“Bring a few rounded up scientists over by the elevator located here and I will come and interrogate them.”
Now pointing to a road map of the Copper Mountain Road, he continued,
“I want all of you taking separate police cruisers. The more police cars they see racing up Copper Mountain Road the stronger we will appear. We will muster in the parking lot at the bottom of Copper Mine Road with all emergency lights blaring. Edith will follow in the pickup truck and once we are all past the main security gate she will block the entrance with the truck.”
Dean asked,
“If we go racing up there with all lights flashing will that not warn them that we are coming?”
“Yes, that’s what I’m hoping will happen. I want to warn them. I want them scared and deserting the ship before we get there. With only our numbers as the raiding party, we would never be able to control the numbers up there. The more that flee, the better chance we will have for a successful raid. I’ve organized five trusted civilians to block the bottom of the road and search all escaping cars for the children. They are already up there and stopping the first of the fleeing staff and scientist. They have strict orders to only search and release. Again, arrests would serve no purpose. Although I do not anticipate violence, I want you to all wear your vests anyway. Only retaliate if in danger or to protect others.”
He took a deep breath and asked,
“Are there any questions?”
There was none. Clearly, Walter had the full support of his deputies and he glowed with pride. He then added,
“Alright, muster time at the parking lot will be in three hours. I need secrecy on this. I don’t want half the town charging up the hill to help.”
Chapter 56
Walter was on the phone getting a report from the leader of the five civilians he had positioned at the bottom of Copper Mountain Road. All five had been deputized and it he repeated an important point,
“You must not be armed. I don’t want anybody accidently killed and above all else, don’t tell any of our good citizens what we are doing.”
Two hours before the attack on the Factory, all the deputies were outside in the shopping mall parking lot busy pre-tripping their vehicles, lights and performance.
Thirty minutes later, Edith walked into Walter’s office bearing a stern expression. When he looked up and saw her, he knew something was wrong. He was right. She reported,
“Your request for secrecy regarding raiding the Factory and looking for the children lasted about one minute. About twenty residents are gathering at the Elk Lodge ready to join you on the raid. All three parents of the missing children are there as well.”
Disappointed but not surprised, Walter let a slow moan escape. He knew what he had to do. Edith also knew and said,
“I’ll come with you.”
The Elk Lodge was one of the oldest buildings in Twin Rivers. It was a single story wooden framed building but massive inside. This was the local bingo hall and gathering place for various town activities, such as this one, an emergency meeting of concerned citizens. Edith wanted to take the pickup truck but Walter wanted to show up with a degree of authority and so took the police car. As he and Edith turned into the parking lot, it was clear they would be walking in on a packed house. All the parking spots were full. Taking advantage of his authority, he parked near the door blocking a fire lane.
Both walked through the single door entrance and saw that the long rows of tables set up for bingo were occupied. He hoped that he only had to dissuade a handful of civilians but it was a full house. Everybody was intently listening to the speaker and not paying attention to who was standing at the door.
Understanding that three pistol shots into the ceiling was not going to work, he prepared for a quick march to the podium. Edith held out her hand and said,
“Let’s listen for a minute.”
Speaking to the group was a portly young man wearing a baseball cap and baggy jeans. Edith said,
“That’s Lou, Dean’s brother-in-law. His sister’s child is one of the missing children.”
Walter nodded and made a mental note to have a serious talk with Dean regarding the exact meaning of secrecy.
Lou stood on the podium boisterously speaking to the attentive gathering.
“If the Government thinks they can simply march into our town and take our children, I say they have another think coming.”
The tables were thumped with fists and a thunderous roar bellowed from the crowd.
“We have a right to protect our families.”
More loud agreement roared through the room.
“We need to show the Government that we are not just some backwoods hick town ready to lie down and be walked all over.”
Edith looked to Walter and said,
“He is working them into frenzy. In a few minutes there will be no stopping them.”
Walter already had that figured out.
He took deliberate stomping steps down the narrow aisle to the podium. Nose to nose with a startled Lou, Walter told him to step aside. However, it was clear that he was not finished riling up the crowd and didn’t want to lose the momentum he had stirred up. When Walter scowled his famous stern ‘that’s an order’ look, Lou found that his feet were backing up. Looking at the crowd, Walter did not see the frenzy of a mad riotous crowd but rather the looks of desperation and desire to help recover the lost children. By using a pacifying tone, he tried to calm the tension Lou had started.
“I know why you are here. I understand your desire to help. However, an angry mob is not going to help anything. Please go home and let your police force handle this. ”
Lou hit the table with an angry fist and everybody else followed suit. The whole room thundered with the roar of fists pounding the tables. They were angry and desperate.
Walter had not noticed that Edith followed him to the podium and was standing beside him. He held up his hands in a halting fashion and shouted,
“Your desire to help will only make things worse. There is no guarantee that the children are up there. Let me and my men go there and search in an orderly fashion. We have it under control.”
A distraught Lola Green, Amina’s mother, jumped to her feet and shouted,
“It’s been three months and you ain’t done nothing to get my little girl back to me.”
Robert’s dad stood and added his support to the vigilante raid,
“If you can’t do nothing about this, we can.”
The crowd roared.
Walter patiently waited for the anger to settle. When he thought his voice could finally be heard over the declining roar, he shouted,
“You must let us do our job. We have investigated every clue.”
Another angry parent shouted,
“Yes and you have discovered that the kids are up in that hell hole they call the Factory and we are going to help you recover them.”
Walter shouted back,
“No! Leave this in the hands of the law. I promise if they are up there we will recover them for you.”
Lou suddenly faced Walter and shouted,
“You don’t know the anger and misery the parents are going through. If you understood their feelings you would be armed and doing something about it. You have done nothing. You don’t have kids so you don’t know the pain of a missing child.”
Suddenly the crowd went silent and whispers where heard. Edith broke into tears and ran out of the room. A woman in the second row leaned over and whispered to her friend,
“Lou doesn’t know what happened to their baby.”
She was not surprised and added,
“Obviously or he wouldn’t have said that.”
Walter wanted desperately to run after his wife and offer comfort but a heavier duty faced him. He had to settle and disperse the crowd or the raid was over. The authority he was trying to project over them had now diminished to a pleading tone.
“Anybody who knows Edith and I know that I would never g
ive up looking for a lost child. You have to understand that.”
His last word on the matter was deliberately as cruel to the crowd as Lou’s words were to him and Edith. He shouted,
“Go home! Let me do my job. If I find any of you on Copper Mountain Road I swear I’ll arrest the lot of you for interfering in an official police investigation. I promise you all that if they are there, I will bring them home.”
Most understood why Edith broke out in tears and ran out of the room. Walter was not the only one who wanted to run after Edith and comfort her. Many who knew the truth of what happened wanted to as well. As they slowly drifted to the door and past Walter, some patted his shoulder in symphony. His stern exterior was melting. When looking out over the room he saw that a few stern men remained. Lou, the obvious leader was talking to them. Seeing their malicious looks, he wanted to arrest them all right there on the spot. Maybe he should have, but a more important situation was chewing away at him. He wanted to get to the car and comfort his wife.
When the crowd had dispersed there were only a few cars left in the parking lot. Walter walked to the police car, opened the door, and slid into the driver’s seat. Without a word, he reached over and patted Edith’s hand. He saw a resolute woman sitting tall staring straight ahead. He wanted to say that the new residents to Twin Rivers didn’t know that they once had a child and what happened to him. However words were not necessary, she understood that. Deliberate or not, the pain was the same. As he backed out of the parking lot and turned toward Maple Street, she said,
“We have some children to save, let’s get to it.”
Chapter 57
Evening was approaching fast. Black clouds were slowly pulling a curtain over a bright moon and stars. For many it was a dark omen of things to come. Sam sat at the table in the treehouse and brooded. She was not happy. She absently flipped over the Tarot cards that she had hoped would indicate where her friend Amina Green was. Now that she knew, her despondency stemmed from having found her only to have run away. Multiple plans on how to get back into the Factory were formulated and quickly rejected. Her secret entrance through the narrow tunnel and a high iron ladder had ended when it tore away and crashed to the ground. Thoughts of simply running past the front gate faced her as the only solution. Tenacity and desperation were teaming up to push good sense out the window.
Gary was sitting on the mattress fiddling with the same broken clock that still stymied his resolve to reassemble it. His confusion was the many left over parts. Now and then, he cast furtive glances at a distraught Sam but was wise enough to leave her to sad thoughts. Fact of the matter was that he was afraid to say anything to her. He too was filled with gloomy feelings. His house was destroyed and his grandmother was injured. On top of that, he had lost his treasured electric creation. A treehouse generally filled with fun and adventure now stewed in doom and gloom.
Gary slowly stood and looked around the room. He wanted to do something but didn’t know what. For no determined reason, he walked over to the latch in the ceiling and climbed out onto the roof. It was a cold and dark night and a gentle wind rolling off the mountain lazily swayed the thinner branches. Even for a city boy, there were enough signs in the air that rain was coming. Secure on a thick branch he sat gazing out in the distance toward Twin Rivers. The street lights were on and the cars were moving about with headlights aglow.
At the end of the forested lot, he saw his house. It was the only one not filled with bright lights. He tried his best to stare at the dark house and imagine eating dinner with grandmother but the image would not come into focus. Far up on Copper Mountain he saw the bright lights of the Factory glowing as if some celebration was welcoming people to come and join the party. Although it looked festive and inviting, he understood the horror for what it really was. Sad eyes lowered to his knees, a metaphor of defeat and despondency. He wanted to help Sam but like her, he didn’t know what to do.
When shrouded in the darkness of gloom, what does it matter for how long? It held you prisoner without concern for duration of time. All he knew for sure was that he was getting cold and wanted to get back into the treehouse. Raising defeated eyes into the distance, he saw something strange up on Copper Mountain Road. It was a long line of headlights racing away from the Factory and dispersing in various directions once getting to town. He stuck his head though the hole in the roof and called down to Sam,
“Sam, come and look at this.”
Although she was not in a hurry to respond to his enthusiasm she nevertheless climbed through the hole and sat next to him. Following his pointing direction, she too saw the long line of descending headlights in the distance. Although not knowing why and didn’t care, she drew the correct conclusion.
“Something must have gone wrong up in the Factory, everybody is leaving.
After watching the exodus for a few minutes, something down in the streets of Twin Rivers caught their attention. It was too far away but the flashing red and blue lights were a good indication that all of the Twin Rivers police force was racing toward the Copper Mountain Road. They watched as they all stopped and lit up the parking lot at the base of road. Sam thought they might be waiting for something to happen. Just past the parking lot, at the bottom of the road the escaping cars were stopped and searched by the volunteers. Sam suddenly understood what was happening and shouted,
“The police are going to raid the Factory.”
She then shot her attention to Gary and said,
“This is our chance to get back in there and save Amina.”
Greatly surprised he snapped alert.
“What? How? Look at all the police cars.”
“Exactly! And look at all the cars escaping the Factory. There will be confusion up there that we can take advantage of. I have to get back there and save Amina.”
Filled with excitement, she looked at Gary and hopefully asked,
“You are coming with me right?”
Even in the shadows of the branches, Sam saw in his eyes the lost look of a defeated friend. Gary sadly replied,
“No, it’s too dangerous. Besides, grandmother told me to stay here until she came for me.”
Sam was not surprised to learn that she was braver than Gary was. She knew it all along. Accepting the bitter defeat, that it was something she had to do on her own, she struck out at him,
“Okay you big chicken, stay here and hide. I don’t care, I’m going.”
Although he snapped back, it was a hollow defence,
“I’m not a chicken.”
He watched as she scampered back into the treehouse and to the ground. He lost her in the darkness of the forest but knew she was running home to get her bike. Still sitting high in the tree, rain started to fall on Gary.
Now raining hard, Sam was peddling with all the strength and tenacity of a person on a mad mission to fulfill a promise. With rain splattering in her face, she raced down Jasper Street where it connected to Copper Mountain Road. Strength and determination got her this far but racing up to the Factory was going to be a challenge.
As she approached the parking lot where the Sheriff and the police cars were mustering, she heard from behind,
“Wait for me.”
Slamming on the brakes, she turned and saw Gary on his bike desperately trying to catch up. There was no need to comment, no need to apologize for a bad decision. Gary was going to join her and that was all that mattered. Both stopped and looked at the impossible task of riding their bikes up Copper Mountain Road undetected by the police cars in the parking lot and the escaping scientists racing down.
With rain now falling heavily, from a distance both stood by their bikes under a large Cedar tree looking at the parking lot filled with police cars. It was clear to both that if they wanted to get up to the Factory, it would have to be in one of those cars. Gary saw a way, pointed and said,
“Look there. One of them is a pickup truck. What if we sneak over and climb in the back? It’s dark and raining, the driver will never
see us.”
If Sam had said that it was a great idea, he never heard it. All he saw was her running behind the parking lot toward the truck. His feet were quickly in motion trying to catch up.
Chapter 58
Walter was sitting in the lead car, the first one out of the parking lot. Windshield wipers were struggling to give a clear vision of the road. He picked up his mike and called to all his men,
“The escape line has thinned out. The search party at the bottom of the hill reports nobody has children in the car. It’s time gentlemen. Keep the red and blue lights flashing and sirens blaring. Pull out!”
With him as lead car, the other cruisers followed. He ordered a twenty yard gap between the cars adding to the notion of many police cars speeding up the hill. Edith followed in the pickup truck with four-way flashers blinking. She understood that her job was to add to their numbers, block the main security gate, and act as surveillance.
Up on the hill, the dark of night amplified the lights beaming out of the Factory windows. Exterior security lights shone on the front of the Factory as if an actor standing on stage. Pounding rain did nothing to diminish the exterior glow except add eeriness to the building. A long row of attacking sirens blaring and emergency lights cutting through the dark sped closer to their target.
The Factory Page 30