It was a farm truck, with its trailer loaded with cattle. She took out her FBI ID, walked into the road, and planted herself in the middle. The truck’s horn, which sounded like a real foghorn, honked several times. Seeing that she was still in the road waving her arms, the driver slowed to a stop in front of her.
“Got a problem, little lady?” shouted the man through the window, with a strong Midwestern accent.
She approached the driver, wielding her ID card with one hand and keeping the other on her Desert Eagle. Inside the trailer, the cattle had started bellowing.
She shouted to make herself heard over the bawling of the cattle. “Agent Chambers, FBI. Yes, sir, there’s a problem. Are you going toward St. Marys?”
The man looked at her ID and raised a bushy eyebrow. Then he took the time to eject a syrupy, black jet of tobacco juice out the window.
“Yup. That’s where I’m headed. Are you going to inspect my truck or something?”
He was looking her up and down from his door. His attitude projected a certain contempt for law enforcement.
“I would appreciate it if you gave me a ride to St. Marys, sir. My vehicle is damaged, and I have to carry out an important mission.”
The man seemed immersed in intense reflection for a few seconds before finally answering. “In that case, climb in, my little lady. I’ll take you there,” he offered, opening the passenger door for her.
She walked around the cab and climbed into the seat. “Thank you.”
“Back home in North Dakota, we don’t usually leave poor people stranded, ma’am—especially these days.
“Yes. A lot of people have been stranded lately,” she said, not in the mood for jokes.
The farmer adjusted his baseball cap and lit a cigarette. “And since we’re gonna get slapped in the face, we’d better stick together!”
Lauren realized she must have missed something. “Wait . . . What do you mean, we’re going to get slapped in the face?”
“Didn’t you catch what they said on the radio an hour ago, ma’am? That’s all everybody’s talking about.”
The farmer suddenly turned serious, which worried Lauren.
“No, I haven’t heard the news since early this morning.”
“Well, it’s the North Korean Chink. He said he’s gonna chuck some big bombs at us!”
The farmer’s face suddenly turned bright red.
“I’ll shove your nuclear missiles up your ass!” he swore, shaking his fist.
“What was the North Korean president’s tone like?”
The farmer turned toward her. “Like a rabid dog, the bastard!”
“Oh no . . . this is unbelievable,” Lauren whispered, imagining what would happen next. She still couldn’t get any signal with her cell phone.
“Anyway, we have to wait until we get to St. Marys to hear the radio,” said the farmer. “It only works in big cities now.”
“Did the White House respond to the North Korean president with an official statement?” Lauren asked, enunciating her words.
“Well, our esteemed president said he was going to answer at a press conference. I can’t wait to get to my cousin Garp’s house to hear it.”
A siren screamed behind the truck. Lauren looked in the mirror and had time to see only flashing lights racing toward them.
“I think it’s nothing. He just wants to pass us.” The farmer rolled down his window and waved his forearm to allow them to pass him. They were military vehicles, with armored four-by-four Hummers leading the convoy. Jeeps followed, with all their sirens blaring. They grazed the truck at high speed as they passed.
“Hey! Bunch of assholes!” shouted the farmer through the window as he jerked his arm back inside.
Within seconds, the military convoy had disappeared far ahead.
“The country must now be under martial law,” she said in a fateful tone.
“Under what? What’s all that mumbo jumbo?”
“We’re at war,” Lauren answered calmly.
31
November 15
The streets of St. Marys were deserted. The impassive sun was going down behind the horizon, a faded blood-red circle behind the clouds. Two armored military vehicles sat parked at the intersection near the police station. Stationed nearby was a patrol of four soldiers. The farmer dropped Lauren off in front of the police station and went on his way. A mob of civilians crowded the front door, most of them panicked. She climbed the stairs and edged forward, elbowing her way past the shouting and gesticulating people. Guarding the entrance was a young police officer who looked extremely uncomfortable.
He politely stopped her. “Sorry, miss, you can’t go inside.”
She showed him her agent ID card. “Lauren Chambers, FBI.”
He looked carefully at the card and then shifted his attention to Lauren’s face. He moved aside to let her through. “Hurry; I’m having trouble holding them back.”
She stepped through the door and found herself in a police station almost as crowded as the front steps. Captain Sherman was dealing with a group of parents wearing sweatshirts from the St. Marys Missing Children’s Group. When he saw Lauren wielding her federal ID, he waved her over.
“Captain!” protested one man, evidently the father of one of the five abducted children. “The fact that the United States is at war doesn’t justify abandoning the search. You’re not just going to run away like that! We’re waiting for answers, and we have a right to expect them.”
“Of course,” replied the captain. “The special agent here,” he put his hand on Lauren’s shoulder, “is the only one authorized to answer you. Let me remind you, Mr. Watson, this is a federal investigation, and therefore, it belongs to the FBI.”
Some women, probably mothers, had drawn faces and eyes swollen from the tears they had likely been shedding for over two months. The fathers were thinner, and their nerves seemed raw. They must have spent most of their days at the police station, waiting for news of the investigation. Lauren had to inform them of the death of the only agent assigned to finding their children. She took Captain Sherman aside. They stepped away from the group of parents so that she could talk to him discreetly.
“Captain, Agent Andrews is dead. A group of mercenaries shot him down in the bar at the Kimball Hollow junction.”
The captain suddenly looked like a man whose world had just collapsed.
“Captain, are you all right?” Lauren asked as she waved a hand in front of his haggard eyes.
He came to his senses and shook his head vigorously as if to recover from an uppercut. “Shot down, you say?” he exclaimed.
“Yes—right before my eyes.”
“Do you think this murder is related to the kidnappings?” Sherman asked.
“Yes, everything is connected, Captain. But it’s extremely complicated.”
“So there’s no agent left who can find these kids?”
“I’m taking over the investigation,” Lauren said with determination.
These words breathed new life into the captain’s ghastly face. “Andrews and I saw each other two days ago,” he said. “He was on two different leads: abandoned farms north of the city.”
“I recovered all the documents from his file,” Lauren said. “I’m going to go out there and continue the search with Andrews’ information.”
She approached the group of parents. They all stopped talking to each other and turned toward her.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I’m Lauren Chambers, the new agent in charge of the investigation. Please know that despite the crisis conditions in the country, the FBI will continue to do its best to shed light on the circumstances in which your children disappeared.”
“Where is Agent Andrews?” asked one of the fathers.
Lauren had to improvise. “Agent Andrews was the victim of an off-the-road accident. He is currently hospitalized in critical condition.”
One mother burst into tears, followed by another.
“Is he going to be all righ
t?” one of them asked.
Lauren paused before answering, “I’m afraid not, ma’am.”
The woman started sobbing again.
“Look, I understand your pain. As a woman, I can imagine the extremely difficult ordeal you’re going through. The investigation is moving in a positive direction. I’m asking you to remain confident and strong. Tonight, I will go to places where we are inclined to believe we can find clues. I will inform you as soon as I have positive information to share with you. Thank you.”
Lauren discreetly asked the captain if she could speak with him in his office.
He signaled her to follow him. The captain closed the door and went to sit behind his desk. “All right, I’m listening, Agent Chambers.”
She stepped forward and pulled a chair over to sit in front of him. “Captain, I’m sure this is going to surprise you, but I couldn’t receive any information about the latest events where I was. Are we at war?”
“Almost—martial law will be in effect by tomorrow. Things have accelerated considerably in the last twelve hours. This morning, at precisely ten a.m., the North Korean president announced a ‘nuclear retaliation’ against the United States, which, according to him,” the captain was reading on his tablet, “deliberately implemented the market collapse to take advantage of the chaos through armed domination.”
“For crying out loud! Didn’t the Pentagon react in the press?”
“It did, but too late, according to analysts. I would also say that the speed with which the North Korean president made one press release after another took us by surprise.”
“What was the Pentagon’s response?”
“Our president said, ‘The United States is shocked by the North Korean leader’s misleading accusations.’ He added that ‘America does not have to justify itself in the face of such politically unfounded attacks. But it will offer a heavy tactical and military response to any ballistic missile fire against the US.’”
“He showed an obvious lack of diplomacy,” Lauren noted in dismay.
“In my opinion, we can no longer avoid conflict,” said the captain. “North Korea was waiting for the slightest excuse to launch an attack of this kind.”
Lauren was scanning the latest news. Prices continued to fall on the stock market. China’s reaction had been to close its borders completely. The domestic services of all UN countries were on alert. In a state of hysteria, “extremist terrorists had increased threats and competed in the violence of their declarations against European nations” as the New-York Time mentioned.
“The world is plunging into chaos, Agent Chambers.”
“The ballistic attack by North Korea is imminent,” Lauren read on her phone. “Captain, do you have any way to listen to the radio here in your office?”
The officer nodded and took an old transistor radio out of a cabinet. He set it on the desk and flipped it on. The device crackled noisily. The captain twisted the dial until he came across Big Radio, one of the few stations still broadcasting.
“. . . evacuating the populations of New York, Los Angeles, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, San José, and Jacksonville. Yes, Douglas, this is very sad news that officially came down less than eight minutes ago with a statement from the Pentagon. Residents are—”
Suddenly, there was a knock on the door, and a soldier barged into the room. He was tall and built like a tank, with a square jaw and steel blue eyes—the model soldier. He saluted the captain and walked toward him. “Captain Sherman?”
The policeman got up from his chair. “That’s me. What’s going on?”
“We need your people to close the roads, and we will also need to communicate to all residents the order to stay at home until we’ve secured the external threat.”
“What do you mean by ‘external threat,’ Soldier?”
“Sergeant Wallace, Captain. I’m referring to the imminent nuclear attack from North Korea. Don’t you know about it?”
“Yes, I just heard it.” The captain pointed to the radio still transmitting the live news broadcast from New York. All three listened to what the announcer was now reporting:
“. . . strongly recommend that residents of other major cities, even if they have populations below one million, evacuate their homes and leave the cities for rural areas as soon as possible. Douglas, can you clarify this information? Many listeners probably have questions about these evacuation instructions.”
“Well, let’s say I’m a communist dictator ready to launch a nuclear attack on the US. Do you think it would be logical for me, having a limited number of atomic missiles, to target cities with a small population on enemy territory?”
“No, of course not, Douglas.”
“Why not, Jeffrey?”
“Well, I give up.”
“Quite simply because my goal is to kill as many people as possible. So I will systematically target places with the highest population density.”
“That is ruthlessly logical; civilians, in addition to soldiers, are potential targets. It sends shivers down your spine, Douglas.”
“Jeffrey, we are now at war, and unfortunately, that is the horrible reality we’ll face in our daily lives until the conflict is over. We need to adapt to these conditions, and the sooner we adapt, the better we can react.”
“Another question, Douglas, the fuel restrictions are also a problem in the—”
The soldier turned off the radio. “Does that answer your question, Captain?”
Howard Sherman scratched his head, completely lost. “Uh, what question, Sergeant?”
The soldier furrowed his brows. “The population of your town, St. Marys, doesn’t exceed twelve thousand residents. That means it doesn’t fall within the scope of North Korea’s planned nuclear attack on the United States. So the order is to instruct your residents to stay calmly in their homes. This also explains why we’re going to close the roads inside the St. Marys city limits. Have I made myself clear, Captain Sherman?”
“Yes, perfectly. You have been perfectly clear, Sergeant.” Sherman dropped heavily back into his chair. He suddenly seemed exhausted. He stared into space.
The sergeant turned toward Lauren. She saw an expression of surprise on his face. She thought to herself that he was probably wondering what a woman in plain clothes was doing in the police captain’s office after a declaration of war between the US and North Korea.
“Excuse me, ma’am, but . . . who are you?”
She hadn’t been wrong. “I’m with the FBI. Agent Lauren Chambers. Would you like to see my ID?”
He looked at her as if he had some sort of rare, exotic bird in front of him. “No, that’s okay.”
“What do you plan to do now, Agent Chambers?” asked the captain, who had recovered his mental faculties.
“Well, I’m going to go north of the city, to the abandoned farm area, to try to find signs of the children,” she held the sergeant’s icy gaze, “if the sergeant’s men let me use the roads that lead there, of course.”
The soldier nodded silently, without taking his eyes off her.
“Sounds good,” concluded the captain. He got up and adjusted his uniform. “I’m going to get back to communicating with the crowd of residents whose questions I have to answer before a civil war breaks out in our little city, on top of everything else.”
All three left the office to plunge into the commotion of the police station’s reception area.
*
The sun had long since disappeared several hours ago. Eliott didn’t feel the icy wind sweeping through the trees under the stars. He no longer felt any of what a human being could feel. He was lying on a huge rock that towered above the city heights. St. Marys twinkled faintly under the first streaks of nighttime fog. He had traversed the forests until he was exhausted and now felt the need to regain his strength. He needed blood. He had to face the truth. He was no more than a monstrosity. He was a creature that was still intelligent, but one from which fate had taken all hum
an nature, leaving only the bestiality of a bloodthirsty animal. A few hours earlier, he had succeeded in experiencing joy, even euphoria. He thought he could save man from the invasion of these creatures. He had almost forgotten that he was one of them. Now that his tortured body wanted blood, the horrible reality had caught up with him. He planted himself firmly, squatting on his two powerful lower limbs made of the dark matter still incomprehensible to him. His eyes focused on the rare glimmers of headlights that still glided through the streets. Sometimes he caught sight of ghostly shadows, cats jumping from roof to roof, or people venturing out of their houses. His human thinking was gradually changing into that of a predator. He saw these beings as potential prey. He tried to resist the darkening of his thinking and concentrated on keeping his mind clear. His black carcass tightened. He still managed to maintain a certain clarity. He thought about Lauren. This caused a reaction in his muscle tissues, which still twitched in tiny spasms. The thing was sensitive to love. Light bothered it. Perhaps this moment, when the call for blood was rising, was the most opportune time to impose his human will. The spirit was stronger than the flesh. Wisdom controlled primal force. He thought again about Lauren. Then he revived in himself all the memories of joy and peace that his mind had kept buried. His fists clenched. Ink-black smoke billowed out of all the pores of his shiny skin and spilled into the air. He suddenly felt a loosening, a void opening in his mind. But then . . .
“Your strength is considerable, Sentinel.”
The sepulchral voice had sprung from oblivion. It had been silent for several days. He had thought it would leave him in peace. He had been wrong.
The Essence of Darkness Page 25