Shadow Dragon

by Horton, Lance

  Back in her car, she pulled the notebook and her cell phone from her satchel, punched the speed dial number for the office, and hit the send button.

  Charlie, who wore a wireless headset linked to his computer like a PBX operator, was suddenly on the line without the usual rattling that accompanied the lifting of a handset. “Hey, Carrie, what’s up?”

  “Wise Man,” Carrie said and smiled. Charlie was in his midtwenties, but he still looked like a teenager, complete with curly brown hair, acne, and thick glasses that were constantly sliding down to the end of his nose. Most of the people at the paper called Charlie “the Mole” because of his looks and his special expertise at digging up information, but Carrie preferred to call him “Wise Man.” To her, the Mole was too condescending a nickname, even though Charlie didn’t seem to mind it too much. Wise Man was a more complimentary, respectful nickname. And Carrie was respectful of what Charlie was able to accomplish. In her mind, he was a modern-day technological prodigy, a virtuoso of the Internet who deserved more recognition than he got.

  “I need some info,” she said.

  “You came to the right place.”

  “Of course I did,” she said. It never hurt to stroke someone’s ego a little, especially when you wanted something from him.

  “Whatcha need?”

  “I’ve got a list of companies I need you to look into. Pull up all you can on them, especially things like who the shareholders are, board members, annual revenue, preferred subcontractors, uh … pending litigation, and who they typically use to represent them in legal matters, things like that.”

  “Got it. What are the companies?”

  “Ramirez Excavation Services, Inc., Johnson-Dealy Construction, and Bell Electric, Inc. And I also need you to pull up the same information for the top ten general contractors in the state. You should be able to find that out from the Denver Business Journal’s list.”

  “Got it. You coming in anytime soon?”

  “Yeah, I was just going to stop and grab lunch, and then I’ll be in. You eaten anything yet?”

  “No, you mind picking up something for me?”

  “It’s the least I could do. What do you want?”

  “Bring me a double cheeseburger, large onion rings, and a strawberry milkshake—if they have strawberry. If not, just get me vanilla.”

  Carrie smiled as she jotted down the order in her spiral. No wonder he still seems like a teenager, she thought. He still eats like one. “No problem, I’ll be there in a few.”

  *

  Stepping within the confines of Charlie’s cubicle was like stepping into the silicon equivalent of The Twilight Zone. Posters of hideous monsters and exotic spacecraft amid explosive battles for the fate of the galaxy shared wall space with unnaturally buxom, computer-animated, adventurous females. The only non-computer-related item hanging on the gray, cloth-covered partitions was his diploma from Cal Tech. His major, of course, had been computer science.

  His glasses dangling perilously on the end of his nose, Charlie peered at one of the three twenty-seven-inch flat screen monitors in front of him. A rubber figurine of a three-eyed ogre holding a spiked club perched atop the center monitor.

  “Any luck?” Carrie asked.

  “Yeah, I think so,” he nodded, still focused on the monitors. Then, with a snap, he turned toward the food as he took a big whiff. “Onion rings!” he smiled as he grabbed for the greasy cardboard container.

  “They didn’t have strawberry, so I got you vanilla,” Carrie said as she handed him his shake.

  “They never do,” he grumbled. “But thanks.”

  While they ate, Charlie informed Carrie what he had been able to find out so far.

  “Here’s the list of the top ten general contractors in the state along with their annual gross revenue and name of their president,” he said around a mouthful of cheeseburger as he pointed to the monitor on the left.

  “Great,” Carrie said as she leaned over his shoulder. “Can you print that out for me?”

  “Sure,” he replied. “Curly,” he said into the microphone of his headset. “Print display to network printer five.” Charlie had three processors dedicated solely to his use integrated into the office network system, and being the typical computer geek, he had named them Moe, Larry, and Curly. He had set up each of the computers to recognize voice commands, but it still amazed Carrie every time she watched him do it. It was like watching a great magician performing his tricks and not knowing how they did it.

  “Moe,” he commanded the other computer. “Pull up directory ‘Carrie.’ Pull up file ‘Ramirez.’” A page of text appeared on the center monitor.

  “Okay,” Charlie said to Carrie. “Ramirez Excavation and Johnson-Dealy Construction both opened for business four years ago. Bell Electric’s been around for eighteen years and is owned by Dorothy Bell, who took over the company after her husband died eight years ago. It’ll take a little more digging to find out who actually owns the first two. I may have to do a little work from my house, but I’ll find out.”

  “That’s great. What about—” Carrie stopped as she heard her name being called overhead. There was a phone call holding for her at her desk.

  She picked up the phone on Charlie’s desk and answered the call. “This is Carrie.” There was a short pause while she listened to the person on the other end.

  “Oh, God,” she whispered, her bottom lip beginning to tremble.

  “I … I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  Without saying goodbye, she hung up the phone. “I … I’ve got to go,” she stammered. Her voice quivered as she spoke and tears began brimming in her eyes.

  “What’s wrong?” Charlie asked.

  Unable to hold back any longer, she burst into tears. “My grandparents were killed last night,” she sobbed. After she grabbed her purse, she raced from the cubicle, her half-eaten burger left to go cold.

  CHAPTER 24

  Montana

  It was late afternoon by the time they had finished gathering and photographing all of the evidence at the Joneses’ cabin. The sun was beginning to dip behind the mountains to the west, casting ever-deepening shadows across the valley. George Greyhawk nodded at Deputy Johnson as he backed around to head back into town, taking the FBI agents with him.

  During the day, George had sent Clayton back into town to a hardware store to purchase three sheets of plywood, a hammer, and a box of nails to board up the missing window.

  Clayton and the FBI agents had all offered to stay and help, but George had sent them on their way, telling them that they had had a long day and that he could handle it without their assistance. Actually, he had his own reason for staying behind alone, one that he didn’t care to try to explain to them.

  After he boarded up the window, George stored the hammer and nails in the back of his Yukon and then lifted a Remington 870 shotgun from the rack along the side window. Using one of the keys on his key ring, he unlocked the padlock and opened the lid on a metal storage box bolted to the floor of the truck against the backseat. Inside were several removable trays of differing size that contained road flares, flashlights, batteries, and several boxes of ammunition of varying calibers.

  The shotgun had an extended magazine. He pulled out eight shells from one of the trays and loaded them into the breach. He pumped the barrel and chambered the first shell. He then pulled out a large, black Maglite and closed the storage box.

  After he shut the back gate of the Yukon, he returned to the front porch of the cabin, where he sat down in one of the wooden rockers and waited for true night to fall.

  *

  It was just after midnight when George first sensed it. He was sitting perfectly still—as he had been for the last four hours—listening to the wind as it soughed through the trees and scanning the darkness for any signs of movement. The moon was almost full, its silvery light quivering and dancing on the surface of the lake as the gentle waves lapped at the ice-crusted shore. In spite of the light from th
e moon, it was still impossible to see into the dark recesses of the forest, but that didn’t matter to George. He knew something was out there. He could sense it.

  Thoughts of his grandmother and the legend of the coyote filled his mind, but he quickly pushed them away.

  He rose from the chair with such slow deliberation that it remained perfectly silent in spite of its tendency to creak and groan at the slightest disturbance. The floorboards remained quiet as he moved across the porch to the railing. His breath steamed in the frigid night air, momentarily disturbing his vision as the moonlight turned the vapor into a luminous, silvery cloud. Eyes narrowing, he scanned the darkness searching for the source of the disturbance.

  Nothing moved except for a few dead leaves and pine needles blowing across the ground.

  Remaining perfectly still, he closed his eyes. He could just sense it out there—something incredibly powerful and dangerous. It was not one with the forest. It did not belong, and thus, George was able to sense the uneasiness within the forest itself. The night had fallen silent. There were no ghostly calls ringing out as lonely owls hooted to one another, no rustling of limbs or scraping of claws against bark as tree squirrels scurried about. Nothing. Just the faint shooshing of the breeze passing through the treetops.

  George was as still as the trees themselves, waiting for the thing to make its move. He could sense it out there just beyond the edge of his perception, as if it were sizing him up.

  George pumped the shotgun, cracking the silence of the night.

  He had hoped the sudden noise and movement and the threat it implied might startle the thing into action, but the night remained quiet.

  Then suddenly, it was gone. To George, it felt as if he had been in the pressurized cabin of an airplane and one of the emergency exit doors had been suddenly opened, allowing the strange sensations to evaporate into thin air.

  Knowing the encounter was over, George walked to the truck and got in. He laid the shotgun across the passenger seat within easy reach. It wasn’t until he started the engine and looked in the rearview mirror that he noticed the beads of sweat on his forehead.

  CHAPTER 25

  Maryland

  Anderson Colquitt was a man who liked order. Everything about him reflected this. His shirt was crisply starched and wrinkle-free, his tie perfectly straight. His dark suit was carefully pressed and free of lint. His shoes were polished with a spit-shine that made the black leather gleam like the surface of a new mirror. The only items on his finely polished mahogany desk were the blotter, the corners of which were lined up square with the edges of the desk, the telephone, which was also squared up with the desk, and the letter he was currently writing.

  The walls of his office were uncluttered by calendars or dry-erase boards. The only picture that hung on the wall was not a piece of decorative art but a framed photograph of him shaking hands with the president of the United States. In the photograph, he wore his military parade uniform. He stood tall and erect, his head held straight and firm. The photograph had been taken years ago, before the wrinkles and gray hair and fading vision had forced him into retirement from the military.

  The telephone intercom buzzed, and the voice of his secretary, Linda, came through. “General Colquitt, you have a call on line seven.” Even though he worked in the private sector now, everyone still called him a general.

  Without asking, he knew it was an important call. Their phone system was a digital one with hundreds of extensions. There was one special extension, however, that was accessed by dialing a number only a select few people had been given. Whenever a call entered the system through this number, he knew it had come from a remote switching station that had routed it through a series of transfers around the world to prevent anyone, including the phone company, from tracing the call or even backtracking through the records to determine the origin of the call. Before it was connected, it was patched through a digital encryption system and then routed to the decryption server hidden in a locked enclosure behind the wooden paneling in a corner of his office. Anytime a call came in through this server, an icon on the secretary’s phone would light up, and she would inform the general of the nature of the call by informing him the call was on line seven.

  “Ring it through,” he said, putting the cap back on the black Mont Blanc pen. He adjusted the piece of paper he had been writing on, making sure it was square with the blotter. He placed the pen down on the blotter parallel to the paper.

  He waited for the phone to ring twice before he answered. “General Colquitt,” he said.

  The expression on the general’s face did not change while the person on the other end spoke.

  “I see,” the general said at last. “Yes, you were right to call. I’ll take care of it from here. Continue on as before and call if there are any further developments.” He hung up the phone. As he often did when he was thinking, he stepped to the window behind his desk.

  He stood there with his hands behind his back, staring out the window at the long, four-story, mirrored building across the courtyard. Even though it was cold outside, there were still several people huddled together in the wooden gazebo in the middle of the tastefully landscaped space. All of them were smoking. Smoking within any of the buildings on the campus was strictly forbidden. It was a filthy habit. If he could have things his way, smoking by employees would be prohibited. Period.

  After he pondered the situation for a moment, he returned to his desk to place a call. Before he dialed, he entered the code sequence that routed the call through the outgoing encryption system.

  “Colquitt here,” he said as soon as Nathaniel Brockemeyer answered. “We may have another situation developing. I want you to be prepared in case we have to respond again quickly.”

  “Yes, sir,” Nathan replied sharply.

  With that, Colquitt hung up the phone. He leaned back in his plush leather chair and looked at the photograph of himself with the president. In the military, he had been taught to plan for every possible contingency. Before his arrival, his predecessor’s failure to properly plan for every conceivable situation had nearly cost them everything. He was determined to see that nothing was overlooked while he was in charge.

  Satisfied, he picked up the pen and began working on the letter once more.

  CHAPTER 26

  The flight from Denver to Kalispell seemed like the longest flight Carrie had ever taken. In the past, she had flown all across the country—from coast to coast and even to Hawaii—but none of those flights seemed to take half as long as the one she was currently on.

  She sighed and took another drink of her Bloody Mary, which was really just a double vodka with a splash of V8. Her head throbbed dully against the backs of her eyes and around her temples. Reaching behind her, she pulled the rubber band farther down her ponytail in an effort to relieve some of the tension.

  She felt exhausted, probably from the wine and sleeping pills she had taken last night, and yet, like last night, she found it impossible to sleep. Her mind just kept going around and around, thinking about her grandparents. Why would anyone want to kill them, and how was she going to get by without them? A profound sense of loneliness had settled around her like a thick fog. She felt alone and isolated like she had never felt in her entire life. This time, there was no one left to turn to. This time, she was truly alone.

  Carrie stared out the window at the blanket of puffy white clouds drifting beneath the wings. She remembered Audrey Gran had always told her that God never gave people burdens that were more than they could handle, but that held little comfort for her now. She wasn’t nearly as strong-willed as her grandmother had been.

  “Would you like another drink?” the flight attendant asked as she pulled the cart next to Carrie’s row.

  “Uh, no. No, thank you,” Carrie replied, looking down at the empty plastic cup in her hand. It wouldn’t look good if she showed up at the sheriff’s office reeking of booze.

  As the attendant began to push the cart dow
n the aisle, Carrie reached out for her. “Wait, I’m sorry, I … let me have another Bloody Mary please.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Montana

  Morning found Kyle and Lewis back in the Justice Center conference room with Marasco and the sheriff. A rolling metal cart and monitor sat at the end of the table. They had been reviewing the taped interview with Bill and Audrey Jones from several weeks ago, looking at it again for any clues they might have previously missed.

  Kyle’s stomach gurgled.

  They hadn’t bothered to stop for breakfast. Instead, they had made do with a dozen donuts brought in by Deputy Johnson. Even though he had gotten little sleep the night before, Kyle drank water instead of the thick, black coffee everyone else was drinking.

  On the table in front of them lay a copy of the Kalispell Mountain Herald. Printed across the top in big, bold letters, the headlines read, “NEW MURDERS AT HUNGRY HORSE. POLICE AND FBI BAFFLED.”

  Lewis hadn’t said anything about it, but Kyle knew he was furious over the headlines. It was that reporter, Wallace Hipple, again, casting them all as a group of bumbling idiots.

  To make matters worse, Deputy Johnson had informed them that the phone company had rebuffed his attempt at getting a copy of the phone records without a warrant. It was one thing to do it when an individual was suspected of a crime, they said, but there was just too much risk of exposure and potential liability if they were to do it against the local newspaper.

  All of that topped off with the greasy donuts had given Kyle a queasy stomach.

  It rumbled again as the sheriff hit play on the CD player.

  “Nine-one-one, what is the nature of your emergency?”

  No reply. Sounds can be heard in the background, as if the receiver is off the hook.