The Rising(39)

“And they just cruise the streets, what, listening?”

“More like recording readouts, Colonel,” Marsh told him. “It’s a methodical, painstaking process, but necessary and well worth the effort. You’d be surprised at the level of success we’ve managed, less so over the years because there’s less of them left to target. But that doesn’t make our job any less challenging or important. You know what gets me through, keeps me going?”

Rathman’s eyes beckoned him on.

“The possibility that someday, someday, we might lock onto the Zarim who killed my father. I’d like you to be the one to bring him to me, Colonel. I think you’re up to that task.”

“I need to know what’s expected of me, sir, the precise parameters of my mission.”

The walkie-talkie feature on Marsh’s phone beeped before he could answer the big man and he held a hand up to signal a pause, then turned and raised the phone to his ear. Marsh listened to the report, spoke nothing in response. He swung back around, as he fit the phone back into its belt holster.

“We’ve got a blip, Colonel.”

“A blip, sir?”

“An anomaly suggesting alien involvement. It would seem you have your first assignment. There’s a jet fueled and ready.”

“Bound for where, sir?” the big man asked, appearing even taller and broader in that moment.

“San Francisco.”





SIX

MONTER_Y MO_T_R INN

In three words I can sum up everything

I’ve learned about life: it goes on.



—ROBERT FROST





38

BLUE PLATE SPECIAL

ALEX AND SAM DROVE south through the night until the clouds covered the moonlit sky and then broke apart, avoiding the 101 in favor of the Pacific Coast Highway. Fog wafting in from the ocean made the difficult drive even more precarious. But the scenic nature of the PCH belied the fact that it also passed through areas of near-desolation and small, little-known towns all the way to Santa Cruz.

Sam drove with her fingers so tight on the Beetle’s wheel her hands began to ache, then her forearms, and finally her shoulders. She kept starting sentences, only to have no words emerge. Just air, which was fine since the drive commanded all of her attention. The road was like a winding black ribbon shifting over a coastline so close below that she could hear the waves crashing against the rocks. She welcomed the sight of her headlights reflecting off guardrails, held her breath through the most dangerous curves when there were no guardrails at all.

Every time she looked toward Alex in the passenger seat, he was staring straight ahead out the windshield as if it were a blank screen. A few times when she looked over, the angle of the streetlights bounced his reflection back off the glass. He didn’t seem to be blinking, and Sam couldn’t tell if he was even breathing.

“Should we go to the police, FBI—somebody?” she managed to ask finally, her voice trailing off to barely a whisper at the end as the road ahead blackened anew, thick blankets of fog wafting across it.

No response.

Minutes passed.

“Is there somewhere you want to go?”

Nothing.

“Someone you can call?”

Dumb question, and she felt stupid for even posing it. She understood full well Alex had only his parents, no other relatives even in China, for all she knew.

Sam gave up. Just drove in silence, no words and no destination in mind. Finally a fog bank too thick to risk driving through forced her onto a side road, black as tar, that ran perpendicular to the PCH. It seemed as if she had driven into some spooky netherworld of nothingness until she spotted an old-fashioned diner and truck stop off to the side. It looked practically deserted. Kind of place that was long past a prime lived out in an age before superhighways stitched their way in all directions.

“I’m hungry,” Alex said suddenly.

Sam aimed her Beetle toward the parking lot.

*

She watched him eat. A pile of bacon and eggs to go with a double order of toast, while she couldn’t even think of food right now. Sam waited for him to speak, tried again when he didn’t.

“What do we do next?”

Alex didn’t answer right away. There were only a few other customers around them, none at all resembling the drone things dressed as cops or the ash man, who was more of a shadow. Bells hung from the door jangled a few times to announce the entry of new customers, making them stiffen each time. Sam was seated with a clear view of it, and none of those coming and going seemed to even register their presence. This wasn’t the kind of place you ate to get noticed or notice anybody else.

“I need to think,” Alex said, shoveling the last of his eggs into his mouth. “That’s where we need to go, somewhere I can think.”

“You think you’re still in danger? I mean, you are still in danger.”

“We can’t go to the cops.”

“Why?”

“Because those guys were dressed as cops.”

“Sure, but…” Sam’s voice drifted off, her thought incomplete.

“Drop me somewhere,” Alex told her.

“Where?”

“I don’t know. Somewhere.”

“And just leave you?”

He leaned a little forward. “I don’t want you in danger too.”