“What is it?” Melissa whispered.
“Yeah,” Moose said. “What’s going on?”
“We’ll talk about it later.” Carrick shook his head. “Let’s get out of here.”
Stepping outside, I would have known even without the scan that no one was out there. It was absolutely quiet except for a soft breeze. As we crossed the lawn toward the tree line, I heard the distant thump of rotor blades approaching.
Moose and Melissa looked to the sky as the helicopter appeared over the trees. Carrick tensed, still holding his gun.
Another text came in saying, We have your visual.
“They’re with me,” I said.
He relaxed slightly and Moose stepped up next to him, raising his voice over the throb of the helicopter blades.
“Thanks for getting us out of there,” he said. “Now, can you tell us what the hell’s going on?”
As we waited for the chopper, Carrick filled them in on most of what had happened, and what little we knew about why. By the time he was finished, they both looked dazed again. Then he looked over Moose’s head and said, “The containers are gone.”
I turned and saw he was right. In the ten minutes we’d been inside, the entire row of containers had disappeared. After that it was too loud to hear any of us speak, and I was relieved. The chopper dropped fast but landed softly. Four SEALs in tactical gear hit the ground just before the chopper did, followed closely by a pair of medics.
I held up my badge and three of the SEALs fanned out past us, alert, lethal, ready for anything, and surprised to find nothing. The leader came up to me, looking around as he did. “Ledger?”
I nodded. “Pretty sure the place is deserted. Just secure it until my team can evaluate it. And don’t touch anything.”
He nodded and trotted off, speaking into his throat-mic. I grabbed one of the medics and pointed toward Moose and Melissa. “She’s missed two or three doses of this. We just gave her one, but she’s in bad shape. And they both seem like they were doped, so check them for signs of chloroform, Rohypnol, anything like that, okay?”
The medics nodded and then guided Moose and Melissa over to the chopper. The blades had stopped spinning. As they passed, Moose leaned toward Carrick and said, “Might be a while before I go foraging again.”
Carrick slapped him on the shoulder. “You’ll be fine.”
That’s when Bug jumped out of the chopper and ran over, looking around to see if things were hot.
“They’re gone,” he said just as Carrick came up beside me and said:
“We need to figure out what the hell that was all about.”
I introduced them and they shook hands, then Carrick continued. “Seriously. Apart from whatever happened out in the woods, they kidnapped two people, drugged them, did who-knows-what,” earning an alarmed look from Moose. “We need to find them and arrest them. Get to the bottom of all this.”
Bug shook his head. “They’re gone,” he repeated. He held up a tablet computer with a thermal scan showing the entire complex empty except for the four of us crossing the grass.
“Then we need to find out where they went,” Carrick said.
I nodded and turned to Bug. “We’ll find Bortman. And we’ll send a team to their offices in Oslo.”
Bug shook his head again. “Joe, you don’t understand, they’re all gone. According to Mind—” He glanced at Carrick and caught himself. “According to our electronic surveillance, Xenexgen’s computers don’t even exist anymore. The company has been dissolved. As of an hour ago. The assets were liquidated. Everything. The leases on Bortman’s penthouse apartment in Oslo and his mansion in Waverly expired today. Even this whole complex,” he said, waving his arm. “Some holding company bought it at a steal. I don’t know how long the deal’s been in the works, but it’s done.”
“That’s crazy,” Carrick said. “You can’t make an entire multinational corporation disappear in a matter of hours.”
Bug shook his head. “I wouldn’t have thought so, either, but apparently these guys did. They’re gone completely.”
Melissa broke away from the medics and came over. “They can’t be gone,” she said. “Why would they go to the trouble of engineering a terrestrial plant with a totally alien nutritional profile if they weren’t planning on staying?”
“An alien nutritional profile?” Carrick said, laughing. He rolled his eyes and opened his mouth as if he were about to say something sarcastic. But then he stopped, as if suddenly things made sense. His face turned pale as he looked to the sky.
“Melissa’s right,” I said. “We need to scour this place for clues. Their Oslo facilities, too. And the spot out in the woods. We need to find out as much as we can about these guys. They might be gone for now, but I’m pretty sure they’re coming back.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jon McGoran is the author of the Doyle Carrick thrillers Drift, Deadout, Down to Zero, and most recently Dust Up, from Tor/Forge Books. His YA science fiction thriller Spliced will be published November 2017 by Holiday House Books. Writing as D. H. Dublin, he is the author of the forensic thrillers Body Trace, Blood Poison, and Freezer Burn. His short fiction includes the novella After Effects, from Amazon StoryFront; the short story “Bad Debt,” which received an honorable mention in The Best American Mystery Stories 2014; and stories in a variety of anthologies and publications in multiple genres, including the X-Files anthology The Truth Is Out There and the Zombies vs Robots anthology No Man’s Land, from IDW. When not writing fiction, he works as a freelance writer, editor, and story consultant. He is a member of the International Thriller Writers and the Mystery Writers of America and a founding member of the Philadelphia Liars Club. Find him on Twitter @JonMcGoran, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/jonmcgoran, or at www.jonmcgoran.com.
NO BUSINESS AT ALL
BY JAVIER GRILLO-MARXUACH
The fuckwits had the temerity to call it Department Zero.
Mr. Church didn’t like to put me out there solo. Said it was for my protection. I often wondered whose protection he really had in mind. Truth is, without the blessed stabilizing influence of a Top, Bunny, Ghost—or Rudy—it was a fifty/fifty that I’d corkscrew the head off of any maroon who tried my patience.
And the guy in front of me was doing the merengue on the wrong side of that border.
His name was J. D. Goldfarb, and, to my very great credit, I cowboyed the fuck up the first twenty minutes of his thrilling description of the hidden meanings, and the expense, of his yakuza sleeve tattoos before my homicidal Lorelei started singing her song.
Because God is Love, that was as much time as J. D. needed to figure out I didn’t instinctively recognize him as the writer of the Big Time Studios production of Department Zero, and that I was most likely “below the line.” That’s a fancy Hollywood term for “the folks who do all the real work on a movie set.”
Unaware that he was saving his own life, J. D. Goldfarb quickly pushed up his chunky Prada glasses and shuffled his John Varvatos leather boots and black Thomas Pink shirt away from the craft services table, and the hell out of my sight. “Craft services,” for those keeping score at home, is another fancy Hollywood term. This time for “snack bar.” It’s where actors go to “eat their feelings.”
The craft services table is also the unofficial center of “base camp.” That’s where all the trucks, tents, trailers, and cars supporting the $150 million production of Department Zero parked while on location.
Even I can’t deny that there was an exciting zip to the place, what I imagine people must have meant when they fantasized about running away to join the circus, and there I was: watching a clown scamper back to his car while I waited for my mark to arrive.
The mission should have been simple. When MindReader intercepted an email from a Big Time Studios server with a “log line” for their upcoming production Department Zero, Mr. Church did something he seldom deigned to do. He paid attention to the movies.
On the surface, the screen
play for Department Zero did bear some resemblance to our august organization: telling as it did the story of the eponymous top-secret government unit. Headed by one mysterious “Mr. Chapel.” Department Zero also counted among its operatives a former Special Forces man named “Jack Counter.” A tough-as-nails-and-take-no-shit leader of the heavily armed and state-of-the-art “Mirror Team,” Counter stood at the bleeding edge of the fight against criminal abuses of science-fictional technology.
Of course, Jack Counter kept his personal demons—which were legion, by the way—at bay with the help of his long-suffering Mexican-American psychotherapist, named “Ryan Vazquez.” That she was Jack Counter’s love interest, in a breathtaking abdication of professional ethics, didn’t seem to set off Mr. Church’s bullshit meter in the least.
As you might imagine, it took all of one day undercover as “Special Covert Ops Technical Adviser” to the star of Department Zero to figure out that this was a case of “parallel development.” That’s a fancy Hollywood term for “someone had the same idea we did around the same time we did.”
Hell, I could have told Mr. Church that without leaving the cold one I was nursing on the lanai when I got the call.…
But being as my boss’s paranoia is a self-sustaining ecosystem with its own predatory megafauna, and that he was probably spending nights awake wondering if some sinister power was using the billion-dollar machinery of the entertainment-industrial complex to get the word out about our operation to their allies, I took pity on the guy. I figured a few days in La-La Land investigating this bunch of posers to make sure none of them had unauthorized access to government secrets would be cake.
Now, I don’t want to give away any “spoilers,” but here’s the entirety of the written report I turned in to Mr. Chapel—er, Church—on that score:
The producers of Department Zero know about as much about our operation as their screenwriter knows the yakuza from his own asshole.
But that didn’t mean everything was hunky-dory on the set of Department Zero.
First of all, Department Zero? Excuse me, I work for a living. Contrary to popular belief—and popular culture—government agents don’t sit around coming up with snappy, eye-catching names for their black-bag outfits.
Think it through: some dime-store Snowden downloads the wrong d-base, the first thing they are going to do is click on the sleek and sexy code names. On the other hand, “Department of Military Sciences”? Now there’s a designation guaranteed to cure the insomnia of even the most obsessive-compulsive spreadsheet sniffer.
Second, even though the movie’s leading man (and, according to Dr. Hu, it was shocking I’d never heard of the guy before), international superstar Cole McAdams, was pushing sixty, he played the role of Jack Counter with all the brio of a man a third that age. I’m talking Navy SEAL endurance.
Cole McAdams legendarily did his own stunts, threw his own punches, piloted his own helicopter to remote locations, never forgot his lines, and always hit his marks with spit-polish and devil dog precision.
Normally, that wouldn’t have given me any pause. A star like that? His entire life centers on his “instrument”—a fancy Hollywood term for “his body.” And what’s a guy like that got to do with his day other than keep his abs up?
With every aspect of his existence taken care of by assistants, secretaries, housekeepers, stylists, and personal trainers, Cole McAdams’s racehorselike reality consisted of two activities: staying chiseled and handsome at all costs, and collecting a portfolio of skills every bit as ridiculous as those of the characters he played.
Having earned between $5 million and $20 million, with gross-profit participation, in every one of his projects almost all the way back to his breakthrough starring role as “John Hawk” in the early eighties action extravaganza Relentless and its seven sequels, prequels, and equals, Cole McAdams had amassed not just enough wealth to own his own lavishly restored 747-100 (one of the first off the Boeing assembly line in ’67, he informed anyone who would listen) but also the free time to earn his pilot’s certification. He also designed a small private airport in the style of Eero Saarinen behind his third and largest home, located in the Arizona desert.
After spending three minutes with the guy, you’d learn not only that he knew how to pilot a jumbo jet as well as a P-51 Mustang and a Mikoyan-Gurevitch Foxbat (yeah, he called it that instead of “a MiG-25,” just to be sure I “got it”) … but that he could also scale mountains, rocks, and buildings with and without ropes and carabiners … and that he had ranking in multiple martial arts, including Brazilian jujitsu, Wing Chun, Krav Maga, and Systema.
Longest three minutes of my life.
Wanna hear about the next three minutes? They’re the reason I know that Cole McAdams owned an extensive collection of guns from his films—including such exotic gear as the fully functional “hero prop” rocket-powered grenade launcher from Relentless 2 (“hero prop” is a fancy Hollywood term for “the real deal that looks good on camera and might even be fully functional”)—that he could free dive to a depth of a hundred feet for more than eight minutes, and that he had learned parkour from the Yamakasi, precision stunt driving from Rémy Julienne, and black-and-white war photography from James Nachtwey.
Then there were the singing and guitar lessons from Eddie Vedder that he took in preparation for his role as an ostensibly aging rocker in his 2014 relationship comedy, Tour Bus Blues.
Yeah. That one hurt.
Anyway, I knew something was wrong with Cole McAdams the first time I laid eyes on him. It had nothing to do with his fame, fortune, or hobbies.
It was the road rash.
* * *
Whenever Cole McAdams left his large, midcentury modern compound in the Hollywood Hills, assuming he wanted to drive himself that day, he decided among the dozen cars, and twice as many motorcycles, in his air-conditioned garage. Then, his assistant, a driver, and a bodyguard piled into a lumped-out Cadillac Escalade, which followed Cole McAdams and whatever conveyance he had selected for himself to his destination.
No matter where Cole McAdams went—an exclusive sushi joint in the foothills over the Sunset Strip or the private home of a fellow mogul—the Escalade and his vehicle du jour would wait for him at the entrance. Both with the engine idling. Whenever Cole McAdams was done doing whatever it was that Cole McAdams did, wherever it was that Cole McAdams did it, Cole McAdams would choose whether to get back in his private car, or bike, or the Escalade. If Cole McAdams got in the Escalade, then the assistant drove his car or motorcycle back home for him. If Cole McAdams got back in his car or bike, the Escalade, once again, followed at a close distance to ensure his privacy and safety.
In short: It’s good to be Cole McAdams.
On my first day visiting the production of Department Zero, filming on location in downtown Los Angeles on a Friday morning, Cole McAdams had chosen to ride to work on his custom-painted orange-and-gray Suzuki Hayabusa. In spite of his toned musculature and complete control over his mental and physical faculties, Cole McAdams somehow missed a pool of oil-based paint spilled near the prop master’s truck.
I had been instructed to show up first thing in the morning, while most of the crew were getting breakfast at the catering tent, and then further instructed by an assistant director to wait for Cole McAdams’s arrival at the door to his triple-wide motor home/trailer/dressing room/porta-mansion, parked near the props fabrication truck. So I alone saw him hit that puddle in 1080p hi-res.
I may be a grown-ass man, but I’m not above admitting a measure of envy over another guy’s sweet gear, which I could never afford … which is why the resulting wipeout was so uniquely satisfying.
Cole McAdams’s Suzuki Hayabusa screamed around the corner to the deserted midway between the parked production vehicles, mobile offices, and dressing room trailers. As if that weren’t enough, he then popped a wheelie on the last leg of the journey to his triple-wide. His face, visible through the transparent visor on his matte black helmet,
was a study in steel-eyed intensity. Until his rear wheel went into a skid.
Then it became a study in wide-eyed hilarity. There are few things funnier than watching this cruel world show some poser just how little mastery he truly has over all he surveys.
The Escalade lumbered around the corner as I took a few steps toward the conflagration. Within seconds, Cole McAdams’s retinue surrounded him in a flurry of iPhones, loudly voiced concern for the meal ticket, and removal of witnesses.
By the time Cole McAdams’s Blond Mountain of a bodyguard shooed me away from the scene, well before any further onlookers could have twigged to the crash, my offer of assistance had been soundly rejected. I had also been asked to relinquish any cell phone video of the incident (I had none) and reminded that should word of this get out to something called “TMZ,” I would be held personally responsible for violating the ironclad terms of the nondisclosure agreement that made it possible for me to visit this location in the first place.
That’s when I noticed the compound fracture.
When 550 pounds of rice rocket lands on a man’s wrist, it’s gonna leave a mark. This one was a beautiful specimen, even viewed in passing as Cole McAdams’s assistant and driver under-the-shouldered him past me, three inches of pearly white in a foot-long lake of gore, road rash, and shredded motorcycle leather.
Now, I’ve seen some shit. And when you’ve seen shit like I’ve seen shit, you don’t go looking for shit. And you don’t go starting shit unless you’re ready to end some shit. But you sure as shit know some shit when you see it … and what I saw next was some shit.
* * *
I whiled away the hour after the incident on a folding plastic chair over at “extras holding” (a fancy Hollywood term for “the fucking ghetto of the untouchables”), and was then summoned by a production assistant (one of an army of young people in cargo pants, T-shirts, and headsets who beavered over every facet of the operation like some unholy mating of worker bees and Santa’s elves) and instructed to wait for Cole McAdams at the craft services table. Twenty minutes and one tedious exchange with a tattooed screenwriter later, my time in “the Presence” was afoot.
Patient Zero Page 21
