by Jon Land
More shock crossed Kristen’s features. “You mean you aren’t even sure they’re coming?”
“Afraid not.”
Blaine’s mind flashed back to the second phone call he had made the day before from Bota Matabu’s ANC substation thirty minutes from Whiteland.
“You’re fuckin’ nuts, man!” the voice on the other end of the line had responded to Blaine’s request.
“That doesn’t change the fact that you might be the country’s last hope.”
A hearty laugh broke a brief silence. “Country’s last hope? Ain’t that a trip … . Shit, maybe I’ll just sit on the sidelines and enjoy the show.”
“You won’t like what’s left when it’s over. Nightmare city for everything you’ve always stood for and believed in. And need I remind you that you owe me?”
“You had to bring that up, didn’t you?”
“You missed your chance twenty-five years ago. Today’s your lucky day: you get another one—by helping to stop a group aiming to accomplish the exact opposite.”
“Anybody ever tell you the age of Aquarius was over, Mac?”
“More than that’s gonna be over unless I get some help.”
Immediately after that phone call ended, McCracken had begun plotting how he and Kristen could return to the United States. Aware the Delphi would be watching for him, he had turned down Matabu’s offer to spirit them into the country covertly on board a diplomatic flight. Instead Blaine opted for an arduous journey linking Kristen and him up with a tour group in London bound for New York and then, finally, onto this Metroliner that would take them to the capital. In all, the trek had taken a nerve-racking twenty-seven hours, partially accounting for Kristen’s short temper.
“What about the damn army?” she persisted. “All your old friends. Isn’t this their kind of work?”
“It would be if I knew who among them I could trust,” Blaine told her. “You’re forgetting that high levels of the military are involved in this. And you can bet that anyone close enough to Washington to do us any good who isn’t part of the Delphi has been sent off on drills and maneuvers as far away as possible.”
Kristen leaned back herself and sighed. “They’ve thought of everything.”
“Not quite,” McCracken reminded.
McCracken had the driver leave them off on Constitution Avenue near the Lincoln Memorial. The beautiful spring Saturday had brought the tourists out in force, none of them realizing what the city would be facing in a scant few hours. The Mall itself was littered with strollers. A few young men were playing Frisbee. At the Washington Monument, the line to make the climb to the top circled the building three times.
As Kristen moved past it at Blaine’s side, her gaze drifted all the way down the Mall to the U.S. Capitol. At first she thought the group McCracken had contacted had failed to show up. Then she noticed the large cluster of casually dressed men and women who were setting up some sort of exhibition past 14th Street in front of the Smithsonian complex. She looked back at McCracken and saw a smile inching across his features.
“It’s them, isn’t it?” she said.
His response was to pick up his pace as he walked toward the group. A thinnish man sporting a ponytail and a tie-dyed tank top over his cutoff jeans saw them coming and moved away from the group to meet them, a slight limp slowing his gait.
“Not bad,” Blaine greeted.
“Hey, man, ask and you shall receive,” Arlo Cleese returned.
Blaine turned to Kristen. “I don’t suppose I have to introduce you.”
She took a long look at Cleese and then gazed back at McCracken. “But you could explain to me why a man who declared war on America a generation ago is now going to try and save it.”
“Thing is, lady,” the leader of the Midnight Riders responded, “the enemy I was fighting then’s about the same one I came here to fight today. Not much really changes.”
Behind Cleese the Midnight Riders who had accompanied him to Washington continued unloading paintings and other wares from a collection of colorfully painted Volkswagen vans onto tables that had been set up to display them. Old-fashioned peace signs dangled round a number of necks. Leather moccasins and Jerry Garcia glasses were among the most popular accessories.
Most of those helping to unload the vans, though, were dressed nondescriptly and wore no accessories at all. They moved cautiously, deliberately, not bothering to acknowledge the arrival of these two strangers in the group while never allowing their eyes to stray too far away from them. Kristen managed to meet those eyes a few times and the sight chilled her. These were the true remnants of the lunatic fringe, dwellers on society’s outskirts for the better part of their lives. The eclectic verse of the Weathermen, Black Panthers, and Students for a Democratic Society still strummed in their minds. It was as though they had stepped out of a time capsule to at last stand ready for the battle so long delayed, the battle they had joined the Midnight Riders to wage. The difference was that they had come to save the government they had once seemed determined to overthrow.
“How many?” Blaine asked Cleese.
“Couple hundred was the best I could do.”
“I was hoping for more,” he said.
“Lucky to get this many, man.”
“Firepower?”
“None of the big stuff. Lots of explosives, grenades, a few rockets. A goddamn insurgency grab bag. See, all our vans come equipped with secret compartments. Plenty of room to store goodies.”
“The stuff you bought from the Alvarezes?”
“What we could carry, anyway. You didn’t exactly give me a lot of notice.”
“I don’t believe this,” Kristen muttered.
“Tough bitch,” Cleese said to McCracken.
“I don’t think she approves of my choice in friends.”
Cleese again glanced at Kristen. “Maybe because she figures we’d rather see the country go up in flames.”
“The thought had crossed my mind,” Kristen shot back.
“Depends on who’s about to throw the match, sister. If we’re the lunatic fringe, what do you call the dudes who are about to burn the city? Everything’s relative, and we’re not the real crazies anymore. Hell, we never were, not to this extent, anyway. We never wanted to take the country over. We just wanted to make sure the people who already had it took note of our positions. We mighta been wrong and we mighta been assholes, but we believed in what we were doing. We were just sick of watching the country fuck itself up, and today makes it seem like we were right all along.”
Cleese peeled away a section of hair on the right side of his head to reveal a nasty scar. “Got this outside the ‘68 convention in Chicago. Cop with a billy club. I was on my knees at the time. He was smiling. That’s the kind of mentality that’s gonna be running things come morning ’less something gets done. I won’t lie and say we haven’t talked about doing it ourselves more times than once. Saving the country from that cop with the billy club’s probably gonna be the closest we ever come. What the hell? That’s close enough.”
“What’s it mean, big fella?” Sal Belamo asked after the contact exchange he and Johnny Wareagle had been issued to report their progress rang unanswered.
They had been at it for nearly two days now, scouring an ever-expanding perimeter around Miravo Air Force Base in search of the Delphi’s stockpile of nuclear weapons. The helicopter they had been provided with had allowed them to cover lots of ground, all for naught so far. A refueling stop at this small airfield bright and early Saturday morning gave Johnny a perfect opportunity to call in a fresh update to the special number provided. The lack of response on the other end in Washington indicated the worst had happened, or was about to.
“You thinking the two of us should call it quits and head home, big fella?”
“No, Sal Belamo. Finding the nuclear weapons remains our task. The rest is Blainey’s.”
They hurried across the tarmac and climbed back on board the chopper.
“B
ad news,” the pilot, Tom Wainwright, reported, looking up from his gauges. “Got one mother of a storm whipping up through the Rockies. Blizzard conditions sure to take effect within an hour right where we’re headed.”
“The next airfield is forty minutes away,” said Wareagle. “Just get us that far.”
The storm had thrown a thin blanket of snow over the airfield by the time they got there. In another few minutes, Wainwright told them, the winds would have made landing impossible.
“You boys don’t mind, I’d like to be on my way.”
“Your job’s not finished yet,” Johnny said to the pilot as Sal climbed out of the chopper to see about the vehicle that should be waiting for them. “I have a message you must deliver.”
Tom Wainwright looked back at Johnny. “To Washington?”
“No,” said Wareagle and gave him a sheet of paper. “Arizona.”
Wainwright studied the coordinates printed on the top. “Take me forever to get to these in a chopper.”
Johnny pointed to a trio of Learjets parked just off the tarmac. “One of those has been held for our use in case we need it. When you reach the coordinates, give the man in charge this.” And he handed Wainwright an envelope containing two pages of the clearest writing he could manage during the choppy flight to this field.
“Are you sure they’ll let me land?”
“Use the designation underneath the coordinates.”
Wainwright’s eyes widened as he scanned down the page. “What the …” He looked up at Wareagle. “I was over there, too. This designation is twenty-five years old.”
“That’s why they’ll let you land.”
By the time Sal Belamo drove onto the tarmac in a four-wheel drive GMC Jimmy, Wainwright was already heading for the Lears.
“What now?” Sal asked through the window.
The coating of powdery snow on Johnny’s shoulders and hair enhanced the copper color of his skin. “We move southwest toward the mountains we haven’t checked yet.”
Belamo sighed, eyes turning to find the blizzard had already chewed into the sky as far as he could see in that direction. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”
Colorado Boy Scout Troop 116 was in the midst of a wilderness retreat in the Rockies when the storm began its sweep. The sudden twenty-degree drop in temperature had stirred a number of them in their sleeping bags, so many were awake by the time the first flakes started falling.
At first the surprise spring storm was fun. Snowball fights in the half-light that starts an hour before dawn were the stuff that great stories were made of. It was not long, though, before the boys’ laughs gave way to chills and whimpers. The bitter wind froze the thin layers of sweat that had formed over their faces and hands. Only a few had brought gloves, and the rest were steadfastly jamming their fingers deep into their jacket pockets to no avail.
The scout leader, Frank Richter, an ex-marine, assessed the situation as calmly as he could. He knew the storm was going to be a big one from the first snap of the wind. He also knew that unless he was able to do something fast, some of his young charges would not be making it back alive. Richter tried the radio he never failed to carry on a retreat. As he had expected, though, the storm had stolen whatever small hope he held of making contact this far out of range. That made his immediate goal getting back into radio range at the same time he looked for shelter for the scouts.
The storm’s fury had swept over them like a blanket by the time Richter packed the radio safely away. He ordered the boys to wrap their sleeping bags about their shoulders for added warmth and leave everything else that wasn’t vital to their immediate survival behind. Busying themselves with carrying out orders, the boys managed to hold fast to their sense of calm, but Richter could spot the fear starting to show in their eyes as he moved up the line.
The scouts of Troop 116 were between the ages of twelve and fifteen. Once they set out, Richter knew his place was at the head of the pack, leaving the rear precariously unsupervised, which meant that one or more of his eighteen charges could simply slip away to be taken by the storm. Accordingly, the last orders he shouted through the howling winds were for the boys to pull the tie cords out of their sleeping bags. Richter collected and strung them together, then pushed the resulting single strand through a belt loop on each of his scouts’ pants before setting out.
The quickest route to shelter was to the southwest. But walking into the thick of the storm was unthinkable under the circumstances. Richter knew Troop 116’s best hope was to move northeast to keep the wind at their backs.
The storm seemed not to care which direction they set out in. Its swirling winds battered the scouts without letup. A quarter mile into the trek, Richter felt like an ox pulling a plow, nothing but dead weight behind him. He pressed on down a trail that had become nothing more than an extension of the vast white veil coating the Rockies. He couldn’t see more than a few yards ahead of him. His own hands and feet were starting to numb.
Richter gritted his teeth and pushed himself on, forcing the blood into his weary, stiffening muscles. Minutes later he looked up and realized he could no longer see the mountain peaks surrounding them. Beneath him, though, the trail had widened and flattened out, vaguely familiar again.
Familiar enough to make Richter stop suddenly.
The sheer edge of a cliff loomed not more than a yard ahead of him. A straight drop to a white death for all the boys if he had taken another two steps. The precipice was almost invisible from this vantage point.
They were on a road! A swirling, wide path that curled its way down the mountain!
If they followed it they would eventually find shelter. He shouted encouragement to the boys and told those in front to pass the word along.
Only a short time later he spotted what looked like a vast black hole in the side of the mountain just to the right of the road. From Richter’s knowledge of the terrain he believed it might be the entrance to an abandoned silver mine, one of the big ones that was more like a man-made cave.
Frank Richter led Troop 116 into the cavern and ordered the boys to assemble camp as best they could with what they had managed to bring with them. Two of the older boys were sent with flashlights to explore the mine’s reaches. Richter set up his radio.
“This is two-niner-bingo,” he said into the mike. “Does anyone read me? … This is two-niner-bingo. Does anyone copy? … I am reporting a mayday. Is anyone out there? Over.”
Richter eased off on the microphone and prayed for a voice to filter through the static.
Nothing.
“This is two-niner-bingo,” he repeated. “I have a scout troop marooned in the storm. If anyone can hear me, please acknowledge. If there’s anyone out there, please acknowledge. Over.”
Again only static.
“Frank,” called one of the older boys he’d sent exploring.
Richter halfheartedly turned away from the radio.
“There’s something you’d better take a look at.”
“Think we can drive them out?” one of the boys asked as Richter stood before the pair of heavy transport trucks.
The scouts who’d checked the back reaches of the mine had found them covered by dark tarpaulins they had yanked off to expose the trucks’ cabs. Richter’s final years with the marines had been spent in the shipping and receiving department at a base in Germany. He’d seen trucks like this before, which was all the more reason why their presence here boggled his mind.
What in the hell were they?
“Frank,” another boy called, but Richter had already moved between the trucks and squeezed behind the rear of the one on the left.
“Stay back,” Richter told him and pulled off the tarp covering the cargo door. The door was unlocked and Richter had little trouble sliding it upward. He shined his flashlight inside the hold.
“Oh my God,” he muttered, eyes bulging. His beam had illuminated more than a dozen olive green fiberglass containers, all five by four feet in size. Richter
didn’t have to read the bold printing on their sides and top to know what they contained.
“Frank, what is it? Frank?” one of the boys called to him after he charged past them.
They trailed him back to the front of the mine where Richter returned to the radio. His hand trembling, he retrieved the microphone.
“This is two-niner-bingo,” he said, rushed and desperate now. “Someone please answer. Someone please come in. Mayday … Mayday … Mayday … Over.”
Again Richter pulled his hand from the button. The static returned. His eyes gazed back toward the rear of the mine.
“Two-niner-bingo,” a splintered voice said through the static.
“I read you! Who is this? Over.”
The reply couldn’t break through the garble this time.
“Say again. I did not copy that. Over.”
More garble answered his call. He waited until the static was all that was left before returning to his microphone.
“All right. I’m assuming you can hear me better than I can hear you. I’m trapped in an abandoned silver mine with a scout troop somewhere in the mountains between Weaver and Kendall Gap. We need a rescue party.” Richter stole a gaze back at the hopeful young charges hovering over him, then spoke again with his voice lowered. “And there’s something else. We found something in the mine.”
Still not believing it himself, Richter managed to report that the two concealed trucks were loaded with nuclear warheads before a sudden screaming amongst the kids made him turn. He caught a brief glimpse of something dark and shiny whistling his way and felt the smack against his skull before oblivion took him.
The voice started to fade shortly after giving its location, and Duncan Farlowe pressed his ear right against his shortwave radio’s speaker to better hear it. A sudden scream followed by a thud signaled the end of the transmission and jolted Farlowe enough to make him yank his head away. As he soothed his twisted neck with one hand, the sheriff of Grand Mesa wasn’t thinking of the scream at all; he was thinking of what he heard the speaker claim he had seen in a pair of trucks.
