Taken

Chapter One

The darkness was thick and impenetrable, and it seemed to Charlie that Lisa’s eyes floated in that blackness, small blue orbs, moist and curiously intense, staring out into the woods and down the slope to where the craft still lay buried in the earth, the lights of the farmhouse shining softly just beyond it.

“I should have gotten her out of there,” she said to him. “My daughter’s in the farmhouse. I need to get down there.”

Charlie noticed that she’d said “my” daughter, not “their” daughter, though he knew that is what Allie was. He looked at Dewey, who stood, still transfixed, as if replaying what they’d all seen only a few minutes before, the descent of the craft, then its crash, and finally the light that had swept out of it, rolled over the woman who’d fled across the field, a light that had somehow… taken her.

Dewey shook his head. “You’re on your own,” he said determinedly. “I’m just a hunting guide.”

Charlie saw that he meant it, that the courage Dewey had shown earlier had been wrenched from him, taken, it seemed, by the same light that had swept over Mary Crawford.

“Just show us how to get down before you go, okay?” Charlie asked.

Dewey nodded.

Charlie turned back to Lisa, and noticed that her eyes had changed, that they seemed powerfully focused on something he could not see at all. “What is it, Lisa?” he asked.

Before she could answer, Charlie heard a rustling all around him. He looked up and saw a group of soldiers closing in.

“Put up your hands,” one of them shouted.

Charlie rose slowly, his hands in the air.

“You’re under arrest,” the soldier shouted.

Lisa got to her feet with a strange grace, and Charlie saw that she was no longer crying, no longer afraid.

“What is it?” he asked desperately.

“Allie’s all right,” Lisa said. Her voice seemed to come to him from far away, and there was a strange wonder in her eyes. “She’s all right, but she’s doing something… very… very… hard.”

“She’s working really hard at something,” Wakeman said. He watched the monitors that lined the wall of the trailer, the evidence they showed of the raging torrents of Allie’s brain, a storm that for all its force and fury, remained locked inside her, so that her face gave so sign of it, but remained as motionless as the eye of a hurricane. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

General Beers stood beside him, his gaze moving from monitor to monitor, from the image of Allie that flickered on one of the screens, a little girl, seated in the bare room of a farmhouse, locked in dark concentration, to a second screen that showed the exterior of the craft, surrounded by armed men who seemed poised to enter it.

Wakeman glanced again at the first screen. He could almost see the volcanic intensity of Allie’s mind, the way it seemed at the edge of explosion.

“It’s time to get her,” he said.

Beers picked up the microphone, gave the order.

On the monitor, Wakeman watched as the soldiers began to close in upon the craft. Their movements were slow and hesitant despite their lethal arms, as if they sensed that their weapons were useless against the force they confronted, archaic as bows and arrows, the primitive armor of a primitive creature. “They’re scared to death,” he said.

Beers’ eyes fixed on the monitor as the soldiers moved forward, slowly tightening the circle around the craft. They took short, cautious steps, their fingers gripped tightly to their weapons, as if they were moving in on a trapped and wounded animal of ferocious strength, a tiger that might at any moment charge toward them at inhuman speed.

Then, suddenly, the craft began to glow, and the soldiers stopped, and crouched low on the ground, as if momentarily blinded by the building light.

Beers snapped up the microphone. “What’s happening?” he demanded.

“This is Walker, sir,” a voice called back. “Some kind of opening has appeared in the craft.”

Beers’ eyes shot over to the monitor. The glow had intensified, as if the craft were readying itself for some terrible defense. “Enter with extreme caution,” he ordered.

“Yes, sir,” Walker answered.

On the monitor, Beers and Wakeman watched as the soldiers closed in upon the craft, then moved beneath it, toward the opening.

Then, abruptly, the monitor went blank.

Wakeman’s eyes shot from one monitor to the next, each of them now going blank in turn, as if switched off by invisible hands. “We’re blind,” he said.

Beers snatched up the microphone. “ Walker, what’s going on?” he demanded.

Walker ’s voice came through the scratchy dissonance. “We’re in the craft,” he said, his voice locked in unearthly wonder. “And there’s this woman.”

“What?” Beers cried.

“An old woman.”

“What are you talking about?”

“With cookies,” Walker said. “Pierce says…” His voice bore a world of awe on its quiet whisper. “Pierce says it’s his mother, sir.”

“ Walker,” the general barked. “Listen to me, I…”

“I know she isn’t real,” Walker stammered, “but…”

Suddenly a quiet voice came over the microphone. “Would any of you nice people like one of my Toll House cookies?”

“Dear God,” Wakeman whispered.

“Just keep moving!” Beers ordered.

“Yes, sir.”

Suddenly one of the monitors flashed on, revealing the craft, still glowing softly, but now around a central core of light that seemed to lead into it beckoningly, like a door.

“Sir, we’re in some sort of corridor,” Walker said. “It’s all light in here.”

“They’re flying blind,” Wakeman said.

The monitor flickered briefly. “We’re losing you,” Beers said.

Suddenly a wild scream broke through the static.

“Cockroaches!”

Beers glared at the still flickering monitor. “What the hell is going on there, Walker?”

“They’re all over,” Walker screamed. “Get off! Get off!”

Then, suddenly, the screaming stopped.

“ Walker, they’re not real,” Beers cried. “ Walker, it’s in your head. Walker?”

Walker ’s voice was filled with dark amazement. “They’re gone,” he whispered. “They ran away… into the light.” He laughed lightly, a man trying to regain his courage. “Did I mention I was scared of rabid dogs and cobras?” A pause, then, “Okay, we’re going on now.”

“What are you seeing?” Beers asked.

“Light,” Walker replied. “Like a corridor… of light. Then a room… and…”

“What?”

“A kitchen. Pierce is having cookies with his mother.”

Mary watched as the glass door slid open. She smiled at the man who stepped into the room, carrying a plate of Toll House cookies. “Have a cookie,” he said. “They’re very good.”

Mary stared at him, amazed.

The man’s gaze was very soft and sweet, as if, in this light, all the great tumult of his life, all the evil he had done, had evaporated, leaving only the best part of himself behind. “I see your father in you, but not enough to ruin things,” he said.

“Grandfather,” Mary said quietly.

“You’ve done all right to get this far,” Owen said.

“How is this happening?”

“They go into your head and pull things out,” Owen explained. “You’ve seen pictures of me. You have an idea of how you want me to be. In my day, we called them projections. Now you call them screen memories.”

“There’s so much I want to ask you,” Mary said. “But I suppose I’d just be asking myself.”

“Give it a try,” Owen said. “You might find something out about yourself you never knew.”

Mary nodded gently, her eyes suddenly moist. “I’ve done terrible things,” she said.

“You had to.”

“Why? To learn about them? To see them?”

“Because of your overwhelming sense of their power. Because you know, you truly know, that the future lies with them.”

Mary shook her head.

“You’ve got another idea?” Owen asked.

“They made this girl…” Mary said. “Allie. Because they weren’t complete without us… without something that we could give them.”

“Either way, their power is what compels you. You want to be part of that power… at any cost.” He smiled. “You don’t need that doctor boyfriend of yours anymore, Mary. You know more than he does. Trust your gut instincts, and you’ll be fine.”

“You’re me,” Mary said. “You’re saying what I want you to say.”

“I’m saying what you know.”

She looked at him pointedly. “What I see is a man who couldn’t live up to his dreams.”

“What do you mean?”

“You had this all in your hands. The whole thing. You had Jacob Clarke. You had him and you let him go.”

“You don’t know what happened.”

“He scared you,” Mary told him. “That little boy scared you so badly that you let him go.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“You saw something that scared you, and you ran.”

“You want to know what scared me so badly, Mary?” Owen asked. “Is that what you came to find out?”

“Yes, damn it,” Mary exclaimed. “That’s what I want to know.”

Owen smiled thinly, a dark purpose crawling into his eyes. “Then look at me, Mary.” His eyes narrowed darkly. “Look at me.”

The soldier opened the door of the trailer and pushed Charlie and Lisa inside.

“We found these two in the woods not far from the farmhouse,” the soldier said.

Charlie glanced up, taking in the wall of flickering monitors that rose just behind General Beers and Wake-man.

“My God,” Wakeman said.

“You know these people?” the general asked.

“They’re Allie’s parents.”

The general glared at Wakeman, then turned back to the soldier. “Find some place for them where they won’t get in anybody’s way,” he commanded. His eyes shifted to Wakeman, then back to the soldier. “Take him, too,” he said.

Within minutes they were in a small shed, an armed guard posted at the door.

“So, you’re Charlie,” Wakeman said with a strange smile. “You don’t use the last name Keys, do you?”

Charlie said nothing.

“My name’s Wakeman. And I happen to know that a great deal of money and technology went into looking for you.”

Charlie glared at him.

“You’d like to knock me on my ass, wouldn’t you?” Wakeman asked. “That’s what they liked about the Keyses. That you guys had ‘tude.”

Lisa moaned and Charlie turned toward where she lay, dazed, beside him.

“All these voices,” she said exhaustedly. “More and more… it’s too hard… just a little longer.”

He could see that Lisa was in some other place, far away, and that in some impossible way, she was with Allie.

“A lot of work,” Lisa said, almost frantically. “This is too hard!”

Mary sat in front of a wall, soldiers all around her, but keeping their distance, afraid to move in. Her eyes were eerily vacant, the light that had once danced in them, now part of the larger and more brilliant light that encircled her. She sat in silence, utterly indifferent to the subtle movement that rippled through the surrounding light like ghostly fingers beneath a luminous veil. She could see the soldiers shrink back as the radiant walls began to weave and churn, giving birth to the thousands of small creatures that hung on the luminescent walls, wriggling like neon worms on hooks of light. She sensed the terror in the fleeing men… and she smiled.

Lisa could feel the desperate concentration of Allie’s mind. “Very hard,” she repeated softly. “She is doing something very hard.”

Charlie brought his face close to hers. “What are you seeing, Lisa?”

She seemed not to hear him. “Come on,” she whispered urgently, and with a strange note of encouragement, as if offering the full measure of her own will to the fierce needs of her daughter. “Come on, come on.”

“Jesus,” Wakeman said as he looked out the small window of the shed.

Charlie rushed to the window and stared out.

The soldiers who’d been guarding the shed were now frozen in awe, as the craft, glowing brightly, began to lift out of the scarred earthen pit that held it, inching backward and upward… rising!

“There are men in there,” Wakeman said.

The craft continued to rise into the enveloping darkness, rising and rising until it reached high above the farmhouse and the awestruck men who surrounded it. Then it paused, as if to enjoy the view from the high aerie of its power, and leveled off, all its lights whirling rapidly, a vast engine brought back to full throttle, a wounded craft miraculously restored.

“Allie,” Lisa whispered.

The craft continued to hover silently. Then a beam of light, brighter than any emitted before it, fierce and blinding, shot down to the farmhouse with laser-sharp perfection, carrying a crystalline beauty to the earth, sweeping around the farmhouse and tugging it upward from its ancient foundation.

Lisa moaned, as if the weight of the farmhouse were on her shoulders. But Charlie knew that Lisa’s burden was only a reflection, light and unsubstantial, compared to the vast weight Allie bore upward, huge and crushing, as Atlas bore the world.

He stepped outside the shed, his eyes fixed on the unreal and impossible vision beyond it, a farmhouse tearing away from its foundations, rising slowly upward as if drawn into the sky by huge, but invisible cables.

“They’re taking it,” Wakeman breathed.

And instantly they did, the farmhouse now encased in a shimmering wrap of light that suddenly coalesced into a single, fiery ball and vanished into the upper sky, away and away, fleeing the earth as if it were a dark stranger of terrible intent.

Lisa moaned again, then collapsed in utter exhaustion.

Charlie hurried over to her and drew her into his arms.

“It’s all right,” Lisa said. “It’s all right.”

She struggled to her feet, and with Charlie’s help, gazed out at the dark field, a few figures now standing, dazed, beneath the very place from which the craft had disappeared: Mary, surrounded by soldiers, all of them thunderstruck and staring about, as if looking for what was missing.

Chapter Two

Mary sat inside General Beers’ trailer, holding a blanket snugly around her shoulders. Outside, the entire base was being dismantled. She knew what that meant. Soon there would be no sign that anything had happened here. It would all be explained as a “toxic spill” or some other such idiotic explanation the public would no doubt accept.

“Want to tell me what this is?” Beers asked, pointing to the alien artifact.

She nodded. “It’s theirs,” she said.

“No kidding,” the general said facetiously. “What else do you know about it?”

Mary shook her head.

“You won’t tell me?”

Mary stared at him silently.

Beers nodded crisply then turned to the MP beside him. “Get me Wakeman,” he said.

Wakeman came into the room a few minutes later, an MP on either side.

“Mary, you all right?” he asked. “What happened? What did you see?”

Beers interrupted him. “What can you tell me about this, Doctor?” he demanded.

Wakeman looked at the scrolling artifact. He smiled.

“Nice,” he said, as if he were viewing nothing more than a curious piece of jewelry. “Very nice.”

“What is it?” the general asked.

“It gathers information,” Wakeman answered. “A recording device of some kind. A brain.”

“You and Ms. Crawford withheld valuable evidence,” Beers said. “In my opinion, your actions are directly responsible for the failure of this mission.”

Wakeman shrugged. “Nice to have someone to blame when things go wrong, isn’t it, General?”

Beers glared at him. “Maybe the ride back to Ash will give you a little time to consider the consequences of being uncooperative.”

He motioned Mary to her feet. “Take them to the truck.”

The soldiers stepped forward and led Mary and Wakeman out of the building. In the distance she saw two people, a man and a woman, standing beside a Humvee. Allie’s parents, she recognized, no doubt distraught that their precious little girl had been taken. They had made an enormous effort to save their daughter, traveled hundreds of miles and risked their lives. It was a strangely human thing to do, she thought, throw everything else to the wind, risk it all for… just a child. She couldn’t help wondering if her father would have done the same for her.

“Get in the back of the truck,” an MP commanded.

Wakeman offered a hand, but Mary didn’t take it.

Without help, she climbed into the truck, Wakeman just behind her.

From her place in the back of the truck, Mary watched as General Beers approached Allie’s parents. Briefly, they spoke, then the general escorted Allie’s mother into the back of the Humvee and climbed in after her, leaving the father to ride with Pierce, the Humvee’s driver.

The Humvee pulled away, and the truck drew in behind it.

Mary turned toward the soldiers as the truck pulled away. They were silent, as if frozen in dread, and in their dread, the sheer lingering horror that was etched in their faces, she felt something begin to focus in her, a strange revelation.

“Mary?” Wakeman asked, nudging his shoulder against hers. “Can you tell me about it?”

Mary shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I’m sorry they found the artifact.”

“It’s not important anymore,” Mary said.

“How can you say that,” Wakeman asked.

The truck entered a green meadow where a few cows grazed quietly.

“You saw the artifact,” Wakeman continued. “It was working overtime. Something is still going to happen.”

Mary seemed hardly to hear him. “Yes,” she whispered to herself, remembering the way Allie had screened a pasture, and behind it, let time pass and people get away. For a moment, she had stopped the world, stopped time, stopped everything by the simple expedient of throwing up a screen.

One of the soldiers shivered.

Mary’s eyes swept over to him. She noted his name,

Walker. “You went in, didn’t you?” she asked him. “You went into the craft.”

Walker nodded.

Mary leaned forward slightly. “What did you see?”

Walker looked at her like a small child forced to reveal something shameful. “Bugs,” he said, his lips trembling. “Cockroaches. They were all over me.”

Mary looked at him pointedly. “Have you always been afraid of bugs?” she asked.

Walker nodded hesitantly. “Since I was a kid.”

Mary felt it almost physically, an idea so solid, it seemed to add weight to her mind. The bugs were as unreal as the cow she’d seen in Seattle. It was all a… screen. “Stop the truck,” she said, rising to her feet. “Stop the truck, I want to talk to General Beers.”

The driver immediately honked the horn and flashed his lights to get the attention of the general’s Humvee ahead. Then he stopped, the Humvee just behind them now coming to a halt behind him.

“General Beers,” Mary said as the general leaped from a Humvee behind them and strode over to the truck.

“Where the hell are the mother and father?” Beers demanded.

The soldier glanced up the road, to where the Humvee, the one he had been following, disappeared around a curve in the road.

“They’re… with… you, sir,” he stammered.

“What?” General Beers yelped.

“I can explain this to you,” Mary said to the general with a thin smile. “But you’re not going to like it.”

“What are you talking about?” Beers demanded.

“Turn the truck around and I’ll show you.”

Beers stared at her, still unwilling to obey her. “Whatever you’re thinking, you’d better be right,” he said.

“Just turn the truck around,” Mary said. “And go back to the farmhouse.”

“Farmhouse?” the general blurted out. “There is no farmhouse. It was…”

“Taken?” Mary interrupted. She shook her head. “Not at all, General. Because everything that happened only happened in our heads.”

Moments later they stood before the farmhouse, just as Mary had known they would, all of them staring at it unbelievingly.

“Allie can manifest thought,” Mary explained. “That’s as simple as I know how to put it. She fooled us, General, pure and simple.”

“Then where is she?” Beers asked.

Mary’s smile was thin as ice. “This is the part you’re not going to like.”

As the Humvee sped along, Charlie glanced back to where Lisa sat with General Beers, the two of them talking quietly, in a tone that seemed almost one he might have expected of a father and his daughter. He recalled the strange exchange that had occurred back at the base, the way General Beers had approached them, ordered Pierce to get behind the wheel of the Humvee, Lisa into the backseat, where he joined her, himself up front with Pierce, all of it precisely orchestrated, as if they were playing out a scene that had been written for all time. He’d glanced at Lisa, expecting her to resist getting in the back of the Humvee, and been surprised that she had not offered the slightest resistance to the general’s order after he’d said simply, “It’s going to be all right,” the same words, Charlie remembered now, that Lisa had said to him earlier, and which the general had delivered in exactly the same, utterly soothing tone.

“Sir,” Pierce asked suddenly, “where am I going?”

Charlie looked up ahead, to where the woods had been cut away, logs stacked high beside a large Porta Potti. He glanced back at the general, then at Lisa, who seemed utterly within his thrall, and decided that somehow Beers had managed to draw her into a spell it was up to him to break.

He spun around, grabbed Pierce’s helmet from the seat beside him and slammed it against his head.

The Humvee veered off the road and crashed into the Porta Potti.

Charlie grabbed Pierce’s pistol and aimed it directly between his eyes. “We’re going back to find our daughter,” he said.

“You don’t have to go anywhere.”

The voice was Allie’s, and Charlie whirled around to find the general now vanished, and in his place, Allie, herself, sitting calmly beside Lisa.

“Allie,” Charlie gasped, “what…”

She seemed to know his question before he asked it. “They wanted to use me to make a ship come down,” she said. “I thought, if I could make them think I’d gone, that I’d been taken, then they’d stop looking for me and everything could just go back to how it was.” Her eyes glistened. “But they were going to take you away, and I couldn’t let them do that.” She shook her head, crying softly. “They’re going to find out and they’re going to come looking for me again.”

“That doesn’t mean they’re going to find you,” Charlie told her.

Lisa drew Allie beneath her arm. “We’re not going to let them get you again, Allie,” she promised.

Allie looked at her mother softly. “I’m scared,” she admitted.

Charlie turned toward Pierce, and saw that he was now in league with them, as aware as they were of the precious cargo they carried. “They’ll be coming,” he said urgently. “We’ve got to go.” He looked up the road, to where a line of Humvees and soldiers now approached, then turned to Allie. “Can you help us?”

Allie nodded and closed her eyes.

Charlie turned back to the road, expecting the Humvees to disappear or be lifted into the sky, but they remained in place, soldiers still in position all around them. He looked at Allie. “Try again,” he said.

Allie closed her eyes more tightly but the Humvees remained unchanged.

“I can’t do it,” Allie said wearily.

Charlie glanced down the road, his eyes searching desperately for some place to hide before they finally settled on the Porta Potti. There, he thought, as he drew Allie beneath his arm.

Chapter Three

A Humvee came down the road and pulled up to where Mary and General Beers stood mutely, staring at the very farmhouse they’d watched rise from its foundations and soar into the night sky only a few hours before. Then Mary glanced over to where Pierce sat alone. She thought a moment, then approached him.

“You helped Allie, didn’t you?” she asked.

Pierce stared straight ahead as if expecting a blow.

“I know you did,” Mary told him quietly. “She knew you could be trusted.”

Pierce looked at her quizzically.

“When I was with her, she told me you were a good guy,” Mary added. She glanced toward where General Beers stood, still talking to the Humvee driver. “I was opposed to this entire mission,” she said, lowering her voice conspiratorially. “Taking a little girl, using her for bait. That’s sick.”

Pierce said nothing.

“If you had to help her, it means she couldn’t help her-self,” Mary said. “Because she’s weak.” She looked at him pointedly. “How weak is she, Pierce?”

Pierce lowered his eyes… and she knew. A smile slithered onto her lips. “Thanks,” she said.

She walked back over to Beers, who was still fuming that they’d gotten away, though now she knew they really hadn’t.

While Beers berated the soldier, Mary peered about, silently taking in the bustling scene. They were doing all they could to find evidence, but she knew they would find nothing. Soldiers poured over the grounds, and searched the farmhouse, taking radiation readings and looking for any sign of alien presence. She knew what their final reports would be, and that in the end they’d have to deny a truth she felt compelled to state.

“One of your soldiers sees his mother,” she said to General Beers. “The person he most wanted to see. Another soldier sees bugs crawling all over him. His childhood fear come to life.” She paused and let it all come together in her mind. “What did we all want to see, General? An alien craft taken down by our brilliant technology. What did we fear? That our efforts would fail. That the craft would come and take Allie away. And so Allie gave us all of that. She showed us exactly what we wanted and exactly what we feared.”

General Beers continued to survey the activity, as if blocking the very truth Mary was determined to reveal. “We have soldiers at every access,” he said. “We’ll find them no matter where they are.”

Before Mary could protest, Wakeman came rushing up to them. “1 checked with Fort Ash. We’re getting reports from all over the country. All the implants are falling out.”

“Why?” General Beers asked.

“Because they don’t need these people anymore,” Mary answered confidently. “They have Allie. The product of three generations of selective breeding. Of a genetic experiment of an unparalleled scale. Once they produced her, they sat back and waited for the moment when all that was latent in her became active. When she did what she did here, made us see the craft, all of that. That was her demonstrating. That was when they saw the power they had been waiting to see.”

“This extremely powerful little girl,” General Beers said darkly. “I don’t think I need to point out how important she is to us.”

“And I can help you,” Mary said.

Wakeman glanced at her apprehensively, and she saw how weak he was, how much like her father, a victim of sentiment.

She returned her attention to the general. “I think she’s exhausted most of her power for the moment,” she said. “But she’ll get it back. And when she does, she’ll be unstoppable.”

“How do we stop her?” Beers asked emphatically.

“When I showed her the artifact, that thing my grandfather found at Roswell, she saw something that frightened her deeply.” She grinned triumphantly. “And I know what it was. Because I saw it too. It’s what my grandfather saw years before.”

“What?” Beers demanded. “What did she see?”

Mary knew the answer, and the answer was life. What she’d seen, she understood now, was all the minefields that are planted in our paths. In childhood there were only a few. Disease. Accidents. In adolescence more were added. Drugs. Sex. Guns. As time went forward, the field grew more littered, the chances of blowing yourself up steadily increasing until there was no ground to stand on. And so at last you saw not just the journey… but its end.

It was that end Allie had seen in the artifact, the whole record of her life and purpose, of everything the “visitors” had done on earth, and finally her own destiny. That was what had frightened her, Mary concluded, that Allie had seen her destiny.

Chapter Four

The artifact lay inside the container, the markings still, as if the metal itself were sleeping.

“It seems to have stopped thinking for a moment,” Wakeman said.

Mary watched the metal, taking in the oddly dormant state into which it had fallen. “My father tried to have it translated,” she said. “So did my grandfather.”

“I didn’t know that,” Wakeman told her. He looked oddly hurt that she had kept it from him. “I thought we trusted each other.”

“Yes, well,” Mary said dryly, then turned to General Beers, who was clearly in no mood for such petty squabbling. “As far as I knew, the artifact never revealed itself to anyone,” she told him. “If it did, my father certainly never mentioned it.”

“Or your grandfather,” Wakeman said huffily.

Mary gave no sign that she heard him. She continued to address herself to the general. “So the question is, how are we going to break its code? The answer is simple. It’s the oldest rule in code-breaking. First, you have to know what they’re trying to say. If this is their permanent record, then it kicked in because it wanted to record what Allie did. Her fantastic power. So the record of what happened at the farmhouse should be on the artifact.”

Wakeman sniffed. “Either that, or a recipe for chicken a la gray.”

Again Mary gave no sign that she’d heard him. “I think we can crack the code, General,” she said matter-of-factly. “We’ll need a team of cryptographers, linguists, mathematicians.”

“The Fibonacci code again,” Wakeman said. He smiled at Mary. “It’s really good, isn’t it?”

Mary smiled back, though her eyes didn’t. “It’s great,” she said.

General Beers clearly did not think so. “First, however, we have to find that little girl.”

When the danger of discovery seemed to have passed, Charlie, Lisa, and Allie crept out of hiding. Eventually they found an abandoned service station and settled in. Beyond its dusty windows, Charlie could see a dilapidated auto salvage, ancient wrecks piled one on the other, cannibalized for parts, then left to rust.

“We’re going to need a car,” he said. “Better give me all your money.”

Lisa reached into her pocket. “I brought everything I had on this trip,” she said as she drew out the folded bills and handed them to Charlie.

“I’ll do my best,” Charlie said.

The man at the salvage yard chomped a short cigar and scratched his chest as Charlie approached.

“I’m looking for a car,” Charlie said.

The owner looked at Charlie as if he thought he should have come up with a better line. He nodded toward a battered Datsun. “It runs,” he said. “But pretty much on a wing and a prayer.”

They haggled briefly, then agreed on a price.

“I’ll just do some paperwork and be right out,” the man said, and walked into his office. “You can wait out here and enjoy the sights.” The sights weren’t much, just a desert town so small that the sudden appearance of a police car surprised him. It passed the auto salvage slowly, then made a turn and headed back toward it.

Charlie quickly ducked into a nearby coffee shop.

“Just coffee,” he told the waitress, then spun around the stool and looked out the window. The police car had stopped at the auto salvage, and two cops now stood, talking to the owner.

A Durango pulled up outside, and the driver got out and made his way into the cafe. Charlie noticed that he’d left his keys in the ignition. There was only one way to get a car, he realized. Steal it.

He strolled outside and glanced back toward the restaurant. The man had disappeared into the bathroom at the rear of the building. He calculated the thin edge of time, the terrible risk, the desperate nature of the case, and decided that he had no choice.

Allie suddenly tensed, and a strange concentration swam into her eyes.

“What is it?” Lisa asked.

Allie’s eyes roamed the interior of the gas station, moving from rusty tools to old tires, and finally to the small window that looked out into the night, where, in the distance, a light began to glow softly out of the surrounding woods.

“Allie?” Lisa asked.

Allie rose, walked to the window and gazed out at the steadily building light. Then she turned suddenly, and her eyes widened in disbelief.

“Hello, Allie,” the man said.

He’d come from nowhere, simply materialized out of the light.

Lisa stepped forward. “Get away from my daughter,” she warned.

“Don’t be frightened, Lisa,” the man said. “My name is John. I’m your grandfather.”

Allie came out from behind her mother. “I know what you want,” she said.

John smiled softly. “We have a lot to talk about, Allie.”

“I don’t want to talk to you,” Allie said. “Go away.”

John started to speak, but suddenly a flash of headlights appeared in the window as a truck ground to a halt outside the station, men piling out of it, the barrels of their rifles weaving in the air above their heads.

One of the men stepped forward. They had seen Charlie in town and recognized him from the news reports. “We know you’ve got the little girl,” he yelled. “Come on out.”

John looked at Allie and Lisa. “Sit here,” he said to Allie. “Let me take care of this.” He walked to the door, opened it, and stepped out into the night, his body bathed in the headlights from the truck. “There’s no little girl here,” he said.

“You’re lying,” the man said. “Her face is all over the television. Damn near the whole country’s looking for her.” He grinned. “Figured me and my buddies might get a little reward by bringing you in ourselves.”

The other men laughed, but John paid no attention. “There’s nothing here for you but trouble,” he warned.

The man laughed. “This trouble’s supposed to be coming from you?”

John remained silent.

He leveled his rifle, the barrel aimed at John’s chest. “Who the hell are you?”

John’s gaze bore into the man, and suddenly his eyes went black.

The man stepped back, the rifle falling from his hands. “Stop!” he screamed as he frantically backed away. “Stop! Make him stop!”

The other men stepped forward reflexively, then halted, frozen in terror.

“Shoot him!” the man cried. “Shoot him!”

They fired and John spun to the right as the bullets raked him, geysers of blood leaping like small red flames from his arms and chest as he tumbled to the ground.

The men ceased firing and stood, awestruck by their own violence.

“Go away.”

The men looked toward the station, where Allie stood, facing them in the doorway, Lisa just behind her, desperately tugging her back into the safety of the station.

“Go away now!” Allie repeated. She pulled her arm free of Lisa’s grasp. “Go away!”

The men didn’t move.

Allie closed her eyes.

“Allie, what are you doing?” Lisa cried. She grabbed Allie’s arm, but the child now seemed heavy as a planet, dense and immovable, her gaze focused on the truck, bearing down upon it as it began to shake with steadily increasing violence until it suddenly exploded in a huge ball of flame that seemed the form and substance of her ire.

The men dropped their rifles and stood, facing Allie, as if waiting for her command.

“Get out of here,” she said very deliberately.

The men turned and headed off into the night, past the oncoming car that slid into the driveway of the station, Charlie behind the wheel.

“What happened?” he shouted as he leaped from the car. He followed the hurried flight of the men. “Who are those…”

“They came for Allie,” Lisa told him. “But she chased them off.”

Charlie looked at the crumpled body that lay facedown on the ground. “Who’s that?”

“Allie’s great-grandfather,” Lisa said. “His name is John.”

Charlie looked at her unbelievingly. “They shot him?”

Lisa nodded.

“Good,” Charlie said sharply.

Lisa stared at him, astonished. “But he was trying to help.”

“Help,” Charlie said dismissively. “He’s the one responsible for this whole thing.” He glared at the fallen body as it turned and he saw John’s face for the first time. “What the hell do you want?” he demanded.

“Charlie!” Lisa cried.

“Leave him,” Charlie snapped. “Leave him and let’s go.”

Allie stood in place. “We can’t leave him,” she said.

“Sweetheart, he’s not our friend,” Charlie told her. “He’s one of them!”

“That doesn’t matter,” Allie said adamantly. “We can’t just leave him here. That’s not the right thing to do.”

Charlie saw that Allie would not leave without John. He drew in a deep breath. “All right,” he said, giving in to her, “all right, we’ll take him.”