“Please don’t refer to me as your dad,” Keogh II says. “I did what you asked me to do, now go in peace so that Chase and I might see to it that this young lady has a proper burial.”
“Boys,” Peter Keogh III barks.
The goons shoulder their weapons, both barrels aimed point-blank for the old pilot’s leather-capped head.
“We’re not leaving this place without the Golden Condor. That means we need you to do a little more flying.”
“You must be mad,” the old pilot says. “That aircraft belongs to the Incan people. Before that it belonged to the universe. One day it will belong to the universe again.”
“Now it belongs to me.”
“For your prized collection?” I say, from where I’m seated against the wall.
I pull myself back up onto my two feet and stand, a bit out of balance.
“Yes, for my prized collection. But that’s the least of it.” He waves his hand in the direction of the Golden Condor. “This isn’t just a plane. It’s history and it’s the future, and it’s proof that we are not alone. It will make me the most influential man on the planet and perhaps beyond the planet.”
“Your father is right,” I say. “You’re quite mad.”
“And you’re about to be quite dead, Mr. Baker,” he says. “Boys, take care of him.”
The goons turn at me, the two black barrels on their weapons staring me in the face like twin devils.
47.
But something happens then.
In the split second before the goons depress their fingers on the triggers of their automatic rifles, Keogh II shouts out, “Chase, get down!”
He drops down onto his chest and I do the same. That’s when three bright beams of laser light shoot forth from the belly of the Golden Condor, the brilliant beams connecting directly with the heads of the goons and Peter Keogh III. The men fall to the stone floor on their backs. They seem paralyzed, until they begin to writhe in convulsions, white foam spurting from their mouths. As fast and as sudden as the light shoots out of the craft, it then disappears.
Sucking in a breath, I quickly grab their weapons, tossing them aside. I also pull the old pilot’s six gun from his son’s pant waist.
“What the hell was that?” I ask Keogh II, as I hand him back his Colt Peacemaker.
“In the time since I’ve been down here, I believe a very famous British pop group sang a hit tune called, ‘With a Little Help from My Friends.’ Well, that, my adventurous amigo, was a little help from my friends.”
“Your friends up there, you mean,” I say, now knowing that the small men I saw communicating with the old pilot up in the spacecraft was not a dream, but a dream-like reality.
I look down at the goons. They are no longer writhing or moving. They are clearly dead. My eyes shift to my employer. He too is lying on his back, perfectly still, his young face no longer full of life, but having taken on the chalk white pallor of the newly departed.
Looking into Keogh II’s eyes I can see that he is not taking the sudden death of his long-lost son lightly. His eyes fill, as a tear runs down his cheek. He lowers himself onto one knee, placing his brown gloved hand on his son’s chest.
“I’m sorry, son,” he says. “But you left me no choice.”
With his father’s hand laid upon his sternum, Peter Keogh III’s face begins to change. The youthful skin begins to dry up, becoming wrinkled and saggy. The thick blond curls fall out, until all that’s visible is a bald scalp tattooed with age spots. The muscular body loses its tone, the musculature turning to worn-out flesh. Not only has death touched Peter Keogh III, but so has advanced old age. His final punishment for the murders he’s committed and the murder he would inevitably commit in the name of his own fortune and glory. How damned tragic that it had to come from his own father. Or perhaps, in the end, entirely fitting.
Keogh II makes the sign of the cross and stands. He goes to Leslie, pulls the sheet off her face. Even in death, her face is as beautiful and perfect as ever. It makes my throat close in on itself just to look at her.
“I want you to do something for me,” the old pilot says.
“What is it?” I say, my voice cracking.
“I want you to turn around.”
I nod and do it.
I begin to feel an earthquake-like shaking and a rattling so violent, it’s like the entire mountain is about to collapse in on the interior stone structures. The trembling is accompanied by a bright light that’s different from the lasers that sucked the life from Peter Keogh III and his goons. This light is more like the morning sun shining through an opening in the treetops. I feel it’s warmth on my back, and I swear to you now, I can feel it throughout my own body, like a newborn child can feel the heart beating in his mother’s chest the first time she holds him tightly.
Then, as the light slowly fades, the mountain goes still.
My body feels soaked with sweat and my eyes are filled with tears, and I can’t exactly explain why, other than knowing that what just happened inside that big ancient stone room is nothing short of miraculous.
“You can turn around now,” Keogh II says.
And when I do, I know that I was absolutely right. What I’m witnessing is nothing short of a miracle.
She’s sitting up on the table.
Leslie, her eyes wide and blinking, the life returned to her flesh and blood, her long dark hair draping her face like an angel.
“I must have fallen asleep,” she says. “Are we in space?”
“No, Les,” I say, trying my best to hold back my tears, “we’re back on the solid ground.”
“What happened?” she asks. Then, while looking deeply into my eyes, “Why are you crying?”
Keogh II smiles, adjusts the leather cap on his head and the goggles that rest on his forehead.
“Think I’ll tend to something downstairs,” he says. “You two take all the time you need.”
He leaves.
Leaning down, I rest my head on Leslie’s now healed chest, and cry my eyes out.
48.
Two days later, Leslie and I are doing something we never would have guessed just five days ago when this whole adventure began. We are boarding a single-engine biplane that was constructed back before my parents were born. Keogh II hops into the cockpit directly behind us, pulls the goggles down over his eyes. He’s wearing a white silk scarf which he’s wrapped around his neck, and he’s smiling proudly.
“Been a long time since I fired up the Tiger Moth,” he says. “This really should be quite the treat.”
“How long exactly?” Leslie says, as she takes hold of my hand inside the cramped leather covered seat we’re sharing.
He takes a minute to think about it while scratching at the scruff under his chin with his thumb and index finger, his eyes peering up at the hot sun shining down on this landing strip in the jungle.
Lowering his eyes and catching both our gazes, he says, “Why seventy-five years to be exact.”
“Seventy-five years,” I say. “You mean you never thought even once about flying yourself out of this jungle back to civilization?”
“Oh sure, I thought about it. Thought about it a lot. But the plane has always been inoperable. Until a couple of days ago when I was able to make a special request of some friends who reside in, let’s call it, a higher place.”
“God,” Leslie whispers into my ear.
“Let’s just go with it,” I whisper back, recalling the little men who were conversing with Keogh II while the Golden Condor was still racing through space.
“Now make yourselves comfortable,” the old pilot barks. “And remember to hold on.”
A portly white man dressed in baggy, grease-stained overalls and wearing a baseball hat with the logo of the old Brooklyn Dodgers appears suddenly as if from out of nowhere. He’s wiping his hands with an old oily rag. Pocketing the rag, he takes hold of the old wood prop with both his thick hands.
“Switch on,” shouts the old pilot. “C
ontact!”
“Roger that,” says the mechanic. “Have a swell trip. Bring me back a newspaper. I wanna catch up on the Brooklyn Dodgers.”
“Sure we know what we’re doing?” Leslie says to me, her eyes front. “Why do I get the feeling we’re about to be flown out of the Amazon rainforest in a ghost plane being piloted by a ghost pilot who works with a ghost mechanic who still thinks the Dodgers play baseball in Brooklyn?”
“Maybe we’re all ghosts and just don’t know it,” I say. “In which case, we can’t possibly die because we’re already dead.”
The propeller catches and the engine roars to life, its pistons spitting excess fuel and acrid smoke.
“Hang on,” the old pilot announces. “Here we go!”
The plane inches forward until it comes to a slow roll. Then, picking up speed, it’s trembling body cruises along the landing strip, the engine roaring and straining until we feel a jolt and we’re airborne, the wheels barely clearing the tops of the trees. After a few bounces and bucks, and I feel my stomach rise into my throat while the old pilot circles the runway. Looking out over the side, I see the portly mechanic looking up at us, bearing a broad grin, and waving at us with his grease towel. When he lowers his hand finally, he begins walking back toward the tree-line, but before he gets there, he disappears like a piece of tissue paper suddenly lit by flame.
“Okay now!” Keogh II, barks as the biplane levels off, “I’m gonna open the old bird up!”
The old pilot lets loose with a hoot and a holler as the engine roars and we head on into the newly rising sun of a brand new day.
Epilogue
New York City
Two Weeks Later
I’m lying on the couch inside Leslie’s new agency office located on the fourth floor of a newly renovated prewar building on downtown Broadway. I’ve got a tennis ball in my hand and I’m playing pitch and catch with the exposed brick wall in front of me.
Leslie is sitting behind her new glass and steel desk. She’s reading the morning paper while sipping a cup of coffee and picking at a bagel with her fingertips.
“Says here the bodies of financier and avid airplane collector Peter Keogh the Third was uncovered inside the ruins of an ancient Incan settlement which had been built into a mountain in the Amazon jungle not five miles from Machu Picchu. The ruins are reported not having been touched by human hands in nearly a thousand years. The entry had to be blasted in order to get at the bodies. The only way they were located at all is by their cell phones, which gave away their positions via GPS. Sources are still trying to figure out how the men were able to enter into the ruins in the first place.”
I toss the ball against the wall, catch it.
“Guess we’ll never know,” I say.
I hear her put the paper down.
“Chase,” she says, “how come you never told me exactly what happened to me up in the aircraft?”
“What’s to tell? We went for a ride and you passed out. End of story.”
“But you saw something up there, didn’t you? What did you see?”
I toss the ball again. Catch it again.
“I don’t know. Stuff.”
“What stuff?”
More pitch and catch.
“Let’s just say that maybe, just maybe, there is such a thing as ancient aliens and that those ancient aliens might be more like God than we know. Or vice versa, of course.”
“So what you’re saying is God and ancient aliens are one and the same.”
“What’s so hard to believe about that? God rides around in a chariot of fire while accompanied by a bunch of flying angels. Maybe they helped out ancient man for a while. Taught him some things. Like flight, for instance. That knowledge got lost over time until the Wright bros came along and rediscovered it.”
She lets that one settle for a minute, picks off a tiny piece of bagel, slips it into her mouth.
“How come the ruins we witnessed were in perfect condition? How come whoever entered into them to recover Keogh the Third didn’t spot the aircraft?”
“The old pilot must have known they were coming and took off for greener pastures. So to speak. Maybe he destroyed the joint just to make it look good.”
“Destroyed the place,” she repeats. “You think he was a real man? A real man who was one hundred fifteen years old yet looked not a day over fifty?”
I look at her over my shoulder.
“Up there in the sky,” I say. “Way up in the far reaches of the universe … that’s where you’ll find the answers.”
“You mean I’ll find out how I was cured of a mortal bullet wound in a matter of moments.”
“Among other things.”
“Keogh the Second was one of them, wasn’t he?”
“One of what?”
“Not sure I can get myself to say it, so I’ll just say it anyway…Aliens. Ancient or otherwise. So was the grease monkey who thought the Dodgers still live in Brooklyn.”
“He flew us to Cuzco in a biplane, didn’t he? That sound like a little gray man in a flying saucer to you?”
“He dropped us off in an empty field and told us to walk the rest of the three miles on foot when there is a perfectly good airport in Cuzco. And did you notice that when he took back off, the plane didn’t seem to fade into the horizon, it sort of suddenly vanished into thin air?”
“Optical illusion,” I say, shrugging my shoulders.
“You love this, don’t you?”
“Love what?”
“Being cryptic.”
“I like saving the juicy bits for my new novel.”
“Speaking of which, when do I get to see a first draft? I got bills coming in now that the agency is back in action.”
“Soon. I’ll be done in a month. It’s called Chase Baker and the Golden Condor. Whaddya think?”
“I like it.” Then, “When are you meeting your daughter?”
“We’re doing dinner at the pizza joint downstairs from my apartment. You wanna join us? Or are you meeting back up with the gynie?”
“The gynie is long gone-baby-gone.”
I turn to her. “Me likey.”
I listen to her get up from her chair, come around her desk. I bounce the ball off the wall once more, but this time, she snatches it up. Making her way to the office door, she opens it just a tiny bit.
“Hold my calls until further notice,” she says through the narrow opening. “And girls, no listening through the door.”
I hear the door close behind her, the lock engaged.
My literary agent comes back to the couch, sets herself down on the edge, her skirt riding up high enough on her thighs to show some serious smooth skin.
“Wanna play breach-the-professional-relationship-between-author-and-agent?” She smiles.
“Okay, you play the hot cougar agent, and I’ll play the struggling young author who just can’t seem to get a break.”
She leans into me while undoing the top button on her blouse.
“Oh, I sooo love your writing, Mr. Baker,” she says in her best Marilyn Monroe imitation. “It makes me sooo hot.”
“You’re hired,” I say, wrapping my arms around her, pulling her into me.
“I’ll have my people draw up contracts right away,” she whispers before kissing my lips softly, passionately.
Outside the window, a fire truck speeds past, its sirens piercing the old brick walls of the new Leslie Singer Literary Agency building. By the looks of it, this isn’t the only joint that’s on fire in New York City.
THE END
If you enjoyed this Chase Baker Thriller you will definitely want to check out the first adventure in the series: The Shroud Key.
Vincent Zandri is the New York Times and USA Today best-selling author of more than sixteen novels, including The Innocent, Godchild, The Remains, Moonlight Falls, and The Shroud Key. A freelance photojournalist and traveler, he is also the author of the blog The Vincent Zandri Vox. He lives in New York and Florence, Italy. For more info
rmation and to join Vincent’s “For Your Eyes Only” Mailing List, go to http://www.vincentzandri.com/.
Chase Baker and the Golden Condor (A Chase Baker Thriller No. 2)
First Edition: November 2014
All rights reserved. No part of the book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
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The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
The author is represented by MacGregor Literary, Inc.
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