I decide conversation might be the best distraction. We’re only halfway to Lindo’s location. Now that we’re deeper into the cave, I can just make him out, two hundred feet ahead, staring at the wall.
“You were going to explain something before,” I say to Jacob. “About Harry?”
“Ahh, yes,” Jacob says, sounding a little studious. “About the angel.”
Shit.
“What angel?” Young asks, already sounding defensive.
Damn it.
“He appeared to Harry’s ancestor,” Jacob says.
“Moroni?” Young asks.
“Yes!” Jacob smiles at Young. “You know of him?”
“Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon religion claimed that Moroni—the guardian of the golden plates—visited him. Smith copied the texts on the golden tablets, which were found underground…” Young gives the cavern a suspicious look. “…in New York. The text became the book of Mormon.”
“The subject makes you angry,” Jacob observes.
“He was a con-man who fabricated a religion based on an alternative history that science and every shred of historical data disproves, resulting in the world’s largest, most powerful cult—and I’m not just talking about the fundamentalists who hide out in this part of the world.”
My PC alarm is sounding, but since no one else is here—and because Jacob is nodding—I let it slide. I’m not sure what I’d complain about anyway. I know very little about the faith, and while Young is well educated, Jacob has lived through it.
“You are both right and wrong,” Jacob says. “The story is true in that Joseph Smith was contacted by a being identifying itself as the angel Moroni. He was taken underground—” He studies the cave around us. “—to a place like this, and given a seductive message: that we are all gods and can one day rule a planet of our own, to share with the world.”
“To what end?” I ask. “What would that accomplish?”
“Livestock,” Young says, his voice nearly a whisper. He looks Jacob in the eyes and for the first time, there’s compassion in them. “He made a deal, didn’t he?”
Jacob gives a nod. “The details of which I have only recently come to fully understand.”
I look ahead to Lindo, who’s just a hundred feet away now and waving us on. “I’m lost.”
“Polygamy,” Young says. “Like I told you before. It wasn’t just a fundamentalist Latter Day Saints institution. At first, it was mainstream. Smith called it the divine commandment. I’ve always thought he was just a horny bastard using the future repopulation of their own planets to justify dozens of wives, but that wasn’t it at all, was it?”
Jacob looks to the floor, uncomfortable with the answer. “Your allusion to livestock is accurate.”
“They were breeding people for the…whatever they are?”
“Genetic material,” Jacob says. “Hundreds of undocumented children could be passed on without outside knowledge. And as the religion spread, thousands.”
“Until the U.S. government put a stop to it,” Young says.
“But they didn’t,” I say. “Not entirely.”
“The pact continues to this day, fulfilled by those loyal to Smith’s teachings…and the deal he made.”
“A deal with the devil,” Young says.
“They are neither angels nor demons,” Jacob says.
“They’re not human, either,” I say.
“But they are flesh and blood. They are fallible. And like all living things, fragile…I believe.”
“But you don’t know,” I say. “Not for sure.”
“It’s a logical deduction,” he says. “If they were truly supernatural, why would they need genetic material? Why would they operate in the shadows, and redirect humanity’s attention? While I have never seen them, or sensed them, I’m positive that they, like us, are afraid.”
A laugh gurgles up out of my mouth. “I’d like to say that’s comforting, but…”
“Yeah,” Jacob says. “I know. But you don’t need to be afraid of me.” Jacob waits for Young to look at him again. “Neither of you do.”
Young takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly, and then gives a furtive nod.
Jacob’s inexperience with the outside world is more than made up for by his ability to read people. Of course, that raises the question of whether or not he’s saying exactly what he needs to manipulate us into trusting him. I’ve known him for under an hour and already I feel a kind of paternal instinct kicking in.
“Hurry up,” Lindo says. There’s no need to shout now. We’re just twenty feet away. I look at the wall he’s been staring at and don’t see anything obvious.
“There’s something wrong,” Jacob whispers. “He looks…off. His color is solid. Perfect contentment.”
“What’s wrong with that?” I ask, though I recognize that contentment is a strange emotion to be feeling right now.
“There is no such thing,” Jacob says. “No one feels any one emotion at a time. There is always a mix. During our short walk, you’ve experienced a full gamut of emotions, and never once felt totally happy, or sad, or angry. You never have in your life so far, and you never will.”
I slow down with Jacob so he can finish his thought. Young pulls ahead, focused on the wall that Lindo is now leaning against, looking at something small. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know how,” Jacob says, “but he’s projecting false emotions. And he would only need to do that if he needed to hide his true—”
“You’re a smart kid,” Lindo says. “But you don’t know as much as you think.” He taps his ear. “I can hear really well, too.”
Young convulses and falls to the rock floor, twitching to the sound of a crackling taser. Lindo adjusts his aim and fires a second charge. The prongs punch through Jacob’s gray jumpsuit. He yanks his hand from mine a moment before the shock drops him.
I stand stunned for a moment, and then reach for my gun. “You should have shot me second.” I pull the weapon from behind my back, intending to wound, not kill. I want answers.
Lindo raises his hands and I hold my fire. As much as I’d like to, I won’t shoot someone who’s submitting.
“Why?” is all I can think to say.
“I’m sorry about this,” he says. “And I appreciate what you’ve done already. I just can’t risk you screwing things up.”
I adjust my aim to his leg, reconsidering my stance on not shooting unarmed people. But before I can ask another question, slip my finger inside the trigger guard, or even consider weighing my options, a sharp pain radiates from the side of my head. Burning agony washes down my body, triggering muscles to flex and not let go. I’m locked in place. Unable to balance, I topple back.
I remember hitting the ground, but not being able to feel the pain.
There’s a moment of darkness.
Just a blink.
And then, as though no time has passed, I wake up somewhere else.
22
The bedroom is white. Glowing. Sunlight slices through the blinds. The room is cool, but the down blankets, heavy with layers, form a comfortable womb around me. Waking up isn’t easy.
Until I see her.
She’s naked. Mostly. My gun belt, a holdover from my days as a street cop, hangs at an angle from her hip. My wife is petite. Skinny waist. Small breasts. She’s barely five feet tall. But her hips are curved like a roller coaster.
Framed by the morning sun, she glows like some kind of celestial being of whom I am completely undeserving. “You can’t be real.”
She adjusts her stance, straightening those crazy hips. The gun belt thumps to the floor. She crawls onto the bed, the slow stalk of a prowling lion, head low, eyes locked on me.
We’ve been married for years, but my heart is pounding. Her raw sexuality is alluring and intimidating. We have a great sex life, but this feels next level. Something is different.
I’m good to go long before she peels the comforter away and straddles me, but she
senses my apprehension and stops short of lowering herself. At this point, the delay is somewhat agonizing, but then she smiles and I’m undone, at her mercy.
When she says nothing, I return her smile, and say, “How’s it going?”
She leans down close to my ear, and whispers, “I’m ovulating,” and then she leans back to see my reaction.
“Seriously?” I say.
She nods. “You ready for this?”
The subject of children has been one of constant conversation, but always on the back burner. That is, until a month ago, when she decided her career as a pharmaceutical sales rep was unfulfilling. In the weeks since her departure, her re-evaluation of her life goals has fueled revelations that we’re not as indifferent to the idea of children as we believed.
My response to her question is to slide my hands over those crazy hips and ease her down onto me.
“Yo.”
“What?”
Kailyn looks confused, sitting atop me. “Yo,” she says, but it’s not her voice. “Wake up.”
I’m not lying down. Not naked. Not with my wife. The memory turned dream fills me with a deep despair.
Before I open my eyes, I know where I am. The smell of a police cruiser is universal and familiar. But I’m also getting whiffs of Young’s cologne, faint, but still present, Wini’s perfume, and the earthy odor of six kids who spent the past days living in a horse stable.
“The fuck did you do?” I’m seated in the front seat of Godin’s SUV. Lindo is behind the wheel. My head pounds as I crane around to find the rest of our motley crew present, strapped in, and unconscious. “If they’re hurt—”
“They’re fine,” Lindo says. “For now.”
“I don’t respond well to threats,” I say, concern morphing into anger. I’ve already identified five different ways to subdue Lindo, two of which include taking his life.
Lindo must hear the threat, because he raises Young’s Desert Eagle toward my chest, keeping it low on his lap. “Look, man, this isn’t how I wanted things to go down. I like you. All of you. But I’m not calling the shots.”
“Who is?”
“Time for that later.”
I’m about to unleash a little verbal rage and demand answers, when Lindo says, “Have you looked out the window yet?”
We’re stopped in the middle of an endless stretch of Arizona desert road. There are no signs of civilization or other vehicles aside from the white van parked in front of us. The big vehicle’s doors are open, and the windows are rolled down and framing two mercs with assault rifles.
I’ve got a long string of insults and colorful language locked and loaded, but I reign myself in. Survival has to come before justice, so I turn my ire from Lindo to the men who have been a thorn in my side from the moment I arrived in Santa Cruz. There’re only two of them. Both covered in dust and what might be blood. These are survivors from the ranch fight. They hotwired one of the family vans to make their retreat.
Does that mean Harry is dead? I wonder, and then decide I don’t care. I feel sorry for his family, especially the kids, but it’s hard to feel too bad for a family of human traffickers.
“They want us alive?” I ask.
“Some of us.” Lindo points to the sheriff’s large glovebox.
I open it and find the Beretta inside, the sound suppressor removed. I consider reassembling it, but out here in the middle of nowhere, silence isn’t really a concern.
“Brave trusting me with this after what you did,” I tell him, chambering a round with slow movements.
“Can’t do this without you.”
“Hope you remember that when we’re done,” I say.
He smiles. “I like your confidence.”
“How do you want to play it?” The two men haven’t moved. I can’t see their eyes behind their reflective eyewear, but I’m willing to bet neither have blinked.
Lindo places the Desert Eagle on the seat beside him. “Just follow my lead, I guess.” He raises his hands. I tuck the smaller Beretta into my pants pocket and assume the same defenseless posture. The message is clear: we give up. But there’s no way in hell they’re buying it. Not after what we did at Young’s church.
Lindo points at his door handle. One of the mercs nods.
Moving slowly, Lindo and I both open our doors and step out. Lindo slides the Desert Eagle to the left side of the chair and raises his hands again. “Who’s over there? Luke? Charley?”
“I told you, Cruz,” the merc on my side of the van says, “you chose the wrong side of this.”
“Hey, Chuck,” Lindo says. “Long time.”
“Still a chance,” Chuck says. “You’ve proven your worth. Your pal over there is fucked, though. He shot Snyder.”
Lindo laughs, glances at me, and offers a wink. “Oh, shit, man. You shot Snyder?” His hands come down a bit, relaxing into the conversation, resting on top of the SUV’s window frame. “Sounds tempting, but we both know Aeron won’t go for it.”
For a moment I think they’re talking about someone named Aaron. But the pronunciation was air-ron.
It’s not a name. Not of a person anyway.
Aeron is a government-contracted aerospace company that supplies the U.S. military with advanced, next-generation weapon systems and vehicles. I don’t know much about them, but the name is as well-known as Lockheed Martin and Boeing. But the company is far more secretive. I only know that much because Wini likes her conspiracies.
“Lucky for you,” Chuck says, “I’m sure they’ll want to interrogate you before killing you. So you get to keep breathing. Your friend, on the other—”
I don’t bother waiting for Chuck the merc to finish his threat. I’m three feet to the right of the door, gun in hand, finger pulling the trigger before I hit the ground. Red spits from the merc’s left leg as two bullets break through skin, flesh, and bone.
Automatic gunfire bursts from the SUV’s far side, punctuated by the Desert Eagle’s much louder report. Five shots cut through the air, and then silence.
Chuck’s head falls into view. I fire three rounds from my position on the ground. The first strikes Chuck’s helmet, twisting it to the side, crushing his eye gear against his face and preventing him from getting a clear look at me. His momentary blindness is a mercy, making the next two 9mm rounds to strike his head a surprise.
Lindo slides over the SUV’s hood like an action hero, gun raised. He drops to the ground beside me, rounding the open door until he sees Chuck’s body.
“Sorry about Chuck,” I say.
“He was kind of a douchebag,” Lindo says. He turns around, offering me a hand up, but stops short when he finds my gun pointed at his head. He steps back and lets the Eagle hang from his index finger. “I don’t blame you, man. I really don’t. But we’re still neck-deep in shit.”
I climb to my feet and take the heavy handgun from him. “How’d they find us?”
“Dumb luck,” he says, but even he doesn’t buy that. “Probably tracked the vehicle, same as the sheriff’s department. They’ve got a small army headed toward us right now. Still a ways out, though. I can’t track these assholes, though.” He motions to Chuck. “But they’re chipped, no doubt, and the moment they died, alarms started sounding. Won’t be long before those choppers show.”
I consider everything he’s said and find no fault in his logic. He’s still the lesser of two evils. I don’t trust him. Not anymore. But if he wanted to kill us, he could have. That we’re all alive, and even buckled for safety, says he’s a different kind of man than these mercs.
“C’mon, man.” Lindo’s eyes are on the sky now. Not me. Not the gun. He knows I’m not going to kill him.
“How did you do it?” I ask. “Knock me out?”
“Seriously?”
“Answer the question and we’ll move.”
“Just…stay calm, okay? Let me explain.” He hesitates when I give no indication of whether or not I’ll shoot him. “There’s nanotech in your head. I put it there earlier.�
�
My hand squeezes the handgun a little tighter. “When you picked me up.”
“When you were hearing voices,” he corrects.
“You could hear them?” I’m a little stunned and relieved until he shakes his head.
“I’m protected, too. That’s what it’s for. Keeps them out of your head.”
“Keeps who out of your head?”
“Cryptoterrestrials. I call them The Others. Most people just call them aliens.”
“But from Earth,” I say.
“Right.”
“They’re real?”
“You’ve seen Jacob’s eyes. What he can do. That’s not human, man.”
“And these crypto-whatevers. They were there?” I ask. “At the ranch?”
“Yes and no,” he says. “That family was like a receiver for them. A conduit.”
“For their conscience?” I’m starting to feel doubtful. We’re delving deep into the realm of science fiction, and stretching my willingness to suspend my disbelief. “We’re talking about mind control, right?”
“It’s closer to possession,” he says.
“And they were trying to possess me?”
“Trying,” he confirms. “But it’s not so easy when the host is unwilling.”
For fuck’s sake, I think. All of this is ridiculous. What’s worse is that I can’t think of any other explanation. I saw how Harry’s family acted. Their synchronized movements and speech. I heard the voice, felt the scratching on the inside of my skull. “And a side effect of the chip is…”
“I can knock you out, yeah.”
“If you do it again and don’t kill me…”
He raises his hands. “I hear you. Just…you’re going to have to trust me, and the people I work for, even though you have no good reason to. We’re not about killing people.” He glances at Chuck. “Nice people.”
“And people who aren’t fully human?” I ask. “What about them?”
The Others Page 14