The Case

by Lee Cunningham

  Shane knew his apartment had been under surveillance by Lee’s team ever since he left and thought it a plus that Grant hadn’t figured out he was no longer staying there. He also knew that he was going to leave Carson City and then call Grant, to delay whoever had plans to set up early on them for the meet in Genoa. But if they were already waiting at the location, he needed to move them now.

  He said, “We need to pick an alternate location, closer, in case this intel takes a little longer than I think it will to extract. I need to monitor a phone call that is going to be placed in about twenty minutes. Can we choose a second location, about fifteen minutes closer, say, at the first turnout up Clear Creek Road, in the canyon west of Hwy 395? You know the area? There’s a trail that goes back north from the turnout to an old logging shack.”

  Grant grunted disapprovingly but consented. “Damn it…okay, but no more changes!” He hung up. Shane smiled. He knew if an ambush had already been set up in Genoa, it would have to be pulled back to Carson City, in case the meet happened there. It would give his teams more time to set up in Genoa, where he would keep the meet.

  Shane had an extra hour and knew exactly what he needed to do with the time. Almost everyone on Lee’s teams were gone from the estate, on various assignments. He walked into the tech work room and asked Sam to keep a watch on the garage cameras and call him by radio should anyone come toward the garage. He checked to make sure Wesley was off-shift. They agreed to communicate on one of the surveillance frequencies not being used by any of the teams, and both switched their handheld radios to that frequency. Sam knew not to ask why they were doing this.

  Shane returned to the garage maintenance room and located a tool box. Taking it to the T-Bird, Shane pulled on some extra-large mechanics coveralls, that he had seen earlier on his tour, hanging in the maintenance room closet. He removed the rear spare tire mount and cover from the vehicle. He needed to perform the only maintenance his dad had ever taught him on this vehicle (spare tire pressure) and see why his dad had left that clue in the letter he had written Shane. Hopefully, the tire would be intact the way his dad had left it. He removed the tire. It appeared unused, with only slight age-cracking on the rubber sidewalls.

  Shane examined the tire carefully and checked the air pressure with a gauge he had found in the tool box. It was correct, 32 psi. Taped to the tire was a plastic bag that read, “Instructions for Changing Tire.” Shane opened the package, and found it contained a photo-copied schematic of step-by-step instructions for changing a tire. Inside the bag, concealed in the folded instructions, he located another, smaller bag, containing a single photograph. Pictured were Shane’s mother and father, Pete and Shane.

  Shane studied the photograph carefully. The only notable feature was that his dad was holding his hiking stick. Shane recalled that, after his dad broke his ankle hiking with friends in rough country, he had always hiked with a hiking stick, supporting the weak ankle, which had never been 100% after the injury. His dad always left the stick in the trunk of the car where he had installed a pair of clip holders to keep it out of the way.

  Shane stuffed the photo into his shirt pocket and re-read the instruction for changing a tire. He saw no clues there. He opened the trunk. The hiking stick was still there, held in place for all these years by its clips. Shane removed the hiking stick. He studied it carefully for the first time.

  It was a custom stick his dad had asked an old friend to handmake for him. The stick had an oversized metal grip that allowed the user to press down with a great deal of force, to push himself up, or hold himself from going down too quickly. The grip had been machined with grooves to afford his dad’s large hands more surface area, to prevent slipping, even if wet.

  Attached to one side of the grip covering the top of the stick, was a strap that could be adjusted for length, allowing the user to tighten the strap against his hand for added stability. The strap was secured to the top of the handle by a quick-release pressure pin pressed in to an indented drill hole. The strap continued down over the top of the metal grip and attached to another point several inches lower with a similar quick release pin.

  Shane shook the stick and felt the balance, looking for some clue. He placed his own large hand through the strap and adjusted it to his grip.

  He then closed the trunk and replaced the tire in its mount as he had found it. He walked to the maintenance closet with the stick and tool box. He removed the coveralls and replaced them and the tool box as he had found them. Still in the closet, he depressed the walking stick strap’s blue release button on each pin and pulled them both out, one at a time, using the chrome ring attached to the release side of each pin. He removed the strap and placed the pins and strap on a shelf.

  Shane then pulled up on the grip, but it remained firmly in place. He twisted the grip counter-clockwise against the stick, but it didn’t budge. He tried twisting clockwise, and the entire grip and cap assembly began to unscrew. Shane removed the one-piece grip assembly, and found the stick had a hollow metal tube located beneath the brass grip assembly. The sheath appeared to be made of thick aluminum, maybe aircraft aluminum, he thought. It was very strong, and light weight.

  Shane removed his pen Maglite from one of the cargo pockets on his 5.11 Tactical pants. He turned the light on and pointed it down the hollow shaft, immediately seeing a baggie resting at the bottom of the metal housing, just a couple of inches down. Using some needle-nosed pliers he found in the tool chest, Shane recovered the package. He replaced the grip and strap assembly, returned the pliers to the tool chest, and unrolled the baggie.

  The baggie contained two identical flash drives, each vacuum packed separately in thick plastic. The drives appeared to be of heavy duty military or industrial grade, and waterproof, being further encased in thick rubber. Shane recalled seeing USB flash drives like this shortly after they became commercially available the year his mom and dad were murdered. His dad told him they were the way of the future, since they were much handier, smaller and faster than the old floppy drives or even CDs or DVDs. Plus, they were immune to electromagnetic interference and scratches.

  The technology was much different back then than it was now, and Shane knew he needed to have Lee’s team retrieve whatever the drives contained. He was unsure of the storage capacity of these old flash drives. But knowing his dad was a tech geek, whatever he had, even then, was probably the best money could buy, or a prototype obtained from a Silicon Valley or military friend.

  Shane placed the walking stick back in to the trunk. He called Sam and said, “Sam, I’m done here, so you can terminate the surveillance. Can you meet me here in the garage maintenance room?”

  Sam arrived in less than a minute. Shane explained the significance of the old T-Bird, his dad’s letter with the clue, the walking stick and the flash drives, including their probable age.

  Sam looked at the drives intently, slowly saying with a growing smile, “I‘ve seen this type of drive...military grade, waterproof USB flash drive, vintage of the time you’re describing. If there’s anything on these, we should be able to retrieve it.”

  Shane grabbed Sam by the wrist, then met his eyes. “Sam, you know what these may contain. If the information on them is what we think it is, they could be as lethal as lethal comes. Many important and powerful people would pay anything to get this information, or do anything to conceal or destroy it.”

  “Knowing my father, these drives are most likely two copies of the same information, placed in one safe place, just in case something happened to him. He would want to ensure that if one got damaged, the other was still intact. Each is vacuum packed in its own layer of thick plastic, then wrapped in a baggy, and finally placed in what appears to be a water-tight hidden chamber in his walking stick. He took a lot of precautions to conceal and preserve these, and now, so must we. We must also ensure that one of us can survive to get the information out of them.”

  Shane continued. “I’m going to keep one of these and find my own safe plac
e for it. I’ll share the location with Kate, Walter and Pete. You take the other, and find a safe place to work on it, and make copies of the information as quickly as you can. You give copies to Tom, Jesse and Lee, and make additional copies for me, Walter, Pete and Kate…just in case the information is different on the drives. When that’s done, we’ll switch and repeat the process.”

  “We’ll all meet later, after the meeting with Grant is over, and agree on a plan to move forward. No one will ever be able to find all of our collective safe spots, and the information will survive. It will also ensure we will all survive, once it’s split up and duplicated in so many places.”

  Sam agreed, saying, “I sure like the way you think!” They left the maintenance room, Sam to work on the flash drive, and Shane to drive to the meeting with Grant.

  After re-entering the SUV, Shane tuned the 2-way radio to monitor the radio traffic from the surveillance and counter surveillance teams. All members of the team were trained to only use the radios when necessary. Too much radio traffic flooded frequencies, making it difficult for someone to get necessary traffic out. Too much blabber also had the effect of lowering attention to radio traffic, making it likely that someone could miss something important.

  Flipping through the channels, the only conversation he heard was from the Magadinno surveillance team. There was a great deal of activity at the compound, with several new vehicles arriving in the last 30 minutes, and additional guards stationed outside the residence on the grounds.

  Lee’s teams were highly trained and experienced. Shane admired their diligence and commitment. He switched to his surveillance frequency, advising the group he was leaving and would make the phone call in 15 minutes. He received “10-4” acknowledgements from each of the units in his detail.

  Shane guessed the one voice he didn’t recognize belonged to Lisa Martin, meaning that Kate was driving. He should have guessed that, as Kate told him she always liked to drive. She explained her insistence on driving had been a problem with potential boyfriends, but he assured her it wouldn’t be a problem for him. He had told her, however, that he wanted details on past boyfriends. And he had quickly received a jab in the ribs for his chiding.

  He smiled as he remembered the conversation when he told Kate, teasingly, that he had been trained as an Emergency Vehicle Operations Course (EVOC) instructor and, although he was likely a much better driver than she was, he felt he could use the rest when they travelled. He had quickly received Kate’s rattlesnake strike to the ribs for that one, too, but the look on her face was priceless, making it worth the pain.

  He loved the coy “hurt” look Kate shot him when they bantered back and forth and he teased her. “Man, oh man, she can be stubborn though!” he laughed to himself.

  Reaching US 395, Shane turned right to travel south toward Douglas County. The highway was always packed during the day. He drove through the bustling traffic, and watched the restaurants, car dealerships, auto body shops and shopping centers go by, one by one. The air smelled of diesel from a passing GMC pick-up as the driver hit the accelerator to cut off a car in the next lane. Black diesel smoke poured from the exhaust.

  He passed the angry pick-up driver, now stopped in traffic. The young man was still waving his middle finger at the Asian driver of the small sedan, who he felt had somehow offended him. A Carson City Sheriff’s Office unit raced up several vehicles behind him and, when it caught up to traffic, the deputy activated lights and siren. Traffic behind Shane began to pull to the right. All the traffic yielded, except for one dummy, who just kept driving…the angry young man in the pick-up.

  Traffic ahead of the pick-up had yielded and finally boxed the angry driver in, so he too was forced to yield. The frustrated deputy was on the loud speaker now, ordering the pick-up to stop. Shane pulled left into the fast lane to allow the marked unit to get directly behind the pick-up. As Shane passed the pick-up, he observed the passenger apparently stuffing something under the seat, while the driver’s eyes were glued to the rear-view mirror. The deputy switched the siren from wail to yelp. The unyielding driver began to pull over slowly behind Shane.

  Shane resisted the urge to back up the deputy. He knew that the passenger could have stashed anything from a gun to dope, or even an open container of alcohol, but Shane couldn’t delay getting to where he needed to be, or jeopardize his assignment. The deputy would figure it out…they almost always did. But to make sure, Shane dialed the Sheriff’s Office from his cold phone, where the caller ID was blocked, and let the dispatcher know that the passenger had stuffed something under the seat. He hung up.

  Shane flipped channels to monitor the Sheriff’s Office frequency, and heard them notify the deputy making the stop of the phone call, after they dispatched a second marked unit to his location as back-up. Shane couldn’t help, but smile.

  Shane watched in the rear-view mirror. Traffic began to move around the car stop very slowly, as looky-loos had to slow down to see what was happening, even in the left-hand lane. Shane was reminded of the constant frustrations patrol officers face. It’s always the same B.S. and lame excuses. People just don’t ever seem to get better at some of these routine things in life, he thought.

  He shook his head as he thought about people shopping at the super market, who block the entire aisle with their cart, while standing on one side of it so no one can move past them, and when confronted, act like it’s their first-time shopping, and they had never thought of being courteous.

  “Lamos,” Shane thought to himself. “It’s just one more reason I’m more comfortable with dogs than some people,” he said quietly under his breath. “I have to stop talking to myself,” he said out loud, as he laughed at his own comment.

  Shane notified his team by radio that he was approaching the “border,” referring to the county line. The team responded with acknowledgments. Both sniper teams were in place, and the surveillance vehicles were already waiting for him, all in different locations along the route. Shane turned off on Jacks Valley Road, just before Indian Hills.

  He picked up his phone and called Grant. Grant answered on the first ring.

  “Where are you?” Grant demanded.

  “Just leaving my place...in the city. Headed to the first meet location.”

  “Where are you?” Shane countered.

  “That doesn’t matter. I’ll see you in a half an hour.” Grant sounded irritated and immediately hung up.

  Shane knew that Grant was likely making a quick phone call to send someone back to the first meeting place…where his own teams would be waiting. He smiled once again, as he whispered, “Asshole!”

  As he travelled south, the road got closer and closer to the Sierra Nevada Mountains that rise up from the Carson Valley to the Lake Tahoe basin. As he drew nearer, the trees that dotted the foothills began to come into focus, and Shane appreciated the stark, cold beauty of the majestic mountain range.

  The Tahoe area is just a small piece of the Toiyabe National Forest, which contains more than 6.3 million acres or 6,828 square miles of land. About one-third of the famous Lake is located in Nevada, with the remainder residing in California. The entire area was beautiful, and Shane had always loved to hunt, hike and camp in the area with Heath, Pete and his dad. These mountains held many good memories for Shane. He relaxed as he drove onward in familiar country.

  Shane looked up at a corner of the expanse, and mused, “No one could see it all in a lifetime.” It was the largest and possibly most diverse national forest in the lower 48 states, and Shane had a sudden urge to be camping and hiking with Kate there…and with Pete, Heath and his mom and dad.

  These random thoughts and daydreams kept Shane from getting “amped up” before a stressful event. They had become part of his routine. As he drove on further south, he picked up one of his team’s counter-surveillance SUVs waiting at the turn-off to Hobo Hot Springs. It was Howard Martin, who fell in a respectable half-mile behind him. The other units would be ahead of him. The two sniper teams wo
uld already be hunkered down, scanning, in place.

  Shane felt confident, not wanting any more surprises. This was a good plan. His phone rang and it was Grant.

  Shane answered, “Hello?”

  Grant said, “It’s me. I’ll be there in 25 minutes.” Grant immediately hung up. Shane felt more uncomfortable again. He knew he had to control his adrenaline.

  Shane’s thoughts drifted back to hiking and camping with his dad and the rest of the group at the annual trek to the “Valley of the River,” as they all fondly referred to that favorite camping place. One of the traditions for the trip had been to stop at the last restaurant, which they had nicknamed “The End of Civilization as We Know It.”

  The large group always sat at the same table, having called a week ahead to reserve it. The table was the only one in the place that could hold 12-15 people. It sat up on a pedestal of sorts, about a step higher than the main floor of the dining room, and seemed almost like a separate room. It was their formal meeting place, as they embarked on a trip filled with anticipation and excitement for men and boys alike.

  Those were great days, Shane thought. He and Heath would sit scrunched up on one end of the table. Shane would always order two plates of Huevos Rancheros, a traditional Mexican dish known as rancher’s eggs. Two fried eggs sat atop a pile of cheese, guacamole, lettuce, refried beans, and sour cream, covered with enchilada sauce, and resting on a large homemade flour tortilla.

  The same Mexican family had owned the restaurant the entire time Shane and his family and friends had been going there. They always stopped there twice…once, for breakfast, going into the back country, and again, on their way out, for lunch.

  Shane suddenly remembered the owner’s daughter, Catalina. He had developed a crush on pretty Catalina when he was in his early teens. The affection was mutual, and apparently obvious, as both Shane’s and Catalina’s fathers had teased them in a friendly way in front of the entire group…every year.