Chapter Four
The artifact lay inside the container, the markings still, as if the metal itself were sleeping.
“It seems to have stopped thinking for a moment,” Wakeman said.
Mary watched the metal, taking in the oddly dormant state into which it had fallen. “My father tried to have it translated,” she said. “So did my grandfather.”
“I didn’t know that,” Wakeman told her. He looked oddly hurt that she had kept it from him. “I thought we trusted each other.”
“Yes, well,” Mary said dryly, then turned to General Beers, who was clearly in no mood for such petty squabbling. “As far as I knew, the artifact never revealed itself to anyone,” she told him. “If it did, my father certainly never mentioned it.”
“Or your grandfather,” Wakeman said huffily.
Mary gave no sign that she heard him. She continued to address herself to the general. “So the question is, how are we going to break its code? The answer is simple. It’s the oldest rule in code-breaking. First, you have to know what they’re trying to say. If this is their permanent record, then it kicked in because it wanted to record what Allie did. Her fantastic power. So the record of what happened at the farmhouse should be on the artifact.”
Wakeman sniffed. “Either that, or a recipe for chicken a la gray.”
Again Mary gave no sign that she’d heard him. “I think we can crack the code, General,” she said matter-of-factly. “We’ll need a team of cryptographers, linguists, mathematicians.”
“The Fibonacci code again,” Wakeman said. He smiled at Mary. “It’s really good, isn’t it?”
Mary smiled back, though her eyes didn’t. “It’s great,” she said.
General Beers clearly did not think so. “First, however, we have to find that little girl.”
When the danger of discovery seemed to have passed, Charlie, Lisa, and Allie crept out of hiding. Eventually they found an abandoned service station and settled in. Beyond its dusty windows, Charlie could see a dilapidated auto salvage, ancient wrecks piled one on the other, cannibalized for parts, then left to rust.
“We’re going to need a car,” he said. “Better give me all your money.”
Lisa reached into her pocket. “I brought everything I had on this trip,” she said as she drew out the folded bills and handed them to Charlie.
“I’ll do my best,” Charlie said.
The man at the salvage yard chomped a short cigar and scratched his chest as Charlie approached.
“I’m looking for a car,” Charlie said.
The owner looked at Charlie as if he thought he should have come up with a better line. He nodded toward a battered Datsun. “It runs,” he said. “But pretty much on a wing and a prayer.”
They haggled briefly, then agreed on a price.
“I’ll just do some paperwork and be right out,” the man said, and walked into his office. “You can wait out here and enjoy the sights.” The sights weren’t much, just a desert town so small that the sudden appearance of a police car surprised him. It passed the auto salvage slowly, then made a turn and headed back toward it.
Charlie quickly ducked into a nearby coffee shop.
“Just coffee,” he told the waitress, then spun around the stool and looked out the window. The police car had stopped at the auto salvage, and two cops now stood, talking to the owner.
A Durango pulled up outside, and the driver got out and made his way into the cafe. Charlie noticed that he’d left his keys in the ignition. There was only one way to get a car, he realized. Steal it.
He strolled outside and glanced back toward the restaurant. The man had disappeared into the bathroom at the rear of the building. He calculated the thin edge of time, the terrible risk, the desperate nature of the case, and decided that he had no choice.
Allie suddenly tensed, and a strange concentration swam into her eyes.
“What is it?” Lisa asked.
Allie’s eyes roamed the interior of the gas station, moving from rusty tools to old tires, and finally to the small window that looked out into the night, where, in the distance, a light began to glow softly out of the surrounding woods.
“Allie?” Lisa asked.
Allie rose, walked to the window and gazed out at the steadily building light. Then she turned suddenly, and her eyes widened in disbelief.
“Hello, Allie,” the man said.
He’d come from nowhere, simply materialized out of the light.
Lisa stepped forward. “Get away from my daughter,” she warned.
“Don’t be frightened, Lisa,” the man said. “My name is John. I’m your grandfather.”
Allie came out from behind her mother. “I know what you want,” she said.
John smiled softly. “We have a lot to talk about, Allie.”
“I don’t want to talk to you,” Allie said. “Go away.”
John started to speak, but suddenly a flash of headlights appeared in the window as a truck ground to a halt outside the station, men piling out of it, the barrels of their rifles weaving in the air above their heads.
One of the men stepped forward. They had seen Charlie in town and recognized him from the news reports. “We know you’ve got the little girl,” he yelled. “Come on out.”
John looked at Allie and Lisa. “Sit here,” he said to Allie. “Let me take care of this.” He walked to the door, opened it, and stepped out into the night, his body bathed in the headlights from the truck. “There’s no little girl here,” he said.
“You’re lying,” the man said. “Her face is all over the television. Damn near the whole country’s looking for her.” He grinned. “Figured me and my buddies might get a little reward by bringing you in ourselves.”
The other men laughed, but John paid no attention. “There’s nothing here for you but trouble,” he warned.
The man laughed. “This trouble’s supposed to be coming from you?”
John remained silent.
He leveled his rifle, the barrel aimed at John’s chest. “Who the hell are you?”
John’s gaze bore into the man, and suddenly his eyes went black.
The man stepped back, the rifle falling from his hands. “Stop!” he screamed as he frantically backed away. “Stop! Make him stop!”
The other men stepped forward reflexively, then halted, frozen in terror.
“Shoot him!” the man cried. “Shoot him!”
They fired and John spun to the right as the bullets raked him, geysers of blood leaping like small red flames from his arms and chest as he tumbled to the ground.
The men ceased firing and stood, awestruck by their own violence.
“Go away.”
The men looked toward the station, where Allie stood, facing them in the doorway, Lisa just behind her, desperately tugging her back into the safety of the station.
“Go away now!” Allie repeated. She pulled her arm free of Lisa’s grasp. “Go away!”
The men didn’t move.
Allie closed her eyes.
“Allie, what are you doing?” Lisa cried. She grabbed Allie’s arm, but the child now seemed heavy as a planet, dense and immovable, her gaze focused on the truck, bearing down upon it as it began to shake with steadily increasing violence until it suddenly exploded in a huge ball of flame that seemed the form and substance of her ire.
The men dropped their rifles and stood, facing Allie, as if waiting for her command.
“Get out of here,” she said very deliberately.
The men turned and headed off into the night, past the oncoming car that slid into the driveway of the station, Charlie behind the wheel.
“What happened?” he shouted as he leaped from the car. He followed the hurried flight of the men. “Who are those…”