“Dr. Lee?” someone calls from behind him. “Dr. Jan Lee?”
Jan turns. Out of a wall of water, two men in raincoats appear. They hold out their IDs.
FBI? How did they know he was here? He didn’t tell anyone. Did they track him? Why would they? NASA had approved his return aboard JLA’s Astraeus capsule, and, though his departure from Captain Hook, JLA’s recovery ship, wasn’t exactly protocol, it was hardly illegal.
“What’s this about?” Jan asks.
“Dr. Lee, you need to come with us.”
“How did you know where to find me?” As he asks, he pats the rectangular form of his cell phone in his pocket. They must have tracked him. It was the only way.
“We have orders to escort you back to headquarters.”
“Headquarters?”
“In D.C.”
“Look,” Jan tells them, feeling a rush of adrenaline, “I don’t do anything—especially entering into the custody of the FBI—without consulting my legal team.”
“Dr. Lee, I’m afraid our orders are… emphatic.”
“Emphatic?” Jan brushes away a drip of water from his eye. “Why would your orders be emphatic?” The question is more for him than them.
“Sir, we insist.”
Shit. They know.
Not about the Message. They couldn’t possibly be aware of that. This has to do with the experiment itself. He was warned about this. He was warned that his work was probably being monitored. And now his erratic behavior has set them off.
Shit.
To the FBI, his time-messaging experiment is no doubt now being looked at as one of the biggest security threats they’ve ever encountered. And of course, they’re right. In any government’s hands, his experiment could be corrupted—used as a dangerous weapon.
“Could I see those IDs again?” Jan asks.
The taller of the two men flips open his ID and thrusts it forward. Jan quickly grabs the man’s hand and applies force to a pressure point, dropping him to his knees.
“Open it,” Jan tells the shorter man, indicating the hotel’s side door. “Or I’ll break his wrist.”
The shorter man reaches for the door, but also into his raincoat. Jan, as promised, breaks the first man’s wrist. Then he spins and sidekicks the shorter man, knocking him into the wall—as well as launching himself backward into a bush.
He recovers, kicks the gun out of the shorter man’s hand, then strikes him with a right cross. He turns to run, slips on the wet pavement, and slides face first into the grass.
Unbelievable.
He gets to his feet and takes off again. No more than twenty feet into the torrential rain, he has to pivot sharply to avoid a tree and nearly barrels into a parked motorcycle. He turns and runs toward a waiting car. Crashing into the passenger door, he loses his grip on the handle and slips to his knees, into a veritable river. Finally he opens the door and crawls inside.
“This is exactly why we should have parked out front—” the driver says.
“Go! Go!” Jan pulls his feet inside.
“What the hell—”
“Just go!” Jan swings the door closed.
An FBI agent appears in front of the car, gun in hand, his shouts muffled by the rain and the Dodge Viper’s deep, throaty growl.
Lightning flashes and thunder roars as Nate Terrek, the driver, floors it.
Jan wipes his eyes, seeing only aqueous smears of light through the windshield. But he knows Nate. Nate could navigate a tractor-trailer through a minefield.
They launch out of the Days Inn parking lot onto the main road, taking the outside lane.
“Here they come.” Nate glances in the rearview mirror. “And they’re hauling ass.”
Jan looks out the rear window. They couldn’t have gotten to their car that fast. These had to be different agents.
Nate downshifts and, at the last second, charges across three lanes and up the entrance ramp to I-95.
“They didn’t make it.” Nate laughs.
Jan removes a towel from a duffel bag under his feet. He wipes his face. “Remember what I said about this car being obnoxious? Yeah, well, forget it.”
They had picked up the blue and white pinstriped Viper just hours ago at the Essex County Airport in New Jersey, where Nate had landed JL Aerospace’s Cessna Citation. The car, which had been waiting for them in a hangar, was a loaner, courtesy of one of Nate’s fighter pilot pals.
“Okay,” Nate says, merging them into traffic. “I think it’s time you told me what this is all about.”
Jan removes his hoodie and stares past the windshield, wondering how much he should tell Nate. How much can he afford to tell him? How much can he afford not to tell him? What a mess. And he has thirty years of this to look forward to?
“So, what happened back there?” Nate asks. “Someone not like their fortune cookie?”
“Yeah,” Jan says. “Me.”
Chapter 3
“What’s taking so long?” Lauren swatted at the snowflakes as if they were moths.
“I’m scanning the internal mechanisms of the hatch.”
“Just turn the handle,” she said.
“I know how to open it, knucklehead. I’m scanning for booby traps.”
“I thought you already did that.”
“I did. Rules and regs state we do this twice.”
“Rules and regs? Who am I talking to? I’m sorry, I was looking for my partner, Ellis Cole. Have you seen him?”
“I’m just trying to be better about following the rules.”
“Oh my God, save that crap for when we’re working in Barbados. Did you scan it right the first time? Then just open it—before Larry and Moe down there get any ideas.” She glanced at the pilots down by the lake. They had taken up positions in the JetHawk’s cargo area, feet dangling from the open door.
“Sonofabitch.” Ellis handed her the scanner.
“Oh no you don’t.” She grabbed his arm. “Ream them out later. You have to get this thing open.”
“I told them specifically to stay put.”
“You told them to stay with the helicopter.”
He looked at them, then at her.
Lauren pointed at the capsule.
“Fine. But stand back in case this thing blows up.”
Lauren stepped back, but only two paces.
“I think this thing is literally frozen shut,” Ellis told her after a series of grunts.
“Hmm, I thought you were really strong.”
Ellis glared at her.
“I could ask the pilots for help if you want.”
“Shut up. Idiot.”
“I’m just trying to be helpful—jeez.”
Lauren looked up at the pines, their limbs weighted with snow. She looked over at the frozen lake, which covered most of the valley. This really was a lucky spot to land. If the capsule had hit the lake, with the heat of its thrusters, it probably would have cut through it like a hot knife through butter.
“I can see those gears a-turning,” Ellis said, watching her.
“I was just thinking that maybe he landed here on purpose.”
“You know, not to dampen your hopes of finding a dead guy, but they did have satellite images of the debris field, and it included a body.”
“No way.”
“It’s true. It was on that site.” He handed her his tablet. “It’s bookmarked.”
Lauren opened the web page in question.
“Oh, come on, this could be anything.” She examined the image in flat screen mode in order to get a better look. “It’s just a bunch of shadows.”
Ellis tried the handle again. It lifted, but the hatch remained sealed.
“Why do you think no one reported this thing when it landed?” Lauren said, handing back the tablet.
“Are you kidding? No one’s around for hundreds of miles.”
“But a big fireball in the sky?”
“If you actually read the article,” he told her, “you’d know there were
pieces of the space station burning up in the atmosphere for weeks.”
“Then what about a locator beacon? This thing must have had some kind of locator beacon, right?”
“Maybe, but it would have been useless unless someone was actually looking for it.”
“Or maybe Dr. Lee turned it off on purpose,” Lauren said.
“Maybe…”
“And what about those two buildings that were blown up at that White Sands complex?” Lauren asked.
“They were just small, unoccupied structures.”
“But why? What’d they have to do with the space station?”
“Who knows?” Ellis stared at the hatch. “Maybe nothing. Or, maybe Dr. Lee had a plan, but it didn’t work out.”
“So he decided to kill himself instead?”
“Hang on.” Ellis held up a finger. “I think I’ve got it.”
He suddenly hammered both of his fists against the side of the hatch. He struck it so hard that Lauren was certain he had just dislodged the capsule from three decades of ice.
“You know, I’m supposed to keep you from destroying this thing.”
Ellis lifted the handle, and this time the hatch opened. “Voila…” He peeked inside as Lauren squeezed in front of him.
“Kind of stale,” she said. “Smells like burnt electronics.”
Lauren felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. She turned, hand on her weapon. The two pilots had joined them.
“You two have a hearing problem?” Ellis said.
“We were just thinking,” the pilot, the one with the goatee, said. “Since we’re risking our lives out here…”
“And since, technically, we don’t work for the FBI,” his sandy-haired, beach boy copilot added, referring to the fact that they were Coast Guard, “we just thought it was kind of within our rights to see what this was all about. It’s like, all over the internet.” Beach Boy showed them his perfect teeth.
Ellis stepped in front of Lauren.
“Hold on,” she said to Ellis, grabbing his arm. “Remember what Arthur said about getting through the week…?”
“He didn’t mean that literally.”
“Well, for my sake then, just let them have a peek. You can deal with this in whatever way you want once we get back to Edmonton. Okay?” She looked around Ellis at the pilots. “Just a peek. A quick look, and then out of our way. Got it?”
Ellis stepped aside—like a lion watching two fat ducks waddle past his paws.
“No touching anything,” Lauren warned.
“Sure, sure, sure…” Goatee muttered.
“Just remember,” Beach Boy said with a chuckle, “it’s a long way back to civilization.”
“And you remember,” Ellis said, looking down at the kid, “it’s a long way back to your helicopter.”
Beach Boy lost his smile.
“Don’t let him rattle you,” Goatee told his copilot. “This is a courtesy flight. The commander said we have final say on all operational decisions. If we feel it’s unsafe out here, we can abort this operation at any time.”
Lauren touched Ellis’s arm as the pilots looked inside the hatch. “All right,” she said, “you’ve seen inside. Now it’s time—”
“Oh, come on,” Beach Boy said. “This is a historical find.”
“We’ll take our damn time is what we’ll do.” Goatee took out his tablet.
“No pictures,” Lauren warned. “Come on, that’s enough.”
Beach Boy leaned into the capsule, lifting himself up by the hatch’s edge.
“Well, you can’t say I didn’t try.” She looked at Ellis. “Just remember we need them to get back to Edmonton.”
Ellis grabbed Goatee by the neck and threw him. For a moment, Lauren worried the pilot might tumble off the ledge. He didn’t.
Beach Boy launched a haymaker, but Ellis caught the punch and drove it right back into the kid’s face. Then he picked up the bloody-nosed kid and threw him next to his partner.
“Are you insane?” Goatee shouted.
“We’re reporting this!” Beach Boy stared at his blood in the snow. He wiped his face, making things worse.
“Good luck getting back to Edmonton,” Goatee said, helping the kid up.
The two started back toward the helicopter.
“You start that chopper and I’ll put a bullet in both your heads,” Lauren told them.
Goatee stopped and looked at the JetHawk, then at her. “Sure you will.”
“Actually,” Lauren said, “we’ll need one of you. So I’ll just shoot you in the head.”
The two men looked at each other. “Right,” Goatee responded. “Well, we’ll be sure to send someone back after the storm clears.”
Lauren was never entirely sure about people. This could be just an empty threat, but she wasn’t one for taking chances.
She drew her weapon and fired a shot two inches from Goatee’s left ear.
She could see the realization washing over him. First he put his hand to his ear, as if to shoo away a fly; then his jaw slackened; then his eyes went wide.
“Did you—did she just shoot at me?” he exclaimed.
“Start that helicopter, and the next one’ll be between your eyes.”
Neither man said a thing for a long moment. Then they just started away.
Lauren turned to Ellis, palms up, as if catching the falling snow.
“That going in your screenplay?” Ellis asked.
“Funny.” Lauren kicked the snow. “Now I have to file a discharge report—for that.”
“Say you had to scare off a grizzly. I’ll attest to it—not that Arthur cares who you shoot, anyway.” He watched the men as they neared the JetHawk. “They’ll lick their wounds, but they’ll never report anything—and they’re sure as hell not going anywhere. Come on, let’s see what’s inside this thing.”
Ellis supported Lauren’s knee as she crawled into the hatchway. She stood in what appeared to be the capsule’s cargo area—a lot of fasteners, but completely empty.
“Smells industrial,” Lauren said. “Not a hint of decay.”
“Maybe he’s frozen stiff inside one of those compartments,” Ellis joked, pointing at the panels on the wall.
Lauren opened them all, finding nothing but a bag of shackles, two nylon straps, and a bent compartment cover. She held the cover up to the gap where it appeared to have come from, then set it back down.
“What about up there?” Ellis pointed to where some hand and footholds were countersunk into the wall.
“That must be the cockpit. No dangling feet, though.” She took out her flashlight and climbed up under the cockpit’s instrument panel. Wedging herself between one of the footholds and a computer display, she aimed her flashlight toward the seats.
“He’s here!”
“Really?”
Lauren ran her flashlight over a man in a spacesuit. His body was lounging across all three seats, his helmet tilted at an improbable angle, his gloves resting atop a silver case.
“Hang on.” There were straps holding the case in place. Why would someone strap a case to his legs? She patted the spacesuit down. “Damn. It’s empty.”
“Empty? What’s empty?”
“The spacesuit. There’s an empty spacesuit up here. It’s kind of like a scarecrow or something.”
“A what?” Ellis climbed up. He looked at the spacesuit, shook the case. “Someone sure didn’t want that going anywhere.”
“Well,” she said, “I guess we’d better get some pictures. And there had better be a treasure map inside that thing—otherwise this big discovery is a big dud.”
Ellis took out his scanner. Then he looked at Lauren. “I have to scan for booby traps.”
“Are you—” She sighed, then started to climb down. “I’ll be waiting outside. Don’t forget to get those pictures.”
“Why am I the one always doing all the work?”
Minutes later, Ellis handed the case to Lauren through the hatchway. She took it over to a
boulder with a relatively flat surface, dusted off the fresh snow, and set it down.
“No booby traps?” she asked as Ellis approached.
“No, but of course this thing doesn’t test for alien space viruses.”
Lauren undid the latches and lifted the lid. Inside, sunk into die-cut foam, were six metallic objects. Five appeared to be test boxes of some sort, with switches, LEDs, and various connection ports. The sixth was a gold cube. It had no switches, no LEDs, and no ports—just the stenciled words: “AWX Temporal Transceiver.”
Lauren took out her satellite tablet and searched for “Dr. Lee” and “AWX Temporal Transceiver.” She followed one of the links.
“It says that Dr. Lee was working on a time-messaging experiment involving the Wheeler-Feynman absorber theory.” She read a paragraph to herself. “It says it’s why he was on the space station in the first place. He needed a microgravity environment for growing a certain kind of crystal.”
“What does AWX stand for?”
“Advanced Wave Experiment.”
“He was trying to send messages back in time?”
“Apparently.”
“Did it work?” Ellis asked.
“They say there’s no evidence to suggest he had any success. It says that this might even be the reason he blew up the space station.”
“Because his experiment failed?” Ellis looked doubtful as he turned back to the capsule. “There’s nothing else in there. Just this crap and that scarecrow. Why would he have sent this stuff back? It’s as if he wanted it to be found.”
“Sure, thirty years ago.” Lauren put away her tablet and examined the case more carefully. The foam was glued into place, and there was nothing underneath any of the devices. She lifted the case’s cover and found an index card. It had been stuck to the inside of the lid. It was yellowed and had curled tape at its corners. Carefully, she picked it up and flipped it over on top of the devices.
She stared at it. “What does that mean?”
“I have no idea.”
On the card was written two words:
Your Move.
Chapter 4
“I think the FBI knows about the Advanced Wave Experiment,” Jan tells Nate, staring into the blur of taillights on I-95.
“I didn’t know it was a secret.”
Landfall Page 2