Over Laura’s shoulder she could see Marie and Luis and Mr. Stahlman hurrying their way.
“Where’d they take you?”
“I don’t know! I woke up on some kind of bed and there was this old guy and old woman looking at me. I got scared and left.”
“But you don’t know where you were?”
She shook her head. “Some room. Stone walls, I think. I didn’t see any windows. I just wanted to get outta there, you know?”
“I can imagine.”
Mr. Stahlman arrived first. “Where are the others?”
“I don’t know.” Wait. “Others?”
“They took Annie and Ellis and Iggy too.”
Ruth’s hand shot to her mouth. “Iggy? Oh, no!”
“And Rick too,” Marie said.
“But who are they? What do they want?”
“They want you,” Luis said. “Nadaný.”
“But Rick’s not—”
Laura said, “Rick kept them from grabbing Marie, and they took him instead.”
“They took four nadaný,” Mr. Stahlman said. “Now they’ve got only three. Question is: Where?”
Ruth looked at Marie. “You’re the finder. Don’t you know?”
She shook her head, looking miserable. “I’ve been trying like crazy, but all I can say is they’re somewhere south of here.”
“How far south?”
“I don’t know. I can’t tell. It could be Staten Island or it could be Florida. I don’t know.”
“Then what good are you?” Ruthie shouted.
“Dial it back, Ruthie,” Luis said.
She felt panic swelling within. Would they hurt Iggy because she didn’t have a gift?
“You’ve got to find them! Bring them back!”
“We’re trying,” Laura said, “but they seem to have fallen off the Earth.”
“What about their phones? On TV they can always find people through their phones.”
Mr. Stahlman was shaking his head. “They found a stolen van with your phone, Iggy’s, Ellis’s, Annie’s, and Rick’s in the back. Whoever they are, they’re smart.”
Laura said, “Sounds like they might have done this before.”
“Pros?” Luis said.
Mr. Stahlman nodded. “That’s what I’m thinking.” He turned to Ruth. “Marie said they sprayed Rick with something and tried to spray her. Is that what happened to you?”
“Damn right! I thought they was spray-painting but it wasn’t paint. Went right up my nose. Burned like fire and then my muscles sort of went all gushy.”
“Up the nose,” Laura said, nodding. “Quickest route to the brain.”
Luis said, “You told me once you’ve been someplace you can go back to it, right?”
He wasn’t her favorite person, not by a long shot. Always poking and prodding and never forgetting a thing she said.
“Yeah. I mean, I guess so.”
“Can you go back there—to the room where you woke up?”
“I don’t know.” He couldn’t really want her to go back, could he? “I don’t know where it is.”
“But you don’t have to know exactly where it is, right? You just have to have been there. Isn’t that what you told me?”
“I guess so.”
“Well, then, you can go back and find out where it is.”
“How can I do that? It’s just a room with no windows. It could be anywhere!”
“If you can’t find out, you just jump back to your place upstairs. What’s the problem?”
What’s the problem? he says? No problem for fucking Luis. He ain’t gonna show up all naked and not knowing who’ll be there. And for what? To look at some bare walls? That room could be in Canada for all she knew—for all she’d ever know!
“Let’s not rush into this,” Laura said.
Thank you, Laura!
“We don’t know how much time we have,” Luis said. “They might move them now that Ruthie’s escaped.”
Fuck you, Luis.
Laura laid a comforting hand on her arm. “Right, but let’s think this through. If Ruth is going to go back, we want to make the most of her trip.” She patted Ruth’s arm. “Why don’t you get some rest while we figure this out, okay?”
That sounded great to Ruth.
“Yeah. Yeah, good idea.”
She hurried back up to her place—not to rest, just to get away from everybody looking at her like she was the answer to the problem. But she wasn’t. They’d have to find some other answer.
At the top of the steps she stopped and listened.
She heard Laura say, “You were a little rough on her, don’t you think?”
Luis said, “Not rough enough, apparently.”
“She’s scared half to death.”
“At least she’s free. Think how scared the other three feel right now. Getting any cooperation from Ruthie’s always been like pulling teeth. But it’s not about her now. Her friends are in trouble and it’s time for her to step up and help out.”
Fuck you, Luis, she thought, sobbing as she hurried to her place. Fuck you!
3
LANGE-TÜR BUNKER
“Wake up, Mister Reise,” Greve said. “Rise and shine.”
Maureen watched Greve out of the corner of her eye as she labeled her samples. Initially he’d seemed taken aback by the teleporter’s escape, but now he appeared unfazed.
Maureen felt … was there such a word as “fazed”? If so, she was fazed. Quite fazed. Teleportation … it broke all the rules. And yet she’d witnessed it.
Okay. Focus on the here and now. You’re in room sixteen, administering the antidote to counter the neuro blocker that’s paralyzing the … telekinetic.
Jesus.
She swallowed. “You don’t think Ruth poses a threat?”
“The teleporter?” Greve shook his head. “I don’t see how. She can’t tell anyone where we are because she doesn’t know. She certainly can’t lead them here. So I’m not worried. She was a long shot anyway.”
“How do you mean?”
“How were we going to test her? Even if the collar did work, we couldn’t test her while it was operating. And as soon as we turned it off …”
“She’d be gone.”
“Exactly. But we both witnessed her disappearance, which means it’s a genuine talent. And that means there’s probably more like her among the melis kids. All we have to do is find another one—one who’s willing to cooperate.”
“Do you think she’ll be back? According to Montero’s notes she can jump to any place she’s already been.”
Greve offered his pseudo-smile. “Did you see that look on her face? She’s probably home hiding under her bed.”
Ellis Reise stirred and opened his eyes. A yellowing bruise marred his left cheek. She wondered how he’d got it.
Greve positioned his tablet before him and said, “Hello, Mister Reise. Welcome to your new home.”
Ellis sat up and looked around the room, then directly at them.
“Who the fuck are you?”
Greve made a tsking noise. “Such language. You are now a guest of the United States government and we—that is, the good doctor here and I—are in charge of delineating your telekinetic abilities.”
“You had me knocked out and brought here? Fuck that!”
“We expect you to cooperate, Mister Reise. It will make things easier all around.”
“Cooperate? I’ll show you cooperate.”
Maureen felt an instant of pressure on her throat before the collar did its BZZZZT! thing. The pressure released as Ellis jumped with the shock.
“What the fuck?”
“Language, Mister Reise. Please.”
Again the brief pressure on her throat before the collar shocked him.
“Get this offa me!” he shouted and started tugging at the collar, which only caused it to shock him again.
He stopped struggling and glared at them.
“Let me explain how this is going to work,�
�� Greve said. “You are now an asset of the United States Department of Defense. You have been drafted, so to speak. This is your boot camp. Cooperate with us and you’ll receive an honorable discharge. Refuse to cooperate and you succeed only in prolonging your time here.”
Ellis lunged off the gurney and came at them with outstretched arms, his fingers curled into claws. Greve appeared to have been expecting that. He tapped the tablet and the collar buzzed.
Ellis’s charge faltered, then he lunged again. This time the BZZZZT! was louder. His knees buckled but he didn’t fall.
“God damn you!” he gasped.
“I can up the voltage to Taser levels if you wish, Mister Reise.”
“Do your fucking worst!” he screamed and lunged again.
The shock this time drove him to his knees and then to the floor where he lay twitching and howling in frustration. Maureen felt her stomach churn as she spied blisters under the collar.
“Are you familiar with the phrase ‘Resistance is futile,’ Mister Reise?” Greve said in that infuriatingly bland tone. “Well, it applies here. You are in a bunker fifty feet below Fort Knox Army Base. Yes, the same Fort Knox where the country’s gold reserves are stored. You’re not leaving until we say so. But we don’t need an adversarial relationship. Mister Stahlman was offering you a weekly stipend equivalent to one hundred thousand a year. We will double that.”
Ellis groaned. “Chump change compared to what I can take from the casinos on a single night.”
“Not after we circulate your name, face, vital statistics, and particulars of your unique ability to every gaming company in the world.”
This earned a baleful glare from Ellis but no further verbal response.
“Give that careful thought as we leave you to contemplate your options. Good day, sir.”
When they reached the hallway, Maureen said, “Was all that really necessary?”
Greve locked Ellis’s door and turned to her. “It’s called establishing the pecking order. Doctor Montero’s notes indicate that he believes Reise suffers from a personality disorder. And after that display in there, I tend to agree.”
He’s defiant, she’d give him that. And certainly violent.
“Did you feel a pressure on your throat?”
Greve nodded. “Trying to choke us, I imagine. Be thankful for those shocks. I also felt my tablet try to jump from my hands.”
“Iggy next?” Maureen said.
“Our ungifted nadaný?” Greve sighed. “I suppose so. I’ve been debating whether to keep her sedated along with Hayden, and dump them both in a field somewhere.”
“Marie Novotna says she’s a nadaný and Montero’s notes say she’s got low-level zeta waves running twenty-four/seven. That’s got to mean something.”
“Montero couldn’t find anything.”
“Maybe we’ll have better luck.”
“All right,” Greve said. “Let’s get it over with.”
4
QUEENS
“I’ve got an idea,” Laura said.
She and Montero were sitting in Stahlman’s office. Marie had retired to one of the second-floor efficiencies. Stahlman had convinced her to stay in the warehouse overnight. She’d been feeling beat and so she’d said her good-nights.
Laura had called Steven’s place earlier to check on Marissa. He’d taken her out to dinner and the new Pixar movie and they’d had a great time. Her ex doted on his daughter and worked hard to nurture their relationship.
If only he’d been that devoted to ours …
“We’re all ears,” Stahlman said from his usual spot behind the desk.
“Remember the tracker you had Cyrus make disappear?”
Only three days ago but it seemed like forever.
Stahlman was nodding. “Sure.”
“Why don’t we give one to Ruthie and let her take it back to wherever they had her? It’ll tell us where she ends up and that’s where the others will be.”
“First off,” Montero said, “there’s the matter of sending her back into the lion’s den. Do we want to do that? Should we do that?”
Laura held up a hand. “Is this the same guy who said it’s not about her now and she needs to step up for her friends?”
“Guilty,” Luis said with a sheepish look. “But I’m thinking she’s just a kid and we shouldn’t browbeat her into it.”
And I’m thinking Rick’s with them and where did they take him, dammit?
Yeah, he was tough and resourceful, but Laura didn’t share Stahlman’s blithe Trojan horse assessment. He’d been gassed unconscious, which meant he was totally defenseless. The abductors were obviously after nadaný, which meant Rick was of no use to them. Best case: They’d toss him back unharmed, like an inedible fish snagged in the net. Worst case: They’d consider him a liability and make sure he never interfered again. The latter possibility made her sick.
Shouldn’t browbeat Ruthie? I’ll browbeat the hell out of her.
She shook her head. Listen to me. I never thought I could be like this. But I am. Right now I sure as hell am. And no apologies. To anyone.
“She can hop to a safe spot any time just by wishing it,” she said. “You said ‘first off.’ What’s second?”
“Her inability to take anything along with her—even makeup.”
“Oh, right.” Laura remembered the cloud of blush Ruth had left behind during her demonstration. “Maybe she could swallow it?”
“Even if that worked, those trackers have limits. She could have been taken anywhere. She hasn’t been exactly cooperative in the testing, you know, and because of that we haven’t been able to determine the extent of her ability. So far she doesn’t seem to have a distance limit. She could have been loaded on a plane and delivered someplace a thousand miles away. A tracker small enough to swallow would have a very limited range.”
“Okay,” Laura said through a sigh. “Scratch that idea.”
Kevin stuck his head in the doorway. “As suspected, we were hacked. I found how they got in and sealed it off, but we have to figure they’ve already taken everything they wanted.”
“Too little, too late,” Stahlman said.
Seeing Kevin reminded Laura of her visit to the Bronx earlier, and Fabricia Alvarado’s repurposed ampoule box.
“How are you with photo enhancement, Kevin?” she said, pulling out her phone.
He shrugged. “I know my way around Photoshop but I’m no way an expert.”
She found her photo of the ampoule box on her phone and showed him. “I need to make that label legible. What do you think?”
He started tapping on the screen. “Lemme email it to myself and see.”
She followed him to his computer station and watched as he opened the photo on his widescreen monitor. As before, she had no problem reading the logo.
Complete Organic
Multivitamin Injection
He clicked here and there, slid brightness and contrast gauges back and forth, and slowly, surely, she began to make out the smaller letters.
The vitamins listed were the standard B-complex components with hefty doses of folate that were standard with prenatal preparations. But she was more interested in the address.
3919 S Capitol St SE
Ste 103-#164
Washington, D.C. 20032
“D.C.?” she said. “Not exactly a manufacturing hub.”
“Sounds like a mail drop,” Kevin said. “Let me stick that into my map program.”
A map popped up on the screen with a marker on Capitol Street.
“Anacostia,” Kevin said. He shifted to street view and they found themselves looking at a UPS Store in a strip mall that had seen better days. “Told you. Mail drop.”
Laura made a note to call the place, but first …
“Can you go back to the street map?”
“Sure.”
From overhead she could see a large area behind the strip mall labeled Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling. She tapped it on the screen.
“What’s that? An Army base?”
“ ‘Joint Base’ usually means more than one service involved. Easy enough to find out.”
He typed and clicked and eventually a list filled the screen.
“Wow. Everybody’s here: Marines, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, National Guard, DIA—”
“What’s DIA?”
“Defense Intelligence Agency. Sort of like the Pentagon’s CIA. Says they’re headquartered there in Anacostia.”
Pentagon … Rick had mentioned Pentagon black funding for something called Operation Synapse. And now, according to the label, the vitamin injection Jacobi had insisted on using was connected to a mail drop right next door to the headquarters of the Pentagon’s CIA.
“Let me see that label again.” Something about it …
Complete Organic
Multivitamin Injection
Complete Organic … she’d have to learn if they were still in business or, like Emily Jacobi, if they’d ever existed at all. She’d—
“Holy crap!”
“What?” Kevin said.
“Look at that logo. What’s it look like to you?”
He shrugged. “I dunno. A stylized C around a spoon.”
“Yeah, maybe. But …”
“But what? What’s it look like to you?”
“A synapse. A goddamn synapse.”
“Really?”
Yeah, really. Staring her right in the face. Here was the connection: According to Sela’s gift, Maximilian Osterhagen was somehow crucial to the nadaný. Rick’s contact had connected Osterhagen to something called Operation Synapse. If Laura was right about this label, Operation Synapse was connected to the injections administered to the mothers of the nadaný.
Tenuous … very tenuous …
But then add to that how Operation Synapse was connected to the Pentagon, and the mail drop for Dr. Jacobi’s vitamin injections was a stone’s throw from the Defense Intelligence Agency’s HQ. And then what had Hari said?
Emily Jacobi wasn’t fashioned by amateurs. The clandestine services are experts at fashioning legends with this level of sophistication. It’s the kind of thing they do really well.
Clandestine services like CIA and KGB, Rick had said.
The Void Protocol Page 17