by C A Bird
Mark noticed a “Special News Bulletin” on an airport television. The media was becoming aware that something significant was happening overseas. They reported the invasion of North Korea by China but didn’t mention the nuclear device being detonated in Russia. Mark was certain that the news was being manipulated from Washington. Washington correspondents, aware that government leaders were unexpectedly leaving for an unknown destination, were speculating about the reasons why, and getting perilously close to the truth. A second story reported that the stock market was down over 600 points and trading limits had been activated.
Mark stood outside Garduno’s Chile Packing Company and Cantina where the others were having an early lunch. He needed to make some calls. There was no crew on the Gulfstream this trip and the galley hadn’t been stocked so they’d had no breakfast. They were starved by the time they reached Albuquerque.
He called Steve in Fountain Valley, trying to convince him there was a serious problem, but Steve wasn’t buying it any more than Jill had. Mark was furious that nobody was listening. “Damn it, Steve. I’ve never lied to you and I wouldn’t lie to you about something like this. Get your butt on a plane to Albuquerque! You can go home tomorrow if everything’s okay. I’m telling you, nuclear weapons have already exploded in Russia!”
“Man, I have a business meeting this afternoon and what about Lorraine?”
“Bring her with you if she’s immediately available, but get here as quickly as you can. We didn’t have as much warning as we thought we’d have. Mr. Hargraves has actually set off signaling devices telling people to come to the bomb shelter. That’s how serious this is. We’ll be here for an undetermined amount of time. If the U.S. comes under attack we’ll be warned and we’ll have to leave immediately. When you get here, if we’ve already gone you’ll have to get to the shelter in a rental car. Please Steve, you’ve got to come. Write down these directions.”
He gave him directions, extracting a promise he would come. Calling several other people, he did his best to talk his friends into starting for the shelter. It was all he could do. He wished for the hundredth time he had known in advance they would receive that call in the plane. He would have gone and picked Steve and Lorraine up and forced them into accompanying him. The problem was, he admitted, he really hadn’t believed it himself. God, if he only had more time. He leaned against the wall and tried to think of whom else to contact.
He called Jill again and received no answer. Good, she must be on the way. He headed back for the restaurant where he joined the others, too nervous and impatient to order anything to eat. It wasn’t in his nature to sit and wait for anything.
August 21, Noon
Sangre de Cristo Mountains, NM
“Back off you stupid fuck, or I’m gonna kill you!” As Ferrar lunged for Jones, Arby intercepted Ferrar and flung him aside, expending almost no effort in doing so even though Ferrar was a large man, standing 6'3" and weighing 210 pounds. Ferrar went down hard, grunting loudly.
“Leave him alone, Ferrar. We gotta get out of these mountains. Quit wasting time fighting.” Arby was absolutely and completely pissed off. When the bus crashed it had careened so far downslope there was no way to climb back to the highway. They had plummeted over a sheer cliff that had run north and south along the highway. After several arguments that had briefly come to blows they had headed upstream, expecting the river would lead to a road, but it hadn’t, and now they’d been wandering around these mountains for over twenty-four hours.
They’d slept alongside the stream, thirteen very hungry, very angry killers. Two of the criminals had died in the crash, the man whose leg was ripped off, and one who’d been killed when the compartment bars crushed him against his seat. Arby hadn’t known either man and wouldn’t have felt sorry even if he had. Most of those surviving had cuts, bruises, and abrasions, and several had sprained their wrists or knees. They’d found keys on the bodies of the dead guards and had unlocked their cuffs and released their leg irons and metal waistbands.
Arby had had trouble waking the men up this morning, and since the sun was overhead when they got moving, he suspected they had wasted a good portion of the day. He would have abandoned the bastards but figured he might need them if they ran into trouble. If necessary, in a confrontation with authorities, he would use the men as decoys, and slip safely away while they died or were captured.
“The asshole keeps walking on the back of my feet! Why don’t he watch where the fuck he’s going.” Ferrar whined like a small child picking himself up off the ground. He knew better than to challenge Arby.
“You guys spread out and stay off each other. When we get back to a road you can all split and never have to see each other again. Hey, check this out! Come on.” Arby had spotted a game trail leading from the streambed up the far side of the ravine. “It looks like a trail.” He splashed through the small stream, taking a long draught of water, and started up the footpath. The others drank their fill and followed him, grumbling at the sudden increase in effort needed to trudge uphill. The day was hot and their calves burned with the increased exertion.
They climbed for over two hours, traversing a series of long switchbacks, before reaching the top of the ridge, their red faces streaked with mud and their greasy hair soaked, as each of them sweated profusely. The game trail, which had split several times, finally petered out altogether in a pine forest and the men disgustedly threw themselves on the ground under the trees, refusing to go farther.
“Arby, this is crazy.” said Freddy “Butch” Cassidy. “We left the water behind and there ain’t nothin’ up here but trees. Now what the fuck are we going to do? I’m starving.”
Arby walked farther across the ridge, winding through junipers and pine trees, and stared toward the south across another canyon, a monster canyon, even larger than the first. He shook his head, “Oh shit! These dudes are really gonna be pissed off now.” He mumbled to himself.
August 21, 12:30 p.m.
Albuquerque, New Mexico
The bright yellow taxi pulled up in front of the hospital’s main entrance and parked in the area designated for picking up patients. Janet Prince pushed a wheelchair along the sidewalk toward the waiting taxi with conflicting emotions; happiness that Faye Claret was alive and going home, and sadness that she wouldn’t have this wonderful lady to talk to everyday in the GI bleeder ward.
She maneuvered the chair alongside the cab, and the driver, a young man wearing a red beret, held the door open while Janet assisted Mrs. Claret to stand. The driver took her arm and helped her into the back seat, folded up the wheelchair and stuffed it in the trunk, while Janet said goodbye to her favorite patient.
“You take good care of yourself, promise me?” is what she said to her, but what she meant with all her heart, but didn’t expect Faye to comply with, was “Never, ever, pick up another drink of alcohol.”
“I will, dear. This time it was just too close for comfort.” She scooted over in the seat and took a plastic bag containing her purse and other belongings from the nurse, placing it on the seat beside her. She reached out and took Janet’s hand. “You take care of yourself too, dear, and don’t let anything get in the way of your dreams.”
“I won’t, Mrs. Claret. Good luck to you.” Her voice trembled and she turned quickly so the sudden tears wouldn’t be seen by Faye, and hustled back to her duties. Faye Claret had come along at a time when Janet was at a crossroads, trying to balance her boyfriend’s needs against her nursing career. He was chronically unemployed and was interfering with her studies as she desperately tried to finish her nursing program and take her test for Registered Nurse. Her problems were not that unusual or complicated but Faye Claret had listened to her tale and by asking Janet pertinent questions had led Janet to understand exactly what it was she wanted, and how to get there. She had a gift, leading Janet to her own solutions without lecturing or influencing her decisions in any way.
Faye had been admitted to the hospital over two weeks ago wi
th a 5.3 gram hemoglobin and bleeding ulcers. She used nine units of blood before they got the bleeding stopped and just barely escaped her second surgery in three months. Even though the bleeding had stopped, and she had detoxed, she was still in danger of busting loose. Her physician didn’t want to discharge her, knowing full well her condition was marginal, but the utilization review staff at her insurance company had insisted. Her hemoglobin was stable, they claimed, and she could convalesce just as well at home.
“Where to, Miss?” the cabby asked her with a Latino accent.
“Please take me to “The Dugout” on 12th street. Do you know where it is?”
“Yes Senora, but are you sure you want to go there? You just got out of the hospital!” He was incredulous that this lady wanted to visit a sports bar even before going home.
“Yes, I’m sure. What’s your name young man?”
“I’m Freddie.” He glanced in the rear view mirror and pulled from the curb.
“Do you have children Mr. Freddie?”
He laughed. “It’s just Freddie, Ma’am. No, I’m not married.”
“That’s too bad Freddie, a nice looking man like you. How come you’re not married?”
The conversation continued and within six blocks Freddie Hernandez had fallen in love with Faye Claret. “Mrs. Claret, you really need to go home. Let me take you there, and if you feel better later you just call me. I’ll give you a free ride anywhere you want to go.” He hoped she had someone at home who could restrain her from going to the bar. He didn’t know why she’d been admitted to the hospital, but he’d taken a lot of drunks home and he recognized the emaciated look, the tiny red veins on her face, and the dullness of her eyes.
“Actually,” she replied, “I do need to go home to get my ATM card. Silly me, I forgot it when the ambulance took me to the hospital. It’s very close to “The Dugout.”
She gave him the address and, immensely relieved, he swung in the direction of her home.
They pulled up in front of her house and he opened the cab door, helping her to stand up. “Do you need the chair?” He was worried she would fall but she walked right up the sidewalk with no problem.
“No, but you can bring it inside, please. I may need it later.”
He jumped to do her bidding. As he entered the small, untidy house he heard an awful wailing sound, a siren of some sort. “Mrs. Claret?” he called out. “Is everything alright?”
“Freddie, can you come here?” He found her in the kitchen looking at a large stack of mail on the kitchen table, which included a small package with Express Mail wrapping. Her neighbor had been picking up Faye’s mail each day and had deposited it on the table. The noise was coming from the package. “What do you suppose it is?”
He shook his head. “Guess the only way to find out is to open it.” He picked it up and tore off the wrapper. He read and handed her the first note and then turning the device over, discovered and flipped the toggle switch inside. Frowning, he read and handed her the second one. “Man, this is really weird. What do you make of it? Do you think it’s real?”
She smiled at him, “Guess the only way to find out is to…” She went into the living room and turned on the television. The news was bad but there was no indication the U.S. was in any imminent danger. She and Freddie sat down on the sofa and watched several special news bulletins. Listening between the lines, Freddie suspected things were worse than they made out and, after all, the device was already ringing. He was beginning to get real spooked.
“What are you going to do about the notes?” he asked her.
“Well, I just got out of the hospital where they went to a lot of trouble to save my life and it would be a real shame to lose it now. I guess I need a taxi to take me to this shelter. Do you know of one I could use?”
“Yeah, let’s get the hell out of here! I have a feeling that if this is real the traffic is going to get real bad, real fast. Let’s beat it.”
He helped her get some things together and they climbed in the cab and headed north. He left the meter off and called his company to tell them he was sick and going home. There wasn’t anything he could think of at home that he couldn’t live without and he assumed they would be returning soon.
“No offense, Mrs. Claret but can I ask you why you got this box?”
“I’ve been wondering about that myself, but I haven’t always been an old drunk, you know.”
”I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to . . . “
”No, it’s okay. I know you didn’t. But that’s what I am now. Until a year or so ago, though, I was a teacher at Sandia High School. I taught English and Literature.”
As they continued north, Freddie heard the unbelievably tragic tale of a woman’s descent from a highly respected teacher and genuinely beautiful person, into the depths of acute alcoholism. He watched her in his rear view mirror as she told of a marriage gone bad, of a husband, a once successful businessman whose business had failed and who turned to drugs and alcohol, dragging his wife down into the abyss of his personal hell. Of her husband’s sexual affairs, loss of his company and eventual suicide, with his wife standing before him struggling to wrench the gun from his hand. She told of trying to hide her drinking from her colleagues and students, of missing more and more work, of her friends desperately trying to get her help. But outwitting them, she moved to the far side of town, and became a steady patron of “The Dugout,” drinking prodigious amounts of alcohol to drown out the memories.
She lost her job. Since she lived within walking distance of the bar, and never needed to drive drunk, no one she knew noticed as she destroyed her internal organs and her esophagus. She ended up in the ICU with bleeding esophageal varices the first time and bleeding ulcers the second. She would not survive a third.
They drove north on Interstate 25 passing through Las Vegas and as she related her story to Freddie he saw her start to tremble. She asked him, begged him, to stop in town to buy a bottle. This time he refused to do her bidding.
August 21, 1:35 p.m.
Albuquerque, NM
Mark was still waiting, and it was driving him crazy. After lunch, the Hargraves party had adjourned to the “Route 66 Micro-brewery” where they could wait in relative comfort. Will was frustrated too, trying to keep everyone together without revealing highly classified information, although he realized that if an attack came it wouldn’t matter if he shouted the information from the rooftops. Mark had gone back to the phones on several occasions, the last time receiving information from the sales clerk that Steve had left the store and hadn’t informed his employees where he was going. He considered it a good sign. Will hadn’t received any additional calls from Chuck and the television news reports had useless, out-of-date information. Mark went back to the lounge to reconnoiter with his group, buying a beer at the bar before joining them. Chris, Clay, and Will were carrying on a conversation in low tones.
“Dad, this is ridiculous!” Clay refused to believe the situation was dangerous. “We all have to be crazy sitting in this lousy town waiting to see if a war’s going to happen. Why don’t we go back to L.A.? We can wait it out there just as well and there’s a lot more action.”
Will’s face was inscrutable, his tone, annoyed. “Clay, don’t you think I just might have some inside information to base my assumptions on?” Will had never liked Clay's know-it-all attitude and, although he generally ignored it, he had no patience for it now. Helen and Ernest were sitting together and Will knew they were confused and frightened. Clay’s whining was upsetting them more.
“My information comes directly from the Secretary of State. We have to wait here in proximity to a certain location for approximately twenty-four hours. If nothing happens by then we can return to Los Angeles. In the meantime, just keep your mouth shut.” He glared at Clay and Clay had sense enough to settle back in his chair, nurse his drink, and keep quiet. His father didn’t get angry often and when he did it was better to back off.
Chris came to Clay’s rescue,
“Dad, if you could just give us some idea of what’s going on we might be able to relax. I don’t blame Clay, I’m a little antsy myself.”
Will paused momentarily, rubbing his forehead. He sighed, hesitated and decided that the information about the shelter wasn’t classified, and with the current developments, he supposed nothing else was either.
“Alright, I guess you both have a right to know. Several years ago I was approached to become part of a civilian group of advisors to the administration, a group comprised of owners and CEOs of major aerospace companies that did business with the government. We’ve been advisors to three presidents, their cabinets, and to the Department of Defense and we all have top-secret security clearances. We basically keep the government informed of advances in weapons technology, new developments in aviation, etc. Because of my presence in this group, and the fact that the Secretary of State is a lifelong friend, I am privy to certain information that isn’t available to the general public. A lot of it’s classified, and that’s the reason I haven’t been at liberty to discuss it. The more I learned of foreign affairs the more I realized how precarious our situation is in regard to the possibility of nuclear war. Well, your mother had recently died at that time and I felt a great responsibility to the two of you. I have more money than any man needs and decided to build a bomb shelter in case of war. It started out as a small scale thing, almost a hobby, but eventually it ended up a rather large project.”