be in my hair, right? Microscopic particles of shit.”
“Possible, but not likely,” Key said. “Since boot camp, what were the two things we instinctively covered?”
Daniels grunted. “The fruits—melon and nuts.”
Key nodded. Daniels seemed to relax a little.
Gonzales steered his Desert Demon past the Harvest Falcon depot—which housed the Air Force’s transportable system of billets, bivouacs, modular equipment, generators, shelters, tents, and vehicles—that stretched off into the distance.
“You’re never at a loss of something to repair, are you?” Key asked their driver.
Gonzales shook his head. “Keeps me busy, and informed.” He pulled up to what looked like a giant corrugated steel oil tank that had been sliced down the middle and laid on its side. He powered down the Desert Demon, then glanced at Daniels. “I should be able to find you something more suitable to wear inside.”
“Good,” Daniels said miserably. “Because I don’t know what fabric softener you’re using, but it ain’t working.”
“Fabric softener?” Gonzales said with an exaggerated accent as he got out. “We don’t need no stinkin’ fabric softener.”
But even Daniels forgot to keep grousing when they stepped inside the Hispanic Mechanic’s Studio. Instead, the sergeant’s grin started stretching from ear to ear despite the fact that the trip from the vehicle to the door felt like fire walking to his bare feet. “What did I tell you, Joe? What did I tell you?”
The expansive interior of the crescent moon-shaped space looked like a cut-rate Smithsonian Air and Space Museum combined with Frankenstein’s castle laboratory. There were lifts on the floor and hooked chains hanging from the ceiling. There were husks and skeletons of every imaginable land and air craft covering almost every inch—save for eating, sleeping, and toiletry areas.
“What, no videogames?” Key grinned with appreciation.
“What do I need with any media,” Gonzales said, his arms out, “when I have this?”
He found Daniels some gym shorts, a pair of sandals they could adjust to his size twelve feet, and an extra-large T-shirt that bore a skull-and-cross-wrench pirate symbol above the legend Stay Well Lubricated.
He brought out some MREs—self-contained individual field rations, otherwise known as Meal, Ready-to-Eat—and joined them at a small round table by the kitchen. They started breaking down the kit, but the various packets and bags reminded Gonzales too much of what they had just come from.
“Why did you leave the samples you came so far for?” he asked.
“No point taking them.” Key laid out the beef stew bag, crackers, cheese spread, and powdered beverage envelope. “I had to see the stuff to try to figure how this is transmitted.” He retrieved the packets of salt, pepper, seasonings, and spoon. “Like I said, definitely not through blood or contact with flesh, so I ruled out the fingernail and the bones.”
“What the hell were those egg shells?” Daniels asked, already chewing his packet of pork rib.
“Not egg shells,” Key replied. “Too small. Might be eggs, but none like I’ve ever seen before.”
“What came out of them? Birds?”
“Those pea-sized pods are small for birds,” Gonzales chimed in. “Bugs, maybe?”
Key sat up straighter. “Bugs maybe.” He mused, suddenly distracted.
Daniels didn’t seem to notice. “Might be a very aggressive form of lyme disease or malaria or something like that,” he suggested, seemingly all but forgetting he had just watched a man messily explode. Then again, it hadn’t been the first time.
“Hmph.” Gonzales made a chewing noise, deep again in his own thoughts. “If not that, then what?”
“‘Wind power is very right….’” Key’s tone of voice was both wondrous and self-recriminating.
Both the sergeant and mechanic turned.
“Huh?” Daniels said.
Key suddenly and sharply stood up, scattering his meal all over the floor. “Christ, we have to find the Study Committee, and now.”
Chapter 8
“Now that’s more like it,” Daniels said as he took his first look at Muscat, the big and ancient capital of Oman.
He was wearing a plain white dishdasha—though thankfully not what remained of Ayman’s dishdasha—along with a somewhat sedate turban made of knotted head-cloth, as well as open-toe, open-back sandals. Gonzales had pulled them all out of his workshop’s locker before he changed into his own regional garb.
When Daniels complained about the simple footwear, Gonzales had explained, “They’re called nahl; easy to remove and they keep anything from getting trapped inside.”
“‘Nahl’ kidding,” Daniels had drawled. “What could get trapped inside?”
“Everything from sea snakes to the khanjar daggers of angry husbands,” Gonzales had advised knowingly. “Wear them. You’ll thank me.”
Key now followed the sergeant out onto dusty tarmac—squinting at the bright blue sky, the sparkling waters of the Oman Gulf, and, in the distance, the copper crags of the Hajar Mountains. It was the tropical opposite of Shabhut; elegance, and even grace, as opposed to oppressive misery.
He turned away from the clean majesty of even this northeastern edge of the city to see Gonzales emerge from his small private jet in full going-native splendor. The Hispanic Mechanic was wearing an authentic wazar undergarment beneath his more detailed dishdasha, with a long tassel hanging down from the neckline, and subtle, but impressive, embroidery around the wrists, across the shoulder blades, and neckline. On his head was a more ornate massar turban. If only given a cursory glance, he could have passed for a native—at least to Key’s inexperienced eye.
Key didn’t have to ask exactly where they were. Gonzales had gone into detail during the flight. They were at what remained of the Bayt al Falaj airport, which had gone into minimum service once the grander Muscat International Airport opened in 1973. Gonzales had correctly surmised that Key wanted as low a profile as possible, but also didn’t want to waste eight hours driving there.
So Gonzales had led them to his prize hobby: a 1991 Cessna Citation light business jet, which he had personally reconditioned after it was simply left behind by an unsatisfied billionaire. That sort of whim had become nearly commonplace in the oil-rich region. Although the Cessna was relatively small, it was certified for operations with a single pilot, and ready to go.
Key had looked at Gonzales incredulously. “Well, what about—” He extednded his arms to encompass the workshop.
Gonzales just grinned as Daniels elbowed Key in the side. “He’s a civilian contractor, Joe,” the sergeant informed him. “The Corps needs him more than he needs the Corps.”
“And I think you need me more than the Corps does at the moment,” Gonzales added.
