Ark (19 page)

The rec room was empty. Where the big model of the ark and Tabernacle had been stood the foundation of the display that Jim had never seen, a large mahogany pool table. The overhead light that had once illuminated the holy of holies now spotlighted a rack of balls in a bright circle of green felt.

“Do you play?” asked John.

“I knew I recognized the setup. A pool table,” said Jim.

When Jim was younger he’d often gone with Lou and Werner to play pool. He told John his memories of playing a hot game of pool at a room in South Philly, how he and a friend were given a fin by a hoodlum and forced to give the table to two other players. In mere seconds the table was littered with hundreds, fifties and twenty dollar bills. Jim remembered the money vividly because there were no tens or anything smaller in the pile of cash. Those were the days when a ten dollar bill was serious money. “I remember like it was yesterday,” said Jim as he lifted a pool cue from the rack and tested its balance. “Then the cash that littered the table was gathered up and pocketed by this little guy in a blue suit.”

John racked the balls and chalked a pearl handled cue that was lying on the table. “Sometimes this is the only way I can relax,” said John. He put away the rack and crossed to the other side of the table. Seemingly without aiming, he shot the cue ball into the rack of balls. From the explosive crack of John’s break, Jim expected the balls to fly from the table. Curiously, they stayed on track, hugging the felt. Two balls, three, then four fell rudely into pockets all around the table.

“Just dive right in, John,” said Jim, with raised eyebrows. “Who taught you that style?”

“Style?” said John. “Seven in the corner.”

John took the shot but seemed to miss on purpose. He stood up and looked at Jim. “Go.”

Jim was beyond rusty. He had to think hard just to remember how to hold the stick. “Shit,” he said. “It has been a long time. What do I do?”

“It’s just a game of nine ball. Call the eight. Open rules,” said John, walking to the bar at the rear of the room.

Jim called the seven that teetered on the edge of the corner pocket. John had set up the shot but he took it anyway. The ball went into the pocket with a satisfying ‘clunk.’ Jim looked at John and smiled. “I have to thank you for that setup, John.”

John’s face was out of the light, All Jim could see of him was his simple white shirt and dark denim pants cinched with a belt that sported a gold twenty dollar gold piece. It sparkled in the light. Jim tried to see John’s eyes.

“How good are you at keeping secrets?” asked John.

Jim stood up straight. He sighed. “What secrets?” he asked. “Secret birthday parties? On a scale of one to ten? Seven, maybe.”

“Secrets. Military secrets.”

“I don’t have much practice at it, I’m afraid,” said Jim. “People call me a straight shooter.” Jim hated not seeing John’s face. He moved around to the other side of the table.

“A different shot?” asked John. “Good idea, try the twelve.”

Jim lowered his cue. “I know you want to talk to me. I’m all ears, John.”

Eventually Jim convinced John Wilcox that the matter of the ark was a dead issue among his friends and family. Just another of Jim’s petty projects.

“They bought that?”

Jim told John about the problems he’d had at The Raftworks.

John countered with a proposal that Jim hire a student or two to fill in for him for the summer.

“Gene and I are going to need to hire you full time,” said John, “and Uncle Sam needs you to keep the subject as though it never happened. Tell them you’re working on a catalog or something.”

“That would work. Sure,” said Jim.

“Great!” exclaimed John He came out from behind the bar and slapped Jim on the back. “You’ll have to learn to lie a bit.”

“I think I can do it,” said Jim with a bit of trepidation in his voice, “but it would help if I knew what I was getting into.”

“July fourth is fairly close to the time of assembly,” said John. “That’s over a week away.”

“But what the hell am I going to do?” said Jim.

“Be there, Jim,” said Gene. “Pay close attention to the General, pretend to be busy. You know the drill,” he added with a smile.

#

The engine of the military jet whined as the airplane tilted on approach to Los Alamos airfield. Jim looked down at the steep ravines below and felt his stomach heave as the plane righted itself and began its descent.

A thunderstorm blotted out the airfield. On the tarmac Jim and Gene found themselves drenched by the rain and holding luggage while they waited for the Jeep. The only umbrella was occupied by the imposing presence of John’s father, General Wilcox.

“Welcome to Thunderbolt, Jim,” he said. “From this moment your ass is in Uncle Sammy’s hip pocket and your mouth and mind are a national security issue. No,” he corrected himself, “make that an international security issue.”

A bolt of lightning illuminated the rectangular buildings that lined the runway.

“Thunderbolt,” said Jim to John who was standing next to him, leather jacket pulled over his head. “You even arranged for special effects to punctuate your Dad’s welcome. I’m impressed.”

“You should be,” replied John, his voice muffled under his hunched up jacket. “It takes real influence to pull off a reception like this.”

“Well, we ARE building the Ark of the Covenant, after all,” quipped Gene.

As the three of them stood by the plane trading clever comments, John’s father walked back and forth on the tarmac waiting for the vehicles to arrive.

Finally two pair of headlights approached them.

“If I’d known it was going to be a cloudburst I’d have had you wait in the plane,” said the General as they drove toward the hangars at the edge of the airport. “I hope you packed to stay at least a month.”

“Packing was the least of my problems,” said Jim. “My partner was kind of angry about me taking this job, even though I found a freelancer who’s real good. Lou always goes into a panic with changes.”

“How did your wife take the news that you’d be away for a while?” asked General Wilcox.

“This is the time of year she usually drives to Milwaukee to see her sister. Taking the dog. So it’s not a problem.”

“What did you use as a cover story?” asked the General.

“I told them that your son recommended me to a company in Arizona, that I’m working on designs for a trade show in the fall.”

“Did you give them details?” asked the General.

“I said I’d check in with all of them.” Jim was aware that he was being briefed or debriefed or whatever but he didn’t mind. He knew he’d have to go through several interrogations.

“Not every day, I hope,” said General Wilcox.

“What?”

“Did you tell everyone that you’d call them every day?”

“Of course not,” said Jim. “I said I’d call when I got the chance.”

“Last question,” continued the General. “Did you give them, your friends and family, a date for your return?”

“I said I’d be in touch on that.”

“Good,” said the General.

Once everyone was in the Jeeps they drove past a long row of frame buildings, each looking exactly like the next and bearing only number designations. Clearly the base was structured for deception. Jim thought that anything at all could be going on in those buildings.

“What’s going on inside those buildings, General?” he asked.

“Nothing,” said the General. “Everything is underground, here.”

“So what’s in the buildings?” Jim repeated, confused.

“I told you, Jim. Nothing. Those are decoys for satellite imaging.”

“All those buildings? Just shells?”

“Are you really surprised?” asked Gene. “After all your railing about cost-plus government contracts?”

“Cost plus buys us security, Jim,” said the General without taking his eyes off the road. “You can’t even think about technological superiority these days without expanding the deficit.”

“I thought we defeated the Russians,” said Jim.

“Whoever said we were worried about the Russians?” asked the General. “We don’t worry about Ivan, out there stomping his shoes where we can see him. It’s those other shits, the sneaky ones you don’t hear about.”

“Who might they be?” asked Jim.

The General looked at Gene. “You didn’t bring a goddamned bleeding heart into this, did you, Henson?”

“I did, Sir. As ordered,” Gene said with a smile.

“Good for you, Henson,” replied the General, returning his eyes to the sheets of rain on the windshield.

Jim sat in silence for the rest of the trip to their quarters.

Jim swore that the elevator ride took five minutes to get down to the level where the doors opened and two soldiers waited. The floor number on the opposite wall read 112.

The General stayed on the elevator. “These two will show you to your quarters. Until the morning, then.” General Wilcox gave everyone a casual salute.

The two soldiers saluted back as the elevator doors closed. They ushered Gene and Jim, still dripping from the rain, to a room at the end of the hall. The place reminded Jim of a hotel. There were even seats by the elevators with mirrors and plants nearby.

Wordlessly the soldiers saluted and left after unlocking the door. Jim noticed they kept the keys.

The room looked like a library with racks of books and pamphlets as well as two desktop computers. To the left was a small kitchenette and to the right two rooms with beds visible through opened folding doors. “I guess those are the bedrooms,” said Gene. “Pick one.”

“I’m left handed,” said Jim. “I’ll take that one.”

A TV screen on the wall blinked on. White lettering scrolled across it: PUSH “I” KEY FOR VID COM — PUSH “S” KEY FOR SOUND ONLY.

Gene pushed the “I” key. Immediately the face of General Wilcox appeared on the screen. “Hi, boys,” he said. “Thought I’d test this damned thing. Yes, I can see you both. Do you need anything?”

“Some beers?” said Gene.

“This is a military base,” said the General.

“Sorry, Sir.”

“Nothing but the best here,” laughed the General. “You’ll find some cans in the refrigerator. Under the sink, I believe.”

“Thanks, General,” said Gene. “Nifty setup.”

The General looked puzzled.

“The video link,” said Gene. “Very cool.”

The General smiled. “Cool,” he said. “I like that.”

#

Gene knew a bit about Los Alamos, mostly from a civilian viewpoint. Up on a mesa and surrounded by nothing but desert and canyons, the base was a catchall for experiments and development, both military and private, but all bonafide red, white and blue. In the last twenty or so years the military’s fourth branch, the intelligence community, had managed to forge a niche that blurred the differences between military and civilian. At Los Alamos, ‘civilian’ simply meant ‘vendor’.

Right out of college, Gene had begun his career as a vendor to General Electric, under contract to work on Air Force documents, from a company that supplied talent where it was needed. He had three employers, and one of them was the U.S. Air Force. In the sixties, this required something called Air Force Clearance, a thorough investigation by the F.B.I. From Gene’s viewpoint, it was meaningless to try to define the Ark Project as military or civilian research.

Talking privately in their cubby in the bowels of Los Alamos, Gene was intimidated enough to admit that the military knew how many freckles were on his backside. He had no secrets from them, but that was the price of specialized study.

Soon that would be equally true of Jim. “Look at it this way, Jim,” said Gene, “this is your country doing Operation Thunderbolt, not the military. Finally, instead of just serving yourself you’ll be serving your country, and you get paid.”

“To say that the military doesn’t run things is absurd,” said Jim. “Big Brother is running the show, I guess, right?”

Gene laughed. “That implies organization. Try again.”

Jim sat on the bed and drank his beer. He noticed that it was hitting him fairly hard. “Hey, I guess I’m as much of a sellout as anyone. I even lied to Kas about coming here. Now I’m part of the thing I’ve spent my life railing about. Military patronage and secrets. Isn’t that a fucking kick?”

“I guess it’s even more ironic that you don’t have to keep your attitude secret, if you don’t want to. You are here as an observer and because you know about the ark. When General Wilcox thought it through he realized that you ARE part of the thing. You discovered the key to how it works.”

Jim noticed that there was a box of cigarettes on the night stand. He thought about having one but avoided the urge. It had become a familiar little battle. He turned his attention to the blank video screen on the wall.

“Is that two-way? Can we call out?”

“Call out?”

“I told Kas that I’d leave a message on the machine for her. I just want her to know I arrived okay.”

Gene laughed. “You’re acting as though you need permission, Jim. No, you can call out.”

“This is a secret operation,” said Jim. “What if I was to say something, you know ...?”

“I guess they monitor the calls. VR computers.”

“VR?” asked Jim.

“Voice recognition,” explained Gene, leaning over one of the desks. Piled there were papers relevant to Operation Thunderbolt and a laptop.

Taking that as a cue, Jim decided to examine his own desk. The computer fascinated him. On its hard drive were folders with names relevant to the ark. Next to it was a disk holder containing a stack of CDs.

A center section of the desk could be lifted to provide a drawing table. “Wow! Seems like they thought of everything.”

“It doesn’t take a genius to think an artist needs a drawing table, Jim,” said Gene, still searching his desk. “Ah, here it is.” He pulled a compact disk out of its jewel box holder. “The simulation.”

Gene connected a plug to his laptop, and the wall screen showed the computer program of the resonating ark they’d seen at the university. With a few keystrokes Gene activated the simulation.

“Courtesy of Mr. Megabyte,” Gene said with a grin. “He’s here, too.”

“That loony?” said Jim. “What do you mean, here?”

“At Los Alamos,” said Gene. “He’s over in the computer wing where they have better, more powerful shit. Told me that the floorboards of the place were, how did he put it? Oh. Lined with gigabyte SIMMs.”