Event

FIVE

The sound of a small engine perked Buck's ears up. Both sets of eyes were drawn to the desert to their right. The old man saw the small dust cloud and shook his head.

"That damn fool kid's gonna break his neck someday on that smelly thing," he said aloud as he started his trek toward the mountains again.

The noise grew louder and the old man finally spied the red, four-wheel ATV and its small rider. The all-terrain motorcycle was zooming through the old washouts and jumping clear to the opposite sides. Then the rider noticed Gus and Buck and turned their way, one hand in the air, wildly waving. As he approached, the kid didn't see a rather large dip of another wash. While his hand was raised in greeting, disaster was there to welcome the boy as the front wheels hit the dip and dug deeply into the sand. The only thing that Gus was able to see from his vantage point was the rear end of the small machine go flying up in a cloud of sand and dirt, obscuring the bone-breaking crash Gus knew to be happening.

"Son of a bitch, he did it! Went and kilt hisself!" he yelled as he dropped Buck's reins and ran to the scene of what he knew must surely be the boy's death. Pots, pans, and shovels clanged as the mule ran along noisily behind.

When he arrived, he saw the kid sitting on his butt, splay-legged and trying to remove the red helmet he wore. Besides being covered with dust and a little blood on his upper lip from a nosebleed, he looked alive. Gus jumped down into the small arroyo, carefully avoiding the still-turning front wheels of the ATV.

"Good goddamn, William! You took a good enough spill that time, boy." Gus placed his arms under the boy's and lifted him up.

"What happened?" Billy Dawes asked when he finally twisted the helmet off.

"What happened? You got throw'd is what happened, you young fool." Gus held him at arm's length to look him over.

"Damn," the boy exclaimed as he brushed the dust from his face and clothes.

Tilly released him and stepped back to take the boy in. Nothing looked broken. The small motorcycle-lookin' thing looked all right. Just to be sure, Buck, who had come down into the washout without being heard, nudged the boy with his nose, knocking him down across the ATV.

"Hey!" the boy cried out. "What ya do that for?" he asked the now innocent-looking mule.

Gus helped the eleven-year-old to his feet again and brushed him off. Billy just looked at Buck and shook his head. The mule just twitched his ears.

"Now you watch that mouth of yours, boy, your ma wouldn't appreciate your cussin' like old Gus none too much."

"No, she would probably take the soap and scrub my mouth some."

"Does your mama even know you're out here?" the old man asked, squinting his left eye and leaning toward Billy.

The kid wiped the blood from his nose and lip, then grinned at Gus. His silence was answer enough.

"Boy, you know this desert can kill you six ways from Sunday. What if you broke your legs and old Gus wasn't here to help ya?"

"Well, I didn't," young Billy protested. Then a look of deep thought suddenly crossed the boy's features. "You ain't gonna tell Mom I was out here, are you?"

Gus pretended to be thinking this over, then turned his back on the kid. "I don't know... that was a serious fall you took. You're blooded and everything."

"Aw, it's not bad, Gus, really, I never crash like that. You know I'm good at riding out here."

Gus tilted his head to let Billy think he was thinking this over. "All right then, you get back on that thing and scoot back to your ma." Gus pointed to the overturned ATV.

"Why can't I go with you and Buck for a while? It's Friday and you know what that's like at the bar. I'd just be in Mom's way."

Gus looked around and up at the noonday sun, half hearing Billy's plea. He removed the old fedora and wiped the sweat from his brow once again. Then he replaced the hat and looked toward the mountains ahead of him a good two miles distant. For some reason just the sight of them today made him a little edgy. He shook his head as if to clear it.

"Senility settin' in," he mumbled to himself.

"What, Gus?" the boy asked, pausing for a moment from brushing at his clothes to look at his old friend.

Gus turned and looked at Billy, then smiled, his false teeth gleaming in the sun. "It's nothin'. Well, wouldn't hurt none if you tag along for a bit, I guess. But I want you to head for the house when I say, deal?" He stuck out a gloved hand.

Billy took the handshake and smiled as wide as the Cheshire cat. They both righted the ATV and Gus got Buck moving. But his eyes were drawn to the mountains again. They mutely returned his stare, almost daring him to come.

"Did you hear that sonic boom earlier?"

"Yeah, I thought I heard something," Gus replied, not letting on that the something he spoke of had knocked him and Buck off their feet.

"It sure must have been a big jet that did that one, huh?"

"You scout up ahead and look for Injun sign, boy. If you're going to hang with Gus, you gotta earn your keep and quit askin' questions," he said with a wink.

"Yes, sir!" Billy answered, giving a not-too-bad hand salute. Then he placed the helmet firmly on his head, snapped the strap on, and turned the key for the bike's ignition. He gunned the engine on the Honda and it shot forward, startling Buck and making him jump back a step.

Gus watched the boy go as he was silhouetted against the mountains with the sun gleaming off the chrome of his scooter. The old man shook with a sudden chill. He thought he would camp in the foothills tonight and head up in the morning. As the day had worn on, he had decided he wanted little or nothing to do with the mountain this night. As he looked at the range, he started to understand the ghost stories that were told about the place. And maybe the Lost Dutchman Mine was lost for good reason, maybe men weren't supposed to go there.

It was two hours later that the trio had stopped and Gus had passed around his old canteen. Gus used his hat to pour Buck a drink as Billy stroked the area between the mule's eyes and Buck nudged closer to the boy.

"You better stop your flirtin' with that mule and get your skinny butt home." Gus looked around the desert and up the white-tinged mountain above. "Don't want you to get caught out here tonight."

"How many people have been lost up there looking for that mine?" Billy asked, finishing with Buck and walking over to the small camp.

"Not as many as the Indians and tourism people in these parts would like folks to think, that's for sure," Gus said as he glanced around at the still .desert.

"How many?" the boy persisted.

Gus finished laying his tarp down for his bedroll, then rubbed the whiskers on his chin and cheek. "Well, must be near to three hundred or so." The old man watched the boy's expression change from mere curiosity to apprehension. Inwardly, he smiled at his exaggeration. "Now you better get back on that scooter and skedaddle."

Billy Dawes took in the desert around him. The shadows were getting longer, and he did have to help his mom. "Yeah, I guess I better."

"And, boy?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Don't think I didn't notice that dust you knocked off your clothes back there," Gus said with one eye closed against the late-afternoon sun.

"What dust?" Billy said, knowing full well what Gus was talking about.

"Before you come lookin' for me, you were out ridin' that thing at Soda Flats, weren't ya?"

Gus had warned Billy about Soda Flats a million times. It was an ancient dry lake bed at the eastern end of the valley. The alkali deposit stretched for about two or three miles square and was as flat as a frying pan, which was perfect for riding at full speed on an ATV.

"I only skirted it, Gus, honest, I didn't cross it."

"Boy, that alkali will kill you eight ways from Sunday. It'll eat the skin right off'n you if you fall into it. Now, if you choose to ignore me, you can't come along with me no more, you got that?"

"I got it, Gus, I promise, no more."

"Alright, now I have your word, no more Soda Flats?"

Billy held up his right hand. "Promise," he said in all seriousness.

The old man watched the boy walk over to the mule and whisper something to him. Buck twitched his ears in agreement. Then Billy placed the red helmet on his head and started up the ATV; he revved the motor twice, then left for home.

Finished with his bedroll, the old prospector looked into his leather poke and pulled out a large bottle of bourbon, shaking his head at the way he was feeling and about the boy and his daredevil-may-care attitude about those damned alkali flats. He unscrewed the cap and took a long pull from the bottle, then looked at Buck, who was looking at him.

"What?"

The mule showed his teeth, then rotated his large ears.

"It's m9edicine tonight, old boy. I think I wanna sleep the night through." He looked at the mountain, then took another swig. "Too goddamn old to be afraid of the dark."

Buck snorted, seemingly agreeing with him.

"Snort all you want, buddy, but I feel like a kid that knows for a fact that the bogeyman is out there somewhere."

As he pulled on the bottle again, he looked at the mountains above him. For now, those mountains held a close-kept and dark secret that was about to be shared with the world. The bogeyman was starting to wake up.

Jack found Everett waiting for him on level seven. "Glad Alice sent you. No one told me where the main conference room is."

"The map is in your welcome packet, which you haven't received yet," Everett said as he gestured for Collins to go ahead.

"Now it sounds like the military," Collins said. They laughed as they walked down the carpeted and circular hall.

As the two officers made their way up three floors to the conference room, another man rode a second elevator up to the thirty-third sublevel, to the Group's small club known affectionately as The Ark. He had just left early from his shift on the fortieth level, the level that housed the main computer networking systems. The man was tall and heavy, his red hair uncombed, and his white shirt prominently displaying an ink stain on the left breast pocket. He had left the computer center just minutes after the call went out to the Event Evaluation Team for them to meet in the main conference room, taking advantage of the rush of people leaving their departments.

Robert Reese had been chosen for his ability to write programs and network them to various illegal links with other systems throughout the world, but most important he was there for his knowledge of the one-of-a-kind Cray computer known as Europa XP-7.

Reese was performing a routine test on the Event Group's own KH-11 photo recon bird and was tying the systems into each other when he happened upon an incoming data stream that he hadn't been cleared to see. It was supposed to be Eyes Only for Dr. Compton and Computer Center director, Pete Golding. He quickly made a copy of the data as the stream was encoded and had just minutes to decipher the information and debug it. Only after viewing the coded data did he know he possessed the most amazing piece of information he had ever seen.

Reese had been recruited for the Event Group and hired away from a cushy job and a good career in Seattle working as a systems manager for Microsoft. But for Reese it had been the job offer after the Group's that interested him the most, and had come rather clandestinely, even more so than the Group's. But the job would only take effect after he had been hired into the Event Center. The offer came from people that paid well and asked little, with his only commitment to this new company being to forward items and information when requested, or if he happened to come across anything that he found interesting.

Thus far it had worked out beautifully. He dealt with some lowlifes in Vegas once in a while and was paid well for the secrets of the past he delivered to them. But he was ordered to watch for one specific item on the corporation's wish list, and that little item had come today through the recon bird.

The elevator doors opened and he stepped into the foyer across from The Ark and made his way inside the darkened club. Few people were there, mostly couples having a beer or mixed drink after duty. A rock-and-roll tune played from the jukebox, a song he didn't recognize because he never had time for anything as mundane as music. He walked over to a bank of three pay phones sitting side by side against the far wall near the restroom. He knew that inept security division that macho navy asshole was currently running monitored the phones at the Group, but he could take care of that easily enough. Reese didn't look around as he stepped up to the center phone. He knew what attracted attention and what didn't. The computer specialist slid his credit card into the slot and pulled down. The card was a special one that Reese himself had designed. It really was a Sprint credit line, but he was most proud of a few extra goodies built into it. As he slid the card in and swiped, the magnetic strip on the back of the card imprinted directly through to the Sprint Telecommunications computer, then on into a leased AT&T telephone line. The microcomputer chip in the card started a chain reaction that would continue to scramble the charge numbers at random. It was totally untraceable, and some guy or gal perhaps in Wisconsin would receive the charge for the call. If anyone checked, the call number would actually come up as two thousand different numbers, therefore no one would ever know who had been called. Not only that, the call would have a telephone prefix three thousand miles away from where the call had actually gone. Smiling, Reese then punched in the numbers and waited for the phone to ring in Las Vegas. While he waited, he gestured for the bartender and made a drinking gesture and mouthed the word Budweiser. The man nodded and went to get his beer. The phone began to ring on the other end of the unmonitored phone.

"Ivory Coast Lounge," a female voice answered.

"Yes, I would like to reserve a table for tonight please, the name is Reese. Bob Reese."

There was a moment's hesitation on the other end. "Yes, Mr. Reese, there should be no problem. At what time should we expect your party?"

Reese looked at his wristwatch and calculated. "Three hours."

"That will be fine, Mr. Reese."

"Thank you. Also, would you tell Simon the bartender to chill a bottle of champagne for me please?" Reese hung up.

He walked to the bar. He took slow pulls off the longneck bottle, made a face, and sat the beer down on the bar. Reese never thought of the things he did as treason. That was an ugly word, and a word that was lost on people like him because the only word that really mattered to Reese was a far simpler one, profit. And he knew this would be a highly profitable trip into town because in his many dealings with the Centaurus Corporation, he had never once given the code words he had just given to the Ivory Coast Lounge. Chill a bottle of champagne meant he was coming in with vital information from the number one item on their wish list, vital and expensive.

The bartender at The Ark, an off-duty marine lance corporal whose real job was in the security department, shook his head as Reese walked out of the club whistling. "Hey, Dr. Reese, that's three bucks you owe me."

But Reese just kept walking, off in a world of his own. The bartender looked at his watch and noted the time.

After Reese left The Ark, the bartender decided to make a report on the man who had appeared on the security list this morning. He walked over to the phone at the far end of the bar and looked up at those who were drinking and talking. When he saw none of them were paying him any mind, he picked up the phone and quickly punched in three numbers.

"Security Center, Staff Sergeant Mendenhall," the black sergeant said tiredly.

"Sarge, this is Wilkins. Is Commander Everett there, or the new major?"

"No, they're hanging with the senator and Dr. Compton at the moment. Something big is happening," Mendenhall said through a yawn.

"Well, would you note it in the security log that one of the people on our security watch list was in here about a half hour ago and made a call from the pay phones? It was the Comp Center assistant supervisor, that Reese guy. I only noticed because according to the Computer Center duty roster, he was still on shift when he came in here."

"Okay, that's a clear violation. I'll note it in the log and pass it along to the commander and the new boss, and then I'm sure they'll get Dr. Compton in on this, so Reese can probably expect a write-up or an ass-chewing in the morning."