The Black Book

“Wakie, wakie Dear we have arrived.” I said.

“Yup. OK just a minute. Wow, look at this yard. It’s huge. I’ll let you park it.” Answered my husband Mark.

“What?!”

“Ruth, you need to practice or you’ll forget everything. And this is a great place to do it.”

My husband and I drive a tractor trailer for Titanium Trucking. It took a long time for me to get my license and join Mark because I kept failing my exam. Same thing each time. Backing up that huge rig!

But I finally passed on my 4th try, with the help of a nice examiner! And we’ve been driving together for 3 years now. While I like to beg off and let him park it usually, he is right in saying that I have to do it sometimes, so I got it parked and we got unloaded.

As I drove on to our pick up, Mark went back to bed. He drives nights while I do the day shift.

It didn’t take long to get loaded. Surprisingly short actually, though I wasn’t complaining! We got 3 days off after this trip and I was looking forward to it. I pulled out of the dock and headed back to close the trailer doors. What the…..!

“Sorry, Mark, I hate to make you get up but you have got to see what’s in our trailer!”

He just stared. Then he got in and walked half way down the 53-foot trailer. I joined him. And we both looked down at this little black book.

“That’s it? That’s our whole load?!!”

“Yeah….who would order a complete truck for such a little book? Why didn’t they send it UPS, DHL or FEDEX? This makes no sense.”

Mark reached out his hand to open the front cover but the book started to pulsate with a blue light before he touched it. He jerked his hand back and we watched the light fade.

“What is going on? I’m going to phone in.”

The mystery got worse; not only was that the entire load but dispatch informed us that we had specifically been requested as the drivers to move it! By whom? We didn’t know anyone in Chicago, where the book was going.

Only one way to find out, I guess. I headed the truck towards Chicago and Mark went back to lay down. It was nice not to have a heavy load as I drove up and down the mountains of West Virginia on my way north west. Seven hours later Mark took over. He drove about 5 hours then parked at a truck stop for a few hours since our delivery time wasn’t until 8 am.

The address of our delivery was in Cedar Lake actually, just outside Chicago. Only one person was in the warehouse, a tall African American who introduced himself as Jonas Beecher.

“Have we met before?” asked Mark.

“No.” Jonas replied.

“But you asked for us to bring this book?”

“No, the sender, Doug Burton, asked for you.”

Doug! But he lives in our town, Benton Harbor. Why did we pick up a book for him in Charlotte SC? Why hadn’t he said anything to us?

Mark pulled out his phone to call Doug when Jonas says, “Don’t bother. Doug is missing. This is what I know. Two weeks ago, Doug was called down to Charlotte to look at this book, after the death of a colleague. He was intrigued and called me. Told me trusted friends would be bringing the book. Then he told me he would be flying out of the country and wouldn’t be taking a phone. He wouldn’t explain why.”

I got the feeling our 3 days off weren’t going to be spent at home.

We all went into the trailer and stared at the book. Jonas stretched out his hand and we watched the pulsating blue light start up again.

“Fascinating. It’s some kind of electromagnetic wave. The driving force behind auroral pulsation originates in Earth’s protective, bubble-like magnetosphere. But how is it concentrated around this book?”

He opened the front cover. He certainly had much more courage than I; but then, I’ve stood out watching the northern lights and they didn’t harm me in anyway so I guess this was the same.

The book contained 2 pages. It was a last will and testament, leaving the research and fortune of one André Stark to our friend Doug. With instructions on where, in the Arctic, to retrieve both the research and the money. No wonder he didn’t want anyone knowing where he’d gone! Fortunately, the people in Charlotte were like me, too scared to touch the thing.

Jonas was so excited. He had visions of a new, clean source of energy for Earth. He couldn’t wait for Doug to get back with the research and for the two of them to get to work. Jonas would take André’s place. I was sure that if anyone could ethically use this information it would be our friend Doug. That’s just who he was.

However, the mystery was solved, the book was safe with Jonas, and Doug wasn’t in any danger and so we headed off to Michigan to enjoy our 3 days off after all!