TAYLOR JONES SAYS: In Dan Arrow and the New World Order by Edward S. Baker, Dan Arrow is a private detective. When a new client dies before he can meet with Dan, but a notebook from him shows up in the mail the next morning, Dan assumes the guy was murdered, even though the FBI claims it’s a suicide. The client’s wife doesn’t believe it and hires Dan to investigate. Thinking there is something fishy about the FBI investigation, Dan calls his former lover, FBI Special Agent Mona Casola, and, together, the two dodge the NSA, CIA, and FBI, as well as some strange-looking aliens, as they try to uncover the truth.

Well written with fast-paced action, lots of suspense, and an intriguing mystery, this is one that will catch and hold your interest from beginning to end.

REGAN MURPHY SAYS: Dan Arrow and the New World Order by Edward Baker is the story of a secret group of rogue government agents working with aliens to bring about a new world order and one world government. Private detective Dan Arrow gets a phone call from a prospective client who claims that his life is in danger. He’s being threatened because he has been talking about a UFO encounter he was told not to talk about. When the man turns up dead a few days later, and his notebook arrives in the mail, Dan is sure the client was murdered. Then he gets a call from the man’s wife who hires Dan to find the killer. The FBI is claiming it’s a suicide. But the wife doesn’t believe it. She wants to know what happened. Dan takes the case, thinking it will be a simple murder investigation, maybe a mistake by the FBI, or maybe even a cover-up. But he is not prepared for what he uncovers—and, even if he lives to tell the tale, who would ever believe him?

Dan Arrow and New World Order is clever, fun, and intriguing. With fascinating characters, fast-paced action, plenty of surprises, and a lot of humor, whether you are into conspiracy theories or not, this is one you won’t want to miss.

Prologue

I am one of only three remaining survivors of an underground battle that occurred at level seven of a large subterranean facility located near Dulce, New Mexico. It was a battle between alien Greys and American black ops troops. There were more of us, ten survivors in total, but some have died from exposure to a form of radiation from the alien weapons. Others have died mysteriously, with all cases being classified as suicide by federal authorities,” said William G. Powers at the Newport Beach UFO Conference on June 24, 2012.

“I was a mole operator. Moles are large machines that drill holes in the Earth, creating tunnels and large caverns that become living spaces. Clandestine factions within our government are in the process of digging more than a hundred of these facilities across our country, as part of a larger conspiracy to permit the New World Order to assume control of the globe. These facilities are interconnected by high-speed shuttle systems and will be home to a select few who will live underground while a pandemic is unleashed on the surface.

“In 1979, while digging horizontally at level seven, my mole broke into a pre-existing facility that should not have been there. It was full of gray aliens, who fired liquid light at us. We called for reinforcements, and a firefight ensued. In total, sixty-six Americans died. We pulled two dead Greys and two dead lizards from the facility when we escaped. Their bodies were shipped to Edwards Air Force Base. On the orders of our commander, the seventh level was nuked with a small device, causing the sixth floor to collapse upon it.

“I have been silent for too long, fearing for my life under the threat of death. However, I am here today to reveal to you now that factions of the most powerful governments around the globe are conspiring with reptilian space aliens to seize control of our planet and to rule it through a single New World Order. Our president called for the creation of a New World Order several times during his many campaign speeches. Check it out, and you will see that I am not lying. The time of the emergence of the New World Order is rapidly approaching.”

***

William “Billy” Powers was found dead in a motel room on April 27, 2014. He had been strangled from behind with a length of surgical tubing. The FBI classified it as a suicide.

Chapter 1

I was looking at the picture that Hal had taped to the wall when the office door opened, pinning me behind it.

“Halina, this package was overnighted to Mr. Arrow. Can you sign for it?”

It was Wally, our mail carrier. He usually brought the mail at two, but special deliveries caused him to come earlier.

“Why don’t you just shut the door and ask him to sign for it himself?” Hal replied.

Wally walked into my office. He came back out two seconds later saying, “He ain’t in there, sweetheart.” Then he saw me through the glass in the office door, still facing the wall and looking at the photo of Hal’s boyfriend’s new Fat Boy. “Oh, hi, Mr. Arrow,” he stammered. “Was you there the whole time?”

“I guess I was,” I replied. I stepped from behind the door and took the package from him. It was a large manila envelope with both ends heavily sealed with brown reinforced packing tape. I signed the USPS form where Wally had made an X, and then he left the office as quickly as he had entered. “I guess he has a lot to do,” I muttered to Hal.

“Well, he’s trying to finish his route by four, so he can catch the end of a pool tournament at Barney’s,” Hal told me. Barney’s was our local sports bar. You could always find a game or two to watch on one of Barney’s seven flat screens, or you could try your luck at a game of pool against the best local boys who were always hanging around there, playing for money. For a local dive, it was okay, but the beer choice was limited to anything Barney could buy for under $25 a keg. It was really cheap shit.

“Are we expecting anything from a client today?” I asked Hal, showing her the package.

“Give me that,” she said. “Let me open it, so we don’t have blood all over the contents like we did with the Myers documents.”

I dropped my head in shame. The Myers documents were legal papers that I needed to sign and have notarized a couple of years ago, but while opening the package, I ripped my forefinger on a staple and bled all over the paperwork. Hal had to call for new copies, which pissed off the lawyers because it delayed their settlement of a big lawsuit by two days. I felt like a real schlep about that. Hal likes to rub it in from time to time.

“Oh,” Hal said, “it’s from that dead guy!”

“What dead guy?”

“That guy who was supposed to meet with you this afternoon.”

“Is he dead?”

“Well, if you’d read the paper, you’d already know he isn’t going to make the meeting.”

I gave her a look of annoyance. “Why didn’t you tell me he canceled the appointment?” I asked.

“Well, he didn’t exactly cancel it,” Hal replied, “but he made the front page. Apparently, it was a suicide. He strangled himself with surgical tubing.” I took the package from Hal and walked toward my office to look at its contents. As I walked away, Hal asked, “I’m going for coffee. Do you want your usual?”

“Yeah, that would be nice,” I said.

I heard the outer office door shut as I sat down at my desk. The package was from Bill Powers. He had called me two days ago to set up a meeting to discuss something that he said was top secret, involving every level of our government. When I asked why he hadn’t gone to the FBI, he reminded me that the FBI is our government and, in fact, that the FBI was implicated in this cover-up. “What cover-up?” I asked.

“You won’t believe it,” he said. “You’ll think I’m nuts, but you’re the best person to help me figure this out.”

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“Because you figured out that Ponzi scheme that Madoff was operating.”

“That was just dumb luck,” I replied. “My client asked for assistance in getting Mr. Madoff to return the money he had invested. I didn’t expect anything so large. And, besides, it really pissed off the DA that I didn’t go to him before I turned that info over to the Justice Department.”

“Yeah,” Powers said, “but if you hadn’t uncovered it, there’d still be plenty of people thinking they have money when all that they have is an empty savings account.”

“Well, I didn’t get anything for my efforts. My client had no money left, and he did the bankruptcy thing, so I’m out all my expenses.”

“Well, you can write the expenses off and then write a book about it,” he said.

“Yeah, sure.”

“Well, Mr. Arrow, you’re the man I need. Can I come on Wednesday at one?”

“Yeah, I’ll have my secretary squeeze you in.” Shit, business had been slow, and I knew there was nobody else scheduled for the rest of the week.

“Listen, Mr. Arrow, you’ve got to know that there are some guys trying to find me about this cover-up. Bad guys. If, for some reason, I don’t make that appointment, will you call my wife? She’ll fill you in on what I’ve been up to. Between her and my notebook, I think you’ll be intrigued.”

“Notebook?”

“Yeah, it’s all in there—events, dates, and people. I just haven’t been able to put it all together. That’s why I need you.” He gave me his wife’s cell phone number.

“Okay, Mr. Powers. I’ll see you on Wednesday at one.”

So, the poor sap hung himself last night, I thought. Funny, though, he didn’t sound suicidal when we spoke on Monday morning.

I pulled the contents out of the envelope. It was a one-inch thick spiral notebook, stuffed with loose photos and photocopied documents. I saw them but didn’t look at any of them at first. Paper clipped to the cover was a handwritten note:

Mr. Arrow:

I’ve been followed since Monday afternoon by two tall men in black suits. I’m not sure if I will make the meeting on Wednesday. If anything happens to me, it isn’t suicide. This is a matter of national security. My wife will fill you in. This is the notebook that I mentioned when we spoke. Thanks for your help.

Bill Powers

I flopped the notebook open to the middle and started browsing. This guy looked like a whack-o. Neatly printed in super-small letters, so correctly shaped that they appeared to be typed instead of written by hand, were pages of dates and events. Many were UFO sightings. Some were earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The photos were of military bases, some taken from the air, and of UFOs. Most were in black and white.

Some notes detailed reports from Earthfiles.com, which I later learned is a web-based newsletter detailing strange events involving UFOs, cattle mutilations, crop circles, and government cover-ups. Others were from less rational web sites. “God save me,” I muttered as I closed the notebook.

I picked up the phone and called Powers’s wife. I owed him that much, but this didn’t look like something I was going to get involved in.

Her phone rang three times before Mrs. Powers answered. “This is Dan Arrow,” I told her. “I’m sorry for your loss. Your husband contacted me two days ago and asked to meet with me this afternoon to discuss something that was top secret.”

“Thanks for your condolences, Mr. Arrow. I received a brief letter from him yesterday, telling me that he had contacted you and that I should expect a call if it happened.”

“It?” I asked.

“Yeah, his murder,” she said matter-of-factly. “He prepared me for this eventuality about two years ago. He’s been living on borrowed time. I guess I wasn’t surprised when the police called me last night. It was bound to happen to Billy sooner or later.”

“When can we meet, Mrs. Powers? Maybe after the funeral?”

“Are you available this afternoon, Mr. Arrow?”

“Yeah, but—”

“I’ll come around three if that’s okay. Billy’s body is already at the mortician’s. There’s nothing I can do for him, except to get you on the trail of who murdered him. The police have classified it as a suicide, so they won’t be investigating anything.”

“Well, Mrs. Powers, I don’t want to interfere with your mourning.”

“Mr. Arrow, I’ve been in mourning for the past two years. I’ve barely seen Billy in all that time, because he’s been in hiding. There’s no more mourning to do. It’s almost a relief that it’s finally over. I’ll be at your office around three.” She hung up.

Hal came back in with my coffee, one inch of high-test and the rest all decaf. If I had too much caffeine, I couldn’t think straight. I offered her three dollars to pay for both of our coffees, but she refused them. “I’d rather you sprang for a coffee pot so we could make our own. That guy who sells this stuff gives me the willies.” He was a Middle Easterner with one glass eye that didn’t move but stared straight ahead as his other eye moved around in its socket. I felt sorry for the guy, but it did look weird.

“Hey,” I told her, “not everybody is as cute as you are. It’s not his fault that he can’t keep his eye off of you!” Hal muttered something I couldn’t understand, but I got the message from the tone of her voice.

I picked up the package that I had received from Powers and took it to Hal. “Would you mind reviewing this for me and letting me know what you think—by two this afternoon?”

Hal was good at analyzing paperwork. Probably better than I was.

“Thank God,” she said. “I was hoping you’d find me something to do! You know, the days get boring when there’s nothing to do but read the paper.”

She was kidding, I thought.

I went back into my office and called my friend Nick, a detective with the homicide unit of the Alexandria police department, to see what he could tell me about Powers’s death.

“Don’t you read the papers?” Nick asked. “The department has classified it as a suicide. Case closed.”

“Yeah, but did he leave a note or anything?” I asked.

“What’s got you interested in the Powers case?” he asked.

“His wife called me. She thinks it was a murder.”

“Look, Danny, I wasn’t directly involved with the examination of the motel room, so I only know the hearsay. Apparently, he was alone and left no note. Griswold was there. I’ll talk to him and get back to you, but I think this is a waste of time. He was a loner and some kind of nut job. Suicide is an expected outcome for a guy like him.”

“What do you mean, nut job?” I asked,

“The guys here say that he was into weird shit, you know, conspiracy and end of the world stuff.”

“Well, let me know what you find out, would you?”

“Yeah, but you’re wasting your time.”

***

A little after two, Hal walked into my office. She dropped Powers’s notebook onto my desk. “You ought to read this thing from cover to cover. At first, I thought he was some kind of cuckoo, but after a while, it’s like the stuff sort of makes sense.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, there’s a lot of stuff going on with UFO sightings and people going missing after seeing them, and animal mutilations, and it’s like somebody is doing things to people, and we don’t even know it.”

“You mean little green men are doing it to us?”

“Well, maybe,” she replied, “but maybe it’s our military. It’s not clear.”

“Thanks, Hal, I’ll try to read it before Mrs. Powers gets here.”

“Well, you’d better hurry. She came in a minute ago.”

“Shit. Well, you’d better show her in.”

Hal left my office and returned with Mrs. Powers in less than ten seconds. Mrs. Powers was wearing a tight-fitting red skirt and a flowery blouse. Her brunette hair was pulled back into a bun like a school teacher, and her make-up was positive.

She certainly wasn’t in mourning.

“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Powers,” I said.

“Call me Marlene, Mr. Arrow. Billy would want it that way. He wasn’t into formality.”

“Fine, Marlene. You can call me Mr. Arrow. I prefer to keep a professional relationship with people who are paying me for services.”

“You can still call me Marlene, Mr. Arrow.”

“Listen, Marlene. I’ve checked with a contact in the police department. They’ve closed the case on your husband’s death. It was a suicide. So, why do you feel that your husband was murdered?”

“Have you read my husband’s notebook, Mr. Arrow?”

“It just came in this morning. I’ve skimmed it, but I’ll read it in depth tonight. It’s full of weird stuff. “

“My husband was a survivor of the Dulce Firefight, Mr. Arrow. Have you ever heard of it?”

“No ma’am,” I replied.

“It happened in 1979. Sixty-six Americans were killed by aliens in a tunnel more than two miles beneath the surface of the Earth.”

“Where?” I asked.

“In Dulce,” she replied. “Dulce, New Mexico.”

“Oh.”

“The Americans were black ops military and a few contract workers who were digging tunnels and caverns for the military. The complex had seven levels, starting a quarter of a mile below the surface and descending a couple of hundred feet per level. Each level of the complex spread out horizontally and consisted of dozens of large rooms with electricity, plumbing, and air purification systems. We’re talking several hundred thousand square feet of space at each level.”

“Like building a warehouse at each level?” I asked.

“Yes, maybe several warehouses at each level, but instead of going upward like a skyscraper, the structure goes straight down. Well, at least once you hit the first level.”

“So, when did the alleged aliens attack?”

“They were space aliens, Mr. Arrow. They were not alleged. They were the real thing.”

“Okay. So when did they attack?”

“Billy said that when the workers were drilling out the seventh level, they broke through a wall of rock and exposed a pre-existing cavern. It was lighted and full of equipment. He and a few men entered the cavern to see what they had found. They were worried that they had broken into another top secret military facility of some kind. There are hundreds of them across the country, you know.”

“I didn’t know that,” I told her.

“It’s all in the notebook, Mr. Arrow.”

“So go on. Marlene. What happened next?”

“The workers weren’t inside very long, maybe thirty seconds, when they encountered a squad of gray aliens. The aliens set off some sort of alarm, and they were quickly joined by taller aliens, probably soldiers of some kind, who shot laser-type weapons at the workers. A couple of men were killed, but most managed to escape. The men quickly closed off the hole that they had bored into the wall, and then they went to the surface for support.”

“What was your husband’s job, Marlene?”

“He was a heavy equipment technician, specifically a drill operator.”

“I thought you said that sixty-six workers were killed.”

“Yes, I did. Most of the dead were military. You know, Green Berets and black ops. But workers were killed, too.”

“Black ops?”

“Yes, black operatives are military who don’t work for the armed forces. Nobody knows exactly who they work for, but they’re paid from the federal black operations budget. It’s a trillion dollar budget that’s hidden in the regular federal budget. Nobody who isn’t part of the black ops really knows what it exists for. Billy was working on getting that information, but most of the federal documents that he FOIAed came back all blacked-out because of their top secret nature.”

“Okay, we have a couple of dead Americans so far. When did the rest die?”

“Well, when Billy and the workers evacuated from the seventh level, he and a few specialists were sent back down with several platoons of heavily armed military and black ops to try to determine exactly what they had exposed. Billy’s job was to drill the wall open again. The one he had sealed before evacuating.”

“I see,” I told her, stroking my jaw with my thumb.

“When they got back down to the seventh level, it was obvious that somebody had already been there. The wall he had closed had been melted so that the rock was fused shut. He said the rock was welded shut, sort of like glass. Billy moved the drill over about thirty feet to the left and drilled a new hole. It was a big hole, Mr. Arrow, about fifteen feet in diameter.”

“That’s pretty damn big, Marlene.”

“Well, when he broke through, some of the larger aliens came through the hole into the seventh level, shooting their laser guns. The military men fought back, killing several aliens and driving them back into their own side of the hole. Then the military went through the hole and into the aliens’ side. More shooting ensued. Eventually, a few of our fighters came back into our side, shooting as they came, and dragging some wounded men with them. Most of the dead were left on the aliens’ side. The commander of the American forces ordered Billy to close the hole, which he did. Billy was wounded in the arm during the fight. He had a scar that ran from his elbow to his shoulder on his left arm. When he went to the hospital, they cleaned it, but it didn’t need any stitches. It was a perfectly cauterized wound. It was very painful for several months.”

“Was that the end to the firefight?”

“Well, yes. Except that a couple of the dead aliens were brought back to the surface and the military ordered the seventh level to be destroyed. They did that with a small nuclear device that collapsed the sixth floor onto the seventh. They didn’t bring any of the dead Americans to the surface before they blasted it.”

“What happened to the dead aliens?”

“They were put into body bags and taken away. Billy never saw them again.”

“So this firefight is why your husband was murdered?”

“Yes, Mr. Arrow. Not because of the fight, but because he started talking about it. They don’t like that.”

“The military?”

“Yes, and maybe the CIA or the FBI. A day after Billy came home from the hospital, two very tall gentlemen in black suits came to see him and told him that he was never to speak to anyone about the Dulce incident. Not even me. They were anything but friendly. They weren’t concerned about his wound. They just told him that he was to forget that the incident ever happened. They threatened that if he told anyone, he would simply disappear in the desert and never be heard from again.”

“But Billy told you about the incident?”

“Yes. We hadn’t been married a year yet when the incident happened. I remember the men coming to see Billy. I was intimidated by them because they were so tall and menacing, but Billy spoke to them in private, and he didn’t tell me what they told him until about fifteen years later, maybe 1994.”

“What caused him to tell you?”

“Well, right after the incident, Billy bought that notebook and began keeping records about all sorts of things that he said were related to what happened at Dulce. He wasn’t sure how they all fit together, but something big is going on right under the noses of our politicians. He was trying to figure it out so he could blow the whistle. Eventually, he was invited to make a presentation at a national UFO conference in Reno. When he agreed to make that presentation, he thought he should tell me what he had experienced so I could tell someone about it if he disappeared.”

“That, in itself, should have frightened you.”

“Oh, it did. I was terribly frightened at first. But, I attended that conference with Billy and heard what he had to say. You know, at first, I thought he might have lost his mind or something, but as I listened to what he told the audience, I became very proud of him. Proud that he was standing up and telling the truth. He was hoping that some of the other survivors would come forward to tell their side of the story.”

“Did they?”

“No, but about a year later, one man, Gary Mitchell, agreed to accompany Billy to another conference, but Gary committed suicide two nights before they were supposed to make their presentation. Another survivor wrote a letter to be published in a MUFON newsletter, but he, too, committed suicide before it could be published, and his letter disappeared from the MUFON office that same night. The best that the MUFON staff could do was to swear that they had seen the letter, but they couldn’t produce it.”

“MUFON?” I asked?

“The Mutual UFO Network. It’s a bunch of civilians who are organized to formally study UFO incidents.”

“This is a wild story, Marlene.”

“I know, and I don’t blame you for being skeptical of it, Mr. Arrow. But I assure you that Billy was telling the truth.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Well, first, that scar on his arm. He went to work one day and came home two days later with that horrible burn and loss of muscle. His tattoo of a skull with red eyes was ruined, not that I cared much for it. And then, two years ago, when Billy wasn’t at home, I was visited by two of those tall men. They said that they were looking for Billy. They said that it was a matter of national security. I told them that when he came home, I would have him call them. They said not to bother. They told me that they would monitor the house and intercept him when he came home.”

“Tall men? Were they the same men you saw back in 1979?”

“No, that couldn’t be. They looked much the same as the men in 1979, but those men would have been much older by now. These were young men, maybe near thirty years old and tall—you know, like professional basketball players. Maybe seven feet tall.”

“That’s very tall, Marlene.”

“Billy called them Nordics.”

“What does that mean? Scandinavians?”

“I’m not sure, Mr. Arrow. He just called them Nordics.”

“So that was two years ago?”

“Yes, and Billy never came home after that. He called me the next day on my cell phone and spoke very briefly. He said that he was going into hiding and that he had to turn his phone off when he wasn’t using it, so he couldn’t be triangulated. I was never to try to call him, but he would call me from time to time to tell me where to meet him.”

“Did he call?”

“Yes. He was very good about that. He called me every few days, but at varying times of the day and night. Each time he called, we spoke for only two minutes. Twice a year he would surprise me by approaching me on the street and taking me to a hotel, where we would…well, you know, catch up.”

“You said that he prepped you that he might commit suicide.”

“Yes. Because of the suicides of those two men who had agreed to come forward, and because of the mysterious disappearances and deaths of a series of others who had been involved in the Dulce Firefight, Billy was sure that he had been targeted for termination. He was in the process of writing a book about the incident, including the identities of those involved, and he hoped to finish it before they found him. I guess his work will never be completed. I can’t even find his working draft. It has simply disappeared.”

“And how about you? How are you handling his death?”

“Like I told you on the phone this morning, I’ve been mourning Billy for two years now. I am through mourning. I want you to find his killer and bring him to justice.”

“Aren’t you still afraid, Marlene?”

“I don’t think so, Mr. Arrow. I suppose I do check the rearview mirror when I’m driving, just in case I see any more of those tall blond men. But now that Billy is gone, I have nothing to fear.”

“Blond?”

“Yes, the four I’ve seen all had blond hair. Maybe that’s why Billy called them Nordics. You know, like Swedes.”

“Well, I’ll take this case, Marlene, but I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to find his murderer.”

“I guess you’ll want a retainer? Would ten thousand dollars do for now? I’ve brought a bank check.”

Marlene handed me the check, we shook hands, and I told Hal to have her sign the usual contract before leaving the office. At $50 per hour, I had about 200 hours to devote to this case. I hoped it would take at least that long for me to discover that Bill Powers had actually committed suicide. I didn’t want to have to refund any of Marlene’s retainer.

2018 by Edward S. Baker