“Well, join the fucking club,” Ro shot back. “Jesus, you’re terrible under pressure.” Then she burst into tears.
Ben swung the car over to the curb, but didn’t turn off the engine. “The Caldera is the cone of a dormant volcano. It’s now wide-open space where people hike. I’m sorry I’m shouting, but any minute, those guys are gonna get a call from Shanks about the Elantra. And then they’re going to block off the road. And we’ll be too late. Let’s hold it together for another minute, and then once we get past the security guards, you can swear at me all you want.”
“You’re right.” She dried her eyes. “Sorry.”
“I’m sorry too. Let’s just . . .” He was still panting. “No problem.” He pulled away from the curb and up to the checkpoint. Rolling down the window, Ben was greeted with a blast of hot wind in his face. He put on his best stupid-teenage-boy grin, the kind of dumb look that a dude has when he’s with a good-looking girl. It probably came out halfway between a leer and a sneer. “Hello, sir.”
The man was wearing a brown uniform; he had a military crew cut and suspicious brown eyes. “Where are you headed?”
“To the Caldera for a hike.”
“Little late in the day.”
It was four p.m. “We’ve got at least three hours of good daylight. I just want to show my friend around New Mexico. She’s from New York.”
The officer peered in the window. Ro smiled and waved. Ben tried to control his tension, hoping that he’d have just a minute before the guard’s walkie-talkie buzzed. He smiled again. “Beautiful day.” It came out as suck-up and he immediately regretted talking. He had never been good at chitchat.
“It’s hot.”
“Not as hot as it will be in a month. Besides, the Caldera is usually a few degrees cooler.”
“True.” The officer asked for ID and Ben showed him his license. Then he checked their laps to make sure their seat belts were fastened. “Try to get back before dark.”
“I will. I know the roads are dark after sunset.”
“So you go there often?”
God, just close your fucking mouth, Vicksburg. “I used to board around the area in the winter. Now I go in the summertime and hike. It helps me think.”
The officer continued to stare at Ben and Ro. Then he waved them on. “Go ahead.”
“Thank you.” Ben slowly pulled onto the road. As soon as the checkpoint was out of eyesight, he punched the accelerator.
The road was two lanes and sinuous, cutting through the mountains. The temperature was at least ten degrees hotter because the elevation had dropped and the afternoon sun was strong, seeping through the front windshield as they went northwest toward Los Alamos. After a few minutes, the lab buildings came into view. They were low-slung and set back from the road, white buildings with white signs that had lanl and identifying sector numbers in blue lettering. There was no indication of what went on inside, but since the buildings were only closed off by a chain link fence, the structures were probably not the homes of bunker busters. There were dozens of little buildings in the area, all through the Sangres, bleeding into the western Jemez Mountains. Ben had traveled these roads hundreds of times to get to the San Ildefonso and the Santa Clara pueblos, but never in his life had he traveled with such purpose and urgency.
He slowed the car as both of them hunted for a white Hyundai Elantra, his head whirling as they searched. Once the Elantra stopped moving, it meant that the monster had taken Lilly inside one of those buildings. And then they only had minutes before it was too late. “Ro, call Shanks and tell him that we’re on top of the guy. Tell him that if he stops the car and takes her out, it’s all over. We need a location!”
“Got it.” She phoned Shanks while peering out the window. He heard Shanks’s voice over the line, but then Ro disconnected her cell and punched his shoulder hard. “Stop!” She rolled down the window and pointed. “What about that car?”
A white Elantra sat behind the gate of a high chain link fence. There was barbed wire on top, so climbing it was a last-resort option. The building wasn’t marked with a lab sector sign. It was two stories and might have been used for storage. But seeing as this was Los Alamos, who knew what was inside.
Ro’s cell rang again and it was probably Shanks. In the distance, Ben heard sirens.
“Get out of the car!” he ordered.
“What?”
“Just do it! And stay way back from the gate!”
She jumped out of the passenger seat. He slammed the car into reverse, then backed down the road. He shoved the gear back into drive with one foot on the brake and the other on the accelerator. He pressed down and the engine roared, then he steeled himself for the inevitable, gluing his head and neck and back against the seat and the neck rest. As he lifted his left foot from the brake, he depressed the accelerator to the floor and the car shot forward like a ball from a cannon.
It smashed through the chain link fence with that spine-tingling sound of metal against metal—warping, scraping, and gouging. Ben had crashed into the Elantra and sent it hurling into a tree. When that happened, the windshield of the Explorer cracked and the airbags deployed. He braked hard, and the beast came to a halt.
He was in one piece and that was all that mattered. He somehow managed to open the glove compartment and grab the gun, worming himself out of the hunk of metal that had once been Ro’s Explorer. By the time he was free, Ro had caught up with him. The two of them raced toward the building.
Coming from the inside was the sickening sound of desperate screaming. The door was secured, so Ben took aim, shot the lock, and rammed the door with his shoulder. The barrier didn’t collapse but enough of it broke away from the hinges that he could crawl through the splinters. Inside, it was dim, some light coming in from a few windows. The afternoon sun was sinking fast.
“Lilly!”
Another shriek.
“LILLY!” Ben’s voice was raw. “Get the fuck away from her!”
Then he realized that the only thing more sickening than the screaming was the sudden silence. Ro yanked on his T-shirt. “It was coming from this way.”
They wound and wound their way in the encroaching twilight. The horror scene was tucked into a corner. Ben’s knees weakened and his gorge rose.