The Second Ship Read online

  Jerry, bending over his prostrate form, practically yelled, “Oh my God. It looks like he has twin pools of blood instead of eyes. Hey! Someone get a camera.”

  His buddies were a little short on sympathy, but the cheerleaders made up for it.

  That little stunt had cost the team its first loss of the season. Even though Mark had felt fine to go back in if they would only butterfly bandage the cut, the coach sent him to the hospital to get stitches and to be checked for a concussion. By the time the intern finished sewing his head and shining a little flashlight in his eyes, the game was over.

  Roswell Goddard High School 83. Los Alamos High School 78.

  So much for the perfect season.

  Mark finished dressing, brushed his teeth and hair, and then headed down to breakfast. Unfortunately, the McFarlands had departed early that morning for an appointment in Santa Fe, which meant he and Jennifer would be eating their mom's cooking.

  Jennifer caught Mark’s eye as he strolled into the kitchen, giving him a small shake of the head, which meant something like, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter this room.” The smell of burning toast had not quite reached a thickness that would set off the smoke alarm, but that didn’t reassure him.

  How a woman as talented as his mother could produce such inedible meals was one of the deep underlying mysteries of the universe. You would expect a bad cook to deliver bland-tasting dishes that left little to look forward to. But Linda Smythe went beyond the normally bad, settling in at spectacularly, amazingly bad. Mark didn’t think she could do worse if she tried. Cutting into her eggs either produced hard bits of a yellowish, rubbery substance or, worse yet, slimy little worms of liquid white that crawled toward the edges of your plate.

  Oh well. Mark would gut it out and do his best to avoid hurting his mom’s feelings. After all, she had made the effort to feed them, so he would make the effort to eat it.

  This morning's meal proved to be surprisingly edible, despite the look he had received from Jennifer. A quick scraping of the toast removed most of the charred bits. Adding the firmly cooked eggs, a slice of cheese, and some salt and pepper created an Egg McSmythe that wasn’t half bad.

  “Thanks, Mom. That was great,” he said, rising from the table with his orange juice in hand.

  Linda Smythe smiled at him. “You’re a terrible liar, but I appreciate the compliment anyway.”

  Mark laughed and kissed her on the cheek. “Jen and I will be working in the garage for a bit, and then I’m going for a long run.”

  “Not too fast. Mind those stitches.”

  “Don’t worry, Mom. I promise not to pop a vessel.”

  Mark led the way to their workshop, Jennifer close on his heels.

  “So where are we at?” he asked as they reached the workbench.

  Jennifer pulled up the stool in front of her laptop. A new USB cable ran from the back of the computer to an electronic circuit board mounted atop the tank.

  “I still have about six hours of work on the program that will manage the subspace tuning algorithm Heather developed. After that, I’ll have to write some test driver software to simulate the responses. With my homework load, I don’t think I can finish before next weekend.”

  “Then you better get to it, Sis. Don’t let me hold you up.”

  “So you’re still planning on jogging out to the ship to retrieve the laptop and QT device?”

  “Yep. I called Heather last night and told her we needed them here. It’s just not practical to monitor what’s happening with Stephenson otherwise. Besides, you can run your little encryption virus on it and scramble the data.”

  “I guess it’s no more dangerous than everything else we’re doing. Kind of a long jog, though. Why not take the bike?”

  “I feel like running. It’s only about eighteen miles round-trip. Not even marathon distance.”

  “Yes, but coming back you’re going to have that laptop and stuff in your backpack.”

  Mark grinned. “I think I can handle it.”

  “Well, get going, then. You'll want to be back for dinner. Mom's cooking lasagna.”

  “Gee, I’d hate to miss that,” Mark said as he headed back inside.

  Mark quickly changed into his shorts, sweat suit, and running shoes, threw his backpack over his shoulders, and set off at a steady jog. As he disappeared around the bend onto the trail that led cross-country to the ship, far behind him, staying well out of sight, another jogger mirrored his path.

  56

  In the midst of all the higher-priority wiretaps the night before, Harold had almost missed the most promising lead so far. It was almost midnight, and he’d been about to call it quits for the evening, when old habits forced him to review the recorded calls on the taps labeled “low probability.”

  15:46:12. The timestamp on the call showed on two recordings, one from the Smythe house and the other at the McFarland house. Nothing unusual there. The families talked to each other so much they should buy an intercom.

  Harold jacked up the playback speed, letting the chipmunk voices chatter in his ear, fully expecting to race through another set of best friend chitchat before logging another no-op recording. Suddenly he hit stop, followed immediately by a tweak of the jog shuttle control, rewinding the last several seconds of the tape before letting it play at normal speed.

  Mark Smythe’s voice spoke clearly on the line. “I think we need to pull the laptop and QT recorder off the ship.”

  “Do you think that’s safe?” Heather McFarland asked.

  “Safer than us going out there so often. Without it, we’re flying blind.”

  There was a brief pause before Heather answered. “I guess it’ll be okay. I don’t have to tell you to be careful not to let anyone see you bike out there.”

  “I’ll just take a backpack and jog. I need the workout anyway.”

  “Wow. That’s dedication, considering you’ll be playing a game tonight. I think I’d take the bike.”

  Mark laughed. “All in a day's work. Believe me, I’ll enjoy the run.”

  Harold listened carefully until the end of the conversation, but nothing of further interest presented itself. He manipulated the jog control again, replaying the section of interest several times.

  The words that had caught his attention were recorder and ship used in close proximity. Combined with the cautionary tone and references to a laptop, it made Harold feel the need to find out exactly what those kids were talking about.

  He considered calling in a report to Jack, but decided against it. It was late, and he had relatively thin data to back his suspicions.

  So now, clad in his gray sweats, Harold jogged far back behind Mark Smythe on a rough mountain trail that led along the canyon rim country near White Rock. The kid was in great shape, not surprising since he was the finest athlete to ever play ball for Los Alamos High School. No doubt his pace would have left most people holding their knees as they puked their guts out. Harold Stevens was not most people.

  By Harold's estimate, they were over eight miles out when he lost Mark’s trail. He was in a woodline at the top of a jagged canyon outcropping, another of those fingers of land that stretched out toward the south and west before ending in steep drop-offs into the canyons below. From the lay of the land, Mark must have climbed down off the rim, but on which side of the finger? Left, right, or tip?

  Harold ruled out tracking the boy for now. Instead, he moved off the trail, picking out a hide location several hundred feet along the woodline to the north. Then Harold settled in to watch. He did not have to wait long. Within thirty minutes, Mark reappeared, climbing up over the north side of the rim, very near the tip of the plateau's finger. Harold watched him jog back down the trail, the backpack bulging.

  Harold waited for an additional two minutes before breaking cover and moving to the spot where he had observed Mark climbing back over the rim. For an experienced tracker like Harold, the boy's path stood out as stark and bright as if he had painted a white line down the sl
ope. A bent twig here, an overturned rock there, a slippage in the loose shale. These and a hundred other signs led the way back down the canyon side.

  Reaching a spot about halfway down the steep wall of the canyon, Mark’s path turned left and entered a thicket. Harold paused. Odd. The trail, which had been so clear up until this point, disappeared completely three feet in front of the spot where he now stood. From that point on, the brush appeared unbroken, as virgin as if no one had ever passed that way.

  Bending closer to the ground, Harold moved forward slowly, touching each broken twig, looking for some sign of deviation from the path. From the jungles of Cambodia and Laos to the deep African bush, he had read trail signs with such unerring accuracy that he had come to the attention of Jack Gregory. Now, he paused, confused. The sign here made no sense.

  Feeling his way along the plants, Harold reached forward until his hand disappeared. He pulled back so hard he almost stumbled. What the hell? Examining his hand, Harold caught his breath. Everything was still there. Just a second ago it had not been, almost as if he had dipped his hand into a mirror pool. But there was no water in sight.

  Gingerly, he eased forward once again until just a fingertip disappeared inside. Inside what? Harold tested it several times, first with one hand, then the other. Nothing. There was absolutely nothing in his way. Then why the hell couldn’t he see through it?

  But the kid's tracks led in and out of that place.

  Harold reached behind him, extracting his 9mm Beretta from the holster strapped to the small of his back. Then, with the weapon up and at the ready, he stepped inside.

  For several seconds, he could see very little as his eyes adjusted from the daylight to the dim light in the cave. There was a light. Sort of a soft, red glow. Glancing back the way he had come, Harold found he could see out into the canyon beyond, but it looked dim, as if he were peering through some sort of polarized sunscreen.

  One thing was certain. The technology for this screen was like nothing he had seen in his operations around the world. He considered that for a second. Could it be something new being worked on by a division of the Los Alamos National Laboratory? Unless it was Rho Project stuff, he didn’t think so. But this was outside of any secure area, so it couldn’t be lab related.

  Harold turned back toward the center of the cave, once again catching his breath as a new set of unexpected imagery rocked him. Filling the entire back portion of the cavern was a large saucer-shaped object. The ship. This was the ship that Mark had mentioned to Heather. Not the Rho Ship but another ship, a completely different shape from the one the government had at the lab.

  Harold moved slowly but steadily around the perimeter of the metallic disk, ducking underneath the rim where it was jammed against the back and side walls. Then he saw the hole. A perfectly round hole, about a meter in diameter, had been punched through the ship, the edges as smooth as a samurai sword’s passage through bamboo.

  Harold walked underneath and looked up. The hole had punched through several decks and all the way out the top side.

  Grabbing his cell phone from its clip on his holster, Harold flipped it open. No signal. Shit. He’d have to call Jack once he got back out of the cave. The ship was probably cutting off all electronic transmissions the way it had erected the cloaking screen at the cave entrance. Well, he’d just have a quick look around inside and then head back out to call in the report. This one was going to blow Jack’s skirt up for sure.

  Harold spent the next fifteen minutes working his way rapidly through the parts of the ship he could enter, which weren't many. He saw the row of four bands lying on the table, but left them for more careful investigation by a follow-on team.

  Having convinced himself there was plenty here to keep the government busy for the next sixty years, Harold dropped the six feet down from the lower deck to the floor of the cavern. As he straightened up, the blow took him by surprise, catching him square in the chest and sending him flying into the cavern wall.

  Even though the impact knocked the wind from his body and left him with at least one broken rib, Harold's training took over. As he rebounded from the wall, his gun hand steadied, swinging smoothly toward his assailant. As the trigger finger tightened, sending the jolt of recoil up his wrist and into his arm, the figure before him blurred into motion again, miraculously moving clear of his aim point before the bullet could fire.

  Another blow caught him, this one breaking his wrist and sending the weapon spinning outward; it clattered to the stone floor of the cave, sliding to a stop where the metal of the ship touched the floor.

  Harold moved in a spinning round kick, which also failed to land. Another punch cracked the ribs on his other side and knocked him to the floor. As he rolled back to his knees, a vicious kick caught him in the stomach, sending him sliding back into the rock wall. Another kick followed, breaking his left arm, although at a spot higher up than the break in his right.

  His vision misted over with red, but Harold turned his head to see who his attacker was. The man was skinny, with long, stringy, blond hair, his clothes shabby and dirty. Without a doubt, this had to be the Rag Man Jack had said was stalking Heather McFarland. The man leaned his face close, and the stench of the fellow’s breath clogged Harold’s nostrils.

  “Sin is the transgression of the law.”

  Harold stared into the deep-set eyes but said nothing.

  “You have transgressed. I shall ask our Lord to forgive you of your sins, before sending you on your way to face judgment.” The Rag Man grabbed Harold's broken right arm and twisted. “But first, you will tell me who you are working for and who, if anyone, is in town with you.”

  Although he bit nearly all the way through his lip, Harold did not scream.

  Harold had been hurt before, although never this badly for this long. Well before three hours of torture had passed, he had no doubt this would be his last day on Earth. Toward the end, although the pain did not ease, in his delirium, it dulled slightly. And as his senses dulled, the ravings of the Rag Man became more extreme, his anger at the realization he would not break Harold finally sending the Rag Man into a killing frenzy he could no longer control.

  The Rag Man’s hands tightened in a grip that would shortly break his neck, forcing Harold’s thoughts once more to Jack. It was a shame. He would have liked to be around when this dirtbag found out what it was like to get on Jack “The Ripper” Gregory’s bad side.

  57

  The Rag Man stared up at the body of the unidentified agent, suspended on a meat hook in the cave he called home. Not the cave. Not the one with God's Ark. This was his cave, the place he had hidden away from society these last seven and a half years, a place several miles away from the Ark Cave.

  Was he not the new Gabriel?

  But God must be disappointed in him. He had allowed a longing for fellowship to cloud his vision. When he had seen the three young ones discover the Ark, he had hoped that they, too, would come to understand God’s calling, that they would also feel the importance of protecting the Ark against Satan’s false ark, which now sat inside the Rho Lab in Los Alamos.

  The Rag Man stared up at Harold's broken body, swinging slowly on the hook, and a scowl settled over his thin features. But they had betrayed the trust. They had led a ravager back to the Ark. Now the Rag Man would enforce God's vengeance upon them.

  He turned away from Harold's corpse, the long, dirty strands of his blond dreadlocks swinging out behind him, and trotted toward the exit to his cave.

  Although the boy had been the one who led the agent to the Ark, the Rag Man thought he would deal with the girl he had been watching first. Certainly God would not begrudge him some pleasure in disposing of her. He was, after all, doing God's bidding. He would do the others in due course.

  The Rag Man exited the cave, running through the moonlit night along the trail that led back toward White Rock, his moon shadow stretching away behind him as he ran.

  58

  As the car pulled back
into their driveway and the old garage door began slowly clawing its way up to let them park the Grunge Buggy inside, Heather watched her mother reach across the front seat to gently stroke the back of her father’s head.

  It was such a little thing. A gentle petting between her mom and dad that happened so often that it almost went unnoticed. A simple gesture that spoke of affection so profound that few would have believed it possible. But the McFarlands were living proof that true, adoring love was not only possible, it was a fact.

  As Heather watched them, her eyes misted.

  The car stopped, coughed a couple of times, as if arguing that it did not really want to be put to bed, and then went quietly to sleep.

  Her father was the first one out. “Heather and I’ll carry in the bags.”

  “Good,” said her mother. “Then I’ll start reheating the posole. If you guys are as famished as I am, then I’d better get with it.”

  “I’m starving,” said Heather.

  By the time Heather and her dad had carefully put everything away, the wonderful aroma of her mother’s special posole wafted out to meet them. That wonderfully spicy New Mexican hominy dish seemed to stretch out an imaginary smoky finger, tapping Heather on the shoulder, then curling itself in a “follow me” signal as it led her to the kitchen.

  She arrived at the table just in time to see her mother carrying a large serving dish between two puffy oven mitts, each decorated with images of dancing green chili peppers. Her mother was an excellent cook all around, but it was with New Mexican food that her prowess shone. Heather could not blame the Smythes for all but abandoning their own kitchen in deference to hers.