Chimera

Chapter 9

The key had been the delivery truck—a cursory search going in and a more detailed one coming out, all made on the inexplicable assumption that the true threat was behind the walls. I didn’t know what lay at the core of that reasoning and I didn’t care. What I did care about was stretching that loophole to the screaming point and beyond.

The large dead tree limb lying haphazardly across the road was the beginning of the stretching. There were many dead or dying trees in this area, but we’d decided against an entire tree. The driver might have been tempted to call for help in moving it. But one branch too big to carry but light enough to be dragged off if he put his back into it—that should do the trick.

With twilight falling just before seven this far into the year, the headlights of the truck were already on as it rolled past our hiding place. It was one week after I’d first spotted it—one week and right on time. There was the gentle squeal of brakes and a less gentle cursing floating out the window as the driver spotted the obstruction. A blond guy with a beer belly and hairstyle best left in the sixties, he climbed out of the cab. By the time he, with hands on hips, was studying the branch, Saul and I were on the move.

Dressed in black shirts, pants, gloves, and silk masks similar to a balaclava, we ran unseen to the back of the truck and slithered underneath. Fist-sized powerful magnets equipped with handles let us cling to the undercarriage as our combat-booted feet dug for purchase. Saul had come up with most of the more esoteric equipment with a flash of a brief and bitter line of a smile. “Connections of an ex-military life. Don’t ask, don’t tell,” had been the beginning and end of his conversation on the subject.

As we silently hung there with arms straining, I could hear the driver puffing and swearing as he cleared the road. Then he was back in the truck and the asphalt began passing beneath us. The entire thing had taken less than five minutes, which was essential. If too much time passed, the guards would be suspicious and start to grill the driver, and that wouldn’t do. As it stood now, this event barely registered with our blond, not especially bright Elvis and wasn’t worth imprinting on an alcoholic brain cell, much less mentioning to the khaki crew.

The five miles passed and if we’d been walking rather than riding, it couldn’t have passed any more slowly. By the time we reached the compound’s gate, the muscles in my arms were howling in agony and I had a mild headache from the exhaust and the adrenaline. Turning my head, I could see the hyped glitter of Saul’s eyes through the narrow opening of his mask. We were both feeling the rush, although neither one of us seemed to be enjoying it. I felt the truck jerk as the driver put it in park. Several pairs of big feet in leather sneakers approached as I heard the driver’s side door being opened. This was it then.

“Open the back.”

The voice was dispassionately professional, just a man doing his job. I hoped he did it precisely the way it had been done last week; otherwise we were stuck outside the gate with a couple of dead guys in tan pants, which was not the sign of a well-executed plan. Suddenly the truck’s shifting on its tires as someone got a leg up on the bumper was followed by the sound of double doors in the back being opened. With a mouth dry and gritty as sandpaper, I waited for one of the inevitable thousand things that could go wrong. They could change their routine and look under the truck. Elvis could mention the unexpected stop a few miles back. There was no end to the shit that could befall us. Waiting was always the worst. Whether for ten seconds or ten years, it didn’t matter. Waiting could shrivel the soul.

But despite my dark expectations, everything went like clockwork. It made me wonder if someone was paying attention up there or if they weren’t and we’d slipped under the radar.

Within moments the rummaging was over, the doors were shut, and the feet were in retreat. I closed my eyes and forced the churning acid back down where it belonged, eating a hole in my stomach. Elvis settled back into his seat, lowering the chassy by several inches, shifted into drive, and we were inside—just like that. It couldn’t have gone more perfectly if it had been scripted by fate itself.

The truck moved on at barely fifteen miles an hour for a short space until it pulled up next to a building; I could see the concrete base of the wall, plain and spare, in a dingy yellow artificial light. With the damn thing finally parked, I was able to unclench my fingers and with trembling arms let myself down to the ground. Every muscle in my body had taken on the consistency of overly boiled cabbage. Rolling over onto my stomach, I slid along the gravel to the edge of the undercarriage. I caught a glimpse of Elvis standing in an open door chatting up this place’s version of the lunch lady. Improbably red hair, pear-shaped butt, and thick hose on thick legs, she didn’t float my boat, but apparently she did something for Elvis. I didn’t judge. I simply recognized the chance and took it.

Propelling myself on my elbows, I crept out from under the truck and lunged into the shadows. Saul was hard on my heels, so hard in fact that he nearly ran me over. With a healthy sense of self-survival combined with those cutting-edge fashion skills of his, Saul was a true Renaissance man. With the building wall gritty against my back, I moved fast until I took a corner and passed into a deeper darkness.

“And that, Smirnoff, is why I refuse to marry. Once the ring is on, the ass immediately triples in size.”

The disgusted hiss was a puff of air against my ear. His comment on the mating habits of food servers and ex-Kings of Rock and Roll couldn’t have been heard from more than five inches away, but it didn’t stop me from jabbing a warning elbow into Skoczinsky’s ribs. It had passed from full twilight into early night and we were fairly well concealed by it, but there was no need to press our luck. Moving on, we found a stairwell framed by straggling bushes and concrete. It was thick with grime and dirt, indicating it hadn’t been used for some time. Settling down into it, we prepared to wait four or five hours until the place was tucked in for the night. There might be a few khakis on patrol on the inside of the walls, but at least the other personnel, including the maligned lunch lady, would be asleep. It made the process of breaking and entering a little less dangerous for us.

The hours passed. And that’s about the best that could be said, that they did pass. After ten years, you’d think a few hours was something I could handle; that in comparison it would be nothing—less than nothing; a drop in an angry, churning ocean. But it wasn’t. It was ten years all over again.

Finally a hand on my shoulder brought me out of a reverie of nothingness. “Time to go.” With his voice tight and controlled, Saul was all business now. He moved to the metal door and went to work with a skill that had me whistling low under my breath. Whatever branch of the service Skoczinsky had served in, he hadn’t spent his time peeling potatoes. It took nearly forty minutes, but he got us in, bypassing an alarm system I doubt I would’ve detected and cutting the glass from the tiny window set high on the door. After that it was a simple matter to manipulate a dead bolt with a long wire, and then we were in.

Out of the night and straight down the rabbit hole

It looked like a hospital operating room. There was the glitter of metal everywhere in the form of needles and probes, clamps and gurneys. Monitors upon monitors and trays of instruments put the finishing touches on the theme. And if that had been all in the room, it could’ve passed as a medical facility. But that wasn’t all; that was only half the picture. Recessed security lighting showed computers on standby, softly humming in oddly comforting song. It wasn’t one or two either, but an entire bank of them lining the wall. Screen after screen filled with a slowly rotating DNA strand shed a sickly green glow onto the shiny linoleum floor. That kind of tan and white checkerboard-patterned tile was cheap and easy to clean—especially of blood. I’d seen that theory proven true firsthand in the basement of Konstantin’s bar. A bucket of a water and bleach mixture and a mop and it was as easy as that . . . except for the cracks.

Close to the operating table, I knelt down and pressed a gloved finger to the thin brown line that ran between the tile. This place wasn’t just for looking pretty; they used it. Why was it I didn’t believe they were performing tonsillectomies down here?

“This is one creepy motherfucking place.”

I looked over at the whisper to see a child-sized hospital gown cascading from Saul’s hand in a fall of pale turquoise. It was an oddly forlorn sight, that scrap of material. Despite its cleanliness—there wasn’t a drop of anything on it, including blood—the sight of it made my stomach twist all the same. “Anything on the computers?” I asked, shifting my eyes to the safer target. I knew enough to surf the Net, but that was about the extent of my knowledge. On the other hand, Saul’s business depended on his expertise with the technical as well as the physical.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Saul shrug and move to take a seat at the nearest computer. Grunting at the spinning screen saver, he started typing. “Reminds me of biology class. Bacteria and fetal pigs; I’ve had better times,” he said.

Then and now, I was assuming. Remaining silent as he worked, I explored the rest of the room. I was loath to call it an infirmary. People were meant to be healed in those types of rooms. I didn’t see healing going on in this place. Along the far wall I found a massive refrigerator, easily the size of a restaurant walk-in model. But while the size might be similar, there was one immediately noticeable difference: the lock. This unit was sealed with a computerized pad that awaited a code key. Hissing in annoyance, I turned back to Saul. “Well?”

With some annoyance of his own, he slapped his hand on the side of the terminal. “It’s locked up tighter than grandma’s panties. I need either a password or a good week to work on it. Since we don’t have either, I suggest we get moving.”

It shouldn’t have mattered, the impenetrable computer and tightly sealed refrigerator. It wasn’t why we were here. I was here to retrieve Lukas, first, last and everything in between. Finding out who had taken him and why would be useful, damn useful, but we didn’t have the time to spend on anything more than a quick and dirty search. We’d already done that now and it was time to move on. That didn’t stop me from looking over my shoulder at the firefly glow of the computer monitors and thinking I was making a mistake walking away so quickly. That DNA molecule, boldly displayed, gnawed at me. What the hell were they doing here?

Saul’s hand on my shoulder pushed me on through the next door. This one was locked as well, but from the inside . . . our side. I was able to handle that without resorting to Skoczinsky’s felonious talents. From there we went upstairs to the first level. The level of illumination remained the same: shadowed gloom interspersed with dim security lights near floor level. We had come out into a long hall. There were doors scattered evenly on either side and the floor was the same bland tile. Past midnight, the place appeared deserted, but I decided it still was time to bring my favorite boy out to play. Some equated guns to women. That bald bastard Sevastian called his Glock Lolita. Not only was he a bastard but a pervert as well. I never saw weapons that way. The ability to do violence isn’t exclusively linked to the male gender, but I couldn’t deny I thought we had a leg up on it. I had never named my 9mm, but I did think of it as male—ruthlessly, amorally, unapologetically male.

Jerking a thumb toward one end of the hall, Saul drifted that way on silent feet with his own gun at the ready. I took the other end and the strength it took to hold the Steyr in my hand was only a fraction of what it took to trigger that first door latch. Aside from the basement, the building, although sprawling, was only one level. The children had to be here, if not in this hall then in the next—or the next. What had been a dream for a good portion of my life had become a reality just beyond my fingertips. Whatever I found here, for good or for bad, was going to irrevocably change who I’d been. It made opening that first door a little like dying.

The metal might have been cool to the touch, but I felt nothing through my glove. Even without the shielding material I don’t think I would’ve felt anything but an icy ghost of a sensation. My nerves, mental and physical, had gone into hibernation for this excursion. It was the only way to function, the only way to survive. And when I opened that first door to see two sleeping boys with coal black hair, I did survive. I survived, breathed in and out like the living do, and then closed the door quietly to move on to the next one.

Each room was equipped with two beds. Sometimes both were filled with either boys or girls and sometimes one would be empty—until I tried the fourth room. As I pulled open the door there, someone was waiting for me. Out of bed and just within reach of the doorway, a little girl looked up at me. She couldn’t have been more than seven, eight at the most. Petite and dressed in plain white pajamas, she had a sweet, heart-shaped face and silver blond hair that was phantom pale in the low light. Innocent and lost, she belonged in a four-poster bed cuddling a furry teddy bear. She belonged with her mother and father, not here; not in this sterile and clinical prison. I clenched my jaw. Goddamnit. She wasn’t my brother and could very well be a distraction that doomed us, but I couldn’t stop myself. She wasn’t mine and she wasn’t Saul’s Rosemary, but she was someone’s. Someone’s heart was ripped out, their life ruined beyond repair because she had been taken. I holstered my gun and held out my hand to her. She didn’t move, didn’t cry out or scream, but only watched me with impassively shadowed eyes. It was unnerving. What kid when faced with a gun-waving man dressed all in black wouldn’t scream her lungs out?

Stripping off my glove, I tried again. Palm up, I let it lie unthreateningly between us with an inner patience I was far from feeling. “It’s all right, sweetheart,” I assured her softly. “Come with me. I’ll take you home.” She didn’t blink at the words or move, but continued to study me with an assessment that was anything but childlike. It almost seemed to hold the cunning of an adult or . . . a wary animal. My hand began to grow cool, then cold, far colder than the temperature warranted. Confused, I pulled it back and turned it over. My nails were dark blue, the skin of my fingers blanched an unnatural white. What the fuck? When I looked back up, the door was shut once again. The girl was gone. Not much to my credit, I wasn’t completely sorry.

Shaking my hand hard, I put the glove back on and gritted my teeth as the blood began to tingle fiercely back into my fingers. I had no idea what had happened and less time to think about it. Resolutely, I moved on to the next door.

I don’t remember opening it.

I don’t remember walking into the room. I only remember facing the boy sitting on the edge of his bed. Boy, young man, whatever you wanted to call him, he sat there wearing the same style unisex white pajamas and a face that bore only the faintest traces of curiosity. Without instruction from my conscious brain, my hand switched on a tiny penlight to see him more clearly. I stood, paralyzed, and looked—just looked. The line of the jaw and the slope of the nose were blurred by time. Ten years would change the map of anyone’s face. But the eyes—they were the same. The colors, yes, but more than that; it was what lay behind the blue and green. It was Lukas, completely and utterly; the amazing directness, the clarity of spirit, the look of which I’d never forgotten.

They were my brother’s eyes.

He had brown hair, I noticed dazedly. I hadn’t expected that. I thought it would stay blond like our mother’s. Medium length, it was a light chestnut with the occasional pale streak. He looked a little younger than the seventeen Saul had described and with a face as pale and tranquil as a snow-covered pond. He looked—my God—he looked like salvation.

“Lukas?” Raw and shaking, his name came out more a fractured sound than an actual word. It was less recognizable as letters strung together and more like a visceral grunt of pain. I tried again. “Lukas?”

His head tilted slightly and he corrected politely, “Michael.” He didn’t raise his hand to shield against my light but instead stared into it without hesitation as he repeated, “My name is Michael.” Like the little girl, he didn’t show any sign that he found any of this out of the ordinary. There was a man dressed all in black, armed and masked, and no one found that worth comment.

His voice was as his face, changed. The light tenor of childhood was gone, replaced by an adult’s deeper tone. “Is this a test?”

I was still struggling to process the different name. It made comprehending his question difficult, perhaps impossible. I didn’t even try. “Test? Lukas, it’s me, Stefan. Your brother.” It had been ten years, more than half of his life. In the back of my mind the realization that he might not know me had been present, but present and acceptable were two entirely different beasts. Emotional trauma or the physical trauma of his head injury when he had been kidnapped, the reasons for his memory loss were something I didn’t have the time for now. “I’m your brother,” I repeated.

I saw his confusion. It was suppressed and muted, but it was there. He opened his mouth, then closed it again without speaking. I used the opportunity to push on and say to crushingly familiar eyes, “I’m here to take you home.”

As I talked, I shook like Vasily had when he had begged for his life. It was appropriate, because now I was begging for mine. It was easy to forgive myself the adrenaline and long-buried emotions wreaking havoc within, and when the moment of truth came, the shaking stopped. That moment happened when the alarm went off.

“Shit.”

It was a silent alarm, at least in this section of the building. The only evidence that our break-in had been noticed was the sudden blinking of the security lights. It was enough to chill my blood; I didn’t need a wailing siren or rotating red beacon. The simple strobing of the strips of fluorescence near the floor brought the catastrophe home clearly enough. Swearing again, I lunged over to the bed and circled my fingers around Lukas’s wrist.

“Lukas, we have to go.” I yanked at his arm, pulling him to his feet.

“Go?” he echoed with eerie calm. “Go where?”

“Right now out of here is good enough for me.” Towing him along unresisting behind me, I ran into the hall and scanned it hurriedly for Saul. Even in the midst of it, the running and the alarms, I marveled at the solid feel of his flesh within my grip. For so long he had been a ghost that I could barely believe he was real and true to the touch.

“Smirnoff, haul ass!”

I whipped my head around to see Saul waving frantically by the same door through which we’d made our entrance, not using my real name, which I appreciated. Seeing that I’d spotted him, he wasted no time in beginning his escape. Obviously devil take the hindmost wasn’t a phrase he took lightly. Following his lead, I ran toward the door. Lukas had been keeping up without difficulty until he saw our destination. He didn’t stop or try to pull away, but he definitely slowed. Considering what lay below, I didn’t blame him. “It’s all right,” I reassured him quickly as I fumbled at my belt. “We’re just passing through that medical torture chamber downstairs. We’re not sticking around.”

It was hard to tell with only the fast glance I could allow him and his strangely unemotional façade, but I thought he seemed relieved. My attention was jerked away as I saw two men, the ever-present khaki brigade, enter the other end of the hall. Shoving Lukas before me when we reached the door to the basement, I whirled and tossed the grenade I’d taken from my belt. It was a standard smoke one. I had tear gas as well, but I was hesitant to use it so close to the other kids. As heavy white smoke billowed and blocked the men from view, there was the sharp bark of guns being fired. I didn’t wait to see how good their aim was in whiteout conditions. Diving through the door after Lukas, I slammed it behind me and rushed headlong down the stairs. I caught up with him halfway down and took a handful of his pajama top to hurry him along.

He didn’t complain or protest. He barely reacted at all, as obedient as a programmed robot. I didn’t like it. It was unnatural, wrong, but as with other things, I didn’t have the luxury of thinking about it right then. Staying alive and getting my brother out of this place made up my entire to-do list at the moment. Hitting the bottom, I saw Saul facing us several feet away. He had double handfuls of the more serious firepower: tear gas and stun grenades. “Move your shit,” he snapped.

My shit and I complied with alacrity and took Lukas past the medical equipment and computers and out into the night air. The sound of hissing gas and ear-ringing explosions followed us as Saul heaved his grenades up the stairwell. I knew he would be pushing us out of the way from behind like a fullback if we didn’t get going, and I charged up the concrete stairs with Lukas like a runaway train. I didn’t even break stride with the first man I shot. The second one, unfortunately, didn’t go down quite as easily.

Halfway across the pseudo-hospital room I’d once again drawn my gun. I’d known from the beginning that I would do what was necessary to free Lukas, no matter the cost. But I had thought I might hesitate when it came to pulling the trigger, if only for a second. I had thought I would pause before sending a bullet into a warm, living son of Man.

I didn’t.

The first one went down with lead in the stomach. That’s the way you were taught to shoot a person. Aim for the biggest target; aim for the torso. The police learned that, as did the rest of us who had less-admirable excuses for our violence. Whatever my justifications, I was already firing again as the first man hit the ground and his gun went flying. His partner, beefy and broad shouldered, was quicker on his feet. He twisted and dodged for cover toward the corner of the building. I was lucky to get one in his thigh and luckier that the bullet he squeezed off in our direction was only an evil buzz past my ear.

Giving Lukas a hard shove, I commanded, “Run!” As before, he did as he was told, without question. From behind us came another detonation, a much larger one than before. Saul had brought the genuine explosives into play. No one would be coming after us through the basement, because by now it was nothing more than a smoking ruin.

I kept just behind my brother as we ran. Saul, who passed us within seconds, kept ahead by a few feet. The son of a bitch could run like the wind, whatever his crappy taste in shirts. As for taste, no one could fault him his preference in weapons, an MP5 submachine gun. Granted, I was the one who had scored it among many others, but he’d had the good sense to choose it. And the good sense to use it.

Reading hard-core mysteries these days, I’d heard the clichéd description hail of bullets countless times. I’d scoffed at it then and I cursed it now. It wasn’t hail. It was a fatal swarm of enraged hornets, whose slightest touch would kill and whose speed couldn’t be captured by the eye. They flew both ways, those hornets, but it didn’t make me feel any better. As one of the two guards posted at the gate began firing in our direction, I tackled Lukas to the ground. The air burst from his lungs in an audible grunt as I landed on top of him, but he didn’t move beneath me as I returned the fire. Saul had thrown himself down to do the same with much more effect than I was having with my handgun. One guard fled for his life and one didn’t have a life left to worry about. As I was getting to my feet, I caught a whiff of shampoo and toothpaste from the still figure beneath me. It gave me such a staggering flood of homesickness for a time long gone that the free hand I used to urge Lukas up clenched on his shoulder a little harder than necessary. He didn’t react or wince. His focus was elsewhere, eyes fixed on the downed guard as he murmured, “Just a test.”

I ignored the incomprehensible words and, relaxing my grip as best I could, pushed him back into motion. Saul was already at the gate and opening it. Lukas and I rushed past to one of the vans Saul had described from the children’s “field trip.” Saul and I had thought about leaving a car down the road for our escape but dismissed the idea instantly. We’d never make it that far on foot without being caught. The best next thing we’d decided was to make use of the transportation available. Then we could drive to our getaway vehicles that would be less likely discovered farther from the compound.

Inside the van I went to work unscrewing the steering column. I’d not actually stolen too many cars. Considering how I’d grown up and my father’s position in the hierarchy, that wasn’t all that surprising. By the time I turned sixteen, I already had two cars waiting in the garage for me. The necessity had not been there, but you never knew when a little knowledge would get you out of a huge mess. So I kept my hand in because practice does make perfect. The proof of that came thirty seconds later when the van started. Over my shoulder Lukas was watching me work, still calm and still in a place I couldn’t understand or touch. “Did you lose your key?”

“Something like that,” I muttered. “Sit back, Lukas, and hang on.”

“Michael,” he said with the first hint of stubbornness I’d seen in him. He settled back into the seat behind mine. “My name is Michael.” As much as it hurt that he didn’t know himself, or me, I was paradoxically relieved to know he wasn’t an empty machine. He was human and he could be reached. Physically I had him; with time, I would get him back mentally as well—but first things first.

Peeling out, I sent gravel spraying as the van tore its way toward the gate. It was swinging slowly open as Saul pelted over to the passenger door and yanked it open. Half in and half out, he turned and emptied the rest of his clip into the three other vans and two cars still parked behind us. Tires burst like overripe melons as punctured gas tanks released streams of acrid gasoline onto the ground. “Flare,” he demanded.

With one hand on the wheel I used the other to pull a group of two flares from my belt and slapped them against his palm. The resulting inferno was more than big enough to roast a few marshmallows. The explosion and flesh-melting orange flames lit up the sky sunrise bright as we passed through the gate. “Boom.” Saul grinned at me as he slid into the seat and slammed the door. I couldn’t see his mouth through the mask, but I didn’t need to. It could be heard as easily as seen. I was on the verge of giving my own triumphant grin in return when there was another boom, this one from the back of the van. I turned to see that the doors had been yanked open. I also got a look at who’d opened them, whose feet had hit the van floor hard enough to imitate a silencer-muffled gunshot.

This man wasn’t wearing khakis. He wasn’t wearing anything but black, which blended so well into the darkness of his skin that he appeared nude. He hung in the open space, primeval and preternatural as a gargoyle rising from the sluggish waters of Genesis. Close-shaved hair was a pelt reflecting ambient light while the black eyes sucked it in. Tall and broad, he was a Greek statue carved in onyx . . . part myth, part monster. Muscles writhed as he stretched out a hand and spoke. And just like that he became a man. “Michael.” The baritone was deep enough to vibrate bone. “Take my hand, boy.”

The hand hung curved in a frozen position. Although it was the same color as the man’s skin, it looked somehow off nonetheless. But it was less important than what was in his other hand. It was a gun. At the moment he couldn’t use it because he was bracing himself with the fist curled around its grip. I didn’t plan on giving him time to steady himself enough to put that gun into play, not when I could beat him to it. “Lukas, stay put,” I rapped. It wasn’t necessary. As amiably cooperative as he was with my orders, he was less inclined to listen to this guy. He didn’t move as I stretched my arm back, steadying my elbow on his shoulder. It was a shoulder that had gone trembling and tense as iron. Before I could fire, the van chose that moment to remind me why “eyes on the road” had become the well-known adage it was.

Careening off the road, I cursed and turned my attention back to driving. The bullet that burned the skin of my jaw before shattering the windshield didn’t help matters. “Saul, get that son of a bitch!” In the rearview mirror I could see that he was all the way in the van now, half naked and as unconcerned as if he’d been wearing body armor. His gun was pointed at the back of my head as Lukas slid over to press up against the window. My brother didn’t seem to like this man any more than I did. “Saul . . .”

The prongs of the Taser imbedded themselves in the ebony chest before I had a chance to get another word out. As the current hit, the three hundred thousand volts dropped our unwanted visitor instantly. His gun discharged and blew a hole in the metal ceiling as he fell balanced precariously on the back edge. I took the van over one more hard bump and the man was gone, tumbling slack and limp out of the back. “Should’ve saved a bullet for that asshole,” Saul muttered. He dropped the Taser on the floor and clambered into the back to pull the doors shut. “Who’d he think he was? Superman? Jesus.” On the way back to the passenger side seat he paused to study Lukas. “You doing okay, kid?”

In my peripheral vision I saw the brown head tilt until it rested against the window glass as Lukas said bleakly, “I failed the test, didn’t I?”

I shook my head as Saul’s gaze slid my way. I had no idea and this wasn’t the time to delve into it. Shrugging philosophically, Skoczinsky patted the white-covered shoulder. “Hang in there, buddy. We’re here to help you.” Settling back into his seat and replacing the empty clip in his MP5, he murmured, “Too bad we couldn’t do the same for the others.”

“We didn’t have a choice.” It was true, but it tasted bitter coming out of my mouth. It was a surgical strike, in and out, and the only chance we’d had. Trying to shepherd a group of children out would’ve taken more than twice the time and double the firefight. That was assuming the kids all cooperated, and one little girl came instantly to mind to refute that theory. My hand still vaguely ached as I did my best not to think about the weirdness of that. If we’d stayed any longer, we would’ve faced at least triple the force and against that all our fun little toys might not have meant squat. “Make the call.”

After fastening his seat belt, Saul used a cell phone, disposable, paid for with cash, and untraceable to us, to call 911. Reporting a fire in a building full of children, he gave the address and then tossed the phone out of the open window. It was the quickest way to get a whole lot of people to the compound and fast, but I still had my doubts there would be a child left there to find. It would be fifteen minutes, maybe twenty, before the fire trucks would arrive this far out—not long, but I had the dark feeling it would be long enough for the people running that place.

“No one’s behind us yet, but it won’t be long.” Saul twisted his neck to watch out the back window. “Can’t this piece of shit go any faster?”

“Maybe if we lightened the load by dumping your bony ass.” Pessimistically, I put more pressure on the gas pedal and was rewarded by a slight surge of the engine and rattle of the van body. With one hand on the steering wheel, I used the other to skim off my mask. “Burn that, would you? It has a nice helping of my DNA on it.” I touched a finger to the still-wet blood on my jaw. Luckily it was the side of my face that was already scarred. Not much more damage could be done there. “Chances are they’ll guess who I am soon enough, but better safe than sorry.” If they were the ones who had originally taken Lukas, they were bound to know something of his family. And who else besides his family would come looking for him?

Fishing for his lighter, Saul set the mask on fire and let it slip out of the window to follow the cell phone. It was a small comet trailing sparks as it was swallowed by the night. As he pressed the button to raise the window, I looked into the mirror again to see Lukas tilting his head to get a look at my face. The fleeting warmth I felt at the first sign of normal curiosity in him melted to nothingness as I saw the complete lack of recognition in his eyes. I don’t know what I’d expected. He had no memory of his own name. Seeing my face so changed from my fourteen-year-old self wasn’t likely to trigger a recollection, but . . . shit, hope springs eternal.

Turning my head, I said lightly to him, “Don’t worry, Lukas. You always were the pretty one in the family.”

He didn’t return my forced smile but only leaned back in his seat as Saul sniped, “Speak for yourself. If pretty’s in this van, he’s sitting right here. Clooney’s got nothing on me.”

The chuckle that hung like an aborted sneeze in the back of my throat was unexpected. There were no two ways about it; I was going to miss Saul. Hurtling down the road in a shot-up van with a brother who didn’t know me from Adam and with pursuers who couldn’t be far behind, I should’ve had nothing but anxiety, desperation, and the black and red sketched images of fallen bodies in my thoughts. We weren’t friends, Skoczinsky and I, I’d told myself a few times before, offhandedly blaming it on an inner lack in us both. Maybe that was true, or maybe I was fooling myself and any deficiency lay solely with me. If Saul and I weren’t friends . . . well, I suddenly wished like hell we were. I was going to miss the son of a bitch.

If I lived that long.