Solstice

by David Hewson

  'Sir, you can't expect me to calk about operational issues.'

  'Oh no. Oh no. It's called culling, Green. You know that term?'

  'Larry…' Helen murmured. 'Calm down. This is going to be okay.'

  'Hell,' he rambled on, 'I saw the damn thing in his suit when we were climbing onto the helicopter.'. 'Sir. It's supposed to be classified.'

  'I know that. I know exactly what it is too. The P54. Manufactured by Armstrong in Philadelphia. First workable handgun made entirely of composite material. Half the weight of a service-issue unit. Built-in silencer. Massive firepower at close quarters. A piece of shit if you want to hit anyone more than thirty yards away too. That's what I hear.'

  'Okay,' Green said, a nervous edge to his voice. 'You know what you know. That fair enough? One more minute and I think we should be going.'

  'That's not comradely,' Wolfit grunted.

  'Enough!' She could hear how shrill she sounded. The desert scared her. The job scared her. Wolfit was starting to scare her too. She didn't need someone out of control right then.

  'No,' he said, voice rising. 'It's not enough. All these damn secrets. All these damn people think they know everything there is to know. And the truth is they know nothing. Nothing. You going to show me that thing?'

  'Can't do that, sir. Can't-'

  And almost choked as Wolfit was on him, a single sharp punch in the stomach taking out his breath, hands running all over his night suit.

  'Larry,' she yelled, walking over to the fight. 'What the hell are you doing? I am reporting this, you believe it. Even if the kid's too scared to.'

  'Yeah?' She couldn't see his face properly in the darkness. He was hidden in the shadow of the ridge. 'Well, you go ahead and report me. Who gives a shit?'

  Larry Wolfit felt the P54 in his hand and wished he weren't sweating so much. It was light, so light he could hardly believe it. A little big for most ordinary duties. And long too. The integral silencer seemed responsible for that. He lifted it up and down with his right hand a few times.

  'This the kind of thing you like, Green? The kind of thing you approve of? Guess there's a little work to do on the size, but they'll get there. Thank you.' He turned the weapon around, held it by the long barrel, held the handgrip outward.

  'I just wanted to look,' he said apologetically. 'Sitting around on the edge of things like this just makes me uneasy.'

  'Sure thing,' Green mumbled. 'I think we should be going now.' Then he reached out for the gun. Larry Wolfit flipped it over in his hand, slipped his finger into the trigger guard, pointed it at the sky.

  'Trick or treat?' he said. 'You should never fall for that one. Don't they teach you that in the Bureau?'

  'Yeah,' Green said. 'But not with fellow agents.'

  'Pity,' Wolfit grunted, and fired a single round. It made a noise like a balloon exploding underneath a pillow. Jeff Green was lifted off his feet, flew backward noiselessly, fell to the ground in a silent heap.

  Then Larry Wolfit turned round to face Helen. He was out of the shadow now and he looked half-crazy. The dark shape of the gun was in his hand. 'Wasn't meant to be like this,' he said. 'Wasn't meant to be like this at all.'

  CHAPTER 53

  Entry

  Cabin Springs, 1003 UTC

  There were only a couple of lights on inside the farmhouse, and they threw little illumination onto the scene. 'Millfield?' John Collins said quietly into his voice mike, half-listening for the distant circling of the surveillance helicopter overhead. When they were in place, Collins could floodlight the scene. But they were late. An entry in half-darkness seemed inevitable. 'You read anything?'

  'Negative,' the far-off voice squawked into his single earpiece. 'We got no sound, no heat indications since we started this thing, John. Either these people are gone, sleeping, or just plain dead.'

  'Yeah,' he said. His team was stationed to the left of the front door, just out of range of the obvious infrared security trigger that had been fastened, like an amateur-hour burglar alarm, to the nearest stanchion in the frame. The farmhouse was wood, with a big open veranda, and stood in a flat patch of rocky ground. Behind it were a couple of agricultural buildings, a horse ring, and a yard with three or four cars in it.

  What looked like a newly made path led off to the adjoining ridge. Somewhere on the top, no more than four hundred yards away, he guessed, was the dome. He could just make out the dark shapes of his men working their way into position. It had all been so easy, and that made him feel uncomfortable. Some snags were inevitable. It was best to get them out of the way as soon as you could.

  'Initial plan,' Collins said. 'Flash goggles on. Team One goes in first, the rest of you in order. Keep your heads in there; I'd like to come out of this with no casualties on either side. And good luck, folks.'

  Then he pushed the goggles back down onto his cheeks and nodded to the team. One of them walked up to the small downstairs window, sidestepping the infrared beam, and threw a flash grenade through the pane. There was a low tinkling of broken glass. Collins looked away at the ground, waiting for the first flash. It came like a brief bolt of lightning, with a soft puff of air behind it, and he led the team in a steady, fixed walk to the door. Then five more (counting, he kept counting, and listening for the yells, the screaming, but none came), and he was nodding at them, watching the one with the sledgehammer pull it back and start to thunder away at the big wooden slab. It fell in two, and they were through, screaming like crazy, hearing the sound of explosions and crashing glass from elsewhere in the building.

  'Team One entered, contact not established,' Collins said, and paused while one of the flash grenades let off a late rogue blast that painted the entire room a harsh, stony white, drew everything out like some kind of bas relief that wasn't quite real, more a piece of strange modern art than a picture of something physical around them.

  'Team Two entered, no contact,' said a voice in his ear.

  'Team Three entered, no contact.'

  'Team Four entered. Ditto.'

  The last commander paused. 'What the hell is going on here, John?'

  'Maintain vigilance.' Collins watched the room come back into normal focus. It was full of cheap desks, cheap furniture, a whole line of PCs still glinting and alive, the twirling picture of some screensavers rolling around their monitors. Somewhere in the corner one of the team was throwing up, a repetitive, physical noise that sounded as if it might never end. Fear made its presence known in the oddest of ways.

  'Keep those goggles on, man,' Collins barked. 'And don't think this is over. Millfield? Have you seen anyone leave this building since we entered?'

  'Negative, John. You guys went in, no one went out.'

  'Right.' Collins walked through into the hall, met two of the other teams wandering in to meet each other.

  'This place is empty, John,' someone said, invisible behind the flash goggles. 'Hell, it smells empty.'

  'Yeah,' he said. 'I know.'

  'There's food in the kitchen, dirty plates,' the Team Three commander said. 'But no clothes, no suitcases. They made it out of here.'

  'Still rooms to go,' the Team Two man said. 'We'll take upstairs, constant vigilance, usual drill. Use the flash grenades. Don't take anything for granted.'

  The four men in black ascended the narrow wooden staircase, machine pistols in their hands, and Collins could hear the popping of grenades up there, see the bright phosphorescent light chasing down the plain white corridors of the farmhouse. You didn't prosper in this business on your instincts, but just then John Collins knew his were right: There was nothing to be found upstairs.

  'Fred,' Collins said to the Team Four commander. 'Get your guys seeing if there's any subterranean rooms in this place. A cellar or something.'

  'But John, it's built on solid rock. What'd they use? Mining equipment or something?'

  'Just do it, will you?' Collins snapped, and wished there weren't so much crankiness in his voice. 'And while you're at it, bring in some of the expl
osives guys. I want this place cleaned internally. Make sure we don't have any surprises waiting for us. We got a little extra time to spare. No reason why we shouldn't use it to make sure everything's safe here before going up that hill to the dome.'

  'Okay.' The man shrugged.

  'So where'd they go?' the Team Three man asked. 'They made it out of here already? And left us the keys to the safe?'

  'I don't know,' Collins replied. Then called up the Cobra team and diverted them from the lighting detail to sweeping the area, looking for vehicles snaking their way out into the outside world. 'Get that S&T woman for me. Maybe they set this thing on automatic and ran.'

  'Damn,' the Team Three man said, and ripped off his goggles.

  'Keep those fucking goggles on!' Collins yelled.

  'Sir,' the man mumbled, and struggled with the eyepiece.

  The radio buzzed in Collins's ear. 'We got some traffic thirty miles distant, couple of cars,' the helicopter captain said. 'Could be anybody, that far away.'

  'Pick them up.'

  Team Two came back from upstairs. The leader stripped off his goggles and said, 'Nothing — '

  'Put those fucking gogg-' John Collins heard his own voice rattling around inside his head. It sounded shrill and stupid. 'Never mind.'

  "What the hell's going on?' the man asked grimly.

  'This well sure looks dry,' Collins muttered, and shook his head. He walked over to the nearest terminal. The monitor was flicking over on the screensaver: mindless geometric patterns repeating over and over again. He punched the space key. 'You believe that?'

  The screen cleared and Gaia's Web site sat there. 'I think these people have got some kind of live Net connection here. A Ti line or something. Those Agency people are going to be jumping up and down with glee.'

  'John,' the Team Four leader said. 'We got the okay from the explosives people. This place looks clean. They're running through the path to the dome too, but it's slow work. They wired up some IR burglar alarms on the way. They feed into an audible warning system. No signs of explosive anywhere so far.'

  'That's good. These guys really did think they'd pulled this one off, huh? Or maybe they didn't want to hang around to see the consequences.'

  'Guess so,' the Team Four leader answered.

  'It is so. Pretty soon I'm going to sign this one off to those Agency people. Let them get the geeks in and see if they can bring this thing on-line.'

  'We got the dome team kicking their heels already,' the Team Four man said.

  'Well, tell them to wait. They need the go-ahead from their own boss first. So?' John Collins ripped off his flash goggles and glared at them.

  'Sir?' someone said.

  'So where the hell is she?'

  CHAPTER 54

  In the Desert

  Cabin Springs, 1029 UTC

  The night was more visible now. Helen could see Larry Wolfit clearly, a tall, slim shape, his outline blurred by the shadow of the rock ridge. He waved the gun a couple of times in front of her face. Then, too quickly for her to anticipate it, he stepped right up and punched her hard with his free hand. She fell back onto the hard, dusty ground, clutching at her cheek, trying to think, to make sense of this. Wolfit stank of sweat and fear but for some reason she felt more puzzled, affronted even, then scared.

  'J — Jesus, Helen,' he stammered. 'This wasn't supposed to happen. None of it. Why the hell did you take the job? Why the hell do you keep working at it like this?'

  Scrabbling in the dust, all she could think about was Belinda Churton. What she would do, would be thinking in a situation like this. And why even her reactions, in the end, were just not good enough.

  'Get up now, will you?' he snarled. 'It's pathetic watching you squirm on the ground like that.'

  She rolled over, curled into a ball, waited for the next blow. Then, slowly, so he understood this was her decision, not his, she got to her feet.

  'There,' he said. 'Now, that's better.' She felt the side of her head again. It was tender, beginning to swell.

  'Decision time, my dear,' Wolfit said miserably. 'Decision time.' He pulled back his fist again. She flinched. Then he dropped it. 'Hey, just testing reactions.' And was on her in an instant, had hold of her hair, pulled it hard, yanked her face into his, his mouth a vicious, taut line in the half-light.

  'Why did they choose you, Helen? You going to tell me that? It was supposed to be me. To save us all this trouble.'

  He wrenched her ear; she screamed. 'Shut up!' he shouted.

  'You're hurting me.'

  Wolfit let go, pushed her viciously, kicked out with his feet, took her legs from under her. Back on the ground, she thought, and still nothing working quite right in the head.

  'You just overreached yourself, you know,' he said, a little calmer now. 'We spent too much time on this thing to have it go to waste now. What with you and your friend in Spain thinking you just might bust this all up, you just might have a good idea. You got no ideas. You understand me? None at all.'

  She thought of Belinda, dying in a roar of homemade explosives. And Wolfit, always quiet, always watchful. He was waving the strange, overlong gun as if it had some kind of special power.

  'Go on,' she said, not looking at him, not even thinking about anything except how strange this was, how odd a way to leave this existence. 'Get this over with, Larry. One more for your list.'

  'Your fault, Helen. Your fault entirely.'

  'Sure. That's what all you people get to think. If Charley told you to walk over a cliff I guess you'd do that too, and blame me on the way down.'

  He was standing over her. The tiny crescent of the moon hung above his head, a curtain of bright, shining stars around it (and she wanted to think about the stars, not about him, not him at all).

  'You scared? I guess I'd be.'

  'Oh my.' She almost wanted to laugh.

  "This funny or something? You asked that kid over there to join in the laughter?'

  'You're pathetic, Larry. Even with that big gun hanging out of your hand like a limp dick. Pathetic.'

  'Really? Maybe you should ask Belinda fucking Churton about that when you see her again.'

  And then she did laugh. 'You should hear yourself. Is that what the new tomorrow sounds like?'

  'Stupid, stupid. You don't understand a thing. This is all about bigger issues than you can ever understand. You got to burn sometimes. You got to cull.'

  There had to be people, she thought. People at the helicopter. People at the farmhouse. If this went on long enough, they'd come, they'd be looking. If they knew where to find her. If they got there in time.

  'So tell me,' she said, reaching down, rubbing her aching leg, feeling, through the thin fabric of the combat suit, the thin, slow trickle of blood starting to dampen the material. 'Make me understand. Tell me what Charley told you.'

  'Nothing I didn't know already, except I didn't want to face it. You got to unmanage things. That's the point. Turn back the clock, just put in the status quo as close as you can get it. And don't close your eyes when the tough decisions come.'

  She waited, wishing she could hear something.

  'This can't go on,' he said, and there was some nervousness there, some pressure for time, she could sense it. 'We're just fucking up the planet, fucking up everything.'

  'So what's new?'

  'What's new is the chance to start over.'

  'Won't happen. However bad it gets, Larry. You're smart enough to know that.'

  'That's bullshit. We figured it out.'

  'Tell me about the "we", Larry. Tell me about the Children, and how the hell they got to someone like you.'

  Wolfit's shoulder chucked up and down but she didn't hear him laugh. 'Two kinds of people. Those who get it. Those who don't. You just spent your whole life walking in darkness. Just like everyone else in Washington. You think I never saw things while I was working in that place? All the cruelty? All the cynicism?'

  'You're talking about cruelty? Larry… did you take a loo
k at Vegas?'

  'People die in wars. You got to see the big picture.'

  'You sound like Hitler.'

  He laughed then. 'Like I said. You either get it or you don't. And now it's just too late for me to throw a little light on the matter. There's things moving out there, and I can't let you have even the faintest chance of stopping it.'

  The gun rose, made a dark shape against the backdrop of stars. 'If you'd been a little less nosy, if you'd done as you were told, maybe you'd have lived to find out. We gave you every chance to back out. But no…'

  Something moved, close to them, back near the ridge. She checked her breathing, shuffled slowly, as noiselessly as she could, into a pool of darkness cast by the higher rocks.

  'Damn me,' he muttered. 'Damn me if that kid isn't still alive. A pop from this thing and he's still grunting.' He flicked the switch on the flashlight, swept the narrow yellow beam over toward the ridge. She had to watch. There was no choice. Jeff Green was curled up in a ball by a single hulking rock, a big dark pool of blood growing around his stomach. His eyes glittered in the torchlight, wide open, scared, like those of an animal. He was doing something with his hands, and some small inner voice told her not to stare too hard. It looked like he was trying to push his spilled guts back inside his body.

  Wolfit, crazy now, she didn't doubt it, put on a phony Southern accent, like Foghorn Leghorn worked up on speed, all this nervousness bubbling over inside him. 'Boy. I say boy. You need some help over there?'

  Green opened his mouth. Something liquid came out, ran down over his chin, dark and viscous, and no human sound, nothing but a low, physical gushing, rhythmic, fading slowly away.

  'One more pop and then you can say night-night,' Wolfit murmured. The kid said something unintelligible. His hand moved again, and something small, something silver, glinting in the moonlight, rolled across the rocky ground toward them.

  'Night-night,' Wolfit said, not seeing this. The gun jumped in his hand, making that sickening popping sound again, and Helen Wagner saw Green's head explode like a pumpkin, felt something hot and sticky rain in droplets on her face.