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Back 3 a.m.
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  67. 3:46 a.m.

I keep the Lincoln around forty miles per hour up and over a large rolling hill, down the backside, then up his brother. Two more hills. I take a left. Drive for a quarter mile and the road stops. There is a gate. Private Property.

NO TRESPASSING.

There is a good chance that by driving this far up the road, I have already tripped an alarm. That if I hop over the gate and continue forth, that some commandos are going to jump out of the brush and tackle me. Or put a bullet in me. Or worse.

My only hope is my mother.

That she wouldn’t send her son on a death mission.

I grab my dad’s Nikon and a flashlight.

Two minutes later, I am over the gate and running up the dirt hill.

It is 3:14 a.m.

::::

The GPS tells me I am one thousand feet from my destination. But the road is gone. I am surrounded by thick brush. If there is a trail that leads to the black site, I can’t find it. I take five steps into the thick woods, the disrupted fallen branches, leaves, and rubble cutting loudly through the still night air.

I imagine the two men from the first article I read, Abdul Al-Rahmin and Hammad Sheik-Alzar, being led through these same trees. How long did it take the CIA to sneak the men to this location? How hard was it to get two presumed dead men out of Iraq and to the Virginia backcountry? How many people were involved? Was the process compartmentalized so the group that got them onto the airplane in Iraq didn’t know where they would end up? Or was it a small group that saw it through to the end? Were the men who snatched Abdul and Hammad the same men that led them to their fate through these trees? Did they know what would happen to them when their little hike ended? That they would be subjected to horrific acts? That they might never again see the light of day?

I push forward.

Slowly I follow the arrow on the GPS, moving stealthily through the trees, until I am standing on the exact two-foot radius that marks the coordinates.

I’d looked at pictures of black sites on the internet and there were various kinds. Some looked like small houses, others looking more industrial, and even others looking like government offices.

But there is no black site here.

Only trees.

Did my mother send me on a wild goose chase? Where did she get the coordinates from? Was her source reliable?

I look down at the watch.

It is 3:22 a.m.

I need to leave myself time to hike back to the car and then drive back to the highway. I figure I need a solid twenty minutes, and set the alarm to go off at 3:40 a.m.