‘I think so,’ Allen said as Dave shrugged on the blue US Navy hoodie.
‘I got some questions,’ Dave said.
‘So do we,’ Heath said. ‘So that’s a win-win situation. We can talk in the car. You can eat your cookies if you behave yourself.’
Dave opened his mouth to ask what they were gonna do if he didn’t behave himself, but the exaggerated head shake from Chief Allen prompted him to stow that particular line of inquiry.
*
It was dark outside and felt like mid-evening to Hooper. As they strode through the crowded lobby of the hospital – he still had no idea which one, adding to his deepening sense of being lost – he looked around for a clock, not wanting to ask the military guys. He didn’t want to feel like he was dependent on them or owed them anything. An old-fashioned analogue clock like you sometimes saw at railway stations hung on the wall over the main entrance.
9.25 pm.
Holy shit, he’d been out all day.
The foyer served as an anteroom to the ER, and business was brisk. Three flat-screen televisions hung from the ceiling, two of them turned to the Shopping Network but one running coverage of the Longreach disaster from CNN Hong Kong of all places. A small group of people were gathered beneath that screen, but it wasn’t the centre of most people’s attention, most likely because none of the news channels had anything new to report. Like Dave, they were out of the loop. Heath kept them moving, not giving Dave a chance to stop and take in the report. As they approached the exit, two other men, both of them bearded and tattooed, both wearing fatigues like Allen, fell in alongside the party, sketching salutes.
‘Rest of the team is outside,’ one of the beards told Chief Allen. He regarded Dave with all the respect due a small dog turd on a cocktail fork. ‘A little much for one guy, isn’t it?’
Allen shook his head. ‘Nope. Trust me, or you can ask Lieutenant Dent if and when he wakes up.’
Dave didn’t like the sound of that. Neither did the beards by the way their expressions darkened. He looked up at the clock again just to escape the judgment in their eyes.
Shit.
‘I need a phone,’ he said, slowing down, causing the SEALs to bunch up around him. ‘I need to call my wife. Or, you know, ex-wife soon enough. This thing’s been all over the news. She’ll worry. She does that. And my boys
. . .’
He trailed off.
Chief Allen raised an eyebrow at Heath, asking a question silently, and the captain nodded but checked his wristwatch. Just letting Dave know they were still on the clock. Allen reached into another one of his cargo pockets and fished out a cell phone. It looked cheap but new.
‘It’s a burner,’ he explained. ‘All set up. With Sprint, sorry. Reception will probably be lousy. But it’s got twenty bucks on it. Good enough?’
Dave thanked him and took the candy bar phone as they got moving again. It had been a few years since he’d used one, and he remembered how awkward he’d found them. The buttons were so small, and this cheap piece of Chinese crap felt breakable. He was extra careful, but before he could finish entering the number, Captain Heath reached over and laid a hand on his healed forearm. The guy might dress like a desk jockey, but his hands were as hard as any rig monkey’s.
‘You only need to tell her that you are alive and well,’ he said. ‘Tell her you’re going to be busy helping out. It won’t be a lie.’
Dave bristled at being told what to do, but he reminded himself that these guys had sprung him out of the hospital, promised to answer his questions, and bought him some new threads. Plus, he’d put their friend, that Dent guy, on the operating table. Still, Dave Hooper did not like being told what to do. He resisted the urge to give this asshole the brush-off, worried he might send him flying through a plate glass window.
He didn’t need to go breaking any more navy guys if he could help it.
‘I just want to let my boys know I’m all right,’ he said. ‘I should have done it before now. Soon as I woke up. I’m not much of a dad, I know that. But I’m the only one they’ve got, the poor little bastards.’
‘Fine,’ Heath said as though conceding a minor debating point. ‘But keep it brief. And simple.’
The sliding doors rumbled apart as they approached the exit, and for the first time in many hours Dave caught a breath of fresh air. Or at least of outside air. The parking lot smelled of exhaust, oil, decaying rubber, discarded junk food, the sickly sweet syrup of an abandoned Coke
. . .
He stopped breathing and gagged.
When he was an undergrad many years ago, he’d dropped acid before going to a party just off campus. When the tab came on, he experienced a few minutes of sensory crossover, seeing sounds and hearing colours. There was a word for that, he knew, but he’d forgotten it. The sensation had passed, leaving him with the raw certainty that he’d been inhabited by the spirit of a wild dog, and he had been able to smell even the most faintly detectable whiff of a scent drifting by on the breeze.
This
was what an acid flashback really felt like, he thought as he stood on the steps of the hospital, aware of hundreds of different odours, each of them separate and unique. It was strangely reassuring, providing an explanation for the psychotic visions he’d been having. One of the whores had totally slipped him something. Had to have. If he ever found his wallet again, it was sure to be light a couple of credit cards and most of his cash. And fuck them in the neck, anyway. He’d maxed out that plastic a long time ago.
‘Are you all right?’ Allen asked without sounding as if he gave an actual shit. He was just checking on his package. Heath was staring at him, too, concern creasing his brow and altering the planes of his face, which had been such an unreadable mask until then. The escort reached carefully for sidearms, not sure what to believe or expect.
Dave took a few breaths through his mouth, trying not to smell anything, and closed his eyes until the world stopped spinning. He gradually regained his sense of balance. ‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘I just had
. . .
I dunno. I just felt a bit weird.’
Heath watched him as though he were standing on a land mine and any movement might kill them all. Satisfied that they could move safely again, he said, ‘Let’s get in the car.’
07
O
ne of the pirates drove the Ford Expedition while the other one took the shotgun seat.
Dave had taken to thinking of them as the pirates, since nobody had introduced the two bearded and tattooed bodyguards. Or guards, or whatever they were. Hairy fucking SEALs, he supposed.
Heath and Allen rode in the back with him. They were all big men, and it was crowded back there. Also, although he could totally imagine Heath being driven to a meeting or cocktail party or torture session in some undeclared black ops detention facility, Dave Hooper was a working man and usually rode up front.
Not this time.
A second identical vehicle followed them, presumably with more navy guys.
Bad weather was closing in, blowing grit and drifts of rubbish, loose paper and plastic bags, across the road. Every now and then an unusually strong gust would buffet the car. He felt like an old man because of all the extra care he was taking not to break anything. The seat belt he pulled on slowly and clicked into place as though the clunky metal fittings were made of brittle plastic. He used his little finger to pick out Annie’s phone number on the burner again.
The pirate with the black beard concentrated on the drive as Dave waited for his ex-wife to pick up the phone. Then, as he had so many times before, he corrected himself. She wasn’t officially,
legally,
his ex yet. But that happy day was coming soon. Heath didn’t even pretend to look out the window on Dave’s left. He kept his eyes on his primary mission, Mr David Hooper.
They rolled down cracked asphalt streets that had last been resurfaced long before Katrina. Passed another hospital parking lot where hospital workers in scrubs moved about, perhaps coming on shift, perhaps taking five for a smoke. The New Orleans skyline was difficult to pick out at street level, but at one point he thought he recognised the Louisiana Superdome and wondered if they ever got that place cleaned up.
Before long, they climbed a ramp onto westbound US 90.
The phone rang and rang. Dave was aware of his heart rate increasing as he waited for the connection. It was like he was back in those days when Annie was just starting to lose faith in him. He was Contrite Dave all over again. This time he was ringing up to apologise for not telling her earlier that he hadn’t been incinerated in the blaze on the platform. Or shot by terrorists or eaten by monsters.
He shook his head and let that last thought fly past. The only reliable memory he could count on was stepping off the chopper and waving to J2. Everything from that point on had a bad, dreamlike quality. In spite of his disgruntlement at being ordered by Heath to keep it short and simple, Dave was planning to do just that anyway. He didn’t have the words to explain what had happened and what was still going on. All he knew was that he was deep in the shit, and in a strange way that made this call easier. If there was one thing Annie O’Halloran was used to, it was taking phone calls from Dave Hooper apologising from somewhere deep down in the shit. She answered after another five or six rings.
‘It’s me, babe. I’m sorry I –’
She cut him off. Of course.
‘Oh, my God! You are in
so
much trouble. Do you have any idea what we’ve been through today. You
. . .
you
. . .
inconsiderate jerk. I
. . .
I
. . .’
Her anger stumbled and tripped over into something more confused. An emotion with less clarity than her habitual bad temper. She started to cry, explaining that she’d had to pick the boys up early from school to whisk them away before they heard something on the playground about what was happening down on the Longreach.
‘I had to give them sedatives, Dave. I had to take them to the doctor and give them drugs because they were both hysterical.’
He mumbled his apologies. It was such a routine exchange for them, as familiar as slipping on a comfortable pair of shoes. His wife – no, his ex-wife-to-be, crying and shouting, barely able to keep a rein on her feelings. And him, face hot with shame and not a little resentment that yet again circumstances beyond his control or even imagining had brought them to this.
‘Look, Annie. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, babe.’
He jerked the phone away from his ear as she suddenly shrieked at him, ‘Don’t you
babe
me, David Hooper. Not now, not ever again. Oh, my God, what you put those boys through today, and all because
. . .
What, why did you do it? Were you in some bar somewhere? With one of your
ladies
?’
Annie loaded up the word ‘ladies’ with enough venom that he could taste it at the back of his mouth. She had the timing wrong, but she knew him well enough.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ve been in the hospital. I just got out.’
An immature, unworthy part of him enjoyed being able to say that. It was wrong, and he knew he was hooked up all wrong because he enjoyed it, but that was just how it had gone between them. Annie O’Halloran might have been a lapsed Catholic, but although she’d given up the church-going, there was no letting go of the old Catholic guilt, and there was no way Dave Hooper was ever going to let go of using it against her.
‘I’m sorry, Annie,’ he continued, ‘and I’m really sorry about the boys. I know it’s late, I know I should have called earlier, but I just got discharged, and I’ve been under most of the day.’
That broke the free-running torrent of her anger and grief like a boulder tossed into a stream in flood. ‘Oh
. . .
damn, look, I’m sorry, Dave, it’s just that we’ve been so worried, the boys, you know, and
. . .’
‘It’s okay,’ he said, making it sound like he was the one making a big concession. ‘You’re right. I’m sorry the boys had to go through that. Are they okay now?’
Her voice cracked back like a whip. ‘I told you, Dave. They’re sedated.’
‘Oh,’ he said in a small voice. ‘Right.’
This was a hell of a thing to have to discuss in front of strangers. He was able to catch himself before he added ‘I forgot’. Forgetting about the sorts of things that other, better parents seemed to remember without effort had been another issue between them.
‘Is it true what they’re saying?’ Annie asked. ‘Some sort of terror thing.’
‘Who’s saying that?’ Dave asked, fending off the question. ‘The media?’
He felt Heath go ever so slightly taut in the seat beside him and experienced the narrowing of the man’s focus on him as something distinct and uncomfortable.
Annie was sobbing now, her voice hitching and difficult to follow.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she said between her tears and gulping for air. ‘The company isn’t saying anything. I tried to call them, but they brushed me off. Obama’s not saying anything. Nobody knows what’s happening. We don’t even know how many people di
. . .
died. How many, Dave? How many?’
‘A dozen or so dead,’ he answered in a flat voice. ‘About twice that missing. Probably dead, I reckon, from what I saw out there. Lots of injuries. Annie, you probably know more about it than me. I’ve been under sedation as well. I don’t know jack shit about what’s happening out there now.’ He stared pointedly at Captain Heath, a challenge of sorts. The navy officer just twirled his finger to signal him to wrap it up.
‘But I’m all right,’ he said. ‘Hardly even scratched. I just got knocked out, is all. And I have to get back to Houston to help out. So I have to go now, honey. This isn’t even my phone. I had to borrow it.’
Instantly, Annie was alert, her suspicions tripped by the admission, so late in the conversation, that he was with someone.
‘Who are you with, Dave? And where are you? You haven’t even told me.’
He looked at Heath as he answered her.
‘I’m in New Orleans,’ he said. ‘And I’m not with anyone special. Just some guy. From the coast guard.’
He wasn’t sure why he lied. It just came naturally. Dave could have sworn he detected the ghost of a smile on Heath in the dark of the car.
‘I gotta go, Annie, really. Tell Toby and Jack that their old man came through. Tell them I’ll see if I can get home soon as –’
He was looking at Heath as he said that, too, but the man was unreadable. Annie apologised a few more times for being such a bitch to him, and he let her apologise because it made him feel better. Dave said goodbye and cut the connection, offering the cell to Heath, who merely indicated that Dave should throw it into the cup holder up front.
‘Ex-wives,’ the driving pirate said. ‘Can’t live with them, and you can’t drop them into an extraordinary rendition program. Not without answering a lot of questions.’
His bearded buddy laughed, and they exchanged a fist bump.
The car left the built-up area of the city behind. Rain spotted the windshield, and Blackbeard, who smelled powerfully of chewing tobacco and Old Spice, flipped on the wipers.
‘So where are we headed?’ Dave asked.
‘An airfield,’ said Heath, ‘restricted.’
Before Dave could ask another question, like which goddamn airfield and why, they reached the Mississippi River. Dave could see what looked like a power plant out the window. Hundreds of lights burned and twinkled in the darkness, their hard glow softened by the constant drizzle, and Heath spoke again.
‘What did you kill out on the Longreach, Mr Hooper? And how?’
His stomach flipped over. All the half-remembered terrors from his nightmare came flooding back in behind his eyeballs, and Dave had to face the possibility that they weren’t half remembered at all.
‘What do you mean?’
It wasn’t a serious question. He just didn’t know how to answer the navy man, didn’t know how he could even begin to answer honestly. Heath seemed to understand that Dave wouldn’t be able to respond right away.
‘We’ve reviewed all of the CCTV coverage that we could recover,’ he said. ‘And we’ve conducted after-action interviews with survivors. Mr Martinelli was very helpful. He saw what you did, and the teams we put in confirmed the details. It’s important that we know what happened. We need to know what you killed, Mr Hooper – and how. Because nobody else on that platform survived an encounter with these hostiles.’
Dave shuddered with deep-body revulsion. His gorge rose as he remembered the thing
. . .
Urgon Htoth Ur Hunn.
. . . sinking its fangs into Marty Grbac.
Urgon Htoth Ur Hunn, BattleMaster of the Fourth Legion.
‘What are you? From
The X-Files
or something?’ he asked weakly.
‘I work for JSOC, Mr Hooper,’ Heath said. ‘Joint Special Operations Command, just like I told the doctor back at the hospital. We responded to the emergency on the Longreach because local emergency services called it in as a potential terrorist strike. That’s a scenario we have prepared for, but it was not a terrorist strike, Mr Hooper. We need you to tell us what it was.’
Dave’s hands were shaking as he rubbed his eyes. He swore softly.
‘I’m sorry, Captain, but I got no fucking idea what happened out there. I thought it was a nightmare. Just a bad dream or some drug fuck-up at the hospital.’
He didn’t feel the need to come clean about the pharmacological lucky dip he’d been into the night before he flew back to the Longreach. As far as drugs went, Heath seemed likely to be one of those zero-tolerance types. He’d probably just bite down on a piece of rawhide if you had to dig a bullet out of him.
‘I was really hoping you’d tell me something,’ Dave added.
They rode on in silence, the rhythmic thumping of the tyres rolling over joins in the freeway surface the only sound in the car. Sodium globes in the overhead lights poured sick yellow light into the cabin through the rain-slicked windows. With the Mississippi River behind them, they continued down US 90.
‘Dude, why don’t you start by telling us what you remember?’ Chief Allen suggested. ‘Don’t try to explain what happened or why. Just tell us what you recall from the moment you landed on the helipad. Even if it sounds crazy to you. We hear crazy stuff all the time. Seriously. We don’t judge.’
Torn between not wanting to sound like a maniac and not wanting to have his worst fears confirmed – that he had suffered some kind of psychotic break – but desperately needing to confide in somebody, Dave rubbed his eyes and told his story in a monotone, embellishing it as little as possible. Quite the opposite in fact. He made no mention of the name Urgon Htoth Ur Hunn
,
whoever or whatever the hell it was. He’d squirm like a worm on hot barbecue coals before he’d say anything about any damned BattleMaster of some bullshit monster legion to these guys. They’d probably kick him out the door while the car was still moving. And to be truthful about it, he had trouble getting the details straight in his head, anyway. Seemed that when he thought about it, he had no idea what the gorilla-orc or the ape-demon had snarled at him. Yet at the same time, he remembered exactly what the fucking thing had meant.
How was that even possible?
‘They were, I don’t know, animals or something,’ he said, knowing that they weren’t.
Hunn. This is their name, and even the dead shall fear them.
‘Describe them,’ said Heath. He didn’t sound even the least bit dubious.
Dave shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He was aware of the attention of the two pirates turning back on him. ‘I thought they looked like, I dunno, giant baboons or something. Hairless, though. Or the big one, anyway. A bald-ass monster baboon with leprosy or some shit. It was covered in all these sores and scabs. But it had, I dunno, kind of a tough-looking hide. Like a rhino.’ He didn’t mention the enormous monster testicles and raging schlong. How could he? ‘And it was tattooed,’ he added, as though that made up for it.
‘Monsters Ink,’ the pirate driving the Expedition deadpanned.
‘Ha, gold.’ His colleague nodded, sharing another fist bump to pay him for the quip. Blackbeard flicked on the indicator and powered into the left-hand lane to pass a pick-up loaded down with farm tools. Heath just nodded. He didn’t look sceptical or surprised. His dark face remained blank, awaiting more information. Allen, on the other side of Dave, had leaned forward and turned toward him, but as promised, he gave no impression of judging the crazy story to be, well, crazy.