He made good time rounding the sandy southwest tentacle of Papoose Lake and reaching another of Val’s bunkers. This locale offered the fewest amenities of the three refuges Blake had visited. Val had built it for emergencies. A folded camouflage net and a pile of brush that looked like a good snake sanctuary would be his building materials to fortify the shelter. Under the tarp, a gallon of water and small ammo box protected a day’s rations.
Val had told him of the ATV hidden in the mountains less than four miles away from his present location. Climbing four miles with the Bio Suit’s added weight was not a feat Blake could accomplish before sunrise.
Like the other mammals in the desert, Blake hunkered in his shelter to avoid the sunlight that was just beginning to silhouette the mountains on the eastern horizon. He didn’t look forward to the day ahead. When he sat still his skin itched and begged for a cleansing, and his lack of movement encouraged movement from the creepy-crawlies sharing the bunker with him. He occupied his time studying the help program on the Bio Suit’s computer.
CHAPTER 47
No matter how wide Val spread his eyes, he only saw black. Restraints prohibited him from lifting his wrists and ankles. His wounded leg was numb. His head ached and spun like he had a hangover. He needed more sleep.
A door burst open, splashing light across Val’s body.
“Wake up!” he heard a raspy voice order.
The door slammed shut, returning darkness to the room. Feet shuffled and approached him. A small motor churned, raising the hospital bed, putting his body in a recumbent position.
Click! On a pedestal at the foot of his bed, a halogen lamp cast an intense brightness, warming his face and stinging his dilated pupils. He saw his body, restrained, covered by a loose-fitting hospital smock, and his thigh, wrapped in gauze, tinges of blood visible. Like an old-fashioned police interrogation, the bright lamp washed out everything around him, including the man standing behind it.
“Clever the way you built that bunker to hide in,” came the raspy voice. “Too much equipment in there for you to pack in on a single trip. We also found a couple manmade water troughs. That tells me you’ve been visiting us for some time.” The voice was emotionless, serious. “Spies rarely have a happy ending in this region. But we have a special set of circumstances surrounding your situation.”
Val was confused. Maybe they ran fingerprints? But Grason had arranged to block his identity in the FBI database.
“When you surrendered,” the raspy voice continued, “you were wearing far less than when my man shot you. Technology is like a fingerprint: distinct to its source. The description my man gave of your outfit matches equipment developed by DARPA and loaned through a certain congressman to the DEA. But they only received one suit, and you, Mr. Hunter, were apparently wearing the other.”
Hunter? They think I’m Blake. Val said nothing, buying every minute he could to help Blake get away.
“I assume you were taking pictures of that little light you saw in the sky, and the film is with the suit. Did you hide the items, thinking you could sneak back and retrieve them later?”
Val remained silent, listening more than he appeared to, hoping for clues about the man in his words. His spiel, however, was contrived, containing no spontaneity that might reveal facts.
“Of course you hid it. At first I thought that you had an accomplice. You did a decent job of covering your tracks, but in a couple of locations the soldiers discovered two sets of footprints. The winds have destroyed much of our evidence, but a few tracks remained. A closer examination has us thinking you made multiple trips along the same route.”
Val saw the man’s forearms extend from his brutish physique and rest on a steel railing surrounding the bed. White shirt cuffs with pewter cufflinks protruded from beneath black suit sleeves. One hand held a steaming mug of coffee.
“How’s the leg?”
“Com—” Val coughed, his throat dry, hoarse. “Comfortably numb,” he managed to say after swallowing.
“It’ll heal. The medic says it’s a deep flesh wound. The bullet went in and out. Had they shot you between the eyes, I’d be in less of a predicament. We’d throw your body in a cooler until someone came looking for you. How long before your people know there’s a problem?”
Val didn’t know how long he’d been there, or where there was.
“Your failure to respond tells me you don’t wish to discuss your experience here. Let’s try talking about more personable topics, get to know one another while we pass the time until you’re ready to conduct business.”
Val watched him dip a finger in the steaming coffee.
“I love my coffee scalding hot.” He removed his finger, now red. “Ever since I was a kid, I’ve tested myself by taking showers either freezing cold or hot enough to make my skin itch. If you can tolerate nature’s extremities just short of causing physical damage to yourself, you have an edge over others.” He sipped the coffee, making a hissing sound as he chased it with a slow breath of air to cool his tongue. “How about you, Blake? What’s your threshold for pain?”
Not wanting to see where this conversation was going, Val suggested, “Maybe I should have some legal counsel.”
“You’re not being charged with anything. We’re just having a discussion while you recuperate enough for us to take you home.” Owens could have extracted information from Val using the hypnotic equipment at his disposal, like he had done with the Chinese operative. Unlike foreign governments, however, the FBI could react if their agent returned home in a different mental state. “I’ll be back when the numbness in your leg wears off. I may be reluctant to hurt you, but my Hippocratic oath doesn’t cover preexisting conditions.”
CHAPTER 48
High noon. One hundred seven degrees.
Ants had survived the ice age and wouldn’t be defeated or scared into hiding by one man who had invaded their turf for a day. “Frickin’ ants!” Blake yelled, brushing off another invasion of his suit. He hadn’t relaxed all morning. If the ants weren’t making him restless, it was a lizard or spider. Once he spotted a small brown scorpion near his foot. He could only imagine what might be nesting on his backside amid the Bio Suit’s shredded burlap.
Looking across the dry lakebed, he saw the wavering heat create an oasis, making the pristine white sand appear covered with a sheet of glimmering water.
He spent hours fiddling with the Bio Suit’s computer, attempting to access Val’s surveillance records — the video of the craft — but couldn’t break the password.
He considered prisoners sentenced to solitary confinement and wondered how they managed. With eight more hours until nightfall, the task seemed impossible. This was Blake’s loneliest birthday ever.
CHAPTER 49
Val awoke again in sheer darkness, but sensed his surroundings to be different because a ventilation fan whirled somewhere overhead. His bed and restraints felt the same, but his head was groggier than the last time he awoke. They must be controlling my consciousness intravenously, he thought.
A motor churned — it sounded like an old garage-door opener — and echoed throughout the vast enclosure. Like doors to an airplane hangar, the walls in front of his bed began to separate. Sunlight splashed into what Val now realized was some type of storage bay. Through the open doors he could see the northern end of Papoose Lake. The sky was painted red, and dusk had set on the land.