Captain McGoohan occupied a rooftop office and makeshift live-in studio on the fourth floor of the Terrestrial Investigations Group headquarters, adjacent to the Chickenhawk helipad but a few floors above distractions. Complete with a lavish collection of unnecessary acquisitions, he called his makeshift apartment “The Roost.”
If he didn’t like to go anywhere, it was only because he didn’t have to. Just about anything he could want was already in the office, and if he wanted more than the standard break room vending machine fare, he could always order take-out. The private elevator had a base-level door to the outside world, and his delivery guys already knew the drill when he got to craving chicken Pad Thai or Satay skewers with peanut sauce. The fact that he could call in grocery orders for delivery as well meant he never had to bother with a trip to the corner market for booze, beers, or even smokes, and he was quite content with his rooftop post. His only real complaint was that occasionally he had to work.
The sergeant called at least a dozen times, but Captain McGoohan didn’t take orders from Sergeant O’Connor. The only reason that he picked up when the chief called was because the chief literally signed his checks and signed off on his expense accounts. The chief was a little more cordial than he strictly had to be because McGoohan didn’t put a lot of effort into hiding his outside job offers. His combat record was good enough that he could have been in a coma for eight years and he would still be getting bids. For this reason, when the chief called, it was a request for a routine sweep with some scans and aerial photography and such, and the chief could go ahead and send those coordinates over if Capt. McGoohan had some time that afternoon. As it had been months since the last time the chief needed actual air support for anything, Capt. McGoohan decided that he did indeed have some time that afternoon and he could pop right over for a little aerial documentation session. He would get right on that.
The big front garage bay door was open to the afternoon sun, the Stryker strapped down to a flatbed trailer as Levy pleaded his case to the commissioner. It was Captain McGoohan’s personal experience that when a government oversight committee sent an envoy with a flatbed truck to haul away a multimillion-dollar piece of legally nonexistent surplus combat hardware, they were well past the point of hearing the protests and groveling of a legally nonexistent mechanic. The guy with the clipboard wasn’t having any of it and neither was the heavy with the grease-stained polyester work uniform; they weren’t paid to adjudicate a petition. The rhino herself was at the truck cab confirming the delivery destination to yet another, completely different yet equally apocryphal extraterrestrial investigation task force. As entirely unconcerned with the chief’s expensive toy collection as he could possibly be, excepting of course his own chicken hawk, Captain McGoohan greeted the commissioner with a cheerful salutation and hid his beer bottle in the folds of his pant leg. From a distance, she probably couldn’t even see the brown glass bottle. “Afternoon, Commissioner!”
Combat veterans who had served with her gave her the nickname “the rhino.” The name was spoken only in a whisper but somehow passed between divisions all the way to her post as commissioner of the umbrella oversight committee. She negotiated the fiscal bog between at least a dozen black book operations and the people who funded them. She was so deep that her curriculum vitae probably read “none of your damn business” and nobody dared question it. She secretly enjoyed the look of terror that she invoked in her employees, colleagues, and even superiors. She knew she had him in her pocket, and that was just fine with him. She could keep him as close as she wanted. McGoohan gave the commissioner the benefit of the doubt and assumed that the low growl she gave in reply was actually a friendly salutation.
Trimmed in a sharply cut business skirt with her blouse unbuttoned provocatively, the commissioner did not look particularly pleased to be out in the Arizona heat, and even less so to have to pry Levy’s grubby paws off what amounted to her own personal Stryker. Keeping tabs on nonexistent assets meant that if she wanted to, the commissioner could turn the light-duty combat vehicle into a luxury family motorhome and there was nothing that anybody could do about it. Of course, that wasn’t going to change Levy’s mind on the subject. “Just a couple more weeks, please?” He seemed moments away from dropping to his knees and begging. The rhino would have liked that. “I can’t imagine you have anybody else who could finish that install, Commissioner.” He took a step towards her and the big guy in the polyester work pants rest his hand on his side arm.
“Get over it, Mr. Levy,” the commissioner said, “talk to a professional if you have to, but I’m not parking a few million dollars’ worth of hardware on your lot so you can give it a paint job and space lasers.” She nodded curtly at the captain as she raised a hand and gave the command to roll out. He saluted back, more formally than strictly necessary, but she was still military, even in her D.C. civvies. No matter what happened to the last handful of remaining investigators, Captain McGoohan was alright with the rhino, and he liked it that way. The driver held the door for her, and the captain gladly watched her all the way to her sleek black Escalade. Superior or not, the rhino could keep him any way she wanted.
Levy followed the flatbed truck as it lurched into gear and arched around in a wide sweep of the empty parking lot, rolling slowly like a funeral procession. Levy glanced down at the receipt in his hand, almost entirely redacted already. He could have been holding a receipt for a dozen donuts. The Stryker was just gone, and with it, his remote laser turret. “I haven’t even finished with the installation yet.”
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The captain strolled up and put his hand on Levy’s shoulder, watching the flatbed and Stryker turn onto the road back to the highway. “Yeah, you have, buddy.” After watching the truck a few moments longer, Cpt. McGoohan realized that he really didn’t care. He swirled his beer around, checking to see how long he had left to talk. “So, where’d the guys go?” He took a swig.
Levy watched the flatbed all the way to the bottom of the hill and until it disappeared around the bend, his beloved remote laser array passing out of his hands forever. Under the tarp, it looked just like every other military surplus rig being hauled along a highway. “They’re sifting for balloon shrapnel in California. He’s not returning my calls.” He continued to watch the valley to the east wistfully, hoping for a final glimpse.
McGoohan nodded like he was actually considering it. “He wants me to scan a hill or something. He wasn’t very specific about it. I’ll top her off, I just need a bunch of initials on a couple of clipboards.” He took another sip of his beer and punched the close button for the big loading bay door. “Lettin’ all the cold air out,” he muttered. As he turned back to the elevator, he caught a glimpse of someone peering out from under a canvas tarp at him and then it vanished in a quick ruffle. If the thing under the tarp had been car-shaped, that might make sense to have a mechanic under it, but it looked like the tarp was draped over a pile of surplus TIG parts that Levy had painted that ugly flat black. And another thing, and this might be important after all, the face that he thought he saw – if he actually saw it – wasn’t human.
Captain McGoohan stood staring at the edge of the tarp where the not-quite-human face had been just a moment before. “Both of them went on a balloon chase?”
Levy ducked under the rolling bay door and rushed over, nonchalantly smoothing the tarp over the pile of black parts. “They took that auditor guy, too.”
“What the hell for?”
“I don’t know. To impress him, maybe?” When Levy nonchalantly leaned against the tarped junk, the load shifted slightly, making a whirring noise. Levy hopped away from it. “You know, I looked up that auditor, you know, just to know who we were dealing with.” Levy noticed his hands, stained black with overspray. He wiped them on a rag as if that might clean them up real nice, but once he started, he didn’t stop scrubbing. “Did you know that guy’s resume reads like a lifetime DMV employee? He’s like the perfect pencil pusher.”
Captain McGoohan regretted not just initializing the preflight himself. He failed to understand why the auditor’s perfect attendance awards meant anything to him personally. “So?” he asked, not really wanting to know.
“So, what’s a guy like that doing auditing an organization that technically doesn’t exist, right?” He stopped wiping his hands and gave McGoohan a comically weighty eyebrow raise. “The guy served, but his Army record is blank. Not a single reprimand or recommendation. Straight out of the ranks and into a cubicle. I’m telling you; this guy is too clean.”
“Look, Levy, I don’t need the guy's pedigree, I just need a preflight so I can impress him with some barrel rolls and a few aerial Polaroids.” He swilled the last few gulps of his beer around and reminded himself to restock the Igloo in the Chickenhawk before he hopped over to California. “Any idea what they’re doing out there anyway?”
“On his way out, the chief said something about a cold case; a couple of Boy Scouts on a field trip; and he took that meteorite with him when he left. I guess he’s going to see Dr. Barnes about pulling those teeth.” Levy nodded so steadily that it couldn’t be called a tick any longer. He’d always seemed a little nervous, but he was stammering some sort of nonsense at this point.
McGoohan never really cared for the whole extraterrestrial investigators bit, but the lack of local oversight made his life a hell of a lot easier. As long as the paychecks cleared, he would be willing to put up with just about anything. Skeptic or not, that thing that just peeked out from under the tarp was definitely not one of the TIG mechanics, but he wasn’t about to start asking questions, in case it was part of a gag. “What the hell am I scanning for out in the desert,” McGoohan joked, “reptilians?”
Levy scowled at Captain McGoohan, slowly folding his arms over his chest as he began to glower. “Reptilians? Are you serious?” He shook his head and glanced around the shop as if there might be anyone else there to preach to. “Like the dark cabal of Jews that are running the world sort of shit? The Bilderbergs and Rockefellers are secretly lizard people pulling all the strings. Infiltrating top-level positions, whatever. It’s a blatantly anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that’s older than the internet itself.” He paced from one side of the garage to the other, building with bluster as he went along. “Henry Fuckin’ Ford started that shit here around the turn of last century! Adrenochrome was some made-up shit from a Hunter S. Thompson novel! He just wanted something that sounded good, ya know?”
Clearly Levy hadn’t seen the same face that the captain had just seen. “Fine, amphibian, or whatever.”
Levy stood up straighter, working his jaw rhythmically. “It seems to me that you guys should be out there looking for the real, actual aliens, not rehashing some blood libel bullshit from a fourteenth-century Catholic tourist trap.”
Captain McGoohan knew Levy to be a little intense at times, and who didn’t like to powder their nose every once in a while, but if he was going to pull this antisemitism shit again, the captain had a flight to catch. “Right, I honestly don’t give a shit if you stole some shit off the Stryker before it got repossessed, and I don’t much care if your kid is running around in a rubber mask to put on a show for the guy with the clipboard.” He finished his beer and tossed it into one of the empty oil drums that suffered as a trash can that no one bothered to empty. “I just need a signature Levy.”