“Here’s our mile marker,” Trevor said, aware of his duties.
The directions given to Blake referenced a narrow four-wheel drive path at the southern end of the valley, miles before Groom Lake Road, that they were to follow under the cover of darkness. Trevor slowed the Cherokee and cut the lights. They both put on night vision headsets that strapped in place behind their heads and under their chins.
Spotting the path, Trevor turned left off the highway. “Fifty feet, right?”
“Yeah, but stop here,” Blake said. “Let’s not take chances.”
The security forces used roadside sensors throughout the valley to alert them of any vehicles turning off the highway. Blake jumped out and walked ahead until he found a round device semi-buried a few feet off the path. The sensor detected ground vibrations caused by vehicles, but was not sensitive enough to register Blake’s presence as he approached it. Popping the top revealed a battery pack, which he pulled a set of wires from. He walked another twenty feet and found a second device, disconnecting it as well. The units were always set in pairs because the sequence in which they were triggered signified the direction of travel.
Time would tell if Blake had disconnected the units properly. The night vision eased the tension by eliminating the blackness from their immediate surroundings. In every direction they saw a green-hued open desert.
Trevor steered the Cherokee off the path, venturing into unadulterated terrain. Using a rented Global Positioning System for guidance, he steered over pristine sand, around shrubs and cactus, and toward the coordinates for Blake’s drop point near the Jumbled Hills, a mountainous range south of the Groom Mountain Range.
Little was said during the drive, and little more would be said until they returned. They had prepared and rehearsed almost nonstop for two days, committing most of the plan to memory, with Blake bearing much of the memorization burden — his duties were more complicated with numerous GPS waypoints and sequences to remember.
After fifteen miles on a roundabout route, they approached the first destination, near the extreme southern end of the region covered by the Groom Proper Patrols.
“Get your gear on,” Trevor said, studying a digital temperature gauge on the dash — it read ninety-four — and realized the temperature had not dropped much since the sun disappeared. Blake climbed to the rear of the vehicle. He had dressed in black: combat-style hiking boots, BDU pants from a military surplus store and a tank top. Now he added to the outfit: elbow and wrist guards normally worn for inline skating; a water-stowed back pack; and a large fanny sack stocked with camera equipment, protein bars, first-aid gear and various tools and items Blake considered essential in emergencies.
“We’re here,” Trevor informed him, seeing the proper longitude and latitude coordinates on the GPS. He slowed to a fast idle.
“See you around five,” Blake said as he eased out the side door, bracing himself on a running board for a second before jumping off, then jogging alongside until he managed to close the door and bang an all-clear knock.
Trevor accelerated, leaving a blast of dust in his wake, and disappeared over a short ridge, heading for a rendezvous point where he would park and stay the night.
Blake could jog a sustained seven miles an hour on a track or city street, but crossing uneven terrain, at night, he hoped to average two and a half miles per hour. Heading toward the perimeter, he concentrated on his footing, hopping rocks and rivets in the dirt, dodging brush and Joshua trees. Trudging, high-stepping and pumping his arms added momentum while he conquered the first of several hills. He limited the uphill pace to a brisk walk because of the additional energy climbing required from the muscle fibers in his thighs.
Checking a GPS device strapped to his forearm, he saw he had arrived at the first waypoint, although the device had a variance of plus or minus thirty feet. To combat this problem he had visual descriptions and landmarks to use for additional reference; he searched for a silver ball on top of a pole, like ones he had seen on the first trip. Without night vision, finding the encased camera would have been next to impossible, but he soon spotted its dim silhouette twenty feet away, a stark reminder that this wasn’t simply barren desert. The inanimate object was his first encounter with his adversary. Although he had been assured the camera and motion sensors encased inside the silver ball would not detect him if he followed the plan, he found it as reassuring as somebody telling him it was okay to poke a pit bulclass="underline" poke — grrr — poke — grrr. Proceeding past the camera was no different on his nerves: step — grrr — step — grrr. He paid a great deal of attention to a frequency scanner attached to his belt, listening for a chirp, which would sound if the camera began emitting a signal.
He neared an outcrop of rocks, tire-sized and smaller, except for three larger boulders, two leaning against another and forming a crevice — a passage — just large enough for a person to crawl into. The silver balls, spaced in quarter mile increments, shot a fence of invisible laser beams along the perimeter, but were unable to penetrate the rocks and detect motion in the crevice, thus creating a hole in the surveillance system — and Blake’s red-carpet entrance into the government’s black world.
Trevor’s combined lifelong experience of driving a four-wheel-drive vehicle across rugged terrain at night now amounted to a total just under four hours, which included time spent practicing in the days leading up to this adventure. Soon after leaving Blake, he faced a rut cutting at an angle across his soft, sandy path. The width didn’t affect his tires, except where his right front tire met the opening; sand gave way and the narrow rut became a large enough gap to swallow the tire. The Cherokee sank to the earth until the front right bumper touched down with a bellowing thud. Oh crap, he thought, and eased on the gas pedal, but the engine only revved. Panicking, he pressed hard on the gas, throttling the engine as all four tires spun, dug and sank the rear end until the underbelly of the jeep was flat on the earth.
After stepping out, he realized this wasn’t a situation he could dig his way out of in the dark. The original plan called for Trevor to drive about two miles away from where Blake would cross the perimeter and wait until four in the morning, then he would return to the drop off point and meet Blake around sunrise. The possibility of getting stuck in the sand did arise in their contingency discussions. He would now have to double-back on foot to the rendezvous point, and during the daylight he and Blake would try to dig their way out, or seek help. But Trevor still had a number of hours to kill and decided it best to spend them in the Cherokee, hoping to remain unnoticed.
Once through the crevice in the boulders and on the base, Blake picked up his pace, eager to distance himself from the perimeter surveillance.
After a mile of brisk uphill trotting he crested the Jumbled Hills and had his first view of the base, illuminated like a not-too-distant city. The topography changed as he descended into the valley. Far fewer rocks made travel easier and faster. He worked his way to a wash that carried water to the lakebed when it rained. Like a miniature canyon, the wash provided walls — varying from two to twelve feet in height — that offered a shielded path to the next waypoint. He jogged faster and with greater confidence about his immediate bearings.
As he approached the dry lakebed, the surrounding hills flattened into rolling, open plains interspersed with occasional low plateaus and mesas caused by converging streambeds, like the one he was running through. The distant base lights now illuminated faint outlines of structures and towers.