Winston stayed behind. He had to keep Bledsoe away from that boat. There was no way both of them could climb into the skiff before Bledsoe overtook them.
As soon as Shade had the rope, Winston switched to a dog paddle and turned to face Bledsoe. He didn’t have long to wait. The man was only two strokes away, eyes ferocious, mouth still locked in that hateful smirk.
Winston had just enough time to take one deep breath, lower his hands to his sides, and let himself drop. The river closed over his head, and he fell like a rock.
Maybe I was wrong, he thought. I could still drown.
***
Winston saw Bledsoe’s black slacks and white shirt pause on the river’s surface, now directly above him. No doubt, the man was confused. Maybe Winston had run out of energy and gave up. Maybe he was trying to fool Bledsoe and sneak away underwater to resurface downstream and have a better shot at getting away. Now that Winston thought about it, that wasn’t such a bad idea.
But he had no intention of leaving Shade. He was either going to end this right here or die trying.
Bledsoe jackknifed, put his head down, and dove after Winston, pulling through the water with long strokes.
Winston knew the man was strong. He had to be to walk away from getting hit by a car and be swimming only moments after being shot. Blood still seeped from his glowing blue wound, leaving dark, wispy blotches in the water behind him, but either he could ignore the pain or the QVs had already repaired enough damage for him to function normally. Winston’s only hope was that his own running skills had given him the lung capacity to outlast Bledsoe underwater.
In only a few seconds, Winston felt the water pressure build in his ears as the light around him dimmed. He kept falling. He wondered how deep the Willamette was and whether it was enough to crush him before he could drown. Winston’s pulse thudded in his head, and the river pressing into him felt cold enough to freeze.
He forced himself to focus on Bledsoe. The man was gaining on him, and that was all that mattered. Winston could hold the panic at arm’s length as long as Bledsoe kept coming.
All too soon, Bledsoe caught him. Winston made a feeble attempt at putting up an arm in resistance, but Bledsoe simply caught his wrist and did exactly what Winston expected.
The sensation of electrical current poured into Winston’s arm as Bledsoe tightened his grip. It seemed to vibrate in his bones and burn along his skin. He was ready for it, though, and in his mind he pushed back. The two forces met in his arm and vied with each other. Bledsoe was physically stronger. There was no question of that. If Bledsoe wanted to hold Winston down here and drown him, he could — if he had the lung capacity.
This battle of energy was different, though. He could tell that Bledsoe had an advantage, but not much of one. The man was older and more experienced with wielding this power, and if they had more time, Bledsoe would no doubt overwhelm and roast Winston. But they didn’t have time down here, twenty-five, thirty, forty feet under the surface.
As Bledsoe realized this, the expression of smug triumph on his face turned to worry and anger.
Black spots appeared at the edges of Winston’s vision. He suspected it was from exertion as much as lack of oxygen, but Bledsoe had to be feeling the burn in his lungs by now, too.
Winston tried to pull away, and that made up the man’s mind. He gave up trying to stun Winston and tried instead to drag him back to the surface.
Winston fought back. He only had the use of one arm and two legs, but he put up as much of a struggle as he could, even as every instinct told him to go with Bledsoe back to the instant relief of air.
The inside of Winston’s head throbbed mercilessly. His chest felt full of broken glass. His whole body screamed to breathe, but he kept fighting Bledsoe, trying to pull him back down.
At last, only a few feet from the surface, Winston surrendered. He felt Bledsoe kick beside him and tug even harder on his arm. Winston pulled himself up to be face-to-face with Bledsoe. He raised his hands as if to protect himself.
They broke the surface together. The frantic, wide-eyed Bledsoe gasped for breath.
Winston did not. He needed one more second.
While Bledsoe’s mouth was open, greedily sucking in air, Winston’s left hand swept in and popped the energy marble he’d seized from his pocket down Bledsoe’s throat.
The man gagged in mid-gasp and released Winston. Winston, finally taking his own breath, clapped his right hand over Bledsoe’s mouth to keep him from spitting out the ball and clamped his left behind Bledsoe’s neck.
Maybe I don’t know everything about being part alien, thought Winston. But I learn fast.
Then he forced every bit of energy he could between his two hands, imagining them to be metal leads with a blue arc of lightning flowing between them.
He felt the energy ball disintegrate inside Bledsoe’s head. It didn’t explode so much as change from a solid straight into raw electric force. Winston’s body buzzed with the marble’s release, but Bledsoe took the blast’s full force. The man convulsed wildly between Winston’s hands. Both eyes rolled back in his head, and one of the veins burst, turning the bottom half of one eye from white to red.
The sight repulsed and terrified Winston, and he let go.
Winston resumed dog paddling and kept gulping air back into his body. Bledsoe bobbed on the surface, face down and unmoving.
A hand grabbed Winston by the top of his backpack and pulled him up.
“Gotcha!” said Shade.
Winston saw his friend’s weary but relieved face leaning over the fishing boat’s port side.
“Shade,” panted Winston. “I think… I… Bledsoe. Did I—?”
Bledsoe’s body twitched once.
“Um, I don’t think he’s—” Shade began, then Bledsoe’s upper body jerked out of the water. His arms cast about, and he coughed out water uncontrollably. Blood spilled from his injured eye and ran down his face.
“Go!” cried Shade back at the woman holding the outboard motor’s tiller. “I’ve got him! Go, go, go!”
The lady twisted the throttle and the motor thundered back to life from its low idle.
Winston felt his body drag out horizontally along the water as they gained speed, but Shade now had him by his pack and under one arm. He was alive. They would make it.
Bledsoe’s head and shoulders grew ever smaller as they sped up the Willamette, and the last Winston saw before they rounded a bend was the man reaching one arm up and over the dock railing. Bledsoe looked back toward Winston, and then they were gone.
27
Shanghai and Wi-Fi
Bledsoe didn’t understand why people today made such a fuss over “classic” cars — perhaps because they were different, or perhaps because they came from a better time. When he’d left 1948, Bledsoe had owned a Buick Roadmaster, and that had been considered a pretty good car in its day. Today, Bledsoe would say the Roadmaster resembled a water balloon with tiny windows. Its bench seats were uncomfortable, and driving felt like commanding a fast tractor. People always longed for things that weren’t so great to begin with.
The one thing he would try to keep on the same track when he finally had the Alpha Machine and went back to set matters right would be cars. Today’s vehicles were smoother, cleaner, smarter, faster, and vastly more comfortable. He ran a hand over the leather-upholstered back seat of his FBI-rented Mercedes-Benz E63 and considered everything from its in-dash navigation system to the fact that he could control several of its features from his phone if he wanted…which he didn’t. That’s why he had Lynch driving. That…and he just felt like having a strongman on hand.
Back in 1948, they thought cars of the future would look like airplanes without wings. What a joke. No, much as Bledsoe frowned on waste and excessive comfort, he had to admit that the Germans at least knew how to make sure that every bit of luxury delivered something useful. It wasn’t about adding a hundred channels of cable TV you didn’t want and would never watch. It was livin
g better by living smarter. How had the defeated Germans figured that out while the Americans had not?
The E63 purred up Interstate 5 as the sparse clouds high above flowed from white and pink into deepening orange and red.
“Are you sure you don’t want to go to a hospital?” Lynch ventured, trying to make eye contact with Bledsoe in the rearview mirror.
“Positive,” said Bledsoe. “I heal quickly.”
“What about him?” Lynch cocked his head to the right.
Bledsoe gave the about-to-be-former Agent Smith another once-over. He lay slumped in the back seat, still unconscious, but with his hands cuffed behind his back in case he came around.
“He willingly aided a known terrorist,” said Bledsoe. “I—” He corrected himself. “The agency will deal with him.”
Bledsoe massaged his left temple. His head still ached like someone was trying to crush it between two boulders. God, he was going to make that brat pay before eliminating him and his entire timeline from existence. He hadn’t expected the scrawny kid to be so quick-witted and resourceful. Bledsoe wouldn’t make that mistake twice.
First, though, he had to make sure that there would be a second chance. He took out his phone and dialed the only number on its Favorites list. He heard two low beeps in his wireless earpiece, then the connection clicked.
“Management,” said a low, slightly metallic male voice. “Report.”
There was no point in beating around the bush.
“Majestic Three has temporarily eluded capture,” Bledsoe said. “One of the FBI agents assisted in the boy’s escape. I have subdued the agent, but Majestic Three and his secondary got away with the help of some passersby.”
Bledsoe wanted to say more to show that this wasn’t his fault, but he was a big boy. He knew that people in control only cared about results, not excuses. He closed his mouth and focused on keeping his breathing long and even.
For what felt like an eternity, nothing but silence emerged from the earpiece. Lynch exited the freeway and made for the industrial district.
Finally, Management came back on the line, sounding only slightly disgruntled.
“What is your plan?”
“We have a dozen alpha particle sensors in the warehouse. I’ve already phoned ahead for more FBI help. We’ll sweep the banks of the river until his path turns up.”
“How much more FBI help?”
“Five more agents for now. We won’t miss him.”
“You know we want fewer people on this, not more.”
“With all due respect, sir, I’d rather clean up a little mess than risk losing him altogether.”
Another pause, this one shorter than the last.
“Fine,” Management finally said. “Get it done, but this time, do it right. You’re on thin ice.”
“Understood.”
Bledsoe killed their connection and couldn’t help squeezing the phone until its casing creaked in his hand.
“Sir,” ventured Lynch. “You talk about… Well. If you don’t mind me asking, I thought you were FBI, sir.”
“I do mind,” said Bledsoe. “You have your orders from your regional director. Just drive.”
“Yes, sir.”
Lynch drove past the warehouse with the scanners. The backup agents wouldn’t be here for at least half an hour. In that time, he wanted to start another project.
They cruised two more blocks through the compound and pulled into a gated area filled with what seemed to be a row of self-storage lockers. The building was squat, with a sloping brown roof and a white front a year or two past needing a fresh paint job. Most of the roll-up steel doors bore thick padlocks, but two stood open, revealing empty, metal-sided spaces.
“On the right,” said Bledsoe.
Lynch carefully maneuvered the Mercedes into the locker. As they approached, one green lamp turned on overhead. The car barely squeezed through, leaving less than a foot of clearance next to either side mirror. Lynch put the sedan in park. When the locker door slid shut and an interior bolt lock engaged, the floor dropped smoothly on unseen hydraulics.
A moment later, they came to rest in a larger, brightly lit parking garage inhabited mostly by other dark sedans, albeit ones less refined than Bledsoe’s Mercedes. He slid from the back seat and told Lynch, “Keep an eye on your partner. If he wakes up, call me.”
“Sir.”
Bledsoe pressed his thumb to a pad next to a pair of unmarked white doors. The pad beeped a second later, and the doors revolved inward. He walked quickly down a long hallway, then stopped at the sixth door on the left. One more fingerprint verification and he was in the sterile room, a small space made of little more than four walls, a hospital bed, and two large one-way mirrors for observation.
Bledsoe approached the bed and stared down at the slumbering form of Claude Hawthorn. His one-time friend, partly covered by a single white sheet, looked even worse than Bledsoe felt, all sagging folds draped over knobby bones. The guy seemed like he might die at any moment. Certainly, he could go ahead with that soon enough. Just not yet.
“Claude!”
Claude’s eyes flew wide open, and his body jerked. Restraint cuffs held his wrists and ankles, which Bledsoe found ridiculous. Was anyone really worried about this withered waste of a man posing a threat?
Claude studied Bledsoe for a moment, then the corners of his mouth slowly curled upward. His brows pushed downward as his eyes grew brighter in an unmistakable sign of mirth.
“What?” asked Bledsoe.
“Did he…” Claude’s weakened voice choked off, but he nodded slightly at Bledsoe’s face and focused his attention on Bledsoe’s left eye. “Did he do that…to you?”
Anger flooded through Bledsoe, which only made his headache worse. Trying to push the pain back down, he didn’t reply. Apparently, silence was all the response Claude needed.
“Atta boy,” the old man wheezed, then he closed his eyes.
Bledsoe forced himself to unclench his fists. He put his hands in his pants pockets, feigning relaxation, and paced slowly around the hospital bed, mindful not to trip over the various monitor probes and IV tubes connected to Claude.
“You know,” mused Bledsoe, “I’m stumped as to why we haven’t been able to get any information out of you. We have tests. We have…” He rolled his eyes, searching for the right word. “…persuasion. It’s not like we don’t understand the process. But we got nothing. You genuinely don’t know where you hid all those pieces. How is that possible?”
“Too much daytime TV,” muttered Claude. “Takes a terrible toll.”
Bledsoe gave him one quick chuckle. “You know what I think?” He stopped near Claude’s feet, gazing down the length of his skinny frame and into his face. “I think you had help.”
Claude blinked a couple of times, but made no reply.
“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” Bledsoe said. “You had an alien time– and space–traveling machine. We knew an alien, right? Bernie? I think you went back and either Bernie or some of his E.T. friends did something to you that allowed you to hide the pieces and then not remember doing it.” He studied Claude’s face closely. “How am I doing so far?”
“Besides the fact that you’re mad as a hatter? Great.”
Bledsoe smiled. “Of course, if I’m right, you might not know one way or the other.”
“That’s what all the crazies say.”
“Fortunately, I have friends, too,” Bledsoe continued, ignoring the jibe. “Friends with shiny, new toys. It turns out that scientists have developed loads of new techniques for excavating repressed or hidden memories. There’s even a process called interpolative intraneural magnetic resonance imaging that can let me dig around inside your brain and pull images out whether you want me to or not. If I say dog, part of your brain is going to think of a specific dog no matter what blocks stand between that and your conscious mind. We can capture and record those images.”
“I wish you could capture what I’m thinking ri
ght now,” Claude said.
Bledsoe walked around to the head of the bed and traced one fingertip along his old friend’s hairline. “The sad thing is that the most effective way to use the system is to saw off the top of your skull. That way we can insert as many probes as we need wherever we want.”
The smile faded from Claude’s lips. He swallowed nervously but remained silent.
“See, Claude…I’m done playing. I’m going to save this country. Whether I get the location of the Alpha Machine pieces from your boy or from you, I don’t care. If I have to kill a billion people to make it happen, I will. It won’t matter, because this world and everyone in it will be wiped away. You can’t hurt what never existed, right?”
“But you’ll know,” Claude said slowly and with terrible weariness. “You’ll know what you’ve done and how rotten you are, and that rottenness will infect everything you touch in your new world. You’re not saving a broken world, you fool. You’re trying to break one that didn’t need saving. Maybe if you’d tried to be a part of it, you’d know that.”
Bledsoe studied him for a long moment, then gave a long, loud exhale. “Well, old buddy, one of us is right, but I’ll guarantee you one thing. You’re never going to know who.”
Bledsoe took out his phone and sent off a brief text: BEGIN SURGERY
He tucked the phone back in his pocket.
“Gotta love modern technology,” he said. “Anyway, if you'll excuse me, I have a couple of teenagers to recover.”
Bledsoe began to leave, but as he reached the door, Claude croaked, “A couple.”
Bledsoe paused. “What?”
“A couple. Of teenagers. His friend Shade is with him. Ahh…” Claude sighed contentedly, as if resigning himself to deep sleep. “That’s great. They’re going to be just fine.”
Bledsoe sucked on his teeth in annoyance but left the room with one parting shot: “Maybe for tonight. But I’ll have them soon enough, Claude. And no…they’re not going to be fine.”
Winston Chase and the Alpha Machine Page 29