you just told me.”

“Don’t you think he’s entitled to know that?” Hollings asked.

“Not until we know at least a little bit more about Miss Claven and her dad,” Hendricks responded. “Chris, there’s nothing mysterious about that. It’s standard police procedure. It’s a one-way street: We get info, but we only give what’s essential and prefer to give nothing at all, especially at this point in an investigation. You don’t know what could matter.

“Claven seems like a decent guy. I’ve seen him around over the years,” Hendricks continued. “But the sad truth, Chris, is in most missing person cases that end tragically, a family member or close friend is the perpetrator.”

“Do you think that’s what up here?” Hollings asked.

“No,” Hendricks said so quickly and firmly that his clipped comment startled Hollings. “Almost always, it turns out fine with missing adults,” he added, lowering and slowing his voice.

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“You’ve met Olivia. She’s smart and sexy. She probably spent the night with some guy who Daddy never even knew existed. Most likely, she’s spent all day nursing a major hangover and some major regrets.”

Hollings said, “You’re right. We’ve certainly seen that more than a few times. I had a few episodes myself back in the day when I lived at home.”

Hendricks said, “Parents don’t want to hear it. I get it.”

“Okay,” Hollings conceded. “I get it, too. We’ll help Dad feel better and have something documented just in case. This report will be routine and by the book.”

Hollings felt sheepish because he had already revealed a few details to outsiders. He left that part out as he shared information about an interesting discovery.

While Hendricks ate meatloaf in Leland, Hollings had responded to a report about an abandoned Subaru Impreza in a parking lot in Azalea Bluff, near a sign that said, “No Overnight Parking. Cars Will Be Towed. 24-Hour Video Surveillance.” The attorneys who used the parking lot for their law firm’s business, as well as the other tenants in the small strip office center, were very picky about that. Because the lot wasn’t visible from Main Street, it had turned into a problem spot for everything from drug dealing to teenage romance. For a while, addicts used it as a late-night shooting gallery until the Azalea Bluff police staked it out and arrested nearly a dozen people over three nights. To address the matter, the owners placed signs, ordered vehicles towed, and erected obvious video cameras, though two of the three camera locations were fake.

After identifying the Subaru as a vehicle registered to Olivia Claven, Hollings called the Brunswick Advocate office looking for her. He reached Cheryl Kellogg, a widow who volunteered to answer the phone and manage the office in late afternoons and early evenings. She was the retired mother of Olivia’s business partner, Nate Kellogg.

She answered, “This is the Advocate, Brunswick County’s 21st Century News Source. I’m Cheryl.”

“Hey, Cheryl. This is Chris Hollings from the sheriff ’s office.

How’re you doing?”

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“I’m fine, Chris. I hope you are.”

“Yeah, I’m okay. Listen, is Olivia there by chance?”

“No, I haven’t seen her today. Nate was looking for her, too.

Is something wrong?”

“I’m not sure. We found her car parked in a lot not too far from your office. It’s that lot you can’t see from Main Street those lawyers use. Her father’s worried about her.”

“That’s strange. You’re right. Maybe Olivia’s car broke down.”

“Yeah, maybe, but cops have the tools to pop locks. Once I popped the lock and got inside, I saw that she left her wallet in the glove box, and there’s what looks like some blood on the floor mat.”

“Oh, my God!” “Hey, she might have just cut herself; don’t jump to conclusions. We’ll find her.”

“Chris, please keep me posted.”

“Yeah. I will.” *** Every citizen who met Chris Hollings liked him, but that didn’t stop some local cynics from referring to him as “Barney Otis.” His shortcomings stood in sharp contrast to Hendricks’ efforts to professionalize the office, though some things never changed in local politics. The fact that Hollings’ father, Alan Arthur Hollings, was a prominent landowner, major donor to all things Republican, and a former county commissioner who also served in the North Carolina State Senate made Chris’ job quite safe – at least that was the underlying gossip.

Hendricks looked at the situation both philosophically and realistically: Hollings basically was a good person with good intentions. Hollings certainly wasn’t the sharpest officer on the force, and God forbid he ever became sheriff. Still, his mistakes rarely rose to firing offenses. Unless and until that happened, there was no upside in stirring the political forces that could make or break careers. Hendricks also knew he could count on Hollings to do what he was told. You just had to be very clear and specific.

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The “Barney Otis” nickname referred to two characters on the Andy Griffith Show from the 1960s that still lived on cable channels more than 50 years later. Barney Fife was Andy’s hapless deputy in the mythical North Carolina town of Mayberry. Otis was the town drunk, and it was no secret Hollings spent too much time in the Hill Bar and Grill, especially in the bar part.

Hendricks wanted more time to carefully examine and process Olivia’s vehicle before launching a countywide manhunt that would be very public and surely transform the disappearance from a local-interest story into a major media event.

But Cheryl Kellogg beat him to it. As soon as Nate returned to the office, she told him what Hollings had said. Nate was spending increasing time on the business side of The Advocate, but at a small, local-news website, everyone did everything. He knew when he had to play reporter. Plus, now he was seriously worried about his friend and business partner. He immediately tried to reach the sheriff.

Instead of talking to Hendricks, though, the return call came from Stephanie Dugan, the sheriff ’s communication officer and chief spokesperson.

“Steph, what do you mean I can’t talk to the sheriff?” Kellogg asked. “This is pretty damn important. You know we’re going to run a story. And you know it’s the kind of mystery that’s going to make it a bigger story.”

“Nate, I’m really sorry, but the sheriff said all he can do is confirm we received a missing person report on Olivia, and we’re investigating. He’s too busy to come to the phone.”

Kellogg’s prediction proved to be correct.

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14 In an around-the-clock media world with a relentless appetite for odd, unusual crime stories, especially those with attractive female victims, Hendricks thought he knew what to expect. For those directly involved, the coverage would swoop into Brunswick County like a hurricane, though probably not a major one. After that, just like a hurricane moving out to sea, interest would taper in a day or two. The media would deploy to the next big thing unless something happened to elevate the story again.

However, even he was surprised by the speed and intensity of coverage once the Advocate posted its story. Within minutes, it spread like a virus on social media. Traditional outlets from across the region scrambled to follow up. The story he saw from a Wilmington television station was typical. A young reporter was standing in the parking lot where Olivia’s car was found, next to the no parking sign with the thick brush behind him.

“Some 30 minutes ago, a countywide hunt began in Azalea Bluff for Olivia Claven, a young journalist who was the chief editor of a local news website in her hometown,” said the reporter, whose stern and serious tone was offset by his boyish appearance. “Her car was found abandoned in a parking lot just a few miles from the football field at Brinkley High School. Claven has been missing for three days. That was when a small plane carrying lethal chemicals crashed on the field and virtually shut this entire community down while federal officials secured the area to minimize panic.

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“Fortunately for this tight-knit beach community, the feds kept the unthinkable from happening,” he continued, lowering his voice an octave. “Local officials wonder if Claven was trying to get closer to the scene to investigate the story for her Brunswick Advocate website. Now, however, residents here are wondering if she met with foul play. The sheriff ’s office won’t comment on the pending investigation, but one deputy reportedly told the Advocate there were traces of blood on the floor mats of her Subaru and her wallet was found in the glove box.

“Many in this community are here searching for Olivia and more searchers are organizing, trying not to fear the worst. Still, as one Azalea Bluff resident told me, ‘We won’t give up until we find her. She’s one of our own.’ From Azalea Bluff, I’m Kyle Hahn of Channel 8 News On Your Side.” *** A month went by with no new evidence. As Hendricks predicted, the initial flurry of media coverage of Olivia’s disappearance receded with little new information to report. That created a vacuum for gossipmongers and sick losers to fill. The lack of news led to inevitable speculation about Olivia’s lifestyle and personality that was hard for the family to digest. That was topped only by social media posts that crudely commented on her attractive looks, like the sicko Twitter commenter who posted a picture of her and wrote, “If I found this babe in the woods, I’d tie her to a tree and enjoy myself for hours.” It took two days before Twitter responded to pleas to remove the disgusting post.

That, of course, prompted a legion of trolls to doctor photos and write new posts to show and describe other things they’d like to do with Olivia, just to see how much they could get away with and for how long. For the Clavens, the social media rabbit hole was more like the depths of hell.

Some of the posts had enough substance to prompt traditional media to ask the Clavens for comments and reactions, including people who barely knew her in college suggesting she probably just used it as an excuse to run away. “She always complained 80

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about how controlling her dad was, and her mom had the personality of like a limp biscuit,” said one woman who said she lived in Olivia’s dorm freshman year. “And she was kinda boy crazy, so who knows, right?” That one really hurt. Having it all in public made the wounds from their daughter’s disappearance throb even more.

Claven had plenty of questions about what had happened but had granted few interviews, mainly because he was overcome with worry and was afraid of what he might say beyond telling all the reporters to do something to themselves with long sticks.

Hendricks also had advised him public comments ran the risk of hurting more than helping.

He had always been wary of the media, despite his daughter’s occupation. He recalled how he’d regularly joust with her about media bias, especially in national politics, in ways that usually started friendly but sometimes got so heated that her mother inevitably was the one who had to tell them both to shut up.

As the weeks went by with no new developments, he decided to go against his instincts.

“We’ve got to keep Olivia top of mind with everyone we can,” he said to his wife. “If we don’t, I just have a fear we’ll never see her again. Every interview, no matter how disgusting the initial question, is a chance for us to remind people Olivia is still out there somewhere.”

So, reluctantly but willingly, he had agreed to a series of interviews with local, state, and national media. He didn’t want to admit to anyone that he rehearsed in front of his bathroom mirror, playing the role of a grieving father with more questions than answers. His feelings certainly were no act, but he wanted to make sure he was as convincing as possible, and he did the best he could at conveying his suspicions to the public. Olivia’s life might be at stake.

At this moment, he was preparing to go live on CNN. They had called him with the surprising news that they were working to develop some new information.

Standing in front of a camera on an ocean-side deck at The Brunswick Island Fish Company, a favorite local restaurant, 81

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Claven cleared his throat as he waited for his cue from the on-site crew. He ran his hand through his thinning hair and kept his eyes fixed on the young producer who was listening intently into an earpiece while her assistant made sure that his earpiece and the small microphone clipped to the collar of his green Old Maple Country Club polo shirt worked. The producer warned him to listen carefully and only speak when the anchor addressed him since there would be others interviewed as well.

Finally, Claven heard a smooth female voice in his ear as Bree McGuire, an anchor in the CNN studio in Atlanta, began the interview.

McGuire opened the segment: “It has been more than 30 days since the mysterious disappearance of Olivia Catherine Claven as the young journalist investigated the crash of a plane on a high school football field in her hometown. Tonight, we’ll have several guests. That includes the young woman’s father in Azalea Bluff, North Carolina, and Darren Mauney, a private investigator and CNN contributor who has told us exclusively he believes the county sheriff ’s office botched the investigation and has new questions about what really landed on that field. And we’ll also put that question to Sheriff Keith Hendricks, who’s standing by in Azalea Bluff.

“So, Darren, let’s start with you. Tell us why you say this investigation was botched from the beginning.”

Mauney was a seasoned, confident veteran of on-camera interviews. He knew exactly how to look the part of a polished professional and concerned citizen. He stayed fit and trim. His hair, which he had recently started wearing as a short, natural Afro, was receding only slightly with a few gray flecks, and people often told him he looked a bit like the famous actor Will Smith. He made no effort to discourage such comparisons. He wore designer jeans and a crisply ironed, foam-green dress shirt stylishly untucked under a gray sport coat that had a pattern of subtle, black checks. He was also quite aware an African American investigator had to work extra hard to make a good professional impression. During his years in the military, where he rose through the ranks before retiring, he aggressively worked 82

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to shed the voices and mannerisms of the poorest neighborhoods in East St. Louis, Illinois, where he grew up.

“Yes, that’s right, Bree,” he said. “Let me say that, first of all, the forensic part of the investigation seems deeply flawed, at least based on the little bit they’re saying or what’s leaked out.

You’ve got to ask a lot of questions about this minute amount of blood on the floorboard of Ms. Claven’s car. What if it had really been there for months? What if it had nothing to do with what happened that day? That makes it an irrelevant piece of evidence. Yet, this investigation has fixated on this idea from the very beginning that any foul play must have taken place in Ms. Hawkins’ car. Focusing solely on the most obvious explanation is a common flaw in these small-town departments. It’s an easy, obvious trap to forget the obvious answer may not be the correct one.”

Waiting for his turn, Hendricks listened to Mauney and raged internally at the slam on his office. First of all, Mauney didn’t understand he led a constitutional office, not a mere department.

But he also knew that, against his better judgment, he was one of those pushing this simpler explanation at the suggestion of Agent Storey.

“So, Darren, you don’t believe what the officials are suggesting here?” the CNN anchor asked.

“No indeed,” Mauney said and repeated. “No. I think, as do a lot of other people who have looked at this very curious event, that Ms. Claven got too close to a top-secret investigation of what went down the night her car was found just a few miles from the crash site. The authorities seem very quick to jump to conclusions here.”

“Thank you. Sheriff Keith Hendricks is with is us,” McGuire said. “Sheriff, what do you say to that? Was your investigation some kind of a cover-up or less than professional?”

Hendricks knew a loaded question when he heard one. It was designed to get him to react like an angry cop, which would make for good television and lots of social media outrage. He suppressed the urge to lash back.

Like most law enforcement officers, Hendricks made 83

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judgments about reporters based on individual relationships. He enjoyed mixing it up with journalists he could trust, and one of the few he trusted was Olivia Claven. Olivia was the brightest young journalist he had ever met, and he rarely had to explain as much as he would to other reporters. She could blend the skills she had learned in larger cities with the advantage of knowing her hometown. Getting things right mattered to her, and she had never burned him on a tip or an off-the-record detail. He had given her first dibs on several good stories as a result.

He planned to say nice things about Olivia, but only so much.

This was a national television interview with people who, as far as he was concerned, didn’t care about anything but ratings and couldn’t find Azalea Bluff without asking Google for an assist.

The picture of his half-naked wife on his buddy’s boat reminded him of another reason to be extra-cautious.

“Well, Bree,” he replied in a firm-but-friendly tone of voice with a slightly modulated coastal drawl. “I can understand why people have questions. We have a missing woman here. I know her personally. She’s a bright young woman from a fine family and an excellent journalist. She’s part of our community, and none of us will be happy until we know what happened. But I also can tell you the Brunswick County Sheriff ’s Office has conducted one of the most thorough investigations in the history of this county.

We’ve carefully considered every angle that has come our way from the public and a number that we developed ourselves.”

Mauney jumped into the conversation without an invitation.

“But, Sheriff, far as I know, you didn’t look around the football field because you just assumed she couldn’t get near there,” he said.

“So, Darren, you’re talking about the field at Brinkley High School, right?” McGuire asked. “That’s where the aircraft with the hazardous cargo crashed.”

“Well,” Mauney responded and made sure he showed the CNN audience a big eyebrow-raise to signal skepticism. “That’s only if you believe that’s what happened. And you should ask the good sheriff if he pressed the issue with the CIA or whoever the hell it was that ordered the entire area locked up and secure as 84

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a drum. It appears the government even blocked or blacked out communications. I’ve been around a long time – in the military, as a working detective, and now in the private sector. Never saw anything like this.”

Hendricks felt he couldn’t let that comment go, though he had no interest in answering directly. He tried a diversion aimed at Mauney’s obviously large ego.

“Mr. Mauney, you’ve got no idea what we’ve done or all the interviews we’ve conducted,” he said. “You should be careful before you jump to conclusions.”

Mauney snorted, purposely adopting a thickened exaggerated Southern accent and raising his voice for effect. “Now, Sheriff Hendricks, you might be surprised by what I know. I’m gonna assume you don’t mean that as a threat. I’m simply askin’ questions and thinkin’ about how it adds up, just like y’all are doing. I’m not JUMPIN’ to conclusions, I’m just ASKIN’ what the heck really happened here, and people need to keep ASKIN’ until you and the feds have some better answers.”

This was good television, exactly the kind of spat McGuire’s bosses loved. Still, her segment time was limited. She resisted the temptation to throw a verbal grenade to spark more brawling as she realized she hadn’t given her other guest a chance to speak yet.

“Gentlemen,” she said, “let’s take a timeout on this interesting exchange so I can bring Olivia’s dad, Jim Claven, into the conversation. Jim, I understand your missing daughter went to Brinkley High School and would’ve been quite familiar with it.”

“Yes,” Claven said in a quiet voice. “Thanks for having me, Bree. Olivia knows that school and the grounds around it very well. I’ll never be able to forget that I not only couldn’t help, but I couldn’t even communicate.”

He hadn’t expected to feel so much emotion, but he did. A tear dripped down his cheek, which he quickly wiped away with his left arm.

“Sorry,” he said.

“It’s okay,” McGuire said. “Take a second if you need it.”

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“No, I’ve got it together,” he said. “It’s just hard. I was trapped that night in a roadblock barely a mile or two from the school and my own house for hours and hours. We couldn’t call anyone.

We couldn’t get a radio signal. They wouldn’t let us move. How weird is that?”

McGuire’s viewers saw the anchor nod in understanding and sympathy in the familiar, practiced gestures of television news anchors everywhere.

“You were quite close to your daughter, as most fathers are,” she said. “But tell us a little bit about her.”

Claven was counting on that question, and now he had an opening to say what he most wanted to say.

“Well, first of all, the sheriff is right, but let’s keep it in the present tense. Olivia isn’t a ‘was.’ She IS a wonderful person,” he began, making a mental note to never again talk about Olivia publicly in the past tense. Everyone having a sense of hope was critical.

He continued, “I guess all dads say that, but her mother and I love her dearly. She’s absolutely dedicated to becoming a great journalist and helping the community where she grew up. That’s a really tough job these days. When she came back home to start this website, she thought they could do a better job than the local paper. Sadly, the paper has cut back so much, there just isn’t much news in it anymore. Everyone in town liked her, well, except maybe when she asked tough questions to a few of our elected officials. We’re proud of her. She’s special.”

Claven continued quickly, not wanting to be cut short.

“So, yeah, we agree with Mr. Mauney. We’ve been wondering about a lot of those same things. It’s for this reason we’ve decided to launch an investigation of our own.”

Claven knew this would make news, just as he knew it would infuriate the sheriff, and that was just too bad as well as irrelevant.

Many politicians were the ultimate fair-weather friends anyway, and finding Olivia had to be his priority. His daughter had taught him a lot about how editors and news directors think. When the concerned family of a missing woman questions the authorities and launches its own investigation, that’s news. And it was a sad 86

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reality that it was bigger news if the missing person happened to be an attractive, young, middle-class white woman. You played the hand you were dealt.

He had done all he could in less than two minutes.

Claven didn’t know it, but the producer in Atlanta already had whispered into McGuire’s earpiece she had 25 seconds of extra time to continue the interview. They already were a few seconds past the scripted end time.

McGuire asked, “Do you have the money or resources for such an investigation?”

“Not enough,” he said. “Not nearly enough to take things very far. I’ve got a tapped-out line of credit and a second mortgage on my house. We don’t have personal access to all that much when you think about what might be involved here. With the help of friends and a funding page we’ve just started on social media, we want to raise the money to continue looking for her and get these questions answered. And there’s a Facebook page called ‘Find Olivia Claven.’ Let me stress it’s not there just to accept money. It’s a chance for people to leave tips, either on the page or through direct messages.

Now Claven stared straight at the camera to make his last comment.

“We owe that to Olivia. I promise everyone watching we will pursue your tips and suggestions to the best of our ability, and not a nickel anyone sends will go to anything except this investigation.”

McGuire cheered inside. She couldn’t have scripted a better ending. As she made her final comments, a fast thinker in the control room quickly put the “Find Olivia Claven” page on the screen. Viewers would be hungry to learn the latest developments in the disappearance for days to come. Other media outlets would have to pick up the story and run clips with the CNN watermark in the corner of the screen.

She thanked the three men for speaking to her. As Claven handed the microphone and earpiece back to the on-site producer, he hoped he had done enough to stir the interest of those around the country who might be sympathetic to Olivia’s 87

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plight. He was much deeper in debt with his accounting firm than anyone else knew, including Kim. He appreciated the irony of an accountant being in financial trouble. The firm paid its bills most months, but there were no breakthroughs looming that would allow him to get ahead and pay down debt. And, once you got past tax season, business slowed and put them deeper in debt.

The “line of credit” he noted on the air was indeed exhausted until the cash flow of his business improved.

The internet and the national media performed the magic he willed. Within 48 hours, Jim Claven felt confident he had the resources to hire a real professional to help in the search for his daughter.

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15 She couldn’t be sure her count was correct. Maybe she had missed a day or two, but Oliva was reasonably certain she had just passed the one-month mark in captivity. Despite her vow to stay focused and remember Michael, the competition she now called “Olivia versus Madness” veered closer every day to a come-from-behind victory for Madness.

The hardest part was her growing sense of abandonment sandwiched by loneliness and fear. Not once had she exchanged a word with anyone. Not a single soul. Once she thought she heard someone speaking a few words in what must have been a hallway outside her locked door, but it was too distant to understand.

It seemed to be a male voice. She wondered if the person who spoke those words got in trouble if those above him knew she heard something.

She deployed her intense curiosity as fuel to keep her going.

Why keep her alive? She didn’t know the specifics but only saw two general possibilities. Either they planned to release her at some point, or she still had a purpose to serve by being alive.

Maybe it was a combination of both. If one or both those things weren’t true, she’d surely be dead by now. When she first reached that conclusion, her reasoning sparked faint belief she might survive after all, but she struggled to make such a dim hope glow, let alone shine. How do you keep your thoughts from running wild when they’re the only thing you can control?

As she worried more about losing touch with reality and eventually her sanity, the growing obsession with her fears made 89

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the possibility of madness seem a likely, tangible thing. Was accepting the possibility the first big step on the road to insanity?

She wondered if maybe that was their purpose – to make her lose her mind without killing her. She had seen something she obviously wasn’t supposed to see on that football field. They could let her go as a physically intact human but a shell of herself.

No one would ever know exactly what happened. There would be no body to find; no killing to investigate. Life would continue for everyone – everyone except the woman once known as Olivia Claven.

But a funny thing happened. Once she identified this new possibility that explained her continued existence, she gained a sense of finally having control of something important. Staying sane was something she could control. They couldn’t force her to go mad in this room, at least not without changing the conditions for the worst. And that was a thought she chose not to dwell upon.

With external stimulation lacking, Olivia’s solution was to take the deepest dive into her memories she possibly could. The more she tried to remember, the more her memories worked like triggers to more memories. Those recollections sparked new details. Sometimes it was hard to keep up, and it helped immensely that, despite all her professional setbacks, many of her recollections were positive and uplifting. For the first time in her life, she could readily count her blessings.

She realized her typical complaints about her boring, middleclass family members were reasons to appreciate them. She had loving, caring parents versus so many friends in high school who came from broken homes. At her various media jobs, she wrote or edited stories every week about tragedies caused by family dysfunction and abuse that seemed unimaginable until she accepted how common it really was. Just recently, Sheriff Hendricks had given her a tip for a story about a heroin-addicted father who was arrested in a consignment store parking lot near Oak Island trying to sell the services of his five-year-old daughter to undercover officers posing as child pornographers.

As Olivia worked her way back to memories of Michael, she found countless moments of happiness, calm, and peace 90

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to treasure. She found wisdom in the realization she had led a pretty blessed life compared to most people on Planet Earth. Was there really a God behind all this? If so, she thanked Him for past blessings but implored Him to help her find a way out of her current situation.

She resolved to relive everything she could from the first moment she met Michael. She replayed every conversation she could remember, every trip they took, and every moment when they were in each other’s arms. Memories about their best lovemaking were particularly bittersweet. She’d stir deeply and physically until she’d open her eyes, see the same walls that imprisoned her, and feel her passion disappear as quickly as clicking “off ” on a remote control. Sometimes the memories came in floods; other times, she had to struggle to remember settings, time, and place. Her training as a journalist came in handy, forcing her to think of ways to cross-check memories against others to confirm as much as she could. Numerous studies proved that people’s memories often were unreliable, and it was easy for old events to merge into mixed-up messes of recollection. That’s why prosecutors always wanted physical evidence. The old cliché that editors told young reporters to demonstrate the importance of accuracy stayed with her: “If your mother says she loves you, check it out.” So, when she went to bed with unresolved issues, she scribbled notes on scraps and toilet paper with her tiny pencils.

The other virtue of being this methodical was that it soaked up hours like a sponge. For the first time in her adult life, she had more time than she could fill. She vowed never to complain about being too busy if she ever got out of there. As she gathered strands of memory like so many loose strings, the strands formed stronger ropes of recollections.

She wasn’t sure of the exact moment when the first design flaws started to emerge in her new, carefully constructed house of positivity. Some strands of memory triggered unconscious connections, like mysterious ripples that shouldn’t appear in glass-smooth waters on windless days. Her natural curiosity wouldn’t allow her to ignore ripples. She sat straight up in the 91

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simple wooden chair they had placed at a small desk when she realized what was happening, particularly with Michael.

Olivia started remembering and connecting countless unusual conversations and strange coincidences. And once she started, she couldn’t stop.

Conversations played back in slow motion and past events became clearer as she focused on details that hadn’t given her much reason to ponder in a previous lifetime of freedom that was starting to feel more like a dream. *** From the beginning, she had known Michael worked for the government but not much more than that. When she probed, he erected a wall every time, saying only he had a top-secret clearance. “It’s something you’ll just have to accept,” he said.

“I’m sorry, Liv,” was another version of his typical reply, using his nickname for her. “I’ve signed my life away, and frankly, I understand and support why it has to be that way. What I do has to be between me and Uncle Sam. And, no, I can anticipate your question, and I can’t even tell you what agency it is.”

Then he’d raise his eyebrows, give her a half-grin and try to get her to smile or at least give him a love-punch in the arm.

“But you’re a really smart person,” he added one night. This particular response was one she remembered vividly. “Whatever you guess, it probably will be pretty close to the truth. Even brilliant reporters aren’t entitled to know everything at every moment. Someday it’ll all be declassified, like the CIA files on the Kennedy assassination, or what we really found in Saddam’s palace in Baghdad. But neither of us probably will be around for that.”

Michael offered no more details about his job and no explanation of why he had to travel so much. During one period, he flew to Poland often. At least that’s where he said he was going. He went to exotic places like Iraq, India, and Bangladesh.

A week later, he’d fly to Peru, come back and say he had to take a government jet to the NASA research facility outside Sandusky, 92

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Ohio, for a quick meeting. Michael was generally an upbeat person. However, in the months before his death, it seemed like he returned in a reflective, somber, and subdued mood more often, but he wouldn’t go into any detail. When Olivia probed harder, the most she would get would be meaningless details about where he stayed and what he ate.

“It’s just work stuff, Liv, and you know it’s classified,” he said after one trip in which he returned even quieter than usual.

“That’s our deal. Classified or not, everyone’s got work stuff. Just a little more of that stuff than usual lately. It’ll pass.”

After a few days of being back in New York, he would return to normal. This pattern began repeating almost every time Michael traveled for work. Olivia only kept partially busy with the freelance writing and editing work she could find in ultracompetitive New York. They had briefly discussed having a baby quickly after getting married, but his darkening moods caused her to wonder if that was a good idea. She hadn’t told him about her decision yet.

She worried about Michael’s travel and began dreading the first few days of his returns. There was never even a slight hint of him lashing out at her, but he just seemed so sad and withdrawn into himself that she knew she didn’t have a ladder long enough to climb down into his deep well and help him come out. Maybe she could assist if she knew what was happening and upsetting him so much on those trips, but there was no way she could breach that wall.

Shortly after they started sharing a bed every night, Olivia discovered Michael talked in his sleep. Sometimes his speech was nothing more than normal, quiet mumbling, and she suspected it often didn’t wake her up. But then there were nights when he’d scream and shout. The volume and tone both seemed dictated by the deep, dark, subconscious places where fear and emotions ruled. His outbursts would awaken her in startled confusion even when he continued in his restless sleep.

One night he screamed out, “They make no sense,” followed by, “What the hell did they want?” The next night she heard “I think they’re still around” and “People have to know” at loud 93

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volume. Then, his tone changed, and it was almost as though he was speaking directly to her. He even looked at her, but she knew he was dreaming, and the eyes looking at her saw something else entirely. “They’ve got the technology. It’s not just us any longer,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone, as though they were discussing whether to buy organic or regular lettuce at the grocery store.

But his next sentence, stated in a similar, inquisitive tone, chilled her.

“Why won’t they just destroy us at some point?” he asked.

The next morning, Olivia asked Michael about his dreams.

For the first time, she told him she had heard him scream in the night. “It was a real blood-curdler, Michael,” she said. “It scared me.”

Her revealing knowledge seemed to surprise him and a worried look flashed across his face so quickly she almost missed it. For the first time, she found herself contemplating Michael’s work probably made him an accomplished actor, and she might have had a glimpse of him letting his true feelings show – a possible mistake for a man who apparently played the role of some sort of “secret agent” or government operative.

“You know I want to help if I can,” she said.

“I realize that, Liv,” he replied. “And I appreciate it. I really do. But we can’t talk about it. You can’t talk about it either. Not to anyone.”

He offered no other information. Instead, he stood up and walked into the other room, where he turned on the television at a loud volume. Soon she was hearing underwater sonar pings – part of the audio of one of his favorite films, “The Hunt for Red October.” The movie was about a Russian submarine commander played by Sean Connery, who hatches an elaborate plot to defect to America and allow the Navy to capture a topsecret Soviet submarine. Michael loved to dissect the holes in the plots of movie thrillers. In the case of “Red October,” he claimed the sub and Connery’s character, Capt. Ramius would have been destroyed by nervous, trigger-happy American naval officers 99 times out of 100.

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“Well, that’s an interesting point,” she replied the first time he mentioned it. “This is something I’ve studied. It’s fiction.

‘Impossible’ is bad for a plot,” she said, putting air quotes around the word “impossible.”

“That’s because impossible happenings are speed bumps for readers,” she continued. “It makes you stop and say, ‘No way. That could never happen.’ But, readers and especially movie viewers have no problems with implausible. One chance out of a hundred, even a thousand, is okay. That’s what makes Capt. Ramius a great risk-taker and a great character. The implausible things in life, real or fiction, are what make great stories. And, guess what?

Sometimes, implausible things happen. It’s basic probability. If I flip a coin ten times, it’s certainly improbable it will land on ‘tails’ 10 straight times, but eventually, it will happen.”

Olivia stopped to pick up Michael’s hand and she squeezed it hard as a related thought occurred to her.

“After all, look at us,” she said. “Who’s more implausible than us? Besides, I can see you as a brave Soviet captain ready to sacrifice it all to save humanity. You would do something like that, even on a one-in-a-hundred chance. Maybe I’d get to write that story, too.”

And that brought a large grin of appreciation and a big hug from Michael. He stared at her with obvious affection until she felt embarrassed by it. She blushed and bowed her head, causing her hair to flop across her eyes.

“I bow to the writer I love. Thanks for that,” he said softly, taking her other hand and brushing her hair off her face. “But right now, the only member of the human race I want to save is you. Let’s toast the implausible moments in life.” *** The more she thought about her life with Michael, the more Olivia recalled other concerning moments the luxury of time gave her time to ponder. With the advantage of looking back, she realized just how often she had accepted everything was not as it seemed. It didn’t necessarily mean Michael was evil or lying to 95

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her, but now she deeply regretted she hadn’t pushed harder. With Michael gone, she realized she’d never have closure.

For example, it had always bothered her that he never talked about his early years with his family, but her questions had transformed into one of many burdens and puzzles she couldn’t solve. Michael told her he really had only his brother to claim as immediate family. He said that he and his brother, Kevin, had been passed from one foster family to another. They never stayed in one place for long. As young adults, he explained, they had “disagreed about a few things and drifted apart,” and now they only connected sporadically.

“Cards at Christmas and such things,” Michael said. “I’m not even sure what he does for a living these days. Don’t get me wrong, Liv. We don’t hate each other, but we don’t live close to each other and have just sort of moved along with our lives.”

Again, she regretted not teasing more information from him.

She had never met Kevin until the funeral. Michael had been cremated after the unsolved hit-and-run. His friend Ben Fishel volunteered to take care of everything. She had begged Ben to let her pay her last respects and see Michael’s body, but Ben insisted, “there’s no way Michael would want you to see him the way he looks right now.” When she pushed harder, Ben firmly said, “No, Liv, it’s just not going to happen. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but you need to know the vehicle ran over his face.

Okay? Plus, it’s protocol. We’ve all agreed to be cremated unless someone above my pay grade orders differently. No one’s going to give that order.”

“But why?” Olivia asked. “Why would the government insist on cremation?”

Ben looked at her and simply said, “Think about it. A body can have marks and even, uh, things of different sorts that provide clues or are just things perhaps others shouldn’t see. A human body can be a valuable source of information, okay?”

Olivia still resisted. “I’ve seen him naked, Ben. I’ve probably seen more of him than you have. I want to see him now.”

“Sorry, Liv. No can do.”

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So, Michael was cremated, and Olivia, Ben, and Kevin briefly mourned as they scattered his ashes from a simple, gray box along the shore of the Hudson River in a park along the west side of Manhattan. Kevin had shown up that morning, a few days after Ben told Olivia the police found Kevin’s phone number on a card in Michael’s wallet.

When she first saw Kevin, she was surprised because Kevin looked nothing like Michael. He was shorter than her with the compact build of a stocky wrestler. While Michael had wavy brown hair and olive-toned skin, Kevin was freckled, fairskinned, and bald.

“You don’t look like him at all,” Olivia said. “I don’t mean anything by it; I guess I just expected Michael’s brother to look more like him.”

“We used to laugh about it, too,” Kevin said. “That happens in families. Sometimes we wondered if we had the same two parents. Maybe we don’t. People learn things like that all the time. I probably should take a DNA test. Otherwise, there’s really no way to know for sure. He was the handsome one. I’m Stubby Starling.”

Olivia probed to learn more about their relationship and Kevin’s life. Kevin seemed like a decent guy. He was reasonably forthcoming about his life: He said he was divorced, had no kids, and was “just another guy with a cubicle job,” working for a large investment firm doing online chat for customer service outside Denver. But he had little else to say about his brother.

“Honestly, Liv, I don’t know that much,” he said. “I’m sure he told you we went our separate ways and drifted apart. We’ve had our issues. The big blow-up we had was basically my fault.

But once he joined up to do whatever he was doing for the government, I really had no idea where he was or what was involved with his job. But, he’s still all the family I’ve got. I’m glad I could come, and I’m glad I met you.”

Olivia flashed back to the day of the accident. Michael stood drinking coffee in their kitchen. They kissed each other on their cheeks; they exchanged the usual “Have a good day” departure remarks.

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“Bye, babe, be careful, and I love you,” Olivia added.

“Bye, Liv,” Michael responded. “You do know how much you mean to me, right?”

“Yes, of course,” she said, struck by the oddity of his question.

“You know you don’t have to ask me a question like that, right?

It’s almost silly. Why do you ask?”

She flirted a bit at that point, showing him a smile, unbuttoning a button of her blouse and running a finger along the length of his right bicep.

That brought a smile to Michael’s face. “It’s not fair to distract me,” Michael said with obvious affection. “I, uh, just don’t want you to ever forget how I feel.” He kissed her again, this time on the mouth with real feeling.

“I won’t,” she said, trying to ignore how the last kiss stirred her. “At least you don’t look so somber now. Get out of here before I decide to make you late.” *** Olivia rousted herself into the present, once again staring at the walls. They seemed unusually oppressive today. She found herself thinking again about how solemn Michael was that morning. She thought about the great care he took with his unusual parting words.

She scribbled a note on the movie menu her captors provided.

Do you have ‘Hunt for Red October’?

98

16 Jim Claven stared intently at the GoFundMe page on his computer screen. The dollar amount gave him pause: $63,281.

He glanced up to the heavens and soundlessly mouthed the words “thank you” and “yes” in satisfaction. He swiveled his chair around from the desk that was against one wall of the combination study and sewing room he shared with his wife.

Meanwhile, Kim Claven was working on an elaborate embroidery project. She had revived her dormant sewing hobby to keep her mind occupied to fight the stress and depression that was the price of spending most waking hours worrying about her missing daughter.

She barely heard her husband as she focused on the task of placing a spool of purple thread onto the sewing machine. She had purchased the plans for Northwestern University’s purpleand-white “N” logo and downloaded the instructions from her laptop computer. The software would achieve tight, close stitching in a way no human could ever accomplish by hand.

Her plan was to use the finished project on a stadium blanket she would give Olivia as a gift when she returned. Not “if,” but “when.” A few days earlier, she finished the throw pillows for Olivia’s sagging office couch. One had the phrase, “Journalism Matters,” embroidered in bright blue letters along one side. The companion simply said “Brunswick Advocate” in red letters.

Those would look great at the website’s small office. It kept her busy, but hardly kept her from thinking about Olivia.

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“The CNN interview and all this coverage have really helped,” she heard her husband say. She turned around in her chair and faced him, noting new worry lines on his face and gray hairs.

His fatigue was obvious, though he tried to hide it in the dark crescents of skin underneath his eyes. “Between the webpage and our new friends here, I think we’ve got enough to get a real investigation started,” he said. “Maybe we’ll need more money at some point, but now we’ve just got to find the right person.”

“What about that guy who was on TV with you?” Kim asked.

“I liked that he sees this the same way we do. I don’t believe Olivia was abducted from her car, or something bad happened to her before she even got away from her car. They, whoever they are, did something to her at the site of the crash. Plus, with CNN already paying him as a consultant, maybe he’d give us a price break.”

“You’re right,” Jim said. “Hiring him would get a lot of attention, too. Mooney. Was that his last name? Do you remember offhand?”

“Mau-knee,” she said, pronouncing it carefully. “Like an ‘owie’ on your knee with an ‘m.’ I think it was spelled M-A-U-N-E-Y.” “That sounds right,” her husband replied. “I trust your spelling. That’s why you always beat me in Scrabble. I’ll track down his number and give Mr. Mauney a call.”

Kim didn’t exactly laugh. That was still too hard, and her husband’s Scrabble joke was pretty lame. But at least they were trying. The sound that emerged from her was closer to a “hmm” or a weak chuckle than a hearty laugh. It would count as progress. *** It only took a few minutes on Google for Claven to find the contact information for Mauney Investigative Services in the Rosslyn area of Arlington, Virginia, just across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C.’s Georgetown neighborhood. Claven had generally been aware of Mauney as an occasional guest on various news programs over the years. He was pretty sure he had seen Mauney in an episode of “48 Hours” or “Dateline NBC” 100

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involving his role in solving a long-ago murder whose details Claven could no longer remember.

What was obvious was why Mauney seemed perfectly crafted for television news – for all the bad and good that implied. Unlike a lot of television news regulars, however, Mauney worked even harder off camera. His opponents, who often were prosecutors and police trying to convict Mauney’s clients, sometimes made the mistake of assuming his on-air flamboyance and ability to speak in digestible sound bites represented the sum total of who he was. They quickly learned Mauney was brilliant and ruthlessly dedicated to his clients, and he could use the TV image to deflect anger and rage away from his client to him. Claven noted Mauney was prominent enough to have a Wikipedia entry, which reported Mauney first entered the national spotlight about 15 years ago by assisting families trying to prove the innocence of wrongfully convicted persons on death row.

“If I can be the mouthy Black guy that some cops, media members and the public love to hate, and that helps my clients, then count me in,” he once told a writer for The New Yorker magazine in a profile article.

Claven read with admiration about one such case. Carl Cronin, a man from a small Pennsylvania township, was convicted not once but twice of a murder he didn’t commit based primarily on what his defenders claimed was junk science: a bite mark on the female victim’s naked back. Prosecution experts asserted the bite mark matched Cronin’s bite into a Styrofoam cup. Family members hired Mauney to dig deeper. Not only did Mauney find the world’s leading expert on the weakness of bitemark evidence, he located a convicted rapist in the neighborhood who later confessed. The new evidence won Cronin the right to a third trial. The prosecution finally gave up and freed him after Cronin had spent 15 years on Death Row. The article contained a photo that nearly moved Claven to tears: It was taken at the moment Cronin left prison. Mauney was there with Cronin’s family. In the photo of Cronin hugging Mauney, he could see both men were crying. He’d also documented successes finding missing people others failed to 101

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find and helping people who were victims of government coverups.

This was the kind of man he needed to find his daughter.

He called Mauney’s office and unsurprisingly, the call went to voicemail. However, as soon as Claven said, “Hello, this is Jim Claven in Azalea Bluff, North Carolina,” a male voice responded.

“How can we help you?”

“Is Mr. Mauney available?” Claven asked.

“Darren,” the deep voice said. “Call me Darren, and I’ll call you Jim. My assistant is out, so I’m screening my own calls today.

I suspect you’re a man I might want to talk to. Actually, I almost called you after we were on CNN together. Your case intrigues me.”

Mauney stretched out the word “intrigues” so each syllable got treated like a separate word. He repeated the word again. “I’ve been around enough, Jim, that I don’t see much that intrigues me these days. Now, I’m guessing you’re calling to see if I can help. If so, I will anticipate your question. I’m interested and available at the moment. Am I right?”

Claven was relieved Mauney got to the point.

“I didn’t expect you to answer your phone. Anyway, Darren, you’re right,” he said.

“Well, we run a lean operation. It’s how I like it,” Mauney replied. “When we need extra help on a case, we either buy it or hire it. We know the right people in just about any area you can imagine.”

“Okay. Darren, you probably saw we’ve been raising money.

I’ve never been involved in anything like this before, but I’m pretty sure we’ve got enough to get started. How much do you need if we, uh, engage your services? We can work on it from this end and make sure.”

Mauney replied, “Relax, Jim. Just relax. I’ll need some cash, but not as much as you might think. I would almost do this for free, but you didn’t hear me say that. Tell you what. I’ll have my assistant email you an invoice for $3,000 so I have some walking-around money, and we’ll see how things go from there.

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All the details will be in my stock agreement. We’ll send you a copy of that, too. I promise not to rip you off. If you’ve done any homework on me, I hope you concluded I’m an honorable dude.”

Claven laughed out loud. “No, okay, I didn’t hear the part about working for free, but if things get tight, you can refresh my memory,” he said. “This is good news, the best we’ve had in weeks. It’s a relief. If you don’t mind my asking, what intrigues you about it?”

“Hmm,” Mauney said, going quiet for a few seconds before responding. “I think we agree there appears to be a lot more here than meets the eye. I like mysteries. Well, I should say I like solving mysteries. You’d feel that way more if you’d been around as many government shenanigans as I have.”

Mauney sounded much the same as he did on television, with a deep voice in which the words seemed effortless, running together with brief pauses and dripping like syrup. The only difference in a one-on-one conversation was his calmer tone, though Claven guessed Mauney was an accomplished actor in these situations as well. Claven wondered if Mauney ever broke character and revealed his true self, or maybe the smooth-talking private investigator and the real person were one and the same – or had become so integrated it no longer made any difference.

“Now, that’s not always the case,” Mauney continued. “A lot of government officials have good intentions. But sometimes their bosses, maybe not so much. Politics, you see, it gets in the way like a girlfriend’s father takin’ you aside before your date. And then sometimes, our duly appointed officials just screw up. Sometimes bureaucracy screws them up. And sometimes they just plain have shitty intentions. Why do they have bad intentions? Because they’re human, and lots of humans get overpowered when they want power, money, sex, or need to CYA.” “Cover Your Ass?” Claven asked.

“Exactly,” Mauney replied. “There’s actually two types of CYA. In the first, somebody messed up, and nobody’s supposed to know about it. In the second case, the government knows something it doesn’t want you to know, something they think is,

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like, really important, and they’re going to do whatever they can to cover it up.

“I suspect that’s exactly what you’ve got here. It’s a serious case of CYA. The only cure is to go where you’re not supposed to go. You dig where you ain’t supposed to dig. You’ve got some weird stuff here, my friend. This whole incident makes Roswell look tame.”

Jim recalled he had some faint, teenage curiosity about the Roswell, New Mexico, UFO incident, though it happened in 1947, well before his time. For Olivia’s generation, the UFO hysteria that started after World War II and peaked in the 1970s was ancient news; something weird that happened for a few years and might amount to little more than a sentence or two from a lecture in a high-school history class. It was unlikely to be mentioned at all unless you happened to have a teacher with an interest in government conspiracies, science fiction, or UFOs. “Do you know what Roswell is today?” Mauney asked before quickly answering his own question. “It’s a tourist trap.

But, here’s the funny thing. This stuff still comes up in the news.

You’re talking about more than 10,000 reports of unidentified flying objects over 70 years. Just recently, the U.S. government had to admit they’re investigating UFO incidents again, though I doubt if they ever stopped. There’s recent video shot by our pilots showing objects doing impossible course changes in the sky. I’m talkin’ really impossible maneuvers that no existing technology can explain. The Pentagon even did briefings for President Trump and several senators.”

Mauney’s fervor made Claven start to wonder if he was hiring the wrong investigator. As an accountant, Claven was careful and deliberate by nature. Accounting attracted people who believed in rational explanations. The debits and credits balanced. Things always added up. You might not like what the balance sheet told you, but the numbers didn’t lie. If you took enough time, you usually could track down where every nickel and dime came and went. He loved that sense of completion. You shouldn’t need kooky conspiracy theories to explain things, including UFOs and the disappearance of his daughter.

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“Roswell?” Claven said, “UFOs? You think that stuff really happened? I don’t know about that. I mean, this situation is crazy, but it can’t be that crazy.”

But then Mauney recounted some details of the Roswell incident for Claven’s benefit. There was no dispute, he said, that something crashed near Roswell, New Mexico, on or about June 14, 1947, during a period in U.S. history filled with fear following the atomic bombs that ended World War II, the rise of the Soviet Union and the start of the Cold War. In such a paranoid atmosphere, U.S. government officials often erred on the side of secrecy. They publicly said as little as possible and offered only limited, hard-to-believe explanations about the Roswell object.

That only fueled the speculation about what really crashed on the New Mexico ground that day.

“What was it? Was it a military weather balloon, as the government claimed, that crashed in the desert? Or, maybe it was an alien spacecraft that crashed,” Mauney said.

Many UFO buffs and conspiracy theorists were convinced the government recovered the corpses of alien beings and took everything from the crash site to a top-secret facility. In 1947 as well as today, such an event certainly would justify an elaborate cover-up, Mauney noted. Claven conceded the point. Many a science fiction novel and Hollywood film, not to mention television programs like “The X Files,” had milked the subject of Roswell for all it was worth.

“Now, I’m not saying I know or even believe this was some alien ship,” Mauney said, “but the fact remains many parts of the government explanation don’t fit what we know. Even at the time, the local sheriff whispered to the guy who found debris that the military had picked up some sort of ‘flying disc.’ That started the frenzy.

“Years later, in the 1990s, the government admitted they lied about Roswell,” Mauney continued. “Of course, they didn’t put any preserved alien beings on display, but the ‘weather balloon’ explanation they used for years turned out to be utter bullshit and they finally had to admit it. The new spin is it was some sort of surveillance balloon used in nuclear testing. Did you ever see 105

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a balloon shaped like some damn disc? Me neither. And, after all, like prosecutors always say in court, ‘Now, Mr. So-And-So, if you’ve lied to us about that, why should we believe you’re telling the truth now?’ And here’s the frosting on the conspiracy cake, my friend. There are still plenty of files about Roswell the government refuses to release.”

Mauney was on a roll now. “So, tell me, what have all of us observed in the decades that followed?” he continued. “Lies and more lies. Start with the McCarthy Era. Lies about people being Communists that destroyed their lives. JFK gets assassinated.

More lies and secrecy. Watergate with Nixon and his flunkies all looking straight at the American people and making stuff up.

Vietnam, which was at least four presidents lying through their collective teeth. Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that didn’t exist. The times we’re in now. Presidents who lie even when they don’t have to, just so they can stay in practice for when they feel like they need to. Anyone who doesn’t think public officials won’t deceive citizens is still putting out cookies and waiting for Santa to jump down the chimney.”

Mauney paused to catch his breath and heard nothing in response. But he was confident he had Claven’s attention.

“See now, Jim, I think your daughter saw something on that football field and now the government has concocted a modern version of the Roswell weather balloon as an explanation. I don’t think it takes much digging to put a serious hurt on their public story about it being a small aircraft carrying some sort of dangerous cargo. The hole in the ground they showed a few days later could’ve easily been dug and then filled after the fact. I’ve seen their rules and guidelines when public safety is the immediate concern. Compare that to what they did. They isolated an entire community for nearly a day, supposedly because of this plane crash. The feds swooped in like it was a terrorist attack instead of a plane crash. They shut down all communications. The area has been scrubbed clean. These were extreme measures,” he said. “These are things the government does only when there is seriously something big to hide.”

Mauney paused.

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“Whew,” he said. “I got a little carried away. But let me ask you something. Have you talked to some of the folks who live near that school? I did. Or, at least I tried to before I did that CNN interview. Those folks are more scared than my new puppy in a thunderstorm when I probed. One of them finally admitted they were told there were national security -- quote/unquote -- ‘considerations’ in what that plane was carrying and they shouldn’t say anything, including we’re told not to say even that.”

Claven felt strangely deflated and less optimistic. He didn’t like that Mauney injected overwhelming new complexities into an already huge challenge. If any of this was true, he couldn’t imagine the lengths the government might go to keep its secrets.

But would they really kidnap his daughter?

“Yeah, I tried talking to the neighbors,” Claven said. “I know a few of them. The ones who said anything had nothing to offer.

But maybe they’re not hiding anything as much as they don’t know anything.”

“Keep trying, Jim,” Mauney responded. “You’ll get closer to seeing things as they are, not the way you wish. As I said, when we send the paperwork, I’ll quote you fees that won’t give you sticker-shock as long as you give me the rights to do a book or a screenplay if this turns out to be a worthy project. Happy endings sell, so I have an extra incentive beyond my basic humanity and incurable curiosity. But you better get prepared for the whole truth.”

“I just want answers,” Claven said. “Well, actually, that’s not true. I don’t care about answers as much as I want my daughter back. Whatever it takes.”

“No, I mean what I’m saying,” Mauney said. “You have to understand something. I’m going to have to drill into Olivia’s past to learn everything I can about her. Drilling can get painful, especially for families. You’ve already endured some of that. I’m sorry about that, but it’s unavoidable to do my job.”

Claven replied, “I don’t understand. What’s that got to do with her disappearing, especially if it’s some big government cover-up like you’re suggesting?”

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“Maybe nothing, maybe everything, maybe some things,” Mauney said. “I can’t know until I do some digging, but my Rule Number One with clients is to be ready for anything. For example, how much do you really know about her life after high school? What about her boyfriends? Hell, I had a client who hired me to find out if his wife was cheating on him. I come to learn his 17-year-old son was selling drugs and running a teenage call-girl network under his nose—quite the young entrepreneur.

Everyone has secrets, or there might be a clue that helps explain how we got here. I’m not saying your Olivia has some dark, awful things in her life you don’t know about or maybe even imagined was possible, but I want you to be prepared for all the shit we can’t predict that’s going to be coming. Get ready for surprises.

I’ve never done a case that didn’t have a few.”

“All right, Mr. Mauney. We’re in your hands.”

“And, in all modesty, I can assure you these hands are quite capable,” Mauney said. He laughed, adding, “I guess that wasn’t very modest. Well, the truth isn’t always modest. I’ll be back in touch next Friday and every week after that, more often when necessary. Hang tight, my friend. We’ll get to the bottom of this.

Pretty much, I always do.”

108

17 Olivia Claven’s trick bag was empty and she knew it. She couldn’t be the audience trying to fool herself with her own magic any longer. She had run out of ways to convince herself things would be okay. She was weary of strolling down memory lane.

Thoughts of finding a way to take her life regularly crept into her mind now, pushing away some of the other mental movies she played and replayed to cope. She knew this wasn’t healthy, but what did it matter? She had come up with five different ways to “do it,” all plausible as far as she could judge and based on her available materials and options. She had outlined the morbid details and procedures she’d follow for everything from electrocution to starvation to strangling. The task to carefully construct each suicide strategy to the highest probability of successful conclusion had occupied her for several days. The irony of staying sane by planning death wasn’t lost on her. But she had grown tired of thinking about that, too. The act had a strange lure to her as the ultimate revenge on the forces that obviously wanted her alive for reasons unfathomable. This was the moment, she knew, when she should be talking to a professional or calling the national suicide hotline. If only she could.

Mainly, she was so very tired of all this.

She had started writing messages to her captors in the margins of her menus. She hated to let them know she was desperate, but after 45 days as best she could count, that was the truth. After realizing she had spent the past 15 minutes watching the stressrelated twitch she had developed in her left wrist, she wrote this: 109

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Within each one of us, there are limits to how much we can stand. There are things we as human beings can’t do without: water, food, air, and, maybe most importantly, contact with other human beings. You have given me water, food, and air. You obviously want me to stay alive. I need human contact.

A few hours later, Olivia’s evening meal was delivered to her as it always was through the small slot in the door. For a moment, at least, hunger could push suicidal thoughts aside. Perhaps that meant she wasn’t as ready as she thought to take the ultimate act.

That was a good thing, right? But then she thought about the extra appeal of what she called the “starvation solution” because it was the only plan that had not one but two outcomes she’d view as victories. If she could starve herself by pushing all food back into the hall and out of reach, they would have to either let her die or enter the room, opening up the possibilities created by human contact.

But starvation wasn’t her goal at this moment. She sliced through her fog of depression, realizing she still had too much spunk, curiosity, and a whole lot of anger to check out. And, well, she was hungry. She found herself staring at a tray with a carton of skim milk, baked fish, peas, and mashed potatoes on it.

And that was odd.

Now they really are torturing me, she thought. There’s nothing I hate more than peas. I don’t even like to look at peas, let alone put them in my mouth. So, what the hell are peas doing on my plate? I’d starve to death before I’d order this mushy, slimy, green crap.

She had been ordering food since her first day in captivity, and this was the first time they had delivered something she hadn’t requested. The food wasn’t great, but at least it was edible.

She distinctly remembered ordering corn. Well, maybe Walmart was out of canned corn, so the “chef ” bought canned peas. Yuck.

As a kid, she and her brother Sean both had been skillful at hiding peas under mashed potato mountains. She remembered laughing with Michael once as she described life at the Claven dinner table to her lover. What kid didn’t know that old trick?

She actually smiled slightly and held onto the memory for an extra moment. Why not? It was time to play “Hide the Peas.”

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She used her spoon to hollow out an entrance into the mashed potato mountain; then, she picked up the fork. She put it on its side horizontally behind the peas as a way to shovel the veggies into the potato cavern for hiding, just like she did in middle school. It was a big pile of peas, probably the biggest vegetable serving they had ever given her, and as she started to push, the fork seemed to hit something hard at the bottom.

Suddenly, Olivia stopped breathing.

Was she seeing a strange object under the damn peas or imagining it? She scraped the peas off the top of the object and found a small, gray flip-model cell phone. A cell phone. The one convenience of modern life no one would abandon. A connection to the world. It was on her plate.

She didn’t think they had a camera in her room. In all her explorations with so much time on her hands, she felt like she had examined every square inch, but she also knew some cameras weren’t any bigger than pinheads, so she could never be sure.

Still, why would they need one? She wasn’t going anywhere. To be safe, she leaned over her plate to cover it as much as possible from any prying eyes. Her hand moved with the pace of a snail, inching towards the phone so slowly as though the phone would vaporize if she moved too fast. She lifted it an inch above the plate. On the back of it she saw a taped note with tiny lettering in block capital letters. Her eyes watered with tears as she struggled to read the message taped to the back of the phone.

YOU’VE BEEN ALONE TOO LONG. I WILL CALL. YOUR QUESTIONS HAVE ANSWERS. EAT NOW. WE WILL TALK LATER. “Oh my God,” Olivia thought. “Who sent me this? Please call!

Don’t make me wait too long.”

Then another thought hit her. Phones can send as well as receive. She flipped the old-style phone open, looking for keys to punch or tap, but there were none. Was this a cruel joke? The phone was void of any buttons except for one that said “rec” for “receive.” There was a small speaker where you would place your ear and the tiny holes for the microphone.

Olivia quickly decided to view it as progress. Someone wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble if they didn’t intend to talk 111

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to her. The suicide plans definitely would go on the shelf, but it was still a comfort to know she could mentally grab those plans and activate them at any time.

She carefully folded the phone shut, trying to hide it under the palm of her hand. She placed her new lifeline into the back pocket of her jeans, pondering what she needed to do to maximize this unexpected opportunity. She glanced down at a mess of mashed potatoes and peas, grimacing once she realized she faced a particularly difficult task.

Olivia decided she should make sure she returned an empty tray to her captors. Nothing to see here. She made herself eat the peas, stifling a gag response about half a dozen times. If she ever got out, she’d definitely challenge Sean to do the same thing.

She allowed herself to enjoy a sense of anticipation, watching her brother eat those damn hated peas. *** Two long days had passed since Olivia had received the phone and she hadn’t slept soundly since reading the words taped on the back of the phone. I WILL CALL. The anticipation was almost more than she could bear. Who would be on the other end of this phone, and what would they say?

She had played out every scenario imaginable. Should she play it cool or beg for mercy? No way would she accept that last idea. At least not yet. As a reporter, she’d always dig for a story.

“Who am I kidding?” Olivia said, realizing she hadn’t meant to say it out loud. She had to be more careful than that.

But, really, who am I actually kidding? she thought. I just want to see daylight again. I just want to stay alive.

Suddenly, there it was, a simple bridge opening to the outside world. The phone vibrated silently in her pocket. She ran into the bathroom, where it was less likely there might be a hidden camera. She took a deep breath and accepted the call without speaking.

“Hello, Olivia,” said the voice on the other end.

“Umm. Hello. Who is this?”

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That went unanswered. “Are you feeling okay? Do you need anything?”

“Yes,” she said, deciding to show strength and following through with an idea she had been formulating to go one step at a time with these people. “I’m well enough. And, yes, you asked about what I need. Well, I really NEED to see sunshine. Can you let me out of here for a little while? I promise to be a good girl and not run away.”

“Ha,” the voice answered. It was a male voice, but it sounded altered, and she knew technology could change a feminine voice into a male voice or, for that matter, a bird screech, so that meant nothing. “I’m sure you’d behave, not that you could get anywhere anyway. Maybe we can make that happen for you.”

“Look, I don’t know what you think I saw, but whatever view I got of that thing, it didn’t last long, and I couldn’t tell anyone what it was because I don’t know what it was.”

“We know that, but Olivia, you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

The masked voice paused for a moment, and the tone of voice might have changed from neutral to sad, though Olivia couldn’t be sure.

The voice said, “We can’t let you out of here right now.”

“Right now?” Olivia asked. “Does that mean you’re going to let me live?”

That brought another pause. The tone that followed remained friendly but had an edge of firmness added.

“Olivia, this is a complicated problem. You’re very lucky to be alive. You’re a problem and we are careful people. Be thankful for that. What you saw has implications that will one day change the world. Unfortunately, the world is not ready for those changes yet.”

“Well, maybe, maybe you’re selling the world short. I mean, think how many changes we’ve seen in the last 50 years,” she said.

“Hell, I’ve got female friends getting married to each other and adopting children. We fly in tubes at 30,000 feet through the sky and think nothing of it. There’s more computing power in this

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cheap-shit phone you left me than the Apollo astronauts had for a trip to the moon.”

“I’m glad to see you’ve still got your sense of humor.”

“Well, I gotta tell you, it’s disappearing fast,” she said.

Olivia merged onto an emotional road she had vowed to bypass. She had no intention to conform to the stereotype of a weak, weepy woman. Despite that, she started crying. She knew her loud sobs were audible to the person at the other end.

“You have to hold on,” the voice said. “Look, I’m afraid our time is up for today, but I will call again.”

“When? Tomorrow?”

“Maybe. Now you try and get some rest.”

“Hold it,” she almost shouted. “Listen. Listen to me. Maybe the world isn’t ready for your secrets, but Olivia Claven is. Will you keep that in mind?”

“Yes. Goodbye, Olivia.”

“No, no! Please don’t hang up!”

“One other thing.”

“What?” Olivia asked, feeling a sense of relief they would keep talking.

“You’ll receive a small phone charger the next time you order mashed potatoes. Let’s say you have a friend in the kitchen. But be discreet.”

Before she could say, “I was wondering about that,” he ended the call. She was mad at herself for crying and frustrated the caller gave her so little information. She worried if this was part of their psychological torture. Was this some way to manipulate her into somehow helping the caller who played the secretive “good cop?” She remembered interviewing a Marine on a speaking tour in New York City. He had been held captive by a terrorist group, and he was sharing his experiences in lectures that likely were preludes to a political career. He described the common techniques for captors to try to build bonds of friendship with prisoners, softening them up for whatever ultimate purpose they had in mind. Her isolation followed by a spark of hope sounded eerily familiar. But what could she possibly know that they needed?

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Nothing made sense. Perhaps nothing ever would.

Depression slithered into her mind again like a lurking snake.

She reconsidered the virtues of starvation. It would force their hand. The option suddenly seemed appealing. She was so tired.

Olivia tried to sleep. After two hours of tossing and turning, she fell into a troubled slumber. In one of her dreams, a phone kept ringing, but there was no one around to answer.

115

18 On a mid-October day with the leaves beginning to showcase their brilliant colors, Jim Claven decided to join friends for a round of golf at the Old Maple Country Club. It had been almost two months since the crash, and he needed a break, though he felt guilty for taking time for recreation while Olivia remained missing. But the smells of fresh-cut grass, the crunch sounds of his shoes on just-fallen leaves and the breath of a breeze on his cheeks under a sunlit sky rejuvenated him more than anything else could.

He still harbored doubts about the path he had chosen to find his daughter. He had received a harsh reminder a day earlier after he slipped into Bojangles for a quick lunch and encountered the sheriff.

“You know, Jim, all these amateur detectives, out-of-town reporters and second-guessers aren’t making things easier,” Hendricks said. “It takes time I don’t have to deal with some of these people. That’s time I could be spending trying to find Olivia. I know you think you did the right thing, but you’ve unleashed a shit-show. I don’t appreciate it. This office doesn’t appreciate it. You’d best think long and hard about your next moves. I apologize for being this harsh with you, but there are no guarantees this story has a happy ending.”

The sheriff ’s tone surprised and angered him. It was no way to treat the father of a missing girl. Would the sheriff do anything less for one of his kids? However, before Claven could respond, Hendricks quite purposefully turned his back on him and walked 116

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out of the restaurant with his box of fried chicken and biscuits.

Claven had wanted to make peace or at least find room for a truce. Didn’t they have a common goal?

While the words were angry, the sheriff looked sad and worn out. Instead of the disciplined military posture he always showed in public, Hendricks walked with a slump. In a different time and place, Claven would have asked him what was really wrong, and the two men, both community leaders and casual acquaintances, might have had an adult conversation.

What he didn’t know was Hendricks was getting anonymous, untraceable text reminders to “shut Claven and his detective down.”

Hendricks also had issues on the home front. It took all of his restraint not to confront his wife, something he had vowed to postpone until after this mess was over. He only could hide his feelings so much, and he had a suspicion Sonya perceived he knew, or at least suspected what was going on, particularly since he couldn’t bring himself to show any signs of affection and wasn’t making any effort to hang out with Trent or return calls.

Apparently, her acting skills were better than his, he thought bitterly, thinking about the previous night as one example. She had stroked his leg with both hands and nodded her head toward the bedroom.

“Sorry,” he said gruffly. “I’m not feelin’ it.” And that was that.

Again.

The marriage had turned into a charade for both of them.

They went through the motions without speaking about the hidden truths. Somehow, they had made an unspoken pact to put on a “happy family” show for their two younger kids, fraternal 12-year-old twins, even applauding and smiling at each other in the bleachers at sporting events and band concerts. Hendricks knew his kids were smart and perceptive. So, they probably were picking up on at least some of the negativity. That made him feel even worse. He tried not to think about how messy and ugly things were going to get, or what it might mean for the kids.

He felt bad he wasn’t doing more to find Olivia Claven, but he knew what Jim Claven didn’t know: Whatever happened or 117

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was going to happen to Olivia was so far out of both their hands now, what the Brunswick County Sheriff ’s Office did or didn’t do made zero difference. It wouldn’t help matters for him, his family, or his ability to serve others in the community if his political career and income-producing ability got destroyed on top of everything else.

Call it self-justification. The Claven family had become collateral damage. No matter how much it troubled Hendricks inside, that’s the way it had to be.

The stress of events was testing Claven’s marriage, too. When he had told Kim he was going to play golf with some friends, she had given him a strange look.

“Don’t you think there’s more we could be doing instead of running around on a golf course?” she said in a nearly toneless voice.

“I don’t know what else I can do until we hear more from Mauney,” he responded. “I need to clear my head. We all need a break.

“It might do you some good to get out of the house, too,” he added, immediately regretting his last statement.

“Well, honey, enjoy the golf,” she said in that same, zombielike tone.

She turned and left the room before Claven could respond.

Claven’s sense of having a welcome break on the golf course quickly turned to regret as he waited for his turn, standing by the tee on the 12th hole and thinking about his relationship with Kim. The distance between them had never seemed wider, and his wife obviously was hurting. He vowed to try harder to repair things.

Meanwhile, he was embarrassed by the quality of his play.

His bottled-up stress surely was having an impact. For one thing, he was holding his golf clubs tightly as though he were strangling them in death grips instead of using the lighter, more relaxed grip that brought better, straighter shots. Plus, his game was rusty. He lagged behind all three of his playing partners. Robert Townsend had Jim down by five shots. Tom Albert was beating him by three strokes, and then there was the old Colonel, Mason Keech, who had the best score in the group as usual.

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The Colonel was a local celebrity of sorts and no one questioned his acclaim. He was a Vietnam vet who returned home from the war with a wounded leg and almost no money.

He got a license to sell real estate as Yankee interest in the beach communities started to explode. After starting his own agency and flipping property himself, he made a fortune. He retired and cashed out before everything collapsed around 2008, so he missed the carnage that drove many agents and developers into bankruptcy or low-paying retail jobs. His two primary retirement activities were playing golf and running The Keech Semper Fi Foundation he had created to help veterans and their families in need throughout the Southeast.

Claven rarely lost to Robert or Tom and could give the Colonel a serious challenge on a good day. He took pride in being one of the top golfers who regularly played at Old Maple.

To restore his pride, not to mention losing $20 to each player, he needed a spectacular comeback. He knew he wasn’t in the right frame of mind as he set up his tee shot for Number 12, one of the toughest holes on the course. The hole hugged the back edge of the Old Maple property. The right side of the hole included two large sand traps and a pond that had to be avoided to have a chance at making par. The left side of the long, narrow fairway went for more than 200 yards along the course boundary next to thick woods that formed the barrier between the golf course and the grounds of Brinkley High School. It was hard to glance that way for obvious reasons.

Claven thought about how Olivia’s disappearance on top of the business struggles he was trying to keep to himself had screwed up his life. It was a passing thought, but it filled him with guilt. He mentally kicked himself for having such selfish “woe is me” thoughts that took the full focus from his missing daughter.

He forced himself to clear his head to concentrate on setting up for his shot. “Lighten up on that grip,” he said to himself.

He lightened up so much he created the opposite problem.

He felt the driver twist in his hands as he followed through on the ball. Unfortunately, it was a powerful shot otherwise, which made the twisting effect even worse as the ball rocketed off 119

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the club face, went airborne, and quickly took a wide and fastspinning turn to the left.

Townsend gazed at the shot, nodded his head, and turned back to Claven. “Now that’s what I call a professional-quality hook shot,” he said, gently chiding his friend. “You been practicing that one, Jimbo? I’d say you’re at least 100 yards into those thick woods. Probably more.”

Claven flipped his driver onto the ground in disgust.

“I’ve already lost five of my best Callaway balls today,” he said. “The damn things are expensive. I’m going to go look for it.

And I guess we know who’s buying the beer when we finish this damn round.”

“Well, I guess that’s what friends are for,” Albert replied.

“We’ll help you look. It’ll make that beer you’re buying taste even wetter and better.”

Minutes ticked past as the search continued. Fortunately, there wasn’t a group behind them, pushing them to speed up their play. Still, the group grew impatient on what surely would end up as a futile and unpleasant search in dark, muggy woods filled with the sickly-sweet smells of mold and rot. Townsend seemed particularly nervous. As a teenager, he nearly died after a poisonous copperhead snake bit him when he ran into some brush to retrieve a Frisbee and surprised the coiled reptile.

“Hey, you know the rules of play. We can only look for so long,” Townsend said as he carefully pushed some ground cover aside with his seven iron in the shadowy, thick woods. “We’re already past five minutes. I’ll give you one of my Srixon balls, Okay? If you ask me, they’re even better than the Callaways.

There’s no way we’re going to find a tiny white ball from your epic hook shot into this mess.”

Albert replied, “Hey, man, I found a beer can.”

Claven responded, “Hey, thanks. I see the Guy Support Network is fully operational today. And screw your Srixons, too.”

The Colonel spoke next in his thick drawl, made huskier from years of too many cigars and late nights with the Irish whiskey he loved. “Jimbo, I think we’re going to have to give up,” he said.

“We’re runnin’ out of daylight to finish our game. I’m thirsty, too, 120

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and I want to look at your 20 bucks before darkness falls. Besides, we’re almost to the edge of the Brinkley football field.”

Claven said nothing. They could see the goalposts at the south end of the field through a small break in the tree line. He had a faint hope he hooked the shot so badly that maybe the ball got through the yards of woods and might be sitting on the edge of the football field. He was certain he wasn’t the first person to hit a shot that pathetically bad. He pushed through some vines and walked into the clearing and scanned the field. There was no ball in sight.

“All right,” Claven said, calming down. “I concede. How about one more minute and then we go back.”

Townsend and Albert groaned. The Colonel was more sympathetic, sensing that finding the ball had an importance to Claven beyond its actual value. Or, maybe it was because the Colonel had lost a daughter in a traffic accident many years earlier when the brakes failed on a large dump truck that crossed the line and rammed her car, killing not only his daughter but two of her three young children. It was a tragedy far more devastating than anything he experienced in Vietnam, and for those who knew the stories of his military service, nothing could underscore his pain more powerfully.

“Okay, Jimbo,” Keech said. “Let’s give it a shot. I’ve been in jungles a lot thicker than this, and at least no one’s shootin’ at me in this one.”

And it was the old Colonel, with tracking skills honed by the military and seasoned by years of hunting, who saw it first.

Almost covered up in brush and barely visible behind a large rock was a worn, brown, and gray North Face backpack. It blended almost naturally into the terrain.

“Hey, I’ve got something here,” the Colonel said. “It ain’t a Callaway, but it might be something more interesting.”

The group gathered around Keech as he opened the backpack.

“Jimbo,” he said, “I’m guessin’ some high school kids were in these woods and someone left this here. I’m not feelin’ any golf balls inside. Sorry.”

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Claven had a fleeting thought it might be Olivia’s, but he knew his daughter had a nearly new blue backpack. It was made by Columbia as best he could remember and gifted as a Christmas present from Kim and him. It looked nothing like this well-worn item. This close to the high school, the pack could belong to any one of hundreds of teens who could’ve been in those woods for all sorts of reasons.

“Well, let’s see what’s inside. What the hell,” he said, showing his frustration.

The Colonel handed him the backpack. Claven turned it upside down and a few items spilled out. They saw a small retractable knife, a small flashlight, a USB battery backup for a cellphone and a notebook with a black cover. There was no identifying information. As he examined the notebook and thumbed the pages, he realized it had the crisp feel of being brand new.

Claven said, “You’d think Hendricks, his deputies and all the other authorities would’ve searched this area and found it, wouldn’t you? After all, everything was locked down after the plane crashed. Or whatever it was that crashed.

“Some search,” Claven continued with a bitter tone that reflected his feelings about Hendricks’ lack of progress. He shook his head back and forth.

“Am I the only one worried about snakes?” Townsend replied as Claven began to unzip some of the pack’s other areas. “Let’s get out of these damn woods before we do anything else.”

“Townsie has a point,” Keech said. “Let’s go.”

Silently, Claven quickly returned the items to the pack. The Colonel, true to his military training, marked the spot where they found the backpack with a large stick he pushed into the ground and then used bright green golf tees to line the path back to the edge of the fairway just in case the backpack turned out to be important.

“What are you going to do?” Townsend said. “Shouldn’t we call Sheriff Hendricks?”

Claven thought about that. No one said a word. A minute, maybe more, went by before Claven finally shook his head.

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“No, I’m not going to do that,” he said, speaking to himself in a soft voice as much as to the group. “I voted for that guy, but he hasn’t done shit. Why didn’t they find this? It tells me no one was looking very hard. When I get a chance, I’ll just drop it off at the school. It must belong to some kid. If there’s anything interesting, maybe I’ll get this in the hands of my investigator. Darren will know what to do.”

Claven added, “Well, I should say ‘our’ investigator. All of you donated to help pay him. I really appreciate it, guys. Anyway, I’ll just take this home for now.”

He idly tossed the pack into the basket behind the seats of his golf cart as the old Colonel spoke, then stuffed it into the cubicle around the spare tire when he saw how dirty it was. He liked a clean, tidy vehicle.

“I watched good people die because of government lies,” Keech said. “You do what you gotta do, Jimbo, and we’ve got your back.

“By the way,” he added, lightening the mood just as he would have with soldiers in the field. “All three of you so-called golfers owe me $20. Just because we’re quittin’ early doesn’t let you off the hook.” *** The others talked Claven into staying for dinner and a few drinks in the clubhouse before leaving. One hour turned into three and it was nearly 10:00 p.m. when Claven returned home.

Again, he felt guilty for putting his need to unwind ahead of other priorities. He had every intention of connecting with Kim before he did anything else, but she already was in their bedroom and possibly asleep. He didn’t want to disturb her if that was the case.

Confusion, exhaustion, and the dizziness of a few too many drinks rolled over him like synchronized waves. He knew sleep wouldn’t come without a nightcap, so he got a cocktail glass out of the liquor cabinet, went to the refrigerator to drop some ice into the glass, filled it halfway with Tito’s vodka and topped the drink off with club soda and lime. He had recently switched from 123

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sugary tonic water to club water in an effort to drop a few pounds and avoid sugar or artificial sweeteners. He still wasn’t sure he could get used to club soda after years of enjoying his vodkaand-tonics. One more drink and he’d be ready to crash. He’d grab a blanket and flop onto the rec room couch. He and Kim weren’t sleeping in the same room very often.

Almost as if on cue, he felt a vibration in his phone, and he could see by the caller ID the investigator was on the other end.

“Hello, Mr. Mauney.”

“Jim, did you forget you can call me Darren? How are you doing?”

“Well, Darren, pretty good for a man who just got his butt kicked on the golf course,” Claven said, slurring his words slightly.

“I know you don’t want to hear about my golf game. I hope you have some news for me. We’re all waiting.”

“Yeah, I do,” Mauney replied. “But I’m not sure you’re going to like what I have to say.”

“Go ahead.”

“Jim, I spent considerable time in your fair city. As far as any evidence about Olivia’s disappearance in Azalea Bluff, there’s next to nothing. Nobody says they saw anything. After she leaves her car, she just disappears. So, I went back into her past.”

Claven’s immediate instinct was to resist the intrusion into her daughter’s privacy.

“I still don’t see how that helps,” he said.

Mauney noted Claven’s intoxication and wasn’t surprised.

The pressure on families in these situations was unimaginable.

He continued as if Claven hadn’t spoken. “Before she came back home, she lived in New York and she was trying to make her way as a reporter. She had only a few friends and then met this Michael Starling guy. As you know, they were a big item until he died unexpectedly,” he said.

Claven said, “Yeah, yeah, we all know that. I didn’t need to pay you several thousand bucks to tell me what I already know.

I mean, come on.”

“Settle down,” Mauney said. “I think you’re one of those hombres who turns into a snarky, angry drinker. I know you’re 124

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frustrated, and you sound a little drunk if you don’t mind my sayin’ so. What I just told you is what’s known as a preamble. A prelude. It’s a set-up, so I can get to my point.”

Mauney then paused for effect before he said, “Did you also know Michael Starling is a ghost?”

“What?”

“A ghost.”

“A ghost?” Claven repeated. “What the hell does that mean?”

“Well, according to all of my sources, there is no Michael Starling. There’s nothing older than ten years to establish his identity. There’s no earlier birth certificate, driver’s license or Social Security number at all, or nothing that fits what Olivia told you about him.”

“That’s absurd,” Claven responded, feeling on the edge of both anger and tears. “Michael was killed in a car accident. It nearly killed Olivia, too, in a way. She loved him deeply.”

“Was he?”

“Was he what?”

“Was he killed?” Mauney said. “How do you know for sure?

Did you check? I did. This is what you’re paying me to do. There’s no record of the accident. There’s no death certificate. No body of anyone named Michael Starling ever turned up at any funeral home in or around New York City. I’m betting whoever showed up claiming to be his family or friends insisted he be cremated.

Probably they said you couldn’t see the body because it was too mangled. You said goodbye to some ashes. But if those ashes once formed part of a human, they weren’t the ashes of Michael Starling. Do I have it right?”

There was a silence. “Jim, are you there?”

“Yeah, I’m here. Everything you said is about right. Maybe there’s another explanation. It’s hard to believe. Maybe he changed his name for some reason we don’t know.”

Claven added, “I think I need another drink.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea because I can tell you’ve already had a few and I’m not finished yet. We checked all that, and it turns out your name-change theory is sort of true. This ghost named Michael Starling worked for the government.”

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“You just said he didn’t exist.”

“No, I said Michael Starling didn’t exist. He has another name.

I don’t know what it is or was. He was most likely a government operative in some sort of shadowy agency, one of those the public rarely or never hears about. His real identity is most likely so far buried in that organization most of the people he worked with don’t know who the hell he is either.”

Claven said, “So, you’re saying Michael is alive?”

Mauney said, “If I had to guess, I’d say, yeah, he’s most likely alive and kicking and living in another time zone.”

“If Olivia is gone, I’m glad she never lived to find that out,” Claven said in a voice so quiet Mauney could barely hear at his end. “None of this makes any sense.”

“Jim,” Mauney said in a sympathetic tone of voice. “We don’t know she’s dead. I’m not ready to believe that. We’re going to keep working on it. When I find a mystery, I’m like a dog with a bone, and this is one helluva mystery. You can pull on the bone, but I bite down. I don’t give it back until I’ve chewed everything there is to get. You have to hang in there. Go hug your wife.”

Claven was stunned by the news. He paused for so long Mauney assumed the call was over. The investigator ended the call before Claven had a chance to ask him if he had learned anything else of interest.

He was exhausted. He definitely wanted another vodka-andsoda. He’d make one and sit on the porch for a few minutes to collect his thoughts. He’d call Mauney back in the morning and follow up on all the questions he didn’t ask in his half-sober state.

Nothing made any sense.

Fifteen minutes after settling into one of the white wooden rockers on their porch, Claven fell into a troubled sleep.

126

19 It was two days before Halloween when Claven returned from a long business trip, visiting clients and giving lectures on year-end tax planning for residents of North Carolina and South Carolina. The day before he left, he and Kim had a long talk.

“We need to reconnect,” he said. “We have to find more between us than the common cause of finding Olivia.”

Claven showed his spouse the details of the decline in revenue from the accounting firm, information he had been too ashamed to share. Plus, as the months unfolded without him saying anything, he knew she’d be most annoyed about hiding the problem from her. He was right about that.

“You’ve always been there for me,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“Sometimes you forget that,” she said. He detected sympathy, but she wasn’t smiling. “Just don’t ever hold back on me like that again. Let me help. And pay more attention to your son and me.

Don’t be so self-absorbed. It matters. I want to be here for you, and I need you, too.”

“Okay,” he said. “I’m going to try harder.”

“What was it Yoda said in ‘Star Wars?” she responded. “Do or do not. There is no try. Jim, you need to do this.”

The business indeed needed tending as well as their marriage.

They’d reluctantly agreed the search for Olivia couldn’t consume all their time. To pay Mauney as well as prevent the firm from going under, Jim needed to step up his work efforts. Kim, who had a marketing degree from North Carolina State, took fresh charge of promotion. Their effort wasn’t just to find some new 127

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accounting clients but to keep Olivia top-of-mind on social media. Their son, Sean, and Nate Kellogg at the Advocate helped as much as they could to keep the Olivia story from disappearing from the public eye.

After an initial burst, money to the GoFundMe account to pay for the investigation had quickly slowed down to about $500 per week and then moved to a trickle– rarely enough to pay Mauney’s expenses while Claven tried to keep his business afloat.

Some people questioned whether the Clavens even needed the money, including an anonymous, snarky comment on Facebook that included a Zillow screenshot that showed their golf-course home had an estimated value of $537,000. “Why can’t Daddy pay for the search of his daughter? Maybe the cops should be talking to him!”

The hurtful comment drove both Clavens to tears, and they discovered there was no way to force Facebook to delete the comment or reveal the wise guy’s identity. Claven realized that ugly question probably was out there in other minds, so he publicly disclosed the depth of his debts and put his house on the market. All that accomplished was to bring a string of lowball offers from potential buyers who thought they were desperate enough to sell their house for far less than what it was worth.

They couldn’t do that even if they wanted to because the house had two mortgages and there was no way to pay the bank in that scenario.

Nate wasn’t much more successful at keeping the story alive.

Audiences drifted away from the social media pages created for Olivia’s disappearance. He couldn’t get any reporters from major media outlets interested in doing follow-ups. It was obvious there wouldn’t be much coverage beyond a few brief updates in local media without a major, new development.

Now, tired and hungry after driving more than 2,000 miles in seven days, Claven returned to an empty house. He found a note from Kim under the refrigerator magnet. She knew the kitchen would be his first stop.

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The note said: Gone to a meeting, there’s a plate for you in the fridge. Corned beef and cabbage. Heat it up in the microwave. Rye bread in pantry. Back around 9. Love, K. Claven mouthed a “thanks” to his wife. He remembered it was two days before Halloween as he noticed some sugar cookies with orange frosting and black triangle eyes and noses shaped like white pumpkins on a plate covered with plastic wrap. He was sure she had left those for him and most likely had filled a container with several dozen more for the neighborhood trickor-treaters. Even though their kids were older, Kim prepped for holidays as though she were still a young mom. She’ll be a terrific grandmother, he thought. That brought memories of Olivia to the forefront, and he shuddered with the thought his daughter might not be around to be a mom.

He opened the fridge, took out the plate of food, placed it in the microwave, and set the timer for three minutes. He grabbed his iPhone out of the inside jacket pocket of his blue blazer and set it on the counter. That’s when he noticed on the phone screen he missed two calls and two messages from Mauney.

“Shit,” he said, remembering he put the phone on “silent” during his presentation that afternoon. He never felt the vibration because he had his coat off while he was driving. He quickly touched his phone screen to listen to the first voicemail message.

The voice said, “Jim, this is Darren Mauney. Call my cell the minute you get this message. I’m in Washington, D.C. and I’ve come up with something incredible. Jim, I knew it would be interesting, but not this interesting. We may wish we’d never gone down this road, though. Again, call me back right away.”

Curiosity quickly displaced Claven’s hunger for corned beef and Halloween cookies. Something in Mauney’s voice sounded panicky, which seemed very unusual for a man whose confidence bordered on arrogance. Jim felt a sense of urgency to connect with the private investigator. The call was answered on the second ring, but a strange voice answered Darren Mauney’s cell phone.

“Hello.”

Claven said, “Umm yes, is uh, Darren Mauney there?”

“Who’s calling?”

“Well, may I ask who this is?”

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“You may. I’m Detective Peter Grazelli. Now it’s my turn.

Who are you?”

“I’m Jim Claven.”

“Are you friends with Mr. Mauney?”

“Yes, well, not exactly. Mr. Mauney is doing some work for me.”

“Okay, what kind of kind of work, sir?”

Claven recalled Mauney’s cautions about how much trust they could place in law enforcement and government officials in Olivia’s case.

“Well, detective, I’m not trying to be difficult, but that’s confidential information between Mr. Mauney and myself,” he responded. “I’m sure you know he’s a private investigator. Look, can I speak to him, please?”

“No, sir, you can’t.”

“Is something wrong?”

“You could say that, sir. Mr. Mauney is dead.”

Claven felt like he needed to gasp for air that wasn’t there. He said, “Dead? Oh my God, what happened?”

“We’re still trying to figure that out, sir. So, you might want to help us with this investigation. I can’t imagine you have anything to hide.”

“No, sir, I’m certainly not hiding anything.”

“Then you won’t mind telling us what kind of work Mr. Mauney was doing for you, right? I’m sure you can understand in these circumstances.”

Claven paused at that point. He wasn’t sure if he could trust the detective – something he would have done without hesitation until his daughter disappeared. “Give me a minute to process this,” he said. “Mr. Mauney had sort of become a friend as well as a business associate.”

“That happens,” Grazelli replied. “Take a few seconds, but please know anything you share, even if it seems trivial, could be helpful. You never know in the early stages of an investigation.”

Claven set his suspicions aside. The investigation into Olivia’s disappearance was going nowhere, so he’d take a chance with this officer, but not too big of one.

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“He was investigating the disappearance of, uh, a close relative,” Claven said. “We’re still looking. It’s been devastating.”

“I’m sorry about that, sir,” the detective said. “And where was this relative last seen?”

Jim spoke hesitantly. “Here in North Carolina.”

“And her name?”

“Olivia Claven. You may have read about the case.”

“Now that you say it, yeah, it rings a bell. She was a reporter abducted from her car, as I recall. As I said, I’m sorry about your situation.”

“Well, nothing personal about the quality of police work, but we think something else might have happened, Detective Grazelli, and that’s why many of us pooled our money to hire a private investigator.”

“Okay. I can appreciate that,” Grazelli replied quickly, suddenly seeming impatient to end the call. Claven thought he heard voices and a door shutting in the background. “Mr. Claven, we may want to talk to you at a later date. Can you be reached at this number?”

“Yeah, of course,” said Claven, who then realized he hadn’t asked an important question.

“Detective,” he said, “how did Darren die? Was it a heart attack or something? He was definitely Type A, but he seemed healthy. He certainly had plenty of energy.” In the back of his mind, Claven feared the answer would be different. Otherwise, he’d be talking to a paramedic or a patrol officer instead of a detective.

“We think he was murdered,” Grazelli confirmed. “It’s ugly.

He probably suffered. I can’t really say any more than that at this time. I’m sure you understand.”

Claven was about to tell Grazelli about Mauney’s message, but the detective ended the call. Perhaps that was for the best. This was too much to digest and too much coincidence for Claven to just accept. Then he remembered he had a second message from Mauney on his phone, a message Mauney must have decided to leave for him after Claven didn’t return the first call quickly.

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Claven couldn’t get past the way Mauney sounded, the vague reference to something else, something bizarre, something even Mauney felt they would regret getting into. Claven picked up his phone and went to the voicemail screen with a sense of anticipation. Then he saw there were no recent messages from Mauney. “What!” he yelled out loud.

Then he thought he knew what happened. To keep his voicemail from maxing out, causing him to miss important business calls, he always deleted messages immediately and wrote down notes the old-fashioned way if the caller said something he needed to remember. Both of his children made fun of him for doing it. Out of ingrained habit, he had deleted Mauney’s first message after listening. He must have absent-mindedly deleted the second message, too. Maybe he kept his finger on “delete” while sliding his finger onto the next message. He’d done that before. He had trashed the second message by mistake.

Claven threw his phone at the wall. For the first time in weeks, he cried. He cried until he ran out of tears.

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20 Claven spent the next day in seclusion. After telling Kim about the news of Darren Mauney’s death, he went to bed early and tried without success to sleep. He noticed Kim was having the same problems when his wife quietly got up at 2:00 a.m. so as not to wake him and most likely moved to the couch for a change of scenery. He didn’t bother to tell her he was already awake, and there was no need to be so quiet. His mind wandered aimlessly for hours over the events of the past two months before he finally drifted into a troubled slumber.

He restlessly woke with a nightmare fragment lingering in his mind. The dream started with a domestic scene about as boring and mundane as anything imaginable. He pushed a small shopping cart along a frozen food aisle and noticed one of the wheels kept rattling. That annoyed him.

He opened the door to a freezer filled with frozen pizza, but as he reached inside, his arm went into a colorless black hole.

He heard laughter. It sounded, sort of, like Olivia as a child, but the voice was distant and scratchy like the garble of an aging, deteriorating tape recording. Then, when he pulled his arm out, his fingers and thumb were gone, causing him to stare in puzzlement at the mangled stub. Oddly, he felt no fear or any emotion at all. Suddenly, he felt a hard, painful tug on his other arm. He couldn’t see or hear anything now, like Helen Keller. But he could feel. Something yanked his arm from his body, but he was too blind to observe what must be a bloody mess. In the horror of the dream, he pushed the stub of his right hand into 133

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the blood in the left socket, and it felt like sticky jelly. Fear finally swept over him like a wall of fast-surging water. He went from dream-screaming to real-screaming, which woke him up in a cold sweat that gave him chills.

The first thing Claven did was carefully examine his right hand and left arm. He was relieved nothing his overactive brain had concocted was real and he didn’t need a psychiatrist to understand what was on his mind. No dream was wilder or crazier than his current reality. Until all this happened, he saw himself as average in most respects. Well, he was above average in the debt department. He worked at his job, played a little golf, liked a clean car, mowed his lawn, and went to church. He had ups and downs with his wife, but they usually figured things out.

With a man’s macho confidence, he usually believed he could handle whatever stuff life tossed at you. Mr. Average.

Olivia’s disappearance had made a shredded mess of the life he treasured, and his selfish anger about it was hard to suppress. He decided the dream was a warning to stay focused and maintain a healthy respect of the unknown for the sake of his family, even if he had to eventually embrace the unthinkable possibility of a family without Olivia. Then he felt guilty about even having such a thought because it suggested maybe Olivia wasn’t coming back. To consider such a possibility only would weaken his resolve and strengthen his selfish side. He was her father. He owed it to Olivia not to let fear, anger, or anything else prevent him from seeking the truth.

He thought about Darren Mauney. Darren had been murdered. That was hard enough to process, and the emerging facts were even worse than a shot in the head. The stories he had found online said there were burns all over the body. Mauney had been tied naked to a chair and likely tortured, perhaps for information, before someone slit his throat. His laptop computer and other devices were missing. Claven knew Mauney dictated notes into a transcription app on his phone. Curiously, Grazelli wasn’t quoted anywhere in the stories he saw, but most likely, the detective didn’t want to be out front answering reporters’ questions. He wondered if they knew about Mauney’s last 134

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messages to him. That sent a chill through him. Was his family in danger, or was it too risky for these people to raise suspicions by going after them when, really, they knew so little?

Claven was convinced Mauney’s death had everything to do with the investigation into Olivia’s disappearance. He wasn’t sure at all if he should share anything with the authorities.

His cell phone, Kim’s phone, and the house landline had been ringing all day, and Claven had instructed Kim not to answer any calls as they tried to navigate what was happening. Just then, the phone rang again.

“Let’s answer the calls from our friends, Jim,” Kim said. “This is ridiculous. You see the texts. These are people who want to help us.”

Claven said nothing, but he knew his wife was right. He answered the next call.

“Hello.”

“Jim, Colonel Keech here.”

“Yeah, Colonel, I see it’s you on my Caller I.D. What’s up?”

“What do you think’s up, my friend?” the Colonel responded.

“There are people here for you and Kim. All that money I’ve been winning from you in golf goes right back to your Olivia Fund.

Seriously, we’re all here to help.”

“You know Mauney was murdered last night, don’t you? Our investigator is dead.”

“I know. Turn on the news at the top of the hour,” Keech said.

“Channel 8 says they’re doing a story about it. I wanted to make sure you knew.”

“On Darren? Now? Tonight?”

“No, Jim, next month. Of course, I mean tonight. In about two minutes in fact.”

“Thanks, Colonel. Guess I need to keep beating you at the Old Maple.”

“Now, that’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all day. Be well, Jim.” Claven hung up without saying goodbye and looked at his watch. It was time for the news. Bill Slusher, who had been the lead anchor at the station for as long as Claven could remember,

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opened the story.

“Darren Mauney, the nationally known private investigator, was found dead in a hotel room in Washington, D.C. Washington media outlets are quoting anonymous police sources as saying Mauney was the apparent victim of attackers who tortured him before killing him. Mauney has made countless appearances on talk shows around the country and been the subject of books and movies for his prowess in solving difficult and mysterious cases,” Slusher said as a file photo of Mauney appeared on the screen behind him. “Channel 8 viewers will recall that Mauney’s latest case was the disappearance of Olivia Claven, the Azalea Bluff reporter who vanished the night of the small plane crash at the Brinkley High School football field two months ago. Mauney had been working for a group of local residents led by Olivia’s father, Jim Claven of Azalea Bluff. D.C. police are being tightlipped about the case, and we’re reaching out to the Clavens and their supporters for comment on a possible link. Stay tuned to Channel 8 for updates on this story as it develops.”

At that moment, Kim stepped into the study, where Claven was watching the program.

“Jim, there are reporters out in front of our house,” she said.

“Is it about Darren Mauney?”

“Yeah, I’m not surprised, and I’m sure that’s what they want,” Claven said. “We probably should go out there and give them a statement. It’s a very sad way to remind everyone about Olivia.”

“I guess,” she said, adding a comment that surprised him.

“Well, I’m not sure you should do it.”

When he looked up from the television, he could see she had been crying. Her hands were shaking. So was her head as it moved back and forth, silently signaling the word “no.”

“Jim, I didn’t think I would ever say this, but we have to end this thing,” she said. “Or at least we have to get out of the public eye. People we’ve hired are getting murdered for asking too many questions. I’m frightened and I just want our life back. If Olivia is out there, we’re probably making things worse, not better, by poking at everything. And what about our family? We have to think about Sean, too. That doesn’t mean I’ll ever give up hoping 136

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or wanting more answers. Okay?”

“Okay,” Claven said, not agreeing in his heart to stop fighting but not knowing any other way to respond.

“If you go out there, don’t throw fuel on the fire. I’m scared for our family,” she said, staring at him until she had forced him to make eye contact. “Please end it.”

“Okay,” Claven said again, but his tone of voice screamed of uncertainty.

He opened the front door and was greeted by several reporters along with television lights, smartphones being used as audio recorders and curious neighbors.

The first question was the obvious one. “Mr. Claven, did Darren Mauney’s death have anything to do with your daughter’s disappearance? What do you think?”

Other questions were shouted before he had time to answer the first one. He almost decided to say, “Thanks for coming, but no comment other than our thoughts and prayers for Darren’s family,” and then he’d turn around and return to the house. What should he say? Should he tell them about Mauney’s message on his phone? He couldn’t just walk away at a moment when he could get the public thinking about Olivia again.

“We are all saddened over the unexpected death of Darren Mauney,” he said, offering a non-controversial comment to buy time.

Here it was, the moment of truth. The shouted questions stopped and the small, curious mob around him grew quiet as though they could anticipate something interesting was going to come next.

The odd stillness at that moment jarred Claven. He ran his right hand through his thinning brown hair and idly picked at the “Old Maple Country Club” logo on the ever-present golf shirt he was wearing with his other hand. Then he spoke. In every lifetime, there’s a time for courage. He’d learn at some point if he had just decided to be courageous or foolhardy.

“I firmly believe the people who murdered Darron Mauney know what happened to Olivia, our daughter,” he finally said.

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information about Olivia’s disappearance. He wasn’t specific.

Before I could call him back, someone killed him. You connect the dots. I hope the police work harder on his murder than they’ve worked on Olivia’s disappearance so far.”

It was out there now. He couldn’t see Kim’s face as she stood on the other side of the front door, but he knew the expression she had on her face. He felt the fear as well, and he figured he’d be the one sleeping on the couch that night. He hoped as time passed, she’d agree it would have been wrong not to speak out.

Olivia and now Darren deserved better. They deserved the truth.

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21 The next day was Halloween and Jim debated whether to continue the Claven tradition of being one of the most popular homes in the neighborhood for the quality and quantity of candy and cookies they provided young costumed gremlins.

In addition, they always tried to make the house creepy and scary, complete with audio recordings of screams and howls and cobweb decorations hanging over the door.

Vans filled with kids from lower-income neighborhoods, including many who really were too old to be trick-or-treating, usually parked nearby to enjoy the goodies the Clavens and their neighbors provided. No one really minded.

Thanks to Kim, the day started out much better than Claven expected it would. “I woke up and realized I have every reason to be scared, but maybe I need to be more courageous,” was the first thing she said as she poured coffee for herself. “I’m not convinced, but maybe you’re right. But where can we go without Mr. Mauney?”

“That’s a good question,” was all Jim could think to say. “I’m working on that.”

With at least a temporary truce in place over the big questions, they talked about other things, including whether it seemed in bad taste to go forward with their usual Halloween festivities.

Finally, they agreed focusing on Halloween might give them a break from the stresses of recent months with one concession: They wouldn’t dress in costumes. In recent years, Jim walked around the yard dressed as the Grim Reaper while Kim was a 139

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vampire victim with a mask that made it look like half her face was missing. The annual transformation of their parents thoroughly embarrassed both Olivia and Sean, which reinforced Jim and Kim to continue doing it. (“Why have kids if you can’t embarrass them,” Jim liked to joke.) This year they wouldn’t don costumes.

It obviously was in bad taste, and it wouldn’t help Olivia at all if some jerk took such a picture and put it on Instagram.

When early evening arrived, the Clavens were ready and the doorbell began ringing. As always, there were many bright, clever costumes, cute little ghouls, and older kids with fake blood dripping from made-up orifices. Teenagers who were barely costumed other than some charcoal under their eyes would come later as they always did, toting pillowcases substituting for treat bags. The flow of trick-or-treaters had been constant, with some waiting in line to approach the front steps, for about an hour when an older man and three small children arrived out front.

“Hello! Trick or treat!” the goblins called.

“Well, hey there. Would you like some candy?” Jim replied.

Kim had taken door duty for the first hour. Now it was his turn.

“Yeah, chocolate,” one child said.

“Chocolate PLEASE,” said a grandfatherly man who was accompanying the small group, cutting in.

“Please, can we have some chocolate?” asked a little girl.

Jim replied, “I think we can handle that. Here you go.”

Then the older man spoke. “Hello, Mr. Claven.”

Jim responded automatically, “Hey, how are you?” However, he didn’t recognize the man at all and stumbled to introduce himself. “I’m sorry about this, but if we’ve met, you’ve got me at a slight disadvantage. I don’t remember your name. Apologies.”

“No apology needed. We haven’t met, I’m Harold Martens, and these are my grandchildren, Dylan, Dustin, and Maddy.”

“Well, Mr. Martens, those are some cute goblins.”

“Are things settling down for you?”

“Oh, I guess it’s been pretty hectic tonight, but that’s the way it always is. The teens will be here pretty soon, I’m sure.”

“No,” Martens said. “I’m talking about the crash some months back.”

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Claven wondered if that’s how Martens knew his name.

Maybe he had seen him on television. The conversation seemed to be taking a weird turn, but Claven decided to be polite. Maybe this guy would offer financial support to the cause.

“Yeah,” Claven replied. “Thanks for asking. It’s hard. It’ll always be hard unless and until we get some answers, and I guess it depends on the answers ….”

To his surprise, Claven started to choke up as he tried to finish the sentence. Something about the question had punched a hole in the emotional wall he had erected to navigate everyday life. He collected himself before responding.

“Things, as you can imagine, are probably never going to be the same for me. For my family. I’m sure of that. This has been very frustrating and stressful. I don’t know what else to say.”

Martens looked at Claven quizzically, as though he was trying to make up his mind about something. Martens was a tall man, probably six-foot-five or taller, with a shaved head and a confident look. He looked to be in his 60s or maybe even his early 70s. He was unusually lean, though the untucked shirt covered a slight paunch. He would have been more imposing for his age, except there was a gentleness to his manner that seemed to permeate his expressions. He was slightly stooped forward, maybe from a bad back, and he wore an unzipped North Face fleece jacket over a light-blue shirt with a pattern of dark-blue checks. It was the kind of loose-fitting shirt fly-fishermen wore that provided plenty of ventilation and sun protection while wicking moisture away. He reached into one of the untucked shirt’s many pockets.

“Look,” Martens said. “Here’s my card. You might want to call me next week.”

Claven wasn’t sure what to make of that. “Okay,” he said.

“Why is that Mr. Martens?”

“Call me Harold,” he replied. Then he lightly placed his hand on Claven’s shoulder for a moment. He said, “I’m sure you’d like to know what came down out there on the football field. Wouldn’t you?”

“Of course. You know I would,” Claven said.

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“For now, let’s just say I know a few things, and I’ve got a good idea,” Martens said. “Maybe I can help you.”

“My wife and I are debating if we’re doing more harm than good,” Claven said, surprised he was sharing that thought with a stranger, though his manner made him so approachable. “It might be time for us to let it go, and maybe we should let the authorities do their jobs.”

“Is that what you think you should do?” Martens asked, emphasizing the word “you.”

For the second time that week, Claven had to confront the question of what he really wanted to happen next.

“No,” he said quietly. “I’d like to know the truth. We need to know the truth.”

“Then call me. Let’s talk,” Martens said. “Take a chance with me, but this isn’t the time or place. Tonight, I just needed to meet you first. Had to decide.”

“Decide what?”

“Decide if you were someone I wanted to talk to, whether you’re a serious person with an open mind. I’m a pretty quick judge of character, and you seem like a solid citizen. A little gullible maybe, but solid.”

Martens chuckled at his own comment. “Look,” he continued, “I promise I’m not out for anything different than you are. It isn’t going to cost you anything. Now these kids are getting restless.

We’ve got to keep moving.”

Claven could see that was true as the children were squirming, and granddaughter Maddy was tugging at Martens’ coat. Claven nodded, though he was unsure if he wanted to follow up.

“Good night, Mr. Claven,” Martens said as he turned his back to the house and began walking with his grandchildren toward the sidewalk. He waved a hand in the air. “I’ll be expecting your call. My number’s on the card.”

Claven went inside and closed the door, grabbing his “cheater” glasses so he could read the card. There wasn’t much to see. Along with a phone number, a website link, and a Yahoo email address, it simply said, “Harold Martens | Author” in embossed, dark blue letters.

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Author? Author of what? Claven wondered. Man, I hope this guy isn’t a nut job.

Claven was a typical casual churchgoer who had more questions than answers about faith. With an accountant’s love of proof and logic, he had never been able to embrace the notion “everything happens for a reason.” Still, he thought, if a grandfather showing up on his doorstep on Halloween could help him find his daughter, he’d sign up as a believer.

He felt driven to do two things. First, he’d get on his computer to learn as much about Martens as he could. Then, unless he found out Martens was a sociopathic killer free on parole or something equally disturbing, he knew he’d contact his unexpected visitor.

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22 As soon as trick-or-treat time was over, Claven headed to his study and typed “Harold Martens” into the Google search bar with great anticipation.

The plan was to get up early the next morning and head to his office. He had a lot of work to do, but if he needed to find time to meet with Martens, he’d make something happen. He hoped he could find a reason to seek that meeting – or at least he hoped he didn’t have a reason to avoid the tall, grandfatherly man with kind eyes.

Claven quickly discovered Martens had written several books about unidentified flying objects and other unexplained events in the skies over Earth. The books were readily available at Amazon. He knew that didn’t mean much, but further probing revealed the books weren’t self-published. They came from a legitimate publisher and seemed to sell fairly well. One book particularly interested him. It was a book he might have read himself just for fun since it involved the region where he had lived all his life. It was titled “Strange Lights in Carolina Blue Skies.” The Amazon blurb to promote the book struck Claven as pretty trite, but still intriguing. It said this: “Martens probes deeply into the many strange aerial sightings in the Carolinas which have been well-documented and frequently dismissed or discounted by government officials since 1945. Why the need for secrecy? What really happened? The author provides some surprising and believable answers to these unsolved mysteries.

The truth, indeed, is out there!”

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Martens had his own website, too. The author’s biography page explained how he developed his fascination with the UFO craze that occurred at the close of World War II. It said he came from a family who encouraged lively arguments “to question anything and everything.” His skepticism about the government’s explanations of odd phenomena only grew after he went to work for NASA as a young analyst in the 1970s with a doctorate in physics that complemented his undergraduate degree in aeronautical engineering from Georgia Tech. He had traveled the world extensively to investigate UFO mysteries and was well-known to government agencies as someone constantly pestering them to release classified documents.

As Claven scrolled through various blog postings and other comments on Martens’ website and elsewhere on the internet, it appeared Martens retired from NASA earlier than planned.

Based on what he had been reading, Claven figured Martens was one of those “problem employees” who questioned too many management decisions. These days it appeared Martens spent his time writing, teaching an astronomy course at a community college, and, obviously, hanging out with his grandkids. From what he could gather from a quick overview, it appeared Martens tried to carefully document and support his claims.

As Claven drilled deeper, he concluded there was a good chance the visitor at his doorstep might have some crazy ideas, but he wasn’t a crackpot. Maybe Harold Martens could help, though he’d remain skeptical. The crash on the Brinkley High School field had sparked a lot of weird speculation, and he also knew Mauney strongly believed something other than a small private plane crashed there.

Just then, Claven’s phone chirped the opening bars of Pink Floyd’s “Money,” which was his ring tone for client calls. An apologetic client needed last-minute help getting prepared for a meeting in two days with an auditor from the Internal Revenue Service. Nearly three hours and $350 worth of billable time later, it was 11:45 p.m. and Claven had finished a memorandum that had a slim-but-possible chance of getting his client out of a huge mess and a strong possibility of at least making things less 145

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painful. He was exhausted but used coffee to fuel another two hours of research into the work of Harold Martens. *** At lunchtime, Claven realized he was procrastinating. It was time to make the call.

“This is Harold Martens speaking.”

“Harold, this is Jim Claven.”

“Right on the money, I had two side bets with myself. One, that you indeed would call and, two, you’d call in less than 48 hours.”

“Well, I hope you pay yourself handsomely.”

“The quest for knowledge is its own reward,” Martens said.

“Seriously, we need a sit-down, Jim. I’m not going over anything on the phone.”

“Why not?” Claven asked. “I looked up some things on you.

Are you afraid the aliens might be listening?”

“Oh, that’s funny,” Martens said. “Glad you did some homework. What I know or think I know is far more than what I say in public. Really, I’d be more concerned about humans listening. And, that’s more possible than you probably think.

Even if no one’s listening, it’s just better to have an old-fashioned, face-to-face meeting. If that makes me sound old, so be it.”

“Well, I actually agree with that. You want to come back to the house?”

“No, but I happen to know where you eat lunch on occasion.”

“Oh, you mean…”

Martens cut him off. He said, “Yes, let’s meet at The Hill on Thursday around noon. I’ve got a lot to tell you.”

“Well, I can’t wait.”

“And Jim, not a word about this to anyone.”

“Okay.”

“I mean it. Don’t say a word.”

Claven hung up and realized his pulse was racing. As time passed, the mysteries kept deepening instead of clarifying. It was obvious Martens didn’t just happen to be in the Old Maple 146

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neighborhood taking his grandkids trick or treating. The need for secrecy and the odd meeting arrangements only added to his curiosity.

He made a mental note to go to Amazon.com so he could download Martens’ book on the Carolinas and to ask Kim to bake some cookies he could take to Martens for his grandchildren.

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23 Claven purposely arrived early at the Hill Bar and Grill on Thursday. It was always like walking into a good friend’s house whenever he showed up. Jim knew both of the owners and usually saw one or the other every time he walked in the door. Today was no different as Drew Davidson greeted Jim loudly. Davidson was a large, stocky man who had been a good-enough defensive lineman for Brinkley High School in the early 1990s to win a football scholarship to Appalachian State University, which was often the best Division II football program in the country. Knee and lower-back injuries had doomed both his collegiate and professional dreams, but he joked he could still move faster with his permanent limp than anyone who might try to cause trouble in the bar. He was a good man to have on your side.

Drew shouted, “Jimbo Claven’s in the house!”

Claven said, “Hey, Drew. What do you have to say for yourself?”

“As usual, when you enter, I just don’t know what to say. Hey, are you meeting somebody here?”

“Yeah, where’s he sitting?”

“He’s not, Jimbo, but he’s waiting for you outside.”

“Outside?

“Yeah, come here.”

Davidson took Claven to the window and pointed to a maroon SUV in the parking lot, an older but obviously wellmaintained Chevrolet Tahoe. He said, “Your boy’s out there.”

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“Uh, okay, thanks. I thought I’d get here first, but apparently not.”

“Hey, Jimbo, what’s up, man? Are you guys coming in to eat or what?”

“Yeah, I thought that was the plan. Maybe something changed. This is a new client. He lives in Chapel Hill, liberal university la-la land, so maybe he thinks you’re serving possum in here and doesn’t want to eat. Let me see what he’s going to do.

Then I’ll check back with you.”

“Oh, that’s hilarious. You gonna want your usual?”

“Yeah, Drew, I want the best burger in town.”

“Can do. I’ll make it with my best grounded-up squirrel. It’s easier to chew squirrel if it’s ground up when you don’t have teeth like none of us have in these-here parts. I’ll make one for him, too.

“Say, is there any reason I should have your back on this?”

Davidson added. “Seriously, this seems a little weird. He’s older, but he’s a big dude in a big SUV. At least it isn’t black. Still, it makes you wonder, especially with what you’ve been going through.”

Claven gave a half-hearted laugh. “Hey, it’s a maroon Tahoe, not quite as big as a honking black Suburban like the government operatives drive,” he said. “I think I’ll be fine. But thanks, though.

Plus, take a look. Who smokes a pipe? Now we know he’s not from these parts.”

Both men laughed. As Claven walked over to the Tahoe, he saw thin wisps of gray smoke coming out of the driver’s side window, which was cracked open at the top. As he got closer, he saw Martens puffing on the pipe. Martens motioned Claven to get in on the passenger side.

“Hello again, Mr. Martens,” Claven said as he settled into the vehicle. “I can’t remember the last time I saw someone smoking a pipe. It helped us conclude you are not a physical threat to my well-being.”

Martens laughed. “It’s the one bad habit I have left, and I’m not allowed to smoke in the house. I don’t think you have much to worry about other than second-hand smoke today.”

“Yeah, I guess I’m a little nervous.”

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“Well, don’t be nervous because of me, but as far as this other, larger situation, you might have reasons for serious concern.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better.”

“Jim, how much time have you got today?”

“I cleared most of the afternoon.”

“Good, because as I said earlier, you and I have a lot of ground to cover. Did you research me thoroughly on the internet?”

“Enough to know you’re a legitimate author with a major passion for UFOs. I didn’t realize there were still people around who paid attention to those old stories other than crackpots. But you don’t strike me as a crackpot. No offense.”

Martens responded, “None taken by your demonstration of ignorance. Believe me, this subject isn’t just for nerds who live in their basements and binge-watch ‘Ancient Aliens’ on the History Channel. I was vaguely aware of these stories as a kid in the 1950s and 1960s. I wasn’t around for World War II, but my father and uncles were. Back then, we lived around the little town of Lumberton. I didn’t hear the war stories until I was older, but my Uncle Paul came back home to us as a different man.”

“Was he wounded during the war?”

“Now that’s an interesting question,” Martens said. “Not physically beyond a few bumps, a sprained ankle he got when he slipped leaving a London pub and some flying debris that nicked his shoulder on a flight over France through a sky filled with Nazi flak. In that regard, I guess he was lucky.”

He paused to reinforce his next point. “Mentally, I think he was scarred and damaged. He saw a lot of action. He was in the Battle of the Bulge as part of the 12th Army. It took the largest and most powerful Army group ever assembled to defeat the Nazis when they fought back after D-Day.” Martens looked directly at Claven. “Paul had far too much experience with death, and I think it changed him. He was one of the first persons to enter one of the Nazi death camps, too. He could be a very distant person, but if you got him going and he trusted you, usually after a few drinks, he’d talk about some of the things he saw. He’d do it like he was reciting a police report.

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He’d never show any emotion, but you could always sense it was there, just underneath.”

“I was never in the military, never in a war,” Claven said. “I can’t imagine.”

“No, no, you can’t, and neither can I. But some of those talks my brother and I had with Uncle Paul is where our story gets interesting. And I think it connects to your daughter.”

“I’m surprised he would talk much about it,” Claven said.

“In my family, my older relatives who served in World War II were exactly like the stereotypes about these guys. You know, the ‘Greatest Generation.’ They weren’t inclined to brag or even talk much about their war experiences, except maybe with each other. They just came home after doing their duty and then did their duty to their families. They raised us. They weren’t perfect.

Nobody is. But they were good providers. Most of us had it pretty easy by comparison.”

“Maybe Paul felt he needed to open up to somebody,” Martens said. “Whatever his reasons, I’m glad he felt he could talk to me.

It meant a lot and changed my life. Plus, his experiences weren’t typical by any stretch of the imagination. Especially after the socalled end of the war in Europe.”

“What do you mean by ‘so-called’?” Claven asked, his curiosity growing.

“Now we’re at the starting line,” Martens replied. “You see, Jim, Uncle Paul told the stories that first got me interested in UFOs. He started my infatuation with the subject. And it’s the biggest part of the story I’m going to tell you, Jim. It’s a story about things Uncle Paul told me, along with other things I pieced together later.

“Have you ever heard about a Nazi commander named Hans Kammler and something called ‘Operation Paperclip’?”

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24 Claven simply shook his head, answering “no” in silence. He knew nothing about Kammler or something called “Operation Paperclip.” Martens puffed on his pipe before providing the answers.

“When Nazi Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945, the visible part of World War II in Europe ended, but there was already was a shadow war between the United States and the Soviet Union underway. At stake was nothing less than dominance of Europe and perhaps the world in sort of an ultimate clash between communism and capitalism as a way of economics and between fascism and democracy as a way of governing.

“The conflict that would quickly escalate into the Cold War lasted for the next four decades,” Martens continued. “It seemed to end with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, but I was one of those people who never believed that would be the end of it. And, sure enough, things picked up again with the rise of Vladimir Putin’s regime in Russia. What Putin wants should surprise no one. He wants nothing less than the restoration of ‘Mother Russia’ to his vision of its former greatness.

“Of course, all that was far in the future in 1945. Millions of everyday people felt relief the fighting had stopped. Still, American, British and Soviet leaders all understood the troubling reality the Nazis almost won World War II. They probably blew it before America was even fully engaged because of Hitler’s own arrogance and strategic blunders. They were ahead of the Allies in many areas of research. That’s why there were no postwar 152

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prisoners more valuable or dangerous in the wrong hands than the best Nazi scientists and their direct bosses. Both sides particularly wanted to find the people involved in research that would provide any military or strategic advantage.

“The obvious advances the Nazis had made in submarines, fighter aircraft, and rocketry during the war testified we had a lot to worry about,” Martens said. “As American, British and Soviet troops talked to captured Nazi officers and began reading the seized papers that described secret research, we quickly learned our fears were justified. As vile and misguided though these guys were, they were brilliant. If anything, the situation was even worse.

“After the war, the Allies learned the Nazis had jet fighters that might have driven the Allies’ propeller planes out of the skies if only the Germans had found a way to buy more time and keep their factories and refineries humming. Fortunately, as we all know today, with the luxury of looking back, Hitler made a huge mistake by double-crossing his Soviet partners in 1941.

The Soviet invasion opened up a costly, two-front war. Here in America, we tend to think it’s all about us. We don’t give the Soviets enough credit for the huge losses they endured in World War II and how they fought back.”

“And we quickly had to split apart from Stalin and the Soviets as soon as the war ended,” Claven said. “It was an alliance of pure convenience.”

“That’s right,” Martens said. “It became an intense rivalry.

Both countries mounted big efforts to track any fleeing Nazi with knowledge about the secret research. The Nazis had top-secret projects scattered throughout Europe and even Antarctica.

Many facilities were underground, built and maintained with slave labor. That included thousands of European Jews among the millions the Nazis executed during the Holocaust.

“The idea of Operation Paperclip was to find these Nazi leaders, take them into custody, learn what they knew and convince them to work for our side. If they said ‘no,’ any captured Nazi would quickly see they had few alternatives that didn’t involve death, disappearance, or life in prison.

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“And no human prize was bigger than Hans Kammler,” Martens concluded before telling his uncle’s personal story. *** Master Sgt. Paul Martens, an agent in the Army’s Counter Intelligence Corps, was in a highly classified unit with one mission: Find Kammler and try to take him alive. Other CIC agents taking part in Operation Paperclip had similar targets and similar orders: Locate the most valuable Nazis, bring them back alive, or if that wasn’t possible, make sure they couldn’t help anyone else, especially the Soviets. It was a license to kill if necessary.

It was the middle of June 1945, a little more than a month since the armistice officially ended the war, and the search for Kammler had been nothing but an exercise in exhausting frustration.

Paul Martens thought about that as he flicked the remains of a cigarette to the ground and watched the smoke curl slowly as he used the heel of his worn Army boot to extinguish the butt of his Lucky Strike. He wished he could just as easily crush the massive nearby compound the same way. He thought he had seen the worst of war during the past four years, but nothing compared to the ugliness of the place where he stood. Evil seemed to seethe here, oozing like a festering wound out of everything he smelled, touched, heard, and observed. No matter how much he tried to focus on the stunning beauty of the snow-capped Austrian Alps in the distance, he knew he’d never be able to erase memories of what they’d found at the Ebensee Concentration Camp.

Ramshackle buildings stood behind fences that no longer stood in straight lines disrupted by fires and bullets during the Allied occupation. A dull haze seemed to hang over everything, and there were moments when Martens couldn’t be sure if the stench of death and fire was real or seared into his imagination like a hot brand on a steer’s ass.

The records they’d found suggested nearly 30,000 male inmates had been held there and almost half of them died 154

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there. Political prisoners and doomed Jews had been forced into slave labor until the U.S. 80th Infantry Division liberated the camp on May 6, one day before the war in Europe ended.

The Nazis, true to the German stereotype, were meticulous record keepers, which helped the team understand the horrors of everyday life; but they’d also found evidence in ash piles the Nazis burned thousands of documents before they tried to flee.

Some succeeded. Some didn’t.

A handful of surviving prisoners hadn’t been evacuated from the camp yet. Martens saw most of them stared vacantly, barely able to walk if they could move at all. They were scarecrows masquerading as men.

When the Allied troops arrived, they discovered suffering on a scale that Martens found hard to believe but had to accept as true. About 300 prisoners were dying every day. One record showed over 2,000 Jewish prisoners had arrived in one day in March, only two months before the camp was liberated. Prisoners reported the commander forced them to stay outside as it snowed for more than a day. More than 4,500 prisoners died in April alone. Captured Nazi soldiers explained the crematorium could not vaporize all the bodies fast enough. They showed the liberators a mass grave. It turned out to be a gigantic pit holding more than 2,000 bodies. The scale by itself seemed to dehumanize the victims.

Martens thought about the pit as he stared at the compound and the scarecrow men. He made it a point to contemplate every corpse in that pit had been an individual, living human. They had hopes, dreams, families, friends, and their faith. Martens wondered if, before they died, the believers among the dead wondered why any God worth worshipping would allow such things to happen, especially the Jews who had been singled out for such agony. He wondered if the victims were angry at the end. Sad? Resigned to their fate?

He wasn’t Jewish and didn’t know many Jews growing up.

He felt ashamed that he had always thought of them as strange.

He was raised in a devout Catholic home, and he had no good answers to explain such evil except to try to believe maybe these 155

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people were in a better place now. Looking down at his hand, Martens realized he was unconsciously working his fingers around the rosary beads he kept in his pocket.

He wished he could go home right now and talk to Father Max, who had heard his confessions since he was a child. He wanted answers that would bring some peace to his shaken faith.

He doubted Father Max could say anything that would satisfy him. He was a child no longer, and it made him sad.

Then he remembered there were children in the death pit as well. Somehow, the Nazis had found ways to escalate unspeakable evil by murdering innocent children. He had a vision of a German soldier tossing his 10-year-old nephew Charley into such a pit.

The horror also strengthened his resolve to complete his mission.

It mattered. Humanity demanded a reckoning for what he was seeing. He needed to learn what kind of man would not only allow such things to happen but relentlessly work to make such suffering more efficient and easier to inflict.

“And now we’re in a new war,” Martens said out loud to no one in particular. “We need to find this shit-bag Hans Kammler.”

“Roger that,” said Capt. Sherman Levy, leader of Martens’ small, highly skilled team. Martens hadn’t realized Levy was in earshot, but Sherm’s quick smile sent a signal it was okay – both the profanity and that Martens had been caught talking to empty space. He saw Levy unconsciously fiddle with the Star of David symbol on the chain with his dog tags. Levy was Jewish, and Martens couldn’t imagine how difficult this duty had to be for Levy.

For days, they had followed rumors Kammler was in Ebensee or nearby, searching for clues others might have missed in earlier sweeps. With the help of others who could translate German faster than either of them, they had spent hours looking at thousands of pages of documents the Nazis had been unable to burn before the Allies captured the camp. Then they spent several days walking through massive, underground tunnels that were safe from Allied bombs as slave labor produced armaments inside.

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They found tantalizing hints in some of the documents the Nazis were doing much more in those tunnels than making bombs and bullets, but no one so far could verify what that meant other than some type of additional scientific research.

What they knew for sure was that Hans Kammler would have been very involved in whatever was happening here. Martens sat on a log and pulled the briefing paper out of his pocket again as if reading it for probably the hundredth time would change anything.

Under the all-caps title, “SUBJECT: HANS KAMMLER,” there was a picture of an average-looking man with dark hair, a white shirt, and a tie. He was clean-shaven with relatively small eyes. Kammler was trained as a civil engineer, and Martens thought to himself, if you were told to select a picture of a man who fit the stereotype of a civil engineer, you’d pick Hans Kammler every time. He would barely get a glance if you passed him on the street or sat next to him in a pub. And that would be a major mistake because Kammler was far more dangerous than the modest-looking man in the photo.

He was born in Poland, then part of the German Empire, in 1901, making him 38 years old when Hitler launched what became World War II. By the end of the war, Kammler’s reputation for relentless hard work, ruthlessness, and engineering skills brought him one of the highest possible ranks, that of SS-Obergruppenfuhrer. He was the head of all Nazi missile projects. Another famous Nazi commander, Albert Speer, had put Kammler in charge of specialized construction tasks and buildings throughout the Nazi empire. He had been in charge of making cremation facilities more efficient, including at Auschwitz, the most infamous of the Nazi death camps. How many thousands of Jews and others died in those camps, thanks to Kammler’s “efficiency?” Martens wondered. At the end of the war, Kammler was working tirelessly to get Nazi jet fighters into combat.

He had constructed numerous facilities for secret weapons projects. In another high-profile project, Kammler was in charge of moving rocket facilities underground at Mittelwerk and its 157

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adjacent concentration camp, Mittelbau-Dora, which provided slave labor for construction and production. The time pressure to complete the work was intense, and Kammler simply said this about the workers who had to get it done: “Don’t worry about the victims.”

A member of Martens’ team had found a tantalizing and curious clue in the burned fragment of another memorandum.

Just a few months earlier, on April 1, Kammler had ordered the evacuation of 500 Nazi technicians to the Alps, perhaps to Ebensee, but they couldn’t be sure. And he had ordered the destruction of “all special V-1 rocket equipment” at the Syke base in northern Germany. Was that code for something more? What the order meant wasn’t clear.

What was clear after a few more days was if Kammler had been in Ebensee recently, he wasn’t there now. Martens’ search had to continue.

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25 Weeks later, Martens prepared to enter a small, locked room at an old police station in Berlin to question an odd-looking man named Curt Perlich. He could hear a cold rain pelt the window at the end of the hall as he approached the windowless room where he planned to spend at least an hour – if he got lucky with Perlich.

He didn’t feel lucky. The fatigue from his travels weighed on him like a heavy blanket. He knew his clothes stank of too many cigarettes, and the bags under his eyes, if anything, made him look even more exhausted than he felt. That wouldn’t work when questioning a battle-tested Nazi soldier. Martens gave himself a quick pep talk, so when he entered the room, he’d project confidence mixed with indifference to whether the subject helped them or not.

The reality was much different. This interview fit Martens’ definition of grasping at straws. His expectations for this meeting were lower than his mood. They were down to guesses and long shots now in their hunt for Kammler. They had uncovered mountains of material about Nazi research, not only in Germany, Austria, and Poland, but also Norway and even Antarctica. They’d confirmed the suspicion that few Nazi leaders were more important than Kammler or held in more respect by Hitler himself. It appeared he knew everything the Nazis were doing with fighter jets, bombs, rockets, and God knows what else. There were more tantalizing clues that “what else” involved things that seemed crazy.

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They had traced Kammler’s steps to a region of Germany called Lower Silesia where prisoners had told them about secret research into “unimaginable weapons.” Martens’ unit had been ordered there by Gen. George S. Patton himself, one of America’s most respected and famous generals. A team of about 50 war-hardened and experienced men, the largest group they’d assembled yet in Operation Paperclip, descended on the little town. But there was no sign of Kammler. They found scattered papers and survivors with wild stories about “electromagnetic propulsion devices” and weird fluids that were the subjects of deadly experiments and somehow created “mirrors to the past.”

It seemed obvious to Martens that Kammler if he was alive, could turn out to be even more valuable a catch than von Braun, the brilliant, young Nazi scientist who had surrendered to U.S. infantry troops with his brother in early May – keeping von Braun out of Soviet hands. Von Braun was one of dozens of Nazi scientists, engineers, and researchers being brought to the U.S. They needed to make sure Kammler joined them and didn’t end up with an address in Moscow or anywhere else in the Soviet Union.

Von Braun tried to help his new captors, or at least he claimed he was trying. He had sent them on one fruitless journey when the Nazi rocket scientist told questioners he had overheard a discussion involving Kammler about plans to hide at Ettal Abbey, a monastery in Bavaria near the Austrian border. They believed he had eventually moved from there to Ebensee. The trail grew cold until an odd statement surfaced in recent weeks, hence the all-out effort to find and talk to Perlich.

Martens nodded to a guard, signaling to unlock the door.

He turned the knob and entered the room where they’d placed Perlich. Light fixtures flickered above Perlich, creating a weird strobe effect like a bad horror film. He noticed peeling white paint on the upper half of the wall behind the Nazi, though the bottom half had a recent coat of glossy gray paint. It would be just the two of them, sitting in hard chairs across from one another at a table that was empty except for two small ashtrays. He spoke to Perlich in German and offered him a Lucky Strike.

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“I have this statement you wrote about Hans Kammler,” Martens said. (“Ich habe diese Aussage, die Sie über Hans Kammler geschrieben haben.”)

Perlich paused, perhaps surprised by Martens’ command of the language. He took the cigarette and accepted Martens’ unspoken offer of a light from the sergeant’s tarnished silver Zippo lighter – a gift from his father before he left for basic training in what seemed like a lifetime ago.

“I acknowledge that you have it. So what?” Perlich replied after taking a long draw on the cigarette. “We were better than you at many things, but one thing your country has is good tobacco,” he added, changing the subject. “Danke,” he added, using the German word for “thanks.”

Martens ignored the comment beyond a nod of acknowledgment. He asked, “So, you were Kammler’s driver?”

“And what of that?” Perlich asked.

“Kammler’s widow says he should be declared dead. She says he died in early May. You say you saw his corpse and went to his burial. You put that in this statement. Is that right?”

Perlich looked at Martens, who thought the Nazi driver had an odd, distant expression in his voice when he replied with one word, showing no emotion. “Yes.” “We don’t believe that,” Martens said, purposely raising his voice and slamming his fist on the table. “We don’t believe he’s dead.”

“Believe what you want,” Perlich said, dismissing the comment with a wave of his hand. “That’s what the victors get to do. They get to write history as they wish.”

“How did he die then?”

“How exactly I don’t know,” Perlich said and then offered information beyond the minimum for the first time. “Different people have different ideas about that.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means I don’t know,” Perlich said, shrugging his shoulders.

“Heart attack? Maybe he died in bed with five whores or five boys. Maybe it was three whores and two boys. Maybe he ate some bad sardines. How would I know? I was not there.” Perlich shrugged and added one other suggestion. “Cyanide, maybe?”

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Perlich put the last comment in the form of a question as though he expected Martens to have the answer. The answer didn’t surprise Martens because many Nazi leaders had taken their own lives to avoid questioning, knowing that lifelong imprisonment or execution was how their stories would most likely end otherwise.

“So, Curt, that’s an interesting theory,” Martens said. “But at least in my experience, when someone kills himself, there’s a body. But here, in this case, I’m wondering how you explain we don’t have a body, or at least no one knows what happened to it. I think this corpse you say you saw didn’t exist. Kammler’s wife wants him declared dead, but, well, wouldn’t you agree that’s kind of difficult when there’s no body?”

Perlich’s answer was a shrug. Martens returned it with a shrug of his own and glared at the prisoner, waiting for an answer.

“Believe what you want,” Perlich finally repeated. “I said what I said. Beyond that, I cannot help you.” He punctuated his comment by pushing the burning embers of his cigarette harshly into the ashtray.

Martens ignored the gesture. Then Martens asked the question he had been waiting to ask until Perlich was in a rhythm of passive resistance, thinking only about Kammler and not the activities the ruthless Nazi leader commanded.

Martens slapped his hand hard on the table to get Perlich’s attention. It worked. He saw Perlich look up and stare straight at him with ice-blue eyes that would have pierced a hole through Martens’ skull if Perlich could have turned his eyes into weapons.

Martens also made it a point to raise his voice to almost a shout.

“Wunderwaffe,” Martens shouted in German, then switched back to English. “Curt, what can you tell me about the wunderwaffe? The wonder weapon. We know Kammler was working on it. We know you know about it.”

Martens could see Perlich hesitate. That was the “tell,” the kind of involuntary act interrogators and poker players always sought about opponents. Perlich knew something.

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want you to know this is the time when you have a one-minute opportunity. This is the moment that changes the rest of your life, probably including how long you will live it. You can go to prison, and my guess is since you spent so much time around a ruthless bastard like Kammler, you’ll either die in prison or get executed like the other war criminals. Or, the rest of your life can be pretty comfortable. You’re smart enough to know you don’t mean shit to us, except for what you know. We want Kammler and we want to know more about what your superiors were doing. If you help, we can make a lot of your problems go away.

This is the time.”

He finally had Perlich’s attention. Martens would go to his grave believing Perlich was getting ready to speak, but he never had the chance.

Martens heard a sharp, loud double-knock from behind. It sounded urgent. He rose up from the metal chair and straightened as he opened the door. He was surprised to see the face of Sherm Levy, who motioned him to come into the hall.

“New orders,” Levy said in a toneless voice, holding a telegram in his hand. Without speaking, he pointed to the paper and passed it to Martens. The only noise in the hall was the crinkle of the document as Martens grabbed it. Even the pelting rain had stopped.

Martens scanned the header and quickly saw it was from CIC headquarters in Washington, many pay grades above either him or the captain. He skimmed through the normal military acronyms and headings and read the two sentences that formed the essence of the message.

ALL QUESTIONING RELATED TO SUBJECT KAMMLER TO CEASE IMMEDIATELY. PREPARE TO DEPLOY TO D.C. FOR FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS. Levy and Martens stared at each other.

Martens said, “Captain, what the hell?”

“Paul, I don’t know any more than you do,” Levy replied.

“We’re done here. The good news is we get to go home.”

A week later, Curt Perlich was dead. They said he hung himself in his cell. Martens wasn’t so sure, but he knew he could be sure he’d never know the full story.

163

26 Harold Martens stopped to catch his breath. He stared at Jim Claven and felt sad and weary – two feelings he didn’t anticipate as he told his uncle’s story to someone else for the first time in many years.

“Jim,” he said. “Are you beginning to understand where I’m going?”

“Maybe. Sort of,” Claven said. “I suspect the follow-up is that you and your uncle believed Hans Kammler ended up in America. Is that right? It’s a fascinating story, but I only vaguely see what that might have to do with Olivia.”

“Hang in there,” Martens said. “You’re right. Uncle Paul came home from the war and never got over the mystery of Hans Kammler. You might say he was obsessed with it.”

“So, what actually happened to this Nazi?”

“I believe someone knows, but they aren’t saying. As late as 1955, his wife confirmed again for the authorities her husband knew in 1945 the Americans were after him. She believed he killed himself because he refused their offers. She was certain taking cyanide is exactly what he would do. He was a Nazi to the end, at least in her eyes.

“But no one ever saw a body. Other accounts say he was killed by Czech resistance fighters. Some said his aide shot him to prevent him from falling into the hands of the Yanks or the Soviets.

“Most tantalizing of all, there’s a 1946 report that claims Kammler appeared at the CIC office in Gmunden, only about 164

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a 20-minute drive from Ebensee, and provided a statement on operations at Ebensee.”

Claven responded, “So, in other words, when your uncle was interviewing that driver in Berlin, Kammler might have been right down the road from where they had been in Austria.”

“That’s right,” Martens said. “And here’s the final mystery.

Another special agent, Donald Richardson, claimed to his family he brought Kammler to the United States as part of Operation Paperclip. He said Kammler was kept in maximum security, maybe in the desert on some type of remote base, probably Nevada or New Mexico would be my guess. Did you know, by the way, the U.S. government owns more than 80 percent of Nevada’s land? I’ve done the research. That’s about 58 million acres. By comparison, the entire state of Rhode Island is 677,000 acres.

Nevada’s federally owned land is roughly the size of the entire state of Utah. The Department of Defense publicly manages about 281,000 acres – primarily two air force bases and Area 51.

In case you don’t know, that’s the legendary, highly classified site some believe holds evidence of alien spacecraft and life outside of Earth.”

Martens continued, “The Department of Energy controls another 860,000 acres, including the site of more than 900 nuclear tests conducted during and after World War II. The actual amount of land used for classified or secret purposes is not a statistic available for public view. That’s my long way of saying Nevada would be a very logical place to take a guy like Kammler.”

“So,” Claven asked. “Do we know what happened to him or not?”

“The short answer is I don’t know,” Martens said. “Richardson thought eventually Kammler killed himself with pills, or maybe he hung himself. Again, that was often the Nazi way. Better for his wife to think he took poison and died a Nazi, don’t you think?”

“Maybe,” Claven said. “Or, you could argue she’d want the truth and not live a lie; not want her husband to make her a victim of deception.”

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“Well, I’d argue that was his only way to protect her. He was a cold-hearted, brutal bastard, but perhaps he really loved his wife. My uncle found something else out about Kammler, too, and maybe that’s what Hans told the Americans about,” Martens continued. “As they searched for Kammler, they retraced his steps to a region of Germany called Lower Silesia. It’s now part of Poland. Have you ever heard of that place?”

“Umm, no, can’t say I have.”

“It’s a small town that would have no real significance at all if it weren’t for the fact the Nazis were conducting secret research into an astounding wonder weapon there.”

“What kind of wonder weapon?”

“Well, Jim, this is where you might think I’m crazy. That’s a million-dollar question, but a lot of people believe the Nazis were exploring anti-gravity and dabbling in the possibilities of time travel. These were concepts for flying machines that could do things no one had ever imagined – cigar-shaped objects that were nothing like airplanes. They had blinking lights and hovered up and down with incredible maneuverability. They turned and shot through the sky in ways that seemed impossible with existing technology. That’s exactly what our pilots saw towards the end of World War II. In 1945, an Associated Press (A.P.) reporter wrote about sightings by the U.S. 415th Night Fighter Squadron in Europe and the powers-that-be quickly tried to dismiss this, even suggesting the pilots had combat fatigue. In other words, their bosses claimed they were going nuts, but later interviews with the crew showed everyone was perfectly rational.

They called these UFOs ‘foo fighters.’ And, yes, that’s where the name of that rock band came from. And guess who headed the project?”

“None other than Hans Kammler,” Claven said. “You’re right that I think this is nuts,” he added.

“It indeed was Kammler in charge,” Martens continued, ignoring Claven’s skepticism. “My uncle and about 50 others made their way there under orders from Gen. Patton himself.

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the project was run by the S.S. and here Kammler’s name surfaces as the head. It’s unclear even how much Hitler knew about it.”

“It,” Claven responded. “Just what was ‘it’?”

“It was a bell-shaped craft with an electromagnetic propulsion system. Remember my uncle’s questioning of Perlich? The Nazis called it the wunderwaffe.”

“Your uncle said it translated to ‘wonder weapon,’ right?”

“Yes. When they finally got to this top-secret facility, the S.S. had already killed all the engineers working on it. The Nazis had used Jewish slave labor to blow up the place, sealing it up to make it impossible to enter. Kammler was nowhere to be found. Most of this is documented and credible. The rest of what I’m telling you is highly plausible based on known facts.”

Martens paused again before speaking. “And now, Jim, you’re still wondering what in the hell does all this have to do with what came down on your charming town’s football field.”

“Obviously.”

“Uncle Paul and his team came across one of the Jewish prisoners who had been performing slave labor in the facility, and he told an amazing story. He had seen this thing and described it to my uncle and his buddies. He said it was shaped just like a bell. It had what looked like ancient writing all over the side, sort of like hieroglyphics. He said he had heard stories this thing would levitate. And here’s the craziest part. He heard it would move back and forward in time and there may have been two vehicles constructed.”

Claven interrupted. “I’m an accountant, not an engineer, but I know that’s not possible with the science we have today, or any science we can even imagine, let alone in 1945.”

“Isn’t it?” Martens responded. “Let’s do a quick thought experiment. Pretend you were alive in England. Let’s say the year is around 1066, the 9th century. That’s when the Normans conquered England. It’s a period of time historians call the beginning of the High Middle Ages in Europe. The Catholic Church has recently split into the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic branches, called the Great Schism. Maybe you’re a quite well-educated and well-traveled nobleman. You think you’re 167

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pretty smart. So, you’re walking in a field and a helicopter from our time lands in the field. What would you think?”

“I’m thinking this is impossible. I’m wondering if I’ve gone mad, or if I’m seeing some sign from God,” Claven said.

“But you sort of do a quick self-exam,” Martens continued.

“As far as you can tell, you’re not crazy. Therefore, it’s not impossible. You’re seeing it with your own eyes. So, what would you conclude?”

“I’d stick with the notion it’s something from the spirit world; a sign from God.” “And that wouldn’t be true, would it? And that’s the point,” Martens said. “We are limited by what we currently understand.

When we see things we don’t understand, we say they’re impossible until we see it’s real and possible. And then we say it’s some sort of miracle or God-like. Think about air travel.

Our recent ancestors were alive before the Wright Brothers.

In two generations, we’ve landed on the moon and now we’re sending high definition photos from Mars. What if the Nazis had stumbled on alien technology and figured it out or even had help? In other words, they didn’t have to start from scratch.

And obviously, they would closely hold such secrets. Today we know there are all sorts of reports about the mysterious use of fluids by the Nazi scientists – one was a metallic liquid with the code name Xerum 525. We know there were tests of anti-gravity propulsion. And then there are credible reports that when this machine activated, people died nearby. Their blood turned into a jelly-like gel and plants decomposed.”

Martens raised his voice to emphasize the word “gel.” It sent a chill through Claven as he recalled his recent nightmare. He rarely remembered dreams, but he vividly recalled this one, especially the sensation of his stub of an arm touching a gooey mass of blood. He felt the fear of what couldn’t be explained. But he said nothing and motioned for Martens to continue, struck by the relief he felt to see the intact fingers and thumb on his right hand.

“And, in our times, the physicists keep discovering crazier and crazier things about how weird our universe really is, and how 168

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limited we are by our perceptions,” Martens said. “We know time travels in both directions, maybe all directions. It’s all a matter of how you look at things. They talk about multi-verses, infinite other universes and parallel universes. Is it really so crazy the Nazis had some sort of wild breakthrough and tried to harness it? Maybe they didn’t even need help from alien technology, or maybe they got their hands on alien technology from ancient times, the present, or even the future.”

Claven simply nodded, wanting Martens to continue.

“Now, let’s get closer to our time. Flash forward to 1965 in the little town of Kecksburg, Pennsylvania. This is all documented, and I want you to think about why you’ve never heard much about this. A fireball is seen rushing across the sky in six states and Canada. Some descriptions are of an object crashing that matches the description of the bell in Poland. It’s complete with weird hieroglyphics. It’s about the size of a Volkswagen Beetle.

What would the government, any government, do, Jim?” Claven got the point. “They’d seal the area and try to take possession of the thing, whatever it was. It’s even more likely they’d do it if they already knew about this type of object, this bell thing, from Kammler and other sources. Of course, that’s only if what you’re suggesting happened to him is true.”

“That’s right,” Martens said. “Don’t doubt for a second the government would want to seal this area in any event, but if they had prior knowledge or even suspicions based on Kammler and earlier UFO events, their urgency would be extreme. They’d freak out. And that’s what happened in Kecksburg. The U.S. military secured the area. Publicly they said they found absolutely nothing in the woods, but maybe they hauled away an object.

There are at least 35 eyewitnesses to this strange event, including a radio reporter who mysteriously failed to follow up on his initial story. Look it up. I’d place my bets on one of our facilities in New Mexico or Nevada as the spot where they took whatever they found near this little Pennsylvania town.”

“I see where you’re going,” Claven said. “I keep thinking this is crazy stuff, but if they knew about Kammler, knew about the Nazi research, and knew about Kecksburg, well, you’re right.

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They would have totally lost it if they thought the same type of incident happened again in Azalea Bluff.”

There was silence as both men processed the conversation.

“Jim, now you’re with me,” Martens said. “What if there were two bell-shaped crafts in Poland? The first one landed in Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, in 1965, and the second one came down just recently on the damn football field at David Brinkley High School. For all we know, Hans Kammler himself escaped Germany in the wonder weapon. Either the U.S. got their hands on him at the end of the war, or he took a ride in the Wunderwaffe. Maybe he showed up in Kecksburg, or on your daughter’s football field. Did they pull him out of the bell alive or dead? Had he aged? Will we ever find out?”

“And Olivia saw too much,” Claven said, his voice cracking with the revelation. He wiped a tear from his cheek. “Way too much.”

Martens nodded in agreement. Both men stopped talking for a few minutes. Claven was trying to process the incredible conclusions Martens had drawn.

“I still think there have to be other explanations,” Claven finally said.

“Jim, let’s talk about your investigator.”

“Darren?” Claven said. “Darren Mauney? You know he’s dead, right?”

“And doesn’t that make you stop and think?” Martens said.

“What do you know about his investigation?”

“He didn’t give out a lot of information,” Claven said. “I have a few emails, and we had several phone conversations. He seemed to be making the most progress talking to government sources and digging into records. The local authorities and the neighbors didn’t seem to be telling him much.”

Martens tapped his fingers on the dashboard of the Tahoe.

Both men were getting restless after sitting in the vehicle for more than an hour.

“What did Mauney know that got him killed?” Martens remarked, not expecting an answer to the question. “I tried talking to some of the surrounding property owners, too. There 170

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are only a handful who could have seen anything in any detail. I tried not to sound too threatening, which isn’t hard when you’re my age and appearance. I just said I was doing some research for an internal report on a government contract that will help officials prepare better in the future. A forgivable fib if you ask me. Even so, no one said much, and they certainly won’t say anything publicly. A few people made enough comments for me to conclude they’ve been told or maybe threatened in some cases not to say anything about what they saw before the area locked down. Whether it’s fear or patriotism, Jim, they have the understandable motive to protect themselves and their families.”

Martens continued, “One woman said to me they were told by a very pleasant government official that in such cases it’s always a good idea not to comment and stir unnecessary emotion or panic, and then the official added with sort of a wink and said something like, ‘We aren’t saying anything publicly, but there were some top-secret items on board that ‘aircraft’ that crashed as well, so there is national security involved. I’m telling you this so you know any public comments you make could subject you to prosecution for violations of national security. We’re asking you to do what’s right here.’ The woman who told me this was around 75 years old, I’d guess, and she said the government official seemed like a nice young man. Her late husband was retired military, so of course they’d cooperate, but she thought I might want to know since I was helping the government, too.”

Claven said, “Darren had a few similar responses.”

“Well, that’s the thing,” Martens said. “These are good, patriotic people who live around here, and they’re going to be dutiful, even though the First Amendment should give you every right to speak without being prosecuted. And most of them probably trust the media a lot less than they trust a pleasantsounding government official.”

Claven felt like he was close to tears again as the magnitude struck him.

“This has everything to do with Olivia, doesn’t it?” he said.

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“Everything,” Martens said. “She got too close, and they did away with her one way or another. If she’s alive, they can’t let her go. She probably saw too much.”

“But why?” Claven said. “All she had to do was agree to keep what she saw to herself, like the people around the field.”

Martens shook his head vigorously. Before he spoke, he placed his right hand over Jim’s folded hands.

“Jim, you’re in denial. I get that, but you have to grasp this,” Martens said. “First of all, she’s a reporter. We’re talking about things like time travel and anti-gravity. The energy implications alone are mind-boggling. If you’ve got that technology, you certainly don’t need cars riding on fossil fuels. Energy companies will be forced out of business. Those are big campaign contributors, my friend. That alone would create tremendous pressure to keep this a secret. And that’s before you even talk about weapons potential, time travel, and the national security implications. Maybe you can only go forward in time like these Nazis so you can’t change the past, but maybe you can. Do you need me to go on?”

“What are you telling me?” Claven said. “Are you telling me just to give up? You’re telling me to let it rest?”

“Yes,” Martens said. “That’s exactly what I’m telling you. Look, you’re a nice guy and your wife seems like a sweetheart. I don’t want to see you go the way of Darren Mauney, and I don’t see anything in your power to change what happened. You deserve to know the background, but Olivia’s fate is out of your hands.

You need to put this thing to rest.”

“Kim and I talk about that. We argue about it. We both go back and forth, but how can I do that? She’s our daughter.”

“Listen to your wife. Drop it. Mourn your daughter, but you have to move forward in time, too.”

“Harold, will I see you again?”

“That’s up to you, Jim. Just don’t quote me in public.”

“Well, are you safe?”

“You can never be sure,” Martens said. “If they’re following you or listening to your calls, all real possibilities I suppose, then maybe I’m not. But I’ve been around a long time and, really, only 172

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a small number of people pay any attention to me. I’ve never publicly written about the Nazis at all, as you’ve probably noticed, so I doubt they see me as much of a threat. I’m just another kook fixated on UFOs and Area 51.

Then the older man’s eyes showed a sparkle.

“But wait ‘til they see what happens when my papers become public after I’m gone!” he said, grinning.

Claven managed a slight grin in return. “The truth is out there, right?” he said. “Thanks for your help, Harold. At least I think so.”

Martens patted Claven on the shoulder as he started to exit the Tahoe.

“I’m guessing you’re not going to drop this,” Martens said.

“Probably not.”

Claven heard the Tahoe pull out of the gravel lot as he walked back into the Hill Bar and Grill, where Drew Davidson met him with a concerned look on his face.

Drew Davidson appeared. “Man, you were out there a long time. I was just about to check on you. So, how’d it go?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Ready for that burger?”

“No, I think I’ll just sit at the bar and decompress for a few minutes.”

“Liquid refreshment?”

“Uhh, yeah.”

“I’ve got the best craft beer in Carolina. No weird-ass pumpkin stouts or anything. I’ll fix you up with a crisp pilsner that’s sure to brighten your day.”

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27 When Claven left the Hill Bar and Grill, he drove to his office.

He needed to give his mind time to wrap around everything Martens had told him. He tried diverting himself by calling a few clients.

The distraction didn’t succeed, and he eventually came home early. He tried watching T.V., reading the newspaper, even went to the driving range at the Old Maple to pound a bucket of balls, but nothing worked. He couldn’t think of anything but Nazis, time travel, flying bells, UFOs, and government cover-ups. He had read quite a bit about World War II, but he’d never heard of Hans Kammler. He wondered how mainstream history could ignore someone so important, powerful, and evil except in the backwaters where skeptics like Martens toiled.

That night, he did more research on his computer by entering keywords and phrases. He was stunned by how much of Martens’ astounding story he could verify, including descriptions of Operation Paperclip, the aggressive race between Soviets and Americans to find Kammler, and, most surprisingly, the UFO incident in Kecksburg, Pennsylvania.

Hundreds of articles popped onto the search lists on his screen and Jim read them until he was too tired to continue. It was 4 a.m. when Kim walked into the room and said, “I woke up, and you weren’t in bed. Are you okay? Tell me you haven’t been up all night.”

“I’m doing research,” he said. “I learned some interesting things that might involve Olivia, but I’m not sure what it means, 174

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so don’t get your hopes up just yet. I’ll explain in the morning.”

His terseness seemed to annoy his wife until she saw he was completely consumed and probably exhausted by whatever he was doing. Like Martens had done, she touched his shoulder before leaving the room and softly shutting the door to the study.

He managed about two hours of fitful sleep. It was around 6:30 a.m. when Jim decided they needed to slip away for a few hours of respite.

He convinced Kim they both needed a quick weekend away, even if it was just a few miles in the distance. It was the postLabor Day offseason at nearby Holden Beach, a barrier island in Brunswick County that was accessible across a tall, curved bridge over the Intracoastal Waterway from the mainland. It attracted thousands of summer beach vacationers with a south-facing beach free of the congestion of nearby Myrtle Beach, Wrightsville Beach, or the Outer Banks. At this time of year, they’d have wide swaths of beach strand to themselves. The white, sandy beaches and the sounds of the rolling tides might soothe and refresh them.

They had keys that allowed them to check several houses owned by high-school friends who no longer lived in the area.

Their friends used the houses for family vacations and sometimes asked the Clavens to move furniture and other outdoor items inside when hurricane warnings were posted.

Jay Goetting, the first friend Claven called, readily gave permission for them to stay the following weekend at their oceanfront home. (“Why did you even ask? Of course,” Goetting said.)

When Claven was a teenage athlete, his offseason training included five-mile runs on the nearby beach strand. Once he had his driver’s license, he’d climb into the 1972 Chevy C10 pickup truck his dad had helped him get into running order and head for the beach. He loved that truck, including its balky clutch, the three-speed column shifter, and the puke-green color that was sprinkled with lots of rust in an era when most American vehicles were no match for the salt air of eastern North Carolina.

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The beach was their haven. You went there to train, to take dates, or to just hang out with your teammates.

Holden still was a special place, he realized, wondering why he came so rarely now, even though he lived so close. He needed to stop taking the special things in life for granted.

Back in the present he stood, doubled over in modest pain, next to the fishing pier that jutted into the ocean. He was near exhaustion after moving fast for about four miles. He wouldn’t describe what he had been doing as “running” in his out-ofshape, middle-aged body, but it was the fastest he had moved for more than five minutes in several years. He’d pay for it tomorrow, or so his knees would tell him. The good news was his head seemed clearer and his mood was calm as he walked back to their friend’s house.

They weren’t fighting, but Jim and Kim ate dinner in silence, staring mainly at their electronic devices. They both wanted and needed to deepen their attachment and commitment to each other and sensed the other person wanted that, too. It seemed too hard or difficult with too much potential emotional downside to start a conversation.

Finally, it was Kim who opened the door wider. “Jim, remember when we talked about those stories about how these types of tragedies, the ones where children are murdered or disappear, tear couples apart,” she said. “The statistics are awful.

Most get divorced. Some parents even commit suicide. Many of the ones who manage to stay together are constantly fighting the guilt, finger-pointing, and stress of the situation. It just tears them up, and they don’t find much happiness if they leave. I’m worried we will become one of those couples.”

He nodded in agreement. They talked about that. Later, they walked along the beach at sunrise, poking sticks in the sand for collectible shells. They held hands for the first time in a long time, and they laid closer to each other in bed. There was no lovemaking, but what they rediscovered seemed like a good start.

The next night, he asked Kim if they could skip watching Netflix and replay the events of the past several months to figure out where they really stood and maybe find some fresh approaches “for Olivia’s sake and for ours, too.”

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Kim absorbed the comment, appreciating his words weren’t stated in a confrontational or defensive tone. “I know,” she replied. “I don’t think you realize how hard it was for me to get to the point of believing we had to let go for the good of our family, and maybe that includes Olivia, too. I didn’t see anything more we could do without spending money we don’t have or taking risks I couldn’t accept for the family we had left. But things are different now. We wouldn’t have found this Martens guy if you hadn’t spoken up.

“So, let’s do this,” she said. “I think we should make a list of what we know we know; what we think we know, but aren’t 100 percent sure about and what we don’t know that we really need to know. Then we can figure out if there is any way we can act.”

“I agree,” Jim said, and then he smiled at his wife. “I’m the accountant, but you always were the analytical one and the listmaker. It’s a good idea. Let’s see where we end up. We need to talk about the day she disappeared, Darren Mauney, Harold Martens, the sheriff ’s weird attitude, and that D.C. detective who discovered Darren’s body. And probably there’s more stuff I’ve forgotten about. I think I type a little faster than you, so I’ll keep some running notes.”

Kim nodded in agreement, and they began a long walk through everything they could remember since they first learned of their daughter’s disappearance.

Two hours passed before they got to Mauney’s death and began dissecting Jim’s conversation with the police detective. He recounted everything he could remember and noticed a look of intense concentration suddenly move across Kim’s face. Then her expression changed like the click of turning on a light. He knew that look. Her eyes were nearly shut, lips curled slightly down, and forehead creases showing as she unconsciously brushed the hair out of her eyes.

“What is it?” he asked.

“You know how we always say this is like the ‘X-Files’ or one of those other weird science fiction shows?” she replied, looking up at her husband. “Maybe it’s more like I’ve been watching too much ‘Law and Order.’ You were just describing the conversation 177

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you had with this detective Pete. What was his name, Gurzello or something, right?”

“Grazelli,” Jim corrected. “It was Grazelli.”

“Okay,” she said. “Grazelli. You said Detective Grazelli mentioned that Mauney was looking into the disappearance of a close relative. And then you said Grazelli asked you, ‘What was her name?’ Is that right?”

“Yeah, I remember that.”

“Well, how did he know it was a ‘her’? We probably glossed over that because we know it’s a ‘her.’ It’s natural we would miss that. We’re talking about our daughter of all people. And maybe that’s nothing, but all you told him was it was a close relative, so his natural next question should have been to ask you for the gender or more information instead of just jumping to ‘her,’ which was what he did instead.”

Jim could see Kim was on a roll. He nodded without wanting to interrupt.

Kim continued, “Now that I think about it, how do we know this guy was even a real detective? When was Mauney’s body discovered?”

He moved closer to Kim on the coral-colored couch in the beach house living room.

“You might be right,” Jim said, feeling a sense of dread that brought back memories of his nightmare. “Darren left a message in the afternoon for me to call him back immediately and when I did, this so-called detective answered the phone. If we find out Mauney’s body wasn’t actually discovered until the next day, we’ll know.”

“Let’s check,” Kim said. “We’ll get on the computer, and maybe it’s time to have another talk with Sheriff Hendricks, though he’s been really disappointing so far.”

They both brought out their devices, Jim’s laptop, and Kim’s iPad, and sat at their kitchen table, determined to find everything they could about Darren Mauney’s murder.

“Guess what?” Jim said only 15 minutes later. “We might be wrong. Mauney’s body was found the night I called Darren’s cell phone. Maybe Grazelli is a real cop.”

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They kept working. This time their shared silence was positive. *** “Bingo,” Kim said shortly before midnight. She didn’t shout it out. Instead, her tone was firm and angry as she stared at her tablet screen.

“What?” Jim asked. “What do you have?”

“Remember when Mauney told you Olivia’s Michael was a ghost?” she said. “I think Grazelli is, too. I used every trick I know from marketing and social media. I’m not an expert, but I drilled pretty deep, and I can’t find any record about some guy with this name as a cop, let alone that he was with the D.C. police. Tons of court and police records in that area have been posted online, and he never shows up in any cases. I’ve checked news archives, online records at Ancestry.com and the Mormon Church, government websites, you name it. Plus, it’s kind of an odd name.”

“And, now that I think about it, it doesn’t prove much if they found the body on the same night,” Jim said. “Grazelli or someone else could have just committed the murder, answered Mauney’s cell phone and then left before the real police could arrive. That also would explain why the call was so abrupt.”

Again, the couple looked at one another, both thinking about the threat this knowledge implied, weighing the odds.

“But it’s pointless,” he finally said. “You were right all along.

We’re a suburban couple, a struggling accountant and a sharp marketing major who stayed at home for her kids. Any person with brains would bail out of this situation while their heart was still beating. Martens warned me to give up this pursuit. I don’t want you to be a widow Kim.” This time it was Kim who wanted to push forward.

“Jim, we can’t stop now,” Kim said. “What if Olivia is alive?

And, if she isn’t, someone has to be accountable. You were right when you said this. With what we know now, we have to at least

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dig a little deeper in quiet ways. Then we’ll figure out what to do.

Let’s do some more research on what happened to Mauney.

“And I don’t think you and I will survive as a couple if we let this go,” she continued. “Our choice is simple. One path is courage. The other is despair.”

180

28 The days turned into months and threatened to turn into years in the desert compound. One day in December, at least Olivia was pretty sure it was December, her captors decided a daily, 30-minute walk around a non-descript compound would be allowed. In the winter months, the Nevada desert has days of wintry chill, so her captors provided a jacket -- a black Adidas hoodie, to keep her warm from the biting chill. Other than that, the last five months had been more of the same. What separated her from insanity was that “total isolation” had become “almosttotal isolation.” She clung to the “almost” part like a first-time mom clinging to a child.

They had given her a Bible at her request. She had never been a particularly spiritual person with the typical skepticism of a journalist on top of the distance many people her age felt from organized religion. Most religions seemed like myth and nonsense to her, and she resented how verses from holy books got cherry-picked from the Christian Bible and Muslim Koran to support the most extreme positions imaginable. “Church Jesus” seemed like a man known by too many people only on Sundays.

On the six other days of the week, that guy either became the inoffensive “blow-dried Jesus” in Sunday School drawings across America or someone whose teachings justified gun-toting nationalism and intolerance.

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possessed in excess was time, and much to her surprise, there were many sections that spoke to her and helped keep her calm, particularly the beautiful poetry of the Psalms and some of the wisdom and smart advice in the New Testament books like James.

She agreed with critics the New Testament gospels contradicted themselves in some areas, but the Jesus she found told the story of a man and a religion more complicated and interesting than she had imagined.

Given her situation, the first chapter of James in the New Testament spoke to her in particular. It read in part: Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, three because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.

Olivia looked up the word “persevere” in the small dictionary they gave her. It said, “continue in a course of action even in the face of difficulty or with little or no prospect of success.”

Well, that certainly described her plight. She was determined to persevere. She turned some of her daily meditations into prayer. It certainly couldn’t hurt.

She joked to herself about what she called “the captive weightloss plan.” Lousy food, stress, and sleeplessness had caused her to lose about 15 pounds from an already thin frame. She knew she looked gaunt and her commitment to hard, daily exercise also had started to wane. She vowed to get back on track.

While she was too meticulous to not care about basic hygiene, she also began paying more attention to her appearance, trading the “WTF” attitude she tried to adopt into a matter of personal pride. She needed to look strong. Plus, she reluctantly admitted, like most women, she couldn’t avoid years of being bombarded by society’s messages that sent you on body image guilt trips.

Crazy though it was, she cared how she looked to her captors.

They provided only minimal products – mainly hotel-sized containers of shampoo, bars of soap, two towels, a washcloth, and a hairbrush with a couple of ties. Getting the brush and hair ties had taken multiple requests.

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I guess they finally realized I can’t kill myself with a hair tie, she said to herself.

In recent weeks, she had begun to feel a little better. Taking better care of herself was a way to remind herself not to succumb to depression. There was no way to know for sure, but she thought when she looked in the small bathroom mirror she looked sharper and had gained a pound or two back. The best news was it appeared to be toned muscle and not flab.

She also thought a lot about how much she really knew about the United States of America. As a reporter, she knew officials occasionally lied and covered things up, but that made them no different than any other category of humanity, including business and the church. She had always unquestionably rejected conspiracy theories from either political direction. “It can’t possibly be that weird or that bad,” she remarked one day to Nate Kellogg when a story on their website about the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks had set feverish commenters into online arguments about the evidence the CIA knew in advance about the attacks and wanted to give the Bush Administration a pretext to invade Iraq.

Now it was obvious to her most Americans had been left purposely in the dark on a huge secret of some kind. All she had to do was stare at the walls of the compound on her morning walk as confirmation. Who knows? Maybe the Apollo moon landings had been faked after all. No, she couldn’t go quite that far.

The other piece of her life that had changed and kept her sane was the strange voice on the other end of the cellphone that had been mysteriously supplied on her dinner tray. She had no idea who he was, and maybe it wasn’t even a “he” since the voice was muffled and altered. But they talked almost daily.

Once she had asked him, “What can I call you? I need to call you something?”

He laughed and thought for a second before saying, “How about Link? I guess I’m a bit of a link for you.” Link it was. He seemed to enjoy talking about outer space, science fiction and occasionally dropped hints about the advanced technology few 183

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understood. Only a handful of people knew what was really happening, he said, adding the main exception was a contingent “not far from where you’re sitting.” He added that Olivia “should be glad they know what they know.”

“So, Link, is that why I’m here?” she asked one day.

“For the most part, yes,” he said.

“So, why am I still here?” she asked, emphasis on the word “still.”

“I can’t really go into that,” he said. “It’s complicated.”

“In other words, not everyone agrees about what to do with me.”

“I’d say that’s perceptive on your part,” Link said. “Some of us, how can I say this, believe you could eventually prove to be valuable; that at least you’re worth keeping around while we assess that.”

“And that means some of you don’t.”

Link didn’t address her obvious response. “Goodbye, Olivia,” he said. “We’ll talk again soon.” He ended the call. Olivia thought she heard a bit of a catch or hesitation in the muffled voice but couldn’t be sure.

After the call ended, Olivia spent a long time contemplating the first hint of her possible fate that included a meaningful reason for hope. Her instinct was to keep pumping “Link-orwhoever-he-was” for more information during their chats. Then it occurred to her Link’s dropped hints were both problem and opportunity. It meant there were people who wanted her alive, but not everyone. And she had to believe he was too careful and smart not to say what he said without a reason. People like him didn’t make those kinds of mistakes. A reasonable conclusion was that among those who wanted her dead or captive for life, the more she knew, the less chance she had of ever being free.

Was Link setting her up? Could she even trust him? And, she had no idea who knew about her conversations with Link. If he really had good intentions, was he operating alone or with support?

He cut her off when she probed for more information. Was it to protect her, or for some other reason?

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It was the kind of thinking that could drive someone mad.

She recalled Michael once describing intelligence gathering as “sort of a Helen Keller experience.” When she asked what he meant, he added, “Well, most of the time, just like Helen Keller, you feel like you’re completely blind and deaf with just a sense of touch. But then sometimes you get lucky. It’s all relative, of course. Things are still murky like you have severe hearing loss, one blind eye, and one with a cataract, but at least you hear and see something through the gauze. And then there’s the pressure.

If you make a mistake in your analysis, people can die. Very, very rarely, there are times when you can see things with utter clarity.

You live for those moments.”

That’s how she felt now. She had moved from blind-and-deaf to barely hearing and seeing. She didn’t know enough to know how to proceed, so she vowed to just be careful until things got a little clearer. For now, she would steer away from the subjects that might put her life in jeopardy, even if the discussions were so vague as to be almost worthless. Instead, she inquired vigorously about what was happening in the world, trying to stay current on world and national news, University of North Carolina basketball and the Chicago sports teams she had adopted in her years at Northwestern.

Between her conversations with Link and her daily walks in the desert, Olivia found the strength to endure the long hours of isolation in her room. She knew now her accommodations were deep in an underground floor beneath the desert sand. She had guessed correctly that she was the guest of either the U.S. government or a shadow government on some sort of military base and this facility was definitely top secret.

As a holiday-less December rolled into January, she thought a lot about the bell-shaped craft that landed on the football field and the obvious connection to this place and the hints Link had dropped. If she was going to grow old in this place, maybe she’d eventually learn some of the secrets here. She desperately wanted to know as much as she could, but the thought returned that the more she knew, the more likely it was she wouldn’t survive.

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at heart. They would understand no journalist can be happy knowing important things that can’t be shared with others. There was no clear answer to that dilemma, but maybe one would come.

Those were some of her thoughts one chilly night as she drifted into sleep. *** Olivia was sleeping soundly when she was awakened at around 2:30 a.m. by the sound of the door to her room being opened. She lifted her head from the pillow to see two large men making their way to her bed. Before she could react, one of the men was lifting her off the bed.

“Wait !” she exclaimed. “What are you doing?”

“You’re coming with us. Be nice and this will go a lot easier.”

“No, I want to know what’s …”

At that moment, Olivia felt a cloth being stuffed in her mouth and she couldn’t talk. One of the men tightened another cloth around the back of her head. She was blindfolded and silenced with her arms tied behind her back. Terror gripped her as her mind raced to consider the possibilities of what was going to happen next. The two men led her out of her room and down the hall to an elevator. She couldn’t see or talk, but her ears captured every sound as they dragged her down the corridor as she focused on counting steps, recognizing sounds and determining any changes in directions. After they entered the elevator, she felt it move slowly upward to a destination unknown.

After what seemed an eternity, the elevator door opened and she was forced to walk down a hall on a route that seemed similar to the way they took her when she was allowed to go outdoors, which usually ended with a left turn down a short corridor to the fenced and gated area where she had her daily walks. This time her captors pushed and prodded her to move to the right.

She heard the squeak of an unoiled hinge as a door opened and realized she was now outside as a puff of cold desert air slapped her cheeks and made her shiver. The two men led her to a vehicle and pushed her inside. One man kept his arms around Olivia 186

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while the other made his way to the driver’s side and started the vehicle. The vehicle began moving. All she could hear were the bumpy sounds of the vehicle traversing rough, rocky terrain. It might not even be a road.

One man finally broke silence. He said, “Take her to the fourth sector and get her out of the Jeep. After that our job’s over for a while.”

The second man said, “Yeah, we can do that.”

Get her out, Olivia thought, repeating their words to herself.

Then what, and what did they mean? Our job’s over for a while.

What job?

Around 15 minutes later as best she could estimate, the vehicle stopped and Olivia was removed from the Jeep. They asked her to walk ten steps, which she did until a hand gripped her shoulder and a male voice said, “Okay, stop.” One of the men gave her final instructions.

“Stand here and don’t move,” another male voice said as he took the gag out of her mouth. “We’re not kidding. Someone will be here shortly to explain. You can talk. You can even scream if you want. No one will hear you out here except maybe a critter you don’t want to wake. But you have to keep the blindfold. You need to go along with this.”

“Okay, I get it,” she said, but couldn’t resist adding some bravado. “I’m a statue as far as you’re concerned.”

“That’s good,” one of the captors said as she heard one of the Jeep doors open. “You’re really funny. Do that. Be a statue.” *** As the Jeep pulled away, she heard the back tires spin and a small rock hit her in the ankle. She thought about yelling “ouch” or dropping an F-bomb followed by “assholes,” which was what she was thinking. As far as she could tell, she was alone, blindfolded in the desert night. This was pathetic. She shivered again. She fought the urge to cry while vowing to be tougher than that.

And then she heard a new voice.

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But it was an old voice, too.

An impossible voice. Then she felt her hands being untied.

“Olivia, you can take off your blindfold now.”

She froze but not from the desert chill. Her hands felt numb.

She wondered if she had finally gone mad; had finally lost the battle she had fought for so many hours and days in isolation.

“Go ahead, Olivia,” she heard. “Take it off, the blindfold, I mean.” There was a chuckle in the voice, a laughter so light and quickly dissipating you could tell there was a weak attempt at humor involved. The tone was familiar, too, especially the sexual innuendo about “taking it off.”

She refused to believe she was insane. She refused to believe she was dreaming. She checked herself mentally and concluded neither explanation worked. There was another explanation that made more sense, whatever the reason. However, it was the cruelest trick they’d ever played on her – to play her the voice of a corpse.

Why in God’s name would they somehow be making her listen to the voice of Michael Starling?

The man said, “I guess I’m going to have to come over there and do it for you.”

“No,” Olivia shouted, unwilling to concede an inch to such cruelty and manipulation now. “No. I’ll do it myself.”

She ripped the blindfold off and stared in total disbelief at the sight in front of her. The man in front of her was wearing khaki-colored jeans the color of desert sand, hiking boots, a redand-green plaid flannel shirt, and a North Face vest. His navyblue baseball cap had an orange script “B” logo of the National Football League Chicago Bears. How did they know she had given Michael a cap just like that? He looked trim and fit, maybe a little tired and a day or so past a close shave. He had brown hair he kept pushing out of his face, just as she remembered. As her eyes adjusted from blindfolded darkness to light, she rubbed her eyes to get them focused better, almost hoping what she thought she was seeing wasn’t true.

She wondered again if she had gone insane. The figure standing ten feet in front of her was the love of her life, the man taken from her by a tragic car accident.

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Michael said, “Hello, Liv.” “No,” she said, unable to hide a quiver in her voice. “You’re a ghost. Or a fake.”

“No, not exactly. I’m the man who never stopped loving you, and I’m the man who had to leave you so that you wouldn’t be killed.”

“No,” she said again. “This is some elaborate trick. You died in a car accident. Your brother and I went to your funeral.”

“Come here, Olivia.”

“No.” “Come here, Olivia.”

“No.” They stared at each other, and the staring contest triggered her first glimmer that maybe it wasn’t a trick. She knew that look, just as she had recognized his chuckle. Whenever they argued, usually about politics, that’s exactly how they’d stare at each other. Michael picked up on it, too.

“That’s your evil eye,” he said, using his nickname for her stare that told the offender she wasn’t messing around.

Olivia was having nothing of it. An imposter who had studied her closely and talked to her friends might know about the evil eye.

“I need better proof,” she said. “What do they call it when someone’s kidnapped? Proof of life. Except, this time, it’s the opposite. I need proof of life from the kidnapper, not the victim.”

Michael raised his left eyebrow, just like he always did. “Okay,” he said. “If you insist. Bear with me. I’m coming closer. What I’m going to describe should only be whispered.”

What he whispered were extremely precise and accurate descriptions of many things they used to do in their bedroom as well as a few other places. He didn’t leave much out, including some of their role-playing, as he described how she reached a level of passionate satisfaction she had never imagined was possible until she met him. He recalled how she had particularly liked the scenario in which they pretended he had rescued her from captors and had to nurse her back to “full health” – an ironic twist on her current situation. “It was good for me, too, 189

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babe,” Michael said quietly as he whispered to her. “Nothing else ever compared.”

As Michael continued his various descriptions of their lives together, she realized how much she had missed everything about their physical relationship. She realized she believed him.

It was him, and with that realization, her flood of emotion shifted from arousal to anger. She resented that he could have that effect on her in such a moment. She felt weak when she needed to be strong.

She slapped him, as hard as she could, in the face. He flinched but did nothing in response. Then she hit him again, on the opposite cheek with her other hand. The sharp, clapping sound of stiffened fingers banging his face provided a level of satisfaction that surprised her.

“Screw you!” she said, raising her voice. “I don’t want to hear your damn jokes and sex stories as if nothing has happened. You left me. I thought you were dead. Then you left me in this place.

You don’t get off that easy. How could you do this?”

“Hey, hey, I didn’t die in that crash, so you don’t have to kill me now.”

“And what do you mean I was going to be killed? It’s past time someone tells me what the hell is going on.”

“I will, Olivia, but you’ll have to listen to me,” he said. “Our time is limited, and we don’t want to waste it.”

Michael waved his arms, reminding her of a mad artist using the remote desert as a backdrop. The stark beauty of the scene, which was her first glimpse in months at the outside world, caused some of her anger to retreat. Then he picked up a rustand-white patterned Navajo blanket someone had placed on a stump and handed it to her.

“I wanted us to have some time together as soon as possible once we got you out,” he said. “I’ll build a fire. Wrap this around you. It’s going to get chillier.”

Olivia relied on what had always been her fallback when she didn’t know what else to say – sarcastic humor.

“All we need are marshmallows, graham crackers, and Hershey bars,” she said. “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do.”

190

29 “My job was top secret,” Michael Starling said as they sat by the fire, Olivia still keeping her distance. “You knew that.”

“I did.”

“I guess you could say I had unique qualifications,” he continued. “The Central Intelligence Agency recruited me first before I got in deeper with some other agencies you’ve probably never heard of.”

“You were an orphan,” Olivia said. “At least that’s what you told me. It was just you and your brother. Is Michael Starling even your real name?”

“No,” he said quietly. “No, it’s not my real name.”

“Well, what was it?

“The Michael part was right,” he said, then offered a halfsmile. “The last name was a different bird. My name was Michael Crow, but everyone called me Mickey. Mickey Crow.”

“Crow,” Olivia said, staring at him. “I should be totally pissed my future husband didn’t even tell me his real name, but Crow fits you better. They’re supposedly some of the smartest birds.

They use tools. And I read once they can solve puzzles at the level of a 5-year-old human. They strike me as confident bordering on arrogant. They take care of their own. They pretty much do their own thing. Sounds a lot like you. Maybe you should’ve kept that name. What else was fake?”

“I’m sure you noticed I didn’t give up a lot of information about my background, but the rough outlines of most of what I told you were true,” he said. “They looked for people without 191

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a lot of immediate family or many other local connections. If your goal is to hide someone’s actual existence and invent a new identity, that makes it a lot easier. And it turns out I’m pretty damn good at keeping and defending secrets.”

“What was your job in New York?” she asked.

“There isn’t time to get into a lot of that,” he said. “But I was going back and forth between New York and Nevada most of the time when I told you I was on trips.”

“You keep saying there isn’t much time. What do you mean?

What are we waiting for? What’s going to happen?”

“I promise to get to that,” he said in a tone that struck her as sad. “But because time is short, I want to answer at least some of your questions. I know you, Liv, and I know the mystery must be driving you crazy.”

“I can’t argue with that,” she said, suppressing a sense of dread.

Michael said, “I can only talk briefly and generally about some of the things I’ve seen. Like alien technology. Captured technology. The Nazis had it first, believe it or not. We think they found hints of it in Antarctica and much later in eastern Germany. Did you know the Nazis had secret bases in Antarctica during the war? They sent an expedition there and established a base as early as 1938. We learned far more than the public was ever told from their captured scientists. But we’ve never been able to duplicate what they accomplished. Believe me, we’ve tried.

I’m sure the Russians and probably the Chinese are trying, too.

It’s not plausible to believe there haven’t been leaks or security breaches over nearly 80 years to at least give them hints about what we found.”

Michael’s narrative spurred two reactions in Olivia. First, it was a relief to finally get some answers, but it renewed dormant worries about whether knowing so much would be good for her survival. She concluded they had passed that point. This was the man she had decided was her life partner. At least for now, she decided to shelve her anger, trust him and satisfy her curiosity.

A minute passed in silence. There were orange and red ribbons forming the first hints of a glorious sunset in the western sky when Olivia began asking about the day she was taken.

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“Michael,” she asked, “what exactly did I see that night on the football field?”

“You saw the Nazis and all their perverted glory come blazing from the year 1945 right onto the 50-yard-line in the present.”

“You’ll have to come at me again with that one.”

“The Nazis. They had been working on what they called wonder weapons since 1937 when a UFO came down or crashed in the eastern part of Germany that’s now part of Poland. They got lucky. The SS, their secret police, cordoned off the area, and they sent the object to a top-secret base, perhaps in Ebensee, Austria. Does that reaction sound familiar, by the way? Anyway, they began working 24-7 trying to reverse-engineer it, which you probably know is when you take a completed project and disassemble it in an effort to understand how it works and maybe duplicate the engineering. Happens all the time in the tech world today. Well, imagine trying to do that with technology from another world.”

“Did it work?”

“Sort of. We believe Hitler assigned a guy named Hans Kammler to oversee it. We caught him after the war, though only a small number of people know that, even decades later. In fact, only some of the presidents since World War II were told.

Truman had to be told because our engagement happened under his watch. Eisenhower and Kennedy both knew. They were World War II veterans and leaders who could be trusted with secrets. After Kennedy, it varied. In recent years, I’m not sure which presidents knew.

“Anyway, it turned out the Nazis were a little too ambitious.

A lot of people died in the experiments, especially as they tried to recreate the fluids and compounds that seemed to power these things. The scientists didn’t have enough time to do everything they wanted. Before he killed himself, Kammler sketched out what he could replicate to create a blueprint of sorts. We convinced him he had to do that to save his family.”

“I’ve never heard of Kammler,” Olivia said.

“Most people haven’t,” Michael replied. “He’s one of those really important characters who gets lost in history because they 193

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stay in the background. He probably knew more about Nazi research and technology than anyone. I doubt if there were any other Nazi leaders who Hitler respected more. He was a brilliant engineer, but about as evil as even a Nazi could get. The reports from the camps about his treatment of slave laborers, especially Jews, are horrific. But he remembered a lot after we made a deal to learn what had happened to his surviving family members and make sure they were supported. That family probably was the only positive thing he cared about. He was absolutely ruthless.”

“Ruthless?” Olivia asked, her anger rising again. “Perhaps so.

But, really, Michael. What word would you use to describe what our own government did to me, or has planned for me?”

“Touché,” Michael said, “These are choices. The only defense I can mount is to examine intent and motive. I don’t agree with what they did to you, but it wasn’t their intent to wipe out a race of people or start a war. They did something awful and extralegal to you in the name of national security.”

“Or was it just to avoid the consequences of keeping secrets they should never have kept in the first place?” she asked. “How much do we really know?”

“We could go off on a real philosophical journey with that question,” he said. “Just like our political arguments. When and how should the public be told? What do we know? What don’t we know? How do you game-plan the impact of revealing this stuff?”

He paused before adding, “I’m getting a little off track. I don’t get a lot of opportunities to talk about this, and I want you, of all people, to hear this. You’re owed that much.”

Again, Olivia felt a chill of concern she was being told so much, but said nothing. She also stopped herself again from commenting on how tired and sad he looked, and she could tell he was holding back. But she didn’t voice those thoughts.

Michael was determined to continue as if he felt driven to shed an overwhelming burden.

He said, “We realized too late Kammler left some key things out of the drawings and data he supplied. Maybe he couldn’t do it from memory. More likely, it was probably just to be a 194

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passive-aggressive jerk who still was a Nazi in his heart. So, yes, to get back to your question, we know they had blueprints and concepts for flying saucers. They called their project weird code names, like ‘Haunebu’.”

“Did they ever build something that could fly?”

“We have reason to think so.”

“And what about that thing I saw?”

Michael said, “Well, that was the wonder weapon, the weapon that could have changed the entire outcome of World War II if they had perfected it. It was shaped like a bell and based on antigravity technology. It explains a lot about all the UFO sightings in the 1940s and 1950s if the UFOs really involved visitors or probes from other planets.

“And what they discovered that was really crazy was this was a time machine, too,” he continued. “I’m going way beyond my physics knowledge, but maybe that explains how these aliens solved the mysteries of travel across long distances. Maybe bending time and gravity together is how advanced civilizations travel, but maybe the Nazis couldn’t perfect it enough to get back to their own present. You can understand how badly we wanted the technology. But the Nazis dynamited their facilities and killed most of the engineers and slave laborers to get rid of the evidence. There was almost nothing to see by the time our investigators, as a secret part of something called Operation Paperclip, got to their work sites.”

Olivia said, “And then this bell thing lands at Brinkley High School.”

“Exactly,” Michael said. “What we didn’t know after the war was that in desperation, the man who headed up the project had completely disappeared and the bell with him. He used it to flee during the remaining days of the war by traveling through time to 1965 to a little town called Kecksburg, Pennsylvania.”

Starling then described the Kecksburg incident and its eerie similarities to the crash in Azalea Bluff.

“So, the government thought that was the end of it until a few months ago?” Olivia asked. “Does that mean there were two bells?”

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“Yes. And yes,” Michael answered. “They apparently had two bells. It sounds insane to put it into words, but we were able to question two Nazi survivors from World War II. They looked pretty good for their efforts when we found them – just as they did when they left in 1945. Remember when I told you Hans Kammler came into U.S. hands? Well, the part I left out was this didn’t happen until 1965 – 20 years after the war ended, but an unmeasurable moment for him, I suppose.”

As Michael told his story, Olivia felt her anger take a back step to months of loneliness and the still-stunning reality that they were reunited. She sensed he had been trying to protect her in a situation out of control. Tentatively, she edged closer to him as they sat on a log in front of the crackling fire. Michael did the same thing. Finally, she grabbed his hand and held it. They both stared at the fire, seeing what they wanted to see in the changing shapes of the flames.

“So, are we closer to perfecting that Nazi technology?” Olivia asked. “Do we know how to build these bell things? Could these guys have actually changed history? Have any of our people tried to do that? At least you could do things like preventing assassinations.”

“Now that’s a lot of questions, and the answers truly are classified,” Michael said. “I’m not totally sure about that myself.

As far as I know, as I said, we aren’t there yet. As for time travel, I hope they’re cautious, or maybe it just can’t be done. Or maybe if they have changed history, we wouldn’t know it because our reality would just adjust. Maybe we just stay ignorant, or perhaps some of us never exist at all while other children would be born.

Plus, any change would lead to unintended consequences.”

Michael turned and looked at her and squeezed her hand tighter.

“Look, as far as I know, JFK and John Lennon are still dead, though again, maybe we wouldn’t know if we’re living in an alternate universe where someone changed history,” he said.

“Hey, if I could see all the possible futures, I’d certainly like to see the music Lennon and Jimi Hendrix would have created if they’d lived longer. Now you’re getting me off track again, and time is short.”

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There it was again, the suggestion of something looming, and it filled her with dread. She knew the answer to her next question, even though she had to ask it.

“Assuming you’re going to free me, I’m not going to be able to write about this, am I?” she asked. “Of course, even if I tried, I doubt I could get enough verification to confirm all this. I know you’re not going to go on the record. We always were an odd couple in that respect. Plus, I’d be quoting a dead man with the phony name of Michael Starling. Most of my editors would have some questions about that.”

“I’m so sorry, Liv,” Michael said. “Everything you just said is the way it has to be. There certainly will be no story.”

“And now for the money question,” she said, unclenching her hand from his and turning from the fire to face him directly and look him straight in the eyes with a fierceness that seemed to surprise him. “What’s going to happen to me?”

Michael did something strange, something she had never seen before when she made eye contact with him. He turned away and gazed at the fire. He hesitated before saying, “You’re not going to die.”

“Well, that’s good news,” she said. “Answer my question with more than that, Michael. I think you owe me more than a fascinating story around a fire.”

Michael looked at Olivia now, and again she could see the sadness in his eyes as the flames flickered. A hot ash popped out of the embers and landed on his shoe, which he brushed away with his other foot.

“Olivia, I’ve spent the last five months protecting you and talking to you to help keep you sane,” he said. “Everything I’ve done was to keep you alive. It was controversial to say the least.

I had to make some concessions. This world we’re in – I wish sometimes I could go back in time and change it. But I think they’re right to believe the world isn’t ready for any of this. Our government is heavily infiltrated. We get hacked every day.

Unfortunately, we have leaders who put their elections ahead of security. It’s more dangerous today than ever, not just for America but the whole planet.”

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“What about your accident? Why did they have to kill you off? Why was I such a risk?”

“You and I were living together. I got special permission so Michael Starling could marry you. I pleaded for them to let me go forward, and I blew it, mainly because I talk in my damn sleep.”

Olivia said, “You were afraid then. I can see you’re afraid now. Why?” “I was afraid I was going to say something that might put your life in jeopardy.”

“So, they made you fake the accident?”

“Yes, and I hoped that would protect you, but of all the people in the world to sneak onto the edge of that football field, it had to be you. And now, Liv, we’re going to have to fake another death.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Liv, I’m doing this because I love you and always will, and it’s the only way.”

At that moment, Michael jabbed a needle into Olivia’s arm and before she realized what was happening, she started losing consciousness. She was unable to speak as she gazed in the man’s face who was the love of her life.

Michael clutched Olivia around her shoulders to keep her from dropping and carefully placed her on the ground with a flat rock as a pillow. He allowed himself to cry in a way he couldn’t recall ever weeping before. As tears rolled unimpeded down his cheeks, he cradled his phone in one hand and sent a text message.

Done. Pick us up.

198

30 Jim Claven still remembered his college class in creative writing. He enrolled when he had to find an elective in order to graduate on time and all the “easy classes” had been taken.

Writing wasn’t his thing. He worked harder for a “C” grade in that damn class than any “A” he ever got in an accounting or math course.

One thing he clearly remembered was Professor Greiner threatening to reduce any essay score by half a grade for every tired cliché that appeared. He made the comment half in jest, half in truth.

“Find a better way than using a cliché to say whatever it is you’re trying to say. They’re dumb, overused, and written by lazy authors who don’t take the time to have original thoughts,” Greiner said on multiple occasions during the semester. He often made such pronouncements while tugging on his long, gray ponytail. Claven noted the ponytail itself was quite an ironic, visual cliché as the hairstyle of an aging English professor. It was like having an accounting professor with a pocket protector and a short-sleeved white button-down shirt. Still, “Greiner’s Writing Rules” had stayed with him.

Claven recalled the writing class because the cliché “time heals all wounds” had just popped into a conversation with his golfing friends in the Old Maple clubhouse. He knew his friends meant well. They’d helped him navigate since Olivia disappeared and contributed a lot to the investigative fund, but he wasn’t in a mood to consider it.

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Nothing much had happened in the case for months.

Mauney’s death also remained a mystery. The media had moved on to other unsolved cases, with the exception of Nate Kellogg at the Brunswick Advocate. Claven knew the voice of a tiny local website would be a lonely one. There was nothing fresh to report to interest larger media outlets. Plus, he heard Nate might shutter the operation, such were the economics of local journalism, not to mention the stress of trying to do Olivia’s job as well as his own.

Beyond the emotional hole Claven felt over the loss of his daughter, many things still troubled him about Olivia’s case.

Despite their resolve to keep investigating, Jim and Kim seemed at a dead end, and there was no money to hire another investigator if they could even find one. Sheriff Hendricks remained aloof and unhelpful.

Claven had spent a lot of time trying to learn more about Mauney’s statements that Olivia’s fiancé was a ghost operative of some kind. That had to be relevant in some way, but he finally realized he couldn’t do anything with such information without the resources for deeper investigation, and Mauney’s death demonstrated the obvious risks to his family from such pursuits. Plus, there was nothing to back up Mauney’s one-onone statement to him anywhere as far as he knew. The secondhand comments from an anguished father wouldn’t be enough to spark action, and who would even provide a response he could trust?

Claven also could relate to the Advocate’s financial woes. He was barely making his mortgage payments. Kim had gone back to work full time. He and Kim strongly agreed it wasn’t right to continue to tap friends and family for funds. Exhausted by the emotional stress and the financial strains, they reluctantly concluded they had to try to move on with their lives. Sometimes it worked; often, it didn’t. Their distance was growing again.

Claven’s frustration was obvious to his friends, and adding to the day, he shot 95 on the par 71 course and lost $125 he couldn’t afford between side bets with his playing partners and the final outcome. Plus, he had given up a Thursday afternoon of income200

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producing work to take advantage of the nice weather when Tom Albert called that morning to arrange the outing. It turned out to be a wonderful day for Albert, who had surprisingly beaten Col. Keech with a 30-foot putt on the 18th hole. Claven didn’t want to be the type of person who felt jealous of others who had happier, more satisfying lives, but he couldn’t help it. Admitting he had become that guy made him feel even worse.

Once they sat around a table in the clubhouse, Claven attempted a happy face and it worked for about 40 minutes. He pretended to joke along, but the truth was he was in a foul mood and in no hurry to return home to Kim. Guilt washed over him when he felt that way about being with his wife, but he forgave himself as he swam laps in a personal pool of self-pity.

Claven switched from his usual order of vodka with club soda and lime and quickly downed four double-shots of Irish whiskey on the rocks and had loudly ordered a fifth when Albert made the comment.

“Well, Jim, time heals all wounds,” he said, holding up his draft Azalea Amber, a local craft beer, waiting for Claven to clink glasses with him.

“That’s a cliché. It’s bullshit,” Claven said, raising his voice to a level that caused nearby golfers to look up from their tables.

Something about the comment brought his frustrations and fears surrounding his daughter to a head. He was slurring his words a bit as well. “I call bullshit. I had a college professor, an old hippie, who taught me that.”

Now his voice got even louder. “Let me tell you something, Tom,” he said, stretching out the name “Tom” into a long, snarky growl that sounded like “Tah-Umm.” “There’s no damn time in which Kim and I will feel healed or have no wounds,” Claven continued in a tone that became a rant.

We’re talking about my daughter, you jerk. We’re talking about Oh-Liv-Ee-Ah. It’s going to weigh on Kim and me until the day we die. So, don’t you ever tell me time will heal those wounds.

Got it?”

Spectators began to get up from nearby tables, some wondering if there would be a fight.

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“Whoa,” Albert said. “Slow down the train and excuse me for just using another cliché. I’m sorry, Jim. I was referring to our golf game today. I meant time will indeed heal your golf wounds.

But it was thoughtless of me not to see it the way you would see it. We’ve been friends since we were kids, man. I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m sorry.”

Chastened, Claven gritted his teeth and stared into the bottom of his drink. He struggled for some control. The curious clubhouse onlookers settled back into their seats.

“My bad, too,” he finally said softly, brushing the back of his hand across an eye. “I think I better stop drinking and just drive home.” Now he looked like he was near tears. He started to stand up, wobbling a bit as he stumbled for the car keys in his pants pocket.

“Jimbo, you definitely need to go home, but you ain’t driving, my friend,” Keech said. “I’m fine; still nursing my first beer.

You can sit right next to me in my Silverado, fully observe and appreciate my superior driving skills and come back to the Old Maple for your Rover tomorrow. They’ll take good care of it.

And here comes another cliché for you. We’ll get you some black coffee to go so you don’t bite the head off that nice wife of yours when we get you to where you belong.” *** The next morning, a Friday, Jim had a raging whiskey hangover and decided he couldn’t go into the office. He decided to go to work on Saturday instead to make up for lost time and blame it on the Irish who made such good whiskey. Kim had been in no mood to battle with an intoxicated spouse when he had come home the night before. She had quickly assessed his condition, helped by a wink from Col. Keech, who gave her a hug before he left. She was far more annoyed than she wanted to display to the Colonel, whom she loved like a favorite uncle.

Their relationship was regressing again. She decided the best idea was to leave her husband alone in the family room and let him watch whatever was on ESPN, knowing he’d quickly fall asleep in his recliner.

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The morning was cloudy and cold with on-and-off drizzle, a useless day for outdoor recreation or chores, but a good day for mindless indoor labor – the kind of work that doesn’t take much thinking but provides a sense of completion because things you’ve been putting off are finally done. With four ibuprofens in his bloodstream and a Yeti tumbler filled with steaming coffee in his hand, Jim sheepishly asked Kim to take him to the Old Maple to pick up the Range Rover, which she said she would.

“I think I’m just going to putter around today until my brain starts working and the headache goes away,” he said. “I haven’t cleaned out the Rover in ages, and I think we should sell it or trade it for something less expensive. And I want to straighten things up in the garage.”

Kim decided she couldn’t keep quiet. The marriage had turned into a roller coaster ride and the part of the ride that went down was getting too scary.

“You know, Jim, you’re back to hiding out all the time,” she said, breaking the ice after a minute of silence. “If it’s not in the garage, it’s in the yard or at the golf course. You’re getting very distant from us again.”

“You’re right. I deserve that,” he said, more to placate her than anything. “But look at the upside. Maybe you’ll come home to a spotless garage.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” she said. “Seriously, we have to talk about this. So, I have a question, and don’t be defensive, because I’m trying to make a point.”

“Okay, shoot,” he said. “I’ll try.”

“What color were Olivia’s nails right before she disappeared?”

“What the hell? I don’t know.”

“I do. They were blue.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“The point is you don’t pay attention,” she continued. “Was her favorite purse big or small?”

“Big.” “No, it was small. You’re in your own world, like most men.

You’re oblivious sometimes. What company just gave your son a really important interview?”

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“I don’t know that either. You’re right. I should.”

“What color was the backpack we gave Olivia last Christmas?”

“That’s easy,” he said, grateful he knew an answer. “It was blue, just like her nails.”

“Well, at least you remembered something,” she said.

Suddenly Claven sat straight up like a jolt had gone through him.

“I just remembered something else,” he said. “I’ve got some kid’s backpack in the back of the Rover. We found it on the golf course, near the football field, and I never took it back to the high school.”

“See?” she said, shaking her head. “Like I said. Oblivious.”

“I plead guilty,” he said, meaning it this time. He held out his arms with palms up. “Take me to the Rover and bring me home.

I feel like crap. Let me work out this hangover. I’ll be a humbler, better man by the end of the day.”

Kim shook her head, but she seemed less frustrated and disgusted. Maybe, Claven thought, clearing the air helped. Plus, she had the virtue of being right like most wives. *** Claven decided to attack the Rover before the garage. He waxed it, cleaned the windows inside and out, and used his Shop-Vac to vacuum the carpets and seats for the first time in months. He liked taking good care of his vehicles and keeping them clean. For Kim, a car was nothing more than a useful, necessary appliance. She laughed about how compulsive he was about all his vehicles and kidded him how it would be nice if he felt the same way about the dirty clothes he often left piled on the bathroom floor or the dishes he couldn’t put in the dishwasher.

For Jim, his vehicle was a place to escape, where focusing on driving and listening to music kept him in the moment. It felt good to give the Range Rover a freshening.

He worked his way around to the rear of the SUV and opened the back gate, removing his golf clubs. The sight of the clubs caused him to shake his head at the recent decline in his 204

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game, which used to be among the best at the Old Maple. He could have fun at golf as long as he had at least a chance to win a few holes and an occasional round. He couldn’t stand being the worst. He decided to talk to the club pro about starting lessons again. Maybe Kim would be interested, too. They needed more activities together.

He lifted the carpeted cover that protected the temporary spare tire in an alcove that had room for other odds and ends and located the backpack they had found on the edge of the Old Maple fairway between the golf course and the high school field.

He remembered how he had been designated driver for two of his friends that day. Three sets of golf clubs with shoes and a cooler filled the rear of the car. Plus, he had the backpack for the return trip. Not only that, the pack was damp, dirty, and muddy; not something he wanted to put in his tidy Rover at all. So, he had stuffed the old pack underneath into the spare-tire alcove to get it out of the way. Then he promptly forgot about it.

“How the hell did that happen?” he said out loud. “I really am losing it.”

He pulled the pack out and once again examined the items inside. The journal pages still were empty. There were no clear signs of ownership. He remembered now. He had never finished rummaging through it. The backpack had three zippered sections.

As he placed his hand into another section, he realized behind the fabric was a small pocket closed by two strips of Velcro. There was something small and hard inside.

He pulled the sections apart and found a micro voice recorder.

He stared at it for at least 15 seconds, inspecting the controls and turning it in his hands. Curious, he pressed the “play” button, but it wasn’t working, which was no surprise if the backpack had been in the woods for months. Maybe it needed batteries. He couldn’t decide whether it was worth the trouble to find some fresh batteries and listen. It was really none of his business, and any recording was probably just some kid’s class notes.

He remembered the golfers had discussed taking the pack to the high school to see if some student had reported it missing.

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smoking weed, or doing something else forbidden. With Kim away at lunch, Claven decided to take a drive to Brinkley High School, where he knew the principal, Shelly Shapiro. Then he’d stop and see Nate Kellogg and see if he wanted to grab lunch. He had an idea to pitch. After all that, he’d come home and finish cleaning the garage, making it a relaxing day for a change.

At Brinkley High School, Shapiro and her assistant quickly determined no student had reported a missing backpack.

Claven tossed the pack onto the floor in front of the rear seats in the Range Rover and headed into town, stopping first at the Brunswick Advocate offices.

Nate Kellogg looked up from his computer as soon as Claven walked into the small, two-room suite located in a strip shopping center off Highway 17 in Azalea Bluff. The landlord had been forgiving, but the Advocate was three months behind on its rent.

“Hey, Jim,” Kellogg said. “What brings you here?”

“I have an idea that might help both of us,” he said. “Let me sketch it out. If you’re interested, I’ll take you to a cheap lunch at Ling’s Garden where we can figure out the details. I think they have moo shu pork on Fridays.”

“Sounds good,” Kellogg said. “If I didn’t laugh about our finances, I’d have to cry. So, what’s your idea?”

“First, I guess I have to ask if there’s anything new you’ve heard about Olivia.”

“No,” Kellogg responded. “Nothing. I’m running out of fresh ways to say the same things. The silence from the authorities makes no sense to me, but all I ever get is a ‘no comment’ at every level, starting with our sheriff.”

“Well, that’s pretty much what I expected to hear,” Claven said. “Here’s the idea, and I guess it’s sort of sadly connected to Olivia. You know I’m hurting financially, too. This has drained us, and there’s nothing left I can put into the investigation until we sell the house and downsize, which we’re getting ready to do.

It’s just a little thing, but what if I wrote a regular column for you with tax advice, info about college savings, and things like that? It would be ‘Tips from Your Carolina CPA’ or something like that. I could take questions from your readers. It would 206

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give you something fresh to put on your website and post on Facebook every week, and I’d get a little free publicity. I thought you could help me edit it, and maybe you could help me make it available to some other local news outlets or partner with one of the Wilmington TV stations.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” Kellogg said. “Of course, I’d say that anyway just to get your free lunch. Let’s go to Ling’s.”

As Kellogg moved into the passenger seat of the Range Rover, he noticed the backpack on the floor behind him.

“Hey, what are you doing with Olivia’s backpack?” he said.

“It’s the one she always kept at the office for work and threw into her Subaru when she needed it for whatever was going on. I’m sure you saw it whenever you were over there.”

“I’m sure I did,” Jim said after a long pause, fighting back the tears Nate would never completely understand. “I just didn’t pay enough attention. I was too busy in my own head.”

207

31 “You look worse than I do.”

Jim Claven intended his comment as a gentle joke. Brunswick County Sheriff Keith Hendricks’ first instinct was to try to stare a hole into Claven after his comment about his appearance, but his second instinct was to acknowledge to himself it was true. He probably looked like crap. He figured he was sleeping an average of three hours a night, five hours when he got lucky, and the combination of stress from work and home had caused him to gain about 20 pounds despite frequent internal promises to get back in shape. At least he hadn’t started smoking again.

“Well, Jim,” he said in the distinctive drawl of the Carolina shore, “I would not begin to equate my last few months with what you and your family have experienced, but as you probably know, I have had a few recent bumps.”

“I heard about your divorce at the Rotary meeting,” Claven said. “It’s gossip, but how can you stay away from it? It’s a small town, so there isn’t much escape. The idea of Trent and Sonya together, well, no one saw that coming. Truly, everyone I know is in your corner. Keith, I know we’ve had our differences lately, but I don’t wish that on anyone.”

“Thanks,” Hendricks said roughly. “They’ve moved to Little River and I’ve moved on, too. So, how about we move on as well, if you don’t mind. Why are you here, Jim? And, Nate, why are you here with him? Having Jim with you isn’t going to get me to answer your questions differently or more often than I already do.”

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“Well, there’s always hope, right?” Kellogg said, giving Hendricks a big eye-roll as an added-value bonus to display a reporter’s frustration. “You never answer my questions about Olivia. But that’s sort of why we’re here. We have something we just realized could be important – by that, I mean we learned this within the past hour. And I don’t give a damn if this is on the record or off the record. It’s about Olivia. It’s about my friend, and you’re the only one we know in law enforcement that we can trust.”

“And I’m not so sure about that,” Claven added. “Your batting average with me is near zero. Nate had to talk me into coming here.”

With that, Claven reached down and dropped Olivia’s backpack on Hendricks’ desk with a loud thud.

Hendricks stared at the backpack. “Explain,” he said, and they described what led to the discovery, including there was a voice recorder inside.

“This has been in your car for months?” Hendricks said, shaking his head. “Jesus.”

“As soon as we realized what it was, we decided not to touch anything in it other than to take it out of my car and bring it to you,” Claven said. “There’s a voice recorder in it that isn’t working. Whatever else you do with this pack, I want to hear that recording. You owe me that.”

I owe more to you than you can imagine, Hendricks thought to himself. Public knowledge of his wife’s affair had liberated him from that specific blackmail threat. Whatever the voters thought about, as far as his political future went, well, that was up to them. Hendricks suspected it wouldn’t matter much. He wasn’t the first guy to find himself in such a situation. It might even generate some sympathy despite the embarrassment of a sheriff not knowing about something happening in his own home – or on his best friend’s boat.

However, the person or agency behind the threats still had leverage that could be career-ending. He knew the safest course would be to seize the backpack and call the feds. It would be perfectly justifiable. After all, this involved national security. It 209

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was way bigger than a missing person. But he knew what would happen: He’d never see the backpack again, and he’d never know whatever clues it held. And he also knew if he did that, his sleepless nights would never end.

What was destroying him more than anything, more than the affair between his wife and his best friend even, was his silence and his decision to pursue Olivia’s disappearance with less than his usual persistence and passion. The public appearance of an aggressive investigation was nothing but smoke that covered his shame. The Clavens certainly saw what a joke it was.

Hendricks knew he had failed at his number one job. Nothing mattered more than his responsibility to fully protect every individual in his community to the best of his ability. Brunswick County was where he’d lived all his life other than his years in the military. He remembered giving Olivia a tour of the sheriff ’s office when she did a story about him for her high-school newspaper and he was an up-and-coming officer. This was the community where most of his family and friends lived; it was the place he vowed to serve and protect, just as the time-tested motto of law enforcement promised.

He’d take charge this time, even if it meant some risk. He owed that much to the Claven family. Then he’d decide what to do after that.

Hendricks excused himself and came back with another deputy.

“We’re going to make a record of this,” he said. “Please move against the wall, so we can get pictures from all angles, and you’re not in the video. This is Deputy Parker, and he’s an experienced evidence technician.”

Both officers pulled white plastic gloves over their hands.

After Parker photographed the exterior of the backpack from every angle, he set up a phone on a stand to record everything that would happen next. He took swabs for DNA from multiple locations. Hendricks then slowly opened the pack and removed each item, verbally describing what he was doing and what he found. Every item was dusted for prints.

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When they got to the voice recorder, Hendricks stopped and spoke to his deputy.

“Thank you, Deputy Parker,” Hendricks said. “There’s no need for two of us to be in here at this point. You can go back to your duties, and I can take it from here.”

Parker left the room. As soon as he did, Henricks reached over to the phone to pause the recording of the procedures and looked straight at Kellogg and Claven.

“You’re not here, okay?” he said before pointing an index finger at Nate Kellogg. “And, Kellogg, if you really care about your friend, you’ll understand this most certainly is absolutely off the record unless and until I say so, which may be never. Technically, there should be no civilians around as we examine this evidence.

Agreed?” Kellogg and Claven nodded in agreement.

“And, Jim, you’re right,” Hendricks continued. “I haven’t been very helpful for reasons I won’t explain, but I do apologize. We just have to move forward. The least I can do is let you listen to whatever is on this thing.”

The sheriff handled the voice recorder carefully, not wanting to take a chance of damaging potential evidence. It wouldn’t work for him either. When he opened the back, he found two AAA batteries showing slight signs of corrosion.

“It might be she left it on, and the batteries are just dead,” Hendricks said. “Perhaps she dropped the pack in a hurry. I’ll text Parker to bring us a couple of fresh batteries.”

The three men said nothing, lost in their thoughts, as they waited for Parker to return. Hendricks put new batteries into the recorder, but nothing happened. “Damn,” he said.

“Look at the contact tabs. See if they’re making good contact.

Maybe bend the positive one a little forward,” Kellogg said.

Hendricks removed the new batteries. He grabbed the cloth he used to clean his glasses and wiped a sheen of corrosion off one connector and bent one terminal forward. He pressed start.

They all saw the LED light turn red. The recorder was working.

Hendricks pressed the “play” button, realized they were ahead of whatever Olivia had started recording and then took the most recent recording back to its beginning.

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No one said a word as they heard Olivia’s words for the first time in months: “Um, this is Olivia Claven and I’m investigating the crash of a mysterious object that came down on the football field at Brinkley High School in Azalea Bluff, North Carolina. I can see the object now. It is shaped like a bell. It’s made from some kind of metal obviously, and I would say it’s nearly 30 feet long and about eight feet wide. I think that length is pretty accurate because one end is on the 40-yard line of the football field and the other end is just short of the 50-yard line, so that would be 30 feet. There’s a hum of some sort emitting from the object – kind of low bass vibration. It’s hard to describe. You can sort of feel it as much as hear it. This thing, whatever it is, I don’t know. It’s surrounded by military personnel and civilians who appear to be in charge. The security is like nothing I’ve ever seen before and …”

That was it. Hendricks stopped the recording. Claven was first to break the silence, and he was angry.

“That’s no plane carrying some sort of dangerous chemical she’s talking about,” Claven said, immediately making the connection to everything Harold Martens had told him. “What this means, Sheriff Hendricks is that everything you told us, everything you and the feds told the public and expected the media to report, was a big, fat pile of bullshit. And a good man, Darren Mauney, was murdered for seeking the truth. Some of that stink is on your hands, too.”

Hendricks leaned back in his office chair and ran his hand along the top of his short-cropped hair. “Yeah, bullshit. That’s what it was pretty much,” Hendricks said. “I knew some of what happened, but I didn’t know this.”

“So,” Claven said, “what are you going to do about it?”

“I’m going to finish what I should have started a long time ago.”

“Then I need to tell you about an odd and very interesting guy named Harold Martens and my last conversation with Mauney.

And maybe you should find out more about the fake cop who told me Darren was murdered.”

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32 Michael Starling indeed was a ghost. Hendricks had quickly figured that out after learning of Mauney’s briefing. Claven had told him about Michael’s funeral. Reacting to the urging from Michael’s friend, Ben Fishel, Olivia had begged her family not to come but mentioned the few people who were there. Claven didn’t know much about Fishel, but it was a start for Hendricks.

In order to learn more, Hendricks had to pursue every favor owed to him in the law enforcement and military worlds.

Hendricks had served in the Navy with Craig Groff, and they became close during submarine duty discussing their shared interest in law enforcement careers. Hendricks returned home to Brunswick County while Groff moved from the tiny borough of Yoe, Pennsylvania, and became a New York City detective in one of the city’s terrorism task forces. The job was a never-ending challenge in a city that dealt with multiple threats every day, including some with the potential to rival the scale of the September 11 attacks. Hendricks figured Groff ’s security clearances would give him access to databases few local law enforcement officers could view, if they even knew such databases existed.

In a quick, almost-terse phone call, Groff told Hendricks he’d need to come to New York to talk about Fishel, whom the sheriff simply described as “the boyfriend’s friend.” Groff seemed to signal a phone discussion wasn’t a good idea.

Ten minutes later, Groff called him back from a different number to the sheriff ’s secretary’s desk. “Trust me,” he said after 213

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telling the secretary to bring the sheriff to her phone. “Someone listens to everything. Someone or some algorithm reads every email you send, too. You might have already said and done too much.”

“Hey, I’m not a country bumpkin,” Hendricks said, exaggerating his coastal accent to let Groff know he was a little offended that he needed to be told such things. “We wear shoes and everything down here in these parts nowadays. We even have reliable electricity for these computer things, too. Maybe y’all didn’t know that.”

Groff laughed. “Okay, sorry, Keith,” he said. “Warning people is part of my job description. And you’re my friend.”

“I forgive you,” Hendricks said. “Thanks for the warning.”

Hendricks flew to New York and met Groff in a Manhattan delicatessen where the two men ordered pastrami sandwiches and spent a few minutes reliving stories from the Navy days.

Then the subject turned to Olivia Claven. Keeping his voice at low volume, Hendricks sketched out details of Olivia’s disappearance and the cover-up that followed.

“I don’t get nervous easily or often,” Groff said. “You develop a lot of scar tissue in this job. But I have to tell you this story makes me nervous. This should be the only time we ever talk.

Actually, Keith, I hate to say this, but if I help you, we probably should never see each other again.”

Groff turned around, trying to look casual while carefully scanning the crowded restaurant. He realized the futility of his effort. If he was under surveillance, he wouldn’t be able to tell.

Not with these people. He lowered his voice as he continued but smiled as he spoke, trying to create an appearance of nothing but a pleasant conversation between old friends. Hendricks picked up the cues and did the same, adding gestures consistent with such a chat.

“I’ve worked with Ben,” Groff said. “He’s based in New York, far as I know. That might even be his real name, though I can’t say for sure. Some of these things you’re describing probably intertwine. Honestly, a lot of what you’re describing is stuff I’ve never heard about in any detail. It’s way above my level. But I’ve 214

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been doing this long enough that nothing you’re going to say could possibly surprise me. In their defense, the last thing the world needs, not just America, is for the bad guys to get their hands on some of the things Ben and Michael must be mixed up in. It’s bad enough we have to deal with bombs, hacking, digital attacks on our elections, and the threat of nukes and bioweapons.

Now you’re telling me there might be crazy alien technology out there for flight and even time travel.”

“Will Ben help us?” Hendricks asked.

“He’s a good guy. He’ll be sympathetic to the family,” Groff said. “He probably could get word to Michael, wherever he is and whoever he really is. He might know the answers to some of your questions. I’ll try to arrange a meet. Hang tight for a few days. See the sights. If you don’t hear from me by the weekend, go home and forget about everything. That’s all I can do. No guarantees.”

“Aye, aye, and thanks,” Hendricks said. “I’ll start by visiting the 911 Memorial. I hope I learn we’re still the good guys.” *** Three days later, he still had time to be a tourist. Hendricks called an Uber to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His phone told him to expect a driver named Sahan in a red 2017 Honda Civic in eight minutes. Sure enough, he saw Sahan in his car seven minutes later and waved for the car to pull over to the curb.

As he entered the rear seat, the driver, a boyish-looking, darkhaired man in his 20s, said in broken-but-competent English, “You are Keith, right?”

“That’s right.”

“I just received a text and it said to show you this. It’s very odd. I don’t understand why this person would not just text you if he knows you.”

Sahan handed his smartphone to Hendricks, who read the text: SAHAN: PLEASE HAND THIS TO YOUR PASSENGER AND SHOW HIM I HAVE ASKED YOU TO TAKE HIM TO THE STARBUCKS ON 110TH STREET. NOTHING FISHY. 215

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Hendricks had a rough idea of what was happening. “FISHY” had to be a play on Ben Fishel. Sending a text to the cab driver would be safer than a text to Hendricks’ phone, which might be monitored. How Fishel hacked into his Uber account was far beyond his technology knowledge, but he had zero doubt it was possible.

“That’s okay, Sahan,” Hendricks said. “Don’t worry about how or why. Just go ahead and take me there. And your tip is extra high if you let me delete these texts and you promise to forget all this.”

“No worries,” Sahan replied. “You can delete. I will forget everything except I had a quiet guy who changed his mind about the art museum and wanted to go to Starbucks.”

“That’s perfect. Thanks,” Hendricks said as he deleted the texts and handed the phone back to the driver.

The Starbucks Ben Fishel picked was an obvious choice if you wanted to meet somewhere that had lots of noise to cover any conversation and great sight lines for observation. The two men sat in a back corner. Fishel clearly was a no-nonsense person, which was fine with the sheriff. He liked Fishel right away.

“I’m going to help you,” Fishel said, speaking in a staccatolike a ship captain giving orders. “I realize the only thing they’ll believe is physical proof, so I’m going to help you by arranging an opportunity for the parents to observe their daughter is alive.

You’ll receive information you can communicate to them. But that’s all they can do. All they can do is observe. And there are other conditions.”

“I’m curious and suspicious, to be honest,” Hendricks said, interrupting. “Why are you helping me?”

Fishel took a moment to consider before responding.

“Understood,” he said. “I’m helping you because I know how much Michael loved Olivia, and he knew how much she loved her family. I lost my brother and an entire group of associates when those towers collapsed. Families deserve closure. I’ve got kids myself. But none of this can ever go in a police report. None of this can ever go public, including to that little website in your town. You have to make sure her parents never repeat anything 216

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you’re allowed to tell them. You can’t tell them about me or anything about where you got this information.”

Hendricks interrupted. “They can’t even tell their son? Think about that. He’s Olivia’s brother. And what about Nate Kellogg?”

“Fair question,” Fishel said. “Negative on Kellogg. No way. As for the brother, how about you tell them they have to wait until he’s at least 25, and all they can tell him is they received word she is alive. However, that’s all he can know. Again, you must stress that telling others and drilling deeper will endanger her. Do you agree with these conditions?”

“Agreed.”

“Okay. Good,” Fishel said. He started to get up from the table to leave. “That should do it.”

“No, wait. I’ve got some other questions that are just gnawing at me,” Hendricks said, motioning for Fishel to remain seated. He realized he was treating Fishel like a sort-of cooperative witness who needed to help the authorities just a little more. “Hear me out and at least think about whether you can answer a few more questions,” Fishel said nothing, but he stayed in his seat.

Hendricks continued, “My main question is why it’s so dangerous and hush-hush. It seems like there has to be a better way. Believe me, I’m not sheltered or naïve, and I’m no country bumpkin. I had a high-security clearance in the Navy. I’ve seen things as a sheriff that are about as ugly as you can imagine.

Women trading their kids for pills. Multiple shootings. A guy who slowly skinned his girlfriend for cheating on him before setting her on fire. But it’s still hard for me to believe our government killed Darren Mauney or kidnapped Olivia over some crazy Nazi secrets. Is that what really happened?”

“That’s classified,” Fishel said. “But, yes, my friend, you can correctly conclude you are very naïve, even though you think you aren’t. I don’t know enough to answer all your questions anyway. I definitely don’t know what went wrong with Mauney.

Maybe it wasn’t even us who did it.”

Both men sat quietly for a moment. It was a classic questioning technique used by cops, lawyers, and reporters all the time, though Hendricks wasn’t trying to be purposely manipulative.

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If you wait in silence, eventually, the other person may say something helpful. Fishel smiled, shook his head, and decided to provide a few final nuggets of information.

“Look, I checked you out. I know you’re a solid, honorable guy,” he said. “What I’ll tell you, between us, is that not everyone feels the same way where I work. The reason Olivia is still alive is that some of us thought the price of her death was too high, even for a mega-high level of national security. We came up with an alternative. That’s all I’ll say about that.

“Plus, as a practical matter, much as I hate to put it in those terms, the discovery of a body would invite too many questions.

Even when there’s no body, killing people causes other people to want to talk sooner or later. Confession is good for the soul, as they say. It’s called the law of unintended consequences.”

Fishel continued, “As for the larger questions, some of us believe the need for decades of secrecy is over, and we’re not going to be able to keep a lid on it much longer anyway. People like Martens are fringe players. They’re no problem. They even help in sort of a back-door way because their continued expression of their First Amendment rights affirms the government isn’t hiding anything. But when solid citizens like Mauney and Jim Claven, or even you, start asking questions, that’s a problem.

Eventually, the dam will break. Some of us think it’s past the time to move along and get in front of the story. We’re on an unstable tightrope. Like I said, the more people who know any big secret, the less likely it stays that way.”

“So, Olivia is alive, but some factions still want her dead?”

Hendricks asked. “What about her parents? Is it safe to even let them know she’s alive? It sure doesn’t sound like it.”

“I can’t promise that,” he said. “But there’s a calculation here.

Olivia saw too much, but she’s free without being a problem any longer. That was the deal. If something happens to the Clavens now, that brings the spotlight back.”

“I think I see where that heads,” Hendricks said.

“Obviously,” Fishel said. “The last thing we want is this story from this little town that no one else really cares about becoming a big item again. How about ‘The Mystery of Azalea Bluff ’ as a 218

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two-hour special on ‘Dateline NBC’ or a major piece in the New York Times? The parents don’t really know all that much. It’s just speculation, mainly from a crazy old man and a voice recording that, by the way, won’t exist pretty soon. With this plan, I can assure you everyone else who was on the scene will remain silent.”

Hendricks wasn’t ready to let go. “So, is Michael Starling alive? And I’m guessing his brother is a phony, too.”

“Nice last try, but no comment,” Fishel said. “It’s your lucky day. You’re a good cop and a good man, Keith. I said way, way more than I planned on telling you. Now you’re going to have to live with just knowing this yourself and never repeating it.”

Hendricks stood up. For the benefit of anyone observing, instead of shaking hands, they knew instinctively to pretend to be old friends. They embraced in a man-hug that seemed to speak volumes about the weight of not just the case but their lives. Fishel hugged him a little harder than necessary for an acting performance, and he returned the pressure. Hendricks suspected they could have become good friends under different circumstances. Perhaps, he thought to himself, they’d be the kind of friends who wouldn’t have affairs with the other person’s wife.

He had a definite opening in the “best friend” department.

The two men looked at each other and said nothing as they walked out of the restaurant, continuing to play their parts before they went their separate ways, knowing they’d never speak again.

Both of them wondered and worried if anyone was watching.

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33 Hendricks flew home the next morning on a 5:30 a.m. flight to Charlotte. After getting his connecting flight to Wilmington, he was in his office before noon. He immediately went to his office and texted Claven with a simple message: STOP BY IF YOU HAVE A LITTLE TIME. Claven quickly replied: WILL BE THERE AROUND 3 WITH NATE. Hendricks replied, SORRY, NO NATE. The meeting was short. Claven was thrilled by the news Olivia was alive, as Hendricks expected, but Claven quickly grew frustrated by Hendricks’ refusal to share more information about where he had been, what he had been doing, and more detail on what he had learned.

“All I can say is what I already said,” Hendricks said. “Olivia is alive. I’ve been assured of that. I haven’t seen for myself, so right now, there’s no proof—just assurances. Someone is going to get in touch with you, maybe through me, and you and Kim will have an opportunity to have that proof. They think you’re entitled to that. You must, under all circumstances, keep this to yourself, including from Kim, until that moment comes. I don’t know what that opportunity will be or when it will come.”

“I keep hearing the word ‘they,’ but I don’t know who ‘they’ are,” Claven said, putting air quotes around the uses of the word “they” both times. “I have to assume it’s our own government, right?”

“I’m sorry, Jim,” Hendricks said. “I can’t say. It’s for everyone’s good.”

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Claven could see Hendricks wouldn’t change his position.

“Keith, this is frustrating,” he said, purposely using the sheriff ’s first name. “You can’t imagine.”

“I know, Jim,” Hendricks said. “It’s the best I could do. I’m sorry, and not just about that.”

Claven’s expression relaxed a bit as acceptance took over.

“Well, this is something that’s better than nothing,” he said. “It appears my daughter is alive. I’ll wait for some word.”

He got up from his chair to leave, then stopped as a thought occurred to him.

“By the way,” he said. “I guess I need to say I accept your apology. I can’t forgive everything yet. But I appreciate you tried to get to the truth, even if it took you a while.”

“It did take too long,” Hendricks said. “I hope I made it up to your family, even if I don’t get your vote again.”

“Hmm,” Claven responded. “Let’s just say if you run for Congress, and I have some leftover cash, which is unlikely, you can count on a contribution because you’ll still probably be better than whatever crook runs against you. If I’m broke, which is more possible, you can put a sign in my yard.”

“I’d like that,” Hendricks said. “Maybe the best way to fix Congress would be to send a sheriff up there to restore some order, so we’ll see what happens.” Then he added in his best Carolina drawl: “And we thank you for your gracious support.” *** Hendricks had lived alone since his wife left with the kids after his lawyer talked him out of fighting for custody as long as he had frequent visitation rights. Plus, he knew the demands on a sheriff weren’t consistent with being a single father, and he had no close family nearby to help. That didn’t make it any easier to swallow.

He had given the property a nickname: “3-4-5” because it was a fairly small, three-bedroom ranch house that was part of four wooded acres he owned about five miles from his office. He liked the privacy and location. He was close enough to get anywhere 221

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in the county where he was needed in 30 minutes or less under most circumstances, and he was far enough from the Atlantic Ocean it would take a truly epic storm to have a direct impact on his property. That couldn’t be ruled out, especially when storms slowed and flooding rains crawled for days along the Carolina coast, but when big storms hit, he always worked and slept at the county’s emergency operations center anyway.

His favorite place was the large garage about a 30-yard walk from the main house. It had room for pursuit of all his hobbies, including the boat he planned to buy one of these days. He spent most of his garage time in an upstairs room he used as a private office and a spot to play one of his six guitars. He somewhat sheepishly performed in a fundraiser in Raleigh each fall called “Cops That Rock.” It was a way to humanize law enforcement personnel to the public as real people with other talents. The event annually raised thousands of dollars for first-responder families in need. He was adequate at best as a rhythm guitarist, but it was serious fun and a great way to build relationships with his peers from around the state. Celebrity musicians with Carolina roots performed as well and helped draw big crowds. Knowing you would play in front of people kept a musician from getting too sloppy, but he most treasured the time when he simply played and practiced on his own. Life didn’t provide many chances to totally be in the moment without worries or fears of what might happen next.

After his conversation with Claven, he was particularly looking forward to working on a Chris Stapleton song he had to learn for “Cops That Rock.” Not lacking in senses of humor, the officers involved had decided to perform “Outlaw State of Mind.” However, they had all agreed they couldn’t do “Might as Well Get Stoned” or “Them Stems,” the song featuring Stapleton’s complaints he has no good weed to smoke in the morning.

Driving his Ford Explorer sheriff ’s vehicle, Hendricks pulled into the garage with the chords from the Stapleton song in his mind, trying to decide if he needed to change his tuning to more closely approximate the original song. He’d go upstairs to practice as soon as he changed into more comfortable clothes 222

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and grabbed a bite to eat. His goal whenever he got home was to feel sorry for himself and his marital situation as little as possible. It wasn’t exactly easy for the local sheriff to start new relationships without the gossipers running wild either. The key was to stay busy and avoid plopping in front of the television watching shows he barely cared about.

Lost in his musical thoughts, Hendricks wasn’t paying much attention as he walked the 30 yards from the side door of the garage to the kitchen door of the house across the rust-red patio paving stones that formed the path between the two structures.

He recalled how he and his son had worked together on the project, thoroughly enjoying themselves and sharing a sense of accomplishment. A few months later, the young man’s addictions had poisoned their relationship into a toxic mess.

He turned the key in the door, humming a few bars from the Stapleton song, and stepped into the kitchen. As he looked up, he saw three men, dressed in black, standing by the center counter. They wore gloves and black hoods. He saw three black pistols, probably Glocks, pointed at him. Other than estimating height and weight and maybe race as he looked around their eyes, Hendricks quickly concluded he had no way to identify any of them unless someone spoke. One man did.

“Don’t even think about it,” the tallest intruder said in an even voice that had little noticeable accent. They had seen Hendricks make a slight move toward his holstered weapon. “Raise your hands,” he was ordered.

“You’re fools,” he said as he raised his hands. “Whatever you have planned, you know you’ll be hunted to the ends of the Earth if you take out a law enforcement officer.”

What was most chilling about what happened next was there was no response. No one spoke at all. These men were confident and professional. Nobody offered any additional information that might help any investigator later. Hendricks thought that suggested whatever they had in mind, he was going to live because why bother being so careful if they planned to kill him?

The shortest of the three men then walked in his direction, grabbed his hands, and handcuffed them behind him. Another 223

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man slipped a burlap bag over his head and lightly tied it around his neck so he could breathe but couldn’t see. He expected to next feel the removal of his belt with his gun and holster, but nothing happened in that regard, though it didn’t matter with his hands cuffed.

“Walk with us, or we’ll force you to do it,” said the one man who had spoken earlier. This time, Hendricks thought he detected an accent that sounded vaguely Midwestern, like people from Chicago or maybe Cleveland, but it meant little. He felt a hand on his shoulder and started walking as he was directed.

He could feel the patio pavers under his feet as they walked him back to the garage. He was confused as they forced him to get back into the driver’s seat of his Explorer. He heard the vehicle start, guessing someone had pushed the start/stop button. Then he heard the garage door shut.

And then he knew what they had planned. Fear streamed through him in cascading waves. The black outfits and masks were simply the cautionary acts of professionals who knew you could never account for all the variables. If somehow, he escaped in a way they couldn’t imagine, he’d still know little or nothing, and they could come at him again. The gloves guaranteed the only fingerprints would be his or those of any other visitors who weren’t these three men. The cuffs weren’t so tight they’d leave marks, nor was the bag over his head.

They were going to fake his suicide.

With the garage door down, carbon monoxide would eventually overcome him. It was one of the commonest suicide techniques, particularly by people who either cringed at the violence associated with putting a gun in your mouth or wanted to save their family members the trauma of finding a body in the never-to-be-forgotten condition bullets could create as they ripped through a human body. Although firearms caused more than half of all suicides, about a quarter involved suffocation such as carbon monoxide poisoning or hanging. He had investigated probably 20 or more just like this during his career. It was so common that the method would make no one suspicious. Even if anyone asked questions, which certainly would happen in 224

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the case of a dead sheriff whose occupation inevitably involved making enemies, the inquiry would just be a formality since there would be no apparent evidence of foul play.

That was especially true because of his recent history. His manufactured suicide would seem completely plausible as more details about Hendricks’ personal life became general knowledge.

He had no doubt every damning item would become public somehow.

He clearly saw the cold logic. The two biggest threats to exposing what really happened on the football field would be gone. Hendricks and Mauney were trained investigators who could make a lot of noise and be believed. He already knew that he, like Mauney, would push harder to find the truth and maybe even find Olivia someday. If they had studied him, they knew that, too.

He wondered if Martens and the Clavens were at risk. They knew or suspected the basics of the plot, but as Ben Fishel had said, it made more sense for these people to watch and wait versus raising new questions. Plus, if the Clavens went public with this craziness and no proof, they’d be dismissed and viciously ridiculed in the ratholes of social media. Their status as grieving parents would make no difference.

So, tag. He was it. Now they would do what he would do if he were some evil plotter trying to get rid of Keith Hendricks.

They’ll leave the garage as it is until I die and the fumes clear.

After I die, they’ll come back in and remove the bag on my head and the cuffs. When someone finds me, they’ll have no reason to suspect anything else. They probably already used my computer upstairs to type out a suicide note on my printer. They’ll probably put the note on the kitchen table where I always sit. Maybe it’ll talk about the affair that broke up my marriage and my fear of the domestic violence case becoming public when I run again or if I run for higher office. It might say I felt guilty for the strings I pulled to help my son, or maybe I blame myself for his addiction.

I’m pretty quiet and keep things to myself. That’s what everyone says. People won’t have a hard time believing it could be true. Life will go on, except for mine.

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All these adrenaline-fueled thoughts passed through his mind rapidly. His passion to survive and his hard-wired cop skills fought with the exhaust fumes filling the garage. Tears rolled down his cheeks as it got harder to stay awake. Just before he fell into a final, eternal slumber, he wondered if Olivia really was alive. Perhaps the other faction Ben Fishel had mentioned must have won or was winning. He hoped Fishel survived. He thought about Jim and Kim Claven and how sad it was they would never know what happened to their daughter.

He was certain that was just how the people killing him wanted it.

And then he was gone.

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34 After Hendricks’ death, Claven spent weeks in quiet despair, assuming that any chance of knowing about Olivia had died with the unfortunate sheriff. But one day, about two months after Hendricks had started his investigation into Olivia’s disappearance, Claven found a letter in an envelope under his office door.

The envelope simply said “Jim Claven” on a printed mailing label. He realized that keeping it out of the mail meant there was no postmark and wondered if that was the intent. The letter itself provided no clues to the author’s identity. It was short and to the point, cleanly printed in a standard font on a piece of stock paper that no doubt was untraceable in every way. But it provided a message Claven thought he would never see: This is the follow-up you were promised. Plan vacation in New Orleans. Make reservation for 7:00 p.m. during the first Monday of Mardi Gras week at the Orleans Jazz Bistro. Be specific. Demand a small table facing the bar. Don’t tell anyone, including your wife, anything more except that you’re taking a quick vacation. Shred this immediately.

Claven did as he was told, stunned he didn’t have to abandon hope of ever knowing Olivia’s fate. Someone had followed up on whatever Hendricks had tried to orchestrate for them. Maybe, Claven thought, the letter had been written by a ghost named Michael Starling.

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He was certain of two things: He’d never know the real identity of the author, and he was taking his wife to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. *** The following February, just before the start of Mardi Gras, Jim and Kim Claven drove to the Wilmington airport for an early-morning connecting flight to Charlotte followed by a flight to New Orleans Jim had pitched as a long-deserved vacation.

Claven’s accounting business was doing better and it was early enough in tax season the trip wouldn’t interfere. Kim had just received a small inheritance from a childless aunt, and despite Jim’s angry, drunken outburst at Tom Albert in the clubhouse that day, it did seem true that as time passed, the aches healed enough to allow them moments of normal living. It was time to get away and continue to rejuvenate their marriage. The hardest part was not being able to tell Kim the real reason for the trip.

He planned other surprises for her, starting with flowers in their room.

Outside their hotel, they were swarmed by partiers in various states of dress and undress, but the Clavens weren’t the kind of revelers who hang out in the French Quarter until 4 a.m. every night. Their plans, scripted by Kim, included sightseeing, Dixieland jazz, a little time in the downtown casino, and a full day at the National World War II museum.

On Monday evening, Jim told Kim he had picked a downtown restaurant for a quiet meal before they explored the music on Bourbon Street. He had planned the meal and made the reservation weeks earlier. As the anonymous note had ordered, he had reserved a quiet corner table that faced the bar directly.

Kim excused herself to go to the restroom. As she returned to the table, she passed a younger woman who had just entered the restaurant. She watched as the woman went to the bar and sat alone, though she looked around as though she was waiting for someone. The woman pulled out her phone and began looking studiously at it, as though she was concentrating hard on whatever she was reading.

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Kim sat down, looked at Jim, and started to cry. Her face, which usually had a tanned glow from the Carolina sun, was the color of white linen.

“Jim, you’re going to think I’m crazy,” she said. “They say everyone has a person who looks exactly like them, sort of an identical twin separated at birth. I swear in front of the Lord, I just saw Olivia. Her hair is cut different and it’s a different color, but it’s Olivia. Then I heard her speak to the bartender, and the accent was different, but it was her voice. It was HER VOICE. I have to go talk to her.”

Jim firmly placed his hand on his wife’s wrist. “No, we can’t,” Jim said. “I’m so sorry, Kim. I didn’t want this to happen this way.”

Kim felt confusion, fear, and a touch of anger. “What in God’s name are you talking about, Jim?” Jim spoke quickly but kept his hand on her wrist.

“I thought she’d enter after I had a chance to tell you what was going on. I was just getting ready to explain to you what was about to happen. I was sworn to secrecy until this moment. I couldn’t say anything for the sake of everyone’s safety, including ours and Olivia’s. That was the deal. We’re getting proof she’s okay, but we can’t make contact. Since he’s gone, I can tell you that Sheriff Hendricks helped me. You can ask me all the other questions you want, but that’s all I know, except it’s dangerous for all of us, including Olivia, if we dig deeper. Now that we’ve seen her, we know she’s alive and looks well.”

Kim responded, “How can we just sit here? Jim, it’s Olivia. It’s our daughter.”

“And she always will be.”

Jim realized he was having trouble maintaining, too. Even though he had had months to prepare, and he thought he was ready for the emotional jolt, it was all he could do to resist the urge to leap from his seat and approach her. He took a deep breath to calm himself. With his free hand, he raised his drink, a Tito’s vodka-and-club soda.

“Here’s to Olivia,” he said. He could see Kim was crying.

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brushed away more tears. Jim began crying as well. The couple at the next table stared at them with expressions that signaled they were wondering if Jim and Kim were okay.

“It’s all right,” he said, looking at them. “We were just discussing a loved one we’ve lost touch with.” The other couple nodded and looked away.

The Clavens sat quietly for several minutes, both fixating on the young woman at the bar while trying not to obviously stare and draw too much attention. She continued to scroll and text on her phone just the way Olivia did.

Jim spoke first, trying to shift the subject into a more positive area. “You know, I’ve been thinking, what were the chances of me meeting Harold Martens and finding her backpack with the recorder?”

“One in a million,” Kim said.

“All this time, you and I have wondered if she could still be alive. Maybe that’s God’s way of letting us put this to bed.”

“I want to believe that’s possible,” Kim said. “Just the same, it won’t be easy.”

“And let’s toast Sheriff Hendricks,” Jim said next, preferring not to dwell on Kim’s words. “Trust me when I tell you we wouldn’t be here without him. Let’s raise a glass to Keith.”

“Yes,” she said. “He turned out to be a good man.”

They clinked glasses again.

It was Jim, not Kim, who first lost the ability to sit in the restaurant and look at their daughter without being able to hold her or talk to her.

“I can’t do this,” Jim said. He fished a $20 bill out of his wallet and left it on the table.

“Let’s go somewhere else to eat,” he said. “Otherwise, I’m not sure what I’m going to do. You’re right. It’s too hard.”

“I totally understand,” Kim said. They stood up. Kim grabbed his hand and squeezed it. They walked out to the sounds of jazz.

The band stopped playing as they walked through the entrance door. The only noise they heard was what seemed like the clinking of hundreds of other glasses in the background. As far as they could tell, the woman at the bar never noticed they were there.

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35 The name of the woman sitting at the Orleans Jazz Bistro bar was Ashley Boudreaux, and she worked as the bistro’s event planner and marketer.

It was a fun job. The Jazz Bistro was a popular place. The drinks were excellent and reasonably priced, and the food drew raves. Their back room was booked constantly for bridal showers, weddings, non-profit events, political fundraisers, and all the other types of activities a city like New Orleans attracts.

The ad an unknown friend had flagged for her on LinkedIn several months earlier said the job was “right up her alley,” which reminded her she disliked tired clichés. Still, the friend was right.

She loved working with people, and it was a job that would put her communications and marketing skills to regular tests.

She was staring at her phone when a handsome man, probably five or six years older than her, sat on the stool next to her and ordered a Corona beer with lime. He was sharply dressed in a two-piece gray suit that tightly fit his athletic body. He wore no tie but was wearing a white dress shirt with blue pinstripes.

Jake, the young bartender who moonlighted at the Bistro to help pay his Tulane University law-school tuition, hustled to get the man’s drink. He smiled and welcomed the man to the Bistro with all of the personality he could muster. He was trying to impress the man, but more importantly, he was trying to impress Ashley, who could praise him to management and help him get some extra hours.

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“Here you are, sir. Enjoy, and just let me know if you need me. I’ll holler right back.”

Ashley said, “Now, now, Jake, we don’t holler in here. We come over and serve.”

“Oh, uh, yes. Sorry Ashley,” Jake said. “I just meant …”

“That’s okay,” the new customer said. “I know what he meant.”

She was adamant. “All the same, we have to mind our Cajun manners.”

The customer said, “Oh, I get it now. You’re his boss.”

Ashley said, “Well, more of an associate. But I keep an eye on things when the owner isn’t around. Normally I handle our events and marketing, but our philosophy here is that it’s all of our jobs to make sure our customers are treated like kings. Or queens. Or, sometimes in New Orleans, you can’t be sure which they are, and we really don’t mind.”

The customer laughed. “Well, there’s no disagreeing with that.”

She extended her hand. “Let me formally welcome you to our fine establishment. I can give you a complete tour and a sales pitch if you want. You aren’t planning a wedding or anything like that, are you?”

“Now I could take that comment in multiple ways,” he said.

Observing the exchange, Jake could tell the customer was struck by Ashley’s appearance and trying to avoid the “elevator eyes” most guys couldn’t hide as they got caught examining a woman’s physical attributes. Ashley often reminded the staff that looking good was good for business. Today she wore white, clingy designer jeans, a dressy, navy blue top that was just a little revealing, and a gray sweater that went knee-length in the back.

Jake thought they made a nice-looking couple. He found himself rooting for a connection. He liked Ashley, but there was an aura of loneliness around her that was hard to explain and obvious just the same.

“That comment was made exactly as I intended,” she responded, obviously flirting just a bit with the customer.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, and no, I have no immediate needs for a wedding reception,” he said. “Does the event manager have a name?”

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Ashley grinned. “That depends. What have you got for me?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Well, I’ll tell you my name and you tell me yours, and then maybe you’ll offer to buy me dinner. Then I decide after we chat for a while if I want to follow up and go out with you again. I don’t flirt with just anyone, you know.”

She raised her eyebrows during that last sentence. Now the customer smiled. “What’s wrong with having dinner right here?”

Ashley said, “I’m here six days or nights a week, sometimes more. The food is great, but I need some variation.”

The customer said, “You’ve got something else in mind?”

“Correct,” she said. “Shall we proceed with the names? I’ll go first. I’m Ashley Boudreaux – with a big ol’ silent ‘X’ on the end.”

“Boo-droh,” he repeated, sounding it out phonetically. “That’s a beautiful name, especially because of the silent ‘X.’ Do I have that right?”

“Exactly. I really like that silent ‘X.’ I just think it’s kind of cool.

Or, maybe I like secrets. Sort of like the ‘X-Files’ or maybe the ‘X-Men’ I guess, though I don’t believe I have any superpowers.”

“Well, I’m not so sure about that. This is going to sound lame, but you’re casting a spell on me,” he responded. “You can call me Mick or Mickey. My name is Mickey Crow. Like the bird.”

“Like the really smart bird?”

“Just like that bird. I hope we can get to know each other.”

The bartender and those sitting nearby saw two people looking at each other with the eyes of a couple who had just met, sizing the situation and trying to decide if either should take another step in an infant relationship. There were no observers close enough to notice both of them exchanging almost imperceptible winks.

Mickey leaned closer to Ashley to whisper in her ear and squeezed her arm lightly with his right hand.

“Chapter Two begins,” he said.

Ashley said nothing for about 30 seconds. She tilted her head to the side, put her hand under her chin, and was obviously pondering the statement.

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“Well, that’s an interesting thought,” she finally replied, speaking both for Mickey’s benefit and anyone listening. “I seem to have a vague memory of my daddy telling me not to speak or write in clichés, but there’s one cliché I particularly like.”

“What’s that?” he said.

“Time will tell.”

Mickey watched her closely, and he noticed her eyelids lower and her smile shift into a frown when she said, “my daddy.” She turned toward the front door, peering briefly but intensely at the spot where an older couple had just departed and then swiveled back on her stool. She glanced down at her partially finished drink and blocked herself from showing any obvious emotion.

The moment passed. They stared at each other for several seconds and exchanged nods.

“You’re right. Time will tell,” Mickey repeated. “But time is a funny thing. I just don’t think humans are capable of understanding it.”

“Maybe we’re not supposed to,” she said.

They lingered about 20 minutes longer and left the restaurant together, knowing Jim and Kim Claven should be far away by now. Ashley’s right hand and Mickey’s left hand brushed against each other as they stood up, but they didn’t hold hands.

As far as Ashley Boudreaux was concerned, for this moment and maybe forever, that would have to be enough. It felt impossible to fully love a man who nearly got you killed because of his deceptions and had to separate you from your family for the rest of your life to put a bandage on the damage.

However, time would tell.

The End

234

Fact vs. Fiction + Acknowledgments Writing is mostly a solitary pursuit, but no author succeeds alone. That’s especially true in this case. My deep appreciation goes to everyone who helped with this book, and my list must begin with Ed Galloway.

Ed and I met by chance at a Christmas show in Charlotte, NC, in 2017, where I was signing my two novels, Killing the Curse and Season of Lies. After hearing the deep, rich tones of Ed’s voice, I wasn’t surprised to learn that broadcasting was where he made his living. The foundation for Azalea Bluff comes from “Incident in Mint Hill,” an audio drama Ed created and produced in 2011 as a salute to old-time radio storytelling. Programs of that era were far more elaborate than the audiobooks we hear today. These dramas had full casts and realistic sound effects that brought families together around their living-room radios before the advent of television in the 1950s. Sounds and dialogue painted vivid pictures, and your imagination filled in the blanks.

The advent of podcasting has made these throwback radio dramas fun and contemporary again.

Ed wanted to find someone who could transform his short audio drama into a novel, and this book is what happens when you give such an idea to a guy like me. Ed never wavered in support, even when I took several liberties with his plot, including significant changes to the locale as well as the age and life experiences of the main character, Olivia Claven.

I’m particularly thankful for Ed’s knowledge about unidentified flying objects. Speculation UFOs were real spaceships occu235

pied by visitors from other worlds reached a peak bordering on frenzy in the 1950s and 1960s, as those of us who were curious kids in those times will remember. Ed was a diehard UFO buff.

I’m a big fan of science fiction and James Rollins-style thriller adventures framed around historical mysteries. Still, I was skeptical his story wasn’t based on much more than wild, fringe-group speculation teased from wafer-thin slices of reality. Well, Ed Galloway turned out to be one convincing guy. I realized I had much to learn as we discussed mysteries, facts, and theories surrounding UFOs and Nazis.

Once I did my own research, which was necessary to flesh out the story, I landed firmly in the camp of those who believe many of the public explanations from the authorities over the years don’t add up. It’s certainly a fact government leaders don’t always tell the truth or share everything they know. Read today’s headlines.

The plot line in Azalea Bluff is based on two well-documented subjects: UFO events at the end of World War II into the 1960s and the Nazis’ top-secret scientific research.

For example, both the Americans and Soviets recognized the brilliant, misguided genius of the Third Reich’s scientists, such as Wernher von Braun, and solicited them to work for their countries as the two wartime allies became Cold War rivals. Von Braun and other Germans indeed made references to “help from elsewhere” in their research.

The existence of Operation Paperclip and the frantic race to capture top Nazis such as Hans Kammler by both Soviets and Americans at the war’s end are established facts. It seems very curious there are no definitive answers about what happened to Kammler at the close of World War II – at least no answers the public knows. Kammler’s driver and the police station interview with him are my inventions, but much of what happens in that scene fits reports about the hunt for this key Nazi leader.

There also was a Nazi facility and concentration camp in Ebensee, Austria, and the story squares with documented descriptions and data. Nazi interest in exploring Antarctica is well-known, and speculation about whether the Nazis had a 236

top-secret base at the bottom of the world makes for fascinating reading.

As a music fan, my favorite “fun fact” is the explanation regarding the origin of the name of the alt-rock band “Foo Fighters.” That was the nickname for the many UFOs reported by pilots who tried to track unknown objects that demonstrated unprecedented flight abilities and followed U.S. planes around Chile and Antarctica around the end of World War II. It’s also a fact something crashed in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947. Was it really just an Army balloon? Questions and speculations seem to be escalating lately, perhaps the result of renewed government interest in UFOs. That included heavily publicized Pentagon briefings in the late spring of 2019 for several U.S. senators and President Trump after recent video became public showing crazy UFO flight paths captured by our pilots.

What jarred me the most was learning more about a real-life UFO incident in Kecksburg. If you type the phrase “Kecksburg, Pennsylvania” into your browser search bar, you’ll find details about this mysterious 1965 incident, which happened much as described by Harold Martens in our story.

I moved Ed’s original setting from the suburbs of Charlotte to the beach communities between Wilmington, North Carolina, and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. My wife and I began going to the Brunswick County community of Holden Beach and the surrounding area with our kids in the 1990s. We liked it so much we built a house, and now we live there.

Azalea Bluff has some similarities to the Brunswick County town of Shallotte. There is no Azalea Bluff or Brinkley High School in Brunswick County. It strikes me as a great idea, though, to name a school in the greater Wilmington area after native son David Brinkley, the late acclaimed broadcaster who likely would be appalled by the attacks on his profession as well as much of the shallow, over-dramatized journalism happening today.

A special thank-you goes to Brunswick County Sheriff John Ingram. Sheriff Ingram was gracious with his time as he shared background about his office, discussed the challenges of 237

policing one of America’s fastest-growing counties and provided perspective on local history that added authenticity to my story.

Please note, however, my version of the sheriff ’s office and the character of Sheriff Keith Hendricks are fictional creations.

I’m very grateful to many others who helped make Azalea Bluff happen, with particular appreciation for those who reviewed and critiqued various drafts. My thanks go to Stephanie Storey, Carol Costello, David Morris, Cheryl Reed, Tina O’Rourke, Lindsay Hetzel, Cheryl Hetzel, Amy Shapiro, Shelly Dutch, Chuck Callender, Craig Siewert, Heather Dugan, Jack Greiner, Dave Pollick, and Nita Gregory Hill. As always, I thank Publisher Cathy Teets at Headline Books, who has supported all my fiction efforts. I’m proud to write for one of America’s best indie-book publishers.

As I sent versions of the manuscript to my draft readers, I was particularly focused on the interesting challenge of making Olivia Claven a believable character since I’m obviously not a female millennial. So, special regards go to the accomplished women listed above who helped me give Olivia an authentic voice.

Olivia and I also share a lifetime passion for journalism.

I took a reality detour in my characterization of Brunswick County’s local newspaper as a limping version of its former self.

That description is an unfortunate truth in some parts of America these days and served the purposes of my story. However, the actual weekly paper in Brunswick County, The Brunswick Beacon, still does a good job. I root for them to overcome the decline of what was a wonderful, advertising-based business model for many decades.

As someone who has been a journalist or media exec throughout my adult life, I know that producing a decent local newspaper has always been a difficult, imperfect business. And it matters. Communities need strong, connecting bonds to succeed. Good local newspapers, whether print or online, help provide the glue. The toxic political winds from Washington can’t do as much damage either.

Many of the solutions for providing local news across the 238

country are emerging from talented, dedicated, and wise-beyondtheir-years young journalists like Olivia Claven. I’ve been blessed to know and mentor many journalists like her during my career.

If you care about your community, please support your local media outlets and people like Olivia, who are genuinely trying to figure things out. You need them.

Finally, let’s bring it back to Ed. Sadly, as I neared completion of an early draft one evening in April 2019, I emailed a progress report only to receive a call from his wife, Carolyn, the next day. She shared that Ed had died unexpectedly from a heart attack. Carolyn and I quickly agreed the project should continue, in part now as a tribute to “the man with a thousand voices.” Plus, as a seasoned radio guy, Ed certainly would have agreed with the notion the show goes on.

If you’d like a real taste of old-time radio, you can buy “Incident in Mint Hill” at Amazon or learn more about Ed’s work in Charlotte at www.thevoiceontheradio.com.

My opportunities to know Ed and fully appreciate his talents were far too limited. Ed, if you see this somehow, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn you have found some answers and new surprises to explore.

Dennis Hetzel, Spring 2021

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About the Author Azalea Bluff is Dennis Hetzel’s third novel. His first two, Killing the Curse (with Rick Robinson) and Season of Lies, both published by Headline Books, explore the prices paid to succeed at the highest levels of sports and politics.

A Chicago native with a political science degree from Western Illinois University, he began his career as a weekly newspaper sports editor and reporter before becoming a leading editor at the Madison, Wis., Capital Times, the York, Pa., Daily Record, and the Cincinnati Enquirer. He also taught journalism at Penn State and Temple universities and was executive director of the Ohio News Media Association from 2010 until 2019, where he gained a national reputation for his support of local journalism and work on open government issues. He writes and operates a media consulting firm, Fresh Angle Communications, in Holden Beach, North Carolina, where he lives with his wife, a retired educator.

You can learn more about Dennis’ novels at his website, DennisHetzel.com. Meanwhile, he’s still hoping this guitar thing works out when he grows up.

About Ed Galloway Ed Galloway pursued his love of radio after serving in the U.S. Navy and earning a certification from the Carolina School of Broadcasting. He was a respected, popular broadcaster in his native Charlotte area and across the country, known as “the man with a thousand voices” for his impersonations and command of his voice. In 1990, he opened Ed Galloway Productions with a focus on media marketing and advertising. He narrated projects for the Discovery Channel, Bojangles, and NASCAR, among others.

Ed’s audio story, “Incident in Mint Hill,” saluted the radio dramas created during the early decades of broadcasting and served as the foundation for Azalea Bluff. He also created a comic 1970s-throwback radio show, “And Then There Was That,” airing on multiple radio stations at the time of his unexpected death from a heart attack in January 2019 at age 68.

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Olivia Claven lives in the Carolina beach community of Azalea Bluff.

She’s trying to regroup, but a flooding tide of setbacks has dashed her dreams. The love of her life died in a mysterious crash. The local news website she started in her hometown could fail at any time, too.

A mysterious object has crashed onto her high school’s football field.

She sneaks to the cordoned-off site and views the odd, bell-shaped object.

To her disbelief, she is abducted. As Olivia fights madness in captivity, her father risks everything to find his daughter and unlock the secrets behind her disappearance.

Azalea Bluff

“Azalea Bluff is sci-fi thriller par excellence, packed with the kind of cover-ups and conspiracies that have come to define the genre's accessible side. Dennis Hetzel's seminal effort conjures Nazis, aliens, lost secrets and found heroes in stitching the tapestry of a tale over a doomsday landscape. Reminiscent of Ray Bradbury at his best and reading like a great episode of ‘The X-Files,’ this is science fiction writing of the highest order for fans both old and new.”

—JON LAND, USA Today bestselling author of The Rising

ED GALLOWAY was a respected, popular broadcaster in his native Charlotte area and across the country, known as “the man with a thousand voices” for his impersonations and command of his voice. Ed’s audio story, “Incident in Mint Hill,” saluted the radio dramas created during the early decades of broadcasting and served as the foundation for Azalea Bluff.

DENNIS HETZEL with ED GALLOWAY

DENNIS HETZEL, media consultant, freelance journalist, and award-winning author of political thrillers, Season of Lies and Killing the Curse. In earlier lives, he was an editor, publisher, journalism professor, trade association executive, and lobbyist recognized nationally for his work on First Amendment issues. A Chicago native, he lives in Holden Beach, North Carolina. Learn more at www.dennishetzel.com.

DENNIS HETZEL

with ED GALLOWAY

“Azalea Bluff is the rare kind of yarn that transcends genres—part science fiction, part action adventure, and all fun. Dennis Hetzel keeps you guessing until the last, breathtaking page!”

—DON BENTLEY, author of the bestselling Matt Drake novels