The climb down into The General's lair was uneventful, although - speaking for myself - I grew a few more gray hairs during the descent! For all I knew The General was a loon. At any moment he would throw on a grisly mask of dried human flesh, whip out a chainsaw, and give us an introduction to the mummified corpses of his family.          "Ma! Pa!" I could hear him rasping, "Lookit' the danged fools what follered me to home!"          The thing of it is: I was waiting for Ma and Pa to answer back!                    About half way down the shaft I had worked myself into a semi- panicked frame of mind. Beads of sweat were popping out on my forehead. My teeth were chattering so hard my fillings were giving birth to sparks.          "Bill! Are we doing the right thing?" I hissed.          Bill, ten feet below me, took a moment to answer. I saw him pause, look from side-to-side, and then resume his climb.          "No!" he finally answered.          I felt reassured. I wasn't the only idiot in town after all.          Needless to say - since you are now reading this - The General did not metamorphose into Jason or Freddy Krueger and try to suck our livers out. He met us at the bottom of the shaft, sputtering with apologies.          "I'm dreadfully sorry," he said quickly. "Until just now I've never climbed up or down that shaft." He wheezed a little and then pressed a button on the shaft wall. A door opened and fluorescent light flooded over us. "Smith arranged for this meeting," he continued. "Said it was the only safe way to take strangers in..."          He stepped through the doorway and then motioned for us to follow. We did.          All thoughts of bloody power tools and desiccated victims fled from my mind. Added to the fact that there was not even one smoky torch guttering in a sconce, there were no shackles hanging from the walls and no bones littering the floor. I happen to know that Bill let out a sigh of relief upon seeing the condition of the room, because it was so loud I jumped out of my skin.          "What's eating you?" Bill asked when my feet hit the floor. "I told you not to worry!"          "You told me not to worry? Bull!"          "Did too!"          "Did not!"          "Did too!"          "Did ..."          You get the idea. This would have gone on forever had not The General stepped in to interject a little sanity.          "In about thirty seconds," he intoned, "This room is going to fill with a rather deadly nerve agent as protection against intruders..."          Never did one of our 'Did too! - Did not!' arguments come to such a rapid resolution.          "Huh?"          The General laughed.          "Just kidding," he said. "Had to shut you up. My ears were beginning to hurt."          "Who are - " I started to ask. The 'you?' was perched on the tip of my tongue when I noticed a rumbling sound emanating from one of the walls.          "What's that sound?" I asked instead.          The General cocked an ear and listened for a moment.          "The elevator," he replied. "On its way up to us. I've had enough ladder-climbing practice to last me a while - and now we've got to go deep. This room we're in is sixty feet below the surface. My quarters are another one-hundred forty feet down."          "What is this place?" Bill asked.                    "This room..." The General said, ignoring Bill's intended question, "Well I guess this room is just a storeroom."          For the first time I took a good look around.          The room was about twelve feet square and appeared to be composed of solid concrete - floor, walls and ceiling. There were gray painted metal file drawers and boxes of what looked like ammunition scattered all about. On each box was stenciled the phrase 'Made In China'. Nothing you wouldn't find in any well-equipped office.          Set into a little alcove was a big, squat, metal tank with the international symbol of radiation danger painted upon it in purple and red. Next to this symbol were the letters RLAC.          I was beginning to feel at home. I pointed at the big pot and peered anxiously at The General.          "What's that?"          "That's a 'pocket' atomic reactor," The General announced. "There are more down below. I don't think this particular unit is on line..."          "What is this place?" Bill asked - again.          Suddenly the rumbling sound I'd been listening to stopped and a section of wall grated open to reveal an empty utility elevator.          "That's our ride, gentlemen," said The General.                    After an elevator ride that seemed to take more than one lifetime - it hurtled down its shaft with all the swiftness of Government reform - we emerged into what The General called his quarters: a honeycomb of well lighted tunnels and rooms, all neatly paved with concrete. The tunnel walls were solid rock. We traveled in silence for several minutes, blindly following the ragged figure of The General. On several occasions I reached out and touched the tunnel wall. In places the rock was fused as if by great heat.          The General had been watching me.          "Those Armored Vehicle ID cards you found outside of Amboy..." he said. "I'm sure that one of them described a vehicle that could bore through solid rock - the RLU-A?"          Bill and I both stopped dead in our tracks.          "That's how these tunnels were formed," he told us. "By a projected beam of intense infra-red radiation."          I tried to form a mental picture of the strange vehicle displayed on the card - which was topside in the truck. I remembered that it looked a little like a scorpion with a parabolic mirror at the tip of its tail.          "You have one of those machines down here?" I asked.          The General shook his head. "No," he said. "Just borrowed technology."          "You planted those cards for us to find," Bill put in. It was more of a question than an accusation.          Again The General shook his head. He reached into a hip pocket and pulled out an identical box of cards. "I just happen to have a set of my own," he told us. "I accidentally stumbled upon these - as you did - in the desert just south of Chambless."          "Near Cadiz," I observed.          "Correct. That was back in the 1950's after my stint with Uncle Sam."          Bill - who was being unusually quiet for him - piped up at that. "Who do you work for now?" he asked.          The General stopped suddenly and pressed a button in the tunnel wall. Immediately a panel whooshed upwards to reveal a brightly lit room scattered with tables and chairs.          "Here's the mess hall," he announced. "I'm famished!"                    There were twenty tables in the mess hall and four empty chairs per table. Empty napkin dispensers crowned each table. Along one wall was the standard cafeteria type stainless steel and glass 'buffet' counter. At one end of this was a stack of plastic serving trays and a bin of spoons, forks, and knives. Overhead, massive fluorescent lights gave everything a cold, impersonal appearance.          We were the only people in the room.          "Grab a seat boys," The General offered. "I'll go round up some grub. Do either of you have a preference for eggs? I've got a surplus of the stuff."          I guess Bill and I gave him the secret 'we love eggs more than life itself' look because he returned two minutes later with a pot of steaming coffee and three MREs (Meals, Ready-to-Eat). Each MRE was marked 'Ham and Eggs, Chopped'.          We wolfed the stuff down.          Except for the coffee - it was a battle just getting it past my teeth.          "How many times did you re-brew the coffee grounds," I asked politely.          "Sorry," he said. "It's water soluble coffee tablets from World War II - it's all I have left. Mixed it with some Monk's Brew to cut the flavor."          He noticed my confusion.          "Postum," he added.          I then looked at Bill out of the corner of my eye. Having known him since 1966, I could easily tell when something was bothering him. In this case it was clear he was about ready to go ballistic: his teeth were clenched, eyes were beady, and his temporal lobes were expanding and contracting as if he had balloon implants under the skin.          I decided to prolong his agony.          "How fresh is the Postum?" I asked cheerily.          Bill convulsed violently. I could hear the equivalent of rivets popping along the seams of his skull. He flew out of the chair and wagged a finger at me. "How can you be so #@!&$ calm at a time like this?" he screamed. "What is this place? Who is this guy? What are we doing here? Where is everybody else? What in the hell is going on?" His face was so contorted that his mustache went vertical.          I was about to reply when he suddenly went silent. As quickly as the fit had started, it was over. He plopped back into his chair, folded his arms, and eyed The General.          Me? I slid my chair back from the table a bit in preparation to run. Fireworks are great - at a distance.          The General, now looking just a little embarrassed, reached out and confiscated Bill's cup. "How'd you like some lemon-lime soda?" he said to Bill. "Then I'll tell you something about myself and about this place."          To me he said, under his breath, "We're switching to decaf!"          A moment later Bill was nursing a can of soda.          "Okay," The General said, eyeing Bill, "I'll answer some of your questions now. Keep in mind that, under the circumstances, some answers will have to wait until I get a chance to evaluate you two a bit further. Hell! You guys could be IRS, INS, PBS or DCS!"          Bill nodded stiffly. This seemed to meet with his approval.          "In the 1950's," The General explained, "I was a youngster fresh back from Korea. No - I never saw a lick of action over there. I flew a desk well away from enemy lines as an intelligence officer. What I did see in Korea were captured reports and accounts of unknown aircraft and airships - UFOs - and of so-called alien abductions. It was all part of the bullshit craze that started in 1947. Anyway - as young and pliable and impressionable as I was - I got interested.          When I got back to the States I managed to pull some strings. You see I was an Army brat and my daddy was rather influential. I landed an assignment on a committee, similar to Project Blue Book, as an investigator.          At first the work was exciting and fun - I traveled abroad to countries I'd never even heard of. I interviewed about a million people and actually hob-nobbed with some heads of state. All expenses were paid by Uncle Sam or the hosting nation. We stayed in the best hotels and ate the best food. Man - that was the life! I pray that I never find out how much damage we did to taxpayer's pocketbooks. I'd have to kill myself.          I said that at first it was exciting and fun. After about a year I realized that I was chasing a world wide hoax. Everything that I personally investigated - and I mean everything - was easily debunkable and explained by stupidity, ignorance, fraud, or - or governmental cover up. But that's for later discussion."          Here The General paused and took another punishing blow from his cup. He looked at Bill and winked. "On a roll now, huh?" he said.          Bill glared back at him.          I glared too. I gave The General the sincerest 'you're full of hot air!' look that I could muster.          "For reasons I can't explain at this time," The General continued, "I parted ways with the government - and especially the military branch I was attached to - in 1957. It was not a cordial parting. I and several others on the committee were - what's the term? - disavowed...          Following up on some information provided to me by a fellow enthusiast, I found myself one fine morning in Chambless at the Flying Saucer Garage. I did not know what I was looking for and had no idea why I was out in the middle of the Mojave Desert - I guess I was really desperate - but within the Garage I discovered another clue that had to have been directed to me personally. The clue led me to the deck of vehicle ID cards - and the cards led me, eventually, to here."          "What is 'here'?" Bill asked. "What is this place?"          The General sighed deeply. "This place is a part of this country's super-secret past and present," he said. "Deserted now - save for me. For all practical purposes I am landlord and tenant. I am also warden and prisoner. It has been made clear to me - quite convincingly - that I will be terminated with extreme prejudice should I leave this place. You see - I have certain information that some members of government think I should pay dearly for. The members who passed the information to me obviously are of a different opinion. As a result there is a war of ideals raging in top government circles at this very moment. I am safe as long as that war continues to consume them. I think..."          Bill and I both must have had weird expressions on our faces because The General suddenly stopped short and peered at us each in turn.          "Look," he said quietly, "I know this is a lot of stuff to dump on you guys. You don't know who I am. You probably think I'm nuts. Hell! Smith thinks I'm nuts- and he works for me! Maybe I am crazy. But there's a great gob of stuff I have not even told you..."          "That's the problem!" I jumped in. "All you're doing is telling us. Why don't you show us something?"          A light bulb appeared over The General's head.          Thirty seconds later we were double-timing down a corridor which The General referred to as Main Street. Every hundred or so feet we'd pass a door and he would call out stats and trivia.          "Bunk room - one of two. Twenty bunks in this one. They used the 'hot-bed' system."          "Briefing Room. Makes the war room in Dr. Strangelove look like a kitchen cupboard."          "Tactical Room. Radar, communications - you name it. There's also a wide-screen TV in there. Problem is I can't get Fox!"          "Armory - one of three. This one houses standard gear only."          "Chem and bio warfare gear room. Haven't been in there...gives me the willies!"          "Infirmary. They've got enough drugs in there to last several lifetimes."          By the time we reached the end of the tunnel we were all breathing hard. A door marked 'Firing Range E' now stood in front of us. A secondary notice on the door cited regulations pertaining to the wearing of eye and ear protection.          The General hit a button and the massive door slid upwards.          "I don't know if either of you know much about particle physics or lasers," he said, stepping into the room beyond. "Basically I only know what was taught me in college and a few things I picked up in the military."          We were now standing in an artificial 'cavern' of massive proportions. Ovoid in shape, it easily measured two-hundred feet end-to-end, and half that in width. The ceiling was a full twenty feet over our heads. Directly across from the entrance were two ten-foot diameter tunnels blockaded with weapons firing stations.                    The General walked us over to the nearest station.          "Each shaft runs one thousand feet," he said. "There's high-tech air- scrubbers at the end of each to remove lead dust from the air. But we won't be worrying about that today, boys."          With a grunt he leaned over the station, reached down, and pulled forth the oddest-looking vacuum cleaner I'd ever seen.                    "This is a Hornet Plasma Pulse Rifle," he announced. "I'll tell you where it's from later. For now - let's just say that this particular weapon was not manufactured on this planet. It's technology is beyond our own..."          Without another word he braced the butt of the weapon against his shoulder, aimed carefully down the shaft, and pulled the trigger once. A brief flash is all I saw.                    The General looked pleased. "Not very impressive, huh? This rifle has been modified by the U.S. Military to discharge one single round of energy per trigger pull," he said. "I have never managed to find out exactly how much energy is released, but it only takes about one-thousandth of a second." He pressed a button. "I'm bringing in the target now. You'll see what this baby can do."          About fifteen seconds later the target arrived at the station. It was a rectangular slab of steel that measured twelve by twenty-four inches and three inches thick. A neat round hole, two to three inches in diameter, had been punched clean through the metal. The boundary of the hole was still glowing cherry red.          Bill and I were both impressed.          "As I was saying earlier," The General said. "I'm not too savvy on partical physics, lasers, and such - but I do know that, at least in 1991 America, this type of weapon cannot exist."          Bill looked puzzled now. "Why?" he asked. "The military has some pretty powerful high energy weapons..."          The General held up a hand to shush Bill.          "It's the technology in question here," The General said. "Whatever apparatus is inside that makes this thing go is entirely new. Top-level scientists labored for a year to understand the mechanism - they're still totally baffled."          "What's its energy source?" I asked.          The General's eyes brightened a little.          "That's one question I can answer," he replied. He held the rifle up to eye level - very carefully keeping the muzzle pointed down-range - and pointed to an area of the rear housing. "It's powered by what we have termed a radium cell," he tapped the housing with a finger, "and it's about the size of a roll of 35mm film..."

NEXT: ROSWELL AND THE RADIUM LEAGUE