Repairman Jack [10]-Harbingers (50 page)

"And what you said about killing yourself, that was true? You'd do that because of them?"

Jack nodded.

Three years ago, before he'd met Gia, the idea of offing himself would have been… what? Inconceivable didn't even approach it. He'd been a self-contained unit, an island in every sense, thumbing his nose at John Donne.

Gia and Vicky had wrought a sea change. Before he'd met them he'd been unable to imagine sharing his life with anyone; now he couldn't imagine life without them.

"You're a good kid, Diana. I hope—"

"I'm not a kid!" she sobbed. "I'm an Oculus. I'm a tool. And so are you. But you've found a way out. Maybe I—"

"Don't say that. You—"

She held clawed hands around her onyx eyes. "I don't want to live like this!"

Jack didn't know what to say. What was left of his heart went out to her. Barely into her teens and her life had been appropriated. All her choices had been made. All except one.

"All I can tell you, Diana, is wait. These are dark days for you. Maybe you'll meet another Oculus your age and—"

"There's hardly any of us left!"

He had to get out of here.

"Just give it some time, Diana. That's all I can say." He gripped the edge of the closet door. "As for now, get back inside and lie flat. Things could get nasty in the next few minutes and I don't want you hurt."

"Maybe I don't care," she said, but complied.

Jack pushed the door closed. He heard a faint "Bye," just before it clicked shut.

He stepped to the door to the great room and eased it open for a peek.

Looked empty. Quiet except for distant voices.

The question of the moment was whether Davis would stay true to his word, or if he and the remaining yeniçeri were waiting in the stairwell ready to open up on him.

Pulled his spare H-K. Since that had the fuller clip, he switched it to his right hand. Keeping both trained on the stairwell, he slipped out of Diana's room and padded along a diagonal path to the shattered glass door. Cold air and snow poured through.

Stepped through the opening onto the deck, stowed the pistols, then swung his legs over the railing. Grabbed the rope and slid to its lowest point where his sneakers were only half a dozen or so feet off the ground. Dropped, landing in a crouch. Then, steeling himself for a bullet in the back, dashed for the harbor shore.

No shots, not even a shout. Davis had delivered.

He stayed off the ice and ran along the shoreline. No need for secrecy now, and this was the most direct path to the beached Jeep. Good thing too. Couldn't afford to be too far off course. Although he still had his gloves and ski pants, he'd left the parka on the steps. The wind was scything through his flannel shirt like it was cheesecloth.

He pulled out the Jeep keys and started clicking the LOCK and UNLOCK buttons, but saw no flashes.

"Come on, come on."

He kept moving and clicking and freezing, then he spotted a flash ahead. He homed in on it.

10

When Jack reached the Jeep he jumped inside, started her up, and maxed the heater. He put her in gear and started back, hugging the shoreline. A longer trip, but safer.

As soon as he had the lights of the Wauwinet in sight, he picked up his cell and speed dialed the hospital.

"Trauma," said a woman's voice. "Pedrosa speaking."

"Maria," he said—he knew a lot of them on a first-name basis by now, and vice versa. "This is Jack. Any—?"

Light suddenly bathed the Jeep and then something crashed into its rear bumper, snapping his head back.

Jack didn't wait to find out what had happened—he had a pretty good idea. He hit the gas. Since he was already rolling from the impact, he picked up speed quickly, though the Jeep slewed and yawed this way and that. He glanced in the rearview and recognized the grille of a Hummer.

Davis? Jack doubted it, but it didn't matter who was behind the wheel. Probably followed his footsteps along the shore and come out on the ice after him.

He heard the crack of a gunshot but nothing hit the Jeep. Leaving his lights off he turned away from the shore—the Hummer would catch him before he'd cleared the Wauwinet property—and headed out on the ice as fast as the Jeep could manage. If he could lose them in the snow, maybe he could make it back to land unseen.

Then he remembered the cracking ice.

And that gave him an idea.

With the Hummer hot on his trail he headed due north as he had before. As soon as he saw the first glow of the yeniçeri house he slammed on the brakes and went into a sliding spin. A second later the Hummer did the same. But it slid past and kept on going, its occupants firing wildly as it sailed by.

It had to weigh at least twice as much as the Jeep. Jack didn't know much about physics but knew more weight meant more momentum, and more momentum meant a longer stopping-distance.

He turned on his lights so he could watch it slide into the area where the ice had cracked. If it had started to give way under a two-ton Jeep, what would it do under a four-ton Hummer?

Jack had the answer almost immediately. When the Hummer finally slid to a stop, it paused for a second as the driver spun its wheels to resume the chase. A second was enough: Its front end dipped as the tires broke through the ice. Then the rear sagged. Then it was gone.

Just like that.

Might have lasted a little longer if the windows had been up, but you need them down to shoot.

Jack watched the Hummer's headlights glow beneath the ice as it sank, then he turned the Jeep south and headed for land.

As soon as he was moving he called the unit again, and got hold of Pedrosa.

"Any news?"

He'd held a forlorn hope that he'd hear a wild commotion in the background and cries of wonder because Gia and Vicky had suddenly emerged from their comas.

But all sounded quiet.

"No, Jack. Still hanging on but…"

"No improvement? None at all?"

"Sorry. You coming in soon?"

"I'm stuck out of town in the snow."

"Get here as quick as you can, Jack. I don't think there's much time left."

He broke the connection.

If the Ally had heard the offer—a big if—it hadn't taken it. No deal. Jack's move.

His foot fell off the gas pedal and he let the Jeep roll. He closed his eyes as his head fell forward against the steering. He was tapped out. Nothing left. This had been his last chance, his last hope. He'd given it his best shot and had come up empty.

Nothing to do now but wait for the inevitable.

Get here as quick as you can…

For what? To stand by helplessly and watch them die? He didn't know if he could do that. And yet what else was left to him? He owed it to Gia and Vicky to be there when they were declared brain dead. So they wouldn't breath their last among strangers when Stokely turned off the respirators.

He understood now why people went postal. He could see himself listening to the last wheeze of their powered-down respirators, watching the last rise and fall of their chests, flinching at the wail of their flat-lined cardiac monitors, then pulling out a pair of Mac-10s and starting to shoot, and keep on shooting until every living thing and every piece of equipment in the unit was dead, until he stood alone in the echoing silence.

And then he'd flip the Ally the bird and follow through with his threat.

But that had to remain an unfulfilled dream. He'd have to stand quietly by as his already crumbling world turned to ash. And then he'd have to hunt down Gia's folks and break their hearts. And then he'd have to stand and watch as Gia and Vicky and Emma were ushered into their graves.

Only after all that could he allow himself the luxury of bird flipping and promise keeping.

By that point he'd be looking forward to it.

SATURDAY

1

"New York Hospital on East Sixty-eighth. Fast."

Jack slouched in the cab's backseat and closed his eyes. He felt like hell.

The storm had blown out to sea around two a.m., heading for Nova Scotia, leaving behind a flawless winter sky for sunrise.

He'd paced the tiny Nantucket airport terminal all morning waiting for the plows to clear the runways. The Ashe brothers were snowed in, but the plowing in Nantucket proved to be less of a job than expected. The airport sat right on the beach, and the wind off the Atlantic had scoured the main runway—there were only two—while piling drifts along the tree-lined perimeter.

The real problem had been finding a flight. The commercials were either canceled or way behind. By noon LaGuardia had a few runways open and he found a charter pilot willing to take him.

All through the night and morning he'd made repeated calls to the unit. No change. Still hanging on by their fingernails.

Waiting for him?

I'm coming. Don't let go till I get there.

Fast didn't appear to be an option. The city had taken eight inches and was only partially plowed out. Good thing it was a Saturday. Anyone with a brain who didn't have to go out was staying home.

As soon as the cab neared the hospital, Jack felt a growing sense of urgency; by the time he stepped out at the entrance it had become an icy fist squeezing his heart.

Was he too late?

He ran inside and passed through the security check. The elevator ride seemed an eternity. When he stepped out on the trauma unit's floor he found a funereal silence. Three glum people sat in the patient lounge, staring either at the TV or into space.

Jack went directly to the unit's doors and stepped through—

—into a chaos of frantic activity as nurses and aides ran back and forth, shouting orders to each other.

Was this it? Had Gia and Vicky sensed his arrival and given up just as he'd arrived?

But the expressions on the staff—no grief, no concerned urgency, more like…joy and wonder.

Dr. Stokely spotted him just as he spotted her. She fairly ran up to him.

"Mister Westphalen—Jack—it's a miracle! A fucking miracle. I almost never use the f-word but that's all that fits: fucking miraculous!"

Jack's tongue turned to sand. "Gia? Vicky?"

Stokely nodded, her expression gleeful. "They came out of it—simultaneously! It's impossible, but a few moments ago they began moving their limbs and turning their heads. Their EEGs show increased and increasing brainwave activity. Vicky's seizures have stopped, Gia's cerebral edema has vanished, and her cardiac rhythm is normal sinus. And just before you walked in they simultaneously pulled out their endotracheal tubes—they're breathing on their own! I've never seen—I've never even
heard
of anything like it. It's un—"

Jack dodged around her and fairly leaped to the bedsides. He pushed the nurses and aides aside and stared down at Gia first, then Vicky. They looked peacefully asleep. Their color was good, and yes, they were breathing on their own.

Jack grabbed their hands and dropped to his knees, not in prayer, not in thanks, but because for a second there they wouldn't support him. When they regained their strength he was on his feet again, leaning over Gia.

"Gia? Can you hear me? Gia?"

Stokely laid a gentle hand on his back and said, "She may very well be able to hear every word we say, but she's not yet capable of response."

Jack straightened and looked at her. "But she will be?"

"I hate to make predictions, as you know, but I'll go out on a limb and say yes. She'll have some neurological deficits—that's unavoidable—"

"Twenty-four hours ago you were telling me death was unavoidable."

"Yes, that's true, but no brain can undergo an ordeal like theirs and come away unscathed."

We'll see about that, Jack thought as he turned back toward the beds.

Obviously the Ally had accepted the deal, but why had it waited so long to do its part?

"When did you say they started coming around?"

"About half an hour ago, right after Gia's mother left."

Jack swung back on her. "Her mother?"

How had Gia's mother found out?

"Yes. Why, is something wrong?"

"I don't know."

"She said she was her mother. An elderly blind woman—looked old enough to be her grandmother, really."

Jack had never met Gia's mother but was pretty damn sure she wasn't blind.

And then he knew.

"Did she have a dog with her?"

"Yes. A big, beautiful, seeing-eye German shepherd. She wanted to bring him in with her but we couldn't allow that."

That was it. The Ally had withdrawn, allowing one of the Ladies to come in and work her healing.

"What did she do?"

"Just spoke to them. I wasn't close enough to hear myself, but one of the aides said she overheard her telling each of them that it was time to wake up and—" She broke off, frowning as she looked past Jack. "What on Earth are those?"