SECRETS AND LIES

  By Glen Johnson

  -Sinuous Mind Books-

  Published by Sinuous Mind Books

  Sinuous Mind Books

  Copyright © Glen Johnson

  Cover design by Sinuous Mind Books

  Glen Johnson has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead or undead is entirely coincidental.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not be, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form without Sinuous Mind Books or Glen Johnson’s prior consent. Except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles.

  For –

  All of my readers for supporting my work via my Facebook author’s page and Sinuous Mind Books Facebook page. If you’re not already a Facebook friend, then why not pop on and add me?

  www.facebook.com/GlenJohnsonAuthor

  The locations in this book are a fusion of real and imagined, and although a few of the characters and events are real, the story is fictional, merely a fabrication of my overactive imagination.

  Glen Johnson

  “There are no secrets that time does not reveal.”

  Jean Racine

  “Be careful who you trust, the Devil was once an angel.”

  Ziad K. Abdelnour

  1

  I lie in dirty sewer water waiting for death. A helicopter is circling above. I cannot feel the wind of the rotors on my skin. My body is numb.

  I hear them approaching with heavy footfalls, counting down the seconds I have left to live.

  The tinny bursts of words on their headsets are too distant to comprehend.

  All because of my curiosity and a military secret the government is willing to kill for to keep hidden.

  My body tries to move, to stand up and run. Take a chance on my feet, rather than die hiding on my back like a frightened animal.

  However, I cannot run; I cannot do anything, only listen and move my eyes – I am paralyzed.

  I don’t want to die; become a rotting corpse like the others.

  I’m categorized as collateral damage. Somewhere I will end up as just a statistic. A number on a filed piece of paper. A red stamp with TOP SECRET printed on it.

  I curse the day I set eyes on the small faded black notebook. If only I ignored it. Why do I have to be so bloody curious?

  2

  24 hours earlier…

  My name is Terry Strickland. I work as a nursing assistant in a residential nursing facility.

  I’m twenty-seven, borderline obese, and unfit, working a job I hate, feeding, cleaning, and wiping butts of old people that have no right to still be alive. I know; I’m probably in the wrong line of work. With no ambitions, no girlfriend and no life plan, I monotonously take one day at a time. Living hand to mouth – paycheck to paycheck.

  I spend my free time playing computer games, and chatting to people on the Internet I have never met via a gaming headset. I have few friends in the real world, and no family to speak of – I am an only child and estranged from my parents. I was kicked out after smoking weed in my basement bedroom. You’d think I was Pablo Escobar with the way they reacted. My mother even phoned the police.

  There’s no one to miss me.

  No one to identify my body when it ends up lying on a cold metal mortuary table, with a Y incision in my chest and my organs in a stainless-steel bowl.

  Why did I open the little black notebook? Why didn’t I just replace it in the small wooden box where I found it?

  A strange little box with delicately carved symbols on it.

  It belongs to Mr Derne, a 94-year-old man who has never said a single word in the eight years I’ve washed, fed, and helped him use the toilet. He’s been living at Riverview Residential Home since he was 79 – fifteen years. No one has ever heard him speak.

  On his official office paperwork, it shows no transfer and no private information or contacts in case of an emergency. It’s as if he just showed up one day out of the blue.

  There is no one still working at the home who was here fifteen years ago when he arrived.

  He’s registered in the file as a mute with mental issues.

  He’s certainly got some mental illness. Most at the home do, to some degree; or that might just be what old age is like?

  I have never met my grandparents – not that I remember. Like me, they cannot stand my overbearing mother.

  When Mr Derne isn’t engrossed with the loud TV on the wall bracket, he simply stares out the window towards the East River.

  You can add deaf to his list of problems. The TV in his room literally vibrates because the sound is up so loud.

  His favourite spot to sit is outside on the decking, watching the boats and the city in the distance.

  There is no photos or memorabilia in his room to give a hint at his life before he arrived. No visitors. No phone calls. It’s as if he’s alone in the world.

  An enigma.

  How wrong I was.

  Some pasts need to stay hidden – stay buried.

  I found the box by accident. I rested a cup on the dresser. It spilt. I had to clean up the mess and wipe out a few of the drawers. That’s when I found the box wedged at the back of the sock drawer, hidden, wrapped inside an old newspaper.

  The paper was old and brittle. It was too yellow and faded to read. But I could tell it wasn’t English. The date was just about legible – I had to take a photo with my iPhone and zoom in to be able to read, September 1945.

  Strange how the words look foreign, yet September is spelt in English?

  Why hadn’t I noticed the box before? But then again, normally Carol dresses Mr Derne, by the time I arrive at work.

  Of course, I pulled away the old paper and opened it.

  Why would the old man hide it?

  I thought it would contain money or jewellery – something of value. If I’m honest, I’m never above stealing if it means making a little bit of extra cash down the pawnshop.

  Admit it, we’re all the same.

  Mr Derne’s a vegetable; he won’t miss it.

  Inside is a simple small black moleskin unlined notebook and an old war medal. I flick through the old yellowing pages. Nothing. Until I arrive at the very last two pages. On one page is a long set of numbers and one letter.

  The other page has a sketch of what could be an island, and what looks like dozens of buildings. One building has a large red cross on top of it.

  I replaced the box after slipping the book into my pocket.

  The worst mistake of my life.

  3

  When I get home, I run a search on the Internet.

  It doesn’t look like regular GPS coordinates.

  The beauty of the Internet, with enough patience you can find anything.

  It turns out its UTM coordinates, which was developed by the United States Army Corps of Engineers, which was first used in the 1940s.

  I found a site that allows me to enter the collection of numbers and a single letter.

  I type in: 18T 592926.97067665 4516946.7948561.

  It turns out, they correspond to a small island called South Brother Island, on New York City’s East River, between the mainland Bronx and Rikers Island – not far from where I am sitting in a small, messy studio apartment above Jimmy’s Famous Pizza in Whitestone.

  A quick Google search shows that the island size is only 20 acres. It was first mentioned in records when it was claimed by the Dutch West India Company back in 1614. Originally named De Gesellen, meaning Brethren.

  In 1881, the island was given to what was then known as New York County.

  A lighthouse was built in 1869, but the island stayed uninhabited until 1885 when Riverside Hospital was constructed.

  It was built on an isolated island because it dealt with quarantinable diseases – firstly, typhoid then smallpox and tuberculosis. It also treated the polio epidemic in 1916.

  The infamous, highly contagious, Mary Mallon, also known as Typhoid Mary, who purposely contaminated people with her illness – one hundred and twenty-two people, with five dying – was declared a menace to society in 1915 and was imprisoned on the island for over two decades. She died there in 1938.

  At the end of the 1930s, with the advancements in medicine and vaccines, there was no need for a quarantine island and hospital.

  Following World War II, the island was converted into housing for war veterans.

  In the 1950s the island was abandoned.

  The old buildings were then renovated into an adolescent drug rehabilitation centre. It closed in 1963 due to corruption.

  Presently, the island is owned by the city and is uninhabited and designated as a bird sanctuary. It’s forbidden to set foot on the island without governmental approval.

  Why would the old man have these coordinates hidden in a notebook in Army Corp style?

  Did he live there as a war veteran? But he would’ve only been eighteen. Could just a few months’ service entitle him to live there?

  A quick Internet search reveals a seventeen-year-old was allowed to enlist if they had parental consent. So Mr Derne could’ve spent over a year fighting.

  Maybe that’s why he stays in the residential nursing facility close to the Eas t River, to be near the island? In fact, from Mr Derne’s room, you can see the small island. From the deck outside he can stare at the island all day if he chooses. Some days, he does.

  I stare down via Google Maps at the eight or so buildings on the small island that can be seen; most are hidden under a thick green canopy of trees, which cover almost everything.

  I study old black-and-white aerial photos, showing the island with only a splattering of well-trimmed trees, lawns, footpaths and water fountains, as well as two tennis courts, and at least twenty-five buildings of various sizes, heights, and shapes.

  X marks the spot.

  The X is situated over a building that could be four or five stories high. It’s hard to tell from the old grainy photos, and the new ones on Goggle Maps aren’t much better due to all the trees obscuring the buildings.

  Surely it isn’t that easy?

  Did the old man hide something in the crumbling building? If so, why didn’t he ever retrieve it? Why leave it there? And why did he need to be so close to it?

  I have to find out what the X represents.

  4

  I phone in sick the next day. They don’t want someone to potentially pass something onto the old residents.

  Covid-19 is widespread and causing so many deaths in the old and infirm throughout the country and the world. I was told to stay home until I got tested and received the lateral flow test results.

  Melanie, my boss, gives me shit about not getting any of the jabs.

  Due to being too lazy to arrange a date, I have yet to have my first or second vaccine jab. Melanie has given me to the end of the month to sort it out because I work with old people.

  Somewhere there’re two injections of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine with my name on it.

  Melanie is only blowing hot air; she won’t fire me, because no one else is willing to work for minimum wage wiping old people’s butts.

  The phone call gives me at least four days off. I have to book the test. Wait for it to arrive. Take it, and then send it back and then wait for the results.

  Of course, I will have to do the test in case work asks to see the results.

  I spent ten minutes filling out the online forms and ordering a Covid-19 test.

  Next step, I need a boat.

  Not a problem, I practically live right next to the East River.

  I ask Randal, a burnt-out NYPD cop who has seen too much death and violence and tries to ease the memories by spending his time fishing on the river or staring into the bottom of a cheap whisky bottle.

  I’m in luck; Randal is having a bad day and plans to sit at home in the shabby studio apartment next to mine and drink until his memories fade, and he can get some sleep.

  I’ve borrowed his boat a few times, and so long as I fill the tank and don’t ding the sides; he is happy enough to lend it. He said if I catch anything he will eat it.

  I never tried to catch fish the other times I used his boat. I just get high and float along in the current.

  I tell Randel I was going to do some night fishing.

  Within the hour, I’m standing at the small helm watching the island get closer with every passing minute while listening to the drone of the small outboard engine.

  I checked my Casio watch.

  10:14 pm.

  The June sky is clear, and the air is humid. I cannot see any stars because of light pollution. Dark clouds are gathering on the distant horizon. It looks like it is going to rain soon.

  Just my luck.

  The Whitestone Bridge is behind me, and I pass College Point. Rikers Island’s lights focus into view. In the distance, I can see a small silhouette of darkness against the lights behind – North Brother Island.

  Around the curve of the river, a boat heads in my direction. As it gets closer, I realize it’s an NYPD patrol boat – 622.

  My hands start to sweat on the helm.

  The police patrol boat ignores me. I’m just another random guy on the river.

  I was worried they would stop me and ask where I am heading because the coronavirus is so bad in the city.

  5

  The Internet says the island is a bird sanctuary and off-limits that’s why I have to wait for the cover of darkness, to hopefully hide the boat from prying eyes.

  I can feel the small black notebook in my pocket. My guide, my map. Hopefully, something that’s worth all the trouble.

  Throughout my childhood, every time there was an X on a map it represented hidden treasure. Was Mr Derne a modern-day pirate? A bank robber? Maybe there’s a reason he has no past. He’s hiding from something, someone?

  Hopefully, that something is a metal box full of stacks of untraceable fifty-dollar bills.

  Knowing my luck, he’s just a crazy old man who scribbled a few lines in the back of an old notebook and added an X for fun.

  But that doesn’t explain the numbers, and how they led me here? Not random numbers but coordinates for North Brother Island.

  If he has access to buried treasure, then why would he be living in a government-run shithole of an old people’s retirement home, with someone like me wiping his ass and feeding him watered-down soup?

  Then again, the old man is pretty much a vegetable – a mute. He seems very frail, with arms and legs as thin as a bird, and without a single visitor in the fifteen years he’s been there.

  I noticed his hands are as smooth as silk – he’s never done a hard day’s work in his life by the looks of it. Possibly having worked in an office as an accountant before losing his marbles.

  Maybe that’s why he stares at the island. He knows it’s important in some way, but his mind is too far gone to remember why?

  I will soon find out what the X represents, as I throttled back the engine and let the boat glide on the current towards one of the island’s rocky beaches.

  On Google Maps it shows a derelict, partially collapsed pier. On the old photos, I count three piers. However, I don’t want to make it obvious and hope the shoreline, with its overhanging trees, will hide the boat better than tying it to the remains of one of the docks.

  I ground the small boat up a stony, thin beach. The boat is light enough to be able to push it back out on my own when I return.

  I’m wearing all black as if I’m a robber. I also wear a backpack; in case I find anything of value.

  I have an LED headlamp. I switch it to its lowest setting; when I get inside the building, I can turn on the full beam.

  I misjudge the landing as I jump from the boat. One foot is soaked up to my ankle. It squelches as I make my way through the thick foliage.

  I orientate myself to what I remember from Google Maps and the small drawing. I don’t want to have to remove it from my pocket until I have to.

  Instead, I saved the aerial black-and-white image to my iPhone. I check it. I use my fingers to zoom in.

  There are three large buildings by the dock – one with two towering red-brick chimneys. The largest, and longest building dominates the top of the island, while nine other smaller structures nestle around the island – one on its own, and eight in groups of four. There are dozens of smaller structures.

  The building I want is closest to where I breached the boat.

  I have even used an editing program to place a red cross over the downloaded photo, the same as on the hand-drawn map.

  Next to the boat, hopefully hiding it from view, is a partially sunk, dilapidated wooden platform that used to hang out over the water.

  The building that matches the drawing is directly ahead.

  The island is covered in thick trees and bushes, making it hard going. Perfect for birds, but not an unhealthy, chubby care home assistant who spends all his free time playing computer games.

  With wet feet from the marshy ground, and scratches on my face and neck, and itchy from sweating, I manage to push my way through the undergrowth until I reach a red brick wall.

 

1 2 3 4 5