The volley of bullets ceased abruptly. Of course the hybrids wouldn’t waste their ammunition when we were so clearly out of range.
My relief was short-lived, however, because only a few seconds later I heard an ominous thudding noise, and a shadow passed over the Surburban.
“Copter,” Michael said, and Lance gritted,
“Yeah, I know.”
The road in front of us erupted in dust and flying gravel as a line of machine gun fire etched the dirt. Lance swerved, one tire slipping off the narrow track, and then somehow he managed to keep the vehicle more or less hanging on as we dropped down another switchback.
“Guess they’re not too concerned about catching us alive,” Paul murmured.
I reached out and took his hand—no easy task, with us both crouched down against the seat. But I needed to feel him, needed to know he was there, even if we didn’t have much longer together. “Guess not.”
Because of our position, I couldn’t see as clearly as I wanted to. Another volley of bullets hit the ground just behind us, and then a sharp ping sounded just a few inches past my cheek, and a puff of dust came up from the upholstery as the projectile tore up the stuffing.
Paul’s hand tightened around mine. “You all right?”
“Yes,” I managed, surprised I could still speak. “That was a little close.”
And then the ground seemed to drop out from beneath us. I let out a frightened little squeak and clung to Paul’s hand, listening as rocks bounced up and hit the sides of the Suburban, and what sounded like manzanita or juniper scraped along the sheet metal. Obviously Lance had given up on the road as being too exposed, even though I couldn’t see where he was heading.
An enormous jolt shuddered its way along the vehicle, and Lance swore.
“What?” I asked.
“Blew out the rear tire. Luckily, I don’t give a shit what happens to the axle. Hang on.”
If anything, our speed increased, Lance obviously trying to push what he could out of the Suburban before it broke down completely. I risked a quick peek upward and saw that we were barreling through a narrow canyon, its sandy floor broken up by more of the ubiquitous manzanita and juniper. Since the sun was now in our eyes, I guessed we were still heading westward, more or less in the direction of Dry Creek Road and the spot where we’d left Adam and Kiki.
Whether they were still there was anyone’s guess. The men or hybrids or whatever you wanted to call them who staffed the base had to have been surveilling the area. If we were really, really lucky, they’d dismiss the UFO Night Tours van as just another bunch of tourists. But if our luck ran out…well, I decided I’d worry about that when the time came.
The helicopter still hovered overhead, even though we were in enough cover now that it would be much more difficult to see us. From time to time I heard staccato bursts of machine gun fire, but it sounded almost petulant, as if whoever was operating the weapon was just taking potshots because he could and not because he actually had a bead on us. I supposed I should be grateful.
Incredibly, the Suburban slowed to a stop under a particularly large pine tree. Lance said, “Get out.”
“What?” Paul and I both demanded simultaneously.
“There’s good cover from here almost all the way back to the road. Follow the dry creek bed, and you’ll be all right.”
“What about you?” I asked, although I thought I already knew the answer.
“Oh, Michael and I will draw them off. They’re looking for a black SUV, right?”
For a few seconds I didn’t say anything. Logically, it was the best thing to do. But leaving Lance and Michael still seemed like a horrible betrayal. “What am I supposed to tell Kiki?”
“Tell her I’ll see her and her sister back at the shop in time for cocktails. Now get going.”
I sat up and looked from him to Michael, who watched me with grave dark eyes. “It’s time for you to go on ahead. You know this.”
Yes, I did, but that didn’t make the situation any better. “See you back at the ranch.”
He smiled. “You bet.”
Then I reached down and undid my seatbelt, and slid out of the back seat. Paul did the same, hiding in the shadow of the Suburban for as long as he could. We met up at the back of the vehicle, which more or less looked like Swiss cheese. He glanced at me, and I nodded.
Running then, running from scrub bush to scrub bush, sliding on the scattered rocks in the creek bed. I didn’t even glance back when I heard the Suburban’s engine gun and the lumbering SUV take off in the opposite direction from where we were headed. At some point Paul reached out to take my hand after I slipped on a particularly nasty patch of scree, and with his firm grip to guide me, the way did seem a little easier after that.
Still, my shoulders kept hunching, my body tense from thinking that at any moment a squad of hybrids would show up and shoot us right in the back. But I kept running, feet pounding at the rough ground in my completely impractical shoes. How they managed to stay on my feet, I had no idea.
Finally, after what seemed like two or three hours had passed but was probably more like twenty minutes, we struggled our way up out of the creek bed and saw the black shape of a vehicle only a hundred yards or so ahead of us. For a second my heart seemed to lodge itself in my throat, and then I realized it was the UFO Night Tours van, not one of the secret base’s black-painted SUVs.
We hurried forward then, and I saw Kiki start upward from where she had been leaning against the rear quarter-panel of the van and move toward us.
“Persephone!” Her gaze shifted to Paul. “Dr. Oliver! Can I just say what a huge fan—”
“Um, can that wait until later?” I asked. “I think we need to get out of here. Now.”
She seemed to catch herself, and then looked past Paul and me to the empty expanse of scrub and rock. “Where are Lance and Michael?”
“Creating a diversion. Lance said to tell you he’d be back in time for cocktails.”
At first I was afraid she was going to argue, or ask more questions, but then she just nodded and jogged over to the driver’s side door. Paul and I climbed in the back; it seemed Adam had been dozing in the front seat, but he snapped awake as soon as Kiki slammed her door.
“Wha—” he began, but Kiki said,
“Later.”
She turned the van around and pointed us to the south and west on Dry Creek Road, heading back toward civilization. After a minute or two, the rattle of gravel under the van’s tires gave way to the smooth rumble of asphalt, and I let out a sigh of relief and leaned my head back against the worn upholstery.
It appeared—at least for the moment—that we had actually managed to escape.
Chapter Twelve
My relief lasted for exactly ten seconds. That ominous thudding sound filled my ears again, and I called out, “Helicopter!” just as another line of bullets bit into the road a few feet ahead of us.
“Yeah, kinda figured that out!” Kiki shouted back. The van swerved to the left, then over to the right. She continued, “We just need to hang on for a minute more. We’re almost back to civilization—after the next cross street, it’s all houses all the way back to 89A. No way they can continue their pursuit with that many witnesses around.”
Apparently the occupants of the helicopter had figured out the same thing, because another volley of bullets broke up the asphalt only a yard or so in front of us. I smelled the acrid scent of heated tar and spent creosote as we blew through the cloud of smoke.
The van continued to slalom back and forth. I was no expert, but Kara and Kiki had to have installed some pretty impressive modifications to the vehicle’s suspension, because there was no way a Dodge Ram van had ever been designed for that sort of maneuvering. We careened all the way to the right, the van tipping slightly, and I reached out to take Paul’s hand. If we were going to buy it on this stretch of lonely road, I wanted to at least do it while feeling a little less alone.
That proved not to be necessa
ry, because in the next second we came up on a stop sign and blew through it, and then to either side of us the walls of newish-looking developments lined Dry Creek Road, leaving the scrub of the desert behind. The sound of the helicopter above didn’t decrease, but the shooting had stopped. I pressed my face against the window and slanted a glance upward. I saw the helicopter a hundred feet or so above us, matching our pace.
“Bastards are going to follow us wherever we go,” Kiki called back over her shoulder. “Time to go to Plan B.”
She reached down to her center console and picked up the handset to a CB radio. “Magellan, this is Phobos. We have a Code Red. Repeat, Code Red.”
The CB crackled to life. A man’s voice with a Texas twang said, “Copy that, Phobos. What is your status?”
“We have a MIB bird in active pursuit. Need immediate evac.”
I felt like commenting that Kiki had watched Black Hawk Down one too many times but decided it wouldn’t be exactly tactful, given the circumstances. Besides, it appeared that her time playing alien hunter had at least prepared her for this situation.
“Phobos, use diversionary plan Liquid Gold. Backup will be waiting.”
“Copy that, Magellan. Thanks.”
Next to me, Paul glanced over, and all I could do was shrug. I had no idea what Liquid Gold meant, or who this Magellan was. Clearly, though, he was a friend of Kiki’s, and if he had a plan for getting us out of here, I wasn’t going to argue with it.
The sound of the helicopter seemed a little less deafening, and I risked another look out the window. At first I couldn’t see our pursuers at all; I had to unroll the window and stick my head out before I could see that they had risen another few hundred feet and were following from at least fifty yards behind us. Still…
“Isn’t someone still going to notice a helicopter flying over their development?”
“Not really,” Adam put in, as Kiki rolled through a truly spectacular California stop at the next four-way intersection, pausing so briefly it wasn’t really a pause at all, but only a beat or two where the van barely moved. “There are helicopter tours of Sedona going on all the time. They’re supposed to stay away from the residential areas as much as possible, but not everyone toes the line. No one’s going going to give it a second thought.”
Great. The back of my neck prickled in anticipation of another volley bullets, as I thought maybe our pursuers in the helicopter would get just a little bit impatient and decided to start shooting anyway. Oddly, though, I sensed none of the cold associated with the hybrids. Whoever was up in that helicopter was as human as we were.
We stopped at the light where Dry Creek ran into 89A. I noticed that Kiki was turning left, heading back up into town. Surely she wasn’t going to take us back to the UFO Depot, was she? That didn’t seem like a very good idea to me.
I should have known better. We hadn’t been on the main road all that long before she turned again, this time into another residential area of older but still well-maintained homes, most of the houses in some form of the Southwest adobe style, with carefully xeriscaped front yards. I guessed the water rationing here in Sedona would make the limitations back in L.A. look like a joke.
The van made another turn, and I wondered if Kiki was trying to lose the helicopter altogether. If that were the case, she wasn’t having much luck, as I could still hear the thrumming sound of the chopper’s blades as it hung in the sky above us like some overgrown, horribly determined wasp.
We pulled past a wooden sign that told us we were entering a state park. It was my turn to glance over at Paul, but he appeared just as mystified as I was. A minute later, I thought I understood at least part of Kiki’s stratagem; as we pulled to a stop next to a ranger’s booth so she could flash some sort of pass at the young woman manning the kiosk, the delicate green of tall cottonwood trees blotted out the sky above us. To the helicopter, which would have had to ascend even more to avoid the greenery, we were now more or less invisible.
Kiki drove past people unloading kids and dogs from the backs of their SUVs, or hauling picnic equipment out of the trunks of their cars. She found an empty space at the edge of one lane and pulled into it.
“Might as well get out and stretch our legs,” she said, then turned off the engine and pulled the keys out of the ignition.
“Stretch our legs?” Paul echoed, sounding incredulous. I couldn’t blame him—he sounded about the way I felt.
“Magellan will be here in a minute or two. And those helicopters can’t see us—even if they’re watching on infrared, how’re they going to be able to tell which signatures are ours?”
She had a point. The parking lot had its share of vans, and most of the vans had several people in them. Who was to say which was ours?
Besides, getting out of the van and grabbing a bit of fresh air while I could seemed like a great idea.
I undid my seatbelt, reached under the seat to retrieve my purse, and then slid open the door to the passenger area, with Paul following me just a second or two later. A fresh breeze caught at my hair. Beyond the sounds of people laughing and talking, I heard the soothing rustle of moving water and somehow found myself drawn eastward, through the parking lot, and on past a stand of trees.
The creek was wide at that season, still full with snowmelt from the high country. It chattered over the stones, catching sparks of stray sunlight. Overhead the cottonwood trees sheltered me from prying eyes. At the edges of my hearing the helicopter droned away, but somehow it seemed as insignificant as the buzz of a fly against a screen. Somehow, I knew I was safe here.
Despite everything, a sensation of soothing warmth wrapped itself around me. The light shifted to green, flickering with energy. This was what we were trying to save…our planet, our people. We had done so much to destroy it ourselves, and yet I knew it wanted to protect us, to surround us in its healing energies. I drank them in, letting the peace and the light and the calm, flowing strength of the water move through me.
Even though my eyes were shut, I knew the second that Paul had come to stand next to me.
I asked, “Do you feel it?”
A silence, during which I sensed him watching the water as well, breathing the air, clean and untainted by factories or six lanes of rush-hour traffic. “This may sound crazy—but I think I do.”
I opened my eyes and blinked against the dazzling diamond-bright flashes of sunlight on the water. Then I turned to Paul. “I’m ready for the next stage.”
“And what is that?”
With a smile, I replied, “I don’t know—I just know I can handle it. We, actually.”
His hazel eyes were almost pure green in the reflection of the cottonwoods’ leaves. “You sound a lot more confident than I am. There’s still a helicopter circling up there.”
“I know.” What I didn’t know was how much time we had. But I wanted to use what little breathing space we did have for something useful. “Did they question you? The hybrids?”
“No. They’re not much for talk. But there was someone else—some kind of agent, I guess. Human. He was inquisitive enough.” A muscle tightened in Paul’s jaw, and he glanced away from me, over toward the stream.
That sounded ominous. So there really were humans in league with the aliens. Some part of me had wanted to deny that such a thing could be true, but Paul had been there, had seen it for himself.
I opened my mouth to reply, then paused, still adjusting to the heightened awareness the surroundings seemed to have brought out in me. Another presence, a friendly one, had entered the parking lot. “He’s here.”
“He who?”
“Magellan.”
And I turned and made my way back to the parking lot. Kiki and Adam had left the van and now stood next to a tall gray-haired man who had just gotten out of a shiny silver Mercedes station wagon. He turned toward Paul and me as we approached.
“This is my cargo?” he asked.
Kiki said, “Dr. Oliver, Persephone, this is Matt Forrest. He’s goin
g to get you out of here.”
Matt Forrest extended a hand, and Paul shook it. “Thanks for the rescue, Mr. Forrest.”
“Call me Matt,” he replied, in the Texas drawl I recognized from the CB exchange just a short while earlier. “Happy to oblige. But we’d best get going—don’t want to keep our friends in the sky waiting too long.” He had keen blue eyes bracketed by deep lines, the eyes of a man who’d spent a good deal of his life looking into the distance. He addressed Kiki next. “You know what to do.”
“Yeah.” She turned to Paul and me. “You can trust Matt. I just wish—I just wish I could go, too. And Dr. Oliver—”
“Paul.”
“Paul.” To my surprise, she flushed a little and said, “Well, Kara and I would have loved to have you come to the shop. We—”
“Hey,” I said. “We’re not going away forever. Besides,” I added, “my car’s still in your shop’s parking lot. Keep an eye on it for me, could you?”
Her eyes sparkled. “Absolutely!”
Adam said, “We should probably go, Kiki.”
“Right. I know.” She gave an awkward little wave, then headed back toward the van.
“We’ll give them a minute,” Matt Forrest said. “Want to make sure that helicopter goes with them.”
I didn’t like the sound of that very much. “What, we’re just going to let them be decoys?”
“You didn’t seem to have much of a problem letting those other two men do the same thing,” Paul pointed out.
“I know, but Kiki and Adam are just kids—”
“They’ll be all right,” Matt said. “Kiki’s got a good head on her shoulders. Besides, all she’s going to do is drive the van back to the store. The MIBs know that Kara and Kiki are always out poking around. They’ll decide they were following the van for no good reason.”
“You hope,” I returned, although truthfully, I didn’t get any negative sensations from contemplating Kiki and Adam going back to the store. Surely if that were a terrible idea, it would have felt wrong to me.
Bad Vibrations: Book 1 of the Sedona Files Page 17