A Sound of Freedom

by Walter Grant

  Max felt a bead or two of perspiration forming on his forehead. When checking the little Ford for explosives before moving it from the Safeway parking lot to Claudia’s apartment he had not been all that concerned about being blown away. The cursory check was merely a routine precaution. Well, he was concerned now. Max knew the bomb had been intended for Claudia and was planted after he left the car at her apartment. Had the Tempo been spotted in the Safeway parking lot and the bomb set earlier, he, rather than Satterfield, might be the morning news. Satterfield had cleaned out Claudia’s bank account and was apparently waiting around for a chance to steal her car and blow town. Well, he blew town alright. As far as Max was concerned he got his just reward and society was free of one more bag of scum.

  A REAL UGLY GUY

  “A lot of buildings aren’t shown on this map,” Pablo explained as he placed an X on a detailed map of Vandenberg, near the intersection of Fifteenth and California. “These buildings are left over from Camp Cook; the army had a lot of people and equipment here during World War II, but when the air force became a separate service they tore down just about everything and built to suit their own needs and changed the name from Camp Cook to Vandenberg. These are two of the old Camp Cook buildings lucky enough to escape demolition.”

  Pablo drew two circles on the map and pointed to the first. “This is the theater; the movie will be over at about ten o’clock. We’ll start cleaning at that time. When we finish we’ll move over to the bowling alley.” He pointed to the second circle. “They close at midnight. It takes about two hours to clean each building. That will give you about four and a half hours to find whatever it is you’re looking for and get back to either the theater or the bowling alley. If you aren’t back by the time we finish, we’ll wait if we can, but after we finish cleaning, security comes around and locks the building. Once that happens, we’ll have to leave.”

  “Thanks, but don’t worry about hanging around. If I’m not back, leave without me.” Max got out of the van and walked across the parking lot toward the base hospital, approximately five hundred yards away.

  Once past the hospital, following Pablo’s directions he picked his way through a thick woods for a couple of hundred feet until he broke out onto a paved street, he then turned left and walked along the street until he intersected Air Field Road and followed Air Field Road until he found an unnamed dirt road cutting off through the woods. According to Pablo, building 5001 would be off this road on the left just before it intersected California Street.

  Thirty minutes later he found two buildings set back off the road, surrounded by eucalyptus and cypress. Numbers 5001 and 5002 were the only buildings in the area, apparently old army housing that had somehow escaped the bulldozer. The rest had all been cleared away. Along the deteriorating streets, with grass and bushes growing up through cracks in the pavement, a few old foundations remained as the only evidence that a residential neighborhood, where hundreds of military families once lived, had ever existed. Both buildings were boarded shut except for the rear doors, which had new locks.

  He worked the lock-picking device in and out until he found the right combination. It opened easily and in about half the time he spent on the lock to Gilbird’s office. Playing his Mini-Maglite around inside he found the interior of the house to still be in pretty good condition. The roof had not leaked and the hardwood floors still had a shine.

  He found the telephone, recorder, and scrambler neatly arranged on shelves inside a locked closet. Using the screwdriver on his Swiss army knife to remove a cover on the underside of the scrambler, he exposed the slider switches. After diagramming the switches’ positions and double-checking to insure he had not copied in error, Max replaced the cover plate, made a note as to manufacturer and model number of the unit, arranged everything as be had found it, and locked the closet door.

  Shipping crates marked HIGH EXPLOSIVES lined the walls. The metal bands on all crates had been cut and the tops pried open. He lifted one of the heavy wooden tops and peered inside at a shiny yellow metallic cylinder. “Dummy warhead-MX,” in two-inch black lettering was painted lengthwise on the cylinder and continued line after line around the entire cylinder. He checked a second crate and then a third. The crates all contained identical cylinders, fifteen in total. This seemed an odd place to store ordnance, even if it was inert. His curiosity piqued, he decided to look inside the other building.

  Outside, he waited in the shadows a couple of minutes before moving to the second house. The lock opened more easily this time. Playing his flashlight around, he found the interior to be in even better condition than the first house. More packing crates sat along the walls. These crates, however, marked “Electronic Components,” were much smaller than the ones next door. These, too, had been opened. Inside each crate, nestled in Styrofoam, was a small black box with two Cannon plug connectors on one end. The plate underneath the electrical connectors read, “Target-seeking computer.” He counted fifteen crates. Another crate housed a larger piece of equipment, with an identification plate that read “MX guidance computer.”

  In another room he found several empty crates with packing material scattered about, a wooden table about six feet long, and another locked closet. He was much faster opening the lock this time. He didn’t need to guess at the contents of the packages of white powdery substance all neatly stacked on the closet shelves. He estimated the wholesale value of what he guessed to be over four hundred kilos of cocaine to be in excess of ten million dollars. Well, this didn’t belong to the air force—probably none of this stuff belonged to the air force. But what could Gilbird want with the electronics equipment and fifteen dummy bombs?

  He hadn’t heard the back door open. The only sound to alert him before the lights came on was the clicking sound on the hardwood floor. When he turned around he found himself eyeball to eyeball with the largest Doberman pinscher he had ever seen. With teeth bared, and without making a sound, the dog waited for a command.

  Jake Hatcher stood just inside the door with a .44 Magnum in his right hand. Max momentarily found himself amused as he wondered why everybody carried cannons when a small caliber would kill you just as dead. All you had to do was shoot where you aimed.

  Max reasoned he had tripped another alarm. If this was true and Hatcher, not air force security, was answering the alarm, then all the crates did indeed tie into whatever Gilbird and his group were planning. But what were their plans? Did they intend to blow up the MX on its first test launch? This was a possibility—he was sure they had somehow had a hand in the other missile failures. Still, although it would cause a setback in deployment of the Peacekeeper, it would not be the media event he believed the Kremlin was working toward.

  “Okay, clasp your hands behind your head and back away from the closet. Do it slowly.” Jake, knowing he had the upper hand, was calm and deliberate as he moved toward the closet. Curious to see if the intruder had removed any of the narcotics, he chanced a quick look inside, taking his eyes off Max for only a moment. At the very instant Jake glanced inside the closet Max sprang into the air and with lightning speed his left foot delivered a sharp blow to Jake’s right elbow. Jake felt his entire arm go numb as the weapon leapt from his hand. Still in the air, Max rotated his body and delivered a crushing blow to Jake’s chin with his right foot. Hatcher landed on his back, Max landed on all fours, and the Doberman landed on Max, going for his throat. Max felt the sharp teeth rip through his flesh as he rammed his left hand into the dog’s mouth, barely in time to keep the animal from ripping his jugular veins open. Max managed to throw the dog to one side and spring to his feet. The Doberman landed on his feet at the same time as Max and they raced for the door. Max grabbed the door jamb, stopping his forward motion, and swung around against the wall on the other side of the door. The dog tried to make the turn and attack again, but his weight and forward motion caused him to slip on the hardwood floor. Max had just enough time to jump back into the other room and slam the door shut. He had escaped
from the Doberman, but now he was back in the room with Hatcher who was still dazed, but reaching for the big revolver. Max threw himself at the man and grabbed the gun, twisting it away from his face. Jake, in his effort to wrench the gun away from Max, put too much pressure on the trigger. The sound was deafening. The bullet went into the lower chest and out through his left shoulder.

  Max rolled the dead man over and went through his pockets, but found nothing of interest. His left hand was a mess. Blood soaked his sleeve to the elbow and trickled from his fingers. Using his Swiss army knife, he cut off the other sleeve, wrapped it around the bleeding hand, and secured it as best he could.

  Max was just about to leave before he remembered the dog on the other side of door; he stopped and retrieved the heavy revolver, wondering if anyone had heard the gunshot. Well, either way a second shot wouldn’t matter. Halfway back to the door he stuck the gun under his belt, walked to the closet, and removed one of the packages of cocaine. Cutting through the tough plastic he opened up one end and sprinkled the one-thousand-dollar-an-ounce substance over a ten-foot area on the floor in front of the door. Holding the pistol in his right hand he stood behind the door, and pulled it open with his mangled left hand. The Doberman lunged into the room, saw Max and turned to attack, but unable to maneuver on the slippery floor, lost his footing and skidded halfway across the room. Max stepped through the door, and pulled it closed behind him. After wiping his prints from the gun he dropped it inside one of the shipping crates. He sure pitied the next poor sucker to open that door. He hoped it was Tolinger.

  Skirting all lighted areas and keeping to the woods whenever possible, he made his way to the bowling alley. Pablo was outside by his van; the crew was finishing up inside. Fifteen minutes later they were passing through Vandenberg’s main gate and heading toward Santa Maria. Pablo stopped at an all-night service station and made a phone call. Returning to the van, he said, “We’ll stop off and get your hand fixed up a bit.”

  Pablo dropped the crew at his office and after giving some instructions in Spanish to one of the men, drove off toward the center of Santa Maria. He still hadn’t asked any questions about the blood-soaked sleeve, but as he turned toward the ocean on Betaravia Road he remarked, “Looks like you’re going to owe me for a new uniform.”

  “Yeah, I met a real ugly guy with a big, mean dog. The dog did a number on me. I guess he didn’t like your logo.”

  Pablo chuckled. “Sounds like you met up with Jake Hatcher and one of his Doberman pinschers. Did you find what you were looking for?”

  “Mr. Montoya, you don’t know how much I appreciate your help, but, in the interest of your own safety there are things going on I can’t discuss, and I would advise you to forget you ever met me. Your life could already be in jeopardy.”

  Pablo gave Max one of those I’m-not-as-dumb-as-you-think-I-am smiles and said, “I knew from the beginning you weren’t telling me everything, but if I can help shut down Spic and Span I’ll take the risk.”

  Pablo didn’t ask any more questions. They stopped in the driveway of a modest ranch house. Max assumed it was Pablo’s home. They waited inside the house for perhaps ten minutes before a woman, probably Pablo’s wife, wearing a nurse’s uniform, arrived. The lady cleaned his hand, stitched the lacerations and applied a clean dressing. She didn’t ask any questions, but instructed him to keep the bandage clean and dry and to see a doctor.

  Back at Pablo’s office, Max removed his pants and stripped off what was left of the blood-soaked shirt, with the big A to Z logo on the back, and dressed in what had become his own uniform, black sweats and running shoes.

  As he opened the door of the TransAM, Max thanked Pablo for his help and suggested, “You might want to destroy what’s left of that uniform.”

  “I have an incinerator out back,” Pablo replied.

  Without further conversation, the two men shook hands, then Max slipped under the wheel and drove away.

  The full moon, in a star-studded sky, set everything aglow. With the warm Santa Ana winds one could easily have mistaken this late night in December for a summer’s evening in August. Max sat on the patio listening to the surf as he tried to assemble all the data he had compiled, but it was like guessing at the picture in a jigsaw puzzle by looking at the border and a couple of unrelated pieces. The importing and selling of narcotics to finance their operation was another example of the KGB not following standard procedures, indicating, as Max saw it, a do-or-die effort. Sabotaging Atlantis on her maiden voyage had at first seemed the logical target, but now with the entire space program being revamped it would be at least a year before another STS launch. This eliminated another shuttle disaster, since whatever the KGB had in mind would take place in the very near future—of this he was absolutely certain. The MX parts seemed to indicate the KGB and GRU had combined forces and were concentrating on the Peacekeeper. However, destroying another missile, although he was sure the Communists would not pass up the opportunity to do so, was not, in his opinion, representative of the enormous destruction required to turn the entire country against space exploration and SDI research.

  Turning public opinion against SDI, he believed, was their goal. If war broke out at this moment between NATO forces and the Warsaw Pact nations, space would play an important but limited role. Satellites presently in orbit, U.S. and Soviet alike, were passive, used only for various means of intelligence gathering, but wars of the future would be fought in space and the USSR now stood ready to deploy a new generation of satellite-based weapons. If they could delay or in some way prevent the United States from developing and deploying a space-based weapons system, they would be able, by the end of the decade, to dictate conditions to the entire Western world without fear of reprisal, since they would have total control of space. Most Americans were not privy to the successes of the Soviets in their quest to dominate the world and few were concerned about, or even contemplated the world ten years hence.

  Their timing was perfect. Another disarmament summit was scheduled in two weeks. At the last meeting the Soviets had walked out when President Reagan refused to put SDI on the table. Max was convinced whatever was going down here at Vandenberg would take place before the next meeting and it would be so horrible and the thought of a possible recurrence so terrifying the American public would demand the president include SDI in the disarmament package.

  For Max nothing had changed. The questions were still there—the answers were not. The telephone numbers had not provided any new leads. One local number belonged to Tolinger, a second number belonged to a guy named Mitchell Cole, and the third number was Linda Larkin’s. The numbers in Florida, Nebraska, and D.C. were set up with telephone recorders. Well, his scrambler should arrive sometime this morning; an electronics supply in L.A. had assured him delivery within twelve hours. Maybe a clue was on the message phone. He felt he was grasping at straws and was about to drown along with everyone else. He would give it one more day. If nothing turned up, he’d call Henri.

  He stuck his left hand into a plastic shopping bag, taped the open end tight around his forearm, and showered. He towel-dried, then ripped off the plastic and checked the dressing. The bag had done the trick, the bandage was still dry. His hand was a bit sore and starting to get stiff; he figured the way his luck was running the dog had rabies.

  Max lay awake trying to reason why Gilbird’s group had stolen MX parts. He could see stealing one of each to send back to the Soviet Union, but why fifteen of each? The more he learned the more puzzling it all became. His mind wandered and his thoughts focused in on Sherry. Recalling the last evening with her he reached for the phone and dialed her number. On the fourth ring her answering machine picked up. Max wondered why she wasn’t home at this time of night and dialed again just to hear her voice. The mere sound of her voice, melodious and enchanting, only served to intensify his lonesomeness. Finally, on the third call he left a message. He told her how much he missed her and managed to include the three magic words, “I love you.�
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  He dialed the number at his own apartment, hoping she might be there waiting for him. The phone just kept on ringing.

  Whether he awoke in the morning or in the evening, his routine was the same, watching the news over breakfast. No mention of Hatcher this morning, but of greater interest were the fifteen seconds devoted to circumstances surrounding Air Force Lieutenant Mitchell Cole, found dead of a drug overdose early this morning in his car on the eighteenth green of the Vandenberg golf course. He was reported to have had a fight with his girlfriend the night before at the Hitching Post Bar and Grill. He had been drinking heavily, according to the bartender, and left just before closing.

  The telephone rang, giving him a start. He hadn’t been this jumpy in a long time. He attributed it to a lack of sleep. The caller informed him that a package had arrived at their warehouse with instructions to call immediately upon receipt of the package. The warehouse turned out to be a small room at the bus depot where they held luggage and other parcels shipped via their bus line. On the way back through the lobby he dropped two quarters into a newspaper vending machine and removed the morning edition. Placing the newspaper and package on the front seat, he drove back to his house on Surf Road.

  Anxious to know what secrets, if any, the KGB message phone held, he hooked the scrambler into his telephone, set in the codes, and dialed the number. The phone rang but the answering machine did not pick up. He tried the number again—the phone continued to ring. There was little doubt Hatcher’s body had been discovered by some of his own people, both buildings cleaned out and the phone abandoned. The recorder had either been set up at new location using another number or they had discontinued the message setup altogether. Things just didn’t seem to be going his way, but sooner or later he would surely get a break. It had better be sooner for time was running out.