65 Below

by Basil Sands

  “If you see anything else suspicious, give us a call and we’ll follow up on it.”

  “I’ll look through what videos I do have, and if there is anything worthwhile, I’ll contact you,” Bannock offered.

  “Thanks.”

  Lonnie stood from the chair. Its chrome feet scooted across the floor, causing the chair to vibrate with a sharp metallic clang. She turned toward the door to leave. Bannock called out to her before she got all the way across the room.

  “Um, Trooper Wyatt. I… uh….” he paused nervously. “Please forgive me for the way I acted earlier. When Harry called up and said a hot-looking lady trooper was coming up to talk to me, I figured he was joking and it was some big, mean, butch woman. Seeing you kind of threw me off. I mean, you are a heck of a lot more attractive than any cop I’ve ever seen, and, uh…”

  His face turned deep red. “Aw crap! There I go again. I’d better shut up before I put my foot all the way down my throat.”

  He wiped the back of his hand across his forehead in exasperation and continued. “I’ve never been good at flirting. I’d always get too nervous and end up gabbing to the point where they just turn and leave. I think I need to get a different social life. Anyway, won’t happen again.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll take it as a compliment.” Lonnie opened the door and started out. She turned back to him and added, “If it makes you feel any better, I’ll delete the flirty parts from my report. Good luck with your social life, Charlie.”

  “Thanks,” replied the still-blushing Bannock.

  She walked out the door, crossed the parking area, and got into her waiting cruiser. Three minutes later, Trooper Wyatt pulled up to the locked entrance of the TVEC substation a hundred yards south of the pump station. The low-frequency hum of the massive transformers vibrated softly through the night. Her body shivered involuntarily as she rose out of her cruiser. Even though she had been outside at the pump station, it seemed much colder here. The giant halogen lamps that lit the area near Bannock’s guard shack must have raised the temperature several degrees. Here in the shadowy darkness of the electrical substation, with only the single cold mercury lamp inside the compound, the atmosphere was icy. The inside of her nose felt frosty when she inhaled.

  Lonnie scanned the area in front of the gate for clues. She pulled the long Maglite out of her utility belt, switched it on, and twisted the cap of the lens so the beam spread wide, brightly illuminating the gate area before her. The gate was set in an eight-foot-high fence rimmed with barbed wire that jutted out from the compound on angled metal posts. The wire was intended to keep vandals out. Someone had, it seemed, played a practical joke by throwing a pair of shoes tied together at the laces up onto the wire. The white-and-blue Nike basketball shoes hung motionless in the cold night air.

  Lonnie observed several sets of impressions left by truck tires that ran in and out of the fenced courtyard. The gate itself was closed, and she pulled on it to verify that the locking system worked. It did not budge at her tugging. She randomly pressed several buttons on the digital keypad and tried again. It did not react. Whoever had gotten in here earlier either had the combination to the lock, or had overridden the electronic device with technology. As far as she could tell, there were no signs of foul play or break-in at the gate or the surrounding fence. Other than those that led from where the various trucks had parked to the keypad, there were no footprints, either. At least, there were no human footprints. A single line of dog paw impressions trailed off through the snow into the woods.

  Probably Penny. Daddy takes that dog everywhere.

  She picked up her cell phone and called the TVEC dispatcher on duty to request the number combination for the keypad to open the locked substation gate.

  A male voice answered. “TVEC Dispatch, this is Franklin. How can I help you?”

  “This is Trooper Wyatt from AST. I’m at the Salt Jacket substation. Could you or someone there supply me with the code for gate?”

  “Good evening, ma’am. What is your badge number, please?”

  “Four three oh seven,” she responded.

  “Thank you,” he replied, “and what is your full name?”

  “Lonnie Wyatt.”

  “And, finally, one more question.” The dispatcher paused for a moment. “Who was your eleventh-grade English teacher?”

  “What?” She exclaimed incredulously

  “I am sorry, ma’am, but I need to know this information.” Franklin’s voice was serious, but Lonnie was certain she could detect a hint of a grin in its sound.

  “Your mother! Mrs. Eckert,” she blurted out.

  “That would be correct, ma’am.” Franklin replied. “She’ll be delighted you remembered.”

  “Franklin, you’re enjoying this. I can tell. Now, how about the number?”

  “No problem. Six, six, eight, pound, seven.”

  “Thank you,” she said sarcastically. “Tell your mom I said hi, and you can also tell her that my writing skills have improved considerably. Hers was the only class where I ever got a B.”

  “I’ll let her know. Have a good evening. Out here.” He hung up the phone.

  She pressed the disconnect button on her cell phone and punched the code into the keypad located at the side of the large sliding gate. The buttons of the keypad were stiff to the touch. The cold in the metal sucked heat out through her leather-gloved fingertip, leaving a mild stinging sensation. The lock clicked open as the last digit was pressed, and the gate automatically slid along the grooved channel of steel track that ran parallel to the main fence until it was fully open. She walked into the inner area of the substation, leaving her cruiser parked in front, still running, the doors locked.

  With the flashlight in her hand, Trooper Wyatt scanned the open ground around the large steel structures that hummed with the awesome pulse of millions of volts of electricity surging through the thick rolls of copper coil and heavy electromagnets. In the diffused beam of her Maglite, she could just make out the tall, gray metal towers on which the power cables hung, feeding the substation, which converted some to lower voltage for local use, and boosted some along to further journeys to even more remote locations.

  The snow had been scraped to the sides of the area in front of the small utility hut by a snowplow several days earlier leaving bare icy dirt and gravel that provided virtually no clues as to how many vehicles or people may have been there. At the steps to the hut, where there were two or three inches of snow the plow couldn’t reach, were several sets of footprints.

  One of the sets definitely belonged to her father. They had the peculiar shape and pattern of the custom-made White’s Alaska Boots he had worn since she was a little girl. He had bought the boots for more than two hundred dollars back in the late seventies and had them rebuilt every two years for about a quarter of the price of buying new ones. He claimed those boots had become more a part of his feet than his own toenails.

  Another set of prints had the distinctive markings of Corcoran military issue jump boots. Those, Lonnie thought, must be Officer Bannock’s. One set of prints belonged to a pair of large, military surplus white bunny boots commonly worn by many Alaskans this time of year. Another that looked like sneakers of some sort. Each of these pairs of prints went into the building and around the various structures of the substation, where the technicians had been trying to diagnose the outage.

  Standing out from the assortment of shoe prints at the door were two matching sets of patterns that bore the company logo of Sorel Mukluks impressed in the snow. The edges were sharp and crisp, indicating the boots were fairly new, or at least seldom worn. As she ran her light along the ground at the side of the hut, the imprints of those two sets of boot prints continued on toward the left of the tiny building. Lonnie pulled out her digital camera and snapped a couple of quick pictures. The flash exploding in the night briefly put a dancing array of spots before her eyes.

  After taking the pictures, she followed the footprints around the building to
the large steel electrical structures behind the hut. The footprints stopped in the snow about five yards behind the hut. The snow was packed in front of a large, squat, cubicle transformer. The prints didn’t go any further, but followed the same way back out from the deep snow. The wearers of the Sorels had only been interested in the one piece of equipment that hummed in front of her now.

  Her senses leaped to full alert. Lonnie froze in her tracks. She had the uncanny feeling that eyes were staring at her. Her hand slid to the pistol at her side. Her own eyes widened reflexively as they tried to take in all the available light, to find the source of her sudden wariness before it found her.

  To her right, a flash of movement exploded from near the transformer box.

  She whipped the 9mm Glock service automatic from the leather holster on her hip, and in one smooth motion, raised, aimed, and clicked off the safety. The Maglight’s beam illuminated figures moving fast across the substation grounds.

  “Freeze!”

  Two tall, thin snowshoe hares stopped in their tracks. White fur bristled all over their bodies, and their long ears poked straight up into the cold night air.

  Lonnie felt heat flush over her face, and she was very happy that Bannock had not decided to accompany her to the substation. She shook her head at her own jittery behavior.

  “Okay, Bugs Bunny and friend…carry on.”

  The two hares watched her for a moment longer, then ducked under the fence and disappeared into the woods.

  She ran the beam of the flashlight up the side of the structure where the footprints stopped. An area of frost had been disturbed on the steel casing inside, which buzzed a massive magnet wrapped in high-voltage copper coils. A twelve-by-twelve-inch square about five feet above the ground was discolored, slightly but noticeably in the beam of the Maglite. It looked like something hot had been pressed onto the metal, causing it to bake.

  Toward the bottom of the transformer, the square edge of something metallic stuck up through the snow. She reached down and picked up a hollow metal box, about two inches thick and one square foot in size, with a sign plate on one side identifying the company that had manufactured the transformers. It fit the singed square spot on the side of the transformer. There were no screw holes or weld marks on either the box or the transformer. The panel seemed to have been attached by some sort of adhesive. The box Lonnie held in her hand was not discolored, as the transformer was.

  She put the box back on the ground where it had been, then snapped several pictures of it, the transformer, and the square burned area. She made her way back to the cruiser outside the fence. Exhaust billowed from the rear of the car in a white cloud that stood out against the darkness.

  It was 10:40. The Salt Jacket General Store closed at 11:00. Lonnie needed to get over there if she hoped to talk to Linus about what he had seen. She pushed the close button on the keypad at the gate, and the large metal fence slid itself shut. She lifted her car’s remote control from her jacket pocket and pressed the button with the padlock icon. The lights on the vehicle flashed in response, followed by the audible click of the locks releasing. She opened the cruiser door and climbed in. Lonnie took a deep breath of the warm interior air, gave one last looked around through the windshield, then picked up the radio handset and pressed the talk button.

  “Dispatch, 7-23” she said into the microphone, then released the talk button.

  “7-23, dispatch. Go ahead.”

  “I’m en route to Salt Jacket General Store.”

  “Copy, 7-23 en route to Salt Jacket General Store. Twenty-two forty-two.”

  “7-23 out.”

  “Dispatch out.”

  She put the radio handset back in the clip on the dashboard, then put the car in reverse and pulled a backwards U-turn in the parking area. Once the vehicle faced Johnson Road, she put it in drive and moved out toward the Richardson Highway.

  Ten minutes later Lonnie parked her cruiser in front of the Salt Jacket General Store. She got out of the car, pressing the record button of the digital recorder in her pocket as she moved. Her boots clomped noisily on the hollow wooden step in front of the door. Lonnie opened the door and went inside. The bell jangled the announcement of her entry.

  Linus was leaning into a mop that he dragged from side to side over the floor at the far end of the store aisles. He turned around at the noise.

  “Good evening, officer. You’re just in time. We close in five minutes.”

  “I know, Linus. I’m here on business.” Trooper Wyatt removed her hat.

  He straightened and squinted across the length of the building. “Lonnie?”

  Linus stood the mop against a rack of shelving and moved toward her, wiping his hands on a clean white towel that hung out of his back pocket. “Lonnie Wyatt?” A welcoming smile spread across his face as he drew closer and verified that it really was her.

  “Two members of the Wyatt clan in a single day. We really are lucky. I only just heard you were back. You’d been stationed in Galena until recently, right?”

  “I was,” she replied. “I had put in for Fairbanks last year and finally got it two months ago.”

  “Well, welcome home. It’s kind of weird that you drew patrol out here tonight. We were just talking about you a couple hours ago.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah,” He shifted his feet uncomfortably, realizing his mistake too late. “Marcus is back. He’s retired from the Marines.”

  “That’s part of why I am here.” At the mention of his name, her stomach quivered. She found herself trying desperately to maintain a professional demeanor. “I need to talk to the two of you about some customers you had earlier this evening.”

  “You mean the Tangos?” he replied.

  “Tangos?”

  “Tango. It’s what we called them in the Army. T for terrorist.”

  “I see. Could you please tell me what happened, and how they interacted with you and Marcus?” She spoke with a cold voice that was all business. “By the way, I am recording this conversation.”

  “Well, here’s the way I remember it.” He related to her the story of what happened and that Marcus had been able to understand what they said in Albanian.

  Lonnie made a show of listening intently as he spoke. Behind her hard exterior, her thoughts dissolved into a scattered cacophony of memories as images of Marcus again poured into her mind. She barely heard Linus speak. She would have to rely heavily on the recording when she got back to the office.

  “That’s all I have about them,” he said as the narrative ended.

  “Thanks, Linus. Did Cara see them?”

  “No. She was in the back with the kids.”

  “All right, then, no need to bother her.”

  “I assume you’ll want to talk to Marcus as well.”

  “Yeah, I do. Where’s he staying?”

  “Back at his granddad’s cabin. But I don’t think he’s home. While he was here earlier, he got a call from a friend in Moose Creek who was repairing his granddad’s old hunting rifle and made a trip out that way. That was about seven o’clock. He probably won’t be home till pretty late. The friend over there has a little brewery going, and Marcus is a stickler about not getting behind the wheel if he’s even smelled alcohol. Then he’s taking off into the bush early in the morning. He’ll be running a trap line for some Air Force friend of his who got a permit to trap along the back of the Eielson training area. It’s going to be at least Wednesday before he gets back, and that will be after two days and a night sleeping in the bush.”

  “Does he have a cell phone?”

  “Nope. He doesn’t even have electricity at his place.”

  “If you see him, tell him a trooper will be contacting him when he gets back. Don’t mention me, because I don’t know if I’ll be the one to come back out.”

  “I’ll pass the word,” Linus said. “Let me know if there’s anything else you need.”

  “I will.”

  At that, she turned and walked out of the
store. Her body grew tense as she climbed back into her cruiser. She made the trip to Marcus’s cabin and pulled into the driveway.

  Memories flooded her mind when she saw the small log house. A wisp of smoke slowly curled up from the chimney, lit by the moon that peeked through the clouds. As a teenaged girl, she had fantasized about marrying Marcus and living in this tiny house in the woods. It had been their private hideaway as youths, a place where they planned and schemed and let their hearts indulge in one other’s dreams. Now as she looked at the squat structure, shadowy and dark, she hoped only to get out of here with that same heart still intact.

  The house looked empty. It was nearly 11:30. A snowmobile sat parked beside the house, but there was no other vehicle. While he didn’t have a phone, she was sure he had a car. She got out of the warm police cruiser and walked to the door of the cabin.

  Lonnie rapped loudly on the door with her gloved knuckles, but there was no response. She took out her Maglite and repeated the knock with its metal handle. After several seconds, there was still no movement in the house. In the center of the door was a small corkboard with half a dozen thumbtacks stuck randomly in it, Marcus’s low-tech version of an answering machine. She pulled a notepad and a felt-tip Sharpie pen from her pocket and scrawled a brief note.

  Mr. Johnson,

  Please contact AST as soon as possible.

  Re: suspects you encountered @ store 12/17

  She didn’t sign it. Instead, she wrote the AST direct phone number on the bottom of the note, then tacked it to the corkboard and left.

  Chapter 6

  Flashback

  Thursday, May 7th, 1998

  Stonehouse Barracks

  43 Commando

  Her Majesty’s Royal Marine Corps

  Plymouth Naval Base, England

  “All right, you lot! On your feet!” bellowed Colour Sergeant Reggie Smoot in a thick Scots accent as he entered the NCO’s lounge room of the Royal Marines Stonehouse Barracks at Plymouth Naval Base. The sergeants and corporals of 43 Commando rose from their various leisurely activities as the Colour Sergeant continued. “This is Gunnery Sergeant Marcus Johnson, United States Marine Corps, 2nd Force Recon. He’s going to be with you all for the next twelve months on an exchange duty. He is a real Sea Daddy, with a dozen years in. He did a complete pass out of the Commando Course back in ’89. He earned a right to the Globe & Buster, so don’t give him no shite or you’ll get a beasting you won’t forget. Understood?”