It was a phrase Brick had invented in the old days for serving search warrants on dangerous felons.
The night before the scheduled raid, Chaney and Brick would illegally break into the suspect's house and search it for guns, weapons, anything that might endanger them in execution of the warrant the following morning. They wouldn't ask permission and wouldn't tell anyone what they'd done. And if they found a weapon they would disable it — remove the firing pin, jam it, remove the barrel, or something else equally as effective — so they didn't have to worry about being shot the next day.
It was a well-known if unconfessed practice and nobody asked questions about it. But everyone, including supervisors, expected it to be done in order to insure the safety of fellow marshals.
At the briefing before the execution of the warrant, a fellow marshal would inevitably ask Brick, "What did you do last night?" To which Brick would casually respond: "Nothing. Just a little extracurricular activity."
It wasn't a guarantee of safety, but it worked well enough. And now Chaney knew Brick was recommending that he break into Hamilton's home, glean what he could from what he could find, and leave no trace that he had been there. Chaney had already thought of it, but it helped to have someone reinforce what could be considered a wild idea. He took another sip before he spoke. "Yeah, but I don't think this guy takes his work home, Brick."
"He takes his life home, kid." Brick leaned forward on burly forearms. "Don't worry about his computer. It won't be there. Or in the files. Go to his bookcase. Study what he's got. A bunch of literature on earthquakes? Is that his interest?" He nodded hard. "Or is it something else?"
Chaney knew where the old man lived. "All right. I'll take a little look-see tonight."
"Where does he live?"
"A town house, not far from here."
Brick's square head, vaguely resembling a heavyweight boxer's, nodded with each word. "Remember, son, don't mess up the alarm, just disable and pick the lock. Nothing disturbed. Nothing broken. No prints. Don't forget to fix the alarm on your way out. Any fool can break into a place. The trick is breaking in and leaving without anyone ever knowing you were there."
"Yeah, I remember." Chaney hesitated before he brought up his most disturbing thought. "How would you cut a team off from support in the field, Brick? What would be the best way of doing something like that?"
"What do you mean, 'support'?"
"Put them in a position where they couldn't call for backup."
"Well," he responded, concentrating, "I guess the easiest way would be to disable their communications equipment. Wouldn't be all that easy, since everyone is trained to fix the radio, but it could be done if you didn't have a replacement part. In fact, back in 'Nam I heard some war stories about it. They called it a high-tech frag. Guess they figured it was more creative than rolling a grenade between the lieutenant's legs while he was taking a crap."
Chaney pondered; disabling a radio was certainly easier than altering a satellite, which required NSA approval. And a realignment wasn't all that easy even with that.
He knew that a satellite occupied a stationary orbit, which means its orbit coincides with the rotational speed of the earth, keeping it in the same relative location at all times. For instance, the satellite over Alaska was forever directly over Alaska, and retro rockets had to be fired in controlled bursts to either speed or slow the satellite's trajectory. And any mistake with the rockets could destabilize its orbital distance, which could cause it to fall and disintegrate on reentry.
Chaney trusted that Dixon had asked about altering the orbit of a satellite, figured he knew which one, and may have even done it. But somehow Chaney suspected that Dixon would want things quieter. He wouldn't chance a high-risk maneuver as potentially scandalous as a re-alignment if it wasn't absolutely necessary. Whatever this was, and. Chaney knew it was something, was too unstable. They couldn't endure the attention.
Chaney set the beer down and rose. "I've got work to do. Might see you later. Or I might be out of town… way out of town, in fact."
Ponderous forearms on the table, Brick said nothing for a moment. Then: "Boy, I think you're in way over your head on this. I don't like it. Some… what did you say? Creature?"
"For lack of a better word."
"Whatever," Brick continued. "This thing is up there, and you're going up there, and you don't even know what it is, where it came from, where it's going, what it's doing. You gotta think this stuff through." He raised a hand. "Now, I know what I said. But that's in normal situations. Not in situations where some monster is running around knocking down electric fences and tearing people's heads off." He paused, shook his head. "Now, I must say, I seen a lot in my time, but that's a real unusual situation. And now you're thinking of going up to where this creature has killed all these rangers and marines which, by the way, ain't all that easy to kill. Now, I don't know and I ain't gonna try and tell you what's the smart thing to do, but if I was you I'd do a little more homework with that smart lady scientist before I went off into the wild blue."
Chaney laughed, shook his head. "You always did have a way of putting things, Brick."
"Comes with old age."
A silence.
"All right," Chaney said. "Tonight I do a little snooping. I'll see what I find. I'll make a decision after that."
Brick nodded. "You let me know."
"You bet."
"And one more thing, Chaney."
Pausing, Chaney said nothing. It was rare that Brick ever called him anything other than "kid," although he was almost forty years old. But Brick, at sixty-three, had the right in more ways than one.
"Yeah?" he asked.
"This thing up there, it's up there," Brick said slowly, in a voice he used when he was dead serious, "it ain't real. Whatever it is, I don't know. Probably nobody knows. But you don't need to be playin' no hero. You shoot it on sight. Fair ain't part of this. 'Cause it'd do the same to you."
Chaney nodded. "Brick, whatever that monster is… it could kill anyone."
Staring dead into its eyes, Hunter didn't move.
Neither attempted to retreat or close the distance.
The creature was slightly hunched, as if preparing, and even in its stillness it seemed to be drawing closer. But Hunter knew it was an illusion caused by adrenaline and fear. He had been in this situation before, so he tried to control his sudden lack of breathing caused by the shock of its words.
"Last night" — its words grated over smiling fangs—"you fought well."
Hunter braced himself, testing his foothold, and mentally measured the drop through darkness to the pathway beneath. He knew he couldn't make it unless the creature was distracted. But it was twenty times faster than he was.
He couldn't retreat, and a frontal attack was suicide. The only chance he had was that he might hit it hard, then drop, because it couldn't drop any faster than he could. But when he hit the floor he'd better come up running and use what Taylor had given him. It was a risky gamble, and probably suicidal, but he was determined to not go down without a fight. Despite all his torn, sore muscles, he didn't feel any of them at the moment.
Gathering his courage, he frowned and spoke. In his mind, somehow, he couldn't reconcile himself to the possibility that it would respond. Part of him hoped it wouldn't.
"What do you want?" he asked.
A voice like dirt shifting in a grave: "You."
Hunter was shocked that it was hesitating at all. But there was obviously an unexpected measure of intelligent cruelty buried in that primitive mind, enjoying his fear.
"How can you… how can you speak?" Hunter asked, watching it sharply as it lifted taloned hands.
"Humans," it said, laughing, and Hunter perceived that its vocal cords were never designed for this manner of articulation. "You are all… so helpless."