The Tesla Gate (21 page)

I nodded my head grimly.

Pace studied my eyes intensely for several moments then shook and patted me on the shoulder.

“Good luck,” he said.

“And to you,” I said. “I'm sorry about your dad.”

He smiled sadly and bowed his head.

“I think this belongs to you,” he said as he retrieved something out of his pocket and offered it to me.

I looked down to see my cell phone resting in his palm.

“Where did you find it?”

He smiled and placed it in my hand.

“It fell out on the ground when I helped you out of the back earlier. I can't believe those two morons left it back there with you. Well, maybe I can. They weren't exactly Einsteins.”

A thought flashed through my mind.
Had Einstein been rounded up?

“Thanks,” I said.

Officer Pace smiled then turned and walked toward his cruiser. A minute later, the engine fired to life and he pulled back onto the road, waved once, and disappeared around the bend in the road, leaving Seth and me to continue our journey.

CHAPTER 23

Haven

“Nibble, nibble, little mouse,
Who is nibbling at my house?

The wind, the wind,
The heavenly child.”

—Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, “Hansel and Gretel”

I guess fate was smiling on us in more ways than one. Seth and I had escaped, relatively unscathed. However, every time I swallowed my opinion wavered. To add to our good fortune, we had driven maybe half a mile when a silver streak erupted from the bushes. I slammed on the brakes hard enough that Seth went through the backseat and landed dazedly between the two front seats. We heard a series of excited barks and the metallic clanging of a rusty iron collar knocking against the passenger door. Seth leapt forward into the passenger seat and threw the door open. A silver streak hopped on his lap and began to excitedly jump about like a canine jumping bean. I couldn't believe my eyes, but there he was: it was Jackson.

“Owww, Jackson! Down, boy!” Seth yelled as his furry companion continued to jump at his face.

I had never heard Seth complain about pain, not since the phenomenon had started anyway. It didn't take long to figure out; the iron collar still around the pooch's neck was slamming against Seth's face, arm, or torso every time the dog jumped. It appeared iron not only can bind Impals, but can hurt them as well. Maybe not permanently, but enough to cause a great deal of discomfort.

I grabbed Jackson by the collar and gently pulled him away from Seth. I soothingly prodded him to calm down and lie between Seth and me on the seat. He complied, though I don't think his tail got the message from the rest of his body. It swung back and forth like a crazed pendulum.

“Easy, boy,” I said as I stroked his frigidly cold head.

Within a few minutes we had the frightened pooch calmed and ready to ride in the back with Seth. I didn't have a super-duper Batman utility belt like Officer Pace, so I had no way of removing Jackson's collar. In the long run, it would prove to be a good thing to have that restriction. He was limited and controllable over where he could go. He needed to keep his head down and stay put … he and Seth both.

Once I had Seth and Jackson secure in the back, I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and plugged it into the car charger. It was low but not completely drained. The sound must have been turned off because it made no noise as it sprung to life, and I noticed I had about 15 missed calls along with a few voicemails. I hadn't heard the phone ring a single time. Oddly, they were all from the same number, which I did not recognize.

I decided it was best to keep moving and get out of the area as soon as possible. The SUV seemed to drive fairly well, except for a faint shimmy. Hamm's expert driving had probably knocked it out of alignment. I felt lucky that was it; if we had to put the vehicle in the shop, or worse yet, get towed, Seth would be discovered for sure. I couldn't continue to count on the good charity of our rescuers. Someone would eventually turn us in.

As we drove, I laid the phone on the console beside me, put it on speaker, and played the voicemails. Little did I know they would change the course of our trip. The first one almost made my jaw drop into my lap.

“Hello … Mr. Pendleton. I was trying to get a hold of you because, well … my good friend Lizzie Chenowith told me to. She told me your situation and said you might need some help. Please call me at 703-555-7798. Thank you. God Bless.”

This was followed immediately by a second message.

“Hello, Mr. Pendleton. I don't think I told you my name before. My name is Mollie Hartje. I called Lizzie back tonight and spoke to her sister. I was so sorry to hear about Lizzie and Shasta, it's terrible, just terrible.” This was followed by a couple of sniffs and a stuttering sob. “Please call me, if nothing else to let me know that you and Seth are okay. Please … 703-555-7798. Call anytime, day or night.”

The third message was much shorter and to the point.

“Please call Mollie at 703-555-7798. Please, I am worried.”

In spite of my desire to get down the road as soon as possible, I pulled over on the shoulder and looked at my phone like it was some strange piece of alien technology.

“Daddy, is Shasta okay?” Seth called from the back.

I jumped guiltily. That's what I get for listening to messages on speaker.

“Yes, buddy. I'm going to call and check on him right now,” I said through gritted teeth. I was not much in the mood for phone conversation, I felt like I had the worst case of tonsillitis ever, but this was a call I had to make. Seth nodded, seemingly satisfied with my answer, and lay back down with Jackson. I picked up the phone and punched the number. I didn't even hear it ring before it was answered.

“Hello, this is Mollie Hartje.”

I let her know upfront of my injury, then struggled and strained to get through the conversation. Thankfully, she did most of the talking. It turns out that she is a medium, as well. Mollie and Lizzie were friends and colleagues for several years in the tiny North Carolina town of Mount McColby. When I-40 was built, Mount McColby went the way of so many other small towns in America that weren't fortunate enough to have an interstate exit: it dried up. The two ladies went their separate ways, with Lizzie of course setting up shop in the interstate town of Jackson, and Mollie relocated to Landover, Maryland, just outside our nation's capital.

“I have had a bunch of high-profile government clients over the years,” she told me with a confidential whisper, as if she were discussing national security matters. “But of course, I can't say who.”

“Of course,” I agreed, that old nasty skepticism rearing its head in my belly again. I should be over that by now, but it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks. Jackson barked playfully in the back as if to confirm the truth of that old saying.

“Lizzie's sister didn't seem too fond of you,” Mollie said.

“I didn't mean for any of it to happen. I thought I was doing the right thing,” I croaked.

“I know you didn't, sugar,” she said. “But all the deceased have to be careful now. You watch over that young one of yours and get up here to my house.”

“Your house?”

“Yes sir, Lizzie told me you were taking your boy to D.C. I can't think of a better place for you to stay and be safe. Also …” she continued with her whisper, like she was divulging top-secret information, “I may be able to help you. I can't say how right now, but you'll see when you get here.”

I thought about it for a few moments. It wasn't like I had reservations waiting on us at some nice hotel; this trip wasn't exactly planned out. Of course, Mollie was right. I had to be careful. I couldn't just march into the local Hilton with Seth and Jackson without a very good chance of being turned in. Besides, if Mollie was half as good a cook as Lizzie, how could I say no?

“Thank you Mrs. Hartje. What is your address?”

“First of all, you should call me Mollie. Can you do that?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“All right then, my address is 24 Salem Road in Landover. How long do you think it will take you to get here?”

“Just a minute,” I said as I grabbed my GPS and entered the address. Just as I had completed the entry I cringed as a vehicle slowly passed. An old man wearing a fedora was behind the wheel of a muddy, ancient station wagon. He peered up at me quizzically. I smiled and waved, indicating everything was okay. He nodded and continued up the road backfiring twice and belching blue smoke.

“Are you there?” I heard Mollie ask.

“Yes,” I said looking at the GPS, “it looks like it will take me about seven hours to get there.”

“Listen sugar, don't follow that GSP machine to the letter,” she said in a secretive tone, inadvertently mixing up the letters in the abbreviation. “You need to come in this way or you might be discovered.” She gave me a more roundabout way to come in from the east. It added about an hour to our arrival time. Mollie reminded me of my mom, she always spoke with gracious Southern sweetness and she never could get an abbreviation or an acronym correct, God rest her soul. I had to assume she was resting, that she had made the choice to move on, because I hadn't seen a sign of either one of my parents at their old home and they were buried just 30 yards from Ann and Seth.

“Looks like about eight hours,” I corrected.

“Great, I'll see you then! Oh, and don't eat anything, I'll have a good dinner waiting on you!”

“Thanks Mollie,” I said and hung up the phone.

Another good home-cooked meal sounded terrific, but the truth is I didn't know if I would be able to swallow it. Having a safe haven right on the doorstep of the very place we had set out for seemed like a miracle. But in a sense, hadn't the last week been a miracle? There was one thing that troubled me far more than my ability to swallow a good meal; it was the prospect of an eight hour drive without being discovered; an eight hour drive right into the heart of where all this nonsense against the Impals had started. Part of me said I was being a good father, the other part said I was being a fool. I don't know, maybe I am both.

I tried to listen to the radio on our trip but I was surprised to find that the 24-hour, wall-to-wall news had been replaced with music and radio dramas. There was an occasional public service announcement about the Impal Safety and Integration Measure. Evidently, Congress had just passed this Act yesterday. The ads consisted of various dead—now Impal—celebrities, like Marilyn Monroe, Johnny Carson, and Clark Gable. They all made identical appeals to the public.

Protect our ancestors, help them find safety, let the government help them integrate. Call 800-555-IMPAL. Help them to find peace and security in their new world.

Each time one of these played, it sent an icy chill up my spine. Not because I was listening to the voices of the deceased. I was used to that. It was because of the frightening contradiction of what they were trying to make people believe and what I knew to be the real truth of the matter. They wanted them out of the way. As to why, I could only speculate. My speculation would be made crystal clear when we arrived at Mollie's.

The trip to Landover was thankfully uneventful. We met two more Army convoys travelling in the opposite direction and another passed us like the one yesterday. I told Seth to get down and keep Jackson down with him. Soldiers peered out the passenger window of a couple of the trucks. Their close scrutiny of our vehicle made my skin crawl. I nodded and waved at the men but the gesture was not returned, they just looked at me stoically before turning away. Thank God for tinted windows.

We arrived at Mollie's home around 5 P.M. It was not what I had anticipated. I had expected a modest dwelling in the suburbs of D.C., but this house was a showcase. The house sat at least 50 yards off of the road. The sweeping green yard was populated by a dozen or so huge, ancient oak trees that were probably pretty good sized when George Washington was in diapers.

As we pulled up the brick driveway leading to the house, the massive trees revealed an 18th Century Colonial-style home. If not for the modern addition of a sunroom on one side of the home and a visible air conditioning unit, I could have imagined myself arriving in a carriage 200 years ago, a beautiful debutant in a silk bustled dress with a lacy bonnet greeting me with a large fan fluttering in front of her face.

The truly strange thing is that there was a woman fitting that description watching us from the massive front porch. She smiled and waved as we pulled to a stop in front of the porch steps. Aside from her outdated wardrobe there was something else unusual about her: she was an Impal. Her silvery sheen was a bizarre complement to her natural beauty and elegant dress.

“Where's the moozem, Daddy?” Seth asked excitedly as he and Jackson peeked curiously over the back seat. I knew he had been seeing a lot of signs the last hour for Washington D.C. Each time we would pass one, his head would pop up like an excited gopher, and then just as quickly pop back down as he remembered why he was in the back. He was cute, but watching the little guy have to forcibly restrain his excitement made me angry.

“We're not there yet, buddy.” I shut off the engine. “Soon, we'll be there soon.”

I stepped out and walked toward the porch. Seth and Jackson half crawled over and crawled through the seats as they made their way to my open door. The woman stepped to the top of the stairs with a big beaming smile. She carried no fan, but she did have a small walkie talkie clutched tightly in her hand. I didn't think this scenario could get any stranger than a Colonial-era Impal woman talking on a walkie talkie, but I was soon to find out that I was incredibly wrong. We were just scratching the surface.

“It's okay,”
she said into the walkie talkie before she spoke to me.

“Mr. Pendleton?” she asked.

“Yes, and this is …” I said turning to Seth and Jackson, but she cut me off.

“This must be Seth,” she said bending down and smiling with a crinkled nose. “And who is this little guy?” she said, pointing at Jackson.

Seth looked up sheepishly as he clung to the back of my leg. He was being uncharacteristically bashful; he got that way sometimes when he was tired.

“Yes, this is Seth Pendleton,” I said patting him on the head. “The cute little guy is Jackson.”

She looked curiously at Jackson.

“I haven't seen many animals like us. There are a few, but …” she trailed off as Jackson cautiously approached her, sniffing at the hem of her dress. “Hello, fella,” she said, bending down to scratch his head. Jackson happily, stretched his neck out to maximize the petable area; he was shameless that way.

“Is Mollie here?” I asked.

“Why, yes, she's been expecting you,” the woman said with a peculiar accent that seemed to be a cross between Southern and British. “By the way,” she said, sliding the walkie talkie into her apron pocket while delicately extending her right hand. “My name is Esther Baldwin.”