“Alex and Heather,” instructed the man giving orders, “quickly backpedal away from them, toward my voice.”
While the two scientists, who had both also thrown their hands above their heads, lowered them and did as they were told, a second man emerged from the void and began walking toward the two prisoners, reminding them his colleague still had a gun trained on them. He tossed them each a pair of plastic handcuffs and instructed them to slip them around their wrists and pull them tight with their teeth. Soon both men’s wrists were bound.
The man who had yelled for them to freeze emerged from the darkness and approached the two scientists. “I’m Eric Trout,” he whispered softly, so the men they had just captured couldn’t hear. “Ed Cowan sent me. Stay here, and I’ll be back in just a few minutes.”
Both men marched off with their prisoners. But while four men left, only Trout returned.
“Where are the others?” asked Altschuler.
“I helped my colleague secure them in an SUV. He’s taking them somewhere else for . . . um . . . questioning.” He turned toward Heather. “Give me your car keys. I’m driving.”
As they pulled out of the lot, with Trout driving and the two scientists in the back seat, Altschuler said, “Thanks for saving our necks. But how did you find us? And how did you know we might be in trouble?”
“Nick Hall’s suite at the Homestead Inn was raided three or four hours ago. Two men Ed Cowan had posted for security were killed.”
Altschuler shrank back as if he had seen a ghost. “And Nick and Megan?” he asked, terrified of the answer he might get.
“We don’t know. Hopefully, my colleague can learn more from the two men we captured. Once Cowan discovered what happened, he pulled out all the stops to find you. He didn’t know who was behind it, or if they would make a play for you as well. My guess is that they were waiting for you to come out of the building. Who knows for how long.”
“Where are we going?” asked Heather.
“To a safe house outside of Sacramento. But not directly. We’ll need to switch cars a few times at certain parking garages in a certain way to shake any possible satellite surveillance. Although I doubt anyone wasted satellite time on this operation once they knew your location. They expected gathering you up to be a walk in the park. They didn’t draw any weapons and remained in the light. I’d bet no one else will learn what happened here for hours. But we like to be on the safe side.”
Trout instructed his PDA to contact Ed Cowan and Cameron Fyfe. “They’ve been awake since the attack on the Homestead Inn,” he explained as the call went through. “I need to report in.”
Trout was three minutes into his report when Altschuler’s phone vibrated.
“Alex, it’s me,” came the breathless voice of Nick Hall when he answered. “Be careful! Someone was able to track us to Theia Labs, which means they could have tracked you to Madera. Get out of there now! And watch your back!”
“Are you and Megan okay?” said Altschuler anxiously, noting the irony of the timing of Hall’s warning as he did.
Hall assured him that they were fine and that Megan was in on the call as well.
“Is that Nick and Megan?” asked Trout from the front seat, having overheard Altschuler while delivering his report. “What’s their condition?” he asked before Altschuler could respond.
“They’re both unharmed.”
“Great. I’m going to conference us all together,” said Trout, and then instructed his PDA to perform the magic necessary to tie Megan Emerson, Nick Hall, Ed Cowan, and Cameron Fyfe all together on the speaker phone of Heather’s Toyota.
Altschuler brought Megan and Hall up to speed on recent events. He explained that Hall’s warning had come too late, but that Trout had intervened. And that the three of them were now in Heather’s car.
Next it was Hall’s turn, who explained that he and Megan had been kidnapped by the military, and brought to a safe house.
“If they were military,” said Cowan, “why didn’t they take you to Edwards?”
“I have no idea. Nor do I have any idea who they were. Or what they wanted.”
“They didn’t tell you what they wanted?” repeated Fyfe in disbelief. “They went to all this trouble and they just let you go? Didn’t ask any questions?”
“No, they didn’t just let us go. I was coming to how we escaped. There was one guy in the room with me, who was about to begin an interrogation, when Megan came to the rescue. The man guarding Megan in another room underestimated her. She managed to clock him in the head with a lamp and spring me. Both men will be out for a long while.”
“You do seem to lead a charmed life,” said Fyfe, and his tone suggested he found it difficult to believe anyone could be as lucky as Hall continued to be. “Great job, Megan. I had no idea you were so . . . formidable.”
“Me either,” said Megan.
“But why would the military be after you?” pressed Fyfe. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
“I have no idea,” said Hall. “But whatever the guy in charge wanted, he didn’t seem like the type to give up easily.”
“Where are you right now?” asked Cowan.
Hall explained they had taken a car from their abductors and gave him their location.
Cowan left the call for several minutes. When he returned, he instructed Hall to ditch his phone, drive to a nearby shopping center, and wait to be picked up in front of the Macy’s at the southeast corner of the mall.
“The men I send will switch cars and do other stunts to be sure we lose any eyes in the sky,” said Cowan. “After that, you’ll be joining Alex and Heather at a safe house in Sacramento—a little over a hundred miles from where you are now.”
“Great,” said Megan sarcastically. “I’ve gone my whole life without ever being inside a safe house—whatever the hell a safe house really is, anyway. And now I get to be in two of them in the same day. What are the odds?”
“Look, Cameron,” said Hall, changing the subject. “We need to learn what this is all about before I have a coming-out party. Now I have to worry about Delamater and the military. So being presented to the FBI on Tuesday is out. You’ll need to make up some story at the press conference. Say I disappeared again. Or make up something else. But you have to buy more time until we sort this out.”
There was a long silence. “Agreed,” said Fyfe finally. “I’ll take care of it. And Ed, get some more ex-military for hire to look into this as well. In the meanwhile, I’ll work my contacts to try to learn what’s going on.”
The conversation continued for a few minutes before Fyfe and Cowan signed off. Once they left, Hall had Trout take him off speaker and return the call to Alex’s phone.
“Can I be overheard?” Hall said softly once this was done.
“Hold on,” said Altschuler, pulling a wireless earbud from his pocket and sliding it into his right ear. “You’re good to go,” he said.
Hall briefed Altschuler as quickly and efficiently as he could as to what had really happened: that Girdler had learned of his ESP and had decided he was too dangerous to let live, fearing an ESP arms race.
Altschuler was stunned. The implications of this were profound, but now wasn’t the time to ponder them.
“The good news is that none of us should have any trouble making it to the safe house,” said Hall. “There are only two men in on this. Colonel Girdler, and his second-in-command, Major Mike Campbell. But I read from Girdler that the major wasn’t monitoring things when we escaped. Girdler told him he had everything well in hand and ordered him to get some sleep.”
“Why?”
“Girdler thought he was being heroic. Killing me is going against orders, and he wanted to keep the major clean if it was ever discovered. Plausible deniability.” Hall paused. “But with the men Girdler sent to retrieve you and Heather out of the picture, and Girdler unconscious for a few more hours, there’s no one tracking us.”
“Good to know,” said Altschuler, choosing his words c
arefully since Trout could hear his end of the conversation. “And alerting this guy’s boss may be just the ticket.”
He knew Hall was bright enough to understand what he was saying. If this colonel was disobeying orders, Hall needed to have a little conversation with the person above him in the chain of command.
“This occurred to me also. The problem is that his boss, a general named Sobol, doesn’t want me on the loose, either. He wants me as a guinea pig. And a weapon. But it’s definitely something I’ll have to consider. In the meanwhile, how did the surgery go?”
“Perfectly,” replied Altschuler, although with Trout in earshot he kept his voice bland and revealed no trace of the enthusiasm he would have been gushing otherwise. “Like a dream.”
“Meaning you can surf, but you can’t read minds?”
“Exactly.”
“Fantastic! Finally, a bit of good news.” Hall sighed. “On that note,” he added, “I’d better be signing off. I need to lose the phone and get to, ah . . . Macy’s. But there are some other topics I want to raise with you, Alex, so stay safe.”
“You too,” said Altschuler. “I’ll see you in Sacramento.”
48
Heather Zambrana awoke and glanced at a clock on the end table. It was almost noon. She still could have used more sleep, but the sleep she had managed had done wonders for her after the crazy events of the night before, which had bled all the way into sunrise that morning.
The safe house was a large, fairly nondescript tract home in a moderately affluent neighborhood, with four bedrooms, and spare, utilitarian furnishings. Two of the men who had brought them there, Eric Trout and a man named Tyrone Tienda—both ex-military—had stayed to keep watch near the front and back doors, while the four civilians had all fallen asleep in their clothes.
Megan Emerson and Nick Hall were already sound asleep when she and Alex had arrived, since they had been closer to Sacramento, and had chosen to share a room. This wasn’t surprising from what Alex had told her about them, although she was certain they had been too exhausted to do anything but sleep. She and Alex had chosen separate rooms. But she had hopes that this might change—as early as that night.
The purpose of the house was to hide and protect those on the run or in danger, so the timing and nature of its occupants couldn’t be predicted. For this reason, it was well-equipped with simple men and women’s clothing in several sizes, unopened toothbrushes, and other toiletries.
As she showered and changed clothes, she thought of Alex Altschuler.
He was absolutely brilliant. And there was a kindness to him. Also, it was adorable the way he looked at her; like an awkward high schooler with a crush. He wasn’t much to look at, true, but looks had never mattered all that much to her; her own or others. So he was ten pounds underweight and she was ten pounds over. They balanced each other out. She was also several years older than him, but if that didn’t bother him, it didn’t bother her.
He loved science and science fiction and was a fun and interesting conversationalist. She could imagine them attending Comic-con together, each dressed as their favorite superhero. How fun would that be?
She had intended to respect the boss-employee code, as he had been so careful in doing, but these recent developments had changed everything. It was time to go for broke. And if a relationship did develop, he could always change the reporting structure so she no longer reported to him, and disclose a relationship as required in the corporate charter. Or she could leave and work elsewhere. Either way, now wasn’t the time to hide behind a silly corporate edict, designed to protect management from sexual harassment lawsuits.
When she and her fellow civilians were all up and about, each now scrubbed clean and wearing the safe house’s boring, but fresh clothes, their bodyguards gave them a tour of the house. Their last stop was the panic room, which could be entered just beyond the kitchen.
Trout led them inside, and Heather found it to be quite impressive. About the size of a small guest bedroom, it was fortified with steel, Kevlar, and bullet-resistant fiberglass, and its ventilation system was externally vented. The room was carpeted, which was rare, since these rooms were only inhabited during emergencies, and comfort and appearance weren’t high on the list of priorities. A steel workbench stood against a side wall, the purpose of which Heather couldn’t even hazard a guess, and above the bench was a gun rack with an impressive array of firepower.
On another wall, a bank of monitors provided twelve different views outside of the house. These same views would be accessible from Trout’s and Tienda’s cell phones and tablets at all times, and a PDA named Tanya would alert them to anything unusual the cameras might detect. Even so, Trout explained, he and his colleague were paid to be paranoid, so would most often station themselves near the front and back doors, just to be sure.
“I’ve adjusted the cameras to the settings I prefer,” said Trout. “They cover every square inch of the perimeter of the house, out to six yards. I’ve also chosen a few panoramic views. While there are gaps when you go farther out from the house, I’ve covered the angles I would take if I were going to lead an assault on us.”
Heather swallowed hard from yet another reminder that she wasn’t in Kansas anymore. “That’s very comforting,” she said dryly.
An hour after the tour was completed, Heather was sitting around a kitchen table with Alex, Megan, and Nick, eating a ham and Swiss omelet that Megan had made for each of them. They had asked their bodyguards if they could have some privacy in the kitchen, and they had been happy to oblige. Even so, the four civilians kept their voices low.
Altschuler reported on a conversation he had just ended with Cameron Fyfe and Ed Cowan. Fyfe was going forward with the press conference as planned, with one notable exception. He wouldn’t be introducing Alex as CEO. Fyfe himself would become interim CEO until he could figure out why the military was after Hall, and why they had sent men for Altschuler. Naming a CEO the US government seemed to want to abduct or kill probably wasn’t something that would get strong shareholder support.
Heather gazed at Altschuler, directly across from her, with deep lines of concern in her face. “I’m so sorry, Alex. How disappointed are you?”
“I’m disappointed,” he replied. And then, with the hint of a tired smile, he added, “But also a little relieved. Being CEO for the first time is scary. Even more scary when all hell is about to break loose. This way, I’ll be a little less in the path of the raging inferno until this dies out. And I can’t blame Cameron. I think his decision makes a lot of sense.”
“Speaking of being in the path of something deadly,” said Megan. “Did Cowan tell you if he learned anything from the men they captured last night?”
Altschuler shook his head. “No. They’re special forces operatives, who got legitimate orders from their superiors. But they don’t know who ultimately is at the top of the pyramid. Or why they were asked to bring us in.”
Heather frowned. “They didn’t, you know . . . torture them or anything, did they?” she said.
“No. I asked Cowan the same question. They used truth drugs and set them free. I got the feeling Cowan did this for practical reasons rather than ethical ones. He said torturing government spooks, and especially killing them, was a sure way to kick the hornets’ nest, and would have been a very bad move.”
“Any leads on Delamater?” asked Megan.
“None. Fyfe had hoped to be able to have him wrapped up with a bow for the press conference. But it’s not looking good. Cowan has run up quite a bill, tapping dozens of security-for-hire types, like our two friends in this house, but they haven’t gotten anywhere.”
He stared at Heather, and his eyes took on a puppy dog quality as he did. “Fyfe did ask about the newest member of our group.”
Heather raised her eyebrows. “What did you tell him about me?” she asked. Given that Fyfe wasn’t in on Nick’s ESP, nor Altschuler’s recent implants, she knew this would be a difficult question to answer.
“That I had freaked out because I thought of a possible technical problem with the implants. I told Fyfe I couldn’t really explain my concern, because it was out of his depth. But it was a problem that might cause the system to glitch up after a few months. I needed some equipment in Madera to check into it. But even more importantly, I needed your expertise,” he said, nodding at Heather. “I told him it turned out to be a false alarm, but I was forced to trust you with the Explorer situation. Given the world would know very soon, anyway, I took it upon myself to make this executive decision.”
“Very creative,” said Heather with a big smile, and she could tell Alex was delighted by the compliment.
When breakfast ended, Hall and Altschuler retreated to opposite couches in the living room and closed their eyes for over an hour, each explaining they were doing research. It was a foreshadowing of things to come, Heather realized. Of a future in which, if you came across someone with their eyes closed and looking like a zombie, you couldn’t be sure if they were sleeping, or if they were balancing their checkbook, writing a novel, or watching a movie inside of their head.
With Alex and Nick out of commission, Heather thought this was a good opportunity to get to know Megan, and they returned to the kitchen table and sipped coffee and talked about a variety of topics.
“So you and Nick are pretty close, aren’t you?” said Heather at one point.
Megan smiled. “Given how short a time we’ve known each other, very close. We’d be even closer if it weren’t for a pesky injury,” she added. She leaned towards Heather conspiratorially. “You and Alex sort of have a thing for each other also, don’t you?”
“Did Nick tell you that?”
“No. Nick’s not like that. He knows having a mind reader around is a menace, and he’d never share anything private he reads unless he really needs to. But I could just tell.”
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