The Stranded Ones

by Jay B. Gaskill

“Since I last saw Liz Hoopes? Almost exactly twelve years. I wasn’t sure she was still alive. Now we have a secret dinner date in Quebec province.” The Rolls was now completely out of sight of the road, rolling on dry pavement. Just ahead in the howling whiteness, an indistinct gray shape began to reveal itself.

  “That about sums it up.” Tall, curtained windows, glowing with yellow light, seemed at first to float far away in the swirling snow, then acquired solidity as the surface of Gael’s lodge emerged around them.

  “I was remembering when I first met Finnegan Gael,” Springer said. “He sought me out to work for him after my own ‘retirement’. I passed.” Barely visible, the distant silhouette of a woman moved behind one of the curtains.

  “Who is that?” Hugh asked.

  “Finnegan’s lady, Ruth…one great gal.”

  “Oh. I remember her,” Hugh said. “I actually took a college course from Professor Rosenbaum once. Had a real crush.”

  Inside the residence, Finnegan Gael’s wife of fifteen years, Dr. Ruth Rosenbaum, was pacing in front of a full screen intercom.

  “I don’t like it at all.” Jack Falstaff’s deep voice boomed from a wall speaker. His face on the intercom screen had just gone into that icy calm reserved for emergencies. Ruth could tell he was gravely worried.

  “How in God’s name could they have traced Liz here?”

  “It doesn’t matter, Ruth, because it seems that they may have done it. Where is Finnegan?”

  “He’s in back, taking a SatCall from Jay Robertson about our vulnerability here.”

  “I say that Robertson will agree with me.”

  “Robertson always agrees with you, Jack. What should I tell our guests?”

  “No reason to alarm them, yet, Ruth. But I will power up our ‘taxi’ right now.”

  “Is that really necessary?”

  “If I don’t initiate the pre-launch sequence, we could be caught without time and no escape plan ‘B’.”

  “I’ll let Finnegan know as soon as he’s off the call.”

  “Tell him it is just a precaution. And I promise to be back inside the lodge, hands washed, in time for supper.”

  “Can you just leave it like that?”

  “Of course. Everything is automated.”

  “Oh, oh. I see the delivery car coming.” Ruth pushed aside the curtains.

  “Have Finnegan call me.”

  Ruth glanced back at the intercom screen. “Sure,” she said with a wave.

  “Yes. That’s Ruth,” Hugh said, peering ahead at the tiny shape moving across the curtained window.

  “I met her a few years after you did, I think,” Lew said, “but I’ve seen her more recently. Don’t know how that salty old sonnofa gun ever attracted such a smart, independent woman.”

  “Well, she must think the world of him,” Hugh said. “They’ve been together for last fifteen years.”

  “I’ll bet Finnegan has cherished every one.”

  “She earned her Doctorate in biology when you were still in high school,” Lew said.

  “Hey, check out Toad Hall over there.”

  “You’re talking about Finnegan’s lodge?”

  “Yes. Apparently that’s Ruth’s name for it. The rustic look is deceptive.”

  “And you know this, how?”

  “I was briefed yesterday.”

  “By Jay Robertson or Donald Wu?”

  “Robertson,” Hugh said.

  “I miss everything while I’m fleeing the law. Is Colonel Jay Robertson Gael’s full time security head now?”

  “So I‘m told. It’s a large operation by itself. Now, see those bleached exterior logs? They are split cedar. But underneath, a steel framework.”

  “It’s a regular bunker, then?”

  “Exactly…The grounds are surrounded by a two-meter deep moat. There’s a concrete perimeter fence.”

  “It looks bloody cold out there, Hugh. How long is the walk?”

  “Just pretend we’re back in Chicago.”

  “And I’ll pretend I have a coat.”

  “Here,” Hugh said, tossing Springer’s oversized parka over the seat.

  McCahan guided the Zephyr onto a heated concrete pad in a separate covered parking area far to the left of lodge’s main entrance. He shut down the Rolls. The whir of the heater died and a deep chill swiftly filled the car. “Ready?” Hugh asked. Springer had pulled the parka around his shoulders, his arms wrapped inside. He nodded and Hugh pushed open the door.

  The temperature had fallen ten degrees during the drive. “Just like home,” Lew said shivering. Wind groaned through the struts and beams of the parking structure. The area was an oasis in a maelstrom, lit by a single, flickering overhead lamp.

  Hugh grabbed his own parka and pushed the door the rest of the way open. He began to shiver even before he was able to slide his arms in. “What are you waiting for, Lew?”

  “Spring!” Hugh fastened Springer’s parka at the chest.

  By the time Hugh and Lew had exited the comparative shelter of the parking structure, the car’s lights had winked out along with the overhead lamp in the parking structure, leaving them in deep shadow. This left almost nothing to betray the building’s presence to passing aircraft and precious little to guide Finnegan Gael’s guests. They stood in almost-complete darkness, their faces freezing, the lodge entrance several minutes away on foot in a swirling blizzard.

  “Maybe I should go back to the car for a torch,” Lew said. Before Hugh could reply, parallel lines of twinkling lights appeared in the snow ahead, outlining the meandering path to the lodge. “On second thought…”

  The lights kept winking out behind them as they walked. The twinkling path led to a narrow, snow-crusted footbridge. The wind died for a moment. As they stepped on the bridge, the dry crunch of shoes in the snow and the crack of wood underneath them were the only sounds as the two men crossed in darkness. On the other side, the windows along the high wall of the lodge glowed faintly ahead. Hugh continued cautiously along a narrow strip of steaming pavement that led across the yard to the edge of the building. “Lew, can you see where you are walking?” he asked.

  “In case you didn’t notice, I’m right behind you.”

  A dark, partly covered porch abutted the side of the building near the curtained windows. The wind had resumed howling. The steps to the porch were outlined in glowing red piping. Hugh climbed, Lew following.

  After a beat, a single overhead porch light began to glow faintly. Hugh brushed snow from his parka and stamped his feet. Lew shook his parka with his free hand. Both remained standing in front of a pair of tall oak doors for the required thirty seconds while hidden scanners inside verified identity. Then both doors slid aside on silent tracks. Bright yellow light and a rush of warm air followed. The breeze from inside the lodge carrying the smell of a wood fire touched their faces, then it blew past them into the blizzard.

  CHAPTER TEN - DINNER WITH FRIENDS

  Toad Hall - Quebec Province

  “So come out of the cold, dears,” Ruth Rosenbaum said, smiling. She stood silhouetted in the doorway, arms outstretched. Tall, dark haired and slender, Ruth was still more than pretty in late middle age. But her intelligent face and ice blue eyes betrayed a sense of crisis barely under control.

  “Trouble, Ruth?” Hugh grinned as he stepped over the threshold. “Don’t try to deny it. I can see it in your face.”

  “Lew! Get in here. The sight of Hugh’s face does that to me every time.”

  “Invokes panic, right?” Lew cracked.

  Ruth chuckled, hugging Hugh; then she turned to Lew.

  “Careful, Ruth,” Hugh warned. “The spy is injured.”

  “Lew is what? Lew Springer! You hurt yourself shaving your mustache?”

  Grinning, Lew stepped inside and gave Ruth a crushing hug with his good arm. “Necessity of disguise,” he said.

  “Some disguise,” Ruth said, holding the large man by his lapels. “It is true, then, you are actually injured?”
>
  “Stitched up in my shoulder and my leg, ma’am.”

  A clot of wet snow clung to Springer’s back, having fallen from the narrow porch roof. “Okay, big guy. I guess it was your turn after Hugh’s last operation.” Ruth said.

  “What operation?” Hugh asked.

  “You know, the one where you had your conscience removed.”

  “That was just chemotherapy following brain damage.”

  “He had no conscience to begin with!” Springer snorted.

  “I stand corrected. Inside, both of you.” Ruth stepped aside, brushing the snow from Springer’s back. “There are refreshments in the den,” she added. “And somebody else who just came in from the cold.”

  “Isn’t that sociopath, McCahan, there yet? And where is my man, Springer?” Jack Falstaff’s voice was booming from a speaker.

  “You never call. You never write,” Springer shouted back.

  “I learned all my manners from you!” Hugh shouted.

  “Lew Springer! You are there. And my best student, Hugh, as well! Be still my heart!”

  “Where in the bloody hell are you hiding, Jack?” Springer looked around the entryway for the speaker.

  “I’m playing with Finnegan’s new toy,” Falstaff replied.

  “Don’t break it!” Hugh said.

  “I’ll leave you two in Ruth’s gentle hands, then. I must tend to business. See you boys at dinner.”

  As the outer doors smacked shut, Springer shook off his parka, taking care with his sore shoulder. “How long has it been since you and Finnegan have been able to use this place?” he asked Ruth.

  “Since Thanksgiving last year. We make it twice a year at the most. If we’re lucky.”

  “So what is the trouble?” Hugh pressed.

  Ruth just shook her head and led the two men down a carpeted hallway. “Finnegan burned the roast.”

  Hugh harrumphed at that; then he paused while Lew studied a painting of a Manhattan scene on the wall. “Somethin’ is up, Hugh,” Lew whispered as Ruth looked back at the two.

  “Come on gentlemen! ‘Wheels’ will show you to the den.” Ruth pointed to her “KPU” – Wheels. The squat household robot, Ruth’s Kay Pee Unit, waiting next to her, was configured as a rolling tray-table. “I need to make some calls.”

  “So how can we help?” Hugh asked.

  “Just act like the guests that you are.” Ruth said over her shoulder, retreating to the other end of the lodge. “The former Australian PM was napping when I last checked. She’ll be out presently.”

  “Ruth, really, what is going on?” Hugh asked.

  “We’re making evil plans,” she said, smiling sweetly. “Now your job is to make yourselves at home and stay out of the way. Finnegan is still talking to Robertson about some new security concerns. We’re trying to work the problem from here. And if Jack Falstaff ever comes in from the…garage…he’ll join you for drinks and explain the whole situation.”

  “Can I help at all?” Hugh offered.

  “Give it a rest. You two stay out of trouble. Off to the den, okay?”

  “Okay, okay,” Hugh replied with mock weariness. He patted the Kay Pee Unit on its cowling.

  “What do we have to do to get a cup of Irish coffee?”

  “In the home of Finnegan J. Gael, you ask?” the robot replied. “Follow this happy serving unit, sirs, and Wheels will take care of you.”

  After the two men left the anteroom, Finnegan Gael emerged from the back and hugged Ruth.

  “How is Mother Liz doing?” Ruth asked.

  “Still sound asleep.”

  “What did Jay have to say?” Ruth asked.

  “He is in complete agreement with Jack Falstaff, damn it. There are some unidentified assets nearby, just hovering, like Dobermans on a leash. We need to be ready to evacuate.”

  “Where exactly are they?”

  “Somewhere in Quebec.”

  “Wonderful. So we are to get out of here posthaste?”

  “We can’t just call this off and send everyone home. Not in this weather.”

  Out of earshot of that conversation, Wheels was leading Springer and McCahan to a den. It was all leather and pine, a “man’s room” Hugh might have thought had he not known Ruth’s taste. The centerpiece was a pyre of burning hardwood logs, resting in a circular stone fireplace that rose a meter from the floor. The fire noisily discharged into a bell shaped copper alloy flu that converted the flame and smoke into a system of heat exchangers and scrubbers installed out of sight above the four meter high ceiling.

  Hugh stopped, staring in admiration. “According to Jay Robertson, not a trace of smoke, not a detectable trace of excess heat betrays this building to the outside world.”

  Lew walked over to a giant spruce tree, decorated with twinkling red, green, and white lights, old fashioned tinsel and delicately etched, antique glass balls, dominating the far wall. Behind the tree, between the partly opened curtains and framed in a leaded glass window, several long icicles glimmered faintly as the warm interior light leaked outside.

  Hugh joined Springer at the tree while Wheels waited near the fireplace.

  “That was two Irish coffees,” Lew said.

  “Right away,” Wheels replied.

  On top of a pile of brightly wrapped presents, a small box bore a bright blue tag. Lew turned it over in his hand. In Rachel’s handwriting, it read:

  “To Finnegan, my favorite pagan:

  Happy Hanukah.

  I love you. Ru…”

  “Have you actually met Dr. Delaney?” Springer asked Hugh.

  “Not yet. Finnegan only told me that an expert by the name Sam Delaney, a physician-biologist with an unusual research background, has been working for him as a private consultant on various projects for about a year. And that Delaney has also worked for Jack Falstaff.”

  “Really.”

  “Evidently Falstaff first recruited Dr. Delaney from the US National Security Agency when the professor was doing some government contract work for them while on sabbatical from Columbia.”

  “So why is Dr. Delaney here?” Lew asked.

  “And you? And me?” Hugh asked rhetorically.

  “The Antarctic anomaly, the missiles, Warehouse 25, Prime Minister Liz Hoopes… All to be tied together with a bright ribbon.”

  “Speaking of Mother Liz,” Hugh said. “Where has the Prime Minster been hiding?”

  “Not from us I hope. Hugh, I think I’ll to poke around a bit. Keep my drink warm.”

  While Lew was gone, Hugh noticed a long parson’s table wedged behind an easy chair in front of the fireplace. A pile of folders and papers on the table seemed to have been recently disturbed. Hugh walked over and began browsing. Eventually, he began organizing several of the files and periodicals into neat piles. Then he noticed a research paper stamped with the Gael-Falstaff Enterprises logo, the signature, S. Delaney, and the data source. Stamped across the top of the file was the word “SECRET” in bold red type.

  “Your Irish coffees are ready in the kitchen,” Wheels said. Its voice was now a husky contralto disconcertingly like Ruth’s. The serving robot vanished through an exit on the other side of the fire. Hugh tossed the two damp parkas on a stool near the fire, pulled the first file that had interested him and sank into the worn leather easy chair.

  “Preliminary Analysis of Warehouse 25 Archive (McCahan/Springer; 12/13); S. Delaney.” My, my, was this is fast, Hugh thought…the data were just transmitted. He looked up. Wheels had returned with a tray containing crackers, Canadian cheddar and two steaming mugs.

  “Where is the other gentleman?”

  “You can leave his drink right here.”

  “Very good. Dr. Delaney will be out in a few minutes.”

  “Thank you,” Hugh said absently, lifting the mugs from the tray. As the robot exited the room again, he thought he caught a flicker of movement from behind the fire, but his attention remained fixed on the file in his lap.

  When McCahan finally looked up,
his hand jerked involuntarily, spilling hot Irish coffee on his leg. A very large representative of the great cat family stood between Hugh and the fireplace. The cheetah cocked its sleek head, regarding Hugh with predatory interest.

  “Jesus!” Hugh McCahan sputtered. The cheetah was standing so close that Hugh could feel the cat’s breath on his face. Alarm and curiosity hung in delicate equipoise. Then he noticed the characteristic type two markings on the cheetah’s flanks. Genetic-enhanced cat. Pet. Safe. Hugh suppressed the “alarm” impulse. “So…smell blood, do you?” Hugh took an unnaturally large sip of his remaining Irish coffee.

  Apparently satisfied, the big cat then rearranged itself at Hugh’s feet, and began purring in harmony with the thrum of the copper flu over the fireplace. McCahan twitched; then he carefully patted the big cat on its neck.

  Finally, he took a deep breath and resumed perusing the folders, leafing through preliminary background information, until he arrived at an appended five-page analysis. It was also by Dr. Delaney and subtitled, “The Antarctic Correlation: Suppressed Intelligence Report 2435”.

  “I see Schrödinger has found you.” Hugh looked up. A striking woman, probably in her late thirties, with intelligent features, sandy hair and penetrating green eyes stood next to the cheetah, scratching it behind one ear.

  “You don’t need get up,” she said, smiling. “I’m Samantha Delaney,” she added, holding out her hand.

  Hugh McCahan took the woman’s hand, briefly puzzled. “Hello…” he said. “Schrödinger, of course…the cat…It’s been a long day. I had just gotten to your analysis. I’m Hugh, Hugh McCahan,” he said, releasing Samantha’s slim hand.

  “Ah, you are the ‘source,’” she said.

  “Our firm, at least. My partner, Lew Springer, did the heavy lifting. Have you met?”

  “Only by reputation…” Samantha Delaney smiled warmly. “My friends call me Sam.”

  “Sam” leaned lightly against the rock fireplace and brushed a loose strand of hair from her high forehead. She was medium height and well proportioned. She wore old jeans and a loose fitting white turtleneck. Sam Delaney had one of those rare faces that violated conventional notions of classic female beauty while inviting an immediate redefinition of standards.