CHAPTER NINETY-FOUR
“Hygiene Base Camp”
Otto returned to the safe house at ten-thirty. Durant was in the shower. Kleiser had transferred the guns, gear and grits into Otto’s monster truck in the garage. He came back in through the kitchen scratching at a bite.
“We’ll be ready to go as soon as Durant shapes up.”
“You’re not going.”
Kleiser’s face collapsed. “What?”
“Randall, you’ve already risked your life a dozen times. I can’t ask you to participate in a mission from which we are unlikely to return.”
“You asked Durant!”
“Lester’s military. If he stayed here, he likely would have spent the rest of his life in prison. You can get away, start over. You’re smart enough. You could reinvent yourself a million ways. Where we’re going is almost certain death. More than likely we’ll just blow ourselves up.”
“That’s my choice, dude.”
“No it isn’t. This is a military mission and I’m in charge. Besides. Somebody has to stay here to tell the story.”
Otto saw the nickel drop. Kleiser’s face went dreamy. The book deal, the cover of
Rolling Stone
,
Scientific American
,
Wired
.
“I will give you John Bullis’ contact information. You’ll be charged with hacking and impersonating a federal officer for starters. But so many people will want a piece of you I don’t see how they can railroad you. Tell them about the spiders. Tell them whatever you like. Speak the truth and stay out of trouble.”
Kleiser laughed. “Yeah, right.”
Otto laughed too. What else could you do?
“Hey listen,” he said. “Did you download ‘Boom-Ba Style?’“
Kleiser held up a flash drive. “Rightchere.”
Otto tossed him the Blaster. “Load ‘em in there. But whatever you do, don’t play anything!”
Kleiser looked at it. “Fuck izzis?”
“It’s our secret weapon against the spiders.”
Kleiser turned it over in his hands.
“Seriously. You’ll be all right. Stella Darling will help you. What are they gonna do? You’ll be the last man to see us alive, the only one who knows what happened. Expect congressional hearings. You’ll find out who your friends are soon enough. Remember--we serve only the people of the United States, but our actions are on behalf of mankind as well. Remind them of Jimmy Doolittle’s 1941 raid on Tokyo. Remind them we face an inhuman, implacable enemy. Actually you should turn yourself in.”
“At FBI HQ!” Kleiser said.
“Now you’re cookin’. Tell ‘em I sent you.”
Durant emerged from the spare bedroom in military fatigues. He reminded Otto of Audie Murphy in his lethal innocence. Otto wondered if Durant were a virgin, like T.E. Lawrence. No time to fix that now.
“What do I shoot?” he said.
Otto pointed to the sofa, on which lay an ArmaLite AR-50 and a Steyr AUG in 5.56 mm. He picked up the ArmaLite like an old friend, cradled it like a baby. “Are you my spotter?”
“I’ll be your spotter.”
“Now where are we going exactly?”
“Spiderland, I hope. They’ve got some kind of teleportation device set up in the mountains. We’re going to try and reverse it.”
“What if we can’t breathe the air?”
“That’ll be a problem. But they breath our air.”
Durant nodded. He was a good soldier. All he’d ever needed was direction. “Sir,” he said. “How shall I address you?”
“Just call me Otto. Stick that hardware in the truck why don’tcha. Get squared away. We leave in ten minutes.”
“Sir, I’ll do a little recon.”
“Call me Otto.”
Durant grinned, his entire face breaking out in sunshine. “And you call me Lester, Otto.”
Durant slipped out the back door with the rifles.
“Boy’s a ninja, ain’t he?” Kleiser said.
“He is.”
“I want to thank you, man, for being my friend.”
A bolus of shame crouched in Otto’s gut. The hacker was dead serious. What had Otto done except involve him in a conspiracy against the government? “Don’t say that, man. Don’t thank me.”
“Well you’re my friend, aren’t you?”
“I am.”
“I didn’t know what I was doing before, striking out blindly, any big organization. Public, private, it didn’t matter. I was mad at everyone. Now for the first time I feel as I’m part of something that matters.”
“Well that’s kind of you to say so.”
“Saving the fucking world, man! It doesn’t get any bigger than that!”
Durant slipped back in the kitchen door shooting off sparks. “There are four SWAT teams at the end of the street. They’re evacuating all the houses up to here.”
“Well,” Otto said. “I guess you’re coming with us after all, Randall.”
***
CHAPTER NINETY-FIVE
“Into the Trees”
Early Wednesday morning.
The monster truck erupted from the barn in a screaming cacophony, churning up a dust storm as it doughnutted the yard and bolted west. A meandering stream formed the back line of the property and beyond that a series of fields chopped up with barbed wire for cattle, horses, and llamas. Otto switched on the running lights. Five quartz-halogen spots lit the landscape like a space launch from eight feet above the ground.
They were almost to the stream. Otto had a split second to judge whether the truck could bridge the steep but narrow divide, climb the slope on the other side and make it into the fields. No time to slow down. They hit the sagging barbed wire on their side of the property line and plunged down into the gully with a spine-popping jar, the three of them crammed together on the one bench seat, seatbelts fastened.The truck bungeed up and down on meter-long shocks.
They clambered up the opposite side like the Space Mountain ride in Orlando, rolled over a taut new barbed wire fence and bounded into the fields. In his rearview Otto could see flashing red and blue lights filling the yard, forming a line where they pulled up short, unable to take the plunge.
How had the feds found them?
The Cyber Unit may have found a link between Kleiser and Johnson.
Hornbuckle might have planted a second transmitter in the truck. Otto doubted it. If they’d been able to trace the truck they would have had agents in place long before they did. Not that it mattered. Now it was fox and hounds.
Minutes later, they heard the
whup-whup-whup
of a chopper.
“Shit!” Kleiser shouted from the shotgun seat.
“Chill,” Otto said. “They’re not going to fire on us. Randall, twist around and hand me those night vision binocs behind the seat. No wait--hand ‘em to Lester--Lester get ‘em going and slip them over my head.”
The boys got busy. Otto switched off all the lights. It was a bright starry night in Colorado with good visibility. An edge of macaroni showed in the east. Durant turned on the night vision, put it on his own head, adjusted the level and placed it on Otto’s.
“So bright out I don’t really need it,” Otto said as the vehicle rolled with surprising smoothness across the prairie. They could see clusters of cattle regarding them with curiosity. A line of Douglas fir marked the property line, and another barbed wire fence.
Otto hated to ruin those fences. He hoped the ranchers’ insurance would cover it.
“God forgive me,” he muttered and laughed.
Worried about the fences!
“What?” Kleiser demanded.
“Nothing. I’m going to drop you in Lyons. Any luck, they won’t have time to close the roads. Pretty sure they didn’t expect us to do this. Lester, turn on that police radio in front of you.”
Lester complied. There was a frenzy of low-level chatter about an SUV headed west in Boulder County, discussion of how best to head them off. They couldn’t do jack while Otto drove cross-country. He followed platte lines until he burst from the trees onto Highway 66 about six miles east of Lyons. Traffic was non-existent until they passed the water pumping station and a CHP cruiser caught big drift as it turned west in pursuit. The cruiser was on their tail within seconds, better able to take the curves than the top-heavy truck.
“Fuck!” Kleiser said.
“Relax, boys. I hate to do this to an officer of the law, but…” He reached under the dash and pulled a toggle. A ten-gallon tank welded to the backside of the frame dumped diesel oil all over the highway including the cruiser’s windshield that immediately turned opaque. Kleiser stared in amazement through the big side mirror as the cruiser went into a clockwise skid and skated elegantly off the highway and into the ditch.
Kleiser giggled. “Man I wish Porter coulda seen that.”
Otto drove through Lyons at a high rate of speed stopping only to drop Kleiser at Oskar’s Brewery. He had to get off the highway ahead of the tsunami of police vehicles that were certain to ascend. Having driven these mountains for much of his life he knew of a fire road near Glen Haven that would take him around to the northwest side of Pawnee Grove and the back of Mt. Pythagoras. They couldn’t drive all the way to the top but it might get them to the tree line.
Morning sun touched the top of Long’s Peak.
Durant slid over to the shotgun seat. “Do you ever wonder if God has a purpose for you?” he asked staring ahead.
“Not anymore.”
“I used to ask that question all the time. Now I know He does.”
“But you were raised in the church.”
“I still had doubts. I always had doubts. Even my preacher pappy had doubts. Faith doesn’t always mean blind obedience. You know when I knew? When I saw that Senator come visit us and he had those spiders in his head. That’s when I knew.”
An electric current traveled down Otto’s spine. “Which senator?”
“Colorado. Dearing or something.”
“Senator Sam Darling.”
“Yeah.”
***
CHAPTER NINETY-SIX
“Max”
Heavy clouds scudded in from the west. It looked like rain high up. They rolled through a nearly deserted Estes Park and up to Glen Haven, pausing for several deer and a long-horned Rocky Mt. sheep. Artsy hippie village Glen Haven was still asleep as they drove past the purple-painted coffeehouse and the Peoples’ Bookstore.
Otto found the ancient fire trail that would eventually take them to the top of the mountain. As he used a bolt cutter to cut through the rusted chain the helicopter reappeared sporadically through the trees.
They had to know where Otto was heading but they had limited resources unless they wanted to announce to the world that Pawnee Grove was the epicenter of an alien invasion. They’d avoided a military display by treating the deaths as a police matter and never mentioning what lay beneath the mountain.
However, Otto doubted even the FBI and CIA had knowledge of his chosen route, which had been closed since the Wilderness Preservation Act in ‘88. They were under heavy tree cover now and the winds were picking up. Shortly it would be dangerous for the helicopter to remain aloft. Otto smelled the rain through the open window. He glanced at Durant.
The sniper had a white-knuckle grip on the grab handle and leaned his head out the window with a ferocious grin, which reminded Otto of Steve.
Branches whipping against the sides of the truck caused constant screeching. The huge wheels and tires clambered over barrel-sized rocks and the body jounced from side to side with an oddly musical squeak.
The first fat drops of cold water struck the windshield and then the heavens opened up. Otto could see well enough to keep the truck centered in the trough as they climbed and climbed, catching glimpses of the valley here and there, sun still gleaming off Lake Estes. Seconds later the clouds rolled in and blotted out the light.
They traversed a thirty-two per cent grade, the enormous knobby tires slipping and catching on the rock-studded ground. Otto kept it in low gear. They rolled up the windows to avoid being soaked. That would happen soon enough. An abandoned prospector’s shack looked like it was melting into the land.
Forty-five minutes later the road ended in a sheer granite wall, now a waterfall. They were just below the tree line at about 3,200 meters. From there it was another 900 meters to the summit. But they weren’t going to the summit. They were going to just below the summit.
Otto had packed carbineer, pitons, and strap on metal climbing platforms but if they could work their way around to the NW facing chimney they would have an easier go of it. They eased into nylon wet suits and stepped out into pouring rain. Each slipped into a fifteen kilo backpack. Each carried one of the sniper rifles. Otto carried two smoke grenades. They could have used the AKs in the cave but Otto wanted Durant to be comfortable with his equipment.
They began to climb and were immediately enveloped in the dense gray cloud. Otto could barely see five meters. They had entered a Grey World. With gloves and crampons, they worked their way up rising switchbacks that worked counter-clockwise around the mountain. They paused on a ledge above the tree line and for an instant the clouds broke, offering a staggering vision of the Mummy Range to the north.
The weather was with them. It would keep the choppers off their back, as well as a potential ranger drop. Thunder rumbled across the vast range and lightning strobed in the distance. Each was acutely aware of the danger from lightning strikes. The preponderance of metal they carried didn’t help.
Otto took the lead. They came to the boulder field. Boulders the size of Humvees, slick as cue balls. What cataclysmic event had polished them, then tossed them 4,000 meters above sea level? Some of the boulders were so perfect it made Otto think maybe the red bowling balls were nature’s work.
He shook his head. The altitude was affecting his thinking. He turned around. Durant gave him the thumb’s up. Otto approached two massive boulders just touching each other three meters up leaving a narrow passageway. It was better than trying to clamber over the slick surface. Otto removed his backpack and got down on hands and knees, his Harbor Freight kneepads absorbing the hard ground. Pulling the backpack by its strap, rifle attached, he crawled forward thinking this would be the perfect place for an ambush, if an enemy somehow knew he was going to be here, 4,000 meters up at five-thirty in the morning during a thunderstorm.
He crawled toward the misty light from beneath the boulders. The rain abated. Otto paused on hands and knees and breathed deeply, breath as thick as a contrail.
The sound was as unexpected as deep crimson. A startling snort, so close he could almost feel the warm breath. Otto slowly turned his head. And there was Max, curled up in an alcove, regarding Otto calmly through untamed yellow eyes.
Ever so slowly, Otto backed up and crouched, holding one hand out toward the breach to stop Durant. Five meters separated Otto from the big cat.
“Hello, Max,” Otto said softly.
The cougar licked its chops.
From beneath the boulders metal clicked on rock. Max glanced once and was gone; springing effortlessly over Otto’s head and disappearing in the gray. Seconds later Durant appeared dragging his pack. He got up, stretched, and looked at Otto still in his crouch staring into the mist.
“Did I miss something?”
Otto got to his feet. “It’s all good.”
***