It was late afternoon and Leo was clearing the crap out of his van. The Grumman LLV had cost him very little at an auction and he loved it the way most women love their first born. He nearly hadn't bought the LLV, but Jerry had been with him.
"If the US Postal Service owned it for five years and couldn't destroy it, it's perfect for you." Jerry had said.
Jerry had been right, the slightly battered 2.5 Litre LLV, was perfect for carrying the band's amps, musical equipment and the general crap that most bands needed. He'd even slept in it a few times, to save the cost of a motel room. It seemed to thrive on neglect and had never let them down, always starting on the first try. Snow was a problem, especially as West Virginia seemed to be full of the stuff for two months of the year.
"Handles like a damn wet banana !" Jerry had once said.
Apart from snow, the LLV clung to the road well and after a year, he'd had it resprayed a nice boring shade of beige. It had been blown over in white, but the old Postal Service logos could still be seen. After its beige makeover, the Grumman looked like any one of a million other delivery vans. It was beige, it was nondescript and it was boring and the cops left him alone. Twice he'd been pulled up and only once had he been asked to open the back.
"Hey." The cop had said. "Are you a roadie ?"
"No, I'm the keyboard player with Knuckle Kracker."
"No Kidding !! My mom loves you guys."
There followed a two hour conversation about the quality of Yamaha and were they now better than Roland and if any drum kit was worth the price. He'd been late getting to the post office and had to make another trip the following day.
Leo looked at the van and it would do for one night. Their kit came in the usual boxes, that seemed designed to withstand a nuclear exchange, but he still used extra foam rubber to keep it all in place. He'd made a comfortable bed out of the foam rubber and placed a sleeping bag on top. He'd need something to pee in, his bladder wasn't that good these days. Come to think of it, most of him had seen better days. Leo found he was almost in tears at the loss of his van. It comforted him slightly, to think that they'd both be destroyed at exactly the same moment.
The grey men had given him a time and place, one opportunity to kill Peter Walters and all his team. A gift of an opportunity to make sure that everyone associated with his device, died with him. Peter didn't realise that his creation worked, it was just a good idea.... Until he had an energy source large enough to power it. The high energy lab had just received funding to create just such an energy source and they were all going out on Friday night. A meal and a few drinks to celebrate. It would take a few years to complete the prototype energy source, but then Peter would use it to power his device. Planet earth would be destroyed within a year, maybe less.
"I'll drive up on the Thursday, it's only seven hundred miles to Cambridge MA." He told the grey men. "Sleep in the van overnight and then drive to the bar on Friday night."
They liked the plan. Sweet Springs to MIT was about a twelve hour drive in the LLV, but going the day before, gave him extra time.
"Good ! If the van breaks down, you have time to steal another vehicle." They said.
Stealing vehicles was familiar ground to Leo, there was little he couldn't have open and started within a minute. He loved his old LLV though and was sure it wouldn't let him down.
