Storm of Lightning (12 page)

“When he gets to this room, we'll let him enter. Then, once he's inside, Taylor reboots him, Jack tackles him to the ground, and I'll shock him unconscious. Then I'll lock the door while Jack disarms him and ties him up.

“Then we'll lock him in the bathroom and climb out the window.” I looked at Jack. “What do you think?”

“I think it's a good plan,” Jack said. “As long as they're not waiting for us outside.”

“Can you take him down with your broken ribs?” I asked.

“What ribs?” he replied.

“All right,” I said. “Let's do this.”

Ostin and the three girls pulled the sheets from the beds, then took them into the bathroom to make a rope while I looked out the door's peephole. Jack crouched down behind Taylor.

“You should put some pillows down so when he hits the floor, it's not so loud,” Taylor said.

Jack frowned. “You're right.”

“What, you don't like that?”

“I was just looking forward to body slamming an Elgen guard onto the floor,” Jack said.

Taylor put her hand on my back so she could read my mind and see what I was seeing. A minute later the man came out of the room across from us. Then he turned and looked at our door.

He's coming,
I thought.

Taylor leaned back and whispered into Jack's ear.

The man touched our doorknob; then I heard something metallic slide inside the lock. I glanced over at Taylor, who had moved to my left side so the man wouldn't see her before he entered.

Don't reboot him until he's inside the room
, I thought.

Taylor nodded.

The lock clicked. The doorknob slowly turned; then the door began to open. The man was halfway inside the room before he saw Taylor and me crouched down behind the door.

Now
, I thought.

Taylor bowed her head. The man froze with confusion. Jack grabbed him by the front of his shirt, then pulled him forward, slamming him face-forward to the ground. I pushed the door shut with my foot as I grabbed the man's leg and pulsed. His body went limp.

Jack pulled the man's gun from its holster, pinning the man down with his knee in the small of his back. “We got him.”

“Ostin, let's get out of here,” I said.

“Still working on it,” he said.

“Work faster,” I said. “Taylor, open the window.”

Taylor tried to open the window but couldn't. It had been painted shut.

“You better help her,” I said to Jack, keeping my hand on the prone man. “Ostin, hurry!”

Jack got up and, after several attempts, pushed the window open. Then Ostin and the others came out of the bathroom carrying their makeshift rope. Ostin tied one end of the sheets around the radiator, then threw the opposite end out the window.

“You sure those knots are tight?” Jack asked.

Ostin nodded. “It will hold. I'd bet my life on it.”

“Good,” he said, turning back. “Because you're going first.”

Jack came back over and put his knee into the small of our prisoner's back. The man was wearing cargo pants and a black, long-sleeve shirt, but nothing with the Elgen insignia. He also wore a knit mask with slits for eyes.

“I want to see this guy's face,” I said to Jack. “Let's roll him over.”

We rolled the unconscious man to his back; then Jack pulled off his mask.

Taylor gasped.

“I don't believe it,” Jack said.

“Better hold up,” I said to Ostin, who was nervously straddling the windowsill, about to climb out.

“What?” He looked back at the man. “Do you know who it is?”

“Yes,” I said. “Let's lift him onto the bed.”

“You know this guy?” Nichelle asked.

“His name is Gervaso. And he's not supposed to be alive.”

M
cKenna turned the room light on while Jack and I lifted Gervaso up onto one of the beds. Jack checked him again for weapons and this time found a Special Ops knife in a sheath strapped to his right shin. Jack unstrapped the sheath and slid it into his own belt while everyone else gathered around the bed.

“How do you know him?” Nichelle asked.

“He was our trainer from the resistance,” McKenna said.

“Then he's a good guy?”

“He was,” Ostin said. “We don't know what he's doing here. Or why he's alive and everyone else is dead.”

“Maybe he betrayed the others,” Nichelle said.

“He wouldn't betray them,” Jack said. “He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. He's above reproach.”

“Then why did you just take his weapons?” Nichelle asked.

Jack looked a little awkward. “Better safe than sorry,” he said.

“Taylor, keep your hand on him. When he comes to, I want to interrogate him,” I said.

Gervaso was out for only a couple of more minutes before he began to stir. As soon as he came to, he instinctively went for his gun, and froze when he saw Jack pointing it at him.

“Just stay still,” Jack said. “Don't try anything.”

Gervaso looked back and forth between us, his eyes stopping on me. “Michael, it's me, Gervaso.”

“We thought you were dead,” I said.

“Do I look dead?” He stared at me. “What happened to your arms?”

“Just answer the question,” Jack said. “Why are you still alive?”

“Because I didn't die,” he said. Then he slightly grinned. “Well, at least not yet.” He said to Jack, “You can put my gun down. I came here to rescue you.”

Jack looked over at me, and I nodded. He lowered the weapon.

“Where are Scott and the others?” Taylor asked.

“They're safe. This town is crawling with Elgen informants. That's why I came back alone. We need to get you out of here.” He sat up. “You don't need to keep touching me, Taylor. You know I'm not lying.”

Taylor looked a little embarrassed as she removed her hand. “He's telling the truth,” she said to me.

“What's going on?” I asked.

“Are my parents dead?” Ostin asked.

Gervaso looked at him. “No,” he said.

“But we saw the ranch,” I said.

“We knew the Elgen were coming. We evacuated before they came.”

“My mother's alive?” I asked.

“Everyone is safe. Your mother”—he turned to Ostin—“your parents, the council.”

I put my hand over my eyes, overcome with relief. “She's okay.”

Taylor took my hand. “I knew there was hope.”

When I looked up, Ostin's eyes were filled with tears. He furtively brushed them away. McKenna put her arms around him.

“Dude, it's okay,” Jack said. “Even warriors cry.”

Ostin just nodded.

“I don't get it,” Jack said to Gervaso. “If you knew the Elgen were coming, why didn't you ambush them?”

“There's brave courageous; then there's brave
stupid
,” Gervaso said, looking at Jack. “You know what I mean?”

Jack nodded. “Yeah, I get it.”

“Even with the intelligence we had, the Elgen still have a lot more firepower at their disposal than we do. They also have an army, which we don't. But even if we had somehow defeated them, there would have been lives lost. And, as far as I'm concerned, we don't have any to spare.” He looked at me. “Would you agree?”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“I thought so,” he said. “But that's just one of the reasons we didn't attack. The main reason was that fighting back wasn't our strategy. We want them to think we've been destroyed.”

“If no one was at the ranch,” Ostin said, “how did we bring down one of their helicopters? We saw it.”

Gervaso smiled. “That was pretty good, wasn't it? Remember the robotic sentry system we used in Peru? Same thing. I also fired up our helicopter from here in Douglas. We gambled that they'd never put boots on the ground, so I created just enough action for them to believe we'd been caught unprepared.”

“Smart,” Ostin said. “Very smart.”

“So what about the Elgen guard we found?” Jack said. “What do we do with him?”

“Scott briefed me about him,” Gervaso said. “He provides us with an interesting opportunity. And risk. The Elgen don't know that he's still alive, and from what I've been told, he's bitter enough to tell us everything he knows. I don't blame him. The Elgen not only abandoned him; they dropped napalm on him and his buddies.

“Fortunately, his uniform was mostly burned off. Otherwise word
of his survival might have already gotten back to the Elgen, but that doesn't mean we're safe. Every Elgen guard is implanted with an RFID—radio-frequency identification—so he can still be traced. Probably the only reason they haven't already found him is that they aren't looking.

“In the morning, a doctor we know will be removing the RFID device. Then I'll be less worried. In the meantime, he's in serious condition. It will be weeks before he'll be stable enough to move.”

“I still don't get it,” Taylor said. “Why did the voice tell us there were no survivors at the ranch?”

“Because there weren't,” Gervaso said. “Everyone was gone.”

“Why didn't they just tell us that in the first place?” she asked. “Don't they care how we suffered?”

“I know it must have been awful for you,” Gervaso said. “To think your parents and friends were dead. But we sacrificed our main headquarters just so the Elgen would believe we were wiped out. All we needed was one intercepted message for that sacrifice to have been in vain. The greater good dictated that we employ
misinformation.
”

“That's a military way of saying ‘lie,' ” Ostin said.

“He's right,” I said. “They did the right thing.”

“So where is everyone?” Ostin asked. “Where are my parents?”

“Until we're out of danger, it's best that you don't know. But they're safe, and you'll see them soon enough. Let's leave it at that.”

“So now what?” I asked. “Is our plane really gone?”

Gervaso nodded. “It wouldn't have been difficult for the Elgen to track down our plane, so we had Boyd fly it out shortly after you landed. We tried to stop you from going to Mexico, but we were two hours too late.”

“What do you think we should do?” I asked.

“We're going to drive to Tucson, then wait for directions from the voice on where we need to go. There are a lot of pieces in play right now. We need to see our opponents' next move.”

“What do you mean by that?” I asked.

“You saved Jade Dragon and escaped. Hatch isn't going to be very happy about that. And when Hatch is unhappy, heads roll.
The question is, whose heads and how high up are they? If we can get some high-level defections, it could turn the tide against him. Hatch's electric youths were in charge of guarding you. It will be interesting to see if he holds them responsible.”

“Hatch isn't afraid to punish his kids,” Nichelle said.

Gervaso looked over at Nichelle, suddenly realizing who she was. “You're Nichelle, aren't you?”

“Yeah, that's me.”

“Hatch's favorite torture device.”

“Yeah, that's also me,” she said. “Or was.”

“So you know, Hatch has imprisoned and tortured his own, but he's never executed one of them. But his kids are getting older now, and it's only a matter of time before one of them rebels. Of course if they turn against Hatch, it could be good or bad for us, depending on what they want.

“But there's even more in play. The Elgen still need a land base to carry out their plans of global domination. They've recently purchased two new warships that are, right now, sailing to Tuvalu, as are the
Faraday
and the rest of the Elgen fleet. It looks like Hatch is going to finish what he started.”

“They're going to declare war on Tuvalu?” Ostin asked.

Gervaso frowned. “I wouldn't call it a
war
. The people of Tuvalu have no army and no weapons. It's going to be a complete surrender or a complete slaughter.” He looked back at me. “So, if it's okay with you, it's time we got out of here. I've got a van parked out back.”

“Of course,” I said.

Gervaso stood. “May I have my weapons back?” he asked Jack.

“Sure.” Jack handed him back his gun.

“And my knife?”

Jack smiled somewhat guiltily as he produced the knife, still admiring its blade. “I was hoping you wouldn't miss it.”

Gervaso looked at him for a moment, then said, “All right. You keep it.”

“Really?” Jack asked.

Gervaso nodded. “You pinned me. No one's ever pinned me before. You should get some prize.”

“Thank you,” Jack said. “This is the best gift I've ever been given.”

“You earned it,” Gervaso said. He turned back to me. “By the way, congratulations on your success in Taiwan. I knew you could do it.”