by Rob Horner
Or they might already be there, waiting on us, Sherry said.
I hadn’t thought of that, Travis admitted.
So then, our choices are rather limited, aren’t they?
Not really. Our choices remain the same; we just have a new perspective, Travis replied.
Which means we can get a hotel and ignore the possibility there might be people waiting to help us.
Or?
Or we could go directly to the base, and trust in our logic, Sherry finished.
At the very least, Travis added, patting the box lightly, we won’t be walking in empty-handed.
There is that, Sherry agreed.
By this time, their cab had reached the point where Buckley Road made a wide left, almost coming around in a U-turn as it ended at Sheridan Road. The couple remained quiet as the cabdriver turned right onto Sheridan. They could see the sign for the Visitor’s Center only a couple of blocks ahead on the right.
Have I ever told you how much I hated Boot Camp? Travis asked suddenly.
No, but I’m sure we’re in agreement on this.
Then why are we coming back here voluntarily? he asked.
Sherry giggled as the taxicab turned right, pulling up to a parking spot directly in front of the Visitor’s Center entrance, passing a dark panel van and a snub-nosed, red Honda hatchback parked at the back of the lot. There were a few other vehicles parked near the front.
“You guys gonna need me to wait for you here?” Basil asked, throwing the car in park and twisting to look at them.
“No, but thanks for the offer,” Travis said, handing the driver a hundred-dollar bill.
“I don’t know if I can break this,” Basil said, immediately reaching for the zippered cash bag he kept tucked under the seats.
“We don’t want you to,” Sherry said. “You’ve been great.”
Taking a deep breath, Travis nudged open the passenger door and they climbed out into the afternoon sunlight.
4
“What do you think is going to happen now?” Vicki asked Brian as they waited in the back of Billy’s van. The strange lieutenant who knew so much sat on the middle bench seat, turned to his right. His back was up against the driver’s side wall as he answered Debbie’s questions. Billy was back in his spot in the driver’s seat, alternating his attention between watching through the windshield and staring at his computer screen, cycling through gate cameras.
“With what?” Brian asked in return, relishing a small victory.
His left arm lay across Vicki’s shoulders, and Brian wouldn’t have admitted to anyone how hard it had been for him to muster up the nerve to put it there. Almost five years had passed without any women in his life but the two or three he worked with, and he hadn’t dated in nearly thirty years. Diane had been everything to him from the day they met. He would always love her, and nothing could change that. But after spending several hours talking to Victoria, he’d come to the realization that maybe he’d mourned long enough. It wasn’t betraying her memory to want companionship. Hopefully, Diane would understand, if she was watching.
Still, he felt as nervous as a schoolboy. When he spoke, his words tumbled over each other. He didn’t feel confident, or secure in himself, nothing at all like he expected of a man nearing fifty.
A little over a half-hour had passed since Lieutenant Barnes knocked on Debbie’s window, maybe twenty minutes since they’d decided to grant him a small measure of trust, bringing the conversation into the van. Since then, when he sat down next to Vicki, he’d been strangely focused on finding a reason to move closer to her, not understanding what so attracted him, but unwilling to fight it.
For the first time in what felt like a very long time, he’d found someone he could talk to, someone who’d suffered like he had—though of course she hadn’t watched her husband die from an assassin’s bullet. Still, they had so many things in common and Brian hoped that commonality extended to a mutual attraction.
That she hadn’t moved away the instant he put his arm around her spoke volumes. A moment later, she shifted position and snuggled closer to him. The feelings this movement incited were graciously familiar, though not something he’d ever expected to feel again. The old rituals of courtship had no meaning for him; he was determined to appreciate her for everything she was, and to offer himself for the same kind of appraisal. If that wasn’t enough, then it wouldn’t work. They’d lived too long and been through too much to change—or pretend to change—for one another. They would either be compatible, or they wouldn’t.
“With our kids, silly,” Vicki said, answering his question.
Despite the arrival of the lieutenant, the plan remained the same. Billy and Debbie would go meet them if they showed up at Great Lakes. Brian and Vicki weren’t happy with the decision, but they couldn’t argue the logic behind Debbie’s arguments. She put it as plainly as possible. Jimmy—or Travis, as he was accustomed to being called—had no idea his father waited for him. Vicki hadn’t heard anything from Sherry during their brief conversation that indicated Travis had broken through his brainwashing. Only Sherry had managed that. Travis would be reacting to the situation.
Debbie hadn’t offered a reason for keeping Victoria in the van during the initial meeting. At least, her reasons had nothing to do with Sherry. Rather, as she’d explained to Vicki in a whispered conference, her agreement to stay behind was the only thing that would keep Brian back. The confrontation between father and son concerned her the most.
The lieutenant was confident they would come. Like many of his claims, he didn’t seem able to explain his certainty. Finding their group seemed like a stroke of brilliant insight, but to somehow know Jimmy and Sherry were on their way, and the brutal Agent Travers was only an hour behind, seemed to stretch credulity.
“Wait a minute!” Debbie exclaimed. “You got this from Captain Ortega? Manuel Ortega?”
“That’s right,” Robert answered.
“Well, that explains a lot,” Debbie said, and the way she relaxed back into her seat spoke volumes. Brian breathed a sigh of relief. Turning to look at them, Debbie said, “Manuel is one of my military contacts. He never would go so far as to tell me anything of substance, but he was sympathetic.”
“That’s why he gave me the folder,” Robert said. “He wanted me to find you and help you end this.”
“My son’s name is in that folder, right?” Brian asked.
“Yes, Brian,” Debbie replied. “And yes, I must have asked Manuel a dozen times about Jimmy. Please don’t hate him. He walked a very fine line for us for many years, and I think we probably wouldn’t have Mr. Barnes here at all if he hadn’t finally had enough.”
“Robert, please,” the lieutenant said.
Brian tried to understand. He’d been military once. How would he act if he was torn between two different types of duty? Could he really blame a man he’d never met for following his conscience as best he knew how? He felt Vicki’s reassuring hand on his knee and decided to let it go. At least for now. With that resolution came one other. Reaching out a hand to Robert Barnes, he said, “Thank you, Robert, for everything.”
The lieutenant reached his own hand across the back of his seat, taking Brian’s in a firm grip. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, Mr. Jennings.”
“Call me Brian.”
“All right, Brian. Just promise me I get to help dismantle this program.”
“Don’t worry, Robert,” Debbie said, showing him her million-watt smile, “we’ll be grateful for any extra help we can get.”
“I think they’re here,” Billy called from the front of the van. Debbie scooted forward to look over his shoulder just in time to see a young couple emerging from the backseat of a Yellow Cab. Vicki and Brian were only a second behind the brunette.
“That’s her!” Victoria said excitedly.
Brian stared through the windshield, nervous as hell. His eyes were locked on the young man standing a few dozen yards away. Billy and Debbie might have th
e honor of meeting his son first, but he would watch the entire time.
5
The Yellow cab pulled away, leaving Travis and Sherry standing in the parking lot, wondering what to do next. There were people inside the center who could direct them wherever they needed to go. Their military identification cards would be enough to gain entry to the base, even though they weren’t assigned here. Military members were a nomadic bunch by necessity, often taking orders for short periods of time to different locations, either for deployment as on an aircraft carrier, or for additional training.
“Hey! Hey, you two!” a woman’s voice shouted from behind them, instantly setting Sherry on alert.
Travis grabbed her arm, pulling her away from the glass doors leading into the building.
Scrambling, pulled to the side by Travis, Sherry turned to see a couple approaching from a dark van at the back end of the parking lot. Both the man and the woman held their hands in plain view, empty, as if trying to reassure Sherry and Travis they were harmless. Sensing Travis’s anxiety, the couple halted ten yards away.
“Who are you?” Sherry yelled, her voice quavering despite her best efforts to control it. Even as her fear mounted, her eyes searched the green and blue lines, wondering what she might be able to use as a distraction.
“We’re friends,” the man said. “My name is William Dougherty, and this is Debbie, my wife.”
“So?” Travis called. “Are those names supposed to mean anything to us?”
“We hoped they might,” the man said. “But if they don’t, this should.”
“We’re the ones who rescued your mother last night, Sherry,” the woman said, finishing the man’s sentence. “She’s waiting in the van for you.”
“Mom?” Sherry asked softly.
Is it true? Travis asked.
Sherry sent out her consciousness, reaching past the young couple—who really didn’t have anything to hide—and into the van. There were three people in there, watching them through the windshield.
“It’s true,” she answered Travis. “My mom really is in there.”
The couple exchanged confused looks.
“Not a prisoner?” Travis asked.
“No, she’s just anxious.”
“We believe you,” Sherry said, feeling Travis relax beside her. The young couple also relaxed, resuming their forward progress. The woman was tall and well-formed, maybe thirty-five, with brown hair and brown eyes. The man, William, was over six feet tall, though only a couple of inches taller than the woman. He had light brown hair and brown eyes behind wire-frame glasses, set in an intelligent and expressive face accentuated by numerous laugh lines. Sherry was inclined to trust them immediately.
I agree, Travis said to her.
“We know who you are, too,” Debbie said to Travis, reaching out to shake their hands.
“How?” Travis asked.
“Probably from my mother,” Sherry said, giving the only possible answer.
“No,” Billy replied, looking thoughtfully back at the dark van.
Sherry remembered the other people in the van. Again, her consciousness streaked across the parking lot, seeking confirmation.
Oh, Travis, she thought to him.
A split-second later Travis asked, “Then how do you know about me?”
“From your father,” Billy answered, gesturing to the van. Three figures were climbing out.
Travis laughed. “That’s impossible, sir. My father is safely tucked away in South Carolina.
Travis!
What?
He’s not lying.
But my father is—
Probably not the man you thought he was.
What’re you talking about?
Sherry didn’t have time to answer the question as two of the newcomers hurried forward. Letting go of Travis’s hand, Sherry rushed to greet her mother, who welcomed her with glad words and a warm embrace.
Travis locked eyes with the second figure, a broad-shouldered man just a few inches taller than he was, with hair the same shade of brown, except for a few spots of gray at the temples. There was something very…familiar…about the man, yet it wouldn’t come to him. His father was shorter, swarthier, with a pot belly and a mustache. He was…
“Hello, Jimmy,” the man said.
At the mention of a name which Travis should have disregarded completely, something cracked in his mind, some barrier, something…
Sherry heard/felt the tumult of confused images and words racing through Travis. Letting go of her mother, she managed to reach his side a second before he collapsed onto the concrete.
Chapter 27
Explanations
1
No one played Special Agent Buck Travers for a fool. Not if they wanted to live. It didn’t matter if you tied an anchor around his neck and dropped him into a river. He’d find a way to get free, and you wouldn’t know you’d failed until you felt his hands around your neck. It didn’t matter if the whole world wanted to stop him, he would prevail.
Storming around the spacious security center in the facility, Agent Travers listened as one security guard after another tried to ingratiate themselves to him. If it wasn’t Jim asking over and over if he wanted coffee, it was Randy, apologizing for Victoria’s escape, or it was David, so sorry it had happened but hey, he was in the bathroom at the time. The only person not in attendance, whom Buck really wanted to get his hands on, was the security guard who’d had a chance to shoot the meddlesome pricks and failed miserably. But he was off campus, in the hospital, recovering from a broken arm and a broken nose.
This security room was worthless.
Yes, it showed all the cameras arrayed around the facility and it could lock down elevators and patient rooms alike. But it had no real power. It didn’t have access to the one program he needed, the one that would let him end the lives of Mr. Travis Wilkins and Ms. Sherry Anders. No, that special terminal resided in a second control room in the basement, the true nerve center of the facility. From there, temperatures and pressures in the various labs could be monitored and adjusted, doors locked and unlocked.
The basement also housed the implementation rooms—two specialized operating suites where subjects were injected with the alien material. The Sample Storage Room was also down there, where once over two hundred specimens were kept, divided along some boundaries perceived by the scientists as being significant enough to denote separate beings, much as one man’s DNA profile was distinctly different and identifiable from another’s.
That’s where Agent Buck Travers needed to be. It was also where he couldn’t go until the current security chief, a rotund toadstool of a man named Jason Habet, received verification from someone higher up the food chain. Whoever that special person was, Habet wasn’t saying. He just sat there, fat folds oozing over the arms of his padded office swivel chair, one meaty hand pressing a red telephone receiver to his ear. The fat man didn’t say anything, just sat there with a glassy stare to his little pig-eyes, and…was that seriously a thin streamer of drool starting to leak out the corner of his mouth? Jesus Christ!
If it weren’t for the six other armed guards stationed around the room, Buck might have given in to the temptation to walk up and smack the living shit out of the fat, lazy bastard.
Things were going so smoothly when he left Virginia Beach. His plane was ready to go early. The flight was smooth, not so much as a hint of turbulence. By three-thirty Chicago time, they were beginning their final approach. And then the shit hit the fan! They were waved off into a holding pattern because of some bullshit security breach at the airport, some hopped-up hippie busting free of a detention room and getting past the security checkpoint and into the terminal proper.
All incoming and outgoing flights on hold for an indefinite period.
When asked by the pilot if he wanted to divert to Midway International Airport, Travers jumped at the opportunity. It was less than an hour’s drive from Midway to the facility. This could still work out.
> The plane landed smoothly and with no further delays. He had no baggage to claim, so he was first in line at the car rental station. He got a nicely appointed Toyota Rav4 from the Enterprise counter then headed out onto Interstate 55 North. He intended to pick up I-94W south of Chicago and follow that until it hit the Chicago Botanic Gardens, at which point he’d transition to US Route 41 for the remainder of the trip.
He hadn’t counted on the Chicago Bears having a Sunday afternoon family day in the middle of preseason, or the crowds that would be leaving Soldier Field at four-thirty in the afternoon. As 90W/94W passed the Roosevelt Road ramps, traffic slowed to a crawl. The police were out on the Interstate enforcing merges and holding up through-traffic for long periods at a time to allow the oncoming cars to clear the secondary streets.
If that wasn’t bad enough, he passed no less than three fender-benders within a couple miles of Roosevelt Road which seemed to be staggered in alternating lanes. The result was that he traveled no more than four or five miles in an hour, constantly having to change lanes to accommodate idiots who couldn’t be bothered to pull their obviously still-drivable cars off the road after their minor bumps. He didn’t reach the facility until almost six, the armpits of his t-shirt stained with an angry sweat, rage pounding in his skull like a drum.
And after all of that, he had to wait even longer.
Agent Travers decided he’d waited long enough. He rose and stalked across the room, ready to snatch the phone out of Habet’s hand. He intended to educate whoever was on the other side of the call of just how unwise it was to keep an Agency official waiting. He was one of the founding members of this shithole of a project--thank you very much—and he was tired of waiting for permission to visit a monitoring room he helped set up. Before he made it to the fat officer’s desk, the man in question lowered the phone receiver back into its cradle.
Levering his fat ass out of the office chair, Habet walked over to Travers. Where his eyes had appeared glazed over before, now they were clear and bright. “You’re cleared for access to the basement, sir,” he said. “If you’ll follow me, please.”