Preston W. Child
Black Sun Rising
Prologue
Descending from a clear blue sky, the AgustaWestland AW119 sent waves of sand scudding across the ground below. The woman sitting by the window gazed out over the desert, lost in thought. The end of the Grand Canyon spread out in the distance, but it had long since lost its ability to impress her. Too many years of traveling the world had taken their toll. Now the world's geographical wonders were little more than an inconvenience, standing between her and her latest destination.
The chopper touched down. The woman uncrossed her legs, smoothed down her flowing linen trousers, and stood. A man with long, ash blond hair was approaching, ready to offer her a steadying hand as she alighted. "Hey," he called, over the noise of the propeller. "How was your flight?"
The woman replied with a one-shouldered shrug and allowed herself to be helped down onto the sand. "Is everything ready?" she asked.
Her lack of niceties and small talk did not offend the man. "You know it!" He followed as she strode purposefully away from the helicopter. "I knew you'd want everything to be perfect, so I've been keeping a super close watch on every detail. How are you feeling about it, anyway? I'm kinda invigorated, myself. If we pull this off, it's going to be bigger than anything we've ever done before."
She stopped abruptly and turned to shoot him an icy glare. "If?"
He raised his hands apologetically. "When."
"Exactly. When. Now, I know that we're setting up the surface area the same way as usual, and the entrance to the medical compound will be the same. I saw the developments over at the cinder cone a couple of weeks ago. All I need you to show me is the new installations here."
"Sure thing, S. It's all in place. The screening facility won't be fully functional until tomorrow, though. Some problem with the—"
She cut him off with an abrupt gesture. "Tomorrow? We agreed it would all be ready by today."
"I know, I know, and I'm sorry. It was working this morning and now it's glitching. I've got some people working on it right now. Tomorrow, I promise you — hey, where are you going?"
The woman had turned and was walking swiftly back toward the helicopter. The man ran after her, diving in front of her so that she had to stop. She sighed. "Don't get in my way, Cody," she said. "It's not ready. You have one more chance. I will come back tomorrow, and it will be ready then."
"It will, S, I promise." Perhaps it was the desert heat, but a thin film of sweat was beginning to form on the young man's brow.
"I'm sure it will." She stepped up into the chopper. As she turned to look at the man, her stony expression suddenly melted into a smile. "You know that I require nothing less than total commitment. I know you understand."
With no further conversation, she was gone. The man watched as the helicopter took off, shielding his eyes from the sand it churned up. He did not seem comforted in the slightest by her words.
Chapter One
Sam Cleave lay awake in his bed, glaring resentfully at the glowing red digits of his alarm clock, which were helpfully informing him that it was 4:17 AM. His thin summer blanket lay in a heap on the floor, the window was wide open, and the cheap electric fan was on its highest setting. Its whirring was getting on Sam's nerves and preventing him from getting to sleep, but he knew that if he switched if off he would have no chance of sleeping in this heat. Tired and irritable, he flipped his pillow over in search of a cool spot. Much to his annoyance, his pillow seemed to be warm all over.
Tossing the pillow aside, Sam hauled himself to his feet and stumbled through to the kitchen. In the dim predawn light he managed to find a clean-looking glass, but his plans to fill it with water were thwarted by Bruichladdich, who was asleep in the sink. Instead Sam turned and headed for his desk. For want of anything better to do, he opened his laptop and fired up the Internet. An email notification caught his eye.
Hey Sam,
Long time no see! Seems like no time at all since we were all in Ushuaia. What a crazy experience that whole thing was!
I don't know if you've seen much of Matlock lately, but if you have then maybe he's told you that I've gone in kind of a different direction these days. No more polar exploring for me — I think I've done my time out on the permafrost! I've been exploring a more spiritual way of life instead.
When I got home I was blessed enough to make contact with a group of people who run Vision Quests, and I've been spending a lot of time with them out in the desert in Arizona. Have you ever been there, Sam? It's a whole different world, and when you're out in the playa or in the valleys where there's nothing but sand, it does something to your mind. It makes everything clear.
You're probably wondering why I'm telling you all this. Well, as you can probably tell, my time in the desert has been an important experience for me. Life-changing, I would say. I'm really eager to share what I've learned with the world, so I want to write a book about it. I had someone who helped me with my books about the Arctic and Antarctica, but I think this book's going to need a totally different flavor, and I was hoping you would be able to help me.
If you're interested, I think you'd need to experience the desert for yourself. There's no way anybody could capture it without living it for themselves. And of course I would need you to spend some time interviewing me and working on a structure.
So what do you say? If you would be prepared to come out here for, say, six weeks? I would pay for your flights and all your living costs, along with your fee. Whatever you want to charge, I can pay it. It's worth it to me to know I have the right man for the job.
Let me know what you think. It would be great to see you again, and I think I can promise you that this will be a life-changing experience for you, just like it was for me!
Jefferson
Sam blinked a few times and stared blearily at the screen. The words squirmed before his tired eyes. He squinted as he reread them, trying to wake his brain enough to process the message. Was Jefferson Daniels really proposing that Sam should drag himself to America and join him for a bit of navel-gazing meditation in a teepee somewhere?
"I've only just got settled in after last time," Sam thought aloud. Bruichladdich leaped into his lap and shoved his ginger head against Sam's cheek. "What do you think, Bruich? You don't want me disappearing again, do you? And I can't say I fancy it much." As the cat curled up on Sam's lap and began a ragged purr, Sam's eyes wandered to the half-empty bottle of Lagavulin standing on the bookshelf. It was easily within arm's reach. It would help him to sleep. Or if it didn't, it would at least take the edge off of being awake, just as it had so many times before. He leaned in and closed his fingers around the comforting shape. The glass was cool against his palm. He pressed the bottle against his forehead and felt a brief moment of relief from the oppressive heat. "If I'm too hot in Edinburgh in August, I'd probably melt in Arizona."
He set the bottle down. It sat tauntingly next to an invitingly empty tumbler. For a long moment Sam looked at it, then tore his gaze away and reread the email. "What is a Vision Quest, anyway?" he wondered. Reaching over the cat, he typed the phrase into his search engine and hit return. A split second later he had a screen full of results, telling him about everything from Native American Indian rites of initiation to the recent trend for wealthy people with no cultural connections to the Native Americans to pay large sums to become dehydrated in search of spiritual enlightenment. Somehow Sam was unsurprised that this kind of thing had appealed to Jefferson.
"This doesn't look like much fun at all, Bruich," Sam said, scanning a list of recommended preparations for a quest. "Fasting, meditation, solitude… no, I can't say I fancy this in the slightest. Even the fancy version aimed at white people with more money than sense doesn't look great. Look at this… 'purge your body of all toxins, learn rituals of incorporation'—what the hell is a ritual of incorporation? 'The threshold of the unknown'… Seriously, Bruich, can you see me lasting five minutes at one of these things?" He reached for the whisky bottle again and poured himself a generous measure. "Keep your judgment to yourself, cat," he muttered as Bruich stared up at him with eyes full of feline reproach. "If you'd read what I'd just read, you'd be drinking too."