A Rumor of Real Irish Tea (Annals of Altair Book 2)

by Kate Stradling

  Hummer yanked his older brother to the store’s door; the moment it swung open, they could hear the content of the report.

  “Authorities are still unsure how many young victims may actually be involved in this kidnapping ring,” a well-manicured reporter said as the four children gathered in front of the largest television on display. “Federal and local police believe the perpetrators belong to one of a handful of domestic terrorist groups, and that they are attempting to indoctrinate these children to their extremist views in order to build up their membership. Phoenix residents are cautioned not to approach any suspected victims, but they’re encouraged to keep an eye on their neighborhoods for any signs of suspicious behavior, especially around vacant or recently rented properties. And, as always, if you have any information regarding any of these four children”—here the pictures of Maddie and Alex North joined a split screen of the other two sketches—“you are encouraged to call our national hotline at—”

  “Maybe we should call ourselves in,” said Hummer vaguely.

  Honey shoved her elbow into his ribs. “Idiot!” she hissed, and she jerked him and Hawk away from the television display, toward a more sheltered corner of the store. Happy followed faithfully behind. Once they were safe from the prying eyes of customers, Honey stomped on her older brother’s toes for good measure. “Pull yourself together, Hummer. That reporter’s obviously a projector.”

  He blinked away the short-lived haze of influence. “Not fair!” he cried with dawning realization. “They’re… they’re programming people to look for us!”

  “What’s not fair is that there are probably a dozen or more calls into the national hotline by now,” said Hawk grimly, “and within such a short distance of one of our safe houses, too. We need an emergency exit strategy.”

  “I can drive a getaway car,” said Hummer.

  Hawk turned to Honey. “Can you get us some car keys?”

  “Piece of cake,” she said, and she bolted away.

  “We’ll have to abandon the car at a neutral point and use different transportation to get to our next place,” Hawk told Hummer. “Any ideas?”

  “We can split up again,” said Hummer uncertainly. “Beyond that, I don’t know. Before now, the public has only been looking for two kids, not four. We’re going to stick out like a sore thumb wherever we go.”

  “Happy, do you have any ideas?” Hawk asked.

  The six-year-old shook his head, all of his energy focused on containing his growing panic. The emotion emanated from him in waves.

  “Where’s Honey?” asked Hummer with a nervous glance around the store.

  She reappeared a moment later, keys hooked on her thumb. A quick assessment of her three brothers had her running. She practically collided with the youngest, enveloping him in a protective hug. “It’s okay, Happy. We’re going to be okay. It’s okay.”

  He nodded into her shoulder, his body still taut with anxiety.

  Honey extended the keys to Hummer. “It’s a blue car parked just outside,” she said. “You go first, and we’ll follow.”

  Hummer darted from the store and out into the parking lot.

  “The lady who owns the car was really proud of her parking space,” Honey said to Hawk. “I told her to take her time shopping. She seemed nice.”

  “We’ll leave the car somewhere easy to find,” said Hawk reassuringly. “It’s not like we can drive it to another safe house anyway. Are you ready to go, Happy?”

  The six-year-old nodded, and together the three linked hands and bolted for the exit. Honey suddenly dug in her heels as they came to the door. “Listen up, everyone!” she called, much to Hawk’s horror.

  Every person in the small store turned their attention upon her. The televisions hummed with NPNN reports in the background, but she raised her voice to drown them out.

  “The government is going to come and put you all in prison. You need to hide! If they find you, don’t answer any of their questions, or you’ll never see your families again. Quick! Go hide, now!”

  Utter panic descended. Hawk yanked Honey out the door. “What was that?” he asked as they all scrambled into the waiting blue car. “Your projection’s going to wear off, and they’ll tell the GCA exactly how we escaped!”

  “What’d she do now?” Hummer asked at the wheel. He put the car into gear and tore out of the parking space the moment the door shut behind them.

  “She just told them that the government was coming to arrest them all,” Hawk said angrily. “The last thing we needed was a big scene back there!”

  In the back seat, Honey made a face. “The projection will wear off, but the emotions linger. People are paranoid, and if you send them into panic, they’ll stay there for longer than they would with a regular projection. And since Happy was already on the verge of panic, I played it up a bit.” She looped a protective arm around her little brother and hugged him close.

  “I hate to say this,” said Hummer to Hawk, “but she probably did the right thing. Fear is a funny motivator—you don’t have to be a projector to use it properly.”

  Despite the logic behind this reasoning, Hawk still didn’t like it. “Where are we going?” he asked.

  “Nowhere residential,” Hummer said. “They’ve got every neighborhood in the city on the lookout for some bogus kidnapping ring. Is Revere following us?”

  “Yes,” said Hawk, and he glanced up to see the raven gliding through the blue sky above. The visual check wasn’t necessary, but it reassured him.

  “GCA sedan on the left,” said Hummer, and the four children instinctively ducked as a black car whizzed by them on the opposite side of the road, presumably headed straight for the strip mall they had left behind.

  “I know why we duck, Hummer, but could you please keep your eyes on the road?” Honey said as she straightened again.

  “I’ve got it under control,” he muttered. Traffic on a Saturday morning was nothing to get concerned about. He obeyed the speed-limit laws so as not to draw attention to them, and everything else went smoothly.

  They abandoned the car in a public lot and boarded the mass transit system in pairs. Honey and Hummer moved to the back of the bus to sit alone, while Hawk and Happy lingered by a group of teenagers near the front. The bus was sparsely populated, and no one paid them any heed. They exited several stops down the line, tagging behind the oblivious teens, but then peeled away into a shadowed alley.

  Ever vigilant in following them, Revere perched himself on a security camera that overlooked the spot. He intuitively lowered one wing to block the lens.

  “These are our three options,” said Hummer, and he revealed a short list of their leased properties. “There are two commercial spaces and one industrial. They all have more than one exit and they’re all situated pretty well if we need to get away. If we’re going to stay in Phoenix, our only other choice is to rent a hotel room for the night.”

  “There’s no reason we have to stay here,” said Hawk. “It might be better just to cut and run.”

  “Weekend train schedules are spotty,” Hummer said. “If we can hunker down until Monday, we may have a better chance of getting out undetected.”

  The four children exchanged uncertain glances. “My vote is for this place,” said Honey, and she stabbed her finger at the second address on the list. “And I’m not trying to project that onto any of you.”

  “You don’t need to,” said Hummer. “That one is my choice as well.”

  “Did you two plan this in the back of the bus?” Hawk asked suspiciously.

  Hummer made a face. “When have Honey and I ever been able to plan anything together?”

  “If that’s the obvious choice to us,” said Hawk, “will it be obvious to the people looking for us?”

  “We have to get off the streets,” Hummer answered grimly. “We’re taking a bigger chance out here than we would be in any one of these spots. I’m not sure how much longer Revere can block that camera feed without raising suspicions, either
,” he added.

  Hawk glanced up at the raven, who cawed encouragingly at him. “All right,” he said reluctantly. “Let’s go.”

  XVIII

  Ten Minutes Too Late

  August 2, 11:07am mst, in transit, Phoenix

  Emily had a massive headache pressing down on her, one which no amount of rubbing at her temples would relieve. The lumpy, GCA-issued pillow she’d been sleeping on was the most likely culprit, but she preferred to blame the massive levels of stress she currently battled. Capturing the Wests was of utmost importance, but right at this moment she wished the driver of the van she was riding in would take the corners just a little slower.

  “We’ll be there in a couple of minutes,” said a GCA agent from the front seat.

  She shifted her gaze first to Oliver, who looked grim and determined, and then to Quincy, who kept her eyes fixed on her hands. The back of the van was configured with seats along both sides facing one another. They had come in through the doors at the rear, and Emily felt like a SWAT team member from an old action movie as they raced through the city to their destination.

  Whatever complaints she had against Veronica Porcher, she had to admit that the beautiful reporter’s news alerts were working. Less than ten minutes ago, Ben had burst into the fifth-floor kitchenette and ordered Quincy and Oliver down to the parking garage. The Wests had been spotted along a residential street.

  “You sure they’re not trying to hit up another GCA office by calling in phony reports?” Oliver had asked acerbically.

  “The calls are all coming from the same area as the report,” said Ben. “Two days ago, that wasn’t the case.”

  “So we’re going to go nab them in broad daylight?” Quincy asked with thinly veiled concern.

  He smiled ruefully. “I’m just following the general’s orders. Hurry now. You’ll be riding in the van with a few members of the elite retrieval squad.”

  The “elite retrieval squad,” as it turned out, was comprised of military-type men suited in black uniforms and armed with tranquilizer guns. Emily recognized among them a few GCA agents from the previous afternoon. The squad was probably a small division of the enormous government agency.

  Up until a month ago she had assumed that the GCA only dealt with government-sanctioned volunteer work and defending civil liberties. How many more times over the course of her internship would she have to recalibrate her understanding?

  Blissfully, Ben was riding in another car with General Stone. Emily’s head couldn’t stand his extended presence this morning without splitting wide open. No one had bothered to tell them how long the car ride would be, and there were no windows in the back for her to direct her attention, so she was left to stare at the floor and pray for a speedy arrival.

  “Are you all right?” asked Alyson from the seat across from her. “You look a little pale.”

  “It’s just a headache,” said Emily dismissively. “I took some painkillers back at the office. I’m waiting for them to kick in.” It was a lie, but she didn’t want Alyson’s help or sympathy. Oliver, who knew perfectly well that she hadn’t popped any pills within the last hour, shot her a skeptical glance, which she studiously ignored.

  They really needed to catch the Wests. Then she could get shipped back to Prometheus—A or F, she didn’t care—and not have to be subjected to the likes of Ben Birchard and Veronica Porcher. Her dislike of both was petty, but she couldn’t help it. Ben seemed to be the guardian of all important information, and Veronica was the embodiment of the privileged elite. To a nothing-nobody handler like Emily, their very existence was a reminder of her insignificance.

  Maybe she wasn’t cut out for government work after all.

  The van swerved around one final corner before coming to rest in the parking lot of a strip mall. “Everybody out,” said the squad member in the front passenger seat, and one of his fellows in the back opened the door to the bright Arizona sun. Emily followed Oliver, who had already hopped down to the asphalt. She blinked against the brightness and looked around herself.

  Law-enforcement vehicles and black government sedans infested the whole place. Ordinary citizens lined the walls, talking with policemen or GCA agents. Emily spotted General Stone striding purposefully toward the van, with Ben close on his heels.

  “Get those two nulls over here,” he bellowed.

  “There’s no way they’re still here,” Oliver muttered as an agent led him forward. Emily, following behind him, was inclined to agree. Unless the Wests had holed up in one of these storefronts, there was no chance that they would hang around a place so crawling with cops. A quick survey of the trees in the parking lot showed no unusual bird presence. From past experience, she was fairly certain that Hawk West would be summoning them in droves if he was in any danger.

  “They’re long gone,” said Ben. She jumped, unaware that he had fallen in step beside her. “This place is an absolute mess.”

  “What does General Stone want with Oliver and Quincy, then?” Emily asked. Ahead, the two null-projectors were being escorted inside an electronics store.

  “He probably thinks they can help calm some of the panic in there. It’s doubtful. I was talking to one of the agents from the South Phoenix office. They were the first on the scene here. According to his timetable the Wests have been gone for a quarter of an hour at least. No single projection lasts that long unless the recipient is prone to that sort of behavior already.”

  Emily stared at him. “How much sooner than us did you arrive?” He had been the one to usher them to the parking garage at the downtown branch. He and the general shouldn’t have been too far ahead of the van. So what, he’d barely stepped foot on the scene and was already gleaning information from the other offices?

  He read her confusion perfectly. “I spoke to him on the phone, in the car on the way here,” he said, and he waved his cell phone for emphasis.

  Of course he had. “So you know agents from the other Phoenix offices? Why am I not surprised?”

  “I’ve never met the man in my life,” Ben said, “though I suppose he’s around here somewhere.” He scanned the parking lot with vague disinterest. Beneath her incredulous gaze, he continued. “There’s a fine art to collecting information. You don’t want to call someone too low on the chain of command, but you don’t want to bother the top dog, either. It’s a pretty safe bet to contact a mid-level agent and speak to him authoritatively. You can discover just about anything you need to know that way. Or, well, it worked out this time. I was able to brief General Stone before we even set foot on the premises. He was most impressed.”

  “Do you always brag about yourself so openly?” she asked.

  Ben winked. “Only to the pretty girls. And here’s General Stone bringing our precious little resources back outside. General, sir,” he said, and he raised one finger to catch that man’s attention.

  General Stone looked like he was going to crush the next person who spoke to him. Emily surmised that all had not gone as anticipated inside the store. Secretly she hoped he would take his wrath out on Ben.

  “What is it, Birchard?” he asked tersely.

  That hostile tone of voice didn’t faze Ben in the least. “I took the liberty of acquiring the suspicious properties list from Agent Knox this morning. One of the addresses is within half a mile of here. It might be worth sending someone over to investigate.”

  Stone grunted. “There’s certainly nothing else for us to do here. Pull together the agents from the downtown office and give them that address. We’ll leave the cleanup here for someone else.”

  By this Emily figured she was meant to escort Oliver back to the van. “What did you do in that store?” she asked as she rejoined him.

  He grunted. “Nothing. It was filled with a flock of civilians in various stages of hysteria. They weren’t under any projection, so there was nothing Quincy or I could do. Apparently,” he added before Emily could ask any follow-up questions, “Honey West told them all that the government was comi
ng to arrest them, and that they needed to hide or they’d never see their families again.”

  “But… that would have been a projection,” said Emily in confusion. “So why…?”

  “The projection wore off,” Oliver said irritably. “It wore off a while ago. Honey just tapped into some primal fear these people have. It’s brain-stem activity, fight or flight. She told them to hide, though, so they didn’t get the chance to run away before the government actually did arrive. What were you talking to Birchard about?”

  “His impressive information-gathering techniques,” said Emily with a sour frown. “Honestly, that man is so full of himself it’s a wonder he can talk without drooling his own guts out.”

  Oliver paused in the act of climbing up into the van to favor her with an incredulous look.

  “What?” said Emily defensively.

  “I’m trying to figure out if that even makes sense.”

  “Get in the van,” she said, and she swatted the back of his head for emphasis. They were the first ones there, Quincy and Alyson having lingered behind by the electronics storefront. Emily and Oliver were already strapped into their seats before the other agents returned.

  To her dismay, Ben appeared at the end of the line. “Are we all here?” he asked as he climbed in, briefcase in one hand. “Let’s get on our way, then.”

  “What about Quincy and Alyson?” Emily asked.

  He tipped his head behind, to the parking lot. “They’re going with General Stone.”

  “Why?”

  A mischievous grin flashed across his face. “You really want to know?” Before she could fashion a suitable reply, he climbed into the seat next to her. From his briefcase he extracted a hand-held device—the same one she had seen him using back at Prom-F—and flipped on the screen.

  An unpleasantly familiar face appeared. “I’m on location in Phoenix, Arizona with breaking news in the kidnapping of Maddie and Alex North,” Veronica Porcher was saying. Behind her, the strip mall and its parking lot acted as her backdrop.