Fear (14 page)

A smirk spread across the man's face. “You think I'm scared of you, little girl? There's nothing special about you.”

Tatiana put her hands under the man's shoulders and shoved until she had rolled him onto his side. Then she grabbed for his left hand. Without hesitation, she pulled his little finger away from the others and bent it back.

Hard.

There was
a soft, sickening pop
. The spy let out a surprised squeal that sounded more like a small child than a grown man.

Gaia gasped in shock. She knew Tatiana wanted her mother back, but it was clear that Gaia didn't really know this girl she had been living with for the last few weeks. Didn't really know how far Tatiana would go.

True to her word, Tatiana didn't ask the man anything. She just grabbed the next finger in line and started to push.

“I. . . I. . . ,” the spy whimpered.

There was another pop. To Gaia, the noise was like popcorn cooking in an old metal pot. Tatiana let go of the second finger and moved to the one in the middle.

Dark as it was under the trees, Gaia could still see all the blood draining from the man's face. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead.

“You better tell her what she wants to know,” Gaia said. “Or you're going to have a hard time working that cell phone.”

The man on the ground was no longer smiling.
He no longer looked like he was about to laugh—though crying seemed like a possibility.
“I can't,” he said. “I just—”

Pop. Tatiana took hold of the man's index finger and started to bend it back.

“Ahhh! All right. All right. Tell her to stop.”

“You talk, and she'll stop.”

“I can give you an address,” the spy said quickly.

Tatiana still held her grip on the man's finger, but she stopped pushing. “Is my mother at this address?”

“No, but Loki is.”

Tatiana pressed back on his finger. “Are you sure?”

“Yes! Yes! I'm sure.” The spy gasped and swallowed hard. “It's in an office building down off Eighteenth Street.” He rattled off a street number. “Go to the door on the south side at the bottom. That's where you'll find him.”

Tatiana looked up at Gaia. “What do you think? Is he telling the truth?”

Gaia shrugged. “If he's not telling the truth after that, I don't want to see what it takes to make him talk.”

Tatiana stood and gave the spy a kick with the toe of her boot. She was breathing hard. Her blond hair had come loose from the teal-colored scarf and hung down around her face. The knees of her jeans were marked with grass stains and damp circles from the dew.

She looks familiar,
thought Gaia.

“Put the tape back on him,” Tatiana said.

“No,” said the man. “You have to let me go. Once Loki finds out that I've told you anything, he'll kill me.”

Gaia walked over to where Tatiana had dropped her book bag and fished out the roll of silvery duct tape. She pulled off a six-inch length and tore it free. “Once we've had a chance to check out that address, we'll come back and let you go.”

The spy shook his head. “No. That's too late. Loki will—”

Gaia slapped the tape over his mouth, cutting off his words.
“Be grateful,” she said. “At least this time I'm not covering your nose.”

Tatiana stood over the man, her arms folded. “We will let you go if you told the truth,” she said. “But if you lied to us, or I find out you had something to do with hurting my mother, I will come back here and break all the other fingers.” Tatiana glared down at the spy. “And then,” she said, “I think I will kill you.”

From the expression in the man's eyes, Gaia had no doubt he believed it.

From:
Comm Ops

To:
L

Agent M failed to transmit scheduled hourly status report and has not responded to pages.

From:
L

To:
Comm Ops

Reroute Agent H to locate agent M. Continue to attempt contact. Have replacement agent stand by at shift-change position.

The fear pounded on her like a hammer. Her head swam, and her heart knocked against her ribs.

WHEN THE FEAR CAME BACK,
it didn't come back slowly. It came back in a rush. One moment Heather was lying on the floor, completely calm. The next moment she was in terror.

She screamed and clawed at the floor tile with broken fingernails. After a few moments she managed to get herself under control enough to climb to her feet, but all she could do was stand in the middle of the room, trembling and listening to her own racing heart.

What's happening to me?

She felt hot, flushed. Her arms and legs ached like she had been in an accident. Her vision was fuzzy. There was a high-pitched ringing in her ears. She couldn't remember anything, not even a childhood bout of meningitis, that had made her feel so bad.

The last few days were a blur in her mind. Some images stood out: Josh showing her a cage with mice inside, a circle of faces in a hallway at school, a room in some house that Heather didn't recognize. Blood on a floor. That's all there was left of her memories—a handful of images surrounded by nothing. Like photographs in a bowl of oatmeal.

Her throat burned from thirst. Heather took a step toward the kitchen, but she got no farther before a spasm shot through her legs and up to her spine. She stumbled and fell onto the couch. The room spun around her. The shapes of everything in the apartment seemed distorted, horrible, terrifying.

Then the fear was gone. She could remember that she had been afraid, and she remembered why she had been afraid, but the actual feeling—the
stomach-clamping horror
—was completely erased. She sat up on the couch and watched her left leg as the knee kicked and the foot flopped around on its own.

There's nothing to worry about. I don't worry. I'm fearless.

Still, she thought maybe she should call Josh. Josh had been there, she was almost certain of it, though she couldn't remember what he had been saying to her. If she called Josh, maybe they could go out somewhere. They could sneak into one of those West Side clubs that used to intimidate Heather—back when she had still been afraid. She started to get up, and then. . . absolute horror.

Heather put her hands over her face.
The fear pounded on her like a hammer. Her head swam, and her heart knocked against her ribs.
What am I doing? Am I going crazy? Am I already there?

“Josh,” she whispered. This had something to do with Josh. She struggled to search through the swamp of her memory and put together what had happened. It had all started with Josh. At first he was just this good-looking guy in the coffee shop. Then he had asked her out. It had seemed so great. How long ago was that? Two days? A thousand years?

Josh had taken her to see something. The cage with the mice, that was it. He had told her that Gaia was
some kind of freak.
That Gaia was never afraid. And he had promised Heather that she could take a drug and be just as fearless as Gaia.

And I took it. Didn't I. I took the drug to be fearless.

But something was wrong with the drug. Terribly, impossibly wrong. Heather wasn't fearless. She was terrified. And she was pretty sure of something else—she was dying.

Tears ran down her face. She had to get to the phone and call Josh. He was the only one that knew what had been done to her. He was the only one that might be able to help.

Heather started for the kitchen, but within a couple of steps she collapsed on the floor. So she crawled. As she crawled toward the kitchen with tears dripping from her chin and her arms and legs
covered with invisible ants,
the only thing she had to feel grateful for was the fact that her poor parents weren't home to witness the tragic spectacle of it all.

Heather had never been so afraid.

From:
H

To:
L

Have retraced last two miles of Agent M's assigned route. No sign of agent or assigned subject. Ten minutes to shift change. Replacement standing by.

From:
L

To:
H

Continue to search area. We must reacquire immediately.

THERE WAS A FAINT GLOW
ahead.

“This way,” Tom whispered. He stroked his hands, dog paddling through the warm, dark water toward the light.

From behind him he could hear splashing, which meant Natasha was near, though it was too dark in the cavern to see her. “Is that the way out?” she asked.

“It's light,” said Tom. “That's better than dark.”

They had been down in the darkness, treading water, for at least an hour now. Tom didn't know if the water in the cave was ten feet deep or a hundred. He knew it was deeper than six-foot four, and that was all that mattered. So far, the only good news about their drop into the pit was that Carlo and his men hadn't followed. That was also the bad news. If no one had bothered to follow, the guards must not believe there was any escape from the cave.

As Tom closed in on the light ahead, he saw that it was coming through a man-made square opening in the roof of the cavern. It was a floor grate, similar to the one he had jumped through to reach the cave. Considering how easy it was to get turned around in the absolute darkness, it could easily be the
same
grate they had come through.

Tom stopped swimming and waited until Natasha was right beside him. “Slow down,” he whispered. “Try not to make a sound.”

If Natasha nodded or made a gesture, Tom couldn't see it. But she did slow down and quiet her movements. Tom swam forward again in a half dog paddle, half breaststroke, keeping his face fixed on the opening. The light from above wasn't very helpful—it was a dull red and came from a distant torch. This time the grate was much closer to the water. Maybe it was a different one, or maybe the tide had raised the water level. Either way, it looked like Tom could easily reach the grate and climb out.

Natasha came up at Tom's side. For the first time in an hour, he could see her face as she moved into the ruddy glow from above. She looked beautiful, as always, but she also looked wet and extremely tired.

Tom pointed up at the grate. “What do you think?” he whispered. “Should we try it?”

“We have to try something soon,” she replied. “I can't tread water much longer.”

With his own legs and arms feeling like limp spaghetti, Tom was certainly sympathetic. He reached up and grabbed for the bars on the grate.

Immediately a series of shots rang out and bullets snapped against the metal bars. Sparks flew into the darkness.

Tom released his grip on the bars and threw himself back. “Get away! Quick!”

From overhead a voice shouted, “Idiot! I told you to wait until they were coming up.”

There was a reply, but Tom was too busy swimming to make it out. Only when the light was a distant, barely there smudge in the darkness did he dare to stop. “Natasha? Natasha, where are you?”

“Over here. Come this way.”

Tom paddled toward her voice. “Are you all right?”

“Better than all right,” she called back. “Come see what I found.”

Tom took a few more strokes in her direction. On the third stroke his hand came down hard on rough stone. “Natasha?”

“Over here,” came a voice from his left. “There's dry land to stand on, if you don't mind the crabs.”

Now that she had mentioned it, Tom could hear the faint hissing of dozens of hard little feet moving on the rocks. One crab ran over his hand as he pulled himself out of the water. Another brushed against his leg. Tom got to his feet with a shiver. He had never had a fear of things like spiders or crabs, but down here in the dark, with the beasts crawling all over, it would be an easy fear to develop.

“Over here,” Natasha called again. “I see light.”

Tom stood up, wincing as something crunched under his right foot, then picked his way across the uneven rocks toward the sound of her voice. “What is it? Another floor grate?”

“I don't think so. Not this time.”

In another few steps Tom could see the light himself. Unlike the torchlight, this was a cool, pulsing silver-blue. When he cleared the top of the hill, he could see Natasha's silhouette standing in front of a pool of water. Though rock walls surrounded it on every side, the water itself was alive with rippling light.

Natasha turned her face to him as he approached. “Moonlight?”

Tom nodded. “I think so.”

“Is it a way out?”

“I think it's the best chance we're going to get.” Tom went down to the edge of the water and tried to see where the light was coming from, but all he could see was the mouth of a water-filled passage. The ocean could be only a few strokes away or a hundred.

“Wait here,” he said. “I'll swim through, then come back for you.”

“No,” said Natasha. “I'm coming with you.”

“But they could be watching the exit.”

“I know that.”

“It might be too far to swim.”

“I don't care,” she said. She moved closer to Tom and slipped an arm around his waist. Even in the dark and damp cave, she felt wonderfully warm. “I'm not staying down here alone.”

Tom put his arm around her and squeezed her hard. “Come on,” he said. “Let's go see our girls.”

Ten seconds later the cave was empty. The crabs reclaimed their rock.

From:
H

To:
L

Still no contact with M. Has not met replacement at shift change and has not followed standard report times. Signs indicate that agent M may have been compromised. Subject has not been reacquired.

From:
L