Pt. I: The Locusts
Like locusts, they came swarming out of the Badwater Basin of Death Valley. They rode smoking Harleys in groups of ten. Each day another group of ten wove their way through each other's dust clouds on the road from the abyss to their assignations. The names of the leaders of the locusts, Samazaz, Araklba, Rameel, Kobablel, Tamlel, Ramel, Danel, Ezequeel, Baraqijal, Asael, Armaros, Batarel, Ananel, Zaqlel, Samspeel, Satarel, Turel, Jomjael and Sariel would soon be on the lips of those who mysteriously disappeared.
Joshua Marshall noticed with interest the antics of the riders as he sat on his front porch in his rocking chair with his bible and his coffee. His small ranch house sat off Route 372, just a few miles west of Pahrump, Nevada.
Pahrump is a small town of a little over a thousand not far from the California border. A rather quiet place until the events and publicity of the past year Joshua thought as he recalled the events that made Pahrump famous.
Joshua's interest in diabolical murder plots piqued with the death of a rather notorious Las Vegas resident, one Ted Binion, on September 17, 1998. Pahrump came into the picture two days after the death when $7 million in silver bars was dug up which belonged to the late Mr. Binion. All that money just buried in a vacant lot and he had driven by the place hundreds of times. If only he had known. If only Joshua had known that his sighting of the locusts would signal the beginning of an even more fiendish mystery of brutal murder and vexing happenings. It would hit very close to home.
A deputy sheriff caught the three men digging up Ted Binion's millions. The culprits claimed they were removing ordinance that had been stored there. What a surprise when the deputy found all those silver bars in the truck. Joshua couldn't wait for the preliminary hearing to start in a few days, which was going to be televised. Joshua dwelled on the story of the girlfriend of the late Mr. Binion who also apparently was intimately involved with one of the three men apprehended digging up the treasure in Pahrump.
The woman, according to what Joshua had read in the papers and heard on the news, was a real gold digger, or rather silver digger, had also been charged with murder. He wondered if this drama would play out as interestingly as the O.J. trial, which he had watched religiously. His friend Nathaniel thought it would be even better.
"This is going to be a most evil case of macabre murder and malicious mayhem, Joshua," Nathaniel had predicted. They both were soon to become privy to something even more sinister.
Joshua's place was now run down, badly in need of a new roof and some overall attention. Since his wife died a few years back he was too old and disinterested in life in general to really care. His only special interests in life were his bible, Harleys and the little girl next door.
At noon Joshua had his usual microwaved lunch and then took his nap. He was seventy-five but still was as mentally acute as ever. He and his late wife, his beloved Katherine, had only one child, a son. David's helicopter allegedly crashed and burned in 1973 as he and his crew attempted to rescue wounded soldiers. There was no body to mourn over.
Joshua disbelieved the explanation he received from the military when notified of David's death. He knew from his discussions with his own comrades from the big war that the scenario he was given did not jive with the physics of mid-air collisions over friendly troops. It would take an explosion far bigger than a SAM missile and the fuel tanks of a chopper to destroy the bodies of the pilot and crew. The bodies would be blown from the wreckage, and probably be recovered by the friendly troops they were to rescue. Joshua would have been far more satisfied with an explanation like David's helicopter crashed into a fog-shrouded mountain, on a mission over North Vietnam to rescue a downed pilot. Or he was lost in the Gulf of Tonkin trying to return to his aircraft carrier with the pilot he and his crew rescued. He knew there were a lot of reasons for the many MIA in Vietnam. A chopper crash near friendly troops wasn't usually one of them. His reluctance to accept official explanations would serve him well in understanding what was about to unfold.
Joshua did have a granddaughter. He had not seen since the girl since she was twelve. Her mother was a Native American, a Seneca. She remarried and they lost contact. He thought about his grand daughter often, curious about how she turned out. Of course, the girl was a woman now, in her late twenties and probably with a family of her own. Joshua wondered if he had great grandchildren.
The little girl next door was quite the young lady. Eleven years old and just the smartest and prettiest little angel Joshua had ever met. Her name was Rachael and she called him "Pappy." She never knew her own father or her grandparents. Her mother, Laurie, took off long ago for the Wild West from some place in Pennsylvania when she got pregnant at seventeen and never looked back.
In the summer, Rachael stayed with Joshua until her mother got home just before noon. To say Joshua babysat Rachael would be somewhat confusing. It was more like she babysat him. They were very close.
Laurie worked a morning part-time job at a local bank. She was a stunning woman. Many said she should have been a model. She was also married. She had married Marvin Johnston two years earlier. He was a local preacher and travelling salesman, twenty years her senior. Joshua did not like Marvin and he could tell Rachael was not particularly fond of him. Laurie found her old habits hard to break and did some carousing on nights when Marvin was on the road. When she did she would leave Rachael at Joshua's overnight and into the next morning.
Joshua remembered the morning he had gone over to Laurie's to get Rachael, only to find her not at home. A bleary eyed Laurie answered the door in a very skimpy teddy and informed Joshua that Rachael had gone on a business trip with Marvin and his mother. Rachael adored Marvin's mother. A stranger who wasn't wearing much of anything stood behind Laurie on that morning. He held an all black Mossburg shotgun in one hand and something else in the other. Joshua wondered where in the world Laurie found these characters but would never ask. He suspected most of them were on parole. Actually, he didn't blame Laurie for fooling around. He was not one for casting stones and Marvin was such an intolerable boorish sort.
Marvin founded a software consulting firm which occupied his time when preaching didn't. Joshua didn't know what all they were involved in, but he did know one of their current projects was debugging programs to deal with the alleged Y2K crisis. Joshua knew about that because Marvin talked about it all the time. He even incorporated it in his Sunday sermons. "Anything to drum up business," Joshua said to himself.
Pastor Johnston inherited several million dollars from his late father who had been divorced from his mother many years ago. That money enabled the good reverend to hire the best in computer nerds from Silicon Valley. Another important project Marvin's company recently developed an innovative piece of virus detection software.
Joshua first saw the locusts on a Saturday morning when Rachael was home with her mother. Peering through his powerful binoculars, Joshua was incredibly intrigued. He often scrutinized the vehicles and the people in and on them cruising down the highway in minute detail.
Joshua prided himself on identifying classic cars and motorcycles, particularly Harleys. He should because he worked on one almost every day for nearly fifty years.
The Hondas, Kawasakis, Suzukis and their brethren confused him somewhat and so did "modern" automobiles. Like Joshua often said, he could no longer tell a new Chevy from a new Cadillac, but he could sure as hell tell a '69 Mustang Mach 1 from a '69 Chevelle SS396. He recalled fondly the Mustang he once owned, a '65 dark green convertible, black interior and top. Just a six cylinder with a stick shift but it could really go. He thought he was too stupid for selling it, but recalled fondly the woman who bought it. And what a deal he gave her. First and only time he ever strayed on his late wife. But not really he concluded. Even the President said letting a young lady go down on you is not sex. He pondered over what had happened to that girl, Sally. Joshua still recalled those hot wet lips fondly even though it happened more than thirty years ago.
