Last War

by Vincent Heck

  The truck stopped. A man got out. Czyra’s nerves began to heighten once more. The dizzy feel restarted in its beginning stage. He listened.

  “Let me see some I.D.” a man’s scratchy voice said. After some quiet time, the man continued, “What do you have in here?”

  A man with a more alto toned voice responded, “Woodchips for the playground.”

  A latch behind the truck opened. Czyra heard a few chips fall onto the ground. The hollow metal door creeked and banged back closed, again. “He’s good. In and out, make it fast.”

  Czyra’s anxiety intensified as the truck swung into a 90 degree turn before backing up. The back up beep was right over his head and piercing his ears. He brought his hands up to cover his ears just as the back hatch of the gate unlatched letting a good ten percent of the chips leak onto fresh soil on a park.

  From there, the entire bed of the truck began to tilt. Czyra remained curled up in a ball as the woodchips in front of him picked up steam and barreled into an avalanche sliding him down the chips. He heard a man shout “Whoa, wait, I’m not back there yet.” Through all the machine sounds of the truck dumping and the chips sliding.

  It was too late. With wood stabbing into his back and scraping up his skin from the back of his neck down to his heel, he was buried in a large pile of woodchips that never seemed to end piling on top of him.

  The noise continued as the truck banged against itself trying to unload the straggling pieces of wood left in the back.

  “OK. I think we’re done here. That’s it. Let’s make it before they come harass us.”

  The truck lowered its dumpster, the hatch re-latched and the truck drove off and Czyra remained buried with minimum to no movement of his entire body. He had limited oxygen, and it was pitch-black.

  Now what?

  His anxiety had never settled from before the dumping—in fact, it had increased. Where is Jason? He thought. There was no message in his contacts or audio in his ear. With no room to move, his dizziness began to overwhelm him. The fumes of the chips and the lack of oxygen felt impossible. At his own risk, he opened his mouth as wide as he possibly could to mouth in as many chips as possible.

  That gave him a bit more wiggle room for his head. After wiggling his head and shoulders around, the chips began to fall and loosen above him.

  A slither of daylight peeked through; he was deep under the pile, but close to an edge. He squirmed, kicked, and finally got his right arm loose enough to reach out side of the pile in order to put forth a single-armed effort to dig himself out of the woodpile.

  Soon, thereafter, the side of the pile collapsed dumping him down the side and rolling him onto the fresh playground dirt.

  Exhausted, scraped, scratched, injured and miserable, Czyra didn’t want to do the task anymore. He vowed that as soon as he were to see Jason, he was turning the mission immediately over to him—whether Jason was under surveillance or not.

  He rested on his back for one minute before noticing that he was looking up at the back of a tall building.

  There was a sign at the top that required him to stand up to read. So, he struggled to his feet. At the top of the cream-colored exterior building sat a large concrete sign. “B”.

  He had, in fact, made it onto the Brendenhall Hotel property.

  He was in the back of the building in a park surrounded by a gate. As he walked around the huge pile, he saw the door wide open.

  A tall, skinny, clean-shaven faced man in a suit walked out.

  “Sir, are you OK?” The man asked.

  “Yeah. I’ll be OK. I had a mishap with the guys who dropped of these woodchips not to long ago.”

  “Who was the company? The normal?” The man asked.

  “Oscar and Sons. The usual.”

  “Oh, OK. Are you sure you’re going to be alright?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Are you the maintenance on duty? I was told to look for you. We have a problem in one of our conference rooms. The sound’s not working for the main auditorium.”

  “Yeah. I’m the janitor and maintenance. Sure.”

  “OK. I’ll show you where the problem is.”

  

  Bowie, MD

  Christine had awakened early to begin her very elementary effort in searching for Jason. Her first stop was going to be the local library. She needed to do as much research on government and politics as possible. She had always heard of very strange mysteries surrounding the government, but she had never dealt with personal mysteries as big as this one.

  She pulled books on the DHS and the NSA. She searched the internet for a few news stories and the commentary on them, and printed them out. She wanted to try to piece everything together, herself. Thirty minutes into her search, Clareese called.

  “Girl, where are you? You’re up to no good, aren’t you?”

  “I’m at the library.”

  “Oh, you’re a bookhead, now?” Clareese laughed.

  “No. I’ve gotta learn about…” Christine thought about the fact that she may be being tracked. “What are you doing, today?”

  “Oh, lord. Why?”

  “I could use your help.”

  “You’re going to get me into more trouble, aren’t you?”

  “I might be getting myself into trouble.”

  “So clever. You know I can’t let you go alone.” Clareese sighed. “Alright. Let me get myself together. I should probably wear sneakers, huh?”

  “No. Six inch stilettos.”

  “Good bye, fool. I’ll see you in an hour.”

  

  Brendenhall Hotel

  Czyra was led to a room which appeared to had been occupied not too long ago.

  “So, we’re thinking the problem may be here in the control room?” The man said leading Czyra into the room.

  “Were you guys in here before going out to the main auditorium?”

  “Yeah. We were.”

  “OK. Um.” Czyra thought hard. He was stumped. He had no intuition telling him what to do next. He didn’t want to ask where the panel was, or which panel to look at. He just stood in an empty room with no clue as to his next move. He walked up to the wall and began knocking on it.

  “Um. What are you doing?” The man asked.

  “Sometimes there’s a rodent in the walls disrupting things.”

  “Really? Even the best chain of hotels in the world have rodent issues, huh? Wait until I get on Mr. Brendenhall about that.” The man laughed.

  “Don’t tell him I told you. He may get mad.”

  “So, what does knocking do?”

  “It scares them.” Czyra said moving along the wall looking for some sort of passage way.

  “You know,” the man interrupted. “the control panel is over there in that small quiet room. You’re not looking for that, are you? Are you new.”

  Czyra laughed. “Nah. I’m not looking for that. Although, I am slightly new. But, yeah, I know. I was just checking some of the other things.”

  A man walked into the room and gazed directly into Czyra’s eyes. Czyra knew the man. He was a guy who Czyra harassed driving into most of these meetings outside of the gates with a bullhorn every year.

  The man stormed into the room. “How did you get in here, crazy man?”

  Czyra’s skin tightened. “What do you mean? I work here.”

  “Did you let him in here?” The guy asked the small fair skinned man.

  “Well, I – he’s a janitor.”

  “Janitor my—go get security.”

  “Sir, truthfully. I work here. My name is Czyra, and I’m just trying to make an honest living.”

  Within minutes security, Michael, Wilford Mince and Mr. Brendenhall entered the room.

  Mr. Brendenhall laughed. “Well, would you look at what the cat drug in!” He walked closer to Czyra. “So you call yourself breaking in here, huh?” Mr. Brendenhall calmly asked while moseying over to Czyra. “You must really hate fingers – and your life. What is it you have against f
ingers, boy? I mean, what is so important to you, that you keep weaseling your way into these hotels. What is it you’re looking for, son?”

  “I’m not looking for anything but a bug in your equipment.”

  Mr. Brendenhall laughed. “Ha! A bug, huh? A bug is what got into our equipment. Of all the times you’ve tried to get into our meetings, we’ve caught you. Now, you want to tell me that you’re an employee here? Just like your good ol’ girl was, too. Hey, you ever find her?” Brendenhall laughed again. “A bug. I’ll tell you what, son. I can’t make up my mind as to how smart, or dumb, it is to kill you or not. I’m gonna guess because you’re here on this property that it’s not that smart at the moment. So, here’s what I’m going to do: I’m gonna go send one of these security guards to find an employee, and the company roster. If things don’t add up, I’m going to kill you, anyway, son. Right now. I’m going to kill you.”

  Mr. Brendenhall motioned to a security guard. “What I need is paper; a paper document of this hotel’s work roster. And along the way grab one of the maids.”

  He looked back at Czyra. “Man-O-Man. I’ve gotcha now. The thing is: The people you’re trying to save, are not savable. They’re like fish in the water. Everything we do here at these meetings create the water-like environment they live in. But, like fish, they’re unaware of the water. You can try to tell them all you want – but, the bottom line is, we control the volume, temperature, and the contents of the water. Look who I’ve got here, son. This is Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Michael Young. That, over there, is governor, and 2008 presidential candidate, Wilford Mince. Out there in that auditorium, is every and anybody else it would take to tear you – conspiracy theorist, Czyra whatever-your-last-name-is – down.”

  The security guard walked back into the room with a maid and a few leaflets of papers.

  The maid was trembling. Her sheepish squirm gave evidence to an uncomfortable vibe.

  “Let’s ask her, first. Cause I know you’re not on this list. And once she says what she has to say, we can just save ourselves the headache. Bring her here.”

  The security guard very subtly jerked her arm, leading her to Mr. Brendenhall. He looked through the records.

  “Miss. Yugerway’s your name, right? You’re the maid on duty. Look at this man.” Mr. Brendenhall said. “Has he been working here since you’ve been here?” He asked.

  She looked Cyzra deep in her dark-brown eyes. Very silent she looked back at Mr. Brendenhall. “No.” she said in a strong foreign accent.

  “Thank you that’s all I needed. Take him away.”

  As security began to ambush him the lady called out, “Las mon.”

  Czyra yelled out, “Wait! She said something.” Everyone calmed down.

  She said again. “Las mon. I work tree mon. Him one. I see him las mon.”

  Mr. Brendenhall flipped through his papers to see Miss. Yugerway had indeed only been there for three months. As he flipped back a few pages he saw Czyra Michaels’ name. Next to it, it indicated that he had one month of work put in at the hotel.

  “Who let him work here? Who could have dared to…”

  Czrya stood tall. “I tried to tell you. After you folks sent me my cease and desist, I did just that.”

  “Get her out of here.” Mr. Brendenhall said. “Go get doctor Layer, tell him we’ve got a subject in here.” He looked at Czyra and smiled. “I’ve got something for you. Strap him down, fellas.”

  The security guards grabbed a hold of Czyra’s small frame and pinned him to a chair. The guards burly bodies rested all of their force against Czyra to the point where he couldn’t move. As they strapped him in, a doctor walked in the room tightening acrylic gloves to his hand before disappearing out of Czyra’s view behind him. Cyzra’s kicking and screaming continued for another ten minutes before he was met with a sudden powerful sting in the top of his right arm. He looked over to see the doctor holding something in his hand that he couldn’t make out. It was half-rounded and hollow. The doctor put it into what looked to be a sterile box.

  Czyra’s vision began to fade.

  

  XXVII

  Bowie Library

  6:30p.m.

  With the Evening sun setting in through the library windows, Clareese and Christine had pulled any file they thought could be important to what she needed to find Jason.

  She felt the most important part of their research was the unresolved cases surrounding 9/11 and the people involved.

  “So, what are we going to do?” Clareese asked. “Look up every single one of these people and ask them questions?”

  “If that’s what it takes.”

  “There are probably 20 mysterious deaths tied to 9/11 here. Then, after that, look, we have… one, two,… three or four dozen more deaths that aren’t listed as mysterious but tied to 9/11 some time after the date. Then we have hundreds of other indirect—“

  “Look, Clare, we’ll start with the 20 people. OK? Cause likely there will be a connection. I see one name here already that I know for sure is connected. Tameka Washington. She worked under him. Any decisions he made, she was a part of the team on the assembly line, so-to-speak, making it happen. I sat next to him when the news announced her death, and he was clueless. After that, I never saw him again. He sent me a text telling me not to go home, and then that was it.”

  “I remember that. That was a few years back. So, then why do we have all these other people’s names and newspaper stories?”

  “Cause, Clare, if it gets ugly, they’re going to cut us off from everything. In the case that that happens, we’ll already have a library of names and stories to thumb through.”

  “Ah. You’re a regular detective, aren’t you?”

  “I do a lil sum’n sum’n. Let’s get back to your place and start looking for this woman Tameka and see what we can find.”

  

  Clinched to the side of a mostly flat wall, Czyra searched for a place to grab. The hard, dusty, wall in front of him only gave him enough space to stick the tip of his fingers in a crevice to gain some leverage.

  With only limited space to find for his feet, it became clearer that he was running out of places to latch onto. Hand by hand, foot by foot he continued to try.

  Where am I? He thought to himself. Why am I climbing?

  He heard a cry out from below him. When he looked down, he was on the wall of a large cliff. He looked up, and he was almost at the plateau. He heard his name, again.

  Without a clue to how he reached that point on the wall, he became afraid. A dizzy spell swathed him. He felt a slight disturbance at the bottom of his stomach sure to erupt into full-blown nausea any moment.

  His arms and legs were weak. He had no more juice left. The people on the ground looked as if they were cleaning a disaster area of some sort. Without a harness, if he were to let go, he’d only plunge to his death, making more of a mess for them to clean up.

  Dead bodies covered the ground below him. He couldn’t make out where he was, but it appeared as if they were in the void of the Grand Canyon. He looked to see who he recognized, and couldn’t make anyone out.

  Then he heard Jason’s voice calling him. Frenziedly, he looked. Jason sounded close – almost right in front of him. “Jason! Where are you?”

  He heard nothing in return. “I’ve been trying to reach you. They got me.”

  With an urgency he looked for a place to grab, despite being tired. “Get me down from here, Jason.”

  “Where are you?” Jason asked.

  “I’m up here, where are you?”

  “I’m right in front of your face. You’re looking right at me.”

  Czyra looked in front of him. “I only see a stone wall.”

  His foot gave way, and slipped from underneath of him. Suddenly, he couldn’t hold his other foot firm and that let loose, too. Hanging there only by the grace of his arm and finger strength, he was about ready to die.

  His hands burned through th
e numbness just before slipping off of the rock sending Czyra to a swirling plunge towards the ground. There was no way he was going to make it to the ground without a heart attack.

  Czyra blacked out.

  Pitch-black.

  The first sense that returned to Czyra was a spinning sensation; as if he were laying in the middle of a mary-go-round flat on his back.

  “Czyra.” He heard. “You still can hear me, or no?”

  With his heart racing through his chest, awareness began to bleed back into his consciousness. The initial bit of light that entered Czyra’s eyes hurt. It was too much. Everything was blurry and loud. “Where am I?”

  “Well, partner, you’re in a roadside ditch, left for dead.”