“You sure?” Derrick asked.
Joey knew Derrick didn’t really care how he felt; he just didn’t want to be embarrassed in front of the others. “I’m sure.”
“Good.” Derrick settled back in the deep sofa.
The others eyed Joey suspiciously. Again, that feeling of not belonging resonated within him. But he chose to ignore it. There was nowhere else to go, and he didn’t want to be alone. But it reminded him how little he knew them.
He’d spent time with them at Cosmic Quest for months, playing with them and against them at various games. During those times, Joey had felt cool, one of the gang. Zero, with his barely submerged challenge and hostility, earned a lot of respect in the arcade center. He didn’t spend much time with many people. Getting in Zero’s crowd was something of a coup.
And knowing that they were guys that Goose and his mom wouldn’t approve of was an added luxury. Joey didn’t fully understand the anger he felt toward his mom and his stepdad, but he knew it was their fault. They weren’t giving him what he needed. Joey didn’t exactly know what he wasn’t getting, but he knew Chris was getting it all.
“Well, well. Lazarus lives.” Zero flashed a thin smile. He held a game pad in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Ash from the cigarette dropped onto his crossed legs.
Joey crossed his arms over his chest. Getting Zero’s full attention was always uncomfortable. The guy had dead black eyes set deeply into his hard-planed face. Normally even within the group he seemed tuned to his own inner frequency. Since the disappearances, he’d somehow seemed more alive, more a part of the everyday world.
“Yeah,” Joey agreed.
“So how’s the head?” Zero asked.
Joey knew Zero didn’t care. He hadn’t found anything yet that Zero cared about. “Hurts.”
Zero grinned, exposing a broken left incisor. “I bet. You know what you need, don’t you?”
“What?”
“Hair of the dog that bit you.” Zero nodded to one of the other boys. “Bones.”
Bones leaned forward and took a liquor bottle from the coffee table in front of the overstuffed couch. Stacks of plates, containers, and potato chip bags covered it. The mess matched the rest of the house, standing out starkly against the neat carpet, furniture, and overall look of the room.
“Here.” The boy held the bottle out in a knobby fist. He was tall and gangly, with ears that flared out like sails beneath a shaggy mullet. He wore baggy jeans and a black shirt left open over a black T-shirt featuring a dragon breathing fire on a knight. His name was Jonas but everyone called him Bones. He lived for role-playing games and was a laser-blasting menace on Marauders, a popular science-fiction-based shooter video game.
Joey held up a hand. “No thanks.”
“Better hit it, man,” Bones said. “Trust me. It’ll cure that hangover headache right up.” He uncapped the bottle and took a swig. “Me, I’m all about prevention. Don’t ever sober up and you’ll never face a hangover. That’s one thing I’ve learned.” He laughed.
Joey shook his head and regretted the instinctive action when flashing sparks danced in front of his eyes. He held back a groan of pain with effort.
“Want something to eat?” Derrick asked. “Still got plenty of TV dinners in the freezer. Fish sticks. Corn dogs. These people were really loaded up on stuff.”
These people? That caught Joey’s attention. He looked around the room. “So … where are the parents?”
“Parents?” Bones shook his head and snickered. “Ain’t no parents here, man.” He put on a pronounced Hispanic accent. “We don’ need no stinkeng parents.”
The effort drew a chorus of laughter from the other boys. Joey knew none of them were sober. Only Zero appeared unmoved by the joke. He kept his dead black eyes centered directly on Joey.
Of course there were no parents present, Joey realized. The house wouldn’t have been a mess and the guys wouldn’t have been smoking and drinking if there were parents around.
“Whose house are we in?” Joey asked. Last night’s intoxication had left him blank about that.
“Dude,” RayRay said, “ain’t every house we come to we gotta have an invitation to. We ain’t vampires.” RayRay was athletically trim with a ghost of a mustache that barely stood out against the yellow coloration of his skin. His dark bronze Afro stood up four inches.
“Invitation,” Joey repeated. Only then, like the final number of a school combination lock dropping into place, did he realize what RayRay was talking about. They broke into this house. We broke into this house. We’re trespassing in someone’s home. Panic fired up inside him. His immediate reaction was to leave—right now, before the police showed up. But with Zero’s blank eyes on him, somehow Joey couldn’t do it. Slowly, very slowly, he forced his tense muscles to relax.
14
United States 75th Army Rangers Temporary Post
Sanliurfa, Turkey
Local Time 0546 Hours
Cal Remington turned at the sound of his name.
CIA Section Chief Alexander Cody made all due haste in his approach. He held a bulky sat-phone in his right hand.
“I want this room secure,” Remington said to the two privates manning the doors.
“Yes, sir.” Both men snapped into position with their M-4A1s across their chests.
Cody read the movement at once and pulled up little more than arm’s reach from the Rangers. He spread his hands in obvious disbelief. “Captain, is this really necessary?”
“Not as long as you respect the security I’ve placed on this room,” Remington stated evenly.
The three men behind Cody spread out. All of them wore stone faces and kept their arms folded across their chests. Under their jackets, the weapons in their shoulder holsters were only a few inches away.
Remington shifted, turning so he was in profile. His right hand rested easily on his hip above his holstered sidearm. He kept his eyes on Cody, but his peripheral vision would alert him the instant any of the three men made a move.
“You’re holding one of my agents,” Cody
