F Paul Wilson - Sims 05 (6 page)

 
          
“All
I can say,” Lister said, “is that some of those surveillance men are going to
be needed back in
Idaho
for the launch.”

 
          
“I
don’t think I’ll need much more time. It’s been only forty-eight hours. She
can’t go—”

 
          
His
PCA rang.
“Just a sec.
That’s from the surveillance
team.” He put Lister on hold, snatched up the phone, and recognized Snyder’s
voice.

 
          
“Guess
what just happened?”

 
          
“What?”
Please, Luca thought.
Nothing bad.
Don’t tell me
anyone’s dead.

 
          
But
Snyder sounded pleased with himself; almost happy.

 
          
“I’m
pulling up to the drive-thru window of this McDonald’s near the crib to get
coffees for the guys when I see this beat-up old van with New York tags pull
into the lot. And I’m thinking, you know, there’s a lot of dirty old white vans
with
New
York
plates, but maybe this is the one I spotted in
Brooklyn
, you know, when Palmer and Jackson
disappeared from that op. And I was wishing I had the tag number handy when—”

 
          
“Get
to the goddamn point!”

 
          
“Okay,
okay. So I’m watching the van and I see the rear door swing open. No big deal,
but then this sim hops out of the bushes and jumps inside.”

 
          
The
PCA’s seams let out a faint squeak as Luca’s grip tightened. “Was it her?”

 
          
“Nah.
This was a skinny male, but you could tell from his
coveralls he’s from the crib.”

 
          
“He’s
leading them to her! Where are they now?”

 
          
“About
twenty-five yards ahead of me, heading back toward the crib.”

 
          
“Don’t
lose them. You hear me, Snyder? Do…not…lose them. And don’t let them spot you
either. You spook them, they’ll take off.”

 
          
“Maybe
I should contact the others so we can tag team them on the tail.”

 
          
“Good
idea. No, wait.”

 
          
Luca’s
mind raced over the possibilities. These people had fooled him before. Was it
sheer luck that Snyder spotted the sim jumping into the van, or was he supposed
to see it? The expected response was to mobilize the entire surveillance team,
which would leave the sim crib unguarded. Could that be their real purpose?

 
          
“Do
it this way. Lowery and Stritch have the front door. While Lowery takes the car
to back you up, tell Stritch to go inside and find out from that jerk Morales
which of his
sims
is missing. If the sim from the van
somehow makes it back to the crib, I want to know which one it is.”

 
          
“Got
it,” Snyder said.

 
          
“I’m
on my way over now. I can’t emphasize how important this is, Snyder. Don’t blow
it.”

 
          
He
returned to Lister.
“Gotta go.
Tell the folks upstairs
our ‘big manpower commitment’ just paid off.”

 
          
He
ended the call without waiting for a response. He told Maria not to wait up as
he rushed for the door.

 
          
“You
did a good job, Tome,” Romy said, feeling for the agitated old sim.

 
          
Tome
sat hunched on a rear seat of the van, distraught that he’d failed to find
Meerm. Romy had moved out of the front. She and Zero flanked him.

 
          
“Yes,”
Zero added.
“An excellent job.
But now tell us again
what Beece said. Try to remember exactly.”

 
          
Romy
listened closely to Tome’s recitation of Beece’s fractured directions to
Meerm’s hiding place, trying to fathom a way to put them to practical use.

 
          
And
then from the front seat Patrick said, “I think we’ve got trouble.”

 
          
Zero
leaned forward. “What’s wrong?”

 
          
“A
green Taurus has been following us since McDonald’s.”

 
          
Romy
tensed. “You’re sure?”

 
          
“He’s
hanging back, but I just made a couple of turns and he’s still with us.”

 
          
“Let’s
leave the neighborhood, then,” Zero said. “Head for one of the highways—22, 78,
doesn’t matter, just
so
long as it takes us to the
airport.”

 
          
“
Newark
Airport
?”

 
          
“It’s
a maze, and a traffic nightmare. If we can’t lose them there, we never will.”

 
          
“But what about Meerm?”
Romy said.

 
          
Zero
shook his head.
“Too risky to look for her now.
We’d
lead them right to her.”

 
          
Romy
hung on as they bounced along. She saw a red, white, and blue TO 78 sign flash
by and cried out, “There!”

 
          
“Damn!”
Patrick said.
“Missed it!
Look for another.”

 
          
Romy
peered through the windshield. “Where are we?”

 
          
“Haven’t
a clue.” Patrick shook his head. “Don’t know a thing about
Newark
.”

 
          
The
buildings had fallen away behind them and now they were moving through a
no-man’s-land of junkyards and railroad tracks, bouncing along a rutted gravel
path.

 
          
“The
Taurus isn’t pretending anymore,” Patrick said, and Romy thought she detected a
tremor in his voice. “He’s getting closer. And there’s another car behind him.”

 
          
“He
knows we’ve spotted him,” Zero said. He moved to the rear doors and crouched
among the overnight bags he’d told Romy and Patrick to bring. If they found
Meerm, they wouldn’t be going home. She watched him peer through a small,
unpainted area of one of the windows.
“Looks like he brought
back-up along.
I was afraid of this.”

 
          
“He’s
getting closer!” Patrick called from the front.

 
          
Romy
moved back beside Zero. “What do you think they’ll do?”

 
          
“Try
to stop us, find out who we are, maybe kill us.
Except for
Tome.
They’ll want to interrogate him.”

 
          
Romy
sensed a cold wave slip over her, just as it had last week when it had come
time to dose the man called David Palmer with his own truth drug. As she felt
her emotions crystallizing, falling one by one into deep-freeze hibernation,
she reached into her shoulder bag and pulled out a .45 caliber HK
semiautomatic. She worked the slide to chamber a shell.

 
          
“I
don’t think so,” she said.

 
          
Zero’s
head swiveled to the pistol, then to her. “Where’d you get that?”

 
          
“From one of the two creeps who invaded my home.”

 
          
“How
long have you been carrying it?”

 
          
“Ever since two creeps invaded my home.”

 
          
“He’s
riding my tail!” Patrick cried from the front.

 
          
Romy
gestured with her HK toward the rear door. “Hold that open and we’ll stop this
right now.”

 
          
Zero
shook his head. “It may come to that, but let’s try my way first.” He opened a
heavy-duty plastic cooler and reached inside.

 
          
“You
were ready for something like this?”

 
          
“I
try to be prepared for everything.”

 
          
Despite
the situation, she had to smile. “You must have been a great Boy Scout.”

 
          
He
looked at her again. “No.
Never had the chance.”
His
voice sounded sad. “But I think I would have loved it.”

 
          
He
came up with a red, softball-size object that jiggled in his gloved hand.

 
          
Romy
stared at it.
“A water balloon?”

 
          
“Not
quite. Put your pistol away and get ready to open the door for me.”

 
          
Romy
didn’t know what Zero was up to, but she’d learned to trust his judgment. And
his preternatural calm bolstered her confidence. She stowed the pistol and
unlatched the door.

 
          
Zero
called toward the front: “Do we have any curves coming up, Patrick?”

 
          
“About
thirty yards.”

 
          
Zero
turned to Romy. “Get ready.
Five-four-three-two-one-open!”

 
          
Romy
gave the door a shove. As soon as it swung open, revealing the green Taurus no
more than half a dozen feet from their rear bumper, Zero launched the balloon
with a gentle underhand toss.

 
          
Romy
watched it wobble through the air and land on their pursuer’s windshield—which
then disappeared in a splatter of dark green paint.

 
          
The
car swerved as the windshield wipers came on.

 
          
“Those
won’t help,” Zero said.
“Oil-based.”

 
          
And
then the van leaned to the right as it rounded a curve, but the Taurus kept
going straight, bounding off the gravel roadway and ramming nose first into a
deep ditch. It hung there, trunk skyward, steam boiling from under its crumpled
hood.

 
          
She
heard Patrick laugh. “What the hell?”

 
          
“Not
in the clear yet,” Zero said, staring out the rear door at the second car. He
had another paint balloon in his hand. “Come on,” he whispered.
“Just a little closer.”

 
          
But
the second car, a dark blue Jeep, hung back. Obviously they’d seen what
happened to the Taurus.

 
          
“Have
to try something else,” Zero said. He rummaged in the chest and came up with a
plastic container. “Here. Toss these out.”

 
          
Romy
lifted the lid to find a couple of dozen steel objects that looked like jacks.
But these were much bigger, and instead of six tips, these had only four, each
ending in a sharp barbed point.

 
          
“What
are—?”

 
          
“Road stars.
Just toss them out. They’re configured so that
they always land with a point up.”

 
          
Romy
emptied the container, watched the Jeep roll over them, and waited for its
tires to go flat.

 
          
“Hmmm,”
Zero said.
“Must have self-sealing tires.
The stars
will chew them up eventually but we don’t have time for that. They’re probably
calling for more back-up now.”