Nine-Tenths (31 page)

The tall man seemed to be the leader. His left shoulder beamed with rows of blue and gold angled stripes. “Search them.”

Two subordinates complied, patting down Leonard and Natalia, searching their pockets, and dumping out their backpacks. Since the Tramers had left their papers in the Toyota, the search yielded nothing. The soldiers refilled the backpacks and slung them over their shoulders.

“My identification is in the car,” Leonard said coolly, hoping to present an air of authority.

“I know who you are, Dr. Cook,” the leader snarled.

“Good. Then you must realize that there has been a misunderstanding.”

“A traitor is a traitor.”

“I was—”

“You were not scheduled to visit anyone per our records. And you clearly are not performing any medical duties lollygagging way out here with backpacks and camping supplies.” He swung his rifle in the direction of Highway 40. “Move it.”

Keeping their hands clasped behind their heads, Leonard and Natalia trudged down the dirt road. The soldiers marched quietly behind them. Although Leonard thought they were traveling at a decent pace, the leader occasionally rammed the butt of his rifle against Leonard’s back.

Each time her father stumbled, Natalia’s eyes filled with tears.

When the leader heard a soft sob escape Natalia’s lips, he responded harshly. “Stop your crying and get moving.”

Natalia sniffled and swallowed. The butt of the man’s gun found its way to her shoulder. It was all Leonard could do not to leap at the soldier and punch him on the jaw, but he knew such a maneuver would lead to gunfire or a beating. He glanced at his daughter. Strong and defiant, she held her breath and scrunched her eyebrows together, trying to suppress her emotions. Her face turned red before she relaxed and adopted an impassive expression.

The leader, noticing Leonard’s turned head, knocked him on the shoulder, forcing him to look forward. How Leonard wanted to reach out and touch Natalia, to comfort her, but he succumbed to their powerless situation.

When they reached Highway 40, they saw three unfamiliar vehicles and the Toyota waiting on the road. The closest vehicle, a white van with peeling paint, stood with its rear double doors open. A slab of plywood divided the van into two sections. The soldiers shoved Leonard into the compartment on the right side of the divider and Natalia into the left. Then they slammed the doors shut.

“Natalia, are you okay?” Leonard called when the van was in motion.

He could not make out her muffled reply.

The vehicle stopped abruptly and Leonard’s body lurched, causing him to hit his head. He reached up to check for blood. A loud pounding on the side of the van reverberated, further aggravating Leonard’s headache.

“Shut the fuck up in there,” a deep voice hollered.

Natalia began sobbing.

“I said shut the fuck up.”

She could not control herself.

A door opened, the one on Natalia’s side. Leonard scurried forward. Although the guards did not open his compartment, a small crack between his door and the wooden divider allowed him to peek outside. What he witnessed horrified him. A short, fat guard wrenched Natalia out of the van and shoved her to the ground. She shrieked in terror.

“I said,” the soldier said, kicking her in the side. “Shut.” Kick. “The.” Kick. “Fuck up.”

She recoiled and pulled herself into the fetal position.

Leonard screamed and rattled his door hysterically. “Leave her alone.”

The fat soldier turned his attention to Leonard and stormed toward the van. He unlocked the door and flung it open. It crashed against the side of the vehicle.

“You’ve got something to say to me, traitor?” the soldier said, inches from Leonard’s face. “You worried about your pretty little niece?” he cooed softly as he pushed Leonard against the van. Returning to Natalia, the man’s demeanor changed dramatically. He helped her to her feet. Once she was steady, he ran his hand along the side of her face and down her neck. She cringed and looked away. “I suppose I could be more gentle with her.” He twirled her hair in his fingers.

A medium built, middle-aged man scowled as he approached Natalia and the insolent soldier.

The fat man continued, “What do you think, Sanders? I deserve a little R&R.” His hand slid down Natalia’s shoulder toward her breast, but the middle-aged soldier grabbed the pervert’s arm.

“You are such an asshole, Bean.”

Bean laughed, a licentious grin on his lips. “Jealous? You want some, too?”

“Get in the van.”

Neither tender nor rough, Sanders escorted Natalia back to her compartment. His expression conveyed no emotion except a slight irritation at his colleague’s behavior. As Natalia climbed in, Sanders gripped Leonard’s arm, squeezing hard, causing him to flinch. “Not another word from you.”

Leonard nodded and scrambled into the van.

Although silent for the duration of the ride, Leonard writhed in agony. He chastised himself at least a hundred times in fifteen minutes, but the self-berating did little to ease his conscience. As the adrenaline faded and the reality of their circumstances sank in, Leonard’s spirit melted, the heat of its incineration passing through his body and evaporating any last scrap of hope.

There is no way out.

Leonard and Natalia’s lives would drain away in a haze of cells and quarries, their only sustenance bland oatmeal and stale bread…or worse. He had endeavored to rescue his daughter from the despicable Youth Brigade’s breeding program; instead, he had led her straight into the heart of another atrocity. Natalia might be raped by beasts like the fat guard, Bean. In retrospect, the gentle boy with almond-shaped eyes seemed like an angel from another era. Making love to him and nine months of pregnancy—a respite in comparison to sweaty fat fingers and other filthy appendages on the floor of a cold prison cell.

He could barely bring himself to look at Natalia when they were pulled from the van, disembarking in front of a gray building with no windows. Natalia glanced at him briefly, her eyes lifeless. Guards raced toward them and handcuffed each prisoner, wrenching their arms behind their backs. Quick retina scans followed and the handheld scanning device was passed along to a stern woman who observed the procedure. Once shoved through the door, Leonard and Natalia were taken down separate hallways.

“Nat,” Leonard cried as a husky female guard dragged her away. His own escort struck him on the back of the head.

As they turned a corner, Leonard allowed himself to surrender to a hovering depression. He wished the guard would knock him over the head again, so that the pain would remind him he was still alive.
What’s the point?
He hung his head and stumbled down the hall, periodically shoved by the silent man he could not see.

The guard pushed Leonard into a small room, unlocked the handcuffs, and told him to strip.

“Strip?”

“Yeah, as in take off your clothes.”

“Why?”

“So I can feel you up,” he said flippantly. When Leonard flinched, the man added, “Don’t be such a dumbass. You need to be searched and, mercifully, that’s not in my job description any longer.”

The guard closed and locked the door. Leonard slowly removed his clothing, trying not to picture Natalia somewhere in the facility being forced to do the same.

Once naked, Leonard shielded his genitals with his hands in a feeble attempt to maintain a scrap of dignity. He examined his surroundings. With nothing but a wooden slat-back chair standing in the corner, the room had less charm than a broom closet. A cement floor and off-white walls, covered with grimy splatter marks, provided as bleak an atmosphere as Leonard could imagine. Estimating the size, Leonard drew in a sharp breath.

Ten-by-ten.
Not unlike the room in which he wasted his other life. Now he stood, officially, in a prison.
How fitting.

Out of the blue, Leonard burst into a fit of laughter, deranged giggles echoing around the empty cell.

At that moment a large-built man with shortly cropped hair and an amused expression waltzed into the room carrying a clipboard and a book. A timid young man followed him, wheeling a leather office chair.

“What’s so funny, Cook?” the large man bellowed. “Delighted with our lovely facilities?”

Leonard’s laughter abruptly ceased.

“Spacious compared to where you will be going shortly.” The large man settled in the leather chair, while the young man remained standing.

Leonard’s eyes caught those of the burly man’s assistant. Anticipating that the youth would approach him any minute and probe his anus, he turned his head and suppressed an urge to vomit.

“Uncover yourself, Cook,” the large man demanded.

Leonard closed his eyes but refused to move his hands.

“I said uncover yourself!”

Surprised by the depth of his embarrassment, Leonard shook his head and refused to look at his captors. He heard the leather chair spin violently into the wall a fraction of a second before a deafening smack connected with the side of his head. He scrunched his body against the pain but still did not move his hands.

“Damn it, Mahler, cuff him. To the chair.”

“Yes, sir, Lieutenant Stearns.”

The edgy young man grabbed the small wooden chair and moved it to the middle of the room. He looped the cuffs around one slat of the chair, wrenched Leonard’s hands away from his genitals, and secured him to his seat. Leonard succumbed to shame. He no longer thought about Natalia, only his own disgraceful predicament. A headache gradually overwhelmed his senses and he wished he could press his temples.

“You may go now, Mahler.”

“Yes, sir.” With that, the young man exited the room.

Three quarters of an hour passed in silence. Stearns read his book, glancing up every once and a while to stare at Leonard, occasionally adding a malignant sneer or a soft chuckle. Leonard squirmed disquietly, his genitals chilled against the bare wood. Eventually, he became numb. All bodily discomforts drifted away as he detached from his emotions and cleared his mind. Evidently no body cavity search was forthcoming. The entire escapade was merely an exercise in humiliation, and Leonard had given them everything they wished for.

Stearns stood up and began walking in circles around Leonard’s chair. “You’re a clever man, Cook. Can I call you Cook?”

Leonard maintained a blank expression.

“’Cause we both know your name isn’t Cook.”

No response.

Stearns grinned. “You
so
don’t have a leg to stand on
doctor.
”

Leonard met his gaze.

“Doctor,” Stearns spat with disdain. “Arrogant. Selfish. Moneygrubbers. Looking down on the rest of us as if a college education makes them superior.” Laughing, he continued, “My cousin was a cook’s assistant before the cowardly traitors fled our community. Now, thanks to the Department of Fair Compensation and Redistribution, she works in the surgical wing at Century Hospital. Doing just fine. Turns out you don’t need a degree to work in medicine.” He strode back to his chair nonchalantly and took a seat. “I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt, Cook, and assume you’re not really a doctor. Then I won’t hate you quite as much.”

Leonard cleared his throat.

“You’re going to talk to me,” Stearns said. “I will get some answers. Starting with your real name.”

Silence.

Stearns pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and speed-dialed a number. “Mahler,” he shouted. “Get your ass back in here.”

Within a minute, the nervous young man returned.

“Hit him,” Stearns said coolly, gesturing at Leonard.

“Wha—?”

“Hit him, you idiot.”

Mahler approached Leonard tentatively and gave him a listless slap.

“Oh for God’s sake,” Stearns screamed as he leapt to his feet. He smacked the side of Leonard’s head, landing the punch on his ear. “Like that…you good-for-nothing Inbreed.” He returned to his chair.

Mahler cowered nearby, visibly shaking. Leonard’s left ear was ringing and a debilitating headache consumed his senses.

“So, anyway,” Stearns resumed in a pleasant tone, “what I’d really like to know,
Cook,
is how you deactivated your tracking chip.”

Leonard’s heart rate accelerated. He felt dizzy. Something leaked out of his nose and trickled down his face. It tasted like blood.

“And your daughter’s.”

Trying not to flinch, Leonard was taken aback.

“Yes, I’m sure she’s your daughter. Don’t think I’m a fool. Not that she looks anything like you, which is lucky for her, but it seems unlikely to me that a man would go to that much trouble for a niece
.
”

Leonard neither confirmed nor denied.

“Anyway, although no current target of the Watcher Listening Network has been reported missing, it is only a matter of time. And if nothing shows up on an APB, we have our own doctors eager to experiment with tracking chip removal. It ought to be a good time for all.”

The young assistant crossed the room and whispered in the Lieutenant’s ear. Leonard strained to make out their words.

“…hasn’t got one.”

“What do you mean he hasn’t got one?” Stearns whispered harshly.

“It’s a possibility, sir. If he really is a high clearance official, then there was no transmitter in the first place.”

A calm feeling washed over Leonard. He really had them stumped.
Tramer
was not yet assigned an APB, which means that Carlyle was true to his word. Furthermore, Max’s guy had done such a good job cleaning the database and creating a new identity, they couldn’t even trace his retina scan.

“Why the tracking number in Cook’s file?”

“A cover?” Mahler suggested.

“And the girl?”

“Probably his daughter. The offspring of a high-ranking Fed would be exempt. Even from CAPERS.”

Stearns snorted. “Figures…just another reason to despise the bastard.” Then he smiled and addressed Leonard directly. “But if you won’t tell us who you are, we have every right to do an exploratory surgery.” Narrowing his eyes, he added, “And we’ll start with the girl. Lord knows our surgeon needs to warm up on someone. He doesn’t have nearly as much experience as my cousin.”