The Traveler (11 page)

“You fuckin' rats going to move or am I goin' to throw you into a stew?” the raised voice asked loudly. The squirrels all stopped and looked up into the angry and mean face of the man and then decided they would indeed act like squirrels and run for their lives.

“Yeah, that's what I friggin' thought, bunch of pussies.”

Virginia shook her head as she watched Master Chief Petty Officer (retired) Harold C. Jenks slowly ease his bulk onto the grass. She saw that the master chief was tired. The blue denim work shirt he wore was wrinkled and the hair on his head was a little grayer. Assistant Director Pollock knew, like Jack and the rest of her colleagues, that Jenks wasn't taking the recent personnel losses to the nation too well. The master chief had lost as much as anyone at Group; he had lost a student and dear friend when Carl Everett vanished into the wormhole after guaranteeing the destruction of the enemy in its own dimensional shift over Antarctica.

The master chief pulled out a sandwich and then looked at it and decided he wasn't that hungry. Virginia saw him speak with several of his people who were far better dressed than Jenks. Their clothes were expensive and clean, while the owner of Blacksmith Engineering was a complete mess—
Even more so than usual
, Virginia thought. When Jenks said the last to his passing colleagues he saw the tall, thin woman looking at him. He closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them in time to see his worst nightmare still approaching.

“Well, I never thought I would gaze upon those legs again,” Jenks said as his eyes traveled up Virginia's legs to her white blouse and jacket.

“That makes two of us, Harold,” she said as she stepped forward until she stood over the reclined Jenks.

The master chief's face screwed into one of disgust at the mention of his first name. But then Virginia was the only person in the world who was ever allowed to refer to him that way. The very direct woman could be forgiven for a lot.

“Before you even begin, I'm done.”

Virginia smiled and then tossed Jenks her briefcase, which he caught in his lap but not before the corner of the case hit his left testicle. He winced as she sat next to him on the grass. She stretched out her long legs and then smiled over at him.

“Done with what?” she asked, teasing him like she always had.

Jenks started to throw the briefcase from his lap but caught himself as he knew from experience that Ms. Pollock was the only person he had ever known not to cower in terror at his voice. He gently laid the case aside.

“Done helping whatever it is you and your so-called think tank does.” He looked sad for the briefest of moments. “If there's anyone left, that is.” He looked deeply into her green eyes. “Your director and the president seemed to have killed off everyone else that I had any affection or respect for.” He looked away and then immediately back up. “Well, almost all, anyway. So tell your director Compton and his Captain America Jack Collins to screw off, I'm busy.”

Virginia knew he still held a soft spot in that black heart of his for her. Their relationship went back to 2007 when they had become close during the Amazonian expedition. She knew that Jenks was hurting just as much as everyone else after losing so many men and women in the recent war. Most were lost on his reengineered battleship left on Earth by the Martian civilization that preceded Earth by millions of years. Yes, Jenks felt the pangs of guilt and they mostly stemmed from losing the man he had trained as a navy SEAL when he was but a boy, Carl Everett. Jenks was unforgiving toward Jack, Niles, and even her at the sacrifice Carl had had to make in order to end the war. Virginia tilted her head and then placed a thin but beautiful hand on the rough, unshaven cheek of the man she had once been intimate with a million years before. He softened as her hand caressed him.

“Stop that,” he said as he pulled his face away.

“You poor bastard, you know how to be angry all the time but you never learned how to grieve, did you?”

“Look, Slim, take your pitch and sell it to some other broken-down ex-SEAL and even worse engineer. I assure you they are out there.”

“Yes, they are, and we've interviewed most of them. But alas, and I don't know the reasoning behind the decision, Jack and Niles want you and only you.”

“I'm done with consulting for your damn strange Group, Ginny, done.”

“I said nothing about consulting, Harold.”

A confused look crossed his gruff features.

“We want you to sign on with the Group full-time as the director for special projects. In other words we need all that engineering stuff you can bring to bear. Unlimited budget and full control of engineering and our rather unique facility.”

“No.”

“Full access to navy, air force, and army technology.”

“No.”

She smiled, knowing his weakness.

“I want you to take it.”

He looked sad for a moment. Then hardened. “No.”

She raised her brows.

“No.”

“We have something planned, Harold, and Niles and Jack need you, and only you.”

“No,” he said, and then looked at the woman he loved deeply, and he could say that about only two people he had ever known, Virginia and one other. He became deadly curious and he knew that was a bad thing. “What do you have planned?” he asked as he looked away for having caved so easily.

Virginia Pollock smiled, leaned in, and kissed Jenks fully on the mouth. She held it for the longest time, shocking anyone who worked for the former master chief as they gasped at the sight of the meanest man in the world being romanced by a gorgeous woman. She finally parted from him and then told him what the Event Group was up to.

Ten minutes later the master chief was deep in thought.

“Impossible” was his only word.

“We at Group don't care for that word much, Harold, you should know that.”

“Well, start believing and caring, because it's an impossibility. And I don't care who came up with it.”

Virginia stood, retrieved her briefcase, and then paused as she leaned in close to Jenks.

“Then I guess we'll have to make the attempt without you, Harold.”

Jenks watched her turn and start moving away toward the street. He looked to the sky and cursed his luck. But deep down after hearing what it was Virginia had to say, he knew he was trapped.

“Goddamn it!” he said loudly as he stood, frightening several of his consulting colleagues as they walked past, and then those same people watched stunned as the master chief ran after Virginia Pollock like a loving puppy toward its master.

“All right, I'll only listen on one condition,” he called out.

Virginia stopped and waited. “And that is?”

“Don't call me Harold, you manipulative she-devil.”

The assistant director smiled.

“You got it, Harold.”

The master chief watched Virginia smile and then she moved off, leaving him standing there just as angry as ever. “I'm freakin' glad we got that settled.”

Jenks chased after Virginia because he knew, failure or triumph, as an engineer and as a friend, he had to be in on the greatest scientific reach in the history of mankind.

 

3

CHATO'S CRAWL, ARIZONA

Colonel Henri Farbeaux thought he would never lay eyes on the small town again in his lifetime. As the United States Air Force Black Hawk banked hard over the dead town of Chato's Crawl, Arizona, chills coursed through the former French commando's skin as he recalled the horrors that took place here and in the mountains outside of the small town. Underneath his sunglasses his eyes roamed to the mysterious and foreboding Superstition Mountains, and their dark presence made the deserted town that sat in their ominous shadow welcoming by comparison.

“What is this place?” Anya Korvesky asked as she too saw the desolation of the thirteen-building ghost town. The rotors of the Black Hawk stirred up small dust devils that bounced from dead street corner to dead street corner, dodging the broken and rusty dregs of the automobiles left behind by the few citizens and reporters who survived that horrible two days in the desert.

Henri leaned back and was tempted to reach into his coat pocket and bring out a cigarette that he no longer carried nor had a habit for. He would just have to suffer through the memories of those days that had eventually started bringing to a close his colorful career as a collector of rare and valuable artifacts. Now he was but a paid messenger for a man he had sworn to kill over the death of a wife gone many years now. The past for Henri Farbeaux was always just a thought away, buried deep in memory that not even he himself could sort through.

“That, my dear, is what the Americans refer to as a ghost town. One that was quite active back in the summer of 2006.” Farbeaux closed his eyes as he leaned back just as the Black Hawk started to settle down into the desert scrub just outside the dead town. “This is Chato's Crawl. I'm sure it sparks a flare of memory for you.” He smiled over at her, making her feel uncomfortable and not knowing why. “After all, it was in all of the papers.”

The memory was indeed there thanks to the briefing reports from the Mossad. She looked back at the now-relaxed Farbeaux.

“The terrorist cell that was uncovered here and in the mountains?”

“Terrorist cell?” Henri gave her a bemused chuckle and then looked at Anya full on as he removed his sunglasses. “You're one of them now, and you'll soon learn that most American cover-ups start with a grain of truth and expand from there. Terrorists, yes, by all means they were indeed that.”

“One thing you should know about me, Colonel, I do not have your sense of humor.”

“Really?” he said as he leaned back against the bulkhead of the compartment and replaced his sunglasses. He smiled again as the large helicopter settled onto the sand-covered roadway where once upon a time giant C-130 Hercules cargo planes had set down to disgorge its cargo of 101st Airborne troops for the defense of the American desert. “Well, my dear, possibly being the future Mrs. Everett, you better develop that sense of humor.” His smile left his face as the wheels of the Black Hawk set down on the sand-covered roadway behind the large and abandoned Texaco station. Farbeaux finally sat up and looked at her seriously. “This is the town where the first shots of the war you just survived and your boyfriend did not were fired. Kind of ironic, isn't it? I mean being brought to the place where it all started, for me, for you,” he said as he saw the face of Jack Collins on the inside of his eyelids, “and for many others.”

“Well, we're not alone,” Anya said as the whine of the Black Hawk turbines started to dwindle to nothing as the air force crew chief opened the sliding door and hopped out.

Farbeaux assisted Anya from the helicopter and then saw that there were three more UH-60s sitting in a neat circle in the old parking lot of the Texaco station, which had seen far better days.

“This way,” the crew chief said, indicating the broken and smashed diner across the street.

Henri smiled as he recalled the first time he had been there and met the owner of the small eatery. He recalled her name: Julie Dawes. From what he understood the old man, Gus Tilley, had made the woman's and her son's lives quite comfortable after the finding of the Lost Dutchman gold mine. He shook his head as he took in the dilapidated diner. He lost his smile when he remembered the men he had lost in the town and below it in tunnels made by a being from another world as it sought to exterminate men from this planet—the opening shots of the war between mankind and the Grays.

As the filthy glass door of the diner was held open for them by the Black Hawk's crew chief, Henri immediately saw the three armed men just inside. The security was part of the Group. Henri could always tell because Collins trained his men to blend in. The three just sat around in civilian clothes and watched the grouping of six people waiting at tables that had been placed together.

“Colonel Farbeaux, Anya, have a seat, we'll be starting in a moment.”

Henri smiled at Virginia Pollock. He swore the lady had more grace to her than most women of royal blood would have coursing through their veins. In his estimation the assistant director of this very strange agency was just plain elegant and deserved to be treated that way.

“It is good to see you again, Dr. Pollock,” Farbeaux said as he went to her and kissed her hand. She smiled and then glanced over at a very perturbed Master Chief Jenks, who was puffing heavily on his cigar, which Virginia had told him not to light.

“Wait one goddamn minute,” Jenks said as he stood from the table he and Virginia had been sitting at. Virginia rolled her eyes when she realized the master chief was about to fly into a jealous rage. She batted her eyes, thinking that he did feel something for her after all. “You're that son of a bitch Frenchy colonel that sank my freakin' boat!” he said with wide eyes.

Henri realized who the brutish little man was and that he had been near him the entire time down in Antarctica and never put the face to the name—until now.

“Well, the famous Master Chief Jenks. Haven't seen you since—”

“You know goddamn well when the last time was, Froggy: when you blew up and sank my boat down in that backward-ass lagoon in the Amazon.”

“That's enough, we can talk about our colorful pasts another time. Sit down, please.”

All faces with the exception of Virginia Pollock's turned at the sound of the voice. Niles Compton stood at the swinging doors that used to front the kitchen of the Broken Cactus Bar and Grill. He placed his briefcase down on a covered table and then allowed Gunnery Sergeant Rodriguez to help him settle into the chair. Then Rodriguez and the other three security men went about the small area that used to be full of small cocktail tables, placing large monitors and computer links that had their power lines running over to the Texaco station where a small generator had been set up. There was only one of the original three pool tables left and that was being used by a tray full of Styrofoam cups and steaming coffee. Small sandwiches were also laid next to the service. All eyes were on the shattered features of the director of Department 5656.