by Larry LaVoie
“I knew this place was too good to be true,” Trick said, coming up beside David.
“Beehive is behaving like a full-blown volcano. The magma pool is finding its way to the surface far too quickly for my comfort,” David said. “No wonder they left.”
They got back into the mangled truck. “I hope this thing runs better than it looks,” Trick said starting the engine.
“Let’s check out the new road,” David said.
It had been less than a day since the road crew had unloaded their equipment and started moving up a canyon in the direction of the tunneling site. Already there was a wide gravel path heading into the wilderness, at a right angle to Loop Road. Access to the new road was just across from the entrance to Old Faithful Visitor Center. Trick turned up the road. About a mile in, he pulled over and stopped as an Army Humvee approached.
The Hummer pulled up beside them and stopped. Its driver, dressed in fatigues, leaned out the window. “Are you Doctor Wayne?”
“Right beside me,” Trick said. “What’s happened to headquarters?”
“I was just coming back to find you. We’ve moved camp up the road toward the tunnel site. Our geologist told us Old Faithful Inn was no longer safe.”
“I can vouch for that,” Trick said. “Dark as night and the air smells like the aftermath of an all-night frat party.”
“We gathered your things and moved them up to Tent City. Follow me.”
Trick waited for the Humvee to turn around and followed him. The road through the rough terrain was anything but a straight line. While it moved in the general direction of south-southwest, there were numerous hairpin turns that wound them back in the opposite direction. In one stretch, the road turned sharply to avoid a tall rock column only to circle it and wind its way around another one. It took an hour to drive the rough road to its end, only two miles as the crow flies from where they had started. When they finally stopped, they were in a flat area at the base of a seemingly insurmountable obstacle. The solid granite cliff rose into the clouds as if it were creating its own weather. At its base were half a dozen heavy hauler dump trucks, giant loaders, and crawler vehicles so large the men standing beside them only came halfway up to the top of the tracks. They were in a staging area several acres across that had been flattened to bare dirt. The soldier got out of the Humvee and pointed toward a tent on the edge of the clearing. “Your things are over there. There’s a generator set up if you need to charge your electronics.”
Trick drove the truck along a line of tents and around a dozen vehicles. “We’re in the Army now, we’re in the Army now,” Trick sang, as they maneuvered around and through a hundred Army personnel.
“Knock it off,” David said. “You’re going to attract every lonely grizzly in the area.”
“You got a thing against attracting a little wildlife? A man can get lonely in the wilderness.”
They parked in front of their tent. Inside were over a dozen cots, lined up along two walls, an aisle in the middle separating them. “Looks like this is mine,” Trick said, testing out one of the cots. “Not your Beauty Rest, but a few fir branches and pine needles for padding and it works for me.”
“Give it a rest,” David said. “What do you think about what happened today?” He started to set his computer up on a desk that was beside the head of his bed.
“You mean the earthquake, the melting pavement, or the little volcano that appeared upstream from Old Faithful?”
“Yeah, pick one.”
“We should have gotten in touch with Henry Evans when we were at Park Headquarters. He’s been around here a number of years. Maybe he can shed some light on things. If I were to guess, I’d say we’re in for an eruption anytime, but hey, you do this for a living. You’re not concerned, neither am I.” Trick sat up on the edge of his cot and shrugged.
A shadow blocked the light coming in from the screen door entry. “Looks like we have company,” David said, nudging Trick.
“Doctor Wayne, good to see you back,” Colonel Mathews said. “I’ve been tracking you all the way from Park Headquarters. Is something wrong with your phone?”
David pulled the phone from his belt and looked at it. He raised it up. “Sorry Colonel, I forgot to turn it on.”
“Leave it on 24/7 from here on out, understand, even when its charging. It’s to remain on while you’re sleeping, and while its charging. Understand?”
“Understood,” David said sheepishly, turning on the phone. “What’s on your mind, Colonel?”
“You are supposed to provide an update twice a day. We’re starting the tunneling and haven’t heard a word. Are we a go?”
“That’s affirmative, Colonel,” David said. “I don’t have any new data to share with you.”
“Data or not, you are to report to me first thing every morning and again at noon, every day, and immediately, if there is a change in circumstances.”
David glanced over at his computer. The team of volcanologists stationed around the park had been feeding him data all day. He hadn’t reviewed any of it.
“Some of my men are getting concerned that things are progressing at such a pace, we won’t have time to complete the mission,” the colonel said. “What do you say?”
“I’ve got to catch up on a few things,” David said. “I’ll get back to you this evening and let you know the latest. Now can I ask you a question?”
“Go ahead, Doctor Wayne.”
“How are you going to get the road through that rock abutment?”
“We’re going to go around it. There’s a scarp a mile to the south. The road will go where Mother Nature lets it go.” He grinned. “Or we’ll blow the hell out of it and make our own path, whichever is fastest.”
“If I’m not mistaken, that’s the Continental Divide,” David said. “All the water on the other side of that cliff flows into the Pacific.”
“And the snow is 20 feet deep in the areas where we could measure it. My men will get through it by this time tomorrow, assuming it’s not too late.”
Trick was listening to the exchange, and noticed the single bare lightbulb hanging from the peak of the tent start to sway. Then the ground started shaking. “Colonel, we have work to do. Can we exchange these pleasantries at another time?”
The colonel gave Trick a scowl, turned and left the tent without saying another word.
“Yes, sir, we are in the Army now,” Trick said.
Chapter 29
August 26th
As the truck he was driving entered Cody, Wyoming, Andy took a road west and proceeded past the Buffalo Bill Reservoir. He was on his way with the bomb, to the South entrance of Yellowstone Park. He made a call to his chief lieutenant at the camp, and told them to close up camp and load up the buses. They were to go to the Park Headquarters to start the demonstrations the next morning. It was late afternoon and the demonstrators had nearly 80 miles to travel. After breaking camp, it would be well after midnight when they they reached the park entrance and early morning when they pulled into Park Headquarters. The entrance Andy and his crew were headed for was nearly 40 miles away. The demonstrators would be a good diversion. He would enter the park without being noticed.
*****
It had been several hours since Heather had contacted her office in Washington D.C., but in her dehydrated state she remembered little of the conversation. She was thinking how strange that Matt Renfro was already in Yellowstone. She remembered talking to Green and filling him in on what was going on, although she wasn’t clear on the details she had shared. After the phone battery gave out, she found shade from the sun under a scrubby pine that looked more like a bush than a tree, and decided to wait for her rescue team. With no shoes, and a bloody and aching body, she had no desire to search for items in the wreckage strewed down the cliff. Instead she made a mental list of everything the rescue party should search for. At the top of the list was the computer that contained all of Joshua Stone’s financials, after all, that was her assignment. Hopefu
lly, they would find it in good enough condition to trace all the information on his finances and trace the movement of the bomb through the southern border. She had been questioned by Green until the phone ran out of battery, but had fallen in and out of consciousness. She knew they had a GPS fix on her location. All she could do now, was wait. To entertain herself, she began to go over the conversation with Green, but everything was fuzzy. Did she tell him about the bomb? Of course, she did, she must have. Why else had she called. Oh, yeah, her rescue. Did she mention Hells Acre? Why wouldn’t she? Everything was fuzzy. She hung her head and drifted off.
She woke to the thumping sound of a helicopter hovering overhead. Rising to her feet, she waived and the craft landed 50 feet from her on the gravel road. As soon as the craft made ground contact, Renfro was out the side door and running, hunched over, toward her.
“Martin,” he called to her, “it sounds like you used up another one of your nine lives.”
She was in no mood for pleasantries. “You got any water with you? I could use a pair of shoes, too. What took you so long?” There was obvious irritation in her tone.
“We didn’t want local police arriving before us and tromping over the site. This is too important to screw it up now.” He held on to her arm and helped her into the helicopter. Two agents got out of the helicopter as three State Police cruisers, leaving a trail of dust behind them, pulled up. “Make sure the area is secured. I want everything bagged and identified.”
With Heather safely in the helicopter, downing her second bottle of water, they took off. “You look like you could use a good meal,” Renfro said. “I’ll have one waiting for you at the debriefing.”
“Where are we going?”
“We’ve set up Headquarters at the ranger station in Yellowstone. There’s an infirmary there and the doctor can take a look at you. In the meantime, I need to know everything you learned this past week, while you were with Stone.”
“I told Agent Green everything,” Heather protested.
“I realize you think you did, but all Green got was a bunch of rambling, incoherent mumbling. You were fading in and out; damn lucky the battery held out long enough for us to get a pinpoint on your location.”
“Sorry,” Heather said. She nodded off and didn’t wake until the helicopter set down in front of Yellowstone Park Headquarters.
As soon as she was hydrated and had eaten a ham sandwich, the debriefing started in earnest. “Al-Qaida is headed here with a bomb,” was the first thing out of her mouth.
“We’re on it,” Renfro said. “We think they are going to pull the same thing they did in Mexico. We’ve got an alert out for them and they’ll never make it into the park.”
Heather was feeling much stronger. “You don’t understand. This is a nuclear device.”
“That can’t be. There haven’t been any reported missing and there’s no way to get one across the border.”
Heather let out a deep breath. “Listen to me. Andy Rhane and two Farsi-speaking thugs smuggled a nuclear device into the country. Don’t ask me how, but it’s here.”
“Agent Martin, I need you to settle down and start at the beginning. There is a big gap in our information. Tell me what happened the day you and Stone left Washington?”
Heather was clearly frustrated with the dismissing of her declaration about a nuclear device. “With all due respect sir, there is a nuclear bomb headed for the park, if it isn’t already here.”
“Agent Martin, you have been through a life-threatening ordeal. Let’s start from the beginning.”
Over the next three hours, Heather told Renfro everything she could remember. He recorded the interview and took copious notes.
“Okay, I think that’s enough. Why don’t you catch up on your sleep. I’m going to Headquarters and see if we can get some answers why we haven’t captured these renegades.”
“Wait!” Heather grabbed the radiation badge from her shirt and handed it to Renfro.
The big man stared at the badge and his eyes widened. The badge was completely covered in dirt and blood, but he immediately recognized it as a personal dosimeter, often worn by personnel working around X-ray machines. “This changes everything. You get some rest, and I’m calling in the cavalry.”
On a bunk in the infirmary, Heather drifted into a restless sleep.
*****
August 26th, Yellowstone East Entrance
The evening shadows had turned into the black veil of night. Except for the overhead light above the guardhouse, the road going in and out of the East entrance to Yellowstone Park was deserted. The two soldiers guarding the East gate had been turning away wayward tourists all day long, and their shift would soon be ending.
“Hello, the Park is closed!” Private Graham called out in mock protest, seeing another set of headlights approaching the gate. “You’d think these people would have gotten the message by now. I’ll flip you for this one.”
“You know I could pull rank on you,” Private First Class Herman said, pointing to the single stripe on his sleeve.
Graham flipped the coin. “Heads, I win, tails, you lose, okay?”
“Whatever,” Herman said, leaning back in his chair with his boots on the desk.
“Heads, I win,” Graham said, showing him the coin. “You go this time.”
“Damn, you never seem to lose,” Herman protested, letting his feet drop to the floor and standing. He shouldered his rifle, and opened the door to the chilly night air.
As the black pickup approached the gate the driver slowed to a crawl. “This is too easy,” he said to the gunman beside him. He pulled up to the gate and stopped, carefully watching the soldier approach in the headlights. “Eliminate the one in the shelter, I’ll take this one.” He screwed a silencer onto the muzzle of his Ruger SR 45 pistol, and rolled down the window.
The passenger got out of the truck, concealing his weapon behind his back.
“Sir,” the soldier said. “Remain in the vehicle.” He started to lower his rifle, in a more threatening position.
The driver pumped two rounds into the soldier’s chest, and turned out the headlights. In the darkness, the passenger sprinted along the side of the road and around the gate, coming up behind the shelter. Peering through the window, he saw a soldier sitting behind a small desk with his feet up on a stool. He crept around the building and knocked on the door.
Standing up, the soldier looked out the window. Not seeing anything in the darkness, he sat back down. “I know it’s you, Herman. Quit screwing with me.”
The intruder slowly opened the door and put a bullet through the heart of the surprised Private Graham. He grabbed Graham by the boots and dragged him out the door and behind the shelter. He searched in the soldier’s pockets and removed a key to the padlock on the gate.
In the dim light cast from the lone streetlight above the shelter, he could see his comrade removing the other soldier’s body from the pavement. “I’ll open the gate. The buses should not be more than an hour or so behind us.”
They pulled the pickup through the gate and parked in the shadows on the side of the road. The driver called Andy on his cell phone. “The gate is open.” He hung up.
An hour later the driver’s cell phone rang. He answered. “Hello.” It was Andy.
“I just heard over the two-way radio, that girl with Joshua survived and was airlifted to Park Headquarters. The GPS locator puts her location at Mammoth on the map. You’re the closest to her. Turn on your tracking device and locate 986 and eliminate her.”
The driver tapped his passenger on the shoulder. “We have a job to do. Wake up.”
Chapter 30
August 27th, Tunnel Site Camp
The movement of heavy equipment woke David from a deep sleep. Since he had arrived in Yellowstone he had been surviving on four hours of sleep a night. He checked his watch and saw, to his dismay, he had slept nearly twice that long. He sat on the edge of his cot and noted he hadn’t even undressed before falling to slee
p. The last thing he remembered was giving the satellite phone to Trick. He had said he would be right out. He looked over at his computer and saw it was unplugged. The satellite phone had been returned to the charging station hidden under the bed. He got on his handheld radio and called Trick. “Where are you?”
“I’m watching them scale the slope. You’ll get a kick out of this. At this very moment, I’m straddling the Continental Divide.” Trick was standing on the granite outcropping relieving himself, sending a yellow stream to his right and then to his left. He watched the steam from his urine rise as the moisture streamed through the chilly morning air. “You’ve got to see this, David. Half of my bladder contents will end up in the Pacific and the other half in the Atlantic!”
David shook his head. “Where is the road crew?”
“About 50 feet below me. You aren’t going to want to drive this road without 4-wheel drive.”
“How about you come back and pick me up at the mess tent. I’m going for coffee and whatever they have left over from breakfast. Did you talk to Tanya, last night.”
“Almost.”
“What do you mean, almost?”
“Well, something is disrupting satellite communication. I got to say, ‘hi’, but that was about it. Before the conversation got going, it was filled with static. I figure the Army is imposing the ‘no calls out’ regulation and jamming our calls.”
“That doesn’t make sense. I know they are using satellite from Headquarters to communicate with Washington.”
“I’m coming to get you,” Trick said, into his radio.” He zipped up and started climbing down the rock face.”
David had consumed two cups of coffee and, some stale toast with peanut butter and strawberry jam on top. He didn’t remember eating a peanut butter and jam sandwich since he was a kid. As he was washing the last of the sandwich down with stale coffee, he saw Trick pull up in the beat-up pickup.