by Pat Price
A different voice answered, "Special Agent Mendoza is flying out to your location," the voice said.
"I had a small problem," I said. "Do you have radio contact with the recovery team?" I asked.
"Yes sir, I am in communications with them and Agent Mendoza."
"Tell them I've turned onto state Highway 87 in front of the reservation and am heading toward Phoenix. Got that," I said as a statement and not a question.
"Yes sir. Please hold a moment, I'm going to try and patch Agent Mendoza through to this line. Don't hang up," he said, the cell phone went silent. The truck was still accelerating and I eased off of the gas pedal as the speedometer touched 70. My mind flashed back to our session with Jason Kilpatrick and his thought of using gunpowder to propel one chunk of uranium into another. Now that I was this far I did not want to roll the truck and be transformed into a cloud of electrons and atoms by one of the weapons in the back. Of course Olson's group could have used any number of other propellants that would not detonate with a physical impact but I did not want to put that theory to the test.
"Talk to me," Mendoza's voice said on the cell phone.
"I'm here," I said in a clipped voice.
"We have two choppers, a gun ship and a Huey, about three minutes out from you. I'm about two minutes behind them in an agency Ranger. Are your bright lights still on?" I could hear the background noise of the helicopter in the cell phone. I was starting to get a warm fuzzy felling until two pickup trucks and another Bronco went past me heading toward the reservation. I looked at the rear view mirror and saw all of the brake lights go on. I nailed the gas pedal again. I wanted to put all of the distance between them and me while they were getting turned around.
"I've got some more company," I said. "There are three that vehicles just shot past me heading toward the reservation. They are turning around now and my guess would be that they want what I'm carrying." The speedometer was now hovering above 90 and the wind noise from the open window was deafening. I thumbed the power control on the driver's armrest and ran the window closed. The sound inside the cab changed from an all consuming wind noise to a high pitched hum from the off-road tires singing on the pavement. I put the cell phone back to my ear.
"Mendoza," I said. I looked at the rear view mirror. At least two of the trucks that went past me have gotten turned around. They looked to be at least half a mile back. I was carrying half a ton of weight and they were probably lightly loaded with just a few men in each. If I was lucky I could keep some distance between them and me until the recovery team reached us. All of them back there knew what I carrying and I was banking that they didn't want to be shooting at the bed of the truck.
"I'm here. Make sure the big lights are on so the good guys can see you." I flipped the switch for the desert lights and the desert Highway in front of me lit up like it was high noon.
"Mendoza, ask them if they can see me?" I yelled into the cell phone. The two or three seconds it took him to get back to me seemed like forever.
"They have you. They are about 30 seconds away. What's the status on the vehicles behind you?" he asked. Just then another hole appeared in the front windshield and the right side of my face and the back of my neck was dusted with small pieces of glass from the hole that got punched in the back window. Judging from the location of the hole in the front windshield the bullet probably missed me by less than two inches. I slid down in the seat in an attempt to offer less of a target. I looked at the outside driver's mirror and saw the first of the trucks about 100 yards behind me. I could see the shooter leaning over the cab of the truck. He was outlined by the headlights of the truck behind him. He looked like he was holding a long gun.
"The cab of my truck just took a round. You better get that gun ship up here muy pronto or there could be a lot of green glass on this part of the desert." I screamed. I wasn't going to be able to use the MP-5 this time because there were too many trucks. Too many being defined as more than one. If I got one of them in front of me the one behind would be blowing my ass away while I was shooting at his partner. My only hope laid in staying in front and the gun ship getting here in time. I pressed harder on the gas and nursed another mile or two per hour out of the engine. God but I love big V-8s. This engine was clocking over 90 and not missing a beat. The temperature gage was right in the middle and the power was there, tell me that size doesn’t matter.
I sat up in the seat and did a jerk to the left with the steering wheel and another round from the truck behind me went through both back and front windows. Another quickly went through the passenger's outside mirror. I waited about three seconds and jerked back to the right. The shooter snapped off another shot. He missed but I saw the muzzle flash in the mirror and heard the crack from the barrel.
I saw the first helicopter coming in from the right side. It must have been the Huey because a sun light spot was shining behind me and the pickup that was about 30 yards back was suddenly illuminated. I started shifting my eyes back and forth between the road in front of me and the rear view mirror. I needed to keep track of where I was on the road and to see if the bad guys were going to take another shot. I saw the shooter standing in the bed of the pickup behind me turn and face the helicopter that was pacing them. He pulled the gun to his shoulder and he disappeared, or I should say most of the truck disappeared. I heard more than saw what happened. I had not heard that sound since I had been in the Gulf War back in ‘91. It was the sound of a gun ship spooling several thousand rounds of big caliber ammo at a target from twin chain guns. The shooter literally disappeared and the truck just exploded. I assumed that the hot rounds from the gun ship cooked off the gas tank in the pickup.
I stayed on the gas pedal for another 15 to 20 seconds to give the gun ship some room. I put the cell phone back to my ear. The sound of Mendoza's yelling voice greeted me.
"Get off the God damn gas and pull that thing over," he was screaming. I took my foot off of the gas pedal and gently pressed on the brake pedal. The big Ford slowed and half a mile later I pulled to the side of the road onto the hard packed dirt shoulder. I could hear the sound of helicopters behind me. I looked back and could see the gun ship orbiting around the pickup truck and the Bronco while another helicopter with the sunlight was keeping the group well illuminated. A group of men were lying down in the road and the third helicopter hovered about four feet above the road and six or more men jumped out. All of them were dressed in black and all were carrying long guns.
The third helicopter lifted off again and floated toward me. I was easy to spot because the desert lights on the front of my pickup were still on. I backed along side the truck and into the beams of the flood lights mounted on the front grill of the Ford. I then laid face down on the road with my arms out to my side because I did not want to be an accident of friendly fire. The chopper settled down about 25 yards on the other side of the road from me and was out of my sight. I was blinded by the glare from the floodlights. I saw the gun ship take up a hover position slightly to the rear of my pickup. I looked up and saw the twin chain guns swivel down, pointing at me. Talk about something that will give you religion.
There were 2 men with guns drawn that came out of the dark to the side. One stopped beside me and one behind me. Both were pointing guns down at me.
"Ed?" Mendoza yelled to be heard above the roar of the blades on the gun ship.
"Yeah, it's me, your average white boy," I said. I felt euphoric, like I was walking and my dick was banging against the side of my knee and like I had four ounces of vodka in me and I couldn't help myself from wise cracking.
"Get your ass off of the road before some Indian decides to run your ass over."
I looked up. Mendoza had holstered his weapon and was holding his right hand down to me. I rolled onto my side and into a sitting position and took his hand. He pulled and I came up onto my feet and started shaking.
"The keys to the truck are still in the ignition. How about a lift back to the clinic. I want to see Jimmy," I said
, looking at Mendoza. He smiled and wrapped his arm around my shoulder and started me walking toward his helicopter.
"I think I can arrange that," he said. "And Ed?"
"Yeah?" I said.
"You're buying the first round when we get back to California."
-51-
I was sitting or rather lying in a beat up aluminum framed chase lounge chair next to Jimmy. We were facing west, into the setting sun, beside his Father's house on the reservation. It was late November and we had put off returning home to Newport Beach so Jimmy could recover and be near his family, or our family as I had come to think of his Father and Sister. Although I must confess, I had, during the two months we stayed, rather unbrotherly thoughts about Rebecca. The two of us had become very, very, very close.
Jimmy and I were bundled in ski jackets and heavy pants to ward off the cold late afternoon desert air. I had dozed off and was dreaming about my home and the beach when I was a little boy. I thought my Mother's soft voice was calling my name as I slowly came awake. My thoughts drifted to warm afternoons and sandy beaches, my friends and the bittersweet pain of a first love. When my eyes half opened Rebecca was kneeling between Jimmy and me. She had two steaming cups of something. I looked at her and the sun was directly behind her head forming a halo that glowed through her long hair. I could only faintly see her face because of the contrast of light and she looked like a painting I had seen when I was in grade school. It was displayed in a dusty dirty window of an art gallery in Laguna Beach giving it an out of focus sepia tone quality. At the time I thought it was the most beautiful painting I had ever seen. At that moment Rebecca looked the same to me.
"Whose is your friend?" she said to me. The question confused me because I was still partially asleep. I slowly looked over at Jimmy then back at her drifting between sleep and consciousness.
"No silly," she said. I looked at her and she nodded her head toward me, smiling. I looked down toward my feet and saw a large green lizard, sitting on my chest watching me. If I had been fully awake I would have probably been startled, but being in the state of mind I was in, I just smiled.
"Floyd," I said.
"What?" she asked.
"Floyd," I repeated. "His name is Floyd." I drifted off to sleep again.
-52-
We returned home to Newport Beach in mid December. Jimmy, Floyd, and I drove back in the big V8 Ford pickup, with my Sportster tied in the bed. Floyd rode in a cage on the seat between Jimmy and me and as a concession to him, we kept the cab uncomfortably hot.
By New Years day, Jimmy had mostly recovered from his punctured lung but he was still gimping around somewhat. He had actually suffered three punctures from broken ribs having been pounded into his left lung. Olson was good at what he did, which was administering beatings to a handcuffed man. The FBI arrested 28 more co-conspirators on the reservation. I had killed a total of 10 men, including, the four in the cave, the four in the Bronco on the way to the reservation and two in the pickup on the reservation road so the total of the group came to 38 that we knew of for sure. The thing that nagged at the back of my mind was how many did we miss.
I told Mendoza about Olson bragging that he had a person inside the FBI which I’m sure triggered a mole hunt. Mendoza never told me if they found out who that was or not but the last time I mention it he just smiled.
The weapons recovery team secured and disarmed both of the devices Olson's group had constructed. They also recovered another kilo of shavings from the machining of the metallic uranium. The shavings were recovered from a small lead lined vault in the cave. Olson's team had buried the scrap after cleaning up the machine shop room and tools. Since the matter was deemed a National Security issue, the newspapers never carried the story, because I suspect they never knew about it. The remaining revolutionaries as they called themselves, or terrorists as I called them, just disappeared somewhere. Where they actually are, is anyone's guess. I hope the government contracted for cell space with the Russians in some artic gulag.
During the last week of December, Jimmy and I received confirmation of a deposit to an offshore account on the isle of Jersey for 4.6 million dollars. A week later we wire transferred about $300,000 of the monies to the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation tribal clinic account. We also transferred half of the remaining to an account Jimmy controls and the other half to an account I control. Jimmy wanted to build a new house for his Father but the Chief forcibly refused. I endowed several chairs in fine arts at a local Junior College in the name of a long lost friend from the Gulf war.
Rebecca came to visit us during the first week of the New Year. January in Newport Beach is mild and we often walked to the beach from the office wearing only light jackets or sweaters. Jimmy, Rebecca, and I would lunch at Rubies with Sherri, the pretty young thing with the built in tan, taking our order and waiting on us upstairs.
During that time, I always ordered a salad to go, lots of lettuce, apple slices, and no dressing, for Floyd.
EPILOG
Rebecca returned home to the reservation in March. She had stayed with Jimmy and I long enough for Jimmy to completely recover. He even began running with me on the beach and started riding a bicycle. We were paid a visit from the government in the guise of the Internal Revenue Service who hand delivered a letter stating we owed no taxes for the past year. Mendoza kept his promise and we were completely clear on the taxes.
Jimmy and I are now, what is referred to, as moneyed and for sure we can be picky about when we work and whom we work for. Rebecca flew back to Phoenix on the airplane in first class, complements of Newport Investigations, a Delaware Corporation. Jimmy was discrete at the jet-way and stood back while Rebecca and I said goodbye. I slid a two-caret brilliant cut ring on her finger just before she turned and walked down the tunnel to the aircraft, smiling to herself.
Once the doorway was closed and I turned and walked away. Jimmy fell into step next to me and looked over and down.
"I saw that," he said, smiling.
About the story:
Bright Sun was inspired by a book written by John McPhee titled “Curve of Binding Energy.” The book is a story about the career of Theodore B. Taylor, a theoretical physicist and a conceptual designer of atomic bombs. At Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, Ted Taylor conceived and designed the largest-yield fission bomb ever exploded by any nation and the lightest and smallest ever made. His small bomb was designed to be fired from artillery cannons.
I read the book while on a flight from Orange County, California to Boston, Massachusetts. McPhee and Taylor described in detail how a group of terrorists could steal nuclear fuel, which is generally stored in powder form as uranium oxide and convert it to weapons grade metallic uranium. Scary stuff indeed.
This was in 1998, four years after the terrorist Timothy James McVeigh blew up the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995 killing 168 people and injuring 450. The thought crossed my mind that if McVeigh had read the book and followed the instructions the body count at the Alfred P. Murrah building would have been a lot higher and the hole in the ground would have been a lot deeper.
The next thought that crossed my mind was that the American Indians had more reason to do something extreme than McVeigh had. I had finished writing my first book a couple of months before and decided to make the group of terrorists American Indians. In my book the two protagonists from Prodigal Son are assigned by the FBI to track down the terrorist group who the FBI thought was one of the white supremacy groups.
The character of James Two Feathers is modeled after a man I worked with in aerospace who was a Yavapai Apache Indian who had two master’s degrees and a PhD in mathematics. James (his real name) was so polite and unassuming that you never have guessed how educated he was. Rebecca was modeled after the wife of a friend whose name was Rebecca. She was a registered operating room nurse who was a Yavapai Apache Indian from the reservation east of Prescott Arizona. The character of James Two Feathers Sr. was modeled after an old friend
of mine I knew in the 1960s named Mr. Boyd who was an American Indian from a tribe in Northern California. Mr. Boyd was a postal mail carrier who could do just about anything from building houses to rebuilding engines. He was largely self educated.
The character of Howard, the elderly American Indian who operated the reservation old gas station on old Route 66 north of Kingman Arizona, was modeled after a man whom I became friends with when I lived in Kingman Arizona in the early 1980s. This man was as irascible as the character in the story modeled after him.
Ray and Connie who operated the road house on old Route 66 were modeled after friends of mine, who are now smiling down on me. Considering that this book is a work of fiction, I can say with some degree of accuracy, that I never saw my friend blow his nose on a bar rag.
During the early 1980’s I was involved in the survival movement but was not a member of any militia. Militia members were generally viewed by survivalists as right wing nut cases. Most survivalists were ex-Vietnam veterans and more than a few were Black or Hispanic. I modeled the character of McClintock on one of the older Vietnam veterans I met during this time.