NaNoWriMo, Day Nineteen

While I normally put in a lot of  internal links to previous, related posts here, I won’t be doing that for what I hope will be thirty NaNoWriMo posts. If you have jumped into or stumbled onto this story in mid-adventure, there are plenty of other ways to navigate around the site to find previous installments. Actually doing so is left as an exercise to the student.

The number of term papers and academic documents I’ve written over the years has no doubt had a large influence on how I write, if not what I write. In that sense, as I’m writing and researching and getting scenes and events straight in my head, I start building a library of “supporting documents”. These days, with the internet at your fingertips, that’s pretty easy. But while many folks might just look up a fact and then move on, I grab a copy of my data so that I can have it all together in one place.

For this story so far, I’ve got over two dozen maps and Google Earth captures, so that I can make sure I know accurately how to get from place to place, how long it will take, and where it’s low and flat versus where it’s high and mountainous. I’ve got the local tourism brochures downloaded from the various cities. I’ve got aviation charts to make sure Margaret and Tom were really in unrestricted air space. I’ve got airline schedules to make sure that I’ve got the commercial flights right. I have spec sheets, pictures, and price quotes on both the Kawasaki Ninja 650 motorcycle and the Chevrolet Tahoe SUV. And so on.

Maybe I’m just anal (well, okay, I am anal, no “maybe” about it) but I find it really useful to have all of that backup at my fingertips, especially later when I’m editing and I want to know, “Why did you do that?” Since it’s fiction and I’m just yanking stuff out of thin air, maybe I won’t have to do an audited fact check for anyone else, but I may have to do one for myself at some point.

(By the way, tonight’s work puts me over the 50,000 word mark to “win” NaNoWriMo, even though the story’s only about half done.)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“Hello…” was all that Margaret got out before Jason cut her off.

“Please let me talk first. My location is secure and I know that this connection is secure. However, your location might not be secure, so anything you say could be overheard. Until we establish some physical security protocols at your end, you shouldn’t say anything that you don’t want overheard. Try to stick to ‘yes’ and ‘no’ type answers if you can. Is that clear?”

Margaret was taken aback. After being woken up from a much needed sound sleep, another jolt of adrenaline had her on edge. But as soon as Jason gave her the instructions, she realized that they made sense. “Yes, you’re correct,” she said.

“Good. Let me try to give you some information so that you know that you can trust me. Okay?”

“Yes, please do,” Margaret said.

“I’m a security expert with a lot of connections and access to some top of the line software toys. One of those is what got downloaded to your phone and computer. As long as they’re not physically compromised from this point onward, you should be able to use them without worrying about being spied on. That software also is filtering the video feeds from your building security cameras. I’ll be able to see the real video feed and I’ll set up some bots to monitor it. They’ll watch to make sure that no one gets in to physically bug the place from here forward. Are you okay with all of that?”

“Sure, that sounds okay, but I’ll have questions later.”

“No worries. Now, Tom and I have only known each other for about a week. At that point there was a security issue at Tom’s home and I got the call. Based on the details of that event, Tom went to find his aunt. It seems to have gone down the rabbit hole from there. Is it safe to assume that something’s happened to Tom, yes or no?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know if he’s been harmed or killed?”

“No.”

“Has Tom disappeared or been taken?”

“Yes.”

“Was it voluntary?”

“Kind of, but not really.”

“Do you know who did this?”

“Maybe.”

“Are you in danger?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Have you been threatened?”

“Yes”

“I see.” Jason paused for a moment. “You sent that SOS message to me using the GPS. That was very clever by the way, and very gutsy if you’re in danger also. It’s one of the reasons I decided to trust you. Up until now Tom and I were the only ones in on this wild goose chase. But since that message was ‘written’ using the tracker on Ellen’s car, either you’ve got Ellen’s car or else you’ve got that tracker. Right?”

“The second choice is better.”

“Then I see that Tom’s tracker went dead. Do you know about that?”

“Yes, I saw that.”

“Okay. I spent last night working with Tom to go over the pictures that he took on the balloon flight with you. I think he told you that he was writing an article for a science magazine and taking pictures of rocks and geology formations. Right?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know yet that it was just a cover story?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know what the real target was on that flight?”

“A little.”

“The short version is there’s a compound of buildings out there in the desert we needed to look at. It looks like some kind of self-contained compound. Do you know which one I’m talking about?”

“Yes, I do.”

“We’ve seen some very odd things in trying to track down Tom’s aunt, things which indicate that someone with a lot of money, a lot of expertise, and a lot of very good tech is working to keep that place hidden. It looks like they probably saw you flying over and freaked out.”

“Yes, they did.”

“So you got threatened so that they could find out who Tom was.”

“Right.”

“And that led them to Tom and they grabbed him.”

“Not quite, but close enough.”

“You’re at your office in the hanger, correct?” Jason asked.

“Yeah, but how…”

“You have security cameras there and I’m tapped into them, remember?”

“Oh, right. Okay.”

“I’ve downloaded your security video for the last two days and I see where you got two visitors this morning, dudes in expensive suits. Are those the guys who were threatening you?”

“Yes.”

“At the same time they were inside, another guy was outside and looks like he was messing with your jeep. Did you know about that?”

“No. No I didn’t.”

“It’s possible that your jeep was bugged, and it’s possible that one of the suits put something in your office. We can assume that if they really wanted to, they could have broken into your home, bugged it, and you would never know. Do you have security or video cameras at home?”

“No. It’s New Mexico.”

“Right. Sometimes I forget that not everyone lives in Los Angeles. So for the moment, be very cautious what you say at home, in the office, or in your car. But I doubt that they could have put anything on you personally unless they’ve held you or touched you in some way. Do you remember if they did?”

Margaret thought about it for a minute. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Is there someplace you can go outside, not home, not in your car, so we can talk freely? Anyplace you can walk for coffee or food or something?”

“Yeah, let me get my coat. Hold on.” She muted the phone and put it in her pocket.

Margaret had fallen asleep in her clothes, so she grabbed her coat, hat, and gloves. She locked up as she left. It was crisp and cold outside, hovering around freezing, with a little wind. The sky was crystal clear and the stars were brilliant. Orion was rising high overhead in the east.

As she got to the sidewalk and started walking toward the all-night coffee shop down on the main highway, she took her wireless headset out of the coat pocket and put it on. As the headset activated, she reconnected the call and put the phone back into her pocket.

“Are you there?” she asked.

“Loud and clear. You should be okay to talk as long as there’s no one around. So tell me what’s happened and what you need from me first.”

“Okay, first, I didn’t sell out Tom. Those rat bastard lawyers came in and started trying to tell me how they were going to shut me down. That’s bullshit and I know it, so I told them to take a hike and I didn’t tell them who Tom was. Got it?”

“Got it. My apologies if I assumed you did. So how did they find him? What happened?”

Margaret spent a few minutes walking Jason through the events earlier in the day, including her confrontation with Tom, his discovery of the tracker from Ellen’s car on her jeep, the confrontation with Ellen, and her efforts to figure out how to get his attention.

“Now I’ve got a few questions for you,” Margaret said. “What was this ‘security issue’ at Tom’s house that started all of this? A mass murder? Did Tom get caught spying for the Russians or planning some terrorist action?”

“Nothing like that. It’s going to sound really stupid and trivial at first, but you still are only seeing a small piece of the picture, so don’t judge. You might want to really think about how much of the big picture you really want to know, we’re heading into serious Twilight Zone territory. The short version is that Tom was attacked and scratched by his cat. His yelling triggered a security bot, and the security video showed something in his house that was really, really bizarre. But Tom couldn’t see it, only his cat could.”

Margaret walked silently for a while, chewing over this new information. She was trying to avoid losing her temper, but it was getting harder with every step. The more she thought about it, the more furious she got.

“I can hear you breathing and I can see that you’re still walking,” Jason said. “Are you okay?”

“We’ll see. Let me make sure I didn’t hear you incorrectly. Tom’s chased across three or four states for a week trying to find his aunt. No problem, that still makes sense. But you’re telling me that he was sent on this quest because the two of you are chasing ghosts or something? And because of this I’m not being threatened, my son is possibly in danger, my business could be shut down, and Tom might have been kidnapped or killed by some super secret conspiracy cult of some sort? Are your guys out of your freaking minds?” She wasn’t yelling. She didn’t want to attract that kind of attention. But she was sure that her fury came through loud and clear.

“That’s correct, and why I warned you to not over react. You haven’t seen what we have. When this first happened, Tom needed me to send the paramedics to his house, and my reaction was a lot more graphic and loud than yours just was. I’m really hoping that you’ll trust me and hang in there until you see the evidence.”

“Show me this evidence,” Margaret spat.

(Chapter Seventeen to be continued)