“And what were the Nike missiles used for exactly?” I ask.
“They were surface-to-air. Put simply, the missiles were an air defense designed to shoot down attacking Soviet aircrafts, most notably their Tu-95, which could fly six thousand miles without needing to refuel. The missile batteries were in approximately a dozen sites in northern New Jersey. Sandy Hook still has remnants if you want to visit. The one in Livingston is now an art colony, of all things. There were missile batteries in Franklin Lakes, East Hanover, Morristown.”
It is hard to believe. “Nike missiles in all these towns?”
“Sure. They started with the smaller Nike Ajax missiles, but those were still thirty feet long. They kept them in underground launch sites and would bring them to the surface the same way a body shop would lift a car up in a garage.”
“I don’t get it,” I say. “How could the government keep something like this a secret?”
“They didn’t,” Kaufman says. “At least not at first.”
He stops now, leans back, and folds his hands over his belly.
“In fact, the bases were celebrated. When I was seven—that would have been in 1960—my Cub Scout pack got a tour of the facility, if you can believe it. The idea that your friendly local missile site was keeping you safe from the long-range aircraft of the Soviet Union was supposed to make you sleep better.”
“But that changed?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Early sixties.” Jeff Kaufman sighs and rises to his feet. He opens a tall file cabinet behind him. “See, they replaced the Nike Ajax missiles with the larger Nike Hercules.” He plucked out two photographs of a scary-ass-looking white missile marked US ARMY on the side. “Forty-one feet tall. Traveled at Mach 3—that’s about twenty-three hundred miles per hour. Range of seventy-five miles.”
He moved back to the seat, sat, and put his hands on the table in front of him. “But the big change with the Nike Hercules—the reason they clammed up about the program—had to do with the payload.”
“Meaning?”
“The missiles were armed with W31 nuclear warheads.”
It is hard to fathom. “There were nuclear weapons . . . ?”
“Right here, yes. Armed warheads. There were even reports of a few near misses. One slid off a dolly when they were moving it higher up a hill. Landed on the concrete and the warhead cracked. Smoke started pouring out. No one knew about it at the time, of course. Everything was kept hush-hush. Anyway, the Nike program ran until the early 1970s. The control center in Westbridge was one of the last to close. That would have been 1974.”
“And then what?” I ask. “I mean, what happened to the land after they closed?”
“There wasn’t much interest in anything military in the seventies. Vietnam was ending. So they just sat there. Most fell into disrepair. Eventually most were sold off. A condo development was built over a missile battery in East Hanover, for example. One of the roads is called Nike Drive.”
“What about the base in Westbridge?”
Jeff Kaufman smiles at me. “What happened to our base,” he says, “is a tad murkier.”
I wait.
He leans toward me and asks what I’m surprised he hadn’t asked earlier. “Do you mind me asking why you’re suddenly interested in all of this?”
I was going to make something up or tell him that I’d rather not, but then I figure what’s the harm. “It involves a case I’m working on.”
“What kind of case, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“A long shot,” I say. “Something from years ago.”
Jeff Kaufman meets my eyes. “Are you talking about your brother’s death?”
Ka-pow.
I don’t say anything—in part because I’ve learned to stay silent and let others jump in to break it, in part because I don’t think I can.
“Your father and I were friends,” he says. “You knew that, right?”
I manage to nod.
“And Leo . . .” Kaufman shakes his head and sits back. His face has lost a bit of color. “He wanted to know about the history of the base too.”
“Leo came to you?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“I can’t say exactly. A few times, probably within a year of his death. Leo was fascinated by the base. Some of his friends came with him too.”
“Do you remember their names?”
“No, sorry.”
“What did you tell them?”
He shrugs. “The same things I’m telling you now.”
My mind is whirring. I feel lost yet again.
“At Leo’s memorial service, I shook your hand. I doubt you’d remember. So many people were there and you looked so shell-shocked. I told your dad.”
That startles me back. “Told my dad what?”
“That Leo used to come here and ask about the base.”
“You told my dad?”
“Sure.”
“What did he say?”
“He seemed grateful. Leo was so bright and inquisitive. I thought that your father would want to hear that, that’s all. I never thought his death could be connected . . . I mean, I still don’t. Except now you’re here too, Nap. And you’re no fool either.” He looks up. “So tell me. Is there a connection?”
Rather than answer him I say, “I need to know the rest of the story.”
“Okay.”
“What happened to the Westbridge base after the Nike program closed down?”
“Officially? It was taken over by the Department of Agriculture.”
“And unofficially?”
“When you were a kid, did you ever go up there?”
“Yes.”
“We did in my day too. We used to sneak in through a hole in the fence. I remember one time we got so trashed one of the soldiers took us home in an army jeep. My dad grounded me for three weeks.” The memory brings a small smile to his face. “How close did you get to the base?”
“Not very.”
“Exactly.”
“I’m not following.”
“Security was tighter for the Department of Agriculture than a nuclear missile control center.” Kaufman tilted his head. “Why do you think that was?”
I don’t answer.
“Think about it. You have these empty military bases. The security apparatus is already in place. If you were a government agency that wanted to fly under the radar, do something clandestine . . . Look, think of some three-letter government agencies that might like to hide in plain sight like that. It wouldn’t be the first time. The old Montauk Air Force Station had dozens of rumors swirling around it.”
“What kind of rumors?”
“Nazi scientists, mind control, LSD experiments, UFOs, all kinds of crazy nonsense.”
“And you believe those? You believe the United States government hid Nazis and aliens in Westbridge?”
“For crying out loud, Nap, they hid nuclear weapons here!” There was a glint in Kaufman’s eyes now. “Is it really such a stretch to think they hid something else?”
I say nothing.
“It doesn’t have to be Nazis and aliens. They could have been testing some advanced technology—DARPA, lasers, drones, weather modification, Internet hacking. Does that really seem so far-fetched with all the security around the place?”
No, it doesn’t.
Jeff Kaufman stands now, starts pacing. “I’m a damn good researcher,” he says. “Back in the day, I dug into this pretty deeply. I even took a trip down to Washington, DC, to check records and archives. All I found going on there were innocuous corn and livestock studies.”
“You told all this to my brother?”
“Him and his friends, yeah.”
“How many of them?”
“What?”
“How many kids came with Leo?”
“Five, maybe six, I don’t remember.”
“Boys, girls?”
He thought about it. “I think there were two girls, but I can’t swear to it. Might have been just one.”
“You know that Leo didn’t die alone.”
He nods. “Of course. Diana Styles was with him. The captain’s daughter.”
“Was Diana one of those girls who visited you with my brother?”
“No.”
I am not sure what to make of that, if anything. “Is there anything else you can think of that could help me?”
“Help you what, Nap?”
“Let’s say you’re right. Let’s say the base was doing something top secret. And let’s say somehow these kids found out about it. What would happen to them?”
Now it was his turn to not reply. His mouth just drops open.