“You’re clear!” Jeff shouted.
Silas stomped the gas, and the car lurched backward.
“Keep it straight,” Jeff said, looking behind them. “Just keep it straight.”
The gladiator receded in the distance. It leaped into the air, and Silas watched it rise in two, three powerful flaps of its wings. It flapped again and circled, coming to rest abruptly against the side of a building. It clung.
“It’s still learning to fly,” Vidonia said. “Building its strength.”
“Seems plenty strong to me,” Silas said.
“Get ready to cut your wheel,” Jeff snapped.
Silas’s eyes were still pinned on the gladiator in the distance. It pushed off the building with a mighty thrust and climbed upward into the sky.
“Now! Cut left now!”
Silas spun the wheel, and the car backed up around the corner. He put it into drive, hooked the wheel again, and took off down the side road leading away from the arena.
He drove twenty blocks.
Up ahead, he saw a hotel and pulled into the front drive.
“You’ll be safe here,” he said. “Inside.”
They all climbed out.
The boy hugged him.
“What the hell happened, Silas?” Jeff asked.
“I wish I knew.”
Jeff looked shell-shocked. “What’s going to happen now?”
“Now you’re going to get a room and stay inside until this is all over.”
Silas tossed him his phone as he climbed back behind the wheel. “And call my sister.”
IT TOOK nearly an hour to get to the highway. Time enough for him to clear his head and begin to think rationally. He saw fire trucks and ambulances.
Vidonia was pensive. She sat, reclined in her seat slightly, staring out the window. He supposed she was dealing with the shock of it. All those deaths. She turned away from the window, and her hand went to the radio. She scanned through the channels, lighting on bits of conversation or music, then moving on. She stopped.
“—eighteen confirmed dead, many more possible. The U.S. Olympic Commission has set up a crisis hotline to call if you have any questions about loved ones, or if you see anything suspicious. Once again, the gladiator has still not been captured. It remains at large. There have been several confirmed sightings within the city, and people are asked to remain indoors if at all possible.
“We have word from the Olympic Commission that Dr. Silas Williams, the head of the U.S. program, is wanted for questioning related to possible terrorist involvement in this incident. He is—”
Silas hit the radio button violently, swerving the car into another lane in the process. A horn blared.
He placed his hands carefully back on the wheel, but it was all he could do to stay between the dashed white lines. He was barely seeing the road now. It was Baskov’s face that blotted his mind’s eye.
He felt like he’d been sucker punched.
He hadn’t seen this coming. He’d expected committees and special investigators. He’d expected the blame game, red tape, and endless explanations, but he’d never expected this. Baskov was going for the throat. This was playing for keeps.
“Terrorist involvement?” Vidonia asked. “Are they fucking crazy?”
“Not crazy,” Silas answered. “Smart. And I’ve been stupid enough to walk right into it. I should have suspected something like this when Baskov didn’t fire me. I thought he was afraid of public opinion, afraid the program would appear disorganized or chaotic if the top man was pushed out at the last minute. But that wasn’t it at all. He just needed me for insurance in case things went bad.”
“Things have definitely gone bad.”
“People have died, but that’s only part of what just happened. This is going to shut down the whole Games, at least temporarily. People are going to want answers. Whole fucking other countries are going to want answers.”
“But Baskov can’t do this. He can’t make you the fall guy.”
“I want answers, too.”
“But why you? Why terrorism?”
“Baskov isn’t going to take the heat for this. He knows what I would say about his decision to go on with the competition. This was a preemptive strike. Anything I say now is tainted. I’m the perfect scapegoat.”
“But he doesn’t have any evidence.”
“How much does he need?”
“We have to go back. We can talk to the news; we can get our side out there.”
Silas thought long and hard before responding. “What is our side of the story? Me, the reluctant scientist; him, the evil puppeteer. I don’t even know if I believe it. And what evidence do we have?”
“So what’s your plan, then? Running? Are you kidding?”
“We’re not running. I just need a little time.”
“We won’t last two days with the authorities looking for us.”
“I don’t need two days. I just need twelve hours. Then we’ll reevaluate our situation. If I’ve still got nothing, I’ll turn myself in then.”
“It will never stick, Silas. You’ve got no motive, no terrorist ties.”
“It may stick, or it may not. But that might not even be the goal. They begin with terrorism and work their way down to criminal negligence resulting in death. A conviction would put me in an out-of-the-way room for about eight years. And it wouldn’t be hard to make people believe it, either. Citizens died, after all; it had to be somebody’s fault. Who better than the head of the program?”
“You’re being paranoid. It can’t happen like that.”
“Maybe.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Silas.”
“I may not have designed it, but that gladiator wouldn’t have existed if not for me. I’m no innocent bystander. That makes it at least partially my responsibility.”
Silas hit the radio button and almost swerved into another lane again when Baskov’s gravelly voice came through the speakers: “—tunate tragedy that has occurred. My sincerest regrets go out to the families who have lost loved ones this evening. I can assure you that we are doing all that we can to see to it that this situation is brought under control without further loss of life. And I want to also say that we are doing everything within our power to see that the person or persons responsible for this are brought to justice. We are right now searching for the head of U.S. biodevelopment, Dr. Silas Williams, and we hope to know more when he has been found. Anyone with information about his current whereabouts, please call the hotline. Thank you.”
A phone number was read. There was a pause, then a new voice: “That was Commissioner Stephen Baskov, recorded minutes ago at a press conference outside—”
Silas clicked the radio off.
“It can’t be this easy for them,” Vidonia said.
“There’s nothing we can do about it right now. They may not be holding all the cards, but they’re sure as hell making up the rules as they go along. We have to move fast. We’re going to start losing options here pretty quickly.”
Silas jerked the wheel to the right, cutting across the heavy traffic. Horns blared. He’d almost seen the sign too late. Riding the brake hard as he descended the off-ramp, he managed a skidding stop at the T. Traffic poured by in front of him. A quick glance at the bank of road signs and he turned right, following the arrow shaped like an airplane.
“Where are we going?”
“Where the answers are. We’re just taking the long way.”
THE AIRPORT was enormous in both its sheer physical size and in the volume of humanity that coursed along its many arteries, internal and external. Its roads were clogged with taxis, trams, buses, and cars. The sky
