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He saw her first, a flicker of the hand and she noticed him, moving towards him cautiously, she decided he was exactly how he expected him, scruffy, in a word. His hair tousled and several days growth under his chin, he looked like Darwin was indisputably right. He was wearing a pair of black jeans that were the worse for wear, a T-shirt that might as well have been taken from a dustbin, and probably had. No, that was an injustice, you could say they did lots of things but rummage round in bins wasn't one of them. Smiling, his eyes blaring harsh and wide through his thick rimmed glasses she felt sure he could have been a serial killer. He motioned for her to sit, it was one of the formica surfaces that some cafe's thought were essential. Someone passed, he asked for a couple of coffee's. It was then, finally, when he actually spoke to her.

'Miss Anna Harding, I presume' hardly an original start; hardly an original man.

'And you must be Mr Gate. Shall we start?'

'You must call me Allan. And may I call you...'

'You may call me Miss Harding.' It was just something about him, something hard to place, but it meant he had 'danger, psycho' written on him. The setting, morbid and dreary, didn't help matters. The coffee arrived.

'So, shall I start at the beginning?' She conceded it was the best place and he began. 'First, as you know I'm a photographer, free-lance mainly, but I do a fair bit of work for Aviation Today, various things, depending on how much time I have, and what else is on. Last summer, they'd heard rumours of something big happening in Groom Lake. And I thought well...' he had noticed the blank look on her face, 'sorry, Groom Lake is the name of a place in Southern Nevada, guards everywhere. You sure you not heard of it, I'd have thought you would have.' He seemed to pause for a fraction of a second, there might not have been, but there seemed to be something he wasn't sure about. 'What paper did you say it was?'

'New York Times,' a little too eager perhaps?

'Mmm,' he mulled this over for a few seconds. 'Yeah, anyway, secret military place, as covert as a police chase. Loads of new stuff, latest planes, s'great for someone like me, I could stay for ages, but it's awkward. The guys there, military and the like, they can't stop you from watching it, officially. But they can sure as hell make you feel unwelcome.

'But, I was there, and I intended to make some serious money, A.T. generally pay by the photo, so I checked into the motel, called The Little A'Le'Inn incidentally, everyone stays there. And then I headed out to the hills, I have my spot, nobody else uses it, it's covered well and gets a good view. I remember going there my first time, with a guy called Jim Clark, he showed me the ropes, told me what to look out for, gave me the best bit of advice a guy could give, watch your back. You see, photographing is perfectly legal, nothing at all wrong with it, photographing the sky is fine, the ground is fine, any buildings there and you have just committed a federal offence. I was only ever caught once, that was before I found my spot, they smashed the camera, and dumped me back at the motel. No-one seemed concerned. It was all the norm. From then on nothing surprised me, until them.' He added the last bit with a special theatricality that he must have practised hard and long at. The silence made her pause in the note taking, glancing up, his eyes seemed to glaze over as he started, again, his monologue. 'It was cloudy, I guess they must prefer the cover, lets them fly high without being seen, getting dark, anywhere else and you'd say there was a storm coming, but not here, you could see what it was. Showtime. I waited, calmly I waited, I had the camera set up ready, I didn't want to mess about, if you've seen the speed you know that there never is time to check your focus index. I sat. Just sat. An hour, maybe two, then I heard the boom,' he banged on the table for affect, a few heads turned, he glared back, 'I knew I'd missed it. It was like the first time, my first ever F117 Stealth, oh Jesus, I'll never forget it. I was reading a mag, I heard the boom, shit, I missed it.' Quickly adding, 'sorry darling,' placing a hand lightly on hers by way of an apology, he seemed to enjoy it, like he even swore just to do it. But whatever, the moment was gone, over. He continued.

'I promised myself never to miss one again. Here I was twenty, twenty five years later, same mistake. It was that mistake that kept me up. Made me swear to myself I would see one tonight. But tonight turned into the morning. It was three when I saw them, I guess they worked on the assumption that everyone would be asleep. They weren't, I could see them. It started off as a light, just a single firefly in the distance, then wumf,' he swung his right hand over his head, 'it was behind me. I grabbed the camera and clicked, I knew I'd get nothing, but it was reflex. Five minutes later there was a couple more of them they were just hovering gently over the base, just hovering. This time I was ready, I got through nearly a whole film on that pair, they seemed to play, to dance, it was like it was a show, a demonstration. The next two hours they continued, it was like nothing I'd ever seen. The way they manoeuvred, the silence, all I could think was they weren't human. I've seen planes from every country, helicopters too, and not a single one could come close to what I saw then.' It was only then she noticed how agitated he was getting, the glazed look had disappeared, his eyes darted around, like he was searching for someone, or something. He must have seen him, he stared in his direction for several seconds. Anna turned to see the focus of his attention. He was a young man, balding slightly, around both temples, clean shaven, his face, though chubby, was, in a way, what some would call handsome. She liked him. 'We're being watched. Wait a few minutes then meet me outside.' He walked off down a corridor, he knew the place well. She watched until he was out of sight. Deciding against talking to the balding man, she waited the requisite time before meeting Allan.

The steps outside looked like those of many public institutions, well trod, yet still seeming to retain their individuality. He was at the bottom. 'I've got the pictures if you want to see them.' He hurried off, in a way that you could only describe as squirrel-like. Down a path, through a park, down an alley, through a set of doors, into a room, which, from his manner, she guessed, must be his. 'Here' delving into an old shoe-box, 'here they are. Aren't they beautiful,' she glanced through them, they seemed to let everything make sense.

'He was right,' she murmured.

'Sorry?'

'Oh, nothing. Have you got any more, that you know, I can use.' Adding, 'in the story.'

He handed her a dozen or so, 'here, take your pick.' They were like the rest. He was right.

The rest of the conversation was an anticlimax, after those photographs, anything from him would be. Eventually she dragged herself away. 'Thanks for a fascinating time. It was,' what? 'different.'

'When will it be out?'

Caught off-balance, she almost forgot her cover, 'sometime next month. We'll send you a copy.' He still was unsure about the whole thing, but let her go all the same.

She spotted the bald patch from over the street, and hurried over to him. 'John, there you are.'

'Great, isn't he?' They walked as they spoke.

'Where did you find him? I believed him, it was brilliant. You sure it's not the truth?'

'You saw the photographs?' she removed them from her bag, it was almost as funny seeing them now as before. No wonder everything after was an anticlimax, 'friends, family, work-mates, nothing special. His story's perfect, yet he lacked the evidence. So he searched around and found the photos, made himself believe they were real, and so now they are. They are the UFO's. The thing is each photo is always the same, that one,' pointing at an elderly man in a wheel chair precariously sitting on a river bank with a fishing rod, 'his grandfather, this is always one of the last, the pair doing a low fly-by. How he remembers I'll never know, we've never seen him checking them, he just believes it.' He paused as a plane flew over, 'I've started on him now, I should get a couple of good papers out of him after all, get me out of that dingy hell hole they call an institution.'

'I still don't see how he knew it so well, you say they never see him rehearsing it? if it's not true, where?'

'Read this,' removing an open magazine from his inside pocket. She took it, turning back to the front, see the title, Above and Beyond, she read the article. After the first paragraph he interrupted. 'Word for word, his entire my special spot speech, it's the only thing they found on him, walking along the Golden Gate Bridge, that's why they gave him his name incidentally. Shipped him here, and voila, now you know all, well enough.'

'So we don't know who he really is. He could have seen it all.'

'No, my dear,' God, her husband could be so patronising at times, 'we checked, he's a plumber from Newark.'

They walked off, the photo's fluttering from out of the bin in which they'd been dumped. 'Pity.'

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