Thirst No. 5 (20 page)

“Is this your husband?” Taking out my cell phone, I show her a photograph I secretly took of Joel while we were flying from Raleigh to New York City. Mrs. Grey’s eyes go wide.

“That’s him! But he’s so skinny. And pale. Where did you get this picture? He looks like he’s on a plane.”

“It was taken by a partner of mine who’s investigating a corrupt law firm. I can’t give you as much detail as I would like. It’s a high-level case. We’re working on the assumption these people are forcing your husband to work with them.”

“Doing what?” she demands, getting emotional.

“We’re not sure. But it would seem to have something to do with computers. That’s why I asked if he had any unusual talents.” I pause. “But you say he doesn’t.”

“Except for being a major daydreamer, he’s a normal guy. But look, you can’t leave me hanging like this. Tell me who these people are. When this picture was taken. And . . . is Joel all right!”

“As far as we can tell, he’s perfectly fine.”

“But if your partner got close enough to Joel to take his picture, how come he didn’t rescue him?”

“At the time, my partner didn’t know that your husband
was a missing person. You see, he’s working undercover with these people. It’s a top-secret project. Your local FBI office doesn’t even know we’ve spotted Joel.”

Mrs. Grey frowns. “Why not?”

“My partner and I bumped into him by accident. Our focus lies with the people who’ve abducted him. But I’m here for two reasons. First, to reassure you that your husband is alive and well. Second, to get an idea of his background so I can better understand how he’s helping this group.”

And if that isn’t the understatement of the year, I don’t know what is. Mrs. Grey acts confused. She should be in my shoes. I don’t know what I expected to discover when Brutran located Mr. Grey’s address, but I sure as hell didn’t expect to find that our resident magician is a totally normal guy.

“When can you rescue him?” Mrs. Grey snaps.

“We have to do so carefully. I think it will be soon.”

“That’s not good enough. Get him out today. You obviously know where he is.” She stops. “Where is he?”

“I’m afraid that information is confidential.”

“Why?”

“Because my superiors say so. Look, I’m on your side. I didn’t have to come here today. My partner told me not to. The best thing we—”

“And I’m supposed to be grateful?” she interrupts.

I lower my gaze. I hate lying to her. “I’m sorry, honestly I am. But the best thing you can do to help Joel right now is to
tell me anything else unusual that happened with him before he disappeared.”

She’s angry; she doesn’t want to help me. But it’s clear my question troubles her. “He told me he was having weird dreams,” she says finally.

“Dreams about what?”

“He never said. But they’d wake him at night. He got up a lot.”

“Were they nightmares? Did he act scared?”

Mrs. Grey wipes away another tear and strokes her daughter’s head. “I don’t know how he felt. He’d just sit by the window and stare out at the sky.”

I leave them. But outside, before getting in my car, I run into ten-year-old Hal Grey. He appears to be returning from a friend’s house. Except for having a thick head of black hair and the glow of youth, he’s the spitting image of his father. He doesn’t act afraid of me. I introduce myself as an FBI agent in search of his father, and we talk out in the street.

“Your mom told me how much you enjoyed going out to the country with your dad. Did you like looking at the stars through the telescopes?”

Hal shrugs. “It was all right. My dad liked it. Taking pictures was more fun. He used to let me load the film and set the timer.”

“The timer?”

“The starlight takes time to leave a mark on negatives.
That’s why you need a motor to drive the telescopes. So they stay pointed at the same star.”

“It sounds like he taught you a rare skill. He must be very proud of you.”

Hal shrugs again. “I suppose.”

“You’re not sure?”

Anger flashes in the boy’s eyes. “Well, he left, didn’t he? He couldn’t have cared that much about us.”

“Hal, do you know why he left?”

The boy hesitates. “No.”

“Do you think it had something to do with his trips to the country?”

“Sure. I mean, he knew it was dangerous to stare too long at certain stars. He warned me about it.” The boy stops to think. “But he broke his own rules. One night, it was like his eyeball got glued to the lens. I shook him and cried for him to stop but he kept right on looking. I finally got so tired I went to sleep in the car.”

“Did he apologize to you in the morning?”

“Sort of. But he told me I couldn’t come with him anymore. That made me mad.”

“Hal, was he was trying to protect you from certain stars?”

“I just told you he was. Didn’t you hear me?”

“I heard you, I’m just not sure I understood you. Why was it dangerous to stare at certain stars for too long? What would happen?”

Hal looks away from me, down the street, and his eyes take on a dreamy gaze. “My dad said certain stars could take you to strange places, far away, and it could be hard to get back. He knew what he was talking about. One night I stared at Sirius too long. That’s the brightest star in the sky. It’s pretty, blue-white, but after a while it grabbed me and wouldn’t let go.”

“What did you feel when it got ahold of you?”

Hal turns back to me. “Like I was in outer space, and happy, real happy. I didn’t want to come back but my dad forced me to.”

“That’s very interesting,” I say.

• • •

When I return to the hotel, I find a meeting starting in Mr. Grey’s room. He continues to lie propped up in bed and if anything he looks worse than when I left. But he has broken into Larson’s laptop and wants to share with us what he’s found.

“His computer was a disappointment,” he says. “He has notes on his conversations with Shanti but they’re not particularly interesting. Basically she had him tracking down info on various people, and moving money around for other people, who we can assume she was working with. The names mean nothing to me but you can read the file if you want and see if you recognize anyone.” Mr. Grey stops to take a drink of water. I have not seen him drink anything else. He continues, “Fortunately, I was able to use Larson’s laptop to break into the rest of the firm’s system.”

“How did you do that?” Brutran asks.

“I’ll explain the technical aspects later. Right now I can confirm that the Pentagon is definitely building aircraft that can fly faster and higher than anything the public knows about. The research and development, as well as the construction, are taking place at a complex facility located on Nellis Air Force Base. That’s near Groom Lake in southern Nevada. The Pentagon’s code name for the facility is ‘the Can.’ ”

“Isn’t Area Fifty-One located at Nellis?” Seymour asks. “The place UFO researchers are always talking about?”

“Yeah,” I say, thinking. “It’s curious how the Pentagon often calls Area Fifty-One ‘the Box.’ Now you say they have a Can.”

“
The
Can,” Mr. Grey says. “The same files mention Area Fifty-One. It’s clear it’s a different spot. The Can is closer to the lake, for one thing.”

“Can we break into the Can?” Seymour asks.

“From what I found on the law firm’s files, the public can’t get within thirty miles of the place. Nellis is one of the most secure spots on the earth. Even a vampire would have trouble getting inside.”

“Tell us more about the aircraft they’re building,” Matt says. The others don’t notice but a fire has ignited deep in his eyes. For him, this is what he’s been waiting for. I wonder why.

“There are several designs,” Mr. Grey says. “One looks like the stealth bomber. Another resembles the shuttle, although
it definitely takes off on a runway, not atop a stack of rockets. What appears to be the most advanced design is saucer-shaped.”

“That might explain ten million UFO sightings,” Seymour says. He’s jazzed to hear the news. He loves anything sci-fi. He’s going to want to go to Nevada as much as Matt.

“Do the files explain how their propulsion system works?” Matt asks.

“Not directly,” Mr. Grey says. “And I would have been surprised if the law firm had such top-secret files. But I can say the craft are definitely not burning jet or rocket fuel. However, and you might find this strange, the law firm has recently routed in excess of five hundred million dollars to buy as much mercury as is available on the open market—‘without raising any suspicions.’ The last line is a quote from a file belonging to the boss of Larson’s firm—Urs Pointe.”

The mention of mercury gives me a chill.

It reminds me of my time in Auschwitz.

Why? I don’t know, or I can’t remember.

“Is that German?” Seymour asks, giving me a look. He knows the information has startled me.

“German or Swiss,” Matt replies quickly, obviously wanting to stay on topic. He paces at the bottom of Mr. Grey’s bed. “Do the files say how they’re using the mercury?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s a crucial part of the propulsion system. It says so in the man’s notes.”

Seymour shakes his head. “Mercury isn’t that expensive. Why would they need so much?”

“Maybe they’re building a lot of ships,” Mr. Grey says.

“We’re calling them ships now?” Brutran says.

Mr. Grey smiles. “Actually, the Pentagon already has a nickname for them. They call them Fastwalkers.”

“Do you know the maximum speed of these Fastwalkers?” Matt asks.

“I know what you’re asking,” Mr. Grey says. “You want to know if the Fastwalkers can travel faster than the speed of light. The answer is no, although I don’t know exactly how fast they go. But it’s clear from the files that none of the ships have left the solar system.”

“Makes sense,” Seymour says. “The nearest star, Alpha Centauri, is four-point-three light years away. Even if these Fastwalkers could get close to light speed, who would want to take more than four years to make one trip?”

“It would depend on what was at the end of the trip,” Matt says.

“Have the Fastwalkers explored all the planets in our solar system?” Brutran asks.

Mr. Grey nods. “They’re out there poking around.”

“Does NASA know about the ships?” Brutran asks.

“It looks like they’ve never heard of them,” Mr. Grey says.

“NASA. ‘Need Another Shuttle, Asshole,’ ” Seymour says,
before everyone turns and stares at him. He shrugs. “Just a joke I read online.”

“It’s fascinating the government has gone to so much trouble to keep NASA propped up when it’s nothing but a front,” Brutran says.

“You find it fascinating,” Seymour says. “I think it’s disgusting.”

“It helps keep the Fastwalker program secret,” Brutran says.

“Why is it secret?” I complain. “Why is the American government so paranoid about admitting they have such fast ships?”

“Think, Sita, Seymour,” Brutran says. “How nervous this technology would make the Russians and the Chinese, never mind every Arab nation on earth. If I were in charge of the program, I’d keep it under wraps.”

“Is there anything else you can tell us about this program?” Matt asks.

Mr. Grey considers. “There’s a theme that runs through all the notes and conversations I’ve studied. It’s clear there’s immense pressure on the scientists in charge of the Fastwalker program to break the speed-of-light barrier.”

“Why?” Matt asks.

“I don’t know,” Mr. Grey says.

Seymour glances at me before asking Mr. Grey, “Do you know the names of these scientists?”

“They’re not listed in the law firm’s files.”

“Why do you ask?” Matt says to Seymour.

“After World War Two, NASA got most of its rocket scientists from Germany. Hell, the head of the Apollo Program was Wernher von Braun. They were all Nazis that NASA cleaned up and turned into American heroes.” Seymour adds, “Sort of like rewriting history.”

“I don’t see how any of this is relevant,” Brutran says.

Seymour goes to reply but stops. He sees the look in my eyes, that I’ll take off his head if he talks. Of course he was about to say it might tie into Sita’s war story. Somehow.

Matt speaks to me. “You remember what Roger Goodwin said before he died. He told us, ‘They took her into the sky.’ There’s a good chance he was talking about one of these Fastwalkers.”

“That’s a leap,” I mutter.

Matt is annoyed. “It’s a lead—the only damn lead we have to find Sarah. You’re the one who keeps talking about the passing minutes. We’re accomplishing nothing sitting around this hotel. We have to go to Nevada. Let’s take ten minutes to pack, drive to the airport, and fly straight to Las Vegas. We’ll be there in six hours.”

He’s right, I think. The lead is tenuous at best but it’s all we have. I don’t know why I feel so reluctant to follow it. Matt misses nothing. He can read the feeling in my face. He expects an argument.