Bitter Waters (34 page)

Max made a face in the rearview mirror. “How do you figure any of that matches Pittsburgh and Du-ae?”

“I think,” Ukiah said slowly, feeling his way, “this is what Goodman and Core might have parted on. Core planned to poison the water and Goodman saw it as a reference to the End Days. Goodman seemed to think the end of the world was coming—that was the whole point of having the farm with its own water source and no dependence on the outside world.” Ukiah then explained the mural. “But Core didn't seem to act like that. He was planning to ransom me
after
the ritual.”

“God save us from idiots,” Max muttered and then frowned. “Oh, shit, the Allegheny Water Authority treatment plant is on the Allegheny, right next to the Waterworks Mall.”

“Should we call the police?” Sam asked.

“We don't have enough to call nine-one-one.” Max passed his phone back to Ukiah. “Call Indigo. She might be able to scramble someone to the treatment plant just on suspicions.”

Indigo's phone rang and rang, frightening Ukiah, until she finally answered, shouting, “Special Agent Zheng.” In the background was the ceaseless roar of a big fire and a siren growing nearer.

“Indigo, it's me, Ukiah. I'm with Max.”

Apparently the siren drowned him out, because she shouted, “Where?”

Somewhere close to Indigo, a man was shouting, “Get behind the barrier. All nonemergency people get behind the barrier!”

Ukiah tried again, louder. “I'm with Max and Sam!”

“What happened here in Butler?”

“The Temple of New Reason knows about the Ontongard, but the cult thinks the Gets are demons.” He struggled to keep the conversation short and precise. “Core has the water death, Kittanning, and the two babies. He thinks by sacrificing the children, he can create a poison that will affect only the Ontongard. He's doing the ritual tonight.”

“Tonight?” she cried, and then waited as an emergency dispatcher blared a garbled report over a fire truck's radio. “Do you know where?”

“We think at the Pittsburgh Water Authority, on the Allegheny. If he gets the Ae to work, he could kill millions of people.”

“Are you sure?” Indigo shouted over the din on her side.

“No. It's a wild hunch, that's all.”

“Well, wild or not, we can't afford not to act on it,” Indigo said. “I'll make it look a little less wild and ram it down throats on this end.”

The fire dispatcher drowned the conversation again.

“Indigo, I left two people tied up in the master bedroom when I escaped: one on the bed and the other in the bathroom. I don't know if the cult freed them before the house went up.”

“What about the two men in the driveway? Do you know who killed them?”

Two men? “No. I didn't go out the front.”

“If I didn't know any better, I would say the Pack had been here.”

He felt his hackles rise. If the Pack had been in Butler, they would have been searching for him and he would in turn sensed them. “Indigo, the cult had Ontongard cut up into rats in the basement. If there were any Gets in the area, they would have zeroed in on the mansion.”

There was silence from Indigo. The sound from the fire changed, as she turned slowly in a circle. Was she studying the crowd watching the fire, wondering if they were Gets?

“Could they smell you on me?” she asked, cupping the phone now, speaking quietly.

“I don't think so. The Ontongard have the same senses, but they don't use them the same way as the Pack. They lack the wolf taint. They seem to hunt by sight alone.”

“Oh, that's comforting,” Sam murmured quietly from the front seat.

“I have to go after Kittanning,” he told Indigo.

“I can take care of myself,” Indigo said. “I'm not alone. Agent Fisher is here; I know she's human.”

“Be careful.”

“You too.”

He hung up, torn. Agent Fisher thought the Ontongard was a run-of-the-mill terrorist group; she had no idea how exotic
a threat she and Indigo faced. “Max, I left Rennie sleeping at my moms'. Did you call there after the police found my bike on the turnpike?”

“They said you went to get gas. I had them wake Rennie up to ask him where you were heading on the turnpike. He didn't know, but he was going to see.”

Which meant he had no way of contacting the Pack quickly.

They were crossing over Highland Park Bridge when he hung up on Indigo. Below them, the Allegheny River was an absence of light. Downriver, barges waited for their turn in the locks to bypass the dam. Upriver, a train crawled across its own bridge. At the end of the bridge, they had swung onto Route 28; the same road Ukiah had rocketed up to save Indigo the night Kittanning was “born.”

Route 28 took them behind the Waterworks Mall. They exited now onto Fox Chapel Road. At the red light, they stopped facing the mile-long water treatment plant.

“That's it?” Sam asked.

“Yes.” Max scanned the other cars in sight. “The question is, where is the cult?”

Ukiah reached out to sense Kittanning's Pack presence. He found him on the edge of his awareness. He leaned forward to point upriver. “Kittanning's that way. He's moving. Hurry.”

The light changed and Max turned left onto Freeport Road and gunned it. The Hummer leapt forward. They chased Kittanning's presence a mile down into the town of Blawnox.

“Wait.” Ukiah pointed toward the river. “We passed him.”

Max took the first right onto Center Street, drove down over the railroad tracks, and down another four blocks before coming to a dead end overlooking the river. Ukiah leapt out as Max stopped the Hummer.

“Ukiah!” Max yelled.

Sam threw open her door and caught hold of Ukiah on his way to the river. “Kid! No! Wait!”

“Kittanning's out there!” Ukiah checked less by the strength of her hold and more by the worry that he'd hurt her, if he wrenched himself free.

A set of stairs led down to a narrow beach with picnic
tables. Ukiah, though, pointed out at the blackness of the river. As Ukiah watched, a boat eclipsed a beacon light on the far shore, proving that something was moving upriver.

“On the other side of the river?” Max came around the front of the Hummer. “Or on the boat?”

“The boat.” Ukiah tried to gently wriggle himself free.

“You can't chase down a speedboat, kid,” Sam said. “Use your head. We have to get ahead of them, not kill ourselves playing catch-up.”

Max, though, was looking downriver, where the treatment plant lay hidden by the curve of the river. “If the water treatment plant is downriver, why are they going upriver?”

“Maybe they already poisoned the water,” Sam said.

“Shit,” Max cursed. “If it's in the water already, we're totally screwed.”

Ukiah closed his eyes and pressed through his connection with Kittanning.

At the bow of the speedboat, Kittanning stood tense in a new plastic dog carrier. He “remembered” the machine riding in the stern of the boat; it was a bad, bad thing. None of the humans seemed to realize that death rode with them, merely waiting for power and instructions to start its killing. Socket stood at the wheel of the boat, watching the dark water ahead intently. The babies slept, unaware, unharmed. Kittanning sensed Ukiah then, becoming aware of the connection “Daddy? Daddy?”

“Hush. Quiet. I'm coming. Stay quiet.”

Kittanning crouched, waiting, trusting.

“No, they haven't set up yet,” Ukiah said.

“Where the hell are they going then?” Sam asked.

“There are islands upriver,” Max said. “They're mostly uninhabited. Isolated. They could set the machine up and it could pour poison into the water unnoticed.”

“How many islands?” Sam asked. “A dozen? Two dozen?”

Ukiah called up the river maps in his perfect memory. “There's five more in Allegheny County: Sycamore, Nine-mile, Twelvemile, Fourteenmile, and Jacks Islands.”

The boat passed a green channel light, rounding the bend to slip out of sight.

“There are marinas all along this shore,” Max said. “Let's get a boat.”

They scrambled back into the Hummer. Rather than trying to work their way through the narrow one-way streets, Max merely drove the Hummer down the railroad tracks until he hit a street running alongside the river.

The first marina they found was the Bell Harbor Yacht Club, with a hundred and thirty boat slips and a place to buy fuel. Luck held, and there was a light on in the small marina office, although the door was locked. A sign on the door stated the office manager was a Bobby Bradley, and that the office had closed at the sane hour of six p.m.

Ukiah pounded on the door, and got a man, presumably Bradley, to open the door.

“We're closed. I'm just trying to get the quarterly taxes done.”

“We need a boat,” Ukiah said. “Do you rent them?”

“Oh, no, we don't rent boats here,” Bradley said. “You'd have to . . . gee, I don't know where you would go to rent a boat at this time of night.”

“We'll buy a boat then.” Max came up behind Ukiah, carrying his briefcase.

Bradley laughed. “All I have here is the
Endeavor,
a forty-foot cruiser for a hundred and fifty thousand.”

“Okay. We'll take it. Does it have gas in its tank?”

“No, no, no.” Bradley waved Max's questions aside. “I don't take personal checks for that amount—especially at this time of night. I'll need a certified check.”

“How about cash?” Max held up his briefcase and lifted the lid. The ransom money still filled the briefcase.

Bradley's eyes widened at the bundles of twenties. “That will work,” he said weakly. “Do you have any experience in river boating?”

“I do,” Sam said. “My dad and I lived on a boat for a year in Portland.”

“Let me get the keys.”

 

There would be more haggling over the boat later, paperwork for the state with registration, licenses, and whatnot.
Bradley tested a random selection of the twenty dollar bills just to verify they were real, and then handed over the keys. He trailed behind them, listing out what they would have to do after their “test run.” They each took two bags of gear from the Hummer, loaded down Bradley with two more, and carried them out onto the wooden deck of the marina.

Ukiah had expected one of the low, sleek speedboats that were common with water-skiers. The
Endeavor
was built on the same sleek lines, but expanded to contain an extremely compact house. Bradley scrambled ahead to turn on lights in the cabin to show off a kitchen, dinette, leather sofa, bathroom complete with shower, and two bedrooms.

“It sleeps four,” Bradley called from inside the cabin, “but you fold this down, then you can squeeze in six.”

Sam laughed at the boat's size, murmuring, “Bennett, I love your style.” And then clambered up to the rooftop steering. “What's the draft on this baby?”

“I think its forty-four, or forty-six, something like that.” Bradley came out of the cabin, leaving all the lights on. “I'd stay in at least ten feet of water, though you could probably squeak through as shallow as four and a half, but you'll be risking damaging your propellers. The shoreline has rocks and whatnot from old bridges and landings.”

Max dropped his bags of gear on the seats of the dinette and started to dig through bags. “Get the lights, kid.”

Ukiah found the various light switches and returned the boat back to darkness except the one over Max.

Up on the bridge, Sam asked, “What kind of engines?” as she switched them on.

“Twin inboards,” Bradley said over the twin purr. “I don't know the exact specs. They're listed. And you've got nearly three hundred gallons of fuel; it's part of the purchase price.”

Ukiah caught Bradley before he could climb up beside Sam. “Thanks. We've got to go. Help me cast off.”

Minutes later, they left the bemused Bradley on the dock as Sam expertly backed out of the boat slip and into the river's current. Clouds thick with the promise of rain blanketed the night sky, cutting off the moonlight and star shine. With nearly a month of drought, the wind brought the smell of dust
and dead leaves as it whipped down off the hills. The river flowed an ink black streaked with the elongated shimmer of shore lights.

Once clear of the docks, Ukiah scrambled up beside Sam. “They're still downriver. The river widens here as it goes around the bend. There are two islands: Sycamore and Nine-mile.”

“Are the channels marked?” Sam asked nervously.

“Yes; there's still heavy barge traffic up here, so everything is well marked.”

Max finished sorting through the gear, and came up to the bridge to hand Sam a pair of night-vision binoculars and laid a loaded shotgun along the windshield. “Kill the running lights.”