Chapter 16

The following character returns from the first story:

Dr. Boudinot

Civilian psychiatrist, assigned to Military Intelligence; a medium height slightly overweight man of about 45 years old with brown hair

While Max and Jill enjoyed the day, Friday, the 12th of February, wasn’t all that enjoyable for others. The problems started in the Basement of the Pentagon a few minutes after Max and Jill had left.

The young Spec 5 heard the shot and immediately looked around the office to see where it could have come from, but saw nothing amiss in the outer office. He called Colonel Coley on the intercom to ask about the shot, but received no answer. Fearing the worst, he hit the switch to open the door to the inner office, just as a Lieutenant Colonel from the office next to theirs rushed into the office.

“Did that shot come from in here?” he demanded.

“I ... I don’t know, sir, but ... but I can’t raise the Colonel,” the Specialist told him.

“Open the door!” the Colonel demanded.

“I already have but you arrived before I could check the other office, sir,” the young man managed to get out.

“Come with me,” the Colonel demanded, and they both pushed the door open and entered the room. The young Specialist promptly threw up on seeing Colonel Coley with his brains splattered all over the wall behind him.

“Go call the Pentagon Police from your desk. I’ll remain here and see that no one comes in here,” the Colonel told the young man.

It was fifteen minutes before three Pentagon Police officers and a Military Police Lieutenant arrived at the office. It was even longer and several phone conversations later before a Senior Military Police Officer arrived along with the Pentagon Police Crime Unit. The young Specialist got a grilling from both Officers.

“Did Colonel Coley have any visitors today before this happened?” the Military Police Lieutenant Colonel asked.

“Yes sir, there was an LTC and a Captain here to see him. They left just a few minutes before I heard the shot,” the young man told him.

“Who were they?” the Colonel demanded.

“They were a Special Operations Lieutenant Colonel Hagmen and his S-3, a Captain. They were being recalled to active duty to work with Colonel Coley,” he told the MP Officer, searching frantically on his desk for the orders he had taken from them, before they had gone in to see the Colonel. He finally found them after a minute of searching.

“Here they are, sir,” he told the Officer, handing him the orders.

“These are for a Colonel Hangman, not Hagmen,” the Officer told him, and this was followed by, “and these others are for a Captain Hemp?” He looked at the clerk suspiciously.

“Where did you get these orders?” he demanded.

“I got them from that Lieutenant Colonel, sir. He had a small zippered case that he took them out of to show me,” the now very frightened Specialist answered. A Major from Military Intelligence entered the room just then and approached the Colonel.

“We have reviewed the video feed from security cameras in this part of the building. No one entered through our controlled access doors or left through them who hasn’t worked here for more than six months between 0830 and 0930. There were only authorized MI personnel in the area between those times,” the Major stated.

“We’ll want to review those feeds from 0730 until 1015 when I arrived,” the MP Colonel told him.

“You’ll need to see the Director of Military Intelligence to obtain them, sir. I can’t release them on my own, I’m not authorized to do that,” the Major informed him. Things in the Basement of the Pentagon went around and around like that for a time following that, and eventually the Brass upstairs became involved in it. The story had already gotten out, as rumors travel fast among the lower ranks, and it was soon on the news, if missing some of the facts, but things like that had never bothered the news mongers.

In the meantime, those at the Operations Center at the VEEP’s residence were beginning to worry.

“We haven’t heard from him in twenty hours,” the Senior Special Agent in charge said before turning to the agent on duty in the operations center.

“Contact the Vice President and make sure that everything is okay. He should have said something by now, or asked for something. We should have heard something,” he insisted to his subordinate, who dutifully made the call, while fearing getting a tongue lashing from the VEEP. He tried several times a few minutes apart, but received no answer.

“He doesn’t answer,” he told the senior agent.

“Keep trying every ten minutes. Call me in an hour or so if you haven’t gotten an answer,” the senior agent told him.

An hour and twenty minutes later, the duty agent called his boss.

“Still no answer,” he told him.

“Who’s on duty?” the senior agent asked.

“Wilson and Smith. They are the ones who checked the bunker before the VEEP was allowed in there,” the duty agent told him.

“Get a hold of them and have them check the basement and the door to the bunker,” the senior agent directed. Twenty minutes later he had an answer.

“They report no changes. The door is still locked and nothing has been disturbed in the area around it, or in the rest of the basement,” the duty agent reported.

It went a full twenty-four hours and still no word from the VEEP, when the senior agent directed them to open the door to the bunker to check on the Vice President. Wilson and Smith were off duty by then, so the job fell to two new men. They didn’t know the code to open the door, and Wilson was called to go with them and open the door for them.

It was therefore 1645 hrs. when the door to the bunker was opened, and the body of the Vice President was discovered still lying on the bottom bunk, He had been dead for well over twelve hours.

“Central, this is Wilson. On opening the door to the bunker, I discovered the VEEP unconscious and not breathing. I think that he’s dead,” Wilson reported. The senior agent was on hand in the operations center and immediately took charge.

“Listen to me very carefully and do exactly what I tell you and nothing more, Wilson. There is a procedure already in place for this eventuality, and we will follow it to the letter, do you understand me?” he demanded.

“Yes, sir.”

“You will immediately lock the bunker door, and no one will be allowed in there until the proper authorities arrive. Leave those other two men there to guard the door. You will then immediately report to me in the operations center. I have questions for you. We will also bring Agent Smith in for questioning. Is all of that clear to you?” he demanded.

“Yes, sir.”

“Good, I expect you here in five or six minutes,” the senior agent told him before returning the mike to the duty agent. He then went to the classified container, opened it, and removed the classified procedure for actions to be taken on the death of a Vice President, and began to sweat. He gave the action copy to the duty agent so he could begin calling those responsible for investigating what happened. There was also a message to be sent to the President.

Wilson arrived before he had time to read more than just the opening paragraphs of the document. The senior agent closed the document and started the voice recorder in his office noting the date and the time as well as who was present.

“Sit down Agent Wilson,” he directed, and Wilson took the chair by his desk.

“Agent Wilson, what time was it when you opened the door to the bunker this afternoon?” he started.

“It was 1646 by my watch,” Wilson replied in a nervous voice.

“What did you observe before opening the door?”

“The area around the exterior of the door showed no signs of being disturbed from the way we left it yesterday when we allowed the VEEP to enter the bunker after Agent Smith and I had checked it thoroughly. There were no marks or other evidence that the door had been tampered with,” Wilson said for the record.

“And what did you observe on entering the bunker?”

“I observed Vice President Perkins lying on the bottom bunk on the right side of the bunker as you enter it.”

“Was there anyone else in the bunker?”

“No, there was no one else in the bunker at that time.”

“Did you do a thorough search of the bunker at that time?” the senior special agent asked.

“Not at that time.”

“Did you touch the Vice President, or anything else?”

“I only touched him enough to check for a pulse. There was no pulse and his body was already cold,” Wilson answered.

“Were there any signs of a disturbance, or any objects that were out of place, or that had been moved since your inspection yesterday?”

“There were no signs of a disturbance. There was a nearly empty whiskey bottle on the floor near the head of the bed, and the covers had been disturbed,” Wilson replied.

“Did they appear to have been disturbed by a struggle?”

“No, only what one would expect from someone getting in the bed for the night.”

“Was there any other physical evidence that you observed?”

“No, the bunker was essentially the same as it was during our inspection yesterday afternoon,” Wilson answered now in a real sweat, as he could imagine them blaming Smith and him for the death.

“That’s all of the questions that I have at this time. Remain in your room for now, as I am sure there will be more questions when the proper authorities arrive,” the senior special agent told him. Smith had arrived by now, and he was questioned next.

Over the next several hours, there were many arrivals at the Observatory’s main gate. Most had flashing lights going when they arrived and some had their siren on also. Max and Jill weren’t the only ones with a scanner, and the news sharks had soon gathered looking for a story.

The next morning, Saturday the 13th of February at 0800, there was a meeting in the Oval Office at the White House. Attending were the President, the Head of the Secret Service, the Director of the FBI and several assistants, the Attorney General, the National Security Adviser, and several members of the Joint Chiefs. The man on the hot seat was the Medical Examiner who had performed the autopsy on the Vice President.

“Mr. President, this is Dr Woods. He is from the Office of the Armed Forces Medical Examiner which is headquartered at Dover Air Force Base. He and his team were flown in last evening to perform the autopsy on the late Mr. Perkins,” the General from the Joint Chiefs of Staff said pointing to the Lieutenant Colonel with him.

“You performed the autopsy on the Vice President last night then?” the President asked.

“Yes sir, I did with the assistance of those on my team,” the Colonel answered but went no further.

“And what did you find?” the President prompted him.

“We found that the Vice President died from massive heart failure which had been brought on by the presence of some twenty-seven nails in his heart, which was nearly completely destroyed, Mr. President,” the Colonel answered.

“WHAT!?” came the astonished cry from the voices of nearly everyone in the room. “HOW” and “WHY” followed closely on that. It was the Head of the Secret Service who actually asked the next question.

“How can you claim to have found 27, was it 27?, nails in his heart, when all of the investigators stated that there were no signs of wounds on his body yesterday?” he demanded.

“You are correct in that we found no external wounds. The nails were not driven into his heart. We discovered them inside the heart itself. They were not driven through his chest,” the Colonel stated.

“But how?” several men asked.

“I have no answer to that question, as I do not know how it was possible to do that,” the Colonel answered.

“I believe we have overlooked the more important question, gentlemen,” the Attorney General injected into the discussion.

“And that would be?” the President asked.

“How did whoever did this know the location and then get into the supposedly secret bunker in the first place?” he answered.

“The door to the bunker is steel and six inches thick, and the locks are electronic. Anytime the locks are activated or the door is opened, a signal is sent to the operations center across the road from the residence. It is recorded there by automatic equipment. The records show that it was opened on Thursday afternoon for the inspection, which was recorded on video, before the VEEP was allowed to enter, and was then closed and locked. It was not opened again until 1645 on Friday afternoon when the body was discovered. On inspection, no faults or problems were found in either the lock mechanism, the door, or the recording equipment,” the head of the Secret Service assured those present.

“Is there only one entrance or exit?” someone from the FBI asked.

“There is only one entry / exit. The only other opening is a six inch air line whose entrance is hidden in the trees some distance from the house. It is hardly large enough for a rat or a small opossum to get through, and has several traps in its length,” the Secret Service chief told them.

“Then how did someone or something get into the bunker and out again, and how did the nails get into the Vice President’s heart?” the Attorney General demanded. No one said anything for nearly a minute. It was the Colonel who finally broke the silence.

“I’m not a superstitious man, but the only explanation that I can think of is Magic, but the government has denied its existence for some twenty-five years now,” he said before adding, “the report of the full forensic autopsy that we conducted will be forwarded to you in the next week, Mr. President. The toxicology report will be sent as soon as it is completed, but within the next three weeks,” he finished.

Several ranking members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who were there hadn’t said anything when the doctor mentioned Magic, but now they looked at each other for a few seconds, but said nothing, as they had a mystery on their own to solve, and it had just gotten bigger ... much bigger.

While we had relaxed on Friday after returning from the Pentagon, it was back to business on Saturday, and we started doing research on Fredrick, Maryland, Fort Detrick, and the Cancer Research Center located there. Fredrick is a small city located located in rural Maryland. It was less than half as far from where we were outside of Washington, as it was from Baltimore. Fort Detrick had originally been the Army’s Chemical and Biological Research Facility, but that mission had changed with the end of the Cold War. It was still a research center, but the scope of work carried out there had been broadened considerably.

From the Cancer Institute’s website, we printed out the layout of their area on Ft. Detrick plus the instructions on how to reach it, and how to access the post. We, however, had no intentions of following those instructions. We would transfer on to the area of the post where we believed that Dr. Boudinot was holed up in his research facility.