Linkage: The Narrows of Time (22 page)

“What the hell?”

He heard rustling behind him. He turned to
see Thompson’s limbs moving slowly, but not all at once. He ran
back to the solder and punched him in the jaw, making sure Thompson
stayed unconscious. He used the handcuffs to secure the man’s
hands, then stood up to admire his conquest.

He was proud of himself for not killing
Thompson when he had the chance, but decided that a smashed nose
and sore jaw wasn’t sufficient punishment. He picked up the
soldier’s KA-BAR knife and used it to carve Drew’s initials, DR,
into Thompson’s forehead. It would serve as a constant reminder of
what had happened today.

Lucas searched in and around the clearing for
his brother’s body, scouring every inch of dirt within a two
hundred foot radius, but he found no evidence that Drew’s body had
been carried or dragged away. Somehow, Drew’s corpse had
vanished.

Chapter
17

Tuesday Night, December 25

Lucas opened the driver’s door to Thompson’s
Humvee and found the keys in the ignition. When he started its
engine, the dashboard displayed the time as 11:11 PM.

The GPS system installed into the center
console beeped twice, then booted its operating system. Moments
later, he knew his exact location—thirty-five miles northwest of
the Phoenix metropolitan area. He used the GPS interface to plot
two courses: One was to the capital building in downtown Phoenix
where he knew General Alvarez was headed. The other was to his
mother’s home in north central Phoenix.

Both destinations required that he take the
same route southeast to Phoenix until he ran into Interstate 17,
giving him at least thirty minutes to decide on his final
destination. If he chose to go home, he still had time to make it
there before midnight to wish his mother a Merry Christmas, and
give him time to rehearse what he was going to tell his mother
about Drew’s death. If he decided to hunt down Alvarez, he’d just
barely have time to devise a stealthy approach.

He stepped on the gas and drove off across
the desert in the same direction as General Alvarez and his driver.
The dirt road, if you could call it that, was filled with gullies,
sand, and rock, sending his head crashing into the Humvee’s padded
ceiling numerous times. Tumbleweeds, bushes, and a few cacti
caromed off the truck’s grill guard as he plowed through whatever
was in his path.

Just about the time when he thought the
uneven terrain would never end, he came across a paved, two-lane
highway. He turned left and headed southeast toward the
freeway.

A few minutes later, he drove over the crest
of a steep hill near one of the state’s manmade lakes, allowing him
to see a skyline view of the Phoenix metro area. It was a stunning
nighttime panorama except for the twin energy domes glimmering in
the distance. One appeared to be devouring the downtown Phoenix
area, while the other was near Scottsdale, a suburb thirty miles
east of Phoenix. Pockets of the city’s power grid were offline,
leaving featureless voids in the brilliant nightscape.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, he arrived at the
north side of Phoenix where he turned right and took the south
access ramp onto I-17. Downtown Phoenix was straight ahead, ten
miles or so. He jammed the gas pedal to the floorboard, plastering
his back against the driver’s seat.

The opposite side of the freeway was crammed
with a long line of cars and trucks filled with people trying to
get out of the city. He appeared to be the only one dumb enough to
be heading south, directly toward the chaos. He was nearing the
point in his trip where he needed to make a choice—General Alvarez
or his mother? A mile ahead was the Thunderbird Road exit, the
point of no return if he wanted to drive to his mother’s house.

The terrain blurred by his window, seemingly
speeding up the passage of time. Only fifty feet remained before
the exit ramp; it was dead ahead. Suddenly, the Humvee seemed to
drive itself, swerving at the last second to steam down the
Thunderbird Road exit ramp. He was only minutes from his mother’s
house. He knew what he must do—get her out of town and away from
the energy fields.

* * *

He arrived home just short of midnight.
Dorothy was normally in bed around 9:00 PM, but Lucas figured she
was still awake. He imagined her sitting on the plastic-covered
living room sofa, staring out the front window, sipping on a coffee
mug filled with eggnog. She had to be worried after they failed to
show up in time for Christmas dinner. There was probably a pile of
homemade oatmeal cookies sitting on the coffee table, next to a
cold glass of milk. Oatmeal Crispies were his favorite and Mom made
them for him every year. He was hungry and could use a sugar fix.
He checked the vehicle’s center console and found two power bars
tucked under a pair of sunglasses. He opened the wrappers and ate
them both in seconds.

When he turned onto her street, his right
foot eased off the gas pedal when he saw a white van parked along
the curb in front of his mother’s house. The streetlights were
still blazing, providing him with ample light to identify the
vehicle—a campus security van. If its driver was someone he knew,
it would make explaining the night’s events all that much
easier.

He intended to pull behind the van and park,
but changed his mind when he saw two armed guards standing next to
it, on the side facing the house. He saw his mother escorted out of
the house by another two men; one walked alongside her, supporting
her right arm as she moved, and the other two steps behind,
carrying a pair of suitcases, and a knapsack over the left
shoulder.

When he cruised a little closer, he realized
the person escorting his mother was Bruno, and the man carrying the
baggage was . . . him! He had to look twice to convince himself his
eyes weren’t playing tricks. They weren’t. Who the hell was this
imposter, and what was he doing with his mother?

He lowered his head and drove past the house,
hoping not to be spotted. There was plenty of ambient light from
the full moon, but nobody seemed to notice him or the Humvee
creeping by the house. At the end of the street, he turned off his
headlights and made a U-turn, parking behind a dented and
scratched, four-door GMC Dooley truck on the opposite side of the
street. A stack of inner tubes was tied down inside the bed of the
gas-guzzler using bungee cords, and its front wheels were parked up
on the sidewalk, at a sharp angle, probably due to the driver
having one too many six packs at the indoor water park only a mile
away.

He got out of the stolen Humvee and snuck
along the street until he arrived at the house next to his
mother’s. He crouched down behind the three-foot-tall hedge
separating the two lawns, giving him a clear view of the van’s
driver’s seat and open side door.

Bruno opened the door and helped his mom into
the front passenger’s seat, then walked around to the driver’s
door, carrying a black laptop computer case, which Lucas recognized
as his from the LA Kings’ hockey sticker on its front pocket,
something he’d added only a few weeks before.

The red-haired man impersonating him
approached the vehicle’s side cargo door. The charlatan handed both
suitcases to one of the armed guards already inside the cargo door,
then stepped up and entered the vehicle himself. Seconds later, the
other guard joined them inside and the side cargo door slammed
shut.

Lucas sneaked back into the Humvee and waited
to turn on his headlights until after Bruno flipped a U-turn and
drove down the street in the opposite direction. Lucas followed
behind them for the next hour as Bruno crept through traffic across
the north side of town. Lucas kept the Humvee back at a safe
distance, trying not to be spotted as a tail. His plan seemed to
work. It wasn’t difficult to blend in with the numerous Army trucks
interspersed within the civilian traffic.

Bruno drove south along the access road
bordering the Loop 101 Freeway until he reached the Glendale Hockey
Arena’s front-side parking lot. The van drove down a sharp incline
and disappeared into an underground garage. To the right of the
ramp’s entrance was a twenty-foot-wide sign that read:

ARENA RENOVATION

General Contractor: BTX ENTERPRISES

Lucas had heard that Dr. Kleezebee’s
development company had purchased the vacant hockey building and
was in the process of renovating it. He’d never set foot inside the
arena, but had seen it on TV many times, the last being two years
earlier, right before the Arizona Coyotes filed for bankruptcy—a
second time—and then relocated to Mexico. Nobody expected the
financially strapped team to thrive in Mexico, but it did. He never
got used to saying “Los Coyotes.”

Lucas waited five minutes before driving the
Humvee down the entrance ramp. Inside, he only found one other
vehicle—Bruno’s security van. It was parked backward in the very
last row, only twenty feet from his current position. He could see
the empty front seat of the van and its cargo door. The van looked
abandoned.

He looked around to see where Bruno and crew
had taken his mother. Only four exits existed on the sublevel,
including the entrance ramp behind him. At the far end of the
garage was the main elevator and its adjoining stairs, but Bruno’s
van wasn’t parked anywhere near them. The only other choice was a
closed orange door, which was about ten feet on the other side of
Bruno’s van.

Lucas pulled forward slowly and parked the
Humvee nose-to-nose with the van. He set the parking brake, got out
of it with the soldier’s gun in his right hand, and looked through
the van’s driver-side window. No one was home. He tried the van’s
rear windows, but they were heavily tinted and the garage’s
lighting was poor. He couldn’t see much of anything inside. He
tried to open the double doors, but they were locked.

He walked to the orange door and reached for
the doorknob with his left hand, but didn’t turn it—he heard voices
coming from the other side. He leaned in close to the door with his
left ear to listen. One of the voices was a perfect rendition of
his own—the imposter’s—having a friendly argument with Bruno about
who
”should go first
.” They were kidding around like old
chums at happy hour. He listened for his mother’s voice but didn’t
hear it.

A handful of seconds later, an electrical hum
rattled the doorframe, startling him for a second. Inside, a female
voice said, “Please step onto the pad. Activation sequence will
begin in thirty seconds. Remember not to hold your breath.”

Lucas slowly twisted the doorknob, trying to
open it, but it wouldn’t budge. Again, he heard the same female
speak. “Please step onto the pad. Activation sequence will begin in
thirty seconds. Remember not to hold your breath.” Both of the
times she spoke, the woman used the same inflections and timing,
making her voice sound artificial, like it were a recording.

He listened for another five minutes, but
heard nothing else from the other side. He tried twice,
unsuccessfully, to kick the metal door open.

He needed a new plan.

He searched his Humvee for tools, finding a
heavy-duty scissors jack stuffed inside a recessed sidewall
compartment behind the rear seat. A three-foot-long tire iron with
a tapered end like a screwdriver was wedged inside a form-fitting
cutout just below the jack. He grabbed the steel bar and returned
to the orange door with the intention to use it as a crowbar.

He took aim, then jammed the bar’s tapered
end into the doorjamb with a single thrust, splitting the metal
seam next to the lock. He wiggled and pushed the tire iron farther
into the crack before leveraging all his weight against the bar. It
worked; he pried the door open.

He put the bar on the cement floor and walked
inside with the loaded gun out in front of him. He sneaked along
the brick wall lining the hallway until he came to a chamber about
the size of a 7-Eleven convenience store. Inside, he discovered two
stacks of blinking electronic equipment with a metal desk and
computer console sitting in front. He checked the room, but there
was no sign of his mother or anyone else. He was alone.

A clear cylinder about the size of a phone
booth was standing in the center of the room. It was a few feet
taller than Lucas, and resembled an oversized pneumatic tube, like
those used by a bank in its drive-through lane. On the left side of
the tube, a bundle of gray-and-black cables snaked their way along
the floor, connecting the tube to the electronic equipment. The
cylinder’s base was a round pad about three inches thick and four
feet in diameter. Its surface was shiny and appeared to be made of
glass, or possibly an acrylic. The pad was sectioned off into four,
pie-shaped triangles of different colors: red, blue, orange, and
green.

When Lucas approached the cylinder, its
enclosure rotated automatically, revealing two clear, overlapping
glass tubes, one inside the other. The glass rings continued moving
in opposite directions until a man-sized opening appeared. He was
tempted to step inside to see what might happen, but decided to
wait.

He walked to the computer desk, where a
rotating 3D font was spinning on the computer’s twenty-inch
monitor. The phrase
BTX ENTERPRISES
danced across the screen
in block letters, taking turns bouncing off the four edges of the
display. He didn’t see a mouse or keyboard, so he touched the
screen to deactivate the screen saver. The computer screen
showed: