At all costs

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

The man stalking them was definitely a cop. Travis got a glimpse of the hat and the badge as he stepped out into a clearing. From the way the cop was moving, he hadn’t seen them yet, but he sure seemed to know where he was going.

As panic grew in his belly, Travis looked over his shoulder to see if the grown-ups were on their way back yet. It had been a lot longer than five minutes.

Shit! What do I do?

His father’s last words burned in his brain: “Your job is to wait out here and watch for anything unusual.” He realized now that it was just a bullshit job, because he was up to his eyeballs in unusual, but he had no way to warn anybody.

Dammit!

The cop was getting closer with every step, and Travis’s sitting there with his forehead scrunched in confusion wasn’t helping anything. He had to get word to them. Maybe he could shout.

Good idea, idiot, Travis chastised himself. Why don’t you just stand up and wave a flag, too?

Okay, shouting was a stupid idea. At least from here. Maybe if he got closer… close enough to see what was going on, anyway.

He rolled out of his current spot, staying low to keep from being seen on the ridgeline, and then he slid on his butt down the other side of the embankment. On the far side, he found himself on another road, just like the one where they were parked, and facing another magazine, identical to the one he’d just climbed. Running now, he dashed around the next mound, rather than over it, and he found himself suddenly in the midst of the moonscape. Nothing lived here. No grass grew; no plants. Even the dirt seemed dead. Across another road, maybe fifty yards away, stood the open maw of the burned-out magazine. If he used his imagination, he thought he could see movement inside, but no people.

He considered yelling again, but it was still too far away. C’mon, Trav, think…

He needed to move closer. He could think all day, and he’d still be too far away to yell without being heard by the cop. But what about the dust? Jesus, how many times did they have to say it? The dust here would kill him if he breathed it. At least that’s what they thought. But he was breathing it now, wasn’t he? And he was still okay. Maybe the stuff had all worn off or blown away, like Nick said might be the case. In any event, he could always hold his breath.

He glanced nervously over his shoulder again, thinking he heard the squawk of the radio. Okay, he’d hold his breath. If he got in and got out quickly, it wouldn’t be a problem. What other choice did he have?

Pausing there at the margin where green and red and orange turned to flat black, he took in five or six deep breaths, hyperventilating himself the way he saw swimmers do it on television before a big race. He could do this.

On your mark… get set…

Who the hell would bring a car out here? As Sherman Quill drew closer, he saw not only the car-a Cadillac, no less-but a bunch of boxes and equipment strewn all about. It still made no sense to him, but one thing was clear: whatever was going on, and whoever had done this, they were still here, unless they’d left on foot.

Maybe that FBI lady had been right. Maybe the Donovan gang had returned to finish what they’d started. In an era where crooks were stupid enough to rob banks using notes written on the backs of their own deposit slips, as had happened in Little Rock just a few weeks before, Sherman had come to put no limits on the extent of stupidity he could expect from a lawbreaker. No matter how clever their crime, sooner or later, it seemed, it was always something truly stupid that ultimately brought the perpetrator down. Like returning to the scene of the crime.

Resting his hand on the grip of his. 38 Police Special, Sherman approached the Cadillac cautiously, peering in the windows and scanning the trees for any sign of movement. “Well, I will be damned,” he muttered, lifting his portable radio out of his belt.

“Unit One to Control,” he said. He listened carefully for a response but got nothing. Somebody broke squelch, but if there was a message, he couldn’t hear it.

“Unit One to Control,” he tried again. “Nan? Are you there?”

Again, nothing. Not surprising, really. These low-band radios were a pain in the ass once you got them into the woods. If he had his patrol car down here, with its five-watt mobile unit, there’d be no problem. He briefly considered the option of going back for it, just to call in a report, but decided that would be silly. He was here, and the bad guys were here. He might as well take a look at what they were doing.

The conscious realization of where he was hit him like a smack in the face. Sweet Jesus, he was in the middle of the most hazardous spot on earth!

“You are out of your cotton-pickin’ mind,” he mumbled. He looked back again, and he considered the mobile radio one more time.

Make this collar and they’ll be calling you a hero, he told himself. He drew the. 38 from its holster, then started his long walk toward the exclusion zone.

Travis’s big breath took him as far as the doorway and then about ten feet farther. If his folks had been closer to the front, he’d have been able to dash in, grab one of them, and then dash out again. As it was, there was no way for him to make it. His lungs screamed for relief, and as he turned to head back toward the door, the breath just popped out of him in a giant rush. Then, before he could stop himself, his diaphragm rebounded and sucked in a huge lungful of air.

Travis winced, closing his eyes tightly in anticipation of death, but nothing happened. There was a lot of dust, and it tasted like shit, but he felt fine, other than the urge to sneeze. Even the sneeze tasted awful.

Carolyn didn’t hear anything, actually; she sensed a noise she didn’t recognize through the layers of protective clothing. She pivoted her body to get a reassuring glance at sunlight, and there was Travis, silhouetted against the brilliant white background.

She screamed, “Oh, my God, Travis, no!”

She dropped her flashlight and Jake’s pry bar onto the concrete floor, the noise reverberating forever in the concrete canyon, and ran to her son.

“Get out of here!” she yelled. “Oh, my God, get out of here!” She ran to her baby, scooping him up on the fly and dragging him out toward fresh air. In the rush of adrenaline, he weighed nothing. “Hold your breath, honey!” she yelled. “Hold your breath!”

But Travis couldn’t hear any of it. “Hey!” he yelled indignantly. “Put me down! There’s a cop outside!” Jesus, she’s strong!

Jake saw the commotion and put it together in an instant. He followed his family out into the open, running as best he could in the bulk of his protective suit to catch up. What the hell was he doing inside?

Carolyn had the boy over her shoulder in a kind of fireman’s carry that was as awkward as it was effective. With him wriggling to break free the whole time, she carried him out of the hideous stain of the exclusion zone and into the world of living underbrush. From there, it was another twenty-five or thirty yards down a small decline to a stream they’d seen on the aerial photo. She heaved Travis like a sack of potatoes off her shoulder and into the swollen, quick-running stream.

Good idea, Jake thought. She was going to try and decon him. But it’d be tough going in her moon suit. Pulling his arm out of his sleeve, Jake fished around his pants pocket for his knife.

“Hey!” Travis yelled. “Listen to me! There’s a-”

Suddenly, he found himself immersed in frigid water, with his own mother holding him under the surface. As he struggled to rise to the top, she stepped into the stream with him, straddling him with her legs and crushing his rib cage with her knees. He could breathe, but not without taking a mouthful of water.

“Mom! Jesus! What the-”

She pulled at his soaked clothing, and suddenly he found himself shirtless. He tried to fight her, but there was nothing he could do. She was a crazy woman. Every time he thought he had a grip on something, it would slip out of his hands. “Mom! Stop! Ow, you’re hurt-”

Now he was upside down in the water, face submerged, and she was yanking on his pants. As he felt them slip down past his butt and on toward his knees, he tried to kick and squirm, but it was useless. His choice was to cooperate or drown.

A new pair of hands appeared out of nowhere and grabbed him under his arms. It was his dad, and he was in regular clothes again, but with the air pack still in place. “Hold still,” he yelled, his voice muffled by the mask. “We’ve got to get your clothes off! You’re contaminated.”

With two against one, there was little choice but to cooperate. One last hard yank ripped the pant legs clear of his feet while nearly yanking his legs clear of his hips. Once his pants were off, the struggling stopped, and Travis realized to his horror that they’d stripped him of all his clothes. He was naked!

As Jake struggled out of his air pack, Travis scrambled to cover himself up.

“Stay away from those clothes!” Jake commanded.

“But Dad, there’s a cop-”

The sound of a gunshot killed the words before they could form in the boy’s throat.