BlackStar, page 30
Of course he couldn’t get rid of him immediately, in case the BlackStar had a bug and needed the good doctor to come up with the solution. Once that was done, and the BlackStar was in a stable orbit, the necessity of keeping Doctor Gimbel alive became null. He would become one more body buried out in the desert of Nevada.
~~
- BEACON HOLDING FACILITY –
Raymond was starting to lose track of the number of days he had been in the cell. He could no longer keep day straight from night and he was becoming more lethargic as the time dragged on. He knew he had to keep fighting it but it became harder with each passing hour.
He was lying on the mattress, trying to calculate how much time it had been when the cell door opened. Three guards came in the room and yanked him out of the bed.
“Now what?” Raymond demanded.
“Just relax and don’t cause any trouble and this will be over with before you know it,” the one he remembered as Jon said.
“What are you going to do?” he asked, but decided struggling would only get him hurt more and his ribs were still sore. It was painful every time he moved.
“Don’t struggle unless you want to get hurt again,” Jon said as the guards tightened their grip on him.
The third guard jammed a needle in his arm and he could feel the sting as the medicine raced through his arm.
“What the hell was that?” he asked but got no reply.
He could feel his head getting dizzy and within seconds he was starting to feel his legs getting rubbery.
“What was that…” he tried to say as the room started to spin.
He could feel himself slipping into unconsciousness. His head slumped forward with his chin resting on his chest. They dragged him over the bed and laid him down with his arm stretched out to the side.
“Let get this over with. I don’t like this one bit,” Jon said.
“Me either but the general said to do it, so we’ll do it.”
“That doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
Raymond slowly drifted back into consciousness and immediately realized something was terribly wrong. He slowly raised his head off the mattress and felt a bolt of pain run through arm and smash into his brain.
He looked down at his hand and saw that a large ball of gauze was wrapped around his left hand. Now what had happened, he thought, trying to make some sense of what he was looking at? He was aware of pain radiating from his hand but it didn’t register in his brain. He could see that blood had started to seep through the bandage in several places.
He shook his head, sending another jolt of pain up his arm. What the hell had they done to him, he wondered? He tried to sit up but the pain was too intense. Suddenly he retched, causing this hand to ache intolerably. He lay back down, spitting the bile from his mouth. What in God’s name had they done? He was afraid to move any part of his body. All he wanted to do was lie still and make this all go away, but it didn’t.
Holding his hand as steady as possible he forced himself to sit up and swing his legs to the floor. Carefully, he undid the little metal clasp that held the dressing in place and started to slowly unravel the gauze. The more he took off the more soaked the bandage became. As much as he didn’t want to know, he knew he had to find out what they had done. As he got near the end of the blood soaked gauze, his worst fears were starting to be realized. He could see that whatever was done to him it wasn’t going to be good.
He uncovered first one finger then the next, but no more. The last two fingers had been severed. He looked at his hand in disbelief. These people are crazy. What the hell were they going to do, cut him up into pieces a day at a time? Being held in the cell was crazy enough, but this. This was beyond comprehension.
He felt physically sick but fought it off. He carefully tried to place the bandage over the oozing stumps of his last two fingers.
They had been cauterized crudely to stop the majority of the bleeding. He almost threw up when he accidentally bumped one of his remaining fingers and it pushed against the stub of the missing digit. He was drenched in sweat by the time he had the bandage back in place as best as he could get it.
He lay back on the bed, holding his hand, wondering just how far gone the general was. Or was he the one doing this? Hell yes, he thought. No one else had this kind of power. The goons that had done this were just following his orders, not that it made his hand feel any better.
He lay on the bed, holding his wrist with his good hand. The pain was non-stop and he laid there trying to regulate his breathing, thinking about everything, but what had happened to his hand. He was just about to fall asleep when the door to the cell opened once again.
“No. Don’t touch me you son of a bitch,” he yelled rolling toward the wall and balling up. “Haven’t you crazy bastards done enough to me already?”
“Easy, it’s Okay, I’m here to give you a shot to help with the pain. It is an antibiotic as well,” Jon said, holding up a syringe.
“Sure. Just keep away from me. Haven’t you done enough? What are you going to cut off this time you stupid pricks?” Raymond said.
“Look Mr. Eller. I’m telling you. We aren’t going to hurt you. This is to keep from getting infection and to ease the pain. I’m going to leave the needle here. Use it if you want or don’t. It’s up to you. I’m sorry it had to be this way. I don’t have anything against you personally,” Jon said, laying the syringe on the floor at the end of the bed.
Raymond laid there until he heard the cell door click closed. He rolled over to make sure they had gone and looked down at the floor. What the hell, if they had wanted to knock him out and cut something else off, they could have overpowered him like before. He picked up the syringe and stuck into his left arm and then lay back down.
Within a minute or two he could feel the intensity of the pain starting to ebb. A few minutes later he was asleep. The last thing he remembered before he drifted off what that he sure hoped he still had everything when he woke up.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
- GROOM LAKE -
“Mr. President,” the general said, “I just wanted to keep you informed of the latest developments. The results came back and they were positive for human blood. We found some hair on a comb in his quarters and sent it to the lab along with the shoe we found. It is a definite match for DNA.
Early this morning one of the men found what looks like two human fingers. I had them flown to Mercury and confirmed. Maybe the FBI or someone can lift the prints off them and then we would have a positive ID. I don’t think we are going to find much more of Mr. Eller at this point,” he said grimly.
“Good God. That poor man. Eaten by a bunch of filthy coyotes. It makes me sick to even think of it. Yes, I’ll have someone fax the prints of Raymond for comparison. I’m confident that can be performed there rather than sending the fingers back to Washington. I take it, Mercury is the name of a city in Nevada?”
“Yes sir. I’ll follow up on matching the prints, but I think this is the end of the road. It makes us all sick. What a horrible way to die. God rest his soul,” the general replied.
“Well, I guess not much more can be done. I doubt after this long you are going to find much more,” the President said.
“I suspect you are right, but I still have a team searching. It would be nice if we could return some of his body for a proper burial.”
“Yes but I don’t hold up much hope of that, do you?”
“Honestly? No sir, I do not.”
“Very well general. I appreciate your diligence on this matter. I guess we are just going to have to face the reality of the situation. I never look forward to this sort of thing. It is the most unpleasant of all my jobs, but it needs to be done so we can move forward,” the President said.
“Yes sir. Did you want to send someone to replace Mr. Eller? I’ll personally bring them up to speed as quickly as possible,” the general offered.
“Honestly, I haven’t even given that a thought. No, certainly not at the present. I will need some time to decide just what course of action should be taken. You continue as before, for now at least, send your reports directly to me,” he said, “If I have any questions I will call you for clarification.”
“Yes sir, Mr. President. I am truly sorry about Mr. Eller.”
“Thank you general. Let me know when we have word on the print match. I don’t know why I think that is important, but somehow it is. The DNA should be enough, but still, I guess I feel we owe it to the poor man,” the President replied.
“I will notify you the minute I hear from them.”
The general almost did a little dance when he hung up the phone. The DNA and fingerprints will take Eller out of the equation for good, he thought. He was sure the President wouldn’t rush into a decision about sending a replacement. His first priority would be to fill the vacancy in the Department of Homeland Security. That alone would take a good deal of time and keep the President occupied.
Now he was set. The first test of the Su-12 had gone even better than the early test of the Su-11. Tomorrow would be the first orbital mission. They would use the new pulse engines to produce enough thrust to break through the top of the troposphere at 400,000 feet.
It would be a low level orbit so they could find out if anyone, including our own military tracking stations, could detect them. NORAD was of course the biggest concern. The only anxious part would be the reentry. A disaster like the last time might finish him and the BlackStar for good. There was no use borrowing trouble, he said to himself. If you look for trouble, you can usually find it.
~~
Angie had worked later than she had planned. Several small incidents had kept her busy all day long. It was almost dark before she locked the infirmary and slipped her coat on. She walked to her car. She opened her purse and dug around for her car keys. Crap, she muttered, when she couldn’t locate them. She dug to the bottom of the bag but didn’t find them. Out of instinct, she reached into her coat pocket and felt something strange. She pulled it out and looked at it in the dimming light. It was a base security card that said:
Mr. Raymond Eller
ULTRA TOP SECRET
LEVEL – 9
Raymond Eller. Raymond Eller, she repeated several time. How in the heck did this get in my pocket? Who was Raymond... wait? Raymond Eller. He was the guy who got lost and was eaten by coyotes. The one Dr. Yurris was talking about. How did she end up with his card in her pocket? This was too weird she thought as she walked back to the infirmary to look for her car keys.
She opened the door and turned the lights on. There on the desk were her keys. Lord I’m forgetful she muttered as she locked back up. Raymond Eller. Why would his security badge be in her coat pocket? She was flipping it back and forth as she walked to her car. It hit her like a ton of bricks. The man held at Beacon. The one she went to get blood from. What was going on? Why was he reported as missing or dead, when he was being held in a cell at Bacon?
She shuddered as she climbed in her car and started the engine. She could see the main security building from where she was sitting. She needed to tell them that they were wrong. She stated her car and drove to the security building and went inside.
“Hi Angie,” the man behind the glass booth said.
“Oh, hi Billy. Listen, can you tell me about that guy that got lost in the desert? Did they ever find out what happened to him?”
He looked at her for a second. A frown flickered across his face for an instant.
“Why do you want to know?”
Immediately from his looks and tone, the hair on the back of her neck started to stand on end. Bad question, Angie thought.
“I was just wondering. I need to submit an accident report to the State whenever someone is seriously injured or dies,” she replied.
“Hum. Well, I guess that makes sense. What I have heard is that he is being considered officially deceased at this point,” he said.
“Oh dear. That means a lot more paperwork for me. Crap. Now I have to notify the State Coroner’s Office as well. I was afraid of that, but I thought I had better check to be sure,” she said.
“Sorry,” was all he said. He had stared at her intently the whole time they were talking.
She got back in her car and tried to think what she should do. Something wasn’t right. She couldn’t drive out to Beacon and check. They would never let her get close to the place. Was Jon in on this? He had to be. What the hell was this all about? She kept asking herself these questions as she sat trying to figure out her next move. She was startled when one of the guards tapped on her car window. She rolled it down part way.
“Anything wrong Angie?” he asked.
“Oh no. Not really.”
“Why are you sitting here?”
“I was just trying to decide if I should fill out the death reports now on the guy that was eaten by coyotes, or just wait until tomorrow. I guess it can wait. I know there is some kind of time frame for reporting deaths but I can’t remember the amount of time allotted,” she said, trying to sound convincing.
“Dead is dead. Tonight or tomorrow. I don’t see how it could hurt much to wait,” he said.
“You know, I think you’re absolutely right. I think I’ll go home, have a good stiff drink and call it a night,” she said rolling up her window and waving as she drove off.
What in the world should she do, she thought as she backed out of the parking space and started toward the home plate, which was the name for the main gate. It was the first time she had ever been worried about passing through the security gates. She had worried for nothing as the guard waved and motioned her through like every other night.
As she drove toward her place at Rachel, a small town just across the way from Area-51, she tried to think of her options. She could do nothing and just get rid of the badge. Two, she could go to security and say she found it. Or she could tell them what she saw at Beacon and confront them with the Badge. None of them sounded very positive.
She considered going to the Lincoln County Sheriff but he wouldn’t do anything but call the base and she would be right back to square one. Whatever action she decided to take, she needed to be careful. If something was going on and she told the wrong person, she could end up in the cell next to Raymond Eller. It was obvious that whatever was taking place, General Devin was in it up to his eyeballs.
The next morning when she arrived at the infirmary a patrol car was sitting outside. She got out and opened the door and a few seconds later two of the guards came in. She had seen them around but wasn’t sure of their names.
“Yes can I help you?” she asked as she took off her coat and hung it up.
“General Devin would like to speak with you,” the tall one said.
“Oh? Well I need to get everything set up for today. I’m giving flu shots this morning. Would you like to get one now?”
“No thanks. The shots will have to wait. The general wants to speak with you immediately,” he said.
“I guess it’s Okay but this is most unusual. People will be coming in expecting me to be here. Do you know how long it will take?”
“As long as it takes,” he said.
“I’ll leave a note on the door then,” she said, quickly scribbling out a note and sticking it on the door with tape. They walked with her out to the Jeep and drove her to the security building. General Devin was sitting behind a desk when she was shown in.
“General,” she said, nodding at him.
“Ms. Angelina Beck. Have a seat,” he said, not getting up.
“General, I need to get the infirmary open. We are giving flu shots today,” she told him.
“Yes. Yes. That will all get done in time. I want to ask you a couple of questions. You were here last night asking about Raymond Eller, were you not?”
“Who? Is that the man that they said was dead? Eaten by coyotes?” she said looking puzzled.
He looked at her for a few seconds before answering, “Yes. His name is Raymond Eller. You were asking about him.”
“I didn’t know his name, but I did ask if he was officially dead. I have to submit a report to the State with the cause of death. It’s required by law,” she replied.
“So you said. Are you sure about that?”
“I most certainly am,” she said, frowning. “Why? What’s this all about?” she asked trying to cover the fear that was creeping up inside of her.
“I believe that is the job of the Chief of the Medical staff. Not the nurse,” he replied.
“Maybe you forgot. He is in Las Vegas at a medical convention. He isn’t due back until Friday. The State requires notification within forty-eight hours in the event of a death,” she said.
“I see. So you were just making sure we were within the confines of the law, correct?”
“Absolutely. Why else would I bother to ask? I didn’t know him,” she replied.
“You have never seen him before?”
“Heck no. I wouldn’t know him if he was standing next to you. I mean, our paths may have crossed but I have never treated him. I really don’t know him,” she said.
“That’s what Peter said,” the general replied.
“What?”
“Never mind, it’s from the Bible,” the general replied.
She wanted to stick as close to the truth as possible and what she had said so far was mostly true. She only suspected the man at Beacon was Eller.
“Thank you for your time Ms. Beck. You can go back and attend to your flu shots or whatever you were doing,” he said.
She got up and started to leave but turned back.
“Why are you asking me this? I don’t get it. The law requires me to file a death report and all I am doing is keeping us within the framework of those provisions. I’m trying to do my job and you are grilling me. What do you really want?”
