Camouflage

by Aaron Pogue

  Her watch said it was 4:15. If Reed didn't already have someone in town, they would be here by daybreak. She was sure of it. Two hours on the highway would get her to town. Well...no. She shook her head. She had to be at Faye's place before six. She could make it. She'd have to run the whole way, but for Faye's sake she would find the strength. Then she could wait there. She could gun down Avery in cold blood if the bastard came to follow through on his plan. She could bring an army of Ghost Targets agents here to finish the job. Tomorrow. She nodded, jaw set, and stepped forward out of the trees.

  And way off to her right, barely a speck of light in the distance, she heard the subtle change in the hiss of the car's motion. She looked after it, confused, then her eyes widened in horror as she saw the lights growing larger. She could hear the hum coming back.

  Ken and Avery were at the bunker with Eddie. Jim was gathering flies on the mountainside. But that still left Wade out hunting for her. The murderer, and she'd walked right to him. She threw herself back into the trees as the car slowed to a stop thirty yards away. She heard the car door open, so clear in the night, so she knew he'd be able to hear her, too.

  She threw herself to the ground, crawled miserably into a shadow, but an instant later she heard him approaching. He walked straight toward her. He wasn't even trying for subtlety, either. Branches snapped under his feet, gravel rattled, and she saw the blinding beam of a flashlight slashing back and forth through the night.

  She panted short, sharp breaths. Her eyes strained wide, and she couldn't make herself blink. Every muscle in her body strained, tense, her instincts screaming at her to run. But he was too close. Almost in reach now. Any motion would give her away.

  Then the light fell on her, like a physical weight. It pinned her to the ground. A foot came down inches from her face—white cotton socks in an expensive black wingtip.

  She blinked. The voice that spoke above her was not the one she expected. "Katie? There you are." She rolled over, heart still pounding, and he muttered something and swung the light out of her face.

  A big shadow over her, but not the grizzly form of Wade. Soft, but strong in his own way. He knelt, bringing his face into sight, and she saw concern in his eyes.

  "My goodness, Katie," he said. "What's happened to you?"

  She gave him a smile and closed her eyes. "Martin Door!" she said. "My hero."

  11. Ghosts in the Woods

  "Katie, what's going on?" Martin said.

  She blinked in surprise. "You don't know? Oh. Of course." She thought of him as a kind of god sometimes, but his only powers were in Hathor. And she was hidden from Hathor.

  "Come on," she said, scrambling to her feet. She reached out a hand to haul him up, then dragged him through the last row of trees and back to his car. She threw the shotgun in first, slung the backpack after, then climbed in and sank into the seat's cushions with a big groan of relief.

  Martin joined her, and as soon as he had the door closed he said, "Driver, take us to the hotel."

  The hotel. Katie frowned for a moment, baffled, and then she laughed. She had a hotel room. She had clean clothes that fit her. She had a bed and a private bathroom of her own. She had room service.

  That crappy little small-town motel sounded like absolute heaven right then, but Katie shook her head. "No, Martin. We have to go to Bickmore."

  "Not a chance. It's too dangerous," Martin said, and he sounded like her dad. "We'll go to the hotel and wait for Reed and Phillips to fly in—"

  "Fly in?" Katie said. "They're not here?"

  Martin shook his head. His eyes crinkled with a pain that was all for her. "I only just contacted him. They'll be flying into Charleston in an hour or so—"

  "They weren't coming?" She felt a cold chill settle into her skin. She'd been counting on it for so long, waiting, and they had never even gotten the message. If Martin hadn't shown up.... "Thank you, Martin," she said, with all the warmth she could find. "If you hadn't been there...I don't know. I don't think I'd have made it."

  He looked sideways at her, thoughtful, and shrugged uncomfortably. "I'm glad I was," he said.

  She nodded and reached over to squeeze his hand. "Me too."

  There was a question in his eyes, but he didn't ask it. He just smiled at her and went back to work on his handheld.

  Martin Door. She sank back into her seat, let its foam wrap around her, and she closed her eyes. There was so much to do, all of it urgent, but right now she just needed a moment to rest. She wiggled her toes, rolled her shoulders, and lost her breath in a big soft sigh.

  Martin Door. He could fix everything. Reed and Phillips were coming, too. Her heart beat a touch faster. Reed was coming for her. They hadn't gotten her message, but they were coming now.

  She sighed again, nearly a moan this time, and almost decided to let herself fall asleep. It was right there, beckoning, and she certainly needed it. A little rest would help her think more clearly. Martin could handle things in the meantime.

  Martin Door.

  Her right eye twitched, but she quickly smoothed away the frown. Without opening her eyes, she asked casually, "What are you going to do?"

  "Hmm?" He sounded distracted. She heard the faint rattle of his battered old handheld as he typed away on it.

  "Reed and Phillips are coming," she said. "And you've been so careful. What are you going to do when they get here?"

  He didn't answer right away. Even when he did, he didn't. "I think we've got more important things to talk about."

  "Right." She felt the cool trace of tears welling against her eyelids. "Who is the leader?" she said, bitter. She wasn't really asking, and he didn't answer. It wasn't Eddie. It was someone higher up. "Where have you been, Martin?"

  "You know the answer to that." He sounded irritated and a little surprised. "Or...well, you know. I've been hiding."

  "Doing what?"

  "Trying to figure out how to fix the system," he snapped. "Trying to learn all the tools Velez built in."

  "Uh huh," Katie said, and then she groaned, disappointed in herself. "Oh, damn you Martin Door!"

  "What?" He sounded hurt. "What, Katie? Open your eyes! Look at me!"

  She did. She sat up straight, squared her shoulders, and turned to face him. The driver's monitor showed them speeding away from the town of Bickmore.

  "There were blackouts," she said and felt a fist wrap tight around her stomach. "Back in March." She didn't want to know the answer to her question. "Identity cascades like Velez had used, in several remote places." She made herself meet his eyes. "That was your doing, wasn't it?"

  Every heartbeat hurt while she waited for an answer. He made her suffer through five before he dropped his gaze, down and to the right. "I can explain."

  "Don't!" She said the word with authority, and an image of Jim flashed in her mind, the black blossom of blood on his chest as she stopped him.

  She blinked away the tears. "They said it was you," she growled. "Everyone knew it was you, even if they only said it in whispers. Everything that's gone wrong, every time something bad happened, your name came up. And every time—every time—I stood up for you. Damn you, Martin Door."

  His mouth worked without sound. She turned her back on him, staring out at the endless miles of trees flying by outside her window. "What are you doing here? Now?"

  "I came for you," he said, pleading, and she snorted in contempt.

  "That's quite some timing. You're the one on the run, hiding. Do you know how many times I wanted to call on you? Do you have any idea how much I've needed you? But no. After the last time, ever since Colorado, I just got by on my own. Because I was worried about you!" She slammed a fist against her hip, and bit her lip against the pain. "I was trying to protect you. And now I finally find you here, and you're with them."

  Her voice broke on the end, almost a sob, and then she had no words left. Her eyes burned, but she had never cried. Her breaths felt hot and empty in her chest. Her hand was clenched into a fist, and she couldn'
t make it relax.

  "I thought I was your hero," he said, heartbroken, and that almost made her cry. She didn't. She bit her lip harder and stared at the trees outside. She heard him take a deep breath. "Katie, you're not thinking straight. You've clearly been through a lot—"

  Her whole frame shook, a violent tremble under the blow of his too-careful words, and he shut up. They rode in silence for a while. Then he tried again.

  "Maybe you should get some sleep." She scoffed at him, an angry sound, and it shut him up again. She thought maybe that was it—that he'd let her ride the rest of the way in silence, but then he placed a warm, gentle hand on her shoulder, and her whole body tried to crumple inward. Her skin crawled under his touch. She felt a desperate need to get away, but she could only sit there grinding her teeth against a scream she wouldn't let herself give up.

  Behind her, soft and meek, he said, "I'm sorry." The words buffeted her, spun her around in circles and left her sick and dizzy. Martin went right on. "I'm sorry I wasn't there when you needed me. I'm sorry it took me so long to come see you. I've missed you."

  He took a deep shuddering breath, and his fingers squeezed tighter on her shoulder. "And I'm sorry I came now, if it hurts you this much. I was just so worried when I saw you were checking on one of Velez's groups—"

  "Velez?" she said, and the word stopped him cold. She turned, and his hand fell off her shoulder. She pinned him with her eyes. "What about Velez?"

  "These guys you're investigating," Martin said. His brow knit in confusion. "Ken and the rich guy and the other two. They're all Velez's people." He cocked his head, surprised. "You didn't know that?"

  "Velez is the leader?" She sounded almost hysterical in her own ears. "No! What—How? Velez has never had contact with any of them! Velez is in prison!"

  "Yeah, in a public prison," Martin said, dripping sarcasm. "I don't know whose bright idea that was—"

  "Mine," she said softly. "Shadow Mountain was corrupt."

  "Oh." Martin shrugged. "Doesn't matter. This is an old project of his. He's been cultivating these little groups for nearly a decade. Mostly it's just been—"

  He cut off, his jaw hanging open. Then his eyes shot wide and snapped over to Katie. "Wait, you suspected me? Again?"

  She spread her hands.

  "Oh, come on!" he said, injured.

  "To be fair," she said sheepishly, "it was you in Colorado."

  "Yeah, it was me who cured aging!"

  She blushed and looked away. Then she laughed, a shy little chuckle that built into hiccuping giggles she couldn't really control. She shook her head. "I'm sorry, Martin. You were right. I was not thinking straight at all."

  He smiled warmly at her. He put his hand on her shoulder again, friendly and comfortable, and this time it felt like forgiveness. She touched her cheek to the back of his hand, and looked up into his eyes. "You are my hero," she said. 'Thank you for rescuing me."

  "You're welcome, Katie." He chuckled and shook his head. "Are you ready to tell me your story now?"

  "Almost," she said. He raised an eyebrow at her in affronted impatience, and Katie laughed. "Call Reed first," she said. Then she gestured toward the monitor. "And send us back to Bickmore. There's another woman here who needs a hero to rescue her."

  While Martin rerouted the driver Katie checked her watch and calculated. 4:50. They'd wasted nearly half an hour on Katie's bad guesswork. It would be 5:20 by the time she got to Bickmore—the car danced through a U-turn and the monitor guessed 5:19—and that was going to make it close. Avery had said he'd have Faye out in the woods by six. Was he already going to get her? Was he there now?

  Reed's familiar voice came suddenly through the car's speakers, deep and soft and warm, wrapping around Katie like a blanket. "Hello?" he said. "Is this Martin again? Hello?"

  "Hello there." Martin answered him politely. "Yes, this is Martin—"

  Katie couldn't stop herself. "Reed!" she cried. "Reed, it's me."

  "Oh, Katie." The relief in his voice lifted her up. She felt herself smiling like a fool. "It's good to hear from you, Katie. We're on our way, right now. Where have you been? What's going on?"

  "They hit me with a SpectreShield," she said. Martin frowned then nodded with a sudden understanding.

  Reed whistled softly. "How did you escape them?"

  "They never caught me," she said. She heard the deep silence of their confusion, and she hurried to explain. "They have a guy who reprogrammed it to work remotely. It's been tracking me for two days, keeping me a ghost while they hunted me."

  "Oh, Katie!" Reed's voice was heavy with regret and sympathy. Martin squeezed her shoulder again and she nodded her gratitude to him. Then she smiled sadly. "It gets worse."

  She told them about Eddie, about the dismantled SpectreShields, and the satellite uplink. She told them about the bunker, and everything she'd figured out about the Gun Club. Then she glanced over to Martin and ducked her head.

  "Martin said there are more of these groups." He nodded emphatically, and she sighed. "Lots more. Reed, we're going to have to start finding and monitoring them, and they are not going to like that."

  "I was thinking the same thing," Reed said. "Don't you worry about that now, though. Okay? Get somewhere safe and wait for us." He sounded so worried she wished she could squeeze his shoulder.

  "I will," she said. "I promise. Martin is saying the same thing. I just need to check on someone first."

  Reed said, "What?" He filled the word with a whole speech of disapproval.

  Martin sighed. "I already tried to argue. You know how she is."

  "No," Reed said. "This is serious. Do you have any idea how vulnerable she is?"

  Martin barked a laugh. Katie shut him up with a glare. "Enough, boys. I mean it, Reed. This woman helped me, and that's the only reason she's in trouble. And you know what? I know how vulnerable I am—I've lived it for two days—and this girl has it even worse."

  "Katie—" Reed said, but she cut him off with a sigh.

  "Besides," she said, appealing to something he might more readily accept. "I've got Martin now. He'll get me out from under the SpectreShield, and I'll be as good as new."

  Reed was silent for a moment. Katie watched out the window as the old logging road flew past. Ten minutes to Faye's house. She waited.

  At last Reed responded. "Can you do that?"

  She turned to Martin. He shook his head, but he didn't say it out loud. She arched an eyebrow at him, and he sighed. "Yeah," he said, resigned. "I should be able to. I'll work on it."

  Reed stayed quiet long enough to communicate that he didn't like it, but he finally gave his assent. "Get to work on it. You've got half an hour, okay? If you can't get it worked out by then, I want you to pull her back somewhere safe. Okay, Martin?"

  Martin laughed. "I don't know how much success I'll have, but I'll try."

  Katie rolled her eyes, but she didn't want to press her luck. "Thanks for understanding, Reed."

  "I don't, Katie. I really don't. But I don't see how I can stop you from here." He sighed. "Just listen to Martin, okay? If he can't get you hooked back in, get somewhere safe. That's an order."

  She smiled for his concern, and nodded emphatically. "Yes sir. Thanks."

  "No problem," he said, more gruff than necessary. "See you soon, okay?"

  "Yeah. Bye, Reed."

  Martin echoed her, "Bye," to break the connection since Hathor was ignoring her. Then he met Katie's eyes. "So what are we really going to do?"

  Katie smiled for him. "Head to Faye Burke's house. Or maybe Avery's. You'll have to check, but we're going wherever she is."

  Martin nodded. "Of course." He gave the orders, asking Hathor to track her down, but she knew right away he wasn't finding her. She grabbed his arm and the look in his eyes confirmed it. He was afraid...and it was all for Katie.

  "Turn the car around," she said. "There was a logging road back there—"

  "I know," Martin said. "Driver, take me back to the spot where Ka
tie and Eddie disappeared. Done." He gave her a tight smile as the car changed course yet again. "I've spent some amount of time staring at that spot for the last day or so. Hathor should know the one I want."

  Katie nodded. "What have you been doing?"

  "Waiting mostly." He sighed. "I headed this way as soon as I learned you were coming, late on Monday. That put me at the hotel about an hour after you and Eddie left it. I knew you were going to be in town for a few hours, so I just settled in. When you disappeared...."

  He dropped his eyes, miserable. "I thought it was intentional. You and Eddie had been talking so much about ways to kill the cameras, so when that Wade appeared out of nowhere and started shooting, I thought you went ghost to get away. It wasn't until this morning that I really started to worry."

  "Funny," Katie said, without a hint of humor in her voice. "That's when I was sound asleep. Safest I've been since I got to town." A yawn cracked her jaw, and then she shook her head in wonder. "I can't believe you've been here the whole time...."

  The car turned off the highway. She tucked her hair behind her ear and nodded to Martin's handheld. "What did you find?"

  "She's gone," Martin said. "Nowhere on the record. I checked her history and the last record was of her asleep in her bed about forty minutes ago."

  She remembered something Faye had said to her in the woods. "They have cameras in the house," she said. "Check the video overlay since that point, okay?"

  He got it running on his handheld. She saw the flicker of motion on the screen as he ran it in high speed. "How did they do it?" Martin asked.

  "SpectreShields, same as me." She felt a pit in her stomach. She felt cold. "Ken's other project. I'm guessing Eddie did his job and they have more of them running now."

  She looked out the window. She recognized this road now. She didn't want to go back into the woods again. Reed had ordered her not to. She couldn't abandon Faye, though.