by Ben English
“That might be difficult. I saw them both on camera a few minutes ago. She might not want to be ‘rescued’.”
“Nonsense. He’s got her against her will. He’s a spellbinder, Flynn.”
“Alex, she’s chosen to be with him—”
Raines would have none of it. “She is her father’s daughter.”
Marduk didn’t have to hear the rest of the thought to read it in Raines’ expression. And all he had—and everything else—is mine.
Raines continued. “She is not to be harmed, but they should shoot anyone else on sight. Whoever’s left from Flynn’s support team will probably try to sabotage the transmitter, or some such nonsense.”
Marduk broke in. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. We can’t confirm it with the global net, obviously, but the synchronization of all the networks should be finished. We can send the final trigger as soon as the weather clears.”
“And then we can really get started.” Raines set his computer on the desk next to Marduk. “In the meantime, we won’t let this out of our sight.”
Marduk nodded and pushed it a few inches further away from the edge. As a security measure, only he and Raines had retained the ability to send the final trigger; between the two of them they’d written a little script of code to actuate the transmission of the signal to the world. The program itself was simple; the encryption algorithm used to protect it was anything but simple.
But nations fall when their codes are broken. Marduk felt a tremor of worry: with his computer destroyed, the remaining script to the final activation was on Raines’ machine—wait a second. He looked closely at the computer.
“Alex, where did you get this?”
Raines was bent over another workstation. “In the ops center. I found it buried in the remains of the desk near Mercedes. It boots fine. Why?”
“Probably nothing. The battery looks low.”
“Shouldn’t be. It’s been charging wirelessly since the IT department unboxed it, just before we arrived from London.” He hesitated. Seizing the computer, he called up the menus. “Feels normal to me. Hang on.”
He carefully set the machine back down on the desk and took a step back. Marduk in turn pushed a bit away from the other man. Raines wore a look he hadn’t seen since they faced bullies on a grade school playground.
In a calm, dreadful voice, Raines said, “The encrypted trigger is missing. This is the computer I left behind when we escaped from Jack Flynn, in Hyde Park, back in London. He switched it.”
Trail of Breadcrumbs
Mercedes hauled Jack to the relative safety of the doorway as the glass bridge disintegrated, leaving a rough ledge for them to crouch upon. Rain and darkness swept in behind the tumbling vegetation, soaking them instantly.
Jack whooped. “You nearly lost me,” he shouted above the howl of the wind. Relief mixed with fatigue in his expression, and he hugged her tightly, as much to keep them from being swept off by the wind as anything else.
If this wasn’t a hurricane, she didn’t know the meaning of the word. Thunder poured down around them, obscuring any kind of coherent thought. The only light she could see came from the jagged opening in the other building, where the remains of the other end of the bridge hung—even that illumination was dim, diluted by the sheer volume of moving water between it and their little ledge. The rain stung against bare skin.
The door was still locked.
“Jack, we need to get out of the rain.”
He agreed. Squinted against the driving rain, looking up and down, taking in their surroundings. “Be right back,” he said, and leaped out into the darkness.
Well. Damn.
She didn’t expect that. If this kept up, they were going to have some serious communication problems.
Mercedes wedged herself backwards into the corner formed by the door and the shattered jamb, sinking down and pulling her knees tight against her chest. She cradled the bag containing Jack’s gun. Suppose it’s time to drum up your next move, she thought.
The door behind her rattled and swung open. She dug for the pistol.
It was Jack. “Hey buddy. Had to go around to get the door open.”
She was too tired to punch him.
The lights inside ran on half-power, whether due to the storm or wind damage. Everything was gloom. They swept water from their eyes, and Jack reclaimed his gun.
“Where is everybody?” Between the plane and the front door of the main building, Mercedes estimated she’d seen a hundred workers, yet here the hallways were empty. “This the living quarters, right?”
Jack led them down a flight of stairs. “The techs have all gathered someplace safe. I figure they’re sheltering with the other folks from the airplane, or they’re back up inside the mountain. Tunnels all over the place here. These buildings are way above the water level, and the whole island has underground passages.” They stopped on the ground floor, but the stairway continued downward. “We’ve got maps of this place, but they’re really old.”
He stumbled on the last stair, and she steadied him.
The dining hall faced the inner garden of the compound. While most of the floor-to-ceiling windows were dressed by thin-slatted bamboo window coverings, they did nothing to mute the tempest. Visibility outside was a matter of inches. Mercedes thanked God that the windows held against the weather.
Jack peered into the storm a long moment, and shook his head. “So much for plan A.”
It was right there that Mercedes stopped him. “Okay, listen up. You need to clue me in, right now. What is our plan?”
“Sure, sorry. Keep forgetting you’re not up to speed.” Jack did a quick once-over of the exits. “Let’s get back by the kitchen, find a place where we’re not so exposed. I’m afraid we have to go to ground until the weather lets up.”
They left a trail of wet footprints and scattered water all the way past the huge counters, through two swinging doors, and into a large kitchen. Mercedes didn’t know why they bothered with stealth. Even creeping tiptoe, they squelched and squeaked.
A large tray held caramel apples on sheets of waxed paper. One apple was missing. A handgun, presumably belonging to Miklos, lay on the steel countertop. A felt-wrapped gun-cleaning kit lay next to it.
Jack ripped a paper towel from a large roll and handed it to her. “Dry off?”
She threw it back at him and took the entire roll. “You really are a maniac, Jack. That stunt you pulled back on the glass bridge, waiting until the tree was just about to smash the glass? What is that, a death wish?”
He shook moisture from his ear. “Always figured I was supposed to die with my parents, down in the water. Everything else has been ‘extra.’ Let it go.”
Jack examined Miklos’ gun. “Plan A was to sneak the two of us out through an old tunnel that goes from the inside of the well in the garden,” he nodded in the direction of the storm, “to the basement of a lighthouse on the other side of the ridge.”
“I didn’t see a lighthouse when the plane landed.”
“That’s not even our first problem.” With a few quick movements he disassembled his own pistol. “They found us awfully fast on the bridge. One of us might be bugged. Did they give you anything?”
She shook her head, then bit her lip. “I might be the bug, Jack.”
“What?”
She told him about the injections on the plane and the diagnostic equipment in the labs. “At short range they can track anyone who is carrying the miniature devices.”
“I’ll bet they can do more than just track you.” He thought for a moment, then examined her cannily. “Hear all that thunder? Tracking devices don’t work so well in hurricanes—same reason we can’t contact Alonzo or anybody else on the radio net.”
“Electromagnetic disturbance.”
“Right. Plus, you’d need a booster of some kind near your body, for them to ride the signal off. That’s a lot of power—if you were sending out a signal strong enough to be tracked by satellite
, you’d be glowing in the dark.” He touched her face. “No fever. Even if it is you—wait. Even if you carry a tracking device, we have another suspect.” He shook Raines’ computer from the tote bag, spun it on the steel table next to the gun. “Do you see any aluminum foil around here anywhere?”
The kitchen was well stocked, with two Sub-zero refrigerators and a large walk-in. She found what she was looking for in a pantry with several other doors, and after she passed the foil roll to Jack she decided to explore a bit.
A second pantry adjoined the first, and the larger room was more like a mini-supermarket in and of itself. Raines had enough foodstuffs to feed a small army, a small army of gourmands. She walked quietly around the shelves and pallets, mindful of noise. Not that she should have been: nothing was louder than the pound of rain overhead.
There were stocks of every kind of food she could imagine, all carefully boxed and bar coded. The lord and master apparently still enjoyed Italian food. She found cans of artichokes, fresh lemons, dried basil, eggplants, peppers, tomatoes, and olives—all for making different kinds of pesto.
The area even included an adjoining bathroom and a chef’s laundry, with a dual washing machine-dryer and table linens stacked neatly on a shelf with clothing: white cotton chef’s pants, aprons, and coats in a variety of sizes, for both men and women. The clothes drier gave her an idea.
By the time she got back to the main kitchen, Jack was unsuccessfully trying to raise someone on his phone. Bowing his head, he set it gently next to his pistol, which was fully reassembled. Raines’ computer was wrapped neatly in foil.
Jack gestured to two steaming cups of tea. “We’re stuck here until the storm lets up. Even if we can make it to the well, the rocks are slick and we don’t have the right equip—what the hell are you wearing?”
She’d borrowed a chef’s outfit. Except for the hat: that would have been overkill. “There’s a clothes dryer back there. Can you hear it going above the sound of the rain?” He shook his head, still staring. “Honestly Jack, if we’re stuck here we might as well be dry.” Her stomach growled. “And fed.”
He blinked, grinned, and kissed her cheek. “You’re a genius. And I just realized how we’re going to wait out the storm, even if you are a walking tracer bug.”
“Change clothes, then tell me how I’m a genius.” She thrust a handful of white clothes into his arms and walked to the back of the pantry, telling herself she had to check the machine to ensure the buzzer doesn’t go off when the load was done. “Hurry up.”
When Jack joined her a few minutes later, he still needed to button his chef’s coat. Mercedes said a prayer of thanks for the semi-darkness; less likely that he’d see her blush.
Crazy, right? She was a grown woman.
Right. Crazy.
Jack threw his clothes in the machine and cranked the dial. “I’m not sure how to say this without betraying my masculine exterior, but do they have any fabric softeners?”
He found an empty box and stashed his equipment, keeping the gun and the phone. Raines’ computer he set in a freezer with several other foil-wrapped slabs. Then he turned to her.
“Got to be honest. You’re right, I need sleep, and they’re bound to search this place pretty soon. I’m surprised they haven’t found us already.”
“What do you suggest? Bad guys show up, we cook them an omelet?”
He mustered a smile. “Want to see how I got past security?”
He led her to a crate in the back near the loading dock and steel rollup doors. Italian branding covered most of the containers in this corner.
The wind and rain beat a madman’s poem against the steel.
Jack fiddled with two cunningly hidden levers, and the entire top of the crate pivoted aside, revealing a hollow, padded space beneath. “We intercepted a shipment of Raines’ favorite food, before it got to the island.” He pointed out a thick layer of metallic fabric between two internal walls of the crate. “This is x-ray doping. If the crate is scanned, the x-ray machine thinks it sees what it’s supposed to see. Anybody with the right kind of printer can make ‘em. If you are broadcasting a tracking signal, it should also shield—what?”
She tried valiantly, but a chuckle worked out, wriggled past her defenses. She clapped a hand over her mouth.
“What, Mercedes?”
Fighting a second snicker every step of the way, she pointed at the writing on the side of the crate. “Guanciale.” The word ended in a giggle, she couldn’t help it.
“Yeah, it’s a kind of rare, seasoned bacon—”
“Pig’s face? You got past all the high-tech security, disguised as pig face!” She muffled the laugh which threatened to end the sentence—but then lost control. Ridiculous, given their circumstances, but she lacked the strength to stop. Her laughter splintered and then came on in a wave, and Mercedes convulsed, fighting for breath.
A brief frown of hurt crossed Jack’s face, replaced immediately by a smirk, and then he fell into laughter himself. It was the kind of hilarity that comes from confronting the absurd in the face of horrifying circumstances—this told her that he carried a fair share of goofy terror himself. Their eyes met, triggering another helpless gale of laughter. Eventually both stood grinning and wiping their eyes.
If anything, the storm was louder.
Jack leaned against the crate, drinking his tea. The bout of laughter had loosened something in him, and he stood with his customary carelessness. His posture was almost boyish. Mercedes tried a sip from her own cup, and found it surprisingly good.
“Did this come from Raines’ kitchen?” she asked.
“He’s got a pretty good stock of ingredients. You’re smelling jasmine.”
She thought she also detected Chinese cornbind and black sesame. “It’s really good. You made this from scratch? Where’d you learn that?”
He shrugged. “From the people who invented it. I get banged up a lot, need to heal fast.”
Mercedes climbed into the crate next to him. Using a tiny flashlight, Jack showed her the air vents, where the latches were, and how the whole affair slid shut.
“Actually, my wife taught me how to make the tea.”
He turned on his side, to give her as much space as possible, and she used his arm for a pillow. It was snug but not impossible. When he sealed the lid, there was enough room for the two of them to move about, but just barely.
“This is crazy, Jack,” she said. “All of it. How are we going to tell anybody? They’ll think we made this all up.”
He whispered back. “Can’t say that no one’s ever accused me of being a ham.”
She laughed again, and felt his body gradually go slack. The sound of the rain through the padding and insulation was a one-note song. Lucky thing indeed that their hideout was just barely big enough for the two of them. Seemed a remarkable coincidence.
“You brought us here on purpose, didn’t you? You knew there was a chance we’d end up hiding like this. Jack?”
He was already asleep. His chef’s smock smelled like warm bread.
After awhile, Mercedes forgot to pay attention for the sounds of approaching soldiers, and listened instead to Jack’s breathing. She placed her free hand, very gently, against his chest, directly over his heartbeat. What had Raines said? Pathological, borderline psychotic, moral extremist.
His skin was pleasantly warm.
Jack murmured something in a language she didn’t understand. It was a dialect without edges, rounded and smooth; musical, perhaps merely the babbletalk of sleep. He turned slightly toward her touch, resting his hand on her thigh. The heel of his palm fit comfortably in the groove between her hip and stomach. Thinking to remove it, she covered his hand with her own, and felt the contrast of him in his fingers. The palm felt smooth, almost soft, while the back—especially his knuckles—bore small scars.
She slipped her hand in his wide sleeve and traced lightly up his arm, finding more tiny marks and small puckers of tissue. The flesh had healed well, but she
wondered at its history. She recognized two healed bullet wounds and a long, raised edge of skin that might have come from a knife, recently. The marks ended abruptly before his shoulder.
Throughout her nimble examination, Jack did not stir. He was well and truly out cold. She’d never seen anyone so completely asleep.
He’d definitely layered on muscle over the years; practical muscle, the opposite of what you’d find on Venice Beach. He still had the overall physique of a swimmer, probably for convenience sake: long, lean muscles were easier to conceal and disguise than massive bulk. This insight pleased her, and she found herself (assuming they proved Charles Darwin an idiot by actually surviving the next few hours) wondering what the days and years afterward might hold for the both of them.
Mercedes pulled herself closer, against his chest. She curled into him tightly and listened, listened with complete and singular focus, until her whole body resonated with the beat of his heart.
Gravity
Out of the darkness, a rope. A rope, and a tremendous weight.
Jack knew exactly where he was. A memory within a dream, or a dream borne from memory. Toria and Alonzo stood at the top of the cliff, outlined against the pale moon. “Hurry up, Jack!” Alonzo shouted. Victoria knelt beside him, right at the edge. The wind turned her hair into a dark banner. She wore a sheer black outfit; aside from her silhouette all he could see were her face and the shine off the wrapped steel hilt of her knife, strapped to her upper arm.
She beckoned. “Come on, love. Almost, almost.”
A convincing liar, his wife. Jack pushed against the cliff wall with his feet, but had no leverage. Gravity, plus the extra force pulling him backwards and down, was just too much. Below, the chasm yawned.
Alonzo cursed at the top of the cliff. “It’s hung up on some rocks. Like an anchor.”
The problem was reducible to a few factors. One of them would no doubt prove easy to solve. Radioactive leftovers were stashed in shallow caves all up and down the cliff, overlooking the city’s aquifer. Bad Guys put a large packet of old-fashioned, run-of-the-mill, conventional explosives in the central cave. Resultant explosion scatters heaps and heaps of radioactive dust into the air and water supply, city becomes functioning death trap for millions / uninhabitable wasteland for several hundred years / PR nightmare (not counting Alonzo’s theories about bands of roving mutant scavengers).