Thirst No. 4 (31 page)

I pat him on the back and turn toward the door. Jolie stops me by grabbing my pant leg. “Don’t go,” she pleads.

I crouch beside her. “It’s better I kill them with my hands than waste our mental powers trying to take them down.”

“Are there many more?”

“After this, we have only one more group to kill.”

Jolie nods to herself. “I want them to die.”

Upstairs, I alert Cynthia and Thomas Brutran to the situation. I portray the Telar’s close proximity as a major break,
which I believe it is. They say they can scramble three helicopters in ten minutes.

“Make it five,” I say. “And I want Charlie to give each of the men who are coming with me a shot of the vaccine.”

“I’ll take care of that,” Tom says, and rushes off. His wife studies me critically.

“I watched your last session on remote,” she says. “It looks like half the Cradle is about to stroke out.”

“That’s not my fault. Lark disobeyed me.”

“Lark’s not the one who worries me. It’s the next round, when we go after Haru and his people. He won’t make the mistake these ones did. If he sets up a powerful Link, I don’t know how you’re going to punch through it.”

“Leave that to me. I have a secret weapon.”

“I don’t like secrets. Tell me.”

“Gimme a break, you live for secrets. Now get out of my way, I have work to do.”

Brutran tries to stop me. “Wait. I’m going with you.”

“That’s insane. These are Telar. Just one of them attacked my house in Missouri and I was lucky to escape alive.”

“I’ll take precautions but I’m going. I’m still the head of this firm.”

I shake my head. “It’s your life.”

Ten minutes later we’re airborne over Santa Monica with Century City only five miles in front of us. The latter is loaded
with crowded but elegant skyscrapers. Its real estate is some of the most expensive on the planet. The Century Plaza Hotel stands a block away from the Fox building.

However, an intelligence update, from Lark and Brutran, tells us that our three prime Telar have already left the hotel and are heading toward one of the town’s original twin towers that were built back in the seventies. They are only forty-four stories tall, pale shadows of the World Trade Center towers that were lost on 9/11, and yet the other skyscrapers have quietly built up around them, almost as if they were the founding parents.

What’s unique about the two towers is their flat roofs. Helicopters can land and take off from them. The Telar must have sensed me behind the Cradle. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be so anxious to get out of town.

It’s dark, after midnight, and the city lights are bright.

I sit up front with the pilot, with headphones on and six heavily armed men at my back. I’m in touch with Cindy and Lark via a cell plugged into my right ear. The boy sounds weak, his voice is faint. He’s following the Telar with his mind’s eye. Cindy’s in the helicopter off to my right.

“I wouldn’t get any closer than a mile,” I warn her. “If the Telar have a sharpshooter like the guy who visited me in Missouri, then we’ll be lucky to make it to the towers.”

“These copters are bulletproof,” Cindy says.

“The Telar have lasers.”

“We know. We have samples of them. They can’t take down these copters.”

“They have disruptors,” I add.

“What are those?”

“I don’t know. But they hit us with them in Colorado and I can assure you they are nasty weapons.”

The helicopter on my left suddenly lights up. A dozen lasers have focused on it. The pilot swears as if blinded but luckily he doesn’t bump into us. The black paint on the exterior of the copter begins to peel. The vehicle looks as if it’s caught in its own private ray of sunshine. It glows in the night sky like Santa’s sleigh. If I were aboard I’d be reaching for a parachute.

“Bravo One, this is Bravo Three. Our hull temperature is over four hundred degrees. Our fuel tank is rapidly heating. We might be forced to retreat. Over.”

“Bravo Three, this is Brutran. Under no circumstances are you to retreat. Over.”

“Cindy,” I say. “Let them go. Gasoline can only get so hot before it explodes. It doesn’t matter how fancy your shields are. Bravo Three can always return later.”

Brutran appears to consider my request, although I know she hates for me to question her orders in front of her people.

“Bravo Three,” she says. “You have my—”

The helicopter on our left explodes.

The shock wave is deafening, the fireball blinding. Our
main rotor, tail rotor, and tail fin are pounded with debris. Swearing, our pilot fights to keep us aloft. But as he pulls up on the controls I caution him to keep low.

“Stay down until we’re ready to land on top of the building. Weave around the trees if you must. But keep those lasers off us.”

“Gotcha,” the pilot says, and I can tell he wishes I was in charge instead of Brutran.

“Bravo Two, this is Bravo One, what’s your status?” Brutran asks.

I speak up. “We’re keeping our heads down, Bravo One. Suggest you do likewise if you don’t want to join the Telar’s next target-practice session.”

Brutran doesn’t answer but her helicopter suddenly veers low and away. They are no longer heading for the building. Brutran’s life can’t be that much of a nightmare. She sure as hell doesn’t want to die.

Lark informs us that the three Telar we are pursuing have entered one of the towers. He sounds confused and is unable to specify whether it’s the north or south tower. Brutran calls to people she has assembling on the ground for an update. This is one advantage in having the IIC as an ally, even if it is temporary. They have lots of people you can call for help.

From studying the buildings when we were high up, I noticed there were more men and machines on the roof of the north tower. Yet there was a single helicopter on top of
the south tower, and the buildings do connect underground. I wonder if it’s a trick. . . .

Brutran interrupts my thoughts.

“Bravo Two, the Telar have entered the north tower. Over.”

“Bravo One, copy that. Telar are in north tower,” I say.

From everything I’ve seen of the Telar, I know their technology is far superior to anything mankind has, and that includes the IIC. There’s an excellent chance the Telar are listening to us now, and are going to try to take off from the south tower. I share my thoughts with our pilot. He frowns.

“They’re running scared. Do you think they’ve had enough time to come up with such a clever plan?”

“I’ve learned never to underestimate them,” I say.

“But if your guess is wrong . . .”

“If it’s wrong, I’ll know soon enough and you can come back for me. Which brings me to another point. I don’t want you to land on the south tower. You’ll come under heavy fire from the other tower. Just fly over and I’ll jump out.”

He looks at me like I’m crazy. “We’ll be moving too fast. I’ll at least have to stop and hover.”

I don’t have time to get in an argument. I touch his arm and let the power enter my voice. “I appreciate your concern but I’ll be fine. Just give me a rifle, plenty of ammo, a dozen grenades, and I’ll be on my way.”

The pilot instructs his men to fill my order and pretty soon I’m jamming my pockets with everything I can carry. The pilot
is skillful, he swoops low around the Fox building before suddenly crossing the street and climbing.

We’re almost to the south tower when the lasers hit. They dance over our hull and pierce our armored glass. The internal temperature jumps twenty degrees. The lasers make my eyes ache and virtually blind the pilot. I briefly grab his controls.

“I’m steering us, don’t worry!” I shout. “I’ll turn our back on them just before I leap out. When you hear my door slam shut, you have to take back the helm.”

“It’s getting hot in here,” he says, sweating, afraid.

“Their lasers have a limited range. Duck below the south tower as I leave and use it as a shield. Trust me, you’ll be all right.”

The leap out of the helicopter reminds me of the last time I jumped from a helicopter to escape the Telar. Then I had Shanti in my hands, and Seymour was with Teri. It was that night, high in the Rockies, on top of a half-frozen lake, that Teri hit an ice patch in the water and shattered her leg. In that instant her death became inevitable, although I refused to accept that fact for a long time.

Now I leap alone, into a red corona of laser fire, and land rolling on top of the south tower. I watch with relief as my copter makes a quick dip, after passing the building, and escapes the Telar’s bombardment.

I’m not given a chance to relax. The lasers converge in my direction and I run as fast as I can to the edge of the building
and duck down behind a two-foot-high concrete lip. The north tower is a hundred yards away, its roof crowded with three copters and a dozen armed men and women.

They don’t immediately open fire and that helps confirm my guess. The soldiers are worried about hitting the parked helicopter behind me. It’s the one that counts because it’s the one the three members of the Source are hurrying toward.

However, even if the three high-ranking Telar are presently in my building, they can always switch to the north tower. To discourage such a move, I rush toward the corner of the building and prepare to open fire on the north-tower roof. But since I’m no longer in the line of sight with their precious helicopter, they immediately start shooting at me, effectively pinning me down.

They switch from lasers to conventional weapons. It might be that the lasers don’t work against concrete or else the Telar are skittish about melting the side of a well-known building. In either case a barrage of machine-gun fire erupts less than a foot above my head.

The bullets are of the armor-piercing variety. They begin to chew away my protective concrete, powdering the air with white dust, and I see I have only a few seconds before I will be exposed. Rolling vigorously to my right, I stand, take aim, and kill half a dozen people on top of the other tower. They drop suddenly, and the sound of silence, as their machine guns die, is just as abrupt. I use the time and the shock to blow out anything that
looks like a radio. Then I run to the single waiting helicopter.

I disable it carefully by unplugging a chip attached to its ignition system. Who knows, I might need the helicopter later. I can always replace the chip. I work out of sight of the remaining Telar on the north tower. They’re still trying to recover from my devastating attack. Fortunately, I don’t see any of them on the radio or even a phone. I can only hope I’ve taken out their communication equipment.

I have lost the plug to my cell. It must have fallen out at some point.

Finally, I enter the building, taking a short stairway that leads down from the heliport. It doesn’t take long for me to find a set of elevators. Neither appears to be in use, but I can tell at a glance they’re too small to support the bulk of the building’s traffic.

Sitting down in a windowless hallway and closing my eyes, I let my hearing expand downward, floor by floor. I’m not just listening for people, I’m trying to detect a specific heart signature. The Telar have a powerful pulse; it separates them from normal people.

Ten floors below me, I hear a dozen people cleaning—vacuuming, sweeping, washing the toilets—while another two type on their computers. Letting my hearing drop further, I pick up fifteen more. Five are painting and plastering, two are typing while listening to music, six are arguing about future sales, and two are having extremely loud sex.

I drop lower. There are so many floors, it’s a strain for even my ears to hear what’s happening below the twentieth level. But I’m lucky because I become aware of three people in the stairway, climbing upward, and I only hear them because sounds echo in that vast hollow chamber.

They climb at a steady jog, taking no breaks, but don’t breathe as hard as they should for such strenuous exercise. Also, their pulses don’t exceed a hundred and twenty beats a minute. These facts alone convince me they’re Telar, but are they the three I’m looking for? That is the question.

I don’t want to spend the whole night killing foot soldiers. I have to get back to the IIC’s headquarters to greet Umara and the others. Then I have to kill the top members of the Source, although according to Umara these three are crucial to its operation. I’ve already witnessed their amazing ability to link. It worries me how four of them were able to bloody so many of the kids. If Umara can’t boost our power substantially, we’re not going to win this fight.

The three Telar continue up the stairway. The more I listen, the more confident I become that they’re the ones I’m looking for. They are sticking close together, like people would who have known each other a long time and are used to turning to one another in times of crisis. Also, there are two men and one woman in their group, just like at the hotel.

Standing, I push the button on the elevator and call it to the top floor. This is a calculated risk. It will probably warn the
Telar where I am. At the same time, I might need the elevator if I’m to trap them in this building.

I listen closely as the cubicle rises. The system is old, it takes its time. The three Telar also appear to stop and listen. I want the elevator on my floor but I don’t want to use it just yet. Fortunately, there’s a garbage can in a nearby restroom, and when the elevator does finally reach my floor, I’m able to jam it in the doorway and secure the elevator in place.

The Telar don’t seem to understand what I’ve done. Their desire to reach the helicopter might be overshadowing their reasoning. They continue their upward march.

I go in search of the stairwell. There are two, I discover, but only one is occupied. I know the Telar are still twenty-five floors beneath me. Yet I open the door as quietly as possible. I do a pretty good job until the lower hinge screeches. At that instant I hear the three stop jogging and go still. I have no choice. Moving forward, softly closing the door, I tiptoe to the edge of the stairwell and peek over. It’s a long way down.

I can’t see them but I can hear them. Breathing. Listening.

I have an opportunity here. I have grenades. The guys in the copter told me they have a standard five-second delay after the pin is pulled. I estimate it will take seven seconds for a grenade to reach my enemies if I simply let it go. Of course it will drop faster if I put some muscle behind it. But too hard a throw might cause the grenade to fall too quickly.