Operation (17 page)

 End Message.

__________

TOP SECRET

FLASH MESSAGE: AGENCY EYES ONLY

Date: 24 October 1944    

From: Agent 001

To:  Agent 035

1. Confirmation of shipment.

ENCRYPTED TEXT

Cargo flight; 29 October, 1800 hours local time, Naples, Italy to United States. Proceed with all caution. Destination is Naval Air Station, Monogram Field, Suffolk, Virginia. Site is secure and at your disposal. Agree to termination of all others in order to maintain secrecy at your own determination.

End message.

Part IV

Chapter One

Abandoned Naval Monogram Field Site, Suffolk, Virginia

P
RESENT
D
AY

“Come on, there isn’t anything to worry about. I’ve been there a bunch of times,” Brett said, as he and Joe snuck away from the high school.

“I don’t know,” Joe said. “I mean, what if…”

“What are you, scared or something?” Brett accused.

“Scared? No. It’s just some empty buildings...” Joe answered, his words and tone sounding somewhere between a statement and a question.

“Well then, there’s nothing to worry about, is there?” Brett smiled, knowing that Joe would not back down now. He took a few steps without saying anything and Joe silently fell into step with him.

The two teenagers cut across the running track behind Nansemond River High School. The grass was still wet with the morning dew and by the looks of the sky, it would be raining any minute. School was almost over for the year, yet the satisfaction of cutting some classes was too tempting for the two teens to pass up.

As they walked away from the school and through a small field where the grass was knee high, the dampness soaked into their jeans making their pant legs slap against their ankles with a swishing sound. They looked cautiously behind them to make sure that no one had noticed their departure.

They approached the fence line of the abandoned Naval base site and peered through the chain links. Occasionally, there would be vehicles parked inside the compound, but today there were none.

“This way,” Brett called. “See.”

Brett was pointing to the opening in the gates where the chain that fastened them together gaped, large enough for the lanky teenagers to squeeze through.

“Yeah, but if it isn’t pulled tight, maybe someone is in there?” Joe asked. “And if we go through we’ll get into a world of shit.”

“Don’t be stupid. Look. If someone were in there, would the chain be on the gate? Duh!”

“No. I guess not,” Joe agreed.

“Besides, we aren’t going to the building that the city uses anyway. There is another building in the back that no one goes to. I’ve heard—”

“What do you mean, you heard?” questioned Joe. “I thought you were here before?”

Brett’s face flushed. “Not exactly. I heard some of the other guys talking about it.”

“You’re so full of shit!” Joe said.

“Well, we’re here, we might as well take a look. Come on.”

Joe looked at Brett for a moment as if he was going to say no, but changed his mind and followed him. They shimmied through the opening and walked along the old crumbling cement road, riddled with potholes filled with weeds growing in wild abundance. They walked for about ten minutes; the further they went, the more the paved area gave way to a mixture of dirt and gravel.

“That one,” Brett said, as he pointed off in the distance. “The long building.”

“Why is it so long?” Joe asked.

“I don’t know, maybe it was the way they made the buildings back then. Someone said it used to be where the people slept—they called it a barracks or something.”

Thunder boomed overhead.

“Great, now we’re going to get drenched!” exclaimed Joe.

“Not if you move that fat ass of yours! Let’s go!” Brett said, as he started running in the direction of the building.

By the time the first drops started coming down, the two boys had made it under the eave of the building. The building was built out of cinder blocks. Around it, the ground was littered with pieces of peeling paint, the windows and doors covered with sheets of rotted plywood looking ready to fall off.

“This way,” Brett said. “Come on.”

Pushing aside a rotting piece of plywood; Brett and Joe entered the building. Splotches of dim light from the overcast sky filtered through holes in the roof and drifted through the dank air, which smelled of rotting and decaying wood.

The area inside the building contained old-style metal bunk beds and lockers, haphazardly lying about, quietly rusting away. A long narrow passageway led off into the darkness. The two boys moved to their right and followed the passageway. In less than a minute, the smell of damp rotting wood became stronger and mixed with smell of animal and human waste.

“Aw man, it stinks in here,” Joe said.

“Yeah it does, smells like someone has been using the place; some homeless people or something,” Brett replied.

“I can’t see shit.”

“No. But I can smell it,” Brett said and laughed.

“Very funny. Let’s go back the other way, it didn’t smell as bad.”

They reversed direction. In a few minutes, they reached an area where the passageway stopped and seemed to empty into an open area. The two boys stopped and peered into the dark void in front of them.

“What’s that?” asked Brett.

“What?”

“There, in the corner,” Brett said, as he pointed.

Joe looked in the direction Brett pointed, but couldn’t make out anything.

“I don’t see anything.”

“It’s like a …I don’t know, a pile of something. Come on, let’s take a look.”

Brett took a step forward, but Joe didn’t move.

“You need to hold my hand?” Brett said.

“Screw you!” Joe said. “You homo!”

“Well, let’s go, then.”

As they walked forward, the smell grew stronger, but neither one said anything. A crack of thunder sounded and the gray light dimmed even further.

“We need a flashlight,” Joe said.

“Right here,” Brett said as he took a small flashlight from his pocket. “I came prepared.”

He turned on the flashlight and pointed it in the direction of the object in question. The light barely penetrated the misty darkness.

“That’s great,” Joe said.

“Yeah. So much for…”

“What?”

“Do you feel that?” Joe asked.

“What?”

“Cold. It’s as if someone opened a door to a refrigerator.”

“You’re crazy,” Brett said. “I think your imagination is fucking with you.” He laughed. “Maybe…oooohhhhhh…it’s Count Dracula coming to pay you a visit. He wants to suck your blood.”

Silence.

“Come on, Joe. So scared you can’t talk now?”

Silence.

“Joe? Very funny.”

Silence.

“Okay now. Enough is enough with your little joke.” Brett turned in a circle. The flashlight’s beam refused to penetrate the mist, which appeared to have thickened.

“Joe?”

It was then that Brett heard a sound. It reminded him of when you eat watermelon: t the soft crunch and then the sucking-licking sound as you try to capture all the juice in your mouth. He turned in that direction but couldn’t see anything.

“Joe? Are you—” A hand touched his shoulder. “Aah!” Brett screamed and ran forward. He ran about ten steps before he tripped and fell. His flashlight slid along the cement floor. When the light came to a stop, it illuminated the decomposed face of a young man.

The eyes that gazed back at him were nothing but a gray mush that oozed from the sockets. The skin looked like the peeling paint that he had seen on the outside of the building earlier. Gazing at the dead man’s face, Bret felt the sudden warmth in his groin as he pissed his pants.

“Oh…fuck me…” he groaned. “I’m getting the hell outta here!”

Brett raised himself to his knees and was about to stand when something hit him in the back, sending him back down to the floor. The force of the collision knocked the wind out of him and he grew lightheaded. He forced himself to suck in the air, which was cold and smelled of something worse than the earlier rotting wood and waste. During those seconds as he gasped the foul smelling air, a new sensation arrived; he felt something dripping onto him. It was warm and sticky. And on
top
of him. He braced his hands against the cement floor and pushed with all his might. Shaky, he managed to turn himself over, dumping it beside him. Now he saw what had hit him. It was wearing Joe’s clothes. It was Joe, or what remained of him. He was missing his head. The dripping he had felt earlier was the blood still squirting from the neck.

Brett scrambled to his feet. He couldn’t remember which way they had come in. He stood frozen for several seconds, looking in all directions for some kind of bearing. Finally, he just decided to run, but as he took his first step, he felt an icy grip grasp his neck.

The last perception of life that Brett had was the odd mixture of the smell of damp earth mixed with a sweetness that reminded him of perfume.

Chapter Two

The Suffolk Virginia police car arrived at the gate of the old Naval base site. Officer Arthur Blackwater was assisting the detectives in the disappearance of two teenagers who went missing on Friday. The old Naval site was on the list of possible places they may have ventured and it was Officer Blackwater’s assignment to give it a look over.

A man wearing a pair of kaki pants and a white polo shirt stood waiting at the gate. Department of Utilities, was stenciled in black letters over his shirt pocket.

“Good morning,” Arthur said, as he got out of the car, assessing the man automatically. He looked to be in his late sixties or possibly early seventies. His hair and beard were a bright white; he weighed maybe a hundred and sixty pounds and was close to six feet in height, and tanned. Although the crow’s feet around his eyes were well defined, there still appeared to be youthfulness in his dark blue eyes. Arthur felt a moment of envy slide through his thoughts; he hoped he looked as good as this guy did when he got to be that age.

 “Morning,” the man said. “I’m Jake Sommers. So where do you want to start?”

Blackwater thought he heard a slight indication of frustration in the man’s voice.

“I’m Arthur Blackwater,” he said as he approached Jake, extending his hand. “Did they pull you away from something to come here?” As Arthur shook Jake’s hand, the skin felt dry and coarse, as if he worked with his hands a lot. It reminded him of the hands of maybe a carpenter or something similar he thought, but the grip was very firm.

“Naw. I just don’t like this place,” Jake said. “Gives me the willies. Old buildings; they smell of damp wood and rotting timbers. One day, when we get a good storm, the whole place is just gonna come down and I do not want to be inside them when they do.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Arthur agreed. He looked around. “I don’t think the department is using any of these buildings any more. I remember we had some extra stuff stored here for a while but not anymore. You do keep them all locked up, right?”

“That’s right,” Jake said. “There are a couple of buildings in the back, like the old barracks and some other smaller ones that haven’t ever been used. I’ve never even been inside them. Never saw the point of it, I guess.”

“Are they closed up?”

“Doors and windows are boarded over. Did it myself a while back.”

“How long ago?”

“Well, must be a couple of years at least—maybe ten or so. I drive by occasionally and just check to see that the wood is still in place. But like I said, I don’t really go back there often.”

“Well,” Arthur began, “The detectives will have my ass unless I go back and eyeball everything myself. You know how that goes: supervisors. I apologize for taking up your time like this, Jake. You probably have more important things to do, but I guess the old barracks will be first on the list. Let’s get it out of the way. From there, we can work our way forward to the other buildings.”

“Fine,” Jake said. “However you want to play it. I’m just here for the ride.” He shrugged his shoulder and smiled.

“Well, let’s get started. Why don’t you get in the cruiser and we’ll drive back there.”

“Let’s go,” Jake said and got into the car.

They drove from the main gate and moved further into the interior of the old base. The road became bumpy and Arthur had to go very slow through some areas. As they crawled along, Arthur glanced at the surroundings. The area was cluttered with piles of old debris.

“Does anyone else use this area?” he asked Jake.

“Every once in a while, the local Indian tribe comes in and does their thing. They set up some tents and stuff and make a day out of it.”

“It’s a pretty big area, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, couple of hundred acres. The place has quite a bit of history to it. The government was its first tenant…well, that is, if you don’t count the claim of the Indians. Anyway, as far as I can recall, the place started out during WW II as one of the auxiliary landing fields for the Naval Air Station in Norfolk. There were quite a few back in that day. Anyway, after the war, there wasn’t that much of a need for it any more, so the Navy used it for different things. Its last true function ended in the ‘80s when it was a communication relay site. The Navy eventually turned it over to the federal government and the city in the late ‘90s, part of that…what did they call it?”

“BRAC, base realignment and closure,” offered Arthur.

“Yeah, that’s it. That created the bigger problem of who gets the land and for what. The city wants to do what they want—develop it—of course. They would get a pretty substantial chunk of money in real estate and taxes since it’s waterfront property. Plus with the high school just down the road, well, you can see that big selling advantage.”