The Left Behind Collection: All 12 Books (325 page)

And after all this, may God have mercy—or not—on anyone who dared stand between them and freedom.

Chloe didn’t know the specifics of the directed energy weapon lying across the backseat, but she’d heard the effect it had on a target. And she was curious. She carefully lifted it into her lap, making Hannah alternate from watching the road to watching the DEW.

“Don’t point that thing at me, Chloe.”

“It’s not even on!”

“That’s like saying a gun isn’t loaded. People get killed all the time with guns they swear aren’t loaded.”

“Looks pretty simple. You know the deal with these, right?”

“Yes,” Hannah said. “Now, Chloe, please.”

“Looks like you just turn it on, let it heat up or whatever it does, and fire away. It’s nonlethal.”

“Yeah, I know. But 130 degrees on soft tissue’s going to make you wish you were dead.”

“Bet I can get those guys to quit following us.”

“Don’t even think about it. You miss, they start shooting, and we’re not going to help anybody.”

“We’re not helping anybody anyway,” Chloe said. “We’re sitting here with Uzis, sidearms, a shotgun, and a DEW, and we’ve left Mac up there by himself with all those GC.”

“And how long are these guys going to let us lead them all over town before they realize we’re playing them?”

“We’ve got to shake ’em before we head for the airport, Hannah. They’ll never let us in there.”

“
Shake
them? Chloe, their ranks may be decimated, but they’ve got other personnel, more cars, radios. We’re not going to shake them.”

“I’m calling Chang.”

“What for?”

“I want to know how many people know where we are.”

“Why?”

“Hang on.”

Running was much easier without the cumbersome Fifty, but Mac had not run this far since . . . since when? Since never. No high school cross-country race was this far. This was longer than a marathon. With the slow but sure staccato of his steps, he repeated in his mind, “God, I’m yours. God, I’m yours. God, I’m yours.”

If he was going to reach the Jeep, it would be only because God wanted him to. This was way past Mac’s human capabilities.

Chang frantically read every tidbit of the communication between Akbar and Stefanich, hoping for something, anything, to help Mac. His secure phone chirped, and the readout told him it was Chloe.

“You okay?” he said.

“For now,” she said. “Is there a way to know how many people are following us?”

“I can try to find out. What’s your thinking?”

“If it’s a bunch, we’re dead. We’ll run them around town, and we could try to outrun them or shoot it out with them, but you know the odds there. If it’s just one car, waiting to tell everybody else where the underground headquarters is, I have an idea.”

“Hit me with the idea before I start trying to access the Ptolemaïs mainframe again.”

“Why? If you don’t like my idea, you don’t look? Is that it?”

“Chloe, don’t do this. Mac is in more imminent danger, and we have no idea where Sebastian is yet, so I have to prioritize.”

“Sorry. I’ll make it quick. If they’re looking to us to lead them to the underground, we’ll lead them to one. Only it won’t be the real one. It’ll be some other unfortunate citizens who’ll get raided soon.”

“I like it.”

“That’s a relief.”

“No, I really do. And I think you two are small potatoes to them. Not that you’re in the clear. Getting out of that airport tonight is going to be next to impossible, but they probably assume you have nowhere to go anyway and they can round you up when you try to leave. They want the locals.”

“And we’re going to lead them to ’em, only not really.”

“Back to you as soon as I can.”

“Stop the racket or I’ll kill you!” Elena yelled.

George heard no one else. He kept pounding. How was she going to reach the lock? unlock it? open the doors?

She swore, and he heard movement. She was dragging something near the elevator. He heard the key in the lock, then heard it turn over. It sounded like she had stepped down from the chair or whatever she had used to elevate herself. Now she was trying to open the doors. Not even Plato had been able to do it alone. George just sat there pounding.

“I’m trying to get to you!” she said. “But when I do, you’re going to be sorry.”

Thump!

Thump!

Thump!

“I’ll shoot through the door!”

Thump!

Thump!

Thump!

“You’d better cut that out, and I’m not kidding!”

He could tell she was struggling with the doors. There was no way she could open them. If only he could get her to forget they were unlocked. He quit banging.

“That’s better!”

He heard her step up again. The key was going into the lock.

Thump!

Thump!

Thump!

“No! I’m onto you! I’m locking it, and you can just thump all night!”

She locked it.

George stood and found the other boot. He put one on each hand. Now he leaned forward with his hands above his head, the boots pressing against the doors. He dragged them as he slowly slid to the floor and let them drop. George made sure his knee hit first, hard. Then his hip, then his side, then the boots, then his hands. He lay still.

“You finished playing around in there? . . . Huh? Are you? . . . You’re going to get yourself shot! . . . You okay in there? . . . Hey!”

She swore again, and he heard her on the phone. “. . . was banging around in there. I threatened to shoot him and he quit, but now I think he’s passed out . . . because it sounded like it . . . like he collapsed. You know there’s no air in there. No ventilation. Where? I’ll look.”

She slapped the doors twice. “Hold on in there. I’ll get you some air.”

Chang found the tape of radio transmissions among local GC Peacekeepers in Ptolemaïs, but the quality was so poor, the conversion facility couldn’t turn it into readable words. He downloaded it into his own computer and tried listening through earphones.

“Chloe,” he reported, “I’m guessing, so what you do with this is totally up to you. I believe there is only one car following you, and it’s not official GC. They’ve farmed out your surveillance to two Morale Monitors. They’re armed, of course, but all they’re supposed to do is report who you warn about a raid.”

“But you’re guessing.”

“I have to be honest, Chloe. I’m pretty sure that’s what I heard.”

“How sure are you?”

“Fifty-five percent.”

She laughed.

“That’s funny?”

“No. It’s just that I was hoping for at least sixty. If I can get you to move to sixty, I’ll buy this car today.”

“Pardon?”

“Nothing. Could it be sixty-forty?”

“Max.”

“We’re going to give it a go.”

Elena was still on the phone, but George had to press his ear flat against the elevator door to hear, and unless she was shouting, he could barely make it out.

“On the wall next to the elevator?” it seemed she was saying. “Yeah. Gray door. Got it. There’s dozens of them in here, man. . . . Well, like furnace, air, water heater—yeah, they sound like downstairs stuff. . . . How should I know? About twenty of them look like that stuff. Okay, twenty-one and further . . . okay, maybe this is first floor. . . . Alarm system, emergency lights, outside lights, stairwell lights, elevator. . . . Different one for vent, fan, or light? Doesn’t look like it. . . . Yeah, all on one. . . . But I have to. He’s going to suffocate in there. . . . No! Prop those open even an inch and I’d have to watch him every second.

“What if I turned it on but kept the doors locked? . . . Every floor? So I lock them on every floor. Then there’s nowhere for him to go, right? . . . I’ll call you.”

George heard her leave the lobby and start up some stairs. He kept his ear against the door and could feel and hear her locking the outer elevator doors on the three floors above him. So she was going to flip on the circuit breaker for the elevator so the fan would run and he could get some ventilation. That wouldn’t do. He had to somehow get her to open the doors.

She would be listening for the fan and for evidence of his being conscious. George reached up and felt the fan and the lights, pushing firmly around the sides. The panels were screwed on tight, but housings were hooked to wiring above the car, so those had to be the weakest panels in the ceiling. He pulled the gloves on and pushed hard. The metal was too tough and sharp in some places, even with the gloves on. Elena had to be nearly all the way back down.

George quickly slipped on the socks and boots, bent low, and stood on his hands, quietly walking up the sides of the car until the soles pressed against the ceiling. He toed around until he was sure he was pushing against light and fan, then stiffened his legs and pushed up from the floor with all his strength.

The fluorescents popped and fell; the fan blades bent and twisted and began to give way. His biceps shook and his chest ached, but he continued to push as if his life depended on it. He felt the panels tear away and the housing break away from the wires. The ceiling had to be a mess.

George tried to keep from gasping or making noise as he slowly brought his feet back down and lay panting on the floor, carefully brushing the debris into a corner. He heard Elena hurry past toward the circuit-breaker box and flip the breaker all the way off and then back on. The lights of the floor buttons on the panel came on, and he heard a hum in the ceiling where the light and fan should have been.