Shaman Winter (27 page)

Pausing, he looked down at Sonny and said, “It's been a long struggle, in different places, as different men and women, through the centuries—me against you. Now I hold the balance of power. And while you sleep, I will haunt your dreams and destroy your past. So you will never return, I will destroy your soul. Only in your dreamtime can I do that.”

He turned and walked to the bomb and hung the medallion on it.

“See. The power of the sun has come to rest here.”

“Not the power of the sun,” Sonny replied. “Your power of darkness.”

Raven scowled.

“We will return to chaos,” he said. “Return to the original time. Destroy this age, and rule in the next. It's the only way.”

“Do you really think you can bring the end of the world?”

Raven nodded. “I know it.”

“The plutonium pits in the lab are too well packaged. You won't set off a chain reaction.”

Raven looked surprised. “So you've been doing some reading. And you believe we can't create a chain reaction. Hear that, Chernenko, no chain reaction!”

Chernenko chuckled. “Who cares,” he replied.

“We don't need a chain reaction here. When this baby goes off, the Russkies respond with their missiles. Your government has lulled people into thinking the end of the Cold War meant an end to the Russian missiles pointed at the U.S. Oh, no, hundreds of their warheads are still programmed to hit every city here.”

Precipitate a nuclear war? Sonny thought. The Avengers had hired Raven to build the bomb they would use to take control, but they had underestimated him. Raven's purpose wasn't just to take over the government, he wanted to destroy the world!

“Why would Russia respond to a bomb going off
here
?”

“This baby is going to set off their alarm system.” Raven grinned. He turned to Chernenko. “You see, my friend Dr. Chernenko, with the help of a few Los Alamos scientists, designed the Russian system. The Russkie computers are programmed to read a bomb exploding here as a
real
attack. When we explode our Gadget, a computer in Russia orders retaliation. The final world war will start.”

Sonny shook his head. “There are telephones. The president would call Russia and explain—”

“Explain nothing!” Raven cut in. “It's programmed into a computer! It's failsafe! Nobody can stop it!”

Chernenko, too, had underestimated Raven. He, like the Avengers, thought that Raven worked for them to create a crisis that would allow them to take over.

For the first time he stepped forward and spoke. “Of course we won't need the final phase. Once the actual bomb is armed, we ask for ransom. Your government will pay. And we will be in South America, with enough money to buy our own country!”

“Don't you see,” Sonny implored. “Raven doesn't want the money! He wants to blow up the world!”

Chernenko looked from Sonny to Raven but shook his head. “He doesn't get it,” Raven said to Sonny. “It's beyond his imagination. But long ago we concluded that the only way to bring down the world was to destroy it.”

“Get rid of those who dream harmony and peace.”

“Precisely. We have already made a mockery of your so-called morality. Some of you go on believing there is a good purpose in the universe. You persist in your belief because you have no choice. Written into your cells and memory is a dream of internal harmony and order. Since man first came to consciousness it's been there.”

“And I stand in the way,” Sonny said.

“You always stood in the way,” Raven scowled. “You and your other forms in prior lives. Time is a continuum, a cycle repeating itself, like the snake swallowing its own tail. We've fought each other in the past, and sooner or later one would have to destroy the other. Good and evil, the priests call it.” His face turned dark. “How simplistic, how stupid!”

“You can kill the body, but not my soul,” Sonny said.

That was why he didn't let Sweatband kill him, because the soul kept returning, as he said, in one form or another. The dream was continuous, as each soul was continuous.

“You have died many times before,” Raven said. “But your spirit keeps returning to plague me! Tonight I destroy your soul!”

“By killing the souls of my grandmothers, their dreams.”

“I found the points in your history when your soul entered a new state of consciousness. The coming of the Spaniards and the Mexicans to New Mexico was such a time. A great leap was about to take place, a new people would be born. Peace would reign. ‘Peace,' how I hate the word! I came to bring the curse of destruction! I came to curse all the houses of New Mexico! With this bomb I can do it!”

“But you can't kill the dream,” Sonny replied.

“Oh, yes, I can. Owl Woman is a messenger, a dream-keeper. Like the goddess of the Mexican Indians was a dream-keeper in her time. At certain times in the history of mankind they appear.”

“Dream-keepers,” Sonny repeated. The Bearers of Dreams of don Eliseo.

“Yes,” Raven scoffed. “In the old days the shaman kept the Calendar of the Days, and each day had its power. But the Calendar of Dreams was more powerful. It was kept by the women. In the dream lies the power of the soul.”

Sonny shook his head. In dreams he could know the past. But something clouded his dreams. Even as the mind evolved into a higher consciousness, it forgot the dreams. Was it simply forgetfulness that kept each generation repeating its karma, without memory of the past? Or was it Raven's power in the universe that closed off the knowledge of dreams?

“I curse all sides,” Raven said. “I am the power inherent in the chaos.”

God, Raven wanted to be a deity of chaos.

“You've got Consuelo and Catalina, but you need four young women,” Sonny said.

“I'll get them,” Raven replied arrogantly. “This thing with the bomb was only to get you here. But you can't even walk. How can I play games with a crippled man? I need a worthy opponent.” He laughed and looked at Chernenko, who was holding the syringe.

“Drugs, our present gods of sleep.” Raven smiled. “That rest so deep it allows the dreams to visit, to reveal the soul. Dreams are your salvation, Baca, and your end. Now it's time for you to sleep, and dream.”

He took the syringe and tested it. A small stream of clear liquid shot into the air.

Sonny heaved, and using the strength in his arms, he pushed and stood up. He had to make a fight of it.

“Ah,” Raven said in surprise. “He can stand.”

“Shoot him!” the excited Chernenko said behind him. “Shoot him!”

Sonny took a wobbly step forward. He was used to pushing the wheelchair in front of him for balance. Now he had nothing to hold on to.

“Calm down, Doctor.” Raven smiled, moving to the side, circling Sonny very slowly. “He's making it more interesting for me. Come on,” he taunted, motioning to Sonny. “Come and get it.”

Sonny turned slowly, facing Raven. Damn, he thought, it wasn't any good. His legs were already trembling. He had one burst of energy in them, so he grabbed a chair, lifted it, and took a giant step toward Raven, swinging the wooden chair as he toppled over.

Raven sidestepped and the chair splintered on the floor. Raven was instantly on Sonny's back, pinning him to the floor and stabbing the needle into the back of his neck.

14

Sonny reached for the needle dangling in his neck. He tore it away and tossed it at Raven, who had leaped to his feet.

“It's too late, Baca!” Raven shouted. “Too late.”

Sonny rubbed the back of his neck where the needle had entered. Already he could feel the drug oozing into his nerves and bloodstream. Raven had picked something that would put him to sleep slowly, not a morphine knockout punch.

“Kill him!” Chernenko shouted, leaping forward and holding a curved sword.

Raven snatched the weapon and stood over Sonny. One blow could slice a man in half. Sonny had seen the effects of the sharp dark steel on the Los Alamos guards.

“No,” Raven said mockingly. “I want him to dream.”

Outside a shot cracked in the cold air, followed by another in rapid succession. Raven cocked an ear. “Ah, your friends have arrived.”

“Police!” Chernenko cried in fear.

“Yes, Baca's friends.”

“You knew,” Chernenko said, fear mixing with surprise. “You knew they were coming.”

“They've been watching you,” Raven gloated.

Again the shots rang out, an automatic weapon, then silence.

“Our guards are dead,” Raven said.

“The tunnel!” Chernenko shouted, pointing.

“Yes,” Raven agreed. “But first let me pay you for your work, Doctor,” he said, and raised the Saracen blade.

“No!” Chernenko cried as he crossed his arms to ward off the blow, but it came so quickly he could not fend it off. The scythe caught him just below the chin at the Adam's apple, cut open his throat, and sliced downward to split his chest, cutting through the sternum and stomach. A startled Chernenko reached down to hold in his guts, as if by stuffing them back into the cavity, he could ward off death. Blood spurted; he uttered a curse and fell.

“Consider yourself well paid,” Raven whispered, and turned to Sonny. “Your friends are earlier than I expected,” he said, “but it doesn't matter. We will meet shortly, in your next nightmare.”

Through the numbness already spreading through his body, Sonny saw him disappear into the floor. A trapdoor, he thought, probably leading to a sewer. Raven always planned his escape routes well.

Sonny struggled to sit up, rubbing at his neck. The shooting outside had stopped; now he heard banging at the door. Three blows and the door splintered and in rushed Matt Paiz and four SWAT agents.

Never thought I'd be happy to see the FBI, Sonny thought with a smile. Just like the movies.

“You okay?” Paiz asked, leaning over Sonny, pistol raised and eyes searching the lab.

The other agents, pistols drawn, spread across the room. One pointed at the Gadget, the bomb, and swore as he slowly circled it.

“Shot,” Sonny mumbled, holding the back of his neck.

Paiz looked, and finding no blood, he couldn't understand what Sonny meant by shot. “Raven?”

“Yes.”

“He used the tunnel,” Paiz said, looking at the opening in the floor.

Sonny nodded.

“In there!” he shouted, and two SWAT men disappeared into the tunnel. “Any way to cut off the tunnel?” Paiz shouted at the man in jeans and a blue parka standing at the door.

The man turned and shouted something to the SWAT leader, and he ran out, followed by the FBI agents. Paiz holstered his pistol. By now Raven was probably at the lab's perimeter, leaping over a fence and driving away.

“All clear,” Paiz said, and Rita entered, followed by Lorenza.

“Sonny, Sonny!” Rita rushed to him and held him in her arms. “Are you okay? Gracias a Dios you're alive,” she said, glancing at Chernenko's disemboweled body.

“God, what happened here?” Paiz asked of no one in particular as he knelt near Chetnenko and felt for a pulse that was no longer there. Then, removing his overcoat, he covered the dead man.

Sonny pointed at the syringe on the floor. “He gave me a shot.”

Paiz picked up the syringe and smelled. “We'd better test this right away.” He covered the syringe in his handkerchief and handed it to an agent.

“Something to sleep?” Lorenza asked, looking at Sonny's eyes.

Sonny nodded. Raven didn't want him dead just yet, he wanted him to sleep. His eyelids felt heavy, drowsy. The drug and the fatigue of the day worked together, lulling him into a warm, inviting darkness.

“How'ju find me?” he asked.

“Eddie Martínez, the FBI agent, was at
Las Posadas
,” Rita explained. “When we couldn't find you, he called Paiz. He stayed to look for the girl—”

“The girl? Did he get Carmen?”

“Yes,” Paiz answered. “She's reported missing. Apparently she took sick just before the procession started. She told the others she was going home, but she never got there.”

Sonny cursed himself. They had gotten there too late. By the time the man in the black hat had lured him to the back of the house, Raven had already picked up Carmen. Now he had three girls.

With Paiz's help they lifted him into a chair.

“We got a description of the van,” Paiz said. “We had spotted the same van here at the labs. I figured they were bringing you here.”

“Ruined your stakeout?” Sonny said and yawned.

“You have to stay awake!” Lorenza said. “Can we get some coffee, ice?”

“Jack?” Paiz said.

The man in the blue parka nodded and punched his mobile phone. Sonny recognized him. Jack Ward, Sandia Labs CEO. The man had been in the news since the Cold War ended, trying to convince the public that the new mission for the labs was to help develop projects for private industry. He worked hand-in-hand with Eric at Los Alamos.

“Sleepy,” Sonny moaned.

“You know why he wants you asleep?” Lorenza asked. “Try to stay awake. Rub his shoulders,” she said to Rita. “Hard. Get his circulation going.”

Other men now entered the room, technicians. One, a man dressed in protective gear, carried a portable scintillation detector.

Ward, whose attention had been on the device in the middle of the room, pointed the man with the detector toward it. “I don't believe it,” he whispered over and over. “I fucking don't believe it. This is something out of the past, a copy of the first atomic bomb.”

All turned to watch the man with the detector sweep over the Gadget. He walked slowly around Chernenko's bomb. Two of them opened a panel and shone lights inside the Gadget. When they were done, they took off their protective headgear and looked at Jack Ward.

“Nothing,” one of them said. “It's safe. There's no radioactivity at all. He's got a lot of wiring in place, but no pit.”