John and Trudy on vacation.

After a restful few days at the cabin, Uncle Vernon took the kids
back to Utah and school Linc told them before they left that he would
see them at Christmas time. Things were quiet around the farm now that
John and Trudy had left on vacation. Linc made plans to go to Denver
as soon as they got back. He had no problem with the animals here at
the farm. Lucas said he would take care of the chickens, to give him
something to do.
A couple of ladies from the neighboring farms came to visit with
their cookies and all. Linc brewed up a pot of tea, and since it was
cooler now, he served it with their cookies in the living room. Since
there were two ladies, he let them handle the pouring. Linc sipped
his tea, ate a couple of cookies and listened to the other three
reminisce. He made his excuses and escaped to the office, letting a
smiling Lucas handle the ladies.
Up at the office, he booked a flight to Denver, and made arrangements
for a car rental.
He got a call from the owner of the mine, who claimed he was very
pleased with they way things were going with the minerals getting
identified. He told Linc that the professor told him the samples had
a clay base, even though they looked metallic. Told him how his own
geologist had put a sample in a kiln and found it could be formed
while still soft from the heat. He said the resulting material was
extremely durable, and could be molded into any shape quickly. He
said they really needed more information on the material before going
any further with it. Good thing too he said, by-passing the area of
the deposit, they had opened up an area that showed a promise of
better gold deposits.
When Trudy and John got back, Linc Flew off to Denver and picked up
the rental car. Drove to Cardiff where he rented a room in a motel.
He didn't know for sure just how long it would take him to find the
place where the lab was. He walked around town looking for a library,
and found out it was about time for it to close. He picked up a map
at the drug store and went to a café for supper. He would come back
to the library in the morning. The map he got was not much use to him
since it covered too much of the area. He needed one that just
covered the immediate area.
The next morning after breakfast, he went to the library and after
looking through a lot of older maps, found the map he was looking for.
It was an old forest service map that showed all the lumber camps and
mines. Although he didn't find a mining claim near the lumber camp
he was sure was the one he thought was the camp. He got a copy of
the area he wanted, and left. He saw where the river was on the map
and drove to where the road followed the river upstream. He knew when
he came to the bridge where they crossed from the little town they
went to when they had escaped, that he was on the right track. The
map showed the old lumber camp to be about seven miles or so upstream
from that bridge.
After driving almost nine miles, he was beginning to wonder if he was
right, but then around a bend, there it was, an old gate to the where
the lumber camp was.
He was in luck here, as there was no lock on the gate and he was able
to go though it. As he drove through the small trees, he hoped there
was nothing in the road since this was just a car, not a truck. Going
a mile or so over a bumpy road he finally came to a clearing. There
were some old foundations around, so he figured this was where the
lab was. He locked the car and took off in the direction he thought
the mine was. With the shorter trees, he could see the hill where he
thought it might be and headed in that direction. Sure enough this
was the place. He recognized the adit, even though it had caved in.
He looked around the tailing dump and picked up enough rocks to fill
the pack. Then he touched the broach, said retreat. When he got
there, he put the pack in the cave. He wasn't about to try and take
the rocks back on a plane, then went back to the mine. He entered the
location into his GPS, went back to the car, and drove back to the
motel. He felt good about this, as he had about forty pounds of rocks
in that pack. Hopefully enough for the professor and his colleges.
Since it was late afternoon now, he decided to spend another night in
the same motel and head for Denver in the morning.
He called the farm and talked to Lucas and told him about the rocks,
and about going to Denver in the morning. He called the professor and
told him he had found the old mine and had picked up thirty to forty
pounds of ore, and would send them and the quart of rusty sludge when
he got back from Denver.
The professor said fine, and told him that he had called the mine and
talked to the owner who was pleased with the news of the samples.
Owner was going to send more samples to test out.

The next morning he started out for Denver. He had looked on the
city map, for the address of Lewis Hanks, before he left, and headed
to that area of town. He got a motel nearby, and waited until he
figured Lewis would be home from work. No sense in going to his
place if he wasn't at home.
A few hours later he decided to take a run over to the address. It
was an apartment building. He parked in front of it, just as a csr
pulled up and parked in a spot in the building parking spot. A young
man about his age, wearing a suit, got out and headed for the
entrance. Linc went up to him and asked if he was Lewis Hanks. The
young man tilted his head, and asked, " do I know you? You look
familiar." Linc held out his hand and said, " Lincoln Hanks.
Remember, you bumped into me in the woods about twenty years ago."
"But that's impossible." Lewis said, you look about my age." Limc
shook his head, and told Lewis it was a long story and he didn't have
time to explain it now. But it did happen. We need to talk about what
happened back then. Is your Mom living in Denver too? Lewis looked
all around, and said quietly, Yes we do need to talk, but not here.
I am sure I am being watched. I know my rooms have been searched
everywhere I move to, and so has mom's. My rooms may have bugs
planted in them but I can't find them. I think this because when I
sometimes call mom to go somewhere, we get followed. She is living
with Uncle Jasper, down the street about three blocks from here.."
Linc said, 'you may have a tracking chip planted on you. Why not leave
your watch, cell phone and wallet locked here in your car and we will
take a ride in mine and see what happens." Lewis put the items in his
car, locked it and went with Linc back to the rental. Linc asked if
there was a noisy café around close where they could go talk and
not be heard easily. He could take him back to the motel, but they
would not be able to see anyone around them there. In a public place
was the best answer.
Lewis directed him to a café that catered to a lot of the teenage
crowd. Any other adults would stick out like a sore thumb, Linc
thought. Good place.
Lewis told Linc how they had been harassed by the police, government
officials, and some of the Chinese guards that were at the lab. They
even interrupted the funeral they had for his Dad. It seemed no one
believed them about what happened at the lab. Didn't think they were
kidnapped by Chinese thugs. Too many strange people asking questions
about things they could not understand, and too many "question" about
the process they were working on. Too many questions about any
materials or records they might have. Lewis told him that his mother
did have some back-up memory chips that she had hidden in a tampon box
that the Chinese didn't find before the cleaned out and left. Uncle
Jasper took them and put them in his safe deposit box so they can't
get to them. His mom said their place had been searched a number of
times. It was at a point where they didn't trust anyone any more. Linc
told him, he didn't know of anyone who could help right off hand, but
there must be someone who could figure out just what all the Chinese
are interested in, and why they were so insistent about it to the
extent they have followed them for so long. He told Lewis his Uncle
Axel was a lawyer and worked with the FBI once in a while. He said he
would ask his Uncle if he knew someone he could really trust with
might turn out to be a national security problem. He said he wouldn't
go into a lot of detail yet about what happened. Since his Uncle knew
nothing about it.
Linc told him he went back out where the lab was to get samples of the
ore at the mine. He told him about the other ore samples and what
happened with and about them and the professor's experiments. He would
really like to talk to his Mom about the rocks and tell her all
about them too. He handed his cell phone to Lewis and asked him to
call his Mom and tell her that the cousin he ran into back in the
woods quite some years ago, was in town visiting him and why not come
down to the café and renew old times. Lewis did, and shortly his Mom
and Uncle came in. They had ordered burgers, fries and shakes while
they waited. Jane was so excited when she saw him. She recognized him
right away. She hugged him and then introduced Uncle Jasper., who
shook his hand and declared how glad he was that Linc had saved Jane
and Lewis from the Chinese thugs. Linc was able to tell her all about
the professor and the other rocks and the tests and so forth How the
professor and his colleges were working on more tests. Jane asked him
a lot of questions about the rocks, and Linc told her he didn't know
enough about the testing, because it was still in progress. Told her
when all the testing was done, maybe she could meet the professor and
talk about it. She told him about the memory chips, and maybe they
would help the professor. Linc said he didn't know, but it was
something to think about. Lewis said, don't look now, but a shadow
just walked in. he must have tracked Jane and Uncle Jasper. Linc told
them about the tracking chips to watch for. Told them he was in a
motel. They could maybe leave anything that might have a chip like
watches, phones, keys, wallets, purses and so forth at home and take a
taxi to the café the next day just after noon. Maybe they could talk
some more. Jane said that was a good idea, and Uncle Jasper could get
the memory chips for him to take back to the professor. They got up
and left right after the shadow had placed his order. Linc took
Lewis back to his apartment house then went to a small park close to
the motel to see if he was being followed. After he sat there a while,
watching the other cars he didn't see anyone who might be following so
he went back to the motel. Since he had already eaten at the café, he
watched some tv a while before he went to bed.

To be continued.