Buried Treasure by Vincent Madison

Chapter 3

The LOST Gunmen

In a small cramped room that looked more like a furnace or utility room, a young girl sat playing PacMan on a laptop computer. Along with the retro computer game, she looked like she was right out of the 1980's, with blue streaks in her hair, a brightly colored outfit, short skirt, black mesh stockings and black fingerless gloves. She could have been Cyndi Lauper's cousin or niece perhaps. She was chewing gum, talking on a cell phone and playing PacMan, while alternating between drinking a can of Coke and eating a chocolate bar. The room was full of electronic equipment - satellite receiver, video and audio recording equipment, video cameras and equipment with buttons, switches, lights and displays, whose function was not easily identifiable on first look, but you could tell that whoever owned this place was just a little on the paranoid side. There was a glass container that was filled with water with a bluish tinge to it, and in the container appeared to be a human hand that seemed not only preserved, but perhaps not dead. The water had small bubbles that may be what made the hand look like it was moving slightly, or perhaps it really was. You could hear her side of the phone conversation, but it did not take much to figure out what might be being said on the other end.

  "Yeah I know, but I have a job now, so I can't come."

  "It IS a real job. I know it doesn't pay much, but at least I might be able to find out what happened to my parents."

  "Why do you keep saying that? You don't know what happened!"  An old black dial wall phone - vintage around 1950 or so rang loudly on the wall beside the girl.

  "Gotta go - I'll call you later.." She snapped the cell phone shut, and spun her chair around and picked up the wall phone.

  "The LOST Gunman Newspaper - this is Cleo Shermen." 

Her tone changed from professional to casual at the recognition of the voice on the other end.

  "Steve. What's up?"

  "In jail?   Again?"  Cleo reached up to the shelf above her. On the shelf was a Tim Horton's coffee can with a white label stuck on it. The label read "Steve's Bail $". She grabbed the can.

  "I'll be there in half an hour Stevie. Don't go anywhere."

____________

Detective Gibson and Reid were driving through the city. Tom was driving, and still wearing his uniform. Kate was sitting in the passenger seat looking bored.

  "So - What do you think?" Reid asked

Kate turned slowly and answered with her usual deliberate, although slightly sarcastic tone.

  "I think my skills as a detective are being wasted on cases that are lame, when I could be doing something useful. That's what I think."

  "Well, Becker wants us to look into this, so we have to do what he says right?"

Kate paused, choosing her words carefully.

  "You know, there is something not quite right about that. I can't put my finger on it, but when I do..."

  "What do you mean?" Tom asked, genuinely unsure exactly what Kate meant.

  "Don't you think it's weird that Becker keeps assigning us to these 'off the wall' cases? I mean, why us? Why not some junior detectives, instead of people who have done the crappy beat years ago? What the hell did we do to piss him off?" She was starting to get annoyed.

Tom shrugged his shoulders.

  "I dunno, maybe he thinks we have the skills to solve these 'X-Files'.

Kate rolled her eyes.

  "I wish you wouldn't call them that." 

Tom smiled. "Sure Scully."  Kate did not respond.

They drove on in silence. Kate was in deep thought.

  "Maybe Becker has some other agenda." she finally said.

  "Other agenda?" Tom responded

  "Yeah. Maybe he is using us for something."

  "And you think I am paranoid? You are reading WAY to much into this." 

Kate seemed like she was going to say something, then paused and said: "Yeah... I guess you're right."

They pulled into a Tim Horton's coffee and donut drive-thru and ordered coffee. Tom parked the car and shut it off.

Kate opened her coffee and took a sip. "So, did they get any more info out of that nutbar?"

Tom picked up a file and read from it.

  "Yeah - The LOST Gunmen - Robert Francis Bond, Malcolm Frommer and our boy - Steve Dorland. Formerly of Maryland, and now working here in Canada. Rumor has it that they are the original Lone Gunmen who faked their deaths to escape their enemies. (according to them - the U.S. Government.) They are still producing a conspiracy newspaper - now called the LOST Gunman. They are located in the basement of a Barber Shop on Main Street."

Kate could not help cracking a small grin.

  "Sounds like a bad X-Files episode to me."

Tom continued.

  "Their VW bus finally died - caught on fire and burned apparently. They said it was arson. They bought a Ford Minivan and outfitted it with surveillance equipment."

Kate actually laughed this time.

  "Great disguise. Soccer Moms."

  "Now they have a young girl working for them. Her name is Cleo Ami Shermen. Her parents apparently died in that plane crash a couple of months ago - you remember - Oceanic Flight 815. She has no family left, so she hooked up with the Gunmen. She says she does not think her parents are really dead and she is trying to find out what happened to them."

Reid's cell phone rang.

  "Reid."

  "Yeah."

  "Really?"

  "No way!"

  "Are you sure?"

  "OK - thanks."  He snapped it shut.  "Guess who that was?" he asked Kate.

  "The Cigarette Smoking Man?" Kate responded with a smile.

Tom ignored her sarcasm.

  "Nope - Forensics. They completed the tests on the newspaper they found in the box."

Kate did not go for the obviously baited statement.

  "Well, don't you want to know what they found?" Tom asked eagerly.

  "I'm sure you're going to tell me anyway." Kate shot back.

  "It's at least 60 years old!" Tom was obviously astonished.

  "Well it looked that old." Kate stated matter of factly. "There goes your 'newspaper from the future' theory."

Tom looked perplexed.

  "I don't get it. How can the newspaper be over 60 years old? How would they know what was going on in the world?"

  "Well," Kate explained, "It does not seem that accurate to me. I mean a global economic crisis, with the U.S. Government spending over 700 Billion Dollars on a bailout? Or a black senator running for President? I doubt it."

  "Yeah, I guess you're right." Tom acknowledged reluctantly. "It does sound like a joke."

  "Sorry to burst your 'time-travel' bubble."

  "It is weird though." Tom was still thinking about how the newspaper could be from the future yet still be 60 years old, and the thought confused him.

Kate changed the subject.

  "So, I guess we need to go and see these LOST Gunmen."

  "Yup." said Tom. "Should be interesting."

_______________________

Detectives Reid and Gibson pulled their car up a block away from the building where the LOST Gunmen had their office. They approached the side door and Tom pressed the buzzer.

  "Who is it?"  A male voice responded sharply.

  "Metro Police. Open up." Tom spoke into the intercom.

  "Hang on." came the curt response.

Kate turned to Tom and shrugged. They waited for a minute by the door, then the door opened slowly and Steve poked his head out and carefully looked both ways before speaking.

  "Come in quick. You weren't followed were you?"

Tom looked at him.

  "Followed? We're the cops. Who would follow us?"

  "You would be surprised." Steve answered. "There are lots of people out there watching us all."

Kate rolled her eyes.

  "Okay." she said with a flat tone.

They headed in to the building and down a set of stairs leading to the basement. The basement area was unfinished, and in one corner was an area set up with a workbench filled with all kinds of electronic equipment, ranging from VCR's and Satellite Receivers, to video surveillance cameras, monitors and other less easily identifiable equipment with switches, buttons and lights. There was an old analog reel-to-reel TEAC tape deck which was recording. One of the monitors showed live views of the outside of the building - the entry door, alleyway beside the Barber Shop and the front and back.

Kate paused as they walked into the area and looked down at a glass cylindrical case that appeared to contain a human hand in water, lit with a bluish tinge and bubbling with motion. She was not sure if the hand was actually alive, or if the bubbling motion just made it appear that way, but it sure looked alive.

  "Quite a place you have here." she said as she gestured toward the hand.

  "Thanks." Steve responded. "We like it."

  "So Steve..." Reid began. "What can you tell us about this wormhole you were looking for?"

  "How do I know I can trust you guys?" Steve barked.

Kate stared him down.

  "Would you rather come downtown?"

  "Always intimidating. I don't have to tell you guys anything." Steve wiped his hands in a gesture of defiance.

Tom decided that Bad Cop, Good Cop might work.

  "We're on your side here Steve. We are trying to figure out what's going on too."

Steve hesitated, but his tense posture relaxed a bit.

  "Well, yesterday, our computer picked up a huge magnetic anomaly."

  "You regularly scan for magnetic anomalies?" Kate asked sarcastically.

  "Actually we do." Steve proudly announced. "They are a good indicator of either alien activity or government experiments."

Kate looked at Tom in disbelief but said nothing. Steve continued...

  "So yesterday...that would have been November 27th, we get this huge spike. I'm talking off the charts. So we triangulate the source and find that it was focused in an area inside Joker's Hill. So I headed out to do a little field work."

  "And that's when you found the box?" Tom asked.

  "Not at first." Steve said. "I couldn't find the exact area when I got there, as the magnetic anomaly had faded by then. I had to spend a bit of time until I found the hot spot."

  "And how did you know exactly where to dig?" Kate asked, now a bit curious.

  "That's the weird part." Steve exclaimed excitedly. "I kind of had a vision that I was already digging there."

  " A vision?" Kate's curiosity disappeared as quickly as it had come.

  "Yeah - you know - kind of like a dream - only I wasn't sleeping."

  "You weren't smoking anything were you?" Kate thought she was starting to figure Steve out.

  "No man, smoking's bad for you dude."

Tom picked up the questioning.

  "So you dug where you dreamed you were digging?"

  "Yeah man. And that's when I found the box. I had just opened it up and was looking at the newspaper when you guys showed up. Someone must have followed me. And now, we've lost the newspaper and the rest of the stuff in the box."

  "Don't worry." Kate told Steve. "The box is safe with us."

Steve laughed. "Ha. That's what you think. It'll probably mysteriously disappear and end up in some warehouse just like the Lost Ark!"

Kate responded:  "You guys watch too much TV."

  "It's a movie actually." Tom explained.

Again, Kate chose to bite her tongue and said nothing, although her face said it all.

Steve thought for a moment.

  "If you can let us have the film that was in the box, we know a lab that can make sure we can see what is on it, without it falling apart."

Kate pondered Steve's unusual request, glanced at Tom, then said:

  "We might be able to do that, but I need a favor from you first."

  "What?" said Steve

  "Well, Reid here tells me that you guys are pretty good at undercover work...  finding out about what people are doing."

  "True. We are the best."

  "Well, I wouldn't go that far, but what I need you to do will require discretion."

  "Discretion is our middle name!" Steve puffed out his chest as he talked.

Kate spoke her words carefully and slowly.

  "Find out what you can about Lieutenant Dennis Becker."

Tom was caught off guard by Kate's request.

  "What are you doing?" he muttered.

  "Just playing it safe." She turned to Steve. "Now make sure you don't get caught. If you do, nobody is to know who asked you to tail Becker. Understand?"

Steve nodded.

  "Sure thing. Just get us that film."

Out of the corner of his eye, Steve caught sight of some movement on the surveillance monitor that was aimed at the alley beside the Barber Shop. It was a light blue car pulling up to a stop by the door.

  "Oh oh. Trouble." Steve gestured toward the monitor.

  "What's up?" Tom asked

  "Looks like you guys WERE followed. Check it out." Steve pointed at the car, idling in the alley.

Kate's cop instinct kicked in.

  "See if you can get the plate and run a search on it."

  "I'm on it." Steve answered, swinging around to a laptop and typing furiously, while zooming in on the license plate. It was clearly a British Columbia plate.

  "Who the hell would want to follow us?" Tom questioned.

Steve laughed.

  "Your boss Becker probably."

  "I don't think so." Kate said.

  "Anything on the plate?" Tom asked eagerly.

Steve had entered the plate into an official license plate search database and it had returned no match.

  "Nothing. It's not registered. It's gotta be a fake."

Kate turned to Tom.

  "Reid, Let's go check this guy out."

Suddenly the car pulled away and left.

  "Damn." Tom said. "It's like he could hear us."

  "Maybe he could." Kate suggested.

Steve looked frustrated.

  "Now I'm going to have to run a bug check on the whole place. Damn!"

Kate turned to leave.

  "OK, we're out of here. We'll get you the film. Don't forget to be discreet."

  "Yeah." Steve responded. "Especially now that we know someone is watching us."