by Ian Bull
“What are you doing?”
“There’s something in the clothes they gave us. Our shoes. A tracker. That’s how the drones can follow us. There were four drones, now there are only three.”
He turns over and sits up, banging his head. A tiny cloud of sandstone rains down on us. We kick off our shoes. “Good call. Bury yours. That’s how the motorcycle guys are tracking us. Save the laces.”
I yank out my shoelaces and stick them in my pants pocket, then dig two holes in the dry sand. It’s too dark to see. I drop my shoes in and push sand over them. Steven hasn’t buried his; instead, he holds his shoe in the one thin shaft of light coming down from the slice of sky above us. “Hold this steady for me.” He hands me the shoe.
“What the hell, Steven.”
I hold it steady. He pulls out the insole and yanks out the laces. The men whistle. They’re close. Steven motions for silence. He feels the fabric and bends it back and forth. There’s something in the toe. He pulls out a sliver of sharp glass from inside his sock.
How long has he been hiding that?
He saws at the tip of the shoe, but he’s cutting his fingers more than slicing the fabric.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are!” Men laugh.
The hairs on my neck stand up. I want to run but can’t.
“They went this way!”
“Down that hole? What are they? Rats?”
He gets the fabric off the toe of the shoe. A dime-sized silver disk shines in the light. Steven puts the tracker under his tongue, then paws at the dirt with his right hand. I help dig the hole. We toss in his shoe and cover it. He lies down, rolls over, and crawls.
Thank you, Lord, we’re moving.
There’s no more grunting, just silence. He worms his way down the narrow passage so fast, I scrape my hands and knees trying to keep up. The passage widens, and there’s another rock passage.
“Don’t move,” he whispers, then heads down the passage on the left. He’s gone for a minute, then shimmies back. He nods at me and we shimmy down the narrower passage to right. He can’t know where he’s going; he’s just guessing now.
We move in total darkness. The passage turns into a tunnel that’s so small Steven’s chest gets stuck and I have to push on his butt cheeks to help him through. Voices are close.
The passageway widens, and there’s cool air to our left and right. Is there space there? My hands reach out and feel an overhanging of rock on either side. He moves his mouth next to my ear. “Wedge in deep,” he whispers, and pushes me.
Steven rolls under the right overhang and I roll under the left.
My head hits a rock and white light flashes in my brain. I bite my lip to keep from screaming then push myself deep into the wedge. Sharp rocks dig into my side and back.
Something moves against my back, then four things, then six! Rats! Their squeaking is so high-pitched it hurts my ears. Now they’re flapping in my face.
They’re not rats, they’re bats. I lie back on the soft, wet sand and force myself rigid as dozens of flying mice flap against my face and their little claws rip into my shirt.
Our pursuers yell, “Shit! Fuck!”
The bats must be flying past them and out of the cave.
“One flew in my mouth!”
“Shut up!”
The bats buy us time. I wedge myself deeper under the ledge, squeezing into wet mud. It must be bat shit. Yuck.
We lie still. Steven is silent, but he’s there. I want to pee, but I’m afraid that they can smell it like tracking dogs. The whispering voices come close.
“Fuck, there’s no more signal.”
“Maybe it’s the rocks.”
“This handheld tracker is a piece of shit.”
“These cameras aren’t working either. We’re broadcasting nothing right now.”
Did you hear Heyman on the radio? He’s pissed.”
“Keep looking.”
“No one could fit down here.”
“Push through. I’ll hand you the flashlight.”
“What if there are more fucking bats down there?”
“Just do it.”
I slow my breathing. A hand brushes the sand an inch from my foot. I choose a sense memory—a spot of total stillness. The rock fifty yards offshore our family’s lake house on Lake Shebandowan in Northern Ontario. My childhood returns. The warm sun dries the cold lake water on my back. I hold my breath and body so still that the dragonflies rise off the lake after laying their eggs and land on my forearms to dry their wings. How many dragonflies will trust me? Two. Four. Six.
The men grunt. “Are you through?”
My mind sends me back to my rock in the lake. Safe and warm. I become the rock. Are the men there? It doesn’t matter. The dragonfly on my wrist opens its wings. They are like clear panes of glass that shimmer with color in the sunlight.
Three puffs of air touch my face. Steven’s breath. He’s an inch away. My hand finds his. Are they gone?
Don’t know. Wait for dark.
Can I pee?
Yes.
Thirsty.
Find water outside. Sleep. I wake you.
I love you.
I love you.
He pulls his hand away and rolls under his ledge.
43
STEVEN QUINTANA
Friday, March 15, 3:00 p.m. (PST)
Baja, California
Sleep. I wake you.
I love you.
I love you.
My hand pounds. It’s a throbbing stump. Crawling around in sand mixed with a thousand years of animal shit didn’t help it. My finger is gone. Those fuckers took my finger. If I don’t get medical help, I’ll lose my whole goddam hand.
Can I kill a man with one hand? I’ve never killed anyone hand to hand. Ranger training from over a decade ago doesn’t count.
Carl can. I’ve watched him do it when he saved me. He moves fast without thinking, and can do the deed without wrinkling his suit.
That’s it—channel Carl. Let him talk to me. Be my sage, Carl.
Don’t worry about what I can do that you can’t. Concentrate on what you can do.
Thank you, Carl, you’re right. What can I do? I can survive. Stay hidden. Watch and find weaknesses. Opportunities.
I can trust Julia to not freak out. My girl’s got grit. We’re a team. She’ll go down scratching and biting.
Or can I? She hesitated before running outside.
Don’t go there. Fear has no logic. She trusts you. Trust that.
Thank you, Carl. Focus. Water is out there, not in here. It’ll be a half-moon tonight. Enough darkness to stay hidden, and maybe enough light to find animal tracks. Piñon pines have edible seeds in their cones. Find piñon pines.
You’re moving too fast. Assess.
Thanks, Carl. Slow down. What do I have? Nothing. Not even shoes, for fuck sake.
Get a grip. What do you have? Not what you don’t have. Make your lists. Figure it out.
Thank you, Carl. Shoelaces. We can tie things. Three glass shards. We can cut things open. We can cut our clothes and use the fabric. I have a piece of tinfoil wrapping from the sandwiches stuck in my pocket. We have our urine, still in our bodies.
The world is silent. Just the wind. A light breeze flows between the rocks. Maybe that’s the way out. Or not. My eyes get heavy. I tell my body to sleep more than eight hours but less than twelve. The Army trained my body to do that, too, and it listens. Then, we’ll have the cover of night.
I sleep a long time, then dream that I’m surfing off Zuma beach. I can’t paddle out no matter how hard my arms pull. My left hand comes out of the water. It’s a stump.
Fear jolts me awake. It’s black. Where am I? I remember.
One thing at a time. First, find water.
I roll out from under the ledge and listen. There is no noise except for a light wind high up between the towering rocks. The thin line of blue sky that was there during the day is now a dark black streak dotted with stars.
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Time to move. I roll under the opposite ledge and locate Julia’s breathing. I put my hand on her chest, so she doesn’t sit up fast and smash her skull. Still, she tries, then calms down. Our hands touch, and we squeeze 1,2,3.
It’s time.
I crawl. Julia follows. It’s a labyrinth. We could be in here for days if I’m not careful. And what if I find another exit? If they’re smart (and they are), they have a man at every rabbit hole coming out of this warren. I make right turns with Julia touching my socks to let me know she’s there. I make left turns. What am I doing? My hand hurts. Assholes.
I’m dizzy, and it’s not from banging my head. Feverish. I need something to clear my brain. Nausea. Stop. Exhale. Breathe ten times.
Quintana, you’re losing Situational Awareness. They took a part of you. Don’t let the pain steal your attention, as well. That is yours. Your mind is yours. Focus.
He’s right. It’s mental fog. Think. Do we go back? Even if I could, they’re waiting.
Julia grabs my right hand and squeezes. Up.
What?
Up, chimney climb.
Me one hand.
We met one-arm surfer in Hawaii. She caught more waves than you.
Ouch. Between Julia’s messages and Carl talking in my head, a guy can’t slack for a second.
But, she’s right; it’s the way. My socks go in my pocket. This has to be done barefoot. I then stand up, squeezing my shoulders up into the narrow slot. It’s like forcing myself in the space between brick buildings. I reach to my right and Julia grabs my hand.
Red Rock.
That’s a nice memory. Red Rock is thirty minutes outside Las Vegas. We spent a long weekend rock climbing a dozen different pitches there, including a chimney shimmy four hundred feet straight up. I squeeze back yes.
We start. Knees against the front wall, spines against the back wall, and we slide our backs up. Our hands go out to stabilize, and we slide up our knees. We just climbed two feet. Only one hundred more feet to go.
Julia climbs and waits for me to catch up. She’s better at this than I am. She uses her strong legs, not her arms, like wooden beams between two stone walls.
We’re halfway up and moonlight shines down from above. Julia is a human shape again in the gray light. The slot widens. Time to turn sideways. We face each other, hands and feet, left and right, on opposite walls. We sink into it so our bones take the weight and not our muscles.
One leg up, opposite hand up, other leg up, other hand up. My left hand is throbbing jelly surrounding a rock of pain.
She’s strong enough that she can take her right hand off the wall. She touches my trembling left arm and squeezes. Good job, Surfer Boy.
She leans in, so I can whisper. “You, too, movie star.”
My legs are cramping. The slice of sky is bigger. Almost here. Foot up, hand up, other foot, other—
My foot slips. I throw myself against the wall. My left cheek grinds against the sandstone as I slide ten feet before stopping. The rock gives my face road rash and jars my dental implant loose. Again? It’s the same dental implant I got after Julia kicked out my tooth four years ago. That was the first time she ever touched me.
Julia climbs down until we’re even. She whispers in my ear. “Why are you laughing? Stop fooling around.”
I hear Carl in my head. He doesn’t need tough love right now, Julia.
Tell her, Carl. “I’m missing a finger remember?” I whisper back.
She climbs like a spider. Screw her for making it look so easy. Glancing up, Julia’s black silhouette in the weak moonlight is a perfect Da Vinci man of outstretched arms and legs. Nice. I’ve still got enough mojo to notice that. Another good sign.
I prop my thighs on either rock wall and chimney climb back up. My quads and hamstrings are so flooded with ureic acid that they knot in front and back.
Rest. Climb. Rest. Climb.
The slot widens and footholds appear. I am just below Julia. The moonlight turns her silhouette to shades of gray now. I reach for a handhold and touch water in a tiny sandstone ledge. Yes! It’s late winter and still cool enough that rainwater trapped in the shade doesn’t evaporate. It could be half-full of bat shit and I’d still drink it.
Julia knows I found something and descends until we are just inches apart. I pull out a sock from by pocket, jam it in until it’s soaked, then hand it up to her.
Julia sets her legs, grabs it, and wrings the filthy cotton sock into her mouth. “That’s gross going down, but it feels good once it’s inside.”
I do it again with my other sock and suck every last drop out of it. My throat loosens. My legs regain strength. It’s amazing what one cup of water will do. We repeat the process four times until there’s nothing left.
“I found tiny eggs,” Julia whispers. “A bird’s nest in the rock.”
“Good eyes. Crack them into your mouth.”
“What if there’s a chick inside?”
“Even better. Hand me one.”
She hands me an egg the size of my thumb and I drop the whole thing in my mouth. I bite, letting the warm fluid flood my mouth. I chew, and let the shells dribble from my mouth, then swallow the warm goop. It tastes wonderful.
“That tastes so good,” Julia whispers.
Desperation heightens our senses. Dirt would taste good right now. I climb up and pass her, ignoring the pain in my hand.
“Show-off,” she whispers, and climbs parallel to me, two feet away.
I reach the lip and peek over. Nothing. I crawl out and lie flat. Julia climbs out and lies next to me. I hear only wind, but they are out there. The moon is low on the horizon. It will set soon, which will give us an hour of darkness before dawn starts. Our hands touch. She squeezes first. Are they out there?
Yes. Wait for total darkness. Then move. No noise.
Hungry and thirsty.
Me too. I find more.
I hope I can. My mind and body are failing.
I drift into fever sleep. She squeezes me hard. Plan?
Been sending Carl signals.
What if they don’t see it?
Trust. Do what I say when time comes.
44
CARL WEBB
Saturday, March 16, 4:00 a.m. (PST)
California
The motel room is cold. The FBI is supposed to call, but my phone doesn’t work.
Someone taps my shoulder.
Mendoza and Marsh are standing, frozen and dead.
“Do something,” Mendoza says.
“You should have stayed,” Marsh says.
I jolt awake for the fifth time from the same horrible dream. Sleeping in twenty-minute increments doesn’t work. And this fancy couch hurts my back.
I need to be on a plane. I’d sleep on a plane, because I’d be on the way to where I can make a difference. Something has to happen soon.
I check my Omega. It’s 4:00 a.m. It’s 6:00 a.m. in Wisconsin. Vanessa and I discovered the bodies of Mendoza and Marsh at midnight yesterday, which was thirty hours ago. If the bodies were taken to Milwaukee, the county coroner may not have examined them until yesterday afternoon. Gum or McCusker will call me today. They must. Otherwise, I’ll get my office to call them nonstop until someone calls me back.
It’s quiet except for the sound of waves hitting the beach outside. The house is dark. I peek over the edge of the couch. Glenn is the only one still at his station. Darna and Rafael had the good sense to shower and crawl into the guest bed to rest. Only Glenn keeps going. Always on point, he only gets up from his chair to go to the bathroom.
I get up and walk behind him. The Danger Game app is on one monitor. The title on the screen says Watch our previous episodes! New live show coming! On another monitor, he scrolls through Rescue Game clue submissions, while, on a third monitor, black-and-white aerial images of yachts in harbors click past, one by one.
“You’re breathing on me.”
“Sorry.”
“I wrote a program. The computer is sca
nning five thousand photos for yacht hulls similar to the hull on Clairvoyance and Second Sight.”
“Anything?”
“I would have told you.”
A machine noise starts on the other side of the house. It leads me to the garage.
Trishelle pulls clothes out of the dryer.
“That’s a smart distraction.”
“This house has a mighty strong stank, so I grabbed Darna and Rafael’s uniforms after they crashed. How are you?”
“Waiting for McCusker and Gum to call us and give us help. Waiting for more clues. Waiting for the show to go live again.”
She shakes out their warm clothes and folds them faster than a Macy’s sales clerk, which she probably was once. “At least Steven and Julia are alive.”
“Yes.” Marsh and Mendoza, however, are not.
She hands me the folded clothes along with a terrycloth robe. “Put Darna and Rafa’s clothes next to their beds, then tell Glenn to strip and put the robe on. I need to wash his clothes too. He smells like gym socks mixed with a cheese factory.”
I put the Hilario kids’ clothes by the guest bedroom door, then go into the dining room and stick the robe in Glenn’s face. “Put this on and give me your clothes.”
He surprises me by standing up, stripping nude in front of me and putting on the plush robe. His eyes never leave his monitors. “You should get the paper jumpsuits that the house painters wear. I like to wear those on cyber missions. Disposable.”
I jam his toxic waste into a trash bag. “So, this craziness is par for the course for you?”
“It’s no worse than being a programming drone for a startup in Silicon Valley.”
I go back to the garage and hand the bag of poisoned clothes to Trishelle, then retreat. By the time I get back to the dining room, Darna and Rafael are in there, buttoning up their clean uniforms. They sit back down at their computers on either side of Glenn.
“Nice robe, Hef,” Rafael says, and they both snicker.
Glenn frowns. “Just do your jobs, Dog Eaters.”
“Please keep the racist comments to a minimum, Major Ass Burger.”
