When the Chips Are Down (9 page)

“How are you going to hijack Helena’s local new station to broadcast it?” Brooklyn wanted to know.

“If I can gain access to the government mainframe, I should be able to gain access to Helena News’s mainframe. 
Their network security can’t possibly be as tight as that of the government.  I just need to do a little research,” Zane replied.

“We’ll discuss it
more after lunch. It’s time to go to Burger Town,” Trent said.

“Sounds good,” Brooklyn grinned
, gathering their coupons. 

“We’ll be back soon,” Trent called
to Zane.  Zane waved as they moved the crate and headed out the door.

“The drive-thru line is a mile long,” Trent groaned when they had reached Burger Town.  “Let’s go inside then,” Brooklyn said. Two police officers walked inside the coffee shop next to Burger Town and approached the counter. 

“What are you getting?” Sikes asked Mandel. 

“I just want a black coffee.  Coffee keeps me alert so that I may apprehend any criminals who dare defy the laws of our government,” Mandel replied robotically. 

“
Black coffee sounds good to me too,” Sikes replied in the same mechanical tone. 

Mandel glanced out the window.  “Hey, Sikes check that out,” he said, pointing. 

“What?” Sikes said, stirring his coffee. 

“I think those might be our perps!” Mandel exclaimed. 

“What makes you think that
?” Sikes wanted to know. 

“That’s a white Ford Ranger.  There was an APB out on
a white Ford Ranger last night in Idaho,” Mandel said.

“There are millions of white Ford Rangers in the United States,” Sikes retorted.  Brooklyn and Trent emerged with bags of food in their hands. 

“What if tho
se are the two unknown suspects,” Mandel said.

“Then where’s Marsh?
  The APB clearly stated that there were three suspects, one of them positively identified as Zane Marsh,” Sikes replied.

“He
might have become too much of a liability,” Mandel proposed. 

“
Let’s go question them.  We should investigate all possible leads in order to find these terrorist criminals as quickly as possible,” Sikes said as if reading from a script no one could see.

Brooklyn bummed a cigarette from a passerby and stood next to the truck, smoking.  Trent couldn’t stand anyone smoking in his truck. “Things will get crazy soon. Once the world knows the truth, there’s no telling what will happen,” Trent mused.

“Yeah I know
. Maybe we will have caused the collapse of civilization, though it’s not that civilized anymore,” Brooklyn said.

“Since when do you smoke?” Trent
said, surprised.

“Only ever
y once in a while,” Brooklyn replied. It had been a nerve-wracking couple of days and she was still tense.

Brooklyn turned around to throw her cigarette butt into the sewer grate and came face to face with two policemen. She jumped back startled. “Pardon me, ma’am is this your vehicle?” Mandel asked, gesturing towards the truck. Her blue eyes became the size of half dollars.

“
No, it’s my friend’s,” she sputtered as she felt her stomach drop. He walked over to Trent. “License and registration please,” he said. Trent reached into the passenger side window, pulled it out of the glove box, and handed it to him.

“Trenton Barnes” Mandel exclaimed, “Why is this vehicle registered to Clayton Barnes?”  “He’s my uncle,” Trent replied.  He eyed Trent’s license and then the gasoline containers in the truck bed. “Hold out your arms please,” Mandel ordered.

“What for?” Trent asked
nervously.

“Just do it please,”
Mandel said flatly.

He pulled a foreign looking device off of his belt and began shining it over Trent’s forearms. “Your chip is not registering; let’s take a trip to the station,” he said. He pulled out his handcuffs and cuffed Trent’s wrists. In a panic, Brooklyn dropped the food and tried to make a run for it.  She had only run a few feet in the opposite direction of the truck before Sikes was right behind her.

“Don’t even think about it!”
he barked, grabbing her by her wavy blond hair and slamming her onto the body of the truck. He cuffed her tightly as she stared at Trent in horror, who returned the same glance.

                                        
 
Chapter 6

Zane continued working feverishly at his laptop.  He couldn’t wait to tell Trent and Brooklyn about the information he had gotten from Rachelle’s e-mail account and what their next course of action would be.  His stomach began to growl as he glanced at the time on his computer.  “It can’t be!” he cried to himself.  It was nearly two o’clock!  He had been so busy, he’d completely lost track of time.

It was almost two o’clock, and Trent and Brooklyn had not returned yet! 
It doesn’t take three hours to go get burgers.  Something is terribly wrong,
Zane thought as he stood up from where he’d been seated.  He paced the floor as he tried to think of what to do.  He couldn’t go looking for them.  He stood a much greater chance of getting caught than they ever did. 
Maybe the truck broke down,
he thought.  Even then, it still wouldn’t take three hours to walk back to the warehouse. 
Maybe they went to see Rachelle again.  Yes, that must where they are!  But why would they go back to her house without me? 

“Oh God!” Zane cried as he sat down on the bed and put his head in his hands, “We never should’ve left the farm.”  What a stupid idea this had been!  They should’ve known this would happen.  What was he supposed to do now without them?  He didn’t even have a way to get home. 
Don’t panic,
he told himself.  He sat in silence as he tried to think of what to do next. He sat for what felt like a painfully long time, but no ideas came to mind. He raised his head sharply as he heard footsteps outside.  He stayed still for a moment, listening to be certain he was really hearing them.

He was elated.  They had come back after all!  He didn’t care where they had been, as long as they were safe and preferably, bearing food.  He jumped up from the bed and ran towards the side door, flinging it open.  His smile faded fast when he saw who was in front of him.  It was none other than Derek and Krystelle. 

“You again?!  What the hell do you two want?!” Zane snapped.  He was in no mood to deal with them.  Derek smiled. 

“Well, we were about to leave town when I discovered something,” he said
smugly. 

“That you two are a whole lot uglier in the daylight?” Zane offered.  Derek’s nostrils flared with anger. 

“You’re Zane Marsh, and you’re on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List.  There’s a $25,000 reward for you,” he barked.  Zane’s eyes widened.  He was not at all surprised to be on the FBI’s Most Wanted List or that they were offering a reward.  He just never expected Derek and Krystelle to figure out who he was.

“This is how it’s going to go down.  I’m going to take you downtown to join your friends in jail and collect that reward,” Derek said.  Zane’s eyes widened again and his stomach dropped when he heard the words “join your friends in jail.”  His worst fears were confirmed, and he had to find out from a transient crack head, of all people.

“I knocked you the hell out once, Derek. I won’t have any problem doing it again,” Zane shouted.

“Yeah,
only with the help of your numb-nut friend and he’s not here to save you, is he?!” Derek shouted back. 

“If you don’t think I can
take you on myself, drugs have really fried your brain,” Zane said, taking a step forward.  Derek took a step forward as well, pulling a butterfly knife from his pocket. 

“I said you’re going downtown with us,” Derek commanded, pressing the knife against Zane’s chest, “Now don’t make me tell you again.”  He gritted his crooked, yellow teeth with anger.  Zane froze. 

“Baby, I don’t feel so good,” Krystelle whined, who was obviously stoned.  She attempted to tak
e a step to the right, stumbled badly, and almost fell. 

When Derek turned his head to look at her, Zane saw his chance.  He sprinted across the warehouse towards the maze of crates near the back entrance.  “Hey, where do you think you’re going?” Derek called after him.  “Sit down on the grass,” he said to Krystelle, taking her by the arm and guiding her to the ground. 

“I took too
many muscles relaxers,” she blurted. 

“Let me go deal with this idiot and I’ll be back,” Derek said. 

“Hey, Marsh, t
here’s only one way out of here.”  Derek called stepping into the warehouse.  He tip toed toward the maze of crates while yielding his knife.  He was not sure in which direction Zane had gone.  He inched forward slowly, peering around each stack of crates, but Zane was nowhere in sight.  He was becoming increasingly agitated at how difficult Zane was making things.  He cautiously and deliberately moved through the crates until he had almost reached the end.  His eyes lit up when he saw the hem of Zane’s blue over-shirt behind a crate to the left.

“How do you think you can hide from me when I can see your damn shirt?!” Derek cried, wielding around the crate, grabbing the shirt with his left hand and thrusting the knife with his right hand.  He was bewildered and surprised to discover that he was holding only a shirt.  Before he could react, Zane flew out from behind a crate to the right with a used syringe in his hand.  He charged Derek, plunging the syringe into his right shoulder.

Derek cried out in pain as he fell to his knees, holding his shoulder and dropping the knife.  Zane ran over to his laptop, frantically collected his belongings, and ran out the door past Krystelle, who was now sprawled out on the ground unconscious.  He ran far from the warehouse, far from the abandoned industrial strip, far from homeless drug addicts.  He ran until he could run no more.  He bent over, sweating and panting.  When he had caught his breath, he realized he had run straight into downtown Helena.

The interrogation room at the police station was small, white, and confining. Brooklyn knew it was only designed that way to intimidate, still she couldn’t stand small, cramped places. For hours she had sat in the tiny room, like a condemned prisoner, waiting for execution. She knew now who was coming to see her- none other than the Boise police. They were traveling from Idaho to get their hands on Dr. Eldridge’s research, and they would stop at nothing until they had it.

The Chief of Police opened the door and looked at Brooklyn as if he’d just found some buried treasure.  He was a tall, stocky, middle-aged man with a thick mustache.  Brooklyn guessed he was the kind of man his subordinates both hated and feared. “Ms. Wytowski, what brings you to Helena? It seems you‘ve come miraculously out of a coma and straight into a world of trouble,” he said with a thick, Southern accent.

“Why I am being kept here?” she asked calmly.

“You and I both know
the answer to that,” Slater replied with a piercing smile. He moved so close to her, she could smell the coffee on his breath. “You’re going to give us what we want, what you and your friends stole from Dr. Eldridge’s house, or you can call the Helena Correctional Facility ‘Home Sweet Home.’ If you just tell us where it is, you’ll make things much easier on yourself.”

“I want a lawyer,” Brooklyn said. Slater chuckled briefly. 

“Well, the problem with that, Ms. Wytowski, is that your court appointed attorney has already left his office for the evening
, and since you and your friend have no apparent financial means to retain your own lawyer, he would be your only option,” he said. Brooklyn was stunned by his response. She knew it was illegal for him to interrogate her any further since she had asked for a lawyer, but he was going to do it anyway. 

Dirty, these cops are all dirty!
she thought.  She knew she shouldn’t be surprised, considering all that had happened recently, but the realization that her rights as a citizen were basically gone frightened her like she’d never been frightened before.
She stretched out her hands which had become chalk white on the table.  She could feel herself begin to sweat.  Her chest felt tight, and she started breathing heavily.  She wondered what a panic attack felt like and if she was about to have one.  “Where is your friend, Zane?” Slater said. 

“I don’t know,” Brooklyn said. 

“Do you expect me to believe that the three of you traveled to Boise together, stole classified information, and then parted ways?” Slater said sarcastically.

“I don’t care what you believe. Eldridge was working for a privately funded laboratory, so how would that information be considered classified?  Why are you so interested in it?  Are you just blindly doing what your superiors are telling you to do?” Brooklyn blasted, regaining her composure.