“I think it’s in the ceiling!” Javier pretended to squint through the locked door. “The smoke is getting thicker.”
“I, uh . . .” The guard stepped towards the desk as the fire alarm came on, echoing through the building. A second later, sprinklers sent water raining down on them.
****
“What the hell is going on?” Charlie yelled down the corridor, to the guard sitting by the door. “I smell smoke!”
The guard hustled to the cell door, reaching Charlie as the alarm blared. Two sprinklers came on, but neither were directed at the cell.
“Shit.” The guard eyed Charlie, then the exit.
He’s gonna leave us here! “You better not, son. If we burn, you’re done. That’s murder.”
“You’re traitors. All of you.” He yelled over the noise while pointing. “No one would judge me if you burned.”
“Man,” Charlie stood straight, making himself taller. “I’m a federal agent. All you need is a judge who isn’t completely sold out to the crooked government, and you’ll be locked up with all the other guys you’ve busted.” He leaned close to the plastic wall separating him from the corridor. “I’m sure they would love to show their appreciation. Is that a risk you want to take?” Charlie clenched his jaw, only half-believing what he said. The odds of getting a judge not on the cop’s side were slim.
The guard looked up at Charlie, apparently weighing his options.
Liz appeared next to Charlie, leaning into the transparent wall. “Don’t let us burn. You’ll live with that the rest of your life.”
****
“What are you still doing here?” the cop asked.
“What?” Javier squeezed his fist, digging his nails into his palm and yelling over the noise. Sprinkler water dripped from his hair and down his face. “I’m not gonna leave if I can help.”
“You did come at a convenient time.” The guard reached for the gun on his hip.
Javier yanked the taser from his jacket pocket, aimed, and fired.
The cop collapsed to the floor, twitching. Javier wrenched the gun from his hand and headed for the front door then returned to the desk. Jonah wasn’t on the same monitor—he had moved next to a door, but it didn’t look like the front entrance. That meant he was guarding a rear door, the mostly likely way for the other guard to bring prisoners.
Javier darted outside.
He ran halfway down the path and froze…what if the other guard brought Liz through the front? If the back was too smoky he might do exactly that. It didn’t make sense for Javier to join Jonah.
Javier stationed himself by the front door.
****
Liz pulled her collar over her mouth, but the smoke still burned her eyes. They had to get out of here.
The guard tossed three sets of handcuffs through the small opening in plastic wall. They clanked on the cement. “Put these on each other. Behind your backs.”
Charlie instructed Mattson to turn around, and he secured the bracelets on his nephew’s wrists. He held a second pair out to Liz. “Put these on me, and then I’ll get yours. I can do this without looking.”
Dropping her collar, Liz grabbed the cuffs and tightened them around the cop’s wrists.
“Okay.” He wiggled his fingers. “Now put the last pair in my hands, as open as you can get them. And turn your back to me.” He coughed.
Liz took shallow breaths and kept her eyes open a slit as she followed his directions. She showed him where her hands were by touching his fingers, resisting the urge to jump when he touched her butt.
The cold metal circled her wrists, and the cell door clicked open. The guard grabbed Charlie’s arm, pulling him towards the back door. The smoke grew thicker as they reached it. Her throat tightened and burned, and the sensation reached her lungs. She was suffocating.
Eyes burning, Liz pushed her way past the guard and Charlie. She didn’t care if the guard shot her. She had to get out.
“Hey!”
The yell didn’t stop her. She pushed against the door with her shoulder and hip, and fresh air hit her in the face.
A hand grabbed her arm, pulling her off the path. She fell to the ground.
A second later, Charlie yelled. He fell, convulsing on the path.
The cop shook out his hand and grabbed his gun.
“Shit.” Jonah jumped over Charlie and rushed the cop, punching him in the face. “Liz, run!”
Unable to use her hands, Liz struggled to her feet and stumbled away from the building, heading for the street.
****
As Javier kept an eye on the front door, movement in his peripheral vision caught his attention. Liz, with her hands secured behind her back, ran across the lot.
Javier followed. “Liz!”
She slowed, looking at him, then lost her footing. Her shoulder and face hit the pavement.
Javier winced and grabbed her arm, helping her up. A new scrape graced her cheek and the skin around her eye.
“Go. Over there.” She tilted her chin up. “Jonah needs your help.”
“You want me to leave you here?”
“Go!”
He left her sitting in the middle of the lot and ran for the back of the building.
Panting, he arrived to find Charlie twitching on the ground and Jonah reaching for him. The other cop lay unconscious, blood streaming from his nose. Mattson stood over them, helpless with his hands secured in cuffs behind him.
Javier rushed to them, grabbing Charlie’s arm as the twitching stopped.
“I accidentally tased him.” Jonah groaned as he took Charlie’s other arm, helping him to his feet. “Can you walk?”
“Yeah.” Charlie stumbled to the side. “God, my head.”
“Do we have a key for these?” Javier pointed to the cuffs. Without waiting for an answer, he crouched and rummaged through the cop’s pockets. Finding only a dollar, he moved to the shirt pocket and then checked for a chain around the man’s neck. “There’s nothing here.”
Jonah, Charlie, and Mattson were already heading towards the lot.
Javier caught up. “I couldn’t find a key.”
“Forget it.” Jonah caught Charlie before he fell over again. “We’ll figure it out.”
Liz ran from under a tree on the edge of the lot and joined them. Together, they hurried to the car.
Chapter Fifteen
As Jonah drove towards the sun peeking above the eastern horizon, Liz squinted at the bright sunlight and stretched her shoulders the best she could with her hands cuffed behind her. “When can we get these things off?” The only things in sight were trees and desert, broken only by the unbending road—no buildings or other obvious places to get lock picking tools. Her irritation grew. Why hadn’t Jonah bought anything useful at the same time he bought pants to replace Charlie’s blood-stained and ripped up pair?
“We might not be able to until we get back to Robert.” Jonah changed lanes and accelerated. Since they’d left several hours earlier, he’d stopped only once, when the car needed gas. “I don’t want to buy anything that might trigger a search. There are cameras everywhere. A picking kit or even bobby pins could do it.” He put on his sunglasses.
“Where are we meeting Robert?”
“Missouri.”
“And where are we now?”
“Middle of New Mexico.”
After some quick math, Liz guessed she’d be stuck in the things for at least the next twelve hours. Her shoulders ached at the thought.
Charlie had lapsed in and out of consciousness through the night. He sat between Liz and Mattson in the back seat, and more than once he’d rested his head on her. She’d promptly shoved him over to his nephew. Now awake, he seemed more lucid than he had since they left.
She took the opportunity to ask the question that had nagged her since he’d spoken to her back at the station. “What can we do about that thing in your hand?”
Charlie shrugged.
“What thing?” Javier twisted around in t
he passenger seat.
“There’s a tracker implanted in the back of his hand. It’s how the cops found us.”
“Are you kidding me?” Javier huffed. “Is it still active?”
Tilting his head to the side, Charlie moaned and stretched. “I don’t know. Probably.”
Javier’s eyes widened as he looked around the car. “Does anyone else here see a problem with that?”
Charlie shook his head. “As long as we’re moving they won’t do anything.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Procedure. They don’t activate backup until the tracker is still for half an hour and the cop doesn’t check in and can’t be reached. Otherwise they’re tracking thousands of moving officials at once, twenty-four seven.”
“But you’re a fugitive! No way they’ll wait. They wouldn’t if they knew a cop was kidnapped, would they?” Javier flopped back into the seat. “Jonah, stop the car.”
Liz sat up straighter. “What are you doing?” Sure, the tracker was a problem, but she’d figured they’d leave Charlie in a hospital somewhere and not have to worry about it. He’d likely end up in custody again, but at least he had a chance at getting treatment for the gunshot wound that way.
“We can’t keep him with us. The cops will be after him. They won’t follow procedure.”
“Javier,” Liz leaned forward, “We can’t leave him in the middle of nowhere.”
“Why not? They’ll come pick him up in an hour. He said so himself.”
“But he knows where we’re going.” Liz sat back, crushing her numbing hands. “He’ll lead them to us either way.”
****
Charlie’s stomach knotted. This kid was serious about dumping him, wounded, in the middle of the desert. “Leave me in the next city. I won’t tell them where you’re going.” He kept the fact that the cameras covering almost every inch of a city would record the car and likely put out an APB for anywhere between there and Missouri.
But he’d told the truth when he said he wouldn’t say where Jonah was taking them. Missouri was a big place, and that was all the information Charlie had. There was more to it than that, though—while he still felt a strong sense of duty, those bastards, his supposed colleagues, had shot him for protecting his own. What was he supposed to do? Let them kill Mattson?
If Jonah dropped him off, even here in the desert, he’d get picked up. And questioned. And likely jailed . . . maybe even tortured for information. He shifted in his seat. There were no good solutions.
Several minutes of silence followed, which Javier broke after facing Jonah. “You have a knife, right?”
“Yeah.” Jonah glanced in the rearview mirror. “Why?”
“We can’t trust him not to talk. And we can’t take him with us with that thing in his hand. So . . .” Javier twisted around again. “You’re gonna help me get it out.”
“What?” Charlie scowled. “You think you’re going to cut it out?”
“Yep.”
“I don’t know where it is exactly.” He squeezed his fists, digging his nails into his palm.
“Look.” Javier leaned between the seats. “You’re the reason they found us. That thing in your hand is the reason. We can’t trust you not to talk if we dump you somewhere. That means we take out the chip and keep you with us, or . . .”
“You kill him,” Mattson stared out his window. “You wouldn’t have a choice.”
Charlie’s stomach knotted tighter.
Mattson faced Charlie, connecting with his eyes. “Let him cut it out. Please, Uncle Chuck.”
His nephew using that stupid nickname caught up to him. He forced himself to stay in control. He was the cop. Keeping his emotions buried was a job requirement, as he saw it, a requirement that had ultimately led to his wife leaving.
Mutilation or death. What a choice.
Of course, he could fight and escape. These people had a place to go. They wouldn’t waste too much time following him.
But that would mean he would likely never see Mattson again, a thought that hadn’t hit him so hard before. The only way he could prevent that was to agree.
“Okay.” Charlie cleared his throat. “Cut it out.”
****
Holding his breath, Javier steadied the knife over Charlie’s hand, as if a lack of oxygen would keep him from shaking. The warm, steady wind wasn’t helping his concentration. It carried a choking amount of dust at times.
Jonah had stopped at a remote rest stop, and Javier sat across from Charlie at an ancient-looking picnic table that was likely held together with dirt and old paint. Being in an isolated place would buy them more time, if they somehow broke the hour limit before the cops started heading their way. The chip had already been still for ten minutes.
“Just do it already.” Charlie had managed to get his cuffed hands in front of him, an act that required lying on the ground, folding himself in half and nearly dislocating his shoulder. Mattson and Liz tried the same move after seeing him do it. Mattson succeeded; Liz didn’t.
After more twisting, Charlie’s palms faced each other, and with his hands pancaked on the table, he gave Javier the easiest possible access.
“Okay.” Javier released his held breath. “Here goes.”
Squeezing the handle, Javier pressed the blade between the bones leading to Charlie’s middle and ring fingers.
Charlie smashed his eyes closed and screamed through his clenched teeth.
Javier forced himself to ignore the cries and pressed on. Blood ran down Charlie’s skin, pooling on the table.
Liz groaned and stared at the ground. Jonah stood behind Charlie, in case he needed to grab the cop’s arms and keep them still, but he focused on the sky.
Mattson had returned to the car.
After creating an inch-long incision, Javier dropped the knife and reached for the tweezers Jonah had retrieved from a first-aid kit, doing his best to steady them. “Describe what I’m looking for.”
Sweat glistened on Charlie’s bald head. Keeping his eyes closed, he took a long breath. “It’s small, about the size of a corn kernel. And it’s flat.”
“Okay.” Javier gently separated the skin, peering into the wound.
Charlie inhaled sharply.
After what felt like an hour of exploring, Javier spotted a thin fiber that resembled a grain of rice. He pinched it with the tweezers and pulled slowly, hoping it didn’t belong to Charlie’s hand.
The fiber resisted then snapped back into place.
“Ouch! Shit.” Charlie squeezed his eyes tighter.
“Sorry.” Javier winced. “That was attached.”
Liz stole Javier’s attention when she hurried back to the car, opening the door with her hands still restrained behind her back and making Mattson scoot over.
“Are you waiting for something?” Charlie had opened his eyes but kept his attention on Javier.
“No.” Javier took a long breath and poked the wound again, looking for any corners or straight edges. Something shiny caught his eye.
Steadying himself, he pulled gently, and this time there wasn’t resistance. The corn-sized, blood-covered chip emerged.
Javier’s heart raced. “I got it.”
Charlie opened his eyes, and upon seeing his hand, groaned. “I think I’m gonna be sick.”
****
With everyone back in the car, Liz leaned towards the driver’s seat. “Why Missouri? What’s there?”
Jonah started the engine. “That’s where the others headed yesterday. We didn’t know how long it would take to get you out, so we told them to go on ahead.”
“But why there? What’s the goal?”
“We’re not sure.” Jonah offered a small shrug. “All we know is there’s a facility that has much tighter security than anything we’ve seen and LifeFarm has something to do with it.”
Liz sat back as a foul taste took hold in the back of her throat. “So we’re just charging in with no plan.”
“Not exactly.” Jonah adjust
ed the AC vent. “We’ll do surveillance first, to make sure it’s something we need to pay attention to.”
Next to Liz, Charlie ran his fingers over the bandage encircling his hand.
She stared at him until he looked up. “Do you know what it is?”
He shook his head.
“Why should we believe you?”
He held up his hand. “I think it’s safe to say I’m on your side.”
For a reason Liz couldn’t identify, the urge to cry plowed into her. Maybe it was the images of Javier digging around in Charlie’s hand, or of Brenda’s lifeless body, or maybe it was the frustration of not being able to do something as simple as move her hands.
She squeezed her eyes closed, but tears escaped, and with nothing else available, she wiped her cheek and nose on her shoulder. Through the window, she watched the landscape race by.
“What’s wrong?” Javier asked, bringing her attention back to him.
Shaking her head, she ignored the new tears his question invited. “I don’t know. It’s just . . . a lot.” She cleared her throat. “I don’t think I can keep running from place to place. I’m tired.”
“The running is done, Marie. I mean, Liz.” Jonah scratched next to a dreadlock. “Missouri is more than where the unknown facility is. It’s the meeting place for all the Seeds. Robert has an underground location—”
“I don’t care!” Liz pursed her lips. “I don’t want to hear any more. When we get there, and I get these cuffs off, I’m leaving. I need to leave.”
“Liz—”
“Don’t, Javier. I’ve made up my mind.” LifeFarm had already taken her husband and her son. Why should they have more time from her, more heartache? What was the purpose in giving that to them?
Javier faced forward. “You know, if it weren’t for you, I would have died in Colorado.”
His words made her want to cry again, but she kept the tears at bay.
Chapter Sixteen
Two hours after crossing into Missouri, Jonah parked in front of a decrepit building. It might have been a storefront a hundred years ago, but all Javier could identify was a shadow where a sign had blocked the sun from bleaching the bricks behind it. A decaying street ran through the ghost of a town that likely resembled Hayes at one time.
The Seventh Seed Page 13
