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71.
Linsey's phone warbled—Louise.
"Yes?" She'd been sitting, sniffling, and now she wiped dirt and tears from each eye orb.
"Linsey, are you okay?"
"Just going nuts a little bit about Jack and Cleve and all the others..."
"I know. I feel it too. I'm hoping for an end to this situation. As soon as I can free up a resource, I'll try to put people in there to extract Jack and the kids if—" She stopped but Linsey knew: if they are still alive."
"I'm heading east along Friars Road" This major artery was a parking lot of abandoned vehicles. Some of them were on fire. Abandoned clothing, shoes, toys, laundry baskets, all manner of debris littered the road. Some people had dumped bags of frozen food that were now melting and starting to rot in the sunlight. "I am trying to get to Jack's office." She explained about Robertson's accident.
"I'll see what I can do on my end," Louise said. "Tell you what. You're near the Hazard Center. See if one of the coffee shops there is open. Take a rest and wait for my call back. I might be able to coordinate something."
"Oh, you're a wonder."
"That's my job."
"Being a wonder?"
"No, coordinating things. If it turns out to be a wonder, all the more credit for me."
Despite the grim situation, Linsey had to laugh.
* * * *
Linsey walked several long blocks from the Fashion Valley Shopping Center, over the 163 overpass, across the San Diego River, and over to Friars Road. The Hazard Center was one of two complexes with hotels, shops, restaurants, and a movie theater between the Mission Valley and Fashion Valley Malls. That was in normal times. As she walked through the littered arcades, some with smashed windows and looted stores, she noted that some of the lights were still burning. That meant they had power, for the time being. She smelled hot coffee. Clambering through a wrecked store window, she entered a coffee shop near the bookstore. The employees were long gone, and the place had been gone over, but there were a few pastries left in a corner of the cooler display. She stepped over broken crockery and spilled liquids until she found the pieces of a toppled coffee maker. Soon she had a fifty-cup brew going and sat munching on pastries while a gorgeous smell filled the air.
As she waited, she spoke several times with Louise. "Good news, Linsey, I have a County chopper available. Coming in from El Cajon with an empty seat. They are putting Mr. Robertson on board as we speak and he'll be with you in ten minutes, God willing."
* * * *
As promised, a chopper set down on the high roof of the Red Lion Hotel, then took off with a loud roar in the direction of downtown. Linsey stood waiting outside the coffee shop as a figure appeared in the distant hotel doorway and made his way toward her. He walked stiffly and with a slight limp. His face had a bruise on one side, and his left arm was in a sprain brace.
James Robertson Jr. was a heavy-set man of about 50. He stuck out his free hand. "Lieutenant Simon?" He was nearly gray, with a jowly, florid face and sympathetic, watery eyes. He wore hiking boots, jeans, a white T-shirt under a greenish plaid shirt, and a Padres baseball cap. Plain and worn, but clean. He came with his fists jammed in his pockets. No documents.
"We're us," she said for both of them. "Call me Linsey."
"Call me Jim."
"Looks like you took a beating."
"Tell me about it," he said with a groan. "I'm supposed to be home in bed, doped up and resting, but this is too important. I do need to sit down before I fall down."
She pointed at a wrecked coffee shop. "Come on. I'll buy."
He sniffed appreciatively. "Smells like fresh coffee."
She offered her arm, and he leaned heavily on her. They clambered over the shattered glass and debris. She showed him to a plastic table and two plastic chairs she'd set up, and served coffee and pastry. She had assembled napkins, sugar, powdered cream, and wooden stirrers previously.
"Down to business," he said licking his stirrer.
"What is it that you want so urgently to tell us?"
"My father handed over a bunch of papers to Collwood. My father died last year."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"Have you figured out the basic story about the fungus.?"
She shrugged and recited what she knew. "Collwood brought it in on that freighter, but it looks like the freight was stolen."
"It wasn't stolen, Linsey, it came to life. He was just looking for some fancy pharmaceuticals to revive his company, and he was grasping at straws. Very evil, very desperate, but ultimately a shallow, foolish man. My father sold him the keys to hell, and what he bought got away from him."
"How do you mean, Jim?"
"My father was in China after the war and got his hands on some important papers abandoned when the Japanese surrendered in 1945. The Japanese had learned of a secret Inca mushroom storage place in the jungles. Maybe the Inca wanted to use it to get their empire back from the Spaniards. Who knows? The Inca are gone, and so are the Spaniards. This fungal stuff has been in the jungle probably for ages. You see, here's the key. It's two opposing families of funguses, from what my dad and Paco and Marie were able to explain to me."
"Offensor and Defensor," Linsey ventured. "We're working on that hypothesis. Our mycologist, Dr. Nolan, dreamed it up."
"It's real. For ages, the Defensor fungus has surrounded the Offensor which exists only on one island hidden in the mountains. They are mutually dependent, somehow, and yet mutually extinguishing. They balance each other out. And Collwood sent mercenaries down there and upset the balance. The natives sent Paco up here to see what could be done."
"Your dead friend."
"Yes. He was not only a shaman, but his daughter spent years in the U.S. and knew the ways. He was the best of their people for the job."
"I thought they were a secret bunch deep in the jungle."
"They are, but the outside world beckons. They keep their secret among them, this small tribe, even as they bring jungle goods to market in distant mountain towns. Marie was the first to reach the United States."
"Must be one of the best kept secrets on earth or our Government would know about it."
"Yes. They defeated the Japanese. Killed their two pilots with arrows. Japan never did get this stuff or they might have won World War II and killed half the world to boot. But the natives were used to keeping secrets. The Incas' last hiding place, the mountain city of Macchu Pichu, is about an hour's air flight from the fungal island. The native tribe were put there by the Inca centuries ago to be guardians of the mushrooms. And the mushrooms were sacred to the gods, like in many early societies including Ancient Egypt. Until Collwood's guerillas blasted through, the natives had never lost a spore to enemy foreigners. Now the genie is out of the bottle."
"Can it be put back in, Jim?"
"Maybe. That's what Paco was here to engineer. He was biding his time. Waiting for Colwood to do his thing, waiting for the danger to become evident. Then his plan was to use his own counter-measures. Because, face it, the natives guarding the Defensor spores are the only human, thinking people involved down there. There is no reason, no mercy, no rationality on the Offensor side. It's a pure parasite, opportunistic, ready to jump at every chance to seize a living being and turn it to its advantage. Here." He fumbled in a shirt pocket. "We made copies of much of it before my dad sold it all to Collwood. Look here." He showed her several old, fading color photos —different views of what looked like a cave or a cleft in a tall mountain face. A waterfall dropped from high up. There was a lake at the bottom with steam on it. There was an island in the middle of the lake. The island was heavily overgrown and green, but there appeared to be buildings hidden in the brush. And giant mushrooms—her fingertip tapped that image repeatedly.
"An island in a crater lake. Many different fungal species growing around an old abandoned Native American city. A city overwhelmed by fungi. An evolving horror."
Linsey kept tapping the picture of that island. "This is where Collwood got the fungi?"
"Yes."
Linsey sipped her coffee thoughtfully. "Hmmm. So it seems that we know where Collwood got this stuff from. We could send people down there to find this spot—"
"It's all in Karasawa's journal. The exact location."
"If we sent people down there, they could bring back whatever keeps the Offensor in check."
"Right," James said. "The Defensor that Dr. Nolan has talked about. It's worth a try, Linsey."
"You've done very well, James."
"I'm sorry I didn't come forward sooner. My dad wanted me to wait until he was dead. I had no idea of the implications."
"None of us did. Probably not even Collwood." An idea dawned on her. "Say, where did this Paco guy stay?"
"Not sure. He was one of these scary dudes that can fit in with the scenery wherever he went. I watched him will himself to die. He saw his only child dead before him, and he died holding her face in his hands. It was love unto death."
"Sad. But you know, Jim, I have an idea."
He stared at her. "Has your husband ever mentioned that you look scary when you are on that wavelength?"
She nodded. "This is the time to get scary, my friend, when it counts." She whipped out her cell phone to call Louise. "We need to get you home, James, and I need to find Paco's hangout."
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