The Bitter Past, page 3
Ellison dropped his fork on his plate and sat straight up. “My God, son, is this true?”
Freddie nodded. “Yes, sir. I only have a year of college, but I read whatever I can get my hands on. I’m fascinated by the work Kitty tells me you’re doing out there at the Proving Grounds.”
“Are you now?”
“Atomic testing,” Freddie said excitedly. “It’s the cutting edge of science.”
Ellison was almost breathless in his enthusiasm. “It’s a race, I tell you, Freddie. A very important race to this country. And to the world.”
Freddie happily agreed, and before long the scientist mentioned the government was looking for security guards to man their rapidly expanding operations.
“You should apply,” he told Freddie. “I have to believe it would be substantially more than you’re making at the casino, and I could put in a word for you.”
Freddie didn’t know what to say. In physics, motion describes how an object changes its position over time. He was in motion.
* * *
“You’ve been recommended by Dr. Ellison, I see,” said the man in the black suit. “He thinks highly of you.” Then the questions began.
Freddie was sweating profusely, and not from nerves. It was 105 degrees outside, and he had waited forty-five minutes in line just to reach the air-conditioned interior of Federal Services Incorporated at the corner of Second and Bonanza. Then it had been an hour of documenting his life on paper, followed by fingerprinting. If he could land this job as a security guard, he could buy better clothes, maybe a better car. The pay was supposed to be twice what he was making as a shill at the casino.
As the man in black lit one Camel after another and smoke billowed in the room, Freddie got a lot of questions about his political leanings, a grilling that was a by-product of the McCarthy hearings and the paranoia about communism and the Soviet Union and its reach into the United States. Freddie answered them all with confidence.
“Well, presuming your background check doesn’t turn anything up, your Q clearance could be granted within five months. For now, go back to work. We’ll be in touch.”
It only took three months. One morning Freddie saw the letter under his door at the Lamplight Motel. He had a job in security in the Land of the Tall Mushrooms. His reporting date was in ten days on September 30th at 8 A.M.
Kitty was elated for him. After a celebratory dinner, he dropped her at home in the navy blue ’51 Ford Crestliner he had bought earlier in the day and drove up Stewart Avenue to the Las Vegas Federal Courthouse and Post Office. It was late, well past closing hours. Freddie went inside, extracted a key from his pocket and opened box 188, which he rented for fifty cents a month. After inserting the letter and relocking the box, he left the building and returned to his room at the Lamplight. The September evening seemed just as warm inside as outside, and Freddie wondered if the temperature would ever drop below ninety. He extracted a can of Krueger beer from the small fridge and punched two quick holes in the top. Crossing the room, he took a long pull and raised the window shade to the three-quarter position. Then he sat down on the bed and stared at the window. Now there was nothing to do but wait.
* * *
They were taken in buses. Not as nice as the one he hopped to Las Vegas back in the spring, but comfortable. Through the pall of cigarette smoke, Freddie counted forty-three men, and he estimated there were similar numbers on each of the other buses that were making their way north on the two-lane highway to the Nevada Proving Ground and Camp Mercury. Some were new security guards like him, in their tan uniforms with the star patch on the shoulders that identified them as employees of Federal Services, Inc. Most of the occupants, however, were dressed in civilian clothes. By the look of them, Freddie guessed many were construction workers while others surely held more important jobs, their pressed slacks and shiny shoes indicating a higher level of education and training. Since he was in the security business now, he would make a point to get to know all the men from his morning bus stop. He would befriend them. He would learn all he could about them.
It was his first journey this far out into the vast Nevada desert, and for miles there was nothing but scrub and dirt and the constant smell of diesel exhaust inhaled by his bus from the one in front of it. More than an hour passed, and then gradually he saw signs of life. Signs along the thin strip of road warned about the importance of security and secrecy. Behind his blank expression, Freddie grinned, but it evaporated quickly when he saw the warning that trespassers could face imprisonment and even risked being shot. He was moving from the high-stakes games at the casino to the highest stakes of all, and he wondered how he would perform when it was his time. If the sweat beading up inside his shirt and trousers was any indication, he wouldn’t make it through his first day of training.
“You okay?” asked the man seated next to him. “You’re breathing like you just ran a mile.”
Freddie managed a half smile, commanding his heart to slow down. “Fine,” he said. “New job is all.”
“Nerves,” the man said with a nod, returning to his newspaper. “You’ll do fine.”
The sign at the main security gate at the entrance to Mercury still said Nevada Proving Ground, but it appeared to Freddie that they were replacing it with one that said Nevada Testing Site. Once off the bus, he and seven other similarly uniformed men were escorted into the main annex for FSI employees. After their credentials were thoroughly examined, the men were ushered into a long rectangular wooden building that said FSI 3 above the single door. There were several rooms, and as they passed, Freddie could see each contained six to eight beds with small metal frames and a thin mattress. There was a washroom as well, and he was surprised by its abundance: six wash basins, four lavatories, and six showers. There had been long periods in his relatively short life where he would have killed for accommodations like this.
They were issued three uniforms each from measurements previously supplied. There was a camp laundry facility, but each man was required to do his own. Finally, Freddie and the other new recruits were led into another room and told to deposit their duffel bags on a bunk and to take a seat. A tall, lanky man named Lon Greaves introduced himself as their sergeant. “Listen up,” he said in a voice as dry as the desert, “there are only four things you need to know here. One, everything here is classified. Everything means everything. What you do here, what you eat for breakfast, where you take a piss. Classified. You don’t talk to people about this place. Capisce?” The recruits glanced nervously at one another. “Two, your family and friends are not exempt from this rule. That includes your dog and your goldfish. Outside these gates, you do not engage in conversation with anyone about what goes on inside these gates. Three, there are many different levels of security clearances here. Not all of them are created equal.” Greaves pointed to the badge on his uniform shirt. It had three different colors. “Your job is to ensure everyone has the proper clearance for entering the areas you will be posted to. You will arrest, detain, or kill, if you have to, any person not adhering to this rule. Understood?”
Freddie eyed the other men. Most nodded confidently. These were the men with military training. Some would have served in the Korean War.
“Four,” the sergeant bellowed, “any breach of any of the aforementioned rules is grounds for termination and possible imprisonment. Or, if I catch you, death.”
And that’s when the realization hit him: I’m working at America’s most secret scientific facility!
They were asked to sign a document pledging their allegiance to the United States and essentially surrendering their constitutional rights so long as they remained in their employment in the Nevada desert.
Next, it was out to the range for marksmanship training. Each man was outfitted with a .38 Special Smith & Wesson pistol and a Thompson M1A1 submachine gun. When the range master, a small, stout man whose name tag read Irby, handed Freddie the Thompson, he asked, “Name?”
He answered immediately. “Freddie Meyer, sir.”
“Ever shoot before, Freddie Meyer?”
Though he preferred to hold a book, guns were not unfamiliar to him. “I used to hunt a lot as a kid.” It was the truth. His first real use of a rifle had come twelve years earlier when he was just a boy. He had killed a man on a hillside not far from his home. After that, his proficiency with weapons grew quickly and out of necessity.
“Well,” said Irby. “Shooting at little animals is one thing. Shooting people is another thing altogether. I shot plenty of them all over the Pacific and in Korea. Let’s hope you never have to.”
Yes, let’s hope.
He excelled on the pistol range, missing his target only enough to maintain the illusion he had no military training. He took to the disciplined structure that FSI insisted upon like a duck to water, memorizing all fifty-eight radio codes by his second day on the job, dismaying his superiors, some of whom still could not remember them all. He raced through every manual they gave him and found himself the unofficial tutor to his fellow recruits. It was hardly a demanding regimen, at least not compared with the training of his youth. In their downtime at the test site, Freddie and the other men competed in bowling and darts. He was amazed at the comforts test site employees were afforded. The camp cafeteria had a turnstile at its entrance, much like the ones he had seen in his brief time in the subways of New York just a year ago. The difference here was the turnstile required a silver dollar, and when you dropped it in, you could eat all you wanted. He had never seen such enormous bounty.
By day, he absorbed as much information as he could, given that his movements at the site were restricted to his training areas and the main social facilities at Camp Mercury. And despite his success at getting through the vetting process and making his way onto the FSI payroll, he had his sights firmly set on learning as much as he could about the science of atomic testing.
At night, lying on his bunk, he missed Kitty. He missed discussing the stars and the properties of matter, but mostly he just missed the dulcet tones of her voice and how they warmed his insides like whiskey. So much of what would come, he knew, depended on his relationship with Kitty, and by extension, her father.
At the end of his fourth and final week of training, Private Freddie Meyer took the wheel and drove out with his sergeant to a new, extremely secret operations area of the site, a place they were calling Delta. Because he had excelled in every aspect of training, he was told he was one of only five men chosen to guard the base just over the hill from Yucca Flat, and the only new man selected. On the long drive north, he was not surprised the dirt road was the only indication of civilization. The West was a huge place, much of it inhabited only by animals. In fact, he had learned that prior to becoming the optimal location to detonate atomic bombs, much of this land had been a wildlife preserve. Their driver was part tour guide and historian, telling Freddie and Sergeant Greaves that, in addition to the bighorn sheep, mountain lions, rattlesnakes, and other assorted creatures, Native Americans had once resided in the mountain caves of the area and that there were plenty of paintings and petroglyphs that could still be seen on their walls.
And the people who made them? Wiped out.
As the jeep pulled up to the west-facing gate, Greaves got out and spoke to a man in civilian clothes who was armed with a machine gun. A man in civilian clothes, Freddie knew, was likely to be CIA. He felt the hair on his arms and neck rise. Greaves and the man conversed and then approached the vehicle.
“Badge, please,” the man said to Freddie. Freddie handed him his badge, which had recently changed color. FSI and the military were hypersensitive to security, and they had done a good job of compartmentalizing the entire test site. Only those with the required clearance could access particular areas.
The CIA man matched Freddie’s badge information to what was on his clipboard and then motioned to another man in a small booth to raise the gate.
Greaves then informed him, “End of the line for me, Private. I don’t have Delta clearance. This man will take you the rest of the way.”
“Slide over, Private,” the man said, climbing in behind the wheel.
As they drove into Delta, the man introduced himself as John Anderson. The corners of Freddie’s mouth turned up. “Is that your real name?” Anderson just grinned.
Freddie immediately noticed that the Delta site was much like the barren desert he had just driven through. There wasn’t much here. He saw a single airstrip, a large airplane hangar, and a small wooden building Anderson said would be his post. Nothing else but miles of barbed wire as far as the eye could see. Fear slithered its way into his brain. He hadn’t come all this way only to be confined to an area where there was no scientific activity. “Exactly what am I guarding?”
Anderson glared at him. “You don’t need to know that, do you, Private? You’re security. You will secure this site and its perimeter. No one without Delta clearance will come through any entry point, and that includes God himself. Do you understand that?”
Freddie lowered his eyes. “Yes, sir.” And do you understand that before I’m done I will know everything?
“You were handpicked for this job, son,” the man said. “Start acting like it.”
* * *
After four weeks at the test site, Freddie returned to Las Vegas and immediately picked up his mail from the post office, which included his first utility bills, a copy of the latest Scientific American, and a large package from Aunt Sally in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
Entering his new apartment, he tossed his duffel bag on the ugly blue carpet and sat down with his mail on the lumpy sofa that came with the small coffee table that came with the rent. Everything had his name on it, and seeing it gave Freddie a sense of confidence. He opened the magazine first, the cover of which showed a tree branch with some beautiful fall leaves. The table of contents listed the major articles for the November 1955 edition, and Freddie’s eyes quickly found the ones he knew would contain important information. The first was “Radiation and Human Mutation,” and the second was “Empty Space,” a look into the vast reaches of the galaxy. Both titles contained a tiny red dot in the first letter, almost imperceptible to the naked eye, and placed there by someone other than the publisher. In truth, he was more excited to read the articles for their scientific value, but his light reading would have to come later.
He pulled out his pocketknife and cut the twine from the box from Aunt Sally. Carefully, he removed the brown mailing paper, knowing there may be some additional message on the underside, written in disappearing ink called thymolphthalein. He rose from the sofa and retrieved a small spray bottle from under the kitchen sink. Laying the mailing paper on his small dining table, he lightly sprayed it with the solution. Nothing appeared. Returning to the sofa, he opened the box and found a shiny black lunch box. Inside, next to the large thermos, were some cookies wrapped in wax paper and a note written in a woman’s handwriting. Good luck with the new job. Love you, bub. Aunt Sally.
He extracted one of the chocolate chips and placed it his mouth. “Thank you, Aunt Sally,” he mumbled. Freddie pulled the thermos out and examined its exterior carefully. The bottom third of the insulated container had a tiny separation from the upper part. He placed one hand on the bottom and rotated it counterclockwise. It moved easily. Inside, he found a camera, much like the one he had practiced with during training. It was just over seven centimeters long and two and a half centimeters tall. He looked into the tiny viewfinder. Brilliant.
The camera was everything. It would allow Freddie, whose real name was Lieutenant Georgiy Dudko of the Committee for State Security, also known as the KGB, to document everything he saw.
CHAPTER 3
The Clark County coroner’s office is located conveniently in the heart of Las Vegas, and more important, only a few blocks from the Omelet House. Since our appointment is at noon, I thought it best to do some carb-loading before seeing dead ex-agent Atterbury’s corpse a second time.
“Is that wise?” Agent Locke asks as I lay a portion of my Denver omelet on top of my toast with the same care I used when removing the heart in that kids’ game Operation.
“Probably not. The eggs sometime roll off right before they reach my mouth.” Sure enough, Humpty Dumpty takes a big fall back onto my plate. “See?”
She shakes her head and takes a sip of coffee. “I mean eating before an autopsy. Aren’t you afraid of regurgitating it all?”
I’m not. I seriously doubt I’m going to see anything worse than what I encountered yesterday. “Otto—Dr. Weezard—has probably already completed the autopsy. We’re just going for the post-game wrap-up.”
She puts her coffee down. “I need to see the body, Sheriff.”
“It’s Beck, okay? And see the body you shall, Sana. Can I start calling you Sana?”
She rolls those beautiful, dark-roasted eyes. “Very well … Beck.”
“It’s just that Special Agent Locke is a mouthful, you know? I mean it’s a little weird, don’t you think, all you special agents calling each other special agent this and special agent that?”
Sana laughs. “We don’t really do that, and I think you know that, Beck.”
Hearing her say my name makes me warm inside. “You don’t have to say my name in every sentence. If you do, it will be awkward.” Our eyes lock, and I feel the magnetism growing between us, hoping it’s not the repulsive kind.
“You’re not at all what I was expecting in a sheriff out … here,” she says.
“Oh, boy,” I say, setting my fork on the plate. “All right, fire away.”
“Well, to start with, other than that star on your belt, you don’t wear a uniform.”
I relax into my seat. “Hey, it’s casual Friday.”
“Today is Saturday.”
“Right. Casual Saturday. What else?”
Sana studies me. “You don’t wear a uniform because it wouldn’t go well with that two-day stubble and your nice wavy hair that is a little too long, I think, for a Nevada sheriff. I think you have a problem with authority.”
