Jefferson held his breath and willed himself to lie even flatter on the ground as the Jeep Cherokee stopped within two feet of where he hid among the desert brush.

In the past seven hours he had traveled just a little over a mile past the restricted perimeter of the highly secretive military base located at Groom Lake, Nevada.  A place more commonly referred to as Area 51.

Jefferson stayed silent as two guards, each wearing olive drab camo pants and desert beige t-shirts, stepped out of the Cherokee.

“We’ve been watching this area for over an hour.  I keep telling you, it musta been a rabbit or something that triggered the motion sensors.”

“All the same, I want to check it.”

“Suit yourself.  There’s nothing out here.”

The first guard lit up a cigarette to prove he was convinced that nothing was out here as he watched his partner inspect the motion sensor sticking several inches out of the ground thirty feet from the Cherokee.

Jackson timed his movements with the footsteps of the guard to mask his own sounds as he slid under the Jeep Cherokee.

He removed the electro-magnetic handholds from the front pocket of his jacket and silently stuck them on the reinforced metallic undercarriage of the four wheel drive SUV.  Jackson had lifted himself clear of the ground before the guards climbed back into the Jeep and the engine roared to life.

#

Edison paced back and forth in front of the twenty foot long table that was strewn with maps, floor plans, and Google Earth printouts.

He paused briefly every time he arrived at the far end of the table to pick up his iPhone and see if he had somehow managed to miss any calls in the last thirty seconds.

Edison put the iPhone back down and started his trek again down the long table at the center of the warehouse.

Harold couldn’t take it anymore.

“Would you please stop pacing around, I’m getting dizzy.”

“What if he’s been caught?”

“We’d never know if he got caught.  The best we can do is go about our business and if he ever contacts us, deal with what he has to say then.”

Edison stopped pacing.

“What do you mean if?”

“We paid that soldier boy a half million dollar advance to break into Area 51 and get proof that the government is covering up aliens.  What makes you think he’s not sitting on some beach in Tahiti right now sipping a Mojito?”

“Because we’ll give him another five-hundred thousand dollars when he finishes the job.”

“Your hoping that he doesn’t think half a million is enough.”

“I’m hoping we finally get proof that the U.S. government has been lying to us all this time.”

#

Jackson lowered himself to the cold cement floor of the underground garage deep inside Area 51.  He had hoped that the team that investigated the motion sensor he triggered would be nearing the end of its shift.

No such luck.

Jackson clung to the underside of the Cherokee and got dust in places dust didn’t belong during the four hours it took for the patrol vehicle to return to base.

He pulled out the Las Vegas casino napkin from his vest pocket and studied the hand drawn map that had cost him fifty thousand dollars.

The retired guard who had drawn this map insisted that there were no aliens.  But for fifty thousand dollars in cash, he was willing to draw the base and mark the most likely places that the government would hide the important stuff.

#

Of course the iPhone would ring when Edison was at the other end of the twenty foot table.

It still only managed to ring twice before he answered it in speakerphone mode so both he and Harold could listen.

“Did you get it?”

“Before we go any further, I want to confirm that we agreed on a million dollars no matter what I found.”

“I told you in the beginning.  We are not crazy.  I want proof of whatever is being kept at Area 51.”

“Even if it meant no alien spacecraft?”

Edison’s shoulders dropped.

“You didn’t find anything.”

“I didn’t find aliens, but I took plenty of pictures like you asked me to.”

“Well then, what did you find?”

“I’m sending you the files now.  But I found nothing but old planes and what looked like a maximum security prison.”

“Hold on, the files are coming through now.”

Harold scanned through the pictures quickly.

“He’s right.  There’s nothing but a bunch of people in orange jumpsuits and old planes.”

Edison nearly dropped the phone.

“Go back to that last picture.  What’s that look like to you?”

Harold stared for a moment.

“Some old decommissioned commercial airliner.”

Edison pointed to the edge of the screen.

“Zoom in on the back of the plane.  Do those numbers look familiar to you?”

Harold sat back in his chair.

“Oh my god!”

“Go back to the pictures of the inmates.”

Harold clicked on several pictures until he stopped on one in sharp focus.  He slid over to another computer and called up a 9/11 memorial site, quickly scanning through pictures of the passengers on all four fated flights.

“I don’t believe it.”

“He’s ten years older, but that is definitely one of the passengers.”

Edison put the phone back to his ear.

“Jackson, How man planes total were there?”

“Four.”

“Were any of the planes you found damaged?”

“None of them, why.”

“Because you just sent me a picture of a plane that millions watched crash into the south tower of the World Trade Center.”

Edison looked at Harold.  Their silent exchange settled what they both knew needed to be done.

“Jackson, how much for a rescue operation?”