Jade Sky

by Patrick Freivald

  "All right, then." Matt got back in the rental car while the man unlocked the chain and dragged it to the side of the road. His drab clothes were made of hemp or some other natural fiber, a crude weave you might find on a frontier doll, and he moved with the urgency of a snail on Nyquil.

  Matt followed the Jeep at five miles an hour down a winding dirt path that almost counted as a road, through a forest of chalk maple and sourwood, the roadside and occasional clearing overgrown with bright, orange-yellow goldenrod. They passed an abandoned farm, the old barn caved in and bristling with saplings, the sad two-story colonial devoid of paint, the door a black gash open to the elements.

  They came to another gate, just two concrete pylons connected with a chain. Beyond it sat a huge pond populated by hundreds of sea gulls, the shore scattered with dozens of multicolored tents. Naked children ran through the grass, kicking a ball in a game Matt didn't recognize, and maybe a hundred adults crowded around an oak tree, long-ago shattered by lighting or some other calamity. Next to it stood three massive crosses, one upright, one even like a plus sign, and one inverted. Each bore the same carving.

  The Ul.

  At the behest of his guide, Matt stood to the side and waited. Case sat in a rickety, sun-faded, aluminum-and-plastic lawn chair. His followers ringed around him, lounging on blankets or sitting Indian-style in the trodden grass. They wore the same natural-fabric smock-like things, had unkempt hair, no makeup, and, judging by the smell, no deodorant. In his jeans and black T-shirt, Matt felt overdressed.

  Case spoke to his flock in a chaotic mix of Spanglish, Pig Latin, and what had to be made-up words. They stared at him with rapturous eyes and responded to each pronouncement with a murmured, "Eh-la eh-la." Matt couldn't quite get over Case's hair, a giant, dirty-blond, white man's afro that just might fit through a door.

  Twenty minutes later, Case finished, and the adults moved off to other activities: tending children, cooking, weeding the enormous garden on the far side of the pond, a few staying where they were to copulate in plain view of everyone. Aside from a few curious glances, nobody paid Matt any attention.

  His guide whispered in Case's ear, burying his face in the massive 'fro to get close enough. Case raised his dark blue eyes and beckoned Matt forward. Matt decided against shaking hands, and Case made no move to do so as he sized Matt up with the same bland expression he'd worn since Matt got there.

  Case twitched a finger, and the guide walked away.

  "Good morning," Matt said.

  Case's expression didn't change. "They always are. What brings you before the Prophet today?"

  Matt pulled a photocopy of Conor's family portrait from his pocket, unfolded it, and handed it to Case. The prophet bit his fingernails, despite the dirt caked beneath them. "Do you know these people?"

  Case tapped Conor's face. "This man, yes, he came to us some time ago. The woman and child, no." He handed the paper back. "Who asks, and why do you want to know?"

  "He was my friend, and he's passed away. I'm trying to figure out why. He did some awful things," he nodded toward the crosses, "and that symbol had something to do with it."

  "And you believe that his visitation with the Three Gods led him to do these things?"

  Matt had read about the Process Church's three gods: Jehovah, who demanded stern adherence to morality; Lucifer, who encouraged peace and harmony and living life to the fullest; and Satan, whose dual natures were asceticism and violent hedonism. "Flynn had a . . . visitation?"

  "As you are now, brother . . . ?"

  "Matt. Matt Rowley."

  Case stood from the chair and walked away from the scattered couples on the lawn. Matt followed as he wandered to the shoreline; and without seeming to scatter, everyone gave them a wide berth, even the children. "Brother Rowley, Conor Flynn came to us seeking knowledge, and we are duty-bound to provide it when we can. But he came to us filled with too much of the Satan-pattern's darkness, and took into himself yet more before he left us."

  "What did he want to know?"

  Case picked up a flat rock and skipped it across the choppy water. "Why do you want to know what he wanted to know?"

  Matt weighed the value of telling the truth. "Because he was my friend, and he murdered a lot of people, and forced me to kill him to keep him from killing more."

  They walked in silence for a minute, distancing themselves further from the raucous noise of children at play. On the far side of the pond, the land sloped downward to reveal a hidden garden, several acres wide, of neat, well-ordered winter crops. "That is a dark thing. One cannot kill without dying. It is why we eat of no flesh, possess no weapons, take no drugs or alcohol, and live in harmony even with the thetan spirits that seek to corrupt from within and without."

  "So?" Matt asked. "What is it Conor wanted to know?"

  Something thrashed in the water behind them, and the world erupted with the cries of gulls. Matt turned. Bloody ripples spread from a point fifty feet from shore, and a few white feathers bobbed on them. The rest of the gulls had taken to the air, screaming their distress to the blue sky.

  "Alligators?" Matt asked.

  "Conor sought knowledge of bridges," Ben said, ignoring his second question. He continued walking. Matt followed, one eye on the shore.

  "Bridges?"

  "Between this realm and others. He sought the Old Way, where man and demon and angel are not separate but are one. He refused to accept that this will not happen before the Reconciliation, and would not rejoice with us in the Lucifer-pattern's hospitality." They rounded a thicket of blackberry brambles and came to a simple graveyard, each mound of earth pierced with the three crosses. Case dropped to his knees beside one and placed his hands on the mound. "He fell to the Satan-pattern's darker nature, and my darling Katie paid the price for it. After, we asked him to leave. He went."

  "I'm sorry. Who was she?"

  "All who give of their womanhood to join with the Prophet are Katie, as she was and will be from Genesis to the forever beyond, eh-la eh-la."

  That didn't make any sense, so Matt asked, "What did Flynn do to her?"

  Case bowed his head. "Too much and not fast enough, without the barest shred of human mercy. We beseeched him to stop, but he took her blood and her toe and left her skin beside her on the ground."

  "You didn't try to stop him?"

  Case stood from the grave and grabbed Matt on the back of the neck, an earnest, fraternal gesture. He stared deep into his eyes. "Brother Rowley, we no sooner harm a man than we harm our own spirit."

  "So you let him torture and kill this woman—"

  "Not just a woman. A Katie."

  "—this Katie, because you wouldn't hurt him to stop him?"

  "It is not our place to lead a man away from where the Three God-patterns have led him."

  Matt jerked back, out of his grip, and didn't try to mask his disgust. "It's not your place to stop a man from torturing and killing—"

  "That is what I said."

  "Did you report it? To the police?"

  Case shook his head. "We answer to no external authority and do not invite them to meddle in the Three God-patterns' affairs."

  "Jesus."

  "No. It was the dark nature of the Satan-pattern working in Conor Flynn, and He has not yet Reconciled with the Emissary."

  "So if I call the cops? Tell them there's a murder victim here?"

  Case held up his hands as if in supplication and closed his eyes. "If that is where the Jehovah-pattern leads you, el-ah el-ah."

  "You'll go to jail. You can't just not report a murder."

  "Those who embody the Jehovah-pattern of course contain the Lucifer-pattern and Satan-pattern, and we will not be well treated by the men outside. If that is the enduring legacy of Conor Flynn's brutality, we will accept it as the Jehovah-pattern demands."

  "Her family deserves to know what happened to her."

  "When a woman becomes Katie we are her family, and we know too well."

  "What about her par
ents?"

  "Katies have no parents."

  Matt sighed.

  "Is there anything else you can tell me about Conor Flynn?"

  "I have no truths you would hear." He turned and headed back toward the other side of the shore.

  "The symbol on those crosses, what can you tell me about it?"

  "Nothing."

  "Why not?"

  "Those crosses are the reason I chose this place for our sacred home. They predate us, and the original Barnacle farm, which you passed on the way in, and the earliest records of the settlers. But when I saw them, I knew this place was meant for the Katies and Bens."

  "Are all the men here named Ben?"

  "Of course."

  * * *

  On his way out of town, Matt pulled over into the parking lot of the Alligator Moon Motel, or that's what he assumed given the crescent-alligator flag and the neon VACANCY sign. The dilapidated, periwinkle-blue, one-story structure had all of three rooms, plus a tiny office. He called 911, reported what Case had told him about "Katie's" murder, left his contact information, and drove back to the airport.

  He typed his report on the plane, then put it away to focus on their next operation: killing Dawkins and dismantling his Jade empire to the last brick.

  Chapter 10

  Matt hit the clicker, and the smart board projected an image onto the wall of conference room B of the Nashville Federal Building. Centered between Rwanda and the Congo, a large island sat in the middle of a massive lake.

  "What are we looking at, sir?" Garrett asked.

  "That'd be central Africa, corporal," Akash said with a grin.

  Garrett flipped him the bird, and Matt stifled a sigh.

  "That," Matt said, "is Idjwi Island in Lake Kivu, on the border of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda. Jungle not that long ago, now it's three hundred and forty square kilometers of clear-cut subsistence farms for a quarter-million half-starved refugees. Except for this." He hit the button and the picture changed to a construction site on the shore, where dozens of bulldozers and cranes cleared land and erected buildings. "Two years ago the DRC broke ground on a series of two-megawatt power plants to compete with the Rwandan operation on the eastern shore." The next slide showed a series of smoke stacks jutting into the sky. "The first three facilities went online a few months ago, and they anticipate at least six more over the next decade."

  Akash raised a hand, and Matt nodded to him. "Go ahead."

  "Why build power plants in a warzone? That doesn't make any sense."

  "It does," Matt said. "First, it ain't much of a warzone anymore, and Idjwi is in firm control of the Congolese army. Second, Lake Kivu is a so-called 'explosive lake.' It's got enormous amounts of dissolved methane a hundred meters down. They pump it up from the bottom, it bubbles out of the water in the lower pressure, and they burn it. They use the heat to boil the water, spin some turbines with it, and there you go. The water goes back into the lake, they get electricity for next to free, and it makes the lake less likely to explode again. It's a win-win for everyone."

  Matt let the conversation wander to the hows and whys of exploding lakes and the unwise decision to live on or near one before clicking to the next slide: the front of the facility, a large brick edifice complete with a marquee emblazoned "Idjwi Power Inc." in bold, six-foot letters. "IPI is a privately-held firm incorporated in DRC that seems to have greased all the right palms. We're not sure who's the owner or owners, but it sprang out of nowhere three years ago and now owns half the Idjwi coastline. Their contractors are French, Swiss, and Japanese, all reliable construction firms and all on the up-and-up. IPI have gone way out of its way to ease the concerns of environmentalists and have created a state-of-the-art lab to monitor and minimize the impact of their operation on the ecosystem."

  A series of slides showed satellite photos of forklifts offloading pallets from ferries and bringing them into a large octagonal building. "One of the primary concerns is algal blooms from the returned water, and as such they've purchased billions of dollars of algal vats, centrifuges, dehydrators, glassware . . . ." He let the list sink in. A state-of-the-art biochemistry lab that size could produce a lot of Jade.

  "So," Garrett said. "Dawkins?"

  Matt nodded. "According to Onofre Garza, it's the seat of his global operations. The power plant's a perfect cover. The political instability means he can carve out a place and stock it with goons, and the location gives him easy access to the Congo, the Nile, and land in any direction." He clicked to the next slide, a small airfield, not much more than a pair of dirt runways half-concealed with camouflage netting. "Not to mention millions of square kilometers of virtually unmonitored air space." The next slide showed a pair of tanks, old Soviet T-55s under inadequate camouflage. "And the DRC army at his beck and call."

  Akash rubbed his hands. "When do we go in?"

  Garrett grunted. Matt raised an eyebrow at him.

  "I think 'how' is a better question," Garrett said. "We've got no means of entry they won't see coming. They've got huge fields of fire in every direction, and we'd be fools to assume he doesn't have radar."

  "Right," Matt said. "I've got pictures of the radar installations on a later slide. It's outdated Chinese kit but good enough for most purposes."

  Blossom spoke up. "No bombs because of lake, yes?"

  Matt nodded. "Right. We don't think an air strike would trigger the lake, even with the pumps running, but we aren't confident enough to risk it."

  "So what if it did?" Garrett asked. "That'd take care of the problem, wouldn't it?"

  Matt flipped through several slides until he found the one he wanted, a closer satellite image of the lake and all of the surrounding cities. "It's like shaking a Coke bottle. If the lake erupts, the explosion wouldn't be that big of a deal unless you live right near shore. But the lake's on high ground, and carbon dioxide is heavier than air. Once released, it'll flow downhill and suffocate everything for dozens of clicks. Two million people, give or take."

  "Well," Garrett said, "that's inconvenient."

  "Almost like he picked the spot on purpose," Akash said, irony dripping from every word. "So how do we go in?"

  "We need goals first," Blossom said. "'Why' is first, before 'how' or 'when.'"

  "Right," Matt said. "I've talked this over with Jeff. Our mission parameters are a targeted assassination. Go in, kill him, trash the facility, and get out." He set down the clicker and met their eyes, one by one. "But that's not what we're going to do." He ticked points off on his fingers. "So as far as you're concerned, our primary objective is the apprehension of Dawkins, alive. Secondary objectives include gathering intelligence on his operation and destroying the Jade processing capabilities of the facility. Tertiary objectives are eliminating product and capturing targets of opportunity."

  Nobody said anything.

  "Look," Matt said. "The facility ain't going anywhere, so there's no major hurry. If we verify he's there, we grab him. Somehow. Let the bigwigs worry about the rest of it."

  "Great," Akash said. "So we go in, bag the bastard, and get out. Like Garrett said, how do we do that, eh?"

  * * *

  "THIS IS INSANE!" Akash shouted over the C130’s droning engine, his oxygen mask muffling the scream to a bare murmur. The fuselage pitched in the turbulence, and the engines whined in protest at the punishment of 350 knots at 32,000 feet. The air drop into Rwanda couldn't slow down or change course without drawing attention, so the HALO jump had to be at speeds that would kill normal paratroopers. To avoid a suspicious change in radar profile, they couldn't even jump out the back.

  Matt patted Akash's shoulder and grabbed the door handle. Muscles straining, he wrenched the unwilling metal toward the back of the plane. The roar of the freezing wind made verbal communication impossible as the wispy clouds under them came into view. He returned Akash's wide-eyed stare with a thumbs-up as the door locked into place.

  Akash rolled his eyes and jumped, body tucked around the REC7 assau
lt rifle strapped to his abdomen. Garrett and Blossom followed. Matt braced himself, bit down on the oxygen tube, and leapt.

  The wind broke him. He screamed as tendons shredded from the impact with the air. The world flashed dark and light as he tumbled, but he used the dusk sun to orient himself straight up and down in a pencil dive. As his body knitted back together, he felt the itch on his face as frostbitten skin healed and refroze, healed and refroze. Looking down, his augmented vision picked out the three specks that were Garrett, Akash, and Blossom, already formed up in a dive toward the western shore of Lake Kivu.

  His joints ached as what little nitrogen remaining in his blood boiled. Between hypoxia, the bends, and frostbite, they'd all be ravenous by the time they hit the ground. Speaking of which . . . . His altimeter read 26,000 feet and dropped fast. He kept the pencil dive until he formed up with the others, spread out just enough to match their speed, and then they dove together.

  At six thousand feet they jettisoned their oxygen masks, tucked into balls, then lengthened back out, belly to earth. Matt took the lead, activating his wingpack. A compact, jet-powered glider patterned on the ESG Gryphon, the carbon-fiber ICAP pattern unfolded just fast enough to level them out eighty feet above the water. He couldn't help but laugh. To infinity, and beyond!

  With the setting sun at their backs, they zoomed toward Dawkins's compound at two hundred kilometers an hour. In radio silence they unholstered their weapons, the latter three with silenced REC7s, Matt with a brace of Beretta M9A1 pistols, also silenced. The AA-12 combat shotgun strapped to his thigh would stay out of play unless stealth failed them. Computer-guided, fin-stabilized micro-grenades couldn't be silenced when they went off. Matt dropped his visor.

  The HUD highlighted hostiles in orange double-triangles. Consistent with the satellite imagery, four men sat on each roof, machine-gunners hunkered behind sandbag emplacements. Akash took his shots first, and blips dropped off of Matt's HUD. Garrett and Blossom opened fire as they zipped overhead. Garrett's target remained until Blossom fired again, neutralizing the last guard.