TWENTY-THREE
A helicopter waits for us in the hotel parking lot. It is not an ordinary helicopter. I have seen its like before, when Joel and I were fleeing the U.S. military over the Nevada desert. It is an Apache helicopter, one of the most deadly flying machines on earth. It comes equipped with duel Gatling guns and has a rocket launcher capable of firing shells large enough to blow up a tank, and missiles that can destroy a large house. As Matt helps me into the front seat—I’ll have to get used to his real name—I ask where he got the Apache.
“On eBay.”
“Seriously.”
“You’d be surprised at the toys my dad collected.”
It warms my heart to hear Yaksha referred to as Dad, but I’m still jealous of Umara. She got to have his child and I didn’t, because—except for a short time when I was human again—I’m barren, like all female vampires.
Matt sits in the rear, the pilot’s seat, which is elevated slightly above the forward cockpit. Jammed around me are the weapon controls. I study them as we lift into the air and circle a mountain peak before we leave Arosa behind. He appears to be an experienced pilot. It’s midnight, but the moon is bright, and I catch Matt giving it a worried look.
“Does Haru know we’re airborne?” I ask.
“He will soon.”
“What will he do?”
“Try to have us shot down before we reach the airport.”
“Is that our destination? Do you have a jet waiting?”
“I have a very fast jet waiting, but our destination is flexible. It all depends on how fast the Source reacts.” He pauses. “I should never have let Haru escape.”
“He fled using a secret tunnel.”
“I know about the tunnel. I could have blocked it, but . . .” He doesn’t finish—he doesn’t have to. He had to make a choice between saving me or killing Haru, and he made his choice.
“How long have they considered you dead?” I ask.
“Shanti told us you read the book. Three hundred years.”
“The book said you were dead.”
“Well, that’s what Yaksha wanted the Telar to think.”
“Is Umara alive as well?”
He hesitates. “Yes. But I haven’t seen her in ages.”
“Staying apart doubles our chances that one of us will survive.” He glances over. “How’s your head?”
“Healing. Slowly. That Pulse is awful.”
“I know.”
His answer surprises me. “They had it three hundred years ago?”
“They had a version of it. It was bad enough.” He pauses. “Did you break?”
“I came close.”
“I’m impressed. So Paula and John are safe for the time being.”
“How do you know about them?”
“Seymour told me. Yesterday.”
“You told him who you were?”
“He figured it out.”
“How?”
“He said he saw clues in the book. The guy’s a genius. Right now, Seymour and Shanti are with Teri. They’re in Colorado.”
“What’s in Colorado?”
“A safe house.”
“How safe is safe?”
“It’s practically a fortress.”
“Good. Where’s Lisa?”
“She’s still in Missouri.”
“That’s bad.”
Matt swings around another peak, staying near the tree line, probably trying to evade radar. He flies at full throttle, over two hundred miles an hour.
“There’s an abridged learner’s manual on the computer on your right,” he says. “Study it, learn the basics of how to fire the Apache’s weapons.”
“I have a good idea by looking at the controls.”
“Still, use the program. I wrote it for you.”
“You planned my rescue carefully.”
“Sure. Run in, kill everyone, and run out.”
“No, seriously, I want to thank you, Matt. Strapped to that chair with all those wires in my brain, being tortured by that egomaniac, I thought it was over, finally. I couldn’t see any way out.”
“You no longer felt protected by Krishna’s grace?”
“Actually, I thought I would be talking to him soon.” I pause. “I am grateful. I owe you one. I owe you everything.”
Matt is silent a long time. “The last time my father and I spoke, he told me to protect you,” he says.
“That’s funny. He went to Oregon to kill me.”
“He was never going to kill you.”
“But he made a vow to Krishna. . . . He almost killed me.”
Matt shakes his head. “He loved you too much. He could never have hurt you.”
“I wish he had told me about you.”
“He had his reasons.”
“But I was with him when he died,” I say, feeling sad.
Matt appears to sense my mood. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Did you read Seymour’s books?”
“He just shared them with me in the last few days.”
“Then you know what happened.”
“It sounded like he was at peace at the end.”
“He was. He was radiant. He was convinced he was going back to Krishna.” I pause. “You know, I have a million questions for you.”
“I can imagine.”
“Why did you seek out Teri?”
“To find you. My father had told me you were fond of spying on your descendants, and that you occasionally made contact with them.”
“Why were you looking for me?”
“I was curious. Growing up, I had heard so much about you. At least when my mother was not around. You were not a favorite topic with her.”
“You had to have been driven by more than curiosity.”
“True. We’re not all that different, Sita.”
He’s saying he was lonely, like me.
But for some reason, the sentiment stirs a faint doubt inside me.
“Did you plan on falling in love with Teri?” I ask.
“It was the last thing I wanted.”
“How did you find her?”
“My father had records of your descendants. He shared them with me. But I can promise you the Telar never saw them. If they had, they would have found you much sooner.”
“How did they find me?”
“I assume they got a lead on you when Lisa, her boyfriend, and her ex hacked into IIC’s computers. Once Lisa and Jeff went looking for you, the Telar were not far behind.”
“The first Telar to attack me showed up the same day as Lisa.”
“That’s interesting.”
“It was the same night I met you.”
“The Telar were not spying on me. I would have known.”
“How?”
“I would have been dead.”
“But you have to admit it’s a curious coincidence.”
“Not at all. Lisa and Jeff were not professional investigators. The Telar have been following everyone who works at IIC’s Malibu office. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Telar bugged Lisa’s apartment. Once Lisa heard about you from her ex, it couldn’t have been long before the Telar also knew about you.”
“Why are the Telar so interested in IIC?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Indulge me.”
“The Telar have run the world for the last ten thousand years. Now suddenly there’s a new player in town—that no one knows about—who’s steadily taking control of every major company in the world.” He pauses. “You know this. What are you really asking?”
“IIC’s power is based on money.”
“Their money is secondary. IIC’s strength is based on the Array. And you know that.” He stops. “Wait a second! You’re testing me!”
“I’m sorry.”
“Here you sounded so grateful a minute ago. Jesus.”
“Matt . . . Do you mind if I call you Matt?”
He grumbles. “Matt is fine.”
“Did you see the movie Marathon Man?”
“I assume you’re referring to the part at the end when Dustin Hoffman’s character is being sadistically tortured by Lawrence Olivier’s character—a Nazi dentist. The guy keeps saying to Dustin, ‘Is it safe?’ But Dustin doesn’t crack under the torture, because he doesn’t know what the hell the question means.”
“The part I was referring to comes right after that.”
“I know. I was getting to it. Then Dustin appears to be rescued by a friend. He’s driven around the city and asked pretty much the same questions he was asked while being tortured. But it’s all a charade to win Dustin’s confidence. His friend is really working with the Nazi, and when he’s done with Dustin, he drives him right back to the German.”
“It was an interesting movie.”
“Do you honestly think I killed all those Telar, and rescued you, just so you would break down and tell me your secrets?”
“It’s an interesting theory.”
Matt is annoyed. “What a bitch. You don’t trust me.”
“Did Seymour tell you where Paula and John are?”
“No. I suppose he doesn’t trust me, either.”
“What did Krishna mean when he told Yaksha the story of the Hydra?”
“No idea. I never heard of the story until yesterday when Seymour shared parts of the book with me.”
“Your father never showed you the book?”
“I saw him working on it, but he never let me read it.”
“That’s convenient.”
“It’s the truth. Can’t you hear the truth when it’s spoken?”
“From your mouth? Gimme a break. You’re a Telar-vampire hybrid. You probably have powers I can’t imagine. There’s got to be a reason the Telar are so afraid of their . . . Abomination.”
“I never much cared for that name.”
“You’re not doing a very good job of defending yourself.”
“Defending myself from what?”
“That you’re a spy who’s working for the Telar. Everything that’s happening right now could be a charade.”
“Tell that to the dead I left behind. By the way, besides Dakor, some of those people used to be close friends.”
“You sacrificed them to save me.”
“No, they faked their deaths. They lasered open their guts and burned their organs and sliced off their limbs just to make it look real.” Matt snorts. “I don’t know what my dad saw in you.”
That makes me laugh. “Look, Matt, I’m ninety-nine percent certain you’re telling me the truth. Actually, I think the main reason I’m taunting you is because you faked me out for so long. I feel embarrassed. I’m not used to having someone put something so big over on me.”
Matt stews for a while. “I’m not going to try to get rid of your last one percent of doubt. Frankly, I don’t give a damn about it. It’s your problem.”
“A little doubt can be a good thing. It’s kept me alive a long time.”
We swing around another mountain peak, and a wide lake stretches out beneath us, shining white under the blazing moon. Matt warns me to hang on and dives toward the water. He races the helicopter less than five feet over the surface, our four-bladed propellers kicking up a cool mist and a dull roar.
I study the weapons’ control program.
We don’t speak for fifteen minutes.
“Do you still think we’re being followed?” I finally ask.
“Haru hates to be embarrassed. He’ll do whatever it takes to stop us. But we have one big advantage—we surprised them. Still, we have a narrow window in which to escape.”
“You sound so convincing.”
“Would you stop that!”
“As soon as you prove you’re not a spy.”
He reaches forward and tugs on my earlobe. “I’m stronger and faster than you. If I wanted, I could break your neck before you could blink.”
I remember the carnage back at the hotel.
“I believe you,” I say.
“Not that I don’t think you have a lovely neck.”
“Ha! You’ve been lusting after me since the night we met.”
“I’d say the reverse is closer to the truth. Remember, I knew what you were. You had no idea who I was.”
“How were you able to disguise yourself so well?”
“I have precise control over my bodily functions. It’s easy for me to breathe like a human being. The same with my heart. Whenever we were together, I caused it to beat like a normal person’s.”
“Yaksha must have told you about Krishna.”
“Sure. Krishna meant everything to him.”
“Then why didn’t he tell you what the Hydra story meant?”
“You really think that story explains the Telar’s weakness?”
“Yes,” I say.
“My dad’s book doesn’t say what it meant?”
“It drops hints. Krishna liked to operate that way. The Bhagavad Gita is like one long hint on how to find God. Krishna seldom came out and said anything clearly.”
“Perhaps my father meant to tell me the big secret. After he saw you.”
“I told you, his visit was no social call. He came to kill me, and then he planned to die.”
Matt shrugs. “Believe what you want. The fact you’re alive proves my point. He said good-bye to me, but it didn’t sound final. I think he planned to see me again. At least once more. I know that he wanted to say good-bye to Umara before he died.”
“Did he get to see her?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You must miss her a great deal.”
“I miss both of them.” He pauses. “Being with Teri has helped.”
“You got angry at me at the trials and the Olympics because you knew I gave her vampire blood.”
“Of course. My father warned me that you were reckless, but I had no idea. Your blood was too strong for her. It caused her to push herself too hard. It also thrust her into the limelight, when I was trying to maintain a low profile. Why did you do it?”
“She wanted to win. It meant so much to her.”
“You didn’t use her to flush the Telar out of hiding?”
“I would never have used Teri that way.”
Matt nods. He appears to believe me. He’s only a thousand years old. He’s a youngster compared to me. He hasn’t developed my cynicism.
I’m reluctant to ask my next question.
“How did Teri react to seeing what I’d done to Numbria?”
“I convinced her that you hadn’t done anything to her. That you must have been attacked with the other woman and beaten up. Only not as badly.”
“That’s pretty weak. She believed it?”
“I made her believe it. You know what I mean.”
“I do.” He used psychic powers on her. “I’m sorry I put you in that situation.”
“It wasn’t your fault. Seymour told me how you were attacked by the Array.”
“How long have you known about it?”
“My father became aware of the IIC not long before he went to see you. His knowledge of them was sketchy, but I know he saw them as dangerous. One of the last things he said to me, when we were talking about the IIC was, ‘The Hydra returns.’”
“But Krishna said the Hydra was connected to the Telar.”
“I’m quoting Yaksha word for word.”
“That’s the most interesting thing you’ve said all night.”
“I’m glad I’m not a boring spy.”
“I’m not convinced you’re a spy.”
“You’re not convinced I’m a hero, either.”
“Trust takes time. You turned my world upside down when you walked into that torture room tonight.”
“Who were you expecting?”
“Godzilla. Kalika. I don’t know.”
“You really thought it might be your daughter?”
My throat feels tight. “I was just running through a mental list of who could be so powerful.”
“You miss Kalika. Her loss caused you to seek out Teri.”
“Now you sound like Paula.”
“The seer? I would like to meet that woman, and her son.”
“They’re well hidden. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Paula has moved since my last visit. She wasn’t overjoyed to see me.”
“Did she give you guidance?”
“Nothing I wanted to hear.”
“What’s the kid like?”
“I don’t know. He refused to see me.”
Matt is surprised. “Why?”
“I guess I’m unworthy. But he saw Seymour.”
“I figured it was John who told you to go to Arosa.”
“I was chasing down a lead. But I thought there was a chance I’d end up confronting the Telar.”
“That really worked out well.”
“The hell with you! If you had just told me who you were, you could have saved me a lot of misery.”
“You would never have gotten the book if you hadn’t gone to Arosa.”
“Yeah. But now the Telar have a copy. I can’t imagine that’s what your father wanted.”
“It’s possible they already had a copy. That they were playing you. Hoping you would give them some insight into what my father meant with certain passages.”
I shake my head, trying to clear my mind. My skull continues to ache from the Pulse. Yet I feel close to a major breakthrough. It’s not like I can fit all the pieces of the puzzle together, but at least I know which ones belong on the board. I try bouncing a few ideas off Matt.
“Do you think the Hydra and the Array are related?” I ask.
“I don’t know. The Telar sure as hell don’t have their own Array. And they seem helpless against what the IIC is able to throw at them.”
“You heard what Brutran did to Haru’s special ops?”
“Yeah. There are a few Telar who still speak to me. I heard most of them died. And the ones who lived went insane.”
“Haru told me they turned into zombies.”
Matt shook his head. “That’s horrible.”
“Let me suggest an idea you might not have considered. Krishna told Yaksha the Telar had forgotten much of what they once knew. Is it possible they had an Array in the past, but in the present they’ve lost the knowledge of how to construct one?”
“How could you forget something that important?”
“That’s what I thought at first. But you know better than I do how old the Telar are. Like any group, they must have had their ups and downs. Do we even know for sure that any of the original Telar are still alive? What did your mother tell you?”
“She said the original Telar were all dead.”
“Did they die of old age?”
“From upheavals, internal fighting, external wars. My mother is the oldest Telar alive.”
“Haru is absolutely convinced she’s dead?”
“He was. He’ll change his mind now that he’s seen me.”
It takes me a moment to absorb what he’s saying.
“I’m sorry, you really did risk everything to rescue me,” I say.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“You said it yourself, I was reckless. Rescuing me put your mother in danger again.”
“You did what you had to do. I did the same.”
There’s pain in his voice that can’t be faked.
I drop my last doubt. He’s not a spy for the Telar.
“Can you find her? Talk to her?” I ask.
“There’s a way. But I’m not ready to go down that road yet.”
We fly another fifteen minutes in silence. Clouds pour off a nearby mountain range and the moon is blocked from the sky. The dark deepens, and it seems to comfort Matt. He continues to race from one valley to the next, seldom riding high in the sky.
I continue to study the helicopter’s elaborate weapon system. Matt was wise to write me a program. The guns, cannon, and missiles all work together as an integrated whole. The system is more complex than just aiming and firing. I have to admire the men and women who train for years to master such controls.
We’re halfway to Zurich, and the airport, when an alarm sounds.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Check your C-Scan. You’ll see two jets closing in from the south.”
“Are they Telar?”
“Pretty sure.”
“They could be part of the Swiss Air Force.”
“The alarm sounded because they’ve scanned us and are attempting to get a radar lock. They’re about to fire on us. They’re Telar.”
“How much time do we have?”
“A minute. Maybe less.” He pauses. “I didn’t see them coming. They must have launched from a hidden airfield.”
“Can we fire first?”
“They’re behind us but closing fast. We’ll come into range first. It’s always easier to attack from behind.”
“Maybe we should reverse course.”
“No.”
“Why not?” I ask.
“Trust me. I have my reasons.”
“Will they try to hit us with heat-seeking Sidewinders?”
“That will be their first choice.”
“You know what to do?”
“I hope so,” Matt says.
His reason for not turning around and attacking is a small town up ahead. Our Apache is fast, but it’s no match for a jet when it comes to pure speed. The helicopter’s biggest advantage is it can stop and hover. I know what Matt’s thinking. The jets that are chasing us will lock their heat-seeking missiles onto our hot engines. He’s hoping to find an alternative heat source somewhere in the town that will confuse the weapons.
We both see the bonfire at the same time. It’s at the center of town, at a junction of two large streets. I urge Matt to hurry toward it, but he heads for the trees on the mountain behind the town.
“Why?” I cry.
“I need them to commit to their attack plan before they see how we’re going to respond.”
A much louder alarm sounds. On my C-Scan I see . . .
“They’ve launched two missiles!” he shouts.
“One was not enough?”
“Hold on!” Matt suddenly changes course, and we drop at a frightening speed toward the town. It’s a pleasant summer night, and there’s a crowd—it looks like mostly teenagers—hovering around the flames. But when they look up and see our huge rotor blades, they quickly begin to disperse. Not fast enough to please Matt, though.
“I need to scare them off with our blades,” he says.
“You need to hover in front of the fire until the missiles arrive.”
“I’m not going to blow up a bunch of innocent kids.”
“How long to impact?”
“Ten seconds.”
I take hold of the Gatling gun’s controls, and without asking Matt’s permission, I open fire at a dark and empty pastry shop a hundred feet from the fire. I hold the trigger down a second, but it’s enough to destroy the shop. The kids scream and flee from the street.
“Now get in front of that fire!” I order.
“Clever, Sita.” He lowers the Apache between the bonfire and the rapidly approaching missiles. I can see them now, streaking red meteors in the night sky. They’re coming right at us. Matt has nerves of steel. I would have veered away already, but he continues to hover in front of the fire.
The missiles swell outside our window.
They look close enough to touch.
Matt jerks the Apache to the right. For a few seconds we’re turned at a ninety-degree angle to the ground, flying sideways. The bonfire explodes in a blinding ball of red light. The shock wave hits us so hard we tumble out of control, and our blades almost scrape the ground.
I don’t know how Matt does it, but moments later we’re stable and rising swiftly. “Lock a missile onto each jet and fire.”
“Roger!” I yell, firing the missiles.
“Lock the machine guns into our radar tracking system.”
“Already locked. Ready to fire.”
“Excellent. Flyby will be in . . . three . . . two . . . one. Fire!”
Our missiles miss, and I’m not surprised. They’re heat seekers, and the jets’ engines are turned away from us and thus make poor targets. But by waiting to the last second to make an evasive move, Matt has lured the jets close to us. They fly almost directly over the main street, and as they do so I pound them with our high-speed Gatling guns. It feels great, the sensation of pure power at my fingertips.
I feel even better when both jets smash into the side of the mountain and explode. They hit above the tree line and spare the village a major fire. Indeed, they ram into a snowpack left over from the winter, and the intense heat of the explosions melts the snow and the steaming water extinguishes the flames.
No one on the ground appears hurt.
We fly away unscathed, toward Zurich.
“Still think I’m a spy for the Telar?” Matt asks casually.
“They could have been Swiss jets.”
“Swiss jets would have politely called on the radio and asked for our flight plan number. They wouldn’t have shot at us. The Swiss are civilized.”
“You should know.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m just saying you know them well. After all, the Telar have their headquarters here.”
Matt laughs. “My father lived here. That’s the only reason they lured you to Arosa. They knew you would make the Yaksha-Switzerland connection.”
“Where are their headquarters?”
“America.”
“America’s big.”
“They’re centered in Washington DC.”
“Why am I not surprised?”