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The sun was shining on this warm spring afternoon as the school bus moved slowly along a farm road outside of the capital city of Tbilisi in the Republic of Georgia. The school children were returning from a field trip they took to a local dairy farm. Their teacher, Tamara Gorridge, was sitting in the front seat near the bus driver.
She liked to sit up front so she could look back and monitor the children and also help the driver navigate on the rural roads. The children were happily going about their usual routine of playing, singing, and occasionally fighting among themselves as the bus passed by the thick orchards that lined the sides of the road.
As they approached another farm, the bus slowed to a stop to let a farm tractor pull a long trailer across the road from one field to another. As the bus sat there idling, Tamara noticed some men on the near side of the field hoisting a metal container from a freshly dug hole in the ground. She didn’t give it much thought until a student left his seat and asked her, “Miss Gorridge, what are those men doing?”
“I don’t know, Tedo, they’re digging up something, now get back in your seat.”
“Why did they bury milk cans?” the boy asked.
Not knowing the answer, Tamara did not respond, but continued to watch as the diggers pulled another container from a second hole.
When they got the container to the surface, one of the men wiped some dirt off the side of the container and some red writing was revealed. The young schoolteacher silently gasped when she saw a radioactive warning symbol on the side of the container.
As the tractor cleared the road and the bus began to slowly pull away, Tamara saw that there were freshly dug holes about every thirty feet along the length of the entire field. As the bus slowed down again to let another farm vehicle cross, Tamara saw two men who looked like foreigners talking to the farm owner near the side of the road. The two men stared directly back at her and waved to the kids who were looking out of the open windows of the bus. Tamara quickly turned her head hoping that they didn’t see her staring at them.
As the bus pulled away and they continued the trip back to the school, Tamara listened intently to hear if the children had noticed the ominous sign on the metal containers. Much to her relief, they did not.
She sat back in her seat and reviewed in her mind what she had just seen. She wondered who, if anyone, she should report this to. She had only been teaching school for five years and she quickly decided that it might be in her best interest not to tell anyone at the school or the local police. She did not want to come across as an alarmist or troublemaker.
She decided that it would probably be best if she called her brother instead. If there was something to worry about, he might be able to get someone to take care of the problem without involving her. Besides, it has been a month since she had talked to David and she was over due to call and check in on him. He works for the Central Intelligence Agency in the United States.
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