‘We don’t know who they are,’ Ellison said, ‘and they ain’t our concern.’
‘One of them moved like he was a soldier,’ Copthorne said, standing to join Ellison but his tone conceding Nathaniel’s point. ‘He kept our heads down with his pistol but he din’ shoot to kill. The other one din’ shoot at all. It was only that damned fool girl who let fly with her shotgun, damned near blew my ass off.’
‘Yeah,’ Nathaniel said, ‘and did you see him out of Sedillo Park, ridin’ that goddamned horse like a bat outta hell? He almost had us but he never shot no gun. I don’t reckon he was bearing arms at all.’
Ellison shook his head, picking up his rifle from where it was propped.
‘It’s too risky to talk to them.’
‘My guess, for what it’s worth,’ Cochrane said, ‘is that they’ll keep coming. Whoever they are, they were willing to trek out through the Pecos after us and that ain’t something a tenderfoot does lightly.’
Ellison turned to face his men four-square, and his tone brooked no argument.
‘Either we reach the caves and are saved, or we reach the caves and we disappear. Whatever happens, as long as I’ve a breath left in my body I ain’t letting Jeb Oppenheimer or anybody else touch my bones.’ He checked his weapon and gestured to the door. ‘An’ if anyone else comes after us, I’ll give ’em the good news from the end o’ my rifle.’
53
Doug Jarvis stepped off the boarding ramp of a gigantic C-5 Galaxy transport aircraft onto the floodlit service ramp, listening to the huge aircraft’s engines whine down as he sniffed the mixture of aviation fuel and desert air. The vapors reminded him of a dozen other similar airbases across the Middle East he had seen when serving with the Marines.
‘Mister Jarvis?’
A tall, robustly built man extended a hand to Jarvis.
‘Butch Cutler,’ the man said as they shook. ‘Can I ask why I’m here, sir?’
Jarvis gestured to a waiting USAF bus.
‘Best we get ourselves inside first,’ he said cryptically, refusing to be drawn.
Cutler asked no further questions and led Jarvis to the bus that drove them across the vast servicing pan past ranks of razor-sharp F-22 Raptors, the latest air-dominance fighter to join the United States Air Force. It pulled up alongside a row of administrative offices, where a young subaltern met them and led them to a small room where a table, two chairs and two Styrofoam cups filled with steaming coffee awaited. Jarvis thanked the subaltern and closed the door behind them, then joined Cutler at the table.
‘You have powerful friends, whoever you are, Mister Jarvis,’ Cutler said. ‘It’s been a long time since someone’s been able to drag me out of my bed at three in the morning.’
‘Bad habit of mine,’ Jarvis said, feigning humor in order to draw Cutler in. ‘Never was able to sleep more than four hours at a time since leaving the corps.’
Cutler raised an eyebrow. ‘Marines?’
‘Fourth Marines,’ Jarvis confirmed. ‘15th Expeditionary.’
‘Not another one,’ Cutler said. ‘Is there a corps retirement home down here or something? I’ve been chasing another ex-Marine all over the state, someone named Warner.’
‘Ethan,’ Jarvis confirmed. ‘He works for me.’
Cutler’s casual manner seized as he looked at Jarvis.
‘Well, your man is a world-class pain in the ass. Wherever he is people die, vehicles crash and things blow up. If he shows up in Santa Fe county again while I’m still there I’ll have him in irons.’
‘He’s not in Santa Fe,’ Jarvis said. ‘In fact, that’s why I’m here. He’s heading south toward the border with Texas, and he’s acting alone. Ethan’s got a troubling habit of putting himself in danger to achieve his objectives and he may be biting off more than he can chew.’
‘What the hell’s that got to do with dragging me here?’ Cutler asked.
‘I needed you somewhere we could talk freely,’ Jarvis replied. ‘Put plainly, there’s something going on behind the scenes at USAMRIID and I suspect you could be compromised.’
‘Like hell,’ Cutler shot back as he slammed his cup down, spilling coffee across the table. ‘My unit’s tight.’
‘I didn’t say your unit was compromised,’ Jarvis pointed out.
‘What then?’
‘You called USAMRIID headquarters a few hours ago, trying to reach Colonel Donald Wolfe.’
‘How the hell would you know about—’
‘We work with the National Security Agency,’ Jarvis explained.
‘You’ve been watching me?’ Cutler shouted, standing up.
‘We’ve been watching USAMRIID as a whole,’ Jarvis said, raising a placating hand. ‘We know that you were approached by Jeb Oppenheimer, who has offered a bribe for you to obtain materials on his behalf.’
Cutler slowly sat down, his gaze fixed on Jarvis’s.
‘He came to my hotel room with four of his heavies,’ Cutler said. ‘I reported it in as soon as they left.’
‘An act I admire immensely,’ Jarvis said. ‘There aren’t many people I know who’d turn down half a million bucks for such a minor indiscretion.’
‘I serve my country,’ Cutler replied with a sigh and a shrug of his heavy shoulders. ‘Doesn’t mean I enjoyed turning down enough money to retire on.’
‘How often do you speak to Colonel Donald Wolfe?’
‘Most days.’ Cutler frowned. ‘He’s my boss. Why?’
‘I need you to tell me how it was that your unit was called down here to New Mexico, specifically to Santa Fe.’
Cutler glanced upward in thought for a moment.
‘The call came in from Donald Wolfe himself, I guess maybe three days ago at USAMRIID. They had some concern that there was a danger of unspecified bacterial agents being released from a site in or near Santa Fe. We were asked to secure the relevant areas and provide support to the engineering and clean-up teams.’
‘They didn’t tell you what the supposed agents were?’ Jarvis asked.
‘We often don’t know what we’re looking for,’ Cutler explained. ‘Most times we’re searching domestic premises being used by enemies of the United States to produce toxic chemicals or so-called dirty bombs. Our engineers go in fully protected against any airborne pathogens like anthrax, and then identify the agent at work.’
Jarvis took a sip of his coffee and eyed Cutler with interest.
‘So you’re brought down here, and you head for where?’
‘An apartment block, downtown Santa Fe. The only lead we had was that of a man named Tyler Willis, some kind of big-shot brain out of Los Alamos.’
‘Why was he mentioned as a target?’ Jarvis asked.
‘It was pretty vague,’ Cutler admitted. ‘Something to do with experiments outside his remit or something, general suspicion but no probable cause. We’d been told it would be a discreet operation, but your man Warner rolled up and then the apartment was blown sky-high just before we got there.’
‘And what was it that you were looking for, specifi-cally?’ Jarvis asked. ‘They must have had some idea in order to send you in there in the first place. Was it a vial of something, or maybe vats of chemicals?
Cutler shook his head.
‘No, mostly just a directive to be prepared to encounter toxic substances. Wolfe did mention that I should keep an eye open for any blood I might find.’
Jarvis raised an eyebrow.
‘Blood?’
‘Yeah,’ Cutler said. ‘He briefed me verbally that Willis might have been tinkering around with a pathogen that infected people through the mixing of bodily fluids, specifically blood. He said that if I was to find any, I should have it sealed and sent directly to his office in Maryland.’