“We have,” said the general. “That’s why you’re here. I know you’ve already been warned about the highly classified nature of what you…experienced. I want to emphasize that warning—and to remind you it applies just as much, if not more, now.”
“You know I disagree with that,” said Tappan. “There’s been far too much secrecy already. The world is ready to handle this information.”
“That’s not your decision to make. In any case, once you hear what we’ve found, I think you’ll agree that the world is not ready.”
“Can we get closer?” Nora asked.
“As close as you like. It’s no longer dangerous.”
Despite this assurance, the four approached warily. The air smelled faintly of electricity and ionization. Nora tried to remember what the probe had looked like before, because it was now clearly different, more a dumbbell shape with unequal weights on its ends. It still had the swirling, angry oval patch near the bow, but even that miniature storm seemed to have abated somewhat. The rest of its surface also looked quieter, less manic, almost as if at rest. It lazily cycled through various colors, some quite strange, before returning and beginning again.
“I’ll start with Atropos,” said the general.
“Good idea,” said Tappan. “Who the hell were they? They murdered most of my team in cold blood—the bastards.”
“Yes. And we’re very sorry for the loss. Some of this you may have already heard—from the source—so forgive me if I cover any old ground. But much of it will be as new to you as it was—regrettably—to us. Atropos was a counterespionage organization that went awry. It had its roots in the OSS, founded by presidential order in 1942. The first OSS agents were primarily members of U.S. Army and Navy special forces, secretly trained in psychological warfare, sabotage, and assassination. They were billeted at the Special Training School Number One Oh-Three, ‘Camp X,’ set up by the British thirty miles over the Canadian border.
“The OSS was terminated in 1945, with several of its branches subsumed into the Strategic Services Unit, then the Central Intelligence Group, and finally the CIA in 1947. During this confused period of transition, we had an acute problem with Soviet espionage. Several scientists working on the Manhattan Project, and later, on the H-bomb, were passing on secrets. In mid-1946, a certain zealous and patriotic officer convinced his superiors to spin off a tiny, top-secret intelligence branch, composed of hand-picked members from the old Camp X and paramilitary branches of the OSS. That, we now know, became Atropos. Its mission was simple: to protect U.S. assets against foreign espionage, with ‘fire free’ license to torture and kill spies and others as necessary. In other words, they could bypass the cumbersome and ineffective court system and take justice into their own hands. The secret Mossad execution team Kidon—the ‘tip of the spear’—was later modeled on a similar philosophy.
“Beginning in early 1947, small detachments of Atropos were housed at high-value targets, especially Los Alamos. Soviet infiltration of the U.S. was by then well advanced, and the Atropos units were able not only to eliminate many traitorous scientists, but also to identify, monitor, and if need be kill Soviet sleeper agents embedded here.”
“You almost sound as if you approve of this, General,” said Tappan.
“I don’t disapprove. The problem is, the unit apparently operated with unlimited funding and no accountability. That’s a recipe for corruption—or, perhaps worse, hubris and radicalization.
“When the Roswell crash occurred, the Atropos team from Los Alamos was first at the site. Finding an alien ship with advanced technology was not only extremely interesting—but once it appeared to be hostile, that discovery ended up morphing into their raison d’être. At the cost of numerous casualties, they recovered the craft and moved it to the Pershing site. Eventually, rather than try to move it again, they built a secret base around it, dramatically expanding the underground bunker system.”
“What about the two bodies we found?” Nora asked.
“Those, as Agent Swanson here determined, were two Soviet sleeper agents, killed by Atropos. The dial-a-yield device was used as bait, its guts removed—and it was a prototype anyway, which is why it was of no value and buried with the bodies.”
“Why did Atropos just leave the bodies there?” Tappan asked.
The general gave a cynical smile. “Hubris, initially. That’s an extremely remote location, and at the time they were in a hurry—and mightily distracted by having found an alien spaceship, as you can imagine. Later they seem to have decided the bodies were safe there, and that any attempt to remove them carried a higher risk than simply leaving them. As you know, they doused the faces and fingertips with acid to hinder identification. They didn’t know, obviously, about the Soviet dental work. The two scientists who disappeared from Los Alamos in 1947 were, of course, the contacts of those murdered sleeper agents. Atropos also killed them, erased their features with acid, and buried their bodies elsewhere in the desert. We found them as well.”