Rift (20 page)

“Batista might have kept her there. As long as she's alive, I guess it doesn't matter where she is.”

“Look, Cameron. We've already gone over this. You can't help Misty if you compromise yourself. The only way she'll be safe is if you continue to be safe as well.”

“I just want to talk to her. Is that so wrong? Just because we may not be right as a couple doesn't mean I don't love her.”

“You can try her from Lee's house, all right?”

Again this makes sense, even if I don't want it to.

“So what do we do now? How long are we going to stay here in this cabin?”

“Not much longer. We should get back and check on Lee. But since it's nearly five o'clock, we might as well wait until then. I'm curious to see if there is anything on the early news about your stop at the convenience store.”

“I don't know why there would be.”

“Probably there isn't, but you'd be surprised what passes for a story around here. If a television reporter picked up something on a police scanner, he'd be there in no time.”

The remote sits on a shelf below the television. I switch it on just as a talk-show host is introducing Jack and John, a couple of skinheads who strut onto the stage in an eruption of censored profanity. The studio audience immediately berates them.

“Are those the kind of people I'm up against?”

“Yes and no,” Crystal says. “Men like this comprise the bulk of the neo-Nazi movement. Many of them are members of the AFA I told you about. But they're also the least likely to do anything serious, the least likely to organize something pervasive and powerful enough to threaten the country. And a lot of skinheads eventually give up the lifestyle, anyway. Aggressively hating everyone requires more energy than they think.”

“So who is the real enemy?”

“Well, some might say Jeff Ender, the leader of the AFA, or William Pierce, the head of another neo-Nazi organization called the National Alliance. But I'm not so convinced. Those two are politicians, not action-oriented leaders who can organize and direct any sort of offensive against the U.S. government. I think the real enemies are people we don't know. Or worse—maybe we know them but we don't yet realize what they are.”

“Offensive against the government? Are you really sure about that?”

“We're not sure about anything. But we hear a lot of disturbing rumors from people who have been on the inside, Cameron. You can't just ignore something like that.”

“But don't you think the government can take care of itself? I mean, they've done a pretty good job so far. I think I would leave this sort of thing to the FBI.”

“You would, huh? I guess you say that because the FBI has such an excellent track record handling extremists in the past. They really saw the Oklahoma City bombing coming, didn't they? September eleventh?”

“What about all the good stuff they do that doesn't make the news?”

“My point is that there are weaknesses in the system.”

“But this network that you claim exists, how does it propose to do any better? Without the resources of the FBI, how can you possibly hope to combat anyone who could seriously threaten the government?”

“Who said we didn't have the resources of the FBI?”

“I don't understand.”

“The government is made up of people, Cameron. Human beings with opinions and prejudices and faults and weaknesses. A lot of our representatives are like you, completely ignorant of the wars going on in this country every day, but many others are quite aware. Most of these fall on either one side or the other. Those whose opinions match ours might be willing to help if they could be assured there was a need for their help.”

The talk show ended a few moments ago, and now that the commercials are ending, it looks as if the local news is about to begin.

“You're saying you have contacts in the FBI?”

“I'm saying that if there was a dramatic need for assistance, it's possible that we could obtain such assistance from organizations you wouldn't necessarily expect. Public
and
private. After all, who do you think stands to lose the most because of NeuroStor?”

“Airlines, I guess.”

“And?”

“Other transportation companies. Bus and train lines.”

“How about Big Oil? Automakers?”

“Yeah, I guess. But . . .”

“But what?”

“What the hell
is
your group, Crystal? You haven't really told me anything.”

“I don't know what else there is to tell.”

“Oh, come on. How many people are in it? Do you have a leader? Where does your money come from?”

“We get money from the members. They donate for the cause.”

“
What
cause?”

“I told you: to answer the extremists who want to terrorize our country and infect it with their separatist agenda.”

“What are you, Batman? People don't just go around taking the law into their own hands.”

Crystal smiles. “Oh, yeah? Who was it that e-mailed me instead of calling the police after he got away from a couple of NeuroStor hit men?”

That shuts me up.

“Come on, now. Tom or not, you contacted me because you thought I would know how to retaliate against NeuroStor. That I could help you get on the news or something that would make them answer for what they did to you.”

“I—”

“Tell me I'm wrong,” she says.

The evening news theme saves me, trumpeting theatrically, and our attention turns again toward the television. The news anchors appear, their faces contorted with an apparent mixture of gravity and excitement, and suddenly I get the feeling that something is desperately wrong.

The camera frames both anchors initially—a stout, fair-haired fortyish man (Steve Johnson) and a twentysomething brunette (Kelly Smith)—as they introduce themselves. Then a second camera angle zooms in on Steve, who immediately opens with the evening's top story.

“A Good Samaritan's deed turned deadly in Scottsdale this afternoon, and her attacker is still at large.”

Now the picture cuts to Kelly Smith, who offers the next bite of information.

“That's right, Steve. Thirty-one-year-old Nicole Shepherd was found by her husband, local attorney Matt Shepherd, apparently murdered in her home this evening. Early reports suggest that Mrs. Shepherd accepted a drifter into her home sometime around eight
AM
, and while details are sketchy, it appears this mysterious visitor is currently the prime suspect in what can only be described as a vicious murder. Let's go to Abbie Bishop, our reporter on the scene in Scottsdale.”

My heart beats frenetically as the anchors are replaced by an attractive brunette reporter standing in front of a store of some kind. For an instant I wonder why she isn't reporting from the crime scene, and then I realize she's at the entrance of the Texaco where I first met Nicole.

“Thank you, Kelly. While police are currently going over Mrs. Shepherd's house looking for clues and forensic evidence, Channel Three has learned of the victim's first encounter with the suspect here at this Texaco station at Pima and Greenway. Mr. Clyde Chambers was the main witness of this encounter. Mr. Chambers, please describe to our viewers what you saw this morning.”

And here is the buffoon from the Texaco station, the fellow who blundered into my encounter with Nicole and hammered me with his fat fists.

“I had just sold this nice lady a doughnut and coffee, and not ten seconds later I hear screaming outside. I go out there and here is this guy who I can tell has been, you know, had his paws on her. So I start yelling at him to get the heck off our property, to leave our customers alone. He gets mad, of course, and tries to attack me, so I hit him back a few times. I guess the lady felt sorry for him because the next thing I know she's letting the guy get into her car.”

“Right away?” Abbie asks. “Did you hear any of their conversation? Surely they must have said something. Perhaps they knew each other.”

“I don't know about that. This guy didn't look like your average . . . I mean, he didn't look like he lived around here or anything. The customers here, they kind of fit a pattern, you know? I recognize most of 'em, anyway. This guy looked like he'd been hiking across the desert.”

“But did you hear what they said?”

“No, I went back into the store and watched them from the counter. I think she gave him some money and then must have offered him food or something, because the next thing I know he's getting into the car with her.”

“What did you do then?”

“I went back outside and asked if everything was okay. She didn't say anything. Just kind of ignored me. I knew something bad would come of it, though. I just knew it.”

Cut to the reporter, Abbie, again. “Kelly, from what we've been able to piece together from all sources so far, it appears Mrs. Shepherd drove the drifter back to her house, fed him, and allowed him to take a bath. Maybe she angered her visitor at some point, or perhaps his plan all along was to attack. At some point Mrs. Shepherd appears to have locked herself in a closet, because that's where she was found. The door, police say, was forced open. She was shot at least twice, gangland-style, in the head and chest.”

I can no longer breathe.

Cut back to the anchors again, who are now looking at a large, studio TV monitor where the reporter is still pictured. Now Steve speaks. “Abbie, have the police found any trace of the man? Any way to identify him?”

Cut again to Abbie. “Steve, the police have declined to answer questions about possible evidence. They would say, however, that the suspect apparently fled the scene in the Shepherds' car, which was last seen by a police officer heading north on Pima. The car is a late-model silver Nissan Maxima. License number E-R-L-four-zero-nine. The suspect should be considered armed and extremely dangerous. Contact the police immediately if you see this car. We've also been told that a sketch will be ready for our six o'clock broadcast.”

The anchorman appears on the screen again, makes a final statement, and goes on to some other story. Crystal sits down beside me.

“That woman was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, Cameron. You even thought up an alibi for her. What else could you have done?”

“I could have turned her down. Stayed away from her house. Not used her computer.”

“And then you wouldn't be here. You'd still be running instead of fighting back. The only problem is that we don't know what she told them. They probably tortured her, and we have to assume she gave in and told them about Flagstaff.”

“You don't understand. Two people are dead. Dead! I don't know how much longer I can . . . I mean, how can I be a party to—”

“You've gone too far to back away now. Lee and I have put ourselves in danger to help you. Others are waiting to do the same. You have to see this through.”

I hear the words, but they make little sense to me. A fog bank has rolled into my head, obscuring thought, beclouding reason.

“Why would they kill her?” I wonder aloud.

“Because she knew about you. That's why you can't talk to your wife again until this is over. You don't want to—”

“That's where you're wrong,” I say. “I
have
to call her now. Just to hear her voice. To make sure she's alive.”

“Cameron, you don't even know if she's—”

“I'll use Lee's computer so they can't trace the call. If she's still home, I want to hear her voice. This is very important to me.”

“Cam—”

“Let's go,” I say. “We're driving back to Lee's house. Right now.”

“Someone is going to find that woman's car. When they do, the whole town will be after you. Now that we know the cops are looking for you, it's better to stay here.”

“But how would they find me? No one here knows what I look like.”

“What about the guy who saw your convulsion? He even saw the car, didn't he?”

“Oh, shit. He did. He saw the car.” This throws me, because if that kid sees the news, he'll call the police for sure. But this knowledge still doesn't lessen my need to talk to Misty.

“We're going,” I say again. I grab Crystal's keys from the kitchen counter. “I just want to hear her voice. I have to know if my wife is alive.”

six

F
or some reason, I'm a little nauseous as we get back into the car. So of course the ride back to Lee's house seems to take forever. Crystal drives slowly to minimize the chance of being stopped by a police officer, and every traffic light is red. I stare at the horizon and concentrate on not vomiting, point the air-conditioning vent into my face and inhale deep breaths of icy air. For a while I think I've got the nausea under control, at least long enough to get back on solid ground, but then we get stuck behind the fits and starts of an eighties-era Chevrolet driven by an old woman who either has forgotten where she is going or never really knew in the first place. Time crawls to a stop.

“What comes next?” I ask Crystal, trying to direct my attention away from my stomach. “You must have devised a plan well before you met me.”

“It depends. If you spill your guts to your wife, then I don't know what we're going to do. Our only advantage right now is surprise. If you tip our hand—”

“I'm not going to do that. If she answers I'll just hang up.”

“Like that won't be obvious.”

“Okay, what if I act like I'm a telemarketer calling the wrong number? They won't be able to trace the call anyway.”

“Maybe you should stick with your first idea. She might figure out it's your voice.”

“Anyway, what do you have planned? What are you going to do with this surprise advantage?”

“Expose them to the public. On national television.”

“How do you propose to do that?”

“The exact details are still being worked out. It depends on what sort of support we get.”

“Support?”

“How many men and supplies we can arrange.”

“Supplies for what?”

“We're going to record admissions from NeuroStor and broadcast this on national television.”

“I don't understand. How are you going to get anything on
national
television?”

“I told you, I don't know the exact details right now. But we have to do this. We have to get your story, your proof, on TV. It's the only way to mobilize the millions of apathetic people out there who have no idea what's going on.”

“Apathetic people? Just because everyone doesn't run around fighting conspiracies, that doesn't mean we're all apathetic.”

“I know. I just wish more people would take time to learn about the world around them. There are people—millions of them, all over the world—who would gladly take away your freedom if they had the chance. The last thing we need is that same threat from our own citizens.”

“So you're going to somehow get on national TV and tell them what to think?”

“No! But I want to provide the information people need to make a good decision. That's one of the ways a repressive government or organization works, by limiting the outside information available to its constituents. When people find out who NeuroStor is and what they want to do, they'll be furious. That's all I want. For people to know.”

I remember Nicole, the gun wavering in her hand as she pointed it at me. She was so frightened, so sure that she had unknowingly brought death into her home. And I left her there. But I honestly didn't think they would . . . I wasn't even sure they would
go
there, let alone
kill
her.

“Who are these people, Crystal? These ‘extremists'? Why are they so damn brutal?”

“I told you. They're racial separatists who—”

“I know, I know. American Federation of Aryans. But I want to know who they
are
. What the hell are they trying to do with the transmission machine that makes them kill?”

She brings the car to a stop, and I realize we are in front of Lee's house. The sun is low in the sky now, the street painted dark with shadows.

I open the car door, and immediately something is wrong. Nausea rushes back into my throat as I step onto the curb. My head begins to spin, and I can't figure out which foot to put where.

Crystal says, “Like I mentioned earlier, we're not exactly sure what—”

The ground swirls toward me. Crystal extends her arm to break my fall, but I push her away and sink to my knees.

“Cameron!”

What's left of Nicole's Chinese food urps out of my mouth, along with a slick of sour bile. My stomach clenches again, but this time the heave is dry. Clenches and clenches and clenches some more. I'm turning inside out.

“Cameron, honey,” Crystal says, kneeling beside me. “I'm sorry, but let's get inside. We don't want anyone to see—”

“Fuck them!” I say. “Who the hell is going to recognize—”

Again my stomach clenches. Again. And again.

“Oh, God,” I moan. Pain like I've never felt before spreads throughout my gut. I wipe the spit off my lips and bring back something red.

“You're bleeding. Let's get you into the house.”

My head stops spinning long enough for me to stand. Crystal takes my hand and leads me into the house, where Lee meets us. His mouth opens wide.

“What happened to him?”

“I don't know. He got out of the car and couldn't stand. Started throwing up blood.”

They lead me to a sofa. I don't lie down. I'll throw up again if I lie down.

Crystal goes into the kitchen to clean her hands. Already the blood and bile are drying on my own hands and face. I must look stunning.

“I'm sorry for yelling at you,” I say. “I was out of my head.”

Crystal comes back into the living room and sits down beside me. She's brought a wet paper towel with her. I try to grab it, but instead she wipes my lips and cheeks herself.

None of us speak for a few moments. For the first time I realize what an incredible liability I am to these people. Certainly I have every reason to be angry and frustrated for the way they manipulated me, for the way they used Tom to get to me, but do I have the leverage to yell at Crystal? Can I afford to lash out when she is the only chance I have to get out of this situation intact? I don't think so. I don't know why they're even bothering to help me anymore. They've already gotten what they wanted from me. They already know NeuroStor is trying to cover up a botched transmission.

“She's dead,” I finally say.

“Who's dead?” asks Lee, who sits in a chair beside us, watching Crystal's every movement.

“The woman in Scottsdale who helped me.”

“No way.”

“We just heard it on the news,” Crystal adds. “Cameron wants to call his wife with that emulation program you have. He wants to make sure she's all right.”

Lee looks at me like I'm the worst thing that has ever happened to him.

“What's been going on here?” Crystal asks him. “Any luck?”

“Not really,” he says. “Got through, finally, but they've isolated their other systems from the Web server as best as I can tell. I'll have to try something else.”

Crystal nods. “I figured that.”

“We need to get into one of their local offices,” he says. “I think the computers there have access to more than just the transaction programs.”

“What makes you say that?” Crystal asks.

“You remember that friend I told you about in Phoenix, the one who works for the Tempest company? I finally got in touch with him. I figured it would be worth a try to use some of their detection instruments, but he told me that NeuroStor fully shields all of their workstations. Like every office is the damn Pentagon or something.”

Crystal frowns at this, but Lee has lost me.

“What is ‘Tempest'?”

“Monitors and other computer instruments emit radiation that can be detected and interpreted if you have the right kind of equipment. For instance, someone could stand outside this house and see what is on my computer screen. Sort of like using an antenna to receive television signals. It's not cheap to shield this radiation, though, so it's mostly done by governments and contractors who do sensitive work for them.”

“And NeuroStor,” I add.

“Like I said, the Phoenix office must have access to sensitive information. If we can just figure out a way to—”

“We're not going to have time for that,” Crystal says.

Lee again looks at me as if passing judgment. “Why not?”

“Cameron had contact with someone before he found us on the mountain. He had a seizure in front of a convenience store clerk.”

“So?”

“So the clerk saw his car. And if he also saw the news tonight, it's not going to be long before a shitload of cops and whoever else are looking for him. We don't need that kind of heat.”

“How am I supposed to get anything out of their computers if you don't give me more time?”

“We'll have to go to Dallas without it.”

“And then what?”

“And then we'll figure something out!” Crystal yells at him. Her cheeks have gone red and her eyes are narrow. “Now get in there and run this program for Cameron. After that, we'll call Clay and tell him to proceed with Stage Two. Then we're getting the hell out of here.”

Lee vanishes like an apparition. Crystal turns to me and the red is magically gone, her eyes wide and smiling.

“Feeling any better?” she asks.

“A little. What was that all about?”

“Lee is a smart guy, but he needs direction. You have to raise your voice every once in a while to keep him focused.”

“What's Stage Two? Something to do with our home office in Plano? That's near Dallas.”

“Exactly.”

“We're going there?”

“Sure we are. If we're going to incriminate them on camera, they're not going to come here. Come on, let's go back and call your wife.”

I follow her back to the computer room. Crystal finds a bare spot beneath a window, and Lee pulls up a rickety office chair.

“Sit down, dude,” he says. “Let's call your wife.”

I take a seat in front of the computer screen. The interface is basic. Two input fields (
ORIGINATION NUMBER
and
DESTINATION NUMBER
) and two buttons (
DIAL
and
CLEAR FIELDS
). The origination number has already been populated.

“This program talks to AT&T's long-distance network. It will confuse the router and make it think we're calling from some other phone number. So if someone tries to perform a simple trace, they'll get bogus information. But you can't stay on too long, because sophisticated equipment can get around this misdirection eventually.”

“Okay.”

“I used the Internet to find the phone number of a carpet cleaning service about ten miles from your house. Hopefully when you hang up, whoever is listening won't get suspicious.”

He's thought of everything. Now all I have to do is dial the number. Connected speakers and a mike have turned Lee's modem into a speakerphone.

“Punch the numbers and hit enter to dial?”

“You got it.”

And then maybe I can hear Misty's voice.

If she's home.

If she's alive.

I reach forward and slowly press the numbers. My area code is 281. It only changed a few years ago, but it'll probably change again soon. All the modems and faxes and cellular phones have crowded our telephone lines. It's hard to believe that just a few years ago—

“Cameron?” Crystal says. “I don't want to rush you, but we don't have a lot of time here.”

I depress the
ENTER
key.

From the speakers, a click. A dial tone. Rapid touch tones.

One ring.

Two.

Three, then another click. I already know what's coming next. My own voice, the joke I made before I left for the—

“You've reached 5-5-5-1-1-1-9. We can't come to the phone . . .”

But this is not the joke. This is not the same announcement that was on the machine when I left.

I'm about to say something to Crystal about this when the message is interrupted. Someone picks up the phone. Answers.

“Hello?”

My next breath doesn't come. It's a man's voice on the other end of the line. A
man's
voice. Why the hell is a
man
answering
my
telephone?

“Hello?” he asks again.

Only . . . only it sounds like the voice I just heard on—

On the answering machine.

It sounds like
my
voice.

“Hello?” the man asks a third time. “Who is this? Charlie, is that you?”

Charlie is one of my golf buddies. He's a terrible player. I have to spot him thirty strokes just so we can bet money.

Commotion behind me. I look around and find Lee dragging his index finger across his neck. He wants me to end the call.

But I can't. I have no idea what to do.

Lee lunges across my body and hits the
ESCAPE
key. The speaker crackles. The dial tone hums.