Rioting in France continued for a third day Friday, as youths frustrated by high unemployment protested a lack of government support. The riots were particularly bad near several key Paris Metro stations, prompting police to close the stations, trapping commuters inside for several hours.
What does a man in a frog suit have to do with presidential elections? According to Randy Templeson, a lot. "We wear these suits to support the Elder Party, to show everyone that we're not another 'politics as usual' political party," explained Templeson, 23, while wearing a frog suit at an Elder Party rally in Portland, Oregon. "Those other politicians, Democrat and Republican? They all look alike. They're always in business suits, and all of their supporters look the same. We're different."
Greeley, Colorado
Thursday
As Agent Vijem and his companions prepare to leave for Nunn, Colorado, Helene Armitage urges Deputy Westfield to stop. Raine (-), an EMT and Search/Rescue specialist, was in the parking lot with her German Shepard. Helene urged Raine to travel with them, in case they needed to search for the missing college students.
Beyond Pierce on Highway 85 was a broken-down automobile. Deputy Westfield stopped to render assistance. The driver of the car, Daniel Tobit, knew Helene. Mr. Tobit was an archaeologist and the Egyptologist of the Denver Museum of Natural History, and his specialties had been useful for the state's medical examiner in the past. Agent Vijem offered Daniel a ride back to Denver, provided he was willing to go with them to Nunn first.
At the rural household of Mr. Alistair Douglas, Agent Vijem and Deputy Westfield approached the house to complete the stolen vehicle report that Deputy Westfield had previously taken. Mr. Douglas insisted that they leave, and the two started to comply, although both were somewhat dazed. A second attempt to speak to Mr. Douglas also resulted in the speaker walking away dazed. Helene poked about, and she and Raine pried open the siding of the windowless shop near the house. Inside, they found the van that Mr. Douglas had reported stolen over a week ago. When they reported this information to Agent Vijem, Vijem determined that there was sufficient cause to enter the shop. He got a Sawzall from his Explorer and went towards the shop.
Mr. Douglas ran outside his house with a fully-automatic Uzi submachinegun and opened fire on Agent Vijem. Anders returned fire, and Agent Wiseman, who had remained in the car, also shot at the assailant. Vijem was lightly wounded, and Mr. Douglas was seriously injured. Helene and Raine conducted first aid on both victims, and Mr. Douglas was bound and placed in Deputy Westfield's patrol car. Fox 31 reporter Sue Weatherby filmed the gun fight.
Agents Vijem and Wiseman searched the house. Within, they found a large collection of books, magazines, and catalogs related to Hunt Electronics, including a number of publications from the early days when the company was Hunt Electrodynamics. There was also a strange latticework structure made from toothpicks and fishing wire that involved a map of Death Valley and a calendar of 2012. Three dates were marked - October 21st, November 6th, and December 21st. Agent Wiseman also found a trapdoor in the floor of the master bedroom. The trapdoor led to a small room that had been excavated from the soil beneath the house. Within were three of the missing students, all asleep, and an odd table. The table had been angled upwards slightly, and precisely aligned to a specific west-by-southwest direction. The surface had been painted grayish-black, with a white border. On one side of the border were three yellow squares.
The kidnapped students were awakened and led outside. A second search of the house revealed a bottle of a strange liquid, and a very old book that had been taken from the University of Wyoming. The book had a librarian's business card.
With most of the kidnappings resolved, and with Weld County Sheriff's arriving on scene, Agent Vijem and his companions returned to Denver to collate the information they had obtained.
That evening, Fox 31 ran exclusive footage of the gunfight outside of Nunn.
Denver, Colorado
Friday
Tests on the chemicals in the bottle recovered found that it contained a number of compounds found in the human body. Helene sent samples to Amgen in Boulder to see if there were DNA samples that could be matched to the still-missing college student.
Daniel, being an academic, was familiar with the University of Wyoming, so he contacted the librarian whose card was found in the old book, and he talked to her about the book. She said it had been obtained from a college in New England, and that the book had been missing for some time. Tobit thumbed through the book - it appeared to be hand-written, circa 15th Century. Even accounting for the older English in the book, Daniel figured out that it was a translation - a literal, poor translation - of another work. It contained occult illustrations and text dealing with sacrifices and summonings.
Agent Wiseman returned to his CIA office while Agent Vijem browsed through the catalogs and books that had been confiscated from Mr. Douglas's Nunn home. Agent Vijem talked to some experts about parts that had been marked within the catalogs, and he found that each of the parts were top-of-the-line technology (for their time - some of the parts were sixty years old), and that Hunt Electronics had long been on the forefront of quality electronic components.
Agent Vijem also puzzled over the map of Death Valley. A location had been marked on the Death Valley map. A stroke of inspiration discovered that the odd table in Douglas's hidden room pointed towards the location in Death Valley. Some checking through the old Hunt Electrodynamics literature identified that Hunt Electrodynamics Factory #4 had been built in a town called Hellbend, once located where the mark on the map was. That factory had been destroyed in an accident in the early 1950s. Some checks on the area found that two of the 82 residents in town had died within the last few weeks, with a cause of "suspected wild animal attack". Vijem obtained the autopsy reports and had them forwarded to Helene so that she could study the reports.
Agent Vijem contacted Daniel and Helene. He wanted them to accompany him on a trip to Death Valley to see if they could find out what was going on. Helene suggested they take Raine, as well - Death Valley conditions were extreme, and Raine was a survivalist. Agent Vijem arranged with the FBI to get tickets for an early flight the following morning.
Las Vegas, Nevada
Saturday
Agent Vijem arranged with the Vegas FBI branch to supply an SUV for his investigation. Vijem and his companions made the two hour drive to Hellbend, California. The town was dilapidated, with many of the buildings collapsing from disuse. A handful of houses were still occupied, and the local Gas and Sip convenience store was open for business.
Vijem drove through town to find the site of Factory #4. Aged, collapsing chain-link fence surrounded a cracked, weathered parking lot. The facility proper looked like it had collapsed in on itself.
They returned to the convenience store to ask some questions. They found out that one of the victims, Clifford Potter, had no relatives. His body was buried in the local cemetery. The other victim, Lucille Mayer, was a local artist whose domestic partner worked in the convenience store selling Mayer's works.
The visitors were able to determine a few things from the questioning - Ms. Mayer had stepped out at night two weeks ago to take a walk. She typically got her inspiration from such nighttime walks up to the Hunt Factory site and back. She never returned from this particular walk. Her body was found 112 miles away, two weeks later, seriously mauled. Mr. Potter's body was found almost a half a mile from the factory site. He had been working obsessively at the site for over a week, renting a Bobcat from the Gas and Sip owner in order to clear away some rubble. After his death, his house had been locked up and abandoned.
The party went to Potter's small house to search it. Inside, they found that he had some books about radioactivity, a journal, and a collection of tapes marked "Monty Int." numbered from one to twenty-four. Listening to one at random indicated that it was an interview. The journal contained a number of notes written in nearly-illegible handwriting, as well as a sketch of a map. There was also an illustration very similar to the table found in Mr. Douglas's house. Behind the Potter house was a root cellar of fairly recent construction. Inside, the floor had been neatly groomed with a rake. Tobit poked around and found that the soil in the center was softer. He dug down and found a garbage bag wrapped around a small, heavy cube. Unwrapping the bag, he found a gold cube, approximately 2.7" per side. Also buried near the cube was a large jar of clear liquid that contained an enormous dragonfly. Daniel identified the specimen as a Meganeura dragonfly, a species that had been extinct for 300 million years. The evidence was placed in the Explorer and the party returned to the Gas and Sip. They asked about "Monty", and they were told that Monty was the oldest resident in town, someone who had worked at the factory when it was operational.
The party went to Monty's house and talked to him at length. Monty rambled quite a bit, but he described his employment as Arthur Hunt's personal assistant. Hunt was an extremely eccentric individual, with odd habits like running space heaters in his office in the factory, and requiring very specific lighting arrangements within each room. Monty explained that the factory exploded - or, more precisely, imploded - the night Hunt was running a test on his newest invention. Monty did not know what it was, but he knew it required very precise machinework, for Hunt had hired the best machinists in the country to manufacture some of the parts. After the lengthy talk, the party went back out to the factory to investigate it further.
They found where Potter had been excavating - a location near the center of the rubble. He had cleared a twenty by thirty foot area of the largest chunks of concrete. Poking about, they were unable to find much of use at the dig site. However, Vijem noticed a ravine north of the factory site. They investigated, and they found a culvert that led towards the factory. Vijem went back to his Explorer and brought it over near the ravine. He got his shotgun, and they climbed down. The culvert was large, twelve feet wide and twelve high. A slow flow of water came out of the culvert. The water surged periodically. In the ravine were a number of small flowering plants, basking in the warmth of the desert while being soaked by the constant outflow.
Following the culvert tunnel, the party eventually found a branch. In the room formed at the branch, there was an odd electrical contraption powered by a truck battery sitting on an overturned milk crate. The contraption ticked at regular intervals, occasionally ticking faster as the water level rose. The water appeared to come from the tunnel that the contraption was facing. The party decided to explore that tunnel.
Some distance in, they heard large, quiet footsteps in the water. After a low, menacing growl came from somewhere ahead, the party chose to backtrack to the culvert junction. Moments later, they heard footsteps in the side tunnel. Vijem shined a light down the tunnel, and caught the glint of an eye reflecting the light, well above the floor. The party decided to backtrack to the entrance. On the way, they heard a loud roar and the sounds of heavy footsteps charging them. They scrambled up the ravine - Raine had to help Helene.
As they reached the top of the ravine, a largish dinosaur ran out of the culvert. It was three meters long, with a long head full of razor sharp teeth - Daniel vaguely remembered the name "monolophosaurus". The party started retreating towards the Explorer as a black Crown Victoria screeched to a halt next to the explorer. A woman wearing desert fatigues got out of the car…
"What's the news?" asked Special Agent Keys. "Any good SigInt today?"
"Omnivore found a few more statistically improbable phrases than usual," replied Special Agent Yancey. "This one was pretty interesting." He tapped on the top page of a thick sheet of papers.
"What's that?" Keys asked. Yancey handed him the page. "Serial Kidnapping? What the hell's a 'serial kidnapping'?"
"Good question. We sniffed that from the Denver affiliate of Fox television last night. It was a report about an FBI investigation that turned into a shootout in rural Colorado. I ran some more correlations. It turns out that they guy they shot was some sort of wacko cultist. He kidnapped some college kids and hid them in a hole he dug under his house. The guy's in the Northern Colorado Medical Center recovering from his injuries. He'll be charged later."
"What about the FBI agent?"
"He was injured, too. Odd, though, there weren't any interviews with him."
"Do you have the footage of the report?"
"Yep." Yancey tapped away on his computer. A video started playing, with a woman's voice describing what was happening as a handheld camera showed the gunfight.
"Who's that?" Keys asked, pointing at a man in a suit taking cover behind a Ford Explorer while firing on the kidnapper.
"Dunno. Another FBI agent?"
"No, not in that nice of a suit. One of our boys?"
"Not that I know of."
"Find out."
*Late that afternoon, Yancey called Keys to his office. "That's a CIA agent. An Agent Wiseman," Yancey explained.
"That explains the suit. What was he doing with the FBI in Colorado?"
"I haven't figured that out. However, I did get some more info on the case. Look at this." Yancey pulled an image up on his computer monitor. "It's a screencap of some of the raw footage from the news station. It's stuff they didn't use on last night's report, but it might show up on a special they're airing tomorrow night."
"Damn. Is that what I think it is?" Keys asked as he looked at the elaborate latticework of toothpicks. "How many of those have we come across?"
"Two other cases this month. Three earlier this year."
"Can we get any better shots of what's underneath it?"
"It's a calendar and a map. The footage is too poor of a quality to read either, and the cameraman didn't spend a lot of time on it. However, I was able to identify the map - it's Death Valley, California."
"Why does that sound familiar?"
"It's the lowest point in the country," Yancey said.
Keys glared at the other agent.
Yancey shrugged. "The agents in Los Angeles who found that lattice earlier this month say that there's a cult who's going to camp in Death Valley near the end of the year. They think the lattice-builder is related to the cult somehow."
Keys shook his head. "Okay. Keep tabs on this guy in Colorado. The one who built the lattice. As soon as he's stable, he disappears. We need to talk to him. Does this FBI agent know what's going on?"
"I don't know. If he does, he hasn't given any indication." Yancey searched through a database. "Although…"
"What?"
"He had the FBI obtain four tickets to Las Vegas, on an early flight tomorrow out of DIA."
"Do we have anyone who can tail him?"
Yancey checked some information. "Not right away. We can get someone there to keep tabs on him. Do you think he's heading for Death Valley?"
"It's a big coincidence if he isn't. Find out what he's driving when he gets there, and get a pair of agents on the way."
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