She hugged him. “All I can say is, thank you.”
He did not push her away, but he did not hold her, either. After a moment, she stepped back. “You think I’m lying with silence.”
He nodded.
“You’re a good cop from a small city in Texas. You come from a wealthy background which you’re very equivocal about. Oil money. Mostly, you pretend it isn’t there. You make a lot of charitable contributions from a foundation that’s hidden behind an impenetrable legal firewall. Your one vice is fast cars and your best friend Mac Terrell is your moral polar opposite, a professional criminal as sleazy and dishonest as you are upright.”
She wasn’t from West Texas; she did not know how friendship was understood in a place that was so thinly populated. Mac’s great-great-grandfather had been foreman on the Carroll ranch and Flynn’s great-great-grandfather’s best friend. They’d gone off to the Civil War together, walking all the way to Arkansas side by side. MacAdoo Terrell had headed south, William Carroll had joined the boys in blue. After the war, they’d both returned to the ranch and the friendship had resumed. Family legend had it that neither of them had ever mentioned the war again.
Flynn had grown up with Mac and, no matter what, would always remain his friend.
“You don’t understand,” he said.
“Not really.”
“But there’s more. There must be. I can discharge a gun so fast the eye can’t see it. That’s not a normal human ability, and there are others, as you know so well. You tell me the truth. Do it now or I walk away from here and you never see me again.”
“You walk away? Never.”
“Try me!”
“Look, we’ve done the same backgrounding you have. DNA, ancestry, life experience—believe me, we’ve covered the waterfront. Because you’re the only chance we have. We need more Flynn Carrolls. When you go into the bullpen, do you know what half those people are? Genealogists, historians, neuroscientists, you name it, all trying to figure one thing out: Flynn Carroll.”
“And?”
“I told you everything we know, Flynn.”
Flynn understood that the law requires those who possess classified information to lie in its defense, and that he had to put his question aside, at least for now. Somewhere, though, there was an answer. He sensed it. Knew it, even. Somewhere in the vast world of the secret government, or in the ancient and mysterious reality of the universe, the truth was known.
They found a cab and returned to their house, the plan being to wash up, change, and go out to dinner.
But that’s not the way it happened. Somewhere, perhaps, Abby watched her man accepting the mystery of his own soul a little more, and in so doing opening his heart at least a little to a woman who loved him deeply.
They lay together, and in their lovemaking she felt his passion, but not all of him; never that. She watched him sleeping that wary sleep of his, then fell asleep herself, listening to the quiet thunder of his heart in his powerful chest, and dreamed of melting into him and becoming his, and being welcomed there.
Very late at night, they woke up and went to the kitchen and heated some pasta and drank some wine. In one another’s eyes they saw the same edge of heaven that all travelers in this life see when we find love at last, and discover that, for better or for worse, it is our destiny to journey on together.
TOR BOOKS BY WHITLEY STRIEBER
Alien Hunter
Hybrids
The Omega Point
Critical Mass
2012
The Grays
The Wild
Catmagic
Majestic
Alien Hunter: Underworld
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Whitley Strieber is the bestselling author of more than twenty-five books, including the legendary Warday, Nature’s End, and The Coming Global Superstorm, the basis of the movie The Day After Tomorrow. His most recent books, The Grays and 2012: The War for Souls, are both being made into films. His website, Unknowncountry.com, is the largest of its kind in the world, exploring the edge of science and reality. Or sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Tor Books by Whitley Strieber
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
ALIEN HUNTER: THE WHITE HOUSE
Copyright © 2016 by Walker & Collier, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Cover photographs by Getty Images
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
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Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-0-7653-7869-9 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-6329-3 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9781466863293
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First Edition: April 2016