Exodus 2022 (41 page)

She turned, straining against her harness to look his way, ignoring her guards.
No fooling? I’ve always wanted to go to Bozeman.
She winked, and Joe grinned back.

The helicopter rose, the sea opened out all around them, and Joe stared at Ella from the back row, amazed.

The woman had endured days of hardship and mental anguish, been arrested, kidnapped at gunpoint after a violent car crash, and imprisoned in a cell. And yet here she was, smiling and making light, concealing her fear. Holding her head up.

Any feelings of self-pity left Joe in that instant. His demise, he told himself, might be imminent. Inevitable, even. But Ella’s was not. And he would do everything in his power to see that she went free.

It took forty-two minutes to get from
Marauder
to Port Angeles through clear July skies. They landed a few feet from the Erebus Gulfstream G5, in a remote corner of the airfield, and Beck’s men set about transferring gear before the Bell’s rotors had even stopped spinning.

Because they were far from the tiny terminal building and potential onlookers, Beck’s men could hustle Joe and Ella from the chopper to the jet without attracting attention. Even so, they approached the transfer cautiously, leaving the couple where they were until everything else was ready.

Then, all four of Beck’s men—Collins, Wilden, Kehler, and Dodd—worked together, surrounding the couple and rushing them from one location to the next. Like Secret Service moving the First Family through a sensitive area.

Joe was pleased to find that his legs felt a little less wobbly than when he’d first dismounted the gurney. It felt as if a tiny bit of strength had returned to his body. Heintzel’s injection was the source of his newfound energy, he presumed. And it wouldn’t last.

Still, it was a welcome development.

Ella boarded the jet first, and Joe let her get a few paces ahead. Then he stopped hard in front of Ring and Beck, seated near the front of the craft.

“Beck,” he said, teetering toward the man as Dodd tried to shove him forward. “I’ll do anything you want. I’ll cooperate one hundred percent. Just let Ella go here in Port Angeles. Let her go.”

Beck motioned for Dodd to stop pushing Joe. “Nice to see you up and around, Father.”

“Beck, please—”

“Reverend Stanton, I didn’t bring your girl along because she’s nice to look at—although she is—but to help keep you motivated at the new location.”

“Beck—”

“Do your job right and I promise you, none of my men will lay a finger on her.” Beck grinned broadly. “At least not yet.”

Two minutes after they’d buckled in, the G5 was blasting down the runway.

Ring opened his laptops as soon as the jet leveled off, and soon had three machines arrayed around him—a miniature version of the War Room. He marveled at the strength of the images flowing through Joe Stanton’s subconscious, and puzzled over the identity of the sender.

The screens displayed images of the same ancient cliffs they’d seen in the War Room. But the sky behind the cliffs seethed now with towering purple-gray clouds. Thin wires of lightning cut the gray here and there, illuminating the dark plain below.

Ring felt a little shiver of fear as the G5 raced on, almost due east, toward the growing storm.

Beck began pacing the aisle three minutes after takeoff, pausing at the front of the craft after each round-trip to peer over Ring’s shoulder.

Beck needed to walk. The second injection—the one he’d ordered Heintzel to give him—was making his skin crawl and the veins in his neck and forehead pulse with every frantic heartbeat. It felt as if his eyeballs were growing, as if his eyes might burst right out of their sockets and slap Jello-like against the wall. His bones and ligaments felt stretched, pulled nearly to the breaking point.

Ignoring the looks from his men, he continued pacing, back and forth, back and forth, always pausing briefly to stare at Ring’s screens.

Billowing black thunderheads now loomed over the Buffalo Jump like a tribunal of angry gods. Beck wondered, with his rational mind, why he was leading his team into such a maelstrom. If Ring’s screens depicted an accurate view of the Jump—an accurate picture of how things would look at the opening of the terrestrial gate—then why proceed? The sky hinted of tornadoes. Torrential rain. High winds. Hail. Why venture into such an environment? Why risk life and limb?

And then, with a stomach-twisting spasm of disequilibrium, he felt the beast lurch into position behind his eyes once more. It scanned the passenger compartment, found Ring’s computer screens, and settled its gaze there. With interest and intensity, it studied the Buffalo Jump and looming storm, just as Beck had done.

But the beast’s reaction was completely different from Beck’s own. The beast thrilled at the sight of the warlike sky. Seemed energized and stimulated by the tumult and chaos.

Smaller than ever Beck felt then, shunted to one side in his own mind as another entity assumed the controls. Told his head and eyes and limbs what to do.

With tremendous effort, Beck forced himself to turn away from Ring’s screens and continue pacing.

One lap. Two. Three.

He tried again to think, to solve the riddle of his affliction.

What is happening to me?

Why is it happening to me?

Why am I suffering a breakdown in parallel with Stanton?

Why am I fighting myself? Killing myself?

He paced, made the round- trip a dozen more times, and stopped suddenly, midaisle. Midstep.

His heart skittered and jumped as the truth unfolded in his mind.

Not mental illness
, he thought.

This isn’t an illness.

I’ve been lying to myself.

Bile rose in his throat, acid and burning.

Since the onset of his hallucinations, his self-talk had centered around illness. The idea that he was suffering from some form of PTSD. Schizophrenia. Bipolar disorder.

I’m sick
, he’d told himself.
Seeing things that aren’t there. And as soon as this is over, I’ll go the doctor. Find a really good shrink. Get help.

But the truth staring him in the face now was worse than any mental disorder.

Not a disease.

An invasion.

The demon in his head wasn’t the sort faced by alcoholics or drug addicts. This was a living thing. An entity. An independent organism with a mind and agenda all its own.

He hadn’t imagined the eyes in Navarro’s rotting skull. He’d glimpsed—for a split second—an actual creature.

He might not be able to see it as readily as he could see Ring or Collins, but it was there nonetheless. And it was using him. Had a plan for him. He could feel it watching him now, grinning imperiously, studying him with cruel, sadistic fascination, waiting to see how he would handle the news.

He handled it by going into shock. By freezing.

The truth was too much to bear, and despite his strength and youth and fitness, despite countless hours of training and experience in fantastically stressful situations and environments, he froze.

His mind stuttered and seized up. He had no strategy for engaging such an enemy. This wasn’t a foe he could outwit or shoot or stab or wrestle to the ground.

And he was already stretched to the breaking point. Hadn’t slept in days. Was functioning now only because of Heintzel’s drugs.

This was too much. And as he stood there, frozen, in the aisle of the G5, all of his internal systems redlining, he believed he was going to die. That in three or four seconds his body would succumb to a seizure or aneurism or heart attack.

The beast seemed to believe this, too, and its imperious grin vanished. In the blink of an eye, it retreated into the farthest, deepest corner of Beck’s mind.

Beck tottered and steadied himself, hands against the fuselage.

Tentatively, at first, he regained control of himself. Breathed in and out, in and out, and felt his heart rate slow. Felt the electricity burning through his nerves, jangling his extremities, diminish and quiet.

He breathed, feeling weak and thin and stretched, but also deeply relieved.

He sat down next to Ring. The sweat on his skin cooled. Evaporated. His pulse and blood pressure dropped within an almost normal range.

It’s not really gone
, he thought.

The thought spurred a fresh uptick in his heart rate.

The Thing—whatever it is—has retreated. Pulled back. But it hasn’t gone away. Hasn’t really left.

Beck shut his eyes as the jet roared forward at 488 knots. As long as he continued to the terrestrial gate, he thought, the beast would bide its time. slumber in the folds of his brain, one eye open. Watching.

You will carry me
, the beast had said.

I’m a delivery system
, Beck realized with horror.
A means to an end. And unless I can rid myself of this thing, the next time it comes forward I will shatter like a glass statue. The old me will be no more.

IT WAS EIGHTY DEGREES
and sunny when the G5 touched down at Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport in the midafternoon, with no hint whatsoever that a monster storm might be in the offing.

The airport’s lone helicopter charter service didn’t have a Bell 412 for rent, so Beck’s advance team had procured two smaller helicopters instead: a Bell 206B-3 JetRanger and a Bell 206L4 LongRanger.

Allen Dodd stayed in the jet with Joe and Ella while Beck’s flight crew filled out forms inside the office. “When the time’s right,” he said, “you’re going to walk to the helicopters like you want to be there. Like it’s the most natural thing in the world. No running or screaming or trying to signal anyone.” He grinned at Ella, as if she were the most likely to cause trouble. “Deviate from that, at all, sweet pea, and I will personally smash your pal’s kneecaps to a bloody pulp.”

Ella paled and turned away. Said nothing. Joe stayed silent as well. Through the window he watched Ring and Beck, conferring near the hangar door. Beck looked terrible in the sunlight. Puffy, bloodshot eyes. Pale skin. A slump to his shoulders that suggested massive fatigue.

Dodd sauntered to the front of the jet, chuckling to himself, and Ella watched him go. Made sure his back was turned. Then she leaned out and grabbed a stationery set from a compartment across the aisle. Tugged a sheet of Erebus stationery free, uncapped the attached pen, and started writing with the paper barely balanced on her knee.

Emergency!
We are being held against our will, en route to the Madison Buffalo Jump near Bozeman. Call the police.
She marked the date and time at the top of the note, signed their names and Joe’s address and folded the sheet quickly. Stuffed it into her back pocket just as Dodd turned.

Outside, Beck signaled Dodd with a thumbs-up, and Joe and Ella were led to the 206L4.

Five minutes later both rental choppers were in the air.

Not all of Beck’s team was in the helicopters. The G5 flight crew stayed with the jet. Taxied it to another corner of the airport to wait.

Collins remained on the ground as well and headed straight for the main terminal and Enterprise Rent-A-Car. If the advance team had done its job, he’d find a four-wheel-drive GMC extended-cab pickup with an extralong bed reserved and waiting.

Collins looked at his phone as he walked. Found the business name and address Ring’s team had sent to him. Gallatin Veterinary Supply. The store was only eight miles away, and Ring had given him a concise shopping list. One of the items on the list seemed problematic, but Collins figured he’d deal with it when the time came.

If all went according to plan, he’d be on his way to the Buffalo Jump with the supplies within the hour.

“This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never dried all at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.”

-John Muir

THE THIRTY-TWO-MILE FLIGHT
to the Madison Buffalo Jump went quickly. One minute into the journey, they were leaving the neighborhoods and streets of Bozeman behind and zooming over lush, picturesque farms and ranches. Roads changed from pavement to dirt, and the land seemed to expand before their eyes. Grow exponentially.

Almost due west they flew, Beck’s helicopter in the lead. Hobby ranches gave way to vast, verdant estates stretching as far as the eye could see—from the rolling foothills of the Bridger Mountains to the north, to Yellowstone National Park and the jagged, snow-covered Gallatin Range to the south. The Gallatin River glittered in the afternoon light, flowing strong and swift with snowmelt.

Ten minutes into the trip, the helicopters angled south, and now they could see the Madison River winding through the green bottomlands, lazy and inviting. A cool treelined corridor bisecting the vast wide open.

It wasn’t hard to spot Madison Buffalo Jump State Park. Fenced, neatly delineated ranchland gave way to stone and sage, rugged brush-choked fissures and ravines, and a broad swath of wild high prairie. It was a place that seemed familiar at once, a landscape burned into the American psyche through countless Hollywood westerns.

Entering the park’s airspace, the helicopters zoomed over the plain, following the same broad pathway the Hidatsa and Shoshone, Lakota and Blackfoot had used to drive buffalo to their death.

Flat as a baking sheet the ground below them was now. An alley of wild waist-high grass that tossed and rippled as the helicopters roared past.

And then, the Jump. The ground giving way, the prairie vanishing so abruptly beneath them, that even aboard the helicopters they felt a twinge of vertigo, a sudden blast of adrenaline.

Eight hundred feet the land fell, leaving a jagged escarpment, ancient and weatherworn, a gaping, mile-wide jawbone of limestone the color of fossilized ivory.