by Kyle Mills
It took another five minutes, but he managed to pinch the tube flat and work it into the simple latching mechanism of the handcuffs. How to get out of your own cuffs was one of the first things they taught you at Quantico. He didn’t remember all the nuances, but after a few false starts he felt the satisfying pain of the blood rushing back into his hands. Another push freed his wrists completely.
Beamon pulled the gag from his mouth and took a gulp of the cold, exhaust-tasting air. He tried to bring his feet up close enough to untie them, but it was impossible in the cramped confines of the trunk. Whatever he was going to do, it was going to have to be without them.
He pulled his parka in front of him again and felt around until he found his cell phone. He wasn’t sure who he was going to call or exactly how he was going to describe the predicament he’d found himself in, but at least he could tell someone what the hell was going on.
He flipped it open with his still-numb fingers, not noticing that the battery pack was gone until the numbers on the keypad didn’t light up. They obviously planned to bury him with it. Made sense—it’d be kind of embarrassing if his phone turned up for auction at some church bake sale. Beamon zipped the useless phone back into his parka and flipped the lighter back on for a moment.
Options?
The easy answer was to start kicking and screaming and hope someone noticed and called the cops. The drawback there was that it was freezing cold outside, so none of the cars within theoretical earshot would have their windows down. No, most likely his captors would be the only people who heard him and they’d pull off the next ramp and use the opportunity to test out their tire iron on the back of his head.
Option two would be to escape on his own. That was his favorite, but it begged the question of how.
Beamon moved the lighter to the back of the trunk and examined the inside of the lock. Nothing he’d be able to figure out. The handcuffs had been his best—and only—lock trick.
He ran the lighter along the edges of the trunk as best he could, finally stopping at a black plastic tube housing a group of brightly colored wires. That might be something. He grabbed the tube and pulled hard, breaking the wires free with a small, but satisfying, shower of sparks.
The sound of a faltering engine and the feeling of the car coasting to a stop didn’t materialize. Instead, the car jerked a bit to the right as it changed lanes and accelerated, the engine purring smoothly.
“Goddammit,” Beamon swore quietly. The wires probably ran the fucking air conditioning.
He held the lighter in front of him and examined the contents of the trunk more closely. There were six books, all relating to the church in some way and all decorated with similarly inspirational pictures of Albert Kneiss. The spare tire looked brand new, as did the jack. And that was it, except for a dirty rag and an old McDonald’s wrapper. No sense in complaining—if that was what he had to work with, that was what he had.
Beamon picked up the books and piled them neatly behind him. They stacked to be about eight inches high. No way of knowing if that was going to be good enough.
The lighter began to dim ominously as he unscrewed the wing nut holding the jack in place. Once it was free, he put the jack on top of the books and inserted the lug wrench that doubled as its handle—a tricky and completely blind procedure.
Now if Ernie’s God would just cut him one little break here, the jack would reach the underside of the trunk and force it open.
Working the lever, which was behind him, was a slow and painful procedure, but the quiet clicking told him that he was making progress.
He’d been working it for about fifteen minutes when he had to stop and rest. The contorted position of his arms had constricted the blood flow, and it felt like there were knives in his shoulders and about a thousand needles in his arms.
He flicked the lighter again. The flame shuddered and glowed a dim blue, but it was still enough to see. Only about a half-inch to go before the jack made contact.
He shook out his arms as best he could and started in on the jack again as the car started a slow deceleration. He’d gotten off about ten more clicks when the lever stopped. He pushed harder, twisting his body to put a little weight behind it. “Oh, come on. Don’t do this to me,” he said quietly.
That was it. The jack was fully extended.
“One stupid goddamn break, that’s all I as—”
Beamon’s words caught in his throat when he was thrown forward into the spare tire again and the jack slammed into the back of his head. His ears were ringing loudly as he tried to scoot back into the middle of the trunk, but he wasn’t sure if it was from the impact of the jack or the deafening crash that had preceded it.
“What the fuck!” came a muffled voice flowing into the trunk on a blast of cold air.
Beamon shook his head as a car door outside slammed. “You ever hear of taillights, you assholes? It’s fucking pitch dark out here!”
Beamon managed a weak smile when he realized that the wires he’d pulled out must have belonged to the car’s brake lights. He rolled onto his back and saw the slow-moving glow of headlights, clearly visible through the gaps between the severely bent trunk and the body of the car.
“Get back here, you sonsofbitches!” he heard as the car started to move again.
Beamon kicked hard with his still tied feet, trying to get the stubborn latch on the trunk to completely break free. Nothing. He took a deep breath, pressed his hands against the inside of the trunk, and kicked again.
The trunk flew open just as the car cut hard onto the shoulder and began to accelerate. He could see the man who had hit them running back to his truck to give chase.
Beamon grabbed his parka and struggled out of the trunk, hitting the pavement hard and beginning to roll backward across the asphalt. The truck screeched to a halt as Beamon staggered to his feet.
“What the fuck!” the man said, jumping from the cab.
Beamon tried to focus on the front of the old pickup. One of the headlights was shattered, and the bug guard engraved with “Pearson Drywall” was hanging precariously from the hood.
“What the hell were you doing in there? Look at my truck!” the man shouted, grabbing him by the shirt. That, combined with the fact that Beamon’s feet were still roped together, knocked him onto his back.
He sat up and reached back to brush his hand against the base of his skull. It came back covered in blood.
“Hey, you all right?”
Beamon looked up into the man’s craggy face and at the traffic that was quickly bogging down around them. “Can I borrow your knife?”
The man pulled it from a leather case attached to his belt and flipped it open. Beamon took it and cut the rope binding his legs.
“You don’t want to mess with those guys,” Beamon said, trying to get up but falling back to the ground. He felt like one big bruise.
The man held his hand out and Beamon gratefully accepted the help. “Tell you what. Mr. Pearson, is it?”
He shook his head and looked at Beamon suspiciously. “Name’s Caleb. I just work for Pearson Dry- wall.”
Beamon looked again at the truck. It was still running, though the vibration of the engine looked like it was going to knock what was left of the front grille off at any moment.
“Tell you what, Caleb,” Beamon said, picking up the parka at his feet and confirming that the inside pocket still contained the envelope with what was left of his money. “You take me to the airport and I’ll pay for the damages to your truck in cash.”
63
BEAMON HAD EXPECTED TO FIND THE PLACE a pile of ashes, but nothing had changed.
Goldman’s overalls were still in the box he’d stuffed them in, the computers were still humming away, and the half-full bottle of bourbon was still where he’d left it.
Beamon limped across the silent apartment and sat down in front of a computer, leaning his shotgun against a chair. He jabbed at the space bar and lit a cigarette, watching the screen slowly come
to life.
He felt like someone had put him in a clothes dryer with a couple of bowling balls. The gash in the back of his head had continued to seep blood for hours, forcing him to keep a handkerchief pressed against it for most of the plane ride back to Flagstaff. That, combined with the black eyes and swollen nose, had attracted enough attention that he could be relatively certain that the church was aware that he was back in town.
He took a slug of bourbon directly from the bottle next to him and winced as the alcohol went to work on the cuts inside his mouth. How he’d gotten those, he wasn’t sure, but there didn’t seem to be a single square inch of his body that the church hadn’t left its mark on.
He double-clicked on the mailbox icon on the screen and pulled up the church’s hijacked e-mail. The feed was still working.
It took Beamon a good five minutes to figure out how to decrypt the e-mail but in the end he was rewarded with six completely useless communications from the late Albert Kneiss.
And that was the ball game. At midnight tomorrow, Jennifer Davis’s life would come to an end—a well-deserved punishment for trusting in him to save her.
She’d be twenty-four days from her sixteenth birthday.
Beamon leaned back and took a slightly more cautious sip from the bottle, hoping that it would start to go to work on his headache.
Even if he knew precisely where the Retreat was, what could he do? Fly to Portland, rent a car, then a snowmobile, and ride across God knew how many miles of frozen tundra like James-fucking-Bond? Or maybe a dog-sled team would be more in keeping with his technophobe image.
He reached into his pocket and pulled his cell phone out as it began to ring, but couldn’t decide if he really wanted to answer it. It was probably just Sara. Wanting to gloat a bit and to make a substantially reduced offer on the Vericomm disks.
What the hell, he decided, flipping the phone open. He’d spent damn near the last of his money on the new battery, he might as well get some use out of it.
“Hello.”
“Mark! Oh my God, Mark. I’ve been so worried. I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for days!”
Beamon stopped the bottle about six inches from his mouth. “Carrie?”
“Mark, are you okay? You sound strange.”
“That’s probably because I don’t know why we’re talking. I thought we said everything we had to say last week.”
There was silence over the line for a moment. “I’m calling to say I’m sorry.”
Beamon set the bottle on the table but said nothing.
“What’s going on, Mark?”
“What do you mean?”
“I talked to a friend of mine—a psychiatrist who specializes in child abuse. She’d never heard of the Child Safety Administration. In fact, no one has.”
“No big surprise there, Carrie,” Beamon said, finding it impossible to hide his anger. “Their goddamned business card didn’t even have a phone number on it. A little unusual, don’t you think?”
“Yes. I … Emory means everything to me, Mark. You know that.”
He did know. It wasn’t her fault.
“I talked with Emory and I had my friend talk to her. There was nothing. I knew there wouldn’t be, but I had to be sure. I trust you, Mark, but …”
“Look, I understand, Carrie. I would have done the same thing.”
She sighed over the phone and Beamon fought to erase the image of her that was starting to paint itself into his mind.
“I hoped you would, Mark. Can we start over?”
Beamon watched the computer screen in front of him as it turned from a block of text to a simulation of flying through space. “No. We can’t. Stay away from me, Carrie. You don’t want to be part of what’s left of my life.”
“What’s left of your li—”
He turned off the phone and laid it gently down on the table. The computer picked up the vibration and the screen turned back to the last e-mail from the church, as if it were mocking him.
There wasn’t much left for him now but revenge. He’d play the tapes for whoever would listen and try to tell his story, but the church had left him with no credibility, no money, and no allies. He had a feeling that there wouldn’t be anyone listening.
Beamon looked at the text of the e-mail on the computer, trying to find some hidden meaning in the financial report printed there, but there was’ none. His eyes wandered across the colorful buttons at the top of the screen, finally fixing on the light gray lettering in the button on the far right.
SEND.
Beamon wrapped his hand around the bottle of bourbon on the table but didn’t pick it up. He leaned forward, bringing himself closer to the screen.
SEND.
64
HER BREATHING WAS ALMOST INAUDIBLE. THE white sheets, into which her pale skin blended so seamlessly, barely moved as her chest rose, faltered, and fell in a stilted rhythm.
Sara ran the back of her hand down Jennifer Davis’s unconscious body. She’d never wake again. When the others arrived, they’d see her lying there peacefully, preparing to become humanity’s teacher for the next ten thousand years.
Then another dose of the sedative just before midnight, combining with what she already had coursing through her veins, and the life would fade out of her. Sara’s control of the church would be nearly unshakable then, and she would use that power to continue her work. To increase the church’s wealth and influence, and with it her own.
Sara looked away from the girl and considered the problem of Mark Beamon, the only thing standing in the way of the future that she envisioned for herself and the church.
He was broken. She’d seen the pain and guilt in his eyes when she had taken Jennifer and reduced to nothing his desperate struggle and his sacrifice of everything meaningful in his life.
She recognized his subsequent escape as a fluke, but was becoming concerned that despite her resources, he was still missing. If he hadn’t been located by tomorrow morning, she would call him and make a meager offer for the Vericomm tapes. With nothing else left, he’d jump at whatever bone she saw fit to throw.
And then, when he was at his weakest, she’d have him brought to her and end it once and for all.
The men who had let him escape—both in Phoenix and in Washington—had been severely censured, but had kept their positions. She needed the Guardians to complete the consolidation of her power and to keep the rest of the Elders docile. A replacement for Sines would have to be chosen. And soon.
Sara walked to the frost-covered window and looked out at the empty expanse that surrounded the Retreat. She didn’t turn when she heard the door open. “I said I didn’t want to be disturbed.”
There was no answer.
She turned to face a man wearing a thick black jacket standing just inside the doorway. His name was Thomas. Thomas Nolan. He was only thirty- two, but intelligent and strong beyond his years. His parents had been members of the church since almost the beginning. She’d recognized him for his fanatical devotion to Albert when he was still very young and had personally attended the ceremony marking his entrance to the Guardians.
Now the devotion he had shown Albert would be hers. When this was over, he would be the one to step into Sines’s position.
“What is it, Thomas?” she said as the other two Guardians staying at the Retreat walked in behind him and took positions at the edges of the room.
“Get out of here,” Sara said, letting the anger creep into her voice. “I told you that no one but Thomas and myself are to enter this room without my permission.”
“No. Stay,” Nolan said.
The two men held their ground, their expressions undecipherable.
“What did you say?” Sara said, stepping closer to Nolan and looking directly into his eyes. The reverence that she had always seen there had disappeared. Instead of averting his gaze, he glared back at her. “Tell them to leave, Thomas.”
“No.”
“What’s wrong with you?” She t
ook a step back, confused.
She looked around her at the men standing silently along the wall, concentrating on maintaining her outward calm. None of the Guardians had ever disobeyed her before. She was suddenly very aware of the young girl lying on the bed behind her and the precarious position that Jennifer put her in. Had something happened that she wasn’t aware of? No, that was impossible.
“I thought that you would be the one to take Gregory’s place, Thomas. Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps you don’t have the devotion to Albert that he thinks you do.”
She jerked back when his hand shot out, but not fast enough. He caught her by the back of the neck and pulled her toward him.
“What … what are you doing?” she yelled, struggling to break free. “Let me go!”
The two other men followed along slowly as he dragged her through the door and out into the hall.
“Stop him. He’s gone insane!” she shouted at them.
They didn’t seem to hear, so she turned back to Nolan. “Albert will—”
At the mention of Kneiss’s name, Nolan threw his weight back and pulled her head into the wall.
She slid to the floor dazed, blood from a gash in her forehead flowing into her eyes. She wiped at it with her sleeve, still trying to understand what was happening. Thomas Nolan was the most devoted of all the Guardians.
She didn’t stand, but held her hand out, trying to calm down and to give herself time to think. Something had happened. What?
The cold rage was clearly visible on Nolan’s face as he moved toward her.
“Wait,” she said, holding her hands out in front of her.
He hesitated.
“Just wait. There is some misunderstanding here and there’s no need for Albert to ever hear about it. It’s okay. It’s okay. Just tell me why you’re doing this. We’ll straighten it out.”
Nolan didn’t answer, but instead grabbed her by the hair again and dragged her through the grand entry hall of the old building and out into the snow. Sara felt the sharpness of the cold in her lungs as she tried to regain her footing on the icy ground beneath her.
