The Golden Crystal (3 page)

Clearing the outer edge of the camp, Bryce calculated the distance between him and Sergeant Rodriguez to be less than 100 yards; easy enough to make in a full-on sprint. By now, Rodriguez had seen his commanding officer break through the perimeter and was busy covering Bryce’s retreat. In the distance, Bryce thought he could even hear their extraction unit — a helicopter’s rotor wash flying in from the south. 

As he closed the distance to Rodriguez, he heard a break in the soldier’s shooting and looked up. The younger man was busy reloading — and Bryce knew he was vulnerable. He hoped to reach the spot in a few more seconds, and together they might be able to hold off the Iraqis for the few minutes it would take for the chopper to reach them. 

But as Rodriguez finished reloading, another shot rang out, and Rodriguez’ head jerked forward, ducking. Bryce frowned, and his pulse quickened.
That wasn’t AK-47 fire,
he thought. Another shot rang out, and Bryce saw the telltale twitch in Rodriguez’ body, like a jolting electrical shot. He’d been hit. 

“No!” Bryce screamed out in vain as he climbed the last few steps of the shallow hill. He dove for Rodriguez’ gun, simultaneously checking the man’s vitals. Dead. 

“Dammit!” He cursed, swiveling around again to continue firing at the fast-approaching Iraqis. As he turned, however, he caught a glimpse of the
other
approaching Iraqis — the ones coming up the hill from the
east,
behind Rodriguez’ position. 

He was being crushed between two oncoming forces, and he was the only American soldier left. At least five men were coming up from the west, and now he saw the silhouettes of three more. One carried a sniper rifle and was no doubt the one who’d killed Rodriguez. 

Shit. This was going to end very painfully
. Bryce readied himself, and lowered his torso to the ground. He fired three bursts at the men coming from the direction of the camp, and two of the men fell. Turning, he aimed for the three coming from the east. 

They were aiming back at him. 

A muzzle flash flared outward from the gun held by the man on the left. A split second passed, and Bryce felt the round pierce his shoulder. He screamed, and dropped completely to the ground. Blood trickled down his forearm, and he loosened the grip on his gun. 

A second flash twinkled in Bryce’s eyes, this time from the sniper. He heard the round whiz by, just over his head. 

I’m going to die here,
he thought. He tried lifting his rifle to his eye, but the pain from his shoulder wound was too great. Then his knee lit up in a fiery wash of pain. Too weak to scream, he let out a low wail as he buried his face sideways into the sand, calmed by the gentle warmth of the Iraqi desert ground. 

His left hand reached up to his shirt pocket, and he shifted a little, slowly, trying to grab at the small notebook he’d stolen from the camp. 

If I’m going out like this, I’m going to at least figure out why,
he thought. 

He brought the book up to his head. Straining to open his eyes, he let the cover fall open and glanced down at the first page. 

Nothing. 

It was completely blank. 

What? No!
Had he grabbed the wrong book? He flipped through another ten pages, all blank. 

All empty. 

He wanted to scream. Had he been set up? Why would this notebook — this
blank
notebook — be the subject of so much scrutiny, so much bloodshed?

And why was it addressed to someone named
M.J.
?

He moved his hand down, closer to his chest, and pushed the book under his body. He’d wanted to throw it, but he didn’t have the strength. If it was an object that was never supposed to be in enemy hands, he intended to make it that much more difficult for them to find. 

One last shot rang out as the men started up the hill. One more time Bryce felt the piercing burn of metal, punching through flesh. This time, his left arm took the brunt of the shot, though the bullet had only strafed. He thought about home; about his mom. 

Mom
. He wasn’t going to be able to get to her now. 

To save her. 

He squeezed his eyes shut and let the sand blow over him, willing the desert to swallow him. 

10:22 PM - WHITE ROCK, New Mexico, USA

The gust of wind hit Jake in the face and jolted him upright in his seat. Had he fallen asleep? He quickly squeezed his eyes open and shut a few times, working out the grogginess. Rolling up the window of his 2008 Ford Focus, he set his gaze on the dark, winding road in front of him. After making this hour-long trip from Santa Fe to the laboratory twice a week for the past two years, he knew the mountainous highway pass could be treacherous, especially at night. The Albuquerque and Santa Fe news stations routinely reported accidents along this section of Highway 4  —  and accidents that usually involved casualties. 

As the road ahead straightened out, Jake stole a glance toward the phone in his lap. Had he really been out of it enough to miss a call? With one hand on the wheel, he thumbed through his messages and tapped the number of the missed call. 

“Jake? Where are you?” 

“Hey honey  —  I must have missed your call. Sorry about that. What’s up?” He knew even before he said it exactly what was “up.” Feigning ignorance was an attempt to distract her; let her calm down. 

It didn’t work. The initial concern in Ally’s voice disappeared in a heartbeat. 

“You need to get over here, now,” she said. “It’s been a week, and we still haven’t worked through this! Are you going to keep running away from our problems even after the baby comes?”

Jake’s mind raced through the excuses he had planned over and again in his head during the last few days. Maybe they weren’t supposed to be together right now  —  not with his new job. Her post-graduate studies had made things more difficult as well, and they rarely spent time together. Maybe they were too stubborn; maybe he just needed some alone time, maybe… 

“Jake.” Her voice in his ear woke him out of his thoughts. 

“I know  —  I’m on my way now; I just need some time to process everything  —  ”

“You’ve had
enough
time to process this, Jake! Your work keeps getting in the way, or you’re not ready to talk, or you have some other reason to push this off! The fact of the matter is this baby is coming, and neither of us can do anything about it.” 

He knew the story  —  it was his fault to begin with. Hearing her retell it, he couldn’t help but relive the past three weeks. 

The project at work. Knowing she wouldn’t understand, but longing to tell her everything and hope she would trust him. 

News of his father’s death last month. 

Traveling to Arizona for the memorial with Ally nearly eight months pregnant.

The argument over something so small, so stupid really. 

The fight that grew and grew during the trip, leading to their temporary separation  —  Ally to her parents’ place in Durango, and Jake staying home in Albuquerque to continue working while they sorted things out.

It amazed Jake how quickly they went from best friends to bitter opponents  —  over something so insignificant. He knew how it would end. She’d apologize for being irrational, and he’d promise to stop being so stubborn. They would laugh a little and kiss, and then go back to the way it had always been since they’d met in college at Boulder, arguing over lab assignments and helping each other out on midterms.

His reverie slowly faded, and he smiled at the fact she hadn’t yet stopped talking  —  now she was rehashing how her mother had tried to talk her out of marrying him. Man, they’d been through a lot together  —  and it had only been seven years. They’d laughed, cried, fought, and otherwise experienced the full range of human emotions together, and now he thought about how much he cared for her. 

As Ally talked, the road climbed into a steep left turn around a mountainside, with a sheer cliff on the right. Jake compensated for the incline by pushing down harder on the gas, and began to veer left into the turn. 

“Jake, are you listening to me? I love you  —  we just need to talk, and I don’t want to do it over the phone. How much longer will  —  ” her voice cut off mid-sentence just as a heavy
SNAP
sounded around him. It was like the air in the car had been immediately and violently sucked out  —  the resulting pressure change in the car even caused his ears to pop.

What the hell?
He checked his phone  —  dead. As he fumbled for the power button, however, he realized it wasn’t just the phone. Everything around him had gone completely dark. 

The dashboard wasn’t lit, the radio had died, the red LED on his phone’s charger had vanished; even the solitary streetlights every few hundred yards had gone out. Jake was suddenly plunged into an enveloping blackness.

But the car was still moving, now cresting the hill and accelerating downward. Jake pressed on the brake, but the pedal slid easily to the floor. He tried the ignition and the power steering as well, but got nothing. It was as if the car  —  and everything around him electronic or mechanical  —  had just shut off at once. He tried to stay calm, to focus on slowing the car, but gravity was against him. His palms started to sweat as he tried to picture the edge of the road  —  the slight shoulder with a rocky gorge beyond. Jake had driven this pass plenty of times  —  from home to the lab and back  —  but without headlights, he couldn’t see a thing. 

The right tires began to kick up gravel, and Jake pulled hard on the wheel, trying to compensate. He over-corrected, and it was too much. The back tires kicked toward the cliff as the car skidded perpendicular to the road. Jake felt the pull of momentum, but he held fast to the steering wheel with his left hand as he reached for the emergency brake with his right. Yanking back as hard as he could, he immediately felt the brake grab. The tires locked, but the car didn’t slow, sliding through the loose gravel as though it were on a sheet of ice. 

Time slowed to a crawl; Jake was helpless and frozen in place. There was nothing he could do to prevent the inevitable crash. An intense flash of light enveloped him, and he heard the engine and instruments come back to life  —  as if they had never stopped. The flash dissipated, and he was able to again make out the headlights and dashboard instruments  —  just as the same loud SNAP and pressure change from moments before hit him again. 

All this he saw and felt in an instant; one that vanished as time sped back to normal. He saw before him the vast emptiness beyond the edge of the cliff as the car shot over the brink. Time slowed once more; he was suddenly weightless. He hovered a few inches above his seat, tethered by the seatbelt. As the car hurtled toward the ground, Jake could do nothing but stare through the windshield, mesmerized and helpless.

9:13 AM - WHITE ROCK, New Mexico, USA

Cole’s morning was shaping up to be one of the best he’d had in a while. The sweltering heat of summer had finally faded into a bearable warmth that made his early morning runs quite enjoyable. Throughout college, he’d slowly gained weight and gotten less fit, and as he continued to eat whatever — and whenever — he liked, he watched his high-school football player’s body morph into a middle-aged storehouse of excess flab. At 27, Cole finally decided this “extra baggage” was unacceptable.

14 months and 67 pounds later, Cole was well on his way to being more healthy and fit than he’d ever been. His parents were proud of his weight loss and fitness accomplishments, but they feared that Cole was too “into” his workouts, and his new lifestyle was going to consume him. Already he’d gone through three girlfriends in three cities in just over five years, and each failed relationship had left him feeling emptier than the one before. 

But now, with just the open road to contend with, none of that mattered. He enjoyed this run — the 7.2 miles from his home outside of White Rock to the second switchback, where he’d turn and head home. New Mexico’s mountainous landscape stretched for miles ahead and to his left, and a sheer cliff face flew upwards on his right. Running used to daunt him but in this setting it was different; more relaxing. 

As he approached the second switchback, his mind wandered, comparing his past failures and disappointments with his present health and potential. A year ago he couldn’t have walked this route without oxygen. Today, he’d finish the run, take an ice bath, and not even feel strained in the morning. Maybe he’d head into Santa Fe tonight and meet up with some new friends, or maybe he’d relax at home with a movie and a beer. Cole loved the freedom of living one day at a time, accountable only to himself. 

The switchback appeared ahead of him, and he slowed to a jog for the last hundred yards. Just as he started his turn, he caught a flash out of the corner of his eye. Three hundred yards away at the base of the cliff, he could barely make out a destroyed vehicle. 

Cole stopped and stared.
That wasn’t there yesterday
.
Surely the police should know about it by now
. He squinted, unable to make out any details. He started jogging toward the wreck — from here, he couldn’t see any signs of other cars or people. There were no sirens either.

He got closer. The sedan was almost completely crushed — obliterated, really. He wouldn’t have been able to even recognize that the thing used to be a vehicle if not for the tires — one was smashed, but still connected to the axle, and another could be seen resting on its side about a hundred paces off. He looked up, knowing that the stretch of road he was on climbed up and around this mountain. These highways in and out of White Rock and the surrounding area often had switchbacks and tight turns, and someone must have driven their car off the road, landing on this lower section of road.

 There was a blackened wall of rock to the car’s left, and a small crater beneath it, spreading and cracking onto the two-lane highway. Bits and pieces of charred vehicle and metal components were strewn outward around the wreckage. The whole mess was steaming and smoking, and he could hear hisses and pops every few seconds.