Sycamore Bluff

by Jude Hardin

  But now, stuck in this nightmare, in this dark and lonely prison, she wonders if she will ever hear their voices again. At least Nicholas is always nearby. Her soul mate, the love of her life. He comes every day, and his presence gives her the strength to go on, to fight against totally slipping into the abyss. If only she could talk. If only she could tell Nicholas, and everyone, that she is still aware of everything that goes on around her. It is so frustrating, not being able to move or speak. And the doctors, in and out all day and night, are saying there is very little hope that anything will ever change.

  If she could only wake up. If she could only shout, at the top of her lungs, and let them know she is still here.

  As a nurse, Juliet sometimes took care of patients who were in conditions similar to hers, and she wondered if they could hear her talking, if they could feel her touch. Now she knows that they could, at least some of them. She’s happy that she always said nice things to them, just in case they were aware.

  “Hello, Darling.”

  It’s Nicholas. He’s here now. Oh, how she wishes she could rise and embrace him. She would give the universe just to hold him in her arms one more time.

  He touches her forehead. His hand is cool and dry. He strokes her hair with his fingertips.

  “I’m going to be going away for a while,” he says. “I don’t want to, but I have to. I hope you understand. It’s my job, and it’s mandatory that I fulfill my duty. I’m so sorry. I’m going to miss you so much. And I’m so sorry about the times I wasn’t around when you were well. There’s no way to get that time back, but I regret that we were ever apart. Please forgive me, Juliet. If I could do it all over again, things would be different.”

  She wants to tell him that there is no need to apologize for anything. Their lives together hadn’t been perfect, but whose ever is? Juliet cherishes the memories of her time with Nicholas, and she longs to create even more memories with him.

  Nicholas puts his hand on her belly, and, as if on cue, the baby kicks.

  “Hello, my son,” Nicholas says. “It won’t be long now. I’ll be seeing you soon. Take good care of your mother while I’m gone, okay?”

  Juliet feels a kiss on her cheek, and then she hears her husband’s footsteps fade as he exits the room.

  She wants to scream for him to come back, but she cannot.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The Circle’s local safe house was a 1950s concrete bungalow nestled smack dab in the middle of nowhere. Colt had been there before, on the previous job he’d worked on with Diana. The closest neighbors were a mile away, the closest gas station five or more. Colt steered his Jimmy into the gravel driveway, killed the engine, got out and trotted up to the front door. He was a few minutes late, and he knew he would be scolded for it. He punched in the code on the electronic lock and walked inside.

  The entire place was decorated in a style some people might call eclectic, or thrift-store chic. Colt called it dumpster deco. There was a ratty green sofa heavily pocked with cigarette burns, the fabric on the cushions worn so thin you could see the foam rubber in places. A brass floor lamp with no shade bathed the room in headache-white, and a fat palmetto bug scurried across a coffee table that had been fashioned from milk crates and a closet door. Colt walked into the kitchen, opened the avocado-green refrigerator, grabbed a bottle of the cheap light beer that always seemed to be stocked there, and twisted off the cap.

  “Where have you been?” Diana asked.

  She was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and a laptop computer. She wore black cargo pants and a black tank top. Five-six or five-seven, very fit, hair the color of chestnuts tied in a ponytail. There was a leather jacket and a backpack on the chair next to her, everything black.

  “I had some things I needed to do,” Colt said. He looked at his watch. “I’m seven minutes late. So sue me.”

  “I’m not going to sue you, but I might give you seven lashes with a wet noodle. Or maybe a horse whip. One lash for each minute. Try to be on time from now on, okay? You know how I feel about that. Seconds can mean the difference between life and death sometimes.”

  “I’ll try,” Colt said. He took a sip of the watered-down brew. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll start being ten minutes early for everything if you start buying some better beer.”

  “Sit down,” she said. “You better enjoy that bottle of beer, because you won’t be getting any more after we leave here. There’s no alcohol where we’re going.”

  Colt sat across from her.

  “Where are we going?” he said. “Hell? Come to think of it, you can probably get a cheap bottle of wine down there. Of course, there’s no way to chill it.”

  Colt couldn’t refrain from making the occasional wisecrack, even in his depressed state. It was a kind of defense mechanism, one that kept him from going completely bonkers.

  “Sycamore Bluff is totally dry,” Diana said. “That’s part of the experiment. No alcohol, no mind-altering drugs of any kind.”

  “Sounds boring,” Colt said. “How long am I going to have to be there?”

  “I’m hoping we’ll only be there a few days, but it could be longer. It depends on how fast we can figure out what’s happening, and then how fast we can remedy the situation. We’ll be going in as husband and wife, by the way, if you can imagine that. That’s why I needed a male operative for this mission. Here’s everything you’ll need for identification purposes.”

  She pushed a brown nine-by-twelve envelope across the table. Colt picked it up and dumped out the contents.

  “So I’m a twenty-six-year-old black guy now?” he said.

  “What?”

  Colt winked. “Just kidding.”

  Diana smiled. She had a nice smile. She needed to display it more often.

  “Cute,” she said. “Actually, it wouldn’t be the first time there was a mix-up with credentials.”

  “Husband and wife,” Colt said. “I hope you don’t expect me to, you know, kiss you or anything.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. There will be absolutely no need to carry the charade that far. All we’ll have to do is put on a good show out in public.”

  “Well, I’m about fifteen years older than you, but I guess that’s not too much of a stretch. I see couples with wider age differences all the time. So what’s the deal? You never told me why we’re going in there in the first place.”

  “There was a murder-suicide a couple of weeks ago, a very gruesome killing right on Main Street in broad daylight. Apparently, a man in a car, guy named Kyle Lofton, nearly hit a woman on a bicycle. When he got out to see about her, he ended up biting her neck and killing her.”

  “Like a vampire,” Colt said.

  “Actually, he nearly decapitated her. Bits of the woman’s skin and trachea and throat muscles were found in his stomach during the autopsy. He’d taken the time to chew the flesh and swallow it.”

  “And then he killed himself?”

  “Yeah. He broke a Pepsi bottle and slit his own wrists. He bled out in the gutter while a crowd of people stood around and watched.”

  “Didn’t anyone at least dial nine-one-one?”

  “Nope. It was almost as if nobody could acknowledge that something had gone terribly wrong, that a major crime had been committed. That’s another thing we’re going to be looking at. The behavior of the townspeople. Odd, to say the least. Up until now, there has been no official law enforcement in Sycamore Bluff, but the agency running the show is wondering if that might need to change. Or, worse case scenario, if maybe the entire study should be aborted early.”

  “What agency?”

  “NASA,” Diana said. She explained the nature of the experiment.

  “I’m still confused,” Colt said. “Why would The Circle want to get involved in anything like this?”

  “After an initial investigation, NASA discovered that the killer had former ties with a group of rebels down in Central America. Well, they call themselves rebels. They’re actually a hig
hly organized drug cartel with ties to the international sex trade. And rumor has it they’ve recently expanded into the production and distribution of illegal films. Normally, this kind of incident with a guy like Kyle Lofton wouldn’t have raised so many red flags, but this particular cartel has gained quite a bit of power over the past few years and their leader has remained untouchable. They make a lot of money from the United States, but they hate our government and our way of life. They’ve been connected to several attempted terrorist attacks. All the residents of Sycamore Bluff were screened before being admitted to the experiment, but this Kyle Lofton fellow slipped through the cracks somehow. Anyway, The Circle wants to make sure he didn’t poison the soup, so to speak. They want us to go in and investigate, try to find out what went wrong with NASA’s little utopia.”

  “Any thoughts on what did go wrong?” Colt asked.

  “I’m betting it was just an isolated occurrence,” Di said. “I doubt if Lofton had tried to start any sort of anti-government movement in Sycamore Bluff. It shouldn’t take us long to find out. Then you can get back to your teaching business, and everything else you have going on. I’m sorry I had to drag you into this. Really. I know you have a lot on your plate right now.”

  “It’s okay. This is what I signed up for, and I want you to know I’m on board a hundred percent.”

  “I’m happy to hear that,” Di said.

  A hundred percent, Colt thought, except for the alcohol thing. He was glad he’d thought to pack a jug of Old Fitzgerald in his suitcase. He got up and opened the refrigerator and grabbed another beer. This was the last one he was going to get for a while, because it was the last one in the house.

  “What else do I need to know?” he said.

  “I’ll fill you in on everything else en route. We’ll be flying out of Jacksonville International Airport on a private jet at midnight, a direct flight to the Grissom Air Reserve Base near Kokomo. From there, we’ll take a helicopter to Sycamore Bluff. This assignment should be a lot easier than the last one we did together, by the way.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “The Director thinks I need a break, so he gave me a cushy assignment. It was either this or a desk job.”

  “Do you need a break?” Colt asked.

  “He took me off the big case I was working on because of, well, because of some personal reasons. I was on administrative leave for a while, and then I had to go through some rigorous mental and physical training exercises before returning to duty. I screwed up on one of the field exercises and got myself killed. It was a fluke. I just happened to run right into an enemy soldier as I was running through the woods. The odds of that happening were about the same as being struck by lightning. It wasn’t my fault. It could have happened to anybody. So to answer your question, no, I don’t need a break. I’m as sharp as I ever was.”

  “I hope so,” Colt said. “I would hate to be sent into a hostile environment with a has-been.”

  She looked at him, and he winked again. She didn’t smile this time.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  At approximately ten-thirty p.m.—22:30 military time—Lieutenant Colonel David A. Davidson, second in command at the Grissom Air Reserve Base, poured himself another glass of single malt scotch whisky and stared into the blank computer screen in front of him. He was at home, and Mrs. Davidson had already retired for the evening. Colonel Blankenbaker, the commanding officer of the base, was on leave for the next two weeks, so for the time being the buck stopped with Davidson.

  He did his best thinking alone here in his study, late at night when the house was quiet. It was a comfortable space, with bookshelves and leather furniture and a fireplace. It was warm and cozy, and when he went in there and closed the door, the rest of the world knew not to bother him.

  The colonel had made a decision. He knew what he had to do. He was just trying to work up the nerve to make the call. Those idiots from The Circle would be flying in soon, and he couldn’t afford to wait much longer.

  He’d thought about just going with the flow, and allowing the chips to fall where they may. It was an option, albeit a risky one. But if things didn’t go right, if the operatives from The Circle discovered what was going on behind the scenes in Sycamore Bluff, it would cost him his career. And millions of dollars. And possibly even prison time. He couldn’t afford to take the chance. Not when he and his associates were so close to success.

  He picked up his cell phone and punched in the number. Major Philip H. Needleman answered on the third ring.

  “Hello?”

  “Phil, this is Dave. We have a situation.”

  “What’s up?”

  “I can’t discuss it over the phone. Meet me at the tower in thirty minutes. And bring your gear. You’re flying tonight.”

  “Thirty minutes. I—”

  “Just do it,” Colonel Davidson said.

  He hung up, took one last sip from his glass of scotch, grabbed his uniform jacket and his hat and headed out into the night.

  The flight control tower was only a fifteen minute walk from Colonel Davidson’s house, and the brisk January air would help clear his head. He hated what he was about to do, absolutely hated it. But sacrifices had to be made sometimes, and this one would definitely be worth it in the long run. Not only for Colonel Davidson and his associates, but for humanity itself. They’d come so far, and now a single tiny glitch threatened to bring everything tumbling down. He just couldn’t allow that to happen.

  An airman first class stood guard at the control tower door. The young man popped to attention and saluted as Colonel Davidson approached.

  “Good evening, sir,” the airman said.

  Davidson returned the salute, opened the door and walked inside. There were two offices on the ground floor, one marked CO for commanding officer, and the other marked XO for executive officer. Davidson unlocked the one marked XO, switched the light on, and took a seat at the desk. He could see the runway from his window, and at the moment a pair of F-15Es were doing touch-and-go’s. Such a beautiful aircraft, he thought, and one he’d flown many missions in himself.

  Davidson had served as a jet pilot in Iraq and Afghanistan, and had risen through the ranks more swiftly than most. At thirty-seven, he was one of the youngest Lieutenant Colonels in the entire United States Air Force. He expected to make full-bird and get his own command before his fortieth birthday, which was practically unheard of. He drew a nice paycheck, and would have a nice pension when the time came, but not nice enough for the things he wanted to do.

  Colonel David A. Davidson wanted to fly his own private jet to Paris for the weekend. He wanted to cruise the Caribbean on his own private yacht. He wanted oceanfront property on both coasts, and a horse ranch in Wyoming. If he needed the company of a young lady for the evening, he wanted to be able to afford the best. He wanted servants attending to his every need 24/7. In short, Colonel Davidson wanted to be a billionaire, and come hell or high water, that was exactly what he was going to do.

  Someone knocked on the door, and Davidson said, “Enter.”

  Major Needleman walked in.

  Davidson and Needleman had been friends for years. Both of them were aviation hotshots, Davidson with F-15Es and Needleman with HH-60 Pave-Hawk helicopters, and both were career officers with pipelines geared toward senior management. They had been selected for a staff, operations, and planning tour with the Joint Special Operations Command around the same time, and that’s where they had first met. Currently, Needleman was the base operations manager at Grissom, and he occasionally filled in when Davidson or Blankenbaker needed a helicopter pilot.

  Needleman was up for promotion, and soon he and Davidson would be equal in rank. Even so, Davidson’s position as executive officer would still allow him to give orders to Needleman in an official capacity. They were friends, and they addressed each other casually in private, but Needleman knew his place in the pecking order.

  “Good evening, Dave,” Needleman said. “What’s going on
?”

  “Shut the door.”

  Needleman shut the door, removed his jacket, and took a seat across the desk from the colonel.

  Needleman was a year older than Davidson, but nobody would have guessed that. He was five-nine with blue eyes and blond hair and a body kept fit from two hours of PT every morning. He was the kind of pilot who could walk into a bar anywhere in the world and have his pick of the hottest chicks in the joint.

  Needleman settled into his chair. “You don’t look so good,” he said.

  “I don’t feel so good. I got word a while ago that some agents are coming in to investigate the incident at Sycamore Bluff.”

  “What agents?”

  “This is top secret,” Davidson said. “So I don’t want you breathing a word of it to anyone. Ever. Understand?”

  “Of course.”

  “There’s a secret government agency called The Circle. Only a few people in the world know they exist. Until recently, I didn’t even know. They’re totally clandestine, the kind of outfit conspiracy theorists create rumors about. They’re in charge of investigating and eliminating any person or group who poses a threat to the country. Especially, but not limited to, any person or group intending to assassinate the president. Supposedly, they’ve prevented four assassination attempts during this administration alone.”

  “Impressive,” Needleman said. “Why are they going to Sycamore Bluff?”

  “That idiot who killed the woman and then killed himself was briefly involved with a crime cartel down in Central America.”

  “Kyle Lofton,” Needleman said.

  “Yeah. He generated a little blip on The Circle’s radar, and they want to rule out the possibility that he started some sort of movement among the other residents. He didn’t, and I’m sure it will only take them a day or two to figure out he didn’t, but we obviously can’t afford for anyone to be snooping around right now. Not when we’re this close to launching the product.”