“What’s funny about that,” Skip mocked. “Groups of moaners are a dime a dozen.”
“One of these moaners, smartass,” Griff replied, steely gaze directed at Skip, “is totally naked. Johnson all hanging out. He’s got pierced nipples and a bunch of Japanese-style tattoos… all … over … his skinny white body.”
“Get to the point,” Haynes ribbed.
Grimacing, Griff said, “So nipple-ring-boy is pretty well endowed.”
“Was,” Skip reminded.
As Cade drank from his hydration pack, he was struck by how (even if he didn’t always show it) he really enjoyed the team banter. Amused, he looked on as Cross made the universal “hurry it up” motion with his hands.
“Don’t know if he did it to himself, or if he came across it as he was doing what roamers do, but this fool has a rat trap on the end of his junk.”
Everyone aboard, save for Nat, who was still chin-to-chest out of it, drew a breath and groaned.
Griff held a hand up to silence the peanut gallery. “It’s not a little old hardware store mouse trap. This thing is an industrial-strength trap. Six inches by four, I bet.”
Cade couldn’t resist. He stopped chewing long enough to say: “How did this super-trap not sever the Z’s member?”
A ripple ran through Griff’s red beard as his smile widened. “The dude had all kinds of piercings up and down his member.”
Incredulous, Cross asked, “Prince Albert, too?”
Nodding, Griff said, “The helmet was pierced front to back. And the whole kit-and-caboodle was bouncing up and hitting him in the gut with each step as he walked towards me. That fucking hunger in its eyes still gives me a case of the shivers.”
Skip asked, “What’d you do next?”
Gloating, Griff said, “Two to the face, one to the junk.” He looked to Cade. “What do you think, Wyatt? You top that episode of strange-shit-you-can’t-unsee?”
Cade thought his treatment of Francis aka Pug outside of Schriever just might eclipse the rat-trap story. While cutting the killer’s Achilles tendons and letting him get bit and turn was satisfying, watching the zombie version of Pug flop like a fish out of water every time he tried to rise from the ground fell in the category of shit-you-can’t-unsee that he would take to the grave with him.
Raising his hands in mock surrender, Cade said, “You got me. No topping that gem.”
Voice rising over Cade’s, Ari said, “Three hours and change to Target Bravo. Next refueling will be sixty miles out. Any changes to our game plan, Anvil?”
Swallowing a bite of pound cake, Cade said, “Satellite imaging didn’t tell much of a story. Can you get us close enough to Bravo to conduct a covert recon before proceeding to infil?”
Ari said, “Affirmative,” then ordered Haynes to alter their waypoints accordingly.
Sleep when you can.
Cade finished the MRE and stowed the packaging. Meeting Skip’s gaze, he said, “Same request.”
Nodding, Skip said, “I’ll wake you when we’re five minutes out.”
Cade returned the nod and closed his eyes.
Chapter 54
The long-range Motorola on the dresser in Raven’s room came to life with a burst of static. She’d been in her room since after dinner, declining an offer from Peter and Sasha to join them on a walk.
Leaping from the exercise bike, she rolled over the bed ninja-like and lunged for the radio. Snagging the whip antenna, she cycled the volume down and pressed the Motorola to her ear just as Daymon’s voice was issuing from its tiny speaker.
“She-Ra, you there? This is He-Man.”
Daymon hadn’t explained the meaning of the code names when he had come up with them. At the time, Raven hadn’t cared enough to ask. Now, as her thumb depressed the Talk button, she was wondering what part of Daymon’s childhood experience they came from. After a short pause, she answered, saying, “She-Ra here. What’s up, He-Man?”
There was a chuckle on the other end, followed by: “Pirate, Snake, and Pixie are just beginning their closing duties.”
The code names given the trio were Raven’s doing. She’d come up with them during her long-range recon by camera. Though she didn’t like using them—thought it silly actually—Daymon did have a point. While the long-range radios had more than a hundred unique channels, those channels were not encrypted; therefore, anyone with a similar radio could be eavesdropping on them at this very moment.
Incredulous, Raven said, “What? It’s only nine o’clock!” Then through clenched teeth, she whispered, “Peter and Sasha are out and about. Plus, other people are still awake here.”
Daymon said, “Changing channels,” and the Motorola in Raven’s hand went silent. Consulting the list, she adjusted channels and waited.
After a brief pause, a burst of squelch was followed by the same exchange of code names. Then Daymon said, “I was their last customer. As Pirate finished up on my piece, the two men started speaking amongst themselves in Chinese—mostly. I did hear Snake tell Pirate something that sounded like ‘hurry up … we still have a lot of sheetrock to hang.’”
“In English?” Raven asked.
“Broken English,” Daymon replied. “At least on his part. Pirate’s English is better than mine.”
Enjoying the cloak-and-dagger routine a little too much, Raven said, “I think it’s best we change channels again.” After following the same routine, she went on: “She-Ra here … how copy?”
“Loud and clear.”
“What’d Pirate say?”
“He told Snake to ‘relax,’” Daymon answered. “Then he insisted they still have nearly two days to complete their ‘renovation.’ ‘To get everything right and in place.’”
This information started Raven’s stomach to churn. She knew this was bigger than cryptic graffiti in her park and a fused-to-the-street tanker-truck. Refocusing, she said, “What about Pixie? Is she involved?”
“She was just listening and watching them at this point. My gut tells me she’s part of it.”
“How long until they come my way?”
“Twenty, maybe thirty minutes. That is if they don’t stop for a drink on the way home.”
“They’re on their bikes?”
“Affirmative,” Daymon said. “Same three as before.”
“You did the thing we discussed?”
“Yep. Took a smoke break after the first hour. They’re all in place.”
Raven imagined the lifelong non-smoker (cigarettes, at least) making air quotes as he said “smoke break.” She said, “Switching frequency,” and rolled the channel and sub-channel to the next on her hand-written list. Finished, she went on, saying, “He-Man, this is She-Ra. How copy?”
“He-Man here. Good copy.” He paused. Coming back, he said, “We probably don’t need to change frequencies so often.”
Raven said, “Whatever. I’m getting ready now and will be in place in ten minutes.”
“Copy that,” Daymon said. “I’ll give you a heads-up once they’re out the door and Oscar Mike.”
Raven had no problem with Daymon throwing in the mil-speak. It was the same language her dad used when he needed to get his point across in a hurry. She was very familiar with it. In fact, after her dad gave the Eden survivors a crash course on the subject, everyone there, save for Sasha, had adopted the most common phrases as part of their normal vocabulary. The only downfall, however, was that hearing it over the radio made her think about her dad, who at this very moment was somewhere out there in the wild, doing who-knows-what for God and country. “Outside the wire” was how he would have phrased it if he were here.
Instead of replying verbally to Daymon’s sign-off, she clicked the Talk key once to signal that she understood.
Saying a quick prayer for Daymon and her dad, she shrugged on her pack, donned the black watch cap, and snugged the NVG-encumbered tactical helmet onto her head. She clicked the plastic clasps together and cinched the chinstrap tight as it would go. She bobbed her h
ead up and down and all around. Thanks to the stocking cap, the helmet stayed put, the movement nearly nonexistent.
Tight as it’s going to get, she thought.
Raven slipped the suppressed Glock 19 into the holster on her thigh and then scooped up the suppressed SBR. She checked the magazine, reseated it, and then threw the selector to Safe. After inserting fresh lithium batteries in the EOTech holographic gunsight, she tested its operation. Satisfied her rifle was good to go, she set it on the bed next to her pack containing the Nikon and some other items taken from one of her dad’s Pelican cases.
Feeling the first jolt of adrenaline stirring within her, she donned her mom’s old plate carrier. Lastly, she jammed spare magazines for her weapons into her mom’s old chest rig and strapped it on over the plate carrier.
The hand-me-down gear fit her pretty well. Which told her she’d grown some since October, when her mom had passed.
Wow. Dad hadn’t been blowing smoke after all when he told her she was getting to be nearly as tall as Brook was when ...
Blowing smoke was one of those Duncanisms she’d adopted while her dad was comatose. While she didn’t use the long version of the saying, she still got a disturbing visual from its abbreviated form. Making a mental note-to-self to purge the colorful language from her lexicon, she looked at her reflection in the mirror. Dressed in all black, she thought she looked a bit like a ninja. Which made sense, because that’s what guys in her dad’s line of work were often called.
She contemplated finding her dad’s black face paint and finishing the job.
Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.
That settled it for her.
She slung the SBR over her shoulder and flicked off the lamp. With the blackout curtains pulled shut over the windows, the room was pitch black. She couldn’t make out a thing. Not even the reflection of herself she’d just been staring at.
Reaching up, she pivoted the NVGs down so they came to rest an inch or so in front of her eyes.
Finding the On switch by feel, she powered the device up and saw a robot-looking version of herself, rendered in white and soft shades of gray, staring back at her. She marveled at all the detail conveyed by the newest phosphor white technology. She could almost count the tiny hooks on her plate carrier’s Velcro adjustment straps.
Keeping the NVGs deployed, she shrugged on her pack, then made her way to the door. Moving out into the dark hall, she locked her door and pocketed the key.
The hall was empty. Clear as day she saw the door to her dad’s room, the double doors of the Founders Suite, and further down the long hallway, the doors to a number of unoccupied rooms.
She stood there for a beat, listening to the soft voices of her friends in the Founders Suite. It sounded like they were playing some kind of board game.
Determining her exit had gone unnoticed, she padded down the long hall, toward the elevators, the soft scuff of her boot soles on the luxurious carpet the only evidence of her passing.
Reaching the elevator, she was able to make out every little detail, from the fine detail on the wallpaper on down to the Braille on the elevator call panel.
Raven chose the stairs over the elevator, having them all to herself from thirteen to the lobby.
For just a second, as she entered the lobby’s dim environs, she contemplated removing the helmet and walking by the desk with it tucked underneath her arm. While Eve and the other civilian volunteers might miss it, Calvin would not.
Thinking hard about how to stave off any questions, she flipped the NVGs up and strode toward the entrance. Straightaway she saw that Calvin was pulling an all-nighter.
As she neared the wooden desk set up just inside the doors, she heard reedy vocals and the jangling guitar of a band with a funny name. Duncan had called them Creedence Clearwater Revival. He was a big fan, too. Said he used to have a song of theirs as the ringtone for his old cell phone.
As always, Calvin was genuinely pleased to see Raven. Silencing the song having to do with someone running through a jungle, he ran the volume down and greeted her warmly. He looked her up and down. No way he could have missed the helmet and NVGs.
“I see you’re going with the Johnny Cash look tonight.”
“That’s me … the girl in black.”
“Well, you get those fools defacing our park. You catch them in the act and have them at gunpoint … call the law first, and then call me.” He smiled and tapped the flex cuffs hanging off his belt. “I’ll come right away and help you detain them.”
“Will do.” Raven threw him a quick salute, then stood there, waiting for him to get up and let her out.
Outside, the night air was cool on her exposed skin. The stairs ahead were barely discernable because the recessed lights above the covered entry were extinguished. As if gripped in a massive blackout, the city within a city was completely dark. No streetlights burned. No vehicles could be heard or seen traversing the nearby thoroughfares.
Looking up, she saw that the windows in the building rising up above her were all shrouded by curtains. The night sky was cloudless; the stars immediately above her bright and well-defined.
To the east, the waning moon was a pale-yellow sliver. It was low in the sky and pale in comparison to the swath of stars crowding it.
So this is what a waning moon looks like was echoing in her head as she deployed the NVGs and hustled off toward her park.
Chapter 55
The sun was well below the western horizon when Ari came on over the shipwide comms: “Thanks for flying Night Stalker Airways. Rise and shine, Pale Riders.” After making sure everyone was awake and patched into the shared comms, he directed all eyes to the fully lit structure coming into view on the ship’s starboard-side.
They’d been following the mighty Columbia River’s twists and turns since leaving Idaho and crossing over into Oregon. Keeping the Ghost Hawk in the deep and wide trough carved long ago by massive glaciers on the move, Ari had led the three-ship flight on the circuitous course, never once putting more than a hundred feet of altitude between the bird’s smooth underbelly and the Columbia’s choppy surface.
Now, cruising along due west at about two-thirds speed, the brash pilot was pulling pitch and obviously itching to either impart knowledge to his customers or humor them with his stand-up comedy. Either way, they were a captive audience.
“Behold the shining beacon of light at our one o’clock. You may be asking yourself, ‘What in the Sam Hill is that?’”
Craning to see out the nearest window, Nat said, “Besides the location of our FARP … what are we seeing, Night Stalker?”
“That, my friends, is Sam Hill’s former home,” said Ari. “One of them, at least. It’s been a museum for many years. Sam named the property Maryhill. Place was wired for electricity before power lines reached this far out. He also had it designed with cars in mind, well before cars were a big thing. It’s sitting on a subterranean ten-car garage that’s been converted to display Native American artifacts and other fine art.”
Situated on the Washington side of the river, the multi-level stone and glass monstrosity—lit up entirely by solar-powered lights atop poles ringing its rectangular perimeter—was the biggest home Cade had set eyes on since the raid on Robert Christian’s mansion on the hill in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He didn’t know how many square feet he was looking at, but the estate was nearly as big as the White House, with the sprawling grass- and tree-covered grounds to match.
Bordering the mansion’s west flank and cast in a soft yellow glow from the perimeter lights was a massive vineyard. Dozens of rows of grapevines marched away from the mansion, into darkness.
Save for a strip of lawn on the south side that sloped away gently to a shelf of barren land overlooking the distant Columbia River, the remainder of the grounds north and east of the mansion were mostly flat and home to knee-high grass and mature trees.
A single paved drive bordered by scree and low scrub snaked away from the mansion, north by east. It
climbed and switched back on itself a few times before finally merging with east/west running State Route 14 several hundred yards north of the museum grounds. Beyond SR-14, perched high atop a hill Cade could only make out the jagged outline of, were a number of electricity-generating wind turbines. Though the east wind was blowing gently, with gusts now and then topping twenty miles per hour, the massive blades atop towers hundreds of feet tall were barely in motion.
East of the honey-colored Maryhill Museum was a pair of empty parking lots. A sidewalk flanked by chest-high grass split the acre of blacktop down the middle. Wending their way past a trio of picnic tables being slowly swallowed by the grass were a couple dozen raggedy-looking first turns. As they entered the spill from the first of the overhead light standards, long gangly-armed shadows suddenly appeared in their wake.
The eerie sight reminded Cade of the scene in Close Encounters of the Third Kind in which first contact was made with the pale-skinned aliens.
As the entire scene below continued playing out on the monitor above Skip’s head, the crew chief was busy readying one of the safety-orange diversionary devices known as a Screamer. By the time the helo was sliding in above the small herd, he’d armed the spherical device and sealed its access panel.
Speaking to no one in particular, Cross said, “That should buy us some time.”
Griff said, “That woman’s screaming never gets old.”
Weighing in his mind who was better at sarcasm between Ari and Griff, Cade felt the Ghost Hawk bank and instantly lost sight of the Zs.
Hailing Ari on the comms, Skip said, “I want to drop the device in the scrub near where the drive splits from the feeder road. That should draw the Zs off the property.”
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