Conspiracy of Angels

by Laurence MacNaughton

  “You know what, if you were me, looking at you, you’d be worried about you.”

  She cocked her head at him. “What?”

  “See? There you go again, giving me that look. Here.” He pushed a plate at her. It was loaded with toast, the melted margarine shiny in the light. “Eat something. You look like you stepped out of one of them Calvin Klein ads.”

  She touched the plate. It was cold and smooth, like the skin of Jocelyn’s neck. She pushed it away.

  Mitch put down his fork and pointed a finger at her. “Okay, listen. Geneva. You want to self-destruct, that’s fine. Looks like you’ve got some practice at it. But you do it after you tell me everything you know. Understand?” He held her gaze for a second. “I’m running out of patience, here.”

  He wanted to play rough, fine. She gave him her worst psycho glare. “You know what, Mitch? You don’t know one thing about me. You don’t know what I’ve been through. And you sure as hell don’t know what I’m capable of.”

  He settled back in his seat, wiping his mouth and his hands. He finished chewing, looking out the window, and then looked back at her. “I know you’re brave.”

  She didn’t know where he was going with that, but she wasn’t going to let him butter her up. She opened her mouth to tell him to go to hell.

  He cut her off. “I know you saved my hide. And my brother’s, too. When everything hit the fan, you stayed back there and covered me. Long enough to get Bryce out, safe and sound. You know, sometimes, he just doesn’t get it.” Mitch made a swirly motion at his head with one finger. “Anyway, you, you got guts.”

  She didn’t know what he was trying to get at. Deep down, what he said made her feel good. Because he was right. Damn right, she had guts. But she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of showing it. She just shrugged.

  Mitch shrugged, too. “So you don’t want to trust me, that’s fine. You showed me I can trust you. Okay?”

  Against her will, she found herself nodding and whispering, “Okay.”

  “You came to find me for a reason, and that reason was because you thought maybe I could help you. And I think you’re right. Now, I don’t know why, but you thought I was a scientist.”

  “They said you were.”

  He frowned. “Who?”

  She looked around. Nobody was in earshot. Just a bunch of old guys at the counter, drinking their coffee and watching the Weather Channel.

  She took a deep breath. “The Conspiracy.”

  “What exactly did they say?”

  “I heard one of them say that you, Jocelyn’s dad, headed Project Archangel.”

  Mitch shook his head. “I never heard of any project until you showed up. Maybe you got it wrong.”

  “I didn’t get it wrong.” She could hear the cold anger creep into her voice. “I remember it. Okay? I remember it extremely fucking well.”

  He held up his hands. “Okay. All I’m saying is, maybe he was really talking about someone else.”

  “Who? Not me. Not my dad. He was a homesteader. My mom used to work in a dairy. Neither of them ever saw a laboratory in their lives. And we were the only people there. They followed Jocelyn to my home, on the mountain. Miles from the nearest road. There’s no mistake.”

  Mitch ran his hands back through his hair. “I was never any scientist. I didn’t even go to college, for Pete’s sake. Look, I believe you when you say this, but I tell you what, there’s gotta be something we’re missing.”

  She took a bite of toast, then another. The hunger suddenly got so bad that she couldn’t eat fast enough.

  Mitch smiled a little and forked over some bacon and hash browns. The two of them ate for a while, not saying a word.

  The truth was, she wanted to talk to him. She had all these things bottled up inside, and she knew she needed so badly to let them out. She knew Mitch needed to know.

  But she couldn’t trust him. No matter how hard she tried. She just couldn’t.

  He sighed and leaned back, and a question popped into her head.

  “Mitch. Why’d you go to prison?” She didn’t know why she said it. It just came out. She covered up the awkward silence after that by pouring herself another cup of coffee. She couldn’t look at him.

  Mitch let out a long breath. “I screwed up, that’s why.”

  She risked a glance at him. “So what did you do, kill somebody? Rob a bank or something?”

  He laughed. “I should’ve done that. Would’ve ended up a lot richer. But nah. Me and Lanny, we had a little operation going. R-12. You know what that is? Refrigerant. Freon. For air conditioners, the old fashioned kind. It’s the stuff that makes holes in the ozone layer. They can’t manufacture it anymore, not in America anyway.”

  “Huh. So?”

  “So anybody’s got a car built before 1999 that’s got air-conditioning, they either got to convert it over to the new stuff, or pay through the nose any time they got to get it fixed. Same goes for refrigerated trucks, and that, my friend, is bread and butter. So me and Lanny, we buy loads of R-12 with a fake bank account from a guy across the Rio Grande, who gets it from Venezuela, I think. We run it up here and sell it under the table. We were paying pennies on the dollar. Made one hell of a bundle, let me tell you. Made money so fast, it was hard to fill all the orders. I was driving night and day, back and forth.” He picked up the empty coffee pot, shook it, set it back down again.

  “Sorry.”

  He shrugged. “So, then, one day I got a little too run down. Drove all the way through, turned around, and started driving straight back. Somewhere in there I fell asleep.”

  The waitress came by and dropped off a fresh coffee pot. Mitch didn’t touch it. “Only thing I remember is seeing this silver hatchback swerving to get out of my way. I was on the wrong side of the road. I must’ve heard its horn, but too late. I turned that wheel so damn hard.” His hands bunched into fists at the edge of the table. “Rolled the truck. Took out a guardrail. The lady in the silver car got hurt, smacked her head on the windshield, wasn’t wearing a seat belt. The car flipped. Her kids were okay, but they were trapped inside. And she was knocked out. I didn’t know if she was dead or what. I could’ve gotten away. They would’ve never found me. I must’ve thought about that crash a million times. Over and over.” His voice drifted off. “A million times.”

  Geneva realized she was holding her breath. She let it out. “So you didn’t run?”

  He looked up, his eyes red. “What the hell do you think? I put a towel on her head to stop the bleeding. Then I called 9-1-1. They got there and it took them about three minutes to figure out my racket. Federal prosecutor told me they’d reduce my sentence if I could give them a name. Any name. Spread the blame out a little. Or else they’d give it to me hard.”

  “And you didn’t tell them about your friend?”

  “Lanny? Hell, no. I’m the one got him into this mess to start with. So, like they said, they gave it to me hard. Maximum time. Not a day less.” Mitch wadded up his napkin and stood up. “Come on, we gotta go.”

  “Now?”

  He cleared his throat. “Yeah, now. I’m gonna have to call Lanny, get us a four-wheel-drive truck.”

  “For what?”

  He leaned on the table. “You and I got one thing in common. We both want answers. Right? Well, there’s only one place we’re going to find any. The place you first saw this Archangel. On the mountain.”

  SIXTEEN

  If there was one good thing Lanny could say about the Ukrainians, it was that they never did anything halfway. They had a Bronco that looked like it could climb Mount Everest. Big knobby tires, lifted suspension, a monstrous electric winch on the bumper. The youngest of the Ukrainians, a black-haired dude called Feliks, reached up and opened the tailgate. A blue plastic tarp was bundled up in the back of the truck.

  Lanny fought off a shiver. He felt a little exposed in this smelly old alley, nothing back here but the Dumpster for the Chinese takeout down the way. He’d be lucky he didn’t come out
of this smelling like week-old lo mein.

  It was just him and Clean in the alley with three Ukrainian dudes. He’d taken the white Lincoln Navigator—he hated the white Navigator, with its lame no-hump stereo—because the black Navigator was currently being tallied up as a total loss in a rock slide incident.

  A rock slide that never actually happened, but so what? The paperwork goes in, the check comes out, case closed. Except for the fact that Lanny liked the black Navigator.

  All Mitch’s fault. The man barely got his feet back on the street and already he was spreading chaos.

  Lanny and Clean stood there getting cold in front of the white Lincoln. The Ukrainians in their black leather jackets stood around the back of their busted old truck, smoking cigarettes. Everybody was boxed in on one side by the back wall of the strip mall, on the other side by an old wooden fence all tagged with spray paint. Cozy.

  If things went bad, the only way out was to put the Navigator in reverse and hit the gas. Wasn’t even enough room to turn around. Lanny wasn’t too keen on this setup.

  Valentin, the blond Ukrainian surfer wannabe, reached over and flipped back the blue plastic tarp. Sitting there in the sunlight was about fifty grand of cocaine in neat little packages.

  Lanny’s bad feeling crystallized into anger. He pointed at the coke. “Man, what is this?”

  The Ukrainians traded looks.

  “Hey. Yo. What is this? This is not a bunch of fat stacks of flat green with Ben Franklin’s face smiling back at me.”

  Feliks cleared his throat. “Is very pure.”

  “I don’t care if it’s pure as church on Sunday morning. It ain’t cash. You feel me?”

  Feliks scowled. “This is more than how much we owe to you. Very much more. We give you this, or we give weapons. Is all we have.”

  “Maybe you’re not understanding me, comrade. It’s like this. You came to me, you say you’re losing too much money on your business. I understand that. You wish it would just go ffft—” Lanny made a poofing gesture with his hands. “And hey, how about that. An unfortunate electrical fire, and your troubles are history, dog.”

  The head Ukrainian, wrinkled old Kutuzov, glanced over his shoulder. “Yes, yes. Is very old story. We all know how it ending.”

  “Oh no. No, no, my friend, you don’t know the end. See, the deed is done. The insurance company is stuck with a big pile of ashes. Now you hand over … what? Hmm? Cash. Not dope. I don’t do that shit. My drug of choice is money. And don’t be trying to pawn off no Chinese grenade launchers on me neither. Understand?”

  The surfer, Valentin, pointed a finger at Lanny. His jacket flashed open, showing the butt of a black pistol tucked into his waistband, against a pink T-shirt. “We don’t have cash money. The insurance has not paid us, like you said they would. Now they say they have to investigate.” He jabbed his finger into Lanny’s chest, hard. “Investigate what? We have deal. Is your fault. You want money? You go get from insurance company yourself.”

  Clean had the business end of his big chrome gun pressed against Valentin’s head before the Ukrainian even had a chance to pull his finger back. Everyone froze.

  Clean’s eyebrows came down low over his sunglasses. “No, go on. We’re listenin’.”

  Valentin blinked a few times, fast, and looked at Clean out of the corner of his eye. “I am only making point.”

  Clean said, “You want a point, Stoli breath? I’ll give you a point. Hollow point. Desert Eagle forty-four auto magnum. Made in America.”

  “Clean,” Lanny said, pushing him back, “just shut the hell up.”

  Clean gave it a moment, then lowered the gun. He inched his face closer to Valentin’s. “I’m watching you.”

  Lanny kept pushing until Clean was almost behind him. “Watch your manners instead. We’re all friends here, right?” He smiled over at Kutuzov. “Good friends.”

  “Yes.” Kutuzov nodded, giving Lanny a dark look. “Very good friends.”

  “That’s right. And that’s why you’re going to pack that junk away and come back tomorrow with the big, fat stack of dead presidents.”

  “Tomorrow, no.”

  “Tomorrow, yes. Because that’s when my man Clean, here, loses his patience.” Lanny patted Clean’s arm. “You hear me knocking, dog?”

  “Yes,” Kutuzov said slowly, his eyes black and narrow, “I most definitely hear your knocking.”

  Lanny gave him the same look back. He held it as long as he could, neither of them blinking. The tension built up in the air like electricity. His pulse pounded in his ears. Any moment, he kept thinking. Any moment now, homeboy here’s gonna snap.

  Then Lanny’s cell phone started playing mambo music. He hadn’t figured out how to change the damn thing’s ring yet. So he stood there, trading showdown looks with the Ukrainians, while the damn phone played a fiesta in his pocket.

  Clean leaned over and said, “You gonna answer that?”

  “Clean, shut up, man.”

  Valentin cracked up first. He had a high laugh, like a giggling girl. After a few seconds of that, Feliks and Kutuzov joined in.

  Lanny slapped Clean on the arm. “Let’s bounce.”

  He left the Ukrainians standing there laughing, wiping their eyes, and got in the Navigator. Clean turned around in the seat and backed them out, and Lanny caught him grinning.

  “Man, what the hell those Ukrainians think is so funny anyhow?” Lanny answered the phone, cutting off the mambo music. He put on his big-time smiley professional voice. “TCB Enterprises. How may I help you?”

  “TCB? What the hell is that?” It was Mitch’s voice.

  “It’s Takin’ Care of Business, my friend. Which you have definitely not been doing, man.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know where the pimp-mobile is at, ‘cause of you? It’s through. Going to that great big scrap yard in the sky. Whatever you think I ever owed you, dog, we’re even. Matter of fact, you owe me change.”

  “The insurance is paying for it. Am I right?”

  “That ain’t the point.”

  Clean backed them out of the alley and turned onto the road, checking the mirrors before he went. That was one thing about Clean, he was careful with expensive things. Which Mitch most definitely wasn’t.

  Mitch said, “Look. I’ll pay you back for the Lincoln somehow. But you gotta do this thing for me first.”

  “No way, man. Nuh-uh. Last time I let you talk me into that, homeboy out there in the parking lot came after my ass with a AK-47.”

  “That’s not gonna happen again, I promise.”

  “You’re damn right it’s not, and you know why? ‘Cause I ain’t falling for it again, that’s why. Whatever you got planned, the answer is N-O. Know what that spells? Get out of my face.”

  Mitch let out a long breath. Through the phone, Lanny could hear a hiss of traffic, and then a rumble that sounded like an old truck pulling up. The engine ran on for a few seconds and died.

  Lanny said, “Where you at, man?”

  “You remember Xiapong’s place?”

  “Xiapong’s? The motel? Man, why you pick that hole?”

  “That thing that landed on your roof? It came back. Burned my house down. Tried to kill me and Bryce. And the girl.”

  A little shiver ran down Lanny’s back. That thing, it wasn’t human. But it had looked straight through the windshield at them. Wanted to kill them. But it was like it didn’t have time, too busy going after the girl. Lanny kept thinking the only reason he was still alive was the thing just happened to be otherwise occupied.

  He hadn’t slept a bit. Every time he closed his eyes, he relived it. The way that thing shimmered, shifted. Like speeded-up film. Like it could have reached through the windshield and crushed him, just like that.

  Mitch said, “That thing killed Jocelyn. While I was inside. Somebody, the people who are after it, they covered it up.”

  “What people?”

  “People. Feds. I don’t know.”<
br />
  “The government?” Lanny squeezed his eyes shut. This was all too big, too messed up, to figure out. It was like someone had told him the bogeyman was real. “Why?”

  “I don’t know. But I need to figure it out quick, because it’s after us. I need to find out if it can be stopped.”

  “So what do you need?”

  “I gotta head up into the mountains. Way up. There’s a cabin up there where the girl grew up. Turns out she found Jocelyn lost in the woods, and let her stay there. Until that thing showed up and killed them all.”

  Lanny sank back in his seat. “Oh, man.”

  “Geneva was the only one who got out alive. I’m thinking, if we go up to that cabin, maybe we can figure out where this thing came from, how we can kill it.”

  “Man, I don’t know.”

  “Look, I don’t have a lot of choice. What I need is a four-by-four truck. Something big and mean, with a lot of ground clearance. Where we’re heading, there’s no roads.”

  “How soon?”

  “Today. Now.”

  “Man, give me a couple days. I got to holler at my people. Don’t worry, I’ll get you something sweet.”

  “I don’t have a couple days. This thing found us last night. It could be anywhere. I can’t sit around.”

  Lanny drummed his fingers on the console, took a deep breath and let it out. “All right, hang on.” He put his hand over the phone. “Turn around. We got to go back to the Ukrainians again.”

  “Yeah?” Clean didn’t look too thrilled. “What for?”

  “I got to buy their truck.”

  SEVENTEEN

  As they rattled the shopping cart across the parking lot, Mitch thumbed through the bags, ticking off a list in his head. Flashlights. Batteries. Knives. Rope. Sledgehammer. Duct tape.

  There was something missing. “We gotta get you and me a couple jackets. Some gloves. There’s going to be snow up there. You gotta stay nice and warm.”

  Geneva rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”

  “Hey, I’m not fooling around. It comes down to the wire, I don’t want to find out you can’t shoot with your fingers frozen stiff. You got it?”