Authors: Steven Gould
"Drop the gun," I shouted.
His head jerked up, water droplets gleaming in the last of the midday sun. He pointed the gun at me and shouted something back in a language I didn't know.
I jumped to the top of the wall on the other side, behind him. "Drop the gun," I shouted again.
He whirled, this time firing quickly. The bullet clipped stone several feet to my left.
I jumped behind him, on the island, and hit him on the head with the rod. He screamed and fell to his knees, both hands going to his head. I hit his gun hand and the gun fell. I picked it up quickly and stepped away from him.
The gun was plastic. I'd read about them, able to pass through airport metal detectors.
He held his head and said things that sounded like swearing, whatever the language was.
I motioned for him to lie facedown and he spat at me. I raised the rod meaningfully. He winced and lay down on his stomach. I put the gun in my pocket and secured his hands behind him with a cable tie; then I stood him up and jumped him back to Athens, to the galley on the DC-10.
The captain stood there, talking to one of the flight attendants in Greek. Both of them flinched away when my prisoner and I appeared.
"Excuse me," I said. "Here's the third hijacker."
The captain nodded slowly and I jumped away.
I stayed out of sight as the passengers streamed off the plane. Two of the terrorists came off on stretchers. The third one came off surrounded by police. Behind the crew and flight attendants came one last stretcher, covered. Sad, but it didn't bother me the way the tourists in Hawaii had.
When the official statement was read to the press, I tapped Corseau, the Reuters man, on his shoulder. He turned his tape recorder in my direction and I shook my head.
"All right," he said, turning it off. "Do I get an interview?"
I thought about it. "Where is your next assignment? Did you catch this one because you were here, in transit?"
"Yes. I was on my way to Cairo."
"Where is your luggage?"
"It's already there. I'd checked it and was about to board when this thing happened."
I smiled. "Good." I walked around behind him. He started to turn, but I said, "Hold still." I looked around—nobody was paying attention. I grabbed him by the belt and jumped him, camera bag, laptop computer, and all, to the Cairo airport terminal, on the sidewalk behind the taxi stand.
"Merde!"
He nearly dropped his laptop computer and I steadied him.
"You recognize where you are?"
"Yes."
"Good," I said. I jumped.
Hawaii was five hours earlier than Oklahoma, so I figured I could pick up Millie at eleven, her time, and still have a nice evening in Honolulu. I jumped there from Cairo and took a cab to the airport.
It felt funny. Except for New York City, Hawaii was the only place I'd been in the U.S. that felt like a foreign city. Even though the signs were in English, the scenery didn't fit. But it was beautiful and for the first time in weeks, I felt warm.
I spent the afternoon walking around Waikiki. I bought a Hawaiian shirt for myself and a mu-mu for Millie, and picked out a restaurant at the Royal Hawaiian. The next day was Saturday and so she didn't have to get up early.
I felt like celebrating.
At eleven, Central Standard Time, I jumped to Millie's bedroom. I was dressed in white slacks and the turquoise Hawaiian shirt I'd bought. Her dress was waiting in Texas, but I carried an orchid lei with me, to put around her neck.
The bedside light, one of those gooseneck things with a metal shade, was pushed to one side, casting the bed in shadow. I took a step forward, thinking she'd fallen asleep, when something gleamed in the shadowed bed.
I twisted to the side and something struck me a glancing blow on my leg.
Bang,
I thought, and jumped to an alcove at Adams Cowley Shock Trauma in Baltimore.
I looked down at my leg. A silver tube, six inches long, one inch in diameter, hung from my leg. At one end, a wire-thin antenna projected. From the other, a stainless-steel rod, perhaps a quarter-inch thick, stuck in my pants, then out again, two inches later, ending in a barbed point, like a harpoon of some kind. There was a clear fluid accumulating at the tip and I bent forward. The point was hollow.
Well, Cox hadn't lied. It was a tranquilizer. But
Christ,
if that barbed point had struck straight on, it would be buried in my leg and I wouldn't be able to pull it out.
There was some blood, too, but it looked like it had just grazed me, snagging in the pants. And the antenna meant it was some kind of homing device.
The picture was chilling. The harpoon would bury itself in my leg and I would jump away. Before I could get the harpoon out, the tranquilizer would put me under. And the homing device would do the rest. Could they track it by satellite?
How long before they would get here? Also, did they develop this simply for me, or were they using an existing technology for an ongoing problem, i.e., were there more teleports that they'd hunted down?
I jumped to Central Park, dark, cold, inadequately dressed in my short-sleeved Hawaiian shirt and sandals. My pocketknife cut the harpoon free. I considered smashing it.
What have they done with Millie?
I waited five minutes, then jumped again, to the truck stop in Minnesota. A large gravel truck, empty, was pulling out of the lot. I jumped across the gap and threw the harpoon into the back. I heard it clang hollowly; then the truck accelerated down the access road toward the on ramp.
I wondered where it was going.
It wasn't a pleasant night. What little sleep I got was punctuated by nightmares. Dawn found me curled before the wood stove breaking kindling I didn't need into smaller and smaller pieces.
Millie's apartment complex was lousy with NSA agents that morning, but if she was there, she didn't go to class. I watched from a rooftop, with binoculars. When I phoned, a woman answered the phone but it was neither her nor her roommate so I hung up without speaking.
In Topeka, Kansas, I phoned Millie's brother-in-law, the lawyer. I gave the receptionist a false name.
"Your sister-in-law, Millie Harrison, was kidnapped yesterday by agents of the National Security Agency."
"Who is this?"
"A friend of Millie's. They're all over her apartment complex and neither her or her roommate are at home."
"What's your name?"
"Please do what you can." I hung up.
An aquarium supplier in Manhattan sold me a two-thousand-dollar cylinder of three-eighths-inch clear Lexan plastic. It stood five and a half feet tall and was three feet in diameter. He wanted to sell me the gasketed steel bottom, with fittings for filter tubes, but I declined. I wasn't using it for an aquarium.
I jumped the tube to the cliff dwelling and promptly ruined it for holding fish by riveting two handles inside, halfway up its length. When I stood within the tube holding the handles, the tube went from my ankles to slightly over my head, shielding me all the way around.
I jumped to Perston-Smythe's office in D.C.
A harpoon hit the plastic shell and ricocheted off at an angle. Dr. Perston-Smythe wasn't in his office, but a man in the corner dropped the harpoon gun in his hand and dove at me, arms outstretched.
I jumped sideways four feet, next to the bookcase. The man passed through the space I vacated and slammed into the desk, hands trying to fend himself off at the last second. He failed and his head and left shoulder struck the edge of the desk. He fell to the floor, moaning.
I jumped out of the tube and listened at the door. There didn't seem to be anyone coming. I took the gun from his shoulder holster, then grabbed him by his belt and lifted. He began to struggle. I jumped him to the beach in Tigzirt, Algeria, and left him facedown in the sand.
I was behind Perston-Smythe's desk when he came back to his office. He was alone. I pointed the agent's gun at him and asked him to shut the door. Then, after frisking him, I jumped him to the desert, in the foothills of El Solitario.
He fell to his knees when I released him. I walked ten feet away from him and sat on a rock.
He was looking around, his eyes squinting in the bright sunlight. "How do you do that?"
If my mind hadn't been on Millie, I might have found his expression amusing. "Where's Brian Cox?"
"Huh? In his office, I suppose. Did you try him there?"
"Where is his office?"
He hesitated a moment. "Well, he's listed in the Government Directory. I guess I can tell you. He runs his own little show out of the Pierce Building, over by the State Department."
"He's not at Fort Meade?"
"No. NSA has offices all over the place. What did you do with Barry?"
"Who's Barry?"
"The agent in my office. The one on the morning shift."
"Ah. Well, Barry went to the beach. Where did they put Millie Harrison?"
"Never heard of her."
I pointed the gun at his head.
"Jesus. Honest. I've never heard of her. Are you sure I'd have a reason? Remember who you're dealing with. These guys don't tell anybody anything, unless they absolutely have to."
I lowered the gun. "I would point out that someone with my talents is very hard to run from. If I find you're jerking my string, you will hear about it."
"Honest. I've never heard of her. The only work I do has to do with the Middle East."
"Turn around."
"You're going to shoot me?"
"Not unless you make me. Turn around."
He moved slowly. I grabbed him and jumped him to the airport terminal in Ankara, Turkey, and left him.
I hoped he had his American Express card.
When I checked back at Millie's, they'd reduced the number of agents in the complex. Two men stood outside, half hidden at the corners of the building. I saw one take a radio out from under his overcoat and talk into it.
I left him at the airport in Bonn, waving his harpoon gun and trying to talk on the radio again. Airport security was closing in fast.
I don't think his radio had intercontinental capacity.
The other guard I jumped to Orly Airport outside Paris. He managed to plant an elbow in my ribs, very hard, but I held on tight and left him next to a bunch of Japanese tourists clustered around the information desk.
I handled those inside the apartment with the Lexan cylinder, drawing their fire, then jumping them away to airports in Cyprus, Italy, and Saudi Arabia.
Dad, apparently, was at work. At least the car was gone. There were only three agents in the house and I scattered them to Tunis, Rabat, and Lahore. In the process, I earned another bruised rib and a stamped instep.
I considered using the iron rod in the future, but I didn't want to risk killing someone. I was ready to take that risk when an entire planeload was at stake, but Americans?
They're terrorists in their own way.
I shivered, remembering Millie's warning. I didn't want to become like them. Even worse, I didn't want to become like my dad.
It was dark in Washington, heavy clouds blocking the setting sun, the wind cold out of the east. I went into the train station and called Perston-Smythe's number. I figured he was still in Turkey, unless he'd had his passport with him, but it was Cox I wanted to talk to.
A male voice, neutral, not Perston-Smythe, answered the phone. I said, "This is David Rice. I want to talk to Brian Cox."
There was a hesitation on the other end of the line.
"What's the problem?" I asked. "Besides starting the trace, that is."
"Mr. Cox is on another line. Can you hold a moment?"
"Don't give me that."
"Honestly—he's talking to the ambassador in Bonn. You caused the problem, after all."
Ah—the harpoon gun in the airport. I smiled.
"I'll call back."
I took the crowded rush-hour subway five stops down. The clean, fresh-smelling stations amazed me, so different from New York. On the platform I used another pay phone. Cox himself answered the phone.
"You've caused a great deal of trouble," he said angrily.
His tone of voice reminded me of Dad. For just an instant I felt like I'd done something wrong, horribly shameful. I was speechless, first with shock, then with anger.
I hung up the phone and screamed out loud, an inarticulate burst of rage. Rush-hour commuters turned and stared at me, surprised, a little afraid. A tobacco-chewing marine in uniform said, "Bad news?"
"Fuck you!" I said, and jumped to my cliff dwelling in Texas. I hoped he choked on his cud.
I screamed again, angry, furious. The man had kidnapped Millie. He had people shooting at me with sharp pieces of barbed steel and he had the nerve to say
I
was a lot of trouble? I dropped to my knees on my bed and began pounding the mattress.
God, I was frightened.
Dad arrived home from work escorted by two agents, one in the front passenger seat, one in the back. I watched from the kitchen window as he pulled the car into the driveway. I was surprised that he was driving. Considering that the NSA had been around my father now for a couple of weeks, they must know about his alcoholism. I wouldn't get into a car he was driving.
Only one of the agents carried a harpoon gun. He held it inside his coat as they walked to the house, but it was dark out, and he didn't bother to close the coat.
I jumped him to the airport in Seville just after he entered the house. The other guard I jumped to Cairo. When I came back, Dad was running across the lawn to his car.
When he reached the door, I jumped to the driver's seat and stared out at him through the window. At the same time the car alarm went off. He yelled, pushed away from the car, and ran awkwardly up the street. I let him go and jumped back to Washington, D.C.
This time he just said, "I'm listening."
"Where is Millie Harrison?"
"In a safe place."
"Where?"
"Why should we tell you?"
I stared at the phone in my hand, then remembered to check the approaches to the booth. I was standing outside a convenience store in Alexandria. "You should do a lot more than tell me. There are much more unpleasant places your men could end up than airports. It would've been just as easy to drop them from high places. Very high places. And it doesn't have to be just your men that I take on my little trips. What would the president say if I jumped him to Colombia for a little chat? I don't think he's too popular there with certain special-interest groups. Or Cuba? It would be quite a coup: President goes on fact-finding mission. Whirlwind tour. Surprises even Secret Service."