by James Sperl
Clarissa persistently popped her heavy-lidded eyes open. The lure of sleep was dangerously near.
“I know what you must be thinking,” Donna went on. “Why don't we just pack up and relocate like we did before?” She passed her eyes over the workaday office. “Clearly this facility is beneath our standards—you should have seen our lab in Montana—but we all do what we must. As we speak, our people are prepping for emergency evacuation—no easy feat, I assure you—but there are no guarantees. Rosenstein employs some of the nation's finest independent security teams. Men and women from around the world, who have training in multiple styles of combat and warfare...”
Clarissa let her eyes drift to the blurry visage of the solidly built guard who hovered directly above her.
“...but their training can only take them so far. No amount of tactical preparedness can withstand overwhelming odds. They are an effective force, but a small one in comparison to what has been reported to be en route. So we must flee.” Donna retreated to the door once again. “I don't know what our future holds, but I know that we can never stop trying to fix it, regardless of the roadblocks that crop up.”
The guards released Clarissa's feet and shoulders. She got the faint sense of two white streaks moving away from the place where the doctors had stood. Sleep was a heavy, wet blanket that draped her entire body.
“I know this seems unfair,” came Donna's barely discernible words from someplace a thousand miles away, “but as I said, we all do what we must. However, in light of your recent revelation, perhaps we can increase our chance of success. At the very least, if what you said is true, you won't have to face this task alone. Good luck, Clarissa.”
Clarissa's head swam in roiled waters. She couldn't think. She couldn't see or comprehend anything beyond her questionable sense of being. More than this, though, she couldn't sustain her fight to stave off sleep any longer. She conceded to the black whirlpool that sucked her down, down until the only thing left was Nothing.
CHAPTER 68
They could hear engines now. The low-end grumble came from the west, a wall of ominous sound that resonated like a ceaseless clap of thunder, which, rather than diminish, only continued to grow in intensity.
New Framingham was on high alert.
The rooftops of the surrounding buildings became saturated with armed civilians. More clamored to get topside via the multitude of ladders, which had been placed around Shopper's World and stretched to the roofs' edges. Others hurried across the parking lot to take up defensive positions along New Framingham's porous perimeter, their arms overloaded with weapons and supplies.
Battle was imminent.
Andrew and Cesare led Evan and Elenora through the crowd toward an evacuee rally point for children and the elderly—something they had only just learned about. It was the second bit of good fortune they had stumbled upon in the past ten minutes. The first had been getting Evan and Elenora back inside New Framingham.
Once Andrew and Cesare determined that Clarissa and Dustin had been abducted, that they couldn't budge Jon from his post, and that Rachel was still MIA, plans changed. They couldn't leave. Not yet. Too many moving parts were in motion, and to abandon the protective bubble of New Framingham, what with its recently armed civilian militia, was too risky. Andrew and Cesare knew they had to stay. But Elenora and Evan were still outside.
Andrew had anticipated no small amount of resistance from checkpoint security when he pleaded his case. With the sound of motors buzzing like a swarm of approaching locust and the air light with exhaust, he prepared to hear the worst: the border was closed. What he got instead was something he was wholly unprepared for: empathy.
The young, early-twenties guard, who had initially responded with jacked-up, through-the-roof anxiety, changed his tune upon seeing Naomi cradled in Andrew's arms. Were it not for the guard's momentary lapse into sentiment—he and his wife had given birth to a daughter two months ago—Andrew and Cesare might have been forced to leave New Framingham permanently to rejoin Evan and Elenora. Instead, the new father had taken pity on Andrew's and Cesare's predicament, even going so far as to vouch for them with the other guards. But he had issued a proviso: they had three minutes to collect the rest of their family and get everyone inside before the border was permanently sealed. It was more than enough time.
The evacuation rally point was situated in the northeastern sector of the Sleep Zone in the community's second most vulnerable spot. Much like the southern border, two entrance/exits allowed easy access to the interior and posed formidable defense issues. Though as Andrew neared them, it amazed him to see how efficiently New Framingham's planners had addressed those issues.
Semi-trailers minus their tractors fortified the entire stretch of road between the Babies R Us daycare and the DSW shoe store. Butted end to end, the trailers lined Shopper's World Drive. Massive steel plates had been welded onto the lower half of the trailers to protect tires and cover open areas, with even more welded to extend beyond an end for the purpose of overlapping subsequent trailers in the chain. A solid, gap-free wall resulted. Of the two entrance/exit points into the Sleep Zone, only one remained open. A tractor truck, mounted with the same type of plate-welded trailer, idled in anticipation of pulling forward to seal off the final hole once the buses were away.
Which, as Andrew judged, appeared to be at any minute. The buses queued up inside the perimeter, their engines chugging passively. Worried faces—both young and old—filled most of the windows, as attendants ushered the last of the stragglers on board. Men and women with clipboards and sidearms conferred in a loose circle in front of the lead bus.
Evan slowed as he caught sight of the buses. “Wait a minute,” he said, turning his gaze from them to Andrew and Cesare, both of whom eased up to face him. “What's going on? Where the hell are you taking us?”
Andrew sucked in a breath against this inevitable confrontation. He had intentionally chosen to withhold knowledge of the buses from Evan for this very reason. If Evan had known going in that Andrew and Cesare planned to evacuate him and Elenora to an off-site location for their protection, he would have never agreed. Andrew wished they had gotten closer before Evan launched into his predictable protest.
“I'm not getting on any fucking bus.”
“Evan!” Elenora scolded. “Is such language necessary?”
Even in his perturbed state, Evan still couldn't stand up against Elenora's reproach. He dipped his head apologetically. “Sorry, El. I just...why are you shipping us out?” he said, flinging his arm at the buses. “Where're they even going?”
Andrew fast-walked up to Evan. Naomi began to cry in his arms.
“Away from here, and that's good enough for me. This place is going to become a godawful war zone very, very soon. They're relocating children and the elderly to a new location to ride this out.”
Evan winced as if he had sucked a lemon. “What? Where?”
“From what we've been told, it's an office building just north of here. It's been cleared, has limited points of entry, and the roof apparently provides unobstructed views of the surrounding landscape.” Andrew looked at Cesare, who nodded for verification. “It's the best they could do on such short notice. A small army will be going with you, so you should be well protected. Better than here at least.”
Andrew may have stretched the truth a bit, but it was still more accurate than it was a lie. When he and Cesare caught wind of the evacuation—the same gate guard who had permitted them to collect Evan and Elenora informed them of it—the initial plan had called for one armed man or woman for each child or elderly person. The force mustering in front of the buses fell far short of what was required to equal the numbers already packed onto them, and that excluded the sizable group that had already started over to the building on foot via a skeleton-crew escort. Even with the disproportionate security-to-civilian ratio, Andrew still felt it was a safer bet than remaining here.
“But I don't want to go. I want to stay with you guys. I
want to help my dad.”
Cesare shook his head. “It's too dangerous. If your dad were here, he'd agree. This place is too exposed. Things are going to get flipped sideways and fast.”
“Too exposed? What're you talking about?” Evan griped. “There're buildings on all sides and walls of steel where there aren't any. There're so many armed people on the roofs it wouldn't surprise me if some of the stores caved in. It's safer here than anywhere else.”
“No, Evan,” Cesare replied, “it only seems that way. Andrew and I have been assessing the layout. There're too many holes. Too many rear doors and loading bays, too many places where somebody with simple explosives or a vehicle capable of ramming could force their way in. All it would take was one well-placed bomb or a high-impact collision from a large vehicle to create a breach. It's anything but safe.”
“It's true,” Andrew said, taking over the conversation. “This place only has the illusion of safety. What you may not be aware of is that directly to the north and south of here lay two main roads: Worcester and Cochituate. They border New Framingham. If this Travis has any sense, which I believe he does, he'll divide his forces and hit this place from both sides.” Evan's frown softened. “The office building is a good move. It's well away from here and in a non-strategic location. No one should be looking for it, which means no one will be looking for you. You'll be safer there.”
“I don't care,” Evan responded. “I'm not leaving without my dad.”
Andrew was losing his patience—and he was losing time.
“Look, Evan...your dad decided to stay and help defend this place. It was a last minute decision but one he felt passionate about making. He said he wanted to do it for your other dad, Sean. He told us to tell you that he'd find you when it's all over but in the meantime, you should listen to us and what we have to say.”
Evan squinted dubiously, and Andrew had never felt so scrutinized.
“Bullshit,” he said. “My dad would never do that. He'd never just leave me.”
“I know it's hard to accept, but it's true whether you want to believe it or not,” Cesare said. “And Jon's not leaving you. If there's anyone here who can make it through this whole thing unscathed, it's your dad. But you need to come with us now. You and my nonna need to get on that bus.”
Evan scrunched his face into a knot of protest. “Man, I told you. I'm not going anywhere without my dad.” Turning away from the group, Evan cupped his hands around his mouth. “Dad!” he screamed. “Dad, it's Evan! Where are y—”
Andrew snatched him by the arm. He spun him back around and pulled him so close the two were nearly nose to nose. Naomi, who dangled from Andrew's other arm, wailed from the sudden motion.
“Look, Evan, we don't have time for this, do you understand me?” Evan glared at him with a mixture of anger, shock, and increasing fear. “That office building is the safest place for you. If you stay here and run around looking for your dad, you're putting not only him but yourself in danger. And that's an incredibly selfish thing to do. It's not that no one thinks you can't handle yourself, it's that your dad couldn't handle suffering through another loss if something should happen to you. Don't risk putting him through that.”
Evan's gaze fell to the ground, but Andrew pulled it right back up with a gentle nudge to Evan's chin. “Hey. Your dad's going to be all right.”
Evan managed to nod, even if it was a bit uncertain. He inhaled swiftly then let it out in a slow, steady stream. “Okay.”
“Okay,” Andrew echoed and gave his arm a squeeze. He draped his arm around Evan's shoulders, as much for comfort as it was to urge him toward the buses.
Then a haunting sound brought them both to a standstill.
Others heard it too, and soon everyone within New Framingham's Sleep Zone had quieted to listen to the aural threat in horrified silence.
It wasn't the Sound.
It was car horns.
By Andrew's estimation, the distant and nearly toneless blare comprised hundreds—perhaps thousands—of vehicle horns, all of which honked in eerie unison. It was an unsettling noise that had the potential to burrow into the pit of one's psyche and delivered a reminder to all those who prepared for battle that they were justified to be afraid.
Andrew gave Cesare a look of consternation. Was Travis so brazen as to announce his arrival? Or was he a master manipulator, someone who was well-versed in the art of psychological warfare? Andrew believed he was a little bit of both.
“Come on, you're leaving,” he said, hurrying Evan along.
Cesare took Elenora by her arm and carefully but hastily followed. Andrew guided Evan toward the last of the buses where a set of parents said a weepy farewell to three children. He streamed up to an anxious woman holding a clipboard.
“Is there still room?” he said.
The woman didn't respond. She looked past Andrew to the horizon with immeasurable dread as the horns petered into silence.
“Ma'am?” Andrew said, snapping her to him. “Is there still room?”
The woman found Andrew's eyes. Remembering that she had a job to do, she gathered her wits and consulted her clipboard. “Uh...just,” she replied. “How many are you?”
“Two.”
The woman flipped through several pages. “Names?”
Evan stepped forward. “Uh...Evan Stills-Keeler and...”
“Elenora Palagi,” said Elenora, who released Cesare to stand beside Evan and take his arm. She patted his hand and coaxed a thin smile.
“And the baby?” the woman said, pointing at Naomi with an uncapped pen.
Andrew's mind became a vacuum. He hadn't given Naomi a thought beyond keeping her close and keeping her safe. The smart thing to do, the prudent thing, would have been to send her along with Evan and Elenora and get her the hell out of there. But Evan was in no place to babysit. His mind would be elsewhere, and what energy he could dedicate toward caring for another person would be reserved for Elenora, who, despite her plucky attitude, was more dependent on people for help than she cared to admit. The past two months on the road had taken its toll. Tasking Evan with her care and that of an infant was too much to ask of any fifteen-year-old, especially one whose father was about to engage in a no-holds-barred battle to the death.
“She'll stay with me,” he responded to the woman, who raised a curious eyebrow.
“It's your call,” she said. She swept her arm up the bus stairs. “Everyone else, let's go.”
Cesare hugged and kissed Elenora, who smiled warmly at him. She held out her hand to Andrew, who took it and gave it a squeeze.
“Take care of each other,” he said to her and Evan. “We'll find you when this is all over. But, uh...just in case things don't, you know—”
“Ashland,” Elenora said with no small amount of sorrow. “We remember. Just please, make sure it doesn't come to that.”
Andrew nodded at her then held out his hand to Evan. Surprised by the gesture, Evan took it. “Thank you, Evan. Stay strong and keep together.”
“All right,” said Evan. Andrew thought he might say more, but Evan left it at that.
The horns chimed their unholy sound again.
The woman cut a look to the sky, but she remained more in command of herself this go-around. “Okay, we're leaving,” she called. She peered through the windshield at the bus driver and twirled her index finger. The driver nodded. She signaled to other assistants down the line, each of whom responded with nods and thumbs up.
Andrew had always thought the rotating-finger-in-air gesture was reserved for helicopter pilots, but the gist was the same: it was time to go.
“Get on up there,” Andrew said.
Evan nodded and helped Elenora up the stairs to a pair of seats near the back. Andrew and Cesare blended into a crowd of other fretful family members, who had decided to remain until the buses pulled away. Hands covered grief-stricken mouths, as windows full of tearful faces swept past on the departing buses. Among them, Evan and Elenora, who blew a final kiss g
oodbye before the bus chugged through the exit.
Cesare exhaled a blast of air. “Well, that was harder than I—”
“Wait!” Andrew shouted. He chased after the bus, his legs moving before his mind understood the reason. “I changed my mind! Take her too!” He held up Naomi. “Please!”
The last bus cleared the exit. The steel-plated gate followed behind it, rolling into place and sealing the perimeter. Andrew petered to a stop. He was oblivious to the horrified faces of the nearby family members, who had gathered to send their loved ones away but now gaped at him sympathetically.
Cesare trotted over to him. “Andrew?”
“This is a mistake. What the hell was I thinking? She shouldn't be here.”
Naomi cried, her arms thrown out in irritation. Cesare took one of her hands.
“There's nothing we can do about it now,” he said. “But the faster we find Clarissa and Rachel, the sooner we can get us all out of here.”
“Yeah,” Andrew said emptily, his eyes fixed in space before they found Cesare. He leaned away from Naomi to look at her and tried to suppress the notion that he had just made one of the worst decisions of his life. “Yeah, okay.”
“Okay,” Cesare responded. “So where do we start?”
Andrew spun and searched the area as if doing so provided the answer. In his previous life as a widowed mountain recluse, decisions were uncomplicated. Day-to-day life was regimented and usually without chin-scratching problems: if something broke, he fixed it; if he ran out of something, he got more. But that x = y mentality was different where human behavior was concerned. There were so many more variables, many of which couldn't be known.
What did they do about Clarissa and Rachel? While they had nothing concrete to back up their claim of abduction, the circumstantial evidence was overwhelming, and Donna looked to be the prime component. Andrew felt assured that she took them to Rosenstein's proxy facility at the Boston Scientific building.