Cannibal

by Jeremy Robinson

  “That’s got to be the plane we’re looking for.”

  “There are also similar reports out of the Democratic Republic of Congo for the same period, though as you might imagine, those are harder to track down and verify. The people of equatorial Africa are too busy trying to survive to worry about flying saucers and updating their Twitter feeds.”

  Marrs was speechless for several seconds. “Congo. God damn. I was there. I met the bastards. CIA black ops, two of ‘em. A man and a woman. It’s gotta be the same people.”

  “The plane is their vulnerability. You can subpoena the Director of National Intelligence and demand a full accounting of their stealth assets.” He recalled that the directorship was currently vacant, filled by an interim successor since the retirement of long-time CIA head Domenick Boucher. Boucher would have to be subpoenaed as well. The incident in Belgium would have occurred on his watch, which meant he was almost certainly involved in the creation of the rogue unit. “That will open the window and let in the sunlight.”

  “That kind of thing will take time, and that’s something I don’t have right now. That gangster in Mexico wants his pound of flesh, and I don’t think he’s the patient sort.”

  “Here’s some free advice, Senator. You need to cut all ties with Hector Beltran. You don’t need anything he has to offer.”

  “Free advice is worth exactly what it costs,” Marrs snapped. “Besides, this isn’t about him or what he wants. It’s about bringing these bastards down in a very public way. Big and loud. That’s what the Mexican will do for me. But it has to happen now. That’s why I brought you in. I was told that you were the man for the job, but maybe I was told wrong.”

  Parrish considered his reply carefully. His gut was telling him to walk away. Marrs was mercurial and dangerous. It was a wonder his ambition had not already destroyed him. On the other hand, the senator was also almost certainly going to be the next President of the United States, and having the leader of the free world owing you a favor was not something to be taken lightly. He closed his eyes for a moment, already sure of his answer, and now wondering how he would make it happen.

  “Are you still there?” Marrs growled, when the silence stretched out for more than a minute.

  “I am. Very well, Senator. You want big and loud, and you want fast. Are you truly prepared to do whatever it takes to make this happen? Because once I set things in motion, there won’t be any backing out. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes,” Marrs answered, too quickly to have actually considered all the angles. “What’s the plan?”

  Parrish told him.

  14

  Logan International Airport, Boston, Massachusetts

  Over the years, King had endured many long hours traveling from one part of the world to another, but the longest transcontinental flight was nothing compared to the two-hour drive from rural Pinckney to Boston’s Logan International Airport. As they cruised down Interstate 93, with Sara in the back seat, busily sending texts and e-mails from her phone, and Fiona behind the wheel, singing at the top of her lungs to the strangest pop music King had ever heard, there was little for him to do but sit, stare out the window and wince at the occasional missed high note.

  There was a brief respite from the aural assault when they arrived at the airport. He said his good-byes to a clearly pre-occupied Sara, and then headed to the international terminal to wait for George Pierce’s flight to arrive.

  He was looking forward to seeing Pierce again. Theirs was an odd but enduring friendship, punctuated by moments of gut-wrenching grief and suffering. The death of King’s sister—George’s fiancée—had pushed them apart for a while. Pierce had gone on to pursue a career in archaeology, teaching in Europe, while King had enlisted in the Army and ultimately joined the Special Forces, but their paths had crossed unexpectedly when Pierce had discovered the remains of an ancient creature out of legend, only to be abducted by Richard Ridley and subjected to inhuman experiments. King and the Chess Team had rescued him from Ridley’s clutches, and in so doing, initiated Pierce into their very secretive world. Pierce’s unique knowledge had proved invaluable on several occasions thereafter, making him one of the few people outside the cocoon-like environs of Endgame in whom King could confide. Indeed, he had trusted Pierce with a secret to which no one else on Earth—not Sara, not even Deep Blue—was privy.

  Nevertheless, the old wounds could never completely heal. King’s wedding would no doubt be a painful reminder of Julie’s death. Pierce had never married; as far as King knew, he had never even been in a serious relationship after Julie.

  When George finally emerged from the plane and entered the terminal, the initial reunion was brief, and dominated by Fiona, who had a special attachment to ‘Uncle George.’

  “My goodness,” he told her, as he disentangled from her crushing embrace. “Look at you. You’re… What happened to little Fi?”

  “I got my license,” she said, as if that somehow explained everything.

  “Uh, oh.” Pierce glanced at King. “Does that mean she’s driving us?”

  “We’ve survived worse,” King said.

  “Ain’t that the truth.”

  King turned to Fiona. “Go get the car. Meet us out front.”

  Fiona, clearly pleased with the chance to fly solo, hastened away, leaving Pierce and King to catch up. Pierce shook his head as he watched her go. “It doesn’t seem like it’s been that long. What are you feeding her?”

  “She eats everything. It’s hell managing her sugar.” Despite her apparent good health and abundant energy, Fiona Lane, the sole survivor of a devastating attack on the town of Siletz, Oregon, was an insulin-dependent diabetic. As a side project, Lewis Aleman, who had also earned the title, ‘Uncle,’ had designed a very high-tech ‘bionic pancreas’ to augment her insulin pump, but even with the hardware, it was a constant struggle to keep the teenager from indulging in the veritable all-you-can-eat buffet of junk food that was twenty-first century America.

  “Speaking of that,” Pierce said, followed by a somber pause. “What are her plans? School? Career?”

  “Ah, I don’t even like thinking about that.” Fatherhood had been unexpected for King. After plucking Fiona from the ruins of her hometown, he had adopted her and raised her as his own daughter, but the process had been a little like walking in on a movie at the half-way point. He had not watched her grow up from infancy, hadn’t encouraged and cultivated her innate interests from early childhood and he certainly had never thought about the fact that she was moving inexorably toward adulthood and independence. “She talks a lot about getting into a linguistics program. We’re going to try to get her into the Defense Language Institute in Monterey. She can’t enlist because of her diabetes, but I know people who can pull a few strings to get her in as a civilian.” The strangeness of Pierce’s question finally sank in. “Why?”

  “Have you considered letting her study abroad?”

  King stopped in his tracks. “You mean...with you?”

  “You know how special she is, Jack. We’ve only scratched the surface of what she can do.”

  King felt a strange chill come over him. Pierce was right, about everything, and yet the course that his friend was suggesting carried a great deal of risk, and not just for Fiona’s health and happiness.

  Pierce seemed to sense that he had touched a nerve. “We’ve found something unusual, and I think she might be the key to unlocking it. She would be perfectly safe.”

  “We both know there’s no such thing.”

  Pierce inclined his head to cede the point. “As safe as she is with you.”

  “You’re not talking about waiting until after she finishes high school, are you?”

  Pierce shook his head ruefully. “Want to hear about it?”

  “No. When I said I trusted you with this, I meant it.” King sighed. “Well, on the plus side, it might be good for her to get away. See a little more of the world. I think some of the local boys have started to notice
her.”

  “We can’t have that.”

  “I suppose it’s not really up to me, is it? We can talk to her after the wedding, but I’m pretty sure I already know what she’ll say.”

  Pierce nodded then clapped King on the shoulder. “It’s good to see you again, Jack. Now, isn’t there a party waiting for us?”

  “First we have to make it back to Endgame alive.”

  “Is her driving that bad?”

  “Her driving is the least of it. Have you heard what passes for music these days?”

  15

  Pinckney, New Hampshire

  Beltran had accepted his part in the plan without question. Parrish thought that he had actually appeared a little too eager during their Skype video-conference, which had left Parrish feeling unsettled, and that was a rare thing for him. He had dealt with all manner of criminals, and he knew that, aside from possessing some areas of moral ambiguity, most were not that much different from ordinary ‘righteous folk.’ But there were those rare exceptions—people who possessed no sense of morality whatsoever. Sociopaths and predators, who made him believe that there really was such a thing as evil in the world. Beltran was definitely in that category. The man was also obviously very intelligent, and not just in the canny ‘street smart’ way that many criminals were. The cartel lord was a force to be reckoned with. Parrish was not looking forward to actually meeting the man, but it was necessary to the plan.

  The plan—Parrish’s plan—was already gathering momentum, a freight train about to crest the hill. If Beltran had kept the schedule, then the first part of it was already done, and it would be hitting the news at any moment. Provoking the desired response would be a little trickier, but Parrish’s research into the Congo incident—hushed rumors of a small but elite group of American operators who had stopped a civil war and restored order to the DR Congo—had left him confident of success. They would take the bait. They would be unable to resist.

  Tracking down former CIA director Domenick Boucher had been an unexpected challenge. Unlike most men of his ilk, Boucher had not left public service for a much more lucrative job as a defense industry lobbyist or a foreign policy pundit. Instead, he had, at least to all appearances, literally retired to a cabin in the woods. Parrish had contacts in the Company who might be able to shed some light on what had become of the former director, but he didn’t dare approach them with direct inquiries. Boucher could not be allowed to know that someone was looking for him. In the end, Parrish had found what he needed by posing as a literary agent interested in brokering a deal for Boucher to write a memoir of his service. Boucher’s former friends had been only too happy to point him in the direction of the retired CIA director’s new home, on the edge of the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire, in a sleepy little hamlet called Pinckney.

  Pinckney, it turned out, was a very unusual town. Parrish had run a search on several UFO forums hoping to find a reported sighting of the stealth plane, but instead he had found numerous references to some mysterious event in 2009. It read like something from a Stephen King novel, with weird science experiments, tales of monsters and a lot of explosions. Several people claimed to have been eyewitnesses to the incident, yet local news reports attributed the entire incident to a toxic chemical leak. Parrish smelled a cover up, and after just a few casual inquiries, he had learned about the secret history of Pinckney, New Hampshire.

  It was a strong circumstantial case, but what he did have was an explicit connection to Boucher.

  It was just after dusk when he arrived in the small town just off Route 27. Parrish consulted his GPS unit and saw that his destination—the address he had been given for Boucher—lay just ahead. It was not a house, as he had anticipated, but a large, privately operated campground, something called the Pinckney Bible Conference Grounds, if the painted wooden sign was to be believed.

  “Guess he got religion,” Parrish murmured, as he pulled his car into the gravel parking lot beside the front office. A chalkboard on the wall under the eaves by the door listed upcoming events and their locations. There was a private party already in progress, a wedding scheduled for the upcoming Saturday and some kind of convention celebrating the work of a popular thriller novelist. Parrish recognized the author’s name; the guy wrote books about giant monsters and weird shit like that. Evidently, the people who operated the resort weren’t too picky about who they allowed to use the facilities.

  As he skirted the office and walked along an unpaved road called ‘Hallelujah Lane,’ Parrish felt a rising sense of apprehension. The area was densely wooded, but through the trees he could see rustic cabins, most of which appeared to be shuttered tightly, awaiting the arrival of the tourist season. There were too many possibilities, and there was no way of narrowing them down. A search like this might take several days of painstaking surveillance, casually plying the locals with indirect questions. He now felt the momentum of his plan bearing down on him. If he didn’t find Boucher soon, the window of opportunity would slam shut.

  At the intersection of Hallelujah Lane and Praise Street, he could hear music playing in the distance, no doubt from the private party mentioned on the event calendar. Crashing the party would be risky, but maybe one of the revelers would let something slip after a few beers. He wandered down Praise Street toward the sound, but as he got close enough to make out the silhouettes moving against the orange glow of a well-fueled fire-pit, a bright light flashed in his face.

  He threw up a hand to shade his eyes, resisting a reflexive urge to dive for cover in the woods. “What the—? Get that thing out of my face.”

  The light lowered, but the damage to his night vision was already done. He could still see the flashlight, but the person holding it was virtually invisible in the near total blackness. “Can I help you find something, sir?” inquired a voice that, to Parrish’s practiced ear, sounded disingenuously cheerful.

  “I’m on my way to the party,” Parrish snapped.

  “It’s a private party, sir,” The man’s tone was abruptly as hard and cold as steel. “And you aren’t on the guest list.”

  Parrish felt a rush of adrenaline in his veins. He had made a big mistake in trying to bluff his way into the party, but his instincts told him that he was close to finding what he was looking for.

  “Not on the list?” He affected umbrage. “Listen, I paid my registration fee six months ago. My name better be on the damned list.”

  “Registration?” There was doubt in the voice now.

  “Yes. For the convention. I came all the way from Phoenix.”

  “Sir, this party has nothing to do with any convention. You must have the wrong event.”

  Parrish did his best to look crestfallen. “You’re kidding. I paid my registration. I’ve been looking forward to this all year.”

  “You can inquire at the office. I’m sure they’ll be able to help you.”

  “The office.” Parrish nodded gratefully. “I’ll do that. Thank you.”

  His eagerness to end the encounter was not an act. The man that had accosted him was evidently some kind of security guard, which in itself was not that strange, but the way in which he had intercepted Parrish was very telling. The man wasn’t just some local rent-a-cop.

  Parrish retraced his steps to Hallelujah Lane without glancing back, but when he was half-way back to the front office, he ducked into the woods behind a bookstore that looked like a small church. He waited there, expecting the guard, or possibly an entire security team, to descend on him, but nothing of the sort happened. Nevertheless, with painstaking caution, he began moving through the woods, following a course that was roughly parallel to Praise Street. His trek brought him to an unoccupied cabin, and he scrambled up onto its rickety roof. Using a small but powerful monocular, he managed to catch a glimpse of the private party where he was now certain he would find Domenick Boucher.

  He peered through the lens for several minutes before finally spotting one of the attendees—a big man with short blond ha
ir and a long goatee. Parrish thought the guy looked like he belonged in a biker gang. For a moment he wondered if he had misinterpreted the significance of the encounter with the flashlight-wielding guard. But then he saw more figures moving through his very limited field of view, and one of them was definitely the former CIA director.

  Parrish’s breath caught in his throat as he recognized the man with whom Boucher was speaking. Without waiting for further confirmation, he dug out his phone and called Marrs.

  When the senator picked up, there was no trace of his earlier surliness. Instead, he seemed to be eagerly champing at the bit. “Well?”

  “I found him.”

  “Then it’s time?”

  “Yes. But listen, Boucher is here with someone else.” He allowed a dramatic pause. “President Duncan.”

  Marrs was speechless for several seconds. “That can’t be. Boucher is the one who helped me take Duncan down.”

  “Well, they appear to be thick as thieves now. Is it possible that they might have played you, Senator? The whole affair with Duncan’s resignation might have been a diversion to hide what they were really up to.”

  “That’s absurd. Duncan was the President of the United States. You don’t just give that up.”

  You might not, Parrish thought, but didn’t say. Duncan was a former soldier, and a strategic thinker. He wouldn’t have given up the Oval Office unless it was for something he thought was even more important. “Whatever they’re up to, we’re about to pull back the curtain on it. Make the call now.”

  16

  Manteo, North Carolina

  The drive from Pitt-Greenville Airport, where the chartered Lear Jet dropped her off, to the Dare County Hospital took nearly as long as the flight itself, but there were no closer airports that could accommodate the small jet aircraft. Sara did not mind the drive itself. She actually preferred being in a car, even a rental, to air travel, where all too often there was an overabundance of strange smells and sounds. What bothered her was the simple fact that the patients were still at the rural hospital where they had first been diagnosed. There was no valid reason, at least none she could think of, for critically ill patients to remain in a facility that was not equipped to provide the kind of treatment they might need. She intended to make resolving that issue the first order of business when she met with the hospital administrator.