“We have an appointment to see Akron Massey,” I replied.
The soldier’s brow furrowed as if considering the possibility, but then he shook his head. “You’re not on the list.”
“Just call Mr. Massey and tell him that Logan Willis and his family have arrived.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but you’re going to have to leave.”
“Can’t you call him for us and ask? Mr. Massey will be very upset if he learns that you turned us away.”
“My orders come directly from General Davis. Mr. Massey is a civilian and has no authority to contradict those orders.”
“Then get him to come to the perimeter. Can you do that?”
“I’m sorry, sir, but I do not know Mr. Massey personally, nor do I have any way of reaching him. You’re going to have to turn around. If he is expecting you, then you should be able to call him or reach him via e-mail. If he authorizes you at the gate, then we’ll let you through.”
E-mail. Why hadn’t I thought of that? I struggled to remember the e-mail address that Richard had used to contact Akron. I vaguely recalled that it had something to do with Akron’s name, but it had been almost a year since Richard had contacted him from the airport in San Antonio. Besides, even if I could figure out his e-mail address, what if he didn’t check it before his rocket launched?
“Sir? Are you listening? You have to turn around right now. If you don’t, I’ll have to confiscate your vehicle and have you arrested.”
I bristled at that. “Arrested? You’re not a policeman.”
“We’re under martial law, sir. And even if we weren’t, this is an army camp, so we arrest whoever we like.”
“All right, we’ll leave.”
“Come back when you’re authorized.”
“Sure,” I said, smiling thinly as I put the truck into reverse and backed up. I pulled a U-turn and came alongside Harry’s SUV. He lowered his window.
“They won’t let you through.”
“No.”
“Now what?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know, but we have to leave before those soldiers get any twitchier.”
Harry nodded slowly, scowling at me. I couldn’t blame him for being upset. We’d come a long way just to get turned around now. There had to be another way to get to Massey.
Farmers’ fields swept by to either side, their crops flattened under a blanket of snow. Ice glistened on the road as the Sun soared high into a clear blue sky. Long minutes passed as we drove back the way we’d come.
“What about OneZero?” Rachel asked. “I bet she could help us.”
My eyes widened and I slammed on the brakes. The truck’s chain-bound tires skidded with a noisy roar.
“Logan!” Kate scolded.
Harry barely managed to stop behind us. My walkie-talkie crackled to life. “What the hell did you do that for?”
I ignored both Harry and my wife as I twisted around to stare at Rachel. “You are a genius, did you know that?”
“I am?”
“Yes.”
Alex’s brow furrowed, but then he appeared to get it, too, and his jaw dropped. “OneZero is invisible.”
“Bingo,” I said.
Chapter 54
We were far enough from the army camp that I figured we could risk pulling off to the side of the road to speak with OneZero. Just in case, however, I decided to speak with her through the back window rather than by climbing in the back.
“OneZero, we need your help.”
“Help?” came the robot’s reply.
“Alex?”
“Ummm... help that’s ayuda, I think. Necesitar ayuda.”
“Necesitan, ayuda? Como les puedo ayudar?”
“What did she say?”
“I think she’s asking how she can help,” Alex replied.
“Good. Tell her we need to speak with a man named Akron Massey. We need her to get past the soldiers and find him for us.”
“Okay...”
My walkie-talkie crackled. “So? Is she up for it?” Harry asked.
“We’re working on it,” I replied.
Alex was muttering under his breath, as if practicing what he was about to say before he actually said it.
“So?” I prompted.
“Necesitar hablar con Akron Massey,” Alex said. “Poder tu... jalar esta hombre?”
“Necesitan que busco Akron Massey y que lo llevo a ustedes para que puedan hablar con él?”
“Yes—I mean, sí,” Alex said, but he didn’t sound too sure.
“Cómo se ve?” OneZero asked.
“What did she say?” I prompted.
“She’s asking what he looks like,” Alex replied.
“Damn it.” We needed a picture of him. Akron’s face was always plastered all over the news. It would be easy to find him if I could get my laptop to another WiFi connection. “Tell her that we’ll get a photo for her.”
I indicated left and pulled back out onto the road. Harry contacted us again, and I told Kate to explain.
I headed back down to the interstate and joined the flow of traffic heading West. A sign for West Memphis appeared, and I took the next exit to get there. We cruised down a road beside the I-40 and I spotted a Days Inn to our right. Indicating right, I turned toward the Inn and doubled-parked on a curb in the parking lot. A big red no vacancy sign glared at us from the Inn’s sign, but fortunately we weren’t looking to stay the night. I hopped out and went around the back to get my laptop from OneZero. Harry joined me at the bumper as I came out, and soon we were striding across packed snow to reach the front of the Inn.
An armed man in civilian clothes stood at the entrance with a shotgun in one hand and a glowing cigarette dangling from the other. When he saw us coming, he popped the cigarette in his mouth to grab his shotgun in both hands, covering the entrance.
“Didn’t you see the sign? No vacancy,” he mumbled around his cigarette.
“We don’t need a room,” I explained, and held my laptop up for him to see. “I just need to use the Internet.”
“Internet is for paying guests only. Go find a diner.”
“We can pay,” Harry insisted. “We just need to use it for a few minutes.”
“Fifty dollars a minute.”
I blinked. “You’re joking.”
“You see me laughing?”
“Fine,” Harry said, already pulling out his wallet and fishing out twenties.
The guard eyed the money speculatively. “There’s also a twenty dollar entrance fee.”
“You just made that up,” I said.
The man held his shotgun one-handed and pinched his cigarette between two fingers, dragging so hard it sucked in his cheeks. He tossed the smoking butt at his feet and blew out a chimney’s worth of smoke. “You don’t have to pay,” he said. “Just like I don’t have to stop someone from siphoning your gas or slashing your tires.”
Harry scowled and fished another bill out of his wallet. “Take it,” he said, thrusting a twenty at the guard as we crossed the remaining distance to the doors.
“Smart choice,” he said.
We hurried inside. A welcome blast of heat hit us, along with the unwashed stench of at least fifty people.
The lobby of the Days Inn was even more crowded than the lobby of the Peabody had been. People were sitting and lying all over the floor with backpacks for pillows. Others were standing and leaning against the walls, their eyes vacant and staring. We pushed through the crowds to the front desk. The guard outside hadn’t been joking about the usage fee. The clerk asked for one hundred dollars for two minutes. Harry grudgingly handed over five twenties, and we found an empty corner to stand in. It took me three minutes to find and download a few pictures of Akron Massey from old news headlines, and then we were on our way.
“Hey!” the desk clerk called after us. “You didn’t pay for all your minutes!”
We hurried out the doors before he could catch up with us. I climbed into the back of my truck and turned the l
aptop toward the empty space where I assumed OneZero was sitting. “This is what Akron Massey looks like,” I said, flicking through images one after the next.
“Akron Masey,” OneZero replied.
“Exactly.”
“Exactamente.”
“Can you help us?”
“Help. Ayuda. Sí. Voy a jalar Akron Massey.”
I didn’t understand much of what she’d said, but I understood sí just fine. OneZero was going to help us. I flashed a grin at her and passed my laptop into thin air before climbing back out of the truck. It was time for us to pay those soldiers at the camp another visit.
* * *
We didn’t go all the way back to the checkpoint, since I had a feeling the soldiers guarding it would be less than receptive if we showed up there again without authorization. Instead, we stopped about a mile from the road leading into camp, within sight of the tents, but far enough away that I hoped we wouldn’t get into any trouble for loitering.
“Tell OneZero she needs to get out here,” I said to Alex.
He relayed that as best he could.
“Salgo aqui?” OneZero replied.
“Sí, exacto,” Alex said.
“Don’t forget—Akron Massey,” I added.
“Sí, jalar Akron Massey.”
With that, we heard clunking footsteps, followed by a sudden release in the truck’s suspension as OneZero jumped out. I checked my mirrors for any sign of her, but I couldn’t see anything. I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.
My radio crackled. “Invisible or not, she’s going to leave footprints in the snow. Over.”
I grimaced. Harry was right. Grabbing my walkie-talkie, I said, “Hopefully she sticks to tire tracks or trampled areas.”
“And walks quietly. Over,” Harry added.
“Yeah,” I replied slowly, my eyes scanning the city of green tents in the distance. Even invisible, OneZero would need a miracle to get through there undetected. And even if she did, she still had to find Akron Massey, figure out how to tell him that we were here, and somehow convince him to come out and speak with us. I imagined her trying to tell him all of that in Spanish, and shook my head. There was a lot of room for failure in this plan. I had a bad feeling this was not going to go the way I hoped.
Chapter 55
As soon as I heard the air-raid sirens, I knew that OneZero was in trouble. “They must have seen her,” I said, shaking my head and blowing out a breath.
Kate looked to me, her eyes wide. “Can they trace her back to us?”
I thought about that. “Maybe—if she feels like naming her accomplices, and if they can find someone to translate what she says. Finding a translator won’t be hard, though. With so many people in that camp, one of them is bound to speak Spanish.”
“Then we need to leave.”
“But we can’t leave without OneZero,” Rachel whined.
“I’m sorry, honey. I don’t think we have a choice.”
My walkie-talkie crackled. “You hear that alarm? We’d better get out of here. Over.”
“Copy that,” I replied.
“Maybe it’s a coincidence,” Alex said. “They could be running a drill. Or maybe they’re under attack.”
I twisted around to look at him. “If they’re under attack, then that’s even more reason for us to get out of here. Whatever it is, it’s too dangerous for us to stay here on the side of the road with a camp full of soldiers just across the field from us.”
I started the truck with a throaty roar, and a welcome blast of heat came through the vents.
Just as I was pulling out onto the street, Kate leaned over my lap and pointed out the window. “Look!”
I stopped and stared, open-mouthed in shock. It was OneZero, running impossibly fast through the snow-covered field between us and that camp full of soldiers. She couldn’t have been going any less than forty miles per hour. About the same speed as the convoy of trucks and Humvees racing after her. But the most shocking thing of all was that she was giving a piggy-back ride to a full-grown man. I couldn’t see who it was from this distance, but I could definitely guess.
“Shit!” I said. “She abducted him!”
* * *
By the time I snapped out of it, OneZero had already reached us. She rapped on the window with one hand, and I lowered it.
My walkie-talkie crackled with Harry’s voice. “What are you waiting for? Let’s get the hell out of here!”
“Aqui está Akron Massey,” OneZero declared. “Debemos irnos. Me estan siguiendo.”
I didn’t get any of that. “OneZero what the hell were you thinking? Alex! Did you tell her to abduct him?”
“I don’t know!”
Akron Massey glared at me as OneZero set him down beside my door. “You...” he said. “You’re behind this? They’re going to arrest both you and your wife when they get here.” He turned and nodded over his shoulder to the approaching horde of vehicles.
I grimaced and shook my head. “There’s been some kind of misunderstanding.”
“I told her to jalar Akron Massey,” Alex said. “That means to find him!”
Akron’s eyes darted into the back of the truck, and he smiled. “Kid, jalar means to grab. Hallar means to find.”
“Shit,” I muttered.
“They sound similar in Spanish if you don’t pronounce them right.”
I latched onto that excuse. “You see? It’s a misunderstanding. We didn’t mean for her to abduct you. You have to explain that to those soldiers when they get here.”
“Your robot held me and my family at gunpoint!”
“I’m sorry about that,” I said. “But all we wanted was to talk with you.”
“So talk. You’ve got about five seconds.”
“Where is Haven? And where’s Richard? We never got a message from him.”
Akron Massey glanced at Harry’s SUV behind us, then back at me. “I thought I told you not to mention Haven to anyone?”
“You also said you’d call us before you left.”
“There’s isn’t enough room for all of you,” Akron added.
I gritted my teeth. “It’s just three extra people. We can make it work! Where is it?”
Akron hesitated, and then a megaphone blasted us from one of the approaching trucks. “Surrender your hostage, and come out of your vehicles with your hands up—and tell the Screecher to stand down!”
“We can trade. You tell me how you made friends with the robot, and I’ll tell you where Haven is,” Akron suggested.
I shook my head. “I don’t know how.”
“How did it learn to speak Spanish?”
I shrugged. “I gave her a laptop with Rosetta Stone on it, but I have no idea how she learned that fast.”
Akron’s brow furrowed, and he glanced at the robot. “Well, she speaks like a native.”
The pursuing vehicles from the camp ground to a halt in the snow-covered field, and armored soldiers boiled out with their rifles at the ready.
“I repeat, surrender your hostage and come out of your vehicles with your hands up! Tell the robot to stand down, or we will open fire.”
“Logan, I think we’d better do as they say,” Kate put in.
“One second!” I snapped. “Massey, I answered your questions. Now it’s your turn.”
“What does it matter?” he snorted and gestured to indicate what we were up against. “They’re never going to let you leave, and it won’t matter whether this was a misunderstanding or not. The fact that you have a Screecher on your side means you’re going to spend the next however many days or weeks answering their questions and helping them replicate a friendly response from the others.”
That hit me like a bucket of cold water. Akron was right. Then again, spending time in the Army’s custody might not be so bad right now. “Tell us where Haven is, and we’ll surrender. We can go there after we’ve answered all of their questions.”
“All right, fine. You have something to write wi
th? Look for an oil rig off the coast of North Carolina. It’s at thirty-five degrees and thirty minutes north latitude by—”
“Hang on!” I turned to Kate, snapping my fingers. “Pen! Paper!”
The army’s megaphone boomed out another warning: “You have ten seconds to comply!”
“Logan, te está mintiendo,” OneZero said.
“What did she say?” I asked.
“Nothing. You’d better get out,” Akron said.
“She said he’s lying!” Alex put in.
The megaphone sounded once more: “Your time is up!”
“Get out of the truck now, Logan,” Akron Massey urged. “This isn’t worth dying over.”
Grimacing, I opened the door and came out with my hands up.
“Step away from the vehicle!”
I did as I was told.
“Everyone else needs to come out, too!” the soldier with the megaphone said. I heard doors opening and turned to see my family getting out, followed by the Hartfords.
Akron was right. We were all going to be arrested. And then what? According to OneZero, Akron had just lied about the location of Haven. Even if we could get another answer out of him, there’d be no way we could trust it. And if we couldn’t find Haven, we were as good as dead.
My mind raced, trying to come up with a solution even as I saw soldiers running through the field to reach us.
Rachel came up to me and hugged my legs. “Are we in trouble, Daddy?”
I looked down at her and smiled tightly. “I’m afraid so, Rachie.”
“But we didn’t do anything wrong.”
An idea struck me then. She was right. We hadn’t done anything wrong.
“Alex,” I said slowly, not daring to turn around. “Tell OneZero that she needs to jalar all of us and take us to the Screechers’ border.”
“Uh, are you sure about that?”
“You’ve lost your mind!” Akron said. “They’ll kill us!”
“No, they won’t,” I said, and hoped that was true.
“Necesitar jalar todos nosotros a la frontera tuya, entiendes?” Alex said.
I didn’t wait for OneZero to confirm before hamming it up on my end. “The Screecher says she’s going to kill us all if you come any closer!”
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