(Abridged Version)

Prologue

JUNE 30, 1908 - 6:30 AM

At sunrise on June 30, 1908, the area near the Tunguska River in Siberia was the site of a tremendous explosion that had the force of a modern hydrogen bomb and took place at an altitude of several kilometers. Although the explosion flattened trees for kilometers in all directions, no creater was formed, and aside from some microscopic nodules extracted from the soil, no recognizable fragments of an extraterrestrial object remain. Space scientists with Skyguard, the U.S. government agency responsible for cataloging and tracking asteroids, comets, and other near-earth objects, generally agree that the explosion was caused by a small comet that disintegrated in midair. Various UFO enthusiasts in Russia and elsewhere, however, have suggested that the blast was atomic and was created artificially...

Chapter One

MONDAY, JUNE 14, THIS YEAR - 4:52 PM

Diane Colston had promised she would be at her granddaughter Jennifer's soccer game without fail. She had every intention of being there, but she had badly underestimated the time it would take her to deliver Mrs. Kane's wedding cake. The mother of any debutante living in Bartlesville, Oklahoma knew that having a wedding that wasn't catered by Diane Colston would be a serious faux pau. Diane's wedding cakes, as well as her other pastries and confections, were the heart of her catering business, and her services were so sought after that the lead time on a "Reception by Diane" was six months. It seemed to most clients that six months should be more than enough time to plan and deliver food for a wedding reception, so they were hard put to understand why she was always running behind. All agreed, however, that Diane's services were worth waiting for, even if it meant slipping the nervous bride-to-be another tranquilizer or two.
In fact, Diane Colston was late for everything, which prompted the old joke about being late to her own funeral. Because of her attempts to be reasonably on time to various events, she was also known as a lead-footed bitch when she got behind the wheel of her Suburban Utility Vehicle.
Jennifer's soccer game had already started by the time Diane left the Kane estate on the east side of Bartlesville and headed for the sports complex, which was located on the southwest edge of town. As she raced south on Price Road, she ran through a mental list of the various routes she could take to cut down her drive time. She had done this so often that her selection was based mainly on which streets she could grossly exceed the speed limit without being spotted by patrolling police cars.
The sports complex was accessible by two major roads. Diane knew that these roads would be clogged with soccer traffic, but she remembered a route which might allow her to avoid the traffic. It wasn't a paved street, but rather an asphalt and gravel road which wound through what Bartlesville residents presumptuously called "Circle Mountain," which was a range of large hills encircling the town--hence the name--and ended up just south of the sports complex. This road had been particularly popular in Diane's youth because of its many twists and turns, its isolation, its suitability for car racing, and especially for a legend associated with the road. The legend concerned a slave who had escaped during the Civil War and had hidden--and been brutally murdered--on that road. It was said that a lantern carried by his ghost could be seen bobbing up and down along the road at certain times if the moon was just right. (A variation of the legend had it that this slave had lost one of his hands which had been replaced by a hook, which device had ended up stuck in the door handle of a car, etc. etc.) The Underground Railroad, which was a foot trail running from Texas to Kansas used by runaway slaves, did indeed pass directly through this area, so the legend had some basis in fact.
One of the more popular pastimes in Bartlesville during the '60s--besides parking along the road and watching for the bobbing light, among other in-car activities--was to "Shoot the Gap" from one end to the other, driving as fast as possible, and then boasting about it at school the next day.
All these memories ran through Diane's mind as she turned at the eastern entrance to the Gap. It was in much worse shape than she remembered; years of non-use and neglect had reduced it to not much more than a rutted dirt road. She wondered if anybody still shot the Gap and who the current record-holder was. From the looks of it, nobody ever drove down there any more.
She recalled the Gap as being about ten miles long, with several sharp right-angle turns, several railroad crossings, and a one-lane timber-decked bridge across Sand Creek. This is not the way it used to be, she thought sadly as she sped down the road. Behind her SUV, clouds of dust swirled in horizontal tornadoes. Trees on either side of the Gap formed an opaque green canopy, creating a tunnel and blocking the view around corners. There was no traffic to be seen. She glanced at the LCD clock on the dashboard and noted that she was twenty-two minutes late to the soccer game. She accelerated.
As she flew over one of the railroad crossings, she noticed the dusty, X-shaped "Railroad Crossing Look Out For the Cars" sign and smiled at the old spelling joke. She saw that the tracks were brown with rust--even the train had abandoned the Gap.
In the same general vicinity as the Gap was another road which meandered through the woods, marked by white crosses painted on telephone poles along the way. On this road was another part of Diane's youth: Gravity Hill. Gravity Hill was really spooky because you could park your car at the bottom of this hill--a slight incline, really--turn off the engine, put it in neutral, and your car would slowly creep up the hill. Supposedly, one of Mr. Scott's high school physics classes had investigated this phenomenon as a class project and the results had been confiscated by the U.S. Air Force, who promptly classified them as Top Secret. Diane was now twenty-nine minutes late to Jennifer's soccer game. She had no idea how long such a game was supposed to last but she knew that if she missed one more of them she would never be forgiven. There was no traffic anywhere in sight. She accelerated.
The road made a 45-degree turn towards Sand Creek and the one-lane bridge. After the bridge it was a four-mile straight shot to the end of the Gap at Highway 123. Diane remembered that you had to line yourself up exactly with the center of this bridge because spanning its length were two narrow sets of wooden planks which were just wide enough to accept your tires. Of course, there was an actual bridge floor under the planks, but this was made of small boards running crosswise and everybody knew that if your wheels ran off the planks and onto the boards, your car would break through the floor and the bridge would likely collapse. She laughed to herself as she recalled how young girls, including herself, lifted both feet off the floor as they crossed the bridge to avoid becoming pregnant (not by the bridge, of course.) Thirty-three minutes late.
Slowing slightly, she lined up the SUV with the bridge and prayed that no one was doing the same thing on the other side. She panicked momentarily as she wondered if the SUV's wheels were too wide for the planks, but by the time she had completed the thought she was safely across the bridge. Damn, she thought. I forgot to lift my feet.
On the far side of the bridge, the road was extremely bad: the creek had been out of its banks on numerous occasions and had deposited several inches of silt across the roadbed; subsequent rains had eroded the silt and dug deep channels. Overhead tree limbs drooped and slapped the SUV's windshield; roadside foliage grabbed at its bumpers. Diane knew she should slow down but she couldn't--she had promised. Abruptly the woods ended as the road passed a meadow. Sensing that she was nearing the end of the Gap, Diane floored the accelerator. She was now traveling at seventy-two miles per hour.

MONDAY, JUNE 14 - 5:23 PM

Charlie Redwing had been up since dawn with a sick dog. Spending long hours with sick animals was nothing new for Charlie; over the years he had nursed dogs, cats, cows, sheep, pigs, chickens and goats through all sorts of ailments. Zeke, the dog in question, was Betty Conkel's, and he had driven over from Pawhuska to "doctor" the mutt. Charlie was not a licensed veterinarian, but he had a way with animals and was well-known around Oklahoma's Osage County. He would not have bothered with Zeke except that Betty's long-dead husband Fred had been Charlie's friend and he knew the dog personally. The dog appeared to be unable to move its hind legs; its breathing was raspy and labored, and its nose was warm and dry. All it could do was lie on its cushion, pant, and roll its big brown eyes at Charlie. Zeke was at least fourteen or fifteen years old and Charlie knew that there was nothing he could do, so he had spent the entire day making the old hound as comfortable as possible and waiting for the end.
Betty had driven over to the grocery, leaving Charlie and Zeke alone in Betty's ramshackle house along the Gap. Charlie lifted Zeke and carried him out to the front porch so he could at least see the outdoors he had so loved to roam in his younger years. Charlie sat on the front porch steps and stuffed his pipe with tobacco, trying to figure out the best way to tell Betty, but he reckoned that she probably already knew that Zeke would be joining Fred soon, leaving Betty with no one but her cat. Charlie lit his pipe and ruminated about Fred and all the other friends he had lost in recent years. Hell in a hand basket, he thought. He rapped the pipe against the stairs a couple of times to knock out the dottle and was just about to re-stuff it when he heard the explosion.
"Wonder what the hell that was," he said to Zeke. Zeke didn't answer--he was snoring softly. Charlie stood up but could see nothing through the trees. He looked through the screen door and saw that Betty's ceiling fan was still whirling around so he ruled out a power transformer explosion. Charlie stepped off the porch and walked down the driveway to the road. To his right, about a quarter mile down the road toward the meadow, a column of greasy black smoke was beginning to rise. His first thought was that something had happened to Betty's pickup and he began running toward the smoke. As he got closer he noticed that it was not coming from the road but out in the meadow about twenty yards or so.
Charlie was not used to running--particularly a quarter mile--and by the time he got closer the smoke had increased its intensity. He could see that it was coming from some sort of vehicle which had left the road, because a portion of the barbed-wire fence was gone and he could see deep ruts in the meadow running from the road to the wreck. He started to cross the drainage ditch but the heat was intense, and now a slowly-widening circle of grass around the wreck was burning. Seeing that there was nothing he could do, he walked back to the house and dialed 9-1-1.

MONDAY, JUNE 14 - 5:46 PM

Deputy Sheriff Ed Bagley received the radio call from the dispatcher as he was dozing in his cruiser behind a billboard on Highway 123. As he looked to the southeast he saw the plume of black smoke over the treeline. He pulled out onto the highway, hit his lights and siren, and headed for the smoke. He swung left off of Highway 123 and into the Gap. As he pulled up abreast of the wreck, he saw Charlie and Betty standing on the roadside. He stepped out of his Crown Victoria, checking his reflection in the rear view mirror to make sure his ten-gallon Stetson and his sunglasses were adjusted just right. "Alright, people, what've we got here?" he said in his most authoritative voice.
"Not sure," said Charlie. "Didn't actually see it. I was sitting on the porch--Betty wasn't here--and I heard this explosion. Walked down the road and saw that thing burning in the field. Fire was too hot to get real close, so I came back and called you guys."
"Well," said Bagley, straightening his tie and loosening his gun in its holster a little, "I'm going to go have a look. You stay right here--this is official police business and I don't need no civilians messing up the crime scene."
"Whatever," mumbled Charlie. Bagley got a Polaroid camera out of his trunk, crossed the drainage ditch and walked along the ruts toward the wreck. The fire had burned out, but wisps of smoke were still emanating from the charred grass around the twisted mass of metal. If this is a car, he thought, it's the shortest car I've ever seen--whole thing can't be more than five or six feet long. He saw no reason to radio for paramedics or an ambulance; if there was a body in the car it couldn't have survived the crash.
Something else about the crash site was even more strange: the charring did not form a circle around the vehicle but rather a perfect semicircle about 30 feet in diameter. Grass on the forward side of the vehicle--what would have been the other half of the circle--had not been touched.
Bagley walked slowly up to the fringe of the charred grass and stared at the scene. He did not want to step in the black ash because it was still smoldering and he knew it would mess up his carefully polished boots. He turned to his right and began walking around the border of the ash, snapping pictures of the vehicle as he went. He looked back over his shoulder and saw that Charlie and Betty were still standing on the road. A few more steps and Bagley would be able to see the front of the vehicle. He turned toward the wreck and began sidestepping to the right, camera raised to his eye. On his third step the right side of his boot struck something hard, followed by his leg and arm. He lost his balance and fell backwards, dropping his camera and his hat in the process. More surprised than injured, Bagley stood up and looked around to see who he had run into, but the spectators were still up on the road. Must have stumbled over a rock, he thought. He picked up his hat and his camera and began retracing his steps around the fringe of the ash. This time he was watching the ground when his head struck the obstacle.
"What the hell's he doing out there?" Charlie asked, and began walking toward Bagley, who was rubbing his forehead. "Hey, are you all right?" Charlie called out.
"Stop!" shouted Bagley. "No, wait! Come here--but walk slow and don't step in the black area."
Charlie stumbled to a halt, then began walking slowly toward Bagley, who was now moving in slow motion with arms outstretched, like someone in a dark room feeling for a light switch.
Suddenly Bagley froze. "Charlie," he said over his shoulder, "come up behind me and stick your arm out next to mine real slow. Tell me if you feel anything."
"Uh, feel anything like what?" Charlie asked.
"Just do it!" barked Bagley, still motionless.
What an jerk, thought Charlie, but he did as he was told. As his outstretched hand came even with Bagley's, his fingertips contacted something. He placed his palm flat against the "something." Whatever it was felt cool and smooth.
"What do you feel?" whispered Bagley.
"It's like a piece of slick glass," replied Charlie. "What're you whispering for?"
"Keep your voice down, I don't want her over here," Bagley hissed. He pulled his hand back and rapped the "something" lightly with his knuckles. It sounded and felt as if he were knocking on a concrete wall. "Okay, Charlie, we both felt it so I'm not crazy. There's some kind of invisible wall here, and I think the car smashed into it. Here's what we're going to do: we're going to walk back to the road, just like nothing's wrong. I'll be damned if I'm going to write up a report that says a car crashed into an invisible wall in the middle of a field, so I'm going to call the sheriff, and while I'm doing that you're going to take the old lady back to the house. Make up any excuse you like--unexploded gasoline, maybe. I don't know what the hell's going on here, but this ain't no ordinary car wreck. And Charlie, don't you dare tell anyone about this--I'm deputizing you right now and swearing you to secrecy."

MONDAY, JUNE 14 - 6:54 PM

After calling in on his radio, Deputy Bagley returned to the crash site and checked to see if the invisible wall was still there. It was. He thought about feeling around to see if there was an edge to the wall, but the weirdness of the situation got to him, so he returned to his cruiser and rolled a joint while he waited for backup.
It took an hour for John Greyhorse, Sheriff of Osage County, to arrive at the crash site. Greyhorse was a rotund, cigar-chomping sheriff, but despite this stereotypical "Buford T. Justice" image, he was an honest and thoughtful officer. Although the Osage County Sheriff was an elected office, John did not play politics, relying on his excellent service record for continued reelection.
"Okay, Ed, this better be good--I was clear over in Nelagone on account of that fight at the snooker parlor last night. What's so damned secret you couldn't tell me over the radio? This isn't Homeland Security, you know."
"Yeah, well, if it ain't now, it probably will be."
"What the hell's that supposed to mean?"
"It'll work better if I show you."
Bagley showed him the wreck and had him feel the invisible wall. John lit a cigar and blew smoke at the wall.
"Look at that!" he cried. "The smoke bounces right off!"
"Well, whoopty doo. So what is it?" asked Bagley.
"I don't know, but we better get these people out of here, barricade the road, and call somebody who knows what this thing is. Who else knows about this?"
"The old lady knows about the wreck, and Charlie knows about the wall, but I deputized him."
"Good thinking. Well, I'd like to keep this in our jurisdiction, but I think we're out of our league here."
"Yeah, but looky here: what if we call somebody in and that wall vanishes or something before they get here? We're going to look really stupid."
"We'll have to call somebody; some kind of professional, somebody discreet, that can verify this wall without blabbing it all over the place. Then, if it's still there, we can decide what to do."
"Do you have somebody in mind?"
"Yeah, I do. Fox Mulder, X-Files."
"Who?"
"Oh, never mind. Go check on Charlie and Betty. And Ed...if you breathe a word of this to anyone, I'll add your scalp to my collection."
John Greyhorse knew that if there really were an "X-file" department at the FBI he wouldn't find its phone number in the blue pages of the phone directory, but he did know someone who might be almost as good. He also knew he had to do something quickly; whoever was still in that vehicle would be missed. If there were any remains, the chances of obtaining forensic evidence would quickly deteriorate.
He found some metal stakes in his trunk and wrapped crime scene tape around the crash site, then he walked up to the house. Charlie and Betty were sitting on the porch and Bagley was towering over them with his hand resting on his gun. "Good gawd, Ed," he said, "Charlie and Betty aren't vicious criminals; back off. Sorry, folks. Here's what we got down there: somebody came tearing along the road, lost control and ended up in the field. Standard crash and burn, not the first time it's happened. Used to have all sorts of kids racing through here. Problem is, there's a natural gas pipeline out there in the field and all sorts of spilled gasoline laying around. Could blow up any minute and start the whole place on fire. Hell of an explosion. So what we're going to do is, we're going to barricade the road about a mile either side of the field."
"John Greyhorse, we both know there ain't no natural gas pipes anywhere around here," said Betty. "We all got propane--what in the hell are you talking about?"
"That's just what I want you to tell anybody should they ask," replied John. "Now Betty, this is official sheriff business. Can you do that for me?"
"Well you're the Sheriff, so I guess you know what you're doing."
"Thanks, Betty--I appreciate it." He instructed Bagley to block off the road at the Highway 123 end with his police cruiser. After Bagley left, he showed Charlie how to work the remaining cruiser's flashers and the radio.
"Turn the flashers on as soon as you block the road, then take the shotgun and stand outside the car so you can see oncoming traffic. If anyone gives you any trouble, shoot them in the foot. Remember, now: big natural gas leak, gonna blow up the whole area any minute now. Don't let anyone headed this direction through except for a guy named Dave Powell--let him through when he shows up. Drives a black jeep-looking thing called a Hummer. Oh, and leave me the keys to your pickup."
As soon as Charlie was out of sight, John called his dispatcher on his portable radio to say that he and Bagley would be 10-10 at the scene of an accident until further notice. Then he went into Betty's house and made a phone call.

END OF CHAPTER ONE