Transformers Dark of the Moon (29 page)

UN TO BAD BOTS: GO SCREW YOURSELVES

All of that was to come later, though. At that moment, watching the drama unfolding, the occupants of the situation room were far too experienced professionals to do something as tacky as burst into whoops or cheers. Instead they provided a stately, dignified round of applause for the scene that they were witnessing.

Lennox sagged down into his chair and let out a relieved sigh.
I’ll be damned. They got it right. Now all we have to do is survive to write about it in the history books
.

Seymour Simmons stared at his busted leg in dismay as he lay on his back at Washington General Hospital. It was in a cast, and the prognosis for it was good. He had been treated for various cuts and abrasions, and the ribs in his chest, as it turned out, weren’t broken but only bruised. So in point of fact, he was one of the luckiest men around since it could have been much, much worse.

But he didn’t feel lucky at all. Instead, all he felt was frustrated.

When Dutch walked in with a folder under his arm, Simmons started venting immediately. “I’m missing the whole thing, Dutch! The whole damned thing! The fight on the National Mall! The UN resolution! It’s all happening without me, man! The world is passing me by!”

“I think you need to—”

“At least the UN got behind our boys, huh?” He was trying to find a bright spot. “We don’t bargain with the bad guys, no, sir. And if—”

“Seymour!” Dutch said, immediately snapping Simmons to attention since typically Dutch respectfully called him “Agent Simmons” or simply “sir.” “You need
to see this, right now. It started circulating on the Hill almost immediately. Nobody knows about it yet, but they’re going to.”

Simmons didn’t even bother to ask how Dutch knew. That was part of Dutch’s job: to know things, particularly where it related to the Autobots. He took the file and started flipping through it. As he did so, he was quickly enveloped by a sense of shock and betrayal. “Are you kidding me?”

“No, sir.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Still no.”

“And this is solid? I mean, this is rock solid? This would make Mount Rushmore look like a sponge, it’s that solid?”

“Yes, sir. They’re convening even now. It’s going to happen.”

Fury shook his body. “Those ungrateful sons of …” His voice tapered off as his mind raced. “But if they were going to, then how would … unless … oh, of course! It’s the only possible way! Dutch,” he said, having reached a conclusion that now required immediate action. “Your pilot license up to date?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And your plane?”

“Carefully maintained, sir.”

“Good. Get me checked outta here. If they try to stop us, get a gun from the car trunk and we’ll shoot our way out.” He started disconnecting his IV.

Dutch was clearly surprised. “Sir, I brought you this information because I felt you should be kept apprised, but you can’t be thinking of leaving …”

“Oh, I’m not thinking of it. I’m doing it. I’m gonna need my clothes. Oh, and go boost me a wheelchair from somewhere. If necessary, find a crippled guy who looks like he needs it less than me.”

“But, sir!” Dutch tried to reason with him. “You were threatened by Russians, attacked by Decepticons, got your leg broken, suffered all manner of damage. What are you going to do now?”

“I’m going to Disney World.”

“Really?”

“No, but damned close. Let’s move. Let’s get it going. Let’s show them how it’s—”

Two FBI men walked in. The taller of the two said, “Seymour Simmons?”

“Yeah …?” he said cautiously.

“You’re needed.”

“Florida?” Simmons said without hesitation.

The agent tried to mask his surprise and wasn’t all that successful. “How did you know?”

“The fact that I know is why you need me,” Simmons informed him confidently. “Let’s get this show on the road. I’m still gonna need a wheelchair, though.”

“We have one outside,” said the agent. “We took it from a crippled guy who looked like he needed it less than you.”

“I like the way you think,” Simmons said.

There had been many a day in Sam Witwicky’s life that he had thought was the worst day ever. And then fate, not to mention the efforts of the Decepticons, always conspired to raise the bar of pure suckiness.

Still, it was going to be pretty damned tough to top this one.

Twenty-four hours ago, he’d been in the living room of the apartment he was now driving up to. He’d been huddled in conference with Simmons, an idiot from work, and a couple of reformed Decepticons, trying to determine just what exactly was going on and how they might go about saving the world. In doing so he had
jeopardized, if not outright ended, his relationship with his girlfriend.

So here he was, a day later. Simmons was MIA, the bots were MIA, his dog was crapping on his balcony, and—oh yeah—the very individuals he had been trying to thwart had conspired to turn him into a double agent against his best friends in the world while he’d been forced to watch a killer Mercedes reenact the car-crunching scene from
Goldfinger
with his girlfriend in the featured role of victim. He stared down dismally at his new best friend on his wrist.
I visited Potomac, and all I got was this lousy Decepticon
, he thought with bleak humor.

He pulled up into his driveway, but before he could make it into the garage, the Datsun choked out and died. Naturally. The final insult to be added to injury.

Sam stepped out of his Datsun, and suddenly car doors from up and down the street opened as well, almost in perfect synchronization. He watched in confusion as a half dozen men wearing black suits and sunglasses emerged. He half expected Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith to be among them.

They approached, coming at him in a half circle. Sam, who couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept, was completely tapped out, unable and unwilling to offer even token resistance. He just stared at them lifelessly.

The one closest to him said, “You’re a hard man to find.”

He found his voice and said gamely, “Good men usually are.”

The man somehow managed to resist the hilarity of Sam’s quip and didn’t crack a smile. “Special Agent Pinkett,” he said, holding up identification. “Come with us, please.”

“Am I under arrest?”

“No, sir, you are not. Come with us, please.”

“If I’m not under arrest, then technically I don’t have to go with you.”

“Technically, yes. Now … come with us, please.” He sounded more robotic than Optimus ever had.

Sam leaned back against his car and stared at the agent, trying to see his eyes through the sunglasses. No luck. “Just out of curiosity, what if I say I won’t go with you?”

He finally got a reaction from Pinkett: His eyebrow twitched.

“Then I stop saying ‘please.’ ”

Sam considered his options and wasn’t finding a whole lot of them.

“Road trip. I’m so there,” he said.

He allowed them—if “allowed” was the way to describe something in which he was being given no choice—to lead him to one of the cars. At least they didn’t push him in. Instead, they opened the back door and allowed him to ease himself in. He hated to admit it, but it was actually pretty comfortable for a government car.

“Mind if I lean my head back? Close my eyes?”

“As you wish, sir.”

Sam did so, figuring that at the very least he would be able to rest his eyes. He didn’t really think that, given the stress of all he’d been through, he’d actually be able to get some sleep.

He was wrong. The next thing he knew, an agent was gently prodding him awake. The door was open, and he was someplace else completely, an airfield by the sound of it. Outside the vehicle he could hear the distant thrumming of an engine powering up.

It had gotten sunnier out, and he shielded his eyes as he emerged from the darkness of the car into the full light of day. Sure enough, it was an airfield. It wasn’t a
commercial one, though. He could see a high fence in the distance and a gate being slid shut. About a hundred feet away was a private plane, which was the source of the engines he had heard. The stairway was down, waiting for him.

He had no idea who was going to be in there. He felt as if he should know and would probably kick himself in retrospect, but as he walked across the field, he remained clueless.

Sam walked up the stairs, which bounced slightly under his feet. He’d heard that once you flew private, there was no going back to commercial jets. That should be the biggest problem he had to face.

He entered the plane and blinked in surprise. Then he took consolation in the fact that there would be no retrospective kicking of himself, because there was no way he could have expected to see the individual waiting for him in the plane.

Charlotte Mearing, all business, was seated with her legs primly crossed in a large, cushioned chair. It was a swivel seat. There was a table in back of her with an open laptop computer on it.

She pointed to a chair across from her that was identical to the one in which she was seated. Already buckled in, she acted as if they had an appointment that he had been inconsiderate enough to be running late for and they’d had to expend energy to go out and correct this lapse on his part. “Glad they found you. We’ll debrief you in transit.”

Oh, my God, they’re bringing me into the loop. At the worst possible time
.

He started to back up for the door. “Um, I really don’t see how I can be any more help … you guys seem so busy … we could just do this later … 
owwww
!”

He clutched at his wrist. The watch was giving him an
ungentle reminder of who was in charge here. Then he saw that Mearing was looking at him with concern and confusion. There was no way he could afford to underestimate her; the woman was too bright. He couldn’t put it past her to figure out something was up with him, something Decepticon-related. And if she did, they would stick him in a room with four white walls somewhere so that he couldn’t pose a threat, and when they subsequently showed up to question him, they’d find the corpse of Sam Witwicky with his entire nervous system fried. A week or so later, Carly’s body would likewise turn up in a garbage dump somewhere, if they ever found her at all.

“Muscle spasm,” he said apologetically, and dropped into the chair opposite her.

The door slammed behind them, sealing them in the cabin. Then the plane started rolling forward with no preamble.

“So, uh … do we get an in-flight movie? Some mixed nuts? Maybe a barf bag?”

“You seem jumpy, Mr. Witwicky,” she said. “I bet I know why.”

“Oh, I bet you don’t.”

She leaned forward in the chair as much as the seat belt would allow and didn’t seem to be paying the least bit of attention as the plane built up speed for takeoff. “Sam,” she said as the plane lifted off, “I owe you an apology.”

“Uh … what? No, honestly …”

Mearing shook her head, denying both his protestations and a lack of wrongdoing on her part. “You realized Sentinel was the key. You warned us they were using humans. We’ve been conducting investigations, and it seems that Jerry Wang was not an isolated case. There were other people involved, some willingly, some
less so. We’re only just beginning to get an idea of just how far up this thing goes.”

It goes all the way down my arm
.

“The fact is,” Mearing said, “I underestimated you at every turn. And truthfully, I also unfairly blamed you for some lapses on my own part. It won’t happen again.”

“No, it’s all good. And hey, right back at you. Remember, you totally called it about the space bridge being weaponized. You just nailed it. I didn’t see it coming, and you did. I mean, you’re the expert,” he said quickly. “I’m just a—” He bent his elbow and brought the watch into view, trying to sound casual. “—a walking security risk … 
ow, ow, ow
!”

“Are you all right?” Mearing said with growing concern.

“What? No—
ow
—I mean, yes. It’s nothing. It was … I went bowling the other night and overdid it. Strained the wrist.”

“Do you want some painkillers?”

Oh, I wanna kill something that’s causing me pain, all right
. Trying to sound casual, he rotated his hand a few times, “flexing” the wrist as if trying to work through it. “I’ll be fine. Really.”

The plane was starting to level off.

“Okay, if you’re sure,” she said. Then she turned the chair back around to face the computer.

The watch began to extend itself, trying to get a better view of what was on the computer screen. He hoped that the thing couldn’t split its focus and wouldn’t keep trying to zap him while it was busy endeavoring to spy on Mearing’s information.

“Okay, just so you know,” and Sam struggled valiantly with the watch, trying to shove it back into place or block its view. “I’m a Twitter junkie. Blog everything, total oversharer, no secret is safe …”

“I think I’m finally starting to understand your sense of humor, Sam,” she said, her back still to him. “It took me a while, plus I had to have a briefing memo drawn up so I could read an analysis of it. But I get it now. Say what you want, but we both know that you can be completely trusted with matters of security, particularly where it comes to the Autobots and the current difficult situation we now have to face with them.”

“Yeah, that’s me, Mr. Trustworthy.” He pounded with a fist on the watch. It snapped back at him and almost took off his little finger. “But y’ know, the situation, the current one, it’s not that difficult. I heard on the radio about the UN telling them—”

“The UN resolution means nothing, Sam. Not a damned thing.” For a woman who kept herself wrapped as tightly as Mearing did, it was surprising to hear the bitterness in her voice.

Sam didn’t understand. Neither, obviously, did the creature on his wrist, which ceased its struggling so that it could hear better what she was saying. “What do you mean it doesn’t mean a damned thing? That’s, y’ know, practically the whole world standing up and saying that the Autobots can stay.”

“A resolution that has no meaning, no force of law. The Autobots are here in the United States. That makes them our problem, and the decision as to whether they stay or go is no one’s business but ours. And apparently when it comes to Congress, they never miss an opportunity to get it wrong.”