The Fusion Cage

II

‘Any news on where the fire is?’

The driver of the unmarked sedan glanced in his rear — view mirror at Douglas Jarvis and gave a brief shake of his head, his face cast into sharp relief by the brilliant light of the sun rising above the city. The vehicle was moving between lanes of light morning traffic on the 295 just east of the base, heading for the off ramp that would take them into one of the United States’ most secretive locations just inside the District of Columbia: Anacostia — Bolling Air Force Base and the home of the Defense Intelligence Agency’s DIAC Building.

Jarvis had not really expected the driver to have any real knowledge of what was awaiting him inside the building, although on occasion in the past his former boss at the DIAC, General Mitchell, had forwarded files out to him to peruse on the way in and bring him up to speed. These days, however, security was more paramount than ever — what happened inside the DIAC, stayed inside.

Jarvis had been summoned by the Director of National Intelligence, Lieutenant General J. F. Nellis, a former United States Air Force officer who had recently been appointed DNI by the current president. Jarvis, a former career Marine Corps officer and later an intelligence analyst with the DIA, had been selected by Nellis to run a small, almost invisible investigative unit designed to root out corruption within the intelligence community while remaining beyond the prying eyes of senior figures on Capitol Hill. Jarvis had been chosen due to his prior success in operating a similar unit within the DIA that had conducted five investigations into what were rather discreetly termed as “anomalous phenomena” and attracted the attention of both the FBI and the CIA before being shut down. Jarvis had spent some twenty years working for the DIA and been involved in some of the highest — level classified operations ever conducted by elements of the US Covert Operations Service. Most of them he would never be able to talk about with another human being, even those with whom he had served. Jarvis knew the rules and had obeyed them with patriotic fervour his entire career.

What bothered Jarvis was that since the formation of the new unit most of his meetings with Nellis had occurred at the DNI’s own office in Tyson’s Corner, Virginia, and not here in the district and within a stone’s throw of both Capitol Hill and the White House.

The driver eased the vehicle toward the heavily guarded entrance to the DIAC, modern silvery buildings that glowed a burnished gold in the sunrise, and passed through numerous checkpoints and bomb — sweeps before being allowed to continue on toward a parking lot shielded from scrutiny beneath one of the array of buildings before him. Whatever the reason for Jarvis being brought here, Nellis was still keeping his presence under wraps, the buildings were ringed with vast open — air lots that could have been used, but all of which would allow Jarvis’s arrival to be observed.

The car came to a halt near one wall of the lot, which was virtually empty at this early hour, and the driver indicated an elevator door close by.

‘Access code number seven — zero — four, select level five, room two — zero — one.’

The driver spoke the words mechanically, having clearly memorized them, and looked at Jarvis to ensure that he had understood. As soon as Jarvis had climbed out and closed his door the car slid away again toward the exit. Jarvis accessed the elevator and stepped inside, selected level five, and took a deep breath.

Room 201 was a non — descript briefing room on the fifth floor, and the only one that Jarvis encountered on his journey that was open. Furthermore, it had not escaped his attention that the floor in the immediate area was entirely empty: for whatever reason, Nellis had seen fit to ensure that no DIA staff would witness whatever was about to take place in the room.

Jarvis approached the open door cautiously and knocked once.

‘Enter.’

Jarvis felt a brief moment of relief as he recognized Nellis’s voice and entered the room, the DNI standing from behind a bare desk and extending a hand.

‘My apologies for the unusual choice of location,’ Nellis explained. ‘I have a briefing with both the president and the Director CIA in an hour in DC.’

‘No problem,’ Jarvis replied as he closed the office door and took a seat opposite Nellis. ‘What’s the story?’

Nellis was just one year into the role of DNI and he had already aged visibly, swamped by the sheer volume of information he was required to process as a matter of daily routine. Nellis sat back down and retrieved from a briefcase by his side a slim file that he slid across the table to Jarvis.

‘Classified Cosmic, naturally, and cannot leave the room,’ Nellis said. ‘We need to be quick and develop a strategy rapidly before we both leave the building separately. I have a car waiting and my staff think I’m up here revising the presidential briefing, not talking to you.’

‘Understood,’ Jarvis nodded as he opened the file and began scanning the contents as fast as he could.

Speed — reading was an advantageous skill to any intelligence agent, the very nature of the business governed by how much information an individual could absorb, process, analyse and utilize in as short a time as possible. Jarvis’s eyes swept across the pages and words leaped out at him as others poured into his sub — conscious.

Disappearances. Nigeria. Specific excess heat anomaly. Siberia mass murder. Viktor Schauberger, Austria, implosion research. Zero point. Neutron pulse detection. More words flashed by his eyes as his brain soaked in the information on the pages before he reached a final line.

‘What happened at Clearwater?’ Jarvis asked.

‘Four days ago, a B–2 Spirit Stealth bomber of the 509th Bomber Wing operating out of Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, landed after a routine training mission and downloaded data from its reconnaissance computers to servers at the DIA for analysis. Most of what was there held little interest other than to confirm that the aircraft’s sensors were working correctly, however just before sunset as the aircraft was turning for home it detected an anomalous energy burst from the mountains down in the south east.’

Jarvis raised an eyebrow. ‘And that’s the big deal?’

‘The big deal,’ Nellis replied, ‘is that the energy burst registered on the aircraft’s systems as being equivalent to around fourteen thousand pounds of TNT.’

Jarvis, a former Marine, did not need an explanation of how much devastation would be caused by the detonation of such an enormous volume of high explosives. An airburst of fourteen thousand pounds would create a truly immense blast that would shatter windows for miles around. A below — terrain blast would cause shockwaves sufficient to level major structures and would be detected by the USA’s Advanced National Seismic System and the Seismological Service.

‘I saw nothing on the news, and there’s no way anybody could conceal a detonation that large.’

‘That’s because there was no detonation,’ Nellis explained.

‘What about laser pulses or other directed energy weapons?’ Jarvis suggested. ‘Could the B–2 have simply been in direct line — of — sight to a smaller energy beam that made it look much larger?’

Nellis grinned. ‘A great idea, but we already checked it out. There’s nothing out there that could have emitted such a pulse and besides, we have a secondary detection that confirms the magnitude and location of that made by the B–2.’

Nellis handed Jarvis a photograph that had not been in the file, and this one was clearly taken from orbit. Jarvis instantly recognized the data stream across the bottom of image identifying a NAVSTAR satellite, normally used for GPS navigation systems. A little — known secondary role of this satellite array was its ability to detect both surface and nuclear detonations via the disturbances they caused to the Earth’s ionosphere, which in turn created minute alterations in the signals relayed to and from the orbiting satellites. Part of the USA’s Integrated Operational Nuclear Detection System, the photo in Jarvis’s hand was backed up by a visual image captured by an orbiting KH–12 Keyhole spy satellite.

In the center of Missouri’s mountain territory, where deeply forested hills surrounded a network of creeks and rivers, a bright blue — white flare of light was clearly visible that matched the NAVSTAR’s time anomaly data.

‘Something went bang,’ Jarvis said finally. ‘Do we have any imagery post — blast?’

‘Yes we do,’ Nellis said as he handed Jarvis a final image. ‘We sent a B–2 over the sight the following day to take a single optical shot, and that’s where things got really interesting.’

Jarvis looked at the second image and frowned. This one, in full color and high resolution, showed the town of Clearwater in the aftermath of the intense blast. What bothered Jarvis about the image was that the town was entirely intact. He looked up at Nellis.

‘Has anybody spoken to the inhabitants of the town?’

‘We sent two agents down there yesterday to ask a few questions,’ Nellis replied. ‘When they got there they said that the entire town was deserted, that it looked like nobody had lived there for fifty or more years.’

Jarvis stared down at the photo in his hand and he saw flash through his mind the brief description of Clearwater in the original file that Nellis had handed him.

‘The US Population Census recorded Clearwater as having a seasonal maximum population average of three hundred or so residents,’ he said. ‘That census is only a few years old.’

‘Agreed,’ Nellis said, ‘and yet apparently within forty eight hours of this blast being recorded the entire population of Clearwater vanished and the town now looks like it was abandoned half a century ago. I checked the current Census records, and they’ve been altered: Clearwater is listed as abandoned. That would be odd enough, were it not for the fact that this isn’t the first time something like this has happened.’

‘Amelu Alam, Nigeria,’ Jarvis recalled from the file as he set it down before him on the table. ‘An entire village of nearly two hundred people vanished overnight, after witnesses in a nearby village reported seeing bright lights so powerful they couldn’t look directly at them.’

‘And Royenka, Siberia,’ Nellis added. ‘Eighty nine people disappeared after what was presumed to be an explosion of some kind. By the time emergency services were alerted and able to access the remote town, there was nobody there any longer. None of them were ever seen again.’

Jarvis sat back in his seat and thought for a moment. ‘Your two agents weren’t able to make anything of this, so why call me in?’

‘This is what your people specialize in, Doug,’ Nellis explained, ‘and there’s something going on here that I’m not being informed about. You and I both know that when it comes to matters of the highest security, both the DIA and my own office are being kept out of the loop.’

‘Majestic Twelve,’ Jarvis said. ‘You think that they’re somehow behind this?’

‘People don’t just disappear in their hundreds without a reason,’ Nellis said. ‘In Nigeria it could be put down to the actions of rebel factions slaughtering innocent villagers and in Siberia anything goes, even severe weather. But what interests me is that in all of these cases there has been an absolute and complete media blackout. Again, I could perhaps understand it in Saharan Africa or high in the Siberian wastelands, but here in the United States?’

Jarvis nodded his agreement.

‘These people must have had families outside of the town, friends, acquaintances — there must be a trail, but I don’t sense any reason to suspect a connection to Majestic Twelve.’

‘Look more closely at the first image, Doug, just outside the town.’

Jarvis peered closely at the photograph and after a moment he saw it. Barricades on the roads, what might have been jeeps alongside them.

‘Ours?’ he asked.

‘No deployment of military personnel to that location is recorded by any unit at the time that image was taken, meaning they’re under the Black Budget or paramilitary. And that’s not all.’

Nellis folded his hands beneath his chin as he spoke.

‘After my meeting with the president, he and his entourage are departing for Holland, as are the leaders of dozens of countries and a fair proportion of the CEO’s of the largest corporations in the USA and overseas.’

Jarvis raised an eyebrow. ‘I wasn’t aware of any major governmental gatherings scheduled for this month?’

‘That’s also because of a similar rigidly — enforced media blackout that occurs once every single year,’ Nellis explained. ‘The president and the rest are all attending an annual conference known as the Bilderberg Meeting.’

‘Bilderberg,’ Jarvis echoed. ‘You think that MJ–12 are involved with it?’

‘I’ve come to believe that Bilderberg is to some degree the vessel through which Majestic Twelve coordinate their activities.’

Jarvis was aware that few people knew of the existence, let alone the relevance, of the Bilderberg Group. Members of the Bilderberg, together with their sister organisations — the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations, were charged with the post — war take over of the democratic process. The measures implemented by the group provided general control of the world economy through indirect political means.

Bilderberg was originally conceived by Joseph H. Retinger and Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands. Prince Bernhard, at the time, was an important figure in the oil industry and held a major position in Royal Dutch Petroleum, also trading as Shell Oil, as well as Societe Generale de Belgique, an influential global corporation.

In 1952 Retinger approached Bernhard with a proposal for a covert conference to involve NATO leaders in general discussion on international affairs. The meeting would allow each participant to speak his mind freely because no media representative would be permitted inside; nor would there be any news bulletin about the meeting or the topics discussed. If any leaks occurred, the journalists responsible would be “discouraged” from reporting it.

In 1952 Bernhard approached the Truman Administration and briefed them about the proposed conference. However it was not until the Eisenhower Administration when the first American counterpart group was formed. From the outset the American group was influenced by the Rockefeller family, the owners of Standard Oil. From then on, the Bilderberg meetings reflected the concerns of the oil industry in its meetings.

Bilderberg took its name from the Bilderberg Hotel in Oosterbeek, Holland, where the first meeting took place in May, 1954. The concept of Bilderberg was not new, although none attracted and provoked global myths in the way that Bilderberg did. Groups such as Bohemian Grove, established in 1872 by San Franciscans, played a significant role in shaping post — war politics in the US. The Ditchley Park Foundation was established in 1953 in Britain with a similar aim.

Around a hundred and fifteen individuals attended each conference, each chosen based on their knowledge, standing and experience — just like the members of the rumoured Majestic Twelve, a cabal of shadowy, powerful figures whom Nellis was trying to expose.

‘What does Bilderberg have to do with Clearwater, Missouri?’ Jarvis asked.

‘The president’s briefing of this morning,’ Nellis replied. ‘It includes reference to major projects ongoing in the area, requested directly by the president himself. If what I’m sensing here is true, whatever happened in Clearwater is of interest to those attending this years’ Bilderberg Conference in Holland, and I want to know why. I need you to send your best two agents into Missouri and find out what the hell is behind those disappearances, and you need to be extra careful with this one Doug.’

‘How so?’

‘Three hundred people cannot just disappear in the United States without the involvement of at least one major government agency. Even if Majestic Twelve does have the influence to initiate such an event, they won’t have access to the kind of manpower required to complete the task.’

Jarvis nodded cautiously.

‘CIA, or maybe FBI,’ he replied.

‘They’ll be watching you,’ Nellis agreed as he stood up. ‘Watch your backs.’