The SAC cursed again, blaming the incompetence of locals for presenting such a puzzling problem. The terrorists had been seen entering the house late in the evening before the SWAT Team raid. Plain-clothes officers watching the house had not seen anyone leave, either by the front or the alleyway out back. The Chief affirmed once again the suspects most certainly had to have been there when the raid took place. Yet no remains had been found except the SWAT Team, and it was not humanly possible they had escaped down into the sewers. That was clearly a diversion, something to keep everyone busy for the past two days. Where did they go, and how had they gotten out?
Suddenly a workman yelled from the back of the concrete pit where the house had stood. He was waving for someone to come see something. The SAC himself walked up just as the workman was tracing with an iron tool on the back wall a jagged seam in the concrete. It appeared to have cracked at one time, then been repaired with some black sealant – except the sealant was rather fresh. It ran at an angle across the face of the concrete half-height wall in one corner. A small amount had also oozed out of the fold where the floor joined the wall, and where the two walls came together. It looked first as if it had been clumsily dripped there, but now it was apparent it was squeezing out of a closed seam, as if the thing had been pulled out, the pushed back into place.
The SAC began yelling instructions like a madman, and no human there could move fast enough. Bent over behind the workman who was beating on several chisels he had wedged around the edges of this triangle of black sealant, the SAC was shaking from exhaustion. Still, he watched in the failing light of the winter afternoon, as the triangle turned out to be a sort of door. It fell away and thudded flat on the floor, revealing a very narrow passage, a simple dirt tunnel sloping down toward the alleyway. Screaming for the engineer, he demanded to know if any utility conduits aside from the sewer ran nearby. Without having to check, the engineer said the alleyway had the standard storm drain. Followed close on his heels by uniformed agents, the SAC was dragging a workman by the front of his jacket. He stopped at the edge of the alley, looked both ways, and pointed to a grating in the pavement.
Demanding lights be brought around, he ordered all the gratings in the two blocks both directions be checked for signs of recent opening. Turning to the engineer, he asked how likely the City crews had moved anything recently. The engineer had to call back to the main office and have the work order database queried. It took awhile, but the answer was a clear “no,” not since the previous spring cleaning. Just then, an agent called from one end of the block. A workman was holding up a grating panel from a large drain opening, and the agent held a flashlight down where the concrete wall of the drain casing showed marks – scuffing from black rubber shoe soles. They were quite fresh, but impossible to judge how recent in terms of hours or days. The lip of the grating socket for this panel was free of loose sand which was otherwise all around the grating opening.
Looking up and down the street, the SAC noticed it was just the kind of place where no one would notice if people had come out of the grating hole at 3 AM or so. No emergency vehicles would have come from that direction, because it was a closed pocket. Cursing, he ordered a close examination of the probable route for any clues, then turned and stalked off around the corner, back toward where his SUV was parked. He was already deep in conversation with someone on his cell phone before he got the door open.
Chapter 2
Michael decided he liked city buses. Unlike the interstate bus lines, you could carry your luggage right on the bus with you, and it was wholly unlikely anyone who mattered would wonder what you had in it. All the more would they ignore you if you smelled like a bum and paid with grubby currency. He limped a little from the bruise on his shin where his leg hit the police cruiser. He had forgotten he couldn’t do a low sweeping kick without having a place for the leg to go beyond the target. But the limp added to his disguise as a bum.
Back when he had worked as an investigative journalist, he had needed to wear disguises from time to time, but nothing like this. Michael looked over at his sleeping partner, Burk, and marveled how the boy could snooze under the most difficult times. When Michael had first asked him, Burk had said there really was nothing else he could do. Besides, it fit the profile of wandering bums. Keeping awake would look suspicious, he figured. Michael had to admit he was right, and was at least pretending to sleep, even while his mind, and sometimes his heart, raced with tension. Michael was still trying to learn how to let things go, not to over-analyze what they accomplished. Intellectually, he knew once they had committed themselves, most of their choices were already made. Get it done, get out, and hope you don’t get caught.
Of course, Burk really was a former “bum” – actually a hobo. His childhood began in the rural South, but he moved with his mother to a city in the Pacific Northwest at the start of his teen years. Burk’s father, a mystery he never discussed much, had disappeared from the young man’s life, and mom was trying to keep the two of them alive. She chose Salem, Oregon, very far from their southern home. They arrived in the summer, and stayed in a motel. She just missed being hired at the poultry processing plant, and started waiting tables in some hippy restaurant downtown. Pretending an interest in the Green politics of the manger, things were tolerable for her. Burk occupied himself wandering the fairgrounds, exploring downtown, then began spending some time in the city library. The library became his hangout. Mom usually found him there when she got off in the evenings.
One warm August evening, she was late. He figured she was negotiating with her boss for a loan to pay the motel bill. The motel manager had been bothering his mom because they got behind, pressuring her for sex or money. The former made her skin crawl, she said. When it was dark, he decided to walk toward the cafe. Two blocks away, he started running, because he saw a police car with flashing lights out front of the building where the cafe was located. That last half block, he slowed from simple caution, and joined the crowd of onlookers. Standing on tiptoe, he saw a couple of paramedics wheeling out a folding gurney, with the person on it completely covered, head to toe. For a few moments, the light from the cafe door and big glass windows showed the whole scene clearly. Just as he caught the discussion about an armed robbery, he also caught a glimpse of his mother’s dress peeking out from under the blanket. It had to be her dress; people in the Northwest never made clothing from gaudy printed flour sacks like those used at the feed mill back home.
He turned away in shock, then vomited what little was left in his stomach onto the sidewalk. When someone came up behind and touched him, asking if he was alright, he bolted. Running back the way he had come, he finally stopped outside the now vacant library. Trying to stop the spinning world, he closed his eyes, sitting with his back to one of the large evergreens along the river bank. It seemed only a moment, but he was startled awake by a heavy vehicle passing on the street nearby. It was early morning. Jumping to his feet, he ran toward the southern edge of town, and simply kept going.
He had already learned about dumpster diving from sheer boyhood curiosity, but now it was survival. In the process, he encountered some hobos who took him under their wings.
Over the years, he had stayed with various hobo colonies along the West Coast, raised with an education no school could match. While he went hungry often enough to consider it a minor inconvenience, he managed to eat well enough to become rather larger than average, and quite strong. Oddly, the move to Oregon and the death of his mother were about the only parts of his past he seemed willing to tell in any detail. He seemed unsure and unconcerned how old he was, but was quite obviously not yet of legal age to drink alcohol.
When Michael first met Burk, however, the boy was doing just that. Rather than the stumbling drunk, the big kid was merely savoring a wine cooler outside an abandoned gas station in Northern California. Michael had been taking the scenic route home after checking out a story in Portland for the news publisher which employed him. He got a flat tire, and decid
ed to roll on far enough to make the gas station. He could just make out the top of the sign when he realized his tire was flat. The place sat in a pocket cut out of the tall trees, so Michael was off the main road before he realized it was abandoned. Hoping and praying the spare and jack were still in the trunk, he got out to look at the flat tire on the right rear. Opening the lid, he saw the spare, one of those hard-rubber mini-spares. It was designed to roll well enough even without inflation. There was also a tire iron, but no jack. After ten minutes of fruitless poking in the trunk, he looked up at the building. That’s when he saw Burk.
Realizing the well-dressed driver had seen him, Burk stood up and ambled over to the car sitting askew. Burk asked simply, “No jack?” His voice had a soft rasp to it, and was rather high pitched.
Michael realized immediately this large young fellow taking one last swig of a wine cooler could easily hurt him. Even with his karate classes, he wasn’t sure he could fend off an attack. The boy was dressed in worn and stained overalls, and a t-shirt of no distinct color, but approaching orange. His shoulders bulged under the thinning fabric. The young fellow turned and tossed the empty bottle at a rusted out dumpster overturned on one side of the building. Falling just short, it shattered into many pieces, all of which appeared to slide and bounce into the opening of the dumpster. With a self-satisfied grin, the boy turned back, still standing at a comfortable distance away.
“Let’s make a deal,” the boy proposed. “I help you get this tire changed, and you give me a ride. Okay? I realize you are rightly suspicious of whether I might have bad intentions. All I can do is give you my word I’m not interested in hurting people. I just need a ride into the city.”
Michael never expected this sort of persuasive and literate speech from someone with such an appearance. Shaggy hair topped a round face, and youthful red cheeks with clear skin, but thinly covered in long, pale whiskers which had never seen a razor. His face said he was an inbred idiot mountain boy. His words and actions said otherwise. “Okay. I’ll bite – how do you plan to help me? You look rather stout, but I wonder if you would be able to just lift the car that far, for that long.”
“It’s possible I could, but there’s no need. Front wheel drive, right?” Upon Michael’s affirmative nod, he walked over behind the dumpster where there was a pile of automotive junk, and retrieved a bent wheel rim. Walking back, he placed it near the rear corner behind the flat tire, one face down. Then he got down and looked underneath the car. Dragging the steel rim across the pavement, he placed it carefully, and bent to look under the car again. Then, too quickly for his bulk he was on his feet again walking back toward the pile of discarded car parts. He waded around for a moment, then pulled up a long heavy pipe. Looking about, he snatched up another, somewhat thinner pipe of similar length.
Michael judged his own body could not have lifted either pipe easily using both hands, but the boy carried one in each of his. He dropped them rather noisily on the pavement behind the car, and then sauntered yet one more time to the junk pile. He pulled up an old tire, blown out on one side. With a whimsical half-grin, he walked back again. Stooping down, he slid the old tire up under the rear bumper, and then motioned Michael to hold the outer edge up against the curved underside. “This will protect the paint, and keep things from slipping,” the boy announced. Then he slid the rim over a couple of feet behind the tire, stood it on edge, and dragged the larger pipe closer. Lifting the near end, he placed it in the valley atop the rim. Blocking the rim from rolling with one foot, he stretched the other foot back up the length of the pipe as far as he could. Michael wondered if the overalls would hold up if he reached any farther. Then he wondered if the boy would do the splits. Not quite.
Lifting the pipe a little, the boy slid the end, which was slightly bent in a short turn, up under the tire. Michael moved his hand just before it was crushed between the pipe and the underside of the old tire. The boy moved it around a bit, making sure the bent end caught like a hook on the undercarriage, then pulled the other end down until the old tire collapsed. Once there was pressure holding the rim in place, he removed his foot. Keeping one hand on the far end of the pipe, the boy slid farther back, caught up the second pipe in one hand and slid it part way into the larger. Still keeping the pressure against the old tire pinned to the frame of the car, the young man worked his way out to the end of the second pipe just over his head, and pulled down on it.
By now, Michael realized the intent and grabbed the tire iron. The car shifted upward a few inches. The young man stopped halfway down; “Now, while the flat tire is still on the ground, turn the lug nuts until they’re loose.” Michael swore the fellow sounded like a science professor he had in college, and applied pressure to the lug nuts. It took him long enough he felt embarrassed about it, but once all four were loose, he stood up. The young man then leaned mightily on the pipe and the car lifted off the ground, just far enough to pull off the flat. Michael felt obliged to work quickly, spinning off the lug nuts, losing and chasing two of them under the car and getting his nice clothes dirty. He hurriedly swapped the flat for the spare, though need not have worried. He glanced up to see the young man sitting comfortably on the pipe just inches off the ground.
Spinning the lug nuts finger tight, he said, “Okay!”
The stranger then shifted his weight, turned and let the car down as fast as he safely could. Michael could only gaze at the scene and say, “Wow!” Upon the boy reminding him to finish snugging the lug nuts down tight, Michael moved energetically to the task. Before he had finished putting everything back in the trunk, the young man had carried or tossed the junk back on the pile.
He turned to Michael with a self-satisfied grin, put out his hand and said, “My name is Burk.” The two shook equally dirty hands, and loaded Burk’s bags in the trunk. As he settled himself in the passenger seat, Burk said, “You can find a tire shop about 20 miles ahead, just before the turn off heading into town.”
Chapter 3
Michael smiled and told Burk his name. It dawned on him the young man didn’t smell as bad as he expected, just a whiff of fresh perspiration. “Burk, I’m an investigative reporter. I just came from Portland, Oregon this morning.”
Burk asked what he could be investigating there. Michael explained the military recruiting station downtown was facing accusations of bribing prospective recruits for the latest war half-way around the world. It seems they were offering not just cash, but drugs, which never seemed to show up in the urinalysis portion of the entrance physicals.
“I don’t suppose you’ve been in the military yet, Burk?”
“No. I’m sure I’d do just fine, but I don’t have anything proving who I am. I don’t officially exist.” He told the story of moving to Oregon and losing his mother. “After what I’ve seen of government behavior, I think remaining an official nobody is a pretty good idea.”
Michael asked what he meant about government behavior. Adding yet another surprise, Burk discussed a litany of things of which Michael knew only from a reporter’s angle. The young man described a sampling of things which had annoyed Michael, as well, but from a different viewpoint, as if he had been a victim of it. Burk had an underlying vision of what was behind it all, too substantial to be mere conspiracy theory. It was an apparent plan Michael had always suspected, but was never too clear in his previous investigations.
“I call them the Shadow Government,” Burk said. He reeled off facts and figures, bits of history and obscure details not commonly known. “Most of them claim to be Jews, but it’s not about Judaism. They seem to be more like parasites using bits of Jewish uniqueness to hide their behavior. I believe they’ve hijacked a much older conspiracy. Since the seventeenth century, this one bunch, mostly related by blood or marriage to the Rothschilds, has steadily gained control of every nation’s currency. Along the way, they’ve stirred up various false conspiracies, most of which appear to have been a diversion. At some point the tight family unity became diluted and it’s no lon
ger their game alone. You can stand in the middle of clear and open facts, but if you focus on the wrong things, you’ll miss the obvious.”
“Like how to jack up this car with junk?” Michael asked.
Burk grinned, looking out the side window for a moment. Then he turned back and said, “You know about investigating and writing. You know how government works in person, and how bureaucrats think.” With a shrug he added, “I know how other things work.”
“You seem to know a lot about who’s actually running the world today.”
“I read a lot of history,” Burk said. “I’ve hung out in libraries a lot since Mom died. At first, I’d read anything. I’d play a game to occupy myself, and grab a book at random. One day it was a book on European History. It was a bunch of stories about ordinary people during the Middle Ages, and how they lived day to day. I’m not sure why, but it just grabbed me. So I found out it was called ‘social history’ and I’ve been reading as much about that as I could ever since. From there, it seemed important to know more about history in general. Then it was geography, and I’ve just recently started on economics.”
“All this without ever going to school?”
“Yep. There’s the tire shop,” he said, pointing.
Michael pulled in and was met by the lone attendant before he could fully exit his car. After showing him the flat, Michael was not surprised to discover it had to be replaced. The attendant turned it over to reveal a blown out bubble on the back sidewall. Michael spotted a cafe across the road, and realized it was lunch time. Leaning back in the open door, he said to Burk, “Let’s eat!”
Chapter 4
Older, but not yet ancient, she stood at the cash register. She spotted them over the shoulder of the truck driver as she gave him his change. After exchanging pleasantries with him, he turned away and she tilted her head to one side. Muttering to herself, she tried, “Mutt and Jeff?” No, the difference wasn’t great enough. The one was clearly better than six feet, and muscular. The other might be a half-foot shorter, rather slight, with a handsome face. “Certainly an odd couple,” she said. The shorter and obviously older man wore nice clothes: khaki-gray slacks that fit perfectly, a pin-stripped blue and gray short-sleeved shirt with a dark red tie, shod with stylish black loafers. There were telltale stains on the knees of his pants. The big one looked like a bumpkin, a regular farm boy – he never changed from the first time she saw him. She arranged the loose currency and closed the drawer.