Pursuit r-7

by Andy Mangels

  "Yes," he agreed, then recalled his duty. "No. Why should I? “

  "You don't know what we did, or who we were, or why we were wanted. Doesn't that bother you? “

  He nodded. "A bit. But I had my orders. “

  She suddenly snapped a riding crop against her leg. It cracked loudly on her leather pants. "I was just following orders. Where has that phrase been heard before? “

  Frank looked around at his environment, watching it change. He recognized the fences and the wood and tar-paper barracks and shacks that housed them all, saw hundreds of the Japanese men, women, and children who lived there. His grandparents had lived there, had met there. The internment camps. His grandmother was a Nisei, second-generation Japanese-American. His grandfather was classified as Kibei, a member of the American-born second generation who was schooled in Japan, and thus was more suspect.

  After the war, when they had been released back into society, his grandparents had gotten married. They had passed down to all their children and grandchildren the stories and photos of the camps, sharing with them the feeling of helplessness as the government to which they had been loyal branded them as dangerous, confiscated their possessions, and forced them into confinement.

  " Colorado River Relocation Center. This is where they met," he told the girl, who was now in a military uniform. "Why are we here? “

  "You know the answer to that better than I do," she said. "Something about today reminded you of this place. “

  Seeing that he was no longer bound to the table, he rose and approached the girl. "What did you do? Why are they hunting you? “

  "I tried to live my life," she said. "Certain people felt I shouldn't be allowed to live my life in freedom, so they began hunting me and my friends. “

  "But you had to have done something" he said, though he wasn't at all sure that she had.

  "We didn't do anything until they attacked us. And then, we only defended ourselves from harm." Her eyes narrowed. "You tried to harm us today. We defended ourselves. Wouldn't you have done the same for your family? Or would you have let them take you here… or someplace worse?" The walls of the camp barracks all turned white, and the sun grew brighter in the sky.

  Something about the girl's statements made sense, and yet, it all seemed vague. "The report we got about you came in from a special branch of intelligence," Kaneko said. "I don't know what section it came from, just that they had high-level clearance. It wasn't very specific about who you were or why you were wanted, but it did tell us not to shoot you. “

  She laughed. "Well, I guess there's something positive. So what happened afterward? “

  "Some men came and debriefed us. They were with that high-level intelligence group. No one I recognized. No one I really wanted to see again. “

  They were in a canyon then, in the desert. Someplace he had seen before in the Southwest, though he couldn't quite place it. A large spire of rock jutted off at an angle up the hill on a cliff. The girl stood on a nearby rock, her head framed by the night sky, a constellation of five stars serving as a crown. "Show me those men," she said.

  He wasn't sure what she meant, but then the men appeared against the rock spire, their images projected a hundred feet tall, as if from some colossal movie projector. Though their lips moved, they were silent.

  The girl studied each of them, as if memorizing their faces. When the images faded, she turned back toward Frank. "Was that all of them?" she asked.

  "Yes. How did you… “

  "Did they say anything about anyone else other than the six of us?" She stared at him again, her cool brown eyes now darkened almost to black.

  "Not that I can remember. “

  "Did they mention anything about Boston, or Roswell? “

  At the last word, Frank remembered where he had seen the desert before. His family had driven through New Mexico when he was ten. Although they hadn't taken any photos, the inspiring terrain had stuck in his mind.

  "No, they didn't mention either one of those places," he said. "But I've been to Roswell before. “

  Her eyes flashed. "When? “

  "When I was ten. We were going to California. Daddy got a flat tire in Roswell. We got to get ice cream while it was getting fixed." He smiled at the memory.

  The girl nodded. "Okay. Let's get back to today. You're a federal agent. You're trained to notice unusual things. Was there anything else these men said to you that made you suspicious? “

  He thought for a moment, and then another memory flashed. "They were very clear that they wanted all the surveillance tapes of what happened from the mall. I don't expect they were happy that some of them got leaked out to the news. But I don't know why. If you're so dangerous, shouldn't they be alerting everyone? “

  "That's a good question, Agent Kaneko. Maybe we're not the ones who are dangerous. Maybe it's the men who are hunting us." She leaned in closer to him, and her eyes were fully black now, and wider. He could see an infinitude of tiny stars reflected on them… no, seemingly existing in them… with five stars shining infinitely brighter than all the others.

  He blinked slowly, and, as he opened his eyes, he saw that the woman was gone. He was looking up at the ceiling, lying in his bed at home, the comforter thrown onto the floor. He could hear his wife breathing softly beside him as she slept.

  The words of the dream girl came back to him. You tried to harm us today. We defended ourselves. Wouldn't you have done the same for your family? Something else gnawed at him. There was an important connection somewhere in his dream. He just had to make it.

  Although he wouldn't say it out loud, even Michael had to admit that everything had gone smoothly at the hotel. As far as they could tell, there were no guards at the perimeter, no one surveilling their rooms, and no one had rifled through their belongings. They quickly packed and left the rooms as easily as they had arrived, leaving their keys behind on the bedside tables.

  They were almost back to the Microbus when Max motioned Michael over. Liz apparently took the hint, and moved forward to walk with Kyle and Maria.

  "What's up?" Michael asked.

  "There's one more thing we need to do before we leave town," Max said. "And I need your help to pull it off. “

  Michael was about to sigh heavily, but held back. He'd give Max the benefit of the doubt first. "What do you need? “

  "I need you to pump up the rest of our money," Max said. "Turn the twenties into fifties. I'm taking as much as we can spare back to the hospital. “

  Now Michael did sigh heavily "What for, Maxwell? You've already healed those people. What, now we need to make a donation to your favorite charity as well? “

  Max gave him one of his patented I'm disappointed in you, Michael looks before replying. "We haven't done right by those people who got hurt because of us. Shania Cameron's family is facing medical bills they can't pay and… “

  Michael stopped in his tracks, and half a step later Max did as well. "Maxwell, let's take stock here. We got attacked today. Somehow they tracked us down, and they very nearly captured all of us. They had your wife in cuffs, and they tasered my… Maria and your sister. We're on the run, we're tired, and we're hungry. We're counterfeiting money and living in a van and hotels, and none of us have lives to speak of anymore. Don't you think it's time to start thinking about what we need to be safe? Or are you still as blind to trouble as you apparently were on Antar?" Max's eyes flashed angrily for a moment, but Michael also saw in them a sense of sadness that seemed to overwhelm the momentary rage. "Michael, you're right. I just want to do this one thing. And then we can get out of town and maybe find a safe haven somewhere. “

  "Or maybe we take the fight back to them," Michael suggested.

  "Yeah, that worked so well for Tess," Max said, his expression deadpan, but his voice dripping with sarcasm. "I'm just saying that maybe there isn't a peaceful way out of this for us. “

  Max put his hand on Michael's shoulder and looked into his eyes. "Let's do this one thing, and th
en we'll get out of here. “

  Michael took a deep breath through his nose, then let it out slowly through his mouth. Then another breath, in and out again. It was a calming technique that Maria had tried to teach him. Sometimes, it even worked. Finally he nodded his assent, and Max smiled. But inwardly, Michael was not as calm as his exterior suggested. What future is Max leading us to? And will any of us survive to see it? Topeka, Kansas Suzanne Duff awoke with a start, her eyes focusing on the blinking LED lights on the alarm clock on the hotel night-stand. Even in the relative darkness of the room, she could see the ringing cell phone behind the clock, and she picked it up. "Hello? “

  The voice on the other end of the line was familiar, but' her mind wasn't quite awake enough to immediately iec-ognize it. "Agent Duff? “

  "Yes, this is Agent Duff," she said. "Who's this? “

  "It's Frank Kaneko, Suzanne. “

  No wonder his voice had sounded familiar. She and Kaneko had gone through Quantico together, and had even dated, twice. But she hadn't seen him for at least a year. They had run into each other at an event in Washington, D.C., and spent several hours at a juice bar, reminiscing about their school days and discussing the various cases they had worked since.

  "What can I do for you, Frank? It's 4:17 in the morning, you know. “

  "I know," he said in hushed tones. "I'm sorry to wake you, but something weird happened today, and for some reason, you came to mind. “

  "Go on," she said, stifling a yawn.

  "I'm working out of the Cheyenne, Wyoming, office right now, and we got a very strange alert today. “

  Duff's mind almost immediately switched to a fully alert mode. "XMA-94? “

  Kaneko sounded surprised. "You know about it? “

  "Yeah, I saw a file on it." Duff's mind raced, and she carefully considered her question. "Why are you calling me? What connection do you think I have to it? “

  "This is going to sound very strange," Kaneko said, his tone almost apologetic, "but it has something to do with a dream I had. I had contact with three of the suspects in the alert today, and tonight, I dreamed about one of them. A girl. There were elements in my dream that didn't connect, but one of them did somehow. Roswell. “

  Suddenly more awake, Duff sat up in bed, switching the phone from one ear to the other. "Go on. “

  "Well, 1 remember you talking about a case in Roswell you worked a while back. An abduction or kidnapping case. You didn't tell me very much about it, but for some reason, when I thought about Roswell after I woke up this morning, your name was the only one that came to my mind. “

  The feelings of unease that Duff had experienced earlier in the day began to return, fluttering at the edge of her thoughts. Somehow, she was being drawn back into the realm of the Roswell teens with the unusual powers.

  "Frank, I want you to tell me everything that happened today. Everything. No matter how weird it was. “

  15 Los Angeles International Airport

  Margolin didn't relish having to listen to Bartolli right now. Or even having to look at him.

  "Some battle, eh, Viceroy?" said Bartolli, who stood on the tarmac beside him, near the jetway and the plane. Bar-tolli's I told you so demeanor was insufferable, but hadn't yet crossed the line into outright insubordination.

  "What battle?" Margolin said, thinking that the aliens had taken all of five seconds to surprise his men and make off with the armored car. "Looks more like a rout to me. Let's head this off before things get any worse. “

  Bartolli grinned in obvious anticipation of another chase and capture. He's in his element, Margolin thought, rejoicing that he was fighting on the same side as this fearsome people-hunter.

  Both men trotted quickly from the jetway to the downed agents that their prisoners had left in their wake. Two of the six agents who lay sprawled on the ground were still conscious, though a bit groggy. The others, including the trio of agents who had been aboard the armored prisoner transport vehicle, appeared to be dead. Bartolli looked disgusted.

  As he made a couple of quick emergency cell phone calls, Margolin decided that Bartollis recriminations would have to wait for a better time.

  Squinting across the sunbaked tarmac, Margolin saw that the prisoner transport… driven, obviously, by the prisoners themselves… was now barreling at high speed straight toward a nearby terminal building.

  "The backup reception team will have all three of them back in custody in no time," Margolin said, keeping himself calm with a skill born of long practice. Despite Bar-tolli's worries, the special agent code-named "Viceroy" knew a thing or two about caution. A net composed of some of the finest counterterrorism specialists in the country was already drawing tight around those kids' necks, and they didn't even know it.

  And they won't until after it's already too late, Margolin thought. As long as the girls don't shake off the drugs the way the Guerin boy apparently did.

  It was the girls, in whom the Bureau's surveillance specialists and alien-profilers had observed certain telepathic abilities, who constituted the most severe potential threat, at least as far as Margolin was concerned. Tess Harding, or a reasonable facsimile of Tess Harding, had blown up an entire military base. And the telekinetic abilities of Isabel Evans… who, like the Guerin boy, now seemed to be in Los Angeles and Wyoming simultaneously… were well documented.

  But Margolin believed that these threats would remain safely neutralized so long as the girls remained too drug-addled to marshal their talents.

  Margolin felt a chill roll down his spine like ice water. He had absolutely no idea how the Guerin boy had recovered so quickly from the drugs in his system.

  He wondered how much other critical information about their subjects the Special Unit had yet to learn. And he hoped that the rest of the Unit's planned alien takedown operations would go more smoothly than this one.

  "Vilandra!" Rath was shouting. "Snap to it! “

  As lucidity returned to her, Lonnie felt as though a family of woodchucks had taken up residence inside her head.

  She realized groggily that she was sitting in the front seat of some sort of truck or SUV Ava was seated at her right, grabbing the dashboard as though her life depended on it.

  Looking through the wide windshield, Lonnie could see a huge, flat expanse of blacktop. Two passenger jets and a chain of luggage trams were visible in the distance. In the foreground stood a low, prefabricated- looking building. An airport terminal, she recalled, her level of alertness spiking dramatically Rath must have gotten us away from the MiBs somehow.

  She turned her head to the left and saw Rath, who was sitting behind the wheel, driving. He seemed frantic, his spiky Mohawk soaked in sweat. His hand was on her shoulder. Had he jolted her awake with his powers? "You should be awake enough now, Lonnie," he said, slamming the pedal down. The vehicles acceleration increased, and Lonnie felt herself being pressed backward into the middle of the vehicle's single bench seat.

  Lonnie blinked at Rath in confusion. "Awake enough for what? “

  "Awake enough for this. Take the wheel." And with that, Rath released the controls and clambered into the middle of the seat beside her, nudging her into the drivers position.

  Lonnie quickly grabbed the wheel, and her right foot fumbled for a moment before coming to rest on what she hoped was the accelerator pedal. "Hey! Are you crazy? “

  "Probably," Rath said. "I have to try to clear Ava's head. We need to get her powers working, at least long enough to get us out of here. Now take us to the terminal building. “

  "But I can't drive this thing! “

  "Lonnie, we came to this planet in a spaceship. How hard can it be to drive a copmobile?" Lonnie spared Rath a sidelong glance and saw that he was placing his hands on Ava's cheeks. She felt a momentary surge of jealousy but forced it down, reminding herself that the Feds couldn't be far behind them. They were still in huge trouble.

  She pointed the truck toward the terminal building and hoped for the best, coming to a stop
just outside the security doors perhaps a minute or two later. In one of the side mirrors, she could see dark-suited men running toward the vehicle from behind. They were already close enough for her to make out the guns in their hands.

  Lonnie turned in the seat to face Rath and Ava. They both looked sharp and alert.

  "All right, what now?" Lonnie said, her heart leaping into her throat as she considered the prospect of falling right back into the hands of the MiBs.

  Lonnie saw that Rath's hands were beginning to glow as his offensive powers charged up. He knelt in front of the seat and placed his hands on the floorboard.

  "Now we find another ride," Rath said, grinning. "While our queen covers our tracks. “

  Margolin took the point as he, Bartolli, and two other agents cautiously approached the rear of the armored vehicle. A half-dozen other armed agents, all members of the local reception team, had joined them in encircling the truck, their trank guns held at the ready.

  After the vehicle had pulled up in front of the terminal building, none of the doors appeared to have opened. The glare of the sun across the tinted windshield made it impossible to see what the teens inside were doing.

  Margolin motioned to Bartolli to cover him. His weapon raised, Margolin shouted toward the eerily silent vehicle.

  "Come out slowly, with your hands on top of your heads. If you attempt to raise your hands as you exit the vehicle, you will immediately be rendered unconscious." Watch those hands, Margolin told himself repeatedly. According to the two agents who had remained conscious after the Guerin boy's attack, these aliens' hands could be lethal, even from a fair distance away.

  Several seconds passed in silence. Margolin repeated his demand. No response came from the truck as another full minute came and went.

  "I thought I heard a sound from inside the truck just after they stopped," said one of the other agents. "Like a gunshot. “

  "Maybe they decided to kill themselves," said another, nodding.