Nightfall

  Chapter Sixteen

  It turned out that Damon and Katrina and Amos had to stay several days with the Carpenters, since all of Hillsborough County was put under martial law while a massive manhunt was conducted for the perpetrators of the University bombing.

  To no avail. Not a single member of the Western Brotherhood was ever brought to justice for the attack.

  But in time the lockdown was eased, and the airports reopened, and Amos went home to his parents and Damon and Katrina went home to Natchitoches. Then Philip and Joan’s daughter was born the very next morning at the same hospital in Saint Petersburg where Joan worked, preventing all efforts to get together and talk about escape plans at least for a few more days.

  They named her Veronica, a name which meant truth. Hunter Bartow was born two hours later in the very next room, and Mike wondered for a moment if Luke were so determined to twit him at every opportunity that he’d use even his own son’s name as a vehicle to remind Mike that he could never escape or he’d be hunted down. Then he told himself not to be an idiot. If Luke had him that paranoid then he obviously needed to see a therapist, because he was plainly losing what few marbles he still had left.

  But on a more practical note, Mike’s lab and everything it contained had been completely destroyed, and he wasn’t at all sure what that would mean as far as his future was concerned. Would Colonel Burns decide to cut off the tachometer program six weeks early since there was so little chance of accomplishing anything? Or would Mike simply be shifted to other facilities and told to keep working? That seemed much more likely, actually; Colonel Burns probably had too much on his plate at the moment to waste time reviewing old low-priority orders.

  So Mike judged he was fairly safe for a few more weeks, as long as the NADF never found out he’d saved a working tachometer at the last minute. Whatever happened, he certainly didn’t intend to tell them that.

  But he still had to consider the scary future he’d glimpsed before the bomb exploded, of a dead and empty world with no human life to be seen. He might not be able to prevent it from happening, true, but he finally decided that at the very least he should do everything in his power to save as many as he could. Compassion demanded that much.

  Unfortunately, that involved having a chat with Lieutenant Bartow. Yes, the man was treacherous and manipulative to the core, but he also had the power to make things happen. Under the circumstances, Mike wasn’t above doing a little manipulation on his own account. Therefore he determinedly went next door the next morning and rang the bell. After a few minutes Marie came to the door, looking tousle-headed and tired, holding Hunter in one arm and with Leah clinging to her leg.

  “Oh, hey Mike. You’re out early this morning,” she said, trying not to yawn.

  “Yeah, I’m sorry to disturb you but I really need to talk to Luke for a minute,” he said.

  “Well, he’s still asleep right at the minute; he’s had some long nights here lately what with the bombing and everything. But it’s time for him to get up anyway. Please come in,” she said, dislodging Leah from her leg and moving aside. Mike followed them down the hall to the kitchen.

  “Can I get you some coffee? I’ve got a fresh pot brewed; I was just fixing to have some myself,” she offered.

  “I’d love some,” he agreed. She handed him Hunter without a word so she’d have access to both hands, and then quickly made two cups of coffee.

  It had been a while since Mike held a baby, and he looked down to find Hunter gazing up at him with his slanted, slate-blue newborn’s eyes. He had a fine dusting of sugar-white hair on his head, which was still slightly misshapen from being born.

  “Welcome to this sad old world, kid. Make it better someday if you can,” Mike told him in a low voice.

  Then Marie was handing him his coffee, and he passed the baby back to her. His cup had a picture of a noble-looking young man in the Defense Forces, saluting a flag and standing at attention. The Bartows had lots of items like that.

  “I’ll wake him up in just a minute. Got to get some energy going first,” Marie said with a little laugh.

  “Sure, no problem. It’s not that urgent,” he agreed, taking a sip of his own coffee. He could use some extra energy himself, for the encounter that lay ahead.

  Marie chatted on about the baby and some nice items she’d found at a garage sale two weeks ago and other inconsequential things of that nature. She didn’t involve herself in her husband’s business, and didn’t even seem curious about it. But then again, maybe she realized as everyone else did that knowledge could be a dangerous thing. She seemed to have recovered remarkably well for having just had a baby so recently, but then he’d always heard some women had an easier time than others.

  Luke must have woken up on his own, because just then he came padding into the kitchen in nothing but his boxer shorts. He had dark circles under his eyes, evidence of several long nights with little sleep. Mike had never seen him in such a condition before, either so exhausted or so scantily clad, but if he were annoyed to find Mike sitting in his kitchen so early in the morning he didn’t show it. He simply poured himself a cup of coffee and drank the whole thing black, without even any sugar. Then he rubbed his eyes.

  “Good morning, sweetie. I was just about to come wake you,” Marie said.

  “It’s all right. Excuse me just a minute while I get dressed,” he said, and then disappeared back down the hall. He returned in fairly short order, dressed as always in his somber NADF uniform. Mike wondered sometimes if the man actually owned any other clothes.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you so early, but I didn’t know when else to catch you at home, Luke,” Mike said as soon as he got back to the kitchen.

  “Well, I’m afraid there’s been a lot to do the past few days, as I’m sure you understand. Was there something on your mind?” Lieutenant Bartow asked.

  “Yeah, there is. I need to talk to you,” Mike said.

  “Come on, then. I still have an hour or so before I have to go in,” Lieutenant Bartow said. Mike followed him to the last door on the right at the end of the hall, and went inside to find a home office. Lieutenant Bartow shut the door behind them and sat down at his desk.

  “Can anybody hear us in here?” Mike asked uneasily.

  “Marie, you mean? Certainly not. She knows better, for one thing, and besides that this room is completely soundproofed. Now, what was on your mind, Dr. McGrath? I don’t have unlimited amounts of time this morning,” Lieutenant Bartow said.

  “Just before the bomb exploded, I finally got the tachometer working,” Mike said, getting right to the point, and interest flickered in Lieutenant Bartow’s cold gray eyes for the first time. It was a calculated risk, but Mike had already decided nothing less would do.

  “I see. And I take it you saw something?” Lieutenant Bartow asked.

  “Yeah, I did,” Mike agreed, and then hesitated as if he were reluctant to go on. It was dangerous, trying to play a player like that, but Mike could only cross his fingers and pray. As he hoped, Lieutenant Bartow picked up on his hesitation.

  “Dr. McGrath, I know you may have doubted me in the past, but do you finally understand why we have to do the things we do? You see what happened at the University, and that was only one of the ones that slipped through the cracks. You have no idea how many other plots we put a stop to before they can be carried out. If you know something, please tell me. Lives might be at stake,” he urged.

  Now came the really dangerous part. He knew Lieutenant Bartow had specific orders to liquidate the entire McGrath family immediately if it ever became obvious that the tachometer program were useless or unworkable, and Mike was just about to hand him that very information on a silver platter. It was practically like signing his own death warrant.

  He was counting on the fact that Lieutenant Bartow and indeed the entire Tampa NADF office were still snowed under by the aftermath of the bombing, and that liquidating a potential sec
urity risk such as himself probably wasn’t a terribly urgent priority for them at the moment. They’d probably take at least a few days to get around to it under the circumstances, and with a little luck that would be enough time to slip the noose.

  Unless Lieutenant Bartow shot him on the spot, of course. Mike was ninety-nine percent sure he wouldn’t; that would be awfully messy and inconvenient, after all. But then again you never knew.

  “Well, that’s the thing, sir. Anything you see with the tachometer, you can’t change. No matter what you do, that’s how it’ll turn out. The actions you take to prevent it might even be the very ones that end up causing it to happen,” Mike said, his heart in his throat.

  “So then the tachometer is useless?” Lieutenant Bartow finally said. He hadn’t reached for his pistol, so maybe he didn’t intend to carry out the execution immediately.

  “No sir, I don’t think so. You can always take action about the things you didn’t see; the things you don’t know yet. But once you see it, you’re stuck with it. So, you couldn’t have prevented the bombing once you saw it, but you maybe could have saved a few extra people, if you didn’t actually see what happened to them,” he said, and Lieutenant Bartow thought about this for a while.

  “I don’t know that that suits the purposes of the Defense Forces very well,” he finally said, and Mike felt a chill at the cold-bloodedness of the statement. Then it was almost instantly replaced by a surge of anger.

  “It may not. But does it suit your purposes as a human being?” he asked hotly.

  “What I think and how I feel are irrelevant,” Lieutenant Bartow said.

  “Not even about your own family?” Mike asked.

  “No, not even about them. We can argue metaphysics all day, Dr. McGrath, and neither of us will change our minds. You obviously came here to tell me what you saw, so please get on with it. You have twenty minutes,” Lieutenant Bartow said, tapping his watch. Mike looked at the man with disgust, but there was no point in backing out now.

  “I saw the end of the world,” he said.

  “Really?” Lieutenant Bartow said, placing his fingertips together like a tent and leaning a little bit forward.

  “Yes. Twelve years from now there won’t be a single human being left alive in Tampa Bay, or Florida, or the Union, or even the whole world for all I know. I saw the cities standing there empty, nothing but weeds and dust. All the cities, everywhere on earth. And there’s nothing you or anybody else can do to stop it,” Mike said.

  “What happens?” Lieutenant Bartow asked, getting out a notepad and a pen.

  “I couldn’t tell for sure. It looked like some kind of disease,” Mike said.

  “Biological warfare?” Lieutenant Bartow asked.

  “I don’t think so, because there was no country in the world that was safe from it. Seems like that would be a stupid way of waging biological warfare, if it comes back and wipes out your own people too,” Mike said.

  “It might not have been a country. There are certain groups who think humanity is a plague on the earth and deserves to be destroyed. Most of them are pacifists, thankfully, but I wouldn’t rule out the emergence of a militant one somewhere in the world. India is a particular hotbed for that kind of fanaticism, because of the belief that so many of them have in reincarnation. Destroying all of humanity wouldn’t matter much, if you thought everybody would come back to life as a tree or a dragonfly and live in eternal harmony with a rejuvenated earth,” Lieutenant Bartow said, and the scorn in his voice was almost palpable.

  “Sounds like you know a lot about things like that,” Mike said.

  “I’m a counter-terrorism specialist. It’s my job to know things like that,” Lieutenant Bartow said tiredly.

  “Well, whoever they are and whatever their reason may be, it looks like they’re going to succeed,” Mike said, and Lieutenant Bartow shrugged as if the thought didn’t trouble him at all.

  “It was only a matter of time. And you saw no survivors at all?” he asked.

  “There were none that I saw, and I looked ahead for almost a hundred years. Everything was still empty. But I guess they could have zigged while I zagged, so to speak. The world is a big place. But what I do know is, there was no civilization; no countries or governments or anything like that. None of that survived. Under those circumstances, don’t you think it’s worth trying to save just a few?” Mike asked, and Lieutenant Bartow frowned, rubbing the stubble on his chin and thinking.

  “It isn’t my place to say what ought to be done about the situation, Dr. McGrath, nor yours. I’ll pass along this information to the proper individuals, and then we’ll see what gets decided. In the meantime, continue with your work. You’ve been assigned temporary lab facilities at the University of Tampa, until something more permanent can be arranged,” he finally said, and Mike realized with a sick heart that that was all he’d get out of the man.

  “Thank you for your time, sir; I’m sorry to have bothered you,” Mike said, getting up from his chair. He said nothing about Tycho’s part in the future, nor about Marie or anything else he’d seen. It wouldn’t have done any good, anyway.

  He left the Bartows’ house wishing he’d never said anything in the first place. Lieutenant Bartow would make his report, it would get buried in paperwork on some bored bureaucrat’s desk in Atlanta, and then that would be that. It was virtually certain that nothing would ever be done about it. Mike had put himself and his family at serious risk of death, and all for nothing.

  Well, so be it. In spite of the danger, Mike didn’t think he could have lived with himself if he hadn’t at least tried.

  But in the meantime, he had far more pressing issues to think about than what might happen twelve years down the road. Because sometime within the next few days an NADF soldier would almost surely put a bullet in all three of them, and Mike didn’t need a tachometer to see that coming.

  He had no illusions about how foolhardy and hopeless another escape attempt would be, especially if they couldn’t use the tachometer. But the barest glimmer of hope was still better than none at all.

  He had to try. Somehow.

  He left the house, unable to face the thought of sitting there alone all day. Philip and Joan wouldn’t be home till six o’clock or so, but he had no one else he dared speak to till then.

  All around him was the bustle of an ordinary morning; kids going to school, business people talking on phones, even a few early beachcombers headed out to fish or collect shells. He watched all these things from behind his sunglasses, and for a little while he envied those people for their normal lives.

  Then he was reminded of something Joey had liked to say, about how there’s no such thing as a normal life and every person in the world has his own burdens and issues, most of which you’d never guess. He wondered how many of those people on the street who seemed to have it all together were really broken to pieces inside. He could believe that quite a few of them might be. After all, anyone who saw him walking down the street wouldn’t have had the faintest clue what he was going through. They’d just see a young man in dark shades and rope sandals, like any of a million others, and never realize he was living under a death sentence.

  He spent the day wandering aimlessly, staring at clocks and beachwear and electronics in the shop windows, with his thumbs hooked in his belt loops and his mind far away. He could’ve bought anything he really wanted, of course, but trinkets and baubles held no appeal for him anymore. He stopped at a kiosk to have a pistachio ice cream cone and a deep-fried cheese enchilada for lunch; yeah, it was horrible nutrition, but who cared anymore?

  Then he slowly made his way to Papaya Street as the first long shadows of evening fell.

  It was a normal evening in the Carpenter house when Philip let him in. Chris and Jesse ran up to him when he walked in the door, and he smiled tiredly and picked one of them up in each arm.

  “Uncle Mikey, you know what I did at school today???
? Chris asked. He’d lost his top two front teeth since the last time Mike had seen him, which made him look something like a young vampire.

  “Lay it on me, bubba,” Mike said.

  “I climbed all the way up to the top of a tree on the playground and they had to call the fire department out there just to get me down!” he said proudly.

  “You didn’t get scared, way up high like that?” Mike asked.

  “Nope, it was fun,” Chris said.

  “You’ve been a real daredevil today then, haven’t you?” Mike asked, and Chris nodded.

  “Well, y’all run along, boys. I need to talk to your daddy for a while,” Mike said, so they both squirmed down and ran off, dear old Uncle Mikey already forgotten in favor of more interesting things.

  “So what’s up, Mike?” Philip asked.

  “Where’s Joan? I’d really like to talk to her too,” Mike said.

  “Just a second; I think she’s upstairs. Have a seat and I’ll be back down in a minute,” Philip said, so Mike did. Before long Philip came back down with Joan, who looked tired.

  “Sorry, Mike. I was just getting Veronica to sleep finally. What can we do for you?” she asked, sitting down next to Philip on the couch across from Mike.

  “I think maybe I did something stupid today,” he admitted, not trying to sugarcoat it.

  “Is it something the boys need to hear about?” Joan asked.

  “No, it’d probably be better if they didn’t,” Mike said, and Joan nodded.

  “Hold on a second, then. Let me get them out of the way,” she said, and proceeded to herd them next door to the neighbor’s house.

  “Andrea said she’d keep them tonight; I told her we had an emergency come up,” Joan said briskly, as soon as she got back. The house seemed unnaturally quiet with no kids running around.

  “All right, Mikey. It’s safe to talk now, whatever it is,” Philip said, when Mike still hesitated.

  He tried to think where to start.