Conspiracy of Angels

by Laurence MacNaughton

  Lanny turned around, walking backward. “I just call ‘em like I see ‘em, man. If I was you, I’d say we turn this busted old rig around and head back to town. Mr. Super Bad-Ass Archangel shows up, we give him a AK-47 to chew on. Put a little lead in his diet.”

  “You think that’ll work?”

  Lanny shrugged and got in the truck.

  Mitch stood there in the parking lot for a minute, thinking. What if Lanny was right? What if all this pushed Geneva over the edge, permanently? Could he live with that?

  Then again, he knew the Archangel was still out there, somewhere. Sooner or later, it was going to find them again. And the black box in Geneva’s backpack. And all the guns in the world wouldn’t stop it.

  There had to be another way. There had to be something he was missing. Some secret way to kill the Archangel. And not just Michael’s energy gun. Could he live with himself if Geneva got killed because he had one shot and missed?

  She looked out the Bronco’s window at him. Her eyes were bright against the shadow, unblinking. Asking him all the same questions he was asking himself.

  He walked around to the rear of the truck, and Lanny buzzed down the tailgate window. It squealed as it went down. Warm air rolled out the back, and Mitch realized how cold it was getting up at this altitude.

  He held Geneva’s coffee out to her.

  She leaned out the back of the truck, throwing her arms around him. She hugged him, hard.

  He staggered, not expecting it. “Hey, hey. Easy there. Don’t make me spill your coffee.”

  “Mitch?” she whispered.

  “Yeah? What? You’re talking. That’s good. Keep talking.”

  “Promise me something.”

  “Yeah. Anything.”

  She let go and took the coffee in both hands. She sank back down into the truck, resting her arms on the closed edge of the tailgate. “I want you to take me home.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. I was thinking the same thing. We’ll turn the truck around, head back to town—”

  “No.” She pointed up into the mountains, where the peaks were still covered with the last of the winter snow. “Take me home.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  The penlight illuminated a tiny circle in the darkness, enough to show Michael an alcove in the concrete-block wall. A gray-painted steel cabinet decorated with electrical hazard signs nearly filled the space, but there was enough room to squeeze around behind it. Barely.

  The long, pitch-black space of the loading dock around him seemed empty, but Michael wasn’t taking any chances. He squeezed into the alcove, gritting his teeth when he had to put weight on his injured leg. With every step, the white-hot pain jabbed all the way up into his spine.

  He swept the tiny beam of light up and down behind the electrical cabinet, finding nothing but a thick layer of dust and an empty Snickers wrapper. Satisfied, he set down the stolen submachine gun, bit down on the penlight, and bent over to check his leg.

  The entry and exit wounds were ugly, but clean. The bullet had passed through the soft tissue without breaking the bone. How it had missed his femoral artery, he had no idea. As bad as the bleeding was, at least he was still alive.

  He nicked the bottom edge of his lab coat on the sharp edge of the cabinet, then ripped off a long swath of white fabric. Hissing at the pain, he wrapped the wound and tied it off. Not tight enough to cut off the blood flow, but enough to keep pressure on it until he could find a way out of here.

  He tried to reorient himself. He was at one end of a loading dock. He could either head back into the main part of the building and take his chances in the smoke and debris from the explosion, or else go down past the row of overhead doors and take the short flight of stairs down to the back lot. The first option probably meant working his way through dangerous wreckage and getting into close quarters with the hostiles. The second option meant getting outside and covering a lot of open ground quickly, which would be tough with his leg. Either option was likely to get him killed. But it was better than waiting around to get caught.

  It hit Michael that he hadn’t heard gunshots since the Cerenkov devices exploded. Genie had to have gotten away clean. That thought, at least, gave him some comfort.

  An odd tingling sensation crept up over his body, making his hair stand on end. The ozone tang of electricity cut through the smoky air. Michael jerked back from the steel cabinet and flattened against the wall.

  Something inside the cabinet popped, and a sizzle carried through the darkness. Moments later, a deep humming rose up out of nothing. Lights flickered on overhead, distantly at first and then all around.

  Michael blinked in the sudden glare. This wasn’t going to make it any easier to get away.

  He clicked the flashlight off, stuck it in his pocket and picked up the gun. He started to creep out of the alcove.

  A door opened nearby and voices spilled through. Michael backed up, edging back into the shadowed alcove, careful not to touch the metal cabinet.

  Voices echoed between the concrete walls, tough to make out, but there was one he recognized. Arthur barked orders as he walked into Michael’s narrow line of vision, surrounded by a group of agents with radios and guns.

  “Sir,” one of agents said, “eye five is coming on line now. It’ll be just a minute.”

  “Don’t give me that.” Arthur stopped and jabbed a finger at the agent. “I don’t give a rat’s ass how we’re looking. I want them found. I want to know where they are. I want to know what they’re doing. What they’re saying.” His voice rose. “I want a sample of the goddamn spit in the air they’re breathing so we can analyze it and make a vaccine against these lepers.”

  Michael silently raised the submachine gun and drew a bead on Arthur’s receding hairline. It wouldn’t be an easy shot, but Michael knew he could make it. Take Arthur out. Decapitate the Conspiracy, quite literally.

  “These people are a plague. They infect everything they touch.” Arthur’s face turned redder by the moment. “They are not going to win this, by God. They are not going to sell that technology to the highest bidder. Get me Grey. Now.”

  “He’s … he’s been hurt, sir.”

  “Don’t tell me about hurt. This entire country is in for a world of hurt, unless we get that box back in our hands.”

  Michael wanted to pull the trigger, desperately. But he knew it was pointless. Remove Arthur, and there was another pawn just itching to take his place. No, the Archangel was the target now. He had to stay focused. Too much was at stake.

  Arthur turned on his heel and marched out of Michael’s line of sight. “I need this place scrubbed within the hour. We’re moving out. I want plausible scenarios put in place for the local authorities. And get it right. I don’t want some jackass city detective asking questions.” Another door opened, and a few seconds later it slammed, leaving an echoing crash.

  Michael waited, listening. Nothing.

  He eased out of the alcove and checked the loading dock. Nothing but a long row of overhead doors marked off with yellow-and-black stripes. At the far end, a short flight of steps led down to a door.

  Over his shoulder, the way Arthur had gone, no sign of movement. That probably wouldn’t last long.

  Michael limped his way toward the exit at the far end, fear prompting him into a sort of lurching trot. He ignored the pain shooting up his leg, turned it into anger, a source of strength. Every time he swung his bandaged leg around, he launched off of it, bracing for the pain.

  Genie had gotten away. He would, too, somehow. He would find her again, turn things around, make it work. Together, they could destroy the Archangel. Stop it from getting the black box. He had to. Otherwise, it was all over.

  Halfway down the loading dock, he hit his stride and sped up a little more. He could see the exit door at the bottom of the steps. Out that, across the back lot, and he was safe. It was doable. He allowed himself a thin-lipped grin. He was going to make it.

  Far behind him, a door swung open. Michael
didn’t slow down. He could make it. He had to.

  “Hold it!” The voice echoed. “Halt!”

  Michael took two more steps and realized he was fooling himself. He couldn’t run, couldn’t hide. He was outgunned and caught in the open. He’d be dead long before he got to those stairs. His only option now was to take out as many of them as possible, and make sure they didn’t get him alive.

  He didn’t know if it was the lab coat that bought him an extra moment or the lurching way he swung his bandaged leg around, but the guard fired a moment too late.

  The bullet passed by Michael’s head with a furious whine, buzzing his ear as he turned. He brought up the gun in both hands and fired. The burst of bullets caught the guard in the chest. He landed on his back, one arm stretched out. He didn’t move.

  Michael didn’t waste any time. He swung back around and staggered to the stairs, half sliding down the guardrail to the door at the bottom.

  The door was already starting to open from the outside when Michael hit the bottom of the steps. He fired blindly through the door, the shots deafening between the concrete walls. Sunlight popped in through the bullet holes in the metal.

  Michael hit the door with his shoulder, swung it open wide, tracking his gun across the parking lot as he went through.

  The body of one guard hit the ground at his feet. Two more ran toward him from the right, past a row of parked trucks, rifles up. Another eighteen-wheeler trundled toward him from the left.

  Michael estimated the speed of the oncoming truck and heaved himself off the doorway, staggering across the blacktop. He fired at the guards as he ran, clipping one in the hip and taking out the windshield of a parked truck. The wounded guard tumbled to the ground, clutching at his side. The other one ducked behind the nose of a truck and returned fire.

  Bullets sparked off the asphalt around Michael as the truck closed in. Michael fired back, forcing the guard to duck. Then the gun clicked, empty.

  He knew he had nothing left.

  Michael lunged for the truck as it rumbled past, caught the chrome grab bar on the passenger side and hauled himself up off the ground.

  He found the step and stood up straight, his leg spasming in protest. He hefted the gun like a club, ready to beat the driver senseless if ordering him out of the seat proved unfruitful. He drew in a breath, but the words died on his lips.

  Gabe sat in the driver’s seat, bouncing with the motion of the truck, wearing a stolen blue jumpsuit and a matching cap. He gave Michael an appraising look.

  “Oh, good,” Gabe deadpanned, shifting the rig into higher gear. “It’s you.”

  THIRTY

  The Bronco left the pavement as the sun dipped close to the edge of the mountain. Long blue shadows swallowed the valley. Mitch would’ve preferred to wait until morning. But they didn’t have time. The Archangel might find them by then.

  The trail wasn’t marked. It was just two strips of dirt in the grass, winding for miles around boulders and gnarled trees, muddy with the spring melt, riddled with rocks and sinkholes. Mitch tightened his seat belt to keep from falling out of the seat.

  They passed though the ghost of a forest. Charred tree trunks stuck up from the ground like bristles, their branches missing. It went on for three-quarters of a mile, the stumps of trees covering the mountainside, nothing but dead bushes and patches of snow between them, shining in the fading sunlight.

  “Lightning,” was all Geneva said about it.

  Lanny had to slow the Bronco to a crawl to get around a fallen tree. Its bare branches lay over the trail, stuck up into the air. Lanny steered around the broken trunk, and the tires spun in the mud and slush. He swore and gunned the engine, but they didn’t move.

  Mitch leaned over as the tires wound down from the spin. “Want me to get out and push?”

  Lanny gave him a sour look.

  “What? I’m serious.”

  “Shut up, man. I know what I’m doing.” Lanny backed the truck up and turned the other way, down the hillside, around the mass of branches.

  As they tipped downhill, one of the tires dropped into a hollow in the slush, and the truck lurched to the side. Things slid and clattered in the back of the truck. Geneva grabbed hold of the backpack with one hand and Lanny’s seat with the other.

  Lanny, eyes wide, spun the wheel and gunned the gas. The engine roared. The rear of the truck slid around until they were facing uphill again.

  The Bronco shuddered side to side as it crept back up the hillside, until the tires got a grab on the snowy rocks. Then the truck jumped and climbed back up onto the trail. Lanny straightened the wheel out, and they trundled along as if nothing had happened.

  Lanny just cleared his throat and kept driving.

  As the trail turned down toward a stream, Lanny said, “Girl, you sure this the right way? Don’t look like nobody been up here in a long time.”

  She turned away from the back window. “That’s the point, isn’t it?” She climbed forward and leaned over the front seats. “Okay, hold it. You see up there?” She pointed up the hillside. “Go that way. Between those trees.”

  “Uh, I don’t think so.” Lanny turned halfway around in his seat. “That hill ain’t nothing but mud, except where it’s snow. We get about ten feet in and that’s it.”

  “Yeah? Try driving it in a ‘68 Cougar.”

  “All right. You got a point.” Lanny shook his head and turned the truck uphill. It was slow going, sliding back a few times, the truck bumping over hidden rocks and tree roots.

  Eventually an old, sagging roof came into view between the trees. Before too long, Mitch could see most of the building through the bare bushes. It looked like a small barn, the timbers crooked and bleached silver by the elements. It had a double door on the front, just big enough for a horse and wagon. Or a single car.

  Mitch whistled. “You drove Brutus down this hill?” When she didn’t answer, he turned around.

  All the color was gone from her face. She let out a soft breath. “Just once.”

  *

  His name was Michael. That was all she knew about him. He had a gun—a compact black assault rifle with a folding stock—and he was carrying Jocelyn to safety. That was all she needed to know.

  He followed her as she ran down the secret path, dodging branches, stumbling over rocks. It was pitch black, way before dawn, and cold. Her breath burned in her lungs.

  He’d given her a flashlight, and she tried to keep it on the path, but it was hard not to look out into the trees, the bushes, the stream, looking for that thing. The creature of shadow that had rushed out of the twilight forest, silent and fast.

  Michael carried Jocelyn over his shoulder as if she weighed nothing. He stayed right behind Geneva. She led him up the last little slope to the barn, then around to the front door.

  The padlock on the door was cold and hard in her hand. She left sticky blood fingerprints on the metal. She felt in her pocket.

  No keys.

  She swore. She’d have to go back. Back through the woods, home, past the bodies. To the key hook by the stove.

  She couldn’t do it. Couldn’t.

  Michael leaned around her. “Let go.” His voice calm. Strong.

  She let go of the padlock. Looked at her hands, covered in Jocelyn’s blood. Looked at Jocelyn’s white upside-down face, her closed eyes, the scratches on her face.

  Michael put the fat muzzle of the gun against the lock. With a bang, part of the lock skittered across the ground.

  Geneva pulled the ruined lock off and swung the barn doors open. Brutus sat inside, dark and shiny. He hadn’t been driven since her Dad had taken him to town for supplies. She’d washed and waxed Brutus since then.

  “This is no good,” Michael said. “Won’t get anywhere in that thing. Not with the Archangel still out there.” He turned and looked down into her eyes. “Look, I’ve got two men in the woods with a four-by-four truck. They’ll be here inside twenty minutes. We just have to wait.”

  Geneva to
uched Jocelyn’s cold cheek. “She’ll die.” It came out a whisper.

  “Sorry. I am. But we don’t have any choice.”

  “I can drive. Please.”

  Michael felt Jocelyn’s neck. His eyes were cold. “Don’t know if it would make any difference at this point.”

  “Please.” She felt herself coming apart. “I can drive.”

  “This thing?”

  “Yes.” Still a whisper. And then, suddenly, a red-hot anger flared up inside her, and it put an edge in her voice. “Put her in the car.”

  “Don’t think so. You’re not in much better shape yourself.”

  “Now. I’m going down the mountain, to the hospital, and I’m doing it now. I don’t care if you’re coming with me or not. But she is.”

  He looked at her for the longest time. And then he nodded, once.

  She got Brutus’s spare keys from behind a loose rock in the stone foundation of the barn. Got in, pumped the gas pedal three times as Michael laid Jocelyn in the back seat and then climbed in.

  She turned the key. Brutus roared to life.

  *

  “Geneva? Hey.” Mitch touched her arm.

  The three of them stood in front of the empty barn. They’d left the Bronco parked next to it, between two pine trees. Leaves had blown in through the open doors, covering the floor. Snow had piled up against her old toolbox, now rusted, and birds had made a nest in the rafters.

  Lanny shrugged deeper into his coat. “Man, gettin’ dark. You know? Gonna be pitch black in like an hour. You sure this is such a good idea?”

  Mitch looked around. “I don’t know. We got flashlights, gloves, everything we need. How far is it to the house?”

  They both turned to her.

  She shook herself and pointed. “About two miles. There’s a path alongside the stream.”

  “Damn, dog.” Lanny pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and shook one out. “You got to be kidding me. I can’t walk two miles in this. All this mud. Snow.”