The Sacrifice Area Read online

  Joe Logan didn’t think Frenchy knew he was Sean Logan’s son, not that it mattered. Ernest Durant, a.k.a. Frenchy, rotund and swarthy, swayed into the room and bounded behind the swinging door of the counter, waiting expectantly to hear the needs of a customer. He always struck Logan as more Corsican than French, if indeed he was, except for the mustache. Where did he come up with that enormous, bushy thing? It looked as though he carried a squirrel in his mouth. “Haven’t seen you around in a while. It’s Joe, right?”

  Logan nodded. “I barely made it. How much for a gallon?” The price was never advertised on the pump or inside the “office.” Between market fluctuations, geopolitics, the general state of the planet, and the Dislocation, Frenchy could apply his signature gouging.

  “Eleven bucks. I’ll give you nine a gallon if you fill up your tank.”

  Logan groaned audibly. That was steep, even for the likes of Frenchy. The sound made Frenchy a little defensive. “I’m not a service station.”

  No, you’re not, Logan thought, but you are rumored to always have a supply. Gas stations were charging seven, seven fifty a gallon, if you could find one open. “I’ll take one gallon, exactly. It’ll get me home.”

  “And that will be eleven dollars…exactly. Pay up now. Put the receipt on the windshield, and the boy will be around to fill up. Pump’s locked. He’s got the key.”

  Logan fished around in his pockets for bills. He would never want Frenchy to have access to one of his cards. Not that he had any money saved that would be worth taking. He placed several worn, crumpled bills and a pile of loose change on the counter. Dutifully, Frenchy Durant counted it out. He didn’t seem to mind. It was all good money. Over the years, Frenchy was rumored to have been responsible for some of the highway piracy. There was never any proof or arrests, but word was he contributed to a crew of thieves and smugglers. “You should have been around a couple of weeks ago. It was sellin’ for nine seventy-five a gallon.”

  “What’d they do, discover a new oilfield and name it after you?”

  “Funny. I like funny. No, probably invaded some country like Suck- or Fuck-ganistan or some awful place.” Frenchy’s drinking buddies doubled over in laughter.

  Logan couldn’t help but loathe this mean, irritatingly small man. “Do people bend over to have their tanks filled here? Ever come across that?”

  “There are some who have and some who’ve done it for a lot less.” He divvied up the bills and coins into the separate slots of a strongbox on the desk. Then he wrote out the receipt on a white pad with yellow and pink duplicates. “Lot’s been going on in this neck of the woods,” he said as he wrote.

  “I saw. Lennox Farm was getting torched.”

  “Oh, that. I was thinking of something else.”

  “That doesn’t surprise you? The Tactical at the checkpoint said it was hoof-and-mouth. Cattle were burning. That’s not good for dairy country, now is it?”

  “No, it’s not, but I was meaning more right out my front door,” said Frenchy. “Trucks and earth-moving equipment up ‘n’ down this road all summer. Cement trucks too. The fence line cuts right across the road, now.”

  “You mean the old path into the back end of Pine Haven? But that hasn’t been in use for years.”

  “They extended the exclusion zone another half-kilometer or so there about. The rate this keeps up, we’ll all be living behind the wire.”

  “Did they give a reason? I know they’re dumping all kinds of slag from the Triumph project.”

  “Response Team Management and Control? That bunch doesn’t need a reason to do anything. They just go ahead and do it. Made damn sure they didn’t bite off an inch of my land, I can tell you. They’d pay dear, if they tried. They like me now, once I stood up to them. With a riot gun.”

  Logan wasn’t about to give Frenchy any pleasure in describing his heroic, potentially violent nature. “Just down this road here? How far?”

  “Half a click, maybe.”

  “Mind if I take a look.”

  “Suit yourself. Maybe you’ll see something.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know,” Frenchy said, the guile oozing copiously along with his words, “but there’s always something.” The men at the tables snickered at the remark. It appeared that everyone’s attention was centered on this conversation. Frenchy handed him the pink copy. “Put it on your windshield. The boy will be around shortly.”

  Outside, Logan tucked the pink receipt under the windshield wiper blade. The boy, Frenchy’s kid, was nowhere to be seen. Logan decided not to wait, but to take a quick peek up the road. The talk had sparked his interest for some nebulous reason.

  The road was less gravel and more dirt beyond the immediate depot, with deep ruts from the wheel tracks of heavy vehicles. The area was still overgrown with brambles, saplings, and scattered pines. If one could continue on to the old estate, the pines would increase in density and height. It was truly a forest, serene and beautiful. It was how Pine Haven got its name from the early twentieth-century millionaire who had built the place. Logan hadn’t been on the property for years, not since shortly after high school, at least. He couldn’t remember exactly, but he knew it had been a very long time. When he was still in junior high, he had played a number of soccer matches there, when the place had been turned into a Christian school for day and boarding students. And there were times when he and some school buddies would sneak onto the property to get drunk or stoned. That was ages ago. He shuddered.

  The section of new fence came into view, bright, galvanized chain-link topped with razor wire. Cut vegetation, branches, and logs lay in piles from when the installation required more space. The ground inclined on the opposite side of the fence, bare of the type of growth that preceded the boundary of the estate, leaving only dark pines with long sweeping boughs that grew from a thick carpet of rust-colored needles. Small rectangular enclosures were attached to the fence every twenty feet or more. Sensors, he thought, either for motion or sound detection, possibly both. Pine Haven, the former U.S. Air Force research laboratory, lay on the other side.

  Never a big facility, Pine Haven had been involved in generic research, mostly information technology and communication for command and control, according to the Air Force. Whatever was developed there was so sensitive that a couple of access roads bordering the property lost their public-use status and driving on them was restricted. Air Force personnel had little or no contact with the local population and were rarely seen in town. Not much information was released to the public, either. A PR hack had assured the town supervisor and board that no weapons or nuclear material would be stored or used for research or experiments on-site and that most of the work involved electronics. A small power-generating substation had been erected on the property near the main building, the manor house.

  The facility was up and running in a little less than two years, including preparations to renovate parts of the estate house and move in with equipment—whatever kind of equipment it was. Needless to say, nobody local was vetted and hired to perform this labor. It was all military personnel or government contractors. The USAF became a mystery neighbor, and with that level of secrecy, rumors and conspiracy stories circulated, though for the most part, Pine Haven was basically out of sight and out of mind.

  Then the accident occurred. People died, among them researchers and support staff. Very little was released publicly other than it was an industrial accident. The facility was shut down but maintained an Air Force security presence up until last March, when Tactical Response Team Emergency Management and Control took over. The private military contractor was securing and apparently expanding the perimeter of Pine Haven, while a temporary low-level radioactive storage site was being prepared on the grounds. It was all part of the upgrade at the Triumph nuclear power station twenty-five miles upriver. Lately, that was all anyone in the Essex area knew about the goings-on at Pine Haven.

  As for the cause of the accident and what the military was
doing up to that point, that was shrouded in mystery. More importantly, why was a three-kilometer exclusion zone established around the site and only just recently increased, as this new fence line indicated, and why was a large section of Sheffield State Forest included in this no-go area?

  Logan had a sense that he was being watched and not by any technology or hidden camera associated with the fence. This was not surveillance in a procedural, authoritative sense, but oppressive, degrading, like a smear on a slide shoved under a microscope for…for what? Faults? He felt the thing that was studying him was way outside his psychological and emotional grasp. Somebody or something was here, observing him, an unseen presence.

  Two deer bounded from the overgrowth and onto the muddy road, first one and then the other, charging headlong into the fence. Chain-link rattled loudly. The blocking of their once-familiar route caused the creatures no small measure of disorientation. Their eyes stared wildly with confusion. Logan watched the deer plunge back into the cover of vines and brambles, scampering close to the fence line in search of some point of access. “Every living thing on this planet has its back to the wall,” Logan could not help saying aloud, “including us.” Unnerved by the sensation, he headed back to the fuel depot.

  The pink receipt was still under the windshield wiper where he had left it. Logan went into the office to inquire about the boy. There was a newcomer among the group; a little over five feet tall, he was dressed in a multizippered jumpsuit with padding on knees and elbows and an assortment of cargo pockets on legs and chest. He sported a utility vest, also containing a multitude of pockets, orange and yellow reflective strips on the light-gray fabric, and decorated with badges and decals. Some type of industrial workers’“flair,” one would assume. It was quite a get-up. What was even more striking about the man’s appearance was his complexion: it was sunburned. The back of his neck was the color of brick, and deep creases were etched in the skin. Wisps of light-brown hair grew from a reddened scalp. He was in conversation with Frenchy, who appeared thoroughly perplexed by what the strange, sunburned man was saying: “No, other than beer. Something molten.”

  “You mean, like whiskey?”

  “Yes, that’s it,” the sunburned man said with intensity, “uisge beatha— the water of life.”

  “This isn’t a saloon,” Frenchy snarled. “You want a coffee royal? I’ll put a shot in your coffee for an extra two bucks, but I’m not selling it by the glass.”

  The man seemed to approve as Frenchy unscrewed the cap of a pint of cheap scotch and poured a small dose into a stained ceramic mug. “There. Make it the way you like.”

  The man proceeded to operate the spigot of the coffee urn, filled up the cup, and added a liberal teaspoon of sugar and a packet of dry, ersatz creamer. He sipped and found agreement with the flavor. Then he began to speak, and Logan assumed, since he stood next to the man, it was to him. He said, “The salamander can still survive the alchemists’ fire, but it doesn’t emerge from the flames whole and perfect like in olden times, but twisted and bent. A mutation. Maybe it’s because the mechanics of the furnace are different. A different kind of fire. One that burns too hot. Some fires should never be lit.”

  The sunburned man continued in this vein with utterances of an allegorical, symbolic nature. Logan wasn’t interested. “Come on, Frenchy! What about my gas?”

  “All right, all right, the boy’s coming with the key.”

  Three armored squad cars sped onto the depot grounds and braked loudly in front of the house. Men poured out of the vehicles and deployed, taking positions in front and on the sides of the building. They were geared up like the Tactical at the checkpoint, except for two who were in civilian dress, wearing black leather coats. They burst into the room. One was young, his face heavily freckled, and carried a small rectangular device with a handle that emitted a series of beeping noises. The other was older and taller and, judging by the way he carried himself, was in charge of the group. They sidled up to the sunburned man. “You got a lot of people worried after you, Creech.”

  The sunburned man, Creech, said, “It’s my break time. How did you find me?”

  The freckled one with the monitoring device lifted it so Creech could see the indicators on the small screen. “You left a strong signature behind you, Tommy, it was easy this time. You’re off the scale.”

  “You’re becoming less predictable with each passing day,” the older man chimed in. He took the mug from Creech’s hands and sniffed. He placed it on the table, turned to Logan, and asked, “What did he say to you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing,” the freckled one repeated. Logan kept direct eye contact, which obviously caused no small amount of self-consciousness for the young Tactical. “Were you supposed to meet him here?”

  “Meet who? This guy?” Logan said, nodding to Creech. “I never laid eyes on him till just now. I’m trying to get some gasoline and it’s taking forever.”

  “Step outside with me, please,” said the older man.

  Logan hesitated. Frenchy had arrived from the back storeroom. “Do as he asks and the quicker you will be on your way.”

  “No thanks to you,” Logan said and looked around the room at the locals, eyes downcast and mulling over their plastic cups of beer. A woman was seated alone at a table along the rear wall. Logan hadn’t seen her earlier, of that he was sure. She was in her mid-twenties and wore wool field trousers and hiking boots. Burrs had attached themselves to the sleeves of her navy-blue sweater. She was looking directly at Logan, but quickly averted her gaze. As he and the one called Creech were escorted outside, the freckle-faced Tactical took in the whole room and said, with disgust in his voice, “What a bunch of losers.”

  The freckled plainclothes and another combat-equipped Tactical escorted Creech to an armored squad car and had him climb into the backseat. Logan turned over his ID when requested by the older man, who asked, “What are you doing here?”

  “I told you. I’m trying to get some gas for my truck. It’s empty. I hardly ever come here.”

  “What did he say to you?” the plainclothesman nodded toward Creech.

  “He wasn’t making any sense. Something about fires and salamanders. It was nonsense.”

  The plainclothesman gave the barest flicker of a smile. “He always talks that shit. I had to make sure.” He returned Logan’s ID card and gave the order for his men to move out.

  The “boy” finally appeared. Exiting the maintenance garage, he loped over to the fuel pump. Something was definitely wrong with David Durant. He was around thirty years old and had been born with his left arm longer than the right. Almost a foot longer. It was unsettling, this grease-stained stalk jutting from his shirt sleeve, which Durant, when he used it, wielded like a club. Unlocking the pump, the boy sullenly read the pink invoice and placed it under the wiper again. Frenchy came out of the house and regarded his son. “It’s a sure thing now,” he said to Logan.

  “You should give me an extra gallon on the house for my trouble.”

  “And you can suck the bad end of a tailpipe before I let that happen,” he said with disgust and reentered the office. The young woman was peeking out of the half-opened door as though she didn’t want to be noticed by the Tactical detail while they loaded their vehicles. When they began to drive off, she asked Logan, “What did he say to you? That guy, Creech.”

  “Oh Christ, not you too, lady,” Logan said, making no effort to hide his annoyance. She was an attractive girl, but he didn’t care if he hurt her feelings with a sharp tone. “If you’re so fucking interested, go ask that goon squad before they get away.”

  She retreated from the doorway. “All done,” the boy said as he replaced the nozzle and locked up the pump again. Ten, twenty seconds it took him, and Logan had been here for nearly forty-five minutes.

  “Who was that guy, anyway?” he asked the boy.

  “Creech? He’s got something to do with Pine Haven. Cleanup and monitoring detail, I think. He drops by ev
ery now and then. He’s harmless. I never seen him chased down like this before. I think he’s got a drinking problem.” Finished with his task, David Durant headed back to the garage.

  Maybe he does have a drinking problem, Logan thought as he climbed into his truck. Or maybe he leaves the perimeter without their knowing and can get back in, which means somebody or anybody can do the same as well. And that would prove very embarrassing if an area that’s supposed to be secure can be penetrated.

  2

  It was already dark when Logan turned into the driveway of his house in Essex Station. He parked by the small back porch so he could ferry his tools and camping gear through the side door of the house and down the stairs to the basement. He could hear Tara at the back door and opened it for her. The dog, part border collie and part something else, came up close to him, waiting for a pet. He stroked her head and neck. “Didn’t expect to see me so soon, did you girl.” She remained on the porch, legs splayed, and watched him work. She was old, arthritic, and didn’t like to go out much. “We’re going for a walk later, you and me,” he said. Carefully, the dog took the three steps off the porch slowly and sniffed the sparsely covered lawn in the backyard.