Crown of Serpents Read Online Free PDF

Defense, however, never officially confirmed nor denied the existence of nuclear weapons at the installation. Unofficially, investigators had shown beyond a reasonable doubt that weapons were there.
    But after fifty years of distinguished service, the Depot’s mission shifted and Congress shut it down in the mid-nineties. It was then turned over to county officials for re-development. The Seneca County Industrial Development Agency immediately solicited new investors to take over the land and pre-existing structures in order to reinvent the base into something beneficial to the local and state economy. In just a few short years, private corporations bought up most of the main structures on the eastern side near the hamlet of Romulus. There, a state prison and a county jail were constructed while on the far western side, near Seneca Lake along the southwest perimeter adjacent to the defunct airfield, a new State Trooper sub station and a fire-training facility had been added.
    But it was the huge, fenced-in, 8,000-acre parcel of the interior of the base that had remained abandoned for years. It had served as an ecology-tourism attraction and wildlife habitat and had thus become overgrown with weeds and cracked pavement as it aged. This inner area contained all 519 weapons and ammunition storage bunkers, some operations buildings, unique wetlands, and in the middle of it all the world’s largest herd of white deer. Just the sheer magnitude alone of managing the famous deer herd and repairing the twenty-four miles of chain-link perimeter fencing that contained them was sucking the county coffers dry. The county had needed to sell the unused land and when an anonymous individual offered to buy it all their prayers seemed answered.
    Apparently, what was getting the locals all fired up again wasn’t the fact that the land was being sold at all, but instead to whom. A media leak just a week ago revealed the anonymous buyer as a very wealthy Iroquois Indian philanthropist. As a result, a majority of local residents immediately speculated worse case scenarios. Some feared if the Indians started buying Depot lands then next on the list would be laying claim to their own homes and private property and rekindling the old lawsuits again as the Cayuga tribe did years back. Others concluded that an Indian-owned casino would immediately be built on the base, disrupting their tranquil, rural way of life by adding traffic and crime to the area. Small business owners added to the fracas by noting that several of their tax-paying, American-owned gas marts recently had to shut their doors because of the tribal competition spreading in the area. They figured an Indian-owned Depot would spur even more tribal-owned businesses directly stealing away customers, especially with the incentives of tax-free Indian gasoline and tobacco products. In fact, when driving through the hamlet of Romulus earlier Jake had even recalled a sign in front of a boarded up convenience store that read Another Business Lost to the Indians.
    The dramatic leap of racist judgment from the volunteer was a result of legitimate arguments and fears, Jake now realized. On the other hand, he also knew the continued transition of the government-owned Depot to the private sector was already an economic success story that had benefited taxpayers by adding more jobs and expanded economic growth for the area. If this Indian philanthropist, whoever he or she was, could provide that same entrepreneurial leadership, the situation could be a win-win for both sides.
    Not only had Jake taken an interest in the Depot from its historical role in the Army, but he also had an interest in that unique white deer herd from an ancestral point of view. The deer had been fenced in, managed, and protected by the U.S. Army since 1941. What would be their fate now should a private owner come in? What tribe did this owner represent? Was he or she from an estranged out-of-state tribe or a New York based