by A. G. Riddle
“For what?”
“Whatever comes next. Some sign that the world is safe again. Or what the next crisis is.”
At Sunrise Hospital, they ushered Desmond into a room with no windows and loaded him onto a table that slid into a large machine.
The doctors and technicians came in, Ward behind them. An older doctor spoke for the group. He was slender and bald, with an impeccable tan and an unlined face. “There are two implants.” He held up a scan showing a bone and a white oblong object. “The larger is in your upper thigh, close to your femur, likely inserted—”
“Can you remove it?”
The doctor was annoyed at being interrupted. “We can.”
“Do it.”
The doctor turned to Ward. “We’ll need to put him under general anesthesia—”
“No.” Desmond sat up on the table. “I’ve been under for days. I need a clear head.”
“Mr. Hughes, we’ll be making a small incision through the adductor magnus—”
“I don’t care. Use a local anesthetic.”
“It will be painful. And we need you to be still—movement could be deadly. There’s an important artery close by—”
“Let’s get on with it.” A thought occurred to Desmond. “You said there were two implants.”
The doctor pulled out another scan, this one of a foot. “I believe we were meant to find the one in your thigh. It’s in plain sight, and as I said, quite large. This one is far smaller and presents on an x-ray as a bone spur, which are somewhat common in the feet.”
That was smart, something Conner would do. “Okay. I’m ready.”
“Mr. Hughes, the pain—”
“I can handle. Strap me down. Do whatever you have to. Just don’t sedate me.”
They led him to an OR with two beds, like what might be used for a transplant. The doctors worked quickly, taking the implant in the foot first. Desmond grimaced and Ward looked on impassively. They removed the small device, cleaned it, and showed it to Desmond. It was white on the outside, the color of bone.
A young man with a buzz cut, wearing a blue hospital gown and nothing else, walked through the swinging doors.
Ward stood. “On the table, Corporal.”
The young man lay down on the second table and looked up at the overhead lights. A second team of doctors numbed his foot, made an incision, and began inserting the implant.
Desmond’s doctors went slower for the larger implant. As promised, it hurt—a lot. Tears rolled down Desmond’s face as they pulled out the oblong metal pill, but he didn’t make a sound. He knew they were done when he heard the device hit a metal pan with a clink. The doctor nodded to him, and a younger doctor took his place to close the incision.
To Ward, the doctor said, “We will be placing the corporal under general anesthesia and beginning the operation as soon as you all clear the room.”
“Understood.”
When the incision was sealed and the bandage was firmly in place, Desmond rolled off the table. He grunted, the tender muscles protesting. Before limping out of the OR, he paused to look at the corporal lying on the table. Desmond felt like he should say something, but couldn’t find the words. So he just nodded to the man, a silent acknowledgment of his bravery.
A new plane was waiting on the tarmac—a larger one, with Air Force insignia and two dozen camo-clad soldiers wearing body armor in the belly. They had Delta Force patches on their shoulders.
They assembled in a small briefing room behind the cockpit. An Army lieutenant colonel stood at the head of the table, a major and a master sergeant at his side.
“Mr. Hughes, I’m Lieutenant Colonel Nathan Andrews. Those are my men out there. And I need to know what we’re walking into.”
Desmond told them, and the colonel shook his head in disbelief.
“Sir,” Desmond continued, “I suspect your men will see their share of action on this mission. But it won’t be on the next stop. I’m fairly certain of that.”
They landed at Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City, where more troops were waiting. And enough land combat vehicles to fight a war.
Desmond walked down the plane’s ramp, Ward at his side. The sun was rising, the late December, early morning air cool on his skin. A faint puff of white fog left his mouth as he made his way toward the waiting SUVs.
The troops parted as he approached.
“There’s somebody who wants to see you,” Ward said.
Desmond assumed it was another meeting about the approach to the site. He was wrong.
A door opened on a vehicle at the head of the convoy. Desmond stopped in his tracks.
Avery stood on the tarmac, her blue eyes shining in the faint light of dawn. She wore military fatigues with no service branch or rank insignia, body armor over her torso and legs, and a rifle muzzle protruded at an angle from her back, like a sword sheathed on a medieval knight.
She didn’t smile. She studied him, waiting for his reaction, her face a mask, seemingly like a dam about to break. Seeing her here wasn’t like before—when they had met on the Kentaro Maru. Then she was just a woman he didn’t know.
He knew her now, deep down inside, even the parts of her she hid from the world. She was brave and capable and strong in a way very few are. And more, she was a woman he had once loved. Still loved.
He remembered everything about her now—the hung-over girl he had carried up those stairs and into her apartment. Someone he had been happy with. His face must have revealed his recognition, because she blinked, exhaled, and smiled—relieved, happy. Her shoulders sagged as if the tension were flowing out of her.
He walked toward her, eyes locked, no idea what he was going to do. Hug her? Shake hands? Or just talk. Or kiss her? The romantic options would likely draw whistles and catcalls from the troops around them. The Avery he knew wouldn’t care. What he didn’t know was how she felt about him.
And there was Peyton to think about.
As soon as the thought came into his mind, the rear doors opened on a Suburban behind Avery, and two women stepped out. They were mirrors of each other, one older. Peyton on the right, Lin on the left.
Unlike Avery, Peyton’s face wasn’t a mask. She smiled at Desmond, and he saw moisture fill her eyes. He felt his own eyes cloud, and he squinted, trying to hold it back. A month ago, in the mess hall on the Boxer, they had made a promise to each other: that if they lived, they would start over—together. He was so certain then about what he wanted. He wasn’t now. It was as if he had rediscovered Avery, and she was someone he cared about too.
In the first light of morning, in the cruel land where he had grown up, the two women stood on opposite sides, like bookends, which he found fitting: Peyton was the anchor in his life before the Citium, Avery his joy and lifeline after. If he stood there for a thousand years he could never have chosen which woman to walk to first. They were in different categories, like forces of nature with no analog or comparison, both drawing him to them.
Fittingly, Lin Shaw walked between the two women. She had always been in the center of it all—she alone was the tie that bound all of them: Peyton, Desmond, Avery, and Yuri. And perhaps only she knew how it all would end.
The older woman seemed to sense the standoff. She walked to Desmond, gripped his shoulders, and smiled.
“It’s good to see you, Desmond.”
He nodded. “You too. I took your advice.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“I did something no one would expect.”
“That you did.”
Avery and Peyton converged at the same time. Without thinking Desmond, held his arms out to both of them. As the two women reached him, Lin let her hands slip off his shoulders and stepped back, allowing Peyton and Avery to fall into the hug. Desmond squeezed tight, felt their arms reach around his back. They met, overlapping at first and then sliding next to each other.
Lin studied him for reactions, perhaps a clue about whom he would choose.
“Let’s
catch up en route,” Ward said.
Chapter 61
The convoy barreled through the deserted streets. First on I-240 East, then south on I-35. Deserted cars sat on the shoulder, some pushed into the guardrail where the X1 troops had cleared a path.
A Marine lieutenant drove. Ward sat in the passenger seat, Desmond and Lin in the back seat, and Peyton and Avery squeezed into the third row.
The signs for the exits for Norman, Oklahoma, reminded Desmond of Agnes.
“You want to tell us what the note means?” Ward asked.
The convoy took the next exit and turned onto Highway 9.
“No.”
Ward exhaled heavily. He drew a copy of the note from inside his suit and read it aloud. “It lies in the bend, where blood turned to water and darkness turned to light.”
Desmond waited. No one spoke. Peyton was the only one in the vehicle who might know what it meant. He could never reveal the details of the cryptic message—that would implicate him in a crime.
They drove through the outskirts of Noble, the small town he had visited so much as a child. Past the city, Desmond called to the driver, “The turn is up here.”
They stopped at a gate to a pasture, opened it, and let the armored troop carriers proceed first. When they gave the all-clear, the SUVs moved in.
Desmond exited, and the group fell in behind him. He knew that he had been here at least twice in his life, although he could only remember the first time. It had been the darkest day of his life—a day when the darkness of his childhood and teens turned to light. That day he had killed a man and buried him here. He had washed the blood off in the Canadian river, letting the fresh, cool water carry away the last drops of evidence. He had driven west afterward, out of Oklahoma, to Silicon Valley. His life turned from darkness to light. He met Peyton a few months later.
He glanced back and found her staring at him, a look of solidarity that said, I’ll never tell what happened here—and I’m with you, no matter what you find. He took a step forward, then another.
It was clever: hiding whatever he had here. He was the only person in the world who knew where this was. The exact location was etched in his brain like a bloodstain he couldn’t wash out.
He paused at the gravesite. Grass had grown over it in the nineteen years since he had dug the hole, but Desmond knew that Dale Epply’s body was there, right under the feet of the FBI and CIA agents surrounding him.
He walked past it, down to the river where he had cleansed himself. He saw it in the bend, just where the note had said it would be: loose dirt packed in a freshly dug hole, no larger than two feet in diameter at the top.
“I need a shovel.”
“Negative, Hughes.” Ward turned to the lieutenant. “Dig it up. Let’s move back. Two-hundred-foot perimeter.”
Desmond didn’t fight them, he simply waited at the top of the hill.
The shovel clinked as it hit metal, and the soldier, wearing bomb gear, carefully reached down and used his hands to dig the object out. It was a round coffee can. The plastic lid was duct taped shut.
“Get the robot!”
“Ward, it’s not an IED—”
“How do you know, Hughes? You remember putting it here? Didn’t think so.”
They watched the robot’s activity on a laptop screen at the back of the Suburban. The robot’s tracks halted just short of the can. Its metal arms extended, gripped the can, and peeled off the tape and the plastic lid. Its camera revealed the can’s contents: a Ziploc bag holding a smartphone.
“The phone could be a bomb,” Ward said.
A bomb tech standing beside him worked the robot’s controls remotely. He opened the bag and, with some effort, using the robot’s fingers, turned the sat phone on.
It wasn’t password protected, and the home screen was unremarkable—except for the icon for the Labyrinth Reality app.
“This is a Labyrinth location,” Desmond said.
Ward rubbed his temple. “What do you want to do here?”
“Really only one thing to do.”
Desmond started down the hill, but stopped and turned when he heard footsteps behind him.
“Avery—”
“I’m coming with you.”
“It could still be a bomb.”
“I’ll use you as a human shield.”
He laughed and shook his head.
Peyton began toward them. Desmond held up his hand, but she kept coming.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Desmond said. “We’ll be right back.”
“I’m coming too.”
He glanced at the morning sun for a moment, knowing he was between a rock and a hard place. “All right then.”
At the robot, he made them stay back ten feet while he picked up the phone. He opened the Labyrinth Reality app, and a prompt asked him if he wanted to join a private Labyrinth or a public space. He clicked private and entered the pass code he had memorized.
A message appeared.
Welcome to the Hall of Shadows Private Labyrinth.
Two icons appeared. To the left was a beast with the head of a bull and the body of a man. To the right was a warrior. And a question written below.
Declare yourself: Minotaur or Hero
The first time he had seen this prompt, that night in Berlin, Desmond truly hadn’t known what he was. Now he did. It was fitting for him to answer the question here, in the field where he had buried Dale. He had done a monstrous thing that day—but he had been forced to. It was the same with the Citium. He understood now why he had picked this place. It was a final reminder to himself to stay the course. He might have to do terrible things, but there was light ahead.
Desmond knew what he was: the hero. He was the man he had hoped he was when he first entered the Labyrinth. And he had hidden Rendition to stop a monster: Yuri. Now it was time to find the Minotaur and slay him.
He clicked the icon, and another message appeared.
Searching for entrance…
And shortly after:
1 Entrance Located.
Labyrinth Entrance Reached
Downloading…
“It’s starting, isn’t it?” Peyton said. The wind was tugging at her dark hair. Her porcelain face looked so delicate and innocent here in the shade of the copse of trees by the river.
“Yes.”
“Let’s get back to the convoy,” Avery said.
They hiked together, out of the woods and up the hill. The sun seemed to grow brighter with each step, as though they were all walking out of the darkness together. All three knew the past now, and their history together, and soon the world would turn to light—or, if they failed, to darkness.
At the Suburban, the phone buzzed and a message appeared.
Download Complete
To Ward, Desmond said, “Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“The airport.”
“Then where?”
“Hopefully I’ll know by the time we get there.”
In the memory, Desmond was once again at the hangar in San Carlos. Avery was at his side, fighting for him, arguing that releasing him was their only chance. David Ward led the opposing argument, insisting that letting a criminal go was ill-advised.
But Avery was tenacious and unrelenting, her verbal volleys as powerful as her serve in the racquetball court. She wore down her opposition, and they finally threw in the towel. She had done it, just like he’d known she could.
But that meant that if his plan didn’t work, she would share some of the blame—and he needed to shield her from that. Plan for the possibility that he would fail. He took a pad from the table, thought for a moment, and wrote a single line.
He stood and approached David Ward. “Can I speak with you? In private?”
The man grunted, but followed Desmond to a corner of the warehouse out of earshot of the other agents.
“How soon can you build the tunnel?”
“How should I know, Hughes?”
“Please do it as soon as you can. I don’t know when I’ll need it.”
“Is that it?”
“No. I want you to be there—”
“You’ve got a hell of a lot of nerve, you know that? Telling me to be there like you’re in charge now? Like—”
“I’m not telling you, Ward. I’m asking you. Please. Be there. I don’t know how this is going to go. But that’s my backup plan. And I need somebody there that I trust.”
Ward smiled skeptically. “You trust me? You don’t even know me.”
“True, I don’t. But she trusts you, and I trust her, so I trust you.”
Ward stared.
“And she trusts me, which, by the way, is a reason why you should trust me.”
“I’ve been doing this a while, Hughes. Long enough to see agents fall in love with their marks and get turned around.”
“She’s not turned around. And I’m not what you think I am. You’ll see that before this is over.” He handed Ward the page. “Here. If I show up in that tunnel, please promise me you’ll give me this. And that you won’t show it to another soul.”
Ward read the line. “What is this, your favorite poem? A location?”
“Please. Promise me.”
“Screw you—”
“This is part of the deal.”
“I didn’t like the deal before, why would I agree to more?”
“Because you know she’ll fight you to the end, and so will I, and deep down, you know this is our best shot. You just don’t like it. I don’t like it either. Promise me, Ward.”
The agent shook his head and folded the page, then tucked it in his inside coat pocket. “Yeah, I pinky swear.”
Despite the sarcasm, that was good enough for Desmond. He walked to Avery and said, “You ready?”
She nodded.
They drove to her place, and she packed a bag while he paced between the living room and kitchen, talking non-stop, trying to think of anything that might help her.
“Yuri’s an expert at reading people. If you come into contact with him, don’t lie. If you have to, mix it with truth and be ready to run. Conner’s an expert strategist and tactician. If you go up against him, don’t go for your first plan. Dig deep, reach for something unexpected—”