The voice screamed inside Cade’s head, he could see incoming artillery blast farther out and heard small arms fire much closer. His legs were frozen, unmovable objects. Just more dead weight he would have to drag.
“Nomad!”
His eyes snapped open, the recurring dream fading into the night like a bird taking flight. His eyes again scanned the unfamiliar room, the smells, the sounds. Rain still fell against the window; somewhere, he heard the sound of the refrigerator cycling on and off. He was standing by the bedroom door now. Years in the field had taught him to accept his instincts as fact until proven otherwise. Also, his inner voices talked to him often inside his head, but rarely did they scream. Something was wrong.
Straining, Cade could just make out Jasmine’s deep breathing from her room. The tingle inched its way up his back. All the shithole countries, all the battlefields, and now he had the distinct feeling it was about to be here, in a charming little bungalow near the California coast. The mysterious woman named Doris had told him to expect more trouble. He silently stepped across the narrow hall into a small bathroom, sweeping it with the Glock 9mm. Leaning just a portion of his head back into the corridor he closed his eyes and listened to the house. What would it tell him? The muted sounds of appliances from the kitchen were nearly silent.
Air breathed out of a central AC system. He mentally reconstructed the specific location of the vents. He focused his mind and his ears. There had been two in the main living room. The whisper of sound from one dimmed slightly. Someone was there. Cade crouched, then lay silently on the cold ceramic tile floor. From this angle, he could risk moving out far enough to see with one eye down the short hall. A flash of distant lightning briefly illuminated the space. He saw no one. Maybe he was just paranoid. If that were true, the doctors had all missed it, and now he’d have to add that to his other list of neuroses.
His eyes slowly adjusted back to the dark. He could just pick up a faint blue glow from the direction of the kitchen. Probably the ambient light from displays on the microwave or a clock. Did Jaz have a clock; where was it located? His mind raced through a quick replay of the home. Then a tiny noise, barely louder than a breath. A scuff like socks on carpet. He wasn’t crazy, there was an intruder. Ok—that was technically incorrect. He was very definitely crazy, but still...
“Later, you have work to do,” his internal occasional voice of reason whispered. His one eye focused down the carpeted hall watching for movement and running through questions. Does this person have NVGs? Doubtful. They would have been less helpful with the occasional lighting. Still, it was a pro, he was sure of that. The house had been locked up tight; he had watched her do it. Tim had undoubtedly made Jaz change out all the cheap hardware that probably came on the house to the good stuff. Whoever this was hadn’t made a sound getting in. They are damn good; do not assume you are better. He thought these things as the voice of reason mentally coached him. Slowly, he brought the handgun up toward the door frame. Still, he saw no sign of feet, legs, anything down the hall, and then he did.
The shadows began to dance as something moved quickly, silently into view and turned in his direction. Cade’s mind tried to frame the target for threat assessment—size, gender, skill. He brought the gun into the opening just as a boot caught him solidly in the side of the head. The Glock went sliding away into the night as Cade saw stars swimming through the blackness. He acted instinctually pivoting up with his legs to propel the attacker up and away. His other instinct was to stand, but instead, he stayed low when he saw the muzzle flash as a suppressed round slammed into the back wall of the bathroom. “Move!” The inner voice yelled, just before the barbarian took over.
Cade roared as he leaped across and met the attacker. The man, and he was confident now that it was indeed a solid, very compact man, moved with astonishing speed. He sensed more than heard Jaz beginning to stir in her room. Don’t open the door, don’t open the door, his silent mantra to her echoing like a raven’s call as he arched his back to escape the iron-like vice beginning to encircle his neck. Damn, this guy is good. Cade had been trained in nearly all forms of fighting, but the man was using a combination of street fighting and martial arts that he’d never encountered. At least he can’t use his pistol this close, Cade thought. Realizing soon after, the man had no need.
The crushing grip cut off his air and he began to panic. Shit! He was obviously still weak from the capture and escape. An escape where I killed a man twice this guy’s size, his tortured brain thought. His right foot found the edge of the doorframe and, with his last bit of consciousness, used it for leverage pushing back against the man and slamming his head into the man’s nose at the same time. Cade glanced at a sliver of light beneath the door to Jaz’s room. The light shifted as legs moved from the bed to the floor. Stay in there, Jaz.
The attacker’s grip slackened, and Cade spun away from his grasp. Light blazed from Jaz’s open bedroom door as he realized the attacker was raising his pistol. The barbarian launched himself at the man, clubbing away the shooting arm with a fist and bringing a barefoot up into the assailant’s crotch. The attacker, whom he could now see, was a Hispanic man with a bald head who showed little reaction as he flipped out a tactical butterfly knife and took a defensive position. A distant sound faintly registered as a woman screaming, but that was unimportant right now. His attention was fixed on the man and the knife. He hated blades, they could take the fight out of a man faster than anything. His torturers had used knives on him for days at a time. Small cuts, small stabs, long slashes. He wanted nothing to do with the hand that was holding that blade.
The barbarian part of him, though…well, he didn’t much give a shit. He grabbed the intruder’s knife hand as the man lashed out and proceeded to rotate himself and the attacker in a full circle. The blade found purchase as it sank deep into the skin, muscle and primary arteries of the attacker’s neck. The dying man, who still had not uttered a sound, fell silently to his knees, his eyes showing confusion, searching up at Cade like dim headlights on a foggy road. The woman was supposed to have been alone.
Cade fell back, bloodied and exhausted. Jaz had her cell phone out and was dialing 911. Cade breathlessly said no, and held out his hand for the phone. Jaz looked at the dead man and then to Cade. The sight was too horrific to comprehend. What in the hell has happened? She wanted her old life back, she wanted Tim, she wanted…
* * *
A short while later, a clean and dressed Cade handed her a tumbler with a good amount of brownish liquid. “Drink up, Jaz, you need it.” She took and downed the whiskey in a single shot. In his other hand, he had a newspaper and a large brown envelope.
“You found his car, was he alone?”
Cade nodded as he scanned the contents of the envelope, then handed it over to her. A black and white photo of her, she recognized it as a larger version from the photo on her security badge at work. Other pages listed times, dates, phone numbers and names. She recognized a few of the times as when she had left for errands. The phone numbers were mostly family; the names, she was pretty sure, were her neighbors. “He was after me?”
Cade nodded, then handed her the folded newspaper, his finger sliding away from a small story. The paper was one she recognized from Los Angeles. ‘Local Businessman’s Body Found on an Oceanside Cliff’ was the headline. Her heartbeat quickened as she rapidly read through the article, stopping when she got to the name of the deceased. Nicholas Yamamura. Her eyes met Cade’s. “They killed Nick?”
Cade took a sip of his own drink and cut a look back down the hall. “He killed him—I’m pretty sure of that. He had one of those brown envelopes on Nick as well. Jaz, you were next.” She began to cry, which turned quickly to uncontrollable sobbing. Cade wished for the compassionate, fatherly personality to emerge, so he could comfort his friend’s fiancée. Unfortunately, he didn’t have any persona like that trapped inside his already crowded skull. He bounced ideas off his ‘others,’ but no one offered a better answer. The barbarian suggested he slap her. He considered it for longer than was actually necessary before dismissing it. He placed a hand on her knee. “Jaz, save it for later, ok? You are still in danger. We need to leave.”
“Why, how?” she said between sobs. “Why can’t we call the police? I have a dead body in my guest room. We have to notify the authorities.”
Despite the raw emotion, Cade was impressed with how well she was holding up. Tim had told him more than once how focused and strong she was; he had to agree. “Look, Paco back there doesn’t give a shit about the police. Also, pretty sure someone official contracted the guy. Someone who would never be discovered. They’d simply pin this on you since I don’t even exist anymore. Your self-defense pleas might fall on deaf ears. Obviously, they have been surveilling you for a while, probably since the day you were fired. You didn’t let it go. The Okamotive thing…”
“''Oumuamua,” she corrected.
“Um, yeah, that. It could be the reason. You are a threat to them. They think you know something. Maybe that, maybe something else. I don’t know, but I do know Tim would want you to get your ass moving now.”
That seemed to shake Jaz out of her stupor. She looked at Cade, rage briefly flaring in her eyes. Then the rational part of her reminded her that the man had just saved her life. Resigned to the truth, she nodded and rose to go get ready. “Where will we go?”
“Not sure yet, but I have an idea,” he answered slowly. “Get everything you want to keep.” He didn’t want to add that he doubted she would ever be back here. Homes mattered to people, he never got that; they just rooted you to one spot. Being tied to a physical location anywhere scared the hell out of Cade. He knew it was irrational, unreasonable even, but it was what it was.
Cade used the cover of darkness to remove the body, then loaded it into the back of Jaz’s truck and drove out into the desert. He slipped the earbud in as he drove. He’d removed it from his combat helmet after Doris guaranteed it couldn’t be tracked. He used the new phone and dialed the only number it contained. “Doris, you there?” She was always there. That was what amazed him about her. Whoever she worked for, she was always up and eager to help.
“Hello, Nomad, did you find your friend?”
He filled her in, and she seemed to process the news of the attack with more questions than he’d anticipated. He relayed as much as he knew about Jaz’s work at the air force, Space Command and the very little he recalled about ''Oumuamua. “She thinks the death of her techie friend and the attack tonight may be connected to the comet. Any chance she is wrong?”
“No, I think Doctor Kline is probably correct.”
“How could a comet, a missing spacecraft and a rogue AI trying to whack a special ops unit in Africa all be connected?”
“The answer is complicated, Cade, and I think it is something we best discuss in person. I suggest you and Doctor Kline come to me. I’ll have a jet waiting for you at John Wayne Airport at two o’clock tomorrow afternoon. I have also tracked the license plate for the car parked outside her residence. The same person reserved a room at the Stay Lodge in Lompoc. I assume you are wishing to make his disappearance as discreet as possible. You may want to return the vehicle to the hotel parking lot on your way to Los Angeles. There are no street cams in that area, so you should be clear.”
Cade tossed the muddy shovel into the truck bed and started back toward Santa Maria. How was Doris so prepared? She seemed to anticipate what he needed before he even knew. A short time later, he walked back into the small, neat bungalow. The smell of bleach hung in the air. “You cleaned?”
Jaz was removing the yellow latex gloves as she nodded. “Guess I’ll be selling this place at some point. Bloodstains on the wall and floor would definitely reduce the asking price.”
“What about the bullet holes?” he asked.
She shrugged and offered a slight grin.
Her resilience and intelligence were beginning to impress him even more. “You ready?” He only saw a couple of suitcases and a laptop bag on the floor near the door.
Jaz nodded. “You know where we’re headed?”
“Georgia, ”Cade answered as he grabbed all the luggage and headed back out toward the truck.
“Why there?” she asked, following him out and locking the door.