by Lisa Hughey
“Keep a lookout,” he demanded as he crouched down in front of the light blue battered car.
“Why this car?” I asked curiously.
“Traditionally the number one most stolen car in the country.”
“Huh, really?”
“Yep.”
Zeke switched license plates with the car next to the Civic, which was a Honda CRV.
One of his unruly blond curls had fallen over his forehead and fell into his vision. He shook his head then bent to finish the task of switching the license plates on the two Hondas. Then he switched plates with the rental Range Rover and another car of the same make, but a different color.
The whole process had taken all of ten minutes.
“Let’s get out of here.” Zeke used a Slim Jim to open the Civic’s driver’s door and then unlocked the rest of the car. He threw his duffel in the backseat and by working some automotive magic that completely escaped me, he hotwired the car. Within a few minutes, he had the engine running.
“Sweet music.” He grinned, his teeth even and white in his tanned face. Slight blond stubble obscured the clean line of his jaw and the scruff gave him a rakish air.
The rumble of an Army truck hit our ears at the same time.
Zeke twisted in the driver’s seat, just as I swung my body into the passenger seat. A convoy truck barreled up the paved road to the Hearst Castle Visitor Center.
“Shit.” Zeke shoved out of the driver’s seat and quickly hopped into the back seat. He lay on the tattered fabric seat on his back so he wasn’t visible unless you were staring straight into the car, and commanded me. “You drive.”
“What?”
“Act casual.” Zeke’s muffled voice came from the backseat. “Don’t speed. Don’t stare overlong at the truck. Just drive like you’re a tourist.”
My heart boomed in my chest. “You think that truck is for you?” Us?
“I can’t afford not to think it,” Zeke replied. “Get us out of here.”
I got behind the wheel and slowly exited the tourist center parking lot. The Army truck went flying by as if on a mission. “Maybe they’re just getting ready to do some repairs at the Castle. After all, it is a National Landmark.”
I was grasping and I knew it. But that Army truck made everything that had happened this morning real in a way that I didn’t expect.
“Do you really want to stick around and find out?”
He had a point. I tooled down the winding road. At the stop sign to Highway One, I asked, “North? Or South?” We couldn’t go west, that lead straight into the ocean. East lead up the hill to the castle which was only accessible by official buses.
“Camp Roberts is south and east, Fort Hunter Liggett is north and east. Roberts is closer. North would send us near the Ventana Wilderness and towards Monterey.” Zeke’s voice ruminated from the backseat. I didn’t freaking care I just needed to know which way to go.
“Which way?” I asked again almost desperately.
“South.”
So I turned left, and we were on our way. I glanced back at the visitor center. I couldn’t be sure but I thought the soldiers were clustered around the Rover that Zeke and I had abandoned. But he’d switched plates so I wasn’t sure how they knew the correct one.
My palms began to sweat and I blew out a nervous breath. “I think you were right,” I whispered.
“Then let’s get the hell out of here.” Zeke’s muffled voice was stringent.
We headed south, my mind whirling at a hundred miles an hour even as I kept the car’s speed just under the posted limit.
Zeke pushed up to sitting and hung his arms over the backseat to stare out the side window at the slowly receding visitor center.
Those Army guys were after him. As if he were a public enemy. And I voiced the thoughts that were swirling in my head since he’d told me his impossible tale. And given me new information about my stepfather. If he was right, and John Stanley was a sleeper, then more was going on here. “What are the odds that my stepfather and your problems are not connected?”
He didn’t say anything but his dark blue gaze met mine in the rearview mirror. The older car’s mirror was mottled with age, the blemishes in the mirror obscuring and revealing his features and giving him a slightly demonic cast.
“The Single Law of Chance,” Emile Borel’s work on evolutionary inevitability I mused aloud, “would presume that the probability that these events are connected is so small it would never occur.”
Except, that it had occurred. John Stanley had been in Cambria. Susan Chen had been in San Luis Obispo. Zeke had been burned. And the Army was in San Simeon. “Taken alone they are all on the edge of impossible. However, all of those events had happened which means, at least in my mind, that they have to be connected.”
Zeke was still silent.
When he didn’t say anything I thought maybe he didn’t know what I was talking about. “Are you familiar with Borel?”
“Of course,” Zeke snapped. “I’m just trying to wrap my head around the fact everything is tied together.”
Ooookay.
“Usually I see patterns before they’re patterns,” he muttered. He didn’t say it but I could hear the question. How did he miss it? And how was everything connected?
“You…and me.”
As far as I knew there weren’t any other variables that intersected us, so in theory, our problems should be mutually exclusive. “Unless there is another Venn intersection that I don’t know about.”
He continued to stay silent.
“You know, Venn diagrams. Circles that overlap. Some variables are unique to each circle but the variables that both have in common are in the overlapped part.”
“Jesus, yes, I’m familiar with Venn Diagrams. Pretty sure everyone learns about them in third grade,” Zeke said.
I could practically hear his brain churning in the backseat. He knew something. Something else that tied us together.
But the longer I waited, the more sure I became that he had no intention of sharing with me. Which totally blew. And he could tell I was waiting.
He finally said, “It’s classified.”
Twenty-Six
October 21
Seattle, Washington
Oliver studied the simple tract house in the suburb of Seattle. He’d hated coming to dinner at this house. Susan’s family was dry, boring, and mundane. He’d been a premier scientist and to have to share a meal with the plebian and simple tastes of her Asian sibling and Caucasian wife trying so hard to be the quintessential American family had driven him insane.
But he’d done it. He’d tolerated those dinners and backyard barbecues all for the sake of science and for the cause of mother Russia.
His rage built as he stared at the simple tri-level clapboard house with its red brick foundation and cement walkway. He hated the rounded, precisely-trimmed bushes out front and the little pots, filled with cheerful Fall flowers and trailing greenery, that flanked the cement steps and iron railing.
They had talked ad nauseam about their stupid flowers and their minivan and their neighbor’s vacations and what universities their darling, brilliant children were going to attend.
It was so tempting to just torch the house. He spied the electrical box attached to the side of the house near the fenced backyard. He could probably even make it look like an accident. He could just zap the fuse box, engulf the house in flames, and get rid of his former in-laws permanently.
But he needed Liliya. And he needed his wife.
And, most importantly, he needed their research.
He’d tried contacting her through the silly method they’d set up years ago. An online chat room that was just for them. She hadn’t responded. Hadn’t acknowledged his attempts to get in touch with her in any way.
That seriously pissed him off. He was not to be ignored.
Of course, she had no idea he was in her country.
He wasn’t about to put that onto the internet even to
get a rise out of her. But he didn’t know how else to make contact with her. He’d been at this house for the last two days and she hadn’t come to see their daughter. The in-laws had other visitors. Official looking men in navy blue suits and white shirts, which meant he wasn’t the only one looking for his absent wife. Another visitor who appeared to be a tutor came every day for several hours.
It was time for more desperate measures.
Oliver sat in a car down the street hoping that the brat would show soon. He’d thought he’d caught a glimpse of her in the window earlier but since that one quick shadow, his daughter hadn’t come outside. He could concede that perhaps giving Liliya the DNA-enhancing drug was not well thought out, but at the time he’d only meant to increase her brain power while testing the drug, and help her agoraphobia, not make it worse. Unfortunately there had been unforeseen consequences to the drug’s effects.
He was done waiting around for Susan to respond. He’d make it impossible for Susan to ignore him.
Oliver sat up in his seat as the tall, thin woman in a light blue Prius parked in front of the house. The tutor, he presumed. She was carrying a bulging messenger bag. She rang the doorbell and was quickly ushered into the home by Susan’s sister-in-law. No sign of his daughter.
Oliver continued to wait. As he canvassed the neighborhood, he noted that there was a banged up, white service van, with some sort of logo on the side, parked at the opposite end of the street.
Something about the van and the fact that no house on the street seemed to be having any type of work done set off his radar.
Oliver tried to see if there was someone in the back of that van. It was possible he wasn’t the only one waiting for his darling wife to show.
But damned if he’d let another spook take what rightfully belonged to him.
Oliver kept one eye on the house and the other on the van. But nothing changed.
Two hours later, the woman exited the house. He caught a glimpse of Liliya but no Susan. She had to be coming here, right? She was so fucking protective of the girl. But what if Susan was not in Seattle? How the hell would he find her? The United States was a big fucking country. Although she had limited mobility since it was likely that every intelligence and law enforcement agency in the country was on the lookout for her. He needed her to come to him.
As he watched the Prius drive away, he contemplated his next move.
Ring the doorbell? Grab the girl? His employers had given him two weeks to carry out his mission but he didn’t want to use all the allotted time. It would be best for him to get out of the United States as quickly as possible. The longer he was here, the more chance he could be discovered.
He didn’t have time to waste.
He’d been in front of this house for the last two days, and nothing. Maybe he needed to think outside the box, as the Americans liked to say.
Susan was not answering his communication efforts. But he knew one way to get her to talk to him.
Oliver watched the van but still there was no movement. He must have been mistaken about the house being under surveillance. Finally, he was ready to make his move. But he still had to make sure no one saw him.
Oliver put his rental car into gear and drove away from the house slowly. When he hit the next intersection, he turned left and then turned into the alleyway behind the house.
He parked one house down from his in-laws and pulled the syringe from his duffel. He’d hoped to avoid this solution for several reasons but the most important was he hadn’t really wanted to deal with the girl’s problems.
But if he didn’t get the formula and notes from Susan he was dead. Self-preservation won every damn time.
He tucked the syringe in his Seattle Seahawks windbreaker pocket and exited the car. He approached the back door, holding the thick, heavy Wonder Bar jimmying tool alongside his thigh.
Oliver lifted his fist and rapped against the back door, hard enough that his knuckles stung from the force. Susan’s sister-in-law peered out the back curtains. Her fearful gaze widened as she saw him. She started shaking her head and her mouth formed the word no even as she jammed the curtains back into place.
Yob. Fuck.
He banged again. This time even harder.
But she didn’t come back to the door. Oliver shrugged. Guess he’d have to do this the hard way. He wedged the Wonder Bar between the frame and the door near the doorknob and cranked until the flimsy door cracked under the pressure. God bless the Americans and their inventions. A sledgehammer would have been so much noisier.
Oliver forced his way inside the house. In his peripheral vision, he saw the frying pan coming toward his head. Instinctively he threw up his left arm to block the blow. The impact reverberated through his entire body.
“Fuck!” He roared and swung back with the Wonder Bar, catching his sister-in-law in the temple. She dropped like a sack of flour and blood poured from her wound onto the Saltillo tile floor.
Bliad. He fought the urge to spit on the bitch.
The blinking red light from their house alarm pad indicated that she’d pressed the silent notice button for the police. He sprinted through the house looking for his daughter. He knew it would take the security company a few minutes to verify the alarm was set off on purpose. On cue, the home phone began to ring.
He pulled the syringe from his pocket and started searching for his daughter.
Susan couldn’t ignore him now.
Twenty-Seven
October 21
San Luis Obispo
Zeke sweated in the back seat. Dammit. How did they find him so fast? He didn’t have a tracking device implanted like some of the field agents. He was only a programmer who spent most of his time in the office working on code and developing unhackable encryption programs or trying to hack into other programs. There was no need to implant him.
Could they have put in some sort of nanobots when he’d gotten the original DNA-enhancing drug? That had never been mentioned by the scientists but still, they had located him pretty damn quickly.
Clearly his evasion choices were too easy to predict. He needed to step up his tactics or he’d be in prison before he could blink.
And then it occurred to him. “Which car were they around?”
“The Range Rover.”
“My rental or the one I switched plates with?”
“Yours.”
The rental company tracking device. Zeke wanted to slap his forehead. Dammit. He knew better than most people how many ways an individual could be tracked.
Zeke knew Sunshine was still pissed because he hadn’t answered her question about how else they intersected. Her idea of a Venn Diagram was actually a good one. It might not hurt to diagram out all the different variables and see if there was anything he was missing.
“We need to lay low for a bit.”
“Where are we going to do that?” He hadn’t imagined the snippiness in her voice. As a matter of fact if she hadn’t been driving he wasn’t sure she wouldn’t have just rolled out of the car at the last stoplight.
He needed to find a hole-up/hide site. To do that he needed a new phone and the internet.
He had an idea. The beach wasn’t a very defensible position which was exactly why it made a lot of sense. The NSA would be searching specific locations, train, bus stations, the highway, even possibly the little airport in San Luis for avenues of escape from the area.
And they likely wouldn’t think about him staying here, right in plain sight. The surfboard racks on top of the car they borrowed would be more camouflage. Even if they looked twice at the car in a beach parking lot, they’d likely assume it was owned by beach rats out to catch some waves.
They could hit the beach and he could look for a more permanent solution to his problem.
He knew Sunshine wasn’t going to be keen on the idea. But they didn’t have a choice. Zeke needed to find a safe place for them to hide while he figured out what the hell he was going to do next.
“I ha
ve a few ideas. But we need supplies.”
They should switch license plates on the Honda again. “We need to hit a Target to get camping gear and some other supplies.”
She shot him a dark look in the mirror. “Camping?”
“Yeah. Misdirection. We’re not actually going to camp, but if anyone remembers us they’ll remember the gear.” And they’d be prepared for anything, even the possibility of sleeping outside in case they did end up camping. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that. However they both needed a change of clothes and to alter their appearance. “Can you get me to the nearest Target?”
Once they arrived, he had Sunshine park at the end of the lot. Zeke crammed his faded Billabong hat with a ragged brim over his curls and pulled the bill low over his forehead.
He studied Sunshine, wondering if she had anything in her bag to change her appearance.
“What are you looking at?” Her eyes were narrowed, the gray mere slits in her face.
He was about to have one pissed off woman on his hands. “I think you should cut your hair.”
Her eyes rounded and her long graceful fingers went straight to the thick braid that hung down over shoulder. “Wha—”
“I know, I know, it’s a symbol of your feminine mystique.”
“Excuse me?” She propped her fists on her hips and her eyes sparkled with annoyance in the morning light. She hissed, “I wear my hair this way because it’s convenient, I could give a rat’s butt about my hair but I think I deserve at least an answer as to why I need to cut it.”
Zeke took a step back, impressed at her wrath. And oddly turned on. “We need to change our appearances.”
She snorted. “And you think that cap is going to do it for you?”
He jerked back. “What?”
“We need to buzz your hair,” she countered. “Right now that curly mop is pretty damn distinctive. And if you’ve forgotten they’re after you, not me.”
