FBR chapter 3 scene 1 and other stuff

Hi darlinks, chicklets and chickies. Merry Christmas!
Actually I'm celebrating the solstice. The shortest day is so apparent when you're somewhere were the sun is so much a part of every day. The Arizona desert is like a switch. Sun - get warmer. Sun go away, get much colder right now, right now actually as I'm typing this.

Below you'll find the first scene of chapter three, enjoy! What has Ben got himself into now? He just can't catch a break. Don't worry, company come-ith.

I'm writing a small essay for the main blog and have a few pictures to put up. I'm doing my first annual state of the alan message. It is all about me, the world, and therefore you, of course.

Foreign Body Reaction, Alan McNeill Chap 3, scene

FBR Chapter 3

The fence was formidable and unusual. Substantial chain link with a coiled razor wire top. It was mid day before Ben had found it. There were standard Federal warning plates bolted at eye level all around the perimeter of the fence. The enclosed area was not large, and Ben had edged closer searching for any monitoring equipment.

That morning, having reached the odd disturbed soil on the back of the mountain he had followed the buried ditch directly west. When Ben had found the sod covering the two pipelines the day before he had been reasonably sure that this was a pipeline diversion. Not the kind of work a thief or small group of thieves could handle. This was major pipeline work, but odd in that minimum damage had been done to the surrounding trees and brush. It was subtle. Nothing the pipeline companies did was subtle. Even their signs warning not to dig where yellow and visible at a distance.

This pipeline hadn't been on the high security maps Ben used in his job, and it looks like a concerted effort had been made to camouflage the digging. The trench was narrow, the cleared area hardly noticeable and most striking, the line was not straight. Every bend in a pipeline slows down the fluid or gas, and therefore straight lines were the rule. Ben had counted many slight bends over the two miles he had clicked off before reaching the large hill behind him.

Ben had been expecting to find something along the line. It takes enormous pumps to move gas and fluid through the lines. He had expected to intersect with an electric power line at the peak of the hills as they walked west. If someone high in the government had wanted a secret connection to this pipeline to lead off to the west there would have to be pumps at the highest point on the route to the cost. There would also be inspection points for inserting cleaning machines, called PIGS in the industry. These PIGS cleaned the line and monitored it continually for pressure declines, bending pipe walls, even corrosion.

In the first few miles this line had none of that, and until Ben reached the fence he wasn't sure how big the diversion pipe would be. He expected to find the pipe rising out of the ground entering a building, a shack where instrumentation kept the pipeline company informed of all data received. New construction now used satellite uplink and small dishes to constantly monitor the state of this precious cargo.

But the fence was odd, the compound just an empty half acre or so, with only a sheet metal shack at the center. Standard federal signs adorned the fence, no trespassing by federal law. The fence itself was curious. When Ben touched it he found it was not metal, but rather plastic. Even the razor wire coils at the top were plastic with thin steel razor inserts in woven into the coils. The fence was visible only when he was almost upon it. It was a mottled dull brown and green.

Ben knew that the only thing that had happened yesterday that started all this was that he had found the disturbed soil on the peak of the pipeline through the mountains on an area he had specifically told not to walk. Now he was marked for death by the Homeland Security's private police force, Global Security.

While it had to be this that was such a big deal Ben couldn't for the life of him figure out what the fucking difference a federal tap into a set of pipelines made to anyone. Since 9-11 the world had gotten to be one crazy place and no one more so than Homeland Security. Ben personally couldn't have cared one way or another and yesterday it was just one more weirdness in an ever weirder world. But today, well, today, Ben's life was upside down, his possessions largely destroyed, his friend somehow involved with that woman from Homeland Security, and the nation's top private security guy had been ordered to kill him. Why?

Ben had spent the hike here well aware that if they really brought resources to bare, they would certainly find him. In fact he was surprised that they hadn't found him already. Why hadn't he heard helicopters? It wasn't even raining. They must have satellites and helicopters and sensing gear that could pin point him in a minute if they wanted. Which made Ben think that perhaps this was not a full on Federal pursuit. Perhaps this was something else, maybe the one hand of the government doing something that the other hand knew nothing about?

Ben really couldn't say if it was the wise thing to do, but lacking any other plan all he could think to do was to try and find out what he was supposed to have figured out that was worth them killing him.

He found a point in the perimeter of the fence that was under a fir snag. They had not cleared the fence line, instead weaving the fence through the existing trees and brush. He climbed up the fir, his hands immediately getting sticky with pitch. Up at the ten foot level one branch cleared the fence and drooped down. He stood and edged out along the branch. He weight caused the branch to bend and push the razor wire flat. Ben edged out a little further and then dropped inside the fence hitting the ground a bit harder than he thought, but he rolled and was up in an instant waiting for some alarm to be visible or audible. Nothing.

He searched the compound for any evidence of the pipeline controls and except for the tool shed there was nothing. The tool shed door had no lock at all. It was all new but not very solid, this seemed unlikely to be a pumping station.

Ben slowly pulled the door open. As he did so, interior lights came on flooding the ten by twelve metal building with light. A clean concrete floor led to a pair of metal plates set in the floor. The plates were recessed into the concrete but their function was a mystery. Ben looked around the walls, but no control panel was obvious. The pipe lines did not rise like he expected they would, in fact, he wasn't sure if the hidden pipeline row tapped both the gas and liquid lines.

There were a few tools along the wall, a weed whacker and rakes. Out of place, but there on a small shelf with the red fuel can was what appeared to be a garage door opener. Ben examined it and tried pushing a few buttons. Nothing. He hit the up and down arrows and a loud thrumming sound began and the two metal plates pivot from their recess and open like a book. Lights clicked on deeper in the hole revealing a staircase. Ben kept the remote and cautiously descended the stairs.

A much larger room began at the bottom of the stairs. Instead of bringing the pipes up, they had brought the pumping station down. Only as Ben looked he realized that it was not a pumping station. There was no enormous electrical motor, no generators, and no incoming electric lines. The main lines in ended steel housing. On the outlet side of the steel boxes three pipes exited and formed a trident shape on the floor as they snaked their way to the rounded ends of holding three separate tanks. The tanks were only partially visible as they were mated to the concrete wall in the rear, about ten yards back. The tanks might be of any size, or in fact might be simply manifolds feeding more or larger tanks beyond.

Ben thought hard about what all this represented. If there was no pump, then the fuel was not being pushed elsewhere but instead stored here. But stored where?

Ben used the remote to close the doors after he reached ground level and went outside to study the area outside the fence, above the underground boundary of the room below.

While it wasn't obvious to him on the way in, outside the fence of the west the ground sloped up the next hill. There were three areas devoid of trees. Possibly these were storage tanks. Once again Ben descended and went to the wall on the rear level. He felt along the rear wall above and below where the pipes entered but it was smooth and unmarked. He turned and instead of ascending the stairs he walked around behind the stairwell. There a small fold down seat provided just enough area to see the small gauger set into the back of the stairwell. Three digital readouts, reading 220, 180, and 150 were back lit. He leaned a little forward enough to see the word MIL stenciled near each one. Military? Ben wasn't sure. It seemed to be a measurement of something. Perhaps they had build online storage here for the military.

Ben spent another fruitless few minutes looking through the room before ascending. It was late afternoon, and he hadn't learned exactly anything. What was the big deal, he found some offline underground storage tanks. If the markings meant gallons or thousands of gallons, it was interesting but not at a national level. Why the military would be involved with no bases or roads into here didn't make much sense. Also he hadn't seen military markings on any of the other equipment.

What if MIL didn't mean military? Ben had already worked his way out to ground level and closed the door behind him. Shit, if this place was so important, important enough to kill for, where was security. Hell, they didn't even have a lock on the door.

The MIL designation bugged him as he made his way towards the fence. He hadn't realized how sore and tired he was. Worse, he had learned, well not nothing but certainly not much.

He reached up for the branch, and as his arms extended he heard the chilling sound of a round being ratcheted into a pistol's breach.

“Stay very still Ben,” said a hard, dispassionate voice.”We have some questions for you.”

Ben froze, fuck! The man whispered something that Ben couldn't hear and within seconds a black helicopter began setting down in the middle of the fenced yard.

End Chapter three, scene one.