Ashes of Time (The After Cilmeri Series) (22 page)

Dad turned in his saddle
and surveyed the men who followed him. He had a
teulu
of fifty, all trusted, all
capable of finding a way to Harlech alone if need be.

“
Four would be enough,”
David said. “In a little boat, with Madog on the move, they might
be able to slip up the back stairway unnoticed.”

“
We’ll address that in a
moment.” Dad faced the messenger. “Of Madog’s two thousand men, how
many are spearmen and archers, and how many are
horsemen?”

“
No more than two hundred
on horseback.” The scout’s manner turned matter-of-fact. “The rest
are on foot.”

“
That means he can’t move
them far,” Cadwallon said. “Or he can try, but we can move much
faster. He must have left Harlech almost at the moment he laid
siege to it.”

“
Two hundred horsemen.”
Justin tapped a finger to his lips. “Would he bring them
all?”

“
Cavalry are no use in a
siege,” David said. “Say he leaves a minimum of two hundred at
Harlech. Most should be bowmen. That leaves him with all of the
cavalry and well over a thousand archers and spearmen with whom to
march north.”

“
Where will they seek to
confront us?” Justin said. He knew very little about the lay of the
land in Wales, but he’d studied the maps.

David knew the road to Beddgelert well. At
one time, he and Math had ranged all over Gwynedd for precisely
this reason. It was what every lord worth his salt did with his
days: exploring the countryside and making sure that he knew every
creek, every trail through the underbrush. It served not only to
keep his men sharp, but meant that one day, if needed, he could
make decisions like this one with full knowledge of the
landscape.

Ieuan scanned the mountains to the south. If
not for the clouds, Mt. Snowdon would have loomed above them, fewer
than ten miles away. “Madog might seek to defend the crossing at
Beddgelert.”

“
Or later, when the road
narrows to nothing at Aberglaslyn,” David said. “That would get my
vote.”

“
We need to know for sure.”
Carew bent his gaze on the messenger. “How much of what you are
telling us have you yourself seen?”

The scout’s eyes went wide, but he answered
steadily enough. “Three of us saw him cross the river at Maentwrog
and trailed after him until he started up the road to Beddgelert.
At that point, I circled around to the north. Once I was clear of
them, I rode as fast as I could to warn you.”

Dad straightened in his seat, resolve in his
eyes. “We’ll take the road to Dolbadarn and flank them over the
Nantmor. And we’ll do it tonight.”

Nobody told him he was crazy.

“
We can steal every
available man from Bangor and Dolbadarn. And send word to
Dolwyddelan so that when Math reaches the castle, he will know what
we undertake,” David said.

“
He’ll come late,” Ieuan
said. “And he’ll find either clean-up work or, if we’ve lost, the
need to finish what we started.”

“
At least he’ll have
warning about what he’s riding into.” David checked the sky. It was
technically early afternoon, but here at the end of November, the
daylight was already fading. “If we do as you plan, Dad, we’ll be
working entirely in the dark.”

“
So will they,” Dad
said.

“
We cannot assume Madog is
going to make a mistake,” Ieuan said. “He has had more time to plan
than we have. He won’t assume we’ll walk into his trap
unawares.”

“
Nor can we assume he’ll
walk into ours,” Dad said, “but that doesn’t mean we won’t lay it
just the same.”

Chapter
Thirteen

November 2019

Anna

T
he
cut on Anna��s neck was starting to scab over a bit. With a damp
paper towel, she dabbed at the blood that had dried on her
neck.

Mom came out of one of the bathroom stalls
and studied the wound. “It looks okay, hon. You can hardly even
tell it’s there.”

Anna looked down at her hands, surprised
they weren’t shaking, and ran them under the warm water from the
tap. The bathroom was freezing. They had crossed the border into
California a bit ago, and Callum had deemed it safe enough for a
five-minute break at a derelict gas station in the tiny town where
he’d chosen to stop. Anna could forgive him the cold temperature
since the gas station had no cameras.

“
How much farther,
Mom?”

“
An hour, Callum
says.”

Anna closed her eyes. “I wish we were
there.”

Mom put her arm around Anna’s shoulders. “We
will be.”

They returned to the car. Callum had stocked
up on water, diet soda (Cassie’s preference), and junk food. Anna
was too tired to be excited about it, but she took a bag of potato
chips anyway. Then Cassie’s phone beeped at her.

“
I thought we weren’t
calling anyone?” Anna said.

“
She’s Skyping with Jones,”
Callum said in a low tone. “The mobile phone company records it as
a use of the internet rather than a phone call, and that means it’s
less traceable.”

That sounded good to Anna until Cassie said,
“What do you mean we’re not going to make San Francisco?”

Anna couldn’t hear Mark’s response, but
Cassie shot Callum a worried look. He mouthed, ‘speakerphone!’ at
her, and she pulled the phone down from her ear and pressed a
button.

“
I’m tired of riding blind,
Jones,” Callum said. “What’s happening?”

“
Nothing on our end that
should concern you right now,” Mark said. “I can bring you up to
speed when you get here.”

At least you’re still saying ‘when’,” Callum
said, “not ‘if’.”

“
We’re going to get you
here,” Mark said, and there was a grim quality to his voice that
hadn’t been in it until now. “But it doesn’t help that a warrant
has been issued for your arrest. It’s gone nationwide.”

“
What the hell?” Callum
said.

“
Why?” Cassie
said.

“
Why isn’t the question,”
Mark said. “It’s who issued it.”

“
Then who?” Callum
said.

“
The FBI. Anna is wanted
for questioning regarding the disappearance of her brother,” Mark
said. “The three of you are what they’re calling ‘known
associates’. That seems to be the best they could come up
with.”

“
They could have charged me
with Marty’s disappearance,” Mom said.

Typically, she was willing to take the
pressure off Anna because she was her mom. Anna rubbed her
shoulder. “Whether me or you, it hardly matters,” she said.

“
Isn’t there a statute of
limitations on something like that?” Mom said.

“
Not on murder,” Mark
said.

Anna didn’t know whether to laugh or to tear
out her hair. She leaned forward to speak into the phone. “So it’s
our own government that wants us?”

“
So it seems,” Mark said,
“but your government at times can hardly be distinguished from the
private contractors it hires. Half the police forces in your
country are now privately owned. Who’s to say where it
ends?”

“
That’s crazy!” Anna said.
“When did that happen?”

“
Cities were strapped for
cash. Detroit went bankrupt, and that was only the first of many,”
Cassie said. “Most forces are staffed by veterans like Callum who
came home from the Middle East needing a job. Policing for a
private company was familiar and paid well.”

“
How does a city police
force make money?” Anna said.

“
By arresting people, of
course,” Callum said. “Tickets, fines, confiscated
materials.”

Mom snorted. “That sounds remarkably like
the medieval inquisition that David is trying so hard to
counter.”

Callum glanced in the rearview mirror at
her. “Much like it, yes.”

Anna looked from Callum to Mom. “You mean
like what happened to the Jews? Trumped up charges or search and
seizure, legal or not, so the authorities could confiscate their
property?”

“
Land of the free and home
of the brave,” Cassie said in an undertone.

Anna waved a hand. “Okay, regardless of all
that, how are we getting to that plane?” She didn’t want to ignore
other people’s pain, but they had Mark on the line and were
digressing.

Mark cleared his throat. “I was getting to
that. George Spencer, from the consulate in San Francisco, is going
to meet you at the car park for the Solano County Fairgrounds.”

“
Wait a minute.” Mom took
out her phone and accessed the map function. Anna was surprised Mom
knew how to use it. Maybe she’d acquired a smartphone in the
eighteen months she’d been here after Anna and David went to Wales.
Anna would have had no idea where to start.

Cassie, meanwhile, started pressing buttons
on the dashboard. “Got it,” they both said at the same time.

“
We’re ten miles out,”
Cassie said.

“
He’s a bit farther, but
he’ll be there when he can. You need to get off the highway and
keep a low profile until he can find you.”

Anna leaned over to look at Mom’s phone.
“There’s a Six Flags there.”

“
What’s that?” Mark
said.

Anna spoke louder. “Six Flags. It’s an
amusement park. Is it going to be open today, or will we be the
only ones in the parking lot?”

Cassie puffed a laugh. “This is Black
Friday, remember? Believe me, it’s open.”

“
What does Spencer look
like?” Callum said.

“
Thin, average height,
balding brown hair, wicked sense of humor,” Mark said.

Callum laughed. “Got it.”

Ten minutes later, they found themselves
stuck in a mile-long traffic jam to get into Six Flags, and twenty
minutes after that, they pulled into the parking lot of the
fairgrounds.

“
The traffic must have been
better coming from the south,” Mom said.

“
Why’s that?” Anna
said.

Mom tipped her head to the right, pointing
to the black SUV that had just pulled in. “Do any of you drive
anything but black SUVs?” she said to Callum.

He opened his door. “Apparently not.”

“
We have less than a
minute.” A man looking very much as Mark had described leaped from
his vehicle.

“
What happens after a
minute?” Anna said as she got out of the car too.

“
I just dropped off my son
and his two friends at Six Flags,” George said. “If either your
vehicle or mine is being tracked, a detour into this car park could
look like a shortcut—”

“—
or it could look like a
meet.” Callum dumped the duffel bag from Wal-Mart into the open
rear door of the SUV and got into the front seat.

“
It’s been twenty-seven
seconds by my count,” Cassie said.

“
Is it likely someone is
tracking you, George?” Anna said.

George eyed her. “You’re Anna?”

She nodded.

“
I always assume someone is
tracking me.” George shook hands with Callum. “Jones taught me
that.”

The three women piled into the back seat
while George climbed back into the driver’s seat with Callum beside
him and drove off.

“
What about the rental
car?” Anna said.

“
Our office will take care
of it on Monday,” George said.

Callum nodded, removed the battery from the
key fob for the rental car, and dropped both it and the fob into
the glove box of George’s SUV. He closed it with a snap.
“Monitoring George, who has diplomatic immunity, would be illegal,
but our adversaries don’t seem much concerned about legality
today.”

“
George, do you know the
specifics of what we face other than the warrant for Anna’s
arrest?” Cassie said.

Anna still couldn’t quite get over the fact
that she was a wanted woman and wondered what people who had known
her—if they heard about it—would think when they learned of her new
criminal record.

“
I know only that she’s
wanted,” George said. “I, of course, haven’t been to the office
today, so I have no notion that any of you are fugitives from the
law, or else I would never have picked you up. My task is to get
Director Callum to his airplane, as ordered by the Home Office. The
individuals accompanying him are neither my problem nor my
concern.”

Callum turned to look at Anna, who was
squashed on the bench seat between Cassie and Mom. “They don’t know
it, but you’re our ideal culprit, and your crime is perfect.”

“
How so?” Mom
said.

“
For starters, it isn’t
even a crime. Anna’s wanted for questioning in David’s
disappearance, but they have no body and no evidence of foul
play—only that he was last seen with her. The order to apprehend
her will be seen by local police as urgent but not that
urgent.”

Cassie nodded. “If Anna were to be seen, the
police would follow her, but they wouldn’t shoot. She isn’t armed
and dangerous. She’s wanted for questioning.”

“
I guess that’s something,”
Anna said, unable to keep from sounding morose. Being a fugitive
might sound adventurous from the comfort of a living room couch,
but it felt a lot less fun in reality. She was tired, hungry, and
scared. If she hadn’t been with Mom, Cassie, and Callum, she might
have curled up into a ball like a hedgehog.