by Weston Ochse
Jackie growled and peed on the man’s withered arm. Then he turned and ran, giggling all the way to wherever he was going, his bare feet slapping at the ground, all the way down La Union Street.
37
THE MOSH PIT. MORNING.
“Try that one. Feel anything?”
Walker didn’t feel a thing. He’d kept from touching the long ratlike tail, but now let his finger graze it. Still nothing. “Are you sure this was from a chupacabra?”
“Positive. I was there. Damn thing almost took Hoover apart. Gave her over two hundred stitches.”
“Then why doesn’t it work?”
Ruiz shook his head and put a fist under his chin. He looked up and down their trophy wall. He’d had the idea during the briefing the other day. What had started as a joke suddenly started to make a certain sense. He’d called it a spooky meter—the way Walker reacted to the supernatural. If they could somehow train it, or figure out a way to use it properly, they could have their own walking, talking supernatural-warning device.
Ruiz spied the pinky finger of a banshee they’d fought on the Isle of Man. He’d had to improvise a mini fuel air explosive bomb to kill her, sucking all the air out of the vicinity to protect them from her wailing. All that had been left was this pinky and a few unrecognizable chunks.
“Here,” he said, hurrying to the piece of wood to which the digit was affixed. The date and place they’d gotten it was on a little brass plate. He pulled the wood from the wall and brought it over to Walker. “Anything now?”
Walker shook his head.
“Really? Not even a buzz?” He held it closer to Walker.
Walker touched it with his hand. “None at all. Maybe it doesn’t work if they’re dead.”
“That can’t be right. We’re always dealing with artifacts that some beegee gets his hand on with bad intentions. Fuck!” He threw the wood on the nearest couch. It bounced up and slammed into the ground. The banshee finger went flying. Hoover, who’d been snoring in a stream of sunlight, leaped to her feet and scrambled after it.
Both Walker and Ruiz ran to the couch to get to the finger before the dog ate it. What ensued was a scramble between three trained killers and a leather sofa. It was anyone’s game for the first few moments; then Hoover snatched the digit from Ruiz’s outstretched hand and trotted toward freedom—
Only to be caught by Holmes, who’d just come out of his room. He reached into the dog’s mouth and removed the finger.
“Anyone want to explain why Hoover is eating something that’s supposed to be up on the wall?”
Ruiz felt his face turn red. He hated it when the boss caught him doing something stupid. Ruiz’s life was a lesson in what two steps forward and one step back could do to one’s career. He pulled himself to his feet, eager to explain himself.
“I was testing a theory, boss.”
Walker managed to stand beside him. He touched a rip in his T-shirt that probably came from one of Hoover’s claws.
“What sort of theory involves feeding Hoover one of our trophies?”
“It has to do with these feelings Walker gets,” Ruiz said.
Yaya joined them, toweling his head and shoulders as he entered the room. Holmes had since cleared out Fratty’s quarters and the FNG had taken it over as his own.
“Okay,” Holmes said, walking over to the couch and straightening it. “Explain.”
“Right on,” Ruiz said, bouncing over to the wall. “I figured if we can have some advance notice next time, we—”
“You mean to turn your fellow SEAL into an early-warning system.”
Ruiz nodded.
“Like NORAD,” Holmes added.
“Exactly. Except it’s not working.” Ruiz shook his head and walked the length of the wall. He spun and gestured toward the trophies—hands and feet and teeth and horns and all matter of body parts. “These are all artifacts and should work with Walker here, but he can’t feel a thing.”
Holmes started to say something, but thought better of it. He glanced at Yaya, then back to the wall.
“What is it?” Ruiz said. He tried to look Holmes in the eye, but the team leader wouldn’t do it. In fact, he was beginning to look upset.
Holmes shook his head. “It’s nothing. It’s just … nothing.”
“Wait a minute. What’s going on?”
“You and your ideas,” Holmes said, shaking his head. He walked over to the wall.
“What? It was a good idea. I was trying to help the team.”
“‘I was trying to help the team,’” Holmes mimicked. He reached up and mussed Ruiz’s hair. “You’re a good SEAL, but Jesus, man.”
“What? What is it, boss?”
Yaya raised his eyebrows. “They’re not real are they?”
Walker’s and Ruiz’s jaws dropped as they looked from Yaya to Holmes to the wall.
“Why is it that the newest member of the house figures out what neither of you two, or the rest of them for that matter, ever did?”
“They’re not real?” Walker asked, his eyes narrowing as he looked at the wall as if for the first time.
“Yaya, please explain to your team members why they can’t be real.”
“Because they’d stink,” he said matter-of-factly. “All of these body parts rotting on the wall? This place would smell like Mogadishu.”
Ruiz couldn’t believe what he’d heard. “They’re all fake?”
“Every last one?” Walker asked
Holmes shook his head. “Not all of them. Yaya is partially right. Some of them do stink, but we have taxidermists who take care of that. What concerns us most is the residual magic.”
Ruiz flung himself into a chair. “So much for my bright idea.”
“Actually, it was a great scheme,” Holmes said, as if he’d just realized something. “We still have a piece of the chimera. I just haven’t had time to mount it. Hold on a minute.” He returned to his room. After a few moments, he returned holding a steel lockbox.
“A piece of that thing in the hold?” Walker gave a searching look to Ruiz. “You brought a piece back?”
“Several pieces actually. I had to. It’s not only the job of the team to categorize all the creatures we encounter, but it’s imperative that the Salton Sea compound get a sample of the DNA so they can trace its origin or project possible weaknesses if we’re forced to confront one again.”
Holmes sat on one of the couches and pulled a coffee table closer, then placed the box in the center and gestured at the others to gather around. “Walker, you sit here.” He pointed at a spot directly across the coffee table. After everyone was situated, he pulled his dog tags out from under his T-shirt. Beside them rested a simple silver cross and a key. He grasped the key, inserted it into the lock, and turned the key.
He glanced around at the others.
Yaya sat on the edge of the seat cushion.
Ruiz, on the other side, dramatically raised his eyebrows to Walker, whose eyes were as round as quarters. When Walker saw that both Holmes and Ruiz were watching him, he laughed self-consciously and licked his lips.
“I grabbed three spines. Two were sent for testing. This third one will be sent too, but only after Mr. Kwan over at the Trophy House fabricates a copy.”
“If the soccer moms only knew.” Ruiz grinned and leaned back, imagining all sorts of terrible things that could happen. The devil inside him that liked to blow things up appreciated the chaotic potential of such an encounter.
Holmes opened the box. Ruiz could see inside and noticed the royal-blue felt lining. He leaned forward and watched as the team leader used metal tweezers with a screw on one end to hold a seven-inch spike in place. Black at the base, it ran through the spectrum until it was red at the tip.
Yaya whistled low. “And that came off of something the size of a horse?”
“More like a pony … with spikes.”
“Is it poisonous?” Ruiz asked. “I never noticed the color before.”
“We were too busy tryin
g to destroy it. I didn’t notice the colors either. I think they may be poisonous, but for obvious reasons I haven’t personally checked.”
Yaya laughed nervously and repeated, “Haven’t personally checked.”
Holmes gave him a hoary eye. “You gonna be all right, SEAL?”
The Egyptian-American’s wide, expressive eyes flashed as he nodded.
“Okay, then hold still.” Holmes held the spike out in front of Yaya until it was only a few inches away.
Holmes brought the spike back and then held it out to Ruiz.
“What’s the big deal, Yaya? The homunculi were far more dangerous than this.”
“Were they?” he asked, transfixed by the spike. “Kind of hard to take them seriously when they looked like buffed-out action figures.”
“Fucking new guy,” Ruiz said, as if it were the saddest thing to say in the world.
“Okay, Mr. Wizard,” Holmes said, holding out the tweezers. “You get to test your own theory.”
Ruiz was surprised that Holmes would let him take the lead like this. He grabbed the metal tweezers as if they held a vial of nitroglycerin.
As soon as Holmes let go, he leaned back and put his hands behind his head. He took on the face of a curious scientist about to watch an experiment.
Walker noticed this and narrowed his eyes. “What do you think is going to happen?”
“You tell me,” Holmes countered. “Feel anything?”
“I felt something as soon as you brought out the box.”
“Through the metal? Interesting. What does it feel like now?”
“You know how your feet tingle after you’ve been sitting Indian style for a long time? My whole body feels like that.”
“What about now?” Ruiz asked as he quickly brought the spine within a foot of Walker.
The result was instantaneous.
Walker’s entire body went rigid. His eyes popped to what seemed like twice their size. His teeth snapped together and began to grind like a meth addict’s in the middle of the second day of a rock.
Holmes leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. “How are you feeling right now?”
Walker grunted as he tried to get his face under control. He brought a hand up but it was shaking too violently to be of any use. He dropped it back to his lap, where it flopped like a dying fish.
“Does it hurt?” Yaya asked.
“Nuh—no.” He managed to close both of his hands. They were now vibrating fists.
“Can you stand? Could you operate a weapon?” Holmes asked, frowning.
Walker couldn’t respond. Instead, he merely stared back at Holmes, helplessness and fear shining from his wobbling eyes.
“Enough.” Holmes reached out and took the spine back from Ruiz. He placed it in the box, closed and locked the lid, then took it into his room.
Walker sat back gasping. “Oh, my God.” He rolled his eyes at Ruiz. “That was way stronger than the Stretch Armstrongs.”
“Dude,” Yaya said, standing up and snapping his towel. “That was badass! Can we do it again?”
“Not if you want to live.”
Holmes came back out of his room talking on the cell phone. A moment later he snapped it shut. “NRO’s going to conduct their overflight in twenty-five minutes. We’re going over to SPG to see it live. Grab your shit and let’s go.”
38
SPG OFFICES. MORNING.
Both human and canine members of SEAL Team 666 climbed into the van. Fifteen minutes later, they were strolling into the offices of SPG. Past the reception area, they continued into the SCIF, where access was made through a safelike door. The SCIF, or Sensitive Controlled Information Facility, was especially suited for the transmission, reception, and creation of information at the top-secret level and beyond. Besides its offices, the centerpiece of the SCIF was the Strategic Information Center. A Navy lieutenant passed them through, not even giving Hoover a second glance. With a pair of floor-to-ceiling flatscreen monitors as well as a battery of computers, this was the place where SPG could render assistance to the special-operations community when necessary.
Watching the men and women working at their stations, Walker felt certain this was the location from which SPG had assisted them when they’d been on the ship. He’d known the SIC was in the building because Jen had spoken of it, but until now he’d never seen it with his own eyes.
And there she was.
She walked swiftly into the room. Dressed in a business suit with her hair pulled tight, it seemed hard to believe they’d lain together in her bed just a few hours ago. She met Holmes and shook his hand. When she saw Walker, toward the back of the group, she nodded, but smiled only slightly.
He mimicked her greeting.
“We’ll be up in two minutes,” she said. “We’ve already established coms with NRO command. We’ve sent them access to our secure node and are just waiting for the handshake.”
“Handshake complete,” said one of the men working at the computers in the room.
The image on the monitors scrambled and pixellated for twenty seconds as the information protocols were passed and synced between SPG and NRO. Then the image slid into focus. Both screens showed the subcontinent of India. To its east lay Bangladesh, Pakistan, Bhutan, Nepal, and Myanmar. The screen to the left remained fixed on this image, while the screen to the right began to focus down.
Dropping like the gaze of an intrusive god, their view went from one hundred miles to one mile in a single moment, then focused further until they were passing over land. Trees covered squalor and farms, barely visible beneath the heavy canopy. They passed from forest to pasture, then from pasture to ocean.
“Coming to the port,” came a man’s voice.
“Match left and right screens,” Jen commanded.
The screens were again synced to the close-up.
“On my mark, capture screen at max resolution.”
Boats began to appear in the view on the flat gray water. Warehouses and cranes passed in and out of view as the water returned.
Walker wondered if they might be too late. Had their delay put them all at risk? If the ships had sailed in the last twenty-four to forty-eight hours, they’d have to depend on their global array of subsurface tracking buoys to detect them. But that meant that the ships had to pass near the buoys. And although they were strategically placed in water bodies such as the Strait of Malacca and the Gulf of Aden, and along the U.S. coastline, they were an imperfect solution to a possible attack.
Suddenly a fleet of cargo ships filled the screen.
“Begin mark. Capture.”
“That’s it, isn’t it?” Ruiz asked. “Those are the ships we’re after.”
As if to answer his question, one of the SIC personnel said, “Hull numbers and names match manifest.”
Ruiz grinned as he turned to Walker. “Think we’re going to see them get blown to bits?”
Walker wasn’t sure. He was too busy watching Laws and Holmes, who were conferring quietly with each other.
Then the image was back to canopy.
“Please pass to NRO Command our regards. Capture and separate digitals of each of those ships so we can examine them.” Jen turned to Holmes. “Give me a few moments, and I’ll put together a targeting set.”
“No need,” Holmes said. “How soon can we get another pass?”
Jen looked taken aback. “You don’t want to see the images?”
“We’d like to see them. There might be some intel that can help, but the ships are empty,” Laws said, pointing at the screen. “Either the crates are loaded on different ships, or they have yet to be loaded. Either way, we’re back to square one.”
“Jim, can you verify?” Jen asked, approaching an older heavyset gentleman sitting at a computer nearby.
“He’s right. See the watermarks and where they’re riding? That watermark should be at sea level.”
Walker looked from Holmes and Laws to the personnel in the SIC. They were at a sudden loss. No one kn
ew where the creatures were. They could be in American ports as they spoke. All the money and technological advancement in the world couldn’t give them what they wanted.
Frankly, he didn’t know what they were going to do now.
39
THE MOSH PIT.
On the way back to the Pit, Holmes let it be known that everyone was on one-hour recall. They had to find out where the cargo was for those ships. SPG was going to coordinate with FBI to see if they could get access to the enforcer captured in San Francisco. Meanwhile, Laws was going to sift through the data SPG provided. They offered to mirror the hard drive, but Laws was old-school. He preferred paper and pencil. So it was that they left the SPG with two boxes of paper, covering every piece of data they’d ripped from the hard drive.
When they hit the Pit, Yaya went off with Hoover for a little bonding. Ruiz and Walker went to strip and to prepare weapons. Holmes went to brief Ms. Billings. Which left Laws as the sole sentient individual to try and solve the mystery. Just the way he wanted. He scribbled a note on a piece of paper, taped it to the conference-room door, then set about unraveling the unravelable. It wasn’t half an hour before he exited the room, his gaze already screwed into a faraway place. He first went into his room and grabbed two Chinese-to-English dictionaries. Then he ordered a large anchovy and green chili pizza from Alexander’s Pizza, along with a carafe of Starbucks coffee. After going over the papers and categorizing them into different piles, he realized that he was going to need his references. Even though he had an audiographic memory and knew how to speak Chinese, the characters were a much harder thing to remember. Although there was a method to the Chinese madness, it was a three-step process to determine the number of strokes, look up the radical, then figure out what the character meant.
Bottom line, it was going to take some time.
40
CORONADO BEACH. EVENING.
The only person who seemed to be enjoying the run more than Hoover was Yaya. Walker hated running. Ruiz didn’t hate it, but he thought it was one of the most boring forms of exercise. If it wasn’t so damn effective, he’d have given it up long ago. Holmes approached it with his head down and his gaze ten feet in front of him. Walker couldn’t tell if the boss liked it or hated it. All he knew was that the run was Holmes’s idea. He wanted to spend some time with his SEALs.