by Mark Donovan
Chapter 81 (March 30, Saturday 4:00pm Mountain Daylight Savings Time)
Dave, Dana and the rest of the NSurv team were huddled over a computer watching a news piece on the Dallas massacre that had occurred earlier in the day during a protest march. The violence had been extensive with a dozen people killed and more than fifty injured. All of it at the hands of people who were supposed to protect them. The public outcry was already at fever pitch all around the country, however, no further violence had occurred. At least not yet.
“I think we need to up our timetable on the next video release,” said Dave, after watching the video news clip of the violence that had unfolded in Dallas. “The longer we wait the more likely additional lives will be lost or irreparably damaged.”
“I agree,” said Dana. “We’re nearly done with the edits to the video and I can wrap up overlaying the narration by noontime tomorrow. The sooner we release the video the sooner we can convince the Congress to impeach this sick President and his administration. I can’t believe what we’re seeing unfold in our country. After watching what we just saw in Dallas, I’m at the point of seriously wondering what country I live in. This is not the United States that I grew up in, nor is it a place that I want to continue to live in, if this is truly the new normal.”
“It’s not the new normal,” responded Ron vehemently. “As tragic as what happened today in Dallas, it was a crystal clear historical reminder to the American public on what happens when you don’t keep constant vigilance on your government. A government that is given unfettered powers to do what it wants when it wants, via a lack of public oversight, or by a corrupt national press, will always end badly for the people it governs. Based upon the national outrage we are now seeing, as a result of today’s tragic event, the citizens who lost their lives in Dallas was not in vain. They made the ultimate sacrifice today to effectively remind us where we came from and what made the United States once great. We’re going to take out this President and his allies tomorrow, and return this country to a path of opportunity and prosperity for those who want to work for it.”
“Amen to that,” responded Dana as the others nodded their heads in agreement.
“Okay, we’ll plan to release the video for 3 o’clock tomorrow afternoon,” said Dave. “Jeff Kolosky will deliver the final blow the following evening. Based upon the events that unfolded today, these two video releases should seal the fate on the President’s demise. I’ll wager that he’ll be out of office within the next seventy-two hours.”
“Dr. Gillian and Joe, please make sure those sensors on the driveway are in peak operation again. Also, let’s all begin to pack up any remaining items we don’t anticipate using anymore or don’t mind leaving behind. I have this uneasy feeling in my stomach that we’re about to be paid a visit by the Feds.”
Chapter 82 (March 31, Sunday 8:00am Mountain Daylight Savings Time)
Barbas’s men, Alex and Basil, were heading north on a poorly maintained road in their beige sedan. They had spent the night at a cheap hotel near the airport they had checked out the previous day. Their initial inquiries with the FBO operator at that airport had led them on a wild goose chase that cost them the entire day. The FBO desk jock had said he had seen a Bombardier Challenger business jet fly into the airport a couple of days ago, but that it had departed after a short two hour layover. While the aircraft was on the ground it refueled and the FBO had delivered food for the crew and passengers. He also reported that the aircraft had some local visitors that had driven in and met with them during their layover. The desk jock said he recognized the vehicle of the car and its owner, so Alex and Basil drove out to his home to pay the man a visit. They had also contacted Barbas about the possible lead.
After not finding the man at home and spending nearly four hours tracking him down, they finally found him working at a hole-in-the-wall auto garage on the outskirts of the town. It turned out the guy was an ex-Air Force aircraft mechanic and knew the pilot of the business jet. The pilot had called him a week ago and had said he would be stopping into the airport for a brief visit to pick up some equipment for their passenger. So he and a local buddy of his had simply gone out to say hello to his old friend and to take a look at the jet. In the meantime, Barbas had checked out the registration tail number of the jet and it turned out it was owned and operated by an oil and gas company that had operations in North Dakota.
So after wasting an entire day, and suffering yet another brutal round of verbal abuse from Barbas, they were now enroute back to Cut Bank Airport eating slices of cold left over pizza for breakfast. Besides continuing their conversation with the cute blond FBO attendant, they also planned to pay some visits with the other locals on and around the airport. In particular, they wanted to meet up with the man who was driving the old S60 Volvo.
Chapter 83 (March 31, Sunday 2:00pm Mountain Daylight Savings Time)
What the NSurv team hoped would be the final video that they would need to shock the public, and its elected congressional members, into action was ready for broadcast. The team had worked nearly all night long to complete it. Dave and Dana wrapped up the final narration edits at 4:00am in the morning, before they finally retired to their beds. Due to the late night, the team had gotten a late start in the morning. As a result, they were rushing to pack up the remaining lab and computer equipment, as well as all of their personal belongings, and load them into the Ford Explorer and Lexus SUV.
As soon as the video was broadcast, Dave’s plan was to have the team drive the three vehicles back to the airport and load their contents into the aircraft before all of them would depart the country for Calgary, Canada. He had figured that Canada was the safest place to be to watch the politics unfold in the United States over the next week or so. Assuming his desired outcome for the U.S. politics, the removal of the President and his administration, he hoped that they would be able to return to the U.S within the next couple of weeks, without having to be sent to prison.
Crossing into Canada required an Instrument Flight Rule (IFR) plan to be filed with the FAA. However, he was going to skip that little technicality and fly fast and low into Canadian airspace. When he neared Calgary Airport he would contact Canadian Air Traffic control and request for an emergency landing. Once on the ground, he’d have to improvise a plan depending upon the Canadian government’s reaction to his unfiled flight. At least all of the team had their passports in their possession. Canada was also typically more lenient with U.S. citizens entering their country illegally. The only wild card would be if there was already an international arrest warrant for them, and Canada’s willingness to support the U.S. government extradition wishes for them. For now, he’d have to put those concerns on the back burner and focus more on the task at hand, preparing for the broadcast of the video and their imminent departure out of Cut Bank, Montana.
Dave had given a weapon to everyone on the team, with the exception of Dr. Gillian, simply due to the fact that they were one gun short. Also, Dr. Gillian was not thrilled with the idea of possibly having to shoot at someone, even if it meant saving his own life. Ron and he each had a pistol, and Dana and Joe had the rifles. Ron had shown the two how to operate the rifles the previous day, doing a little target practice out behind their building. Both Joe and Dana had become fairly accurate marksmen, even though they only had a couple of hours to become familiar with the weapons.
At 2:45pm the vehicles were all loaded up, and only a computer and a router remained on a lab bench in the building. The computer drive had been cleaned of all of its previous contents. The only thing that remained on it was the video that they were about to broadcast, and the software to run it and interrupt the normal broadcast stations and network servers. Dr. Gillian, however, still held onto his laptop to keep tabs on the surveillance cameras mounted down the long driveway.
Akin to a sports team waiting to leave the locker room just before the start of a game, the small NSurv group sat around the small empty lab area fidgeting and waiting to go
live at the top of the hour with the video. Everyone was anxious to release it and get out of Cut Bank, as the news reports had still been coming in that the Feds were traipsing all over the northwest part of the country looking for them. But Dave and Dana wanted to wait until 3:00pm sharp. On the east coast it would be 5 o’clock when they released the video. Regional television stations typically started their local news segments at that time. In addition, people would most likely be wrapping up their weekend activities and be either at home unwinding in front of their televisions and computers, or listening to their radio in their vehicles as they drove home.
Dave had also checked out the local weather conditions at the airport and up in Canada. Again, it was another spring day in the northwest. The temperatures were still only in the low 40’s and the winds were kicking up out of the west at 25 knots. The sky was also solidly overcast, but fortunately the lowest cloud layer was at 3,000 feet AGL and there was no precipitation expected. It would be a bumpy ride flying at a low altitude, but at least he’d be able to see where he was flying.
Chapter 84 (March 31, Sunday 2:15pm Mountain Daylight Savings Time)
Alex and Basil had just driven in and parked their car in front of the FBO office at Cut Bank Airport. They could see through the windows in the FBO office that the cute blond girl was working behind the front counter. Like the other day, she was all alone. Similarly, the airport looked as nearly desolate as it did the other day. The only other vehicle on the airport, besides the girl’s car, was the same old beat up pickup truck that they had seen a couple of days ago. It was parked next to a closed up hangar.
The two men stepped out of their car. As they did, Basil said, “Alex, are you getting a spidey tingle feeling.”
Alex looked over at Basil with a disgusted look. “Call it what you want, but I am feeling like we’re in the right place.”
“Well good. Glad to know one of us is thinking we aren’t wasting our time again in this rinky-dink dead airport. Let’s go in and visit our little lady friend again.”
The two men entered the FBO building. As they did Lorraine looked up from her computer screen nonchalantly. As she recognized the men approaching the counter, she immediately began to feel anxious and her hands began to feel clammy.
“Hello gentlemen, what brings you back here today,” asked Lorraine in the most confident voice she could muster.
“Well hello ma’am, it’s nice to see you again as well,” said Basil somewhat mockingly. “We’ve been out of town for the past couple of days and were just passing by on our way back to Spokane, Washington. We thought we would check in with you one last time since we were in the neighborhood. We’re still looking for a group of people that probably landed at an airport around these parts recently in a Cessna Citation business jet. Have you seen this type of aircraft fly in here since we last spoke?”
“No, it’s been pretty much dead around here lately,” lied Lorraine as she remembered the Cessna Citation parked out on the ramp yesterday. The same aircraft that the good looking guy Dave had asked her to top off with fuel. “Though our runway is long enough to support business jets, this airport typically doesn’t see a lot of them, nor any other significant amount of aircraft until late spring when the weather warms up. As you can imagine, here at Cut Bank we’re a kind of Mecca for the backcountry pilots. Until they begin to show up, it’s a pretty desolate place.”
“It looks like it,” said Alex looking out across the airfield. As he scanned the buildings adjacent to the runway he pointed to a hangar with the old pickup truck outside of it. “Who owns that beat up pickup truck?” asked Alex.
“Just an old aircraft mechanic,” responded Lorraine. “His name is Ed Clemons,” she added innocently.
“The truck was here a couple of days ago when we stopped by the first time. I wonder if he might have seen the people or aircraft we’re looking for.”
“I doubt it.”
“Why do you say that?” asked Basil, who had been lasciviously watching her reactions as Alex questioned her.
Lorraine looked in the direction of Basil and saw him staring at her in a way that gave her a chill down her spine. “Because he keeps his hangar’s doors closed all the time and he’s half deaf.”
“Do you think he’d mind us paying him a visit?” asked Basil, as he slowly flipped through an aviation magazine that happened to be laying on the counter next to him. He looked up at her when he completed his question and gave her a penetrating stare.
“He’s kind of a hermit,” responded Lorraine a bit nervously. The strong confident image she had been trying to portray since the men walked in was beginning to crumble. The men were making her extremely nervous and she was sure they were beginning to notice it. “So yes, he’d probably mind, and again, I doubt he could tell you anything.”
“Understood, but maybe we’ll go over and knock on his door anyways,” replied Alex. “Who knows, maybe he did step out of his hanger long enough to see something. Plus it’s hard to not hear a business jet taxi by your front door, even if you are half hard of hearing.”
Basil placed the aviation magazine back down on the counter. “Thank you again ma’am for your time. We’ll be on our way.” He jerked his head ever so slightly toward the door so that Alex could get the message that it was time for them to leave.
Seeing Basil was ready to leave, Alex thanked the woman once again for her time, and the two left her standing alone in the office. Her legs were shaking uncontrollably and she wasn’t sure what to do. She didn’t get Dave’s last name and had no idea where he was or how to reach him.
“What do you think?” asked Alex as they walked back towards their car.
“She was hiding something. You’re spidey senses were right. Henson and his crew are somewhere near here. We’ll check out all the hangars and then pay Mr. Clemons a visit. If we come up dry, we’ll take a tour down that road where we saw that guy turn off a couple of days ago. My bet is that guy was Mr. Dave Henson.”
Chapter 85 (March 31, Sunday 3:00pm Mountain Daylight Savings Time)
Ron finished typing in the last key stroke into the computer on the lab bench as the rest of the NSurv team stood around him and watched. Immediately across the country, television broadcasts were once again interrupted and popular aggregator websites hacked. Each was now broadcasting or displaying another video, courtesy of NSurv. The video started out with a brief summary description by Dana of what viewers were about to see. She described that the images and audio were recorded in just the past couple of weeks, and that they took place in the main lodge of the President’s Camp David vacation retreat in north central Maryland. The video then continued.
It was 9:00am on the previous Sunday morning in the back country woods of rural Maryland. The President of the United States sat relaxed in a leather wingback chair in the main lodge at Camp David. Sitting to the side of him in an identical chair was Dimitris Barbas. Across from them on a matching leather sofa sat Chung Lee, Chairman of the Board of Yeh Electric Train, and Ken Hardy. With Barbas and Hardy both still infected with the nano-dust, they provided a clear and complete audio/video recording of the four men talking. They were discussing a number of topics, but the theme of their conversation focused around the President’s Transportation Movement Act and its impending passage. Also included in their discussions was talk of awarding contracts to Yeh Electric Train for building the MAGLEV locomotives and passenger cars, and to DGK International for laying the guideway tracks across the country. As they talked they sipped on mimosas, and dined on slices of smoked salmon and bruschetta topped with roasted mushrooms, poached eggs, and caviar.
“Again, I want to thank the both of you for coming here today,” said the President as he stood up and raised his mimosa filled Champaign glass in a welcoming toast to their meeting. “We are on the cusp of a new dawn in America. At a crossroads where the United States transitions from being a primary contributor in the destruction of the planet through its output of automobile carbon emissions,
to a leader in eco-friendly, low-carbon footprint public transportation.”
“The honor is ours Jesse,” said Barbas as he stood and raised his Champaign glass in response. “Mr. Lee, along with a number of our other international allies on the war on global warming, salute you for your leadership in this area. We look forward to working in cooperation with you, and the United States people, to making the world a healthier place for our grandchildren.”
“Agreed,” responded Lee as he raised his glass. “By the United States tackling global warming head on, it will set an example for other countries around the world to hopefully follow, including my own. The government of China has done very little to address China’s massive contribution to global warming as our economy has flourished over the past couple of decades.”
After completing the President’s toast, the four men sat back down.
“I do have one question for you,” said Chung Lee before the President could continue to speak.
“Yes, go ahead. What’s your question?” asked the President with still a big smile on his face.
“Do you believe Mr. President that global warming is indeed a manmade event? I’ve reviewed several weather analysis studies that have been conducted over the past decade by a number of world renowned meteorologists and scientists, and they all suggest that global warming is more the result of other factors, rather than man. Factors such as volcanic eruptions, changes in ocean currents, and celestial events to name a few. I have no doubt that man contributes to global climate change, but I’m just not so sure that man is the main cause of it.”