Storm of Lightning

  The hotel’s “historic rooms” were a sharp contrast to the splendor of the lobby.

  “This looks like my old room in Pasadena,” Nichelle said, looking around.

  “They must not have gotten around to remodeling this part of the hotel,” Taylor said.

  “They did,” Ostin said. “It was just sixty years ago.”

  “It’s just one night,” I said. “It still beats camping in the jungle.”

  While Ostin, Taylor, McKenna, Abigail, Jack, and Nichelle looked over the ghost book, I lay down to take a quick nap. I must have been more tired than I realized, because just a few minutes later I fell asleep. When I woke, Taylor was sitting next to me on the bed.

  “How long have I been asleep?” I asked.

  “About an hour.”

  I looked at my watch. “Has Scott called?”

  “No.”

  “How long has it been?” McKenna asked.

  “Almost two and a half hours,” Ostin said.

  “He said two hours at the most,” Nichelle said, looking up from the ghost binder.

  “They’ll call,” Taylor said.

  “What if he doesn’t?” Nichelle asked.

  I looked over at Jack, who also looked concerned. I was really blinking. “Well, there’s not much we can do this late at night,” I said. “We don’t even have a car.”

  “I can hot-wire a car,” Jack said.

  “And go where?” Taylor asked.

  “The closest big city is Tucson,” Ostin said. “It’s about a hundred miles north of here. We should go there.”

  I thought for a second, then said, “If we haven’t heard from Scott by four a.m., we’ll find a car and drive to Tucson. In the meantime we stay together in the same room. And everyone should try to get some sleep. It might be a while before we get the chance again. I’ll keep watch.”

  “I’ll keep watch with you,” Taylor said. “I’m not that tired.” She yawned almost immediately after saying that.

  While everyone else slept, Taylor and I sat on the burgundy shag carpet next to the door, listening for sounds from the hallway. It was quiet until a little after one in the morning, when there was a sudden rush of footsteps. At first I thought we were under attack by an Elgen patrol, but as I looked out the peephole, it was just a bunch of college kids who had probably come down to the border for a wild weekend.

  About a half hour later Taylor fell asleep. I lay back against the door trying to keep my eyes open. Fortunately I had a lot to think about. And I was ticking a lot, which always makes it harder to sleep. I thought about the ghost, too. If there were such a thing, I wondered if I could shock it. Or scare it. Do ghosts get scared?

  Around two thirty in the morning the radiator began making a strange knocking sound in a distinct pattern, almost like someone was tapping out a code on it. I wished that Ostin were awake to decipher it. I was intrigued, but it didn’t frighten me. I was more afraid of what I knew existed in the world than something that I couldn’t see. Why hadn’t Scott called? What could have happened to them?

  I must have fallen asleep a little after that, because I woke with a start. I was lying with my face next to the door, and I could hear slow, heavy footsteps in the hallway. I heard them go up and down the corridor, finally stopping near us. I quietly stood and looked out the peephole. There was a man dressed in black standing two doors down on the other side of the hallway in front of Ostin’s and my room.

  I watched him for a moment, then carefully woke Taylor, holding my hand over her mouth to keep her from making a sound. She looked at me with a confused expression. “Someone’s out there,” I whispered. “Wake Jack.”

  Taylor crawled over to the bed and gently shook Jack.

  “Wha . . .”

  She put her hand over his mouth. “Shhh. There’s someone outside.”

  The man tried the door handle again; then he took something out of his pocket, slid it into the door lock, turned the handle, and went inside.

  “He picked the lock,” I whispered. “He’s inside my room.”

  While Taylor woke everyone else, Jack went into the bathroom. He came out wielding the towel bar like a club in one hand. Everyone else gathered around the door.

  “Now he’s going into the room across from us,” I said.

  “My room,” Jack said.

  “Is he Elgen?” Ostin asked.

  “I can’t tell. He’s wearing all black and a face mask. I think he has a gun.”

  “You can see a gun?” Jack asked.

  “No, he’s wearing a vest. But it has a bulge.”

  “I wish Ian were here,” Taylor said.

  “I wish they were all here,” I said.

  “How many are there?” Jack asked.

  “Just one,” I said. “That I can see. But if he’s Elgen, you know he has backup.”

  “This is like Taiwan all over again,” McKenna said.

  “Except this time we’re only on the fourth floor,” Ostin said. He walked over to the window and looked out. “There’s a roof about fifteen feet down, then another about the same. We can tie bedsheets together and climb down.”

  “Good idea,” I said.

  “What’s the plan?” Jack asked.

  “When he touches the doorknob, Michael can shock him,” Taylor said. “Then we escape.”

  “Bad idea,” Ostin said. “If he has backup, they’ll know we’re here and storm our room.”

  I thought for a moment. “He’s going into the rooms alone,” I said softly. “I say we let him in. If it’s just him, we can take him. If he’s here with backup, we need to make them think everything’s okay until we have time to escape.” I turned back. “Ostin, Abi, McKenna, and Nichelle, you guys take the sheets into the bathroom and tie them into a rope.

  “When he gets to this room, we’ll let him enter. Then, once he’s inside, Taylor reboots him, Jack tackles him to the ground, and I’ll shock him unconscious. Then I’ll lock the door while Jack disarms him and ties him up.

  “Then we’ll lock him in the bathroom and climb out the window.” I looked at Jack. “What do you think?”

  “I think it’s a good plan,” Jack said. “As long as they’re not waiting for us outside.”

  “Can you take him down with your broken ribs?” I asked.

  “What ribs?” he replied.

  “All right,” I said. “Let’s do this.”

  Ostin and the three girls pulled the sheets from the beds, then took them into the bathroom to make a rope while I looked out the door’s peephole. Jack crouched down behind Taylor.

  “You should put some pillows down so when he hits the floor, it’s not so loud,” Taylor said.

  Jack frowned. “You’re right.”

  “What, you don’t like that?”

  “I was just looking forward to body slamming an Elgen guard onto the floor,” Jack said.

  Taylor put her hand on my back so she could read my mind and see what I was seeing. A minute later the man came out of the room across from us. Then he turned and looked at our door.

  He’s coming, I thought.

  Taylor leaned back and whispered into Jack’s ear.

  The man touched our doorknob; then I heard something metallic slide inside the lock. I glanced over at Taylor, who had moved to my left side so the man wouldn’t see her before he entered.

  Don’t reboot him until he’s inside the room, I thought.

  Taylor nodded.

  The lock clicked. The doorknob slowly turned; then the door began to open. The man was halfway inside the room before he saw Taylor and me crouched down behind the door.

  Now, I thought.

  Taylor bowed her head. The man froze with confusion. Jack grabbed him by the front of his shirt, then pulled him forward, slamming him face-forward to the ground. I pushed the door shut with my foot as I grabbed the man’s leg and pulsed. His body went limp.

  Jack pulled the man’s gun from its holster, pinning the man down with his knee in the small of his back. “We go
t him.”

  “Ostin, let’s get out of here,” I said.

  “Still working on it,” he said.

  “Work faster,” I said. “Taylor, open the window.”

  Taylor tried to open the window but couldn’t. It had been painted shut.

  “You better help her,” I said to Jack, keeping my hand on the prone man. “Ostin, hurry!”

  Jack got up and, after several attempts, pushed the window open. Then Ostin and the others came out of the bathroom carrying their makeshift rope. Ostin tied one end of the sheets around the radiator, then threw the opposite end out the window.

  “You sure those knots are tight?” Jack asked.

  Ostin nodded. “It will hold. I’d bet my life on it.”

  “Good,” he said, turning back. “Because you’re going first.”

  Jack came back over and put his knee into the small of our prisoner’s back. The man was wearing cargo pants and a black, long-sleeve shirt, but nothing with the Elgen insignia. He also wore a knit mask with slits for eyes.

  “I want to see this guy’s face,” I said to Jack. “Let’s roll him over.”

  We rolled the unconscious man to his back; then Jack pulled off his mask.

  Taylor gasped.

  “I don’t believe it,” Jack said.

  “Better hold up,” I said to Ostin, who was nervously straddling the windowsill, about to climb out.

  “What?” He looked back at the man. “Do you know who it is?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Let’s lift him onto the bed.”

  “You know this guy?” Nichelle asked.

  “His name is Gervaso. And he’s not supposed to be alive.”

  McKenna turned the room light on while Jack and I lifted Gervaso up onto one of the beds. Jack checked him again for weapons and this time found a Special Ops knife in a sheath strapped to his right shin. Jack unstrapped the sheath and slid it into his own belt while everyone else gathered around the bed.

  “How do you know him?” Nichelle asked.

  “He was our trainer from the resistance,” McKenna said.

  “Then he’s a good guy?”

  “He was,” Ostin said. “We don’t know what he’s doing here. Or why he’s alive and everyone else is dead.”

  “Maybe he betrayed the others,” Nichelle said.

  “He wouldn’t betray them,” Jack said. “He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. He’s above reproach.”

  “Then why did you just take his weapons?” Nichelle asked.

  Jack looked a little awkward. “Better safe than sorry,” he said.

  “Taylor, keep your hand on him. When he comes to, I want to interrogate him,” I said.

  Gervaso was out for only a couple of more minutes before he began to stir. As soon as he came to, he instinctively went for his gun, and froze when he saw Jack pointing it at him.

  “Just stay still,” Jack said. “Don’t try anything.”

  Gervaso looked back and forth between us, his eyes stopping on me. “Michael, it’s me, Gervaso.”

  “We thought you were dead,” I said.

  “Do I look dead?” He stared at me. “What happened to your arms?”

  “Just answer the question,” Jack said. “Why are you still alive?”

  “Because I didn’t die,” he said. Then he slightly grinned. “Well, at least not yet.” He said to Jack, “You can put my gun down. I came here to rescue you.”

  Jack looked over at me, and I nodded. He lowered the weapon.

  “Where are Scott and the others?” Taylor asked.

  “They’re safe. This town is crawling with Elgen informants. That’s why I came back alone. We need to get you out of here.” He sat up. “You don’t need to keep touching me, Taylor. You know I’m not lying.”

  Taylor looked a little embarrassed as she removed her hand. “He’s telling the truth,” she said to me.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Are my parents dead?” Ostin asked.

  Gervaso looked at him. “No,” he said.

  “But we saw the ranch,” I said.

  “We knew the Elgen were coming. We evacuated before they came.”

  “My mother’s alive?” I asked.

  “Everyone is safe. Your mother”—he turned to Ostin—“your parents, the council.”

  I put my hand over my eyes, overcome with relief. “She’s okay.”

  Taylor took my hand. “I knew there was hope.”

  When I looked up, Ostin’s eyes were filled with tears. He furtively brushed them away. McKenna put her arms around him.

  “Dude, it’s okay,” Jack said. “Even warriors cry.”

  Ostin just nodded.

  “I don’t get it,” Jack said to Gervaso. “If you knew the Elgen were coming, why didn’t you ambush them?”

  “There’s brave courageous; then there’s brave stupid,” Gervaso said, looking at Jack. “You know what I mean?”

  Jack nodded. “Yeah, I get it.”

  “Even with the intelligence we had, the Elgen still have a lot more firepower at their disposal than we do. They also have an army, which we don’t. But even if we had somehow defeated them, there would have been lives lost. And, as far as I’m concerned, we don’t have any to spare.” He looked at me. “Would you agree?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “I thought so,” he said. “But that’s just one of the reasons we didn’t attack. The main reason was that fighting back wasn’t our strategy. We want them to think we’ve been destroyed.”

  “If no one was at the ranch,” Ostin said, “how did we bring down one of their helicopters? We saw it.”

  Gervaso smiled. “That was pretty good, wasn’t it? Remember the robotic sentry system we used in Peru? Same thing. I also fired up our helicopter from here in Douglas. We gambled that they’d never put boots on the ground, so I created just enough action for them to believe we’d been caught unprepared.”

  “Smart,” Ostin said. “Very smart.”

  “So what about the Elgen guard we found?” Jack said. “What do we do with him?”

  “Scott briefed me about him,” Gervaso said. “He provides us with an interesting opportunity. And risk. The Elgen don’t know that he’s still alive, and from what I’ve been told, he’s bitter enough to tell us everything he knows. I don’t blame him. The Elgen not only abandoned him; they dropped napalm on him and his buddies.

  “Fortunately, his uniform was mostly burned off. Otherwise word of his survival might have already gotten back to the Elgen, but that doesn’t mean we’re safe. Every Elgen guard is implanted with an RFID—radio-frequency identification—so he can still be traced. Probably the only reason they haven’t already found him is that they aren’t looking.

  “In the morning, a doctor we know will be removing the RFID device. Then I’ll be less worried. In the meantime, he’s in serious condition. It will be weeks before he’ll be stable enough to move.”

  “I still don’t get it,” Taylor said. “Why did the voice tell us there were no survivors at the ranch?”

  “Because there weren’t,” Gervaso said. “Everyone was gone.”

  “Why didn’t they just tell us that in the first place?” she asked. “Don’t they care how we suffered?”

  “I know it must have been awful for you,” Gervaso said. “To think your parents and friends were dead. But we sacrificed our main headquarters just so the Elgen would believe we were wiped out. All we needed was one intercepted message for that sacrifice to have been in vain. The greater good dictated that we employ misinformation.”

  “That’s a military way of saying ‘lie,’ ” Ostin said.

  “He’s right,” I said. “They did the right thing.”

  “So where is everyone?” Ostin asked. “Where are my parents?”

  “Until we’re out of danger, it’s best that you don’t know. But they’re safe, and you’ll see them soon enough. Let’s leave it at that.”

  “So now what?” I asked. “Is our
plane really gone?”

  Gervaso nodded. “It wouldn’t have been difficult for the Elgen to track down our plane, so we had Boyd fly it out shortly after you landed. We tried to stop you from going to Mexico, but we were two hours too late.”

  “What do you think we should do?” I asked.

  “We’re going to drive to Tucson, then wait for directions from the voice on where we need to go. There are a lot of pieces in play right now. We need to see our opponents’ next move.”

  “What do you mean by that?” I asked.

  “You saved Jade Dragon and escaped. Hatch isn’t going to be very happy about that. And when Hatch is unhappy, heads roll. The question is, whose heads and how high up are they? If we can get some high-level defections, it could turn the tide against him. Hatch’s electric youths were in charge of guarding you. It will be interesting to see if he holds them responsible.”

  “Hatch isn’t afraid to punish his kids,” Nichelle said.

  Gervaso looked over at Nichelle, suddenly realizing who she was. “You’re Nichelle, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah, that’s me.”

  “Hatch’s favorite torture device.”

  “Yeah, that’s also me,” she said. “Or was.”

  “So you know, Hatch has imprisoned and tortured his own, but he’s never executed one of them. But his kids are getting older now, and it’s only a matter of time before one of them rebels. Of course if they turn against Hatch, it could be good or bad for us, depending on what they want.

  “But there’s even more in play. The Elgen still need a land base to carry out their plans of global domination. They’ve recently purchased two new warships that are, right now, sailing to Tuvalu, as are the Faraday and the rest of the Elgen fleet. It looks like Hatch is going to finish what he started.”

  “They’re going to declare war on Tuvalu?” Ostin asked.

  Gervaso frowned. “I wouldn’t call it a war. The people of Tuvalu have no army and no weapons. It’s going to be a complete surrender or a complete slaughter.” He looked back at me. “So, if it’s okay with you, it’s time we got out of here. I’ve got a van parked out back.”