‘Oh, for Pete’s sake,’ Chloe snapped, ‘it’s not poison in there. Just sleeping pills.’
Jimmy Doll Hands brought the bottle to his lips and drank it.
‘All of it,’ Astrid said.
And so he chugged it.
‘What should I do with this one?’ Astrid said with contempt.
She still had Anna by the hair.
‘Make her drink!’ Chloe snarled.
‘No,’ I said. ‘We’ll just tie her up.’
‘She should drink, the little rat!’
‘For Christ’s sake, I don’t know the dosage!’ I shouted.
‘We’ll just tie her up!’
Chloe looked chastened.
‘This isn’t a game,’ I yelled. ‘These are people’s lives.’
And a stupid sob came up in my chest, just as Jimmy Doll Hands sank to the floor.
Anna said nothing as we tied her hands. Not even ‘Thank you for not drugging me.’ It was almost like we were boring her. She just wandered over to Payton and stood staring down at him.
I felt bad for her. The girl was clearly psychotic.
After Anna’s hands were bound, Astrid and I tried to wake up Jake.
He obviously had retained some of the sleeping pill ‘juice’ before he puked.
‘I know! I know!’ Henry volunteered. ‘When our mom needs to stay awake when she’s driving she has an energy drink!’
‘Sure, find one,’ I said.
It was okay. We had time to try it, even if it was a dumb, little kid kind of a solution.
The cadets would sleep for at least eight hours. We were out of danger. But we did have to figure out what to do with them.
Astrid sat, looking at Jake’s face.
She was studying it. She must have felt me looking at her, because she looked up.
‘That was very brave, Dean,’ she said to me.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I was scared.’
‘That doesn’t mean it wasn’t brave,’ she said.
The thought of Payton’s face after I’d shot him didn’t make me feel brave at all. It made me want to throw up. It made me feel low and dirty and ashamed.
‘What do we do now? What do we do with them?’ I asked her.
Henry and Caroline came back with the drink.
I opened Jake’s mouth and tried to pour the contents of the little vial in.
Jake choked and sputtered. I think it was more the sensation of drowning that woke him than the ingredients of the drink, but who cared.
‘I say we drag them up onto the roof and lock them out,’ Astrid said. ‘But we keep their guns.’
25 ALEX
‘RESTRICTED AREA, BOYS!’ A soldier said, barring us from getting on the military shuttle.
‘Our mom’s in the Air Force,’ Niko lied. ‘She told us to come and find her if Operation Phoenix was a go!’
‘Oh, uh, okay,’ the soldier grumbled, letting us past.
We slipped onto the shuttle and the doors closed right behind us.
The soldiers around us paid no attention to us. Some of them were Air Force, some were Army. Some were Marines, I guess. It was chaotic.
The shuttle opened up into the C terminal. They had it dedicated to military flights.
Through the big glass bays, where you’d usually see a Jet Blue 757, ready to take people to NY or Atlanta or wherever, there were military jets, helicopters in all different models, and giant Airbuses painted combat colours. At several of the gates, they had small decontamination tents. I guess if anyone needed to come back in, they got sprayed down here. There were also bins with clothing and gear near the entrances from the decontamination tents.
Pilots and soldiers were swarming purposefully every which way. Many were wearing flight suits with air masks. Niko and I were the only two people who didn’t seem to know exactly where we were supposed to go.
‘Hey!’ said a voice, headed for us.
‘Come on,’ Niko said, and we walked as fast as we could away from whoever it was who had noticed us.
‘You kids!’
We searched frantically for any sign of Mrs Wooly.
‘You’re Wooly’s kids!’
We turned then.
It was Goldsmith, the medic.
‘What are you guys doing here? I thought Wooly was putting you on a plane!’
‘We need to find her,’ I told him.
‘Now is not the time!’ he said. ‘They moved the whole operation up.’
‘It’s life or death,’ Niko pleaded, grabbing his arm. ‘Please, help us! Do you know where she is?’
‘Last I saw she was near gate 33.’ Goldsmith pointed. ‘You better hurry!’
We had a direction now and we ran, darting into the stream of pilots and soldiers.
‘There!’ Niko said, pointing.
We came close and heard her scolding, ‘Christopher Caldwell, I’ve known you since you were a kid! You’re gonna get in that chopper and you’re gonna run me over there!’
‘No, Wooly. I said no, for God’s sake. I got orders. Orders!’
‘They’re a bunch of kids, Caldwell, and they’re gonna be burned to a crisp. A bunch of kids you could save. Think about it. They’ll give you a medal!’
‘It’s a suicide mission. The answer’s no!’
‘Please, mister.’ I went close and grabbed his arm. ‘It’s my brother, Dean. My big brother and he’s a great big brother and he’s counting on us!’
‘Alex, Niko! What are you doing here? For Christ’s sake, you should be halfway to Vancouver!’ Mrs Wooly looked mad as hell.
‘We can’t go without the others,’ Niko argued. ‘We just can’t!’
‘You kids go get on a godforsaken plane. I’ll take care of this.’
‘Good luck, Wooly,’ said Caldwell, and he turned and left.
‘They’re little kids,’ I screamed after him. ‘Two teenagers and an eight year old and five-year-old twins! Five-year-old twins! And we came all the way from Monument! Can’t you help us?’
Then there was a pilot coming at me wearing an air mask, all suited up to go. He grabbed me hard, I mean really hard, and he said, his voice all electronic, ‘What twins in Monument?’
And I opened my mouth to tell him but he ripped off his air mask and I saw his face.
It was Mr McKinley. Our neighbour.
It was Mr McKinley, Dean.
Henry and Caroline’s dad.
‘Where are they?’ Mr McKinley asked.
