by David Archer
“We call it the Skagway,” Jennings said, suddenly appearing beside him. “It’s an electric, self balancing unicycle. You sit on the seat and put your feet on the pegs, then just lean forward, backward, or to the side to steer it. Don’t worry, we brought enough for you guys, too.”
Gabriel looked at him, his eyebrows high. “Did you say unicycle?”
“Yep. Don’t worry, it will only take you a few seconds to figure it out. We use these because they can move at about twenty miles an hour, and they’re almost completely silent. Grab one and try it, you’ll see.”
It took Gabriel about a minute to get the hang of it, and Nick and John did just as well. Bill seemed to be panicking every time it started to move, because he kept falling off the back of it. Jennings finally told him to wait with the helicopter, because they had to get moving.
Jennings led out, and Gabriel, Nick and John fell in behind the soldiers. It took about ten minutes to get close to their destination, and then Jennings brought them all to a stop. They stashed the unicycles among the trees beside the road, and started walking the rest of the way.
It was another couple of minutes before the house came into clear view, and they could see three guards walking around the property. Jennings gave some silent commands and three of his men disappeared into the woods that ran along that side of the property. A moment later, all three of those guards suddenly dropped to the ground at the same moment.
“Okay, let’s move,” Jennings said. They broke into a quick jog and headed straight to the front of the house, but a couple of his men circled around it. There were likely to be guards on the sides they couldn’t see, as well, and they had to be taken out.
Jennings went right up the front steps to the door, then took a small device from a pocket and held it against the door for a moment. There was a cord attached to it, and he held the end of the cord to his ear. After a few seconds, he put it the device back into his pocket and motioned to one of his men, who suddenly kicked the door open.
The soldiers flooded inside rapidly, and Gabriel heard the staccato chattering of the sound-suppressed M-4s they were carrying. A moment later, he heard the men shouting, “Clear!” They had eliminated the remaining guards inside, and were checking the rest of the house.
“Burke?” Jennings called out. “We found your boy, he’s safe. You want to get up here?”
The voice was coming from the second floor, so Gabriel, Nick and John jogged up the stairs. They found Jennings standing in the doorway and looked inside to see Neil sitting up on the bed with his hands raised up in the air.
“I think we woke him up,” Jennings said. “I told him everything’s okay, but he’s just staring at us.”
Gabriel stepped into the room. “Neil? I’m Angel, Allison sent me and my team to find you. Everything’s okay, Neil, you can put your hands down now.”
Neil looked at him for a second, then shook his head as if to clear it. “Allison? Holy cow, you guys really came?”
Gabriel grinned at him. “Yeah, we came,” he said. “Get yourself dressed, we have to get back to the chopper. We’ve got to get word back to Neverland that we got you back safe, and we have to hurry.”
Neil picked up his jeans from the foot of the bed and started putting them on. “Why? What’s the rush? Is Jenny okay?”
“That’s the problem,” Gabriel said. “They had used her, and told her the only way she could get you back alive was to go and kill Allison. She is on her way to Neverland right now, to do exactly that. We need to get word back that you are safe, so she can stand down.”
Neil’s eyes went wide, and he stared at Gabriel. “What time is it?” he asked.
“Time? It’s a couple minutes after five. Why?”
“That makes it two AM back in Kirtland,” Neil said. “Given the time they took me and the time it would take for them to fly her back to the States, and depending on where they dropped her off, we could already be too late. Anybody got a cell phone?”
Gabriel rolled his eyes, then handed over his phone. Neil dialed Jenny’s number and put the phone to his ear, but then he heard a recording: “All international circuits are currently busy. Please try your call again later.” He dialed again, but got the same recording, so he tried calling Noah. Still, the same recording played again.
“How in the hell can every circuit be busy at this time of the morning?” he demanded.
Jennings looked at him. “Five AM? That’s probably normal. There’s probably a million and a half computers in Rio that are making contact with their counterparts in the U.S. and Europe right now, updating themselves on whatever business they’re involved in. They use the same circuits as the phone system, they may be tied up for an hour or more.”
Neil shoved his feet into his shoes, and then a sudden commotion caught everyone’s attention. A soldier appeared in the doorway, holding the arm of a man who was dressed in nothing but boxer shorts.
“Found this guy hiding in a back room up here,” the soldier said. “He claims this guy can vouch for him, that he’s not one of the bad guys. According to him, all he did was make sure your guy was safe and comfortable.”
It was Michael, and he broke into a smile when he saw Neil. Gabriel and the others were looking at him, but everybody suddenly jumped at a loud click, as Michael’s face suddenly became a bloody mass.
Gabriel spun around to Neil, and saw that he had snatched the little silent pistol from his waistband. Neil was staring at the gun, his eyes registering confusion, and Gabriel reached out and took it from him carefully.
“Yeah, it’s pretty quiet,” he said. “I take it the hospitality wasn’t all that great?”
“It was terrific,” Neil said. “But I managed to rig up a listening device, and found out that son of a bitch was the one giving the orders. If you hadn’t come after me, he was planning to kill me personally. Luckily, I found an old phone and managed to…” He stopped and looked at the phone in his hand. “Does this thing have a mobile hotspot?”
Gabriel’s eyebrows rose another notch. “I think so,” he said. “Why?”
Neil was already looking through the settings on the phone, and found what he was hunting. He tapped the icon to turn on the hotspot, then set its password and told his subcom to wake up. He gave it the Wi-Fi password he had just created, and a moment later he heard, “Wi-Fi network available.”
“Neil to Jenny,” he said quickly. “Neil to Jenny, are you there?”
He listened for a moment, and then suddenly heard, “Noah to Neil, I read you. What’s your situation?”
“Team Angel arrived moments ago with reinforcements,” Neil said. He noticed Gabriel and the soldiers staring at him, but didn’t have time to explain. “Where is Jenny?”
“Somewhere close,” Noah said. “She’s trying to get to Allison, and I’m trying to stop her. If I can get word to her that you are safe, she can stand down. Stay on line, because I need her to hear it directly from you.”
“I’m standing by,” Neil said. “Hurry, Noah. We can’t let her do this, it will ruin her.”
“What the hell…” That was as far as Gabriel got, because Neil cut him off and explained quickly that he had an implant that let him communicate over distance through Wi-Fi.
* * * * *
“Neil is safe,” Noah said. “He’s talking to me through the subcom, right now, but Jenny has hers shut off and can’t hear him. Noah to Marco, did you catch that?”
“I did,” Marco said. “I’m watching for her, boss, but there is no sign of her yet.”
“Somehow, we have to get her to turn on her subcom. That’s the only thing that is going to make her stand down, to hear Neil’s voice for herself.”
“Wait a minute,” Marco said. “Didn’t they say there’s a way to activate all the subcoms at once?”
“Yes,” Noah said, “but only if they are logged on to a Wi-Fi network at the time. If she’s got it shut down, it can’t log on even if it was in one that was unrestricted.”
&nb
sp; * * * * *
Jenny was climbing. Allison’s office was on the front side of the building, and she was certain there would be security guards scattered around inside. She knew that Allison would want the confrontation to take place in the office, so that’s where she would be; Jenny just had to get to her there.
Climbing a brick building wasn’t easy, though, unless you were Spider-Man. Jenny was going up a drainpipe from the rooftop gutters, but after the cable had come loose on her, she was nervous about trusting the cast-iron pipe and its brackets. She’d been climbing for the last fifteen minutes, and was finally about to reach the roof. A couple more good lunges upward, and she got a hand over the parapet. The other hand followed, and she was able to pull herself up and roll onto the roof.
Once again, she lay still for a moment. The climb had been taxing, and she was gasping for breath. She was just about to roll over and get to her feet when she suddenly heard a noise and looked to her right.
Somehow, the security guard on the roof had failed to notice her arrival. She couldn’t believe she had made it so quietly, but the guard was standing near the front edge of the roof, looking down onto the street. As she watched, he took a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it, then leaned over and looked down into the street once again.
Jenny rose quickly and silently to her feet, grateful for the soft rubber soles on her sneakers. She drew one of her pistols and held it out in front of herself as she trotted softly across toward him, but she really didn’t want to hurt any of their own people. Just because she was being forced to become a traitor didn’t mean the rest of them should suffer.
The guard didn’t sense her presence until she was within arm’s reach of him, and he turned quickly, but too late. The butt of her pistol contacted his chin, and she was able to catch him before he toppled over the side. He would be out for at least a good twenty minutes, she figured, so she laid him out on the roof and took his gun away. She carried it over and left it behind one of the big air conditioners, then walked back to the same edge, just over Allison’s office.
It was time to put the final phase of the plan into action. She took two small digital video cameras out of her pocket and attached one to the collar of her shirt, and the other to the front waistband of her pants, then turned both of them on. If everything went well, she’d soon have the video proof that she needed, and Neil would be back with her. Afterward—well, she would deal with that later.
This next move would be the trickiest part. There was a window directly below her that was right behind Allison’s desk, the ideal place for her to enter. Unfortunately, the wall was sheer and there was nothing to climb down. She had given it thought during her long drive, however, and now she unrolled the nylon line she had purchased and wrapped it around her waist. It was thin but strong, and a hundred feet long. She found a pipe sticking up out of the roof and anchored the rope to it, then pulled it taut as she went to the edge again. She looked over and gauged the distance to the window, paid out that much more line, and then launched herself over the edge.
The rope went taut again, and the whiplash effect snapped her back toward the building. She had somehow managed to do it just right, and her feet hit the glass first, shattering it and sending it flying in a thousand directions. Her body followed through the window and she landed on her feet, with one pistol still clenched in her right hand.
Allison wasn’t sitting at her desk; she was actually in one of the chairs that sat facing it, and Jenny was looking her in the eye. She aimed her pistol carefully and began to squeeze the trigger, as Noah shouted something she couldn’t hear over the roaring in her ears.
Allison was just staring at her, and there was a look of something Jenny couldn’t define on her face. Was it pity? Was it compassion? Jenny knew that look, she’d seen it before, but it had been a long, long time.
It was love. It was the same look Jenny’s mother used to give her, back when she was a little girl and had done something dumb.
Jenny was frozen. The pistol was still aimed directly at Allison’s face, but her finger simply would not move. The roaring in her ears continued, and some part of her registered the fact that Noah was standing off to her right, his own pistol pointed directly at her, but she just couldn’t move. No matter how she tried, she couldn’t squeeze the trigger, couldn’t turn her head, couldn’t move at all.
And then the paralysis broke. Her hand lowered, and she laid the pistol on the desk that was the only thing between her and her target. Tears were running down her face as she thought of Neil, and how she had let him down, but then Allison was up and walking toward her. Allison spread her arms, and Jenny, tears pouring down her face, spread her own and walked into them.
“It’s okay,” Allison said. “Shh, it’s okay. It’s all over now, it’s okay.”
Jenny clung to her, weeping, but then Noah moved into her line of vision. He had put down his own pistol, and laid a hand on her shoulder. She forced herself to focus on what he was saying, but it was hard to understand. She tried again, and then caught it.
“Jenny, turn on your subcom and get on the Wi-Fi,” he said. “Neil is safe, we got him back. He’s trying to talk to you now, get on the Wi-Fi.”
Jenny pulled her face back from Allison and stared at him, then whispered the words that would activate the subcom again. She told it to get on the Wi-Fi, but it asked for the password and she didn’t know it.
Noah recognized the confusion and said, “The password, it’s ‘fairytale,’ with no capital letters.”
“Fairytale,” Jenny said softly, and then she heard it.
“Neil to Jenny, Neil to Jenny, Neil to Jenny…”
The tears came anew. “Jenny to Neil,” she said haltingly. “Sure is good to hear your voice.”
“Jenny, I’m safe, you don’t have to…”
“It’s okay, Neil,” Noah said. “When she got here, she couldn’t do it.”
“Sarah to Jenny,” Jenny heard, and she suddenly started sobbing even louder. “I’m so glad you’re okay, I was so worried.”
“But I’m not okay,” Jenny said between sobs. “I was going to do it, I really planned to do it, anything to get Neil back—but then I got here, and I looked into Allison’s eyes, and I just couldn’t.”
“It’s okay, Jenny,” Allison said. “You were under duress, the worst possible kind. We’re not going to hold that against you. It’s okay.”
Epilogue
The next twenty-four hours were hectic for everyone, as Neverland began to recover from the near disaster. Molly had been able to identify most, if not all, of the major players in the PRA from analyzing the contacts of Klaus Niemeier, Alexandra Hofmeyr and Peter Newsom, and Teams Angel, Pegasus and Oz were sent to begin taking care of them.
Of course, Gabriel first had to deliver Neil to the airport at Rio, where a charter flight was hastily arranged to get him back to Neverland in a hurry. The plane landed at Kirtland Airport, and all of Team Camelot was there to meet it when it arrived.
“Jenny!” Neil shouted as he hurried down the ramp. Jenny ran to him, and they threw their arms around each other, each of them promising the other that they would never be apart again. Noah, Sarah and Marco stood back and let them have their moment, and then the five of them got into Sarah’s car and headed back to Noah’s house.
Jenny had been tied up with Doctor Parker all that day, and hadn’t been released until it was time for Neil to arrive at the airport at four o’clock that afternoon. She wanted to take him straight to his trailer and “give him a proper welcome home,” but Noah and Sarah had insisted they come into the house for a little while, first. They grudgingly agreed, and both of them nearly jumped out of their skin when two dozen people began to cheer and applaud as they walked in.
Renée was there, and Wally, along with Allison, Donald Jefferson, Mr. Jackson and Doctor Parker, himself. Elaine Jefferson was there, and even Neil’s old girlfriend Lacey was there to welcome them back home. Just about everyone who knew them was awa
re of what happened, and Parker had told Allison that something like this was a necessity if Jenny was ever going to get over the guilty feelings that were eating her alive.
It turned out to be quite a party, and it was well after midnight before Neil and Jenny finally thanked everyone for coming and made their escape to the trailer. A half-hour later, there was no one left but Noah, Sarah and Allison, all sitting around the kitchen table drinking coffee.
Allison had caught a nap earlier in the day, but she was still very tired. The coffee was to help her stay awake long enough to get back home, but Sarah finally put her foot down and insisted she use the guestroom for the night. She agreed, and then asked Sarah the question that left her speechless.
“So,” Allison had said. “Which one of us do you think she’ll pick for maid of honor?”
“Maid of honor?” Sarah asked. “What?”
Allison grinned. “Neil caught me alone for a minute and asked permission to propose to her. I figure I might as well give it, because they deserve to be together as much as you and Noah do. Of course, Marco and Renée will undoubtedly be next.”
Sarah’s mouth was hanging open. “Wow,” she said. “I bet she picks you, but that’s okay with me. I’m just thinking about a bridal shower. You’ll help, right?”
“Why, of course,” Allison said. “You girls are like the daughters I always hoped I’d have by now, and we didn’t get a chance to do one for you. Let’s get Renée involved, too, since she’s going to be part of the Camelot family soon.”
“Oh, my gosh,” Sarah said. “This’ll be awesome. We better do it soon, though, or they’ll elope.” Her eyes went wide. “Hey, we can all go to the Manor in England after the wedding, so they can have a honeymoon!”
Allison smiled. “Now you’re talking,” she said. “Wait, the staff there think they’re already married, remember?”
