Racing the Light (Elvis Cole #19; Joe Pike #8)(32)

“Two nights, tonight and tomorrow.”

She glanced at me.

“Though we could stretch it to three.”

She went back to Pike.

“I hope we’ll see you before we leave.”

Ben said, “Yeah.”

“You will.”

Pike checked his watch and looked at me.

“I’d better get moving.”

Pike said his good-nights and let himself out. Lucy and Ben assumed he was going home. He wasn’t.

Lucy said, “We’d better hit the sack, young man. Early start tomorrow.”

Ben suddenly pointed up.

“Is that a helicopter?”

A tiny gold speck floated above the canyon, but without the telltale red or green of a helicopter or an airplane.

I said, “I don’t think so. No running lights.”

The speck crossed overhead like a drifting balloon.

Lucy said, “It’s Tinker Bell.”

“Stop it, Mom.”

Ben pointed to a different part of the sky.

“Check it out! There’s another.”

A second gold speck appeared from the opposite direction, drifting toward the first. They were high, but I couldn’t tell how high. They appeared tiny, but the dark sky offered no reference.

Lucy suddenly pointed behind us.

“Look! Another! There’s three.”

Ben and I twisted to see.

The third speck moved faster. It arced directly to the first and circled it.

I said, “Drones. Gotta be.”

Ben said, “This is really cool.”

The second speck reached the third and the first, and the three specks froze in a perfect equilateral triangle.

Lucy leaned back to watch.

“Someone’s giving us a show.”

Ben turned fast and pointed again.

“Wow!”

A fourth and a fifth speck came fast from the east, barely clearing the trees. They dropped beneath the ridgeline, streaked through the canyon, turned ninety degrees, and shot straight up. They joined with the first three, forming a perfect pentagon.

I said, “Listen.”

Lucy and Ben looked at me.

“Hear anything?”

They traded a look and shook their heads.

“We should. Drones sound like bees and they’re loud.”

The five specks drifted toward us like balloons in a gentle breeze. They moved as one, retaining their perfect pentagonal formation, and stopped directly above.

Lucy pushed me with her foot.

“Did you arrange this?”

“No.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not.”

We tipped back in our chairs, watching. The five gold specks hung motionless, almost as if they were watching us.

They vanished.

Ben yelped.

“Hey! Where’d they go?”

I studied the area where the lights had vanished, but saw no glints or movement. I listened, but still heard nothing.

“Maybe they didn’t leave.”

He looked from me to the sky.

“They turned off the lights?”

“That, or they’re aliens.”

Lucy said, “I vote for E.T.”

She stood.

“Show’s over, buddy boy. Gotta be fresh for the Bruins.”

Lucy hooked an arm around his waist and I followed them into the house. Ben hugged me and the three of us said our good-nights.

I watched them disappear into the guest room, closed the sliders, locked the house, and set the alarm. I put out dry food for the cat, filled his water bowl, and climbed the steps to my loft.

The cat was crouched on the top step. Sullen.

“They’re going to bed. You’re safe.”

He did not acknowledge me and did not move. I had to step over him.

When I came out of the bath a few minutes later, he was curled on the foot of my bed.

I shut the lights, climbed into bed, and looked out at the canyon. I saw house lights on the far ridge and hillsides, and the glittering city beyond the ridge, and the brilliant black sky. The drones had been invisible once their lights went out. They could have left and they could have stayed. I didn’t know. We often couldn’t see the things in front of us, no matter how hard we tried.

Sleep did not come quickly. I thought about Lucy and Ben. I tried to see us together the way I had once seen us together. I wondered how Lucy saw us and whether we saw the same thing.





20





Jon Stone


2240 hrs

West Hollywood, CA, USA Jon Stone, rock god.

Now up on his rotation: “Play That Funky Music” by Wild Cherry.

Jon jerked and whirled to the beat pounding his home above the Sunset Strip like a one-man boy band wrecking crew, every cell in his body a pulsing celebration. Jon Stone, naked as a jaybird, sixteen days back from a security stint in Turkmenistan on the northern Iranian border, had banked so much cash in the past twenty-four hours he buzzed with a burning energy.

    And play that funky music ’Til you die!



Jon Stone sold death. Jon, who had spent thirteen years with the U.S. Army’s Special Forces, six of which as a Delta Force officer, was a private military contractor. As such, he sold the services of those who could deliver death and those who could defend against death. Business was booming.