Final Disposition (11 page)

      
There,
he thought, looking at his reflection in the Humvee’s driver’s-side window,
that’s better.

      Then, taking in a final deep breath, he walked across the parking lot and around the KMAD building to the minimalist front entrance, pulled open the frosted glass door, and walked in.

*     *     *

      The first thing that Cellars heard when he stepped into the somberly-lit lobby was the very familiar sound of Eleanor Patterson’s amplified voice coming out of a ceiling-mounted speaker.

      He hesitated, wanting to hear what she was saying, but the receptionist on the opposite side of what appeared to be a solid piece of bullet-proof glass looked up from her fashion magazine with a pleasant smile on her face.  She was young — Cellars guessed twenty at the most — casually dressed, and devoid of any obvious makeup or jewelry.

      The kind of kid who starts out a career by proving herself on the graveyard shift, so maybe she won’t be in any hurry to look foolish by calling the cops too soon, he thought hopefully.

      “May I help you, sir?” the young receptionist asked, speaking into the microphone on her desk.

      “I … uh … was hoping to be able to talk with your guest, uh, Eleanor Patterson, when she gets off the air.”

      “And you are?”

      “Major Colin Cellars.”  He started to add ‘U.S. Army,’ but then realized that was probably obvious.

      “May I see your ID, please?”

      “Yes, certainly.”

      Cellars pulled the folded ID card out of his shirt pocket and then dropped it into the shallow stainless steel tray that suddenly extended out from beneath the window.

      The young woman retrieved the tray, retrieved the ID card, examined it and then Cellars’ face carefully, then dropped it back into the tray and extended it back to Cellars.

      “You’re welcome to wait for Mrs. Patterson in our green room, Major,” the young woman’s voice echoed out of the lobby’s external speakers.  “There should be fresh coffee and maybe even a donut or two left.  But I should warn you that you’re likely to be in there for quite some time.  Mrs. Patterson is Mr. Bellringer’s only guest tonight, and the Sky Search Show does run until four A.M.”

      Cellars blinked, having no idea what time it was … but then realized there was a large clock mounted on the wall behind the receptionist that read 11:20.

      
Four and a half hours until the show’s over … Jesus … do I dare wait around here that long?

      Or, more to the point, did he dare wait around long enough for some alert patrol officer or security guard to drive by, notice the presumably unusual presence of a military Humvee and call it in.

      
Not a good idea
, he decided, and was starting to thank the receptionist for her help when she reached over to the far side of her desk and pressed a hidden button.

      The internal lobby door to his left snapped open with a loud metallic ‘CLICK!’

      Cellars hesitated, knowing it was dangerous to hang around the radio station too long … but also realizing that, at the moment, Eleanor Patterson was his only known link to the past.

      “Just follow the hallway all the way down to the end,” the young woman said, speaking into her microphone again.  “The Green Room will be the fourth door on your right.”

      “Thank you.”

      “You’ve very welcome.”

      I can’t walk away from my only lead … not now.

      Deciding to go with the instincts that had served him reasonably well so far, Cellars stepped through the heavy security door, walked all the way down the hallway — still hearing the voices of Eleanor Patterson and the radio host on the overhead speakers — and stepped in through the fourth open doorway as directed.

      He found himself in a dimly lit but spacious room — that, to no great surprise, was actually painted green — containing a kitchenette, two couches and several chairs all facing a large glass window that provided a panoramic view of a small but brightly lit sound stage about fifteen feet from the window.  There, two people sat wearing headsets and facing each other across a table festooned with microphones and other electronic equipment.

      There was yet another ceiling-mounted speaker in the Green Room, this one dialed down to a lower volume that was made up mostly of very soft, soothing and yet barely perceptible music.  But the door next to the window was open, which allowed Cellars to hear Patterson as clearly as if he was sitting next to her in the broadcast studio.

      Hearing her distinct voice in its pure form — undistorted by microphones and speakers — gave Cellars the odd feeling that he’d known her all his life.

      But when he walked up to the open doorway and stared across the studio at the elderly, curly-bluish-white-haired woman — who was wearing a dark blue dress and a three-strand pearl necklace, and sitting in profile to the window facing a young man less than half her age with reddish-bronze skin and long silver-white hair tied back in a ponytail — he realized with a hollow sense of disappointment that he had no memory of ever having seen her before.

      He started to turn away from the doorway, thinking that he would at least sit and listen to her talk for a few minutes.  But as he started to do so, Patterson caught the motion out of the corner of her vision, turned her head to look, and then yelled out in surprise.

      “COLIN?!  COLIN CELLARS?!”

      The radio host’s silver-ponytailed head snapped around, Ace Bellringer’s eyes widening as he saw the uniformed figure in the doorway.

      “Is that —?” he started to ask.

      “Oh, my God, it is … that’s Colin Cellars!” Patterson said, her face flushed with excitement.  “The amazing crime scene investigator I told you about who —”

      But Bellringer was way ahead of her.  He’d already whipped his headphones off, grabbed a cordless mike from the table, and was scurrying over to the doorway.

      “Colin Cellars … long-lost — and I do mean
lost
— friend of our guest Eleanor Patterson … is it really you?” Bellringer asked, holding the microphone out and waiting hopefully for the uniformed figure’s answer.

      “Uh … yeah, sure,” Cellars said hesitantly, thinking
Oh crap, what have I got myself into now?

      “Ladies and gentlemen, listeners all over the planet, an incredible event has just occurred, absolutely incredible,” the youthful radio host gushed as he grabbed Cellars by the wrist and literally dragged him over to the table.  “You simply won’t believe who just walked into our studio tonight!  The man who — oh, my goodness!”

      Bellringer staggered backwards, nearly losing his grip on the microphone, as Eleanor Patterson lunged forward, shouldered him aside, and enveloped Cellars in a bear hug.

      “Oh, my God, Colin, you really are alive,” the elderly woman exclaimed as she stepped back, her curly bluish-white hair now looking thoroughly disheveled, and stared wide-eyed at Cellars.  “I knew those dreadful reporters had to be wrong.  You and Robert … you’re both so … I just couldn’t possibly believe that —”

      “Robert?”  Cellars blinked in confusion.  He was still trying to make sense of Eleanor Patterson’s ‘crime scene investigator’ comment.

      “Oh, that’s right,” she said, turning to Bellringer.  “I knew our intrepid mountain man as Robert, but Colin always called him Bobby.”

      “Childhood friends reunited, what a story,” the radio host agreed, trying to keep the microphone position between himself and Patterson as he partially pushed and partially dragged Cellars over to a third chair on the sound stage and motioned for him and Patterson to don headsets.  “But, faithful listeners out there, we’re not talking about just your average high school reunion here tonight.  As all of you know, these two men — Colin Cellars and Bobby Dawson — put their lives on the line … time after time … fighting tooth and nail against incredible odds … and occasionally against each other, so we’re told … in a desperate race against time to rescue the woman they both loved.”

      “Like Arthur and Lancelot, Knights of the Realm,” Eleanor Patterson whispered, “risking everything to save their Guinevere.  It makes me want to cry.”

      Cellars stared — first at Bellringer and then at Patterson — in incredulous disbelief as his frontal lobes kicked into gear.

      
King Arthur and Lancelot?  Fictional characters from — what? — a fantasy story set in medieval time?  Who
are
these people … and who the hell is Bobby Dawson?

      “Me, too,” Bellringer agreed, now staring at a computer screen mounted on the table next to his microphone and poking at one of the displayed electronic buttons, “but first, we’ve got a caller on the line.  “Our old friend Jake from Manchester.  Jake, you’re live on KMAD.  What you have to say to our guests tonight?”

      “Way I see it, Ace, King Arthur and Lancelot were a couple of bloody pansies compared to these two blokes.  Had it more than half easy, didn’t they … armor-plated up the arse and not even having to fight real dragons?  Probably wouldn’t have lasted an hour if they’d had to face up to the Krays one-on-one, like our lads here did.  Least that’s my take on the situation.”

      “Right you are, Jake,” Bellringer nodded enthusiastically as he poked at another button the computer screen.  “And Martine from Huntington Beach, you’re live on KMAD, how do you see it?”

      “I have to agree with Jake, Ace, our guys definitely had it a whole lot worse than those Camelot weenies.  I mean, good heavens, Colin and Bobby had to rise from the dead ... each of them at least once.  How easy can that be?”

      “Excellent point, Martine,” Bellringer said as he reached for another button.  “And, once again, our ever-dependable source of local seismic news, Dr. Wayne Wilberforce.  How are things shaking out there, Wayne?”

      “Not so good, Ace,” the foreboding voice rumbled.  “Our field teams have recorded four more mini-events in the past twenty-four hours; all low energy, low-frequency signals that may herald … well, we don’t know what they may be heralding, Ace; but if things keep on like this, southern Oregon may be in for a big one.”

      “Whoa, there, Wayne, we don’t want to start terrifying our local listeners out there with unsubstantiated rumors of Armageddon this early in the evening.  Have you and your field teams actually located the epicenter of these mini-events yet?”

      “Not yet, Ace, we’re still busy analyzing the data, and setting out new sensors; but — and you didn’t hear this from me, Ace — your listeners in Jasper County might want to keep those emergency generators tuned up and ready to go.”

      “Good advice for all of our listeners out there, I’m sure, Wayne,” Bellringer said, grinning broadly now as he started to reach for yet another button.

      “Wait a minute, Ace, Eleanor Patterson interrupted, “before we get too far off topic, I want to remind our listeners that Colin Cellars put his life and his career on the line at the very beginning when he agreed to teach our Alliance the tools of his incredible trade,” Eleanor Patterson interrupted.

      “That’s right, he did,” Bellringer said, pausing to let his ever-dependable guest go off on what he hoped might be yet another wild — and possibly even Emmy-winning — tangent.

      “And can you even imagine what we might have accomplished had we known then — when all of this was happening — how to collect our own evidence?” Patterson continued on.  “Not that Colin would have wanted us to,” she amended quickly.  “He was very insistent in reminding us, before he got called away to that terrible scene in the mountains where he found Bobby Dawson’s body, that crime scene investigations should be conducted by professional such as himself … and not by advocate believers like us.”

      “Excellent advice, I’m sure,” the radio host said, turning to Cellars.  “So, tell us, Sergeant Cellars, how did it feel to discover the body of your childhood friend at that crime scene … to collect it like it was just another body … and then have
him
come back to life to save
you
?”

      Cellars stared blankly at Ace Bellringer as he tried to make some sense — any sense at all — out of the words he’d been hearing for the last few minutes.

      “And the shootings, Colin,” Eleanor Patterson interjected excitedly.  “Don’t forget to tell us all about how you shot all those evil Kray shadows
and
your own police car … and how mad your boss was when he found out!”

      
I shot — what??

      Cellars snapped his head around to stare at Patterson, and was about to demand that she repeat what she’d just said — only in much more detail — when Bellringer yelled “hold it just a second!” … and then listened intently to something being transmitted through his headset.

      “Oh my lord,” he whispered, his eyes widening in disbelief.  “Are you serious?”  A pause.  “Yes, of course, what are you thinking?  Put him on now,
right now
.”

      The radio host looked up at Cellars and Patterson, his eyes seemingly wide as saucers, as he leaned forward to speak into the microphone.

      “Ladies and gentlemen, faithful listeners all across the planet, you will not believe who just called in and wants to talk with our guests tonight.  Can you guess?  No?  Well, I’ll tell you who: the Reverend Jonas Slogaan.”

      Ace Bellringer paused for effect.

      “That’s right, dear listeners,
the
Reverend Slogaan … the incredibly
pompous
and
self-righteous
man who — as we know all too well — has raged a world-wide campaign against the very idea that extraterrestrials even exist.

      “
The
Reverend Slogaan … the incredibly
stubborn
and
certifiable
man who has refused, time and time again, to appear on the Sky Search Show, insisting that we are nothing but devil worshipers in disguise!