Nova opens the door. We step out and the first thing Nova says is, “Who are you?”
Without a response Atticus wheels over to one of the computers. He pulls the keyboard close to him, starts typing. James wanders over to a corner, stands straight with his hands clasped in front of him.
“You have a fucking machine gun in there,” Nova says. “What—you guys run some kind of militia or something?”
Atticus ignores him, typing at the computer.
I say, “Those two kids are going to die if you don’t help us.”
Atticus pauses. “How do you know they aren’t dead already?”
“I don’t know. But I have hope that they’re not.”
“Hope,” Atticus Caine echoes, chuckling. “Maybe you’re not your father’s daughter after all.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Jian was not the type of man to place much in the way of hope.”
“Only family and close friends ever called him Jian. Everybody else called him John. How did you know my father?”
The man doesn’t answer, keeps typing.
“Hey.” I take another step forward. “Did you really know my father?”
Atticus Caine pauses. He sighs, glances up at me.
“Of course I knew your father,” he says. “I was the one who trained him how to kill.”
Fifty-Six
“Believe it or not, I wasn’t always in this wheelchair. I was a completely different man. I was married. I was successful. I was, as they say, happy. Wasn’t I, James?”
In the corner, James only bows his head.
Atticus Caine takes a few more seconds to type on the keyboard before he pushes himself away from the computer.
“Once upon a time I did exactly what Walter Hadden does, only in a different capacity. I never had the type of rank that forced me to have meetings at the Pentagon every other day. The work I did … it never existed, if you know what I mean.”
“And you trained my father?”
Atticus nods. “I knew he was a killer the first time I met him. I could see it in his eyes. Even when I shook his hand, I could feel the energy running through his body.”
I think about my father, the man I knew growing up. Or only half knew, as he was almost never home, always working.
“Not to say that is a bad thing,” Atticus says. “A killer and a murderer are two entirely different beasts. Your father knew what had to be done. He knew what his duty was and he never hesitated on a job.”
“When I mentioned him before, how he was involved in this, you didn’t even flinch. You already knew he was alive.”
Atticus nods again.
“How?”
“When the doctors told me I had muscular dystrophy, I was more or less forced into early retirement. It was better than working behind a desk for the rest of my life. So I left with a very nice pension and the unnerving realization that I couldn’t stay retired. For the longest time I had been on the inside, knew all the secrets, where every skeleton was buried and just how deep, and now … now that wasn’t going to be my life anymore. Which turned me into this.”
He holds up a hand like a game show host, waving it around the basement like the entire thing is one big grand prize.
“Not that I could do it all by myself, of course. That’s where James comes in. He’s like an angel. Aren’t you, James?”
James bows his head again.
“James lost his voice when he was just a boy. He’s never spoken since.”
I ignore this, stare straight back at Atticus. “That doesn’t answer the question how you knew my father is still alive.”
Atticus tilts his head to the side. “Let’s just say despite being retired I am still in the game.”
“My father is working with a man who used to be on our team. Zane.”
“Yes, I’m aware.”
“Do you know if they’re working by themselves?”
Atticus shakes his head. “There’s no way they could.”
“Then who do they work for?”
“A man named Gabriel Black.”
“And who is he?”
“A white-collar terrorist.”
“I didn’t know terrorists had class distinctions.”
“Where have you been, Holly? Everything has a class distinction.”
The monitor he was working on beeps.
He turns to it, says, “Ah, here we are,” and wheels himself back to the keyboard.
I glance at Nova. Glance at James in the corner. Glance at a clock hanging on the wall: half past midnight.
“What are you doing?”
Atticus has started typing again. Several of the monitors have blinked on and switched over to what appear to be maps of Washington, D.C.
His attention on his work, Atticus says, “After 9/11, the United States opened its eyes to a new form of warfare. Despite what it wanted to believe, the entire country was vulnerable. Is vulnerable still, to be quite frank. The enemy knows exactly where our bases are located. They know exactly where our nuclear weapons are stored. So what did the government decide to do? They went mobile.”
Nova and I have drifted over to the computer monitors. Closer now we can see the distinct detail of the maps. Mostly major highways, but some primary and secondary roads, even some national landmarks. And on various spots are a handful of red flashing dots with a series of letters and numbers listed below them.
“What are those?” I ask.
Atticus Caine looks up at us. “What vehicles take up most major highways?”
Nova says, “Tractor-trailers.”
“That’s right. And out of those thousands and thousands of tractor-trailers on the road daily, do you know what’s inside any of them?”
“Hold up,” Nova says. “You’re saying the government has, what, nuclear weapons riding around in tractor-trailers?”
“Nuclear weapons, no. Nuclear waste, yes. Among many other things.”
I clear my throat. “And the flash drive?”
Atticus leans forward. He squints at the screen, types some more. After a moment he points at one of the red flashing dots.
“In that tractor-trailer right there.”
The red flashing dot is listed as FGT-927. It means absolutely nothing to me. The only thing it does
