AI Era: I Smell Trouble

We pored over the maps on my laptop screen. At first, we were disappointed, as most of the farm appeared unremarkable on the images. However, Will pointed out two items on the infra-red image that I hadn't noticed: a small square area to the south of the cabin, and a roughly rectangular area to the west of the cabin. I asked, "What's that?"

Will said, "It looks like some faint areas of plant stress. I'd guess that someone did some digging there in the past. Maybe a septic system?" Shit. Literally. We thanked Will, and he packed up his drone and drove away.

None of us were wild about digging up a septic tank. So, we grabbed our digging tools and headed to the cabin with the enthusiasm of people going off to dig their own mass grave. However, before we had schlepped too far, a green step van pulled up to the barn, with the words 'Ground Sound' on the side.

My friends looked askance at me once more. I held up my hands and said, "Sorry. I wasn't sure if he would be able to get here on such short notice."

I turned back to the van and shook hands with the driver. "Everyone, this is Bob Barnett, GPR tech extraordinaire." In answer to Sally and Nora's WTF glares, I added, "GPR is ground-penetrating radar. It's used a lot for detecting underground utilities and other buried objects. Bob might be able to save us some digging, and tell us more about what's under those two areas by the cabin." Both women seemed perceptibly happier at this news.

Bob opened the back of the van, and rolled out a device the size of a small grocery cart on four fat 14 inch tires. He booted up the machine and asked us where we wanted to start. We led him over to the areas of interest by the cabin.

He started by making several passes over the smaller area south of the cabin. After a few minutes, he said, "Fairly shallow structures — almost certainly a septic line and tank." He marked the outlines of both structures with some small, bright orange flags that had materialized from his cart.

He then turned his attention to the larger area to the west of the cabin. After a few more minutes, he announced that we were looking at a relatively large soil void. He outlined the void with more of the same plastic flags. When he finished, we saw a rectangular outline about 8 feet wide and 20 feet long extending out from the cabin. From the echo patterns, he estimated that the void was located about 10 feet underground.

This was getting pretty exciting. However, a ground search didn't turn up any sign of an entrance. Nora had a great suggestion. "Maybe there's some way to access it from inside the cabin."

We sent Bob over to search inside and around the periphery of the hay barn. We were especially interested in looking for voids under the barn floor that a drone wouldn't be able to see. Meanwhile, we turned our attention to the small, one-story cabin. Nora sorted through the keys on Tom's keyring, and found one that unlocked the front door.

The front door opened into a combination living room / kitchen with a small enclosed pantry. Behind that was a single bedroom with a small bathroom. An initial search didn't show any obvious connection between the cabin interior and the void to the west of the cabin. I scanned the cabin with the e-nose, looking for Tom's scent. I did detect some traces of his scent in the bedroom and bathroom as well as the couch in the living room. There was also some trace scent in the kitchen area, particularly in the refrigerator. However, the strongest concentration of Tom's scent was in the enclosed pantry, particularly along the floor. Interesting.

Bob didn't find anything in the barn, and brought his machine back to the cabin when he was done. We moved the furniture around to allow him to scan all of the floor space in the bathroom, bedroom, living room and kitchen. As far as Bob could tell, those areas were all sitting on a solid concrete slab. The only area that was unscanned was the pantry. We cleared out some tools, canned goods and other detritus from the pantry floor. Bob rolled the GPRS in there and immediately detected a large void beneath the flooring. Very interesting.

We spent the next hour doing an inch by inch search of the pantry and its floor, but didn't find anything. We were getting frustrated, and were very close to using pry bars to pull up the flooring. It was then that Sally stumbled on the answer. As she was moving tools off of the hanging hooks in the pantry, she accidentally rotated one of them 90 degrees. When she did that, she heard a click and the edge of the pantry floor nearest the door rose up a few centimeters. She grabbed the exposed lip of the flooring, and lifted it, exposing a steep set of steps going down into a dark space. "Holy shit!"

I joined her at the pantry. "Well done, Sally! Looks like you've found someone's hidey-hole."

Mark said. "We just found the secret bunker of a guy who is currently in jail for several felonies. Wilson may have hidden evidence of some of his crimes down there. We want that evidence intact so it will be admissible in court. Therefore, I need to be the first person in there. If I see anything, we will pull out immediately and get a CSI team down here to process the scene."

I said, "Should we worry about booby-traps?"

Nora said, "Tom is not very sophisticated about any kind of electrical or mechanical object. If there's a booby trap, then he didn't build it." That was some small comfort.

Mark asked me, "Can your e-nose do a quick screen for explosives?"

"Sure. Give me a list of which ones you want screened and I'll download the relevant chemical data for them." Fortunately, my phone had decent 5G coverage at the cabin. Fifteen minutes later, the e-nose was retrained and ready to sniff.

I handed the e-nose to Mark, and he slowly made his way down the steps. He didn't sense any explosives, but Tom's scent got a bit stronger. Mark called, "All clear!" I followed him down to the bottom of the steps and saw a thick metal blast door.

Mark turned the wheel on the door until the bolts securing it to the frame retracted fully. Then we both stood behind it as he cautiously pulled it open. Nothing happened. Mark carefully peered around the edge of the door, and aimed his flashlight inside. He murmured, "Clear, so far."

He then bent down and carefully inspected the bottom of the door frame. "No trip wires." He then examined the floor inside for a few moments. "Don't see any obvious pressure plates."

Mark stepped inside, looked around for a moment, and shone his flashlight around. I followed him inside, and saw a rectangular room with a corrugated steel wall. It was about 8 feet high, 8 feet wide and about 20 feet long.

The air was still and musty, with a faint bouquet of mildew. Plastic bins lined both walls floor to ceiling. I saw a dusty bunk bed in the back corner of the room, next to a small desk and folding chair. A yellowed calendar from 1960 hung above the desk.

I said, "Looks like someone turned a shipping container into a fall-out shelter. There were a lot of people building bunkers like this back in the 60's."

Sally shouted down the stairwell, "Are you guys OK in there? Can we come down?"

Mark shouted back. "Yes, but don't touch anything."

Sally came down the steps. Nora joined us and said, "Wow. Tom brought me out here a few times after we were married, but he never told me about this room." She looked around. "What's in all of these storage bins?"

Mark slipped on a pair of nitrile gloves and handed me another pair. We slid out a bin from under the desk. Mark grunted with effort. "Wow, that was unexpectedly heavy."


We unsnapped the lid and saw nothing but a pile of old newspapers. When we lifted those off, We found several small metal boxes. We opened the first one and found rolls of gold coins. The next one had a small bag of clear, sparkly stones that looked like diamonds. Another box was filled with silver coins. Another had banded stacks of one hundred dollar bills. Nora was amazed. "Where did all of this come from? Who does it belong to? Tom never mentioned any of this to me!"

Mark popped the lid off another one of the plastic bins. We could see that it was filled with clear plastic bags. Mark lifted up the first one, which contained a pair of panties along with a piece of paper with a date and some initials. He put the bag back into the bin and said, "Shit! I may be wrong, but I think that we just found a bin full of trophies from Wilson's rape victims. We're going to have to treat this whole bunker as a crime scene. Everyone out!"

We climbed back out of the bunker, and Mark called a colleague at the King County Sheriff's Department. The first of several deputy sheriffs arrived 20 minutes later, and a whole CSI team was on scene within an hour.

The CSI team was meticulous. It took them until well after dark to thoroughly photograph the bunker and dust it for fingerprints. It was midnight before they finished cataloguing all of the contents of the bunker.

***

When we got home from the farm, we were pretty whipped. We had just enough energy to take off our clothes, and then tumble into bed. We were out in minutes, and slept until we could sleep no more.

We both took the rest of the week off from work. We puttered around the house doing odd jobs, and waiting to hear from Mark. Two days later, he dropped by our house. Hugs were exchanged, and he came inside.

"I want to fill you guys in on our investigation so far. The storage locker we found in Seattle seems to have been Tom's main base of operations. He kept his main stash of date rape drugs there. He also kept some extra video gear there, including a laptop and a large collection of video files."

He looked at Sally. "We did find several video files of Tom assaulting you in Chicago. They were really hard for me to watch, but they corroborate everything you told me and John. You were drugged out of your skull. Nothing consensual happened, and you have nothing to feel guilty about."

I let out a breath I had been holding, and felt immense relief. I took Sally in my arms and said, "I'm so sorry, sweetheart! I should have known better — cheating is so out of character for you. You have the best moral compass of anyone I know. Hell, you have moral satnav! Please forgive me for ever doubting you!"

She embraced me right back and said, "It's OK, sweetie. I've been doubting myself for the past few weeks. I still don't remember that night in Chicago, and I was so afraid that I somehow came on to that bastard."

With a twinkle in his eye, Mark said, "We found another video file of you. I believe you would call it the 'Great Balls of Fire' episode. By the end of that clip our whole squad was on its feet, giving you a standing ovation. I think it would do John a lot of good to watch that one with you."

I hugged her tighter and said, "You are a fucking Amazon!"

Mark said, "Besides the videos of you, we have a number of files of Tom with six other women. We've identified 2 of them and are working on the other four. It appears that several of the women succumbed to his blackmail threats and had sex with him again. If any of them are willing to testify, we can probably add a few more counts of rape and extortion to Tom's charges."

Sally seemed grimly pleased. "Good news, Mark. Thanks. But what did you find in the bunker?"

"Ah, the bunker. That seems to have been his main storage site. We found copies of all of the videos there. Tom appears to be quite a trophy collector. We found a number of Ziploc bags of women's panties, carefully labeled by date and initials. Black light exam showed semen stains, and we're running them all for DNA."


I said, "How about the coins and jewels and cash?"


"Based on current gold and silver prices, the cash and coins are worth between three and four hundred thousand dollars. We haven't had the diamonds appraised yet."

I whistled. "Wow, that's a nice nest egg. What do you suppose that was for?"

Mark said, "It could be part of a bug-out kit. There are parts of the world where he could live well for years with that amount of cash. It could also be that he was doing this just to hide assets from Nora during to the divorce."

"Now, I have some bad news. Tom was arraigned, and bail was posted at $300,000. He only has to put up 10% of that with a bondsman, so he will probably be out on bail by the end of the day."

Sally said, "Shit. I was hoping that rotten motherfucker would have to stay in jail a lot longer." She looked pensive. "Will you guys keep an eye on him once he's out? And, are we in any danger?"

"In theory, we could keep him under surveillance for up to a year without having to get a warrant. However, in practice, we just don't have the manpower to do that continuously. Our best hope is to get the DA to quickly file additional charges, and possibly bump the bail up beyond his reach."

"I'd advise you guys to lay low as much as possible. Limit the amount of time you're out in public. If you're not at work, stay home. If Wilson comes by your house, call us immediately, and don't let him in."

***

We followed Mark's advice for the next two weeks. We cooked all our meals at home, and the only shows we watched were streamed online. We considered hiring a bodyguard, but balked at the cost. A protection dog did not seem practical for us either.

Neither Sally nor I are ninjas or former Navy Seals. We are not martial artists and don't have any guns. However, we did have our own modest superpowers. Sally's two previous encounters with Wilson had revealed a terrifying talent to channel a Hulk-like rage and transform into She With Whom Thou Shalt Not Fuck. I was an alpha geek with time on my hands and a healthy bank account. Plans were made and stuff was bought. UPS boxes of gear arrived daily to help fortify our castle. If our keep was stormed, we would repel boarders. There would be heads on pikes.

I installed video surveillance in and around our house with both visible light and infrared cameras. I set up several e-nose systems around all of the entrances to our property. If they caught a whiff of Wilson, they would sound an alert.

***

A few nights later, the e-nose and IR proximity alarms sounded around 11 pm. As we watched on the security monitors, two forms emerged out of the darkness. As they came up to our front door, the front IR camera clearly showed Tom Wilson, with one arm around his wife's neck and a gun in the other hand. Sally called out, "Plan A!" We speed-dialed 911, double-checked the door locks and hunkered down, waiting for the police to arrive.

Wilson beat on our door with his gun and shouted, "Open up, Anderson!" When we didn't respond, he shouted again, "Let me in, or I'll shoot Nora!"

Shit! We hadn't considered the possibility of a hostage situation. I whispered to Sally, "Plan B!, Plan B!", which was for her to leave me here, slip out the back door, run away as far as possible, and wait for the police.


She shook her head and whispered back, "No fucking way! Plan C!"

Crap! Wilson banged on the door again and shouted, "I'm going to shoot Nora in the foot on the count of 10! One, two, three..."

Fuck! I waved Sally away and whispered, "OK, Plan C it is." She slipped away into the darkened living room to my right.

I shouted through the door, "I'm coming! I'm coming! Just a minute!"

Wilson continued to count, "Six, seven, eight..."

I unlocked the door, opened it and backed away.

Wilson pushed his way in, still holding Nora in front of him by the neck and pointing the gun at me. "You motherfuckers have ruined my life! I'm going to kill this whore, and then shoot you and your cunt wife!"

He looked around wildly. "Where the fuck is she?"

"Sally's not here. She went to visit her sister in Puyallup."

'Puyallup' was the code word we had picked for Plan C. I had about 3 seconds. One thousand and one, one thousand and two, one thousand and...

Sally triggered the sonic surprise we had set up in our front bathroom to my left. The ferocious bark of an angry Doberman filled the hallway from a bank of high-definition monitor speakers. I was expecting the sound, but still almost peed my pants. It sounded like the Hound of the Baskervilles on IV steroids and crystal meth. Wilson jerked to his right, swinging the gun momentarily away from me. That was my signal to hit the deck. As I did, Sally shot him in the back with a taser.

Wilson convulsed, arching his back. The gun went off with a boom, blowing a hole in our ceiling. He released Nora, and fell to the floor, twitching. I scrambled over to him and stomped on his wrist. He let go of the gun and I kicked it away from him.

Sally came over and proceeded to administer her own personal version of shock and awe. She shoved a stun gun into Tom's crotch, yelled, "Shock!" and sent 50,000 volts crackling into his cojones. When Tom shrieked and clutched his gonads, Sally said, "Aww..."

Every time Tom started to regain his senses, Sally gave him another zap with her crotch prod. Wash, rinse, repeat. I was surprised that his gonads were not actually glowing by the time the police showed up.

Sally placed the stun gun on the floor, and we both raised our hands. The police entered cautiously, with guns raised. Mark arrived several minutes later and briefed the responding officers on the case details. Weapons were holstered and Wilson was handcuffed and hauled away by the EMTs on yet another gurney.

The CSI team arrived, and pictures were taken. Wilson's gun was bagged and the slug from his weapon was recovered from our ceiling.

EMTs checked Nora out, and she told us her side of the story. "I stupidly stopped by our house to pick up some more clothes. That was a bad decision, because Tom was hiding there and ambushed me. He yelled at me and slapped me around for a while. I've never seen him so agitated! He forced me to drive over here at gunpoint."

A powerful wave of emotion swept across her face. After a moment, she took a deep breath and continued. "Thank you so much for stopping him. I thought we were all going to die."

The EMTs had put dressings on several small lacerations, and had given her an ice pack for her black eye and facial bruises. They wanted to take her to Harborview for further workup, but she declined. The EMTs were mollified after Sally pointed out that she was an internist, and promised to keep a close watch on Nora.

By the time the police left, Sally and Nora and I were still pretty wired. We went to an all-night restaurant, sipped coffee and tried to swallow some pie. Mark joined us an hour later, and gave us a brief update. He had booked Wilson for kidnapping and attempted murder. "Given his prior charges and what he tried to do to you guys tonight, there's not much chance that a judge will give him bail again."

We finally wound down, but didn't feel like going back to our home crime scene. Sally booked two adjoining hotel rooms. Sally kept an eye on Nora in one, and I slept in the other room.

EPILOGUE:

With images from Wilson's video hoard and DNA from his trophies, all six of the other women he raped and blackmailed were eventually identified. Three of them were willing to testify against him. He was eventually convicted of multiple counts of rape, kidnapping, extortion and attempted murder. He was sentenced to life in prison and lost his medical license. Nora divorced him and got full custody of her son. She was awarded the house and 80% of their financial assets.

The King County Sheriff's office was unable to connect the gold, silver and diamonds from Tom's hoard to any crime, and finally released them to Nora's custody. Wilson's attorney attempted to claim that the hoard was acquired prior to the marriage. Nora's attorney shot this down by pointing out that the mint dates on most of the coins were after their wedding date. Wilson and his attorney were also unaware that most of the diamonds in his stash were GIA-certified, and therefore had engraved serial numbers. It was pretty easy for Sally's attorney to match these serial numbers to purchase dates which were all well after the wedding. The family court judge was pissed off by this craven attempt to hide marital assets, and awarded 90% of the hoard to Nora and her son.