minutes ago?”
“What big crash?”
“We need to check on them,” Jack said, pleading.
He’d listened to the whole conversation, ever since he heard Aubrey get out of the car. He didn’t want to take any chances, especially leaving Aubrey with Dan.
“How many boats?” Laura said, squeezing his arm.
“I don’t know—a hundred. A hundred and fifty.”
“Count them,” she said.
“I can count them five minutes from now.”
Laura got in his face. “You can hear everything going on over there. You tell me why we need to get back.”
“Because Dan freaked out and someone called the police,” Jack said.
Laura paused. “Why would he freak out?”
“Something about Chicago.”
“Oh, hell.”
She shoved Jack back onto the rocky outcrop and he landed with a rough thud. His head wound screamed with pain. With all the strength he could muster, he rolled onto his side and moved to his knees. He could hear Laura running, pushing through trees and smashing through a fence that they’d carefully climbed over only minutes earlier.
He followed, staggering to his feet and pressing one hand to his head as he chased after her.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Dan shouted.
Aubrey was there. She was breathing hard.
“Because it was too late.”
“Too late for what?”
“Too late to save her.”
“I’m only in this for her.”
There was a massive thud, and the sound of cracking wood. Aubrey gasped.
Jack pushed through the broken fence and saw them in the front yard of a badly damaged house. A man in his underwear was standing in the street. Aubrey was standing away from the fight, and her eyes connected with his. “We have to get out of here. I’m coming to you.”
She faded from view.
Laura pointed a finger at Dan. “Alec only followed through on what he’d always promised. You help us or your mother gets it.”
“Gets it?” Dan said, with an incredulous laugh. The entire lawn, sidewalk, and trees all lifted a foot into the air and collapsed back in a crash. Jack fell on his face, and saw the trees surrounding the house tipping at dangerous angles.
A siren sounded in the distance. No, it was three.
Where was Aubrey?
“My mother ‘gets it’?” Dan said again, walking toward where Laura had fallen. “How dare you? What did she ever—”
Laura leapt forward, smashing into Dan’s chest, and Jack heard the distinct sound of bones breaking.
“You’ve never been committed to anything,” Laura spat at his groaning body. “You know how worthless a team is when you have to blackmail your muscle? What did you think would happen when you tried to kill Alec in an avalanche?”
The ground swelled again, knocking Laura off her feet, and a tree came crashing down, missing her by inches.
She jumped to her feet.
“I didn’t try to kill him,” Dan wheezed. “You were supposed to save him. It was your fault.”
She kicked him, and he screamed as his knee shattered.
A massive clod of dirt flew from behind her and exploded around her, but she managed to keep her feet.
“We could have taken it out,” Laura said, pointing toward the bay. “And you had to cry about your mommy.”
The sirens were getting closer, and were being followed by something louder—something bigger.
Jack felt himself lifting up, and he turned to see Aubrey reappearing. She had a cut on her cheek.
“Let’s get out of here,” she said.
“Yeah.”
They backed away from the fight.
Three police cars arrived, sirens blazing, and behind them was an armored personnel carrier. It came to a stop and soldiers began pouring out.
A loudspeaker blared. “Cease and desist. We will use deadly force.”
Dan was in a crumpled heap, and Laura couldn’t keep her footing with the constant minor earthquakes.
She threw a punch and it was deflected by a flying paving stone.
“You want an avalanche?” Dan said.
And then the earth folded over both of them, like enormous waves, and the entire lot—house and trees and fence and all—sank away down the side of the mountain. Jack jumped back, pulling Aubrey with him, and they watched as the tornado of dirt and wood and stone tumbled to the road below.
Finally it was over, in a monstrous cloud of dust.
Aubrey took Jack by the hand, and they stumbled through the remaining yard next to the sinkhole. They reached the street, and the stunned police officers just stared at them.
“We’d like to turn ourselves in,” Aubrey said.
FIFTY-NINE
ALEC SAT IN A MOTEL room across Sinclair Inlet from the Kitsap Naval Base in Washington, an hour from Seattle. From here, he could see the devastation and the navy’s scrambling efforts to get ships out of the narrow inlet and off to sea.
His team was gone. A suicide mission. It was necessary—and it had been worth it.
Kitsap had the largest fuel depot of any naval base in the country, a series of fifty-three underground storage tanks spread across the facility. Alec’s team couldn’t hit them all, but he could wreak havoc. Now the base was on fire—huge plumes of black smoke curling up into the early morning air. He didn’t know how long it would go. They’d opened valves—destroyed some—and much of the fuel would have to burn off on its own.
Alec was no use to them on this mission. He’d planned it, of course, and he’d even assigned a job to himself—a job that he didn’t bother doing. It was nonessential, and it helped them feel a sense of solidarity to make this one final suicide mission. They were all in this together. They’d all taken their deep breaths, they’d all praised their purpose, and they’d all drunk a small toast in honor of this, their final battle.
They knew what they were getting into. That Alec didn’t die alongside them would never be known to the rest. He was needed for other, bigger things. He didn’t know what yet—he never knew what the ultimate plan was going to be—but he knew the timetable.
And so he watched Kitsap burn. He expected that soon the entire inlet would be evacuated—it amazed him that a military base of such importance could be surrounded by civilian neighborhoods. But he would wait until he was forced to leave, and he would keep a running mental tally of the ships that he saw leaving their docks. Two aircraft carriers. Four submarines. A missile cruiser. Two destroyers. A handful of other ships that he couldn’t identify. Alec would memorize these ships—memorize the numbers emblazoned across their superstructure—and he would report.
He’d meet up with whoever he could contact. He still had a few numbers, even though cell service got worse every day. And he had anonymous email addresses, contacts on the deepnet. He’d tell them what he’d seen, give
