Jesse's Starship (18 page)

She arrived in Atlanta and rented a storage space and paid six months in advance. She backed the Studebaker into it and closed the door. She put a lock on it and asked the proprietor to call her a cab. She rode down to Peachtree Center in the heart of Atlanta and went to an internet café. She reserved an airline ticket on Southwest for that afternoon. She boarded the Marta train and arrived at the airport with an hour to spare. She used one of her four sets of identities to board the plane and sat beside a nurse who talked the entire trip. She really didn’t mind; it was good to hear another’s voice after her self-imposed isolation. She landed, claimed her bag, and took a cab to downtown. It was the third gun store before she found what she needed. She looked at her list and left for Dick’s Sporting Goods to buy some hunting clothes. Her green splotched fatigues wouldn’t work in the desert. She loaded her purchases into the cab that was waiting for her and called Tilly.

“Hello.”

“Hi, Tilly, I’m a friend of Mike’s and he’s asked me to look out for you.”

“How do I know you’re being honest?”

“I’m the one who disappeared from his team.”

“Why did you disappear?”

“Seems it had something to do with drugs.”

“What do you want?”

“I need to know where I should go to meet you.”

Tilly thought for a moment and then started giving Janet instructions. Janet wrote them down and said, “Thanks; I’ll be there soon.”

“You can’t bring a vehicle.”

“I won’t.” Janet pressed end and said, “I have one more stop and then you can take me where I need to go.” The taxi driver nodded and wondered what this crazy woman was up to. The cab pulled off and arrived at a grocery store. Janet brought three large bags out and put them in the trunk. The cab pulled out and headed east.

• • •

Janet stopped the taxi at the two large boulders and had the driver turn the car around on the left side of the road. She went to the trunk and the driver began unloading her purchases. Janet pulled out the collapsible three wheel cart and unfolded it. It had barely fit in the trunk, but she had selected a Ford Crown Victoria taxi. The cart expanded and she began loading the bags into it. The taxi driver helped her and she tipped him a hundred dollars. “Lady, this isn’t a good place.”

Janet looked at the sun and said, “My partner will be here in about another hour. I’m here a little early so I should be fine.”

“If you say so.”

“Listen, Jose. We’re out here looking for artifacts and I don’t want anyone to know I’m here; comprende?”

“Si.”

“Good.”

She handed him another hundred and Jose said, “I’m off the clock anyway. I’ll keep this to myself.”

“You’re a good man. Thanks for your patience.”

“No problem.” Jose got in the cab and pulled off. He saw Janet sit down on the cart and use an expandable fan to cool her face. He went around the curve and Janet jumped up and grabbed the cart’s handle. The trail into the desert had been packed down by all the vehicles that went in to investigate the landing site and it was easier going than she thought.

The cart’s wheels were wide and designed to be used in the desert. The sun was on the horizon when she arrived at the top of the long rise from the road and she took a piece of paper out of her pocket. She read it and looked to the left. She saw the mountain several miles away and started toward it. It was getting dark when she heard, “That’s far enough.” Janet froze and said, “Tilly, I know Mike didn’t call you to tell you I was coming. Matter of fact, he didn’t know I was coming.”

“Then why are you here?”

“He asked me to watch out for you and make sure you’re safe. He gave me a telephone number to call if you ran into trouble but he knew I would have to come here to make sure you were alright.”

“What was the number?” Janet pulled a penlight out of her pocket and called out the number. Tilly stood up from behind a rock and said, “I can use the company.”

Janet saw the rifle in her hands and whistled, “Wow! Mike told me you had one of these and I really didn’t believe him.”

“What?”

“That rifle is supposedly a top secret.”

“Mike took it from a sniper trying to get a shot off at him.”

“That is a government rifle, Tilly. It violates the Geneva Conventions about ammunition and would cause a firestorm at the United Nations if anyone knew about its existence.”

“What makes it illegal?”

“All sniper ammunition must be the same caliber as those used by a country’s standard military rifles. That one uses a more powerful round and has nearly twice the range of the 7.62 rounds of most U.S. sniper rifles.”

“I think there’s another one here.”

“I’d be surprised if there wasn’t. Mike made a point of telling me the ammunition it uses. I think he was suggesting I pick up some additional rounds. I’ve gotta tell ya, finding that round wasn’t easy.”

Tilly looked at Janet, “Why do you say Mike was suggesting you pick up additional rounds?”

“Mike thinks ten steps ahead of everyone else. Either he was planning to use it or he knew I would come to ensure your safety. He couldn’t bring himself to ask me to do this; but I know he hoped I would. By the way, that silencer/muzzle suppressor on the end is also a military secret. Most silencers can be heard from a hundred yards. The distance goes down to fifty yards in a city with urban noise, but most people don’t understand that silencers aren’t silent. That one can’t be heard unless you’re less than thirty yards away. You’ve got some expensive hardware here.”

“Whoever stocked the helicopter had an identical case to the one this gun came out of put in with the food. What did you bring?”

“I brought some things I hope we don’t have to use. Tilly shined a flashlight into the grocery bags and said, “What’s this; three bags of beef jerky.”

“I confess I have a weakness.”

Tilly laughed, “This proves to me you are who you say you are.”

“How’s that?”

“No one in their right mind would lug this much beef jerky up that hill unless they intended to be here a while.”

Janet smiled, “Let’s get our things undercover.”

Tilly saw a large, white, rolled up mat, “What’s this large mat?”

“They use it in Florida to stop large objects blown by hurricane winds.”

“Why do we need it here?”

“We probably don’t. It’s just Mike said two Air Force Eagles tried to take him out. I like to be prepared.”

“If you say so.” Tilly grabbed the cart’s handle with Janet and they pulled it over to the small opening in the rocks.

They couldn’t fit the cart through the small opening , so they walked everything into the cave. Janet went in and was impressed. The entrance to the cave was about four feet high and opened into a room that was about ten feet deep and extended fifteen feet to the left of the entrance. Janet looked at the section to the left and saw it had been chiseled out after the first cave was made. “Who expanded this, Tilly?”

“The young man who lived here for four years expanded the cave.”

“He did a good job of installing those shelves. It looks like you have enough food to last you a year.”

“I guess. The generator makes a huge difference in making it bearable. The fans help a lot during the day.”

Janet looked at the generator and said, “Do you have enough fuel to run it for an extended period?”

“There’s a tank behind the rocks over this ledge. The young man who lived here transported two gallons a week out here for more than two years. The company who delivered the tank did it gratis. It seems the store owner who bought most of his goods liked him a lot. She had the tank replaced and paid for it to be delivered. It’s a two hundred gallon tank and it’s full.”

“That’s not a good thing, Tilly.”

“It’s under the overhang and can’t be seen from the air. Mike put a camouflage net over it before he left. Besides, the generator is also government built and Mike told me it’s military grade. It’s silent and can operate on a gallon of gas for two days. I don’t use it except during the heat of the day and to recharge my television and cell phone. I have enough fuel to last me almost two years if it came down to it.”

“Why didn’t the young man use a generator?”

“I think by the time he filled the tank he had acclimated to the desert and decided he didn’t need it.”

Janet looked around and said, “Where is the other case?”

Tilly went to the back of the cave and pulled it out of the suitcase. Janet smiled at the plaid colored suitcase and took the hard black colored case. She opened it and whistled, “This one also has infrared capability.”

“Is that important?”

“Night vision goggles only work so far. This scope rules the night.” Why are there two of those scopes in the case?”

Janet looked at Tilly, “I am going to assume Mike taught you how to shoot.”

“He did.”

“And how good are you?”

“I beat him half the time.” Janet stared at Tilly and Tilly saw her skepticism, “Don’t look surprised; women are naturally more relaxed than men.”

“That second scope is for your rifle. We need to install it and get it sighted in.”

“Mike told me that the rifle was engineered so that replacing the scopes wouldn’t change the accuracy.”

“Is that a fact?” Tilly nodded and Janet said, “Then you won’t mind if I humor myself by taking a few shots to verify the truth of that statement.”

“Not at all.”

An hour later, Janet shook her head, “I would have never believed it but it appears he’s right.”

“He’s not wrong very often.”

“What has he ever been wrong about?”

“He trusted that Colonel Jameson.”

Janet nodded, “All of us did.”

Tilly looked at Janet, “Why did you leave?”

Janet climbed down off the wall and put the rifle into a long plastic bag. “I grew tired of seeing a crime committed.”

“Oh?”

“Satellites record everything even if no one is looking at the tapes. I had a lot of time on my hands when I was in the tank and I decided one day to take a trip along our southern border with Mexico. I saw several vehicles were parked together in the Arizona desert. They just seemed out of place. I brought the view in closer and saw men transferring large bundles from one truck to another. I realized they were drug runners. I queried the satellite and it pulled up thirty instances of those vehicles on the border. It appeared they always came to the site late Sunday night. I reported it to Jameson and he said it was none of our business. That was up to the civil authorities to handle. He told me to let it go.

“I did let it go for more than a year but it just ate at my soul. I contacted the authorities in Arizona and the Immigration bureau chief but was told thank you very much, now leave me alone.”

“What did you do?”

“I took a two week vacation, drove to Arizona, purchased a Winchester 300 with a night scope, and drove out into the desert.” Tilly stared at Janet. “Tilly, those drugs were going to kill Americans. I couldn’t live with that on my conscience.” Janet sat down in the cave, “The thought of killing those drug runners didn’t bother me; I’ve killed enemy soldiers in Iraq and it never bothered me.”

“What happened?”

“It wasn’t easy; I shot four of them before they knew they were under attack. I shot out the tires on the trucks and put a bullet into the gas tanks. One of them tried to get into a truck and I made it clear that was sure death if they tried that. They started firing at random into the desert and it took about another thirty minutes to take out two of the three survivors. The last one took off running into the desert. I had night goggles and I cut him off. He heard me coming and lifted an Uzi and sprayed a clip in my direction. I took him out and it was over. I walked over to the last one and saw he had been running with two large suitcases. If he had dropped them, he might have got away. I turned him over and saw he was only a teenager.”

Janet grew silent and Tilly said, “Then what?”

“I opened one of the suitcases and it was filled with hundred dollar bills. I took them back to the trucks and set fire to them. I guess I burned eight million dollars of cocaine. I put the bags in my truck and left. I think a helicopter was brought in at daylight and it was reported as a drug deal gone bad. I was planning to contact the DEA and report the money but Mike called my cell phone and left a message. Jameson recognized the site of the attack and had reported me to criminal authorities as a possible murderer. I kept the money and never went back.”

“So you just disappeared?”

“I did. I had learned in my military training how to make that happen. Only one person in the government ever found me.” Tilly tilted her head and Janet said, “Yep, Mike. He knocked on my door one day and I was shocked to see him.”

“What did he say?”

“He asked if I would do it again.”

“I told him that I hated that I was forced to do it by a government that didn’t care about its citizen’s welfare. Under the same circumstances, I would do it again.”

“He smiled at me, Tilly and gave me hug. He said to be careful and he was proud of me.”

“How did he find you?”

“That damn truck of mine; I just can’t let it go.”

“Truck?”

“It belonged to my father and I’ve babied it. I painted it a two tone blue and white. He used the satellites to report any truck with the identical shade of blue from a picture on my desk. He did it to protect me. He showed me that if he could find me using my truck, others could as well. I immediately made sure it stayed undercover.”

“That’s why you came here?”

“Janet shrugged, “I owe him, Tilly.”

Tilly smiled and said, “Let’s try some of that beef jerky.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about.” Tilly decided that Janet and Mike were very much alike. She also saw that Janet was probably a better shot than Mike or her. Janet had fired a three shot group two hundred yards away that looked like they all went into the same hole.

“J
ess.”

“Yes, Elle.”

“Is Jess Smith your real name?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I may have the same name someday.” Jess snickered. “What do you find funny?”