by R. Chauncey
“Why?” she asked.
“If the Society’s soldiers have got an electric detector, they can detect the presence of our com-cells by the communication chips in them. They can probably do that with their com-cells.”
“How is that possible?” she asked.
“The chips give off an electrical impulse every time it comes in contact with an electrical current.”
“There’re no electrical currents around here,” she said, looking out in the darkness.
“A simple radar or heat detecting device would do,” he said. “All they’d have to do is scan in a three hundred and sixty degree circle, and if our com-cells were on they’d pick up the chips’ electrical response as soon as the beam from the radar passed over us. And pen point our exact location.”
She reached into her inside coat pocket and took out her com-cell and turned it off.
“These things give off an electrical impulse even when off, Larson.”
“Yes, I know, but without them, especial mine we’d never find that information center,” he told her.
“Maybe I should just throw mine away,” she said.
“No, keep it just in case we get separated and need to contact each other,” he told her.
“So now we don’t have a map, and we still might be picked up by some scanning radar,” Marajo said. “How do we find this secret place without a map?”
Larson looked out into the darkness and sighed. “We should find a nice safe spot and bed down until sunrise.”
“But you said the best time to approach was at night,” she complained.
“Before I realized our com-cells could be detected. Is there a map of this area in the Highlander?”
“No. Just that electric map and we can’t use it because it’s electrical. They’d pick it up if they have a detector. I didn’t think to bring a paper map of the entire state of Nevada.”
“Neither did I,” he added. “Anyway we could print a map of this area in the Highlander?”
“No.” Her voice had the sound of failure in it. “I didn’t build it to be a computer. It’s just an SUV. I didn’t want anyone being able to determine its whereabouts.”
“Wait a minute,” he said as he slipped his backpack off his back. “I made maps of this area and they’re in my backpack.” He opened his backpack and took out the four maps he’d made and chose the one of Northern Nevada. “Here it is.”
“So all we have to do is follow the map?”
“That’s it.”
“Well, that’s nice. Now we’ve less to worry about,” she said in a depressed voice.
“Don’t despair yet,” he said. “We still have the element of surprise.”
“We do?” she asked.
“Yes. They don’t know where we are.”
“They’re going to know that as soon as we get close,” she said.
“That can’t be helped,” he said. “Let’s find a nice spot and get some rest.”
“A nice spot. Out here?” she exclaimed.
“Some place where there are no snakes.”
“And where would that be?”
“Let’s hunt around till we find one,” he suggested.
“You sound very positive about our situation,” she complained.
“Would sounding negative help?” he asked.
Marajo didn’t answer. Because sounding negative wouldn’t help.
“Something just dawned upon me, Marajo,” Larson said as they walked and looked about for a place to bed down.
“What?” she asked.
“Snakes are cold blooded creatures,” he said.
“So what?” she said in an annoyed voice.
“Well, this being the winter, I doubt if there are any snakes about.”
“They’ve gone south or something?”
“Actually I don’t know, but if they’re around here they are probably hibernating.”
“Where?”
“In the ground somewhere I suppose,” he replied. “My point being we probably don’t have to worry about them.”
Marajo sighed and said, “That’s a relief.”
Ten minutes later they’d found a spot under an overhanging rock and settled down for the night.
***
Chapter 50
January 11, 10:37 p.m.
“Dodge is dead,” Karl announced to Willow.
“How do you know?” he asked.
“Just got a message from him,” Karl lied as he closed the cover on his com-cell. “Said he was wounded in the ambush and Betty was killed. He tried to make it to medical help, but couldn’t. He said he was too weak for help to be of any use.”
“Where is he?” Willow asked.
“Outside a town in Nevada called Hays,” he answered.
“This Done bitch and her accomplice don’t sound like civilians to me,” Willow grumbled angrily. “They sound like trained special ops people.”
“Whatever they are, Willow, we’ve got a tough job ahead of us. And we’re going to need all the rest we can get,” he said.
“Are you sure they’re coming here?” Willow asked.
“Yeah, they’re coming here alright. They got nowhere else to go.”
“How the fuck are they going to find this information center, Karl?” Willow complained. “This is a fucking desert. There are no signs pointing to where the center is? Why would they want to come here anyway? They can’t get into the information center?”
“That drive Julian gave Marlene Done’ accomplice in Illinois has information as to where the information center is,” Karl told him. “They have to come here to destroy the Society.”
“How the fuck are they going to get into even if they know where it’s at?” he yelled at Karl.
“You’re a soldier of the Hidden Society, Willow,” he said. “All you need know is that we’ve got to kill Marlene Done and her accomplice. After that we go home, collect our bonuses, and return to our private lives. What happens after that is not our business.”
“Yeah, right,” Willow said as he calmed down. “How long you figure we’ve got to wait till they show up?”
“Probably a few days, maybe less. I don’t think they’re rushing to get here,” he said, checking the infrared unit to make sure it was still working properly. “But I know they’re on their way. So get some rest you’re going to need it. I wake you at seven.”
“Okay,” Willow said as he got up and walked to his sleeping bag and got into it.
Karl had a feeling Dodge wasn’t dead maybe seriously wounded. But he certainly wasn’t dead. But what he didn’t understand was why Dodge’s tracking chip was no longer sending out an electrical beep. He could only assume Dodge had been wounded in the ambush, and the chip damaged. But it had kept sending out a beep until it shut down less than half an hour ago. Why would the chip do that if it had been damaged? Was the damage done to it so great it stopped operating as Dodge’s condition deteriorated?
The chip was just below the skin. Or at least Karl assumed it was. Any deeper in the body, and a tracking unit would have to be within a few hundred feet of the person with the chip for the equipment to detect the chip’s beep. Karl’s killer instincts were telling him something was wrong. When two civilians could kill Betty and wound Dodge something was seriously wrong. And he didn’t know what it was. Just that it was close, and could be a threat to him and the job he had to do.
He looked out at the dark desert and thought, there’s something out there I haven’t seen.
Something
I can’t explain.
*
Dorothy had the same instincts as Karl, and like him she knew something was wrong.
The difference was she knew what was wrong. Her only problem was Karl. The man didn’t look, or act like, the typical dumb obedient soldier who did as he was told without question. Karl was a thinker. He was a ruthless, coldblooded, emotionless killer who believed in thinking. Proof of that was that Derrick had chosen him and allowed him to choose the soldiers he wanted to work with. He had even given Karl the location of the Society’s information center. Derrick wouldn’t have done that with some mindless killer.
Dorothy’s only weakness was Derrick. If that egomaniac told Karl about her, Karl would know she was a threat to him and go hunting for her as soon as opportunity permitted. Karl would be smart enough to know that Derrick wouldn’t have kept her a secret if he didn’t have a special job in mind. And Karl would immediately know, once he found out about her, he was the special job Derrick had her along for. That was why Derrick had given Karl the coordinates to the information center. Something he would have never done if he wasn’t going to have Karl and Willow killed as soon as Marlene and her accomplice were dead. As long as Derrick knew the secret to the information center, he had control over the other members and soldiers.
Derrick was also her strength. He wanted power and at any cost. It was the only explanation for his killing the other two leaders and the Council of Twenty. And Derrick was also positive she was one hundred percent loyal to him. All she had to do was keep him thinking that and she had a chance at success. Derrick would never expose her to Karl as long as he believed he could depend upon her.
*
11:30 p.m.
Dodge looked at his watch. It was eleven thirty. Maize had freed herself by now, and was probably on the phone to the chief of police of Hays.
I wonder what the police are going to think of the advice I gave her, he thought. His suggestion she wait three days was a foolish suggestion backed up by foolish hope. He knew as soon as she got free and knew he wasn’t around she was going to call the police. She’d be too terrified not to. But it didn’t matter. He hadn’t left any evidence in her house that could be used to identify him. And she didn’t know in what direction he went after he left her house. Whatever she told the police – and she didn’t have much to tell them, wouldn’t help them locate him.
What did matter was whoever had authorized that damn chip be put in him knew it wasn’t working anymore. That meant they either assumed he was dead, or that the chip had been removed. And that meant Karl had been notified, if he didn’t already know about the chip, and was waiting for him. But he did have a slight advantage.
Karl would expect him to come to the coordinates he’d given him and Betty from the north if Karl thought he was still alive. But the west would be better, he thought.
Never go to a man expecting you from the direction he expects you to come. Confuse your enemy and attack silently and quickly from another direction. That’s exactly what Dodge intended doing. The Society’s training of its soldiers was the best in the world. All of its soldiers were trained by other soldiers at six secret training facilities in isolated spots around the world. Which meant a soldier could also always predict that habits of another soldier in the field. And doing what another soldier expected you to do was something Dodge had learned years ago never to do. It had nearly cost him his life on his second mission when he’d been assigned to kill a rogue soldier, and he’d never made that mistake again.
Dodge took the ramp onto US 80 and headed west at fifty-five miles an hour. The last thing he wanted was to attract the attention of a state highway patrolman.
Road conditions were excellent. What little snow that had fallen on Nevada had melted and been absorbed by the desert sands. Even the temperature was a nice forty-nine degrees.
I’ll get off 80 at route 121 and head south to US 50 then take US 50 east, he thought. That should put me about twenty miles south of where Karl and Willow are. Once I reach that place a careful recon of the area, and I should know what I’m up against.
He looked at the clock in the dashboard. It read 11:35. He looked back out the window and knew he’d arrive at his destination well before sunrise. That would give him plenty of time to think of everything that could go wrong and plan for it. He did have one unanswered question in his mind. Who had given him the tip about the chip in his back and why? And where were they? If this tipster was with Karl did Karl know he’d been tipped off?
Hopefully I should be able to find out by sunrise, he thought.
***
Chapter 51
January 12, 6:35 a.m.
The eastern morning sun shining in their faces woke them up.
“What time is it?” Marajo asked as she sat up. The blanket fell to her waist, and she stretched her back and then her arms.
Larson looked at his watch. “Six thirty-five,” he said. His watch read eight thirty-five. He had forgotten to set it back two hours. He pushed the blanket back toward his legs and set up. “Let’s each eat a fruit bar, drink some water, and get going.”
“I agree,” she said. “How did you sleep?”
“Like a log,” he said, getting on his feet and stretching. “Surprisingly warm, too.”
“That’s because we were sleeping back to back sharing each other’s body heat, and it wasn’t that cold last night.” She looked up at the clear blue sky. “I’ll bet it’s going to be warm today.”
“Whatever,” he said, kneeling down and rolling up his blanket. “I figure we should be able to make eighteen miles today. Hope you packed your binoculars.”
“I did. You?” she asked.
“Yeah, I did,” he said. He removed his from his backpack and hung them around his neck.
“How many miles do you think we’ll make before sunset?” she asked as she rolled up her blanket.
He stood up and looked at the rough country they had to cross. “I’d said eighteen,” he answered. “But I won’t swear to it because I haven’t done any long distance walking in over twenty years.” He knelt back down, removed a fruit bar from his backpack, placed it in the left side pocket of his parka, then closed his backpack and wrapped the blanket around the top of it and tied it down with the backpack’s straps. “If nothing else, I’m going to get a lot of exercise.”
“You really think we’ll be able to walk eighteen miles before sundown?” she asked him as she removed her binoculars and a fruit bar from her backpack. There was a tone of seriousness to her voice.
“Don’t you?”
“Let’s be realistic, Larson,” she began as she closed her backpack and strapped her blanket to the top of it. “We’re not in our thirties anymore, and like you I haven’t done a lot of long distance walking or running in years.”
He nodded in agreement with her. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s see if we can come close to making eighteen miles before the sun sets.”
“That sounds more reasonable,” she agreed. “But I doubt seriously if we make it.”
“How many miles we make in a day doesn’t really matter, Marajo,” he said.
“You sound worried,” she said, doing as he did with her backpack and blanket.
“I am,” he said.
“Why?” she asked, standing up next to him.
“We won’t be able to locate the entrance to the Society’s underground information center without me turning on my com-cell,” he told her.
“Once you do that they’ll be able to get a location on us,” she said, slipping her backpack on her back.
“And my com-cell has to be on to open the door to the information center.” Larson grabbed his backpack by the l
eft strap and hooked it over his left shoulder. “Let’s go,” he said as he started to walk south.
“They’ll know where we are the moment you turn your com-cell on,” she said, walking next to him.
“Yeah.”
“And they’ll kill us,” she added.
“Yeah.”
“So what do we do?” Marajo asked.
“I’m hungry, I need a shave and a hot shower, and I don’t know,” he answered as he took the fruit bar out of his pocket.
“I could do with a hot bath myself,” Marajo said.
They ate, drank some water, and walked silently for two hours before they stopped to rest. In spite of the dry looking forbidding hilly terrain the walk was easier than they thought, and they allowed themselves the pleasure of silently enjoying the beauty of the desert. They didn’t push themselves but had walked at a normal leisurely pace avoiding the occasional dips in the ground and walking around cacti.
“This is really lovely country even if it is a desert,” Larson said, breaking the silence.
“It certainly is,” Marajo said, looking at the range of mountains to the south. She looked to her left and saw him staring ahead.
“What are you looking at?” she asked him.
“Our destination. The Simpson Park Mountains,” he said.
She looked in the direction he was looking. “They don’t seem so far away,” she said.
“Probably less than ten miles,” he said as he looked at his watch. “It’s twelve forty-five. For a couple of old farts you and I have made good time.”
“Yeah over nine mils in four hours, if we start walking again at one we should make it to those mountains about nine o’clock.”
“Yeah, after dark.”
They sat silently for another fifteen minutes then got up, took two large swallows of water from the bottles they carried, strapped their backpacks to their backs, and started walking again.
“I’ve been thinking about that ambush, Larson,” Marajo said as they walked side by side.