“Sir, it’s extremely urgent.”
“Who’s your commanding officer?”
“Sir, I’m not at liberty to tell you that, but I can commandeer this aircraft.”
“Don’t give me that kind of guff. I’ve been in this Air Force a while, girlie. But what the hell, fellas, who wouldn’t want to take boobs like these to thirty-thousand feet?”
She swallowed her outrage, managed to construct a seductive smile.
Then she noticed something. He wasn’t looking at her. In fact, his eyes were practically glazed over with fear.
She turned—and there stood Colonel Langford with a pistol in his hand. “We’ll take care of this,” he said.
“Be my guest,” the general replied.
“What in hell is going on?” the major asked.
“A prisoner is being taken into custody,” Langford snarled. “Come on, Miss Jacobs.” He glanced past her. “She’s not even Air Force. She’s pulled this hitch trick for the last time.”
“My name is Lauren Glass,” she said as he marched her out of the cabin. “I am a colonel and I’ve been listed as a KIA. I am alive, General, remember that when you read her obit, Colonel Lauren Glass is alive!”
“Don’t even think about running,” Langford said when they reached the tarmac. “I’ll have the Air Police on your tail in a matter of seconds.”
She walked ahead of him.
“You’re a problem,” he said, “a very serious problem.”
She felt the gun in her back. So the stories were true. Black ops had their own special way of solving problems, and Lauren Glass, as the colonel had just said, was a problem. She thought, with a curious sort of detachment, that she had reached her last hours of life. It was a sickening, trapped moment, and yet oddly peaceful.
She had avoided marriage, and now she regretted that. She’d never felt a child in her belly, nor the pain of giving birth. She regretted that, too. It was so very odd, this feeling. Not awful at all. The end of all responsibility, the end of the need to run.
Too bad the grays couldn’t help her now. She tried sending images of her with Langford’s gun in her face, but nothing came back. Too far away.
She wondered if he would kill her here at Wright-Pat, or take her somewhere else. Maybe it was even an official killing. Probably it was. So there’d be some stark room somewhere, and a steel coffin waiting. “I’m ready,” she said. If he was planning to move her, maybe there would be a chance to escape. She might feel oddly peaceful, but if she could get away, she sure as hell would.
“It’s going to be easy, then?”
“What choice do I have? You’ve got me.”
“Yes,” he said, “I do.”
SIXTEEN
THE MOMENT HE HAD REALIZED that he’d lost not only Adam, but also the two handlers, Mike had raced back to Washington. There was only one way to fire somebody in an organization this secret. Nobody was retired. You were either actively involved in the Trust or you were dead… and Mike understood and agreed completely. You could not risk even a rumor getting out that mankind was on a death watch, or that there was an organization that planned to save only a precious few, or that any part of the U.S. government was involved with aliens, not when there were such dire threats associated with revealing the secret of their presence.
Mike explained to Charles Gunn how Andy and Lauren had gotten away.
“That was damn stupid.”
“I don’t think—”
“Andy moved fast, you couldn’t help that. But we’ll pull him in. The empath is another matter, Mike. You were stupid to shoot, but an asshole to miss.”
“Charles—”
“Shut up, I’m thinking.”
“Charles, the gray is at large.”
His eyes fixed on Mike’s face. His lips opened, then he closed them. He suddenly grabbed a pen and a pad of paper and started writing.
“Charles?”
The writing became scratching, then trenching, then he rose up like a tower and ripped the pad to bits. He rushed around the desk and loomed over Mike. “Goddamn you.”
“Charles—”
“Do me, Charlie. Get it over with.”
“Boy, that would be a pleasant way to spend an hour or so, you stupid piece of shit. I’ve defended you, but you are fucking incompetent. You and that fancy house of yours, your theft that I’ve ignored all these years. Not to mention those special passes to the shelters that you’ve given your crook friends.”
That would wreck him, to withdraw those bribes that were also such superb blackmail. His every defense industry contact would turn against him. He’d be a ruined man. “Charles, those people—some of them are essential—”
“The hell they are. They’re gone. History. And so are you, Mike. There’s no way you’re getting anywhere near one of the shelters. When this planet’s environment collapses, you’re gonna be in the wind. You live with that, now. You live with that.”
By which Charles actually meant that he had just allowed Mike to live. He had expected to die in this room, right now.
Charles asked, “Do you think Glass could be hiding Adam?”
“I went to her apartment first thing. No sign of anyone there. I think Adam’s been recalled. The moment they realized that we were aware of the child, they pulled the plug.”
“Because you asked the wrong question.” Charles dropped down behind his desk. “They’ve got us in check, here.”
“They always have us in check.”
“We have to locate this child.”
“It’s in Wilton.”
“You know that?”
“Crew said they were signaling him. So he could play his role.”
“We’ve got to scorch the earth, then. Langford, Glass, Simpson, Crew—they’ve all got to be done. But first, find and kill that child.”
“We have this Oak Road group with a grand total of six residents under the age of eighteen, so that’s our target. But we can’t approach them directly or we get the grays on us like a bunch of infuriated hornets. The key is to identify the right child without getting so close to him that the grays become aware of us.”
“We have the children’s test scores? IQ tests?”
“Unfortunately, the school they all attend doesn’t do IQ tests. Too elitist or too P.C. or some damn thing. They’re all bright kids. Professors’ children.”
“What about the public schools in the area?”
“Their gifted and talented programs have a hundred and sixty kids in them. Highest IQ is 160. We don’t know how smart the grays want their poster boy, so they’re a possibility that needs checking.”
“Let me ask you this, then. Do you have a plan?”
“I think the child will reveal himself to us.”
“How?”
“He’s got to be spectacularly bright. A freak, like.”
