EPISODE 1

When I was 23 years old, I knew a guy named Don Martin who had a gig at the Dartmouth College Physics lab.  He called me up one afternoon and asked me if I wanted to make a quick $300 in cash.   This was some real money back in 1980 and it could cover my share of the rent in the 3-bedroom apartment I shared in White River Junction, so I knew from the beginning that I was all in. He was a slow moving, slow speaking man.  At times, he appeared to be older than his 54 years.  His head was almost completely bald and what little hair he had was grey. He had a serious look on his face most times, but his faint smile signaled an innate sense of humor.  He had a great laugh too.   He smiled at me as he spoke and continued with his instructions.  

“I want you to drive to Acushnet, Massachusetts.”  Don said.  “That’s right to the east of New Bedford, Michael.  There’s a lab there that’s owned by the Acushnet Company.  They make golf balls and stuff like that.  Anyway, go to the lab and ask to speak to whoever is managing the vault today.  There’s a cylinder in the vault with a slow leak that they want me to take from them.  It’s small, maybe only weighs a couple of pounds.  All you have to do is drive down, pick up the cylinder, drive it back here and leave it on my front porch.  I’ll pay you tomorrow.”

I got Don to throw a full tank of gasoline into the deal and off I went. 

The drive down Route 89 is one of the prettiest in the whole state of New Hampshire.  There is almost no development along the highway and for about 60 miles all you see is forest on either side of the road.  Once you reach the end of 89 and head south on Interstate 93 though, you are presented with a 50-mile shot down to Boston.  I was pretty lucky and only spent about 15 minutes in the traffic that normally turns what is laughingly referred to as the Central Artery into a glorified parking lot.  Acushnet is about 60 or so miles south of Boston and once I was clear of the city, I literally flew. 

The town of Acushnet is just on the east side of the bay that makes up New Bedford Harbor.  I drove over the bridge that spans a narrow place in the harbor, arriving in Acushnet at about 3:30 in the afternoon.  Normally, I might have brought a surfcasting rod along with me and done a little fishing, but I was anxious to get back to Vermont.  After all, I still had to pick up my package and negotiate the traffic through Boston one more time.  I could have just delayed my departure from Acushnet a few hours until the traffic cleared out, but I also reasoned that I didn’t know what in the hell Don’s leaking cylinder held or how quickly whatever it was happened to be seeping into the local environment.  I contemplated that thought quickly and made a necessary correction: whatever it happened to be would very soon be seeping all over the inside of my car.  Before stopping off at the lab, I went to a hardware store and picked up a box of black contractor bags.  You can almost fit the contents of an entire pickup truck inside one of these things and they’re stronger than hell.  I figured that I could contain whatever splooge might reside in the mysterious cylinder if I wrapped it up in three or four of those bags, at least long enough to get it to Don’s front door.  Then it was his problem.  I parked my car in front of the Acushnet building, took four bags out of the box, stuffed them in my backpack, and headed in.

I had to go through a security checkpoint at the entrance area of the Acushnet lab.  The guard there didn’t seem too impressed with me, or the crappy used Chevy Chevette I had driven up in.  Maybe he just didn’t cotton to my “Reagan for Shah” bumper sticker?  But once I’d identified myself and said that I was there to pick up something from “The Vault”, his whole demeanor changed.

“We’ve been waiting for you!” he said excitedly as he led me through the main door.  We went through a long hallway and down two flights of stairs.

“You can take the elevator back up, if you like,” he explained.  “Just let me know.”

I pondered that statement for a second.  Just how big was this thing?

He seemed to sense my confusion and added, “You can take the stairs if you prefer, it’s just that we’d like it out of the building as quickly as you can manage it.”

We exited the stairway and entered another hallway.  At the center of the hall, there was a large glass double door that opened with a keypad.  After the guard entered the appropriate code, the doors opened into a room and we walked in.  There was another glass door maybe ten feet from the entrance, with what appeared to be an airlock behind it.  The guard walked up to a keypad on the right side of the door and entered another code.  The door swung open, exposing a small chamber – the airlock that I had so brilliantly detected a few seconds before.   There was another glass door on the other side of the airlock and a long stainless steel bar that ran across its equator.  On that bar was a blue button.

“When the first door closes behind you,” the guard said as he looked at me with great concern, “Make sure that it’s completely shut before you hit the blue button on the next door.”

“Okay,” I replied.  I peered beyond the second glass door and saw a cylinder sitting on a shelf.  If was small, not much bigger than a motorcycle shock absorber.  So this was the Big Bad Wolf?

“I mean, you might want to put on your safety gear now,” the guard suggested as he looked at my backpack.

My what?  I had a handful of plastic bags between me and what was now assuredly Armageddon.  I swore to myself that if I survived this, I was going to kill Don, $300 or no $300!  I reached into my backpack and retrieved one of the bags.

“That’s what you brought?” the guard asked.

“Yup,” I replied with as much calm as I could contrive.

“No shit!  I figured you’d at least have a HAZMAT suit or an oxygen mask.”

“Not for little jobs like this,” I said as I walked past the guard and into the airlock.  The door shut behind me and I heard the seal click.  I looked at the pathetic bag in my hand and realized that the chamber of the vault was likely filled with some kind of gas.  I hadn’t taken my eyes off the cylinder since I first spotted it.  It seemed benign enough, which indicated to me that, given present circumstances, it was anything but.  I ran down my options and recognized that they were somewhat limited.  I could either tap on the door for the guard to let me out before the situation got even further out of hand, or I could blunder onward and hope for the best. I really needed the $300 and concluded that this thought would have to be enough inspiration to sustain me.  I took a deep breath and pushed the blue button on the inner door.

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The next installment will be posted on September 9.

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