Immune (50 page)

Jennifer had delved into many minds, not the least of which was Don Espeñosa, the boss of the most violent and largest of the South American cartels. Although she had found it filled with cruelty, greed, and paranoia, there were parts of his mind that loved beauty, that longed for basic human affection, and in those parts Jennifer had comfortably roamed. Even playing on his greed and paranoia had presented little challenge to her abilities.

But touching Eduardo’s mind terrified her beyond words. It was a blackness in which unthinkable thoughts and feelings squirmed and wriggled, each tendril seeking to pull her deeper into the abyss. In that mind she had felt no hint of light.

Once again the memory overwhelmed her. This time she failed to shift her thoughts in time, the heaves emptying her partially digested breakfast onto the sheets spread across her legs.

“Perfect!” Jennifer muttered as she tossed the sheets into a pile, then headed for the bathroom to wash the acrid taste from her mouth and the filth from her body.

Under the splash of water hot enough to send waves of steam rising from her skin, Jennifer tried to calm herself. But this time her concentration failed her. She’d heard of people so deep in shock that they couldn’t stop shivering, but until now she’d only imagined what that was like. Now, standing in Turkish sauna-style steam, she found herself shaking like the last leaf on a maple tree, the cold autumn wind tugging and twisting at the tiny stem that connected her to reality.

In Arizona, on the rim of the Grand Canyon, the Hualapai Indians had built a stunning new attraction called The Skywalk. Balanced a mile above the Colorado River, tourists could walk across the massive glass walkway extending a full seventy feet beyond the canyon rim. Jennifer had never had the chance to visit it, to walk away from the edge with only a transparent layer between her small body and the canyon bottom a mile below. Now she felt as if she stood at its very center, not wanting to look, but with eyes drawn irresistibly toward the abyss.

Jennifer turned off the water, walked out of the snail shower, and wrapped herself in a thick white towel. If anything, she felt colder now than when she had stepped in to warm up, the tremors in her hands having migrated into her core. She considered climbing back into bed, piling the covers atop herself as she curled into a fetal ball. But the thought of the mess in the sheets killed that idea.

What she needed was something only the Second Ship could provide, that sweet sense of well-being she had experienced on the alien couch. Only now she’d gotten herself into a state where any memory threatened to pull the wrong one. She couldn’t bear that again. Not now. Not ever.

Frustrated, Jennifer made her way past the open French doors leading onto the balcony, the warm breeze chilling her like tendrils of marine layer fog. She thought about closing the doors, then discarded the notion. The chill wasn’t real, only a figment of her extensive imagination. She knew what she needed, and it wasn’t beyond the doors to the balcony. It was in the closet.

Pulling open the slatted doors, she stepped inside to pull her suitcase from the highest shelf. Jennifer dropped it on the floor, her fingers fumbling at the zipper like a junkie struggling to get to her fix.

There, in the inner zippered pocket, she found them, the two translucent alien headbands, exactly where she had left them. To Don Espeñosa’s men, they’d been of no more interest than any young girl’s hair decorations. So much for judgment.

The second Jennifer touched the one that was uniquely hers, she felt better. It was one of the oddities of the alien halos that only the one with which you had originally attuned worked for you. And once they had attuned with you, they didn’t work for anyone else, at least not while you lived. After that, Jennifer didn’t know and didn’t want to find out.

With both headbands clutched in her hand, she walked across the room to the wicker chair in which Don Espeñosa had sat this morning. Tossing the other halo on the coffee table, Jennifer slid into the chair and pulled her knees up to her chest.

Then, taking a deep breath, she positioned her own halo on her head, letting the small beads slide into place over her temples.

~ ~ ~

Three thousand miles away, in a temporary shelter he had come to think of as home, Dr. Hanz Jorgen scanned the papers spread across every square inch of his desk.

The article that currently held his attention had received scant notice from the scientific community, much less from the general public, but he found it fascinating. In it, Dr. Paul Silas of Northwestern University focused on the asteroid named 2004 XY130. Although the asteroid had far less than one chance in a million of striking earth, its potential impact would produce an explosive force in excess of two thousand megatons, more than a hundred thousand times the force of Little Boy, the bomb that had been dropped on Hiroshima in World War II.

A buzzing in his pocket alerted him to the presence of his cell phone. Having tried unsuccessfully to find a ring tone that was only mildly obnoxious, Jorgen had long since adopted the vibrate-only cell phone policy for himself and his staff.

He flipped his open, lifting it to his mouth. “Jorgen here.”

“This is Bill Franks.”

Dr. Franks’ distinctive voice crackled with excitement.

“I can tell that, Bill. What is it?”

“You better get down here, Hanz. Something incredible is happening.”

Without bothering to utter a word of response, Dr. Jorgen hoisted his large frame from the chair and headed out the door, flipping the cell phone closed as he ran. Although no one would think it to look at him, Dr. Jorgen could move with the agility of a man half his age and weight when he needed to. And right now, making his way rapidly down the steep stairs cut into the side of the canyon, he needed to.

Dr. Franks waited at the bottom of the steps, his face even paler than usual in the bright midmorning sun.

“What is it?” Dr. Jorgen asked between panting breaths.

Bill Franks pointed at the spot where the high desert mesquite had been cleared to open a path into the starship cave. The entrance was gone.

Dr. Jorgen rushed forward to touch the hillside where he had walked out of the cave just two hours before, bringing himself up short when his hand passed into what appeared to be solid ground.

“What the hell?” He pulled his hand back, somewhat surprised to see it reappear intact.

“It’s come alive.”

Dr. Jorgen was renowned for his quick wit and ability to rapidly analyze changing scientific data, but now he felt as if his thoughts were stuck in mud.

“The alien ship.” Dr. Franks grinned like a boy who’d just found his older sister’s diary. “A few minutes ago. It just came on.”

“And this?” Dr. Jorgen pointed to the illusory wall in front of him.

“Some sort of advanced hologram. It appeared at the same time.”

“Out of my way.” Dr. Jorgen had to get inside the cave. As excited as he’d been when he first laid eyes on the alien starship, this went beyond that.

The darkness beyond the hologram was not complete, but it surprised him. The banks of lights his team used to study the exterior of the starship had all been turned off, leaving a magenta glow, which seemed to emanate from the air itself.

Bill Franks stepped up beside him. “We turned them off to better see this.”

At the far end of the cavern, Dr. Jorgen could see the smoothly curved bulk of the starship, completely draped with the metal scaffolding that supported the researchers and their equipment.

Dr. Jorgen took two steps forward, then stopped one more time to stare at the unearthly illumination.

“Beautiful. Just beautiful.”

Losing one’s fascination with life was like dying, and El Chupacabra had no intention of doing either. He knew how to watch, and he knew how to wait. This was how it worked. Watch and wait.

Eduardo could have just searched Jennifer’s room, going through her personal things with the same unmatched thoroughness that had made him the world’s best assassin. Instead, he strolled out past the north end of Don Espeñosa’s gardens, found a tall tree, and climbed.

As he lifted himself onto a concealed branch that provided a nice armrest, Eduardo pulled the Swarovski EL 10x32 binoculars from a cargo pocket on his trouser-leg. They were easily the best compact binoculars in the world, perfectly waterproof and nitrogen filled so that they never fogged, even in the Amazon. Eduardo loved them, especially now that Swarovski had removed the slight golden bias present in the lenses of earlier models.

Aiming the binoculars at Jennifer’s balcony, Eduardo adjusted the focus. The white French doors were open wide, embracing the spectacular view of the gardens and mountains on the north side of the estate. An outside sitting area with a small round table and two deck chairs sat immediately above and to the right of the patio where Eduardo had met the startling young lady. From this angle Eduardo had a clear view of almost the entire bedroom beyond.

Jennifer Smythe still lay asleep beneath a sheet on her bed, the heavier covers having been turned back by the servant who had carried her up to her room. The bedroom was as Eduardo remembered it, having stayed there in one of his previous visits to the estate. A wicker reading chair and coffee table sat across the room from the bed, near the door that opened in from the second-floor hallway. One thing that had changed was the oak desk on which a laptop computer sat open, the screensaver’s multicolored fractal lines cutting a swath across the blackness.

Eduardo shifted his eyes to the sleeping girl. Almost as if she felt his gaze, the girl’s sleeping form shifted. Stretching her arms high above her head, a smile crept onto her lips. Then with a start, Jennifer Smythe sat straight up. She continued to sit there, her stillness interrupted only when she leaned forward and puked in her own lap. He continued to watch as Jennifer jumped out of bed, wadded the sheets, dumped them into a pile and disappeared into the bathroom.

Eduardo smiled, remembering the feel of her fear as their minds had touched. She gave good head a whole new meaning.

Spending much less time in the shower than he would have expected, Jennifer reappeared, wrapped in a white robe. She moved quickly across the room, opened the closet, and although the closet door partially obscured his view, it seemed that she pulled something from a high shelf, possibly a suitcase or large bag.

Whatever she was after did not take her long to find, and the change in her face as she reemerged from the closet was clear. She had entered in a panic of intensity, but now the girl radiated hope.

Jennifer paused, tossed something onto the coffee table and plopped into the wicker chair. Again, Eduardo adjusted the binoculars’ zoom and focus.

A narrow, three-quarter loop of metal or shiny plastic lay on the coffee table. What was that? A headband? Shifting his gaze back to Jennifer, Eduardo saw that she held a similar band, gazing raptly down at it. Then, inhaling deeply, she slid the band onto her head, positioning it more like a military headset than a young girl’s decorative headband. The analogy wasn’t exactly right. The ends of the band were positioned over her temples, not her ears, but the intent looked the same.

Once again Jennifer’s expression underwent a remarkable change, the worry lines in her face disappearing as he watched. Her brown eyes remained open, but the look became distant. It wasn’t that they lost focus. Instead, they focused on something that only she could see.

For the next forty-seven minutes, Jennifer Smythe remained in the chair without moving, the relaxed intensity of her expression unchanging. Then, like you’d get up from a movie as the theatre lights came on, Jennifer arose from the chair, removed the headband, and deposited it and its twin back in the hidden container in the closet.

Dressing with a purpose and alacrity that Eduardo would not have believed possible only a few minutes before, the young lady walked confidently out of her room, closing the door behind her.

Without hesitation, Eduardo pocketed the binoculars and dropped from the tree, sprinting toward the house along a path that avoided the garden. He emerged from the woods between a free-standing six-car garage and the servant’s entrance. Two white-coated cooks raised their eyebrows questioningly as he moved through the kitchen, but upon seeing who it was, returned quickly to their business.

He passed through a pair of swinging doors into the narrow service hallway and opened the first door on his right. Taking the stairs two at a time, Eduardo paused only momentarily before stepping into the second-floor hallway.

Finding it empty, he walked to Jennifer’s door, twisted the knob, and stepped inside. After closing the door behind him, he moved to the closet. Eduardo pulled the twin slatted doors open, flipped the light switch, and stepped inside. The closet was a large walk-in, a small assortment of clothes hanging from only one of the four available clothes racks, the emptiness adding to the closet’s apparent size.

Glancing up, he could see a single charcoal-colored suitcase on the top rack. Eduardo lifted it down, setting it gently on the closet floor. The suitcase was divided into two compartments with three zip-up pouches for holding shoes and accessories. Both main compartments were empty, but in the second of the accessory pouches he found what he was looking for: the mysterious headbands.