Jason Frost - Badlands

"Not like Steve Connors."

"At least he's had combat experience in Vietnam."

"Yeah, flying overhead in a jet fighter. He never saw one person he killed up close."

"True. Hell, if it were up to me, the whole damn mission would be run by CIA personnel. But we don't have any trained astronauts, so we have to rely on you people. Especially you, Dr. Lyons. You're the key to the whole operation."

"I know."

"This is really a first. NASA and the CIA on a joint venture. Could be the start of a beautiful friendship, eh?"

"I don't think that's what NASA's about, Mr. Plummer."

"Of course not. Still it can't hurt to help each other out on occasion. Remember, NASA came to us on this one."

"If I'm not mistaken, the president came to you and ordered you to help."

Plummer laughed for the first time and Paige noticed one dead tooth in the front among the gleaming white ones. "You know your politics, Dr. Lyons. But then, with your background, you would, eh?" He pulled the file folder in front of him again. "Then you won't be surprised when I tell you that if you blow it, I'll be the one who looks bad around here. You were selected for this mission because of your special, uh, knowledge. Everything hinges on you. Certainly there's plenty to inspire your best efforts, but I'm going to offer you one more bit of motivation." He lifted a sheet of paper from the file and held it up to her. "Yup, it's a photocopy of your marriage license with Captain Steve Connors."

Paige Lyons didn't say anything. They had been so careful, driving all the way up to Pennsylvania and finding some tipsy justice of the peace to perform the ceremony. They'd been dressed in running suits and hats. And at the time, they hadn't even been famous. No one knew who they were. The whole thing had taken fifteen minutes and they'd figured it would be forgotten.

"Yes, Dr. Lyons, we were keeping tabs on you even then. This took some digging, especially after Captain Connors accidentally shook my men in that Maryland rainstorm, but eventually we asked enough questions to come up with this. Of course, we have a copy of the divorce, too." He held up the document and grinned.

"What do you expect me to do?"

"Your best, that's all any of us can do."

"For God's sake, Plummer, he's my father. Don't you think I'll do everything I can to get him out of there?"

"Yes, yes I do. Only getting your father out of there isn't enough. In fact, it isn't even the primary purpose of this mission. Getting those scientific papers of his out is. If he's still alive and you can get him out too, fine. If not, we still want those papers. Your father finally came up with a practical solution to the weapons in space program and we were sending agents to pick up those papers when the quake hit. Somewhere on that damn island is a packet of blueprints that will change the nature of this country's military defense. We're talking world survival here."

"So what you're saying is that finding my father is secondary to finding his papers."

"I just don't want you to waste time, Dr. Lyons. Your father may already be dead."

"Perhaps. In any event, I keep my mind on finding the papers. If I come back empty-handed, you get me thrown out of NASA. Right?"

"Blunt, but correct. The space shuttle will only be there a finite amount of time. Two days. Then it takes off with or without your father. With or without his papers. With or without you." Paige stared coldly at the CIA man. He smiled, that dead tooth gray among the white ones. "You know that mountain retreat of his. You know how to get there, where he might have hidden the papers, what they might look like. Your Ph.D. in physics will help there. If anybody can find him, it's you. The only problem is we don't know what else you'll find there. Our scientists figure there's no government of any kind left, except maybe small communities like medieval Europe."

"Or the street gangs of the cities."

"Yeah, even better. We just want you to know what you'll be up against."

Paige Lyons stood up, her long legs lifting her a couple of inches taller than the short CIA agent. "Don't worry, Mr. Plummer," she said with an icy smile. "You've convinced me that I'll be able to kill a human being."

"Eric, come here! Cougar tracks. I swear."

"Tracy."

"Don't give me that boy-who-cried-wolf shit. I'm telling you they're cougar tracks or puma tracks or whatever the hell you want to call them. Look."

Eric brushed aside a tree branch and stepped over some bristles and soggy yellow leaflets warning residents to evacuate. They'd been hiking through the woods for five days. Santa Barbara was just on the other side of the hills and today was the day that the experiments on the Long Beach Halo were supposed to take place.

"Look at that," Tracy pointed with her crutch. "I told you, damn it."

Eric knelt next to the tracks and studied them.

"See? Okay, maybe I was kidding before about seeing one, but look. Jesus, the size of 'em."

Eric stood up, peered through the trees to a clearing. A small house stood alone at the top of a knoll. "Come on, let's check out that house. Might be empty."

"I was right, wasn't I? Cougar, right?"

"Nope."

"What do you mean? Look, damn it. The pads, the four toes, the long claw marks. Four of them here. Another four there. Like it was running."

"Very good," Eric said, meaning it. "Only it's not a cougar, not any kind of a cat. Probably a wolf or a wild dog."

"But the claws-"

"Cats don't leave claw marks, they keep them retracted. Also, there are four footprints together here. Cats leave only two."

Tracy frowned. "What're you saying? They tiptoe?"

"No, it's called directly registering. That means that when they pick up their front foot, the rear foot on the same side falls directly into the front print so it looks like a single print. Cats are the only animal family that does that. However, a fox will also directly register."

Tracy gave him a cold stare and turned away. "I hate you sometimes."

Eric smiled, stepped up behind her, slipped his arms under her crutches and wrapped them around her. "You love it when I tell you crap like that. Makes you feel outdoorsy. Admit it."

"Ha. If I felt any more outdoorsy you'd have to mow my legs."

Eric laughed, kissed her neck. "Hmmm. I see what you mean. You could use a bath. Your neck looks like it's got cougar tracks on it."

"Me? Me?" She broke away from him. "You're the one who went for a midnight dip in a cesspool the other night. Christ, you smell like Pittsburgh."

He stepped closer to her, their faces only inches apart. A smile twitched at his lips. "I thought you liked Pittsburgh."

She laughed, pressed her lips against his, mashing them hard. She let her crutches fall to the ground. Immediately, she felt his powerful arms lift her onto her toes, pull her body next to his, crush it there with just the right amount of pressure. The dull ache in her broken leg seemed to stop for a moment. When she pulled her lips away from his, she was panting a little. "Do we have time for this?"

"I'll check my schedule."

"You know what I mean. Today's the big day. White man's silver birds come from sky. Drop chemicals on primitive natives down here."

Eric shrugged. "I told you, that's a crock. If the government was going to do something like that, they wouldn't pick Santa Barbara. Population density is too great. It makes more sense to try this kind of thing over the desert."

"Eric, we're talking about the government."

He laughed. "Yeah, right. Still, something is going on. There's a reason they wanted this place evacuated. Something they don't want us to see."

"And so we've got to see it."

"No. Not necessarily. But I know Colonel Dirk Fallows will. He won't believe those flyers any more than we did."