Chapter 6 - The Secret of Barstow
The silence in the office after Vance left was suffocating.
Marcus immediately walked to his desk, grabbed his landline, and dialed the federal prosecutor assigned to my mother's case. "Rachel? It’s Marcus. Victor Vance just walked into my office and uttered direct physical threats against my clients. I need a federal protection detail assigned to Century City immediately."
Noah slowly pulled the thin leather cord from around his neck.
Hanging at the end of the worn leather strap was a heavy, antique brass key with three distinct notches filed into its stem, alongside a tiny silver dog tag stamped with six numbers: 10-28-68.
"Grandpa gave this to me three weeks before he died," Noah whispered, staring at the brass key in his palm. "He told me, 'Noah, don't ever let your mother see this. When you're old enough to understand what a man's honor means, open the trunk.'"
"10-28-68," I read the numbers off the dog tag. "October 28th, 1968. That was the day Grandpa Arthur earned his Silver Star in Vietnam."
"What was in that trunk, Emily?" Noah asked, looking at me with wide, fearful eyes. "It can't just be money. Vance wouldn't bring armed mercs into a corporate law firm for a couple hundred grand."
"It's not money," I realized, my military mind connecting the dots. "Grandpa Arthur worked in logistics maintenance at Camp Lejeune during the late 60s and early 70s. He wasn't just a mechanic. He was the chief NCO in charge of heavy equipment disposal and toxic chemical containment records."
Marcus hung up the phone, looking back at us with a grave expression. "The class-action lawsuit in the late 90s only covered a fraction of the military personnel exposed to the contamination because the Department of Defense claimed the primary disposal ledgers were 'lost' in a fire in 1974."
"They weren't lost," I said, a wave of profound awe washing over me. "Grandpa Arthur saved them. He kept the original, handwritten chemical disposal manifests in his brass trunk."
"Do you have any idea what those original ledgers are worth on the open market today?" Marcus breathed, his eyes wide. "The current ongoing class-action litigation involving military toxic exposure involves over forty thousand veterans and billions of dollars in federal liability. If those original documents exist..."
"...They prove corporate contractors and government officials knew about the contamination ten years earlier than they admitted in court," I completed the thought. "It’s worth tens of millions in legal settlements—and it would ruin the private defense contractors who covered it up."
"Contractors like Victor Vance’s parent company," Noah gasped.
My phone rang on the table. It wasn't my parents this time. It was an unlisted private number.
I tapped the speaker button.
"Emily?" a weak, trembling voice spoke over the line. It was my mother.
"Mom?" I asked, my voice guarded.
"Emily... please..." Eleanor wept hysterically, her voice muffled by heavy wind and the background roar of an engine. "They took us... Victor Vance's men took your father and me from the bail office... they have us at the old salvage yard near Barstow..."
Then a harsh, metallic voice took over the phone—Victor Vance.
May you like
"You have six hours, soldier," Vance said flatly. "Bring the key and the combination to the Barstow salvage yard. If I see a single federal agent or police cruiser within five miles of the perimeter, I shoot your mother and father in the knees and dump them in the desert."
The line went dead.
