As she strode from the teacher’s parking lot to the gymnasium, Margaret Graystone shook her head. She had always been so much more mature than her high school classmates, so how could she be expected to “blend in” now that she was college aged? But Kilmer had insisted on the ploy. The fate of the United States hinged on her getting it right, he said.
She let out a sigh. It seemed she’d been hearing that a lot lately.
She paused in front of the gymnasium, checking her reflection in one of the vertical mesh windows. Styling her hair to better conceal the tiny transceiver in her ear, she stood back. She had dressed down for the occasion: dark jeans, an oxford, white Keds. She’d gone as far as to let Steel’s team sling a backpack over her shoulder, even though she hadn’t worn one of those ridiculous things since elementary school.
With another sigh, she drew the door open and stepped into the gymnasium’s anteroom. Familiar trophies and photos of championship teams stood in a large glass case opposite her, but they evoked no nostalgia. She was over high school, glad to be out in the real world.
“Stop there!”
She appraised the two men in black balaclavas and armored body gear converging on her. They led with assault rifles, but Margaret was fixed on their faces. She locked on one set of pale blue eyes and then the other.
“Speak softly,” she commanded in Russian.
“Who are you?” the first one to reach her asked in a whisper.
“What are you doing here?” whispered the other.
“I’m a student,” Margaret said, shaking her backpack as though it should have been obvious. “I want you to listen to me.”
The men appeared perplexed by this young woman who ordered them in their mother tongue. Their eyes shifted uncertainly. Margaret could almost hear them thinking, Should we know her?
They lowered their weapons and awaited her next command. On either side of the trophy case, doorways led into the gymnasium. Though Margaret’s position didn’t allow her a view through either doorway, she could hear orders being given in harsh Russian accents.
“How many of your comrades are inside?” she whispered.
“Six,” they answered like a pair of automatons.
“All right,” she said. “First, you’re going to activate the safety feature on your rifles and then forget how to deactivate them.”
The men looked at one another and nodded. As they flicked switches on their weapons, Margaret shrugged her backpack off and unzipped its large mouth.
“Smaller arms into the pack.”
The men complied, removing pistols from their belts. They placed those as well as military knives and what looked like stun grenades inside. Margaret gave the pack a gentle shake so that everything settled to the bottom.
“Now,” she said, fixing her gaze on the taller man, “I want you to approach the leader of your unit, calmly, and send him up here. You will tell him that your comrade is having difficulty breathing.” She turned to the other one and said, “Did you hear me? You’re having difficulty breathing.”
Immediately, the man began to wheeze and clutch his chest.
Janis concentrated anew, focusing through the intervals in the processor that inhibited her powers. She couldn’t communicate with her teammates, much less exercise her telekinesis, but she could still perceive the astral plane. The missile launch had been a future event, but how far in the future? Hours? Minutes? Seconds? She couldn’t make that out. But the fact the Soviets had chosen that day to detain them was indication enough.
The launch would be soon.
Janis returned to her body and looked over the students, most of them pale-faced with the unreality of what was happening.
Off to the right, she saw Amy Pavoni, her friend-turned-enemy-turned-ally staring back at her. She was the only student besides her teammates who knew about her abilities, and Janis could read in the lines around her eyes that Amy was worried for her.
Janis winked to tell her they’d be fine—all of them.
If only she felt so optimistic. None of the students had been harmed yet, thank God, but the situation could turn on a dime. She dropped her head to peer down the line of teammates to her right. Tyler’s hung face was scored and his lips blood-smeared from the recent beating. It had been awful to watch—especially in her powerless state—but at least it was over.
Red Band stood at the podium and, apparently satisfied he had control of the situation, was speaking into a satellite phone in a low voice, probably to whomever was directing the operation.
He could kill us all, Janis thought. So why doesn’t he?
She wondered if the Soviets were going to use the threat of their execution to demand the remaining Champions as prisoners. The negotiations alone would freeze everyone, forestalling a response to the nuclear launch.
Janis concentrated beyond the neural scrambler, this time focusing on Director Kilmer. She had already sensed that he’d received her message, that he was formulating a plan. Now she caught glimpses of the plan coming together. It involved Margaret. She was disarming the men in the auditorium.
Those students will be safe, which is great, Janis thought, but we’ll still be powerless to act. The second Steel’s team attempts to storm the auditorium, the mercenaries will open fire on the students.
Unless…
A light went on. Unless there was already someone inside.
Janis took another peek at the last arrival. When their gazes met, Erin’s irises shifted from brown to blue and back.
And there’s our insider, Janis thought, nodding back at Reginald.
He had something up his sleeve—and the fact he was somehow inhibiting his neural scrambler was an encouraging start. Janis focused on her sister now, checking on her progress. The trophy room of the auditorium came into focus. Margaret had six men seated against a wall and was speaking to a seventh. It looked as if she had everything under contr—
Janis’s heart stopped for a full beat before slam-banging back to life.
The plan had gone off track.
Margaret’s biceps were beginning to burn from the weight of the backpack, which was mostly full. The man setting his pistol and grenades inside the held-open pack made disarmed mercenary number seven.
One to go.
She wasn’t aware that the final mercenary had already come to investigate until she heard him speak. She glanced up to find him standing in one of the doorways to the gymnasium, a two-way radio at his mouth. He was shorter than the others, the runt of the pack. From his balaclava, cautious eyes moved from his seated comrades to the man standing in front of Margaret, depositing his small arms into her bulging pack, and then to Margaret herself.
“Something is happening,” he was saying into his radio in Russian.
Margaret let out a frustrated breath. There was always one nuisance case.
“Come here,” she ordered.
But the man was too far away and she couldn’t get him to lock eyes with her.
“There is a young woman here,” the man went on, “and she is treating the men like … like her pet dogs.”
The answering voice through the radio was deep and commanding. “She is one of them. Keep your distance, avoid her eyes, and kill her.”
The man shoved the radio back into his belt and raised his assault rifle.
Margaret stepped to one side such that the mercenary who had completed his weapons handover was between her and Runt. His body armor would shield her. She lowered the backpack to the ground with one hand while pulling a pistol from the top of the cache with the other. By the time she went to take aim, however, Runt had disappeared into the gymnasium.
“Hey!” Margaret shouted in growing annoyance.
The mercenary-turned-bodyguard awaited her next command. Ordering him to kill one of his mercenary mates could easily shock him from her spell. The trick would be in the wording.
“Listen to me,” she said. “We’re going into the gymnasium, but I need you to protect me. That’s an order f
rom General Dementyev.”
The mercenary straightened at mention of his supreme leader.
Margaret turned to the seated mercenaries, who looked back with empty expressions. Getting them involved would only make a mess of things, she decided. “I want the rest of you to take a nap.”
As Margaret prodded her bodyguard forward, she caught the remaining mercenaries shifting onto their sides, resting their heads on folded hands. One man used the butt of his rifle as a pillow. When Margaret reached the doorway to the gymnasium, she was struck by the sheer number of students. The bleachers were filled to capacity as well as several rows of chairs on the court. What made their numbers even more impressive was how quiet they were.
The silence didn’t last long. When the students realized the returning mercenary had someone behind him, voices began to rise and eddy. Margaret’s eyes searched the stirring masses for Runt.
“Stay back!” he shouted in Russian.
He had fled to the far end of the gymnasium and ascended to the middle row of bleachers, still too distant for Margaret to command. His immersion into the student body would make him hard to hit, too.
“Order him down here,” Margaret whispered to her bodyguard.
Her bodyguard complied with a burst of sharp Russian and stern gestures.
“Niet,” the runt answered. “You are not yourself. You are under the witch’s spell.” He searched around, then settled on a scrawny student sitting beside him. He seized the young man by the back of his shirt collar and tugged him to his feet. Margaret could no longer see Runt’s assault rifle, but she imagined its barrel shoved against the student’s back.
This is getting ridiculous, she thought. In the space of a minute, Runt had gone from nuisance to pain in the butt. Remaining at her bodyguard’s back, Margaret marched him forward.
“If you come any closer,” Runt cried, “or if anyone moves, I will finish him!”
Margaret knew a bluff when she heard one. Worried murmurs went up as she continued up the sideline of the basketball court. She calculated that he would be within range of her will-eroding powers by the time she reached the three-point line. Then she would disarm the little man and end this nonsense.
The Asian student being held at gunpoint watched her progress with horrified eyes.
As Margaret stepped past midcourt, the sharp cough of a shot echoed through the gymnasium.
6
Janis listened in on Red Band’s exchange through the two-way radio. The voice on the other end was telling him that a young woman was treating the men like “her pet dogs”—no doubt referring to Margaret and the mercenaries she had disarmed in the gymnasium.
Heart hammering, Janis watched Red Band for his response. His gray eyes appeared more contemplative than concerned. He moved his gaze over to Janis, as though in slow realization.
“She is one of them,” he said into the radio. “Keep your distance, avoid her eyes, and kill her.”
The bolt of terror that shot through Janis must have shown on her face because another smirk curled Red Band’s lips. She needed to send a message to Kilmer, to alert him to the danger her sister was in. But the moment she began punching out the message, the mercenary stationed behind her seized the watch. Seconds later, Janis listened to it being crushed underfoot.
Returning the radio to his belt, Red Band strode past Reginald-as-Erin and Tyler until he was standing over Scott. He pushed the red Soviet band up his swollen bicep, almost to his shoulder.
“I know everything about you,” he said in English. Though he was staring down at Scott, Janis knew the words were intended for her. “Your team, your powers. I even know about your relationships.”
Janis’s shoulders tensed as she sensed what was coming.
“Wouldn’t it be a pity to lose both a sister and a boyfriend in the same afternoon?”
“Don’t,” Janis said.
Red Band removed the pistol from his belt and tapped it against the chest of his body armor. Somehow the gesture of indecision was more worrying to Janis than if he had pressed the barrel to Scott’s forehead.
“I asked only that you listen to me,” he said coldly.
“Give me the radio.” Janis struggled to keep emotion from her voice. “I’ll order her down. She’s just trying to protect the students. You still have the rest of us. We’re still at your mercy.”
“It is too late to correct your disobedience. Now there must be punishment.”
The radio crackled with a Russian word Janis couldn’t translate—a code name, perhaps. Red Band lifted the radio. Scott was spared for the moment, but Janis had the gut-rotting feeling she was about to learn the fate of her sister. Her eyes touched on Tyler, who had lost his brother five months earlier. Would she be joining him and Star in the only-child camp?
When Red Band spoke, his lips seemed to slur in front of the radio: “Go ahead.”
“It’s done,” the voice said amid a background of distressed cries. “She’s dead.”
In a gray fugue, Janis felt as though her own life was leaving her body.
“Very good,” she heard Red Band say. “Rouse the other men and restore order in the gymnasium.”
“Long live the king,” the voice uttered before clicking off.
The oddness of the final response, and the fact it had been spoken in English, only registered dimly for Janis. She was still reeling from her sister’s fate: It’s done. She’s dead.
The sound of the radio hitting the stage floor made her look up. Red Band was staggering from side to side, confusion glossing over his eyes as though he’d gone on a major bender. Janis shifted her gaze to Reginald-as-Erin. The cuffs that should have been embracing his wrists were now clasped in his hands. He had shifted his cells and slipped out.
When Reginald nodded at her, Janis understood.
“Long live the king” had been the signal.
The gunshot froze everyone in the gymnasium, even Margaret. The student in Runt’s grasp stared at her, his face gray with shock. Margaret looked him up and down, expecting to find blood flowering his white shirt at any moment. But it was Runt who was bleeding. From his neck.
The mercenary unballed the back of the student’s collar and collapsed. The student staggered forward, then stopped as though astounded to be standing. Clamors began to fill the gymnasium.
“Everyone remain calm,” a voice called.
Margaret peered over her shoulder to find Steel’s men entering. One of them hung back, lowering a sniper rifle from his face. Agent Dutch appeared beside him and, spotting Margaret, hurried toward her.
“Don’t move,” Margaret ordered the mercenary who had acted as her shield.
“Good work,” Agent Dutch said, his concerned eyes checking over Margaret to assure she hadn’t been hurt. “Are you—?”
“Fine,” Margaret said impatiently. “What about the others? Is Janis okay?”
“They’re still in the auditorium. We sent Reginald in, but we lost communication with him. We need to signal to him that the gymnasium is clear without alerting the hostage-takers.”
“Well, is there a backup plan?” Margaret asked.
Agent Dutch looked at the man under Margaret’s control, then down at the two-way radio in the man’s belt. “There is now.”
At Margaret’s command, the mercenary contacted his leader.
“Long live the king.”
Tyler looked from the radio to Janis’s face. The hectic spots on her cheeks had gone pale. Her eyes stood large and dim. He knew the feeling. For a moment, he was sitting in that no-name field, holding Creed’s lifeless body, possessed by the same emptiness. He wasn’t aware of the radio falling to the stage floor or of Janis’s face returning to life. It was the sensation of the scrambler being yanked from his head that shocked him back to the present.
“Clean up time,” Erin’s voice said.
Tyler concentrated, willing a rush of atmospheric electricity into him. The instant he had realized that Erin wasn’t really Erin, but
Reginald, he figured something was in the works. Now he watched Reginald-as-Erin drive a heel into the gut of the mercenary standing behind him.
Tyler wasted no time shorting the devices on the heads of Janis and Scott.
A second later, the cuffs around his wrists snapped. Janis’s telekinesis was back on line.
Tyler spun as he rose, shooting currents into two of the other mercenaries on stage. Sparks burst from their armor as they were vaulted into the back curtains. They landed loudly against the stage floor and fell still, smoke curling from their black boots.
What you get for cheap-shotting me when I was down, he thought.
Automatic gunfire burst from the floor of the auditorium. Tyler wheeled to find the mercenaries shooting randomly, some toward the students, others toward the stage. Bullets pitted the walls.
Students screamed, hoards of them now scrambling toward the aisles and rear rows. But the same telekinetic force that protected them from the flying bullets also prevented their escape. They piled up against Janis’s invisible shield. Tyler saw Janis moving her hands to shape the unseen energy, her brow tense with the effort of keeping the students from crushing one another.
That left the remaining mercenaries to him.
From the stage, Tyler unleashed a series of cracking bolts. One by one, the men fell in explosions of white sparks. Like shooting fish in a barrel. But though the gunfire ceased, the summoning of lightning by one of their own seemed to have driven the student body into a fuller panic. A grim satisfaction eddied through Tyler as familiar faces looked up at him in fascination and horror.
Not bad for a loser, huh?
Can you control them? he thought toward Janis.
Yeah, what about Red Band?
Tyler wheeled in a circle. The mercenary leader wasn’t on stage anymore.
I lost track of him in the confusion, Scott said from behind them. I think he slipped out back.
Tyler hurried to catch up to Reginald, who, still disguised as Erin, was running toward the corridor behind the stage. A violent blast of wind blew the giant stage curtains horizontally and slammed into them both, knocking Tyler onto his back. A figure sailed overhead. Tyler glimpsed the red band around his upper arm and caught the cries of Russian from his mouth.
XGeneration 7: Dead Hand (XGeneration Series) Page 4