"I hid in a Dumpster to escape."
"I suppose that is better than a toilet." Gilbert adjusted his spectacles as he studied Wong's notes. "Red mercury, huh? Anything else?"
"EBEs."
Gilbert shrugged. "Got me there. I've never heard of that."
I homed in on Gilbert's expression as I asked, "Project Redlight?"
Gilbert rocked back into his seat. "Sorry, Felix, I'm drawing a blank on that one." His expression matched the flat tone of his statement.
"Area 51?" I asked.
"Nevada?" Gilbert set his hands on the armrests of his chair and sat up straight. "That I can answer. Here at the Flats we generated waste streams of classified material. Dr. Wong was our liaison with the U.S. Air Force in Area 51 to make sure that we didn't inadvertently release sensitive information about these materials during our clean up. Secret? Yes. Mysterious? No."
I tapped the inside cover of the diary. "Look. It gives the dates. From two years ago to last week. Wong started making entries long before the outbreak." Carefully, I turned to the middle of the diary. The damp pages tore. "The writing's smudged but you can make out his comment about twenty-three kilograms of Hg-209, red mercury, moved from Building 707. That's the curious thing. There's no mention of red mercury in the historical discharge reports."
"Of course not. The only mercury we've used was quicksilver in instruments. And perhaps some mercuric-oxide, in minuscule amounts, for laboratory analysis. That's all."
"That's what I'm getting at. Existence of the red mercury was so secret that it was even kept out of the Classified Safety Analysis Files."
Gilbert shook his head the way a professor might at a confused student. "Red mercury is a sham. Supposedly the Russians used it as a catalyst for fusion weapons. It is mildly radioactive and very toxic. And useless. Quantities pop up on the European black market every now and then. Some sucker pays a few thousand bucks for crap he thinks is weapons-grade material."
"So why did Wong mention red mercury?"
"Maybe our good doctor wasn't so good. Maybe he had something cooking on the side."
"But twenty-three kilograms? That's more than a minuscule amount."
"True. It's quite a lot. And if he had any, it wasn't produced here."
"But he mentioned it specifically when I asked him about the outbreak. That and the EBEs."
"Let me tell you something about Dr. Wong. He was a fossil, a relic of the Cold War. When DOE consolidated its weapons operations in Los Alamos, Wong was left here. Out to pasture. I'm sure he was upset because of his treatment by DOE. Maybe that's why he concocted this chimera about red mercury and EBEs…whatever those are."
I pushed the diary toward Gilbert. The damp pages left a slimy trail on his desk blotter. "You asked me to find the cause of the nymphomania. Here it is."
Gilbert got up from behind his desk and opened the blinds of his window. A hundred meters away, on the barren ground inside the concertina wire of the Protected Area, waited a long white semi-trailer. A tent covered the rear of the trailer. Security guards in camouflage and carrying submachine guns patrolled the vicinity.
"Dr. Wong's death spooked a lot of important people," Gilbert said. "I spent my breakfast hour on a conference call with Germantown and D.C. Because of what happened to Wong, the shipment of the material I'm concerned about has been accelerated." Gilbert rapped the window for emphasis. "The material will be loaded into that trailer, which will leave for the WIPP facility in New Mexico within days, not weeks."
"You have Wong's diary. It's enough for you to demand to personally inspect the trailer."
Gilbert pulled a folder from his in-box. "That ain't how it works." Gilbert opened the folder and produced a sheaf of forms. "As the Assistant Manager for Environmental Restoration, my signature verifies the accuracy of these shipping documents for the trailer. If I don't sign them, I'd better have an excellent reason. It's called playing the DOE game."
"And if you refuse?"
Gilbert closed the folder. "Then I get reassigned. Some political hack will take my place behind this desk and whatever's in the trailer will get buried deep in Carlsbad Caverns. After which, the cause of the outbreak will remain a mystery forever…until the next wave of nymphomania, or worse. Meanwhile, I take water samples in Idaho for the rest of my career."
"You hired me to find the cause and I told you."
"Felix, give me something I can work with and I'll get a warrant. I'll have a team of federal marshals knocking down that fence and cutting that trailer open."
Gilbert slid the folder back into his in-box. "But red mercury? Why not magic dust or dilithium crystals while we're at it? Wong yanked your chain real good."
The book shriveled under the glare of Gilbert's desk lamp. The pages wrinkled and tore. My ego felt the same way. I was at another dead end.
Frustration turned into suspicion. Maybe Gilbert wasn't so clean himself. I tipped my head and reached to remove my contacts so that I could hypnotize him. I stopped. Gilbert had asked me as a friend to help him, so why would he keep secrets from me? I felt guilty for suspecting him and lowered my hand.
"Felix, the key word in this investigation is ‘deception.' The only way I can get at the truth is to call their bluff."
"Whose bluff?"
"The ones who know what caused the nymphomania. What are they hiding? And why?" Gilbert leaned against the window frame and rubbed his temples. "I need proof to show that the inventory reports about those shipments are a lie. I know it seems like an impossible task, but that's why I asked for your help. If that trailer leaves Rocky Flats without answering that question, I'll have failed. You'll have failed. Don't let that happen."
The anguish of defeat pressed upon me. I loosened my collar. Sweat tickled my brow but I couldn't wipe it or I'd smear my makeup.
This was my job. Sure, I could quit and can the hassle. Then what? Go somewhere else and quit that, too? Maybe this failure was the result of the gradual loss of my vampire powers because I wouldn't drink human blood.
No, that couldn't be it. I'd prove Bob Carcano wrong. A pulse of determination surged through me. My fangs extended. Gilbert had his back to me so he didn't notice. I held my lips closed until the sharp incisors retracted and then I touched the tips to make sure they didn't protrude.
Gilbert turned from the window. He glanced at me. "You got dental problems?"
"Something like that. If I find out what's in the trailer, that will solve the conspiracy?"
"Yes."
"That simple?"
"If you call breaking into the Protected Area and getting shot simple."
"Consider it done."
Gilbert's forehead wrinkled in doubt. "How?"
"I don't know yet. Let me surprise you."
Chapter 20
AFTER THE MEETING WITH Gilbert Odin, I spent a few hours trolling the Internet for red mercury, EBEs, and Project Redlight. Every hit on red mercury confirmed what Gilbert had told me, that it was hokey material. EBEs, I discovered, stood for "Extraterrestrial Biological Entities," a long-winded way to say "aliens." The proverbial little green men from Mars.
This led me back to websites devoted to Project Redlight, supposedly a secret air force program either studying UFOs and their EBE occupants or debunking the whole extraterrestrial story. I wasn't sure which, but as every paranoid conspiracy nut would confirm, all interplanetary flights to Earth lead to Area 51. In this mishmash of crackpot theories I didn't find anything that mentioned nymphomania or Rocky Flats. All this work and so far I had nothing to show for my investigation but wasted time stumbling through a labyrinth of hoaxes concerning flying saucers.
Bob called and asked that I join him for dinner. I needed a break from the frustration of my case and agreed to go. I drove us that evening to a taco stand on South Federal Boulevard where we met Andre. We sat around a wooden picnic table, in the warm envelope of air radiating from the space heater slung under the metal awning. Loud motorcycles, tall pickups, and garish low-ride
rs cruised by. Not even the most reckless of vânätori would dare attack us here, out in the open.
I reached for the plastic basket containing my tacos.
Bob lifted a pouch of human blood from a paper bag on the bench. He snipped the pouch open and squeezed blood over his chile relleno combination plate. "Smothered. The only way to eat Mexican food. Of course, come tomorrow, this chile and beans are going to turn my ass into a weapon of mass destruction."
Andre, sipping on his beer, choked and shot suds out his nose.
Bob offered a plastic bottle to me.
I took the bottle and uncapped it. The aroma smelled of pig's blood. "Thanks." I poured the blood into my tacos.
Andre wiped his face with a paper towel. His gaze shifted from the plastic bottle to the pouch resting beside Bob's plate. "What's this, Felix? You're choosing animal blood over human?"
Bob was about to shovel chile relleno into his mouth. "Felix doesn't drink human blood."
Andre's face took on the astonished, injured expression of a priest hearing that a friend is an atheist. "This is…obscene." He turned to Bob. "Why?"
Bob pointed his fork at me. "Ask him."
I had been looking forward to a relaxed meal. "It's because of the war."
"Which war?" Andre raised his hands in supplication. "Humans have caused so many."
"The recent Gulf War. With Iraq."
"It's not healthy," Andre blurted. "We need human blood. It's the most nourishing."
"That's what I've been telling the jackass," Bob mumbled over a mouthful.
Andre's hands curled into claws. He held them before me as if they were weapons. "Human blood replenishes our vampire powers. It makes us strong. It makes us monsters."
"I don't want to be a monster," I replied. At this moment I hated being a vampire. I wanted to quit hiding behind these contact lenses and layers of Dermablend and be a normal human.
"But you are undead. You are vampire. You have no choice." Andre pushed the pouch toward me. "Drink and revel in this pleasure God has given us."
"What pleasure? God has damned us with this existence."
"Quit wasting your time, Andre," Bob said. He tapped his fork against Andre's plate of burritos and rice. "Eat before it gets cold."
Andre emptied the pouch of human blood over his food. "Felix, we are your friends, your brothers in fangs."
"Is this why you invited me to dinner?" I replied. "To pester me like this?"
"No," Bob answered. "I asked you here to discuss what you're going to tell the council. And to see how we could help in your investigation."
"My investigation?" I glared at Bob. "What did you do? Post it on your Internet newsletter?"
Bob quit chewing and wiped his mouth. "Before you wet your panties, listen. You're tangling with DOE, and vampire hunters have got us on their hit list. Considering that you've got to be looking over both shoulders at the same time, I'm surprised that you're not grateful for our help."
"You're right. I'm not. I don't need you two stumbling behind me."
"As if you've been so surefooted. Didn't you get conked on the head? And do I have to go over the how and why of my rescuing you from the animal shelter?"
I didn't want to answer. This was my business. My appetite waned and, regretfully, I watched the pig's blood congeal on my tacos.
Andre whispered in an accusing tone. "And now we have this revelation that you won't drink human blood. Deny your nature and you stand naked before the danger with your eyes closed."
I gulped my beer and let it settle in my stomach. Okay, I was a vampire. Maybe I was blinding myself to the risks. And I shouldn't be so headstrong, especially if it put me in the position of being lectured by this geezer. "All right. I am grateful for your help. Where would we start?…" My fingers tingled.
I looked around. "Somebody's watching us."
"I feel it, too." Bob hunched his shoulders and looked about.
All three of us removed our contacts and examined the area.
We were alone under the awning. Cars whooshed by on the boulevard. The red auras of humans shimmered in the black dome of night that surrounded us beyond the glow of the parking lot lamps. None of the auras bristled with threatening emotion.
The tingling stopped.
"Whatever it was, it's gone now," Bob said.
"Not it," I corrected, "but who."
"Vânätori de vampir?" Andre asked.
"Who else could spook us like this?" Bob answered.
"In my centuries as a vampire I've never seen the vânätori de vampir," Andre said.
"Never?" I asked.
"Not one. I spent most of my time fanging humans in the Orient. The eastern provinces. Siam. Java. Moved to South America for the fifteen through seventeen hundreds." Andre sat, his expression tense. "How many vânätori are there?"
"Four," I replied. "At least, that's how many I've seen."
Andre wrung his hands. In this light, withdrawn and circumspect, he appeared frail and weary. He was, after all, close to a thousand years old.
"Up until these attacks," Andre said, "I regarded the vânätori as Ziggy had, more exaggeration than truth. No human could be capable of stalking and killing us so easily."
Bob collected the plastic ware and napkins on his tray. "And look what happened to Ziggy. Standing out here like this, I feel like I'm the center target in a shooting gallery. Let's go."
We tossed the remnants of our food into the trash. I jingled my keys and hurried to my car.
Bob and I climbed into my Dodge. Andre got into his Pontiac.
The comforting rumble of the Dodge's engine alleviated my fears. The needle on the tachometer quivered as if daring the vânätori to come after us. I squealed the tires and fishtailed out of the parking lot.
Slowing down, I waited for Andre to follow. In the rearview mirror I saw that Andre's headlights were on but he hadn't left his parking spot. A set of high beams from another car crowded behind him. My fingers tingled, then vibrated in alarm.
Bob turned around and looked out the rear window. His aura burned with rage. He shouted, "Andre's in trouble."
"Yeah, I know." I whipped the Dodge into a U-turn. We looped in front of oncoming traffic and smacked the opposite curb. Cars swerved around us, horns blaring.
Bob snarled at them, his fangs extended.
I gunned the V-8 and shot into the southbound lane. My kundalini noir reared up and readied my body to strike. Talons grew from my fingers. Fangs extended to my lower lip.
Bob squinted. "Those damn high beams are blinding me."
In the parking lot, the high beams went dim and a darkened car with three glowing red auras zoomed backwards. The car spun around and retreated into the mass of auras and vehicles at the far intersection.
I raced the engine to catch them.
Bob beat his hand on the dashboard. "Stop. Stop. What's happened to Andre?"
I veered into the parking lot and skidded to a halt beside the Pontiac.
Bob jumped out. The Pontiac's motor still rumbled. Inside, a faint orange glow grew dimmer. Bob switched off the motor. He hung his head and leaned against the door pillar.
I got out of my Dodge. "Is he…? Did the vânätori get to him?"
Bob nodded.
My kundalini noir remained still, disappointed at having lost the chance to tear flesh. I looked inside the Pontiac.
Andre's body lay across the center console, decapitated and with a hole in his chest. Vampire blood flakes were strewn like confetti across the instrument panel and the inside of the windshield.
The door of the taquería opened and a woman, round as a bell pepper, stood silhouetted in the threshold. "Hey," she called out in a barrio accent, "you guys making trouble?"
Bob's fangs retracted. Shielding his eyes, he shook his head. "We're okay. My friend's having trouble with his car."
"Well, it sounded like someone was starting shit," she said. "Don't make me call the cops."
Bob waved at her. "No trouble. E
verything's fine."
"Then why are you and your friends driving through the lot like it's a goddamn racetrack? I expect cholos to act that way, not a bunch of viejos like you cabrones. If you're done eating here, go somewhere else and do your chingaderas." The woman closed the door and peered at us through the take-out window.
Bob opened the car door. Andre's head rested between his knees, upside down. The raw stump of his neck stared at us.
"What about his fangs?" I asked.
"Gone."
Chapter 21
THE BRAZENNESS AND THE stunning deftness of Andre's murder shook both Bob and me. These vânätori de vampir were expert assassins.
Still, I had my investigation to complete, and that clock was ticking away. The next day Bob and several of the other vampires arranged for the solar immolation of Andre's remains. I attended the ceremony, or, rather, the perfunctory arranging of his remains to be burned to dust by the dawn sun. All the vampires kept unusually quiet. The vânätori had us worried, something that as vampires we were ashamed to admit. Even though we were undead, none of us was eager to trade our animated forms for mounds of ash.
Wendy had left a message on my voice mail saying that she had something important to tell me. I hoped it was about my investigation. She lived in the Washington Park neighborhood. Her home was a modest brick bungalow, known locally as a "Denver square." I circled the block with my contacts out, reconnoitering the area to make sure that no vânätori waited in ambush. The area clear, I put my contacts back in and parked.
Wendy answered after the second ring of her doorbell. Her elfish face peeked through the small window in the door and greeted me with a smile. She opened the door and looked past my shoulder. Her gaze surveyed the street. A rainbow-colored scrunchy gathered her hair into a ponytail.
"We're okay," I said to reassure her.
Inviting me in, she stepped aside to let me enter a compact living room where a humid plant smell overwhelmed me. Spider plants and ferns hung from baskets along the edges of the ceiling. Flowers and herbs crowded the buffets and built-in shelves lining the walls. Instrumental music—a sub-Saharan beat—drifted from unseen speakers.
The Nymphos of Rocky Flats Page 14
