ME ANOTHER NO DATA
I shook my head. U NO BETRAY ME
Vetha snaked a hand out, the limb telescoping toward me with switchblade speed. Her three fingers closed on my throat, then released quickly. As I choked back a gasp, she assembled a message. I NO WANT PUPPET TO FB NO TRUST ME
“Big score there.” I rubbed at my throat and coughed lightly. GOT MSG
GOOD U SHOULD NOT BE I Vetha shook her head. “I hope this new plan to get Pygmalion works. He cannot be allowed to be victorious.”
“I agree.” I dropped letters in a row quickly. PYG FIRST FB NEXT
“Ah, you win.” Vetha nodded to me. “I am fatigued. Another time we will play the deciding game, yes?”
“It will be my pleasure.” GRACIAS
U WILL NOT BE I HAPPY ME
We got very lucky with Jytte and her recollections. She has an excellent mind for details, and the year in which she escaped had been the wettest on record since 1992 in Arizona. Throughout the deserts, wild flowers bloomed and other plants thrived, covering the area with vegetation seldom seen more than once a decade.
Working with Rajani, Jytte was able to specify plants and later correlate her remembrances with botanical data. More importantly, though, because of the unseasonable weather, an inordinate number of photographic and videographic records from that year existed. Starting with tapes archived by the Kingman television station and falling back to CD-ROMs burned by Northern Arizona University students doing a botanical survey of the upper plateau, Jytte managed to pinpoint the area through which she traveled.
Jytte went ahead and narrowed down the likely places where she could have been held. She smiled sheepishly when she presented a floorplan for the place, noting, “I determined this had to be the correct location because of how hard I wanted to deny the possibility that it could have been the place I sought.”
In a briefing room, with Sinclair, Rajani, Jytte and Crowley, I looked down at the representation of the Pulliam Estate. It had been built after the 1996 election as a retreat for the former vice president after his humiliating defeat in the presidential election. He lived there, a virtual recluse, for two years until he and Pee-wee Herman teamed up for remakes of the Martin and Lewis films. Eventually, he moved to France to be with his audience and sold the place to a holding company, Fair Lady Properties.
“I obtained the floorplan from notes made by the last assessor to go out there. The security is as noted and was suitable for the protection of a former vice president.” Jytte glanced down at some notes she had made. “Recent utility records indicated a lower usage than was present during the days the first occupant owned it, suggesting either an independent power source or some of the systems being turned off.”
Crowley stared at the floorplan for a moment, then nodded. “Big enough, isolated. The greenhouse extension could be used for almost anything and easily converted into a lab. It’s on the top of a small plateau, which means guarding the entrances is easy. The property is large enough to hold the troops he would bring through if he was looking at a limited strikeforce. From the location here to the north of Kingman, both Flagstaff and Las Vegas are well within striking range.”
I glanced at my watch, “it’s 9 a.m. now. Hal, Bat and the other wounded are due back here on the plane this afternoon, it will take us 3 ½ hours to get out there.” I looked over at Crowley. “Soft penetration, quick recon?”
The occultist nodded. “In and back out fast. If it is the staging area, we will know. If it isn’t, maybe we can find clues to what is.”
Jytte looked up at me from the far end of the table. “If we leave here by 5 p.m., it will be getting dark out there.”
“We?” I searched her face for a clue about her feelings, but the mask had slid back into place. “I would not have thought you want to go back there. I assumed Crowley and I would handle this.”
“I know, but logic would dictate that having me along would mean instant confirmation of the target’s identity.”
“But, Ms. Ravel, you could also come undone.” Crowley shook his head. “Are you certain your remaining behind would not be best?”
Jytte met his questioning gaze openly. “No, for two reasons. The first is that I actually do need to face what I left behind there. If I do not do that, I will become just like a plant that outgrows its pot. As much as I might not like to acknowledge my past, and as much as I don’t want to discover it all at once, I do need to know who I am so I can grow.”
I nodded. “And the other reason? You’re not thinking of shooting the place up, are you?”
“No, but there is one thing I don’t think you’ve considered, gentlemen. I have.” Jytte set her fists on her hips and I knew instantly we would not be leaving her in Phoenix when we headed out. “If I escaped from that facility, the chances are excellent that more people like me are still trapped there. I may not know who I was, but I do know that the person I am now cannot leave those people behind. Having once been in the state of mind they are likely experiencing, you’ll need me to get them out.”
Chapter 23
I studied the buildings on the Pulliam estate through the Starlight scope Crowley passed me. A greenish tinge defined the buildings, clinging to their sharp lines and outlining the conservative nature of the architecture. The main building, a ranch-style house, had a two-story addition at the northern end. Beyond it, I caught a hint of the greenhouse that had been pointed out on the floorplan.
The out-buildings consisted of a pool house, a guest house and a detached garage large enough for at least three vehicles. The garage had apartments built into its second story. Kennels stood between the garage and the main house.
“I don’t see anything. No movement, no lights, nothing.”
“Agreed.” Crowley took the scope from me and offered it to Jytte, but she shook her head. “I think we can proceed.”
Wordlessly, the three of us got up from the low hill that hid our Range Rover II from sight of the house and started to work our way down the hillside. Moving in the dark, with only a sliver of moon to guide us, we had to go slowly to avoid injury and doing anything that might alert people on the estate of our approach. If things went as well as possible, we could be in and out with no one the wiser.
Despite our desire to make this reconnaissance foray quiet and bloodless, each of us packed a considerable amount of hardware. I wore two Colt Kraits — one on each hip — and a Wildey Wolf in a Bianchi shoulder holster under my left arm. The automatic pistols had served me well during the time I’d been in Coyote’s cadre and, after the incident with the Aryans, I felt damned near naked without them. I also carried an HK MP-7 that was suppressed and silenced, just in case I needed to fill the air with a lot of slugs in a hurry.
My black fatigues made me one with the night. The thigh pockets were where I stashed the clips for my pistols, while the pouches lying flat against my stomach carried the spare ammo for the MP-7. My canteen hung from my belt at the back. Beneath the fatigues, I wore a standard Kevlar vest with trauma padding thickening it over my midline front and back, it by no means made me invulnerable, but widened the line between instant death and serious wounding. As I often walked that line, broadening it made the journey so much easier.
Jytte wore the same sort of fatigues as I did, and she tucked her long, blond hair up into a black watch-cap. She decided against carrying any pistols and instead opted for an Ml 77 carbine. While it used the same rifle cartridge as its big brother, the Ml 6A2, the carbine’s collapsible stock and shortened barrel made it perfect for close combat. She carried enough spare clips to finish a war, and I hoped she would not initiate anything we were ill-equipped to survive.
Crowley eschewed fatigues in favor of a thick black sweater and black jeans. He used a harness and belt to carry the Mac-10s he favored, as well as their spare clips. In a holster on his right hip, he also carried a silvery baton that I assumed to be some sort of stunner. I asked him about it, but he only described it as an old friend and would tell me nothing more.<
br />
Crowley led the way across the cactus and tumbled rock expanse between us and the estate. I brought up the rear and caught bursts of anxiety from Jytte. In driving up toward to the area, she had been subdued and drank in everything Crowley and I could think of as last-minute instructions about the recon. When we left Route 93 and headed north, she became more agitated, leaving none of us with any doubt concerning the choice of targets for the night’s outing.
Halfway to the target, we stopped in a shadowed gully and drank some water. Using simple hand signals, Crowley urged caution and silence. I reached out and gave Jytte’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. She smiled at me, the tremor in her bottom lip betraying her nervousness, then followed Crowley back into the night.
The only viable approach to reach the top of the low mesa was up the causeway that clung to the side of the mesa like ivy. While the road had been graded, it had not been paved or landscaped. The rocks on either side gave us plenty of cover, if we needed to hide from a vehicle going in or coming back out. Because of the stillness of the night air and the utter darkness so far from civilization, we assumed we would have plenty of warning about any approach.
We found the first passive security device halfway up the causeway. Thick cement blocks had been set in the roadway so that a driver would have to swerve around them. Anyone attempting to dash up the road to make a quick car-bomb attack or the like would have to slow down here or literally go off the road and down the side of the mesa. Slowing would make negotiating the barriers feasible, but would also leave the vehicle open to fire from guards located farther up the hill.
Crowley dropped to one knee in the shadow of the first barrier. From a pouch on the left side of his belt he pulled out a small aerosol can and pumped some air into it. He hit the nozzle, and a thin mistcloud hissed out. The cloud drifted invisibly through the darkness, then became a dazzling spot of purple-blue light for a second.
From an earlier explanation I knew the chemicals in the mist fluoresced under ultra-violet light. Using the spray cautiously, Crowley was able to define where UV security lasers criss-crossed the area in a warning net. He located more than I felt comfortable negotiating, but far fewer than required to make our passage impossible.
Past that, we continued up the causeway to the main gate. A chain and padlock held the cyclone-fence closed. I squatted next to Crowley, and he pointed out the wires that electrified the fence. He produced a two-tined probe with a small LED display and thrust the tines in between the strands of the fence. Clearly puzzled by the result, he used the device twice more, the last time actually touching the tines to the wire itself.
He drew his hand across his own neck, letting me know the fence was dead. Standing, he crossed to the padlock and produced a set of lockpicks. He had Jytte hold the lock steady while he opened it, then he pulled the gates far enough apart for the three of us to slip between them. Closing the gates, he reset the lock but did not snap it shut.
A close inspection of the estate showed us what the Starlight scope had hidden. Long, dry grasses predominated in the yard, even growing up in between the slabs of concrete laid down for the driveway near the garage and back behind the pool house for a helipad. One of the doors to the pool house stood half-ajar, and a couple of tumbleweeds lay up against the interior of the fence.
The whole compound looked deserted, but clearly it had not been abandoned for terribly long. None of the windows I could see were broken. From the causeway, we did have evidence that the laser-intrusion system still functioned — indicating a basic desire to keep the place inviolate. I found myself hoping that this place had been abandoned only since Pygmalion had taken Ryuhito away. That would explain the good shape it was in and let me imagine we might find something of use in it.
The three of us made our way to the main building. As we closed on it, I began to feel uneasy. It was odd because I felt fairly certain that no threat to me existed in the whole place. In addition, the sensation rose and fell as if it were an emotional siren undulating out a warning. As I got closer to the house, the sensation became stronger and almost overpowering.
Jytte slumped against the building’s wall, and I knelt beside her. She gave me a weak smile, but I saw it wax and wane with the siren. I nodded to let her know I felt it, too, as Crowley used his lockpicks on the front door. I heard a click, then he slipped into the building. I wanted to get up to follow, but my resolve crashed head on into the rising tone of the siren, and I could not move.
Suddenly, the emotional siren stopped. Crowley reappeared at the door and waved the two of us in. I helped Jytte up, and we followed the occultist into the house. He shut the door behind us, then led us over to a small cloakroom. He twisted a coathook built into the wall and caused a panel to withdraw.
At first glance, I knew I was looking at an alarm system. Bright little lights on a crude schematic of the grounds defined different areas of the estate. Around the house, the pool and a portion of the fence, an angry red light pulsed repeatedly. Green lights marked the rest of the compound, it all looked almost normal.
The reason it was not normal was because the components built into the alarm panel were not mechanical or electronic. The panel had not so much been assembled as it had been grown. Wormlike creatures glowed red and green. Wet lines of mucus traced the connections from the circuitry and detection devices outside the building into this panel. Down below the light display, I saw a number of small creatures that looked like horseshoe crabs in miniature. One of them had a hole in its carapace that leaked a thick, green fluid on the ground.
Crowley kept his voice a low whisper. “This is the place. Dark Lord equipment. The alarm sent a message of unease out. It was a distress signal, and I would wager it did not make it through the armored shell of Pygmalion’s dimension.”
I pointed to the red alarm lights around the pool house and fence. “You neutralized the alarm for the main house by killing it. Why weren’t these two working?”
The occultist flicked a lockpick against one of the other crabs. Its brittle shell cracked and fell to dust on the floor. “Those alarms went off a while ago and died from their exertions, I would assume.”
“Since the alarm was going off when we arrived, we have to assume others were here recently.” Jytte worked the charging lever on her Ml 77. “Or are still here.”
I nodded. “Let’s do it like we planned. We start at the top and work our way down.”
I led the way from the front door back into the house. From the floorplan, we determined two likely spots for Pygmalion to maintain an office. The first was where the former vice president had put his office. The advantage to it was, according to the floorplan, a number of built-in shelves, a built-in safe, hidden bar and an external door to the pool. I did not think those practicalities would matter as much to Pygmalion as his desire to set himself up in a place that once belonged to the second most powerful man on Earth.
Stalking through the house, I began to assemble a picture of Pygmalion that surprised and revolted me. The original Santa Fe decor, which we had seen in numerous magazine layouts on the estate, had been stripped out and replaced with something much more European. Heavy dark woods predominated both in fixtures and furnishings, as if their bulk and age could give the owner a legitimacy he could not otherwise possess.
Just looking at the items, I knew they were antiques that had been lovingly restored. I admired the workmanship and, as we moved deeper into the house, I saw that the restorer’s skill had gotten much better. I got the sincere impression that the house itself was a work of art, or a retrospective display of work that had filled a career.
I had not doubt Pygmalion was the artisan and that by looking back over my shoulder at Jytte, I would see one of his finest creations.
The leftmost of the double-doors to the office stood open. I peered quickly through the crack, then slipped into the room. I crouched immediately and swept the room with my MP-7, but I saw no targets so I did not shoot. Reaching back, I opened the door m
ore fully and waved my two companions on in.
Crowley crossed immediately to the huge portrait on the south wall and swung it away from the wall to expose the safe. Jytte entered the room, then stopped in the center of it. She looked up and around at the vaulted ceiling, then slowly started to spin around as if in a daze. She made one complete circuit, then started another before she shivered and blinked her eyes.
I walked over to the huge, hardwood desk near the bank of windows in the west wall and dropped myself into the chair behind it. “It’s Pygmalion. This chair is cranked high enough that I’ll smash my knees on the desk if I pull myself up to it,” I whispered.
The occultist grinned. “This safe is very good. It will take explosive to open.”
Jytte said nothing, but drifted toward the bookcase built-in beside the door. She reached up and tugged on one book, bringing it halfway out of the neat row. Nothing happened, so she shifted to a lower shelf and tugged two or three books out of place. When that produced no results, she went to a third shelf, her pulling becoming more frenzied.
Suddenly, a rumble sounded through the room. Jytte jumped back as the shelving unit slowly slid forward, then to the side to block the door. Where it had stood, I saw a gray rectangle sunk into the floor. Light came up from below, giving Jytte’s face a granite hue.
Crowley ran over beside her, then knelt near the hole in the floor. I came around the desk on the other side and tried to squeeze past Jytte and the moved bookshelf. She remained in place, and one of the pulled-out books stopped me.
“Coyote, we may have hit pay-dirt.” Crowley looked up at me. “I can’t see much more than a stairwell, but it goes far enough down that it’s safe to suggest the whole mesa is hollow.”
“Could be,” I mumbled as I pulled the book that had stopped me from the shelf. With it in my hands, I corrected my earlier impression and saw it for what it was: a leather-bound binder. In the darkness, I could not tell if the cover was blue, but the dim light reflected beautifully from the gold foil stamp of the Build-more logo on the cover. As I realized what I had in my hands, I also remembered the last thing I’d seen before the grenade went off.
Evil Triumphant Page 19
