Cash remembered Castillo telling her he ran a nonprofit investigating UAPs. Paradox was the same organization Margie Brooksfield had been transferring money to. But Brooksfield had denied knowing Castillo, denied having any idea who Grooms was calling on her sat phone. Had she been lying? Could Brooksfield and Castillo have conspired to defraud Grooms out of his money? The possibilities swirled in her mind.
“Um, why is it called Paradox?”
“It’s short forFermiparadox, of course.”
“Fermi paradox?”
He looked at her a little oddly. “You don’t know about that?”
Cash internally winced. She was looking more and more out of place here. “Can you refresh my memory?”
“It goes back to a famous incident in 1950, in the secret city of Los Alamos. Four physicists, including Enrico Fermi, were walking to lunch. The conversation turned to flying saucers and aliens before drifting on to other subjects. Halfway through lunch, Fermi suddenly blurted out, ‘Where is everybody?’ and then he scribbled a bunch of equations on the probability of advanced civilizations in the Milky Way capable of space travel. The numbers showed that the galaxy should be teeming with aliens and that we ought to have been visited many times. That became known as the Fermi paradox—the paradox being that we seem to be alone. The mystery of thesilentium universi, the silence of the universe.”
“Interesting. Did Javi mention any specific UAP touchdowns he was looking into?”
“Not that I can recall. But he’s good friends with Lyla Castleton, who runs the forbidden archaeology booth. She might know more. Why you wanna know?”
“Interested in learning more about UAP touchdowns.” Cash kept it short and simple. It was the truth, after all. “Where can I find the forbidden archaeology booth?”
Wield pointed across the ballroom. “Booth closest to the stage. Can’t miss her. Bleached blond and loud. But smart as an octopus—high brain-to-body ratio—she’s got an Ivy League PhD.”
Cash nodded, thanked the man, and snaked her way through the booths toward the stage. She heard Castleton before she saw her. A clarion voice echoed through the room, and as Cash approached, she saw that an excited group of people were clustered around the booth.
Castleton was one of the tiniest women she had ever seen, with an enormous head that looked out of proportion to her body, like a bobblehead one stuck on the dash of a car. She sported a helmet of bleached-blond hair that made her head look even bigger than it was, and she was wearing a bright green collared shirt and dark slacks. She was mid-speech when Cash approached.
“—and our consciousness expands a little more and we’re floating on a blue-and-green pebble in space and not the only ones here.”
It was clear what the excitement was all about. Castleton’s booth contained an intricate construction of colored paper cut and folded into 3D structures of sci-fi-looking cars and cities. The impressive features of the booth were made even more compelling by Castleton herself, who was a masterful speaker full of energy and inflection.
Before approaching, Cash waited until the woman had finished her presentation and the crowd had dispersed a little. She considered for a second continuing to pretend to be a civilian, but decided against it. She took out her lanyard and let it dangle for a moment.
“Lyla Castleton, my name is Agent Frankie Cash.”
Castleton considered her. “You’re investigating Javi’s death.”
“Yes.”
Castleton motioned to a young girl to take over the booth and stepped away. “I need a drink.” Cash recognized her change in demeanor as grief. “Let’s check out the Fiesta Lounge.”
They made their way back to the front of the hotel to a nondescript bar next to the lobby, and Castleton plopped tiredly into the seat.
“Mind if I record?” Cash asked.
“Yes. I do. No recording,” Castleton said, with a finality that warned Cash not to push the issue. She leaned forward, eyes bright with moisture. “I saw the video of his body. Those horrible kids. Saw his head floating in the lake—” She choked up, looking at a point past Cash’s left shoulder. “Do you know what it’s like to havethatbe your last memory of a person you cared about?”
“I’m sorry, Lyla. I really am. What can you tell me about him?”
Castleton dabbed at her eyes with a bar napkin. “Shot of Hornitos tequila,” she said to the bartender. She downed the shot as soon as it was placed in front of her and then ordered another one on the rocks. She sipped this one now, deep in thought. Cash made no move to rush her.
“Coauthored a paper with me. A genius, Castillo was. Always thinking outside the box. He could also be a flake, unfortunately. Stopped answering his phone and email halfway through the study, and I ended up having to complete the paper by myself.” Castleton took a sip of thetequila. “Found out later he’d rushed off halfway around the world in pursuit of some Laotian guy in the jungle claiming an abduction. He was a good person, despite his faults.”
“May I ask how he lost his leg?”
“That’s a story. About three years ago, he was trekking out to a UAP crash site in Portugal in the Serra da Estrela mountain range. Waded into a river to get a picture of a water vole on his iPhone, cut his leg. Sepsis did the rest. UAP-ology had taken his career and his leg, he used to say. The man was obsessed.”
“What can you tell me about his organization, Paradox?” Cash asked.
“That was his baby. A nonprofit investigating UAP evidence.”
