Operation Indigo Sky

by Lawrence Ambrose

"Exactly. Wise man, Mr. Carlin. Though I wouldn't say the club's all that big."

  "Are you in it?"

  Ellenberg took a long drink, his smile slipping. An owl hooted from the woods. A breeze stirred the surface of the pool below.

  "How do you feel about a swim?" he asked.

  "I don't have a swimsuit."

  "No problem. It's a clothing optional pool."

  "I don't think so."

  "Just kidding. I have swimsuits in all sizes in the pool house."

  I was about ready to bail on our private party. Nothing against Ethan Ellenberg. I was just sick of this bullshit act. And while I was fascinated by the glimpse he seemed to be offering into life as one of the elite, I couldn't be sure he wasn't bullshitting me as well. I didn't know him well enough to know.

  On the other hand, I didn't want to listen to Lilith – or my own conscience – tell me I'd pussied out when the dude was on the verge of telling all.

  "Okay," I said.

  He smiled. "Bring your drink and follow me, young Scott."

  Ellenberg walked down a flight of stairs ahead of me, precariously gripping the banister with one hand and his drink with the other. I kept imagining him plunging headfirst down the stairs. Even the ankle-deep carpet wouldn't be enough to save him.

  But he made it down through the sliding glass door out to the pool unscathed. The pool was smaller than the Killians' Olympic length, but more sumptuously outfitted: plush lounge chairs, raised decks on both ends, and a sunken hot tub. Not to mention the pool house, which looked like a scaled-down condominium.

  "Go ahead and change, Scott," said Ellenberg, flipping a hand at the pool house. "There are towels on the racks and swimming suits in the top drawer of a central dresser. I'll sit a moment and gather what remain of my wits."

  He sank into one of the chairs and I entered the pool house. I found some trunks that looked the right size in the dresser. I grabbed a towel from a rack, and stepped out.

  Ethan Ellenberg stood naked and grinning at the shallow end of the pool.

  "Surprise!"

  He stepped into the water – and slipped. I didn't know if it was slippery or he was just drunk, but his feet shot out from under him and he went down hard. His head conked the pool edge and his body went limp, sliding slowly under the water.

  I started moving – too slowly, it seemed – and then forced myself into a sprint, my bare feet slapping the roughened poolside cement. I jumped in near where his body lolled underwater at the base of the steps. A column of air bubbles rose and popped at the surface. I needed to get him out before he started breathing in water.

  I ducked down and grabbed under his arms from behind, hoisting him up out of the water. He sputtered and coughed the moment his head broke the surface, sparing me mouth-to-mouth, thank God. I backed up the shallow end stairs, dragging him with me. The dude had to weigh two-sixty at least. I could get him out of the water, but it wouldn't be easy without his help.

  "Hold on," Ellenberg gasped out. "Just...give me a second..."

  I was happy to pause, and even happier to hear his voice. I eased him down on the middle steps and listened to his ragged breathing. A small amount of blood oozed from the back of his head. I couldn't see through his hair how deep the gash was, but scalp wounds tended to bleed a lot.

  "How do you feel? Do I need to call 911?"

  "I don't think so. Just a little knock on the noggin. So stupid. Wanted to surprise you."

  "Well, you did."

  He sputtered out a laugh. "Such an old fool. You probably thought I looked disgusting."

  "I didn't get a chance to see much."

  "You are fortunate. Though I feel blessed at the moment in your strong arms."

  I hadn't realized until that moment that the muscles in my arms and back were still bunched. I breathed out, willing them to relax.

  "You should probably see a doctor."

  "Am I bleeding?"

  "Not much."

  "Perhaps you wouldn't mind patching it up a bit, if it's not too bad. I must confess to something of a phobia of hospitals."

  "You're not alone in that."

  "There's a first aid kid in the pool house. Maybe you could bring it and some swim trunks? This is embarrassing."

  I could think of few things I'd be happier to do. I jogged to the pool house and snatched some swim trunks and the first aid box hanging on the wall. By the time I got back, Ellenberg had hauled his corpulent, lilly-white body out of the water and was perched on the edge of the pool. I tossed him the trunks and broke out the first aid kit.

  As he struggled into his trunks – couldn't happen fast enough for me - I shone a LED flashlight from the kit on the back of his head while cleaning away the blood and hair with towelettes and antiseptic.

  "Ouch," Ellenberg yelped.

  "Almost done," I said. "A doctor might recommend a few stitches or just clean it up and bandage it. I think I could close it easy enough with the Dermabond from the kit."

  "Do you have some paramedic training?"

  "Some. I've closed enough small wounds with surgical glue to feel pretty confident with it."

  "That's good enough for me. Make it so, Dr. Harrow."

  I dried the area, popped the Dermabond vial, and squeezed out some fairly neat lines along the wound edge. More groans from Ellenberg as I compressed the wound edges together and held them for a bit less than a minute. I checked out my surgery with the LED light, and pronounced it a success.

  "I'm forever in your debt," Ellenberg proclaimed.

  "You should keep it dry for the next few days, and avoid strenuous exercise."

  "Yes, Doctor. It will be a great sacrifice, but I'll tone down my time in the gym for the remainder of the week."

  I laughed. He held out a hand, and I helped him to his feet. He leaned against me heavily as we staggered back into the house. Inside, he seemed to find his strength as we approached the bar station at the edge of his kitchen.

  "I believe I'll make myself a hot toddy," he said. "What's your poison?"

  "I'm okay."

  "You must think I'm an alky. But it is the weekend. Along with the pain of being a man."

  He collapsed on a couch with a weary sigh. I stayed on my feet. He eyed me over his drink.

  "I suppose you're about ready to disappear back into the Elysian Fields from which you sprang."

  "I probably should get going," I said.

  "A pretty young man such as yourself could have anyone. Of course I understand that."

  "Could've fooled me. I haven't been exactly lucky in relationships."

  "I just came out of a disastrous one myself a year or so back." He waved a hand. "It goes with the territory."

  "I guess so."

  "Stay with me – just for a little while, Scott. You know, just to make sure my brain doesn't implode or something."

  The possibility of hemorrhage had occurred to me. I didn't like the idea of dragging the old dude out of the pool only to have him stroke out when I left. I wasn't sure if he'd had a concussion or not, but I knew from experience they could be nasty. I got blown out of a Humvee once and couldn't even remember my name for the next hour. I'd kept thinking I was back in California and that my parents would be soon coming to pick me up from middle school.

  I lowered myself in a chair facing him. "Chair" really didn't cover it: it was so soft and comfortable I had the feeling of sinking into a different, cozier dimension.

  "Not only handsome but kind," said Ellenberg. "A rare combination."

  "I don't know about that."

  "About the handsome or the kind part?"

  "Either."

  Ellenberg issued a soft laugh. "And modest, too. Where have you been all my life?"

  I stared at the wall, away from his affectionate gaze, and thought about Melinda – how I'd hungered to hear words like that from her. I hadn't even known until now what the words I'd been hungering for were. Weird to have some fifty-something gay dude say them. I thought I owed him a bit of hone
sty.

  "Ethan," I said, "you're kind of letting yourself get caught up in a fantasy here."

  "Ah, well, my family always called me 'the dreamer.'" He sighed. "When they weren't calling me a sissy." He smiled, but his eyes grew hard. "But in business, I'm a whole different person. I turn to steel, as hard as you might find that to believe. It's only in relationships that I turn to mush."

  "I believe you."

  "You saved my life, you know."

  I shrugged. "You wouldn't've have tripped if I hadn't been here."

  Ellenberg laughed. "Perhaps so, but it's still true. I'd like to make that up to you. What can I do for you? Need to pay off a loan? A new car?"

  "That's not necessary." Though I couldn't stop from imagining a new BMW.

  "You're not materialistic, are you?"

  "Not too much. Nothing against having some money, but after a point, I don't think it adds much. I'm doing okay. My life is pretty comfortable."

  "For now."

  His eyes drilled into mine without a hint of merriment. A hidden torment seemed to be in a tug of war with a conspiratorial secret in his face.

  "I'm not sure what that means," I said. "Are you expressing skepticism about me or the economy?"

  Ellenberg finished his hot toddy, and set it aside. "It's going to get rough for most people, I'm afraid, Scott."

  "A depression?"

  "A depression would be the least of it."

  "People have been predicting an economic meltdown for years."

  "Not this. This is going to be something different."

  "How?"

  "I'm sorry, Scott. That's not something I can talk about."

  I waited a few seconds, hoping he'd surrender to his obvious desire to confess, but his face remained set.

  "You said you would give me something." I met his gaze. "That's what I want. I want you to tell me what the hell is going on."

  Ellenberg shook his head, eyeing the ceiling. He released a long and funereal sigh.

  "I will tell you this much. In a few months, something very bad is going to happen, according to the experts. And I'm not talking about a crisis in the banking system. This is not something manmade."

  A chill inched into my body. A few months . Interesting coincidence that Markus Killian had mentioned a similar time period.

  "Some kind of natural disaster? An earthquake?"

  "You're getting warmer."

  "Asteroid?"

  "Bingo. No one knows how bad it will be or even exactly when and where it will strike. It's even possible it won't, but the experts believe the odds aren't good."

  Oh Christ. I squeezed the muscles bunching in my forehead. Martial law and U.N. depopulation suddenly seemed like a Sunday stroll in the park.

  "When's this supposed to happen?"

  "Sometime near the beginning of November, supposedly."

  "Do they know how big the asteroid is?"

  He held up his hands about a basketball's width apart. Then he expanded his hands until his arms were stretched to their limit.

  "About two football stadiums, I'm told. They have some fancy numbers describing it, but it's big enough to cause some considerable unpleasantness, if not necessarily the end of the world."

  I thought about it for most of a minute – conflicting logic and images clanging in my head.

  "That's what the detention centers and government-corporate 'partnerships' are about?"

  "That's the primary excuse in any case. Steps must be taken to give us – and our government - the best chance to survive. Or so I've been told."

  I stared at a point over his head. For years I'd been reading about doomsday and "SHTF" scenarios – the bread and butter of the conspiracy community – but to hear this confirmed by what seemed to be a certified member of the elite... It was way, way too fucking real.

  "Scott," Ellenberg said. "I hope you'll agree that this is between you and me. Not that anyone would believe you, but should word get out that I was blabbling...well, I might very well not make it to the 'big event.'"

  "I understand," I said.

  "And here's another thought." Ellenberg's voice had grown soft, with the hint of a plea. "I have a ticket to a safe place. I have no wife, no children, not even a significant other, but I am allowed to take someone with me."

  I hadn't seen that coming, and for a moment, staring into the abyss, his implied invitation had far more force than it deserved. I had a father, I had friends, and I had dozens of other relatives. I wasn't the type to slink away and live while countless others suffered or died.

  "It doesn't bother you?" I asked. "Placing your life above others? You get to live, while they die? They don't even get a heads-up?"

  "I wish I could say it didn’t bother me. I wish I could be like my father and brothers – like so many others in my circle – and no care about the foolish masses."

  "We're all going to die anyway. Why sell out people to gain a few more minutes?" It was something I told myself more than once when I risked my life for my buddies in the field. I was never quite sure I believed it, but it gave me the kick in the ass I'd needed at times.

  "Ah, but those precious few minutes," Ellenberg murmured. "How can you measure their value? I'm afraid I'm neither as brave nor stoic nor as good as you are, my young friend."

  "Those are pretty pathetic excuses."

  Ellenberg regarded me with flat, heavy-lidded eyes. "What would you have me do? Make a public announcement? And what happens then?"

  The scenes that bloomed darkly in my mind made me wince.

  "It wouldn't save anyone. Instead, millions, maybe even billions, would die – many of them brutally. Long before the asteroid horseman of the apocalypse arrived, our societies would implode."

  I longed to refute him, but my counterarguments refuted themselves even as they formed on my tongue.

  "Convenient," I grated out.

  "Why are some people born cripples or poor while others are healthy and rich? It's the luck of the draw."

  I pushed to my feet. I had what I wanted.

  "We can't save them, Scott," he said. "Please think about my offer. It comes free of strings."

  "After knowing each other for a few hours."

  "What can I say. No one's ever saved my life before."

  "Good luck, Ethan."

  "You as well, Scott." His voice trailed off sadly. "I hope we meet again."

  I couldn't say that I returned that feeling. I couldn't change back into my clothes quickly enough inside the pool house. Not that Ethan Ellenberg was such a bad guy. At least he had the decency to show some guilt about being one of the Chosen Ones. And I wasn't exactly an altar boy myself, manipulating the hell out of him.

  I wasn't sure if Lilith would be waiting, but I spotted the van a block up the street. For once, I was looking forward to seeing her. Not only to share the interesting news, but to ask a question or two about the four-month time period her dad had mentioned to me. Her response could be interesting.

  Lilith jogged up as I approached the van, looking immaculate, non-sweaty, and ridiculously gorgeous as usual in her shorts and tank top.

  "Just working off my dinner," she said.

  "I'm glad you got something to eat."

  We climbed into the van's front seats.

  "How did it go in there?" she asked.

  "Interesting." I started the engine and the air conditioning. "He claims there's an asteroid headed our way around the first of November."

  "Really?" She sounded surprised.

  "You're telling me your dad's mystery event four months from now isn't that?"

  "No, it isn't that." Her glance at me noted the edge in my voice. "Not that we haven't heard that rumor, but it doesn't check out."

  "Sounds like more than a rumor, considering he and his elite buddies have reservations somewhere safe. I'm guessing underground bunkers."

  "My father and his people have been hearing that for the last several years."

  "Then what was your dad referring
to when he said he thought things would 'come to a head' in a few months?"

  "Some big false flag-type event seems to be in the works for that time period. He just hasn't discovered exactly what it is."

  I caught Highway 29 and steered north toward Brookings.

  "Why are you so sure an asteroid isn't coming? Ellenberg sure seemed convinced."

  "Some of my father's people are astronomers. A few work for the government. They know everything major that's out there. Only one asteroid is coming close in that time frame: CTV44. It's large - roughly a mile long and a half-mile wide, with maybe a quarter-mile diameter. But unless something drastically changes its trajectory, it won't impact Earth."

  "Define close."

  "About two hundred and sixty-three thousand miles."

  I let out a sharp breath of relief. "That doesn't sound that close."

  "In astronomical terms, it's about an inch away. Fortunately, an inch might as well be light years. Its relative velocity to Earth is 25/ms on an opposing trajectory – well beyond Earth's escape velocity - so only a direct intersection would result in impact."

  I allowed myself a larger breath of relief. "You're sure there's nothing else out there?"

  "They map large near-Earth objects very thoroughly. If there's something else coming, no scientist here knows about it, which is extremely improbable. It's not something you could hide from hundreds of independent astronomers all over the world."

  "Then why did someone tell Ethan Ellenberg that?"

  "I don't know. Maybe they want to keep some of their own people in the dark about what's really being planned."

  I tapped the brake hard enough to jolt us both forward as a deer leaped across the highway ahead. Lilith grumbled something about "cockroaches with antlers" under her breath.

  "If an asteroid were coming," she said, "you'd think they would have higher priorities than building shopping malls. And why bother with atmospheric spraying, HAARP, Army drills, militarization of police and government agencies, or military supplies moving all over the country?"

  "I don't know about the chemtrails or HAARP, but I think the detention centers and militarization stuff make sense if a major natural disaster was coming. Wouldn't a large asteroid impact cause a lot of civil unrest?"

  The certainty in Lilith's expression faltered. She scowled.