Secrets Ch. 03

This story is part of an ongoing series. The chronological order of my stories is listed in WifeWatchman's biography.

Feedback and constructive criticism is very much appreciated, and I encourage feedback for ideas.

This story contains graphic scenes, language and actions that might be extremely offensive to some people. These scenes, words and actions are used only for the literary purposes of this story. The author does not condone murder, racial language, violence, rape or violence against women, and any depictions of any of these in this story should not be construed as acceptance of the above.

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Part 14 - Darkness And Light

I opened my eyes. The Light was above me, filling the sky with white brightness. In front of me was a path to a bridge over a stream, the water flowing from right to left, seemingly cool and inviting. I looked across the stream, and saw a beautiful meadow on a hill rising up, a huge tree at the apex that was the far horizon. There were no persons on that side that I could see, only two dogs... Tag and Patches, my childhood canine companions. I felt a wave of emotion upon seeing them.

I looked down, seeing that I was wearing a white, button-down, collared shirt and black slacks. And I had a red crowbar in my hand.

Then I looked up again, and saw that on the bench that was on the left side of the path, on my side of the bridge, were two persons whose presences simply were not possible. They were Mrs. Veasley and Officer Peter M. Feeley.

"Hello, Child." Mrs. Veasley said. "You are not supposed to be here yet."

"Why am I here, then?" I asked.

"Always 'why' with you, Child." said Mrs. Veasley. "Always seeking answers that always elude you."

"Your work is not done, Commander." said Peter M. Feeley. "We cannot even permit you the luxury of choice to stay or to go back."

"Then send me back." I said.

"That is for you to do yourself, Child." Mrs. Veasley said. I looked over the bridge again, at the two dogs, yearning to pet them and go running through that meadow with them. I closed my eyes, seeming just blinking them...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

At 'The Vision' World Headquarters, in the office of its founder and great leader, Dr. P. Harvey Eckhart, three persons sat on the sofa facing west, overlooking the rolling meadows and the River cutting between them, their eyes closed, meditating. On the other sofa, one person sat watching them intently.

In the middle was Carole Troy. To her left was Dr. Eckhart, and to her right was Cindy Ross. They were all concentrating on their breathing and mental awareness, and Cindy and Dr. Eckhart were concentrating all of their mental energies on the six-year-old girl between them.

Carole suddenly opened her eyes and said "I saw Daddy!"

"Where?" Cindy asked as she opened her eyes.

"He was on some sort of table in a dark room. Like a dentist chair in a doctor's office, but he was laying down." Carole said. "I asked him where we were, and he said we were under the Hospital."

"Oh my God." Teresa Croyle gasped. "I know where that is." She got up from the sofa opposite the others and rushed for the elevator, bringing out her cellphone and making a call.

"Did you see your mother?" Dr. Eckhart asked.

"No sir, just Daddy." said Carole. "He looked like he was very sick."

"Aunt Teresa is going to go find him." Cindy said. "He'll be all right."

"She better hurry." Carole said sadly. "He's not going to be all right much longer..."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"He's back." I heard a woman's voice say. "His heart stopped for a minute, but I got it restarted."

"Good." said a male voice. "What did he say?"

"He said that McGinty's Materials were under the cell tower." the woman said.

"But which one?" said the man. "There has to be a hundred of them in this County alone."

"I don't know." said the woman. "But he's unresponsive right now."

"Can you bring him out of it?" the man asked.

"I don't know." the woman said. "We either have to restart the process, then bring him back out slowly, or let him sleep it off and hope he wakes up normally."

"And then he might not remember any of it." the man said.

"And worse," the woman said, "we induced him finding the Materials. But if he really didn't, then he may be telling us anything his subconscious mind made up."

I heard a ring, which was a telephone on the wall. The man answered. "What?!" he gasped. "Okay." He hung up and then said "Croyle just drove up, blue lights on her car blazing. And she knows about this place. We may have five minutes."

"Damn!" the woman said. "Okay, all we can do is go to Rescue Sequence B..."

Part 15 - The Rescue

Teresa Croyle, wearing all black clothing with the icon of Clan Troy on the back, and black military-style boots, came hurtling into University Hospital. She strode down the hallway to the Hospice section, carrying a large duffel bag.

"Wait up, babe!" she heard a voice behind her. She turned to see her husband Todd, his friend Teddy Franklin, and Takaki Nagamasa, all wearing black but with no Clan logos. "I got your text." Todd said. "What's going on?"

"Don is here." Teresa said. "I just hope Laura is, too. Come with me." They strode down the southeast wing, seeing Hospital Administrator Leonard R. Cordell in the hallway. Security prevented anyone else from coming down the hallway. A wall panel had been moved aside, revealing the elevator shaft that descended into the secret facility below. (Author's note: 'Schools And The Second', Ch. 04.)

"The elevator is down there." said Cordell. "I pressed the button, but it didn't move. It's locked into place, and there's no way to bring it back up without entering the code from within the elevator."

"All right, then." Teresa said. She put her duffel bag on the floor and extracted a set of rods with bungee cord inside them. She assembled them into a long rod and attached suction cups to either end, then affixed the rod to the wall, attached on either side of the elevator door.

Then she extracted a length of coiled rope, and ran it through an O-ring attached to the bar. Meanwhile, Todd had put together a second bar that was higher up, to brace himself against. He then put the end of the rope through a carabiner on his belt. "Ready." he said as Teresa coiled the rope through her own carabiner. She put on her Police helmet and slung her M-4 rifle over her back, then eased between the bars and twisted around.

"Line 1, on rappel!" she called out.

"Line 1, on belay!" Todd called back. Teresa then began rappelling down the shaft. She descended rapidly, and came to rest on her feet on top of the elevator cab.

"Line 1, off rappel!" she called up.

"Line 1, off belay!" Todd replied. Teresa then found and opened the hatch in the elevator's ceiling. She took out her iPhone and texted: "The door is open. Come on down."

Todd and Teddy Franklin also descended, both bringing M-4s with them. Teresa descended first, then Todd and Teddy. Then Teresa looked out the door and down the dark hallway, seeing no one. She gave and signal, then rushed into the corridor and began to go down it, followed by Todd and Teddy.

Coming to the little O.R. room on the right, where she and the Iron Crowbar had interrogated that perp, Teresa looked in. "Oh my God." she gasped.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The Light was gone, and I opened my eyes to near total darkness. I felt the cold of the table I was on. The ringing in my ears was still there, but a very quiet background sound as opposed to the jarring loudness of earlier.

I heard noises, which sounded like banging on metal in the distance. Then I heard a woman's voice saying "Check to see if Laura is down the hallway." A moment later, I felt more than saw a shadow of a person, silhouetted against the dim light of the hallway.

"Don?... Don!" the voice said. I wanted to call out, to respond, but I couldn't. I felt like I was frozen in some sort of etherial no-man's-land, neither in this world nor the next. The humming went away; apparently earphones had been emitting those sounds, and had just been taken off. Then the shadow leaned over and whispered into my ear:

"January... Suborbital... Denomination..."

*WHOOSH!*

"Uhhh!" gasped out as reality came back to me like a punch to the face. I looked over, seeing Teresa Croyle looking down at me.

"Teresa... I need to tell you..."

"Let me get Todd---" Teresa said, going for the door.

"TERESA!" I yelled as loud as I could. Fortunately, she came back. "Listen to me now, this is important. In the elevator, above the key lock, there's a panel. Pry it off, and you'll see a number pad."

"Okay..." Teresa said, about to move out again.

"Teresa!" I said again, "Please! Listen to me for one minute!" She came back, and I said "When you press a number, they'll re-sequence. So don't just go pressing numbers fast. Wait for the reset each time. The numbers are 3-0-1-5-3."

"Three, zero, one, five, three." Teresa repeated. "Got it." Then she said "Did you really memorize every code of every system you worked with?"

"We'll talk about that at the Cop Bar over Scotch, maybe?" I asked weakly.

"Okay, let's get you out of here." Teresa said, getting the hint. "Do you know where Laura is?"

"No." I said. "I never saw her. Did she disappear, too?"

"Yes." said Teresa. She went into the hallway, and a moment later she and Teddy Franklin were back with a gurney. "Todd found Laura. She was tied up in the room across the hallway." Teddy slid his hands under my shoulders, and Teresa grabbed my legs at the knees. "1... 2... 3..." They lifted me up and got me onto the gurney.

They rolled me out down the hallway, and I saw that Todd was carrying Laura. She was wearing a dress and her doctor's coat, practically wrapped in it. Teresa pulled and Teddy pushed my gurney to the elevator.

I could see out of the corner of my eye that Todd had put Laura on her feet and was holding her up. She seemed groggy but okay. Then I glanced down at Teresa, who had removed the panel. She pressed the second button down on the left (where '4' is on a normal number pad if '1' is top left). The numbers rearranged, then she pressed that same button, then that same button a third time. Ah, I thought with amusement, the manufacturer's code re-sequences to the same spot every time. That's cool to know.

The '3-0-1-5-3' code worked, and the elevator doors closed and the elevator began moving up. At the hospital floor level it stopped and the doors opened, and Dr. Cordell and Dr. Morgan were there to take charge of my gurney and whisk me to the other end of the Hospital, where the E.R. was...

Part 16 - Aftermath

After I was tested, blood drawn, and poked and prodded like doctors tend to do when doing doctor things, I was hooked to an I.V. for hydration, and another for liquid nutrition, then moved to a private room. Teresa came in, and the nurse was about to make her leave when I intervened and said "Let her stay, Nurse. I need to talk to her."

"You need to rest." the nurse said. She must be new here, I thought to myself.

"I'm resting." I said. "Let me talk with my Police Captain, please." Maybe it was the word 'Police' that conveyed the clue she needed, but she got that hint and left us alone.

"Thank you for rescuing me." I said. "Where's Laura?"

"She's in the room next door." Teresa said. "She's dehydrated, but it doesn't look like they hooked her up to any machines like they did you." I saw the tears forming in Teresa's eyes at the memory of how she'd found me.

"I'm okay, mon ami." I said. "So... what day is this?"

"Sunday, August 4th. It's about 2:00pm now." Teresa said.

"What happened? From the beginning." I asked.

Teresa said "We had that party at the Cop Bar Friday night. You and Laura went home alone to the Mountain Nest. Apparently your home was broken into in the night, and with the dogs at The Cabin with the kids, the perps were able to tranquilize you before you woke up."

Teresa: "Paulina called me Saturday morning when you didn't show up for breakfast at The Cabin and she couldn't get either of you on the phone. Cindy and I went over there, and found the Mountain Nest empty. That's when we started looking for you and put out an APB, and Jack Muscone got the FBI involved in looking for you." I nodded.

Teresa: "The good news was that your bodies had not been found. The bad news was that we had no earthly idea, pun not intended, of where you might be. We didn't check under the Hospital because Laura was missing, too, and we didn't think you'd be taken there, where you might be seen being brought in. Guess I learned something from making that assumption, huh?"

"Except it wasn't you that made that assumption." I said, very sure. "Who was the real naysayer?"

"I..." Teresa started, then thought about it. "It may have been Todd. Or Martin Nash. We had a big roundtable discussion at the Old Mill about it yesterday. I did notice that Melina and Jack Muscone looked very worried about you. They did go to that secret basement under the Pharmacy Building, but you weren't there, of course."

I nodded. "So then what?"

"Early this morning, Dr. Eckhart called Cindy and asked her to bring Carole to 'The Vision' compound." said Teresa. "And I've seen enough by now to know that it was as good a thing to do as anything. So we took Carole down there, and Dr. Eckhart had her sit and relax and breathe and think of nothing, then think only of you. And he and Cindy cleared their minds and gave Carole their mental support. And Carole said she saw you, and that you told her you were under the Hospital."

I nodded. "Yes... that happened, as part of the dream sequence they were inducing into me... well, maybe Carole broke through what they were doing."

Teresa nodded. "Soooo, I mobilized Clan Crowbar, and with Admiral Cordell's help we went down there and found you. Todd found Laura tied up and gagged in the other room, but otherwise not in nearly as bad a shape as you were."

"So Carole found me, huh?" I said. Just a prelude to The Greatness to come, I thought to myself with a great deal of pride and satisfaction.

"Yes." said Teresa. "We'll bring her here once we're sure you're going to be okay."

"And the three words worked, eh?" I said.

"Yes!" exclaimed Teresa. "I don't know why I thought to say them. I thought Dr. Eckhart had deprogrammed you."

"He tried to," I said, "when he deprogrammed Cindy." (Author's note: 'Causing A Commotion', Ch. 03.) "But I woke up early from the treatment. The words don't work while I'm awake, but when I was under again, they kicked in when you said them to me."

Teresa nodded. "Well, I guess we didn't give them time to really physically deplete you. So you're in much better shape than the last time they did this to you."

That caused me to think of something. I said "Teresa... when you were on the operating tables those times, did you see a meadow with a stream, a pastel-colored bridge, a big tree on top of the far hill?"

Teresa blinked in stunned amazement, then gasped "Yes! You saw it, too? Oh my God, that means you almost died!"

I nodded. "I saw Mrs. Veasley and Pete Feeley sitting on a bench in front of the bridge, and they said it wasn't my time yet. And I saw on that far hill... my two childhood dogs, just sitting there, waiting for me."

I felt a wave of emotion hit me, then said "I knew it! I knew there were dogs in Heaven!"

Teresa gave what was for her a smile. "Yes, they're waiting for you. I'm glad you didn't go join them." I reached out and took her hand in mine and gently squeezed it as Teresa fought to not be overcome by her own emotions at this moment.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I heard voices in the hallway. One of them was Cindy Ross. The other was Carole Diana Troy.

"But your mom is in this room, Carole." Cindy said.

"But Daddy is in that room." Carole said. "And I need to make sure he's o-kay."

Future Red Crowbar won over Current Green Crowbar, and a second later the door to my room opened as Carole and Cindy came in. Carole went and got the chair at the desk in the corner (for doctors to enter data into the computers), brought it over, and climbed on it so she could see me, and I her.

"Hi Daddy." Carole said. "Are you o-kay?"

"I am now, Fussbudget." I said. "So you told them I was under the Hospital?"

"Yes, Daddy, just like you told me to." Carole said.

"You did very well, and they were able to rescue me because of you." I said. "Thank you very much for helping me."

"It was the least I could do," Carole said importantly, "for the Iron Crowbar." I began laughing and could not stop. Cindy was laughing, too, as she helped Carole climb onto the bed so that I could give my daughter a biiiiiiig hug...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

After taking Carole to visit her mother, Cindy took her on home. Dr. Cordell came in to check up on me.

"Damn, but you're one tough son of a... gun." said the Admiral as he listened to my heart and other doctor things. "Honestly, Don... I thought Teresa's father was the toughest man I ever knew. But you're right up there with him."

"Then I'm in greatly honorable company." I said, knowing just how great a compliment that was from this man. "Thank you."

"And now you know why I hate the CIA." said Cordell. "Not that they were directly involved in this, but they created the techniques you've been subjected to twice now."

"So who did do this to me?" I asked, peering at the Admiral. People don't become Admirals without knowing a thing or two, and having a connection or two. And it was under his Hospital that I was found.

Dr. Cordell looked over at me and said "I'm not sure. I don't know, and I am not sure I want to know." I nodded, accepting his answer and not pressing.

"Dr. Morgan is going to release Laura this evening." said Dr. Cordell. "There is nothing worse than having a doctor as a patient, and your wife can be one very ornery woman when she is irritated."

"Don't I know it." I said. "What about me?"

"We'd like to keep you overnight, make sure you get hydrated and all, and have no reactions to what you went through." said Cordell. Then he caught on, and said "But that's not going to happen, is it?"

"No sir." I said.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Some minutes later, I was sitting up in bed, catching up on the weekend's news on my iPad when the door opened to admit FBI Special Agent in Charge Jack Muscone. When he saw me, he looked considerably relieved.

"Hi Jack." I said jovially. "How's your weekend been?"

"Worse than yours." Muscone replied. "At least you knew you were still alive. I wasn't so sure... and to be honest, I was fearing the worst."

"I was told it wasn't my time yet." I said truthfully, remembering Mrs. Veasley's words. "But it's over, I was found quickly, and unlike last time, I feel fine."

"Good." said Muscone. "We're investigating who did this, of course. It's pretty obvious that there had to be some involvement by Government entities. Any idea why they went after both you and Laura?"

"McGinty's Materials." I said. "They went straight for me first, but once they would've found out I didn't have them nor know where they were, they might've gone for Laura next. Fortunately, the Clan of the Crowbar rescued me with a little help from my Junior Crowbar."

Muscone's chuckle was more like a short, brief bark. Then he said, very seriously, almost sadly: "The DepDirector is talking to Laura right now. I talked to him briefly." Then Muscone looked at me and said "I am overhauling the FBI's City office. Lindy Linares had asked to join Cardigan's cyber group, and I've signed off on it. She can come help us, if needed. Julius Jefferson will be staying with me, and building a new team as Supervisory Agent. Ted Crenshaw and Tim Jenkins will stay in Southport, where they're doing excellent work."