Bone Rider (14 page)

“D’you think he hates me?” he asked, then closed his eyes, mortified. He had
not
just said that to Andrej.

Andrej snorted. “
I’m
starting to hate you.” He elbowed Misha, hard. “Grow back your balls, man. Please.”

He said it without malice, but Misha still sank farther down into his seat, knees digging into the backrest in front of him. “Fuck you,” he muttered, not quite as lightly as intended.

He wanted Riley so badly right then it felt as if his heart were shriveling up. Didn’t know why. Only knew he was missing the man like a limb, so goddamn much it was hard to breathe for a second. Misha focused on it, the mechanism of taking in air, holding it, letting it out. He felt ridiculously grateful when the steward appeared next to him, proffering a bottle of water. The other passengers had gotten little plastic cups. Misha had definitely made an impression. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

“Thanks,” he said.

The steward gave him a wary look and left posthaste. Misha doubted he’d come by again, wasn’t surprised to see him walk down the aisle to the rear section of the plane, leaving the front to his colleague. Brave man. Throw the girl to the madman in seat 14B. That-a boy.

Andrej cleared his throat uncomfortably and fidgeted a little himself. “So, what about that thing?” he asked, obviously desperate for a change of subject.

The water felt good in Misha’s mouth, better going down his throat. He took his time drinking, both because he really was thirsty and because he needed a moment to rally. No need to ask for clarification. There was only one “thing” Andrej would refer to in this context and that was the flash drive that had provided such a nifty excuse for chasing after Riley.

“What about it?”

“You think he still has it?”

Yep, definitely desperate. They’d been over this before, about a million times, ever since Riley had taken off. They’d gone over their options, run every possible scenario as they’d used the security breach to distract themselves from the disconcerting discovery that Misha couldn’t let go, was completely and utterly incapable of relegating Riley to his long list of exes and moving on.

The flash drive wasn’t the real problem. It was a cheap brand unlikely to draw attention in the first place. Misha had used it primarily for file transfer when he was in a hurry, which was why he’d shoved it so thoughtlessly into the inside pocket of the duffel bag and why he’d let Riley borrow the bag without a second thought when Riley’s own duffel had finally ripped apart at the seams. The business-related information on the drive was encrypted and already out of date, and most of the rest was useless crap—pictures of cool cars, a Blackberry manual, a copy of
Horses for Dummies
. Misha was certain Riley had lost the bag as soon as he’d been out of the immediate area and it was a reasonably safe bet that whoever had ended up with it had kept the bag and thrown away the flash drive. It was safe-word protected and useless without a code-breaker program. By now it was useless, period. An excellent smoke screen, though. The perfect reason to keep looking for what truly was important. Made for a great change of topic, too.

“I don’t know.” Misha swallowed some more water. “Probably not.”

Andrej’s knee started to bounce restlessly. “What if he does?”

Misha shrugged. “I honestly don’t give a damn.”

He refused to look at Andrej, knowing it’d screw with his friend’s head and not caring, carefully capped the bottle and jammed it into the seat pouch in front of him. Predictably, Andrej muttered darkly under his breath while figuring out what to say next. They’d known each other for most of their lives. Andrej was perfectly aware he’d made the wrong joke at the wrong time. Misha was aware Andrej was aware of it. They sat in silence for a few minutes, Andrej steaming in his juices, Misha cooling down and getting a grip.

“I’m pretty sure he doesn’t hate you,” Andrej grumbled finally, glaring at the safety manual.

“I’m pretty sure I’m gonna hit you if you don’t let it go,” Misha replied, completely serious.

“Oh, thank God,” Andrej sighed, and grinned. “That’s my boy.”

Misha rolled his eyes, trying and failing to hang on to his dark mood. “No, really. I’ll punch your fucking lights out.”

“You and what army?”

The nice thing about economy class? There was no room for evasive maneuvers. Misha’s fist connected with Andrej’s arm right where he wanted it, making Andrej cuss a blue streak while he squirmed around to get in position to retaliate. The seats creaked, the backrests shuddered, a tray came down hard on Andrej’s knee, and then a weathered, cherry-red face popped up over the seat in front of Misha and a woman roughly the age of Andrej’s great-grandmother hissed at them to knock it off or else.

They subsided back into their seats with muttered apologies and flaming cheeks; chagrined, but considerably calmer than before.

Misha groaned. “Man, if Anton ever finds out about this, he’ll kill us.”

Well, he’d whip them, at the very least. There were few things Anton Kulik hated more than unprofessional behavior from professionals, and seeing his students wrestle like idiots on a commercial flight during a mission—even if it was, strictly speaking, a private matter—would’ve displeased him immensely. When he was displeased, Anton tended to use his fists or his belt. To the day, Misha was half-convinced his top-notch performances were testimony to Anton’s ability to inspire fear rather than Misha’s talent for the job. The threat of Kulik’s disapproval was an awesome motivator even now that they had become masters in their own right.

“Don’t even think about the Big K,” Andrej ordered, his posture straightening instinctively at the name. “We’re good. That was normal behavior. Perfectly normal.”

“Normal for morons and college boys,” the old woman groused, just loud enough to let them know they were still on probation.

Misha wondered if Anton would consider it unprofessional if he crawled under the seat and stayed there until they touched down in El Paso. “We’re really terribly sorry, ma’am,” he offered meekly.

“And keep your knees off my backrest,” she huffed, only marginally mollified.

Misha pulled in his legs obediently and leaned down to fish for the inflight magazine he’d dropped before, surreptitiously looking around to gauge the level of attention they’d attracted. Fortunately, the shrieking preschooler two rows down had apparently hogged the lion’s share of everybody’s annoyance. Nobody was even glancing in their direction. So far so good. Misha sat back up and gave Andrej a nod to let him know they were in the clear, then leafed through the magazine to distract himself. No more talking with Andrej. He found the entertainment section, tried to figure out whether they might show a movie on this flight and which one. Explosions would be good. Car races. Anything but…
Runaway Bride
.

Andrej chortled, then quickly turned away and perused the safety instructions again, finger tapping a jaunty little rhythm against the cover of Riley’s book.

Misha stuffed the magazine back into the seat pocket and banged his head against his backrest. Riley was worth this. Riley was worth this.

Three hours to landing.

T
HE
picture on the screen was grainy, shades of gray and black that made it hard to distinguish details. Satellite surveillance technology was good, but in order to get decent results, the camera had to be trained on a specific area and the computer directed to enhance the image. Given the importance of the transport, the directive had been to follow the convoy, not a random spot on the road, but there was more than one eye in the sky.

“What exactly am I looking at?” General Young asked, squinting at the nighttime desert with some skepticism. He could see where this was going, he just wasn’t at all convinced it could actually provide them with the information they needed. Call him old fashioned, but Nick Young preferred not to place his trust in high tech, and space equipment in particular was known to be capricious.

“Uhm, sorry, sir,” stuttered Warrant Officer Lara Cabrera, who was manning the computer. She blushed a painful shade of red as she fiddled with her controls and rewound. “We analyzed the video footage we had of the convoy’s drive and we found…” She stopped the film, clicked play. “…this,” she announced proudly, pointing at the screen.

“This” looked like nothing but a somewhat lighter spot on the road to the general’s doubtful gaze. Young frowned, but he was willing to give the theory a shot.

“Rewind again,” he ordered. “Can you slow this down?”

“Yes, sir,” the tech confirmed. She was doing a good job of trying to come across as cool and professional, but she still sounded much too young and excited. Young hoped the kid would never have to see action. Might as well toss a puppy into the fire.

The convoy entered the frame again, slower this time, a string of dark shapes on the lighter band of the highway. This time, the images clicked. Gun truck, three cargo trucks, gun truck. The road was monochrome gray when the first three trucks rolled by; gray with discoloration after the fourth truck. The rear guard rolled right over the lighter smudge without slowing down, which suggested the thing hadn’t looked any more alarming from the ground than from above. Just a puddle. Nothing to see. Keep going.

“Fuck,” Young muttered.

His first thought was that the driver of the gun truck should’ve been more vigilant. Bone dry road for miles and miles, and then suddenly there’s a puddle and no one gets suspicious? Unfortunately for his peace of mind, Young was a fair man and fact was the situation wasn’t quite so simple. It had been dark, the trucks had been going at least seventy miles per hour, and nobody could’ve known the cargo was mobile. The burnt bodies had been solid and very dead, if possibly extraterrestrial in nature… which the troops hadn’t known since it had been classified information. The containers were supposed to be airtight, and the alien—be it creature or artificial intelligence—wasn’t exactly some kind of Gigeresque monster. That thing on the road must’ve looked like a wet spot or an oil spill, which wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. The convoy had been a priority transport with instructions to drive straight through to Camp Jackson. No reason to stop for something as insignificant as this.

“Fuck,” Young repeated, this time to vent. Then he let it go and focused on the relevant part. “Okay. What happened then?”

“We managed to gather footage from three different satellites before you arrived,” Butler explained before the tech could. “Ms. Cabrera here has been working with them, but there are gaps caused by satellite flight patterns and red tape. Also, the ship took out at least two of our satellites before it hit the atmosphere.”

“Let’s see what you got,” Young ordered. “I take it the thing is gone now.”

“Yes, sir,” Cabrera confirmed, and started with the keyboard tapping and mouse clicking again. “The codes you gave me have been incredibly helpful. I have full access to—” She must’ve noticed the distinct disinterest in technical details in her audience, because she cleared her throat and segued right into, “I think I found what you were looking for, sir.”

And there was the highway, empty and gray, the alien smack in the middle of the westbound lane. A dark shape appeared in the frame, headed directly for it.

“Looks like a van or a pickup truck,” Butler muttered. She took a step forward, practically leaning over Cabrera’s shoulder. “Can you enhance it?”

“Yes, ma’am, to a degree, but you might want to watch first.”

The black shape rolled right over the alien, which helped soothe Young’s remaining anger at the convoy’s rear guard. Apparently, the thing had really looked inconspicuous from the ground. By the time the car had passed, the “puddle” was gone.

“Must’ve snagged the undercarriage,” Young observed, unsurprised. He hadn’t expected the alien to just slither off into the desert to be picked up by the general and his people without much of a fuss. This was exactly why Young preferred to base his strategy on worst-case scenarios. Optimism was for civilians.

Judging from the jumps and cuts as the camera followed the vehicle, Cabrera had pieced together the truck’s progress from several sources, but there wasn’t much missing. After about five minutes, the car swerved a little, then came to a stop at the side of the road. Cabrera zoomed in until it was hard to believe the footage had been taken from space. The moon had been up by that point and the satellite providing the footage was one of the military’s finest, as Cabrera explained with a hint of proprietary satisfaction. The car was indeed a pickup truck. No way to tell the color, but Young hoped they’d be able to get a license number eventually. The door on the driver’s side opened. The driver got out of the car and walked around to the front.

“What
is
that?” Butler wondered, eying the disproportionally big, black head quizzically.

“A cowboy hat,” Young said, resigned. “It’s a Texan thing. I think it’s something in the water.”

“No, sir,” Cabrera piped up, her voice dipping into an annoyed drawl. “We get a lot of sun, is all.” Butler gave her the stink eye. “This is where it gets interesting, sir,” Cabrera added quickly.

On the screen, the cowboy popped the hood. There was a quick sense of movement, a flash of something launching itself from the engine compartment right at him. The cowboy reeled back, staggered. They watched him thrash and claw at his face, increasingly desperate.

The sight of the alien forcing itself into its involuntary host was nightmarish. There was no sound, no color, just a stark black-and-white sketch of a fight that had already been lost. The cowboy didn’t have a chance. He couldn’t seem to get a hold of the creature that was attacking him, couldn’t pry it off or spit it out. He didn’t give in easily, though; even when he was down on all fours his back heaved with the effort to expel the alien. Butler flinched when the man reared up suddenly as if he’d been hit with a power cable, then slumped to the ground, unconscious and defeated.

Shit
, Young thought.
So much for keeping the problem contained.