He was screwed, in other words.
The woman set the candle on the floor. Reginald examined her face as she rose, a face so similar to his own, even in their aging. The square jaw, the haughty cheekbones. But there was no compassion in those blue eyes.
She was still a killer.
If only Scott had picked that door open, he thought. Boy could have gone for help. But those were the thoughts of a desperate man. For he knew that not getting the door open had likely spared Scott’s life.
Back in the hallway, the woman twisted her lithe trunk around.
“I know it was never your intention to do our bidding, but you’ve done it well. This Scott trusts you, which means the girl will trust you, too. They’re arguably the two most powerful members of their team. When the time comes, we’ll use that to our advantage. Like we did the last time.”
Reginald struggled against the restraints, a murmur fighting its way up his throat. The contraption didn’t give him an inch. It never did. The door closed behind her. The lock slid home.
Reginald’s gaze returned to the dwindling candle stuck to a coaster in the center of the floor. For the first time since the ambush at his home the weekend before, for the first time since awakening in this hellish contraption, a tear spilled down Reginald’s cheek. It was less that he might die than that he would be failing these kids. He would be failing Madelyn.
And after all these years…
He wept silently until the machine administered his nightly sedative. Reginald’s eyelids drooped over the candle’s guttering flame. A minute later he succumbed, falling forward into complete blackness.
22
Janis sprinted down the corridor toward the end of the Meadows, the track of overhead lights pushing her shadow up the cement wall, then pulling it back down. Behind her, Scott’s breaths tore in and out.
After everything he’s been through tonight, she thought, it’s a wonder he’s keeping up at all. But he’s going to have to because we’re late, late, late.
He had filled her in telepathically on their ride from the east side of town. The confrontation in the street, his attempt to pick the locked door, Mr. Shine’s surprise appearance, his pledge to look out for them.
For the Axelrods, he shared the cover story he and Janis had worked out well beforehand. He’d biked over to deliver a check from his parents that he’d forgotten to give Mr. Shine at school that week. “It was stupid going at night like that, but I felt so bad,” etcetera, etcetera. The Axelrods weren’t happy, but neither did they question his story. And why would they? Mr. Shine had long since been vetted by their organization and deemed safe.
Where the corridor ended, Janis stopped and punched in the code. Scott pulled up beside her.
“You think this has to do with Jesse?” he panted.
“Yeah, Creed seems to think he’s gone missing again.”
“Probably a case where they want us together, as a precaution.” Scott’s voice descended to a whisper. “But man, what I’d have given for a few more minutes back there. The way he changed shape…”
A metal door slid open, and they took off again, breaking left and right until they reached the conference room. Everyone was seated inside, save Jesse. But as Janis took her own seat, it struck her as odd that Agent Steel was present, sitting rigidly beside Director Kilmer.
I would’ve expected her to be dispatched, like the last time…
“All right,” Director Kilmer said. “We’re going to get started.”
“Is Jesse all right?” Janis asked, peering around. Her eyes touched on Tyler, who she sensed had been watching her since she entered the room. Though they’d hardly talked since the incident at Amy’s, a force moved through their shared glance. Janis looked away.
“We’re still having some problems with Jesse’s communication system,” Kilmer replied, “but his surveillance team is in contact with him. He’s on his way.”
“So this isn’t about him?” Scott asked.
“No,” Kilmer said, clicking a remote. “It’s about him.” The lights dimmed, and the projectors around the table’s periphery cast a holographic image of General Dementyev. “Intelligence has given us a date for his planned invasion of Western Europe. November twenty-first.”
“As in next week?” Margaret asked, her eyes large with alarm.
“Correct.” With Kilmer’s next click of the remote, a map of the Eurasian continent replaced General Dementyev. “Under the guise of war exercises, he’s amassed forces all along the iron curtain. Those glowing points? That’s half the Red Army you’re looking at.”
Janis remembered the news segment from months earlier: the thousands upon thousands of stone-faced soldiers, the screaming war planes, the rumbling vehicles carrying missiles the height of buildings.
“By Department of Defense estimates,” Kilmer continued, “Western Europe is positioned to repel a conventional invasion. Which tells us this invasion is going to be anything but.” The holographic image zoomed in on the countries of Eastern Europe. “There are four missile silos of concern. Here, here, here, and here. Armed with tactical medium-range nuclear missiles, they’re where the strikes would come from.” Kilmer looked soberly around the table. “We’re going to have a week to disable them, to take them offline.”
Janis felt Jesse’s plodding footfalls and then the lean of the table as he joined them, but she couldn’t move her eyes from the map. For a vertiginous moment, the months of training became lost in her mind.
As if sensing her thoughts—sensing all of their thoughts, probably—Kilmer said, “Agent Steel believes you’re ready. And, of course, she and her team will be supporting you.”
“When do we leave?” Scott asked.
“Tonight. We have a staging area set up for you in West Germany. Once there, you’ll go through preparations as final plans are drawn up for your campaign. This is it. This is what you’ve been training for.”
“It’s a trick.”
All heads turned toward Jesse. He was leaned forward, his slab-like forearms and fists taking up a good section of conference-table real estate. His deep-set eyes reflected the hologram’s glow.
“Come again?” Director Kilmer said.
“The war exercises, the leaked intelligence of an invasion date. While he’s drawing everyone’s focus to Western Europe, this Dementyev’s got his sights set on another prize: Saudi Arabian oil.”
Irritation creased Kilmer’s brow. “What are you talking about?”
“Got a phone call tonight,” Jesse said. “While I was shooting pool over at Eddie’s.”
Kilmer had appeared ready to forge on, but now he lowered the remote. The ruddiness in his cheeks disappeared, replaced by pale spots the color of aged cheese. “Who called you?”
“He didn’t give his name. Just said we were barking up the wrong tree.”
“And he told you all of this? About Saudi oil?”
As Jesse nodded, a series of images hit Janis.
“I … I think Jesse’s right,” she said. She met Kilmer’s and then Steel’s sudden stares. “Intuition, I guess, but what he’s saying is gibing really strongly with something in my head.”
The feeling was like a tuning fork finding resonance. Images of desert sand, oil storage tanks, and giant towers flashed in and out of her mind’s eye like a rapid-fire slide show.
Kilmer looked from the holographic map to Agent Steel.
“All right,” he said after a moment, clicking the lights back on. The hologram glimmered and died. “Let me make a few phone calls. No one go anywhere.” He aimed a finger at Jesse. “Especially you.”
As Creed began peppering Jesse with questions, Janis turned to Scott and Margaret. “Why oil?” she whispered.
Scott pushed up his glasses. “Oil’s the life-blood of the global economy. Nothing happens without it. Nothing modern, anyway. Driving, shipping, manufacturing, electronics. Tourniquet the oil, and those things shrivel and die. The countries of the Soviet Union are among the worl
d’s producers of oil. The U.S. and most of Western Europe are buyers. As long as we can get it cheap, we’re in good shape. As the price climbs, not so much.”
“But what does that have to do with Saudi Arabia?” Janis pressed.
Scott opened his mouth to answer, but Margaret cut in with a flourish of her hair.
“They’re the largest exporter of oil, and they have the largest proven reserves.” In response to Janis’s quizzical look, she said. “What? I was in the U.N. club at Thirteenth Street High. Mark Rattner represented Saudi Arabia, and he was always forcing us into concessions under the threat of embargo. The jerk. But he could wield that kind of power. Supply and demand. When Saudi Arabia slows oil production, like it did in the ’70s, the stuff gets really expensive world wide.”
Janis nodded her head in understanding. “So stanching the flow of Saudi oil would be to the Soviet’s advantage.”
“Big time,” Margaret said. “And to the West’s detriment. Shut the Saudi taps, and the profits on Russian oil become astronomical. I mean, straight to the moon. They’d become the wealthiest nation in the world almost overnight. Think of what that would mean for their military industries. The U.S., meanwhile, would be lucky to afford sling shots. We’d plunge into another depression.”
“Which means the Soviets would win the Cold War,” Janis said in a hollow voice.
“Yeah,” Scott jumped back in. “Pretty much.”
Janis was considering the implications when Director Kilmer charged into the room. “Change of plans,” he said, breathing hard. “The State Department’s on the phone with the Saudis. Something’s going on at an oil processing complex near the Persian Gulf. A place called Al Karak.”
Margaret whispered to Janis, “Biggest oil processing facility in the world.”
“The Saudi’s hadn’t spoken up yet because they didn’t want to rock the oil markets, but it sounds like a takeover by—”
“The Soviets?” Margaret asked.
“Artificials,” Kilmer finished. “We’re awaiting final word from the president, but it looks like we’ll be getting a call.” A fierceness burned in his eyes as they went Champion to Champion. “It’s not what you trained for, but look, we prepared you to be versatile. You’re going to have to do the best you can because this time, the stakes are no less than everything.”
23
Mr. Shine’s house
Saturday, November 16
8:05 a.m.
Reginald blinked away a film of sleep and tried to make sense of the bright red spill beneath him. He rolled his eyeballs to the left, then to his right. The motion tugged at his gray matter, deepening the dull throb where the screws entered his skull. He managed a hundred-eighty-degree arc with his eyes. The door was closed. Morning light backlit the drapes that covered the lone window.
Reginald let his gaze fall back to the red coagulation of wax in the middle of the floor. She must not have been back in here since last night, he thought through a haze. Last night…
He remembered hearing the scratch of a pick inside the lock. Remembered the muffled sounds of conversation beyond the door. A conversation Scott thought he was having with him.
Just hope that boy’s okay.
Outside, a large truck rumbled past, rattling the panes. The IV system clicked and whirred. Reginald could feel that the drip of nightly sedative had stopped; he was now receiving plain saline, probably with a trace of narcotic. That would explain the absence of pain—not only from the head screws, but from having been fastened in a sitting position for the last six days. To keep his muscles from wasting away, he’d been tensing his body, holding the contraction, and then relaxing, but that wasn’t going to do his trapped joints much good.
Has to be today…
But the electrical component of the contraption had him, owned him. He couldn’t shape shift the nail bed on his pinky finger, much less transform his entire body. The devil knew, he’d tried. But the harder he willed his cells to shift, the more sharply the machine lashed back, matching effort with inhibition. The machine’s designer was the Scale’s youngest member. Everyone called him Techie. Besides being a genius, Techie was a sadist.
Everyone has their weakness, he thought. Even Specials.
But he’d been telling himself that for the last five days. If there was a weakness in the machine’s design, he hadn’t found it.
Yet.
He closed his eyes and focused on his right hand. He concentrated on sliding the cells up his forearm, on thinning his fingers, the fleshy meat of his palm, the knots of his wrist…
Snap-snap went the machine behind him. Reginald grimaced from the inhibitory stabs of electricity through his head.
Son of a…!
He felt the cells in his right hand settling to their original form. Reginald flexed and extended his fingers, making the joints pop. He twisted his wrist one way, stopped, twisted it the other way.
Huh?
For the first time, the bite of the metal manacle wasn’t so absolute. He had some wriggle room. He watched the small rotation of his wrist, a dull hope pushing up through his narcotic haze. But then his gaze fell to the tube that entered his stomach, feeding him what looked like brown milk.
Of course you’ve got wriggle room, you dope. Haven’t eaten anything solid in almost a week.
He stopped moving and counted slowly to ten in his head. When he attempted to twist his wrist again, the manacle held him. The movement hadn’t been the result of weight loss. For some reason, the contraption was allowing him more time to shift his cells before jolting his brain. Not much, a half second, maybe, but definitely more time than before.
Now he remembered something Shadow had said last night.
It seems your young friend blew a transformer down the street. But not to worry. You’re on battery backup.
That had to be it. The contraption (which Techie had dubbed “the Nanny”) wouldn’t release its inhibitory charge until it had met some preprogrammed threshold. On battery power, the contraption was taking a fraction of a second longer to generate that charge. And with that fraction of a second, Reginald could now not only stir his cells, but shift them.
Scott might have saved your butt, after all, he thought.
But only if he could get himself out of this mess before the transformer was replaced and the electricity snapped back on. He prayed the truck he’d heard rumbling past earlier didn’t belong to the utility company. Reginald took a calming breath, then returned his focus to his right hand. He concentrated on thinning, on shifting the cells up the shaft of his forearm.
The machine behind him issued another double snap.
Reginald waited for the charge to subside before concentrating into a second effort of thinning.
Snap-snap!
The charge stung like hell, but his right wrist had a little more room now.
Just like working a ratchet wrench in a tight space, he told himself. Just a little bit at a time … a little bit at a time … and before you know it…
An hour later, his brain on fire, his body pouring sweat, Reginald drew his right arm against the manacle and watched his wrist and tapered fingers slip free.
Three hours later
Reginald had been right about his joints. Immobility had dried out the fibers, turning them to jerky. He performed small circles with his wrists and then flexed and extended his elbows. The arc of motion was pathetic. Clenching his fists, he levered his forearms down as far as they’d go.
Still not far enough…
He tried to cock his hands toward his left thigh, but he couldn’t touch it, much less wrap his fingers around its girth.
After liberating his right arm, Reginald had done the same with his left. Freeing his right ankle had been trickier. He’d had to really warp his foot, which had meant more turns of the ratchet, more shocks from the machine. He’d attempted to duplicate the feat on his left ankle, but when it came time to draw it out, he was too fatigued. The muscles in his leg felt like pudding.
>
Reginald tried again, willing the cells up his left shin.
Through the stab of another electrical shock, he lifted his knee. He could feel the ankle wanting to slip from its manacle … so close. The small finger of his left hand touched thigh. He managed to hook his pinky finger beneath a trembling cord of muscle. Digging in, he pulled.
His foot slid out like an eel. Oh, man… He lowered it to the floor, the varnished wood never feeling better beneath his damp sole. He watched his foot shorten and regain its shape.
All right. Arms free, legs free…
Reginald raised his hands and palpated the metal halo that looped his head. Four hex bolts penetrated the halo and sunk into his skull. There would be no shifting his cells to free himself here. The bolts went too deep. When he attempted to twist one, he sliced the pad of a finger. Fastened tight, too.
Course, no one thought to leave me a wrench.
He gazed around the spare room. Upon purchasing the house back in ’76, he’d left the room more or less alone. In the closet, he’d hidden close to twenty grand in emergency money—one of several stashes. He’d not had to touch it, thanks to the odd jobs and janitorial work he’d been using as cover. A cache of weapons lay hidden in the wall off to his right, behind the bookcase. He hadn’t had to use those either.
Otherwise, the room held a few accumulated items: a canister vacuum cleaner he’d been meaning to repair, a couple rolls of linoleum that Mr. Spruel had given him for some reason, a box of old pay stubs and tax returns.
But no tools.
He cut his gaze back to the bookshelf. There had to be something he could use. He flinched when he heard the front door open before realizing it was only a limb landing on the roof. Heart pumping, Reginald scanned the bookcase again.
This time, his eyes froze.
On the second shelf from the top, just beside a battered dictionary, was a crumpled receipt.
Though he strained, he couldn’t see beneath the receipt. The shelf was too high. But he could remember the day he’d dug a hand into his coat pocket, pulled out the receipt along with a fist of change, and slapped it all on the shelf. He prayed the change was still there.
XGeneration (Book 4): Pressure Drop Page 16