I scan the flashlight in every direction, but there is no small building, cabin, or outpost hidden within the veil of trees.

“Fuck.”

The word echoes through the cold air, but I’m no longer worried that someone might hear. There is no one to hear. Probably no one within miles.

But then why the NO TRESPASSING sign?

These woods belong to someone.

I return to the exact spot of the coordinates and notice that unlike its immediate surroundings, the two-foot area is flat. I clear the fallen leaves from the ground, then fall to my knees. I move an inch of dirt and hit a hard surface. Squatting, I pick up the flashlight and shine it downward.

Plywood.

It takes me a long minute to uncover the four-foot section of plywood and lift it, revealing a bronze plate. The plate is the width of a doorway and three feet high. There is a giant padlock locking the plate to its cement foundation.

Bingo.

I pull my dad’s camera from around my neck and snap three pictures in quick succession. But the plate alone isn’t enough proof. If I show the President a picture of an underground door in the middle of the Virginia woods, he might shrug and say, “So you found some nutjob’s bomb shelter. Big whoop.”

I kick at the rotund lock with my foot and am surprised when the locking arm slips from the sheath.

I toss the lock to the side.

From the amount of leaves that had fallen, it’d been months, probably years, since the tomb was uncovered. Whatever lay beneath the bronze plate, be it a doomsday bunker, black site, or otherwise, is empty.

But then again, if it were a black site and the location was compromised, aka my mother, then it would only make sense the CIA shut it down. But what I didn’t understand is why they didn’t erase all evidence of its existence. But again, I was getting ahead of myself. I could easily lift the steel plate and reveal a concrete slab.

I lift the steel plate with a grunt and shove it backward.

No concrete.

Just stairs leading down into a dark abyss.

I look at my watch.

3:28 a.m.

I take two quick photos then start down.

::::

Six stairs. Ten. Twelve.

I splay the flashlight in every direction. The concrete chamber is triple the size of my father’s basement, maybe a thousand square feet.

But unlike my father’s, this chamber is void of nearly anything. The flashlight illuminates the chamber in a soft glow. I walk toward a set of three pop-up banquet tables and five folding chairs.

I imagine Abdul sitting in one of the folding chairs, a bag over his head, his arms and legs tied to the chair, the other chairs occupied by men who only cared about one thing: preventing the next 9/11 and willing to go to great lengths to do so.