Dennis heard the rotors of the approaching chopper and ran to the clearing to flag down the paramedics.
CHAPTER FIVE
There was a time when people actually took tours of the Mason Chemical Plant Number Five. But that was long ago, before the National Football League decided that Canton, Ohio, was the perfect place for the Football Hall of Fame. Now they give all the tours. As with most industrial plants that are not working on anything of vital national or corporate security interest, the chemical plant had minimal security, mostly to keep out mischief-makers and give the employees the sense that they were being protected. This unseasonably warm fall evening, that protection was the responsibility of Eugene Harns, one of Canton’s finest, retired some fifteen years now from active duty, filling out his pension check on the night shift three days a week in the guard shack. It was an easy job. He wound up being more like the old guys at Kmart, a smiling, welcoming face waving folks through as long as the picture on their ID was a close-enough match.
It was only natural, then, that the appearance at his guard booth of a petite woman carrying a cake provided a good excuse for him to act official.
“Hold on, Ma’am,” he said as he stepped out of his shack. “No unauthorized access past this point.”
“Oh, hi. Listen, my husband Jim, he works the night shift. Anyway, it’s his birthday tonight, and I made him this little cake so he and Andy and the other boys could celebrate.” She finished with a smile that would have gotten the Army to open the door at Fort Knox.
“What’s your name?”
“Eugenia Nichols. What’s yours?” She extended the hand that wasn’t holding the cake on the plastic tray.
“Well, I’ll be … I’m Eugene. Eugene Harns.” He allowed a smile at the seeming coincidence, not realizing that she read his name badge a split second earlier. “I’ll just call the night desk and see if they’ll come down to escort you.”
As Eugene picked up the telephone to call the night manager, she politely protested. “Gosh, don’t spoil it. It’s supposed to be a surprise!” Eugene looked the suburban mom up and down, her shyness causing her eyes to avert then reconnect during his scrutiny. If it hadn’t been dark, he might have noticed that her eyes kept moving rapidly when she wasn’t focused on him. Nevertheless, even in bright sunlight, Eugene would not have seen beyond her incandescent smile, her happy blue skirt, and her sensible shoes. His thirty-two years as a cop told him that she was as sweet as the cake. Her promising him a piece of the chocolate seven-layer on her way out also persuaded him to let her have her little surprise. He nodded his head as he allowed her through. She gave him a kiss on the cheek, which made him feel old, as if she thought of him as a grandfather or something.
Maybe I’m getting soft, he thought as she sauntered toward the main building.
Upon entering the main room, the woman looked up to find dozens of brightly painted pipes of all sizes crisscrossing at different levels above her head. The tops of huge, three-story-high chemical vats jetted thin streams of vapor. She climbed up the aluminum stairs, her sensible shoes clanking all the way, onto a grated metal walkway. Walking directly to a valve-control panel box, she noticed a 6,000-gallon vat behind her, standing tall from the floor below. A red label read “Caution: Super Corrosive Content.” She placed the cake on top of the metal box and opened the panel. Inside was a large red valve held in check by a safety rod with a red flag on it, reading, “DO NOT REMOVE.” She pulled the rod out and turned the wheel. Immediately, the giant spigot at the bottom of the tank opened and a torrent of acid poured out — instantly vaporizing everything in its path.
A technician ran down the catwalk toward the woman. “Turn it back! Close the valve!” he screamed.
Without flinching, she pushed her hand into the cake and lifted it up, pieces of cake and icing falling off, revealing the .38 caliber snub-nose revolver she so painstakingly placed between the layers this afternoon. As she pulled the trigger, the loud report of the gun startled her, causing her to ask herself, where did this gun come from? Yet she was compelled to continue as the remaining cake in the front of the pistol blew off while she pumped three holes in the technician’s chest. He tumbled into the acid, dissolving like a pat of butter on a hot skillet. As the structure on which she was standing weakened and started to buckle from the same acid, she sat down in her very confused state, her jittery eyes bouncing in her head. Wasn’t there a meeting at Jenny’s school tonight? Where’s the cake I baked for it? Seconds later Doris Polk, aka Eugenia Nichols, slid off into the same corrosive mix.
That was a different sound, Eugene thought as he poured a fresh cup of coffee in anticipation of the slice of cake. He looked over to the little single-cup Mr. Coffee in the guard shack, as if that were the source of the rumbling thunder. Then he heard a noise he had never encountered in his life, something like a gigantic squeaky door accompanied by the low guttural rumble a Trident nuclear submarine would make if you dragged it across Interstate 80. He didn’t even notice the hot liquid burning his leg from the coffee cup that slipped through his hand. Mesmerized, he watched as the entire Plant Number Five collapsed in and on itself like a startled soufflé dissolving into oozing goo right before his eyes.
CHAPTER SIX
200 years ago it must have made sense, but the hard marble steps and floors of the former military academy were killing the Captain’s legs. He calculated that he must walk 30 kilometers a day over these things that were half the rise of normal stairs. The “standard issue” boots he wore as part of his daily uniform were designed for tramping through terrain, not over polished marble. The steps and floors were designed this way so that generals and commanders of the legions of Italy, who once occupied this country, could ride their mounts right up the stairs to their offices. That perk of command was now causing his legs to ache two centuries later. The closest anyone in this compound ever came to a horse lately was a 4x4 Toyota Land Cruiser. The steed-inspired length of each step caused him to hobble up the stairs in a manner not unlike a small boy, with both feet landing on every center-worn tread. This small annoyance piled up to once again have him doubt his lot in life. He had risen to the rank of Captain early, and with pride, only to have his career stalled at that level. Younger men than he were now his superiors. He considered himself a glorified office boy running antiquated Teletype messages, deemed secret, to various parts of the massive military structure. It was that level of sensitivity, which demanded that no underling, beneath the rank of Captain could ferry these signals to the Command staff. He hurried past statues of great former generals and busts of other old men whose bones were now dust, those marble effigies keeping them in eternal service to a country that had been occupied more times than a hotel room in Paris.
He stopped at the desk of the assistant to General Nandeserra. The Captain hated the General’s clerk, who had adopted an air of royalty, simply because he was the lackey of a commanding officer (an elevation in life to which his goat herder of a father could never have imagined).