by Dirk Patton
THE AWAKENING
DIRK PATTON
Text Copyright © 2019 by Dirk Patton
Copyright © 2019 by Dirk Patton
All Rights Reserved
This book, or any portion thereof, may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the copyright holder or publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a critical book review.
Published by Reaper Ranch Press LLC
PO Box 856
Gilmer, TX 75644-0856
Printed in the United States of America
First Printing, 2019
ISBN: 9781079339611
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, brands, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Also by Dirk Patton
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Thirty-Six
Thirty-Seven
Thirty-Eight
Thirty-Nine
Forty
Forty-One
Forty-Two
Forty-Three
Forty-Four
Forty-Five
Forty-Six
Forty-Seven
Forty-Eight
Forty-Nine
Fifty
Fifty-One
Fifty-Two
Fifty-Three
Fifty-Four
Fifty-Five
Fifty-Six
Fifty-Seven
Fifty-Eight
Fifty-Nine
Sixty
Sixty-One
Sixty-Two
Sixty-Three
Epilogue
Also by Dirk Patton
The V Plague Series
Unleashed: V Plague Book 1
Crucifixion: V Plague Book 2
Rolling Thunder: V Plague Book 3
Red Hammer: V Plague Book 4
Transmission: V Plague Book 5
Rules Of Engagement: A John Chase Short Story
Days Of Perdition: V Plague Book 6
Indestructible: V Plague Book 7
Recovery: V Plague Book 8
Precipice: V Plague Book 9
Anvil: V Plague Book 10
Merciless: V Plague Book 11
Fulcrum: V Plague Book 12
Hunter’s Rain: A John Chase Novella
Exodus: V Plague Book 13
Scourge: V Plague Book 14
Fractured: V Plague Book 15
Brimstone: V Plague Book 16
Abaddon: V Plague Book 17
Cataclysm: V Plague Book 18
Legion: V Plague Book 19
The 36 Series
36: A Novel
The Void: A 36 Novel
Other Titles
The Awakening
Fool’s Gold
The Awakening
Prologue
Albert regained consciousness, fighting his way up out of a deep abyss. Slowly, he became aware of the sound of a steady rain pattering on metal above his head. He looked around, but the darkness was impenetrable. Try as he might, he couldn’t remember where he was or how he’d gotten there.
He reached up to rub a painful spot on his face, pausing when he felt the slick wetness of blood. Panic set in and he tore at the harness securing him to a seat.
Freeing himself, he scrambled his way clear. The smell of spilled fuel was sharp in the air and he blindly fumbled with a hatch until it opened unexpectedly. Falling through, he landed on his back and lay unmoving as cold water instantly soaked his clothes. Rain fell on his face, rinsing the blood away and helping to restore a degree of composure.
Slowly he sat up and looked around, still seeing nothing in the complete darkness. When he put his hands on the ground, they sank into moss-covered mud. But he couldn’t recall how he’d wound up wherever he was. His body protested loudly as he climbed to his feet.
Moving forward with his hands extended, he stopped when he felt the smooth skin of an aircraft. With sudden clarity, he remembered. Watching as four men loaded cargo into the plane at a remote airport in British Columbia. Securing it and taking off in the middle of the night. Following the western slope of the Cascade Mountains from Canada down into the United States, staying low and hugging the terrain to avoid detection.
Then, something had gone wrong. That’s the one part of his memory that was still blank. But he didn’t dwell on it. It didn’t matter. What did was that he had survived the crash and now he had to get word to his employer as quickly as possible so the cargo could be retrieved. The loss of the plane was considered part of doing business, but the cargo was an entirely different story. No excuse would be accepted, and he knew there was no hiding. That left him with one option. Call the emergency number.
His phone! He slapped all his pockets, but they were empty. He didn’t carry any form of identification, only a cheap, pre-paid burner phone that had been purchased somewhere in the mid-western US. Grumbling, he climbed aboard the aircraft and entered the cockpit. The damn thing must have fallen out of his pocket when he crashed.
On his hands and knees, he searched by feel for what seemed an hour, but failed to find it. Acknowledging the futility of continuing to fumble about in the dark, he moved back outside. Standing in the rain, he tilted his head back to scan the horizon. After several minutes, he was all but certain he could detect a distant, faint glow in the cold, misty night.
Setting off, he scrambled up a long, steep slope. Following a muddy track through the forest, he emerged into a broad pasture. In the distance, he could see a brightly lit house. Trekking across the field, he smiled in satisfaction as the sheep complained loudly and hurried away when he passed too close.
Pausing well short of the house, he took his time watching. A battered pickup sat in the gravel drive and he expected there to be dogs. He was mildly surprised when his presence didn’t trigger a fit of barking, but then not everyone was a dog person.
Exiting the pasture, he angled for the barn. Slipping inside, he left the door open for the small amount of light that made it into the dark interior. Ignoring a variety of implements whose purpose he couldn’t even guess, he selected a rusting axe. Hefting it in his hands, he got the feel for it and turned, freezing in surprise. A very tall man stood in the barn with him, silhouetted by the light streaming through the door.
“I see you,” the man said in a rumbling voice.
Albert’s eyes narrowed and his skin suddenly became translucent. Beneath the surface, as if revealed by a full color motion X-ray, writhed a hideous, scaled creature. Long, powerful arms ended in razor clawed hands. A black tongue flicked in and out of a mouth lined with rows of needle-sharp fangs. Burning red orbs floated behind the human eyes and they flashed angrily as he raised the axe with a snarl.
The tall man’s h
and moved incredibly fast, darting forward like a cobra. When the index finger touched Albert’s forehead, there was a searing flash of light and his skull split open as if struck by a heavy sword. The creature’s red eyes vanished, snuffed out with the death of the human. There was no sign of the creature that had inhabited the man.
Bending stiffly, the tall man grabbed an ankle and dragged the corpse out of the barn.
One
One year later.
Katarina Daniels wasn’t having a good day, which was even more irritating because it was her day off. A much-needed opportunity to uncouple from the very stressful job of an FBI agent. And not just a run of the mill agent. She didn’t investigate white collar offenses. She wasn’t concerned with organized crime or drugs and didn’t chase bank robbers. Her purview didn’t draw her into the world of counter-terror or counter-intelligence. Katarina was a manhunter.
More often than not, the public had no idea a serial killer was operating within their midst until the FBI had gathered enough evidence to make an arrest. Only then would her boss hold a low-key press conference to announce his team had removed another wolf from the midst of the oblivious sheep.
It was Katarina’s job to track down the killers. To build an air-tight case that would ensure the monsters were locked away for the rest of their lives. If she didn’t do it well, it meant more innocent people would die. She took every one of those deaths personally, which haunted her dreams but was part of what made her so good at her job.
The latest killer to draw the Bureau’s attention had been labeled The Reaper by a second-rate reporter from a third-rate news outlet. Much to the chagrin of the FBI and the agents who were assigned to the task force which was chasing him, or maybe her, the name had stuck.
The odds of a serial killer in America being anything other than male were less than fifteen percent. A slim possibility that a member of the fairer sex was at work. The Reaper’s murders were brutal, every single one involving severe trauma to the victim’s head. Forensic pathologists were convinced a woman was incapable of generating the force and angles of attack needed to cause the damage attributed to The Reaper. So, Katarina and the task force were focused on searching for a man.
And they had made absolutely no progress in over a year of investigating. Hundreds of potential witnesses had been interviewed. Thousands of pages of reports had been filed. More than a literal ton of evidence had been collected, studied and cataloged. Yet, they were no closer to identifying a person of interest than they had been fourteen months ago when they started.
But at the moment, her frustration had nothing to do with work. It was directed at the stack of past due notices littering the surface of her kitchen counter.
Katarina had always been what some of her friends called a straight arrow. She had a sterling reputation as, if not a brilliant, at least a highly-skilled investigator. Having worked her entire life to become an FBI agent, she was on the cusp of being offered a coveted position with the Bureau’s prestigious Behavioral Analysis Unit. These were the agents that didn’t so much care what a criminal had done, they were much more interested in the why. Once that was figured out, new avenues of investigation were opened and the BAU had a history of success in catching the worst of the worst that was unparalleled in law enforcement.
She glanced at the screen when her phone began vibrating. It was her partner, Brody James. She ignored it for a few seconds, then tossed aside several credit card bills that she had no idea how to pay and whooshed out a big sigh. Using her fingers to rake thick, blonde hair away from her face, she accepted the call and raised the phone to her ear.
“It’s my day off, goddamn it.”
“So, what? You painting your nails before you go to the mall?”
“Asshole,” she breathed with a small smile. “What’s up?”
“Maybe nothin’, maybe somethin’. Farmer up in Snohomish County called in a crashed plane.”
“What the hell do we care about a plane crash?”
“Not a plane crash, a crashed plane. There’s a difference.”
Katarina rolled her eyes.
“Either way, why do we care? Sounds like he should’ve called the FAA or NTSB or whoever.”
“That’s what I said, too. But get this. He says the crash site is up in the foothills. Rugged country. Completely hidden.”
“I’m hanging up, Brody.”
“Says it can’t be more than a year old ‘cause it’s only been that long since he’s been through the area and it wasn’t there the last time he was.”
“Is there a point to this somewhere in the near future?”
“So, I checked with the FAA. You know, for missing planes? Anyway, there aren’t any in the past eighteen months. At least not within a thousand miles of here.”
“Okay, so probably a drug smuggler,” Katarina said, losing interest and idly flipping through the pile of bills. “They don’t exactly file flight plans.”
“Maybe,” Brody said, his tone smug. “But what happened right outside of Index, nearly one year ago?”
Katarina suddenly went still, her financial problems momentarily forgotten.
“How close?” she asked.
“Less than two miles.”
“How soon can you pick me up?” she asked, jumping to her feet and heading for the stairs.
“I’m in the driveway,” Brody answered with a self-satisfied laugh.
“I’ll be out in five minutes!”
Katarina raced up the stairs and into the master bedroom she shared with her husband, Matt. Shedding the sweats she’d slept in the night before, she hurriedly whipped her hair into a long pony tail, then pulled on jeans and a warm shirt. It might have been April, but the Western Washington State climate wasn’t known for its warmth. Especially in the mountains.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, she put on heavy socks before shoving her feet into a pair of sturdy hiking boots. Her service weapon and badge were quickly clipped to her belt, then she took a moment to check herself in a full-length mirror.
At a hair over five-seven with long legs and just the right amount of curves, Katarina was a beautiful woman, but wasn’t vain about her looks. She took pride in what she did and firmly believed her appearance, at all times, directly reflected on the Bureau. This was a check for presentability and nothing more.
Running down the stairs, she paused at a closet long enough to grab a rain jacket with FBI emblazoned on the back. A steady drizzle was falling when she stepped out the front door, but she’d been assigned to the Seattle office for several years and had learned to ignore anything short of a monsoon.
An FBI issue SUV idled in the driveway, the wipers making a screeing sound as they kept the windshield clear. She could see her partner behind the wheel. Even in gloomy weather, the smooth black skin on Brody’s head somehow found light to reflect. His broad shoulders seemed to fill the vehicle’s interior.
The window was down a couple of inches to vent the smoke from his cigarette and she could hear a baseball game playing on the vehicle’s radio as she ran to the passenger door. Brody shut off the game when she jumped in. She pulled the seatbelt into place as he backed into the street.
“Two miles?” she asked as he accelerated forward.
“One point eight according to Google Maps,” he said with a nod.
“Son of a bitch! If this is him, how’d we never find the plane?”
“The area was searched, Kat. Here.”
Brody tapped a thick folder on the seat between them and she picked it up. It was the case file they’d both worked on. Opening it, Katarina flipped pages until finding a neatly folded map that she spread across her lap. A series of grids drawn within a circle covered a large area to the northwest of Index, Washington. Checking the scale on the map, she verified her memory was correct and the search area was three miles in diameter.
“Within our search?” she asked without looking up.
Brody removed a smaller map from his jacket and handed it across
. Katarina unfolded it and placed it on top of the one from the case file. A red dot indicating their destination was well within the area the Bureau, with the help of the Sheriff’s Department and more than a dozen local hunting guides, had scoured.
“So, there’s a crashed plane that isn’t missing because there was apparently never a flight plan filed. And it’s less than two miles from the only Reaper victim we were never able to ID. No prints on file, no DNA and no missing person reports that matched. How’d we miss it?” Katarina asked.
“Don’t know that we did.”
Brody shrugged and lit a fresh cigarette.
“You’re thinking it crashed after?”
“That’s a possibility,” he said, taking a deep drag. “Either way, it doesn’t matter. It’s there now, so it’s worth checking out.”
They rode in silence for several miles, each lost in their own thoughts.
“Did you tell Pettigrew?” she suddenly asked.
“Nope. No reason to bother the boss until we have more info. For now, this is just between us.”
Traffic across Lake Washington was as heavy as ever and they came to a complete standstill before they could merge onto the 405 freeway.
“How’d it go with the lawyer?” Brody asked.
“I had him draw up divorce papers.”
Brody looked at her in surprise but didn’t say anything.
“The problem is, Matt took out all the loans as personal, not business. That means I'm going to be stuck with half the marital debt.”
“How bad is it?”
“Bad,” she said, turning to look out the passenger window.
They moved a hundred yards before coming to a stop again.
“You’ve got to get in front of this, Kat. You know they’ll pull your clearance if they find out.”
“I know,” she said, her tone clearly communicating she didn’t want to have this particular discussion.
Traffic began to move, but at no more than idle speed.
“I can loan you some money. Get you out of trouble.”
Katarina’s head snapped around in surprise.