Stagehands Walk

By Robert H Cherny

Set against the backdrop of the arcane world behind the scenes in live entertainment, "Stagehands Walk" is an action story about two men and the people they care for as they deal with threats to their lives and livelihoods. Unlike the typical young action hero acting in relative isolation, these men are approaching retirement age and must make accommodations that would not inhibit younger men. The environment in which the men live gives the story more depth than the typical action story.
The book opens as a long forgotten foe threatens Quentin Xavier O'Donnell and forces him to take on a risky task. The task is interrupted and O'Donnell finds himself in the middle of a conflict over possession of nuclear secrets. Enlisting the aid of two of his colleagues, he attempts to accomplish his original mission only to discover that his mission is much more complicated than he thought. Determining that the task he was originally assigned is not appropriate, using his talent and skills learned "back stage", he delivers those who threatened him to justice at considerable personal risk.
Teddy Premberton joins the story on his final day at work before being asked to resign. He is thrust into the secretive world behind the scenes where O'Donnell has worked for most of his career. Teddy and O'Donnell's paths cross several times until Teddy provides vital information O'Donnell uses to thwart an assassination attempt at a religious rally.
O'Donnell recruits Teddy to work a two week long spring break event. At spring break, Teddy helps provide evidence assisting in the arrest of a sexual predator and drug sellers. The arrest of the drug sellers leads to the arrest of a dishonest cop who has been harassing O'Donnell for years.
On the way home from spring break, the two stumble into a drugs for weapons transfer. Accused of murder, they call for help from the law enforcement people O'Donnell worked with earlier. Threatened at home, the men split up and flee. Teddy returns home and leads the police to intercept another transfer. One of the lead smugglers escapes the trap. Teddy flees again further away this time. The smuggler tracks O'Donnell to his hiding place where O'Donnell manages to trap him and deliver him to the police.
While "hiding in plain sight", Teddy is recruited by local civic leaders to manage a festival organized by the city to raise awareness of the city and its emerging industries. Desperate to rescue the city from dire poverty in the midst of wealthy neighbors, the city has invested tremendous resources in this festival which appears about to fail. Teddy enlists O'Donnell in the endeavor and with the help of Teddy's daughter, O'Donnell's grand daughter, the television crew from spring break, several of O'Donnell's colleagues and a racist parading on horseback in a Klan outfit carrying a Confederate flag, they succeed in rescuing the festival.
Underlying the action plot are the themes which are the real motivation for the story. Not only does the story deal with the simple battle between good and evil, it further asks how one knows the difference. It explores the question of how much one can expect friends to be of help in a crisis. It touches on the issue of endemic racism, but mostly it is about two men who did not realize they were lost finding meaning in their lives.
The story reads quickly and would be suitable for high school students as well as adults. CRT TRIGGER WARNING

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert H Cherny
• Release date: Mar 23, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301784110

Robert H Cherny

Writing has always gotten me in trouble. Still does.I have been a fan of science and speculative fiction since I found it in the young people's section of the library. In grade school, I devoured works by Heinlein, Norton, Asimov, and Huxley among others. By the time I had finished high school, I had read every science fiction book in the town's library.When I was in high school I wrote short stories instead of paying attention in math class. This did not help my math grade and would have serious consequences a few years later.In college, I could be counted on for the divergent opinion. This was after my failed math forced a complete redirection of my life plan. A disastrous Freshman year at Brandeis University, forced a reevaluation of reading materials. Switching majors to theater brought exposure to Shaw, Strindberg, Ibsen, Stoppard, Pinter, Shakespeare, and a host of young would-be playwrights. As a technical theater major, I found that the quantity of material to which I was exposed often surpassed the quality. Too busy to do any writing of his own, I devoted his time to supporting the efforts of others.The Vietnam War brought a tour of duty in South Carolina and the opportunity to begin graduate work at the University of South Carolina. While in the Air Force, my anti-war sentiments did not become an issue, because I kept them secret. I did no writing except for my graduate school classes which I took while still in service. Even here, I was ever the contrarian, unwilling or unable to go where the others went. Fortunately, as a design major, my writing was of less concern than my draftsmanship. The war ended and with less than a month to go on my MA, and no job opportunities in sight, I left school lacking only my thesis and took a paying job at Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus World in Haines City Florida Master's degrees in the theater were not worth much in the aftermath of the Vietnam War.Fortunately, through a series of unlikely coincidences, I landed a job as technical director of the then brand new Tupperware Convention Center. At the time, it was the only full-time convention center in Central Florida. I would stay there for twenty years earning an MBA along the way although my work schedule left little time for either reading or writing except for articles in technical journals.My sudden departure from Tupperware provided the time to return to reading and writing. "Stagehands Walk" started in this period with the gracious help from the writers in the CompuServe Writers Forum. The email tag and the website name "Stagewalker" derive from this book. I returned to devouring speculative fiction reading authors like David Weber, John Ringo, Anne McCaffrey, CJ Cherryh, Kim Harrison, Tom Clancy, and Clive Cussler.A short stint at Disney Event Productions introduced me to the power of "Pixie Dust" although it would be six more years before I would figure out how to turn it into a novel, the "Fairies" series.I left Disney for Paradise Show and Design which later became "The Launch Group" where I returned to my roots in live event technical support. I took a short detour to open the Silver Spurs Arena in Kissimmee, Florida before returning to Paradise from where I have since retired."Don't give up your day job."

Book preview

STAGEHANDS WALK

But Never Run

A Boomer Lit Adventure

By

ROBERT H. CHERNY

[e-mail]

Copyright 2001 and 2013, All rights reserved

The following work is fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons alive or dead is unintentional and coincidental.

While actual places are described, many of their attributes and all of their locations have been changed for dramatic purpose. No inference should be made concerning the management of any of these facilities.

None of the geographic locations except as used for reference (IE: airports) exist and are fabrications.

References to the theme parks are based on the author's personal experience and in no way are intended to reflect badly on those excellent facilities.

This book was originally written in the time period depicted when I was between jobs and had plenty of time on my hands. The technology described was current at that time. In the interim, the world has changed. The impact of computers, networking, DLP projection, LED lighting and broadband has completely transformed the industry. Many of the people who would have been at the top of their craft were left behind as the ground shifted beneath them. Many left the industry and others simply gave up.

This work is dedicated to those who carried on.

Smashwords Edition.

This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission.

This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely co-incidental.

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CHAPTER # 1 - JUNE 8, 1998, 11:35 AM

COASTAL SHORES, VIRGINIA

The bright red granular spot of laser light appeared on O'Donnell's chest. He gazed at it with as much calm as he could muster given his current state of exhaustion. The still functioning part of his brain instantly recognized the laser's characteristic dispersion pattern. It could be either a benign laser pointer in the hands of one of his coworkers or a hostile gun-sight laser in the hands of a trained assassin. Although why anyone would want to threaten him this way was beyond him. The days when this might have made sense were decades gone. In any case, he was in no mood to sort this out. O'Donnell was way too tired for whatever this was. He attempted to focus his bleary eyes on the short elderly Chinese man blocking the walkway in front of him. He shook his head to clear his mind. If this was someone's idea of a joke, it was not funny. They could bother him later. He might enjoy the humor later. He was going home and no vertically challenged refugee from an old age home was stopping him. He had worked too many hours in a row with no sleep and had every intention of dragging his sorry little self to the car and going home to bed. There was nothing wrong with him that a good night's sleep and a solid breakfast could not cure.

The Chinese man had appeared from behind a hedge and caught O'Donnell by surprise. O'Donnell tried to step around the stranger. He was doing his best to control one of his most intense hatreds. Old animosities died hard. Half a world away and a generation ago he had patrolled a tropical jungle where the Pentagon's official smiley faces mouth pieces insisted there were no Americans. The Chinese insisted that none of their people were there either. They both lied. O'Donnell knew differently. He had been there. In those days he would have quickly taken his rifle and shot this intruder. Killing came easy when he was younger. He had plenty of experience. He had few regrets. But today he had no rifle. Of course, even in the close quarters of jungle combat, he would not likely have gotten this near the enemy without being shot himself. Thirty straight hours with no sleep working in the Convention Center made him testy. When the small man blocked his path, O'Donnell roughly pushed him aside.

Mr. O'Donnell. Stop, the man commanded.

I don't know what bean brain put you up to this, but I'm going home, O'Donnell snarled.

Mr. Quentin Xavier O'Donnell. You very difficult man. Red spot on chest not a laser pointer.

His accent made is l's sound like r's. The thought of a razor pointer amused O'Donnell through the fog in his mind and he smiled at the paradox.

You not smile at me, the man continued with an anger cold in its hardness. You looking at the laser from sight of a high powered rifle. Two rifles are aimed at you. If you not do as I say, you not leave parking lot alive. You understand, Mr. O'Donnell?

And who are you? His mind filled in a racial epithet which he left unvoiced. Not that he had not used this epithet and others like it hundreds of times before. Not saying what he wanted to say was as close to politically correct as he got. He remembered trading fire with some of this man's colleagues a generation ago. The animosities lingered and burned deep in his memory.

I have control of two high powered rifles aimed at your chest. That all you need to know.

When O'Donnell saw the second bright red spot appear close to the first, he noticed how steady they were. O'Donnell had worked with lasers from the time they had first been introduced in rock concerts. He knew what they could and could not do. The aura around the center beam had the distinct red color, intensity and granular appearance his trained eye recognized as a gun sight laser. The steadiness of the light spoke of skilled marksmen. He slowly decided this was not a joke and the refugee from a rice paddy standing before him that he would have shot without hesitation in the jungle had they met thirty years ago was not about to take No for an answer.

O'Donnell had been a stagehand for a long time and worked thousands of concerts and stage show tours. He had been an adviser in Vietnam before the war was a war. By the time he returned to the States, he had accumulated more wear on the top of his combat boots than most GI's get on the bottom. He had been in many difficult situations, but nothing prepared him for the dispassionate force of this stubborn Oriental. O'Donnell had always believed the Orientals were patient people and that characteristic made them formidable adversaries. But this one's patience appeared to be wearing thin and he doubted provoking a rash act would be a good idea.

Five Hundred Dollar now and Five Hundred on Delivery, the Chinaman stated. Guide white Cadillac from V I P parking area in front of Convention Center to top floor of Palace Hotel parking garage. Someone will meet you there. Open trunk. Give him automobile tires. He will give you money.

If I refuse? O'Donnell's tone was still defiant.

Don't. It was an order, as cold and unemotional as everything else this little man had said. Take the middle size flat blade screwdriver from your tool belt. Insert it in the outside door lock on the passenger side of car.

O'Donnell looked at this tool belt. Worn and dirty from a decade of use, going to work without it was as foolish as not wearing pants. Most technicians only carried two screwdrivers in their tool belts. O'Donnell wondered how this man knew he carried three.

Use screwdriver like joy stick to control car. Push forward to go forward. Push up to turn left, down to turn right and back to brake. Here, take money. Go. There not much time, but tread carefully like skilled soldier you once were. We intend treat you honestly.

O'Donnell thought he heard a break, perhaps a bit of softness in the man's voice, but it quickly turned hard again. Others not be so kind.

O'Donnell had a hike from the back loading docks of the Mid-Atlantic Coastal Convention Center to the limo parking area in front of the building where the white Cadillac was supposed to be waiting. The late morning was as pretty as such a day could be in this part of coastal Virginia. Unfortunately, O'Donnell was in no mood to appreciate the beauty of the day. Normally he would pause to appreciate the joys of ordinary splendor, for in spite of everything life had taught him, he remained a romantic at heart, but today was an exception. Every once in a while he spotted one of the bright red lights following him and guessed that the source of the light was on the top of the building. Weapons had been aimed at him before, but it had been a long time ago. He no longer felt the invulnerability he had felt as a youth in the jungles half a world away. Long suppressed memories rose to haunt him. His anger at his former enemy had not diminished over the decades.

The Chinaman had obviously done his homework and had known where to wait for O'Donnell. Pushing 60, O'Donnell's face was hard etched with lines that bore mute evidence of too many long rock and roll tours with too little sleep, too many 48 hour work shifts in convention season and too many near starvation off-season summers. Slight built and wiry, his grace belied his age. His hair had long ago gone gray and he wore it in a ponytail that came to his waist. He had been a professional stagehand for since he got out of college was currently working out of the stagehand's union in Coastal Shores, Virginia, I A T S E Local 2005. Having finished the stage lighting installation for a large multi-national diplomatic meeting and treaty signing ceremony in the convention center's arena, he was tired and ready to go home when the Chinaman had stopped him outside of the loading area's protected security zone.

O'Donnell was as skeptical as he was worried. What if he delivered the tires and they decided to shoot him anyway? The only part of the trip that appeared to be shielded from the shooters on the roof would be the middle levels in the garage. Perhaps he could escape from there.

Lacking a better idea, O'Donnell proceeded as instructed. He still had his stagehand All Access security pass visible on its lanyard. As he approached the Cadillac, he searched for an escape route that would be shielded from the marksmen on the roof. Finding none, he strolled to the passenger side of the car mindful of the two small red lights that continued to follow him.

The car's engine idled peacefully. The control was nicely calibrated and responded smoothly to a light touch. The unusually dark tint of the side windows prevented him from looking into the car and he was far enough back that he could not look into the windshield. He realized that if he stood at his full height, it would be easy for someone inside the car to shoot him without warning. Thinking that some shielding was better than no shielding, he bent over to a crouch, so that his torso was below the line of the windows and stretched his left hand forward to control the screwdriver joystick. His crouch completely hid him from anyone on the left side of the car and the foliage hid him from view on the right.

None of the Coastal Shores County Sheriff's Deputies seemed to notice him. They were busy dealing with demonstrators on the road. A diversion perhaps? When he reached the bottom of the driveway, he waited for traffic to clear. He thought about getting to the street, abandoning the Cadillac in the traffic and running. He was in good physical shape, but broken field running with a couple of high-powered rifles in the mix was not his idea of a good time. He remembered a time where he would have jumped forward to some cover, rolled over and returned the fire, but that was long ago and far away. In another, more recent, time his first instinct in time of trouble was to cut and run. This instinct had saved him many times when the Vietnam protests he supported turned violent and the police showed up. His ability to disappear was sometimes the only thing that kept him safe from overzealous local and Federal constabulary.

When the Deputy released the cars in front of him, looking like a cross between a speed skater and a Skesis from the movie Dark Crystal, O'Donnell shuffled bent over with his left arm outstretched guiding the car into the left lane where he had been directed. The Deputy looked away, distracted by the activity at the other end of the convention center, so he did not notice a gray-haired old stagehand sneaking beside a car making a right hand turn into the traffic. A Tradeshow Specialties Decorating Company tractor-trailer pulled into the right lane from the service driveway blocking O'Donnell's planned route. O'Donnell moved the car more slowly than the rest of the traffic to create a space for the Tradeshow Specialties truck to move into the left lane so that he could guide the Cadillac to the right.

By the time the truck had reached the driveway to the garage, O'Donnell had created a space. The truck began to move left to clear the driveway when O'Donnell heard two shots. They did not come from the Convention Center, but from the hotel across the street. Two explosions followed the shots as the truck's front tires blew out. Someone did not want him to get to the garage. Were these the others the Chinaman mentioned?

Panic froze him in place for only a moment. Recovering, he twisted the screwdriver in the lock and the door opened. He climbed in. Someone was in the car. He tried to speak to the driver. The driver had a tiny round bullet hole in the left of his forehead. Powder burns ringed the hole indicating a gun fired at close range. The blood from the exit wound on the right of his head had mostly missed the headrest and had sprayed over the rear seat. That must have been what had happened to plan A, it also explained why the Deputies had not been suspicious of a driverless car leaving the Convention Center. It appeared to have a driver. The driver was dead, but still sat held in place by his seat belt. O'Donnell pulled the body to the passenger side of the car, climbed over it and drove the car forward, careful to not lean back into the blood on the headrest. Following the shots, several of the cars in front of him took off toward the median or the shoulder of the road driving over the landscaping in their haste to get away. A space opened in front of him and he maneuvered the car to the first opening. He slalomed the big car through a parking lot, down a tree-lined road, looped around a hotel complex and headed east.

As he was weaving through traffic, he wondered if the car was equipped with an anti-theft or homing device police alert. He guessed it probably was and wasted no time in getting the car out of sight. Rocketing through the residential districts, he drove to Astronaut Memorial Parkway where he found several self-storage buildings under construction. He drove onto one of the sites, hid the car in one of the spaces and sat the dead driver back up in his seat. He decided that since it was the tires and not the car, the Chinaman wanted, he would remove the tires from the car as soon as he had found a place to stash them. He briefly contemplated leaving the tires in the car, but if the tires were not delivered and someone else found them, he suspected the Chinaman would blame him for the double cross, hunt him down and kill him. Of course, no one could guarantee he would not be killed even if he did deliver the tires.

He had noticed a drainage ditch behind the convenience store next to the construction site as he drove between the rows of unfinished storage buildings. Frantically racing against what he expected was an army of miniature Chinamen who would be arriving at any moment; he yanked on the trunk release with more force than necessary. The trunk popped open and he dashed around to grab the tires. The tires were small enough that he could carry both of them. They seemed like ordinary enough tires.

O'Donnell staggered the hundred yards and looked into the water in the bottom of the ditch. He dumped the tires in the deep spot outside the culvert where they would be hidden by the dirty brown water. He dumped rock and concrete debris on them to keep them from bobbing to the surface. As soon as he was done, keeping his head low, he ran to the wooded area across the street next to the county bus stop. He hid in the brush and waited for the bus.

He had guessed correctly about the car being equipped with a homing device. The bus he caught was pulling out when two patrol cars under light and sirens in full pursuit converged on the construction site. He wondered what was so important about those tires. He did not have long to wonder before his alpha-pager went off.

'Please call about your final payment.' and a telephone number.

That was innocuous enough. O'Donnell's mind raced to interpret the message. What it did not say was important. It meant that they did not know where he was, but they knew he had escaped and they knew his pager number. They had done their homework. O'Donnell never used his first name except for time sheets and other legal documents. The crews merely called him O'Donnell or sometimes Paps. Many on the crew did not even know his first name. The Chinaman, however, knew his full name. That also meant he could not go to his apartment. Knowing as much as they did about him, they would surely be watching the apartment. Who they were was bothering him.

A friend had often advised, Hide in plain sight. They will never find you.

The bus he happened to catch took him to the Coastal Mall. He knew that he would need some cash for whatever he decided to do and headed to the ATM. He suspected that whoever wanted those tires had enough connections to monitor the ATM machines. After all, that was the modern way to track terrorists, criminals or aging anti-war protesters. If he got his cash and quickly took a bus out, he figured he could be gone before anyone could catch him.

The next bus out was headed to the theme park and entertainment complex. He rode the bus to their movie theater complex where he knew it would be easy to hide. He paid cash for whatever the next movie was and went in.

He paid no attention to the movie. He had more pressing things on his mind. He sat in the back row and watched to see who came in after him. No one did. He wondered if he was being paranoid. He decided paranoia was the healthiest choice. O'Donnell assessed his situation. At least one armed force that was not the government was looking for him. Local law enforcement was involved.

If this thing were big enough, Feds would be involved. O'Donnell did not like tangling with law enforcement at all, but tangling with the Feds was especially worrisome. Somehow, he needed to deliver the tires and escape before he could be shot either by the people to whom he gave the tires or by the people to whom he did not give them. He could imagine the chaos in the Convention Center's security office where the surveillance monitors were. He wondered if the camera he noticed on the roof had caught his departure. Even more importantly, why had they missed the shooters on the roof?

The face of one of the actors in the movie reminded him of a young technician on the job he had recently finished and the conversation they had less than an hour ago. As they we signing out the young man had asked him, Don't you get excited about the events you work on? O'Donnell had not replied and the younger man continued. Don't be so jaded. Just 'cause you work on lots of history-making events, you shouldn't take them for granted.

I don't, O'Donnell had replied. I merely light the show. I don't make history. I made my share of history long ago. It was not fun. I don't want to do it again. I don't get off watching a bunch of powerless politicians strutting around trying to look like more than they are. He paused and looked at the kid. Do you know why these negotiations took so long?

The younger man had just looked at him.

These idiots spent six months arguing over whether they should meet at a square table or a round one. Our soldiers were dying in combat and these pompous buffoons dithered over the shape of the table. Don't give these cretins more credit than they deserve.

Aren't you at least proud of the work you do on this kind of thing?

Most of us spend our lives trying to keep a low profile. This business gives some of us a place to hide. Our lives are tough enough as it is. We work in dangerous places. A lot of the gear is poorly maintained. Planning is rarely adequate. We're often supervised by people who have no respect for who we are or what we do. Bitterness permeated every word.

O'Donnell's young colleague was not deterred. He continued, Look, just 'cause this is your hundredth history-making event, for most of these people here, it's their first and this may be the only time in their lives they get to be part of something important and great. You shouldn't begrudge them that.

I don't begrudge them anything. Let them think what they want. None of it means a thing. Go away and leave me alone.

O'Donnell had not meant to go off at the kid and he felt bad about it. In a couple of days he would see the kid again and apologize.

The thought of tangling with the long arm of the law turned his blood cold. When he had returned from Vietnam, he had become active in anti-Vietnam protests and had frequently found himself on the wrong end of a dragnet. He had always managed to leave town before he was tracked down. That was ancient history and those skills were rusty. Besides, the network it took to support people on the run had dissolved from disuse.

O'Donnell's alpha pager went off several times during the movie with the same message about the final payment. One page was from a friend. Call me from a pay phone, Alex.

One other message stood out from the rest. Do not go to the authorities or we will exact our revenge not only on you, but on your son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter after we have disposed of you. If you fail in your mission, we will track you down.

The threat about going to the authorities was redundant. O'Donnell had seen too many of his friends locked away on trumped up drug charges when their real crime was participation in the anti-Vietnam movement. He was living evidence to the fact that Nixon's War on Drugs was more about suppression of free speech than about keeping America's streets safe. He had narrowly escaped being locked up in a psychiatric ward for combat fatigue when his only illness was a profound hatred of all things military. Some of his friends had been hounded into submission by local police officers intent in maintaining the sanctity of the American Way. The threat against his family, however, had teeth.

Abby Hoffman, Angela Davis, Jerry Rubin and a host of other names were fast fading into history, forgotten by a generation who wanted only to move on but who still bore a deep seated distrust of all things authoritarian. O'Donnell remembered the four dead in Ohio, believed in the justness of the cause and lived daily with the awareness that what the Fascists and Joe McCarthy had failed to do, Nixon had almost accomplished.

O'Donnell's thoughts returned to the present and the threatening message. Any halfway intelligent person could find out the telephone number for the alpha page system and give the operator a message to pass on to a subscriber. But, no operator would have passed on a message that threatening without alerting the police. Whoever sent it must have accessed the system through the web site where no human being could intercept the message. To do that, the sender needed to know not only the web site, but also a password to get in and O'Donnell's number. None of this information was readily available. Everything pointed to a well-researched plan that had somehow gone very awry.

Prevented from calling the authorities by his long-standing fear of arrest for a crime he did not commit and by the threatening message, he sat in the dark as his mind raced through a dozen scenarios and two entire movies before finally deciding on a plan. Once having decided on his plan, he settled back in his chair for a desperately needed nap.

After the end of the second movie, he went to the lobby and called Alex. Alex would help him, no matter what kind of trouble he was in and no matter what kind of help he needed. Alex was the author of the 'hide in plain sight' line. Alex's idea of a good time was to play chicken with thunderstorms while fixing equipment on radio and television broadcast towers. Alex was a little crazy, but off the charts brilliant. O'Donnell suspected he needed both.

As soon as Alex recognized O'Donnell's voice he asked, Hey man, what kind of trouble you in?

What're you talking about?

It's all over the news. There's a video shot of you crouched next to a white car at the Convention Center and then the car shows up in some construction site with a dead body in it. Sheriff Burston is asking anyone that knows you to call in. They say you're not a suspect, but could be a material witness and in some danger. Wherever you are, you better get out. He paused. Look. Better idea. How about I'll come get you and hide you somewhere?

Okay. Meet me at Orange. Bring your pickup. O'Donnell was used to solving his own problems, but Alex had volunteered and he could use the help.

Okay. Soon as I can.

Warehouse Orange, so named because of its identifying orange stripe in a huge warehouse complex was the theme park's Technical Production Services support warehouse. Every stagehand in town knew where it was. It was a convenient place where Alex could meet him and, if Alex's telephone line were tapped, the listener would not know Alex's intended destination. Alex was clever enough to lose a tail if he had one. Alex lived over an hour's drive away and O'Donnell had a long trek.

By the time Alex arrived at Warehouse Orange, it was almost midnight. As Alex pulled onto the service road leading to the warehouse, O'Donnell stepped out of the darkness of the heavily landscaped median and got into the truck.

Drive.

Where?

Anywhere other than the way you just came.

Alex headed for one of the employee gates that lead into the theme park itself. He used his union worker's pass to get in, as he had done hundreds of times before on legitimate third shift work calls. The guard at the gate would likely deter anyone who might be following them who was not law enforcement personnel. While he did not want to be found by them either, the guarded complex offered protection from other random hostiles and miscellaneous unfriendlies.

Alex was a little younger than O'Donnell, but had managed to avoid the draft due to health problems. His life had been as chaotic as O'Donnell's, but Alex's spirit of adventure never faded. As soon as he had talked to Alex, O'Donnell had felt better about his ability to get through this mess with all his parts intact.

O'Donnell detailed his plan. It was risky, but he felt that he had covered all the most likely eventualities. After all, technical planning was his primary job. Alex had most of the supplies, chemicals and equipment they would need stashed in his garage. He agreed with most of the plan's specifics but made a few suggestions of his own.

When they found a wide spot in the road, O'Donnell exited the truck and Alex left the security of the guarded complex.

When Alex arrived to pick up the tires, police blanketed the construction site like ants on chocolate. Their flashing lights effectively blinded everyone within a quarter mile. No one had gone far enough away from their point of attention to look in the drainage ditch. Alex kept his head down and focused on the ground to avoid spoiling his night vision.

He had little trouble spotting the pile of debris hiding the tires in the murky water. He made a pole with a hook from a broom handle he found in the convenience store's dumpster, a tire iron from his truck and some nylon cable ties. He gently nudged the tires out of the deep water to the shore, staying low enough not to be noticed. Alex picked up the tires in the darkness and carried them to his truck without incident. Once he left the area, he called Marcie.

Long ago, O'Donnell had helped Marcie when her life was falling apart. She had been injured at work too many times to be a professional dancer any more. Her last injury, a fall from a float in the theme park's daily parade, had torn ligaments in her left leg. O'Donnell had helped her use her substantial intelligence to change her life by helping her to focus her energies on working behind the stage rather than on it. He had helped her find work when she was hungry and had provided moral support in her dark days. He had even introduced her to the man who was now her husband and father of her two sons. She returned the favor by taking care of him when his arrogance got in his way as it had a tendency to do with unexpected frequency.

She had a set of keys to O'Donnell's car because she kept it for him when he was on the road. Alex doubted the car would be booby-trapped, since it was sitting in plain view of the Convention Center's security cameras and roving security patrols. She picked up the car at the Convention Center and noticed right away that she was being followed. She drove the car to the theme park's employee parking lot not attempting to lose the tail. She hitched a ride home with a friend who was coming off night shift.

O'Donnell followed the cleared area formed by the easement for the overhead power line to the employee parking lot where Marcie had parked his car. In any big complex, there are places where someone knowledgeable of the facilities can hide and take a nap. In spite of his short rest at the movie theater, O'Donnell was exhausted and needed a safe place to sleep for a few hours. Some of his less motivated colleagues had scoped out many such places.

The old prop stagecoach with its soft seats, small windows and remote location hidden in the back of a scenery storage shed next to the employee parking lot was an ideal place. O'Donnell climbed in to the back seat of the stagecoach, pulled down the blinds and went to sleep.

While he slept, O'Donnell's pager went off over a dozen times. He was too sound asleep for the vibration to arouse him, but he read the messages when he woke up late in the afternoon. Several were repeats of the payment message.

One page was from Alex and it gave the sizes of the tires. Alex also commented he had picked up the chlorine for the pool. One message read, Don't give anything to the Chinaman. Calland a telephone number. The last message he got was the most interesting. We know the tires were not in the Cadillac. We will not harm you. The FBI,and an 800 number.

O'Donnell concluded that three entities were interested in the tires. The Chinaman was sending the 'payment' message. Someone else knew the deal with the Chinaman and did not want the tires to go to him or to the third group claiming to be the FBI. Even if the third group was the FBI, which he doubted, he was not sure he wanted anything to do with them. His previous encounters with them had not impressed him with their integrity.

Alex's message had nothing to do with chlorine or swimming pools. It had everything to do with chemicals used for indoor pyrotechnic displays. He had picked up the materials. O'Donnell suspected Alex had emptied his stash of leftovers from his garage and had to purchase only a few of the items they did not already have. Alex, in addition to being a genius, was a pack rat. He often kept the surplus materials left from various shows in his garage. There had been many times when Alex's garage held the right hard to find item needed to make a show work.

Alex lived in fear of the day when a building code enforcement officer would decide to inspect his garage since among his favorite leftovers were the chemicals used for indoor pyrotechnics. O'Donnell could picture Alex gleefully humming and singing to himself as he assembled the hardware.

O'Donnell knew the theme park complex well. He had an access code for their voice mail system that he had picked up while doing contract work on a show in the park's amphitheater. He snuck into one of the outlying office trailers, sat down at a telephone in an unoccupied conference room and accessed the voice mail system's delayed delivery feature. He sent a message to all three telephone numbers Even if I have what you want, why should I give it to you? Meet me at Boggy Lake Recording Studio at 0800. No sooner. If you arrive early, I will destroy what you seek.

The day shift workers from the theme park flooded the parking lot with a sea of frenetic humanity determined to find a way home. O'Donnell ran to his car from the safety of the office trailer, got in and quickly lost himself in the midst of the morass of dodging and weaving automobiles headed for the Interstate. He definitely lost one tail. Whether he had any more or not, he did not know.

O'Donnell went to a discount tire store and bought tires and rims to match the tires in Alex's message. He then headed for the Boggy Lake Recording Studio.

CHAPTER # 2 - JUNE 9, 1998, 7:30 PM

BOGGY LAKE RECORDING STUDIO, COASTAL SHORES

The studio was in a big house built shortly after World War II. It stood on fifty acres of property at the edge of Boggy Lake, a large body of water connected by tributaries and canals to the Chesapeake Bay. The two story house had large picture windows all around the lower floor which afforded a view through the house to the picturesque lake beyond. One of O'Donnell's friends and erstwhile touring buddies had bought it in severely run down condition and had built the studio inside. Its isolation was a virtue in view of the shenanigans that often accompanied recording rock and roll music.

O'Donnell had chosen the studio for the rendezvous both because of its isolation and its limited access. Built on a narrow spit of dry land between the lake and dense swamp, it stood high on property that had once been a horse pasture. If O'Donnell's plan did not work and should they need to escape by boat, the maze of waterways would provide hiding places. O'Donnell was confident in his plan and did not foresee any trouble. He expected to determine the rightful owners of the tires deliver them and escape under the cover of some surprises.

Only one road led in and it could be carefully watched. He could see anything approaching for about a hundred yards in three directions. His only blind spot was the swamp and that was virtually impassable. He doubted that too many people would risk passage in a swamp well known for random patches of quicksand. These same swamps had once provided a great defense for early American rebels. Without a map, following the paths through the swamp could be a dangerous undertaking.

Alex and Marcie were already there. They had been busy preparing for their anticipated guests. Everyone had assumed that O'Donnell's car had been fitted with some sort of homing device so, rather than bring it all the way to the studio; they parked it not far from the studio's long driveway. By this ruse, whoever was tracking the car would be left wondering why it had been abandoned in the parking lot of a burned out church which once housed a black congregation and might spend the night searching the decaying buildings in an effort to find him. They wanted to be found, but not until they were ready. They planted an old walkie talkie which they could monitor from the studio with its transmit button locked on in the car.

All night long, Alex hummed and sang to himself as if he was decorating for some child's birthday party instead of preparing a dangerous display of burning, violently flammable chemicals. By about three in the morning, O'Donnell was ready to kill him when a roll of gaffer tape tied to a wire Alex had thrown over a tree limb hit him on the shoulder.

Alex laughed hysterically as O'Donnell spun around to face him. Don't you love Gaffer tape? he chuckled. Gotcha.

O'Donnell glared at him.

Give me a full roll of gaff tape for a throwing weight any time.

Alex, don't you ever grow up?

Nope. Hey, why don't you go upstairs and drop a line out that window so I can run these wires inside? Here's your tape.

O'Donnell shook his head and went inside. At eight pounds per roll, the full rolls of gaffer's tape made great throwing weights for wire or strings that needed to be run over high objects. The stuff was wonderful for a variety of traditional uses, like taping wires to the backside of trees where they would be out of sight. O'Donnell's shoulder still hurt where the roll hit him. Alex's love for black gaffer's tape was legendary. As far as he was concerned, the tape was a miracle material. Some of his funniest stories involved using the two inch wide fabric backed tape in a matte black finish with a light tack to rescue some desperate situation or another. Alex loved telling the stories, although O'Donnell had long ago grown tired of most of them.

Knowing that they would not likely be able to come back to retrieve their devices, they made disposable pyro equipment out of old metal cans and bits of sheet metal salvaged from Alex's garage. Alex was singing as he built a flame mortar. Alex?

Hmmm?

Do you have any idea of how dangerous a situation this is?

We deal with pyro all the time. It's no big deal. Alex threaded a piece of brown 18-gauge lamp cord through the hole he had drilled in the bottom of a tin can.

At 5:00 AM the delayed send on the voice mail will call three numbers and my recorded voice will tell three groups of people to come here to pick up those tires.

So?

That's less than two hours from now.

So? Alex wrapped tape around the wire so it would not pull back through the hole.

Three groups of people armed to the teeth, hostile to us and hostile to each other will come down that road to face us and we don't know what will happen from there.

Yeah, we do. We are going to let them negotiate and when they come to some sort of an agreement, we are going to fetch the real tires and slide out the back way while they watch the show we prepared for them. That's the plan, isn't it? Alex stripped the ends of the wire and twisted a single strand of the fine wire between the exposed conductors.

I hope it works.

It'll be fine. He went back to singing.

How can you be so upbeat all the time?

Did you take that personality test at the convention we worked last week?

The one that asked which cartoon character you were?

Yup.

No. Alex handed the can to O'Donnell so he could splice it into the wire running back to the house and load it with explosive.

Should have. I decided being like Tigger is much more fun than being like Eeyore. You know, I had lots of time to think about it while I sat behind the soundboard. At first, I thought I wanted to be the Mad Hatter, but then I realized he doesn't know he's mad. See, Tigger is very self-aware. He knows what he is about and he's very happy with it.

O'Donnell slowly shook his head. I give up. He carefully covered the can with tin foil to keep out the moisture.

With a voice reminiscent of a 1920's radio drama Alex shouted out, Don't do that. For you, my deep, complex, tormented friend, are Batman. He stood with his arms thrown wide. In a grandiose voice he continued, You must never give up or there is no hope for the rest of Gotham City.

O'Donnell silently picked up another can and returned to splicing wires.

Marcie monitored the walkie talkie and combed the Internet searching for news stories that might give her some clue as to what was going on. During the night she heard several people approach the car. One time she thought she heard an argument, but no one tried to pass the closed gate at the end of the driveway. By daybreak, Alex and O'Donnell were done.

O'Donnell avoided thinking deeply about himself or his life. He found that such thoughts obscured his goals and made accomplishing whatever task he was about more difficult. Many of his colleagues were extremely self-absorbed and O'Donnell found them tedious to be around. With the preparations finished and too keyed up to sleep, as he waited for the impending confrontation he had little choice but to examine the choices he had made that had lead him to be sitting on this porch in the gray light of dawn waiting for an unknown enemy.

Vietnam and Cambodia were a long time ago. Most of the country had moved on and was forgetting the lessons paid for in American blood in distant jungles. Had O'Donnell not protested that war immediately upon his return and had Nixon not launched the war on drugs would he now trust the police enough to have gone to them in the first place? O'Donnell had known from its inception that the war on drugs had less to do with keeping America's streets safe than it did with the restriction of freedom of speech as it related to the Vietnam protest. Still, as many times as he had escaped trumped up charges that had snared his fellow activists, O'Donnell had an almost irrational fear of local police and an intense animosity toward Federal authorities.

The question he kept asking himself was whether his fears justified his involving his friends in this conflict and exposing them to a potentially lethal situation. He mentally beat himself up over this issue as the sun slowly crept skyward forcing the shadows to evacuate the clearing in front of the house. He sat silently and counted the minutes by the movement of the light into the darkened areas.

O'Donnell had not wanted to expose his friends to any more danger than necessary, so he insisted that Marcie and Alex hide below the windowsill inside the house. O'Donnell waited outside on the porch, at the top of the steps, seated in a chair where he could see the approach road. The still morning air was cool and the sky was clear. The tires were on the grass at the bottom of the steps in front of him.

At about five minutes to eight, O'Donnell heard the gate open at the end of the driveway. The walkie-talkie picked up the sound of vehicles approaching. Good, he was ready for them. I was anxious to get this over with. As he waited, he heard another sound he had not counted upon, that of boat motors. He looked out over the lake to see three six-wheeled recreational swamp buggies approaching over the water. He barely had time to assess the impact of this miscalculation when he heard another unsettling sound coming from the swamp. Hoof beats. The sound was unmistakable. It was like being in an old Wild West movie.

O'Donnell intensely felt that old drop in the pit of his stomach feeling he got when things were suddenly going bad. In his work life, when things went bad they often went bad in a hurry. This was no exception. The arrogance that normally served him well in difficult situations melted away. Up to now, he had felt like he was in control. He had been through many tough situations before, but this one had careened out of control faster than he knew what to do about it. Even more important, he was afraid for his friends. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Alex sink even lower into his chair as he checked the firing system on the pyrotechnics they had rigged the night before.

The white Cadillac arrived first. It was followed by a white Humvee. O'Donnell gripped the arms of the chair desperately trying to appear calm. This was not going to be fun. O'Donnell counted ten Oriental men each armed with machine guns, pistols and grenades get out and position themselves around their vehicles with their automatic weapons aimed at him. Finally, the Chinaman got out and marched toward the tires.

As the Chinaman was about to speak, a single horse and rider charged out of the path from the swamp. The rider, a boy who could hardly have been older than sixteen, rode bareback on a dark tan colored horse. O'Donnell prided himself on recognizing it as a quarter horse. It was amazing what you could learn from PBS shows during the long summer seasons of being out of work. O'Donnell remembered that there was a horse farm a mile or so away.

Still, a short ride through the swamp was not likely to be a comforting thing. The boy had both arms wrapped tightly around the horse's neck. The ends of the bridle flapped in the breeze behind him. He kept his head below the height of the horse's head and his body as tightly as he could against the horse's body. That was probably all that had kept him from being swept off the horse's back by low branches as they raced through the swamp. The horse's wide eyes and the intensity of the boy's grip displayed their fear. The horse, at a full gallop, came completely off the ground as it crossed the clearing in front of the house. The Chinese gunmen broke ranks to let the horse through. The rider guided his horse to the driveway leading back to the main road and disappeared in a cloud of dust.

The boy had barely turned the corner when more riders appeared on the path from the swamp. The horses were thoroughbreds and were a dark chestnut brown. These beautiful creatures were skittish and jumpy under their bareback riders. O'Donnell guessed they had been stolen. The boy must have been coerced into leading them through the swamp. Seven horses emerged from the swamp.

The first two horses were riderless. O'Donnell could see a little way down the path where two of the riders had been swept off their mounts by low hanging branches and were desperately trying to get out of the way of their comrades lest they be trampled. The riderless horses followed the path the boy had taken and fled.

The five remaining horsemen formed into a single line and rode in circles around the house like Indians in an old cowboy movie circling a wagon train. The leader was wearing a heavy coat and fur hat. He looked like something out of Russia in the 1800's. Long dark hair flowed out from between the hat and the coat. O'Donnell gaped at the spectacle in front of him.

Wordlessly they rode around and around the house creating a moving barricade between the house and the Oriental gunmen. At each pass before their armed opponents, the riders kept their rifles aimed at their enemies. But in doing so, two of them lost their tenuous grips on their mounts and landed in awkward heaps on the ground. The two previously unhorsed men from the swamp joined their comrades who had fallen to set up a defensive line between the Chinese gunmen and the tries. On each pass the lead horseman reached from his horse to try to snatch the tires.

Three swamp buggies arrived each carrying two armed men in the front and one in the back with a mounted machine gun. The Gator Cars clambered up the beach with an awkward bouncing gait. They swayed wildly side to side. Automatic weapons whipped around wildly as the adversaries desperately tried to select targets although none had fired.

O'Donnell tried to make sense of this chaos. The buggies had apparently been stolen from a nearby fishing camp where tourists paid outrageous sums to take these floating six wheeled toys cavorting in the swamps. The rental company's logo was visible on the side of the vehicles as they took a position to O'Donnell's right. The Chinamen had taken a position to his left and the three remaining horsemen rode around the house in circles.

Most of the audio equipment that normally stayed at the studio was out on tour with the country band that normally occupied this studio, but Marcie had been able to assemble enough remnants to make an impressive sounding system. As the sound of the engines and the pounding of the horses' hoofs reached a crescendo, O'Donnell brought the microphone he held in his hand up to his mouth and shouted over the improvised sound system.

Stop. Shut down your engines, get off your horses and put your weapons down.

He could see no reaction.

I have rigged this area with explosives and can blow you all up. Stop now.

No reaction again.

Fire one, he commanded as calmly as he could.

Six flame mortars shot twenty-foot plumes of orange flame around the cleared area. One of the remaining horses stopped short and its rider flew over its head, landing spread-eagled on his back. This generated a chorus of laughter from the other men. One of the two remaining horses bolted for the nearby woods and swept its rider off its back with a large low hanging branch. The man thus unhorsed lay draped over the branch for a moment before he slid backwards down to the ground obviously in pain. The other gunmen roared in laughter. The leader, the only man to remain on horseback, jumped down, slapped the horse on its rump and sent it away. In short order, the horses were gone and the riders were on foot, surrounded by enemies.

The soldiers who had laughed at the horsemen regained their composure. The dance of the moving rifles from potential target to potential threat resumed. O'Donnell weighed the depth of his miscalculations over the importance of the tires. But he still believed that had he merely delivered the tires as ordered, he would never have lived to reach the garage's exit. He was playing for his life. It had been a long time since he had done that. As much as he desperately wanted to believe otherwise he knew this was not a game. He had held his life in his hands before and had not liked it then. He liked it less now.

Everything stopped. An eerie quiet replaced the noise.

OK, O'Donnell murmered as he thought through his options. He had hoped to be able to sort out the good guys from the bad guys, assuming any of these were good guys. Now he thought the best plan was to escape with as little risk as possible. He took a breath and in the deep actor's voice that came from the depths of his diaphragm that he used to intimidate recalcitrant workers all over the country, he commanded, Dismount from your vehicles. Assemble your groups in front of me where I can see you. Point your weapons down.

The men formed groups in front of the house. Each eyed the others warily. The machine gun dance continued.

Tell me who you are and why you want the tires. You first. He pointed at the Chinaman.

I represent the Greater Asian Pacification Council. Unlike these barbarians, we respect the skills of great soldier like you. We had hoped to come to peaceful resolution of this matter. We apologize for way situation deteriorated. Tires contain complete a map of clandestine arsenals built from former Soviet Union's nuclear materials. We wish these weapons destroyed before they can destabilize the world. I remind you, we have agreement and you must give me tires. We see you and your friends leave safely.

O'Donnell wanted to remind the Chinaman that any agreement extracted at the point of a gun was not an agreement, but the comment about his friends stopped him. How did this man know he had help?

Marcie read from her laptop computer search of the Web. She spoke into a microphone connected to O'Donnell's ear-piece. The Asian Pacification Council is a terrorist organization dedicated to the overthrow of the Indian, Japanese and Indonesian governments. If this is who I think he is, the Chinese government has a warrant out for his arrest.

The lead horsemen spoke next. His speech was lightly accented Russian. I represent the Menshevik Restoration Alliance. Not only is there a map, but also a complete set of plans for the construction of nuclear weapons. The Chinaman is a terrorist. He has murdered many of my countrymen. I am insulted I am forced to stand next to him. You must give the tires to me. He spat on the ground at the Chinaman's feet. The men grumbling and pointed weapons at each other, but nothing happened.

Marcie commented into the ear-piece. They are responsible for anti-globalization sabotage. O'Donnell was sorry he had endangered his friends.

One of the amphibians came forward. He pulled off his face mask to reveal a battle-hardened veteran of Middle Eastern extraction. I represent the Anti-Nuclear Armament Task Force. He spoke with a lofty air and an accent that sounded almost British. It is our aim to see that all nuclear weapons are eliminated from the face of the earth. I beseech you to turn the information over to us. We will destroy these weapons and then the knowledge to build them.

Marcie spoke quietly. They are a front for a Muslim extremist group.

A disturbing thought crossed O'Donnell's mind. None of these were Americans. Where was the FBI? There had been three pages. One of the pages had claimed to be from the FBI. He returned three calls. Three groups faced him and none of them were the FBI. Of course, he wondered how he would know if the FBI did show up. Would they wear wind-breakers with FBI silk screened on the backs like on the television news? Maybe they would show up in pin-striped three-piece suits carrying Tommy Guns. He doubted it. Still, they would have identified themselves to him, but no one had.

Someone was lying to him. More likely, they all were lying to him. As he thought, he watched carefully to see if anyone raising a weapon as a precursor to firing. The gunmen had taken battle-ready postures, but the firearms were pointed down as they had been instructed.

A tense hush lasted only a few moments. In the quiet, he heard what he thought was a thumping sound above and behind him. It sounded ominously like a helicopter. The others had also heard it. Several of the men turned in the direction of the noise.

O'Donnell thought for a moment. I'll make a compromise. Order your troops to back up away from the house.

Nobody moved.

If you want the contents of these tires, you will do as I say, or I will destroy them.

The three leaders ordered their troops to back up.

Each of you leaders advance alone to the tires and stand there. Have your troops stand down. I have an idea.

The words I have an idea. were Marcie and Alex's cue to initiate the pyrotechnic automatic firing sequence timer and escape. Behind the house, a speedboat waited under cover in the canal with its engine running. The real tires were in the boat.

O'Donnell had hoped to be able to deliver the tires and get some assurance of safe passage, but with the small army in front of him, that looked impossible. O'Donnell planned to be right behind Alex and Marcie, but they were to leave without him if shooting started. If O'Donnell did not make it, they were to turn the tires in to the wildlife office at the marina on the far end of the chain of lakes. The wildlife officer was the closest law enforcement person they could reach without going on land.

Right here, in view of the others, extract the data you are looking for.

The Russian ran to the tires and plunged his knife into the smaller one. He jumped back up trembling in anger. These are not the right tires. You have tricked us

As he said that, a black helicopter gun ship appeared over the house. The timer initiated the fireworks show. Flame mortars erupted around the clearing. Orange flames rivaled the daylight. Concussion mortars fired creating loud booms, sounding like artillery fire. Gerbs and sparkle pots suspended from wires run through the trees ignited spraying hot showers of silver sparks. After a minute of pyrotechnics, automatic fire sensing sprinklers, fed by powerful pumps, sprayed a sheet of lake water in a fifty-foot radius of the house.

When the fireworks ignited, a fire fight erupted. At point blank range, the automatic weapons were brutally