Maker Messiah

by Ed Miracle

  “Don’t tread on me,” Cardoza frothed.

  Parker confronted him. “Where’s Tiffany Lavery?”

  Cardoza worked a lump out of his cheek and spat it aside. “Called herself Gina Borden. We knew who she was, though. Marie and me took her in so she wouldn’t get hurt.” He twisted to Ms. Lavery. “She got the call this morning, ma’am, and wanted to go right away. But I made her wait. Sent her up with my Marie, with some food and stuff, before the Tories came shooting. Your daughter’s a fine, hard-working gal, ma’am.”

  Surprise raced relief through Ms. Lavery. “Where?”

  Cardoza jolted, incredulous.

  Parker bent closer.“Where’d they go, Mr. Cardoza?”

  His good eye shifted, perverse and amused.

  Ms. Lavery lunged at the prisoner, but Nedra restrained her. Noticing the prison coveralls and lack of handcuffs, Nedra frowned. But Parker was kneeling before the rancher.

  “She’s just a kid, Mr. Cardoza.” Parker touched his arm. “She has her whole life ahead of her. Philip Machen is the single most-hunted man on the planet. The vigilantes know Tiffany is close with him. They will hunt her like a rabid dog. We can protect her and your wife, but only if we reach them before the vigilantes do.” He produced a switch knife and slit the tape binding Cardoza’s arms. “Help us protect them before it’s too late.”

  “Like you’re protecting Ms. Lavery, here?” Cardoza’s eye flickered, no longer amused. He huffed more spittle and swallowed it, then leaned toward Ms. Lavery. “Jail or death? Prisoner or victim? Those ain’t choices, ma’am. Those are sentences.”

  Karen Lavery dodged Nedra, seized the man’s chair, and toppled him.

  “I want her back, damn you! All this blood—don’t you see? There’s no freedom here, no safety. I want my daughter alive.”

  Nedra dragged her back. Parker helped Cardoza from the floor. Behind them, the window curtains riffled on a breeze that flipped bits of glass into the steel sink. Cardoza sat again and rocked back and forth, gathering himself.

  “Get me to my truck,” he said. “I’ll take you where your FBI buddies can’t go, Ms. Lavery. They’re on Mt. Diablo, helping Philip Machen.”

  From one blank face to another he glared in disgust. “Why do you suppose this valley is crawling with troops and helicopters? They’re not here to stop the Tories, or to protect us poor, dumb taxpayers. They’ve come to get him.”

  This and Nedra’s stare struck Parker like a blast. The heat, the dust, the stench of battle hit him full force, just as a window-rattling commotion passed over the house.

  Nedra swept the curtains clear in time for everyone to glimpse a helicopter landing near the charcoal barn. The chopper was an older model, silvery blue, with civilian markings.

  Parker squinted at Nedra. “You going to the mountain?”

  She shook her head. “Oakland PD wants my team for a hostage situation at City Hall. Believe it or not, we’ve been ordered to stay away from the mountain. It’s all military over there. You and I are taking this guy to a hospital.”

  After Nedra’s SWAT team departed in the helicopter, Parker drove her and her prisoner to Stanford/ValleyCare Hospital in Pleasanton. Nedra glared, steamed to the color of her hair, when he left her there without a car. But he was pissed too. She had shut him out and gone along with Derek Majers’ battering-ram tactics. What did she think she was doing? What did she think he was doing?

  No one seemed in control of anything today. Everyone seemed scattered and disorganized, including himself. Driving north to Mt. Diablo, however, he had larger concerns—to find Philip Machen and protect Tiffany Lavery.

  He kept Ms. Lavery occupied with navigation while he drove. Though Mt. Diablo State Park covered thirty square miles, only two narrow roads led into it. Without the GPS in her Cambiar, they would never have found the south entrance nestled in the fringes of rural Danville.

  Mature cottonwoods cast wavering shadows over the Athenian School where a California National Guard roadblock stopped them. A grim private, manning the turret of his Humvee, swiveled a machine gun their way. To the right, in a parched soccer field, more troops loitered among their bulky, sand-colored vehicles.

  Parker displayed his badge and ID for the young sergeant who approached.

  “Sorry, sir, this road is closed. No exceptions.”

  “Sergeant, your boss is the state governor. Mine is the president of the United States. I am here on federal business involving the national security. I would appreciate your cooperation.”

  “I believe you, sir, and I’m sorry, but President Washburn nationalized us at fourteen hundred hours today to enforce martial law. My orders are to have that gentleman over there blow your heads off if you do not immediately depart this area. Do you understand me, sir?”

  “Let me speak to your officer in charge.”

  The sergeant said something into his radio and backed away.

  Behind him, the machine gun pivoted and loosed five rounds into a weedy patch. Everyone winced, including the sergeant, who trotted for cover. Up the road, a dozen troops aimed their weapons as the machine gun swiveled back toward Parker.

  He dipped his head, displayed all ten fingers on the steering wheel.

  “Don’t say anything. Don’t do anything,” he told Ms. Lavery. He put the shifter in reverse and turned the Ford around.

  “But we have to get her out of there,” she said.

  FORTY-FIVE

  Everett and Marcy spent the morning bailing General Johnson out of Alameda County jail in Dublin. After lunch they were circling San Leandro at 500 feet, recording a street skirmish, when Philip Machen surprised Marcy with an angry Cambiar call. Coalinga was not a faulty Powerpod, he said. It was government terrorism. But then he mentioned an injured astronaut was landing right now at San Jose Mineta, which didn’t make sense. Marcy told him they couldn’t get there in time to scoop the story, so she would alert some media friends.

  “He sounds terrible,” she said after hanging up. “Drunk or something.” She called a friend about the astronaut, then checked her text messages.

  “Head for Pleasanton, Everett. Snipers are blocking the 580/680 Interchange. Governor Alvarez is sending troops.”

  Everett turned eastward and climbed into a new Temporary Flight Restriction zone that covered most of the East Bay. But so what? His licenses no longer mattered. Just as fuel and spare parts no longer worried him, rules and red tape had lost their urgency. Along with narrow job descriptions, not enough money, and pleasing the Friggin’ Man. Flying Marcy around to report stuff made way more sense than any of that.

  Up front, she was checking her messages. “Parachutes,” she said.

  “Where?”

  “Somebody landed on Mt. Diablo. We’ll check it out after the freeway.”

  As the 580/680 Interchange hove into view, Marcy raised her camera and began narrating. After one sweep she said, “I don’t get it. Nobody’s clearing the snipers.”

  Everett continued east, where they discovered troops, helicopters, and armored vehicles assembled at Camp Parks, the defunct training base east of Dublin.

  “What are they waiting for?” she said. “What about the freeways?”

  She aimed her camera at Mt. Diablo, and Everett banked left, away from the troops and toward the mountain. Buzzards, dozens of them, circled its summit.

  “Something’s very dead over there,” he said.

  “Look out!” Marcy ducked.

  Three black shapes flashed by in a perfect chevron formation. Drones, UAVs, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, not buzzards. They returned and zoomed alongside like great, metallic ravens, each one as big as a man. The ravens slowed to match speed, while their unblinking eyes took the measure of GG. Everett jinked upward, and the ravens followed, never breaking formation. In fact, they drew closer. Marcy saw it, too, the decals.

  “Cambiar,” she said.

  Everett banked right, then hard left, trying to shake them. The narrow gap between the ravens and his right
wingtip never varied by more than a meter. On impulse, he broke sharply and accelerated for the mountain. Immediately, the lead raven raced ahead and nudged him back to his previous course.

  “They’re guarding the mountain,” he said. “I do believe they will ram us if we try that again.”

  Having made its point, the enforcer rejoined its formation. Marcy scanned them again, then focused on the mountain.

  “More of them over there,” she said. “Nothing on the ground, though. Antenna towers, a couple of buildings, an empty parking lot. The rest is rocks and bushes.”

  The ravens peeled away, back toward the mountain, and out of sight. Marcy scanned the suburban streets ahead.

  “There,” she said. “Army tank.” She adjusted her camera while Everett maneuvered for a better angle. He idled the engine, added flaps, and hung suspended over Bishop Ranch Business Park. Marcy’s tank proved to be a Bradley troop carrier, not a battle tank, but its chain gun could obliterate almost anything. Another Bradley rolled east among the Mercedes and BMWs headed into the upscale neighborhoods that spread toward the mountain.

  “Whoa,” he said. A military helicopter, a serious-looking Apache, caught him by surprise. It popped from defilade behind a slope and came straight toward them. Everett dumped his flaps and shoved full throttle.

  “Hang on,” he called. Then he yanked the nose up sharply. The big Sikorski tried to match his climb but could not.

  “Time for speed,” he announced. He leveled off and rolled south, away from San Ramon and the mountain, toward Jesse Cardoza’s ranch. His fuel gauge was hovering near empty, and he didn’t bother to look back. GG could easily outrun this guy.

  “Nobody likes us today,” he said.

  “The Army’s not here to open the freeway,” Marcy decided. “They’re here for the mountain, for whatever those bird-things are protecting.” She twisted in her seat. “Philip Machen, do you think?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I saw one of those UAVs before, on the Biography Channel. It looked like a big model airplane ‘cause it was hanging on the wall at his ranch.”

  He spotted another helicopter, distant in the east, heading toward them. He descended and banked away, raising a complaint from the front seat.

  “More company,” he explained, “and we’re out of gas.”

  The ranch was only four miles farther. At one hundred feet above the ground, they buzzed I-580, several yeehaws queuing in his throat. Whatever violations he might be committing, screaming along on the deck was major fun.

  Their newest pursuer was angling to intercept, so he had to choose. If he popped high, they might anticipate his landing spot and squat in Jesse’s field, forcing him away. Already the chopper had swung between them and the Livermore airport. Staying low, he could land before it intervened, though recalling Jesse’s bailer, he preferred to eyeball the ground first. Once more he idled the engine, set flaps, and was reaching for the landing gear switch when a column of smoke caused him to pull up and overfly the ranch. Upwind of a smoldering barn, three men with rifles were torching Jesse’s house.

  Everett added power and turned east. There was nothing he could do to stop them. Marcy twisted in her seat, alarmed. But with the military dogging them, there would be no fuel here or in Livermore, not without questions, confiscations, maybe arrests. They’d be grounded, for sure. Their only options lay inland, in the big valley, where they might find a Maker to use. The one-gallon fuel canister he carried for emergencies might be their only hope of staying free. As if it had read his mind, GG’s low-fuel alarm squawked and blinked red: twenty pounds left.

  Everett established a gradual, fuel-efficient climb, and angled east, crossing the Altamont ridge away from the airports at Livermore and Tracy. At 4,000 feet, GG’s fan-jet flamed out and coasted to silence.

  “Congratulations,” he announced, “you are now soaring in a sailplane: Engineless flight for the discerning traveler. Please remain seated, and thank you for choosing Air Aboud.”

  He trimmed for maximum lift, gained some altitude as their airspeed dropped to fifty knots. Behind them, the helicopter was closing fast, an older Blackhawk. Ahead, a clear summer sky offered no thermals or updrafts to keep them aloft. Their best hope was to stretch their descent another twenty miles.

  GG jostled over the Altamont wind farms and soared across undulating yellow grasses, headed for the orchards and hay fields of the Sacramento River delta. They needed to land away from the cops and the crazies, and especially away from the soldiers.

  As they whistled past two perfectly good runways at Byron, Marcy said, “Hello. The engine is dead. Please tell me you’re not trying to prove something.”

  “We are still in their damn Flight Restriction zone,” he said. “Even if folks are friendly down there, they won’t let us take off again. Not with these guys around.”

  A dove-gray Sikorski drew alongside, fifty feet away. Through its open side door, someone was video recording them. Marcy responded in kind, aiming her little Sony.

  “They have a machine gun,” she said.

  “Tell me if they shoot.”

  He switched his Nav display from the sectional chart to a satellite photo, which he enlarged and scanned. What he needed would not be on the charts. It had to be—there, beside that road. “Hold on,” he warned, and he careened downward in a spiral. “Do you see it?”

  “Everything’s spinning,” she said, but she sighted down the left wing toward the bare patch of earth he was circling. “That little thing?”

  “It’s a duster strip,” he said. “Aggies use them all the time.” He lowered his landing gear and tightened the spiral.

  “Getting dizzy,” she shrieked.

  He straightened, and GG plummeted like a hawk. He popped the flaps at one hundred feet. Buoyancy resumed, and the wheels struck with a bump and a shimmy. They jostled to a stop in a swirl of dust.

  “Welcome to nowhere.” He opened the canopy, jazzed as a caffeinated canary. “First class passengers may now deplane.”

  The big Sikorsky orbited twice, an angry hornet deciding whether to sting or to bite. It whined and whopped and stirred billows of dust, then clattered away, westbound.

  Marcy got out and began swatting him.

  “Thank you for not killing us, oh Brilliant One.”

  He corralled her hands. The fun was over. “We need to call Jesse.”

  She met his eyes, now full of trouble. He remained seated and keyed his Cambiar. The number rang six times before switching to voicemail.

  “We saw the fire,” he said. “Hope you’re okay. Call me when you can.” He put the phone away and rubbed his face. “Not good.”

  Marcy squeezed his shoulder.

  “Thank you,” she said. “For not killing us.” She kissed his forehead. “I hope your friends are okay.”

  None too stable, he stepped from the cockpit and regarded the Cambiar in her hand. “We can’t help Jesse, but if you-know-who is over there—” He cocked his head toward the mountain.

  She scrolled through her index, pressed the name, and nodded when it connected.

  “Hello, sir. Marcy Johnson from WebNews. Thanks for the tip about the astronaut. I thought you might be nearby.”

  She bit her lip, nodded, and pointed to the mountain. “If you would, sir, we would like—Yes, sir. I understand.” She shook her head. “I’d surely like to be there when—” She stiffened, frowned, lowered the phone. “Damn.”

  “He’s surrendering tomorrow,” she said. “Thinks the local sheriff will protect him. Doesn’t want us there.”

  Everett snatched her phone, pressed Redial, and waited for it to ring through.

  “Ms. Johnson,” the familiar voice answered, “It’s too dangerous here—”

  “The Army will block your sheriff,” Everett said. “Guaranteed. They know you’re on Mt. Diablo, and they are going to take you when and where they want. Local law won’t have a say in it. We have your airplane. Let us help you.”

  “Mr. Aboud.” His v
oice came sketchy, breathless. “Good to hear from you.”

  “There won’t be a trial,” Everett said. “They won’t dare let you speak.”

  “Then don’t come. They’ll arrest you too. I need you to help the others.”

  Everett squinted and shook his head.

  “We’re not Freemakers,” he said. “Not Tories either. We’re journalists.”

  “I need you to show everyone how to—”

  “Don’t make it easy for them. We have a camera and an uplink. We can feed your situation live to the internet, give you millions of eyewitnesses.”

  Machen fell silent, or else the connection dropped. “Hello?”

  “Write this down.”

  Everett patted his pockets, appealed to Marcy.

  Marcy produced a pen, and Everett said, “Go.”

  “Six a.m. tomorrow. Transponder code four-one-seven-seven. Furies will escort you to the summit parking lot. Tanner will meet you there. Good luck on your landing.”

  Everett wrote the numbers on his hand as the connection clicked off. He returned Marcy’s pen and phone.

  “They’re called Furies,” he said. “His drones.” Then he explained the arrangement.

  “I thought you didn’t want to get involved.”

  He shrugged, a bit off-balance.

  “The guy’s not perfect,” he said, “but he’s not killing people. We need to stop the ones who are.”

  She considered this for a moment, then said, “Fuel.” She nodded to the only civilization in sight, a three-chimney McMansion, secure on its pad of bare earth, fenced by rabbit wire.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  He jerked his seat cushion loose, and from under it, retrieved a squat red canister. Marcy tugged it out of his hands, suddenly skeptical of his jeans and T-shirt.

  “You, they won’t trust. Better to send a famous internet reporter.”

  Everett fingered the replacement Seacamp pistol, snug in his hip pocket.