by Jon Land
Ben remembered the rock that had seared his skin when he’d taken it in his grasp, the strange pattern emblazoned upon it amid an unnerving glow he remembered, inexplicably, as a dark light. That was the pattern he saw now, still embedded into his palm. Not fading away, as doctors indicated it would in the course of the normal healing process. If anything, the mark looked even more defined and pronounced.
“Is everything all right?” Missy called to him from down the hall.
“Never better,” Ben said back to her, applying the ointment and then reaching for fresh gauze. “How could it not be?”
TWENTY-FIVE
New York City, 1990
Dale Denton’s wife Danielle had greeted the reports of the staggering size of their oil strike in the Yucatán the way she greeted everything: by pouring herself a glass of wine in their brownstone’s elegant great room, its furniture laid over a priceless Persian carpet dominated by burgundy that helped disguise the various red wine spills over the years.
“Want one?” she asked Denton.
“I don’t drink. Or maybe you’ve forgotten.”
“Come on, make an exception. Let’s celebrate.”
The brownstone had been in the Denton family for generations, mortgaged to the hilt and on the verge of being lost to foreclosure when he and Ben Younger struck black gold in the Yucatán. Strange how when Denton considered failure down there his first thought had been of losing the brownstone, not Danielle, along with its priceless furnishings in the form of antiques and heirlooms. Every piece of wood in the ornate, pre-war building was hand-carved, from the moldings to the banisters. It had belonged to his grandparents and then his parents before passing to him. Denton loved the hustle and pace of the city and looked at living in this enclave in Turtle Bay as a respite, a perfect complement to that. Quiet enough to make him want to return to his world beyond it.
“And I’ve got news to share too,” she continued, “one that calls for a bottle, not a glass. You’re sure you don’t want any?” she asked, holding that bottle. And when he demurred, “Good. More for me. So we’re gonna be rich, my credit cards reactivated. I can hardly wait.”
“So what’s your news?” Denton forced himself to ask her.
Danielle drained her first glass fast, in almost a single gulp. “I have a question for you first. I know you like having your ass kissed. So, tell me, the women you pay for, do you make them kiss your ass too, I mean really kiss your ass?”
“Have another wine.”
Danielle poured herself one and started sipping. “There’s something I want to tell you. Down there in Mexico, I was hoping that field was dry. I was hoping you’d thrown it all away, everything.”
“In which case, we’d have nothing and I’d probably be dead.”
“Well worth it, since you’d have nothing, my dear, and I wouldn’t give a single shit if you were dead.”
Denton watched her drain her second glass. “The only thing you hate more than me is yourself. You should get some help.”
She stood there in the shadows of the pantry. Almost thirty-nine now, four years his senior and looking ten years older than that in the murky light with not enough makeup donned to disguise lines drawn by the booze and cigarettes. The rosy, vein-riddled blotches rose from her cheeks like lanterns, bright enough to read the paper by. She had smirk lines instead of those normally carved by smiles. Deeper somehow, as if she’d carved them into her face to be revealed when not filled in by makeup.
“Maybe it’s time we ended this charade,” Denton suggested. “Split up, go our separate ways, so you can drink yourself to death.”
She smirked at him, like a poker player knowing they held the winning hand. “You know, maybe that’s a good idea. And in the process I can kill another of your unborn kids.”
Denton’s eyes widened, couldn’t find the breath to respond.
“That’s my news, Dale,” he heard Danielle tell him. “I’m pregnant. Again.”
TWENTY-SIX
New York City, 1990
Ben emerged from the bathroom with hand freshly wrapped, the skin etched into what looked like a calligraphy figure already starting to itch again by the time he rejoined Melissa on the balcony.
“Where’s the baby going to sleep?” she asked herself more than him, gripping the railing hard enough to squeeze the blood from her hands.
“A nice problem to have. A move is in order anyway.”
“A move?”
“We got the geophysical estimates on the size of the reserves back. Unfortunately, they’re only the second biggest the world,” Ben said, no longer able to contain his smile.
Melissa’s moist eyes widened. “Did you say…”
“I said we’re rich, babe. Rich beyond our wildest imaginations, rich beyond anything we ever dreamed of, rich enough to afford a dozen bedrooms if we wanted.”
“Nope,” she smiled, hand lowering to her belly. “Just one more.”
* * *
“Guess I owe you an apology,” Melissa resumed, fidgeting a bit.
“For what?”
“Saying you were crazy to put everything we had into Mexico, and for thinking Dale Denton was leading you around by the tail. I told you as much, remember?”
“As I recall, it was a different part of the anatomy you referenced.”
“Only because I thought that snake had cut them off.”
“He’s not a snake.”
“Okay, an asshole then.”
“Who happens to be my best friend.”
Melissa rolled her eyes. “Whatever you say, Ben.”
“What are you saying exactly?”
“Nothing.”
“Too late to go back now.”
“I’m pregnant, remember? Pregnant women say lots of things they don’t mean. Must be all those hormones racing around.”
“Don’t do this,” Ben said, feeling the familiar nervous flutter in his stomach.
“What?”
“Avoid the issue.”
“What issue?”
Ben shook his head, started to turn back to view the world beyond their balcony. “That’s what I’m talking about.”
Melissa grabbed hold of his arm and pulled him back around. “I don’t like Dale Denton.”
“Then don’t. But every bit of success I’ve achieved I owe to him. He put his entire inheritance into our venture, and if Mexico had gone bust, he’d be in an even deeper gutter. Hell, we’d all be sharing an apartment in Queens if we were lucky.”
Denton came from real money. Serious money, the most serious because it was old. He insisted Ben tag along for holidays when Ben didn’t have enough money to go home from the upscale, private high school from which he’d won a scholarship. Then Denton had encouraged him to apply to Princeton, where Ben had gotten in early decision, while Denton had to wait for his parents to pull strings to secure his admittance. They’d roomed together all four years, the last two in a glitzy two-bedroom apartment the Denton family had bought instead of paying rent.
“Dale Denton scares me, Ben.”
“Why?”
Melissa shrugged. The way the sunlight danced in her hair, illuminating strands blown free by the breeze ten stories up, made her skin shine the way it had when they’d been in college. In that moment, she didn’t look a day older, even though it often felt to Ben as if a hundred years had passed since graduation.
“It’s just something about him, like…” Melissa stopped as if she was finished, but then started again. “When I was a little girl, we had this dog. I wanted to like it and whenever my parents were around, it couldn’t have been nicer or more loving. But when it was just the two of us, the dog got this look in his eyes and snarled at me whenever I got too close. Like he was showing his true self, and the rest was just an act. That’s the way Dale Denton makes me feel, and I think he knows that I—”
Melissa stopped when the phone rang, and Ben moved back inside to answer it.
* * *
“Are you kiddi
ng me?” Ben asked after Dale Denton shared the news about Danielle being pregnant again. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“Now why would I do that, partner?”
“You’re not going to believe this: Missy’s pregnant too.”
“You’re right I don’t believe it,” Denton responded, after a pause. “Impossible.”
“That’s what I said.”
“I just pinched myself. Now, I’m knocking wood.”
“I’m knocking too.” Ben hesitated, groping for his next words. “It’ll be different for you and Dani this time, Dale, I can feel it.”
“Sure, and to mark the occasion she celebrated with a glass of wine. A few of them, actually.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Wish I was, partner, wish I was.”
“She was abused as a child, Dale. It’s a tough cycle to break. She’s just scared. But if she keeps drinking during the pregnancy…”
“I know, I know.”
“Then do something about it.”
“Like what?”
“I could have Missy talk to her.”
“Bad idea, partner. Danielle thinks Missy’s crazy.”
“It’s called manic depression. It’s a disease.”
“That’s good, because Danielle also thinks Missy’s sick. Then again, Danielle thinks everyone is sick. Maybe that’s why she hates everyone.”
“Including you, Dale. I never saw a woman happier after miscarrying.”
“That was because of the antidepressants the docs gave her.”
“It’s because she hates your guts, wants to cause you pain because she blames you for all of hers.”
“I guess she’s got to blame somebody. Hey, you care so much about me, maybe I should be having a kid with you, partner.”
“Sorry, I’m taken. And if you can keep Dani away from the bottle, having a kid might be just what she needs.”
“Fat chance. Our kid will be in boarding school by the third grade.” Denton stopped, surprising himself when he picked up again. “Something I never told you, partner, about the ones we lost. I don’t know if they were boys or girls. I never asked. I didn’t want to know. This time, I’m going to be there from the first sonogram. Do things differently, starting now. Every bottle of booze is going in the trash as soon as I get off this call, Danielle’s stash of pills too. I’ll hire twenty-four security to watch her every move, if I have to.”
“Well, you can certainly afford it.”
“Money can’t buy everything,” Denton told him. “Speaking of which, what do the doctors have to say about how Missy ended up pregnant?”
“They don’t, because they can’t. Hey, when’s Danielle’s delivery date?”
“January twenty-eighth.”
Ben almost dropped the phone. “Did you say the twenty-eighth? Man, you are not going to believe this.”
“What?”
“Missy’s delivery date. It’s January twenty-eighth too.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
London, England; 1991, nine months later
“What do you know about Nigeria, Professor?”
Pascal Jimenez leaned forward in the chair set before the desk of England’s Secretary of State for Defense, after being roused from his sleep by MI6 officials pounding on his door.
“With all due respect, Mr. Secretary, you could have asked me that question over the phone, or summoned me in the morning.”
“Except the morning may be too late,” Alan Neville said grimly. “We, as in the British government, need you in the air by sunrise. Your Special Air Service escorts are already en route and will be meeting you at our RAF base in Northolt.”
“What’s this have to do with Nigeria?”
“That’s where you’re going, Professor.”
“With the SAS? I’m a planetary scientist,” Jimenez told Neville, “a geophysicist, not a military specialist.”
“And a planetary scientist, a geophysicist, is exactly what we need.”
* * *
“Thirty-six hours ago, Western satellites detected a massive explosion in the southeast sector of Nigeria,” Neville continued. “We believe it was caused by some kind of meteor strike, but satellites and geological observatory sites recorded no intrusion into our atmosphere or flame trail.”
Jimenez remained silent, waiting for him to continue.
“Reports from the nation’s government were sketchy at best, their response to our queries nonexistent. The explosion’s source severely disrupted their communications, especially in the affected region.” Neville rose, laying his palms down on the desk as he looked down at Jimenez. “Three hours ago, we finally received our first actual communiqués. A delay resulted when we requested confirmation, believing the translations must be wrong.”
“Why?” Jimenez asked, as if he were listening to someone else pose the question.
“Because the communiqués specified hordes of dead animal carcasses drifting along rivers, washing up on shorelines along with fish, and birds that seemed to have dropped out of the sky. And there were reports of entire indigenous tribes being wiped out, erased from existence in a time frame consistent with the period our satellites recorded the explosion.”
“Wiped out by what?”
“That, Professor, is what we need you to find out.”
* * *
“I’ll need to put a team together,” Jimenez told him. “In forty-eight hours, I can assemble the top experts in the world.”
Neville shook his head. “We don’t have forty-eight hours, nor can we afford widening the circle to that degree, not until we have at least a preliminary analysis of what we’re facing.” He stopped long enough to regard Jimenez closely. “So we’ve taken the liberty of assembling a team for you. The best geological minds the United Kingdom has to offer. You can review their dossiers on the flight.”
* * *
Jimenez considered the rest of Neville’s words, and what he’d been able to glean from the latest reports that were updated further via Telex while he was on board the C-130 Hercules that was the primary workhorse of the Royal Air Force’s Tactical Air Transport fleet. By all accounts, the southeastern region of Nigeria had been struck by an asteroid he estimated to be the approximate size and weight of the American-made plane in which they were now flying. He couldn’t be sure of that until he was able to study the area of the strike directly. And yet any near-Earth object responsible for such an incredible loss of life, along with the physical damage reported, could not possibly have averted the watchful eyes of planetary observatories all across the world.
Jimenez was at a loss to explain any of it.
Half the jump seats in the hold of the C-130 were occupied, divided almost evenly between an SAS A-team and the scientific team Secretary Neville had told him was being assembled. The members of that team had all arrived minutes before Jimenez, having been told even less than he had. Jimenez knew all of them by reputation, and half the eight by sight, comforted no end by their degrees of experience and expertise. All the very best in their respective physics and geological fields. Amazing Neville had been able to gather such a prestigious group with barely any notice, another fact that spoke to the suspected enormity of whatever had happened in Nigeria.
Another half hour passed before the SAS team arrived via helicopter, led by a figure as much shadow as man in the blackness of the night who introduced himself only as “Cambridge,” all his team members using cities in the U.K. for their names.
“I’m glad you’re coming” was all Jimenez said to him.
“Save the platitudes until we get you back home safe” was all Cambridge said back, in a thick British accent. “And from all I’m hearing, we’ve got our work cut out for us.”
* * *
The C-130 had set down at the nearest airfield to the decimated area in the southern-based jungle regions of Nigeria. They were met there by a dozen of the best soldiers the country had to offer, whose presence drew a smirk from Cambridge. The soldiers were no more
than escorts, their sole assignment being to get Jimenez and his team to the part of civilization that had been spared nearest the strike.
That required a long and arduous drive, over roads often cut through dense swatches of forest, to a Catholic mission. The priest in charge there, Father Josef Martenko, had been advised to expect them. Martenko was a bright-eyed man a bit older than Jimenez. He wore a black, short-sleeved shirt with his priest’s collar darkened at the edges by sweat. He had supplies that included food and water already boxed up for them and advised that they spend the night, and set out fresh come the morning.
“I’m going to give you my best guide,” the priest told him. “Knows the jungle better than any other native I know who speaks English.”
“What do the natives say about the strike?” Jimenez asked Martenko, having spotted enough shocked and terrified faces to know plenty had been driven to the mission by either rumors, or something actually worth fearing.
“Superstition among these indigenous tribes runs very deep. They believe it was the work of God, or the devil, or some combination of the two,” the priest explained. “But that’s not the real problem you face here, no.”
“Then what is, Father?”
“You know about the Maitatsine rebels, Doctor?”
“It’s professor, and, yes, I’ve heard of them. Read a few reports on the flight.”
“I doubt those reports mentioned they’ve been massing in the jungles down here for some time, using them as a staging ground for their operations.”
“So far from the center of the country?”
Martenko nodded, the motion looking pained. “The army would never follow the rebels down here, so the jungle’s swimming with them. They’ve been spotted in villages not far from where we’re standing now.” The priest cast a gaze beyond Jimenez toward the SAS troops who’d taken the opportunity to check their ordnance and gear up for the long slog ahead. “The Nigerian soldiers who’ll be accompanying you aren’t worth much if it comes to a fight, so you better hope those men are.”
