Alienation
Page 8
Agent Hester pulled a metal disc from his briefcase and set it down on the desktop, just in front of where Colt was seated. “You wouldn’t happen to know who this is, would you?” he asked. With the click of a button, a hologram flared to life. It was a perfect three-dimensional replica of the man Colt had chased into the corridor, though he was only about the height of a ruler, if that. He stared at it for a moment, not sure what to say. For all he knew, Agent Hester was in on everything. His eyes went from the hologram to the gun and then back to the hologram. “It’s the guy who was following us tonight,” he finally said.
“Interesting.” Agent Hester scratched his chin. “His name—at least so far as we know—is Heinrich Krone. He’s a former member of Germany’s federal intelligence service, who is currently working as an assassin for hire. And he’s also one of the Thule, as you recently discovered. But I’m sure you knew all this already.”
Colt frowned. “No, I didn’t.” He thought back to what Ms. Skoglund had told him. As much as he didn’t want to believe that someone at CHAOS wanted him dead, things weren’t looking good.
“I see.” Agent Hester stared at Colt through his glasses as though he were a human polygraph machine. “Then you had no idea that he is one of the Thule, or that he had a known relationship with Aldrich Koenig, the former president of Trident Biotech? Or that he has received multiple payments from accounts associated with the Central Headquarters Against the Occult and Supernatural?”
“Look, all I know is that we came here to see the exhibit and some creep started following us,” Colt said, sitting back in the chair. “I didn’t know who he was, so when I saw him slip behind the door, I decided to get a closer look. The next thing I know, someone slams me up against the wall, and then one of your agents points a gun at my head. The guy who hit me gets away, and somehow I’m the one who ends up in handcuffs.”
The door opened, and Agent Parks walked in carrying a small bottle of aspirin and a glass of water, which he handed to Colt. “We’re going to have to let him go,” he said as though the words were bile in his mouth.
Agent Hester looked confused. “Excuse me?”
“The bureau chief just got a call,” Agent Parks said. “The kid has friends in high places.”
“Apparently so.” Agent Hester looked crestfallen.
“His grandfather is on his way to pick up him up, and from what I’ve been told, he ain’t happy. You know who he is, right?”
Agent Hester nodded. “Yes, yes. The Phantom Flyer, America’s one true superhero. I read the comics when I was a boy.”
Colt felt the tension leave his body as Agent Hester paced with his fingers locked behind his back. His neck was a peculiar shade of red that crept up his cheeks and onto his forehead like the rising temperature on a thermometer. Colt couldn’t tell if he was embarrassed or upset, though he had a feeling it was a bit of both.
“This certainly complicates things, doesn’t it?”
“Does that mean I can go?” Colt asked as he stood up.
“Yes, I suppose it does,” Agent Hester said. “But before I forget, we found this in the corridor.” He pulled Ms. Skoglund’s flash drive out of his breast pocket and handed it to Colt. “I don’t suppose you’d like to make any comments about Operation Nemesis? Or why your name shows up on a list of people who are no longer alive?”
:: CHAPTER 20 ::
By the time Colt was released, Lily was already gone. Her father had picked her up and taken her home before Colt had a chance to say good-bye, much less explain everything that had happened. Maybe that was a good thing, Colt thought. After all, he wasn’t sure if he could explain it even if he had the chance.
Agent Hester led Colt out of the office and back to the exhibit area where Grandpa was talking to an older man. He was tall and slender, with perfect posture, and his sun-bronzed skin was a striking contrast to his impossibly white hair.
“I hate to interrupt, but . . .” Agent Hester let the words hang in the air as Grandpa and the other man turned to them.
“You must be Colt,” the man said. “It’s a pleasure.” He offered his hand, which was soft and smooth, as though he frequently applied cream. Yet despite that and his manicured fingernails, his grip was strong.
“This is Agent Montgomery,” Grandpa said by way of introduction. His tone was even, but his eyes were furious. “He’s the local bureau chief for the DAA.”
“Nice to meet you,” Colt said.
“I wanted to personally apologize for our overzealous behavior tonight.” Agent Montgomery applied a smile that looked like it was stolen from the face of a used car salesman. “As you can imagine, my agents have been through quite a lot these last few weeks. Still, it doesn’t excuse the terrible mix-up. I hope you’ll be able to forgive us.”
“They were just doing their jobs.” Colt looked over his shoulder at the exit sign. Agent Montgomery gave him the creeps. Besides, he wanted to at least text Lily to see if she was okay.
“Thank you,” Agent Montgomery said. “You’ll be happy to know that we confiscated the pictures that were taken earlier. You know, the ones that showed you in a bit of a compromised position?”
“I appreciate that,” Colt said, almost dismissively. He didn’t want the world to see him in handcuffs, but he had bigger issues at the moment. “Did you find the guy who attacked me?”
“The shapeshifter?” Agent Montgomery looked over to Agent Hester, who shook his head. “I’m afraid not, though we have some of our best agents tracking him right now. With any luck, he’ll be apprehended within the hour and we’ll be able to get to the bottom of this mess.”
“Then we’ll leave that in your capable hands,” Grandpa said. He placed his hand on Colt’s shoulder and steered him toward the exit sign.
“Oh, and, Murdoch,” Agent Montgomery said, calling after Grandpa. “Please contact me if you see anything unusual. You have my direct line.”
“I’ll be sure to do that.”
“Do you know that guy or something?” Colt asked as they got into Grandpa’s 1946 Cadillac Coupe. The car looked like a hot rod, with a long front end, a chrome grill, and black paint that shone beneath the portable lights in the parking lot.
“Agent Montgomery?” he asked with a snort. “He used to work for CHAOS.”
“What’s his deal?”
“He’s what you might call an opportunist.” Gravel crunched under the tires as he pulled out of the parking spot, headlights cutting through the darkness. “In his world justice comes secondary to publicity and promotion. But I’m not worried about Montgomery right now. I want to know how long that thing has been after you.”
His tone was harsh, and Colt shrank back into his seat like a puppy that had been scolded for chewing up a pair of slippers. “I don’t know.”
“Don’t give me that,” Grandpa said as he looked into the rearview mirror. “The Thule secrete a kind of fear toxin that paralyzes their victims. You start to panic, your skin gets covered in gooseflesh, and the hair on the back of your neck stands on end. Sound familiar?”
Colt shrugged. “Yeah, I guess,” he said. “The first time I noticed anything was the other day when you went down to Tucson. I was in the hallway, and it felt like someone was watching me from the front window. Just like you said, the hair on the back of my neck stood up and I could hardly breathe.” He went on to explain how he saw the glowing eyes in the rearview mirror at the park and how the robot flipped out at Oz’s house and nearly killed him. Then he repeated everything that Ms. Skoglund had told him.
“That much I knew,” Grandpa said, to Colt’s surprise. “She stopped by the house after you left, and I told her where you were.
If I had known you were going to go chasing after trouble, I would have had her bring you home.”
“Trust me, that won’t happen again.”
“We’ll see about that,” Grandpa said. He turned the dial on the radio until it played big band music. “So, tell me, who else knows about this mess?”
“You haven’t said anything to Danielle or Oz?”
“Not yet. I mean, what would I say? It’s not like I had any proof.” Colt tried to let it all sink in, relieved that he could finally talk to someone. “Do you really think someone from CHAOS is trying to kill me?” He paused. “You know, like Lobo?”
“Lobo came from a rough background. His father was shot when he was young, and his mother dealt and abused drugs, so she spent a good deal of time in and out of prison. Without good role models, he got involved with gangs. In fact, the only reason he joined the service was to avoid a prison sentence, but eventually he got his act together. The man worked harder than anyone I know, but he was overlooked for promotions because the top brass couldn’t look past that rough exterior. Still, he never gave up. In fact, it only made him work harder. He fought for every scrap, and now that he’s the director of CHAOS, he’s not going to go down without a fight.” Grandpa sighed. “I told them this would happen, but they insisted on privatizing the agency and putting him in charge.” He shook his head. “Fools.”
Colt watched as the desert landscape blurred outside his window. The hum of the tires rolled over the asphalt as he mulled his future. He was about to enter into a military training program where the director of the agency wanted him dead. It didn’t seem like a terribly good idea on any level. “What’s going to happen,” he asked. “I mean, should I even go to Virginia?”
“Ultimately that’s a decision only you can make,” Grandpa said. “You were put on this earth for a purpose, and it’s up to you with the good Lord’s help to discover what that is. But you need to understand that there’s nowhere you can hide that Lobo won’t be able to find you.”
There was a sound like an engine, and Colt looked in the rearview mirror to see a single headlight dart between an SUV and a semi-trailer truck. The rider on the back of the motorcycle revved the throttle, and the front tire pulled off the asphalt. He was going fast enough that if he hit a patch of gravel, he wasn’t going to survive the crash—even with the helmet.
Colt watched as the motorcycle drew near. The front tire touched back down, bouncing twice. Colt frowned. The rider had six arms instead of the normal two, and he was holding four handguns with long, silver barrels—all of them leveled at the Cadillac. “Grandpa, look out!”
There was a series of flashes followed by explosions. The impact from the energy bolts shook the car, and the back end swerved out of control. There was a scorch mark like a starburst on the window, but it didn’t shatter. In fact, there wasn’t even a crack.
“I’ve added a few upgrades,” Grandpa said. “The glass is bulletproof.”
Grandpa fought to maintain control as the SUV behind them veered off the road and into the guardrail. Cables snapped and the front end crumpled as steam rose from what was left of the hood.
There was another series of shots. Three flew overhead, but one of them caught Grandpa’s bumper. “Hang on!” He slammed his foot against the brake pedal, and the car lurched as they swerved and skidded across the freeway, leaving a slithering trail of rubber in their wake. The seat belt dug into Colt’s skin, but without it he would have flown out the front window.
“Looks like your friend found us before Agent Montgomery and his crack staff were able to track him down,” Grandpa said as the motorcycle flew past them in a blur of motion.
The rider, whom they assumed was Krone, applied the brake and turned back around just as Grandpa pressed the gas. The force from the acceleration slammed Colt’s head against the seat.
“Sorry about that,” Grandpa said as he reached for a hidden panel in the dashboard. It eased open to reveal a series of gauges, levers, and switches. “Do you see that white one next to the red button? Flip it on.”
Colt did as he was told, and two wide panels opened on either side of the hood just above the front tires. “No way,” Colt said as a pair of Gatling guns emerged. “When did you install those?”
“A week or two before you arrived,” Grandpa said. “Let’s just hope they work.”
They raced toward the motorcycle in a deadly game of chicken. Grandpa pushed a white button and the guns blazed to life, smoke billowing from the barrels as bullets shredded the asphalt.
Cars and trucks pulled to the side of the road, their drivers stunned as they watched the quiet stretch of freeway turn into a war zone. Some remained in their vehicles, others got out to get a better look—and some of them had cameras.
Krone fired. Energy blasts bounced off the grill of the Cadillac, but Grandpa kept driving, the Gatling guns blazing as bullets sprayed the motorcycle. Flames erupted near the gas tank, and the front tire started to wobble. There was an explosion, and Krone flew off the back, arms and legs flailing as the motorcycle skidded across the freeway in a shower of sparks and flame.
Grandpa took his foot off the gas and eased his way to where Krone should have landed. Sirens screamed in the distance.
Colt stepped out of the car, but he couldn’t find the Thule assassin anywhere. “That’s crazy,” he said, standing in the headlight beams of the Cadillac. “He just disappeared.”
:: CHAPTER 21 ::
It didn’t make sense. Krone should have been lying on the asphalt in a tangled heap, either unconscious or worse. At that speed bones would break and organs would be lacerated, if not rearranged, but there was no sign of him anywhere. No skid marks, bloodstains, or even footprints leading off into the desert.
The only explanation Grandpa could come up with was a personal teleporting device. Such things were rare, and highly unstable, but they were supposed to open a gateway that could take someone from one point to another instantaneously. Travel distances were limited, typically to somewhere within a line of sight, but it would have been enough for the Thule assassin to escape.
A stream of patrol cars with flashing lights cut the search short. They got back into the car, but before they took off, Grandpa reached inside the glove box and pulled out a metal orb about the size of a baseball. “It’s an EMP grenade.” He spun a dial counterclockwise until there was a click, then he pressed a button, and a blue light started to pulse. “It should scramble any recording device that managed to take our picture without hurting anybody in the process. That way we can stay anonymous.”
“Anonymous?” Colt laughed. “How many people drive a ’46 Cadillac Coupe? And then there are the retractable Gatling guns. It’s not exactly a good car for sneaking around.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Grandpa said as he dropped the grenade out the window. It landed with a tink, bouncing a few times before it came to rest. “We need to get out of the blast radius before it kills our battery.” He threw the car into drive, and the tires spun before the vehicle shot forward to an off ramp that led back into a neighborhood.
Colt watched through the rearview mirror, waiting for the grenade to detonate. There was an explosion of crackling light as energy waves rippled across the freeway like water disturbed by a heavy stone. Headlights dimmed as the pulse fried streetlights, batteries, and anything else that used electrical components.
In the distance the first patrol car entered the electromagnetic field. Its lights flickered and siren sputtered before they went out, then the engine ground to a halt. The same happened to a second patrol car before a third driver slammed on his brakes and rear-ended the first. The first highway patrolman staggered out of his vehicle, his hand moving to the radio transmitter on his lapel.
Grandpa drove home using side streets. He wanted to avoid major intersections where cameras hung from traffic lights, feeding live footage to the watchful eyes of the police department. They were only a few miles from home, and it wasn’t long before he pulled into the driveway and cut the lights, keeping the car in idle as Colt got out to open the garage door.
“I don’t get it,” he said. “You have an armored car that could take out a tank, but you won’t buy a gara
ge door opener?”
“It’s good exercise,” Grandpa said as the garage door slid open. He eased the car inside, and Colt shut the door before he flipped on the bank of fluorescent lights that hung from the exposed rafters.
Grandpa got out and inspected the car. Surprisingly, there weren’t any dents, much less any dings or scratches. But there were some nasty-looking scorch marks left by the charges that Krone had hit them with. He walked over to an old cabinet and pulled out a rag and a spray bottle filled with some purple liquid, handing both to Colt.
“What’s this for?”
“The evidence,” Grandpa said. He hit a button on his wireless remote, and the license plate spun backward, replaced with a brand-new number.
“I didn’t know you were this devious.”
“Never mind,” he said. “You have work to do.”
Whatever it was, the compound in the spray bottle was powerful. In only a few minutes the scorch marks came right off without damaging the paint or the chrome on the grill.
“So do you have any more secret weapons stores that you want to tell me about?” Colt asked as he put the cleaning solution away. “Is there some kind of hidden lab under the house, or do you keep all that stuff in a storage facility somewhere?”
“Lock the door, will you?” Grandpa said as he walked back to the house. When he got inside, he hung his keys on the hook and opened the junk drawer, where he rifled through pens and pencils, mismatched batteries, expired coupons, and spools of thread. “Here it is,” he said, pulling out something that looked like a remote control, only it was nearly the size of a paperback novel and had a stubby black antenna on the end. He twisted a dial and a meter sprang to life, bouncing back and forth across the display as the device made an annoying crackling sound.
Colt thought it looked like a handheld version of the metal detectors that old men use to comb beaches in search of spare change. “Are you going to tell me what you’re doing, or is it top secret?”