BZRK: Apocalypse (BZRK 3)

“No, the house. Find quarters for Bug Man, but for now he’ll stay with me.” She patted Bug Man’s knee. “I’ve decided he’s my good-luck charm. Oh, and tell the dentist, Dr. Whatever-the-Hell, yeah, he’s got a customer. Patient. Whatever. Yeah.”

Tanner was among those waiting when an unannounced flight came into McMurdo, running on fumes, or so the pilot said. Planes did not just suddenly arrive on the ice. And Tanner, like everyone else at the base, had been watching events back in the world with disbelief and anxiety turning to fear.

Tanner had called Naval Intelligence in Washington and been told that Satan is loose among the flock, hah-hah, redrum redrum, they’re listening, don’t you know that?

A call higher up the chain of command to the Pentagon had gone unanswered. Calls to USAP and Lockheed had yielded nothing.

Tanner was in summer gear—a parka over padded jeans with the big Mickey Mouse boots unlaced. He wore gloves and goggles and a light stocking cap with a Pittsburgh Pirates logo.

The plane, a C-130, a Herc in the patois, landed easily, and killed engines. Tanner reached under his parka to touch the butt of his trusty Colt .45 auto. Everyone authorized to carry a gun was carrying one. As a safety measure that would have been absurd in earlier times, Tanner had stationed an ex-sergeant with a sniper rifle on the roof of a parked truck.

The person who stepped first from the plane could not have been less likely.

“It’s a girl,” Tanner said.

“Yep, that’s a girl.” This from the station chief beside him. “Looks kind of familiar. Not some crazy pop singer, is it?”

Behind the girl came a grown woman, rather beautiful and just exotic enough to hold Tanner’s eye for longer than strictly necessary. Then a girl with a strange half mohawk and a stranger tattoo below one eye. And finally a young man with dark hair, a calm expression, and an air of tension that Tanner associated with trouble.

The girl walked up without hesitation, in a hurry. She pulled off her glove and stuck out her hand. “I’m Pla—Sadie McLure.”

The station chief, Joe Washington, shook her hand and glanced at Tanner.

“Sadie McLure,” Tanner repeated, frowning as he tried to pull the name from memory.

“Yes. As in Grey McLure crashing a jet into a Jets game,” she said. No hint of a smile. A very serious, even grim young woman. “These are my friends. Wilkes. Dr. Anya Violet. Michael Ford.”

Tanner remembered now. “What exactly are you doing here, Ms. McLure?”

Her eyes bored into him. They were eyes that belonged in a much older face. “We’re here to try to stop what’s happening. We’re here to kill the woman responsible.”

“The woman responsible? Here?” Washington wanted to laugh, but the faces before him did not look as if they were joking.

“Lystra Reid.”

“Cathexis Inc.?”

“And some other businesses as well. What’s happening is her doing.”

The station chief had to laugh at that. “Excuse me, but I’ve met Lystra Reid, and she’s a sharp young businesswoman. I don’t know what—”

“Let them talk, Joe,” Tanner said quietly.

The station chief seemed almost offended, but he nodded. “Okay. Not here. We’ll drive you to my office.”

An hour later Plath and Vincent, with occasional outbursts from Wilkes, had told their tale.

“To say that sounds crazy is an understatement,” the station chief said.

“Do you have any proof?” Tanner asked.

Plath cocked her head and looked at him. “You know something.”

Tanner smiled slightly. “Do you have proof?”

“As a matter of

fact, I do,” Plath said. “We thought you might be skeptical. “So here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to just touch my finger to your face. Then, in a few minutes you’re going to open a book at random. You’ll hold the page close to your face. And I’ll tell you what you’re reading.”