After Darkness Fell (27 page)

“That’s not what I meant.”

“This room’s got a door, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah ...”

“And there’s even a lock on it, if you feel the need.”

I smiled. “I see your point.”

“Good. Now rest up. This lady isn’t gonna wait
that
long, you know.” Then she kissed me one more time, stroked my hair and left the room.

Exhaustion set in as soon as I heard her walking down the steps. I closed my eyes and thought about what Reed had said when I’d asked him about the glittering star. He told me he’d wanted to get my attention, and that was the best way he knew to do it.

I decided to tell Fields about it when I awoke, if I remembered. Right now it didn’t matter. Right now I didn’t want to do anything but lie there and relax. I was much too tired to explain anything to anyone right now.

All I wanted was a few more hours of deep, uninterrupted sleep.

When I awoke again, the clock on the table beside the bed said it was 10:55 the following morning. Fields was lying beside me in the bed, in her red shorts and black tank top. The sight, of course, immediately brought me around, but I quickly discovered that I still felt weak and sluggish. I could only lie there and enjoy the sensation as she leaned on one elbow and kissed me—first on the cheek, then the lips.

Although the experience was far from unpleasant, I wanted to reciprocate, but knew deep down that I wasn’t ready. After what I’d been through, I needed more time. I’d been through this same recovery process before, and although I’d been much younger then, I hadn’t forgotten how the body stuck to its own schedule. I’d also learned the hard way what happened when you refused to listen to it.

I slept the rest of the day, waking only a couple of times to stagger into the bathroom. Fields joined me later on, waking me as she slipped into bed and put her arm around my waist. I remained in the same position, on my left side, my back to her, moving only my hand to hold hers as I drifted off again.

However, the next morning I knew right off that all the sleep and rest had hastened my recovery. When I awoke, I felt strong, alert, and very much alive. I immediately awoke Fields, taking her in my arms and kissing her passionately. We made love, and I knew then that things would be all right from that day on. We were together, and nothing would ever separate us again.

***

Twenty minutes later, I eased carefully out of bed and after a few awkward steps, made a trip to the bathroom. My wounded arm continued to tingle, but I’d been shot before and knew the unpleasantness would gradually ebb and become less and less noticeable in a few weeks.

After covering my bandages with Saran wrap and fastening them with rubber bands, I took a long, stimulating shower. It invigorated me, and I felt much better. I wanted to get back in bed with Fields and stay there for the rest of the day. But I remembered that we had to deal with the two men staying with us downstairs. Since I was now well-rested and ready to go, I decided this morning would be the perfect time to find out who they were and what they wanted.

Fields had already dressed by the time I came out of the bathroom. She’d put on her short-sleeved turquoise tee shirt and jeans, and was sitting at my mother’s antique vanity, brushing her hair. The delicious sight stirred me up again, and I wanted to pull off that shirt, hike down those jeans, and carry her back to the bed.

“There are two men downstairs,” she said without losing a stroke with the hairbrush.

I sometimes found it irritating that she could read my mind so easily. This was one of those times.

“That didn’t stop us before.”

She didn’t reply, just kept brushing her hair.

“The door’s closed, too. That helps, doesn’t it? Besides, you don’t scream
that
much. I could put my hand over your mouth if you’re self-conscious. I’ve done that before. You even said you liked it.”

The brushing stopped suddenly. “I don’t want them staying here with us. Do you?”

“No.” I couldn’t stop staring at the fluttering pulse in her slender neck.

She put the brush down onto the mirrored surface. “I mean, they did save our lives and all, and they’ve been very helpful and polite the last few days ... but enough’s enough, right?”

“Right.”

“In other words, I’d really like to find out why they’re still here and what they want. Wouldn’t you?”

“Good point.”

“Breakfast would be a good time for that, don’t you think?”

“Sounds good to me.”

She turned around and kissed me lightly on the lips, then stood up before I could kiss her back or put my arms around her. Despite my growing urges, I knew she was right. Certain questions had to be answered before our lives could return to how they’d once been.

We left the bedroom and slowly descended the stairs. I held on to the banister, and we made it down to the landing without incident. The two men were asleep in the living room. Shaw, covered with an afghan, dozed rather noisily in Uncle Joe’s vintage armchair while Gresch sprawled beneath another afghan on my grandparents’ old sofa.

Fields and I began making breakfast, and in just a few minutes the two men staggered in and took chairs at the kitchen table. Shaw nodded to me as I tended to the bacon and eggs on the griddle. He sat at the table and finished buttoning the sleeves of his shirt. Fields placed the pot on the table. Shaw thanked her and poured some into the cup in front of him. “How’s the arm?” he asked.

“I’ll live.”

“You were lucky. Those slugs shatter like glass when they hit something.”

I brought over the bacon and eggs and placed the large dish in the center of the table. “Well, this one didn’t. Thanks for the help.”

“No problem.” Gresch took his coffee black. He drank some, put the cup down, grabbed the spatula and dished out some scrambled eggs onto his plate. “We had to come here anyway, so while we were here...”

“Tell me something.” I sat down across from him. I wasn’t exactly in the mood for levity. Fields and I had just been through hell, and these two strangers appeared from out of nowhere, like mythical heroes in a board game, armed with weapons and even a cell phone. Fields had said they had questions. I intended to beat them to the punch. No matter what they had to ask, my questions were far more important.

“Ask away.” Shaw picked up a slice of toast and buttered it. His gaze immediately drifted over to Gresch, making me even more suspicious.

“How the hell did you two find me?”

Shaw stopped buttering his toast and gave me the sort of look one gives someone who’d just asked the world’s silliest question. “Your chip, of course.”

Of course. I hadn’t given the damned thing much thought. I’d even denied its existence for nearly twenty years, until Fields, Reed and I were caught and taken to the underground government facility months earlier, and I was told several very unpleasant facts by a man calling himself Colonel Hughes, who really wasn’t a man at all.

Now that the subject had been brought up, it made perfect sense. But it also posed even more questions. It made me wonder who these men were and why they’d tracked me. And it made me wonder why they were still here. Most of all, it made me very suspicious, because I realized that someone else had obviously been behind all this.

“If you tracked me, both of you must know my next question.”

Gresch put his coffee cup down. “For the last couple of months, we’ve been tracking every former military personnel showing up on file and looking for them individually to see who is still alive and still functional.”

“File?” I found myself fighting this sudden feeling of
déjà vu
. If this was the result of my abduction by the TABs, I certainly didn’t want to sit still and listen to any more of it. This felt just like the interview Colonel Hughes gave me just before he and his two TABs led me through their facility to show me their New Order. “You’re talking about computer files?”

Shaw had a forkful of scrambled egg. “They were able to get back into the system about a month ago.”

They? The system?
This was beginning to sound even more ominous. I knew how much of their equipment I’d actually destroyed, but not how much I hadn’t. I’d been afraid at the time that I wouldn’t be able to do enough damage to their programs. The facility had been much too huge and complex for the three of us to examine completely. Besides, we were much too focused on our escape, and didn’t want to do anything that would extend our stay. We were all suffering from a morbid fear of being trapped in a solid stone facility hundreds of feet underground with a failing oxygen system and an ever-growing number of decaying bodies.

Now I had to face the unpleasant fact that I’d been correct in my suspicions that someone else would eventually track me down. I just hadn’t expected it to be this soon.

And now I had to face the horrible fact that these two men couldn’t leave this house alive.

The compact .380 Beretta Cheetah remained hidden under the large blue dishtowel on the sink counter, about two feet from the back door. It was the same weapon I’d picked up the morning I’d slipped outside in the middle of making breakfast to find Simon’s friend Doc walking up our drive. All I had to do was get up from the table, move over to the door, push the towel aside and grab the gun. But I had to do it without anyone noticing. Shaw and Gresch were pros. They’d be able to read my body language in a heartbeat.

I decided to get them talking again. In a few minutes I’d pick up a strip of bacon and choke on it. Then I’d get up and hurry to the sink to pour some water. Once I got my choking under control, I’d turn around and ask them another question. During their reply, I’d spill some water on myself. I’d then reach over and grab the towel with my left hand while I picked up the gun with my right.

I hated to do this. Shaw had saved my skin; I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him and his friend Gresch.

But I couldn’t let them take us again.

“You just said ‘they,’” I said to Shaw. “Who are you talking about?”

“Vaughn and I served with Colonel Hughes,” Shaw said.

My hackles immediately went up. I picked up the bacon and shifted in my chair. “When?”

Gresch put down his fork and frowned. “Before their crazy clone thing got out of hand.”

“
Before
the TAB program?”

“Harry and I had both been out of the military for two years. We were both living out our early retirements in wonderful peace and quiet in the woods a safe distance from the D.C. area. I’d built a tiny five-hundred-square-foot hunter’s cabin five or six years earlier, when I was working as an electrician for Cumberland Power. I’d just been divorced and wanted to be by myself for a while. Living by myself in the mountains sounded great at the time. Harry had a similar setup in the Virginia area. Then all this shit started and, like the two of you, we’d been hiding from what was left of civilization.”

I put the bacon back down and had a slug of black coffee. “So what’s going on? Why’d you two show up here?”

“We’re getting the word out,” Gresch said.

That phrase just didn’t seem like it belonged in this conversation. “Getting the word out” usually meant contacting other people. Spreading the word only worked when there were others to spread it to. You couldn’t get the word out to people when most of them were dead and many of the others were winding down like old generators.

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I.” Fields was just as confused as I was.

“Like you, Vaughn and I were both tracked,” Shaw said. “More folks have been chipped than you think. The chip program, like most other Government-funded programs, was around years longer than everyone thought. Ettinger also had a chip—which is how we found his location and tracked him here after we discovered you were in the same area.”

“Ettinger had a chip? He wasn’t in the military, was he?”

“Hardly. Seems he had some trouble with the law a few years back,” Gresch said. “There was something in his file about a traffic stop and a large amount of cocaine and amphetamines found in his possession.”

“Makes sense,” I said.

“Yes,” Gresch replied. “Most people think the Government started implanting felons around thirty years ago. Actually, they started doing that nearly fifty years ago, although it was kept quiet until the process was perfected.”

“Whatever it took for you to get here, I’m grateful you got here when you did,” Fields said.

“I’d always considered myself unlucky for carrying around that chip,” I said. “I can’t remember how many times I’d considered looking for a doctor who’d find it and dig it out.”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” Fields said.

“So am I. It’s funny how life always manages to land you a sucker punch when you least expect it.”

“I think it was more than a sucker punch.” Fields drank some coffee.

“It made things easier for all of us,” Shaw said.

“You said they tracked you two,” I said to Shaw. “What happened then?”

“A small group of Marines I’d served with at Brighton showed up at my mountain retreat and asked if I was interested in starting it up again. I learned soon after that they’d already gotten hold of Vaughn.”