by Greg Curtis
The air force for their part never wanted the public to find out that a military jet had been stolen let alone used against a U.S. citizen. They were calling it an accidental downing, and the twenty three people who’d died on the base had apparently been caught in a freak explosion. No one at all spoke about the deaths at the secret research facility and prison where Dimock had been held for the last six years. It didn’t even exist. Though the whisper from those DOD agents that might know something was that hundreds had died, their bodies entombed in a top secret fallout shelter in Area 51, never to be retrieved. Dimock had decided to use nerve gas on them. Where he’d got it from no one knew, but the results were as predictable as they were tragic.
Far from being upset with David the army examined his set up with interest. They weren’t happy at how he’d obtained the weaponry, especially when it looked like they might have paid for some of it themselves, but they were still interested to find out how it had performed. Meanwhile the local Feds were trying to pin at least two dozen murders of their own on Dimock, and in the process also trying to understand how anybody could be so dangerous. Or so psychotic.
To get to David, Dimock had stolen cars, cash, and food from any number of premises, been chased by police across five states, engaged in numerous gun battles, and generally enjoyed himself immensely. Hundreds had died. On the way he'd broken in to the Government’s highest security financial bureau to find out where David's pension was paid to, and fifty four more people had died there even before he’d reached the army base, and they were mostly civilians. Worse, they had been killed in a manner that defied both belief and possibility. The savagery was something they’d only ever encountered once before, and that man was long since dead, executed in a joint naval, army and CIA operation, while the strength involved in the crimes made superman look puny. The Feds had the right to investigate though the other agencies were determined to stop them.
At the same time the FBI was putting some of the fingerprints they’d managed to smuggle from the various crime scenes together with the records for one dead teenager, also a mass murderer, though no superman. They smelled a rat, and with fifteen dead state troopers at two road blocks in two states to deal with and another thirty nine dead civilians across the country, they had the mandate to pursue it and the determination. They wanted answers. Answers they believed would start with him.
The Feds knew though they couldn’t prove it, that it had something to do with the other agencies, and were busy probing, hard. Moreover, what they couldn’t find out themselves, they leaked to the media, hoping the embarrassment would force the other agencies into a confession. David didn’t actually have to answer any of their questions. In fact he wasn’t allowed to. Instead other agents given the job of tailing them simply seemed to turn up out of the blue every time they approached him, and gave them their pat lines. David just agreed with them which was as much as he was allowed to do.
Meanwhile questions in Washington were also flying back and forth as to why the CIA could possibly be involved in activities on US soil? Why was the DOD trying to take charge in a civilian matter and refusing to allow the Feds access to witnesses and crime scenes? How had the army managed to let one of its fighters be stolen? Unfortunately their questions were getting no answers and the agencies stayed.
The CIA and Army for their part were more concerned with ascertaining how David had got the launcher and the gas, while at the same time desperately trying to prevent the Feds finding out what they wanted to know. Thus they’d launched a major offensive on the Feds at every level. They were lobbying the joint chiefs and the political offices frantically, hiding David from them at every opportunity, and even resorting to a dirty tricks campaign against their investigators. The DOD was especially determined in the last. But then some of the doctors and research programmes that had made Dimock so deadly were theirs.
It was amazing how many of the FBI's cars and computers had simply stopped working, and how often their investigators were abducted in the middle of the night, and abandoned in the most remote locations imaginable. And as to the physical evidence, it kept disappearing as quickly as it was collected.
In such auspicious company, the local and state police barely got a look in. They manned the road blocks and got short shrift from everybody. Yet they were the ones most affected, having lost over a dozen of their colleagues to the madman. They too wanted answers, and their lawyers were having a field day with the Governor who was naturally enough, being told nothing. He was too far down the food chain even if he didn’t know it.
Meanwhile, trackers by the score were out trying to find any trace of Dimock in the valleys twenty miles north, but the carefully laid tracks always ended up taking them nowhere. But at least they found tracks, and some of Dimock’s blood which had been carefully sprinkled around. Every time they found some more, they sent back the happy news and everybody would wait nervously, hoping for a body. But it never came.
In the meantime, the DOD, armed services and CIA had together settled on a typical cover story. They claimed that a maverick pilot having accidentally crashed his plane had gotten lost, and despite an extensive rescue mission, was currently believed missing or dead. Debris from the stricken jet had caused extensive damage to a local house. His neighbours of course, got a slightly more complete version, running a little closer to what he’d told the agents. They also got a stiff warning not to mention anything about air battles or stolen jets or face spending the rest of their lives in jail. They in turn however, didn’t tell the agents about the Leinians. It seemed only fair.
For his trouble David got to spend a week in hospital, recovering from wounds he’d had to get specifically put back in by the Leinians. They’d even put back the bullets into his leg. Better that than finding them missing on an x-ray. It was something the doctors had objected to strenuously, but in the end he’d convinced them they had no choice. And it worked out well. The wounds the Leinians put back in him healed faster and more cleanly than would real ones. The bullets too, while close to where they had been originally, this time didn’t interfere with his movement at all. He looked crippled but wasn’t.
On being discharged from the hospital he got three more weeks of accommodation in the town’s most comfortable motel, which coincidentally happened to be its most private. No-one would admit who was paying the bill, which was par for the course. But then no-one had admitted to making the phone call warning him either. He even managed to get an agreement to pay for the costs of repairing his home. Or rather, he asked everybody, got no answer as he should have expected, and then one day simply found the extra money in his accounts. Over three hundred thousand dollars of it. No one of course was ever going to own up to that either but he wouldn’t complain. After all his actual insurance would only extend as far as normal building construction, not armour plate.
His main regret was that he had to spend so long apart from Cyrea, though sometimes she still managed to call him. They couldn’t say much knowing the phone was bugged, but at least they could talk, and the agency was happy with the explanation that she was only a casual love interest and a teacher living out of state most of the year but spending her holidays with him. That was the sort of relationship they expected of a man in his line of work, even after he’d retired. Casual, discreet and relatively impersonal.
By the end of a month the bulk of the agents had left town in defeat and he was officially allowed to return to what remained of his home. It was a heart breaking return.
As he’d known the house had taken a hammering, with several walls broken almost in two, and large chunks of the roof having collapsed. The logs, which formed the structural frame of the house, had for the most part become little more than kindling. Internal supporting walls had failed, and nearly everything he owned inside it had been destroyed. From the outside it looked like a tornado had struck it, but the inside was worse. Fire had consumed the lounge, kitchen and decks, and his underground escape tunnel had collapsed. But as h
e had intended to build another with a new exit, that at least wasn’t too sad.
It was a strange thing for him to realise. When he’d moved in and first had the house rebuilt to his specifications, he’d thought of it as just a safe house similar to hundreds all over the world. It was neither too showy nor too run down. It wasn’t architecturally proud, nor exceptionally box like. In short it was as nondescript a house as he could find but one in which he could create secret rooms and hidden exits and which also had good lines of sight for mounting a solid defence. A house with zero targeting ability.
But over the years it had changed. His house had slowly been transformed into a home and he hadn’t even noticed. Then again, he’d never stayed in any single place as long as he had here. He hadn’t realized how much his cottage had come to mean to him, until he saw it in ruins. But in that moment he understood everything that it was, and all that he’d lost.
It made him angry at first. Angry at Dimock of course, not just for stabbing him, and trying to destroy his life, but for violating his home. It made him sad too, as he saw his house and his life in ruins. But eventually it made him determined to rebuild. Probably he should have moved, changed his name and vanished from public view. Then he could have found a new place somewhere else, and begun the painful job of turning it into another fortress. It was the correct thing to do for an agent who had been exposed. But even if it wasn’t for the fact that he wanted to remain close to Cyrea, he didn’t want a new home. Right or wrong, his house was his home and his castle and he was determined it would be again.
With his bank accounts suddenly flooded with new money from an unidentified source, he started hiring contractors to begin the painstaking process of rebuilding it. This time though, having seen Dimock’s former approach and having the money, he upgraded the metal in the walls to five layer armour plate and had it once more resin bonded to the logs. It was expensive, but he wasn’t paying for it, and the more money and effort he spent the more the agents believed he was still concerned about Dimock returning someday, which added weight to his tale of a missing but not confirmed dead superman.
Besides, even though he knew, or at least hoped that Dimock wouldn’t be returning any time soon, there were others to worry about. None in his league thankfully as Dimock was unique, but they were still dangerous. The armour would also give the house better insulation and storm protection. Actually it should even survive a direct strike from a tornado.
Having had his tree mounted defence posts taken down with extreme prejudice and been threatened with prosecution by the Feds if he ever did something so reckless again, he added in four mini-gun stations in the four corners of the house, each spaced just above the ceiling in the roof space, and with the newest high speed servos and full 270 degree coverage. He didn’t actually have the mini-guns, but the agents didn’t know that and they assumed he either had them or knew where to get some. Naturally they said nothing lest they upset the Feds. Besides, on the remote chance that Dimock had survived, a mini-gun was probably the best way to slow him down and they knew that.
On impulse he also decided to add an extra room and en suite. He’d wanted a fourth bedroom for ages as the gym and the office had taken up the two spare ones, but until then he hadn’t been willing to part with the cash for one. Now he had the money spare and the opportunity to do it without having to alter the house as it was already being completely rebuilt, and he took it. No-one he guessed would complain and he was right. Nor did they mind the furnace he had installed in the remains of his basement. Winter in these northern latitudes was bitter and even the sub floor insulation he’d installed had been barely enough with the fire going. Now some under floor heating and good thick carpet would help keep his toes warm in the morning.
The agents had stared at him as they’d watched the plans being drawn up and then the parts being moved in, wondering if he’d truly lost it. After all, the location of the house was now public knowledge, and Dimock knew where he lived. Its ability to conceal him was lost. But they said nothing, probably realizing it would be futile. Though they had to admit that while its previous defences had proved strong, perhaps when it was finished if and when Dimock returned, it would be the fortress they needed to kill him. Besides, while he stayed there, they knew where Dimock would go if and when he was able. David was the perfect bait.
David spent the days, watching the slow rebuild like a hawk, speaking with the agents as they called daily with their interminable questions, and resetting his cameras and stocking up more guns. It added to his credibility, and gave him something to do. The FBI was of course completely opposed to his doing any such thing, especially when he didn’t own all of the surrounding land, but they said nothing. Someone high up he guessed, had spoken to their bosses again, and he had become off limits to them. They didn’t even object while he carried around a machine gun or two, complete with armour piercing clips. After all, the army and other agents were all equally well armed. In fact they had started carrying heavy artillery of their own, and the Feds were doubtless wondering why.
At night he set up camp in what remained of his bedroom, and dreamed of Cyrea, waiting for the time when they could be together again. But sadly they both knew it would be a while. He was still being followed or guarded, depending on one’s perspective, by at least three agencies. The FBI were determined to interrogate him about Dimock, the CIA and the DOD were even more determined to prevent him from saying anything to them, and all three were secretly worried that the madman might return. The army of course thought it was all a waste of time, but just in case Dimock did return they kept a couple of trackers on him as well.
And so it continued for the better part of a second month and then into a third. He watched them as they scouted the area, and was in turn spied upon. Meanwhile his neighbours who he rarely saw, discovered the joys of living in a police state, and complained long and loud. Of course they were told it was for their own good, even if they weren’t all told why. The few times David did manage to run into them, he couldn’t help but feel it was his fault they were prisoners in their own land. They were always polite of course, but it didn’t help.
The Leinians themselves, were still in hiding. With so many agents about they had no choice but to retreat to their ship and wait it out. That had significantly greater consequences for the local community then David would have expected. It was as though everyone had suddenly started suffering from depression.
Business in the town was slow to say the least. There were no paying visitors any more other than the press who kept poking their noses into everything. And they quickly vanished when the stories dried up. Then of course, hunting, fishing and tramping had also been hit hard, as the agencies had stopped all movement through the woods. The agency people having all brought their own support chose not to spend a dime locally.
It seemed another large chunk of the local economy had vanished with the visitors. The Leinians had been pumping in money for computers and various research projects for years and had been paying the locals for their time and services with precious metals and some cash. They’d opened up the old gold mine, using a couple of locals as a front, and then manufactured the gold themselves, giving themselves some liquid capital. But the gold mining was also off for the while. There was no transport either in or out and the locals who had become their front, weren’t allowed to return to the mine.
The end result was that Redwood Falls was doing a slow starve. Shops were slowly emptying of produce, the tour guides without cabins had set up a semi-permanent camping ground just out of town where they could live for free, motels were shutting down and laying off staff, and even the taverns were becoming quiet.
To add insult to injury the Feds had imposed a curfew on the town, effectively closing down the only tavern and both theatres. After nine at night the place resembled a ghost town, with only a few soldiers patrolling the streets. The army of course, brought its own entertainment.
Worst of all was that the entire tow
n knew one way or another that it was his fault. That Dimock had come because of him. As had the legion of agents, the police state, and the general depression. He couldn’t walk the street without feeling the weight of their accusing stares, and retreated to the remains of his house for day after day.
For the longest time David thought he would never get out of his mess. That he would spend his life in this police state.
Then someone, somewhere in a fit of genius, must have come up with a plan.
The first he knew of it was when one morning while out walking, he watched his posse of agents suddenly vanish, leaving him alone for the first time in weeks. That was a first; they never left him completely alone. Not when there were curious Feds around who he had to be protected from. He knew from the way they held their ear pieces closely, and then whispered frantically among themselves, that whatever it was they were being told, it was important. But typically they told him nothing, He realized it was even more important from the speed with which they left, and the number of helicopters he watched flying overhead that morning. None of them he noticed, came to see him.
