Sedona Conspiracy

CHAPTER ELEVEN ^{WHERE ANGELS DWELL}

“You were right. It was an M16,” said Leon. “Neal never knew what hit him. Military rounds. One of our people found the brass near the auditorium. The firing pin has a distinctive burr we could identify if we could find the right rifle, but there are hundreds at the base. I’ll talk to Davis, and see what’s possible.”

“He knows about Neal?” Eric rubbed sleep from his eyes. The call had shocked him awake, and morning glow was creeping down the buttes visible from his bedroom.

“Had to. He’ll make up some story for the techs about why Neal is gone. He mentioned that your background would make you a logical replacement.”

“What?”

“Why not? You arrive, and shortly after that Neal is gone. There have been three people in that position in the last two years. Two resigned for health reasons, and Davis will use the same excuse for Neal. I happen to know that one of the other two guys just disappeared, and has never been found. There are lots of ways to sabotage a project, and getting rid of the technical leadership is a good one. It’s mostly program analysis, Eric, and that’s what Davis was told you’re here for. There’s a whole team of people to handle the technical stuff. It would put you at the center of base operations, and that’s where you need to be. You’ll be a target, of course, but at least you’ll be one that shoots back. Anyway, don’t be surprised if Davis calls you about it.”

“Is that why you called so early? It’s just past six.”

“Sorry. Oh, yeah, one other thing. I think you’ll like this one. Nataly Hegel called me last night and left a message. She wanted your phone number. I called her shop, left a message saying you’d call her back this morning. She’s usually in there by nine.”

“Okay,” said Eric. What now? he thought. She’s probably canceling out on dinner.

“Gotta go,” said Leon. “I’ll be in Phoenix all weekend. Company business.”

“Sell lots of art,” said Eric.

“Yeah, I will.” Leon chuckled, and hung up.

The buttes now glowed orange and yellow outside his window. Eric got out of bed, showered and shaved, had toast and a banana for breakfast.

He brewed a pot of strong, Colombian coffee, and spent two hours making notes and doodles on what he’d seen on the aircraft called Pregnant Sparrow. When he was finished he set fire to the pages and burned them to ash in the sink.

It was after ten when he called Nataly’s shop. A girl answered, and put him on hold. His stomach was crawling with certainty that the dinner he was to have with an exotic woman was about to be cancelled.

The phone clicked. “Hello?”

“Eric Price. Leon said I should call you this morning.”

“Oh, I’m so glad you called early. Are you terribly busy today?”

Eric’s heart fluttered. “Just the usual; nothing special.”

“Could you take some time off? I thought we might do some hiking and climbing on the rocks near my house. I don’t get a chance to do it very often. It’s nothing technical. Hiking boots or good running shoes will do, and the views are wonderful.”

It was not the ethereal tone of voice he’d heard before, but excited and animated.

“Sounds interesting. Is this a group outing?”

“Oh, no, it’ll just be the two of us. If we leave in an hour or so, we can have lunch on the summit.”

“We’re climbing a mountain?”

“Cathedral Rocks. It’s a thirty-minute climb.”

“That’s where the angels are.”

Nataly laughed. “You’ve been reading. Maybe we’ll get lucky and see one, but first you have to say yes.”

“Yes.”

She laughed again, and it was a beautiful sound. “Meet me at my shop within the hour. I’ll get started on lunch.”

“Okay.”

“Bye,” she said, and was gone, like an excited child. Eric caught himself smiling as he hung up the phone. How many different people are you? he wondered.

On a day for lounging at home, he had dressed in jeans and pumas. He closed up the house and made the twelve-minute drive to the shop. Two cars and a battered, white truck were in the parking lot, and Nataly came out the door as Eric pulled up in front of it. She carried a daypack with one hand, was dressed in jeans and a red flannel shirt. Her dark hair was tied tightly in a tail that nearly reached her waist. She waved, then pointed at the truck, walked over to it and deposited the pack behind the cab.

By the time Eric reached the truck, Nataly was inside, and pushed the passenger door open for him.

“This is yours?” He climbed in, and pulled at the seat belt.

Nataly gunned the big engine, and the tires spit gravel as she backed up. “Not a showpiece, but it can take me anywhere in the backcountry.”

They drove up to the Y, and turned east. A stream of traffic was coming into town, but little was leaving. Nataly pushed the truck well over the speed limit on the narrow, winding road, pointing out shops, galleries, the turnoff to Frank Lloyd Wright’s famous Red Rock Chapel. They turned on Back O’ Beyond road, wound their way down into a sort of canyon and passed the turnoff to Nataly’s estate. Signs warned of flash flood dangers at low spots in the winding road. Coming around a sharp corner, Nataly suddenly jerked the wheel left, and pulled into a small parking area with a Redrock Pass sign. Two cars were parked there, with Arizona plates.

Beyond the tops of trees, red rock spires loomed above them. Nataly pulled her pack out of the truck, and swung it up onto her back in a single motion.

“I could carry that,” said Eric.

Nataly smiled sweetly. “Thanks, but it’s light, and the exercise is good for me.”

They descended to a dry wash, and then up a trail winding past cactus and gnarled pinyon to a series of broad shelves. Eric was already puffing when Nataly stopped to point at a blackened spot on the rock. “People come up here to drum and play instruments at full moon. It’s a good time to meet creative people, and hear their stories.”

“I’ll bet,” said Eric, and looked up at rocky walls towering above him. “It looks straight up.”

Again that smile. “It’s just a walk up, but we do start out with one interesting section.”

A faint, scuff trail crossed hard rock and split into two trails heading left and right. Nataly veered right, then left up a faint, steep trail of earth and scree to a shelf along a wall, and a thirty-foot drop on one side. A crack ran up a jumble of rock at the end of the shelf. Nataly shoved a foot into it, and climbed without hesitation about twenty feet before looking back at him. Eric took the hint, and climbed after her. The rock was rough, with handholds everywhere. In a minute they were standing on another wide shelf, and above them was a series of shelves extending to the bases of two, monstrous spires. In another twenty minutes they had ascended the shelves, and were standing on a narrow saddle between the two spires.

Nataly took a deep breath, and audibly sighed. Eric fought for breath. “Too much time behind a desk,” he wheezed, and looked out at the expanse of green mixed with rusty red below them.

“Quite a view,” he finally added.

“This is my favorite place,” she said softly, “since when I was a little girl.”

“Steep climb for a kid.”

Nataly looked at him, and for one instant seemed sad. “I used to come up here with my dad, but he’s gone, now.”

“Oh,” said Eric. “I’m sorry.”

“We were close,” said Nataly. She shrugged off her pack, and looked at him with huge eyes. “Were you close to your father?”

Eric leaned her pack against the base of a rock massif. They sat down beside it, with a spectacular view to the south. Nataly rummaged in the pack, pulled out a thermos, and food wrapped in aluminum foil.

“When I got older, I guess we were. Dad was in the military. He met my mom in New Mexico. I came along before he retired, didn’t see him much until I was a teenager.”

“You grew up in New Mexico?” Nataly handed him a wrapped sandwich, and took one for her.

“Yeah. Albuquerque, but we moved to Taos after dad retired. Mom insisted on it. Her family had lived there before she was born.”

Nataly raised an eyebrow. “Was she a Native American?”

“No, but people wondered. She had a subtle, Asian look and dark eyes, but her skin was ivory white. She was very beautiful, and soft spoken, but she had a power, that woman.” Like you, he thought. “My dad was a tough guy, but she had him wrapped around her little finger. Me, too.”

Eric smiled at a memory, but looked away when Nataly smiled with him. “They were killed in a car accident several years ago. Dad was driving, and shouldn’t have been behind the wheel. His eyesight was getting real bad.”

“Oh,” said Nataly.

Eric forced another smile, gestured outwards with a hand. “They would have loved this view.”

“But now you’re here to enjoy it for them,” said Nataly, and suddenly a young couple stepped up onto the saddle. They had come down along another trail that snaked around a spire beyond where Nataly and Eric had stopped to eat. They nodded a greeting, took a photograph of the view, and started off down the trail towards the parking area.

“Where did they come from?” asked Eric.

“I’ll show you. It’s a short trail.”

They finished eating, and repacked the pack. Eric offered to carry it, and Nataly allowed it. She led him off the saddle to a faint trail along a shelf that curved sharply around a red rock wall and ended at a steep slope of earth and scree. Below them a gray slab of rock thrust upwards like a tongue. Eric pointed at it.

“Looks like basalt. Really stands out against all this red.”

“Some people think it’s an artifact of earlier life,” said Nataly.

Eric shook his head. “People have an imaginative explanation for everything around here,” he mumbled.

Nataly didn’t seem to hear him, was scrambling up the scree slope towards a needle of rock towering high above them.

Eric hurried after her. The footing was loose and crumbling, and he was puffing again when he reached the top. Nataly had descended to a depression at the base of a rock spire between two wider massifs on either side of it.

Eric slid down scree to join her. Nataly’s eyes twinkled, and she seemed amused. “You wanted to see where the angels come from, and I think it’s here. I feel a kind of extra energy when I’m here.”

“Right,” said Eric. “I guess my receiver is offline.”

“Here, take my hand.” Nataly reached out, took his hand in hers and closed her eyes.

“Don’t you feel anything?”

Eric’s face flushed, and he was suddenly conscious of his breathing. “Your hand is either very warm, or mine is cold.”

“No, no, not that. Not heat. It’s violet, or purple. It comes out of the rock at my feet, and goes through me to this spire when I touch it. If there’s a portal for angels or beings from another dimension, I think it must be right here.”

Eric squeezed her hand, thinking she might pull away from him. “I guess I’m just not sensitive enough to feel it,” he said softly. “Sorry.”

Nataly opened her eyes. A moment before they had seemed much darker. Perhaps it was a trick of light reflected from orange and red rock. She pulled on his hand, and grasped his collar to bend him forward. “Then tell me if you feel this,” she said, and kissed him very softly on the mouth. It was not a long or deep kiss, but the shock of it went through Eric’s body in waves.

She held his hand, her other hand on his chest, face close. He thought he saw sparkles of green in her eyes as she looked up at him.

“I felt it,” he said softly. “It was very nice, but I’m wondering why you did it.”

“I wanted to. I always do what I want to do. And you kissed me back.”

“Yes, I did.” Eric put his free hand over hers on his chest. “Nataly, you don’t really know anything about me.”

“I know what I need to know,” she said quickly, “and I like what I see.”

“So do I, but I have a history—”

“No need to talk about that, now. We’re attracted to each other. For now, let’s keep it simple and enjoy being together. No pressures, no expectations.”

“Okay,” said Eric, then leaned down to look more closely at her. “I could swear that the color of your eyes keeps changing. I thought they were brown, but now they’re deep green.”

Nataly smiled. “I’m just drawing energy from the portal here. Maybe someday we can go through it.”

“And do what?”

“Visit with the angels, of course, or whatever creatures there are on the other side.”

“I think maybe one of the angels is standing right here.”

Nataly’s eyes seemed to glow. She lifted up on her toes, and gave him a quick, but firm kiss. “That was sweet. Now let me show you the view on the north side.”

He followed her down around the central rock spire to the edge of a steep slope where there was a wide view of Bell Rock and Courthouse Butte in the distance. They looked at it for several minutes, Nataly’s head resting lightly against him, and his arm around her waist.

“There is an energy here,” murmured Nataly. “People come here from all over to meditate, to create, to find peace. Some come here to find their souls.”

“Or to make a lot of money,” said Eric.

“Is that why you’re here?”

“No. Well, that’s part of the reason. This is a nice place. I’m going to like it here, as long as I stay. I get moved around in my business.”

“Not for a while, I hope.” Nataly’s head pressed harder against his shoulder.

“Not for a while,” he said.

They enjoyed the view and their closeness for half an hour, then scrambled back up the scree slope and picked their way down from the saddle on rough-grained rock that gripped the soles of their shoes. They met several people coming up, faces bright with expectation of adventure, and waited for four of them before descending the steep crack down to the low terraces of rock.

In minutes they were back at Nataly’s shop, and Eric was unlocking his car.

“Don’t forget dinner. I’ll call to remind you,” Nataly said brightly.

“I’ll be there. Thanks for today.”

She smiled, and was gone, and Eric drove home. When he entered the house the phone was ringing. It was Leon, returning him to reality.

But that night, Eric had a wonderful dream about Nataly.