Project Lazarus (47 page)

He grabbed the notes and the tin box spoiled with dirt and threw them in his shoulder bag.

Carefully, he quickly worked putting the dirt back and smoothing it out, so no one might notice.

He had three minutes and twelve seconds before the drones were out.

He ran.

He took his beat up old bike and drifted out of the farm and Cotter back to the safe haven of Mountain View.

Jackson made his way into the underground bunker he built over twenty years ago on his property.  Lauralie was safe back at the house and these discussions could never take place in the home.

He glanced at the phone sitting on the desk for the past ten years.  Battery changed dutifully every year.  He hoped she might break protocol and call him one day during all those years.   There were many nights he lost sleep waiting for that phone call.  But it never came.

It was time.  Time to dial the phone number.

His hands trembling, he put the phone back down, a few more minutes wouldn’t make much of a difference.

Jackson picked up the week old bottle of vodka.  Even he had secrets.  This wasn’t a part of him he wanted Laurlie to see.  She didn’t know about his little habit.  He was good at hiding it.  After the destruction in Cotter, he took up his little hobby and it wasn’t long before it became a necessary need.  He fed the need whenever the thoughts got too much.  He thought about a program when Lauralie got pregnant but he couldn’t enter something the government might know about with so much at stake.

He got his liquor for pay and from friends.  It wasn’t a great way to live but sometimes it felt like the only way he could live.

With the glass in his hand, he poured steadily and filled it all the way to the top and sipped slowly.  He then smashed the vodka bottle against the wall and watched it smear against the ratty yellow paint.  If he was lucky, no one would bring him the bottles he requested and that would be his last drink.  But luck was something you made, or so he heard.  Either way, it didn’t matter.

Those few sips were numbing him.  It was a short time before he reached the empty glass and wondered why he threw the bottle against the wall.  He might have gone into a full out panic, if he didn’t have a bottle of bourbon stashed in his wall safe.

Jackson walked back to the desk with the phone.

He picked it up slowly and dialed.

It rang.  No answer.

This was the first time in ten years he heard that ring.

It rang again.  No answer.

He lowered his head.

It rang and rang and he waited.

Finally, an answer, “Hello,” the woman’s voice said on the other end.

“Natalie?”  He asked, his heart pounding out of his chest.

“This is Jill.”

Dead silence.

“Are you there?”  Asked the woman on the other end.

“Yes,” he answered.

And then the words he had been waiting to hear.

“Leave no one behind.”

His heart flew out of his chest.  Natalie Winston, now Jill Timor, was alive.

Jill Timor was the new Natalie Winston living a very quiet life in the small Midwestern town of Elkhart, Wisconsin.

She was so deep underground, she didn’t even own a car or possess a single credit card.  She didn’t have a job because she didn’t want to file taxes.  Anything she did, she got paid in cash.  She was a dog walker, a baby sitter and had a beautiful organic garden.  She sold handmade jewelry and her organic vegetables at local farmers markets that didn’t make her fill out too much paperwork.

She was frugal.  She was lonely.  She was invisible. 

She was alive and she had one hell of a story to tell.

She didn’t spend her time on the phone telling Jackson about her new life.

“I’ve been watching the way the wind blows and I’ve found someone worthy.  Been spending most of my time reading.”

Jackson knew what the cryptic words meant.  She found a journalist to report the story to.

“When is the wind gonna blow?”

“Next week,” she told him.

“See you then,” he told her.

“You’re in my thoughts.”

He wanted to ask about the Sherriff.  He wanted to tell her his thoughts about Project Lazarus but it was too hot.  He didn’t dare.  There would be plenty of time for that.

Jill Timor, the former dead Natalie Winston, was about to blow the whistle on the whole thing and he couldn’t wait.

Jill called up a renowned up and coming journalist out of D.C. she had followed for years.  It was his books on patriots and injustice that made him so valuable to her.  He was hungry for a story.  And she was hungry to write it with him.

She courted Demond Wilts for months before he agreed to come to Elkhorn, Wisconsin to meet with her in person.

The vast amount of information and documentation she had convinced him she was the real deal.  She had planned it all out.  The truth was about to hit the fan.

She didn’t give him everything on Project Lazarus but the minute the words hit print, the government wanted Natalie Winston dead or alive.

She got the phone call from Jackson a day after the story broke.

“Get out,” he warned her.

“We didn’t plan for this.”

“It’s too hot.  They know you know more,” he told her.

“What do I do?”

“You’ve got to get out of the country.”

The conversation lasted three minutes before Jill Timor packed her bags and fled to the airport.  She couldn’t get far enough away.

She had no idea what to do when she ended up in the Switzerland airport.

“I’m sorry miss but we’ve been told to confiscate your passport.”

“You’re safe in the airport,” Jackson told her, “remember it’s neutral territory.  They can’t take you unless Switzerland makes you go.”

“What now?”

“You made the world news kiddo.  Your story is out.  Not all of it just the part about the resurrection.”

“I kept the rest for later.”

“Time to deal,” Jackson advised her.

“Think they’ll let me stay.”

“Yes, Miss Winston you’re an invaluable bargaining chip.  Someone will definitely find you a home.”

“Thank God.  It’ over,” she confided.

Government officials quickly denounced her as a spy, selling secrets.  Her safety was timely, as death knocked at her door.

What she knew about the demolition of Cotter was far worse than a few dead people raised.

The resurrection men were after her and she became a kind of cartoon character in the press.  Some saw her as a vigilante, a journalist and others a traitor.   There was a need for freedom.  There was a demand for justice and it was all on her head when she printed the following editorial in The Washington Post.

“It seems to me the pen is mightier than the sword.  Perhaps that’s too cliché for the men and women that would like to see me pay for doing my job.  I am the last of the true journalists.  It is my understanding the great journalist Demond Wilts will be dismissed when this is published and for that I am truly sorry and feel responsible.  My own consolation is in knowing that history will judge us accordingly. 

In a country where people are supposed to be free, the scale has become unbalanced.  In my attempts to balance that scale, I could care less what happens to me.  I want people to know that while they sleep and try to find a way to feed their children or take care of their elderly parents, there are others destroying what they are working for.  Their lives are dispensable to these individuals.

 I care about us all.  I hope you do too.  Because it takes every single one of us to make a difference and share our stories. Only a few are brave enough to leave everything and everyone they love behind so that others may live a better life.  My story is one of many.  I have a feeling the truth will prevail.  This is not a call for anyone to step up to the plate.  But know this I can put my head down on a pillow and go to sleep at night.  If you can’t do the same, perhaps it is time to at least see my side of the story.  For it is just that- a story.  I had a story to tell and I hope you dear reader learned something from my story.

I will gladly spend my days and nights in the Switzerland airport.  I have a feeling that is not the end to my story but just the beginning.

Freedom is worth the price my friends and others have died for less.”

Natalie Winston remained in the Switzerland airport for over two years until a deal was made.

She could never go back and see her family or the country our forefathers built.

She was given one year in Switzerland.  She had no idea what she would do from there or where she would go.

It was a sad and lonely life much like the one she came into the world with, hardship and difficulty had befriended her early in life which made her so equipped for the task at hand.

She couldn’t back down now.  The next year would be spent writing twelve to twenty-four hours a day.  It was killing her.  But the ambition in her was keeping her alive.

She was in love with a ghost.  The ghost was the Natalie Winston she used to know.

The ghost would fade.  She could never go back.

She spent the days writing and waiting.  Surely, someone would find her and save her.

Yet in her heart she knew the truth.  She would have to save herself and she was fine with that.

Project Lazarus was the tip of a very long sword and the pen was about to cut that sword down. 

“Let the others sit aside living quiet lives and hoping the local police don’t find out what they really think about the disabled school in their neighborhood being torn down.  Please don’t quote me. Half of the county budget goes to the police.  Let the corruption go on and the people wait.  When we self-implode, let the aggressors be at the center of the destruction this time.  There is no blood on my hands.  Just ink.”

The editorial was complete and the greatest journalist of our century had her words in print.  The American dream was still alive just hanging on and hoping not to flat line.