China Lake

by Meg Gardiner

  And Paxton wanted to use Button’s self-destruction as a blueprint for action. He was saying, ‘‘What you do, you hug the terrain, keep it under the radar till you get to a landing site in the high country. We’ll have your boy waiting there.’’ He pushed up the brim of his cap with his thumb. ‘‘And I know you wouldn’t fire on any landing site where your boy was waiting for you.’’

  Brian said, ‘‘You’re out of your mind.’’

  ‘‘No, I ain’t. It’s easy as pie.’’

  ‘‘You want me to steal an F/A-eighteen? Just stroll into the weapons shed and load up on warheads like I’m shopping at Costco? Fix you a picnic hamper of assorted missiles, tell my CO, ‘Hey, gotta give this jet to some psychos, be back after lunch’? You’re fucking nuts. Besides, if you haven’t noticed,’’ he said, leaning close to the Plexiglas, ‘‘I’m in jail for murder.’’

  Paxton sucked on his teeth. ‘‘I’ll fix that.’’

  Brian’s mouth slowly dropped open.

  ‘‘I’ll get you out, and I don’t mean no jailbreak. I’ll get you released free and clear, get the charges dropped. If you get the F/A-eighteen.’’

  Brian held still, thinking this guy had set him up. Paxton killed Peter Wyoming and framed him just to get him to this point.

  Paxton said, ‘‘I’m leaving this room in three minutes. Decide.’’

  The man was crazy, Brian thought. Crazy enough to kill Luke if he didn’t stop him.

  Paxton turned to Tabitha. ‘‘Show him.’’

  She raised her hands from her lap, where they had lain out of sight under the counter. Brian drew back. A series of tiny cuts notched her wrists and palms.

  She said, ‘‘He marked the spots where the tendons are easiest to sever. If I disobey him he’s going to cut me until my hands are paralyzed.’’

  Paxton leaned toward Brian. ‘‘I’m talking discipline, fungus. You don’t do it, the lady gets cut.’’ He reached out and lifted Tabitha’s chin with his index finger. ‘‘She thinks she’s all tore up right now. She has a lot to learn.’’

  Brian looked at Tabitha, appalled. She was pegging him with her eyes, hanging on to him through open terror. He spoke later about that look, said it hit him like a blow. But he also said that looking at her, he felt himself focus, felt himself assess the threat and the tactics needed to repel it. He felt himself enter the zone.

  He said, ‘‘You can actually get me out of here?’’

  Paxton nodded.

  And perhaps, Brian thought, he could. This was liar’s poker. The Remnant would not readily give Luke back. And he would never supply the church with weapons. So which of them could pull off the bigger bluff?

  Tabitha mouthed the word, Luke.

  He slowly nodded.

  Paxton said, ‘‘Ninety seconds.’’

  ‘‘I can’t get nukes,’’ Brian said. ‘‘And air-to-air missiles will be useless to a ground-based combat unit.’’

  ‘‘You leave us to decide what’s useless and what’s not,’’ Paxton said.

  That was when Brian felt himself putting on his game face. ‘‘A biological warhead—that’s tricky, but manageable. I’ll have to take the warhead from its secure storage facility at China Lake.’’

  Paxton stilled.

  ‘‘But I’d never be able to load a missile with a live BW warhead on a Hornet. The weapons techs would see it and take me down at gunpoint.’’

  ‘‘Don’t you lie to me.’’

  ‘‘You want a warhead? I can get you something with the power to wipe out the West Coast. Is that good enough for you?’’

  Paxton’s chilly blue eyes crackled to life. ‘‘Might do.’’

  ‘‘Forget the F/A-eighteen. If a Hornet disappeared—’’

  ‘‘I want the jet.’’

  ‘‘If I go missing in an F/A-eighteen they’ll launch an immediate search-and-rescue effort, multiagency, high-profile—navy, air force, coast guard. The Sierras will be crawling with feds.’’

  ‘‘What are you, yellow?’’

  ‘‘Tabitha, tell him what a brass-balled son of a bitch I am.’’

  She said, ‘‘He has a heart of death, Isaiah. He’d kill you as soon as look at you.’’

  Paxton snorted.

  ‘‘Listen to me,’’ Brian said. ‘‘The Hornets at China Lake are an advanced prototype, constructed from an alloy that embeds a unique tracking signature in the airframe. The Pentagon can trace them via satellite and pinpoint their location anywhere on the globe. Even if they’ve been painted over or stashed in a hangar. You go near one of these jets, you send the FBI a greeting card. Get it?’’

  Come on, he was thinking, buy it. Paxton merely looked at him.

  ‘‘The jet isn’t the weapon you want. It’s big and loud and obvious. But a warhead’s portable and stealthy. It won’t hinder your ability to hit and run. And if I do it right, it’ll take days before China Lake notices it’s missing. That, you asshole, is the weapon you want.’’

  Paxton considered it. ‘‘Days?’’

  ‘‘Yeah.’’ Brian watched him. ‘‘If I do it, Luke and Tabitha go home with me.’’

  "And I go home with the warhead."

  "Yes."

  "Yes." ‘‘Deal.’’

  Paxton stood up. ‘‘Don’t let nobody follow us outta here. If they follow, Tabitha’s hands turn to meat.’’

  Then they were gone, and Brian was pounding on the door. He wanted to talk to Detective McCracken, and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. But before the guard could come he heard a girl’s voice saying, ‘‘Don’t do that.’’ A new visitor was sitting down across from him, a teenager with elaborate blond hair, wearing a blouse with the name Candi stitched above the pocket. ‘‘Ice told you, don’t let anybody follow. Just sit tight for a while.’’ Then she smiled at him and said, ‘‘Are you saved?’’

  ‘‘I was keeping vigil.’’

  Glory was sitting on the cabin’s black Naugahyde sofa, hands pressed between her knees, rocking back and forth. I was pacing the floor. Beneath us, Garrett scuffled around the crawl space. After a minute he pulled himself up through the opening.

  ‘‘Nothing down there but canned hams and a hundred boxes of potato flakes. And a tunnel, looks like it leads to the barn.’’

  Glory pushed her hair out of her eyes and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. Sweat trickled down her chest. With the dust streaking her face and arms, she looked more like Lara Croft than ever. Tomb Raider Millennium Edition: The Quest for SPAM.

  I squatted down in front of her, getting to eye level. I had to handle this right. I couldn’t just slap her. She kept rocking, looking away from me.

  ‘‘Just keeping vigil, taking my turn.’’ She glanced at the freezer. ‘‘We have to be ready.’’

  Garrett snorted. She glared at him from under her lashes.

  I said, ‘‘Glory, where’s Luke?’’

  ‘‘I don’t know.’’

  I set a hand on her knee. ‘‘Please. He’s like my own son.’’

  Garrett crossed the room in two strides. ‘‘For chris-sake. We don’t have all day.’’ He jammed the muzzle of the rifle under her chin. ‘‘Tell us where the kid is, right now, or you can join Pastor Pete in that freezer.’’

  I jumped up. ‘‘Garrett, no.’’

  ‘‘You’ll get nowhere by sweet-talking her, Evan. She’s a terrorist, fucking revival-tent Hamas.’’

  ‘‘Not this way. Put it down!’’

  He stood rock still. ‘‘You want your nephew back? Trust me on this.’’

  Glory spoke through clenched teeth. ‘‘Go ahead. I’m not scared of dying. But I don’t know where Luke is. Our cells operate independently, and I’m not in the unit that handled the retrieval of the boy.’’

  I swore. ‘‘Garrett, lower your weapon. She doesn’t know.’’

  He looked at me.

  I said, ‘‘Leaderless resistance. That’s their strategy.’’

  Slowly he withdrew the rifle. ‘‘Shit.�
��’

  He stood breathing hard. I watched him, shaken, trying to gauge what had just happened, alarmed by the ferocity of his eruption.

  I said, ‘‘Give me ten minutes.’’

  Glory said, ‘‘Better make it five. The others will be here to relieve me soon.’’

  ‘‘What?’’

  ‘‘Shiloh and the Brueghels. They all plan to keep the next watch over Pastor Pete. They’ll be here anytime.’’

  Garrett said, ‘‘Goddammit. Where are they now?’’

  ‘‘Patrolling the perimeter.’’

  ‘‘You have two minutes,’’ he said, ‘‘while I check outside to see if they’re coming.’’ Shoulders bunching, he strode through the kitchen and out the door.

  I sat down next to Glory. She was hunched and skittish, and a feral intensity fizzed in her eyes. Amid the streaks of dirt on her face I could see the scar left where Mel Kalajian had removed her tattoo. The sympathy I’d once felt for her had faded.

  Still, I said, ‘‘You can come with me. Get out of here.’’

  ‘‘No. They find you, wherever you go. You know that now."

  She had a point. I said, ‘‘Stay, then. I won’t offer to help again.’’

  She wiped her nose and started rocking once more. ‘‘That guy with you.’’

  ‘‘Garrett. He’s a soldier. I brought him to protect me.’’

  ‘‘Yeah, I know. He’s part of the puppet government. But you’re okay.’’ She glanced toward the kitchen. Garrett was gone outside. ‘‘What I’m going to say, don’t tell him. Promise me.’’

  ‘‘Fine.’’

  ‘‘Promise me.’’ The volume of her voice punched up a notch.

  ‘‘All right. I promise.’’

  ‘‘You can still be saved. But it has to happen before you die.’’ She leaned toward me. ‘‘So don’t leave China Lake. Not yet, not till after Halloween.’’

  A jolt ran from my groin up to the center of my skull. I put my hand on her arm. ‘‘Glory, what are they going to do?’’

  ‘‘I told you, Halloween is an aperture. The wall between this world and hell gets thin and lets Satan attack more easily.’’

  I remembered.

  ‘‘Chenille plans to turn it around. She’s going to go for it on Halloween, because she can deliver a deep blow. The attack will strike right down into hell itself. She can give the beast a fatal injury.’’

  ‘‘What’s the battle plan?’’

  ‘‘Cripple the government. You incapacitate Satan’s puppet, you strike the beast right in the heart,’’ she said. ‘‘She plans to destroy as many federal agents as possible.’’

  ‘‘Washington?’’ I said. ‘‘The Remnant is attacking D.C.?"

  She shook her head. ‘‘Washington is a vortex of evil. The Remnant isn’t big enough to counteract its sucking power. Chenille’s going to draw a whole bunch of federal agents to one place, as far from the D.C. funnel as possible.’’

  ‘‘How?’’

  ‘‘Her crew’s going to cause a disaster that’ll get the FBI, National Guard, CDC, all kinds of feds together. ’’

  I was picturing western vortices of sucking evil. ‘‘Los Angeles, Las Vegas?’’

  ‘‘She’s going to get them to Santa Barbara.’’

  ‘‘Oh, Jesus. Glory, why?’’

  "L.A.’s too spread out. You couldn’t get them in a small enough radius. Same with Vegas. Nothing but desert in all directions, with high winds probable.’’

  That shock, a bone-deep pain, hit me again. I knew where this was going.

  ‘‘But Santa Barbara’s containable,’’ she said. ‘‘It’s a compact metropolitan area with mountains on one side and the ocean on the other, and no easy escape routes. There’s just three roads for people to evacuate on, and you can cut them all off—the One-o-one Freeway on either end of town, and San Marcos Pass. So once she gets the federal agents into town, she’s going to take them out.’’

  She sniffed and wiped her nose. ‘‘Plus Chenille totally hates Santa Barbara, because that’s where she became a whore. She wants to see it trashed.’’

  I said, ‘‘She’s going to release biological weapons.’’

  She gaped at me. ‘‘How’d you know?’’

  ‘‘I know about the Botox, Glory. And about the robbery at Mel Kalajian’s office the night he was murdered.’’

  Her eyes jumped before her mouth tightened. ‘‘Now you know the real reason why I can’t leave the church. I know too much.’’

  I didn’t say anything. I didn’t care about her innocence or guilt anymore.

  Hurt, and feisty slyness, heated her face. ‘‘All I’ve done is what Rowan would do.’’ Talking about the heroine of my novel. ‘‘I’ve fought to stay alive. I’ve done whatever it takes.’’

  ‘‘That’s not Rowan.’’

  ‘‘Yes, it is. She’s an outcast who bucks the odds, just like me.’’

  I stood up. ‘‘No, Glory. Rowan refused to become a collaborator, even to save herself. You’ve done exactly the opposite. You’ve submitted, and compromised yourself forever.’’

  She drew in on herself, eyes widening, lips slowly parting.

  I stood over her. ‘‘How does the Remnant plan to draw federal agents to Santa Barbara? What’s the disaster they’re going to cause?’’

  She looked away and started rocking again. ‘‘I don’t know—and don’t go ballistic like your man did the other night at the university. Shiloh’s handling the trigger event, and she keeps her mouth shut tight.’’

  ‘‘You must have some idea.’’

  The kitchen door banged open. Garrett strode into the living room. ‘‘A vehicle’s coming. It’s far off, but won’t be for long. Let’s go.’’

  I said, ‘‘Glory?’’

  ‘‘I can’t tell you any more.’’

  Garrett was wound so tight that he was practically ticking. ‘‘Evan, now.’’

  I heard the rumble of a truck engine. I started to follow him, but stopped. He exhaled, aggravated.

  I turned back to Glory. ‘‘I have to know. What happened to Jesse?’’

  She was looking out the door, nervous, hearing the truck approach.

  ‘‘Just tell me,’’ I said. ‘‘Is he . . . ?’’ The word dead simply would not form on my lips.

  She kept staring out the door, now fidgeting.

  ‘‘I’m not leaving until you tell me. Even if it means they catch you talking to us.’’

  She grabbed her head with both hands. ‘‘All right! Yes.’’

  A buzzing started in my head, and the room seemed to swerve. The furniture, the walls, the freezer, all warped and started smearing together.

  I stammered, ‘‘How?’’

  Glory’s face seemed to swell like a balloon. ‘‘They ran him off the road and dragged him out of the car. He put up a fight, but they outnumbered him.’’

  My throat constricted. ‘‘Why did they do it?’’

  ‘‘They wanted a guinea pig.’’

  ‘‘I . . . What? I don’t understand.’’

  ‘‘They needed a person to test the biological weapons on, to make sure they work. Sorry, Evan, I know the guy’s your lover but this is war.’’

  I reached for something to grab hold of, but found only air. ‘‘Oh, God, they exposed him to Botox?’’

  ‘‘No, not to anything, not yet.’’

  Tears were burning my eyes. ‘‘Then why the hell did they kill him?’’

  Her balloon face swam and tilted quizzically. ‘‘Nobody killed him.’’

  I grabbed her by the shoulders. ‘‘What do you mean?’’

  ‘‘He’s still alive. He’s being held as a POW.’’

  23

  It felt as if lightning had flashed through me. I pulled Glory to her feet. ‘‘Where is he?’’

  ‘‘In an old fallout shelter out in the desert.’’

  The blinds clacked and swayed. Outside, the engine rattled nearer, approaching the cabin.

 
Garrett hefted the rifle. ‘‘Evan, we either climb out the back window in the next ten seconds, or we shoot our way out the door. Come on.’’

  But I had Glory by the shoulders. ‘‘How do I get there?’’

  ‘‘It’s up Copper Creek, in the hills east of China Lake. But I don’t know how to tell you—’’

  Garrett wrenched me away from her. ‘‘I know where that is. What defenses do you have on the place?’’

  ‘‘No defenses. In his condition, where’s he gonna go?’’

  A truck pulled up and shut off its engine. Garrett towed me toward a back bedroom. We heard women’s voices in the kitchen.

  ‘‘Who left this door open? Glory? Glory Moffett, you do this?’’ It was Chenille.

  ‘‘Sorry. It was so hot in here.’’

  Garrett slowly slid the bedroom window open.

  Heavy footsteps in the living room. ‘‘You’re filthy. You go in the crawl space?’’

  ‘‘I heard noises. I didn’t want rats to get the supplies, so—’’

  A new voice, higher-pitched, taut as wire. ‘‘What’s this white stuff on the floor—plaster? Hey, the freezer lid looks frostier. Did you open it?’’

  ‘‘No, Shiloh.’’

  Chenille said, ‘‘You better not have touched my Reddi-Wip.’’

  ‘‘I didn’t go near the freezer.’’ Startled silence. ‘‘Maybe it was Pastor Pete.’’

  Garrett leaped nimbly through the window and held out an arm for me.

  Shiloh said, ‘‘You think—’’

  ‘‘Oh . . . !’’ Chenille moaned. ‘‘Peter! Open them eyes, baby—’’

  We ran.

  Halfway up the hill I looked over my shoulder at the dried-biscuit landscape. The cabin’s aluminum-foil windows glittered like eyes. No one was coming after us, but we still ran. Garrett paced me, weaving over the rocky ground, holding the rifle at the ready.