They ate, and drank their water in silence. Barnes slept, his breathing slow and even. The stink of axle grease filled the room. Flynn and Tawny made a final round of the building, checking doors and windows. Mercy watched over Barnes.
His colour is returning. I’m glad we got him to drink some fluids, he’ll have to eat something tomorrow—
Barnes started mumbling in his sleep. Mercy leaned forwards to listen.
Without warning Barnes opened his eyes and stared at Mercy, “Mitchell’s done it, the mind cipher, it’s been executed—”
Mercy pulled a face.
What’s he going on about—?
Mercy held Barnes’s hand, “Hey Barnes, calm down, it’s OK, you’re safe. We’re with you, it’s all good, you’re just going through cold turkey. It’s pretty shit but you should be OK soon. I reckon you were taking other drugs you didn’t tell us about. What about it? What else were you taking? Opiates? Benzos? Tell me, what was it?”
Barnes slumped back, his forehead glistening with sweat. He closed his eyes and his breathing deepened. Mercy took a paper towel from the stash they had found in a utility cupboard. She mopped his brow.
What the hell Barnes? What’s “mind cipher”? Is this just some delirious withdrawal ramblings or what?
Flynn and Tawny returned from their security check and sat on the floor. Tawny checked her M4 and lay down, her head on her pack. She was asleep in minutes. Flynn slid over to Mercy and put his arm around her. Mercy nestled her head against Flynn’s shoulder and closed her eyes.
Mind cipher—?
Mercy fell asleep surrounded by the smell of stale male sweat and axle grease.
Chapter 21
Mind Cipher
Footsteps. Rustling.
Mercy opened her eyes and focused on the figure standing beside the table.
“Barnes?” Mercy said, rubbing her eyes. Early morning light filtered through the closed window blinds. Tiny motes of dust shifted like snow in the shafts of light.
Mercy checked her watch; 6:47 am.
Christ, I’ve been asleep for ten hours—
She shifted her position, a sudden stab of pain shot through her neck.
Shit—
Mercy reached up to rub her tight muscles.
Barnes turned to look at her, a tin of meatballs in his hand, “Hey—”
Mercy yawned. Flynn was asleep beside her, she stood up. Tawny stirred in the corner.
“Hey yourself, Barnes. How you doing? You were pretty flaked out yesterday. Do you remember what happened?” Mercy reached for a bottle of water on the table.
“Yeah, no… I mean I remember some stuff. The rest is blanked out. All I know is I’m starving and my mouth is dry.” Barnes finished opening the tin of meatballs, scooped some out with his fingers and wolfed them down. “Fill me in on what’s happened. Looks like you lucked out with this food… and where the hell are we anyway?”
Mercy sat down at the table beside him and recounted the previous day’s events.
Barnes listened in silence. He stopped eating. Mercy finished her monologue and sat unmoving, drained.
Tawny joined them at the table, “Glad to see you up, big guy. You won’t be firing on all cylinders for a while yet but you’re looking a lot better than yesterday.” She wrinkled her nose, “I’m sorry but you do stink though—”
Barnes grunted, “You should’ve left me. I mean, thank you, I’m grateful… but you’ve lost your window to rescue Rose. The alpha queen will be long gone by now—”
There was an awkward silence.
Flynn sat up rubbing his stubble, “What does the tracker say?”
Mercy brightened, “It’s GPS so as long as we’ve still got satellites overhead we’re good. Let’s give it a go.” She retrieved the tracker from Barnes’s pack and handed it to him.
Barnes shook his head, “Best use it outside, maybe on the roof, there’s a better chance of a signal outdoors.”
“There’s a forklift truck parked along the back wall, we can climb onto the cab and reach the roof that way,” Tawny said.
“Sounds good,” Mercy said, standing up.
Five minutes later they were on the roof of the building.
Barnes switched on the tracker and adjusted the settings, “Nothing, nothing, wait, wait… there.”
Barnes showed the device to the others. A cluster of green dots flashed at the centre of the screen.
“So where are they then?” Mercy said, her voice strained.
Barnes peered at the tracker, “38° 17′ 49″ North, 78° 26′ 22″ West. Hold on.” He scrolled through the screen and found what he wanted. “Standardsville, Virginia. They’re… thirteen and a half miles away from here, you can get there by… US-33 West.”
Flynn squinted at the readout, “They’re heading to the mountains, that’s the Shenandoah National Park to the west of there. That’s some rugged territory—”
“Hikers’ paradise; the Appalachian Trail. We’ll never find them in there,” Tawny said, frowning.
“We’ll not catch up with them, but we have this,” Mercy tapped the tracker. “And—” She paused.
“And what?” Barnes asked.
“We have Billy-Ray’s daughter. The girl I told you about before. Annalise. Billy-Ray said she was holed up in Shenandoah. Mission Home, he gave me the address—”
“Wait… we know nothing about this girl. This Billy-Ray… what do you know about him?” Barnes asked.
“He helped us get to Annapolis. Without him we wouldn’t be here. An NSA gunboat finished him off—” Tawny said.
“Yeah, he was a good, ex-bad guy,” Flynn added. “Salt of the earth, not the kind to pay taxes though—”
“OK, so what are you saying? You want to go find his daughter… on the off chance she might know her way around the mountains?” Barnes said, disbelief in his voice.
Mercy nodded, “The way I see it is… we’re only going to get one chance at rescuing Rose. There’s a whole lot of variables in the equation. A lot of shit could happen. This alpha queen bitch has been chasing Rose ever since she laid eyes on her. The bitch’s got some kind of fixation on our girl. Who knows why? We’re gonna need all the aces we can muster and having someone who knows this country is
