He waited until they were half a mile away before pushing himself to his knees. Crouching low, he carefully folded the netting, stowed it in its pack, then slipped away to rejoin his two men, who waited nearby.
The mountain beckoned.
Again.
Chapter 31
Woburn,Massachusetts
The motel was grubby and run-down, but it provided Matt and Jabba with the basics: four walls, a roof, and the anonymity of a check-in alcove manned by a weedy daytime television addict who could barely string together a sentence. And right now, that was what they needed most. Shelter and anonymity.
That, and some answers.
Matt was sitting on the floor, leaning against the bed, his head tilted all the way back, resting against the lumpy mattress. Jabba, on the other hand, couldn’t sit still. He was pacing around and making repeated checks out the window.
“Would you stop doing that,” Matt grumbled. “No one’s coming for us here. Not yet, anyway.”
Jabba grudgingly let go of the thin, stained curtain and embarked on another lap up and down the room.
“Just sit the hell down,” Matt snapped.
“I’m sorry, all right?” Jabba fired back. “I’m just not used to all this. I mean, it’s just insane, dude. Why are we even here? Why can’t we just go to the cops and tell them what you know?”
“’Cause what I know is nothing compared to what the cops think they know, and I don’t fancy sweating this one out behind bars. Now do me and this carpet a favor and sit down.”
Jabba stared at him for a beat, then relented. He looked around, frowned at a rickety chair that looked like it would disintegrate if he even thought of sitting in it, and set himself down on the marginally sturdier bed instead. He palmed the remote and changed channels on the small TV that was bolted onto the wall. It matched the room: basic, run-down, but functional. Matt glanced at its screen. The picture was grainy and the set had a meek, tinny sound, but that didn’t matter. He could see what he needed to see.
News of the Greenland apparition had whipped up the media into an even bigger frenzy. Coming on the heels of the Antarctic event, it was an irrefutable confirmation that no one could ignore. It was on every channel—endless blathering that ultimately couldn’t offer any explanation beyond replaying the same clips over and over and exploring past mystical sightings for any relevance. Clips about previous claims, from Fatima to Medjugorje, were getting airtime, only they paled in comparison. This wasn’t a handful of kids claiming to see the Virgin Mary in a field.
The world was, simply, entranced.
Matt tilted his head back again and exhaled wearily. “Tell me what you and Vince talked about.”
“Tell you what we talked about?” Jabba rambled. “We talked about everything, dude. Where do you want me to start?”
“Last night,” Matt specified testily. “What did you guys talk about last night?”
“Last night. Last night, right,” he muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers. “We were watching this thing,” he said, pointing at the screen. “The first one, anyway. Trying to work out how it could be done.”
Matt sat up. “ ‘ Done’? You think it’s a fake?”
Jabba gave him a look. “Dude. Come on. Something like this happens, your first instinct has to be it’s a fake. Unless you buy into that whole ‘the truth is out there’ mind-set.”
“Which, I’m guessing, you don’t?”
“No, hey, I’m open to it. I’m sure there’s some weird stuff they’re not telling us about. But there’s so much bullshit out there, whether it’s from the government or from people who are out to make a fast buck, you’ve got to look at things with a cynic’s eye. And we’re scientists, man. Our instinct is to ask questions first.”
Matt nodded, trying to stay focused. “So you and Vince bounced around some ideas. You come up with anything?”
“No, see, that’s the thing.” Jabba leaned forward, and his voice livened up. “Nothing stuck. Nothing at all. We couldn’t even begin to figure it out. If this thing’s a fake, then whoever’s doing it is using some technology that’s straight out of Area 51.”
Matt frowned. He was missing something. “What is it you guys do, anyway? I mean, if it was a fake, what made you think you and Vince could figure it out?”
“We’re electrical engineers. We work on . . . I mean, me and Vince, we . . .” He stumbled with visible discomfort. “We design computer circuits, microchips, that kind of thing.”
Matt glanced at the screen dubiously. “That doesn’t sound particularly relevant to this thing.”
“I’m not talking about Radio Shack walkie-talkies, dude. Or even iPhones. I’m talking sci-fi-level stuff. Like right now, we’re building these micro-RFID chips—you remember that scene in Minority Report? When Tom Cruise is walking through a mall and all these holographic panels know it’s him and start talking to him and showing him these tailor-made ads?”
“Not really.” Matt shrugged. “I’ve missed out on a few movies over the years.”
“Too bad, man. Awesome movie. Right up there with Blade Runner, the only other Philip K. Dick story Hollywood didn’t manage to screw up.” A look from Matt put him back on track. “Anyway, we can do that now. Not the screen. I’m talking about the recognition part. Tiny chips embedded in the actual fabric of your shirt, that kind of thing.”
“It still doesn’t tell me why you think you’d be able to figure this out.”
“What we do . . . it’s not just a job,” Jabba explained. “It’s a calling. You live it, breathe it, dream it. It takes over your life. It is your life. And part of it is keeping track of everything that’s going on, not just the stuff that’s directly related to your work. You’ve got to want to know about what everyone else is doing, whether it’s at NASA, in Silicon Valley, or in some lab in Singapore. Because everything’s interconnected. One of their breakthroughs could be combined with what you’re doing in ways neither one of you intended and could open up a whole new door in your brain. It can give you the one thing you need to make that quantum leap and send your work in a completely new direction.”
“Okay.” Matt didn’t sound too convinced. “So you and Vince kept an eye on what other brainiacs were dreaming up.”
“Pretty much.”
Matt still felt confused. “Well if the two of you couldn’t figure it out, then why was your conversation a threat to anyone? Do you think you might have hit on something without knowing it?”
Jabba did a quick mental rummage of his chat with Bellinger. “I doubt it. Everything we talked about is public knowledge—at least, among the other ‘brainiacs’ out there. If any of it was relevant in any way—and I don’t think it was—someone else would have made the connection too by now.”
“So why come after Vince? And why did it make him think that my brother was somehow involved?”
The word threw Jabba. “Your brother?”
“Vince thought my brother might have been killed because of it.”
“Why would he think that?”
“I don’t know. They were close.”
Jabba’s face signaled he was now missing something. “Who was your brother?”
“Danny. Danny Sherwood.”
A name that clearly struck a chord. A resonant one. “Danny Sherwood was your brother?”
Matt nodded. “You knew him?”
“I knew of him, sure. Distributed processing, right? Progamming’s holy grail. Your brother’s cred was rock solid on that front.” He nodded wistfully. “Vince loved your brother, man. Said he was the most brilliant programmer he’d ever seen.” He let the words settle as his mind tried to fill in the blanks and see the connections. “What did Vince tell you, exactly?”