Shelter

by C A Bird

  Norm took the bait, “There’s no way China’s going to pay attention to any treaties. They have too many people, and someday they’re just going to snatch territory from another country and then there’ll be hell to pay. I hear their maps show the entire Asian continent simply labeled ‘China’.”

  The trucker agreed with Norm, “Yeah, they don’t give a shit what anybody says. They’re supposed to be friends with North Korea, but now they’re fighting with them too, and everyone knows North Korea has nuclear bombs. Hell, everyone has bombs nowadays, probably even Iran although they say they don’t. We’ll be in big trouble if all them guys start tossin’ those bombs around.” He shook his head and kept eating as if it were his last meal. Walter noticed every other person in the restaurant nodding his or her head.

  “No.” One of the hunters chimed in. “I don’t think Iran has one yet, ‘cause Israel’s still here.” That elicited some chuckles around the room.

  “That blast yesterday was something, huh?” Norm said.

  The other hunter agreed, “I hear it was the biggest ever. But those guys have been testing underground bombs for years. Nobody’s gonna be stupid enough to do anything really dangerous, like send ‘em in our direction. We’d kick their ass.”

  Though Walter fancied himself a country bumpkin, he was a highly intelligent man, had in fact been Chief of Building Crafts at Los Alamos National Laboratory for many years, and although he’d retired to his own small business in Las Vegas, he had always kept up-to-date on current political and scientific events. During and after dinner every night he watched diverse news and discussion programs; local news from Albuquerque, MSNBC, Chris Matthews, The O’Reilly Factor, CNN. He was the king of the television remote. Armed with this knowledge, he believed the situation was far more serious than these people realized. He believed that they, like the rest of the U.S. population, were in serious denial of the true situation.

  The conversation continued while Walter worked on his second cup of coffee. “Well, Walter, I gotta go.” Norm tossed down a few crumpled bills by his check, and slapped Walter’s shoulder as he passed, afraid if he stayed much longer his old friend would begin to lecture at length about the instability of the post-cold war international situation. He had more important things to do, a cattle auction to attend.

  As Norm went through the door he brushed by another man dressed in a dark suit and tie. The man glanced at something in his hand, a photograph, and went over to sit by Walter. Heather approached, coffee pot in hand. “Coffee, mister?”

  “No thank you, nothing for me.” He turned to Walter as she shrugged and walked away. “Are you Walter Thompson?” he asked.

  “Yes sir. Something I can do for you?”

  “Mr. Thompson, I’m supposed to deliver this to you.” He handed Walter a small package. “Your wife told me you’d probably be here, and it’s very important, so I wanted to track you down. Please read the letter included with the package. I have other deliveries to make so I’ll be going and I thank you for your time.” He stood to leave.

  Surprised, Walter accepted the package. “Hey, wait a minute. What is it?” he called after the man.

  Halfway to the exit he turned and answered, “It’s explained in the letter,” and was out the door.

  Walter briefly examined the package. It was wrapped in plain brown paper and addressed to him, although no postage had been affixed. Downing the last of his coffee, he dropped money on the counter and retrieved his cap. “See you later, Heather.” She absently waved in his direction, already absorbed with wiping down the counter-top where Norm had eaten.

  He pulled the van door open, climbed in, and tore the wrapping from the package. It contained both an envelope and a small metal box measuring about six inches long, three inches wide, and two inches deep, with a hinge located midway along the top, and what appeared to be a speaker on one side. Thompson couldn’t find a latch, or other visible means of opening the box. He removed the letter from the envelope, and as he read it his eyebrows rose in surprise. For several minutes he sat motionless in the old van, puzzled, staring toward the mountains rising up in the northwest. Then he started the engine and slowly pulled from the curb.

  August 19, 8:30 a.m.

  Las Vegas, New Mexico

  “Doctor, there’s a gentleman here to see you, a sales rep, I think. Can you talk to him now?” The woman, dressed in a nurse’s uniform, leaned around the doorjamb of the Doctor’s office. She wore a starched white cap on her head, an anachronism in the 21st century and, quite possibly, the only one left in existence.

  “Yes, I have a few minutes. Who’s my first patient?”

  “Julio Martinez at nine o’clock. His mother says he’s been coughing and he’s running a temp, and she’s worried.”

  “Okay, thanks Carmen. Send in the rep, please.” He placed another finished chart on the stack in front of him.

  Dr. James Wiggins, Board Certified in Family Practice, had been practicing in Las Vegas, New Mexico for almost thirty years. His staff privileges were at fifty-four bed, Alta Vista Regional Hospital, along with 25 other family practitioners, internists, surgeons and other specialists. Dr. Jim, as he was affectionately called by his patients, at fifty-six, was one of the oldest physicians in town but had never considered retirement, or even diminishing his workload.

  Always behind with his paperwork, his desk was piled high with patients’ charts, stacks of manila folders that threatened to tumble over and bury him at any minute. He planned on getting a computer system with an Electronic Medical Record system but hadn’t gotten around to it. Framed degrees adorned the wall behind his desk, and the left wall was covered with photographs of patients, many of whom he had delivered before the town grew large enough for an obstetrical specialist. Las Vegas was the County seat of San Miguel County, one hundred ten miles from Albuquerque by highway, and had grown to over fourteen thousand residents. Some days Jim was sure most of them were his patients. His caring and friendly “Marcus Welby” manner endeared him to them all.

  The gentleman who entered Jim’s office, neatly dressed in a dark suit and blue tie, looked forty-something, was average height and build, and appeared nervous or hurried, glancing at his watch as he crossed the room. He carried a small package in his left hand and shook hands with Jim across the desk, managing to avoid the piles of charts.

  “Hello Doctor. My name is Karl Dohner.”

  “Hi, please have a seat,” Jim offered.

  The man remained standing. “No thank you Doctor. I’m here to deliver this package to you. Under normal circumstances it would have been mailed but I’m afraid we’re short of time.” He handed the package across to the doctor. “Please open it immediately and take it very seriously. My employer has access to current political information that most people are unaware of and I’ve been told to caution recipients not to consider this a joke.”

  “May I ask what’s in the package?” Jim was a little concerned about the man’s nervousness, with thoughts of Ted Kaczinski coming to mind, as he visualized a bomb blast blowing him to pieces and taking out the entire office with him.

  Karl turned to go. “There’s a complete explanation inside. Goodbye Doctor, and thank you for your time.” He turned and strode out the door.

  Jim placed the package, which was wrapped in plain brown paper, on his desk and stared at it for a full minute. With the exception of his ex-wife, he had no enemies he could recall. He couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to harm him, so he shrugged, tore open the package and read the enclosed letter. “Well, if that don’t beat all.”

  He reached over and pulled his freestanding cane, with its four rubber feet, to the side of his chair and, balancing on it, pulled himself to his feet. Once standing, he moved across the room with only a slight limp, leaving the cane beside his chair.

  “Poliomyelitis,” the doctor had told his parents, “Also known as ‘Infantile Paralysis’ or ‘Polio’.” The early fifties were a time of national panic over the virus that left c
hildren dead or paralyzed, and Jim vividly remembered the fear on his mother’s face, as the doctor ruffled his hair and reassured him he was going to be fine. He was one of the lucky ones, a minor paralysis that had improved over the years, leaving him with only the cane and the limp as reminders that he had contracted one of the most dreaded diseases of the century and survived. It had never slowed him down and the brush with death crystallized his dream to become a doctor, as he remembered the comfort in the physician’s voice and the way he ruffled a small frightened boy’s hair.

  He found his nurse in the small treatment room where they prepared injections and ran laboratory tests on blood and urine. “Carmen, when am I scheduled to go to Albuquerque for that continuing education seminar?”

  “You’re supposed to leave day after tomorrow.”

  “Cancel it would you? Take a look at this.” He handed her the letter.

  With a puzzled look on her face, she accepted the proffered letter, and after reading it, commented softly, “That’s really weird.”

  August 19, 8:45 a.m.

  Las Vegas, New Mexico

  Walter coasted to a stop in front of a small well-kept tract house and honked the horn. His son Jerry waved from the front door and turned to kiss the woman behind him. “I’ll be home early so you can get to school, honey,” he told her. “See you later.” He came down the sidewalk, veered around a BMX bicycle and climbed into the van.

  “Hi Dad. How come you’re late?” He tossed a tool belt onto the seat beside him as Walter made a U-turn and headed back the way he’d come.

  “I had to pick up supplies at the hardware store.”

  ”Do you think I can get away early so I can babysit while Barbara goes to school?” He glanced over at the older man. “Hey, what’s the matter?” His father looked pale.

  “Nothing son. I’m fine. Just a little hungry, that’s all. Do you know anything about this Chinese situation?”

  Jerry considered it briefly, and then admitted he knew almost nothing except what he’d caught on the television news while flipping through the channels looking for sporting events. He seldom read the paper, limiting himself to the sports page or occasionally an interesting headline. “Why, what’s up?”

  “Oh, no reason. Just making conversation. Is Barbara picking Pete up from the Amtrak Station today?”

  “Yeah, in between her classes.”

  Pete, Walter and Sarah’s other son, was a computer science major at The University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Walter had never earned a degree himself, working his way to the top with elbow grease and common sense, but at Los Alamos he’d worked with some of the United States’ brightest and most distinguished scientists and he was very proud that his son was going to graduate from college with a degree in a scientific field.

  Jerry and Pete were as different as two brothers could be. Jerry was twenty-six years old, with light brown hair and hazel eyes, and a stocky build, while Pete was slender, more athletic looking, his hair much darker, and he had inherited his mother’s blue eyes. Pete, three years younger than Jerry, often kidded his brother that if he were any shorter and wider, wandering canines seeking a place to relieve themselves would have found him irresistible. Pete stood three inches taller than Jerry at six feet. Jerry was a hard worker, and being his father’s business partner was his idea of an ideal career. He’d married young, directly out of high school, and he and Barbara had a son, Jeremy, now seven years old. A good-natured man, Jerry didn’t have a lot of ambition, but no one could deny he was a happy man. Pete, on the other hand, had more ambitious plans; a high tech field, living in an exciting, fast paced city, working in systems analysis, or for a major software company. He loved his family but had no intention of living his life in what he perceived as a small backwater town like Las Vegas, New Mexico.

  After receiving the package this morning Walter was pleased that Pete was coming home between the summer session and the fall semester.

  Fifteen minutes later, Walter pulled into the driveway adjacent to his shop and parked alongside the commercial building that housed his appliance repair business. Telling Jerry to go on ahead he retrieved the package from behind the seat where he’d stashed it, put it in his toolbox, and followed his son into the shop.

  Rebuilt washers and dryers sat behind the front window, visible from the sidewalk that passed by the store front. Their prices were posted above them on the windows along with advertisements that offered low-interest rate financing and “great deals.” The store was filled with hoses and PVC parts. On one wall stood a rack of heater and air conditioner filters. A counter with a cash register ran parallel to the back wall. Walter passed through the store, through the work shop, and into the attached house where his wife and son were coordinating the day’s activities. Sarah’s hands were full of work orders and she was briefing Jerry on the preliminary jobs for the day.

  “Mrs. Talbot needs her washer fixed right away. She says she has four kids, and the laundry is multiplying and crawling out of the laundry basket, threatening to bury them all.”

  Jerry, smiled, “They always need everything fixed right away,” he told her as he reached for the work order. “Dad, you don’t look so good. I’ll check it out to see if I can repair it on-site, and if not, I’ll bring it in. Bye Mom.” He plucked the keys from his father’s outstretched hand, and headed back through the shop to the truck.

  Sarah looked concerned. “Walter?” She placed her hand on his forehead. “Jerry says you’re sick. Are you okay?” Walter pulled back from her hand and took out the package to show to his wife. “I told him I’m fine. You know the guy that was looking for me this morning? He gave me this.” He extended the letter for her to read, poured himself a cup of coffee and leaned back against the kitchen counter to watch her reaction.

  Sarah’s eyes widened as she read the letter. “Do you think it’s a joke?”

  “I haven’t the foggiest idea, but I guess it doesn’t matter. If it is, we can ignore it. If it isn’t, we can put it in the closet and forget about it - until it goes off that is. I guess we can worry about it then.”

  He thought about it for a minute. “You know Sarah, I think it might be real. Remember the job Fred Peterman offered me a few years ago? He was working on some big government project somewhere within a hundred miles of here. Wouldn’t give me much information, but said it had one of the most sophisticated environmental systems he’d ever seen. I turned it down because it was a yearlong job and I didn’t want to neglect the business. It could have been the facility in the letter. Makes you kind of nervous though, doesn’t it?”

  “It scares me to death.”

  “I’m glad Pete’s coming home,” he told her. “I think we should get the boys together and discuss it. It’s kind of like discussing your burial plans; you hope you never need the information but everyone should be informed just in case.”

  He watched her fondly as she moved around the kitchen fixing his breakfast. She’d had health problems when they were young, but a change in climate, moving from Atlanta to New Mexico, had alleviated her asthma symptoms and they’d stayed and raised their family. The boys grew up in Los Alamos, hunting and fishing in the mountains surrounding the town, while their father worked for the Nuclear Laboratory. Retiring at fifty, when Jerry was a senior in high school and Pete was still a freshman, Walter had moved his family to Las Vegas, a small town in the high plains east of the Sangre de Cristo Mountain Range. He had friends from Los Alamos that had retired here as well and Sarah knew their wives. He didn’t want to live by any big city and Las Vegas had the weather Sarah needed.

  Sarah had gained some weight over the years but at fifty-four she was in good health. She colored her graying hair to a honey blonde shade making her feel and look much younger. Acting as secretary to the business, she did all the paperwork, took job orders, did payroll and even the accounting. Their lives had been good, but Walter worried about a gathering storm on the horizon. After finishing his breakfast, he went into the shop to b
egin the day’s work, feeling powerless to stop it.

  August 19, 11:05 a.m.

  Washington, D.C.

  Will and Mark were cleared by White House security, after having been thoroughly scanned by metal detectors, and they were furnished ID badges before being escorted to the meeting by Secret Service men. The meeting had already begun and grim countenances turned in their direction as they took the two empty seats at the twenty-foot-long conference table. Glancing around the room, Mark knew the problem was, indeed, very serious. The President of the United States, his National Security Advisor, members of his cabinet, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a few Senators and several civilian defense contractors were all present. He recognized representatives from Lockheed-Martin, McDonnell-Douglas, Rockwell and Northrup-Grumman among others. He saw Will nod across the table at his old friend, Secretary of State Chuck Hansen.

  Robert Stearns, the Secretary of Defense, paused in mid-sentence and nodded in their direction, “Glad you could get here so quickly, Hargraves, we’ve just begun.” He stood in front of a 70 inch T.V. screen showing a map of the South Pacific. Stearns was sweating, although the room seemed comfortable to Mark.

  Stearns continued, “You already know of the nuclear weapons test conducted by the Chinese yesterday. What you probably don’t know is that, without a doubt, the blasts were the most powerful ever detonated.” He took a drink of water as he waited for the murmurs to subside. “More powerful than anything the U.S. or any other nuclear power has yet developed. KH-12 satellite photos indicate multiple devices were detonated, with each warhead yielding approximately 60 megatons.”

  “Mr. Secretary?” One of the civilian defense contractors, waved a hand in the air. “Just how big is that?”

  Stearns briefly glanced at his notes, “Back In 1952 the U.S. tested the first Hydrogen Bomb, code named ‘Mike’, with a first ever yield in the megaton range. Contrast that to the relatively puny yields of “Little Boy” and “Fat Man,” the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which measured in the low kiloton range. Then in 1954, at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands, we conducted an atmospheric, hydrogen bomb test that, at the time, produced the largest yield ever at fifteen megatons. “Castle Bravo,” as they called it, a lithium-deuteride fuelled H-bomb, had a fireball over 4 miles across and turned out to be even more powerful than anyone anticipated. Test crews in bunkers well outside the expected limits of its effects still received large amounts of radiation, and the explosion threatened ships they thought were way beyond the boundary of the danger zone.