“Well, I’ve got his number in my head, but I’ve lost my phone.”
“Yeah, that and just about everything else. What the hell happened to your face?”
“A truck sat on it.”
Cord led Flynn across the dance floor and back to the office. The last time he’d been in here, it was to get chewed out for trying a false ID in the bar when he was seventeen years old. Nothing had changed, not even the picture of LBJ on the wall behind Sam Carter’s desk.
“Sam okay?”
“Hell yes. It’s gonna take more than God to get him off to heaven. Way he figures it, this crazy place is better, and he intends to stay.”
Sam had built the Blue Bonnet Palace back in the ’70s. He’d been running it for at least forty years.
Flynn sat down heavily behind the desk and dialed Sam’s ancient rotary phone.
“Sam Carter,” Mac said, “what in hell are you callin’ me for in the middle of the night?”
“It’s me.”
“Where are you, Flynn?”
“At the Blue Bonnet Palace.”
“What in shit for? I thought you went back to Washington. I was just considering goin’ up there and killin’ your ass for getting my house burned up.”
“Mac, can you come up here and get me? I’ve had some trouble.”
“Flynn, you know where I am? I’m in your house with our friend Eddie. We’re sittin’ at your kitchen table, drinking what we believe to be a very fine bottle of your granddaddy’s wine.”
Incredibly, a break. Flynn hadn’t had a whole lot of those. “Mac, put Eddie on.”
Eddie took the phone. “Hey, Flynn.”
“Eddie, I’m in serious trouble. I’m a prisoner. I need help.”
“Okay. First, are you in immediate danger of your life?”
“No way to evaluate that. I need you to send a squaddie for me.”
A pause. “Where are you?”
“Blue Bonnet Palace.”
A longer pause. “You’re free? You can walk out of there?”
“I can walk out of here, but I’m not free. I’ve been captured, Ed. How much has Mac told you about what’s happening?”
“Enough to make me think he was completely insane. But you’re worrying me, I have to say. Is my guy gonna go in harm’s way? Because if he is, I’m coming myself.”
“I think it’s more dangerous if you come. You stay at the house. Don’t even go home. Tell Mac to do the same.”
“Me? How am I involved?”
“Send the squaddie. Fast.”
“He’s rolling in five.”
As Flynn hung up the phone, he smelled food. He turned around, and there was Eileen Peeler, who had been running the pit out here since she signed on out of high school.
“Hey, Elly—why, thank you.”
She put it down on the desk: a plate of brisket, sausage, beans, and a pile of steaming collard greens.
“Cord said you came in looking half dead. I’d say three-quarters. Not to mention starved. You’ve lost a few pounds, Flynn.”
“It’s been busy. I haven’t had a lot of time to eat.”
“All I can say is, I hope whoever was on the other side of the beating you took got some feedback.”
“Oh, yes.” Flynn took some of the brisket between his fingers and put it in his mouth. It was like going to heaven. “Sam’s bringing in some serious beef.”
“Goin’ pit, too. That helps.”
He looked at her, her full cheeks, the permanent joy in her eyes, and felt so very, very far away, as if he were watching her through the wrong end of a telescope.
“I believe Sam fired up that pit when he opened, didn’t he?”
“Forty-four years now. You shut up and eat, honey. I don’t know what you’re up to, but you’ve just about used yourself up.”
She left him then, and he ate and waited for the squaddie, and waited for the end of night, and wondered if either would ever come.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
IN THE squad car, he had wanted to sleep, but the sense that death could come from above at any moment never left him now. Ever since Miller’s murder, Morris had been playing Flynn. Watching him. Experimenting with his abilities by throwing various challenges at him. Learning him.
So the question now was whether or not Morris was still playing him, or about to reel him in. Had the ride to the “base” been expected to end in Flynn’s capture? If so, then Morris would be throwing everything he had into this right now.
For his part, Flynn knew what he had to do next and where he had to go. He was focused on two places: Wright-Pat, where one intact disk was stored; and Deer Island, where he was fairly sure that the truth about Flynn Carroll was known.
The house blazed with light from every window. Flynn paused in the midst of the ghosts and memories that crowded his mind. This place was the center of his life, just as Mac’s ranch had been the center of his.
He went in. “I need to arm up,” he said without preamble as Eddie opened the front door to him.
“Man, you look like you’ve been bull-riding out there. And ended up under the bull.”
“I’ll comb my hair.” He glanced at Eddie. “There’s some people I need to talk to.”
“The state boys are out there. You’ve got one guy who’s headed for the ER up in Lubbock unless they give him to the USAF. He’s in uniform, but he’s not air force, apparently.”
“Hold him.”
“On what charges?”
“Title Eighteen terrorism. I’ll get Washington to sign off on it.”
“And that’ll happen?”
“Yep.”
“Because I’ll be out on a limb. Far.”
“I know it.” He went down to the basement, struggling with the old house’s steep stairway.
Eddie followed him. “You said you’d been captured, but you’re here.” Mac was close behind.
“Think of it this way: I’m wearing an ankle bracelet you can’t see.”
“That’s the explanation for the leg?”
“I’m not sure. It’s just—” He was done. He went down on the couch. “Lock us in.”
“Lock the house?” Mac asked.
“Lock every damn thing, and I need you guys to stay up. Stay armed. If that door opens, don’t aim, don’t do anything, just start pulling your triggers. Flood it with bullets.”
“I can’t do that, it’s against procedure.”
“How I am coming to hate that word, Eddie. Shout the warning if you want to, but fire at the same time. You hesitate even a half second, we are all done.” The room wavered. “Look in my armory, get me the Bull that’s there, get yourselves the shotguns. There’s an extreme likelihood that they’re coming. They want me alive, so they aren’t going to just blow the place all to hell.” He was too dizzy to keep sitting, and had to lie back on the couch. “Sorry.” He shot a hard glance at Mac. “God only knows what that antivenin of yours did to me.”
“I keep the best stuff, you should know that.”
He closed his eyes. “Yeah, I’m sure you do.”
Eddie got a call, took it. “Okay,” he said, “I’m rolling.”
“We need you here, man.”
“That was the state police. They’re working four dead bodies out on Seventeen. That’s what they found, Flynn.”
“Shit!” Morris had gone back and killed them, despite the fact that they were his own people. “How?”
“Head shots. One had taken a bullet to the chest, then later the head shot that did him.”
“Probably gonna find out that the weapon used was my other Bull. Morris got hold of it, I’m afraid.”
“Who in hell is this Morris?” Eddie asked. “It’s somebody I need to know about, that’s for goddamn sure.”
“We don’t know,” Mac said. “Who or what.”
“I’ve been tracking him for a year. He’s—shit, Eddie, you’re out of the loop on this thing.”
“He’s another of these aliens? Alien crooks?”
r />
“I pretty much told him everything I know,” Mac said.
“Okay, then you’re sucked in, ole buddy. Down the road, you’ll need to sign some paperwork.”
“Lotta folks are being killed, man. That should not be kept secret.”
“I don’t make the rules, but I understand them.” Frustration choked his bitter words. “I have to say, if the public finds out how dangerous this is and how helpless we are, there will be hell to pay. You can’t tell people that something can steal them in the night or kill them at will—or do worse than kill them—and there is nothing whatsoever we can do.”
“Aren’t you in a police unit that works on this?”
Flynn thought about just how to answer that. He considered the office full of earnest kids; Diana in her suite worrying about political correctness; “Geri,” who could be anything. He considered it for a while, but said nothing.
Eddie’s phone beeped. He looked at a message. “Gotta roll,” he said.
“No, wait. Just wait, Eddie.”
“Flynn, I—”
“Wait! You wait and you listen.”
“Okay! Take it easy.”
“I need you both to understand something. I need you to understand that I am that police unit. I’m the one guy who can put up some sort of a fight, and they know it, and they are hell-bent to capture me. Right now. Tonight. Soon as they can.”
“What about CIA assassins, Delta Force, Blackwater, Navy SEALs?”
“It’s been carnage. So far, I’m the only man who’s been capable of surviving in the field against these creatures.”
Eddie gave him a searching look. “Which is because of your speed?”
Flynn nodded.
“Then I don’t get it.” He gestured toward Mac. “When we used to quick-draw, Mac was faster. Half the time, I beat you.”
“I’ve changed.”
“How? You don’t get faster as you get older.” Eddie’s phone buzzed again. “Yeah!” He listened. “Okay, I’ll be there.”
“Let me guess,” Flynn said. “The FBI just showed up.”
“Yes, sir, and they’re kicking ass.”
Diana had sent them, of course. “Just hear me out. I think what I am is a kind of breakthrough. Something was done to me that increased my reflex times dramatically. I don’t have any memory of it. So it wasn’t surgery, I don’t think, but I could be wrong, of course. What I do know is this: The man who did it was a Dr. Dan Miller, and he did it at the Deer Island Biological Research Facility in Long Island Sound, and now that he’s dead, there’s a risk that I might be the only one of my kind ever created.”
“Holy shit, man,” Eddie said.
“You have to stay here and help Mac protect me. Until I get to Deer Island—and I have been notified that I need to get there with all haste—I absolutely must not be captured. Once I’m there, my best guess is that they’re going to be able to re-create Miller’s work using me as a template, and then we’ll finally be able to create a police force of our own that can stand up against Morris. Hell, an army if we need it.”
“I’ve got a police department to run. That’s what I do, and I’m gonna keep doing it. And as to this Morris, you need to go public with this one, buddy. Put out an all-points. Wanted posters. The works. Interpol, all of it.”
“We have turned over every stone in the past year. Every single stone. He’s on wanted posters all over the world. Not for his real crimes, of course.”
Eddie headed up the stairs.
“No!”
He hesitated. “Flynn—”
“I need you, buddy.”
Eddie turned around. He looked suddenly smaller. Older. He came back down and dropped into one of the recliners that stood before the TV. He turned it on and began compulsively surfing.
“What about my wife, Flynn, the new baby? Don’t tell me they’re involved. If Ellen ends up like Abby—”
“Eddie, I’m sorry.”
“What have you done to me?”
The words ripped at Flynn’s heart. But this was war. More than war.
“Eddie, the fate and freedom of the human species are at stake. I’ve got to get to that island.”
Eddie paused for a long time. Finally, he said, “I’m proud to be part of this. But you only have me for this one night. After that, I’m gonna take a leave and work on protecting my family.”
“Very wise, and thank you.”
“Flynn, it’s always been a privilege to be your friend. It still is.”
“Goes for me, too, buddy,” said Mac.
“I’ve got to sleep, and I want to believe you’re watching that door. Because if it starts to open, you’ve got maybe a second and probably less.”
He knew that there was a high probability they would fail, but also that he was too exhausted to continue. He had to place his trust in them.
He lay back, holding the Bull on his chest—clutching it, really.
There were no dreams, just an uneasy darkness. From time to time, he was aware of his friends’ voices. He was always aware of the pistol.
The night flowed on.
The next thing he knew, his heart was hammering, he was covered with sweat, his guts were heaving. Across the room, Mac and Eddie sat in two recliners that they had moved to face the stairs. They both held guns in their laps. They were both snoring, and that was what had awakened him.
He was not a man who angered easily, but when he did, other people could have definite problems, and he had to work hard to force down the urge to dump them both out of their chairs.
Carefully, in order to avoid waking them up, he took each man’s gun and laid it aside. He knelt down behind them and between the chairs, took a deep breath, and shouted at the top of his lungs, “Good morning, fools!”
They both leaped up, snatching air, looking for their guns. Eddie was the first to figure it out. He said in a low, dangerous voice, “I thought you said it was safe during the day.”
“Safer.”
Mac said, “You do understand you’ve been asleep for a while?”
“What time is it?” Flynn figured Four o’clock, maybe five.
“It’s nine thirty.”
“Yeah, well—I’m sorry, then. Just don’t both sleep at the same time, please. It’s a real bad idea.”
“Nine thirty, Wednesday morning, Flynn. You crashed on Monday night.”
There was no time. “Morris is liable to go to Deer Island. Maybe he’s already there, and if he is, it’s endgame.” Then another thought came to mind, and it was a terrible one. If he was broadcasting, he had already given away far too much. Even if all Morris could do was track him, he had to disappear from his radar, and right now.
“I need an MRI scan. Full-body. And a radiologist to read it.”
“Mexico okay?” Mac asked.
“Eddie, got an idea?”
“My wife’s brother-in-law is a neurosurgeon at MD Anderson in Houston.”
“Let’s go.”
“That’s a long drive,” Eddie said.
Flynn nodded toward Mac. “Where’s your nearest plane?”
“I don’t have any planes.”
“You have an air force. Where is it, on one of the ranches you don’t own?”
“I only have my one little place, you know that.” He made a call on his cell, said a few words, then cut the connection. “We fly in half an hour.”
“Do you need me, Flynn?”
“Eddie, your first instinct was right. Stay here and protect your bride and that newborn. Tell you what. Get them to a big city somewhere far away from here. Go on a vacation to New York. Even better, London. Paris. Stay in a big hotel. Don’t go out at night.”
“I’ll call my brother-in-law, get everything arranged.”
Flynn stood before his old friend. He put his hands on his shoulders. “Thank you for everything, and God go with you guys.”
Eddie nodded. He turned and started up the stairs. He stopped, turned back. “God bless, Flynn.”
&n
bsp; “Same back.”
A moment later, the kitchen door closed. Flynn heard the lock turn.
“You got keys, too, Mac?”
“Yeah. Same keys I had when we were fourteen.”
They drove to a small ranch about ten miles outside of town, a tin-roofed house and a weathered barn. No sign of life.
“Nice place,” Flynn said.
“No, it’s not.”
“That’s right, it’s not. I won’t ask what you do here, because I don’t want to know.”
“Indeed, you do not. But it would be wise not to inhale.”
“Not a meth lab! Jesus, Mac, how low have you sunk?”
“It’s a joke, son.” He put his hands around his mouth. “Hey, Miguel! Compadre! You got gas in the buggy yet?”
The barn doors swung open to reveal a sparkling-new Cessna TT, as good as it got in the world of single-engine aircraft.
“Miguel Sanchez,” Flynn said to the heavyset man coming out from beside the plane. “How the hell are you?” They’d gone to school together, up until Miguel dropped out to become a professional criminal.
“I’m good, man. You still enjoying my Range Rover?”
“It’s ruined.” He pointed a thumb at Mac. “His place.”
“Figures. What happened, it get et by some damn exotic animal out there?”
“You could say that.”
“I got used to those weird dogs, but man, that tiger—I don’t like that thing.”
Flynn liked Snow Mountain a good deal, but all he said was, “Yeah, I hear you.” At that moment, he heard rumbling and turned around to see a black Audi convertible barreling up the dirt track that led to the house pasture. “Who in hell is that?”
“We’re dealing with an airplane. You gotta plug in a pilot or the damn thing just sits there.”
“No.”
“Whaddaya mean, no? You gonna push it to Houston?”
“I’ll fly it.”
“The hell you will. I’ve been up there with you one too many times. Never again.”
“We don’t involve another innocent man.”
“Well, I’m not goin’ with you. I’ve got my Citation over at the airport, I’ll take that. Bernie flies it, too.”
“Mac, let me tell you what’s goin’ on.” He glanced at Miguel. “You don’t need to hear this.”