Chase Baker and the Golden Condor: (A Chase Baker Thriller Series No. 2)

by Vincent Zandri

  “Oh no,” he says, eyes wide, as if I’m talking about a boy of five or six years old. “Cold? Influenza?”

  “Worse than that, I’m afraid. Your son has cancer, Pete.”

  His face goes pale. “A child should never be stricken with cancer.”

  “Your son is seventy-five years old, Peter,” I say. “He’s older than his father.”

  “But how can that be? Has time escaped me entirely? Do you know I knew him as a newborn baby?” His eyes are blinking rapidly, and he gives his head a shake as if it helps get a grip on the bizarre reality he’s now been faced with.

  Just then, more footsteps come from behind Keogh. Booted feet. Not the bare feet of the natives.

  “Who’s that?” I say to Keogh, crouching down and retrieving my .45 while Leslie cautiously picks up the AR-15.

  He looks at me wide-eyed.

  “I have no idea. I should be the only westerner down here, next to you two.”

  “All that changes right now,” comes the voice of a man.

  As he comes closer, I am able to make out the man’s face, and his identity shocks me almost as much as Keogh II’s did.

  “Peter Keogh the Second,” I say as he approaches, “please meet Mister Peter Keogh the Third. Your son.”

  43.

  Keogh III locks his gaze upon his maker. I can tell he’s trying his best to work up something to say to a man who not only gave him life so long ago, but who should also be long dead by now. But instead of making words, all he can manage is to open and close his mouth while his Adam’s apple bobs up and down inside his thin, if not sickly, pale neck.

  At the same time, Keogh II eyes his long-lost son like a young father who is getting his first real peek at his newborn baby. The old pilot holds out his arms as if to bear hug his aged and dying boy.

  “Behold your father, son,” he says.

  But something very strange happens then. Keogh III doesn’t step forward, enter into his dad’s loving arms. Instead, he takes a deliberate step backwards. And then another, just to prove he meant the first one.

  “I don’t know if you’re real,” he says with a shake of his head, “or if you’re someone’s idea of a joke. But whatever you are, I don’t want you touching me. Got it?”

  “Son,” Keogh II says, his voice suddenly painfully hoarse, his smile now turned upside down, “why do you speak to me this way?”

  Keogh III exhales, bites down hard on his bottom lip. His face is pale, and so gaunt it almost hurts to look at it. “If you’re real…If you are genuinely my father and not some crazy imposter who’s followed me down here in order to confuse me and sabotage my mission, then what I want to ask you is this: Did it ever occur to you to maybe find a phone and give me a call at some point over the past seventy-five years?”

  “Son,” the old flier says, “there are no phones down here. There’s no real time to speak of. How was I to know that you have grown up, and aged as much as you have?”

  “You would have known had you attempted to contact me.”

  “Look at me, son. You’re right. In many ways, I’m not real. Since crashing into the jungle, I’ve been given a special gift. And it’s something you would never understand.”

  The cancer-ridden Keogh nods. “I’ll just have to take your word for it, old man.” Then, turning to me, “Enough of this useless chatter. Time to get down to business.”

  Keogh III is accompanied by two men dressed entirely in black. They wear jungle boots, cargo pants, and work shirts with the Keogh Enterprises logo sewn into the chest pocket over the heart. The logo comes in the shape of an old DC-11 propeller driven cargo plane from the 1930s and 40s. They’re both holding black Heckler and Koch HK416 automatic weapons, the barrels of which are aimed precariously at us.

  “I’ll give you this much, Mr. Baker,” Keogh III says, “you are positively dripping with tenacity.”

  “What a surprise to see you too, boss,” I say. “Thanks for answering our calls.”

  Keogh III maintains a tightlipped, pale face. He’s wearing an olive green bush jacket and matching pants, both of which are soaked through. The clothing swims on his sickly, near skeletal-like frame. For footwear, he’s sporting the identical black jungle boots as his men. His black and gray baseball cap sports the same Keogh Enterprises logo as the shirts, only larger and more colorful.

  “Frankly, Mr. Baker,” he says, his voice hardly more than a whisper, “I didn’t expect you to live long enough for me to ever speak to you again.”

  Leslie takes a step forward, nudges me in the bicep.

  “It was him all along,” she says. “He’s the son of a bitch who set us up. He was his own mole. The mole that Pedro spoke about.”

  “Yes,” I say, staring at the rifle barrels. “But why? Why send us on this mission only to kill us off in the process?”

  “Because I wanted you to confirm for me what this crazy bastard couldn’t confirm,” Keogh III says, his eyes poised on his father. “That a trail did indeed exist in the jungle and that it would lead me to this cave in the mountain. Once that was done, I’d have no use for you.”

  “Who you calling crazy bastard?” Keogh II barks, his eyes once more filling with tears. “That’s no way to speak to your father.”

  The old pilot approaches his even older son once more, again opening up his arms for a hug. Now that they’re standing so close, the family resemblance is uncanny.

  “Back off, old man,” Keogh III insists. Then, holding his bare hand out to me, “I’ll be glad to relieve you of your weapon, Chase.”

  Exhaling, I place it in his palm. Then, his eyes on Leslie, “You too,” he says.

  She surrenders her AR-15.

  “Peter Junior,” Keogh II says, “don’t you want to hug your father?”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, old man,” the younger Keogh says, “I’m dying. I’m also thirty-plus years older than you right now. But you are going to reverse that for me.”

  “Son,” Keogh II says, bearing the frown of the truly confused, “I don’t understand.”

  “You are in the possession of the most coveted archaeological prize known to man,” Keogh III says. “The Golden Condor. The very aircraft or, should I say, spacecraft, that was flown here by ancient aliens from another solar system. It’s here in this cave. I want it for two reasons.”

  “And those reasons are?” I chime in.

  “That aircraft is going to save my life,” he says. “And then it’s going to make me the wealthiest man in the world.”

  “You are out of your mind, son,” the old pilot says. “You have been stricken not only with a cancer but with a sickness that’s far worse.” Crossing his arms over his chest. “Greed.”

  “Shut the hell up, old man.”

  Keogh II’s eyes suddenly lose their teary sadness and instead become the eyes of an angry man.

  “You watch your tone, sonny boy,” he grouses, lowering his arms.

  If things aren’t bizarre enough, I’m watching a forty-two-year-old father scold his seventy-five-year-old son.

  “Marcus,” Keogh III says.

  Immediately, the goon standing over my employer’s right shoulder shifts himself so that he’s facing the line of shoulder-to-shoulder natives to my right.

  “Patrick,” Keogh III adds.

  That’s when the second goon positions himself so that he’s facing the line of natives on my left.

  “Proceed!” Keogh III orders.

  Shouldering their weapons, the goons commit mass murder.

  44.

  It takes only a matter of seconds for the slaughter to be completed. Afterwards, the goons change out their clips and stand at attention, awaiting new orders.

  Keogh II’s face goes pale under his leather flight cap. He eyes the death and destruction all around him, the blood pooling on the stone floor as the members of the ancient Tupi tribe bleed out.

  “You will be sorry for this,” he whispers angrily to his offspring. “You are not my son. No
son of mine would commit a sin like this.”

  “Save it for later, Dad,” Keogh III says. “For now, I want you to lead me to the Condor. You are going to pilot that plane to a place that will save my life and make me young again, just like you, my father, my maker.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  “You won’t refuse. Trust me.”

  “And how is that, sonny?”

  “Marcus,” Keogh III says again.

  That’s when the goon cocks his weapon once more, aims it at Leslie, and fires.

  The single shot hits her in the stomach.

  Leslie collapses to the floor like sack of rags and bones.

  I drop to my knees, press both my hands against her wound. But the blood is gushing out from between my fingers.

  “You evil son of a bitch!” I shout. “I will kill you for this.”

  “I’m going to die anyway, Chase. And so is your lovely Leslie. That is unless dear old dad here leads us to the Golden Condor.”

  I press my hand against Leslie’s jugular. She’s alive, but the pulse is fading fast.

  “You hang in there, Les,” I say. “I’m gonna get you help.”

  She looks up at me with wide eyes. She’s in too much pain and shock to talk.

  “You see, Chase,” Keogh III says, “you and me have the same problem now. If we don’t get to that aircraft immediately, we both lose something we can never get back.”

  I look up at the old pilot.

  “Peter,” I say. “You gotta help us.”

  That’s when I see him feeling for the six gun that’s been hidden until now by his leather aviator’s coat.

  “Now now, Dad,” Keogh III says. “Old men of one hundred fifteen shouldn’t be playing with guns.”

  Keogh III reaches for the gun, snatches it out of his father’s holster.

  “Genuine relic,” he says, shoving the barrel into his pant waist.

  Keogh II nods, exhales as though shamed to have been robbed of his weapon so easily.

  “Follow me,” he says in a dejected tone. “The aircraft is docked overhead.”

  45.

  While I cradle the bleeding Leslie in my arms, the two goons follow close behind, their weapons poised on our backs. Keogh II leads us up a set of narrow stone stairs to another room, this one far wider and longer than the one below it. But like the first smaller room, this area too is illuminated in the golden glow of wall-mounted fire lit torches.

  Positioned in the very center of the room is a sight like I have never before witnessed.

  The plane is at least as large as a modern fighter jet, only its skin isn’t metallic, but instead, golden, as if constructed of solid gold sheets. The wings are short, but swept, while the back stabilizer is shaped like a V. There seems to be one power source of an engine which is mounted to the very top of the fuselage directly over a cockpit that resembles a bird’s beak.

  A condor’s beak.

  There’s no landing gear to speak of. Instead the aircraft simply hovers ten feet above the stone floor. It’s one of the most remarkable objects I have ever witnessed.

  “Come this way, everyone,” Keogh II encourages us to follow.

  I trail close behind, Leslie bleeding so badly, the blood is pouring onto the floor.

  When Keogh II positions himself directly under the belly of the craft, he turns to me and orders me to stay where I am. What he has to do now, he must do by himself.

  Standing straight and stiff, his arms held tightly against his sides, he positions his face upwards, so that he’s gazing up at the underside of the craft. That’s when two beams of bright laser light shoot down, striking both his eyes. He wobbles for a second or two until the laser lights cease. A loud metal against metal bang occurs then, which reverberates throughout the room, and the plane’s underbelly begins to open up, the bottom hatch lowering itself down onto the stone so that it provides us with a ramp for entering into her.

  “Now,” Keogh II says. “This way.”

  I go to him and carry Leslie up into the craft.

  There’s nothing inside the Condor that resembles an airplane.

  No seats, no doors, no porthole windows for gazing outside the craft. The low-ceilinged metallic tube contains only several floor-mounted tables that are made of metal, or something like metal. I lay Leslie on one of these tables while the rest of the men enter into the area behind me.

  “Everyone lies down on one of the tables,” Keogh II insists.

  “What about you?” his son asks.

  Keogh II taps a bare wall with his index finger as if a panel of buttons exists there, and an invisible door slides open.

  “I’m flying,” he says.

  Positioning himself down into a cockpit-like chair, an assemblage of pedals, levers, and periscope-like viewfinders slowly emerge from out of nowhere and mold to his exact physical specifications. I am reminded of the familiar stone carving of the ancient Incan pilot who appeared to be flying a craft outfitted with identical instruments and controls. For decades scientists have been trying to explain that carving. Now an explanation is finally at hand.

  The hatch closes and the craft goes pitch dark.

  “What now?” I say.

  “Just close your eyes,” Keogh II insists.

  I close my eyes and a strange sensation emanates up from the steel table. It’s a kind of electrical charge that doesn’t paralyze me, but instead holds me in place like a half dozen invisible thick leather belts and straps have been wrapped around me and buckled secure. Even my pulse and heartbeat seem to be slowing so that I suddenly feel like I’m not entirely awake, as though by lying back on this hard table, I have somehow automatically entered into a dream-state.

  A loud thunder follows and then a clockwise circling movement occurs. I open my eyes to sneak a look into the cockpit, and that’s when I see that the two metallic sheets or shields that were covering the windshield have been lowered. Keogh II punches something and we begin heading in the direction of a stone wall, until the stone wall rapidly lowers and like a rocket we shoot beyond the cave and the mountain.

  “This is it, people,” the old flier barks, his voice resonating in my head.

  Those are the last words I remember hearing before he punches something else, and I pass out from excessive forces of gravity.

  46.

  I can’t tell if what I am seeing and experiencing is a vivid dream or reality.

  I’m floating above the earth, my body entirely suspended in space. The aircraft is no longer there. It’s as if I have been ejected from it and now float helplessly in outer space with no means to control whether I will live or die. Curiously I am not afraid. In fact, I feel empowered, not like I’m about to drift away into an endless black space, but instead have come face to face with heaven.

  Then I see Leslie.

  She is far off in the distance, but coming closer to me all the time. That gunshot wound is still visible, the entry wound in her stomach dripping dark red blood. But the closer she comes to me, the smaller the wound gets, the more the blood disappears. By the time she reaches me, the wound has disappeared entirely.

  She smiles and takes hold of my hands.

  “It’s okay,” she says. “I’m not in pain anymore.”

  Releasing my hands, she turns and leaves me, drifting away from me like a long-haired angel until she disappears entirely from view.

  The dream shifts…

  Suddenly I am on my back on one of the steel tables. I am not alone. To my left, Peter Keogh III is also situated on his back on a steel table. To my right, the Keogh Enterprises goons are also lying on their backs on two separate tables, their eyes closed. They seem to be fast asleep, their weapons still gripped in their hands.

  I try and lift myself off the table, but I can’t. I’m paralyzed from head to toe. I can see, hear, feel. But I can’t move. Shifting my eyes to my feet, I see Keogh II standing along with three figures who are shorter and thinner than him. They appear human but not entirely. They are dress
ed in gray clothing that fits tightly to their skin and their heads are shaved. Their movements are slow and deliberate, but not threatening. I hear voices, but I cannot possibly make out the language being spoken. The conversation, however, seems to be a pleasant one.

  As the conversation comes to an end, the three small figures approach Keogh III. They hold their hands over him for a time while his body enters into convulsions.

  The dream shifts once more…

  I feel myself flying again. Dropping out of the sky like an asteroid. It’s so hot I am breaking out in a sweat, but not so hot that I burn. Struggling to look up from the table, I can see that the interior skin of this aircraft glows bright orange. Something goes bang, like we’ve just broken through some kind of barrier, and just like that the orange glow disappears.

  I close my eyes and drift away.

  Moments later, when I come to, I find myself seated up against the stone wall where the Golden Condor is once more parked. Keogh II stands in front of the two goons who are holding their guns on him. Set before the old pilot is a gurney. I can see that there’s a body set out on it with a white sheet laid over it. My heart sinks then, because I know who the body belongs to.

  Leslie.

  Standing off to the side, looking at his reflection in a square piece of hand-held mirror, is Peter Keogh III.

  “Fantastic,” he says. “Truly fantastic.”

  From where I’m seated I can see how much he’s changed since having visited the heavens in the Golden Condor. His once pale skin has returned to its youthful tanned tone. His thin patches of gray-white hair have now given over to a rich thick head of blond curls. His eyes are alive and blue while his body appears to be muscular and agile. The body of a man in his mid-twenties.

  He tosses the mirror to the floor, where it shatters. Looking down at it, I see the faces of the two Keoghs multiplied one hundred times in the jagged broken pieces of mirror glass.

  “You did good, Dad,” Keogh III says. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out for the girl. A damned shame really.”