Because of Mel.
Eve had been a home birth. Here in the country, away from civilization. Mel had assured him her birth had been recorded. Ryan thought of her message and wondered if that were true. He would do a little research, but he wasn’t taking any chances. If he had to play the part of the unfaithful husband; if Eve had to be an illegitimate love child – if it kept her safe, they would be.
At least until he knew for sure what in the name of Einstein, Mel was up to.
9
Forty-five minutes south of Las Vegas, Mel pulled into a small no-stoplight town that bore the ironic name of Searchlight. After topping off her gas tank, she pulled to the side of a building, where a plastic cowboy sat on the roof overlooking the back door. Rusted-out Ford pickups, and one Pinto that only a junkyard could make look good, sat near the front doors.
The flashing lights and gaudy sign did little to illuminate the walk beneath, making it look more like an abandoned old west attraction than a casino. At four-thirty in the morning, the place was empty except for a few grizzled old drunks and a man who could have been the poster child for Sturgis’ biker rally, standing behind the bar.
Earlier that morning, Tom had given her explicit orders while she sat on her porch drinking coffee, which stool to sit on at the bar, what to order. Instead of following his instructions, she walked around to the back of the room, skirting slot machines, cowboy and saloon girl mannequins, and dime-store Indians.
The store side of the building was even quieter than the bar and casino. A tall brunette stocked the shelves and the doors to the McDonald’s were closed. Enough illumination filtered through the glass doors of the fast food joint, to see that it was still too early for the first shift staff to prep for opening.
Mel hated this cloak and dagger stuff. Give her hairpin turns at Mach 2 and she was a happy little girl. Make her deal with people, especially people she didn’t know, and she was all hot nerves and inadequacies, both real and imagined. It was hard to feel confident when you had to crane your neck back to make eye contact with everyone you spoke to.
Add in the fact that the men she was supposed to meet were here to protect her, and you had a recipe for insecurity. Mel needed a minute to screw up her courage. She might need them, but she was not going to allow them to make her feel like a little woman. Even if she was.
Taking a side hall, she found the ladies room and stepped into a stall. With the lid closed, she had a comfortable seat to work out the knots in her neck and shoulders and the kink in her back. It had been a long time since she’d ridden the Sportster. Longer still since she’d felt like she was making the biggest mistake of her life. Between the mileage and the memories, there had only been regret and the long dark pavement running under her tires to keep her company. It left her empty, drained.
It was time to get it over with. She stood up and reached for the latch and the bathroom door groaned on its hinges. Without thinking, she pulled her hand back and waited. There was no reason to think she was a target this soon. Ryan wouldn’t even be awake yet, so he wouldn’t have heard her humiliating goodbye. Hackers, for whoever was after the Genesis crew, wouldn’t have grabbed the transmission yet, much less located her here in the middle of the Mohave Desert.
Knowing it and feeling it were two different animals. She hesitated with her hand over the latch for only a moment before leaning back. Instinct told her to pick up her feet, but she knew it was too late. It would only draw attention to her now. Instead, she braced against the toilet, leaning forward.
When small feet, decked out in cheap high heels clicked by, she let out a relieved breath and let her face sag into her hands. This needed to end. Tom’s contacts should be there by now. Mel needed to find them, needed to get somewhere secure so she could deal with the heartbreak of leaving her family behind.
Pushing off the seat, she threw open the door to go look for her contacts. Movement, seen out of the corner of her eye, caused her to flinch back. A hand, as big as a dinner plate, grabbed her jacket and slammed her face first against the wall.
Without thinking, Mel kicked back. Her heavy riding boot connected with bone. The hand loosened on her jacket, just enough to allow her to twist around and under from the arm holding her. Grabbing the wrist of the man on her way around, she twisted and pushed, forcing his body to turn away from her and bend forward.
Twice her size and nearly as tall – even bent over – there was no way she was going to willingly let him get the upper hand again. Planting a foot on the stall, she pushed him off balance and ran him forward, slamming his head into the rear wall.
About as stunned as a grizzly bear after having a pebble thrown at it, the man lifted one leg, twisting around, and kicked her in the gut. The impact of her body against a stall door forced the door open and she fell through, landing unceremoniously in the lap of a screaming woman.
She had only a second to realize he was one of the raggedy men she’d seen at the bar before he charged in. Pushing herself back, pinning the wailing, bucking woman even harder to the toilet, Mel kicked out, connecting with the man’s knee cap.
The grizzly didn’t scream as his knee snapped loose, but he went down hard, growling. Eyes pinched more in anger than pain; he looked ready to lunge again. Mel knew that if he got his hands on her, she was done for.
Her boot caught him square in the face. Blood fountained from his shattered nose. As he turned away, she launched herself at him, shoving him around and landing on his back when he hit the floor. Wrapping both arms around his beefy neck, she pulled back until he was bent double. Keeping pressure on his carotids, she wondered how long it would take the big man to succumb to unconsciousness.
She didn’t get a chance to find out. The cold click of a hammer being thrown back and the hard steel of a barrel digging into her forehead was all the encouragement she needed. Dropping the big man’s throat, Mel put her hands in the air. “If you’re gonna shoot me, you’ll have to shoot her, too.”
With that, the woman floundering on the john with her skirt up around her waist and panties around her ankles began to scream louder. The newcomer, oddly familiar to Mel under the three-day growth on his face, eyed the woman, the corner of his mouth twitching with a barely restrained grin. “I’m tempted to shoot you just to shut you up. Will that be necessary?”
The screaming stopped as if he’d reached in and hit a switch. He turned back to Mel, his steel grey eyes still sparkling with unvoiced laughter. “Now, would you mind telling me why you’ve got Gunny in a headlock?”
“Big man grabs you by the neck, you don’t wait around to see if he wants to borrow your mascara.”
Laughter finally boiled up out of the man like steam from a geyser. “Tom warned us you were a handful.”
“If Tom sent you, why did he follow me in here?”
“Tom’s a helluva guy. But I needed to be sure it wasn’t a setup. I only trust a handful of men, and you’re sitting on one of them.”
The man under her rolled, would have thrown her onto the floor if he hadn’t grabbed her by the waist and lifted her as he stood up. Even bloodied, with a dislocated knee, the man was impressive. The grizzly, Gunny, turned to look at the woman in the stall. Pulling something out of his pocket, he stepped toward her, his limp the only indication that he’d been hurt.
She pulled her legs up and covered her face with her arms, peeking through as if afraid to see what was coming, but unable to look away. His voice was far gentler than he looked. “Sorry to disturb you ma’am. You need to sleep now.”
He squeezed the tube in his hand, shooting a something that looked like water into her face. There was a moment of shock before her eyes rolled back into her head and she went as limp as a rag doll.
Gunny caught her as she fell, easing her into a more comfortable sitting position on the toilet. Mel grabbed him by the jacket and tugged, backing him out of the stall. Blocking the men’s view of the unfortunate woman, she tugged her panties up and lowered her skirt. Locking the do
or from the inside, she slid out between the floor and the bottom rim. It wasn’t much, but it did offer the woman a modicum of privacy while she slept it off.
Shaking her head at the ghastly smile Gunny sported behind the bloody nose, she asked, “Who in the hell are you guys and where are you taking me?”
The newcomer gave Gunny a barely perceptible nod and Gunny’s smile grew. “Melanie Edwards. Welcome to the Marines.”
“Excuse me?”
Gunny wrapped an arm around her neck, leaning on her to take the pressure off of his damaged knee as he began limping toward the door, dragging her with him. “No safer place to keep you. And by the way, I’m your Drill Sergeant.” He gave her a shake. “Your ass is mine now.”
10
Ling put down the earwig and turned to Mittie Kate. He didn’t speak until she took the next corner. “Melanie Edwards is in the open. Though not for long.”
“Where’d she surface?”
“Arizona. They’ve tracked her to a small town in Nevada but they’re about thirty minutes behind with the satellite feed. They’re trying to anticipate her movements so they can get real time data.”
Leaning between the front seats, Max pointed to go right at the next corner. The name caught Max off guard. “Melanie Edwards was on our list. Couldn’t find her.”
Ling nodded, “Not surprising. Looks like she went off grid, living up in a cabin north of Flagstaff with her ex-husband.”
Mittie Kate hit the brakes, throwing them all forward as a cloud of desert dust rolled over the Jeep. Though it was still dark, it was a lighter shade, the pre-dawn darkness that preceded the rising of the sun. Max hesitated to remind them that they were running out of time. Even now, lights were blooming in the windows around them as the small town prepared to meet the coming day.
“Ex?” Mittie Kate asked, disbelief coloring her voice.
“Intel says she divorced her husband. Caught him cheating.”
Mittie Kate shook her head slowly, as if even as she denied it, her brain was still circling the idea like a shark in the water. “No. It doesn’t fit.” She turned to Ling. “You said not for long. Why?”
“If we’re tracking her, so are Grey’s men. Ready for the punch line? Her name has popped up on the register for the Marine Corps. Black List.”
Max had read her file. “She’s no bigger than a minute. How in the hell is she going to cut it in the Marines, especially in special ops?”
Mittie Kate nodded. “And how did it happen this fast? Max, you were in the Corp. Could you still get to her after she’s gone to ground?”
“Not a chance.”
“Damn.”
Max pointed around the next corner. “End of that road is a mission. That’s where my gear is.”
Mittie Kate let the car roll forward and took the corner. On the dirt road, she let the speed climb. The helo had taken off, not long after they made it back to the Jeep. Though it appeared to head back toward U.S. airspace, they all agreed getting Max’s belongings and getting out of Dodge was in their best interests.
After a few moments of silence, Mittie Kate said, “Grey has been looking for her just as hard as we have. She’s just a lunatic pilot who was chartered to chauffeur Malor’s team; why does he want her so bad and who has the power to protect her from him?”
Max was still uncomfortable giving them information, but there was something about them. Despite his better judgment, he liked the hell out of Mittie Kate and Ling. Even if they did let him believe he was going to die. “Our reports said she was involved in a lot more than just chauffeuring the bigwigs. She ran test flights for Genesis. It’s why Grey wanted to take her out. Maybe she’s black ops.”
Parking behind the small adobe church, Mittie Kate turned to look at the men. “That would explain how she’d slip into the Marines like that. But I don’t buy it. I’d like to have a chat with that little girl. We need to get to her before she can go to ground, or before Grey’s men take her out. Once she’s embedded, we may not get another chance. Ling, I want a forecast of her anticipated routes.”
Ling slipped a small pad out of the folds of his tunic and went to work. “Give me ten minutes.”
“Max, we can put you on the ground in front her. What do you need from us?”
“I don’t remember signing up with you, lady.”
Mittie Kate laughed. It was throaty and honest, and seemed to drop twenty years from her time-worn face. “I pick up strays, Max. Just a habit of mine, but I’m good at it. I know where you’ve been and where you need to be. Trust me. You signed up the moment we walked through the door.”
Max looked at Ling – a smile played on the other man’s lips as he continued to work the pad. “She always this cocky?”
“Usually. You will learn to trust her instincts. Her great age has nurtured a wealth of wisdom.”
Narrowing her eyes, Mittie Kate poked him in the shoulder. “Keep it up, Confucius, and I’m leaving you here.”
Shaking his head, Max climbed out of the Jeep. He was too tired for this, and too sober. He needed a bottle, a bath, and a bed. In that order. “Hoss, you sound more like an old husband than a body guard.”
Ling finally looked up from his pad, his finger hovering over the digital keyboard. His face was passive, his voice neutral. Yet Max was sure there was an undertone of thinly veiled violence when he started to speak. “You would be wise to refrain from referring to me as Hoss. If you must call me something other than Ling, educate yourself on Tibetan culture.”
As quickly as the tension had caused the hair on the back of Max’s neck to crawl, it was gone. A smile played at the corner of Ling’s mouth as he added, “As for husband, that implies I have some control over this stubborn old woman. I assure you, though I would kill for her without hesitation, she refuses the leash and would make a poor wife.”
Mittie Kate had climbed out of the Jeep. She turned back and leaned in the window. “Why do you insist on calling me old today?”
With a smile filled with innocent intentions, Ling said, “Because you have diligently ignored the fact that it is your birthday.”
Crinkling her nose in distaste, Mittie Kate said, “There’s a reason for that.”
“Yes,” Ling said. “Because you are old.”
“That does it,” Mittie Kate stormed away from the car, her voice rising as she went. “I’m leaving your pesky little tail in the desert.”
Max laughed despite himself. “Couldn’t you just wish her a happy birthday?”
“She has forbidden it,” Ling smiled like a child enjoying a special treat, then nodded toward her departing back. “Do not let her break a hip.”
Max laughed in answer and trotted after Mittie Kate. And he’d thought he was crazy. These two made him look like a poster boy for the tame and timid by comparison.
Catching up to her at the back door, Max took her arm and steered her toward a small door that lay flush to the ground. She glanced down at his hand on her arm and gave him a withering look that said ‘do not start with me, pup’.
He pulled his hand away, still grinning, and said, “I didn’t think the padre would appreciate what I stashed here, so I put it down in the cellar.
With troubled eyes, Mittie Kate turned to look back at the shadow on the ground. The cross from the roof of the old mission graced the dirt packed ground, stretching out behind them. With more reverence than she had shown so far, Mittie Kate whispered, “Fitting. In the bible, Genesis is the book of beginnings, of life. Held inside this church is a device that destroys it, a manmade toy that could wipe the slate clean.”
Her words sent a chill racing along his spine. Pulling the warped wooden door open, he stared into the darkness. It seemed Max had spent his whole life doing this very thing. Looking into the darkness and daring it to look back. “It’s the last piece, Mittie. We’ve destroyed everything else.”
“Perhaps.” The somber shadow that had fallen over her seemed to lift only a little. She smiled, but it held more sadness tha
n mirth. “We’re good at it, aren’t we? Not just building wicked little toys, but using them. This prototype is but one of them. How many more are out there, Max? How many more are being developed as we speak?”
They both knew the answer to her questions. Too damned many. Instead of answering, he stepped into the darkness. Pulling on the shoestring attached to a bare, dust-covered bulb that hung from the ceiling set it to swinging. A dance of sickly yellow light and shadow seemed to punctuate her morbid thoughts, and mixed with the dust and mildew that clung to his sinuses to make him feel ill.
Not sure if it was her words, or the abuse he had suffered over the past few hours, he grabbed the bulb to force it to be still. It didn’t help. Quelling the heebie-jeebies that seemed to be breeding between his shoulder blades, he walked into the deepening shadows between rows of cardboard boxes stacked to the ceiling. “You can destroy this thing? Safely?”
Behind him, Mittie Kate answered. “Not me, personally. I have someone waiting that believes he can.”
“If this thing goes off, even in the airplane at max cruising altitude, it’ll do some serious damage.”
“I’m hoping the scientist who designed it made it a little more stable than that,” she answered, the old laughter creeping back into her voice.
Surprised by the relief that followed the return of her caustic sense of humor, he didn’t point out his thoughts on the trustworthiness of scientists and engineers. He had seen enough of their toys in the Corps. Even compared to that, this little gadget was evil. Too many people liked to play God. No matter what he did, he couldn’t seem to get away from them.
At the front of the building, he froze. The box he’d hid his duffle bag in lay open, those he had stacked on top of it were piled in the corner. Energized by desperation, he ran forward and pulled the bag out. Betty, his new sniper rifle, still lay inside. Her black and red silk stock gleamed in the wane light. Likewise, other tools of his trade were left untouched.
Genesis (Extinction Book 1) Page 4