Ashes of Time (The After Cilmeri Series)

by Sarah Woodbury

“We should get going.” Callum tipped his head towards the door. They’d been standing off to the side, just inside the front lobby of the Wal-Mart. The rush of people that had come in at midnight had dwindled to a handful every few minutes. Callum was strangely pleased with the bargain on mobile phones the shop had given him. That feeling must be why so many people had charged into the shop at this hour in the first place.

  They left the lobby, pulling up their hoods against the rain. Before they’d stepped off the pavement, however, Callum put out a hand to the women. “Bloody hell.”

  “What is it��” Cassie didn’t continue. She too saw the panda car pulled up right behind Art’s truck, it’s blue and red lights whirling. The officer had left it running and was standing at the back of the truck, entering something into his tablet.

  Anna tapped Callum on the arm to draw his attention towards another row of parked cars. “There’s a second cop.”

  “They got to my grandfather,” Cassie said. “It’s the only way they would be chasing his truck.”

  “They could have gotten the description and license from the DMV,” Meg said.

  But her words were of little comfort, and a quick glance at Meg showed Callum that she knew it too.

  He put an arm around Cassie’s shoulders and turned her back towards the entrance to the shop. Wal-Mart was one of half a dozen large stores in the outdoor shopping center. They started walking, just a little bit quickly, which Callum thought would appear normal given the weather. “He’ll be okay.”

  “It depends on who’s doing the questioning,” Cassie said. “He wouldn’t have given us up, not for anything.”

  “They could have talked to him and noted that his truck was missing,” Callum said. “That’s all. They wouldn’t have had to do anything more than start looking at the camera feeds along the motorway.”

  “Were there cameras at Mission Market?” Meg tucked her arm through Anna’s, and the pair hurried after Cassie and Callum.

  Cassie looked back at Meg. “Of course.” She laughed in relief. “That’s it. Whoever is tracking us, if they noted the flash of your entry into this world, they would have accessed whatever cameras were in the area.”

  Meg gave a snort of laughter. “You mean the one camera within fifty miles?”

  “You can be sure there aren’t a lot of cameras on the rez,” Cassie said, “but with the casino, we do have them.”

  “And we’d be on the ones both at the travel plaza and the market,” Callum said. “Your grandfather was there too, and we were in his truck. One plus one equals two.”

  Cassie nodded, and Callum could tell she felt a bit better.

  “By the way, who’s they?” Anna said.

  “That was a real copper by the truck.” A vision of an army of panda cars blanketing Eugene rose before Callum’s eyes. “That means official channels, so either your government, or an entity with a hand in the government, is behind this.”

  Meg pulled out her mobile. “If Cassie wants to talk to her grandfather, she could do it through the back door. I could call Jim, and he could call Art.”

  Callum picked up the pace, heading for the last shop in the row, wanting to put as much distance as possible between them and the police vehicles as quickly as he could. “You can’t ring Jim.”

  “Why not? You know him, right, Cassie?” Meg said. “He gave me his phone number as we pulled into the parking lot, and I memorized it. We could have him check on your grandfather.”

  Callum turned to look at Meg. “You memorized his number?”

  “I’ve always been good with numbers, and it was the first phone number I’d seen in seven years. I thought it might come in handy if Anna and I got stuck somewhere.”

  They ducked around the last building and turned into the rear car park. Many of the cars had been parked here since before the rain began, which meant they belonged to employees or very serious shoppers. If Callum chose correctly, it might be a while before one was missed.

  “You can’t ring Jim,” he repeated.

  Meg hesitated, the mobile in her hand, and Callum reached out and took it from her. Despite their earlier discussion, she was hesitating. He hoped it wasn’t because she didn’t trust him, but because she wasn’t thinking like an agent.

  “What I’m about to do is bad enough,” he said.

  “What are you about to do?” Anna said.

  Callum pulled out his mobile and redialed Jones. “I need the entry code for a Toyota Highlander.” He walked around the vehicle he’d chosen to commandeer. “Last year’s model.”

  “You are not going to steal a vehicle,” said Jones.

  Callum was glad he had the mobile pressed to his ear so neither Meg nor Anna could hear what Jones had said. Callum was fairly certain Cassie already knew what he was going to do. She was standing by the corner of the building, keeping an eye out for any pursuit.

  “We have no choice. The police are circling Art’s truck. We have no other avenue out of here.” He glanced at Cassie. “And while you’re at it, see if you can find out if Art McKay has been arrested.”

  “I’m not giving you that code, Callum. So far, you’ve done nothing wrong,” said Jones. “Stealing a vehicle is a felony.”

  “If we get arrested, the charge may well be terrorism. That’ll be it for us until they decide to let us out,” Callum said. “You know that.”

  Then Anna tugged his sleeve. “Wait. Maybe there’s another way.”

  Callum turned to look where she was pointing. A bus depot lay fifty yards from the rear car park with four buses waiting at it. As Callum watched, another bus pulled up and people surged off it, all heading to the shopping center.

  “Eugene sure is a happening place the day after Thanksgiving,” Meg said. “Who knew?”

  Without waiting for Callum to agree to the revised plan, Meg and Anna legged it across the car park toward the depot. Cassie and Callum followed, not even very reluctantly. Callum liked the freedom of having his own vehicle, but he could see Jones’s point too. As they approached the buses, Callum said to Jones, who’d remained patiently on the line, “Okay, we have a new plan. We’re getting on a bus, hopefully one that will take us south.”

  Jones grunted, which Callum took to be assent but that he was too busy to actually speak. As always, Callum could hear keys clicking furiously in the background. “A bus traveling south from Eugene is leaving in five minutes, with stops in Roseburg, Grants Pass, and Medford. I’ve purchased four tickets. They should be coming through on your mobile right now.”

  “I owe you.”

  “You surely do.”

  Callum looked at the screen and, five seconds later, an email popped up. “Got it.”

  They reached the depot, and after a minute of loping from bus to bus, they found the one they wanted. Callum herded the women on board and held out his mobile to the scanner. It beeped four times as it accepted the evidence that he’d paid for four tickets to Medford. He didn’t know that they were going that far, but that’s what Jones had bought. Callum would have kissed him if he were here.

  He settled next to Cassie in a row near the rear exit. The seat was surprisingly comfortable.

  “How bad is it?” Jones was still on the line.

  Callum put the mobile back up to his ear. “The bus is fine.” He peered out the window towards the Wal-Mart. “We’ve seen only local police. Can you tell us what they’ve been told? We need to know if this is lucky accident, or if it’s the spearhead of a wide-scale search.”

  “Give me a second to get into the system.” Jones might be a valued member of Callum’s team and an employee of the British government, but he remained a hacker and a rebel at heart.

  “It would be nice to know who’s looking for us.” Cassie had put her head next to Callum’s so she could hear what Jones was saying.

  “Lucky for you, Wal-Mart is one of the least hackable corporations in the world. They don’t play well with others,” said Jones. “Their surveillance system is on a closed cir
cuit. Whoever is hunting you will need a court order to gain access.”

  That was the first good news Callum had heard in a while.

  “It’s Thanksgiving here.” Cassie’s head now rested on Callum’s shoulder. “No judge is going to appreciate being woken at two in the morning on the second day of his four-day weekend to authorize a hunt for time travelers.”

  “I doubt that’s what he would be told.” Callum automatically checked around the bus to see if anyone else was listening in and lowered his voice. “It’s always a matter of national security, you know that.”

  The bus had started moving now. The bus depot was a stone’s throw from the motorway, and Callum let out a sigh of relief as the bus turned onto the entrance ramp that would take them south.

  “I didn’t use my own credit card for any of our purchases,” Callum said.

  “If you had done that, it would be time to hang up your hat,” Jones said.

  “What’s happening where you are?” Callum said.

  Meg shot Callum an irritated look from across the aisle, undoubtedly wanting to hear the conversation too. But this was a public bus. Six other passengers had joined it before the driver closed the doors and eased away from the curb. Callum couldn’t put Jones on speakerphone.

  “I am being recalled to the office,” Jones said with a touch of humor in his voice.

  “They shouldn’t have kept you on the sidelines in the first place,” Callum said.

  “Nobody likes hearing, I told you so.”

  “I’m not following you,” Callum said.

  Jones was like this sometimes. It took effort to get him to articulate complete thoughts.

  “A month ago, we red-flagged the group that has since taken responsibility for the bombing at GCHQ. We even gave the anti-terrorism division of MI-5 the name of their possible leader and his address.”

  Callum frowned, remembering the meeting. The Project had access to a special police unit—like the American S.W.A.T. team—but didn’t sustain one in-house, so Callum had passed on the information to MI-5. “Didn’t the organization have an oddly inappropriate name?”

  “E.L.F.,” said Jones. “Economic Liberation Front.”

  “I remember them too,” Cassie said. “Someone’s been reading too much Harry Potter.”

  “Are you going to the Office or our office?” Callum said.

  “Our office. And I’m taking my own sweet time,” said Jones. “They won’t notice anyway. It’s bedlam there.”

  Meg waved a hand to get Callum’s attention. “I have an idea.”

  Callum moved the mobile phone a few inches from his ear. “I’m open to ideas.”

  “Could Mark reserve a rental car for us? Untraceably?” she said.

  “It’s two in the morning,” Cassie said. “We can’t get a rental car at this hour.”

  “Airports tend to be open twenty-four hours,” Meg said. “Try Medford. It’s a bigger and busier airport than you might think.”

  Callum returned his attention to his mobile phone and relayed Meg’s question to Jones.

  “What else do you have with you for ID, Callum?” said Jones. “Any United States document would be easiest, but not the same card you used at the shop.”

  “John MacDonald.” Callum reached into his backpack and pulled out a blue passport.

  Cassie glanced at it, her mouth twisting into a sardonic smile. “Who needs citizenship when you have MI-5?”

  “How far to Medford?” Anna said.

  Cassie and Meg exchanged a look. “Three hours?” Meg said.

  “We’re in a bus,” Cassie said. “It might take longer.”

  “Oh dear. Look at that,” said Jones, deadpan. “The traffic cameras along Interstate 5 just went out.” Now there was no mistaking the glee in his voice. “I am good.”

  “Are you hacking into the Oregon Department of Transportation?” Callum said.

  “Hacking has such unfortunate connotations,” said Jones. “I prefer a more circumspect vocabulary.”

  Callum snorted laughter, but Cassie said, “Any luck with identifying who’s chasing us?”

  “A nameless, faceless bureaucracy,” said Jones, unironically. “It’s out of D.C., but I don’t have more information than that and—” He cleared his throat; Callum could hear him speaking to someone in the background before he came back on the line. “I have to go. They sent a car for me. I’ll keep on this, and you should have a vehicle waiting for you at the Rogue Valley airport in Medford.”

  “What car hire company?” Callum said.

  “Hertz. I told them you’d pick it up sometime after 4 A.M.”

  “Thanks,” Callum said. “We’d be lost without you.”

  “Yes, you would.” Jones closed the connection.

  Callum leaned back in the seat and shut his eyes for a second.

  Then he remembered how abrupt he’d been with Meg back when she’d wanted to ring Jim and turned to her. “I’m sorry about closing you down.” He took her mobile out of his jacket pocket and handed it to her. He’d had bigger problems ten minutes ago than he had now. “I know that Cassie is worried about her family, but we can’t call Art.”

  “Why not?” Meg said.

  Callum grimaced. This kind of thinking had become second nature for him again since his return to the modern world, but even though the laws passed since 9/11 had received a lot of publicity, civilians still underestimated the scope and power of security agencies. “It’s two in the morning, and if someone is sitting with Art, any call to him would immediately put us on the radar.”

  “Especially at two in the morning,” Cassie said.

  “Maybe it’s unlikely they’ve connected Jim to Cassie, but it’s a risk,” Callum said. “If the authorities are tapping Art’s phone, or Cassie’s aunt’s phone, they would have Jim’s number, and that could lead them to yours.”

  Cassie sighed and took out her mobile. “To all of our phones.” She removed the battery.

  “I didn’t call him, Cassie. We’re okay,” Meg said.

  Cassie shook her head. “How may calls to the UK went through the closest cell tower to Art’s truck in the last hour?”

  Callum groaned. “One.” Perhaps he wasn’t as used to this as he’d supposed.

  Cassie motioned that Meg and Anna should take apart their mobiles. “If we get separated, you can put them back together, but until then, we should keep them all off.”

  Meg’s face held a wary look. “How exposed do you think we are now?”

  “It depends on how quickly whoever is hunting us can move,” Callum said. “They have Art’s truck. The next thing would be to look for us individually. Phone traffic in and out of the United States is monitored. I just spoke with Jones, and my mobile number is now on the grid. If they get a warrant, they’ll learn that a mobile with that number was bought with three other mobiles an hour ago in the Wal-Mart in Eugene where they found Art’s truck. Whether or not they discover we’re on this bus, they’ll put a trace on the mobiles and find us.”

  “You make them sound like they’re omnipotent,” Anna said.

  “Nobody is off the grid anymore,” Callum said. “Given how quickly they found Art’s truck, I am inclined to believe that with enough manpower and computers, they can find anything. The question is just how much time it’s going to take them.”

  “Text Mark quickly one more time and tell him what we’re thinking,” Cassie said. “We can catch up with him after we leave the bus for the rental and get new phones again with a different ID.”

  Callum wished they were in Medford right now and cursed the long distances between cities in Oregon. “When we get there, I’ll drop you off at a hotel and then take an airport shuttle to the car hire agency. There’s probably nothing we can do about the authorities guessing we’re headed to Medford, since we’ve clearly bypassed Portland and driven south, but they won’t know more than that.” He gazed around at the three women. “We should sleep if we can.”

  They all nodded as if t
hey agreed with him, but Meg looked wary, and Callum wondered if the way he’d taken the mobile from her was going to color their relationship for a while. Cassie immediately leaned back her seat and closed her eyes, though she slipped her hand into Callum’s and left it there. If he’d had his mobile to work on, he would have had to release her hand. But he didn’t. Callum was staring at three hours of tense waiting.

  Anna curled up in her seat, but Meg, who was sitting across the aisle from Callum, looked out the back window of the bus. “I keep expecting to hear a siren.”

  “Me too.” Callum leaned across the aisle. “I am sorry for taking the mobile from you.”

  “Thank you, but you don’t have to apologize. You were busy, and you didn’t want to take the time to explain.” She shot him a calculating look. “I’m a big girl. I can take it.”

  Callum sat back. “Aren’t you going to sleep?”

  “No. You should.”

  Callum grunted. “I don’t know if I can.” Sometimes it took more discipline to sleep than to stay awake.

  “When we talked earlier at the Wal-Mart about you not being responsible for us, I meant what I said. But we still need you alert. Let me do this, because it’s something I can do. I’ll wake you if I’m at all worried.”

  Callum thought about that for a few seconds and then said, “Okay.” He closed his eyes.

  Chapter Eleven

  November 2019

  Meg

  Meg was way too old to stay up all night any more. Since having the twins, she’d been up in the night plenty, but not recently, not unless one of them was ill. Being the Queen of Wales had its perks, and one of them was having nannies both children adored, and whose attendance meant the possibility of sleeping through the night long before Meg ever would have with Anna or David.

  That her children would be asleep at this very moment made not being with them easier to bear. Someone else had dressed them for bed; someone else had told them a story or read from the stack of children’s stories she’d written down so she wouldn’t forget them. Meg had memorized dozens of stories out of sheer repetition when David and Anna were little, and she figured Dr. Seuss would forgive her for pirating his books seven hundred years before he wrote them.