“You know as much as I do Craig. It seems the general knows a lot more than either of us. Why don’t you start from the beginning and explain it to us?” the President said.
“I would be more than happy to go over the details with you Mr. President but I’m afraid that the Secretary will have to leave the room.”
“What? I have to leave?” Hollister said, getting to his feet, “That is outrageous General Devin. The Secretary of Defense certainly out ranks a general by miles.”
“I understand your feelings and I wish it were different but those are my orders given by President Truman and every CNC since the original inception of this department,” Devin said.
“Sir. He can’t be serious,” Craig said, turning to the President who was reading the next page.
“Just a minute Craig,” the President said reading on in the manual.
Hollister was seething while waiting for the President to put an end to this farce.
The President looked up and said, “Craig, I’m afraid the general is right. The materials in this document and all subsequent reports are for my eyes only unless specifically appointed to another person. Until I know more about this I think it best to keep it for my eyes only. Once I have waded through this I may expand the need to know circle.”
“Sir. As Secretary of Defense, I need to know everything that we are doing as a nation. I should be privy to all information that concerns our status as a world power. How can I operate without total knowledge?”
“Well, for now you are just going to have to wait. I didn’t say you won’t be given access to this material, but in the same light, I need to understand what this is all about before I make a rash decision,” he said.
“But sir…”
“Sorry Craig, that’s the way it is going to be for now. Now if you will excuse yourself, the general needs to bring me up to speed and explain just what is going on.”
Hollister stiffened at being told to leave while the general stayed. He was going to get this little pipsqueak. No general was going to waltz in to the White House and have him thrown out of a meeting with the President.
“Yes sir,” he managed to get out before leaving.
When he had gone, the President said, “Now general, I want to know just what this is all about. I want it all and don’t leave anything out. I don’t want to find out about something we are doing from any other source. I don’t want to hear of an oversight later on. Do you understand general?”
“I do indeed, Mr. President. Let’s start with the background and then I will bring you up to date,” Devin said.
“I’m all ears,” the President replied, placing his elbows on his desk and clasping his fingers.
It would be three hours and four cancelled meetings later before the President was given all the information the general wanted to divulge.
When Devin left the president sat for some time, going over what he had just learned. Flying saucers, aliens, advanced civilizations, another planet with life, this was the stuff that fictional movies were made of and now he finds out that it is going on right here in America. This can’t be true. He was going to have to see this for himself.
George Snapp was convinced that he was being told the truth or at least most of it was true. He had spent the last month checking and double checking the information he had been given by Drs. Barnett and Lake. He decided he needed to either follow through or drop the whole thing. Dropping it didn’t seem like much of an option.
He dialed the number that Lake had given him. On the third ring he answered.
“Lake.”
“Hi. This is George Snapp, we met before.”
“Yes George. I assume you checked out my story and are calling to find out more about what goes on at Dreamland,” Lake responded.
“Yeah. It appears that there is a lot of truth in what you are telling me,” George replied.
“A lot? It is all true. That and much more,” he said.
“When can we meet?”
“Well, undoubtedly they have your phone tapped and are trying to trace this call. I will let you know when and where,” Lake said and hung up the phone.
“Lake? Lake?” he said and looked at the phone like it could tell him where to find him.
All he could do now was wait to be contacted but how? How did he know if his phone was tapped or not? Considering the threat from his two visitors, he decided to be on the safe side.
That night when he opened the door to get into his car he saw a note on the seat. Snapp picked it up and looked around, how had it gotten inside his car? He always locked it, and yet there was the note.
