Jack's Back
It was the last Saturday in June when MacGyver's ringing telephone coaxed him awake. He peeled one eye open and looked at the clock, 6am! Mac groaned and debated letting the machine take the call. However, it was unusually early so it could be an emergency. The ringing continued as Mac crawled out of bed and padded to the kitchen. "I'm coming," he murmured, as if the person on the other end could hear him.
"Hello?" he answered groggily.
"Buenos Dias, Kemosabe!" came an annoyingly cheerful reply.
"Jack," MacGyver growled, "do you have any idea what time it is?"
"Yeah, so?"
"So I was trying to sleep!" Mac scolded.
"I must have the wrong number, then. The MacGyver I knew could go days without sleeping and still bring down a Colombian drug cartel single-handedly. You must be getting—"
"What do you want, Jack?" Mac interrupted, his patience wearing thin.
"Well, Pete and Connie are all unpacked and settled in. I'm probably gonna be taking off soon so I thought this would be a good weekend to go down to Prairie Point and—"
"I'm not going with you, Jack."
"What do you mean, MacGyver? You always go with me." Mac could hear the bewildered dejection in his friend's voice and could picture the sad, puppy dog face that accompanied it.
"That's just it. I always go with you. No matter how stupid, dangerous, or futile your scheme, I always go. Not this time, Jack. You're on your own."
"But Mac, I've been at the library doing more research. This could be it, my friend. One big glorious treasure trove hidden in the tunnels under St. Mary's."
MacGyver groaned.
"C'mon buddy, I know you're curious."
Mac knew he was going to regret this later. "Okay Jack. Let me do a little research of my own and I'll meet you there in a couple of hours."
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Later that morning, MacGyver and Jack stood outside a tall, wrought iron fence surrounding the neglected property. Knee-high weeds and grass swayed in the gentle summer breeze. A short distance away, two multi-story stone buildings flanked a gothic structure. Waves from Lake Michigan reached out to the sand and stone that had protected the school from the water for over a century.
"So, what did you find out about this place?" Jack asked as the two men leaned against the hood of the Nomad, Mac flipping through papers in a manila folder.
"The owner of record is the township of Prairie Point. Public workers come out and cut the grass a few times over the summer and that's about it. The local historical society is currently trying to get St. Mary's added to the National Register of Historic Places. Their efforts have kept the buildings from being torn down or repaired. Therefore, it just sits here until a final decision is made,"
MacGyver explained.
"What about the hauntings? Anything about ghosts?"
"I thought you were looking for gold, Jack?"
"I am," he replied. "I just want to make sure you and I are the only ones in there."
MacGyver sighed. "Every year, right before Halloween, news crews from around the state run stories on the supposed hauntings of St. Mary's. Of course, people are more than ready to share their supernatural experiences whether real or made up in order to get their fifteen minutes of fame."
"And the tunnels?" Jack prodded.
"Not much is really known about them," Mac replied. "But it wasn't all that unusual for multi-structure sites to have tunnels between the buildings, mainly for easy access during inclement weather."
MacGyver pointed to the ornate building in the center. "That's the chapel. The building to the right is the school, and the building to the left is the convent and dormitories. There's probably a tunnel that runs between each building and the chapel." At this point he paused. "Legend has it that another tunnel runs from the chapel to the beach."
"That would be the one they used to move the gold," Jack whispered in awe.
"You ready to go in?" Mac asked.
"Lead the way!"
MacGyver grabbed a small bag from the trunk of his car and looped the strap over his shoulder.
"C'mon," Mac grunted, heading toward a rusted gate. There was no lock. As MacGyver pushed it open enough for him and Jack to enter, it groaned in protest.
The two men walked carefully through the high grass and uneven terrain. They had almost reached their destination when MacGyver felt Jack grasp his arm.
"Did you see that?" Jack whispered urgently.
"See what?" Mac hissed as he pried his friend's fingers loose from his bicep.
"I thought I saw something in that window?" Jack answered as he pointed to a third story room in the dormitory.
"Would you get a hold of yourself?" Mac demanded. "And stop whispering. There's no one here but us."
MacGyver walked up the crumbling stone steps of the chapel.
"Where're you goin'?" Jack asked nervously.
"If the information about the tunnels is correct, they should all converge here, in the center of the building," Mac explained, becoming impatient with his friend.
"Maybe we should walk around the outside first," Jack suggested. "You know, scout out the place."
"Yeah, that might be a good idea," MacGyver agreed and smirked when he heard his friend sigh in relief. Apparently the fortune hunter was in no hurry to enter the old building.
As they inspected the exteriors of the decrepit buildings, MacGyver found nothing unusual until they reached the back of the chapel and saw old, wooden cellar doors firmly secured by a shiny silver padlock.
"I'd say that's not an original fixture." Mac lifted his arm to point out the lock to Jack.
"Oh, wow! Who do you think put it there?"
MacGyver shrugged. "Maybe a maintenance worker? It could be a storage area."
"Or the entrance to a tunnel," Jack added with renewed excitement.
Mac felt a surge of adrenaline as he approached the doors, digging in his hip pocket and pulling out his ever-present Swiss Army knife. With practiced movements he selected the proper tool and easily picked the simple lock. He and Jack pulled back the heavy doors to reveal a dark, steep staircase of rotting wood. MacGyver reached into his bag and removed two flashlights, handing one to Jack. With Mac in the lead, they cautiously made their way down the steps, breathing a sigh of relief that the rickety stairs had held when their feet touched solid ground.
Jack let out a long, low whistle as the two men surveyed their surroundings. Mac had expected to find a narrow walkway carved out of earth and sand. Instead, he found himself standing in a large, clean corridor. Plywood boards covered the floor and shored up the sides and top. He scanned the area with his flashlight. A generator stood in one corner. Mac looked up to see light bulbs strung the length of the tunnel. Moving forward into the darkness, the beam of his flashlight landed on a pile of pallets against the far wall loaded with stacks of a white, powdery substance.
"Jack, take a look at this," MacGyver directed as he strode to the pallets.
"Is that what I think it is?"
Mac took out his knife and cut into one of the packages, balancing a bit of the powder on the blade. He sniffed it and then ventured a taste.
"Cocaine," Mac confirmed. "Here, take this," he shoved his flashlight toward Jack and reached into his bag, pulled out a camera, and began shooting from various angles.
"What're you doing?" Jack asked.
"Collecting evidence to take to the authorities."
Once MacGyver was done taking pictures, he and Jack continued to inspect the packages and pallets.
"Hey, what's this?" Jack asked, picking up a piece of ledger paper from underneath one of the pallets.
Mac stood next to his friend as they studied the rows of numbers listed neatly on the paper.
060295 0030
060995 0100
061695 0130
062395 0200
063095 0230
"Let's figure this out later," MacGyver said as he folded the paper and tucked it into his hip pocket. "In the meantime, let's check out what's behind door number two," he suggested, pointing his flashlight beam to an old wooden door directly to his right.
The door was unlocked and swung open easily. A little too easily, which concerned Mac. He shown his flashlight into the darkness, discovering another tunnel. This one was damp and dank, carved out of mud and stone. They followed it to the end and another wooden staircase at the top of which was another door which again opened way too easily. Jack and MacGyver stepped into what must have been, at one time, a large classroom given the blackboards lining the walls and the desks pushed up against the walls. Everything was covered in a heavy layer of dust. Well, almost everything.
"Do ghosts leave footprints?" Jack asked, pointing to the floor.
"Not the last time I checked," MacGyver replied, crouching down to examine the imprints further. "And I doubt they wear hiking boots."
"Should we follow them?"
"No. If someone is hanging around, I don't want to announce our presence. There should be another tunnel directly across from this one leading to the dorms. Let's check that out."
They retraced their steps until they once again stood in front of the pallets of cocaine. To their left was the same type of tunnel they had just come from. At the top of an old staircase another door opened into a still-furnished bedroom. Mac stopped on the top step and looked at the floor. The same footprints appeared. MacGyver turned around, motioning Jack to do the same.
"Let's get out of here and figure out what's going on," Mac ordered as he and Jack descended the stairs, walked back through the main tunnel, and emerged from the cellar doors. MacGyver replaced the padlock before he and Jack headed back to the car.
"We need to figure out what these number sequences mean," Mac said, pulling the piece of paper Jack had found from his pocket.
The two friends walked to a nearby diner for a bite to eat while they studied the numbers. By the time they had finished their dessert, MacGyver thought he had found the solution.
"I think I got it," Mac announced. "The first set of numbers all end in '95' which is the year. The first two numbers are all '06' which could be the month. The numbers in between correspond to the dates of all the Sundays in June."
"Makes sense," Jack agreed, looking over Mac's shoulder at the list. "What about the last four digits."
"I think that's military time, starting at 12:30am and getting later each week by thirty minutes. If that's right, then the last number sequence is tomorrow morning at 2:30am. Could be some sort of shipping or delivery schedule," Mac deduced.
"Looks that way," Jack nodded, "but which one?"
"Since they appeared ready for shipping, I'd say whoever is doing this is smuggling the drugs out of Prairie Point, and the batch we saw is leaving tonight," Mac explained. "I think it's time we call the cops."
"And tell them what?" Jack scoffed. "That we were searching for gold and happened upon a huge stash of drugs? I say we take care of the bad guys ourselves and then hand them over to the police all nice and tidy."
"I don't like it, Jack. We don't know what we're walking into. It's too dangerous."
"Well, you didn't want to come here in the first place yet here you are."
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It was 2:15am Sunday morning. MacGyver crouched in the overgrown grass and weeds, his back against the cold stone of the chapel. Jack took up the same position on the other side of the cellar doors.
MacGyver grew more uneasy as the minutes ticked by. He wished he had more intel. More backup. A plan. The most logical scenario was that a boat would come to pick up the drugs and transport them to their predetermined destination. But had the deal already taken place or would the money be exchanged tonight? There had to be quite a lot of money involved given the amount of coke he had seen. Was he naïve in thinking he and Jack could lock whoever was picking up the goods in the tunnel when they went to retrieve the pallets and then call in the authorities to handle the rest?
The drone of a boat engine caught MacGyver's attention. He pulled out a pair of night-vision binoculars from the bag he had been carrying and looked out over the lake. There he saw a thirty-five foot stripped down cabin cruiser clipping toward their position, pulling a dinghy with an outboard motor behind it. The cruiser anchored several yards from shore as two men scrambled into the dinghy and headed toward the beach. It would take numerous trips in the small boat to carry away the bags of cocaine that were waiting. MacGyver frowned at the inefficiency of the operation. Yet, it had apparently been successful the previous weekends.
MacGyver watched as two burly men climbed out of the dinghy and pulled it ashore. They headed straight for the cellar doors. One stood look-out as the other unlocked and opened the doors. Mac and Jack sank further down in the grass. Once they heard the men's boots pounding on the stairs, they threw the doors closed and secured the lock. And then the world exploded. The men in the cellar began shooting through the closed doors. MacGyver and Jack once again threw themselves into the relative safety of the tall grass. Automatic gunfire from the larger vessel erupted sending bullets into the sand and pinging off the stone façade of the chapel. Bright lights flooded the area. More boats arrived, men pouring out of them into the shallow water and onto the beach. MacGyver stood up to run, hoping Jack would do the same. He had only taken one step before the butt of a gun was brought down hard against the back of his head and he fell forward into silent darkness.
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MacGyver awoke slowly to a steady pounding in his head. Bright overhead lights assaulted his eyes when he tried to open them. He lifted his hand to massage his forehead and that's when he heard the metallic clink and felt something bite into his wrist.
"What the-?" He raised his head only high enough to see the handcuffs that chained him to the hospital bed.
"Ah, sleeping beauty has arisen!"
"Jack…" MacGyver growled, turning to see his friend in the bed next to him, also handcuffed to the safety rails.
Just then the door to their room opened and in walked Pete, his hand on the elbow of a man Mac recognized as an agent from the Chicago field office.
"Hiya Pete!" MacGyver greeted him, trying to sound cheerful…and innocent. "I can explain."
"You should know better than to go off and take the law into your own hands, Mac! You could have easily have been killed tonight!" Pete admonished him. "And don't try to explain. I've heard several official reports about what happened tonight. According to them, you and Dalton were staking out a drug smuggling ring working between Milwaukee and Chicago. The FBI and Coast Guard just happened to set up a sting operation the same night you and Jack planned to ambush the smugglers. The agents mistook you for one of the smugglers and knocked you out. Once Jack explained what you were doing, you were both charged with trespassing, breaking and entering, tampering with evidence and impeding a federal investigation. Did I miss anything?"
MacGyver winced. "At this point, I think you know more than I do."
"And then," Pete continued as if Mac hadn't spoken, "they find your Phoenix ID and I get a call in the middle of the night to come bail you out!"
"Don't be so hard on him, Pete," Jack said quietly. "It was all my fault. Mac just went along with it to try and keep me out of trouble like he always does."
"Then I should have both your butts in a sling!" Pete blustered.
"Look, Pete," MacGyver said contritely. "We made some bad decisions, it won't happen again."
"That's what you said last time!" Pete paused to take a deep, calming breath. "You should both just be thankful that I still have enough pull to save your hides. I've convinced the authorities to clear you of all charges the minute the doctor releases you…and not a second sooner. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a weekend to get back to."
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Several hours later, after being poked, prodded, and poked some more, Jack and MacGyver were released from the hospital…and from police custody. An officer drove them back to their cars that had been left behind at St. Mary's.
"Hey man, I really am sorry," Jack apologized as they approached their respective cars.
"Don't worry about it," Mac replied, clapping the other man on the shoulder.
"No, I mean it! You're a good friend, MacGyver. I don't deserve a buddy like you."
"Well, you got me anyway," Mac smiled warmly. "But promise me one thing."
"Anything!"
"No more schemes, Jack. Get a job. Make an honest living for once in your life."
"You got it, amigo!" Jack promised, quickly turning his head toward his car so Mac couldn't see the twitch in his left eye.
