Immortality (35 page)

It was the closest thing to a four-letter word that Sarah had ever heard the woman say. Marge was behind the front desk. She had the phone in her hand and was dialing.

“
That man
is not getting another scrap of food or business from me. In fact, I’m gonna call Sheriff Johnson and tell him what
that man
tried to do.”

“Please don’t,” begged Sarah. “I don’t want anyone else to know what happened.”

Marge scowled at the front door for a moment.

“All right, honey. I don’t want to make you feel any worse. It’s a good thing you had all that police training. No telling what else
that man 
might have tried.”

Marge smirked.

“So you think he hurt his head good on that doorframe?”

“He didn’t come running after me.”

~

The clock on the nightstand read midnight. The room lights were out. Sarah was wide awake and sitting on the edge of her bed. Moonlight poured through the frozen window pane. Ralph was leaning against her side.

“I wish you’d been with me, sweetie.”

Sarah smiled just a little, picturing Ralph biting Hank Swenson in the groin. That man deserved it... deserved worse. He was a rapist. No telling how many women hadn’t been as fortunate as she’d been. Had he tried to force himself on high school girls for a tank of gas?

“That fucker!”

Sarah leaned over Ralph to switch on the bedside lamp. She had an idea. It would be justice. In fifteen minutes, she’d stuffed everything she owned into her backpack except the Beretta. She left the backpack in the closet for a quick getaway when she returned. She checked the Beretta to make sure a shell was not in the chamber, then tucked it into the waistband of her jeans and pulled the sweatshirt over it. She knelt down close to Ralph’s face.

“Mommy will be back in a few minutes,” she whispered. “You be a good boy and don’t make any noise.”

Ralph licked her on the nose. Sarah scratched his head as if ruffling the hair of a little boy. The hallway was lit from the end by a single lamp. She crept down to the kitchen, pausing at the occasional groans of floorboards under her feet.

Sarah put a goodbye note on the table just in case something happened and she didn’t make it back, then borrowed a large screwdriver, wire cutters, and a pair of vice grips from the tool drawer. The spring loaded backdoor creaked as she went out. The noise was far softer than the sound of the wind but still seemed horribly loud to Sarah. The air was freezing outside. Her breath left in puffs of steam.

The alley was unlit. Even so, she was taking no chances and kept to the shadows as much as possible. The Exxon was only six blocks away. The lot was brightly lit. Sarah stood at the edge of the alley concealed behind a dumpster and decided which car she liked best. The vintage 1968 Pontiac Firebird was a shiny olive green with a black racing stripe and custom wheels. She knew the car came standard with an eight-cylinder engine that belonged in a racecar. The car was in perfect condition, not even a spot of rust. The price was marked at fifteen thousand! She decided it was for her.

Sarah hoped her police training was about to pay off again. As a normal part of school, every rookie was taught the methods criminals used in their acts against society. Theft of older model cars was amazingly simple. She clamped the vice grips to the shaft of the screwdriver. This turned the screwdriver into what the police manual called a
forced entry tool
. She ran across the exposed stretch of road and ducked down by the passenger-door. This side of the car offered a greater amount of concealment. Next to her was the Ford that Hank had wanted to trade for who knows what kinds of perverted favors.

“Fucking pig,” mumbled Sarah.

She pushed the flat end of the screwdriver into the Firebird’s door lock. She tried turning it with the added leverage of the vice grips but only succeeded in tearing a round hole in the lock. She silently cursed. She needed to get the flat end in deeper. She looked around for something to use as a hammer. She saw a piece of split firewood chocking the rear wheel of the Ford. The car probably didn’t even have brakes.

She took the wood and used it to pound the flat end of the driver deep into the lock. The noise was loud, but she figured the night was cold enough that everyone would have their windows tightly closed. Forcing the lock this way was a calculated risk. She twisted the screwdriver and was rewarded with the sound of metal scraping and the latch popping open.

Sarah jumped into the car and lay prone on the seat. She began to hot wire the ignition. The principle was very simple, and made simpler because this was an older car with none of the theft deterrents of newer models. The key was mounted low in the dashboard with the wire bundle completely exposed under the dash. She used the cutters to clip the ignition and starter wires and strip off their insulation.

Sarah froze at the sound of a vehicle driving slowly down the road. She didn’t know whether to run or stay. She was too close to getting her car to quit now. Tires on gravel… a police spotlight snapped on and played across the cars in the lot. She wondered if someone had heard her and called in a complaint. She knew she should have run. Now she was trapped. The spotlight winked off accompanied by the sounds of tires on gravel moving off the lot and back onto the street.

Sarah twisted the ignition wires together. The dash warning lights came on. She touched the starter wire to a bare piece of metal on the underside of the dash. There was a small spark. The engine turned over and idled in a low rumble. Sarah popped up in the driver’s seat, put the car in gear and headed for the alleyway. She was grinning like a fool. Crime was easy.

~

Sarah had picked up Ralph and her belongings without incident. She drove until the early morning before she was forced to stop. She pulled off into a rest area somewhere in Pennsylvania after falling asleep behind the wheel twice. The last time had scared her. She’d been off the shoulder and onto the grass before a jounce had awoken her. Ralph had slept through it all. What would a dog do without his human slaves?

The rest stop was empty, but Sarah was no longer taking chances. She got out her Beretta and jacked a cartridge into the chamber. She put the loaded weapon onto the floor within immediate reach, then pulled her coat around her and started to doze. Half asleep, she visited old childhood memories of helping her mom sift flour with a huge metal sifter. There was something innately soothing to her about helping to bake things in a kitchen. Sarah’s lips curled into a dreamy smile as her mind took the final plunge into deeper sleep.

Mark looked up as the jet’s landing gear dropped into position. He was startled and disoriented for a moment, and then surprised with himself, when he realized he’d fallen asleep. He’d never done that before. With no windows for reference, he felt like the jet was swooping down out of the sky. He thought about the e-mail from Karla Hunt. If she was even partially correct, the implications were unthinkable. Where could something like this have come from? He felt a drag on the wings and the pilot correcting to hold the nose up. The plane began jostling and fighting with the air. Whoever was flying this jet was operating it like a stunt-plane. There was a solid bounce followed by a screech of rubber. They touched down without warning and were still moving fast. A powerful shudder worked the fuselage as the thrust was reversed. Something small in the cargo area rattled loose and fell.

“Air Force pilots,” grumbled Mark.

Kathy stood up and stretched. Mark stared at her for a moment remembering all they’d talked about and, more importantly, what they hadn’t talked about. He had mentioned nothing about the e-mail. He picked up his bag and headed toward the forward hatch. Kathy was right behind him.

The entrance to the pilot’s cabin opened. A thirty-something woman dressed in an Air Force flight suit stepped out. She had a small canvas briefcase in one hand and captain’s insignias on her uniform. Her name patch read ‘Capt. N. Carter’. The captain smiled. She was a very attractive woman. Mark stopped walking. He couldn’t think of anything to say. If she’d been a man, he would have said something snide about barnstorming with a jet bigger than half a football field.

“Did you enjoy the flight, Sir?” asked N. Carter.

“Flawless,” said Mark. “In fact I’m thinking about cashing in my frequent flyer miles just so that I can take the return trip.”

“I’ll look forward to it. My name is Nancy Carter. Maybe next time we can find room for you on the flight deck.”

“Thanks for the nice flight,” said Kathy.

Her voice was flat. Mark got the impression his flirting with the pilot annoyed her. He smiled to himself as he walked off the plane.

Mark was surprised that a Lincoln Town Car with government license plates was waiting for them. Apparently Kathy had been expecting it. The driver wore army fatigues and a sidearm. He took their bags and stowed them in the trunk. Mark opened the passenger door. It was unexpectedly heavy and well balanced like a vault door. The inside panel was twice normal thickness and the tinted glass looked like it was three inches thick by itself. Mark looked over at the driver and tapped the side window with his knuckle. It felt like plastic instead of glass.

“Bullet proof,” said the driver. “Same for the entire car.”

Kathy got in and stretched out her legs. Mark sat down next to her. A glass divider separated the front and back seats. Two telephones and a television were built into the front seatback. The leather was buttery soft. Through the tinted glass, he could look out but no one could see in.

“What’s going on?” asked Mark. “Why the VIP treatment?”

“Frequent flyer miles.” said Kathy.

“Very funny… When I told Captain Carter I’d cash in my miles, I was just being friendly.”

“Fine with me.”

“So what are we doing with this car and driver?”

Kathy opened her purse and took out some makeup. There was a fold-down mirror above the passenger door. She began fussing with her eyes. The town car pulled out. Mark noticed the driver had not asked for directions.

“Where are we going?” asked Mark.

“Like my new car?”

“Fabulous, but I prefer the Bentley to the Armored Lincoln.”

“Got any Grey Poupon?” Kathy giggled.

“Ha ha,” said Mark.

“Alright, alright! Our little ride is courtesy of the Department of Defense. The military is now providing all transportation and security for the CDC. The driver is also a bodyguard.”

“Nice perk if you can get it,” said Mark. “Little bit of overkill?”

“There have been death threats. They’re trying to protect us.”

“Or keep track of us,” said Mark. “So what does Department of Defense get out of this?”

“Nothing big… We save the world.”

~

Mark’s eyes popped open from a nightmare. He’d fallen asleep on the couch in his office. The lights were still on. A book on nanotechnology was propped open on his chest; several more were lying open on the floor. His hand felt sore; then he realized it was cut. A broken water glass was on the floor near where his hand had been resting. He sat up groggily remembering the dream. He’d had this dream once before. He could still see the nightmarish scene of bodies floating in the Hudson River. The last and only time he had that nightmare was the day of the New Jersey kill zone; and unlike his normal dreams, many of the details had remained crisp for days afterwards.

A feeling of dread was growing in Mark’s chest as he cleaned his cut palm. A thin stream of blood ran down the sink basin and into the drain. What if the dream was some kind of premonition? No, that’s crazy. The dream was just a dream. His mind was playing tricks on him, but still, what if it was a warning?

Sarah kicked a littered soda can with her sneaker. Smack. The can skittered across two lanes of highway. Both directions were deserted. This stretch of Interstate 81 had been cut into the side of a mountain. The view was spectacular. Off to the right and below as far as she could see was an unending pelt of trees, leftover autumn colors, empty branches, and pines mixed into a blur that reached to the horizon. There was not a town or man-made structure in sight other than the highway.

The day was half over. The backpack felt heavier with every step. It had been hours ago that the Firebird had died. Exactly one car had driven by in all that time. There had to be towns somewhere nearby. Sarah imagined people were barricaded in their homes and pretending that the plague was happening to someone they didn’t know. She had to imagine that’s where all the people were hiding. If she stopped imagining for a second, the quiet of her mind combined with the empty landscape to conjure fears that all life had vanished from the Earth. What made everything worse was a powerful sense of deja vu. She had walked this highway before in a dream.

Miles behind her were the smoking remains of the olive green Firebird. She wondered if it was instant karma that had caused the engine to die in the middle of nowhere. Before it had died, trails of smoke had poured from its tail pipes like the contrails of a jet.

Ralph came bounding after her from the edge of the woods after checking out an enticing smell or some other canine adventure. He was spending a lot of time investigating the trees. Sarah patted her leg. He stuck his muzzle into her hand and then licked her palm. He was excited. Sarah was glad at least one of them was having fun. She was damp with sweat and decidedly in the ‘life sucks’ camp right now.

There was a low humming sound. First Sarah felt it in the ground; then she heard it more clearly. A car was coming on her side of the highway. She stuck out her thumb. She knew it was dangerous to hitchhike, but she couldn’t walk south the entire distance to the Gulf of Mexico. Besides, she had two guns and Ralph and months of police training.

The car came around a bend in the highway. The vehicle was low slung and moving fast, some kind of sports car. She couldn’t tell what make it was from this distance. In less than a minute, a brand new black Porsche was close by and slowing. A pair of adolescents stared at her. Ralph came trotting back from the woods. The driver spotted Ralph and sped away. Great, thought Sarah. What was it with her? How did she keep attracting trouble? It might have been her imagination, but she could have sworn the driver had mouthed something lurid to his buddy before spotting Ralph. She let out a sigh. Maybe walking wasn’t such a bad idea after all? It was great exercise.