Chapter 4: Another Gift

Sunday, 29 December 1968

Wayne found it difficult to concentrate on his trip until he crossed the state line into West Virginia. He moped during the entire twenty-four-hour train trip from Indiana to Huntington, West Virginia including the nine-hour layover in Chicago. It seemed stupid to have to go west before he could go east, but he wandered around The Loop looking at the animated Christmas displays in the windows of Marshall Field’s. He was lovesick. His hand was always touching the necklace Judith had placed around his neck. He had filled a notepad with doodles of her namesign. They were going steady. At least he thought that’s what it meant.

Once he was off the train, the excitement of meeting the mysterious Uncle Bert took hold. Wayne had corresponded with his uncle since he was old enough to write, but this Christmas was only the second time they had met. He wasn’t what Wayne remembered at all. He looked like an old prospector of the type you’d see pulling a donkey along in a cartoon. Wayne wasn’t sure if a donkey might have been more dependable than the rickety old pickup Uncle Bert tossed his bag into. He didn’t say much on the drive to his home near Newburg. Idle chit-chat about how Wayne’s trip had been and whether he was hungry—repeated twice.

The mountains were beautiful, though. The weather was cold, but it hadn’t snowed much when they arrived. His uncle had retired to a place as remote as any Wayne had ever visited. The road was a dirt track for three miles across the side of a mountain. His uncle’s home was halfway between the main roads at either end of the track. The driveway was another half mile long, leading from the dirt road to a modest little house. In fact, Wayne would almost call it a shanty, but the garage door opened at the push of a button and closed behind them. Wayne started to open his door but his uncle held out a hand.

“Give me just a minute before we get out,” he said. Wayne watched as his uncle stripped off the beard and a mop of a wig and tossed them on the seat of the truck. He pulled off his shirt and lost thirty pounds. Bert looked at him and smiled. He was clean shaven with a military haircut. “I feel human now,” he said. “Can’t be too careful when I’m off my mountain.”

They got out of the truck and Bert opened the door to the house.

Wayne walked around in amazement for two days. His uncle gave a guided tour of the apartment comprising eight rooms. He explained that while he was removing his disguise, an elevator had dropped them nearly a hundred feet below ground. The apartment was in an abandoned coal mine, of which there were many in the area. Wayne was told not to step through certain doors which led into unimproved portions of the mine. In his curiosity, Wayne checked the doors and found out that there wasn’t any way to step through them. They were locked tight.

By New Year’s Eve, Wayne was beginning to believe all the stories his uncle had ever told about being a spy. He was enjoying the stories Bert related about life in the secret service. Greece after the war was in turmoil as the communists tried to take over. Children were being sent to hide in the desolate Metéora to escape the conscription gangs. His uncle had been under cover for ten years, his only contact with family the letters to and from his great nephew, each smuggled out by a courier and posted from an APO address.

“You don’t know how much you contributed to my sanity in those days. I was still sent out to collect data occasionally, but was mostly responsible for digesting information and sending reports while I waited for retirement and my retreat to be built. Waiting is a hard-learned skill. You were already in college when I moved here. I wanted to invite you to visit right away, but the company had to be certain my location and movements were not observed. It’s no wonder so many of us retire at the end of a pistol.”

“Uncle Bert, I always thought you were writing to entertain me. Did you put secrets in your letters? My junior high and high school life must have bored you to tears.”

“No. It was the only normal thing I ever saw. There is some pretty outlandish stuff going on in the world. That super spy in the movies—James Bond?—that’s only things that movie producers can dream up. The reality is way beyond that.”

Wayne settled in for another of his uncle’s wartime stories. His mother’s uncle had sent him snippets of stories throughout the fifties and when they finally met in ‘61, Wayne had a serious case of hero-worship. Then his uncle had to “go back into the field.”

“The makings of the Greek Civil War were in operation before the end of World War II,” Bert said. “Once the Germans drafted security battalions to combat the resistance, the nation became more polarized than ever. The resistance controlled most of rural Greece where I was embedded, passing messages and delivering arms. When the war ended, I should have been able to come home. But by that time it was obvious that the National Liberation Front and the government soldiers were going to war against each other. I was already embedded in the mountains and kept communications flowing between the two sides.”

“I had no idea Greece was in a civil war,” Wayne said. “It always seems so civilized.”

“You think the battle with communists is limited to Viet Nam,” his uncle answered. “Didn’t you know that Greece was taken over by a military junta less than two years ago? We call it the cold war, but there are places where it is very hot.”

“How did you get out?”

“When Papandreou started to rise in ‘60, we realized that the battle was going to be fought in parliament and no longer in the fields. I was fifty-six years old and ready to retire. My country brought me back to repatriate me. That’s when I came to visit you. Then, we discovered a faction of Greek anti-monarchists active here that had targeted me. I disappeared back to Northern Greece where I spent the next eight years on Mount Athos. That’s where your letters were delivered to me. The Pentagon figures they’ve cleaned house and there is no immediate threat. They supervised building me this mountain retreat but I had to pay for it myself. I moved in last year. With luck, they’ll forget I’m here before long and I’ll be able to move about a little more freely. Right now, I only travel with my mind.”

Wednesday, 1 January 1969

Wayne wandered the West Virginia hillsides. His uncle showed him the access point and codes for entry to the retreat. He’d been underground for two days listening to stories. Bert finally chased him out of the cavern and told him to get some fresh air but to stay out of the mines.

From what Wayne could tell, there wasn’t another house within a mile of his uncle. After half an hour listening to the quiet country air, broken only by his own footsteps, Wayne sat down on a tree stump. As usual, he carried his notebook and opened it to look at the dozens of times he’d doodled the name sign on Judith’s necklace. It was so quiet. He jotted down the words that came to mind—his uncle isolated from the world.

Hush. The solitude
slowly, stealthily creeps in
upon the unsuspecting prisoner
of its all-encompassing spirit.
The heart beats;
the body relaxes.
The worried ones wait
to see what passes.

Coop would have a blast criticizing that one. A little morbid. He took out his pocketknife and started whittling. He was lost in a world of dreaming about Judith. As he carved in the stump, he realized what he was doing and pulled the chain and star out of his shirt to compare the carving he had sketched with the name sign on the back of the pendant. Yes. He got it right. Memorized. There was no reason to doubt it. “Acting like a teenager,” he muttered to himself.

“Well, boy, you are certainly quieter than I expected,” his uncle said from behind him. The old man leaned on a cane and wore an overcoat and scarf. Wayne wondered how much of that was disguise. “What’s on your mind?”

“I guess I’ve been a little preoccupied,” Wayne answered glancing down at his carving again. His uncle noticed and looked over his shoulder. He lifted the chain and star from Wayne’s hand and turned it over carefully to read the engraving.

“I see,” he breathed. “I was right. You’re being initiated into the mysteries.” Wayne assumed that his uncle meant he was in love and sighed.

“Yeah, I guess you could say so.”

“This isn’t your namesign, is it?” his uncle asked.

“No. It’s Judith’s. My girlfriend.”

“Mmmhmm. And do you have a sign?”

“No. I don’t think so,” Wayne answered, trying to think if he had ever been told of such a symbol. “Judith said it was a kind of rune. I saw a bunch of symbols like this when I was doing some research, though.”

“Tell me about your research.”

Wayne told him the whole disastrous story of sleeping in class, his golden opportunity, and about his research paper and the fraudulent notes.

“Yes. Fraud would be an academic way to put it. And your professor knew all about this file?” said his uncle.

“Yes. Dr. Allen’s husband compiled a catalog of the entire file box. I guess he died soon after they were married but she had a copy of the catalog in her office.” His uncle seemed taken aback by something Wayne said, but he couldn’t tell what caused the old man to step away.

“Secrets.”

“Huh?”

“Let me see if I can explain what’s really going on. If the story you saw was real, it would be the protected property of a secret society. They would guard against the story ever being discovered by any legitimate research project. Someone planted a secret where it could be found by an uninitiated novice. We used the technique during the war. No courier was as dependable as one who had no idea he was a courier. It’s risky, but sometimes unavoidable—the only way a message can be safely passed.”

“You mean someone left it there so that someone else would find it, but I accidentally stumbled on it instead?” Wayne asked.

“It could be that,” his uncle said hesitantly, “or it could be that you were intended to find it and get the message to someone else.”

“The only one who saw it was my professor and she was furious. She had an entire catalog of Wilton’s writings and spotted it as a fake right away.”

“I wonder what message it contained for her. Understanding Wilton’s writings is tough work for the most experienced reader.”

“You know Wilton’s writings?”

“I knew Wilton,” Bert mused. Wayne was speechless. “How did you like your Christmas present?” Uncle Bert changed the subject abruptly before Wayne could inquire any further.

“The bow? It’s great. I love archery,” Wayne answered.

“I understood that from your letters. I’ve set up a bale and target behind the house. I’d like to see you shoot. I got the bow years ago when I was on a mission in Britain. It’s old, but the yeoman I received it from told me it would be good for the lifetime of my children’s children’s children. Not that I have any, but you may one day. Such bows are frequently passed from generation to generation among the lower classes as their own sort of arms. Many are carved with a genealogy of sorts made of name signs like that one. I have no children, so I’ve passed it on to you.”

“Judith’s from England,” Wayne mused.

“I suspected,” Uncle Bert answered. Then as if he’d just come to a decision, “I have another gift for you.”

“Another?”

“In fact, two. Come with me, son.”

Wayne stuffed the necklace into his shirt and stood to follow his uncle. Uncle Bert was not headed back the way Wayne had come, though. Instead he entered a mine shaft just uphill from where Wayne had been carving.

“I thought these were dangerous,” Wayne whispered.

“They are if you don’t know your way around,” his uncle answered. But for me they are extensions of my home. Here. Take my hand so you don’t get lost in the dark. Some of these tunnels don’t have lights installed yet.” Wayne took his uncle’s hand and walked into the darkness with the old man. A chill coursed its way up and down his spine. He talked, just to break the silence.

“Why did you build your home in a mine shaft, Uncle Bert?”

“I told you, they’re ready-made homes for an old badger like me,” Bert laughed. “Really? It was here or some desert island that hasn’t been discovered yet. I already owned the property, so they were kind enough to do the work. A few well-placed threats helped.”

“That’s just so unbelievable.”

“It’s unbelievable unless you have to live with it,” Uncle Bert said. “I have enemies who would rather see me dead than retired, both in the government and out of it. You get involved in a lot of things. Some haunt you for the rest of your life. Here we are.” His uncle stopped abruptly in the dark.

A moment later Wayne was squinting in the face of bright floodlights. He stepped forward with his uncle. There was no furniture in the room and the light seemed to come at him from every direction.

“What is this?” he asked.

“The killing room,” his uncle indicated. “An alarm sounded inside and the bright lights illuminated the room preventing my spyholes from being seen. If I was inside, I could look to see what triggered the alarms and if it was an enemy, there are various ways to get rid of them down here. Since I’m not inside, I need to key in my password.”

The next chamber was a kind of security room. Wayne looked at the spyhole, a series of optics and mirrors that showed the view of the room from different angles.

“Beam me up, Scotty,” he said under his breath. “This is unreal.”

“This is garbage,” his uncle snorted. “But it’s necessary. The real secrets are in the next room. In order to enter it, I have to have your word that you will tell no one what you see inside. On your life and honor, nephew. No one.”

“I swear, Uncle Elbert,” he whispered. “No one.”

“Good.”

If Wayne was expecting more sophisticated technology and gadgetry, what he saw was disappointing at best. The room was draped in black and his uncle lit candles to provide light. It took Wayne’s eyes several moments to adjust. It took longer for him to comprehend.

Chalked on the black floor was a white star. At one point of the star, a flat black rock held a lit candle. Three other candles were located on stands at the sides of the room. The whole setting in its very austerity had a medieval elegance about it. Uncle Bert stepped through the curtains and returned a moment later wearing a black robe. He tossed another to Wayne.

“Here. Put this on,” his uncle directed. “Just pull it on over your head. It will block your body from your sight, blending with the walls. A master can work with a robe, in street clothes, or naked, but novices usually need to have some tangible help to shut themselves away from the presence of their flesh.”