by Calvin Wolf
Chapter Eight
1
Whitney Hummel awoke in the back seat of the stolen Tahoe, holding Ava tight to her chest as the engine droned and the frame shimmied gently. Fortunately, the child was asleep. Through the window, the stars were beautiful. “Where are we?” she asked her kidnapper, who called himself Ben.
“Heading into the Davis Mountains,” Ben replied. He held up a glowing cell phone in his hand. “I’ve been talking to a friend. A real interesting guy. We think Fort Davis is where the party’s at.” Ben usually spoke in ambiguities and generalities, so Whitney did not expect much in the way of an answer. At least, despite the man’s superhuman strength, he appeared to have little desire for violence. Whitney curled around her daughter, wanting to shield the little one from this mysterious force. Hank will come for us. I know he will.
“I’ve been to these mountains a lot, strangely. First, my plane crashed here. Then, my satellite crashed here. Now, I’ve got to go here to work my grand plan. You’d think that a big city like New York or Moscow would be the center of fate, but apparently that’s not so. My universe does appear to center around these mountains.”
“Did you grow up here?” Whitney asked, hoping to get the man to reveal some useful information.
“Not at all. Despite my impeccable grasp of vernacular English, I’m all Russian. I was born Boris Elkanovitch in the autumn of nineteen sixty-six in a wonderful city called Petrograd.” Ben looked into the back seat and smiled with the face of a man who had yet to see thirty. The MIST. The MIST transferred him into a new body, the state trooper’s body. Don’t lose your cool, Whitney. Keep him talking.
“Why are you here? Why are you doing this? You should be back home.”
“Money, my dear lass. It all boils down to money. Adam Smith had it right, and I never did take to Marxism, even when I was schooled incessantly in it. I wanted more than the Kremlin was willing to pay, so I increased my market value by taking some private sector jobs. I bounced back and forth between my own jobs and working for ol’ Vladimir Putin. And then, the MIST…” Ben made a sound mimicking an explosion with his mouth and held his palms far apart.
“I can tell you all this, Ms. Hummel, because you’re never going back to Midland. You’ll be dead soon, though it will probably be painless. You can’t be allowed to live. You, Hank, and little Ava will have to go. I did leave your son, Michael, though. I think he will remember you fondly.” With that, the kidnapper engaged the child lock once more for good measure, the metallic click as loud as snapping bone.
Mind racing, Whitney considered whether or not she should try to plead for her life and the life of her child. It took only seconds for her to realize that Ben, or Boris, or whoever the hell he was, could not be swayed. The man was emotionless, practically a machine. He was all pop culture quips and shallow charm superimposed over an efficient psychopath. Could I try to choke him? Wrap the seatbelt around his neck? Stab him with something? Sadly, it was clear that the kidnapper was physically invulnerable to anything within the confines of the car.
“You don’t have to kill me,” she sniveled, feigning fear. “I’ll just disappear with Ava. Hank will still come after you. Let me go back to my son.”
Ben sighed. “Don’t play that game, Whitney. I can read you like a book.” He told her to go back to sleep and returned to his phone. As Whitney watched carefully, he pulled up text messages and made a phone call by pressing on a number that had been texted to him. The call was answered by a woman on the third ring.
“This is Boris Elkanovitch, and I’m ten minutes from your location. You know who I am, and we should talk. Have your people set up a nice midnight snack for us at the hotel restaurant. Minimal security, so we can talk in private. I understand you’ve been having problems with your supplier. If it goes well, I can get you the MIST on time and under budget.”
2
Hank Hummel and Adam Pastorius raced through the night in Hank’s classic Jeep Cherokee, the writer behind the wheel while the terrorist rode shotgun. They did not speak, for there was no need. Pastorius, in his new body, would help free Whitney and Ava from Ben’s clutches. In exchange, Hank would allow himself, and Hector Rodriguez, to be killed so that the world would be safe from MIST. Hank knew that Hector would show up to try and save him, and Whitney and Ava too, and he could not allow himself to think about leading his friend to his doom.
He has a family, too. You’re sacrificing him to save your own family. How selfish are you? How cowardly?
Another mile marker flicked past in the headlights. Glancing down at the speedometer, Hank saw that he was approaching a hundred miles an hour. He did not take his foot off the gas.
Anything is worth it to save Whitney and Ava. Period. End of discussion. I won’t leave Michael and orphan, and I won’t let them be hurt. That’s my job as the father.
“How will you stop Ben? I need to know,” Hank said.
“I can use his greatest weakness against him,” Adam Pastorius replied. “He only cares for money and power. He wants to create a monopoly on MIST, and to do so he must either capture or destroy us. That means he can be lured into a trap. He is arrogant, and his arrogance will be his undoing.”
“And after you kill Hector and me?”
“I will destroy all of us, Hank. The substance within us cannot be allowed to exist. It is far too dangerous, and cannot be controlled. Ben is not alone in his mania. Rather, he is all too common. The threat is that he is simply far better equipped than most to take advantage of his obsessions. He is impeccably trained, tremendously intelligent, and lacks any form of conscience.”
Hank laughed. “He is not so different from you.”
“Perhaps not. I have been changing, and am changing still. I used to feel no emotions, but now I do. I am terribly guilty, as you know. My death will serve but a tiny fraction of my penance.”
“And you will leave Whitney and Ava unharmed? Entirely?”
“Of course. They are not infected with MIST, and therefore are completely innocent. I even hope to spare them the trauma of witnessing Ben’s demise. He will not go quietly. I will need your assistance, and even the assistance of Hector Rodriguez.”
Before Hank could begin formulating a plan, his passenger cut him off. “Do not think about going back on our deal. I am far more powerful than either of you, for I spent months alone as MIST itself. You may be stronger and faster than any mortal man, but I am godlike. I became one with the MIST. Ben did not, which is why he will fail where I have succeeded.”
To prove his point, Pastorius touched his hand to the dashboard of the car. A spark flew from a fingertip, and then vanished. Suddenly, the radio and lights began to flicker and change rapidly from setting to setting. “What the he-?” Hank sputtered, confused.
“My nanites allow me to transmit electrical charges from my body at the precise voltage and frequencies needed to cause the desired changes in electronic devices. I can shut down this car, disable an alarm, destroy a computer. Do not think that you can challenge me, Hank. I do not wish to cause pain, but I will hurt those you love in order to force your cooperation.”
3
Carl Hummel walked into the brightly-lit hotel in Abilene and strode past the front desk, where the seated duty manager snoozed with his head resting on his arms. He located the business center and opened an Internet browser. After his attempt to avoid going to D.C. resulted in his kidnapping, he did not know who to trust. Given that the men who kidnapped him were obviously government-trained, and might even still be on the job somewhere, the bad guys could include anyone.
He opened his personal cloud profile and looked up his aunt’s direct number. With the hotel lobby still quiet and deserted, he punched in her number. She answered on the second ring. “Jesus, Carl, why didn’t you call earlier?” she asked groggily. “We thought you were dead!”
“I almost was. Guess I shou
ld have gotten on that plane, huh?”
“You’re not coming in. You don’t trust us,” she said accusingly.
“It’s not that I don’t trust you guys. It’s a gut feeling that there’s nothing you can do. Or will do. I know you work with decent people, but I also know how stuff goes. MIST is the cat that got let out of the bag, and there’s no putting it back. It won’t ever be out of me.”
“Where are you?”
“Abilene, but don’t send in the cavalry to rescue me. I’ve got a feeling that the cavalry is riddled with bad guys. There’s a good chance that I’ll end up in the back of an armored van again.”
“Okay, I hear you. Are you safe? Are you feeling okay? Any MIST symptoms?”
“I’m fine, I think. I could use a new vehicle, though. I drove the snot out of the Nissan Titan that I stole, and it’s pretty well shot.”
“Do you know where Hank and Hector Rodriguez are?”
“I can guess. When I escaped my kidnappers, I got two of their phones. Will you rent me a car under an assumed name? I know you’ve got secret accounts for that sort of thing, Ms. Secretary of Defense.”
“Yes, I’ll get you something under my father’s name. Where are you?”
“Holiday Inn Express off I-20. Use the rental car place between here and the airport - it’s open twenty-four hours.”
“I’ll get you a full-sized SUV and all the insurance. Now where’s Hank?”
“Fort Davis. This is all going down in Fort Davis. Get everybody out of bed and on this right now. I’m going to be sending you what I can from these two phones I got.”
His aunt’s voice became soft and sad. “Carl, have you told your family what is happening? Your wife?”
“You know I can’t. You have to tell them after it’s over.” Carl felt a wave of emotion make his eyes hot. “We won’t be coming back. I don’t know how bad it’s going to get, but you need to be ready for the worst. You know what I mean.”
“It won’t come to that, Carl,” she insisted.
“Yes, it will. I will keep this phone on me and charged as long as possible. You need to monitor it and use its coordinates to target the hit. Do not hesitate.”
“I know we’re not a very religious family, but would you like me to pray for you?” she asked. He said yes.
4
The president was coming out of his private bathroom when the Secretary of Defense bounded in, her eyes wild. Steps behind her was her husband, the Director of Central Intelligence. “Carl Hummel just checked in. He escaped a kidnapping by the conspiracy and managed to make off with a pair of their phones. Fort Davis is the location.”
“Damn! They’re close to that train! I’ve got crews scrambling, but they won’t be there for hours,” the president fumed. He had taken off his button-down and was working phones and tablets in an old University of Vermont tee shirt. “I assume you’ve already gotten the ball rolling?” The DCI confirmed that every cruncher on his team was searching databases and discovering assets in the Fort Davis area.
“Are they after the train? A third of the defense team had to leave it in order to take casualties to the hospital in Alpine!”
“We don’t know. We’re trying to pull up every trustworthy person we can from El Paso to Dallas to get down there. We can’t fly assets in because of bad weather moving in all around. In a few hours, a storm will have everything socked in from Pecos to Alpine.” The president held up a tablet that was pinging incoming alerts every single second. He looked exhausted, and the Secretary of Defense asked if he needed to tap out for some rest.
“Call in that Kentuckian to run point for a few hours,” she insisted. “Or get your Chief of Staff to run that damn tablet. Where are those two, anyway?”
“Veep’s holed up with the cabinet across the street, everything in secret. Once we discovered that the conspiracy could be promising MIST as a miracle cure, there was no way we could protect everyone. We had to resort to target hardening.”
Clearing her throat, the Secretary of Defense announced that she had spoken to Carl Hummel on the phone. After relaying most of their conversation, she lowered her voice and told the president that he would need to prepare for the worst. “Carl thinks we may have to use a nuclear device,” she said softly. “He is having me track his phone, and says we need to direct any strike to that source.”
“I assume you’ve spoken about that to your MIST team, Mr. President?” the DCI asked, his voice also practically a whisper.
“If they cannot crack the source code, they want me to use a twenty megaton device. Overkill, to be sure, but it’s guaranteed to eliminate everything in the vicinity,” the president rasped, his throat numb from exhaustion and stress. “It would destroy the train and the core of this damned conspiracy, assuming that they are indeed holed up in Fort Davis. We would just need to make sure that Adam Pastorius, Boris Elkanovitch, and Adam Welsh were near ground zero.”
“Adam Welsh?” Both the SecDef and the DCI were confused.
“A positive ID came in early today on the assassin who killed the MIST team in Wyoming. Adam Welsh was part of the CIA special activities division under my predecessor. He’s a West Point graduate, veteran of Haiti, the Balkans, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Switched to intelligence in ‘05. He’s forty-six, divorced, and his psych profile is not a pretty picture. Someone tried their best to erase any info on the man, but some of his former colleagues were eager to talk. Nobody’s very surprised that he’s turned into a gun for hire.”
“We should have been told as soon as the ID was made,” DCI Parker groused. Things were falling through the cracks, and on a day when there was no room for error. “Let’s keep it calm,” the Secretary of Defense soothed, putting a hand on her husband’s arm. “We just need to keep moving forward.”
“If we do reach the point of no return and I have to do the unthinkable, I will resign immediately thereafter. I need you two to plan your responses to that eventuality. I know my vice will want you to stay on, but I understand if you don’t want to,” the president said somberly.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, sir. You need to go to your media war room and get ahead of the shit in the news cycle. Let them know that you’re here and working. I’ll go rally the cabinet and get them talking to the press. If the conspiracy is trying to paint you as inept, we’ll put a stop to it. I can promise you that.”
5
Lightning flashes could be seen over the Davis Mountains, silhouetted against the disappearing stars, as Adam Welsh walked through the hotel parking lot with the Styrofoam cooler under one arm. He touched the hood of a sports car and its engine roared to life, its electrical system commanded by the MIST in his fingertips. He touched the doorknob and overrode the electronic lock. He discovered a universal phone charger plugged into the center console and attached it to his cell.
“It’s past time. You broke our deal,” his employer said as soon as he called. “You can forget ever seeing your wife and daughter again.” The woman’s voice was ice cold.
“I may be over on the clock, but better late than never,” Welsh quipped as he drove out of the lot and put the phone on speaker. “I’m delivering everyone right to your door: The Hummels, Hector Rodriguez, Adam Pastorius, and Boris Elkanovitch. Surely that buys me some bonus time?”
“How do I know you’re not lying? You’re not exactly trustworthy.”
“Isn’t that rich, ma’am!” Welsh actually chuckled with the incredulity of it all. “Your political career leaves you little room to discuss honesty. But, anyway, I have no reason to lie. I want you to take possession of my troublesome peers. I don’t want those five nanite-ridden rascals running around. Like with kindergarteners these days, it’s all about being unique.”
“I’ve got your wife and daughter en route, just ahead of the storm. They’ll be the last flight into Alpine before we get socked in. Good for me, since it keeps the pre
sident’s Air Force grounded. Bad for you, since it eliminates any chance of you welshing on me and trying to escape via air.” Smiling, the assassin ignored the riff on his last name.
“Have them meet me in front of the Hampton Inn on Highway 67. If they come alone, I will text you the location of the MIST and help you capture the five targets. If I even sense a trap, I will find other uses for the MIST that could be most detrimental to your well-being. Get my drift?”
“Don’t lie to me, Mr. Welsh,” she said flatly, insisting on having the last word. Welsh let her. He put the accelerator to the floor and raced toward the mountains. As mile melted into mile, the flatlands became foothills and then became mountains. Beside him, the cooler was growing warmer to the touch, no longer perpetually chilled by dry ice. Entropy is increasing, Welsh thought. As lightning lit up the sky behind him, he felt a growing sense of triumph. Soon, he would be reunited with the love of his life. She had left, but he had won her back.
He had won it all back, and soon he would win even more.
Behind him, he saw a pair of headlights in the distance. At this point, it hardly mattered what it was - no pair of cops in a cruiser could even slow him down. But, inexplicably, he felt a sense of wariness. Something about the headlights seemed ominous. Well, not the headlights, but the driver. Though he could not explain how, he had a premonition that the drive was like him...abnormal.
The MIST is evolving me in ways I cannot fathom. That’s why I have a feeling about that other car.
Accelerating, Welsh decided to put more distance between himself and the vehicle behind him, which was miles back on the flat land. I’ll deal with that vehicle when the time comes. The road doesn’t split off until Fort Davis. But if it is who I think it is, he’ll come to me. They all will. With eight cylinders howling, the man in black was soon twisting through the mountains, taking the opportunity of the sleepy night to enjoy both lanes.
The sign said that Fort Davis was twelve miles away.
6
“Now I’ve got weather to worry about,” the Diplomat moaned as he sipped his espresso. Rain drummed on the roof of his cabin, but the weather with which he was concerned was approaching the Davis Mountains far to the south. Rain would disrupt the hidden cameras that the conspiracy had placed all over the area, especially around the train. The train, currently disabled and surrounded by a phalanx of state and local first responders, needed to be monitored. Somehow, they needed access to the cars that held the Silver Six satellite and whatever they had pulled out of its hull.
Thus far, the scientists and Delta operators had kept the first responders away from the nitrogen-cooled cars and focused on the destroyed locomotive.
A call came through, and his system answered it for him. “He called. We’re having his wife and daughter meet him in Alpine. He says he’ll tell us where he left the MIST.”
“Obviously, he’s lying. I’ve read his profile,” the Diplomat sighed. Why the hell did I sign up for this? There really is no honor among thieves.
“Yes, but we’re keeping him busy. He’s running lower on options. Eventually he’ll have to deal, even if he doesn’t know it yet.” Her voice was confident. “We need you to contact our local law enforcement contacts and get a log of all calls made off area cell towers. Once we triangulate, we’ll track him down manually.”
“Sounds good,” the Diplomat replied. He rang off and sent messages to several men and women in Reeves, Jeff Davis, and Brewster counties. Minutes later, call logs began rolling in from a series of rural cell towers. He looked for a common device that had pinged off of towers in a southwesterly route. Fortunately, the fact that it was the middle of the night had kept phone usage along that highway to a minimum. Bingo, he thought as he discovered only one device following the route.
“He should be arriving at Fort Davis right about now,” he said over the phone. “That’s where you are. You want to try to stop him?”
“Don’t be stupid. He’ll destroy the MIST before we can bring him down. We’ve got to wait until we can separate him from it.”
The call was interrupted by another call, this one from their people in Colfax County, New Mexico. “FBI agent Roger Garfield has just started sending all of our information straight to the White House!” a man yelled. “He’s at the Villa Philmonte, in the old communication center from the prison’s warden! He got someone’s phones with names and numbers!”
Oh shit. This is not good.
“Whose phone? I need names,” the Diplomat said, fighting for calm.
“The highest-ranking guy was Raul Cortes, a sheriff’s lieutenant. Was Home Guard, but kept his record clean. Guy basically ran the sheriff’s department,” the caller said breathlessly. The Diplomat looked up the name in his records and swore loudly. Cortes had access to a lot of data, and there was no way to tell how much of it was on his cell phone. “Thank you,” the Diplomat said, and transferred back to his initial call.
“Raul Cortes’ phone has been compromised, and he was a member of the bird bounce team. That means he could have the names of everyone else on that team, including some who know me. And you.”
“God damn it,” she hissed angrily. “Start dumping data. We’ll have to go from the seat of our pants from here on out. Get rid of the evidence.”
“We’re fucked, madam. You realize this, right?” The Diplomat was angry.
“Stay strong, you sniveling little punk,” she snapped. “I helped make you what you are, Mr. High and Mighty. If we can get the MIST on the bird bounce, we will have succeeded. We will all be free and clear.”
Swallowing nervously, the Diplomat agreed.
7
Hector Rodriguez listened to soothing music on his nightmare ride. Despite the loud drone of the engine and the impossible hour, he did not want the usual hard rock that pumped him up. He no longer needed such auditory stimulation, and that made him sad. It was an intellectual sadness, not an emotional one. The MIST had robbed him of that true feeling.
He knew the desert, for he had grown up with it. The days spent at the Monahans sand dunes with his father and brothers were vivid in his mind. They had ridden well-waxed discs down the dunes, trying to build tracks and ramps in the sand. At night, they had made spaghetti and gotten to try sips of Dad’s beer. In the morning, he and his brothers had gotten in trouble for trying to bury the uneaten noodles in the sand. After they had cleaned everything up, and were driving back to the highway in their Dad’s old Ford pickup, a helicopter had swooped over the sand and erased any sign that visitors had been carving up the grainy slopes.
I’ll never see the sand dunes again. I’ll never take my family there. He whipped around a slow-moving duo of Walmart tractor-trailers. But I’ll make sure others get to see the sand dunes. Other families, other children. My own children, with their children.
Leaving the lights and siren of the borrowed cruiser untouched, he raced through the night with unnatural night vision guiding his movements. The in-dash QB was almost muted, but not quite. Under the tones and melodies of the satellite radio, he could clearly hear regional cop talk. His taking of the police cruiser had been duly reported, but nobody was intent on following him. They were tracking him, but leaving him be. It was a nice compromise.
The attack on the train near Alpine was all over the state band, with troopers and Texas Rangers heading to the mountain town. FBI agents from El Paso and Dallas were en route, but there was little information about their travel. Something is strange with the flow of information on this band. After several minutes, he ascertained that some of the voices were abnormal, likely manipulated by a machine. Voice distortion. Someone is using voice distortion. Probably not discernible to normal folks, but the MIST in my auditory canal picks it up like a microphone.
The abnormal voice was masquerading as a state police dispatcher. With a slightly different voice, someone was also pretending to be a sheriff’s dispatcher
from Jeff Davis County. Reaching beneath the dash, Hector Rodriguez picked up the handset.
“Attention all units! This is Hector Rodriguez, Midland University police lieutenant on special assignment. Both the state police dispatcher and the dispatcher from Jeff Davis County are not to be trusted. Someone or some group has hijacked their signal and is using voice distortion software. All available units in Fort Davis, please investigate the dispatch center and reset the equipment.”
For many long moments, the radio was completely silent.
“Roger that, Lt. Rodriguez,” someone said. Seconds later, another officer concurred. More followed. Within a minute, a three-vehicle convoy of state troopers en route from Amarillo to Alpine declared that they would stop at the Jeff Davis County dispatch center to investigate. “Exercise extreme caution,” Hector replied. “I have a bad feeling about this.”
8
William Watterson slammed on the brakes and guided the aging 4-Runner into a shuddering stop along the side of the highway. He killed the headlights as his passenger, the nervous Dr. Baurin, asked what the hell was going on. “Why are there so many punks with supersized flashlights wandering around the Balmorhea State Park?” Watterson asked, pointing through the windshield. In the distance, scores of bobbing lights revealed what appeared to be a manhunt.
“The park is closed. Nobody’s swimming at night. So why did someone call out the cavalry?” Watterson demanded. Obviously, Baurin had no idea.
“Think they’ll shoot us if we drive up and ask ‘em?” the police lieutenant mused. Not unexpectedly, the distressed doctor advised against that course of action. “Well, we look like nice guys. No risk, no reward,” Watterson decided, and turned the headlights back on. He pulled back onto the deserted highway and drove to the state park. He turned on his blinker and eased off the highway at the entrance to the park.
Within seconds, men in black tactical gear surrounded the vehicle. A bearded bruiser appeared at the driver’s window and motioned for Watterson to lower it. Using the hand crank, the incognito cop did as instructed. “I saw the flashlights and wondered if anyone needed help,” Watterson beamed, smiling like a rube. “My friend here is a doctor.” Dr. Baurin waved politely.
“No help needed, sir. We’ve got everything under control,” the bearded monster replied. “Might I enquire as to your business tonight?”
“I heard a rumor that something nefarious was afoot. A conspiracy. Billions of dollars at stake for some state-of-the-art nanotechnology. You hear anything about that?” The question was bold, unexpected, and just might get the two men killed.
Watterson watched the big lug’s face to study the man’s reaction. As expected, the man displayed a slight look of surprise, anger, confusion, and fear. But the man was a professional, no doubt a highly paid mercenary, and was not about to gun down two civilians in a Toyota on the side of the highway. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, sir,” he said. Then he thought better of it and requested that the two men turn off the vehicle.
Instead, Watterson plucked his MPD badge from the breast pocket of his blazer. “Sorry, no can do. Police business.” Confronted with the fact that the driver of the vehicle was a police officer, the bearded mercenary recoiled slightly, a concerned look on his face. That’s right, buddy. Can’t whack a cop in broad...well, it’s not daylight. Nightlight? It’s overcast and thundering.
“We’re headed to that scout ranch between here and Fort Davis,” Watterson lied. “There’s a situation out there.” He held up his glowing phone and announced that he was on the line with his superiors. Just in case you thought there were no witnesses, guy. Without another word, the cop put the SUV in gear and accelerated, pulling back onto the pavement as the mercenaries stood around angrily.
“They could have killed us,” Baurin said angrily. “What was the purpose of all that?!”
“I needed to know if they were part of the conspiracy, and they sure are. But who knows who or what they’re searching for out here?” Watterson was silent for several minutes of driving. As soon as he was out of visual range of the state park, he swung off the side of the road and parked. He got on his phone and called a trusted fellow detective back in town. “I don’t know who we can trust, especially after detective Sullivan tried to whack my informant doctor, but you need to let someone know that a whole division of mercenaries is combing the grounds of the Balmorhea State Park.”
“Blackwater types?” his old friend asked. Watterson confirmed, reporting that their clothing was uniform, their demeanor was professional, and their arms were heavy. “They weren’t ready to ice an active-duty cop...but they weren’t far away from that point, either.”
After a few more cryptic comments, the police lieutenant turned off the car and sat deep in thought.
“Dr. Baurin, I want you to take this 4-Runner on to Fort Davis. If what I think is going on is really going on, a whole lot of shit might go down there. You did a fucked up thing by selling out Hank Hummel, but this is your chance at redemption. I’ve got some old favors I can cash in, and I can make criminal charges go away if you make me proud. You get to Fort Davis, and you help out Hank Hummel if you can. I think he’ll be there.” The doctor tried to protest, but William Watterson was adamant. He pulled the keys from the ignition and handed them to his prisoner.
“I’m gonna retire tomorrow, so tonight I’m going out with a bang,” the grizzled lieutenant announced. “I’ll be playing a little reconnaissance. Oh, and a hidden bug in this vehicle connects straight to my phone, so know that I’m keeping track of you. Abuse my trust, and the first person I’ll call, even in the dead of night, is the DA.”
9
The power was cut seventeen minutes after they made the first calls, and the two men knew that the assault on the mansion would occur shortly. “You ever see Home Alone? Of course you have.” The professor’s voice was growing strained with fear. “Well, we’re about to get a lot worse than Harry and Marv coming after us.” Both men sat in the pitch-black communications room, the red, green, and blue lights extinguished by lack of electricity.
If there was a backup generator on site, it had been turned off after the closure of the prison compound.
“All that time you worked with Dutch, did he ever tell you about this place?” the professor asked. “When he was in the Scouts, he did a trek here, right? Did he take a tour of this villa?”
“You want to know if there are rifles and stuff,” Roger Garfield said, snapping to the realization. “And yes, yes there are.” Turning on their cell phones, both men used the faint lights to lead them out of the computer room. Garfield took the lead and tried to talk through what Dutch had told him. Then he remembered Carl Hummel, who had worked on staff at the ranch. “Hunting room,” Garfield said. “Carl Hummel said something about a hunting room.”
“In the basement,” the professor said, continuing the line of thought. “We’re practically there.” They walked cautiously down the hallway, which still retained its 1920s decor. The Home Guard had been in such haste to create a prison compound that it had left most of the mansion’s original features undisturbed. When they reached the rustic door at the end of the hallway, it was locked.
“Your move, Mr. Lineman,” Garfield said, referring to the professor’s college football days. Groaning, the big man backed up and prepared himself for a painful tackle. He hit the door, and it shuddered in its frame. “It ain’t as soft as a tackling dummy,” he complained. “You got this, buddy!” Garfield encouraged, and the professor made a second run at the door. This time, the oak yielded to his shoulder and popped open. The academic stumbled to the floor and landed on a bearskin rug.
“Carl said that that was the last grizzly bear in New Mexico,” Garfield recalled as he helped the other man up off the floor. “And I’ll bet that’s the gun closet at the back of the room.” Using their phones to gaze around at the dozens of taxidermied trop
hies, they marveled at the hunts of generations past. After that brief respite, they rushed to the gun closet. Looking through a barred window slit, they saw a row of long guns.
“Our batteries are dying, so we better make this fast,” the professor huffed. He prepared for another round of door-busting, but Garfield discovered that the thick door to the gun closet was actually unlocked. “Pay dirt!” the FBI agent crowed happily. They entered the walk-in closet and held their phones aloft to get a look at the gentlemanly armory. Most of the rifles and shotguns were antiques, but a few modern pieces had been added, perhaps by ranch staff.
A rubber foot locker sat at the far end of the closet, a patchwork quilt thrown halfway over it. In spray-painted block letters, the foot locker announced that it was U.S. Army Surplus - 2018Q2. “I don’t think Waite Phillips was a time traveler,” Garfield joked. He removed the quilt and popped the latches on the foot locker. When the lid was opened, they saw stacks of late-model assault rifles and cases of ammunition. “Hot damn! The general must have felt the need for some backup when he ran the prison,” the professor said with a smile. He pulled out a carbine and handed it to Garfield, then claimed a second for himself.
“Before our batteries die, we better start lighting some candles and lamps and stuff. We’ve got some defenses to create.”
10
He knew he had very little time, but his racecar antics through the mountains had bought him precious minutes. They were expecting him in Alpine shortly, but he had just enough padding in his schedule for a break. Running with his lights off, using his digitally-augmented retinas for guidance, he slewed off the side of the road and turned off the engine. With unmortals like Boris Elkanovitch and Adam Pastorius looking for his MIST, Welsh knew a diversion would be invaluable.
Plus, he figured his phone and vehicle were being tracked by his employers. What better way to spread their resources thin than to have them scouring yet another area looking for the MIST cylinders? Inside his Styrofoam cooler were six electrical transformer glass fuses, which he had swiped from a substation between Pecos and Balmorhea. Until they were seen up close, they looked like the sophisticated MIST cylinders themselves. To help complete the ruse, Welsh had filled his fake cylinders with packets of silver glitter taken from a travel station.
He grabbed his glass fuses from the cooler and stuck them in his pockets. Despite his earlier swim, his amplified body heat had already dried his black clothing. He exited the sports car under cover of darkness and ran from tree to tree down into a shallow gulley. Up above him was the Fort Davis National Historic Site, a genuine Indian Wars era fort. From his youth, and online research, he knew that parts of the fort had been restored and parts were still in decay.
The place was the perfect hiding spot for his fake MIST. There were plenty of nooks and crannies to stash the stuff, and his employer’s mercenaries would make a mess of things searching around. Opting for speed over stealth, Welsh sprinted quietly up the hill and into the fort. As lightning lit up the peaks behind the fort and rain began to pelt, he ran from building to building, picking spots. One glittery fuse went into a restored kitchen, while another was placed under the porch of an officer’s quarters.
Two were hidden inside decaying buildings, quickly accessed by ripping out the wire mesh that kept out tourists and their bratty kids. They’ll see these removed doors and check here first. If only I had some claymores…
A fifth fuse was hidden in a former armory, slipped into the breast pocket of a mannequin wearing a vintage U.S. Army dress uniform. The sixth fuse was dropped off inside a restored hospital building, pushed under a stack of wool blankets. Finally, to complete the ruse, he left one of the six remaining cylinders of genuine MIST. Assuming his employers had RFID scanners, which was essentially guaranteed, they would home in on the frequency of the one cylinder of the real stuff.
But it wouldn’t be fair to not put them on the clock.
He pulled back the slide of the restored Gatling gun and set the cylinder, perpendicular, in the chamber. He gently let the heavy slide come back to rest against the glass. With the metal slide sharp, and being pressed against the glass with more than forty pounds of pressure, it was only a matter of time until the hollow cylinder cracked. The nanoparticles would be released.