“Don’t worry, I’m not going to make a run for it,” she said to the two men, then to Rhiannon as she swung the door farther open, “This’ll do. I can make it from here.”
She actually felt better, the burst of adrenaline still coursing through her veins. She wasn’t going to be running a marathon anytime soon, but the stiffness and aches she had woken with were already beginning to fade as the thrill of the knowledge that her son was alive worked its magic on her body, even if she had no idea how she knew. “Be a sweetheart and grab me a change of clothes, would you?” she asked Rhiannon and closed the door.
She paused for a second when she caught her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Holy crap, I do look like shit. Her hair was a disheveled mess, and there were dark rings under her eyes. Her face was pale, drawn.
She quickly stripped out of her soiled clothes and tossed them into the bathtub. She would deal with them later. She walked to the sink and turned on the faucets, and, miracle of miracles, there was some hot water left in the tank. She quickly washed herself in the sink, not trusting the shower would last long enough for her to clean up completely. As she was drying herself off, Rhiannon knocked on the door and extended an arm through the gap with the change of clothes she had asked for.
Emily threw them on, then took a minute to fix her hair. She had some makeup in the sink drawer—not much call for looking glamorous these days, but she wanted to make sure she didn’t look like the zombie she saw in her reflection. She applied a judicious amount of foundation to alleviate her pallid skin, and a little lipstick to erase the crust of dried skin on her lips. For what she had to do next it was going to be important to be taken seriously, so looking like she was still a part of the human race was going to be important.
“Not bad,” she told her reflection a few minutes later, leaning against the sink as she examined the results in the mirror. She inhaled deeply.
“Okay,” she said, “let’s do this.”
“I’m sorry, Emily, I still don’t understand what you’re trying to say. Can you explain it again?” said Victor Séverin, the French submarine captain. The other council members all nodded in agreement.
Emily gave a deep sigh, her patience wearing thin. “I’ve already explained it to you once,” she said, “I think it’s pretty clear—”
Valentine held up a hand to silence her. “Emily, we granted you this emergency council meeting because you led us to believe that you had new information on the disappearance of your son. Now, of course, we are all very sympathetic to your plight, but I think you can do us the courtesy of repeating your . . . story one more time. Just so we have all the facts.”
The other council members nodded their agreement.
Besides the full council, only Emily and Fisher’s two men from the apartment were in the council hall. It had taken over an hour to get them all together.
Well, actually it had taken everyone but Valentine ten minutes. Valentine had waltzed in fifty minutes later, apologizing for her delay. “Pressing business,” she had told her colleagues as she took her seat. No apology. It was an hour that Emily could not afford to lose, but what could she do? She needed the council’s approval for the plan she had laid out in her mind, so she was at their mercy.
Forcing a smile to her lips, Emily ran back over her story, starting with Adam’s abduction by the Caretakers, skipping over her second dream, and ending with her certainty that he was alive.
“And how can you be so sure your boy is alive?” asked Vela when she was done.
Emily paused, knowing she was going to have to be careful with how she phrased this. Keep it simple, she told herself. “I feel him,” she said.
“Feel him? I don’t understand,” said Vela, his eyebrows furrowed as he glanced at the council members seated to his left and right. They all looked equally confused.
“I suppose it’s more like I can sense his presence,” Emily added, aware that she sounded too eager to explain. “I know the direction he is in.” Emily swiveled in her seat until she faced northeast, and pointed. “He’s there, that way,” she said.
“You mean like ESP?” Vela said.
The feeling Emily was experiencing was not linked to any of her regular five senses. What she felt was like a magnetic attraction, gently tugging at her. It was how she imagined a bird might feel when it sensed winter was approaching and it felt the pull to migrate to warmer climates. The longer she sat still, the more insistent that pull was becoming. So, if she were being honest, she supposed it was an extrasensory perception of sorts.
“Yes,” she said and tried to smile as though what she had just said did not sound absurd.
Valentine spoke up. “So, you’re telling us you know where he is, then?”
“No,” said Emily, “I don’t know where he is, I just know what direction the Caretakers took him.” She could feel the pull in that direction even as she spoke, like a light pinch against her skin, urging her to get up and move in that direction. The sensation was almost irresistible, even now, as she tried to remain calm and explain to this group of idiots what she needed from them; the urge to stand up and start moving toward her son plucked at her constantly.
“So, what exactly is it you think we can do, Emily?” Valentine asked, before anyone else could say a word. Apparently she had decided to act as the voice for the group.
“I want you to give me a helicopter and a security team so I can go and rescue my son,” Emily said flatly.
Valentine began to laugh, caught herself, and turned it into a cough, but her eyes still betrayed her incredulity. A few smiles creased the lips of several of the other council members too, Emily noticed.
Valentine did not even attempt to hide her contempt when she spoke. “So let me make sure I understand what you’re asking; you want us to hand over our helicopter to you along with a security team, so that you can run off and chase your son, who you say is in the hands of some imaginary alien overlords that kidnapped him from your room, leaving no trace whatsoever? Does that about sum up your request, Mizz Baxter?”
There was a smattering of laughter from the other councilors.
“Yes,” said Emily, ignoring the obvious attempt to bait her.
“And what evidence other than your word do you have to convince us that we should commit these resources to this . . . this wild goose chase?”
Emily stayed silent. It was already obvious how this was all going to play out, and she knew that even if she had irrefutable evidence to back up her claims, there was no way Valentine was going to cut her any kind of slack. Jesus, she must have really pissed her off in some other life.
“No? Nothing? I didn’t think so,” said Valentine after Emily’s silence had stretched into seconds. “Let’s put this to a vote. All those in favor of granting Mizz Baxter’s request?” No one said a thing. “All those against granting Mizz Baxter’s request.” There was a resounding chorus of “Nay” from the assembled council.
“While we appreciate your predicament, we cannot commit our scant resources to something we have no proof of,” Valentine said. “Meeting adjourned.”
“Fine,” said Emily, abruptly standing and sending her chair skidding across the floor. She had managed to keep her growing anger from her voice, but now her words dripped with contempt. “If you bastards won’t help me, then I’ll do it myself.”
Emily stormed out of the council building, her rage at Valentine and the rest of the worthless council quickly frozen away by an ice-cold resolve. If the council was not willing to listen to her, then she was going to have to take matters into her own hands. She had already made up her mind how she was going to do that before she had taken less than a handful of steps back toward her apartment.
Glancing over her shoulder, she saw she was alone, the two guards assigned to her still inside the building, waiting for their orders from Valentine, she guessed. Emily ducked to her right, putting a building between her and the council chambers. Valentine’s mutts would be on her trail pretty fast
once they discovered she hadn’t gone straight back to the apartment. They might think she had gone to the beach to cool off, but she had to assume they would start looking for her, so she had better make this fast.
She began to jog up the path leading up to the helo pad.
No one thought to post a guard around the Black Hawk. Why would they? Besides herself, no one else knew how to fly the thing, and it wasn’t like someone was going to walk in off the street. And apart from the ground crew who kept it oiled and fueled, no one paid it that much attention.
When the helo was not scheduled to fly, it was covered with a huge tarpaulin and secured by tie-downs to protect it from the elements. Emily slipped under the edge of the tarp, then let herself into the cockpit. A quick check of the instruments showed that the fuel tank was at optimal. The service log showed that the ground crew had done their job and run all the required maintenance after the last flight with Mac.
She was ready to rock and roll.
Emily stepped back outside, checked that no one would see her, then slipped out from under the tarp and made her way as nonchalantly as she could down the path toward her apartment.
She checked the time on her wristwatch. It was just after two. If she tried to take the helo now, the entire camp would be all over her before she could get the engines up to maximum speed. She was going to have to wait until it was dark. That should buy her enough extra time.
Her entire body ached, not from the weariness she had woken with, but from the slow-burning anxiety created by the constant pull she felt toward the northeast.
Take it easy, she told herself as she pushed open the door to the apartment block. Everything is under control.
She hoped that she was right.
“But I want to come with you,” Rhiannon said for the third time in as many minutes. She sat on the edge of the bed as Emily moved around the room.
“Pouting doesn’t look good on you, kiddo.”
Rhiannon scowled. “I’m not pouting and I’m not a kid. Why can’t I come with you?”
Emily continued to pull clothes from her closet and pack them into the backpack lying on the bed. “I’ve already told you why; I need to travel fast and light, and, I’m sorry, but you’re just going to slow me down.” An ember of the anger she felt at the council’s decision still smoldered deep in her breast, and she regretted the harshness it brought to the words the second they left her mouth.
Rhiannon smarted as though she had been slapped.
Emily dropped a light rain jacket on the bed and stepped in close to the girl. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I didn’t mean it the way it sounded. It’s just that I don’t know exactly where it is I’m going, and, well, you know how dangerous it is out there. I don’t want to have to worry about you. Besides, I need you to stay here and look after his lordship over there.” She nodded toward Thor, who was asleep by Adam’s empty cot.
“But . . . but . . . what if something happens to you?” Rhiannon blurted out. “What if you don’t come back? I’ll be all alone.”
Emily stepped in closer to the girl. “No way. No way is that going to happen and no way would you be on your own. I’ll make it back with Adam. And even if I don’t, then Mac will, do you understand me?”
“But . . .”
Emily placed both hands on Rhiannon’s shoulders. “No buts. We will all be okay . . . okay?” She smiled and then added a hug when she received a halfhearted, unsure smile in return. “Now, I need to finish packing.” She released Rhiannon and moved to the closet, pulled down two boxes of ammunition for her .45 and the extra magazine she kept on the top shelf. She checked the boxes to make sure they were full and then tossed them on the bed too.
“But you said that the council wouldn’t give you permission to go find Adam,” said Rhiannon.
“I know.”
“So how are you going to get the helicopter?”
Emily stopped for a moment and looked at Rhiannon. “I’m just going to borrow it. That’s all.”
“You mean steal it, don’t you?” Rhiannon said, deadpan.
Emily almost laughed. “No, I mean borrow it. I’ll bring it back when I find Adam. Listen, these people refuse to believe me. They haven’t seen any of the things that you and I have. They still think this is some kind of global pandemic or something, that everything will eventually go back to how it was. They’re living with their heads shoved firmly up their own . . . heads buried in the sand. So the only way I’m going to get Adam back is if I do it my way. Besides, it’s not like they’re going to need it; no one else knows how to fly the thing apart from me.”
“Can’t we wait until Mac gets back?” Rhiannon asked, sitting down on the edge of the bed, next to Emily’s backpack.
Emily continued packing. “By the time Mac gets here it’ll be too late. I have to go now.” She didn’t want to add what she was thinking: that there was a high possibility that Mac might never make it back, but she forced her mind away from that thought. “Food,” she said. “I need supplies. Where did Mac leave the MREs?” She was halfway to the cupboard where she remembered her husband had stored his surplus military Meals Ready to Eat when there were two loud thumps on the apartment’s front door.
“Emily. This is Provost Fisher, please open up.” Three more dull fist thuds against the door followed.
Thor started to bark.
“Stay here,” Emily told Thor and Rhiannon as she slipped her .45 into its holster and stepped into the hall, closing the bedroom door behind her. A trio of thoughts manifested themselves unbidden in her mind as she walked toward the front door: What if I’m crazy like Valentine seems to think? What if Fisher’s here with news about Adam? What if they have found him? Well then, this would be one occasion when she would be more than happy to apologize to Valentine. Her heart skipped a beat or three as she released the latch and opened the door.
Fisher stood in the doorway, his face stern, the two guards who had been in her apartment standing on either side of him, arms folded across their chests.
“What’s going—” Emily began to say.
“Get her weapon,” Fisher ordered. The two goons leapt at Emily, grabbing her and pushing her face-first into the wall. One twisted her arm up behind her back while the other grabbed the pistol from its holster on her hip.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Emily demanded through teeth gritted in pain. “Get your Goddamn hands off of me.”
“Emily Baxter, on the orders of the Point Loma council, I am arresting you on suspicion of the murder of your son, Adam. Please don’t resist.”
The sound of the bedroom door opening was closely followed by a deep growl. Thor padded out of the bedroom, his teeth bared in a menacing growl, Rhiannon right behind him.
“Shoot the dog,” Fisher ordered the man holding Emily’s pistol, a hint of panic in his voice.
“No!” Rhiannon screamed and grabbed Thor’s collar, pulling him back even as he lunged toward the man who had Emily’s arm pinned up behind her back.
Emily felt the grip on her arm relax as the fat guard holding her reflexively backed away from the snarling malamute. This was her one chance. She slipped her arm out of his grip, twisted to face him, drew her head back, and drove her forehead as hard as she could into the man’s nose. She felt the satisfying crack of his nose shattering like the shell of an egg and a spray of blood splatter across her face. The man screamed in pain, releasing her as both hands flew to his face. He staggered backward, moaning in shock.
“For Christ’s sake, get her,” Fisher yelled, pointing at Emily.
The blond guard, Emily’s .45 still in his hand, looked stunned. He had her weapon raised and pointed down the corridor at Thor, but Rhiannon had positioned herself between the dog and Emily’s attackers.
Emily grabbed his gun hand, twisted around until she had his wrist locked, the gun pointed at the far wall and his elbow moving in the opposite direction, then applied all her weight to his wrist. The man screamed in pain as his elbow hyperextended,
ligaments stretching like pieces of rubber.
Her pistol clattered to the floor.
If she could just grab the gun, she’d have a chance to seize control of this mess. She released the man, expecting his reactions to be impaired by pain, but he had enough of his wits left to realize what she was attempting and kicked the .45, sending it skittering across the corridor carpet where it bounced against a skirting board and disappeared through Rhiannon’s open bedroom door.
Emily shoulder-barged him while he was off balance and sent him face-first into the wall, before he tumbled to the floor.
“Get in the bedroom,” Emily yelled at Rhiannon as she turned back to face her attackers.
She saw the pistol descending toward her and tried to dodge away, but it was too late, the butt of Fisher’s pistol caught her square on her right temple.
The last thing Emily sensed was Rhiannon’s high-pitched scream, then her universe disappeared into blackness.
Adam was five years old. Emily didn’t know how she knew this, but she did. He was asleep on the bed, the blankets pulled up to his chin, his hair spread out around his head like a halo.
He was beautiful.
Emily leaned in and kissed his forehead. She placed the pillow over his face and pushed down hard.
“No!” Emily cried out, and instantly regretted it. The yell rang her head like a bell.
Where the fuck was she? She raised her head, looked around, but didn’t recognize the room. Her mind was full of fog and confusion, her thoughts running from her each time she tried to focus on them. She remembered something about a fight, but the why of it eluded her.
Emily felt metal beneath her fingers. She was lying on some kind of a gurney, a hospital gurney with collapsible metal sidebars to stop patients from rolling out of them. A gray blanket lay crumpled below her knees. She sat up, reached to caress the throbbing spot on the side of her head, and almost dislocated her wrist, yelping at the sudden pain as her arm was abruptly stopped. Emily stared at the metal handcuffs securing her left arm to the gurney’s railing.
Genesis Page 6
