China Lake (41 page)

‘‘You’re aces, Abbie.’’

She tapped the missile. "Put your shoulder under here."

I braced myself under the missile. With a final twist of the screwdriver the Sidewinder came free. Its weight bore down, heavier than I’d expected.

‘‘See?’’ she said. ‘‘It’s fine. Good enough for government work. Now let’s get this pig into your car, so you can put our tax dollars to work.’’

The barn sat on a rise overlooking the bowl of valley to the east. Decrepit and grayed, long abandoned, it rested among hunched boulders and Ponderosa pines. Behind it the Sierras rose like a granite blade, ten thousand feet up into the empty sky. Inside it, the wind whistled and banged against the slats, a one-man band, blowing hot. It was Sunday, October thirtieth. It was showtime.

We’d been there since four a.m., Brian, Marc Dupree, and I. We were ready by ten thirty. We had our Radio Shack anthrax detectors. We had syringes preloaded with saline solution, which cures Radio Shack-variety anthrax. And we had the Sidewinder resting on two sawhorses in the center of the barn, covered with a canvas tarp. The only thing missing was the Remnant.

I paced, catching glimpses of the desert panorama through the slats of the barn. Around me, blowing sand tingled in shafts of sunlight. Brian stretched out on the ground and laid his head on his backpack.

‘‘Ev, sit down and rest. We have three hours.’’

‘‘Right.’’ But I couldn’t settle down. Though I hadn’t slept all night, I was wired, nerves popping.

‘‘There’s no point in running down your reserves. I’ll call Paxton at noon.’’

Marc was squatting against the wall of the barn. ‘‘Listen to your brother. Conserve yourself.’’

Brian closed his eyes and clasped his hands on his chest, as though he were a suburban husband napping in a hammock on a lazy Sunday afternoon. It astonished me. Beyond that, it comforted and frightened me: the warrior’s tranquillity.

The wind gusted through the slats. Despite the heat, I shivered.

And I did sleep. At noon Brian’s voice drew me back through the wool into wakefulness. He was on my cell phone, talking to Paxton.

‘‘. . . off Highway three ninety-five, westward, uphill about five miles,’’ he said. ‘‘No, before the turnoff to Whitney Portal.’’

Sounding relaxed. He listened a moment.

‘‘You don’t have to remind me. I’m keeping my end of the bargain; you keep yours. Now let me speak to Luke.’’

Listening some more, he gave me a sharp look and waved me near. I put my ear to the phone.

I heard Paxton say, ‘‘Hold on,’’ and my heart jumped. But then came a click, static, and the voice on the line was not Luke, but a tape recording.

‘‘Daddy . . . ?’’ Hesitation, a tiny voice. ‘‘Here’s what’s in the paper today. USC twenty-eight, Cal seventeen. UCLA thirty-four, Wash thirty-one.’’

‘‘Son of a bitch,’’ Brian said.

‘‘Or . . . Ore-gon fourteen . . .’’ Luke continued struggling to read out the football scores, but Brian wasn’t listening anymore.

‘‘Let me speak to my son.’’

Paxton came back on. ‘‘The boy’s fine. But we ain’t about to put him on the phone so the navy can triangulate our location and track him down. They trace this call and attack us, they won’t find him. Not now, not ever.’’

Brian’s breathing accelerated. Explaining the facts or the technology to Paxton was pointless. ‘‘Have Luke and Tabitha here. In one hour.’’

Before Paxton could respond, Brian shut off the phone. ‘‘They’re coming. Saddle up.’’

We heard the engines from half a mile away. Marc peered between the slats of the barn and said, ‘‘Two trucks and two motorcycles.’’

Brian walked toward him. ‘‘Can you see Luke or Tabitha?’’

Marc shook his head.

We all looked through the slats, down the tawny slope to the dust plumes rooster-tailing behind the Remnant’s vehicles. The big green Dodge was in the lead, sunlight flashing off its windshield as it ate up the ground.

Marc said, ‘‘I’m going.’’

He planned to take a position in the scrub pine and boulders uphill behind the barn. He opened the backpack and took out two small walkie-talkies. He tossed one to me. They were the same make—cheap, bright blue and orange—Paxton had carried the night they kidnapped Luke. If they used them again, we wanted to monitor transmissions. Marc then took a pistol from the pack. He tucked it in the waistband of his jeans, in the small of his back. Giving Brian a nod, he shoved aside a loose plank and slipped out the back of the barn.

The trucks and cycles bucked along the road, louder. Brian touched my shoulder.

He said, ‘‘Now we bring him home.’’

‘‘All the way.’’

He pushed open the barn door. The dry world poured out beyond him—rocky slope, corn-bread desert, distant mountains the color of blood, bruise, gunpowder, bone. Brian stood silhouetted in the entrance, a singularity, a hole in the light. I waited behind him, about to cross the event horizon.

The walkie-talkie spouted static, two clicks, Marc’s signal that he was in position. I pressed the transmit button once in reply and slipped the walkie-talkie into the pocket of my shorts.

The Remnant’s vehicles rolled up and stopped. For a moment they sat guttering. Then the men on the bikes crept forward. They were young, with clipped hair, grim eyes, muscled arms. They drove slowly around the barn, reconnoitering. Brian stood in the doorway. The trucks growled, heat shimmering off them, smoked windows blazing with sunlight. We couldn’t see past the glare.

The bikes swung back around the barn and signaled thumbs-up. In tandem, the trucks shut off their engines. Doors opened. Isaiah Paxton stepped into the sun, cowboy hat shading his spare face, tanned arms loose at his sides, worn-down boots noiseless as he crossed the ground toward the barn. From the second truck came Curt Smollek. He had a gauze bandage on the end of his nose, and a shaved patch on his scalp, where iodine covered a cluster of scratches.

Paxton stopped outside the barn door. Behind him Smollek chafed and jammed his thumbs under his belt. He looked in the barn and his eyes narrowed. There I was, the woman who had bested him with a ferret. He fondled the bandage on his nose.

He said, ‘‘What’s Miss Doggy-style doing here?’’

Paxton didn’t bother looking at me. ‘‘Delaney? Just supposed to be you.’’

Brian scoffed. ‘‘You can’t transport an air-to-air missile singlehandedly, unless it’s hanging under the wing of an F/A-eighteen. I needed Evan’s help.’’

Smollek hitched up his jeans and hawked a spit wad onto the dirt.

Paxton said, ‘‘She wipe your nose when it runs? No wonder the beast had a cakewalk infiltrating the military. Pilots got to have little sis help ’em tote ordnance. ’’ He took a step. ‘‘Show it to me.’’

Brian nodded toward the green truck. ‘‘Let me see Luke and Tabitha.’’

‘‘The way it works, you do what we say; then you get what we arranged.’’

Brian kept looking at the truck, trying to peer past the smoked glass and the glare. ‘‘Fine. But let me see them.’’

Paxton shifted his stance. ‘‘No. Time you learned you ain’t running this show.’’

Brian’s shoulders drew upward, just the slightest motion, but it tightened his whole posture. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled. I knew: Luke and Tabitha were not in Paxton’s truck. This was a double cross. We were going with the Sidewinder.

Brian said, ‘‘Your way, then. It’s in here.’’

He turned around, confirmation on his face, a look that absolutely chilled me. I stepped back behind the shrouded missile, getting into position.

The walkie-talkie crackled. ‘‘Brian. Heads-up—’’

Paxton was sauntering in. I shut off the walkie-talkie, my heart drumming. Marc had seen something. What? I tried to look around without looking around. Smollek and the bikers scuttled in, kids eager to see what Santa had left under the Christmas tree. The wind cracked through the barn like a horsewhip. Sand flew, flashing and jinking in midair.

Brian grabbed the tarp with both hands and pulled it off. The Remnant’s men gaped at the Sidewinder like it was the Ark of the Covenant, the missing link, ball lightning.

Brian said, ‘‘Delivered as promised, Paxton.’’

Slowly Paxton began circling the missile, surveying it. The bikers stood rooted to the sand. Smollek leaned forward tentatively, as though fearful to approach it, and read the specs printed on the fuselage. Lips moving, whispering.

" ’U.S. Navy. Naval Air Systems Command.’ " Louder, coming to all caps: ‘‘ ‘WARHEAD, GUIDED MISSILE . . .’ ’’

He leaned further, his mouth gradually hinging open. Tentatively he poked a tail fin with his index finger.

I slapped his hand down. ‘‘For God’s sake!’’

He jerked back, hand shriveling against his chest.

Paxton said, ‘‘Open it up. I want to see the works.’’

‘‘Not until you let me see my son and his mother,’’ Brian said. ‘‘It’s time for a quid pro quo.’’

At the Latin, all the Remnant’s heads snapped up in sync. As though words, not rough handling, would detonate the missile’s warhead. Spells. The old name for voice activation.

Paxton sucked his teeth. ‘‘Smollek, persuade him.’’

Outside the barn light and shadow sped across the background like ghosts. But the revolver in Smollek’s fist was not imaginary.

‘‘Show us the germs.’’ He was red-faced, his acne a landscape of nodules capped with the nose gauze. He extended his arm toward Brian’s chest. ‘‘And speak English.’’

‘‘Fine.’’

Stepping up to the Sidewinder, Brian started spinning wing nuts, loosening the ring clamp around the warhead. Smollek’s shoulder quivered.

He said, ‘‘Take it slow, man. You might jostle it, you know, upset things.’’

‘‘I know what I’m doing.’’

He spun the nut one final time. With a whoosh and a hiss, the warhead began spraying a white mist into the air.

Brian stepped back. The CO
₂
and pepper spray hit the Remnant face-on. Hit me too. The pepper spray had been vastly diluted, but in the cold fog its hot hint felt like death. The bikers ran for the door. Smollek started squealing.

I dove for Brian’s backpack. ‘‘The syringe! Where is it?’’

‘‘Front pocket.’’

Paxton was backing away from the missile, looking enraged. The CO
₂
billowed, filling the barn. Smollek’s shrieking intensified. He waved his arms as though fighting off an attacking flock of birds. I ripped open the backpack and grabbed the syringe. Paxton saw me and started around the Sidewinder, but I stabbed the needle into my arm and pressed the plunger.

Brian shouted, ‘‘Too late, Paxton. That was the only dose I had.’’

Paxton’s head swiveled. ‘‘Then you’re doomed, too.’’

‘‘No. I’ve been vaccinated against anthrax. And now so has my sister.’’

Smollek said, ‘‘Anthrax? Anthrax?’’

Brian said, ‘‘Hardened military anthrax. You have one chance here. You want the antidote? You return Luke to me
now
.’’

Paxton blinked and started coughing. The CO
₂
fogged the barn.

Smollek said, ‘‘Ice! Do what he says!’’

Paxton said, ‘‘God damn you to hell, Delaney.’’

‘‘Ice! You tell him, or I will!’’

The fire extinguisher inside the missile reached its bottom. It shut off with a squeak. Smollek jumped, screamed, and fired at the Sidewinder.

I stood transfixed, hearing the revolver pop and metal
ching
as the bullet hit the missile and ricocheted. Smollek fired again and again. I threw myself to the dirt.

Then hell arrived.

Men charged in the door, figures in black solidifying out of the CO
₂
, armed, one yelling, ‘‘Freeze! Down on the ground!’’ Smollek spun, eyes wild, gun chest-high. The voice roared, ‘‘On the ground! Do it! Do it!’’ Smollek’s gun blared, and then answering fire.

It’s an electrifying experience, being in the middle of a gunfight. My senses flung themselves open. My skin seemed to turn inside out. Cordite stank in the air. I pressed my face down in the sand and covered my head with my arms. A second later I felt Brian land on my back, shielding me. The voice shouted, ‘‘Federal agents!’’ Above us came more shots, shouts, a man barking orders, wood splintering. Moaning. I squeezed my eyes shut, nerves on fire, waiting for a bullet to rip into me.

One of the intruders shouted, ‘‘Outside!’’

And I knew what I had seen through the slats of the barn—not shadows, not clouds passing by on a cloudless desert afternoon, but men positioning themselves to raid the barn. That was what Marc had been trying to warn us about over the walkie-talkie.

One of the agents, face covered with a balaclava, approached me. ‘‘Evan, sit up.’’

Startled at hearing my name, I craned my neck to look at him. He pulled off the balaclava. It was Garrett Holt.

People were shouting and running outside the barn, men barking commands, radios crackling, engines gunning. The moaning continued, weaker. The fog was dissipating, but not my confusion. Garrett stood above me and Brian, an automatic in his hand. He looked down and said, ‘‘Don’t move.’’

On the far side of the barn a form lay twisting on the ground. It was Curt Smollek, flat on his back, bleeding heavily.

Brian was facedown, hands laced behind his head. He peered sideways at Smollek, said, ‘‘Shit,’’ and called out, ‘‘Smollek. Luke and Tabitha, where are they?’’

Smollek’s hand groped the sand. He stared at the roof, beyond persuasion.

Garrett snapped, ‘‘Quiet.’’

Brian hissed out a breath, said, ‘‘Fuck.’’ Turned to me. ‘‘You know this guy?’’

I said, ‘‘He’s the pilot I told you about, except he’s no pilot.’’

Garrett grabbed my elbow and hoisted me to my feet. ‘‘Outside.’’ Pointed at Brian. ‘‘You, don’t move.’’

He led me from the barn, holding my elbow as though I were a disobedient child, pulling me past my car, past Smollek’s truck, past a new vehicle, a silver Suburban with a big whip antenna. Government agents were all over the barn and grounds, moving alertly, faces on guard. They wore bulletproof vests, and some had labels on their jackets. FBI. ATF, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. On the ground one of the bikers lay handcuffed. He was shaking his head like a dog tearing at a bone, roaring, ‘‘The Lord revengeth! He reserveth
wrath
for his enemies!’’ My eyes and lungs burned.