Forged in Smoke (A Red-Hot SEALs Novel Book 3) (25 page)

“Hell no,” Rawls said flatly. “You’re my LC. You’d be obligated to relieve me of duty. Report the incident up the chain. You’d have no choice but to turn me in. I’d lose my spot in the beach boat. Lose my spot on the teams. And you know damn well I’d never get the okay again, even if Pachico had disappeared before I stepped in the headshrinker’s office.”

Zane’s sharp crack of laughter echoed between the concrete walls surrounding them. “Has it escaped your notice that we don’t currently have a damn chain of command to report to?”

That stopped Rawls, but just for a moment. “When we’re clear—”

“Have you been paying any attention to what’s going on at all? It won’t matter if we’re cleared,” Zane broke in, frustration and anger throbbing in his voice. “We’re on fucking national television. Our faces everywhere. When we’re cleared, the story will be even bigger than it is now. We’ve lost any fucking chance of getting back to our squads—period. We’re fucking done.”

Chapter Sixteen

I
T DIDN
’
T OCCUR
to Rawls, until he was sitting in the motorized cart across from Wolf, that Zane hadn’t said whether he believed in ghosts. Or more specifically—Rawls’s ghost. The conversation had gotten off track, and then their private little chat had been disrupted by a shift change at the medical bay.

Zane had left, without much more said, but they both knew the discussion wasn’t over—merely shelved for the moment.

Wolf showed up an hour later to escort him to his first séance. Not that they called it that, but hell, they wanted to summon a ghost
. . .
wasn’t that exactly what a séance did?

He didn’t bother to ask any questions as Wolf drove. His escort had proved—repeatedly—that he wasn’t much of a talker, let alone an explainer.

Instead, he took the opportunity to check Shadow Mountain out. Not that he could see much. The landscape was comprised mainly of shiny black walls, with embedded caged lights. The corridor Wolf took was wide—two lanes separated by a solid yellow line. White-striped paths to the right and left were designated walkways, or so he assumed from the volume of people they passed walking along them. Corridors branched off the main street, because that’s what it was, a damn street—underground, inside a mountain.

They passed a wide section with defined parking spaces along the sides and a wide, almost translucent section of the wall that slid open every few seconds disgorging a steady stream of people, along with the rich, thick scent of cooking. Rawls’s stomach growled loud enough to catch Wolf’s attention, reminding them both they’d lost dinner and breakfast.

But Wolf pressed on.

They passed a good two dozen golf carts identical to the one Wolf was driving, as well as others twice as long, and then a few with rows of seats for extra passengers.

As one would expect from a facility this size, it bustled with men and women, although far more of the former than the latter. The ages ranged from midtwenties to midsixties. Most wore jeans and T-shirts or sweatshirts. Some wore overalls, others basic green fatigues. The lack of uniforms was a dead giveaway that the place wasn’t military.

The army, navy, and air force were damn proud of their regalia.

Nor were all the people he saw Native American—although most looked like they were.

Slowly the maze of corridors grew narrower, and they ran across fewer people. Eventually they reached a walkway the golf cart couldn’t navigate and Wolf parked along the wall.

This section of the facility looked old, ancient even, the path carved from damp stone. Rawls followed Wolf in silence. A hundred feet in, his escort suddenly took a hard right and disappeared through the rugged rock wall. Rawls blinked, but he didn’t see the narrow, irregular gap in the wall until he was right next to it.

It was a tight fit squeezing his body through the opening, which meant Wolf must have scraped off a layer of skin forcing his considerably larger frame through the hole. More of those caged lamps burned along the walls of another narrow corridor. He could just make out Wolf’s big shadow ahead and increased his stride.

The rock passage wound from left to the right, but after the fourth bend, it opened into a large cavern. Rawls stopped in the mouth of the cave and stared. Caged lamps ringed the walls here too, but several were dark. Flickering shadows twisted and twined along the stone, highlighting faded white-and-red images of stick animals and stick people and strange prehistoric symbols that reminded him of cave paintings he’d seen in
National Geographic
.

They looked old, thousands of years old. Reluctantly, he dragged his gaze from the walls to check out the rest of the room. In the middle of the cave, large white rocks, identical in size and color, had been placed next to each other, so close they were touching, and then curved into a perfect circle. Outside the circle of white rocks were four split logs. Each log was braced on more of the white rocks to form a bench.

Rawls slowly stepped into the room.

In front of each bench burned a small fire ringed with smaller white stones. The scent of smoke hung heavy in the air and stung his eyes.

“Come,” Wolf said from his left, and Rawls turned.

His escort was standing beside four men with graying braided hair and a patchwork of wrinkles carved into their leathery faces. Each of the elders wore a poncho-type garment made out of hide. Etched on the front was the same layered sunburst symbol that was woven into the
hiixoyooniiheiht
.

Like the amulet that had been given to him and the one Jude carried, each of the elders’ ponchos was embossed with dual colors, but in varying combinations.

The elder closest to him wore a sunburst of deep red and vivid yellow. The elder closest to Wolf carried colors of forest and pea green. Another, blue and yellow. The last, flat red and vivid green. Rawls sensed that the colors had some significance, but doubted he’d be told what it was. It wasn’t until he got closer that he noticed each of the elders carried a leather pouch with a sunburst matching the design on their garments.

Once he was in front of them, Rawls stopped and shifted uncomfortably. Should he offer a greeting and handshake? Or would touching them be considered an insult?

“They are ready to begin,” Wolf said, taking the decision out of Rawls’s hands. “Give me your
hiixoyooniiheiht.
” He waited until Rawls had removed the cord from around his neck and handed the weaving over. “You will stand beside me until they give you leave to summon your
biitei.
”

Rawls nodded his understanding. The elders started to chant, their voices lifting and waning in unison. In a straight line, led by the man with the red-and-yellow sunburst, they began a slow, rocking path to the circle of white stones. As they traveled the outside edge of the circle and slowly rocked a chanting path around the white rocks, their hands would dip into the pouches hanging at their sides and toss whatever they removed into the circle.

And sweet hell, with each toss from the pouches, the small fires burning so sedately in front of the log benches would erupt into spitting, hissing, ferocious flames. After two trips around the circle, the elders stopped and shouted. Whatever they said was in Arapaho, so Rawls couldn’t understand it, but Wolf did. Stepping forward, he handed Rawls’s
hiixoyooniiheiht
to the leader wearing red and yellow and then took three huge steps back.

The elder held the object up and the chanting resumed. The rocking, chanting parade continued with two revolutions to the right, at which point the elders pivoted and did three more to the left. And then suddenly, when each elder was in front of a bench, they simply stopped. Silently, three of the men sat behind their small fires, leaving only Red Poncho to stand and chant. After a few more seconds of chanting and rocking—standing in place this time—the elder dropped the corded amulet into the flames at his feet.

The fire spat, flames leapt, devouring the weaving instantly. Once the fire had settled back into its sedate glow, the elder motioned Rawls over.

“It is time,” the man said in perfect English. “Summon your
biitei.
”

Yeah
. . .
how did one go about summoning a ghost? That wasn’t something taught in SQ training.

Wolf picked up on his uncertainty. “Call it by name.”

“We didn’t know his name,” Rawls said, running a hand through his hair. “He was usin’ an alias. And he hasn’t felt like sharin’ his real name since turnin’ transparent.”

“Did the
biitei
offer you a name before it crossed over?” the elder asked.

“It called itself Pachico. Took a local cop’s name,” Rawls said.

Red-and-Yellow Sunburst nodded, as though the matter was settled. “This is the name it offered to you, this is the name you will summon it under.”

Okay
. . .
Rawls shifted uncomfortably.

Ah, what the hell. Squaring his shoulders, Rawls lifted his head.

“Hey, Pachico,” he said in a loud voice, and waited.

Everyone stared expectantly at the circle, but nothing manifested in the middle. Well
. . .
he was assuming it was supposed to show up in the circle. He took a slow turn, surveying the rest of the cavern. Nothing. He waited a bit longer.

“Again,” the lead elder said. “Concentrate. See his image in your mind and summon him to you.”

Feeling foolish Rawls closed his eyes and tried to visualize his ghostly stalker’s thin body and bald head. Didn’t it just figure that the one time he wanted the asshole to show up he’d turn all contrary?

Once the image was fairly clear in his head, he opened his eyes, focused on the white circle of rocks, and tried again. “Pachico, get your transparent ass over here.”

The forceful words echoed in the chamber. For a second it looked like his second command was going to have the same effect as his first—which was to say no effect whatsoever. But then a misty swirling stirred the dirt floor within the stone circle. Slowly, oh so slowly, a transparent form took shape. It wasn’t long before Rawls recognized the bald head and black knife sticking out of the translucent chest.

“So now you wanna talk to me.” Pachico’s hollow voice was filled with condescension. But then he noticed the four elders on their benches, and a surprised look crossed his face. The surprised look gave way to caution. “What is this? A welcoming party?”

Although the question was spoken sarcastically, Rawls could hear the tension in the ghost’s voice. Apparently death hadn’t stolen his instincts. He knew something was in the works. Something he wasn’t going to like.

“Ask the
biitei
its name,” Red Etchings said, his face calm and body still.

Rawls turned back to the circle of rocks and the translucent form caged within. “What’s your name?”

The ghost laughed, although there wasn’t an ounce of humor in his voice or on his face. “Seriously? You want to know my name? What the fuck do you think we are? Girlfriends or some shit?”

In unison the four elders reached into the pouches hanging at their sides, grabbed a handful of whatever was in there, and threw it on the fires burning at their feet. The four fires flared, their reflections glowing in the circle of rocks, and Pachico screamed.

The scream was so unexpected, Rawls jumped, watching in shock as the translucent form that had been tormenting him for the past seven days writhed in apparent agony.

What the hell
. . .

“Ask again,” the lead elder said as the flames died and the translucent form in the rocks quit squirming.

Rawls cleared his throat. “Your name.”

“Fuck you,” Pachico snarled, his form going thin and so translucent it was barely visible.

The elders reached into their pouches and their fires flared again. Pachico’s scream echoed with agony.

“It has been bound to the circle. It cannot leave.”

Once again it was the guy with the red-and-yellow sunburst who spoke. Rawls was getting the distinct impression he was the only one of the four who had a voice.

“Ask its name.”

“I’m pretty sure they can do this all night,” Rawls told the rock circle, with its barely visible hostage. “Do yourself a favor and tell me your damn name.”

A snarl sounded from within the stones, but when the four elders reached for their pouches, a name erupted from the circle. “Robert Biesel.”

Well, look at that, they were making progress. He doubted the ghost had lied, because it would be too easy to check out the name. All it would take was a trip to the DMV.

The four men on the benches lowered their hands, but kept them on their pouches in a subtle threat.

“So, Robert Biesel, who were you workin’ for?”

Might as well get the big questions out of the way first, from there he could work his way down to the nitty-gritty stuff. When Biesel remained stubbornly silent, the four musketeers dug into their pouches again. Once the screaming stopped, Rawls stepped in with a not-so-gentle reminder.

“You realize, you stupid fuck, they’re only usin’ a pinch from those pouches. How much more painful do you think a handful would be? So let’s try this again. Who were you workin’ for?”

This time Biesel’s hollow voice sounded a little ragged, and thick with rage. “I don’t owe that asshole a thing. So you want to know his name? Fine. Eric Manheim. Good luck touching him, motherfucker.”

Eric Manheim.

Of all the names Biesel could have shouted, Manheim’s shocked him the most. The billionaire, hell, more like trillionaire, was one of the wealthiest men in the world. Among the one percent of the wealthy who controlled most of the world’s wealth
. . .
except Manheim spread his wealth around. He funded countless charities and nonprofit organizations. His wife was the face and voice of the Focus on Hunger program. His was the least likely name to come up in conjunction with terrorism and blackmail.

“Eric Manheim,” Rawls repeated slowly, trying to wrap his head around this news and figure out if the asshole was lying to him. “Why the hell would he be involved in somethin’ like this? The prototype Faith and her team were workin’ on wouldn’t affect him. His money comes from financial institutions.”

In fact, the Manheim family trust owned most of the banks in the world. On the other hand, the family also had enough cash and influences to run the kind of operation required to take down an airliner, and frame anyone that got in the way.

Now that Biesel had started talking, he got downright chatty. “His interest has nothing to do with money. It has to do with how it would affect the rest of the world. Manheim belongs to this crackpot conglomerate of Richie Riches who see themselves as the new ruling order. Christ, they even call themselves that. The NRO—New Ruling Order. Humanity’s not-quite-so-benevolent dictators.”

“The NRO?” Rawls repeated, making a note to remember the acronym, and to do some googling as soon as he got back to a computer.