Saglek

By John Michaelson

In 1969 Lt. Michael Robinson was assigned to Saglek Air Force Station, an arctic outpost perched 1800 feet above the brutal waters of the North Atlantic. Home to 150 men, military and civilian in a frozen world far beyond the reach of civilization, with a mission more political than military, isolation, loneliness and boredom stirred their emotions as they otherwise could never have imagined. An idealistic, iconoclastic product of the 60s, Lt. Robinson found himself on a personal journey of revelation, discovery and fulfillment during the final year before the Station was finally deactivated and closed 1970. In the primordial, mystical world of Northern Labrador, it was a journey influenced by the pervasive backdrop of Inuit mythology. Based on a true story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Michaelson
• Release date: Mar 23, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301172566

John Michaelson

A native New Yorker, I now live in Southern California. I am retired. In addition to writing I enjoy drawing (primarily pen and ink) and photography. Saglek is my first full length novel. I began writing it while I still had vivid memories of that year on the rock. That was a long time ago. It stands alone as the single manuscript which I felt compelled to write. It began as a cathartic process to release those demons that haunted me after my time there. But it became a labor of love and drew me into it such that I can now relive it with more fond memories. As a person grows older there are so many experiences of life we leave behind only to recall with the sadly unattainable desire to revisit. How pleasantly ironic that in this work I have regained the vividness by which I can revisit that event which had such an enormous impact on me.. I write not only to entertain a reader, but to engage the reader in thought. I want you to feel a personal emotional attachment to the work. To that regard, my chosen genre is horror. There is a line in Saglek which states that whenever a person is confronted with the unknown, they may challenge it or avoid it. But the one thing they cannot do is ignore it. And in it they will see a reflection of themselves. That is my goal. I want to present readers with an experience that will lead them to see themselves in it.

Book preview

Dedication

Many years after its deactivation, the buildings of Saglek were physically demolished. With them a part of me was ripped away. SAGLEK is dedicated to all the men of Saglek Air Force Station, military and civilian who, as did I, once knew it as home. It is especially dedicated to the crew of the ill fated bomber Time’s a Wastin. I still have in my possession an original copy of Diary of One Now Dead, the booklet that provided so much of the inspiration I needed in the writing of SAGLEK. The text of that document can be found in its entirety on the Internet.

Acknowledgments

The Anatomy of Revolution, Crane Brinton, Copyright 1938, 1952, 1965.

DIARY OF ONE NOW DEAD, Public domain.

All Along the Watchtower, lyric by Bob Dylan.

Foreword

Ten years ago I received an email from a man I knew when we were both assigned to Saglek Air Force Station in 1970. He had found my email address on a website dedicated to the military installations located along the Pine Tree Line. We exchanged telephone numbers and soon engaged in a three hour phone conversation. After 35 years, it was an emotional conversation in which we relived experiences that still deeply affected us. He was attempting to reconnect with as many men he had known at Saglek as possible. I was writing a book about it. I suppose we all dealt with it in our own way.

The Pine Tree Line was a system of forward warning radar stations dotting the North Country during the cold war of the 50s and 60s. Most of those stations were located remotely, far from civilization. Some of them were situated in extremely isolated places such as Saglek Bay on the northern tip of Labrador. An Internet search will demonstrate continued interest in the Pine Tree Line. WebPages provide a focal point for those who were assigned to those stations over the years and who, to this day cannot get it out of their heads.

This project has been the reliving of a significant episode in my life. SAGLEK is my attempt to put it in terms for others to understand. As I’ve worked through it over the years, it has become a cathartic blast. Everyone to ever have been assigned there will forever carry that year with them. It is my hope that each of the remaining veterans of Saglek has an opportunity to share in my effort. Now, safely distanced from it by a span of 40 plus years I would hope they see it in a new perspective.

It is definitely not an aspect of military history the Pentagon would utilize in a recruitment campaign.

Everything that happens in SAGLEK is true. Some events have been embellished to enhance the emotional portent. There is a fine line hrough it, zigzaging and always moving between fact and fiction. But the hazing of newly arriving officers, the all night parties, the absence of any military mission, the flight in the Cessna, the skeet shooting, the ball peen hammer, the Inuit, Eddie – it all happened. Deaths did occur over the history of the Squadron’s existence and have been incorporated into the manuscript. While the deaths as presented may be fictionalized, the events leading to those consequences are real.

Saglek

by John Michaelson

Copyright John Michaelson 2013

Published at Smashwords

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Chapter 1

The DC3 shuddered and groaned as another pocket of turbulence punched against the fuselage. Cargo strapped to the wall jostled in its bindings. Large sealed wooden boxes and dark canvas bags drawn shut and fastened tightly against the superstructure bounced with loud dull thuds.

Michael Robinson’s attention was drawn back to the interior of the plane. Outside, a brilliant blue arctic sky above and radiant white snow below had combined to flood the horizon with an intensity that washed against the window. His eyes had been glued to the portal for most of the flight. He’d been staring into the blazing glare of the arctic world for so long that his eyes could now detect no more than shapes and shadows within the plane’s interior. For the first time he noticed a plaque mounted to the bulkhead wall, just above the passageway into the cockpit. The surroundings were too dark. The plaque was impossible to read. Blinded by the brightness, his eyes needed to adjust before he could see the plaque clearly enough to know what was written on it. Converted to Military use – 1939, he finally made out. Shit, that was thirty years ago, he realized. I wonder how long this old tub had been flying before they put up that sign, he wondered.

Such was the typical military approach. Squeeze everything out of a resource before throwing it away. DC-3s were sturdy aircraft. They could last forever. But they were a dime a dozen. If one went down there was always another to replace it. He wondered though if the military gave any thought about him. Did they care if he arrived at Saglek or not? Maybe next year when it was time to go home he’d walk back to Goose Bay. Surely it would be safer, he thought laughing at the irony of it.

It wasn’t so much that he was worried about the durability of the aircraft. What concerned him more was the up and down turbulence of shifting winds bouncing the plane above the 5,700 foot mountaintops that waited below. The jaws of the Torngat Mountains were spread wide, ready to gobble up an airplane and all its contents. Tossed across the sky in an old tin can, he couldn’t decide if he felt lost, abandoned, or simply thrown away.

A mere twenty-four hours ago he was still in The World. Twenty-four short hours, that’s all. Now he had no idea where he was. All he knew for certain was that everything of importance to him was all still back there: Melissa, home, friends, everything; and all of it fading quickly into the far distance behind him. It gnawed at him that he couldn’t go back to it, not for a long time. Now, the roughness of the flight caused him additional distress. What in the world am I doing here, he wondered with an unfathomable empty feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Next year, the thought came back to him. How far away it sounded. The previous day’s flight from McGuire Air Force Base had lasted an eternity. When he boarded the militarily chartered flight in New Jersey he sat in a window seat so that he could see Melissa during those final moments before the plane took off. He watched as she stood on the tarmac waving a reassuring farewell. His eyes remained riveted to the window as he tried to hold onto that last image of her.

Just as they had now, his eyes had remained fixed on that window for much of the flight.

It was late when the plane finally landed at the Goose. The flight had been full. Goose may have been the end of the line for most of the other passengers. Perhaps some might be going on to other destinations in the North Country. But there were none who would be continuing on the journey to which young Michael Robinson was destined. He waited until everyone else exited. It took some time for all the passengers to disembark. An empty and lonely silence surrounded him as he left the plane. It filled the air and was amplified by the crunch of his footsteps in the frosty snow as he walked towards the Goose Terminal Building.

Lieutenant Robinson?

He jumped at the sound of the voice and noticed a figure standing directly in front of him. An Airman standing in the darkness of the night and silhouetted in front of the building was evidently there to greet him. The figure snapped to attention and slapped a salute as the young Officer approached. Puffs of frozen air rose from its mouth as it stood straight as a statue, feet together, patent leather shoes pressing into the snow. The edge of the Airman’s hand was raised in a salute, steadily yet lightly resting against the hood of his parka which was loosely draped over his head, his Flight cap wedged beneath it. The lights of the Goose Bay Air Terminal reflected off the immaculately clean and shiny surfaces of his shoes. He was the model of military decorum, arctic style.

The Officer returned the salute and the Airman dropped his hand, introducing himself and announcing that he would be the Lieutenant’s guide. It was only a day ago. Michael remembered the man was a Tech Sergeant. But both his name and the name of whoever sent him escaped him.

The two men jumped into a nearby Motor Pool Jeep and the Sergeant drove his charge to the Visiting Officers Quarters where a room had been reserved for the newly arrived Lt. Robinson. The Lieutenant remained quiet for the duration of the ride and the Sergeant seemed uneasy with the silence. Attempting conversation he explained how lucky the Lieutenant was that the weather forecast was so good. There should be no problem catching a flight up to Saglek in the morning. The weather there had been bad for several weeks and if this window of clear skies hadn’t opened up the Lieutenant could have been stuck on the Goose for an undetermined period of time.

In the quiet darkness of a cold Canadian night, traversing the streets of Goose Air Force Base in an unheated, many year old Jeep, Michael envisioned an enclave set upon a mountaintop; cast in the overclouded and dreary sky, surrounded by a mass of impenetrable snow. Below the dark and heavy sky, the ocean lapped against the mountain’s rocky base. There was no way in – or out – other than by air.

Well, I got here just in the nick of time, didn’t I. Lt. Robinson sarcastically determined.

Sir? Militarily defined logic generally eliminates alternative perspectives.

"How many years have you got in, Sergeant?’

Thirteen, Sir.

Michael Robinson was in awe of anyone able to endure a military career. They displayed a remarkable instinct for self-preservation.

Have you ever been up to Saglek?

No Sir. But I’ve heard a lot of stories. I’d like to get up there sometime but it’s always so damn unpredictable, if you catch my drift. Realizing what he said, the Sergeant apologized with a trailing, self conscious laugh. Sorry, no pun intended, he excused himself. But it is all too easy to get up there and then be stuck for weeks before being able to get out again. You’re welcome to my ticket if you’d like. One quick trip, in and out.

The Sergeant seemed at a loss for words and the conversation evaporated into the frozen Labrador night until, arriving at the VOQ, he instructed the Lieutenant as to the next day’s schedule. The flight to Saglek would depart at 1100 hours. He would pick Lt. Robinson up at 0830 hours so that there would be sufficient time for the Lieutenant to first visit the requisite bureaucratic offices to which he must report. Then they would go to the Supply Center where the necessary arctic gear would be provided, thus insuring the Lieutenant’s survival at Saglek.

Michael hadn’t really been listening as the Sergeant rattled off his litany. His mind was literally a thousand miles away. Besides, it was the Sergeant’s job to get him everywhere on time. But he did take refuge in knowing that the appropriate arctic gear could provide his guaranteed survival over the course of a year at Saglek.

The Sergeant bid him a good night. There followed a clumsy silence as though he was searching for something more that he wanted to say. Finally, with the abruptness of some extraordinary realization, he erupted. You know, I don’t believe there’s ever been a Second Lieutenant assigned to Saglek before.

Michael didn’t know if it was a criticism or a compliment. He didn’t think the Sergeant knew either. Good night, Sergeant, he responded and got out of the Jeep.

There she is, Lieutenant, up ahead. If you look close you can see the bubble. He was the only passenger on the airplane. Alone and mesmerized by the engines’ hum and the dazzling brightness beyond the window, he’d been lulled into a trance. The past ended yesterday; the future remained unknown. And though Labrador had already made claim to him as she shook the old bucket of an aircraft to and fro, he sought solace in the timelessness of flight. He searched out the window, looking for some answer to some unknown question until he became lost, floating somewhere between the glare of a piercing blue sky and the radiance of the blinding white snow below.

But now, after the three hour flight, the inevitable had arrived. Like a pin bursting a balloon, the pilot’s shrill voice coming from the cockpit broke the spell.

A few months earlier, while assigned to an Air Force station in quaint and comfortable New England, he’d accepted reassignment to a remote tour of duty at a site in Labrador. One morning as he reported for duty, Michael was presented with a memo addressed to five Air Traffic Controllers, of which he was one. The memo stated simply that there was need of an Operations Officer for a remote Northern AC&W Squadron and that one of the five aforementioned individuals would receive that assignment. However, if one of those individuals chose to do so, he may volunteer for the position. As a young Air Traffic Controller in a critical career field, the probability of being sent to Southeast Asia was not extraordinarily high. But for those Controllers who were sent there, Vietnam in 1969 was not an especially welcomed tour of duty. For most Air Force personnel with other job descriptions it could be relatively safe. But for Controllers it could be very dangerous. He had heard some nightmarish war stories about what happened to men in his position while stationed in Vietnam. Evaluating his options, he decided the risk was too great. Grasping for whatever threads of self-determination available, he volunteered to go north.

Once his orders were established it was suggested that he prepare himself by contacting his counterpart whom he would be replacing at Saglek. Two days of effort were required before a telephone link could be established with that individual. Soon after their talk Michael couldn’t remember any of the questions he had asked during that conversation. Nor could he remember any of the advice offered. Of greater significance was his alarming realization that the phone connection was one of random happenstance with their voices echoing more than half way around the world and back again through whichever military communication centers were available at the moment. After listening to the crackling static, crossed conversations and the intermittently fading voice of Lt. Grimes, Michael knew all he wanted to know. Saglek had been forgotten. Few knew it existed and probably the only ones who cared were those who were stuck there.

The plane approached the Site, gliding between mountains at an altitude of four thousand feet. There was virtually no indication of any human presence on the ground below. Snow covered everything. A protective dome stretched over the radar antenna, barely discernable atop a mountain seven miles to the east. It was, at most, an odd formation. On a plateau midway down the mountain, Troposcatter antennae could easily be mistaken as a monolithic remnant of a lost civilization, or perhaps an orphan of technological abandonment. But suddenly appearing ahead of them was a monument to purpose and perseverance, a measure of conquest, an exercise of indulgence; undeniable evidence of human intervention. There, where there should be nothing, lay the long black ribbon of a runway.

The plane flew over the runway, past the Site, beyond the mountains and across Saglek Bay. It slowly banked to the right, following the Bay out over the ocean, descending as the pilot prepared for landing. Suddenly the sun was eclipsed as the aircraft entered into the shadow of a gigantic wall of solid granite which formed the seaward side of the mountain. The image filled the window and extended in all directions. It filled Michael’s entire field of vision, appearing so close that he felt he could reach out and touch it. An eighteen hundred foot straight-downward vertical drop scarred with cracks and fissures, its wearied face expressed a long but determined history as it stood against the beating tide of the North Atlantic Ocean. With a profile of unwavering and enduring stature, it struck him as an ancient warrior positioned defiantly as a warning to any and all who might contemplate intrusion upon its domain.

The plane still flying outward, over the Ocean, completed its wide, circular descent around the mountain. He felt the landing gear come down as it began its final approach. Turning again to the right and heading back towards land, it passed beyond the stone wall and out of its shadow.

Looking back and up Michael could see the top edge of the radar bubble appearing like a microscopic parasite passively sitting astride the back of the behemoth mountain. The plane glided over the coastline, waves from the mighty ocean lapping up as if to grab its underbelly, inches above the rocks as they jut up through ice and snow. The wheels touched down and bounced. His grip tightened on the armrests as the old bucket of riveted stainless steel rumbled down the runway.

Chapter 2

The DC-3 raced down the tarmac at a furious pace passing a white terrain of blurred rocks and stone. His seat belt restrained him while he was thrust forward by the braking aircraft as it approached the far end of the runway. Looking through the window, off to right, he saw a faded, rusting corrugated steel building at the edge of the pavement. As many as fifty men stood in front of the dreary looking building. Some of them huddled with heavy parkas covering their bodies. Others stood in shirtsleeves in the sun drenched cold air. Melting slush and water covered the plowed and warmed macadam beneath their feet. He wondered why they were all there. What could have been of such great interest to them? Surely a new Operations Officer was not a major attraction. He understood that there had not been a flight up here for some time. Perhaps there was something in the cargo. Maybe they were anxious to receive long overdue mail. He hoped that was the case. He hoped that they were not there because of him. Physically and emotionally exhausted, wanting only to disappear and be alone for a while, he was not looking forward to any attention.

The men seemed highly animated, even rambunctious. He could see many of them passing objects from hand to hand. Small groups mingled within the crowd, each group engaging in its own activities; playing, pushing, laughing among themselves. The scene reminded him of a bunch of bored school children assembled for some obscure reason and getting silly while they waited impatiently for whatever was supposed to happen next.

As the plane rolled to a stop, Michael realized that the objects being passed amongst them were bottles of liquor. Oh crap, he reacted nervously. They’re all fuckin’ drunk! It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy a drink or two, himself. Over the three years that they’d been together, Melissa had all too often become annoyed with him when she thought he had too much to drink. But there were so many of them standing out there in the cold.

Rollaway stairs were pushed against the side of the plane. He remained seated, waiting. The copilot approached the fuselage door, unlatched it and flung it open. He motioned for Michael to exit. Michael hesitantly undid his seatbelt and very slowly moved to the open door. He stepped out into the cold arctic air. The diminishing roar of the aircraft’s expired engines gave way to the noise of a cantankerous crowd of apparently belligerent trouble makers.

Lt. Robinson. Hi, I’m David Grimes, a thin, bearded individual in a heavy bearskin coat screamed up to him above the ranting. It was the man whom he was to replace, shouting his greeting as Michael descended the stairs.

The newly arrived Officer dropped his leg and planted his foot in wet slush as the aircraft’s propellers wound down. Despite the cacophony of noise all around him, a slight, almost imperceptible sound riding a wisp of wind swirled around him and pressed against his ears. Whether it was distant and faint or close but soft, he wasn’t sure. Yet it was there. He heard it and, as quiet as it was, for a brief moment, it inexplicably caught it his attention.

Grimes extended an arm and shook his hand as, if on cue, a mass of bodies pushed as close to the stairs as it could get without trampling over the two men. Sorry about this, man. It all started a couple of weeks ago. The Major tried to put a lid on it, but it just got out of hand, Grimes explained with apparent though unconvincing sympathy.

Here ya go, Lieutenant. Have a shot, someone yelled, pushing a bottle in the newcomer’s face. Grimes raised his hand over the intruder’s arm and pushed it away. The bottle fell from the man’s grasp and shattered as it hit the tarmac. Michael tried to take no notice as whiskey splashed on his pants.

Man, am I glad to be getting out of here, Grimes said with a forced and exaggerated sense of relief. He smiled and threw his arm around Michael’s shoulder. I’ll do whatever I can to help you, Mike, he deadpanned.

You’ve got to be kidding me. This is a joke, isn’t it? the newly arrived Lieutenant worriedly insisted as he considered the near comic demeanor of his greeter.

Another Officer pushed his way through the crowd. Michael recognized the Captain’s bars pinned onto the man’s plaid flannel shirt. This is Chuck Turner. He’s our radar guy, Grimes announced, disregarding his replacement’s concern.

Turner grunted a disinterested acknowledgment and took a position such that he and Grimes stood on either side of the newcomer, shielding him from the mob. Despite their protective posturing Michael felt exposed and vulnerable as his two escorts grabbed him by the arms and guided him towards the fabricated building situated less than thirty feet in front of them. Above the building’s main entrance, a primitively painted and rusted sign designated the facility as Saglek International Airport.

The three of them passed through the building’s door. Michael’s eyes darted from right to left as he made quick note of the surroundings. The building apparently served as a combination of barracks, Motor Pool and Terminal Building. It looked like sleeping quarters were down a hallway to the right, the Motor Pool to the left. But the present center of activity lay immediately ahead. On the far side of an inner, swinging double door directly in front of them, was a large room full of people. Two nondescript individuals pushed and held the doors open as the trio passed. Michael immediately sensed that the people in that room were surely as drunk as those who greeted the plane out in the frigid, arctic air.

He surveyed the layout and noticed a long open window edged with a stainless steel ledge cut into the near left wall. Kitchen, he thought. A short bar stood on the long, far right side of the room. There must have been another fifty men gathered around the bar and more milling around beyond it.

Directly in front of them three men stood with pool cues in their hands, watching as a fourth leaned over the nearest of the four pool tables which occupied the floor space of the auditorium-proportioned room. Taking aim at the cue ball, the man focused on his shot as if he was all alone in an empty room, oblivious to any possible distractions.

A raucous clamor erupted. With guffaws and incoherent rambling everyone who was outside to meet the plane now pushed and shoved their way behind them, through the door and into the room. Bodies pushed against bodies, all scuffling to get close to the newcomer. The air was thick with smoke and rippled as shouting voices carried across the twelve-foot high expanse. Michael sensed impending doom.

Through the midst of a growing undulating mass a pathway opened. Michael and his two escorts were manipulated towards the bar. Just as quickly as it opened the pathway closed behind them.

Turner assumed a position, resting his forearm upon the bar top in a pose indicative of a longtime habit. Drawing three quarters from his pocket, he slapped them on the bar and ordered three beers. This is the best part about the fuckin’ place. Cheap booze, he laconically quipped. Placing all of his weight on his arm, leaning against it as if the bar was holding him up, he explained that most of the Trackmasters were en route and they’d have to wait for the vehicles to return before they could make their way up the mountain. Might as well enjoy ourselves, he concluded, oblivious to the chaos surrounding them.

Michael however, remained keenly aware of what was going on around them. The atmosphere was charged. Trouble could erupt at any moment. He realized that this was a military installation and things should not be as they appeared. But the situation was undeniably all too real. There were questions to be asked. But with his emotions raw and the adrenalin flowing, Michael could find neither the words nor the ability to articulate them.

He had heard about military hazing. But this was different. This was a drunken free-for-all. And it appeared that the entire population of the Station was involved. It was a time when Officers in Viet Nam were being fragged and Michael feared anything was possible in this frozen outpost far beyond the border of civilization.

As if in anticipation of the Officer’s dilemma, Grimes attempted an explanation. He said something about the infrequency of flights and the general frustration of the troops. With the noise and confusion surrounding them competing for his attention, Michael didn’t fully understand, though he’d heard enough to suspect that Grimes was being deliberately vague. Grimes continued talking; attempting to lay asunder any fear or doubt that Michael may entertain. But with each additional word passing his lips, Michael began to realize that his voice was not that of the individual with whom he’d spoken a month earlier. That Lt. Grimes had expressed himself precisely and distinctly. Michael imagined him to be a quiet, articulate and probably quite proper individual. This Lt. Grimes was not so sophisticated. He was lean, mean and definitely street smart. The more he spoke with his slang and guttural sounds, the less he even sounded like an Officer.

There were incongruities but there was no time to think; no time to put it together in his head. This is a joke, isn’t it? he asked once again, his voice quivering with fear that it might not be.

Take that hat off you stupid ass. He wasn’t aware of how long they’d been standing there. It could have been five minutes. It could have been half an hour. But he’d forgotten to remove his Flight cap and suddenly he felt a pain across the back of his scalp as he was slapped across the head. His cap went flying over the bar. Spinning around, he saw the Sergeant’s stripes on the arm of his attacker as at least five other men took the perpetrator to the floor. Grimes and Turner quickly jumped between him and the crowd. The fact that he apparently had some defenders among the mass did not lessen the panic he felt. His eyes darted around the room searching for a way out of this madhouse. He wanted to get out of that building and get back on the plane bound for its return flight to the Goose.

The Trackmasters are here, a booming voice announced over the noise. As if on signal and with the frenzy of a maddening rush, a mass of bodies stampeded and funneled out through the double door into the frigid outdoor air. Turner and Grimes held Michael firmly, the three of them remaining at the bar until the last of the crowd pushed their way out of the room. A straggler handed Michael his Flight cap and he put it on his head as his two protectors finally guided him back through the doors and out into the cold North Atlantic air. As if a reprieve to escape the threatening interior of the building with its close bodies and the pressure of a debilitating noise pounding against his brain, he welcomed the outdoor vastness of the frigid and barren strange new Arctic world in which he found himself.

With deep, silent breaths, he took in as much of the clean, cold air as he could while being paraded to the far end of a line of odd, square shaped, tracked vehicles. Two suitcases, a duffel bag and his newly assigned Arctic boots and leggings lay as an afterthought in the cold wet snow at the rear entrance of the last in a line of Trackmasters.

Permit me, Lieutenant, said a surly, red faced, unshaven mountain of a man standing beside the luggage. Though the temperature was now well below freezing, the big guy was one of those without a coat. Over a turtleneck sweater and dungarees he wore an unbuttoned, short sleeve uniform shirt with a single stripe sown on the arm, shirt tails loosely flapping in a steady wind. This was the second instance in which Michael had seen the mixture of a military uniform with civilian clothes, a desecration, and a travesty against military code; certainly not something one would expect to see on base. The man yanked the rear door of the Trackmaster open and the hinged door flew outward. It bounced on its hinges, inches from Michael’s face. With a bottle of Jack Daniels in his hand, the man gestured for the new Operations Officer to enter the vehicle. The man raised his bottle to his lips and gulped down a mouthful of whiskey, quickly pulling the bottle away and gasping for air as some of the whiskey dribbled down the corner of his mouth. He raised his free hand and brushed the sleeve of his sweater across his mouth. With a belch, he smiled a crooked, drunken smile and Michael’s fears were compounded. As nightmarish as the situation seemed, as implausible as it was, clearly, Saglek was out of control. He wondered where Major Willis, the Station Commander and all too conspicuous by his absence, might be.

His two escorts assisted him as he raised his foot onto a step just below the Trackmaster’s rear door. He climbed into the back of the vehicle, pulling himself up and into it by a handle welded to its flat, back surface. Behind the driver’s and front passenger’s seats, wooden benches stretched along the length of each side of the bulky transport carrier. Together the two benches provided room for about a dozen people. Michael took a seat on the left bench, adjacent to the rear door. If need be, he figured he would be in position to make a quick exit. It didn’t occur to him that if he did escape the vehicle and made a run for it, he had nowhere to go. His life expectancy was likely no more than an hour beyond the safety of its warmth.

The doorman tossed his bags in after him and a rush of people threw themselves into the vehicle, jumping over and on his luggage in their rush to fill the seats. Every one of them carried with him a bottle, flask or some other container full of liquor. Grimes attempted to enter but was turned away and directed around the side to the front passenger’s seat. Turner simply disappeared.

Michael’s mind drifted as his eyes glanced out the rear of the vehicle towards the plane sitting on the runway. Wishing he was back on that aircraft, its engines now revving up in preparation for takeoff and return to the Goose, he noticed a lone individual still standing on the tarmac near the Terminal building. He appeared in no apparent rush to join the remaining few individuals pushing and cramming themselves into the available Tracked vehicles. He was a large man with flattened, straight black hair and heavy, black framed sunglasses. He wore a bearskin coat, as