20. Chapter 20
"So you are not Dawn Wayland, but…" I fished, looking at the woman calling herself Amber.
"I'm Amber, Amber Seymore. Dawn and I were twins. I used to work for Navy Intelligence. Long story short, my sister contacted me to find certain information about IC, and when that got me nearly killed, I went to see her, only to find her dead." I was sure most people would have missed her pause here, but I was trained to look at people's body language to get them talking, and I was good at my job. So I noted that the death of her sister had affected her more than she was willing to concede. But I didn't call her out on it.
"She had been professionally killed, so I joined the exploration team on Vandruk, pretending to be her, to find her killer. By the way, did IC make any kind of statement about her death?"
I shook my head and let her vague explanation go for now despite the myriad of new questions it raised. As in how had Dawn been professionally killed, and why had that led her here to Vandruk instead of a.) calling the authorities or b.) investigating the people in IC headquarters. "Nothing was said, which is why I assumed you to be her."
"Did any of the other women return?" Gwyn wanted to know, apprehension written all over her features.
"What do you mean?" The three women, Amber, Gwyn, and Jenna, exchanged a look.
"Five of the women and two members of the science team went back through the portal about four weeks ago," Gwyn explained.
I took a moment to digest that, turning automatically toward Carl. "Nothing was announced." The knot in my stomach tightened.
"I was afraid of that after the attack," Jenna said.
"What attack?" I questioned.
"When the first wave of women and the science expedition left, IC snuck in security guards who were supposed to kidnap Matt," Gwyn filled me in. "When that failed, they sent another team to attack the Vandruks with FGGs, flammable gas grenades."
"Shit"." I stared at them.
"Yeah," Amber agreed. "What did Dawn say to you? What was she going to give you the day of her departure?"
I remembered approaching Dawn that day, or who I thought was Dawn. "That was you?"
"Yes."
"A file. She was going to give me a thumb drive with the information she had gathered. She was very secretive about it and told me that it would open my eyes to IC and to not trust any of them."
"Do these names mean anything to you? Tony Vale, Russel Crawford or Sven Grammer?" Amber continued her questioning. "Andres Rodisi?"
Recognition hit me, and I leaned back on the log. "How do you know those names?"
"They tried to kill me when I asked too many questions about IC," Amber stated matter-of-factly. Who was this woman?
The fact that these men hadn't killed her was astonishing. I was so surprised that I uttered the question with the obvious answer, "They didn't kill you?" Then I shook myself when I realized, "Did they kill Dawn?" That would have made some sense.
"No, they had nothing to do with it. Dawn was killed because she knew too much. Weidenhof ordered a man named Willis, who had been the head of the security team sent here." She made quotation marks around security team . Her eyes pierced me, and I realized that having this woman as an enemy was not a good thing. "Do you know anything about these men?"
"Their names popped up a few times while I was investigating IC after Dawn… your sister… didn't give me the file. I was curious, and I knew things weren't adding up, like, if Tzar-Than suddenly appearing, there was no way that after ten years, the IC hadn't known that there was life on Vandruk."
"Smart"." Amber nodded appreciatively.
"That thought never crossed my mind," Jenna added.
"Mine either," Gwyn agreed.
"Well, you were the first to see one of the aliens , so…" Jenna let that hang for a moment. "I don't have any excuse."
"Don't beat yourself up; not everybody can be as smart as Amber"—Gwyn winked at me—"Rachel."
Jenna McKenzie had been hailed as having an IQ of over one forty, so I suppressed a small grin at the jibe, just like the others did, and found myself envying their comradery. I had never had girlfriends before. First, my looks had always been in the way, and later, it was competition, which was big in the journalistic world.
"Well?" Amber pressed me.
"Oh, the names, sorry." I shook myself back to what we had been initially talking about. "Well, besides what you probably already know, Tony Vale is a retired CIA agent, same as Russel Crawford, while Sven Grammer is an active NSA agent. Tony popped up repeatedly in my research regarding finance payments, although he isn't on the official payroll. He was named a consultant, for what, I don't know. Russel was periodically paid large amounts of money for consulting work."
"I don't suppose you know what that consulting work is, do you?" Amber pressed.
"I don't, but do you know what his specialty in the CIA was?"
"He was an agent, a threat assessor"." Amber tilted her head to the side. "What do you know?"
I grinned, a bit proud of myself for digging this out. "He was a threat assessor whenever the US occupied any new territory, like when we went into Iraq? He was the head of the team that analyzed what terror attacks they might face from guerilla activity." More looks were exchanged.
Gwyn asked, "Like as in if they occupied Vandruk, how the Vandruks might fight back?"
"Bingo," Amber said before I could.
"What about this Sven guy?" Jenna inquired.
"Well"." I scrunched up my nose and dove into my brain archives. "Sven Grammer still works for the NSA but also received large consulting payments from IC. There have been rumors that the NSA has some highly sensitive new technologies and that Sven has the clearance to access them. I've also heard that he might be willing to sell samples or even blueprints for these new gadgets for the right price."
"Do you know what those gadgets are?" Amber asked.
"Oh, come on, Amber, we all know what it is." Jenna rolled her eyes and turned to me. "They implanted something in Matt's brain, so they can see what he sees and hear what he hears."
"Oh fuck," I exclaimed.
"Yeah, oh fuck indeed," Amber echoed.
"No wonder they were going to kill you"." Gwyn turned to Amber. "You were asking about their payroll."
"Did you dig out how much payroll?" Amber ignored Gwyn.
"Does it matter?" I countered and added, just as Amber was about to shake her head, "Billions, and that's only the accounts I could access."
"Billions"—Amber shook her head disgusted—"and they're playing poker for pennies. Pussies."
"Come again?" I had no idea what she was talking about.
"Amber here"—Gwyn put an arm around her friend—"was a famous poker shark."
I filed it away like the other little things that intrigued me but had nothing to do with our situation. Envious of their camaraderie once again. Take Ghan-Zahr's offer, and you can have it too , a voice whispered. I swallowed, glancing at the man in question, who sat between more than two dozen other khadahrs, talking like the women and I did.
As if he had sensed my glance, he looked up, and our eyes met. A tremble of desire moved through me.
"He looks like he wants to eat you," Jenna observed.
"Oh, they're so good at that"." Amber rolled her eyes, an expression of utter exhilaration on her face that made Gwyn snicker.
I felt my face heating, not because of the insinuations, but because suddenly there was so much more I wanted from this world besides Ghan-Zahr. I inhaled the Vandruk air. The scent of wood burning, meat roasting, something sweet, a flower Ghan-Zahr had shown me during the day. A light breeze played with my hair, and I turned my gaze up toward the star-filled sky with its breathtaking nebula. The ghost of a planet that was always visible during the day had taken on more shape and seemed closer; I could almost make out crater holes from meteor showers.
Thousands of Vandruks were camped around us, and the noise of their conversations drifted around me. The fires outlined them and some of the boulders, trees, and scrubs, but most of them were mere dark shadows, and I realized I felt alive.
When was the last time I had truly felt alive? Not the kind where I chased a hot story—no, that was just an adrenaline rush, alive as in enjoying myself.
I thought back to a few nights spent at bars with colleagues; we had laughed, and we had fun, but that was still different from what I was experiencing tonight.
"I like it here," I heard myself say.
"Dude, she's got the Vandruk fever"." Gwyn snickered.
"Welcome to the club"." Amber grinned.
"Ah, the best feeling," Jenna agreed.
"I'm fucked, aren't I?" I asked the group of women who seemed closer to me than my own family and friends I had known for years.
"Yeah, you are," Amber agreed and bumped me with her shoulder.
"We've got you, sis"." Gwyn winked.
"One for all and all for one"." Jenna held her arm out, palm down. The others placed theirs on top.
"Rachel?"
I stared at the hands, knowing I was about to make the biggest decision of my life. But right then it just felt so right. I felt as if I had finally found the place where I belonged. Not just being with Ghan-Zahr, but on Vandruk, with these women. Every single one of them had a story that pointed to being in the right place at the right time . Had Gwyn taken a toilet break, she probably would have missed Tzar-Than in the fog. Had Dawn not been killed, Amber wouldn't have me Dzur-Khan. Had Jenna not studied cave exploration along with her other degrees, she would have never been chosen and would have never opened the cave or married Dhar-Ghan. Had I not been in that hallway, Ghan-Zahr wouldn't have taken me. Coincidence? One of these events might have been, maybe two, but all four? I shook my head. No, for whatever reason, we were here. Now. Like we had been chosen for something bigger.
Determined, I placed my hand on top of Gwyn's. One for all and all for one indeed . Gwyn's grin was so wide, the corners of her lips were aligned with the lobes of her ears. "Welcome to the club."