Shadowmark (The Shadowmark Trilogy Book 1) (2 page)

And Mina waited. Everyone else in London Heathrow airport waited. The world waited.

DAY 2

A
FTER
A
FEW
MORE
HOURS
of fitful dozing, Mina finally gave up trying to sleep. She abandoned her coveted spot against the wall and went to stand in the long coffee line, dragging her belongings with her. She ordered a tall, black coffee. The heat from the cup warmed her cold hands, the smell waking her more fully. The coffee reminded her the world could still be okay. Whatever was happening outside, life was still normal if she stood in an airport drinking coffee. As she took her first sip, her phone rang in her pocket. She juggled her things to get to it, almost dropping the cup.
 

“Hello?”

“Mina! Finally!” Lincoln’s voice on the other end sounded like Christmas.

“This is the first time I’ve had service. Where are you?”

“At work. I’m guessing you’re not on a flight home.”

“Couldn’t get anything yet. I was just about to get back in line and try again. Why are you at work?”

“Couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t watch more news. Couldn’t waste more time. Take your pick.”

“So what do you think?”

“It’s a mess here. People are looting, and it’s only been twenty-four hours. They burned a pawn shop and grocery down the street from my apartment. Will you go back to your studio?”

“Can’t,” Mina said, sipping her coffee and grimacing. It was bitter and left a metallic taste in her mouth. “I sublet it through June. I thought about driving out to Dad’s old place to work and wait things out. Know if any towers are out there?”

“I don’t think so. They only seem to be concerned about large population centers, so an old farmhouse might be a good idea. He’d really think this was something, huh?”

“Yeah.” Mina hesitated. She didn’t want to voice what had been nagging at her since the towers appeared, but she had to ask. “Any news on the airports?”
 

“Just that they’re packed. No mention of closing them yet.”

“Yet.”

Lincoln went silent a minute. “Hey listen. Just make it happen. Max out your card, or my card, whatever you need to do. I’ll send you an email with my info.”

“Okay. Hey, everything’s going to be okay,” she said.

“Sure, yeah. I know.”

When they hung up, Mina positioned herself near a row of packed chairs. Finding an empty seat in the crowded airport was like looking for a parking space in a full parking lot. For every empty seat available, twenty people maneuvered around to it. Mina watched attentively, ready to slide into a seat as soon as someone moved to use the restroom.
 

She waited an hour, finishing her coffee and shifting her weight from one foot to the other. Her heeled boots were comfortable for short periods of time, but after wearing them for twenty-four hours straight, Mina ached to be out of them. Sharp pain now shot through the balls of her feet where most of her weight was concentrated.
 

Mina’s friends described her as pretty, with her brown curls and fine features. They always tried to get her to wear makeup, but she didn’t have the time to worry about it.
 

She was not completely dismissive of her looks, though. Most people looked at her thin figure and assumed she was naturally lean. But she ran to offset her long hours of sitting and studying. She also entered the occasional marathon for charity, and when she was training for a race, she ran five days a week. Another sharp pain shot through her foot. If only she’d packed her running shoes for the weekend trip to London.
 

She gathered her curly mop into a short ponytail, twisting a rubber band around the ends. She wanted a shower. A man moved at the corner of her vision, sliding out of his seat and slinging a bag over his shoulder. Several other people rushed to the vacated chair, but Mina was closest. She sank down into it and breathed a sigh of relief, ignoring dirty looks from the other travelers.

State officials updated the populace hourly, but the most they had to report was the lack of progress. News outlets had more news to report than they could handle. The airport crowds jammed around the TV screens, tuned to coverage of Mumbai, India. The IAF rolled through a residential neighborhood, now empty, and stopped in the street. A tower loomed in the distance. Soldiers jumped down out of their vehicles to look at it.

“The Government of India has evacuated all the surrounding neighborhoods,” reported a journalist. She stood in the street, the tower behind her. “This is as close as they will allow us. We have learned that the decision to preemptively strike at the tower has been met with extreme opposition from China and the United States. Since no one knows what is inside, the possibility of some sort of fallout is on everyone’s minds.” She put her finger to her ear. “I’m sorry, this connection is very bad. We seem to be having some trouble communicating with the news room, so I didn’t hear their whole question . . . But the answer is no, they are not using nuclear warheads. Other governments are worried about nuclear weapons
inside
the towers.”

Three fighter jets flew overhead in attack formation, making a pass around the tower.
 

“Those are HAL Tejas,” she reported. The journalist moved off-camera, the tower in full view now. As the jets circled around, the street grew quiet. Soldiers stood where they stopped. No one breathed.
 

Then the HAL Tejas flew over once more, and launched. The planes veered away while three trails of smoke headed for the tower. All three missiles hit their marks, exploding into three fiery balls that engulfed the side of the stone monolith.

Shouts and hollers erupted in the street. Soldiers slapped each other on the back.

Then, in groups of threes and fours, everyone turned to stare at the tower. The camera zoomed in closer. The fires had petered out. Smoke blew off the stone.
 

The voice of the journalist hushed as she said, “Didn’t faze it? What’s that chatter?” A translator spoke close to the mike. “They’re saying it didn’t work. Well we can see that.” The fighter jets circled the tower again. “We’re just waiting on the official report . . .”

No one spoke for some minutes. The smoke around the tower dissipated, blown away by the wind. The tower remained unchanged.
 

The journalist stepped back in front of the camera. “We have just witnessed an attack on the tower by the IAF. The report’s just in that the missiles failed to damage it in any way. What are these things?”
 

Looting continued throughout the day in London, New York, Moscow, Beijing, and three hundred other cities. In addition, rioters broke through police barricades to gawk at the towers,
 
while demonstrators interfered with the riot police, gang rivalries broke out into shooting wars, and suicide rates spiked. As civil unrest grew, military reserves descended on affected cities to help the overwhelmed local law enforcements.

The city of London waited, holding its breath. Groups of impatient travelers crammed around airport TV screens. Minutes ticked by as the lines grew longer.
 

The towers loomed over their respective cities. A mass of thunderstorms was predicted for the next day, and travelers could expect more delays. All of Heathrow airport sighed out a collective groan.
 

When she could no longer hold her bladder, Mina gave up her chair in search of a restroom and supper. She had been unable to get in touch with Lincoln again before both her cell phone and laptop batteries died. And she had yet to find an opportunity to charge them. Entire families had camped out near charging stations, guarding them aggressively.
 

Mina’s first time in an airport had been with her family—Dad and Lincoln. They were flying from their home in Indiana to see Dad’s sister, Aunt Julie, who lived in Minnesota. Mina was eight and Lincoln had just turned fourteen.
 

Freckles dotted Mina’s pale young face. Her hair had been wilder back then. Dad had not known what to do with his daughter’s curly mane. Mina’s mother had left them only six months before.
 

The eight-year-old Mina knotted her fingers in her lap as they sat in the terminal. She had only met Aunt Julie once when she was four, and Mina’s faded memory was of a plump woman with dyed red hair, bright red lipstick, and heavy eye shadow.

“Daddy, why do we have to go see Aunt Julie?” Mina’s brown eyes found her father’s blue ones. His face was already lined, his hair too grey for a man of thirty-eight. He wore his customary faded jeans and brown boots with a light blue button-up work shirt. Today his clothes were washed and neatly pressed.
 

Dad’s face twisted oddly, his eyes screwing up as he looked at Mina. “Because that’s what family does, Addy. We take care of each other when the time comes.” Dad had always called her Addy, short for Adamina. His name was Adam, and Mina’s mother had liked the name Adamina. But Dad always called her Addy.

Even at eight, Mina had known what her father meant when he said Aunt Julie was out of time. Aunt Julie had cancer. And people with cancer usually ran out of time. Had her mom been out of time? If so, why hadn’t she let her family take care of her instead of that new man? Why had she left them? Young Mina wanted to ask these questions, looking first at her dad and then at Lincoln.
 

Lincoln scowled and jammed his thumb down on his portable cassette player. His earphones blared out “Man in the Box” by Alice in Chains. Mina hated that song. Lincoln had played it for her the week before, and she was pretty sure Dad wouldn’t approve of the lyrics if he knew what they were saying. Dad didn’t approve of cursing or anything that could be interpreted as disrespectful.
 

But Dad wasn’t paying attention. He was picking a thread from a metal button on his shirt. He tugged at the blue string, watching it unravel.

“It’s going to fall off, Daddy,” she said. He wouldn’t be able to sew the button back on in the airport.

“Do you have any fingernail clippers?” Dad asked.

“No.”
Mom would have had clippers
, Mina thought. But she said, “Want to see a trick?”

“Sure.”

Mina took the end of the thread from her father and carefully wound it clockwise underneath the metal button, first once, then twice, and again and again until she could hide the end of the it under the button. “See?” she said. “Now you don’t have to worry about losing it while we’re gone from home!”

“Good thinking. Thanks, princess.”

Mina glanced again at Lincoln. His shaggy auburn hair fell down over his closed eyes—he had refused several haircuts. Mom had always cut his hair. He stretched out his long legs, which already at fifteen made him taller than Dad and a favorite on the school basketball team. Mina dug her book out of her small purple backpack and nestled as close to Lincoln as she could get with the armrest between them. She wrapped one arm under his and propped up her book. Her other hand rested on Lincoln’s arm. He didn’t open his eyes, but his scowl softened as he found her hand, giving it a quick squeeze before turning the volume down on his cassette player.

We’re going to be okay, right?
She wanted to ask him again, as she had countless times in the last few months. But maybe now wasn’t the time. Because Aunt Julie’s time was running out.
 

She would ask the question again when Dad’s time ran out six years later.

The adult Mina ate a soggy sandwich from the airport cafe, brushed her teeth in the bathroom, and huddled between two large plastic ficus trees for another long night. Here and there, she watched passengers pass through security on their way to their gates, envying them. Already Mina had lived her entire life at check-in, waiting for permission to continue her journey. Airport security walked by with a dog, and the animal paused to sniff Mina’s carry-on. She smiled sleepily at the official. The dogs had sniffed her bag five times already.

Mina curled up with her arm resting on the lip of the giant concrete planter to her right, coat pulled over her like a blanket. She wouldn’t sleep, but she wouldn’t spend another night wandering under the harsh airport lights, either.
 

Maybe Lincoln wanted to drive with her out to Dad’s place, which they had never been willing to sell. She would ask him next time they talked.

Somewhere the outside doors slid open, and a cold breeze swept through the facility. Mina shivered and closed her eyes.

Lincoln Surrey sat at his desk in Boston, the glowing screen in front of him the only sign of life inside the dark open office. He absentmindedly picked up a pencil and tapped it on his desk as he read the web page in front of him. According to news reports, the situation in London was the same as in Boston. But he hadn’t heard from Mina in eighteen hours. And he hadn’t showered or changed in thirty. He glanced down at his button-down shirt and khakis, then rubbed a hand over his whiskers. Perhaps a shave would freshen him up. His auburn hair also needed a good combing. Lincoln ran a hand through it. A patrol car eased down the street under the third-floor office window, its lights slowly flashing.

Lincoln pushed back from his desk and stood, stretching his six-foot-six frame and tossing the pencil on the desk. He looked around the office, at its computers, worktables, and servers. His team had left hours ago. He should have, too. Hopefully he wouldn’t be mistaken for a looter on his short walk home.
 

The office phone rang. Lincoln glanced at his cell phone—8:00 p.m. A little late for a client to be calling, but not entirely unusual. Still, it would be the first client call all day. Maybe Mina had only been able to get through using a landline? Breathing a sigh of relief, he walked to the phone sitting on an adjacent table and answered.

“Surrey.”

“Lincoln. Glad I caught you. Paul Cummings.”

“Oh. Yes, hello, Paul.”

“Expecting someone else?”

“Matter of fact, I was.”

“I’ll be brief. Is your team around?”