end of the block, he turned into a dark portico. Keys rattled. Posters of comic-book heroes covered the inside of the store's display windows. A sign ran the width of the store above the door and window: Dave's Comix Trove.
A bell jangled as Sweaty Dave pushed the door open and snapped on the lights. He called back, 'Either of you comic-heads? The Dark Knight? Strangers in Paradise? The Sandman? Gone but not forgotten. Lock that behind you.'
Stephen pulled the door shut and thumbed a dead bolt. Piles of comic books rose like skyscrapers everywhere. With practiced agility, Sweaty Dave negotiated a narrow path toward the rear of the store. Julia followed, then Stephen, who had to walk sideways to avoid knocking over the piles.
Sweaty Dave stopped at a door on which someone had painted a horrendously bad rendition of Superman spreading open his shirt to reveal the S emblem underneath. He snatched a comic off a nearby pile and held it up to them. 'Wolverine? Either of you a Wolvie fan?'
'Sorry,' she said.
Sweaty Dave shook his head, disgusted, and tossed the comic down. ''Course, it's gone downhill since Larry Hama stopped writing it, but—'
Stephen tuned him out.
They stepped into the back room. Here, too, stacks of comics rose from every surface. The room was indistinguishable from the store-front, except for an old wooden desk and a bookcase behind it, both buried under mounds of comic books. Stephen looked for something, anything, that would give away Sweaty Dave's secret trade. Nothing did. He turned to see Sweaty Dave staring at him.
'Yes, you, tough guy,' Sweaty Dave said. He pointed to the bookcase.
Stephen stepped around the desk and noticed that the piles of comics to the left of the bookcase were about six inches away from the wall—just enough to slide the bookcase along the wall behind them. Sweaty Dave nodded, and Stephen leaned into the right side of the bookcase. It slid easily, revealing a hidden portal of pitch blackness.
'Light switch on the right,' said Sweaty Dave. 'Think you can handle that?'
Stephen turned on the light and gasped at the room beyond. It was about twenty feet square and immaculate. White walls, aluminum countertops, an expensive-looking camera on a tripod facing a curtained wall. A huge bookcase dominated the opposite wall and was partitioned into hundreds of cubbyholes, each holding a stack of forms or documents or cards.
Sweaty Dave ushered them in. He stepped in front of the bookcase of forms, seeming to survey it with great pride. When he turned to face them, he was smiling. He clapped his hands together and said, 'Now. What can I do you for?'
Two hours later, the two walked back to the van several blocks away.
'How many times did we sign our new names?' Stephen complained, shaking his right hand.
'Enough times to be able to duplicate it flawlessly, without hesitation. It didn't take me so long.'
'Oh yeah. Jane Ivy. I got stuck with George Van Dorgenstien. I had the
'It all has to do with matching your age and nationality to people with similar profiles who are already dead.'
'You mean there really is a George Van Dorgenstien?' He shivered.
'Was. He's dead. Plus, it didn't help that we needed a rush job. That meant we had to find a match among the birth certificates Sweaty already had on file.' She sounded beat.
They arrived at the van, and he opened the passenger's door for her.
She climbed in, turned to him. 'We have to be back here to pick up the new documents in'—she checked her Timex—'six hours.'
'Got it.' He walked around to the driver's door. He started the car and pulled away from the curb, glad to be leaving the neighborhood, at least for a while. They traveled in silence.
Finally Stephen said, 'You must be pretty whipped, huh?'
When she didn't reply, he turned to see her slumped against the door. Her face was turned away, but in the fractured glow of passing streetlights, he could make out the slow rise and fall of her chest. A gray spot of fog appeared on the glass near her nose, then faded away before her soft breathing replaced it again, like a beacon quietly proclaiming her existence. Stephen supposed that even life-threatening excitement could stave off sleep for only so long.
'Sweet dreams,' he whispered and started looking for a place to hide the van and rest his own increasingly heavy eyes.
seventy-two
Allen's head slammed painfully against the cage's iron bars. A fresh ribbon of blood broke from his brow and ran into his eye. Ignoring the pain, he spun around to defend himself, only to find the cage door closed and the men who'd taken him from the plane walking away. He slumped against the back bars. Everything hurt: his shoulder throbbed; his face ached as though it had been used as a punching bag, which essentially it had; his throat felt raw; the other assorted aches in his legs, back, and arms were less severe but added up to a whole lot of misery.
He wiped the blood away and tried to look around. Spikes of pain pushed through the backs of his eyes—the one swollen shut, as well as the one he laughably thought of as his good eye. Rotating his neck instead of his eye produced a pulsing ache that was much more tolerable. He appeared to be in an animal cage, probably designed for a lion or tiger, judging by the size. Bars ran on all sides, including the floor. At about four feet tall, the cage discouraged standing altogether. The sky spanned from orange to blue, the colors of morning. Through his light Windbreaker, he rubbed his arms against a nip in the air.
He shifted into a slightly less uncomfortable position. To his right, close enough to touch, the corrugated metal of a Quonset hut arched up and out of sight. Directly ahead of him, past a red dirt runway, metal hangars, and an unkempt field, a tall chain-link-and-concertina fence seemed to mark the compound's boundaries. Beyond it, a lush jungle rode steep green hills to a crest of red-rock cliffs. Around him lay more Quonsets and fields, one bearing a flagpole, bent and rusted.
He'd seen it all before; it was the old air base on the video he'd viewed on Julia's computer. Somewhere was a labyrinth of hallways, made that much grungier looking by the proximity of sterile laboratories. Considering what else that memory chip revealed, this backwater arrangement of old barracks and hangars hid secrets that could very well affect the planet's entire population.
The fragrances that hung in the humid atmosphere affirmed the vitality of the jungle on the other side of the fence. They were sweet and woodsy and wet. He could smell the earth, and it smelled somehow different from the earth of Tennessee, more ancient.
He noticed the birds now, their caws and calls, chirps and whistles. The musical sound reinforced Allen's already overwhelmed sense of surrealism. He rested his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands. Exhaustion and anxiety swirled like colored oils through his confused brain. Countless questions presented themselves—
He must have dozed off; he came sharply awake when something struck the cage. Crouched beside the cage, looking at him through the bars, was a man who appeared to be in his midfifties, handsome and regal looking despite his clothes. He was wearing a camouflage jumpsuit covered with pockets and a matching beret.
The man smiled. 'You look battle-worn, my friend.' His voice was gruff and laced with Teutonic sharpness. When Allen did not respond, he rapped an object against the bars; it made the sound that had awakened him.
Allen saw it was the gauntlet Julia had given him to deliver. His stomach tumbled at the thought of the tracking device wedged into one of the fingers. Would rescuers be able to find him if it were destroyed or turned off? Would his captors punish him for bringing it? He didn't know the answers and didn't want to find out. He glared into the man's piercing eyes.
The man laughed, which became a cough, a phlegmy, painful sound. 'I have found that when people are
