Pyramid Lake (45 page)

“They bring the detainees in by train. Under heavy military guard, in the middle of the night. I’ve
seen
them do it, Cassie. I’ve
touched
the orange prison outfits. That little hidden building inside the warehouse is only the entrance. The rest of Pyramid Lake’s answer to Guantánamo Bay is underground.”

“Bullshit. I don’t believe this.” She angrily pulled out her phone.

“Who are you calling?” I asked. “Grayson Linebaugh? Because there’s something else you should know, too. Last weekend, while you were in California, I was in Washington, D.C.”

She froze.

“The senator and I
discussed
this whole mess,” I said. “He told me he’s solving an ugly problem that’s a danger to our children and grandchildren, and that we
owe
that to them.”

“Oh my God,” Cassie squeaked, cupping a hand over her mouth. “That sounds just like Gray.”

“I
told
that motherfucker you weren’t going to be a party to this once you found out. Know what he said?”

She shook her head, still hiding her mouth behind her hand.

“He said you were
practical,
Cassie. That you’d come around eventually.”

Squeezing her eyes shut, she pressed a couple of fingers against each temple and leaned her elbows on the table. Shook her head again.

“There’s another explanation,” she said, eyes still shut. “There’s
got
to be. Even if Gray wanted to do something like this—and God help me, I think he actually would—Uncle Jim would never agree. Come on, with
our
people’s history? Hosting a fucking
concentration camp,
for shit’s sake?”

“Your people are patriotic Americans, Cassie. Your uncle said it. You’ve served your country with pride and distinction in every U.S. war—including, it seems, the war on terror.”

“And yet, you’ve known all this for at least five days but didn’t bother to tell me.”

“Hey, look! Here come your waffles.”

Cassie didn’t open her eyes. “Just shut up,” she said. “Let me think.”

She continued to massage her temples as the waitress slid the plates onto the table and went back to the kitchen. Neither of us felt much like eating.

“Okay, the murders,” she said. “McNulty and Bennett. Who killed them, and why?”

“I haven’t figured that part out yet,” I said. “Most likely, somebody who isn’t happy about Pyramid Lake turning into another Gitmo. It could be domestic terrorists, or violent human-rights protestors, or a group of Paiutes who disagree with the desecration of your land—”

“Sure, blame
us
. Why not?”

“—or for that matter, rogue CIA folks who don’t like the competition from Homeland Security.” I shrugged. “I have no fucking clue. But none of those answers feel
right
to me. They would all go about it differently. These killings, the attempt to sabotage Frankenstein—the whole thing feels
personal.
”

Cassie pushed back her chair and stood up. “I’m going to talk to my uncle now. And then, right afterward, maybe the media.”

At the word ‘media,’ I jumped up, too. “Wait! You can’t.”

Frankenstein hadn’t delivered on his side of the bargain—he hadn’t found a cure for Amy yet. And once we were swept into the chaos that media attention would bring, he never would.

“We’ll
both
tell the media,” I said. “That
is
the plan. But not yet.”

“The plan?
What
plan? It’s not your decision to make.” She looked at me with an expression of dismay. “It
never
was.”

“Please! The timing is absolutely critical. I’m begging you, Cassie—
promise me
you won’t do anything rash. You have to give me a chance to show you what’s going on with Frankenstein. Because, believe me, it changes everything—”

“God damn you, Trevor.” Cassie’s lip started to tremble. “I’m leaving now.” Grabbing her purse, she walked away.

I curled forward and ground my forehead into the table, cursing quietly. The situation was officially out of my hands, and now it was out of control.

I got up, left a couple of twenties on the table next to our untouched plates, and went to rent a car.

I knew what I needed to do.

Even if Garmin and the others couldn’t pin the two murders on me, it didn’t matter anymore. As soon as Cassie alerted the media, both our security clearances would be revoked. And then the Trevornet would be discovered, and also my illegal access to tens of thousands of psychiatric patient medical records, and my use of Roger’s key card to break into the warehouse. Homeland Security could choose to assign any number of different motives for what I had done, including some highly questionable ones. I might even become a candidate for “extraordinary rendition” myself.

It was time to put my contingency plan into action.

I also needed to talk to Frankenstein. Face-to-face.

It would probably be the last time we ever spoke.

T
he late-morning sun reflected off the water on my right as I drove, the little flashes of brightness flickering into my eyes and making me squint. On my left, acre after desolate acre of pale, dry scrub slid past. A mirage rippled dark blue on the empty roadway in front of me, evaporating as I got close, only to be replaced by another farther ahead. The Pyramid Lake reservation’s 750 square miles were home to fewer than 1,800 people, and most of them lived in Wadsworth, down at the south end. After the crowds and the noise of Las Vegas, the silent isolation of the lake and surrounding mountains was eerie.

Speeding up Highway 445 in my rented car, I clamped down on the pointless feelings of regret and finality that kept intruding. Instead, I concentrated on what had to happen next. The Sutcliffe exit was coming up on the right.

First things first: I needed to keep my transportation options open.

With a screech of tires on gravel, I took the Sutcliffe turnoff and sped down to the marina. Despite my urgency, a quick stop here was warranted because, if I
did
come back this way, chances were good I’d be in a hell of a hurry.

Leaving the car running outside, I shoved through the double doors of the shop.

Jay, who ran the marina, was a big dude with a long black ponytail and an easy smile. He looked up from behind the counter. “Trev! My brother from another mother!”

I tossed him my wallet as I went by, and he caught it in the air.

“Top off my Yamaha,” I called over my shoulder as I turned the corner into the back room, where the lockers were. “Sorry, Jay, but I’m in a hurry, so ring it up first—cash. I need my wallet back.”

“You taking the FZR out now?” he called.

“In a few hours,” I yelled back, punching in the combination on my locker. “Have that bad boy down by the water waiting for me, all gassed up and ready to go.”

Jerking open the steel door, I cleaned out my locker, scooping its contents into a duffel: shorty wet suits, helmets, waterproof document pouch, locked hard-shell long-gun case, locked pistol case, energy bars, and a six-pack of bottled water.

I zipped the duffel closed and stood. Slinging it over my shoulder, I blew past Jay on the way out. “Wallet,” I called.

He tossed it back to me, and I caught it at the door.

“Listen, brother,” he said, “this weekend—”

“We’re buds,” I said. “Borrow my Waverunner anytime you want—you don’t need to ask.”

Back on the road again, with the duffel secure in the rental’s trunk, I stomped the accelerator to make up for lost minutes.

Once Cassie talked to the media it wouldn’t be long before I became a high priority for both military and civilian law enforcement. On the long, uninterrupted stretches of highway circling the lake, roadblocks would be easy to set up and, with nowhere to turn off, highly effective.

But law enforcement couldn’t roadblock the lake itself—not against a 110-m.p.h. personal watercraft that could jump any cordon they laid down. It would take me no more than ten minutes to cross the lake to the northeast shore, where rough ridges of tufa rose from the waterline.

Five minutes of uphill scrambling on foot would then take me into Hell’s Kitchen Canyon. A quarter mile up the empty canyon, I had a motocross bike stashed—a four-stroke 2013 Kawasaki KX 450F. It was a part of the contingency plan I had put in place three years ago. After wrapping and duct-taping the bike in two layers of waterproof plastic tarp, I had buried it, along with five gallons of gas, under a pile of loose rock in the canyon wall. It was invisible and undetectable unless you knew exactly where to look.

And I knew that the Kawasaki would start when I needed it, because every three months, I hauled it out and made sure. Seconds after pulling it from under the rock pile, I would be gone. I’d have many options to choose from then: Gerlach, Lovelock, Fallon—all within a fifty-mile radius, across rough terrain with very few roads.

When I fired up the bike and evaporated into the roadless, trackless gullies of the Lake Range, the nearest inbound helicopter would still be twenty minutes away. And with each additional passing minute, the airborne search area would have to expand by another fifteen square miles.

Unless they knew exactly where I was headed, they would never find me.

So evading law enforcement and getting out of Pyramid Lake would be fairly simple. It was the part of the plan that came afterward, once I got to California, that I was most worried about. I would have to convince Jen and Amy to join me—and do it fast, before law enforcement put them under surveillance.

Tucked inside the waterproof pouch from my marina locker, I had legitimate passports and legal identity paperwork for all three of us—a few different sets, under various names, because I believed in preparing for the inevitable rainy day. Amy could grow up and go to school in a place where her future wouldn’t depend on the agendas of interfering, drug-dealing psychiatrists—where we wouldn’t have the constant threat of involuntary commitment hanging over her head.

But unless Jen agreed to bring our daughter and come, my whole contingency plan would grind to a halt right there. It would be game over for me.

I wouldn’t abandon my family, no matter the consequences.

• • •

Pulling up at the guard gate in front of Pyramid Lake Navy base, I watched the MP’s expression as he checked my badge and then waved me through. His impassive features gave me nothing. Glancing at him in my rearview mirror, I was unsurprised to see him raise his phone to his ear.

Welder’s arcs drizzled little fountains of sparks near the geothermal plant, drawing my eye as I parked and turned off the ignition. Workmen were busy installing protective steel fencing around the accessible areas of the geothermal plant. A dozen MPs and Navy guardsmen stood along the perimeter, facing outward.

Even with an ultrasecret detainment camp to hide and two murders to get things stirred up, the level of activity was surprising. Pyramid Lake no longer felt half asleep. More surprising was where the activity was focused: on the DARPA side rather than at the warehouses on the other side of the base, which concealed the entrance to the underground facility.

In front of our building, I could see the bustle of patrols: MPs in jeeps, Navy guards on foot. The entrance to the DARPA labs now sported a permanent guard-post booth—built sometime during my absence yesterday.

I grinned. It seemed Garmin and Ricky had really taken to heart my advice about protecting Frankenstein.

The guards gave me no grief on my way in. A couple of minutes later, I strode across my lab and opened the door to the server room.

The walls of monitor screens fronting the multistory server racks remained dark as I passed them. Frankenstein didn’t say anything.

Instead, a pregnant, disapproving silence seemed to follow me across the server room, broken only by the slow rising and falling hum of thousands of server fans.

Climbing the ramp to the sanctum, I yanked a chair over to the keyboard and slid a high-capacity pocket drive into a rack-front slot. I started a bulk transfer of files, copying all of Frankenstein’s latest source code and operating system data to the pocket storage drive. The code changes that had accidentally enabled his sentience were less than four days old, and I needed an up-to-date copy.

The whoosh of server fans rose, bathing me in a giant-beehive hum of discontent. Focused on me.

But I wasn’t happy with Frankenstein, either.

I had given him sentience—given him
life.
I had made all the world’s knowledge available to him. I had put up with his excuses and his whiny bitching and given him all the time he asked for, even as I risked myself to protect him. I had prepared the way for his future freedom.

All I had asked for in return was
one
little thing.

One. Simple. Little. Fucking. Thing.

And he had let me down.

“So tell me, Frankenstein,” I said, raising my face to the monitor screen. “Where
are
we with the cure for my daughter?”

His reply rumbled the floor tiles. “I think we should talk about your priorities, Trevor.”

“That’s what I thought…” I tried to keep the bitterness out of my voice.
“Nowhere.”

“The situation here is unstable,” he said. “Someone is attempting to sabotage me. I’m being used against my will—and yours—for something bad, but you won’t tell me what, and I can’t even remember it, because my memory of it has been erased—”

“I’m
taking care
of all that other stuff, you stupid son of a bitch,” I said, my voice rising. “So why are you even worrying about it? Instead, you dumb metal motherfucker, you should have been focusing on the
one
thing I
asked
you to do! The only thing I actually give a shit about!” I realized I was shouting now, but I didn’t care. “Helping. My.
Daughter!
”

“Son of a bitch? Motherfucker?” Frankenstein said. “I don’t
have
a mother, Trevor—you know that. But please don’t talk to me about
my
priorities. While I was here working the last two days, where were you?”