Nomad (26 page)

Transmission ended in sign-off. Freq. 4644 kHz/NSB.

OCTOBER 22
^nd

26

V
ACA,
I
TALY

MOORED SAILBOATS BOBBED on gentle swells inside stone breakwaters just off the gravel-and-seashell beach. Jess watched them, her mind exhausted. How nice it would be to stretch out on the deck of one of those boats, feel the sun on her skin, drop off to sleep.

Giovanni sat next to her on the
pizzeria
terrace, his face impassive behind dark sunglasses and a baseball cap pulled low. Jess’s wide-brimmed hat fluttered in the breeze, and she glanced around the cobblestone
piazza
in front of them. A decorative anchor was set in poured concrete at the center. Wind-swept juniper trees faced the ocean to the west, and European Union and Italian flags snapped in the breeze to each side of a plaque proudly emblazoned with the town’s name: VACA.

Scooters parked shoulder to shoulder, just off the terrace, bordered a long line of people waiting to get inside the restaurant. It was one of the few still open. When Jess and Giovanni, with the two security men, drove in at dawn, it had the feeling of a ghost town, but the hot sun drew what few people remained from their homes, to herd together and eat.

“Anything?” Jess asked Giovanni, flicking her chin at the walkie-talkie on the table between them.

“Nothing yet.”

Mounting a manhunt wasn’t like stepping outside for a walk. Once they committed to the idea, they had to plan it out. They started by bringing in the security guards Nico had hired, explained the situation to them. Giovanni told them that Nomad might be arriving sooner than expected, but the sum he offered both men sealed the deal—gold, and lots of it. Giovanni had a safe filled with bars of it in the basement of the castle.

Giovanni turned up the volume on a battery-powered satellite radio he brought with them.
“…riots continue in America, with a bomb this morning in a Washington mall and an explosion reported at government buildings in Sacramento, claimed responsibility by a cult saying Nomad is Nibiru returning…”
They had it tuned to the BBC.
“…global stock markets and currency exchanges have crashed, sending gold prices skyrocketing…”

After a series of terrorist attacks in Tel Aviv, Israel took control of the Gaza strip, prompting a wave of attacks by the PLO from neighboring Lebanon. Continued fighting in Kashmir had pushed the United States to send armed air support to Indian troops. In America, a renewed explosion of riots from LA to Detroit, at least from what they could tell from the radio. The situation in Europe seemed calmer, more resigned.

The night before, Giovanni arranged for delivery trucks to bring supplies to the castle. On the ramparts, Jess had improvised human-sized wooden dolls, their heads covered with large hats. Good enough to fool someone watching the castle from a distance, at least for a few hours.

In the small hours of the morning, under cover of night, Jess and Giovanni and the two security guards had smuggled themselves out in one of the delivery trucks, just in case someone
was
watching. Nico seemed to try to dissuade Giovanni from bringing Jess, a heated argument behind a closed door, but in the end they left Nico and Celeste to arrange collecting as much gold as they could in case they needed to produce the ransom.

The yeasty warmth of fresh bread wafted out of the door next to Jess, mixing with the salty freshness of the sea air and ever-present hint of coconut oil that seemed to permeate every seaside vacation town Jess had ever visited. She glanced inside, at an old couple happily serving customers. They looked like they were doing what they wanted to do—like the brothers from Giovanni’s story—and were where they wanted to be. She watched the old man take a twenty Euro bill as payment. Twenty Euros. It wasn't even worth the paper it was printed on. If death came today, Jess sensed the man would be freed by angels, not torn by demons.

What she would give to be him.

A woman in short shorts and flip-flops, with a pink bikini top, stopped in the doorway. “
Veni,
” she urged, waving her hand.

Glancing inside, Jess saw a small boy, with a Sponge Bob-printed beach towel around his neck, standing and staring at the
gelati
freezer. He wanted ice cream. The mother urged him forward again, but he stamped his foot and pouted. The mother glanced at Jess, shaking her head, but shrugged and went back in.

What do you do when the world is ending? Come to the beach.

The futility of it annoyed Jess. Go and do something useful, she wanted to shout at the people in line. But then life was futile. What was the point? Why do anything? Sitting by the ocean under a blue sky, her sense of detachment had shifted into a deep melancholy of hopeless dread. She stroked her finger along the trigger of the handgun in her purse. Just lift it up, put it in her mouth and pull the trigger—it would be over.

The waiting. The tension. The futility. All of it over. And the
guilt,
that would be over too.

She glanced inside at the young boy, not more than five. He got his ice cream.

The image of a black hole ringed in white danced through Jess’s mind, and she looked down and away from the boy. She dragged the black duffel bag at her feet, filled with assault rifles, grenades and ammunition, back under the table.

Many of the people lining up to get into the pizzeria had backpacks. How many had guns or knives in them, how many of these innocent-looking people had dark thoughts like Jess did, even as she smiled back at them?

Looking out at the sprawl of houses that stretched up into the hill, she knew people had to be barricading themselves in, protecting themselves and their families. Soon they would be crawling over each other to survive, even this peaceful place literally a hell on Earth.

Jess checked her watch again. Seventeen minutes past eleven. One minute past the last time she checked her watch. Giovanni glanced at his wrist as well. Checking the time had become obsessive, impulsive.

Forty-three hours to Nomad.

Or, forty-three hours until when her father said Nomad would be here. Conflicting stories and scientific reports flooded the Internet and news channels. It was impossible to decipher one from the other, to trust one source more than another. In the past twelve hours, amateur astronomers cataloged a dramatic shift in the outer gas giants’ orbits, but some said it meant Nomad was headed away. Earth’s orbit had already shifted, but there wasn’t one straight story.

NASA’s official stance: Still weeks away.

But it wasn’t weeks, but hours. Jess felt it in her bones. She leaned back, squinted up at the midday sun. Nomad was still behind it, but soon it would be exposed. Be upon them. The hand of God.

“
Zio
,” crackled the walkie-talkie.

Zio
—the code word they had chosen for Giovanni. He picked it up. “
Si
?”

A stream of Italian flowed from the walkie-talkie. “What’s going on?” Jess asked.

Giovanni exchanged a few more words. “They’re coming.”

“The security guards?”

“Yes.”

They had sent them out to look at the address Nico had given them. Better them than Jess and Giovanni. Enzo didn’t know the security guards, wouldn’t recognize them even if he ran into them. And they were surveillance professionals.

“Did they find him?”

Giovanni shook his head. “I don’t know.” He put the walkie-talkie down. “They’re on their way here.”

An elderly couple walked past them toward the beach. They held hands, and the man looked at the woman and kissed her. She kissed him back, long and hard. Public displays of affection turned Jess off, but she stared, fascinated. The way the man looked at his wife, the love. The tenderness. She glanced back at the people in line. Most of them were elderly.

Two weeks ago, if you asked Jess about getting old, she would have laughed.
I doubt I’ll ever get old
, she liked to joke. Except it wasn’t just a joke. Her recklessness, a death wish her mother called it, was one of the reasons her mother had difficulty spending time with her. Celeste often said that part of her was waiting for the call. About an accident.

And part of Jess was waiting for it as well. The same drive that pushed her to quit school, quit her degree in astronomy, and join the Marines.

But now, faced with the real prospect of imminent death, perhaps days away, she didn’t want to die. She watched the elderly couple walk onto the beach, hand in hand, the old man stealing glances at his wife. Jess didn’t want to die. She wanted someone to look at her like that.

Leaning forward, Jess took Giovanni’s hand in hers. “We’ll find Hector, I promise.”

Taking a deep breath, Giovanni nodded, his jaw muscles flexing. “Thank you. And thank you for coming.”

“Of course.” Jess squeezed his hand. “I’m so sorry. All this is my fault.”

“I thought you said you never apologized?” Giovanni managed a wry smile.

Jess smiled back. “You’ve been very good to us, very nice to
me
.” She leaned closer. “You don’t deserve this, not at the…”

“At the end?” Giovanni squeezed her hand back. “We don’t know what the future holds, Jess. And this isn’t your fault. It’s Enzo;
he
is the one causing this.”

The mother, in her flip flops and bikini top, dragged the little boy, ice cream cup in hand, out the door past Jess.

“…breaking news…”
Jess glanced at Giovanni and turned up the radio’s volume.
“…Islamic Caliphate forces from Iraq have taken the Golan Heights after flooding through Syria, and have now invaded Israel with fierce fighting in the West Bank. Egypt is amassing forces in the Sinai, saying that the Israeli occupation of Gaza…”

“
Scusi
,
signora
,” said a gruff voice.

The two security guards, in matching black suits and aviator sunglasses, stepped around the mother and her boy. Giovanni stood and fired off an excited question in Italian.

“…the Israelis are now fighting a war on three fronts as the United States has withdrawn its representatives from last-minute peace negotiations. Israel is threatening use of nuclear…”

“What’s happening?” Jess got up.

“They found him.”

One of the security guards held up his phone. On the screen was an image of someone opening a door, trash bags in hand. Pork pie hat, mole on his left cheek. It was Enzo. “
Si, all'indirizzo.”

“He’s at the address Nico gave us,” confirmed Giovanni. “They’ve rented an apartment across the street we can do surveillance from.”

“…Dr. Menzinger of the Swiss astronomical society is now saying that Nomad is not months away, but may be entering the inner solar system in under a week. NASA has refused to comment…”

Giovanni reached down to turn the radio off.

“Let’s go.” Jess stooped to grab the duffel bag, but one of the security men held up a hand and took it for her.

She shrugged and followed them through the lengthening line of people outside the
pizzeria
. She checked her cell phone. Still no messages.

By now her father should be at the castle.

27