by D. Gideon
“Bullshit,” Hinckley said. “The Governor’s saying they’re going to have the power back on, probably sometime today. If the whole world blew up, we’d have heard about it.“
“What, on the tv? The one that’s not working?” Marco said.
Hinckley spun and pointed a finger at Marco. “You shut your fuckin’ mouth, A-rab,” he said. “Between all this water, gear, and bomb-making shit I’ve got enough here to lock you up and throw away the key. The Feds will have a good time with your ass.”
“You haven’t got shit-“ Marco started.
“Officer Hinckley, you can leave now,” Perkins said, standing up. “Officer Barnes is sufficient to assist me.”
Hinckley spun back to Perkins. “I ain’t going anywhere! These little shits have all kinds of suspicious stuff here and I aim to find out what they were planning!”
Perkins crossed his arms over his chest. “Leave now, Officer Hinckley. I no longer require your assistance in my investigation.”
“Your investigation? Your investigation? I got news for you, buddy, this entire campus is my jurisdiction!” Hinckley snarled, jabbing a thick finger at Perkins’ chest.
Perkins leaned forward a little, looming over Hinckley.
“I am a Secret Service agent. The entire country is my jurisdiction,” he said in a low voice.
Barnes finally spoke up. “C’mon Joe. Come out and watch the hall. I’ll watch the kids and that stuff.”
“Screw that,” Hinckley snarled. “I ain’t letting some suit come in here and tell me to leave when I’ve got a fuckin’ A-rab with bomb-making shit on my campus.”
“Either you vacate this room immediately or I will arrest you for interfering in a Federal investigation, threatening a Federal officer, and any other felonies I can think of. You’ll lose your badge, your job, and your freedom, Officer Hinckley. Is that what you want?” Perkins said. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a small radio.
“Joe, c’mon. It ain’t worth it, man. We’ll get the shit later,” Barnes said, stepping into the room. “Just switch with me.”
The three of us sat on the bed watching this exchange with our eyes wide. I didn’t know what Corey and Marco were thinking, but I was caught somewhere between rage, amusement, and fear. This cop thought he had the bust of a lifetime, and if he got his way, Marco at least was going to be in jail. Maybe all three of us, for who knew how long. At the same time, it was worrisome that he had no idea what was going on, and was so clueless about it that when Perkins told him the truth straight out, he didn’t believe it. Information clearly wasn’t making it through the right channels, or the wrong information was.
Or a way that doesn’t result in a mass panic, Perkins had told us. Was the Governor playing that game? Was he purposely not telling the local municipalities what the situation was, so they wouldn’t panic?
Movement caught my attention, and I looked up to see Hinckley stomping out of the room. Officer Barnes stepped inside the doorway, just past our closets, and leaned against the wall, blowing out a breath.
“The door, if you wouldn’t mind, Officer Barnes?” Perkins said, pushing aside Marco’s things and sitting down on Mel’s bed. Barnes reached back and closed the door.
“Lady and gentlemen, I have a limited amount of time to retrieve Melanie and take her to safety. There are many other things I need to be doing right now. I would appreciate it sincerely if you would simply tell me where she is. So much so, that I may even be able to expedite your trip home,” Perkins said.
I saw Corey look at me through my peripheral vision, but kept my eyes on Perkins.
“Expedite…how?” I asked.
“I have a helicopter at my disposal. I could have you home in less than two hours,” Perkins said, pushing back his cuff to look at his watch. He looked back up at me. “Provided Melanie comes out of hiding soon, of course.”
“That’s a shame,” Corey said. “If we knew where she was all four of us could be home tonight.”
“All three of you,” Perkins corrected. “Melanie would be returning to-“ he caught himself. “Safety, with me.”
“And if she doesn’t want to go?” I asked.
Perkins shook his head. “Refusing this chance would be…ill-advised. It’s not going to get better out there, Miss Miller. Where I’m taking her, she’ll be completely safe and have everything she needs until the country is back on its feet.”
“Hold on. Back on its feet? Just how long is this going to last?” Barnes said, surprising us.
“Years,” Perkins and I said at the same time.
“At least ten,” Corey added. “You really should go home, bro. Get your stuff and go visit family in the country or something.”
Barnes’ eyes widened, and he looked at Perkins. “Is that true?”
Perkins held up a finger. “The President’s team has estimated ten years, yes, but you should not go home. Not right away, at least. We still have a VIP to find.” Barnes nodded, but he was looking past us to the window, and his right hand was twisting the wedding ring on his left. Perkins tucked his radio back into his jacket.
“Is that thing even working?” Marco asked, pointing to Perkins’ jacket.
Perkins shook his head. “Not reliably. It’s hardened, but the interference is still too strong for a signal to get through.”
“Intimidation techniques,” Marco muttered again, and Perkins shrugged.
I turned, and finding my pack, started stuffing my things back into it. Perkins cocked his head.
“What do you think you’re doing, Miss Miller?”
“I’m putting my stuff back so as soon as you get the idea that we don’t know where Melanie is, we can leave,” I said. “We need to get on the road.”
Perkins’ brows raised, and the corner of his mouth pulled up into a smirk. “I don’t believe Officer Hinckley will allow you to simply leave with all of this…potential evidence that he has accumulated.” He gestured to his side, where our pile of gear still rested.
“You’re kidding me,” Corey said. “You know damn well we didn’t set off any bomb. We’re not terrorists. I thought the entire country was your jurisdiction? You’re going to let that idiot haul us in on bullshit charges?”
“Are you going to tell me where Melanie is?” Perkins asked. When we didn’t answer, his face changed to a “too bad” expression and he opened his hands as if he were helpless to do anything.
“Finally, we’ve moved from intimidation to veiled threats,” Marco said. “Thank god. I was getting bored. Can we just skip straight to the outright threats instead of dragging this out?”
Perkins narrowed his eyes at Marco. Marco stared right back, unintimidated. I waited for a moment, then continued re-packing my bag.
Perkins breathed loudly and slowly out of his nose, and then recomposed himself into the cool, calm man we’d seen when we first walked in.
“Like I said, I have a limited amount of time allowed to me to find Melanie and take her to safety. I have offered you an olive branch; a fast trip home—but if you refuse, that’s your foolishness. I’m content to wait here until I have to leave. Once I’m gone, of course, I’ll no longer be a buffer between you and the local law enforcement.” He stood and stepped over to the window, leaning against the frame and crossing his arms. “As they say, the ball is in your court.”
“Well in that case, we’d better settle in,” I said. “It’s broiling in here. Would you mind opening the door again, Officer Barnes?”
Barnes looked to Perkins for confirmation, and receiving a slight nod, opened the door back up. The air that came in was still far too warm, but at least it was cooler than this small room stuffed with five bodies. Barnes stepped out into the hall, and I could hear him talking in a low voice with someone. Probably Hinckley.
Marco leaned across the space between the beds and pulled a small laptop—so small it looked like nothing more than a tablet with a lid—from his pile of things and settled back against my pillow. He flipped it open
, and after a moment we heard the music and squawks of Angry Birds.
Corey shook his head at me, smiling, and shrugged. I pointed at his pack and raised my eyebrows, and nodding, he started repacking his things.
“Be sure not to touch Melanie’s things,” Agent Perkins said. “Whether she returns in time or not, I’ll be taking all of her belongings with me.”
He turned back to the window and I quickly grabbed Mel’s e-reader and stuffed it into my pack. Even though I didn’t have a laptop of my own, I did have a number of flash drives full of how-to, survivalist, and recipe books back home. We could use the e-reader to open and read them, if we could find a way to charge it.
Marco shifted a bit, seeming to resettle himself on the bed. The movement caused Mel’s laptop to slide off of her pile of things, coming to rest against his hip. While still playing Angry Birds with his right hand, he used his left to push her laptop underneath of my pillow. I glared at him. What use would a laptop be? It used way too much energy; even if we did find a way to charge the little e-reader, it wouldn’t be enough to charge her laptop. To help make my point, I tapped the A/C adapter for her machine and gave Marco a “WTF?” look.
He just smiled, winked at me, pointed his finger at the adapter and crooked his finger in a “gimme” motion. Corey tossed one of his shirts over the adapter, stuffed another shirt into his pack, then picked up his first shirt and the adapter under it and stuffed both into his pack. Marco flashed a quick grin and winked at me again. I rolled my eyes.
“Damn,” Marco said, sitting up. Perkins turned to look. Marco handed his tiny laptop to Corey.
“Hold this for a sec,” Marco said, standing and crossing to Mel’s bed. Digging through his things, he pulled out what looked like a flat nylon binder and a gold power brick. Stepping up beside Perkins, he gestured to the window.
“Do you mind? I need to recharge, and since we’ve got time…” he said. Perkins stepped back and Marco opened the binder, revealing three solar panels, each about the size of a sheet of paper. He pulled a cord from a pocket in the binder and plugged his brick into it, then stood the panel up so it covered the bottom of the window, using a clear plastic suction cup that he pulled out of the pocket to hook into the panel and keep it standing up and stuck there.
“Thanks man,” Marco said, moving back out of the way. He leaned back against the desk, where Perkins had been when we walked in.
“A solar panel?” I asked. “Cool. When did you get that?”
“This summer at the hacker’s camp. We were out in the field all day long testing things, and you can’t plug your phone into a tree. Got one of these and a few external batteries. Came in handy at the airport, too. Speaking of…” He reached down into his pile and pulled out another gold power brick, then proceeded to hook it up to another cord that he pulled from the pocket of the solar panel.
“May as well make sure they’re both topped off,” he said.
Corey grumbled, stuffing the last sock into his pack. I noticed Marco’s little laptop had disappeared, too.
“I want my shovel back,” he said. He stood and reached for the shovel on Mel’s bed.
“Don’t touch anything in that pile,” Barnes said, coming back into the room. “Hinckley’s insisting we seize that stuff.”
“What about my stuff?” Marco asked, gesturing to his pile.
“Probably that stuff, too,” Barnes said. “Technically he wasn’t finished going through it yet, but he’s convinced you’ve got electronic bomb-making stuff in there. Best not to touch it until he gets back with our supe.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Corey grumbled, and sat back down on my bed. “It’s a shovel. A shovel.”
“A shovel with a highly sharpened edge, Hinckley told me,” Barnes said, picking up the Cold Steel and taking off the cover. He rubbed his thumb over the edge and gave a low whistle.
“Anyone who uses a shovel knows you’re supposed to keep them sharp,” Corey said.
Barnes gave Corey a doubtful look. “Not this sharp, man. You could probably take off someone’s head with this.”
“Oh please. You can take off someone’s head with a dull shovel,” I said. “Haven’t you ever watched a zombie movie?”
Barnes slipped the cover back on and tossed the shovel back onto the pile, making it all bounce. The contents scattered across the bed, and when I saw the full array of what Officer Hinckley had taken from our packs, I fumed. We needed that stuff.
“This is bullshit,” I said. I turned to Perkins. “And you taking all of Mel’s stuff is bullshit, too. If she’s not with you, why do you need her stuff?”
Perkins shrugged. “To prove I arrived here in time, but that she refused to come, maybe. Or perhaps just to teach her a lesson.”
“Just because you guard important people doesn’t mean you have to be a dick,” I said. I expected Perkins to get mad, but instead, he just smiled.
“I’m sure Melanie expected that I’d be coming to get her; that her mother would want her transported to safety. She’s done the drills. She’s lived in this environment for a long time. Yet rather than face me, she chooses to hide. She knows the important work I do and she knows that delaying me could be costing other people their lives. If anyone’s being a dick here, Miss Miller, I assure you, it isn’t me.”
He straightened and dropped his arms to his side.
“Now then. Gentlemen, sit down. I understand the need to stretch one’s legs now and again, but I won’t have the two of you attempting to bumrush me and forcing me to hurt someone.”
“Or me,” Barnes said, patting a taser on his belt.
Corey flopped down beside me, and Marco took his place at the pillow again, being far more careful.
“Exactly when do you need to leave?” I asked.
Perkins just smiled. “Tell me where Melanie is, and I’ll be gone in mere minutes.”
I rolled my eyes and laid back against my pack. “She’ll probably be back from the Law Library any minute now, and then won’t you feel like an idiot for causing all of this drama?” I saw a flicker of doubt pass across Perkins’ face and smiled as sweetly as I could at him.
“We’ll see, Miss Miller,” Perkins said, turning back to look out the window. “For your sake, I hope she does.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Marco asked, looking around Corey.
Perkins didn’t bother to answer.
CHAPTER 18
Sunday, September 2nd
College Park, Maryland
Throughout the day there had been a steady progression of different law enforcement officers coming to my dorm room, giving reports to Perkins, and leaving. No one had been able to find Melanie. Some had gone back out to try different spots on campus, others had been sent back to their regular duties. Todd checked on us every couple of hours; he had begged off of the search early on with the reasoning that he had to oversee the continuing cleanup and repairs on his floor. The temperature in the room was unbearable. Our only relief was to splash our faces with water from one of the buckets and fan ourselves with class folders. I was thankful for the water I’d saved; even Perkins made use of my metal cup to scoop himself some water now and again.
I’d been casually sliding what I could off of Mel’s pile of clothing and belongings and tucking it under my blanket whenever Perkins went into the hall. This was mostly underwear and socks, with a few tank tops here and there. Trying to get an entire shirt or one of her massive double-layer skirts would have drawn too much attention. I had no idea if Perkins was just bluffing when he said he was going to take all of her things, but I wasn’t taking any chances. Corey finally caught on to what I was doing and started working from the other end of the pile. I couldn’t keep track, but I was pretty sure he had tucked away three or four of Mel’s bras. I was glad he was sitting there in the middle rather than Marco; Corey knew that underclothing was far more important for the long-term than anything else. You could always find some clothing to wear on the outside and loo
sen it up or draw it tighter to make it fit, but finding a fitting bra would be like looking for gold at the end of a rainbow. After hiding Mel’s laptop, I figured Marco had no idea of what belongings took priority. His pack helped convince me of that. I had gone through his clothing with him and helped him pick out things that would last and what he would need, but hardly any of that was sitting on Mel’s bed right now. Sometime or another, he’d pulled out much of the clothing we’d stuffed in there and replaced it with electronics. Sure, they had their uses, but having a computer and a solar panel wouldn’t help much when your socks were soaking wet and you needed to change pairs to keep from getting blisters and foot rot.
Todd showed back up sometime after five to see if we were going to be permitted to go to the cafeteria and eat. Barnes roused himself from his seat on Mel’s bed—throughout the day he’d been the one to escort us, one at a time, down to the porta-potties while Hinckley manned the door—and held up a finger.
“If we’re going to do that, I want to get a few of the other guys from down on the sixth floor and the front doors,” he said. “I’m not escorting all three of them alone.”
“No need,” Perkins said, waving a hand. “They’re not going anywhere. Mr. Jacobs can bring us some food-”
“Hell’s bells. Seriously? We can’t even leave this oven for half an hour?” I said, sitting up and glaring at Perkins.
“The more chances I afford you to pass a message to Melanie, the less likely it is that she’ll return before I have to leave, so yes. Seriously.” Perkins said, crossing his arms.
“It’s cool,” Todd said quickly. “I’ll see what they’ve got. They’ve got take-out boxes at the cafeteria, so I should be able to get something.”
“Not without our meal cards,” I said, remembering the scene from that morning. “And if you show up with just a bunch of meal cards, they’ll think you stole them. We have to go with him.” I gave Perkins a closed-lip, sarcastic smile.
Perkins ignored me and addressed Todd. “Skip the cafeteria. Go to the stadium and tell Major Brooks there that I need three meals. He’s aware of my situation and will get you what you need.”