There is another lengthy pause. Nova keeps the barrel of his gun trained on the pale man. The pale man keeps the barrel of his rifle trained on us. Then the voice speaks again, sans the electronic tone.
“James, lower the rifle.”
The pale man lowers the rifle.
“Now please escort our two guests to the basement.”
Holding the rifle lowered in one hand, James motions us to follow him with the other.
Nova and I look at each other. I nod at the gun, and he lowers it. Then I start forward, toward James, into the kitchen. He moves over to a door, opens it, gestures for me to go first. I start down the stairs.
At the bottom sits a black man in a wheelchair. He appears to be in his sixties, some gray streaking his full beard.
“So you’re Holly Lin.” His voice is low and deep. “And this gentleman behind you is Nova, correct?”
The entire basement is filled with electronic equipment. In one corner are two dozen monitors, showing different angles of the interior and exterior of the farmhouse. In every other corner are computer screens.
James has reached the bottom of the stairs. Still keeping the rifle lowered, he walks past us and then turns so he’s standing behind the man in the wheelchair.
“We’re here about Roland Delano’s flash drive,” I say.
“Who is Roland Delano?” When neither of us answers, the man shakes his head and says, “I don’t have his flash drive. You should know that already.”
“But you know where it’s located.”
“I don’t, but even if I did, why would I tell you?”
“Because David and Casey Haddens’ lives depend on it.”
Atticus Caine shifts his weight in the wheelchair. He glances up at James, turns his attention back to me. “Young lady, do you know what is on that flash drive?”
“I don’t.”
“Are you aware of just what kind of trouble will happen if that flash drive falls into the wrong hands?”
“I have an idea.”
Atticus Caine squints his eyes, studies my face. “You care deeply about these children.”
“They’re innocent.”
Atticus Caine smiles. “You remind me a lot of your father.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s the reason I’m in this position right now.”
The smile fades on Atticus Caine’s face. He nods, slowly, and says, “Yes, I know.”
Suddenly an alarm sounds. White strobes flash around the basement.
Nova, holding his gun at his side, steps back, looks around wildly. “What is that?”
Atticus Caine takes a remote from his pocket, presses a button, and the alarm and flashing white strobe stop at once.
“That,” he says, “is the police.”
55
He tells us to wait down here. He says that if for some reason the officers want to search the house—which they probably will—we should hide through the metal door in the corner. Then he wheels himself to a lift against the wall, presses a button, and with a mechanical whine it raises him up into the air. James looks at us once, nods, and hurries up the stairs.
On the monitors we can see every angle of the house, both inside and out. A police car has stopped in the driveway. Two officers get out. They hurry up to the front door. Another monitor shows the gate at the bottom of the drive open; apparently the police have the entrance code.
Atticus Caine appears on one of the screens. He comes out of a door. James meets him and pushes him into the hallway, then down to the front door.
The officers don’t knock or ring the doorbell. They simply walk in.
“What seems to be the problem?” Atticus asks, microphones stationed around the house picking up his voice perfectly.
One of the officers says, “You tell us. We got a call that there was a break-in here.”
“Yes, yes”—Atticus Caine bows his head in shame—“I’m very sorry about that. We were working on the system and it malfunctioned. We couldn’t get it to stop.”
“So everything’s okay?” asks the second officer.
“Yes,” Atticus says. “Everything is fine.”
Both officers look at each other. Then the first one says, “Mind if we check the house, just in case?”
“Of course, be my guest.”
Atticus Caine wheels himself back while the two officers enter deeper into the house, their hands on the butts of their service weapons. Even though these two cops are becoming a pain in my ass, they’re just doing their job. If there’s a disturbance, they need to check it out regardless. Just because the homeowner says everything is fine, doesn’t mean it’s so.
Nova taps my shoulder, points at the metal door.
I’m afraid the door will make noise when we open it. It doesn’t. It opens smoothly, without a sound, and then once we’re in the door closes smoothly, without a sound.
A motion sensor turns on the overhead lights.
Nova whispers, “Holy shit.”
We’ve stepped into an arsenal. AK-47s, TEC-9s, Glocks, knives, stun guns, even crossbows—the weapons either hang off the wall or are displayed on tables.
Outside the door we can hear footsteps coming down the stairs. It sounds like only one set.
Nova is holding the rifle James set on one of the tables. He places it aside, then steps forward, grips onto the door handle.
I hold my breath.
The footsteps move about the basement. They stop in front of the metal door. We can hear the officer grasp onto the lever. We can hear him try to push, try to pull, but the lever doesn’t budge. He stands there another moment, then walks away, starts back up the steps.
We wait what seems like an eternity. Neither of us has moved, and because of this the motion sensor turns the lights off. For a moment I feel alone in the complete darkness. Something inside of me makes me reach out for Nova and the lights flash back on.
Just then we can hear the mechanical groan of the lift, another pair of footsteps on the stairs, these much more tentative. Atticus Caine calls, telling us it’s safe to come out now.
Nova opens the door. We step out and the first thing Nova says is, “Who are you?”
Without a response Atticus wheels himself over to one of the computers. He pulls the keyboard close to him, starts typing. James wanders over to a corner, stands straight with his hands clasped in front of him.
“It’s like Guns-R-Us in there,” Nova says. “What—you guys run some kind of militia or something?”
“You should know,” Atticus says. He keeps typing, doesn’t take his attention from the monitor. “You both are the mercenaries.”
“Take that back.” Nova holds up a finger, his face suddenly red. “We’re no fucking mercenaries.”
“Oh really. Then what would you call yourselves?”
I step forward. “Listen, we don’t have time for this. Will you help us or not?”
Atticus doesn’t stop typing. “Tell me again—why would I want to help you?”
Nova looks at me, shakes his head.
I say, “Those two kids are going to die.”
“How do you know they aren’t dead already?”
“I don’t know. But I have hope that they’re not.”
“Hope,” Atticus Caine echoes, chuckling. “Maybe you’re not your father’s daughter after all.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Ken was not the type of man to place much in the way of hope. He didn’t believe in it.”
“How do you know my father?”
The man doesn’t answer, keeps typing.
“Hey.” I take another step forward. “Did you really know my father?”
Atticus Caine pauses. He sighs, glances up at me.
“Of course I knew your father,” he says. “I was the one who trained him how to kill.”
56
“Believe it or not, I wasn’t always in this wheelchair. I was a completely di
fferent man. I was married. I was successful. I was, as they say, happy. Wasn’t I, James?”
In the corner James only bows his head.
Atticus Caine takes a few more seconds to type on the keyboard before he pushes himself away from the computer. Then he sits there in his wheelchair, his arms crossed.
“Once upon a time I did exactly what General Hadden does, only in a different capacity. I never had the type of rank that forced me to have meetings at the Pentagon every other day. The work I did ... it never existed, if you know what I mean.”
“And you trained my father?”
Atticus nods. “I knew he was a killer the first time I met him. I could see it in his eyes. Even when I shook his hand I could feel the energy running through his body.”
I think about my father, the man I knew growing up, who would hold me during bedtime and sing me lullabies, who would shoot hoops with me after school because Tina never wanted to play with her little sister, no matter how much I begged.
“Not to say that is a bad thing,” Atticus says. “A killer and a murderer are two completely different animals. Your father knew what had to be done. He knew what his duty was and he never hesitated to get the job done.”
“When I mentioned him before, how he was involved in this, you didn’t even flinch. You already knew he was alive.”
Atticus nods again.
“How?”
“When the doctors told me I had muscular dystrophy I was more or less forced into early retirement. It was better than working behind a desk for the rest of my life. So I left with a very nice pension and the unnerving realization that I couldn’t stay retired. For the longest time I had been on the inside, knew all the secrets, where every skeleton was buried and just how deep, and now ... now that wasn’t going to be my life anymore. Which turned me into this.”
He holds up a hand like a game show host, waving it around the basement like the entire thing is one big grand prize.
“Not that I could do it all by myself, of course. That’s where James comes in. He’s like an angel. Aren’t you, James?”
James bows his head again.
“James lost his voice when he was just a boy. He’s never spoken since.”
I try to imagine what that’s like, not being able to do something as simple as speak words, but then I remember where I am and what I need to be doing and ask, “Are Zane and my father working by themselves?”
Atticus shakes his head. “There’s no way they could.”
“Then who do they work for?”
“A man named Gabriel Black.”
“And who is he?”
“A white-collar terrorist.”
“I didn’t know terrorists had class distinctions.”
“Where have you been, Holly? Everything has a class distinction nowadays.”
The monitor he was working on beeps.
He turns to it, says, “Ah, here we are,” and rolls himself back to the keyboard.
I glance at Nova. Glance at James in the corner. Glance at a clock hanging on the wall: just past midnight.
“What are you doing?”
Atticus has started typing again. Several of the monitors have blinked on and switched over to what appear like maps of Washington, D.C.
His attention on his work, Atticus says, “After Nine Eleven the United States opened its eyes to a new form of warfare. Despite what it wanted to believe, the entire country was vulnerable. Is vulnerable still, to be quite frank. The enemy knows exactly where our bases are located. They know exactly where our nuclear weapons are kept. So what did the government decide to do? They went mobile.”
Without even realizing it Nova and I have approached the computer monitors. Closer now we can see the distinct detail of the maps. Mostly major highways, but some primary and secondary roads, even some national landmarks. And on various spots are a handful of red flashing dots with a series of letters and numbers listed below them.
I point at one such red flashing dot. “What is that?”
Atticus Caine looks up at us. “What is the one thing that takes up most major highways?”
Nova says, “Tractor-trailers.”
“That’s right. And out of those thousands and thousands of tractor-trailers on the road daily, do you know what’s inside any of them?”
“Hold on,” Nova says. “You’re saying the army has—what—nuclear weapons riding around in tractor-trailers?”
“Nuclear weapons, no. Nuclear waste, yes. Among many other things.”
I clear my throat. “And the flash drive?”
Atticus leans forward. He squints at the screen, types some more. After a moment he reaches up, points at one of the red flashing dots.
“In that tractor-trailer right there.”
The red flashing dot is listed as FGT-927. It means absolutely nothing to me. The only thing it does mean is that, from where it appears on the map, right now it’s working its way up I-95.
“It’s heading toward Washington,” I whisper. Thinking this might be a good thing. Thinking that it’s returning because Walter has persuaded whoever it is that needs persuading to give him the flash drive.
“That’s just a random circuit it drives,” Atticus says. “It might head east, it might keep going north. There’s never any set course.”
“What kind of security will it have?”
Nova looks at me, his mouth open.
Atticus Caine says, “The driver will be armed. There might be an agent or two in the trailer. It depends on what they’re transporting. They’ll be armed too. Not to mention that if any trouble is even sensed, a team is immediately dispatched to absolve the situation.”
“Not the police?”
“No. The army would like to keep the lid on their mobilization program as tight as possible.”
“What’s the team’s ETA?”
“It varies.” Atticus glances up at me. “I know what you’re thinking, and I’m telling you it can’t be done. Even if the tractor-trailer needs to pull off for gas, there’s absolutely no way you can take it.”
I watch the red flashing dot as it slowly moves up the map. I close my eyes and still see the red flashing dot along with Casey’s and David’s faces. Thinking of them, I reach into my pocket and pull out the cell phone.
“Is it possible for you to give me the location of the last person who called this?”
A thoughtful look on his face, Atticus concedes that it’s possible.
“Can you do it?”
Atticus holds out his hand. I place the phone in his open palm. He stares at it a moment, then calls for James. When James approaches him, Atticus gives him the phone.
He says, “Do your best, young man.”
James turns away. He goes to one of the computers. His fingers dance madly across the keyboard. He pulls out a wire, inserts something into the phone. He crosses his arms and waits exactly nine seconds before something flashes on the screen and then he steps back, a crooked smile on his face, motioning me to look at the screen.
I walk across the room and stand in front of the screen and murmur, “Son of a bitch.”
On the screen is a satellite image of my block. I don’t realize until another moment passes and I see the darting motion of traffic that the image is a live feed. A green dot appears along the street, just a block up from my apartment. Without being told I know that was where Zane’s call originated from. He called me when he saw Nova leave and then when I asked to hear the children’s voices he let me hear them, but only for a moment, because they were no doubt tied up and gagged in the van or SUV or truck or whatever had been parked there.
I say it again, louder this time: “Son of a bitch.”
I look up at James suddenly, point at the cell phone wired to the computer. “The next time he calls me, can you locate his position?”
James glances at Atticus, glances back at me. He nods.
“How long does it take?”
James glances at Atticus again. He moves his hands around
quickly and, stupid me, it takes a couple seconds to realize it’s American Sign Language.
When James is done, Atticus says, “Should be only a matter of seconds. What he can do is clone the phone you have there, so that when Zane or whoever else calls you, we also get the call.”
I take this information in, shift it back and forth like a Slinky in the hands of my mind. Then I march over to the metal door, the arsenal. I open it, step inside, look around at everything that’s provided.
When I step back out, I ask Atticus Caine if he has any communication gear.
“Holly,” Nova says, “didn’t you hear what the man said? There’s no way we can take that trailer when it stops.”
“I’m also going to need a harness and a lot of nylon rope.” I walk back to the computer, stare again at that red flashing dot. “Nova, what are you driving now?”
“Holly—”
“What. Are. You. Driving?”
He sighs. “A pickup.”
“How many cylinders?”
“Six.”
“A large bed?”
Nova looks at me. Looks at the screen. Looks back at me. “You’re insane.”
I ask Atticus if he thinks it’s possible we can get everything together in the next hour.
Before Atticus can respond, Nova says, “Holly, I know the clock is ticking on this, and that a lot’s at stake, but we have to be rational here. Tell me you’re not being serious. Tell me your plan isn’t to try to take out that trailer while it’s moving.”
I look at Nova, stare at him, then smile. “Not exactly.”
57
I believe that there’s a moment every night where across the country, across the world, portions of major highways are deserted. It can be as much as a mile, but more likely it’s a half mile portion, or a quarter mile portion. For a couple seconds no vehicles pass over the asphalt. The highway has a chance to breathe. It has a chance to enjoy, if only for an instant, the calming stillness of silence.
From where I’m positioned overlooking Interstate 95, that moment seems to be now. Almost four o’clock in the morning, I can see a quarter mile south, a quarter mile north. No headlights coming toward me. No taillights fading away from me. In fact, there are no cars coming either east or west over the bridge. It’s an instant, only that, when the world feels desolate, destroyed, all life taken out of it except my own, only I don’t know it yet.
No Shelter (Holly Lin, No. 1) Page 21