Shafts of light streamed in from breaks in the trees overhead.
Then, quite suddenly, they could see the sparkle of water. At a sig- nal from Nighthawk, they got down on their hands and knees and made their way to the edge of the lake.
After a moment, Nighthawk stood and walked to the water's edge, with Green following. An elderly Cessna floatplane was tied up at a rickety dock. Nighthawk inspected the plane, finding nothing out of
place. He removed the cowling and gasped when he saw the engine. "Josh, look at this!"
Green peered at the engine. "Looks like someone took an ax to it." The hoses and connections hung loose where they had been cut.
The engine was scarred in a dozen places where it had been hit with something hard.
"This is why no one could fly out of here," Nighthawk said. He pointed to a foot-worn trail that led away from the floatplane dock. "That path leads to the village."
Within minutes, they were making their way to the edge of a clearing. Nighthawk held out his hand for them to stop. Then he squatted on his haunches and peered with sharp eyes through the bushes. "There's no one here," he said finally.
"Are you sure?"
"Unfortunately, yes," Nighthawk said. He walked unafraid into the open, with Green hesitantly taking up the rear.
The village consisted of a dozen or so sturdy-looking log houses, most with porches. They were built on both sides of a swath of packed-down dirt in a rough approximation of a small town's Main Street, complete with one structure that had a general-store sign on it. Green expected someone to burst out the front door at any mo- ment, but the store and every other house in the village were as still as tombs.
"This is my house, where my parents and my sister lived," Nighthawk said, stopping in front of one of the larger structures.
He went up on the porch and went inside. After a few minutes, he came out, shaking his head. "No one. Everything is in place. Like they just stepped out for a minute."
"I poked my head in a couple of the other places," Green said.
"Same thing. How many people lived here?"
"Forty or so."
"Where could they have gone?"
Nighthawk walked to the edge of the lake a few yards away. He
stood, listening to the quiet lap of the waves. After a moment, he pointed to the opposite shore and said, "Maybe over there?" Green squinted across the lake. "How can you be sure?" "My mother wrote that there was funny stuff going on across the lake. We've got to check it out."
"What kind of funny stuff?" "She said big helicopters were coming in and unloading material
night and day. When the village men went over to investigate, they were run off by guards. Then one day, some guys with guns came over to the village and looked around. They didn't hurt anyone, but my mother figured they'd be back."
"Wouldn't it be better to go tell the authorities? They could send someone in by plane."
"I don't think there's time," Nighthawk said. "Her letter is more than two weeks old. Besides, I can feel danger and death in the air." Green shuddered. He was stuck in the middle of nowhere, and the only person who could get him out was raving like a medicine man in a B movie.
Sensing his friend's nervousness, Nighthawk smiled and said,
'Don't worry, I'm not going native. That's a good suggestion about the cops. I'd feel better if we checked things out first. C'mon," he said, and they headed back to the knoll they had climbed a few minutes before. They came to a natural overhang of rock. Nighthawk pulled away some branches that covered the opening. Lying upside-down on a crude rack was a birch-bark canoe. Nighthawk ran his hand lov- ingly over the shiny surface.
"I made this myself. Used only traditional materials and tech- niques."
"It's beautiful," Green said. "Straight out of Last of the Mohicans." Better. I've gone all over the lake in it."
They dragged the canoe to the beach, dined on beef jerky and rested as they waited for the sun to go down.
With the approach of dusk, they threw their packs into the canoe, pushed it into the water and started paddling. Night had fallen by the time they drew close to the shore. They had to stop when the canoe hit something solid in the water.
Nighthawk reached down, thinking they had hit a rock. "It's some kind of metal cage. Like a bait box." He scanned the water with his sharp eyes. "The water is filled with them. I smell fish, lots of them. It must be some sort of hatchery operation."
They found a breach in the floating barricade and pointed the canoe toward land. Something stirred and splashed in the metal cages, confirming Nighthawk's theory of a fish hatchery. Eventually they came to the outer end of a floating dock lit by dim ankle-high lights they had seen from the water. Tied up to a series of finger piers were several Jet Skis and powerboats. Next to the smaller watercraft was a large catamaran. It had a conveyor belt running down the middle, and Nighthawk guessed that it was used in the hatchery operation.
"I've got an idea," Green said. Working systematically, he pulled the ignition keys from the Jet Skis and the boats and threw them into the water. Then they tucked the canoe in between the other craft, covered it with a borrowed tarp and climbed onto the pier.
Where the dock joined the shore, it continued as a blacktop walk- way that led inland. Nighthawk and Green decided to keep to the woods. After walking a few minutes, they encountered a wide dirt track, as if a big bulldozer had plowed its way through the forest. They followed the swath and came up on a row of trucks and earth- moving machinery arranged in neat rows behind a huge storage building. Using the shed as a shield, they peered around the corner and saw that they were at the edge of an open area carved out of the woods. It was brightly illuminated by a ring of portable halogen lights. Mechanized shovels were flattening down the dirt, and great road-building machines were laying down swathes of blacktop. Work crews armed with shovels were smoothing out the hot asphalt in preparation for it to be flattened down by the steamrollers.
Nighthawk said, "What do we do next, Professor?"
"How long do we have until daybreak?"
"About five hours to first light. It would be smart to be back on the lake before then."
Green sat with his back against a tree. "Let's keep an eye on what's going on until then. I'll take the first watch." Shortly after midnight, Ben took over. Green stretched out on the ground and closed his eyes. The cleared area was now almost deserted except for a few armed men lounging around. Nighthawk blinked his eyes and reached over to tap Green's shoulder.
"Uh, Josh-" Green sat up and looked toward the plaza. "What the hell-?"
Beyond the clearing, where there were only woods before, was a huge dome-shaped structure whose mottled surface glowed bluish white. It seemed to have appeared by magic.
"What is that thing?" Ben whispered. "And where did it come from?"
"You got me," Green said.
"Maybe it's a hotel."
"Naw," Green said. "Too functional-looking. Would you stay in a place like that?"
"I grew up in a log cabin. Any place bigger than that is a hotel." "I don't mean to disparage your home territory, but can you see fishermen and hunters flocking here? That thing belongs in Las Vegas."
"We're talking North Pole, man. Looks like an overgrown igloo." Green had to admit the dome had the same contours as the Eskimo shelters he had seen in National Geographic. But instead of hard snow, the surface appeared to be a translucent plastic material. Huge hangar doors were set into the base of the dome, overlooking the open area, which was being built as a plaza.
As they watched, there were signs of new activity. The plaza was becoming busy again. The construction crew had returned, along with more armed men, who could be seen glancing up at the night sky. Before long, the sound of engines could be heard from above.
Then a gigantic object moved across the night sky and blotted out the stars.
"Look at the dome," Nighthawk said.
A vertical seam had appeared in the top of the structure. The seam widened into a wedge, then the top half of the dome peeled back like the sections of an orange until it was completely open. Light streamed out of the dome's interior and bathed the silvery skin of a gigantic torpedo-shaped object that moved slowly to a position exactly above the vast opening.
"We were both wrong," Nighthawk said. "Our Las Vegas hotel is a blimp hangar."
Green had been studying the contours of the enormous aircraft. "You ever see that old news footage about the Hindenburg, that big German airship that caught fire and burned back in the 1930s?"
"But what's something like that doing here "I think we may find out very soon," Green said. The descending airship sank into the structure, and the sections of the dome moved back into place and restored the round shape. Be- fore long, the doors overlooking the plaza slid open, and a group of men emerged from inside the structure. They were dressed in black uniforms, and all had dark, swarthy complexions. They swarmed around a man whose bullish head was set on powerful shoulders.
The man walked over to the edge of the plaza and inspected the progress of the work. Nighthawk had paid little attention to the workers before. But now he could see that, unlike the uniformed men, these people were dressed in jeans and work shirts, and armed guards were watching them.
"Oh hell! "he whispered.
"What's wrong?" Green said.
"Those are men from my village. That's my brother and father.
But I don't see my mother or any of the other women."
The leader continued on his inspection tour, walking around the edge of the plaza. The men who had been guarding the workers watched their leader's progress. Taking advantage of their inatten- tion, one of the laborers had edged closer to the woods. Then he dropped his shovel and made a break for freedom. Something about the way he ran, with a slight limp, looked familiar to Nighthawk.
"That's my cousin," he said. "I can tell by the way he runs. He hurt his foot bad when we were kids."
One of the guards glanced back and saw the fleeing man. He raised his gun to fire, but lowered it at an apparent command from the bull-headed man. He stepped over to a stack of tools and snatched up a sharp-tipped metal pike from the pile. He held it lightly in two hands, drew back like a javelin thrower, then snapped the pike for- ward with all the strength of his squat, powerful body.
The missile flew through the air in a metallic blur. It had been thrown expertly ahead of the runner in a high looping trajectory and timed so that it caught him between the shoulder blades. He went down, pinned like a butterfly in a collection book. By then, the leader had turned his back and didn't even see him fall.
The whole scene-the aborted escape and the killing of his cousin-had taken only a few seconds. Nighthawk had watched, frozen in place, but now he lunged forward and, despite Green's at- tempts to hold him back, broke from cover and ran toward his cousin's body.
Green scrambled after the young Indian and brought him down in a flying tackle. He was on his feet a second later, pulling Nighthawk to his feet by the scruff of his neck. They were clearly vis- ible in the bright glare of lights. Nighthawk saw the guns pointed in their direction, and his instincts took over.
He and Green dashed for the woods. Shots rang out and Green fell. Nighthawk stopped and went to help his companion, but the bullet had caught Green in the back of the head and destroyed his skull. Nighthawk turned and ran, geysers of earth erupting around his feet. He dove into the forest, while a fusillade from the plaza shredded the branches over his head. Under a shower of twigs and leaves, he dashed through the trees until he came to the edge of the lake and his feet pounded onto the dock.
He saw the Jet Skis and wished Green had kept one ignition key. Nighthawk unsheathed a hunting knife from his belt and sliced the mooring lines. Then he shoved the watercraft as far away from the dock as he could. He whipped the tarp from the canoe, pushed off and began to paddle furiously. He was in open water when he saw muzzle flashes from the dock area and heard the rattle of automatic- arms fire. The shooters were firing blind, and their bullets were hit- ting the water off to one side.
The canoe flew across the lake until it was out of range. Night- hawk continued to paddle with all his strength. Once he had gained the other shore, he could lose himself in the deep woods. It is never entirely dark on water, which catches and magnifies even the tiniest speck of light. But now, the lake around him began to glow as if it were infused with a luminescent chemical. He turned and saw that the light was not coming from the lake, but was a reflection.
Behind him, a wide shaft of light was shining toward the heavens. The dome was opening. The airship was rising slowly into the air. When it was a few hundred feet over the trees, the airship headed to- ward the lake. Bathed in the eerie light from below, the airship looked like an avenging monster out of some time-shrouded myth. Instead of approaching on a straight line, the airship turned sharply and moved along the shore. Beams of light shot out from its under- belly and probed the surface of the lake.
After making its first pass, the airship turned onto a parallel track. Rather than make a random thrust into the space over the lake, the airship was conducting a thorough search, using a lawn-mowing pat- tern. Nighthawk was paddling for all he was worth, but it would be only a matter of minutes before the searchlights dancing over the lake's surface caught the canoe.
The airship made another turn and started back on a course that would take it directly over the canoe. Once spotted, the canoe would be an easy target. Nighthawk knew there was only one option avail- able to him. He drew his hunting knife and slashed a hole in the bot- tom of the canoe. Cold water poured in and surged around his waist. The water was up to his neck, as the airship blotted out the sky al- most directly overhead. The guttural noise of its engines blocked out all other sound.
Nighthawk ducked his head and held on to the sinking canoe to keep it below the surface. Above him, the water glowed white from the moving bull's-eyes, then went black again. He stayed under as long as he could, then, gasping for breath, he popped his head out of the water.
The airship had turned for another pass. Nighthawk could hear another sound mingling with the throb of engines. The whine and snarl of Jet Skis. Someone must have had spare ignition keys. Nighthawk swam off at an angle, away from the village.
Minutes later, he saw lights scudding across the lake at great speed as the Jet Skis made directly for the deserted village. Nighthawk kept swimming until he felt soft muck under his feet. He crawled up onto the shore, exhausted from the swim, but he rested only long enough to wring water out of his shirt.
Lights were coming his way along the beach.
Nighthawk took one last, sorrowful look across the lake, before he melted into the woods like a sodden wraith.
20
ABROAD SMILE CROSSED Austin's bronzed face as the taxi crunched onto the long gravel driveway in Fairfax, Virginia. Austin paid his fare from Duties Airport and sprinted up the steps of the Victorian boathouse, part of an old estate fronting on the Potomac River. He dropped his bags inside the door, swept his eye around the combination study-den and the familiar line from Robert Louis Stevenson came to mind.