Yesterday's Thief: An Eric Beckman Paranormal Sci-Fi Thriller (25 page)

He turned, and I jumped back against the wall, knocking my head. I may have screamed, I’m not sure. I think I called for Viviana. I tried to back away. I couldn’t. My feet just slid on the floor. This wasn’t happening.

My own face stared back at me. His thoughts slammed into my head. <
Yes, that’s right, Eric. I’m you. Get a grip, Beckman. This is important, and we only have a few seconds—
>

* * *

I blinked and the copy of me was gone. What universe was this? Sounds came from all around, echoing like baying hounds in a cavern. I gagged from an overpowering odor of garlic and alcohol. A brilliant beam blazed into my eyes. Slamming my lids shut, I tried to raise my arms and push it away.

When the light went off, I opened one eye. An absurd creature had his face inches from mine. Or was he a mile away? His eyes were pulsing, breathing. First one, then the other. Every surface of his head drummed with Egyptian hieroglyphics. I shifted my head to the side, looking past him. Beautiful shifting symbols covered the ceiling. I couldn’t read them. A computer display projected onto every surface in the room? A technology far beyond our own. Had I gone through the machine? Centuries ahead of my time?

The indecipherable thoughts of a dozen creatures careened around my brain—a flock of hostile geese, harassing me. I flipped up my filtering wall, but the thoughts crashed through.

How did this make any sense? I’d seen myself. Had a future me traveled back in time through the machine? But now I was on a different planet. Or in a different dimension or time. The bug-eyed creature made weird gestures. My arms struggled against the restraints. Pulling and pushing. Too tight. So many tubes and wires. I screamed and screamed. My lungs collapsed. The creatures scattered, and the lights went out.

A year passed, or was it only an hour? A familiar voice made my ears twitch. The voice wasn’t mine this time, but it was human. “Eric, it’s okay. You’re safe. You’re in the UCSF med center. It’s me, Craig.”

I shook my head.

He spoke calmly. “Eric, someone gave you LSD. What you are experiencing will end soon. You’ll be okay. You won’t have any brain damage. Can you take some deep breaths for me, buddy?”

Why was it telling me these lies?

An orange-headed woman flubbered my cheek with something gooey. “I’m here, Eric. You’ll be okay. I love you.”

Hours after that, I made a safe landing on planet Earth. In the hospital. I couldn’t shake the vague feeling something was after me, but Viviana convinced me I was safe. We were alone in a private room. The lights were dim.

She held my hand and filled in the gaps. “You ran into hall after Ferka. You screamed and called my name, and then you must have passed out.”

“You saw no one else? Are you sure?”

“No one.”

“You didn’t see someone who looked like me?”

“No. Was drugs.” She put her hand on my cheek. “I made Ferka carry you to car, and I drove here.” Viviana got into the hospital bed with me and snuggled up.

“He was reasonable about that?”

“No, I had to threaten him.”

“You threatened the huge Gypsy? How did you do that?”

Viviana nibbled on my ear. “You haven’t seen me angry.”

That was a scary thought. “But Ferka—”

“And I had your gun.”

I nodded. “How did they get the LSD into me?”

“Oh, wait.” She climbed out of the bed, got something from her purse, and climbed back in. “Toxicologist explained. Here. Someone mixed … DMSO … you know what that is?”

“Yes. Dimethyl sulf—”

“Yes. Someone mixed LSD with DMSO and put it on the plastic case to the
energy ball
.
When you put your hand on it, the mixture entered through your skin. Very fast. That’s why you had garlic breath. You got a big dose.” She did a good impression of a Romanian Cheech. “Heavy trip, man.”

“But that’s nuts. If he just wanted to protect the device, he could have chosen a better way. And why LSD? And where did he get it?” I shook my head and stared at the ceiling. We sat quietly for a few minutes.

I pulled her close. “Does anyone know who you are?”

“Dr. Porter only. Disguise is good.” She touched her nose. “He will keep quiet?”

I nodded. “He is trustworthy.”

“Eric. What do we do about Uncle Zaharia? He needs treatment, yes?”

“Absolutely. We might not be able to make him better, but he’s only going to get worse eating those Hungry-Man dinners every day.”

She pressed her head into my neck.

I sighed. “The Santa Cruz sheriff can make a wellness check, and I’m sure they’ll decide he has to be institutionalized. I have a friend who can talk with the sheriff and make sure your uncle’s treated well.”

“But he will destroy device.”

I took a deep breath and lay there with Viviana in her beautiful dress snuggled up against my hospital gown. The politically correct thing to say was that his health was more important than any electronics. But it wasn’t true.

I looked out the window at a blacked-out sector of the city. If the device worked, then, as Bogart said, “The problems of three people didn’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.” The energy ball mattered. I was sure of it.

I pictured a Navy Seal team snatching him before he knew what was happening. Good luck setting that up. Even millions of dollars can’t buy a private army.

Viviana whispered in my ear. “I have idea.” <
I get.
>

“No, I don’t want to hear it. It’s too dangerous. Plus, this is a nuclear reactor we’re talking about.”

“Not dangerous. Is safe reaction, almost like battery. We had at Zaza’s house in 1978. Not even heavy. I go in, steal device, we send in sheriff. Easy.” <
Except for
Tigan
.
>

“Right. Except for the Gypsy.”

She pushed herself up and faced me, her soft body suddenly hard and angular. “Hey. I thought you turn off mind reading.”

“That was yesterday. You want me to turn it off always?”

“Turn off now.”

I put my hands up in surrender. “Okay, but you are definitely not going in there. No way.”

Viviana laughed.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Viviana and I drove up to Zaharia’s estate with the headlights off. Thick clouds covered the moon and stars, and a slight drizzle fell on the windshield. I’d recovered completely from my mind-expanding LSD experience, and we’d spent three days planning the heist.

We didn’t need much preparation, according to Viviana. “Is simple. Go in. Avoid Gypsy. Get ball. Go out.”

The night was so dark I had to navigate using my Piksi II GPS system, accurate to the inch. Unable to trust it completely, I frequently opened the door and checked the edge of the road with my penlight. My black Tesla Stealth was silent. The only noise came from the tires crunching along the dirt road.

We parked by the fence a few hundred yards from the entrance and climbed a hill that, based on the contour map, would overlook the guard station and the house.

Viviana stopped me halfway up the hill. <
You walk like elephant. Move feet like this.
>

“Got it.” I spoke to her with whispers. She spoke to me with her thoughts.

At the top of the hill, our night-vision scopes gave us a view of the guardhouse through the leafless trees. No one there. So, Ferka the Gypsy was probably in the house. Hopefully sleeping.

We snuck back down the hill and over to the fence. She climbed up the chain-link portion, snipped the barbed wire, and hopped back down.

I brought up the checklist app on my phone. “Do you have the gloves?” We’d bought some special, DMSO-resistant gloves.

Viviana hugged me. “Stop worrying. Have been doing this since before you were born.”

Well, kinda. She refused to wear the Kevlar bulletproof vest—“don’t need.” She had a radio in her pack. She’d call me if she got into trouble.

She seemed calm, but a slight trembling came through in her hug.

“Now remember, give me plenty of time.” She checked her watch. “Is three o’clock now. Give me till five-thirty. May need to wait for Gypsy to fall asleep. Be awake and ready in case they are chasing me.”

Like I was going to fall asleep. I’d be a mess if she wasn’t back within an hour.

One final kiss and she was over the fence, disappearing from sight after only twenty yards. I put on my night-vision goggles and watched her slip through the trees. She passed out of range for reading her thoughts.

In the distance, less than a mile away, the bunker-style house was lit up like an airfield, overwhelming the goggles. Thinking about the LSD-covered case, I worried about what other bizarre defenses the demented old man had concocted.

I’d learned not to try to do everything myself, and here I was, watching the woman I loved creep through the spooky landscape, all alone.

* * *

Viviana kept her eye on the house as she moved through the trees. The scent of rotting leaves reminded her of camping trips with her uncle back in Romania. Why couldn’t he be like he was back then?

She’d seen no dogs on the estate. That was a good thing. She put a tree trunk between herself and the house and lit the dial of her G-shock watch: 3:07 a.m.

She tried to treat it like any other heist, but maybe she’d be matching wits with her uncle, the smartest person on Earth.

His mind wasn’t up to speed now, though. Could he have rigged booby traps back when he was healthy? She’d watched him speed over the trail, not something he’d do if he’d ever set out trip wires. Unless he forgot about them.
Am thinking too much
.

She stopped at a rough wooden table and pulled out her red-beamed penlight. Bones and bits of hide lay on the ground. She picked up a piece of hide and felt it. Coarse fur. From a wild boar like the ones her uncle had hunted in Romania. Maybe they released them on the grounds for hunting and did the butchering here.

The house lay in the center of a wide clearing. Only one-story high, the area around it was illuminated with floodlights.

Did it have cameras? She hadn’t seen any during her visit. But Zaharia was different. What was the new expression? He thought outside the box.

He’d always been that way. He’d challenged her with puzzles, encouraging her to think of unusual ways to solve them.

She approached from the corner of the house where the forest came closest to the building. She’d be exposed while crossing a five-meter gap of short grass. Couldn’t be helped. She took a calming breath.

She’d seen no evidence anyone but Zaharia and Ferka lived here, so she doubted someone would be monitoring video.

She flowed from the nearest tree to the corner of the house and up onto the roof. With the angle of the wall and its protruding rounded rocks it was as easy as climbing a ladder.

She moved slowly, like a sloth, gradually putting her weight into each step.

The roof had three skylights. She crept to the first and looked down through the wire-mesh security glass. Uncle Zaharia sat at a desk working intently under a lamp. The rest of the room was dark. Smoke from his pipe swirled toward her.

Was he working on some kind of a schematic or blueprint? It involved a lot of curved lines. Had she and Eric underestimated his mental state?

She pulled out a pair of small binoculars and focused on his work. His body blocked her view until he reached over for a glass of water.

She sat back and sighed. Oh, poor Uncle Zaza. Winnie-the-Pooh. A coloring book.

She tiptoed to the second skylight. LEDs and numeric displays blinked below her. She pulled out her night-vision goggles. Ah, the power room. If it weren’t for the security glass, this would have been easy. Get through the window, abseil down, pick the lock, steal the ball.

The final skylight overlooked Ferka’s room. She peered in with the night-vision goggles. He lay on his back on an elaborate hammock. His breathing was regular. She pressed her ear against the glass. He was snoring.

Could she wait for Zaharia to fall asleep? His skylight was still lit. Could she break in without alerting him? She’d told Eric to give her until 5:30. Plenty of time.

She examined each of the seven windows. One was different from the others, a little larger with an awning-style opening mechanism. That would be easiest to get through.

After a long wait, the skylight went dark. She waited ten more minutes then went to work, climbing down and standing on protruding rocks below her chosen window.

She looked in. It was a storeroom but with only a few boxes around the edge of the floor.

The room’s door was conventional. She’d slip through that and into the power room. She saw the layout of the house in her mind.

She took out her glass cutting kit, set the suction cup, rotated the cutter, and tapped the disk of glass. With the familiar work, the tension in her muscles melted away.