The Midnight Watch: A Sigma Force Short Story

What’s True, What’s Not

At the end of my full-length novels, I love to spell out what’s real and what’s fiction. I thought I’d briefly do the same here.

SMITHSONIAN’S CONSERVATION BIOLOGY INSTITUTE. This research station’s main facility encompasses 3,200 acres in Fort Royal, Virginia, but it also has a campus at the Rock Creek Research Labs at the National Zoo. One of the programs mentioned here — the “Ancient DNA” project — is an ongoing endeavor. The researchers seek to study changing patterns of genetic variation over time by analyzing DNA collected from museum specimens and archaeological artifacts. Where this might lead — as well as the implication for our species — is fascinating. And it leaves lots of room for further exploration on an even grander scale.

NATIONAL MALL TURF AND SOIL RESTORATION. This is indeed an active project to restore the thirteen acres of heavily trafficked lawns. Since the current phase of this project has ripped up the acres that lie between the Smithsonian Castle and the National Museum of Natural History, I thought what better chance for an off-road chase scene, especially with the site’s towering piles of dirt and deep excavations, including the digging of a 250,000-gallon cistern to collect storm water.

CHINESE HACKERS. IT seems like seldom a week goes by that we don’t hear of a new cyber attack by Chinese agents, whether it’s the infiltration of the Office of Personnel Management or the theft of fighter jet schematics. But these incursions are not only to steal intellectual property; they’re also to compromise systems. Chinese cyber forces — which do number into the hundreds of thousands — have damaged systems aboard commercial ships and even an airline used by the U.S. And they have grown bolder of late, even sending operatives onto U.S. shores in an attempt to nab Chinese defectors, as reported by the president recently. As to the next level of attack, I believe it’s coming — soon.

So that ends this tale — but as you might imagine, it’s only the beginning of a much larger story, an epic adventure like no other, one that will reveal a real-life archaeological mystery tied to Neil Armstrong, one that masks a monumental secret about the moon itself… all that, and also the introduction of a new character, unlike any seen in print before.