A Vested Interest - Book 1 of A Vested Interest series

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Dark Secrets - Book 2 of A Vested Interest series
No Secrets - Book 3 of A Vested Interest series
Stones, Stars and Solutions - Book 4 of A Vested Interest series
Leap of Faith - Book 5 of A Vested Interest series
Regret and Retribution - Book 6 of A Vested Interest series
Consequences - Book 7 of A Vested Interest series
Ashes to Ashes - Book 8 of A Vested Interest series
Dust to Dust - Book 9 of A Vested Interest series
Raging Storm - Book 1 of Blood of the Rainbow - an A Vested Interest prequel series
Roses and Regret - Book 2 of Blood of the Rainbow prequel series
Choice and Change - Book 3 of Blood of the Rainbow prequel series
A Vested Interest - Book 1 of A Vested Interest series
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It was a dark and stormy nightIt was another dark and stormy night

It wasn't a dark and stormy night - Titanic Time

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The Missile Silo

When we wrote the original version of the story we realised by page 470 that the book was just too long; and we had not yet reached the end of the story! A lot of editing had to be done. This bit was cut out.

In the original story a team of reporters managed to find the mine location. First they went to the mine entrance and met Natress and his dogs:

“Now, on the count of three; one….two…three - push!” Brantley ordered. Both men pushed up on their crowbars with all their might. As they grunted and groaned, the veins on the sides of their necks raised and their muscles bulged in their forearms and across their shoulders. Behind them a man shouted.

“Now then. Whit exactly are ye doin’? Divent ye naw yer on private property. Gerrout o’ there. Them bloody barriers are up there fer a reason – you want to get somebody killed? Yer trespassin’ on private property - Gan on! Gerrout o’ there!” Nattress commanded. Barnes gave Brantley a lopsided grin. Not knowing whether or not the man was armed, they held their crowbars above their heads and slowly turned around. What they found almost made them laugh. It was an elderly man, probably in his fifties, dressed in a pair of faded jeans with a patch on the knee and an old checked flannel shirt. As they started to walk towards the man, they were met with a pair of angry, black and white border collies. Each growling, baring their teeth with all the hair on their backs standing on end. Nattress didn’t need a gun.

“Ge’ by, Shep! Ge’ doon Rex!” Nattress called off his dogs. Barnes let out a sigh of relief and gave Brantley and angry glare.

“I’m sorry; we thought the mine was public property.” Brantley said. “I’m Jack Brantley - a TV reporter from Louisiana. I’m here collecting information on a story for my TV stations and we would real-ly like to have a look inside, if that would be possible,” He glossed. “And you are?” he said holding out his hand. He slowly withdrew his hand as the dogs rose to their feet growling.

“A’m Tommy Natress. I own this place and I’ve niver heard of any Louisiana. Whadja wanna look in there fer? There’s nobbut a few yards of tunnel and then a pile of shite. They filled it aw in afta they cleased it doon.” Brantley and Barnes exchanged blank looks, not understanding much of what the old man had said.

“Ah – I’m sorry, I didn’t quite get that, Mr Natress. Would you mind repeating that, please?” Brantley asked politely.

Nattress looked exasperated and repeated what he’d said, much slower and louder as though he believed they were deaf. It didn’t help much but they managed to cipher that he was trying to say there was nothing in the mine to see.

“Did you actually see them filling the mine up?” Brantley enquired. “We would be prepared to compensate you for any help you might be able to provide.”

“Oh aye! They fetched truck after truck of shite from Allenheads mine. It’s full al reet. Yer’d be wastin’ yer money. An ah diven’t want to be fafed wi’ fixen up yon barrier agin. Now if yer diven’t mind – Ah’m a busy man and Ah’ve got wurk te dee. So ye twa need’tu be on yer way.”

Reluctantly, Brantley and Barnes made their way back to the van and drove toward Coalcleugh.

Being good reporters it took a little more than a couple of dogs to put them off. First Brantley did a little research:

Brantley was determined to get to the bottom of this story or die trying. He got up early and did some research on his laptop. From what he could find on Internet, which was not a lot; Swinhope mine should still be open to the public and it wasn’t. He could find no evidence that suggested the property in the vicinity of the mine belonged to anyone; yet it that man had claimed he owned it. What was his name? …Natress that was it! He entered the name in a Google search. There were 591 results. He didn’t have time to go through that many pages and chances are none of them would prove fruitful. He decided to try ‘Natress Farm’. Although there was one result that looked promising; closer investigation revealed it to be in the wrong location, nowhere near Swinhope mine. He then tried the obvious, ‘Natress Swinhope’. There was only one result; not relevant but it did tell him there were several alternative spellings of the name ‘Natress’. He tried each of these in turn. Using the search, ‘Nattress Swinhope’ he found there was a long history of the family living, farming and mining in Swinhope. Apparently they owned the farm a little down the valley.

Brantley was fast becoming discouraged. He tried all the avenues he would have used in the States to find out who was paying the taxes on the land and found there was no exact equivalent in the UK but, property ownership was recorded in something called ‘The Land Registry’. He was delighted to find these records were online. After finding the website for The Land Registry it took him about a quarter of an hour to find the nearest postcode, which was for a place called Meadows Cottage in Allenheads; this was close but not close enough to be of any use. Coalcleugh circle

“Damn!” He exclaimed to himself. He wondered if Forrest had this much trouble and was beginning to think Barnes might be right; this was a dead end because there was no story. Still he was intrigued as to why; even though the mine should apparently be open to the public, Nattress insisted it was private property. And then there was that building full of hay. Why in God’s name would they need to padlock a building full of hay? Despite the insurmountable odds against the story, like any good reporter; Brantley persisted.

He decided to try Google maps and get a bird’s eye view of things. It wasn’t much use, the areas he needed to zoom in on lacked detail. He tried Multimap; same results. Local live, however had much more detail. About three-quarters of a mile away, he found an unusual circular area with a road leading to it. Again, a little light bulb went off! He zoomed in on the area. He stared at the image with great interest.

After getting tools from a local man Brantley and his team went back to the area:

If it hadn’t been for their GPS system, Rutherford probably wouldn’t have found their turning. There was a fence running along the left-hand side of the road with several steel gates in it. Following the directions on the GPS, they chose the gate with a faint track leading away from it up the hill. The gate was padlocked but it was no match for Collin's massive bolt cutters.

“You know this is breaking and entering – we’re gonna go to jail for this!” Barnes proclaimed. Brantley and Rutherford paid no attention to Barnes.

Rutherford was surprised to see that just over the rise the track became much more defined and easier to follow. Someone had obviously taken a great deal of care to make their destination accessible but obscured. The track led to what looked like, from the outside, a mine spoil heap. The road took a turn to the right and they found themselves inside a ring of earth with a large concrete circle in its centre.

Silo“Holy Shit – it’s a fucking missile silo – no wonder the damn gate was padlocked!” Rutherford said.

“Nah – it can’t be. According to what I researched, they never actually built any of the silos; too costly and too inconvenient.” Brantley responded.

“I don’t give a shit how costly or inconvenient it might have been. I’m telling you, that’s a fucking silo and I should know! There’ll be an entrance here somewhere – mark my words!” Rutherford informed.

Rutherford parked the van and they got out. It didn’t take long to find a rusted steel hatch with a huge padlock on it.

Rutherford glanced at the bolt cutters and then back at the padlock. “You ain’t getting’ in there with these!” He threw them back in the van and took out the generator and angle grinder. Once he got the generator started, it took Rutherford almost fifteen minutes to cut through the inch and a half thick padlock. “I’m starting to think that guy knew more than he was telling us about this place.” Rutherford said, tossing the grinder to the side.

They used a pry bar to open the hatchway, which obviously hadn’t been opened in a very long time. The hinges creaked and screeched as they rubbed together. Brantley shone a flashlight down the dark shaft which revealed a metal staircase. They slowly descended the first two flights of stairs and came to a doorway that led to a room full of old machinery. They descended to the next level and found another doorway leading to what must have been a storage area. The door at the far end of the room led through into the heart of the silo. They found themselves on a metal cat walk that circled the empty shaft. Pointing their flashlights down the shaft, they could see there were at least three more levels. Barnes looked down the shaft, back up where they had come from then at Brantley. He was not comfortable with what they were doing and had the feeling of being watched.

They continued to descend the shaft, level by level. They discovered that it contained a ‘control’ level, a living quarter’s level, two more storage levels and an area where the missile’s fuel tanks were kept. From the lowest of the storage areas, they found a passageway leading northeast; they guessed it led towards the mine. It was about eight feet square; sloping gently downwards. It was blocked about twenty metres in by a solid concrete wall which looked impenetrable. Rutherford struck it with the pry bar he was carrying. From the sound it made, he decided they didn’t have what it would take to get past it. He looked back at Brantley with dismay.

“If this does lead to the mine – we’re not supposed to go through there. That thing is as solid as a rock. It would take a demolition ball to get through there, and even then, that might not work! Whoever is down here – have worked very hard to seal their back door.”

Brantley sighed and ran his hand through his hair. He propped against the wall and through things through for a few seconds. “Well, if we can’t get anything else out of this, at least we know the British government were lying about these silos. This could still be an interesting story.”

“If…if we live to tell it!” Barnes said. He looked back up the shaft. “I’m just waiting for SAS to come storming down those stairs any minute now!”

“Don’t be such a wimp, Tim,” Rutherford retorted. “This place ain’t seen the light of day in a coon’s age.”

John watched them on the security monitor with growing interest. “Just what do you guys think you’re up to?” he said to himself. At the moment, they posed no major threat other than the fact they had recorded their journey on the small camera Brantley had brought with them. John would have to figure out a way of getting that camera or destroying the film. If it got out, it would draw too much attention to the mine and reveal the fact the government had not been completely honest in the aftermath of the Cold War. He continued to monitor them. Since all three men were together, he told Nattress and Islington they could stand down but remain alert.

Brantley and Barnes spent nearly two hours filming the interior of the silo and documenting their findings. Rutherford in the meantime, continued to nose about. He was intrigued with its detailed design and structure. He deducted it would have been completely plausible for the silo crew to remain here, undetected for several weeks. He attempted to get the generators started but found they lacked fuel. He was hoping to get them working so they could at least have lights. He was conscious that the batteries in their flashlights had been on for over two hours now and wouldn’t last forever. Feeling frustrated at his attempts he went back and joined the others.

“Where have you been?” Brantley asked as Rutherford walked up to them in the control room.

“I thought I might be able to squeeze some juice out of the generators and get us some rays down here but they wouldn’t budge. I know you don’t want to, but we need to think about gettin’ outta here – them flashlights ain’t gonna ta last fer’ever and when they go out it’s gonna be as black as my ass in this hole.” Rutherford said as-matter-factually. Barnes shut off his camera and they were plunged into total darkness for a time.

“Tim – hand me that camera a second – I’ve got a hunch,” Brantley said. Tim held out his arms and Brantley groped in the dark until he found the camera.

“Would you do me a favour and hurry up – I wanna git outta this place!” Barnes said.

Rutherford gave a low sounding chuckle. “What sa’matter Timmy boy – scared of the bogeyman?”

“Fuck off Rutherford!” Barnes replied. Rutherford laughed.

Brantley took the camera and switched on its night vision. He was somewhat surprised to find the room was flooded with infrared light.

John watched anxiously as Brantley panned the camera around the room until he found the source of the infra-red light.

“Dammit!” Triplet growled. “He’s found the bloody camera! Get the men to that silo now!” John gave the order and McGowan and Howard’s team jumped in the vans and were there in less than two minutes. The news team heard a loud clang above them as Triplet’s men shut the door; trapping them while the rest of the security team assembled. John hit the switch, turning all the power on in the silo. Brantley shrugged his shoulders and looked sheepish.

Barnes gave Brantley an angry glare. “See! See! I tried to tell…”

“Just shut yer fuckin’ trap Tim – we’re caught!” Rutherford stated. Rutherford checked all their possible exits of the control room and found them all now locked. He turned back to Brantley and Barnes. “Well – that’s it!” They each reluctantly took a chair and awaited their fate.

“Just sit tight – we’re on our way to get you out.” John said over the silo’s intercom system. Rutherford looked around the room but couldn’t find a camera. He stood behind the door ready to attack. “Please don’t make things more difficult for yourself, Mr Rutherford. The bullets in our guns aren’t rubber!” John said over the intercom. Rutherford held up his middle finger in hopes the camera would see and sat down again. “Over here, we do it with two fingers, not one.” John taunted.



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