Borrowed Time

by Miller, Maureen A.

  “I’m in hell, how about you?”

  “Yeah, flames are licking my feet too.” Phil paused, and Brian thought he lost him. “Listen, something is not right—I mean with this Brennan engineer. Something ain’t right. God, Brian, I just heard Barcuda’s cronies. Their orders are to get the designs at any cost. Any cost, Brian. Any cost. Man, that ain’t what I signed up for. I’m a friggin security supervisor. I’m supposed to check the perimeter for suspicious looking dudes, and then pick up the phone and call the cops.”

  Phil’s synopsis of his role was severely understated, but Brian knew the point he was trying to convey. Brian sliced another glance at his passenger hoping she had not heard the exchange. Emily watched him, but her expression was blank. He swapped the cell to his other ear and pressed it tight against the pain in his temple.

  “Why?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. So the kid stole some designs. It’s happened before—people have lost things here before—never was there this lynch mob reaction though. It just doesn’t fit. And—” static again, “I have this real bad feeling, man. You know Barcuda has always had it out for you. I think this time he’s just using you to find the kid. I think he’s setting you up.”

  “I failed.” Brian injected. “Is that what he’s saying? I failed on the initial chase and he’ll use that to sever my job when this is all over. Do you really think I give a crap about that?”

  “Let’s just hope it’s only that.” Phil paused. “I don’t trust him…you know what I’m saying?”

  The question was a heavy one, and Brian recognized the tight, anxious pitch to his friend’s voice. There was more to this story, but now was not the time to find out. Not with Emily next to him. “Yeah, I hear you. Look, what are you doing in the plant at this hour? The sun’s about to rise.”

  Right now Brian imagined is friend fiddling with the Tasmanian Devil bobble-head doll on his desk, another effect of duress.

  “I was leaving. It was around midnight when I heard them talking. I mean, I still don’t get it. I tried to follow and ended up running into the man himself. He’s like—he has that deep don’t mess with me voice, and says ‘Pulkowski, putting in extra hours are you?’ Only I could read his face. He was pissed. I mean pissed to the point I was almost afraid that pack of wolves was going to turn on me.”

  Brian’s empty stomach twisted. “Easy buddy, just go home, okay. I’ll call in later.”

  “Brian, they’re tracing your car.”

  “Tracing my car?” Damn. Emily’s head snapped, and her eyes flew open. “Barcuda called before,” Brian continued. “He had no clue where I was.”

  “Nothing’s as it appears with this one, my friend. Stay edgy.”

  Stay edgy. That was their sign-off every night when they left NMD.

  The connection ended, and the Blazer climbed back onto the main road. Headlights trailed them, but it was six o’clock—local commerce was starting up, and their presence could be innocent. Still, Brian’s gaze remained fixed on the rearview mirror.

  “How much time do we have?”

  “Huh?” His head snapped down.

  “If they’re following this car, how much of a lead do we have?”

  “They’re not following us, okay?”

  Emily worriedly toyed with the collar of her jacket. “Yes they are.” She whispered.

  Brian startled her by veering the Blazer off the road and into the parking lot of a strip mall.

  “What are you doing?”

  He pulled in front of a convenience store and cut the engine. Aggravated, he rubbed at his eyes, noticing that his vision was blurry afterwards.

  “Look,” he said, “I don’t know about you, but I’ve been up for twenty-six hours and I need to be sharp right now, and I’m not going to be unless I get a cup of coffee in me. Besides, I have to think for a minute, and I need you to tell me more than you already have.”

  Emily crossed her arms. “I’ve told you all that I know.”

  “That’s bull.”

  She shrugged. “Fine, what’s the difference to me whether it’s you that brings me in, or this troop that’s on the way?” Grabbing the handle, she looked over her shoulder. “Either way I’m screwed.”

  Based on Phil’s phone call, Brian felt there was a big difference, but he didn’t want to share that fact.

  “Coffee shop’s down there.” Emily craned her head to see the small snack shop at the far end of the shopping center.

  “Yeah, so do you mind the walk?”

  She smiled at him over the hood of the blazer, but the gesture never reached her eyes. “If they find the jeep, it’ll take them a few minutes to discover that we’re in the snack shop and not the drug store.”

  Brian slammed the door shut and rounded the vehicle to grab her elbow. “You think too much.” He growled.

  Under the overhang of the roof, the sidewalk had been spared the recent snowfall. Just now a pickup truck with snow gear mounted to its grill began attacking the parking lot. When its heavy shovel hit the blacktop with a loud bang, Emily jumped. Brian reached to steady her, but the gesture only provoked her more and she shrugged off his touch.

  “Don’t try for chivalry—it’s too late for that.”

  He reached past her for the coffee shop door, listening to the chime of the bells above and bent down to whisper in her ear. “And don’t go getting all self-righteous, Emily. It’s way too late for that.”

  Seated in a booth with his back to the front window, Brian could monitor his Blazer with a discreet glimpse over his shoulder and a glimpse in the mirrored wall at the far end of the diner. Outside, the snow-covered parking lot was beginning to blush with sunrise and the crowd had increased as two cars swung in off the road. He glanced edgily from Emily’s face to the front door and back again.

  “You are jumpy.” Emily gulped. “That makes me even more nervous.”

  “I’m tired, I’m sore, and I’m cranky.”

  “Bitchy.”

  “Look,” He nodded as the elderly waitress handed him a steaming mug of coffee and walked back up the aisle with the gait of a sloth. “I need the truth here. Do you think for just a few moments you can manage that?” He took a sip of the scalding liquid and ignored her increasing scowl. “As it stands right now, I am a better option than the guys on their way, so whatever you have to say, make it convincing or else I’ll turn you right over to them.”

  Emily regarded him coolly. “I fail to see the difference. You all work for NMD.”

  Barcuda’s cronies represented the NMD security task force. The fact that Brian was Chief of Security and Phil the Security Supervisor bore no impact on the men reporting directly to Barcuda. These men were ex-cops, ex-marines—all released from their positions for various disciplinary issues. Brian knew this because he had delved into the past of each. It was why they did not report to him, because he would have never surrounded himself with such a disreputable staff. But for the tasks that Barcuda demanded of them, their resume fit the bill. These men were a source of contention between Barcuda and him. Barcuda conceded that he needed Brian’s intelligence background, but he insisted on keeping what Brian referred to as well-paid thugs. NMD was a government funded facility dealing in highly sensitive projects that Homeland Security needed protected at all costs. On paper, it appeared that the facility was sufficiently guarded. The government was appeased. Off the paper, security took on two entirely unique facets at NMD, two facets constantly at odds.

  “Tell me more about Colin’s design.” Brian segued.

  Emily folded her arms on the Formica table and stared at her coffee. This felt surreal. Conversations drifted to her in hollow echoes. A road-worker in an orange jumpsuit complained about the huge pine that toppled across the roof of the Lucky Clover Motel. The waitress huddling over the next booth whined that her no-good son wouldn’t get up and shovel the driveway. A radio behind the counter blasted Taylor Swift, and before her, Brian stole a brooding look over his shoulder.

  “Do y
ou think I’m happy being in this position?”

  He turned back towards her and seemed to contemplate the question. “No, no I don’t. You strike me as a control addict, and right now this is driving you crazy. Do you think it’s admirable—you taking the heat for him?”

  Did she really come across as a control freak? “You’d never understand.”

  Brian lifted the mug to his lips. “You’re right.”

  What was the point in withholding information anymore? The saga was over and she could only hope that Brian would hold some leniency in his judgment. She cleared her throat and started in.

  “The Hyperion he calls it.”

  “Hyperion?”

  “Named after one of the twelve Titan gods of ancient Greece. Hyperion was supposedly the first to understand the movement of the sun, the moon, other stars, and the seasons as well.”

  That was an official origin of the word, but Emily recalled a time when they were kids and a Disney movie was on television called,Island at the Top of the World. In it, was a dirigible named the Hyperion that embarked on an expedition to a mythological land where whales went to die. Colin sat next to their Father on the couch with his mouth hanging open the whole time. Shortly after the movie ended he disappeared, only to be heard later in the bathroom with a hairdryer and a hefty bag, building his own blimp. He was four.

  “The Hyperion is a craft designed to bore through thick ice with a nose that is a heated drill, so to speak. The design has been made before, even by NASA, but never successfully. When I say bore through ice, we’re talking miles of ice. The Hyperion’s intention was to drill through to Europa’s ocean. Europa is one of Jupiter’s moons. They theorize that Europa’s ocean is full of life, but covered with a surface of ice that could be anywhere from five to fifty miles thick. All efforts in the past have failed because either the craft would be too heavy, or bogged down by too much cabling, or dependent on a surface support ship.” Emily shook her head, still marveling at the design, “but not the Hyperion.”

  Brian’s coffee remained untouched. “I am impressed, to say the least, but not surprised. We both know the sophisticated construction that takes place at NMD.”

  “Yes,” she nodded. But they all too often create vessels that are reactive and not proactive. Everything they build is for post-apocolyptic events. War. Armageddon. Vehicles to hide the elite or military when the world goes to hell. Colin’s mind is in the stars and ocean. He wants to learn. If he can’t read about it, then he feels he needs to design something so he can go investigate and learn himself.”

  “Colin is tremendously gifted.” Brian said, looking over her shoulder. The arms resting on either side of his coffee mug tensed. “Crap.” He hissed and leaned back, craning his neck.

  “What?”

  “We’ve got company.”

  Emily’s heart kicked up the pace. She leaned sideways to see past him, but the vehicles parked before the shops were the ones that had been there all morning long.

  “How do you know?”

  “Minivan. Three guys in black pants, black jackets, sunglasses and suspicious bulges in their pockets. Now either they were really happy to be traveling with each other, or they’re packing some serious heat. SIG-Sauer automatics—standard issue for Barcuda’s men.”

  Emily’s hands began to tremble.

  “You can see that much detail from in here?”

  “I’ve seen them before.” Brian slammed a ten-dollar bill on the formica surface and slid from the booth. He jammed his hand out in front of her. “Come on.”

  Emily stared at his hand, so strong and battered—a hand that had been subjected to a life far away from a desk. She had once held it through the night, till her fingers felt numb. “But—”

  “Look Em, they’re one door away, do you really want to sit here and argue about this?”

  Emily grabbed that hand and felt its strength as he yanked her down the narrow aisle, back towards the restrooms. Just as they reached the shadowed alcove, the jingle of the front door bells sounded. In her mind they were not the innocent ring of Christmas chimes, they took on a pitch as low and ominous as the peel of Big Ben itself.

  Brian tried the knob of the Mens room and cursed when he found it locked. Emily swung towards the Ladies room and found it likewise occupied.

  “What do we do?” She whispered, peering around a coat rack to see the three figures filing in.

  Emily breathed in and tried to flatten herself against the wall as in unison they turned towards the only other option, an unmarked door, presumably a utility closet. Brian did not deliberate. He yanked the handle and hauled her into obscurity.

  CHAPTER VI

  Emily’s back was against the wall, her palms splayed against the glutinous remnants of wallpaper melted by the heat of the ovens on the other side. A musty jacket draped across one of her shoulders, while the other was jabbed by the hard knob of a broomstick. Before her, she felt Brian’s presence. Only a hint of light was visible through the slim rectangle at the base of the door, but Brian’s figure seemed to engulf the closet, boxing her in, kicking in a bout of claustrophobia.

  “Brian?” The waver in her voice was god-awful.

  Brian shifted around so that now her chest was pressed against the long dip of his back and his firm backside pressed against her stomach.

  “Shh, they’re still upfront.”

  “How do you know that?” Aside from the clanging of pots and pans from the opposite side of the wall, and the clamor of her own heart, Emily couldn’t hear a thing.

  Brian stirred again and his elbow inadvertently scraped her breast. The motion, she realized with a sense of dread, was to retrieve his gun.

  “They’re talking to our waitress.” He cursed. “She’s telling him she never saw us leave.”

  Emily tried to lean around him in hopes that she could hear better, but there seemed no end to his broad shoulders. Then she heard the approaching thump of boots against linoleum. It could be anyone heading to the bathroom, but the way Brian’s arm tensed, she knew that was not the case. Terrified, she peeled her hands off the oily wall and grabbed onto Brian’s hips.

  “Easy,” He whispered.

  She felt him shift again and his free hand came to rest atop hers, curling over it so that her fingers dug into his.

  More than one heavy tread halted in the alcove. Antique hinges screeched as the Mens room door swung open. A half second later, the dull bang of the Ladies room door hit the wall.

  Emily felt every one of Brian’s muscles go rock hard in anticipation. Her fingers dug deeper, and her lips issued a silent prayer against his jacket.

  “Oh, hey,” The tinny voice of their waitress sounded remote. “They must have left. They paid already.”

  Emily dared not breathe as she awaited the response. She could almost imagine the sound of the doorknob twisting. It would be Brian’s weapon against the three aimed at them. An execution. She didn’t want to die.

  “Come on,” A hoarse voice sounded close by. “Those bitches must have back-tracked to the jeep.”

  “Damn,” Another voice already had retreated.

  Emily felt some of the tension ease in Brian’s back, but her clutch remained inhuman. To her surprise she felt his fingers caress hers.

  In the distance the bells of the front door chimed.

  “Listen to me,” He whispered urgently. “They’re going to be back in two minutes when they find the jeep. There’s a backdoor in the kitchen. I saw it when we came in. We’re not going to run—we’re going to walk through that kitchen and out the back, okay?”

  The strangled noise from deep in her throat meant okay. He seemed to accept this. She felt the bulky steel of his gun when he hitched it behind his back and reached for her hand to peal it away from his hip. He laced his fingers inside hers and asked, “Can you do this?”

  Emily coughed. “Yes.”

  “Okay, let’s go.”

  Emily clutched his hand, avoiding the curious outbursts from the two
cooks. A disheveled man with a gut that tested the boundaries of his white apron yelled a protest, but Brian had already reached the back door and plunged into the frosty morning. The pavement sloped as they stumbled into an alley lined with dumpsters teaming with grocery boxes and heaps of snow.

  Brian’s breath formed a mist and his stance suggested the keen awareness of a wolf, as if he tipped his head back, could sense their adversary just by scent. He looked feral and yet still, he held her hand. Emily stared down at that connection in disbelief and then jumped at the sound of his voice.

  “Now for the tricky part. We have to get back to my Jeep.”

  “B-but, they’ll be waiting.”

  “Maybe,” He prompted her to follow, hugging the cement façade. “But they aren’t the brightest guys. We don’t have much choice.

  Once again, Brian reached for the handgun nestled against his back. With it extended, and his body crouched, he moved in tight against the wall and advanced with caution.

  They reached the end of the building and Brian made a brief snap of his head around the corner, a gesture that made her own neck hurt. He returned to face her and gave a perfunctory nod, thrusting his gun out while rounding the building in two strides. Emily jogged a few steps, slipping, only to be steadied by his guiding arm.

  With his back to the wall, Brian inched forward again. He stopped just before the front of the building and glanced back at Emily, his gaze dropping down to her purse.

  “Do you have a mirror in there?”

  With a ridiculous burst of enthusiasm, she nodded and pulled out her compact. Brian held it up, and used it to survey the parking lot. The Blazer was only three spots away. Next to it, the black minivan had its side-panel door swung open, but it appeared to be vacant. It didn’t feel right, though.

  Brian slipped back, dropping his head to speak against her ear. “We’ve got to move fast. I’m going first. When I give you the signal, you do just like I do—crouch down so that you’re below the frame of the window. When I open the driver side door, you get your—” he cleared his throat. “You get your ass over into your seat, pronto.”