Captives (8 page)

Walt rolled his eyes and passed over the case. "Here's your prize. Let me know if you need a minute alone with it."

Dim ignored him, kneeling beside the case and opening its hasps with a series of metal clacks. Moonlight revealed the instrument within. He lifted it, blinking. "You have no idea what this means to me."

"More than a young woman's life, apparently."

Dim looked up with a frown. "You mustn't allow yourself to think
that
poorly of me, sir. Telling you about these people will endanger my safety. I needed to know you were a dedicated man."

"Wonderful. Where's Carrie?"

"Across the mountains at the reservoir. Fifty or sixty miles. I know you are in the greatest of haste, but I assure you it would be unwise for us to approach them by darkness."

"You're coming with?"

Dim's brows pushed together. "Naturally. You put yourself at great risk for what in your eyes is a mere trinket. What kind of man could witness such a thing and then refuse to uphold his end of the bargain?"

"Most of them." Walt lifted his kickstand. "But I appreciate it."

He had managed to grab some sleep while they'd waited for the model airplane batteries to charge, and anyway, he was still amped up from the incursion. They made good time, jagging onto side streets whenever cars snarled the main road. Soon, they were back on the highway through the long and lonely valley.

"If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to hear what happened in there," Dim said. "I feel as if I am finally an accomplice."

"In exchange for everything you know about these guys. Starting with the small matter of who the hell they are."

Dim agreed readily. Walt gave his recap first, adding little elaboration.

"Congratulations," Dim said when he finished. "You have successfully increased my guilt a hundredfold. I had no inkling the extraction would be so dangerous."

"You expected it to be a walk in the park? Is that why you never attempted it yourself?"

The wind whisked through Dim's spokes. "Must you be so direct?"

"Only when I care about the answers."

"Which I will dodge by changing the subject to the matter of the kidnappers. They once belonged to the Empty Skulls." He gave Walt a portentous look.

"If that's supposed to mean something to me, remember I'm not a NorCal guy. I don't even know if 'NorCal' is something people say."

"The Empty Skulls are one of the Plague Age's most venerable gangs. They began life in Redding not weeks after the Panhandler. Highly aggressive from the get-go. After they'd taken over the city and surrounding lands, they decided there was less profit in the wanton murder of travelers. Much more lucrative to charge people tolls, taxes, protection money, and so forth. After some franchising, they had control of all traffic between here and the Northwest, as well as the passage between Sacramento and Reno. The mountains make the West very difficult, you know. Choke off the right passes, and in no time at all, would-be travelers are reduced to the status of Lewis and Clark."

"I was about to say this is starting to feel like a classroom."

Dim scowled. "We have hours ahead of us. I thought it best to provide you with all the details so you could choose for yourself which might be valuable."

Walt held up a palm. "Pardon the interruption, professor."

"Very well. And while the topic is open, may I ask you to silence your cell phone as well?" He laughed to himself, ceasing as he swerved around a two-foot gap in the pavement. "The group we are concerned with began life as a franchise of the Skulls. As I've heard it told, the idea was to seize the routes between the interior valley and the Bay. Eventually, to take the entire region, including the farms around us right now that provide the Bay Area with much of its food. Then everything changed."

"Let me guess: someone got greedy."

"The 'someone,' in this case, being a woman operating under the nom de guerre of Liss. She was a lieutenant. Then she led a coup and became the general. Declared her franchise independent of the Skulls and renamed it Abyss. Naturally, the Empty Skulls were less than amused by Liss' outpouring of ambition and dispatched a small army to put her down."

He ran his tongue across his teeth, though Walt suspected the pause was purely for dramatic effect. Dim slowed to swig water, then went on. "Not a single Skull survived the encounter. It broke them so badly they haven't dared to venture south of Sacramento ever since. Abyss has free rein between there and Bakersfield. If they see something, they take it. Lately, Liss has focused on one thing: live bodies."

"These people need to grow an imagination," Walt said. "Everywhere you go, it's slaves this and slaves that."

"Well, it is only natural. For the first time in modern history, we are faced with too many tasks and too few hands."

"How do you intend to pry Carrie from Liss?"

"You leave that to me."

Walt nodded. "You don't know, do you?"

"I am assessing my options," Dim scowled. "You didn't think of the model plane until you did."

They rode down the valley. In the deepest part of the night, they stopped at a tucked-away house to grab a nap. Walt forced himself to get up at first light. He was starving from all the exercise of the last few days. He was beyond glad that Dim's friend in San Jose had been so impressed with the model airplane batteries she'd chipped in food and water, too. They mounted up and got on their way. As the sun dealt with the mountains to the east, Dim turned onto a two-lane highway leading to the blue hills and pink clouds of the dawn. The farms led up to ridges and winding draws. It was a tough, slow ride, but at least the effort gave him something to displace his anger toward.

They broke the heights and coasted downhill. The wind dried Walt's sweat. Miles ahead, a wide blue lake split the brown hills.

"That's it?" Walt said.

"Gives them quite the stranglehold on every farmer for miles."

"Who refuse to move for the usual reasons of meaningless pride and fear of what's over the next hill."

"I have not canvassed them," Dim said. "But I would not bet against you."

The road declined sharply, hiding the lake from view. Everything around them was stunted and dry. Even if Dim sweet-talked Carrie away from the Abyss, and she wasn't hurt, they'd half to walk back out. No way he could bull his way back up the mountains with her sitting on the handlebars. It was probably time to move, too. Some place where there weren't van-loads of men wandering around snatching people up. Possibly, that ruled out everywhere, but he thought they'd try Santa Barbara first.

The next time they could see the lake, it was just two or three miles away. Outbuildings clustered the light blue waters of the shallows. The road began a long decline, hiding the facility once again. When it finally climbed back up, they stopped at its peak. Two hundred yards ahead, a chain link fence blocked the road.

"Wait here," Dim said. "They are not overly fond of strangers."

"Sure thing," Walt said. "About time somebody else stuck their neck out for once."

He turned around, stopping halfway down the hill. A weak breeze rustled the weeds. Patches of gray-green growth showed on the slopes, but it was the false promise of spring. Walt had been through the valley before. By summer, the only spots of green would be irrigated rows and the few trees with deep enough roots to handle the inland Mediterranean clime.

The report of a rifle crackled through the hills. Sweat popped up across Walt's body. He got out his laser and ran up the road.

6

As soon as the words left Thom's mouth, he knew they were a mistake.

The stranger's grin froze on his face. He glanced over his shoulder, as if expecting to see someone lurking behind the couch, then turned back to Thom. "Didn't catch that?"

"Nothing. I meant I thought you'd be taller."

"Right. Yeah. I get that a lot." The man who wasn't Walt found his smile, but it was miles away. He tapped his fingers on the arm of the couch. "Do I know you?"

"We've never met."

"Biscuit said you were a friend of Otto's?"

Thom had no option but to nod. "A long time ago. Obviously, given how things turned out."

The man didn't chuckle. He rubbed the thick stubble on his neck, eyes darting. "Listen. I could use a drink. You want a drink?"

Thom's heart hammered. "I figured a man like you would have servants for that."

"They're probably busy." He smiled thinly and stood, the bathrobe hanging past his knees. "I'll get you a scotch. You know the best part about pre-plague scotch? The older it gets, the better it tastes."

Thom laughed, then coughed. The other man swished past him. Thom stood and followed in his wake. At the door, the man who wasn't Walt reached for the antique brass handle. Behind him, Thom picked up a soapstone bust from the table beside the door, lifted it high, and smashed it down on the man's head.

His skull gave under the heavy carving. The man groaned, whiny and exhibitionistic, exactly the way he might have groaned as a sophomore presented with an unexpected load of homework. He listed to his side, pawing at the air with one hand, reaching the other for the bloody back of his head.

Thom raised the bust and struck again. Its carved base sank an inch into the man's head. Blood and pinkness sprayed Thom's hand. The man gasped, but he was collapsing, making no effort to catch himself; it wasn't a groan, but a death rattle.

He fell on his side, limbs twisted, bathrobe splayed behind him like a towel dropped on the way into the shower. Blood flowed to the carpet. Thom backed up, his heart thundering so hard it hurt, his ears ringing with the sound of the collapsing skull. The back of his legs bumped into the couch. He tried to flail away from the unexpected contact, but it had unbalanced him and he fell across the couch, its back catching him in the ribs.

Time to go
, a voice said between his ears.
Before that man he was going to fetch—Biscuit, the one who's got your gun—comes to check on his master, and buries us in a shallow grave
.

The voice calmed him better than if he'd had the scotch the man had been pretending to go fetch. The man who wasn't Walt. The man who would have killed Thom rather than be exposed as an impostor. Thom cast about the room, looking for a more effective weapon than the bloody bust. The hearth. A rack of tools that were no longer so anachronous: a sweep, a shovel, and a poker, hard iron and shiny brass. He took the poker and moved to the door. It opened inward. He'd have to drag the body aside. More pressingly, he didn't know where Biscuit would be, whether any of the women were up and about. Even if he ditched the poker and scrubbed his hands of the blood, there would be no concealing the look on his face.

He went to the window and undid the latches securing it tight. Though he was on the first floor, the building was built on a slope and the ground looked leg-breakingly far away. Couldn't be more than eight feet, though. And the soft dirt of a flowerbed beneath it. Thom swung one leg over the sill, took a steadying breath, and dropped.

The ground was dew-softened bark chips. Thom landed funny, his ankle rolling, palms skidding through the moist bark. Wincing, he got to his feet, then bent to grab the poker.

Inside the country club, a man screamed.

Thom took off at a dead run. He was on the verge of a mangy yard, the road two hundred feet to his right, a housing development dead ahead. He risked a look behind him. A pale face showed in the window. Candle light gleamed on the barrel of a pistol. Thom swerved to the right. A bullet ripped past him, followed by the clamor of its discharge. Three more followed, a short pause separating each one. Thom sprinted toward the road, cutting off the angle between himself and the shooter.

Angry voices yelled across the building. Dirt and grass blades flew from Thom's sneakers. Before he hit the asphalt, the front doors opened, spilling lantern light into the darkness. A pistol banged three times. Thom swerved back and forth. Biscuit and at least one other set of footsteps tore through the weeds. Thom reached the road and continued straight across it into the thigh-high grass at the edge of the golf course. He rushed downhill, slipping in the mist-slick grass, swerving around sand traps.

The gun went off again. The two men raced through the grass a hundred feet behind him. Biscuit was heavyset and didn't appear to be gaining ground, but he wasn't obviously falling behind, either. The other man matched Thom's pace.

Thom crossed a golf cart path. Two hundred yards ahead, black waves tumbled against a rocky shore. He didn't have the head start to try to hide. His only chance was to outrun them.

Or to get creative.

He ran up the slope of a tee. A clubhouse sat to his right. He exited the golf course into a weedy field and onto a cracking paved path. It led straight toward the sea, then hooked around a row of coastal houses. Thom kept going, speeding onto a finger of land pointing dead south toward Catalina, the island visible only as a black lump blotting out the stars behind it. Waves broke against the tip of the point in a white curtain. Thom scanned the waters ahead, ensuring they were flat, unbroken by rocks, and leapt from the end of the point.

He landed in a loose cannonball, managing to keep his head above the surface. His legs met nothing but water. He stretched forward and kicked. A swell rolled in, lifting, bearing him back toward the rocks. He swam sideways from the point and the wave swept him past it. The current shifted, sweeping him away from shore on a persistent riptide. Biscuit and his partner reached the tip of the rocks and shouted to each other, pointing into the dark, frothy water. Thom slipped under and swam straight out.

When he surfaced, he found himself eighty feet from the end of the point. The silhouettes of the two men stared out to sea. Thom took a deep breath and dived again, hooking to the southeast. He came up for air. One of the men remained on the point; the other had moved out of sight. Thom rolled on his back to keep an eye on the man on the jetty and kicked east.

The water was cold. He was already shivering, teeth chattering. His coat was slowing him down. He stripped it off and paddled from his side, opening space between himself and his hunters. The coast curved away from the point, putting a line of beachfront Spanish Colonials between Thom and his pursuit. He angled toward land. With no sign of the second man, he kicked toward shore, navigating through the rocks jutting from the waters. He found his footing and slogged forward, bent low, emerging onto a mixed beach of pebbles, sand, and rocks.