Miles Bennell and Robert Alvarado ally against Falkirk

Miles Bennell and General Bob Alvarado’s friendship becomes an alliance against Leland Falkirk at the moment when official assurances no longer seem credible. Their shared ease over chess and poker gives way to a darker form of trust: each confesses that he has secretly worked to bring the Tranquility Motel witnesses back into focus, and they agree to prepare for the possibility that Falkirk intends to kill them. Their bond is not merely personal; it becomes a practical means of resisting a conspiracy from inside Thunder Hill.

A Friendship Under Pressure

The relationship is established through shared leisure and mutual regard. General Bob Alvarado tells Miles Bennell that he has enjoyed playing both chess and poker with him, and insists that their friendship is real, not simply a product of professional cooperation. Bennell later makes the same distinction: his willingness to act for Alvarado is not only about the games they have played, but about considering him a good friend. The scene gives that claim immediate weight. The two men are not discussing an abstract disagreement; they are trying to decide whether they can trust one another with a plan that may require killing.

The conversation takes place in darkness by Alvarado’s choice. He closes the office door and asks that the lamp remain off, reasoning that it may be easier to speak frankly when they cannot see one another’s faces. The gesture creates a private space inside the Thunder Hill Depository, but it also reflects the danger surrounding their candor: both men suspect Falkirk, and neither can assume that open opposition to him will be safe. When Alvarado asks whether Bennell sent the photographs to Dominick Corvaisis and the Blocks, Bennell’s silence initially leaves the question unanswered. Alvarado then makes his own disclosure, telling Bennell that he was responsible for bringing Jack Twist back to the motel. The exchange turns suspicion into a test of trust, and confession into the basis for cooperation.

Two Covert Attempts to Break the Cover-Up

Alvarado explains that he acted because he believed some witnesses were shedding their implanted memory blocks and developing psychological problems. He wanted to focus their attention on the motel before the authorities could erase their memories again one by one. He had concluded that continuing the cover-up was wrong, but judged that going public would mean disobeying orders, sacrificing his career or pension, and possibly giving Falkirk grounds to kill him. Rather than confront the system openly, he tried to set events in motion from behind the scenes.

He chose Jack Twist as the first person to draw back into the investigation because Twist’s Ranger background and inclination to challenge authority seemed useful in organizing the witnesses. Information recovered during Twist’s earlier memory-wipe session had revealed his safe-deposit boxes. Alvarado used the files to obtain the banks’ names and passwords and copies of the keys—keys Falkirk had arranged to have duplicated as potential tools for blackmailing Twist or sending him to prison. While on leave for ten days in late December, Alvarado went to New York and placed Tranquility Motel postcards in Twist’s boxes. He wore gloves, left no fingerprints, and relied on the fact that Twist visited the banks only a few times a year. The plan was to give Twist time to find the postcards, then make anonymous calls from Elko to other witnesses and direct them to him.

Bennell had independently chosen another route. He admits to sending the photographs to Corvaisis and the Blocks, and Alvarado recognizes that the two men had arrived at similar tactics without coordinating them. Bennell selected Corvaisis because he was a writer: anonymous notes and unusual photographs might capture his imagination, while the publicity surrounding his first novel could make reporters more likely to listen if he uncovered the truth. The photographs were therefore both a personal provocation and a possible means of widening the audience for the witnesses’ discoveries. By the time the men compare plans, Alvarado’s intended calls are no longer needed: Bennell’s photographs and other anonymous messages have already helped create a new crisis.

The disclosures connect their friendship to the investigation’s fragmented trail of clues. Earlier, Corvaisis had reproduced an anonymous note on an IBM Displaywriter and compared it against four printwheel styles, finding that Courier 10 appeared to match. Later, a plain envelope containing only the words about the moon and a third anonymous mailing with two Polaroids—including an image of an unidentified young priest and one of a woman Corvaisis recognized—deepened his alarm. At the Tranquility, the witnesses’ vivid nightmares of being strapped to motel beds and attended by men in decontamination suits suggested that their memories were returning. Bennell and Alvarado’s separate interventions feed into that gathering momentum, although neither man had controlled how quickly the clues and the witnesses’ renewed distress would converge.

From Confession to Armed Alliance

The turning point is Alvarado’s admission that he has come to Bennell because he needs an ally against Falkirk. Bennell understands why: Alvarado does not believe the colonel has suddenly become reasonable or intends to bring the witnesses back merely for study. Alvarado fears that Falkirk will kill the witnesses—and the people at Thunder Hill—because he believes they have been taken over. Their shared distrust is not a general suspicion of authority alone; it rests on the specific prospect that Falkirk will use the armed force under his command to eliminate those he considers compromised.

An announcement orders all military and civilian personnel to report to the armory for handguns and then to their quarters. Alvarado intends to tell the staff that Falkirk ordered them into their quarters but that arming them was his own decision. He will warn them that they are in danger, even though the reasons will be clear to some and incomprehensible to others. If Falkirk’s men are later sent to round up and shoot the staff, Alvarado wants them able to defend themselves. Bennell is included in the plan, not left on the margins of Alvarado’s command: he is told to wear a lab coat with a concealed gun, while Alvarado will carry a small pistol hidden beneath his uniform coat.

Their agreement is precise and conditional. If Falkirk appears ready to order the staff’s destruction, Alvarado will shoot him. He will alert Bennell with a code word so that Bennell can turn on Horner and kill him as well; Alvarado believes the plan cannot succeed if Horner remains free to shoot him while he acts. Bennell says he will be able to pull the trigger if that is what it takes to stop Horner. That answer converts friendship into a commitment carrying an immediate moral and physical cost. Neither man treats the prospect lightly, but both accept that protecting the staff may require lethal action.

The Stakes of Their Loyalty

The men’s alliance remains rooted in personal affection even as it enters the language of command, secrecy, and violence. Alvarado’s confession is addressed to someone he trusts; Bennell answers by accepting the most dangerous role in the plan. The reference to T. S. Eliot and their shared appreciation of poetry briefly makes their friendship visible within the strategy: Bennell’s regard for Alvarado includes a knowledge of his interests beyond his rank and the emergency. Alvarado responds with a line from Eliot, then opens the door and steps into the cavern’s cold light with Bennell beside him, on their way to the armory.

Their resistance is nevertheless shadowed by the scale of the authority they oppose. Bennell recognizes that Falkirk is acting in the name of the Army Chief of Staff and higher authorities, and warns that after Falkirk’s death Alvarado may face General Riddenhour and even the President. The friendship therefore offers no assurance of safety or institutional vindication. Its significance lies instead in the choice the two men make together: they stop relying on quiet, indirect interference and prepare to defend the people threatened by the cover-up. The evidence leaves the outcome of their planned confrontation unresolved, but establishes that mutual regard has become the foundation of organized resistance.