His eyes were incredibly intense, probing, holding on to mine. "Please go on, Frannie. I have to hear this, anything you suspect at this point. I'm trying to put together a lot of pieces."
"There is no such thing as a test-tube baby. Not yet, anyway. There's simply no way to grow a child in anything other than the real thing. Even biologically engineered mouse embryos have to be implanted into living female mice until they're developed. Max and the other children were nurtured in the wombs of women. They have human mothers." My eyes were finally closing. I couldn't keep them open a minute longer. Unfortunately, the nightmarish thoughts kept coming in waves.
Who were the women who had cooperated with the experiments? How had the genetically manipulated embryos been obtained? Where were the birth mothers?
"What's your real name?" I finally whispered. I had to know.
"My name is Tom," I heard. "I'm Tom Brennan, Frannie. I'm sorry about that. I'm sorry about David."
I nodded my head. I was close to tears, but I stubbornly held them off.
An image of David flashed before my eyes.
"Me too," I said.
Chapter 91
IT WAS HALF PAST NINE and Kit/Tom was thoughtful and brooding as he walked lookout on the perimeter of the hideaway. At least he was operating decently as an agent. So far, he'd been able to protect everyone - but for how much longer?
He was worried about so many things right now, but he felt particularly bad about what happened earlier with Frannie. He hated that he'd let her down.
Pop. Something hit him on the head and he jumped back. He looked up, expecting trouble.
He found it, too. Max was bouncing on a sturdy tree limb above. She had dropped a pine cone on him.
"Funny girl. What's up? Besides you?" he called to her.
She smiled down.
"I want to show you something." She pointed toward a distant hill that was outlined in glowing red. "The fire's still burning."
Kit needed to see for himself. He braced his foot on the trunk. He reached for a low limb, pulled himself up to a crotch in the tree. He continued to climb quickly and expertly until he arrived at the crook where Max was sitting.
"That's the hard way up here," Max said and made a face.
"I can't fly, Max. I'm not supposed to reveal that I'm Superman. Not yet."
"Oh, okay. Your secret's safe with me. Hardee-bar." She had mimicked Matthew's crazy laugh and she regretted it instantly. Max scooched over to make room for Kit in the bough of the tree.
"I'll keep watch up here for now," he said. "Why don't you go down and get some sleep? Please get some rest."
"I can't sleep," she said. "Anyway, I'm used to it, staying up. I was always afraid of being 'put to sleep.' I have nightmares about it all the time.
So I don't sleep too much."
"We'll be all right for a while," he told her.
Max frowned. "Bull."
Kit smiled. "A little bit, I guess. What's going on in there?" he asked, tapping the young girl's head.
"Too much for my own good, especially now. I hated the putrid School, but it was my putrid home."
He nodded, understood a little bit. "There are lots better places out here in the world. Honest. Wait and see."
Max threw a deep sigh. "I like Frannie a whole lot. I even like you sometimes. Like now," she teased.
"Are you going to breed with Frannie?" Max suddenly asked.
Kit started to laugh. He couldn't help it, and hoped it didn't hurt her feelings.
"Are you going to?" Max insisted. "Your secret's safe with me, Kit.
I'll pinkie swear on it."
"Frannie's not even talking to me," he told Max, let her into his confidence.
"How come?"
"Because," he said, slowly, "I didn't tell her some secrets I didn't feel I could tell anyone."
Max nodded her head. "Oh, I see. Like the secrets I wasn't supposed to tell anyone? But you insisted I should tell you?"
"Yeah. I guess so. Point taken." She was so damn quick.
Max nodded with satisfaction. She licked her finger and made a mark, a score, in front of his face.
"Anyone ever tell you how smart you are?"
Max smiled, clearly pleased. She had such a beautiful, radiant face.
"Wendy and Peter are smarter. I only tested one forty-nine on the Stanford-Binet. They're in the high genius range. Adam and Eve were off the planet. But it didn't save them. I always wonder why. Don't you?"
"I wonder about a lot of things, Max. That's why I ask so many dumb questions. Do you know why they were put to sleep?"
Max shook her head. "I remember the night it happened, though.
There must have been an error, a flaw. They were rejected. Something was wrong with them."
Kit listened and shook his head. "Something is wrong with all of us, sweet-stuff. Nobody's perfect. That's what makes us interesting."
"I know. I understand that part. I really like your imperfections."
She leaned up against him. He felt incredibly warm feelings toward her. It was nice, almost father-daughter. Together they stared into the redrimmed horizon. The fire was out there. Danger. Suddenly, he was remembering Tommy and Mike. His own children. He didn't want to remember, not now.
"Seriously. I like you a lot," Max said to him. "You have kind eyes. I know you wouldn't hurt someone unless you had to. It's the way you are. "Thank you," he said, and nuzzled her cheek. "One of us should sleep for a while, though. You go ahead."
"I'm wide awake," Max said. "Besides, I can see and hear better than you. I'm our best chance."
He smiled. "You're probably right," he said. He let his eyes slowly close and it felt so good. "My real name is Tom," he whispered.
"I'm Maximum. You'll see why."
Chapter 92
I WAS RUNNING FOR MY LIFE inside a shadowy, feverish dream David was in it - when I felt Pip yanking hard at my sleeve.
"Stop it, Pip. You're already outside. Go pee by yourself. Be a good boy. G'wan."
Scolding and shoving him away didn't stop him. He was such a persistent little bugger, so I forced my eyes open.
I half expected David to be there beside me, but he wasn't of course.
I sniffed the air. The smell was noxious and I started to choke. As in my dream, the air was hot and black and stifling. I didn't know if it was day or night, only that I'd fallen asleep by moonlight and now the moon was completely gone. I couldn't see a thing, not even the sky, or the overhanging trees that had been there when I dropped off to sleep.
It was like being stricken blind. I was in a blanket of heavy, nearly black fog.
"Hello? Somebody?" I called out.
With sickening clarity, I understood how bad things really were.
Smoke had completely obliterated the moon and sky, even the overhanging trees. Smoke was all around, choking me, blinding me, making it impossible to see more than a couple of feet in any direction. The woods were on fire.
Pip was barking, demanding that I follow him. I pushed myself up.
Stumbled over stumps and rocks, calling, "Kit! Kit! Where are you?
There's a fire!"
He finally answered. "Here. Over here. The wind must have shifted."
The fire was on us like that.
I still couldn't locate Kit. I couldn't see any of the kids either. My eyes stung and watered. My visibility was only about three or four feet. I felt trapped, claustrophobic, completely closed in.
I heard something. An elk. I was looking right into the huge animal's eyes - glazed and frozen. It was as lost and afraid as I was. Then it pounded past me.
I could hear the fire now. It was a soft roar, seductive, almost melodic.
Slowly, I began to see again. The smoke wasn't as bad on slightly higher ground. The sky was turning red, brightened by the fire. Gazing north, I could see rows of withered, blackened trees on a distant hillside.
A nearby tree caught and burned with a loud whoosh. A huge limb crashed to the gro
und. Sparks flew high into the air, like big firecrackers exploding.
The fire had definitely turned with the wind. It must have been racing over the ground for the past few hours, gaining strength as it moved. Now the monster was big. Huge. They had gotten rid of all the evidence, hadn't They? The school was long gone in the terrifying blaze.
I called out again.
This time I heard retching coughs. The kids were nearby. But where were they?
"Max? Icarus, Oz? Max?"
I saw Kit first. "I've got the twins," he said, as he staggered out of the curtain of smoke. One twin was hoisted over each shoulder. He was strong.
Pip started to growl again. He bared his little teeth. His coat was already covered in soot and ash.
There was a shot. A flare of light. A gunshot in the middle of all of this. Where had it come from? What direction?
Another tree limb fell in a blaze of orange and gold sparks. Pip yelped.
"Let's go. Let's go!" Kit yelled.
We started to run for it.
Chapter 93
WENDY WAS WRAPPED tightly in my arms. We were managing to stay ahead of the raging, thundering fire so far. Most likely the rapidly shifting winds had pushed it away from us for the time being.
I was trying to get my bearings when I heard Max shout, "Look. Look out. More guards!"
I could see two men were poking around in the valley below us.
I was stunned. To my absolute shock, I recognized them. I knew both men standing down there. They were from Boulder Community Hospital.
Colleagues of David's.
The taller of the two was wearing a blue satin L.A. Dodgers baseball jacket, a cap, rimless glasses. He had salt-and-pepper hair and a full beard. The other man was shorter but weighed more, a Humpty-Dumpty in plaid shirtsleeves and baggy khakis.
The taller man was Dr. Michael Vaughan. He was in Neurology. The man with the spare tire was Bobby something. He was head nurse in the Oh-Gym unit. I'd seen him at a party once, entertaining people with photos of babies whose deliveries he'd assisted. His babies, he'd called them.
They were David's friends. We had socialized with them.
Tears welled up in my eyes, and it wasn't from the smoke. It was the sense of betrayal I felt. Maybe they were just volunteers looking for survivors of the fire. It would be a great thing if Dr. Vaughan and Nurse Bobby were a couple of concerned citizens, wouldn't it? All we'd have to do is whistle to them and we'd be heading out of the wilderness toward antibiotics, clean sheets, and warm food.
But a strange, intuitive feeling stopped me from yelling, "Hey, we're over here."
Kit and the children were being very quiet, too.
Then Kit pointed to the left and I saw our salvation: a black Jeep. Our Jeep.
Unfortunately, Vaughan and the male nurse had discovered it, too.
They were trying the doors.
Kit forced a clip into his gun. His face was grim, stretched tight. His concentration was total.
He kept his gun in shooting position. They finally walked away from the Jeep. They were looking for something - us? Their eyes kept scanning the surrounding woods. Thank God, they didn't see us. I threw a deep, audible sigh.
Something bright flashed in my peripheral vision. I jumped back.
What now?
Kit was holding up the car keys.
"Whatever made you lock the car?"
Flashing a grin I hadn't seen in a while, he said, "It's what city kids do."
Chapter 94
WE HOPED AGAINST HOPE that no one was looking for Kit's Jeep.
We hoped they didn't know who he was, or why he was out here in Colorado. Then we worried about the FBI's lack of involvement, and specifically why Kit had been taken off the investigation. We had our plates full with worry.
This was not good. None of it was. We piled into the Jeep and Kit drove fast, almost dangerously, down the narrow, twisty mountain road we'd come on. The kids loved it, urging him to go even faster.
As we rounded a sharp curve over a ravine, I saw a small group of men and women standing by one side of the road. Hikers? They looked harmless enough.
Then I recognized them and my heart nearly stopped. They were from the hospital in Boulder, too. Some of them were wearing headphones with tiny mikes near their mouths.
Three men and a woman - all of them doctors at Boulder Community. Wearing headphones to go hiking? Damn. I didn't think so. I wasn't real big on conspiracy theories, but I had a lot of faith in what I saw with my own two eyes.
"Get down. Please get down!" I told the kids. "Get down below the window."
The suspicious doctors looked up at our speeding Jeep, but the children stayed down, and the docs from Hell didn't seem to notice anything wrong.
"They're from Boulder Community Hospital." I told Kit the latest bad news. "This is getting so damn creepy. I can't stand it. I wish I was being paranoid. He stepped up the speed, and the kids whooped and hollered again.
Even under the circumstances, it was a joyride to them. They were absolutely fearless. Somehow, we made it to the bottom of the mountain in one piece, and as far as we knew, without being spotted.
I remembered that Oz, the twins, and Icarus had never been outside the school before this. It was all brand-new to them. They were on overload, complete overstimulation, maybe even more than me.
"Welcome to Bear Bluff, Colorado," I said. I looked back and tried to make a happy face. "It's actually a pretty nice place to live."
"It's even creepier than the School," Max said in a deep, croaky voice.
She laughed. "Just kidding, Frannie and Kit. It is nice. If you like to eat red meat. You'll love it, guys. Not!"
"I'm really, really scared," Wendy trilled. Her brown eyes were bulging, and she did look petrified now.
"So am I," said Peter.
"Care Bear stare!" Max said to them. Obviously, it was something they shared, a lucky saying, a charm.
"Care Bear stare!" the others chorused. "Care Bear stare! Care Bear stare! " Unfortunately, Max was right about the creepy part.
Now, two army Jeeps were approaching in the opposite direction.
Army Jeeps? Was the army part of this, too? How could that be? Who were they? Everybody but us?
"Down in back," I whispered and the kids ducked again. I ducked down as well.
We passed by the grunting and groaning U.S. army Jeeps without incident.
"Kit, please tell me this can't get any worse," I said as we got on the last stretch toward my place. I needed to stop at the Inn-Patient for medical supplies. I had to treat the lacerations and bruises from our flight down the mountain.
"If you recognize any more hospital personnel, old friends and acquaintances and such, be sure to let me know," he said.
We curled around the last familiar bend approaching the Inn-Patient.
Kit almost stopped - then he sped up. He stepped on the gas hard and the Jeep lurched forward. We barreled right past the Inn-Patient, past my home.
"Kit, stop. We have to stop!" I yelled. "Kit, stop this Jeep! Now!" I repeated.
"Frannie, no! It's not good. We can't stop," he said and kept speeding down the road. The rear of the Jeep was fislitailing badly.
I knew Kit was right, but I couldn't believe what I saw. I thought my heart was finally going to break.
They had burned down my house, my hospital, my everything. They had torched the Inn-Patient. All of my poor animals were inside.
Book Five
WHEN THE WIND BLOWS
Chapter 95
WE STREAKED PAST the Inn-Patient at better than sixty miles an hour.
I felt hollow and sick inside. I knew Kit was right to speed by my place without stopping, but that didn't make it any easier.
Max leaned in close from the backseat. "Oh, Frannie, I'm so sorry. It's all my fault."
"We're sorry, Frannie," the other kids joined in.
In the back of the Jeep, little Pip was in a highly agitated state. Pip was bar
king and whining as we passed our old house, or what was left of it.
Damn Them. Damn Them to hell. Who had done this? Who was responsible?
I wanted to do terrible things to them. I felt I had the right. I'd never felt anything close to this kind of anger and disgust.
James Patterson - When the Wind Blows Page 22