Virgil glanced through the glass door, experiencing the same vague discomfort that had plagued him that day long ago when Batavia Primary fell. Shadowing the Captain, Virgil couldn’t help but notice how sparse the staff was today. The few officers present looked up from their desks to watch him walk by. Their expressions said, Poor Virgil.
You’re seeing things again. Get a grip, Virge.
Kristyana had brought such calm to his mess of a life after Prague; he’d thought all this blasted paranoia was behind him.
“Sit down, Montaigne,” Colson poured himself two fingers of J&B. None for Virgil.
The room seemed to have swallowed all the heat from outdoors and filtered out the wind to prevent relief. Virgil fingered his collar and looked across the acres of oak at the Captain. Not a drop of perspiration on Colson’s face; the man’s poise was legendary. Virgil sat and waited and sweated in his thick starchy uniform.
“I have to send you to Buffalo,” Colson said at last. “There was a bit of confusion at the conference and I need a senior Detective to straighten it out. Are you that man?”
He eyed the Captain for longer than etiquette suggested, but he couldn’t help it; the Captain had not looked at him during the statement and subsequent query. Colson swallowed the costly scotch as if it were house wine, insulting the years of hibernation the barley had endured in stout oak barrels. There was a kind of quiet desperation in the way he poured another finger of J&B. Tedious and poised to the extreme. Even the glass refused to sweat.
“Today, sir?”
Colson nodded. Virgil got up and left the station. Outside he paused to inhale the cool fresh air. He would drive west as though to Buffalo, that much he was sure of, but he had no intention of actually going to the Queen City. Something was up and he intended to find out. No more nights on the sofa of ignorance. If Dorl was making a move, Virgil would intercept him.
While driving he edified himself: “It’s not a false trail this time, not like Arfion was.”
He waited until nightfall, when the stars come out to fight the street lamps, to leave Richmond Memorial Library (which he’d been using as a hideout—no one he knew ever went there), and head for the Captain’s house.
“One-eleven Ellicott Ave,” reciting it as a mantra. He turned onto Ellicott, idled along the entire avenue and then traced his tracks back to 111. A single second-story light was all that evidenced life in the craftsman style house. Captain Colson’s office away from home.
He parked down the street on the side of the Park. A lone arc light had been installed in the center of the Park, and the lonely dome spilled a weak tent of light on the grass, reminding Virgil of a disturbing scene concerning George Smiley in one of his Le Carre novels.
Batting this memory aside, he eased the door shut. In his soft leather shoes he moved with absolute silence towards the Captain’s house. Lingering heat from the May afternoon brought out beads of sweat all along his back and forehead. After wiping his brow he jogged to 111 and crept up the front porch latticework.
The light was still on but he climbed anyway, thanking the heavens for the Captain’s disdain of dogs. He spat out a few clinging spring leaves, huffed over the edge to the porch roof and rolled to the wall below the window. Here he waited, listened, poised to enter the second the Captain departed for the land of sleep—hopefully in a room far away. As he waited, Virgil wondered how the Yankee game had gone. With Mantle, Bauer and Slaughter roaming the outfield, how could the Yanks lose?
He waited so long that even the stars grew tired of twinkling and, as they dulled dawn peeked over the horizon. Light sprinkled the world. Captain Colson finally hit the sack. Virgil slid open the window, wondering if there would be a time when everyone would be as careful as he was and lock all their windows and doors. Widespread paranoia. Unpleasant thought.
He made for the desk, a twin of the one in the station. A perusal of the papers on top revealed nothing untoward, merely arrest records, reviews of parolees and the daily placards of hiring’s and firings.
At the bottom of the pile lay the official designation to the section chief for transferring Virgil to Buffalo, the bottom line calling his attention: “We will all be better off with Virgil Montaigne in Buffalo.” Virgil snorted. “Better off sure as sure, you bastards.” The drawers came next; all locked with a profusion of brass. He removed his pick kit and inserted the needle thin instruments of illegality, twisting and turning with practiced skill. There was an audible click, a triumphant churning of tumblers and teeth.
But another sound from outside the door made him retreat to the feet-hole under the desk.
The door creaked open and feet tip-toed over the shag carpet. They stopped. Virgil covered his mouth to stifle his panting. The shadows remained. Virgil swallowed loud enough for all Batavia to hear, gulping when the Captain circled the desk in the center of the room, making for the window. Behind the leather chair and under the desk he watched as the Captain looked out the window—and closed it.
Damn, I forgot!
Colson remained where he was. Probably busy deciphering the mystery of an open window when he had not been the one to open it. But as happens in the absence of logical explanation, when our minds tend to create excuses, fabricate stories and manufacture logical tales to explain away that which seems impossible, Colson snorted, apparently satisfied with just such a fabrication. He retraced his steps to the door.
Virgil exhaled.
As if uninterrupted, he resumed his lock picking. The drawer slid open moments later, spilling its dirty little secrets: a .38 Smith and Wesson and a twelve-year old bottle of J&B. He moved to the next drawer, discovering a journal filled to the brim with saucy recollections of Colson’s childhood sweethearts, including the one he’d finally pinned down. Virgil closed this drawer and relocked it, moving on to the next one while eyeing the picture of Colson’s son Timothy, a striking lad about Michael’s age.
Ten minutes later the final brass restrainer shuttered and gave in to Virgil’s prying. The drawer was empty, He started to slide it back.
The other drawers were full, even over full, why is this one nearly empty?
He paused before drawing it out, raising the face to remove it and set it on the desk. An arthritic hand reached in and pushed the base down near the face. Nothing. He did the same with the back; the base flipped up at the front, revealing a faux bottom and the true abyssal nature of the drawer.
A manila envelope marked with highly provocative red letters stamped diagonally, designating it CLASSIFIED. He reached in and removed it. The fat envelope opened to the first page with bold black letters indicating in no uncertain terms that it was to be viewed only by one privy to classified FBI files, which, according to the line below it, included Captain Colson.
“Evidence of the Captain’s duplicity,” Virgil exclaimed, smiling. But then he sighed. He had crossed a line here and there was no turning back. His boss was working with the feds, had information on Dorl, and yet, all this time he had labeled Virgil an eccentric.
He flipped through the dossier, trying to maintain steady breaths. A picture caught his eye, something even the FBI couldn’t possibly possess.
It was a copy of his photograph of the three-fold hieroglyph man on the door in Prague. “He’s been in my house? Son of a bitch.” He put the drawer back and locked it. The window silently opened. With the dossier in hand Virgil climbed out the window and down the trellis.
The sun continued rising with the pallor of Ford white while the air at last cooled with the dew of an early spring morning. Virgil jogged to his truck.
Vernon seemed on the other side of a mountain, thanks to creeping traffic. “Why are all you out so early anyway? Should all be home, sure as sure.”
On reaching his house Virgil threw the truck into park and sat a moment. A chance glance at the mirror woke the tired man like a switch to the back. In the reflection he saw a man under a white trilby standing beside a neighbor’s house. Virgil practically ran inside.
He plopped down on the wing back chair and explained. He thought she would tell him to return the dossier but she stunned him with, “You should burn it.”
“What?” He sat up ramrod. “I need to know what they are up to.”
“Why?” She waited as he contemplated the appropriate response. “You have family, you have job. You are not a god. Let the FBI worry about that man.” She put her hands on his legs and knelt down. “If we mind our own business the government will leave us alone. Do not start this nonsense again, dear. I beg you.”
He did not miss the intended meaning in her voice and words. But how could he let his Captain go on deceiving him, and how let Dorl get away again?
Chapter 31
Metal rustled against metal, a chorus grating on her already frazzled nerves. Westin swiped a few bolts off the table onto the floor and cleared away dusty cobwebs. Apparently he hadn’t had many opportunities to show off his device.
The gaunt man flipped a switch, igniting an electronic hum that buzzed the air. With a flair for the dramatic, he handed Lexi a pair of dark glasses.
She experienced a tingling sensation throughout her body, system-wide pins and needles. Miniature tendrils of lightning sprang up and out of the core of the device that was supposedly the scale model of Dorl’s collider in Arfion. The humming climbed to a crescendo as a thousand bolts of electricity accumulated atop the device into a ball of sublime radiance.
“Remember,” Westin voiced over the buzzing, “this one I built with a vacuum tube in accordance with Tesla’s parameters. The business man’s won’t be so limited. So just picture the ball a thousand times brighter! ” His sinister grin shimmered in the coruscating light.
“Okay, here we go!” He yanked back on a steel lever.
Even with the dark glasses Lexi’s hand jerked up in reflex to shield her eyes from the concentrated emission. A beam of intense amethyst exploded out of the contraption and struck a cinderblock target backed by an iron plate. The resonance pierced her ears like the screaming of a god.
“Shut it down!” She might as well have been shouting at an AC/DC concert.
Westin pushed the lever, shutting off the machine. It wound down with the death moans of a tired Gatling. Silence resumed. Lexi looked up. Westin’s face was practically split with a smile as an exultant chortle escaped the confines of his concave chest.
“My God.” They stared at the empty space the cinderblock and iron plate had previously occupied. “We have to stop him,” craning her neck to look into his eyes. “Will you help me?”
His smile faded as he fingered the device controls. “Yeah, no, I don’t think that would be good. I need—” A single scarlet light bulb in the corner blinked.
“What’s that?”
Westin ran away from the teleforce device to a small black and white TV nestled between two radios. Following his gaze she noticed a shadow moving across the screen. A black clad soldier toting a rifle. “You brought the feds?”
“I didn’t know,” Lexi’s exclaimed. “Can you stop them?”
Westin stroked his weak chin, eyes darting from deep inside their sockets. His spidery fingers searched the bench, crawling over screwdrivers and schematics until landing on a clear plastic switch cover. He flipped the cover and pressed the little red button.
Outside the world exploded.
Lexi turned back to the TV in time to see the brilliant oranges and yellows begin to fizzle and fade. Two bodies lay on the ground, fenced by fires. Without thinking she ran for her truck, ignoring Westin’s warning that there could be more agents.
“Come or not, but I’m not staying here for the rest to show up,” she yelled back.
When she was halfway to the truck something crash behind her. “Oh jeez.” Somehow she ran faster. The blessed Dakota was still in one piece. As she jumped in and started it, Westin bolted from his shop, a pistol in one hand, a black gun case in the other. He tossed the case in the bed before hopping into the cab. He cursed as his knees slammed into the dash.
They were off before the door was closed, the tires spinning and spitting gravel. A ringing report made her shriek, “What was that?”
“Ah shit,” Westin cried. “Must be a sniper out there. Ah shit.”
The truck reversed at twenty mph over the path, which Lexi promptly departed for the smoother desert floor. “Do something!”
Westin rolled down his window and aimed his pistol at the dark. Two loud claps inspired a volley. He flinched as a bullet struck the bumper, then he fired two more times. Five sharp cries answered his shots—all misses. “I think we’re safe. Sounds like he’s using a short range automatic; probably thought he wouldn’t need the heavy guns.”
Lexi turned the truck around and shifted from reverse to drive. She snuck glances at Westin, wondering if he understood that he had no life now, that he would be hunted to the end. He twisted and craned his limbs to find a good position, but single cab Dakota’s aren’t made for the obscenely tall. He seemed a Daddy Long Leg writhing inside a baby food jar.
“How can you laugh?” Westin demanded to know when she chuckled. “We just killed two feds! A fresh unit’ll be crawling all over my shop within hours. Fuck!” He slammed a large fist against the dash.
In time his breathing evened out but his fingers still tapped on jittery knees. He reached for the CD player, found Beethoven playing and leaned back as much as he could.
Lexi cringed every time the operatic portions reached their apex. How could I ever have enjoyed those screeching prima Donnas? When Beethoven shut up they drove on in silence, Lexi peering through the windshield saturated in dust to sneak peeks at Wormwood.
The aurora of the comet hung in the blackness, an object so near one could clearly perceive its approach now with the naked eye. And still they drove.
Sunday died quietly, making way for Monday and all that the new day might have to offer.
As they made their way over the desert, Lexi described the last few weeks of her life. By the time she was done it was late morning and the sun was hiding behind expanding ash-colored clouds. Silence filled the cab.
“Say something, anything,” Lexi pleaded.
“You’re saying that this secret subdivision, this SCIA, is working with a Mr. Dorl?” He was looking at her with blatant disregard. “And this Dorl dude has been around for centuries and is responsible for some of the worst disasters in history?”
Her brows furrowed. “Well don’t say it like that,” she ordered. “It all happened so quickly that I’m still trying to understand it.” Cloud shadows roamed across the interstate.
“So, your boyfriend killed your hacker friend and later followed you. Then you made love right before you killed him?” He squirmed—an uncomfortable sight to see—and turned slowly to face her. He emphasized each word as though talking to a child. “Have you considered the notion that you have broken from reality, that these people are not dead but still in New York? You need serious psychiatric help.”
“I am not insane! Do you know what it is like to be alone, to walk around in a haze while everyone else goes about their lives, blissfully ignorant?” Her jaw ached with the pain of unuttered sobs. She thought if she started to cry she might never stop.
Westin goggled at her with a vacant yet hopeful look.
What was that about?
The endless paved pathways in the great American Nowhere stretched out before them. How long since I left New York? How could I not have believed Gramps all those years? Poor man must have felt so alone in the house, with grandma dead and me not believing him.
Two sets of eyes scanned the space between them, the few cubic feet that had become their world, their only sanctuary. They knew nothing about each other, only this single shared experience. But that was a powerful coupler; she was almost content in his company, despite his reluctance to believe her. For a schizoid, she knew, thi
s was an important step.
Westin busied himself with scrawling on a pad, his greasy rust colored hair scraping the ceiling, arms and legs filling the cab. “Let’s say you’re right about this conspiracy theory,” Westin said. “I think I have a better idea of what this Dorl dousche might be building.” His goofy grin returned. “Pull over somewhere so I can look at those files you mentioned.”
Ten minutes later they stopped at a service station complete with an eatery in St. George Utah, a border town just outside the trisecting state lines of Utah, Arizona, and Nevada. Big white trailers filled the lot, some connected to chrome-trimmed rigs, some abandoned.
The rain came then, first in miniscule drops then swiftly transforming into diamonds blowing sideways, dimpling exposed skin. The temperature dropped perceptibly, washing away the last tenacious whisper of summer. Inside the cab drenched in old sweat and stagnant body odor, Lexi brought up Vortex’s stolen government files. She did not hear the clicking sounds of her typing; her ears were still ringing courtesy the Teleforce demonstration.
“What exactly are you looking for?”
“The schematics for the machine at the box factory,” Westin rubbed his hands together and blew into them as Lexi brought up the schematics for the Ethological Transverse Conveyance Apparatus. She handed the laptop to Westin. He grasped the computer, scanned the work, his eyes trailing words and linear drawings. Every so often he scribbled something on his legal pad. The laptop chirped to announce an e-mail, but no one seemed to hear it.
“What? What does it do? Can you tell?” she leaned forward to observe the writing on the pad, biting her fingernails and ignoring the stench of body odor.
“Shhh!”
She turned the key and switched on the radio, catching the end of an update on Wormwood. “—residents in these areas are advised to remain in their basements until Wednesday evening. Take a radio with you, WJNED will try to stay on the air through the duration of this event.”
The Fifth Descent of Lexi Montaigne Page 19
