REPORT: MIRAGE
FILE #: 109

SOMEWHERE IN THE DESERT we see Jarod in a white shirt, sweating and stumbling, with a delirious, disoriented look on his face. We hear young Jarod’s voice echoing “I just wanna know who I am. I could stand anything for that.” Jarod’s mind flashes back, we see his young self in a glass ball, mumbling “I’ll never give up, Sydney.” Back in the present, Jarod passes out and falls to the ground.

AT THE CENTRE: – JAROD 4/22/71 FOR CENTRE USE ONLY – the DSA caption in the lower left corner reads. We see young Sydney, trying hard to persuade Jarod into giving up, stating that the temperature inside the glass ball measures over one hundred degrees and Jarod has spent three days in it already. “I just wanna know who I am. I could stand anything for that,” young Jarod replies. Apparently, a clean-up crew had found the DSA in a cabin 50 miles south of Albuquerque. “A gift from Jarod,” Sydney assumes and says he’s not sure what the original intent of the simulation was. “I’ll have to run it through the archives.” “Save your sweat. It’s just another diversion,” Miss Parker replies. Sydney disagrees, saying that this seems to be very important to Jarod, a sign that he’s reaching out to them.

5000 FEET ABOVE WEST TEXAS, we see a small plane in the air. The camera moves closer, showing us the plane’s open door where we recognize Jarod in a sky diving suit, ready to jump. Attached to his gear is a rather stout lady, apparently an adventure-seeking tourist. She seems a little panicked, but Jarod assures her that she’s going to be just fine. “You’re the expert,” she replies. “Sort of.” – “Sort of? Exactly how many times have you jumped?”-“Including this one?” – “Yes.” – “One.” With those “comforting” words, Jarod jumps, taking the confused woman down with him.

AT THE BLUE DESERT SKY DIVING SCHOOL, HUDSPETH COUNTY, TEXAS, somewhat later, the blue and white plane is landing. Jarod is already inside the school building, looking at awards and pictures that are hung on the wall, while rubbing his apparently hurting back. “Tough job?” the pilot asks. “I may have underestimated my payload,” Jarod jokes. The pilot hands him a bottle of muscle relaxation oil. A woman enters, obviously Jarod’s new boss, telling him that the customer is satisfied and the job is his. “It’s a pleasure to be here,” Jarod replies. While Jarod folds up his parachute, the woman talks to the pilot, Crockett, asking him if he’s heard anything from “TASCO”. It also becomes clear that they’ve been having trouble with the plane, but that a new one is supposed to arrive soon. The woman then walks over to Jarod to congratulate him on his resume and wonders what a former army ranger would want in a sky diving school. “Well, I’m on the run from a secret organization, I needed a place to hide out for a while.”

AT THE CENTRE, Sydney, Miss Parker and Broots are watching the DSA again. We learn that the simulation was a project to research the mind-over-matter phenomenon, how an emotional stimulus can influence physical pain and strength. Sam the sweeper enters and delivers a “birthday gift” for Miss Parker. Inside, she finds a red notebook titled “The Miss Parker Edition”. On the first page, there is a picture showing a middle-aged man standing next to a car, as well as a dried flower. Sydney asks if she knows the man, but Miss Parker replies that she’s never seen him before.

BACK AT THE SKY DIVING SCHOOL, Jarod is talking to his boss, Carol, stating that business doesn’t seem to be booming at the moment. She replies that she lost her partner, Tom Miles, about two months ago when he made a jump out into the desert. Apparently, this was a yearly ritual: Tom would take one canteen of water and a knife and jump 200 miles into the desert, only to hike back in. Only this time something went wrong and he never made it out of the desert. However, she says, she is determined to fulfill Tom’s dream of making the diving school a huge success. They’ll get a new jump plane, redo the hangar and perhaps even build a brand new indoor training system.

Carol accompanies Jarod to his accommodations in a building close to the training school. While they’re still standing outside, the local sheriff drives up and invites Carol to lunch. Left alone, Jarod takes out his newest red notebook. The article’s headline reads “Former Sky Diving Champion Dies in Desert”. “You are late,” a voice behind Jarod makes him turn around. A grey-haired elderly Native American is sitting on the doorsteps of Jarod’s most current lair. “I’ve been waiting for you,” the man continues. Jarod is confused, “Excuse me?” “I was told a traveler would come seeking truth,” the stranger replies. “Told by whom?” Jarod wants to know. “The sky fathers. What you would call a gut feeling. They said you would need a guide.” “I don’t understand,” Jarod replies in even greater confusion. “See what I mean?” the old man says and looks up to a shaking tree top. A sudden breeze loosens the clipped-on newspaper article from Jarod’s notebook, causing it to fly away a couple of feet. Jarod’s goes to retrieve it, but when he turns around, the stranger has disappeared. The unexpected event causes a smile of amazement on Jarod’s face, “How do you do that?” he wonders.

AT THE CENTRE Broots has been searching for the man in the picture, but now tells Miss Parker that he hasn’t been able to find anything. However, as she takes a closer look at the photograph, Miss Parker discovers that there is a reflection on the car’s windshield. When Broots enhances it, they see that it says “Maine”.

AT THE SKY DIVING SCHOOL, a highly pregnant woman is coming out of her house, carrying a big heavy box. She accidentally drops it. In that instant, Jarod comes around the corner and immediately offers his help. He is being very kind and asks the young woman if she would like a glass of water. She refuses with a thankful smile, saying “Can I ask you something?” – “Sure.” – “Who are you?”. Smiling, Jarod presents himself. The woman’s name is Angela. As he picks up the contents of the box, he finds a video tape titled “Tom Miles Desert Jump Sendoff”. When Angela hears that Jarod is the new instructor, she seems upset and says she didn’t expect Carol to hire someone so soon after Tom died. It turns out she is Tom Miles’ widow.

Somewhat later, in the hangar, Jarod is instructing some Japanese customers. However, there seem to be some small lingual misunderstandings…

IN LAKE CATHERINE, MAINE, in front of a small diner, Sydney and Miss Parker are staking out Benjamin Thomas Miller, whom we recognize as the man in the picture. Apparently, he’s single and runs the local bed & breakfast, but there is no interesting information about him, not so much as a parking ticket. Miss Parker wonders why Jarod would have led them there. Sydney reminds her that the notebook was intended for her, meaning Jarod wanted her there alone. In that instant, the latter calls and tells Miss Parker exactly where she is, what she’s doing right now and even gives recommendations about what to eat at the “Green Ridge Diner”, saying that she could stand to put on a few pounds. “How the hell would you know?” she wonders. “Oh, you never know who might be peeking over your transom…uh uh uuh, setting back the bathroom scale three pounds, that’s cheating!” Annoyed with his pranks and tired of “chasing ghosts”, Miss Parker wants to know what Jarod wants. After letting her know what food Benjamin Miller is most probably having right now, he tells her that Ben is rather a skeleton than a ghost. “Check your closet lately?”

When Miss Parker sees that Ben Miller is leaving the diner, she turns around to Sydney and coldly commands: “Get out.” – “Excuse me?” – “Get out.” Sydney has no choice but to obey.

SOMEWHERE OVER TEXAS, Jarod is taking the Japanese tourists out for their jump. When the last one has jumped, Jarod notices a snowboard lying in the back of the plane. “What’s this for?” he wants to know. “For lunatics!” Crockett replies. A second later, we see Jarod jumping off the plane with the exact same snow board strapped to his feet.

Back on the ground, Jarod talks to Crockett about Tom Miles. He finds out that the fateful jump into the desert was supposed to be his last. All Tom cared about was his wife and the baby she was expecting, the school meant a lot to him, but not nearly as much as his family. When Jarod wonders how a survival expert like Miles could die out in the desert, Crockett replies that “strange things can happen out there.”

IN HIS LAIR, Jarod is looking at his notebook again, when hears the same voice again; “So many lies, so little time” the old man says as he enters. “You need some soda,” he adds, looking at the refrigerator. “Who are you?” Jarod wants to know. “Two Feathers, son of War Eagle. You ever heard of me?” – “No.” – “That’s cause everybody calls me Ernie.” Ernie picks up an ugly looking half-rotten old fruit. With the words “I’m guessing that’s a peach,” he throws it to Jarod, who catches it. And once again, when he looks up, Ernie is gone. Suddenly, he is standing behind him in the door. “What is it you want?” – “I told you I was sent to be your guide.” The old Indian tells Jarod to meet him tonight, so they can talk. When Jarod wants to know how he can find him, Ernie replies “Follow the path of the Iron Horse.” “The what?” – “The train tracks. Jeez, didn’t you ever see a John Wayne movie? And bring some of that left-over meat loaf with you.” – “What meat loaf?”. Another breeze picks up, and Jarod’s lamp falls to the floor. When he looks up, Ernie has disappeared. All Jarod finds is his baseball cap. In this instant, there is a knock on the door. Annoyed, Jarod opens, saying that he’s really tired of Ernie’s magic tricks. But instead of him, he finds Angela at his doorsteps. She invites him over for a home-cooked dinner that evening and Jarod gladly accepts. “Hope you like meat loaf,” she says as she leaves.

IN LAKE CATHERINE, MAINE, Miss Parker drives to Ben Miller’s bed & breakfast. When she enters and is seen by Ben, his face suddenly turns very serious, “I was hoping you’d come.” Miss Parker doesn’t understand. “You look just like her,” Ben continues. “Like who?” Miss Parker plays dumb. “Your mother,” Ben says, his head pointing towards a picture behind her, in which we recognize Catherine Parker.

IN HUDSPETH, IN FRONT OF THE SHERIFF’S OFFICE, Jarod is eating a Popsicle while observing Carol, who meets with two men in suits. The license plate on their car reads “TASCO”. When Sheriff Kunkle comes out of his office, Jarod says he wants to talk to him. The sheriff, addressing him as Mr. Cochran tells him he’s busy. However, when Jarod mentions Tom Miles, he becomes attentive. Again, Jarod expresses his doubts that a man like Miles would allow himself to die of dehydration. We also learn that the body had been out in the desert for four days before it was found. Before the sheriff leaves, Jarod asks if there was an autopsy done on the body. “Just because we’re back waters, doesn’t mean we’re back woods,” Kunkle replies.

Only shortly later, Jarod enters the office dressed in a shirt, tie and glasses. “Buddy Slocum jr.,” he presents himself to the sheriff’s secretary in a fake Texan accent, “I represent the southwest regional office of the Internal Revenue Service.” He asks for “sheriff Dwight Knuckle” and is corrected by the secretary, “Kunkle , sheriff’s name, Kunkle .” Apparently, Kunkle will be in Dallas all afternoon [as if Jarod hadn’t known that]. Under false pretext, Jarod manages to acquire all files on Tom Miles’ death, including the autopsy. While in the office, he also checks out the sheriff’s radio.

AT ANGELA’S HOUSE, Angela shows Jarod the future baby’s room, talking about her late husband and how important his child was to him. She also tells Jarod that Carol had talked to her about the sky diving school and that if it closed, Tom’s death would be meaningless. Apparently Tom had a considerably high life insurance, which they will use to rebuild the school. We also learn that Carol and Tom had been together long before Tom married Angela, but had grown apart.

IN HIS LAIR, Jarod watches the DSA of his mind over matter simulation, “No, it’s not for me. I’ll never give up.” Thoughtfully, he then looks at pictures of Miles’ dead body.

LATER THAT NIGHT, BY A TRAILER SOMEWHERE, Jarod drives up and gets out of the car, “Mr. Two Feathers? Ernie?” In that instant, Ernie comes up behind Jarod, startling him. “Would you please stop doing that?” Jarod asks and then hands Ernie the requested meat loaf and his baseball cap. The old man asks him to sit down. He explains that his luxurious trailer was given to him by the state as a deal if he would sell them a piece of tribal land. “I would have settled for a new hat. White people…I don’t know how we lost the country…” When Jarod reminds Ernie that he promised to guide him to the truth, Ernie says that he was the one who found Tom Miles’ body in the desert, not the sheriff. Jarod mentions that there were many Yucca plants around Tom, so how could he have allowed himself to die of dehydration? Ernie says he knew the truth right away when he saw him. The wounds on Tom’s face, so he says, were not inflicted by an animal, as had been suspected, but by Miles’ madness. He explains that there is a drug used in Indian culture on vision quests, which can be drawn from the root of the Belladonna plant. Apparently it is a strong hallucinogen that can even cause insanity in high doses. Anyone who’s lived their lives in the desert would know about this plant, Ernie says.

IN LAKE CATHERINE, Ben and Miss Parker are walking down a quiet, tree-bordered path. Ben tells her that Jarod worked for him for over a month. Miss Parker says that she didn’t come to talk about Jarod. Ben replies that it was funny, because all Jarod ever wanted to talk about was her. We learn that Catherine used to come to Ben’s bed & breakfast every spring. Miss Parker remembers that her mother used a certain “Aunt Dorothy” as pretext for her vacation. Ben says that he never really knew how Catherine died. Miss Parker evades the questions, telling him her death was “sudden” and then asks if she could see where her mother stayed.

AT THE SKY DIVING SCHOOL, Jarod witnesses Carol and Crockett fighting about something outside. He goes into Carol’s office and finds letters from “TASCO – Sport Adventure”.

BACK AT HIS LAIR, Jarod calls TASCO, pretending to be interested in a sky diving vacation. He finds out that the company is going to open a sky diving school near El Paso in two months. At the same time, he finds Daniel Crockett in the National Crime Database, aka Angus Marin. He is wanted for parole violations.

AT THE SCHOOL, Jarod confronts Crockett about his background. We find out that Carol had used her knowledge of Crockett’s criminal status to scare him into silence about the circumstances of Tom Miles’ death. She also used Angela to get to Tom’s insurance money, so she could renovate the jump school and increase the price TASCO is willing to pay for it. Apparently Crockett will get 25% of Carol’s stake in the sale. “Is it because you know she killed Tom Miles, or because you helped her?” Jarod wants to know.

AT BEN’S BED & BREAKFAST, Ben leads Miss Parker to her mother’s former room, saying that he hasn’t touched anything since she last left. Then he leaves her alone. Miss Parker closely regards the room and discovers a large wooden box on the floor. Inside, she finds one of Catherine’s dresses, framed pictures of her and Ben and a yellow envelope with the word “Rescued” hand-written onto it. There are several birth certificates and baby photos in it. Miss Parker looks at them in confusion and then lies down on the bed, surrounded by the objects that had once belonged to her mother.

AT THE FLIGHT SCHOOL, Crockett tells Jarod the story of Carol and Tom, how they had built up the school as young lovers, but then broke up and Tom got married. Carol wanted to sell her part to Tom, but by the time Tom got the cash together, the place had already been too run-down. Then the offer from TASCO came up, but Tom didn’t want the place to be destroyed. The morning of Tom’s desert jump, Carol came out to the hangar and switched Tom’s canteen. Crockett didn’t think anything of it by the time, but later put the pieces together. Carol had put the Belladonna drug into Tom’s only water supply, knowing that it would cause disorientation and madness. When Crockett later confronted her about it, she threatened to turn him in to the police if he talked and offered him a percentage to help her fix up the jump school.

SOMEWHAT LATER, Jarod is preparing his sting, cutting off leaves of the Belladonna plant, ordering a couple of raw beef ribs and calling the company who is going to sell Carol her new plane “So let me get this straight, if I arrive in Phoenix first, I get the plane?”. He prepares his freshly ordered beef ribs and pours the Belladonna extract into a canteen. He also puts a hand-made folder labeled “Business Plan” into an envelope addressed to Angela.

THE NEXT MORNING IN THE HANGAR, Carol comes in, upset about the plane deal she will lose unless she gets to Phoenix as fast as possible. Crockett is nowhere to be seen, so Jarod offers to fly her. “You’re a pilot?” she wonders. “Mh hm,” Jarod replies in his most casual, innocent face. He says they can take off in 20 minutes.

AT BEN’S PLACE, in the morning, Ben offers Miss Parker coffee and asks her how she slept. Apparently she slept much better than usually. Ben says Miss Parker can take some of her mother’s things with her, if she likes. But Miss Parker refuses, and, putting her hand on the “Rescued” envelope, says, “I have everything I need. Besides, this is where she belongs. You were in love with her, weren’t you?” Ben doesn’t really answer the question, instead, he tells Miss Parker that Catherine was a very special woman. “There was a part of her I knew better than anyone. But there was a part of her that she kept hidden, separate.” Miss Parker wants to know whether she ever talked about “him”. Ben says Catherine left it all behind when she came, but she always missed her little girl. When Ben leaves to get breakfast, Miss Parker holds him back by laying her hand on his, “Thank you.”

IN THE PLANE TO PHOENIX, Jarod tells Carol that there is a bad weather front coming in, which is why they are heading north. Suddenly, the engine gives off a stuttering sound and threatens to stall. Jarod says it must be the fuel pump and they will have to jump because the land is too dangerous to land on, “Relax, we’re sky diving instructors, remember?”

AT THE SHERIFF’S OFFICE, Kunkle is scolding his secretary for giving out confidential crime scene files to a stranger, when a mayday radio signal from Jarod comes in. The sheriff orders a search and rescue team right away. When he leaves his office, he finds Ernie already sitting in his jeep, ready to take off.

SOMEWHERE OUT IN THE DESERT, Jarod and Carol are jumping off the plane and land a couple of feet away from each other. When Carol joins Jarod, she finds him screaming in pain, his right shin bone broken and sticking out of his torn trouser leg. Somewhat later, they have set up a camp using one of the parachutes as sun shield, where Jarod is treating his “injury”. He tells Carol that he’s not sure if the mayday call ever made it out. There is only one way: Carol needs to hike back in on her own. Reluctantly, she agrees. Jarod hands her a compass and a full canteen of water, telling her to drink plenty of it to prevent dehydration, “You wouldn’t wanna end up like Tom.” When Carol has left, Jarod takes off the bandage on his leg and produces the raw beef rib from under his pants.

Elsewhere, Carol very soon becomes disoriented and delirious, thanks to the Belladonna extract in her water. She begins to hear Tom’s voice, sees imaginary rattle snakes, and is finally faced by a sky diver in an orange suit, just like the one Miles had been wearing on his last jump. The figure, whom we recognize as Jarod, confronts her about her crime, till she finally confesses, “Tom, Tom, I’m sorry.” Carol, in her delirious state, reproaches Tom for taking what they had and giving it to Angela. “There was nothing left for me. I just wanted what I deserved.”- “Something tells me you’re going to get just that,” Jarod replies. Both Ernie and Sheriff Kunkle have been observing the scene and the latter now walks up to arrest Carol.

AT BEN’S PLACE, Miss Parker comes out of the house and walks over to her car, ready to leave, when her cell phone rings. “Hello Jarod,” she answers the call. Jarod congratulates her on her instincts. Miss Parker wants to know if this is all he does; dig up the past. “That’s easy for you to say, you have one,” he replies, “though it’s not quite what you thought it was, is it? Happy Birthday.”

AT ANGELA’S HOUSE, Angela brings her new-born baby into its room, in the crib she finds the envelope from Jarod with a message reading “Good luck. Jarod.”

AT ERNIE’S TRAILER, at night, Jarod has come to say goodbye. He sits down in a chair next to Ernie in front of the fire and thanks him for his help. “Well, so long and you’re welcome,” Ernie replies. Jarod says that when Ernie first told him that he would help him discover the truth, he had hoped it would have been about himself, about who he is. “We each take the journey we’re meant to take,” Ernie replies, “for some it’s clear, for others not so clear.” “Am I going the right way?” Jarod wants to know. “Just keep listening to your gut,” Ernie advises. They both look into the fire. A breeze picks up and causes the flames to rise. When they’ve calmed down, Ernie looks back at Jarod, but he is nowhere to be seen. We see a faint smile playing on the old man’s lips.