The R.E.M. Project_A Thriller Read online

  Kovic nodded. “She’s kept us up to speed on the situation so far.”

  “And you’re convinced she can get us what we need and keep it contained?”

  “The Costa Ricans are at the same stage of the development process we were when Paul Freeman wreaked havoc on the facility. If she sticks to the plan, we should be able to get in, get out, and finish what the volcano started.”

  Lancaster patted Kovic on the shoulder and sighed. “For our sake, Colin, I hope you’re right.”

  Chapter 12:

  Bruma

  Alejandro Aguilar splashed into the middle of the shin-deep jungle stream, his combat boots muddying the clear water and testing the nerves of his hiking companion who was following close behind. He bent down, faced upstream, and cupped his hands to splash the cold mountain water on his face.

  Claire said, “What did I say about keeping quiet?”

  Aguilar wiped his face with the bottom of his shirt. “Come on, Claire. It’s scorching out here. Plus, you said so yourself: there’s no one around for miles.”

  Claire didn’t like Aguilar’s cavalier attitude, but he did have a point. A thick jungle canopy formed high arborous walls on both sides of the creek that cut across the flatlands and split the clearings between Bajos del Toro and the west side of Poás Volcano. The surrounding area was open Costa Rican terrain, giving the helicopters that passed overhead a clear line of sight to any movement on the ground. But if they stuck near the creek, there was no way spotters could see what was hidden beneath the trees.

  She checked her wristwatch. Almost 9 a.m. They had left the cabin just before daybreak, and already they were halfway to the facility, moving much faster than they had anticipated the night before. If the two trespassers kept up the pace, the hidden path would lead them within a mile of the facility by noon.

  That was, if Aguilar could stay out of the water.

  “Okay,” Claire said. “Just hurry up and fill your canteen so we can keep moving.”

  Aguilar signaled. “Throw me yours.”

  “I’m all topped off, but thanks.”

  “Claire,” he said in his drawn-out fatherly tone, “I warned you about not drinking enough water—”

  “And I warned you a long time ago about lectures. Let’s just get moving, okay?”

  Aguilar nodded, capped his canteen, and walked back to shore. The two continued north, straddling the narrow line between the foliage and the fields. The path was thick, with rocks and roots and knee-high ferns hindering Aguilar’s effort to walk alongside Claire. He charted a clear stretch of path, then his eyes wandered from the trail, coming to rest on Claire. He had seen that face before. Resolute. Focused. And above all else, the face of a woman who didn’t feel like talking. But that had never stopped him before.

  “Tell me, Claire. Why are you so determined to keep things from me?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The call last night. The hushed tones. Whispers from the porch. Are you afraid I can’t handle everything that is going on with you these days?”

  “Plausible deniability,” she said, still looking forward. “The less you know about Ocula, the better.”

  Aguilar laughed. “Plausible deniability? Claire. Dear. Drink some water. The heat is taking its toll on you.”

  “Come again?”

  “I’ve been harboring you for the last six months. Set you up with a new identity. Stayed up all hours of the night waiting on you to return from secret meetings with mysterious contacts. Now we’re trespassing on government soil, looking for some secret facility we have no business looking for. But yes, should the police forces find us, what then?” He raised his hands mockingly. “I’ll cry out, ‘No se nada!’ and then be on my merry way? Innocent and free?”

  “What did I say about keeping it down?”

  “Okay. You’re right. I’ll be quiet now. As quiet as a reporter speaking to secret sources from the porch of her host—”

  “Jesus Christ, Han. You want to know who I was talking to? It was Paul Freeman, okay? Feel better now?”

  Aguilar pondered the name. “Your friend from the facility?”

  “The one and only.”

  “I thought he had broken ties with you months ago.”

  “He did. Had. I mean, last night’s call was the first time I’d heard from him since Atlanta.”

  “What did he want?”

  Claire was stone-faced.

  “This is the man I lent a car to, correct? A car I was very fond of, by the way. And you won’t tell me what he wanted?”

  “It was a piece-of-shit Mercury, Han.”

  “The car had sentimental value, Claire. Besides, you’ve never had trouble muttering your grievances about Donny Ford. Why so tight-lipped about this Freeman character?”

  No sooner had the question left Aguilar’s lips than Claire’s left arm clotheslined his chest, bringing the sauntering chatterbox to an abrupt stop. Shocked, he looked at Claire. Her finger pressed her lips, her eyes motioning to the clearing in the distance just beyond the break in the trees ahead.

  She whispered, “One o’clock.”

  Aguilar nodded, then looked ahead to see two soldiers standing in front of a camouflaged jeep parked in the field about a hundred yards out. He could barely make out the symbol on one of the doors, but he already knew it was the Costa Rican police force. They had anticipated dodging the watchful eyes of helicopter patrols overhead, but running into the police force miles from the beaten path was a bit of a shock.

  He whispered to Claire, “I can’t see a road. Was there a road on the map?”

  She shook her head. “If you’re talking about pavement and little white lines, no. But this area is littered with pig trails. Either way, they’re off the reservation.”

  They watched patiently as the two men loitered in the distance. The tall one appeared to be doing his job to some extent, rifle in hand, peering into the trees in a slow 360-degree motion. He panned their way, prompting both hikers to pivot behind their own respective trees for cover.

  Claire held her breath for half a minute before she realized she wasn’t breathing. She could feel a set of instinctive eyes burning holes through the bark on other side of the tree she was hiding behind. Did we just blow this whole operation? The thought of failing to make it to the facility was inconceivable. Everything Claire had worked toward for the last six months was riding on the next twenty-four hours.

  She knew she had to be careful, but she couldn’t hide forever. She looked toward Aguilar, and the two slowly peeked out to assess the situation.

  They were in the clear.

  The soldier had lost interest, focused now on yelling at his shorter, more inept partner, who was busy smoking and watching the clouds move overhead. The short one answered, dropped his cigarette, and stormed toward the driver’s side of the jeep. In a moment they were off, leaving a long cloud of dust in their wake.

  Claire and Aguilar decided to sit and wait for a good ten minutes before making a run for it across the field. It was a decision Claire almost immediately regretted the moment Aguilar picked up right where he left off.

  “So, this Freeman. Is he someone I should be worried about?” Aguilar asked with a raised eyebrow and a crooked smile.

  “Worrying would imply you and I were an item, Han. You should know better.”

  “I love your spirit, Claire. Always the feisty one.” He fidgeted with a stick in the dirt before turning serious. “Did you tell him where we were going?”

  “Kind of had to, Han.”

  “And why is that?”

  “I think you know why.”

  “Because he was with you since the beginning?” Aguilar said. “So was Ford, and look where that’s gotten you. How many of these gringos are you going to babysit while you do all of the heavy lifting?”

  “That’s not why I told him about the facility,” Claire said.

  “Then why?”

  Impatiently, “Because there’s a very high likeli
hood we’re going to die out here, Alejandro. And if something happens to us, the other outliers need to know about this place. They need to know what the government is doing here. That’s why.”

  “Now why would you talk like that, Claire? Putting a hex on the whole operation. I certainly didn’t come out here to die. Did you?”

  “Of course not. I would very much like to live, but the way things have been going it would be naïve to think that death wasn’t a very real possibility. I mean, look around you, Han. This isn’t exactly a trip to one of your island cabanas.”

  Aguilar snapped the stick in two and tossed the pieces aside. “Well, I know it is not a possibility for me. I’m not dying in the middle of some jungle.”

  “Oh, really? And how can you be so sure?”

  “Because, Claire. When I was just a boy, I saw my death in a dream once.”

  Claire did her best to hide her amusement, pursing her lips and nodding with feigned interest.

  “You don’t believe me?” Aguilar asked.

  “I didn’t say that.” Claire looked to the field. The dust trail left by the jeep was faint, but still visible. She looked back to Aguilar. “Okay then, let’s hear why we’re going to make it across the clearing, into the hills, to the facility, and back to San José in one piece, all because of some whimsical boyhood dream. May be just the motivation I need right now.”

  Aguilar started in. “I remember the night of the dream like it was yesterday. June 7th, 1982. I was twelve at the time, and spending the summer with my grandparents on their farm in the country. They were sharecroppers, my grandparents, harvesting everything from coffee to cattle in exchange for the promise of the title to the farm in the distant future. It had been their lifelong dream to own their own land. Sadly, it was a dream they never saw to fruition.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Han.”

  Aguilar tossed a hand. “Ah. Such is life, my dear.” He continued, “Two days before my premonition, my grandfather had been working the rows of coffee in the field farthest from the house. No one knows exactly what happened, but I like to think he had a moment to take his midmorning break, sipping his water and wiping the sweat from his brow under the shade of his favorite ceiba tree before it happened. A brief moment of rest to contemplate a day’s worth of hard labor—that’s when he was happiest, you know.”

  Claire listened intently.

  “He was a man of routine, my grandfather. So when he didn’t show up for the lunch bell, my grandmother began to worry. She walked out into the field to investigate, leaving me napping on the front porch swing none the wiser. That was until I heard the shrill of an elderly scream echoing from the far reaches of the field in the distance.

  “To this day, I still cannot remember running to see what was the matter”—he moved his hand across an invisible plane—“it was as if I floated from the porch to the coffee fields in the blink of an eye, experiencing no passage of time between my abuela’s scream and the scene that followed.”

  Aguilar paused to collect himself, then said, “My grandfather lay on his side, lifeless. Blood soaked the soil where he laid what was left of his head. His entire right temple had been marked by a deep crescent indention, fractured red-stained bits of skull visible for all to see. My grandmother almost fainted. She would have fallen flat had we not caught one another, the two of us sobbing and embracing one another as we fell to our knees. It was then that I looked up, my eyes set on the hill rising above the back field. That’s when I discovered who the murderous culprit was. Or rather, what.”

  Claire cocked her head as Aguilar explained, “The family horse. Bruma. She had been acting up for a time. My grandparents had suspected rabies, but my grandfather didn’t have the heart to put her down right away. Back then, all one could do was wait patiently and observe, or hurry up and kill.” He sighed, then said, “Looking back, it seems as though my grandfather’s compassion for Bruma had only led to his demise.”

  “No child should ever have to see a loved one like that, Han.”

  “I agree wholeheartedly. There’s no doubt the experience had a profound effect on the rest of my life, beginning with that night.”

  “The dream?”

  “That night? No. I didn’t sleep. But two nights later, my life would be changed forever. You see, Claire, family tradition held that the spirit didn’t cease to exist. Rather, it would live on in the afterlife.”

  “That’s a pretty widespread belief, Han.”

  “You didn’t let me finish. My grandparents were raised by their grandparents to believe that passage from this world to the next was not immediate. Instead, the spirit of the deceased would linger in this world for several days, tidying up loose ends and answering to unfinished business before making the final journey to the other side.

  “Now, I can only assume as to what led to a dream detailing my own death in the distant future. But, had my grandfather seen the terror in my eyes upon looking at his mangled corpse, and his spirit remained on this side, I would imagine he would do whatever he could to assure his young grandson that no such death awaited him in this life.”

  “You think the spirit of your grandfather gave you a vision of some kind?”

  “Yes. Two nights after his death. It was the first night I had slept since the accident, and it was only from pure exhaustion. I remember falling asleep just after midnight, and almost immediately waking in a bright, sunlit room. I opened my eyes to find myself sitting at a desk, pen in hand, paper in front of me. I was writing a letter, although I’m not sure to whom. To this day, that simple fact bothers me, but that’s how dreams go, isn’t it? Everything is vivid, everything real in the moment. And then we wake, and what are we left with? The vague recollection that something real is slipping through our fingers with each passing second, never fully understanding what we’ve seen, only knowing that it must have been something important.”

  “Vague is right. I mean, no offense, but that dream could mean anything.”

  “Perhaps, had I not noticed the elderly hand holding the pen. Nothing like that of a twelve-year-old boy. Old and weathered, with more sunspots than I’d like to admit. A few melanomas here and there, but nothing to worry about at that stage in the game. The aged skin startled me, so I immediately checked the other hand: equally as old, and ugly, too. Then I looked ahead to the large pane-glass window in front of me. Faint outlines of buildings lined the bottom portion of the window. Obviously, a city skyline, though it looked nothing like downtown San José.

  “But my focus was not on the buildings. No, it was on the old man in the reflection of the glass looking back at me. His eyes were tired and drooping, his beard a frosty gray, his thinning hair disheveled. He must have been eighty years old, maybe older. A white-collar version of my grandfather, his twenty-first century counterpart. I could even spot the chicken-pox scar on my forehead, a conspicuous scar I’ve carried since grade school.

  “I gazed into the reflection, completely at peace with what was to come. My right hand relaxed and dropped the pen I was holding. My eyes grew heavy and my vision blurred. Sometimes I think I even smiled, but details have a way of fading, you know. Then I saw a light, bright and unyielding.”

  Claire said, “You mean, the light?”

  “Yes. And God, was it bright, bright enough to burn the retinas, but I couldn’t stop looking into it. The white light flooded the scene, and that’s when I woke up.”

  “You think the old man in the reflection was you?”

  “It must have been, Claire. That dream was a gift from my grandfather, assuring me I would die an old man—and wouldn’t suffer the same violent fate as he.”

  Claire looked back to the field. The dust had settled. She listened for signs of patrols and motorcades and helicopters overhead, but heard nothing that would indicate soldiers were nearby. It was time to make a move.

  “Well I’m glad you’re confident we’re going to make it through this,” Claire said. “Because honestly, I haven’t had much faith i
n my dreams of late.”

  Her eyes stayed fixed on the field ahead while she waited for Aguilar to ask what she had dreamed about in predictable fashion. Only her statement was met with silence.

  “Han?” She looked his way.

  A gun was to his head as one of the soldiers from the field pushed the pistol muzzle forcefully into his temple. Claire wondered where his shorter sidekick was when she felt a cold steel barrel shove into her back. A voice spoke from behind.

  “Los matamos?”

  “No. No podemos,” the other soldier said. The two continued to talk to one another while the taller flipped through a ring-bound photo deck in one hand, his gun still pressed firmly into Aguilar’s head with the other. Claire’s Spanish was decent, but the hushed tones were hard to decipher. She looked to Aguilar for answers.

  “What are they saying?”

  “Well, they’re not going to kill us.”

  Claire breathed a sigh of relief. She whispered, “That’s a bonus. What else?”

  The taller one had stopped on an image. The soldier pointed to it, then to Claire. Aguilar listened for a moment. Finally, “They say they’ve been looking for you.”

  Chapter 13:

  The Morning After

  Mercy, mercy, mercy . . . what a night.

  On most days, six a.m. meant Arlo Vaughan still had another hour to go until the next shift change. Then he’d punch the time clock, saunter off to his pickup, and watch the sun rise over the salt marshes of Savannah on his morning drive home. Tired, but relaxed.

  But on this morning, an act as simple as brushing his teeth had gone from routine to rigorous.

  He spit in the sink and cursed, temples still throbbing from the once-in-a-lifetime headache he’d had the night before. Arlo wasn’t prone to having headaches; in fact, as he gazed into the mirror at his own bloodshot eyes, he couldn’t remember the last time he had had one. Must’ve been years. Decades, even.

  Last night had started off as the confidence boost he had been looking for. It was bad enough his appointment at the bank the day before had been cut short, but his wife Kerry always had a way of making his worries slip into oblivion.