Vanished (24 page)

"I'm many things, but I'm not a liar."

There it was-the oldest and grandest lie of all.

Logan nudged Ben. Eyes scrunched tight and skin clammy,
the kid had gone beyond terror into hopelessness. "If Luther
was going to kill us, we'd be dead by now. We're going to move
behind the school. Keep behind me."

Ben nodded.

Logan shuffled sideways, glancing back to make sure the
kid stayed with him. Sheltering him with his own body was
an exercise in futility. Luther could take them both down in a barrage of bullets, cutting through them like tissue paper.
Not that he would at this point. Terror was more about the
survivors than the dead. Terrify the cop on the beat and
everyone else would tremble with him.

Around the side of the school, Logan scanned the parking
lot and playground. Trash, a deflated basketball, and a couple
of water bottles littered the area. There was no sign of a blue
backpack with pink straps.

As if reading his mind, Luther called out, "Don't you want to
know where I moved the package to, Sergeant?"

"Sure. Why not."

"Speak to me face-to-face and I'll tell you."

"Don't," Ben said. "It's a trick."

"He had a clear shot and he didn't take it. He's after something else." Logan stepped into the open. "Go ahead. Tell me
where you put this alleged bomb."

Luther laughed. `Alleged? Perhaps you're resorting to lawenforcement cliches because you're scared to have a tete-a-tete
with me. Is that it?

It wasn't Luther whom Logan feared. It was the mist.

"I give you my word, Sergeant. I will not harm you.
However, many people will be harmed if you let time keep
ticking on like this."

"Don't do it," Ben said.

Logan stepped back behind the building. "I want you to go to
the clinic. Find Agent Pappas or Officer Wells. Tell them what's
going down here. I need you to do that, son. Get me backup."

Ben's eyes ached with a raw longing Logan had seen in too
many kids without dads.

"OK." Ben gave him a little wave and took off across the
parking lot.

Logan turned back to Luther-and the mist.

EN HAD RUN OUT OF HIMSELF HOURS AGO.

Nothing left of the Benedict who had tossed on a
Celtics shirt at eight this morning, grumbling because
he had to hang at the clinic with Mom instead of with his
friends.

Nothing left of the Benjie who had walked with a pretty girl
to the Circle, thinking he'd steal a kiss, only to have his dumb
hope and the pretty girl blow up in his face.

Nothing left of the brotha who had hung with his friend,
tried to do what was right, only to see that friend's blood rush
out onto the street and his life rush out of his eyes to whoreally-knew-where?

Nothing left of the little boy who cowered in his house, only
to have that house spit him out on a tongue of fire.

All that was left of Ben Murdoch was the blind instinct
to run to Mom, who had never let him down, never stopped
praying for him, never stopped believing he could be more than
he dared to dream.

But because Mom had done all this-and in this moment,
still must be doing it-he resisted running up to Grace Church.
Instead, with what little strength he had in his wobbly legs,
he ran to the free clinic.

Find Pappas, find Wells. Get someone to help Sergeant
Logan.

The streets were deserted. Right after the explosion, people
had congregated on sidewalks or in their yards. They probably had given up, gone inside just to wait it out. He cut through the
little parking lot in the back of the clinic. His mother's car was
out front, doors open.

He went in through the back door, into the kitchen. "Mr.
Pappas? Officer Wells?"

His voice echoed off the walls. They were bare now, stripped
of the colorful pictures that the kids loved. Boxes were strewn
everywhere, spooking Ben because it reminded him of what
had happened at home. How could Mom ever forgive him for
getting their house blown up?

"Anyone here?"

Nothing. No whispers, no footsteps, no breathing except his
own. The place was deserted. He should just head up to Grace.

But Pappas had come here to get stuff to tend his bloody
wounds. The least Ben could do was check all the rooms, make
sure the guy wasn't passed out somewhere.

He found Pappas's bloodied splint in one of the exam rooms.
A roll of gauze draped off the counter, and blood-soaked paper
towels filled the trash. So much blood-it filled his vision, all
red and rushing; Jasmine in a cloud; Cannon in a river.

His knees gave out and he toppled backwards, bumping his
head against the examining table. Dumb, stupid, no good for
anything. He had to man-up here, get back to Tapley. He pushed
up from the floor, went into the bathroom to splash water on
his face-but there wasn't any. He turned to leave when he saw
something in the bathtub-

-oh God, not her, too-

That girl who had come to the clinic this morning, a girl
he remembered from grade school, now a dropout with a
baby-Sarah staring up at him, eyes open but no fire of life,
not even a flicker, a hole in her throat, blood crusted on her
neck and chest.

Her body was what Logan had told Wells to clean up in
front of the clinic, veiling the language so as to not upset Ben. But he was beyond upset, beyond hope, beyond believing in
anything but blood and more blood.

Breathe, Ben told himself, but a part of him wanted not to
breathe so he could just be done with it. Jasmine. Cannon. And
now Sarah.

This had to be his fault, too, because death clung to Ben
Murdoch like a disease. He was beyond a boy whose own father
despised him. He had become a rampant cancer, spreading
death like confetti in a parade, but his parade rolled with bombs
instead of drums, bullets instead of balloons. He was a freak, a
loser who tracked violence wherever he went.

This was sick, just staring down at the body. But his measly
strength had again drained and he couldn't move, though he
knew he had to.

Kaya de los Santos believed that life was eternal, that God
loved Ben even when he screwed up, that Jesus could make
good out of this unholy mess they called life.

Ben couldn't believe that, not with dead Sarah lying in the
bathtub, blood crusted on her chest where her baby should be.

He sprinted from the bathroom, out the clinic, and down the
street. Running as fast as he could to find his mother.

ASON LOGAN MIGHT NOT BE THE BRIGHTEST GUY AROUND,
but he was no fool.

With the M16 in his right hand and a handgun in his
left, he moved around the far side of the school. Luther would
likely anticipate this, be watching for him to sneak through the
playground. But unless he had scouted the school thoroughly,
he wouldn't know about the culvert.

Built to carry spring runoff away from the soccer fields, it
was a hundred feet long, dumping into a brook. This time of
year, the culvert would be bone dry, though a likely refuge for
snakes and rats. And wouldn't that be fitting for an encounter
with that slimebag terrorist?

After pulling away the sticks, trash, bottles, and dried mud,
Logan kicked out the screen that covered the mouth of the
culvert. Beyond lay darkness. Logan patted his back pocket,
not surprised that he no longer had his penlight. Being blown
out of a cellar would do that. Amazing that the letter from the
DNA lab was still there.

Why not just turn around? Jog down Townsend, meet
Wells or Pappas coming to help him. Two sets of eyes, double
the firepower, they could surround Luther and beat the truth
out of him, if need be.

"Tick-tock, Logan." Luther's voice was closer than expected.

Logan crawled up the embankment, scanned the area. Was
that a swirl in the mist? Why wasn't Luther disoriented from it? Maybe he had been immunized against its hallucinogenic
properties.

No time to waste. Either run straight at Luther or go belly-up
under him.

Logan rolled down the embankment, dived into the culvert.
Pulling with his left arm, he aimed the M16 with his right. The
light behind him faded too quickly. Something moving next to
his ear-beetles maybe. There was a click-click-click of claws as
rats scurried ahead of him. The opening should be visible by
now, but it was probably blocked by muck and trash at that end,
too.

More click-click-click. When he got to the opposite end,
how many rats would he have to paw through to kick his way
through the screen?

Something silky brushed Logan's face, made him jerk back.
Idiot just a spider's web. He'd endured worse in the service of
his country and the service of this city, seen things no man
wanted to see, borne things no decent human could bear. Yet
many men and women did bear such things-not just cops and
soldiers and EMTs, but good people who healed the sick and
fed the hungry.

Logan loved justice and doing good, but there was too much
wrong with the world and too little he could do to fix it. And
that angered him.

He pressed his face to the musty culvert. If Kaya were here,
she'd say to pray for wisdom. No time for that-deliver me to
evil, Lord, so I can do my job.

Logan pushed forward again through more silk. Not spider
webs-this was the mist, somehow penetrating the earth and
steel to find him, even here.

Before he could back out of it, it spun him so he lost sense
of time and space. Blood pounding in his ears, he grappled for
his bearings. The culvert had become a dank room, smelling of
mold and vomit and cheap antiseptic.

There were rows of beds, separated by dirty curtains. Behind
one curtain, a Korean woman with skin like cream looked
down at an infant. Her slow smile showed dimples that JasonJae Sun-Logan saw in his mirror every morning. A shadow
fell over her, a hulking darkness of a man. She fumbled for
the blanket, expending precious energy to cover her baby. The
blanket smelled like milk, a sleepy smell that made Logan want
to drowse.

A rough voice jolted him awake. I can't take that thing, the
man said. Why would I want to?

The woman's head lolled to the side, her breath a hollow
whoosh. Time ticked on, but she didn't take any breath back.
The man snorted his disgust, then bent over the baby. Logan
clenched his own fists now, but his muscles couldn't remember
how to raise his hands, defend the baby, protect the meager
hope the woman had let slip with her last gasp.

Logan could smell the man's breath, rank with booze and
cigarettes, but shadows blurred his face. The man put a grimy
pillow over the child and said You're better off dead.

The baby kicked and thrashed, trying to breathe. Logan
wanted to free him, but his arms couldn't remember how to
work. The best he could do was shrug his shoulder and watch
the child do the same, the pillow tumbling off until his tiny
chest rose and he could wail.

He's all alone, Logan said, and pushed himself through the
mist.

His hands almost brushed the baby's when he popped out
of the culvert. He suddenly rolled down a slope that was notnever had been-on this side of Tapley School. The hill was
studded with massive rocks, clear and hard as diamonds, rocks
that had never been worn down by wind or rain. At the bottom
was a rolling river, so blue it looked bottomless. It terrified
Logan, as if it could strip away all he was so as to reveal what
he could never be.

He dug in his heels, skidding in the dirt to stop his plunge.
He wrapped his arms around a small boulder and hung on, the
burns on his arms pure agony.

Luther stepped out from behind another boulder, an oceangreen stone with sharp points, as if a rare gem had been
split by a massive stone cutter and discarded on this hillside.
"Surprised?"

"Yeah, you might say that."

That this was also a hallucination seemed likely, and yet
he knew it was not, that the culvert-and not the mist-had
somehow birthed him to this strange place. He glanced up
and saw a blue sky but no sun, yet he felt a sun's rays on his
shoulders. Since he was willing to believe the ground under
his feet to be real, then he'd also accept a sun that gave light
and warmth without commanding the sky.