by Lyle Howard
He was half an hour into his expedition back to the car when he thought he heard a noise. It was probably only his imagination, but nonetheless, he paused in his tracks.
Nothing. He listened hard for anything that sounded out of the ordinary. Who knew what creatures inhabited these forsaken woods? He listened. No more sounds other than the occasional chirping of some content crickets.
Nothing. He persevered onward, shoving wild branches and fronds out of his face as he twisted his way through the abounding greenery. To the northwest, he could hear the sounds of the highway drawing closer. Sounds of trucks and cars.. .lots of them … too many of them, for a Saturday evening? He changed the knapsack onto his other shoulder, pausing briefly to take another swig from the Thermos. Crunching.. .he distinctively heard crunching … he held his breath and listened. Ahead of him? Behind him? Where?
His head swiveled like a garden gate, his superior eyes seeing more in the dwindling light than he really cared to. Weapons … he thought about the contents of his knapsack … there were none, unless whatever it was out there could be paralyzed by a splash of lukewarm Gatorade.
Slowly, cautiously, he knelt down without taking his eyes off of the lush vegetation surrounding him, and felt along the soggy ground for a stick … a rock … anything he might use to defend himself. His fist closed around a fallen, gnarled cypress branch … it would have to do. Again, the crunching stopped. Lance cocked his head to the right; he heard nothing. To the left … not a peep. Every time he stopped moving, the crunching ceased, too.
The halogen lights from the distant parking lot tinted the darkening sky with a faint yellow haze. Lance could see the dim glow in the gaps between the tree branches. He judged by their brilliance that he was less than half a mile from the shopping center. He considered sprinting the rest of the way, but he was sure that somewhere along the line, in this diminishing light, he would trip over a root or a limb and possibly injure himself. One thing he was certain of: he wasn’t going to come this close to his destiny just to end up as an alligator’s entree.
Holding the fallen branch in front of him, much the same way a blind man would use his walking stick, Lance warily maneuvered forward. From the highway to the west, the shriek of an ambulance’s siren pierced the night. The frightful noise carried across the calm humid air. To his left, the pink luminescence of the ambulance’s warning lights flashed on and off across the tree tops as it weaved its way north on the congested thoroughfare.
Lance was thirsty, but he dared not stop to drink. Something was definitely trying to track him down. By calling on his strange perceptual ability that was located somewhere in a hidden recess of his mind, he detected an unfamiliar presence nearby. He didn’t understand this intensified sensation, only that it had been with him all of his life … kind of like a danger radar. He couldn’t distinguish if the creature was an animal or a human, but he clearly understood that if he came face to face with it out here, it wouldn’t really matter. He was nearly defenseless.
Lance tried to pick up the pace, swinging the branch ahead of him like a machete, hacking at any foliage that stood in his way. To the south, the F-16s continued to rocket skyward, flashing across the eastern horizon like a succession of comets leaving a trail of fire and vapor behind them.
Now, only a few hundred yards from the shopping center, Lance began to detect a few familiar odors. The distinctive smell of fresh popcorn wafted past his nostrils … probably from the movie theater in the center of the mall. He was almost there.
His feet felt like lead weights, but soon he’d be checking into a nearby motel and drowning his misery under a scalding hot shower. He sniffed at the air. Boy, that popcorn sure smelled good to him. Maybe if things worked out right, he’d come back and catch the late show. That might be the perfect prescription for taking his mind off of whatever waited for him tomorrow in hangar number twelve.
Ahead of him there was a meadow stretching about forty yards from the fringe of the woods to the black-topped parking lot. Before stepping out into the clearing, Lance parted the last fronds obstructing his path and scanned the empty field. Everything looked quiet and peaceful, but his cerebral warning signal was far from silent. From here, he could see the Chrysler, right where he had left it nearly ten hours earlier only now it was bathed in the yellow light from one of the halogen street lamps. The parking lot was still busy, but no more or no less than when he had pulled in this morning. Everything looked routine enough.
How long would it take him to get across the field at a full sprint in waterlogged hiking boots, he wondered? Fifteen, twenty seconds? There was only one way to find out.
Counting to three in his head, he swallowed a full breath on the count of two, and tore across the meadow on three. To anyone that might have seen him crossing the field, he was nothing more than a phantom shape, graceful as a thoroughbred racehorse and as swift as any cheetah.
He hit the asphalt in midstride and reached the Chrysler without any problems. Running around to the driver’s side, he knelt down in the shadows where no one could see him and tried to catch his breath. His head was still screaming, but why? There wasn’t anyone in sight! Feeling around inside his knapsack, he found his key ring and fumbled for the right one. He reached up, slipped it into the door lock and turned it.
After pulling the door open, he threw his knapsack onto the floor by the passenger’s seat and climbed in after it. Keeping his face hidden just below the rim of the steering wheel, he quickly closed the door behind him and punched down the lock.
It was just as he was getting settled in and about to place the key into the ignition, when he felt the hand reach over from the backseat and firmly grab his shoulder.
THIRTY ONE
The heat rose in rippling waves from the tarmac as the C130-E military transport settled down onto the runway. Antoine Xavier checked his watch. It was only 10:15 a.m. They had made good time.
The lumbering turbojet made a U-turn at the end of the runway and taxied slowly toward the hangar identified by a number twelve painted in blue letters above the huge sliding doors. The hangar was the last in a row of identical buildings that lined the base’s single runway. The three-story structure was fabricated out of corrugated aluminum and painted tan in color like all the others. The two huge doors remained partially opened, while a worker, outfitted in a blue jumpsuit and driving a forklift, unloaded oversized wooden crates from the back of a tractor-trailer parked nearby.
Through the window next to his seat, Carpenter watched the forklift operator lower an immense crate off the tailgate of the truck and deliver it into the hangar. A few seconds later, the empty forklift returned outside, ready for another load.
“Ever been to Florida before, Doctor?” the captain asked, turning his attention to Xavier.
Xavier unfastened his safety belt as the plane rolled to a halt. “Never.”
Carpenter looked out the window again. “I was here once … when I was just a recruit….”
Xavier got out of his seat and began walking toward the exit at the front of the cabin. Without saying a word, he made it apparent that he couldn’t have cared less about the captain’s anecdotes.
Carpenter continued his discourse about the Cuban Missile Crisis and its relationship to southern Florida, unaware that he was sitting alone. It wasn’t until the front hatch was opened, and sunlight poured into the cabin, that he realized that he had been only entertaining himself.
“Are you coming, Captain?” Xavier called out, as a mobile stairway was secured to the side of the fuselage.
“Yeah, yeah … hold your horses.”
Waiting for the two men at the bottom of the stairs was a young man named Jensen, dressed in a smartly pressed black suit and holding a clipboard. He offered his hand in greeting to the doctor, but not to Carpenter. “Nice to see you, Doctor Xavier. I hope your flight was a pleasant one.”
Xavier nodded and took the clipboard. “How much more?”
The young man
pointed to a second truck parked in the shade on the west side of the hangar. “That’s the last one. We’ve been unloading and setting up straight through the night.”
Xavier scanned over the pages on the clipboard. “Any problems?”
Jensen nervously straightened the knot in his tie and looked over at Carpenter who just smiled. “We might have to bring in a few extra generators. All of this equipment pulls much more power than this place was built to handle.”
Xavier slapped the clipboard against his thigh, causing the young man to flinch. “Then what are you waiting for?”
The young man cringed backwards. “Yes … sir, right away, Doctor.”
Carpenter leaned against the stair’s handrail and shook his head repugnantly.
“You’ve got a problem?” Xavier asked. Carpenter watched Jensen hustle back into the hangar and shrugged indifferently.
“I suppose you disapprove of the way I’ve dealt with him.”
The captain let his eyes lock on Xavier’s face. “Why do I get the distinct impression that you’re not a Dale Carnegie graduate?”
Behind the C-130E, an F-16 thundered across the runway and lifted off.
“I am under a tremendous time constraint here, Captain, and I would appreciate it if you didn’t try to undermine my authority.”
Carpenter ground his molars until he thought they would splinter in the back of his mouth. All he did was smile at the kid. “Anything you say, Doc. It’s your show.”
Stepping out of the doorway to the C-130E, the pilot, Tom Merchant, waved a slip of paper. “Change of plans, Captain.”
Carpenter protected his eyes from the glare of the sun with his hand. “What’s up?”
Merchant held out the sheet of paper as though Carpenter would really be able to read it from thirty feet away. “They’re evacuating the base of all aircrafts. We’ve just got the word that we’ve got to leave, too.”
Xavier pointed up at Merchant with the clipboard. “What’s the meaning of all this?”
Merchant cupped his hands around his mouth and hollered over the roar of another F-16 lifting off the runway. “Sorry, Doctor, the top brass doesn’t want to take any chances with this hurricane only a few hundred miles off the coast.”
Xavier slapped the clipboard against his thigh again. “Damn!”
Carpenter felt a sudden twinge of satisfaction in the Doctor’s frustration. “Problem, Doc?”
Xavier shot Carpenter a dirty look. “What’s the latest weather report?” he yelled up the stairs to the pilot.
“Who knows, with the erratic behavior of hurricanes, Doctor? They haven’t had a storm hit here in ten or twenty years, but they’re still not taking any chances.”
Xavier looked up at the sky. The sun was shining brilliantly, and billowy white clouds drifted lazily on a gentle westerly breeze. “This is insanity!” he yelled over the blast from yet another fighter heading skyward.
Merchant lifted his arms helplessly. “The hurricane’s packing over a hundred and ten mile-an-hour winds … nothin’ to mess with.”
Xavier pointed over at the aluminum building. “What about the hangar?”
Merchant walked down the stairs. He was tired of yelling. “Been there for almost fifty years, sir. I can’t see it blowing away now.”
Carpenter agreed. “The second lieutenant is right. I think the hangar will stay secure.”
Xavier studied both men for a long moment as if he were trying to find some hint of a conspiracy in their faces. “Okay then … we proceed as planned. Where are they sending you to, Lieutenant?”
Merchant checked the hastily scribbled note. “Eglin Air Force Base in the panhandle of the state, near Pensacola, sir. It’s not that far from here. We can be back in just over an hour, once we get the okay.”
Xavier tapped his foot anxiously on the concrete ramp. “Goddamned hurricane! What else can go wrong today?”
Xavier didn’t have to wait long for an answer to his rhetorical question as Jensen came running out of the hangar brandishing a cellular phone in his hand. “Who is it?”
Jensen recoiled as he handed over the phone. “Harvey Mason.”
Xavier stepped off by himself to take the call. “Who’s Harvey Mason?” Carpenter asked.
Jensen frowned. “He’s our man in charge of the surveillance portion of the operation.”
Carpenter observed the agitated way in which Xavier was pacing. “Problems?”
Jensen nodded. “They lost him.”
The captain tried hard not to laugh. One helluva operation the good doctor had going here. “You’re talking about Cutter?”
Jensen nodded again. “He gave them the slip.”
Carpenter could empathize. “I know the feeling.”
The young man wrung his hands nervously. “I don’t think the doctor is going to take the news of this latest setback very well.”
Carpenter put his hand on Jensen’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, kid, he can huff and puff all he wants to, but I won’t let the big bad wolf get ya.”
Jensen smiled warily. “I appreciate the support, Captain, but you probably should know by now that this is not your run-of-the-mill wolf we’re dealing with here.”
Xavier’s voice grew louder and his tone harsher toward the man on the other end of the line. Now he was screaming into the receiver and his voice was easily audible over the deafening roar of another departing F-16. Carpenter, Jensen, and Merchant all gawked in disbelief as Xavier threw the portable telephone to the ground and crushed it beneath the heel of his shoe.
“This does not look good,” Jensen whispered out of the corner of his mouth.
Carpenter squeezed Jensen’s shoulder. “Let me handle this, kid. You stay here.”
The doctor was visibly shuddering as Carpenter walked up beside him. “More problems, Doc?”
Xavier never looked up from the shattered pieces of the phone on the ground, and as Carpenter drew closer, the doctor turned away. Even from the back, the Captain could clearly see that something was wrong. The veins in Xavier’s neck were protruding as though someone had shoved drinking straws under his skin, and his voice had turned low and guttural. The noises coming from his throat sounded more like air hissing from a punctured tire rather than a verbalization of words.
“Are you feeling okay, Doc?”
“Yessssss. I’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure?”
He gestured for Carpenter to back off. “I ssssaid, I’ll be all right, jusssst give me a minute.”
The captain turned and stared at the two men standing next to the stairs, and pointed at his own neck, demonstrating the transformation he had seen overcome the doctor. Merchant looked at him like he was a lunatic, but Jensen nodded in comprehension.
“Can I get you something, a glass of water?” Carpenter asked again.
Xavier inhaled deeply. “Incompetence drives me insane.”
The Captain frowned and estimated that it would probably be the shortest distance the doctor ever drove. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Xavier turned and adjusted the sunglasses on his face. Without drawing undue attention to his focus, Carpenter studied Xavier’s features carefully. Amazingly, it looked like the doctor’s swelling had reduced back to normal.
“I think…”
Carpenter could feel the reverberation of another F-16 rumbling down the runway. The vibration buffeted his body like a jackhammer. “You think what, Doctor?”
Xavier looked puzzled and frightened. His expression suddenly turned vacant, as though he had been placed under hypnosis. He stopped in midsentence and began walking dreamily toward the narrow alley separating hangars eleven and twelve. His strides were slow and methodical as though he were being reeled in by an invisible winch. Carpenter followed close behind until both men were standing in the shadows of the two buildings. Xavier stopped abruptly and began moving his head slowly side to side scanning the surrounding territory.
“What is it?” Carpenter
asked.
“He’s near.”
“Who’s near?”
A sinister smile crossed Xavier’s lips. “Lance Cutter. Oh my, this is extraordinary! My younger brother is very close.”
Carpenter turned to look back at Merchant and Jensen who had decided to tag along, but cautiously maintained their distance back on the ramp. The captain shrugged awkwardly at them.
“Cutter is somewhere on this base?” Xavier lethargically lifted his finger as though it was being manipulated by a puppeteer standing on the roof of one of the hangars. “He’s out there…”
Carpenter had to squint to see the swampy marsh field that lay past the barbed-wire fence surrounding the base. “He’s in the swamp?”
Xavier didn’t answer, remaining motionless, experiencing a heightened perception that he had never felt before, and reveling in the breakthrough.
“How do you know he’s out there, Doctor?”
“I … I can feel him. He’s watching … waiting.”
Carpenter continued to search the northern horizon, but all he could see was the dense tropical vegetation swaying in the wind. He had no doubt that Cutter was out there somewhere if Xavier said he was, because he had seen too much weirdness in the past two days to doubt the doctor’s sudden psychic ability.
“Just say the word, Doc, and we’ll bring him in.”
Xavier held up his hand to prevent him. “No need, Captain,” he proclaimed with an evil inflection in his voice, “my brother will still be arriving on schedule.”
THIRTY TWO
Lance shot up in his seat like he had been jabbed in his rear end with an electric cattle prod. “Who … the hell are you?”
“Just drive.”
“Drive … drive where?”
“You got a hotel?”
Lance thought that the deep resonant voice sounded familiar, but when he looked into the rearview mirror, the intruder was hunched over in the shadows behind the front seat. “No, I don’t have one yet.”
The voice was abrupt. “Hundreds of ‘em down here on the highway. Find one.”
