A Sound of Freedom

by Walter Grant

  At the trolley station parking lot exit the pavement dipped, then rose sharply to street level. Max was wondering how the Chevy with such low-slung suspension would negotiate the dip and get up to the street without dragging off the rear bumper. As though reading his mind Jorge touched a switch on the dash and the rear end of the car lifted up about two feet. When they reached the street Jorge touched the switch again and the car settled back to within a few inches of the pavement.

  “That was pretty slick. I didn’t know ‘57 Chevys came with that option.”

  Jorge laughed and to further impress Max, he touched another switch and the front of the car rose up until they could barely see over the hood. He touched the first switch again and rear came back up and now the entire car was about two feet off the ground.

  Max had heard Carlos talk about cars like this, but had never actually seen a low rider before.

  “That’s amazing.”

  At the intersection Jorge manipulated the switches in such a manner to make the Chevy actually hop up and down.

  “How do you do that?”

  Jorge laughed and exclaimed. “Hydraulics, man.”

  In the short distance between the trolley station and the Gatos Frios repair shop Jorge amused himself as he continued to astonish Max with the novelties built into the ‘57 Chevy.

  “There she is, man!”

  Excitement was evident in Jorge’s voice and pride showed on his face as he braked to a stop behind the repair shop and said, “Don’t let her looks fool you, man; she’ll blow the doors off anything on the road.”

  Max took one look at the faded brown paint of the old Pontiac TransAm and exclaimed, “That’s exactly what I had in mind. She’s perfect.”

  Jorge took the better part of an hour pointing out all the different switches that had been added to the Pontiac’s control panel as he explained what they did and demonstrated how they worked.

  Jorge then handed Max the keys and said, “The title is in the glove box.”

  Jorge slipped the envelope Max handed him into his pocket without checking its contents and they shook hands, for what both men knew would be the last time. “Take care of her, man; she’s one of a kind.”

  Later, when Jorge counted the money inside the envelope he found more than four times the amount he expected.

  Back at Chalter Tower, Max left the Pontiac in guest parking and walked to the elevator that would take him from the underground garage to his eighteenth-floor apartment. As he was about to step into the elevator he stopped, frozen, eyes glued to the newspaper in the vending machine by the elevator door. He swore out loud as he jammed coins into the machine and ripped out the afternoon edition of the San Diego Union-Tribune. The headlines read, “Crew killed in shuttle disaster.”

  Scanning the paper as the elevator whisked him skyward he learned the Challenger had exploded two minutes after lift-off killing the crew of seven.

  Inside his apartment he switched on the television and watched in disbelief as the Challenger lifted off and later exploded like a giant fireworks display. Every major television network had a special news crew interviewing NASA officials, prime contractor executives, congressmen, or anyone willing to speculate on what might have caused the shuttle to explode. For a moment Max thought his eyes were deceiving him when an interview began with Colonel Howard Kent Tolinger. As he touched the record button on his VCR questions raced through his brain. Why was Tolinger at the Cape? Was the colonel somehow responsible for the Challenger’s fate and death of her crew? Max tried to memorize every detail about the man standing next to Tolinger as he listened to the colonel theorize on the possible effects this catastrophe might have on Atlantis, scheduled to be launched on its maiden voyage in less than a year from the new space launch facility at Vandenberg. Every five minutes or so the station would cut away from the interview to show the Challenger lifting off the launch pad and exploding—the media sought out and reveled in negativity.

  Interviews and speculation continued, sabotage had not been ruled out; however, comments along these lines were made very carefully. If sabotage was proven or even suspected it would be highly unlikely the general public would ever know. To admit someone or some group had penetrated National Aeronautics and Space Administration security would panic a large sector of the population. Americans read about and saw the results of terrorist acts on television every day, although few had experienced it firsthand. To suddenly realize sabotage of such magnitude had occurred within our own country and to know the saboteurs had circumvented NASA’s complex security systems would have every citizen wondering where and when they would strike next. This realization could and probably would change the way people conducted their lives and in so doing might disrupt the entire economy. Max wasn’t about to panic, but he wasn’t going to write it off as an accident, not just yet anyway.

  Max could deceive and evade the truth as easily and as naturally as he breathed. Without this ability he would never have survived the last decade. Now, for the first time, his emotions betrayed him. The lie stuck in his throat, his tongue became thick and his voice lacked the usual control and confidence. It wasn’t the untruth he spoke that caused him to inadvertently glance away, it was the shadow sweeping away the lights that always sparkled and danced in her sea-green eyes. The pain evident on her face and in her voice told him she knew he had lied. Damn! Why had she asked? She had never inquired before. Now, out of the clear blue and in rapid succession, she had fired a dozen questions at him all beginning with where, when, or why. He knew it was a bust—he wanted to tell her the truth, but the truth was out of the question. Well, there was nothing to do except follow through with the lie, stick to his story and hope for the best. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.

  He had expected during dinner at their favorite restaurant, overlooking Glorietta Bay, he would mention that he would be out of town for a few days and they would go through the I’ll-miss-you routine, have a lovely dinner, and a beautiful evening together, and all would end well. This, however, was not the way things were shaping up and he already knew the evening would end badly.

  Max watched a shiny red Corvette continuously switching back and forth from one lane to the other, passing one or two cars at a time as it slowly inched its way through traffic. On Highway 101 you could drive from Los Angeles to San Jose at freeway speeds without seeing a single traffic light except for Santa Barbara, where the maximum speed limit was thirty miles per hour, regulated by a series of traffic lights. Over a distance of eight or ten miles the traffic crawled along at a snail’s pace, trying everyone’s patience to the point where sometimes obscenities, fist shaking, and other well-known gestures with a certain digit of the hand were exchanged between motorists. It was not uncommon for a driver to change lanes and pull directly in front of another vehicle, forcing the other driver to either yield or risk a damaged fender.

  Two cars in front of Max continued through the intersection after the light turned red, drawing blasts from horns of waiting cross traffic. Max braked to a stop in the right-hand lane, and watched the Corvette, now just three cars back, move over into a “Right Turn Only” lane and pull up alongside. Although a sign hung underneath the traffic light and a 6-by-8-foot sign was posted against an ice-plant-covered embankment across the intersection opposite the right turn lane that read “No Right Turn on Red,” Max knew the driver of the Vette had no intentions of turning right and was not simply obeying the law as he waited for the light to change. Although the right turn lane did not continue on the opposite side of the intersection Max knew the kid intended to jackrabbit when the light turned green and pull in front of him before they reached the other side of the intersection. Max was in no hurry and had already tried the Pontiac for speed on Interstate 5 between Oceanside and the Immigration and Naturalization Service check station and had no doubts about its power. But still, here was a chance to see how his machine measured up pitted against a real muscle car. Naw, he’d let the Vette jump ahead, he wasn’t going
to do anything dumb. If the guy in the Vette wanted to do something stupid Max had no intention of standing in his way.

  The two guys in the sleek-looking sports car were about twenty years old. Max guessed them to be students at the University of California at Santa Barbara. They looked over at the old TransAm with its faded paint and laughed at some comment made by the passenger. The driver took a long pull on a beer before passing it across to his friend, who finished it and tossed the bottle onto the curb where it shattered. The Corvette eased forward until its front wheels were even with the Pontiac’s front bumper.

  “Ah, what the hell,” Max said, to no one in particular. “Let’s go for it.”

  The passenger twisted the cap off another bottle of beer as the duo looked at Max and continued to laugh, no doubt sharing another joke about his Pontiac and how they were going to blow his doors off. Had they been more alert, they would have noticed the old car they were laughing at was undergoing changes that might have raised a question or two and maybe even caused some alarm.

  They would have heard the hydraulic pump kick in and noticed a lowering of the front end as the suspension was tightened. They would have observed the rear elevate as the entire car was raked into a ground-effects configuration. And had they been paying attention, they would have noticed the air induction door open up in the center of the hood to scoop in extra air to the low-profile, belt-driven Latham supercharger that forced air into the carburetor.

  Max had his left foot on the brakes, while his right foot applied gentle pressure to the accelerator in order to keep the power train tight. The entire car shuddered as the powerful engine was held in check.

  Max watched the Corvette rather than the traffic signal, knowing the driver might try and jump the light and leave him sitting at the starting line waiting for the green.

  The Corvette torqued ever so slightly as the driver opened the throttle and the Vette had barely moved when Max released the brake and slammed down the accelerator. A nanosecond later the two cars reached the middle of the intersection and were dead even. The kid driving the Vette, wide-eyed in disbelief and with no place to go as his lane ended, slammed on the brakes and plowed into the embankment, sending splintered boards and chunks of ice plant into the air.

  This had been the last traffic light and the thirty-miles-per-hour speed limit ended. Max adjusted his speed to the traffic, reset all the toggle switches to their original position and watched the Pontiac return to its normal configuration. That had been a foolish thing to do and he knew it, but he was still uptight from his last few hours with Sherry and it served more as a release for built-up tension than as an opportunity to check out the capabilities of his car. Even so, a smile slowly touched his lips as he thought about the surprised look on the faces of the two guys in the Corvette.

  For the next half hour he recalled the thrills of European road racing and of the reckless life he had lived. The life of a dedicated, hard-working marine interwoven with fast cars, spies and counterspies, the CIA and KGB, free love and all-night parties. He wondered if in some weird sort of way he’d had a death wish, or perhaps he was just trying to forget Nam. He knew he would never forget Nam.

  By the time he reached Lompoc, a city of 30,000 billing itself “Flower seed capital of the world,” his thoughts were free of ghosts from the past. Sherry, too, for the moment had been buried somewhere deep in the recesses of his mind. He parked a block and a half from Ed Dickerson’s office and in the opposite direction from the spot where he’d parked the Ferrari on his first visit to Lompoc.

  “Mr. Dickerson is meeting a very important client at the airport in Santa Maria,” explained his secretary. “It was something that came up unexpectedly and could not be scheduled at a more convenient time. He asked me to apologize for his absence. However, I assure you everything is exactly as you requested.”

  Max attached his signature, “Raymond Alexander,” in the appropriate places, said good-bye to Helen and left the real estate office with copies of the signed documents, a set of keys, and the control unit for the automatic garage door opener. Following the route introduced to him by Dickerson, Max pulled into a service station, filled his gas tank, and purchased a street map of Lompoc and the surrounding area, including Vandenberg Air Force Base. At a nearby supermarket he loaded a dozen bags of groceries onto the back seat of the Pontiac. Thirty minutes later he activated the garage door opener, backed his car into the garage, put the gear select lever in Park, and killed the ignition. At the rear of the garage by a door that opened into a hallway, he touched a button on the wall and watched the garage door close back to its original position.

  After walking through the house to insure no one was inside, he returned to his car, carried the groceries into the kitchen and put them away. Returning again to the garage, he transferred several pieces of luggage from the trunk compartment of the Pontiac to the master bedroom. Half an hour later his clothes either hung in the closet or lay folded neatly in bureau drawers. Three large bags stood unopened in the bottom of the closet. Two smaller bags rested unopened on the dresser.

  The sun was still a good twenty degrees above the Pacific Ocean when Max stepped out of the shower. He finished drying off, dropped the towel into a clothes hamper, walked to the bed, pulled down the covers, climbed in and was asleep almost immediately.

  Max awoke without moving or opening his eyes. He continued the slow, even breathing pattern of a person sleeping. Perfected over many years, it gave him the opportunity to evaluate conditions in the room without alerting anyone that might have been in the house—it could be most unpleasant waking up with an uninvited guest in the room. Minutes later, satisfied he was alone, Max opened his eyes, stretched, and got out of bed. There was little need for such caution at present, but it was a practiced habit and had saved his life on at least two occasions.

  Turning on a light by the bed he selected a pair of dark gray sweat pants and matching sweatshirt, a pair of heavy socks and jogging shoes. He was in no particular hurry and dressed leisurely and when finished walked to the kitchen and slid a glass door back along its track, allowing the fresh ocean breeze and the sound of pounding surf to fill the room. The house, built in the shape of a horseshoe, provided virtually every room access to a patio that extended thirty feet beyond the house to a four-foot wall overlooking a sheer cliff and the crashing surf two hundred feet below. He removed several packages and containers from the refrigerator, constructed a couple of sandwiches, picked up a bag of chips and a carton of milk, and carried everything to a table on the patio near the wall overlooking the cliff.

  A gibbous moon painted a path across the Pacific to the water’s edge below and flooded the surrounding countryside.

  Max sat bathed by the moonlight enjoying the tranquility. He ate in silence, his thoughts wandering. Slowly loneliness crept into his consciousness as be remembered, too, many similar experiences of the past; a lovely setting and no one to share, no one to care. He found himself wishing Sherry was there with him, wishing also he could be sure she was the person he knew her to be, nothing more, and nothing less.

  His thoughts of Sherry and the past were swept away by a sudden glow on the horizon as a very large rocket motor lifted a missile into the night sky. He watched the big rocket’s trailing exhaust flames cut through the darkness for perhaps thirty seconds before the sound waves reached him. A few seconds later the sky lit up like the Fourth of July. Max sat frozen even after the sound of the explosion shattered the night. For several minutes pieces of the flaming missile continued to trace eerie patterns in the night sky as they plummeted earthward. He watched in awe for some time before his senses returned. Remembering the day he’d been here with Ed Dickerson and had watched the antennas at Gilbird’s track a Minuteman downrange, he turned his attention to the house at the end of the road. In the bright moonlight it was easy to see both dishes were looking down the coast only a few degrees above the horizon.

  Could the Gilbird group have transmitted a destruct signal
? Not likely, even with the necessary codes and the correct frequency they would first have had to knock out Vandenberg’s main transmitter and the backup transmitter as well. It was not unlikely that the air force would also have an airborne command center with yet another backup transmitter. Even if they could transmit a destruct signal, why would they? Too many questions and no answers. He sure wanted to look inside the Gilbird house, but this certainly was not the right time.

  He finished eating in front of the television, watching the eleven-o’clock news on a local station. The camera crew at the launch site viewing area had sent the entire sequence back to the station, where it had been recorded and was now being sent out over the network into virtually every home in the country. The network employed the same technique as it had with the Challenger, showing the liftoff and explosion over and over as they explained why the missile, a Titan, had been destroyed by the air force approximately two minutes into its flight. Apparently the second stage had failed and the decision was made to destroy the missile rather than have it crash in an undetermined area. An air force spokesman, when asked, admitted there were similarities between the Titan failure tonight and the failure of a Titan that had to be destroyed shortly after launch less than a week ago at Cape Canaveral. The interview continued with questions about two Minuteman missiles which had failed in pretty much the same way and had to be destroyed shortly after liftoff. The spokesman was hesitant to compare the Minuteman failures with the Titan’s, but did admit there had been a rash of failures in the air force, as well as at NASA, within the last few months. When asked about the possibility of sabotage, he stated nothing had been found to indicate sabotage. Max had no hard evidence, only gut instinct, but he was willing to bet the farm that sabotage was in play, and it all tied into Gilbird and Tolinger. It was time to go to work and he knew exactly where he was going to begin. But first he would take a few precautions.