Life Struggles (Life Stories Book 1) (18 page)

“Here. A buddy at the
News Sentinel
said this is what you would need.” Jeff handed me a basic reporter's kit – two pens, a red pencil, a blue pencil, a legal pad, a smart phone and a basic camera. Close enough.

I was hustled into a van and we took off south. We kept to the speed limit and were soon in Gatlinburg. We met up with another couple of vans and entered the National Park, where we drove to a ranger station kind of thing. I'd never seen anything like it.

There was a small cluster of park rangers, some people in what looked like military gear, a thousand million state police (well, maybe not quite that many) and an RV to kill for. Actually, three RVs. These people sure knew how to go camping.

We drove with lights out for forty or so minutes. I was squeezed between two guys in black uniforms who wanted their own elbow room. There was no way to check my watch.

The RV in front of us had a red cross on it. I get it. They brought medical support. How about food and beverages? I sure could use a steak and a beer right now. I told the guy on my left and he laughed. “We all could.” At least I was in good company.

We went to what I later learned is called a ‘staging area.’ No theater seats, just a clearing in the woods. I was told to stay put. I was told by a guy with a gun to stay put. I stayed putted.

Twenty minutes later the sun exploded. There were helicopters overhead everywhere I looked, shining lights so bright I couldn't see at all. There was a muffled explosion. There might have been some gunfire, but I couldn't tell. It could have been my teeth chattering. I didn't know how to use a gun and had failed outdoor survival in the Boy Scouts. And that had been done in a city park. This shit was scary.

A minute later there was a larger and louder explosion. I could hear people outside yelling “Fuck,” “Shit,” “Damn,” “Go” and other words I couldn't catch. A whole bunch of people ran off in the direction of the explosion.

The medical RV came alive with people scampering out every opening. Some carried stretchers, others carried big backpacks, but most of the stuff meant nothing to me. I bet if Cheryl were here she'd know what it all was. Actually, if Cheryl were here she'd be hiding on the floor. But, she always did have more sense than me.

The first stretcher came back with one of the black-suited guys on it. I strained to see if it was one from my SUV, but they all looked alike. I jumped out and ran up to see, and to offer help, but mostly because my ass was sore and I had to piss like a race horse.

“What happened?” I shouted at somebody with a red cross on his shoulder.

“Dumb ass was too close to the breaching charge. Shrapnel.” Then he ignored me.

I went off into the woods (fortunately, there are a lot of those in the park) and took a leak. I still couldn't do anything about my sore ass, my thirst, or my hunger, and I started to feel sorry for myself. Then the first ambulance raced through up toward where the explosions had gone off. Then the second. I stopped counting at fourteen. Holy Fuck. I didn't need an ambulance. My life was wonderful.

Chapter Twenty-One

Ambulances started coming out but only a few. One of the rangers shouted something about in and out routes, and ran toward where the other ambulances had disappeared. After that two more ambulances came out, but no more. Gee, somebody forgot to plan for separate in and out routes for the ambulances. Then I felt like a fucking idiot. If that was their biggest mistake then this was the most successful operation since the moon landing.

Two hours went by with nothing. I mean nothing. No information, no more ambulances, no more stretchers, no more explosions (whew) and no more anything. I got out again and asked if I could go up to where the action was. I was told no, and in no uncertain terms. Naturally, I went anyway.

I hiked through rough terrain for six miles. Actually, I walked down the well-paved road for about half a mile. It wasn't hard to find where the action was, it was lit up like daylight. Somebody had brought in enormous flood-lamps.

The first sight to greet me was a string of armed guards around a group of maybe fifty or so women. As near as I could tell they were all Oriental and dressed alike in gray smocks and pants. They looked scared out of their minds, and they probably had reason to.

I walked a little closer and found a white tent in a clearing. A body was brought in on a stretcher; it wasn't moving. There was a mobile van marked “Pathology” parked next to the tent. This must be the morgue. The tent didn't look real big, so maybe not too many people had died. Or, maybe not too many of the dead were still in one piece.

A little further on I saw the head guy. He and the operations officer were talking with some guy in a fancy uniform. They were surrounded by tables with computers and phones and even a fax machine. Nearby somebody had put up a weird ass antenna pointing at an angle into the sky. I was so turned around I had no idea what direction it was pointed at.

Being the shy and retiring type, I walked straight up to the head guy. “So, what's happening?” He looked at me like a dog turd on his shoe, and one of the FBI guys (this one was actually an FBI girl) took my arm and began dragging me away.

“Wait.” That was the head guy. We waited.

“Brenda, go with him. Let him go wherever he wants. Let him take pictures of what he wants, just get the camera back from him when he's done here. Answer his questions to the best of your ability. Don't let him touch shit.” The head guy went back to his computer screens and other important stuff.

I told Brenda I already had a camera and showed it to her. She hollered to someone, and a camera I could never afford in my entire life magically appeared out of thin air. Thank God I had actually learned to operate one like it, you know, just in case I won the lottery someday.

We walked, I looked, I took pictures, we talked, I looked some more and we talked some more.Her name was Special Agent Kerrigan. I liked ‘Brenda’ better.All around us were campsites and cabins. The facility had been built in the middle of a fairly new public camping concession.The big building was circular and probably contained more than five thousand square feet.

Inside were eighty beds arranged against the walls. The beds were more like hammocks. I asked and Special Agent Kerrigan said something about bed sores. I filed that away as another Cheryl question.

Next to each hammock was a table and a whole bunch of poles. Some had bags hanging from them. One was labeled “TPN.” There was also a gray box with tubes and wires and dials and shit near the head of each bed. There were two long tubes attached to each box. I asked FBI lady girl person; she said “In and out.” Another Cheryl question.

I heard a dog yip outside. I looked questioningly at her and she said, “Cadaver dogs. We found some buried bodies, and it looks like we're not done.”

In the center of the room was a shroud covering a relatively large area. That turned out to be the central computer which had been bombed, along with some communication gear. Brenda explained that the thing had been rigged with thermite grenades and detonated as soon as the door was breached.

“Did anybody die in the explosion?” Good reporter question. Sorta.

“Yeah, we just don't know how many. We're still gathering parts and guts.” I closed off that line of inquiry until later.

“How many of the guys were here?” Now, that really was a good reporter question.

“Seventy-one alive. One of the buried bodies was of a young guy. The dogs have found more cadavers and they're still looking.” I thought of the young guy and then I thought of Alex. I asked Brenda Kerrigan if we could stop for a moment and I could get a glass of water.

We sat and Brenda got bottles of water for both of us. “Brenda, Alex could have been in … in one of … in a …” and I lost it. She let me cry for a while, then held me stiffly. I didn't care, it was human contact. After a while I stopped crying long enough to ask if I could leave. Brenda led me (no dragging this time) about a mile or so and asked somebody with a clipboard a couple of questions. Clipboard Person nodded her head and pointed at a cabin about three hundred feet away. I thanked her, turned and left. Inside the cabin I turned on a light, found a bed, and that was it.

I woke up with a start just before midnight. I had forgotten to return the camera. I was required to return the camera, but nobody said I couldn't copy the digital image files. I hooked up my phone to the camera and downloaded about five gigs of images into my working file at the paper. I made notes for the first story. I sent a quick message to Barbara to check my working file. Then I slept for about thirty minutes before somebody was banging on my door.

“Breakfast!” Brenda sounded chipper. And it was only four thirty a.m. I opened the door to take in a woman (yup, I could tell it was a woman, even under the baggy T-Shirt that read “Yeah, I'm the badass FBI. What the fuck are
you
going to do about it?”) with only traces of camouflage paint on her face and a few spots on her uniform that were not covered with mud, blood and gore. She was beautiful.

She led me to a makeshift eating area. Not wanting to wait in line I stole toast and coffee from someone who was sleeping. Finders Keepers. I took my manna over to a small tent with a few civilians and computers inside.

“You need to have final edit. We've drafted this for your approval.” The nerdy guy handed me a triple spaced document on legal size paper and a red pencil. The rest of the people in the tent looked equally nerdy, and just as exhausted as I was.

This was excellent work in short time. I used the red pencil in about three or four places and signed the story. I then hugged each of the press office folks and thanked them. The first nerdy guy held on a few seconds too long. I thought of Luke and Marcus. Next time it's hand-shakes. I thanked them profusely and told them they each had a fabulous future in journalism.

The final copy:

Knoxville, Tennessee by Ethan McQuade. Last night a joint task force of federal, state and local authorities raided a secret facility hidden in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park about forty miles southeast of Knoxville. Inside were some seventy of the recently-missing young men for whom a nationwide search has been underway. Medical and other equipment, medical workers and security guards were located inside. The young men are all receiving medical attention on site and will be transferred to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington as soon as possible.

The purpose of the facility was to harvest particles from the blood of the young men. The particles result from a relatively rare genetic condition and attack the body's own red blood cells. A large quantity of the harvested particles was stored in a freezer. Volume of the particles has yet to be specified. The reason for the harvesting is not yet determined, but speculation includes use as a difficult-to-detect murder weapon. Other uses are possible. Responsibility for the scheme has not yet been determined.

Although more than one hundred forty young men were suspected of having been kidnapped in the nationwide crime, authorities are certain that none of the other men will be found in a similar facility.

Numerous cadavers, numbering at least eighty, have been discovered buried on the grounds. Two of the facility's medical personnel and three of the security guards died during the assault and are pending autopsy. At least fifty medical personnel and seven security guards survived and are in Tennessee Highway Patrol custody pending investigation. The medical personnel are all from China and all of the security guards are from South Africa. Both countries' governments have pledged full cooperation with the investigation.

The apparent director of the facility died in a self-induced explosion seconds after forces entered the facility. It has been determined only that it was a female who had Eastern European dental work. No further information is available at this time. The governments of all Eastern European nations have pledged full cooperation with the investigation.

Five task force members sustained non-life-threatening injuries during the operation. No task force deaths have been reported.

Colonel Brian Hayes, Commander of the THP, and Assistant FBI Director Wilbert Sullivan were co-commanders of the task force. They issued a joint statement this morning saying that resources are being mounted nationwide to discover the locations of the missing victims and to determine who was responsible for this monstrosity (their word).

The co-commanders offered special praise for Detective Danny Flint, New Orleans Police Department, Detective Barry Sarmiento, Omaha Police Department and Police Chief Sandy Westlake of the St. Louis Police Department. The detectives uncovered the key evidence leading to the raid, and Chief Westlake turned over department operations to her deputy to lead the analytical effort that turned evidence into action.

Additional details will be forthcoming throughout the next few days.

The assembled press office types had also provided photos of the co-commanders, the detectives and the Chief. They had begun assembling follow-on reports including more technical medical information and the names of the wounded task force members. Attached were another sixty photos from the camera; I guess they intercepted my upload.

I asked Brenda if they had in fact tapped into my phone. She denied any such thing. I asked her why they had not confiscated the camera from me before letting me go to bed. She winked. I was beginning to like her a lot. I asked for her phone number.

“Just call the Milwaukee FBI office. They'll find me.” One can live and hope.

The article was released to the news pool at 5:45 a.m. The New Orleans
Daily Post
had a slightly better-edited copy and better photos than everybody else's. There were accusations of unfairness from CNN, CBS, the New York Times and a few others. How dare they? We were obviously just a better newspaper.

I had seven missed texts from Marcus. It seems there were requests for interviews from CNN, The Washington Post, Fox News, the Frankfurter Allegemeine Zeitung, the Boston Globe, and half of the other news purveyors in the western world. I texted Marcus back to forward all of those to my managing editor.