Children of Evolution (The Gateway Series Book 2) (49 page)

This was no time to celebrate. Her real test was finding the color. And for that she had to push harder. She just had to find the right way to nudge his mind where she wanted it to go.
 

She considered and discarded several options in the space of a breath. Everything she came up with was too obvious or required her to say too much. She wanted to keep her words simple and clipped. Otherwise, Gideon was sure to realize the thoughts were not his own.

Before she could settle on an approach, Gideon slammed his fist down onto the desk, startling Kate enough to make her cry out.
 

Enough,
Gideon snapped in his head.
This is a distraction, nothing more.

On the screen, Gideon stood and flipped the center tablet face down with unnecessary force. He wasn't wearing his overcoat for once. Kate could see the smooth black skin on the back of his neck, the sharp angles of his alien arm under his thin shirt. He looked younger, more vital without the bulky coat. He looked furious.

Kate didn't need to hear his thoughts to know his anger was barely contained below the surface. Now was not the time for this. Gideon was wrestling with real problems, real concerns. He was in no mood to play mind games.

Kate knew it was time to pull back. She knew she had no place in Gideon's mind. Not now. Which was why what she did next made her heart lurch.

Stop avoiding it,
she thought in Gideon's low voice.
 

On the screen, Gideon shook his dark head and turned away from the desk. He walked toward another wall out of the camera's field of view, and Kate moved without thinking. She stepped to the controls and rotated the camera, zooming it closer to bring Gideon and the old wall map in front of him into view.

Even zoomed in, the camera didn't let Kate make out much in the way of detail, but she didn't need it. She recognized the Washington coastline, the mountains to the east, and the area well north of the Canadian border where Gideon's gaze was locked.
 

Something went wrong,
he thought.
He should have checked in long ago.

He had to mean Cole, but Gideon had been the one to placate Ace after the first missed check-in. He'd gone into detail about Cole's unique physiology and its effect on electronics. He'd expected loss of contact then. What had changed?
 

Gideon started calculating again, only this time the formulas were simple and easy to recognize. He calculated foot speed between the base and the Zone Theater. Then he calculated between the base and Cole's first two check-ins. Kate knew the results before he found them. She'd run those numbers herself. She'd been the first to say the creatures should be covering more ground, but the rest of the team had disagreed. Gideon had disagreed.

I rationalized the difference,
Kate thought, struggling to keep the words in Gideon's voice.
I told them proximity—

The least of my lies,
Gideon said to himself.
The alien doesn't tire. If it senses her, it runs. It does not slow. It does not stop.
 

Kate ignored her pounding heart, blocked out the presence she could feel behind her, even when gentle hands touched her arms. Gideon's thoughts were all she could hear. His thoughts were her whole world. She pictured his mouth forming the words, imagined his low voice saying,
If I am simply being paranoid—

Then Cole is still trailing the pack north,
Gideon picked up the thought.
And the full width of the mountain range separates them from the cabin.

Kate swallowed.

But if I am right—
she thought.

Gideon paused, standing motionless before the map, his mind silent. Then he turned and looked up into the camera.
If I am right, Kate, the pack could reach the cabin in a matter of hours, if it hasn't already.

Padre

Padre slid deeper into the hollow of the fallen tree, his movements slow and steady, if intermittent. He timed every movement to match the swaying of nearby branches when the wind passed over his hide. He was being overly cautious for the mission at hand, but keeping skills sharp required practice, and patience.

The thick aroma of decaying wood and rich loam filled his nose as he slid forward on his chest, centimeter by centimeter to position himself around his rifle.
 

This was a good hide, the best he'd found so far. From here he could see the south-west corner of the cabin, which included Nikki's window and the kitchen door and back porch, and he had a partial view of the shed and makeshift practice yard off the cabin's north-west side. The twisted dying limbs drooping over his head broke up his rifle's profile from above and two sides without obscuring his sight lines. He didn't have an easy means of bugging out from this hide, not without being seen, but the enemy he was guarding against wasn't likely to fire back or target his position with heavy ordinance, so concealment and wider sight lines were an acceptable trade-off for immobility.

His vantage wasn't perfect. Even as close as he was—less than one hundred meters from the back porch—the tree cover made his field of view spotty with dead zones, but this position offered the best mix of angles. From here he could keep an eye on the most vulnerable entry to the cabin as well as the most likely approach vector of the hostiles, among other things.

The back door from the kitchen squeaked open and Corso sauntered onto the porch. Like clockwork he slipped out each night for a smoke after the evening meal. At least, that's what he claimed.
 

Sure enough Corso slid one of his slender black cigars from his shirt pocket and ran his eyes over the woods as he fished in a cargo pocket with his other hand. His eyes passed over the hide without pausing.
 

Padre eased his cheek against the stock. He kept both eyes open but shifted most of his focus to his dominant eye. Through the scope he watched Corso pull something metallic out of his pocket. The man shielded the object with his hand, whether out of subterfuge or habit was yet to be seen. Padre followed Corso's cupped hand up until the thief flicked the lighter to life.
 

Just a lighter.
 

The voice of reason in Padre's mind said he was being too paranoid about the thief. Possible. Padre gave the voice a mental nod in thanks for its opinion, then he ignored it.

He caught movement out of his other eye and shifted his focus to watch the kitchen door swing open and Nikki step out. She went straight to Corso, who turned and leaned sideways against the rail in a long S, snake and charmer in one.

Padre felt his eyes tighten. He didn't need the voice of reason to tell him why he refused to give Lane Corso even the smallest bit of slack. He'd stopped trying to fool himself on that score. The voice said her name anyway, and again Padre gave it a mental nod, careful to avoid sarcasm. Intuition and reason were gifts to be encouraged and honored, not disrespected, even when they overstated the obvious.

He lifted his head slightly to clear the scope and scanned his full field of view. The shadows were growing deeper under the trees as dusk settled in, but he didn't need his night optics, not yet. Naked eyes and instinct were king for a few minutes more. At the moment, they detected nothing out of place in the darkening woods.

On the porch, Nikki and Corso were talking, but Padre couldn't hear more than an occasional word or two from Nikki—something about making good on a bet.
 

Elias wouldn't be thrilled to know Nikki was gambling with the likes of Corso. Clear path to trouble, that was. If Padre told him, however, he'd want to talk to Nikki about it, which would only encourage her to persist. For now, Padre would keep this development to himself.

He cut his eyes to the area south of the cabin at a flurry of movement. Dark wings flashed and low branches shook as two scuffling forms took to the air. Birds, sparring over a nest, most likely.

He glanced back just in time to see Corso and Nikki step in to each other. Nikki's hands gripped Corso's sides. One of Corso's dark hands snaked into the small of her back, the other splayed on the back of her neck and slid up into her multi-colored hair. Then their mouths met.

Padre tried to move his gaze past them, but it refused to budge. His eyes stayed locked on the couple, his gaze pinned in place with needles that dug all the way down into his chest.
 

The voice of reason told him he'd known this was coming. It told him he'd made his decision when he'd decided he was too old for her. It told him he couldn't blame Corso. Then it echoed Cole's words telling him he was a fool. None of those words made him feel any better.

After several long minutes, Nikki stepped away. Even from this distance, she looked breathless. Even from this distance, Padre could see Nikki's smile before she walked back to the door and slipped inside. Corso stayed where he was.

Padre eased his eye back behind the scope and focused on the thief, who turned his back to the hide and leaned against the porch rail, pulling something from his pocket and giving it his full attention.
 

Padre couldn't see what the man was doing, so his mind went to the worst possibilities. For a few seconds he speculated about whom Corso was contacting. Then he reined in his thoughts. He was letting emotion cloud his judgment. He was reacting instead of gathering intel. Even so, it would be so easy. His finger flexed outside the trigger guard, and Cole's voice whispered in his memory, asking him why he wasn't running "the snake" away from his girl.

But that wasn't him. That wasn't the man his grandfather had raised. That wasn't the man he wanted to be. If Nikki wanted to be with Corso, so be it. Her choice. Putting a bullet in the man was no way to deal with the situation, regardless of Padre's suspicions, or paranoia. Even entertaining the idea was a mistake. More than that, it was a—

Padre clenched his jaw and dropped his aim to track movement in the low brush off the porch. He should have registered the movement earlier. He would have if he hadn't gotten so preoccupied.
 

With a naked eye he might have mistaken the flash of sharp black through the brush for a beak, another bird foraging in the undergrowth. Through the scope he saw it for what it was, an armored joint pushing briefly through the green as its owner crawled silently toward the cabin.
 

As it closed on the edge of the trees the figure eased from the ground cover, giving Padre a clear view of its armored back. It was one of the creatures, one of Gideon's alien hunters. And it was seconds from pouncing on an oblivious Corso.

Padre centered his crosshairs low on the creature's back. He'd zeroed the rifle for one hundred meters, but the alien was close enough to that mark to make little difference.
 

Before he set finger to trigger, he shifted his gaze to scan around his target. As he'd suspected, the creature wasn't alone. A second creature advanced to the left of the first, a few paces farther back. The two of them must have passed within a dozen meters of the hide without Padre noticing.
 

He'd reprimand himself later. Right now he had to raise the alarm. Right now he had to save the life of the man he'd just considered ending.
 

Padre's off hand started a slow slide back toward his collar, but he stopped it halfway. He couldn't make the call first. If the creatures heard him, they might spook. He might lose his shot. That could cost Corso, or someone more important, their life. He had to take them out first.
 

The swing between the two creatures was short. He could take the rear first and fire on the leader before it knew what was happening. He didn't have time for slow and careful though. He had to take his shots now. The creature in front was almost in striking distance.
 

Padre slowed his breathing, running his calming mantra through his mind, detaching himself from the urgency of the situation, reducing the scenario before him to a simple series of motions. He centered his aim on the second creature on his inhale. He exhaled slowly and—

The sound wasn't much—a soft hiss of leaves brushing against a hard surface—but it was close. He shifted his eyes to the right and caught movement. Another creature was slipping past him toward the cabin, ghosting through the trees less than three paces away.
 

He cut his eyes to the left, careful not to move his head. Another creature approached on his left, only this one wasn't following the first three. This one was following a different scent. It was hunting him.
 

The creature was only a few meters away, but its red gaze passed right over Padre. It lifted its head, sniffing the air, then took a step closer. It knew he was there. It could smell him. But it couldn't pick him out from the tree. Not yet.

Padre looked front. The lead creature was clear of the woods and only two paces from the porch. It slowed and crouched lower, getting ready to pounce. The porch was nearly a meter off the ground, then there was the rail, but he had no doubt the creature would clear both with ease. Corso would never know what hit him.

Padre had to take the shot now. He had to call in and sound the alarm. But the second he did either, the creatures nearby would make him. The one stalking him would be on him before he could shift his aim. If he wanted to live, he had to strike the one next to him first and let Corso fall.
 

He couldn't do that. Acceptable as Corso's loss might feel at the moment, there were other factors. Once the creatures took the porch, he couldn't fire on them. He couldn't risk a round penetrating into the cabin.
 

He had to act now.

I am steady as the earth.
 

He lined his crosshairs low on the lead creature's back as it gathered itself to leap.

I am calm as the trees.

He shifted his finger to the trigger and eased it back toward the breaking point as he breathed out half his breath.