“But what were these Soviet agents doing at the Roswell site? What does Roswell have to do with atomic espionage?”
“That’s a harder question to answer. I’ve tried to put together the pieces of the puzzle, and there’s only one scenario that fits the facts. I think the two scientists who disappeared at Los Alamos were passing nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union through the Abadies. The scientists were somehow discovered, unmasked—probably by the OSS. They were the precursors to the CIA—no doubt you know that. But those scientist spies would have needed Soviet handlers to pass along the secrets, and it seems the OSS couldn’t figure out who those were. The Roswell UFO crash was front-page news when it happened, and such a thing would be of paramount interest to Soviet agents—Americans possibly getting their hands on advanced alien technology and all that. So it must have seemed a perfect place to stage a sting: the two scientists, now in the hands of American intelligence, would be brought out to Roswell to lure in the Soviet sleeper agents with the promise of vital information on the UFO crash—and, as a sweetener, to give them an early prototype of what Dr. Eastchester identified as a ‘dial-a-yield.’”
“Wait,” said Lime. “I’m not quite following you. Why not just force the scientists to identify the Soviet agents? Why lure them to Roswell at all?”
“They used a dead-drop system. The two rogue scientists didn’t know who the Soviet agents were. For security reasons, they’d never met them. They would drop off information or items at some specified location that wouldn’t raise alarm bells at Los Alamos—then leave. The Soviet agents would pick up the items later. That’s how atomic espionage worked—from what I’ve read, it’s standard tradecraft in the spy game. So American intelligence had to lure the phony husband-and-wife team to that location in order to discover who they were. Hence, Roswell. You can dead-drop a device, but you can’t dead-drop a place.”
“I see. Go on.”
“So once the Soviet sleeper agents arrived, they were tortured for information, then killed and buried. Just in case they were ever discovered, their hands and faces were obliterated with acid. The two scientists may have been taken away for questioning or whatever, and then disappeared.”
“Why not bring them to justice? Put them on trial?”
“Maybe because of the Klaus Fuchs case. He was a scientist at Los Alamos, passing secrets to the Soviets during the Manhattan Project. He was caught, confessed, and sentenced by the British to only fourteen years in prison. That infuriated the American counterintelligence community. I can imagine they, or some small group within them, decided to take matters into their own hands with these two scientists.”
Corrie was gratified by the expression of amazement and approval on Lime’s face. “It must be the latter,” he said. “Our government wouldn’t condone that kind of summary execution—not in cold blood.”
“There’s more,” she said.
“Let’s hear it.”
“I spoke to Sheriff Watts a few hours ago. As you know, he’s working with Sheriff Buford on the disappearance of Noam Bitan.”
Lime hesitated. “Not our case, Corrie.”
“Correct, sir. But maybe it will be. Watts learned that Bitan was kidnapped. His bloody ID card was found at the site where he disappeared. He was apparently ambushed by people in UTVs, there was a struggle in which he was injured, or worse—and then he was taken away.”
“Taken where?”
“Watts noted the UTV tracks went northward toward a place called the Pershing Proving Range. He couldn’t follow them all the way because it’s off-limits, and so is the airspace. Pershing was apparently an artillery testing range dating to World War One, closed in the thirties. But maybe it’s still being used by whoever kidnapped Bitan.”
“This is extraordinary. Who could have kidnapped him?”
“I have no hard evidence, but if I might be allowed to speculate?”
“Please.”
“Let’s assume the Roswell UFO crash was real, and the government really did cover it up. Actually, ‘the government’ isn’t correct. You agreed that only a group within the government, perhaps inside the CIA or Defense Intelligence Agency or whatever, would have murdered those spies and the sleeper agents who handled their case. Given that this took place near Roswell, and the secrecy that surrounded and still surrounds that place, doesn’t it make sense the same splinter group would have taken possession of the UFO and its secrets?”