Then they’ll probably die, Julia thought. We just don’t have the facilities and the knowledge to treat something like that. Might as well be back in the Dark Ages.
The bitter thought crossed her mind that this was yet another problem the community in Santa Fe would never have to face. The djinn were all but immortal, and their Chosen also granted the gift of health and long life. They’d never have to worry about cancer or heart disease or any one of the hundreds of ailments that could strike frail humanity.
Being eternally young wasn’t a bad deal, either. Jessica Monroe and all the other Chosen like her would be preserved forever at the age they’d been when their djinn selected them, but Julia knew her own clock was steadily ticking away. Her twenty-ninth birthday had come and gone in the bitter depths of January, and soon yet another birthday would be swinging back around to confront her once again.
In the time before the Dying, she hadn’t thought that much about turning thirty. After all, in that careless world, thirty had been the new twenty. But she could see herself getting worn in service to the community here, fading away before she’d even had a chance to truly live —
“Hey,” Shawn said gently. “You okay? You look as if you just went off to someplace not very pleasant.”
Julia blinked, bringing herself back to here and now. It was damn stupid to be imagining such a bleak future when she was sitting here opposite the best-looking man in Los Alamos, a man who’d already indicated that he didn’t think her faded at all. “I’m okay,” she said, then picked up her iced tea and took a large swallow. “Just thinking about eventualities. Curse of the job, I guess.”
“I guess,” he echoed. His dark eyes scanned her face, and she hoped he couldn’t see anything there of what she’d been thinking. “You work too hard.”
“Don’t we all?”
His shoulders lifted, and he drank some of his Coke. Julia knew he’d gotten the soft drink and not the beer he wanted after he realized she wouldn’t be having any wine. “I don’t know,” he replied. “I sort of doubt the work I do in the motor pool is on a par with what you do every day to keep this place going.”
“Don’t forget about helping to deliver babies,” she told him. Despite her earlier melancholy thoughts, she could feel a smile tugging at her lips.
“Mostly I stood there and watched. No big deal.”
Julia knew he’d contributed a lot more than that — when Mitch Kosky broke his arm while cutting down trees in the forests around town, it had been Shawn who’d fashioned a crude splint and helped him down the mountainside so Ellen could treat the injury properly. And it was Shawn who’d organized a softball league over the summer to keep people occupied during the long, warm days. Brent Sanderson had once called Julia the soul of the community, but she thought Shawn Gutierrez must be its heart.
And if heart and soul just happened to get together….
The walkie-talkie she always wore clipped to her belt buzzed then. She flashed an apologetic smile at Shawn and picked up the radio, hoping that whatever had prompted Natalie to contact her wouldn’t be too serious. Julia was tired, and besides, if she hung out here for a few minutes longer, it would be after five and she wouldn’t have any excuse not to order that glass of wine after all.
“Julia here.”
No preamble from Natalie, only, “A djinn from the Santa Fe community named Dani just contacted me.”
“And?” That sounded strange. Julia knew that Dani was Zahrias’ younger brother, but usually it was his Chosen, Lauren, who handled communications. Then again, she was probably due to give birth any day now. Maybe Dani had taken over some of her duties.
“Bad news. He wanted to warn us that Captain Margolis managed to escape.”
The interior of the restaurant was quite warm, but at those words, Julia could feel her body turn to ice. Literally. It was as if she couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move.
“Julia?” A long pause, then Natalie’s voice, worried even through the distortion of the little speaker from which it emerged. “Are you there, Julia?”
Somehow she managed to push down the button on the walkie-talkie. “I’m here, Natalie. Anything else?”
“Their leader, Zahrias, wants to talk to you. He’s standing by on their radio.”
Could she do that? Talk to the man she’d been mooning over not even an hour earlier? Right then it seemed as if her brain wasn’t firing properly. Richard Margolis had escaped from his cell under the U.S. Marshals’ building, and Zahrias wanted to talk to her. Across the table, Shawn Gutierrez was staring at her with worried brown eyes.
“Um, sure. I mean, yes. I’ll be over as fast as I can.”
There probably was a way to patch his call through to her walkie-talkie, but Julia didn’t know what it might be. Something else she should really ask Miles Odekirk about — if he wouldn’t consider such a simple task beneath him.
“What’s wrong?” Shawn asked as she grimly clipped the walkie-talkie back on her belt. When Margolis had ruled Los Alamos and she was his secretary, she’d worn office clothes — skirts and high-heeled boots. Now she was in jeans day in and day out.
“Bad news. Margolis has escaped.”
Shock registered in Shawn’s widened eyes. “What? How?”
“I don’t know. I need to get back to the office so I can talk to Zahrias. Hopefully, he’ll have more information.”
“Jesus.” Beneath his tan, Shawn looked ashen. As far as she knew, the former fireman hadn’t had any run-ins with Margolis back in the day. Most likely, he was just worried on her behalf.
“It’s okay,” she said, tone a little too brisk. She knew she was over-compensating, but there wasn’t much she could do about that. “I sort of doubt he’ll come here and risk getting shot on sight.”
“You’d think, but that guy was crazy — ” Shawn broke off then. “Sorry. You’re right. He wouldn’t be stupid enough to come here. And really….” He stopped, and a sudden smile touched his lips.
“‘Really’ what?” she demanded, wondering what the hell he was smiling about. “I don’t see anything amusing about all this.”
“Really, where does he think he can go? Won’t the other djinn hunt him down?”
God, she’d forgotten about that. They were protected here in Los Alamos by Miles’s devices, and of course the other djinn knew the community at Santa Fe was off limits, but Richard Margolis wouldn’t have any such safeguards. He’d be easy prey.
An answering smile lifted her mouth. “You’re right, Shawn. He will be easy prey.”
* * *
Thank goodness she had the radio in her office, though, and not out where anyone else could overhear what she was saying. Julia pulled the microphone toward her and said, “I’m here, Zahrias.”
The deep, woodwind tones of his voice came through the speaker. “Julia.”
Warmth flushed her cheeks. But she said steadily, “Zahrias, I’ve been told you have some bad news for me.”
“I’m afraid so. It was discovered earlier today that Captain Margolis was missing from his cell.”
Hearing it once more, spoken of so calmly, made Julia go cold all over again. Logically, she knew she was safe. Because they’d already had protocols in place in case of future disaster — although the former commander’s escape was not an eventuality that had ever been discussed — the word had already gone out all over Los Alamos that Richard Margolis was loose. Two extra guards kept watch in the lobby of the municipal center where Julia now sat, and an extra vehicle had been assigned patrol duty. All this had happened while she was driving over here; her security team knew their stuff.
Anyway, she had to believe that Margolis wouldn’t find too many sympathizers if he did somehow manage to make it back to Los Alamos safely. Yes, at one time he’d had most of the town on his side, because they were grateful to be someplace safe and weren’t too worried about giving up a few liberties if it meant they’d make it through another day. But after Julia revealed what Margoli
s had done to her, any support he might have once possessed was gone as quickly as smoke blowing away in a strong breeze. No one wanted to be associated with a rapist.
She took a steadying breath and said, “How did it happen? I thought you had a guard watching him day and night.”
“We did. He was left unattended for only a moment while the person watching him went to use the facilities. When he returned, Margolis was gone.”
Great. Undone by somebody’s pee break. Julia knew she wouldn’t say that aloud, though, because it was ridiculous to expect someone to put in a day’s shift watching the prisoner and not take a break sometime. The captive hadn’t been held in some county jail’s flimsy lockup, either, but a state-of-the-art facility faced in bulletproof glass and with full-spectrum laser monitoring. She hadn’t seen the place for herself, having no desire to be in Margolis’ company any longer than she had to, but Miles had explained the setup to her, since he was the one who’d reset the security measures so Zahrias’ people could use them. There should have been no way for Richard Margolis to escape, even if his guard had gone up to the surface, ordered a Big Mac, and watched the midday news.
Okay, Big Macs and noon newscasts were things of the past, but still.
“How?” she asked.
“We are still assessing. At the moment, it seems as if he simply vanished. There was no sign that the biometric lock was tampered with. Only five people can open that lock — the four whose duty it was to guard the cell, and myself. They all swear that they did not touch it, and I know I did not.”
Julia was silent for a moment, pondering what Zahrias had just told her. She didn’t know the people who’d been assigned to guard the prisoner, but if Zahrias had chosen them, then she guessed their loyalty must be unimpeachable. On the other hand, Margolis was many things, but an expert jail-breaker he was not. And if he actually did possess the skill to get out of such a cell on his own, why do it now, six months after he’d been locked up, rather than immediately after he’d been imprisoned there?
Something definitely didn’t smell right here.
The words startled her, even as they emerged from her mouth. “I want to talk to them. And I want to see the cell.”
Zahrias sounded startled as well. “Julia, I do not think — ”
“I think I have a right to speak to them. Margolis’ escape could very well affect me more than it does anyone else.” Maybe she was being irrational, but she’d always been the kind of person who needed to see someone’s face when she spoke with them. They had these radios, but the Internet was dead, and Skype and Facetime along with it, and so the only way she’d be able to read their expressions was to do so in person.
“And how do you propose to do that?”
“I’ll come to you — with an armed party,” she added hastily, sensing that Zahrias was about to offer another protest. “We’ll bring one of Miles’s devices with us, just as we always do when we go out scavenging. Then we’ll turn it off when we reach the border of Santa Fe, since we’ll be under your protection at that point.”
A long pause. “Very well. That should work. I assume you will be taking the northern approach into town?”
“Yes, down the 285.” How prosaic that sounded, as if she was merely planning a brief lunch outing.
“Then we will all meet you at the U.S. Marshals’ office. You know the way?”
She didn’t exactly, but she didn’t want to admit that to Zahrias. There were plenty of paper maps on hand here at the office, so she’d consult one of them. “Yes. Give me an hour or so to get everything set up, and then we’ll head over.”
Another one of those hesitations. “It will be late afternoon by the time you get here. Perhaps it would be better if you and your party stayed overnight. Yes, you will have one of Miles’s devices to protect you, but I think it would be safer if you did not make the return journey after dark.”
Journey. Something in her wanted to smile at his old-fashioned language, since he was talking about a trip of only a little more than thirty miles, all of it on paved roads that had been laboriously cleared of any abandoned vehicles. But they were also completely unlit roads. Maybe it would be better to stay in Santa Fe.
Giving you more time around Zahrias, she thought.
Right. He’d probably meet her at the U.S. Marshals’, let her speak to the guards who’d been keeping watch on Margolis, and then disappear.
“Okay,” she replied, hoping he hadn’t noticed the way she’d paused before answering. “If it’s not too much trouble.”
“We have many unused hotel rooms here. I’ll have my people get some ready for you. How many will be in your party?”
“No more than six,” she replied. They couldn’t fit any more than that in the Suburban she used for “official” business. “Which is probably overkill, but I’d rather be careful.”
“I agree. Then we will see you in a few hours.”
He ended the transmission then, and Julia sat in her chair, staring at the now-silent speakers of the ham radio setup. Well, she’d really put her foot in it this time, hadn’t she? All these months she’d been more or less maintaining her cool, and now she’d made it so she’d have to go and see Zahrias in person. A lot of fun that was going to be, pretending that she only saw him as a fellow leader in this post-apocalyptic world. A colleague, so to speak.
Yeah, right.
She kept herself from sighing, then reached over for the phone so she could start making the necessary calls.
* * *
Julia Innes, coming to Santa Fe. Zahrias understood her desire to speak to the guards in person, for it was only when one looked a man in the face that one could see the truth of his words. The radio was a necessity, since there was no other way to communicate with the people in Los Alamos, but he disliked the device. It was too easy to hide what one was thinking when only spoken words were involved.
But perhaps it was just as well that he could not communicate with Julia easily or more often. For soon he would have to look at her, speak with her with only a few feet separating them, and that could prove to be difficult. He already had a hard enough time keeping her from his thoughts when the safety of miles separated them. What would he do when they were both in the same room?
Control yourself, he told himself harshly. Far more is involved here than your desire for one mortal woman.
That much was only the bitter truth. Everyone who had access to Margolis’ cell swore that they’d had nothing to do with his escape, and Zahrias had no reason not to believe them, for the truth had all but shone from their faces and rung in their words. Something else was at work here, something he had yet to uncover. It was human technology which had barred the door of that cell, and human technology could be just as frail as those who had invented it, yet….
Normally at a time like this, he would have had Lauren take care of making sure that accommodations were prepared for their expected visitors, but Dani had sent word that she had retired to her bed. No signs of labor yet, but she tired easily, and Miguel, the Chosen man who had taken on the duties of healer in their small community — not that they had much use for one, most days — had advised that she not get up again until after the baby was born.
So Zahrias went to Lilias, who he knew had more of an accommodating nature than many of his fellow djinn, and asked if she and her Chosen, Aidan, would assist him.
“If it is not too much of an imposition,” Zahrias said politely as Lilias and Aidan met with him in the living room of their spacious home a few blocks from the plaza. “I thought a group of rooms at La Fonda — ”
“Of course,” Lilias said at once. “It will only take a few snaps of my fingers, after all, and I suppose you have enough to worry about, with that mortal somehow managing to escape.”
There was the faintest trace of accusation in her words, and Zahrias raised an eyebrow.
Aidan looked annoyed on their leader’s behalf. “Lilias, I talked to David, and he said nothing had been tampered with
. It’s like the Enterprise just beamed Margolis right out of there.”
Zahrias had no idea what this Enterprise was that Aidan had spoken of, and, judging by the way Lilias’ fine black brows drew together, she was equally mystified. But she appeared to brush the puzzle aside, saying, “It is no trouble, Zahrias. They will be here in a few hours? Be assured that everything will be ready far in advance of that time.”
There was little he could do then but press his hands together and bow, then murmur a few words of thanks. After that he left, walking in the direction of the U.S. Marshals’ building. He could have made himself appear there in the blink of an eye, but the afternoon air was fresh and fine and clean, and he hoped the walk would help to clear his head.
He would need a clear head when he met with Julia, just a few hours from now.
Chapter Three
After she began putting together a list of the people she wanted to go with her to Santa Fe, Julia realized that the one person she really shouldn’t leave out of the party was Miles Odekirk. He’d been the one to set up the security on Margolis’ cell, and so he was probably the best person to look over the scene of the crime and see if he could find any clues as to how the former leader of Los Alamos had managed to escape.
So she radioed out to the labs and murmured a silent prayer under her breath that either he or Lindsay would pick up. Half the time they didn’t; too involved in their work, Julia supposed. But today Lindsay was on the line soon enough.
“What’s up?”
So she hadn’t heard. The word had gone out, but to the people who patrolled the lab complex, not the labs themselves.
“Richard Margolis has escaped.”
“What?”
At least Lindsay sounded suitably shocked. God knows what kind of reaction Miles would have had. Julia said, “I’m putting together a team to go to Santa Fe to get more information, and I need Miles to go, since he’s the best person to try to figure out what happened.”
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