A Sound of Freedom

by Walter Grant

  Police were also baffled, according to another front-page article, by the death of an unidentified man found in Pine Canyon. At first it was believed the man had lost control of his car and was killed when the car plunged into the canyon, caught fire, and burned. The coroner later concluded the man died from a gunshot wound. Similarities did exist in the two car bombings, but there was nothing to indicate the third death was tied to the car bombings or to Mitchell Cole. The article continued with speculation as to the man’s identity and how he might have ended up in Pine Canyon.

  The only other item of interest was an article confirming that the first test launch of the MX was scheduled for eight o’clock Saturday evening, less than thirty-six hours away.

  The waitress arrived with his breakfast, which brought a smile to his lips as he thought about Sherry, knowing that if present, she would have frowned and lectured him on the adverse effects of eating food containing high fat and cholesterol. The smile faded as he wondered why she had taken time off from her job. He’d call later. Maybe she’d be home.

  Putting Sherry out of his mind, he concentrated on the new pieces of the puzzle. There was something about the name Natasha Von Hegel that pricked his memory. Something familiar, yet he couldn’t recall having ever heard the name. Natasha was Russian, Von Hegel was German. An East German had apparently married a Russian woman and the mother had given her daughter a Russian name. This seemed quite normal, except that in the Eastern bloc one did not move about at will. Semipalatinsk, a port city on the Irtysh River, with just over a quarter of a million people, was far removed from Germany and only three hundred miles from the Chinese border. A railhead at Semipalatinsk connected the rest of the Soviet Union as well as China, by way of the Irtysh River and the Kara Sea, to both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. There was little doubt Von Hegel had been forced by the State to move to Semipalatinsk, probably because of his expertise in transportation, either rail or shipping. His daughter had grown up under Communist control and influence, starting most likely with youth groups for the very young such as the October Cubs and the Young Pioneers, leading eventually to the Komsomol, and culminating in Party membership. She was now a KGB spy planning, according to Cole, to kill thousands of people. Max knew the killing in itself wasn’t the goal of the KGB. The attitude of the public resulting from all the death and carnage was their goal. How did it all tie together? He had better start coming up with some answers.

  He finished breakfast and found a telephone. The police snooping around Spic and Span might make several people very nervous, possibly nervous enough to make a mistake. A woman answered on the sixth ring. “Lompoc police department.”

  “I want to talk to the person investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of the man found in Pine Canyon.”

  “What’s your name, sir?”

  “I’m going to save you the trouble of asking the routine questions, so listen carefully. I have no intention of giving you my name, address, or telephone number. I could give you a phony name and address and cause you to waste time and effort trying to find someone who doesn’t exist. So we can dispense with the customary dialogue and don’t even think about putting me on hold so you will have enough time to put a trace on this call. If I’m not talking to somebody interested in what I have to say in exactly ten seconds I’m hanging up and you won’t hear from me again. Do you understand?”

  “Yes sir. Just a moment, sir.”

  Another voice identified himself as Detective Hooper and asked the same question the woman had asked and got the same answer. Hooper didn’t waste any more time. “Okay, I’m the investigator assigned to the case, what do you have to tell me?”

  Max heard the telltale click of another receiver being lifted from its cradle. “I’m only going through this one time and then I’m hanging up the phone, so you’d better start your tape recorder or prepare to take notes. The guy in the canyon is Jake Hatcher. Hatcher and a guy named Oscar Bell supply pushers throughout the area with cocaine. Bell works for John Gilbird, owner of Spic and Span Janitorial. You might also inquire into the whereabouts of Gilbird. Seems no one has seen him in over a month. Okay, that’s it; color me gone.”

  The voice at the other end was cut short as Max hung up the phone. He walked back into the restaurant and asked the hostess for a paper cup. The hostess disappeared for a few seconds, then returned with a Styrofoam coffee cup and asked, “Will this be okay?”

  “That will do just fine, thanks.”

  Max took the cup and headed toward his car. He considered the possibility that one of Larkin’s cohorts had seen him talking with Glasman and followed when he left the Hitching Post and watched him get into his car. In which case the description of the TransAM and his license number might already be in the hands of the car bomber. With this in mind Max gave the Pontiac a cursory once-over before replacing his bags in the trunk and driving off toward the center of town.

  Needing to make one more call that would require a handful of change, he pulled into a shopping mall in Santa Maria, and parked the TransAM near a video arcade. Even at this time of day several kids and a few adults were playing the video games. Pinball had come a long way. He fed one of the change machines two five-dollar bills, scooped up the quarters and dropped them into the Styrofoam cup. In a nearby restaurant he found a public telephone.

  The operator asked for $3.85. He dropped sixteen quarters into the slot and waited. On the second ring Henri answered.

  “What does the name Von Hegel mean to you?” Max asked, not wasting time on idle chitchat.

  “You aren’t referring to Erich Von Hegel?”

  “Maybe. Tell me about him.”

  “At the close of World War II after FDR and Churchill gave Stalin half of Europe, a group of German rocket scientists and technicians at Peenemunde was moved to Kapustin Yar, a site similar to White Sands, where the Soviets had been engaged in rocket development prior to World War II. Erich Von Hegel was head of another German team of rocket scientists at Mitteiwerk in the Harz Mountains. Von Hegel and his team were transported to Semipalatinsk and began work on weapons that could be carried into space by the rockets being perfected at Kapustin Yar.” Henri paused, then asked, “Why are you interested in Von Hegel?”

  “The name turned up under very peculiar circumstances. I’ll check out a couple more things and get back to you. In the meantime, if you want to listen to a little gossip on a party line I can give you some numbers.”

  “Well, you know me—I’m always interested in gossip.” Max knew the term party line would assure a positive response. He gave Henri the numbers of the message phones in Florida, Nebraska, and D.C. “You’re going to need a key and something to clear up the static.” There was no reason for talking in riddles, but somehow, terms like code and scrambler seemed out of place in the conversation.

  The operator cut in, “Please deposit two dollars and fifty cents for an additional three minutes.” Max fed ten more quarters into the slot and got the recorded thank you. He talked with Henri for another minute or so, before hanging up.

  Hesitating, wrestling with his emotions, he dialed Sherry’s number.

  “Deposit three dollars and twenty cents, please.”

  Three twenty? Hadn’t he just called all the way across the country for three eighty-five? So, how could an instate call be three dollars and twenty cents? It didn’t make sense. Nevertheless, he dropped thirteen of the fourteen remaining quarters into the slot. On the fourth ring her answering machine delivered the same message he had heard the last time he called, a message he was beginning to hear in his dreams—dreams that were now on the verge of becoming nightmares. Even so, he didn’t hang up until the message ended. Her voice was music. He refused to consider that Sherry might be a KGB agent and he refused also to acknowledge his emotions were beginning to cloud his thinking—if mistaken, it could cost him his life. Halfway to the TransAM he swore under his breath. Suddenly aware of the quarter left over from the phone calls, carried clinched in his
fist, he sailed the coin across the parking lot, and swore again, this time out loud.

  The fresh-brewed coffee tasted like the proverbial cup of mud. The patio he found so restful at night and in the early morning sizzled under the blazing midday sun and the scorching Santa Anna winds. The normally booming surf had only enough energy from the unusually flat ocean to barely whisper. At present it was neither a pleasant nor a comforting place. Still, he continued to sit and stare at the Gilbird house. Sooner or later he had to get inside. Later was no longer an option. Something had changed—he didn’t know what, but there was a difference in what he remembered and what he had been staring at for the last fifteen minutes. He walked to the wall at the back of the patio and watched the calm ocean for several minutes. With a disappointing glance at his coffee cup he dumped its contents over the wall and walked back into the house.

  “That’s it,” he whispered.

  “That’s it!” he repeated the remark louder this time. There was no need to take a second look. He poured himself another cup of coffee. It tasted great. He had no idea what it meant, but at least he had a lead. One of the dish antennas had been dismantled and removed.

  Viewing the videotape recording of the activity in front of his house took over an hour, but when finished he was positive he knew how the antenna had left and he was pretty sure where it was going. He still wanted to look inside the Gilbird house, but according to the videotape, not only was Evone Gilbird home but an unknown number had arrived in the Maxivan an hour before he got home. The dark-tinted windows of the van made it impossible to determine the number of people inside. Well, maybe he could eavesdrop on their conversations.

  The “big ear” arrived in the same box as the telephone scrambler, but was more sophisticated than the average big ear, which picked up and amplified sound waves, allowing you to listen in on conversations a hundred yards away. Through the use of laser technology, the device Max had ordered operated somewhat like Doppler radar used by highway patrolmen to clock a vehicle’s speed. The patrolman used his radar gun to bounce an RF signal off a moving vehicle and record the shift in frequency of the returning signal to determine the vehicle’s speed. By the same principle, a continuous laser beam, when bounced off a window, was altered by any movement of the glass. Sound waves inside the room caused the glass to vibrate like a giant speaker which, in turn, caused shifts in frequency of the returning laser beam. The frequency shift was then used to reproduce the original sounds that caused the window to vibrate in the first place, making it possible to eavesdrop on conversations inside the room.

  Max put on a pair of shorts and sunglasses and carried all the junk of an avid sun worshipper to the patio. After the standard sunburn lotion ritual he arranged things on the table so as to conceal, as best he could, his true purpose for being out in the hot sun.

  He sighted the laser beam in on the larger of the two windows on the side of the house facing him, fit the tiny headset to his ears, and adjusted the volume. “Damn!” He repositioned the laser, focusing on the other window. After a moment he turned off the gadget and sat back in his chair. Any lingering doubts he might have had about the group’s security were now gone forever. Noise generators had been attached to the windows rendering his eavesdropping device useless. Well, he had one hold card that just might pay off, but it would have to wait until dark. For the moment he might as well satiate his growing hunger and get some more rest.

  The sound of a vehicle alerted him to the Maxivan passing in front of his house, Evone Gilbird followed behind in her station wagon. Was it possible luck was switching sides? Rest would have to wait, opportunity was knocking.

  He stuffed the last couple of bites of pizza in his mouth, headed for the bedroom, stripped off his shorts, slipped on a pair of jeans, pulled on a T-shirt, and laced up his running shoes. After dressing, he immediately turned his attention to selecting items from the various bags and suitcases in the closet, placing them inside a day pack. From a dresser drawer he removed a Walther TPH in a spring-loaded, quick-release holster. He attached the holster to his belt just behind and above the right hip in what was known as a modified FBI position. He pulled the little gun from its holster, checking the quick-release mechanism, then removed, checked, and replaced the clip, and working the action, he jacked a round into the chamber, lowered the hammer to half cock and with the safety off eased the palm-sized gun back into its holster. Whereas everyone seemed to prefer the heavy stuff, like the .357 or .44 Magnum, he favored weapons at the other end of the spectrum. Handguns were close-range weapons and the only thing that really counted was being able to get the gun out of its holster and hit your target. Max could draw and put a 3-shot pattern within a 2-inch circle at fifty feet in less than half a second any day of the week whether sober, dead drunk, or awakened from a deep sleep. There were many other advantages to small handguns. They were lightweight, easy to hide, didn’t show under a jacket, and .22-caliber ammunition was available anywhere in the world. He swung the backpack onto his shoulders, adjusted the straps, and headed toward the kitchen, where he drank a 32-ounce bottle of Gatorade. He knew the hot dry weather would dehydrate him rapidly.

  At the back of his patio he climbed over the wall at a spot he had already determined to be the best place to begin descending the cliff. Rappelling gear would have made the descent quick and easy. Without it Max was slowed considerably and his lacerated left hand slowed him even more. Loose rocks and poor handholds rather than the difficulty of the descent itself caused him considerable concern. Still he reached the bottom in about ten minutes with little hardship.

  Fate was still his ally. The ocean normally ran hard here, with driving surf that pounded against the bottom of the cliff face, but a minus tide and a calm ocean had left a narrow strip of sand, blocked in places by boulders and rock slides from the eroding cliff. Although the ocean prevented him from walking around most of the slides and boulders, forcing him to climb up and over, it was easy going compared to working his way across the face of the cliff, which he would have been forced to do had the tide been running high.

  When the chain-link fence along North Vandenberg’s southern perimeter became visible at the top of the cliff, Max began working his way up the steep rockface. The designation’s North and South Vandenberg were due to a highway running from Lompoc all the way to the ocean, splitting the base. A scattering of private property lay along the highway to the south, but to the north several sections of land, including Gilbird’s house and the one he was renting, were in private hands. However, most of the private land between the north and south bases belonged to the railroad. Ten minutes later he lay in the tall grass at the cliff’s edge, behind Evone Gilbird’s house. The sun at his back, some twenty degrees above the horizon, shone through the windows, permitting fair visibility into the rear of the house, about fifty feet away. Ten more minutes passed and he was unable to detect any movement inside, yet it was impossible to be sure no one was on the premises. Less than an hour had passed since Evone had left home, but he had no way of knowing whether or not she had returned while he was below the cliff. And there was always the possibility someone who arrived in the van stayed behind. Assuming everyone had left and nobody returned, there were still obstacles to overcome. With every passing event his respect for their security grew.

  Two television cameras, one at each rear corner, panned 270 degrees. One covered the rear while the second rotated toward the front, looking along the side of the house. As the first camera checked its side yard and looked to the front, the second rotated to cover the rear. He studied the cameras for a few minutes before lowering himself back over the cliff’s edge and working his way toward the fence. Repositioned now, he assessed his chances and surmised that if he moved fast enough when the camera on this side of the house started panning away from the street toward the back, and the one on the far corner began panning away from the back and toward the opposite side yard, he would be able to reach the near corner undetected. And while standing underneath
the one camera and around the corner from the second he would remain undetected. He would still have to get inside and no doubt overcome another silent alarm. However, he had an advantage here.

  After leaving Jake, the Doberman, and the cocaine at building 5002 he’d returned to building 5001 and located the sensors and the transmitter used to send the alarm signal to other locations. An antenna of the same type, used for the alarm system at the buildings on North Vandenberg that housed the telephone/recorder and the cocaine, stood on a mast in the backyard. A coax, similar to television cable, fed through the wall and along the ground and up the mast to the antenna. Well, he’d planned long enough—it was time for action.

  Standing against the wall at the corner he felt his timing and quickness had been good enough to avoid the searching eyes of the cameras thus far, but he would have to play hide and seek with the cameras several times before gaining access to the house. He removed the backpack and withdrew his Swiss army knife from one of the compartments. From another compartment he removed a roll of electrician’s tape, cut off a 4-inch length, stuck it to the front of his T-shirt, and swung the pack back onto his shoulders. As the camera overhead started swinging away from the street and toward the rear, he slipped around the corner, grabbed the coax, and pulled another foot of cable out of the wall. He sliced through the cable about 6-inches from the wall and stripped away some of the insulation at each of the severed ends. He then twisted the center conductor and the mesh grounding shield together on the coax leading to the antenna and quickly taped the two ends together before pushing the coax back into the wall far enough to keep the taped ends from showing.

  The camera was already sweeping across the backyard by the time he scurried back around the corner to safety. By merely looking one could not detect his tampering. The coax appeared exactly as before. This could be important should the cameras be monitored at other locations. He could enter the house now—the sensors would do their job and activate the alarm system, but the transmitter would be unable to convey his intrusion to any interested parties.