The Angel & the Brown-eyed Boy (13 page)

“You next, Mel. Climb up on my shoulders.”

“How are you going to get out? Would you stop being such a martyr?”

“I’m not being a martyr.”

“You are always a martyr.”

Eliana stood on the sidewalk next to a man in a black suit. The argument from below ended when the man dropped something shiny and heavy through the hole. It clanked as he let it down. The man whispered, “Hurry up. We have to get out of here.”

They clambered up the ladder. A long black vehicle waited at the curb.

The stranger pulled the chain ladder out of the hole and handed it to Mel. The stranger then shoved the grate back where it had been and ran around the front of the car, climbing in a door on the other side. “Let’s go.”

Mel opened a door in the back and climbed in. He tossed the ladder on the floor and held his hands out to help Eliana. Jeremy followed. The vehicle pulled into the street, moving slowly.

Jeremy leapt to the front of their compartment and shouted through a small window in the wall between them and the driver.

“Arthur! It’s tomorrow morning!” he cried.

“I know, Jeremy. That’s why I’m here.” A trim hand reached up and waved at Jeremy. Eliana caught a glimpse of the driver’s brown skin and a bit of short black hair.

“It’s over, Arthur! Everything we’ve worked for. There’s not going to be a revolution!”

“I know, Jeremy. The good guys lost.”

“How can that be? We were supposed to have months before the atomics detonated. The scientists were supposed to be on their way to the estate. My mom was coming home... we were going to go into the shelter and make a great new world. I thought...” A wail escaped him. “Arthur!”

“Knock it off, soldier,” Arthur barked. “This is what you trained for. The worst-case scenario. We’ve got to get out of here or we’re going to be dead. Sit back so I can drive.”

Everyone was silent as Arthur maneuvered through the smaller streets. He swerved and backtracked. Between rows of buildings, Eliana could see big riding machines with flashing lights heading for the
school behind them. Smaller machines prowled the cross streets. She could see Arthur leaning forward to peer out the front window. The long vehicle tossed them around when he turned and accelerated. He cursed.

“This thing’s like driving a boat. I wish we had cycles—” Arthur slowed as a black-and-white car with flashing lights passed on a side street.

Finally, they got to an area where everything was quiet. Arthur began talking. His voice came from the door near where Eliana sat.

“I’m using the speaker so I can steer this thing. Yes, Jeremy, it’s a shock. It caught us by surprise—and we do have better intelligence than you. We knew the bombs were going to go off. Why else would atomic weapons come up out of bunkers that no one knew were there?

“We thought we had time to take back the country. That was Plan A: stage a revolution and disarm the nukes. We have the scientists to do it.

“If that didn’t work, we had Plan B. You knew that. That’s why we built the shelter on your mom’s estate. We’ve known that all-out war was in the works for years. We thought it was going to be biological or chemical.

“So we made a place for a hundred geniuses and philosophers to hole up until it was safe to come out. We were going to create a race of philosopher-kings—–and make sure the people of the new world didn’t have our faults.”

Eliana could understand much of what Arthur said. English was coming easier to her. She looked at Jeremy and Mel. She could tell by the way they sat that they knew what Arthur was talking about. They were part of it.

“But that’s out,” Arthur went on. “The scientists aren’t coming. Flights around the world are grounded. They shot that missing Russian plane down. No one knows that. The pilot took off without permission and they nailed him. Those pictures of it ‘disappearing’ were from the Russian government, not a weather balloon.

“The only planes flying are heads of state getting home. The major governments know what’s happening, but they’re not telling anyone. They want to get locked into their bunkers before the people figure out that they’ve been left out to die.

“Everything we trained for is out.” Eliana felt Arthur’s bitterness as a taste in her mouth. “None of it will happen.” He laughed, a caustic snort. “That perfect genetic match they found for you in France is in a shelter outside Paris, Jeremy. The two of you won’t be making the smartest babies ever seen.”

“What about my mom? Will the general let her come home?”

“No, Jeremy. She’s too big a trophy. We did find out that your mom and the general are in Russia somewhere, not South America the way they’ve let on. They’re in a bunker, dug in.” A sob escaped Jeremy. “We’ve talked about this, Jer. I know it’s hard, but she can’t get away from the general. And we can’t rescue her.”

Jeremy sat with his fists clenched against his ribs. His lips pulled back from his teeth. Eliana could hear the breath going in and out of him.

“What do we do now, Arthur?” Jeremy gripped the arm of the door. “What’s Plan C?”

“There’s no Plan C and there’s no plan at all if we don’t get to the estate.” Arthur swung around and looked through the hole in the wall for an instant. He had a brown face, but not as dark as Henry’s, and smooth skin. His hair was black and shiny and combed straight back. He had white teeth and dark eyes. She could feel his essence as well as she could his emotions. He was a soldier, a killer. And he was a good person.

“It’s just us,” Jeremy said softly. “We’re the new world.”

“Yeah. But first we have to get to the estate,” Arthur replied. “I’d better drive.” The window between the compartments closed.

Jeremy sat back, silent. He didn’t look at her or Mel. She could feel how upset he was, but he didn’t reach out to anyone.

“We’re it,” he said. “We’re the new world.”

“Don’t forget the people in the village,” Mel reminded him. “There must be a hundred of them.”

“The shelter won’t hold more than a hundred.” Jeremy sat back, shaking his head. “And they’re... villagers. They’re the worst genetic material in the world.”

“I don’t think they’re the worst, Jeremy. Sam of the village isn’t. Or at least he didn’t sound that way from what you’ve said about him.”

“Have you ever seen Sam?”

“You know I can’t leave the city. My papers might not hold up.”

“The last time I saw Sam, he was face down in the mud, passed out.”

“Oh...,” Mel stammered. “But we made him that way, Jeremy. It was his cover so the feds didn’t get him. We came up with that. He wasn’t a drunk before this last year.”

“Yeah. Well, he really likes his cover. Give me a minute, will you? I just need a minute.” Jeremy slumped in silence, face in his hands.

Eliana looked around her, focusing on the vehicle rather than the feelings around her. She’d seen conveyers for people in the streets, but none like this. It was much too big for them; many more people could ride in it easily. It was so long. And beautiful. She stroked the seats, wondering what the material was. She had a disturbing sense that it might have come from an animal. But she had no choice; she had to sit on it. She sat in the middle of the seat in back. Mel sat farthest in. Jeremy had climbed in last and sat on her other side, closest to the door. The wall between the two compartments seemed far away.

Jeremy was silent, but his shoulders shook. Eliana could feel his grief. It was the computers he’d made and the musical instruments. And his mother. She leaned toward him. He held his eyes tightly shut. His hands were clasped in fists. She wanted to comfort him, and thank him for saving her, but he was hurting too much to hear her.

The machines that he destroyed were his. He’d made them and he understood them. They were good machines. He had contacted her world and asked them for help with those machines. That was why she was here. Eliana reached in her pocket stealthily and looked
at the piece of paper. It said, “The Golden Boy.” No longer “Find the Golden Boy.”

Jeremy was the Golden Boy. She looked at him with wonder. She had found him. All she had to do was her part. How did she do that?

She peeked at her notebook for instructions. It said: “Be who you are.”

“Y
ou’re lucky to be alive,” the medic said as he sutured a cut on her cheek.

“Clean up my face so I can get back to work.” Val looked in a mirror. She had some cuts on her face and, most likely, a broken nose. Bruises all over from flying objects. But she was alive. Everyone else in the room had died in the blast. Her partner. Her entire team. The ballet teacher.

Where was the girl? Was she dead? Or had whatever had done that to Richard taken her corpse? Had she killed Richard? Was she an alien?

A hack from headquarters was on the phone. “You should come in for a medical evaluation, Lieutenant. We’ve ordered reinforcements.”

“Like hell I’ll come in. They killed my people. I’m not going to come in until they’re dead.”

“We’re sending a supervisory force, Lieutenant.”

“They’re not going to supervise me. Remove me from duty or give me free rein.”

A chuckle came over the receiver. “It’s a tech team. They may be able to do things you can’t.”

She smiled. They were giving her the big guns. A tech team meant people who could determine if technical crimes were involved. And how technical the crimes were. They would bring chemical persuaders with them and weapons most people hadn’t seen. Not to mention explosives and computers.

“Great. Thanks for the support. I won’t let you down.”

“We know you won’t, Val. Everyone’s counting on you. They’re watching you all the way to the top.”

That gave her chills. They were watching her. Now, to make the arrest that would put her on top. Being the bureau chief was her life’s ambition. This could put her where she wanted to be.

About one-fourth of the school was destroyed by the initial blast, the northwest quadrant that held classrooms, the school office, and some meeting rooms aboveground. Belowground were the offices and practice rooms. After the second explosion, the entire front section of the building collapsed.

From the way the force felt—and she knew, since she’d been standing near the first one—the bomb was in the basement farther up the hall from Richard’s studio.

The room she had been in was obliterated. She’d been thrown halfway up the hall and managed to run the rest, choking from dust and smoke, ducking falling timbers and debris. When the second blast occurred, she had clawed her way into the ballet studio. Those stupid girls were there, howling. Not her.

“Set up an interview area,” she ordered. “We’ll establish a ‘nice’ room for the good guys. We can sort people out and determine who isn’t nice. We’ll take them to headquarters. I’m going to be interrogating people. Tell me when the Special Forces arrive. And have someone start going through records. Flag anyone under suspicion. Look at the eye printouts and the data from the snipes. I want all the reports.”

They didn’t have to interview that many people. The school director was dead; she had been looking out the front window when the building collapsed beneath her. Most of the kids had been off-campus,
done with their classes. They were being rounded up from pizza parlors in the neighborhood. Some were safely in their dorm rooms. Many teachers had gone for the day. A few were there; they were sequestered. Figuring out who was buried under the rubble and who was off playing pinball made taking a body count hard. The death toll didn’t seem too high, except for her team. But they were the only ones who really counted.

“I can’t believe it,” sobbed Sylvia James in the “nice” room they’d set up. “If I hadn’t been with the ballet class, I’d be dead.” Sylvia was red-eyed and shaken, but she shot a sharp look at Val. “The school didn’t know anything about what Madame Mercier was doing to those girls. Please believe me...”

“I do believe you, Sylvia. I know the Hermitage Academy would never be party to abuse. Who do you think did this?” Val knew kind and empathetic would be the best way to get information out of the blubbering office manager.

“I don’t know. We’re devoted to the arts. We don’t do anything controversial,” Sylvia sobbed.

“This was an act of terrorism against the United States,” Val assured her.

“Really?”

“Yes. I know you’ll give us your full cooperation.”

“Oh, yes! I’m totally behind the government.”

“OK. Who was down there in that basement? Or what was down there?”

“Nothing, really. There’s storage and extra classrooms. Special students—like poor Richard...” That was good for a five-tissue break.

“Tell me who might have killed him. Who else went down there?”

“Jeremy had rooms in the basement, a bedroom and a music studio. He practiced his clarinet every day. The floor vibrated from it. He had speakers.”

“Is he technically minded? Did he know anything about computers?”

“Oh, no. Jeremy had to call Henry in to set up his speakers and keep them working. Jeremy wouldn’t do anything. He wouldn’t know how.”

She put her hands to her face and shrieked, “Oh, God! Jeremy’s down there, too. He’s probably dead.”

“Sylvia, we’re trying to find Jeremy as fast as possible, if he was down there. Maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he’s wandering around the city. Maybe something fell on his head and he needs help. Tell me about him so we can help him.”