Bledsoe needed an exit out of here. He searched about and found his enemies gazing at him. They were not pleased.
***
Winston stared in disbelief at Theo’s fallen body. The disconnect between the two moments was too great for him to grasp. First, there had been that Tai Chi comment. Winston might be on his back, trying to get the pieces in his head to all fit back together, but even he could recognize the sassy awesomeness of that remark. It was Theo — lonely, nerdy, quaintly polite Theo — stepping up and enjoying a retribution over sixty years in the making.
And in the next moment…
Reality slammed home in Winston’s mind.
“No!” he yelled.
Ignoring his pain and fatigue, working through his fading disorientation, he sat up and brought Little e to bear on Bledsoe. With his left hand, he pulled the chrono rings from between its arms. He wanted all the energy he could get. There was at least one big charge left in the device, and he felt just fine using it all for this purpose.
Little e’s tubes undulated, narrowing near the tips, focusing the device’s energy into a pulsing, piercingly bright nexus of contained lightning.
Bledsoe vanished in an almost instantaneous double-flash of light.
“Oh, ho!”
The voice came from behind Winston, next to the curved stone wall. Winston craned around to see Bledsoe standing there, gun aimed squarely at his chest. Above Bledsoe’s other hand floated the geo pieces, the torus spinning freely within the larger ring rotating above Bledsoe’s hand.
Winston felt his heart shatter. He hadn’t even noticed the missing piece until now. The brightness at Little e’s end ebbed.
“Look what I can do!” Bledsoe crowed.
In another flash of light and blue sparks, he disappeared and reappeared again, this time beyond the stone wall and rosebushes to Winston’s right.
Winston realized that Bledsoe was on the verge of escaping forever. He shifted around, working to push more energy through Little e and prepare for his kill shot.
In reply, Bledsoe leveled his gun at Winston.
Amanda, still on her knees with bound hands, propelled herself forward and landed between her son and Bledsoe.
“Don’t!” she screamed. “Devlin, enough!”
As the wind whipped at them and the helicopter’s landing lights bathed Council Crest in faint orange, red, and green, Winston and Bledsoe stared at each other with frozen hatred.
Winston frantically tried to weigh his options. If he could lean to the side and get off an accurate shot, he might disable Bledsoe before the man could fire. Even as he played the events through in his mind, though, he knew it wouldn’t work. In the half second it would take Little e to discharge, Bledsoe would take his shot, and that would be the end of his mother.
Just like Theo.
As it turned out, Agent Smith made the decision for him.
“Bledsoe, put it down!” he called.
Winston didn’t dare turn away, but it was a fair guess that he’d cuffed Lynch and left Shade to guard him. From the edge of his vision, Winston saw Smith maneuvering slowly around the compass circle, gun trained on Bledsoe.
“Damn it, Lynch!” called Bledsoe. “Who got you out, Smith? Management?” Then he gave a bitter laugh. “You’re with Management. You have been all along.”
“On the ground!” Smith repeated.
“That’s a good idea,” Bledsoe said. “I could use a rest.”
Sparks exploded from the space Bledsoe had occupied.
He was gone. Escaped, with another Alpha Machine piece.
Winston slumped as Little e went dark and reverted to its narrow, tapered form. A pool of blood spread from below Theo’s body, finding its meandering way across the cement and toward Winston. As in the blimp hangar, he had failed completely.
Amanda’s face appeared in front of his own. Tears mixed with blood on her cheeks, and her eyes were full of worry as she brushed at Winston’s hair with her bound hands, searching for any injuries.
“Are you OK?” she asked, barely audible over the roar of rage and despair. “Winston? Can you hear me?” He couldn’t tell if that swelling thunder came from inside him or without.
The pieces of his mind were drifting apart again. His mother’s touch somehow seemed separate from her words.
Over her shoulder, he saw a massive helicopter touch down in the field beyond the compass circle. It loomed black in the night, with white edging around some of its windows. Its long, sloping profile reminded Winston of a hornet. Had it come to sting and swallow him up?
The back wall of the helicopter smoothly swung down until it touched the earth. A small figure ran down the ramp. Her long, streaming hair swirled about her head in the rotor wind as if she were caught in a tornado. The landing lights silhouetted her body as she approached.
“Winston, can you move?” his mom asked. She tried to pull him upright but lacked the strength. “Police are coming. We have to go now.”
Only dimly did Winston realize that flashing red and blue lights strobed across the treetops down the hillside.
“Winston!”
A new voice. Beside his mom. Then a face. Thin, pale. Lips dark like midnight. And those eyes. Brown, brilliant eyes he could fall into and study like a fine painting until the world’s end.
“Help me lift him,” said Amanda. “Shade, come here!”
Those eyes blinked, looked away. What would he do without them? Without Theo or his dad?
Strong hands gripped under his arms, lifting him from the stones. Shade draped Winston’s arm over his shoulders and gripped him around the ribs.
“Come on, man,” Shade said in his ear, and he could hear the tears in his friend’s voice.
Winston felt Little e fall from his fingers, heard it ring and clatter across the stones.
“I’ve got it!” Alyssa said.
“I’m here, honey,” said Winston’s mom from somewhere close. “I’ve got you.”
A distant man’s voice, all but lost in the storm, shouted, “I’ll take care of all this! Go!”
Winston tripped on the lip of the helicopter ramp, but hands supported him. He saw tiny lights in the cave before him, hundreds of them. Perhaps he was in the throat of a monster that had just swallowed him. The monster’s incessant growl quickly rose into a whine. Winston couldn’t make out anything around him. Had the monster taken everyone in the end?
The world careened, moaned, dimmed, rose up underneath him. Winston only knew that he had failed. And then, as black exhaustion bloomed from deep within his bones and enveloped him, he lost even that.
Winston Chase
and the Omega Mesh
(The Winston Chase Series, Book 3)
1
Attitude at Altitude
Winston awoke to the sensation of his stomach rising into his throat as his body lifted into the air and then dropped.
He started, arms flailing, and opened his eyes. At first, he only made out small, blurry forms. He blinked repeatedly as the world around him rumbled and vibrated, and each time things became slightly more clear. He made out tan, high-backed seats separated by a thin aisle. Painfully bright light streamed in from two rows of circular windows. At the end of the aisle, Winston spied LED indicators, signs, lamps, LCD screens, and, crammed into a broad strip some distance before him, small gauge readouts on an instrument panel. He felt plush leather under his hands, and his seat’s three-point belt held him with firm yet yielding comfort.
In some of the other seats, Winston made out hazy shadow-forms of people poorly illuminated by the strip lighting along the floor. Facing him, in the seat directly before him, was a shaggy-haired and shorter form but with wide, shocked eyes and a rapidly growing smile of white teeth.
Another blink and a slight shake of the head brought Shade into sharp focus.
“You’re awake!” he cried over the persistent rumble about them. “Dude, I thought you might be in a coma or something!”
Another fig
ure sitting across the aisle from Shade glanced up, fumbled at her seatbelt, and jumped toward Winston. Her slender arms wrapped around his neck while her shoulder nestled under his chin, which was good since he still felt completely disoriented. A silken cheek pressed against his face, and Alyssa said next to his ear, “I was really worried about you.”
She slowly released him and crouched in the narrow aisle beside his seat. Her eyes looked red-rimmed and slightly swollen. “I’m so sorry.”
Then he remembered. The world went wet and blurry again, but it did not go black. The place within himself where grief had grown and overflowed now felt hollow, like the still-standing husk of a burned-out building.
Winston tried to distract himself by paying attention to his surroundings. The leather chairs were beige, with high backs, and featured a narrow armrest on their aisle side. The upholstery matched the long, plush couch that ran along the wall across the aisle. A small table rested in front of Winston, designed so that it could fold up and tuck back into a slot protruding from the wall. The cup-holder at his left held a Coke can covered with a fine layer of dripping condensation. At his feet, his backpack stood open, and he could make out the metallic gleam of Little e and one of the Alpha Machine rings.
Winston tried not to let the worry show on his face when, glancing to his left, he saw that what should have been a reassuringly thick cabin wall was little more than a transparent roll-up door through which beamed blue sky and the muted sound of rushing air.
“Where are we?” Winston croaked.
“In Susie,” said Shade.
Winston looked at him blankly.
Shade pushed open one of the window blinds, and the yellow-white brilliance of sunrise over a barren, brown landscape filled the cabin.
“You were out for Maggie, I think,” said Alyssa. “That was the Sikorsky S-92A we took off in at Council Crest.”
“Maggie was worth $27 mmmillion,” Shade gushed. “That rear ramp was wicked. Fifty-six foot rotor span. Max speed of 190 miles per hour. We’re slumming it in this eight-seater.” Shade leaned closer to Winston and lowered his voice. “It’s only worth $3 million.”
“Susie,” interjected Alyssa, beckoning around them, “is a King Air350iC, and it was more than enough for what we needed, especially on such short notice. Obviously, we couldn’t make the whole trip in a helicopter, so we switched outside of Portland. There wasn’t time to fuel up last night, so we had to make one stop in Cleveland.”
Winston started against his seat straps. “We’re in Ohio?”
Amanda came up behind him and said, “Cleveland, Washington. It’s in the middle of nowhere. I counted three streets when we flew in.”
Winston fumbled with his buckles, then turned to embrace her. She held him tight, and he refused to breathe, afraid that if he moved his tears would come flooding out. Her hand stroked and patted between his shoulder blades, just as she had always comforted him when he was little.
“It’s OK,” she whispered. “It’s going to be OK. You saved me, Winston.”
He could barely swallow. “But Dad. Theo.”
“I know,” she said. “That’s not your fault. They chose to be exactly where they were. It’s our job to make their sacrifices matter.”
When he felt able to control himself, Winston nodded and let her go. He looked her over. Her wrists still glowed a faint blue from where the cuffs had bit into her, and Winston made out blue points on her neck where Bledsoe’s fingers had burned into her. The thought of him touching her still made the acid in Winston’s stomach boil. Dark circles under her eyes and the sag in her shoulders conveyed her exhaustion, but otherwise she seemed healthy and unharmed.
“I had no idea that you…” he started, then faltered. “How could you keep all that to yourself?”
She shook her head and offered a wan smile. “Because I had to. Our safety depended on it. Although I did practice every once in a while, while you were sleeping.”
Winston kissed her cheek and gave her one more hug before turning to survey Shade.
“You OK?”
Shade shrugged. “Lynch knocked the wind out of me. Just a few bruises. No big.”
“And maybe a couple of cracked ribs,” added Alyssa irritably. “He’s trying to be macho.”
Shade gave Winston an exaggerated stage whisper behind his hand. “Is it working?”
“You’re irresistible,” said Winston. “How exactly did we score multi-million-dollar helicopters and planes? I was expecting a Jeep.”
“My grandpa,” said Alyssa. “He flew in the Gulf Wars and saved a lot of lives. One of those people promised him any favor he ever needed.”
“And the guy owns a Sikorsky named Maggie.”
She nodded. “And that guy has a friend who owns Susie.”
“Why are we in Washington?”
“We had to go somewhere,” Shade explained. “You said the last piece was in Hanford. That seemed like the logical place to go.”
“Hanford. Right.”
Winston recalled Bledsoe’s monitor showing his father’s memory of the Hanford nuclear waste tank. The image of Winston’s slowing movements and slumping death were all too vivid. He wanted to tell them about it, but the evening had already been filled with enough terrible news and events. They probably didn’t even grasp the significance of Bledsoe having two Alpha Machine pieces yet. With those alone, he could probably take over the modern world.
At the front of the cabin, the instrument panel was suddenly blocked by a gray-haired man making his way out of the cockpit. “Is there a problem with Hanford?” he growled.
Alyssa smiled and took the man’s arm as he approached. “Winston, this is my grandpa, Colonel Bauman. Grandpa, Winston.”
Winston extended his hand, and Colonel Bauman shook it with exactly the strength and intensity Winston expected. What was it about old guys wanting to crush your hand? Were they trying to prove something?
Winston managed not to wince at the discomfort and said, “Good to meet you, sir.”
He hoped the Colonel would tell him not to bother with “that sir business.” He didn’t.
“I’ll be honest,” he said with a voice like sliding gravel. “I wasn’t sure what to think when Alyssa told me about you. But that fireworks show you all put on at Council Crest…that was something else.”
“I guess so,” Winston managed. “Unfortunately.”
“Your man stayed behind back there. Smith. Said he’d take care of the police and that other agent.”
“Lynch,” Shade said.
“I filed two flight plans for my so-called wealthy client, but we’ve veered away from both of them. Portland is pretty lax on handling flight infractions, but touching down in a residential area is another story. There’s gonna be some awkward explaining to do when this is done.”
Winston hung his head and nodded. “I understand. I’m sorry, sir. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this.”
Amanda put an encouraging hand on Winston’s shoulder. “The colonel and I had a long talk. He understands what’s at stake. We’re all doing this because we want to, Winston. It has to be done.”
Colonel Bauman’s mustache twitched, and his manner softened. “Also…I’ll spare you the story, but believe me when I say that this whole affair is something I’ve been wanting to get to the bottom of for a very long time.” He cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. “I do have one request, though.”
Winston shrugged. “Of course. Anything.”
“Can you show me how it works?”
“How what works?”
The colonel pointed at Winston’s backpack. “Anything. It was asking about gizmos like yours that cost me my career.”
Winston didn’t understand, but he didn’t need to. He could always ask later.
He bent down and grasped Little e. As he held it up before the group, the tubes unwound and waved slowly like seaweed in a lagoon. Winston heard the colonel’s sharp intake of breath through his teeth.
; Winston immediately ruled out anything involving dangerous fireballs of energy. That would be incredibly stupid in an aircraft. Instead, he knelt down on one knee and set the end of Little e against the floor. The tubes spread out, tips twitching as they searched for signals.
Gradually, the blue, 3D wireframe of the plane’s electrical conduits formed in his vision. There were so many lines, Winston at first wondered if he could make sense of anything. It was like floating inside a woven blue shell. However, as he concentrated and focused on some conduits above others, the networks began to make sense.
“What’s he doing?” asked Colonel Bauman.
“Just hold on,” said Alyssa. “Trust him.”
As Winston began to untangle the layers of communications pouring from the cockpit, he identified the navigation systems, and from there it didn’t take long to find what he needed.
The King Air slowly but unmistakably began to tilt as they veered to the left.
“Whoa!” shouted the colonel. “What are you doing?”
“And then…” muttered Winston.
The plane leveled off, then canted to the right.
“Should I do one of those backflips, like in the movies?”
“God, no!” cried Colonel Bauman.
Winston felt the temptation to keep exploring the Beechcraft. The aircraft was so much more intricate than anything he’d probed before, but his heart wasn’t quite in it now. They had larger concerns. Winston pulled Little e away from the floor and returned it to his bag. The autopilot system took back over and resumed their level course.
“Well…” said the colonel. “Thank you. I’ll be more careful what I ask for next time.”
“We need to talk about Hanford,” said Amanda. “Our first problem is that it’s protected government airspace. We were OK in Portland as long as we steered clear of the airport, but…”
“This is post-9/11,” the colonel filled in. “If I take us near a nuclear facility, we’re likely to have an F-15 crawling up our tailpipe. And trust me, that happens a lot more often than you think.”
Winston Chase- The Complete Trilogy Page 63