“We’re still stuck in the mountains,” Gus said.
“Not for long,” Shawn corrected him. “Because as soon as we get back to the original campsite, you’re going to see seven emergency beacons going off at once.”
It was more than two hours before they made it back to the meadow, but as soon as they stepped off the trail Gus was delighted to see that the tents were still standing, along with the entire kitchen setup. Suddenly he realized they hadn’t eaten since last night’s dinner, and he was starving. Even the sight of the “dead bodies” lying in the middle of the camp-in the bright daylight, now clearly pillows dressed as waiters, with burst ketchup cans for heads-couldn’t dampen his appetite.
But food was far from the first thing the lawyers were thinking of. They exploded across the meadow like sprinters at the gun, each one racing to grab one of the emergency beacons that dangled off the line of backpacks sitting next to the supply tent.
All of them except Mathis. He ran, too, and he got to the packs before the rest of them, trying to position himself in such a way that the others couldn’t get around him. It might have worked, too, if he’d been three times as wide as he was tall. Or if his gun hadn’t been lying at the bottom of a sylvan spring.
“Don’t do this,” Mathis implored the others as they grabbed for the packs. “Let’s complete the retreat.”
“I have finished,” Savage said. He reached for a pack, but Mathis pushed him away.
“We’ve all finished,” Gwendolyn said, grabbing for a pack on the other side of the line. Mathis made it down in time to block her. But as he did so, Balowsky sidled in behind him and yanked one of the yellow plastic cylinders off a pack.
“I’m warning you,” Mathis said. “Do not open that beacon.”
“Why are you so interested in keeping us in the mountains, Mathis?” Savage said.
“It was our assignment,” Mathis said. “We made a contract with Rushton.”
“Under duress,” Jade said. “And that contract said nothing about fake kidnappings. If anyone violated the agreement it was Rushton. And since we can’t launch our suits until we get back to town, it’s time to go.”
Balowsky took the body of the cylinder in one hand and grabbed the cap at its bottom with the other. Then he gave the cap a savage twist.
Gus realized he didn’t have any idea what would happen. If he’d tried to picture it in his mind, the image would have been the cylinder Klaatu pulls out in the original The Day the Earth Stood Still, the one that erupts into spiny blades before an overeager soldier shoots it out of his hand, thus preventing the president from seeing what life is like on other planets.
The last thing Gus expected to happen was what did. When Balowsky screwed off the bottom of the cylinder, three tiny pink objects, each about the size of the nail on Gus’ pinkie, dropped to the grass.
“What the hell is that?” Gwendolyn demanded as Balowsky turned the cylinder over and peered in, looking for any signs of advanced electronics.
Shawn and Gus walked over and looked down at the three objects on the ground. At first Gus thought they might be pebbles, or some kind of pellet. But as he looked closer, he realized they weren’t round. They were heart-shaped. He knew what these were-and they weren’t about to send an electronic signal anywhere.
“I believe they’re called Sweethearts,” Shawn said, bending down and scooping them into his hand. “Sort of like a nineteenth-century version of the Kindle, only they never really caught on as a reading device because each piece of candy can fit only one word, so if you wanted to take Moby Dick on the train, you’d need something like ten thousand pounds of the things. But they’re very good for delivering shorter messages, like I LOVE YOU or BE MINE.”
Gus stared down at the three candy hearts in Shawn’s hand. He read the words over and over again, arranging them in every possible combination, hoping against hope that there was a second way to read the message that Rushton had sent to his employees. There wasn’t. There was only one way to order the hearts so that they made any sense at all.
“Or,” Gus said finally, “YOU’RE FIRED, LOSER.”
Chapter Forty-Four
It took only seconds for the other lawyers to tear open the rest of the “beacons” and discover that each one contained nothing but the same three candy hearts.
“There were no beacons,” Balowsky said.
“No wonder you were first in your class at Moron State Law School,” Gwendolyn said. “Thank you for pointing out what is agonizingly obvious to everyone.”
“What’s happening?” Jade wailed. “Did Rushton send us out here to die?”
“Almost everyone,” Gwendolyn said. “I almost forgot our remedial student.”
“Nobody’s going to die,” Mathis barked, his hand flicking out of habit to pull out the gun that hadn’t been there in close to twenty-four hours. He moved towards Helstrom with the kind of menace only an FBI lifer can muster. “What was the plan?”
“The plan?” Helstrom said, taking a step back. “We weren’t exactly going to take this show to Broadway, if that’s what you mean.”
“How were you getting out of here?” Mathis barked. “How were you supposed to signal Rushton when your little skit was over so he could have you picked up?”
Helstrom dug in his pocket and pulled out a yellow plastic cylinder. He twisted open the bottom and let three candy hearts fall into his open palm.
“Mine say, HAVE FUN WALKING,” Helstrom said.
Mathis looked like he was wanted to throttle someone. “This is not acceptable,” he said. “I am going to get us out of here.”
“What are you going to do, flap your arms really hard and fly us all down the mountain?” Gwendolyn said.
“I’m an FBI agent,” Mathis said. He pulled out his wallet and flashed his badge at them.
The lawyers looked at him, stunned.
“Did Rushton know?” Savage said.
“He was cooperating in an ongoing investigation,” Mathis said.
“Apparently we’ve found the limits to his cooperation,” Balowsky said.
“So what’s the FBI going to do for us?” Gwendolyn said. “Can you contact your field office and have them send a chopper?”
“I could-if I had a cell phone,” Mathis said.
“That’s great,” Balowsky said. “An FBI agent with no gun, no cell phone, and no backup. That’s almost as useless as a psychic.”
“Excuse me?” Shawn said. “Are you talking about me?”
“I do believe he is talking about you,” Gus said.
“And he’s calling me useless?”
“He is calling you useless. And not for the first time, I believe.”
“I have thousands of uses,” Shawn said. “I slice, I dice, I chop. I can cut a tomato so thin it has only one side. And I get rid of the slimy egg whites in your scrambled egg.”
“But wait, there’s more,” Gus said. Then he whispered to Shawn, “There is more, isn’t there?”
“There’s always more,” Shawn said. “I can speak to the spirits of the mountain.”
“As long as we don’t have to listen,” Mathis said. “We’ve got grown-up work to do.”
“You go ahead and do what you need to,” Shawn said. “We’ll be quiet.”
“Fine,” Mathis said. “First thing we need is-”
Shawn let out a low moan that quickly ascended to a piercing shriek. “What’s that, spirit of the mountains?” he howled. “You can show us the way out of here? You can send me a vision?”
“Now our lives are supposed to depend on his visions?” Balowsky said. “Can anyone picture a scenario in which we’re not all dead?”
“What’s that?” Shawn said loudly, cupping a hand to his ear. “You say you already sent me a vision of the way out of here? And all I need to do is reach out and touch it?”
Shawn stretched his hands out in front of him and took one staggering step forward.
“You might want to step out of his way,” Gus said. “When he’s possessed by a vision, he might as well be a zombie.”
But the lawyers were in a huddle and barely glanced up from their conversation. Only Gwendolyn could be bothered to expend the necessary energy to express her contempt with a sneer. Until Shawn lurched forward and started to run towards them, his eyes still squeezed shut, arms waving furiously in front of him.