The Immortalists (13 page)

The intensity of the rain had been increasing for the last hour, and now the wipers were creating waves that crashed spectacularly across the Ford Explorer’s windshield. Burt Seeger was huddled over the wheel, concentrating on the road in the glare of the headlights while Richard twisted around to look in the backseat.

Carly glanced up from the DVD she and Susie were watching, flashing him a weak smile. The storm, with its hazy bursts of lightning and their deafening aftermath, was right out of a bad horror flick. But, in a way, it was also vaguely comforting. God himself couldn’t track them in this.

“How are we doing on time?” Seeger asked, and Richard faced forward again, checking the GPS stuck to the dash.

“We’re about fifteen minutes behind schedule.”

“Maybe we should have toned down all this clandestine garbage and met at a diner somewhere. We’ll be lucky if the road we’re looking for isn’t at the bottom of a lake.”

They were on their way to meet Seeger’s FBI friend in a sparsely populated section of eastern Kentucky, and despite the fact that they had another hour of driving, Richard could already feel the adrenaline leaking into his body. Would the agent have learned anything useful? Would he believe their story and agree to help them? Would he be waiting with a set of handcuffs and an arrest warrant? Or, based on their experience so far, a silenced pistol and a shovel?

Seeger’s phone started to ring, and Richard grabbed it to check the incoming number. “It’s him.”

“Put it on speaker.”

He did, adjusting the volume so they could hear over the rain pounding the vehicle.

“Larry?” Seeger said. “We’re running a little—”

“Hey, Burt!” he interrupted. “I hate to call you at the eleventh hour like this, but something came up at work, and I’m stuck here. There’s no way I’m going to be able to make dinner tonight.”

Seeger’s face went slack. “I’m sorry to hear that, buddy. I was looking forward to catching up.”

“Me too. Getting your call brought back a lot of memories. Remember that Nurestan operation? Man, it’s hard to believe I was ever that young.”

“I know exactly what you mean. I hope the thing at work isn’t serious—that everything’s all right.”

“Everything’s fine. Nothing to worry about. Next time you come through Louisville, give me a call. We’ll make it work.”

“You got it, Larry. Take it easy.” He reached up and shut off the phone before making a U-turn in the middle of the road and heading back the way they’d come.

“What the hell was that all about?” Richard demanded. “Dinner? We—”

“Daddy?” Susie said from the back. “Does this mean we’re not—”

He spun violently in his chair. “The adults are talking!”

Her lack of eyebrows had a way of highlighting the emotions playing across her face, and he cursed himself for the hurt he saw there. Cramming her frail body into a car seat for hours on end caused her a great deal of physical pain, and keeping her up to all hours of the night created unnecessary stress on her weak heart. Topping that off by screaming at her like a madman wasn’t helpful.

Carly immediately laid an arm around her bony shoulders. “It’s all right, honey. Why don’t we turn off the DVD for a while, and you can take a little nap? I’ll wake you up when we see a place we can get some ice cream, okay?”

Richard turned around again, pushing back the guilt he felt. It was something he’d have to deal with later. “What just happened, Burt?”

The old soldier seemed reluctant to answer, instead continuing to concentrate on the road.

“Burt?”

“The Nurestan operation was something Larry and I were involved in that went south in a very big way.”

“Then that’s what he was trying to tell you? That he looked into this thing and it’s as bad as we thought?”

Seeger shook his head. “When it all hit the fan, we called for an extraction, and they told us that it was too hot—that there was no way they could get to us. What Larry was telling us is that we’re on our own.”

Richard leaned back in the seat and stared up at the water washing across the moonroof. “He obviously didn’t feel comfortable talking freely. Maybe they know about him. About you.”

“He was just being cautious. He said everything was all right, and if Larry says he’s secure, he’s secure. The FBI, though, apparently isn’t.”

“This is crazy,” Carly said, leaning up through the seats. “If they can get to the FBI, what chance do we have?”

“As long as you’re breathing, there’s always a chance,” Seeger said. “I’ve faced some pretty long odds in my life, and I’m still here.”

“This long?” she said.

He didn’t answer.

Richard suddenly felt like something was pressing down on his chest, trying to suffocate him. He refused to give in, though. He had a family to think about. It was his responsibility to protect them.

“We have two leads,” he said, his voice providing a surprisingly realistic facsimile of confidence. “Chris and Argentina. The way I see it, Argentina is the less risky of the two to go after.”

“You’re saying we should go to South America?” Carly said. “We’d have to show our passports and buy plane tickets.”

“Yeah,” Seeger agreed. “But the truth is that the wheels of the airlines and the government don’t turn all that fast. Even if they’ve got ears there, they still have to deal with the bureaucracy. If you buy tickets at the counter right before the flight and get a nonstop, you might be faster than their network.”

“Might be?” Carly said.

He shrugged and eased around a submerged section of road. “Under the circumstances, I think that’s the best you can hope for.”

Carly eased the struggling car to a stop at a T in the empty road and turned off the engine to let it cool. Outside the open windows, green farmland rolled out in every direction, interrupted only by the occasional stand of leafy trees. The sky was an unbroken blue that promised another day of temperatures over ninety.

“Which way?” she asked.

Richard concentrated on the hand-drawn map in his lap, trying to decipher the directions scrawled in Spanish at the bottom.

They’d arrived in Argentina three days before, buying a flashy but mechanically disastrous BMW on the cheap and setting out for the airport where August Mason had landed. Since then, they’d been posing as wealthy Americans looking for an estate that fit the criteria they’d developed: secure, private, and with a house or outbuildings large enough to contain a lab. They told the local real estate agents that the property didn’t have to be for sale—that money was no object, and they’d offer whatever was necessary for the right opportunity.

It had been a futile exercise in old wineries and estancias until that morning when they heard about a three-thousand-acre property situated more than fifty miles from the nearest town. Foreign contractors had built it, and a corporation chartered in Poland owned it, but beyond that, no one knew anything about it.

“Actually, I think this is it,” Richard said, finally. “The other side of this crossroad is the northern edge of the property.”

Carly started the engine again and drove until she found a pullout surrounded by bushes large enough to make the car invisible from the road.

“I don’t see a fence,” she said as they stepped out into the dust.

Richard jumped into an empty wash and started to climb the steep bank on the other side. “There’s no rule that says you have to put fences on your property line. If I was trying to keep a low profile, I’d hide it in the trees.”

“Where are you going?”

“To see if I’m right about the fence. And if I am, to climb over it. Stay with the car. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Instead, she jumped in after him, clambering up the bank with enough irritation to catch him before he cleared the lip. “No way. You’re the one who should be staying with the car.”

“Carly…”

“We’ve been through this fifty times, Richard. Even without the beard, people will recognize you a mile away. I can play the lost tourist and get away with it.”

He opened his mouth to protest, but she broke into a run on the open ground, forcing him to chase.

“Slow down!” he said, coming up behind her, but she just put her head down and ran harder. He was forced to slow when she penetrated the tree line, his bulk making him less efficient at dodging through the tight branches and fallen logs.

When he finally caught up, she was bent at the waist, gulping air with a wide grin on her face.

“You’re not as fast as you used to be,” she gasped and then thumbed behind her at a tall wire barrier painted green, “but you were right about the fence.”

He was going to yell at her for being so careless, but instead, he pulled her to him and kissed her. She backed up against the fence, hooking one of her legs behind his, rubbing up and down his calf. When they were finally forced to come up for air, he brushed the hair from her face. “I can’t imagine my life without you, Carly. I don’t know what I’d do if you weren’t with me.”

“Don’t worry. It wasn’t just luck that we found each other. And I believe that whatever it was that brought us together will keep us that way.”

He wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry at that. For some reason, he’d never told her about the elaborate system he’d developed to meet her. That what brought them together wasn’t fate so much as a carefully designed computer algorithm and a filing cabinet full of bogus grocery lists.

He gave her one last peck on the lips and then started pulling his shirt over his head.

“Richard? What are you doing?”

“Barbed wire,” he said, throwing her the sweaty shirt and pointing to the top of the fence. “Fold that up and put it over the top. You’ll need about five layers with that kind of fabric.”

“The voice of experience?”

“Let’s just say I climbed a fence or two when I was a kid.”

She tossed the shirt over her shoulder and started climbing.

“Now, be careful. Those things can poke through and—”

“Relax, already. I used to be a rock climber, remember?”

“It was a weekend corporate retreat, Carly. And it was six years ago.”

When she got to the top, she held on with one hand and used the other to wind the shirt around the wire. It gave her just enough space to throw a leg over, and she eased across it before working her way down the other side.

When she got to the bottom, she put a palm against the links. He did the same, pressing his damp hand into hers and chewing his lower lip.

“Impressed?” she said.

“Maybe this is a bad idea. Maybe…”

She shook her head. “Our other choice is to stand around and wait for these people to find us. And to find Susie. Don’t worry— what are the chances that this is anything but some rich Polish guy’s bachelor pad?”

He looked at his watch. “Don’t screw around, OK, Carly? You’re probably right, but if this
is
the place they’re keeping Mason, they’re going to have security. We’re just trying to see if there could be a lab on the property. So get the lay of the land and be back here in no more than forty-five minutes.”

“Quit being such an old lady,” she said, poking playfully at his hand. “I’m going to be fine.”

When Carly looked back, the trees had swallowed up the fence, her husband, and everything else.

This all seemed like some kind of drug-induced nightmare. How could any of it be real? How could they have gone from the routine desperation their lives had become to being hunted and officially dead? To slinking across international borders a thousand miles from their daughter and climbing barbed wire fences?

Strangely, though, those weren’t the things causing her hands to shake and her heart to pound.

Over the last eight years, she’d had no choice but to wrap herself in her own helplessness, to accept what the world had given her. What it had done to her. But now she could feel a little bit of what Richard had been living with for so long—the crush of responsibility, the gravity of hope. The belief, no matter how small, that she actually could
do
something for their daughter. And with that, the paralyzing fear that she could fail.

The trees around her thinned as she came to the edge of a pond full of flamingos. The angle of the sun had turned the water into a mirror that reflected their pink feathers, and she watched them as she skirted the water, trying her best to stay in the shadows.

It took another ten minutes to reach the small dock on the far shore, and she followed a trail up a gradual slope, hoping that it would lead her to the house. Everything was so still and beautiful, it was hard to stay vigilant. To believe there was anything here that could hurt her.

When she crested the rise, she raised a hand to shade her eyes from the sun and then stopped short when she saw the man sitting motionless at the edge of the trail. He was no more than fifteen feet away, and she felt a burst of adrenaline when she realized that she hadn’t thought about what she would do if this happened. Should she say something? In English? In Spanish? Should she just run?

He looked to be in his early forties despite longish hair that was completely silver. His eyes were red rimmed and stood out against unnaturally pale skin, suggesting illness or exhaustion or both. Despite all this, there was something familiar about him— the intensity of his stare, the nose that was a little too long and straight for his face. When he raised a hand to point at her, she saw that each of his fingers was tipped in gauze.

“Who are you?” he said in English. “What are you doing here?”

Her breath caught at the sound of his voice, and she couldn’t seem to get it started again. He began lurching toward her, and she wanted to run but found herself transfixed by his face as it gained detail.

“This is private property!” he said, wincing as his damaged fingers closed around her arm.

“I…” she stammered, “I didn’t know.”

“How did you get in here? Tell me!”

She blinked hard and gave her head a violent shake, clearing her mind enough to jerk her arm from his feeble grip.

“Stop!” he shouted when she began to run. The crunch of his footfalls started on the trail behind her, but when she finally dared to glance back, he was on one knee, fumbling with a phone.

She slowed and finally stopped, once again mesmerized by the man, but not so much so that she forgot the digital camera in her pocket. He was intent enough on dialing that he didn’t look up until she was centering his image in the viewfinder. The shutter closed just as he was throwing an arm up in front of his face.

“Richard!” Carly shouted as she burst from the trees and saw him pacing along the fence line.

He took a startled step backward when she slammed into the chain link and began climbing. “What? What the hell happened?”

“Run!”

“I’m not going to just leave—”

“Get the car started, damnit!
Go!
”

He hesitated for a moment, but by the time she made it to the barbed wire, he had disappeared into the forest.

Her climb was less graceful this time, and she caught her leg on a barb before falling over the top. Already on the verge of throwing up from exertion, she didn’t look down at her leg, instead clamping a hand over the gash and hobbling toward the open field they’d come across on their way in.

Richard was nearly to the ditch at the edge of the road when she heard the roar of an engine. In her peripheral vision, she saw an open Jeep with two men in it barreling across the field toward her. Letting go of her wound, she began to sprint, the burning in her lungs quickly overpowering the pain in her leg.

The Jeep was coming fast, but she stayed on course toward the pullout where they’d left the car. They wouldn’t catch her. Not now. She wouldn’t let them.

The sound of the motor spiked as the driver downshifted and skidded around the ruts and boulders she was stumbling through. Dust and gravel billowed over her, and she shot a glance backward, seeing that the Jeep’s bumper was only a few feet behind. They were going to run her down.

And then she was falling—tumbling into the ditch just before the Jeep sailed over her head and slammed into the far bank.

She lay there dazed, staring up at the bottom of the vehicle that was now suspended directly above her. Fuel was draining from the tank in a thick gush, forming a stream that was making its way toward her and filling her nostrils with its stench. She tried to get to her feet but collapsed, waiting for the inevitable spark and the explosion that would engulf her.

Instead, a pair of hands grabbed her under the arms and began pulling her away. She flailed weakly against them, trying to escape.

“Carly! It’s me! Stop fighting.”

She relaxed at the sound of her husband’s voice, allowing herself to be dragged from the Jeep’s shadow.

Inside the open vehicle, the man who had been in the passenger seat was now lying halfway through the windshield. The skin on his face was shredded, and he’d been nearly cut in half at the waist by the glass. The driver was in better condition, staring groggily at them as he clawed for the gun in his shoulder holster.

Richard released her to climb out of the ditch and then dangled a hand down. She pedaled her feet against the loose dirt as he pulled her up, waiting for the crack of the man’s pistol and the bullet that would not only end her own life but rob Susie of a future that suddenly seemed possible.

She made it over the edge, and Richard kept pulling, dragging her across the rocky soil as she tried to regain her footing. The gun finally sounded, raising a spray of dust from the edge of the ditch, but by then Richard had shoved her into the car and was sliding back across the hood. Once behind the wheel, he slammed the accelerator to the floor and fishtailed out onto the asphalt.

A second shot drowned out the echo of the first, and he pushed her down in her seat as he fought to keep control of the vehicle. Bullets kept coming, but none found their mark, and soon the terrifying ring of them faded into the grinding of the transmission and the wind coming through the open windows.

“Are you all right?” he said. “Carly? Talk to me! Are you hurt?”

“No,” she said, trying to sit straight, but then just crumpling against the door.

“Your leg. Were you shot?”

She shook her head, and he grabbed a sweatshirt from the back, pressing it against her thigh.

“Hang on, OK? We have to turn around and get you to a—”

“No!” she said, grabbing the wheel and holding it steady. “Keep going!”

“But—”

“I’m all right. Just keep going.”

Carly released the wheel and leaned forward, trying to control the wave of nausea washing over her. “Oh my God,” she said quietly. “Oh my God.”