Final Disposition (33 page)

      He was standing up and reaching for his Sharpie™ again when he saw the two sets of headlights out in the distance that seemed to be heading his way.

      There was something vaguely familiar about the two sets of headlights that he couldn’t quite place; but he didn’t have the sense that it was important, so he went back to the protocol of marking the third nearly-identical stone with the number ‘7’ and the two bullets with the numbers ‘8’ and ‘9’ … a process that — for whatever reason — suddenly
did
seem important.

      
What was it that Talbert had said?  Something about Bobby Dawson and I having a lethal encounter with an exotic extraterrestrial female named Allesandra that resulted in her being killed and turning into a stone?

      Cellars turned to stare at the hearse where he could see Lisa Marcini sitting on the edge of the back door frame while Sutta was doing something to her head.

      
Killed … meaning she’d been dead before — five to ten days ago — but she hadn’t come back from the dead that time.  Instead, she’d turned into a stone … just like —?

      He stared down at the single stone in his hand.

      
So what does that make her … a shadow, just like the others?

      That didn’t make any sense to Cellars at all.

      
And something else that Talbert said … something about Bauer and I working with a NSA official named Malcom Byzor, investigating the disappearance of some stones that I claimed — in a OSP report that doesn’t really exist — moved of their own volition?

      Cellars was staring down at the stone in his hand again, wondering how the hell a stone could possibly move by itself, when he realized that the headlights —

      
Of the two military Humvees
, his frontal lobes noted helpfully.

      — were much closer now.

      Cellars turned his head again to stare at the hearse where Lisa Marcini seemed to be standing up now on what looked like unsteady legs.

      
Oh, man
, he thought,
this ought to be interesting
.

CHAPTER 24

      Cellars had just reached the edge of the road when the two squat military vehicles came up over the nearby rise, and then immediately began to slow as their bright headlights illuminated the hearse and SUV.

      They were thirty feet away when Cellars raised the four-cell flashlight over his head with his left hand, aiming the beam down at his feet, and made an open show of re-holstering his pistol.

      He continued to hold the flashlight in place as the Humvees came to a stop and four fatigue-uniformed soldiers came out of the front set doors with assault rifles in their hands.  Two of them moved cautiously in the direction of the hearse and the other two headed directly toward Cellars — who now had both of his hands up at shoulder level, the flashlight in his left and his badge case in his right.

      “Hi, Sergeant,” Cellars said when the two soldiers came to a halt a few feet away, “nice to see you again … I think.”

      The look on Sergeant First Class MacGregor’s face seemed to transition from surprise … to malicious amusement … and then to sudden realization and resignation, all in the span of two seconds.

      “Major Cellars?” he managed to say the words in a neutral voice.  “Sir, are you the one who was doing all that shooting out here?”

      “I did all the shooting,” Cellars replied, “but I’m not a ‘sir’ or a Major.  I’m a Detective-Sergeant and crime scene investigator with the Oregon State Patrol.”  He held out his scarred badge and ID so that both men could see them clearly.  “Didn’t Major Gladstone explain that to you?”

      MacGregor shook his head.

      “No, sir, he didn’t explain it that way at all.  First of all, he very specifically advised us that you
do
hold the rank of Major in the United States Army, as specifically authorized by Brigadier General Malcom Byzor; and that we completely misunderstood our orders to keep you under close watch while you were on base.  He also advised us that you are a part of an extremely important joint Oregon State/Army investigation, and that we are to assist you in any way possible.  But, regardless of anything else, we are also to leave you strictly alone and not hinder your movements in any manner.  He was very clear on that, sir.”

      “Meaning no playful after-hours sparring matches … at least for a while?”

      MacGregor blinked, and started to say something … but then managed to regain his composure.

      “No, sir, definitely no sparring matches either.  Major Gladstone made that very clear also, sir.”

      “And I suppose there’s no hope of my getting you to stop calling me ‘sir’?”

      “No, sir, none whatsoever … sir.”

Cellars sensed the tiny gleam of satisfaction in MacGregor’s voice and sighed.

      
Okay, fair enough… can’t let the brass grind you all the way down.

      “Believe it or not, sergeant, I’m really not trying to mess with your mind or piss you off right now.  The fact of the matter is, I’m extremely glad to see that you survived all that shit I did to you … for the simple reason that I specifically need
your
help right now.”

      MacGregor cocked his massive head.

      “You need
my
help, sir?”

      “That’s correct.  First of all, I need you and your team to help us transport the dead female body in that hearse to the base clinic so that Nurse Lisa Marcini can examine it under an MRI.  This is a part of the Oregon State/Army investigation Major Gladstone was talking about.”

      “Marcini?”  MacGregor’s eyes widened.   “Is she part of this whole deal too?”

      MacGregor started to turn his head to look over at the hearse — where Sutta and Marcini were in some kind of animated discussion with Sergeant Harthburn and the other soldier — but Cellars quickly regained his full attention.

      “
And
I need someone big enough and ornery enough to stand guard over Sutta and Marcini — completely unarmed, no metal on your person whatsoever — while they stick the head of that dead female body into an MRI and get a three-D image of her brain.”

      “I can do that … no big deal.”  MacGregor shrugged.

      “The big deal being that you may need to step in and deal with the situation — no freaking out, pissing yourself or screaming — if that dead female body suddenly starts ripping herself out of that MRI and going for your throat before we can get that magnet shut down and I can get into that room with the Taser® and my Sig,” Cellars added calmly.

      MacGregor blinked twice, started to say something again, and then simply stared at Cellars for a few seconds before he seemed to get a grip on his vocal cords.

      “Are you bullshitting me again, sir?”

      “No, I’m not bullshitting you, MacGregor,” Cellars said solemnly.  “I can personally testify — under oath and while attached to a polygraph, if necessary — to the fact that the female body in that hearse has been declared dead on three separate occasions during the past three hours by two highly-trained medical personnel.  And given the witnessed fact that she’s already regained consciousness once — and gone for
my
throat — during that three-hour time interval, I don’t see any point in making hasty assumptions about her ability to rise from the dead one more time … do you, sergeant?”

      MacGregor was silent for a long moment before he finally said: 

      “Would you mind explaining to me how something like that could possibly happen, sir?”

      “I’d love to, MacGregor, but I haven’t the slightest idea.  So why don‘t we walk over to that hearse and say hi to our two highly-trained ‘death-declarers’:  neuropsychologist and occasional floor nurse Lisa Marcini, and Jasper County Coroner and Medical Examiner Dr. Elliott Sutta … the two witnesses who pronounced her dead and then saw her come alive again.  Maybe they can give you a different perspective on the quaint human notion that ‘dead is actually dead.’

CHAPTER 25

      “She doesn’t look all that tough, up close.  Fact is, she looks pretty hot,” MacGregor declared as he stood beside the adjustable composite carbon fiber cart and stared down at Allesandra’s cold, still and beautiful face for a few moments before turned to Cellars.  “Tell me again why you can’t go in there with us, sir?”

      Thanks to the determined efforts of MacGregor, Harthburn and one of their subordinate MPs, the contents of Sutta’s hearse and Cellars’ SUV had been quickly transferred to the two military Humvee’s while the second subordinate MP stood guard with his assault rifle in a very-much-ready position.

      The stop at the East Gate had been short and to the point, the young guard scribbling hurriedly into his log and then running over and frantically pulling the gate barrier up just before MacGregor would have torn it off its hinges with the front bumper of his Humvee.

      His hurry to get inside the VA clinic’s MRI Laboratory was understandable.

      Sutta and Marcini had been vague in their general explanations of how and why a creature such as Allesandra could possibly exist, and possibly do the things she had done before their own eyes; but they had been very specific on one point: 

      They didn’t know how long the tranquilizing drug in her brain would continue to be effective, and they had no idea what she was capable of doing if she did wake up and found herself strapped to an ancient wood-and-canvas stretcher.  This was all brand-new territory as far as these medical professionals were concerned.  The relevant point being that they really didn’t want her to wake up and start going nuts in the very close confines of MacGregor’s Humvee.

      MacGregor had seen their point immediately … and had been near manic in his efforts to get Allesandra onto the base and into the clinic’s MRI prep room ASAP, taking the added precaution of posting the two younger MPS outside the MRI Laboratory Complex entrance to keep everyone else out.

      But now that all five of the primary players were inside the relatively small MRI prep room and standing around the composite cart that Allesandra and the stretcher were now securely strapped onto — Cellars, MacGregor and Harthburn on one side and Sutta and Marcini on the other — the senior MP Sergeant was clearly starting to feel cocky again.

      Cellars sighed.

      “Okay, MacGregor, one more time.  I can’t go in there, one, because I have several mostly-metallic items of evidence on my person that I’m not about to turn over to anyone on this base … two, because I have a very long and detailed two-part CSI report, which officially doesn’t exist, that I need to read as soon as possible … and three,  because — apart from Nurse Marcini here, who has far more important work to do — I’m the only person in this room who has actually seen this bitch in action, face-to-face, and managed to put her down.”

      So, sergeant,” Cellars went on when MacGregor remained silent, “who do you
really
want standing outside that shielded door to the MRI room with a Taser®, a dart gun and a forty-caliber Sig if Allesandra here
does
manage to rise from the dead again, work herself loose from that stretcher, breaks into the Console Room, and goes for your throat?  Me or Sergeant Harthburn?”

      Sergeant Samuel Harthburn’s broad face wrinkled in sardonic amusement.

      “Before you answer that question, Mac,” Harthburn said, “you need to understand something. If I’m out here at that desk, watching everybody on that monitor, and I see this broad suddenly come alive, rip herself out of these straps, and start heading toward that Console Room door, your ass is grass … ‘cause I ain’t going in there with any fucking Taser® and little dart pistol.  If I go in, it’ll be with an M-four, hot-chambered and ready to rock and roll … that’s it, end of discussion.  Are we all clear on that?”

      “And, of course, if you do go in full-auto, and tear up a really expensive MRI Laboratory, in addition to killing our one crucial piece of evidence in this investigation — and very possibly Dr. Sutta and Professor Marcini in the process — Major Gladstone and General Byzor are probably going to be really pissed at you two, which I’m guessing wouldn’t be a good thing at all,” Cellars suggested.

      “Roger that,” Harthburn nodded glumly.

      “And don’t forget, neither of you guys can enter that MRI room with
any
kind of metal until we have that magnet shut off,” Marcini reminded.  “Dr. Sutta and I can see everything going on at the MRI platform through an RF-shielded Window Wall that separates the Scanning Unit and Console Rooms.  If this creature starts to come alive or regain consciousness, and we need help to restrain her again, we can turn the MRI Unit off from inside the separately shielded Console Room using a specific series of shut-down steps, which is definitely the preferred protocol.”

      “And if things
really
start to go to shit on you?” Cellars asked.

      “In addition to all of that strapping tape, the five three-inch-wide Hook-and-Loop™ straps now securing her to that stretcher are each rated for a fifteen-hundred-pound stress load,” Marcini replied.  “I seriously doubt that any bone-and muscle biped organism can generate the kind of shearing force necessary to tear those straps apart; especially from the prone and non-braced position that she’s restrained into.  That’s just simple physics.  However, in case something
does
go wrong, and we can’t control the situation from inside the Console Room, there are Emergency Shutoff buttons in each of the rooms that will instantly cut all power to the MRI magnet.  Your button is right over there.”

      She pointed to the large glowing red button on the wall immediately behind the monitor desk.