Holding Their Own: The Toymaker (7 page)

Grissom was sure he’d died in battle and been cast into hell.

Overcoming the throbbing behind his temples, the sergeant struggled to open his eyes. There, lurking a short distance away, was surely a demon.

The evil being possessed the shape of a man, but that’s where the resemblance ended. White streaks of ash crisscrossed its face; bones were braided in the beast’s dark mane.

Unable to look away, Grissom squinted to clear his vision.
Since when do the devil’s troopers carry AR15s?
his aching, confused brain managed to wonder.
And wear wristwatches?

The Apache standing guard over the prisoner sensed his charge was awake. Stepping closer to examine the bound captive, the tall warrior strode to the door and barked a few words to his superior.

Grissom was again confused when another mythical figure appeared. This time the apparition seemed more like an angel than a fiend, its flowing white hair and kind eyes in stark contrast to the other creature in the room.

“Sergeant Grissom, I presume?” Hack asked.

“Yes,” the PJ croaked. “Am I dead?”

“No, not yet,” came the honest response. “Are you in much pain?”

“Yes,” the soldier replied as he began gingerly testing his limbs.

“You have a stab wound just below your left shoulder blade, but it has stopped bleeding. I did my best to bandage it. I hope you’ll pardon my sloppy work. Your right shoulder is severely bruised. But the worst of it is the blow you suffered to the back of your head. That had me concerned.”

Grissom’s medical training took over, “Do you have any aspirin? There’s some in my med-kit if you don’t. It would help to thin the blood.”

Hack produced a bottle of water and two tablets from his jacket pocket, and proceeded to help the bound man swallow and drink. “So you’re a Para rescuer. I’ve read about your training. Impressive.”

“And you would be?”

“You can call me Hack,” the toymaker responded. “Most of the locals call me Grandfather. My real name is Schneider.”

Hack watched as Grissom slowly recovered, eventually helping the man to sit upright on the cot. “I have some questions for you, Sergeant. Now I know enough about Special Forces operators to know you’re pretty tough men. My Native American friends think you’ll require certain painful inducements to answer my inquiries, but I disagree. We’re not at war. I’m not your enemy.”

Wincing from the pain, the prisoner responded with a smirk. “Given how my head and body feel, you could have fooled me. If I’m not your enemy, I’d sure hate to see how these people greet one.”

Hack chuckled, “They thought you were some vagabond that had kidnapped a village girl.”

The statement helped clear Grissom’s thoughts, opening a door for his memory to refresh. “Yes, I remember the girl. We had no idea she was there. So now that we have that all cleared up, why are my hands and feet still bound? Why is there an armed guard… or whatever you call that thing… leering over me?”

“Because we’re still not sure exactly why you were trespassing on reservation land. Hell, for all we know, you and your friends were some rogue deserters come to loot and pillage the neighborhood.”

The sergeant shook his head, the painful movement producing another grimace. “No, we aren’t deserters. But just in case I’m lying, why don’t you haul me back to the nearest U.S. military base and let me prove it?”

Hack ignored the request, producing Grissom’s Geiger counter from his jacket. “And why would a team of Special Forces men be carrying a radiation detector around with them?”

“That’s classified.”

Hack leaned back, his cold eyes studying the captive with an intensity that made Grissom want to squirm. “I think that’s a very legitimate question, young man. For all I know, some crazy person has detonated a nuke or made off with a bomb and you’re chasing him. My neighbors and I might be in danger, and there you sit, withholding information that could save lives.”

“You and the people in this area are in no danger from radiation or any nuclear weapon. That much I can divulge.”

“So why are you here?”

The sergeant hesitated, trying to decide just exactly how much he should say to the exotic weirdo that was holding him prisoner. Technically, he could find no reason to withhold information, but some inner voice was telling him that Hack was dangerous… or at least not a friend.

Seeing his captive pause, Hack decided to up the ante. “Look, Sergeant, I’m not the head honcho around here. That role is shared among the governors and chiefs of the surrounding pueblos. Right now, down in the valley, there are a bunch of grieving widows and mothers who are planning a rather unpleasant demise for a man who butchered their family members. They’re quite creative, I might add. They’ve had thousands of years to refine their tortures,” he paused to allow the captive’s imagination a moment to register before continuing. “Now, I’m not without influence. If you cooperate, I might be able to convince them to spare your life. On the other hand, I’ve seen what these people do to prisoners, and it is most unpleasant.”

Hack shuddered as he recalled the images and then continued. “They will shove a small knife up your anus a few times, and then stake you down naked on an ant hill. Have you ever seen our desert army ants? They’re the size of my thumb and have incisors that can cut through moose hide. The last trespasser my friends caught… well… I could hear his screams all the way up here. He lasted almost 20 hours, God rest his soul.”

Grissom, with significant effort, ignored the threat.

Shrugging, Hack rose from his perch. “Up to you, Sergeant. If you don’t help me, there’s very little I can do to help you.”

“Those men attacked us!” the PJ protested. “We were only defending ourselves, and you fucking know it. I’m a representative of the U.S. military. Why would you let them torture and murder a man who was doing nothing more than serving his country?”

Hack shook his head, obviously frustrated that the young soldier didn’t get it. “If you hadn’t been trespassing on reservation land, none of this would have happened. No one would have died. Yet, my neighbors can be mellow, benevolent souls. They might understand that accidents do happen, especially in these troubled times. But you’re giving me nothing here, Sergeant. Nada. Zip. So the only conclusion I can make is that your intentions were nefarious.” The older man shifted his position in order to stare at the prisoner straight in the eye. “As far as the U.S. military receiving any brownie points? We’re talking about American Indians here. Did you ever study history regarding the treatment of America’s native peoples? Do you really expect them to give invading soldiers a break?”

Grissom’s mind was racing a thousand miles per hour. Cursing the pain that was adding to his confusion, he struggled to come up with a response. When Hack turned and motioned to the guard with a finger going across his throat, the sergeant wanted to puke.

Hack decided to give it one last try. “Sergeant, please be reasonable. You’re going to tell us what we want to know eventually. Why not speak up now rather than when you’re begging my friends to kill you quickly as you suffer those ferocious insects eating your bowels from the inside out?”

Grissom knew the man had a point. Everybody talked eventually. There was no military reason to delay the inevitable. Rescue, at least in the short term, was unlikely. He decided to buy time with partial information. “The irrigation system you’re building down in the valley was spotted via aerial reconnaissance. My superiors sent in my team to check it out.”

Hack scratched his chin while staring hard at the captive. Exhaling with disappointment, he said, “Oh, come on, Sergeant. Do you really think I’m that stupid? That little tidbit of a story is just plain insulting.”

“It’s the truth,” Grissom pleaded. 

“Bullshit!” the toymaker snapped. “Why would anybody need a Geiger counter to check on an irrigation project? Why were you on the wrong side of the valley? Why not just drive up to the reservation’s border and ask rather than sneak around in the woods?”

Again, the PJ cursed his throbbing head. Apparently, he wasn’t thinking clearly, and it was getting him in trouble. The man interrogating him was no fool. He needed to be careful, yet silence wasn’t an option. “What do you mean the wrong side of the valley? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You were on the western rim of the valley. On the Los Alamos…” Hack stopped mid-sentence, his eyes growing wide. “You were in Los Alamos with a Geiger counter. There are nuclear materials at the lab… and when the military used a drone to scout the area, they spotted our project. Now this all makes sense.”

Grissom was amazed at how quickly his captor had put two and two together. But Hack wasn’t done.

Pacing now, the toymaker continued to mumble his rambling logic as he talked aloud, sorting out the explanation to the puzzle. “There must be a problem with the nuclear materials at the lab. The Pentagon is worried about it, or at least concerned enough to dedicate vital resources like a Special Forces team. A radiation leak? No, you didn’t have any protective suits or breathers. There must be something valuable there….”

Hack abruptly stopped, turning to Apache Jack. “We are going to Los Alamos. We will need some additional men.”

“Yes, Grandfather,” came the reply. “I’ll see to it.”

Turning back to face his prisoner, Hack’s smirk was brimming with confidence. “Thank you, Sergeant. I think you’ve just provided me with a solution that will protect our little irrigation project. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go and research the hazardous materials storage units at Los Alamos. ”

Grissom knew immediately where Hack’s mind was going, and it made him ill.

They looked like a wagon train from a B-grade Western, straining teams of horses pulling dilapidated, weathered wagons through the scenic valley.

Surrounding the rusty wheels and horseflesh were the mounted scouts and warriors. With rifles pointed skyward and resting on saddle leather, some were Santa Domingo, others Cochiti. The toymaker’s Apache escorts made up the rest.

Hack had instructed the elders to prepare enough food and supplies for a three-day excursion. Not knowing what to expect, he’d also suggested a significant amount of ammunition be added to the manifest. That had taken the entire cargo area of one of the wagons.

And then there was the anticipated looting.

Everyone around the Caldera knew Los Alamos had been abandoned less than a year after the electricity had vanished. The mountain town’s unmaintained sewers had bled into the water supply after a heavy spring rain. Disease had racked the population in a matter of days. The survivors had fled in droves.

Since then, the larger and closer cities of Santa Fe and Albuquerque had been more accessible targets for the tribe’s scavenging parties to plunder. Los Alamos, at its peak, had attracted only about 12,000 residents, and many had survived and consumed supplies for months after the collapse. Early scouting expeditions had found the town nearly void of items high on the looters’ priority lists.

But that didn’t mean that the entire area was void of valuable assets. Since Hack and his party were going to be making the difficult trip anyway, why not bring along an extra wagon or two to fill with anything useful?

The highest priority, however, wasn’t batteries, medical supplies, foodstuffs, or weapons. Hack wanted to harvest the nuclear materials from the lab. With those in his possession, he could protect the tribes and the Valley Green project. Thus, the extra wagons.

The ex-engineer had no illusions of converting his small patch of New Mexico into a global nuclear power. He knew enough to realize that building a fission bomb required extensive capabilities and knowledge that were beyond his grasp.

But radioactive materials had more than one use.

For years at the Skunk Works, the threat of a terrorist’s dirty bomb had been a perplexing problem for those who earned their living protecting the USA. Hack had worked on aircraft-mounted sensors and early detection devices more than once in his career.

There had also been a project that revolved around performing damage assessment if a U.S. city ever experienced the horror of a dirty bomb detonation.

The toymaker knew that the concept struck fear into the hearts of the bravest of men. He fully understood how political leaders reacted to the ramifications of the threat.