girls don't shake off the drugs the way the Guerin boy apparently did.
It was the girls, in whom the Bureau's surveillance specialists and alien-profilers had observed certain telepathic abilities, who constituted the most severe potential threat, at least as far as Margolin was concerned. Tess Harding, or a reasonable facsimile of Tess Harding, had blown up an entire military base. And the telekinetic abilities of Isabel Evans… who, like the Guerin boy, now seemed to be in Los Angeles and Wyoming simultaneously… were well documented.
But Margolin believed that these threats would remain safely neutralized so long as the girls remained too drug-addled to marshal their talents.
Margolin felt a chill roll down his spine like ice water. He had absolutely no idea how the Guerin boy had recovered so quickly from the drugs in his system.
He wondered how much other critical information about their subjects the Special Unit had yet to learn. And he hoped that the rest of the Unit's planned alien takedown operations would go more smoothly than this one.
'Vilandra!' Rath was shouting. 'Snap to it! “
As lucidity returned to her, Lonnie felt as though a family of woodchucks had taken up residence inside her head.
She realized groggily that she was sitting in the front seat of some sort of truck or SUV Ava was seated at her right, grabbing the dashboard as though her life depended on it.
Looking through the wide windshield, Lonnie could see a huge, flat expanse of blacktop. Two passenger jets and a chain of luggage trams were visible in the distance. In the foreground stood a low, prefabricated- looking building. An airport terminal, she recalled, her level of alertness spiking dramatically Rath must have gotten us away from the MiBs somehow.
She turned her head to the left and saw Rath, who was sitting behind the wheel, driving. He seemed frantic, his spiky Mohawk soaked in sweat. His hand was on her shoulder. Had he jolted her awake with his powers? 'You should be awake enough now, Lonnie,' he said, slamming the pedal down. The vehicles acceleration increased, and Lonnie felt herself being pressed backward into the middle of the vehicle's single bench seat.
Lonnie blinked at Rath in confusion. 'Awake enough for what? “
'Awake enough for this. Take the wheel.' And with that, Rath released the controls and clambered into the middle of the seat beside her, nudging her into the drivers position.
Lonnie quickly grabbed the wheel, and her right foot fumbled for a moment before coming to rest on what she hoped was the accelerator pedal. 'Hey! Are you crazy? “
'Probably,' Rath said. 'I have to try to clear Ava's head. We need to get her powers working, at least long enough to get us out of here. Now take us to the terminal building. “
'But I can't drive this thing! “
'Lonnie, we came to this planet in a spaceship. How hard can it be to drive a copmobile?' Lonnie spared Rath a sidelong glance and saw that he was placing his hands on Ava's cheeks. She felt a momentary surge of jealousy but forced it down, reminding herself that the Feds couldn't be far behind them. They were still in huge trouble.
She pointed the truck toward the terminal building and hoped for the best, coming to a stop just outside the security doors perhaps a minute or two later. In one of the side mirrors, she could see dark-suited men running toward the vehicle from behind. They were already close enough for her to make out the guns in their hands.
Lonnie turned in the seat to face Rath and Ava. They both looked sharp and alert.
'All right, what now?' Lonnie said, her heart leaping into her throat as she considered the prospect of falling right back into the hands of the MiBs.
Lonnie saw that Rath's hands were beginning to glow as his offensive powers charged up. He knelt in front of the seat and placed his hands on the floorboard.
'Now we find another ride,' Rath said, grinning. 'While our queen covers our tracks. “
Margolin took the point as he, Bartolli, and two other agents cautiously approached the rear of the armored vehicle. A half-dozen other armed agents, all members of the local reception team, had joined them in encircling the truck, their trank guns held at the ready.
After the vehicle had pulled up in front of the terminal building, none of the doors appeared to have opened. The glare of the sun across the tinted windshield made it impossible to see what the teens inside were doing.
Margolin motioned to Bartolli to cover him. His weapon raised, Margolin shouted toward the eerily silent vehicle.
'Come out slowly, with your hands on top of your heads. If you attempt to raise your hands as you exit the vehicle, you will immediately be rendered unconscious.' Watch those hands, Margolin told himself repeatedly. According to the two agents who had remained conscious after the Guerin boy's attack, these aliens' hands could be lethal, even from a fair distance away.
Several seconds passed in silence. Margolin repeated his demand. No response came from the truck as another full minute came and went.
'I thought I heard a sound from inside the truck just after they stopped,' said one of the other agents. 'Like a gunshot. “
'Maybe they decided to kill themselves,' said another, nodding.
Margolin curtly acknowledged the two agents, then gestured for quiet. He'd heard the muffled sound too. But he found it hard to believe that their quarry would take such a cowardly exit. Not after he'd seen with his own eyes their willingness to fight.
It was far likelier that Guerin would try to set a trap for them.
'Maybe we ought to speed things along a bit, Viceroy,' Bartolli said, looking impatient. 'Lets force their hand. “
Margolin smirked, making an after you gesture toward the vehicle. 'By all means, Dale. “
Bartolli walked cautiously around to the opposite side of the vehicle and approached the driver's side door. Though Margolin couldn't see the door from where he stood, he knew that its tinted, bulletproof window would have prevented Bartolli from seeing inside.
His pistol at the ready in his right hand, Bartolli reached for the door latch and pulled.
Surprisingly, the door swung open without any resistance. A thin plume of smoke curled upward from inside the cockpit. Margolin unconsciously tightened his grip on his weapon as he watched Bartolli, whose normally unflappable expression had abruptly changed to a look of shock. 'Boss, you're not gonna believe this. “
Gathering from Bartolli's reaction that it was safe to approach, Margolin advanced quickly toward the passenger door. He pulled it open with an ease that surprised him.
The center of the bench seat was burned away, leaving a meter-wide hole that seemed to go all the way to the vehicle's undercarriage. Ignoring the lingering traces of smoke, he stuck his head into the cockpit and saw that the hole in fact extended all the way down to the tarmac.
The prisoners were gone.
'Looks like one of the girls mustVe whacked us with a Jedi mind trick,' Bartolli said, a vague smirk on his face. 'This looks bad, Chief.' Margolin knew that what his ambitious deputy really meant was, 'This looks bad for you. “
One of the other agents approached the burned-out cockpit carrying a small handheld device no bigger than a TV remote. 'I can confirm that, sir,' she said to Margolin. 'I'm picking up electromagnetic traces that match other sites where anomalous psi-powers were documented. “
Margolin realized then that the Harding girl also must have gotten the drugs out of her system somehow. She had probably influenced the minds of her pursuers, rendering all three teens
