Jacob's Trouble 666

by Terry James

  Disappearance! Something massaged his memory, creating a need to know that would grip his mind in a tightening vise until he remembered. He had heard something about a massive disappearance of people. Of course! The prophecy told him by Hugo Marchek at Marchek's home that night the old man was murdered. The night, rather the early morning, that he and Karen almost died.

  How did it go? He strained to remember the eschatologist's words, but they wouldn't come. It would have to wait. Now, there were more pressing worries. But he would keep the promise he made that night when they had their discussion about good and evil, and the end of the world. He must get himself a Bible.

  The radio! Why hadn’t he thought of it before? He pulled to the side of Pennsylvania Avenue, stopped, and switched on the car's radio. The roadblock was coming up too quickly; he must find time to think, to plan. He twisted the dial knob, hearing nothing but static and piercing emergency tones.

  The Unified Radio Operations Keeper, UROK. Yet another idiotic acronym in this town of idiotic acronyms. Number 6 on the dial. The system, intended to reassure in time of national emergency, was instituted less than two years earlier by an act of Congress. At this point, he needed reassurance, he thought, continuing to tune until the radio's lighted indicator touched the number 600.

  "...theorize that a cosmic disturbance, not unlike what some scientists believe might have caused the end of the age of dinosaurs, might have recurred. And, the Russian allied disaster could have been an earlier part of what happened an hour ago. A sort of universal, astrophysical phenomenon which periodically takes place, in terms of millions of years. Somehow acting upon the subatomic structure of certain organic matter, disrupting cellular cohesion and causing that matter to literally fly apart, and, in effect, appear to vanish.

  "There has been, though it is not commonly known, a great deal of study given to such a theory over the past several decades."

  The accented voice, obviously a scientist being interviewed, calmly put forward the conjecture. Jacob's attention was jerked from the radio by a huge commercial jet, which descended, as if it were making a normal landing. But, in the middle of the city!

  He closed his eyes, imagining what it must be like for the person trying to put the plane down in the only relatively clear area available. The pilot, most likely gone. Vanished in the catastrophe. Other members of the flight team capable of handling the craft, too — no longer there. Someone must have taken over; tried to land the big jet. What must the person's thoughts have been, when the huge, white obelisk suddenly loomed in front of him and he knew it was his and the others' last seconds of life?

  "The Vice President has things well in hand. So there is no need to worry about who is in charge of the government."

  The President! Jacob turned up the volume, then tried to get rid of the static by manipulating the tuning knob.

  "The last I saw of the President, he walked out of the Oval Office and into Miss Kelly's office. I'd been alone with him, sitting in a side chair by his desk. I didn't know anything was wrong."

  Jacob recognized the southern drawl as belonging to Senator James Waldon Bernett of Mississippi.

  "I finally walked out to Miss Kelly's office, and about that time, Len Masters, the President's appointments secretary, came bustin' in and said 'everybody was disappearing"

  The President - Gone!

  He looked down at the cuff linking him to the attaché case, remembering the words of the operative who instructed him in Core Chamber Z-391. "Give the case only to the President." But soon another man might be President. No — He recalled the operative's exact words: "Remember, Mr. Zen, only President Farley is to receive this material. Absolutely no one else."

  Now the attaché case — its contents--were solely his responsibility. He had to keep those trying to kill him from getting it. And, he must get into the material himself in order to find out what he was dealing with.

  The thoughts hammered at him: Avoid the roadblocks...Stay away from people until he had time to digest the materials...Find Karen. He had to find Karen.

  Chapter 10

  Avoiding the roadblock bottleneck where Pennsylvania Avenue intersected Independence had been no problem, but finding another car was not so easy. He was practiced enough now, however, that the thievery no longer pricked his conscience, and he cerebrally separated himself from the looters who were, according to radio reports, ravaging the city. His only concern was that police or military squads might stop him and take action before he had a chance to explain his circumstance.

  He wanted to, but could not, stop to help the people scattered along the Mall — smoothing the guilt-feeling with the thought that no one could have lived through the impact and fire. Still, the mind-picture would not go away. The large, in-tact portion of fuselage lying between the long reflecting pool, the blackened, badly-damaged Washington Monument, and Constitution Avenue. He fought to clear his mind of the grisly scene while he drove at high speed southwestward along the 120 cutoff. Taking the alternate through Franklin Park, then to McLean would, he hoped, lessen the chance of contact with those trying to maintain order — and with those intent on doing him in, who would likely be staking out the more heavily used expressways.

  The Ford sedan he appropriated on Connecticut near DuPont Circle, after the long roadblock-circumventing jog/walk from where he left the Pontiac, should be unobtrusive enough to let him get close to Stone Oaks unnoticed; he appeared to be just another confused, frantic commuter trying to get home. And, there were a hundred mini-disasters to divert attention from him. His chances for slipping into McLean, then onto the grounds of the estate, seemed good. His heart pulsed more quickly with anticipation the closer he got to the old mansion and to Karen. If not to Karen, then to those at the bottom of the strange Holophone call and her inexplicable change of mood from fear when he talked with her from Brussels to total lack of concern during the one-sided Naxos call. If she had been harmed —maybe killed — he, too, was in danger. Not only from those chasing him for the materials in the attaché case, but from the ones who apparently infested Stone Oaks.

  Were they one and the same? Or two opposing ideologies of equal virulence, each seeking power, probably more voracious than ever now as they rushed to fill the vacuum created by the disappearance of many leaders around the world, and by the removal of the Russian and other megalomaniacs as a force with which to contend.

  No matter. If Karen was dead, he didn't want to go on. But until he knew about her, knew for sure what he faced, he would not throw off all restraints of caution. He would take time to survey his problem.

  The radio told much of the story while he made his way from D.C. to McLean. Although most capitals of the West were spared their top leaderships, the United States, Great Britain and Spain were not; all suffered losses of leadership at lesser levels of government. The people, of course, were not told everything, probably not even the truth, concerning how deeply the governing institutions were affected. What was the truth? He sensed the answers lay very close.

  Stone Oaks, the only home he could remember, for the first time in his life sat alien and forbidding in the blackness of the Virginia night. His wish was to drive to the guard hut and say hello to Bill Roark, who would smile and push the button that would swing open the gates, like all other times when he was a teenager coming home from a night's carousing.

  Again the instinct — unsubstantiated, psyche-clutching forewarning. Bill Roark had been dead for five years. The gate hut manned since by uniformed guards from a private security company, except when Conrad Wilson was in residence, at which time they were supplemented with Treasury agents. Instinct--his most reliable innate ally —popped the drag chute of his urge to go to the gate as if nothing had changed.

  Had his enemies been affected by the phenomenon? Maybe they, themselves, had fallen victims to whatever had happened. Instinct again told him differently. The old house, hulking darkly in the middle of the sprawling acreage, seemed to shout to him — like a friend
caught in the sucking death of quicksand might scream — warning him to stay clear, at the same time desperately needing, wanting rescue.

  There was a way into the grounds not even Conrad Wilson or the groundskeepers knew about. It was in an area not covered by electronic security contraptions, only by the dogs that patrolled on a half-hourly schedule. That is, if things remained the same. How much they had changed, there was no way of knowing. Was the effort worth the risk? Yes! And more than that, the risk was imperative.

  He pulled the sedan to the curb beneath a huge oak on the front lawn of the old Georgian-style home. Years ago, it had belonged to Lester V. Framington, then Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, the father of Joey Framington, Jacob's best friend. Now the home was vacant, awaiting the next in a succession of bureaucratic families to live in it since Joey moved away. Joey... Jacob found himself smiling, remembering the ears that stood out from the face of fair, generously-freckled skin. The red hair which, even when the boy was dressed for Mass that he was regularly forced to attend, was as unruly as when the two of them waded the creeks and mudwallows of their favorite haunts.

  Now Joey was gone, a victim of an undistinguished skirmish in some forgotten African war. Gone, too, those carefree times when they roamed the neighborhood and beyond. They had explored every intriguing inch, including the one way into Stone Oaks, that would now give him a chance to slip in undetected. The old Framington-Zen Subway was the answer — if it were still passable.

  He moved the Ford into high weeds beneath heavy shrubbery on the alley side of Joey's house, an area still flanked by an open field. The sedan could not be seen from the street. Slipping from behind the wheel, he quietly closed the door, then moved to the back of the car and opened the trunk, taking from it a wedge-ended tire iron. As quietly as possible, he closed the trunk-lid, trying to remember the exact spot where he and Joey entered their secret passageway.

  The darkness would ensure that his movements remained covert while he pried open the cast-iron cover of the manhole 20 feet west of the tall, now unmanicured hedge. He searched the unkempt ground, spreading the thigh-high, yellowed grass with his hands, feeling for the grooved cover recessed in three inches of concrete.

  There! Now to use the tire iron, spade end first, as a lever between the lid and the concrete encasement. Done! He slid the heavy disc until it fell, propped against the concrete and ground, then thumbed the wheel of his cigarette lighter and held the flame inside the black cavity.

  He shivered at the thought of what he might encounter along the storm drain during his blind trip beneath the street separating Joe's house from the grounds of Stone Oaks. The prospect would, in earlier times, have delighted the fearless friends, whose last names the subway was privileged to bear. Jacob wished for Joey now, while slithering through the opening, then dropping to the cement below.

  He held the lighter at half-arm's length, bending his head and shoulder uncomfortably while walking crouched. The flame flickered from a sudden breeze and died. When he rolled the wheel with his thumb, there was one spark, then nothing; the flint was gone. He pulled the case from the guts of the lighter and searched the cotton with his index finger for a new flint and cursed, not finding one.

  Now he would have to feel his way with his feet. Several steps farther along he tripped over something and fell to his knees, instinctively protecting the attaché case from banging against the floor and sides of the drain. His calf burned from the exertion, then the pain dulled and stopped. He felt with his fingertips to see if the skin, nicked by the ground, was bleeding again.

  Scrambling, clawing noises made him forget the wound. Rats! The squealing screams grew louder. He felt the rodents bump and scratch against his hands and legs before he could get to his feet, banging his head against the top of the drain in the process. He stood stiffly with his back curved against one side of the conduit, repulsed at having had contact with the creatures. The noises grew faint and he moved farther forward toward the grounds of Stone Oaks, reminding himself of what was at stake, and what he had already gone through, which made all the rats in McLean insignificant by comparison.

  His journey ended with his bumping against a solid wall of concrete. He felt with his free hand for the heavy metal grate that covered a drainage pipe one-third the circumference of the tunnel. The grating was not there, probably the victim of time. But he found the smaller pipe, and just to its left, on the ceiling of the tunnel, should be... Yes... the cast-iron manhole cover.

  Situating the attaché case so that he could push upward without bumping it, he applied steady pressure to the cover, then strained harder; no use. He would have to try and jar it loose. Its edges probably sealed with the mud of a hundred rainstorms since it was last pried open. He hit the cover with the heel of his right hand, but still it would not give. Feeling around on the floor of the tunnel with a foot, he found a broken piece of wood, which, when he picked it up and examined it, felt like part of a 2" x 4". He could use it to good advantage, but would the banging be heard by anyone passing nearby?

  He stood on his toes and pressed his right ear against the cover. He heard nothing, which meant nothing, the iron lid being three inches thick. He would have to chance it.

  Moments later, the seal that nature had put around the cover's edge broke, and when he strained with both palms against the cover, it gave way, sliding until it dropped against the ground. Jacob carefully put the case through the hole and let it slip to a resting position. He then struggled, with as little jostling as possible, through the manhole, painfully scraping his stomach and legs before sliding his body over the concrete and onto the dirt and dried twigs beneath the ten-foot-thick hedge. Thankfully, the hedge had put the manhole beyond the convenient reach of the groundskeepers and sewer crews.

  Now to sit quietly and wait until the next pass by the security men and the Dobermans. But what about the dogs? They would sense his presence. Would scent him! If so, he would dive back into the hole and be gone before the men and the dogs could fight their way through the heavy brush beneath the hedge.

  Footsteps crackled through the dried vegetation. He could hear, but not see, the guard and the animal, who began to whine and growl while they approached. The dog was obviously agitated and Jacob knew why; he edged closer to the manhole.

  "What's the matter with you, Franz?" the guard asked. Jacob heard the Doberman's low, throaty whine; the animal had his scent! He threw his left leg into the hole, but hesitated to hear the handler's words.

  "Come on, Franz! We don't have time to chase that rabbit tonight. Coffee's waiting!"

  He imagined the guard jerking the Doberman roughly, hearing the animal give a rebellious squeal.

  His nerves quieted while he listened to the guard and his charge crunch farther along the hedge. Soon they would be patrolling the far side of the estate and he would be free to make his break across the grounds and into other places only he knew about.

  He had to know how often the guards made their rounds. It used to be every 25 minutes, but that could have changed--and probably had, along with everything else. He needed to know precisely the time in order to gauge when he could safely return to the manhole when his mission was finished. The watch! Lost in some trash receptacle or being worn by someone inside Naxos. Maybe in Fredria VanHorne's purse, ready for mailing. Before he made his escape, he would find a vantage point from which to observe the guard and the Doberman while they passed by his and Joey's tunnel opening.

  Peering at the old mansion through the tangle of hedge trunks was a nightmare, like one of those slow-motion excursions through sleep-terror — so vivid at the moment of the dream that it becomes real — the natural world, the surreal. But this was no dream, because he didn't have to ask himself, as he invariably did during the dream-state, whether he was dreaming.

  He gave one more quick examination of the grounds, then squirmed his way on his stomach between the widest opening he could find. Outside the hedge, he felt naked, an easy target. He fought to control
his urge to bolt full-speed toward the cover offered by the heavy shrubbery immediately surrounding the mansion — with the calm rationalization that so long as the spotlights remained unused, the guards could see him no easier than he could see them. Besides, he had the advantage of knowing where, and approximately when they made their rounds, while they were unaware of his presence. The noise, however, that he would make galloping across the dry leaves and dead branches would grab their attention. Better to move slowly from one thick-trunked oak to another, staying low and quiet.

  After allowing time to make sure the guard and his dog were no longer a threat, Jacob crossed the expanse as planned, then hurried on hands and knees through the bushes near the house. He scanned the grounds to see if the security people had spotted him. All clear! And, he had entered the shrubbery at exactly the point he wanted, not 20 feet from the basement's western-side cellar entrance.

  There were three ways into the basement on this side of the home: a large door with steep stairs descending into the cellar; a double, metal-paneled hatchway with fewer, more shallow steps to the basement floor; and the way he and Joey always took, the way he would take now: a four-foot-square opening, covered with a hinged, metal cover over a steeply inclined chute that dropped directly into a small room.

  Few people alive, if any, knew of the opening now, because the hole was safely tucked beneath the beautiful greenery that no one had disturbed for years, except to trim. The chute's function four decades earlier had been to receive coal deliveries.

  Prying the covering open proved to be easier than he had thought; however, climbing in the opening beneath the low vegetation was more difficult, and he struggled to get into the hole. He remembered that once he and Joey dropped through it in less time than it now took to put a single adult leg into the opening.

  Jacob had not been in this part of the old mansion since he was 12, but little had changed. He felt his way in the semi-darkness, his vision aided by a low-wattage bulb burning above a fuse box on one wall. He moved quickly through the coal bin, the area housing the no longer used coal furnace. Then he passed through several small storage rooms before reaching the steps leading to the home's first floor.