That would be right after she kneed him in the nuts. Since she was going to jail, she might as well get even for his lurid comments he had told her when no one else could hear him.
That thought actually caused her to smile a little.
She never bothered with H.R. for Tim’s obvious sexual issues, she figured one of these days she could coax him onto the mat at martial arts practice and then the accidental ass-kicking would be hard to argue. Plus, he wouldn’t want to be seen as whining that a girl beat him.
He really was a dick.
From the other side of the line Bethany heard a tinny voice that just grated on her last nerve. “Ma’am, I have a message from the General, he has asked to meet at 18:30 instead of 15:30.”
Pausing, the operator wasn’t sure what to say. Even though Officer Reynolds was from another part of the service, even if a little clandestine, she was the General’s daughter.
“Fine, I understand and thank you.” With that Bethany hung up.
Huh, the operator thought. That went well.
CHAPTER FOUR
Military Base, Colorado Mountains
Carl listened in to the conversations inside the radar tower. If they only knew, he thought, this plane actually is only at 60% power. It really wasn’t going all that fast. However, since business planes shouldn’t go past the speed of sound, they kept the speed down.
It wasn’t often that he used the spying and hacking equipment the family had when not supporting an operation, however, if this went bad? Well, then all the rest was going down the drain. So yeah, he decided he was going to make damn sure nobody was getting lazy down there.
Fortunately, Carl thought, Michael hadn’t come onboard with him and wasn’t at the base.
Yet.
—
The older gentleman was escorted into the General’s office by Sergeant McCoullagh, who supported the gentleman as he sat down. He had to be close to ninety, the sergeant thought.
So far, the General still had little in the way of hard facts as to what was going on. He couldn’t get through to anyone high enough to give him any insight and the security clearance of his caller, Frank, was high enough to require someone next to the President.
There were always multiple ways to skin a cat and forewarned is forearmed.
“I appreciate you coming to see me, Mr. Swenson.” General Reynolds clasped his hands in front of him looking at the elderly gentleman across the desk from him with a smile trying not to show on his lips.
Mr. Swenson, thin, a little reedy and his voice a little breathless but still strong for his age replied, “Hah! Your little fetcher back here told me that if I refused his request, you would just reinstate me.”
“Well, you did retire so it is within the rights of the U.S. Military to make that happen.”
The General smiled, Mr. Swenson was actually a pretty high ranking officer in the operations side when he retired. When you retire, you can always be called back to active duty.
“Yeah, yeah. I understood you wanted to see me. What’s it about, Lance?” Tom went way back with the General, they knew each other when he was getting ready to get out, and Lance was just starting his upward movement.
“It’s the damnedest thing. I’ve got a bunch of scientists all over my base looking into dark holes and old boxes trying to see what went on back in World War II, I think they hope to find some proof of UFO experiments taken from the Nazis. So, one of the grunts was down on Five when a klaxon started to sound.
“He searched out the noise and found a vault door opening with a note attached about some honor we owe somebody. I’ve had the records checked and you are the only person who was here during that time who might have a god-damn clue what the hell is going on that I can bring here to discuss what happened.
“I’ve got spooks calling me with security clearances that go above the President and a note from the original Base Commander who piss all died about seven years ago and didn’t leave another note anywhere I can find.”
Tom was listening while trying to think back to those days, he was only twenty when he was here, his memory was a little spotty that far back. “When was this?”
“Sometime a few days before or after the bombs were dropped.” Lance pulled the envelope out from underneath a couple of reports that had buried it.
He placed it in front of him and was tapping it on the desk, catching Tom’s attention.
“Is that it?”
Lance nodded his head affirmatively.
“What’s on the other side?” Lance turned the envelope around so Tom could see, without handing him the envelope.
Lance was looking right at Tom, so he caught the moment Tom’s squinting eyes focused on the phrase, ‘On your honor’.
Those squinting eyes suddenly got very, very big.
—
The visitors plane was taxiing into the area around Hangar One, designated as being the closest to the base’s opening into the mountain.
Private First Class Richard Peters, drove over to the hangar to ‘fetch the dignitary, shut his mouth, and be polite’. Waiting for the plane to come off of the runway, he got out and started walking over to the airmen associated with helping the crew of the incoming plane and struck up a conversation.
“You have any idea who these people are?” He was pretty curious. He wasn’t told he couldn't ask others.
The airman was obviously chewing some tobacco, and spit some out to the side before responding in a slow and deep voice, “Naw, ain’t got a clue. However, it must be some high muckety-muck otherwise they would be at least in Hangar Two. They usually only open #1 here for the best and the brightest asses to kiss that we got.”
As if to punctuate his thoughts on high-brass, he spit again.
The plane was getting closer. It looked like a really nice Gulfstream, but something seemed wrong to Richard’s eyes. He heard a grunt from the fellow.
“Well,” he started talking, as if to himself, “That seems a little diffr’ent.”
He clammed up. Richard just had to know. “What seems different?”
“Look at those engines in the back,” he jerked his chin towards to the plane which was taking forever now that they were on the ground. “Those aren’t standard engines for a civilian plane. Those are military jets on there. I wonder how fast that plane can go? Also, somebody up with some bars and stars had to approve that, or I’d lose my Friday night poker stash.”
With that, he walked over to start making sure the pilot could see exactly where he wanted him to park.
Richard got into parade rest and waited for the plane to stop and the door to be opened.
Only one guy got off the plane and came down the stairs. He was in a very nice business suit, but he was definitely not typical brass.
Hell, he wasn’t even a spook. You could tell those guys when they walked, it was like they were always ready to pounce.
Richard would guess he was just someone with apparently really important business.
OK, nothing to go do but introduce himself and take him over to the General’s office.
—
General Reynolds recognized that look in Tom’s eyes. “You remember something, Tom?”
“Yeah, or rather, I remember a story I was told. I wasn’t there myself. You say this was down on Five and from some sort of vault?”
Lance nodded his head in the affirmative. “Yes, the vault looks like it could have come from a bank, no one is opening it without serious tools. However, for us it just opened by itself with a screech we couldn’t ignore.”
Tom pursed his lips and tried to sit back a little in the chair. At his age, the leather seats were too damn uncomfortable. Give him a firm chair to sit on if he wasn’t watching TV.
“Alright, here’s what I remember. I heard the story a couple of months after the Japanese surrendered and things were quickly getting shut down all over the nation. It seems that we had a few new people come into the base, which wasn’t weird, except all of thes
e new guys were going to croak within the next couple of months.”
Lance interrupted, “How many is a few?”
“Well, if I remember, three. They weren’t all from the same service or anything but they arrived on special flights. One even came in on one of them huge multi-props at the time. Special drop-off just for him. That got a lot of attention, and then they were all taken over to the infirmary and a doc checked up on them. One of the nurses loved to gossip, so we heard the gossip going around. All of them were special forces, or had seen a lot of combat.
“None of them knew why they got reassigned here, just that they were going to be interviewed for a position. None of us could figure out why since they all were going to die soon, so rumor was it was a scientific type experiment, you know? Something that you’re willing to do because, well, you’re going to die anyway.
“They were here a few days, and gossip kind of died down and I forgot about it. About two weeks later I ran into one of the techs in the lower levels and he asked if I had heard the news about the recruits. I hadn't, so he told me that the interview happened down on Level Five behind a closed and locked door. They said that three guys went into the vault, the door shut and about half an hour later it opened again and one guy comes out. The other two weren’t found inside and the guy who was left couldn’t remember one thing that went on in the room.
“Last I heard, he was taken up to the infirmary to see if they could figure out how two guys could just disappear from a completely closed and sealed room with ten people outside the door. Not only did he never remember, he died about a week after I was told the story.”
“They checked the room for other exits? Never mind, of course they did.”
Lance was sure the migraine was starting to come back. His phone beeped.
“General, you have a visitor who’s just arrived, I’m told you are expecting him?” Damn, he thought, he forgot to let Patricia know.
“Yes, give me a second to finish with Tom and send him in when he leaves.” He punched the button off.
“So, you think that somehow they just disappeared down some science experiment?”
“I don’t know. The only thing we got from the last guy is that he seemed to be really, really interested in his religion after that incident. I always figured it was because he was about to die, so it seemed appropriate. However, I talked with one of the M.P.s who took him after they door opened up and he said that the only thing he said, over and over was, ‘I don’t have enough faith, I don’t have enough faith’ and was scared shitless like he had just met the devil.”
Lance thought this through for a minute. “So who gave him the interview? You said only the three went inside, right?”
“That’s right. Or at least that was what I was told. We had a special plane arrive and some sort of civilian came in at the last minute, but I understand that he didn’t do the interview. When it was over, he asked the commander to write a letter, probably the one you have there, and close the door. Once it was locked, they couldn’t open it again. We just forgot about it after a few months, so many of us were working on shutting down parts of the base.”
They talked a little while longer, but nothing relevant to the mystery or the request came up again. Lance finished by asking Tom a few personal questions and then asked Kevin to take Tom back to his home.
As the Sergeant and Tom left, Patricia came in and introduced him to a civilian who had just arrived from the East Coast.
Just like that spook Frank said he would.
—
There was a guard stationed at the foot of the stairs into the airplane. Actually, it was Michael’s airplane.
Carl was unaware, but Michael was with him the whole trip, he had merely stayed in his insolvent form.
Carl had actually very little opportunity to know just everything Michael could do, in fact, in Carl’s fifteen years he had only worked with Michael for about two. Michael has been in hibernation for most of the rest.
Bill had hired Carl under Michael’s direction after the last Information Specialist position came open. They needed someone who could keep up with all the new computer and Internet changes happening without it becoming such a stressful situation. Their last I.S. just couldn’t keep up.
Michael had Bill install incredibly strong subconscious directions to the previous ‘eyes and ears’ and gave him a passable cover story before letting him retire very, very wealthy.
He might not ever be able to talk about his past, but he was able to take his skills and money to create whatever future he wanted.
—
Bethany Anne was officially annoyed. Again.
She had time on her hands and nothing to do. When you have a good idea that your life has a hard stop, you really don’t like to waste any of it.
While she could travel to a few areas within the base, and probably talk her way into a few more if she confirmed her relationship with her father, she didn’t play that way.
Her father was a strong man – physically, mentally and emotionally. However, when it came to being a father to a girl, he never figured it out and without her mother, Bethany Anne became the little hard-ass one might expect.
If her dad showed his appreciation when she aced studies, she aced studies. The same for when she took up martial arts.
There was one particular tournament where she knew she wouldn’t take first place, her final opponent was just a freak of nature and too massive for any of the moves she knew to overwhelm. All the obvious ways to take him down would cause too much body harm and he would go to the hospital.
Besides, all of those moves were strictly banned from the tournament.
It didn’t mean that the players didn’t try their hardest every other way, but when he has sixty pounds of muscle over you and pretty damn fast for his size it gets very frustrating.
Bethany Anne was careful to stay out of his easy range considering what to try as he started taunting her, trying to get her to strike in anger.
He was pretty successful in getting to her. While she had been taught not to let an opponent’s teasing bother her, she still was pretty hot under the collar when she noticed her dad’s eyes. He had been paying attention and apparently understood what her opponent was saying.
Her father realized that in a fight in a back alley, her opponent wouldn’t have walked away from his daughter.
That didn’t sit well with him, she could tell.
When the freak of nature made a comment about her being ‘a little girl that should just go home’, it pissed her and her dad off and he gave her a little sign with his fingers that told her to end it.
She didn’t go home with a trophy that night. She had been disqualified. However, that didn’t stop her father from treating her like the new world champion when she walked off the floor and left her opponent with an ice bag between his legs, a black eye, cut lip and a splitting headache.
Two others had to help her opponent to walk when he wasn’t able to stand up on his own. She was banned from the next two tournaments for her fighting rule infractions.
He might not understand how to connect with his daughter at an emotional level, but she knew he was proud of her and would have her back if she ever needed it.
Being a bit prideful, she didn’t want to ask.
So, she decided to go through a few calming exercises before meeting with her father for the first time in over a year.
She didn’t know why she was here, but it was important and she would do what was needed to be prepared as best as she could
CHAPTER FIVE
Military Base, Colorado Mountains
Carl was introduced to the General and was asked to sit in the same leather chair Tom had just been sitting in.
This was Carl’s first time to meet General Reynolds, but he had read the dossier that Frank had provided, and a few more things which Carl had found that Frank had either failed to locate, or chose not to provide.
It didn’t matter to Carl, the extra i
nformation didn’t materially affect his understanding of the General so Carl placed it in the ‘overlooked’ category.
While Frank had a lot of information both from inside the governments databases and outside, he still didn’t have as much available as Carl had access to and could’t give General Reynolds a total overview.
General Reynold’s started the conversation, “I understand I’m to get information on what is going on from you, so why don’t you give me everything from the top?”
Carl sighed inwardly. Carl knew Frank had already talked to the General, in fact he listened in while on the plane, he had hoped that the General would give him an overview and allow Carl to fill in the blanks.
Death Becomes Her Page 4