by Larry LaVoie
“I thought this was the meeting place.”
“This is where they make certain we are not the FBI. These guys have been through a lot and are a bit trigger happy. I think it best we do things their way.”
“Okay,” Joshua said. “I just want this to be over.”
“It will be, very soon.” Andy closed the door, and the gunman started the SUV again.
Through the ordeal, Heather was breathing rapidly. She took a few deep breaths to calm her nerves. “I take it you were not made aware of this part of the plan,” she said, under her breath to Josh.
“Andy has his own way of doing things. He doesn’t tell me everything. Says it’s for my own good; need to know.”
“Are you sure we can trust him? Heather asked. “I think he has his own agenda. What are you going to do with a nuclear weapon?”
“We aren’t going to detonate it, if that’s what you think.”
“What good is it if you aren’t going to use it?” Heather wasn’t trying to put ideas in his head, but she honestly couldn’t figure out the plan.
“Andy says we can stop the project without bloodshed, if we use the weapon as a threat. You know let Mother Nature take her course. When Yellowstone blows we can still take credit.”
“Take credit? What could you hope to gain by that?”
The SUV started to move with a lurch. It followed the white van down the twisty gravel road until they were deep in the canyon. Around them were columns of weathered rock, making it look like an alien planet.
“We’re going to use the device as leverage to get them to stop the tunneling project at Yellowstone,” Joshua said.
“Don’t you think that’s a bit of overkill,” Heather said. “What in the world possessed you to go along with this?”
“I didn’t have a choice, all right!”
She glared at him. “How do you know he won’t use it.”
The driver turned around and said something neither of them understood, but both took to mean they should stop talking. They watched as the SUV pulled up behind an outcropping and stopped behind a white truck. The back was covered with a sheet metal canopy. “Something tells me the bomb is in there,” Joshua said. He opened the door and the gunman who had been driving stopped him again outside the vehicle. Andy rushed over and spoke to the gunman, again in Farsi. “It’s all right. He needs to see this before he transfers the funds.”
Heather got out and followed them to the back of the truck. Andy opened double doors and let the daylight in. He climbed inside and ripped off a white canvas tarp covering an object the size of a coffin. The device was in a metal cradle. It didn’t look anything like he had pictured.
“Are you sure this is a bomb?” Andy asked.
“Yes,” the gunman said. “It is made to go in a remote controlled drone. Latest technology. Very powerful.”
“How do you activate it?”
The gunman climbed in the vehicle and pulled out a piece of paper. “I show you.” He flipped a switch and a keypad screen illuminated. He punched in a code and a timer started counting down. “See, latest touch screen technology.”
“You didn’t just activate it?” Andy said, panic in his voice.
“Yes, but I deactivate it.” He looked at the paper again and punched in another code.
Andy looked at Joshua. “It looks like the real thing. I’ll check for radioactivity.” He opened the metal case and removed a Geiger counter and turned it on. He moved the device along the bomb casing. He reached a point where the digital display lit up with numbers streaming across the screen as the unit began clicking frantically. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I have it on the most sensitive setting.” He flipped a dial and the unit started clicking more slowly. “See, I move it away and it only measures background radiation. Give them the money and we can be on our way.”
Joshua turned to Heather. “Transfer 6 million to this account.” He handed her a slip of paper.
Heather went back to the SUV to get the computer. Everyone, including their original driver, followed her. She opened the computer. “I can’t get a signal here.” She moved the computer around outside the vehicle. “I can’t do anything from here.”
“Here,” Joshua said, handing her a small thumb drive-sized device. She plugged it into the USB port on the laptop. “Satellite Antenna,” Joshua said, opening the rear door of the SUV. “You can use this for a desk.”
She set up the computer and entered Joshua’s password. The second gunman, a man who hadn’t spoken a word since their arrival, leaned over her. She could smell his foul breath and body odor. She turned and was staring into his black eyes. “Can someone tell him to back off? I need some room to work.” She was hoping to get a message to the FBI, but it would be suicide if she was caught.
Andy spoke in Farsi again, and the man backed away, but only a few inches. She didn’t dare risk it.
“There, the transfer is complete,” Heather said. She removed the antenna, slipped it into her pants pocket and closed the computer.
“Are we good?” Joshua asked.
“We must verify,” the gunman said. He held his weapon at the ready while the other gunman went to the truck. He opened his computer and in a few minutes said something in Farsi that only Andy and the other gunman understood.
“Good,” Andy said to Joshua, “You and Heather take the van and drive ahead of us.”
“The van? Who’s going to drive the truck?” Joshua asked.
“Just until we get back to the highway,” Andy said, “We’re going to ditch it.”
Joshua got in the van and Heather, still holding the computer, slipped in the passenger seat. The van smelled of cigarette smoke, discarded fast food, and putrid rotting flesh. Flies buzzed around the interior.
“This is disgusting,” Heather said, lowering the window. “What’s that smell?” She turned around and lifted a piece of plastic cloth. A hundred black flies took to the air as the tarp moved. “Joshua, there’s a dead man back here.”
Before he could turn around Andy was at the Joshua’s window with a handgun pointed at him. “You lead the way out.”
Joshua panicked and stepped on the gas. The van threw gravel in a dust cloud as it fish-tailed up the gravel road.
Andy jumped into the SUV and using the 4-wheel drive feature, was able to gain traction and control as he tried to catch up to the white van.
Joshua tried to put as much distance between Andy and them, but the van continued to fishtail every time he stepped on the gas. He turned to Heather. “That traitor. He plans on killing us.” They sped up the winding road to the lookout where they had originally made contact with the gunmen. Heather looked around and saw Andy was overtaking them. She heard the unmistakable crack of gunshots along with the gravel pelting the underside of the vehicle. She looked in the side mirror and saw one of the gunmen leaning out the window firing at them. The rear window shattered and a bullet lodged itself in the digital clock in the center of the dash. The SUV rammed them from behind. “I can’t get away from them,” Joshua yelled. The van fishtailed and nearly flipped as he struggled to hold it on the loose gravel. He looked down at the canyon and corrected too much, nearly striking the cliff on the other side of the road.
“Watch out for the cliff!” Heather yelled. She felt the back of her seat jolt and felt a pain in her shoulder blade. “I think I’m hit.”
Another volley of slugs peppered the dash between Joshua and Heather, causing it to explode into a mass of shredded plastic and foam particles. The van was rear-ended again, this time forcing it toward the edge of the cliff. Heather leaned over and grabbed the wheel. She pulled it toward her, frantically trying to keep the van on the road. Joshua was slumped over and unresponsive. The SUV hit the van again, and Heather couldn’t control it any longer. It spun around and careened over the embankment. It hit the rocky ground nose first, tumbled for a hundred yards end-over-end, before coming to rest on its side against a tall column of rock at the bottom of the deep ravine.
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The air bags had deployed on the first hit, but deflated as the van tumbled. Heather, badly bruised, bloody, and disoriented, looked over at Joshua through blurry eyes, but the bloody body was not that of Joshua. Frantic and shaking, she fought to release her seat belt. The release was jammed. The smell of decomposing flesh was rapidly being mixed with the smell of gasoline. Hanging on her side, dangling in midair, with the rotting body of a man beside her, she tried not to gag. A moment later she passed out.
At the top of the ravine, Andy stopped the SUV, got out and peered down at the wreckage. “What set him off?” he asked the gunman in Farsi.
The gunman shrugged and answered in Farsi. “It may have been the dead man.” He proceeded to tell Andy about the incident when they hijacked the white van.
“No problem,” Andy said. “I was going to get rid of him anyway. What gun did you use to kill the guy?”
The gunman pulled out a handgun, a Russian made Imez 9mm, and handed it to Andy. Andy wiped it of prints with a handkerchief and tossed the gun as far as he could toward the van. “The police will put the weapon with Joshua and the girl and think they killed him. They’ll be looking for the van, not the SUV, or the truck. Let’s get on the road, we’ve got a lot to do.”
Chapter 26
August 25th, Yellowstone Park
“Let me talk to her,” David said, reaching out his hand for the phone. Trick handed the satellite phone to David. “She isn’t very happy.”
“Tanya, I’m so sorry. There’s a national emergency. I can’t explain right now, but you have to listen to me. This isn’t Trick’s fault. You should gather some provisions and plenty of bottled water in case the power goes out. You can hang around the house and use the car.”
“Power, what are you talking about?”
“I told you, I can’t say. You’ll have to trust me on this. We wouldn’t be away from you if it wasn’t important. I can’t think of a safer place for you to be, but you need to be prepared for an emergency. If things go wrong, you may never hear from us again. Keep the television on national news. That will be your best source of information.” He doubted there would be anything alarming broadcast, otherwise they would let the scientists in Yellowstone have access to communication. As far as he could tell, they were being held in isolation by the government until the project was completed. A forced news blackout. He handed the phone back to Trick.
Trick grabbed the phone. “I have to go. I love you. Wait for me until I get home, okay? I love you.”
“I love you, too,” she said. “Bye.”
Trick could hear the tears in Tanya’s voice as well as the doubt. He turned to David. “Tanya was completely understanding. If we don’t come back from this, she’ll go back to Alaska and save what’s left of the world.” His voice was too upbeat for the circumstances.
“Sorry for ruining your honeymoon.”
“Yeah, just get us out of this.”
David packed up Trick’s phone and put it in his duffle bag. “Just to keep it out of sight,” he said to Trick’s protest. “Tomorrow is going to be an interesting day. You think they can really build a road through that terrain in a week?”
“I’ll bet they can. They don’t even have anybody shooting at them. This should be a piece of cake.”
David was able to talk Colonel Mathews into letting him have a helicopter so he and Trick could get to the tunnel site and check it out up close. By the time they were in the air the colonel had told them the earth movers were already in place for starting the road. They flew low over Old Faithful, looking down at the terrain. Trick took in a deep breath of cold mountain air. He pushed the button on his headset. “You would think that the people who designated Yellowstone a National Park would have known it was a dangerous place.”
“I doubt they gave it much thought. To them it was a geological curiosity. They had no idea of its violent past,” David answered.
The air turned from fresh to sour as they avoided the spray from a geyser. “You’d better get it up a little higher,” Trick said. “These engines aren’t corrosion proof.”
“Sure they are. Mostly titanium.”
“Well, we aren’t,” Trick said. “Isn’t this mission dangerous enough without you playing chicken with Mother Nature?”
“You’re lecturing me on air safety? That’s a good one. I saw you jump out of a perfectly good airplane once.”
“That was a birthday present and I was wearing a parachute.”
“Attached to a very well-endowed female instructor, if I remember correctly.”
“Give me a break. We broke up after the first jump. She scared the crap out of me. The girl had a death wish.”
David put the helicopter on a path to the tunneling site. They flew about a hundred feet above the ground, skimming the taller trees. Lodgepole pine and brush covered the rough terrain. Occasionally they caught site of a ground squirrel foraging for food. “Look a bear and her cubs.” Snow was still several feet deep on the higher points and in the shadows of the ravines. They started to climb. “Look down there,” David said. “That’s the Continental Divide. Can you believe they are going to bore through that like it was butter?”
“That’s solid granite and basalt. You have a lot of faith in that NPTD or whatever you call it.”
“I was a skeptic until I saw what it did in Mexico. I just hope this has a better outcome.”
“Margaret Ames said it was a success.”
“Political speak. If you don’t count the lives that were lost, the fact that I broke my leg, and nearly died in a crash, I guess it was a success.”
“I almost forgot. I can’t believe you can fly this thing with a cast on your leg.”
David looked at Trick and grinned. “I can’t believe you would fly with me with this cast on my leg. Actually, I’m getting used to it, but I think I’ll cut it off in a few days. My leg has got to be healed by now.”
David banked the craft sharply to avoid a steep rock outcropping. “There’s no way they’ll cut a road through here. They’ll have to go around.” He veered around the outcropping and coming around the other side, said, “Look at that!” He dropped down to get a better look at a survey crew. “How do you suppose they got here so soon?”
“Our tax dollars at work,” Trick said. “Just ahead is the site. Looks good to me.”
“I’ll set it down and let you break some rocks.”
The site was covered with windfall timber from years of windstorms and heavy snowfall. Four men were already setting up camp and stopped pitching a tent to watch the helicopter set down. One of the men came up to the craft as its engine spooled down. David got out and introduced himself and Trick. “You guys didn’t waste any time getting up here. What do you think?”
“We’re preparing for the blimps. You can’t stay where you are.”
“We’ll only be a few minutes. Do you have a geologist on site, Sergeant?”
“Lieutenant Andrews, over there with the GPR unit.”
David looked where the sergeant was pointing and took off after Trick, who was already approaching the young officer. Lieutenant Andrews was a stout woman with dark hair, cut short or tucked under her field cap. She was setting up a piece of equipment he recognized as a ground penetrating radar unit. Trick walked up to her and checked her nametag. “Lieutenant Andrews, I’m Trick, I mean Richard Magic, geological consultant, compliments of the USGS.” He reached out and shook her hand. “If you don’t like the site you can blame this guy, Dr. Wayne, the lead volcanologist on site, also compliments of the USGS.” He patted David on the back.
“Good to meet you, Lieutenant,” David said, shaking her hand. “Don’t mind my partner. I assure you his talents out weigh his lack of personal skills.” He flashed a quick grin at Trick. “I see you are about to do some acoustic testing.”
“The topsoil is almost nonexistent. Amazing these trees can get a foothold. A few inches down we’re dealing with solid granite. You picked the site? You do realize these tunn
eling machines need to dig into a vertical wall?”
“Yeah,” Trick said, looking at David. “You did say there was a vertical wall, didn’t you.” He was grinning back at David, knowing he had screwed up.
“Is this site a problem?” David asked.
“Do you see a vertical wall?” the lieutenant asked, giving him a hard time.
David looked around. “I thought you needed a flat area to stage the equipment. Shouldn’t be too hard to find a vertical wall in this terrain.”
“Follow me.” She left the portable GPR machine and headed through a small pine grove and over several downed trees. “See that.”
“Looks like a granite cliff,” David answered.
“It’s perfect. Either you’re lucky or very smart,” she said curtly. “ This will save us a day in set up. We just need to clear a path for the ATM.”
“ATM?” Trick asked. “Are you planning on charging admission?”
The lieutenant laughed. “Atomic Tunneling Machine. I forgot you’re a civilian.”
The sound of a chainsaw caused them to turn. A tree crashed down 30 feet from them. “This isn’t safe here,” Lieutenant Andrews said. “Let’s get back.”
As they made their way back, they were approached by a corporal. “Lieutenant, they have to move that helicopter pronto. A Dolphin with a DC-9 Cat is ready to set down.”
David took off on an attempt to run, but fell when he tripped over a fallen tree he tried to scale with his bum leg. Trick grabbed his arm and helped him up. David began another attempt at running, but Trick stopped and bent over laughing. “You’re going to kill yourself,” he called out between bursts of laughter.
“Come on, Trick. I think they have things under control here,” David yelled back. Before getting into the helicopter he called back to Andrews who was standing with an amused look on her face. “Thanks, Lieutenant. See you back at the ranch.”
As they lifted off, Trick pointed out a huge blimp with a Caterpillar dangling from its belly. “That’s a Dolphin heavy lift airship!” he exclaimed. “Just like the one they showed us in the briefing.” The blimp was the size of a football field. “You could play a soccer game on top of that and have room for the grandstands.” Trick could hardly contain his excitment. “From here that bulldozer hanging from the undercarriage looks like a toy dangling from the underside of an air mattress.” The buzz saw whine of the blimp’s two turbine engines was drowned out by the scream of their own engine as they ascended on full power.
