He looked up at her. She stared back at a face that she guessed could be extremely frightening if he chose it to be. But there was the ghost of a smile there, too, and she thought she could see something vulnerable lurking beneath the brass buttons and the bravado; something sensitive even. She was probably just imagining it. Not many people moved up the ranks of the Hope Project by caring a great deal about anything.
“I’m not going to pry into these two missing years,” Crow said. “I know how these things work.”
Laura nodded. She sensed that it would be best to say nothing, but she was beginning to understand why she was being given such an easy ride. She knew that according to Hope protocol, those engaged in “research” were often, in reality, agents operating under “deep cover”. She was, and always had been, a scientist, pure and simple, and had since turned her back on everything Hope stood for – but those two missing years could easily be misinterpreted as time spent on a top secret assignment.
“You’ve been working on the Triskellion project,” Crow said. “With the Newman children.”
“It’s a fascinating project,” Laura said.
Crow nodded. “An important one too – one that’s very close to the director’s heart.”
“Do you know the director well?” Laura asked.
Crow shrugged. “Well enough.” He leaned back in his chair. “I’m not exactly flavour of the month with our beloved leader right now. That’s why I’m here, if I’m honest.” He gave a mock grimace. “In exile…”
Laura waited, unsure how to react.
Crow slapped his palms on the desktop. “I think I’ll be back in the old man’s good books pretty soon, though.” He cleared his throat and inched forward. “You know we have the children?”
“The children?”
“I presume that’s why you came…”
“Absolutely.” Laura nodded, but the questions crashed around her head, panic and confusion rising up from her gut. What did he mean by “have the children”? How could they have been captured? And more importantly, how was she going to get them out?
Did Crow have the Triskellions? Worse, did the director already have them?
“Would you like to see them?” Crow asked. “The children? I could take you across there now, if you like…”
They walked back outside, and Crow showed her to a Jeep, explaining that it was a ten-minute walk to the cell block, which, considering the heat, was probably unwise.
He drove quickly around the perimeter of the base, the Jeep’s wheels throwing up rust-coloured clouds behind them. He shouted above the growl of the engine, telling her that he was a New Yorker and still hadn’t got used to the conditions out there in the New Mexican desert. She shouted back that she was right at home: it was like being in the Australian outback. He said he would like to visit Australia someday and she told him he would love it.
The chit-chat ceased immediately once they reached the cell block. Crow, having shown his ID to the armed guards on duty outside, was silent as they entered, signed in at a command point and then descended in a lift to the basement level.
His footsteps echoing, Crow led Laura along a corridor encased in solid steel. More armed guards were stationed every five metres or so and cameras mounted high up on the walls swivelled to track their progress as they passed.
When they arrived outside the cell where the children were being held Laura fought hard to stifle a gasp…
The doors were made entirely of a glass which Laura guessed to be several centimetres thick. She stepped up close to it and stared in at the children, who were huddled together against one metal wall in the corner of the three-metre cubed box. Their wrists were bound with plastic handcuffs and they were wearing white plastic bodysuits. Their faces looked pale and empty. Laura was wondering if it was one-way glass, when she saw Rachel glance up and notice her.
Her heart leapt in excitement and terror. She prayed that Rachel would not give the game away by looking pleased to see her. She could only hope that Rachel would read the warning in her face and not react.
Rachel just stared.
“Open it.” Crow gestured to one of the guards, who entered a code into a keypad mounted on the wall.
Adam and Gabriel looked up as the glass doors slid open, but before Laura had a chance to worry further about how they might react, she was aware of Crow close behind her, his mouth pressed to her ear.
“In you go, Doctor Sullivan,” he said. The change in his tone made it clear that this was an order, not a request. She turned to look at him, but his hand was already in the small of her back, guiding her across the threshold.
“We know exactly why you’re here,” he said. “And we’ve been waiting for you.”
A guard stepped forward and wrapped plastic cuffs round her wrists before she had a chance to struggle. Crow turned away as she was bundled into the cell.
“Now you can go and join your friends,” the guard said.
The glass doors slid shut and Laura had no choice but to walk over to join the children. She dropped to her knees when she reached them, well aware that Crow was still standing on the other side of the door, staring at them through the glass. Studying them as though they were lab-rats.
The Oklahoma State Penitentiary at McAlester was not designed to be pretty. Kate Newman knew that well enough, but she was still amazed at how breathtakingly ugly it was. It was as though every brick and barred window had somehow been infused with something rancid and poisonous; something that sucked the hope out of people and filled them with despair.
She avoided the hard stares of fellow prisoners as she was led to a table in the visitors’ centre; as she was guided to a chair and shackled to the tabletop.
“You know how this thing works?” the guard asked.
Kate nodded. She had seen it in the movies. A solid sheet of Plexiglass divided one side of the table from the other and she would only be able to talk to her visitor through a phone that was built into the divide.
Once the guard had left, Kate sat and stared at the door, waiting for her visitor. She was thinking about Rachel and Adam – and trying to keep the tears away. She thought, too, about her ex-husband, Ralph, who for reasons she could not fathom had been coming into her mind a great deal in recent days.
Perhaps it was because she was back in the US. But whatever the reason, his presence in her thoughts this often was something she had not been used to for a few years. Not since the divorce.
When they had settled down to a new life in Australia, she had made the difficult decision to sever any contact with those from their previous life. They had always known that the Hope Project would do anything to find them and that included attacking those closest to them. So how ever cruel it had seemed to keep Rachel and Adam away from their father it had been the only way to ensure his safety.
The man she had once loved, who she presumed had loved her in return, had become as good as dead to her.
It was strange, but thinking about him now, she had difficulty picturing his face clearly. She knew that these things happened as time passed, even to those with whom you were most familiar – but this felt like something else. It was not that Ralph Newman’s face had just become indistinct or blurred by failing memory – when she pictured him now, it was as if he were in shadow.
As though a darkness had fallen across his face.
And it frightened her…
The lawyer was twenty minutes late.
She watched Nick Georgiades bustle in through the door. He was a stocky man with curly black hair and stubble that stood out against a ruddy complexion. He sat and picked up the phone.
“Sorry I’m late, Ms Newman.” He was pulling papers from his briefcase and piling them up on the table in front of him. “You doing OK?”
Kate picked up her own phone – but she had nothing to say. It was not one of the lawyer’s cleverest questions.
“Yeah, the traffic out there today’s unbelievable,” Georgiades said. He was still loo
king flustered, trying to get his documents in order. “This weird trek people are going on… You know about that?”
“I haven’t really been keeping up with the news.”
“People are coming from all over the country.” The lawyer shook his head in disbelief. “Hundreds of thousands of them in cars, planes, boats, trains, whatever. Bicycles for Pete’s sake, or walking if they have to. All started yesterday and now every freeway’s pretty much at a standstill.”
“Where are they going?” Kate asked.
“One-way traffic all the way to New York City,” Georgiades said. “Some kind of rally for that weird cult. It’s been all over the news.”
“Like I said, I haven’t really—”
“I know, I’m sorry.” He held up a hand. “And now we really need to talk about your case. If we’re going to appeal or push for extradition, we need to get your story straight. We need to go over all the facts…”
Georgiades kept on talking, but Kate was no longer listening. She knew as soon as he had begun to describe what was happening outside, the strange journey that so many people were making, that it had something to do with the children, and with Gabriel. She had no idea what was going to happen in New York, or why – but she knew that Rachel and Adam would almost certainly be heading there too, if they were not there already.
“I need to get out of here,” she said.
The lawyer stopped speaking and stared at her for a few seconds. “Excuse me?”
“I have to get out and find my children.”
“I don’t think you quite understand, Ms Newman.” He loosened his tie. “There is no possibility of getting out. In fact, there are much more … important things to worry about.”
Kate shook her head, waving his concern away. “Look, once they find out what happened in Australia—”
“You shot a government agent.”
“He wasn’t from the government!” Kate shouted. “He was from the Hope Project, and he was after my children.”
Georgiades stared down at his notes. “We cannot find any evidence that this ‘Hope Project’ you keep talking about even exists or that there was ever any threat to your children. The prosecution have made it very clear that they will be seeking the maximum penalty for these offences.”
“No,” Kate said; “they’ll find out what happened.”
“You shot a man; you’ve admitted that much already.”
“They’ll see that it was an accident and they’ll drop the charges.” Kate stared through the glass and saw the worry in the lawyer’s face. Suddenly doubt flooded through her. “Won’t they?”
Georgiades did his best to sound cheerful. “There’s always hope.”
Kate swallowed back a sob. She felt every one of those ugly poisonous bricks pressing in on her. Is there? she thought.
First came the tears, then the questions.
In the time since they had seen one another, so much had happened to all of them. Rachel and Adam fell into Laura’s arms and, although hampered by the handcuffs, they hugged as best they could, until they could hardly breathe: all craving human contact and comfort. The comfort was missing one important element.
“Where’s Mom?” Adam asked.
Laura wiped the tears from her cheeks and blinked at the twins through red eyes.
“Where is she? What’s happened?” Panic rose in Rachel’s voice. She knew it was bad news.
“She’s in prison,” Laura said.
Rachel and Adam’s relief was palpable. “Thank God,” Rachel cried.
“We thought you meant she was dead.” Adam almost laughed with relief. “She’s probably safer than we are.”
The expression on Laura’s face didn’t change. She didn’t know how to tell them, but she had long since pledged to tell the truth – how ever bad it might be.
“She’s been arrested for murder,” she said.
Rachel and Adam looked at each other in disbelief.
“Mom? Murder?” Rachel shook her head.
“Who did she kill?” Adam asked.
“A man,” Laura said. “A Hope agent who was after you.”
“Shit,” Adam said.
“If she hadn’t, you would never have got out of Australia. Hope was on to you. You left just in time.”
“I think you mean that I came for them just in time,” Gabriel said. He had been silent since Laura had entered the cell, curled up on a metal bench that ran the length of one wall, his face between his knees. He looked lost and confused, as if his brain were not functioning properly.
“Hi, Gabriel,” Laura said. “Yes, you came just in time. How are you? You look terrible.”
It was true. Robbed of his powers, Gabriel looked wasted and emaciated. Laura put her hand on his bony shoulder and, unusually, he stood and embraced her.
“Where is Mom, exactly?” Rachel asked when they had finished hugging.
“In Oklahoma,” Laura said. “In the state penitentiary.”
“What’s going to happen to her?” Adam asked.
“She should have got a lawyer by now. And if he’s any good he’ll be trying to get her extradited to Australia, where it happened, or at the very least back to New York.”
“Why does she need to be moved?” Adam asked. “What’s the worst that can happen?”
Laura paused a moment. The truth, she remembered. “Oklahoma still has the death penalty,” she said.
Adam sat down heavily on the bench next to Rachel; both their faces drained of colour. Visions of their mother strapped to a gurney awaiting a lethal injection flashed through their minds. They leaned against each other and cried. They had thought their situation couldn’t get any worse, and it just had.
“We’ll find a way,” Gabriel said.
“Sorry if we don’t seem very convinced,” Rachel cried. “Mom’s on death row and we still have no idea where our dad is. We thought he was going to be here, but…”
Laura laid a hand on Rachel’s shoulder, but said nothing.
“I’m beginning to think he might be dead,” Rachel said.
“He might just as well be,” Adam added. “I’m not even sure I want to find him now, anyway. If he hadn’t left Mom, none of this would have happened. We wouldn’t have been sent away, we wouldn’t have met you…” He stabbed a finger at Gabriel.
“Don’t be so sure,” Gabriel said.
Laura nodded. If there was one thing she was certain of, it was that Rachel and Adam would never have lived an ordinary life. She looked at Gabriel. “First, we need to get out of here,” she said.
“Can’t you hear that noise?” Gabriel asked, trying to point out the shrieking frequency that hurt his brain. “It’s torture. It stops any of us from being able to connect.”
Laura listened, but heard nothing.
“We can’t even think straight,” Rachel said. “Let alone overpower anyone or hypnotize a guard. We’re completely helpless.”
“And they’ve taken the Triskellions,” Adam said. “They disabled us with stun guns and took everything.” He thumped the polished steel wall with a resounding boom. “They’re Nazis.”
The word chimed with Laura. She had thought exactly the same herself. She remembered a conversation she’d had with Clay Van der Zee a few years ago during which he had told her exactly what Hope had had in mind for the twins.
It was one horrifying truth she decided to keep to herself.
“The Triskellions are still in the safe,” Crow said. “Under armed guard.”
“Very good.” The director sounded pleased.
Crow took a sip of the bourbon on his desk. It was just after 7 p.m., four hours since Laura Sullivan had arrived on the base, sixteen hours since the children had been captured.
Crow had needed a drink.
He had liked the Australian as soon as she had walked into his office. She was direct with a personal warmth, and was obviously good-looking. He had felt uncomfortable locking her up. He would have far preferred to have spent the evening having dinn
er with her or just talking. After New York, Crow was incredibly lonely in Alamogordo, and Laura Sullivan’s company was exactly the kind he craved.
“I’ve put Doctor Sullivan in with the children as you instructed,” he said.
“Are they wired?” the director asked.
“Of course, sir.”
“Good. Let’s see what she can get out of them.”
“They’ve been talking plenty – about the mother and so on. The father, too.”
The director said nothing for a few seconds. Then: “What about the other boy, Crow? Let’s not forget what we’re dealing with here.”
“Under control, sir. The inhibitor frequency appears to have completely blocked his powers. He seems to be very weak.”
“Good. Once we’ve broken him a bit more, I’d like you to isolate him, then run the tests.”
“Very good, sir.”
“But my immediate concern is the Triskellions. I want your personal guarantee that they will be on their way to New York on a military jet tomorrow.”
“You have it, sir.”
“Good work, Todd.” His voice sounded almost warm.
It was the first time Crow could ever remember the director using his first name. It might be the first stage of my rehabilitation, he thought. “One more thing,” he said; “what about the twins?”
“Get a team working on them in the BETA lab first thing in the morning. I want full genetic profiling, plus a CAT scan analysis of every inch of their bodies, with tissue samples to back up the scan: brain, gut, reproductive, everything. We need every scrap of information analysed and compared with samples from the other one – Gabriel, as you say they call him.”
Crow suddenly felt cold. “Full tissue sample analysis, sir?” His mouth had dried and he took a sip from his glass. “But that means we have to—”
“I know what it means, Crow,” the director said. Any glimmer of warmth was gone from his voice. “Now get me those Triskellions and get on with your work…”
A few minutes after the director had slammed the phone down on him, Crow left his office and walked along the corridor to the small room at the end. Nodding to the armed officer outside, Crow took the key from the chain attached to his belt and opened the door.
Triskellion 3: The Gathering Page 18
