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  Grant wasn’t convinced. “I don’t want to sound accusatory, but perhaps these visits are nothing more than unwanted visits by family members. The trauma of being abused may have caused these people to create a fantasy world to deal with the pain. Sometimes individuals who are abused become abusers themselves.”

  “Sorry, David, but I’m not buying your explanation. There are too many similarities to other cases to dismiss it as just another instance of family abuse.”

  “I’m just suggesting that there could be a more down-to-earth explanation for what is going on than one involving aliens.”

  “If Rebeca was abusing her granddaughter, why would she ask for help?”

  “Because deep down in her psyche she knows what she is doing is wrong, and she is subconsciously crying out for help.”

  Elena crossed her arms. “After what happened in Alaska, I thought you’d be more open-minded to these kinds of cases.”

  “I’m not saying that I’m right. I just need more proof before I can say that aliens are visiting Susan. That’s all.”

  Elena dug out her phone. “Then we’ll get that evidence.”

  “Who are you calling?”

  “Colonel Andrews. We need some surveillance cameras, night vision goggles, and a couple sets of ultra-sensitive listening devices dispatched to us right away.”

  “Okay, we’ll do things your way. But don’t be surprised if in a few days we end up handing this over to the local police for investigation.”

  “In a couple of days, Captain David Grant, I’m going to make a believer out of you.”

  Grant turned onto the highway and drove back toward their motel. He couldn’t fault his friend’s passion. In the back of his mind, he began to worry that Elena might be right, and if she were, he had no idea what they could do to help the young girl and her scared grandmother.

  8

  Gauntlet Headquarters

  James Maclean strolled into Jeremy Hayes’ office, humming a marching tune and carrying two cups of coffee. He found Hayes’ eyes fixed on a map on the wall.

  “Morning, Professor” said Maclean. “I bought you a coffee from the PX.”

  “Thanks, but I only drink tea when I’m at work,” responded Hayes without looking at Maclean.

  “Suit yourself, mate. More for me.” Maclean sat down and glanced up at the map. “How goes the research?”

  Hayes shook his head. “Not well at all. Aside from the three names on the right-hand side of the map, which may help us determine if the map is genuine or not, I’m at a loss to explain why Antarctica is drawn so far north.”

  “Yeah, a mostly ice-free Antarctica to boot.”

  “Hmm, yes, there’s that as well.”

  “I’ve been doing some reading, and there’s a number of reputable scholars out there who believe Antarctica was precisely where it appears on the map until about 10,500 BCE.”

  Hayes let out a groan. “Please don’t tell me you’ve been reading about the theory of catastrophism…have you?”

  “I have, and it is the only logical conclusion to explain the differences in this map.”

  “Sergeant, the notion that the entire planet could be suddenly affected by an event that displaces the continents sounds nice but has yet to be proven scientifically. Crustal displacement does occur, but at a snail’s pace. The average distance a continent moves is somewhere between five and ten centimeters a year. You have to face facts. It took millions and millions of years for the continents to settle into their current locations on the globe, and that includes Antarctica.”

  Maclean smirked. “What about those woolly mammoths they keep digging up in northern Canada and Siberia?”

  “What about them?”

  “Many appear to have been flash-frozen to death. When autopsies were performed on them, they were found to have warm-weather plants in their stomachs. How could they be eating plants not associated with the Arctic one minute and then the next be turned into ice cubes?”

  “A sudden change in weather is not unheard of. There have been several little ice ages in Earth’s history. The last one, I believe, extended from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries.”

  “I don’t seem to recall reading about anyone being flash-frozen during that time period.”

  “Perhaps not, but the weather is a fickle thing. A handful of frozen mammoths doesn’t prove that a worldwide catastrophic event occurred some thirteen thousand years ago.”

  Maclean reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. “Okay, Professor, how do you explain a common flood mythology from around the world that tells of a great flood that wiped out whole ancient civilizations?”

  “Just that, they’re myths with no evidence to back them up.”

  “What about the stone-building technology that existed in the ancient world, especially in Egypt and South and Central America? Many of these structures are tied to precise astronomical alignments. Surely you’re not saying people separated by an ocean came up with exactly the same methods for tracking the stars?”

  “If you have empirical evidence to prove today’s scholars wrong and can demonstrate that diffusion between ancient cultures did occur, then I’m willing to listen. Until then, I’m afraid that all you have, Sergeant, is conjecture.”

  Maclean held up a hand. “Wait a tick, Professor, I’m not finished.” He glanced down at his paper. “What about the theory that the Sphinx is much older than previously thought, placing it well before the birth of modern civilization in 4,000 BCE?”

  “Once again, a theory does not equate to a fact.”

  “You can’t dispute the fact that the monuments on the Giza Plateau were built to align with the Belt of Orion and would have been in perfect astronomical alignment with Orion in 10,500 BCE, which coincides with the end of the last ice age and the proposed movement of the continents southward on the Earth’s crust.”

  “Sergeant, think about it for a minute. If the monuments in Giza were built six millennia before the birth of modern civilization in the fertile crescent of Iraq, who built these monuments? Where did they come from, and what happened to them?”

  “Jeremy, there can only be one answer. An ancient, and as of yet, unknown civilization somehow managed to survive the catastrophic effects of the Earth’s crust shifting south in 10,500 BCE and helped build these monuments.”

  “If this ancient civilization existed, where are its ruins?”

  “What about that place in Turkey? It’s a millennia older than anything around it.”

  Hayes scrunched up his face. “Do you mean Gobekli Tepe?”

  “That’s the one,” Maclean said, snapping his fingers. “It dates back to the time just before the Earth’s crust moved.”

  “An interesting archeological find, but without further proof of other cities and cultures from that period, it should be considered an anomaly.”

  “But it’s not alone. There are several ancient cities in South America, which date back before the end of the last ice age.”

  “Name one.”

  Maclean skimmed his notes. “Tiwanaku, in Bolivia. According to the book I read, it was built around 15,000 years ago.”

  Hayes tutted. “Be careful what you read, Sergeant. Just because it is written in a book does not make it a fact. The theory that Tiwanaku dates back a millennia is based on faulty archaeological data. The city is at best three thousand years old. I’m glad to see that you’ve thrown yourself into this project with some zeal, but where are the rest of the cities, which would have undoubtedly been built by this unknown civilization?”

  “Most ancient societies were established near water, and these were lost when the sea levels rose dramatically, due to the sudden melting of the ice cap. Any event which could cause the crust to move thousands of kilometers in a matter of years would have triggered horrific earthquakes and volcanoes, which could have conceivably wiped out any trace of these ancient people.”

  “Not everyone would have died in this cataclysm. Where di
d they go?”

  “Those that survived fled in boats to avoid drowning during the great flood and resettled in other parts of the world. Hence the great flood myth. After that, they helped the less advanced civilizations of the world get back on their feet, and eventually married into their tribes until they became part of that culture.”

  Hayes smiled. “Mister Maclean, all you have done is give me some wild ideas that just happen to match the wild theories found in your books. You may find it hard to believe, but I do read the same books as you. Coming at a problem from only one way is narrow-minded and can lead to drawing the wrong conclusions. My good man, what we need is hard proof, not speculation.”

  “Okay, we seem to be at an impasse. What do you propose we do?”

  “I have a friend who works at the Smithsonian. She is a world-renowned scholar, who has written several books on ancient cartography. I’d like her to take a look at this map and see what she thinks. Gabrielle has a brilliant mind and an eye for detail. She may be able to tell us who the three people listed on the side of the map were.”

  “You’ll need the colonel’s permission before you contact your colleague,” cautioned Maclean. “You know how he feels about operational security.”

  Hayes nodded. “I’ll swing by his office when he gets in and let him know what I’m thinking.”

  “I take it we’ll be going to her?”

  “Yes. Gabrielle recently broke her left leg in a traffic accident. It’s just easier if we fly up to Maryland to see her.”

  “I’ll go with the assumption that the boss gives us the green light and book our flights and rental car for tomorrow morning.”

  Hayes became silent, picked up a pen, and absentmindedly twirled it around in his hand while he stared up at the map.

  Maclean stood and left the room, taking the coffee cups with him. He felt for the professor. The man was used to dealing in hard facts, not theory. The map represented the biggest challenge to the scientific status quo in Earth’s history. Maclean doubted Hayes wanted to be the man to tell his fellow academics that they’ve gotten it all wrong, and that they needed to throw out their history books and start again from scratch.

  9

  Charlotte, Montana

  Grant walked into the old, red-brick building fully expecting to be met at the door by a person wearing a cheap, homemade alien costume. Instead, he found a cross section of people from across the state. The members of The Montana Paranormal Group were a roughly equal number of men and women, mainly in their forties and fifties. The town hall buzzed with chatter. Most appeared to be ranchers, while a couple of men in business suits seemed to have come straight from their offices in Helena to attend the meeting.

  Grant followed Elena through the crowd until she stopped and waved at a man standing by himself, sipping a soft drink. He wore blue jeans with a green shirt and cowboy boots. His thinning, blond hair was combed back in a clear attempt to hide the growing bald spot on the back of his head. The man was slightly taller than Grant and had a wide midsection that hung over his belt.

  “Evening, Sam,” said Elena to the man.

  “Evening to you, too, Elena,” replied Sam, smiling. His eyes lingered on her face for a few seconds. “It’s been too long since I last saw you.”

  “It’s been four years, to be precise.” She turned and took Grant by the arm. “Sam, I’d like you to meet my colleague, David Grant.”

  “Pleased to meet you, David,” said Sam, offering his hand.

  Grant shook the man’s calloused hand. “Please, call me Dave.”

  “Sure thing.”

  “So, Sam, have you been able to learn anything?” asked Elena.

  “Aside from the fact that these sightings have been going on for years and are your standard lights in a triangular formation, I haven’t learned diddly-squat.”

  “Do you think they’re misidentifying a secret prototype aircraft?” Grant asked.

  Sam shrugged. “It’s too early to tell. I called the office, but they have yet to get back to me on any recent military test flights in this area.”

  “The office?”

  Sam lowered his voice. “You know…the office where your friends work.”

  Grant shook his head. “Right. I should have thought of that.”

  Sam smiled at Elena. “Just breaking him in, are you?”

  “He’s not that green,” she replied. “David just prefers people speak what’s on their minds.”

  Sam introduced Elena and David to the other members of the society, most of whom were happy to see people from out-of-state coming to help watch the sky for the visitors from another world.

  A man’s deep voice called out from the front of the hall, interrupting the conversation. “Ladies and gentlemen, if you would please take your seats.”

  Grant, Elena, and Sam found chairs in the back of the room.

  A short gentleman with a wiry beard, wearing an ill-fitting gray suit, stood behind a lectern and waited until everyone was seated. “Good evening. For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Francis Parker, and I am the president of The Montana Paranormal Group, and I’d like to thank all of you for taking the time out of your busy lives to be here tonight.”

  Polite applause filled the room.

  For the next hour, Parker and his associates put on a presentation showing the pictures they had taken of the UFOs allegedly flying around the town three days ago. Most of the pictures looked out of focus to Grant. The more he saw, the more convinced he became that this was an open-and-shut case of misidentification. It had to be a military aircraft or drone that these people were seeing. The meeting wrapped up with a call for volunteers to head out into the hills around the town to watch for UFOs.

  Sam stood. “That’s my cue. You can’t help spread misinformation if you’re not part of the gang.”

  “You still have my cell number, right?” Elena asked.

  “Yep. Let me get Dave’s, too.”

  Grant and Sam quickly exchanged numbers.

  Elena patted Sam on the arm. “If you see anything, suspicious-looking or not, please give us a call.”

  “Will do,” he said, melting into the crowd.

  “He’s got a thing for you,” said Grant to Elena.

  “He asked me out several times when he used to work at Gauntlet,” she replied. “But I always turned him down. It’s not that I don’t like him. I’d just ended my marriage and wasn’t interested in dating at that time.”

  Grant checked his watch. “Shall we head back out to the farm and see how Rebeca and Susan are doing?”

  Elena nodded. “I’ll just give Rebeca a quick call and let her know we’re on our way.”

  Five minutes from Rebeca’s home, Elena’s phone rang. “What was that all about?” Grant asked as soon as the call ended.

  “I asked Captain Jones to discreetly dig through the hospital files where Susan was born to see if there was another child that Rebeca never knew about,” answered Elena. With a new mandate and funding, there were very few computer databases in the world that Gauntlet, working through the NSA, couldn’t stealthily access and read.

  “And what did she say?”

  “There was only one child born to Wendy Dove, and that was Susan.”

  “That doesn’t completely rule out another birth before or after Susan.”

  “True, but according to her medical records, Susan was her first child.”

  “You do realize that the whole story about there being a sister and her nocturnal friend, Ben, could all be made up.”

  Elena’s phone rang again.

  “Busy night,” said Grant as he turned off the highway and drove toward Rebeca’s home.

  “That was Captain Jones again,” said Elena. “She was able to get me the mother and the child’s blood types.”

  Grant raised an eyebrow. “You’ve lost me. How is that germane to our investigation?”

  “It turns out that they both have A-negative blood, which is quite rare. The majority of
people in this country have a positive blood type, such as A, B, AB, or O. Only six-and-a-half percent of our entire population have A-negative blood, and most of them are Caucasian.”

  “I’m still not following where you’re going with this.”

  “It could be nothing. I’ll know more once I ask Rebeca what her blood type is, and if she knew what her husband’s blood type was.”

  “If you say so.” Grant parked the car and got out. He smiled when he saw Susan in her pajamas standing on the porch waving to them. He looked at Elena. “I’ll grab the gear out the back while you head inside.”

  Even before he got to the door, the welcoming aroma of freshly brewed coffee and an apple pie straight out of the oven wafted in the air. Susan ran over and tried to help Grant carry one of his heavy black plastic boxes. He smiled at her and together they lifted the container up the stairs and into the house.

  “Evening, Mister Grant,” said Rebeca as she placed four plates on the dinner table. “I hope you have room for some dessert?”

  “If it tastes as good as it smells, trust me, I’ll be looking for seconds.”

  Susan took Grant’s hand and led him to the table. “Grandma told me at supper that I can stay up a bit later tonight because you and Elena are going to put some cameras in my room. Are you really going to do that?”

  “Yes, we are,” Grant replied, picking her up and gently setting her down on a chair. “Your grandmother just wants to make sure that you’re safe while you sleep.”

  “I’m okay. Ben would never harm me.”

  “I’m sure he wouldn’t, but why would you say that?” Elena asked.

  “Because he told me,” replied Susan before shoveling a forkful of pie into her mouth.

  “What else did he say to you?”

  “He said it would be naughty if anyone were to try and watch us.”

  Grant’s eyes narrowed. “When did he say that?”

  “Last night, after you left, he came by for a while to see how I was doing. When I told him about you, Ben knew you’d be back with cameras. He says people do it all the time. It won’t work. He says it never does.”