Sedona Conspiracy Read online

  Eric rolled his eyes, but Nataly just waved at Leon. “I promise,” she called, and Leon disappeared from view.

  “He thinks he’s my mother,” said Eric, trying to be clever.

  Nataly sat down beside him, looked out at the pool. “He’s a complex man, so flamboyant, but beneath the surface is something else, don’t you think?”

  “Something else?”

  She turned to look at him, and he felt himself blush, hoped it was hidden in the rapidly dimming light.

  “Yes. Something still, focused, even dark. It’s in his eyes. I can see things in people’s eyes.”

  Eric averted his gaze, gestured around him with one hand. “This is an incredible place you have here.”

  “It’s comfortable, and I love the views. I can detach myself from the physical plane here, go where violence and tragedy don’t exist, at least for a while.” She stretched out a slender arm and pointed towards Cathedral Rocks. “You see the three spires to the left? Somewhere in there is a portal from another dimension. Beings come and go there, aliens or angels, depending on your beliefs.”

  “You actually believe that?” asked Eric.

  She smiled with her eyes. “I think it’s possible, and if other people believe I must respect that. I’m exposed to many strange beliefs by people who come into my shop.”

  “New Visions? I thought it was a gallery.”

  “It’s going to be soon, but the front half is my store.”

  Eric’s response was out before he could stop it. “Business must be good,” he said, and hated himself.

  “I do well,” she said, after a pause of two heartbeats, “but it’s a hobby for me, like the art. Creative, imaginative people intrigue me, and I cater to their wishes. Come in, sometime, and we’ll find a crystal that resonates with you, or maybe a relaxing fragrance. I don’t do it for money. My late father provided for all my physical comforts, including this estate, but like anyone else I try to provide for my own mental and emotional needs. I see people every day who haven’t been able to do it. I see the pain in their eyes, and hear it in their words. They’ve lost touch with a higher part of themselves.”

  Eric tried hard to look her straight in the eye, and failed. “The new-age culture is totally new to me. The artists I’ve dealt with in the east are more pop than new age. I guess I’m really a left-brained accountant at heart, but I’m willing to learn.”

  Nataly’s eyes widened beautifully. “Ah, well, that’s a start.” She stood up, extended a hand. “Now, before I throw you to the hordes again, let me take you on a tour of the house. Two of our local artists will join us, and they want to meet you. Leon has not given them the attention they deserve.”

  He escorted her up the stairs, her hand on his arm. People watched them, and Leon was grinning. Indeed, she took him on a house tour. Two artists, young, followed them. Wakefield and Enrow were both painters, early thirties, and both had agents. Eric gave each of them his card. The house was monstrous, each room huge, terra cotta stucco, brown beams at the ceilings, three fireplaces, furnished in dark leather and Santa Fe western. Wall niches held collections of pre-Colombian and contemporary Indian art, walls decorated with red-rock paintings in gilded frames, Navaho blankets and a few, small sand paintings. Each room had arrangements of quartz, calcite, halite and other crystals in intricate displays with the overall shape of a pyramid, and in the main bedroom a huge brass bed faced a painted, golden eye on the opposite wall. The aroma in each room was different, aromatic oil burners and sticks of incense spewing lavender, sandalwood, Egyptian musk and myrrh. And through all of it, Nataly’s hand never left his arm.

  As promised, she took him back to the crowd, and he endured more hours of inane conversation and prying questions with Leon right there to watch and coach him. He kept looking for Nataly, but she had disappeared as her guests consumed more alcohol and became even louder than earlier.

  Finally, even Leon had had enough. It was nearing midnight, and Eric would have little time for sleep. Leon steered him straight towards the front door, and suddenly Nataly was there. She smiled, and stepped out onto the front porch with them. Leon kissed her hand, but she was already turning towards Eric; her eyes fixed on his, and wouldn’t let go.

  “Nice meeting you,” said Eric, smiled, and held out his hand. She took it in both of hers, and stepped close. Up close her eyes were the deepest of brown. “Drop by the shop sometime, Mister Price. I hope you’ll like our little town. And if you stay here long enough, I think you’ll experience the healing you’ve been looking for.”

  She squeezed his hand, turned, and melded back into the crowd.

  Eric stood there for a moment, feeling a variety of emotions.

  One of them was anger.

  Leon sped him home in the Humvee and mercifully made few efforts at conversation, sensing Eric’s mood. “Be ready at oh-five-hundred. A black SUV will come for you, and I won’t be coming along. You’ll be having an audience with Davis himself. That’s all I know. Brief me when you return.”

  They pulled up in front of the gate to Eric’s house. Eric got out, clicked open the gate, then Leon said, “What’d you think of Nataly Hegel? Isn’t she a beauty?”

  “Maybe so, but I think she likes you, or at least finds you interesting.”

  “Yes, in a spooky sort of way.”

  “Like a lab rat. She tried to psychoanalyze me.”

  “Go for it,” said Leon, jerked the steering wheel sharply, backed up in a spray of dirt and was laughing when he drove away.

  Eric wasn’t laughing. Another woman passing judgment on him, trying to change him, just like Jenny. How easily women bailed when they didn’t get their way. Taking the children with them, turning them against their father. It seemed he’d had a lifetime of it. He didn’t really like being alone; the feeling was stronger with each passing year, but for each woman he’d chanced a relationship with it was always the same. There was a shortcoming, some kind of defect in his character that had to be changed. And it was never the same thing twice.

  The first sight of Nataly had taken his breath away; he’d barely missed being struck dumb by her presence, but in the end she was like all the others. She only wanted to change him. Did his bitterness really show that much?

  I’m not looking for healing, lady. I’m here to do a job. To hell with you.

  Eric unlocked the door, and entered his new house, and immediately knew that something wasn’t right.

  Nothing seemed disturbed, and he heard no strange sounds, but a scent in the air hadn’t been there before. Something musky, like wet fur. It was strongest near the door, fading to nothing a few steps beyond, and replaced by something faint and sweet. Only a minute, and Eric didn’t notice it anymore, but the musky odor remained by the door. He was not imagining that one, at least. He went to every room in the house, checked the windows, the back door. All locked tight. In the basement, the tunnel entrance was locked tight. Nothing seemed out of order. He unlocked the door and opened it, his heart jumping with a surge of adrenalin.

  The tunnel was empty. He knew it was silly, but his reflexes were jumpy, the hair bristling on the back of his neck. Instincts. His instincts were trained by experts and honed by years of dangerous experience, and they were telling him something.

  It was nearly midnight. He had to sleep. He closed and locked the tunnel door again and got ready for bed. He feared his heightened senses would keep him awake, but they didn’t. He drifted off only minutes after the lights were out. He did not sense the sweet odor that gradually permeated his room, hear the creak of a board under footfall, or see the dark, moving shadows that came to stand by his bed for a moment before leaving without a sound.

  He only slept four hours, but awoke in the morning quite alert, and amazingly refreshed.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  UNDERGROUND

  A black SUV with heavily tinted windows rolled up to his gate at exactly five in the morning, and Eric buzzed it in. The SUV pulled up to his garage and sat there,
engine running, windows up. Eric tried the front passenger door, but it was locked. The rear door wasn’t. He opened it, and got in.

  “Good morning, sir.” A driver in military fatigues looked at him in his rear view mirror as Eric closed the door. There was a thick, polymer barrier between them.

  “A bit early for that,” quipped Eric.

  The driver smiled. “You’re working with the military, sir. Up and on.”

  Eric thumbed the gate shut as they went through it. They turned left, and headed away from town, accelerating rapidly.

  “Seat belts, sir. You have an oh-six-hundred with Colonel Davis, and I’ll have to hammer it.”

  “That far?” asked Eric, and snapped in lap and chest belts.

  “A ways, sir. There’s a thermos of coffee on the seat left of you. Hope you drink it black.”

  Eric uncapped the thermos, poured, and sipped. The liquid burned a path down into his empty stomach, the caffeine giving him a welcome jolt. The sky was beginning to glow outside, but was dim through the tinted windows, and they were suddenly veering left, bouncing once as they hit a graded, red-rock road. A mile in they came to a ranch, went around the main house and accelerated again as the road reappeared past an empty cattle pen. Eric’s mind was on autopilot, judging speeds and directions, calculating distances.

  Four miles later they came to a water tank fenced in next to what looked like a garage. The fence gate and garage door were opening for them as they reached it, and closing as they entered the area. Lights came on as the garage door clanged shut. They stopped by a pedestal with what looked like a phone pad. The driver reached out and punched in some numbers, then closed his window again.

  Two seconds, a loud thump, and the coffee in Eric’s stomach seemed to float for an instant. The entire vehicle was descending, and for several moments the only light came from the dashboard panel.

  They came to a stop facing a bright light floating somewhere above them. The car pulled forward as Eric calculated, estimating they were now around ninety feet beneath the surface of the ground. They came out into a tunnel, two lines of ceiling lights coming together in the far distance left and right, a two-lane road of steel grating on red dirt. A military jeep buzzed by them, heading right. They turned, and followed it. The car was traveling around forty, and they drove for fifteen minutes, the jeep remaining ahead in view. No traffic passed them going the other way.

  They stopped at a cutout in the tunnel, a parking area large enough for twenty cars, quick count. The tunnel itself went on straight ahead, and out of view. The jeep had parked there, and two soldiers with military police armbands were waiting for them.

  “These men will take you to Colonel Davis,” said Eric’s driver. “Have a good day.”

  One of the military policemen opened the door for Eric, and he got out. “Colonel Davis is expecting you, sir. Please come with us.”

  The men walked on either side of him. The air was dry, smelled of oil and salt, and fine, red dust particles floated in the air. Behind two large vents in the ceiling, something hummed loudly.

  An elevator door opened for them. The interior was polished brass. They descended for only a few seconds, perhaps another sixty feet, and suddenly stopped. The door opened, and they could have been in any office building in a large city. There were rows of offices along a green-carpeted hallway, both men and women in military fatigues hurrying to assignments. They stopped at a door like any of the others, this one marked ‘Commander’. Three knocks on the door brought an answer from inside.

  “Come!”

  “Mister Price is here, sir.”

  “Send him in!”

  A policeman opened the door, and Eric stepped inside.

  A heavyset man, balding, sat behind a polished, mahogany desk. He was in army fatigues, and his sausage-like fingers moved over a computer keyboard briefly before entering something with a single keystroke. He gestured at a chair in front of his desk, pulled a thick file out of a drawer and pushed it across the desk as Eric sat down.

  There were no preliminaries. “I’m Alex Davis. That’s Colonel Davis. You’ll report to me directly. What we have so far is in the file. You should read it in order. You’ll need historical perspective to see if the information we’re getting is consistent. I hear you’re very good at that.”

  “You think the data you’re obtaining might be false, then? Is that why the delays have become long enough for the Pentagon to be concerned?” Eric opened the file, and riffled a few pages. The file was the thickness of a ream of paper. Graphs, equations, diagrams of a delta-shaped aircraft flashed past his eyes.

  “Could be. We’ve had problems at every stage of testing, even in conventional flight.”

  “Conventional?”

  “Sub-sonic. It’s all summarized in the file. I couldn’t brief you if I had the time for it. A list of people you’re allowed to talk to is on page one. Don’t deviate from that list without consulting me first.”

  “My clearance is orange card.”

  “I don’t care about your color. Need to know, and I’ll decide that. Everyone at this base has top clearance, but only a handful of us have an overview of the entire project. Everyone else works on a small part of it. They know it’s an aircraft we’re working with, but nothing beyond that.”

  “And how much will I be allowed to know?” Eric’s eyes narrowed. “You have my file, and my orders. I consult with you. It’s protocol, but the people I report to are at the top of the command chain. I do what they want done, and if I don’t get what I need they’ll ask why and I’ll tell them why.”

  There was a faint smile from Davis. “You’ll have what you need as long as you don’t leak information to someone who shouldn’t know it while you make inquiries. Consulting with me isn’t advised, it’s required.”

  “I understand that.”

  “Good, then here’s the drill. You read that file and develop a plan for both technological and program analysis. You have four days, and then we talk again. Most of the tech staff lives in town; that’s why you’re based there. Communications will be primarily by closed cable to your home machine. You’ll spend little time here, primarily for face-to-face briefings with me. And no staff member will be interviewed until I’ve approved it.”

  “My understanding was that I’d be spending a great deal of my time here, and have access to all parts of the base. I can’t just look at sketches, I have to see hardware.”

  “Maybe later. You’re aware I have some security problems here. I don’t want anyone new sniffing around and alerting the person or persons we’re trying to ferret out. My own security people are on it.”

  “I’m here to analyze data and evaluate foreign technology, Colonel. I can’t do it without laying hands on that technology.”

  “Later, I said.” Colonel Davis’ face flushed red. “I’ll decide when.”

  Eric snapped the folder shut in his lap. “My first report goes out tonight. I’ll tell them what my situation is, and leave it to you to explain it to them. I’m sure they’ll understand.”

  “I’ll explain it after they tell me why you’re really here. Our analysts are good enough, we don’t need another one, and I didn’t ask for new personnel. Impressive file, Mister Price, or should I call you doctor? Physics, computer science, all the right prep, and a long record as an analyst, if it’s real. I’ve got twenty-four years in the military, and a lot of it in covert ops. I know a field spook when I see one, and until I’m told why you’re really here you’ll be working on that file in town.”

  Give it up for now. “Okay, I’ll file my report, and the pentagon will decide what happens to both our careers. I’ll work through the file tonight, but that’s as far as I go until this situation is resolved. I can’t develop any procedural plans without the access I want.”

  Davis smiled slightly. “Probably true, if you’re what I think you are, so we’re both taking a chance here. Nothing personal, Price.”

  Eric gave him the dark, predatory look of
a young, hungry boxer. The look would have made a normal man shudder, but Colonel Davis didn’t even flinch.

  “If it turns out you’re hiding something you shouldn’t be hiding, Colonel, then it will be worse than personal, and it’ll be a matter of national security.”

  Davis leaned over his desk and glared back at him. “And if you knew the situations I’ve been dealing with, you’d know why I’m not even afraid of that. File your report, Mister Price, and let’s see what happens. For now, you’ll report back to me four days from now about the contents of that file, Four days, at oh-five-hundred. Be ready.”

  Davis sat up straight. “Sergeant, Mister Price is ready to leave.”

  The door opened, and an MP stood there. “This way, sir,” he said sharply.

  Eric nodded, stood, and followed the guard out the door without looking back, and another guard closed the door behind him.

  They marched him straight to the elevator without a word, ascended with him to tunnel level, and the black SUV was waiting with the same driver who’d picked him up earlier. Half an hour later he was ascending again to the garage and the water tower and the high, chain link fence, then racing back to his house on red dirt and pavement, the driver totally silent and Eric making no effort at conversation. He was already writing his report in his mind, and had no time to waste in absorbing the file in his possession.

  Eric went into his house and sniffed the air. Slips of paper he’d put near the base of front and back doors were undisturbed, and there were no unusual odors. He sat right down at the computer and wrote a terse report to Gil about the suspicious way he’d been received by Colonel Davis. The man was either uncertain or insecure about his position, or he was trying to hide something. Eric would have total access to the base, or request reassignment. The entire report, single spaced, was less than a page long, and Eric sent it on its way with a keystroke.

  The telephone rang. Eric picked it up on the second ring.

  “Oh, you’re back already,” said Leon.

  “Surprised? You didn’t tell me Colonel Davis is a complete asshole.”