EVO Universe 1: The First (34 page)

“Well if you’re going to Gilchrist or Mount McLoughlin by Upper Klamath Lake be careful,” she warned, “The black bear population has been growing in those areas…they stay away from folks for the most part, but they love wrecking camp sites looking for food.”

“Good to know…” he said lying through his teeth about doing any camping.

Just as she decided to walk off to attend to other patrons, Mark decided to put his nose to the floor and see if he could sniff out a breadcrumb.

“So, are there any military bases around here?” he asked innocently while taking a bite out his omelet.

The question caused her smile to fall a bit, as if she was trying to hide obvious concern for what he just said; Mark saw a possible breadcrumb. His suspicion became bigger when some of the locals within earshot gave him dirty look out of the corner of their eye.

“Why do you ask?” Carolann partially smiled with a nervous tone in her voice.

“No reason really,” he shrugged, “While driving up here two huge military trucks came up behind me on the US-97 bearing down hard; rattled me so much I have to pull over. As I said, I plan to do some hiking and didn’t want to make the mistake of walking into some restricted area…would really suck if I got shot or something.”

He finished cracking a genuine smile to put her at easy.

Her bright smile came back full blast as she pointed out, “There’s a National Guard Army base in Ashland, that’s probably where they were headed, but no there are no bases in this area.”

“Good to hear…,”he returned keeping on the fake smile, while he cursed inside as he lost the breadcrumb again.

Carolann moved in closer to have a more private conversation with him, again showing much cleavage, “I’m real sorry; I thought you were one of those conspiracy theory people.”

“Excuse me?” his response this time was of genuine confusion.

She explained thoroughly, “Every now and then someone comes up in here asking about “secret government bases,” fans of our local conspiracy theorist…”

“Local nut job is what he is…” the patron to Mark’s left interjected.

“Be nice Bernie…,” Carolann scolded before going back to Mark, “He’s talking about Eric Dunbar…he runs this conspiracy theory website out of his home called “Break the Iron Curtain”. He believes that somewhere in Mount McLoughlin is a top secret US government facility where they do experiments unbeknown to the public like cloning or creating high tech weapons…he goes up there from time to time looking for it…”

“And ends up back in town the next day later drunk as a friggin skunk either on his lawn, or in front of my shop talking about how high tech soldiers grabbed him, and “drugged” him.” Bernie added in disgust and contempt, “One time he and this chick from New York who was a so-called believer was arrested for being drunk, high, and butt ass nekkid in Veterans Memorial Park downtown...disgraceful…”

“Wow,” Mark leaned back pretending to be startled, “Drunk…high…and naked…I guess I’m going to Mount McLoughlin then…”

The joke brought a full smile back to Carolann, and even made Bernie chuckle; Armitage however was smiling because he finally got his breadcrumb. Eric Dunbar was not a hack; he saw behind the iron curtain and knew something was shitty at Mount McLoughlin; and it was not the bear droppings. He had to find him and find out what he knew.

Mark finished his omelet, juice and coffee, said his thanks and goodbyes leaving a decent tip, and left heading to his car to figure out how he was going to find Eric Dunbar with no help from the Bureau or the ability to walk into a local police station and ask for help.

He figured he could walk into a library or cyber café if there was one in town, but how much more down time would that take off his search for Dennison and her daughter. With very little resources at his disposal and time against him, dread came over him that he would never find them in time to do anything.

“Who are you?” said a voice behind him.

Armitage slowly turned around to see a slender man in his mid to late twenties, with fiery red hair underneath a black skullcap with a matching full unkempt beard. The hollows of his eyes meant he had not had a decent night’s sleep in a long time; he also had a couple of bruises on him that were healing. He seemed quite agitated in his black long johns and blue coveralls that were three sizes bigger than he was.

“You said you were from Sacramento,” the young man pointed out, “But your temporary plates are from Wilsonville…so who are you?”

“Eric…Dunbar?” Mark guessed pretty sure that was who he was talking to; “You were in the diner? No one…”

“People talk about me whether I’m there or not,” he said flatly, “They don’t acknowledge that I exist, because of the things I allegedly did…you didn’t come here to go camping or hiking…are you one of them?”

“One of them?” he had a good idea who he was talking about, he just wanted to hear him say it.

“One of the agents from the base hidden in Mount McLoughlin,” Eric bluntly said getting agitated, “The ones who’ve been fucking up my life and making me look like the town loon.”

“No…my name is Special Agent Mark Armitage from the F.B.I…,” Mark also put it out there, “And I need to find that base…there is a woman and a young child that was abducted by those people, and I need to find them and stop whatever they plan to do with them.”

“How come you’re here by yourself Special Agent?” Eric asked with a head tilt unsure if he believed him.

“Just like you no one believes me, or has the balls to do something about it,” he said honestly, “What happened in D.C. yesterday was because of those people. They’re violating people’s rights for their own agenda, they murdered the little girl’s adoptive parents and just took her, and they have her biological mother. The woman you probably also saw on the news. I have to help them. Will you help me find them?”

Dunbar looked over Armitage’s shoulder noticing Carolann and some of the patrons looking out the window being their nosy selves, “When you leave this parking lot, make a left and drive down four blocks, make a right and then wait for me. When I walk away turn around and shrug your shoulders like you were just confronted by a nutcase.”

Without another word Dunbar walked off, Armitage doing exactly what he said turned around seeing a concerned Carolann along with Bernie and a couple of other patrons looking out the window. He shrugged his shoulders with a smile, waved hopping into his car, and drove out of the parking lot following the directions given to him by Dunbar.

As he reached the destination and pulled up to park, Eric Dunbar came out of nowhere hopping into his car, turned on his radio and pushed the volume way up. Apparently, the Civic he bought was a “Fast and Furious” type car because the custom speakers were near deafening. Vexed he went to turn the music down until Dunbar slapped his hand away holding up one finger telling him to wait.

He pulled out a small pen and pad from his coveralls. He wrote feverishly without looking at what he was writing.

He then held it up for just Armitage to read, it said, “I’m bugged, somewhere on my body that I can’t see!”

A normal person would have thought he was nuts, Mark would have thought he was nuts if he had not witnessed the things he witnessed the past few days.

Dunbar went on writing something else without looking at it, “They may probably be onto us now, Mount Mcloughlin is one hour from here. Drive and follow my hand signals to where we need to go.”

Armitage nodded as he shifted the clutch into first and pulled off with one eye on the road and the other on Dunbar’s hand gestures, which would guide him to his destination. The breadcrumb was leading him to a trail that was thawing out, would he make it in enough time to make a difference was another question.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

Armitage accomplished the hour drive in less than forty-five minutes with Dunbar behind the wheel of the old tuner car. Luck was on his side as he was able to evade speed traps while taking sign language type directions from his passenger who believed someone implanted him with some type of surveillance type bug that was relaying data back to somewhere.

After finding a remote spot, Armitage already out of the Civic suited up putting on his old military fatigues, before throwing on his FBI tactical armor. He then loaded up with two Glock 23s, a M4 Carbine, and a Heckler & Koch MP5; he then strapped on several needed ammo belts. He thought about turning on his phone and texting Dustin to alert him to his position, but if he could find him, they could find him. He needed to stay under the radar just a bit longer.

“I can talk now,” said a now enthusiastic Eric, “What do I get to carry?”

“You get to carry your ass back to town after you point me in the right direction,” instructed Mark.

“Hell no, screw you; I’m coming!” Eric’s face contorted.

“Listen kid, these are very dangerous people,” Mark got serious with him, “They see you coming with me they’re not going to knock you out and play some stupid prank on you…they’re going to kill you, and I don’t need your blood on my hands. And if you are bugged as you say you are, they probably know we’re here right now, and will know our position the second we enter the forest.”

Eric unfazed with Mark’s scare tactic got serious and levels with him, “You know how this all started? My dad use to take me up to a cave in Mount McLoughlin to go exploring when we went camping up here…before he died of colon cancer. One day I went up there just to go to the cave to remember him and the great times we had together; a so-called park ranger came out of nowhere and advised me not to go up to the cave because the bear population was heavy there. I told him I’d take my chances. Next thing you know after a couple of yards I blacked out. That’s when it all started. First it was just dropping me off at my campsite…I thought I was going crazy, thought it was aliens, but as they kept upping the ante. Finding ways to embarrass and humiliate me in front of my friends and family, I knew I wasn’t crazy, that there was someone up there who didn’t want me to see or know what they were doing.”

“Why did you keep going back?” Mark asked thinking the kid was just a glutton for punishment.

“My dad never gave up. Even with the cancer was killing him,” he looked down at the ground kicking some dirt around; “He kept coming with me on these trips…so how could I?”

He raised his head looking Mark in the eye, “Also I knew there was something just wrong about whatever these people are doing, and you confirmed it. So you’re taking me…or you can walk around these woods finding this place yourself.”

Mark glared at him, he really did not have time to argue with him; so he reached into his bag grabbing extra body armor handing it to him; he then pulled out a Remington Model 870 shotgun with a case of shells, “Put this on, standard issued shotgun, ever shot one?”

“Dude,” Eric grinned, “This is Oregon.”

“Take the keys to the car, the sign of a fire fight you get the hell out of there, get to this vehicle,” he instructed, “Drive and don’t stop driving till you hit town. When you get there you call the second number on this phone.”

Mark handed him his cellphone, “The password is Penny, all lowercase, you tell my partner Special Agent in Charge Dustin Mercer everything that happened; you got it?”

Eric nodded tightening the straps on the body armor, “I got it…I got it…”

“Lead the way…but stay close!” Mark warned him one last time.

Dunbar with shotgun in grip lead the way as Mark quickly put the rest of the gear he could not carry in the car locking it up before following him. He prayed the kid really did not have a bug on him.

A part of him knew he would regret taking the kid, but time was against him leaving him very little choice; he had to find that base, he had to try to save them.

A half hour later they were deep in the forest heading toward the mountain, Armitage had to grab the kid a couple of times to reel him back as he checked out their perimeter making sure there were no unsuspecting snipers. He figured that was how they were taking the kid down, and the last thing he needed was to go out like a light and find himself in an embarrassing predicament along with the kid or worse.

“We’re almost near the area where they take me out,” Eric whispered, “Sometimes they stop me cold…sometimes they let me get a little further before putting my lights out. Last time they just came out of nowhere and started kicking my ass.”

“Say what?” Mark whispered startled.

“Yeah,” confirmed Eric, “They had on some crazy heavy body armor like storm troopers from head to toe.”

Mark whispered back, “Thank you for now mentioning that, and stay close, last thing I need is to carry your ass while we’re getting shot at.”

At this point so deep in, they moved from tree to tree in hopes of being less of a target for what was out there. Armitage was all types of uneasy, his old military experience told him there were eyes everywhere, but he could see nothing. At least the Predator casted some sort of silhouette before gutting someone. These people if they were out there were literally ghosts in every sense of the word, and they were patiently waiting for the right time to attack.

Eric whispered again, “Dude…I’ve never been this far in…we’re almost to the cave…maybe they left or something.”

“Yeah…may…,” just then he saw the silhouette, a green laser pointed at Dunbar’s neck, naked to the untrained eye.