The Yellowstone Event (Book 2): A National Disgrace Read online

  Some called Joe an eccentric; others called him crazy. But all agreed he was harmless and merely wanted to be left alone.

  That wasn’t necessarily true though. Yes, he enjoyed being isolated from society. He enjoyed the freedom of making his own decisions. Of surviving on his own. Of doing whatever he damned well wanted to do, without having to ask anyone else’s opinion.

  At the same time, though, he missed having someone to talk to.

  Reconnecting with Melvyn filled that void.

  It was a trying process, because of Joe’s eccentricity. He refused to share details of his life until he got Melvyn’s mailing address in Phoenix. But he never explained why.

  Two weeks later Melvyn went to his mailbox to find a nondescript manila envelope with no return address.

  Inside was an alpha-numeric code, and a note to memorize it and then to destroy it.

  From that moment on the two conversed only in their special code, and only by ham radio. On some nights Joe would call at precisely twenty one hundred hours Pacific Time. On other nights he didn’t call at all.

  It was a maddening way of communicating with an old Army buddy, but Melvyn understood Joe’s fears and paranoia. He was determined to go the extra mile to give him someone he could relate to.

  Someone to call a friend.

  In 2014, when it was obvious the Mayans had performed an evil prank on the modern world (or scientists had misinterpreted their writings), the prepper faze waned a bit. It gave Joe a chance to relax his guard a little, and by that time he wanted to see his old combat buddy face to face.

  “Why don’t you bring your wife up here to Canada?” he said in code. “I’ll show you how I live and how I’ve set up my compound. Maybe you can take some ideas home with you.”

  Melvyn and Gwen needed a vacation badly. Gwen had accumulated so much unused vacation time at Geo-Dynametrics her supervisor was pressuring her to use some of it.

  Melvyn had a new boss at his own job. A runny-nosed kid fresh out of college who couldn’t manage his way out of a paper sack. But whose father was the CEO. He told Gwen if he didn’t get away for a bit he’d end up punching the little snot right in the nose.

  And be searching for a new job.

  By return code, they accepted Joe’s offer.

  “Meet me in front of the Duff-Baby House in Windsor, Ontario. The fifteenth at thirteen hundred hours local time. Park on one of the side streets so you don’t get towed.”

  It was equal parts intrigue and paranoia, they knew, but Gwen and Melvyn looked upon it as an adventure.

  They arrived in Detroit a day early, rented a car and did some sightseeing before crossing the river into Windsor.

  Promptly at thirteen hundred hours Joe pulled up in a pickup truck, leaned out the window, and said “hop in.”

  What followed was a scene straight out of a spy movie. Joe twisted and turned through the streets of Windsor while constantly checking his mirrors for signs of someone following him.

  It wasn’t until they’d left the city proper that he relaxed a bit.

  It got better after that.

  For the other four hours of the trip Gwen enjoyed the scenery while Melvyn and Joe caught up on old times. Without a tedious code to hinder their communication, they discussed a bit of everything.

  “Why’d you move up here?” Melvyn asked. “There are plenty of places in the United States where you could have gone off the grid.”

  “In the United States there’s nowhere to hide from the government,” he replied. “If they want you, they’ll find you wherever you are. I’ve given my mind to the government, and to a large degree my life. I’ll be damned if I’m going to give them anything else.”

  The Lupsons thought that to be a decidedly pessimistic way to view one’s native country. But then again, they hadn’t lived the nightmare that Joe Morgan had lived since his years in Vietnam.

  It wasn’t their place to judge.

  Joe’s compound was a sight to behold. It was set up beneath a clearing, accessible only by a narrow road which winded for over a kilometer through heavy woods.

  From the outside it was a two-acre sized clearing and nothing more.

  A secret entrance in the woods, though, led to a series of underground shipping containers. Five of them, to be exact.

  They weren’t welded together, as were most such containers preppers buried.

  Joe’s containers were separated by tunnels, each tunnel one hundred meters long.

  Precisely one hundred meters.

  It seemed old Joe had OCD as well as PTSD.

  Chapter 3

  Gwen was a bit apprehensive when Joe lifted a piece of woodland-camouflaged plywood from the forest floor and exposed the entrance to a dark tunnel beneath it.

  She reached out to Melvyn for reassurance; he patted her hand and smiled.

  She couldn’t understand the bonds of trust formed between two men who’d gone into combat together.

  He was totally unconcerned.

  As they progressed farther into the tunnel, something struck Melvyn.

  It was the particular style of the tunnel: it was man-sized and teardrop shaped.

  “This is just like the Viet Cong’s tunnels,” he remarked. It was more a statement of fact than a question.

  “Yes,” Joe answered. “They were very good at tunnel making, as you well remember. Shaped this way, beneath the growth of a jungle and the support the root systems the trees offered, there was no need to shore them up.

  “The trees in the forest offer similar root systems that stretch far enough into the clearing to provide the same stability.”

  He smiled before continuing.

  “As long as B-52s don’t roar across the heavens on a saturation bombing mission to help collapse them.”

  The tunnel led to the first of his containers. It contained his power plant. A twenty thousand watt generator hummed quietly inside a wooden enclosure heavily insulated to deaden the sound.

  A backup generator stood nearby, unused.

  Several fifty five gallon drums were lined up along one wall of the container, a feed hose leading from the bung hole of one to the generator.

  “I’ve got a lot more diesel hidden here and there in the forest. Every time I go hunting or fishing I take a couple of Jerry cans with me and bring back a few gallons. I try to keep these as full as possible so if the world ever goes to crap I can just seal myself inside and stay here awhile.

  “If that were to happen I’ve got enough fuel, water and food to sustain me for at least five years.

  “I figure if the world don’t fix whatever problems she’s having by then, I’m better off blowing my brains out than coming out again.”

  Melvyn said, “This is very impressive, Joe. But how in the world did you vent your generator? There are no exhaust pipes coming out of the ground above us.”

  “That was one of the biggest pains in my ass when I built this place.

  “There is an exhaust pipe. It goes up and an angle about forty feet to a big pine tree. I had to dig until I was directly beneath the tree, then use an industrial drill to drill upward into the trunk about two meters above ground level.

  “Then I drilled four smaller holes, one on each side of the tree. Each one angles upward from about half a meter off the ground and connects with the bore hole at a thirty degree angle.

  “Because of the angle the holes are invisible, unless you’re lying on the ground beneath the tree and looking upward.”

  Melvyn shook his head in disbelief.

  “And that’s enough to vent all the carbon monoxide?”

  “Yes. And not only that, it’s enough to provide a fresh air supply. It’s how each of my containers is ventilated.”

  “Who else worked with you on this?”

  “Nobody. I did it all myself. You see, after I was discharged it occurred to me it was my mind that was damaged. My body was fine. So there was no reason I couldn’t learn to drive a truck, then to lease one and drive it down to
Detroit to buy and haul back some old shipping containers.

  “No reason I couldn’t bring them in here in the dead of night and drop them.

  “No reason I couldn’t buy an old Bobcat and bring it in to dig holes big enough to bury them.

  “It took longer than I wanted it to. About five years from start to finish. Part of it was because there was a lot more work to the job than I anticipated at first.

  “And, to be honest, a lot of days I was just in bad shape emotionally and too incapacitated to do anything.”

  Gwen was struck by the man. She’d assumed he was damaged beyond functionality.

  But the human body can take a beating and still triumph. So, apparently, could the human mind.

  Despite Joe’s paranoia, despite his irrational fears and night terrors, he was bright and articulate.

  And apparently adept at problem solving.

  They walked through a connecting tunnel and into a shipping container that looked like anything but.

  “I patterned this after the apartment I lived in outside of Philadelphia before I decided to go off grid. It was comfortable and felt like home to me, so I wanted to make this as close as possible.”

  Gwen and Melvyn looked around. Except for the lack of windows, there were no indications this was anything other than a standard living room in any house in America.

  Melvyn was curious.

  “How in the world did you get the furniture in here? I know you didn’t bring that couch and recliner through your tunnel system.”

  Joe smiled.

  “No. I planned ahead and buried the container with the furniture in it.”

  “Brilliant, my friend.”

  “Not really. If I was brilliant I’d have thought to put sheetrock inside before I buried it as well. That part slipped my mind until it was too late. I had to cut each piece of sheetrock into four sections and haul it through the tunnel a piece at a time. It required four times as much finishing work before I painted it.

  “But the thing I had more than anything else was time.”

  Joe’s bunker was configured with his living room in the center. It was connected to the other four containers, located due north, south, east and west, via access tunnels, each one hundred meters long.

  Each of the other containers stored something of great value. One for food and ammunition, one for his power plant, one for water and one for miscellaneous supplies.

  All in all, despite the solitude, it wouldn’t be a bad place to hang out while the rest of the world descended into chaos.

  Chapter 4

  The Lupsons’ visit ended with hugs from a man who’d gotten out of the habit of giving any. The three of them parted even closer than they were before.

  Over the following years Melvyn and Joe continued to converse in code over the radio waves almost daily.

  The Lupsons made several more trips to the isolated area north of Windsor. It was a great place to unwind from the hectic lives they led.

  Joe even consolidated some of his stores and rearranged things to build something resembling a guest room.

  He surprised them with it during a visit in the summer of 2015.

  “Wow!” Gwen exclaimed with tears in her eyes. “You didn’t have to go through all this trouble just for us.”

  Joe stated rather matter-of-factly, “You two are really the only friends I have any more. I enjoy your visits, and the least I can do for you driving all the way up here is to make you comfortable.

  “Besides, it isn’t quite what it appears. The bed is actually inflatable, but it’s the best quality. I slept on it a couple of nights to try it out and it’s as comfortable as my own bed.

  “I just wanted to convey to you that I really enjoy having you here, and that you’re welcome to come and visit any time you like.”

  *************

  Flash forward to present day…

  Gwen Lupson had worked for Geo-Dynametrics for almost twenty years. She was at the top of her game. One of the most respected analytical geologists in the world, and highly respected among colleagues and clients alike.

  She headed up Geo-Dynametric’s Research Analysis Division.

  Gwen was the first one upper management notified when they won a contract with the National Geological Survey to gather and analyze soil and rock samples from Yellowstone National Park.

  Her first question was “Why?”

  Like most other Americans she was surprised to learn there was an active volcano simmering beneath the surface of the expansive park.

  Finding out that fact sent shivers up her spine at first. She’d been to the park several times and was a bit unnerved to know she’d walked two hundred feet above molten lava.

  But she did her research and felt better when she discovered the last eruption was three hundred thousand years before.

  “Who’s going to collect the samples?”

  “It’ll be a team from our field unit. Brent Barrett, Ron Linkes and Hannah Carson. Do you know them?”

  “Oh, yes. They’ll do a great job. So my team’s job is to analyze the data and do a report on the likelihood of an eruption in the future?”

  “Exactly. The USGS has been gathering data every ten years for decades. You’ll compare the new data with the historical data and prepare a report saying there’s no change, nothing to worry about, blah blah blah. Pretty standard stuff.”

  Only it wasn’t standard stuff.

  After the data collection was over Brent Barrett returned to the San Jose office. He was still there, happy as a pig in a poke.

  But then again, he never saw the data. He’d been sick and confined to his motel room during the entire gathering operation.

  That sickness saved his life.

  Ron Linkes brought the data back and presented it to Gwen. He died two days later in an automobile crash on a lonely highway.

  One of Gwen’s key analysts and the one who prepared the final report dropped dead of a heart attack a week after the report went final.

  Two days after she underwent her annual physical and her doctor said she’d live to be a hundred.

  It was the second death which got Gwen’s attention and caused her to do some research.

  She found that people died or disappeared from the face of the earth after each of the previous three surveys.

  And not just any people.

  People who were directly involved in the survey and data collection project or people who had access to the data and knew what they were looking at.

  It suddenly made sense to Gwen.

  She’d wondered why the Geological Survey chose a different data collection contractor for each of the four surveys. To her it would make more sense to go with the same contractor very ten years, assuming they were still in business.

  After all, the survey locations were hard to find and hard to get to. It would make sense to use a team which had been there before, instead of expecting a new team to have to search for the locations each time.

  Also, some of the equipment they had to use was hard to find, difficult to service and seldom used anymore.

  It made sense to use a contractor the USGS knew had it and knew how to use it, instead of making a new contractor procure such hard to find equipment and then come up to speed on it.

  Gwen had assumed the Survey changed contractors every ten years because it was bound by federal contracting laws to go with the lowest bidder each time.

  Now she started to wonder. Low bidder requirements were waiverable with good reason. And the Survey had more than enough reason to support such a waiver request.

  Gwen now wondered if the contactors were changed every time so word didn’t get around their people were disappearing. Such geologic survey contractors were notorious for not sharing information with one another, for the competition between them was great.

  It was likely that news of a couple or three untimely deaths or disappearances from one contractor wouldn’t be shared with other contractors. However, if the same compan
y did every survey they’d quickly suspect something was amiss.

  Gwen read the report. In the view of her chief analyst, pressure in the Yellowstone Caldera was building at an alarming rate.

  If the trend continued unabated, an eruption was imminent, and very soon.

  She wanted to find a mistake. Something they’d gotten wrong. But she double checked the data and saw no flaws.

  Like a patient told by her doctor she had cancer, Gwen was desperate for a second opinion.

  The only one she knew who was talented enough to double check her work; the only one she could trust to keep it a secret, was her good friend Hannah Carson.

  Chapter 5

  Hannah was living a fairy tale life until Gwen called her up and asked to meet in Phoenix. She had a great husband and a great job and her first child was on the way.

  The ominous way Gwen wanted to meet told her that was all likely to change.

  Gwen talked Hannah into a clandestine meeting in Phoenix and gave her two file boxes full of paper data.

  And several thumb drives.

  “I pray we messed something up,” she explained. “If we didn’t, it means that a sizeable portion of the United States, including my home town of Phoenix, will be turned into dust. Everything I know and love will be gone. Millions will die.

  “Double check our work, Hannah. Heck, triple check it. Find what we messed up. Find what we misinterpreted. Please tell me what I read on that report is just a nightmare.

  “But…” she warned. “Find a safe place to do it. The federal government, I’m convinced, is trying to keep this information from coming out.”

  Hannah has hesitant at first.

  “Oh, Gwen. Surely you’re kidding.”

  But she wasn’t.

  “Just look at the data and let me know what you find, honey. I pray you’ll come back and tell me we’ve blundered.”

  Gwen had every intention of returning to her home in Phoenix and awaiting Hannah’s phone call. She’d already called in sick to work for a couple of days so she wouldn’t have to avoid the eyes of her superiors.

  Or even worse, had to face the difficult question of “Where’s that report and why haven’t you turned it in yet?”