by Thomas Babak
“Good night, Tasha,” he said quietly and then walked the rest of the way up the stairs.
“Good night, Sandy,” Tasha said, too quietly for Sandy to hear.
Eight
Deputy Under Secretary Kathleen “Kate” Phillips, the head of the OCC, sat at her desk reading the morning reports. She received these each day at work and every weekend at a secure console at her apartment nearby. They consisted of summaries from each division of what had occurred over night and progress reports of ongoing investigations and cases. The last report, called a “pink sheet” even though it was an electronic file nowadays, was always her favorite part of all of the reports. It always contained the “unusual and odd” information.
Her job and department was an unusual and odd one as well.
Homeland Security was born of political and national necessity after 9/11 by combining the offices and agencies of over a dozen separate entities that included organizations such as the Secret Service and the Coast Guard.
Of the eighteen or so components that made up Homeland Security, one of the lesser known entities was the National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD). The mission of the Directorate was to “advance the Department's risk-reduction mission. Reducing risk requires an integrated approach that encompasses both physical and virtual threats and their associated human elements.” This mission statement was a pretty way of saying that they looked out for and tried to prevent both natural and human disasters from occurring. “Natural” being things like earthquakes, hurricanes and such from affecting critical infrastructure. “Human” being things like hackers, anti-government whackos and terrorists. The NPPD has five divisions whose focus is on cyber security and infrastructure protection as well as a Federal Protective Service, all aimed at protecting people, critical infrastructure and federal facilities.
A lesser known office of the NPPD was called the Office of Coordination and Communication (the “OCC”). The office’s stated mission, according to Homeland Security’s own website, is to coordinate the massive amount of information and intelligence collected and used to protect the nation’s critical infrastructure. In reality, much of that was true. However, the office also had an additional mission, unknown to the public, of investigating unusual incidents and apprehending those who would cause harm to the nation. Most of what they did centered around hackers and domestic and international terrorists. Some of what they did touched on the bizarre, such as reports of asteroids heading to earth, UFO’s and Bigfoot sightings.
Her supposed boss, the Undersecretary of the NPPD, didn’t receive this pink sheet report. Kate also reported directly to the Secretary of Homeland Security, rather to him. This situation had never been a problem, though, since every new Under Secretary of the NPPD was sat down at the beginning of their tenure and had thoroughly explained to them who reported to whom and why. The OCC may, from an organizational perspective, be listed under the NPPD but didn’t work for them. The OCC handled odd things and reported in some cases directly to the President. The consolidation of all the different departments made the NPPD a simple vehicle for the OCC to reside in from an organizational perspective.
A few people wondered now and then why someone with an extensive law enforcement or intelligence background was always appointed as the head of the OCC. No one ever outright asked, though, and even if they did they wouldn’t get an answer. They’d also be told never to ask again and to never speak about it. The OCC’s people and unstated function remained secret and continues to remain a secret.
Kate read through the summaries and finally reached the pink sheet file, saving it for last. It was a boring one this time, outlining a new conspiracy theory out of Taos, New Mexico about “the hum” that implicated “the government.” She read through that with a smile. Not even close to what really was causing the hum. A section on UFOs around an Air Force Base, but the UFOs turned out to be teenagers with drones. The last section was embedded video files drawn from online sources.
She watched all of them. They had been edited by someone on her staff to show the relevant parts. Each had a video file had a summary next to them. She’d watch a video and then read the summary before moving onto the next.
Almost all the videos were explainable and wouldn’t rate a further look or investigation. The last video was intriguing. It was of a dump truck being chased or followed by police before running off the road and crashing to its side. It was from Minnesota. The video had been modified by her staff to show it in real time and then in slow motion with the image zoomed in.
Kate leaned back in her chair and looked over at the photos on her desk. One showed her as a young Army lieutenant in Iraq during Desert Storm. She was standing on top of an M577 Command track holding an American flag. She had it there to remind her of who she used to be. Of hope and success. The other photo was of her dead husband and daughter. Both had been killed with a bomb on one of her past postings to an ugly land full of ugly people. They should have never been there with her, but they had wanted to come so badly and it had been so exciting at the time. The photo was to remind her that she was still capable of love and that what she did for work had purpose and meaning.
She picked up her coffee and took a sip and frowned because it had already gone cold. Placing her cup back down and glancing at the summary again, she picked up her phone and called the extension of the analyst that had attached the media file.
“Jenkins here, ma’am,” a male voice said.
“The dump truck video,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“See me,” she said and then hung up.
She thought briefly about getting a fresh cup of coffee but her door opened and her assistant brought in a fresh one along with Jenkins. He’d gotten there fast. He’d been expecting her call and had been waiting.
“Thank you, Marie,” she said, as she waved Jenkins to a chair in front of her desk.
Jenkins was in his late twenties and wearing owlish John Lennon glasses. His rumpled clothes an even more rumpled expensive sports coat stank of his hand rolled cigarettes. He’d been perpetually overweight all his life from sitting for hours in front of a computer and eating tons of junk food. He was a slob but he also was a computer genius and was always eager to please.
They both waited until Marie shut the door before Kate looked at Jenkins. Marie was fully cleared on everything that went on at the OCC but the habit of compartmentalization of information, or the need to know, was strong within all of the people that worked there. The look Kate gave him was Jenkins’ cue to elaborate on his attachment to the Pink Sheet.
“I picked it up from YouTube. Our keyword algorithm picked it up from some of the viewer comments.” The OCC had access to a software program developed by the NSA and used to not only monitor keywords, but to use heuristics to analyze in context those items online that might be of interest to them for further investigation. “It was trending for a couple hours before declining in views. When I slowed down the video at the critical part I noticed the odd things that I pointed out in the summaries.”
“Odd things?” Kate asked, more of a cue for him to elaborate, as she tilted her monitor around so they could both see the screen and played the video again. She’d seen the same odd things as well when she watched the video.
It showed the truck going down the highway, the flashing lights of the police behind it. The angle changed abruptly as the video was edited and came from a higher angle from where the helicopter had been filming it. The truck then went off the side of the highway, crashing onto its side. The same angle began to repeat again only in much more slow motion. This was the third time Kate had watched it and the first two times, something, had seemed wrong which is why she had called Jenkins.
“Okay, watch here. See how the truck seems to lift up on one side and tilt over to the other?” Kate hit pause on the video, rewound it a second or two and replayed it and stopped.
“Yes. The side seems to be pushing in. That’s a dump truck.
Heavy steel shouldn’t do that,” she answered.
“The dump truck might have acted like that if there was a deep depression on one side of the road and the wheels turned suddenly but you can see from the video that its flat road and the front wheels are straight. You noticed the side too. Keep watching,” Jenkins said enthusiastically, a smile on his face. This type of analysis was always a game to him, no matter how high the stakes or horrific the outcome.
Kate continued the video again after rewinding a few seconds. She could see the whole side of the dump truck box push in on one side as the wheels lifted on that side. It was if a giant invisible hand had pushed the truck off the road.
The video finished.
“Anything else?” she asked.
“No, that was it,” Jenkins answered.
Kate sat there for a few seconds thinking about it. She turned her monitor back to face her and then picked up her coffee and took a sip.
“I don’t like it” she finally said quietly.
“I’ll have Travis send someone out there to ask questions and look at the truck,” she continued more loudly and firmly.
“Yes Ma’am!” Jenkins said with a huge smile and almost a giggle as he stood up and quickly left her office.
Deputy Under Secretary Kathleen “Kate” Phillips, one of the most powerful people in Washington, said, “I don’t like it at all,” more quietly to herself before moving on to the rest of the day’s business.
They would find out what had happened. She had tremendous resources at her disposal and more importantly, it was her mandate to chase “odd things” down to ensure they posed no threat to the security of the United States of America. One way or another, she would get answers.
Nine
5:59AM.
Sandy was a little groggy after so few hours of sleep, but he was awake. Stumbling out of bed, he headed to the bathroom. He shaved and showered and it was only after he was starting to get dressed that he remembered last night. Tasha had fallen asleep on his couch! He hurriedly finished dressing and quickly made his way downstairs as quietly as he could.
He crept over to the couch. Tasha was still asleep. The quilt was wrapped tightly around her, but both legs were uncovered from the knees down. A couple pillows had fallen on the floor. Sandy moved to pick them up, but thought better of it and left them where they lay.
Next he made himself four sandwiches for lunch and dinner. On Saturdays, he worked from 9:00am until 7:00pm at the Salvage Yard. He packed the sandwiches along with a couple apples into a soft sided insulated lunch bag.
Not even 7 o’clock yet, he thought to himself. Should I wake her? Mildly anxious about the decision of whether to or not. He hesitated while standing in the kitchen and looking at the back of the couch. From where he stood he could just see the top of her head resting on the arm of the couch. Some of her hair draped down halfway to the floor.
I’ll let her sleep, he decided finally.
He took a sheet of notebook paper and folded it in half. On the bottom half he wrote:
Tasha,
There’s cereal on the table and milk in the fridge. I’ve got to go to work. Be back around 7:30 tonight.
Sandy
He thought hard about what to write. If I tell her to lock up, she’ll think I want her to leave. Keep it short and simple, he decided. He left the note on the coffee table where she’d see it when she got up.
Sandy left by the back door and circled around to his truck. Over breakfast, he had developed some ideas about what to do next with the Bubble Tech. As he pulled out of the driveway, he looked over at Tasha’s mom’s house. Both Mrs. Johnson and her boyfriend’s car were parked in the driveway. Did they even notice that Tasha had left? he wondered briefly as he began to drive away.
He looked back over at his own house thinking of Tasha, inside and asleep. He instead saw her standing on the porch looking at him, a sleepy confused look on her face, the blanket wrapped around her shoulders. He stopped quickly, backed his truck up a little and turned back into the driveway, parking it but not shutting it off.
He got out of the truck and walked around the front of it to the walkway and stood at the bottom of the porch steps.
“Hi,” he said looking up at her.
“Hi” she said back and then after a moment “where are you going?” she then asked sleepily.
“I have to go to work… I left you a note” he added by way of an explanation after seeing the look she was giving him right now. As if he were abandoning her.
She looked across the street at her house, then over to her driveway where her mom’s boyfriend’s car was parked and then back down at Sandy. “When are you going to be back?” she asked quietly.
“I close up at seven and will be back here before seven-thirty” Sandy answered.
Her expression, which Sandy initially thought was sleepy but now thought was sadder than anything else, turned into a slight frown.
“I can close up early and be back here by lunch… if you… if you want to hang out,” he said, the way he said it making it more of a question than anything.
The slight frown left her face and she asked “Is it okay if I hang out here until you come back?”
“Uh… yes… sure. Absolutely” Sandy answered with a smile. She’s going to stay! He thought happily.
“Can you grab something for lunch? There’s nothing in your fridge” she said her expression softening to almost a smile.
“Absolutely!” Sandy said again enthusiastically with an even broader smile breaking out on his face. “Burgers?” he asked.
Tasha just smiled and nodded.
“I’ll see you soon… umm… bye,” Sandy said and hating himself instantly for the way he stammered, but too happy for it stick for long.
“Bye. Have fun,” she said as she turned, the blanket still wrapped around her and went back into the house.
Sandy got back into his truck and drove to the Yard, the radio playing and singing along quietly to the songs that came on. Tasha was at his house. He still couldn’t quite believe it.
He pulled into the Salvage Yard parking lot looking out and over everything as he usually did.
The Salvage Yard was built into a hillside so that the offices opened out to a small gravel parking lot fronting with the country road which ran into highway 55. Highway 55 led to Buffalo, Minnesota in one direction and Maple Lake and his house in the other. The bay doors behind and below the front offices opened out into the ten-acre Salvage Yard, where thousands of cars and trucks were piled high. A ratty chain link fence surrounded the entire place. Everything looked how it always looked. Normal and boring.
He saw that Mr. Bullock’s old Impala sedan was not there. He never knew when Mr. Bullock would show up. Some days he didn’t. It was still early for a Saturday, though, so maybe he’d show up later.
The thought briefly flashed through his mind that maybe it would be a good day for the old man. Maybe Mr. Bullock didn’t drink last night, went home and would show up today. He did that quite often, go home, once he started to trust Sandy and the parts business started making money. Mr. Bullock had been drinking a lot lately, though, and not showing up more and more.
Sandy had observed but couldn’t explain why around the same time every year Mr. Bullock would get quiet and drink more often. He couldn’t explain it and was too hesitant to ask. Something must have happened in the past around this time of year he’d theorized previously. Something that caused Mr. Bullock a lot of pain and sadness. Sandy was curious but never asked. He and Mr. Bullock just didn’t have those types of conversations. That Mr. Bullock hurt, and that they didn’t talk, both made Sandy a little sad as well.
Sandy unlocked the door, went in and then turned the latch, locking it behind him. The Yard wasn’t supposed to open until 9:00am and it was only around 7:30am. For the past several months he’d been showing up early to work on Bubble Tech. During the past weeks, Mr. Bullock had gotten into the habit of either leaving when Sandy showed up, or sit
ting in the back room drinking in the Day Room.
Sandy booted up the desktop at the front counter and logged in. He reached under the counter and retrieved a notepad. He walked back to the Day Room to check if there was anything with caffeine in it. Jackpot! There was a Pepsi left from the case he’d bought earlier in the month. He walked a few steps over and opened the door to the Bay area. Stepping out onto the small platform he looked around. Though the lights were off, there was still enough sunlight making its way through the dusty dirty windows set high up on the walls to show that everything seemed okay.
Back at the counter, Sandy popped the tab on soda and took a long drink. He’d made a promise to Mr. Bullock that he would keep the Bubble Tech secret until he could figure out how to release it to the world safely and securely. He’d start brainstorming that.
Sandy tried to concentrate, but no matter how many times he tried to put pencil to paper his mind kept wandering back to Tasha. Images played through his head of her sitting on his couch as she poured out her heart about her life, family and friends. Images of her asleep, her hair laying over her face as she softly breathed. The image of her standing at his front door, blanket wrapped around her shoulders looking at him.
Stalker! He thought with an uncomfortable laugh to himself. At some level, Sandy knew he was just a little too fixated on Tasha. They’d been best friends since they were kids and living across the street from each other they had spent almost every day together growing up. He’d loved her though, since that first day when they saw each other in their front yards. The U-Haul in her driveway and her mom and dad hauling things inside. He’d stood there, the vast gulf of the street between them until she walked across and said hello. He knew then that he’d loved her. He always would.