Transhuman (36 page)

On an impulse he banged on the speed-dial key for FBI headquarters.

*   *   *

N
OVACK WAS STILL
standing in front of Colonel Dennis's desk with the two lieutenants as the colonel put down his phone. Scowling at the younger officers, he snarled, “You heard the man. Find him!”

The two shavetails scampered out of the office. “And get that night-vision equipment!” Dennis shouted after them.

“I'll need to tell Fisk about this,” Novack said.

Dennis shook his head. “No. This is an Army matter. No outside communications.”

“But you just talked to Rossov.”

“He's in the chain of command. He's at the top of my chain of command.”

“Well, Fisk is at the top of
my
chain of command,” Rossov said. “I've got to tell him about this.”

“No. No outside communications.”

Rossov stared at the sweaty, rumpled, uncombed colonel. He's protecting his ass. If Fisk finds out Abramson's gone over the wall he'll have Dennis's hide nailed to his office wall.

Without another word he turned and left the colonel's office. Once outside, squinting in the morning sunshine, he tried to figure out how he could get some kind of message through to Fisk. He realized, If Abramson really gets loose, Fisk'll have
my
hide nailed to his office wall.

But then he thought about Tamara Minteer. Wonder how she'll take the news that the professor's cut loose and left her here by herself.

He smiled. She won't be by herself for very long, he thought.

 

Publish or Perish

A
T LEAST I
don't hear any bloodhounds baying, Luke thought as he limped painfully through the trees. It felt reasonably warm with the sun up; even in the mottled shadows of the woods he felt comfortable enough to unzip his windbreaker.

Then another damned helicopter roared overhead. It seemed to hover right above him. Luke froze and clung to a tree trunk, wishing he could find a cave or some hole in the ground to hide in. The damned chopper wouldn't go away.

They've got their search strategy figured out. The helicopters can't see me through the trees' foliage, but they're pinning me down, keeping me from moving past the trees and out into the open. And the guys on the ground are beating the bushes, looking for me. They know I'm in these woods; it's only a matter of time before they find me.

He was nearly at the far edge of the woods. In the distance he could see clear ground. Bet the phone will work out there, he told himself. But as soon as I go out in the open the choppers will spot me. And what if the mother-loving jamming is still working out there? What if I go out and the stupid phone's still no good? Then it's all over.

His plan was to send the report he'd written for Fisk to every Web site he could think of, including
American Cellular Biology
and a half-dozen university sites. Fisk and Rossov, he reasoned, are holding us at this damned Army base to keep me from telling the outside world about my work. Once I squirt the information to the Internet sites, there's no reason for them to hold us anymore.

That's the plan, he said to himself as he squinted up through the tree branches at the helicopter slowly angling away from him. That's the plan. Publish or perish.

Luke grunted to himself. Maybe it'll be publish and then perish.

No sign of the ground troops, he realized. The MPs aren't trained for this kind of thing. Hope they're all city kids. Hope they don't have some Mississippi coon hunters among them.

The damned copter was moving back his way again. Luke hunkered down, his back against the tree's rough bark, his ankle throbbing and feeling hot. With nothing better to do, he pulled a granola bar from his jacket pocket and waited for darkness.

If I can keep away from them until it gets dark, then I can go out in the open and try to get the phone to work.

Publish or perish. He laughed softly at the ridiculous irony of his situation.

*   *   *

S
OMEHOW HIGHTOWER COULD
tell before lifting his phone's receiver that the call was from his division chief. The ring seemed to be more insistent, more urgent. He knew it was nothing but his imagination but, sure enough, when he put the receiver to his ear he heard his chief's high-pitched voice:

“Jerry, come in here.”

Insistent. Urgent.

The chief was pacing from his desk to his window, in his shirtsleeves. Dapper as ever, his suspenders were decorated with a Stars and Stripes motif. Very patriotic, Hightower thought as he quietly closed the office door behind him.

Turning to face him, the elegant little man said, “Rossov's sending an executive jet to Logan to take you out to Idaho again.”

“Why—”

“Abramson's escaped the base out there. He's on the loose, and Rossov's spitting nails.”

“Abramson's escaped?”

“Yes!”

“Can't they get Army people to find him?” Hightower asked.

Pointing thumb and finger like a pistol, the chief barked, “Rossov wants you out there! I've been told by the deputy director at headquarters in Washington that you are to get your butt out to that base and assist in the search! So move it!”

Hightower made a barely perceptible nod. “You know that by the time I get there they'll probably have picked him up.”

“I know that,” the chief admitted. “And you know that. And probably the deputy director knows it, too. But Rossov is from the White House and he wants you in Idaho.”

Suppressing an urge to shake his head, Hightower murmured, “I'm on my way.”

*   *   *

T
HE SUN WAS
sinking toward the distant mountains. The air was turning noticeably chillier. Luke still sat at the base of the same tree he'd been under most of the day, bent over his phone, pecking away painfully at a foreword to his paper. He wanted it to be transparently clear, so that anybody could read it and understand what he'd accomplished.

Looking up at the reddening sky, he thought, Another cold night coming. Well, the sooner the better. Let me get out from under these trees and make my goddamned phone call.

Helicopters had been droning back and forth all afternoon. At one point a team of soldiers came whacking at the underbrush within a few hundred yards of where he'd been hiding. Luke hunkered down and froze. Like a rabbit, he thought. They can't see you if you don't move. The searchers passed by, then an hour later came back from the other direction.

City boys, Luke figured. No real hunters among them. They sounded tired and dispirited as they trudged by, heading back toward the base.

Wait for night, Luke repeated silently. Hello darkness, my old friend. Who sang that? James Taylor? No, I think it was Simon and Garfunkel.

As the shadows deepened and the wind sweeping down from the mountains turned colder, Luke chewed on his last granola bar, thinking, This is pretty ludicrous. Camping outdoors night and day. What I wouldn't give for a decent hotel room and a nice, hot shower.

Nobody in sight. Even the choppers have gone away. Maybe I could walk out there and try the phone without waiting for night. Then I could phone Tamara and ask her to tell Colonel Dennis where I am.

He shook his head. No. Wait for night. Don't throw everything down the toilet because you're tired and antsy.

So he waited.

In the distance he heard a helicopter droning, but it didn't seem to be coming his way.

He waited.

 

Closing the Ring

T
HANKS TO THE
three-hour time difference between the East and West Coasts, the executive jet carrying Hightower arrived at Fairchild Air Force Base, just outside of Spokane, a few minutes after four
P.M
.

A pair of local FBI men escorted him to a big, sausage-shaped Army helicopter. Neither of them had much to say. Hightower figured that they resented being ordered to babysit an agent from the other side of the country. I'd be a little ticked, too, he thought, having some stranger invade my territory.

The chopper was comfortable enough, even though most of the seating area was filled with sealed boxes. The only passenger aboard, Hightower tried to make sense of the labels stenciled on them. Army gobbledegook, he figured. Specialized equipment.

It was starting to get dark by the time he landed at Base Y-18. A grizzled sergeant, paunchy and sour-faced, stood at the base of the ladder as Hightower descended from the helicopter, his suede jacket hanging open.

Looking puzzled, the sergeant asked, “Where's your luggage?”

Hefting his slim briefcase, Hightower said, “This is it. I guess I should see Colonel Dennis before anything else.”

With a knowledgeable nod, the sergeant said, “Yeah. The colonel wants to see you right away.”

*   *   *

I
T'S DARK ENOUGH,
Luke thought, looking at the moon smiling lopsidedly down at him. Enough light to get around without breaking my neck. But then he realized, That means there's enough light for them to spot me.

He didn't hear any helicopters, though. And he hadn't seen any soldiers searching for him since that halfhearted squad had passed him a few hours earlier.

Okay, Luke said to himself. Out of the woods and keep on going until the phone connects.

Wincing on his bad ankle, he started out toward the bare desert, his cell phone in one hand.

Should've gotten a smartphone, like Tamara has. All this little piece of crap can do is make phone calls.

But maybe that's enough.

NO SIGNAL,
the minuscule screen flashed. Cursing under his breath, Luke trudged on.

*   *   *

C
OLONEL DENNIS WAS
clearly miserable, Hightower saw. The man appeared to have aged ten years. His fleshy face looked pale, his eyes frightened. He seemed to be hunkered down in his swivel chair, using the desk as a protective barrier.

“The men I have here aren't trained for searching the woods,” he grumbled. “My men are clerks, lab technicians, not commandos.”

“Maybe he's not in the woods,” Hightower suggested.

“He's got to be in the woods!” Dennis snapped. “That's the only cover for miles around. If he was out in the open, the choppers would've spotted him.”

Hightower agreed with a nod. “I'm not sure what I can do to help you.” Smiling gently he added, “I hope you don't think that I'm some sort of native tracker.”

Shaking his head hard enough to make his cheeks wobble, Dennis said, “Bringing you out here was Rossov's idea, not mine.”

“I'll do whatever I can, of course. But I don't what it might be.”

Casting an eye at the lengthening shadows of sundown, Colonel Dennis answered, “Let my quartermaster find you a place to sleep. That chopper you came in on has brought us a load of night-vision equipment. We'll get him tonight.”

“Good,” said Hightower. But he wondered if it was true.

*   *   *

S
ITTING IN THE
mess hall, Novack saw Tamara come in for dinner alone. He waited while she loaded her tray and found a seat, then left his own dinner and went to sit across the table from her.

“Where's the kid and her parents?” he asked, by way of a greeting.

“They ate earlier,” Tamara said. “Too early for me.”

Take it easy with her, Novack counseled himself. Let her relax.

“You mind if I bring my tray here? I hate to eat alone.”

Tamara tilted her head slightly. “So do I.”

Within a few minutes they were talking about Luke's escape.

“This is going to make me look real bad,” Novack said. “Fisk is going to blame me for letting him get away.”

Tamara almost smiled. “He's locked us into an Army base in the middle of nowhere with whole squads of soldiers to guard it, and he's going to blame you?”

Novack shrugged. “That's the way the cookie crumbles. The Army'll blame the colonel, but Fisk's going to come down on me. Hard.”

“You mean you could lose your job?”

“Maybe.”

She shook her head. “That's not fair.”

He shrugged again.

Tamara looked past him. “I'm worried about Luke, out there in the cold all by himself.”

She calls him by his first name, Novack realized. Is there something going on between them?

“If the soldier boys haven't found him by now,” he said to her, “he must be halfway to Canada.”

Tamara said nothing.

“And he left you holding the bag. Left his granddaughter, too.”

“Angela's almost fully recovered. She'll be fine.”

“Yeah, but he took off by himself, looking out for numero uno.”

Scowling, she challenged, “How do you think he could manage to get all of us out of here? He did what he had to do.”

“Numero uno,” Novack repeated.

Suddenly Hightower's massive form loomed over them, carrying a tray that looked almost toy-sized in his big hands.

“Mind if I join you?”

“What the hell are you doing here?” Novack yelped.

Sitting down wearily next to him, Hightower said, “I've been drafted.”

 

Moonlight Encounters

N
O SIGNAL, THE
phone still said.

Luke stared up at the half-moon hanging above the crest of the mountains. Enough light to let me walk out here without breaking my neck, he thought. Also enough light to let a helicopter spot me.

Maybe I should've waited until the moon's down. No, he decided. There aren't any helicopters buzzing around, I would've heard them. But the farther I get from the woods, the harder it'll be for me to hide if any choppers come over.

Trudging along doggedly, he zipped up his windbreaker and pulled his wool cap from its now-empty pocket. His hands still stung when he tried to grip something, but at least they weren't bleeding anymore.