Song of Ariel: A Blue Light Thriller (Book 2) (Blue Light Series)

by Mark Edward Hall

“I understand how you feel, Danny, but the truth is that asshole saved all our lives.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “I got a phone call at three in the morning on July 4th,” Jennings said. It was Spencer and he said that some serious shit was going down in the world and that if I knew what was good for me I’d contact those closest to me, get inside somewhere and lock all the doors and windows. He wouldn’t explain further, but said that the next few days would bear witness to his claim. It’s when I called you guys and, well, here we are.”

  “That bastard knew ahead of time,” Laura said. “The government knew? They did this?”

  Wolf said, “They’ve been playing around with shit like this for years, and now the genie is finally out of the bottle.”

  “Maybe,” Jennings said.

  “Maybe hell,” Wolf replied.

  “Spencer didn’t explain,” Jennings said. “But he did give me a message to deliver.”

  “A message? To whom?”

  “To Doug and Annie. And it’s time sensitive.”

  Laura pointed down at the smoldering ruins of the cabin. “I think we’re too late. Someone got to them before we did.”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” Jennings said. “They’re both survivors. And they know they have to protect that child at all costs.”

  “It was Spencer,” Wolf said.

  “I don’t think so,” Jennings said.

  “Did he know where they were?”

  “It seems obvious now. He’s probably known from the beginning.”

  “There you have it.”

  “It’s in Spencer’s interest if they survive,” Jennings said. “I’m quite sure he didn’t do this.”

  “Why does he want them to survive?”

  “He wants the child.”

  “Of course he does,” Wolf said. “He gets off on messing with children’s minds.”

  “If Spencer wants the child and he knows where she’s been, then why didn’t he come after her before now?” Laura asked.

  Jennings sighed. “He had no use for an infant. She was safe and sound here. Why not let the parents do the hard part and then take her when she’s old enough to be of some use? She’s four now, and like I said, smarter than most grad students.”

  “So if he didn’t blow up the cabin, who did?”

  Just because Spencer wants her alive doesn’t mean everyone does. Her arrival on this planet has become the stuff of legend. There are all sorts of nut jobs out there with their own agendas; splinter factions of the government, greedy power mongers who have their own vision of the future, religious fanatics who believe science is the enemy. Some want her dead. Some want to use her. I believe Spencer is in the latter category.”

  “Don’t tell me you actually trust that asshole,” Wolf said.

  “Not for a minute,” Jennings replied. “But I still don’t believe he did this.”

  Laura stared out the window at the ruined cabin as the plane circled the pond. “So you honestly believe they’re still alive?” she mused.

  “I think there’s a very good chance. If they are they’ve heard the plane and they’ll be waiting.”

  “Waiting where?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Laura stared at Jennings. “Sometimes you really piss me off, you know that?”

  “Only too well, my little chickadee. Let’s get this thing down and I’ll explain everything. Better still, I’ll let Doug and Annie do the explaining.”

  They circled the pond half a dozen more times and didn’t see any sign of intruders. But that didn’t mean anything. The wilderness was rife with hiding places. The fact that they hadn’t been shot at was both good news and bad. They could be waiting in ambush for when they pulled up to the dock. There they’d be sitting ducks.

  “Okay, hang on,” Jennings said, as he slipped the Cessna around in a final tight bank and lined it up with the length of the oval-shaped pond. Abruptly he dropped the flaps and pulled back on the throttle. The Cessna dropped sickeningly, gliding dangerously close to treetops. Laura’s white knuckled hands gripped the seat on either side of her as her gorge rose.

  “Oh shit,” she said. She didn’t like flying. Never had. But this wasn’t flying. This was nutty stuff. The kind of stuff crazy people did. Finally, when she was certain they would end up a fiery heap on the forest floor, the plane broke out over the pond. She exhaled a long pent-up breath.

  “That was close,” she said.

  Jennings cut the throttle abruptly and pushed the yoke forward until the plane skimmed just over the surface.

  “Not a lot of pond here,” Wolf commented as the opposite shore moved toward them at a dizzying rate.

  “Nope,” Jennings said, “but there’s enough.” He abruptly pulled back on the yoke as the plane settled gently down onto the pristine blue water, its speed slowing dramatically. He punched the right rudder pedal as the plane began a wide right turn, the left wing missing the trees on the opposite shore by mere yards.

  “I can tell you’ve done this before,” Eli said.

  “Oh, only about a thousand times.”

  “I think I might have peed a little bit in my pants,” Laura said with a slight tremor in her voice.

  “Better not have ruined my seat, young lady.”

  Laura stuck her tongue out at Jennings.

  “Have your weapons ready,” Jennings said. “We don’t know who destroyed the cabin or how. They could be hiding, just waiting for us to pull up to the dock.”

  Laura and Wolf both pulled Glock nine millimeters from shoulder holsters. Eli did not carry a weapon. He claimed to be a pacifist, and all who knew him did not doubt this. He was truly a gentle, almost Zen-like soul of astounding intelligence and surprising intuitiveness. Jennings taxied the plane to a stop along the dock’s port side. Per Jennings’ order Wolf opened his door, jumped out onto the dock and grabbed a line, twisting it around one of the wing struts. Then he rushed back and tied off the tail section. The others wasted no time exiting the aircraft, ever watchful.

  When the engine stopped the silence was complete. They stood on the dock for a long moment watching and listening. When nothing happened they went back to the aircraft’s cargo compartment, opened it and retrieved several automatic weapons they’d brought with them from Jennings’s lake house. Jennings, Laura and Wolf all holstered their Glocks and replaced them with military style assault weapons.

  They made their way along the wooden gangplank to shore.

  Once ashore they stood and surveyed the destruction for a long moment before spreading out and completely encircling the cabin. The fire had not cooled sufficiently enough to examine the interior closely, but on first blush it did not appear that there were any human remains inside.

  “This wasn’t just a fire,” Jennings said.

  “I can see that,” Laura replied. “There are pieces of the cabin spread all the way across the clearing nearly to the woods.”

  “Explosion,” said Jennings. “But it didn’t come from within. The debris field moves in one direction only. If it had been an internal explosion the debris field would be spread out equally in all directions, give or take. No, this cabin was hit by a missile. And the perimeter was blown in the process. You remember seeing the burnt circle of trees from the air? Must have been some awfully powerful shit.” He pointed east. “And the missile came from that direction.”

  “Seems about right to me,” Wolf said.

  “Let’s go have a look,” Jennings said. “Everybody stay alert, watch each other’s backs.”

  A hundred yards to the east of the cabin and just beyond the blown perimeter they found the cooling remains of a large military drone.

  “Here’s your answer,” Wolf said.

  “The missile came from the drone. No doubt about it,” Jennings said. “But something must have brought it down.” He bent down and examined the remains, stood up with a smile on his face. “This thing was shot down by small arms fire.”

  “You th
ink it was McArthur?” Wolf asked.

  “I’m pretty sure it was. Which means they’re still alive. Which also means Spencer wasn’t behind it.”

  “That doesn’t even make sense,” Laura said.

  “Oh, but it does. Spencer asked me to deliver them a message. I don’t think he would have done so if he had intended to kill them. It’s not logical.”

  “This is Spencer you’re talking about,” Laura said.

  “Spencer’s a lot of things,” Jennings said. “Deceitful, cunning, manipulative. But everything he does is based in pure logic, as twisted and partisan as that logic sometimes seems.”

  “I don’t get why you’re protecting him,” Wolf said.

  “There’s a lot you don’t know, Danny.”

  “Obviously.”

  “I know what he did to us,” Eli said.

  “And there’s no forgiving that,” Jennings said. “But we have to put that behind us. We’ve got bigger fish to fry. By my estimation half the world’s population is dead and civilization as we know it has ceased to exist. Right now it doesn’t matter whether Spencer has an agenda or not. It’ll take years for the government to reestablish itself as a governing force. I’m afraid it’s going to be a wild frontier for a very long time. We need to be creative. We need to stay alive. But first we need to find Doug, Annie and that child before whoever did this does.”

  “That’s all well and good,” Wolf said, “but what if they are dead?”

  “They’re not,” Eli said suddenly.

  All eyes turned toward the little man.

  “Are you sure?” Wolf said.

  Eli turned his face in the direction of where the cabin had once stood and stared at the wooded hills rising up in a series of gradual slopes behind it, his eyes glassy. “I can feel them,” he said. “Especially the child.” He pointed. “They’re somewhere up there, and they’re alive.”

  Laura and Wolf stood staring at Eli. They knew he was telling the truth. They’d never had a reason to doubt him. His intuition was the stuff of legend.

  “I’m pretty sure Doug was out here shooting down a drone,” Jennings said. “He knew something was wrong and he made preparations. His first order of business was to protect Ariel, so I’m assuming he got Annie and Ariel out before the cabin was hit. Good job, Eli.”

  “You know exactly where they are, don’t you, Rick?” Laura said.

  “Let’s head back to the cabin,” Jennings said. “We need to do a more thorough search of the grounds.”

  “What are we looking for?”

  “We’ll know when we find it.”

  The cabin had cooled sufficiently enough for them to do a more thorough search. There were no human remains inside or anywhere in close proximity, but they did find four sets of odd human footprints in the soft soil surrounding it. They also found Doug, Annie’s and the child’s tracks. These were easy to identify. But the other four were different. They were all made with the same brand of shoe or boot. Jennings got down and examined them but he couldn’t figure them out. He’d never seen anything like them.

  “They’re not your standard combat boots,” he said. “Nor are they jungle or desert boots.”

  “Remember those hazmat suits the military was wearing back in Portland?” Laura said.

  “These could be those,” Jennings said.

  “But why would they be wearing hazmat suits in the wilderness?” asked Wolf.

  “Same reason they’re wearing them everywhere else,” Jennings replied. “Fear of contamination.”

  “In the wilderness?”

  “Remember flying over that paper company cutoff before we reached the pond?” Jennings said. “There were quite a few vehicles parked down there. My guess is those vehicles haven’t been moved in days. Did you see any people?”

  Everyone agreed that they hadn’t seen a living soul, even though they had made enumerable passes over the area.

  “Those vehicles belong to forest workers who go home to their families every night,” Jennings continued. “You can bet some of them got infected and more than likely brought the infection back out here with them. If there are people wearing hazmat suits in the wilderness it’s for a reason.”

  “They’re still here,” Eli said in a bone chilling voice that froze everyone in their tracks.

  “I was afraid of that,” Jennings said. “You can feel them, can’t you?”

  Eli nodded. “They’re not close, but they’re out there searching.”

  No one spoke for a long moment. Eli continued to stare, as immobile as a statue.

  Jennings watched him quizzically. “You feel . . . anything else, Eli?”

  Still Eli did not move. After a long moment he said, “The child is dreaming.”

  “Do you know what she’s dreaming,” Laura asked.

  “I don’t know what it means,” Eli replied. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Tell us anyway,” Jennings said.

  “She says they’re wrong.”

  “Who’s wrong?”

  “Everybody. She says everybody’s wrong. The visitors didn’t do this.”

  Jennings gave Eli a puzzled frown. “The visitors?” he said. “What visitors?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, what didn’t the visitors do?”

  Eli finally pulled his hypnotic gaze away from the wooded hills. “I don’t know that either. We should go ask her.”

  “I think that’s a great idea,” Jennings said. “Come on, let’s get out of here.” He took off for the woods behind the cabin, his assault rifle locked and loaded, his three companions following close behind.

  CHAPTER 9

  Los Angeles, California, June 30th.

  Three days before the arrival.

  There was a lot of activity on the street. A police line, a crowd of people milling behind it, cop cars everywhere, an ambulance.

  Johnny Cobain couldn’t find parking so he pulled around to the back lot of the Samaritan Savings Bank. He’d driven down from Merton, California that very afternoon, anxious to retrieve what the murdered Dr. Shutzenberger had hidden away years ago in a safe deposit box. Cobain surveyed the situation. There were cops guarding both rear entrances, so he jogged around to the front.

  He elbowed his way through the crowd of people on the sidewalk and jumped over the police tape, making a bee line for the bank’s front door.

  “Hey, you can’t go in there,” a plainclothes cop said when he saw what Cobain was about to do. Two uniformed cops moved onto the walkway, blocking his way.

  Cobain flashed his press pass at them. “I’m a reporter.”

  “I don’t give a shit if you’re the president,” said the detective. “Active crime scene here. Step behind the line with the rest of the vultures.”

  “What happened?” Cobain said.

  “Can’t talk about it,” replied the detective. “Ongoing investigation.”

  Cobain surveyed the crowd milling around. There were reporters and cameras, general onlookers, and a few people who looked anxious and worried. It was one of the latter that Cobain went to now, a woman dressed smartly in a business suit. She was quite stunning with jet black hair and an amazing figure. She turned to look at him, holding his gaze. There was something about her eyes. Hypnotic, weird, a little bit crazy perhaps. He didn’t know what was wrong with him, but he had always liked the ones who were a little bit crazy. `He stepped up next to her. “You know what’s going on?” he said.

  The woman was staring appraisingly at him. “I’m not really sure,” she said in a low voice. “I was in my office—I’m a loan officer, see—when I heard an explosion. I came out and someone said to get out of the building, said something bad was going down. I got out along with everyone else. I was told later that these two guys came in and wanted to have a meeting with the manager. When they got him alone in his office they showed him guns and told him to quietly take them down to the safe deposit box room. If he tripped any alarms they would kill him. Evidently they held
him down there while they stuck plastic explosives on one of the boxes and blew the door off. Supposedly they took what was inside. A security guard tried to stop them. They killed him.”

  “Damn, must have been something real valuable in that box,” Cobain said. “Was it money or jewels?”

  “I’m not sure. Rumor is it was just an envelope full of papers.”

  Cobain’s pulse quickened. “What sort of papers?”

  “Now how would I know that?”

  “Do you know what the box number was?”

  The woman glared suspiciously at Cobain. Her eyes were freaking him out. “Why? What difference does it make?”

  An alarm went off in Cobain’s brain. “Never mind,” he said backing away. “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Oh yes it matters a lot,” the woman said. She stepped back suddenly, put both her hands above her head, whistled loudly and pointed at Cobain. Two large men ran out of the crowd toward him, bowling people over.

  Cobain bolted into a run. “Get him!” the woman screamed. “Do not let him get away.” Cobain tore around the corner of the bank building and ran for all he was worth. He heard a police whistle and more running feet. Evidently the cops had jumped into the action. Cobain was wiry and fast and the two goons chasing him were big and lumbering. He had his key out and pressed down on the button unlocking the rental car. He was backing out of the space when the two big guys loped around the corner followed closely by two cops. Cobain swerved to avoid them and hit the street, tires barking on pavement. When he looked in his rear view he saw the cops having a heated conversation with the big dudes who were pointing after Cobain’s rental car. Shit, he thought. Need to ditch this and find another mode of transportation.

  Cobain did not believe in coincidence. He never had. The woman and two men he’d encountered at the bank were neither bank employees nor law enforcement. The woman was too vigilant, it was in her posture, her manner, her crazy eyes. She was there for the same reason he was. He had no doubt of that now. He should have seen it immediately. He’d made an error in engaging her.

  The question that kept coming to mind was, how did they find out about the safe deposit box? The only way he could think of was that they must have somehow overheard his conversation with Shutzenberger. Were the people he’d encountered at the bank the same ones who had killed the old scientist? Were they the same people who’d stolen the paperwork from the safe deposit box? If so, then why were they still hanging around the bank?