Chapter 39 Into the Mountain

When Lorrie opened the door, Carrie was surprised to see Mark standing behind Bruce.

“Hi, Lorrie.” Bruce’s gaze lingered on her for a few seconds before looking beyond. “Hi, Carrie. Do the two of you need any help with your bags?”

“Won’t that hamper your effectiveness as a bodyguard?” Carrie asked.

“That’s why I’m here to carry.” Mark’s smile brought one to Carrie’s face.

“If you would carry the sleeping bags, we’ll handle the backpacks.” Carrie started to put on her coat.

Mark helped her with her coat. “Good, you both decided to see if the Young Again change agent was active. It’s supposed to be warmer the next couple of days, so there might be a chance.”

“Will you be camping out also?”

“Yes, along with two companies of Marines. Lyani, Jinghua, and Jian are using my bedroom. Lyani is having problems with having a lot of people near.” Mark picked up the two sleeping bags, and they headed out.

Mark had driven past the turnoff to the cabin, saying that he needed to talk to someone. They would eat an early lunch at a local diner.

“Hi, Pam. Is Ed around?” Mark called as they entered the diner.

“Melissa, go tell your father that Mark Sawyer is here to see him.” Pam looked at Mark, then at the two young women with him, which brought a scowl to her face. “We watched Ashley and Sarah in the play the other night. Let ‘em know that was the best amateur play we ever saw. We also saw the news coverage where they realized that you and these three had snuck in without anyone noticing.”

“They weren’t the only ones that didn’t recognize me. Carrie and Lorrie didn’t know me as more than just Mark until after the play. Pam, Ed, Melissa. This is Carrie Flaherty and Lorrie Robins. They work for Google. They were at the box office trying to get tickets when Bruce and I showed up. Judge Lawrence and her husband couldn’t attend, so I had two extra tickets. I was curious about why Google was interested in the play. Turns out, they were looking for information on Elphaba and Galinda. So, I introduced them to the girls at the cast party.”

“But they were only characters in the play.” Melissa had met both Ashley and Sarah a number of times over the years.

“It was written by Wayne Sobczak, who was trying to find out more about them. Now he works for them.” Mark was smiling. “This is Ed Colson and his wife, Pam, and daughter, Melissa. Ed is the US Park Ranger that is working with us. Pam runs the diner, which is pretty dead this time of the year.” He looked at Ed. “You couldn’t get them to come last time, but we expect that it may be warm enough tonight. Go ahead and explain why.”

“Pam, Melissa. You see how young Mark is. They found out that if you sleep outside at the Sawyer cabin, you can catch the Young Again change just as he, Ashley, and Sarah did. Last time, when I tried to get you to camp up there, I couldn’t tell you why.”

“The girls?” Pam looked at Mark.

“The change has a number of beneficial effects besides keeping you young. We want those and their families working closely with us to have the change. Will the four of you be able to camp with us this evening?”

“Tommy is in the Marines,” Melissa told Mark.

“He decided that he wasn’t ready for college, so he joined the Marines. He got into communication and he is down at Pendleton. That is one of the reasons I didn’t press Pam too hard to go camping the last time.” Ed looked at his wife.

“First Radio Battalion under Lieutenant Colonel Begay?” When he saw Ed nod, Mark continued. “Which company?”

“Second.”

“Good, that’s the one that Cat brought. Tommy should already be at the cabin.”

Pam brightened at the prospect of seeing her son. “I’ll have to get Karen and Mary to cover for me. They could use the money. With the economy, things are very slow.” Pam turned to go make the phone calls.

“Pam, we will have two Marine companies eating field rations until they get a field kitchen set up early next week. If I pay for it, can you get people in here to make boxed meals that the Marines can come down here and take back? Make sure you bill everything. I think the military will be willing to cover it.”

“I’ll have to get a lot more food and boxes, but I can get the people to get it done. Most of the men are off hunting to make sure that they have enough food.”

“Pam, if I loan you the money without interest, would you build the restaurant that Carol gave you the plans for?”

“Mark, there is no need for such a restaurant up here.”

“We are going to open a bunker that is thirteen thousand years old today. Humans used it to defend the Earth from alien invasion. The President will make the announcement after Thanksgiving. After that, you will have so many people coming up here that the restaurant will be crowded.”

Mark’s words caused Pam to turn to her husband for confirmation. Ed just smiled. He knew that he was going to have to explain a lot after Mark was gone.

“Pam, the government has this classified Top Secret if they haven’t come up with a new higher classification for it. If Ed had mentioned anything to you, he would have been in trouble. I am bending the rules a little, so if you and Melissa will sign these government papers, we can ignore that you signed them after you knew.”

The four of them were heading up to the cabin after eating lunch. They had just passed through the first checkpoint on the mountain road up to the cabin.

“I could get you into a lot of trouble if I told the FBI that you had them sign the papers after you told them.” Carrie teased Mark.

“You would have to find a ride home then.” Mark glanced over at her in the passenger seat beside him.

“You have to get used to the Sawyer way of doing business.” Bruce remembered Ashley’s meeting with Professor Baumgartner. He didn’t think that the professor believed Ashley even after spending half a day with her talking with people at MSI. At first, she had accused Ashley of selecting people who had been told what to say. Ashley had waited until lunch to respond. They had headed to the cafeteria where Ashley’s warm reception was hard to ignore. She had turned to the Professor and told her to pick out someone with whom to talk. Even after repeating this twice more, the Professor wouldn’t give up her opinion. Ashley had just given up, had lunch, and spent less than a half hour afterward with Baumgartner.

Mark had left Bruce helping Carrie and Lorrie set up for spending the night sleeping outside. When he entered the cabin, he could hear Colonel Thomas complaining about the lack of facilities. As he entered the room that had been his office but was now a small conference room, he saw that Captain McCrae had just about had enough with her new subordinate’s complaints. “Colonel, I’ve made arrangements for meals to be prepared until you can get your kitchen set up. Cat, did you choose second company because of Corporal Colson?”

“Yes, I checked to see if anyone was familiar with the area. His father is actually a US Park Service Ranger.”

Mark nodded. “Ranger Ed Colson is our Park Service liaison. His wife, Pam, owns the local diner. She will be providing the meals. Tommy can show both companies where to pick up the meals. The cover story isn’t good, but it will also help with security. It has the Marines providing security up here because of the attacks on the girls. Some of the locals know my family, but they all know and like the Wilsons, whose families have lived up here since the eighteenth century. I’ve asked Ed and Pam to tell people that we want to know about anyone asking questions. Marsha, you should have someone meet with Pam regularly to check on what anyone knows.”

“Up here that is better than the hacker surveillance.” Marsha started to write down some notes.

“You used the ‘H’ word.” Sarah teased.

“The two of you are changing the meaning.” Marsha didn’t look up but just shook her head.

“Now that we are all here, let us make some plans for how we will search the bunker.” Sheila looked over at Jinghua as she translated what was said for her sister. She saw Lyani ask a question that surprised Jinghua.

“Lyani wants to know when we will search the spaceship.”

“Spaceship! What spaceship?” Colonel Thomas looked around the room, seeing surprise in most of the people’s eyes.

Jinghua and Lyani started a discussion in their original language. Only Ashley and Sarah could follow them. Ashley quickly brought up a map of the area on the large television screen they were using for the briefing. Using the map, she quickly zoomed in on one of the nearby lakes.

Ashley was the one that explained what they had been discussing. “The spaceship the bunker shot down landed in a valley here.” She pointed at the lake. “The ship was mostly operational, but the engines and major weapons were dead. The crew exited, and they fought with Jaia’s people that were not in the bunker for weeks until Lyani and Jesip came up with a plan to drop a hillside onto the alien camp by the spaceship. They succeeded but didn’t get all the aliens. Lyani was the only one to survive without major injury. She was unable to save the others. When she went back to the bunker, she found that only her mother survived. The others had died from poison gas when they tried to dig their way out. When winter came, her mother told her to leave. She came back the next summer and couldn’t contact her mother. When she checked on the spaceship, the valley had partially filled with water because of the landslide.”