“We’ll just keep hold of your weapons for now,” Valdez said. “And I suggest you don’t think about making a run for it. Best you have our cooperation.” She looked directly at Ellie as if reading her mind.
They followed Masterson out of the room and she led them through the campus until they reached a sign declaring this to be the village. Ellie tried engaging her in conversation, but the officer seemed to regard this as a punishment duty and she was plainly shocked and upset by the death of her friend.
The only reaction she got was when she asked about him.
“Oh, Nelson and I had only been on patrol together a few months when the flood hit. He’s got a wife and kids, you know. I guess I oughta be the one to tell them.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Ellie said.
“Try telling that to Valdez. And she’s right, I should have been more aware of our surroundings. Got lulled by the fact that nothing much has happened in this part of town in the past week or so. Missed a big German with a big gun. Doesn’t make me much of a cop.”
Patrick put his hand on her shoulder. “It makes you a human,” he said. “Try not to blame yourself. That bugger’s a professional or I’ve never seen one.”
Ellie opened her mouth to question that, but he held up his hand. “I met plenty on set. We had training, you know. Boris scared the living crap out of me.”
Masterson took them into the entrance of the accommodation block. “Some of us use these rooms to crash in. Others, like me, live here now. My apartment’s flooded. Wait here.”
She went into a small office near the entrance and came out with a bunch of keys. “We’ve got a pod for four—all single beds. C’mon.”
They followed her down a hallway of doors, some of which were open to reveal extremely lived-in rooms beyond. But their accommodation was pristine, having obviously not been touched since the college was closed following the flood.
There were four tiny bedrooms, each with its own door, arranged in groups of two, and a central sitting area with a couch. Off to one side was a small kitchen and at the opposite end, a small bathroom. It reminded Ellie of a cruise ship cabin.
“Have you got food in your packs? Room service isn’t the best,” Masterson asked with a slight smile.
“Yeah, we can manage, thank you,” Ellie said. The events of the day had exhausted her, but she desperately want to speak to the others in private.
“The water is working, but the electricity’s only on from eight to eight, so if you want a warm shower, you’d better hurry. I’ll see you in the morning.”
She turned and left them, pulling the door closed behind them.
“I wonder if…” Patrick started, when there was a distinct click in the lock. “Ah.”
Masterson apologized from the other side of the door. “Orders,” she said. “Please don’t try to break out. It’ll be better for all of us if we see this through.”
“Well, I don’t know about you guys, but I need a drink,” Hank said, throwing his pack on the couch and rummaging inside. He emerged with a half-bottle of Jack Daniels.
Ellie gasped. “You brought whiskey? We were supposed to be traveling light.”
“Essentials only,” Hank said, smiling. “I figured if I was gonna be the one hunkin’ my pack across the country, then I got to choose what went in it. Now, d’you want some or not?”
In answer, Ellie ran into the kitchen and dug three plastic glasses out of a closet. Hank poured a little of the amber fluid into each—a little extra for himself—and saluted before draining the cup.
Max, who’d collapsed onto the sofa, made no indication he’d noticed them at all. Ever since the German had emerged from the trees, the boy had raised his shields, barely saying a word to any of them, even Hank.
“Well,” Patrick said. “Here’s another nice mess…”
Ellie shook her head. “You can’t blame me this time. Anyway, you heard what Masterson said, the power goes off soon and I’m having a shower. Anyone care to join me?”
She looked from Patrick to Hank, enjoying their dumbfounded expressions. “Come on,” she said, grabbing Patrick by the hand and leading him toward the bathroom.
It turned out that shower and bathroom had been designed to make such liaisons as difficult as possible. The cubicle itself was barely big enough for an adult to use without banging elbows every five minutes and there was barely any floor space between it, the bath and the sink. But, Ellie reflected, it’s amazing how creative you can be when you’re motivated. It had been passionate, fast and very sweet, and now Patrick sat on the sofa opposite the curled-up Max, wearing an expression that was a mixture of satisfaction, pride and disbelief.
Ellie had gone into the kitchen to put the kettle on so they could have coffee before the power went out while Hank, somewhat reluctantly, was using the shower after them. She was humming an unidentifiable tune and enjoying the effect she’d had on Patrick. She’d been relieved that it had gone so well—as far as she was concerned, you could never really be sure how it was going to go in advance. You could like someone, even develop feelings for them, and it could all fall apart in those few moments. It had happened to her more than once. Men could, after all, be disgusting. Patrick, on the other hand, had been the perfect gentleman. Not in the cliched way she might have imagined of an Englishman, but he’d been considerate and kind, and she’d found herself relaxing her guard to an extent she wouldn’t have believed possible in such a short time. The last time she’d felt so relaxed and intimate with a man would have been with Bobby. Her good mood evaporated as she remembered how that had ended in betrayal. And she thought of Maria. Good grief, couldn’t she have five minutes of peace and contentment?
She felt his arms around her waist and, after tensing for a moment, she relaxed. “Look, Patrick…”
“No need to say anything,” he said, kissing her ear. “We don’t have time to find out where this might go. We’ve got a job to do. But when we’re done, you’d better be ready for the full monty. You’ll find me completely irresistible. You have been warned, my dear.”
She rotated to face him, sharing a passionate kiss before drawing him into an embrace. He was absolutely right. This was a moment in time and they were unlikely to get any more chances to deepen their relationship until they’d either found Maria or given up looking for her. But she was, perhaps, just a tiny bit disappointed all the same.
She took two cups of coffee into the living area and put them down on the coffee table between the two sofas as Hank emerged from his room wearing a slightly cleaner set of clothes and dropped down opposite them.
“Are you having a shower, Max?” Patrick asked as he arranged three candles on the table.
The boy shook his head, not looking up, merely gripping the laptop to his chest and gently rocking back and forth.
“He’ll have one tomorrow whether he likes it or not,” Hank said. “We’ll all stink before we get much farther, but we might as well start off clean.”
“It was my fault,” Max said.
“What was?”
Max turned, keeping his eyes fixed on Hank who sat beside him.
“The cop dying.”
“Of course, it weren’t! Don’t worry, son, we’ll figure it out.”
Max shook his head. “No! You don’t understand. It was my fault. He was hunting me!”
Ellie leaned forward, eyes fixed on the boy. “What do you mean? He’s after Buzz. He said so.”
“He thinks I’m Buzz.”
“What? That makes no s—”
Patrick pointed at Max. “The laptop?”
Max nodded. “I’ve been thinking of how that man could have found us, and then I realized: the IP address!”
“What are you talkin’ about, son? What’s an eye-pee?”
“When did you last hack into Denver’s server?” Patrick asked.
“Yesterday, just before we packed up and left the boat. I’d created a spider to crawl their file structure and download their email logs
and any documents it found. I didn’t know if I’d be able to log in again.”
“So, you grabbed everything you could find so you could pick over it at leisure?”
Max nodded.
“But why do you think they picked up on it?”
“I usually only leave the connection active for a few seconds or minutes, but…this time it was much longer.”
“So, they were able to trace the IP address?”
Ellie shook her head. “No, I don’t buy it. What you two Sherlocks aren’t taking into account is that Max was online yesterday and Fritz turned up today. Unless you’re suggesting he took a helicopter from Denver? He was waiting for us. He must have been tipped off.”
“By who?” Patrick said.
“Buzz, maybe?”
“What?”
“Think about it. He’s taking heat from Denver for his involvement in the disaster—Max’s email download shows that at least. Don’t you think they’d want to get their hands on him before he tells the world it was their fault?”
“Right, I get that,” Patrick said. “But how does that lead to the German in the bushes?”
“How many times have you hacked into the server?” Ellie asked.
Max shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe six or seven.”
“From different places?”
“Yeah. First time it was at Buzz’s place.”
“And you say they can track your location from the IP address?”
“Only roughly. And each time I logged in, it would have been from a different IP address.”
Max’s mouth dropped. He looked like an older version of the kid in A.I. Artificial Intelligence processing a difficult concept. Suddenly, he nodded. “Yeah. The more readings they got, the better they could average out the location and the closer they would get.”
“But we were moving,” Patrick said.
Ellie nodded. “That’s what’s saved us until now. It must have confused the heck out of them. If you’d stayed with Buzz, Fritz would have found him days ago.”
Hank cleared his throat. “So, what you’re sayin’ is that Arnie came lookin’ for Buzz? But now he knows Buzz ain’t with us. Maybe, once he’s been to a repair shop to sort out his legs, he’ll go lookin’ for him and leave us alone?”
“We should be so lucky,” Ellie said, settling back on the sofa. “At the very least, he’s going to want that laptop and he’ll want to know what Max has learned from his hacking. So, unless the police find him, we’re going to have to assume he’s looking for us. Jeez, if things weren’t hard enough already.”
She looked around the room, as if searching the shadows in the corners for signs of a hiding assassin. “One thing’s for sure,” she said. “He’ll be back.”
And then the lights went out.
Chapter 11
Boulder
“Oh no.”
Bobby pulled himself to his feet and stood beside Eve as Linwood remained in the shadows by the road.
Looking east, Bobby’s eyes followed the highway as it descended like a black tar river, heading perfectly straight until it vanished in the early morning haze.
They were too far from Vegas to be able to see it, but he’d hoped—prayed—to catch sight of something that would give them the strength to carry on. But there was nothing. No movement, no settlements, no respite. The Mojave Desert undulated on either side of the road, yellow-red sand pockmarked with green, scrubby vegetation. Standing proud in the landscape, as if they’d gotten lost on their way to Santa, Joshua trees gathered together in small clumps laughing at the travelers.
“Linwood’ll never make it,” Eve said, waving her arm along the road. “Even if we can.”
Bobby grunted. “Give it another couple of hours and it’s going to be hell on Earth. But we can’t stay here, so we’d better get moving. There must be a rest stop somewhere along here.”
“Come off it, Bobby. What’s the point? We’d be better off just sitting here and hoping someone takes pity on us.”
He glanced at her. Sweat stained her blonde, tied-back hair and dust picked out the wrinkles around her tired eyes. Her mouth was a dry slit between cracked lips.
“No. Let’s get moving. Come on.”
“Who made you the boss?”
Bobby smiled. “Take it up with management if you’ve got a complaint, now let’s get Linwood up. We need to find somewhere more sheltered to hole up for the day.”
She looked as though she would argue, but then merely shrugged her shoulders and nodded.
It only took half a mile for Bobby to realize he’d made a mistake. He’d spotted a group of abandoned cars and vans, some of them on one side of the road, some in the desert sand. They should be able to get under cover there, even if it meant lying on the ground beneath one of the pickups.
But they had to get there first, and they seemed to be crawling along at a snail’s pace, getting no closer as the light grew and distances became clearer.
Within two hours of sunrise, Bobby was shambling along like a zombie, focusing all his energy on putting one foot in front of the other while holding one of Linwood’s arms as the older man staggered slowly on. Rising above them, a metal tower rose. It had an instrument box and a solar panel, but if offered no shade, no respite.
Then, suddenly the weight to his left dropped and he tilted sideways as Linwood fell to the ground.
Bobby dropped alongside him as Eve found the water bottle and pressed it to his lips. Linwood reached up weakly, but he swallowed. Eve threw the bottle away and glanced at Bobby. It was the last of their water.
“He can’t go any farther.”
“But we can’t stay here, in the middle of the highway,” Bobby said, fighting to keep his vision focused as his head swam. His throat was dust and ashes. He felt like the contents of a spider’s larder; a dry husk, life draining slowly away.
“Rocks. Over there.” Eve pointed past Bobby.
He looked into her eyes and saw the hopelessness there. She was as exhausted as him, and they would get no help from the half-conscious Linwood. He grabbed one of the old man’s arms and hauled himself upright. Together, they half dragged him toward the side of the road, and then Eve fell, bringing Bobby down so the three of them lay in a heap on the hot road surface.
He lay there. Just for a minute. Just to find the strength to carry on a while. He breathed in the oily aroma of heating asphalt and reached out to Eve. She didn’t move.
Let her rest. Just for a minute. Soon, he would get up and they would take Linwood to shelter. Soon.
His hand fell down, fingers settled on the gritty surface. The desert breeze played across his face, blowing in his ear as the brutal sun burned him like an ant beneath a magnifying glass.
He felt his awareness drift, falling down into blackness as his fingertips lost their grip on the edges of consciousness. In a moment he would be gone, plunging into an abyss with no return. Just let go. It will all be over soon.
He let…
Rumbling. Fingers on the asphalt. Wind in his ears. More than wind. Rumbling. Getting louder.
Rumbling!
He looked up, his head a lead weight, his eyes bleary and dust-filled. Movement?
Rumbling. Real or imagined?
Real! From behind them, moving up the highway. Rippling in the heat.
Finding strength from somewhere—maybe God, maybe some animal survival instinct—he pushed himself up on shaking legs, turned to face the approaching vehicle, waved one arm and fell backward, knocking his head on the road surface. Blackness took him then.
Voices. Rumbling. This time he was inside it, somehow. Water. Water on his lips. Water washing the dust down his throat. In panic, he breathed in, then retched explosively.
“Hey, take it easy.”
Water ran down his face as he recovered. He wiped his eyes and slowly opened them. He was in a seat looking up at the ceiling. It was a bus. His pants were soaked, and he could feel the wetness spreading from front to back, but it was cooling
and reinvigorating.
“Eve!”
“She’s here,” a voice said bitterly.
He focused on the face looking at him. He thought he recognized the woman.
“Bonnie,” she said. “Randall’s wife.”
“What?”
“He saw you on the road and made the driver stop.”
Bobby looked around, his head swimming. “Wh…where?”
“He stayed behind. No spare places. One on, one off, the driver said. “Took some water. Said he’d look after your friend.”
“Linwood?”
“The old man? Yeah. Looked dead to me, but if he can save him, he will.”
Bobby tried to focus his mind. “Molly?”
“She’s okay. We’re heading for Vegas. They’ve got insulin there.”
“This bus…?”
“It’s been sent by the Vegas camp to pick up people from the road.”
“How did we miss it?”
Bonnie shrugged and moved along the gap between the rows of seats. Bobby turned back and saw Eve sitting beside him, looking out of the window.
“You okay?”
She turned to him and smiled wearily. “We broke our promise. We left Linwood behind.”
He sighed. “I know, but it wasn’t our decision.”
“All the same. We did the same thing to Tanta. Left him behind.”
“What could we do? I couldn’t exactly go and demand they let out a convicted felon. If we’d tried that, we’d all be stuck in the Clarita camp.”
She shrugged. “Maybe we should stop making promises, then.”
“I’ll go back for Linwood. As soon as we get to Vegas, I’ll get hold of a car.”
“He’ll be long dead by then. Maybe he’s dead now.”
Bobby sighed as he leaned back on the headrest of the coach. Bonnie had been right—every seat was taken. Children sat on the laps of their parents and he could see the hunched back of a man sitting in the doorway beside the driver.
Turning around to look down the coach, he saw a soldier sitting in the center of the back seat, holding a carbine across his chest. The soldier wore dark sunglasses, but Bobby could tell he was looking back at him. There was no point trying to persuade the driver to turn around for Linwood and Randall. And, in truth, Bobby didn’t have the strength to attempt it. His skull throbbed and he put his hand against his cheek, feeling the heat where he’d been burned. He took the bottle of water from the arm of the seat and swallowed it, enjoying the luxurious, clean taste of the cool liquid.
Survivors: Deluge Book 3: (A Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Survival Story) Page 9