Many such cases
When I had hired him over the phone, I had given Billy a cover story — a spiel I made up on the spot about how I was hired by some investors to do property scouting. “It’s confidential business, and I can’t really get into the details, but they’re interested in some parcels in that area for a development project,” I told him. He had made no comment. I doubt he really cared.
Now, as we approached the location, I told Billy not to stop but to drive right past the spot. “I don’t want these guys to know that anyone is out here scouting their property. So just drive by and keep driving, and I’ll decide what we should do once I get a sense of what there is,” I explained. “If anyone’s there, they’ll just think we’re random people passing through.” He nodded. As it turned out, there was no need for decoy maneuvers.
The car skidded to a stop. “Are you sure this is the right place?” Billy asked.
I hesitated. “Yes, this is it. Has to be,” I replied, craning my neck to look through the narrow window slit, now almost completely covered in dust and grime. “I made sure the location and the coordinates were correct before I left.” I checked again. “Yeah, this is the spot that my client gave me.”
Sarah had sent me a photo of the ARK research facility as it was supposed to exist. Misha had texted it to her about a year ago, not long after he had personally come down here to set it up. The photo showed a person fully suited up, hand raised as if waving hello, standing in front of two large dome structures. The buildings were beige or maybe brown in color, and they blended in with the dirt-brown lot on which they stood. The photo had been snapped in the evening with a flash, and the background was all in shadow. In theory, it could have been taken at this spot. But it wasn’t clear. The domes could have been anywhere — on any large dirt lot.
Billy shrugged. “Well, looks like you can report to your client that the land’s empty. So they can come in and do whatever they want with it. I don’t know what their plans are, but I hope they have some pull because they’re going to have to deal with the air force guys down the road,” he said, pointing to the horizon on the left. “They’re the ones in charge here. Nothing happens in the highlands here without their permission.” He must have seen a puzzled look on my face, because he added: “I didn’t mention it to you by phone?”
RADIANCE, my serialized novel, continues.
A shook my head. “What air force?”
“The Air Force,” Billy said.
“The fucking US Air Force,” Tommy added from the back.
“The military’s still here?”
“Yeah, man. They migrated north after the war from their base down the mountain in the high desert,” Billy said. “At least some of them did…the ones who didn’t have family in the area.”
“Bro, it was crazy,” Tommy said from the back. “They stormed the prison complex. Killed everyone there. The guards, the inmates. Made it their base.”
“You can’t really see it right now because it’s right on the horizon there. But at night, you’ll be able to see their lights,” Billy said.
I was surprised. I knew that the military abandoned its last California bases when the fallout dumped on Southern California. The generals had their own escape plans and their own secret nuclear bunkers. But the grunts were offered nothing. They had to fend for themselves. And so they grabbed helicopters, jets, ships, trucks, and whatever weapons and provisions they could carry and ran. Some went to join their families or friends, and others went wherever they thought they could get shelter.
