Page 42 of Identity Unknown
“He was married to his work.” I can’t bring myself to say that Sal was selfish.
But he was, and didn’t see it. For someone so insightful, he had a blind spot when it came to his drives and ego.
“I’m betting the truth is he never got with anybody else because he never got over you,” Marino says.
“He dated plenty over the years,” I reply.
“And who was he with at the end? Who stopped by to wish him a happy birthday yesterday when he was feeling shitty about turning sixty? What I’m wondering is why you didn’t do anything about it if you both felt that way.”
“Part of life is accepting things that won’t change no matter how disappointing,” I reply, and I remember saying this very thing to Sal.
“Tell me about it.” Marino’s attention is fixed out the window again. “I know exactly what you’re describing. Sometimes it feels like all I’ve ever done is settle.”
I’m grateful Dorothy can’t hear us. It would be an ugly reminder of past conflicts when she’s suspected Marino’s interest. She knew about it long before the two of them were dating. Now she’s amused more than anything else that heonce had the hotsfor me. She’d be devastated by the wordsettleand must never know he said it.
The downtown Richmond skyline is out our windows, the tops of the James Monroe Building and other skyscrapers shrouded in fog. We’re flying over the restaurants and bars of Shockoe Bottom, and the crowded neighborhoods of LibbyHill. I know what I’m seeing. It always comes back to me whenever I’m here.
Despite how much this part of Virginia has changed over the years, the bones of it are unmistakable. Lucy picks up I-64 on the other side of Oakwood Cemetery with its circuitous paths and rows of gray headstones. I recognize the New Kent County Airport tucked in trees, the numbers 11 and 29 painted in white on either end of the runway. Then there’s nothing below but trees, and a reservoir where people are fishing.
The farther east the better the weather, the sinking sun fiery on the horizon. Soon we’re over Colonial Williamsburg, and I catch a fleeting glimpse of the redbrick visitor center, the Governor’s Palace, the serpentine walls and open green fields enclosed by wooden palings. Knots of visitors stroll along walkways, and I can make out the historical interpreters in period costumes before the view is replaced by woods.
“Where the hell are they taking us?” Marino asks, and I don’t have an answer. I don’t even have a guess.
Several miles off to our right is the Busch Gardens theme park, its roller-coaster tracks arching across the dimming sky. I’m reminded of Sal’s body callously dumped inside the Haunted Forest. And of the see-through pouch inches from me on the helicopter floor. And who might be to blame. And it seems impossible that we’re confronted by the same enemy again.
If only she would die.
I think of Carrie Grethen as a human virus that can’t be eradicated. All it does is mutate into the next variant, each one crueler and wilier than the last. I send Benton a text without mentioningwhere we are or other details. He requires no update from me, knowing far more than I ever will about what’s going on. I tell him I’m checking in to see how he is. I’m thinking of him.
Heard it’s not been a pleasant flight,he writes back.
No fun but better now.
How’s Marino?
A little green around the gills,I type while making sure Marino isn’t looking on.We’re ok. But disturbing things are happening. Not sure what you’ve heard.I have little doubt that Benton knows exactly who I’m concerned about.
We’ll talk soon,he replies, and I hope that’s true.
“Hello? Hey!” Marino’s voice booms in my headset as he waves a hand, gesturing to the cameras. “You guys up?” He’s hoping Tron or Lucy might decide to answer, and they don’t. “You think they’re still awake?” He directs this at me. “Because I sure as hell hope AI isn’t flying this bucket.”
The sun smolders over the York River, burnishing it gold. A fishing pier, a gray wooden footbridge snake through marshland at Denbigh Park, and I recognize the modern brick and glass airport in Newport News flowing by. The Hampton Coliseum seems to hover like a concrete mothership in the waning light, and I know where we are. But not our destination.
I have no clue until I see the flashing red beacons on top of the colossal sawhorse-shaped gantry etched against the darkening sky. The Doomsday Bird thunders in low and slow as we near NASA Langley Research Center. The Aeronautical and Space Administration’s oldest campus dates back to the days of the Wright brothers. It’s where Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin trained to walk on the moon.
“What the hell are we coming here for?” Marino is baffled, and I don’t have an answer.
Streetlights blink on below, the wind tunnels powered by massive white metal vacuum spheres that remind me of giant balloons. We lumber past a red-and-white-striped water tower, a tall stack in the distance gushing smoke and fire. The dull silver aircraft hangar glints into view, some ten stories high with a white radome on the roof, and we swoop around it, slowing into a hover.
Lights on tall poles are bright on the ramp and in the parking lot where a van and an SUV wait with headlights burning. Beyond is Langley Air Force Base, the long runway outlined in diamond-white lights. An F-22 Raptor fighter jet takes off while two others wait on the taxiway, streams of exhaust shimmering. We set down on the tarmac, the landing lights flaring on the NASA blue-and-red logo, faded on old aluminum siding.
Lucy shuts down, cutting the engines, braking the rotor blades, and the SUV and van rush in. The driver’s doors open, two soldiers in camouflage jumping out, heavily armed and in tactical gear. Their comrades emerge from the passenger doors, cradling submachine guns and wearing earpieces. We climb out of the helicopter, and Lucy retrieves the jump-out bags but not our Pelican cases.
“You won’t need your gear,” she explains.
Marino and I settle into the SUV’s third row of seats, Lucy and Tron in front of us, and we’re driven away. Around the north end of the airfield, we stop at the Armistead Gate, where the military police are expecting us. They confer briefly with our drivers while shining flashlights on ID badges. I can’t hearall of what they’re saying over the rumble of engines but it’s obvious they’re aware of our morbid cargo.
A K-9 handler begins to circle with a Belgian Malinois, checking for explosives and who knows what. Guards peer through our rolled-down windows, shining their lights, making sure we look like our photographs. They check the undercarriage with long-handled mirrors as drones orbit overhead. We’re waved through and wished a good night, the setting sun molten.