by C. F. WALLER
“Yes, but I am sure the FAA is erring on the side of safety,” Hal contends.
“Big Bear,” Katz recommends, then pulls away from the curb, circling onto Pioneer Road. “Get a plane there, it’s like two hours from here.”
“You know Agent Katz, you’re practically a one-woman GPS,” Kara smirks.
“Go,” Hal orders, pulling out his phone.
We wind through city streets, eventually hopping on the 210. Lights on long poles break up the hazy sky at regular intervals. Kara pecks away, but I push the lid down on the laptop, deciding that picking at Darius isn’t a priority at present. I lean against the door and try to sleep. How involved is John? I feel the slightest bit guilty, but can’t decide why. No matter how deeply he’s involved, the priority is the smallpox. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one, or something like that.
Chapter Thirty-four
We get permission to drive right out on the tarmac at Big Bear. Hal pulls me aside, walking me away from the car where Kara sleeps across the backseat.
“This place got any coffee?”
“She can’t go,” he whispers, a hand on my forearm. “She’s been great, but this is the end of the road.”
“I know.”
“You want to get on board and let me tell her?” he asks in what feels like a decent gesture.
“No,” I shake my head, shrugging off his touch. “It’s better coming from me.”
He nods.
“You going to take her laptop?”
“Should we?”
“Absolutely, but don’t,” I advise, walking back to the car. “We might need her.”
“To be honest, I have been considering putting her on lock-down until we sort this out.”
“You’re worried she will talk to someone?”
“What do you think?” he whispers, looking at the open car door.
“She’s cool. I don’t think she’s the type to blab.”
“Still, I’m going to put a guy on her to make sure.”
“She’ll ditch him the first chance she gets.”
“Still, I’d feel safer keeping an eye on her,” he shrugs, rubbing his bald head. “Do you think Darius will try and hurt her?”
“I doubt it,” I offer, but ponder this possibility. “That sort of move wouldn’t advance his game play.”
“Fair enough. Wake her up and give her the news. We need to keep moving.”
At the car, I open the back door and slip into my spot, one foot on the pavement. Kara rolls over, but doesn’t wake up. I understand why taking her along is a bad idea, which is why I didn’t argue with Hal. The problem is, I have circled around and find myself back at saying goodbye. I watch as she rubs the back of her hand over her nose, then shudders, some dream induced flinch. In the past six years, I have cultivated zero friendships. I met a few guys, hung out with a few women, but no one I would call a friend. If I decide to move on from this point and start a new life, do I need or want a friend. Am I truly over my murder-suicide thoughts or are they on pause?
“Are we here,” she yawns, sitting up and licking her lips.
“Yeah, we just got here.”
“Awesome,” she smiles, eyes still flickering from sleep. “Let me get my stuff together.”
“Kara, you can’t go.”
She doesn’t reply, just pauses to let the words sink in.
“This isn’t a huge government conspiracy thing anymore. This is me and Hal and a few Aussies playing a long shot.”
“But I am part of the team,” she whines. “I helped you get this far. Without me you guys would have nothing.”
“That’s absolutely true, but there isn’t any reason for you to fly to Australia just to sit on the plane. Besides, if the laptop’s here it will appear as if I am here. Stay here and keep an eye out.”
“For what,” she complains, a tear forming in the corner of one eye.
“You’re the only one who can see the game map,” I suggest, pointing at the laptop. “Keep an eye on Darius and if he starts something give Hal a call.”
“But not you? I report to Hal now?”
“Hey, you wanted to be on the team. Teams have leaders.”
“What then?” she sniffles, trying to look angry, but watery eyed and sad instead. “Will you call me when it’s over. Let me know what happened?”
“Absolutely, you’ll know the minute I do.”
“Alright,” she agrees. “When you get back we can hang out and you can share the details.”
“Yeah,” I stutter, but she notices the pause.
“Oh, wait, this is goodbye Kara. Thanks for all your hard work Kara. Go back to the Dairy Queen Kara. You’re not one of us Kara.”
Whether this is the case of not, I myself have not decided. After a moment, to relive the past few weeks, I choose to do the right thing. It’s about time someone did.
“Gimmie your hand,” I demand, but she frowns and holds it back. “Give me your hand.”
She holds it out and I pull an ink pen from my blazer and click the end. After returning her scowl with the same, I write the last four digits of my old social security number on her palm.
“What the hell is this supposed to be?” she croaks, jerking her hand back.
“Here,” I pull out my bank card. “That’s the pin number for my bank account. Take this, go home and move out of your mother’s house. Do whatever you want there’s plenty of money.”
“You’re trying to buy me off?”
“No dummy,” I shove the card into her hand. “I’m telling you to relax until I get back.”
“And you’ll call me?” she begs, clutching the card in both hands.
“As long as your holding my card you can count on it,” I assure her, then pause, trying to find something else to talk about. “You never told me how you won the ten grand. How did you get the other guy to quit?”
“It came down to just the two of us. I had his capitol surrounded—.”
“So, it was a Domination Victory?”
“Yeah, it would have been, but I just laid siege to his capitol, then wiped out his other cities one by one.”
“Wouldn’t the game have ended if you took the capitol?”
“Sure, but instead I spent the next four hours burning every city on the map to the ground. After that, I just sat with my troops around his capitol watching the turns click by.”
“Why not just finish him off and collect your prize?”
“I was making a point.”
“To who?”
“Elliott Weiss.”
“The guy who got up and quit was Weiss?”
“Yes, four players made the final game, but they added Weiss as the fifth player at the last minute, then changed the rules.”
“To what?”
“You had to beat Weiss to actually get the money.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Agreed, they didn’t want to pay, so I kept him sitting there for eight extra hours to make a point,” she grins. “I’d have kept him there indefinitely, but the heckling from the crowd got to him.”
“There was a crowd?”
“Yeah, a couple hundred hard core gamers were watching on huge screens.”
“Is this why Weiss accused you of cheating?” I ask, thinking back to the previous conversation between them.
“I played 20 hours a day for a week to make the final game, then they chuck Weiss in there and change the rules. I didn’t use the backdoor until they tried to rob everyone. Ten grand was a drop in the bucket to a huge company like that, but they just couldn’t play fair.”
“And you think Weiss had something to do with it?”
“Eh, probably not,” she huffs, shrugging. “But he agreed to play, knowing full well what Dyna-motion was doing.”
“Making him complicit.”
She nods, twisting her lips into a scowl.
“Seems like you made your point,” I suggest. “Why did Dyna-motion include you in the beta for Dyn
asty Evolved if you bitch slapped him so publicly?”
“They wanted the game to be the best. To be the best, you have to beat the best.”
“And you’re the best,” I chuckle.
She taps her finger on the end of her nose, then points it at me.
“We need to go,” Hal shouts from behind us.
“Don’t get killed,” Kara advises.
“I’ll make every effort not to.” I vow, then slip out of the car and join Hal by the Gulfstream.
“Good luck,” she shouts.
I nod, then climb the stairs without looking back. There are so many moving parts to my life. I’ve got Hal, Kara, John and worldwide destruction on my plate now. I should have shot myself in the head when I had the chance.
Chapter Thirty-five
“Stacy, wake up,” my late husband Glen begs.
“No.”
“Come on Boo-Peep,” he badgers, using his pet name for me. “Jessie is already up. Hop in the shower already.”
“No, no, no,” I shake my head, refusing to let go of my pillow.
“I know you don’t want to make Jessie late for soccer practice,” he chuckles.
“No,” I sob, trying to wake from this nightmare. “Go away, just stop.”
A hand jerks me over roughly, bright lights invading my nightmare.
“Rise and shine,” Katz pesters me. “Let’s go, we’re burning sunlight.”
My eyes focus slowly as I blink repeatedly. I force myself to a seated position on the narrow leather couch. The nightmare was so real. Sunlight pours in the oval windows of the Gulfstream like laser beams. Katz stands, arms crossed over her chest.
“Who’s Glen?”
“Excuse me,” I groan, shaking off the cobwebs.
“Glen, you been mumbling his name for an hour.”
I’m surprised she doesn’t know my life story. Apparently, she hasn’t seen my file. Nice to know Hal has some discretion.
“It’s nothing,” I cough into my hand, then push off the couch scanning the interior for my blazer.
Two rows back, I spot it and fight to get it on. Katz steps back to the cockpit door so I can pass through on the way out. The tiny staircase has a rail, and I ride it with both hands until I hit the tarmac. The dreams are coming back. Will the suffocating urge to do something bad follow?
The sun light is blistering, the sky cloudless. I fish a pair of dark sunglasses, bummed off a guy working on the ground crew at Big Bear, out of my inside pocket. I have to hook my tangled hair over one ear to get them straight on my face. Once my eyes adjust, Katz points at a golf cart parked to one side of the staircase.
“What did they find out about the money?”
“Untraceable, but he got a little over ten million. Seems like they over-payed for a guy to head up a dive boat for a month.”
“I doubt they were going to pay that much, but it sounds about right for Darius.”
“That’s what Hal thought. Hop on,” she directs, pointing. “This guy will take you to Hal.”
“What about the boat?”
“Yeah, bought it last week. Paid cash, got all the licenses from the government and such.”
“Sounds like we had this pegged.”
“Yup, get on,” she points at the golf cart again.
“Not hanging around?”
“Why, will you miss me?”
“A little.”
“Try not to get killed,” Katz offers, before disappearing back into the jet.
“Quite a few people are offering me that advice lately.”
The man in the golf cart sits waiting. When I climb in, he points at the double cup holder on the tiny dashboard. The two foam cups imprinted with the Starbucks green insignia bleed steam out tiny holes in the lids. The one on my side has Pita written in black marker.
“She likes me,” I mumble, getting in the cart. “I know she does.”
Once I take the cup, he starts off across the sun backed tarmac. I resist the urge to sip on the coffee, as the cart runs along, hitting a crack every so often. I’d prefer not to burn myself. We drive for five minutes, then turn and cut between two hangars. On the backside, it reveals an open space with several small private planes lined up along a chain link fence. One is a Cessna and I cringe, thinking of Clay. The hand hitting the Lexan still haunts me. His wife got the same life wrecking phone call I once did.
On the right side of the space, Hal chats with a man in a tan suit jacket. When I dismount the golf cart, they remain locked in conversation. Hal notices me and puts up a finger, so I pause. Having stopped a discreet distance away, I remove the lid and blow across the top. On the other side of the lot, two men begin opening the back of a trailer, which looks like an enormous horse carrier. I watch as they pry open a set of double doors and swing them open. A red propeller faces out, but the plane would appear to have no wings. The men slide along the cramped sides and begin unhooking straps.
“Lydia,” Hal barks, waving me over. “I want to introduce you to someone.”
I walk backwards, still watching the men in the trailer. When I turn about Hal and the mystery man wait impatiently. The tan suit I observed earlier is almost safari wear. It looks like a fancy Italian suit, but is made from light weight cotton. It is bloody hot out.
“Let me introduce you to Perry Goodson,” Hal begins.
“My pleasure,” he steps forward, holding out his well-manicured hand.
“Lydia,” I reply, shaking.
“Delightful.”
Perry pulls a business card out of his jacket pocket and offers it, as if the gesture should be appreciated. I nod and take it, slipping it in my pocket.
“Are we settled then,” Hal asks, returning his attention to the new comer.
“Yes, I do believe we are,” he replies. “I will hold your deposit until the item is returned.”
“Understood. Are you sure we can’t come to a more suitable agreement on the pilot?”
“Quite, the owner is adamant that his man do the flying.”
Hal frowns.
“I was promised that he had combat experience,” Perry assures us. “He’s certainly an energetic fellow.”
“Nearly as old as the plane.”
“Yes, well, that might prove to your advantage.”
“Let’s hope so,” Hal sighs, then offers a hand to Perry.
They shake, then Perry nods in my direction, before climbing into the golf cart. Once he’s gone, Hal and I observe the two men pushing an antique plane out of the trailer and down a ramp composed of two long boards.
“Who was that guy?”
“He’s in the business of acquisitions.”
“He find you the plane?” I point with my coffee, at the wingless antique.
“Yes, Mitsubishi A6M2.”
“You couldn’t afford the wings?”
“Folding wingtips,” he points out. “The ones that launched off Japanese carriers folded up so they could store them below deck.”
I tilt my head sideways, then understand that they are folded up in a horizontal position. How did I miss that?
“Japanese?”
“Yeah, Mitsubishi A6M2. Better known as a Zero.”
“Get it from the Smithsonian or something?”
“Auckland War Memorial Museum.”
“A lot of them laying around?”
“All total, the Japanese produced just over ten-thousand, but virtually all of them were lost in the war.”
“Nice of them to loan it to you.”
“Rented is more accurate.”
“Sounded like a pretty stiff late fee,” I chuckle, thinking of his conversation with Mr. Goodson.
“It’s quite expensive if you consider it a rental, but very affordable as an outright purchase.”
“Planning on keeping it?”
“Not at all, but Perry suggested his price was a steal if I framed it that way.”
“He know something we don’t?”
“The gross tonnage of what Perry kn
ows, that we don’t, would sink a tanker.”
We watch as the men lower the wings. A white panel truck pulls up next to the Zero and two more men begin unloading crates. The plane’s painted a dark green with huge red circles on the wings, probably a historically accurate paint job. It was in a museum after all.
“What was all that about the pilot?”
“We wanted one of our people to fly it, but the owner has his own guy. He was only willing to let us borrow it if his man did the flying.”
“Who’s the guy?”
“Kiwi, but was Air Force over here.”
“He have any dogfighting experience?”
“He’s retired a Major with thirty-five years of service.”
“Doesn’t really answer the question,” I point out, then pause. “How old is this guy?”
“They won’t say, but at least sixty.”
“Is that a problem?”
“For him or for us?”
A golf cart appears with a fragile looking man in tan pants and a green t-shirt. He climbs out slowly, then stops to talk with one of the men unloading the crates.
“That’s him,” Hal points. “They told me he was touching down just before you showed up.
“Can’t weigh more than a buck ten,” I wince, watching him fight his way up a ladder to the cockpit. “You sure about this?”
“Yeah, I talked to him on the phone yesterday. Stage four liver cancer.”
“So, he’s what,” I pause. “Expendable?”
“I think he bent or twisted someone’s arm to get in the seat,” Hal sighs, waving at him. “I doubt he ever got to use his training in the way he’d have liked.”
“You think he’ll be less careful than one of our guys?”
Hal doesn’t answer. A rather mousey looking guy stands on a ladder holding a black box over the fuselage just behind the canopy. After some trial and error, he pulls a marker out of his shirt pocket and marks the spot.
“What’s that guy doing?”
“Adding a tracker. A little insurance so the Zero can find the Drone if it makes a break for it.”
“I thought it was invisible?”
“Yes, but the Drone’s going to do all the work for us,” he smiles, but notices me un-moved. “The Drone will try and hack the Zero, then pop the EMP when it can’t be hacked.”
