She was just getting into a taxi when Delmer reached the parking lot. He raced for his own car and squealed out of the lot only a block behind it, following as inconspicuously as possible. When the taxi merged onto I-5 going north, he closed up the lead a little, following a couple of cars behind as it switched to 520 and crossed the floating bridge into Bellevue.
It seemed as if half the buildings lining the freeway belonged to computer manufacturers or software companies. “Of course!” Delmer muttered to himself. “The computer industry has to be in on it as well. Jeez, why didn’t I think of that before?”
The taxi pulled off the freeway and swung around the block into a Red Lion Hotel parking lot. The woman got out and entered the lobby, but as soon as the cab had gone she came right back out, walked through the lot to a parked car—a black Mercedes—and drove away.
Delmer followed her to another hotel where she switched cars again—this time to a black BMW—then she led him through winding streets to a sprawling mansion built into a hillside. An electric gate blocked the driveway; Delmer drove on past, pausing only long enough to write down the address. Then he headed for a phone booth.
The yellow pages held over a hundred listings for private investigators. Delmer groaned as he saw page after page of ads promising discretion, confidentiality, and affordable rates. How could he know which ones were legit and which ones were already part of the conspiracy? A wrong guess would be disastrous.
Then he couldn’t afford to guess. He would have to consult a higher power. With a newfound sense of determination, he scanned the pages of the directory, glancing at the names just long enough for them to register in his subconscious mind, then he went back to his car and took his Ouija board out of the trunk, sat down in the passenger seat with the board on his lap, and placed the fingers of both hands on the planchette. It would work better with two people, but Delmer didn’t have time to track down a compatriot to help him. The oracle would have to work through him alone.
He let his wrists and forearms go slack, then focused on the alphabet spread across the board and tried to let his mind do the same. After a moment, the planchette began to move.
“You know, Elvis served me a burger once, back in ‘83. I’m sure of it.” Sid Jaimeson, the investigator, paused to light a cigarette, puffing the smoke toward the windshield, where it curled around and drifted straight toward Delmer.
Delmer cranked his window down a couple of inches. “Elvis, huh?” he said distractedly. They’d been watching the house behind the iron gate for a couple of hours now.
“Yup. In a little Mom & Pop diner in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He’d shaved off his sideburns and his hair was a lot shorter, but you can’t fool a trained eye. It was Elvis all right.”
“Wow,” said Delmer. “What’d you do?”
Sid blew more smoke at the windshield. “Nothing. It wasn’t any of my business.” He was silent for a minute or more, then he said, “Well, okay, I tipped him twenty percent, just to let him know I knew. But I didn’t tell anybody, if that’s what you mean.”
Delmer grinned. “You just told me.”
Sid grinned right back. “I told you the wrong town, too.”
“Oh.” Delmer was momentarily crestfallen, but then he realized Sid was just being professional. “You know,” he said, “I’m glad—”
“Look sharp,” Sid interrupted. “Here she comes.” He stabbed out his cigarette in the ashtray, and the two men hunched down in their seats as the iron gate swung open and the black BMW slid silently out into the night. It was halfway down the block before its driver turned on the lights.
Sid started up his car and pulled out after her, keeping a full block behind until she got into heavier traffic, then closing up the distance and following her onto the freeway. She drove south all the way to Renton before getting off on 169 and heading toward Mount Rainier.
“What could she be doing way out here?” Delmer asked as they drove past Enumclaw and turned east on 410.
“Could be anything,” Sid said. “Making a drop, meeting a contact, disposing of a body—you name it.”
Delmer shuddered. He wondered what had happened to Leo’s body. How long had he sat there face down in the bar before someone noticed him? Had anyone described Delmer to the police? Were they even now ransacking his apartment for clues? That much was certain; if not the police then the Black Space Program people. And both organizations would no doubt post guards to catch him when he returned. Which meant he couldn’t even go home. He could call in from a pay phone for his messages, but that would be it.
The road had begun climbing into the Cascade foothills. Now that they were the only two cars on it, Sid had dropped way back, so they just glimpsed the BMW’s taillights as it disappeared around the tree-lined curves ahead of them. Then they came to a twistier section and didn’t see the car at all for a few minutes, but the road straightened out again and there it was, stopped at a pullout.
It was too late to stop without being obvious. “Duck down,” Sid said as he drove on past. He took them around the next corner, then killed the lights and turned the car around on the narrow road. With the engine off, and using just the emergency brake so the lights wouldn’t come on, he coasted them back down until they were just peeking around the corner. The BMW was an inky patch of darkness under the starlight, growing more visible as their eyes adapted to the dark.
“She’s got to be meeting someone,” Sid whispered, as if his voice could carry the quarter mile to the other car and give them away. “She hasn’t even gotten out of the car.”
“What if they come down from above?” Delmer asked. He meant from up the road, but Sid leaned forward and looked up through the smoky windshield.
“Holy shit!” he whispered.
Delmer leaned forward to see what he was so excited about. Sure enough, there was a glowing ring of red and green lights descending toward them from high in the northwestern sky.
Sid reached back into the rear seat and grabbed his camera. Rolling down his window, he leaned out and started snapping pictures as the UFO dropped silently to a stop beside the BMW.
It dwarfed the car. Delmer guessed it was thirty or forty feet tall and twice as wide. It was circular, the classic flying saucer design with a bulge on the top. Through the transparent bubble, Delmer could see silhouettes of two humanoid pilots sitting at a control console.
The BMW driver’s door opened, and the woman from the bar stepped out. She was bathed in pulsing light from the UFO. Sid kept clicking away with the camera as a ramp descended from the underside of the saucer and the woman walked up it and disappeared inside.
“We got ‘em,” Delmer whispered triumphantly.
The ramp slid back into the saucer, the lights brightened, and the UFO rose up into the air again. Delmer expected it to shoot straight up, but instead it slid silently up the road—straight at their car.
“Uh oh,” Sid said. He handed Delmer the camera. “Hold that and put on your seatbelt. Things could get bumpy here.” He waited until he was sure that the UFO pilots had indeed seen them—which was unmistakable when a beam of bright white light shot out from the edge of the saucer and lit up the interior of the car like the inside of a flashbulb—then he turned the key in the ignition.
The engine rumbled to life, then immediately died. When Sid tried the key again, nothing happened. Not even the starter motor turned over.
“They’re using a dampening field!” Delmer squeaked. “They can stop engines and stuff from working.”
Sid nodded. “Well, then, let’s just see if they can repeal the law of gravity.” He released the emergency brake and the car began to roll down the highway toward the parked BMW.