Endgame: The Calling (55 page)

Baitsakhan’s eyes flicker. It dawns on him too. “Then this is . . .”

Maccabee leans forward eagerly. “Yes. It’s better than a key. Much, much better.” He stands. Holds the orb over Baitsakhan’s lap. They watch together.

Watch the beginning of the end.

OK, look through here, and see the swan and what lives beyond beyond.
^lxxiii

River Avon, West Amesbury, Wiltshire, England

It is 4:53 a.m. when they arrive. Sarah is at the wheel of their rental car. The headlights are off. The monoliths rise before them, looming shadows, dark and empty.

Stonehenge.

Ancient sentinels of rock.

Keepers of secrets.

Watchers of time.

Christopher leans between the front seats. “So that was made by the Sky People?”

Sarah shakes her head. “Humans made it. The Makers showed them how, and why.”

Christopher still doesn’t get it. “Well—how, and why?”

Sarah stares. “We’re about to find out.”

Jago peers through a pair of binoculars they bought at an airport gift store. They are not very good, but they’ll have to do.

He squints. Scans. “Nothing.” He lowers the binoculars. The three of them watch a low bank of clouds roll in from the west, its edge blotting out the stars. “Maybe no one’s here,” Jago says.

“At least not that you can see with those bird-watchers,” Sarah replies.

“Isn’t that weird?” Christopher asks.

“What?”

“Well, this is a pretty big tourist site, right? Shouldn’t there be security or something?”

“He’s right,” Jago says.

“Endgame,” Sarah breathes, and they know it’s true. Somehow, this place has been cleared for their arrival, just like the Big Wild Goose Pagoda was. What transpires here will be outside the gaze of the uninitiated. More—They will be watching. The keplers. Somehow, They will be keeping score.

Jago lifts the binoculars back to his face. “Maybe we beat her—”

Christopher points. “There!”

The shadowy outline of a figure steps into full view from behind one of the monoliths. The person spins. The person is holding something circular and heavy.

“Bingo,” Sarah says.

“Let’s go get our key,” Jago says.

From the outside moving in:

1 Heel Stone.

56 holes.

4 station stones.

29 holes.

30 holes.

30 sarsen stones.

60 bluestones.

5 sarsen trilithons.

19 bluestones.

1 sarsen Altar Stone.

Stonehenge.

Route A344, Amesbury, Wiltshire, England

The motorcycle screams between An Liu’s legs, eating up the asphalt and the crisp night air of the southern English countryside. He piloted his own jet from China, stopping once for fuel at a small strip in Romania. He couldn’t wait. And since he decided not to wait, his tics subsided.

Chiyoko.

So near.

Almost there, my love. Almost.

When he is two kilometers from the old monument, he stops. He parks his bike on a side road and gets some things he might need from the saddlebags—some toys he smuggled in his jet. He walks to the top of a small hill. He surveys the land with a high-powered night-vision scope. Sees the stones. Can’t see Chiyoko. Not yet. But he knows she is there. He can feel her. She is like a sun made just for him, throwing light and heat, giving him life. He looks more. More. Here and here and here.

And there.

A small car. Parked in a little depression on the side of the road about one kilometer from the site. Three people. Two with guns.

He zooms in.

He recognizes two.

Players.

Cahokian.

Olmec.

He watches them talk and prepare; he watches.

He lowers the scope.

He is glad he brought some toys.

River Avon, West Amesbury, Wiltshire, England

Jago slaps a cartridge into his ceramic-and-polymer gun. Clips the holster to his belt. Sarah straps her pistol around her thigh, pulls her hair into a ponytail, sticks an extra clip, her only extra clip, into her back pocket. Christopher paces. He’s been given the job of getaway driver. He is not happy about it, but he understands.

Sarah turns to him. “Bang bang . . . bang. Two shots, and a third one a second later. That’s the signal. If you hear it, come and get us.”

“Got it.”

Jago looks to Sarah. “Ready?”

“Yeah.”

Jago walks to the top of the depression and surveys the area around Stonehenge. Sarah takes Christopher by the arm. Squeezes. “Wait in the car.”

“All right.”

“Keep your ears open.”

“If you don’t signal, how long should I wait before coming in after you?”

Sarah shakes her head. “If there’s no signal, we’re dead and you can go. You
have
to go, understand? It won’t be safe here. Don’t come and look for us. My Endgame will be over.”

He nods solemnly. “You’re not going to ditch me now, are you? You could just get what you want and leave and I’d never know.”

Her eyes are stern, honest. “I won’t. I promise.” She pauses, looking down. “Listen. What happened at the hotel . . .”

“We can talk about it later,” Christopher says, feeling a fresh surge of dread.
Later,
he thinks.
If there is a later
.

Jago whistles. They turn. He spins his finger through the air. Sarah leans forward and gives Christopher a peck. “I have to go. I’m sorry it’s like this. It’s not what I ever wanted or expected.”

Before she can get away, Christopher wraps his arms around her. “I’m sorry too, Sarah. Go kick some ass, and I’ll see you soon.”

“I’ll be right back.”

They both smile, Sarah spins away, and without looking back jogs up to join Jago.

“I love you,” Christopher says to himself. “I love you.”

Stonehenge

This is Endgame.

Chiyoko sets the disk down. Looks to the heavens. Gray clouds hang low over England and the world. Mist drifts over the rolling green landscape. The stars, the clear sky, they’re gone. Clouds blanket the world.

She stares at the disk, which is resting in a barely perceptible cutout on top of the Altar Stone. No one, until Chiyoko arrived a short while ago, ever knew why the cutout was there. The disk fits into it, but not perfectly. She reaches out and lets her fingers grace it, smiles, knows this is the last step to acquiring Earth Key. She puts both hands on the disk and presses.

Presses.

Presses.

She lifts her hands and lets them hover over its grooved surface, gathers her chi in her fingertips; the Altar Stone shudders slightly.

The ground rumbles.

Her legs begin to tremble.

A partridge calls out in the distance.

She thinks of An.

Tortured An.

Absent An.

You should be with me. Life is not the same as death. You should see.

This is Endgame.

River Avon, West Amesbury, Wiltshire, England

Christopher sits in the driver’s seat, tapping the wheel nervously. His leg bounces. He pushes the clutch in and out, in and out. He runs the shifter through the gears. He looks at the sky expectantly.

He can barely take it.

It has been 23 minutes since Sarah left.

With him.

Christopher’s imagination runs wild. He doesn’t know what to do. He wants to go find them. He gets out of the car. Walks around it. Gets back in. Puts on the seat belt. Holds the key in the ignition and starts to turn. Doesn’t turn.

If he smoked, he’d be smoking.

He rolls down the window. The sky is incrementally brighter but still dark. It will be a drab dawn. Fitting for the occasion.

He is gray inside.

He waits, wraps his hands around the top of the wheel, squeezes it, turns his hands over it.

“Screw this.”

He puts his hand on the key, and as he begins to turn it, he feels a cold, round piece of metal pushing into his temple.

“Don’t,” a young man’s accented voice says.

Christopher’s eyes shift to the side mirror. There, in a black jumpsuit covered with straps and trinkets and grenades and canisters, is the torso of a skinny kid with a concave chest. A kid Christopher could pummel in seconds flat.

Only the skinny kid has a gun.

“Hands on wheel,” says An Liu in stilted English.

How did he sneak up on me? Oh right, another fucking Player.

Christopher does what he’s told. An steps away from the car.

“Open door. Show hands. Get out. Too fast I shoot. No show hands I shoot. Silencer. Understand? Say yes.”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now do it.”

Christopher does. He stands and faces An, keeping his hands visible. Christopher is surprised he isn’t more nervous. This is the 4th Endgame kid he’s run up against—not counting Jago and Sarah—and the 4th to kidnap him. He also looks the weakest.

“Catch.” An tosses something at Christopher and he catches it reflexively.

It is a grenade.

“It armed. You let go, it blow.”

Carefully, Christopher turns the grenade over in his hands. “It’ll kill you too.”