I’m not worried about guns, ammo, and related chemicals and materials. But what I don’t want is to break down the door and set off a bomb, and I’ve no reason to suspect it. If there’s an explosive device rigged up inside, I’m not detecting the expected wireless transmissions or much at all electromagnetically beyond the cameras.
It’s as if we’re in an energy dead zone as we move around, the powerful beams of our lights slashing and probing. Looking for the utility box, I discover it behind overgrown shrubs, and I show Fran that the meter isn’t spinning. Not that I thought it would be after what ART said earlier about Pebo Sweeny’s power being shut off in August.
“It appears he was living without electricity,” Fran says. “Explaining the gas-powered generator that looks new, a hefty one, 7,500 watts,” she shines her light on it, then on the huge metal cage beneath the canopy of dense trees. “What the hell was someone keeping back here?”
26
THE CAGE DOOR is held open with a bungee cord, the roost inside made of thick tree branches, and my light catches the rims of metal dog dishes peeking out of the snow. A scratching post made of thick layers of carpet around a steel pole has been ripped and shredded as if a lion, tiger or bear got hold of it.
“Someone who used to live here may have had exotic pets,” I’m not inclined to tell Fran any more than that.
As phobic as she is of birds, spiders, snakes, the list is long. In fact, there’s more she’s afraid of than not since Christmas Eve three years ago when she was robbed at gunpoint while Easton was with her.
“I’m going to take a look in here,” I let her know, headed toward the galvanized metal shed.
It’s the kind you buy at the hardware store, a wireless camera mounted on top of it, and wrapped around the handles of the double doors is a thick chain with a padlock that is no match for my bolt cutters. They cut through the steel links like butter, and the noise is startling as I pull the chain free, clinking it on the ground. Nudging the doors open with my gun barrel, I paint light over 10 bright-red two-gallon gas cans.
Each is full. Gas for the generator, I announce as ART alerts me in my earpiece that a new signal has popped up in the noise floor. It’s transmitting weakly in the 2 to 4 gigahertz range, and then something rushes by in the dark.
“What in God’s name . . . ?” Fran exclaims when the hooting begins, loud enough to jumpstart my adrenaline and send a chill to the roots of my hair.
WHO-WHO . . . WHO-WHO-WHO . . .
The deep eerie sound is almost human, almost barking, and I flick my light over what might be the biggest great horned owl I’ve ever seen, perched on the branch of a tall pine tree. He watches us with full moon eyes, a taloned foot clutching Ranger the PONG captive by its gripper.
WHO-WHO-WHO . . . he unnaturally swivels his head around like in The Exorcist.
I can see that the volleyball-size orb’s conductive skin has been shredded, and it’s no longer in GHOST or any other mode. The nanotube composite PONG has gone opaque like a softshell crab, cloudy like a dying fish, and I know the caged propellers are no longer spinning even though I can’t see them from here.
Ranger is wounded but not dead, and it’s a loss of signal nobody anticipated. My thoughts race as I try to figure out what I might do to stop the owl from flying off with him. I walk closer, the raptor’s feathery horns perked up as he stares down at me, unblinking, clutching the vanquished flying orb like a decapitated head.
“Be careful!” Fran hisses behind my back as I calmly make my way to the pine tree beyond the cage. “Don’t get any closer! You don’t want him dive-bombing us!” and I wish she’d shut up. “Didn’t you see The Birds?”
“Hello, Mr. Owl,” I gently, sweetly call up to him, feeling a bit foolish but willing to try anything. “You’ve got something important of mine, and I’d be very grateful if you’d return it,” holding up my left arm, I make little raspy pishing sounds like I’ve seen bird handlers do on YouTube and in the movies.
I’m more afraid of him complying than not, and sure enough he spreads his powerful wings, parachuting down, gripping Ranger in one foot, and landing on my arm with the other. I feel the sharpness of his talons through my clothing, and he’s at least 60 centimeters (2 feet) tall and probably weighs about 1.8 kilograms (4 pounds).
“Okay, well hello there,” pishing softly again as I gently tug at the PONG. “Let me have it, please, there we go . . .”
The owl releases his grip, hoot-hooting as he lifts off with mighty flaps, swooping away into thick darkness.
“Holy crap! I didn’t know you were the owl whisperer,” Fran says, shaking her head as if she just witnessed a miracle. “Where did the PONG come from?” and she’s seen her share of them buzzing around the farm and inside the barn. “Was that thing following us or something?”
“It’s what I sent into the tunnels to track Lex,” I tell her.
“Judas Priest. I have no flippin’ idea what’s going on anymore,” only she doesn’t say flippin’.
“Let’s head back to the cars so I can lock up Ranger in case Mr. Owl decides to come back for more,” I’ve got the wounded PONG snugly held in the crook of my arm. “We also need to grab the gas masks. We’re definitely going to want those on when we’re searching inside.”
We make our way through snow and slush, loaded down with tools, weapons and gear. Reaching the Tahoe, I lock Ranger inside as Fran retrieves our gas masks.
“This is why they pay us the big bucks,” I shine my light on the next target, the black trellis garbage can enclosure. “Time to go through the trash. One more thing you love almost as much as tunnels, heights, confined spaces, predatory birds . . .”
“Very funny. And insensitive,” she says huffily. “Maybe you don’t know what it’s like to be controlled by things you can’t do a bloody thing about.”
“You might be surprised what I understand,” I reply, brushing snow off the top of the supercan.
I open it and get a snootful of a putrid stench before my light finds the cause of it.
“Shhhhh . . . !” I slam down the lid, about to gag, and I don’t like snakes any better than Fran does. “You don’t want to look.”