Piercing the Veil

by Guy Riessen

  “Funny. No. I mean the guy who kidnapped me is named François.”

  “First name basis already? Don’t you think this is all moving a little too fast, D?”

  “Oh my god, H, have some mercy. I was just blown up, drugged, operated on, interrogated, drugged again, and woke up to your ugly face. Never mind, you’re right, carry on, ya jerk.”

  Howard nodded, looking back down to the bin he continued filling.

  “Where are we, exactly?” Derrick asked.

  “We are sixty-eight klicks northwest of the Haunt location. The whole area is a twisting interconnected maze of logging roads in the Trinity National Forest. You’re lucky we found you.”

  “Woah. How much time has passed?”

  “It’s been four days since you were nabbed from the Haunt.”

  “Dang. Four days ...?”

  “Yeah.” Howard had his print-kit out and was dusting the table.

  “Wait a sec!”

  “Yeah?”

  “Did you freaking say Sarah was in the Raven? As in the chopper!?”

  Howard spun around, his hands forming finger guns, “Hells yeah!”

  Derrick held up his hand and Howard stepped over and gave him a high five.

  “Sarah had it up and on its way as soon as I got back to the van to call it in on the secure channel. It’s enough to almost make me think she likes you, D.”

  “Yeah, right,” Derrick said in a dismissive voice, but he could feel his ears heat up all the same.

  “What about the guy that shot at us in the Haunt? You catch him?”

  “Yeah but not alive.” Howard stopped and looked back at Derrick, his frustration obvious.

  “You shot him?”

  “Nope, didn’t shoot him.”

  “Wait, what? Who are you, and what have you done with Howard?”

  “Well,” Howard chuckled and said, “When I left you in the hallway, he popped a smoke grenade.”

  “Yeah I saw that part.”

  “When I went in the room, I couldn’t see for shit, of course. But I heard the window break and headed toward that sound and followed him out through the broken window.” Howard held up a bandaged hand.

  “Sorry, man," Derrick said, looking down at his leg. "No sympathy here.”

  Howard nodded and continued, “Once I cleared the smoke, I could see the dude headed right for the tree line, moving real fast. So, I was just about to snap off a shot, and the dude dropped. Like he was a puppet, and someone took a pair of scissors and snipped his strings. I mean, just dropped. He was moving pretty fast, so he kinda face-planted and his feet flipped up and over his head. Looked more like a mountain bike crash than anything.”

  “Someone else pop him? Like my mystery Frenchman, maybe?” Derrick asked.

  “I had to take some time getting over to the body because I was thinking the same thing, another shooter, even though I didn’t hear a shot. But eventually I did make it over to the tree line and the dude was dead alright. Really, really dead.”

  “What do you mean?” Derrick asked.

  “I’m talking well over a week, buzzing with blowflies, empty chest cavity, and hollowed-out abdomen crawling with maggots, dead.”

  “Dang.”

  “Yeah. Oh, he was cut open from gullet to groin and emptied out, but he wasn’t just missing his viscera ... his eyes were gone and there was this black stuff that had dripped down his face. It looked like someone had plucked his eyes out while he was laying on his back, filled his eye sockets with dirty black motor oil, then stood him upright.”

  “That is freaky-beans, man. Any chance for an ID on the dead guy?”

  “ID wasn’t a problem at all actually, but not much help. Even from the field notebook computer, his prints came right up on Sarah’s search on the FBI’s criminal history system. He was a junkie, no permanent address. Last known employment was as a pizza delivery cook and driver up until last week, when he just didn’t show up for work. Long drug-related robbery and assault rap sheet in Santa Rosa and Sacramento. Maybe used the pizza driving to deliver drugs, but we haven’t found the car, yet.”

  “One of the pot growers from the Haunt?” Derrick asked.

  “Dunno. But all his drug arrests were related to meth possession, not pot. So, my gut says we already found all the growers that had been using the building dead in the basement.”

  “Dang.” Derrick rolled his head back toward the ceiling and sighed. “Sixty-eight kilometers. Jeez, Howard, that's a heck of a search quadrant even with the Raven.”

  “You’re telling me. I think I’ve got permanent waffling on my ass from the seat webbing in the chopper. We’ve been up twenty-four hours a day, except to land for refueling and to swap out pilots.”

  “Wow, H.” Derrick could feel tears building in his eyes. He’d always been quick to tear up when things got emotional. Didn’t matter if it was good or bad. He cleared his throat and quickly dragged the back of his wrist across his eyes.

  “Yeah, right? Why do pilots get to go home at night? But, make no mistake, Derrick, ass-waffle means you owe me big time, and I’m not going to call it in until it’s something equally big, buddy.”

  “Ha! Fair enough. I’m sure we won’t be back long before you start whining for help raiding for some of the new gear in the Steam Epic Wars expansion.”

  Howard paused and looked over from the bookshelf where he was bagging the handful of notebooks there. “Wait a sec, why’re you bringing up Steam Epic Wars? Did you find that new dungeon instance?”

  They’d been playing Steam Epic Wars, a massively multiplayer role-playing game set in a sprawling steampunk fantasy world, together for about two years. Derrick always seemed to have a little more free time than Howard, so he’d put in more hours grouping up with other members of their guild. But Howard craved loot like a grizzly craved salmon.

  Derrick smiled. “Get me the heck out of here and I’ll show you.”

  Howard clucked his tongue, “It’s a deal, Emma Peel.”

  Derrick laid back flat, his head on the pillow, then asked. “How’d you guys find this place?”

  “We were doing a standard quadrant search outward from the Haunt. Mapping out every structure we could see—buildings, mine structures, whatever. Then we had a Sweeps crew on the ground to follow up with each one. We weren’t getting anywhere fast—there’s a lot of unmapped crap built out here since mapping for the USGS had been through here last.”

  Derrick nodded and turned his head again to watch as Howard pulled the rest of the things off the bookshelf. Howard reached for something on top of the shelf, and turned around, holding out Derrick’s white cell phone, “Then about an hour ago, your phone here, which had been undetectable, popped up on the ‘Where’s my phone app.’”

  “Popped up?”

  “Well Sarah was monitoring the app, of course, standard operating procedure, right? But there was no signal at all. She kept it up though, just in case you managed to get to the phone and turn it on. Then bam, suddenly it showed up. I take it by your brilliantly slack-jawed expression, that you weren’t the one who turned it on?”

  “Nope.”

  “Huh.”

  “Hey, H, you see my phone case over there anywhere? You know the SEW one? Was it on the table?” Derrick jutted his chin toward the bin in which Howard had placed the table’s contents.

  “Haven’t seen it yet.”

  “Crap,” Derrick said.

  “It’s weird the kidnapper would turn the phone on after waiting four days.” Howard paused and looked at Derrick. “Just seems weird, you know? Must be a reason.”

  “Well, it wasn’t me. Could be the Frenchman was after data on my phone. Passwords. Links into MU or the DCV archives?”

  “Maybe, but they’d need the password, right?”

  “What? You think PINs are hard to crack ‘cause the FBI tried to force Apple to give up a PIN last year?”

  Howard tried to not look sheepish. “Uh, maybe ... yeah?”

  “Nah.
I’ve got an algorithm I wrote like three years ago that can break into any cell phone in five minutes max. Works via a dongle that plugs into the phone and spoofs an operating system update. If I can do it, there’s others that can do it too.”

  Howard smiled, “Well, maybe not too many others ... Anyway, your phone was online for maybe fifteen minutes, then went dark again.”

  “Hmmm.” Derrick remembered hearing his own ringtone ... in fact he reached to pull it from his pocket to answer it before he realized it was gone. The ringtone was just the generic marimba ring, it could’ve been anyone’s phone ... but turning it on fit with Howard saying it showed up in the Find My Phone app.

  Howard said, “Seems like if the object was to get your passwords, etc. then François would’ve have simply taken the phone with him. Then he could have cracked it at his leisure.”

  “Yeah. That doesn’t make sense unless we’re missing something,” Derrick said. He pushed himself up a little, folding the pillow in half to support his back. He winced when his leg moved. “Maybe he was afraid we had a tracker in it? He might not want to activate it where we could track him to his evil lair. So, he cracks the OS and dumps the data to a USB drive, leaving the phone behind. Fifteen minutes would be enough time to do a data dump.”

  “Maybe.” Howard tossed the phone to Derrick, who grimaced in fear for his leg, but caught it.

  Outside, Derrick could hear pine needles crunching under feet.

  Howard shouted, “In the cabin, Derrick’s here.”

  Sarah came in through the door. She was wearing black fatigue pants and a black tank top. Twin pistols were on her belt and a M4A1 rifle was slung on her shoulder. Her hair was jet-black dusted with gray, cut shoulder-length, and messy on the sides. She’d obviously just been wearing one of the Raven’s communications helmets. As she stepped into the cabin, she yanked her hair back into a high ponytail, tying it with a black scrunchie. Her dark eyes flicked around the room in the same way Howard’s might, noting points of access.

  She stopped with one hand balled into a fist at her waist. “Figured you found him,” Sarah said, looking at Howard with a frown, “no ‘site clear’ call, Howard?” Before Howard could answer, a smile raced across her face as she turned toward Derrick. “Hey, hey. You’re not looking half as bad as I expected, Derrick.”

  “Uh, thanks? I think I must look twice as good as I feel, then,” Derrick said. He could feel his ears turning red as he realized there was no way to play it cool, being the only one lying in bed with one leg sticking out.

  Howard swept an arm out. “Everything is bagged and boxed, photo’d, and dusted.”

  “Good. I have the Sweeps on the way. They’ll get any other evidence they can dredge up surrounding this place. We’ve already got a drone scanning the surrounding forest area and the Sweeps will get LIDAR of the cabin. Anything else you remember that we should follow-up, Derrick?”

  “I was driven here, so let’s see.” He concentrated for a moment. “Uhm ... F-two-fifty, diesel ... uhm pre-twenty-sixteen, locking rear-differential from the sound on the rough stuff. Camshaft sounded a little flat, so it had some decent mileage on it and not enough oil changes. Although it’s murky because of the drugs.”

  “Yeah, too bad the memory is murky,” Sarah said. She rolled her eyes at Howard and smirking asked, “What, don’t know the color of the truck?”

  “There was a bag over my head, and I was drugged.”

  Howard chuckled.

  “But it was red,” Derrick said.

  “Uh ...” Sarah started.

  “No, really. Probably, I should say. I read in Nature magazine a few years ago, that blackbirds will drop walnuts around red vehicles, hoping they will crush the shells when they drive away so they can get at the nutmeat inside. It’s the right time of year for black walnuts and I definitely heard small objects being dropped outside the vehicle, some hitting metal.”

  Sarah shook her head, then continued, “We’ve got some tire tracks. They’re minimal—I don’t know how much we’ll get from them. With the lack of rain, everything is hard-pack dirt.”

  “Seventh year of drought here ... oh well ... So,” Derrick grinned, “Which one of you jokers has the honor of carrying me to the helicopter?”

  “Neither,” Sarah said, stepping out the door and pulling a wheelchair in with her. It had beefy oversized knobby tires.

  “Is that seriously an off-road wheelchair?” Derrick’s eyes lit up.

  “Damn straight,” Sarah said.

  “Then, let’s get the heck out of here. Don’t want to keep the Raven waiting.”

  Howard stepped over to the bed to help Derrick into the chair, and said, “Plus, you know, might want to see a doctor about that broken leg.”

  “Oh yeah. That too,” Derrick said.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  DERRICK WAS LYING DOWN, but staring up at the ornate carved ceiling of one of the rooms in Miskatonic University’s Medical Building.

  “Hey, Buddy. Welcome back.”

  Derrick turned his head toward the sound of Howard’s voice. “Thanks. Need water,” he croaked.

  Howard poured water from the beige plastic pitcher into a clear plastic cup. He lifted Derrick’s head a little and held the cup to his lips. “You’re the proud new owner of a titanium plate and six titanium screws.”

  “Nice! A plate, huh? Were the screws like a custom torque-screw or were they just Phillips or flat head?”

  “Seriously, dude, you’re a freak.”

  Derrick did his best sad-puppy face. “Just curious, man.” Then he smiled and said, “Hey, the upside is I’ll never be one of those ‘unidentified bodies’ on the news.”

  “Huh?”

  “Each plate and even each screw has a unique serial number on it. My ID is just a hop onto the medical database away.”

  “Yeah, OK. Morbid much?”

  “Yeah I suppose that is a little morbid.” Derrick took another drink, then smiled at Howard. “Got to admit, that was a heck of a fight with that giant zombie-skeleton-golem thing though, amirite?”

  “Damn straight! When you lit that thing up with your hand buzzer ...”

  “Pulsar.”

  “Yeah, whatever. When you lit that thing up and it blew apart ... Freakin’ amazing!” Howard said the last word with sing-song inflection to his voice.

  Derrick chuckled, rubbing the stubble on his chin. “So, H ...” Derrick started, then stopped.

  “What?” Howard looked over at him.

  “Nothing. Never mind.”

  “Oh no you don’t. I hate it when people do that. Start to say something then stop and tell you it’s nothing. If it was nothing, you wouldn’t have started to ask in the first place, right?”

  “OK. But you gotta take it serious like. Don’t just blow it off.”

  “Scouts’ honor.” Howard held up three fingers.

  “OK. So, you know how when we’re about to fight something?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I mean, like just about to bust down a door, you know, like we did.”

  “Yeah, I get it, Derrick. We’re about to fight something and what?”

  “You ever have, I dunno, a theme song run through your head?”

  “What?”

  “Like in Steam Epic Wars ... the music changes once combat starts, right? Do you ever hear that kind of music in your head right before we’re set to seriously wreck it?”

  “Nah, I don’t think so ... but I never thought about it either. Why, do you?”

  “Yeah. I always get the Star Trek ‘combat’ theme song stuck in my head.”

  Howard raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything.

  “You know what I’m talking about? Original Trek? When Kirk’s about to put the hammer down, Kirk-Fu style, on some Klingons.”

  Howard stared at Derrick.

  “You know, like "Duh-duh DUH DUH DUH DUH Dun Duh-duh DUH DUHN ...”

  “Nope.”

  Even though he was lying flat, Derrick started
miming a fight while loudly humming Kirk’s fight theme. He stopped and held up his hands, entreating a response. “Yeah?”

  “Nope.”

  “Really?”

  “You’re a weird dude, Derrick.”

  Derrick shrugged and pressed the button on the controller hanging from the bed rail, raising his head and shoulders up. “When can you get me out of here? I want to get started designing independent trackers for our phones that’ll fit inside unmodified cases.”

  “I’m sure it’ll only be a couple days at the most. I think once they get a plate in you, they want to get you up and moving as quickly as possible. I’m sure the doc’ll be by soon with the real skinny. You just gotta ring me when you’re ready, and I’ll pick you up and take you to my place until your leg’s working well enough that we can return you to your native habitat,” Howard said. “You know, your office.”

  Howard put a cell phone on the rolling table with the water pitcher. “New phone. Old one’s quarantined of course. But this one’s got the same number. I’ve got to run, Buddy. Today’s the first day of the semester and I got a class to teach in uh ...” He glanced at his watch and said, “fifteen minutes.”

  “No way? Crap, I don’t have my new plans prepped for Astro one-oh-one.”

  “Sarah’s got you listed as out for the first three weeks. I think Professor Lambus is covering.”

  “Geez, really? Lambus? That guy thinks stars are found on America’s Got Talent.”

  “Yeah, but what are you going to do about it?” Howard asked, waving one hand down toward Derrick’s leg.

  “Point. What class are you teaching, H?”

  “Babylonian History and the Linguistic Influence of Assyrian Script.” Howard walked toward the door, raising one hand, and waving over his shoulder.

  “Rockin’, man,” Derrick nodded. “Later ... and uh, break a leg.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  DERRICK DIDN’T HAVE to wait long before Sarah sprung him. He was looking forward to some video game-time with Howard, but instead, Sarah wheeled him down to the Basement, so he could be debriefed and get his post-mission psych evaluation. Whoop-dee-frakkin’-do.