Sekret Machines Book 1: Chasing Shadows

by Tom DeLonge

  Thank God I didn’t try to say such a thing to Captain Jennings or, for that matter, anyone else.

  The fact remained. I say I didn’t like Belasco, but the truth was that I was afraid of him. I didn’t think he would stab me in my sleep or otherwise do me serious injury, but he oozed a constant low grade capricious malice that could, I felt, turn nasty at any moment. I worried more about him—my comrade in arms—than about the Nazis I was hunting.

  Briefed—though less fully than I’d expected, given what I already knew—we left the Captain’s office with our packs slung over our shoulders. We had each been issued M1911 automatics but were ordered not to wear them on our belts until we were away from the city. I could feel the extra weight in my pack.

  As we descended the gangplank to the launch that would ferry us ashore, Belasco gave me a sidelong look and grinned maliciously.

  “Ready for a little adventure, Polack?” he said. “Won’t be no reading on this trip.”

  “Shut up, Belasco,” I said, casually, not looking at him. He chuckled at my feigned defiance.

  “Oh yeah,” he said, not even bothering to address my insubordination. “We’re gonna have a high time.”

  HARTSFELD—THE DIPLOMAT AND TRANSLATOR—MET US AT the quay. He was a thin man with wire-rimmed glasses and a lawyerly air, in a pale linen suit and a blue shirt. He looked ordinary, but I was wary of him because of what Captain Jennings had said, even if he hadn’t pinned his doubts on Hartsfeld exactly. His driver, whom he introduced simply as Ignacio—was my age, heavily tanned with lank, black hair that fell to his shoulders in ways I had never seen on a boy before. He spoke no English and seemed taken aback by Belasco, who made a joke in Spanish as they loaded the truck. Hartsfeld had procured a long-bodied four-wheel-drive vehicle, like a Willys Jeep, but with an extra storage row behind the rear seats. It was built for rough terrain and tended to bounce, something Ignacio—who was no taller than I and almost as slight, dwarfed by the steering wheel and gearshift—seemed to relish.

  It was a pleasant day in Buenos Aires, the cold Southern Hemisphere winter long over, and the city enjoying the last mild days of spring as the weather warmed. I loved it, and not only because we would be pressing north into the steamy heat of the jungle. It reminded me of my boyhood in Poland, even the buildings recalling something of an old European grandeur …

  “Look at the tits on her,” remarked Belasco, pointing at a girl in a red dress who was crossing the street. He whistled, shouting something in Spanish that made Ignacio laugh, but Hartsfeld, who also spoke Spanish, turned from the passenger seat and gave him a disapproving look. For her part, the girl glared at the car, and when Belasco made more lewd noises, she fired back a stream of invective. That just made him laugh harder than ever.

  We left behind the broad, tree-lined avenidas with their elaborate, classicist buildings, obelisks and equestrian statues, finding our way north, out of the city proper and up Highway 12 along the Uruguayan border. The road deteriorated quickly, and within a few hours, we were jolting along lanes of packed earth where hard ruts and hollows suggested serious flooding in the rainy season, but the land was flat and we made good speed.

  “Pampas,” said Ignacio, playing tour guide, nodding at the grassy planes on either side of the long straight road.

  Near Paysandu, we stopped to eat at a roadside steak-house populated by Argentine cowboys called gauchos, saving the rations we’d brought for less populated regions ahead. Belasco bought beer, staring Hartsfeld down when the diplomat gave him a look.

  “What?” he said. “Not on board. Not on base. Hell, I don’t even know whether we’re on mission.”

  “You are,” said Hartsfeld. “And I’m in command. I thought that was clear.”

  Belasco shrugged. “Okay,” he said, pointedly draining his bottle in three long swallows. “See? No beer.”

  Hartsfeld’s lip twitched, as if he had been about to say something else, but he let it go.

  Somewhere north of Salto, the road began to deteriorate even further. Soon we dropped to half the speed we’d been doing, and within another hour, half that again. Belasco, squeezed in beside me and flexed his shoulders so he took up three quarters of the room, cursing in Spanish and English. Hartsfeld checked his watch. We had only another hour or so of daylight remaining and were seeing fewer and fewer signs of civilization as we climbed. In the storage rack at the back of the vehicle, we had a canvas tent and bedrolls, but we’d hoped to stay in hotels where possible. We gave it another forty-five minutes, but Hartsfeld had clearly been getting antsy as the sun got lower in the sky, and I wasn’t surprised when he called it.

  “Pull over there,” he said. “We’ll camp for the night and get back on the road at sun up.”

  Belasco was, predictably, unhappy.

  “I don’t see why we can’t drive for another hour or two,” he said. “So it gets dark? Big deal.”

  “We can’t pitch a tent in the kind of darkness they have out here,” said Hartsfeld.

  “You can’t,” muttered Belasco. “I can do all kinds of things in the dark. Right, Polack?”

  I said nothing, unsure if that was supposed to be a joke or a threat. Maybe he didn’t know either.

  So we pitched the tent in a clearing beside the road, Belasco giving the orders throughout, and made a fire on which we put a kettle of water, which tasted of the iron jerry can. There was some bread, cheese and apples—the only perishable food we had brought with us—and whatever we chose to supplement it with from our own rations. While the rest of us worked, Hartsfeld set up the radio and sent a message in Morse code, presumably to the Captain. He saw me watching him and hesitated before giving me a nod.

  “Something I can help you with, Seaman?”

  “No, sir,” I said.

  It was a warm night, warmer than it had been in Buenos Aires. The open plains had given way to low hills and patchy woodland. It wasn’t jungle—certainly not the impenetrable and swampy wall of vegetation that I associated with the term—but we were getting there slowly. You could hear the difference in the night air, the birdcalls and other unfamiliar, unnerving shrieks. And it was at least as dark as it had been in those Polish forests, when even the neighboring villages had been blacked out. I didn’t want to go into the tent with Belasco, but sitting out in the night by myself, eating canned beans with a spoon, was starting to get to me. As we drove, Belasco had told stories of the vampire bats that crawled up to you as you slept and slashed your ear or your wrist with their teeth, lapping at the blood with their tongues. Ignacio, the boy driver, confirmed Belasco’s tales in enthusiastic Spanish.

  “Sometimes they come back to the same cow or donkey, night after night, until it bleeds to death,” Belasco said. “If they hit a major artery, it will be over a lot sooner.”

  He made gushing noises and gestured from his throat with a splayed hand, and laughed as I turned away. At the time, I’d been more revolted than scared, but now, sitting in the dark, I felt a sudden longing to be back in Europe, far from the reach of such strange creatures. At least I had already emptied my bladder. Now I was just killing time, hoping that if I waited long enough, Belasco would be asleep when I crawled into the tent.

  I listened to the shifting and grunting under the canvas, keeping still, my flashlight off. There would be snakes up here. Dangerous ones. Would they come out at night, or only during the day? I had no idea.

  I looked up at the night sky, the constellations so bright and distinct this far from the city lights, and the milky wash of other stars beyond them, clustered in their millions like specks of dust. I was gazing blankly up, when one of the stars began to move.

  34

  ALAN

  Dreamland, Nevada

  “YOU WENT TO FUCKING STONEHENGE?” HATCHER bellowed.

  Morat and Alan were standing at attention for the first time in weeks.

  “Yes, sir,” said Alan.

  “I take full responsibility, sir,” said Morat.

  “It’s
not like we were going to land or anything,” Alan said. Morat glanced at him and Hatcher saw it.

  “You have got to be kidding me,” he said. “Did your last commanding officer have such a lax attitude toward orders that you felt empowered to do this?”

  “No sir,” said Morat. “It won’t happen again, sir.”

  “It was my idea,” Alan inserted. “I insisted.”

  “And did you visit any more of the UFO club’s favorite places?” Hatcher barked. “A flyover of the great pyramids, maybe?”

  “Sir, no sir,” said Morat, humorless, eyes front.

  “I was gonna do that next time,” said Alan.

  There was a frosty silence and Hatcher came very close to Alan.

  “You think this is funny, Major?” he demanded.

  “Just trying to lighten the mood, sir,” Alan confessed in a low voice.

  It hadn’t worked.

  “You think this is a game, Alan?” Hatcher shot back. “You think we’re playing with toys here?”

  Alan thought for a second, then dropped something of the stiffness in his back and shoulders.

  “To be honest, sir, I really have no idea what we’re doing,” he said.

  Surprised, Hatcher blinked and Morat shot Alan a sideways look.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Hatcher asked, but something of his rage had dissipated and the question was not rhetorical.

  “I mean,” said Alan, carefully, “you have these amazing crafts, and I’m delighted that you let me go up in them, but I don’t understand what they’re for, operationally. I don’t know how we built them, or how they work, or why we aren’t telling anyone else about them, and that’s fine, sir. Most of it is fine, I guess, but when you ask me if we’re playing, I genuinely don’t know.”

  “We are absolutely not playing, Major,” said Hatcher, giving him a level stare.

  Alan’s hesitation was only fractional, but it was loaded nonetheless.

  “Good to get that straight, sir,” Alan replied.

  The CIA man looked poised to press the matter further, but decided to accept this at face value.

  “No more grandstanding nocturnal landings,” said Hatcher.

  “Understood, sir.”

  “And you follow orders to the letter.”

  “Yes, sir. Absolutely, sir.”

  “Good.”

  “And sir?”

  “Yes, Major?” said Hatcher, unwinding a little.

  “What exactly are our orders?”

  HATCHER NEVER ANSWERED ALAN’S QUESTION. THE following day, he was sent up with Morat in the great black triangle with a preset flight plan, but at no point did Hatcher so much as hint at what their larger mission might be. The day after that, Alan did not fly at all, spending his waking hours in a briefing room, going over the various readouts and procedures associated with the Locust. He was dining alone in the mess—veal saltimbocca with angel hair pasta—when a man came in.

  Alan had gotten used to not looking too closely at the people he saw on base, but sharing mess was so rare that he looked up, the forkful of food freezing en route to his mouth as he took in the bullish frame of a large black man: Staff Sgt. Barry Regis, the FAC he had last seen at Camp Leatherneck in Afghanistan.

  He just stood there, head bowed, his eyes on Alan who, reflexively got to his feet so he could defend himself if necessary. The two men had not parted on good terms.

  “I was told I’d find you here,” said Regis.

  “You were told right,” said Alan, watching him.

  “I was told a bunch of other stuff, too,” said Regis. “About what you do here, and why they took you out of the Marines. They showed me what you fly. Told me what you saw back in Afghanistan. What happened.”

  “Yeah?” said Alan.

  “Yeah.” He muttered, “I’m sorry about Safid Kuh. You should have said what happened.”

  Alan heard the disbelief in his voice, and couldn’t help grinning. Regis matched his smile, and suddenly the two of them were laughing, and Regis was crossing the room and taking his hand.

  “You wouldn’t have believed me,” said Alan. “I don’t think I believed it. Not really. Not until I came here.”

  “I get that,” said Regis, sitting at Alan’s table. “Still. You should have said. And I should have trusted you. I was just angry, man. I felt like those guys depended on me and I let them down. Guess I was looking for someone else to blame.”

  “It’s okay. What’s a little awkward silence and pent up aggression between Redhawks, right?”

  Regis grinned with relief. “You still were the best pocket passer I ever protected,” he said, glad to change the subject.

  “Too bad I couldn’t scramble worth a damn,” said Alan.

  “That’s why you’re in the cockpit and I’m on the ground.”

  “Wasn’t just physical though, was it?” said Alan ruefully. “When you guys were around me, when I could sit back in the pocket and pick out my targets, I was fine. As soon as I felt it collapsing. … Panic. Cluelessness. I got sacked more than a week of groceries.”

  Regis laughed.

  “Wasn’t so bad,” he said, adding before Alan could protest, “and if you were, that was us. That’s what the offensive line is for. You didn’t let us down.”

  Alan nodded gratefully, knowing they were talking about more than football.

  “And what about you?” said Alan. “Your job here, I mean. You still a Marine?”

  “Technically, I’m private security for Dreamland, employed, as of two days ago, by the CI fucking A. Specialized Skills Officer. Not exactly what I was trained for, and I doubt I’ll do much flying anymore, but they think my experience coordinating air and ground forces will be useful. Gotta say, Alan: this is some seriously wild shit.”

  “You got that right,” said Alan.

  Suddenly they were laughing again as the tension dissipated, for Alan’s part with a sense of relief he hadn’t realized he needed. Seeing Regis was like having a piece of the real world come back and agree with him about the strangeness of the universe. It was like finding a star to navigate by, and it calmed a dreadful loneliness he had not been aware he’d been feeling.

  It wasn’t until later that he wondered if that had also been a factor in the decision to bring Regis inside Dreamland’s cone of secrecy, a strategy to help their new pilot adjust to the strangeness of his new environment. He immediately rejected the idea as arrogant, but it left him uneasy nonetheless.

  THE FOLLOWING DAY, ALAN WAS CALLED OUT TO PAPOOSE Lake again, and this time he was surprised to learn he would be flying alone, in a single-seat version of the two-man craft he’d flown on his last mission. He’d handled the controls by himself on his last flight, and had a good sense of how to activate all the craft’s automated systems if he felt out of his depth. Having the cockpit to himself shouldn’t have felt like a big deal, but it did. He suited up, climbed into the single-seat Locust and went through the preflight protocols, feeling, again, a sense of glee. It was his now, like the Harrier he’d flown over Afghanistan was his.

  Alan was not a romantic. He did not refer to the planes he flew as if they were lovers, or pets, or any of the other terms he sometimes heard pilots use. An airplane was a machine, albeit a complex, even quirky one, and the Locust was no different. Yet it was also somehow alive, as all aircraft were, and it needed feeding and coaxing, reigning in and urging on, tethering and unleashing. It was bigger than he was, and stronger, but he had to have mastery over it. He couldn’t do that with a copilot or trainer sitting beside him.

  So he smiled as the hatch door latched closed. He entered the starting coordinates for today’s mission.

  “Today you’ll be flying in formation with Night Bird One,” said Hatcher’s voice over his head set. “He will rendezvous with you at the assigned location.”

  The assigned location was directly above Groom Lake, but they were to meet at 40,000 feet, considerably higher than Alan had been flying so far, and the craft was p
ressurizing around him as he climbed. Morat’s voice came through his cans moments before he reached the rendezvous.

  “I have a visual on you now, Phoenix. Can you see me?”

  Alan checked his radar, spotted the point of light on the screen, and oriented to the appropriate window. The other black Locust sat motionless in the bright air above him.

  “Got you,” he said. “Where are we headed?”

  “Up,” said Morat simply.

  “Come again?”

  “We’re going high,” said Morat, “where you can’t land and freak out the locals. We’re going so far up that the word will stop meaning what you think it does.”

  “I don’t think I follow.”

  “You will,” said Morat. “In every sense.”

  Alan grinned at the weak pun. “Right behind you,” he said.

  There was a momentary pause and then Morat’s voice came back.

  “Okay, Phoenix, first thing you’re going to do is angle one point of your triangle directly up, perpendicular to the ground.”

  “We can’t just drift up the way we came?” asked Alan, feeling an edge of unease. This was new territory.

  “Not this time.”

  “What are we doing exactly?”

  “Leaving the atmosphere,” said Morat.

  Alan put one hand to the earphone and pressed it to his head.

  “Can you repeat that?” he said.

  “You heard me,” said Morat.

  “I don’t understand,” said Alan, feeling numb, dazed.

  “Sure you do,” Morat answered. “Congratulations, Phoenix. You’re going into space.”

  “Wait,” said Alan. “I’m not sure …”

  “Just do as I say and you’ll be fine,” said Morat.