CHAPTER THIRTEEN
It was many minutes in which Jessica sat beside the prep table in a numbed daze, her face flat and drained in the impossibility of what she’d witnessed on her own autopsy platform. If anything, she looked as though she’d been run over by a truck and then propped up limply in the chair, to stare incomprehensibly at the wall.
Lynn suffered a similar reaction but at least maintained her jolted astonishment enough to actually stand on her feet and talk into her cell phone.
Garrett was still on the line, and he still didn’t fully fathom what she was trying to relate to him. Lynn, on the other hand, couldn’t fathom how she would relate it to him without sounding completely and utterly insane.
“What, Lynn?” Garrett insisted over the line. “What’s the problem?”
Lynn unconsciously pressed the phone to her ear to the point of discomfort. “The arm, Harlan—the forearm bone. It…regenerated.”
“What?” Garrett barked.
“It regenerated, and it’s—shit, I don’t know how to say this…”
`”Just say it!”
“It regenerated, and it’s still alive.”
The following pause was so long that Lynn feared the connection may have terminated. “Harlan?” she asked. “Harlan, are you there?”
Eventually his familiar voice returned. “What are you talking about? It was a bone recovered from a crash site. It was charred black by fire. Lynn, it can’t still be alive! It’s been a dead, dried up bone since 19-fucking-62, and it’s been wrapped up in a plastic bag since then! Any cellular material that might have remained on the forearm after the crash was burned off by the fire! “
Lynn understood Garrett’s inability to fully perceive the situation. Nevertheless, out of her own self-doubt, she glanced back over to the autopsy table to take one more look at the “post subject.”
In only the handful of minutes since Jessica had tried to cut it with the laser, the “bone” had not only grown skin and a veil of underlying muscle fiber, it had since then fattened with more flesh. Tendons and muscle fibers had grown considerably more prominent beneath the shiny, pale-pink skin.
“Did you hear me, Lynn?” Garrett continued to prod over the line. “It can’t still be alive!”
When he’d said this, Lynn was looking squarely at the bizarre multi-jointed two-fingered hand which extended from the wrist.
The fingers were clenching, extending, freely opening and closing right there on the exam table.
“Yes, Harlan,” she told him. “Yes, it can…”
««—��»
Regenerated. Still alive.
Impossible, was Garrett’s first reaction, but then that was the basic reaction, the expected one. A reaction born of the same linear-thinking, methodized, objectified, and utterly demythologized modern society that Garrett often felt he existed to rebel against. His life’s work was focused, in fact, on the exact opposite of the social machinery that spurred him to reject Lynn’s claims as “impossible.” Garrett believed for the life of him a great many things that most people would condemn as impossible, and he’d seen impossible things.
Nothing’s impossible, he remembered after a few self-reflecting moments. He couldn’t let himself fall into the same sensibility that blinded the world. Just because I don’t understand something…that doesn’t mean it can’t be.
There was no reason for Lynn to lie, was there? And Garrett knew her, had loved her and lived with her and been married to her. The distress—the sheer and total astonishment—in her voice had been real. Garrett didn’t doubt it for one second.
Something happened at the morgue that I don’t understand. He calmed himself with the open logic which now forged all of his most passionate endeavors. He believed most fervently that science could explain everything, but he also believed that there were many aspects of science that he and rest of humanity could not yet comprehend and that some of those aspects, in spite of the magnitude of the human mind’s complexity, would simply never be understood.
That was what Garrett believed. That was the creed by which he lived, and that was the reason he’d rejected so many “normal” opportunities to instead live like a pauper and be laughed at, ridiculed, and stripped of all credibility by nearly everyone he ever met.
Dead bones didn’t come back to life—but dead alien bones?
That was all Garrett needed to get his act back in gear. In the senseless minutes that had just ticked by, everything made sense again.
He chain-smoked, squinting at the base’s black and white street signs as full-dark descended into the sky. A fuckin’ map might be a little help, he complained to himself. He hadn’t realized the Edgewood Arsenal was so vast, with so many different quadrants. There were administrative areas, maintenance areas, training and supply areas—all which existed to support the post’s one and only function: to properly and securely store weapons and explosives that the Army needed to keep in its inventory. Right now, however, Garrett slowly cruised this sleek, shiny Buick through the base’s residential section.
Jesus, this place is like a rat’s maze, he thought, and flicked another butt out the window.
The base phone book, of course, had been of no use: anyone with a high-grade security clearance on this base wouldn’t be listed; in some cases, even their names were classified. So when he’d left the visitor’s billets, and changing from his blood-speckled shirt to a clean one, Garrett had driven straight to the post’s personnel office and, after having identified himself as Special Agent Richard Odenton, had been given the domiciliary address of Warrant Officer Kenneth Ubel, whose undiscovered body, Garrett knew, remained off in the woods still wearing Garrett’s fine Joseph Abboud Ltd. suit jacket. “I just need to talk to him real quick about a classified matter,” Garrett had explained, badge and ID wallet in hand. “Major Shaw at the ASA office knows about it. Feel free to call him for verification.” The sergeant at the duty desk hadn’t bothered, and had quickly given Garrett exactly what he needed: Ubel’s barracks address.
Area November, he remembered what Ubel had told him. Depot 12. Ubel’s heart had been blown out before he’d had time to relate the actual directions, but Garrett also remembered what else he’d been told: “I’ve got the directions and the lock combinations stashed back at my barracks…”
The term “barracks,” though, in the modern Armed Forces, had stuck in spite of its antiquation. Garrett pictured 1950’s-type Quonset huts, from which G.I.s would rush at morning roll call to trample into formation. What he found instead were rows of buildings that more resembled clean, modest condos—officers’ quarters. Garrett wished his own place was so nice.
It’s gotta be around here somewhere, he reasoned, still squinting. He’d found the right road but still had to idle down to the right building. For a moment, he stopped on the dark, paved road, pulled out the piece of scrap paper on which he’d scribbled down Ubel’s address: General Maxwell Taylor Avenue, Building 4128, Unit 313.
There it is! Garrett rejoiced, slowing up at the three-story building marked 4128. He pulled over to the curb and got out of the car.
It’s in there somewhere, he thought, meaning the directions to the crucial location Ubel had referenced. He gazed up at the sedate apartment building identical to every other building along the street. Area November, Depot 12.
The end of the secret, or at least one step closer to it. After he secured the location of the whatever this Depot 12 was, he still had to find Danny Vander and make sure he got there too, and along with all of that, there was still a rising flux of complications: the ADM and its proper assembly, the timing mechanism, and just getting the damn thing and all its three hundred pounds transported to the site.
Just take it a step at a time, Garrett reminded himself, against the mudslide of details.
And there was always Sanders to worry about. Garrett didn’t even want to think about how to deal with that…
The street stood quiet, distant crickets trilling, and the air was cooling down. Softly lit windows glowed in the identical Army prefab apartment buildings before him. He tried to appear as normal as possible as he approached Building 4128, entered the side stairwell, and hiked up to the third floor. Halfway down the corridor, he found Room 313, Ubel’s room.
I guess I don’t need to knock, Garrett thought in the poorest taste. He didn’t waste time testing the doorknob to see if it might be unlocked; Ubel, given his post and occupational specialty that required a highly compartmentalized security clearance, wasn’t the kind of guy to forget to lock his front door when he left his apartment.
No big deal.
Garrett didn’t have the key, of course, but he had something better: his set of HPC lock-picks and assorted tension wrenches. If there was one thing he’d learned during the course of his eccentric profession it was the quick and effective circumvention of the inconvenience of locks. For years he’d studied the brands, the model numbers, function types and pin-configurations. It was second nature now, and at the very least, Garrett was one of a very low number of people who didn’t have conniptions when he locked his keys in his car.
A certain tactic of appearances was involved. You walk up like you owned the placed, all the while, as you approached the door in question, you scrutinized the lock for its make and model. Garrett did exactly that as he approached the door to #313, his mind already working out the details: Shlage, Primus model 1116 from the ‘82-’88 series. Upper deadbolts were almost always the same pin-configuration as the lock on the knob. Left-side locks generally worked clockwise, right-side counter clockwise. The flange set told him both locks were top pin-sets. Eleven pins in each set, he assessed.
He made these calculations in a matter of seconds, as he was walking toward the door. The worst thing to do was react if anyone else stepped into the hall: a man with lock-picks looked the same as a man with a key if he held the pick and tension wrench properly. Just walk up and do it, like it’s your own apartment…
Without having to look at the lock-pick wallet, Garrett’s fingers slipped out his #4 “hook” and a 6-millimeter tension wrench. He applied both into the keyway heavier deadbolt, gently raked with pins with an upward stroke while simultaneously holding the pins in place with the wrench, exerting just the right amount of pressure with his thumb.
Come on, you—
But before he could finish the thought, the bolt slid open after only one stroke against the pins.
The lock on the door knob opened just as easily. Garrett had managed to tease open both locks in the same amount of time as it would have taken with the actual key.
Tell me I’m not good, he congratulated himself. But—
Something flagged his senses, and then he sniffed and knew something wasn’t right. Then, when his fingers closed around the brass-plated knob—
Warm, he noticed at once.
The metal doorknob felt unduly warm, almost hot to the touch.
He didn’t need to open the door to verify his suspicions, but he did anyway. He twisted the knob and pushed, and when the door swung slowly open, he was looking into a room walled by sheets of flame. A billow of black smoke rolled out, and the scene within was strangely silent. No crackling, hissing of gasses evaporating out of the sheet-rock. He stood in a momentary shock, surveying the room made of traceries of flame. The scene was almost delicate somehow, almost beauteous.
Fuckin’-A! he thought, and turned and ran.
“Fire! Fire!” he yelled as his feet rocketed him down the hall and toward the stairs. The act of arson, clearly set by Sanders, had obviously been set very recently, and Garrett, even in his panic, was adept enough to give that some thought. Careening around the metal banister in the exit stairwell, he yanked the red fire alarm, and then tramped down the stairs. Seconds later, he was out of the building.
The alarm bell grated into the formerly quiet night. Residents began to wander out of all the surrounding buildings, and from Ubel’s building, residents poured.
Thank freakin’ God, Garrett thought. When he’d discovered the fire, and pulled the alarm, it looked like he’d done it in time for everyone to get out. Sanders must have set it very recently, maybe only minutes ago, he considered. He could hear the sirens from several fire trucks as he was getting back into the Buick, driving away.
Yeah, he thought, his tires squealing. Sanders must’ve known I was coming here. It’s almost like he was waiting for me, waiting till I got here before he set the blaze, probably with some remote-controlled pyrotechnic device.
But why?
If he knew I was coming to Ubel’s, why didn’t he stake the place out and just kill me? Or—
Garrett’s eyes widened as he accelerated away from the apartments.
—he needs me alive.
Two fire trucks screamed by in the opposite direction.
Sanders must not know where Depot 12 is, and he thinks I do.
This was not an exuberant realization. Garrett didn’t know where the hidden depot was either…but a trained assassin thought he did.
Garrett errantly lit a cigarette, every gear of his mind running full-tilt.
If Sanders knew I was going to Ubel’s apartment…he’s gotta also know where I’m going next…
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Are you all right?” Lynn asked.
Jessica looked up numbly from the seat she’d remained in for quite a while since the…forearm bone had…regenerated… She squinted at Lynn. “Are you?”
“Fuck no,” Lynn replied in some very out of character profanity. But if any occasion warranted indecorous language, it had to be this occasion. The two women, both Garrett’s ex-lovers, sipped hot coffee and stared speechless for extended snatches of time. But neither of them dared to let a glance drift over to the top of the shining stainless steel examination table…where it still writhed.
“I actually feel bad now,” Lynn muttered, leaning against the counter which housed an autoclave, a hi/lo baumanometer set, and a Ritter 800V automatic-cycle sterilizer. She barely felt the near-scalding coffee in her mouth.
“Feel bad about what?” Jessica muttered back.
“You know. For the whole time we were married I give him a hard time every damn day about the things he believed in. I called him a crackpot and a nut and a tabloid weirdo with no connection to reality.”
“Me too.”
“And look where it all ends—”
“A fuckin’ alien arm on my morgue slab, regrowing skin before our eyes,” Jessica admitted. “I never would’ve believed it in a trillion years.”
“Me either.” Lynn wished she could pinch herself, or prick her skin with a safety pin, and simply wake up to discover it was all a macabre dream, and she almost expected that: to wake up in her own bed, in a world with no evidence whatsoever of extraterrestrial visitations.
But she’d been here for hours now. She hadn’t woken up, and she wouldn’t.
This is real…
“What the hell are we gonna do now?” Jessica asked.
“Good question, and I sure as hell don’t know the answer,” Lynn admitted. “But there’s no point in hanging around here all night.”
“Yeah…so…”
Where do we go now? Lynn finished the obvious next question. Where do we go with…an alien arm? So she voiced the only fair suggestion: “Your place or mine?”
Jessica made a face. “You know, I really don’t want that thing in my apartment. I mean, Christ, I’d have to put it in the damn refrigerator. You want something like that in your fridge?”
Lynn winced; it didn’t take her long to get the point. She simply could not envision herself opening the door of her shiny white Kenmore and seeing a two-fingered extraterrestrial forearm stuck in between the Sunny Delight and the Fat Free Kraft Miracle Whip.
Not in my fridge, no way.
“Hey, wait a minute,” Jessica perked up. “Why don’t we go to—”
But Lynn had gotten the idea at the same time. She grinned. “Harlan’s apartment—excellent. Come on.”
Jessica stood up, then paused. She and Lynn stared at each other through a shared sub-verbal dread.
“I know,” Lynn admitted. “One of us is actually going to have to pick that thing up and put it back in the bag.”
Then they both glanced back at the morgue table. The arm’s runneled, veiny pink skin glistened harshly under the exam lights.
“I think you should do it,” Jessica spoke up. “After all, you used to be Harlan’s wife.”
Lynn gaped. You’re ballsy little tramp, aren’t you? “What’s that got to do with anything?” she wasted no time in objecting.
“Well…”
“Besides, you’re the medical examiner��”
“Assistant medical examiner,” Jessica corrected.
“Fine. Assistant medical examiner. “Which makes you a thousand times more qualified than me to…relocate…post mortal…evidence.”
“My ass!”
Jesus, Lynn thought. “All right, we’ll do this the fair way, okay?” She plucked a quarter out of her purse.
“Fair enough,” Jessica groan her consent.
“Call it—”
“Heads!”
Lynn watched the silver coin twirl up, then down, clinking to the floor. It spun there for a moment as both Lynn and Jessica urgently leaned over, squinting.
The quarter fell over, head-side up.
Fuck! Lynn thought.
Jessica released a relieving sigh. “Like I said, fair enough.”
I’m am REALLY beginning to dislike her. Lynn bit the loser’s bullet, turned, faced the table. And there it was, lying before her.
The arm.
Lynn could hear her teeth slowly grinding as she stepped forward, her eyes narrowed to squinting slits. She reached out, as if to grab a bag of stinky, leaking garbage, and very slowly, she lowered her hand to the table and—
YUCK!
—let her fingers close around the arm, at about the midpoint.
It felt like raw chicken skin wrapped around a broom handle. It felt…squishy, warm, and in even more distaste, she could feel the veins—fat as earthworms—beneath the welt-pink skin. Then—
“Oh my God!” Lynn squealed.
“What?”
Lynn, her own arm fully extended, was staring at the queer, two-fingered hand. “The fingers are moving!”
“No way! That’s impossible!” Jessica insisted.
“Yeah, and it’s impossible for a bone that’s been sitting in a fucking briefcase for thirty years to grow skin, but this thing did it!”
“Yeah, but that’s a lot more explainable, Lynn. Something caused some minor cellular regrowth of the skin, probably just some genetic regenerative effect. But there’s no way the fingers can move because that kind of movement requires a synaptic command from the brain. And there’s no brain.”
Infuriated, Lynn turned and shook the arm at Jessica. “Yeah?”
Jessica’s face twisted up in disgust when she looked more closely. The two long, multi-jointed fingers—no thicker than a pencil—began to minutely move.
“Gross,” Jessica acknowledged. “But it’s probably reflexive death-response. It happens here i the morgue all the time. Decaying nerves can cause the digits to move slightly. I guarantee you, the skin growing back on that thing is just an autonomic fluke. A couple of hours now, it’ll be dead again. So come on, put the damn thing back in the bag and let’s get out of here.”
But before Lynn could do that…the two fingers began to flex rapidly back and forth.
Lynn and Jessica screamed simultaneously, then Lynn dropped the arm, where it slapped to the floor.
“Jesus Christ!” Jessica blared, jerking back.
They both looked down in shock, staring at the arm on the floor.
No, Lynn thought. No way in hell…
The index finger continued to move, extending, lowering, and pulling back. The finger, in other words, was dragging the arm across the floor, several inches per motion. At this rate, the arm might be able to traverse the floor in a matter of minutes.
Lynn sighed after the initial shock. She watched the arm move for a few more seconds, then frowned back to Jessica. “That doesn’t look like any fucking reflexive death-response to me.”
««—»»
The neighborhood itself didn’t appear “military” at all. It was not regimented, nor uniform. Instead, it looked like typical middle-class suburbia in Anywhere, U.S.A.
But Garrett doubted that he looked as typical himself, not with scuffed shoes and a long tear in his expensive slacks, his suit jacket long gone since it had served as Ubel’s shroud. He kept Lynn’s pistol stuffed in the back of his belt.
I’m not scared, he suddenly realized. I should be scared, shouldn’t I? Sanders was out there somewhere; he predicted correctly that Garrett would go to Ubel’s, so it wasn’t a brain-storm to predict he’d be coming here too. At least Garrett had had the presence of mind not to drive up to the house: a sniper would be expecting that first and foremost. That’s why Garrett had parked, not several houses away but several blocks away. It was far more tactical to walk in, far less chance of being seen.
He was lucky at least in that the street-lights were widely spaced, which left him with ample shadows to use for make-shift cover. And when he got to the back of the proper block, he chanced it, and cut through someone’s back yard, keeping his fingers crossed that no dogs—or people—would spot him. He crept as quietly as he could, half-feeling his way through the darkened yard, wary of things to trip over. At one point, though, he nearly screamed when a raccoon scuttled across his path, looking up with faint orange glints. In the distance he could still hear the sirens of fire trucks responding to the Sanders’ handiwork at Ubel’s apartment building. Garrett prayed that no one had burned up and that it hadn’t spread to other buildings.
But Garrett himself had been smoked out—that was for sure.
That’s what had him worried.
In a minute, the rear of the house in question emerged into view; he could see lights on in the windows. The back sliding doors were closed but the floor-length drapes still drawn open. Good, they’re not in bed. Garrett got down on one knee, hunkered behind the picket fence which outlined the back yard. He kept his eyes on the sliding doors, vigilant for movement.
He checked his watch—ten p.m. now. He continued to watch for signs of life for the next ten minutes, but none were forthcoming.
Shit. Maybe he’s been here already. Maybe he’s killed everyone.
This was a reasonable speculation, considering Sanders’ previous moves. And even if the assassin had killed everyone inside, even though the bulk of his mission would be completed, there was still one more person he had to take down.
Me, Garrett knew.
Sanders was probably not given to leaving loose ends.
Now Garrett realized only two bare choices. He could stalk up to the windows and peep in, visually scan the interior of the first floor—but if he did that, and a neighbor saw him and called the MPs?
I’d never be able to talk my way out of it, he realized. Phony ID or not. I’d be in the stockade and that would be that.
The second choice?
Walk up to the front door and knock.
He fidgeted, his knee dampening in the grass. Fuck it, he resolved. Just grow a pair and do it.
He got up and immediately walked around to the front of the house. If no one answered the door, he’d need his picks again, but he hoped he was just being paranoid. I’d say I’ve got reason being paranoid. A hit man tried to kill me today. Garrett figured that if he was wrong, his life might easily end right now. Sanders would have already established a secluded firing position, probably some huge long-range infrared or Starlight scope. He’d just be waiting for me, invisible, up in some tree half a mile away, Garrett knew with a growing dread in his belly. Knowing I’ll be coming to this house. All he’s gotta do is sit there and wait for me to walk right up to the front door…
Garrett walked right up to the front door. He even stood there for a protracted moment under the bright porch light, waiting for the rifle slug.
It never came.
Okay, let’s do this.
He already knew this was the right house from the base residential map he got at the admin center, but a glance over the mailbox reassured him:
GEN. ANTHONY VANDER
I was wrong about the house being staked, Garrett thought. Now it’s time to see if I’m wrong about everything else.
His finger pressed the door buzzer, and suddenly he felt sure: They’re dead. Sanders has already been here and killed everyone…
Then the door opened, rather abruptly, and Garrett was being scowled at by a tall, testy man in Army dress slacks and a summer-weight shirt pulled out. General stars on the shirt’s epaulets.
It was a good thing looks couldn’t kill.
“Who the hell are you are? What do you want? What are you doing ringing my bell at this hour?”
Jesus. “General Vander,” Garrett bumbled, whipping out his phony ID case. “I’m sorry to disturb you at this hour but I’m here on a very urgent matter. I’m Special Agent Richard Odenton with the F.B.I. and—”
“Bullshit!” the general barked back. “The F.B.I.’s got no business on a military reservation! I’m calling the MPs!”
Shit! “Please, sir, wait!” Garrett blabbered, just as the door slammed in his face. “Your son’s life is in grave danger!” he shouted.
Garrett’s shout echoed down the street. After a moment’s pause…the door clicked back open and Garrett was re-faced by a very solemn General Vander.
“My son?” the man said. “Why on earth would—”
“I know it sounds incredible, sir, but it’s true. A former Army field operative named John Sanders is under orders to kill Danny—and me too—and he’s out there, somewhere, right now. Sir, you’ve got to let me in, let me explain. If you call your security people on me, then they’ll toss me in the base jail, and then it’ll be too late. Sanders is coming for Danny tonight, and he’ll kill anyone who gets in his way, including you and your wife.”
Vander’s eyes leveled on Garrett. “Come inside.”
I’m in, Garrett realized, not quite believing it. But that was the easy part, now that he thought about it. Everything had happened so fast, every consequence compounding. Now Garrett was standing right in the middle of his “plan,” and he didn’t have a clue as to what to do next.
It’s sink or swim time, he reminded himself. You better be right.
“I don’t know what any of this is about,” Vander said sternly, closing the front. “I’ll give you five minutes to explain, and if you can’t do that to my satisfaction, then your ass is in my stockade door—”
But Vander’s words stopped as if guillotined, because after he’d closed the door and turned back around—
Garrett was pointing his gun in Vander’s face.
“I should’ve known this was bullshit,” the general said.
“Yeah?” Garrett countered. “You? The king of bullshit?” Now it was time to play his card. “I know damn well you’re not General Anthony Vander. You’re John Sanders, a government murderer. Oh, and nice shooting in the woods today. You killed the wrong guy, didn’t you, Mr. Big Bad Sniper?”
“You’re absolutely out of your mind! I’m the commanding officer of this post!”
“Oh, really? Then who’s the S-2 of the intelligence battalion?”
“Which one? The 2/37th or the 1/81st, you asshole!”
Garrett paused, chewed his lip in a sinking dread. “The psychiatrist that Danny’s been seeing—what’s his name?”
“Captain William Harolds,” the man snapped, then added, “you asshole! I’m General Anthony Vander, not this-this Sanders! Now put that gun down before you get yourself into even more trouble!”
Hmm, Garrett thought. This could be looking better. “But, of course, you would’ve seen the same files I have, including the initial abduction report that was processed by NSA after Danny began undergoing therapy. So you would already know Harolds’ name.”
“Drop that gun right now! You don’t know what you’re doing! You’re making an idiot of yourself!”
You know…maybe he’s right. But, still, Garrett remained convinced. “Sanders doesn’t know where the depot is—if he did, he would’ve killed me from a remote location when I was walking up to the front door. When that didn’t happen—that’s when I knew he’d—or I should say you—would have no other option but to masquerade as General Vander. Your personnel photo has long been officially deleted, so you knew there was no way I could know what you look like.”
“You’re a nut. You’re some halfwit pinko terrorist or one of those militia morons, thinks kidnaping a general is an act of protest.” Vander stared back with a look of granite. “Well then I guess you’re just going to have to shoot me, because right now I’m calling the base MPs.”
This, Garrett knew, was the last straw. If he calls them, he wondered, what should I do? Shit in my pants and run away, or just turn myself in?
Garrett looked straight back at the man. “Go ahead, General. Give ’em a buzz. Shit, I’ll bet they’d be out here in less than a minute.” Garrett noticed a phone on a stand by the stairs. He depressed the intercom button and stepped back, keeping the gun trained. “Call the MPs. Right now. Tell them you’ve got a halfwit pinko terrorist in your house pointing a gun in your face.”
Silence. Then—
“Goddamn you, Garret,” Sander muttered.
Garrett felt instantly showered by relief. Looks like God’s still on my side. He nudged the gun forward. “Hands in the air. I mean it.”
“Listen, you don’t realize the—”
BAM!
Garrett squeezed off one round over Sander’s head. A hole socked into the ceiling, and a puff of white dust descended.
“Hands in the air,” Garrett repeated. “I’m not fucking round here. I’ll kill you. And if you even take one step toward me and try to pull some fancy Army disarm—I’ll kill you.”
“I don’t think you have the guts to kill, Garrett. You’re just a no-account writer with a bunch of ideals…but when it comes times to actually fight for what you believe…you go yellow. You don’t have the belly to kill anyone.”
Garrett was no crack shot; he knew that. So he lowered his bead from Sanders’ face to his heart, the wider vital target area.
“But,” Sanders interrupted, “I’ll accommodate you. After all, you were smart enough to pick my next move.”
“You’re fucking-A right.”
Sanders raised his hands.
“Good boy, good killer,” Garrett said. “Now turn around, grab the wall, and spread ’em. If you even blink, you get a nine-millimeter enema.”
Again, Sanders, obliged. Garrett jammed the gun to the small of Sanders’ back and immediately noticed the small weapon printing in the back pocket. He snatched it out, put it in his own pocket, then quickly patted the man down and found no other weapons.
“All right, turn back around. And start talking. Was I right about Ubel?”
“Yeah,” Sanders admitted through his decidedly normal looking face. If anything, he didn’t look like an assassin. “Earlier, in the woods, you were my intended target.”
“Your contract has me on it, right?”
“Oh, yes. I needed you dead and out of the way so I could take that punk Ubel alive. I needed him alive.”
“Don’t blame me,” Garrett chided. “You’re the one who’s the lousy shot. Christ, I thought you were good.”
Sanders, in spite of his predicament, seemed almost offended. “I’m probably one of top five covert snipers in the world.”
Garrett laughed. “Yeah? Well today you couldn’t hit an elephant’s ass with
with a bass fiddle, could you?”
“You moved, for your goddamn cigarettes.”
“Even bad guys have bad days, huh?” Speaking of cigarettes, I could sure as hell use one right now. “Whoever your bosses are, I hope they’re not paying you than minimum wage because, buddy, you suck. Talk about fucking up a wet job. Not only do you miss your target, you kill the only guy on the post who knows where the depot is. Get a job Jack In The Box, man. It’s hard to fuck up flipping a burger. Hey, how about a large order of those curly fries?”
Sanders glared at him.
“Oh, sure, you could’ve taken the chance that Danny would have some previous knowledge of the depot’s whereabouts, but that would’ve been a big chance, wouldn’t it? The aliens have been trance-channeling into his mind at will. But they’d be stupid to give him that information until the very last minute. So I was your only hope, right?”
“Right,” Sanders admitted.
“You knew I’d go back to Ubel’s apartment for any sensitive information he might have had there, so instead of waiting for me there and killing me, you burn the place down, essentially flushing me out to the last place I had to go. Here.”
“Right again…”
“And you were betting that Ubel had told me where Area November was before your lousy marksmanship blew his heart out,” Garrett rambled on. He’d come this far, against considerable odds. He at least deserved to know that he was right. “But you wanna know something, chief? He didn’t. I don’t know where the fuckin’ place is, either. The only one who’ll know is Danny—” Garrett took a half second peek at his watch—”in a couple of hours. And you know what else I’m betting on? I’m betting that you haven’t killed him yet. If you killed him, sure, you’d screw up everything that’ supposed to happen tonight. But you want more than that, don’t you?”
Sanders sighed, uncomfortable now from holding his hands up for so long. “I have to recover the Area November material too.”
“Then you’d kill the kid, after he took you there.”
“Come on, I’d never kill a kid, for God’s sake.”
“Yeah, and John Holmes never got laid. Gimme a break. You’re caught, you’re caput. Why bother lying now?”
“The kid’s upstairs,” Sanders informed. “He’s all right. I didn’t hurt him, I just gagged him and cuffed his hand to his bed-frame.”
“But what about General Vander and his wife? You shoot them in the head like you did Swenson and the others?”
Sanders smirked. “There was no reason to kill them, and they weren’t on the list. They’re upstairs too, alive. I knocked them out with amobarbital and tied them up. Don’t believe me, go check.”
“Oh, I’m going to check, all right,” Garrett said, “and don’t worry. I know you’re planning to make a move on me. So don’t try any of that hand-to-hand hitman Chuck Norris jujitsu crap. You’re keeping your fucking hands up, and you’re walk ten feet ahead of me. Any funny business—shit, if I even think you’re going to pull a move on me—I’ll put half this clip into your spine.”
Sanders’ glare didn’t waver.
Garrett waved the gun. “Up the stairs, killer. Nice and slow.”
Sanders moved out, hands still up. Garrett gave him a good lead as he followed him up the stairs.
“Hey, tell me something. How did Danny manage to infiltrate a high-security redeposition perimeter and walk out with a bomb that weighs more than Hulk Hogan.”
“I don’t know,” Sanders said, just ahead of him on the stairs. “Some kind of alien influence, I guess. I was hoping you could tell me.”
“Danny didn’t tell you himself? You didn’t try to force it out of him?”
“The truth? Yeah, I tried to force it out of him. I told him I’d drive a stake in his father’s chest and cut his mother’s head off if he didn’t tell me. Like I told you, I didn’t hurt the parents but I threatened to, and that’s the fastest way in the world to get a kid talking. But…it was just like you said. He didn’t know. He honestly didn’t know.”
This didn’t surprise Garrett. Swenson had been abducted too, yet didn’t remember how. A retrograde amnesic effect—common amongst abductees. And selectively maintained communication—the headaches Swenson had told Ubel about—were brought on during some kind of trance-channel or telelalia. Maybe the aliens were even inducing telethesia—out-of-body experiences.
Time would tell, and there wasn’t much of that left.
“Next question,” Garrett asked. “Who do you work for?”
Sanders actually laughed. “Don’t let that gun make you too cocky, Garrett. Guys like me, we die before we give up our contractors.”
“It’s a rogue cell in NSA, isn’t it? Or maybe the Joint Chiefs or the DoD?”
Sanders chuckled. “You’re floggin’ a dead horse, pal.”
“MJ-12?”
“Forget it. I ain’t talkin’. In The Nam, I was tortured by the NVA; these guys were hardcore interrogators, trained by the Soviets; I fully expected to die and didn’t care, ’cos it was my damn job. The thin red line, you know, like in the French Foreign Legion? If those sick communist bastards couldn’t make me talk—believe me. Neither can a non-hacking liberal skinny milquetoast computer-geek tabloid writer like you.”
Garrett frowned long and hard, but he supposed the man had a legitimate point, and he even supposed he was asking too many questions, providing a distraction that Sanders could use to his advantage.
But Garrett couldn’t help it.
“Well, consider this non-hacking liberal skinny milquetoast computer-geek tabloid writer an inquiring mind who wants to know. Why’d you sell out?”
Sanders didn’t pause one iota in his reply. “For twenty-five years I served my country like a waiter, and I never even got a nickel tip,” Sanders answered via the oldest motive in the world for treachery. “I took my skills to the highest bidder. When I was in The Nam, when I was in the French Congo and Algeria and Iran, I thought I was doing the right thing. I was wrong. I’d watch guys like Swenson get pig-shit rich and walk around with more medals on their chest than Marshall Fuckin’ Zhukof, and all I got was tortured with glass needles and restricted hazard pay, which back then was about $300 per month. If you’re gonna get fucked for that many years, kid, sooner or later you want a kiss to go along with it. And then the press schmucks like you come around and make us all look like baby-killers, and then one day it smacks home. What the fuck am I doing this for? So I turned. Yeah, I sold out. Services rendered to the highest bidder. You know what that is? It’s the American way.”
“Sounds more like treason to me,” Garrett remarked.
“What the hell do you know? You don’t know shit till you’re in the bush for sixty days, and shit’s growing on you, and you gotta take out a long-range target with one shot ’cos if you don’t, the Army’s gonna lose a thousand grunts in a counter-offensive. And if you miss, if you have to take two shots, you get scoped in two seconds and in less time than it takes you to scratch your crotch-rot, you’ve got 80mm mortar shells coming down on your head, and if you’re lucky—and if you’re good—you get out of there, but you’re wearing your spotter’s guts for a shirt. Then you gotta wait another week or two in the bush to get picked up. You eat snakes and millipedes and drink creek water that smells like old piss in the meantime.”
Garrett didn’t pretend to make judgments. He hadn’t been there, hadn’t witnessed the horrors. On the other hand, though, he would not permit himself to sympathize with a remorseless murderer.
They were on the second-floor landing now, and Garrett could see a door open just around the top of the banister. A light was on. Sander walked slowly ahead of him, then stopped. Suddenly his shoulders slumped.
“GodDAMN!”
Garrett carefully approached from behind. Careful, he warned himself. Perhaps this was the distraction, Sanders getting ready to make a move by surprise.
“What is it?” Garrett asked, keeping his distance.
“The fuckin’ kid is gone!” Sanders yelled.
Garrett’s eyes widened. He looked into the room, around Sanders’ stance.
Danny’s bedroom.
A kid’s small desk, small chair, Luke Skywalker and Iron Giant posters on the wall. But Garrett didn’t really need to inspect the room to get what Sanders was saying.
Along the bottom of the bed, he noticed one ring of a pair of handcuffs clasped to the bedframe. Half of the second ring dangled from the short links of chain.
You gotta be shitting me…
The hinged hasp of the second ring lay on the floor. Broken off.
“That’s impossible!” Sanders asserted. “Those are Peerless detention-grade handcuffs! They can’t be broken!”
“Yeah, well it looks to me like Danny broke ’em like they were plastic,” Garrett observed, and somehow—even though it confused him—it didn’t surprise him. “We’re talking about an eight-year-old kid who infiltrated an electrified security fence and broke open three of the Army’s best padlocks.”
Sanders, for the first time, actually seemed upset, clenching his fists against the sides of his legs. “What? The fuckin’ aliens helped him? The fuckin’ aliens snuck into the house and broke him out?”
“I don’t know for sure, but it kind of looks that way,” Garrett replied, and, indeed, it did. By now, nothing could really shock him, nothing was “impossible.” And that’s when he realized the best part of all—
“You lose,” Garrett said. “Danny’s out of here, and I’ll bet he’s already got the ADM to the depot. He’s gonna set it off, just the aliens told him, and just like they told Swenson. The thing you’re trying to prevent is going to happen…and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“Bullshit. He’s just a little kid. There’re several steps in setting off an ADM. You gotta put the whole thing together, you gotta wire it right, you gotta prime a blasting cap. A little kid can’t do that!”
“A little kid can’t bust padlocks and break out of handcuffs, either. But he did it. There’s no other explanation. Danny’s been getting help all along. You and me? We’re both outclassed.” Garrett grinned. “But at least my name isn’t mud when all this shit is over with. You? You failed. Utterly and totally. Swenson’s vindicated, and you’re just a busted over-the-hill hitman who couldn’t successfully complete his mission.”
Sanders nodded slowly. “Yeah, but the kid still dies, doesn’t he? When he sets off that bomb, he’ll be sitting in the middle of a five-million-degree fireball. I’ll bet that bugs the shit out of you. ’cos there’s nothing you can do about that.” .
At once, Garrett felt trampled; Sanders was right. Whatever was supposed to happen tonight would happen. And however important that event might be, an innocent little kid was going to die.
“Let’s make a deal,” Sanders offered. “You hit it on the head. I botched this mission big time. I’ll never work again. There’ll be a contract out on me in less than twenty-four hours.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” Garrett said. “You’ll be perfectly safe—in prison. Which is where you’re going after I turn you in. I’ve got the gun, remember? You’re a murdered. Murderers belong in the slam.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Sanders came back. “Like you just said, I failed. I’m a marked man but I still have the contacts to get out of the country. Let me go, and I give you a million bucks in about twelve hours.”
“Oh?”
“That’s probably about how long it’ll take us to drive to the airport and fly to the Cayman Islands. I’ve got a numbered account there under an encrypted name. Let’s go. Don’t be stupid. Be rich.”
Garrett guttered laughter. “I can’t take a gun on a plane. The second I lose this gun, you’ll kill me with your bare hands.”
“Trust me,” Sanders said through the thinnest smile. “I’m not quite the bad guy you think I am. I’ll cut you in if you let me go.”
“I’d rather suck the Devil’s dick than make a deal with you,” Garrett eloquently replied.
“I’ll give you something else, too,” Sanders added. “Something more than the money.”
“Yeah? What?”
“What you want more than anything.” Sanders voice seemed tonorous suddenly, weighty with promise. “You have any idea how many restricted documents I’ve seen in my career?”
Garrett paused in contemplation. Probably…a lot.
“Did you know that John F. Kennedy okay’d the murder of the President of South Vietnam as well as six in-progress assassination operations against Castro after Bay of Pigs? Did you know that MK-ULTRA program is still going on? Did you know that the CIA has been flying twenty billion dollar’s worth of cocaine into Mena Airport in Nell, Arkansas, every year since the mid-’70s, and that four successive presidents have authorized it for black-funding?”
Garrett stared.
“In 1995, Boris Yeltsin secretly sold three nuclear-powered submarines to the Iraqis; in 1996 we sunk all three of them with an orbiting rail-gun that no one knows about. And here’s on for ya, Garrett. The Aurora spy plane exists—we have five of them at a secret base fifty miles northwest of Delta, Utah. But they’re not really even spy planes; they’re long-range stealth bombers that can fly 15,000 miles without refueling, and we’ve also got nuclear ram-jets that max out at Mach 7. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, Garrett. Get it?”
Garrett felt smothered by the impact of Sanders’ words. “What is it—exactly—that you’re saying?”
Veins beat at Sanders’ temples when he yelled, “Half of the stuff you conspiracy assholes have been writing about is true!”
Sanders shout seemed to echo as if in a cavern. “And you’ve got proof?”
“I’ve got a safe-deposit box in a George Town bank full of proof,” Sanders answered. “What of you think a guy like me does to protect himself? Over the years of my career, whenever I’ve had the opportunity to copy a restricted document, what do you think I did?”
“Copied it,” Garrett said.
“That’s right. And by now I’ve got a stack of the things. I’ll give them to you—and money—if you let me go. The next article you write will headline every newspaper in the world. You’d be the king of the hill. You’ll go down in history as the guy who busted it all open.”
Garrett felt lost in his thoughts. Sanders was verifying his life’s work, and the truth behind it.
That truth needed to be revealed.
Sanders’ face grew more intense. “And this Nellis business? You think this Nellis crash is all there is?”
“No, I don’t. I think there are dozens of authentic instances of extraterrestrial contact on this planet,” Garrett replied.
“Not dozens, pal. Try hundreds. Roswell was real, and so was Kingman and Kecksburg. The first time the U.S. military officially recovered a crashed extraterrestrial vehicle was in Glenrock, Wyoming, in 1919. I’ve got copies of the field photographs and the recovery docs, even the official report to the president and the secretary of war. There’s stuff that you can’t even imagine. And I’ll give it to ya, with money.” Sanders eyed him severely. “Think about it, pal. Everything you’ve ever wanted—in your whole life—I’ll give you. But you gotta agree to the deal.”
Garrett stood flabbergasted; already he was dreaming. The money was nothing, but the data? And it made perfect sense that someone in Sanders’ position, for all these years, would have seen so much, and it made just as much sense that he would’ve duplicated some of it, as a safeguard to himself.
The words echoed back in Garrett’s head: Half of the stuff you conspiracy assholes have been writing about is true…
This was Garrett’s own chance, wasn’t it?
But—
There was one thing that this sudden rush of greed had caused him to forget.
The kid… The kid’s going to die unless I find him…
Garrett pushed it all away, regained his senses. He had no idea where Depot 12 was, and neither did Sanders.
“Maybe Danny’s father knows where the depot is,” he suggested.
Sanders’ face drew into a web of creases. “What is wrong with you. Forget the depot! Forget the damn kid! You can’t save him anyway! The stuff I’ll give you will make you famous!”
“Shut up,” Garrett said. “There’s no deal. The only thing you’d give me is a garrote.”
“I’m serious, man!” Sanders nearly bellowed. “I swear!”
“Shut up, Garrett repeated, though he was fidgeting a bit. “Where’d you tie up General Vander and his wife?”
“Oh, for God’s sake! We don’t have time for this bullshit!”
Garrett stiffened his stance, aimed the pistol at Sanders’ forehead. “Which room? Vander might know how to get to the depot, and I’m not gonna sit back and let some little kid fry because of a pipe dream. Tell me which room Danny’s father is in…or I’ll blow you away right here.”
Sanders’ posture and verve seemed to deflate, a popped raft. “I told you, I knocked him and his wife out with amobarbital.”
“Then we’ll wake ’em up!” Garrett barked. “Where are they?”
Sanders shrugged and pointed. “Master bedroom. Right in there.”
Garrett moved for the door but then caught his wits. “You,” he said. “Lead the way. I can’t believe I almost turned my back on a trained assassin.”
Sanders winked at him. “And it’s probably a good thing you didn’t.”
Sanders walked to the other end of the upstairs hall, Garret following. Ubel had said that no one knew the depot’s location but certainly there was a chance that General Vander, the post’s commander, might know or at least have some inkling. Garrett’s heart pumped up a few beats in the meager hope.
“In here,” Sanders said, and opened the door at the end of the hall. Garrett glanced past Sanders, into the lit bedroom. Just a normal middle-class bedroom, nice drapes, nice decor. And Sanders had indeed done as he’d said: he’d tied General and Mrs. Vander up quite securely.
But it wasn’t like they were going anywhere.
Garrett’s belly flinched at the sight. The plush beige bedspread was half red with blood. Long streaks of more blood drooled down the back wall in long thin lines of scarlet going brown.
Oh, no, Garrett thought. Holy shit…. And then he was one spasm short of throwing up.
General Vander lay stiff as a sprawled scarecrow, the center of his t-shirt an explosion of blood. What looked like a broken-off wooden chair leg had been driven into his chest, nailing him to the bed.
Mrs. Vander had fared ever worse. Her body lay decapitated beside her husband, and her pale head stared back at Garrett, propped up neatly on a bedpost.
“Go ahead,” Sanders said. “Ask General Vander if he know where Depot 12 is.”
Finally, Garrett’s face turned up, and he growled, “You evil murderous piece of shit motherfuck—”
Sanders sprang forward, falling onto Garrett like brick wall collapsing, his “move” finally made, and Sanders had expertly made it at just the proper moment as Garrett was trying to filter his revulsion. Sanders had Garret’s throat in one hand—instantly squeezing off the air supply—and the other hand on the gun, which he twisted out of Garrett’s hand as effortlessly as taking a rattle away from a baby. Suddenly, all of Sanders’ hard frame and toned muscles seemed to lay atop Garrett as if to flatten him. The hand snapped off his throat; Garrett shrieked in air.
Then Lynn’s gun was pressed hard to Garrett’s forehead.
Sanders’ steely eyes glared down, and his voice flow like some black fluid. “If I wasn’t in a hurry, I’d take you down slow. I’d do a real job on you—an all-nighter—like I did to all them VC gook teenagers in the Central Sector. I’d cut off a piece at a time and cauterize each wound with a blow torch. I’d flame your face half off like I did to those SDECE schmucks in the French Congo, and I’d pull your cock off with a pair of vise-grips. Then I stick lock needles into your kidneys and liver. Real slow.” Sanders smiled ever so faintly. “Consider yourself fortunate that I’m in a hurry.”
“Go ahead and shoot me, dickhead,” Garrett croaked. “And by the way, your mother give lousy head. What do you think?”
Sanders’ face reddened, tightening. The barrel of Lynn’s gun pressed harder against Garrett’s forehead as his finger tightened against the trigger.
And tightened—
And tightened—
“What’s the matter, Ally McBeal?” Garrett asked. “Big strong tough-guy killer like you isn’t strong enough to squeeze that measly little trigger?”
Sanders’ grit his teeth, and his finger whitened from the forces it was exerting against the trigger.
He couldn’t fire the gun.
“What the fuck did you—”
“I told you downstairs, I knew you’d make a move on me,” Garrett said, grinning up. “So when we were coming up the steps, I took the clip out of the gun. Even a dick-for-brains ex-Army moron like you knows that a semi-automatic pistol won’t fire with the clip removed even when there’s a round in the chamber.”
Appalled, Sanders leaned up and gaped at the pistol’s butt. The ammo clip was gone.
“Now look down, at the approximate location of your navel,” Garrett said.
Sanders, very slowly, did so. And saw his own pistol, which Garrett had taken off him earlier, firmly clenched now in Garrett’s hand. The small-caliber barrel was half an inch away from Sanders’ belly.
“Good job, punk. I’m impressed.”
“And isn’t it a bummer that a guy like you, who’s killed hundred of people, is gona buy the farm from a non-hacking liberal skinny milquetoast computer-geek tabloid writer like me?” Garrett posed.
Sanders chuckled right down into his face. “You ain’t got the nuts to kill me.”
BAM!
Sanders howled as the first round popped into his abdomen. He rolled over, and—
BAM!
Garrett put the second round between Sanders’ eyes.
“Say what?” Garrett asked the corpse when he got up off the floor and dusted himself off. “I don’t have the what?”