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  “Five A.M. tomorrow,” Ododa said. He moved away from the wired explosives and back to the golf cart, hoping to head home before his boss came up with something else for him to do.

  “Can we do it tonight?” Mbasi asked.

  Ododa thought it over. There was no reason why not, there was still plenty of light left to the day and his people would appreciate the overtime.

  “We’ll have to go into overtime,” Ododa warned. “Some of our people have already been here for ten hours.”

  “The sooner we open this annex, the sooner we will receive our bonuses,” Mbasi insisted. “I’d like to get started on clearing the rubble for the heavy loaders tomorrow instead of waiting for the thing to settle.

  Ododa thought about it and said, “Let me call my wife and let her know I will be remaining here for the night.”

  “Excellent,” Mbasi said as a broad smile spread across his face. “Tomorrow, we open up the new annex and get the bonuses we’ve been promised!”

  Ododa simply nodded and they got back into the golf cart urging it back up the dirt trail leading to their office. He’d heard promises of bonuses from the home office before, but they always failed to materialize. It didn’t matter; the steady paycheck was enough. Not to mention the fact that he had a lovely wife, his children adored him and he lived in the most beautiful country on Earth, all of which made him feel like the luckiest man in the world.

  Ododa looked at the western sky, already turning red from the setting sun in the distance. His country was indeed beautiful, and every single time he looked around, he felt certain that he never wanted to be anyplace else.

  He inhaled the air deeply and looked around as he watched his people get to work. Tomorrow was shaping up to be another gorgeous day in Zambia.

  He replaced the papers inside his metal clipboard and headed back towards his office. Hopefully the coffee would be ready, and that would be enough to keep him running until this day finally ended.

  Chapter Six

  The ride to San Diego didn’t take long. The early morning traffic was light compared to the rest of the day. The real secret to their hassle-free commute was the fact that their invisible super-truck had been cruising along the 15 freeway at a speedy 95 miles per hour. While they weaved their way through the light traffic, Alex encouraged the rest to get some sleep on the ride down while he took control of the vehicle to keep them on course.

  He was really just trying to keep their curiosity at bay until he had a chance to show them why he had been missing for so long.

  He looked over at Emily, wondering if what he was seeing was real. After six years of torturing himself imagining her face, he wasn’t sure if he could believe that she was actually in front of him once again. She wasn’t some figment of his imagination; she was there, breathing slowly as she slept through their trip down to America’s Finest City.

  He exhaled and felt the familiar pang of guilt twist his stomach in knots. After six years, he’d given up crying over lost opportunities, but that didn’t change how much pain he’d brought his loved ones by leaving. He’d thought that enough time had passed, and that seeing her wouldn’t dredge up his old feelings, but he had been so tragically and stupidly wrong. Every feeling he’d tried to ignore, tried to stuff somewhere deep down, instantly resurfaced the second she’d reentered his life.

  His only wish was for Emily to be happy, but by coming back into her life, he’d likely destroyed her career, not to mention her concept of “normal.” Now Emily was far from her comfortable life of listening to the stars and involved in a vast conspiracy he himself could barely begin to explain, let alone handle.

  Alex withdrew the stone on his necklace, the stone that had saved him so often over the last forty-eight, hours and stared. He briefly considered chucking it deep into the Pacific Ocean, but then chuckled as he remembered what happened the last time he tried to throw it away.

  Scott stirred next to him and raised his head to glance out the window. They had reached San Diego and were getting close to Miramar airbase. Alex urged the Hypertruck to take the exit.

  “Are we there?” Scott asked in a low voice, hoping to keep from waking Emily or Christina.

  “Just about,” Alex replied. They stopped at a stoplight, and Alex waited for the light to turn green. Scott didn’t respond and allowed the moment to be uncomfortable.

  “Look, I know I came off a little strong earlier, but you gotta understand, I think we’re owed answers.”

  Alex chuckled and shook his head.

  “What?” Scott demanded.

  “No, I’m sorry. I’m not laughing at you. Really, I’m not. I get why you guys are upset with me, hell I’d be the same way, especially after what we went through last night,” Alex said.

  “It’s like I tried to tell you when I left Stanford and joined up; after Emily, I needed to reboot my life. I needed a fresh start, but when things turned out the way they did, I couldn’t get word to you or Emily. Besides,” Alex added, “you were about to start a big brand new life of your own and I figured it was best to let you do that.”

  Scott looked pointedly away from him. A chill set into the air. “That’s still no excuse.”

  Alex swallowed his pride. “You’re absolutely right. I’m sorry. I fucked up.”

  Scott appraised him for a moment, then nodded.

  The light turned green, and the Hypertruck purred down the road towards a brightly lit storage facility, whose sign promised 24/7 access. Alex turned into the driveway and reached for his backpack, which had been sitting in the rear of the Hypertruck all day.

  Emily and Christina sat up and looked around. Emily rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “Are we here?”

  “We’re here,” Alex confirmed as he leaned out the Hypertruck’s window and punched in the gate code. The gate slowly opened, and he drove through it as soon as the truck could squeeze through.

  Alex parked, exited the Hypertruck and motioned for Emily, Scott and Christina to follow him. They looked at him quizzically.

  “You wanted an explanation of where I’d been,” Alex said opening the door to the storage facility. They walked down a short hallway towards a large rollup storage unit. “I think this ought to help.”

  Alex leaned down and pulled out a key ring from his backpack. He unlocked the rollup door and raised it up, motioning for his friends to follow him inside. They moved inside the large storage unit, and Alex closed the door behind him. He flipped the switch, flooding the inside of the unit with light.

  Inside were six eight-foot-tall wooden boxes, all nailed shut. The sides of the boxes were scorched, and the frames looked battered all to hell.

  Alex grabbed a crowbar, which was lying against one of the boxes, and handed it to Scott. “Give me a hand, would ya?”

  Curious, Scott moved to help Alex, who grabbed another crowbar and moved toward the nearest wooden box. Together, they pried at box, heaving mightily until the lid popped off.

  Emily, Christina and Scott all gasped at the same time when they saw what was inside. Alex stood in front of his prize and grinned.

  “Is that…” Emily said wide-eyed, “is that what I think it is?”

  The box was filled to the top with stacks upon stacks of hundred dollar bills, all tied together in tight, crisp bundles and wrapped in plastic.

  “How…how much?” Scott spluttered.

  “I think I’ve got about 1.6 billion dollars in this unit,” Alex said casually.

  “Is it real?” Emily asked, her jaw still on the ground.

  Alex kept grinning at their stunned reactions. He took a knife from his backpack, stabbed the plastic wrap around the cash and casually took out several bundles, tossing one to each of them so they could see for themselves. Emily’s bundle looked huge in her small hands.

  “And you dumped him?” Christina asked, flipping through the cash.

  Emily shot her friend a glare.

  “This isn’t exactly an answer to where you’ve been, Alex,” Emily said to hi
m, her glare growing harder. “In fact, it’s pretty far from an answer.”

  “I know…” Alex said softly, “but it is the reason why I disappeared six years ago.”

  “I think it’s about time we heard your story, Alex,” Scott said firmly.

  Alex sighed and nodded. He had been avoiding this conversation for too long, “How about we do it over breakfast?”

  “Fine by me,” Scott said as they closed the storage locker behind them, “but you’re buying.”

  Chapter Seven

  Geoffrey Tate sat in an interrogation room, staring at his reflection in the two-way mirror. The Feds sent to investigate the explosion at Joshua Tree had been grilling him for the last three hours. He had not said a word so far, not even to ask for a lawyer. With Rupert Kline’s vast resources, the billionaire more than likely knew about his number two being in custody and would either do what he could to free him or leave him to rot.

  He was not sure which side of the equation Kline believed he belonged on yet.

  The door to the interrogation room opened, and a tall, muscular man stepped inside. Tate did not deign to look up at the new arrival, but instead used his peripheral vision to get a read on the man.

  This one was different from the other Feds Tate had met so far. The blond man stood confident and unassuming, with his slouching stature and casual attitude. Tate did not react as the man reached up toward the camera aimed at him and disconnected the feed from whomever might be watching. The man looked at the reflective glass and made the universal sign to kill the audio feed.

  There was an audible click and the man nodded, satisfied the audio was off. He looked down to examine the mercenary before sitting opposite him.

  “You are an important man, Mr. Tate,” the Fed said lazily. He pushed a file folder towards Tate and nodded to it. “In fact, you’re very difficult to research, and I don’t say that very often. I know who you work for, of course; Kline’s been on my radar for quite some time. But I’m surprised to see someone as capable as you in such a compromising position.”

  Tate shook his head; he was not about to give this rat anything he could use.

  The Fed nodded, as if he expected Tate’s attitude, and continued, “In fact, working for a man like Kline isn’t something I expected to see on your resume. You’ve kept a low profile over the last fifteen years or so, and I wonder if that’s his doing, or yours.”

  “I’d like my lawyer,” Tate said suddenly. He did not like where this Fed was taking the questioning.

  “People in hell want ice water,” the Fed replied in a bored voice. “I’m afraid you’re in a sticky situation at the moment, one where you don’t exist any longer in the eyes of the U.S. government. You’re being held here because one of our nation’s best national parks is now lying in ruins, and a local sheriff’s deputy was found dead inside the rubble of his station – which was apparently bombed.

  “Any comment on that?” the Fed asked his eyes boring holes into Tate.

  “Sounds like you’ve got a long day ahead of you,” Tate replied, also sounding bored.

  “Long days aren’t so bad when they’re this interesting. Plus, I get to investigate this as an act of terror.”

  Tate snorted and rolled his eyes. He understood this Fed now. He was just someone looking to make his reputation on a case.

  “It might be surprising for you to learn that I’m here looking into multiple incidents. In fact, two gunmen were shot dead at JPL last night. Care to guess who they work for?”

  Tate leaned his head back and looked up at the ceiling, ignoring the questions. These interrogations were frightfully boring. The Fed would repeatedly ask him the same questions, probing for a weakness. The best thing he could do was refuse to answer. He did enjoy wasting the FBI’s time.

  “I’ll give you this one for free,” the Fed said leaning forward with a gleam in his eye. “Their identification said they were connected with MARS Security Corp. Now tell me Mr. Tate,” the blond man said smiling, “what would do in my position?”

  “Let me go?”

  He chuckled and nodded, “Hey, you had to ask right? You never know. Fortunately for me and unfortunately for you, the PATRIOT Act allows me to hold you indefinitely without needing to charge you with anything.”

  The Fed leaned forward and smiled, “So how’s about you and I keep it friendly?”

  Tate snorted his disdain for the man and looked away.

  The Fed shrugged, “If that’s how you want to play it, no skin off my nose. Besides,” the Fed added, “if I knew about Kline’s strength and what he’s after, I’d keep my mouth shut too.”

  Tate’s head snapped up in surprise and he realized that the Fed had been trolling him all along.

  Moreover, he had been stupid enough to fall for it.

  “Who are you?” Tate asked, his eyes narrowing.

  “Ah, see, there we go,” the Fed said, smiling. “You’re right, I’m being rude.” He stuck his hand out, offering it to Tate across the table. “My name is Colonel Nathaniel Ash.”

  “Well, Colonel...” Tate began as he let his tone drop sarcastically, “sadly, I have nothing to say that can help. Why, I was simply a victim, in the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s the last time I go camping for vacation.”

  Ash snorted and laughed appreciatively. “Camping? That’s not a terrible alibi, but hardly believable.”

  Ash leaned forward, placed his forearms on the table and stared directly into Tate’s eyes. “What was Kline looking for at the mesa?”

  “Natural gas formation, from what I was told,” Tate said innocently. “Why? What do you think he was looking for?”

  Colonel Ash smiled and leaned back in his chair, his eyes constantly evaluating the mercenary. “I believe he was looking for a companion to the artifact he wears on his finger.”

  Tate did not bat an eye. He would not allow this man to surprise him again, “It sounds to me like you already know more than I do. My suggestion is that if you have any further queries about Mr. Kline’s activities, you contact MARS Industry’s PR department. I hear they’re wonderful.”

  An ugly glint entered Colonel Ash’s eyes. He reached forward and grabbed the back of Geoffrey’s head, slamming his face into the metal table that separated them.

  “Tell me what Kline found in that mesa!” Ash roared standing over Tate.

  “The holy grail, we choose…wisely,” Tate wheezed.

  Ash grimaced and slammed Tate’s face into the table repeatedly. Tate’s head swam. He saw stars. He could even feel a slight trickle of blood move down his right temple. Torture never worked; even those who believed it did usually ended up with crap intelligence.

  Besides, after believing the devil himself was about to torture him for all eternity, there was not much left on this earthly plane that could ever scare him again.

  Especially overgrown steroid freaks drunk on their own power.

  The Colonel snapped his fingers. A grunt entered the room with a towel and a jug of water. Tate looked at the materials in the grunt’s hands and grinned.

  “Ahh…nothing like the classics,” Tate wheezed.

  Colonel Ash stood over him and wrapped the towel around his wrist. He snapped again at the grunt, who held Tate down and leaned him back in his chair. He laid the towel over Tate’s face carefully and nodded towards the grunt, who began pouring water over Tate’s face.

  Tate felt the panic rising as the water entered his nasal cavities and made his body feel as if he were drowning. Ash stood over him, shouting something, but Tate could not understand him. He knew what Ash wanted, but he could not tell him. He was Kline’s man, and if he betrayed that again, his life would not be worth spit.

  Whoever this Army Colonel was, he probably did know more about Kline’s mysterious stone, and what the man was doing out in Joshua Tree, than Tate did.

  Tate sputtered through the water as the army grunt leaned his chair back up and removed the cloth from his face. He gasped, trying to catch his br
eath, then looked at the man sitting across from him.

  “Hadn’t had my shower yet, so thanks for that. Very refreshing.”

  Ash’s face hardened. He nodded towards the grunt to continue. Tate was leaned back in his chair again as the waterboarding continued. He screamed and sputtered until his throat was raw.

  With a satisfied expression, Ash motioned for the grunt to stop. The grunt let Tate’s chair tip and crash to the floor. Tate opened his eyes to see Ash kneel down beside him. The Fed began to talk with him as if they were two friends meeting for drinks at their favorite sports bar.

  “They all break, you know,” Ash said softly, “I’ve seen them all break. Even the most dedicated Al Qaeda hardasses I’ve done this to broke like little babies. They never understood how terrifying it was for them to feel like they were drowning repeatedly until I came along.

  “And you will break too,” Ash said menacingly, then indicated that his man should continue. Tate screamed as he was put back under the water again while Ash resumed shouting at Tate to tell him what he knew.

  Suddenly, the door to the interrogation room swung open. In strode a lawyer whom Tate had seen around Kline’s office many times. He never thought he would be so relieved to see a lawyer, but it had already been a strange day. What was one more reality-bending thought?

  “What the hell are you doing, Colonel?” the lawyer roared. “This is an American citizen…”

  “…who is being held on charges of terrorism,” Ash coolly replied. “I think we all know what that means.”

  “Not anymore, he’s not,” the lawyer said, withdrawing a sheet of paper from his briefcase. On it was the signature of the state attorney general, indicating that Tate was free to go. “It’s time for you to gather your things, Mr. Tate.”

  Colonel Ash grabbed the sheet of paper out of the lawyer’s hands and examined it closely. He looked up at Tate, and a slight smile teased the side of his lips. “Be seeing you.”

  Ash nodded to the grunt, who reached down toward Tate’s handcuffs. Tate cringed at first, then felt ashamed for the weakness. He felt the cuffs come off, and he rubbed his wrists, hoping the feeling would return. He looked over at the Colonel disdainfully.