The Sphinx

THE PRESENT CHAPTER 1

“When I was a child in Maine, my entire world consisted of my small town, and it would expand to include Bangor when my dad drove us there once a month on a shopping trip.” Mike Turcotte was standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, gazing at the large statue of the sixteenth president seated in the stone chair, but his mind was in a different place and time.

Next to him, the science adviser to the current President, Lisa Duncan, also stood still, peering up. She remained silent, letting her partner struggle aloud with his thoughts.

“My world didn’t get much bigger when went to the University of Maine,” Turcotte continued. “It was only when I went overseas in the Army that I began to see that the world was a much larger place than I’d ever imagined. Of course, I’d read about those other places, seen them in movies and videos, but there’s nothing like being there, actually experiencing something, to make it real.”

It was early, before six in the morning, and the first rays of the sun were just making an appearance in the eastern horizon, touching the flat surface of the Reflecting Pool behind them, bouncing up, and highlighting the statue. Because of the hour, the two of them had the monument to themselves.

Turcotte was a solidly built man. Of average height, he had broad shoulders and his dark skin and slight accent reflected his northern Maine, half-Canuck half-Indian background. His short black hair was sprinkled with premature gray.

He turned and looked back at the Pool, the lines around his dark eyes creasing as the sun hit them. “I thought what happened in Germany when I helped stop the IRA terrorists was as bad as it was going to get… ”

“Mike, it wasn’t your fault innocent civilians were killed,” Duncan interrupted. “You did the best you could.”

“Did I?” Turcotte asked. He didn’t wait for an answer. “I really considered quitting, resigning my commission. But I didn’t have time to think too long, because right after that happened you sent me to Area 51. And I’ve been on the move ever since.” He pointed to the sky. “I’ve even gone into space, when I stopped the alien fleet of talon spacecraft” He looked down at Duncan. “I’m not sure how much further I can keep expanding my horizons.”

“Come on, Mike.” Duncan took his arm and turned him back toward the monument. She led him up the stairs and through the Doric columns that lined the monument… one for each state in the country, both north and south, at the time of the president’s death… halting just in front of the nineteen-foot-high statue of the seated Lincoln.

“When I lived in Washington, I always came here when I needed to think,” Duncan said. She nodded up at the statue. “He was a very smart man, perhaps the most brilliant mind this country has ever had. He used his brainpower, not like Einstein in the physical sciences, but on the more complex problems of people. He saw this country through a civil war and led it to a point where the two sides could even reconcile after his assassination. Every issue he dealt with was multifaceted, with no absolutes. The only thing he had going for him was his beliefs. That’s how he made decisions.”

Lisa Duncan was slightly over five feet tall and slender. Her dark hair was cut short and her face pale with fatigue and stress. She pointed to the inscription carved on the south wall. “There’s the Gettysburg Address. Given in November 1863, five months after that momentous battle, where there were over sixty thousand casualties… all of them Americans. Imagine the weight of that on your shoulders.

“At the dedication ceremony for the National Cemetery for many of those dead, the keynote speaker talked for over two hours. Lincoln followed him and spoke for less than two minutes. It was perhaps the greatest speech ever given. He cut to the essence of what the battle was about and what the future needed.

“We have to do the same thing,” she said. “We have to make sure all those who have died so far in this struggle have not done so in vain. From Peter Nabinger and Colonel Kostanov in China, the crew of the Pasadena off Easter Island, to the people of Vilhena in the Amazon rain forest. And the untold millions over the centuries who have been victims of these aliens and their minions.”

“A lot of Americans died after Lincoln made that speech,” Turcotte noted.

“Always the optimist,” Duncan said.

“It’s my job.”

“It’s your nature.”

“I’ve read a lot about the Civil War,” Turcotte said. “It always fascinated me… the bloodiest war in American history was the one where we fought each other. And we’re not even clear who the enemy is in this war we’re engaged in.”

Duncan placed her hand on the stone wall. “I’m afraid more people are going to die before this is over. We have to take to heart Lincoln’s last line of the address, ‘that the dead have not have died in vain,’ but even more important, the last eight words. Literally.” She ran her hand along the words she had indicated. Turcotte looked at the bottom of the inscription:

THE PEOPLE SHALL NOT PERISH FROM THE EARTH.

“That’s what it’s about. Majestic-12 trying to fly the mothership reignited the smoldering remnants of the millennia-old war between the Guides and The Ones Who Wait. Aspasia came at us with the fleet from his base on Mars, and you stopped that. The Mission tried to wipe us out with the Black Plague and we just barely stopped that, but we know they… and the others… will come at us some other way. Until we know the truth, what really happened in the past, we have to keep fighting and trying to survive.

“I’ve got to go there”… she pointed to the east, along the length of the Mall, past the Washington Monument; to the Capitol Building… “and testily about what just happened. Then meet with the President about what needs to happen. From there I’ll go to New York and meet with Peter Sterling and the rest of UNAOC.”

“You have to go to Area 51 and make sure we’re secure. I’ll be there as soon as possible. Then we need to decide what to do next to make sure people do not perish from the Earth.”