CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
“Cheyenne Mountain”
Monday night.
Otto left the Denali at the lodge and rode with Alvarez and Tyler’s body sealed in a rubber bag down the mountain. The Junior G-Man drove.
“How’s Steve?” Otto said. Alvarez turned around in the shotgun seat. “Steve’s fine. Carrie loves him. We’re taking the body to Cheyenne Mountain where we’ve set up an autopsy lab with the help of the Air Force.” Alvarez brought Otto up to speed regarding the other autopsies. There had been no progress in analyzing the unknown compound. The Russians were not cooperating.
Otto pulled the blood of the white man from his pocket. “They had everybody drinking this. I’m thinking there’s something in it.”
Alvarez took the clear plastic bottle and sealed it in a zip-lock evidence bag that he placed in a gym bag open on the seat next to Otto. By now it was nine p.m. Barnett and the other agent remained at camp to interview the employees. The guests had fled like a mass jail break. No one wanted to be associated with the incident.
Otto related everything that had happened since he and Winner had arrived at the camp. Alvarez waited until he was finished.
“You think this red stone on top of the mountain has something to do with it?”
“They’ve gone to a lot of trouble to prevent people from looking at it. And those spectrographs don’t lie. There’s some kind of extreme energy sloshing around between the three summits.”
The driver turned on the lights and siren when they hit the interstate. Otto removed his spiral pad and pen and wrote down the names of every guest he could remember. They could all be at risk. There had been no new conflagrations since Otto went up the mountain but word was spreading on the internet that it was some kind of disease, worse than AIDS, cooked up by the CIA or Al Qaeda or North Korea.
As they passed through Denver Otto dozed off. He woke as they drove up the winding road to Cheyenne Mountain outside Colorado Springs. The former NORAD HQ had been converted into the ultimate survival bunker.
Otto sat up and looked out at the sodium-lit tarmac. The van stopped at a checkpoint. A soldier asked the agent to turn off the engine and for everyone to produce ID. A second soldier opened the rear of the van, flashed a light inside and looked. He got inside and unzipped the body bag, wincing and turning away. A third got down on his back and scooted beneath the van with a flashlight. The first soldier checked their names off against a list and waved them through.
They passed through another checkpoint, this one manned by soldiers carrying automatic weapons. The entrance to the tunnel itself was lined with ten foot hurricane fence topped with concertina wire and looked like the entrance to the Holland Tunnel. The soldiers waved them through and they drove inside the mountain through meter-thick twenty-five ton blast doors. Twenty meters in the van stopped and the driver hopped out. Alvarez and Otto got out as well. It was warm inside the cave. Otto was surprised. He looked around.
The inside of the mountain had been hollowed out to create an enormous room the length of a football field. Christo-like shrouds had been affixed to the ceiling and walls to catch any falling debris. A series of prefab modules rested on giant coil springs that served as shock absorbers in event of a direct strike. Cables crisscrossed the interior, lights gleaming at every intersection. The modules were laid out on either side of Main Street, which ran down the center of the cavern and had its own green street sign.
Alvarez spoke briefly with an Air Force captain.
“You look about spent, Holmes, Captain has an apartment for you to crash in.”
That seemed like a good idea. Otto was exhausted from the hike and the swim. From the sheer pressure of trying to remember every little detail.
The captain wore fatigues and introduced himself. “Captain Jack Warren.”
“Otto White. Just call me Otto.”
The captain walked down Main Street. “The modules are sound-proof so if atomic war busts out while you’re sleeping I’ll come and wake you.”
“Thank you Captain Jack.”
The captain paused in front of a big, off-white prefab box with square windows and rounded corners. Otto stumbled into the unit and pulled the door shut. The only sound came from the subdued whoosh of the air transfer. Inside a small bedroom was a metal-framed cot with an olive drab blanket. Otto peeled off his clothes and pulled up the covers. He was asleep within minutes.
He was on an airplane. First, it was military transport then civilian. They were flying right down Main Street of a major city with skyscrapers on either side, ten feet above the asphalt. The wings did not catch on the buildings for some reason but it was evident to every passenger that the flight was in trouble and there was a good deal of anxiety.
Otto could not take his eyes off the cockpit door. It swung open and a blazing man stepped out--burning from toes to scalp. Alarms went off. Oxygen masks fell. The cabin filled with smoke. The burning figure said, “Folks, we’re about to experience a little turbulence.”
The whole plane shook violently.
Otto woke up. A wild-eyed Alvarez shook him by the shoulder.
“What?”
“Get up. You have to see this.”
***
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
“Holy Shit!”
Tuesday morning.
Otto swung his legs over the cot and sat up, rubbing his eyes. He glanced at the digital clock on the nightstand. Five-thirty. He’d been asleep for six hours. It would be early morning outside. He pulled on his pants, socks and sneakers.
Otto followed Alvarez out of the module where an Air Force cadet waited at the wheel of an electric golf cart. “What?”
“You have to see it.”
The cart zoomed silently down Main Street and took a right turn into a side tunnel with “MASSACHUSETTS AVENUE” stenciled in white on the cave wall, passing through another set of massive steel doors. At the end of this sub chamber was a large white trailer guarded by two military police clutching H&K automatic pistols. An air conditioning unit crouched on the roof growling. Thick crenellated tubes jutted from the roof connected to flexible couplers like giant drinking straws. Next to the door hung several metal boxes containing a telephone, a keypad, and various meters and dials.
“Get your ID out” Alvarez advised.
One MP checked Otto’s photo ID against a detailed sheet on a clipboard that also bore Otto’s likeness. He waved them through. The stairs were made of pine planking on cinderblocks. Three steps up. Alvarez shut the door behind them. It was so cold in the trailer Otto could see his breath. The interior was one big room with an autopsy table covered with a white sheet through which disturbing black stains had crept. There were cadaver drawers turned lengthwise to accommodate the space and there were several work stations with computers. An old man in a stained gray suit and twisted purple tie sat in front of one of the monitors transfixed.
“Otto, Larimer County Coroner Abel Roth. Dr. Roth, Otto White.”
The old man turned and stood and shook Otto’s hand on autopilot. “Never seen anything like it.”
“Your quick action,” Alvarez said, “led to partial preservation of the head. Interestingly, the brain appears to be cooked. We took a routine X-ray and this is what showed up.”
Otto sat at the monitor and looked at the picture on the screen. At first he had difficulty making sense of what he was seeing. He saw the tell-tale ghost X-ray outline of the skull. Alvarez pointed. Otto followed Alvarez’ finger to the point where the spine meets skull.
“Holy shit,” he said
Nestled atop the spinal column was a tiny space ship.
***
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
“The Missing”
It looked like a sewing spindle with stubby little wings. It was blacker than the blackest night-- as if a negative had been burned onto the image. According to the scroll across the bottom of the screen it was one millimeter long--smaller than a grain of rice.
“Is there anything alive in there?” Otto said voice breaking.
“Not of which we’re aware. Of course, we’ve tried signaling but there was no response. I think it’s cooked.”
“Can we extract it?” Otto said.
“That’s the plan.”
Dr. Roth cleared his throat. “I’m not the man to do this.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Alvarez said, turning to the tall man and shaking his hand. “We appreciate you’re coming down here on such short notice to help us.”
“Anything to help the boys in blue.”
Roth hefted a little black bag and left the module where a soldier waited to take him outside the complex.
“Aren’t you concerned he’ll talk about this?” Otto said.
Alvarez waved a sheet of paper. “Non-disclosure agreement. He’s a veteran. We have nothing to worry about. Not from him. Unfortunately the cat’s ass is out of the bag.”
Alvarez sat at the terminal and with a few strokes brought up the
Drudge Report
whose illustration was the money shot from
Wicker Man
over the screaming red headline:
TERRORISTS BURNING US ALIVE?
Below that in mere red type:
TYLER RAPE VICTIM COMES FORTH
.
Otto grimaced. He needed to call Yee but not even the Ocelot could transmit from inside the mountain. there was a phone on the wall but who knew where that led.
“Who’s doing the extraction?” Otto said.
“Surgeon from St. Jude’s in Denver. He’ll be here this afternoon.”
“What about the blood of the white man?”
“Absolut vodka, Spicy V8 and an unknown element identical to that identified in Darling’s remains. It has a polycarbonate-like structure but we believe it’s metal.”
“I’ve got to report,” Otto said. “To do that I have to go outside.”
Alvarez motioned toward the door. “Let’s go.”
Otto had lost all track of time and was surprised when the sun hit him in the face as their jitney exited the mountain. Otto got out and walked to the end of the parking lot from where he could see all the way down the valley to Colorado Springs and the plains beyond.
He pressed his uplink and listened while his call pinged around the cosmos. Ten seconds later, it rang.
Yee answered. “What’s going on?”
“You know about Tyler?”
“Yes.”
“We found some kind of projectile above his spinal column. It looks like a tiny spaceship.”
A long pause followed.
“A tiny spaceship?”
“Yes ma’am. Unfortunately it appears to be crisped.”
“Is this for real Mr. White?”
“Yes ma’am. I know it sounds crazy. It might be a projectile shot with some kind of air gun or something.”
“Who knows about this?”
“Gus Alvarez, the Larimer County Coroner and me. The coroner signed the secrecy act. He’s ex Air Force.”
“Keep it that way. Anything you need,” Yee said.
“Did you receive the video?”
“Yes. This is very troubling. However, for the time being, we’re going to keep this among ourselves. I want to give Hornbuckle enough rope to hang himself, and there are bigger fish to fry.”
“I understand.”
“You are doing an excellent job, Mr. White. Goodbye.”
Yee hung up. The jitney driver watched Otto from fifteen meters. It was six-thirty. It would be five in L.A. Otto phoned Winner. He got Winner’s voice mail.
“Gabe, just wanted to thank you for your service to your country. I’ll be in touch when this winds down. You have my number.”
He wanted to call Stella but for what? He couldn’t tell her what was going on. He really had nothing to say to her except I love you, I was wrong, please come back. He’d tried it and it hadn’t worked.
Alvarez walked toward him pocketing his own cell phone.
“Still no sign of Witherspoon and Casey. They identified a vehicle rented to Ralston Goldfarb. If the car’s still there, where’s Goldfarb?”
“They must all still be up there,” Otto said.
“Come on. Let’s go find them.”
***
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
“By Reason of Insanity”
Monday afternoon and evening.
Stella accompanied Lester Durant from the Harriet Kramer Detention Facility in Manassas to the Clempson County Courthouse in Alexandria. The state-appointed board of forensic psychiatrists was about to deliver their verdict.
Durant looked younger than his twenty-six years, as if a high school kid caught up in events he didn’t understand. His curly black hair was cut to the nub. A bullet crease formed a puckered pink valley over his right eye. His prison-issue day-glo green jumpsuit hung on his thin frame like a tent. He was shackled at the wrists to a chain around his waist. His legs were chained together. They rode in a Virginia Dept. of Corrections van with an armed guard and the driver.
“How you doing, Lester?” Stella asked.
“I’m good, ma’am,” he said in a soft southern drawl. “Whatever happens I can deal with it.”
For Durant, this was a major speech.
Stella had kept Durant off the stand to prevent him from talking about the spiders. A bolus of dread crouched in her gut that they would find him sane and ready to stand trial. There was a free-floating consensus that far too many mass murderers were escaping justice via the insanity defense. It would become a media circus. Durant had already inspired countless internet chat groups and pages, disturbed individuals genetically prone to conspiracy theories as well as late-night comics. The van stuttered through traffic to the courthouse, a Georgian revival with Doric columns and a marble floor.
The carnival waited. Four major networks, Fresh Young Faces pushing forward pushing microphones. Stella and Durant circumvented this by entering the underground garage guarded by federal marshals.
Accompanied by an armed guard they took the elevator from the basement parking garage to the fourth floor and entered the Miriam C. Rosenkranz Courtroom. The board of experts were already seated in the jury box: four men, two women and at least two dozen doctorates. Stella and Durant took their seats at the defendant’s table, chains jingling. The seal of the Commonwealth of Virginia hung on the bench. Behind the judge’s seat, flanked by American and Virginian flags, was a gilt-framed painting of early settlers fighting savage Indians. Many groups had tried unsuccessfully over the years to have it removed for “insensitivity.”
“All rise for the right honorable Justice William Graves.”
A squat black man in judicial robes with white hair and glasses emerged from his chambers and took his place behind the bench.
“Judge,” the bailiff said, “this is Case 43,209, Commonwealth of Virginia versus Lester Durant.”
The judge peered over his specs. “Will the defendant please approach the bench.”
Stella and Durant stood in front of the judge.
“Ladies and gentlemen, have you reached a decision regarding the defendant’s ability to stand trial?”
The head of the committee, a tall woman in a navy pantsuit, stood. “We have your honor. We find the defendant incompetent to stand trial and recommend that he be remanded to the state for a period of observation until such time that he is ready to stand trial, if ever.”
“Thank you ladies and gentlemen of the jury. You are dismissed.”
The judge turned to Stella. “Does the defendant have anything to say before I issue my ruling?”
“No, your honor,” Stella said.
“Very well. The defendant is remanded to Tuscadero State Hospital for the Criminally Insane until such time as he is either judged competent to stand trial or no longer deemed a threat to society. Thank you all. You’re free to go.”
Durant remained unaffected by the ruling as if he’d already checked out. Stella squeezed his arm.
“Lester--this is good news!”
Stella and Durant rode the elevator in silence, each with their own thoughts. They reached the basement parking level. Stella walked with Durant to the van. They had little in common. He was a black boy from the South. She was a princess from the West.
“Lester, I’ll be checking in with you in a few days when you get settled. If you need me for any reason you have my numbers.”
No response. Lester was on another planet.
Stella turned to go. As Lester was getting into the van, he turned. “Mizz Darling, there were spiders in the courtroom.”
Stella was relieved he hadn’t spoken up, not that it would have affected the judge’s decision. Normally when she won a big case like this--and getting Lester ruled insane was a big deal--she celebrated. But there was no one with whom to celebrate. She hadn’t heard from Gabe since he’d gone up to Pawnee Grove. Winner hadn’t answered her calls.
She didn’t have any girlfriends. It bothered her. She wondered what was wrong with her. It wasn’t that she was unlikable. She just hadn’t gotten to know anybody well enough in the ten years she’d been in D.C. How pathetic was that? The women she met were either obsessively career-oriented or married or both.
Her sixty hour work week precluded hanging out at athletic facilities or bars, the two biggest meet and greet venues in the city. Business-related parties usually involved the same old corporate clients and the unlovely Washington criminal defense corps.
Lawyers.
Brrrrrr!
As long as her job was her life, she was unlikely to develop any strong friendships here. She pined for Gabe even as she told herself it couldn’t last. They were two ships passing in the night. Their worlds were mutually exclusive. Stella knew a few show biz lawyers and they were even creepier than criminal defense attorneys.
Stella took a taxi to her offices at Bing, Adolfo and Thompson in the Gerhardt Building on K Street. She met with two clients. At six fifteen, Stella left the office and had dinner by herself at the Husun Grill. She tried Gabe again and went straight to voice mail. He’d warned her that there would be no reception in the mountains but she couldn’t stifle a jagged little shard of worry.
She over tipped the waitress and took a taxi to her condo at 2020 12th St. NW.
She took a hot bath, cracked open a bottle of Coppola Chardonnay, and tilted back in her Barcalounger in her living room to watch the news.
A stern-faced male reader informed her that astrospace genius Mel Tyler had disappeared while hiking alone in the Rockies. When they mentioned the location, she put the pieces together. She didn’t believe the cover story for one second, More likely Tyler was another burn victim.
She felt profoundly uneasy. Two men with whom she was close were up there and she hadn’t heard from either of them all weekend. She had that edge-of-your-seat anxiety knowing she would be unable to sleep. She checked the TV listings--it was all shit as far as the eye could see. Two hundred and twelve channels and nothing to watch.
Stella debated taking a Nembutal given her by a client but they sometimes left her groggy in the morning. Fortunately, she had a light schedule that week that meant she was only working fifty hours or so. She turned off the TV, went into her bedroom, sat on the bed, and took the Nembutal from her side table drawer, weighing the little capsule in her hand.
She was exhausted. What the hell. She reached for the glass of water she kept bedside. Her phone chirped. She glanced at the little window. Her heart went pitter-pat.
“Gabe! They found Durant crazier than a shit house rat! How are you?”
“Can you come up here?”
“I don’t know. Why?”
“Have you seen a newspaper?”
“What, about Tyler? I saw it on the news.”
Winner told her about the aerospace engineer’s immolation. “The police are here now. I think you should take a look at what we found. I think Otto’s gonna need a lawyer.”
“Gabe, you sound funny. Are you all right?”
“Frankly I’m gob-smacked by what we found. Besides. I miss you.”
“I miss you too. I’ll fly out tomorrow.”
At last she was able to sleep.
***