“Thank you,” Melissa told Blaine when they were finally airborne. The jet was a twenty-four-seater, and all but two of the seats were taken. Weapons gathered from Nineteen’s stash had been stowed in the cramped baggage compartment.
“For what?”
“For not trying to tell me I couldn’t come along.”
“You’ve got it coming to you.” He eyed her warmly. “Your father died for what we uncovered, Melly. You deserve to be there for the finish. I never really considered otherwise.”
She turned to the window and then back at McCracken. “Do you ever get used to it?”
“Used to what?”
“Loss. Fear. Anxiety.”
“No. To all of the above.”
Melissa took his hand and they sat in silence.
Sal Belamo was waiting as planned at the diplomatic terminal at Kennedy Airport when the jet landed. McCracken climbed down out of the plane and met him on the tarmac.
“You bring the specs on Livermore, Sal?”
Belamo frowned. “You ask me, maybe you forgot who it was you were dealing with here. Mothballed SAC base located on the outskirts of a little town called Hanover. I got us a flight plan to an airport forty miles away in Hastings, Nebraska.” Sal was smirking now. “What’d you bring, boss?”
Blaine turned back toward the women of Nineteen who were stretching their legs on the tarmac.
“Oh,” Belamo said.
“So what’s eating you, boss?” he asked before Blaine could start back for the jet.
“It shows that much?”
“Does to me.”
“It’s just that things aren’t clear-cut this time, not black and white. It’s tough to argue with what the Tau is attempting. Every name comes off their list makes this a safer world to live in.” Blaine’s expression grew reflective. “I don’t know, it seems to me that what the Tau are doing — what their predecessors did forty-five years ago — isn’t much different from what I’ve been doing for the last decade or so.”
“Bad comparison.”
“Is it?”
“Yeah. Maybe you’re forgetting ’bout the big fella’s cop friend or the fact that they went after the big fella himself. You never killed anyone who wasn’t in a position to do likewise to you. The Tau don’t fit your style in the slightest.”
“I’ve been trying to tell myself that. I keep thinking that the key to this is what happened all those years ago in that chamber Melissa and I uncovered. One of the original Tau’s been waiting a long time to make a comeback. He could have done it at any time, but he chose now. Why? Only thing I can figure is it took this long for the technology to become available to reproduce the White Death in the quantities he needed for multiple dispersals. Livermore Air Force Base must be his primary distribution point.”
“And you just solved your own problem, boss.”
“How?”
“This White Death shit, maybe it’d be okay in the Tau’s hands if we left things alone. Maybe. But somebody else gets their hands on it might have a different agenda. You told me yourself that’s why you wanted to keep our trip to Livermore in the family. So it ain’t really the Tau we’re after, it’s the White Death.”
The way Belamo put it made Blaine feel instantly lighter and more relaxed. “So let’s go find it.”
“Can you fix it?” Sheriff Tyrell Loon asked Toothless Jim Jackson, as Johnny Wareagle looked on.
“Engine block’s got a crack in it wider than the Liberty Bell’s and the fuel line looks like she’s been chewed by a gator,” Jackson replied. “I’ll fetch me my toolbox and give it my best shot.”
“How long?”
“Anywheres between an hour and never, Tyrell.”
The stink of something burning had Toothless Jim easing Blue Thunder over even before the first of the black smoke began to show itself from under the hood. Of course, the signs had been there two states back. Blue Thunder had covered the second half of its journey grudgingly, in fits and starts, each corner and road bringing a new adventure. By northern Texas the clanking and clamoring had given way to a constant rattle that the passengers from Tyrell Loon on back felt down to the pits of their stomachs. Through Oklahoma the old bus was drinking a quart of oil every hundred miles and belching black smoke from its tailpipe. And halfway into Kansas Blue Thunder’s shocks had given up, so every uneven patch of road sent the occupants lurching upward in their seats. Four of its tires were losing air as fast as the engine was bleeding oil. A bit farther north, the rear emergency exit had sprung permanently open, causing an ear-wrenching buzz that had the makeshift army covering their ears to stifle the noise. It wasn’t until Toothless Jim Jackson figured out the right wire to cut that they could relax again.
As he watched Toothless Jim emerge from Blue Thunder carrying his toolbox, Johnny Wareagle found himself still surprisingly calm. He knew no matter how bad things got for Blue Thunder that the old bus would get them to their destination. Mechanically it should never have made it out of No Town, much less Louisiana. But the ceremony the Old One had supervised was better than any tune-up or engine replacement. The magic of No Town passed like glue through Blue Thunder’s gas line and stuck tight to those parts of it that had long since lost their seals. In one of the towns they had stopped in, the mechanic feeding Blue Thunder oil had looked at its engine the way he would if his dead uncle drove up to the pump and said “Fill her up.”
Such stops had served as the only breaks in their constant journey through Saturday night and into Sunday morning. Toothless Jim stopped not far from Johnny and threw open his toolbox. Wareagle knew tools fairly well and engines a little better, well enough anyway to tell him that nothing in this box was even remotely related to repairing the kind of problem Blue Thunder had come down with.
Toothless Jim grabbed some duct tape and a small plastic container. He held these items in one hand, while he rummaged with the other through the box’s contents and finally came up with what he was looking for: a thin, dried-out paintbrush.
“Here we go,” he said, flashing his gums.
Wareagle watched as he moved to the cooling engine and wedged a hand in deep.
“Bigger than I thought,” he said, as he fingered the crack. “I best clean it first. Sheriff, bring me that bottle I got tucked under my seat.”
Loon came back seconds later with a bottle of homemade whiskey corked at the top and half-empty. Johnny hadn’t seen Toothless Jim take a single swig on the journey, but he was certain all the same that the bottle had been full when they’d left No Town. Toothless Jim poured a hefty portion on an old rag and felt for the crack again.
“That oughta do her,” he said, sliding his hand back out. “Time for some black magic now.”
In this case the “black magic” referred to a thick tarlike epoxy substance that Toothless Jim spooned out of the plastic container and smoothed out in one of his hands. The other hand pushed the brush down into the flattened lump and forced as much black magic on as the bristles would hold. Then his right hand disappeared back into the engine, toward the crack.
“Where are you?” Toothless Jim muttered, as he probed about. “Come out, come out wherever you are….”
He smiled again at Loon and Wareagle. They could see his forearm flexing, the crack being found, and the homemade epoxy filler being worked home.
“Be an hour, if I can seal the fuel line,” he said, grimacing from the exertion. “Never, if I can’t.”