When Darkness Builds (The Caldera Series)

by M. C. Sutton

  “As you can tell from this chart…”

  Dr. Anand had already been droning on for forty-five minutes. Jon rolled his eyes and looked at his watch. Two more hours till lunch. There was no way he would make it. He looked up at Emma, sitting at the table up on the stage just to the right of the podium. Jon caught her attempting to discreetly stifle a yawn and smiled. Poor Em.

  He was tempted to sneak upstairs and go back to sleep, but he knew it wouldn’t be fair to her. If she could sit through this technical garbage, so could he. But he was going to need some caffeine to do it.

  He looked up at the stage once more before getting up. On one side of the podium was Emma. On the other was Bennett. They had agreed they shouldn’t leave each other alone, but she wouldn’t exactly be alone. And Bennett wasn’t going anywhere.

  Jon slipped out the back and made his way across the prefunction area. A few people were milling around, whispering amongst themselves in front of the coffee station. Not being a coffee drinker, nor wanting to get drawn into a political debate, he kept walking. He remembered seeing some vending machines next to the elevators anyway.

  As he turned the corner into the alcove with the vending machines, he almost collided with a hotel employee who seemed to be in an awfully big hurry.

  “Excuse me,” said Jon, grateful he didn’t actually run into him. The guy kind of reminded him of an angry locomotive. Jon faintly remembered seeing him in the atrium on the afternoon they arrived, and remembered thinking even then that something about the guy bugged him.

  The guy just huffed and walked away with a toolbox in one hand.

  Jon pumped a few quarters into the pop machine and made a selection. Nothing happened. He pounded the button several times, then jiggled the return.

  Still nothing.

  Maybe it was just sold out. He tried again, putting in more quarters and choosing another kind of pop. But the result was the same.

  This time, though, he noticed something odd. The display didn’t show the amount that he had put in, like most machines did. It didn’t say “Vend” or “Sold Out.” It just continued to show the price, no matter which button he pressed.

  Then he noticed the lock on the machine. The keyhole had been welded shut.

  Jon darted out of the alcove. Something wasn’t right, and he suspected the burly guy with the toolbox might know why.

  It wasn’t hard to spot the guy across the prefunction area. He headed down the stairs that ran between the escalators, dodging congressmen and other hotel employees. Jon tried to act nonchalant as he trailed after him.

  Jon reached the top of the second-floor stairs just as the guy made it down to the atrium. The guy glanced over his shoulder and then hastened his stride. Jon sped up, too.

  The man went through a door that was marked for employees only. Jon followed him anyway. This guy was definitely up to something, and Jon wanted to know what it was.

  The door opened into a service hall. The guy was nowhere in sight.

  Damn it!

  Jon had lost him. He sighed and shook his head. The best he could do now was report the entire thing to AD Tanner and hope he took it seriously. At least his adrenaline was pumped up enough that he was sure he wouldn’t have a hard time staying awake until lunch.

  As he re-entered the atrium, he bumped into someone else. “Oh my gosh. I am so sorry,” said Jon.

  “No, don’t worry about it,” the guy said, brushing his drink off his shirt. “It’s just water. Maybe it’ll help wake me up.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean,” said Jon.

  “You must be Jon Grant.” The guy held out his hand. “I’m Aaron Dallin. Rachael’s husband.”

  Jon shook Aaron’s hand. “Let me guess. Vice President Allred just so happened to mention my name?”

  “How did you know?”

  “It seems to be a habit of his lately. But how did you recognize me?”

  “Well, it wasn’t that hard. You and I are probably the only two people in this entire hotel who aren’t in a tailored suit, a uniform, or a jacket that says FBI on the back. That… and it’s on your name tag.”

  Jon laughed. “Yeah, I guess that helps.”

  They headed back to the conference room together. Aaron seemed like a good guy, a translator attending on personal invitation from Jack. Aaron explained that all the foreign nationals and guest speakers in attendance spoke perfect English though, which meant he was mostly twiddling his thumbs and trying not to fall asleep. Jon understood completely.

  They stopped outside the conference room. “Well.” Aaron looked at his watch. “I guess we better get back in there before someone notices we’re gone.”

  Jon grinned. He could imagine what Emma would say to him if she happened to look up and realize he had bailed. “Hey, how about you and Rachael join us for dinner tonight?” he said. After last night’s fiasco, some good food and good company sounded like a great idea.

  “You know, I think we’d both really like that. Yes.”

  “All right, then. We’ll meet you down here at seven o’clock.”

  CHAPTER 9

  JON APOLOGIZED TO EMMA FOR the third time as they strolled down the hallway to meet the Dallins for dinner. In his defense, it wasn’t his fault his mind kept wandering while she told him about everything she had heard that morning. He didn’t understand most of the scientific jargon anyway.

  They ended up not even making it downstairs before they met up with Aaron and Rachael. As it turned out, the Dallins’ room was down the hall from theirs. Jon suspected this wasn’t a coincidence—that Jack had arranged it to make sure the four of them bumped into each other. In fact, there seemed to be quite a few things about this convention Jack Allred had managed to personally arrange.

  The Dallins were only a little younger than him and Emma, mid to late thirties, and he very much appreciated their company. Aaron was a lot like Jon—a down-to-earth, practical kind of guy—and Rachael kind of reminded him of Emma. She was shorter than Em, with long, dark curls as bouncy as her personality. And judging by her wild stories about doing news coverage for the war while in Egypt, where she grew up, she had a knack for getting herself into trouble too.

  Once they finished dinner, the four of them were enjoying each other’s company so much they decided to order dessert. Emma excused herself to the restroom. Rachael, thankfully, offered to go with her. Jon had noticed Bennett and some other guests at a table across the restaurant.

  “So, Jon,” said Aaron. “Where are you from originally?”

  “Originally?” Jon smiled. He hated it when someone asked him that, because of the reaction he usually got to his answer. “Bethesda.”

  “Whoa. Private schools and country clubs, huh?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” said Jon. Bethesda, Maryland, just northwest of Washington, DC, was once one of the most affluent areas of the country and home to mostly overpaid government officials—including, at one point, Jon’s father and stepmother. “And summers on the Vineyard and weekends in Virginia Beach. But, in my defense, it was only till I was sixteen. Then I went to live with my grandparents in Raleigh.”

  “Got burned out on the high life, huh?”

  “Something like that.”

  “And what about now? Where was it you guys came down here from again?” Aaron asked.

  “Southwest Missouri.”

  Aaron raised an eyebrow. “Missouri?”

  “I know, don’t ask me. It was Emma’s doing. She was always a small-town girl at heart, I guess. For years, she tried to talk me into buying a big plot of land in the middle of nowhere. Eventually she won.”

  Aaron grinned. “Bet that was quite a culture shock for you. But I take it you adapted.”

  Jon chuckled. “Uh-huh.” Adapted wasn’t the word for it. He had been assimilated. He had gone from high-rise apartment buildings and sandy beaches to sprawling ranches and the rocky banks of what Emma so lovingly referred to as “the crick,” from playing rock in the back of bars to directing school p
lays, and from passing out after an all-night gig to crawling into bed exhausted after helping the local sheriff save his peach trees from an early frost.

  He had to admit, though, that Emma couldn’t have picked a better place to raise a family. There was an incredible sense of community in their little town. People looked out for each other, something Jon wasn’t used to. They didn’t have to worry about much more than the occasional tornado or ice storm, either. The Bentonville area, less than an hour south, was just the right size for plenty of fantastic restaurants and family entertainment without all the crime. And the extended effects of the war somehow didn’t hit the area nearly as hard as the rest of the country, like they were in their own little socio-economic bubble or something. It was a little strange, actually. Almost as if Emma knew.

  “But,” he added, “I do miss the ocean. There’s something about the smell of the sea and a long walk on the beach.” He flashed back to his times sailing on the Chesapeake Bay. The feeling of the wind through his hair, the spray of salt water against his face. He had learned to sail when he was very young. Those were the good memories of his childhood. The only good ones he had.

  Jon snapped himself out of his daydream. That’s when he noticed Bennett glance at him, then look away.

  “So, Aaron,” said Jon. “Where are you from?” He took a sip of his drink. “Originally?”

  “Iowa.”

  “Cornfields and windmills, huh?”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Aaron chuckled. “And more cornfields and more windmills.”

  “Then how in the world did you end up in Cairo?”

  “The same way every other small-town guy that made it over there did. I got sucked into the war. Don’t get me wrong, I love linguistics, but I never meant it to be any more than a hobby, you know? Once all the fighting broke out, though, I got this bright idea I wanted to go off and serve my country. Honor and glory and patriotism and all that.”

  Jon wished his own reasons for ending up over there had been as noble.

  “I have to be honest, though,” said Aaron. “I saw a lot of crazy stuff over there. Had a lot of close calls. But being a translator, I had it kind of easy. I have a lot of respect for those of you who were out there risking your lives.”

  “The war was hard on everyone.” Jon noticed the girls making their way back to the table and thought about everything Emma had gone through while he was away. “We just did what we had to do to get home.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ll have to admit, if it hadn’t been for the war…” Aaron smiled at Rachael as she pulled out her chair. He leaned over and kissed her. “We would never have met.”

  Once their waiter arrived with their desserts, Jon settled in to another slice of the fantastic cheesecake Emma had brought him the night before. She picked through a bowl of fresh cantaloupe, though Jon couldn’t possibly imagine it was anywhere near as good as what they could pull out of their own garden back home.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Grant.” William Tanner stepped up to their table just as they were finishing.

  “Assistant Director.” Jon reached across the table and shook his hand, then introduced him to the Dallins.

  “Mr. Grant, I wonder if I might have a word with you?”

  “Of course,” said Jon. “Have a seat.”

  Tanner glanced over his shoulder in the direction of Bennett’s table, then sat down. He leaned toward Jon and lowered his voice. “Mr. Grant, I wanted to talk to you about what you discussed with Vice President Allred this morning. Are you absolutely certain about who you believe Dr. Korvaire was with last night?”

  “Of course I’m certain. I wouldn’t have said anything if I wasn’t.”

  Tanner let out a long sigh.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Because eventually I’m going to have to go question the guy, and I’m not exactly looking forward to it.”

  Bennett was staring at them now, frowning.

  Tanner shook his head. “Well, I guess I should go make a phone call, then. Deputy Director Sanchez is going to have my head. Thank you for your help… I think.”

  “No problem,” said Jon. “If you need anything else, just let us know.”

  “Yeah.” Tanner got up and walked away.

  “What in the world was that all about?” Aaron asked.

  Jon explained what he’d seen the night before, including who he believed had been with Korvaire when she was attacked. He left out the part about what he noticed at dinner and his suspicions concerning what Bennett really was.

  “But why would he try to kill her?” Aaron asked.

  “Isn’t it obvious?” said Rachael. “Because of her research. Jon, you said she had told Bennett she could no longer support the GOG’s work on the pipelines, right?”

  “That’s right!” Emma’s face lit up. “It’s like what I told you earlier, honey. Based on what Anna found, she didn’t believe the GOG could follow the timelines they promised. She planned on announcing that during her presentation. That is, until…”

  “Until he tried to kill her,” Jon said quietly.

  The others looked at each other in silence.

  “Em, when our room was ransacked, you realize what they were looking for, don’t you?”

  Emma wrinkled her forehead. “My presentation notes. But, Jon, surely you don’t think… I mean, he wouldn’t be that stupid, would he?”

  “Well, I guess that depends,” said Aaron.

  “On what?” Emma asked.

  Jon sighed. “On what he thinks you’re planning on saying tomorrow morning.”

  Jon and Emma looked at each other, then across the restaurant at Bennett. He lifted his wine glass and smiled at them with the kind of crooked expression Jon imagined a spider might make when it’s discovered it has a fly trapped in its web. Jon reached for Emma’s hand under the table. This was getting a lot more serious than he would have liked.

  The four of them returned to the second floor in silence. They stopped just outside the Dallins’ room to say their goodnights. Jon shook Aaron’s hand and thanked them both for joining him and Emma for dinner.

  “It was our pleasure,” said Aaron. “Though I wish it could have ended on a better note.” He looked past Jon toward Emma, who stood waiting just up the hall with her arms crossed, staring silently at the floor. “Listen, Jon.” He lowered his voice and glanced at Rachael beside him. “If you need anything, we would both be more than happy to help you keep an eye on her.”

  Jon smiled. “Thanks, Aaron. I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Aaron nodded. “Goodnight, Emma,” he said over Jon’s shoulder.

  “Goodnight, you two,” she answered.

  Jon and Emma returned to their room. Under any other circumstance, Jon would have looked forward to the idea of curling up between the sheets next to his wife and slipping into a deep state of sweet unconsciousness. But he was too restless, and she too apprehensive, for either of them to be able to relax. So they just lay there wide awake, with Emma curled up under Jon’s arm.

  “Baby?” she said. “I think I owe you an apology.”

  “For what?”

  She propped herself up on her arm and looked at him. “I do have a little bit of a tendency to get myself into these situations, don’t I?”

  He laughed. “You’re just now figuring that out?”

  “Well,” she said, grinning, “I just wanted you to know that I’m sorry. I can’t even imagine the amount of worry I’ve caused you over the years. I mean, I know before, when the kids were little…”

  “Hey.” He put his hand on her arm. “Don’t do that. Remember what we said?”

  “I know what we said. I just want you to know that I never meant to cause you so much grief. And that I really appreciate how supportive you’ve been this time.” She shook her head and looked down. “You know, you weren’t always…” She stopped, then looked back up at him. “I guess what I’m trying to say is, I’m really glad you’re here.”

  “Me too.”

  “Well
, that having been said, there is something else I need to tell you.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “There is no way I’m going to be able to go to sleep.”

  He grinned. “Then are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “I’m no mind reader,” she said as she leaned in to kiss him, “but I think I have a pretty good idea.”

  Jon pulled her closer. Maybe being stuck in a hotel four hundred miles from home wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

  Afterward, he wasn’t sure when he finally dozed off or how long he slept. At some point Emma crawled out of bed, turned on the lamp by the couch, and began looking through her presentation. Jon just rolled over and went back to sleep. It must have been hours later when the light finally went out again.

  But instead of her crawling back into bed next to him like he expected, she tried to wake him up. “Jon?”

  He fought to peel back his heavy eyelids.

  “Sweetheart, the power is out.”

  “It’s probably just a blackout. Come to bed already.”

  “No, Jon, I don’t think so.” She stepped over to the window. “Look.”

  Fighting his tired body, Jon threw back the blankets and stumbled out of bed. He stubbed his toe on the coffee table and limped over to stand beside her.

  She was right—it wasn’t a blackout. The rest of the city was still lit up.

  He looked at Emma. It was hard to read the expression on her face in the dim light through the window, but he had a pretty good idea she was thinking the same thing he was.

  They both dressed quickly. Jon found a flashlight in the bedside drawer.

  Emma put her hand on his shoulder as he reached for the door. “Honey, I don’t know if this is such a good idea,” she whispered. “Maybe we should just stay here.”

  Says the women who will rush into the middle of a tornado. “Would you rather wait here like a sitting duck, or find out what’s going on?” What he wanted to do was leave her behind and go out there by himself, but knew that was an even worse idea.