The offspring that were even now hatching inside her distended abdomen were developing quickly and were consuming the nutrients almost as fast as she could supply them. As studied by those of Matchstick’s kind, its young, when born, would have abilities far beyond those of the mother.
The beast looked to the dark night sky. The bright, illuminated green eyes blinked as the moon was in its full bloom. The mandibles clicked together once, then the tail was brought up and the beast groomed the barbed tip. It licked some of the venom from its stinger, then used that substance to groom the thirty bubbled and spiky-haired parts of its long tail.
Then it suddenly stopped. The tail went into the air and it froze. Small openings in the creature’s skin opened and closed. The feathered armor plates on its neck expanded out away from its body. It had caught a scent. The green eyes narrowed, and that brought the thick, hairlike brows to points resembling sharp horns. Three-quarters of the 22 million pores on its body needed for the intake of chemicals from the air closed down completely. It settled to no more than an intake of the oxygen environment every five minutes. Suddenly it sprang from its back and stood to its full height of over eighteen feet and then turned its monstrous head, first left, then right, sending its roosterlike neck armor swinging outward with the force of its action. The thickly matted and coarse hair on its body stood up, sensing all that was being transmitted on the night air. The billions of hollow hairs twitched and moved, creating a rippling effect that made its skin shimmer in the moonlight.
Suddenly the animal engaged its strong hind legs and ran six feet across the desert hardpan, all the while emitting a high-pitched buzzing from its palate. The unheard sound softened the alien soil, making it lazily bubble, once again changing the atomic structure of the earth. Then it sprang into the air fifteen feet, closing its neck armor, making itself streamlined, and hit the sand and small rocks claws first, burrowing into the ground as easily as a man diving into water.
In the distance, unknowing, the prey continued on their way. The Destroyer was on the hunt and their fate was sealed.
The machinations of most American police agencies were slow at most times, but when it came to two of their own officers who were missing, the wheels and pulleys seemed to be a little better greased than usual. When Dills and Milner hadn’t shown up at shift’s end, the machinery started moving. All state and local agencies were notified, and the hunt for the troopers had been on officially since sundown.
The Arizona State police car was parked behind the Winnebago camper as the two troopers assisted the driver in changing a tire. They were pulled onto the side of state road 88. Ed Wasser held the flashlight while his partner, Jerry Dills, Trooper Tom Dills’s brother, waited impatiently beside him.
Jerry didn’t care for the fact that they were making this courtesy stop in the first place when they should be out looking for his older brother. The tourist obviously had things under control, Dills thought, except for his wife, who would every once in a while lean over and say, “I told you so.”
The trooper looked around and stomped his black boot on the macadam. It wasn’t like Milner and his brother Tom to not check in upon shift’s end and notify base if they were going to extend their patrol. That and the fact that they had tried for hours to raise them on the radio told him Tom and his partner were in trouble somewhere out in the desert. Tom had been on the state payroll three years longer than Jerry, but that didn’t mean he had any more sense than Jerry did. At least Jerry knew George Milner to be a tough man in a pinch who would look out for Tom if it was at all humanly possible.
Jerry turned suddenly as the radio screeched and hissed their call sign. He quickly made his way from the camper and trotted to the cruiser. He was gone only a few minutes when he called, half in and half out of the car, “Hey, Ed, we have a call, code five down on Riley Road.”
Wasser said something to the man changing the tire and turned away. He trotted back to the car and jumped in the driver’s side. Jerry looked at his partner, just grateful to be moving again as every call could have Tom’s life at stake. You just never knew out here. The desert was a killing place for even those who knew it well.
“Riley Road is right up here,” Wasser said, taking the cruiser up to sixty, flipping on the overhead red-and-blues. “Hell, the only thing up there is Thomas Tahchako’s ranch.”
“That’s what I figure too. There’s the road right here.” Jerry pointed to the right. “If I remember right, it’s all the way down and just below the foothills.”
“Right.” Wasser swerved the patrol car onto the small sidetrack.
The washboard road played hell with the suspension on the state car. Jerry tightened his seat belt and hung on, using his right hand on the windowsill to brace himself as the bumping became worse. The high beams picked out several jackrabbits dashing not from but toward the car. Dills turned to look behind them in the road, wanting to say something about the bizarre scene, but staying quiet as his partner was concentrating on the rough road. The red taillights and dust made it impossible to see, but Dills thought he saw a few more jackrabbits running across the road after the cruiser had sped past. This time he had to say something. “Did you see that?” he asked, looking at his partner.
“What—oh, shit!” Wasser yelled, as he pulled the wheel to the right and narrowly avoided one of Tahchako’s cows as it ran down the middle of the road.
“What in the hell is going on, a rabbit and cattle stampede?” he asked incredulously, straightening out the car and speeding up again.
Suddenly the headlights picked up the form of Thomas Tahchako standing on the side of the dirt road. He had an old Winchester .30-30 at his shoulder and was shooting into the darkness, the muzzle flare lighting up the scrub around him.
“What is he doing?” Jerry asked loudly, as the car skidded to a halt. They quickly opened their doors and ran to the side of the road, where the old Indian continued to fire his weapon.
“Thomas… Thomas!” Wasser screamed.
But the rancher kept ejecting spent shell casings and firing. Finally the state patrolman touched Tahchako on the shoulder and the man spun around. The trooper was quick to grab the barrel of the rifle and push it down until it was pointed at the ground.
“Oh, God, you scared the tiswin out of me!” the older man said, referring to the traditional alcoholic beverage favored by the Apache. The old straw cowboy hat was cocked at an angle on his head, his eyes still wild.
“What in the hell are you shooting at?” the state trooper asked, the gunshots still ringing in his ears.
“Goddammit, something’s killing my cows!”
“Thomas, it’s too dark to see out there! What in the hell is it you’re shooting at?” Wasser asked, squinting into the darkness.
Jerry heard a cow lowing. Then the sound was cut off suddenly with a scream. He drew his nine millimeter out of its holster and flipped the safety off with his thumb. “Goddammit, cows aren’t supposed to scream like that! What in the hell is out there with your cattle?”
“I don’t know, but it’s goddamned big!”
“Thomas, calm down and tell me what’s going on here,” Wasser said angrily.
“What is it, a mountain lion?” Dills asked, peering into the darkness nervously, pistol aiming first right, then left.
“We can’t sit here and talk, man, my cattle are being killed,” Thomas said as under control as he could manage, gritting his teeth.
That said, he turned and started walking slowly away from the road. He ejected a spent shell casing and raised the gun to waist level. The two state troopers followed. Wasser clicked the safety to the off position on his sidearm, and Jerry flipped on the large flashlight. He shone the beam in a wide arc as they proceeded away from the light cast by the cruiser’s headlights. The red and blue flashers of the cruiser’s overheads cast an eerie strobe effect onto the desert scrub. Wasser stumbled and almost fell when his foot came into contact with something big, and the sound it made told him it
was wet. Dills heard the squishing sound and first put the powerful beam on Wasser, then on what he had tripped on.
“Good God almighty,” Dills said with a sharp intake of air. His partner jumped back when he saw what he had stepped on in the dark. The cow’s eyes were open and their whites were predominating in terror of what had killed it. The head looked as if it had been sliced cleanly through. The tongue had lolled out of the mouth and rested on the sand.
As Jerry Dills took this in, he felt the hair standing up on the back of his neck. There had to be more carnage waiting for the beam of his flashlight to illuminate. As he shone the light around, he heard the sharp intake of air by Thomas Tahchako. The bright light picked out the remains of the old Indian’s herd. They were scattered here and there in different states of mutilation; for the most part, the bodies were gone.
“What in God’s name could have done this?” Jerry asked, squeezing the handle of his nine millimeter tighter.
“Son of bitch, forty head of cattle, my whole western pasture,” Thomas mumbled as his rifle slowly dropped from his hands. “Goddamn cattle mutilations! The government’s behind this!”
The two troopers watched as the man broke down and started mumbling. Then they looked out into the desert and wondered what was out there. Their eyes met for a moment, sharing the same thought. They didn’t believe for one minute the government was out killing this Apache’s cattle. Whatever it was, they didn’t think they wanted to meet up with it in the dark.
Suddenly the ground erupted skyward and a wave of dirt, sand, and uprooted brush screamed toward the three men. The wave smashed into their feet and tossed the men easily into the air. Tahchako, Wasser, and Dills came down hard and immediately tried to gain their feet. All three were shaking badly as they scanned the darkness, but all that could be seen was the wave dissipating in the distance as their invisible intruder crossed the dirt road and shook the lit cruiser violently before disappearing.
Around them, the desert grew still once again.
With the tire changed and the state troopers gone twenty minutes now, Harold Tracy anxiously climbed the steps into the huge Winnebago. He washed his hands in the sink and dried them on a towel. He walked to the driver’s compartment and climbed around the center console. His wife was still reading the road map and shaking her head.
“All set?” she asked without looking up.
Harold looked over at Grace and gave her the bird quickly, while her face was still buried in the accursed map.
“That’s not nice, Harold. That’s why bad things happen to you.” Her face was still hidden in the map.
“That cop told me we have to go the other way on State Eighty-eight to get even remotely close to the interstate.” Digging it in the best he could. “You picked wrong again, Grace.”
Finally she lowered the large map and carefully folded it. The smile she wore didn’t reach her eyes.
“Who was it that wanted to come on this desert outing in the first place, Harold, me? No, it wasn’t, it was you, the great adventurer who scoffed so heartily at going to my sister’s in Colorado. So if you insist on pointing fingers, point them at yourself.”
“Believe me, if I could get this thing to fly, Grace, I would get you there right now and drop you off!” He yelled the last three words as he started the camper.
She was about to tear into him when they were both suddenly thrown from their seats and into the RV’s roof. Grace hit so hard she dented the aluminum in the overhead. Then the camper came down, bounced once on its ten wheels, and tilted to the right and slowly rolled onto its side. For a moment, Harold thought they were flying to Denver. The crunching of glass and mirrors drowned out Grace’s screams as the huge Winnebago settled on its right side. Then all was quiet. Harold had fallen onto his wife, who was trying to push him off.
“Get off me!” she yelled into his ear.
But Harold wasn’t listening. He was looking out of the windshield with his mouth hanging open. Grace followed his gaze, and the scream caught in her throat as she came eye to eye with something she couldn’t have dreamed in her wildest nightmare.
The beast blinked at the two people inside who were frozen in terror. The green and yellow eyes reflected their image back at them.
As Harold fought the urge to scream, the animal roared at the windshield, bringing up the armored plates around its neck. The window immediately fogged and then cracked into a million tiny wavy lines. But the image of the animal could, unfortunately, still be seen as clear as day. They were face-to-face with the largest set of incisors they had ever seen. The mouth was wide, and every time it opened its bonelike mandibles the rows upon rows of teeth shone clearly in its mouth. The beast roared again; the glass, unable to take any more acoustic hammering, fell from the frame. The man and woman screamed and screamed, until they noticed the sudden silence inside the camper. When they opened their eyes, the animal was gone.
Harold looked down at Grace. She was still staring out the window, and the shakes had taken over, making her entire body quake. The curlers she had placed in her hair earlier after they had stopped at that small bar and grill had for the most part fallen out. Some hung on for dear life, half on and half off.
“Harold,” Grace said quietly, “I think I peed myself.”
Harold thought it better not to comment for the moment and just sat there and thanked God they were still alive. And also that Grace hadn’t again brought up that they should have gone to her sister’s in Denver.
TWENTY-ONE
Nellis AFB, Nevada,
Computer Center, Event Group Complex
July 9, 0010 Hours
The Comp Center director, Pete Golding, and his tired team of techs hadn’t found anything as of midnight and looked as if they were on a wild-goose chase in Arizona just as they had been in New Mexico. Boris and Natasha had burned most of its fuel and could not be retasked another time to a different orbit or track without running out. And that meant they would more than likely lose the bird because it was in such a low orbit now, it would soon come tumbling back into the atmosphere. Another move by the old and reliable satellite would be its last. It would take a shuttle launch to accomplish a refueling, and they all knew that couldn’t be ordered like room service. Hours before, the president had been persuaded to give the NSA back its KH-11, Black Bird. The director of that agency was one of the few who knew about the Event Group and its front, the National Archives, and he was sympathetic and cooperative to a point, but with global terrorism still on the rise, their argument for having their bird back was valid and important to the nation.
Finally Compton had to sit at his desk and place his head down. The strain was finally catching up with him and he was on the brink of exhaustion.
Pete Golding, the head of the Comp Center and one of Niles’s closest friends, saw him and shook his head. He would let his boss get as much sleep as possible because he knew from watching him he was close to collapse.
On the many screens lining the curving wall and on the main viewing screen high above them, the expanse of desert kept rolling by as seen and sent along by Boris and Natasha, and still it showed nothing but vast emptiness.
Niles Compton was snoring lightly at his desk, his first sleep in forty-eight hours. His feet were propped up on the desk blotter, and this time the overworked director was making real progress with the much needed rest his body craved. The shifts had changed twice since they had retasked Boris and Natasha, and the results had been nothing but clear desert throughout most of Arizona. They were now taking wide-angle views of the small range of mountains everyone in the West had heard of, the Superstitions.
Pete Golding yawned and then pulled up a U.S. Geological Survey map of Arizona and used his mouse to place it in the right corner of the live feed from Boris and Natasha so he could study it and the terrain on the monitor.
“Damn closest town isn’t a town at all. Chato’s Crawl?” He shook his head. Chato had been a big man with the Apache a hundred odd years ag
o, a close friend of Geronimo’s, if he remembered right, but what was this Crawl crap that tagged the name?
“Bingo!” a voice from the floor shouted out.
Golding looked first at the display and then quickly down at the row of operators who were gathering around one computer console. He hadn’t noticed anything on the green-tinted, twenty-foot-wide screen at the front of the room that was showing the real-time feed from the KH-11.
“All right, Dave, what have you got?” he asked the operator.
The loud exclamation had startled Niles Compton from his slumber. He jerked awake with that odd feeling of falling one has when suddenly woken. He jumped to his feet and, wiping the sleep from his eyes, ran the three steps down to the main floor of the center.
“What have you got, Pete?” he asked, stretching his eyes wider as if this could make them less heavy. He slid his glasses on and looked.
“Nothing on the infrared, but look at the magnetometer from Boris, it’s off the scale. Either we ran into an aboveground ore site or we have what we’re looking for,” Golding said as he stepped back so Niles could get a better look at the display.
The digital readout for indigenous metal was pegged out at over 442,000 parts per square mile. The metal detectors on board the KH-11 satellite were using a lot of power to focus on such a tight area of the earth, but the results, though now a little weak, were very positive. Compton looked at the big projection screen on the front wall. He could see the huge rocks and boulders this mountain range was made of. But the metal the detectors were picking up was nowhere to be seen, indicating it might be indigenous metal just below the surface.
“You know, Niles, I was just looking at the U.S. Survey map, and do you know where this signal is coming from?” Pete asked, but didn’t wait for an answer as he had a horrible feeling that his boss was about to do something dumb. “That’s the Superstition Mountain Range, you know, the historical myth of the Lost Dutchman Mine, it could just be either a gold or silver deposit we’re picking up.”
Event: A Novel Page 26