Flip

by Christopher J Fox

  Unit two broke in. “Sir, what about the hostile contacts?”

  “Deal with any hostile contacts immediately and directly.”

  Kill them.

  Its running lights off, the chopper swung in low, doing a pass over the center before settling into the illuminated patch, kicking up sand and debris in an intentionally noisy display. Two armed men in tactical gear went over the wall to open the gate from the inside.

  “Cutting power,” unit three reported, and the center went dark.

  Good, they’re in the dark and disoriented.

  “Put your eyes on,” Baka said, lowering his night vision goggles into place. The world turned spectral shades of green as he climbed out of the chopper and raced into the open courtyard.

  “We have them all, sir, in the building on your left as you come in through the gate,” unit one squawked over the comms. “They were all in a large room, praying.”

  “Any issues?”

  “No, sir. Just like sheep.”

  “Unit two, stay with the vehicles. Unit three, sweep the compound. I don’t want any surprises.”

  Baka marched into the temple. The monks were seated on the floor around a square geometric design, their fingers interlocked behind their heads, their robes only appearing as brighter and darker shades of green to his eyes. But there was no Aida. The husband, daughter, and medic were missing too. The two men in unit one stood at either door to the room, blocking the exits and staying out of each other’s line of fire.

  “Where’s the woman and her family?” Baka barked.

  No answer.

  “Just cooperate. No one needs to get hurt.” Baka’s voice floated menacingly on the night air. No one answered. Worse yet, not a single one of them seemed frightened. They all sat like stone statues—no anxiety-filled glances, no quaking or cowering, no fast breathing or sweating.

  Out of the darkness, a voice tinged with concern offered, “What you are doing is unwholesome for you. Put down your guns, and sit with us.”

  Baka stood there, dumbstruck. Unconsciously his gloved fingers tightened on his weapon. His men were looking at him. He had to act, not stand here flatfooted, taken off guard.

  I’m in control here, he reminded himself. More pressure.

  He was done playing. He raised his weapon and closed his eyes against the muzzle flash as he squeezed off two rounds over their heads. The shots embedded themselves harmlessly into the thick adobe wall. He waited a few seconds for the shock of the shots to sink in and for their hearing to return.

  “Where are the woman and her family?” Baka demanded between gritted teeth. A bead of sweat trickled down his cheek.

  “You are only harming yourself, Angus. This path is destructive.” The disembodied voice was now paternal in its concern. Fear brushed up against his mind. How did they know his name?

  Unit three broke the spell. “Sir, we’re in the barn. We’ve found the pickup and a jeep here. No sign of the subjects, but there are two empty horse stalls with fresh manure, and the tack is missing. My guess is they headed into the surrounding area on foot some time ago.”

  Baka’s face clenched into a grimace as he finally came to understand his blind spot.

  They can see too. They knew we were coming.

  He had let his mental guard slip as well. Someone was helping the woman and hindering them right now. He cursed himself for the mistakes. Fear wasn’t the lever to use against this opponent; it was time to switch tactics.

  “All units, take off your eyes. Unit three, gimme light.” A few seconds later, the room burst into brilliance.

  Baka slowly paced around the kneeling monks, looking at them for something.

  One of them is over there, watching, right now.

  “Got another one. Black guy here in the corner of the courtyard. He’s hidden behind some plants,” unit three called out.

  “What’s he doing?”

  “Nothing. He’s just sitting there cross-legged with his hands on his knees.”

  Got you!

  “You two stay here.” Baka strode into the courtyard.

  Enough of this shit.

  A lone man sat in the shadows, his eyes half-closed, breathing slowly.

  Baka took out his phone and made a call. “Qian, can you see me?…Yeah, with two men. No one else?…Good.”

  With a single smooth movement, like pushing a button in an elevator, Baka drew his sidearm and fired a single shot into the monk’s head, the sound reverberating off the walls of the compound.

  “Can you see her now?” he asked Qian. “Great. I need interference to blind her and anyone else who might be watching. At least one of these monks was able to watch us.” He hung up and opened up his comms. “Unit two, stay with the group. Make sure they keep their eyes open and stay awake. Shoot anyone who does different.”

  Baka reached down and grabbed the blood-soaked collar of the monk’s robe. He dragged him across the courtyard through the dirt and into the temple. He then kicked over the Buddha statue and replaced it with the corpse; blood flowed from the gaping crater in the man’s head, staining the flowers and white linen of the altar. The monks looked at the grisly spectacle in front of them and cast their eyes down. One’s eyes moistened; others appeared shocked and revolted.

  There, that’s better now.

  Baka left the room, heading for the front gate. “Units one and three, regroup to the LZ. We’re heading into the hills.”

  ***

  “Ignore him, Aida. Try to be calm,” said Max. “The more you focus on him, the easier it will be for the akusala to see you.”

  Max had guided her into a broad, shallow, platter-like depression. Undulating waves, dark as charcoal, surrounded her. Occasionally the troughs aligned, creating a gap through which she could see the cop’s pearl. He kept an irregular distance from her. He’d come closer and then move off, leaving her with the impression of a circling shark. He was hunting for her, getting warmer, then colder, then warmer again, but relentlessly drawing the trap tighter.

  Nat, Greg, and John remained in their tight orbit around her. They’d been joined by three others, Max explained. The newcomers were the caretaker of the Chama Valley Zen Center and her nephews. Two light-brown spherical objects, distinct against the background, attended as well. From her current vantage point, she couldn’t see Max at all. He had hidden himself like a hunter in a blind. Even so, she could feel his presence, as they were talking to each other.

  “What’s going on, Max? What time is it?”

  “It’s night. This might sound a little weird. Mollie and her nephews are taking you and your family up into the hills for a little while. Everyone is safe. They’ll wait it out, then bring you back to the center.”

  “How are they moving me?”

  “New Mexican ingenuity,” he said, chuckling. “You’re on a litter, a stretcher, tied between two horses, one in front and one behind.”

  She imagined herself bouncing along between the horses on a mountain trail. It struck her funny bone, and she laughed. There was just something hilarious about it. The music of On the Trail from the Grand Canyon suite with its clip-clopping train of braying donkeys played in her mind like an earworm. Doop-da-doop-da-doop-da-do-daa-daa-doop-da-doop-da-doop…heee-hawww.

  “Aida, shhh.”

  “Sorry it’s jus…” She tittered again, then broke out into a full laugh. Trying to stifle the urge only made it worse. The image played on, and the pearls around her stretched and warped. They started bouncing in time with the music.

  Follow the bouncing ball, a cartoon voice said, so she sang along with the music.

  “Doop-da-doop-da-doop-da-do-daa-daa…” A pearl became Bill Fahy’s face; another appeared as the boy from the plane crash whom she had helped rescue. Multiple faces from the beach floated before her, wearing expressions of shock and horror. The music stopped as the Wave World spun around her like her dorm room had that one time she had flopped onto her bed after drinking too much, and she became frightened.


  “Maaaaax, make it stop.”

  The drunken spinning stopped, and the Wave World snapped back to solidity. She could see Max clearly. The tendril of his life-force that fed her was larger now.

  “Aida, you must be quiet now. The cop—his name’s Baka—he and his men are here in the temple, and they’re searching the compound.”

  “Okay, I get it, shhhhhhh,” she said.

  Baka’s pearl had become stationary around a cluster of vivid, vibrant pearls.

  “I have to help them. Hold on, Aida. Keep it together,” said Max.

  His lifeline to her diminished to the barest filament. Max had turned his focus directly to Baka. Over their connection, she heard Max speak to Baka.

  “What you are doing is unwholesome for you. Put down your guns, and sit with us.”

  Baka’s pearl froze. Max’s unexpected comment had rattled him. “You are only harming yourself, Angus. This path is destructive,” said Max.

  Baka shuddered. He was losing control; he was afraid.

  “Max, be careful. You’re backing him into a corner,” Aida said.

  Baka’s pearl hardened, changing to an impenetrable wall of concrete. He looped around the cluster once, then made straight for Max.

  “Max, he’s coming for you!” she yelled.

  Out of nowhere, a yawing, fathomless fold appeared right in front of Max. Through their link, she knew Max saw it too. Panicked, she thrust her consciousness at Baka and Max, trying to interpose herself between the two.

  “No, Aida. I can’t let you do that. I’m sorry I can’t keep my promise…here, you’re going to need this.” Light surged down the link and into her. Baka was right on top of him.

  “Max…no!”

  His pearl fell soundlessly into the death fold. Baka’s pearl arced around the cluster of monks, then headed on a path she could see would soon cross hers.

  “Help! Anyone! Damn it, he killed Max,” she cried out desperately.

  “Matthew!” her voice shot into the void, but no one answered.

  The monster was coming for her and…

  Oh, my God.

  Her family.

  They have to leave me. They have to get away.

  Energized by the infusion from Max, she reached out to touch Greg, only to be slammed by the vanguard of Qian’s second massive set of induced event waves.

  ***

  “We have a hit on the FLIR,” unit three reported over the comms.

  “Call it out!”

  “Looks like a set of footprints or hoofprints leading away on a path out the back of the compound.”

  The summer sun had heated the soil throughout the day, and it was cooling evenly at night, making the ground appear a uniform orangish yellow through their infrared scopes. But where the horses’ hooves had dug into the dirt and dust, they exposed a cooler layer of soil that showed up dark blue, with the very center of the hoofprint brighter. Unit three followed the path. Every few yards, the outer ring darkened and took on a distinct horseshoe shape around a brighter and brighter center. The trail couldn’t have been easier to follow if it had been breadcrumbs.

  “One and three, continue on foot. I’ll be in the air.” Baka made a circular motion with his hand to the chopper pilot, telling him to spool up. The ending was clear in his mind now. They would run them down, secure the woman, kill the rest, then disappear off the face of the planet. The balance of power made the outcome inevitable. It made him feel good.

  27 Cabras de la Montaña

  I t had only taken the Washington State Patrol about twenty minutes to identify the target as a cluster of modern buildings called The Project. Tucked away in the lumber forests that covered Grays Harbor and Pacific counties, it sat low between the outstretched arms of two long ridges and was conspicuous for its attempt to look inconspicuous. State and federal records listed it as a nonprofit medical treatment facility for homeless veterans. A quick review of the Washington state auditors’ records revealed that an extraordinary amount of money had been spent to create it, with payouts to the state and the lumber corporation that managed the land. Political capital had been spent too. The environmental impact studies had been rushed through the EPA, and all the necessary state and federal permits had been approved so quickly that the ink from the rubber stamps hadn’t had time to dry.

  Kozlowski had instructed the WSP to set up a perimeter five miles out along the logging roads that led from SR101 to The Project. The FBI response teams were in place and ready to serve the no-knock warrants. The satellite imagery showed everything was quiet, which was just as it should be at 4:34 in the morning.

  What’s holding up the warrant approval? Kozlowski fumed. His phone buzzed; it was Virgil Williams, the US district attorney for the state of Washington.

  “What do you have for me, Virgil? Can we go?”

  “Not yet, Danny. You’ll have to wait. There’s some serious political sponsorships behind this place that I’m working through. I’ve had to bump this up to the AG’s office. I expect she’ll have to sign off on this one herself, along with the Intelligence Surveillance Court.”

  That confirmed The Project as the target for Kozlowski. There was no reason the AG and ISC should have been involved in reviewing this.

  “Whatever this place is,” Kozlowski said, “it isn’t just a treatment facility. You’ve gotta push this through fast.”

  “I’ll get back to you before the top of the hour.”

  ***

  “I’ll notify you of any changes at once, Mr. Gilden,” Qian said as his boss stalked around the holographic stage, where the clock at the bottom changed to 4:36 a.m. Gilden had come down when he had learned that the monks had the ability to see the quantum world. For a man who prized anonymity and control above all else, the feeling of exposure that came with this revelation was torturous. He hadn’t stopped stalking around the projection stage for more than an hour now.

  “I’m not leaving, Doctor. Just do your job,” Gilden shot back.

  For his part, Qian was equally ill at ease with Gilden’s looming presence and badgering.

  “We’re safe, Mr. Gilden. The observers are inducing disturbances into the quantum foam. We can barely see what’s going on ourselves.”

  What they did know was that Baka and his team were chasing Aida Doxiphus and a group of others through the canyons, arroyos, hills, and slopes of New Mexico at night. Baka was airborne, and two teams of two men each were on foot. Their IR and night vision equipment made the tracking easy. It should be just a matter of time now.

  ***

  “We’ve got one bad situation here, hermano,” Francisco said as he joined his brother, who was crouching behind a boulder. They had stopped again.

  “No shit. How’s the old man doin’?” asked Miguel.

  “Puking his guts out. It’s altitude sickness. How far behind us are they?”

  The group had been on the move throughout the night, scrambling over the rocks, ducking random fire from behind, and hiding from the chopper as best they could. Miguel and Francisco had been in these hills since they were small boys and knew the terrain well. That was probably the only reason they were all still alive. They had purposely chosen passages through narrow slots so the chopper couldn’t come too low in the darkness for fear of crashing into the convoluted, rapidly changing terrain. But their hunters were tenacious, and given the accuracy of their shots, they probably had night vision and IR gear.

  “About three-fourths of a mile now. I wish I had my nightscope. I’d wax these motherfuckers real quick,” Miguel coldly commented.

  “That air cover is killing us. We’d be out of here if we could get rid of that,” said Francisco.

  “Don’t believe what you see in the movies. We can’t take it down with what we’ve got here.”

  John skidded in beside them. “Greg’s not going to make it much farther. Then we’ll have two people to carry. We need a defensible position, somewhere we can draw them in, make them come to us. I hope you guys have somethi
ng in mind.”

  “Hold that thought,” Miguel requested as he rested his 30.08 on the rock and sighted down and to the right. John recognized the pattern, a slow and steady release of breath, the finger steadily increasing pressure on the trigger.

  Crack!

  “Winged his leg!” Miguel said as he cycled another round into the chamber. Then he yelled, “Hey, c’mon, cabron. Got some more here for you!”

  In response, the fast thump-thump-thump of the heavy rotors came closer.

  “Shit, we gotta move.”

  Multiple shots peppered wildly around them as they ran back up the trail to the waiting litter and the rest of the group.

  “So can I ask where we’re going now?” John yelled over the thunderous clamor of the passing chopper.

  “Oro Y Azul. What do you think, Francisco?”

  “Anything beats being out here!”

  The sound of the chopper steadied, and there was a single shot. One of the horses screamed in the fading night.

  “Son of a bitch! I was afraid of that!” John gasped. Their path led through some large boulders, and on the other side they saw one of the horses was down, dropping Aida off the litter. Nat and Mollie were gathering her and the IV.

  “Damn it,” John said. “We’re on foot now. What’s Oro y Azul?”

  “An old turquoise mine,” Miguel said. “The entrance isn’t too far. At least it’ll give us cover from that pinche chopper.”

  “Tía,” Francisco said. “Oro y Azul. It’s about five hundred yards over that ridge ahead of us. You and Natalia take these.” He and Miguel handed over their rifles. “Us four men will carry Aida on the stretcher.”

  “No, you’re the better shot. Francisco, you know the way. You, Greg, Natalia, and I will carry Aida. John, can you handle a rifle?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” If there were ever a better example of someone who should’ve been in command school, he couldn’t think of one.

  They turned the other horse loose; it wouldn’t do them any good now anyway. John strapped Aida into the stretcher and wedged the IV bag down by her legs, where it would be held but not compressed. Mollie and Francisco picked up the front two handles, Greg and Nat the back, and off they went. Mollie set a brutal pace over the rocks and up the slope, never slipping, surefooted as a mountain goat. Soon, Greg was panting again. John and Miguel followed thirty yards behind, trading shots with the men in pursuit. The chopper orbited high overhead, like a hawk waiting for its prey to show itself.