Chapter 8

Girls, Girls, Girls

5/02/48 Air drops ordered ceased. Ground-based test bed established within SSTB facilities.

5/18/48 Paul J. Larsen becomes Director of Z Division. Decision made to provide improved facilities at SSTB.

6/04/48 Architects proposal for Salton Sea facilities approved by the AEC.


Sam looked through the chain link fence at the charred chunk of automobile. He was standing outside the Sheriff’s impound lot in Brawly. It was located on the edge of the town limits, behind it stretched the vacant lot of the Mohave Desert. Another man was walking to the wreck on the other side of the fence. Sam yelled to him, “Over here, Tommy!” Sam pointed. The other man changed course, navigating around the other cars in the lot, some pristine some nothing more than metal sculpture.

“This one here?” asked the small sheriff’s deputy. He looked skittish and unsure.

“Yeah – can you read the plate?”

“Oh, yeah, this one... You know anything about this?”

“Nothing more than you guys' do.”

“Why are you so interested?”

“Client related.”

Tommy bent down in front of the car and looked at the blackened license plate. He wiped the plate with no luck. He spit on the plate and pushed his fist against it again with no luck. “No way – nothing. Told ya.”

“Is there any other way to find out who this was registered to?

“We already tried the VIN number too – couldn’t find it, too mangled.”

Sam couldn’t get over how smashed the car was. It looked like it had been in a collision, but there had been no collision.

“There’s no identification on the car and none on the cooked bodies? No one is coming forward to report a missing a friend or family member?”

“No. Anything else? I gotta get back,” said Tommy.

Sam walked back towards the parking lot. He wasn’t getting paid to find out who died in that car at the Navy base, but what he saw wouldn’t leave his head.

The parking lot was half empty save for a few vehicles probably owned by employees. An old Camry was disgorging two men dressed in ill-fitting business suits and seemed to be in their late fifties. If they were over-heated in their attire, they didn’t show it. The sky was cloudless and the sun was right over-head. There were no contrasts, no shadows on the buildings, cars or landscape. Everything was washed out like an old film print. He looked out at the adjacent desert beyond the fence stretching uniformly out to the horizon. Some would say the vista was a hostile landscape but to Sam it just appeared to be indifferent. Sam opened the door and slid into an oven. Even if he could have afforded it he would never get leather seats living here. In the summer, even the cloth seats were uncomfortably hot, but at least they didn’t burn you. Lukewarm AC roared out of the vents. Once he started driving it would cool down. His phone rang.

“Get in here.”

“Tommy?”

“Get in here. There’s someone you want to meet.” He hung up.

Sam jumped out of the car and ran across the parking lot, cutting across the grass and through the front entrance. The place was empty. Two men in business suits were at the counter. In the back office area behind the counter was Tommy motioning at Sam towards the two men. Sam could hear raised voices from one of the men as he argued with the female deputy behind the counter. Sam got himself in line right behind them.

“…this can’t possibly be evidence – evidence for what?” The smiling man was speaking with intensity but managed to do it without yelling.

“Two men died in that car. We’re in the middle of an investigation. Are you the owners?

“Our foundation is the owner of the car. What is it that you need to investigate? It was a car fire, yes?”

“What is the name of your foundation?”

“The Creation Science Institute.”

“It will take another couple of weeks until we know for sure,” said the Deputy, “We’ll notify you.”

The man turned around and looked at his companion, exasperated. They talked quietly amongst themselves for some twenty seconds. The man turned back around to the counter. “Could we see the car?”

“Can you give us the names of the men driving that car? We really could use your help in identifying them.”

“No, we’re not comfortable doing that,” he was still smiling, “Their families have been notified. We’d like to see the car.”

“I can’t legally let you into the lot. But we could overlook the law briefly if you gave us the names of the men who died in that car.”

“Can we use a phone? We need to call someone to pick us up.”

The deputy stared at the two men. Bafflement and disgust showed on her face. She pointed to the far left, “There’s a pay phone on the back wall.”

“I can give you a ride,” interjected Sam. The two men turned around. The officer behind the desk looked on.

“Do you know these gentlemen?” said the deputy.

“No, but they’re in a bind.”

A very baffled Tommy stared at Sam from behind the desk.

“You’re very kind,” said the smiling man.”

The smiling man stuck out his hand to Sam, “Ed Neely.”

“Dr. Ed Neely…” interjected the second man.

“Yes, well, whatever,” laughed Ed Neely.

Sam recognized the name. He was also starting to remember the face. “Sam Bauer. Nice to meet you.”

“This is Bob Stewart, said Ed Neely” Sam shook his hand as well.

“There are more serious issues here than getting a car out of impound,” said the male deputy, “You’re holding back information. You’re interfering with a criminal investigation.”

“Is there one going on right now?” asked Ed Neely.

“You might want get a lawyer.”


Ed Neely sat in the front seat and Bob Stewart sat mute in the back. They were driving back towards Indio. Ed was directing Sam on where to go. “So you guys work in Indio?”

“Mecca,” said Ed.

“That’s where I work. Are you self-employed? There are not many businesses in Mecca unless you count laundry mats…”

“That’s where our institute is.”

He remembered now. Sam recognized his passengers. Three years ago Dr. Ed Neely, had made a notorious name for himself leading the fight throughout Southern California to get Creationism taught in the classroom alongside evolution. The Institute had made inroads in the north San Diego County town of Vista by taking over the school board and causing a holy war that not even they had been prepared for. After a two year run, the Creation Science Institute board members (including Institute head Dr. Neely and Bob Stewart) were booted from office by irate parents who were already nervous enough about the state of public education without having these flat-Earthers teaching their kids.

“I was there right before your colleagues were killed,” said Sam.

Bob Stewart stayed quiet, but Ed’s response was instant, “Where?”

“The old Navy base.”

“What were you doing there?” Dr. Ed leaned forward.

“I’m a private detective. I was following someone who happened to also be there that day. Your colleagues pulled up some ten minutes before we left.”

“A private detective?” Ed was staring straight out the windshield. “Does that have something to do with why you’re driving us back to our office?”

“No. I don’t work for anybody related to this. It’s just that I was there, not when it happened, but I saw it. I was there right before the accident and right after.”

Ed turned towards Sam, “What did you see?” Ed said it so slowly that he sounded like a bad actor.

Sam didn’t know how much he should censor himself, if at all. He chose his words carefully. “They were playing music, the car stereo was blasting some kind of spiritual music – choral music, religious.”

“I don’t know why they’d be doing that – here, turn here,” answered Ed Neely. He was pointing to one of the exits off Hwy 86 into Mecca. It was the one Sam used. Sam turned. “No, I don’t know what they would have been doing…”

“You said you saw them, “afterwards”?

It was the first Sam had heard Bob Stewart speak. Sam looked in his rearview mirror. Bob was leaning forward, his head almost at Sam’s shoulder. Sam turned his head slightly to the right to address Bob, “I was gone a half hour maybe. I saw black smoke rising in the distance. I wasn’t that far from the base. I broke off from my surveillance work and came back.”

“– turn left here,” said Ed.

“– when I got back there the car was on fire, completely, I couldn’t even see the car, just smoke.”

“Right,” said Ed.

“What were they doing out there?” asked Sam.

“We don’t watch our co-workers all the time,” said Bob Stewart still hovering over Sam’s left shoulder. But if we did we might want to hire someone like you.” The nastiness of the words was evident but they were delivered in such an even tone that Sam had to think hard to guess their intent.

“That’s very true,” Dr. Ed added, “We have no idea what they could have doing out there.”

Sam debated whether to mention the next part. If they had been close to their cohorts it might be too disturbing. However, these two seemed almost blasé about their colleagues’ fate. He gave it shot.

“There was something in the car bouncing or flying around inside.” Sam looked at both Bob Steward and Ed to see if he could see any reaction. There was none. Sam continued, “I then saw one of the men come running out from some trees, badly burned, clothes almost burned off –”

“– Who? Which one was it? What was he wearing?” blurted out Bob Stewart.

“I don’t know – like I said, he was burned badly.

“Pull in here, Mr. Bauer,” said Ed, pointing.

The dirt parking lot of the Creationist Science Institute featured three other cars parked next to an ugly one-story white concrete block building. There were three windows. The far larger and even less aesthetically pleasing “He Is Risen Redeemer Church” was situated at the opposite end of the parking lot. Its circular, space-age, metal-mothership-design-meets-Soviet Brutalist architecture dominated the smaller building, as if saying to its protégé, “do not stray”. The sign announcing the church’s upcoming Sunday sermon read, “The Temptation of the Secular”. He pulled to a stop in front of the entrance, which looked like someone had imbedded a double glass door into a concrete blockhouse.

“Thank you so much,” said Ed, returning to his smiling self. You saved us an expensive cab ride.” The two of them opened the door and exited the car.

“There was a camera.”

The two men stopped, still in mid-crouch they fell back into the car. Sam continued. “One of your men had a camera. I’m assuming some pictures were taken.”

“Where is it?” asked Ed.

“I have it at my house. I’m waiting to find a darkroom. I don’t want to send the film in for processing.”

Gravity hung on each of their faces, a kind of Jupiter weight that makes lifting a finger impossible. Dr. Ed’s next words were said at half speed, “We have a darkroom. When can we see that film?”

“I don’t know. Soon.”

“Mr. Bauer, can we show you around. I’d like to introduce you to a couple of people?”


Eschewing a lobby, the office area began right inside the door. It was cluttered with boxes of software, missing drop-ceiling panels, books, and anonymous paperwork. There were five steel desks in the office. All were empty except for the closest, which held a heavy-set, dowdy woman in her late 40s banging away madly at a PC keyboard. She looked up from her typing, “Hello sir. Were you able to retrieve the car?”

“No, but this generous man here … Sam, I’d like you to meet our administrator, Ann. Ann, this is Sam Bauer...”

Ann stood up and extended her hand to Sam. “Nice to meet you.”

“… They would not release the car to us but Sam offered us a ride back to the office.”

“Oh, no – see, I told you, you should have let me wait for you in the parking lot just in case.”

“You had a doctor’s appointment. It didn’t occur to me in a million years that they would have wanted to keep it.”

“It’s also a charred wreck,” interjected Bob Stewart, “we couldn’t have driven it back here anyway.”

“Yes – that I should have foreseen,” Dr. Ed. “Mr. Bauer, let me show you around.”

Sam followed Dr. Ed and Bob Stewart as they proceeded through a door into a brightly lit large room that looked somewhat like a museum floor. There were display cases filled with fossils, colorful diagrams with nicely lettered descriptive text, and along the left wall, perhaps twenty feet long, was a huge, highly detailed diorama with almost-to-scale dinosaurs plodding through some Mesozoic muck. Sam had been to a couple of science museums and this could have been out of either of them. But as they got closer to the diorama Sam could see that there was something very wrong with the display. Placed among the dinosaurs were humans. But if the presence of these humans wasn’t jarring enough, so was their dress. Sam had seen bad science before in crummy sci-fi films that showed humans interacting with dinosaurs, but these dopey movies at least attempted to portray these people as primitive Mankind, showing them with animal hides, living in caves, having an abundance of body hair and/or a sloped forehead. But the humans in the huge display case were well groomed Anglo Saxons, wearing tunics, looking like they were out of some bible epic. The placard on the wall describing the scene had a lot of text, too small for Sam to read as he passed by, but the title was in considerably larger print and easy to make out, “Early Man Interacts with Dinosaurs Circa 3000 BC”.

“Would you like some coffee, Mr. Bauer?” Ed asked him. There was a single coffee machine sitting at the rear of the room, a single glowing light in the center. Bob Stewart brought some over to him in a paper cup. He looked right at Sam as he took a sip.

“I’m sorry you saw what had to be a horrible sight. It must be very traumatizing. You saw the last moments of our colleague’s life – that is very powerful.”

Sam belched out a nervous laugh, “What about you? These were your friends.”

“Yes. I’m pretty upset.”

At Sam’s feet, situated along the floor was large clay rendering of a fossil three-toed footprint of what looked to be some type of dinosaur, routine in every way except for the human footprint right next to it. The description posted next to it said, “This fossil print found in Australia provides incontrovertible proof that Man and Dinosaur were indeed contemporaries”. The placard went further to explain that the estimated date for this fossil was about 9000 BC.

“So you’re Creationists?”

“Yes, I suppose, but I find that word to be pejorative,” said Dr. Ed,
“I prefer the term ‘Intelligent Design.’”

“You take the bible literally and you don’t like Darwin?

“I don’t necessarily take the bible literally, but I do believe in the Great Flood and that God did create us at the same time he created the world 10,000 years ago.”

“Oh. But you seem an educated man.” The moment Sam said it knew he shouldn’t have.

For the first time Ed Neely’s facade of equanimity gave way, his eyes widened, his voice went up a pitch. “I am personally offended by the idea of a godless universe and I’m offended by those who push that ideology, in our schools or anywhere.”

“Can’t you just view evolution as God’s method of creation?”

“I’m not interested in any theory that views man as an after-thought.
Conventional theories of evolution and paleontology say that the Earth is over four billion years old and that Man is a rather late arrival, only having been around for a few million years – after developing from lesser animals. I can’t accept that.”

Sam could see that this was going nowhere. He had run into people like this before. Ten years ago a brilliant physicist working at General Atomics in San Diego had hired Sam to spy on his wife who he had suspected of having an affair. Throughout his house were complex blueprints and schematics of arcane testing devices, open notebooks with equations that would run for pages. Nevertheless, this man had a Sunday-school world-view with those who disagreed being condemned to life without salvation. Sam used to have difficulty reconciling this dichotomy – smart people who held some of the most childish religious beliefs – beliefs that if held by New Guinea tribesman would be chalked up as the presumed superstitions of a primitive people. After he met the engineer Sam came to realized that religion must utilize a wholly different part of the brain, unaffected by whatever education and genius occupied the remainder.

“What is it – and I’ve heard this a lot – Chimps and humans share something like 98% of the same DNA…? Sam asked.

“The 98% commonality you are referring to are between counterparts in the DNA, we’re not talking the same exact structures. The exact proteins are different.”

But that difference is still so small…”

“Evolution cannot explain how that 2% gulf leads us to art, science, literature, politics, philosophy, Galileo, Newton, Jefferson…

“You’re a doctor…” Sam asked in not in an accusatory tone but one of sincere bafflement.

“He’s was a geophysicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory before he became director of the Institute, interjected Bob Stewart, “He’s published more than 30 scientific papers. He’s highly regarded amongst his peers.”

“Who needs a publicist with Bob here?” said a smiling Ed.

“But being a geophysicist doesn’t have much to do with biology, does it?” asked Sam.

“No, but he brings quite a bit of credibility to the Institute,” said Bob Stewart, “He adheres to scientific method as much as any evolutionary biologist. What did you mean earlier when you said there was something in the car…?”

“Maybe you can tell me something – one of the men before he died, was saying something, yelling it actually. It was something like “I am Yahweh, in the midst of the Earth”.

“Yahweh,” said Bob, “But the rest you got right.”

“I, Yahweh, am in the midst of the earth’ is the quote,” opined Ed.

“What does it mean?” asked Sam.

“It’s a Bible quote,” said Ed, ‘Yahweh’ is the Hebrew word for God.” “The police didn’t say anything about finding a body outside of the car.”

“I’m sure the Sheriff’s Dept. didn’t tell you a lot of things.

“Maybe you could answer something else for me. I saw something I don’t know what to make of – I can’t get it out of my head.”

“What would that be?”

“He didn’t die from his burns. That thing I saw bouncing around inside of the car. It pushed its way out through a window and slammed into him. Like a hawk attacking a mouse, but not from above – this came straight at him.”

“You don’t know that.” Dr. Ed said it with an evenness and control that was unnerving

“It killed your men.”

“You don’t know that,” He said again. This time there was anger in that subdued response. Sam knew he was pushing it.”

“No, I guess I don’t know that. But I have to get going.” Sam got up off his chair. He looked up. Bob Stewart was blocking his way.

Dr. Ed was no longer in Sam’s field of vision; he must be behind him. That little epiphany came too late. A loud crash. Then a realization that the crash is from something slamming hard against your head, the pain, the blackness.