Hammer shrugged. “Thank you, Director.”
“Adam and I have discussed the action reports that Stony and Ron filed earlier,” Akina said. “Let’s start this meeting with a more complete description of what happened. Stony?”
Stony ran through the same summary she’d given John, including Ron Hammer's concern that they didn’t have enough men for the assault. When she finished, she looked at Ron and asked him what he wanted to add.
John tensed. If this meeting was going to devolve into the usual DC game of power politics, the secret service would now shit all over the Department of Transition Security in general and Agent Stony Hill in particular. Investigations would be launched, careers trashed.
Scorched earth for all involved.
Hammer's voice was soft, but unyielding. “I’m good with Stony’s summary.”
Sly leaned toward the camera. “What about the issue of not having enough men or women to do this right? Was Agent Hill in too much of a hurry? Did she get our guy killed?”
“God help me, maybe I did.”
Stony’s voice was low enough that John didn’t think their Washington audience could hear it.
But Hammer could. He looked at her, shook his head, and faced the camera. “I probably would have waited for the other team. I’m more conservative that way. Sometimes that’s good, sometimes not. But our plan fell apart before we got started. Wells shot his girlfriend. He took his kid out the back door. Everything else was a reaction to those unanticipated events. More men wouldn’t have made any difference.”
The room was silent for several long minutes.
“Fair enough,” Director Sly said. “There’ll be an investigation, as there should be after the death of an agent. That’ll come later and that prospect shouldn’t interfere with moving forward.”
“A friend’s death is devastating,” Akina said. “It also can be distracting. Does anyone on the team, or either of you, want out? Do we need to reassign anyone, regardless of what they may want?”
John cleared his throat.
No way I’m letting Stony or Ron answer that until they’ve had a little more time to collect their wits.
“That’s my call to make. I’ll provide you and Director Sly with my assessment by the end of the day.”
Akina frowned, but accepted John’s move to reassert control. “Do that.”
John turned to Stony. “Any new information about Wells? Where he might be headed?”
“No. We’re cross-matching a list of known associates that we got from Telford prison with a list of his friends that we got from his wife. Ron and I think he’ll most likely quit looking for help from his friends. We’ve almost nabbed him twice that way.”
“Anything on his car?” Sly asked.
“A little,” Hammer said. “The gas station attendant said that it was a dark-colored sports car, maybe an old Mustang. He didn’t get any plate numbers.”
“He left Pecos in a ’93 Dodge Shadow,” Stony said. “So he’s switched cars at least once. We’ve modified the APB and the FBI has issued Amber alerts in Michigan and Ohio for a kidnapped child. The alerts are vague because we lack specific information, but maybe we’ll catch a break.”
No one seemed encouraged by the prospect.
“What’s the latest on the spread of the disease?” John asked.
Akina glanced at a piece of paper lying on the table in front of her. “As of three hours ago, we have four hundred and thirty confirmed cases in nineteen states and a dozen countries. Seventy-four children have died.”
“So the rate it’s spreading hasn’t changed?” John asked, recalling his heated conversation with the president.
“Not that we can measure,” Akina said. “I’m briefing the DNI and the president later today and will emphasize that point.”
“Any survivors?” Stony asked.
“Eleven reports of children who have survived the disease. None of the reports have yet been confirmed.”
Akina’s answer surprised John and offered the first glimmer of hope. “That’s huge. How long before we have confirmation?”
“By the close of business today. If children have survived, we’ll start looking for common factors that might point to a cure or at least mitigation. One last thing—we’re making some progress on tracking the disease back to its origin, using the dates when the kids first got sick. More coming soon, but it’s clear that the first cases came from Europe, not the United States.”
“How would knowing the origin help us?” Sly asked.
“We’re operating on the assumption that T-Plague has a source,” John said. “Finding the origin will help us identify the source. Knowing the source will—maybe—help us find a cure.”
31
Blissfield, Michigan
GT hung on the passenger door handle, as far from Asshole as he could get. He was shivering, still in his underwear, still cold and wet. The sharp pain in his feet had become a dull, pounding ache. They’d been on the road for maybe twenty minutes, lurching from the centerline of the two-lane road to the shoulder, then back again.
GT hadn’t spoken since they left. He was afraid of the raving lunatic at the wheel and his thoughts were consumed by the image of the dead cop lying on the ground.
Wonder if he had any kids.
The car dropped down from the pavement onto a low gravel shoulder, then shuddered and wobbled as Robert Lee jerked it back onto the road.
“You’re going to get us killed,” GT said.
Robert Lee slapped himself in the face with his open right hand. He’d been doing that since they left, fighting the drugs that Tessie had given him.
The car slowed. “Shutup.”
A couple minutes later they turned off the road into the parking lot in front of a long, low derelict building. The fog that had followed them from Tessie’s had lifted, but it was still as dark as a bucket of black paint. The headlights swiped across a faded sign hanging sideways, blocking the door—NeedMore Liquor.
Robert Lee drove out of the parking lot into the tall grass at the right side of the building, around to the back, and killed the engine.
“Where are we?” GT asked.
“HowwouldIknow.” He was getting harder to understand. “Cuffs. Getthecuffs. Gotta sleep.”
“Can I get dressed first?”
It took a long time for Asshole to respond. “Yesh. Quick. Be quick.”
GT scrambled into the back seat and pulled a change of clothes from his duffle. Robert Lee was wearing the same clothes he’d been wearing when they arrived at the trailer.
Tessie must have drugged him before they had time for more than sloppy kisses.
He hated the thought of Asshole seeing him naked. He checked the mirror, stripped and changed clothes. They felt warm and wonderful.
GT climbed back into the front seat and took the cuffs from the glove box. He jumped, but couldn’t get away, when Robert Lee fell across the seat, fumbled with the cuffs, snapped one around GT’s left wrist, and the other around his own right wrist.
He collapsed across the seat, his head in GT’s lap.
Bastard. You’d better hope I don’t have to piss or I’ll give you an earful.
GT roused fuzzy and confused. He’d been having horrible dreams about Transition and dead kids. He started to rub his eyes but his left arm jerked to a halt and a sharp pain lanced through his wrist. He yelped and whimpered from the flood of memories: His mother on the floor, bleeding. The leer on Tessie’s face when she saw his underwear. The dead cop. Being handcuffed to Asshole.
He was leaning against the passenger door. Robert Lee was curled up next to him. He’d shifted position so that his head was no longer on GT’s lap. It was daylight, but the sun hadn’t been up for long. The fog had returned, wrapping the car and the abandoned bar in a grey shroud.
He had to pee. Bad.
“Wake up, Asshole.” It was the first time he’d used Robert Lee’s nickname out loud and he liked saying it. He lifted his left arm, pu
lling the heavy weight of Robert Lee’s right arm along with it and smacked the man in the face as hard as he could.
“Do that again, and I’ll break your fucking arm.”
GT jerked back to the car door.
Guess he’s slept it off.
Robert Lee sat up and looked around. “Where the hell are we?” He reached over and removed the cuffs.
“Don’t ask me, you drove us here.” GT paused a second. “Do you remember what happened at the trailer?”
“I was drinking with Tessie. That’s it.”
“You killed a cop. And Tessie.”
“Bullshit.”
GT told him what had happened, leaving out the part where he’d tried to escape.
“Jesus. She drugged me.”
“She said she gave you Valium.”
Asshole looked at him with suspicion. “When did she say that?”
“Right before you came out of the bedroom and shot her.”
Robert Lee thought for a minute. “I gotta pee. You?”
“Yeah.”
“Make it quick. Need to find a place to hide.”
Asshole removed the cuffs but made GT stand next to him while they peed. GT had to go so bad that he didn’t object.
As he finished and zipped up, Robert Lee muttered, “Wonder if the Gas n Go attendant got our license plate number.”
GT hadn’t thought about that.
Jesus, I hope he did.
“Probably not. The guy was sound asleep when I parked the car. A stoner. Bet he didn’t even remember that I was there.” He looked down at GT’s feet.
“Where the hell are your shoes?”
“Back at the trailer. I didn’t bring any extras.” He wished he had some, because the pain had returned as soon as he stood up.
“Well, try not to piss on your feet when you shake it off.” He brayed like a burro.
Five miles east from the bar, they came to an intersection. Using the road atlas that Robert Lee bought the day before, GT found the intersection on the map.
“Look for a small town, not one with the smallest dot on the map, but the next size up. And don’t take us toward Detroit.”
Ever since he’d gotten out of jail, Robert Lee had ranted about Detroit being a waste of good land and the people who lived there a waste of oxygen, an example of what was wrong with America. “Nothing there but niggers and wetbacks and all sorts of people who think that someone owes them a living. Even the few whites who still live there are nothing but worthless white trash.”
GT didn’t understand why some people were filled with hate and others just like them weren’t. It seemed like a puzzle with no solution and thinking about it made him sad.
He guided them to Blissfield, Michigan, the home of 2,342 happy Americans, according to the city limits sign. Robert Lee drove through town and across a bridge that looked like a rusted steel box, with beams framing the sides and top.
“This might do, if they have fucking Internet.”
He pulled into the asphalt parking lot of a house with a red neon “Maplehurst Motel” sign in front. The house looked like it had just gotten a fresh coat of white paint. It was small, about the size of GT’s home in Pecos, but it had a second floor with two dormers. A small gravel road led from the empty parking area to a row of small cottages that disappeared into a grove of trees taller than the house.
“Curl up on the seat.” He took the cuffs and fastened one to GT’s right wrist, the other to his left ankle. He slapped him on the butt. “Just like calf roping at the rodeo.” Another burro bray.
He left the engine running, got out, and slammed the door.
GT’s mom had taken him to a cave once, and he’d never been so scared in his life. He’d felt like he was being buried alive. The cuffs made him feel the same way. He had to move, to straighten out. He stretched and pulled, slicing the skin around his wrist and ankle. The cuffs made his breathing worse. He started panting, gasping for air, whimpering like a whipped puppy.
He’d begun to think that he would die in the front seat of the old Mustang when the driver’s door opened and Asshole slid inside.
“They’ve got Internet and no customers other than us,” Robert Lee said. “Makes this a perfect place for us.” He put the car into gear and drove from the smooth asphalt onto the bumpy gravel road, toward the last cabin.
A minute later, he stopped the car, shut the engine off, and freed GT from the torture of the steel bindings. GT had to bite his tongue to keep from thanking him.
“Everything goes inside the room, including the computer.”
The floors of the room were wide, dark pine planks. Light green wallpaper with big pink roses matched the pattern on the bedspread that stretched across the double bed. A yellow pine wardrobe, about a yard wide and tall enough to touch the ceiling, sat across a narrow aisle from the foot of the bed.
Robert Lee put the computer on the bed. “Get it up and running. The old man said the password for the Internet is 1 2 3 4. Bring up the email software.”
GT was sprawled on the bed. All he wanted to do was sleep for a thousand days, but he sat up and booted the computer. He was surprised when the connection to the Internet worked right away.
No phone, but we’ve got the world wide web. Weird.
When GT was finished loading the email client, Robert Lee sat down next to him and took the computer.
“Let’s make this one from you.”
GT reached for the computer. “Shit, don’t do that.”
Robert Lee shoved him away and laughed. He copied GT’s email address from a message in the Inbox and pasted it into a new email. He finished the message and held the screen so that GT could read it:
To: The President of The United States
Your puny attempt to stop us demands a demonstration of our power. A modern-day Sodom will be wiped from the planet. The blood of thousands is on your hands.
Dare to interfere again and millions more will die.
“What are you going to do?” GT asked.
“Something I planned to do all along,” Robert Lee hit the send button and set the computer aside. He walked to his duffle bag, withdrew a piece of paper, came back to the bed, and sat down next to GT.
“I have a couple of questions for you.”
He reached over and pinched GT’s neck so hard that tears filled his eyes.
“Do you want your mama to be tortured, raped, and killed?” His voice was soft, almost like a caress.
GT sobbed and shook his head. He tried to squirm away from the iron grip, but couldn’t move. A flood of exhaustion and nausea washed over him. He panted like a dog between the sobs.
“Do you doubt I can make that happen with a single phone call?”
“No.” It was the truth. Robert Lee could do anything he wanted to GT or his mother and GT was powerless to stop him.
Robert Lee handed GT the piece of paper. “Follow this and use your magic. Get one word wrong and I’ll make that call.”
GT read down the page. When he got to the bottom, the part that said what you wanted the magic to do, his heart jumped and flickers of light danced in front of his eyes.
He whimpered and begged, “Please don’t make me do this. Please.”
The grip on his neck tightened, then backed off a little. “Get on with it.”
GT’s resistance to the constant battering collapsed like the walls of Jericho. Lost and alone, the only way to survive—for his mother to survive—was to do whatever the madman demanded. He swallowed, waited for his eyes to clear so that he could read the page, and began.
"I invoke my birthright to the Power granted by Transition. I beseech this Power to grant my request. I honor the requirements of Transition and affirm…
"That I make my request with respect and humility…
The heat that he’d experienced when he’d changed the salt into pepper returned, clawing at him, scorching his throat. He sat in the center of a swirling, angry cloud of darkness. He swallowed, then swallow
ed again, and continued.
"That this is my own true wish…
Finish it. Make the nightmare go away.
"That I willingly surrender my life if I am found unworthy or my request is found wanting…"
He wished God would take his life, but was old enough to know that God didn’t work that way.
"Hear me: Make the city of Detroit and the area around it the way it was in 1700, except with no people. Make it pristine, wild, and natural.”
“So thus I beseech."
1842
32
Big Horn Mountains, Wyoming
“How long do we have to do this?” Running Elk asked.
He and eight other boys of the Apsaalooke tribe were flaking the edges of small chert stones to make tips for their arrows. The boys practiced with their bows daily, but the elk had little to fear. The number of lost and broken arrows meant that they constantly needed to make more.
Still Water laughed. “Father Sun hasn’t moved since we began. We’ll work until midday.” He laughed easily, but had an intense presence that caused adults to listen to what he had to say and made other boys his age want to follow his lead.
Running Elk looked down at the half-sharpened stone in his hand. “Just because your father is the Akbaalia doesn’t mean you can tell us what to do.” As he spoke, he smacked at the edge of the mud-colored chert with his sharpening stone. The rock slipped sideways, broke the arrowhead into pieces, and drove a sliver into his palm. “Ow!” He looked up and grinned, sucking on the minor wound.
“Do what you wish,” Still Water said, “but you need my father’s healing more than most. Perhaps you should be friendly to his son.”
The others in the group laughed at Running Elk, knowing how often he injured himself, and pointed to the single tip that he’d managed to finish that morning.
Still Water was thirteen and the oldest in the group. He was part of a small band of Apsaalooke who were camped in the high pastures of the Ahsahta mountains, called the Bighorns by the trappers who traded with his people. His obsidian hair, which stretched down to his legs in the manner of his tribe, was held in place at his temples by a thin rope of leather. In contrast to Running Elk, his soft and round friend, Still Water was tall for his age and gaunt—all bones and sharp edges. He was the only boy in camp with the lavender eyes that marked him as ready for the Shúaneaxe ritual that was central to the Apsaalooke’s vision quest.
The Ebony Finches: A Transition Magic Thriller Page 19