Luthecker (25 page)

• • •

Stern pulled his night vision binoculars from his eyes, turned to Wolfe. The men lay hidden behind a sand bunker, barely visible in their night fatigues.

“The two locals are walking back towards the hut. He whispered. “We get word yet?”

Wolfe carefully listened into an ear wire. He turned to Stern.

“We’re green.”

“Good. We’ll wait until the fire dies down and they’re asleep.

• • •

Alex lay on the hard ground next to the fire pit, staring up at the countless stars. He glanced over at the still forms of his colleagues, the sound of their rhythmic breathing indicating they were all fast asleep.

“You must lead. Or they all die.”

The old man’s words haunted him. He knew that from the incident at the nightclub onward, his actions had put all of his friends’ lives at risk. It was as if he hit a reset button on their existence, and now new patterns would form and set their fate. Patterns that at the moment he could not read conclusively whatsoever. After the old Indian’s words this reality disturbed Alex more than ever. If he could not read their fates, how could he lead? How could he protect them?

You see visions
.

More unsettling words from the Indian. I do not see visions, Alex reaffirmed to himself. I see patterns, patterns that interrelate, that are cause and effect in nature, that lead to inevitability. It was simple math, why did people always have to put some esoteric supernatural label to something that existed outside of them but yet were still a part of?

He reminded himself that this was all put in motion simply because he chose to warn someone, had attempted to save the life of a woman, a woman he didn’t even know. He still questioned if it was even his place to interfere. Should he have walked away, or was Camila right? Had he done the right thing? He had sworn to himself that after the death of the interrogator, he would never step into the momentum again. If he had just let her die, then nothing would have changed. He would still be training with Master Winn, listening to his Magnavox record player at night, and bothering no one.

He wondered if the woman he had warned had actually heeded his advice, if she was still alive. The fact that after their encounter the patterns of so many lives had been altered, and the Black Hats had reacted almost instantaneously indicated to him that she was, meaning that she never got into the car that night. But there was more than that. There was something about the woman herself, the look in her eyes when he warned her, told him that she was most certainly still alive.

Her eyes had burned an image in his brain that he couldn’t shake. It was different than it had been with the interrogator. There was no stopping the momentum of his choices, so when Alex told him his fate, he simply pulled away the illusions that, in Alex’ mind, had kept the man alive longer than he had any right to be. He remembered clearly that the last thing he saw in that evil individual’s eyes was the terror of finally recognizing himself for what he really was.

With the woman, he began to realize, it was completely different. If she was alive, it was because he had given her a second chance at life. He had directly intervened on her behalf, into the momentum, a simple nudge to go one-way and not another, and on some level she was aware of the gravity of it. And that’s what he had seen in her eyes. It was the awareness. The recognition of the fact that in that instant everything had changed for her, and he had been the one who changed it. He couldn’t stop thinking about it. He wondered if he actually would ever see her again. It was then he realized that he very much wanted to.

He looked over at Camila, sleeping in the circle close to Yaw. It was his friend’s insistence that he and this woman must meet again that allowed him to admit to himself that he in fact desired that very thing. He smiled as he looked at them, and it warmed his heart that Camila could see this, see something that Alex could not, about his own choices. This is what a true friend must be, he thought.

His smile disappeared as the old man’s accusation returned to him:

Coward.

The label had stung him hard. He was not a coward, he insisted to himself. He simply had no desire to read into the patterns of people’s lives. It was an often painful and always isolating experience, and whenever he chose to share the details with the observed he robbed them of their illusion of free choice. And if he actually tried to change someone’s fate, step into the momentum as he phrased it, it always created chaos, which always led to unwanted attention. It led to the momentum collapsing on
him
. Like what had happened first with the interrogator. Like what was happening now.

To Alex, it was the populace as a whole that shaped the momentum. It was the collective cause and effect of all thoughts, beliefs, and actions that created it. But with most people’s limited ability to cope with the endless sea of information around them, their consciousness had to create a thought processing shorthand in order to survive. It was an in-brain editing system that ignored nearly all of the observed cause and effect data that the brain received, and instead focused on only a very small part. This in turn created a map of reality that was far easier to follow, one that was based on very little actual data, and it was this map of very few real data points that each person chose to base his or her lives upon. And over time people became careless in what they chose to see or believe, and their consciousness defaulted to recognition of the same familiar data points, ignoring all else, thus forming distinct, and for Alex, easy to read patterns of behavior.

Alex’ brain behaved differently. His had the capacity to swim the endless sea of information with relative ease, therefore making the patterns of any system or individual obvious to him. And he felt that it was not his place to wake people up to the truth of their destiny, when in fact they wanted nothing to do with the truth to begin with. They valued the illusion of the inaccurate map far more. Their brains had created this as a form of survival. It was this justification Alex used to not interfere. How was allowing people to believe their delusions being a coward on his part? He questioned the old man’s claim. But deep in his heart, it continued to bother him, until, after a sleepless hour staring at the nighttime stars, it finally dawned on him what the old man meant.

His friends had not chosen to have their destinies erased. He had. And after realizing the meaning behind the old man’s accusations, it became clear to him what he must do. He would do whatever he had to in order to restore the lives of his friends, the only family he ever had, he decided. The old man was wrong, he swore to himself. He would fight for his friends. Die for them if necessary. He was not a coward.

The wind kicked up suddenly with a howl, ripping Alex’ blanket free. He sat up to retrieve it, and something caught his eye in the moonlight that made him pause. A figure had darted between the bushes, less than fifteen feet away from the tribal circle. He carefully kicked Yaw in the foot to get his attention.

• • •

Stern took cover behind the skeletal brush of a small smoke tree plant, before getting on his belly, and carefully crawling across the sand to within ten feet of the fire pit. Both the darkness and the two-foot depth of circular ceremonial ground formation kept his sleeping targets from view. He briefly looked away from the circle, and quietly pulled his night vision goggles from his backpack. The fire had rendered them useless earlier, the brightness of the flames causing them to flash out, but now the fire had died down to just glowing embers, enough light to make the state of the art equipment highly effective. He slipped the goggles onto his face, and the entire desert floor illuminated bright green. He knew his partner was one hundred and eighty degrees opposite him on the other side of the fire circle. He checked his watch. He also knew that they were synchronized to apprehend the target in exactly one minute. He un-slung the AR-15 rifle he had on his shoulder into his hands, and reminded himself that the only one he had to keep alive was Luthecker. He checked his watch: Triple zeroes. He got to his feet and sprinted towards the fire pit.

He reached the edge of the pit and pointed the barrel of his weapon down toward the prone targets.

The barrel was grabbed immediately, and two shots rang out, fire spitting from the end of the barrel and dust exploding from the pit floor before Stern was flipped into the pit, tumbling into the fire, sending ashes and embers into the air as the rifle was wrenched free from his hands.

He quickly sprung to his feet, only to catch a rapid-fire succession of Kali-stick strikes, bee-sting like pain that hit his right knee, wrist, and across his head, destroying his night vision goggles.

He ripped his K-Bar knife free from his boot, and slashed it horizontally at ankle level, his attacker barely leaping out of the way.

He heard his partner struggle with the same surprise attack on the opposite side of the pit when he rolled into a two point, catching a stick strike with the knife before dropping it and pulling his 9mm free from his side holster at the same time. He caught another stick strike on the forearm as he pulled the trigger, the muzzle flare from the single shot strobing the night. His forearm buzzed with pain, but he managed to keep the gun in hand, and squeezed off two more quick rounds. The smack of lead on flesh and a cry of pain froze everyone in their tracks.

Stern capitalized. “Everyone freeze and drop to their knees, or I’m killing every last one of you mother fuckers.”

No one moved. Wolfe quickly rolled to his feet and picked up his rifle, and aimed it at the female.

Stern had no idea who he had even shot. He looked around to case the situation, and saw that every one stood perfectly still, hands visible, all eyes trained on him. His partner pointed his AR-15 directly at the head of the lone female. The two white males saw this, and carefully dropped their weapons, just a pair of sticks, then slowly held their hands in the air. It was then that he realized he had shot the black man.

Yaw dropped to one knee as his hand instinctively went to his side. He felt warm liquid at the touch, and knew that he had been hit. He grimaced, and fought to get back to his feet.

“Yaw!” Camila cried out. She tried to go to him, but the combination of Wolfe grabbing her arm and the AR-15 he shoved in her midsection convinced her otherwise.

“I’m okay.” He replied his voice hobbled with pain.

He signaled with his hand for her to stay put, all the while locking eyes with the man who just shot him.

Alex stepped forward, and Stern pointed his weapon directly at Alex’ chest.

“Don’t step any closer.”

“I’m why you’re here. I’ll go with you peacefully. Just get him to a hospital, and leave the rest unharmed.” Alex said.

Stern slowly got up from his two-point stance, 9mm still trained on Alex, and watching Yaw from the corner of his eye.

“You’re all coming with me. Now everyone slowly put your hands on your heads, and walk single-file towards the road. Any deviation from that, Luthecker,” he made a point to say Alex’ name before he continued, “I kill all of your friends and let the coyotes get the bodies. Is that perfectly clear?”

• • •

Chris and Camila sat stoic in the rear bench seat of the Suburban, hands zip-tied behind them, feet zip tied together. Alex sat on the passenger side of the bench seat in front of them, hands and feet zip-tied immobile as well. They all kept their eyes staring straight ahead a combination of fear and resolve on their faces, Camila with tears running down her cheeks.

The back doors of the Suburban were blown open, as Wolfe had the med-pack open, and attended to Yaw’s wounds. The bullet had caught him just above the right hipbone, and below the 12 rib, a flesh wound, clean through the soft tissue but not near any vital organs. Yaw winced as Wolfe applied disinfectant, unable to move, as his hands were zip-tied together around the hinge of one of the doors.

Stern sat in the passenger side front seat of the Suburban, feet on the dash, phone to his ear.

“Yes sir. We have them in custody sir.”

He looked back at Alex, sitting stoically in his seat, as he listened to Brown on the other end of the phone.

“How is he?” Brown asked, his voice barely recognizable due to being altered by a digital scrambler.

“He’s unharmed. It was an easy grab. We had one minor injury, a gunshot wound to the black male, but he’ll live. The rest are uninjured.”

“Put Luthecker on the phone. I want to speak with him.” The digitized voice of Richard Brown commanded.

“Yes sir.” Stern replied, before he pulled the phone from his ear. He exited the cab of the truck, turned to the passenger door of the vehicle behind him, and abruptly pulled it opened.

“Someone wants to talk to you.” He said to Alex.

He pulled his 9mm free from its holster and pointed it at Alex’s head with his right hand while simultaneously holding the cell phone against Alex’ ear with his left.

Alex stared straight ahead as he carefully listened.

“Alex Luthecker.” He heard his name spoken as if it were a long lost friend on the other end of the cell phone, the electronic modifications clipping the ends of each word in such a way as to make the tone barely noticeable.

Alex concentrated hard. Tried to grasp any detail through the simple albeit modified rhythm that the speaker used in saying his name.

“Male. Early Sixties. Fears me. Fears me so he must know me. No one knows me, so he must know me from the incident at the precinct three years ago. Which means he knew the interrogator. Which means he staged it. Which means he’s where it begins. Which means he’s where it ends.”

“My guess is you’ve already figured out how we know each other.” The voice on the phone continued.

“I want to sincerely apologize for that day. The situation was mishandled. We didn’t understand who you were, and what you were capable of. Alex, I’d like us to have a fresh start. You could do great things, Alex, and help a lot of people. You could change the world. And I’d like to help you do that.”