Lost Cargo Read online

  LOST CARGO

  by Hollister Ann Grant

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter 1: The Crash

  Chapter 2: The Nikon

  Chapter 3: The Woman in the Photo

  Chapter 4: Into the Woods

  Chapter 5: Footsteps in the Fog

  Chapter 6: Lexie’s House

  Chapter 7: Tech 29

  Chapter 8: Monroe’s Door

  Chapter 9: Cats and the Courthouse

  Chapter 10: The Conversation at the Hearth & Hook

  Chapter 11: Under the City

  Chapter 12: In the Dark

  Chapter 13: The Letter

  Chapter 14: Nocturne

  Chapter 15: Lisa Mitchell

  Chapter 16: A Reasonable Explanation

  Chapter 17: Dr. Lynch

  Chapter 18: The Intruder

  Chapter 19: Ian Mitchell

  Chapter 20: Night Rides

  Chapter 21: Wicked Things

  Chapter 22: The Door

  Chapter 23: Over the City

  Chapter 24: Back to Earth

  Chapter 25: Homecoming

  Chapter 26: Ten Years Later

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  For Jack

  Chapter 1

  The Crash

  A little bloody, but it was still a perfect shot. Twenty-nine-year-old Jane Fogg brushed a strand of blonde hair from her eyes and trained her Nikon on the red-shouldered hawk across the creek. An hour in the underbrush and she had him with a mouse in his talons. She pressed the Speedlight. She could sell this one. It was going right to Harvey Glass at Audubon.

  She shot the photo and changed the lens. The magnificent bird stared at her and turned his eyes to a shadow passing over the woods. More clouds. The weather had been rotten coming out. She closed the camera bag and glanced at the sky again. No, not clouds, some kind of a damn plane, and whoever they were, they were flying too low to clear the trees.

  Her hand rose to her mouth.

  A black triangular aircraft the size of a large private plane ripped through the treetops on a wild path toward the ground. The triangle crossed the creek. Narrow, blacker than black, lit up underneath with crazy Christmas tree lights.

  It hit the bank. The impossible craft skimmed the earth and shot through the far clearing, mowing down saplings and shrubs. The lights whirled. Seconds later, it grazed an oak, came down hard, and crashed in the distance with a sickening metallic thud. Leaves and screaming birds flew out of the trees.

  Fifteen seconds and that was it. And the hawk had flown away.

  Jane grabbed the camera with her mouth still open. “Oh, good God,” she said. “I missed the shot.” She slung the Nikon around her neck, scrambled to the creek, and pulled her gray rain poncho into the current.

  No sign of an explosion, no telltale curl of smoke, but near the far bank an odd smell of sulphur and electricity hung in the air. Ozone. It grew stronger when she climbed out of the water.

  She took a few cautious steps into the weeds and shot a string of photos. The black triangle had smashed at a wicked angle along the wood line, one end buried in the earth, the rest in a jumble of broken branches under the oaks that had ended its descent. The lights on the underbelly flickered and went out.

  It looked like a UFO, which was really crazy. It was too narrow to be a regular plane and didn’t have a cockpit. Andrews Air Force Base was somewhere in the area off the Beltway, though. The Air Force probably had planes the public didn't know about and something had gone terribly wrong with this one.

  If the crew was injured, she would do what she could for them. She pulled her wet poncho away from her body and beat back the head-high locust trees.

  The triangle had to be over a hundred feet long. She reeled off more photos and then stuck her knee above the rim, hoisted herself up, and punched on the windows, but they turned out to be sealed. The sulphurous smell grew overwhelming. It was coming from the metal itself. Sickened, she wiped her face, crawled down the rim, and found an indentation that looked like a hatch, but it wouldn’t open, either. Then she discovered an ugly gash along the wood line.

  “Hello, anybody in there?” she called into the dark hole.

  Faint scratching came from deep inside the vessel.

  “You okay? You need help?”

  No answer. Maybe they were too injured to speak.

  “You from the Air Force base?”

  More scratching, then silence.

  “You’re not a UFO, are you?” Some question. She flushed with embarrassment, and when nobody answered, she leaned further inside.

  “I can’t get in there,” she explained to the crew she couldn’t see. “The opening’s too small. You’ve crashed in Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C., which I guess you know. I’m sure they saw you on the radar and they’ll send a helicopter.”

  Silence.

  “Look, my cell phone doesn’t work out here, so I’m going for help… so you’re going to have to sit tight.” Wanting to do something more, she unhooked the water bottle from her belt. “And I don’t know what you’ve got in there, so I’m going to leave you with my water. Here it comes.”

  Jane rolled the bottle into the dark hole and waited for it to come to a stop against a wall or a piece of equipment. Instead, a plop sounded and then a soft slosh. The bottle seemed to strike a gelatinous surface. Thick goo, maybe, or liquid.

  She straightened up, afraid to breathe. Maybe she’d been talking too much.

  Then she crept away from the crash and waded back across the creek to the far bank, where she stood beside her gear in uneasy wonder. The black triangle looked like a long shadow against the trees. A few birds and insects called from the woods. Nature had taken the brutal crash in stride and moved on into the morning.

  A whiff of the sulphurous smell came over the water.

  She’d been all over the world in the last five years, shooting wildlife photos from the African plains to the Arctic tundra’s summer marshes. She’d downed a beer or two in Borneo and slept in her birthday suit on beaches in every hemisphere. She’d thought she’d seen it all.

  “It’s a UFO,” she said to herself. “You know that’s probably what it is. Just get the hell out of here.”

  One last look and she slung the camera bag and tripod over her shoulder and took off along the creek, looking back a few times until the crash site vanished behind the trees. The cell phone wouldn’t pick up service on the first hill, which was what she’d expected. The park’s Nature Center and maintenance buildings were somewhere in the miles of isolated woods and probably had landline phones, but her map was at home on the dining table.

  The tripod knocked against her side. Her wet clothes chafed her skin. By the time the sun came out from behind the clouds like a yellow eye, the path seemed to swell before her feet.

  A helicopter should have shown up by now.

  Come on, Jane, go, go, go. Maybe the photos would make the evening news. She began to jog, but the Nikon thumped against her chest and the tripod rattled against her leg, and in a few minutes she stopped, shaking her head. Just too much gear to be running with it.

  She pushed on. The creek beside the path whispered through the gorge. After a while the faint footfalls of another hiker came over the soft rush of the water. When she turned around, the footfalls stopped. Whoever it was had disappeared under the trees.

  A lot of people hiked in the park, hiked in it every day all over the place. She shrugged, covered the next hill, and scrambled down the far side, where the low rumble of traffic filtered through the wilderness. A horn honked. Civilization.

  And there were the footfalls again, louder this time. Labored breathing and the thump of a camera,
some out of shape man almost on her back. She spun around.

  Sun-dappled shadows moved over the empty path.

  “Who’s there? What’s going on?” she said.

  No answer. Her throat tightened. Maybe somebody was playing a game. She found her pepper spray and kept it out.

  The last leg of the path descended into the gorge, disappeared into the underbrush, and came out on the other side of the creek, where it climbed the rugged slope behind her condominium. The ornate old building’s distant stone walls appeared through the branches. Ten minutes, and she could report the crash and make herself a well-deserved Bloody Mary.

  Heavy footfalls rushed up the hill.

  The thump of a camera again, the rattle of a tripod.

  Somebody’s imitating me.

  She braced herself behind a boulder with her pulse racing a hundred miles an hour. Her mouth went dry. The cell phone displayed the same awful no service message.

  Something scrabbled in the underbrush.

  Get in the water. The banks were too far apart for anybody to try an ambush. She slid down the slope with her blood roaring in her ears and waded into the middle of the broad brown creek, feeling horribly exposed.

  Seconds later, her boot slipped. “No, my camera,” she gasped, swung the Nikon above the water, and dropped the pepper spray. Gone. Wide ripples spread to the banks and clouds of silt swirled over hidden rocks and rotten, half-submerged branches.

  She found her footing. The creek twisted out of sight. Soaked, she made it as far as the bend when the bank in the shadows ahead began to change.

  Something under the ooze at the edge of the creek muscled to the surface. Mud swelled into a mound. The mound stood up and grew a primitive head.

  “It went in the water,” Jane whispered.

  The crude body formed thick limbs and a distorted face with wild gouges for eyes and a mouth. A childhood clay figure turned bogie. The man she’d shaped one long forgotten afternoon on the nursery room floor and then mashed flat.

  One, two, buckle my shoe

  Three, four, shut the door

  Five, six, pick up sticks

  Jane gripped her tripod like a baseball bat. The mud-thing grabbed a branch. Eyeballs appeared in the sockets. The mouth opened wide and spread across the head and lizardlike scales grew up the legs. When it rushed toward her, she made long, desperate strides to the far bank, scrambled out of the water, and fled into the woods.

  Night fell. Moonlight shone into the black triangle. Galactic Animal Control Technician 29 opened his cluster of eyes, shifted his weight onto his right side and moaned, wondering how many bones he’d broken. The rhythmic calls of strange insects and the faraway sounds of the city drifted inside with the cool night breeze. The Elemental was out there somewhere. Tech 29 panted in the thin air. As soon as he could stand up, he was going to have to look for his cargo, before it mutated into such an impossible form that he would never be able to find it again.

  Chapter 2

  The Nikon

  Travis Maguire pulled his Scottish Games sweatshirt over his long hair and steered Foley the terrier past the ten-speed bikes to the front door. A fast walk and he’d still have time to grab some coffee before he took off for the American University library.

  Foley dragged him down the steps to the Porter Street sidewalk and past the yuppified late-nineteenth-century homes that lined the block.

  “Fifteen minutes, Foley,” Travis said. “One of the other guys will take you for a longer walk tonight.”

  Foley ignored him and made a kamikaze dive for a squirrel. “No squirrel with fries for you,” Travis said, and pulled him across the street where there were fewer trees. They made it to the end of another long block where the dog charged through somebody’s million dollar flowerbed.

  Travis hauled in the leash. “Get out of there. Look what you just did. You need some serious obedience school or something—”

  Foley dug into the grass, eyes bulging.

  “Come on, enough,” Travis said, tugging the leash. “I said come on.” One more yank and the collar flew off the dog’s head.

  They stared at each other. Seconds passed. Foley took a few steps and then a few more. All of a sudden the dog made a short, gleeful dash and sprinted away.

  “Damn you,” Travis swore and pounded after him. Foley stayed just out of reach, zigzagging into Porter Street. They reached the bottom of the hill, crossed 34th Street, and raced along a winding block that seemed to go on forever.

  The houses gave way to condominiums and a Chinese restaurant. Connecticut Avenue appeared, clogged with traffic. Foley was panting, slowing down, a good sign. Maybe he could catch him before a car plastered him all over the pavement.

  Foley glanced back with a sly grin and shot across the avenue, just missing the tires of a Metrobus. Still grinning, he reached the far sidewalk, trotted along a stone building, lifted his leg on some flowers, and slipped into Rock Creek Park.

  Travis punched the air. “Foley, you stupid, damn, dumb dog.”

  Traffic streamed up the avenue. Finally the signal changed. He made it across, squeezed through a hedge, and found a path that ran around the building, which turned out to be a condominium with well-tended grounds that bordered the park.

  No sign of the dog. No sign of anybody else, either. Empty terraces with designer tables and chairs stretched into the woods. The stone balconies that jutted out along the back wall all seemed to be empty, too, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that somebody was watching him.

  And then he just wanted to get out of there.

  The path twisted down a shady gorge filled with lichen-spotted boulders and ran out on the bank of a creek. The dog had to be down there somewhere. He began to climb down, bracing against the trees, half-sliding down the slope. The sounds of traffic faded to a distant rumble. When he reached the bottom, he stood up in profound quiet under towering oaks and pines. The gorge might have been a million miles from the city.

  Yellow leaves drifted over the creek. On the other side of the water the path picked up again and meandered into the woods. The dog couldn’t have gone that far.

  “Foley,” he called.

  The creek gurgled.

  “Foley! Foley, you freak! Here, Foley!”

  He gave a piercing whistle. Still nothing. Seconds later, something moved under the ferns down the gorge. The idiot dog. He began to crawl through the formidable rocks and almost lost his sneakers in the mud. The weeds around the boulders concealed a bog where the creek had spread beyond its banks. Black fur emerged from the ferns. Foley, nose in the dirt beside a slab of rock, working away at something.

  “What are you doing, you crazy dog, making me chase you like that?” Travis slipped the collar on the dog’s neck and was about to hightail it out of there when a glint in the weeds caught his eye.

  Great, a drunk had passed out in the underbrush or a body was in the bog. He steeled himself, moved the weeds back with his shoe, and uncovered a black bag someone had crammed under the rock.

  “So you were after something,” he told Foley. “You’re not as dumb as I thought.”

  Whoever left it there had done a job and a half to hide it. The waterproof fabric was in good condition, though, and bore the letters JF above the buckle. Drugs, he figured, but when he pulled the rain flap back the bag turned out to hold a camera, four lenses, and a flash. A camera bag.

  Surprised, he took the camera out. A beautiful Nikon. The spectacular lenses with it looked like they cost thousands of dollars.

  Mystified, he packed everything back, slung the whole thing over his shoulder, and hauled the dog through the trees. The gorge began to get to him. He imagined eyes on his back and jumped when a twig snapped. When he came to the creek, he couldn’t stand it any longer and whirled around, about to shout, “Hey,” only to face an empty path. By the time he reached Connecticut Avenue, he’d never been so glad to get out of the woods.

  The camera wouldn’t turn on. He stood on the sidewalk for s
everal minutes, trying to figure out what was wrong with it while the traffic thundered by and the dog stared at him.

  “Let’s go home, Foley,” he said. “Let’s see if has any pictures.”

  Monroe Broussard, one of his roommates, leaned his tall, thin frame against the kitchen counter. He had a tuna sandwich in one hand and a stack of law books beside him and looked like he was on his way out of the house.

  Foley rushed to his water bowl.

  “The electric bill’s here,” Monroe said. “And Ryan called. His dad had his surgery and he’s doing okay.”

  “When’s he coming back?”

  “Next week, maybe. What’s with Foley?”

  Travis shook his head. “The weasel got off the leash and ended up in the park.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Monroe laughed. “Got you again.”

  “Yeah, he got me all right. Look at this. You’re not going to believe what I found.” Travis lifted the Nikon out of the camera bag. The fabric still carried the earthy scent of the woods and something else, a sulphurous whiff that he hadn’t noticed outside. Under the bright kitchen lights the camera seemed even more mysterious, an important, abandoned piece of somebody’s life.

  Monroe handled the Nikon. “Professional camera.”

  “It won’t turn on, though,” Travis said.

  “It’s cracked on the side.”

  Travis leaned in. “Oh, yeah, look at that. They must’ve dropped it.”

  “There’s no ID or anything?” Monroe asked.

  “No, nothing. I want to check the photos. You have software, right?”

  Monroe gave the camera back. “Not for that, I don’t. I have a card reader, but I don’t have time right now. I’m meeting Annie.”

  Not that he didn’t meet his girlfriend Annie every day.

  “I’m not a camerahead, but I can handle a card reader,” Travis said.

  Monroe hesitated. Travis knew he didn’t want him on his precious Mac.

  “Well, I’ve probably got a few minutes,” Monroe said.

  They clomped down the wooden steps from the kitchen into the basement apartment. Monroe wasn’t into knickknacks other than a framed photo of Annie Wong and a rock from his Mississippi hometown on his desk. The apartment just seemed to be a place to store his clothes. They turned on a few lights that cast shadows from the pipes across the concrete walls. House Beautiful would have run screaming.