Tailed (22 page)

“No.” Gabby shook her head. “It was us. My husband and I turned Fowler into a werewolf many years ago.”

“Is she your mother?” Lanston looked exasperated and waved the gun at me. “Must be, because she says things almost as stupid as you do.”

“So if that's not a UFO, then what is it?” Vargas waved his hands in the direction of the saucer. “It is huge, and it lifted off without any means of propulsion that I could see. It was like…antigravity.”

“And we have Einstein over here.” Lanston sneered at Vargas. “When you four were young, at your birthday parties, did you all get UFOs?”

Her audience shared a puzzled reverie.

“Did you get antigravity orbs?”

She still had us stumped.

“Maybe you got balloons?”

“You expect me to believe that's a balloon?” Gabby complained.

“We told the public it was balloons a long time ago, but nobody believed it. It's a high-altitude airship. It's part of a missile defense system, the Aerospace Relay Mirror technology to direct lasers to shoot down missiles. So there isn't any antigravity involved, just helium, nitwits. Same extraterrestrial technology that made your birthday balloons float in midair. We've been using a lot of metallic balloons, ever since the fifties. This one is extra reflective to deflect any errant laser pulses.”

Put a stick up my rear and wrap me in cellophane—I felt like an A1 all-day sucker. I had stared at the rising airship and made the brilliant deduction that it was a UFO, because what else but a UFO could rise so effortlessly? Deductive reasoning? I believe they call that
inductive
reasoning. Seeing what you expect to see, making what you experience fit a template. It's the fuel that fires the imaginative engines and propels conspiracy theories.

Watch out for the con.

I looked over at Nicholas, who had been uncharacteristically quiet during this harangue. A first glance would tell you he was just hanging back, but I could see him calculating. His eyes were darting from the guns to the half-track to the nearby rock…he was thinking one move ahead.

“Señorita Lanston? Are we under arrest?” Vargas had his hand half raised. “Because I have to go to the bathroom.”

She ignored him. “All this Tupelca nonsense came to people in dreams, passed one generation to the next. There is no empirical evidence for any of this story, and there are no five vuka pots buried in the ground here that had the spirits of five geckos in them. There's an airship hangar in the ground here. Fowler's story is bullshit,
do you all understand that
?”

Like a troop of truants, the four of us looked at each other and mumbled in the affirmative.

“Are you sure you understand? There is nothing here other than a top-secret weapons launching facility. Fowler set up his archeological dig here on the far end of our bombing range and we kicked his ass out of here to build an installation, not hide a UFO. You: are there any Pillsbury Doughmen here?” She pressed her gun to my chest.

“No! No…”

“You? Do you see any UFOs?”

Vargas stared down at the gun on his chest. “No. I implore you, I really have to pee, please…”

“And you two…” She waved the gun at Nicholas and Gabby, like she couldn't decide which to press the gun against. “You see any Tupelca, vukas, or spirits around here?”

They shook their heads.

“What was that?”

“No!” they said in unison.

“Good! Very good.” She looked genuinely relieved, then turned to go back to the helicopter. But the goons stayed where they were.

Retreating, she said to them over her shoulder:

“Kill them.”

chapter 27

K
ill them.

You never quite get used to hearing those words, no matter how often you hear them. You do, however, get better at reacting to them. For instance, my reaction used to be to try to laugh it off.
Surely this must be a jest of some kind.

That didn't work so well.

My reaction had improved, though it's tactically so subtle that most people fail to appreciate its cunning: I freeze up like Moosehead Lake in February. You could have knocked me over with a dandelion when she said those words—just by blowing the seeds in my direction. Hey, at least I've learned not to speed things up by making snide remarks. And I wasn't making any sudden moves that could get me in Dutch, either.

Fortunately, others—like Otto—had more proactive reflexes. But he was no doubt somewhere hitting on trailer park girls by the limpid blue waters of the Desert Winds Motel swimming pool. I hear they now have color TVs, too.

Kill them.
Why? Not because we had discovered some secret government liaison with aliens, but because we had discovered that there was no secret liaison with the government. It was worth killing us to insure the UFO theories lived on to protect their secret projects.

The goons took a few steps back and raised their pistols. Lanston was all the way down at the chopper, climbing in.

A second black helicopter shot out over the mesa behind us and swooped low over our heads. Nobody heard this one coming. In fact, we still only heard a whirr, like the sound of a grouse taking flight. This helicopter was flat black, long, thin, and angular, sort of like a giant dragonfly.

Alarmed, the goons ducked and swung their weapons toward it.

And away from us.

Vargas fairly took flight, I don't know how, but only as a
luchadore
can. The dreaded Chicken of Death was executing his very own Mexican kung fu. His Oaxaca karate. His Chihuahua jujitsu.
El Gallo de Muerte
was deploying his signature Tijuana takedown, none other than
El Huevo Podrido
. Vargas's legs forked one goon's middle, and his arms came up to his opponent's neck. So linked, the force of the impact sent them end over end like a wheel across the desert scrub.

Like a billy goat, Gabby head butted the other goon in the back just as Nicholas lunged and grabbed for the gun. A shot fired into the air, and the gun fell to the ground.

“Garth!” Nicholas scooped up the gun and tossed it to me.

I caught the gun, and saw Lanston jogging back up the gully. I looked down the sights of the pistol at her. “Stop!”

She stopped all right, and trained her gun on me.

“Drop it!” she shouted.

I fired.

Don't ask me exactly how or why—I just did. Maybe I was just getting a little tired of being pushed around, maybe it was the dehydration and lack of sleep. Don't mess with Garth when he's cranky.

Then again, maybe I could blame my sage friend Dudley, who had a somewhat shady past but had reformed and occupied himself stuffing songbirds. After a few bourbons, he'd reflect obtusely on the old days. Out of nowhere, he'd muster up his most rumbling Southern accent and advise something like: “If anybody ever points a pistola at you while you are pointing a pistola at them, never hesitate. Empty your weapon, sir.” I'd never given it much thought. But as soon as I was there, in that moment, that sage advice clicked. Instantly.

I've also heard that you can tell when someone is about to try to kill you the second before it happens. Not just because they are pointing a gun at you, or say something dramatic like “It's curtains for you, bub.” Supposedly the better Western gunslingers had developed this sense, when their opponents hadn't even drawn their guns, or even said anything at all. Now, I've been subjected to murderous intent before, but haven't exactly made a study of it. Perhaps I was learning something inadvertently, because when she said “drop it,” I knew—
knew
—she was about to blow me away. And probably the rest of my cohorts, too.

If I knew anything at all about guns other than pulling the trigger, or to stiff arm the pistol at arm's length like they do on cop shows, I could also tell you how many shells that gun held. I would maybe even be able to tell you what make of gun it was and what caliber shells it employed. Then there might be a chance I would also be able to tell you after the fact exactly how many I fired. Because assuming it was completely loaded, the pistol had stopped going
BLAM BLAM BLAM
and started going
click click click
by the time I realized Lanston had crumpled to the ground.

Not bad shooting for a mere Star-level Boy Scout, if I do say so.

“Garth!” That was my mom's astonished voice. I looked, and her face was contorted. She grabbed me, raised her hand, and for some reason I thought she was going to hit me. Generally, it's safe to assume your mom'll be PO'd if she sees you shoot someone or do anything that might result in a poked-out eye.

But the hand grasped my cheek and a big toothy grin blossomed on her wizened face. “Good shooting, boy!”

Garth and Vargas had the two subdued soldiers sitting sheepishly in the dirt, hands behind their heads.

I heard a groan and squinted in Lanston's direction. She lay on her side between two sage bushes, one foot up on a rock, moving slightly. I looked at the gun trembling in my hand.

“I had to…I mean, I had to, didn't I? Is it murder?”

“Garth, you did the right thing!” Nicholas panted from his tussle. “If you'd dropped that gun we'd all be dead now. Self-defense.”

“But is she…should we…”

The second helicopter zipped back overhead and then descended directly down a little behind the other helicopter.

Post a sign:
VALET PARKING
. The gully was getting crowded.

“Hold it!” came over a loudspeaker.

Now who?

Through the latest rotor-induced dust storm we could see the figure of a tall, slim woman flanked by two beefy men in suits. All sported more guns.

I looked at Nicholas, and our eyes met. Do we shoot it out? Hell, I was out of bullets. Or do they call them shells? I kept finding myself regretting I knew so little about guns.

Nicholas smiled and whispered: “It's only Stella.” His gun hit the sand.

I looked up, and sure enough I could see her glowing skin contrasting against some light green pantsuit. And the two guys in ties? Brickface and Stucco.

I tossed my gun aside. Hey, what were the chances someone would say “kill them” twice in one day?

chapter 28

A
s the newest arrivals to the gully drew near, I was poised to ask a slew of questions when Stella looked at Brickface, then Stucco, and murmured:

“Kill them.”

This time there was no moment to react before the shooting started.

But it was brief.

Brickface put a bullet into the chest of one goon, and Stucco dispatched the other. The men in black jumpsuits slumped over, twitching, impossibly dark blood rapidly pooling around them. I turned away, and almost tossed my cheese curds.

I suddenly felt extremely weary. Not physically tired, just emotionally and morally exhausted. How a person can so casually end someone else's life, I don't know. Maybe it's just me, but nothing makes humankind seem a more worthless enterprise than an insouciant rubout.

Vargas was comforting Gabby—she'd burst into tears.

Stella glanced in Lanston's direction. “Who shot her?”

I raised my hand, averting my eyes from the two dying men.

“You must be joking.”

Nicholas stepped up to Stella, his face red with fury. “Was that really necessary?”

Stella, still with a gun held loosely in her hands, stepped around him and leaned casually on the half-track, a smirk on her face. “Just obeying orders.”

Brickface and Stucco had holstered their guns and busied themselves taking pictures of the balloon with little digital zoom cameras. Oddly, the balloon had ceased to rise. Like a silver hummingbird in the sky, it just hovered over the nearest hillside, a couple thousand feet up, Fowler an itsy-bitsy spider dangling on a thread below in the light of the rising desert sun.

Nicholas's eye twitched, the way it used to when we were kids just before the bully he confronted beat the crap out of him.

“Whose orders? Since when did Wilberforce/ Peete begin putting out contracts on military personnel and telling the FBI what to do?”

Stella was taking her time lighting a slim brown cigarette, her gun pointing lazily at Nicholas. She took a deep drag, and smiled. “First of all, let's not forget these two dead men were intent on killing all of you a few minutes ago. They themselves are government murderers and had it coming. Secondly, you should know things aren't quite so simple, Nicky. Alliances are sometimes both ways. In this case”—she gestured with her gun at Brickface and Stucco—“the FBI and Wilberforce/Peete have mutual interests here. We didn't want this Air Force project to succeed. That is, nobody wanted them to kill Fowler and you four, which we knew they would if you reached this…”

“Hold it,” I interjected. “What possible interest could—”

“Insurance, Garth.” Stella didn't let me finish. “This balloon project was developed by Gibraltar Aerospace under contract to the Air Force. There is a similar project in direct competition to this one being developed by American International Systems under contract to the Missile Defense Agency and under-written by Wilberforce/Peete. Get it now?”

I nodded and said, “No. Who or what is the Missile Defense Agency?”

“I get it.” Nicholas sighed. “The MDA is a branch of the Pentagon developing laser weapons, and they are in a race with the Air Force to come up with something first to keep their funding. If the Air Force project is a success, and American International doesn't get a contract to develop their system, Wilberforce/Peete has to pony up considerable cash. They insured American International Systems against not getting the development deal.” He shot a look at Stella. “Have I got it right?”

“You have.” She tipped her ash at him and grimaced at the brightening sky. “Curiously well.”

I scratched my head. “So the Air Force and the MDA—both part of the Pentagon—are competing against each other for aerospace balloon supremacy.”

“It's all about lasers,” Nicholas said dryly. “These balloons aren't flimsy but are made of dense, lightweight composites so they don't look much like a balloon. They go way up, and have mirrors to reflect land-based beams at targets in the stratosphere.”

“Our tax dollars at work. But what's the FBI got invested in the failure of the Air Force's balloon project?”

“We've been trying to find this secret location for a while,” Brickface chimed in. “Who do you think has to put up with all the UFO conspiracy fallout that the Air Force invents? The FBI does. So we'd like to see this alien saucer stuff come to an end. Wilberforce/Peete, acting more or less as American International's agent, clued us in on how the murders were tied to Fowler and why the Air Force had taken such a keen interest in a serial killer.”

Stucco put in his two cents. “How we gonna get him down from there?”

“Just what are
you
doing here, Nicky?” Stella asked pointedly. “How did you know where to come?”

“I'm here to help Garth, that's what I'm doing here.”

“You're not, by any chance, here on behalf of Gibraltar Aerospace, are you?”

He ignored her. “Look, if you killed these two it must mean you're dispatching witnesses to the MDA, FBI, and Wilberforce/Peete's involvement. Are you going to shoot us? If you are, let's get this over with. We've had about enough of this nonsense.”

“I haven't,” Vargas protested, speaking rapidly. “Shoot him if you want. I didn't see anything. I'm no witness. I didn't see anything.”

“Um, I'm with Vargas.” I patted the air toward Nicholas. “Let's not rush this.”

I caught movement out of the corner of my eye, in the direction of Lanston. I ducked. Maybe I was getting flinchy, could have been a small bird. Or maybe my reactions were improving.

There was a gunshot and I knew my reactions weren't half bad. I scrambled to the far side of the half-track, behind the rear treads. I found Vargas and Gabby there—they'd been closer to the rear of the vehicle when hell broke loose. Gabby looked pale, wan—not well. Was she just tired or suffering some sort of serious ailment? Nicholas came ducking around the front of the truck and hid behind the huge front wheel.

Gunshots continued, some pinging off the opposite side of the half-track.

I looked at Nicholas, and shouted over the gun battle: “I guess Lanston isn't quite dead.”

“Sorry, killer.” He shrugged. “She must have been wearing a vest. Kevlar. You just knocked her out.”

I scanned the half-track, and then gestured to Vargas and Gabby. “Vargas, help her into the back, and sit with her. Nicholas—you're with me, in the cab. Let's blow this pop stand.”

“Pop stand?” He winced. “In this piece of junk?”

“
Armor-plated
junk. Let's get Mom out of here, how's that?”

“She's not my…”

“She is your mom more than anybody else. And I'm your brother no matter who your genetic father is.”

He looked a little surprised, and betrayed a grin.

“OK, brother. Let's blow this pop stand.”