Alien Blues (19 page)

“God, I missed you, too. David, stop. No, listen.
David
.”

He stepped back. “What?”

“I found … is that
blood
on your shirt?”

David had a flash, suddenly, of Judith Rawley slumped in a chair.

“You look awful.” Rose ran her knuckles across his cheek. “Are you growing a beard?”

“Maybe.”

She put a hand behind his head and pulled him down for a kiss. “I hope you're all right. I forgot to worry about you.”

“Ouch.” He took her hand away.

“What is ouch?” Haas walked into the kitchen. His khaki pants were mud-stained at the knees and along one thigh. His shirt was torn, and his cheek bruised and scraped raw.

David's jaw tightened. “Rose, are you all right?”

“
She
is fine,” Haas said. He sat at the table and put his chin in his hand. He winced, and moved the hand away.

David wrapped ice cubes in a dish towel, ran it under water, and handed it to Haas. Haas took it wordlessly and held it to the right side of his jaw. Rose put a cup of coffee in front of him.

David shook his head. He took the coffee mug and tipped it into the sink, watching the dark liquid steam, pool, and run down the drain. He poured a heavy slosh of Wild Turkey into the cup and handed it to Haas, along with two aspirin he rummaged out of the cabinet over the stove.

“
Thank
you.” Haas sighed deeply.

“What
is
ouch?” Rose touched David's head again.

“Long story. Let me kiss the girls, and I'll—”

She took a gulp of coffee. “Ooo,
shit
, that's hot. David, listen.” She grabbed his arm. “I was right. They're using animals, but Jesus, that's not all … how did you get a lump on the back of your head?”

“Let me see the kids—”

“Sit. The girls are asleep, anyway, look at them later.”

David sat at the round wood table. “Mel and I were in an explosion.”

“You have concussion?” Haas asked. “I can see from the eyes.”

“Mel?” Rose said. “I should have known he'd have something to do with this. Is he all right? Why didn't you call me? Oh, hell, you couldn't call me. I should go and see—”

David grabbed her wrist. “Rose. He's okay. Still in the hospital, but probably out tomorrow.”

“But what happened?” Rose asked.

“Remember the Elaki I told you about? Puzzle?”

“Elaki?” Rose hopped up and put more coffee in her almost full cup. “Listen, David, the lab we got into was definitely an Elaki operation. We've got documentation, but not courtroom stuff. They're doing some kind of drug experimentation. God, it's infuriating, why anyone … David, you look really bad. When was this explosion?”

“A few days ago.”

“That shirt looks like you washed it in a sink.”

“I did.”

Haas sighed deeply. “This conversation is most difficult to follow.”

“Perhaps if my wife would let me finish a sentence—”

Rose leaned back and folded her arms. “You know, David, you're not the only one who's had a rough week. I almost got my butt fried, Haas and I are getting no backup—as a matter of fact, our people have pulled back entirely! You know how long I've been working for these—these idiots?” Rose shoved hair out of her eyes. “What I've risked?”

“We, Rose,” Haas said. “What
we've
risked.”

“What do you
mean
, you almost got fried?” David asked.

“
I
am the one who is fried,” Haas said.

“David, you know you're not supposed to ask me stuff like that. Besides, you haven't told me about your explosion.”

David spoke quickly, before she could go off again. “Puzzle's car was wired, and Mel and I—String too—we got caught when it went off. Mel's pretty banged up, bad laceration on his leg, some internal stuff they wanted to watch.”

“And the Elaki?”

“Smeared across the sidewalk.”

“String's dead?”

“No, Puzzle. String is fine. Too fine.”

“Another dead Elaki,” Rose said thoughtfully. She looked at Haas.

“Tell him,” Haas said.

“Tell me what?”

“There isn't any connection with our Elaki and his Elaki,” Rose said.

“Tell him anyway. He deals with them.”

David sat back and folded his arms. Rose frowned.

“Talk, Rose.” Haas's accent was thicker than usual. “And do not hop from point to point. I am very tired.”

Rose took a gulp of coffee and curled her feet under her in the chair.

“The labs are Elaki connected, no doubt there. And they're not just using animals. They're using people.”

David leaned forward. “People? What do you mean using?”

Rose threw up her hands. “What do you
think
?”

“In the labs,” Haas said. “Experiment subjects.”

David chewed his lip.

“You take it coolly enough,” Rose said.

“You got any evidence? Hard evidence?”

“I am
sharing
information with you, David, against my better judgment, and I—”

“We screw it up,” Haas said. “Got caught before we were finished. But is Elaki operation. There were high desks, no chairs. Elaki accommodation, if you will.”

“Did you see any people there?”

“No. But we know they were there. Were signs unmistakable. We went through research results—saw them. Some kind of drug experimentation. We have tracked telespondence and linked to name Horizon.”

“
Project Horizon
?”

“This means something to you, then?”

“How could it?” Rose said. “He's tracking a serial killer. Machete Man has nothing to do with this.”

“What are you going to do?” David asked.

“I have a news connection.”

“The press?”

“Best way to go. Nobody gets to drag their ass that way. They'll have to move quick.”

“Look, Rose. There's a link here—with
my
Elaki. It looks like a drug connection. Dyer was in it somehow, and Dyer was vice.”

“What are you saying, David?”

“I'm saying I don't want the whole world in on this till I figure what's up.”

“I don't
believe
what I'm hearing. You accuse me time and again of worrying about animals more than people. It wasn't very nice, David, up at that lab. You want details, you want—”

“Blow it open now, and they'll just go underground, move the location, deny it all. You know how these things work, Rose.”

“Oh, I
know
, David, I know. I did it for the DEA, year after bloody year, circling around and building a case and going after the people in charge. Meanwhile the victims get screwed right and left—that's why I left the business, David. I don't care about cases, prosecution, snagging the big perp. I go straight for
results
.”

“She is upset,” Haas said.

David bit back the reply that came to his mind.

“I told you we run into trouble. From the looks of things, maybe old enemy involved here. Not sure.”

“I'm sure,” Rose said.

“Is Santana, we think.” Haas looked worried.

David was quiet a long while. He noticed a hole in the flooring. He would have to get a kit and grow it back together.

“Perspective, Rose,” he said finally. “Give me some time. I'm asking you to trust me.”

“No.”

“Just no?”

“Okay, how about
fuck
no.”

David slammed his coffee cup on the table. “You must have been fun to work with, in your DEA days.”

Haas put his head in his hands. “Am going home.” He stood up slowly and touched Rose's shoulder.

“Best to wait, you know this. Give him time.” He headed for the back door, nodded at David, and went.

Rose didn't meet his eyes.

“There are people at stake this time, David. Don't drag your ass.”

David leaned back in his chair. He should be grateful, he supposed, that Rose listened to somebody.

TWENTY-NINE

The dog was barking. David rolled over and groaned. Dead Meat snarled—frantic, fearful. David opened his eyes. A light flashed across the bedroom window, then was gone.

“Rose?” he whispered.

He put out a hand in the darkness. No one was there.

The dog barked and whimpered. From the sound of it she was in the hall, outside the girls' room. David heard footsteps. No time to load the gun. He reached for the baseball bat under the bed.

The dog snarled and yelped, and David heard the high-pitched screams of his little girls. He ran, saw the flash of blade just as he reached the doorway, and dropped and hit the floor. He felt a swoosh of air and the blade sliced the space over his head.

The man was medium height, chubby—the details hard to make out in the gloom of the dark hallway. But David recognized him—he had seen his actions simulated time and time again, on the screen of his computer. Machete Man.

Why here? It made no sense. But he knew the man's next move.

The machete arced, and David rolled. His chest was bare and vulnerable, and sweat gathered under his arms. The blade chunked into the floor. Something soft hit his head, and a rain of stuffed animals came like scattershot from the girls' room. David looked up to the nightmare comedy of his daughters, clad in short nighties and T-shirts, throwing stuffed animals at Machete Man.

The dog snapped at Machete Man's ankles. A vicious kick sent her up against the wall. She yelped and snarled weakly. David grabbed the baseball bat and hit Machete Man below the knees. He went down, sliding on a pile of Legos that had spilled from a bin. But he was up again, quickly, and David realized he should have hit him on the shins. The man lifted the machete and swung.

The bedroom window shattered and Rose burst through the glass. Like magic, red streaks of blood blossomed across her arms, but she kept coming, and Machete Man whirled toward her, arcing the blade.

She twisted sideways and kicked, shattering Machete Man's elbow. He howled and the machete dropped and clanged on the floor. Rose reached for him, but her foot slipped on an open book, and she landed hard on one knee.

Machete Man ran. Rose was on her feet in an instant, but she was limping.

“
God
damn it.”

David grabbed the baseball bat and went after them.

He heard the front door slam into the wall, and the pounding of footsteps. The security lights were up now, and the front lawn was bathed in brightness. Machete Man was moving, holding his shattered elbow with his good hand, breaking stride only once to look back over his shoulder.

Barefooted, unarmed, wearing a cotton T-shirt and a pair of grey sweats, Rose was oddly formidable. She wasn't limping now. Her legs, lean and sure, cycled with the kind of fierce grace and energy David had only seen in ball players running bases.

And she was gaining.

David ran hard. The grass was cool, and rocks pierced the calluses on the soles of his feet. A giant moth swooped in front of him, fluttering thin black wings. He waved it away. He tasted sweat on his upper lip. A cramp grabbed his side, but it was a small one and he kept going. They had to get the bastard before he slipped out of the light, into the darkness and the woods.

David saw Rose lunge, and he ran faster. She would need help holding him, but by heaven the monster was caught. Machete Man was a pawn. If they cracked him—and he
knew
he could do it—they would get their connections.

Rose slammed into Machete Man and brought him down. He landed hard on the broken elbow and his cry echoed with a peculiar animal intensity. Rose's movements were fast, practiced, graceful. She rolled Machete Man to his back, lifted his shoulders, took his left ear in her right hand, and jerked his head, hard, to the right. David heard the neck snap, saw the wide fearful eyes of the dead man. Rose sat back on her haunches, panting, Machete Man's head lying at an awkward angle in her lap.

David stared at her. The cramp in his side tightened and ached. Rose stared back, chest heaving, sweat shining on her face. The girls were crying, and their wails rode the air like the cry of small birds. David turned his back on Rose and went to the house.

THIRTY

The kitchen was full of bright light, radio transmissions, and people David didn't know. The floor was dirty, and getting dirtier. He saw lab people walk by, toting plastic bags full of Legos, stuffed animals, torn books. The air was acrid with the smell of the nano machines that had been unleashed in the girls' room. They had grown and picked up every molecule of evidence, and then been dispersed. No expense was being spared on this one.

The smell of the nanos mingled with the scent of rewarmed coffee and the lingering dinnertime aroma of garlic and tomatoes.

They would be forever, getting things cleaned up.

In spite of the racket, the girls were asleep, snug in his arms. His butt was numb; he was sitting at an angle. He shifted position carefully. Someone had thrown a big wool blanket over the lot of them, which mostly hid the fact that he was still in pajama bottoms.

David studied the round, smooth faces of his daughters. Their eyes were tightly shut, lashes long and dark and beautiful. Anything could happen to a child, and often did. He could understand Rose's cold fury, and envy her the satisfaction of breaking the killer's neck. But it was an indulgence they could not afford. There was more to this than Machete Man—much, much more.

What did the attack mean? Was it connected to the work Rose was doing, or had he just come after the cop on his heels? And, more importantly, would there be another?

He had lost the direct route to the answers when Rose had snapped the man's neck. He would lay awake at night, now, listening. When he tried to concentrate on the work, he would be jolted by visions of his daughters at the hands of killers wielding sharp blades with honed gleaming edges.