The Day Before (27 page)

“Get him inside,” Marrins growled.

Sam jerked back upright, her hand hit something that rolled with a clatter.

“What's he doing here?” Holt asked.

“What are
you
doing here?” an angry voice demanded. It was familiar, but Sam couldn't put it with a face. “I work here.”

“Work's over for the day,” Marrins said. “You should've stayed home.”

Sam's fingers brushed the floor, searching for the object that had rolled. She touched something cylindrical, smooth, heavy, and slightly thicker than an umbrella handle. Heavy was good. Her fingers curled around the potential weapon as the group beyond the desk moved.

“Get inside,” Marrins ordered. “We'll figure this out.”

The chair rolled away with a squeak, but no one looked.

Sam gazed at the object in her hand. It was a security guard's truncheon, the kind that extended when you pushed a button, with an Auburn sticker. Melody's truncheon, undoubtedly dropped the evening Emir's machine killed her, and rolled where no one thought to look. Her grip tightened around the handle. It wouldn't be useful against Marrins's gun, but it was better than nothing.

“Holt,” Marrins said, “come with me while I figure out where the doc went.”

“You, Krenstien!” Marrins barked at the security guard. “Watch this guy. You think you can do that?” Sam heard Marrins shuffle out, followed by Holt. The lights flickered.

“Stop!” Marrins shouted, his voice had an edge of panic.

The lights went out, and the security lighting turned on, a dull green glow. She peeked around the edge of the desk as Krenstien charged down the hall after Marrins. On the other side of the doorway Henry Troom sat tied to the rolling chair with a length of twine

The weight of the guard's baton steadied her. She crawled out from under the desk, checked around the hall corner, and hurried as best she could to Henry. “I'm going to get you out,” Sam whispered as she knelt beside him, left leg stretched out so she didn't put weight on her broken ankle. He looked dazed, pupils dilated. The gun she'd heard must have been Marrins's bureau-­issue splat gun with drugs.

Sam patted his pockets and found his keys. She used them to loosen the twine around his wrists. “Let's go.”

Henry didn't move fast, but neither did she. A door slammed down the long hall. There was an indistinct shout, then Holt yelled, “Where did he go?”

Sam pushed Henry out the door. A red car was pulled up to the front of the lab. Henry stumbled toward it of his own volition and she followed, sliding into the driver's seat.

Behind her, someone cursed. Water gurgled as the old engine warmed up.

“Marrins!” Holt shouted, her voice echoing in the atrium and spilling out into the darkness.

Sam tried the ignition again. The engine turned, and the car sputtered to life. She stepped on the accelerator and the little car rolled forward with a clink. Henry coughed, choked, and opened his door to throw up.

“No, stop!” Sam grabbed his shoulder and pulled him backward as a shot rang out. Metal hit the plastic door of the car, and she smelled ozone. “Get in.” Sam reached across Henry to slam the door shut. She barely sat up in time to twist the steering wheel and avoid a tree. They escaped the parking lot, and Sam gunned the asthmatic engine on the only road back to the main highway.

Marrins fired two more shots, missing her and hitting the road like flint strikes with little bursts of sparks.

His third shot hit home.

The car spun out of control as the tire exploded. She steered into the swerve as best she could, wrestling with the wheel. Her seat belt dug into her throat as the velocity threw her forward. She lost control, and all she saw were the air bags popping into her face as the car hit a tree.

 

CHAPTER 27

We are reborn moment by moment. The darkness awakens within us an awareness of truth. In that instant of greatest fear, we realize who we truly are.

~ Excerpt from
The Heart of
Fear
by Liedjie Slaan I1–2071

Saturday July 6, 2069

Alabama District 3

Commonwealth of North America

A
full moon shone on Mac with all the gentleness of a searchlight. The breeze that stirred the grass was no longer the lightly perfumed breath of spring but the hot, bone-­dry promise of summer. His mind was playing tricks. He kept waiting for screams, looking around for the bodies.

An owl was silhouetted against the moon for a moment as it silently drifted overhead. They had owls in Idaho. One summer, the forestry ser­vice had paid for proof of owls in the area, and he'd spent every night sitting outside with his dad's old camera. He'd been thirteen.

Mac sat up, shaking his head and trying to remember the last time he'd thought of the summer of owls. Years, at the very least. Sam made his thoughts turn to home more often. He caught himself comparing her food to his mom's, and picturing his mother and Sam trying to share the kitchen as they cooked a holiday meal.

Sam . . .

He looked across the bridge and the road that led to N-­V Nova Labs. Occam's razor was dangerous, here. Marrins could have gone anywhere. But the lab was the center of everything, Mac was sure of it. All the bodies could be tied to the lab. Mac had followed the senior agent down this road, it only made sense Marrins would be there. Which meant Sam would be there.

And that meant he needed to be there.

Soon. Not yet.

With a sigh, he looked up at the cold moon. Marrins had a gun, Mac had seen it around the office more than once, and Robbins and Emir hadn't shot themselves. If he wanted to get Sam back, he needed weapons.

The weight of a phantom gun filled his hand. He flinched at the memory of the sound of gunfire. Ghosts whispered in his ears, shouting orders, telling him to get down, take cover. Lieutenant Marcellus stood in front of him, looking to him for directions.

Mac turned away, looked at the grass, and waited for the phantoms to recede into the dark recesses of his mind. One more mission. Then he would join the dead.

The bureau building was dark when he parked beside Sam's car in the otherwise-­empty lot. He pulled on the door—­locked. With a grunt, he kicked the glass door in and took the stairs two at a time as the alarms blared. Red lights blinked in every corner.

A monotone voice announced, “You have unlawfully entered a secured government building. Please wait for the police to arrive.”

“Not likely,” Mac muttered. Where did Marrins keep the guns? There was something about protocols and safeties. He rubbed his aching head and tried to remember. There was an old gun cabinet in Marrins's office. They kept the splat bullets there. Marrins's door splintered under his weight. The safe was open and empty. The old American flag had been torn down to expose a hidden wall safe with a discarded box of Starfire ammunition. Marrins had more than his bureau-­issued weapon.

Mac looked out the window, a line of police cars screamed toward the bureau from the far end of town. Well, at least Altin was coming. But more likely they'd arrest him for disorderly conduct than believe him.

Too bad.

He ran down the stairs and pulled out of the parking lot before the cops arrived. They'd have fun running around. Maybe call Marrins and ask for help. That would be an interesting conversation.

Giving the truck's steering wheel a savage twist, he turned into the bank parking lot. Bankers' hours once meant banks closed at five, a ridiculous time considering the majority of their clients worked until six. Now, at least one bank in town ran a twenty-­four-­hour office. His did.

The bank clerk behind the front desk was a neatly scrubbed young man with a green pin-­striped suit and brown bow tie. “Can I help you, sir?”

“Safety deposit box 203, I need to get into it. Tonight.”

To his credit, the bank clerk only blinked once. “Of course, sir.” He pulled out a black panel. “If you'll just give me a palm scan for confirmation, and then sign here, sir. And here. And, a reason for the rapid withdrawal, sir? I need something for our records.”

“I'm going to kill someone.”

The clerk hesitated. “I think I might need the manager's approval before I could use that reason, sir. Our insurance frowns on murder.”

Mac tried a friendly smile, but from the way the clerk tripped backward, he guessed it didn't work. “I'm proposing to a girl tonight. Her present's in there.”

“A much better reason, if I may say so. Go right on in, sir.”

The doors weren't halfway open before Mac pushed his way in and typed in the code. Box was a misnomer: it was a small storage locker, just large enough to hold an old duffel bag and a few very important mementos.

He pulled out the pieces to the HK416 Marcellus had dropped in Afghanistan. Then the pieces to his own gun. The pistol he'd worn as a sidearm. And last, and certainly least, the bureau-­issued splat gun he hated. Like Miss Azalea, if he shot someone, it wasn't going to be so he could have a nice chat with them later.

After a quick check to make sure there was enough ammunition, he stuffed everything back in the bag and pulled the duffel out.

The clerk stood in the doorway watching, slack-­jawed.

“Is there a problem?” Mac asked.

“Uh . . .” The clerk shook his head.

“It's for a girl. She likes this sort of thing.”

“Uh-­huh. Um . . . congratulations?” the clerk said in a shaky voice.

As Mac walked out, he watched the clerk reach for the phone in the window's reflection. He might not get to Sam on time, but the police would have to be deaf and dumb to miss the trail he was leaving.

He got as far as the car before the shaking started. The memory of Alina Marcellus sat beside him. “Will you bring my baby home?”

“Yes. This time I will,” he whispered.

Sirens sounded in the distance. He put the truck into drive and headed for the lab.

His ghosts came along for the ride.

R
ed-­hot, an all-­enveloping with-­you-­to-­death sort of pain that Sam never imagined possible burned her leg. She went to rub her eyes, but metal handcuffs hampered her movement.

Marrins stood by Dr. Emir's machine wearing a black shirt that read
AMERICAN HERO
in blood-­red letters. Harley was standing next to him in a matching shirt. Krenstien limped in, and there was Holt . . . Sam craned her neck trying to get a head count as her headache receded. One of the lab ­people, she couldn't remember his name, and three other security guards. That made eight.

Bureau training hadn't included classes on how to rescue yourself—­an oversight, in retrospect. Even the survival and evasion tactics weekend course she'd taken had assumed that an agent would never be dumb enough to get caught.

And no one had ever considered a situation where an agent was being held captive by other agents.

Holt walked over to Marrins to whisper something. Marrins scowled and turned to Sam. “Still alive? What does it take to kill you?”

“What did you expect me to do?” she asked, as he stalked over.

His heavy hand smacked her cheek. “What lazy Mexican wetbacks always do, hold still and squeal.”

“I'm Spanish, you bloody idiot.”

He smacked her, harder this time.
Racial pride not a key to self-­preservation when captured: check.
Her whole head thrummed. “You”—­he pointed an accusatory finger at Krenstien—­“keep her in line.”

“Yes, sir.” Krenstien glared at her and sat out of reach. Sam turned to study the paint on the wall.

Marrins stomped his foot. “I know what the man said, Harley! I'm old, not senile. You, intern, what's your name? Get over here!” She turned to see Henry dragged toward the machine by a grim-­faced Holt. “What's your name?” the senior agent demanded again.

“Troom,” the student whispered.

Marrins grunted. “What's wrong with the machine?”

Troom looked down at the abomination with loathing. “Nothing. It's just a prototype. Dr. Emir never made it do anything more than break teacups.”

“It can do more,” Marrins shouted. “We've all seen the proof! I've got a stack of corpses that prove this machine can move ­people around in time. It can save us.”

Sam shivered. One of those corpses was hers, some future her, maybe even the ugly version with a gun.

“No,” Troom argued. “It doesn't. You can't . . .” He sighed and rubbed his head. “Dr. Emir is dead. So is his machine.”

Marrins said, “We need the one timeline that steers all the others so we can keep the United States from selling herself and letting filth in. Emir said there were iterations, variations, something like that. The machine can make the United States come back.” He scowled in Sam's direction. “Dr. Emir promised his machine could do that. He said he knew how to make everything fall in place.” An edge of desperation bit into Marrins's words.

“I can't make that happen!” Troom said, with a shrug. In his drugged state, he seemed indifferent to the danger he was in. “The machine doesn't work like that. If it did, I'd go back and save Dr. Emir.”

“He's useless,” Marrins said in disgust. He jerked his head toward the corner Sam was in, and Holt threw Henry hard into the floor by her.

Sam was about to talk to the intern when she saw the lights flicker off again as the machine whined to life. The lights were flickering because the machine must be drawing more power than anyone expected. The night Melody Chimes had died, the lights had gone out entirely because of the machine. She laughed.

“Shut up.” Marrins shouted. “Somebody shut her up.”

“Emir lied,” Sam said. “And then he left you.” Laughing hurt, but she laughed anyway. “He lied, and he left you here with a mess. You're a murderer, Marrins, and you can't get away.”

“SHUT UP!” Marrins roared.

He stalked over to Sam and pulled out a gun. Not the standard-­issue bureau weapon with purple liquid bullets that knocked a victim out, but the old-­fashioned lead-­bullet kind. “Go ahead. Keep talking,” he said. “I'll leave your brains spread all over the floor.”

Sam just glared, but it must have satisfied Marrins since he turned back to look at the machine. Lying on the floor, she counted ceiling tiles until Krenstien's attention drifted, and he moved toward the machine. Marrins seemed to think that beating the machine would make it work, but she doubted it. Keeping one eye on her ex-­boss, she whispered to Troom, “Are you okay?”

Troom cleared his throat and snuffled.

She risked a glance. His eyes were puffy. “Are you hurt?”

He shook his head.

“Do you think you can run?” she whispered.

“He'll shoot me!” Troom hissed, a little too loud. Krenstien scowled over his shoulder, and Sam went back to counting ceiling tiles.

When Krenstien turned away, Sam said, “I can distract them, but if I do, you need to run. Call someone.”

“They turned on the priority security system. No phone reception. No live-­feed camera going off-­site. We're only supposed to use it during certain tests.” Troom sniffled again. “None of the guards that like me are here. I think . . . I think they're dead.”

So he's not going to be much help.
Sam cursed under her breath.
I'm an idiot.
Marrins had told her who the killer was—­not tonight, but days ago. He'd told her exactly what the shot across the throat meant and why. He'd started out as a police officer in Texas working violent crimes. The casework was in his public record, and she'd ignored it because he was a bureau agent.

Holt turned, pacing in their direction. Sam lay still and stared ahead blankly as Holt passed by, black shoes reflecting the overhead lights. She moved away, and Sam stretched to look at the machine.
No time to worry about missed opportunities—­have to take advantage of this one. And if this twerp won't make a break for it, then he might still be able to help.

“How do I break it?” she asked Troom.

“Break it?” he asked in anguish. “Why?”

She turned to glare at him. “Do you want to live?”

“They'll kill you.”

“Some things are worth dying for.” Some deaths were better than others, and she'd rather go out with a bullet to her throat than slowly tortured to death in whatever parallel timeline Marrins might drag her to. Troom was silent as Krenstien made another circuit. In the center of the room, Marrins and Harley seemed to reach some agreement, and the lab lights dimmed as the machine powered up again.

“Besides—­they'll probably kill us anyway. Might as well
try
living.” Sam looked at Troom, his eyes wild. “How do I break it?”

“Y-­you could smash it, or remove the core. Or . . . or push it into the anomaly.” He squeezed his eyes shut as tears appeared. “Smash it. Break the power coil off, and it will shut down. We had to bolt the casing to the floor because the linkages were so fragile. The slightest bump means you need to recalibrate. A solid hit would probably destroy it beyond repair.”

She took a deep breath. “Okay.” Even without a broken ankle, it wasn't a perfect scenario. Marrins had lead bullets, Holt probably had her gun, and goodness only knew what everyone else was carrying. She patted her pocket and pulled out the small truncheon. She felt the Auburn University sticker on the handle. It was fitting, really: Melody Chimes had lost everything, and now part of her would be there for the final payback.

I hope.

Sam nudged Henry Troom. “When I move, crawl for the door, get outside, and run. Don't stop for anything. Call Detective Altin. Tell him everything.”