The Cosega Sequence: A Techno Thriller

by Brandt Legg

  “As badly as I wanted to find Cosega, I also wanted to know how he knew.”

  Just after two in the morning, they found a little motel in West Memphis, Arkansas. The rain had been heavy during the whole drive so far, and they were anxious to close their eyes. But first Rip found a payphone and called Booker.

  “I can have Kruse there by nine, maybe earlier. He must have just missed you in Asheville, “Booker said. “He’ll have a new satphone, and we’ll get you out of the country. I’ve got an island off the west coast of Mexico.”

  “Were those National Guard troops in Asheville for us?”

  “Yes. Your little objects have become very important to quite a few, powerful, people. And it’s going to get worse.”

  “That’s hard to imagine.”

  “I lost two good men in Atlanta. Rip, there’s something else you should know. When Kruse arrived at the Asheville house to pick you up, he found a body.”

  “What do you mean? Whose?”

  “Your neighbor, Topper.”

  Gale couldn’t see the distraught look cover Rip’s face, but she heard him moan.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  Rip didn’t answer.

  “What?”

  “Topper’s dead.”

  “Oh, no. How?”

  “How?” Rip asked Booker.

  “Don’t know. Kruse found him at the top of the stairs; face down. Looks like a heart attack. I’m trying to find out. I’ll keep on it.”

  “They killed him.”

  “Probably.”

  “Definitely. The Vatican murdered Topper. They better hope they catch me before I figure out what this thing is, because if they’re so afraid of it, then it must be able to do some major damage to the Church, and that’s just what I’m looking to do.”

  “Stay calm. Sit tight. I want to see this thing. I’ll be waiting at the island for you. See you by dinnertime tomorrow.”

  “Damn them!” Rip exclaimed.

  Chapter 39

  Sunday July 16th

  Morning came late, as the sun remained buried behind a thick ceiling of clouds. The rain hit sideways into the picture window of the $39 motel room, and the parking lot puddled, and grayed out of view. It was a misty blur that concealed all but the glow of the Waffle House sign, between their room and the highway. There were only five or six channels on the boxy television set; three of them ran TV ministries seeking cash for salvation, one had news. Rip confirmed there were still no reports of their theft of the artifacts, Larsen’s death, or anything connected to their flight. Gale looked out the window into nothingness. Water poured out of a split gutter above their room, loud and constant.

  Rip stared at her blonde curls and then over to his backpack with the Eysen. The dingy motel added to his surreal sense that he was in a B-movie; except that he lacked the requisite karate knowledge, or even a handgun.

  The pounding on the door took his breath. He saw the smile fade from Gale’s lips. The cruelty of it all overtook her – how had they found them? Was it Barbeau or the Vatican agents? It was way too early for Kruse. There was no time to think. The constant chase had exhausted them. The pounding came again, “FBI. Open up!” muffled by the metal door and the thundering rain.

  As she turned away from the door, Rip already had their packs, and was grabbing her arm. She was confused when he led her toward the bathroom. There was no back door, and no other windows, and she knew they were trapped. More pounding. How long until they came through the door? Suddenly Rip slid a small panel away above the narrow closet space; he clasped his hands into a stirrup and told her to climb through the opening. He pushed her into the attic crawlspace; it was dark and narrow with musty yellow insulation. She reached down and pulled him up and he quickly replaced the panel. The area was the same size as the room below with concrete firewalls on all sides.

  “How do we get out of this?” Gale pleaded, still whispering over the deafening rain pelting the roof.

  Pulling his flashlight from his pack, Rip scanned the ceiling searching for a vent, a crack, anything. Then his light revealed a small door below the peak of the roof, and they lunged for it. Rip fiddled with an old rusty barrel-bolt and worked the thick wood open. They wriggled through the tight passage and found themselves in an attic space above the motel room behind theirs. There was only one option. Rip located the panel to the room located on the other side of the building from theirs. Seconds later, they dropped through.

  The room was occupied.

  “What the hell?” Fischer Carlson said, jumping to his feet. They all stood there for a second; staring at each other. Fischer looked seventy-five, but was closer to sixty.

  “Sorry to have startled you, but we’re kind of in some trouble, and we couldn’t use the door from our room,” Gale explained. As the word “trouble” escaped her lips, Fischer, already enchanted by her eyes, remembered the color from a childhood dream; when he’d been lost on an island, overcome with fear, until he came to a place where the sky and the ocean met, merging into that shade of blue. He had awoken then, so long ago, with an ever-growing ache to search for something, an elusive feeling, or place he could never quite identify. In the half-century since, this was the first time he’d seen that color again.

  “Where the hell did you come from?” he asked, craning his neck to look up in the ceiling. “Maybe you didn’t know, but there’s a door in this place.”

  “We need help,” Gale repeated.

  “We have to get out of here now!” Rip said.

  “I have a truck,” he said. “If you folks need to move.”

  Even if there had been another choice, they would have gone with Fischer. Something in his manner made him completely trustworthy. He reminded them both of someone, a close childhood friend neither of them had had.

  Gale looked at Rip and back to Fischer. “Please,” she said.

  In seconds, he gathered some things into an old canvas duffle and followed them out the door into torrential rain. Fischer took the lead. Visibility wasn’t more than three feet, as they fought the wind. Rip didn’t see any evidence of the FBI, and hoped they were still on the other side of the building.

  With soaked clothes and dripping faces, they breathlessly climbed into the cab of his semi. He handed them a couple of towels, and started the engine, “I’m Fischer, by the way. Where were you folks wantin’ to go?”

  Chapter 40

  Leary was drenched when he finally picked the lock, and kicked through the chain.

  “Where the hell are they?” Nanski shouted, once they reached the bathroom.

  “They’ve been here,” Leary said, turning off the TV. He pointed to the obviously slept-in bed.

  Nanski wiped the rain from his face and tried to think. He looked up to ask for guidance and saw the panel. After closing the front door, Leary pushed him into the attic. Nanski was disappointed not to find them hiding, and devastated once he reached the opening to the other room on the back. By the time he dropped down and ran out into the parking lot, Gale and Rip were well down the road and safe inside Fischer’s truck.

  Two one-hundred-dollar bills got the grumpy front desk guy to give them the registration information, but “T. Fischer” had paid cash, provided only CA as his plate number and a post office box in Los Angeles with no zip.

  “Aren’t you people supposed to get a driver’s license number or something?” Nanski asked the befuddled clerk. Leary nudged Nanski and pointed to a state trooper who had just pulled in next to Rip’s rental car. “Thanks for your help,” Nanski said to the clerk, as he peeled off another hundred and handing it to him. “We weren’t here, understand?”

  The clerk nodded fast. The Vatican agents left the office and walked casually to their vehicle, then headed west on I-40.

  A few minutes later, the real FBI joined the state trooper and surrounded the building. After getting the room key from the front desk clerk, who neglected to mention his earlier visitors, agents entered the room and noticed the broken cha
in lock.

  Barbeau, lacking sleep and patience, rallied the strength not to smash his chair out the window of the federal building in Asheville. Instead he pulled out a map. “We didn’t screw up this time,” he said to Hall. “We were just late. Maybe only half an hour.”

  “It’s the closest we’ve been,” Hall said.

  “Right. And they abandoned their car. Likely they are riding in a truck and heading west.”

  “Why west?” Hall asked.

  “They wouldn’t drive back into our arms.”

  “Unless their trucker’s load needed to go east.”

  Barbeau frowned. Hall was right. “Fine, I want road blocks in both directions.”

  “It’s Sunday; we’ll have issues staffing up. If they’re in a semi, let’s assume they’re sticking to the interstates. We’ve got I-40 east and west and I-55 north and south.”

  “How quick can we get them covered?”

  “Thirty minutes, tops. Sunday traffic is much lighter. They aren’t armed. We’ve got enough people to do it.”

  “Shut them down.”

  Fischer looked over at his passengers, while navigating a wide turn. “Hey, Bonnie and Clyde, now that we’re clear of the motel, I’d kinda like to know who’s after you?”

  “It sounds worse than it is,” Rip said, regarding the rail-thin, scrappy-looking old man, who appeared to have spent a lifetime behind the wheel.

  “It usually does.” Fischer laughed. “But my days of being a getaway driver are long past. People don’t drop out of my ceiling every day. I’m doin’ you a special favor mostly on account of her bein’ too pretty to be dangerous.”

  “The FBI,” Gale said, once she caught his glance.

  He sniffed in some air and nodded slightly. “What do they think you did? Don’t say bank robbery.”

  “Theft of government property,” Rip said.

  “You didn’t kill no one or nothing?”

  Rip thought about Josh, Larsen, and Topper. He had surely killed them, but he knew that wasn’t what Fischer meant. “No.”

  “I got a pickup outside of Little Rock. Is the interstate gonna be a problem?”

  “They set up some roadblocks in North Carolina on the interstate yesterday.”

  Fischer let out a long whistle. Gale could see him considering that information. “The government property they think y’all took . . . it wasn’t from Fort Knox or anything, was it?”

  “No,” Rip said.

  Fischer looked down at the pack Rip clutched in his lap. “And you’re sure you didn’t rob a bank? ‘Cause they get mighty worked up about bank robbers. It’s the bankers runnin’ things you know?”

  “No gold, no cash. We just need to get far away.”

  “Hmm. Well, I know a back way. It’ll take a bit longer.”

  “We’d appreciate it,” Gale said.

  Fischer found a place to turn around and headed back in the direction they’d come.

  “Are you going to turn us in?” Rip asked after a couple of tense minutes of silence.

  “Do I look like the turn-folks-in type?” Fischer smiled.

  “Most people wouldn’t want to get involved with a couple of fugitives,” Gale said.

  “I ain’t most people.” He handed Rip a thermos. “Mind pouring me a cup?”

  “Sure.”

  “The thing is,” Fischer began, “this is a bit of a tricky situation. See, I’m on parole.”

  “So you could get in extra trouble for helping us,” Gale said, while Rip tried not to spill the coffee.

  “Right. So, just for the moment, let’s pretend you’re caught in my truck. I’m gonna play dumb, like you asked for a ride ’cause your car broke down or something. You never told me you were wanted.”

  “Of course,” Rip agreed, handing him the cup.

  “Damn,” Fisher said, taking a sip. “It’s cold. We’re gonna need to risk a coffee stop soon.”

  “How far are you going?” Gale asked.

  “Once I get my load, it’s on to San Diego. Where you hoping to go, besides far away from Arkansas?”

  “Taos, New Mexico,” she answered.

  Fischer nodded, as if this made sense.

  Rip wished Gale hadn’t been so free with their information. They didn’t know anything about this guy, and he wasn’t even sure they were going to Taos. “How far can you take us?”

  “Well, assuming the feds don’t catch up to us first and y’all have enough money to buy me a decent meal or two,” he smiled, “I can drop you off in Albuquerque sometime tonight.”

  Rip mentally calculated his remaining cash.

  “You’ll drive straight through?” Gale asked.

  “Unless one of you can handle this rig.” He laughed. “Honey, I got to. I’ve got an impossible schedule to keep. The only reason you found me at the motel is ’cause I got in too late last night to pick up my load.”

  Rip hoped they’d get that far, but then what? The only person who could help them had been the only person who had known their location at the motel. Gale was thinking the same thing, but while Rip had a hard time believing Booker tipped of the FBI, Gale was positive he had.

  Chapter 41

  Sean stepped off the bus in Asheville, followed by the man with the iPad. Barbeau and Hall were in radio contact with their agents on the bus, and four more were in cars near the bus station. State and local police were on alert. “We will not lose this punk again, “ Barbeau had said half a dozen times. It had been three hours and the roadblocks on the interstates around West Memphis had yielded nothing- other than a minor drug trafficker, in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  “Targets are getting in white Lexus,” the speaker on the conference table said.

  Barbeau paced to the window as if he might be able to look out and see it. “Who is in that car?”

  “We don’t have an ID,” another agent reported.

  “Do you have a visual?” Hall asked.

  “Affirmative on the visual, negative on the ID. It’s not Gaines, repeat – driver is not Gaines.”

  “Who the hell is it?” Barbeau asked Hall.

  “Follow it,” Hall said.

  Another agent read off the plate number. Hall fed it into his laptop. “Targets are heading south on Tunnel Road. We are in pursuit.”

  “Do not apprehend,” Barbeau said.

  “This is Air One. We have target locked.”

  Barbeau exhaled, momentarily relaxing, knowing the helicopter had the car in its sights. It didn’t last long.

  Hall muted the mic from their end. “The Lexus is a government vehicle.”

  “Whose government?” Barbeau said. The words stung his lips.

  “U.S.”

  “Unbelievable. What department?”

  “Classified.”

  “Let me see that.” Barbeau went to Hall’s screen. “Well, we’re going to unclassify this little party!” He dialed the Director.

  Nanski and Leary were lucky. They were car number sixty-six in the roadblock, and breezed through before the traffic lines got out of hand. Blindly heading west, they were hopeful that their next encounter with Gaines would end differently.

  “Where’s your faith?” Leary asked Nanski, after noticing him biting his lip in the passenger seat.

  “My faith isn’t the problem. It’s the prophecies.”

  “I don’t get that,” Nanski said, popping a breath mint. “So Malachy sees all this going down, nine hundred years ago. Shouldn’t we have been ready?”

  “We have been preparing for this event for many years.”

  “And if it’s prophesized, can it really be changed?” Leary breathed in the minty taste of another candy. “ I don’t want to be messing with God’s plans.”

  “The Lord has granted us free will. He has given us messages. We can change it. We must change it!” Nanski said, impatiently. He was trying to think. The Vatican had some records and reports of Clastier’s predictions, The Divinations, but they were far from complete, and now he susp
ected there was more he hadn’t been shown.

  Clastier hadn’t been hunted because of his Attestations; those spiritual ideas could be squashed as had been so many others that disagreed with the Church. But his Divinations corroborated Malachy’s prophecies, even though Clastier never knew of them.

  “Malachy saw the end of the Church,” Nanski said in a dire tone. “And so did others.”

  “They’re all wrong!” Leary said pounding the dash.

  “I pray we’ll make them wrong.” He clung to the knowledge that records from Clastier’s era were not clear whether The Divinations meant “end times” or “change times” and without seeing all the writings, Nanski could not be sure if Clastier was referreing to the end of the Church, or all of humanity. They needed his papers, not just to stop their spread, but also to understand them.

  “The Director’s working on it,” Barbeau told Hall. “Meanwhile, we follow this damn car.”

  “Where could they possibly be going; now that Gaines is out of Asheville?”

  “Do we know he’s out of Asheville? All we have is a rental car and an empty motel room. Nobody saw him. Anyone could have taken that car. I honestly don’t have the foggiest idea where that son of a bitch is!” Barbeau continued fuming.

  “We need to strike the roadblocks in Arkansas. If they’re heading west, they could be well past Little Rock. North? South? The circle is too large. We’ve heard from the governors of Tennessee, Arkansas, and Missouri; complaining about the back-ups.”

  “No. Tell the governors these are federal highways. I don’t care if it takes all day.”

  “It’s going to bring up too many questions.”

  Barbeau looked at his watch. “Twenty more minutes.”

  “Targets are now on I-26 south,” said a voice from the box.

  “Air One, do you still have a visual?”

  “Affirmative. They’re making it easy. White Lexus traveling the speed limit on a Sunday . . . Sir, Sean Stadler may be heading for the airport.”