Seb thought of the look on Sonia Svetlana’s face as she unleashed a burst of potentially fatal energy toward him. “Yes,” he said, “I get that.”
“Look, Seb, there are those I work with have a far tougher attitude than me. They might think if you’re not for us, you must be against us. I wouldn’t want that to happen.”
Seb got into the car, opening the window as he shut the door. “Is that a threat?”
“It isn’t meant to be. No.”
“Funny,” said Seb, “'cause that’s exactly what it sounded like. Look after yourself, Walt.” The electric gates slid back and the Lincoln began the short trip to central Las Vegas. Steve dropped Seb outside the Bellagio. As soon as the car was out of sight, Seb hailed a cab to the station. Within the hour he was on his way back toward Albuquerque.
Walt had received another phone call and now he was drinking. Even though he knew he would have to counter the effects of the alcohol with Manna in a few hours, he wanted to delay having to deal with reality just a little longer. He poured a very generous glass of aged bourbon, then drained it in two long swallows. He stared at the phone on his desk. He had gone for years without hearing from Mason. And now this. He looked at his watch. Eleven hours until he was needed. His glass was empty. He filled it again.
The stealth helicopter approached Las Vegas from the East. It didn’t fly directly over the Order’s horseshoe of trailers, but got close enough to get some excellent images. The layout was straightforward, so the strategy was easy to formulate. Just one approach by road, a track from the Interstate coming in from the south-east, following the curve at the base of the rocky hill against which they’d placed their encampment. A much rougher track was accessible leading out from the trailers to the north, but it led nowhere. Not an easy place to defend from a basic pincer movement. The sort of place you’d only choose if you expected never to be attacked.
Westlake closed the laptop and smiled grimly, remembering Mason’s words an hour previously. “They won’t be expecting us until tomorrow,” he said. “They will be unprepared, but the element of surprise will be short-lived. You’re about to break a truce that’s lasted hundreds of years. So make sure it’s done right. Fast and clean. No mistakes, no evidence pointing back to us. And no survivors.”
Westlake closed his eyes and visualized the upcoming operation. He would brief his men an hour before starting. They were the best, he expected a perfect outcome. The only loose ends were the Manna guys. They’d need to stop the targets using their power, but he doubted he would even need them. This was what he was good at and there were few who could touch him. Mason would have what he wanted by 1am.
36
The atmosphere in the dining trailer was just as it had been when Bob and Meera had first arrived. A serene silence pervaded the place, despite the fact that they had spent most of the day planning an ambush for the following day.
Mee was making her way through another enormous stack of pancakes drenched in syrup. Ever since Muriel, who prepared much of the food, had told her that all the food she ‘made’ contained a perfect balance of nutrients, protein and carbohydrate, despite tasting like a dietician’s nightmare, Mee had delightedly taken her at her word and stuffed her face with chocolate, ice cream, cookies and pie. Impossible to feel guilty when your body’s telling you it just absorbed five fruits and vegetables, a handful of nuts and some brown rice. As religious communities went, this one had some perks.
Bob was sitting at the far end of the table, drinking black coffee like he never expected to need to sleep again. He was hunched over a map, triple checking everything that had already been double-checked an hour ago. Mee walked over.
“I think you’ve covered pretty much every eventuality,” she said. He looked up and nodded.
“Can’t be complacent,” he said. “That’s what gets you dead in these situations.”
“So what do you make of this place? The Order, I mean. And what about Seb?”
Bob pushed the map away and rubbed his eyes. “I was never much of a one for magic, psychic powers, all that metal bending bullshit,” he said, “but this is something else. I’ve been thinking about it - I spent most of yesterday talking to the folk here. They’re happy to answer questions now that Diane’s vouched for us.”
Mee poured herself a coffee and added enough cream and sugar to give a diabetic palpitations before sitting down opposite Bob.
“What’s the story?” she said.
“Well, it seems the Order is pretty pragmatic,” he said. “I like them. It’s not a religion as far as I can see. Not really. No worship, no need to believe in anything. They think their meditation helps them get in touch with reality, confronting the ugly stuff inside us. Not rejecting it, but not letting all that subconscious crap run their lives, either.”
“You have a way with words,” said Mee, smiling. Bob looked up, not sure if he was being teased. His answering smile was a little shy. He had grown to admire this fiery woman over the last few days. She never spoke about her feelings for Seb, but even someone as long out of the relationship game as Bob could see it as plain as the hand in front of his face. She was nuts about him. Bob hoped that whatever else emerged from this crazy adventure, at least Seb and Mee would stop wasting time and admit they belonged together.
“Diane told me more about their founder,” he said. “Since they never wrote anything down, the stories are sketchy at best, but one thing is really clear. This guy was visited in his cave by some kind of angel, but not any kind of angel I ever heard about before. No wings, no robes, no message from God. Just handed over this power, showed him how to use Manna. And then disappeared and told him to wait. I guess he didn’t think the wait would be quite this long.”
“They think Seb is who they’ve been waiting for. Why?”
“Well, this is where it gets interesting. But not everyone thinks a Messiah is coming. Diane told me she—and many others—think they are waiting for an extraterrestrial visit. And it may have happened already.”
“What?!” said Meera. “Oh, come on.”
“Think about it for a minute,” said Bob. “These ‘thin places’ where Manna is buried. People have been using this stuff for thousands of years. It never runs out. So, if it’s not some mystical hocus-pocus bullshit, what is it?”
“I don’t know,” said Mee. “Enlighten me.”
“Some kind of advanced alien nano-technology, that’s the best fit,” said Bob. He noted Mee’s raised eyebrow, but as she wasn’t walking away, he continued. “I read once that magic is just a name for stuff science hasn’t explained yet. Well, Manna never runs out, very few people can use it, and the guy who learned to use it first was visited by a silent glowing creature who taught him all about it.”
“An alien?” doing her best to stay cynical, but remembering what she had seen over the past few days.
“I can’t think of a better theory,” he said. And Roswell was the clincher.”
“Why?” she said.
“Every Manna user knows about it,” he said. “Apparently it’s the most powerful thin place on the planet. When it first appeared in 1947, the Order thought it was what they had been waiting for. Their most senior people came here, went to Roswell to absorb it, but they couldn’t do it.”
“Why not?” said Mee.
“They don’t know, but it didn’t work for anyone. No one can use it. The Order took it pretty well, patience is something they’re used to. Other Users, not so much. Diane says they’ve got no firm evidence, but they’re pretty sure there was a cover-up immediately after the crash. Some of them think the government have been experimenting on an alien that survived the crash. Others think the alien must have died. Everyone thinks Roswell itself has some kind of protection. There are plenty of stories about people trying to dig, take samples, but the equipment they use fails when they try to break up the soil.”
“Ok, back up,” she said. “You think a real alien crashed at Roswell? And it was the same kind as the one wh
o visited this bloke in a cave two thousand years ago?”
“Think about it,” he said. “Manna is real, but no one knows what it is. It’s magic, because science hasn’t explained it yet. If we turned up in front of a caveman one day with a tablet loaded with movies, he wouldn’t have a clue what was going on. But we don’t think twice about it. He might learn to press the touchscreen in the right place, though. If he was shown. But he still wouldn’t understand the tiniest fraction of what he was seeing, would he?”
“And we’re the cave people,” said Mee. “So what’s Roswell?”
“If the same alien race came back after two thousand years, their technology will have moved on a bit,” said Bob.
“Hmm,” said Mee. “Yeah, just a bit.”
“So that fits,” said Bob. “All these Manna users, they feel the Roswell site is full of something similar, but they can’t access it. Maybe the alien thought we would have advanced enough to use it by now. Maybe it really was an accident - a crash, and the alien didn’t mean us to have it at all. I don’t know. But the theory fits. And a hell of lot of the Order think that’s exactly what happened.”
“So why Seb? If he had been using Manna, I would have known about it.”
“I don’t know.” Bob stood up and paced the length of the trailer a couple of times, thinking. Finally he stopped and put his hand on Meera’s shoulder. She looked up at him.
“Look, I need to show you something,” he said. He pulled a piece of paper out of his back pocket and handed it to her. She unfolded it, recognizing Seb’s handwriting.
Sorry it had to be you, Bob, but I knew you'd be able to cope ok. All the best, Seb. PS. Help yourself to the whisky. It's good stuff.
“What is this?” said Mee.
“That tree we climbed back in the mountains,” said Bob. “It was at the base of it. Next to an excellent bottle of whisky. Well, half a bottle. The note was held down by a knife, which was covered in blood. Seb’s blood, I assume.”
“What are you getting at?” said Meera.
“Why did you come to the mountain that morning?” said Bob. “Had you noticed anything strange about his behavior over the last few weeks? Any changes?”
“Well, we weren’t spending as much time together as we used to,” said Mee, “but that’s only natural. We broke up months ago, after all.”
“But you still spoke to him. You stayed friends.”
“Of course. And he was still writing songs for us. But he was planning something. He said he was moving to Europe. I told him he was full of shit.”
“So what was really going on?”
Mee stood up. It was her turn to pace the narrow confines of the trailer. Outside it was getting dark. “I had a bad feeling,” she said, finally. “Something wasn’t right. But I didn’t want to push him.”
“Yeah, I thought so too,” said Bob. “Couple weeks back, we were walking together and he said he needed to sit down. Said he had an idea for a song, was going to make some notes. Told me he’d catch up. He almost fell over. I walked around the corner then doubled back. He was sweating and shaking. Some kind of fit, I don’t know. He passed out. I was going to call 911, but he opened his eyes, started looking around, so I pretended I hadn’t seen anything. He didn’t mention it when he caught up.”
“So,” said Mee, “the note.”
“Yeah,” said Bob. “It was a suicide note, Meera.”
“Jesus,” said Mee, sitting down again. She buried her face in her hands. Despite herself, she started sobbing. Bob put his arms around her.
“I think he was really sick and had decided this was the way he wanted to go,” he said. “He didn’t want to hurt you. Or anyone else.”
“Selfish bastard,” she said, between sobs.
“But between writing that note and us seeing him, something happened,” said Bob. “And whatever that something was, he went from normal guy to Manna power-user in one night. Diane said it takes years to learn to use that stuff.”
“So what are you saying?” said Meera.
“I’m saying someone—or something—found Seb that night. They stopped him killing himself and they left him full of Manna.”
“And you think it was another alien? These things running around LA now, are they?”
Bob shrugged, drained the last of his cold coffee. “Got a better theory?”
She opened her mouth to reply just as the door burst open and two men in black with automatic weapons burst in. They pointed their guns at Bob and Mee.
“Just sit there and put your hands on the table. Don’t give me a reason to waste a bullet,” said one of them. Bob and Mee looked at each other, Bob shaking his head a fraction. Outside the night was suddenly lit up, as if the sun had come out. They could feel the heat on their faces. Then the screaming started.
37
He knew the operation would have to be fast and precise. Mason had made that clear enough. Westlake was not a man with any delusions: he had realized early in life that he enjoyed the act of killing, so he didn’t try to dress up his pleasure with any kind of patriotic justification. His fondness for the act wasn’t some kind of perverse sexual kick; far from it. It was more the professional satisfaction of completing a tidy operation with no loose ends. He wouldn’t be happy until the number of corpses on the scene matched the list in his head, and the physical evidence told the story he wanted told. A job well done, a report given, a brief glow of satisfaction. Then on to the next job.
So, when his watch showed 1:11am precisely, and a buzz in his pocket let him know Teams B and C were in position, blocking any possible road exits from the Order’s trailers, with team D ready on the hill behind, he felt a preternatural calmness descend, just as it always did when an operation took the final step out of his head and into reality. He motioned to the pilot to bring the chopper down. As it dropped toward the desert floor, he turned to the men waiting in the belly of the helicopter. His own men he ignored - they were proven, reliable professionals. Instead, he spoke to three men and two women sitting at the front. Two men were known to him - that lightweight Ford and, sitting next to him, the little guy—Barrington—Mason’s enforcer, his gaze cold, unreadable. One of Westlake’s men had made the mistake of commenting negatively on Barrington’s size during an early operation. He didn’t work for Westlake any more, as Barrington had broken every one of his fingers. Multiple fractures in each digit. More accurately, he didn’t work for anyone any more, as Westlake had put a bullet in his head and had him buried in the foundations of a hotel parking lot. Leaving the unit prematurely didn’t mean a redundancy package. His soldiers knew that when they signed up.
The other man and the two women had been brought in by Mason, so Westlake knew better than to voice any doubts about their credentials. He looked them over.
“You know what to do,” he said, “but let me make this clear. No one other than the target gets to walk away, exactly as our employer has specified. You do your job, so we can do ours.” None of the group, with the exception of Barrington, looked remotely comfortable. Ford, in particular, was already sweating and his hands were shaking. Westlake stared at the man until he finally met his gaze. He said nothing. Both of them knew Ford had to do what he had been told to do, if he intended to live past the next hour or so.
The pilot settled the chopper so lightly onto the ground, only the sudden decrease in vibration as the rotors slowed to a stop let the passengers know it had landed. Westlake opened the door, jumping out and watching his men fall in behind him, forming a line, the black clothes, full face masks and the dark tanks on their backs making their figures nightmarish. He flicked on his night vision goggles and watched the only two soldiers without tanks peel off to the right and head toward the trailer containing Patel and Geller. He never planned for luck in an operation, but when it came his way, he was quick to embrace it. The technology they used to observe the Order over the last few hours gave them a live feed detailed enough to pick out individual faces. The fact that Geller and Pate
l had decided on a cozy chat in the trailer nearest where the chopper had landed made his job easier. The Manna users stepped out behind him and he waved them forward. They stayed together as a group, stopping about a hundred feet from the trailers. They quickly became very still. Westlake was not a Manna user, but experience had taught him the signs of its use. Their job was to suppress as much Manna-based resistance as possible. He turned his focus back to his crew, jogging up to join them. They were all in position. He pushed the button in his pocket, knowing each of his men would feel the buzz and immediately carry out their orders.
Twenty-three seconds later, two buzzes in his pocket signaled Patel and Geller were secure. Radio silence was no longer necessary.
“Go,” said Westlake.
The first maneuver was designed to wipe out most of the Order immediately, but the use of his best men plus the addition of the Users proved how seriously Mason took the possibility of failure. Westlake knew not to underestimate the enemy, despite their appearance and hippy commune way of living. Each trailer except the one containing Patel and Geller were hit simultaneously with a particular kind of incendiary grenade banned nearly a decade ago by the United Nations. Each grenade detonated releasing superheated fireballs made up of a chemical solution designed to cling to flesh. The screaming started immediately. Westlake didn’t mind screaming, in fact he often likened it to the applause of a satisfied audience at a concert. It showed things were proceeding as planned. In his many years working for Mason, the vast majority of killings had to be silent, which diminished his satisfaction slightly.
The old trailers would never have passed any kind of fire inspection. They went up like kindling. Another advantage of the grenades was the speed in which they did the damage. By the time anyone had thought to investigate a glow in the distance, it would all be over.
Three women made it out of their trailers. Westlake discovered later that another two had come out of the back, only to run into team D who ensured they got no further. The three at the front offered more resistance. Only one was alight - she rolled onto the ground and a sudden Manna-produced gust of wind extinguished the flames. Westlake looked sharply at the civilian group he had brought along. They were reacting to developments, but Westlake had forgotten how excruciatingly long the reactions of non-trained personnel could seem to someone of his background and abilities. By the time they were ready to respond, one of the women had raised her hands and a wall of earth had risen up between her and the fire heading toward her from the flame-throwers of Westlake’s men. Then the wall blew apart in an explosion of dust and stones as Ford and the others finally responded. The flame-throwers found two targets and they turned into writhing figures from a nightmare, their flesh bubbling and the skin peeling away from their lips even as they screamed. They desperately tried to use Manna to heal themselves, but Westlake’s group countered every attempt, and as they drew in breath to scream again, the fire burned away the linings of their lungs.
The World Walker Series Box Set Page 28