Harvesting Ashwood Minnesota 2037 (26 page)

“Whatever fantasy you have in your mind about causing a delay, add that you could be responsible for your husband’s death if I am not able to answer that call.” Peterson’s voice now sounded as rough as loose gravel in a wood box. “Don’t be a fool, woman.”

Behind his words alarms still blared, lights began a rhythmic flashing. If Peterson’s team had not destroyed the building’s security system, Lao knew the tricks needed to gain access. I chose not to believe Peterson’s threat about David. We were in a standoff.

One of Peterson’s men stepped onto my desk, cracked the frame of my family photo, and broke my heart with the snap of that inexpensive twenty-year-old item bought at a discount store as a gift for my mother. I rolled to my side, surprised at the pain in my chest.

“Once I’m out, move her.” Peterson turned, speaking into his communication device, stepped on the remaining visitor chair and then the desk, and jumped over the jagged window edging. The man in camouflage approached, eyes with as much warmth as ball bearings.

Years of practicing karate with Lao were about to be tested as I prepared to kick up with one foot into the man’s groin. I waited for him to reach my side, to bend toward me. I brought my leg up, my foot engaging with its soft target. I prepared to roll away. He grabbed my ankle, held me suspended, dragged me out from under the table. With my energy centered in the core of my body, I twisted. He turned my ankle sharply. For the first time I screamed, not voluntarily.

“Ready to move on your own?” he asked in a nasal-dominated voice out of sync with the combat clothes and overdeveloped body.

“Let go of my foot.” My voice came out hoarse. The sentence ended with a groan. He released and stepped back, this time out of my reach. I slowly managed the downward movement of my leg, knew as I tried aligning my foot that I was injured. As he watched, I sat up. My ankle would not support my weight, so I maneuvered onto my knees and hands. “I can’t get up on my own.”

He extended his forearm, strong as a steel beam and almost as inhuman. “You’re bleeding,” he said, pointing toward my chest with his chin.

“Your captain hit me with a chair.” I made it to my feet, a beaten captive in the place designed to keep me safe. “Who are you people?”

“We’re here to keep the nation safe. Sometimes civilians don’t understand.” He swept a hand toward my head. I flinched, tried to duck. “You have glass in your hair. Stand still.”

Closing my eyes, I let him ruffle my hair, but brought up my arm as his hands moved lower. “I’ll do that myself,” I said. From the reception area a half dozen of Peterson’s people looked into the office. Their faces told me all were not comfortable with the sight of a United States resident, on her own land, experiencing rough treatment. Bits of safety glass fell while I patted myself. As I tried to step forward, everything from my toes to leg throbbed. “Oh, man, I think you broke my ankle.” In my head a buzzy feeling began eating at my balance.

The man with arms of steel picked me up, making a small sound of exertion, somewhat more careful in front of an audience. He carried me to the window, passed me to another uniformed man. “If you put an arm around my neck, you’ll be more comfortable,” my new carrier said politely as if he were transporting an accident victim.

“My chest hurts.” The feeling of last night’s blackout returned. I fought to stay conscious.

“She needs medical evaluation,” he called to his peers.

“Just dump me in the passageway. Be reasonable.” I thought how frightened the children would be when I hobbled into the residence.

“Downstairs.”

How much more frightened they would be when I didn’t return at all.

“Tell me why you’re placing me under arrest. I’m entitled to know that.”

“I’m just following orders, ma’am.”

Each step jarred my chest. My dangling injured ankle banged against my other foot. I waited for Lao or Milan or someone to stop Peterson. When we reached the lower level, he placed me on a chair. Another chair was shoved across the tile for my foot. Paul came out of an office.

“Annie.” His voice rumbled under the alarms. He muscled Peterson’s Special Forces man aside. “Annie, what have they done to you?”

His beloved face provided temporary comfort, a false sense of protection against the man upstairs. “I guess I slowed down Captain Peterson,” I said. “The guy who did this to my ankle told me sometimes civilians don’t understand what has to be done to keep the nation safe.”

“You’re bleeding.”

“Peterson hit me in the chest with a chair leg and I crashed into my oak table.” I didn’t sugarcoat the truth with Paul, knew my father-in-law to be tougher than just about anyone. “I can’t walk on it.” I swallowed a low groan and blew air out my nose.

“Get her medical attention.” Paul bellowed. “The cook is fully trained. Bring Terrell here.”

“He’s not cleared in this perimeter, sir,” my carrier said. “We’ll take care of necessary treatment.” He stepped away. “I need to return to my post.” He left, locking the door to the stairs.

Before his footsteps stopped, I activated my communication band, waited for Lao or someone to answer. Heard only a buzz. For the first time I knew the vulnerability of Ashwood without Lao’s team.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Sarah will arrive soon,” Paul said as we sat alone in the office building basement. “Communications are down, but when I talked with her earlier she promised to be here around seven with decent food.”

A half hour later, if I knew what to do, I would have volunteered to disarm the alarms myself. My foot and ankle showed the start of discoloration. The only cooling pack Paul found in a lab first aid box covered a very small section of the injury. My chest seared each time I took in a deep breath or tried to shift on the chair.

Aware that Peterson’s people could be listening to our conversation, we talked about the day’s happenings with me skirting the prior night’s security breach and the arrivals of Dr. Frances and Hajar. While Paul reported news of the day’s harvest, I forced myself to think beyond my injuries. His serious recital of acres and bushels meant nothing when I wanted to know what was happening in Lao’s office.

Another half hour passed without Sarah. My head hurt, or maybe the pain was spread throughout my body and I chose to focus on the egg forming at the back of my skull. “Paul, I need to lie down,” I said when the discomfort settled into a significant snare drum beat between my head and my toes. “Can you help me move?”

“Join your hands and put them around my neck.” Paul bent toward me, wrapped his arms around my back, and helped me stand. “Let go, but lean on me.” I listened, trusting his strength and wisdom. “No weight on that foot.”

I hobbled next to him to an empty cot Peterson’s people had placed in a darkened office. Easing into its wobbly bedding proved more difficult. Paul helped me settle then left and returned with a book and towel to elevate my foot.

“Sarah’s not coming,” I said. “We’re truly prisoners. Of war, Peterson claimed.”

“He’s dangerous, and that isn’t my amateur opinion.”

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he is holding David and us captive.”

“You could be right.” Paul carefully pushed one hand through my hair, shook his head, his eyebrows drawn close together. “How’s your head? Could be a concussion.”

“I’m kind of worried about that. I feel nauseated, but my vision’s okay.”

“You should try to sleep.”

“I’d rather you brought in a chair and talked with me.”

Paul got down on his knees, a life of physical activity making the action still possible for a man his age. He hauled a folding chair out from under the cot and opened it. Even with the natural thickening of age, he still looked tall and lean, particularly to someone lying on her side on a low surface. “Assholes said they’d have someone down here to look at you over an hour ago. I’ll try the communication system again,” he grumbled.

As he walked out of sight, the room seemed to shrink. I wondered if Peterson would hesitate to kill two civilians while commanding his self-made war. I had experienced starvation, assault, loss, but never had I been a prisoner. In Peterson’s cat-and-mouse games, Paul and I were small animals running in a stainless steel cage. I pressed my wristband and bit my lip to hold back tears as the screen remained dark.

“Don’t think too much,” Paul said as he walked back into the room. “They’re blocking our systems. The one advantage we have is that everyone in the residence knows exactly where we are.” He didn’t sit down, instead folded up the chair.

“I’m going to move the other cot in here for the night if you don’t mind. Sarah and I tried to sleep that way last night.” He left again, the light dimming even more.

In the near dark, Paul returned. He dropped blankets and a pillow near me and set up his cot. The space, designed as a small office, accommodated the two cots with barely enough room to stand.

“Paul, I’m sorry, but before we settle, could you help me get to the bathroom?” Independent to the bone, I floundered to get up without his assistance, but Paul lifted the bedding and had me on my feet as if I were a grandchild. “Thanks, I’m sorry about all of this.”

“Nothing to be sorry about. Best we get moving before the lights go out,” he said close to my ear. “Didn’t David tell me you get spooked by the dark?”

“I’m embarrassed to admit it.” Both feet on the floor, I exhaled. “I may as well tell you that if they shut down the air circulation system, I’ll get claustrophobic, too.” His strong arms steadied me.

“I found this cane in a workstation.” Paul slipped the curved wooden head into my hand. “Lean on me and see if it helps.”

“There was a visiting geologist here last year who had a broken foot. Thank God he left this,” I said as I embraced the satisfying feel of a potential weapon. I left the bathroom door open for light as I awkwardly used the toilet and then washed up. Leaning against a hallway wall, I waited for Paul to have time in the washroom. The lights continued dimming. My new cane displayed bands of illuminating material.

Keeping my action out of sight of monitors while I waited for Paul, I pressed my wristband. An emergency code appeared and then faded. I rapped near the bathroom door with the cane.

“Give me a minute,” Paul answered. Leaning against the wall, I turned my wrist only enough to see if the code would return. When the code flashed, I felt connected to the outside world. “Do you need to get back in here?” he asked as he emerged.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m jumpy.” He put an arm around my waist and I twisted closer than necessary in order to give him view of my band’s screen.

“Move back, Annie, or I’ll mash your other foot,” Paul growled, but nodded slightly as he directed us back to the room with two cots. “You could turn the lights up, you knuckleheads,” he said to unseen monitors. We moved cautiously past office furniture. Paul picked up a water bottle from one desk.

Settling in the cot’s mesh sling in the dark, bruises stiffening, was even more difficult this time. I swallowed a small yelp while I rolled into the most bearable position. Paul elevated my foot, drew up the blanket. The lights went out. “Let’s put your cane where you can see it.” He turned the light strip upward.

In the blackened space I listened to Paul settle himself, saw the faint shape of my father-in-law’s head on a pillow near mine. Under my blanket I pressed at my communication band, heard nothing. Paul’s hand touched mine as I lifted the blanket, hoping for the tiny brightness of lit letters.

“Sarah has always prayed in the dark. Says she finds peace doing that.” Paul’s hand gently held mine. “Me, I find I can walk the fields behind my closed eyelids and really see what needs to be done in the morning. Without all the visuals and voices, it’s like the soil can show itself.” His calloused fingers made a small dome above my palm. “What are you thinking about, Annie?”

“David.” I worried about the children, about Sarah, about what Peterson might do in the morning, but David held my thoughts. “I wonder where he is, how he is.”

“Let’s hope he’s as comfortable as we are. If he was here, nobody could hold him back from dealing with Peterson.”

“I keep thinking about how much pain he felt when they removed his tracking chip and how easy infection might start in the jungle.” Tears threatened. I swallowed. We were both quiet. “I’m not giving up hope that he will come back. But I know life will go on if he doesn’t return and that’s what scares the hell out of me.”

I heard people speak of entering a zombie-like state when they experienced losing a loved one. I wasn’t that lucky when my first husband passed and have memories of sitting on the floor through long nights, holding his beloved navy sweater as if it could warm my cold arms. I remember feeling like part of my future was thrown into history. When I arrived at Ashwood, I was a person almost without emotion—more of an automaton, not a zombie.

Paul’s voice, soft as the fur on a puppy’s head and thick as spring syrup, whispered across the distance. “How bad is that ankle?”

His question, asked with such emotion, caught me by surprise. “Probably as bad as yours when you slipped off the porch. Not that I wouldn’t appreciate ice and a few aspirin, but this isn’t the absolute worst pain I’ve felt.”