by Lyle Howard
Only two F-16s remained on the saturated ground, not out of choice, but out of necessity. Both fighter jets were in for extensive maintenance when the evacuation order had been given. In their severe state of disrepair, they were incapable of flight, so they were ordered battened down in hangars five and six.
A smattering of officers and civilian personnel, perhaps thirty in all, volunteered to stay behind as a skeleton crew to keep tabs on all facets of the base from the safety of an underground bunker. Well-secured surveillance cameras scanned the entire compound, undaunted by the turbulent winds and insufferable weather. Four enlisted volunteers each pulled six hour shifts, scrutinizing the assortment of different sized screens that filled the wall of one of the seven chambers in the musty subterranean fortress. The rest of the staff passed the time by monitoring the latest weather reports, sleeping, filling out overdue paperwork, or playing cribbage.
A female staff sergeant named McBride watched the white Chrysler wind its way around the base, passing from screen to screen without a missing a millisecond of coverage. “Captain,” she called out without taking her eyes off of the screen, “can you confirm this for me?”
Out of the shadows, Captain Woodrow Heller, a hulking redwood of a man, his tie unknotted, his uniform jacket unbuttoned, peered over her shoulder. “Zoom in on the license.”
“When it gets to the next intersection, sir.”
“I’m sure it’s got something to do with the classified research project that’s going on in number twelve. Damned fools don’t know when to leave.”
On the fourth monitor down, second from the left, the camera zoomed in on the Chrysler’s tag. “AZM 492 … official Broward County plate, sir.”
Heller fluffed off the image with a swipe of his hand. “Forget it, Sergeant, it looks authentic to me. Besides, if they got past security at the front gate, then they’ve already received clearance from the hangar. Good call though … let me know if anything else comes up; I’ll be catching some sack time.”
McBride smiled. “Yes, sir.”
Lance didn’t spot the cameras tracking his movement around the base. He was having a hard enough time just seeing the road ahead of him. It was like trying to see through some dense shroud as this thunderstorm was being pushed ahead of the approaching squalls. He passed a small metal sign that was barely legible as a gale tried to rattle it loose from its concrete foundation. The marker read, “For Base Information Tune to 1560 a.m.,” but when Lance spun his radio dial to the specified station, all he received was an earful of annoying static.
The time on the digital dashboard clock read 1:30 p.m., but it might as well have been 1:30 in the morning with the blackening appearance of the sky. Pulling up to yet another four-way stop, Lance corroborated the time on his wristwatch. Off to his right, between hangars numbered four and five, he could see the abandoned runway that, until last night, had been an anthill of activity. To his left, through the barbed-wire fence the familiar strawberry fields and wetlands lay naked to the weather, and the sawgrass fronds bent back in strained posture against the onslaught of driving rain and perpetual wind.
With the windshield wipers clapping time to their own repetitious melody, Lance counted the hangars as he passed each one. Upon reaching the enormous tan building identified by a gigantic number nine painted on its doors, he slowed the car down to a crawl. The feeling of impending trouble was suddenly back … not that he didn’t expect it to be.
He studied the terrain surrounding him as far as his rain-restricted view would allow. Not a glimpse of another human being to be seen anywhere. No signs of life. No poor souls sprinting for cover from the storm. Not another vehicle on the road … nothing … no one.
Uncertainty imprisoned him like an invisible straightjacket. He was only 300 yards from uncovering the elusive key that could unlock his past, and yet, he suddenly found himself paralyzed from proceeding any closer. He was so overcome with a dark feeling of foreboding, he was unaware that he was gripping the steering wheel so tight, that his knuckles were blanching.
Why was he torturing himself like this? It would be so easy to just turn the car around and head away from this sinister place as fast and as far as these wheels would take him. He could put all of this behind him and start over. He had done it before. He could do it again. It might take a while, but surely Julie would understand. But what would forsaking this place accomplish? Did he want to spend the rest of his life drifting from city to city, town to town, never remaining in one place long enough to feel secure?
Wherever Lance might travel, he would live the life of a fugitive, constantly glancing back over his shoulder to see if anyone was looking at him suspiciously. They knew who he was, but he had no idea who, or what, they were. This was maddening. He owed it to himself to find out, but most of all, he owed it to his mother. He could never forget that Nancy Cutter had forfeited her life trying to learn the truth, so it was the passionate memory of her strength and determination that unbound his muscles and flattened his foot on the accelerator.
Looming out of the darkness, lit by the erratic flashes of lightening, stood hangar twelve. The monumental structure, three stories taller than the eleven hangars preceding it, was swaddled by the deluge, turning its customary tan exterior an intimidating shade of ashen gray. Once employed for housing the gargantuan war planes such as the Flying Fortress and other long-range bombers, the building had outlived its usefulness as modern technology continued to create smaller and faster aircraft with the same firepower as their more cumbersome predecessors. Now, all around the hangar, fragile weeds grew through the cracks in the pavement where sturdy landing gear had once trampled them.
The Chrysler’s tires crunched and popped across the small gravel bed designated for parking. Lance turned off the engine and sat quietly for a moment, listening to the sound of the rain splattering off the hood of the car. Directly ahead of him there was a doorway lit by a single fixture. The indistinct beam that the light bulb cast swayed with the swirling wind. Above the frame of the doorway, a faded sign read, “Authorized Personnel Only.”
“I guess that means me,” Lance decided as he reached into the back seat for his umbrella.
The door was unlocked and creaked open with very little effort. A clap of thunder boomed across the sky, shaking the hangar to its very foundation. Closing his umbrella behind him, Lance sucked in a bottomless breath and strode inside. The moment he crossed over the portal, he was immersed in the stark brilliance of a beam of light. As if his eyes weren’t having enough trouble adjusting to the variation in light levels, the spotlight seemed to be pointed directly at his face. Shielding his eyes, he tried to see through the harsh glare.
“Glad you could finally make it, Mr. Cutter,” an omnipresent voice echoed.
Lance continued to squint with his hand in front of his face. The way the voice bounced around the cavernous interior of the hangar, it reminded him of the Wizard of Oz. But Lance didn’t need a heart, nor a brain, or not even courage; all he wanted was to click his heels together and live a normal life. “Is it safe to assume that there won’t be any meeting today?”
The white glow that engulfed him softened a bit, as though someone had turned a dimmer switch. “A sense of humor … that’s good, very good.”
Lance stepped to the side, but the light followed his every movement. “If you want me to perform a song and dance, then throw me a hat and cane. Otherwise, how about shutting off this damned light?”
The light died, leaving Lance standing in a void. Outside, the weather worsened, thunder reverberated in the darkness, and the rain assaulted the aluminum roof to an almost deafening level.
Like a cat greeting a canary, the disembodied voice turned gracious. “Welcome, Mr. Cutter … welcome, welcome, welcome.”
A black curtain that looked to reach to the ceiling began to separate only a few yards in front of Lance, revealing thousands of colorful blinking lights from computer equipment that filled every wall of every lev
el. Technicians in white lab coats hustled back and forth across a framework of catwalks that was suspended forty feet above his head.
Filling the floor of the hangar, stainless steel exercise equipment of every shape and function gleamed in the reflection of a bank of spotlights mounted above and around them.
“Is this all for me?” Lance asked, putting his hand to his chest and letting his mouth drop open in feigned surprise.
“You wanted answers, didn’t you?”
Lance walked toward the treadmill in the center of the room. “So before you answer my questions, you really do want me to perform for you.”
“You wash my back, Mr. Cutter, and I’ll wash yours. Isn’t that how it works?”
Lance shook his head. “I’m not even getting near the tub unless I know whose spine I’m supposed to scrub. Why don’t you stop all of this cloak and dagger crap and show yourself?”
Someone tapped on his shoulder and he spun around. “A face that perhaps you’ve seen before, Mr. Cutter?”
For the first time in his life, Lance was caught off-guard. It was like staring into a mirror image of himself. He took two steps back until his retreat was thwarted by an apparatus with two pedals known as a stair climber. “You’ve got to be kidding me. How is this possible?”
Antoine Xavier shook his head. “This is no joke, Lance, if I may call you that so informally. Let me introduce myself: my name is Doctor Antoine Xavier and we need to talk.”
Lance shook his head incredulously. “No frigging way … this has got to be a trick or something!”
Xavier held out his hand. “I can assure you that I am quite real, Lance. Here … touch.”
Lance backed away, like death itself was stalking him with its outstretched scythe. “Back off … don’t come near me.”
Xavier pointed at his own countenance and grinned. “Would a face like this lie to you?”
The wind howled like a wounded animal outside the hangar as Lance twisted his way backward through the maze of exercise machines and computer equipment. “This can’t be happening….”
Xavier emulated Lance’s every step. “We’re two peas from the same pod, Lance. Could you possibly be so self-centered and naive as to presume that your abilities were God given? We were both cultivated from the genius of one man’s mind.”
Lance stumbled back against a leg press machine. “What do you want from me?”
Xavier paused and stretched open his arms, as if to show off the entire contents of the hangar. “Like you, Lance …I am plagued by questions … I need answers too.”
Thunder shook the building and the overhead lights flickered. “Check those generators,” Xavier yelled.
“Right away,” someone in the shadows called back.
Lance felt like every muscle in his body was suddenly tingling with adrenalin. This wasn’t in his head, this was a definite physical reaction to his situation. “So what do you want from me? I’m sure you didn’t go through all the trouble of getting me here just so I could teach you a new workout routine. Why don’t you just call a personal trainer next time?”
Xavier smiled and rubbed his hand across the lit display panel on the stair climber. “Hmmm .. .a quick wit, how interesting. Sadly, humor is an attribute that eludes me. Perhaps we don’t have that much in common after all.”
Lance scanned the hangar for exits, but could see none. Even the door he had just entered through had been sealed off and padlocked. “Aside from our boyish good looks, I doubt that we have anything in common, pal.”
Xavier shrugged. “You might be correct, but that is what we are here to find out.”
Lance looked over the millions of dollars’ worth of machinery surrounding him. “So all you want to do is give me a physical?”
Xavier nodded. “And run some routine tests…blood gases, fingerprints, dental examination, urinalysis … those sorts of things.”
Across the hangar, a dark curtain behind the doctor was pulled back and a technician carrying a tray of medical instruments headed up a nearby flight of stairs. As the drape fell back into place, Lance was sure he saw a stainless steel operating table being prepared. He tried to remain unruffled. “And after the tests, you’ll answer all of my questions?”
Xavier casually examined his fingernails. “After the tests, we’ll talk.”
Lance quickly surveyed the manpower needed to run this three-ring circus. He figured that there were probably thirty to thirty-five in all, including the technicians he saw ducking in and out of the curtains. “And if I decide that I don’t want to jump through your hoops?”
Xavier shook his head and frowned. “I had truly hoped that it wouldn’t have to come to this….” He snapped his fingers twice.
On the third level, in what appeared to be an abandoned office, a light came on. Standing at the window overlooking the floor was Abe Lincoln and a middle-aged Air Force officer. Between the two men, restrained by both of her arms, was a very frightened Julie Chapman.
THIRTY FIVE
9:43 P.M.
Staff Sergeant McBride had shifted her responsibilities from perimeter watch to monitoring the weather radar. “Oh, dear Lord in heaven, help us!”
Woodrow Heller was standing only a few feet away when he heard her lament. He whipped his coffee with a wooden stirrer and tossed the stick into a nearby trash can. “Problem, McBride?”
The woman’s head shook slowly, fearfully. “You’re not going to believe this, Captain. I can hardly believe it myself.”
Heller walked over behind her and blew into his cup to cool the drink. “Show me.”
McBride pointed at the screen. “Now keep in mind, Captain, that the intensity of any storm is characterized on the radar by escalating shades of color. The light blue hues indicate gentle rain, then green, being a bit more intense, then on to yellow, which denotes heavier thunderstorms, and finally red, severe squalls and turbulent conditions in the atmosphere.”
Heller took a slow pull on his coffee. “You seem to know a lot about this, Sergeant.”
“You don’t have to be a meteorologist to see that we’re in one helluva fix here, Captain. Take a look.”
Heller leaned over McBride’s shoulder, the screen lighting both of their faces in a pale shade of green. “All I see is green and blue…so what’s the problem?”
“I’ve only got the radar set on fifty miles, Captain. Watch what happens when I put the scan on its strongest signal … one hundred miles….” She flicked a knob on the side of the console and instantly, the computer replica of the base’s single runway grew smaller and smaller as the range of the radar grew farther and wider. To the far left of the screen, or due east of the base, an intense crimson image, resembling the jagged edge of a circular saw blade invaded the scope.
Heller nearly dropped his coffee mug. “Mary, Mother of God!”
McBride found herself spitting up saliva to prevent her mouth from going dry. “I’m scared, Captain.”
Heller put his hand on her shoulder. “I know what you’re feeling, Sergeant. I kind of feel like someone whose car has just stalled on the railroad tracks. You know you’re going to get clobbered by the train, but you’re helpless to do anything to stop it.”
McBride couldn’t take her eyes off of the screen. “I’ve got family on the outside, Captain.”
Heller squeezed her shoulder sympathetically. “I’m sure they’ll be fine. Try not to think about it.”
“Easier said than done, Captain.”
Heller took a sip of coffee to wet his dry throat. “I understand, McBride … I’m sorry, that was callous of me.
What’s the latest update?”
On the keyboard in front of her, the sergeant tapped on a few letters. Behind the captain, a printer began spewing out reams of green and white paper. Heller walked over and tore off the information.
“Whoo.. .this is worse than we thought,” he said, handing the printout to McBride.
“Winds clocked at over 110 miles per hour, gusts at over
140 … I can’t believe it! This storm makes Hurricane Hugo, which leveled Charleston in 1989, look like a sun shower!”
Heller pointed to the bottom line of the printout. “Check out the speed.”
McBride shook her head. “Twenty miles per hour! This storm’s moving like it just won five free minutes in a grocery store!”
“That puts the eye over us in…”
“Six or seven hours, Captain, but the winds are already well over sixty miles per hour outside.”
Heller rubbed his lips. “You know what scares me, Sergeant?”
McBride looked up over her shoulder. “What, sir?”
“I’m afraid that when we step foot out of this bunker, there isn’t going to be anything left outside.”
McBride could feel her eyes starting to water. The thought of her parents and retarded younger sister, cowering in a closet in the center of their Key Largo home, was an upsetting vision. “I need to make a phone call, Captain.”
Heller nodded. “Sure, Angie, go ahead … I’ll cover for you.”
The sergeant was halfway out of the room when she stopped and turned to her superior officer now manning her station. “Captain?”
Heller spun to look at her. “Yes?”
“Do you have any family out there?”
Heller had recently lost his wife of twenty-two years to breast cancer. “Not anymore, Sergeant, but thanks for asking.” “Captain?”
“Uh-huh?”
“What about those government people over in hangar twelve?”
Heller turned away to study the menacing red image on the radar screen. “We’ve barely got enough provisions or room for our own staff. So I guess they’re on their own.”
THIRTY SIX
10:22 P.M.
To the untrained eye, the canopy of darkness seemed to camouflage the catastrophic storm churning its way westward across the warm Atlantic waters, toward the South Florida coast. The starless sky might have been the contributing factor as to why life around the city was proceeding as normal this fateful night.