The Third Rescue

by Jay Mackey

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Penny. “Seems to me like the real question is why?”

  “Why?” said Jack. “Why was I the one who had to go through all that, or why should you believe me?”

  Penny, speaking very slowly, said, “No. Why now? Why did all this just come out now? Why didn’t you find CJ and tell him before, years ago? It all seems too . . . I don’t know, convenient, or something.”

  Jack didn’t answer immediately, seeming to chew over his response while looking straight ahead. CJ didn’t say anything either, worried that he’d touch off another outburst from Penny.

  After a few minutes, Jack spoke, quietly. “I think we’re all wound together in this thing. Do you know, Penny, that I talked to your grandmother about this, years ago?” He glanced up in the rearview mirror to see Penny’s reaction.

  He continued without waiting for her response. “I was looking for your grandfather, the one they called Little Bull. I’m sure he was in the desert the night we made our escape from Groom Lake. Know why I know that? Because a man named Tony Faccio told me so. Faccio went on the lander with us, with Aphrodite and Zeus and the rest. He went all the way to Planet Grey Cloud, which is what I call it because I can’t pronounce it, and it was colorless, even the sky, and it doesn’t make any difference anyway. So Tony Faccio told me he was in the desert with a couple other guys who were having some kind of disagreement. Little Bull was one of those guys.

  “And you know what else. Tony Faccio came back. At his first chance, he was sent back home. Nobody wanted him there on Grey Cloud, I’ll tell you. It was something like seventeen or eighteen years later back here, but only a couple years for Faccio. I don’t know if he ever figured that out. But whatever, he went to your grandfather Little Bull’s house, where Little Bull killed him. Do you think that was a random event? No?

  “There’s more. Know who else Little Bull killed that night? My old nemesis, Vic Ernst. How did Tony Faccio and Vic Ernst get together, and why did they go to see Little Bull, and why did Little Bull kill them?”

  “Those are good questions,” said CJ.

  “What about your grandfather, CJ? I didn’t know anything about him until you showed up in the library the other day. Faccio may have said something about him, but it was so long ago, I just don’t know. He spent a lot of time cursing about Little Bull, but I don’t remember who else might have been there.

  “And when I talked to your grandmother, Penny, I didn’t think to ask about anybody but Little Bull, who had already passed away. She claimed not to know anything about what happened out in the desert in 1964, or about what happened with Faccio and Ernst.”

  He took a breath and looked around at the kids.

  CJ was rubbing his head. He’d been doing that a lot lately. Headaches.

  Penny was looking at the desert. Oval was staring back at Jack in the rearview mirror, looking suitably astounded.

  Jack continued. “I’ve spent years thinking that Venus was dead, or, worse, that she was recaptured and Blankenship had her. Can we call your grandfather, and ask him about the desert that night? Or better, call your grandmother. Ask her about Doc Omdahl. Ask her how she got away that night.”

  “Sure,” said CJ. “Seems like the way to confirm all this. I don’t know how they’ll take it. They may not want to admit any of this is true. Remember what Noga did when we called before? He told me to get away from you. I guess I know why, now.” He fiddled with his phone. “Can’t get a signal.”

  Oval and Penny also tried, but had no signal either.

  “It’s the desert,” said Jack. “Let’s wait a bit, and then try again.”

  They rode in silence. CJ wasn’t sure what he could say. He was confused. And to make it just that much worse, his head hurt. He kept hearing voices. Or one voice, really. It was yelling at him. He couldn’t make out most of the words, but it was disturbing. Like someone was telling him something, but he couldn’t get it. As if he were dreaming. A bad dream. He had been popping Advil, but that wasn’t helping.

  “What the hell!” said Jack, slamming on the brakes. They had been driving for hours on the two-lane road leading back to Las Vegas, most of it through dark, desolate desert. There had been very little traffic all day, and even less now that it was after dark. But suddenly, a van had passed them, pulled in sharply in front of them, and then had slowed, nearly to a stop. Fortunately, Jack had been alert and had avoided slamming into the van’s rear end.

  Jack attempted to swing out around the slow-moving van, but it swerved into the middle of the road, blocking Jack’s pass attempt.

  “Fuck!” he said as he slowed again, and then slamming the brakes again as the van stopped dead. Jack pulled over to the side of the road, and the van did too, out of the way of any possible traffic.

  “What’s going on?” said CJ.

  “How the hell do I know?” answered Jack, looking back down the road for some kind of escape.

  Two men emerged from the front of the van. They were holding something in their hands, almost certainly guns, as they advanced to opposite sides of Jack’s car.

  The man on Jack’s side tapped on the window with the gun, motioning for Jack to roll down his window. Jack complied.

  “The four of you need to get out and get in the van,” said the man, who was maybe fifty or so, and heavy, with long stringy hair and a dark beard.

  CJ glanced at the man on his side of the car. He was a skinny kid not much older than CJ, with short hair and several days’ growth on his face. He looked scared, holding his gun with two hands, pointed at the ground in front of him. His feet were spread apart, and he was jittery, bouncing on his feet and looking back and forth between the car occupants and his buddy on the other side of the car.

  “And if we don’t?” said Jack.

  The man smiled. “Don’t mess with me,” he said. “There’s no need for anybody to get hurt.”

  45

  Nevada, April 2018

  If the van had been just slightly more comfortable, CJ might have dozed off on the long ride. But it wasn’t a minivan, and it didn’t even have seats in the back. He sat on the metal floor with his back against the side door, next to Penny and across from Jack, exhausted and scared. Poor Oval had it the worst. CJ could see that the jarring he was taking from whenever the van hit a bump or went around a curve was hurting his ankle. Their captors had taken away his painkillers, too.

  CJ had never before seen the two men who stopped them; neither was the man who’d been following them in the library, nor were they among the men who’d tried to kidnap him at the coffee shop. The skinny kid was driving Jack’s car and was following the van, which was being driven by the older man with the stringy hair. He was walled off from the back passengers by a metal screen, which was probably meant to protect front-seat occupants from flying tools and cargo, but which served nicely to keep those in the back from attacking the driver.

  Jack had asked the man who he was working for right when they first got into the van, but the man told him to shut up, and banged a gun against the metal screen.

  CJ had mouthed, “Who are these guys?” to Jack. He had to do it twice, pointing at the front of the van the second time, before Jack got the question.

  Jack shrugged. “I don’t know,” he mouthed back.

  “DoD?”

  Jack shook his head.

  CJ frowned.

  Jack looked like he was going to say something, or at least mouth something back, but then threw up his hands, looking frustrated.

  Penny leaned over and whispered to CJ, “What did he say?”

  CJ whispered back, “He doesn’t know who these guys are.”

  Penny rolled her eyes and sat back. Her demeanor surprised CJ. He would have thought she’d be crying and panicked at their situation, but she seemed to be more mad than afraid. She sat clenching her teeth and staring at the back of the driver’s head. If that screen weren’t there, she’d likely be flying over the seat to get at him, gun or no gun.

&nb
sp; Jack looked dejected, sitting with his head in his hands, staring at the floor.

  Oval looked to be in pain more than anything. His eyes were closed and his hands were pressed tightly against his legs, like he was trying to hold them down, or to squeeze the pain out.

  CJ figured he might be more scared than either Penny or Oval. He was pretty sure whatever was happening was his fault, and he had no idea what to do about it.

  After they’d been on the road awhile, CJ heard the driver talking on his cell phone. “Yes sir, we’re on our way now,” he said. “No, no problem. The kid’s tracker wallet worked like a charm, just like you said.”

  Tracker wallet? What the hell?

  CJ realized that Jack, Oval, and Penny were looking at him.

  “I don’t carry a wallet,” whispered Oval.

  CJ pulled his wallet from his back pocket and peered at it. He took everything out. A few dollars. His driver’s license. Miscellaneous pictures and scraps of paper. He turned it inside out. Finally, after pulling and tugging on it, he found a plastic rectangle with what looked like a circuit board printed on one side.

  “Man, this wallet was given to me by the DNA company,” he said.

  “Nice,” said Oval.

  “Not so nice,” replied CJ. “It got us screwed.”

  “Shut up,” shouted Stringy Hair. “Keep it quiet. If you know what’s good for you.”

  Everyone was quiet for just a minute. Then CJ whispered, “I guess that explains how they were able to track us. They didn’t even need to follow us.”

  “Right,” said Jack. “They probably followed just to see who you met up with.”

  “I’m sorry,” said CJ. “I didn’t know.”

  “I know, kid,” said Jack. “Not your fault.” He reached over and patted CJ on the knee.

  The need for quiet suddenly lessened, as loud country music blared from a tinny speaker in the front. Stringy Hair had turned on the radio.

  “So I guess we know who these two jerks are working for,” said Penny, pointing toward the noise.

  “Who?” asked Oval.

  She shot him a look. “FamilyHeritage dot whatever. The ones who gave CJ the wallet.”

  “I wouldn’t jump to that conclusion,” said Jack.

  “Yeah, why would they want to kidnap us?” asked CJ.

  “Well, I don’t know,” said Penny, glaring at CJ. “If not them, then who, Einstein?”

  He shrugged and looked at Jack.

  “Someone who has access to the FamilyHeritage data,” said Jack.

  “Ohhh, so like the FBI, or some other government agency,” said Oval.

  “Like the Department of Defense? Like the guys that tried to grab us before?” said CJ, pointing to the front seat. His skepticism was obvious in his voice, even raised as it was to be heard over the radio.

  “No,” said Jack, looking around the van and up at the driver. “No way is this a DoD operation.”

  “Then who?” asked Penny. “Who would want three kids on spring break?” She paused and looked at CJ and Oval. “Or maybe they want an old man who thinks he lived on another planet for a few years. Huh? Maybe this has nothing to do with us, and everything to do with him.” She pointed to Jack.

  “Then what about the wallet?” asked Oval. “It’s not Jack’s wallet.”

  “I don’t know about any wallet,” answered Penny, loud enough that she drew a rebuke from Stringy Hair—“What did I say about shutting up?”—even with the radio blaring.

  So they sat in silence, Penny glaring, Oval looking confused, Jack staring at his feet, and CJ feeling guilty.

  After a ride that was long enough to get them back to Las Vegas, the van finally stopped. Stringy Hair, waving his gun menacingly, directed CJ and his friends out of the back. They found themselves in a parking lot behind what looked like a strip mall. There were no vehicles around except the van and Jack’s car, which Skinny Kid pulled up next to the van.

  Behind the buildings CJ could see only desert. The darkness limited his vision, but he couldn’t see any lights off in the distance, so he figured they were not near the city.

  The group was quickly ushered through a door, which CJ noted had the word “Lab” printed on it. They entered into a short hallway, and then were shoved through a door into a bathroom.

  “Get in there and relieve yourselves, now,” said Stringy Hair.

  “All of us?” asked Oval, trying to maintain his balance with his crutches. “She’s a girl,” he said, pointing to Penny.

  “All of you,” said Stringy Hair, giving an extra push to Oval, who fell on the bathroom’s tile floor.

  The bathroom had two stalls, and two sinks, and Jack told Penny to use one of the stalls if she wanted, while the rest shared the other.

  “What are we going to do?” asked CJ.

  “For now, let’s just use the bathroom,” said Jack, sliding into the stall.

  The break was badly needed by all, and after taking care of business, they huddled in front of the sinks.

  “Let’s not get too excited,” said Jack. “These guys have guns, but if they wanted to shoot us, they would have done that already.”

  “But what do they want?” asked Penny.

  “We’ll have to ask them, because I don’t know,” Jack answered just as the two men barged in, and with guns pointed, ushered them all though another door across the hall into a small, windowless office that was bare except for on old metal desk and a beat-up swivel chair. Without responding to any of their questions, the men left them alone, and CJ could hear a lock being engaged from the outside.

  Looking exhausted and stunned, Jack ignored the kids’ questions, the same ones that had been asked and not answered in the van, and sat on the desk, shaking his head. Oval took the chair, and lay his head on the desk. Penny slumped to the floor in a corner, and CJ sat next to her. Having no idea about what was going on or what they could do about it, they all fell quiet as if each were in a stupor.

  They remained like that for a couple hours, until the door opened again, and the same two men entered the room. A man wearing a white coat followed them in, leading CJ to think he might be a doctor, or at least a lab tech. While Stringy Hair held a gun on them, the white-coated man used long Q-tips to take swabs from each of their mouths, depositing each Q-tip in a tube.

  CJ commented that this was just like the swab he took for his second DNA test, but Skinny Kid shook the gun at him and told him to shut up. CJ still felt like the kid was really nervous. Maybe he was on something, some drug. He was jittery and that made him extra scary.

  When the men were gone, Jack asked CJ about his DNA test—where he took it, why, what he learned. After CJ filled him in, including the fact that the first test had 11% “unknown.”

  “Damn it,” Jack said. “I don’t like where this is going.”

  46

  Newport, Kentucky, April 2018

  Gus lay in bed, listening to half a conversation. Violet was sitting up, talking on her cell phone, which had awakened both of them when it rang. Only half awake, Gus squinted at the bedside clock. Jesus! It was five o’clock in the morning.

  Who is calling at this hour?

  He could tell by the tone of Violet’s voice that this was something important. She’d gone from groggy to alert in about two seconds. It sounded like something with CJ.

  God! That boy. He’d better be okay.

  She rattled off some phone number that sounded familiar, and then turned to him.

  “Do you have Oval’s number?” she asked.

  “Oval?” He still wasn’t quite awake. It had been a late night at the restaurant, and he didn’t get to bed until after two. “No. Why would I?”

  “I’ve got it. I wrote it down before they left for Vegas. It’s in the kitchen somewhere.” Turning away, she spoke to the phone. “I’ll call you back. Let me try CJ and Oval first.” She hung up and launched out of bed.

  “CJ and Oval and Penny haven’t returned from their trip to Carson City,” she sai
d, pulling on her robe that she’d left on the chair near the bedroom door. “They were supposed to call if they were going to be late, but they didn’t and Melissa can’t reach Penny and she’s panicked. Try CJ and I’ll get Oval’s number.”

  “What the hell were they going to Carson City for?” Gus asked. “I told that kid to get his ass home.”

  “I don’t know, looking for something at the state records office. Something to do with his school project.” She disappeared, thundering down the stairs to the kitchen.

  Gus had a bad feeling about this. First, the phone call from a man who knew something about his and Violet’s past. He’d lived in fear for many years that he’d get a call like that one day, and he’d done everything he could to try to prevent it—to keep the past in the past. And now, CJ might be caught up in something that might be—must be—related somehow.

  He called CJ. It went straight to voicemail. He tried again. He didn’t leave a message.

  He found Violet in the kitchen, on the phone. She was leaving a message for Oval.

  “No luck, I assume?” he said when she’d hung up.

  “No. Just voicemail. Let me call Melissa back.”

  She did, and talked for several minutes, passing along Oval’s phone number and telling Melissa not to worry, that the kids were probably in a cell dead spot somewhere. “CJ has never been real good about being on time,” she said.

  After hanging up, she turned to Gus. “You know it’s happening again.” She held her hands up to her face to hide her eyes, where tears had suddenly started pooling and then leaking down her cheeks.

  “No, we don’t know anything, Vi.” He tried to console her, holding her close to his chest. “The kids are fine. Besides, CJ has never shown any ability . . .”

  “You’re wrong, Gus, you know you are. He’s . . . I swear, he knows what I’m thinking before I do half the time.” She looked up at him and tried to smile.

  “But now?” he said. He didn’t want to deal with this, too. On top of everything else.