Nine-Tenths (25 page)

“Can you check that out in the morning when you go down there?”

She nodded.

“So assuming it goes smoothly, how long do you think it will take to run us all through?” Leonard tapped his pen impatiently on the tablet.

Alina sighed. “Well, we’re not worried about images, so we don’t have to lie still. I could possibly get us all through in an hour. Faster if we just need to be exposed to the magnetic field. How long would it take a magnetic field to disable a transmitter?”

“How long would it take to disable a pacemaker?”

“Some pacemakers survive MRIs. New pacemakers and MRI machines with milder magnetic fields are potentially safe.”

Leonard frowned. “But you said they haven’t done MRIs since the CARS epidemic?”

“Yeah. That’s right. So they must know that the transmitters are not MRI-compatible.”

“Good.” He doodled on the tablet. Small triangles with accents on the corners covered the page. One multi-layered triangle sprouted a heavy-headed arrow. Nothing else appeared on the tablet except the word
noon.
“Let’s not rush it unless we think time is running out. Put Natalia through on the conveyer belt—”

“And no stopping to examine images. Fifteen to twenty minutes.”

“So we’ll say about an hour for all three.”

Alina scowled playfully. “Which is what I already estimated.”

“And then we leave?” Natalia asked hopefully.

“IDs,” Alina exclaimed. “I’ll put ours in the glove compartment—”

“Why not in one of the secret compartments?”

Natalia interrupted. “What secret compartments?”

Alina rattled off a brief description of the automobile’s overhaul and the various supplies already prepared.

“Cool!”

Then Alina addressed Leonard. “We do not want to open those compartments in public.”

“Good point.”

“So I’ll put the papers in the glove compartment. Our IDs and Natalia’s pass. But what about you, Leonard?”

He furrowed his brow. “Carlyle said he was sending a message to the gates to keep me from leaving. I need Max’s new ID. We’ll have to visit him tonight.”

“But what if they are tracking us?”

“But Carlyle said—”

“Don’t be so gullible.”

“We have no choice, Alina. What do you want me to do?”

“The whole plan could be exposed by morning,” she said fretfully.

“Do you have an alternative?”

“I’ll go,” Natalia announced, standing.

Her parents turned their heads suddenly.

“Out of the question,” Leonard said.

“Dad, it makes sense.”

“You don’t even know where he lives.” He turned to Alina. “Does she?”

“I had my picture taken there six months ago.”

“You took her to Max’s? She knew about this plan?”

“Mom didn’t really explain it to me. They told me it was for safety purposes. To have my picture on file.” She touched her mother on the shoulder. “But I thought it was more than that. You and Max acted strangely.”

Leonard sneered. “Did they? I would assume that, by now, Max is a fairly convincing liar.”

Alina glared.

“In his line of business, I mean.”

“Knock it off guys. Just let me go. Max knows me. It’ll be easy.”

He glanced at the clock. “It’s nearly ten. It’s dark—”

“It’s the solution, Leonard,” Alina said softly with a hint of reluctance.

“You can’t be serious.”

“Even if Carlyle lied and the trackers are hyper focused on the two of us—”

“They probably wouldn’t be tracking Natalia,” he said solemnly.

“Who needs to track the comings and goings of a teenager?”

Leonard frowned. “It wouldn’t even occur to the WLN that her
parents
would put her in a
dangerous
position.”

“I’ll be fine, Dad.”

Leonard did not acknowledge her.

The young lady put her hands on her hips defiantly. “You think I won’t be in danger when we try to cross the border?”

He closed his eyes and remained silent.

Alina hugged her daughter. “You’ll do great. I have every confidence in you.”

Leonard moaned, realizing that he was on the losing side of the battle. He fumbled with an object still lodged in his sock, the thumb drive containing Max’s WLN record. Handing it to Natalia, he said, “Give this to Max. I promised him.”

Natalia touched her father gently on the shoulder and kissed his head. He grabbed her hand and pulled it toward his chest, clutching it as if he did not ever wish to let go.

“I love you,” he whispered.

“I know, Dad. I know.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Two hours later, Leonard paced the room anxiously. Natalia had not yet returned.

“I told you this was an abhorrent idea,” he said. “Why, oh why, oh
why
am I so stupid?” He put his head in both hands.

“It’s only been—”

The front door opened suddenly. Alina and Leonard rushed to the hallway. Natalia closed the door and strode inside.

“Well?” Alina asked.

Natalia grinned. She held up an ID badge. Leonard snatched it from her hands.

Robert H. Cook, MD.

He turned the ID over and examined it from all angles. Fumbling with his wallet, he retrieved his DID pass. The IDs were identical except for the seal. Robert Cook’s pass shimmered in red and gold, the DOH logo beaming proudly across the surface. The symbol, a snake wound around a staff with a dozen radical lines branching out in all directions, appeared on both sides of the ID. As Leonard tipped the card, a hologram echo of his face twinkled in one corner.

“Is this good?” Leonard asked Alina, assuming that her DOH ID was a better indicator of a convincing reproduction.

She looked it over carefully. “It’s perfect.”

“I’m supposed to warn you,” Natalia said.

“Yes?”

“Max was kind of pissed. He said that his computer guy hasn’t finished fleshing out Dr. Cook’s identity on all of the department computers—”

“What does that mean?” Leonard asked.

Alina said, “I think it means that Dr. Cook might show up in one database, like the DOH, but you’ll be completely absent in another, hopefully something irrelevant like the Department of Housing and Relocation.”

Natalia touched her father’s arm. “They were also holding off redirecting the retina scan and fingerprints in the national identification database until Wednesday evening.”

“Why?”

“He assumed you were going to work tomorrow. Leonard Tramer still needed to get through the security maze at the DID.”

“Right.”

“He hopes his computer guy will be able to reroute everything first thing in the morning. We should be okay by the time we cross the border.”

“Hope. Should.” Leonard sighed. “I guess that’s the best we can do.”

“Be grateful, Leonard,” Alina said in a scolding tone. “You’ve got an ID.”

He glowered.

“Oh.” Natalia laughed, seemingly unaware of her father’s aggravation. “You’ll love this.”

“What?” Alina said.

“Just before I left, Max said to me…”

“Yes?”

“‘Get an MRI.’”

“You’re kidding me,” Alina shouted. Hastily, she covered her mouth. “He knows.”

“And he planned to slip that bit of information to us as we were stepping over the border?” Leonard spat in exasperation.

Alina frowned. “You’re right. That
is
disconcerting…Did you ask Max why he didn’t tell me?”

“He said he intended to line up an insider MRI tech for us—”

“But why didn’t he let me know sooner? It doesn’t make sense.”

Leonard offered a speculation. “He keeps as much information to himself as possible. That way if you are an informant, all they’d have is a fake ID.”

“Makes sense, I suppose. But, still, he knew we were going to leave on Thursday.”

Natalia winced. “He told me he had second thoughts after you brought Dad on board.”

“What a surprise,” Leonard said.

“He didn’t want to risk the identity of one of his DOH insiders.”

Alina appeared despondent.

Hastily, Natalia continued, “He apologized. Said he wouldn’t have let you cross the border until he knew you were safe.”

“That’s comforting,” Leonard mumbled. “But he considered letting
me
cross, didn’t he?”

Natalia opened her mouth but hesitated. “I told him Mom had access to an MRI machine and that we already knew.”

Alina smiled. “I’ll bet that impressed him.”

Leonard rolled his eyes. An awkward silence followed.

“So,” Natalia said clumsily, attempting to drive the conversation in a productive direction. “You’ll pick me up at noon, Dad, right?”

“You need to print me a map.”

“It’s Ridgecrest.”

“I don’t recognize where I am anymore.”

Alina put one hand on his shoulder. “We’ll have to show you on a paper map, Leonard. I’ll draw it out as well.”

“Right. No Internet. No printer.” He sighed. “Where do you want to meet, Natalia?”

“Just inside the entrance there’s an office. I’ll stand to the left. It’s busy at lunch, but there won’t be a horde of people hanging by the front office.”

“Let’s try to slip out. The less attention we draw to ourselves the better. But if they give us trouble, I’ll flash my DID pass.”

Alina chimed in. “And I’m on the third floor of the west building.”

“I’ve been there, Mom.”

“Right.”

Another awkward silence.

“Up Next: Eric Stehlen: The Right Man For the Job.”

“Let’s stock the car,” Leonard said, glaring at the television.

“I’m on it,” Alina replied.

Chapter Twenty-Three

At a few minutes before noon, Leonard wandered up the stairs of Natalia’s middle school. Above the doors the school’s designation, Department of Education Public School 007934, stood out in large, black letters and numerals. Other than the uninspiring name, Leonard knew the building well.

As he wrenched open the door, the lunch bell sounded, reverberating throughout the building. Within seconds eager voices and the sound of hundreds of galumphing feet filled the hallway. A few wandered in Leonard’s direction to access lockers near the front office, but as Natalia had promised, most of the students wandered away, presumably toward the cafeteria.

Leonard surveyed the crowd expectantly, waiting for his daughter to emerge. It was difficult to distinguish one student from another since they all wore the same navy blue uniforms. He glanced at his watch several times. By 12:05 only a few pupils remained in the hallway. A gaggle of pretty girls, two of them visibly pregnant, loitered near a locker about twenty feet away. But no Natalia. Leonard craned his neck trying to make out a familiar shape in the trickle of kids disappearing at the far end of the hallway. He peered at his watch again, growing impatient. At 12:10 a foreboding feeling crept from his stomach up into his throat.

Something happened.

“Mr. Tramer?”

A voice startled him, shaking him from his grim speculations. One of the pretty girls approached him cautiously, her three friends following reluctantly. The girl in the lead had auburn hair and deep brown eyes. She was not one of the students who appeared pregnant from a distance. Nevertheless, a slight bulge in her abdomen indicated that she might also be carrying a child.

“Mr. Tramer. Are you all right?”

She knows me?

“Come on, Linda,” a copper-skinned, very pregnant student said, addressing the auburn-haired girl.

Their dark-skinned companion sighed. “Leave her alone. She’s talking to someone.”

“She’s talking to an
adult,
” the first girl grumbled through her teeth. “And he’s not a teacher.”

A fourth student, another swollen-bellied girl, remained quiet. She examined her hands anxiously and hung back several paces.

“It’s okay, Sunni,” Linda said. “This is Natalia’s dad.”

Sunni scoffed, regarding Leonard with disdain. “Whatever.” She pivoted on her heels and took command of the other two. “We’ll meet you in the lunchroom when you’re done with that guy.”

The sassy teenager’s blatant disrespect unnerved Leonard. He stared after the trio as they marched down the hallway.

“Mr. Tramer,” Linda whispered urgently. “What are you doing here?”

“I…uh…” Leonard knitted his eyebrows and stared into the eyes of the girl before him. Clearly, she knew him from somewhere. She must be a friend of Natalia’s.

“Linda.” Leonard remembered his daughter’s confession the first time he met her. Some girl named Linda was pregnant and ignoring Natalia. He tipped his head to one side. “Are you still Natalia’s friend?”

Linda pulled her head back in surprise and became defensive. “You barged into our school to ask me if I’m still Natalia’s friend?”

“No, no, no. I came here to pick up Natalia. It’s just that she said—” Leonard refrained. His mission didn’t include scolding this girl.

Linda pursed her lips. “She said what? I mean…” Her words trailed away and her tone implied that she knew very well what he was talking about, but she was not going to go there. Not with him. Not at that moment.

“Anyway, no matter,” Leonard said, dismissing the issue. “Natalia was supposed to meet me by the front door during her lunch period. I’m sure she said right here by the office.”

“You missed her.”

Leonard’s heart beat faster. “What do you mean, I missed her?”

“She left. Twenty, maybe thirty minutes ago.”

Leonard stammered. “How…how can that be? She told me students were not allowed to leave campus.”

Linda laughed derisively. “Yeah, well the Youth Brigade gets special privileges.”

Leonard’s stomach turned over, and he became so dizzy, he nearly fell to his knees.
Youth Brigade?
Everything they told Natalia in the past twenty-four hours: the tracking implants, the counterfeit IDs, the smuggling compartments in the car. All the details of their escape plan, not to mention almost everything they knew about the government and the CARS scam. Natalia knew. Natalia had bluffed her way into their sphere of trust and extracted enough incriminating evidence to sentence her parents for life. What was it Alina’s friend, Brenda, told her?
Trust no one. Especially not your children.