The Orion Protocol by Gary Tigerman

Author:Gary Tigerman [Tigerman, Gary]
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: Science fiction, General, Fiction, Fiction - Science Fiction, Science Fiction - General, Space Opera, Adventure, Life on other planets, Suspense, Thrillers, Mystery & Detective, American Mystery & Suspense Fiction, Mystery, Biography & Autobiography, Mars (Planet), Journalists, Official secrets, Editors; Journalists; Publishers
ISBN: 9780380799206
Publisher: New York : Morrow, c2003.
Published: 2004-11-11T00:00:00+00:00

PART

IV

Give your heart and soul to me, and life will always be la vie en rose . . .

—Edith Piaf, “La Vie en Rose”

42

February 6/Washington, D.C.

Leaning against the doorjamb in Angela’s office and watching her partner powering through the on-line database of the New York Times, Miriam noted a certain hyperenergized focus that made her wonder if something more had happened in Colorado than Angela had been ready to divulge.

“Don’t forget. We’ve got a meeting on the Hill.”

“I didn’t forget.”

Miriam decided it wasn’t so much her energy—she just seemed happier than when she left. Angela waved her on into the room.

“Miriam. Check this out. New York Times, December 1959. The Brookings report . . . headline: ‘Public Warned to Prepare for Discovery of Extraterrestrial Life.’ This is what Jake turned me on to.”

Miriam stood behind her and read the subhead over Angela’s shoulder.

“ ‘Blue Ribbon Panel Makes Recommendation to Congress,’ blah-blah-blah, ‘President Eisenhower requested the yearlong Brookings Institute study’—”

But Angela was already skipping ahead, scrolling down the long document to something else she wanted Miriam to see.

“Sorry, sorry. Just bear with me. It’s right near the end.”

“Is this the morning-after buzz from a Rocky Mountain high?”

“Wait. This is it.” Angela ignored the Miriam mind probe, found the paragraph she wanted, and highlighted it. “Miriam, it all goes back to here. This is where it all got started. It’s un-fucking-believable.”

Angela read the text aloud.

“ ‘The government should consider withholding from the public . . . any discovery of alien artifacts on Venus, Mars, or the Moon.’ Now, does that sound like a basis for policy, or what?”

“Just hold on, speedo, let me see this.” Miriam read it slowly through.

“ ‘Withholding from the public’ . . . they actually say that.”

“On the front page of the New York Times.”

“And who’s Eisenhower got making these recommendations?”

“Just wait.”

Angela zoomed to the end, highlighting the contributing science folk, etc.

“Voilà: the crème de la postwar crème: Rockefeller, Dr. Werner von Braun, yada-yada-yada, opinion coauthored by Dr. Margaret Mead and . . .”

Angela pointed at the name on screen and let her partner read it off.

“Dr. Paula Winnick.” Miriam sounded just as shocked as she was.

Angela sat there a moment, letting it sink in before she spoke again.

“Someone of the highest stature. Someone trustable with the nation’s darkest secrets for forty years. Somebody with unlimited access and unimpeachable integrity, who just might need to see the truth told before she dies.”

“Jesus, Angie.” Miriam turned and stared out the window toward the Capitol rotunda and the congressman’s office where they were about to go have their meeting. Numerous possibilities for what this Brookings Institute report might mean competed for her attention. One of them won out, hands down.

“Well, I guess there’s no reason our Deep Cosmo had to be a man, is there?”

43

Congressional Offices/Capitol Hill

They waited in the anteroom to Chairman Lowe’s office, flipping through magazines splayed out on an Early American maple coffee table.

Representative Phillip Lowe, Democratic chairman of the House Committee on Space, was charged with

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