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The first journal looked like the Grail Diary. It was filled with scribbles and notes and inserted pages from magazines and newspapers. I didn’t know exactly what I was holding, so I kept everything like it was.
The second journal was dated, neat, and clean, just like my father’s other journals. I flipped to the last few pages. The journal covered two years of activity. There were some numbers on the last page. I flipped back to the front. The first date was just before my mom’s car accident.
Dad was extremely thorough. He noted SA board meetings and personal conversations in great detail, especially with the Traynors. Most especially Alex Traynor.
I set the second journal on the floor and moved on to the orange folder. Inside the right pocket was a map that showed Pennsylvania to Indiana and Michigan down to Kentucky. Sandusky was highlighted with a star. There were ten circles on the map, which all looked to be about an hour from a major city. There was one outside Detroit. One outside Chicago. One outside Indianapolis. One outside Pittsburgh. They were all connected to Sandusky.
I kept the map out and pulled a document from the left side pocket. It was stapled and had typing on both sides. The first page was some detail on the technology deal Alex Traynor set up with the city of Sandusky. The second page was about a city called Fenton, Michigan, which I assumed was the one on the map an hour from Detroit. The date was from six months ago. It was the same kind of deal Alex struck with Sandusky. After Fenton, there were eight more occurrences. Same details, just a different small city. The last page of the document was another map, this time with Sandusky, Wooster to the south of Cleveland, and Warren to the east all bolded. Sandusky, Wooster, and Warren were about one hour from Cleveland.
Jack was standing over my shoulder watching me without saying anything. I pulled out Dad’s scribbled journal and flipped through it again.
“Jack, did Dad take any major trips over the past few months?”
“He was gone a lot more, that’s for sure. But it’s curious now that you mention it. With very little business coming in, there was no need for any trips.”
I set the journal on the desk and approached the hearse. I stuck my head through the open driver’s side window to take a look at the mileage gauge.
“This says over forty-two thousand miles. Dad never liked putting unnecessary miles on this thing, and the last I remember this had about twenty-two thousand miles on it. Do you remember him driving it?”
“Sure. At least a few times. Why do you ask?”
“If Dad thought he was being monitored, let’s say through the flower van or his everyday car, but really wanted to get away for a while without being monitored, what car would he take?” I paused. “Don’t answer that. He must have taken the hearse. It was all locked away in that back garage. The Traynors or whoever probably didn’t even know it was in there. Or didn’t care. He could pretty easily drive out of that garage and head out the back of the 7-Eleven, just like we just did, without being detected by the cameras. If he was seen out driving with it, he could say he was headed to a car show. I remember him doing that a few times in the past.”
“What’s your point?”
“The point is that Dad took this hearse to all these cities over the past six months to collect information about whatever the Traynors were doing. And it looks like he did a pretty damn good job of it.”
“So is there a conclusion?”
I paused for a second. “I’d like to really go through these documents, but this is telling me that Sandusky was a test run for the Traynors and whatever cult is behind them. Looks like they’ve been pretty successful here, getting Sandusky set up for surveillance under the ‘city of the future’ moniker that all these other cities want. So these other locations want in and will most likely fall the way Sandusky fell.”
I started to circle the hearse as I was thinking. “Looks like two phases. A test city. A smaller town that can more easily be manipulated, and probably more conservative with less diversity, gets turned. Then they add a few smaller cities around a larger metro area. Once these ‘unclean,’ as my dad calls it in his notes here, were killed off around the big cities, then they’d move in to tackle the urban areas. And the cake topper is that the whole thing is funded through these life settlement deals, financing the entire Nazi effort.”
“Sounds like a science fiction book.”
“It does,” I said. “It’s sick, perverted, and ingenious. The way they are moving so methodically, this is a fifty-year effort to drive everyone who’s not straight and white out of the Midwest, either by killing them or making it such a horrible living environment that they’ll voluntarily leave. What’s the population change in minorities been in Sandusky the past five years?”
“I don’t have a clue,” Jack said.
I quickly pulled out the burner phone and did some quick Google searches. After a couple minutes, I found a site that compared the last two census numbers from any city in the United States. Five years ago, Caucasians were approximately sixty-five percent of the city’s population. The current estimate was seventy-five percent, a huge jump in just four years. Their plan was working well.
I showed Jack. “Like father, like son,” he said and slapped his hand on my back. “But what do we do with all this?”
I checked the time. It had been thirty minutes since I last saw Sam and Robby. I double-checked the phone. No word from either of them. I called Sam. I let it ring eight times before hanging up.
I dialed Robby. Same thing. No response. They could be back in emergency and not able to pick up.
I searched for the Firelands Hospital emergency number and dialed it.
“Firelands Hospital. How can I direct your call?” the woman said.
“Emergency, please,” I said, and the phone immediately started ringing.
“Emergency room,” a woman’s voice answered.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m trying to find out the status of Robby Thompson please.”
I heard some papers shuffling. “We haven’t admitted anyone by that name,” she said.
“He’s African-American. He was shot in the leg, accompanied by a Caucasian woman in her forties named Samantha Pollitt. About a half hour ago.”
There was a pause. “I’m sorry, sir. There’s been no one here by that description.”
“Is there another emergency room in the area they might have gone to?”
“The closest one to us is Port Clinton. Or perhaps Vermilion.”
“Okay, thanks,” I said, ending the call. “Something’s wrong, Jack. They never made it to Firelands.”
––––––––
I STOOD THERE MOTIONLESS for a while.
“Will?” Jack said. He was right in front of me. “Where’s Jess?”
I dialed Jess. Three rings. Four rings. Five rings.
“It went to voice mail,” I said. I texted her.
Jess, making sure you are getting this. It’s Dad from a different phone.
The green text message sat there, waiting to deliver.
Text message not delivered, it said after thirty seconds. I forgot. Sam said she didn’t take her phone with her. How could I get ahold of her? I didn’t know her friend’s number. Or even who the friend was.
I tried Denise’s phone. No answer from her either. I tried a text. It didn’t go through.
I called Alan.
“Will. I need you to come in.”
“Okay, but have you had contact with the two agents protecting my daughter?”
He paused. “I’m sorry, Will. We’ve been trying to contact them but haven’t received a response. We’re sending another two agents from the Harrisburg office now.”
“Oh God,” I said, “Alan, Sam, and Robby were supposed to be at Firelands Hospital. Robby was shot in the leg, and it looked pretty bad. But no one has seen them there. And I’ve tried to get in touch with Jess, but I can’t. Same with my sister.”
He paused. “It’s going to be okay. The good news is that my team is here, and we can help find out what happened to Sam and Robby. And we’ll get to the bottom of Jess’s situation as well. I’m sure there’s a logical explanation.”
Another call was coming in. I looked at the phone. Sandusky number.
“Alan, this might be Sam calling. I’ll call you back.”
“This is Will,” I answered in a hurry.
“Hi, William. You sound a bit panicked. Are you all right?” a voice said. The disappointment from it not being Jess or Sam or Denise was weighing me down like I was under water.
“Who is this?” I asked.
“I thought you were more intuitive than that. At least you were when we were high school chums.”
“Alex? Alex Traynor?”
“There we go. I knew you could do it. We’ve been moving our chess pieces for the past few days without saying a word to each other. I thought now would be a good time to be more social. We have so much to catch up on.”
His voice was different since the last time we talked. More measured. His words seemed well thought out. “What’s going on, Alex?”
“Yes. What is going on, indeed? You’ve been a very busy boy over the past few days. It would have been a lot easier if you just took our offer to buy the funeral home and headed back to Cleveland. You could have paid back all the debt and started a fresh life. But, oh well.” He mumbled like he was talking to himself and then continued.
“At first, I was disappointed because you didn’t look to be catching on to things. It seemed you’d lost the old Billy in you. But you’re getting sharper, which means the William I knew is still in there somewhere.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about right now.” I could feel my heart beating inside my chest. I tried to slow it down. I needed to concentrate. I breathed in and out.
“Remember your junior year. You were concerned that you didn’t have the grades to get a scholarship for college. And your dad’s business wasn’t doing as well as, say, my dad’s business? Your high school guidance counselor told you that if you scored a 30 or higher on your ACT, you’d have a good chance at a partial college scholarship. And you really wanted out of Sandusky.
“The test was multiple-choice. Open-ended questions would have been a problem for you. You would have had to actually know the answer. But with multiple-choice, you only had to prove that some were wrong. You were always great at that William. Most people strain themselves looking for the truth in something. It’s much easier to identify the lie. You could do that. Apparently, you still can.
“Now, granted, this method does take a bit more time than normal. You finished one minute before noon, with just a few of us left in the gymnasium.
“Three weeks later, the scores came in the mail. You scored a thirty-six. A perfect score. A few weeks after that, the full scholarship offers started to come in.”
By my junior year I’d stopped talking to Alex. “How did you know about this? Please tell me what’s going on.”
I heard him chuckle. “I can only show you a small piece at a time. You’ll understand soon enough. But for right now, I’d like you to turn your other phone on. Now,” he lowered his voice, “you’re going to say you can’t do that because it will give away your location. But we already know you’re in Jack’s dusty old storage unit so, you see, it doesn’t really matter. I need you to turn the phone on so I can show you something.”
“What if I don’t have it?”
“Of course you have it. I can see it in that pile next to the gift your father left for you. Thank you for that, by the way. I couldn’t figure out where your father’s notes were, but you led me right to them.”
I froze for a second. I looked at Jack. Then I started to look around, up toward the storage room ceiling and down to the floor.
“Ah, William, don’t bother looking for it now. It will take you quite a while to find it. The new cameras we have are almost undetectable to the naked eye. Technology sure has come a long way since we played Super Mario Brothers together, hasn’t it? Good times, those were.”
“Okay, Alex,” I said. “I’ll play along.” I went over to the desk and grabbed my iPhone, pressing down on the side to boot it up. The Apple symbol appeared and held on the main screen.
I waited and said nothing while the phone regained connection. I was desperately trying to figure out my next move. Nothing came.
“Remember our sophomore year? We used to hang out playing video games all the time. Of course, I was better than you, but you always dominated Dungeons and Dragons. Anything with strategy. You were so good at strategy. But if it was on a computer, well, that was my specialty. Marketing, William? I would have thought you’d join the CIA or something. They’d hire you to break puzzles like that movie starring Russell Crowe. What was that? A Beautiful Mind, right? Maybe you have a beautiful mind. Okay, I see you’re connected now. You’re going to receive a text message in a second. When you do, I need you to click on it.”
A text message with a link popped up on the phone. “What if I choose not to?”
“Oh, William, it’s not anything bad. Yet. And you might want to let Mr. Jack see this as well. He’s a costar, after all.”
Jack had been standing in front of the couch watching me the entire time. I waved him over to the desk and set my iPhone down. I clicked the link.
An image of a building popped up. I turned the iPhone on its side so Jack and I could see it clearly. The screen showed Uncle Dan’s office building, but it wasn’t an image, it was a live shot. The current time was showing in the lower left-hand corner. I looked at the watch on my wrist to double-check. It was 12:45 a.m., same as the video on the phone.
“Is it coming in?” Alex asked.
“We’re seeing what looks to be a live feed of Dan McGinty’s office. It’s showing the side entrance.”
“Oh, goody.” Alex giggled. “I’m going to drop off the call now, but I promise to call you back in just a bit. I think you’ll want this phone available for conversations with other people.”
He ended the call, and I set the phone down.
“Do you want to fill me in on what’s going on?” Jack asked.
“The short version is that Alex can see everything in this room, so he’s been monitoring you for quite some time, which means he probably knows you’ve been working both sides of this. Other than watching this video, he said to keep the burner phone open for a call.” I paused, looking around again. “Whatever’s coming next, Jack, it’s not going to be good.”
We both watched the screen. The building was still. A passing car on the street once in a while, but no major activity. Then, two figures approached from the right, heading for the side entrance.
“Oh, shit,” I said.
“What?” Jack said.
“That’s you and me. You’re carrying your rifle. I look like I have a pistol in my hand.”
“How is this possible?”
I didn’t answer, focused on the screen. The two figures, presumably Jack and I, made it to the side entrance. We both looked around. You could clearly see our faces. The image was grainy, but the likenesses were spot-on. Then it looked like I fiddled with the lock and opened the door, and the two figures went inside.
My burner phone rang. It was Alan.
I answered. “What the fuck, Will? My tech guys just watched a live image of you and the big guy breaking into McGinty & Associates.”
“That’s not us, Alan. We’re being set up. It’s a deepfake. They obviously know your tech guys tapped into the network and can see it.”
“You expect me to believe that? Whatever your plans are, you better stand down and come out of that building right now. I shouldn’t even be telling you this, but my team and the Sandusky police will be there in two minutes. After seeing that mess at the post office, everyone is on shoot-to-kill orders. We found a guy down there with his leg obliterated by a rifle shot, then he was run over by a car.”
“Listen to me. Jack and I are not in that building. We’re being set up.”
“I’m sorry, Will. I know the stress really piled up this week, but the phone you are talking on right now is located inside the McGinty building. For your own good, come out of the building with your hands up.”
“Please, Alan, don’t go near that building. Something bad is going to happen,” I said. Alan ended the call.