Immune (The Rho Agenda #2)(119)

Frustrated, Jennifer made her way past the open French doors leading onto the balcony, the warm breeze chilling her like tendrils of marine layer fog. She thought about closing the doors, then discarded the notion. The chill wasn’t real, only a figment of her extensive imagination. She knew what she needed, and it wasn’t beyond the doors to the balcony. It was in the closet.

Pulling open the slatted doors, she stepped inside to pull her suitcase from the highest shelf. Jennifer dropped it on the floor, her fingers fumbling at the zipper like a junkie struggling to get to her fix.

There, in the inner zippered pocket, she found them, the two translucent alien headbands, exactly where she had left them. To Don Espe?osa’s men, they’d been of no more interest than any young girl’s hair decorations. So much for judgment.

The second Jennifer touched the one that was uniquely hers, she felt better. It was one of the oddities of the alien halos that only the one with which you had originally attuned worked for you. And once they had attuned with you, they didn’t work for anyone else, at least not while you lived. After that, Jennifer didn’t know and didn’t want to find out.

With both headbands clutched in her hand, she walked across the room to the wicker chair in which Don Espe?osa had sat this morning. Tossing the other halo on the coffee table, Jennifer slid into the chair and pulled her knees up to her chest.

Then, taking a deep breath, she positioned her own halo on her head, letting the small beads slide into place over her temples.



~



Three thousand miles away, in a temporary shelter he had come to think of as home, Dr. Hanz Jorgen scanned the papers spread across every square inch of his desk.

The article that currently held his attention had received scant notice from the scientific community, much less from the general public, but he found it fascinating. In it, Dr. Paul Silas of Northwestern University focused on the asteroid named 2004 XY130. Although the asteroid had far less than one chance in a million of striking earth, its potential impact would produce an explosive force in excess of two thousand megatons, more than a hundred thousand times the force of Little Boy, the bomb that had been dropped on Hiroshima in World War II.

A buzzing in his pocket alerted him to the presence of his cell phone. Having tried unsuccessfully to find a ring tone that was only mildly obnoxious, Jorgen had long since adopted the vibrate-only cell phone policy for himself and his staff.

He flipped his open, lifting it to his mouth. “Jorgen here.”

“This is Bill Franks.”

Dr. Franks’ distinctive voice crackled with excitement.

“I can tell that, Bill. What is it?”

“You better get down here, Hanz. Something incredible is happening.”

Without bothering to utter a word of response, Dr. Jorgen hoisted his large frame from the chair and headed out the door, flipping the cell phone closed as he ran. Although no one would think it to look at him, Dr. Jorgen could move with the agility of a man half his age and weight when he needed to. And right now, making his way rapidly down the steep stairs cut into the side of the canyon, he needed to.

Dr. Franks waited at the bottom of the steps, his face even paler than usual in the bright midmorning sun.

“What is it?” Dr. Jorgen asked between panting breaths.

Bill Franks pointed at the spot where the high desert mesquite had been cleared to open a path into the starship cave. The entrance was gone.

Dr. Jorgen rushed forward to touch the hillside where he had walked out of the cave just two hours before, bringing himself up short when his hand passed into what appeared to be solid ground.

“What the hell?” He pulled his hand back, somewhat surprised to see it reappear intact.

“It’s come alive.”

Dr. Jorgen was renowned for his quick wit and ability to rapidly analyze changing scientific data, but now he felt as if his thoughts were stuck in mud.

“The alien ship.” Dr. Franks grinned like a boy who’d just found his older sister’s diary. “A few minutes ago. It just came on.”

“And this?” Dr. Jorgen pointed to the illusory wall in front of him.

“Some sort of advanced hologram. It appeared at the same time.”

“Out of my way.” Dr. Jorgen had to get inside the cave. As excited as he’d been when he first laid eyes on the alien starship, this went beyond that.

The darkness beyond the hologram was not complete, but it surprised him. The banks of lights his team used to study the exterior of the starship had all been turned off, leaving a magenta glow, which seemed to emanate from the air itself.

Bill Franks stepped up beside him. “We turned them off to better see this.”

At the far end of the cavern, Dr. Jorgen could see the smoothly curved bulk of the starship, completely draped with the metal scaffolding that supported the researchers and their equipment.

Dr. Jorgen took two steps forward, then stopped one more time to stare at the unearthly illumination.

“Beautiful. Just beautiful.”





127


Losing one’s fascination with life was like dying, and El Chupacabra had no intention of doing either. He knew how to watch, and he knew how to wait. This was how it worked. Watch and wait.

Eduardo could have just searched Jennifer’s room, going through her personal things with the same unmatched thoroughness that had made him the world’s best assassin. Instead, he strolled out past the north end of Don Espe?osa’s gardens, found a tall tree, and climbed.