CHAPTER NINETY-SEVEN
“Diversion”
Wednesday morning.
They reached the chimney and climbed above the clouds into brilliant sunshine. As they looked down, they saw an endless lumpy field of gray wool as far as the eye could see punctuated by mountaintops: Archimedes and Isosceles, Long’s Peak and Flat Top. Soundlessly they obtained the jutting shelf of granite, from which Otto had launched his assault on Goldfarb.
Despite the sunshine, it was cold and they could see their breath. Dropping backpack and rifle, Otto inched out as far as he dared to on the ledge, Durant anchoring his legs and belt. He peered around the corner and caught a glimpse of a blue pop-tent tethered to the granite with nylon straps. A sentry crouched at the lip of the ledge cradling a thermos of coffee wearing fatigues, an H&K machine pistol around his neck. There would be at least one other.
Durant pulled Otto back.
“At least two military. How do we get ‘me out of there without hurting them?”
Durant shrugged. “Diversion?”
“What diversion?”
They discussed possible scenarios. The problem was there seemed to be no way for one of them to crawl around to the other side of the ledge. There may be other entrances to the cave but they didn’t have time to search for them.
“I got two smoke grenades,” Otto said.
Otto’s view of the money deck was so limited he could see only about twenty per cent of the shelf. If he leaned out far enough to heave a grenade back under the overhang, they would see him. But if they could get the grenade back there without being seen, the sentries would conclude that the smoke originated under the overhang.
Otto guessed there were two. It was the tactical thing to do. More than two were unnecessary in so remote a location, and one man alone had to take time to sleep. Of course, if they were being supplied inside the mountain they could change sentries on the hour but Otto didn’t believe that.
The cave was too sensitive for the Army or the CIA to invade and occupy so quickly. They had no idea with what they were dealing. So long as the burnings stopped, the heat was off and they would proceed with the utmost caution.
Of course, Otto had no idea whether the burnings had stopped. There could be hundreds--thousands infected.
By hanging from his hands, Otto could “walk” out to where he could see most of the ledge but he would be visible as well. He and Durant crouched in silence, each seeking a way out of their dilemma. The lumpy sea of cloud began to rise. Soon it was mere meters below. Then it began to engulf them. It was the opportunity they needed.
The dense fog cut visibility to a few meters. With a rope around his waist tied around the rock, Otto swung himself out over the mountain, caught the merest glimpse of one of the sentries with his back to him, triggered the grenade with his teeth and rolled it back toward the cave entrance. It rolled virtually soundlessly due to its plastic soft drink bottle construction.
A shout from under the ledge. “Hey Vic!”
Otto swung himself out onto the ledge, landing with a grunt.
“Fuck!” the sentry exploded stepping out from behind the pop tent three meters away. He immediately brought his H&K to bear and ratcheted one into the chamber.
“It’s you,” he said.
“Who?” Otto said. “Me?”
“Get on your knees and turn around. Bob! I got him! I got White!”
Otto knelt facing the sentry and put his hands behind his head.
“I said turn around!”
There was the slightest thump as the cougar landed next to the sentry and crouched calmly regarding the man. The sentry gasped soundlessly and stepped off the edge of the ledge. Max coiled his loins and was gone.
“Don’t move!” the second sentry called.
Durant came up behind and choked him out.
***
CHAPTER NINETY-EIGHT
“Boom-Ba Style”
Otto looked over the edge. The sentry lay five meters below. Otto watched until the sentry began to move. He and Durant wasted no time entering the door into the armory and barring it behind them. The inner door--the one into the cave--appeared untouched. Durant moved from crate to crate, picking up guns, sniffing them.
“Let’s go,” Otto said. They moved through the inner door into the cave. As soon as they shut the door and let their eyes adjust to the light Otto could see their footprints outlined in phosphorescence from the last time he’d been through. There were no extra footprints. No one had entered the cave from above since Otto and Alvarez. They followed Otto’s previous tracks.
“Sorry about your dog,” Durant said softly.
Otto tried not to look at the paw prints. “Thanks.”
They proceeded in silence awed by nature’s magnificence. Durant’s head moved like a swivel turret. The spot where Casey had died appeared untouched, the evil black stain, the lumps of metal and shards of fabric. There was no sign of his leg. Something had carried it off to eat.
When they arrived at the upper end of the spiral leading to the teleportation device Otto drew his pistol. Durant followed suit. Back to the wall, Otto edged towards the chamber, light growing stronger. When he came into full view he froze and let his eyes sweep the vast underground gallery.
The chamber was deserted. The eerie lighting burned, still connected by cable to something beneath the wooden platform. With military at both the top and the bottom the authorities believed the teleportation device too hot to handle for the time being. Otto could only imagine the bureaucratic infighting that had accompanied that decision with the hard-liners, Brubaker and MacCauley, pushing for an immediate investigation and reverse engineering while the one-worlders dithered. The President was sitting on the discovery like a penguin.
Otto edged further into the chamber. Witherspoon’s headless body still lay where they’d left it. It writhed, the pale flesh rippled, the limbs twitched obscenely. A shroud of intense loathing and horror settled over Otto as he approached the corpse behind his Ruger.
“Hey!” he spat.
White cave spiders the size of saucers skittered out from beneath the corpse, out the ends of the corpse’s sleeves and pants, some carrying gibbets the size of peas.
How ironic.
How appropriate.
“Jesus wept,” Durant said.
They spoke in whispers due only in part to the magnificence of their surroundings.
“Just cave things. Bring your gear onto the platform.”
They set their gear on the wooden platform beneath the looming seat. The two interconnecting rings that defined the sphere were four meters in diameter. There was plenty of room for both men and their gear.
Otto carefully eased himself into the black plastic seat. It was pleasantly warm causing him to both relax and shiver--an alien craft broadcasting conflicting signals, a funhouse mirror of normality with that flash of black chitin us wing at vision’s edge.
He settled into the seat, feeling it conform to his body. He took the loose wire that dangled from the control panel and held it in his hand. He confronted the black triangular control panel before him. It was smooth and featureless. He laid his right palm against it and felt a snap of electricity as it suddenly lit up, a triangular screen filled with a swirl of green and blue, red parabolic lines running from top to bottom and a scroll of alien runes across the top. An electric sizzle swarmed up the hoops to the North Pole, which glowed blue.
Otto used a strip of Gorilla Tape to attach the bare wire to his forehead. He pressed the screen again and the scroll changed to numbers. Mathematics was immutable, or so Otto had believed. The laws of physics didn’t change. The
Skorzh
must have been intent on becoming conversant with human thinking and mathematics. A series of symbols formed a pentangle. One was clearly Earth with the continents barely visible and the moon. It was numbered 624. One was red and had three silver moons. There were three other symbols surrounding a black triangle with three red dots. It was numbered 666.
“Lester we’re in business. Haul your shit over here by the seat.”
Durant crouched by the lake where he was filling canteens with water. What the hell. The transportation would probably kill them. The three Daleks surrounding the platform began to hum and their stones glowed red. Otto pulled out his spiral pad, wrote something in pen, got up and set it on the edge of the platform held down with a rock.
Durant stacked the water bottles beneath the chair. Otto resumed his position. He took out the Blaster and hooked it over a breast pocket. He looked at the menu. “Boom-Ba Style.” Good to go.
The humming grew louder. The red stones pulsed. The hoops began to glow.
Otto strapped himself in. “Keep your hands on my shoulders.”
Durant did so. “Our Father in heaven,” he began, “hallowed be your name.”
Otto joined in. “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.”
There was a scuffle and a shout down the slope. Lon Barnett burst into view running flat out with four special forces in combat fatigues carrying machine pistols.
“OTTO HALT!” Barnett shouted.
Otto pushed the symbol with the three red dots. A clap of thunder and light filled the chamber. Even with sound suppressors, the Special Forces brought their hands to their ears. The small group was stunned and blinded.
As their sight returned, they saw that the platform was empty.
Barnett walked up and found the note beneath the rock. He held it up.
“Lester and I have gone to fight the Spiders. God bless America. Yours, Otto H. White.”
***
CHAPTER NINETY-NINE
“Aftermath”
In the weeks that followed Otto’s disappearance, incidents of spontaneous human combustions waned and finally disappeared altogether, like the last fireworks on the 4th of July or the tail end of a meteor shower. But there was no return to normal. There was no normal anymore.
Randall Kleiser turned himself in at the Denver FBI HQ. John Bullis was his lawyer. In return for consideration, Kleiser told national security about Sis Boom Ba. Much easier to simply blast “Boom-Ba Style” than individual administer blood tests. The problem was some or all of the hosts might very well be innocent and would go down with their parasites. The test was administered under the strictest secrecy.
In one sense, Durant had been mistaken. Hosts were not dead but often retained their original personalities for years, such as Sen. Darling. The Agency drafted Kleiser under a special wartime executive action exempting him from prosecution. Surprisingly, he fit right in and within days was instrumental in erecting a firewall against Chinese and Russian cyber-attacks.
The “Freedom and Prosperity” bill granted President Burke unlimited powers Elections were “temporarily suspended” while the world roiled in fear and the heads of the great nations met without the UN causing further outrage and rioting.
Burke lifted the No Fly order a week after Otto’s disappearance, about which the world knew nothing. Officially, it was a man-made terrorist wave. The government knew how it was done, but would never divulge the details lest it loose demons of flame upon the land. Two months following the President’s immolation Burke lifted martial law but most major cities and municipalities still had curfews in effect.
On an overcast Sunday afternoon in September Margaret Yee and Stella Darling met at the Chowder Shack on Oyster Bay on the Chesapeake. They sat on the deck despite a strong offshore breeze; Yee bundled in a trench coat and broad-brimmed hat, Stella in a CSU hoodie. Yee thought Stella looked liked she’d aged five years. She’d lost her father, her boyfriend, and Otto who obviously still meant something to her. In fact, Yee was cognizant of their renewed relationship.
Yee believed she owed the younger woman a debt that was one reason she’d invited her to lunch. The other had to do with national security. They sat in a banquette at the back of the restaurant looking out at the wind-chopped bay, seagulls soaring and shrieking.
Yee squeezed the other woman’s hand. “Thank you for coming, dear.”
“I had to come. They won’t tell me what happened to Otto. Not a word about alien invaders. What’s going on, Margaret?”
“First of all I want to tell you how very sorry I am for your loss. No one has sacrificed more in this secret war.”
“No one except Dad, Otto and Gabe, and all the other victims.”
Yee remembered what made Stella such a formidable trial lawyer. “Of course. That’s not what I meant. Know that you have the President’s gratitude.”
“For what? I didn’t do anything.”
“Well he thinks you did and I’m inclined to concur. Would it be all right if he phoned you?”
“Of course.”
“He says that when things die down he’d like to give you the Presidential Freedom Award.”
“Whoop de do. Can I get a drink?”
Margaret flagged down the teen-age waitress. She ordered a Bloody Mary. Stella had a vodka and tonic.
The waitress subserviently took their order and withdrew.
“Do you want to look at the menu, dear?” Yee said, opening the heavy clapboard tome done in faux eighteenth century font with a gold fob.
“No, I’d like to hear what happened to Otto.”
“He and your friend Durant are now on the Spider home planet wreaking havoc, it is devoutly to be hoped.”
Stella stared and made a little smile.
“How’d they do it?”
“You know when we were casting about for someone to lead this project I placed luck at the very top of the criteria. Most of my associates snickered. Is it good luck, or bad luck? He did say that if he got through he would try to send us some kind of sign.”
“When did he say that? I thought he and the feds weren’t talking.”
“We talked right up until the end.”
“How’d they do it?”
“He must have figured out the control board. At least we haven’t been sucked into a black hole. I find that highly encouraging. Needless to say, this is all unrepeatable. You’re not recording me, are you?”
“Of course not.”
“There is concern that the boys might open up some kind of space/time continuum and we could be sucked into a black hole. We pay people to think up these scenarios. We’re like the apes in 2001 coming across the slab.”
Stella felt her heart ache. It would always be there next to her memories of Otto. Even in another dimension, she refused to believe he was dead. Otto was lucky. It was possible he would return.
Yee picked up the parchment menu and opened it. “They say their crab cakes are to die for.”
***