Of Salt and Sand

by Barnes, Michael

  Teresa glanced sharply at her watch. She pushed down on the accelerator. She needed to hurry if she was to get all her tasked completed and then back to Sandcastle before dark.

  Chapter 32:

  In the distance, beyond the safety and fenced borders of the Sandcastle sanctuaries, a subtle plateau rose above the smooth landscape—a bump in the sheeted plain. Years of short, yet potent cloudbursts had created two washed-out ravines on either side of a large acclivity. Eroding shelves and precarious overhangs formed from eons of blowing sand, tiered up the cliff’s flanks like ancient steps on some crumbling pyramid. It was nearly high noon, and not a wisp or draft could be felt. Instead, an eerie silence had settled in, seemingly subduing even the ghostly distortion in the rise of the heated air.

  Suddenly, on the east-most side of the rise, a rumble deep within the earth brought clouds of dust and dancing sand tumbling down in tiny ripples of swirling debris. As the spray poured into gathering dust-pools at the mount’s feet, another event, even more profound than the first, followed as though in some unnatural procession. The chaos continued until a large rip tore through the surface of the desert fabric. The line formed in seconds, opening along the horizontal. It lengthened and expanded until, in a rapid intake of air, a massive door—uniquely camouflaged within the cliff’s south face—heaved open. Sunlight poured into an already lit cavern. Even before the dust could settle, a whining buzz broke out from within the cavity’s bowls as a vehicle darted out. As sunlight fell upon the craft, it came alive, moving as though born of the desert.

  The LSV (Light Strike Vehicle) glided along the sand as effortlessly as a quick-footed lizard. It wound around the bottom of the wash before climbing steadily upward until finally emerging on level ground. The vehicle slowed then rolled to a hard stop behind an outcropping of rocks. Two men hurriedly exited and removed several cases of equipment from a rear compartment. After a brief canvass of the surrounding panorama, they setup their gear.

  The two soldiers were outfitted with the US Military’s latest and best reconnaissance equipment, including their cutting-edge and fully camouflaged LSV. On the left shoulder of each army issued shirt was the insignia of an animated ant—full of attitude and stinger well displayed. The two men were proud of this emblem. It meant that they were members of the Fire Ant Division—an elite unit of soldiers assigned to support a top secret military project known as EMR. The enigmatic project was to be housed within a secret underground base—the most advanced, and costly installation yet constructed by the United States Government. The nearly completed facility was located deep beneath an old and derelict military training base found just outside of Wendover, Utah. Once a hangar graveyard, it was now to become the perfect location for the clandestine, EMR underground fortress.

  Initially, the Fire Ant Unit had not been happy about their temporarily assignment in the salty wasteland. Reconnaissance was something other divisions did, not the highly trained, meticulously skilled Fire Ants. The relocation had been a disappointment, to say the least—stuck in some makeshift underground bunker out in the middle of a hot, lifeless desert. Especially when months earlier, rumors of a dangerous and formidable mission had galvanized the entire division, instilling excitement and a sense of real action. They had prepared and trained for months, unaware that their objective was some rogue underground installation located on American soil. And to add insult to injury, this so called target, turned out to be nothing more than an eccentric desert estate jetting up out of the sands like some weird cactus oasis.

  The hot dry climate and the smothering confines of their underground bunker had worn heavily on the men in the past weeks. They had petitioned their superiors for clarification on the mysterious project—a briefing or update on the operation status. But their requests had been met with vague explanations and brusque attitudes—a typical response for the elite group, who were often kept in the dark in regards to their most secret assignments. Soldiers, after all, were simply expected to rise to the task; to risk life and limb, and to do so without question. Their orders had been unclear: prepare the area topside and underground for stage-two of HOPE relocation . . . whatever that was. And so like robots they had carried out their assignment: setup waypoints, consigned incoming equipment, gathered what intel was available; and all the while eagerly awaited updates to their monotonous routines. But after endless weeks in their Mole Hole bunker, as they had come to call it, the only thing gathered—and it was not intel—was truckloads of supplies, and no idea what to do with it all. That was last week. This week, things had changed . . . and that’s putting it mildly.

  A senior captain named Matt Karson had joined their team. The young officer brought, not only some very interesting equipment, but authorization from Colonel Briggs to . . . what was it he had said? Finally spill his guts? And spill he did! The young captain turned out to be a veritable almanac of information.

  Karson must have talked for nearly two hours—standing firm formed in his spit shined uniform—and some of it was very insightful. But not all of it. And in fact, there was quite a bit more to the briefing than the men had anticipated—a lot more. It soon became apparent that this operation was to be unlike anything the mighty Fire Ants had ever undertaken.

  Captain Karson claimed—among other things—to have seen blueprints, schematics, maps and other undisclosed documentation regarding the future expansion of their little underground Mole Hole. The officer also alleged to have been privy to conversation between Colonel Briggs and the powerful magnate, Jimmy Reitman—owner and CEO of the international satellite company, Reitman Enterprises. Most of the men had heard of Reitman’s company and knew that he had ties, not only to the government, but to their target—this HOPE underground and the Sandcastle oasis above. But no one could have prepared them for just what these ties entailed. In fact, if Karson’s accounting was correct, their hidden bunker was about to become a full-blown underground auxiliary base.

  By the time the briefing had ended, Karson’s details had caused more confusion than answers, and the Fire Ants were still way out in left field—certainly outside the know. In fact, in a divergent way, some of the captain’s statements had teetered on the edge of outrageous, and had generated more skepticism than anything else. That was until the equipment he referred to starting pouring in. Then the soldiers really took notice; and it was bizarre to say the least!

  Karson’s claims began to make sense; and the more they did, the more nervous grew the men. The Fire Ant’s had already figured out a great deal about their Mole Hole cavern—one doesn’t live in such a miserable environment without figuring out a few things. But Karson’s declaration had not only shed the light, it had brought in the spot lights!

  For starters: the cramped Mole Hole cavern—and all the requisite equipment therein—was evidently tied directly to this Jim Reitman. The entire sub-base was cocooned inside some naturally formed underground salt dome, an ancient wonder of nature found only under the deserts of Utah’s Great Salt Lake basin. As it turned out, the massive salt cavern had been discovered back in the fifties by Reitman’s father—the famed and now deceased, billionaire philanthropist Dr. Zen Reitman—while on field duty at Dugway Military Base. At the time, Reitman senior had been on loan from Los Alamos Laboratories. The man had kept his discovery of the elusive underground salt hive a secret—that is to all but his cohort scientists at Los Alamos.

  Some years later, Reitman senior and his new wife would return and acquire half of the salt desert—a purchase which even then had seemed extremely odd. The reason would become patent, however, when shortly thereafter, the family setup house right in the center of the derelict plot. Using their wealth and a feigning sense of philanthropy as a smokescreen, they and their team of unorthodox scientists—men and women bought off from Los Alamos Laboratories—began a momentous undertaking: the development of a weapon. A weapon engineered on technology they had most certainly stolen from Los Alamos, and which when complete, could be sold back to the US Mili
tary for billions.

  Once their castle-compound had been built above, the group secretly accessed the salt-vault hive below, turning the cavernous arteries into an underground laboratory complex. Within these hidden vaults, they set to work developing their futuristic weapon—and they had succeeded! It had taken many long years; years of development and testing at some staggering cost. A cost which had challenged even the fortunes of the affluent family business. But now the thing was complete; complete and ready for deployment. Yet there was a caveat. One right out of a James Bond movie.

  Jimmy, it seemed, having taken control of the project after his father’s death, did not have the authoritative drive that Reitman senior had had, and soon lost control of not only his family’s assets, but their puppet scientists as well. The resulting rebellion saw Jimmy forced out, and his life threatened. The deposed Reitman had fled right into the arms of the CIA, the only government entity which could move to stop this technology—his technology—from falling into the hands of conspirator scientists who might well sell their treasure to the highest, and possibly most unfavorable, bidder. It was a terrifying prospect, and one which the military could not ignore.

  It had come as no surprise then, that the initial debriefing by Captain Karson was received as a strange, heretic tale right out of some Hollywood movie. Nearly every solder of the Fire Ants had considered that their captain’s intel was nothing more than military propaganda, or worse—a ridiculous prank proliferated from some top-level officer’s meeting where the drinks had poured too freely. But as it turned out, there was no propaganda . . . there was no prank. This time, the army was giving it to them straight. And straight never felt so twisted.

  Colonel Briggs had wanted his team close to the Sandcastle hive—very close to this HOPE infrastructure. And they were. In fact, their underground garrison was only about two-hundred feet from one of HOPE’s outer tunnels: the omega-seven dome—the most remote exterior station of the entire underground grid. The reason for this unusual proximity had been made clear when Briggs announced that his team was to take part in a government sanctioned appropriation: a seizure of not only the HOPE complex below ground, but of the estate above. And there was more, so much more.

  The rogue complex would not fall easily. Besides their radical weapons technology, the Sandcastle conspiracy had built up a defensive android league of robots. An advanced prototype unlike anything known in the world’s current artificial intelligence and robotic arsenal. And these—their mechanical mercenaries—had been created for one purpose: to protect and defend the underground and its secrets.

  It was a daunting prospect to be sure. One which would have to be met with extreme care and strategic planning. But according to Karson, the planning was well underway.

  The size of the salt cavern which housed their own Mole Hole-bunker was also massive in size. So large, in fact, that under Reitman’s direction, Colonel Briggs had authorized an expansion. A manufacturing facility were the military could construct their own version of defensive android fighters. These—a necessary armament to oppose those rogue systems already developed within the HOPE underground—were to be what Reitman had called his Goliath Series Attack robots. Thinking machines that had the ability to tear through rock and earth like a bullet through tissue.

  Again, Karson’s integrity had been initially questioned. But that was last week. This week, the arrival of a prototype of this demon robot was actually delivered onsite, and the very image of the thing had shaken the men to their core. But the demonstration—the one whose sole purpose had been to dispel all doubt and instill a sense of terrifying reality into each soldier’s gut—now that had been the turning point, and it had worked. It had left them stunned beyond belief. These, the military’s most elite, seasoned and callused men, had nearly soiled themselves. Only then did they truly understand the gravity of their task. Only by the construction of a preemptive army—one comprised of such as these metal monsters—might the counterpart army, already built up within the HOPE hive, be stopped. The demonstration had not only solidified the Fire Ant’s full commitment, but had underscored, absolutely, the danger of this rogue technology, particularly in enemy hands.

  The mighty Fire Ant Division had been re-galvanized, both in intent and purpose. And like a strapped bull, they now longed to be released upon the HOPE sanctuaries.

  Amazingly, there were other mechanical wonders Jimmy Reitman had delivered from his rebel underground laboratories: human-fashioned assembly androids, infinitely more pleasing to the eye than the Goliaths, but no less impressive in their advanced methods. These mechanical artisans would be programmed to construct the Goliaths, and to do so with unprecedented skill, speed and efficiency. Yet, amid all the futuristic machinery that Reitman had pulled from his magicians hat, his quintessential prize was yet to be revealed. It seemed that the military’s focal interest was on some implausible device to which each android had been equipped: A matter redistributing device . . . surprisingly similar to the purported EMR project being developed at Dugway’s underground base. It hadn’t taken long, then, for the men to put two-and-two together: the Army was developing Reitman’s technology, only on a much larger scale.

  The immediate reaction—at least for most who had witnessed the EMR device in action—was to question the United States’ involvement into such dangerous technology. Some felt—as had the scientists working for the Manhattan Project during the development of the atom bomb—that this was an apocalyptic technology, better left for the distant future, and that the existing prototypes should be destroyed. However, these the unresolved, were soon reassured that the rogue scientists working for Sandcastle were the real threat. A threat Jimmy Reitman had discovered amongst his own, and had risked his life to stop and eliminate.

  Colonel Briggs had made it very clear when he quoted Reitman as saying: these individuals mean to sell this technology to unfriendly regimes. And had continued with his own adamant resolve: once contained, our government will use this technology to enrich and improve, never to dominate or destroy.

  And so there it was. The soldiers of Fire Ant Division had capitulated, realizing that this was indeed a noble and patriotic cause. A procurement of technology which could otherwise end up in the hands of terrorists. With this enlightened knowledge and the true course of their mission revealed, the team stood firm behind their commander and chief, Colonel Carl C. Briggs.

  --

  On the quiescent desert rise, the two men disassembled their gear and packaged the expensive equipment into a serious of reinforced metal cases. As they did, another of their comrades, a field specialist outfitted in full terrain gear, joined them. They talked for a brief moment, then the companion-soldier pointed outward in the distance. As he did, binoculars rose. Soon all three men had focused the powerful lenses at a single distant rise—the Sandcastle complex.

  “Who are they,” asked Captain Karson.

  “We have no idea,” came the reply from the Lieutenant, his face still painted in desert rouge. “But they easily cleared all three exterior checkpoints and entered the reinforced, interior yard, sir.” The soldier took off his hat and banged the desert dust from it. “We don’t know where they went or what transpired from there—we weren’t able to track them once they entered the inside yard.”

  “This is very peculiar,” mused Karson, contorting his features as he squinted into the lens.

  “Yes, sir. That’s why we had you come topside. Thought you ought to see this.”

  “And you say that both vehicles have now left the premises?” Karson repeated.

  “Yes sir. They didn’t stay long. The large black vehicle left first, then the white vehicle followed about an hour later,”—he paused—“but they left two of their party at the estate.”

  Karson rebounded visibly and glared at the soldier. “Say again?”

  “Yes, sir. Unit-three radioed in earlier with a clear description of the occupants in both vehicles as they passed through checkpoint-two. The large, d
ark vehicle had four passengers going in—two adult males in the front and two adolescents in the back: a girl and boy.”

  “Children?”

  “Appears so, sir. But neither of these two adolescents were in the exiting vehicles.”

  Karson exhaled nervously, “I want license plate numbers ran on both vehicles.”

  “Already in progress, sir.”

  “Good.” He pondered the situation again, this time rubbing nervously on his unshaven chin. “Old lady Reitman must have cleared them through the checkpoints herself. But why? And who are they?”

  “No idea, sir.”

  “Okay,” Karson said, resolved. “We better have base contact Colonel Briggs at Dugway. I don’t think Dr. Reitman’s information is accurate. From what I’ve been told, all visitors to Sandcastle must be previously cleared either through his security staff at corporate, or through Reitman himself.” Karson paused, taking another glance through his binoculars. “Clearly, this is not happening.”

  “Yes, sir,” affirmed the Lieutenant with a quick nod. “I’m on it.” The soldier joined his comrade at the parked LSV still tucked behind its rocky incline.

  The young captain remained for a long moment at the watch, surveying the site like an eagle on its post. He brought the binoculars several more times to his eyes. Then seemingly satisfied, he spit, cursed, and wiped at some gathered dust in the corner of an eye. “There’ll be hell to pay when Reitman finds out about this, that much is certain,” he mumbled to himself.

  The Lieutenant had already yanked on the LSV’s transceiver and called base-relay. “This is Lieutenant Kyles of FAD-one. I need to talk to Colonel Briggs. We have a situation.”