by Rich Foster
Harry made small talk, and paid for enough rounds to make friends. His generosity caused the men to overlook the steady string of questions he asked. They assumed he was a ‘wanna be’. He amused them with stories or jokes and commiserated if they were unhappily married. Gradually he picked up tidbits about the prison. No one ever saw anybody on D block with the exception of Nadim Wafi recently. No trips to the clinic, no visitors to the block.
*
“What if they aren’t there?” he asked Barton one night.
“Where the hell would they be if they aren’t in Praxis?”
Harry shrugged. “Damned if I know. Death squads? Traded them to the Russians, Chinese, or Al-qaeda? It was just an idea.”
“How we gonna check that idea out? Knock on the door and ask?”
“I met a guy who likes poker too much. Blew his last paycheck over at the Indian casino. He’s working D block for two weeks. He might be willing to trade grocery money for a little information.”
*
Two days later Barton and Harry took off in his plane. They climbed hard and banked to the northeast. It was overcast and the ceiling was low. Dirk climbed until he was just below the cloud cover. The plane bounced around on light turbulence as raindrops occasionally hit the windscreen.
“According to the blueprints D block is on the north side of the prison. It’s single story. The exercise yard is north of that. Beyond the north wall of the yard is the security perimeter, fences and gun towers.”
“Okay. What time do you have?”
“Two ten. Khalili should be out in the yard.”
Barton held the plane on a heading of thirty-five degrees. They crossed the lake and came over land again just north of the prison, flying at enough altitude so that no one below would get nervous.
“I got the yard, but it’s empty.”
“Maybe the guys sick or we’re early?”
“Could be, but I doubt it. I’ll double check with my guy on D block tonight and see what time he let him out.
They ran north for another five minutes before retracing their course. Once again the yard was empty.
*
Harry bought his source a beer that night.
“What time did our boy hit the yard?”
“Fourteen-hundred, like clockwork. Thirty minutes in the yard and back inside unless he wants the dogs to chew his rotten ass.”
Harry passed him a hundred dollar bill.
“Have yourself a drink.”
He left the bar. In the parking lot Barton waited in his rental car. Harry climbed in.
“The guy was in the yard supposedly.”
“Maybe your guys bull shitting for the money.”
“He wouldn’t tell me the guy was out unless he thought he was. Otherwise he wouldn’t get the money.”
“How do you make someone think they let a prisoner out if there is no prisoner?”
Harry and Barton looked at each other. At the same moment both said, “Videotape!”
*
“Ziggy,” spoke Barton, “I’ve got another job for you.”
“No, This one doesn’t pay either. I want to know about the CCTV system on D block.”
The next day Ziegfeld called back.
“It’s curious, there is a video stream in the security system but when I dug around in the program for the camera protocols I found the closed circuit cameras on D- block were switched off.”
“How’s that?”
“Well it seems the cameras are on a dual system. One side is tied to the server within the prison but there is another source outside that is sending data into Praxis.”
“What’s on it?”
“I don’t know because its encrypted but it’s a huge continuous stream.”
“What do you think it is?”
“Because it’s tied into the security system, my best guess is they are streaming video. But I sure don’t know why it would be flowing into the system, instead of out.”
*
“Could they really do it?” Barton asked rhetorically.
“Hell I saw Tom Hanks shake hands with President Kennedy. I figure they can make me see anything they want.”
“So how do we prove what ain’t there?”
Suddenly Harry’s eyes held a mischievous gleam. “By looking for it.”
That night Harry and Barton drove out the lake road toward Praxis. A half-mile from town Harry turned onto a logging road. It was an ebony night. The sky was overcast and new moon had not risen. Overhead the break in the trees was barely visible to their eyes, exposed only due to the reflected light from the town.
Harry opened the trunk and removed a pick and two shovels. They both put on night vision goggles and headed through the woods. It was a still night. An occasional owl called but it was too early in the year for the crickets to be hatched. The only real noise was car’s passing on the highway and the rustle of their boots through the brush.
Their goggles turned the world into a vivid green picture. The trees held warmth from the day and were a dim green. Boulders being cooler were dark forms. After a short walk they arrived at an old wrought iron fence, behind which were the oblique rectangular shapes.
They stepped over the fence. Harry led the way through the knee-high grass to where he came during the afternoon finding the right spot to dig.
Soon they were both busy moving dirt. Each saw the other glowing more brightly green as they worked up a sweat. For an hour they steadily dug down until Barton’s shovel struck something hard. They continued to clear the dirt until they had a hole that was three feet by eight feet and four feet deep.
They took a water break. Afterward, Harry opened his backpack and pulled out a come-along. He tied one end of to the trunk of a nearby oak, the other he dropped into the hole. Barton ran the line through an eye in the concrete slab before he climbed out. For the next twenty minutes they took turns working the handle of the come-along. The cable pulled taut and cut into the soil edge of their hole. The winch’s wire coil steadily grew until like an apparition from the dead the slab slowly tilted up from the grave.
“God I hate this.”
“Don’t worry it’s been six months.”
Barton dropped down into the hole. He turned on a small light and set to work loosening the screws. In a matter of minutes he slid toward one end, reached down and opened the lid.
“Shit, the damn things empty!”
“I thought so.”
“Well why the hell didn’t you say so? I was expecting him to stink.”
Barton stood up on the coffin he just opened. He pointed his beam of light at the small stone that read, Edwin Alec Darwin.
“So why did they bury an empty coffin in a paupers grave?” he asked.
“Because I figure he is not dead.”
“Then why not leave him in the prison?
“Because Darwin’s sentence was almost up. They did not want him coming out.”
“That doesn’t make sense. Why not kill him and bury him if they don’t want him out? They sure don’t have any problem about killing you.”
“Precisely. Wherever he is they obviously do not want him dead, but they want the world to think that. If he wasn’t in Praxis like Khilili isn’t, then where was he for the last thirty years?”
“Yeah… and where the hell is he now?”
Harry took photos of the empty coffin. He also snapped off several of the small tombstone and the pile of dirt. In the night the electronic flash was like a series of lightening strikes.
“That’s it,” he said.
Barton reached down and let the coffin lid fall shut. Harry struck the release on the latch on the teeth of the come-along with the butt of his hunting knife. The concrete slab slowly tilted forward, then rapidly spun out the cable as it fell with a muffled thud back into the hole.
For the next hour they shoveled dirt back into the hole. When they were done it was obvious someone had disturbed the soil. Soon enough the weeds would grow back, until then
Harry counted on the pauper’s graveyard being poorly maintained and thus seldom visited.
*
Harry found it an unfortunate coincidence. The article in the Clarion did not say why the young couple was in the graveyard though it was implied they were in the tall grass for something other than reading epitaphs.
They returned to town with stories of something moving among the stone in the night. Friends made fun of their story until they all agreed to go out to the cemetery the next afternoon. It was thus discovered that Edwin Darwin’s grave had been disturbed.
Sheriff Gaines insisted the body be exhumed. As he feared, grave robbers had stolen the body of the infamous spy.
The next day the Associated Press picked up the article. It appeared in thirty-seven newspapers around the country. When the news crossed Claus Van de Meer’s desk he was livid.
Chapter 35
“Clemson, do you want to be doing duty on a rock in the Aleutian Islands? Because, you’re damn close to it!”
“We don’t know who dug up the grave, sir. It was found by a couple kids.”
“Of course we know who did it. It was Harry Grim, you idiot! He’s been asking questions and you can’t seem to put control on this.”
“We’ve laid ground work. Soon he will disappear and no-one will give a damn what happened to him.”
“Well get it done.”
“We have a complication, sir. He’s brought in an outsider. We ran his photo through the facial recognition system at TSA. He’s Barton Dirk, a Special Forces veteran who did black ops in Afghanistan for the Army in unison with the Company.”
“We’re being skewered by our own people?”
“Sort of a shirttail cousins, sir. They served together. I figure Grim brought Dirk in to cover his back. Most of the men they served with are dead. A roadside bomb took them out in Kandahar Province. One of the few surviving guys I talked to said Barton Dirk was the man he would most fear to be alone with if they were not on the same side.”
“And Grim?”
“Doesn’t seem to have qualms about killing but not as quick as Dirk.”
“We’ll need to deal with both of them.”
“Is that an order to terminate with prejudice, sir?””
“No, absolutely not. This operation is out of control. I need to have certainty it is fully contained before we resolve it.”
“I’ll get to work on it.”
“Kurt, don’t screw this up.”
A moment later Miss Welks buzzed him.
“Calder Hill, sir. Are you available?”
Alone in his office, Van de Meer made a facial grimace of distaste. He disliked Hill. The man was a user and corrupt, Claus knew it but for now he was saddled with him. He pushed the speaker button on his phone then plucked a cigar from the humidor next to it.
“Calder? What do you want?”
“Have you seem the news? They know the coffin was empty.”
“No, they know there is not a body there today. They assume Mr. Darwin occupied it earlier. The two are not the same thing.”
“What do I tell the press?”
“The truth. Though Edwin Darwin was a despicable traitor to his country, the dead should still be treated with dignity and you are horrified by these events, end quote.”
Silence hung between them.
“Is there anything else Calder?” Claus asked testily.
“We’ve had a breach of our computer system.”
Claus’s cigar was just starting to draw nicely. He stubbed it viciously down into the ashtray.
“Which system?”
“We’re still checking but we know inmate files for D block have been opened since Mr. Ames unfortunate death.”
“Check every file. I want to know where they have been in the system. I’ll get people working at this end on the ‘who’ and the ‘where’ of this penetration. You find anything I want it. It’s too late for you to CYA, its already on the line. Secondly, check the duty logs since Ames died. I want anything that raised a red flag or even the mild interest of your staff.”
“Hell, that could take hours!”
“Then you better get going, I want a report on the duty logs by the end of the day. Do you have anymore bad news?”
“A reporter from the local paper is sniffing around. He did an interview with Wafi now he’s asking to see Zhou.”
“Just deny the request!”
“We did, but the troubling thing is, his last comment to our public information officer was, “You don’t have him do you?”
The wire was silent as Van de Meer considered this troubling news.
“I’ll get back to you about Zhou. It shouldn’t be a problem. Give me twenty-four hours and he can talk to him.
By the time he hung up, a bead of sweat had formed on Van de Meer’s brow.
*
That evening, Claus was checking the tail numbers of three aircraft that recently flew close to ADX Praxis’s perimeter. One was low but it was at night and so the guards did not have the tail number. Two were at altitude but a bit lower than most flights and thus noted by the north watch tower. The first was a helicopter registered to the Dunbar Ranch, solid Republicans and an unlikely threat to national security. The last one caused Van de Meer to reach for a roll of anti-acid tablets. FAA records showed the tail numbers were registered to a Piper P 39 Twin Turbo; the owner of record was Barton Dirk, resident of Santa Barbara, California.
Chapter 36
When Harry had called to ask Lou to try request an interview with Zhou Zhengzhong again, Lou’s instincts told him there was a story worth pursuing.
“Does this have anything to do with the missing body at the cemetery?”
“I can’t say. I’m not sure what is happening. Whatever it is, I think it is big.”
“So what is in it for me?”
“When I learn something you can have an exclusive.”
“What do you want me ask Zhou?”
“Anything you like if you get to see him. But I want you to be adamant that you want to at least see him. If they try to say no ask them what they are hiding.”
Lou called the prison and was rebuffed. He called everyday for three days. His persistence paid off. The information officer called back to say he would be able to see Zhou. Lou called Harry.
“I’ve got an interview with Zhou.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
Harry puzzled over this for a minute. “What time?”
“One o’clock.”
“Have fun. Let me know how it goes.”
Harry rang off before Lou could ask more questions.
“What’s up?” Dirk asked, his mouth working on a large bite of pastrami on rye.
“Harding is going in to see Zhou tomorrow. If they don’t have him, then they need to get him or at least find a look alike. I think that’s why they didn’t say to come today. After all, its not like a prisoner has a busy schedule.”
“So we are going to watch?”
“Yep. I’ll take the prison and you can go over to Beaumont. Watch the private planes. Look for cars that smell like Feds.”
“What if they fly in here?”
“Paula can watch the local strip. They might land there because there’s no tower control. On the other hand it won’t handle a jet.”
“They could drive in.”
“Then I’ll get them.”
“Or they could fly in using a chopper.”
“Same thing. I get them or Paula picks them up. I think they will use a low profile. I don’t think they will put down a chopper at the prison.”
“You really think this guy’s not at Praxis?”
“It’s the only thing that makes any sense. Praxis is the only Federal facility of any kind, within a hundred miles. Eddie Ames worked there and was looking into this. He died. Zane over in Beaumont died. They tried to kill me. It has to involve the prisoners but aside from abuse or torture by the guards, what else could Eddie have been onto? I
think they are fake.”
“So we play this and see how it unfolds. I better get going. They could bring someone in anytime. Maybe they already have.”
“Can’t do anything about it if they have. We can only play the cards we have now. I’ll tell Paula to get a room at the motel by the airstrip. She can safely watch from there. Once night falls she won’t have to watch because the runway is unlit.”
Harry packed a cooler with food and drink. He brewed a pot of coffee and filled a thermos bottle. Lastly he put his sniper sleeping bag in the car. Inside the bag he could sit up and still use of his arms, yet be warm on the coldest night.
Barton made similar preparations. His was the easier duty because there were stores, restaurants, and motels near the Beaumont airport, thus there was less need to hide. Both men were accustomed to long solitary vigils, waiting for an enemy.
*
Paula lay on the bed reading. From her room she could easily see the airstrip and the private hangers. It was a quiet afternoon. One plane came and went several times, it was the flight school. She saw people coming and going to the plane from the flight school’s office. A helicopter landed but they only took on fuel and left. Darkness fell. She ordered out for a pineapple and ham pizza, which she ate while watching television. By nine she retired, but found sleep difficult on the hard worn bed. The next thing she knew, her four-thirty alarm was going off.
Dirk spent some time at the private aircraft owner’s service office. They had a small lounge offering pilots in transit coffee and a television set running CNN 24-7. As the evening came on he went over to the terminal restaurant, found a seat near the window and watched the occasional plane land. Nothing seemed amiss.
Only two commercial carriers served Beaumont. The small turbo props made a loop of small town airports. One airline had a hub in Salt Lake City and the other served Seattle. Whenever a flight arrived Dirk wandered over and watched the passengers disembark. During the afternoon he saw only two Asians. One was a female and the other too tall to be Zhou.
As it grew late he sprawled on the bed of his third floor hotel room. He left the sliding door open to the night air. Through the doorway he had a clear view of the tarmac reserved for private aircraft. If anyone arrived during he night he would hear the plane.