Journey Into the Flame (34 page)

She shook her head. “Did you see that in one of your visions?”

“Nope,” he said with a smile. “Just luck this time.”

Valerie walked to the door and called in a WCF agent, who entered the library toting a bag of equipment. She pointed to the wall. “We need to open that safe.”

The agent called in two more members of the team. It took only a few moments for them to evaluate the situation.

“This safe has a DFL device protected by a plastic guard,” one of them said.

“A what?” Logan asked.

“A DNA frequency lock,” Valerie explained. “Just like the ones used on Destiny Boxes, except that if you try to break into one of these without the proper DNA sample, it will self-destruct, destroying whatever’s inside. What about the plastic guard?” she asked the agent.

“I can pick that lock easy,” the agent said confidently. “It’s the DFL you have to worry about. It’s probably linked to only one person, so we’ll need a sample of DNA.”

Logan and Valerie looked at each other and had the same thought. Valerie used her PCD and placed a call to an agent upstairs. “We need a hair sample from the doctor. I’m in the subbasement, in the library.”

“How many chances do we get with a DFL lock?” Logan asked.

“You never know,” the agent said. “Each lock is different and configured by the owner. It could be three, it could be fifty. It could even be one.”

“Worse yet, we don’t know what kind of destruction sequence it is set to,” Valerie added. “It could just take out what’s in the safe. Or it could take out this whole lab.”

“Like the plantation,” Logan whispered to himself.

“We’re not going to take any chances,” Valerie asserted, as an agent handed her the hair sample she’d requested. “After you penetrate the plastic cover, we’ll get everyone out of here before we try to unlock the safe.”

“Then you might as well start moving people out of here now. That elevator is the only way up, and it’s small. I’ll have this cover off in a few seconds.”

Valerie used her PCD and spoke to Luke, who had gone upstairs, while the agent began to remove the plastic containment surrounding the safe. People began to leave the lab and ride the elevator up. “Let me
know when everyone is out, and we’ll open the DFL. We’ll give you the all-clear once we’re done,” Valerie said before ending her call.

Suddenly, an alarm went off. The display on the wall safe started flashing a countdown.

“We need to get everyone out of here right now!” Valerie shouted.

“What happened?” Logan asked.

“The plastic container was wired,” the agent said, as the timer counted down from ninety seconds. “Try the hair sample!”

Valerie ran over and placed a strand of the doctor’s hair on the sampling pad of the DFL. A series of chirping sounds commenced, activating a flashing red light. The alarm didn’t cease. “This isn’t the right DNA key!” Valerie yelled. “Everyone go, right now! We have to evacuate!”

Logan looked at the timer, which now read seventy-two.

Valerie led him and the other agent out of the library to the elevator, where several more agents were waiting to evacuate. The elevator was too small, and it would take a few more trips to get everyone out. The elevator doors closed, and another group of agents was on the way. Logan and Valerie were left with the last agent waiting for the elevator to return. The agent went over to the library door and looked at the safe. “Sixty and counting!” he yelled. Valerie pounded on the elevator door, trying somehow to coax it down faster.

“I thought for sure the doctor’s DNA was the key,” Logan murmured, as Valerie and the agent paced anxiously in front of the elevator.

The agent walked back to the library door and took another look at the safe. “Forty-five seconds!”

The elevator was on its way back down. “Get over here!” Valerie called to the agent. The elevator door opened, and the two of them rushed in. “What are you waiting for?” she yelled at Logan, who suddenly seemed lost in thought. She grabbed him by the arm and pulled him into the elevator. She pressed the only button on the panel.

“Wait! I have an idea!” Logan cried, as he rushed out of the closing elevator doors.

41

Learn to see your future without the mules of your past. Continue to see it that way, until it arrives burden-free.

—THE CHRONICLES OF SATRAYA

DULLES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, 11:08 A.M. LOCAL TIME,

2 DAYS UNTIL FREEDOM DAY

The summer travel season was in full swing at Dulles International Airport. It was the only airport in the Washington, D.C. area that had been rebuilt after the Great Disruption. The control tower, which managed the ten runways, boasted a link to the newly deployed Stranton aircraft-tracking system, a system based on sonic wave displacement rather than traditional radar. The old Reagan National Airport, meanwhile, had turned into useless marshland with the rise of the Potomac River. In memory of the people who had died when more than seven thousand airplanes fell from the sky during the Great Disruption, a monument made out of recovered plane parts had been constructed in the middle of the marsh.

Lucius rejoined Andrea and Monique after abandoning their car in the remote parking lot. The three of them entered Terminal A, where security was heavy. At least, it seemed that way to the group of fugitives. Andrea had a brown scarf draped over her head, Lucius wore a baseball hat and a pair of dark sunglasses, and Monique had let down her hair,
hoping it might shield her face. People of all ages were waiting impatiently in long lines at the ticket counters and the even longer queues at the security checkpoints. There would be no private plane for this trip. Andrea, Lucius, and Monique would be traveling with the masses.

Andrea looked at the departure board. “Our plane is set to leave in an hour.”

“Where’s the help Simon promised?” Lucius looked around the terminal. “It won’t take long for one of these facial-recognition cameras to figure out who we are.”

Monique took a seat in the waiting area. “How long do you think we will have to stay at the Château? I would really rather join my parents in Japan.”

“Until this is over,” Andrea answered sternly. “And you will have to stay there alone for a few days. Lucius and I have other business to attend to.”

“You mean the final Purging?” Monique asked.

“Shut up,” Lucius whispered. “Don’t talk about it here.”

“Yes, let us not discuss that at the moment,” Andrea agreed gently, striving to hide her displeasure that Monique had been made privy to certain pieces of information because of their unusual circumstances. “Everything will be fine once we arrive at the Château,” she continued, although she was beginning to question her decision not to let Lucius deal with Monique in the parking garage.

“I’d really rather be going home,” Monique said, making one last effort. None of this was unfolding as she had anticipated. She was supposed to have disappeared to Japan right after the Council members were killed. Becoming a fugitive had not been part of the plan. Nor did it seem like she was part of Andrea’s plan now.

“Ms. Montavon.” Andrea and Lucius both turned at the sound. A woman dressed in a dark blue suit was approaching them. She was a stocky five-foot-six and had short brown hair. A security badge hung from a thin silver chain around her neck. “My name is Gretchen. Please come with me,” she said, without exchanging any pleasantries.

Monique rose from her seat, and the three of them followed their escort as she circumvented the long security line and led them to a more private checkpoint near the departure gates.

“Your identification glass, please,” the guard said. The group provided their IDs. The guard scanned each one and handed them back, but he paused as he processed Monique’s. “What’s your name, Miss?” he asked.

“Ming-Lee Takido,” Monique answered.

“Do you have a PCD, Miss?” he asked.

“Is there a problem?” Gretchen inquired.

“The PCD identifier that her glass is associated with is not registered,” the guard explained.

Monique was ready to make up an excuse but was interrupted. “We know that,” Gretchen stated. “We deactivated her PCD as part of an agency operation. Is that going to be a problem?” She stared at the guard. “I can make a few calls, if you need me to.”

The guard looked at Monique, whose nerves were fraying, and then looked back at Gretchen. “No. No need for that. You all have a nice trip.” He handed the glass back to Monique, and Gretchen led them into the departure area for their flight.

The four of them waited in a corner, away from the crowd of travelers. Monique once again took a seat. She wasn’t feeling well. The stress of recent events was taking its toll on her.

“Give the agency our thanks,” Andrea told Gretchen, who acknowledged her with a nod and a slight smile. “Simon and I will not soon forget this.”

“I need to use the restroom,” Monique said, and she rose and headed directly for the ladies’ room, across the hallway from where they were waiting.

Andrea signaled to Lucius. He followed Monique to the restroom and waited for her outside the entrance.

Monique entered one of the stalls and closed the door behind her. Her anxiety level had reached its tipping point. She took a couple of
deep breaths and tried to regain her composure. She tied her hair into a ponytail and opened the door to the stall a few centimeters so she could peek out. The bathroom was crowded. A mother was tending to her baby while businesswomen were adjusting their makeup and hair. A group of teenagers walked in, talking loudly on their PCDs. Monique took her own PCD from her purse and placed a call. “It’s me,” she said softly, with desperation in her voice. “I’m in trouble, and you have to come get me.” She peeked out again. “No! You come get me right now, or I’ll tell them everything! Fifteen minutes, outside the international terminal.” Monique disconnected the call, placed the PCD on a small shelf in the stall, and stepped out.

•  •  •

Lucius waited patiently by the restroom entrance. Six minutes had passed, and Monique had not come out. But suddenly, a young woman holding a baby did.

“Someone stole the stroller and all the baby’s food!” she cried, catching the attention of her husband and everyone else in the area. “And she took my hat!”

Her husband rushed over to her. But Lucius got to her first. “What did she look like?” he demanded. “The girl who stole your stroller, what did she look like?”

The mother could not say. Lucius rushed into the restroom, much to the displeasure of the females inside. He looked around, inspecting the stalls, trying to locate Monique, but all he could find was a PCD. He grabbed it and left the ladies’ room in a fury, almost colliding with Andrea and Gretchen, who had noticed the commotion.

“She’s gone. She screwed us.” Lucius held up Monique’s activated PCD. “She turned it on!”

“We need to get out of here,” Gretchen said. “The WCF will trace that signal and will be here at any moment. You two are not flying anywhere today.”

“What about Monique?” Lucius asked, as he tossed her PCD into
a trashcan. The upset mother was still making a scene about the stolen stroller.

“We will have to deal with her later,” Andrea said angrily. “Stupid,
stupid
girl!”

Gretchen led them to an emergency exit, where she used her security badge to open the door without activating the alarm. Soon after, the WCF arrived on the scene.

Andrea received a message on her PCD from the man they’d met at the abandoned parking garage, saying that Monique’s new PCD ID had just been programmed in.

42

The mirror reflects precisely what it is shown. Turn your frown into a smile, and see how much lighter your reflection will make you feel.

—THE CHRONICLES OF SATRAYA

G-LAB, 11:40 A.M. LOCAL TIME, 2 DAYS UNTIL FREEDOM DAY

Logan reached up and grabbed a strand of hair from the mane of the lion’s head mounted on the wall. He knocked over a stack of books as he scrambled to the safe and placed the lion’s hair on the security pad.

“What are you doing?” Valerie screamed, as she came rushing in after him.

The countdown clock was now at eight seconds. Logan watched anxiously as the light activated again, along with a series of chirping sounds. This time, a green light flashed, and the timer deactivated. The alarm went silent. The countdown clock stopped at three, the lock disengaged, and the door to the safe opened.

Logan turned and saw Valerie giving him an angry look. If it wasn’t for her PCD ringing at that moment, he suspected she would have hollered at him like she used to do when they were kids. He grinned.

“Yeah, we’re all right,” she said into her PCD. “Logan deactivated the alarm. Everyone can get back to work.”

As she spoke, Logan emptied the safe, putting its contents on the doctor’s desk.

“What in heaven’s name were you thinking?” Valerie said, still sporting a disapproving look.

“I told you, I had an idea,” he said, as if that was explanation enough.

“An idea. How in the world did you know to use the lion’s hair?”

“It was the hairbrush.” He picked it up off the mantel. “Look around. Everything in this room is perfect. Not a single thing out of place. Why wouldn’t the doctor clean the hair off this brush?” He pulled a strand from it. “I assumed he must have used it to access the safe.”

“Well, that was quite an assumption.”

Logan smiled. He picked up a small matchbox-shaped item he’d taken out of the safe. “What is this thing?”

Valerie took a deep breath and walked over to the desk, still reeling from the risk Logan had taken. “Looks like you found the security dongle for the doctor’s HoloPad.” She took it from him and plugged it into the interface port. Within moments, the HoloPad sprang to life. “It seems we found the doctor’s personal notes,” said Valerie, as she sat down in a chair in front of the display. Logan found another chair and pulled up next to her. Valerie began to navigate through the many pages of notes, some of which looked similar to the handwritten papers pinned to the wall. Many of the notes and sketches were too technical for either of them to understand, but soon they came to one they both recognized.