by John Conroe
“Study all you want. Study your hearts out, but don’t take photos. Listen write it down but make your notes sound like fiction like…I don’t know…Steven King or something. That would probably be alright,”
“Write our observations like what? Science fiction? Horror?” Mitch asked.
“Sure, why not. Create a fictional investigator and pretend you’re writing novels about him. That way if anyone reads your notes they’ll think you just have vivid imaginations.”
“But no one will ever know that it’s real!” Gordon protested.
“That’s the point. How much of your research have you published so far?”
“Well, none of it. We haven’t exactly found proof till now,” Mitch answered.
“So do you think a series of photos or a video will be considered proof by anyone? The modern world loves supernatural fiction, but it’s not remotely ready for the real deal,” I told them.
I spent a few more minutes with the professors then went looking for Tanya. I found her in our cabin cleaning with a ferocious energy.
“Whatcha doing that for? They said it only needed to be broom swept,” I asked as I watched her vacuum.
“They’re witches Chris. Do you want to leave hair and other DNA stuff around for them to cast sympathetic magic with?” she asked.
“Oh, hadn’t thought of that,” I answered.
“That’s cause they’re pretty blondes. But the mother is scared to death of us, the love struck daughter will protect her werewolf and the other one would likely try and cast a love spell on you,” she said, pulling out the vacuum’s bag. “Here, burn this in our fire while I grab the sheets.”
The flames flared around the paper vacuum bag and the smoke smelled like burning hair. I stirred the fire with a poker stick making sure everything was burned. As I gazed into the coals my phone rang. The caller id told me it was my grandfather.
“Hey what’s up Gramps?” I answered.
“Chris, it’s Len,” said the voice of my grandfather’s right hand man.
“Len? What’s up? Where’s Gramps?” I asked, Cheenos and witches already forgotten.
“Chris, you need to come home, your grandfather’s in the hospital,” he said, gravely.
An hour later, we pulled away from the resort, having assured ourselves that Jake would be alright and telling the Boklunds that I had a family emergency. Quinby wasn’t unhappy to see us go, but I think she meant it when she wished my grandfather a rapid recovery.
***
The fastest way home to Gramps, short of a private jet, was to cross into Canada, traverse the southern portion just above the Great Lakes and come back down into New York State at Ogdensburg or maybe Massena. The closest border crossing was at Sault Sainte Marie on the northeastern edge of the Upper Pennisula, so we headed there, Tanya driving while I called Len for more details.
Fast closing in on eighty years of age, Len wasn’t overly comfortable with cell phones and so our conversation was short. Gramps had collapsed at the breakfast table, clutching his chest in the classic sign of a heart attack. The ambulance had taken him to Potsdam hospital where he was being treated, but Len didn’t know anything new, leaving me completely without answers.
Gramps was my only remaining family and now I didn’t know if he would survive till I got there. A slim white hand with the strength of a hydraulic clamp gently took my own as images of my grandfather flickered through my head.
Chapter 18
It took a half hour to get to Munising then a little less than two hours more to get to the border station at Sault Sainte Marie. It was still dark, early morning, but the crossing ahead seemed to be teeming with trucks and cars. Business people and truck drivers getting an early start.
“We’ll need our passports,” Tanya said, breaking my two hour plus reverie. Those were the first words spoken in the SUV since leaving the resort. Oddly, that was okay. Trying to tell me everything would be alright or that Gramps would be fine would have been a useless gesture. Gramps was in his seventies and I knew he wouldn’t live forever. It’s just I hadn’t expected any problems at this stage of the game.
He was healthy as a horse the last time I’d seen him. I say that not just because he appeared to be fit and hale, but because he smelled healthy, both to me and Tanya. People with health issues give off a different scent, one that vampires are uniquely tuned to. Like the wolf pack that senses a sickly elk, vampires will instinctively gravitate toward the seriously ill. Which, when you think about is speaks to a more natural predator-prey relationship between vamps and humans.
But Tanya had made a point to reassure me about his state of health last time we’d been home. For a man in his seventies, Alex Gordon had the muscle tone and heart rate of a man fifteen years younger. Farm life, even with modern equipment, is guaranteed to keep your weight down and your fitness up. So I was really surprised that he’d had a sudden heart attack.
“We don’t know that he did have a heart attack,” Tanya noted, doing that mind reading thing again. I sorta expect it now.
“No we don’t, but based on what Len said, that seems most likely,” I said, unzipping the document pouch to get at the passports.
The line of vehicles heading onto the International Bridge to Canada had been moving right along, but now slowed to a crawl.
“Damn it! What’s the hold up?” I said, angry at the delay.
We inched forward for another few minutes, approaching what appeared to be an irregular checkpoint set up on the long stretch of road approaching the Border Patrol building. Several cruisers were parked in such a manner to create a bottleneck, forcing cars through one at a time.
“That’s odd, they’re checking cars on the U.S. side?” Tanya noted. “Ones leaving the country, not entering.”
A burly officer in uniform, waved the car ahead of us through the checkpoint, his eyes focused on us.
“Uh oh! I don’t like this too much,” I said. Behind me Awasos growled his agreement.
Hard, flint gray eyes stared holes through our vehicle as he held both arms up in a command to stop. Tanya powered down her window and hit him with a million watt smile.
“Hi officer,” she said brightly. Most men melted before she got to ‘hi’. This guy didn’t change expression. About then I noticed his uniform was slightly different from the standard Border Patrol design. First it wasn’t olive green, but jet black. And second, the guy had his sidearm holstered in a thigh holster, like some kind of SWAT team Tommy Tactical. The gun itself was a Glock .45 not the Patrol’s issue HK P2000. His insignia was different as well, with the main symbol being a set of crossed black swords under the capital letters A.I.R. The whole thing was subdued in color, as was the name patch that just read GLADIUS, no rank anywhere on his uniform. He had some type of rifle slung across his back.
I noticed all of that in the moment before he firmly directed us out of the line of cars and over to a pair of black Humvees that had the same logo on the door panels. Tanya pulled the car to a stop at the direction of another black clad agent, this one an equally serious blonde. Six other agents stepped out around the car with rifles held directly on us.
“They don’t look happy to see us,” I said, trying to get a look at the rifles. I couldn’t identify them which bothered me on a lot of levels.
The rifle wielders were all in full body armor and tactical gear, although it was subtly different somehow. They all had matching deadly serious stares and very odd rifles.
Standing back by fifteen yards or so was a second group of agents, these all attired in the regular Border Patrol olive green and armed with M4 assault rifles.
“GET OUT OF THE VEHICLE AND LIE ON THE GROUND!” the blond woman screamed. We didn’t need to glance at each other, but we both paused to think about it, our brains running at hyper speed, our link suddenly at full combat mode. After a moment, we simultaneously turned to our doors and popped them open with the exact same motion. Like mirror images, we both knelt on the pavement then droppe
d to our stomachs.
“PLACE BOTH HANDS ON YOUR HEADS!” was the next command.
No sooner had we done so when hard knees landed on our backs and strong hands pulled our wrists down to the small of our backs to be cuffed, while a pair of odd rifle barrels pressed against each of our heads.
I could simultaneously feel the barrels on my head and the ones on Tanya’s, but it was the feeling of the hands that triggered the memory. When I say they were strong, I’m talking vampire strong, not human. The attack on me and Toni last fall popped clearly into my head. Those attackers had moved with greater than human speed.
“Your cuffs are made with depleted uranium. Hers are silvered steel. Our weapons don’t use chemical propellants and are loaded with alternating silver and DU rounds. Twitch and we will literally blow you to bits. NOW GET UP!” said the female agent.
Our brains were running in parallel. There were multiple opportunities to counter, escape and attack. We rejected each one, simultaneously arriving at the conclusion that this was going to be a learning experience. We hoped the wait would be rewarded.
Flexing our prone bodies, we both popped to our feet, without any normal in between steps like kneeling. The sudden motion flustered our captors for a split second, then the surprise turned to anger and the hardened barrels of their odd weapons smacked into us in reprisal. Awasos growled from inside the SUV, but a look from each of us stopped his response before it started.
Two ‘agents’ slammed the front doors shut, then signaled to someone else. Instantly heavy diesel engines revved and a four-pack of bright yellow adult-sized Tonka toys moved up from every direction. Two D7 Caterpillar bulldozers came up from each side of the Tahoe, giant steel blades pressing against each set of doors. A smaller Kimatsu bucket loader pulled up to the back of the car and blocked the tailgate doors. The final rig was a very large front end loader, the kind that villages use to remove snow from clogged roads in the winter. It rolled behind one of the dozers and lowered its massive bucket onto the roof of the SUV effectively completing Awasos’s makeshift prison.
All four heavy pieces of equipment rocked slightly as our were bear wolf vented his rage in a roar that turned heads in every part of the busy Border station.
“Sos!” I said at slightly louder than normal speaking level.
The rocking of the enclosed SUV slowed and the roars lessened to a dull growl.
“Smart, ‘cause if he gives us any grief, we’ll just crush him where he is!” the blonde agent said.
Her nametag said BLADE. The others were just as edgy. SHIV, BOWIE, KATANA, TANTO were all there as well as a tall lanky guy named KRISS. I sensed a theme.
Gladius led us into the building, ignoring the regular border agents who moved out of our little group’s way with puzzled looks.
We threaded through several sets of doors, finally entering an interrogation room that came complete with a one-way mirrored wall. A desk with two steel chairs in front of it occupied one end of the room. A man with thinning brown hair and a dark suit sat behind the desk, watching us coldly. I recognized him.
“Agent Gentis, what brings you to Michigan?” I asked. I had only met him once, on the campus of Columbia University when he had tried to bring me in for questioning. General Creek had sent him packing, but now here he was, a long way from New York, with a squad of paramilitary agents who reminded me strongly of the black ops unit that attempted to snatch me and my goddaughter.
Gladius and Blade roughly shoved my vampire and me into the steel chairs, while two of the others took up position behind and slightly to the left of us, gun barrels pressed to the junction of neck and head. The other agents took up position to around the room, mostly behind us.
“Chris Gordon and …Tatiana Demidova,” Gentis said, looking at our passports, then making a show of writing our names on an official looking form. The black clad guards around us were almost vibrating with alertness as they watched us for movement.
“Both persons of interest attempting to leave the country,” he said aloud as he wrote the same words on another line of the form.
“Yeah, about that, I need to get to my grandfather,” I said. He ignored me.
“Transporting a dangerous wolf hybrid, multiple edged weapons,” he said, still looking down and writing.
“Chris, isn’t it odd that this ….agent,” Tanya started, making agent sound like an insult to the word, “…found us here – at the border? I mean we didn’t even know we were coming here till you got that call.”
Gentis glanced up at her but she kept her attention on me.
“I never told you this, but I had your grandfather’s medical records lifted and copied last time we were visiting him,” she said. “Doc S looked through them and told me your Gramps was healthy as a horse, absolutely no sign of heart disease or diabetes, cancer or any other major disease. Quite remarkable was the term he used.”
“You think that he engineered a heart attack knowing this would be the place we would show up as the fastest route home from anywhere in the Upper Peninsula?” I asked, not really surprised that she had creeped on Gramps medical condition. Few humans mean much to Tanya but those that do are the focus of intense affection.
I was starting to get really angry though.
“That’s exactly what I think, and I also think these bozos are the same type that hurt Toni,” she said offhandedly.
She was right and I was suddenly homicidally angry. Grim angry.
“So now that you have ‘Brutal Asset’ what’s your nefarious plan? Secret lab, dissection?” she asked Gentis, whose face reflected a small amount of admiration for her intelligence.
“Well, Miss Demidova, I must say, I am impressed. Beauty and brains. How rare. And you know of us…the Agentes in Rebus?”
We glanced at each other, then she answered him. “Well we knew of you, but we didn’t know your little organization’s title,” she said. “Those who are involved in Matters? Is that how that translates?”
His adimiration was slightly more sincere.
“Educated in the classics. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, based on the average age of your tutors,” he said.
“So you’re what? The Roman Empire’s secret police?” she asked. I didn’t recognize the name of his group, but it obviously fit somewhere in Tanya’s knowledge base. I never spent much time on history, being more interested in learning the practical arts of survival.
He frowned, then chuckled. “No, we borrowed the name as it fits our role here in America. You see Miss Demidova, we live in the greatest nation on earth, but our forefathers left some glaring gaps in the structure of the government. Four to eight years in office is far too short a time frame for our leaders to secure this country’s borders and interests. Administrations turn over too quickly, leaving too many jobs undone,” he said, warming to his monologue. “Our organization was formed over a hundred years ago by patriots who saw the very few mistakes that the founding fathers had made.”
“Let me guess. A.I.R. hides away in the cracks and crevices of the government and runs operations to protect the country?” Tanya guessed.
“Much too simple a summary Miss Demidova,” he responded like a pompous professor. “We influence things at all levels. A word here, a grant there, a stern reminder when necessary, that’s much of what we do. But we also have an active element, one that takes the fight to our enemies where ever they may be.”
He waved a hand at the black unformed troops standing behind us. “We have the best operators in the world and the fortitude to use them. The group behind you is responsible for eliminating more Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders than the entire hunter-killer drone program, we just can’t advertise that”.
“So why are you poisoning old soldiers that fought for this country?” Tanya asked.
“Mr. Gordon’s service to his country is duly noted, but we do what we must. Our mission requires that we have the best of everything, from the gauss rifle prototypes that you see here to the Centurion class
operatives that wield them. Our people are faster and stronger than our enemies because we’ve learned to harvest the proteins that give your people their abilities. But your boyfriend here is another level altogether, although I must say that you, yourself, may add a dimension or two to our studies,” he said with a smirk.
“So where do you fit in with this group, Agent Gentis? Pretty far down the ranks I’d guess,” Tanya said.
He frowned at her. “Actually, I occupy a rare position, with quite a bit of power and latitude, Miss Demidova. I’m empowered to make decisions in the field…life and death decisions.”
She studied him for a second or two then shook her head. “No I don’t buy it. I think you’re in the position of the goat in a tiger hunt. You know—the goat that gets staked out to be killed by the tiger?”
