Hugging the laptop to her chest, Jenna threw her free hand out, trying to snag the guardrail to arrest her slide, but before she could do so, her feet hit the landing near the elevation gears. Sophia seemed to be gliding down the steps, her feet barely touching as she made huge bounds. With an excruciating effort, Jenna hauled herself erect and started across the landing, but before she could take two steps, Sophia was there.
So fast.
She darted in front of Jenna, blocking her access to the descending stairs. “Jenna, don’t do this.” There was anger in the woman’s tone, but something else, too. Understanding. “We all had to deal with this. It will pass, and then you’ll see that this is what has to be done. Trust us. Trust yourself.”
Trust? She had asked Noah to trust her. Mercy had trusted her, surrendering herself to Cort’s custody just so Jenna could get this far. Right now, Jenna was putting her trust in that inner voice of reason that didn’t belong to the teacher speaking through her DNA. It was the ability Noah had instilled in her to detect falsehood, to know when something wasn’t right.
But what if she was wrong?
Jenna gripped the laptop in both hands, raising it as if preparing to swat a fly. “If you don’t move,” she said in a low menacing voice, “I’ll go through you.”
Sophia shook her head slowly. Jenna saw the other woman’s eyes dart back and forth, and then settle on the computer like a compass needle pointing true north. Sophia might have been older and more experienced with her gifts, but Jenna had been trained to look for the signs that would forecast an attack, and she had been taught how to fight back. As if catching a glimpse of the future, Jenna saw Sophia start to move and knew exactly what the woman was going to do. As Sophia reached for the computer, Jenna used the laptop like a shield, deflecting the grasping hands. She side-stepped, allowing Sophia’s momentum to carry her forward. As Sophia passed her, Jenna spun on her heel, one leg extended, to sweep Sophia’s legs out from under her.
Sophia went down hard. The landing shuddered with the impact. Jenna started for the descending stairs, but Sophia was back up in a heartbeat, and with a feral growl made more fierce by the mask of blood streaming from split lips, she charged again. The woman moved with inhuman speed, but Jenna, somehow, moved faster. She dodged back, a reflex drilled into her from hours spent at the dojo, and Sophia shot past again.
In a sickening premonition, Jenna saw what was about to happen. She was powerless to prevent it. Sophia hit the descending rail at an angle and flipped over it, out into empty space. Her head hit the hard metal floor on her way over and when Jenna saw the woman’s face again, her eyes were closed. Unconscious. Totally unaware that her life was about to end.
Jenna felt as if something had been ripped out of her.
The unconscious Sophia did not cry out as she fell, but a scream from above echoed the pain in Jenna’s heart.
“No!” Jarrod’s shout was punctuated by a dull thud.
Jenna tore her eyes away from the bloody stain on the immaculate white rail and looked up to see Jarrod on the upper landing. His face, so like her own, was twisted with grief and rage, but when he met Jenna’s eyes, the emotions hardened into deadly resolve. With agonizing deliberateness, he reached under his jacket and drew a gun.
The sight of the pistol broke Jenna out of her paralysis, and she lurched into motion. Passing the red streaks that marked the spot where her sister had fallen, she headed down the stairs. A bullet struck the rail in front of her, throwing up a shower of yellow sparks. Jenna kept going, one hand resting on the rail, the other clutching the computer. Her feet tapped out a quick staccato rhythm, but she took the steps cautiously, one at a time, resisting the urge to bound as Sophia had done. A fall now would be disastrous. Jarrod held his fire, and Jenna knew without looking that he was giving chase. Even if he didn’t need the laptop, he would want revenge.
Before she could reach the lower landing, she felt the vibrations of Jarrod’s feet on the flight above her.
“Jenna! Stop! I will shoot you!”
She ignored the threat, reached the landing and pivoted onto the final staircase. Sophia lay at the base of the stairs, unmoving, like so much roadkill. Jenna felt a pang of self-loathing as she leapt from the penultimate step, vaulting over the body. The welcome solidity of the desert floor beneath her feet gave her the impetus to push on.
The Jeep was just twenty yards away, but as she turned toward it, Jarrod’s pistol barked again. Bullets peppered the dirt in her path, too close for comfort, and she peeled off, seeking refuge beneath the dish.
Jarrod wasn’t going to let her reach the Jeep. But the track maintenance truck was a lot closer.
Jarrod fired again as soon as she broke from cover, but he had not yet divined her intention. The shot sent up a spray of dust that would have been directly in her path if she had run for the Jeep. Before he could correct his aim, she reached the truck and slid inside.
The keys were in the ignition. That was the good news. The bad news was that the truck was facing the base of the antenna and there was no way to turn it around. Jenna started the engine, threw the transmission into ‘reverse’ and glanced out the window toward Jarrod.
He strode toward her, eyes calculating, weapon aimed, ready to kill. Behind him, the dish loomed massive, blotting out the solid blue sky—but not all of it. What Jenna saw above the dish froze her in place and kept her from hitting the gas. Her eyes widened, tracking the object in the sky. “Ten minutes,” she said, realizing that Cort’s countdown had finished.
A single drone peeled away from a trail of smoke leading straight toward her and Jarrod, who must have seen the surprise in her eyes, and their direction.
Without missing a step, Jarrod looked back over his shoulder. The small missile streaked toward them. There was no engine roar as the projectile outpaced its own sound waves. It would arrive silently, leaving nothing alive to hear its power.
Jarrod raised his free hand toward the missile. His fingers twitched, and then he yanked his arm down, pulling the missile down with it as though he had reached out and plucked it from the sky.
The missile’s new trajectory brought it down into the far side of the massive dish. She felt the impact shake the ground beneath her. The telescope’s dish shattered and burst, metal panels spiraling away from a fiery explosion. And then the sound, a rattling roar, pulsed through her body. She responded to the concussion by going rigid and slamming her foot down on the gas pedal.
As the vehicle moved out into the open, Jenna watched the gigantic radio telescope crumble as a column of black smoke rose up from its core.
Rounds peppered the truck’s frame as Jarrod’s focus shifted back to Jenna. The passenger window shattered, showering Jenna with tiny particles, but Jarrod didn’t have a clear shot at her. In a few seconds, the truck was rolling backward. Jenna felt the steering wheel turn beneath her light grip, and she had to resist the urge to seize control. The truck was designed to follow the rails. If she tried to steer, it could jump the track.
It also meant there was nothing she could do to avoid the shards of metal debris now raining down around her. While many of the large metal panels that made up the telescope’s dish fluttered awkwardly down from above, just as many descended like giant throwing stars, impaling the desert floor alongside a cloud of screws, nuts, bolts and smaller, sheared bits of framing.
All around her, the desert became littered by debris. Several of the large panels fell alongside the backwards-speeding truck, while one tore into the tracks right in front of her, where the truck had been just a second before. The truck shook with a shriek of metal as a four-foot metal beam impaled the roof and slid into the passenger seat cushion. Jenna shouted in surprise, but never let off the gas, and soon, she was out of range of the still-falling debris.
The truck swung onto the mainline, its rear pointing back toward the hub. Jenna pushed the gas pedal a little harder. The engine revved loudly and the tachometer jumped into the red, but the speedometer r
efused to climb past thirty miles per hour. To her front, she saw Jarrod running for the Jeep, one hand raised up toward the deadly falling debris, which somehow steered clear of him.
How is he doing that? Jenna wondered, but even as the thought crossed her mind, a single word came to her: psychokinesis—the ability to affect the physical world without actual contact. Better known as telekinesis, she always thought the ability was the stuff of science fiction and crackpots. Yet Jarrod seemed to have mastered the ability.
But I can’t do that, she thought, and then she realized that she was no longer the same Jenna she remembered. Maybe she could? As she searched her memory, she gasped. Had she been using psychokinesis all along? It could explain her influence over people, the drone crash in the Everglades, the impossible wall jump in Miami and the way Cort’s men lowered their weapons against their will. She had this ability before, she realized, but was it stronger now?
Movement pulled Jenna from her thoughts. and she whispered, “Shit.” In her haste to reach the antenna, it had not occurred to her to take the Jeep’s keys. As the Jeep lurched into motion, she looked behind her at the miniscule buildings of the VLA headquarters. How far out was she? Three or four miles?
Plenty of time for Jarrod to intercept her, and there wasn’t a thing she could do to fight back.
61
6:11 p.m.
Jarrod closed the distance in the first minute. Jenna could see the Jeep, trailing a monstrous dust cloud, racing toward her as if the track maintenance vehicle was standing still. He pulled alongside her and matched her speed, pacing her for another minute, as if trying to decide what to do next. Jenna hoped he would consider it a few minutes longer, putting her closer to the control building and safety.
The Jeep pulled away, moving several hundred feet ahead of the slower pickup, then it veered onto the rails, right in the path of the lumbering truck. Jenna grasped what Jarrod was attempting, but there was nothing she could do to counter the move.
The Jeep shuddered over the ties, shedding speed, growing large in the pickup’s rear view. Jenna kept her foot on the gas pedal, watching as the gap between the vehicles shrank to nothing. A sense of déjà vu swept through her. She was playing chicken yet again, only this time, swerving at the last second wasn’t an option. Neither was stopping. At the last instant, she turned forward and braced for the collision.
The pickup jolted with the impact. There was a dull thump, like an explosion, followed by the crunch of metal and fiberglass grinding together. The pickup’s engine strained against the added load, but the high gear ratio of ‘reverse’ was up to the challenge, and the truck pushed the SUV along, in spite of the locked brakes. The heavy steel undercarriage and metal wheels kept the truck on course, while the Jeep’s tires skipped and juddered over the ties. After just a few seconds of this punishing treatment, one of the SUV’s wheels snagged the ground and the entire vehicle spun sideways off the tracks, allowing the modified pickup to charge ahead once more.
Jarrod got the Jeep back under control and resumed the chase, but Jenna was nearly at her destination. Less than a quarter of a mile away stood the enormous hangar she had passed earlier. Beyond that was the rail maintenance yard, and just a little further past that was the control center. If she had to, she could run the rest of the way. Jarrod must have realized this, too. Instead of trying to get ahead of the pickup, he aimed the front end of the Jeep at the rail truck and punched the accelerator. Once again, there was nothing Jenna could do but watch the inevitable happen.
The world jumped sideways.
The broadside collision blasted the pickup off the tracks. Jenna was thrown around the interior like the beads in a baby’s rattle, but she held on to the steering wheel and kept the gas pedal pressed to floor. Despite being designed for use on metal rails, the steel wheels grabbed hold of the desert floor and the pickup kept moving under its own power. The Jeep tore free with another crunch, but Jarrod backed off only long enough to make another run at her.
Jenna stomped on the brakes and hauled the wheel to the side. The modified pickup couldn’t turn like a regular car, but it carved out a broad arc, avoiding another collision. The mangled Jeep shot past, missing by mere inches. Before Jarrod could come around for another pass, Jenna put the truck in ‘drive’ and hit the gas.
The truck’s wheels cut deep furrows into the hardpan and spun uselessly. After a few seconds, it broke free of inertia and rolled forward, picking up speed.
The engine revved through first gear and then the transmission shifted to the next gear and Jenna felt the truck gaining speed. The truck resisted her efforts to steer. The wheels, designed to run on long stretches of straight track, refused to turn more than a few degrees. The maintenance building lay just ahead and Jenna could see that she would never be able to steer around it.
I don’t need to get around it, she thought. Just a little closer, and then I can make a run for it.
The Jeep slammed into the truck again, spinning it sideways. For just an instant, Jenna saw the maintenance shed looming before her, and then it was all she could see.
With a bone-jarring shriek, the entangled vehicles tore through the sheet metal walls, snapping the metal support frame apart like a child’s toy. The two vehicles skidded forward another dozen feet, the pickup’s steel wheels throwing out a spray of yellow sparks as they scraped across the concrete floor. The combined momentum of the two vehicles hammered them against an immovable anvil, crushing metal and pummeling flesh.
62
6:15 p.m.
Jenna’s first coherent thought was that she should get out of the truck and run, but as she reached for the door handle, she realized that the interior of the vehicle had been transformed into something from a claustrophobic nightmare.
The cab seemed to have been compressed, like an aluminum can squeezed in a fist. The driver’s side door had been driven inward, jamming up tight against the seat and the steering wheel. Beyond the side window opening—the glass had shattered, littering her with tiny fragments. Outside the window, she could see only the crumpled front end of the Jeep. The situation on the passenger’s side was even worse. The cab had accordioned inward, crushed against a wall of gray concrete.
She searched for an alternate escape route. The windshield was spider-webbed with cracks, but the laminated safety-coating still held it together. She might be able to punch her way through, but that would require time she wasn’t sure she had. She twisted around and saw that the small window at the back of the cab was broken out. The opening was just big enough—maybe—for her to squeeze through.
She started for it, but something held her back. The dashboard had collapsed over her legs, enfolding them. There was no pain and she could still feel her toes wiggling, but something hard pressed down just above her knees.
A crunching noise came from outside the truck, and through the driver’s side window, Jenna saw movement. It was Jarrod, disoriented, staggering from the wrecked Jeep. With a desperate effort, she tried to wrench her legs free.
An unseen jagged edge raked her leg through the fabric of her jeans, but she kept pulling, repositioning herself for the best angle. Outside, Jarrod shook off his daze. He looked around, taking in the scope of the damage. Then his eyes met Jenna’s.
She pulled again, holding nothing back, willing the dash to pull away, and suddenly she was free. One of her shoes came off, and as she started squirming through the window, the grains of broken glass dug into the sole of her unshod foot.
She was halfway through when she realized that she had lost the computer. It was still in the truck, probably in the footwell, hidden from view and inaccessible to both her and Jarrod. If she survived the next few minutes, she would know where to find it.
Another heave sent her crashing into the truck bed. She saw that the gray barrier she’d glimpsed from inside was actually one of the concrete piers used to support the antenna dish. The collision had smashed the pickup into the pier at the foot of the massive two-hundred-thi
rty ton structure. From this new perspective, she could see cracks radiating through the pillar.
Jarrod came out from behind the wreck, gun in hand, circling around toward the bed of the pickup, cutting off her best avenue of escape. Jenna could feel the rage—the primal fury—radiating from him, so it came as a shock when he called out to her.
“You don’t have to run.” His voice was tight, as if he had to fight to get every word out, but there was no menace in his tone. “We can get past this. What happened to Sophie was an accident. There’s still a place for you in our family. Just...come with me.”
He believed it. She could see it in his eyes. But she had made her decision.
Without giving an answer, she spun around and clambered onto the truck’s roof and launched herself sideways toward the lower landing of the antenna. The distance was further than she should have been able to jump, but she cleared it without trouble. Landing, on the other hand, hurt. Pain shot up through her foot as an embedded piece of glass slipped deeper into her flesh. Her legs throbbed where they’d been pinned in the truck. For a moment, every part of her body cried out in protest at this latest insult.
The report of a pistol shot filled the enclosure, and a round cracked against a metal surface right beside her. Fighting the pain, she yanked the glass from her foot and vaulted onto the rising staircase, ignoring the electric jolts of pain that rose up with each barefoot step.
A vibration shivered through the metal. Jarrod had climbed up into the truck and made the same leap.
Flood Rising (A Jenna Flood Thriller) Page 30
