by R. D. Brady
He glanced at his phone, which lay on the passenger seat. A bullet had scarred the outside of the case, right along the screen. Chris had been lucky. No, not lucky, he thought, thinking about the warning on the TV. I have a guardian angel.
And then there was Jasper. He had helped him out of a tight spot. Chris did feel a little guilty about knocking the guy out. But how the hell was he supposed to trust him?
Chris shook his head, feeling completely out of sorts. He didn’t know who to trust or what the hell was going on. If he could just talk to Maeve, just hear her voice, and know they were all right, then he could think a little more clearly.
He gripped the steering wheel tightly again. No sense wishing for things he couldn’t have. A highway sign on the side of the road proclaimed that the ramp for Route 15 was coming up. He debated heading for it. He wanted to head right back to Denver. But he also knew that was exactly what anyone looking for him would expect.
Come on, Chris, think. There has to be a way to contact them.
But his mind was a blank. Without a way to contact them by phone, he was dead in the water. The ramp appeared on the GPS screen. Screw it. It might not be the safe move, but he needed to know that Maeve and the gang were all right.
He changed lanes to turn toward the exit when his GPS screen flickered. Chris frowned as the map disappeared. Words appeared.
Continue driving straight.
Chris’s mouth dropped open. His guardian angel was back. He tensed as the exit approached.
The screen flicked again, the name of the town scrolling across the screen before a new phrase appeared.
Family there.
Chris hesitated and then hit the gas, driving past the exit. His guardian angel had kept him safe so far. He guessed he was willing to trust them just a little bit more.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
DULCE, NEW MEXICO
Martin stared at the after-action report in disbelief. Garrigan had escaped the net Martin had laid out for him in Lancaster. Martin growled. He never should have let them make the grab at the hotel. There were too many uncontrollable variables. But he’d had to hire out for this mission.
He shoved the report aside. Garrigan didn’t matter. The important thing was he wasn’t at the ranch when the hybrids were recaptured. Speaking of which, where the hell was that status report?
He’d been on pins and needles since he’d okayed the mission, so he’d forced himself to review the workings of D.E.A.D. and had lost track of time.
He checked his screen but the after-action report on Leander wasn’t there yet. He yanked up his phone and dialed Hamish. “What is the status on Leander?”
Hamish paused just a few beats too long. “Um, she, uh, she managed to get away.”
Martin stared at the ceiling, counting to ten. “I see. And was she the only one who got away?”
“Um, no, they, uh… all got away.”
Martin curled his hand into a fist, his anger rising. “Would you like to tell me how that is possible? My team is supposed to be the best there is out there. And yet a scientist with no special-ops training hampered down by four hybrids somehow outsmarted them.”
“Well, sir, she had help.”
Martin frowned. “Garrigan?”
“Um, no, sir, from the satellite images it looks like she linked up with Greg Schorn.”
Martin sat up in his chair. “Schorn?” He thought he was dead in the fire. Apparently the sand blasters were also a failure. What. The. Hell. “So you’re telling me the aid of a scientist, who the last time we saw him could barely walk without stumbling over his own feet, somehow turned into Rambo?”
“Uh, well, he has been working out.”
Martin counted to ten again and then let out a breath. “Hamish, you have five minutes to find out what went wrong. And that explanation better not involve Schorn’s cardio routine or I will beat you to death with your useless computer. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir. Yes, of course, I’ll—”
Martin disconnected the call, seething. Both subjects had eluded his teams. That was unacceptable. He stood up from his desk. It was a five-minute walk from his office to Hamish’s, and by the time he got there, he had better have answers.
Technical support was on the second-lowest level of the facility. In the event of an attack or breach, Martin wanted to make sure that all the facility’s computers were wiped and purged. After, of course, the information was sent to their off-site data centers. Placing them at one of the lowest levels of the base of the mountain ensured a few extra minutes for that to be accomplished. It also assured Martin that he would then be able to eliminate the entire technical staff before they could escape the facility themselves. Win-win in his book.
He stepped out of the elevator; the hallway was noticeably cooler. The servers were down here and needed to be kept at a colder temperature than the rest of the facility so they did not overheat. Martin bypassed the large workroom with its rows and rows of monitors and tech spies. He’d moved his people from Vegas here after Area 51. Now they were all housed in one spot, making some aspects of his life easier.
He walked down the hall and opened the door at the end without knocking. Hamish jerked up from his monitors, looking at Martin with large eyes. “M-Martin. I was just going to call you.”
“Well, I saved you the bother. Now tell me what happened with Leander.”
“She had help beyond Schorn. There are at least two other people with her. Um, one is a guy in his twenties, maybe. I’m running facial rec on him, but I don’t have anything yet. And the other is a woman who I think is probably in her sixties.”
“Sixties? Are you sure she’s—” He went still, his eyes narrowing as a thought flew across his mind. “Show me the woman.”
“Leander? Hold on—”
“No, the other one.”
“Um, okay.” Hamish pounded away at his keyboard before pointing to a monitor to Martin’s left. “That’s her.”
Martin stood up and walked to the screen. The shot was not great. It was from a satellite. “Can you clean this up?”
“Uh, yeah, just give me a—there you go.”
The image on the screen became clearer. Well, look who’s back in the game. Hello, Matilda.
“She’s not in her sixties, she’s in her seventies. Seventy-four, in fact,” he murmured.
“You, uh, know her?”
“I did. Right up until she died.”
Hamish frowned. “Died?”
“Death is always a little different when intelligence agencies are involved,” Martin said dryly.
“Um, so should I keep running facial recognition on her?”
“No need. She won’t be in any database.”
“And the man?”
“Bring him up.” A few seconds later, the man appeared in a split screen with Tilda. The man wore a ball cap and sunglasses, making his features impossible to discern. But from the angles in his cheeks and the set of his shoulders, Martin knew he was in shape. And he looked familiar as well. Martin frowned. It couldn’t be him, though. He’d be in his seventies at least by now, approaching his eighties. This man was much younger. Maybe a grandson?
“Do you know him, sir?”
“I’m not sure. Keep running the facial rec and see if he pops up.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And I assume you are tracking their progress from the safe house?”
“Um, well, we ran into a little problem with that.”
Martin narrowed his eyes. “What kind of little problem?”
“The satellite link went down. By the time it came back up, they were gone.”
Martin stared at him. “Quite a coincidence.”
“No, I don’t think it is,” Hamish said quickly. “I think it was intentionally taken down.”
The hacker. Martin looked at Hamish. “Tell me again why I pay you if some little hacker can run circles around you?”
“I-I’ll find them.”
He glared. “You better,
Hamish. Because mistakes like these can be life changing.” Or ending.
Hamish swallowed and paled noticeably. “I’ll find them.”
“See that you do,” Martin said quickly as he strode from the room and down the hall. He punched the button for the elevator. Tilda was back in the game, which meant things had gotten a little more complicated. He smiled as the doors slipped open and he stepped in.
And potentially more rewarding.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Tilda drove straight through Colorado toward Utah. Fear for Chris, for Alvie and the triplets, kept Maeve on the edge of her seat throughout the long ride. Maeve spent the time studying the woman behind the wheel. She hadn’t said much; in fact, Greg was the one who had told her her name. And then he’d just said he’d explain everything when they stopped.
Now Maeve watched the silent woman drive with confidence, her strong forearms steering the wheel with certainty, her face impassive. There was only one moment when the woman let her guard down. Her cell phone beeped, indicating a text. Her whole body had tensed as Greg picked up the phone.
“He’s clear. He’ll meet us at the house,” Greg said.
Tilda let out a small breath, the tension slipping from her shoulders. “Good.”
Maeve leaned forward to be heard. “Who’s clear?”
“Adam, my grandson,” Tilda said.
“He was at your ranch, too,” Greg said. “He came from a different direction and then stayed back to make sure we weren’t followed.”
Maeve had wondered why no one had given chase.
“Why don’t you sleep a little?” Greg suggested. “We still have a couple of hours to go.”
“I’m fine,” she said quickly.
“It’s okay, Maeve. I’ll wake you if anything happens or we hear anything.”
She looked into his eyes and knew he was talking about Chris. Maeve was terrified. She’d pulled out the phones from the pack but neither worked. One had been smashed, probably from the grenade that had taken out the house. The other had a bullet hole in it. That discovery had terrified Maeve. She hadn’t realized that any of the shots had gotten so close to her.
Maeve settled back against the seat, Alvie’s head on her lap. She stroked his back absentmindedly as the Jeep drove along. Darkness had fallen an hour ago and the drum of the Jeep was forcing her eyelids to close. She jerked them open, wanting to stay awake. But the triplets were dozing, all curled up with Hope, and even Alvie was dropping off. Finally she gave up the fight. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen. She closed her eyes and slept. She didn’t wake until the Jeep came to a stop.
She blinked her eyes open as Tilda pulled the keys from the ignition. Maeve swallowed, trying to get some liquid into her dry mouth. “Where are we?”
Tilda looked back, her eyes straying to the sleeping triplets. A smile ghosted across her face before she looked back at Maeve. “In Utah, near the Arches. A safe house. Do you need help with them?”
“No, we’ve got them.” Maeve reached down and handed Snap to Greg, who stood outside the Jeep, and then Crackle as well. She climbed out and Alvie handed her Pop. Maeve waited until Alvie and Hope hopped out before following Greg.
There were no other houses around and no light. Just this one house, which Maeve thought might date back to the eighteenth century. Greg followed Tilda inside, Snap and Crackle securely nestled in his arms.
Maeve paused at the doorway to stare up at the sky. It was beautiful with all the lights twinkling back at her. Maeve wondered if the Earth looked just as peaceful from up there.
Alvie turned to look back at her.
She started toward him, her thoughts shifting back to the here and now. “I’m coming.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
DULCE, NEW MEXICO
Martin scanned the recording from Leander’s ranch. He watched again as the Jeep screeched to a halt in front of Leander and the hybrids. Leander talked for only a few seconds with the driver before they all scampered into the Jeep. Schorn, who was supposed to be dead, was clearly visible.
He zoomed in on Matilda, even though it didn’t help clear up the image. He sat back. And where have you been all these years? Matilda’s reappearance at the same time a hacker was thwarting Martin’s plans was too big a coincidence to be believed. They were undeniably connected. But what exactly was Matilda’s end goal here?
He’d reviewed the report of Matilda’s death, including the autopsy. If it was a forgery, it was brilliant. And she had never reappeared on any radar until Leander’s ranch. Why stick her neck out now? What was so important?
Martin rewound the tape until he had a shot of Alvie. It’s you, isn’t it? Somehow you’ve drawn her out of the shadows.
His phone buzzed and he growled at the interruption. How am I supposed to get any work done like this? “What?”
“Sir, we have an update on the Salt Lake City case.”
Martin frowned. Salt Lake? Oh, right. Agents Maxwell and Tidwell. He’d instructed Hamish to keep him abreast of any problems with the D.E.A.D. cases. To demonstrate the truth of his claims of superior methods, he needed to know of any problems before they became problems. “Go ahead.”
“They have called off the search for the day. They were unable to locate the creature.”
Martin mulled over the possibilities. “Have them search one more day. If nothing shows up, have them move on to the next case.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Have you found Garrigan?”
“No, sir.”
Martin played with the pen on his desk while imagining plunging it into Hamish’s eye. “And why not?”
“We’re having trouble with the traffic cameras.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“They’re not registering the license plate of the car Garrigan took from the hotel.”
“Has he changed it?”
“It’s possible, but it’s almost as if someone is hiding him from the cameras. I have the cameras set up to grab any images of him, but there’s nothing. It’s like he’s disappeared.”
“He hasn’t disappeared.”
“No, no, I know. That’s not what I mean. I mean, all traces of Leander’s escape with the hybrids and Garrigan’s escape are being covered. No cameras are picking them up.”
“The hacker from 51?”
“I believe so, yes.”
“Have you had any luck tracking them?”
“I’m close,” Hamish said quickly.
“So that’s a no.”
“It’s … it’s a not yet. I will find them.”
“See that you do, Hamish. Otherwise I’ll be very disappointed in you, and you wouldn’t like that, would you?”
“No. No, sir.”
Martin waved him out of the room. “Send me Tidwell and Maxwell’s personnel file.”
“Yes, yes, sir.” Hamish disconnected the call. A few minutes later, the file popped up on Martin’s screen. Tidwell had been a psychology major in college and was the youngest of three children. Her mother was her emergency contact. She was a Marine whose fellow officers only had good things to say about her.
Martin looked further back and saw that she had volunteered at an animal shelter while in high school and college. He frowned. Well, that could be a problem.
His phone beeped. Checking the message, he smiled.
It was from Hamish: I’ve got Leander’s location.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CENTERVILLE, UTAH
Guilt had dogged Norah all day, compounded when it began to rain heavily in the afternoon. Two dozen police officers had joined Bob and Norah in the search. They crawled over the neighborhood where Iggy had first been seen. And of course, they’d found no sign of him.
Norah had locked Iggy in the motel room with the TV tuned to the Disney channel, some fruit, and a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door handle. But she worried he’d try to find her, like he’d done yesterday. She’d kept her eyes peeled for him and been happy there
was no sign of him.
By four o’clock, everyone was soaked and ticked off. The weather reports were calling for more rain, so she and Bob called a halt to the search. Norah climbed into the SUV and grabbed a towel from the backseat to wipe off her face.
“God damn waste of time,” Bob growled as he started the car and put it into gear.
“I guess it’s moved on.”
“Yeah. I’m sure we’ll hear about it when it resurfaces. Probably after it kills someone.”
Norah watched Bob out of the corner of her eye. “Maybe it’s not violent.”
“Are you kidding me? What are you, some sort of hippie now? The thing’s a monster.”
“It didn’t hurt the little girl. You saw the video.” She had decided to show him the video this morning, in a burst of optimism that maybe he might see what she saw in the video.
He grunted. “We don’t know what it was doing. That made my skin crawl. It could have been rooting around in her brain, stealing memories or doing some sort of mind control.”
She sighed. Reality 1, Optimism 0. “We don’t know that.”
“No, we don’t, and that’s the point.” He pulled to a stop at a red light and looked at her. “What the hell’s with you? You’ve been acting weird since yesterday.”
“What? No, I haven’t.”
“Yeah, you have. So what’s going on?”
Norah opened her mouth to deny it and then changed her mind. The whole day as they’d slogged through water-drenched streets, she’d been trying to figure out her next steps with Iggy. She couldn’t turn him in to the D.E.A.D., and Bob was only reinforcing that view. But she did have the vague outline of a plan. “I don’t know. I think I might be coming down with something, and running around in the rain today probably didn’t help.”
Bob’s eyes went large. “You’re getting sick?” Bob’s fear of germs was very well known.
“Yeah. You know, maybe I’ll call Sanders and ask for a few days. I wouldn’t want to get you sick.”
