Taker (7 page)

Which Is It? Sick or Dying?

B
ish
op eased back
in the passenger seat of the SUV, his elbow encroaching on his fellow traveler’s space. A sudden twitch, and some dislodged papers fell to the floor.

“Excuse me,” he apologized coldly.

Velasquez glanced up from her tablet and flashed Bishop a cursory smile, then, without moving her eyes from the text, picked up the papers near her ankles and replaced them in the file.

Velasquez pushed a small strand of hair behind her ears and closed her tablet with a sigh.

“It just landed.”

Bishop was frustrated. In his chess move, he had anticipated Flight 91 landing at Orlando, and so his PRESS team had been waiting at the wrong airport. He’d had to reroute the entire team to Patrick Air Force Base.

He clenched his fists and sat forward.

“Look, can you get us in there any faster? It feels like we’re just driving around,” he said to the driver.

“We’re almost there,” Velasquez said reassuringly, though Bishop could see she was already packing away her files, preparing to make a run for it.

The SUV continued at speeds well above the posted 25-mph limit, but Bishop doubted it would be enough.

PRESS had briefed the guards at the security gates of the base to expect the two agents’ arrival. As they approached, Bishop experienced a few moments of gut-wrenching tension when the gates looked to be remaining closed. Then he could see one of the soldiers stationed at the gate pick up a call, and slowly the barbed-wire gates began to open.

“Get as close as you can to the aircraft.”

Bishop could see it then, up ahead — the distinctive gray and red lines of the aircraft’s decal. Vehicles dogged their path, but Bishop knew Velasquez had called ahead in an attempt to make their passage as smooth as possible.

Before the vehicle had even stopped, Bishop opened the door and clambered out. The SUV had already drawn the attention of two local federal officers. As Bishop knew from recent experience — and recognized with some degree of bitterness — he’d need to show his badge, so he flashed his wallet before speaking.

“I need an inventory of everyone coming off this flight,” Bishop commanded.

“We’re taking it as standard protocol, sir. First, we triage all passengers through a med tent set up in the hangar nearby to check for injuries. The hijacker, he’s …”

“In a minute. Get me a detailed list of everyone treated in the hangar and their ailments. Injuries, wounds — anything. Whether it’s related to the incident or not. Nobody leaves this base without my approval. Understood?”

“Understood. Now, sir, I think you’ll want to see the hijacker.”

“What’s happened?” Velasquez cut in, with the merest of side-glances Bishop’s way to acknowledge her subordination.

“He’s sick. Actually, he may be dying,” the local federal officer theorized.

“Well, which is it? Is he sick or is he dying?” Bishop demanded in a condescending tone.

Bishop and Velasquez followed the officers toward the makeshift triage hospital in the hangar that, minutes earlier, had been cleared of its aircraft and equipment to make way for any casualties. They scanned the crowd for any sign of Nicole as they walked through.

One of the officers took a call on his walkie-talkie. “Quickly,” he then shouted to both agents as he turned toward the far corner of the hangar and broke into a run.

Unsure what they were running for but spurred ahead by the urgency, Bishop did as instructed.

Weaving in and out of officials, police and medical crew as fast as they could, he and Velasquez eventually arrived at a gurney in the corner. The gray-haired man lying on it and covered with tubes and wires looked drawn and deathly pale.

“Who is this?”

“The hijacker, sir.”

Velasquez’s confused face said it all. The man had hollowed cheeks and a gaunt, dead-eyed stare as he lay limp on the gurney. How could this weak man be capable of hijacking an aircraft? He didn’t even look like he could walk a block without collapsing.

“Clear!” the doctor shouted, and the trained staff stood back, allowing the physician to plunge his defibrillator paddles down hard on Allen Kreschkensky’s chest. The paddles created a massive impulse that arched the hijacker’s ailing body.

All awaited the following few seconds with baited breath as the monitor continued to flatline.

“Again, clear.”

Bishop winced — he always did when he saw the controlled medical violence of those paddles.

The second pulse worked, and the monitor sparked to life.

“Cardiac arrest, sir,” reported one of the doctors. “Bloods show hematology and high T cell count. He’s dying.”

“Dying? What of?” Velasquez’s concern echoed the doctor’s.

“Early tests show fast-onset lung cancer.”

“But that can’t be right. We don’t have a record of that.”

Bishop exchanged looks with the young agent.

“It’s not impossible.” He turned to a nearby federal agent. “Have you found Nicole Aaronson?”

“No sign as of yet, sir.”

The two federal officers looked at each other, unsure why Bishop seemed obsessed with a teenage girl who had no prior criminal background.

“I’ve submitted a shoot-to-kill policy on the Aaronson girl. If she resists arrest.”

“Sir!” Velasquez protested. “We have no evidence of her involvement in this.”

“Look at this man,” Bishop fired back. I saw your file on Kreschkensky — the still photos from airport security. When that man got on that plane, he had meat on his bones. See him now? There is only one person I know of who can suck the life out of a man, and that person is Nicole Aaronson.”

“She saved the plane!”

“You don’t know what else she may have done up there. I cannot have a supernatural teenager with a God complex roaming around.”

“You are taking my words in vain.”

“We cannot allow it, Velasquez. If I am right, this girl has tremendous powers. She’s killed an agent — my partner, if you haven’t forgotten. And what’s next? One day she’s going to do something while she’s meaning well that will amount to a big mistake for someone else. Maybe for lots of people. In my book, that makes her dangerous.”

Bishop stopped his impassioned speech, aware that the federal officers were watching him and Velasquez argue with a mixture of surprise and amusement.

“Of course, we’d prefer to have her alive.” He turned to the officers. “But if you engage her, and you feel anything uncomfortable — any sudden pain you can’t explain — don’t hesitate. Shoot to kill. You have your orders.”

“Agent Bishop,” the taller one began. Bishop took note of the officers exchanging glances, and his impatience got the better of him.

“Listen, by all means, make your calls. But it’ll amount to the same. You follow my orders, or I’ll have you punished for gross insubordination. Understood?”

As if to underline Bishop’s statement, Velasquez grabbed the clipboard the federal officer was holding and marched toward the front of the passenger manifest queue. Without looking back, Bishop followed her.

Listen to Me If You Want to Live

“
K
ee
p your head
low,” Drake hissed.

“No, don’t. Chin up, Nix. She needs to look like she hasn’t done anything wrong,” Amy cut in.

“Well, for the record, that would be true!” Nicole shot back.

“It doesn’t matter what you look like. They know you’re here based on the flight manifest,” Ben chipped in. “Unless you’ve learned some other power. Teleportation would be nice about now.”

Nicole uttered a curse under her breath. They were standing in line for the mandatory medical tests. The waiting was maddening. Scores of other passengers were also growing impatient as members of the small medical crew stationed in the makeshift tents did their best to triage passengers. Nicole’s one saving grace was that the cluster of other high schoolers who had been on the plane made blending in and remaining unnoticed far easier.

The line lurched forward. As they drew nearer and nearer to the front, tensions rose among the four friends.

“We need to find out which list they’re working from,” Ben remarked. He glanced around for a moment, then decisively headed away toward the tent.

“Nix, look!” Amy pointed.

Sure enough, in the distance, a National Transportation and Safety Board Jeep was drawing up. Nicole had seen it try to enter the compound a few minutes before, and her hopes had been growing, but the vehicle had apparently run into some trouble at the security gates.

Then she saw it was her dad.

She raised a hand to wave, but quick-thinking Amy held it down.

“Stay low now. There might be trouble.”

Nicole’s nervousness seized her, and like an excited little girl, she bounced on the spot she was standing on for a few moments. Her dad’s silhouette was unmistakable, and she could see his old aviators glinting in the light. She was so close to him now — and yet so far.

“We’ll have to wait it out. We can’t get out of line,” Drake said.

“But he’s got a pass. He just has to show it and then we can get away.” Nicole whined.

“He’s got a pass for him. Just think for a second, will you Nicole?” Drake was getting irritated.

Just then, the line moved forward again, and Nicole’s heart sank. She could see she was only three or four people away from the person conducting the interviews. Once there, she would have to give her name, and if the feds had put out a search warrant for her, that would be it, dad or no dad.

“Chances are they’ll just be looking for you at this stage.” Drake surmised.

“What do we do?” Nicole said, almost pleading with the air. She could see her dad waiting in the driver’s seat of his vehicle. He would know the trouble she was in. One way or another, her mom would’ve gotten an explanation to him. Nicole was so close to freedom now, but the swarming feds had her trapped.

Suddenly she felt an arm on her shoulder, and she caught the briefest of whiffs of his scent. The butterflies fluttered in.

“Jason.”

“Listen to me if you want to live.”

“Sorry?”

“It’s a quote.
The Terminator
.”

Nicole found him charming, as always. “Isn’t it, ‘Come with me if you want to live’?”

Jason thought about it, blushed and then shrugged. “Oh, you know what I mean. It was the intention behind it that I was going for. Let’s swap,” Jason said. “We’ll take your place.”

“What?”

Jason gazed his calm blue eyes down at her. For a moment, the panic fell away, like a wave surging back out from the shore. Nicole’s mind was racing now, and Jason didn’t appear to be finished.

“Look, I overheard some of those overdressed agents fighting about you and saying your name over and over again. I know you’re in some kind of trouble, so let me help you. It’ll be fun.”

He offered her one of his little side-grins, and Nicole felt more alive.

“Stay back a little and try to separate from the crowd. We’ll buy you some time.” Jason had a smile in his eyes.

Nicole looked up at him then. He reached out and caught a stray strand of hair that had fallen in her eyes, and then some kind of force overtook her and guided her forward. Jason met her halfway.

The kiss held them in joint magic. The light shimmered in Nicole once more as she and Jason held a tight embrace. Nicole felt herself floating off the ground. This was disorienting, but in a good way.

“Nix … Nix!” Amy’s voice was full of regret at having to interrupt.

Nicole opened her eyes to see just the merest flash of blue, and then Jason stepped away.

“You have to go now,” he said with urgency.

Nicole nodded, still lightheaded from the whole experience of being transported to a better place a few seconds earlier. She felt Amy’s hand guiding her arm as Jason and his non-girlfriend took their places.

They had reached the front of the line.

Nicole could see the clipboards with a list of names and a soldier registering passengers and rating their needs on the pages.

“Name, please?” the soldier asked.

“Nicolas Aaronson.”

“Nicolas Aaronson,” the soldier repeated as he scanned down the page. “Nicole Aaronson?”

“That’s gotta be a typo. I’m Nicolas Aaronson.”

“Must be a typo. You don’t look like a Nicole. Are you OK? You sure do have a lot of blood on you, young man.”

“It’s not mine. I was helping one of the crew.”

The medic motioned for Jason to follow him over to a temporary examination room, which wasn’t much more than a bed surrounded by white fabric dividing walls on wheels on the concrete hangar floor. Jason could see Nicole look back at him just before he lost sight of her behind the white walls.

Nicole, Amy, Ben and Drake were slowly inching their way to the back of the line, hoping for a good moment to slip away to Nicole’s dad in the awaiting Jeep. Then, out of nowhere, a great clamor in the far corner of the hangar grabbed the attention of the medics. Everybody raised their heads to look in that direction. Someone was flatlining. It was the hijacker.

“Now!” Amy whispered.

They moved in the opposite direction of the incoming group of doctors, and used the temporary chaos as a cover to head toward her dad’s Jeep — to safety.

Every one of Nicole’s footsteps weighed her down and pounded the desperate beat to what she hoped would be an escape. She could hear the clamor still rising behind her, the shouts of medics being pushed to the limits of their expertise.

Soon, her heartbeat was the loudest noise of all. They had to tread the delicate balance of maintaining a quick enough pace to get away from the throng, but also not rushing and drawing attention to their hasty departure.

Every now and then, Nicole looked up at Amy, seeking in her face some reassurance that they were going in the right direction. Amy’s expression was focused and determined, though Nicole noticed that her hand was clasped in Drake’s. She wished for Jason’s arms around her again, guiding her.

Nicole had begun to get into a groove of watching her feet on the tarmac when she heard her name.

She glanced up, and realized she was closer to the Jeep than she thought.

“Mouse!”

Her dad’s face crumpled into a happy, relieved grin. Soon, she was in the familiar arms of her beloved father. She felt him squeeze her.

What happened in the next few minutes was a blur.

Nicole felt the acceleration and then the braking of the vehicle. They came to the gates, and she thought she heard the soldier on guard ask for ID. Her father replied that they had all been checked and needed to go to the NTSB for further questioning.

A further wait, and then Nicole’s dad left the car to make a call. In those moments, she registered the fear and trepidation on Amy’s face. She could see her father’s frown in the distance as he put in a call and then handed his phone to the guard.

She thought she heard him say “colonel” and reiterate his instruction, more tersely than the first time.

Finally, when Nicole had almost given up hope of getting out of there, her dad returned to the car.

No one uttered another word.

Then the gates unlocked and opened.

The Jeep took advantage of this free passage out of the base, speeding past a long line of news trucks and reporters set up along the outside perimeter of the base.

Behind them, back in the triage tent, Jason awaited the medic’s return, which gave him precious moments to fasten his shirt again, concealing the two deep wounds to his sides.