“It’s just an advanced telephone system. A technological breakthrough, but artifact certainly doesn’t apply. Perhaps your English isn’t as good as you think.”
For a second he silently drove down the wide deserted boulevard, then his lips pursed, and he nodded slowly. “Ah, then you think someone invented this device, this advanced telephone.”
“Of course.”
“That’s not what your government thinks.”
“How would you know what they think?”
“We have our sources. When I received this project, I was fully briefed. I know everything Holdren, and his crew know.”
“And that is?”
“Are you sure you want to know? It may be dangerous information.”
Caitlin exhaled an unbelieving grunt of surprise. “Dangerous? Like dangerous in that someone may try to kill me for it? Get real, Dewatre. Someone killed my husband, you’ve killed John, and I’ve seen Holdren kill a totally innocent man who just happened to get in the way. I’m already living under a threat of death. What could make it worse?”
“What if I told you that your government doesn’t believe anyone here invented this device? That it came from somewhere else?”
“Who else has that capability, the Brits, the Japanese? The French certainly don’t.”
He didn’t respond.
“There aren’t any other countries with the basic research needed to achieve this sort of breakthrough,” she said.
“I concur.”
“I don’t understand what you mean. If it wasn’t some other country, then it must have been here, perhaps in a private lab such as those AT&T funds.”
“No, not there either. They are just as anxious to get their hands on it. No, you have to expand your thinking, to think out of the box that your naiveté keeps around you.”
“I suppose you intend to convince me it has extraterrestrial origins.”
He didn’t react.
“You can’t be serious,” Caitlin said as her hand rose to cover the hard lump beneath her coat.
“I am quite serious. That is exactly where Holdren believes it came from.”
“Yeah, but just because that murdering bastard believes it doesn’t make it so.”
“I didn’t say it was so, I just said that your government believes it to be so.”
“And your government?”
He shrugged. “Ah, who can say what one’s own government believes?”
They turned off Powers and pulled into the old terminal area of the airport.
***
John’s head pounded so loud that he thought he was stuck in some fantastical kettledrum during a drum solo. Pain assailed him from a multitude of injuries, the least of which seemed to be the place he’d been shot a few days earlier. What the hell had happened? He was foggy on everything since meeting the Frenchman. Dewatre, yes, his name was Dewatre. John opened his eyes.
It was dark, but a faint glow shown from somewhere above. He lay at the bottom of a snow-covered embankment.
Caitlin! Where the hell was Caitlin? He broadcast over the egg, but there was no reply. Damn, she had to be out of range. She had to be. He didn’t want to think of the alternative.
He sat up and received a new set of pain signals from various parts of his anatomy. His right shoulder blade felt like someone had busted it with a sledgehammer. The side of his head screamed its pain as he moved. John raised his left hand and felt blood and something missing. At least half of his left ear was missing.
“Son of a bitch bastard. Rotten no good ... you’re going to die when I find you Dewatre!”
The light grew brighter, and John realized headlights were approaching. He rolled over onto his knees and struggled erect. If it wasn’t Dewatre and Caitlin coming back, then it must be Holdren’s men. He had to get moving.
One step, sway a moment, and then another step. Stop, sway again, he wanted to shake it off, but as dizzy as he felt, he was certain that shaking his head would compound the problem.
He tried climbing the frozen embankment but slid back down before he’d gone half way. The road was off to his right. He followed the ditch for forty feet or so until he reached the road. The headlights of a car were already turning into the drive where Dewatre had made him stop.
John waited until the lights were pointed away from him then climbed the short bank onto the road. As he ran after the vehicle, he drew his gun from its holster.
The Suburban parked twenty feet behind John’s rented Cherokee. The big Chevy’s multiple headlights blanketing the scene through the swirling snow. All four doors of the Chevy opened. Two men got out and advanced toward the Jeep. The other two covered them with drawn weapons.
John slowed and moved silently closer.
“There’s blood here,” one of the lead men shouted.
“Any bodies?” one by the passenger side of the Suburban asked.
“No, wait. There’s a ditch up here, and it looks like someone may have fallen into it.”
“You check it out. Bennings, check the Jeep,” the second man ordered.
John reached the rear of the Suburban and put out his left hand to steady himself. He was in danger of puking up his guts. Bitter bile burned his throat. He swallowed, steeled himself against the buck and sway of the earth, and moved forward again.
Raising his gun, he chopped it down into the temple of the man who had given the orders. The man grunted and sagged to his knees.
John shoved him to the side and fired through the open door at the driver who was trying to bring his weapon to bear. John fired twice in rapid succession.
The first bullet took the driver in the throat; the second opened up his sinuses.
One of the forward men was still standing at the front of the Jeep. He turned at the sound of the shots; his Uzi came up, his finger already on
