Outside, Paul heard a squeal of tires and brakes.
He rushed to the living room picture-window and peeked through the blinds. Two—no, now three Army M998 Heavy Hummer Troop Carriers were screeching to a stop, Army troops rapidly bailing out the rear, M4 rifles in hand, seeking cover behind trees, cars and the sides of buildings. One figure, carrying a flamethrower, strode swiftly to a spot behind his Camry in the driveway.
Paul’s gut wrenched in horror and his heart beat suddenly doubled. He swallowed a curse, a huge lump in his throat abruptly making it difficult to breathe.
For several more seconds, he remained frozen in place, not able to move a single muscle. Did they really have Capie, or was this some sort of trick? What should he do? Take a chance the guy was bluffing and escape? Or surrender? Fear for Capie’s safety overrode all his other concerns and worries. God, what would Paul do if they hurt her?
With a tremendous effort of will, he moved, now on the verge of panic. More than that, he also was inundated with a wave of anger and hatred. His soul burned with it, from head to toe, and Paul seized it as a weapon to make his body move faster with frenzied purpose.
Every second was precious now and he must act as fast as possible and with the greatest efficiency. Without hesitation, he snapped opened a portal to a location just down the road, fifty feet under the nearest intersection. He used the portal to scoop out a small cavity in the bedrock, dumping the residue in the kitchen sink. Then, with a wave of his hand, the emerald on the card table and the desktop computer went sailing through the opening. He tossed his wallet and the gold wrist band through the portal too.
“I am in touch by phone! You have fifteen seconds! Surrender or she suffers the consequences!”
“He’s still lying!” the door greeter spell yelled. “His phone is in his pocket and it’s not even turned on!”
There were two loud bangs, shots fired.
“Missed me! Missed me!” the door greeter cackled in delight. “Geordi La Forge without his VISOR can shoot better than you!”
The anger burned in Paul’s blood. Did they really have her? Was she really in danger? Would they hurt her if he disappeared?
He just couldn’t take the chance. Not really. Oh, they were fully capable of lying to him. Even through the haze of his anger, Paul knew that much. But the fact that they knew he was here and that they knew her name told him enough. Paul could not take the chance that they were lying.
He cast a small spell to make his voice heard outside.
“I’m coming out! Don’t shoot!” he shouted angrily.
Paul dug the tantalum block out from under his shirt, wistfully looked at it for only a moment and then he flung it through the portal.
It snapped shut with a loud pop.
Heaving a sigh, Paul yanked open the front door. With hands held high, he walked out.
His left foot was barely out the door frame when the man standing there grabbed him by the arm and yanked hard, pulling Paul off balance, through the air, past the front two steps to land on one shoulder on the concrete sidewalk. He tried to get to his feet but three soldiers in full body armor hurled themselves through the air and tackled him, knocking the wind out of him. Stunned, Paul struggled for breath, his body already starting to scream in intense pain in a dozen places from the physical abuse.
Then he was yanked to his feet, spun around and hands handcuffed behind his back. Two soldiers hauled him toward a Humvee, violently shoving him through the rear door.
As he struggled to sit up, his face was sprayed with a cool mist. He coughed and then gagged. His throat choked and then the feeling in his face faded away. His vision blurred around the edges and tunneled inward. In mere seconds, Paul could neither see nor hear.
Then blackness totally overwhelmed him.
• • • •
There was the impression of being carried. And not gently either. He was very uncomfortable and, in addition, completely disoriented. Blinking, he opened his eyes, and caught a glimpse of grass moving beneath him as two strong men hefted him along, his arms locked in theirs.
With no more effort than was required to arm wrestle with a Klingon, Paul lifted his head and through his hazy vision saw what appeared to be a military helicopter, its rotors already spinning, sitting on the grass, the pilot waving them on. Paul had the muted impression that they were in some sort of park, with trees in the distance. The two soldiers dumped him like excess baggage through the passenger door and onto the metal floor of the helicopter passenger cabin.
“He’s waking up already!” He heard a voice in the distance yell over the sound of the blades.
“That didn’t take long!” Another one yelled back.
Paul’s anger started to return and he struggled to sit up but another spray of mist in the face quickly took him back down.
• • • •
“Paul, it’s time to wake up now. Paul, you must wake up. You are in danger and only you can save yourself. Wake up, Paul!”
His eyes snapped open and Paul stared, confused and befuddled, at his surroundings. For several seconds, he could make no sense of what he saw nor could he form any lucid thoughts. Then his memories came flooding back. The ring of the doorbell, the FBI agent, the Army troops, the helicopter.
And worst, the threat against Capie’s life.
He was sore all over. Even his bruises seemed to have bruises. His anger returned in full measure. With adrenalin pumping through his arteries. Paul was suddenly able to think again.
There was a leather couch and three leather swivel seats in front of him. On either side of those, there were walls curved inward with small windows. An aircraft of some sort. Small. From the droning noise, a jet. Perhaps a small executive jet of some kind.
From his seat, Paul could see two Oni, one on the couch and the other in one of the swivel seats. The remaining two seats were occupied by Normals. All of them were dressed in Army desert camouflage fatigues and armed with M4s and Beretta M9s. The Oni on the couch was turned slightly towards him, the name above the breast pocket read “Pruitt,” the collar showing lieutenant’s bars.
“Ah, good,” a voice to his left cheerfully remarked.
Paul spun to see who was talking and was totally shocked to see a disembodied head — but not Merlin’s — hovering in mid-air. Paul’s heart skipped two beats in sudden fear until he realized whose face he was looking at.
“Genie!” he cried but then he precipitously remembered similar sessions with Merlin. Instantly, he spun and glanced over at the Oni, afraid that his outcry might have alerted them that he was awake.
Both Oni appeared to be sound asleep.
“Relax,” said the genie/wizard reassuringly. “No one can see or hear our conversation. And by the way, my name is Jaret, not genie.”
“What’s going on?” Paul frantically insisted. “Where have you been? Where’s Capie? How did you find me? Where are we going—?”
“Slow down!” Jaret patiently admonished him. “One question at a time! Now, let me start at the beginning. You may remember that I had a few things to take care of, after I left you on that mountain summit in the Karakoram Mountains. Well, I have only just returned and I, uh, decided to see how well you were doing. I am not spying on you. It’s just that, under the circumstances, you’ll understand that I feel somewhat accountable for you. Anyway, imagine my surprise when I discovered that you were bound with metal irons and guarded by armed soldiers on this flying machine. And I was even more surprised when I discovered two of those soldiers were not quite human and that they too possessed magical powers.” He turned and looked at the closest Oni. “Ugly looking as well, I must say.”
“How did you find me?” Paul insisted on knowing.
Jaret appeared to be momentarily embarrassed. “Well, I, uh… you see… when I put you to sleep to give you your magical powers…I, uh, sort of ‘marked’ you, in a way that would let me find you again.”
Paul stared at the image floating beside him. “Marked me? How?”
With a start, Paul realized that the other man was right. Although the subject was far from over.
“Genie… uh, Jaret!” Paul urgently hissed. “Can you get me out of here?”
The other wizard’s embarrassed smile faded to a frown.
“I’m terribly sorry,” he responded. “I can’t take you from this machine.”
Paul stared at him. “Why not? Just open a portal for us and we can go.”
“No, I can’t do that,” Jaret said, with a sad expression. “I can’t interfere, at least not directly. It’s… complicated. If you escape, it must appear as if you did it on your own, without any outside assistance. So far, the only magic I’ve used is something you could have done. But if you leave this plane in mid-air without a talisman, that will not be explainable.”
Paul’s mouth fell open as he realized that Jaret was prepared to abandon him. “So you can’t help me?”
“Little spells, yes. Major ones, no.”
With a frantic nod in their direction, Paul asked Jaret, “Did you put those Oni to sleep?”
The genie turned wizard snickered mischievously and nodded. “It wasn’t too hard to trick both him and his partner to fall asleep. And the humans see and hear only what I want them to see and hear.”
“Thanks,” Paul muttered, now anxiously trying to think of a way out of his predicament while pure panic hovered at the outskirts, chomping at the bit to turn him into a howling raving manic, totally out of control. How was he going to get out of here and back to Capie, if Jaret wasn’t going to help him? How?!
“Jaret, you have to help me get off this plane,” Paul implored him. “They’ve taken my fiancée and are holding her hostage. I have to free her!”
Jaret’s smile returned. “You are engaged to be married now? Congratulations! May Allah bless you with many fine sons!”
“Jaret! Please?” Paul begged desperately.
The disembodied head gave Paul a contrite shake of his head. “I’ve done all I can do. I apologize.” His image started to fade.
“Wait, Jaret! Please? Just hold on one moment, I beg of you!” Paul beseeched him.
The other’s image re-intensified. “Yes?”
Paul’s thoughts surged and spun as he frantically tried to think of some way to get off the plane, some method that Jaret would agree to assist with, even if only in a small way. He glanced wildly around him, at the plane, the soldiers and the Oni.
And then it came to him. The Oni. Of course, the Oni! They were the solution!
“Okay,” Paul mused, trying to calm his racing heart as he quickly examined his idea from all sides. “I have an idea. Can you keep the Oni asleep for a few more minutes, please?”
Jaret shrugged indifferently. “If you wish, I can do that much.”
Paul nodded. “Thanks. And one other thing. I want you to take the spell off the Normals. Don’t let them see you but let them see everything else, especially the Oni as they really are and not the disguise spells that the Oni use. Can you do that?”
Jaret grinned in sudden appreciation of the request. “It’ll scare the devil out of them.”
That was the whole idea. “Yes, it will. Please, go ahead.”
“I don’t know what you are planning but I hope it works.” Jaret vanished.
One of the Normals — by his name tag, a Sergeant Haworth — was looking in Paul’s direction. Suddenly, he sat bolt upright, eyes going wide, head turning to face the Oni on the couch first, then the other Oni in the swivel seat.
“Lord Almighty! Colston! Look!” he shouted in astonishment.
The other soldier swung around and froze in shock, staring at the two Oni.
“Pruitt! And Quimby! What happened to them?!” Sergeant Colston yelled.
Paul decided it was time to see how gullible the two soldiers were.
“They are in Stage Three,” he answered in a haughty tone of voice, as calmly as he could manage. “They’re terminal now. And no, I wouldn’t recommend touching them. In this stage, the victims are highly contagious.”
Colston jerked around to look at him. “Hey, the prisoner is awake! They told us to keep him unconscious. I’ll get the spray.”
“No, wait,” interrupted Haworth. He turned back to Paul. “What do you mean, they’re terminal? What’s this stage three stuff?”
Paul feigned a degree of arrogance that he didn’t feel in the slightest. “Oh? They didn’t tell you?” he asked, with a superior air. “Well, that’s just like the Army. Put troops at risk and not tell them about the dangers involved. Too bad for you guys.” Paul added with only half a sympathetic manner.
Haworth stepped closer, his face growing angry. “Answer me! What are you talking about?”
“The disease,” Paul said, in a conceited patronizing tone. “How else do you think that happened?” He nodded at the closest Oni. “One minute, they are human and the next moment the disease turns its victims into hideous monsters.”
“A disease?” Colston asked, his face turning pale.
Paul could see that they were both buying his act. Hey, maybe he had missed his calling. Perhaps he could have been an actor… okay, maybe not.
“Yes,” he answered, snobbishly. “A highly contagious and always fatal disease. Rigelian Phage.” Paul said, combining two diseases named in different Star Trek series. “And they are in Stage Three now. Too late for the antidote to work now, poor devils,” he said, feigning a sad sigh.
“There’s an antidote?” Haworth asked.
“Of course there’s an antidote,” Paul said, in a superior scoffing voice. “Which the Army obviously didn’t give to them. Say, that raises a question. Did they give it to you gentlemen?”
Both of the sergeants turned white as a sheet.
“This… this disease,” stuttered Colston. “You say it’s always fatal?”
“100% fatal, no exceptions,” Paul replied nonchalantly while he stared out the nearest window. “It can be transmitted by air as well as by touch. And it has a short incubation period. You’ve been exposed now. Depending on how healthy the two of you are, you have maybe ten minutes before Stage Two hits and then maybe thirty minutes later to Stage Three. So, in less than an hour, you need the antidote. Or… well, I think you get the idea.”
Both Army men collapsed weakly into their seats.
“Less than an hour?” Colston echoed faintly, his eyes wide in fear. “But we’re at least an hour out from Andrews…!”
Haworth leaned forward, suspicion written on his face. “How do you know so much about this disease?”
Ah, he was the tougher of the two men, and only half-sold on Paul’s act so far. Under other circumstances, Paul might have been tempted to enjoy spoofing them with his little charade, but the stakes of this small drama were exceedingly high. He reminded himself of his goal here. To escape and rescue Capie. Everything else here was unimportant.
“Who do you think helped develop it?” he asked in a lofty arrogant manner. “And the antidote too, of course. That’s the reason they want me so badly back in Washington. I threatened to go public, to warn the American people how dangerous this disease is and this is how they treat me,” Paul said, shaking the handcuffs behind him.
“You’ve had the antidote?” Colson asked.
“Naturally. Say, do you guys have families? Is there anything in particular I can tell them after — well, you know. Anything special I should tell them when I attend your closed casket funerals?”
“Funerals?” weakly gasped Colston, his hand grasping his throat. “Closed casket?”
Paul shook his head condescendingly. “Sorry, guys. Unless you get this plane on the ground pronto and get the antidote, the two of you are dead men.” He inclined his head toward the front of the plane. “And the pilots too, of course. You know, you really ought to consider passing the word
onto them as well. They might want to know too about their impending deaths. Perhaps they might have time to write their loved ones a last message. It’s really the considerate thing to do, you know.”
Both of the soldiers turned and rushed the cockpit. Paul sat back and grinned.
“Nicely done,” complimented Jaret, as his head reappeared. “But what will they do now?”
Paul chortled. “That’s the beauty of it. The pilots will come back here, to see for themselves, of course. Then they’ll get on the radio and scream their heads off. Their chain of command will have no clue what they are talking about, naturally. And these guys will assume that it is all part of some cover-up. In three or four minutes, we’ll be on our way down. Maybe in fifteen minutes, we’ll be on the ground at the nearest military airstrip.”
Jaret chuckled. “And you didn’t even have to cast a single spell. Again, my compliments.”
One of the pilots darted through the cockpit door and scooted to a stop six feet from Pruitt and Quimby, his eyes wide open, his jaw dropped. Without a word, he frantically scrambled back to the cockpit. Ten seconds later, the other pilot came rushing back. One good look sent him scurrying for the cockpit too.
Paul waited impatiently. Two minutes later, the plane did a sudden steep bank to the left, descending rapidly.
“It’s time to be out of these handcuffs,” he declared. Closing his eyes, Paul concentrated on the left handcuff, mentally feeling the internal locking mechanism. With a slight nudge, he slid the latch to one side and the cuff snapped open. Ten seconds later, the right cuff opened too.
The plane reversed direction, banking sharply to the right.
“What a fun ride,” Jaret sarcastically noted.
“It won’t be long now,” Paul predicted confidently as he glanced out his window, watching the ground as it came up from below them.
A little more waiting and he heard the landing gear doors as they opened, the gear hydraulically descending into place. Up ahead, Paul could see a stretch of roads and what appeared to be the edge of an airport runway. It grew closer.
Haworth and Colston emerged from the cockpit.
“We better spray him,” Haworth said, nodding in his direction.
Genie and Engineer 1: The Engineer Wizard Page 35
