Shadow of the Lizard - Part 1 Read online

“Hey, what’s wrong?” But he still keeps the camera going.

  “Nothing.”

  “Kristen—”

  “I had a weird dream. That’s all.”

  Antonio hums a made-up TV show theme and starts speaking like an announcer. “Welcome to another episode of Kristen’s Weird World—starring Kristen!”

  She reaches down and covers the camera with her hand. So freaking immature.

  It takes a while, but Kristen manages to shake off her bad mood. As they trudge through a sun-streaked meadow filled with autumn wildflowers and cholla cacti, she actually smiles at Antonio.

  “So where are you taking me for dinner tonight? Sandiago’s?”

  “Naw. Too easy.” Antonio thinks for a second. “It’s a surprise, baby. I can tell you that you’ll love it, though, birthday girl.”

  Kristen pirouettes closer to him. “Speaking of which…”

  “What?”

  She smiles at him, flirting. “I guess I’m legal now, Antonio.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah.” They lock eyes. “But you have to catch me first—”

  Kristen squeals and sprints ahead of Antonio, vanishing into the underbrush.

  Over the next half hour, the terrain becomes steeper and the rough boulders and scrub give way to denser underbrush. The air is a little bit cooler, and the smell of dried grass is just barely detectable.

  Antonio and Kristen circle through a large ravine and climb a steep hill thick with low juniper and scrubby pinon pine trees.

  “Just about there…” Antonio is breathing hard now.

  “That’s what you said like an hour ago.”

  “Close your eyes.”

  “No way.”

  They round a corner into a clearing leading up to an overlook via a series of switchbacks.

  “Here we are…”

  Kristen blinks and takes in the scene.

  In the distance in front of them, perched on a cliff, is an old cabin made entirely of rough stone. It’s small and squat—less than 20 feet wide with two cavernous windows on the wall facing them.

  All in all, it looks like a giant rock skull.

  “What is it?” Kristen marvels.

  “This is what I’ve been telling you about. C’mon!” Antonio takes her hand and they rush up the winding trail toward the cabin.

  Around them, heavy clouds sink down from the mountain peak.

  5

  They enter the stone cabin, and the first thing Kristen notices is the graffiti. Scrawled on almost every surface imaginable. She shakes her head. “Nice.” Her voice echoes throughout the stone structure.

  Antonio saunters in like he owns the place. “Hey, some of this graffiti is 50 years old. They’re like petroglyphs.”

  “Yeah, put them in a museum.”

  Kristen looks around the cabin, which is basically a single room with a slate floor and a crude fireplace in one corner. It smells faintly of burnt wood, although from the looks of things, the fireplace hasn’t been used for a long time.

  “Do people actually camp here?”

  “I guess so. My uncle says it’s been around since before he was a kid. Rangers built it for stranded hikers or whatever.”

  Kristen moves to one of the windows. It’s just a hole in one wall. No glass. But there is a spectacular view of all of Albuquerque in the distance. She glances back at Antonio, who unloads his knapsack.

  “It is pretty cool.” She leans out of the window. Directly below her is the cliff that the cabin is built on. It looks like a 40-foot drop straight down. Kristen backs away a bit as Antonio joins her to admire the view.

  She eases into his arms and stares out toward the city.

  “Hey, I can see your house. Wait! There’s your mother! She looks really pissed off.”

  Antonio laughs and pulls her into an embrace. He gets a glimpse of the sky through one of the cabin’s open windows. The sun is easing down low in the sky as the clouds swirl.

  Later, Kristen and Antonio sprawl on a rough blanket, wrapped in each other’s arms. Beside them, an open bottle of wine is almost empty.

  They kiss.

  Again.

  Intensely.

  Kristen moves her body up against Antonio’s chest, warm and strong, and he pulls her closer, lips locked together. He barely registers a far-off sound, like an eagle’s call or something. But also a little odd.

  Antonio’s eyes open involuntarily, distracted just for a second, but then Kristen’s soft lips bring him back into the moment.

  6

  A tramcar glides like a ghost through the clouds at the top of Sandia Peak.

  Rising up through the mist at the summit is a large tower of wheels and gears and cables that convey the tramcars up and down the mountain.

  Surrounding the tower is a small observation deck with restrooms, a ranger station, and a hand-painted sign that reads, Welcome to Sandia Peak. Elevation 10,378 ft.

  The tramcar eases into its landing bay, sounds an arrival bell, and opens its doors to allow three German tourists to disembark.

  Outside the ranger station, eight-year-old Brian Hancock waits for his grandmother to use the restroom. Brian had every intention of obeying his grandmother’s instructions not to move from this spot, but something just beyond the observation deck railing catches his attention.

  What was that?

  He dashes to the deck’s railing.

  Brian can’t believe his eyes.

  Hovering less than 15 feet away is a small mechanical device—almost like a stubby flying robot. It is compact—about a foot tall with three legs spread like a tripod at its base.

  At first he thinks it’s a radio-controlled toy—like the helicopter Jason Hendricks has—but there’s something weird about it. It doesn’t look like a toy.

  Brian glances around to check out who else is seeing this, but the German tourists have gone into the ranger station. He is alone on the observation deck.

  The flying device emits a low humming sound as it rotates quickly and flashes Brian with what looks like a thin red laser beam.

  It shot me!

  He takes a few steps back and squeezes his eyes shut. But there’s no pain.

  Brian opens his eyes to see the device banking off to the north. It’s flying alongside the observation deck. He takes off in pursuit.

  The observation deck divides into a series of walkways and platforms that span a hundred yards or so—ending in a section that juts out 20 feet over the cliff like a ship’s “flying bridge.”

  Brian races down the walkways and hits the final corner of the observation deck at full speed, then climbs up on the guard rails and leans over, trying to get a better view of the device.

  If he were familiar with cutting-edge military technology, Brian might have recognized the flying robot as a vertical take-off and landing micro UAV drone—a small Unmanned Aerial Vehicle used by the military for surveillance.

  But to Brian, the device is something much more mysterious. A robot or even a mini UFO. And he’s not about to let it get away.

  As the drone flies from the observation deck, Brian scrambles off the structure—right past a warning sign that reads, Stay Back! Loose Rock Along Edge.

  Heart pumping, Brian races along the top of the rocky ridge, oblivious to the hundred-foot drop on one side.

  The cliff ends abruptly in a jumble of fallen rock. Brian can’t stop and he teeters over the edge.

  Out of nowhere, hands grab his shoulders and pull him back to safety.

  “Easy kid…”

  Brian turns to see a strange woman in a long white coat. She wears big silver sunglasses that hide her face, and her hair hangs in dreadlocks that are the color of her coat.

  Brian can’t tell if she’s angry or laughing at him.

  “I saw something…” he stammers.

  7

  Dr. Sophia Montclaire stares at the little boy she has just rescued. “It was an eagle.”

  She holds up a pair of high-tech binoculars to a
ssure the boy that she’d been looking at the same thing, but the kid doesn’t seem convinced.

  “No, it was—”

  “Eagle,” she repeats, using the tone she used to use with her superiors at Los Alamos when she needed to convince them of something.

  The little boy opens his mouth to protest, but is interrupted by an older woman running to his side.

  The woman is almost in tears. “Brian, don’t you ever run off—”

  The boy turns to the older woman and Sophia catches the resemblance. The boy hugs the woman and tries to explain, “I saw something, it was a—”

  “Are you trying to give me a heart attack like poor Mr. Chavez?”

  “No…”

  The woman notices Sophia for the first time. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “He’s okay. Just needs to watch where he’s going.” Sophia nods at the steep drop-off. “That first step’s a doozy.”

  But the woman doesn’t hear; she is already leading her grandson back to the observation deck.

  With the kid safely out of the area, Sophia raises her binoculars to her eyes and powers up the active electronics.

  As she scans the tree line, the image in the binoculars is enhanced with a heads-up video overlay showing readouts for EMF radiation, infrared, sound, and a dozen different metrics. But to no avail.

  Sophia activates her in-ear/sub-vocal transceiver.

  “No, it’s gone… See if you can pick up anything on the Sat Scan…”

  A male voice on the other end crackles an affirmative, and Sophia takes one last look through her binoculars.

  Friggin’ kid. 


  8

  Down the mountain, a mile away, pine branches sway in a soft breeze.

  A crow pecking at a bug on a boulder is startled by something large and unfamiliar moving through the brush.

  Just outside the stone cabin, Kristen gazes at the sky, her mind zoning. Happy.

  She sees a large black bird, hovering on the thermals. Only it doesn’t really move like a