TangleRoot (Star Sojourner Book 6) (17 page)

“To steal the Lab bristra?”

I nodded.

She took a breath. “Oh. You think he'd really hit you?”

“He did once, on Denebria.” I touched my face. “Made my cheek black and blue. He was mad as hell over something I did.”

She chewed a nail. “Suppose I stay between the two of you? You know, run interference for you.”

“OK. He's going to kill me.”

“I'm glad you're making the call and not me.”

“Thanks.”

“Now, Joe,” I said, and moved around the Denver Spaceport welcoming buffet table to keep it between us, “remember your blood pressure.”

His face was red beneath the white stubble and the hair hanging over his forehead. “What were you
thinking
?” He slammed a fist on the table. A vase of red roses tilted and fell. Water trickled between steaming meatballs and stew in hot casserole dishes, loaves of bread in baskets, and bowls of sliced fruit.

“I thought if I played decoy, Joe,” I said, “it would give Chancey and Sophia and Huff and Gabby a chance to make it to the hovair. Then I thought I'd sneak around back and –”

“What do you mean, you
thought
?” he shouted. “You never thought in your life.”

Chancey chuckled from where he sat sprawled in a chair. Bat shook his head, picked up his medkit from the counter and set it beside him.

Joe came around the table. “OK,” he said quietly, “come here and tell me what you thought. I'm anxious to hear this.”

I kept the table between us. “Well, I figured,” I began, “I could make it back to the hovair without being seen by the Searcher's crew, and once we were off-planet on a transport, I would contact Earth Central and…” He tried to get closer. I moved back. “And tell them –”

“But you didn't make it, did you?” he said too softly. “No, you got yourself and Sophia captured by the Mafia crew and taken off- planet without delivering your message.” He pushed the table into me. I held it as bowls of fruit rocked. “Didn't you?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Well, things didn't go as planned.”

“If you ever had a plan in your life, your brains would leak out of your ears.” He tried to reach me across the table.

I backed away.

“You want me to hold him down for you, boss?” Chancey asked between chuckles.

“Shut the hell up, Chancey,” I said.

Huff shuffled back from watching a magic show on the center platform with Gabby by his side. “We do not have magic on Kresthaven,” he told her. “Only the magic of water that becomes ice, and the ice that becomes water.”

“That's pretty magical,” Gabby said.

“Yes, someday we will figure that out.” Huff watched Joe and me circle the table. He sat down and pulled a candy bar from his belly pouch. “Is this a Terran ritual, my cub,” he asked me as he unwrapped the bar, “to welcome home the weary long travelers?”

“Yeah, fur ball,” Chancey said, “that's what it is. And for an encore, we're going to watch your cub get his ass kicked.”

Gabby's eyes widened and she crouched behind Huff. Bat sighed and took a blood pressure cuff from out his bag. “Jules is right, Joe. You have to watch your blood pressure.”

Sophia returned from the restroom.

“Soph,” I said in a thin voice, “you still want to run interference?”

She looked at Joe. “To quote a source, `uh oh'.” She stepped between us. “Jules really did his best, Joe. We're a team, remember?”

Joe walked around her and I moved to the far side of the table. “When I get my hands on you,” he pointed a finger, “you're going to be sorry you ever decided to play
decoy
, as you put it.”

Gabby, wide-eyed, peered out from behind Huff.

“When does this happy welcome back ritual end?” Huff asked and chewed the bar.

“When I get my hands on him!” Joe bellowed. “That's when!” He slammed the table again. Meatballs jumped. Some fell out of the casserole dish, rolled across the table, and plopped onto the floor. Humans and aliens stopped to watch.

Bat rubbed his chin. “C'mon, Joe. Give it up and relax. You know he can outrun you.”

“But,” Chancey said and lifted a hand, “not me.”

“Joe,” Sophia got between us again, “it was my fault that we got caught. I…uh, I slowed him down by following.”

Joe turned on her. “Do you realize what this means? We could've prevented the theft of the bristra tank with his knowledge that there was a traitor at the Lab bent on stealing it. This mission could've ended successfully.” He took Sophia's arm and moved her out of his way.

“Be careful, Sophia,” Gabby squeaked. “He's really angry.”

“But no,” Joe continued, “your boyfriend had to screw it up! He had to follow his own reckless idea of a plan, as though he ever had a plan in his life.” He kicked a table leg and the table collapsed. Bubbling sauce seeped across the floor.

Sophia stared at the mess with her lips parted. I saw the fear in her eyes.

Bat got up and went to Joe. “Take it easy, boss,” he said softly and took Joe's arm.

Joe threw off his hand. “You take it easy.”

Chancey stood up and suddenly he looked serious.

“Your boyfriend,” Joe growled at Sophia as she moved between Joe and me again, “allowed a deadly plant to be turned loose and only God knows the consequences.” He took her arm. She tried to pull away. “You must be as lame-brained as he is to stay with him.” He shoved her aside. She almost fell.

“Leave her alone, Joe!” I came around the fallen table. Chancey stepped between me and Joe and just stood there.

“It's…it's all my fault,” Gabby cried and stood up straight. Her narrow face was pale. “If, if I hadn't of twisted my ankle and had to be carried, we…” she looked around, “we could all have made it back to the hovair. Jules was trying to protect me.”

I walked around Chancey and stood in front of Sophia. “I'm sorry, Joe.” I lowered my head. “I'm really sorry, Dad.”

He stared at me for a long moment, then lifted his hand. I winced and heard Sophia gasp. He patted my shoulder. “I should know better than to ask you to change. It's not in the cards. You are what you are. I didn't mean to scare you, Sophia.” He took a breath, then turned on a heel and strode away.

Bat watched him go with the blood pressure cuff in his hand.

“Damn,” Chancey said, “I was gonna eat those meatballs.”

* * *

The team sat around a table in Joe's den. Gabby had returned to Northern California and a job at Livermore Lab. I missed her squeaky voice.

Fire crackled and wood burst in the stone fireplace. The warm smell of smoke pervaded the wood-paneled room. Winter flakes brushed dark windows and died in streaks of water that slid down the glass. I sipped hot earthbrew and listened to Joe explain the situation.

“The CIA, the FBI, and the WCIA cannot legally invade the Mafia compound without due process of law.” Joe cupped his coffee at the head of the table.

“For all that those scuds have done, man,” Chancey said, “you mean there ain't nothing we can hold them on?”

“They have lawyers, Chance,” I said, “
consigliere
, to you.”

“Same to you, fella.” Chancey grinned.

“From what Vito said,” I put down my cup, “the police and some of the local politicians are in Don Rastelli's pocket.”

“I'm afraid to ask,” Sophia said from beside me, “just who that leaves to recover the tank of bristra.”

“I've got a bad feeling about who it leaves.” Bat scratched under his cap.

We waited as Joe looked around the table and folded his hands. Only Huff seemed unconcerned as he rooted through his belly pouch and took out a candy bar.

“Don't you think you've had enough of those?” I asked him.

“But there are many more here in my pouch.”

“Hey, fur ball,” Chancey said, “what'd you do, break into a candy store?”

“That is against the Terran laws,” Huff said. “I shook a machine that had candy bars in its belly, and they all fell out.”

Sophia slid me a look.

I shrugged.

“So…” Joe folded his hands.

“So that leaves us,” Sophia asked, “doesn't it?”

Bat leaned forward in his chair. “Did Paulie tell the FBI the location of the family's compound?”

“Let's say,” Joe tapped the table, “it took a little persuasion.”

“In the form of a certain drug?” I asked.

Joe nodded. “Couldn't be helped.”

I sat back. “I'm glad.”

Sophia looked at me.

Soph," I put my arm around the back of her chair, “if Paulie had volunteered the location of his family, he would've never forgiven himself. Where is it?” I asked Joe, “and, uh, what's the plan, boss?”

Joe's cement features cracked into a smile. “Southampton.”

I raised my brows.

“Right up there with the high falutins,” Bat said.

“Yeah,” Chancey sipped a glass of wine, “I always wanted to rub noses with the upper crust.”

“The only upper crust you'll rub noses with,” I told him, “is the cold pizza we'll be living on during this mission.”

“Take a hike, superstar,” Chancey answered.

“Joe,” I said, “did they put Paulie in the Witness Protection Program?”

“They did. He didn't like it, but he had no recourse.”

“What state is he living in?” Sophia asked.

“Can't tell you that,” Joe replied.

“Oh.” Sophia nodded.

Abby, Joe's wife, opened the door and came in with a platter of fresh-baked cookies. I breathed in the aroma as she smiled at us and set them on the table. Abby is one of my favorite people.

“I hope you like chunky chocolate gobs,” she said in her airy Southern drawl and looked around the table. Her brown hair was a little grayer, but the same blue sparkle shone in her eyes, and wrinkles had set into laugh lines.

“They look wonderful, Misses Hatch,” Sophia offered.

“Call me Abby.”

Huff rose up on his hind legs and sniffed the cookies.

“Can Huff have one, Jules?”

“I don't know, Abby,” I said, “any more sugar and he'll be dancing on the roof.”

“Althea and Charles just came over to drop off Lisa,” she told Joe and glanced at me.

Sophia put her hand over mine on the table.

“Mom!” I heard Al call as she opened the door. Lisa was beside her. A tall, thin, pasty-faced man stood behind her. “Oh, sorry,” Al said, “I thought…I thought you were meeting in Dad's office.”

“Come in, Al,” Joe told her. “You too, Charles.”

“Daddy!” Lisa ran to me and I scooped her up. “Hi, Squiggles.”

She hugged me around my neck, then stared into my eyes. “Are you gonna leave again?”

I kissed her cheek. “I'll be hanging around, Lis'.”

I stiffened as Al and Charles walked into the room. Al stared at me for a moment. “Jules,” she said quietly.

“How are you, Al?” I asked.

“I'm well.” She put a hand on her protruding belly. “A little morning sickness. Oh.” She turned to her husband. “This is Charles.”

I stood up and stared into his eyes as I shook his hand. He stared back without flinching. “Nice to meet you,” I said.

“You too.”

Lisa pulled on my sleeve. “I rode Ginger today, Daddy.”

“That's nice, Lis',” I said.

Joe introduced Althea and Charles to the team.

“Well, we have to go.” Al kissed Lisa. “Now you be a good girl. We'll pick her up in the morning, Mom,” she told Abby and shifted her feet. I knew it was a sign of nervousness in Althea. “Nice to meet all of you,” she said.

“Do you want to help grandma make some more cookies?” Abby asked Lisa.

“OK. Daddy, will you be here when I wake up in the morning?”

I bit my lip. “I don't know, Lis'.”

“You're always going away!”

I kissed her forehead. “But I always come back to you.”

She giggled. “I don't use Ginger's reins when I ride her.”

“You mean you guide her with tel?”

“Uh huh. She doesn't like it though.”

“You're a pretty amazing kid,” I told her. At seven-years-old, she could work with elements and influence minds. It almost scared me to consider her powers as an adult.

“Abby,” Joe said softly and glanced toward the door.

“C'mon, Lisa,” Abby took her hand, “let's go make those cookies.”

“OK.” She pulled away and kissed my cheek. “Goodnight, Daddy. Sleep tight.”

“You too, Squiggles.”

She skipped to the door and Abby closed it behind them.

I stared at my cup of brew. The only sound was the burst of wood in the fireplace and a wind that bent a tree branch and made it scroll across the window.

Sophia squeezed my hand.

“I'm OK,” I told her and took a breath. “So,” I said to Joe, “what's the plan, boss.”

I swore that this time I'd follow Joe's orders as I slipped into my thermo dive suit on the dark winter beach. “Stay on the beach,” he'd ordered. “And if you can project and locate the tank of bristra, contact me by comlink. Then get out of there.”

We'd left our ground car parked well above the high-water mark. Waves heaved chunks of ice that crashed into the shallows on Long Island's south shore.

“Look at him.” Sophia gestured toward Huff, out playing in the water past the ice.

“He's right at home, Soph. His people are semi-aquatic. He even has rounded lenses to see underwater.”

Sophia watched him dive and surface. “I wish I could live in the sea as easily as he does.”

“To catch more crusties?”

She gave me a broad smile. “Well, I caught you that way.”

“Only because I wanted to get caught.” I kissed her cheek.

We strapped on stinglers in holsters, dive knives to our calves, and lights and comlinks clipped on our belts. The lights were only for emergencies. From the high balcony of the Mafia estate, a light could be seen, even in shallow water.

“Ready, hon?” I picked up my fins and mask.

She looked toward the distant white estate that overlooked the sea. “As ready as I'll ever be. Maybe they're all asleep.”

“Maybe. Just stay close to me, OK? No hero stuff.”

“I always do, but look who's talking!”

“Then let's do it.” I put on my mask.

We splashed into the frigid water and stopped to don fins. I didn't feel the cold on my legs through the loose suit, only the pressure of the water as we walked out backward.

“Huff” I called.

He paddled over to us.

“Time to go to work, buddy.”

He nodded and lifted his head. “I forgot my candy.”

“You left them behind?” Sophia chuckled. “Who would've guessed?”

He shook his head. “They are all in my pouch still here, and I am candy soaked.”

“Get rid of them, Huff,” I said.

He nodded, dipping his snout. “But I am sorry to let them go all into the water.”

“They're no good any more, buddy.” I turned to Sophia. “Maybe the fishes will get diabetes.” I checked my watch. “Let's go.”

When we were close enough to the estate, I'd try to tel-project into the rooms and find the tank of bristra, then relay the location to Joe, Chancey, and Bat, who were prepared to sneak inside and take it away or destroy it.

I was afraid I'd bite through the snorkel's mouthpiece as I laid face down in the water. Only the area around my mouth was exposed, beneath the hood and mask, but it was enough to send shivers down my spine as we swam toward the sprawling white building, whose windows were still lit at this late hour. Searchlights combed the beach and the shoreline.

We kept our fins underwater so they wouldn't splash white foam.
Run silent,
the thought came to me from some ancient film I'd seen about the early frogmen.

A disturbed seagull flapped into the brilliant night sky, so crowded with stars our galaxy appeared like a stream of diamonds flung across the dome of space. The seagull wheeled overhead and cawed, as though to scold us for disturbing his sleep, then settled on a piling.

We swam around the tip of a jetty and I felt the faint pull of the littoral current that runs parallel to beaches.

Voices, talking, laughing, carried over the water from a group around a fire. I kept Huff on my seaward side so they wouldn't notice his white fur.
People enjoying a winter weekend at their summer house,
I thought, probably keeping warm and roasting hotdogs, while we crossed them on a mission that could save thousands of lives if we succeeded, or lose thousands if we failed. I envied those carefree weekenders as we approached the Mafia estate.

“Wait!” Sophia said. “What's that?” She pointed to a dark dome shape, about two feet across, floating on the surface. “Look,” she exclaimed, “there's more of them, there, there, and there!”

Mines.
I took the snorkel from my mouth. “Jesus and Buddha,” I whispered. “Stay here,” I told her and Huff, and swam closer to a mine bobbing in the water. Deadly spikes stuck out along its sides. Touch one and the mine would explode.
Son of a crotefucker.
I swam back to Sophia and Huff.

“They're mines, aren't they?” Sophia asked.

I nodded. “The problem is, there might be others set at different depths, maybe just below the surface. If we use our lights to detect them, we could be seen. Huff, do you know what a mine is?”

He nodded. “Mine and yours. I understand that Terran meaning.”

“No, Huff,” I said. “I mean that black thing floating on the surface that I just inspected.”

“I see it. My vision is good.”

“Yeah, well if you touch it, it will explode.”

“Why would it do that?”

“It's a weapon,” Sophia told him. “It keeps people and boats away from the Mafia's beach.”

“Couldn't they just put up a sign,” he asked, “that said `Trespassing On Here is No'?”

“Huff,” I told him, “we need you to guide us around these mines with your night and water vision. Some of the mines might be just under the surface.”Can you do that, buddy?"

“It is how I would hunt the night roving dire flappers, if there were any night roving dire flappers left, but they are all –”

“OK,” I said. “We'll follow you. Just don't touch any of them. You understand? Or we're all dead.”

“I understand, my Terran cub. I would not want all of us dead, or even one of us dead.”

“Good. We'll follow you.” I checked my watch and clamped down on the snorkel.

Huff guided us through the treacherous shallows and we reached the beach.

We clipped our masks and fins to our belts, afraid if we left them at night, we might not find them again. I unclipped the comlink and tapped out a Morse code series of beeps to Joe.
On the beach.
If anyone in the estate heard it, he would think his comlink was low on batteries.

Roger,
Joe sent back.

“Sophia, be quiet now,” I said. “I want to project into the building and see if I can locate the tank of bristra.”

“Good luck.”

The estate loomed ahead, its form distorted in the dark, so that imagination and the night conveyed the sense of a living creature, crouched, with searchlight eyes that swept the beach, as though hunting for prey.

I lowered my head. With my eyes closed I mentally opened my mind to the white building and imagined myself drifting toward it. Into it. After a while, that loud humming noise began inside my head and I felt the strange, uneasy break between mind and body. My stomach clenched and I grabbed Sophia's arm. She took my hand and held it. The prospect of probing within walls that held those criminal minds, was not conducive to a peaceful state. Their dark thoughts and attitudes would influence me, unless they were asleep.

I felt the frigid black indifference that is the geth state between lives suddenly open up around me. Physical sensations ceased and there came that strange feeling of drifting, not through space, but through vibrations at the core of energy. I willed my kwaii, what we Terrans call soul, to move through the subliminal beat of fundamental strings and toward the white building, so like a ship in the night.

The walls were no more than the barrier of water when you dive beneath its viscous surface. I went through it and into the core of the Mafia stronghold.

Children and adults, asleep. Well, not all of them. There was one couple… I backed out. No dark thoughts there.

I went through walls and systematically examined kitchens and pantries, dining rooms and living rooms, offices and attics.

Then I mentally gasped. In a far corner of the building, on the top floor, away from the living quarters, a bio lab had been set up. There, under lights, were stacked rows of bristra, some squirming and putting out new shoots. I drifted closer and read names and Southampton addresses and email addresses taped on some of the tanks. Customers? I almost felt a chill even in this disembodied state.

The family was not just studying the properties of this complex life form, but very probably selling new shoots at incredible profits. Yet they slept so well, these Mafiosi, knowing that sooner or later, a careless customer would allow this opportunistic creature to spread spores into the high winds and take root only Great Mind knew where.

I moved in closer, though I knew my time was limited in geth state. Stay too long, and the laws of the universe will trap you and move you into a new lifebind.

Spores! Rows of small brown spores lined the grooved sides of mature roots, just waiting for freedom and a wind to start them on their adventure.

I felt the hold on my physical body beginning to weaken, and I fled back.

I opened my eyes. The white structure, so like an animal itself, seemed to growl deep in its belly.

“Watchdogs!” Sophia said and unholstered her stingler. “Jules. Are you back?”

“I'm here.” I got shakily to my knees and took out my weapon as two black Dobermans charged out of the night, flashing through a searchlight.

“Take the one on the left,” I told Sophia. “I've got the one on the right. Stun setting.”

I heard her spin the ring, then we fired together. The dogs yelped and rolled, raising sand. Their panting quieted. I saw the red lights blink on their collars. “Uh oh. Alarm systems.”Help me up."

When I was on my feet, we trotted toward the water, but the searchlights pinned us. Huff was ahead and beyond their reach.

“Stop,” a voice blared from a speaker, “or I will shoot.”

A warning hot beam blazed across our path and turned sand to glass. We both stopped.

“Huff,” I said, “they haven't seen you. Take off!”

“Take off what?” he asked. “I am wearing nothing.”

“Get back in the water and behind the ice packs. You'll blend in with them. Tell Joe what happened. Now go!” I ordered as two jeeps plowed across the beach, their headlights bouncing over sand.

“I would rather stay and help you,” Huff said and backed away from the headlights.

“You can't,” I told him. “Now, dammit, go!”

He loped to the water's edge and out of sight as the jeeps pulled up and ground to a stop. I tapped out a Morse code on my comlink to Joe. SOS. SOS.

“Raise your hands,” a voice grated.

We did.

A husky man with a light-colored crew cut and a face chiseled out of marble strode toward us holding a stingler.

“What are we going to do?” Sophia asked.

“I'm…I'm working on it.”

“Work faster,” she whispered as four other men left the jeeps and crowded around us.

“Get their guns and knives,” the husky man ordered the tag next to him.

His companion, a young slim man with oversized ears came forward and unstrapped our holsters and our knives with shaking hands and brought them to the husky man. “Here, Tracy.”

“What the hell do I want with them, Cory?” Tracy jerked his head toward a jeep.

“Oh.” Cory went there.

“Now who the hell are you,” Tracy asked us, “and what're you doing on our property?”

“We're just divers,” I said, “looking for lobsters. We stopped to rest. Sorry, we didn't see the `No Trespassing' sign.”

He came closer and stared into my eyes. “Who you fucking with, scud? There's no lobsters in the winter.”

I put on a look of surprise and glanced at Sophia. “Did you know that, dear?”

She shook her head. “I thought they were all-year-round lobsters.”

Tracy pushed my shoulder hard. “Searching for lobsters with stinglers? And where's your bug bags?”

“Damn,” I said and shook my head. “We forgot our bug bags, dear.”

“Oh,” Sophia said. “We left them in the Land Cruiser.”

“The stinglers are for any encounters with sharks,” I told Tracy.

He narrowed his eyes. “Sharks?”

“Sharks,” Sophia said.

“Especially bull sharks,” I added. “Look, Mister, we don't want any trouble. Just let us go back to the water.”

“I could burn both of you,” he said. “Armed and trespassing. The police couldn't touch me.”

“Give us a break, Tracy.” I put my arm around Sophia's shoulders. “We're newlyweds. Let us go and we'll never bother you again.”

Sophia smiled and leaned her head against me.

Tracy chewed his lip, then shrugged and lowered his weapon. “I hate to burn a woman.” He nodded toward the sea. “Get the hell out of here, and don't come back!”

“OK,” I said. “Thanks. Uh, could we have our stinglers and knives and fins and masks back?”

“No!”

“OK.” I took Sophia's arm. “C'mon, dear.”

“What the fuck's going on out here?” a familiar, high-pitched voice called from the door of the estate.

Uh, oh, Al!

“Let's go, dear.” I hurried her toward the water and looked back.

Al came into the lights from the jeeps buttoning his shirt. “Who are these scuds?” he asked Tracy, and shoved his shirt inside his pants. “You two,” he called to us. “Stay there! I want to talk to you.”

Shit!
I thought.

We stopped and I kept my head lowered. We still wore our hoods.

“Just a couple of night divers, boss,” Tracy told Al. “They decided to rest on the wrong beach.”

“We're leaving,” I said.

“No you're not,” Al told us.

I bit my lip.

He squinted as he came closer, then grabbed my sleeve and turned me to face him.

“Just a couple of newly-wed night divers,” I mumbled. “Give us a break, tag.”

He pulled down my hood. “A couple of night divers,” he said through teeth “You fuckin' kraut. You're supposed to be dead!”

“Sorry,” I said.

“Oh, Jules.” Sophia leaned against me.

Al yanked down her hood. “An'
you
, you traitorous bitch. Where's my brother?” he asked me. “Where's Paulie? I'm gonna rip out his fuckin' lungs an' feed him to the fishes.” He grabbed the front of my suit. “Where is he?”

“They wouldn't tell us,” I said.

“He's in the Witness protection Program, isn't he?”

“Probably.”

“What state?”

“They wouldn't tell us that either.”

“I oughta rip off those rubber suits and kick your asses back into the water.”