White struck like a snake, grabbing him by the shoulders and pushing him back down on his chair.
“Don’t even move,” White snarled.
The door opened, and a guard was there, responding to a silent alarm sent by Chairman Brown.
“Enough, Mister Jones,” said Brown. “Your communications have been monitored for weeks, and the evidence shared with your government. You’re going home. Ensign, please take Mister Jones down to level one for transportation off base. Staff will take charge of your prisoner at area four.”
Jones sat stunned. The guard stood him up, shackled his hands behind him and led him away.
There was a strange sound from the television monitor, and then from the translator box came, “Nicely done, and without subtlety. It is a good start in cleaning our house, but you must not expect our help in saving your lives when the good Minister seeks them.”
“The letter to president Troik will be sent in the morning,” said White.
“Indeed,” said Chairman Brown.
* * * * * * *
Eric didn’t tell Leon about the message he’d received from Neal. A vague distrust of the man nagged at him. He waited until Leon had gone out on a call, and dialed Gil’s private number on his cell phone. Gil answered quickly, and Eric told him all that had happened, including the note from Neal.
“Have you told Leon?” asked Gil.
“Not about Neal, but he knows what I saw at the base, and what I think about it. The project is being deliberately delayed by whoever brought the plane to us. I need to talk to them, but it seems that Davis is the only one they talk to. Face to face, I can identify their nationality. Probably Russian. I can’t think of anyone else who could even approach making what I saw.”
“Don’t tell Leon about Neal.”
“Why? Isn’t he one of ours?”
“No. He’s CIA. They’re more interested in finding out which commercial people are trying to get their hands on the aircraft. Remember that when you share information with him. Make another call to Neal and meet with him quick. Take a gun with you; that’s an order. Some people who’ve helped us with information in the past have disappeared, transferred out if we believe what Davis says, and we don’t. Ask Neal about the foreign nationals who came over with the plane. Maybe he can identify one for you. We hear that one of them initially briefed the engineers.”
“I’m calling him again tonight. I’ll get back to you.”
“Anytime. If I don’t answer, expect a return call. Watch your back.”
Gil broke the connection. Eric spent the rest of the day assembling a phony list of international galleries as part of a brochure for interested artists. Leon did not return to the office, so Eric locked up and drove home. The house had not been disturbed, no strange odors in the air. He ran the surveillance tapes fast-forward, and nothing showed up in visible, the IR camera only turned on at night.
Dinner was two potpies and mixed vegetables. He read, and watched television. At exactly midnight he dialed the number Neal had given him.
“Yes?” The voice seemed muffled.
“Eric. I was given this number to call. Nobody answered it last night.”
“Sorry. I left out the date you should call. I was at the lab. I assumed you’d call again tonight. Do you know where the high school is?”
“Yes.”
“I’m parked in the lot in front of the auditorium. In thirty minutes I’ll have to leave. Get here fast, and come alone. I’m not armed.”
“On my way,” said Eric, and hung up.
It was a ten-minute sprint to the high school, no traffic on Dry Creek Road, a few stragglers on 89A heading south towards Cottonwood. The high school was just off the highway, nestled in red rock; Eric turned in to a large parking lot and saw a single car parked in one corner overlooking the football stadium. The area was dimly lit with sodium lights.
Eric pulled in two spaces away, towards the highway from the lone car, turned off his lights, then the engine. And waited. Whoever was in the driver’s seat of the other car did not move to get out, but sat perfectly still.
Eric felt the familiar stirring of hairs on the backs of his hands and neck. His hand moved automatically to the grip of the Colt Modified at his waistband, two extra clips in a pouch hooked next to the weapon. Seconds became minutes, and still there was no movement, yet someone was there behind the wheel; even behind a dirty window, the silhouette was clear in light coming from in front of the high school’s auditorium.
He opened the door and stepped outside, gun in hand. Knees bent, he quick-stepped to the car, coming up on the passenger side. Before he was halfway there, alarms were ringing in his head. The car window was worse than dirty; it was splattered with something dark. He reached the car and looked inside. Neal was sitting rigidly behind the wheel, looking straight ahead, eyes open. The window on the driver’s side had a single, neat hole in it and there was a bloody wound the size of a golf ball in Neal’s right temple.
Eric instinctively ducked, and tried to open the passenger door. It was locked. Back door, too. He risked another look. The locking knob on the driver’s side was up, only the one door unlocked. Something strange about that, but he had to get to Neal’s body. The man might have something on him, even a note, a phone number, anything. At the moment that seemed most important. At the moment he did not think that Neal’s assailant would have dared to remain in the area. Still, he was a moving shadow when he went around the car in a crouch, keeping below window level and jerking the driver’s door open with one hand. As he swung the door open his eyes moved towards the shadowed entrance to the high school auditorium. A bright flash there was nearly simultaneous with a popping sound, then a crunch in the window above his head. Neal’s body toppled out of the car on top of him, pushing him to the ground, as there was another flash from the shadows. Neal’s body jerked.
Eric sucked air, eyes focused on where the flash had come from. He extended his arm and grabbed his gun hand, lining up the fluorescent dots on front and rear sights, and locking his shoulder. He squeezed off five shots rapid-fire, the roar of the Colt shattering a peaceful night.
He pushed Neal to one side, his eyes fixed on his target, and saw a shadow move. A man ran from the auditorium entrance, heading towards the red-rock scree hill on the other side of the stadium. He carried a rifle by a handgrip. An M16. Eric had recognized the sound of it with a silencer. He’d used the same weapon with deadly purpose, and now he was the target.
Eric took careful aim and squeezed off another shot. The man jumped, but didn’t slow.
Eric chased him, but at one mile altitude found breathing at full-sprint more of a challenge than he expected. The man he chased widened the gap as he headed towards the highway, and disappeared over a hillock. Eric got to the brow of the hill just in time to see a small van pulling away from the other side of the highway and heading south. He squeezed off his last shot, and was gratified by a loud clang coming from the van before it drove out of sight.
He reloaded, and waited a while in case the van doubled back, and then he walked back to the car to inspect the body of a man who had probably had important information for him. He searched both the body and the car.
And found nothing.
He had to move fast. Surely there were routine police patrols around the high school. Gil was too far away, too many delays using intermediaries. Davis could be involved in Neal’s murder. That left one man.
Eric called Leon on his cell phone. The man picked up after seven rings, and sounded groggy. Eric told him what had happened, “I have to get the body and his car out of here. We don’t want the police involved.”
“Stay right where you are,” said Leon, fully awake. “I’ll make a call, and be there in ten minutes.”
Eric could only wait and hope the police didn’t arrive first. He used the time to find the seven spent cartridge cases from his Colt, and squirreled pistol and spare clips under the front seat of his car. He tried to rehearse a reason for b
eing there. I was driving home from Cottonwood, officer, and my window was down. I heard loud explosions, and saw flashes of light from the school. I thought there was a fire, but when I drove in I found this. Poor man. No I.D., no wallet. What a terrible thing to happen here.
He heard the roar of the Humvee before it turned into the lot. Leon jumped out and pointed to Eric’s car. “Get out of here. Go to my house through the tunnel, and wait for me. We’ll clean up.”
As he said it, two black vans pulled into the parking lot and drove right up to where Eric was standing. The four men who got out wore butch-cuts, and were dressed in slacks and woolen sweaters. Two of them picked up Neal’s body and dumped it into the back of one van while the other two rummaged in the man’s car.
“I’ve already checked it,” said Eric. “It’s clean.”
The men ignored him. “Go on, Eric,” said Leon. “We’ll handle it.”
Eric got into his car and drove away. Before he even got out of the lot he saw that Neal’s car had been started and was backing up. He was suddenly conscious of possible police patrols, and drove carefully just under the speed limit down 89A and back up Dry Creek Road. He garaged the car and holstered the Colt again under his left arm, went down to his basement and used the tunnel to Leon’s house. It was a twelve-minute walk, and when he tried the door to the house it was locked and he’d stupidly left the key behind. What now? His nerves were edgy. He settled them by jacking a cartridge into the forty-five and holding it loosely in one hand.
The wait seemed long, but wasn’t. Eric knocked on the door every few minutes. After several tries there was a thump from the other side, and the door opened.
Leon was there, and looked angry. He glanced at the big Colt in Eric’s hand. “No weapon, huh? Now get in here and explain to me what this was all about tonight.”
They went upstairs, past the odor of gun oil and powder residue. Leon put coffee on, and opened a package of cookies. Eric told him Neal had said he had important information for him, had given him a number to call and when. He didn’t say anything about Neal’s note.
“The guy’s a civilian engineer. What could he know?”
“Whatever, someone made sure we wouldn’t know it,” said Eric. “So you knew Neal.”
“I knew of him,” said Leon. “Project engineer since the start: Wright Patterson, NASA, MIT graduate, very capable, but still an engineer. A hardware man.”
“Maybe he knew someone we need to talk to.”
“Could be. Anything he said could give us a lead. Have you told me everything? We’re supposed to be working together, Eric. Are we?”
“What reason would I have not to?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Interagency rivalry, something I’ve said, my after shave, could be anything.”
“You CIA?”
“My, we’re blunt tonight. Did they teach you that in NSA school?”
“Wrong bait. Keep fishing.”
“Don’t need to. I looked you up in our mutual database. I’m sure you’ll find me in there, too, if you already haven’t. You know what they have listed for you? On leave for special assignment. That means you’re black as hell, dear boy. Deep, deep. Well, so am I, and it doesn’t make any difference what special ops units we’re assigned to. We’re both here to save this project. We’re working for the good old US of A.”
“Okay, then I’ll go first. I know that commercial interests are trying to get hold of this plane. Are you involved with that in a personal way? Maybe a little something to pad a federal retirement?”
“Is this going to be twenty questions?”
“If you don’t answer the first one, I’ll call my operations director and get one or both of us pulled.”
“I’m involved in it up to my ass, and you are, too. You just don’t know it yet. I heard my party acquaintance call you for lunch, or was it a cookie?” Leon waved a cookie at him.
“Lunch. We meet tomorrow.”
“Don’t believe his business card. I’ve checked, and it’s a phony. I think he’s someone’s lawyer. See if you agree. The offer will be tempting, since you’ll actually be working with the aircraft. His name is phony, and so is the company he’s supposed to own. We traced the so-called executive secretary that answers his calls to an unemployed schoolteacher in a Jersey apartment. I’m still trying to find out what company or conglomerate he’s working for, and how they found out about the plane in the first place. They’re probably aerospace. Davis will be up for retirement soon, and what better golden parachute than a fat consultantship.”
“So Davis is in on it.”
“He is the man. When I started digging he came up with an offer I couldn’t refuse. Do I actually appear to be corruptible? Dear me. He doesn’t seem to feel the same way about you. As a matter of fact, I think you frighten him. Which brings me to my first question. My turn, now. I wonder how a career military man could fear a data analyst like you, unless you’re more than that. Your entire career is special ops and deep cover with a few visible assignments for tech transfer, but I’ve checked your academic degrees and they are real. So, Mister Price, why are you here? To analyze data on something that doesn’t work yet?”
“That’s two questions.”
“Yuck, yuck. So answer the fucking first one first.”
“I’m here to save the project, and that includes data analysis. It includes identifying our tech transfer friends, and their country or countries, and why the technology has come without documentation. It includes identifying corporate spies trying to steal said technology, and the saboteurs trying to slow or stop the project. And now we can add the murderer of Neal Johnson to the list. That enough for you?”
Leon reached out and tapped Eric’s shoulder holster at his armpit. “Identify—and eliminate. You didn’t mention that.”
“First things first,” said Eric.
“I can accept that.” Leon pulled back his coat to reveal the holster there, a black grip with an extended magazine protruding from it. “At least we’re on the same page. The corporate spies are mine. We find them; they die, all the way up to any CEO involved. The saboteurs are yours.”
“A bit extreme. My orders don’t read like that.”
“Mine do, so don’t interfere if we get to that point. We’re supposed to be allies.”
“Fair enough. Now what do we do?”
“Business as usual. Neal has disappeared, and you wonder why. We’ll do an autopsy and check the slugs in his body.”
“They’re from an M16.”
“We’ll check it out, and I want to get Davis’ reaction to Neal’s disappearance. This could even have been a corporate hit, or it could be the saboteurs we’re chasing. We have to separate out the bad guys, and then kill all of them.”
“And somewhere along the way I want to see that airplane doing something that tells me this entire project isn’t a waste of time,” said Eric.
“Now, now, keep the faith. Someone high up thinks this is vital to national defense, or you and I wouldn’t be here.”
“A hired killer, and a data analyst?”
Leon smiled. “Make that three hired killers, at least. And one of them isn’t working with us.”
Eric had to agree with that.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
WHERE ANGELS DWELL
“You were right. It was an M16,” said Leon. “Neal never knew what hit him. Military rounds. One of our people found the brass near the auditorium. The firing pin has a distinctive burr we could identify if we could find the right rifle, but there are hundreds at the base. I’ll talk to Davis, and see what’s possible.”
“He knows about Neal?” Eric rubbed sleep from his eyes. The call had shocked him awake, and morning glow was creeping down the buttes visible from his bedroom.
“Had to. He’ll make up some story for the techs about why Neal is gone. He mentioned that your background would make you a logical replacement.”
“What?”
“Why not? You arrive, and shortly after
that Neal is gone. There have been three people in that position in the last two years. Two resigned for health reasons, and Davis will use the same excuse for Neal. I happen to know that one of the other two guys just disappeared, and has never been found. There are lots of ways to sabotage a project, and getting rid of the technical leadership is a good one. It’s mostly program analysis, Eric, and that’s what Davis was told you’re here for. There’s a whole team of people to handle the technical stuff. It would put you at the center of base operations, and that’s where you need to be. You’ll be a target, of course, but at least you’ll be one that shoots back. Anyway, don’t be surprised if Davis calls you about it.”
“Is that why you called so early? It’s just past six.”
“Sorry. Oh, yeah, one other thing. I think you’ll like this one. Nataly Hegel called me last night and left a message. She wanted your phone number. I called her shop, left a message saying you’d call her back this morning. She’s usually in there by nine.”
“Okay,” said Eric. What now? he thought. She’s probably canceling out on dinner.
“Gotta go,” said Leon. “I’ll be in Phoenix all weekend. Company business.”
“Sell lots of art,” said Eric.
“Yeah, I will.” Leon chuckled, and hung up.
The buttes now glowed orange and yellow outside his window. Eric got out of bed, showered and shaved, had toast and a banana for breakfast.
He brewed a pot of strong, Colombian coffee, and spent two hours making notes and doodles on what he’d seen on the aircraft called Pregnant Sparrow. When he was finished he set fire to the pages and burned them to ash in the sink.
It was after ten when he called Nataly’s shop. A girl answered, and put him on hold. His stomach was crawling with certainty that the dinner he was to have with an exotic woman was about to be cancelled.
The phone clicked. “Hello?”
“Eric Price. Leon said I should call you this morning.”
“Oh, I’m so glad you called early. Are you terribly busy today?”
Eric’s heart fluttered. “Just the usual; nothing special.”
Sedona Conspiracy Page 9