Chapter 15

We left Lance’s jeep parked in Jim’s driveway. I was hoping that if there were a surveillance team watching the house, they would take the jeep as a sign that the house was still occupied. Suzy and Jim were in the camper, and Lance was riding shotgun up front with me.

“Where are we going, Matt?” Lance asked.

“Well, for now, I’ll be keeping that to myself. But I can say that we are going to make a slight detour. Right now, we’re headed to Wendover, Utah.”

“Wendover? I know where Utah is, but outside of Salt Lake, what else is there?”

“I’m surprised at you, Lieutenant. You should know about Dugway, the salt flats, they even had the winter Olympics there. Wendover is a little town on the Nevada border.”

“OK, but why there? Is that where you plan on hiding?

“Nope, Wendover has something that not a lot of people know about. There is a World War 2 airfield there. The nuclear bombers trained there during the war. The Enola Gay herself was stationed there. But history isn’t what I’m aiming for. I’ll be looking for a payphone.”

“A payphone? Do those things still exist?”

“Oh yes, there are a few. But the one I’m looking for is special. I found out about this one from some trucker buddies of mine. You see, during the war, that’s WW2, the phone company had phones installed out there for the soldiers that were stationed at the airbase. One of those phones was set up by a technician who had spelling problems. Rather than tagging it as Wendover Nevada, He used Winnemucca Nevada. There is a lot of ground between the two.”

“Nobody noticed until the interstate truckers started moving further and further around the country. They started looking for faster, shorter, and easier routes. It seems that an independent driver was looking over his bills from one of his runs when he noticed a phone bill for Winnemucca. He’d never been to Winnemucca. Through trial and error, he figured out where the problem was.”

“Nowadays, truckers that want to fudge the records, either with the company or their wife’s, will use that phone to call in, which is what I plan on doing. I know that any calls I make are going to be listened to and traced. Hopefully, this little glitch in the system will throw off any pursuit.”

As we were leaving the city, I stopped off at a convenience store. I wanted to give Bruce Taggart a heads up and to pick up some travel snacks. Mostly chips, sodas, and energy bars. While I was at the counter, I saw that they had some throw-away cell phones. I thought about it for a moment and decided that having an emergency phone might be a good idea. So, I picked up 2 of them. For some reason, I decided to keep this to myself. I might let Suzy know later, but Jim and Lance didn’t need to know about them.

When I got a hold of Bruce, he was finishing his breakfast and getting started on his day. Ranch life in Montana begins early and ends late. I once had an old hand tell me that his workday ran from see to can’t. I filled Bruce in as best I could without giving up too much up. I also gave him a chance to back out if he wanted. I let him know that there was a possibility of trouble and that I owed him the decision.

“No worries, Matt. I’ve cut most of the seasonal crew loose, and My regulars know enough to keep quiet. Besides, we’ll put you in the line cabin. There’s nobody up there right now, and with room for 4, you won’t be crowded.”

“Sounds good, Bruce. We probably won’t be there more than a week. Just enough time for the Feds to find and plug their leak.”

When we got to Wendover, I could tell that Lance was confused, especially when I pulled off the interstate behind an ancient gas station that looked like it had been closed since gas was under a dollar. There in all its faded glory, was an old-style ‘Ma Bell’ coin-operated payphone.

“You guys wait here while I call in. Jim, do you feel up to making lunch for everybody? something simple, please.”

I called the direct line, back-office number that Brian had given me back in Salem. He answered on the 2nd ring. “Agent Johnson, how can I help you?”

“Howdy Brian, guess who this is?”

“MATT? MATT REYNOLDS? where the hell are you? Are you alright? We’ve got a nationwide alert out for you. Everybody here thinks you’re in a shallow grave.”

“I’m alright, Brian. Everybody is fine, but we need to talk.”

I could hear the frustration in Brian’s voice. “Damn straight. We need to talk. What happened after that idiot sniper blew his face off? Did you say that Suzy and Jim are with you too? You mean they weren’t kidnapped?”

“Nope, both of them took cover when the fireworks started. While all your educated forensics folks were searching the house, they were hiding out in the brush. As soon as it was clear, they came back in. What’s the deal Brian, I didn’t expect you to freak out this much.”

“You don’t know, do you?”

“C’mon, dude, enough with the mystery, what happened?”

“Well, this morning, sometime around 3:30, person’s unknown pulled a box truck into Jim’s driveway. From what the ATF tells me, there was about a half-ton of Anfo in the back. At 4:00, it was command-detonated. Jim’s house is now nothing more than a crater. The bad part is the houses on either side were demolished too. We are still going through the wreckage, but there was loads of collateral damage.”