by Mike Baron
His legs were numb from the knee down.
The lawn was lit up like day from the ball of flame in the lake, a blazing nova whose strobing light illuminated the herky-jerk motion of movers and shakers abandoning their seats and running for their cars like the zombie apocalypse.
“Come out of the water now!” someone yelled. Otto tried to catch his bearings.
“Come out of the water now! Put your hands behind your head!”
At first Otto was blinded by the patio spotlights that had all been turned on. It took him a minute for his eyes to adjust. Bob Casey stood in a shooter’s stance at the shore with his pistol trained on Otto’s middle luridly lit like a scene in a Roger Corman movie. From behind the spotlights. In front, the blazing ball.
“I didn’t kill him!” Otto said. “I tried to save him!”
Witherspoon joined Casey. “Why’d you kill him, White?”
Two other staff stood nearby, pistols in their hands. The last guest hot-footed it toward his cabin. Most of the lawn chairs had been tipped over in the mad scramble and red solo cups dotted the yard.
Otto shuffled out of the water hands out, palms up.
“Down on your knees!” Casey yelled. “Hands behind the head!”
Otto did as he was instructed. While Casey held a gun on him, Burt approached with handcuffs.
“Hey wait a minute! One cotton pickin’ minute!”
All eyes save Caseys’, which were glued on Otto, turned to Gabe Winner who stood to the side with his hands visible. “What’s the matter with you guys? You all know about the spontaneous human combustions, right? Otto was trying to save Tyler’s life!”
There was a moment of stunned silence. Who did he think he was? The Detonator?
“What spontaneous human combustions?” one of the crew said.
“I’m a federal agent,” Otto said. “My badge is in my right front pocket.”
Casey motioned for Otto to pull it out. Burt stepped back. Otto slowly withdrew his badge holder, flipped it open and handed it to Burt who looked at it and handed it to Casey.
“Are you armed?” Casey said.
“No,” Otto replied, still on his knees. “And what has that got to do with anything. I thought you encouraged visitors to pack.”
Casey conferred with Witherspoon. Otto couldn’t hear what they said.
Casey holstered his weapon. “Apparently the police are on their way. You’ll have to stay here and talk to them.”
Otto got to his feet. “I intend to. First I have to get out of these clothes.”
Casey handed Otto his badge back. “You might have informed us.”
“Need to know, Mr. Casey. I’m sure you understand that.”
A minute later Winner zipped up in one of the golf carts. Otto got in and they whirred up the lawn, onto the blacktop and into the forest, the cart’s weak lights barely showing the way. The cool evening air and wet clothes chilled Otto to his marrow. At the cabin Otto hurriedly stripped and took a hot shower. He locked the “blood of the white man” in the cabin safe next to his Ruger.
In his room with the door shut Otto used the Ocelot to phone Gus Alvarez.
“Alvarez,” the agent answered.
Behind him, Otto heard dogs barking, kids laughing, other voices. “Gus, very sorry to interrupt your evening.”
`”Go ahead.”
Otto told Alvarez what had happened.
“I’m on my way,” Alvarez said without hesitation. “Don’t let anyone touch the body.”
Otto phoned Margaret Yee and left a brief message describing what had happened.
Winner was smoking a joint when Otto came out of the bathroom.
He offered the joint to Otto. Otto shook his head.
“Helps me relax.”
“What just happened?” Otto said. “What did you see?”
“At first I thought you’d just gone nuts. I didn’t catch the signals until you were almost up there. Then I understood instantly.”
“Did you notice any unusual activity among the campers?”
Winner shook his head. “Everybody stood up when you ran to the water. Most of them must have thought it was part of the show. Nobody realized what was going on until he burst into flame.”
“Why now?” Otto said. “There’s never been an SHC at the Grove before. Whatever it is, it’s happening faster. Like somebody’s losing control.”
“I know. Like, all of a sudden they’re everywhere.”
By the time they returned to the main lodge, an ambulance and a Larimer County Deputy had arrived. Otto found the deputy on the veranda talking to Burt. Otto looked around for Witherspoon and Casey. They were nowhere to be seen.
Otto pulled out his badge. “Officer, I’m Agent White.”
The deputy took the badge and examined it. “You want to tell me what happened, Agent White?”
Otto gave him the rundown. “Where are Witherspoon and Casey? They were just here.”
The deputy looked around. “Haven’t seen them.”
A team of EMTs went up the log steps, through the lobby and the back door with a folding gurney. At the shore they popped it into shape and waded into the lake. They fished around for the cadaver and placed it on the gurney. They wheeled it out of the lake.
Otto ran after them.
“Leave it there, boys!” he called waving his badge. “We’ve got this one.”
One of the EMTs came out of the water in hip waders, walked up to Otto and snatched the badge from his hand, looked at it, handed it back and walked away muttering.
Otto went up to the patio. The deputy had come out back.
“Right now it’s just me,” the deputy said, “but in the next twenty minutes this place is going to be crawling with cops. We’d better make sure that the remaining witnesses stick around.”
The deputy turned to greet two more Larimer County cruisers as they pulled into the lot.
Otto walked into the lodge up to the desk and looked for the big leather ledger. It was missing. He checked Witherspoon’s office He went out onto the deck and watched the EMTs retrieve something that looked like a withered black branch and set it on the gurney.
The deputy returned with a Larimer County Sheriff. Like every sheriff and deputy Otto had ever seen he was a very big man with the shoulders of an ox. He and Otto shook hands.
“Did you know Tyler was going to light up like that?”
“Of course not. I never expected it to take place here but when I realized what was happening I tried to get him into the lake to put out the fire.”
“Walk with me,” the sheriff said, stepping off the veranda onto the lawn and heading toward the gurney. The thing that lay on the gurney looked like a Giacometti sculpture. One limb--an arm or a leg--had been separated. Some hair and skin still clung to the skull.
“A federal team will arrive shortly. We’ll take possession of the body. I’ll be happy to sign for it.”
The sheriff stood with his arms crossed staring at Tyler’s grotesque remains. “That’s fine. This one’s a little outside our purview.”
Otto saw the red and blue lights reflecting off the tall pine on the other side of the lodge. More cops. He looked around. Winner was gone. Probably went back to the cabin or using a lodge phone to talk to Stella.
Gus Alvarez and a young agent arrived in a van at seven forty-five followed by a plain brown Crown Vic with Lon Barnett and another agent. Witherspoon’s and Casey’s cars remained in the parking lot but there was no sign of the two men.
***
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
“Cheyenne Mountain”
Monday night.
Otto left the Denali at the lodge and rode with Alvarez and Tyler’s body sealed in a rubber bag down the mountain. The Junior G-Man drove.
“How’s Steve?” Otto said. Alvarez turned around in the shotgun seat. “Steve’s fine. Carrie loves him. We’re taking the body to Cheyenne Mountain where we’ve set up an autopsy lab with the help of the Air Force.” Alvarez brought
Otto up to speed regarding the other autopsies. There had been no progress in analyzing the unknown compound. The Russians were not cooperating.
Otto pulled the blood of the white man from his pocket. “They had everybody drinking this. I’m thinking there’s something in it.”
Alvarez took the clear plastic bottle and sealed it in a zip-lock evidence bag that he placed in a gym bag open on the seat next to Otto. By now it was nine p.m. Barnett and the other agent remained at camp to interview the employees. The guests had fled like a mass jail break. No one wanted to be associated with the incident.
Otto related everything that had happened since he and Winner had arrived at the camp. Alvarez waited until he was finished.
“You think this red stone on top of the mountain has something to do with it?”
“They’ve gone to a lot of trouble to prevent people from looking at it. And those spectrographs don’t lie. There’s some kind of extreme energy sloshing around between the three summits.”
The driver turned on the lights and siren when they hit the interstate. Otto removed his spiral pad and pen and wrote down the names of every guest he could remember. They could all be at risk. There had been no new conflagrations since Otto went up the mountain but word was spreading on the internet that it was some kind of disease, worse than AIDS, cooked up by the CIA or Al Qaeda or North Korea.
As they passed through Denver Otto dozed off. He woke as they drove up the winding road to Cheyenne Mountain outside Colorado Springs. The former NORAD HQ had been converted into the ultimate survival bunker.
Otto sat up and looked out at the sodium-lit tarmac. The van stopped at a checkpoint. A soldier asked the agent to turn off the engine and for everyone to produce ID. A second soldier opened the rear of the van, flashed a light inside and looked. He got inside and unzipped the body bag, wincing and turning away. A third got down on his back and scooted beneath the van with a flashlight. The first soldier checked their names off against a list and waved them through.
They passed through another checkpoint, this one manned by soldiers carrying automatic weapons. The entrance to the tunnel itself was lined with ten foot hurricane fence topped with concertina wire and looked like the entrance to the Holland Tunnel. The soldiers waved them through and they drove inside the mountain through meter-thick twenty-five ton blast doors. Twenty meters in the van stopped and the driver hopped out. Alvarez and Otto got out as well. It was warm inside the cave. Otto was surprised. He looked around.
The inside of the mountain had been hollowed out to create an enormous room the length of a football field. Christo-like shrouds had been affixed to the ceiling and walls to catch any falling debris. A series of prefab modules rested on giant coil springs that served as shock absorbers in event of a direct strike. Cables crisscrossed the interior, lights gleaming at every intersection. The modules were laid out on either side of Main Street, which ran down the center of the cavern and had its own green street sign.
Alvarez spoke briefly with an Air Force captain.
“You look about spent, Holmes, Captain has an apartment for you to crash in.”
That seemed like a good idea. Otto was exhausted from the hike and the swim. From the sheer pressure of trying to remember every little detail.
The captain wore fatigues and introduced himself. “Captain Jack Warren.”
“Otto White. Just call me Otto.”
The captain walked down Main Street. “The modules are sound-proof so if atomic war busts out while you’re sleeping I’ll come and wake you.”
“Thank you Captain Jack.”
The captain paused in front of a big, off-white prefab box with square windows and rounded corners. Otto stumbled into the unit and pulled the door shut. The only sound came from the subdued whoosh of the air transfer. Inside a small bedroom was a metal-framed cot with an olive drab blanket. Otto peeled off his clothes and pulled up the covers. He was asleep within minutes.
He was on an airplane. First, it was military transport then civilian. They were flying right down Main Street of a major city with skyscrapers on either side, ten feet above the asphalt. The wings did not catch on the buildings for some reason but it was evident to every passenger that the flight was in trouble and there was a good deal of anxiety.
Otto could not take his eyes off the cockpit door. It swung open and a blazing man stepped out--burning from toes to scalp. Alarms went off. Oxygen masks fell. The cabin filled with smoke. The burning figure said, “Folks, we’re about to experience a little turbulence.”
The whole plane shook violently.
Otto woke up. A wild-eyed Alvarez shook him by the shoulder.
“What?”
“Get up. You have to see this.”
***
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
“Holy Shit!”
Tuesday morning.
Otto swung his legs over the cot and sat up, rubbing his eyes. He glanced at the digital clock on the nightstand. Five-thirty. He’d been asleep for six hours. It would be early morning outside. He pulled on his pants, socks and sneakers.
Otto followed Alvarez out of the module where an Air Force cadet waited at the wheel of an electric golf cart. “What?”
“You have to see it.”
The cart zoomed silently down Main Street and took a right turn into a side tunnel with “MASSACHUSETTS AVENUE” stenciled in white on the cave wall, passing through another set of massive steel doors. At the end of this sub chamber was a large white trailer guarded by two military police clutching H&K automatic pistols. An air conditioning unit crouched on the roof growling. Thick crenellated tubes jutted from the roof connected to flexible couplers like giant drinking straws. Next to the door hung several metal boxes containing a telephone, a keypad, and various meters and dials.
“Get your ID out” Alvarez advised.
One MP checked Otto’s photo ID against a detailed sheet on a clipboard that also bore Otto’s likeness. He waved them through. The stairs were made of pine planking on cinderblocks. Three steps up. Alvarez shut the door behind them. It was so cold in the trailer Otto could see his breath. The interior was one big room with an autopsy table covered with a white sheet through which disturbing black stains had crept. There were cadaver drawers turned lengthwise to accommodate the space and there were several work stations with computers. An old man in a stained gray suit and twisted purple tie sat in front of one of the monitors transfixed.
“Otto, Larimer County Coroner Abel Roth. Dr. Roth, Otto White.”
The old man turned and stood and shook Otto’s hand on autopilot. “Never seen anything like it.”
“Your quick action,” Alvarez said, “led to partial preservation of the head. Interestingly, the brain appears to be cooked. We took a routine X-ray and this is what showed up.”
Otto sat at the monitor and looked at the picture on the screen. At first he had difficulty making sense of what he was seeing. He saw the tell-tale ghost X-ray outline of the skull. Alvarez pointed. Otto followed Alvarez’ finger to the point where the spine meets skull.
“Holy shit,” he said
Nestled atop the spinal column was a tiny space ship.
***
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
“The Missing”
It looked like a sewing spindle with stubby little wings. It was blacker than the blackest night-- as if a negative had been burned onto the image. According to the scroll across the bottom of the screen it was one millimeter long--smaller than a grain of rice.
“Is there anything alive in there?” Otto said voice breaking.
“Not of which we’re aware. Of course, we’ve tried signaling but there was no response. I think it’s cooked.”
“Can we extract it?” Otto said.
“That’s the plan.”
Dr. Roth cleared his throat. “I’m not the man to do this.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Alvarez said, turning to the tall man and shaking his hand. “We appreciate you’re coming down here on such shor
t notice to help us.”
“Anything to help the boys in blue.”
Roth hefted a little black bag and left the module where a soldier waited to take him outside the complex.
“Aren’t you concerned he’ll talk about this?” Otto said.
Alvarez waved a sheet of paper. “Non-disclosure agreement. He’s a veteran. We have nothing to worry about. Not from him. Unfortunately the cat’s ass is out of the bag.”
Alvarez sat at the terminal and with a few strokes brought up the Drudge Report whose illustration was the money shot from Wicker Man over the screaming red headline: TERRORISTS BURNING US ALIVE?
Below that in mere red type: TYLER RAPE VICTIM COMES FORTH.
Otto grimaced. He needed to call Yee but not even the Ocelot could transmit from inside the mountain. there was a phone on the wall but who knew where that led.
“Who’s doing the extraction?” Otto said.
“Surgeon from St. Jude’s in Denver. He’ll be here this afternoon.”
“What about the blood of the white man?”
“Absolut vodka, Spicy V8 and an unknown element identical to that identified in Darling’s remains. It has a polycarbonate-like structure but we believe it’s metal.”
“I’ve got to report,” Otto said. “To do that I have to go outside.”
Alvarez motioned toward the door. “Let’s go.”
Otto had lost all track of time and was surprised when the sun hit him in the face as their jitney exited the mountain. Otto got out and walked to the end of the parking lot from where he could see all the way down the valley to Colorado Springs and the plains beyond.
He pressed his uplink and listened while his call pinged around the cosmos. Ten seconds later, it rang.
Yee answered. “What’s going on?”
“You know about Tyler?”
“Yes.”
“We found some kind of projectile above his spinal column. It looks like a tiny spaceship.”
A long pause followed.
“A tiny spaceship?”
“Yes ma’am. Unfortunately it appears to be crisped.”
“Is this for real Mr. White?”
“Yes ma’am. I know it sounds crazy. It might be a projectile shot with some kind of air gun or something.”