The man on the other end of the Skype call was a cryptographer. Sapir had said as much, but Rory would have figured it out anyway. He wasn’t stupid, no matter what Sapir thought. The cryptographer sounded tense, but Rory wouldn’t have been able to identify what sort of tension the man’s voice betrayed if Sapir hadn’t kept telling him not to get so irritated.
That’s what irritation sounds like, he told himself. His mom had told him he needed to focus on strategies of socialization, and trying to identify emotion by tone of voice was one of those. Rory had been trying, but didn’t feel like he was getting any better at it.
“You haven’t found the spacecraft,” the apparently irritated cryptographer snapped at Sapir. “Why are we trying to crack the entry code?”
“Because when we do find it, it would be great if we could get into the fucking thing!” Sapir barked.
Now that sounded like irritation. Rory felt pleased with himself for recognizing it, but he supposed shouting and swearing were big clues, so maybe he shouldn’t pat himself on the back too much.
The guard had taken an interest in Rory’s drawing. The guy came a bit closer, peering over his shoulder.
“What’s that?” the guard asked.
“Map,” Rory said.
“Map to what?”
Rory shrugged without looking up. “The alien’s ship.”
The guard went quiet for a few seconds before bending over and reaching toward the drawing pad. His hand paused a few inches from it. The smile on the man’s face did not reach his eyes. Even Rory could see that.
“Do you mind if I…?”
Rory shrugged. The guard took the pad and Rory started tapping his pencil on the toe of his sneaker. He didn’t want to give up the pad—drawing was the only thing he could do to occupy himself here, and it helped keep him calm. His mother was an artist, and though he didn’t aspire to follow her in that vocation, he understood the way she lost herself in her art. He found himself able to do the same thing and he always enjoyed the places that drawing took him, even just doodling. Sometimes he drew things to help himself envision them, or to make sure he wouldn’t forget.
The guard walked the pad over to the helicopter, trying to get Sapir’s attention, but Sapir waved him away.
“I’m busy.”
On the Skype connection, the cryptographer continued to plead his case. “Sir, we’re trying. I’m telling you, the access sequence… it could be a hundred digits, for all we know.”
“Fifteen,” Rory said aloud.
Sapir and the guard both froze. Even the cryptographer on the laptop had gone silent.
Rory glanced across at Sapir through the open door of the RV. “I’m pretty sure it’s fifteen.”
Less than ninety seconds passed while Sapir rushed inside and emerged with Agent Traeger in tow. Rory knew he was the guy responsible for people pointing guns at them tonight, and for all the trouble his dad was in. Traeger had the drawing pad in his hand as he walked over to him and smiled like they were best friends.
“Hi, Rory,” Agent Traeger said. “I’m Will. I understand you know where the spaceship is.”
Rory bit his lip, shoulders tense.
Suddenly, Traeger was no longer friendly. He tapped the drawing Rory had made. “You want to play grown-up? Man to man? We’re not going to let your dad go. Not until you give us what we want.”
“What if I won’t tell you?” Rory said.
Traeger shook his head and looked just like Mr. Cushing, his math teacher, sometimes did when one of Rory’s classmates disappointed him. “Oh, now, Rory… I thought we were playing grown-up.”
For the first time, Rory felt a little afraid.
19
The world tilted beneath McKenna. He still had a mouthful of dirt and he was certain there was cowshit mixed in there, too. Groggy, he had just enough of his wits about him to hope this wasn’t a concussion. The two mercs still loomed above him, but they’d held off on the kicking for a minute.
He spat a wad of blood and soil onto the ground. His face was swollen, his jaw stiff. He breathed through his nose with a reedy whistle and the copper stink of his own blood. They’d worked him over good. Internal darkness kept washing over his thoughts, as if unconsciousness was an ocean trying to drown him.
Taking a breath, he glanced up, eyes narrowed as he peered through the slats in the fence around the holding pen. The helicopter sat there, and its rotors had started to turn. The familiar whine of the chopper gearing up forced him to pay attention. He saw several figures climbing aboard and wondered where they were off to. Had they found the Upgrade Predator? Had they found the gizmo Rory had gotten his hands on?
The mercs were talking among themselves. As far as they were concerned, he was done. As good as dead. The only thing remaining would be the bullet that punctuated the end of his personal sentence.
McKenna squeezed his eyes shut. One of the people getting on board the chopper seemed so much smaller than the others. If he hadn’t been kicked in the head, it might have gained him a second, but then he blinked his vision clear and realized the little guy was Rory and that he was being dragged on board. These fuckers working for Traeger weren’t content to question them—these assholes were about to take his son on a chopper ride, take him away from his old man, use him somehow.
The chopper started to lift off. It whorled skyward.
That moment or two had cost McKenna a chance to reach Rory. Rage boiled behind his eyes.
“Golf tomorrow?” one of the mercs asked the other, ever so casual, as he drew his gun to finish Quinn McKenna. Whatever they had needed him for, they clearly didn’t need him anymore.
“Why not?” the other merc replied, so reasonable, so personable. They had a golf date, these two assholes.
McKenna coughed up ropey strands of blood. “You know what burns me up…” he managed. “You never even… read my file. Did you?”
The mercs traded amused glances.
“What makes you think that?” the gunman asked, voice thick with condescension.
“’Cause you’re making plans for tomorrow,” McKenna said.
The mercs laughed, thinking about their tee time.
“Worst part,” McKenna went on, “is you making me lie to my son. I really don’t like to do that.”
The second merc snickered. “What lie did you tell him?”
“That I wouldn’t enjoy this,” McKenna grunted.
His hand darted out, snatched the first guy’s forearm. Using his other hand for leverage, he twisted, put his weight behind it, and snapped the asshole’s forearm with a satisfyingly audible crack that echoed like a gunshot across the holding pen. He liberated the gun from the merc’s flopping hand and pressed it to his eye, then pulled the trigger. Muffled by eyeball and brain and skull and hair as it exited the back of the guy’s head, it didn’t sound much like a gunshot at all.
The dead merc dropped with a thud as McKenna stood and leveled the gun at the second merc, who froze, staring at him, trying to figure out how the hell a guy who’d looked halfway dead could move so fast.
On the other side of the holding pen, Nebraska, his hands tied behind his back, snorted up a mouthful of blood and phlegm and spat it into the straw. His body was throbbing from the beating he’d taken, but it was all just bumps and bruises. He was pretty sure nothing was broken.
He’d heard the helicopter taking off, and not much since. He’d been left unguarded—surely it was too much to hope that Traeger and his goons had lost interest in them and headed off to pastures new? If Nebraska were in Traeger’s position, he certainly wouldn’t be leaving any loose ends behind. The thought had barely formed in his mind when the door of the holding pen opened, framing a black-clad merc.