Page 12 of Identity Unknown
“I’ve been calling since February. I’ll see what she can do while she’s here. Otherwise, who knows when anyone will be back,” Shannon says as her phone starts ringing again.
My secretary returns to her office as Marino walks into mine, dressed in field clothes, a pistol on his hip. He sets down two large Pelican cases that have wheels and retractable handles.They weigh at least fifty pounds each, his weathered face and shaved head flushed from exertion and shiny with sweat. It’s obvious that he took the stairs, the elevator topping his list of things that he’s sure will harm him.
“I’m afraid we have a long day ahead of us,” I tell him. “I hope you and Dorothy got some rest over your long weekend.”
“Not exactly,” he says sourly, and I’m not surprised.
They drove back to Alexandria this morning after three nights in Atlantic City, where my sister was presented with a prestigious social media influencer award. Marino isn’t a gambler and can think of better ways to waste money, he’ll tell you. Since the pandemic and proliferation of riots and mass murders, he dislikes crowds more than ever.
“Dorothy got lucky with the slot machines, lucky by her definition. I could hardly drag her away,” he reports. “Not to mention, the awards dinner went on forever. Then it was back to the casino until after midnight.”
“As long as you had quality time together and a change of scenery.”
“Atlantic City isn’t a change of scenery that I’m looking for. And who gives a shit about winning thousands of pennies?” Marino replies grumpily. “That was Sunday. Last night it was a Blues Brothers concert where she walked right up to Dan Aykroyd and asked him to autograph her onesie, which would have pissed me off if he’d been anybody else…”
I duck my head in Shannon’s office to the rapid clicking of her fingers on the keyboard. She has headphones on, typing at warp speed, and I signal that Marino and I are leaving.
“… After that it was a karaoke competition in a bar,” he’stelling me. “And Dorothy did her usual Cher impersonation, winning a whopping fifty bucks. We spent a hell of a lot more than that on drinks.”
“I think you’re well aware that my sister doesn’t do it for the money.” I shoulder my bags.
“Yeah, I know why she does it. If I didn’t before, I do now.”
“Your truck’s packed and ready to go?” I ask him.
“Got everything we need, including hazmat PPE and the Geiger counter. You mind telling me what the hell is going on? Be nice if I knew where we’re headed, and why we’re flying in sucky weather. Why are we flying at all? What’s the rush? Whoever died isn’t getting any deader.”
I pass along what I’ve been told so far, and he knows very well who Sal Giordano is but not who he was to me. Marino may recall that in our Richmond days I spent a summer teaching in Rome during a rocky time for me professionally. But I’ve never hinted at the rest of the story. He wouldn’t take it well.
“Sal Giordano’s been trying to make contact with ETs,” Marino is saying as we walk out of my office, and I lock the door. “He and the other SETI people have been sending signals all over the universe like they assume ETs are friendly. Well, what if all of them aren’t?”
“Saying something is a UAP simply means it’s not identifiable, and I suppose that could be a lot of things,” I reply.
“Some sightings are explainable. But others aren’t, and the reason we can’t identify them is because they weren’t made by us, the Chinese, the Russians or any other humans,” Marino says as if it’s beyond question. “There are nonhuman craft visiting us and it’s been going on forever.”
“We don’t know that such a thing was involved in Sal’s case,” I repeat as we follow the hallway.
“The fact that he was beamed up while driving and exposed to radiation? The fact that aliens probably experimented on him for hours, downloading everything in his brain? The fact that the craft left a crop circle and then vanished off the radar, back into outer space? You don’t find that pretty damn convincing, Doc?”
“Those aren’t facts.” The straps of my bags are digging into my shoulders.
“Not to mention he was left in Oz.”
“The theme park is owned by Ryder Briley, by the way.”
“You thinking he might have something to do with Sal Giordano being killed? Is that what Benton thinks?”
“Like the rest of us, he has more questions than answers at this point.”
“Just so you know, what Lucy described to you sounds a lot like other UAP encounters I’ve heard about. And it’s nothing new in that part of Virginia going back to the sixties when a spaceship landed near Staunton. Small beings were on board, the whole thing witnessed,” Marino explains as if it’s gospel.
“What was picked up this morning could have been an experimental aircraft that radar and other sensors didn’t recognize. It’s the same thing as our tox screens missing the newest designer drug or an odd one not included in the algorithm,” I suggest, theEXITsign glowing red up ahead.
“Do you know if the UAP was shaped like a saucer, an orb, a triangle, maybe a cylinder? What else could they tell about it?”
“Not much, only that something was there.” I stop before the elevator’s closed stainless steel doors and his eyes widen as if I’m pointing a gun at him.
“Oh no we don’t!” he declares. “We’re not getting on this damn thing.”