Earthquake Games

by Bonnie Ramthun

  When Alan walked into Beth’s kitchen two hours later, Eileen was eating supper with Susan and Beth and Sam. Frank, Eileen had learned, was one of the hired men. He was out riding a fence line to make sure it was intact after the storm. The other ranch hands, Jenny and Mark, were married and had their own cabin. They usually ate supper at their own place. Alan stepped through the doorway and Eileen felt that peculiar humming sound again, the rushing sensation of her own blood through her veins.

  “Eileen,” he said, stopping abruptly.

  “Hi,” she said mildly, scooping a forkful of lasagna to her mouth. The delicious bite could have been sawdust for all she tasted it.

  “What are you doing here?” he said. He looked stunned, guilty even, and Eileen’s heart contracted fiercely.

  “Some interesting developments,” Eileen said. “So I came on down.” She took another determined bite of food.

  “We’ve been getting acquainted,” Beth said with a grin. “I tried to get Reg to come out but he’s at home with Maria Elena and won’t leave. He said he’d try to come by tomorrow for lunch. I hope you’re still here for lunch?” She looked anxiously at Eileen, who managed to nod and shrug her shoulders at the same time.

  “We’ll ride out in the morning, Eileen,” Susan said with a wrinkle of her nose. “I promised Eileen a ride on Origami. Before you invited Uncle Reg.”

  “Are you hungry, Alan?” Beth asked. “There’s plenty of food.”

  “I’m not hungry. I had a late lunch,” Alan said, looking dazed. “Maybe Eileen and I could talk for a little bit?”

  “Sure,” Sam Williams said through a mouthful of food. “Use the living room, we hardly ever go in there ’cept for parties.”

  Eileen took a last bite and stood up. She carried her plate and cup to the sink, rinsed them, and stacked them in the dishwasher. She had no idea what she was going to say to Alan. Her father. When she shut the dishwasher door, it slammed more loudly than she thought it should. Then she realized someone was standing in the doorway to the mudroom, in coat and hat and muddy boots. The outside door had slammed shut at the same time as the dishwasher door.

  This must be Frank, the hired man, Eileen realized. He was slender, not particularly tall, with black hair and eyes and a nose that would rival Rosen’s. Frank would have been right at home in Lucy Giometti’s very Italian family. If he were wearing a handmade suit and his hair were slicked back, he could have played an extra in one of the Godfather movies. Instead, he was wearing a sheepskin duster even filthier than Susan’s. His hair was in disarray and his face pinched and white and wild. Eileen stood straight, and if she had coyote ears they would have come up into stiff, tall points. Frank looked upset. More than upset. He looked scared to death.

  “There’s two guys at the gate,” he said, panting. “They were trying to get in and when I drove up they said—they said—”

  “Take a deep breath,” Sam said, standing from the table. “They didn’t ring the bell.” He took two steps and hooked an enormous shotgun from an alcove Eileen had not noticed. He calmly checked the load and clicked the safety off as Frank took a couple of calming breaths. Everyone else stood or sat as if electrified, and Eileen thought of a horrid movie she’d seen as a child, some late-night thing that scared her more than any bug-eyed radioactive monster ever did. The knock on the door, the jack-booted troops bursting in on a family at supper, and the long ride in the cattle cars to the concentration camps and horrible death.

  But this wasn’t Nazi Germany. Sam Williams’s enormous shotgun was proof of that, if nothing else.

  “They said they were from the DEFA, whatever that is, and they had badges, looked like FBI badges but different. They said they had a warrant to search this place and I had to let them in. They said they had an arrest warrant for Alan Baxter! I said I’d be right back and I kicked the Honda into top gear and I came right here.”

  “They don’t,” Eileen said into the silence. “I’m working with the feds and they don’t have Alan as a suspect. They—”

  “I think they shot at me,” Frank said, and if everyone were silent before, the room was now as still as stone. “You know how the Honda can go, and I was going as fast as I could. But I heard something, like a backfire, and I swear something went right by my ear.” He sat down on the bench in the mudroom, his face looking both lost and angry. “They shot at me.”

  Susan was kneeling at Frank’s feet before anyone else moved, and as her arms went around Frank and she buried her face in his shoulder, Eileen saw a stunned look on both Beth and Sam Williams’s faces. Then Beth’s face broke into a grin of delight, uncomplicated and joyous. Evidently Susan was keeping a secret about the hired man. Beth, all thoughts of invaders at the gate gone, beamed at her daughter’s back. Eileen could practically read “wedding” and “grandchildren” on the woman’s broad forehead.

  “Were they dressed in black, Frank?” Alan asked.

  “Yeah,” Frank said, bringing his face up from Susan’s sleek brown head. She was still buried in his shoulder, hugging him hard. He looked at Beth and Sam anxiously. He was obviously more worried at the moment about the shotgun in Sam Williams’s hands than the shooters at the gate. What he saw in their faces obviously reassured him. He blew a gusty breath out and his arms tightened around Susan. “How did you know? They were dressed in black. Black suits, like. Mafia suits, I’d call ’em.”

  “Men-in-black?” Sam Williams asked, his face even grimmer. Eileen looked at him with surprise. He didn’t sound derisive, or doubting. Sam Williams sounded as though he believed in them. She shuddered, suddenly, and obviously. All heads turned to her.

  “Just like the ones who tried to kill you, Eileen,” Alan said calmly.

  Eileen shrugged at the faces that were looking back at her. “I doubt my man-in-black was an alien. He was very upset when I shot him in the chest.”

  “But he survived,” Alan said quietly.

  “Evidently, he did,” Eileen said. “But he might have been wearing body armor. And hadn’t we better get out to the gate before your friends find a way through?”

  “They aren’t going to find a way through unless they have a tank,” Sam Williams said with satisfaction. He was a big, rangy man, with muscles like old ropes in his arms and neck. The sun had weathered him to mahogany and put crow’s-feet around his eyes that were as deep as cuts. His hair was mostly gone and what little remained was a brilliant, movie-star white. His eyebrows, white like his hair, were bushy and enormous, like wooly white caterpillars on his forehead. He smiled at Eileen.

  “The ditch along the highway is too deep and broad for a truck to cross. The culvert where the gate goes is the only good place to get in. They can walk up here, but it’ll take them a good hour or so. I got tired of reporters and those UFO types trespassing after our first set of cattle mutilations. So I fixed it.”

  “They might be on their way up on foot,” Eileen said, thinking cattle mutilations? “They really might. These guys could be killers.”

  “Then we’ll be ready,” Beth said, focussing with an effort away from her daughter. “Frank, Susan, get Jenny and Mark up to the main house. Let the dogs out. I’m going to call Reg and get him out here as quickly as he can.”

  “You mean your cattle dogs?” Alan asked, as Susan and Frank scrambled to their feet and rummaged in the mudroom. Eileen saw Susan come up with a handsome shotgun and Frank strap on a pair of revolvers fit for an Old West movie, and approved. They dove out the door as Beth dialed the sheriff’s number.

  “Yeah, the cattle dogs, and I’d hate to lose them,” Sam said quietly. He turned off the kitchen lights and the room was plunged into gloom. The only light came from the gas burners on Beth’s big stove. “They’re mostly Border collie mixed with some German shepherd. You’ve seen them work. Damn smart dogs. They’ll stay away from our friends and bark like mad, which is all I want. I hope they don’t get shot at.”

  “Okay, Reg, just get here as soon as you can,” Beth said into the phone,
and hung up. She looked cheerful. “He’s on his way with lights blazing. He said not to kill them, please, particularly if they’re the fed agents he’s been asking for. He said they probably won’t send him any more if we shoot these guys.”

  “Better tell Susan,” Alan murmured, his eyes sparkling. Eileen, too, felt much better. Perhaps this was all a mistake. Then she remembered that these men said they had an arrest warrant for Alan Baxter. Perhaps they were Feds, and they knew something that she didn’t. So why did she immediately leap to Alan’s defense when Frank burst through the door? She couldn’t be losing perspective that badly.

  “According to Joe’s simulation, there’s going to be an earthquake the day after tomorrow,” Alan said abruptly. “I want to be at that spot in the dunes, that latitude and longitude, the day after tomorrow. And if I’m not here, and those feds are really feds, then you don’t have to try and get them off your land. You can let them on and let them search when Reg arrives, and I’ll be gone.”

  “You’re going into the dunes? At night?” Sam gripped his shotgun and the wooly eyebrows drew together.

  “Alan,” Beth said gently, “we’ve had people go into the dunes in broad daylight and never come out. They’re a strange place, and that was long before Krista was found. You could get lost. Really lost.”

  “Dead lost,” Sam said.

  “But he won’t,” Eileen said. “He’s got a GPS system, and that’s how he’s going to find his X marks the spot.”

  “That’s right,” Alan said, “How did you know?”

  “Because I have one too,” Eileen said. “And I’m coming with you.”

  Sam shook his head and looked out through the curtains. “GPS systems go haywire in the dunes too. Sometimes they work great, sometimes they don’t. Depends on sunspots, for all I know, or the UFOs that don’t exist. All I’m saying is, you’re taking a big chance.”

  “You can’t go with me,” Alan said to Eileen, as though they were the only two in the room. “I can’t let you go with me.”

  “Because you might get killed?” Eileen said. “Because I might get killed? Because you might kill someone? This isn’t some sort of revenge mission. We’re going to find these people and talk to them, and if necessary I can arrest them.”

  “I wasn’t planning on killing anyone,” Alan said stiffly. “I just want to see who it is, that’s all. And I’ll tell Sheriff Gonzalez, and you, and whoever else needs to know—”

  “I’m going with you,” Eileen said again.

  Alan threw his hands up in the air and his face suddenly crinkled into a twisted sort of smile. It was the strangest smile Eileen had ever seen. It looked like it hurt.

  “You took your diaper off at two and a half,” he said. “And you wouldn’t put a diaper on again. You looked just like that when you told me you wouldn’t wear a diaper anymore.” He blinked furiously. Eileen’s mouth dropped open in surprise. Beth looked at the two of them and shrugged her ample shoulders.

  “I’d rather try and stop an avalanche with my bare hands than step between the likes of you,” she said grimly. “And I’d prefer not to mess with real feds, if they’re real feds. Let me get some grub put together for you. Sam, get your topographical maps out so these two can find the back way out of the ranch and to the dunes. You two get your gear on and we’ll have you out of here before my brother arrives. He won’t approve, so we’ll just get you on your way.”

  Sam Williams’s pocket chirped and he pulled out a cell phone.

  “They’re still at the gate? Good,” he said. “Keep an eye out for others, just in case, Frank. Stay in pairs. Reg is going to be here soon.”

  “Let’s go, then,” Eileen said. “We don’t have much time.”

  21

  Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado Springs, Colorado

  “We’re ready, sir,” Bennett said. Scott stood behind him, still slightly canted to one side.

  “The ribs are healed?” Mitchell asked, his voice full of concern. He sat at his desk without an office light. The only light came from the dying day, behind him, and he knew he was silhouetted in the window. It was a fine dramatic effect and he’d used it before.

  “Almost completely, sir,” Scott said. The concussion, given to him by that traitor Leetsdale, was almost gone, but now the skinny bitch detective had broken two ribs through his Kevlar vest. Scott was loyal to the bone, though, however broken they might be. Mitchell almost giggled at the metaphor. Scott would take a bullet for him, he was sure of it. He would be secretary of defense in his new administration. Roger Bennett, of course, would be his chief of staff.

  “I have a question, gentlemen,” Mitchell said, bringing his thoughts back to the present. Here was the reason for the back lighting, the imposing outline of the Boss. He concentrated on their faces.

  “Yes, sir,” they said in unison.

  “Did either one of you rape Krista Lewis? Did either one of you kill her?”

  Both men, in the light where he was in shadow, reacted with innocence and surprise. Mitchell breathed a sigh of relief. He was afraid one of them had killed her. Killed her without permission, without orders from him. Killing without orders was unacceptable and dangerous.

  When Krista Lewis had walked over a dune and into their encampment, no one had been more surprised than Mitchell. She was a tall girl with enough Swede in her to give her the vanilla blond hair and the bigboned look of someone who could walk up and down mountains all day. She was investigating an outbreak of E. coli–related illness among a picnicking church group at Medano Creek. The Centers for Disease Control investigators finally pinned the outbreak to the unpasteurized juice that was served at the picnic, but by that time Krista Lewis, working with the CDC, had discovered elevated levels of E. coli at the point where the waters of the creek rose out of the sand. Mitchell’s group hadn’t brought in latrines and they’d used the encampment for two years. Enough human waste had soaked into the sand to reach the ground water and create a trace of E. coli in Medano creek. Busted by their own shit, imagine that.

  He’d known something like this could happen, of course. The Great Sand Dunes were the only location in the world for his experiments and they were public property. He couldn’t arrange to have any part of them restricted. The edge of the dunes, where the roads and visitor’s center were located, was crowded with tourists from June until September. Even the center of the dunes, his required location, saw an occasional hardy hiker or two. On top of the legal restrictions and the tourists, the dunes themselves were an almost impossible obstacle. The sand got into everything; equipment, tents, food, clothing. The device gummed up with sand after two or three experiments and had to be thoroughly cleaned before it could be used again.

  The solution was obvious, though more vulnerable than Mitchell wanted. He’d finally agreed with his scientists; the experiments had to be flown in and out. The base of operations, Peterson Air Force Base, was as secure as a locked vault. But the experiments themselves had to take place in the open, in the dunes, with nothing more than a few soldiers to guard the perimeter. The team knew that someone like Krista Lewis would happen. The irony was that she had been looking for them, following the telltale presence of their own waste.

  Krista hadn’t been very impressed with his credentials and his presence, but she’d allowed herself to be escorted away from the area before they’d cranked up the machine. It was legitimately top secret and she worked for a government contractor. She knew she had to leave the area. She made sure they all knew they were busted, though, top secret or not. Environmental pollution was a trump card in the game of government bureaucracy and Krista knew it. They knew it, too. It was infuriating to watch her stride out of sight, muscular haunches flexing her Swede behind, knowing she would be filing reports within the week that would require them to fly in portable latrines with their experiments. Krista didn’t have to know what their experiments were. She obviously didn’t care what they were doing. Her job was to keep them from polluting the environment a
nd she had the power to do it.

  Scott stood guard that evening to make sure she didn’t come back and see the machine with the tarpaulin off. They’d spent the night, that night, as they sometimes did when they had more than a single event to deliver. Any one of the three of them could have crept away that night and followed her tracks. But there was no need to rape her, to kill her, no need to threaten the whole purpose of the project. Mitchell was legitimately involved in a government project and by the time her reports made it through Washington, it would all be over anyway. There might not be a Washington anymore. Killing her was a mistake. Raping her was stupid. There would be all the rape in the world, if they wanted. But after, after. Not yet.

  “Someone was very careless. The event is tomorrow,” he said coldly. “Let’s not let our appetites get the better of us, gentlemen. I don’t really want to know which one of you did it and endangered our entire program. I just want to warn you. Don’t ever do anything like this again.”

  “Yes, sir,” they both said, in unison again like the good soldiers they were. Then Bennett cleared his throat. Mitchell nodded at him.

  “Yes?”

  “Sir, it might have been someone else entirely,” Bennett suggested. “We don’t know that it was one of us. There are other people in the dunes. Maybe even that Alan Baxter guy, the one that identified her body. He seems like the most likely killer.”

  “This man?” Mitchell said, looking at Alan Baxter’s picture in the file Bennett had created for him. This man didn’t look much like a killer. The file also contained pictures and background sheets on Eileen Reed and David Rosen, the infuriating Springs detectives.

  “That’s right, it could have been that Baxter guy,” Scott said, a bit too eagerly for Mitchell’s taste.

  “Perhaps,” Mitchell said, and flipped the folder closed. “It doesn’t matter now. Sit down. We need to go over the final plans one more time.” He reached over and turned on the desk light. He gestured Scott and Bennett into the room, and as they took their seats, he spread out the first of the maps.