The Eighth Day (33 page)

Hiccock grabbed the map. “Locals call it Leadfoot. It’s an old lead mine … here, right here, Cummings Peak.”

“It’s outside the perimeter that brain boy indicated.”

“Yes it is.” Hiccock cast his gaze to the far-off mountains. Focusing on the nearer foothills, he scanned the terrain as if he might find a sign shaped like an arrow reading “to the bad guys.”

“Kronos!”

Kronos came over wiping special sauce from his mouth. “Yeah, what’s up?”

Hiccock stabbed at the map. “Could this spot right here be the point of presence?”

“Sure, could be.”

“Could be?”

“Well, jeez, I only had an accuracy of fifteen decimal points, so it could have been twelve miles also … instead of eight.”

“
Now
you freaking tell me!”

WHEN JOHN F. KENNEDY was in the depth of the Missile Crisis, he mostly conducted the operations from the Oval Office. The majority of meetings Carter attended to plan the Iranian hostage rescue were held in Plains, Georgia. Obama spent a little more than a half-hour in the nerve center when the Navy Seals delivered final justice to Bin Laden. Presidents spend less time in the Situation Room under the White House than one would think. In fact, the actor Henry Fonda probably got more “Sitch-time” in the movie
Fail-Safe
than all the real presidents who served since that film was made. The current
acting
president—that’s how James Mitchell felt sometimes—was using the crisis center as an interrogation room. Far from peering eyes and electronic ears, he was able to speak his mind, which he found came easily with the momentum of 300 million American lives behind him.

Today, the situation was dire. President Mitchell was sweating his handpicked cabinet members, trying to weed out the traitor, or idiot, who had been inflicting these terrorist acts on America. “Sweating” was in fact part of his methodology. Mitchell had the air-conditioning turned off to make it as uncomfortable as possible. Like another Henry Fonda movie,
12 Angry Men
, everyone was in shirtsleeves, although the president was the only angry man in this silent room. The one sound heard was his drumming fingers.

“C’mon. We’ve got it down to an eight-mile radius, fifty miles north of Carlsbad. One of you has got to have a clue.”

The phone next to him rang and he picked it up. “What do you have for me? Really! I’ll be damned. What’s this Kathleen Ronson doing there? Blacked out? For the love of God, it’s blacked out. What a way to run a government. What was that address again? Thanks, Paulsen, I’ll let you know if we need more … Oh, what’s the phone number?”

“Well, your hunch seems to have paid off, Bill.”

“Really?”

“123 Desert Trail, Mercado, New Mexico.”

Hiccock pulled out a pen and jotted the address down on a McDonald’s bag. He handed it to the driver.

“Get us there on the double!”

The three Humvees were now parked in front of the Domino’s Pizza in Mercado. The major, having arrived about a minute before, walked up to Hiccock. “Well, they say an army travels on its stomach.”

“And computer nerds on junk food,” Hiccock added. “Even though they may be working on an illegal, ultra secret, black op government project, they still need their fix.”

“I can’t believe the hole in their security was some bean counter handing in a receipt for pizza night to Uncle Sam.”

“Thank God for government forms and rigmarole.”

“Nice account. Sometimes 30 pies, 100 pizza sticks, and they love our chicken wings.” Chuck, the owner, was filling in the major and Hiccock.

“How often do they order?” Hiccock asked.

“Twice a week usually. In fact there’s a big order going out tonight.”

Kronos approached the counter beyond the major and Hiccock. “I’ll have a large pie with everything on it.” He turned and saw the two men looking at him. “What?”

They returned their attention to the owner. “And it’s always a delivery?” the major asked.

“Have to send two guys.”

“You ever make the delivery yourself?”

“Sometimes.”

“First squad, fall in,” the lieutenant barked as the soldiers scrambled and formed a line eighteen across. Hiccock and the major walked Chuck, the manager, down the line of troops. He looked at each as if he were trying to identify one of them to the police. He suddenly stopped, then back-stepped to a smaller, mustachioed Latino soldier, Fuentes.

“He looks like the kind of kids we get,” the owner pointed out.

Hiccock handed Fuentes the folded red-and-white striped uniform of a Domino’s delivery driver.

“Without the mustache, of course,” the owner added.

“Shave it, Ranger!” the major ordered.

“Yes, Sir!” They moved on out of earshot, and the dutiful GI muttered under his breath, “Ah, shit, Sir!”

Ten minutes later, Fuentes, in his delivery uniform and green hat, reported to the Domino’s delivery car and snapped a salute. It was a 1977 red-white-and-green-painted Gremlin hatchback. Hiccock, in a manager’s uniform that almost fit, saluted him back. The other hard-assed troops in the unit couldn’t help but crack up.

“All right! Settle down,” the major growled, without hiding his own grin. “Got your orders, Ranger?”

“Sir, the pizza is hot or it’s on us, Sir!” Fuentes barked as he crisply snapped to attention.

“Fuentes, maybe you should loosen up a little,” Hiccock said.

Fuentes smiled, and the kid from South Central came out. “No prob, Homes, it’s all good. Who gets the pepperoni?”

A car pulled up, causing Hiccock to turn his head. An Air Force captain got out from the driver’s side. To Hiccock’s surprise, Tyler got out of the other. She walked straight toward him. “Moonlighting on government time?” she said, taking in the silly costume.

“You always said I wasn’t utilizing my full potential. Fuentes and I are off to make the world safe for democracy and fast food.”

“Hey, Mr. Hiccock, you’re management, you shouldn’t be doing this,” Janice said.

“You’re trying to tell me I’m too old for this, aren’t you?”

“I just want you to know that you don’t have to do this to prove anything to me.”

“Oh, so that’s it! You think I’m doing this to impress you. Well, I hate to break it to you, but the only other guy here who has a shot at recognizing something high-tech is Kronos, and I just don’t think he has the right sensibility to be a pizza guy from around
these here parts
, missy.”

Janice adjusted his collar as if he was a little boy going out to play. “Don’t get hurt.”

Hiccock grabbed her hand and stared into her eyes. They both softened and simultaneously breathed in deep. “The only way I’ll get hurt is if I get between the pizza and the nerds at the other end.” He gave her hand one last reassuring squeeze then he and Fuentes got into the car and drove off.

Tyler walked over to Hanks. “What’s this all about, Major?”

“Professor Hiccock had a hunch that the bad-guy nerds were as much a pain in the butt about junk food as our Kronos nerd. He got the president to check with the GAO and, sure enough, some idiot compromised millions of dollars of secrecy and the security of the whole black op by handing in a bill for pizza so he could be reimbursed.”

“He’s finally getting it.” She smiled, peering off at the little car as it disappeared in the distance.

“Getting what?”

“The human factor.”

Cummings Peak was a mountain jutting right out of the flat New Mexican desert. Driving up the old truck route, it became obvious to Hiccock that the only destination on this mountain was the old lead mine. As Hiccock and Fuentes drove up to the entrance of the defunct mine shaft, they were surprised to see a glass-and-steel three-story office. The design gave the building the appearance of having been pushed into the rock, so that just the front and a little of the sides stuck out. Above the roof was a sign proclaiming “ALISON INDUSTRIES.” On the far side, off in the distance, parked on the flatlands encircling the mountain, were hundreds of RVs and camper vehicles.

A beefy guard in rent-a-cop blues halted the Gremlin hatchback delivery car at the gate. “Where’s Joe?”

“Joe’s kid got into some shit at school so he had to go in and see the teacher. I’m Bill, the assistant manager. This is Luis. We got 32 pies, 64 pizza sticks, and 23 salads. What do we do?” Hiccock wanted to make this the guard’s problem.

The sentry’s eyes took in the two delivery jerks in their little uniforms, then gave a second look to Fuentes. “Hold on.” The guard went to the telephone in the shack.

Fuentes talked under his breath without facing Hiccock, “I know that guy, Sir.”

Hiccock quickly muted his surprised expression. “From where?”

“Ranger School. He’s a mean motherfucker, Sir.”

“Do you think he recognized you?”

“I think he thinks I look familiar, but I’ve had my ’stache since I was sixteen, Sir.”

“Do we bolt or play this out?”

“I really don’t think he made me, but be ready to outrun that Mac-10 he’s got under his jacket.”

Hiccock was stunned. He hadn’t noticed anything under the guard’s jacket.

Fuentes continued, “I feel all naked and shit, Sir. He’s got an air-cooled, semiautomatic, recoilless machine pistol and all we can do is cream the fuck with pizza pies.”

The guard returned. “Pull over there by the yellow lines. Someone will be up in a moment.”

They pulled away. “Keep an eye on him,” Hiccock needlessly instructed.

“Yes, Sir.” Fuentes had already angled the rearview mirror to afford himself a better look at his former classmate. A metal door on the side of the main entrance opened and three men, one wheeling a dolly, emerged. Hiccock and Fuentes got out of the Gremlin. Fuentes opened the hatchback and they, with the assistance of the three guards, started stacking pizza boxes on the dolly.

Hiccock took a chance. “How many people work here?”

The men stopped loading. The one who seemed like the leader moved into his face. “Why do you want to know?”

Hiccock was caught by surprise. The three men tightened their ranks as they approached the two delivery “boys.”

“I was wondering what the odds were, that out of how many people, there would be one guy who orders anchovies with pineapple … errrgh.” Hiccock sold the sourpuss expression like a trained actor.

The leader relaxed his grimace. “That’s Malo. You don’t want to be around when he farts.”

The other two chuckled and Hiccock and Fuentes followed suit.

Hiccock returned to the car and reached in through the driver’s side window for the receipt stuck in the visor. “Here ya go. That’ll be $384, and the tip’s included.”

The leader looked puzzled. “Don’t we run a tab or something?”

Hiccock feigned checking the bill again. “No, no one mentioned that when they called it in. And it ain’t marked down here. See normally it would say ‘on account’ but …”

“Enough! I’m just picking this stuff up. I ain’t got 400 on me.”

“Well, who’s gonna pay for dinner, man?” Hiccock just stared. Suddenly he was in charge. He saw that the leader hated being in this situation. This guy probably wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet between Hiccock’s eyes if he made a run for the door, but present him with a socially uncomfortable scenario and the guy was reduced to a fumphering malcontent.

“Ah, shit. Hold on. I don’t need this sh …” The leader pulled out a radio and keyed it twice. “Come back, Gold.”

“Go blue,” the radio crackled.

“Pizza guy says we owe him for the delivery.”

“We ran a tab, I thought?”

The leader raised his eyebrows to Hiccock as if to say,
see, I told you we had a tab
. Hiccock played it out. “Listen, maybe you do have a tab. And with Joe being out and all, maybe this got screwed up. Tell ya what, maybe someone can put this on their credit card so my ass is covered, and tomorrow, if Joe says there’s a tab, we tear it up.”

The leader wasn’t going to make this decision, so he keyed the radio. “Gold, I’m going to bring this guy down to non-sec. Have someone meet us there to work this out.”

“Roger.”

Hiccock followed the leader into the building as the two guards with the dolly took up the rear.

Fuentes started to follow but the leader stopped him, “Hold on! How many guys does it take to get a credit card? Wait here.”

“I’m in training man. I’m supposed to go where he goes and follow him so I can learn. C’mon, Homes. I really need this job, bro.”

The guard stared, assessed, and then acquiesced. Fuentes followed.

The smell of the pizza quickly filled the small elevator as, contrary to Hiccock’s expectation, it descended. Hiccock and Fuentes emerged with the leader. They passed the back of two sliding glass doors with “aerA eruceS noN” stenciled across them. Hiccock reversed the letters in his mind. A woman in her late fifties came out of a sealed doorway that opened with a rush of air. The sound was reminiscent of those Hiccock heard in laboratories equipped with “clean rooms,” places where airborne contaminants were kept to one part in 100 million.

The woman produced a credit card and offered it to Hiccock. He blankly glanced at Fuentes then back at her. She jutted it toward him one more time, but he didn’t know what to do with the card. She prompted him again by stretching the card out further.

Fuentes jumped in and pulled a blank credit card form from his pocket, placed it over the card and, taking a pencil from the desk, rubbed it flat over the chemically treated, pressure sensitive paper, leaving an impression. “Cool. Thank you, Ma’am.” Fuentes handed it to her to sign, as Hiccock stood silently impressed that he had the presence of mind to bring the form. He must have done deliveries at one time.

They were leaving when the leader suddenly called out, “Hold it. Wait a minute.”

The two hesitated. Hiccock’s nerves tightened as he slowly pivoted, expecting to be looking down the barrel of a machine gun.

“Did you say your tip was included?”

Relieved, Hiccock smiled at Fuentes.