The Twelve Stones (20 page)

Digging through the files in the cabinet, he found what he was looking for, his heart sinking as he looked at it. It was a birth certificate. Looking at the date, the ages were close enough to fit.

“
A father
-
son outing?” Geoffrey mused to himself. Flipping open his PDA, he typed in the name and social security number printed on the birth certificate. He sent the text before closing the phone and sliding it back into his pocket. It was amazing how easy technology made his job nowadays. With the right contacts, and a decent signal, you could find out all you wanted to with just a name and social security number. Shoot, even a photo was enough nowadays. Given a few more details
,
it was possible Geoffrey could unlock the man’s entire life and make it a living hell.

He grinned to himself; the secret price for all of life’s conveniences was privacy. Some people didn’t even realize how much they gave up about themselves online, making jobs like his even easier.

The phone buzzed
.
Geoffrey tapped
it,
bringing up the background check on his subject. Instant access, Geoffrey thought to himself as he read the file. He loved the future.

His name was Alex McCray, born September 19
th
, 1981 in Del Mar, California. He was raised in the public school system
,
getting above
-
average grades throughout his entire schooling career. In the third grade, his mother died in an accident
, killed
by a reckless hit
-
and
-
run driver. Receiving a huge settlement from the insurance company, Alex and his father moved up to the mountains.

After graduating high school, Alex attended Stanford University
,
where he graduated with a B average. Clearly, life was about to settle down for Alex McCray.

The first thing to strike him was how ordinary the first part of his file seemed. There was nothing interesting or unique about this young man in the slightest. Nothing to indicate he knew how to take down a helicopter
,
anyway. Geoffrey, frustrated, pawed through the files, skimming them with his finger. He almost missed reading the last item on the file.

After graduating from Stanford, Alex McCray had purchased a house and signed up for the
A
rmed
F
orces. Two weeks into his training, he was killed in a training accident. He hadn’t looked where he was going on base, and had been
hit
by a truck.

Alarm bells rang in his head. This was the type of information he was looking for, and it was not good news. He knew that Alex had handled the situation entirely too well to have been a simple civilian. However, this boy was supposed to be dead, which meant Geoffrey was back to square one.

He shook his head,
momentarily
allowing the anger he felt at himself surface. “Photos! Albums, yearbooks! I want everything!” Geoffrey snapped to the men milling around the house.

Omar glanced to his side, seeing a picture frame with three men standing in it. “Here’s one,” he called out, tossing the frame to Geoffrey from across the room.

Geoffrey snatched it away looking at the picture. Two of them were the men from the desert
.
T
he
old man that
owned
this house
.
A younger man
, unfamiliar to Geoffrey
,
wearing a high school graduation robe and hat
.
T
he third, also wearing robes, was the young man
he was after
.

Geoffrey removed the frame, dropping it to the floor
,
letting the glass crash
to the ground
,
as he flipped over the photo. The caption on the other side read:
Alex McCray and Scott Ermy
,
ready to take on the world. Class of 1999.

After a short search through the rest of the bedrooms in the house, he found more family photos.

Looking around the small bedroom, he spotted what he was looking for almost immediately. Four high school yearbooks lined the upper shelf, dated from 1995 to 1999. Grabbing the Class of 1999 from the bookshelf, he
looked over the cover, from which
two hundred high school seniors looked
back
up at him. Opening it, he ran his fingers across the names
,
looking for Alex McCray. Finding the name, he moved to the photo and he shook his head. The picture was old, but there was little doubt that the boy in the photo was the man that had killed five of his men, and crashed Kline’s helicopter into the desert floor. He
was
alive
,
and Alex McCray
was
his name
. With the Army’s claim of “killed on base
,
” the whole thing was beginning to add up.

Geoffrey smiled, relieved at what he was finding. This was an enemy he could understand. A man stuck in deep black bag cover? Geoffrey understood these sorts of men. Flipping through some more pages, he looked at the various names on the page.

Finding the second name on the photo
–
Scott Ermy
—
he moved his finger and found the picture of some poor kid with some incredible dental headgear. Geoffrey chuckled at the kid. That had to be the biggest geek he’d ever seen.

“
The only thing missing is a
Star Trek
uniform…” Geoffrey chuckled to himself.

Turning, Geoffrey looked at the other boxes that neatly lined the packed room. Going through a few, he found a few more interesting items.

The first was a Christmas Card dated six years ago
,
announcing that Alex and Emily were sending
“
12 Days of Happiness and Holiday Cheer
”
to all their friends and family, with a picture of a cute couple. The man Geoffrey instantly recognized as being the man from the desert. The woman was beautiful, long dark hair, lying in thick curls down her neck and shoulders. Geoffrey smiled at her, wondering who she was. He looked on the inside of the card:

Two years later and we’re still giving each other grief. Thanks
,
Pop
s
,
for all the help.
Underneath this was signed,
Alex.

Another message, on the opposite side of the card was written in the flowing script of a female, careful with her delivery
:

Ted,

Thank you for all the help you’ve given me and Alex over the years. I can’t tell you what a pleasure it’s been,
knowing that
I can count on
you
always. Thank you for your son, your love, and allowing me in your life.

Love always,

Emily Harper

Geoffrey smiled and tucked the card away in his coat pocket, making a mental note to follow up on it later.

The
next
item
was a graduation card, left in the pile. Geoffrey picked it up and opened the card, reading the inscription inside.

Well Alex, we made it through all four years without being trash canned or swirlied once! So now you’re up on teaching me how to get chicks at Stanford. Class of ’99 Rules!!”

Geoffrey rolled his eyes
and
continued reading.

In all seriousness, I want you to know you’re my best friend in the entire world
,
and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. We’re going to Stanford, we’re going to kick some ass, and we’re gonna save the world someday
,
you and me. I only hope I don’t have to move around too much. – Scott

Geoffrey nodded thoughtfully
.
T
his
wasn’t your normal
,
‘Have a cool summer!’ type of signing that most people left in other’s yearbooks. This was true friendship. He strode out into the hall, all business, the team looking up as
he walked into the living room.

“
Get me all the information you can find on Scott Er
m
y, graduated 1999, Onyx High School
,
”
h
e growled to the man standing outside. It was a long shot, but every black bag operative he knew had a go-to guy in case everything went FUBAR. It wasn’t the greatest lead, but he wasn’t about to let Alex McCray slip away again.

Chapter Seventeen

For the first five minutes in the ride over to the lab, Scott wasn’t sure who would say the first word. Alex was lost in thought and deep within his own head. Scott decided now might not be the time for interrogation
about
his whereabouts for the last six years.

Instead, Scott regaled Alex with heroic tales of his graduate work at Stanford, first on dark matter, and now more recently, the new Mission to Mars Program. NASA had set a landing date of 2020
,
and Scott had been put in charge of creating the kinds of equipment the two friends used to read about in comic books.

Alex listened politely and murmured encouraging words at the appropriate intervals, but his mind was miles away. Images of the past few hours were flashing through his mind, a fast
-
forward horror show
.
It
start
ed
with his father’s murder, and ending with him killing again, something he had sworn he would never do.

Clutching the stone in his hand, he unconsciously rubbed it urgently with his thumb. The stone began to glow pleasantly, and Alex’s mind calmed somewhat. Things weren’t that bad
;
he had a friend he could trust, and as a bonus
,
Scott was one of the smartest
m
e
n
he had ever known
.
P
lus
his friend would walk through fire with Alex if he asked, and it was with that realization Alex that smiled. He was beginning to like his odds.

Returning to the present moment, Alex forced himself to pay attention to his friend once again. Scott was proud of the work he was doing with NASA at JPL
—
plus it was all top
-
secret stuff Alex was sure he wasn’t cleared for. It didn’t matter; it felt good to have his friend next to him chattering away.

“…
because of that, I’ve managed to combine the energy from both microwave and sound technology, into a…” Scott paused, checking his blind spot as he moved to the right hand lane of the 210 freeway approaching the exit towards NASA’s premiere science laboratory on the West Coast. “
…i
nto
this
-
this
…
amazing
tool that I think has real implications for both mining here on Earth and on Mars. I mean, this baby really shows how far we’ve come from rubbing sticks together to get fire.”

“
Unbelievable,” Alex’s eyes widened as he forced himself to look interested, or at least, like he had been listening the entire time. “You really can do that stuff?”

“
Make fire?” Scott was confused, “No, no, you’ll see once we get there!” Scott’s broad grin made it hard for Alex to admit that he had been blissfully unaware of Scott’s entire lecture. It was probably best that way, Alex thought to himself.

Scott flipped his blinker on as he exited the freeway, tapping his brakes slightly in deference to the red stoplight ahead. Scott leaned forward, hoisting his small frame up to look past the hood of his car
and
see if the other lanes were clear. Seeing no one, Scott turned right off the freeway, rolling quickly through the red stoplight.

“
Oh, California rolls
,
how I’ve missed you,” Alex lamented, as his friend turned the steering wheel straight again rolling down the road.

Scott smiled, “There are certain advantages to living here
,
I suppose.”

“
Including the super-hot-model-like women surrounding you everywhere?” Alex asked with a wry grin. He knew Scott sometimes came off like a nerd, but the kid had discovered a natural well of charisma in college that the women swooned over.

Scott stared straight ahead, his lips betraying only the slightest smile.

The levity was short lived
,
however
.
Scott’s eyes narrowed
,
and his smile disappeared
,
as they approached the guard shack. The light was on, and a lanky
Hispanic
man was in the booth reading.