Nowhere to Hide (2 page)

“Helicopter,” King repeated. He leaned back against his chair and faked a casual pose. That took effort because he remembered the last time he'd been in a helicopter—with a CIA guy named Evans—and the reason for it. Before his mother came out of her coma. An invisible hand seemed to tighten the grip around his throat.

“Rats,” King said. “Just when this pottery was getting interesting, Evans decides to drop by.”

The last few words came out in a gasp.

“You okay?” Ella asked.

King coughed and made a joke of it. “Hair ball.”

Ella turned to Mack. “Are Blake and MJ in trouble?” Considering the way all of them had met Evans, it was a logical question.

“This probably isn't anything to panic about,” Mack said to Ella.

King doubted his father realized the irony of those words. King
had googled the symptoms he was fighting, so he knew he was on the verge of a full-blown panic attack.

“All Evans said was that Blake and MJ needed you,” Mack continued, showing no awareness of what was hitting King. “For all I know, they're planning a surprise birthday party for you at a bowling alley.”

Blake and MJ were King's friends. Since it was summer and school was out—even homeschoolers took a break—Blake and MJ had been off the island for a few days.

Evans was Central Intelligence Agency. More specifically, Evans was from the Special Operations Group division of the CIA. How weird that his family thought it was perfectly normal for someone from SOG to be on his way across Puget Sound by helicopter from Joint Base Lewis-McChord US military installation, just south of Tacoma. JBLM was a training institute and mobilization center. Evans served there as an instructor because SOG drew from the elite of the elite of the military divisions, including the Delta Force and SEAL teams.

“Great,” King said, not meaning it. This small workshop was the perfect place to spend a contented, misty morning. He struggled to hide his efforts to pull air into his lungs.

“Thought you might like that,” Mack said. “It seems like weeks since you've left the island. You must be going stir-crazy. And a helicopter, not a ferry. How cool is that?”

Actually, twenty-seven straight days on the island. King kept track. He'd been hoping to make it another twenty-seven days. Or another sixty days. Or more. He'd been trying to work up the courage to tell his parents he wasn't that interested in finishing high school early anymore. And to tell them he wasn't interested in college anymore either.

“Maybe…” King began, but the heavy throb-throb-throb of a helicopter interrupted him.
Maybe we can give Evans a quick call and tell him
…

And tell him what? King was running out of excuses to stay home. He'd managed to avoid going off the island with Blake and MJ a few days ago by pleading a stomach virus that was giving him the runs. With something like that, people didn't look for actual proof. They let you go to the bathroom, where you could flush the toilet every
few minutes, spray a heavy dose of air freshener, and come out gagging at the smell as if you'd actually contributed something to the sewage system.

“What does King need to pack?” Ella asked. She obviously trusted that if Evans was behind it, all was good.

“Only his phone and wallet,” Mack answered. “Evans said it was just a day trip.”

The sound of the incoming helicopter grew thunderous. King could hardly believe he had once thought that would be the coolest thing in the world—having a Special Operations agent of the Central Intelligence Agency land a helicopter right in front of his house, right in the middle of his boring life on this obscure island. But that was before his friend Blake had set up something called a dead man's switch, before the coma that had almost taken away Ella, and before a chase that had almost killed Mack.

King now understood the ancient Chinese curse—“May you get what you wish for.” Before the Dead Man's Switch episode, King had scorned the quiet island life and ached for adventure.

But then he'd gotten what he wished for. In triplicate. So on this morning, with a helicopter landing in front of his house, all he wanted was to lock himself in a closet and listen to himself breathe in the dark. The island was safe. Being off the island was not.

Maybe Mack was right. Maybe Blake and MJ were just planning a birthday party. If he was lucky, the rest of the day would include nothing more than a few games of bowling, and the hardest thing he'd have to do would be to act happy at a birthday party.

But really, would a CIA agent fly over in a helicopter for King just for that?

CHAPTER 3

Things started getting weird for King—weirder than a chopper with a CIA agent arriving to pick him up—when his best friend's mother unexpectedly appeared at the front door. She knocked once and opened it without waiting for an answer.

Actually, that wasn't the weird part. Mrs. Johnson did that all the time.

She stood there with a big smile and a small, taped cardboard box. The weird part was the conversation that followed.

She was a small woman, and when she walked, King thought of a crane tiptoeing through water, trying not to scare the minnows away.

“Hello, Mrs. Johnson,” King said as he answered the door. He'd just put on his shoes and was about to head out to the helicopter. His parents were already outside on the front porch.

“I'd like you to take this to Michael,” Mrs. Johnson said, extending the box.

The only families on the island were families with a prison employee. And the island was isolated because of the prison, so for as long as King could remember, his choice of friends was limited—especially new friends.

Blake Watt had arrived barely six months earlier. Until then, Michael Johnson had been the only boy on the island who was King's age. King's choice was simple—he could be friends with Johnson, or he could not have a friend.

As a result, the families got together for a shared meal at least once a week, and that meant that MJ's mother, Shirley, was almost a second mother to King.

Almost. King loved Ella and felt comfortable around her, but Mrs. Johnson was a control freak, a mother hen, and King never felt relaxed in her presence. King's mother made sure King did his homework and always assured him she didn't care if his grades were bad as long as he did his best and learned from his mistakes. Mrs. Johnson, on the other hand, always supervised MJ's homework, and when she found a mistake, she made sure MJ corrected it so he had perfect grades.

“No problem, Mrs. Johnson,” King said as he accepted the box. “Happy to help.”

It weighted little, so it obviously did not hold forty-eight cans of kidney beans as identified by large red letters across the side of it. No doubt Mrs. Johnson had taken it from the storage shed behind the Johnson house. The Johnsons did their shopping in bulk from Costco. Mrs. Johnson had been on a dietary kick the past few months, insisting that her husband and MJ get protein from vegetable sources instead of meat.

That had not been good for King. It meant that MJ wandered over as often as possible to look through King's fridge for leftover hamburgers or steak. Bad enough that it was taking food from King's mouth, but MJ and beans were a bad combination. MJ never apologized—not for taking leftovers as if they belonged to him, and not for his digestive system's efforts to deal with the beans. MJ's cholesterol level might have been dropping, but his gas level had risen dramatically.

King waited for detailed instructions from Mrs. Johnson on exactly when and how to give the box to MJ, as if King were a three-year-old.

“Is your stuff for the hotel already in the helicopter?” Mrs. Johnson asked.

“Well…”

“MJ didn't let me do his packing for him,” she said. “I don't know why in the world he'd stop me.”

Because he wants to be a grown-up
, King thought. But this wasn't the time for that conversation. There would never be a good time for that conversation.

“Who knows if he has enough underwear?” Mrs. Johnson continued. “And socks. A person needs lots of underwear and socks, so that's what's in the box. Cleaned with a detergent that doesn't make Michael itch. He's so sensitive, you know. When that rash goes down the inside of his legs—”

“I'll make sure to give him the box,” King said. He did not, as in not ever, want to hear about any kind of rash that involved MJ. Mrs. Johnson liked to be explicit when it came to medical problems.

“You packed enough underwear, right?” she asked.

“Yes,” King said. It wasn't a lie. He supposed if it came down to it, he would wash what he was wearing with dish detergent in a sink and dry it with a hair dryer, and it would be ready to wear in five minutes or less. Besides, hadn't Evans said all that King needed was his phone and wallet?

“I'm sure they are going to split the reward with you,” Mrs. Johnson said. “Even if you arrive after they've done all the work.”

Her voice carried faint disapproval of King, but he'd learned not to pay attention to it. Instead, his mind naturally turned to two questions.

Reward? Work?

“I'm going to run now,” Mrs. Johnson said. “No time for chitchat. Sorry.”

She paused and looked at King. “You won't lose that box, right? And you'll give it to MJ right away, right?”

“Yes, Mrs. Johnson,” King said. “I'd hate for MJ to get a rash.”

CHAPTER 4

King had no difficulty remembering the first time he had been in a helicopter. And, no coincidence, it was when he first met Evans. His second time in a helicopter had been with Evans too. This would be his third.

The first helicopter had been a small civilian unit, like the ones used to monitor traffic, piloted by Evans. The second helicopter had been a UH-1 gunship—Evans called it a Huey—that bristled with missiles and was big enough to hold the commando unit that accompanied them.

Naturally, King expected Evans would be in the small commuter chopper that had just landed on the road in front of his house. No one worried about traffic safety on McNeil Island. Except for a few vehicles used for official prison purposes, nobody owned cars. People walked or rode bicycles.

But King was proven wrong. He stood beside Mack and Ella at their front porch and saw that the pilot who stepped out of the chopper was not Evans. The man was Caucasian, not African-American like Evans. The only similarity was that this man wore a well-tailored suit,
just as Evans did. This man's suit was charcoal gray; King remembered that Evans preferred navy blue.

“Don Mundie,” the man barked as he stepped beyond the slowing helicopter blades and held out a badge for identification.

Mundie was tall and thin with neatly cut blond hair. He wore Oakley sunglasses—black lenses—and his face had the kind of wrinkles that came from facing sun and wind. He was probably past his mid-forties and could have been older. He walked like an athlete, like a man who was accustomed to winning tournaments at his golf club.

Hurrying beneath the roof of the front porch to keep his suit from getting soaked in the drizzle, Mundie continued holding out the badge until he was close enough for Mack to examine it.

Mack grunted approval, and Mundie slipped the badge inside his suit jacket.

“And I know who you are,” Mundie said. “Evans sent me photos. Nice to meet you. Mack and Ella and William.”

Not William. But King. William Mackenzie King, a reversal of the first two names of his father. Ella's mother, a Canadian, had slipped in a second middle name so that King's full name was William Lyon Mackenzie King. It had been a long time before anyone realized why—that was the name of a former Canadian prime minister.

“Nice to meet you,” Mack said, allowing Ella to shake Mundie's hand first and then doing the same. Nobody corrected Mundie for addressing King as William. But to King, it was a tiny red flag. Evans never called King by that name.

“Nice to meet you,” King said, accepting Mundie's offered handshake. Even though it wasn't nice to meet anyone. King wanted to go back to the workshop and let the drizzle protect him from the world.

“Coffee?” Mack asked Mundie. “Cup of tea?”

Mundie shook his head no.

“We were expecting Evans,” Ella said. “He made it sound like it was something personal on short notice. King and Evans have a history. A good history.”

“I'm aware of both,” Mundie said. “That you might be expecting
Evans, and that this isn't really official. As you know, Evans wants to keep all of this under the radar.”

All of what
, King wondered. What was supposed to be under the radar? He thought Mack might ask the same thing.

“And you will have it wrapped up by evening?” Mack said.

To King, that implied Mack knew what was going on. Worse, it implied Mack knew what was going on
and
was keeping it from King. It was a mild betrayal but still a betrayal of sorts. Unless this really was a surprise birthday, Mack should have been open with King. Especially after all that they had been through with Evans when Ella was in her coma. But this wasn't a surprise party, King was certain. Not with a helicopter involved.