SKELETON

by Peter Parkin

  CHAPTER NINE

  Brett Horton poured himself a scotch neat, and sucked it back. It stung gloriously all the way down, so much so that he poured himself another. He was sitting at his desk with his laptop on, sipping and surfing.

  Researching was something he was good at; lots of practice when he was with the Secret Service. And his friend from the DOD, Bill Charlton, probably knew that it wouldn't take long before Brett dug deep.

  Normally Brett didn't bother to dig—it wasn't his job to protect the U.S. Government any longer. Assignments were just assignments now, nothing more. As long as he got paid, he didn't care.

  However, a little voice told him this new assignment was different, much different. Because it didn't involve the usual sex scandals, trashy cover-ups, or assassinations for posture. He could kill with impunity, and he was usually perceptive enough to understand why he was given an assignment to kill. Brett knew the political maneuvering that took place in the world, he understood the game—it was simply a real-life version of the board game, 'Risk.' Killing, for him, was impersonal. However, he knew that if he were ever asked to kill someone he knew or cared about, it would be a different story. This comforted him slightly. It meant he still had some kind of conscience, some empathy.

  But this assignment just seemed to have something about it that tweaked his curiosity and his intelligence. He thought back to Bill's words: "One of the hiding places is the demented mind of an eighty-five year old woman." Wow— this was what movies were made from. Brett chuckled—maybe he'd write a screenplay depending on how this story unfolded.

  He didn't know much. Bill wasn't too forthcoming on the details, and he never was. He couldn't be. It was 'need to know.' So, Brett knew he would have to do some digging on his own to find out more. He thought to himself how out of character this was for him. But, there was just something...

  He knew this much: his target was Lucille Chambers, a former powerhouse lawyer with the Department of Defense. She had been a senior counsel there for many years, then took over as Acting Chief Counsel after the suicide of her boss, James Layton. However, it was curious that she only performed that job for one year, proceeded to remove her name from the list of candidates for permanent replacement of James, and then just retired with a full pension at the tender age of fifty. These were the scant details that Bill had shared with him—not much, but not too little either for a brain as sharp as Brett's.

  Brett had asked Bill a question that he knew he wouldn't get an answer to. But he tried anyway, didn't hurt to try. He asked, "What is it that you want me to find?"

  Bill just smiled at that, and answered, "All I can tell you is that it has to do with the Apollo moon missions. That's all I can say, and that's all you really need to know."

  Outer space! That's all Brett needed to hear to get the juices flowing in his central nervous system. Now, this was an assignment he could get excited about. Who wasn't intrigued by outer space, and in particular those heady days when every country that mattered talked about the moon, circled the moon...or went to the moon. He was only five years old when history was made: Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon, after having descended in the lunar module 'Eagle' from the command module, 'Columbia,' in the most famous space mission of all time, Apollo 11. "The Eagle has landed," words that always stirred Brett's soul. It was July 20th, 1969. A date that Brett had always wished in his childhood soul that he could have been a part of.

  And he still looked at the moon with longing. If Brett had one Achilles Heel, it was this.

  He had been at it for a few hours now, scanning information on the Internet about the various moon landings. Most of it was mundane, stuff he knew already. But once he got around to surfing the very last moon mission, Apollo 17, he realized that he didn't know very much about that one. Perhaps it was because by that time, moon landings had become so routine that he, along with everyone else in the world, just stopped paying attention. Well, he was going to pay attention now.

  Apollo 17 landed Eugene Cernan and his crew onto the surface of the moon on December 11th, 1972. They remained there until December 14th, at which time they lifted off in the lunar module, 'Challenger,' and docked with the command module, 'America.' The next day the lunar module, since it was just excess baggage and couldn't be transported back to earth anyway, was jettisoned back down to the moon. Its impact was recorded and analyzed by scientific instruments left on the surface, and Brett discovered that this process was conducted for every lunar module in all six moon landings. Each impact was recorded by the instruments, and the data relayed back to earth.

  But more than just the impact of the lunar modules was recorded, Brett was surprised to read. During missions on the moon, the astronauts used mortar packages to lob and detonate explosives on the moon's surface. Explosives on the moon? Geophones were set up on the ground and left in place even after the astronauts left for their return to earth. These geophones were used to gauge the planned explosions, and subsequent moonquakes that occurred naturally from time to time. Again, data was sent automatically back to earth.

  But that was only part of the overall elaborate system. Every single landing site that was used in the six moon landings was equipped with what were known as ALSEPs (Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Packages). These arrays had their own generators, powered by Plutonium-238. Brett made a note to research that nuclear fuel.

  So, in effect, due to the power and half-life of plutonium, these systems had the ability to basically function forever. And that seemed to be the intention. They were designed to conduct long-term studies of the lunar environment, not just moonquakes and explosive impacts, but also solar winds, volcanic activity, thermal activity—heat activity from the interior of the moon, asteroid and meteor activity, etc. Brett counted at least ten experiments that the ALSEP arrays were designed to handle and transmit to earth regularly. The sophisticated technology had been devised and perfected by Bendix Aerospace. Brett thought back to an assignment he had been asked to execute one time involving Bendix. He winced.

  He continued to read, learning more about the moon with each click of his mouse. There was information about the moon's magnetic field, and how things on the moon weigh only 16.7% of what they would weigh on earth. The moon's magnetic field was very weak, the reason being that its magnetics were generated by crustal effects as opposed to what was known as Dipolar. The earth had a Dipolar magnetic field, which meant basically that it had a large magnetic core, a geodynamo, that generated most of the earth's polarity.

  The moon, on the other hand, had a core that was far too small proportionately to generate any kind of magnetic field. So, any magnetic field detected on the moon was crustal, in other words sitting on the surface. Astronauts detected that the moon's magnetic field was strongest near crater zones—areas that had clearly been impacted by asteroids or meteors. So, it was conceivable that the moon's magnetic field was provided for totally by other space objects hitting it and leaving their residue behind.

  The moon also had a mini-magnetosphere, which provided only minimal protection from the sun's radioactivity. Whereas, the earth had a maxi-magnetosphere, giving it excellent protection from the sun's dangerous plasma discharges. Earth's magnetosphere was entirely attributable to its geodynamo.

  As Brett reflected on what he had learned, he was shocked by several things: Astronauts detonated explosives on the moon. NASA left behind operational experimental stations, which relayed data to earth right from the very first of six moon landings. Astronauts introduced plutonium to the moon and left it behind to power the stations. NASA seemed obsessed with the effects of explosions and seismic activity on the moon, so much so that they recorded the impacts of each of the lunar modules when they were cut loose to fall to the moon's surface. And, they deliberately set off explosions on the moon to record what happened hundreds of feet below the surface. And they left the equipment behind to record and relay data related to regularly occurring moonquakes. Finally, NASA seemed very int
erested in what levels of heat were being generated from deep within the moon's crust.

  Brett scrolled to the final page of the document he had been viewing. He caught his breath as he read. There was a very short note, almost a postscript, stating that all the ALSEP systems were turned off remotely from earth on September 30th, 1977. They all became 'white elephants' on that day—at every single one of the six landing sites. The reason given was "budget cuts."

  Brett wiped the sweat off his brow—it was another hot day, and sitting in front of a computer screen simply made it feel hotter.

  He pondered this last fact of the decommissioning of the ALSEPs. Budget cuts? Who was kidding who? Back in those days NASA seemed to have an unlimited budget, and it was the beginning of the age of the shuttle program. And how much ongoing expense would there have really been with simply receiving data signals from the moon? The vast majority of the expense would have already been incurred with each moon landing. The arrays were set up, the generators powered up, and...Voila! Done! Any expense after that would have been extremely minor.

  Brett leaned back and put his feet up on the desk. He smiled to himself. More government bullshit reasoning, that the public and media always seemed to just swallow—no questions asked.

  It wasn't logical to leave such expensive and sophisticated equipment dormant when it was sitting there ready to send data about one of the most important space objects, let alone the fact that it was the closest celestial body to planet earth. And why were they all shut off on the same date? And who was the 'rocket scientist' who dreamt up the idea of taking plutonium to the moon? And who was the idiot who decided to just leave it all up there? Why had man never returned to the moon after the Apollo 17 mission in 1972? Questions, lots of questions.

  And what had really happened on September 30th, 1977, that caused a complete shutdown of communication from the moon? Brett was convinced that it had nothing whatsoever to do with budget cuts.

  But could that date possibly have something to do with the mysterious 'treasure hunt' he had just been assigned by the U.S. Department of Defense?

  CHAPTER TEN

  Dennis sat on his front porch, soaking up the late afternoon sunshine. And thinking. Thinking about his father.

  He had attended many funerals throughout the years, but none were as horrifically sad as that one. His mother was a basket case that day and for weeks afterwards, and his sister, Melissa, was in a wheelchair sedated into oblivion. To this day, she still didn't remember one minute of the funeral. Probably a good thing.

  There were at least eight eulogies—Dennis had lost count after a while. He himself gave a eulogy too, but broke down after five minutes and had to be gently escorted from the podium by the kindly priest.

  The kicker was, no one knew what really happened that night. He had to agree to a cover-up for safety reasons. Safety for all of the other police officers and their families out there. Dennis bought into it. It was the right thing to do. His superiors were horrified by the tale that Dennis told them from his hospital bed. They immediately swung into damage control with the media and within the department. There was no way that story could be told, as it would cause such an avalanche of publicity and possibly an even worse avalanche of copycats, that their city, and other cities, wouldn't be able to cope. The identity of officers would have to be protected like Fort Knox.

  The mere fact that crazed hoodlums were so obsessed with taking out revenge on police officers that they forced one to play Russian Roulette with his own father, was horrifying beyond belief. The Department was convinced that this method would be copied—again and again. They couldn't take that chance.

  Dennis couldn't disagree. He signed a confidentiality agreement and the story put out to the media basically said that the killers shot Dennis' father dead in a botched mugging. No mention that a police officer's gun was used either.

  Dennis could still picture the dingy old warehouse in his mind's eye, hear the laughter of the five killers as Alan fell over backwards in his chair, and could see himself retching all over his dad's shoes.

  It was a nightmare that wouldn't leave him.

  After the punks had finished laughing, the leader turned to Dennis and said, "Now it's your turn, pig."

  At that point Dennis didn't care. They could do with him what they wanted. Now that his dad was dead, they no longer had leverage over him. Even his own life wasn't worth anything, as far as he was concerned. Part of him just wanted to die in that alley with his dad.

  Dennis could hear himself screaming like a banshee as he rose from his chair and scooped it up in one hand. He spun, swinging the chair with him at head-height. First he took out the leader; then in the merry-go-round swoop, two others went down, all from powerful slams to the head from the chair legs.

  The remaining two thugs attacked. One grabbed him from the front, the other from behind. They began pummeling him. Dennis clenched his stomach as hard as he could, and focused on the energy and anger within. The power he felt was shocking—he lifted himself in the air using the punk behind him as a fulcrum, and rammed his feet into the face of the guy in front. Then, putting his feet back on the ground, he bent forward and threw the killer behind him over his head and onto the ground. Then he pounced—easily twisting the neck of the guy into a broken distorted mess. He was dead instantly.

  Jumping to his feet, he grabbed the other one as he was struggling to his feet. He ran with him full speed ahead, toward a cement wall—pretending the wall wasn't there. And in Dennis' intense stare, the wall truly didn't exist. The sad little man stuck to the wall by the pulp of his crushed and flattened face for just a moment or two, then slid slowly down the wall to the floor.

  Dennis spun around. The other three who had been stunned by the chair were now on their feet, two with their own pistols in hand, the leader with Dennis' pistol. He was calmly picking up the five discarded bullets and inserting them back into the cylinder. He smiled, evil personified. A face that Dennis knew he would never forget.

  He rushed them. All three fired. Dennis went down.

  The leader stood over him, still smiling. Dennis sneered at him. "Kill me, you bastard."

  He put the barrel up against Dennis' forehead. "Now, copper, don't lose your head like your papa done." Laughter from all three. Cackles.

  "I not gonna kill you. That be too...nice, yes? No, I want you member what you done here. You kill your daddy. Coward! Have a nice life, pig! Catch me if you can!" At that, they left and took their laughter with them.

  Dennis was in the hospital for three weeks after that, with bullet wounds to his shoulder, chest, and hip. He had survived—and countless times he wished he hadn't. And only he and his superiors knew what really happened that night. He consoled himself with thinking that his silence had probably prevented an onslaught of police family murders.

  He would remain silent about it for the rest of his life; he knew he would. Dennis was always true to his word. But he would never forget. Never forget that evil face. And never forget what was now painfully obvious to him—cruelty like he and his dear father experienced that night could not be reformed, could not be tamed, and could never be forgiven.

  *****

  He looked out the window to see if Barb's car had pulled up yet. Then he checked his watch. She was always a bit late, or as she referred to it— 'fashionably late.'

  He still had time to finish his daily routines. Socks off, board mounted, fingers poised. Wide aggressive stance. Forefinger thrusting. Slam. Slam. Slam. Then his toes. Thud. Thud. Thud. He did this continuously, no rest in between impacts. For each forefinger, for each foot, one hundred times each, every day.

  He had been doing this for almost twenty years.

  Ever since his trek through China.

  Dennis was a martial arts expert, but not in the familiar forms made popular in movies. His specialty was different, exceptional in fact, and extremely deadly.

  The discipline of Shaolin Gongfu covered seventy-two unique forms of fight
ing, and originated from the Shaolin Temple in China's Henan Province. The Buddhist monks had perfected the seventy-two techniques long ago and have been passing them down to generations ever since.

  Henan Province was known as the birthplace of Chinese civilization, with over 5,000 years of history. It is the third most populous province with numbers exceeding ninety-four million people. Henan is located in central China, divided—and flooded from time to time—by the Yellow River. There are vast floodplains in the east and mountains in the west. Dennis went west.

  He had always wanted to travel to China, ever since a project he had completed brilliantly in high school. His topic had been China and he focused on the country's fascinating history, in particular its cradle of origins from Henan. He became intrigued with Henan: the mystics, the monks, the monasteries—and the mysterious and legendary fighting techniques that focused on calm, deliberate incapacitation.

  After Dennis had recovered from the horrible ordeal in the alley, out of the hospital and back at work, he was summoned by the man who had his job back then. The Chief of Detectives sat humbly behind his immense desk, and flashed Dennis a wry smile. A smile that said, "I have no idea what you're going through." He held a piece of paper in his hand and said simply, "Your request for 'leave of absence' is granted. Take the year and get this out of your head in the best way you can. Then, come back to us."

  Dennis nodded a 'thanks,' shook the Chief's hand and left for his sabbatical. He knew he needed it desperately, and if left on the job he probably would have become a dangerous man. So, he had no regrets about leaving. And neither did the Chief.

  Dennis needed peace—peace of mind. Something powerful, mystical, to focus his mind away from the horror. His life, in a lot of ways, had ended that night in the alley and he felt he needed a way to reach his inner primal self, start over again with a fresh point of view on his life and the world around him. He knew he couldn't talk about his feelings with too many people either—he knew he sounded like an aging hippie. 'Getting in touch with himself' was not something he wanted to share with others. It was too hard to explain.