Dulce Truths

The colonel was in his early-30s. He had short brown hair without a hint of grey in it and a firm face that looked chiseled, as did his body. He’d been in the Army ever since FDR had started the home study Army extension courses back in 1935. That’d allowed him a leg-up on joining the reserves before his 18th birthday, which didn’t come until the following year. After that it’d been the standard rigors until mobilization for WWII had started. Due to Anderholt’s high aptitude test scores, he was chosen for the Office of Strategic Services, or OSS, even before it officially started in 1942. That’d limited his combat roles in Europe while increasing his intelligence gathering work. When the OSS was rolled into the CIA after the war, Anderholt was one of the first to start at the new agency. He also took on the rank of Master Sergeant in the Air Force, a sly bit of bureaucratic rigmarole that gave him even more power and influence. From there it was work with Majestic 12 — or MJ12 as it was called — and that’s the reason he’d been sent to the Four Corners region, specifically New Mexico.

The general saw things much differently, and as they walked down that rocky trail he could picture what the area would become, and how.

Just a couple weeks before, after all, the government had crafted a faux story about a lumber company building a logging road through Dulce to get at the pine, fir, and spruce trees of the nearby San Juan National Forest. The trucks that went in and out were all labeled with “Smith Corp.” on the side, a ‘company’ based out of Paragosa Springs, Colorado. No lumber was ever hauled on the road, however, though sometimes late at night people would report seeing the trucks loaded down with big equipment destined for some area close by. Now Dulce Base had a path to it, though eventually that logging road would be destroyed. It was all part of the vast plan that MJ12 had put into place, and Anderholt had been chosen to see it through.

How long the ‘base’ was there before the government got ready to refit it into a high-tech military installation was anyone’s guess, the colonel figured. Some say it’d been there for thousands of years, an entrance to the vast underground world where secret alien races lived, and had been living for eons. One story had the secret society known as the Illuminati entering into a pact with these alien nations beginning in 1933, and soon the government officials the society handled were trading humans and animals for high-tech know-how.

Power would be needed to run those high-tech gadgets, Anderholt knew. To supply it, much of what the nearby Navajo Dam produced would be diverted to Dulce. In case the need for backup power arose, the El Vado Dam would be selected as a standby, and as a second location for an entrance to Dulce. Most of this work would conducted by the Rand Corporation, with help from Bechtel.

Much of Dulce and its tunnel system, and the bases around the world just like it, would be constructed with “the Subterrene,” a nuclear-powered tunnel machine that burrows through the deep, underground rock by heating whatever stone it encounters into molten rock. This rock then cools as the machine passes and the tunnels it creates have a smooth, glazed lining.

Where would all that extra rock go that the Subterrene pushes forth before it? Why, into the lakes around the El Vado Dam! Heron Lake… El Vado Lake… Stone Lake… Horse Lake… Stinking Lake… all would be created under the guise of grants for the Indians. While the area Indians would get some work blasting and hauling rock to make the lakes and dams and reservoirs, in reality they’d just be pawns. The lakes would be underwater launch sites for aliens, and disposal areas for the tons of molten rock that the underground tunnel excavations created.

Thirty minutes after starting down from the ridge, Noro reaches the boulders that he’d pointed out. As usual, Anderholt is right behind him, the other dozen or so men bringing up the rear. Each has a machine gun shouldered. Noro knows the guns won’t be enough. Tanks wouldn’t be, he thinks.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Anderholt asks.

“I’ll go no further,” Noro says, “no Jicarilla Indian will.”

“You’ll go no…” Anderholt starts before trailing-off. He then crosses his arms over his chest and gives Noro an angry stare. “I’m paying you to go further, all the way in fact!”

Noro shakes his head. “No amount of money’ll be enough.”

“Money won’t, eh?” Anderholt says as he uncrosses his arms and lowers one down to his side, never taking his eyes from Noro’s. His fingers wrap around the handle of the Walther P38 he’d taken from a dead Nazi in a Berlin bunker years before. He slowly draws it from its holster then brings the weapon up and levels it at Noro, who’s standing just six feet away. “Then maybe this will,” he finishes.