The Pandora Directive

Chapter Nineteen

“You smoke too much.”

I looked up from my matchbook, a Lucky dangling from my lips. “Yeah, so?”

Regan smiled serenely as I looked up. “I have a theory about people who smoke too much.”

I exhaled a tremendous amount of smoke. “Please, enlighten me.”

“|Smokers are lonely. Cigarettes are their one good friend. No matter what, they can always reach into their pocket and find their little friend, Mr Smoke.”

“I’m not a lonely guy.”

Regan leaned forward, chin resting in her hand. “Sure you are.”

I inspected my tie and flicked off a lint ball “I’ve just found myself to be the only consistently reasonable person I know.”

Regan sat back as a waitress arrived. “The two of you must be very happy.”

A glass of wine for Reagan and a cup of black coffee for me. I’d already had a bourbon with Pernell. Catching a buzz around lunchtime wasn’t on my list of things to do. I looked around. The Imperial Lounge was busier than it had been yesterday. It made me a little nervous, but crowded rooms always did. I looked back at Regan as she finished leaving a soft, red impression of her lower lip on the outer rim of the wine glass.

“You certainly didn’t pull any punches yesterday.”

Her tone was as cool as a mint julep. I stared into the ashtray as the butt of my cigarette gave up the ghost.

“Was I too hard on you?” I looked up and met Regan’s eyes. She was smiling in a way that made me curious.

“Don’t flatter yourself, shamus. I’ll let you know when you’re too hard.” She certainly had a way with a phrase. “There you go again, twisting my words. How do you expect us to get anything accomplished with you talking like that?”

Regan tossed me a mocking pout like it was a bone. “I’ll be good if you insist. But you’re brushing off an extremely sincere effort. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“I am.” I reached down for my backpack and pulled out the notebooks I’d taken from Malloy’s room. Setting them on the table, I took a sip of coffee. It tasted like dishwater. Louie could teach these people a thing or two about brewing a part of Joe. Regan leaned over the table to get a look at the notebooks.

“What’re those?”

“Notebooks.”

Regan looked up sarcastically. “Really? How do they work?”

“They’re full of paper. People write in them. These particular notebooks belonged to your father.”

The caustic look evaporated. “My father? Where’d you get them?”

“That’s not important. What is important is finding out what’s written in them. Your father used some kind of shorthand. I can’t make out a thing. I was hoping you could.”

Regan pulled one of them across the table and opened it. She flicked through the pages quickly, pausing only to moisten her fingers. After some time, she looked up and took a sip of wine. She seemed to enjoy making me wait.

“What do you think?”

She set down her glass and looked back at the notebook. “He never liked to write on the computer. Most everything he wrote was in notebooks like this.”

“Can you read it?”

She flipped pages idly. “Some. It’ll take awhile to get through it all.”

I was relieved. “How long do think it will take you to figure them out?”

Regan closed the notebook and reached for the Pinot. “I’ll let you know when I’m done.”

I was impatient, but her tone said that I’d just have to wait and like it, damn it. She drank the rest of the wine, subtly making love to the glass. On cue, the waitress arrived and asked if we’d like another round. Regan said yes, leaving no room for discussion. When the waitress left, Regan reached across the table and took one of my smokes.

“I hope you don’t mind.”

I motioned nonchalantly. She lit the cigarette with her eyes locked on mine, like she was kissing another man. Her wine arrived, and the waitress sloshed a stream of so-called coffee in the general vicinity of my cup. Regan smiled as I mopped up with a cocktail napkin. “Tell me something… something interesting about yourself.”

“What you want to know?”

“Anything. I feel like you know a lot more about me than I do about you. It’s not very fair.”

I retreated to my pack of Lucky Strikes. “I was married once. How’s that?”

“Only once? That’s not very interesting. Everyone’s been married once.”

“I never said I was interesting.”

Regan poised her cigarette over the ashtray and flicked delicately. “So, what was she like?”

“Beautiful, intelligent, sexy… and rotten to the core.”

Regan smiled indulgently. “So why did you marry her?”

“I lost a bet.” I took a drag and wished I hadn’t brought up the subject.

“Do you hate all women now?”

I shook my head and reached for my cup of dishwater. “They’re like tequila, the greatest thing in the world until the one night you overdo it. After that, the slightest whiff of it makes you want to vomit. For a long time, you can’t even think about it without getting nauseous. After a while, you take a little sip, and you’re surprised to find that you can keep it down. Eventually, you go back to drinking it, but you never, ever forget that first miserable night.” I took another sip of dishwater. It tasted a bit like Cuervo.

“Nice metaphor.”

“Glad you enjoyed it.” I put my elbows on the table. “So, tell me, what’s your philosophy of love?”

Regan stared into her Pinot Noir and bit her lower lip. “I… Dance With Love — until it tries to lead.” She looked up seductively. “And I love to dance.”

“What a coincidence. I used to give lessons. Dance lessons.”

Regan cocked an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Yeah. Old family tradition. I know ‘em all — tango, samba, watusi, Charleston — “

“How about the Forbidden Dance of Love?”

“I know it, but I quit doing it. Kept throwing my back out.”

Regan smiled and sipped her wine. I thought of something I’d been meaning to ask. “So… where did the name Madsen come from?”

Her smile became less sincere. “I was married.”

Turnabout was fair play. “What was he like?”

“Oh, you know… handsome, intelligent, sexy… and rotten to the core.”

“What a coincidence.”

Regan cradled the Pinot in her hands. “He was my tequila. Now I drink wine.” She took a sip. “I won’t make that mistake again.”

“What do you mean?”

Regan set the glass down and leaned back. “I let myself be controlled by someone. I didn’t like it. Now I’m in it for myself.” She looked back at me, defiantly.

I raised my mug. “Here’s to looking out for number one, and sticking our necks out for nobody.”

Regan relaxed and smiled, then lifted her glass to my coffee cup. “To us.”

She was a piece of work. I was tempted to spend a few more hours looking into that flawless face, but I’d fallen enough for one day. My attraction to Regan wasn’t the warm, comfortable kind that I felt towards Chelsea. Instead, it was a fierce, primal craving that ached in my gut. She was a backdraft of desire, dancing, writhing, a mass of exploding embers they could easily blind anyone foolish enough to stare too long.”

I excused myself and placed a call to Fitzpatrick at the Savoy. He was still working on the boxes, but no luck. I hung around the vid-phone for a few minutes, going over the game plan. Pernell was handling the anagram problem, but it was way too soon to find out what he’d learned. Regan was going to go through Malloy’s notebooks. Hopefully she’d turn something up. It seemed like all I could do was hurry up and wait. I decided to fly back to my office.

I couldn’t see any nefarious loiterers on Chandler Avenue, so I parked and entered the Ritz brazenly. No surprises. It was good to be home. I flipped on the light, hoping that a co-operative brownie had come in and cleaned up, but the place was as trashed as I left it. Whoever had broken in the other night must have felt short-changed. Half the fun of breaking into a place is getting to ransack it.

I went straight to the shower, then shaved. After changing my clothes, I went to my desk and checked my voice messaging unit. There were two messages. I pressed the playback button and dropped into my chair.

“Hi, Tex. Lavercan Kimbell here. I just wanted to touch base with you on the PI Pension/401k, now that we’re past the first quarter. Boy, it’s been crazy.” my investment adviser laughed nervously. “Well, anyway, I just thought I’d let you know that not all the news is bad. I mean, we did lose quite a bit, but that’s really the best thing that could have happened. Now we can buy more shares, and when we hit an upward swing, we’ll make up for the past four or five years. Well, that’s about all. Call me if you’ve got any questions.”

Lavercan was a sincere man, with no apparent talent for investment strat-egy. At this rate, I’d soon own more worthless stock than anyone in the world. Luckily, I still had my Franklin Mint Civil War chess set — my true nest egg. The thing had to be worth a fortune. Hell, all the pieces were made of fine pewter.

The second message came up in hushed tones. “There are ears everywhere. I’ve got something to show you. Stop by as soon as you can.”

Ellis. I wondered what he had to show me. Probably a touched up still from Plan Nine From Outer Space. But, since I didn’t have anything better to do, I figured I’d drop by.

“Clearly, Kennedy knew about the alien infiltration of the government. Extraterrestrial contact was made by the Russians all through the ‘50s. It’s well-documented. The way I see it, the aliens had to get rid of Kennedy before he exposed them. LBJ was certainly under their control, if not actually one of them. Vietnam was nothing more than a ruse to divert the attention of the American public.”

Ellis took a sip of mineral water and gave me a knowing wink.

“Without question, the Depression of ‘98 was a veiled attempt by the aliens to throw our political system into chaos. Fortunately, the administrations of Dole, Gingrich, and Linderman recognised the threat and purged most of the aliens from high-ranking positions. Now we’re in what I call a “secondary state of checks and balances.”

“That’s fascinating.”

Ellis had started babbling the minute I stepped into his shop. He was like a drum solo — there was nothing to do but wait for it to end. It looked like he’d finished.

“So what was it you have to show me?”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry. I just get a little hyped when I find someone who understands what’s really going on. I’ve got a lot of, well, I think they’re brilliant, theories, but it’s hard to find people you can trust.”

He got up and walked to a file cabinet. As I watched him remove a key from the chain on his belt, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of ambivalence. On the one hand, Ellis was obviously lonely, isolated by his intensely conspiratorial beliefs, yet eager for companionship and shared vision. I felt a pang of empathy for this misguided, but sincere, nerd. All he needed to be happy was a crackpot pal, someone to share in his convoluted skein of warped theories. On the other hand, he was too annoying for me to ever be his pal.

“Here it is.” Ellis handed me a manilla folder called Roswell: Alien Equipment. Inside were a handful of reproduced drawings, photographs, and faxes. As I leafed through the contents, Ellis spoke with the air of someone watching someone else open a gift.

“After you left, I got to thinking about how you seemed pretty interested in what Malloy had said about Roswell. At the time, it didn’t occur to me to show you the pictures I’ve collected of the alien equipment.”

He paused excitedly. “What do you think?”

The pictures looked like the kind you could find in the centre of any old alien-encounter paperback. The objects depicted resembled everything from salad spinners to art-deco staplers. Out of politeness, I looked through most of the pictures before handing the folder back to Ellis. It looked like I’d made a wasted trip.

“Good Stuff. Where’d you find it?”

“Here and there. Most of it came from a safe deposit box belonging to a certain Major Barrett. He worked on Project Blueprint and catalogued almost all the alien artefacts. When he died last year, he willed access to the safe deposit box to Elijah Witt, who personally sent me copies. They arrived yesterday.”

“They certainly make a nice addition to your collection.” Ellis beamed self-importantly. I glanced down at my watch. “Well, it’s late. Well thanks for showing me the file. I’ve got to get back to work.”

Ellis’s eyes darted around the shop, as though he were looking for something else to show me. I made my way quickly to the door.

“See you later, Archie. I’ll let you know if there’s anything else you can help me with.”

Ellis looked over at me with a hint of desperation. “You sure you have to go? I could make up a nice pot of herbal tea.”

“I’ll take a rain check.” I was antsy — and out of things to do. I decided to fly back to the office and kill some time cleaning the place up, a last resort if I ever heard one. As I stepped into the lobby of the Ritz, Nilo looked up sourly from his magazine.

“Someone here to see ya.” He jerked his head toward the corner. I was surprised to see Fitzpatrick seated primly in one of the ragged lobby chairs, his hands folded over a small cardboard box. As I approached, I could discern a hint of excitement beneath the refined veneer.

“Good evening, Mr Murphy.” I looked down at the box and had a pretty good idea what was in it.

“Come on up to my office.”

“Would you mind?”

Fitzpatrick extended the box toward me. He then reached for his hat and slowly rose to his feet. Several minutes later, we were seated amid the rack and ruin of my office. Fitzpatrick was more animated than I’d ever seen him. “At last, I met with some success.”

Both metal boxes were inside the cardboard one, along with what appeared to be a small lamp. I pulled out the contents and placed them in front of me on the desk. Fitzpatrick was like a proud parent on baby’s first Christmas, smiling eagerly and barely containing himself. I examined the boxes — they didn’t look any different than before.

“I don’t get it. Did you find a way to get these open?”

“One of them. I won’t bother you with all the details. Suffice to say that I tried various methods without success. I finally wondered if Malloy might have used the equivalent of invisible ink on the boxes. When I purchased this ultraviolet scanner and ran it over them, certain markings became visible.” He smiled and waved toward one of the boxes. “Police. Try it for yourself.”

I switched on the UV scanner and moved it slowly across the box. Two parallel lines appeared, running horizontally across one side of the box, divid-ing the side into three sections. There were also three circles about the size of nickels, one on each of three sides. I touched the circles and traced my finger over the lines. Nothing happened. I looked up at Fitzpatrick’s beaming face. “So what’s the secret?”

Fitzpatrick moved closer to the desk. “For one person, it requires a certain amount of manual dexterity. With both of us, it will be considerably simpler.”

Fitzpatrick picked up the UV scanner and ran it over the surface, revealing the nickel-sized circles. “Press on two of the circles.”

I did. Fitzpatrick positioned the UV scanner so that it was aimed at the side of the box with the two horizontal lines. He then pressed on the third circle. A small arrow symbol appeared in the centre of the top section. Fitzpatrick then placed his thumb against the top section and pushed to the right. It slid sideways about half an inch. “You can stop pressing now.”

He leaned back in his chair and produced a Cubana from his pocket. I turned the box so that the three-sectioned side was facing me. “Now what?”

The old man held an expensive lighter to the end of his cigar and puffed for several seconds. I could barely wait. “Slide the top section back about half way, then slide the centre section to the right.”

“OK.”

“Now slide the centre section all the way to the left. Then slide the lower section to the right about one quarter inch.”

“Done.”

“Slide the top section to the right.” When I followed the final instruction, I could hear a small spring release. The top of the box popped open. I glanced up at Fitzpatrick, whose smile was visible through a cloud of Cubana smoke.

“I must apologise for making you go through this little ritual. I’m afraid I have a theatrical streak.”

“No need to apologise. Foreplay is healthy. Not that you should take that personally.” I looked down at the box and flipped the lid open. I expected to find some kind of bizarre alien object or maybe a chunk of kryptonite. At the very least, there should have been a mechanical gadget, a piece of the Pandora Device. Not even close. The contents consisted of a long, thin metal pin and a photographic slide. With more than a little disappointment, I looked up at Fitzpatrick.

“Is this it?”

Fitzpatrick nodded, still smiling. I reached into the box and pulled out the slide. Holding it up to the light, I saw a drawing of a not-very-interesting-looking object, tube-shaped, with metal caps on either end, and what appeared to be a light source in the centre. It looked familiar, but I couldn’t place it. The metal pin was about the length of a pencil with a smaller diameter. There were several notches in the stem with a large head on one end. Fitzpatrick reached for the slide and examined it.

“What do you make of this drawing?”

“Looks like a space age Coleman lantern to me.”

Fitzpatrick looked out at me from behind the slide. “You sound as though you consider it meaningless.”

I shrugged. Fitzpatrick set the slide down. “To quote Shakespeare, Mr Murphy, all that glisters is not gold. Malloy would not have included the slide if it were meaningless.”

Fitzpatrick was right. I sat back in my chair and thought it over. I’d seen the object somewhere before. Suddenly, I remembered. It had been in the file Ellis had showed me. “If Malloy put the slide in the box, he must have meant for someone to locate this object.”

Fitzpatrick flicked a large ash off his cigar. “That is a reasonable assump-tion.”

“I think I might have a lead on where to find it.”

“Excellent.”

I picked up the UV scanner and ran it over each side of the second box. The only markings that appeared were two squares, about the size of stamps, on opposite sides of the box. “You couldn’t get this one open?”

Fitzpatrick shook his head.

“Possibly the metal pin from the first box is needed to open a box we have not yet located. I would imagine that whatever is to be used on those squares will also be found in another box.”

“I wish I knew how many boxes we were looking for.”

Fitzpatrick ground the stub of his cigar into an ashtray, then slowly lifted himself out of his seat. “I’ll leave you to your investigations. Shall I leave the boxes with you?”

I returned everything but the slide to the cardboard box. “You’d better hold on to them for awhile. I’ve had too many uninvited guests in my office lately. If you don’t mind, I’ll keep this slide.”

Fitzpatrick nodded and picked up the box. “You’ll let me know about any new developments.”

“Sure thing.”

Fitzpatrick had taken a taxi to my office. I gave him a lift back to the Savoy, then flew to Ellis’ shop. It was getting late, and the sun was peeking out behind the skyline of New San Francisco as I landed in front of the Cosmic Connection. The Closed sign was out, but I knocked on the door anyway. After a few moments, Ellis came out from the back and opened the door for me. “Change your mind about the herbal tea? It’s great for insomnia.”

“No, thanks. I’m sorry to come by so late, but I needed to check something really quick.” I handed the slide to Ellis.

He walked to the counter and flicked on a lamp. Turning the light toward his face, he held up the slide. “Where’d you get this?”

“That’s not important. You recognise it?”

“Of course. It’s one of the objects Major Barrett catalogued.”

Ellis turned off the light. “You want to check the file again?”

I nodded. We walked into the back room. Seconds later, Ellis was flipping through the contents of the manilla folder. He quickly found what he was looking for and passed it to me. I looked it over. The drawing was identical to the one on the slide, but with a number written at the bottom of the page. I looked up at Ellis, who was hovering excitedly. “What can you tell about this thing?”

Ellis responded like a game-show contestant. “Item No. 186. Barret described it as “the power cell.” according to the Major, three of them were found in the spacecraft recovered at Roswell. One was attached to a console; the other two were in a storage compartment. The one in the console was irreparably damaged, but the other two were intact. The research scientists decided that they were some kind of alien battery and tried to disassemble one of them. The other was catalogued and stowed away. As far as Major Barrett knew, they could never figure out how it worked or even what it was for sure.”

“So at least one of these is probably still intact and stored at the Roswell Complex.”

Ellis looked at me incredulously. “You’re not thinking about going to the complex?”

I handed the sheet back to Ellis. “Maybe.”

“You’re insane, Murphy! You can’t get in there!”

“Why not?”

“You think you’re the first person who ever thought about getting in there? Hell, every UFOlogist in the world would like to take a look around the complex.”

“So why don’t they?”

Ellis leaned forward earnestly. “Look, first of all, the site is secured. The military doesn’t want anyone getting in. It’s only accessible with top level security clearance.”

“What if I had clearance?”

Ellis shook his head. “Listen, I personally know or four different attempts to get in. Only one person lived to tell about it. He was in the last group to try it. They planned the expedition for a year. They had all the equipment, the security clearance, everything. The guy who survived said they were able to get past the security barriers. He stayed topside while the others went down into the complex. There were only supposed to be inside for four hours. This guy waited for thirty hours. The rest of the group never came back up.”

It sounded like a ghost story to me. The trail Malloy had left for us led straight through Roswell. Ellis was unwilling or unable to help me getting, but he had told me what I needed to know. Now I just needed to find a way in. When I got back to my office, I decided to get in touch with Fitzpatrick. When he hired me, he’d said he and Malloy had worked together years ago in China. The more I thought about it, the more I began to think that Fitzpatrick had known Malloy earlier, probably at Roswell. Maybe I didn’t have anything more than a gut feeling, and I couldn’t think of a reason why Fitzpatrick wouldn’t want me to know about it, but I was almost sure of the fact. And now that Malloy was dead, Fitzpatrick was the only person I knew that might have been there. Maybe he would know what I was in for and even help me get there. It was late, but I called anyway.

After seven or eight beeps, Fitzpatrick’s weary face appeared on my video screen. I must have woken him up. “Sorry to disturb you, Mr Fitzpatrick. I got that lead on the object we saw on the slide.”

“Wonderful! And you should feel free to contact me at any time.” Always the polite one. “What have you found out?”

“Apparently, the object is stored somewhere in the Roswell Complex. Malloy referred to it in his notebooks as item number 186.”

“You intend to go to the Roswell Complex?” Fitzpatrick asked anxiously.

“Looks that way. You did work there one time, didn’t you?”

Fitzpatrick looked down momentarily, then turned his gaze back toward the screen. “Yes, I did. That’s where I met Thomas Malloy.”

“Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“Roswell is a subject I do not care to discuss. I had hoped that our search would not require going into my past. Nevertheless, it appears that we have no choice. Are you certain that a trip to the Roswell Complex is absolutely necessary?”

“That’s why I called. I need to find a way in.”

“I don’t know if I can help you. But security clearance is a thing of the past.”

“Any suggestions?”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to rely on your own judgement and resourceful-ness.”

“Well, I thought I’d run it by you. If I don’t contact you within three days, you’ll have to assume that I’ve shuffled off this proverbial mortal coil.”

Fitzpatrick’s face registered a surprising degree of concern. “Are you sure there are no other options?”

“I can’t see any. Listen, if I’m not back in three days, I need you to get in touch with a Ms Madsen at the Imperial. She’s working on an angle that could turn up some information on the other boxes. She doesn’t know most of what’s going on, so I’d prefer that you not contact her unless something happens to me.”

“I understand. I can tell you one thing you should know before you go to Roswell.”

“What’s that?”

“I left the service before the base was shut down, but I’ve heard talk. Have you learned that the complex was quarantined?”

“I heard something to that effect.”

“The complex has been sealed off and powered down. Since there was never any news of an outbreak, the military may have been able to contain whatever it was that inspired the quarantine. If you gain entrance, be aware that there may be something in there, dormant, waiting to be unleashed. Don’t take any unnecessary risks.”

“I try to make that a policy.”

“Very well. Good luck, Mr Murphy.”