Trucks Stuck in 4-wheel low:
For you that don’t know, I live in the north, close to Canada, and this year we have seemed to get a lot more snow and cold than usual. Last week I went out to get the truck ready for a run into town. Normally not a big deal, but I had not started it in a while, a big mistake, yes, and I had not driven it in the snow. My ten minutes (My estimate) warm up the truck and get-it-ready-to-go trip turned into a few hours of jumping it, letting it warm up (It was like 2000 degrees below zero) and then getting in the thing to go. Since I don’t drive at all, except around the yard, you know, getting things ready to go, that meant my long-suffering Mother had to drive the truck into town. And she hates the truck.
I don’t mean to imply she doesn’t like the truck; I mean to imply she hates the truck. HATES the truck. So, getting her in it to drive it is a big deal. But I did all I could. Jumped it, warmed it up, opened the door so she wouldn’t have to, after I pulled it right up to the door. The only thing I could’ve done better is park it on the porch.
Mom is slightly over four feet tall, and the truck is four-wheel drive, not huge, but it is a step up into the cab. Her last truck was a two-wheel drive and didn’t sit much further off the ground than a car. That, that sitting-off-the-ground-further thing, is strike one against the truck as far as Mom is concerned. She wanted to take the tires off her old truck and put them on the new one so it would sit lower. When I explained she couldn’t do that she began to hate the new truck even more. Strike two. The truck was almost out before she ever drove it. And since I steered her towards the new truck, I will probably never hear the end of it.
But I pulled the truck up, all warmed up, opened the door for her and offered to help her in. Bad move. Mom does not acknowledge age or shortness. Nevertheless, age and shortness do acknowledge her. She doesn’t give in, just ignores it. So, she climbed up into the cab, on her own, and off we went… Off we went not too far.
I forgot to mention that while I was moving the truck to bring it up to the door I decided, “Hey, wouldn’t it be fun to test out the Four-Wheel Drive?” … and … “Maybe we will need the Four-Wheel Drive on the way into town so I should make sure it works!” I’m pretty sure I used an exclamation mark just like that too. I was that enthusiastic about it. So, I turned the little knob on the dash from Two-Wheel to Four-Wheel Low. Nothing seemed to change. A little light did come on on the dash informing me that yes, I was now in Four Wheel Low. So, I dropped the truck in first and plowed through the two inches of loose powder on the driveway and fought my way out into the wilds of the outback (End of the driveway). I will say this, I never spun a wheel. That Four Wheel Low is phenomenal. So, after my off-road adventure, I turned the little knob back to Two Wheel drive.
So, off we went… In Four Wheel Low. Which meant that the transmission was whining. The Motor racing, and we were doing all of twenty miles an hour. Creeping down the road. So, idiot that I am, I said to Mom, “What are you doing?”
“I’m not doing anything,” Mom says. “It’s your stupid truck!” To illustrate this more clearly, in case I had missed something, she goosed the gas to try to make it go faster.
The other thing I forgot to mention is that I like to take a cup of coffee with me. I have a travel cup of course but I don’t like it. If you close the top on the travel cup the coffee is too hot when it hits your lip. At least it is for me. So, I don’t use it. No. I like a regular ceramic coffee cup filled right to the brim with hot, black coffee. This time was no exception, but thank God, since it was about 2000 degrees below zero outside it had cooled off pretty quick.
Mom goosed the gas, the truck jumped forward, I ended up wearing the coffee. All over me and the floorboards, a little on the dashboard too if I’m honest. That is when I realized, One: It’s not good to be a Wise Guy with your Mom. Two: Hot coffee will go right through waterproof jackets. I guess waterproof does not mean hot coffee proof. And Jeans? Ouch.
“Mom,” I said. “Better take it home. Something’s wrong with it.”
“Well,” Mom says. “The gas station is just down here. I’ll stop there. Maybe we can fix it.”
Let me explain a little more. Mom grew up on a farm. The phrase ‘Right down there’ could mean ten miles down the road, or the next county over. I was calculating walk back distance to get the car should I have to. But the other thing about Mom is that she raised us alone. She’s pretty used to making command decisions, and she doesn’t require a whole lot of input from her idiot son who picked the truck that she hates and is now screwing up her day. I think that’s a fair description, or assessment of the situation.
“Mom,” I said, while I tried to figure out where to put the now empty coffee cup, “I think we should go back.” Down the road she went.
When she reached the gas station she pulled in and right up to the pumps. “May as well get gas while we’re here,” she proclaimed. She shut off the truck, jumped down to the ground (Nearly) and called back, “Twenty” as she went inside.
I got my coffee-soaked self out of the cab, pumped in the gas, I’m pretty sure that Twenty Bucks, which got me around Five Gallons, is what my first Muscle car (A 72 Plymouth Duster) I owned growing up used to burn to start it. She came out, apparently having considered my request to turn around, and said, “I guess we should probably take the truck home… Something seems to be wrong with it.”
Rather than say anything else dumb, I just nodded and got back in the truck. She climbed in, turned the switch and all it did was click twice and then nothing. The guy behind me tapped the horn on his truck. ‘#@$%^#,’ I thought. I climbed out of the truck and walked back to the guy.
“Truck’s dead,” I said. “Sorry.”
“@#$#@$,” The guy said.
“Uh huh,” I agreed. “But at least you’re not the one who has to walk three miles to get the car.”
“@@##$%,” the guy said.
“You have a nice day too,” I told him.
So, after the three mile walk back to the house to get the car, I arrived back at the gas station with my aunt as a driver now, jumped the truck and got it back home.
“I hate this truck,” Mom said as she climbed out of the truck once it was home.
“I missed General Hospital,” My aunt told me.
‘@#$!.’ I thought.
I write this today because I went to my Tuesday night Group meeting last week, after that happened, and asked a few of the guys there who are mechanically inclined what I did wrong. And, lo and behold, it’s Tuesday again. So, it was on my mind.
Group…
“Oh, it’s the @#$#@@ sensor,” one guy said. “Those #@$%$%$# sensors always do that.”
“Thank you,” I said. I told myself to call a mechanic I knew and have him fix the sensor.
“No, no, no,” another guy said. “Those $#@#$@! sensors are pain in the ##@@#, but it was probably a fuse. Those #@@#$$@# fuses are almost as bad as those %$#@#$ sensors.”
“Uh huh,” I said. “The #@$$@ Fuses or the @##$$@# Sensors. Okay.” I made another mental note. ‘Note To Self: Check #$$#@ Fuses too.’
“Maybe,” another guy said, “But the last time that happened to me it turned out to be the #$$#@ motor on the (I have no idea what he called it).”
“Oh yeah,” The first guy said. “I forgot all about the #$@#@#$ motor on the (Apparently he knew what the thing was called and how to pronounce it).”
“Oh yeah… Forgot all about that,” The second guy said.
“What,” I asked, “No @#%$@#@?”
“Oh, sorry,” he said apparently taking me seriously. “The @#$%$@ motor on the (He knew the word too).”
About this time, I realized a few things. First: I could ask all I wanted; it wasn’t going to fix the truck. Everybody had a different idea of what it was. Two: At least I could check those things they suggested or mention them to the mechanic. Three: Guys like to swear, a lot.
I went home and worried about the truck most of the week. Once it rose to a balmy 12 below zero, I went out and spent about four hours messing with the truck. The indicator on the dash said ‘Four Wheel Low’ in tiny red letters.
‘No #@#@#,” I thought. I found the sensor, seemed to be working. I found the fuse, not blown. Hmm, I thought, It just might be the Motor on the (Whatever the word was they used). Then I looked at the switch on the dashboard. Just in passing mind you. I was on the way out of the truck. I had conceded defeat. I flicked it back and forth and noticed it didn’t rest completely at Two Wheel Drive when I flicked it back. Meanwhile I’m running the truck, letting the battery charge, cleaning the coffee off the dashboard too, so I decided what the heck, I’ll look at the owner’s manual. (That probably gave you pause to laugh. I will only say I am not alone. Most men refuse directions or manuals. We’re too smart for that sort of help). I opened the index, found my problem, turned to the page, and read this,
“YOU MUST DEPRESS THE CLUTCH BEFORE SWITCHING OUT OF OR INTO FOUR WHEEL DRIVE.”
Hmm I thought. I did that… Didn’t I? Maybe… Yes… No… I was conflicted, and, since the truck was running, I pushed in the clutch, flipped the switch back and forth from Four Wheel Low to Two Wheel drive and … The light blinked out and Two wheel lit up.
“!@@#$%@,” I said aloud. “Sorry, God.” I added. “!#@$!,” I said again. I waited a few minutes to see if the truck would blow up or quit or something. It didn’t. I shifted into first and ran it up the driveway. No whining transmission. No Revving motor, it really was out of Four-Wheel Low. I put everything together and went back into the house.
“Well,” Mom asked?
“All fixed,” I said cheerfully.
“Really?” She arched her eyebrows. “I hate that truck.”
“I know, Mom. I know,” I said.
“So, what was it,” She asked?”
“Oh… Uh, well it was the @#$#@ Flux Capacitor,” I told her as I hunted around in the fridge for a bottle of juice.
“Really,” She asked? “I saw ‘Back to the Future’. I like Michael J. Fox. He probably never made his mother drive a truck she hates. What was it really?”
“Um… I had to press the clutch down to disengage it,” I admitted.
“I knew it!” Mom said.
“Hmm,” I said.
So, tonight is group again. And the guys are going to ask about the truck. I guess I’ll just admit I didn’t do it right. Or I could blame it on the @@##$$# motor on the thing I can’t pronounce. I’ll play it by ear, I guess. Hey! Have a good week…
Check out this book from Dell Sweet
Zero Zero
Copyright Dell Sweet Licensed only to Thoughts from the Edge BlogThis excerpt can be shared by pointing readers to this blog entry. Thank you for sharing…
As the clock ticks down for our planet and her inhabitants, powers that have lain dormant for centuries are loosed on the Earth. Zero Zero takes a look at a post apocalypse world in ruins. The governments are gone. The police, the military. The United States is no more. And even the simplest things are hard to come by. Some have hidden to ride out the storm unleashed upon the Earth; others have taken a stance in the fight. Those that survive the apocalypse are splintered and isolated. Mistrustful of one another but beginning to come together in small groups. They have been told of a place a safety, but getting there, if it exists, is not a guarantee. The powers that have been unleashed may not be done with them, and they have to be wary of everything and everyone in a world where firepower and fearlessness rule the day… One last time Earth comes to the brink of destruction. Controlled by powers both on and beyond the earth her fate is left to a small group of survivors to secure. Zero Zero begins with a secreted base that holds the keys of destruction: A madman who holds those keys in his hand, and a small group of men and women who will challenge him as the clock ticks down to Zero Zero…
ONE
June 15th: Seattle Washington
~1~
The wind kicked up along Beechwood Avenue in Seattle’s red light district. A paper bag went rolling along the cracked sidewalk: Skipping over Willie LeFray’s feet where he stood watching the traffic… thinking. One trick… The right trick… Somebody with money and he could call the night good. Just enough to get a good high… Or enough to get enough shit to get a good high tonight and maybe a good high tomorrow when it all wore off and the jingle jangles set in? … Maybe, he decided. Maybe. Willie stood watching the cars as the paper bag bounded over his feet and tumbled along the avenue.
– 2 –
For Franklin W. Morgan, just Frank to his friends, June 15Th, had been a particularly hard day.
As he sat at the small, scarred, wooden table at Mikes Pub on Sixth Avenue, nursing a shot of gin, his thoughts turned inward, mulling over the same problem he had been mentally chewing for the last several weeks. It always came back, no matter how far away he pushed it. It slipped right back to the front and began to hammer away at him. But today was much worse. It had seemed endless as it dragged on, and he had been able to concentrate on next to nothing. He had avoided the office, and Pearlson, no sense compounding things when he was so close to the truth by chancing a confrontation with Pearlson.
Pearlson was… Pearlson was, a piece of shit, he thought. However, at the moment it wasn’t just Pearlson that had him so keyed up and anxious, it was leaving, and, he supposed, that was just as it should be.
The thing that had made it difficult to get through was the pressure and anxiety he always felt when he was on the trail of a promising story. That and the stress associated with the story.
It was not so much the stress his job placed on him; he had always dealt with that quite well. He knew what it was, and what it had been for several weeks now. All of those late night calls to his sources in New York. No sleep, virtually working around the clock; sifting through the information this source or another provided; sorting out the truth from imagination, and getting to the facts, or as close as he could get to them. That, coupled with the fact that he had been the only one, save Jimmy, who believed it, and now Jimmy was apparently missing so he could add the disappearance of a good friend to the growing list of worries that kept him up at night. This was turning into a three ring circus damn fast, and he didn’t like. He didn’t like it at all.
He was sure now, or as sure as anyone could be. But, who the hell would believe him? Not his editor, that was for sure. He would not soon forget the day two weeks ago, when he had approached the subject with him either. It had been partly his own fault, Frank realized. He had not been as prepared as he should have been. He had also possessed no hard facts, he reminded himself, and he had speculated far too heavily for Pearlson’s taste. Even so, he was just as convinced as he had been then. No. More so now, he amended.
Two additional weeks of digging into it, with Jimmy’s help, had produced a wealth of information, and it was no longer just conjecture as the old man Pearlson had said, but a steadily growing stack of cold hard facts.
Pearlson had still laughed, and told him he should try writing fiction for a living. But there had been something else lurking just behind that laugh, hadn’t there? Perhaps a hint of nervousness maybe?
Pearlson had also suggested that just maybe Frank needed a vacation, and, things being the way they were Frank had taken him up on the last suggestion.
Screw him, Frank thought as he sat at the table and drained the last of his drink… Just screw him.
That was what had made his days so long and his nights so sleepless, he reasoned. Churning around in his head was all of that knowledge… Along with fear, fear of what that knowledge may mean.
But did he actually know anything? He asked himself, and could he actually prove what he did know? Yes, Dammit… And just as suddenly, probably not. He couldn’t prove all of it yet, at least not entirely, he admitted.
Not for much longer though, he told himself, the proof part of it was about to change. He had made plans to go to New York. Directly to the source, so to speak, and find out just exactly what was going on. No conjecture, no guessing, no screwing around at all. If Pearlson wanted facts, Frank would get them one way or the other, he had decided. And the suggestion to take a vacation couldn’t have been a better cover for him to go under, he reasoned.
No, he decided, it wouldn’t be much longer at all. Two weeks in upstate New York and he would know for sure. Frank saw no way that Pearlson could kill the story then. Not faced with cold hard facts.
But Pearlson could be an idiot, what if he still rejected the truth even after the facts were presented, he asked himself. Well, if he did, Frank reasoned, that would open up a whole new set of problems. Maybe Pearlson was involved somehow… Maybe not, but the whole thing had smelled of a cover up from the start, and if Pearlson cut the story loose, if he still placed no faith in it, then there had to be a reason, and maybe… And maybe shit! If it turned out that way, then maybe it would be time to move on.
He rose slowly from his chair and fighting his way through the crowded table area, made his way to the bar.
“Another Gin, Mike,” he said, once he had gotten the old man’s attention. “On second thought hold the ice, just straight up.” He stared miserably at the jukebox in the corner that blared incessantly, and silently urged it to fall silent as he waited for the drink. His thoughts, still clouded, turned back to the problem he was constantly turning over in his mind, when a glance at his wristwatch reminded him of how late it actually was.
He turned his attention back to the bartender. “Shit! Mike, I’ve got to go see the kid’s and I am already late,” he threw a twenty on the bar, “that should cover the tab.”
“What about this?” Mike asked, holding up the shot glass.
“You drink it, Mike, I truly am late. I’ve gotta go,” Frank replied as he started to turn towards the front door.
“Hey?” Mike called in a questioning manner. Frank turned back to the bar.
“Get some sleep, Frank,” Mike said, “your eyes look like two piss holes in the snow.”
“Yes mother,” Frank joked, “I will.”
Frank smiled to himself. They always played this game, and had been at it for the twenty years that Frank had been coming into Mike’s. Mike seemed to think it was his duty to mother him, even more so since Jane had died.
“See you in a couple of weeks or so, Mike,” Frank called as he stepped out the door. He glanced at his watch once again as he did. I’ll never make it, he thought, no way.
He resigned himself to the fact that he would more than likely be late, and not for the first time this week. He had already been late three times, picking up Patty and Tim from the sitter.
Cora Pratt, the sitter, could pitch a real fit when she wanted to, he thought. “Well I’ll deal with her when I get there,” he mumbled to himself. Besides, he thought, tonight I don’t have to pick them up, just say good-bye for two weeks.
The heat assaulted him as he stepped out of the air conditioned comfort of the bar, and he winced.
Twenty seven years of living in Seattle had not changed a thing for him. He felt about the city as he always had. It was too hot in the summer, what there was of it, and too damn cold and windy in the winter, and it wasn’t home. He still thought about it as a place he was only visiting. He never had gotten used to it, and, he knew, he never would.
Frank worked the handle upward slowly, pulling the driver side door of the company car open carefully. He had to as this one stuck if you were forceful, and then he would end up crawling over the damn passenger seat to reach the driver’s side. It seemed to him that he had once had this car when it was new. It was hard to tell though as it was a pool car, and the younger generation of reporters in the press pool beat the hell out of all the cars.
“Too many hot-rod kid’s driving the piss out of them,” he said aloud as he keyed the motor and pulled the Plymouth Voyager out into the traffic. He headed out of the city, towards the suburbs and Cora Pratt.
~3~
When he reached the turnoff, from Route 5, Frank slowed the car and swung into Cora’s driveway.
The old farm had been in the Pratt family for five generations. Ira Pratt, Cora’s long dead husband, had steadfastly refused to sell any of the land that made up the small farm, and after he had died Cora had adopted the same attitude. So in the midst of suburbia, the old farm house sat on its own eighty acre plot. It was sort of funny to Frank as you could drive a short way in either direction and you would still be in the Wildflower subdivision, part of which was still a respected suburb of Seattle.
The subdivision had simply been built around the property when Ira Pratt had refused to sell. Consequently the farm had become a boundary line of sorts. West Wildflower was the poorer and run down section, whereas the eastern section was well kept and quiet. In the middle sat the farm and Cora Pratt.
Cora was a formidable woman, who, as far as Frank could tell, took no shit at all from either side.
When the “uppity bastards,” as Cora called them, on the east side had sent a letter demanding that she cut down on the fertilizer her hired man used on the corn field, she had called in John, the hired man, and told him to use just a little more instead. They had of course “Taken her to the court’s,” as she had put it, but to no avail. The court had upheld her Commercial Farm Zoning, and the judge had told the “Smart ass lawyer,” as Cora had called him that worked for the East Side Coalition, not to bother him with anymore groundless lawsuits or he’d personally report him to the Bar Association.
Likewise, when some of the, “Shiftless no-accounts,” from the west side had tried to steal some of her chickens, she had “filled their britches with buckshot.”
Frank knew all this was true because Cora had told him. She didn’t want to “Mince no words” as she had put it, “lay it all out on the table,” she had said. “Just in case you get to hearing things and think I’m a bit funny, I ain’t… I just protect what’s mine.”
That had been her little speech, on the day six years ago, when she had first begun taking care of Patty and Tim, and, Frank had to admit, to her credit, she seemed to be just what she said she was, and no one could have taken better care of his children in his opinion.
Cora waved from the front porch swing as Frank stopped the car, and walked towards the white framed house. The scent of Lilacs in bloom came to him on the light breeze from the porch front, where the bushes marched away in both directions, rail high.
“Thought you weren’t coming to say good-bye to your kids,” she quipped.
“Sorry,” Frank replied, “I got bogged down in traffic.”
More like a couple of shots of gin, she thought but didn’t say.
“Yep, that traffic can surely be a bother in the summer, that’s for sure,” she said aloud. Tim and Patty leaped down from the old porch and raced across the lawn. Frank went to his knees and caught them in his arms.
Two
– 1 –
Frank Morgan flipped the map back onto the passenger seat of the small red Toyota Prius and glanced at his watch.
He had figured the trip from Syracuse to Fort Drum would take about an hour and a quarter. He hadn’t, however, counted on the traffic. The whole day can’t be great, he thought. The trip into Syracuse International had gone well. One short connection in route and other than that the whole trip had been uneventful. But now he had to deal with this. Something up ahead was slowing the traffic down, and he was pretty sure he knew what the problem was. Still, if he lost much more time, it would probably be close to dark when he arrived in Fort Drum, and the possibility of arriving after dark, and trying to find the house didn’t appeal to him.
Frank eased the Prius out into the passing lane, and slowly coaxed the car up to speed again. He had been right; the problem was the same as it had been coming off the thruway from the airport to get on route 81. Army convoys, and if you didn’t get around them quickly, you could spend forever in the left hand lane. He had learned that lesson the hard way coming off the thruway. Not only couldn’t he get around them, at first, but when he did he couldn’t get back in for the exit to Route 81 north. He had ended up heading south instead, and had wasted twenty minutes getting turned around and back to the northern exit.
What the hell kind of military base needs that many trucks, he had wondered. It was a question that actually didn’t need to be answered, but he answered it anyway. The base doesn’t, the caves do. They may unload at the base, but I bet they just drop the load and ship it into the city at night, he told himself.
He stared out the window of the car, and looked over the traffic as he passed it. Jeeps dump trucks, Hummers, and tractor-trailer combos carrying who knows what. All of them heading to northern New York, he knew. He also knew that the airfield, at the base outside of Glennville, had been quite busy as well, the convoys of trucks weren’t their only supply source.
Frank reached towards the dashboard and fished a cigarette out of the pack that rested there, lighting it just as he passed the last olive-green truck on his right. He tossed the lighter into the plastic console, and it landed with a hollow plastic bong. At the same time, he pulled back into the right hand lane, and leaned back into the seat as he took a long pull on the cigarette.
From what he had been able to determine from the map, and what he already knew from his investigation, the military base was about twenty miles north from Fort Drum. Don was right, it didn’t seem as though any of the trucks would be passing through Fort Drum on their way to the base. Glennville was only about nine miles away from the base though, and that was where the loads would end up. Not in the city actually, he reminded himself, but under the city, and he hadn’t found that little piece of information on the map. The map said exactly nothing about the caves.
When he had first started to seriously investigate the base, he had gotten the first hint of the caves from one of his informers. The informer was an ex-private turned junky, who had been stationed at the base when the project had started. The rest he had gotten from the articles he carefully culled from the Glennville Daily Press, and Jimmy, an old friend who worked at a Syracuse paper. Some things could be hidden, but there was always a clue if you knew where to look.
The first article he had read, had seemed harmless enough, but coupled with the information he’d already had, it had been intriguing. The United States Army had purchased some abandoned property from the city to use as a storage depot. The story had gone on to say that the land was close to the train depot, and the base would benefit from the purchase as they would no longer need to truck shipments from the base to the depot every time they used the rail yards. The ex-private had tipped him off about the caves, which also happened to be located on the same piece of property.
Even then, it still hadn’t made a whole lot of sense to Frank. What would they save? They would still have to ship whatever came in there, to the base. Wouldn’t they?
In other articles, most of which had been written years before in the Glennville paper, he had learned what the property actually consisted of, and at first it had seemed like an unlikely purchase. It hadn’t been all that hard to dig up the old articles, especially with the help of his friend in Syracuse. Although Glennville had its own local paper, the Times Reporter in Syracuse, which was only seventy miles away, often reported on the events that took place there.
It had been an easy matter of looking through the archived data files, pulling the stories that pertained, and with the help of an internet connection, the reporter friend sent the stories to Frank in Washington via e-mail. He had learned most of what he knew about the actual property from those stories, some of which dated from the early thirties.
The property was located on the river bank in the heart of the down-town section of Glennville. It consisted of a stretch of road that began in the center of the city, and then extended out of the city along an old set of rail road tracks. An old defunct coal company and some run down out buildings were also included. Perhaps the most important of all, an abandoned series of caves that ran under the city. The city had bricked up the caves better than sixty years before, in response to the community.
In June of 1935, a large group of school children, along with two adults who supposedly were well acquainted with the caves and their various twists and turns had set out on a field trip to explore them. They had never returned. A subsequent search had turned up no trace of them at all. Three weeks later the city had sent a Public Works crew to brick up the entrance, and it had been closed since.
When the Army had bought the property it was considered unsafe, and had pretty much been allowed to go to seed. The road leading out of it had likewise been closed off some years before, and the area had become a hangout for young kids and vagrants. On any given night the police ended up being called to the area several times, and the city had debated for years about what they should do with the property.
When the Army had offered to purchase the property, the City Council had considered it a Godsend, and had been more than happy to sign over the deed and accept the check they offered. It had seemed to be the end of it. Frank had read later articles, however, that seemed to indirectly touch on the property. There was an increase in traffic after the sale, and an unusual amount of security that surrounded the site.
The local paper had down-played it to normal, or as close to normal as they could. Glennville had always been a military town, and so most of the complaints of increased traffic, were actually seen in a good light. Increased activity at the property might eventually mean more jobs, and in a depressed economy, which depended heavily on the nearby base, anything the Army did was always reported in a positive light. As far as the local paper was concerned, there was nothing negative to report.
So the real clues had come from the Syracuse paper. Franks’ friend, Jimmy Patrick, kept in touch, and had contacted Frank whenever he came across anything that was related to the smaller northern city. Syracuse itself had had tremendous problems, initially, with the traffic.
When Frank had called Jimmy, he had only wanted to know what he knew about the place. But after Jimmy had told him about the traffic problem, he had asked him to keep in touch, and he had. He had also filled him in on everything else he knew about Glennville. As he drove along, Frank mentally ticked off what he knew about the northern New York City.
The Black River split the city in two, and there were four bridges that spanned it. Three of the four also spanned the property that the military had purchased, and those three bridges were new. When they had been replaced, the road that ran to the old abandoned coal mine had been blocked off and abandoned. Ironically, or maybe not, Frank thought, the Army Corps of Engineers had done all of the work.
The result was a small discarded piece of property, with its own road leading in and out, in the heart of the city. It was bound on the south side by the Black River and the north by a sixty foot rock ledge that rose just behind the old historic downtown district. That was, besides the caves, what Frank knew about the city itself. Jimmy had seemed to have caught Frank’s enthusiasm for the mystery, and had also sent him other articles he found as well.
Some of them, although at first glance seemingly innocent, were quite revealing about what was actually going on in Glennville.
The first one Jimmy had dug up and sent him, was from the Public Notices section of the Syracuse paper.
“I thought it was kind of strange,” Jimmy had said, “that they didn’t print the notice in the Glennville paper.”
Frank had read the long notice carefully. It boiled down to a statement of facts concerning the property in Glennville, and the Governments intended use of it.
The whole notice hadn’t made a lot of sense. It seemed to be saying that they intended to invoke the privilege to the mineral rights that had been deeded to them along with the property. It also stated that the Army Corps of Engineers had decided that the closed caves would need to be reopened for a feasibility study, to determine whether or not they could be used as a storage facility. It had been the first direct mention of the caves at all.
The notice went on to say that since this would involve transportation of, as well as disposition of, excess material from within the caves, the Corps had asked for, and via the printing of the notice, been given permission to begin the process without the necessary permits. They were also granted permission to transport radioactive materials to and from the site, the notice stated, and had like-wise been granted a waiver of the Clean Water Discharge Act, to allow undisclosed drainage into the Black River.
Subsequent notices and articles had detailed contract awards for “unspecified” electrical and plumbing work, along with contracts for per-piece orders of drywall and lumber. Another notice Frank had read, contained contract awards for concrete and asphalt, to a Texas corporation. The amounts were unspecified, and were listed as needed for road repair, and sub-wall replacement. Jimmy had thought some of it was unusual, and probably even illegal, and although Frank had agreed, there was not much that either of them could do without further proof.
Jimmy had also told Frank that the Army had been building up the area for some time and that from what he’d been able to determine, they had begun work on the caves even before they had completed the purchase of the land.
They both suspected that the notices were only a cover for some larger project the Army was carrying out, and the radioactive permits bothered him a great deal. Jimmy had promised to stay in touch, and he had, up until last week.
Frank had tried to contact him at work several times but to no avail, and the messages he left were not returned. He had tried calling Jimmy at home and his cell as well, and had only been rewarded with his voicemail. That had seemed strange to Frank also. Jimmy was a damn good reporter who knew the value of answering his phone whenever it rang. At work, at home, in the middle of the night, it made no difference. Jimmy always answered the phone. Jimmy wasn’t answering and now instead of four rings before voicemail, the phone was directing to voicemail after the first ring.
He had even tried contacting Jimmy’s editor, but he had refused to talk to him. He hadn’t given up though, and had tried to call just this morning before he left Washington. His call was put through, but all he had gotten was a steady busy signal at his home, and when he had called his work number, a business like secretary at the paper informed Frank, in a matter-of-fact tone of voice, that Jimmy had left just the day before on an assignment. When he had asked her where he had gone to, her voice had gone even more business-like, and she had told him the paper did not give out that sort of information. Just when Frank had been about to try a different, more tactful approach to find out what was going on, she had hung up on him. The whole thing, the caves, and Jimmy’s disappearance weighed heavily upon him.
Frank inhaled deeply from the cigarette, and then tossed it out the open window.
That was why he was here. None of it figured. The base itself had hundreds of acres of land, so why did they need more? Why the caves? And what the hell had happened to Jimmy?
The Glennville paper had come out, just last week, with a long article that had been picked up by the wire service. Frank had read it, and wondered why they were suddenly going public about the caves. The Army was now saying they intended to convert the old caves into a large underground storage area. Frank already knew that from the Syracuse paper though, and he didn’t believe it was that simple. The rest of the story was bullshit, as far as Frank was concerned, and actually didn’t say a whole lot of anything. Certainly nothing he hadn’t already known or suspected. The article actually seemed to serve only one purpose, and that was to mention that they were doing something with the caves.
Why would they feel the need to do that? Frank wondered. Had the Army found out that he and Jimmy had been digging into the base? Is that why Jimmy was nowhere to be found? Had they scared him off somehow?
Frank didn’t believe it was possible to scare Jimmy off of anything he was determined to find out about, so if they hadn’t scared him off, what the hell had happened? It all raised a lot more questions than it answered, and once he had lost track of Jimmy it had made it personal to him. He needed to know what had happened to him, so here he was cruising down the interstate, twenty eight hundred miles from home, to find out.
He didn’t have the slightest idea what he would find when he got there. What do you expect? He asked himself, missile silos? Little green men? Some sort of horror monsters living in the caves?
The last was pretty far-fetched, he thought, but the truth was that he didn’t know any of the answers. But, he suspected, he would soon, and he also suspected it was much worse than little green men, or missile silos, or even monsters, and he felt drawn to it. Almost led in fact.
His hand reached automatically for the cigarette pack on the dash and just as abruptly stopped.
I’ve got to cut back, he thought, that’s the second pack today. He wrestled with the urge for a full thirty seconds and then gave in. To hell with it, he told himself, I’ll have plenty of time to quit once I get settled in at Fort Drum. In fact, I’ll probably be so busy that I won’t have time to smoke at all, he lied to himself. Once again the lighter hit the tray, and Frank settled back into the seat, mentally ticking over what he knew, or suspected, about the caves.
The other clues that something was not quite right with the upstate New York project had come from keeping track of the Senate committee hearings on the UNRDC fiasco. UNRDC stood for United Nations of Russia for Democratic Change.
The Senate investigations had hinted at CIA involvement in setting up the organization that had swept to power in the fall of the previous year. UNRDC was comprised of several ex-military leaders who had between them, ended up controlling the entire eastern block. They also had strong ties to the now unified Middle East.
The CIA, had of course, denied the allegations, and pointed to the unrest that still dominated the organization as proof that it had not been planned or manipulated. Their supposition was that if it had been, there would not be so much unrest. Government organizations could be so stupid sometimes, Frank thought.
They had disclosed reports of their own which had seemed to back up their theory though, and insisted that the area was unstable and controlled by no one. And their theory seemed to be borne out by the President Elect of the new UNRDC, who had issued a statement condemning the “Godless country of America” and scoffed at the suggestion that he or any of his cabinet members had been planted by the CIA, or that they had any ties whatsoever to them.
The Senate hearings had continued anyway, and rumors had been circulating the press for weeks that the Senate was about to drop a bombshell on the CIA director, John O. Brennan. They had supposedly turned up a mouth piece within the organization, and the mouth piece had confirmed that the CIA had indeed backed the present cabinet and the current president.
It was further rumored that the CIA had been suckered into believing that after they had helped to sweep the party to power, they would still be able to exercise some type of control over them, and had only found out after, that they had no control at all. Of course all of this was rumor, but just two days ago the Senate had released a statement addressing the issue. The statement had seemed to hint that a source within the CIA was indeed being questioned behind closed doors, and had indeed confirmed many of the rumors circulating concerning CIA involvement in the UNRDC, as well as in the Middle East.
The next day the United Soviet Democratic Republic had refused a meeting with the President of the United States, and had at the same time declared that all nuclear weapons in the newly held territories had been “Secured,” and were to be, “Considered the property of the USDR,” and further more “All agreements entered into with any and all nations of the world concerning Strategic Arms Limitations with the former USSR, are declared by this government to be null and void.”
Press Secretary Jay Carney had released a statement from the President promising a, “Quick solution to this obviously disturbing development.” He had also officially denied any involvement in, or any knowledge of any involvement, by the CIA, or any other government organization, in the takeover of the former Soviet Union. Nor had he found any evidence that the newly formed USDR, or its ruling organization, UNRDC, Had had any ties to the Middle East, or the newly formed country of New Iran.
He had also promised to investigate the matter himself, and promised full disclosure to the public in an address to the nation in July. He had urged the public not to speculate on nuclear war, or to concern itself with it as the age of peace in the world would continue as it had, unimpeded by the recent events.
Frank hoped that the CIA had been involved, and was still able to exercise control. If not, the possibility of nuclear war could be real, and he actually didn’t want to think about that possibility.
As Frank neared the exit for Fort Drum, he mulled the possibilities over in his clouded mind. It could be a missile base, he thought, or it could just be a buildup of conventional weapons.
He honestly didn’t know, but he intended to find out. One thing was for sure, it wasn’t just a storage facility, and he couldn’t quite believe it was a new missile site. They’re all out in the Midwest aren’t they, he questioned himself. He could think of no valid use for the property at all, and that bothered him. That along with a basic distrust of a government that had been caught lying to her people so many times before.
He had just flipped the turn signal on to exit the interstate, when he felt a shimmy begin at the rear of the car. It quickly turned to a deep pounding vibration as he slowed the small car and pulled to the side of the road.
Frank climbed out of the small cramped car, and, walking to the rear, stared down at the flat tire that he knew was there. Muttering under his breath, “Damn rental car,” he returned to the front; retrieved the keys, and unlocked the trunk to search for the spare he hoped was there. It wasn’t.
Frank locked the small car, and taking his laptop bag with him, set off in the direction of the exit to find a service station.
– 2 –
Two miles away, Joe Miller tossed a steel clipboard onto the passenger seat of his Camaro as he pulled into the long driveway at 6620 Main Street, in Fort Drum.
Joe hadn’t seen the old brick house since three weeks before, when he had been sent out as part of the clean-up crew from Bud Farling’s real estate agency. The house had looked horrible then. The windows and doors had been boarded up, and the now graceful grounds had been choked with weeds.
The old house looks damn good, he thought. He hadn’t been there himself for most of the work as Bud had kept him busy with his other properties. Joe tended to get most of Bud’s work, probably due to the fact that he was dependable, and showed up every day ready to work. To Bud, Joe knew, that meant a great deal. A low whistle escaped his lips as he stared at the imposing estate, which had always seemed so forbidding before.
The van that he usually drove was in the shop for the third time in as many weeks, so he had come in his own car. This time it was the transmission, and Bud had been downright pissed about it. Not pissed at Joe though, the van was old, and, Bud had told him, he supposed he’d have to buy a new one soon.
When Bud had asked if Joe minded driving his own car out to the house to put in the locks, Joe had told him he didn’t mind at all, and that considering the way the van was constantly breaking down lately, he felt better taking his own car. At least that way he wouldn’t end up walking like he had last week when the van had broken down in the middle of nowhere.
Joe Miller actually had a large amount of expertise in home repair, and it had always seemed to him that all the different aspects of it had been easy to learn. He had made Bud a lot of money, and he worked as a sub-contractor so Bud could work him as many hours as he wanted without having to pay overtime.
The arrangement worked out well for both of them. It meant Bud could count on Joe, and because of that he paid him well.
Joe had no family, so even if Bud called in the middle of the night with some emergency at one of his properties, it wasn’t a big deal for Joe to get dressed and take care of it.
Joe retrieved the new locks from the seat and headed towards the front door. The keys had already been mailed to the man who was renting the property, Bud had explained.
“Just remove our master locks, and swap ’em out for these,” Bud had said, “And oh, don’t forget to bring the keys and the master locks back with you tomorrow.”
Joe had lost a set of the master locks a year ago, and Bud had never let him forget it.
Whenever Bud had a crew working on a property, the master locks were used. That allowed everyone to come and go whenever they needed to, and all the tradesmen that worked for Bud had a master key. It had come in handy on several occasions.
The keys fit all the rental properties Bud owned, or managed, as well, and Joe couldn’t count the times that had come in handy to him. Half the time when there was a problem with an apartment, it was usually reported by one of the other tenants, and nine times out of ten, the tenant who lived in the apartment wasn’t home. The master locks solved that problem nicely.
Joe reached the door; slipped the master key into the lock, and entered the house. He squinted in the gloom, peering cautiously inside at the shadowy hallway.
The old house had long had a reputation of being haunted. Joe didn’t necessarily believe it, but he had always found the old house to be unnerving.
It still seems spooky in here, Joe thought as he stepped into the entrance way. Stupid though letting this old house get to me. He couldn’t explain why he suddenly felt nervous about entering the house, and he glanced nervously back out the doorway at the driveway, where the Camaro sat gleaming brightly in the late afternoon sun.
The light stupid, he reminded himself, turn on the fracking lights.
He turned his attention back to the hall, and let his searching fingers locate the switch, and with a small push of the old button-style switch the lights came on.
Soft shards of light flickered across the walls of the entrance way, from the large chandelier, suspended from the old tin ceiling in the middle of the entrance way. Joe carefully edged the door shut with the heel of one scuffed work boot, and stared child-like around the room as the splashing patterns of light danced on the dark mahogany of the walls.
The wood panels reached more than twelve feet to the old tin ceilings, and intricate flowing lines covered the tin panels in an ornate flower design.
The dark walls were divided with carefully scrolled moldings, which broke the walls into squared sections, and a matching mahogany stairway curved away from the dark gray marble flooring, towards the upper reaches of the house.
He could make out the darkened upper floor where the staircase ended, and a small balcony that looked down over the entrance way.
To the left of the staircase, at the end of the long entrance way, massive double doors were set into the wall. A smaller single door led off to the right, directly across from those doors, which was the kitchen area, he knew.
To his immediate right, was another set of double doors, and directly across from that a graceful arch led into the living area. He knew that the doors set into the wall at the end of the hall led into a formal dining area, which also had a small door that opened into the kitchen area. The doors to his right opened into a large den, with book shelves from floor to ceiling, and a massive stone fireplace.
Joe had seen it before, when it had been stuffed full of the dusty old furniture that had been left in the house, when the owner had died. The house had been tied up in probate court for years, Bud had explained, and so everything had been left pretty much untouched.
He hadn’t been here when the final cleaning had been done however; he hadn’t seen just how imposing, and elegant, the house actually was, without the dust and dirt that had covered it, and to him the transformation was astounding.
Joe carefully set the cardboard box containing the new locks on the floor by the front door. He decided that he wanted to take one more look at the house before he put in the locks. He walked down to the far end of the dimly lit entrance way, pushed open the double doors at the end of the hall that led into the dining area, and sent his left hand skittering across the wall for the switch. Sparse light from the hallway fell through the doorway and beyond.
Suddenly, a silver flash swept from the darkness towards him. His hand was still looking for the light switch, and his mind did not immediately register what it was.
…WHAT? His mind cried out in alarm as his eyes watched the shining flat arc sweep towards him.
…A knife? …At me? …Why?
“Not real,” he muttered aloud backing away.
But his hands came away from his chest with bloody drops clinging to them…
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