School Days

by Ed Nelson

  “That is okay, but I’ve got to leave, I work on the New York Central and I have a train to get to Cleveland, I have to be at work in an hour. Can you see that Rick gets home?”

  “Certainly, I will give him a ride myself, that is unless the FBI arrests him.”

  I sat up straight at that!

  Then the Colonel laughed, “I’m sorry, I just couldn’t resist that.” Dad left mumbling about damned officers.

  After Dad left I realized that I was due at school. I explained my problem to the Colonel with the poor sense of humor. He was all business when he called the school.

  He explained to someone in the office that I would be out for the day as I was involved in a special air force project. He would provide me with a note.

  While we were waiting for the FBI to arrive he gave me a complete tour of the base. That took over an hour, but they hadn’t arrived yet so he left me in the control room. This was a windowless room that held the radar scopes. An aircraft would show as a blip.

  When one came on the screen the operator would hold up his hand. An airman would answer his call. The airman would be told a series of numbers representing the current location and heading of the aircraft.

  The airman using a grease pen would turn to a huge plexi-glass panel which had a circle and longitude and latitude markings. He would write the information on the panel mirror image, so that it could be read from the other side. This would be updated every thirty seconds.

  With this information airmen sitting on the other side of the panel could now calculate the speed and path of the aircraft. They were not concerned with slow moving single airplanes.

  They were guarding against a flight of Soviet bombers. If they are in doubt they would scramble fighters out of Wright Patterson, Dayton or Lockbourne, Columbus.

  The airman detailed to keep me out of trouble said they had a big scare last year and scrambled everything they could. It turned out to be a suicidal flock of birds which flew right up to the radome, and then were fried while showing up as blips.

  Two FBI agents showed up, they must always travel in pairs, at least in my brief experience. There were two in Colorado, now two here. They were agents Curtis and Peterson. Mr. Curtis identified himself as the senior agent. They both looked senior to me, like about to retire or drop dead senior. They showed their identification to the Colonel, but not me.

  When I shot those two bank robbers in Colorado the FBI had been professional, but very nice. These guys may have been professional, but they weren’t nice.

  The first words out of Mr. Curtis’s mouth were; “We need a private room to interrogate him,” pointing at me.

  The Colonel looked like he had swallowed a lemon, but had no choice so led us to a conference room. Once there they took their coats off; that let me see their shoulder holsters. Agent Curtis opened a brief case and pulled a file out, he handed a form to Agent Peterson to fill in.

  Agent Curtis told me to repeat my story. I did; about five times, they kept asking questions about different aspects. It was as though they were trying to get me to change my story. It was a simple enough series of events that I was consistent throughout.

  Finally Agent Curtis said, “So you saw a guy in the woods that you can’t identify, he got into a car that had yellow and black plates you couldn’t read. Later you saw the same make of car, which is one of the more common makes, and it had yellow and black plates.”

  “You saw it at a motel; you didn’t see the driver there, so you have no idea if he even remotely looks like the guy you saw a little of in the woods. Oh yeah, and you think he had a camera with telephoto lenses.”

  “How many cameras do you own Ricky?”

  “None,” I replied.

  “Have you ever used a telephoto lens?”

  “No, Sir.” I replied. I was beginning to feel very uneasy about where this was going.

  “You know what I think Ricky?”

  “No, Sir,” I replied.

  “Before we came out here we made a phone call to DC, they ran your name through the files; headquarters came up with you being a hero in Colorado, by shooting two bank robbers. They also found out you helped break up a cattle rustling operation in Texas. It had been awhile since you have been a hero, hasn’t it?”

  “I don’t understand what you are saying,” I said.

  “I think you are seeing things under your bed; so you can be a hero again, is what I think.”

  “Sir, I have just reported what I saw, why would that make me a hero?”

  “It wouldn’t and I think you have wasted our time today; I would think twice young man before I did that again.”

  At that point they called the Colonel in and told him their conclusion and left.

  The Colonel told me, “I’m sorry about this Rick, you were trying to do the right thing. However they are the professionals and we have to go with their conclusions.”

  At least the Colonel arranged a ride home for me and handed me a note for school.

  Chapter 7

  What a bummer! I was so embarrassed to sound a false alarm like that. When I got home and shared the events of the day with Mum she darkly said.

  “Winston warned us of the Russians, I just hope this is nothing.” The way she said, “Winston,” gave me pause.

  “Mum did you know Winston Churchill personally.”

  “Of course I did, Elizabeth and I would stop at Number 10 Downing almost every night; they always had good hot tea on, all through the war. He usually was down in his hole, but he frequently would come out and join us.”

  “What was the ‘hole’?” I asked.

  “A deep bomb shelter; where they did all the planning for the war. It was an ugly dreary place, I only went down once, and never cared if I saw it again.”

  What you don’t know about your parents!

  I puttered in the garage with my hairdryer the rest of the afternoon trying different fan speeds and temperatures. I must have wetted and dried the hair from Mrs. Baily fifty times. Well actually according to my note books it was forty one times.

  Dinner was a quiet affair, we had pork chops and mashed potatoes. Dad was on the train to Cleveland and wouldn’t be back till tomorrow. It was supposed to get really cold tonight; I hoped he didn’t freeze in that caboose. They had a little coal fed stove, but the car was so drafty that it wasn’t much help.

  Dad said they used to be in good condition but the railroads were losing so much money they weren’t repairing their equipment.

  I had to talk to Dad when he got home. I know he was a little touchy about using the money I had given the family, but he really didn’t have to work on the railroad anymore. He should quit and focus all his efforts on getting the rental housing business going.

  Just as we finished dinner the phone rang. Mum answered it, “Jackson residence.”

  She turned to me, “Ricky it is for you,’ handing me the instrument.

  “Hello Rick Jackson here, who is this?”

  “Rick it is Lou Sperry at the motel. The guy that you were asking about just checked out, that is a little strange because he was booked until the day after tomorrow. People don’t check out late in the afternoon, just thought I would let you know. Oh yeah, and he was dressed all in black.”

  “Thanks Mr. Sperry, I owe you one.”

  “Now what to do,” I wondered.

  “What was that about Ricky?” inquired Mum.

  I relayed my conversation with Mr. Sperry.

  She told me, “I think it is time that you took a little run, it is dark out; why don’t you run up by the airbase and see if any strange cars are parked there. If there are you might want to let the Officer of the Day know he might be having a visitor.”

  “Good thinking Mum, and if it is nothing I will come right home.”

  Before I left I made a quick stop at the gun cabinet and retrieved one of my Colts and checked that it was loaded. I put it in my coat pocket. Mum saw this but said nothing.

  It was a ten minute trot
up to where I had seen the Bel Air parked before. While running up to the parking spot I realized I was missing my first Spanish lesson. When I got there, the car was parked there, and this time I knew the license plate number, it was the car from the motel. No one was in it.

  I flat out ran to the front gate and asked to see the Officer of the Day. I thought I might be given a hard time but the airman just picked up his phone. The officer who showed up was someone who I hadn’t met, a Lieutenant Foster. I quickly told him my story.

  He had been brought up to date on the events earlier in the day and made some decisions quickly. He first put in a call to Colonel Manning. He then detailed a couple of airmen armed with 38 revolvers to accompany us. We went to a vacant building next to the fence with a clear view of the radomes. No lights were turned on.

  I heard one of the airman whisper; “I hope the Colonel gets here with the key to the armory.”

  I gave him a searching look which he took as a question.

  “We don’t have any bullets, they’re locked up.”

  “Huh?” I brilliantly went.

  The lieutenant explained, in peacetime there is a greater danger of gun accidents rather than actually needing them loaded, so procedure is to keep the bullets locked up until needed.”

  I almost got a headache thinking of it.

  I didn’t get a chance, the other airman urgently whispered, “Sir,” and pointed out the window.

  We could see a shadowy figure at the fence. It appeared to be doing something to the fence. The figure raised its arms I could see that it was a pair of bolt cutters. They were large, like the ones the janitors used at school to cut old locks off lockers.

  We watched as the figure continued cutting.

  The lieutenant said, “Let’s wait till he is on our side of the fence before taking him. That way there is no question he is up to no good.”

  I liked this lieutenant’s attitude a whole lot more than the FBI’s.

  It didn’t take long before the figure lifted a portion of the fence and crawled under it. We went outside and came up behind a man who was fastening something to the base of the largest radome.

  The lieutenant said “Halt, hands up.”

  The airman had their unloaded weapons out. I eased my loaded Colt peacemaker out of my pocket.

  The man turned and pulled a pistol. As he was turning I shot at him. We were both lucky. I missed him; I also missed the dynamite he was attaching to the tower leg. He quickly lowered his pistol when he saw all weapons facing him.

  The airman marched him and his bag full of equipment to the dayroom. The Colonel arrived about that time.

  He took one quick look at the bags contents and said, “Go on High Alert, lock the base down, no one in, no one out.”

  Turning to the lieutenant he handed him a key.

  “Arm all guards; set two guards at the breach in the fence. Set up the flood lights to illuminate the breech at the fence.”

  He then picked up a phone on the day room desk. He identified himself and told whoever he was talking to that the base had an attempted breach and was on High Alert. He recommended that Wright Patterson and Lockbourne be scrambled.

  He said, “Yes Sir,” and hung up.

  He then called the night desk at the FBI in Columbus.

  The phone rang, the lieutenant picked up, identifying himself then said, “Yes Sir, and handed the phone to the Colonel who also identified himself.

  He took notes as he kept repeating, “Yes Sir.”

  He hung up the phone, then he turned to us and told us.

  “That was 30th Air Division, General Simmons at Willow Run. We are the only Midwest station up. The 662 at Brookfield, 665 Keweenaw, Connellsville 772 and Rockville 782 are all down; also the gap filler at Mount Nebo is off the air. The whole Midwest is open to attack.

  I was allowed to call home and update Mum that I was stuck on base because of a lockdown. The Colonel asked me not to tell her about the other stations being down, and I respected that. I also thought Mum knew a hell of a lot more about enemy bombers than he ever would.

  During the wait, the Colonel checked that the guards were in place as ordered, and the area was lighted by the flood lights different from any I had ever seen before. I asked about them and found out that the flood lights, were large bulbs set in a reflector, which was mounted on an adjustable pole, they could even turn which direction the light faced.

  I examined one and saw that it swiveled on some sort of round ball, like the pictures of an elbow joint from my health class books.

  It was a tense couple of hours, especially when the radar operators spotted intruders. Fighters were vectored in on them and they turned away. It was a flight of twenty four Russian bombers. They apologized over the air, they were having navigation difficulties.

  The FBI showed up after the excitement was all over. It wasn’t the same two agents, these were much younger. They were polite and asked me to repeat my entire story.

  This time it wasn’t in a room with only the two agents, Sneed and Walston. The Colonel invited himself in on the session and they had no problems with that, or least didn’t say anything.

  I told them starting with my run much earlier today. I left nothing out, including the attitude of the previous two FBI agents. The younger appearing of the two agents Walston, smirked when he said, “They hadn’t seen the full file on you.”

  “What about a full file?” I asked.

  “They had only seen your activities in Colorado and Texas; they didn’t see the President’s request or the flags on your mother.”

  Without him even having to ask I turned to the Colonel,

  “President Eisenhower is my godfather. We hadn’t been in communication for some years, so he had a background check performed prior to reopening relations.”

  “Now are you going to tell him who your godmother is,” dryly asked Agent Sneed?

  “Queen Elizabeth,” I replied.

  The Colonel just shook his head, he had just fended off a possible nuclear attack. I don’t think anything could surprise him now.

  “Would they have believed my story because of that?”

  “No but they would’ve been a lot politer. I won’t kid you Rick, from what you had earlier today factually, I would’ve reached the same conclusion. I would’ve been wrong,” said Agent Sneed.

  “What I don’t understand is why your mother let you go into such a dangerous situation in the first place.”

  Agent Walston put in, “I suspect that flag on her file would answer that.”

  “Mum knows I can handle myself, I won’t charge recklessly into danger.”

  “Yeah, just ask those two bank robbers,” Walston replied sarcastically.

  Just then the phone rang; the Colonel answered but wordlessly handed it to Agent Sneed. Sneed listened and did the yes sir, yes sir bit.

  “The man you apprehended is a known member of a communist sleeper cell. He has been under observation, we don’t know how he got this far. I am under orders to keep this under wraps. We don’t want to blow this up to an international incident at this time, why I don’t know.”

  “What does that mean?” asked the Colonel.

  “It was a security drill, nothing happened, you will have to brief your men.”

  “Rick, we can’t order you to keep quiet, but if you do say anything about this, it will all be denied and you will look foolish.”

  “I won’t say anything, besides I am tired of talking to reporters.”

  The Colonel chuckled, the two Agents from out of town didn’t know about last Friday. Of course they wouldn’t have been good agents if they hadn’t asked why I had been talking to reporters.

  “Actually it was only one reporter, and it was about a rally held in my honor for winning the State Golf Championship.”

  The Colonel kept his mouth shut about it being more than that.

  The agents were on the phone with Columbus for another half hour, more agents would be arriving in the morning
to check out the car, the motel room he stayed in and what they called the crime scene. They came up with a ‘cover’ story that the saboteur was a ‘bunco artist.’

  I, like most of America had watched, “I Led Three Lives,” on TV so I knew the terms.

  The saboteur who I hadn’t seen or spoken to since we captured him had been searched, then handcuffed and locked in the single cell jail they had on base. He would be taken to Columbus by the two FBI Agents. I asked why they even had a jail cell.

  “On rare occasions an airman will have too much to drink, and get a little feisty, so we let them sleep it off there,” stated the Colonel.

  “How rare,” I asked?

  “Oh, about every Saturday night,” he said with a grin, “there is not much to do in Bellefontaine for these young men.”

  After several more admonishments from the agents about talking I was allowed to leave. The Colonel had a Lieutenant drive me home. Mum was at the door. I filled her in completely on events. There was no way that I wouldn’t share events with my parents.

  I would tell no one else, including Judy. I told Mum that the FBI implied there was more to her file than an association with the Queen. She told me that it couldn’t be much whatever it was.

  Mum then told me she knew about security from her wartime days. She and Dad would say nothing to anyone else. I was exhausted from the day. I went to bed and directly to sleep.

  Chapter 8

  The next morning after my run, which wasn’t near the airbase, I had my shower. I wished I could adjust the direction of the water flow once again, when it hit me. I had seen the answer last night on those flood lights.

  A ball and socket arrangement would work! I knew you could put a hole in the ball, because that was where the electrical cord went. The only concern was water leaking from between the ball and socket. This would get worse as the ball and socket wore, from use.

  Then I realized, the water would be turned off when not in use. The only time water would be present was when it flowed out the shower head, since water took the path of least resistance there should be no leaks, if the tolerances were reasonably tight. Now who could make one for me?