Desperate Measures
Crickets cried out and somewhere nearby a bird of some kind hooted, but those sounds weren’t enough to drown out the noise the SUV’s engine made. The island was so empty, though, Hal doubted anyone was around to hear it. Just the same, his paranoia had soared to such extremes that he avoided the main roads and drove side roads and dirt roads that cut through the woods.
In the back seat, leaning out the open window, Red said, “The island’s creepy without any people.”
“We’ll be outta here soon,” Nico said from the passenger seat.
Hal nodded. “Not too far now.”
At the end of the dirt road that led to the western side of the island, Hal turned left and descended toward the Tango Key Marina at the southern tip of the island. The headlights weren’t on, but all the street lamps offered enough light for him to see Old Post Road.
“You’ll have to show one of us how to drive the boat,” Trixie said.
“It’s easier than driving a car. But really noisy.”
Squirt sat forward. “So when we get to Key West, we steal a car and then wait for you and Liz? Is that the plan?”
“Right. Wait wherever you feel safest. Just text me. Liz and I will find you.”
“And then what?” Squirt always wanted to know the plan.
“I’m not sure. Right now, the plan is to get off this island.”
“I’m nearly back to normal, Hal. That doc knew what he was doing.”
“Glad for that, Squirt. You know I am. But…”
“Yeah, I know. He split.”
“Split? That’s, like, a retro word, Squirt. 1960s.”
“Uh-huh. I’ve been reading about the hippies. We shouda gone back to the late sixties, Hal. Maybe we still can. I could fit in there. All of us could. Weird was accepted.”
The Sixties? Nothing lay back there for them, Hal thought. But even if it had, he doubted that just the six of them they would be able to get there or anywhere else. The movement through time hadn’t worked until more than several dozen of them had trained their consciousness as a group on the twenty-first century. Was that magic number initially fifteen? Eighteen? He couldn’t remember the exact number that had made the difference. The bottom line was that the more Crows in a group, the more intense their focus, the faster you got there. Yet. The travel could break you.
Hal pulled into the marina parking lot and what he saw nearly paralyzed him. One boat. A fucking canoe with a small outboard engine. He forced himself to speak normally. “You should be able to shroud that pretty easily, Nico.” A cinch. But that canoe looks like it’s meant for kids. I’m going to remove the shroud for right now so I don’t get worn out,” Nico said.
“Good idea. More important to be shrouded for the trip to Key West.”
Just as they got out of the car, Hal’s cell dinged. A text message. He didn’t recognize the number and everyone who might text him was with him.
Except for Liz.
Hal clicked the message.
Got a phone. They gave me heavy drugs, Hal. I’m locked in a… I don’t know.
Relief coursed through him. Describe it.
Have turned one of my condor legs to a hand. Small room, no windows, cool not freezing. I’m surrounded by… drugs? Are these drugs? Yeah, drugs, packages & containers of pharma stuff. The pharmacy, Hal. A secure room there.
I’ll come to you. His heart soared.
R others w/you?
They’re leaving from the marina in a canoe. Nico will shroud them. We’ll meet them in Key West. We’re going to create lives in the 21st that we can embrace, Liz. I promise u that.
How will we get to Key West?
I’ll hijack a boat, a ferry, something. Or you can fly us out.”
If I could fly, I’d be gone by now.
Hal sent her one of the stupid emojis, throbbing double hearts, then followed the others down to the pier where the lone canoe was docked. They loaded their packs inside. Nico sat at the back, ready to steer the canoe to Key West. In front of him sat Trixie, with Squirt wedged between her and Red, the navigator at the front.
He hugged each of them. “How far out will you be before the shrouding on me and the car drops away, Nico?”
“I don’t know. I really need to recharge, but I’ll do my best, Hal.”
“I know you will.” Hal showed him how the outboard engine worked, how to steer, then untied the rope from the dock, pressed his foot against the back of the canoe, and pushed it gently away from the dock. “Paddle out for a ways, then start the engine.”
“I ordered us an Uber in Key West,” Red said. “It’ll meet us at the dock there.”
“Even with the curfew?” Hal asked.
“Uh, yeah. Apparently several thousand people in town are defying the curfew and having a street party,” Red said, consulting her cell. “The street party spills across most of downtown Key West, so Ubers are busy.”
“You can steal the Uber car,” Hal told her.
Then Nico shrouded all of them and the canoe and shrouded the SUV again, too. Hal heard their paddles slapping the water as they moved away from shore.
He loped back into the parking lot to the yet invisible SUV. He found it only because he knew exactly where he’d parked. Second row, fourth space. Even so, getting inside was awkward, his hands slapping the air until they struck something solid. He felt the handle, jerked on it, and slipped inside, where everything was now visible to him.
Pharmacy.
2
Mira’s hope surged. Hal believed her texts were from Liz. She told Cam and Rincon what was going on, then texted Sheppard and his group about where Trixie, Red, Nico, and Squirt were. They’re invisible, she added.
And Hal? Sheppard asked.
He thinks he’s rescuing Liz.
Where?
Just go after the others.
She read the messages to Rincon and Cam. Rincon’s response was what she’d expected. “You can’t take on Hal by yourself, Mira.”
“Actually, she probably can,” said Cam. “But there’ll be two of her, just like before at the house.”
Mira went over to the gun cabinet, keyed in the code, and removed two weapons with additional clips that she handed to Rincon. “Can you stay here and make sure Liz and the other two don’t escape?”
“And shoot any Crows that barrel through the front door?” Cam asked.
Rincon regarded them with a WTF expression. “Yes to both. Let’s just end this shit show. But I have a question, Mira. How do you know all the security codes in here?”
“It goes back to when I read crime scenes for the bureau.”
Mira started to reach into the cabinet again to get a weapon for herself, but stopped. Did she really need more weapons? She already had several in her pack from when this all had first started, before she had known what she knew now. More weapons would be like telling herself she couldn’t take him on one to one.
She eyed the Glock 22 with what felt like a sense of longing. Then she withdrew her hand and locked the cabinet again. Should she remove the weapons in her pack? If she was really serious about taking on Hal with her own ability, then yes, she should. But couldn’t she be serious about that and also have a Plan B? A just in case backup?
Fuck, yeah. The point was for them all to survive. She had enough weapons in her bag.
“They haven’t changed the codes for six years?” Rincon asked.
“What?” She’d been so immersed in her own thoughts she couldn’t remember what they’d been talking about.
“The codes to everything in here,” Rincon said. “How do you have them?”
“Shep updates me whenever the codes change.”
Cam’s brows shot up. “Really? And that’s an expression of his skepticism about your abilities?” He shook his head. “You need to reconsider all this, Mira. Maybe your struggles all these years have been self-inflicted.” He paused. “A matter of perception.”
His words startled her. “Really? My perception was fucked up when he remarked that what I picked up from reading the stone woman was skewed? That he couldn’t believe what I’d picked up about the Crows being from the future? About the effects of climate change in your time? That he thought I was full of shit? Really, Cam?”
He patted the air with his long pale hands, a gesture he often made when he sought to fend off hostility. “Okay, Mira. I get it. This is a raw wound.”
“Damn straight. I gave up a lot in the last six years.”
“By choice,” Cam said. “You took the easy way out.”
That caught her by surprise, then pissed her off. She started to say as much, but he wasn’t finished. “The bigger and more difficult challenge would’ve been to continue doing what you were doing. You and Shep are separate people who inhabit sovereign kingdoms. Shep’s skepticism is his challenge, not yours. Your ability is your challenge, not his.”
The intensity of what she felt just then told her Cam was right. At the time, the battle hadn’t seemed worth the time or energy. In one way or another it had been a battle she’d fought since she was that third grader who’d been suspended from school for yanking down the bully’s gym shorts without physically touching her. But that incident had led her to Nadine, her grandmother, surrogate mother, business partner, psychic mentor. That incident had spun her life around. Suddenly, it was fine to talk about spirits she’d seen, the glimmers of the future she saw, the details she’d sensed about people’s lives. Suddenly, it was fine to be who she was.
“Well, for taking the easy way out, I’m paying for it now.”
“Time out!” Rincon made a time out signal with his hands. “It doesn’t fucking matter right now!” He slapped keys down on the desk. “Take the Mini-Coop out there that Eden and Hull were driving. Get your asses to the pharmacy. I’ve got this place covered!”
“Cam?”
His appearance abruptly switched into a replica of Mira. “I’m ready.” He spoke in her voice, looked like her, acted like her. It disoriented Mira.
Once they were outside in the parking lot, the energy coursed through her—a current so powerful and ubiquitous that she kept flinging it away from herself. At rocks, weeds, trees, the ground, the water. Cam finally touched her shoulder. “Mira, it’s probably a good idea if you stop doing that. You’re essentially telling the energy it’s unwanted.”
“I’m… I’m just trying to get rid of the excess.”
“I can’t duplicate that.”
“Why not?”
“I can only duplicate what’s authentic, Mira.”
“Look, we’re about to go head to head with Hal. I don’t want to burn up or implode before I get there.”
Their shoes crunched over mulch, dried twigs, roots, beds of fallen leaves. The darkness made her feel uneasy, uncertain. Cam hooked his arm through hers, Mira turned on her cell’s flashlight and aimed it at the ground.
“That’s not it,” Cam said.
“What? My cell flashlight?”
“No, I mean you’re trying to rid yourself of the talent that belongs to you.”
She stopped. He stopped. They looked at each other in one of those ridiculous movie moments when nothing made sense, yet everything made sense. Mira clasped his hands. “Tell me what you know, Cam. You’ve hinted at it, teased me with it. Just spit it out, okay?”
He drew in air, held it, then exhaled deeply and his breath seemed to seep into her body at a molecular level. She felt those molecules penetrating her skin muscles, bones, blood. She suddenly saw herself and Cam in an auditorium somewhere, addressing thousands about climate change and how 2025—2030 seemed to spell the end dates.
“You want…” he stammered.
“I…”
She what? She wanted to know everything Cam knew. Wanted an immediate download of information that would direct her toward the right decision: Leave Tango? And if so, when? Where should they go? Is there an alternative to the dome? Can we change anything in our future from right now?
There in the parking lot, in the muted light of stars and a rising moon, Cam tightened his grasp on her hands. “I can give you this.” The current that raced through her, from his hands into hers, was an entire blueprint of possibilities and what ifs, horrors and triumphs, a grid of numbers, images, and alternative realities that moved through her so quickly, in the space of a breath, that she couldn’t fully grasp it.
Mira wrenched back, breaking the physical connection between them. “What the hell, Cam.”
“I know that was… a lot,” Cam said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to overwhelm you.”
“Some of it… sailed right past me.”
“You’ll remember it. At some level. And look, we write our own futures. Moment to moment. Choice to choice. Let’s choose wisely.”
She nodded. “C’mon.”
They got in the car, Mira behind the wheel, and she pulled out of the lot. Cam’s appearance changed again. He now looked like Wind and in her soft, gentle voice, he said, “See, the truth is that Hal has loved me ever since he rescued me from a bunch of Normals who intended to rape and kill me. He and his parents saved my life. He really wanted me to join him on this insane trip. I tried, I was with Cam and Trixie, but when they walked into the past, I… couldn’t follow them.”
“Why not?” Mira asked.
“It didn’t feel right, not for me. I felt I could fight for all us here. And because of this. Because of where we are now.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m more than Wind. All Crows are more than what they appear to be. I saw many of these moments in the wind a long time ago.”
“You saw—what? All this? Me?” Mira asked.
“Some of it, yes.”
“How?”
“Complex.”
Cam morphed into himself again. “There’s something you and I aren’t seeing right now. I think Hal has a failsafe, but I don’t know what it is.”
“That’s unsettling, Cam.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“So Wind is a precog?”
“A what?”
Okay, so he’d never seen Minority Report or read Philip K. Dick. “Precognitive. She can see the future.”
“When it’s riding in the wind, yes.”
“Do you have access to Wind’s ability?” Mira asked.
Cam nodded. “And yours, when I look like you, like what had happened back at the house. And with Red when I really focus and sometimes, Trixie. But not with Liz or Squirt or Nico. And I definitely can’t do what Hal does.”
“Can we win this, Cam?”
He didn’t answer immediately. “Maybe.” He rocked one of his long, thin hands from side to side. “Fifty/fifty.”
“C’mon. Those odds suck. How about an eighty/twenty? Or a ninety/ten? Fifty/fifty sucks.”
Distraught, he blurted, “It’s what I see.”
She knew what that was like. “Tell me about Wind’s power.”
He camouflaged himself once more as Wind. He seemed as comfortable in Wind’s skin as he did in his own. Kindred souls. A Jungian anima/animus.
“You experienced Weather’s power.” Cam spoke in Wind’s voice. “But Weather was always all over the place. In some ways, my ability as Wind is more powerful because it’s so specific and focused.”
“Hurricanes?”
“Sure.” She lowered the window and her hands moved slowly through the outside air. The trees they passed, illuminated by the head lights, whipped back and forth. “Tornadic winds, strange winds, precognitive winds.” When she spoke, her voice sounded like wind. “Time rides that wind. It’s all there—past, present, future. Einstein was wrong about time as a river. Time is the wind, on the wind, within the wind. Not everyone can catch it. But I believe you can, Mira.”
She now made elegant, wavelike motions with her hands and a flurry of leaves pinwheeled across the road in front of them.
Mira’s cell rang, Annie’s name came up. Mira suspected Sheppard had put her up to it, hoping she could find out where Cam was headed and what Mira was up to. But she didn’t want cops and soldiers descending on the pharmacy. This was her battle, it had been since the beginning, and now it was Cam’s as well.
She let the call go to voicemail, texted Annie a heart emoji, and turned off the location setting on her phone.
3
At the ferry dock, Sheppard and Gutierrez took one airboat, Keel and Delgado took another. Both were equipped with powerful searchlights and could reach speeds of more than a hundred miles an hour. Sheppard, like the others, had brought his own arsenal with him and they all wore thermal sensitive goggles.
Gutierrez, straddling the raised seat in the pilot’s roost, shouted, “Clear!” As if the airboat were a plane upon takeoff. Then the airboat shot away from the dock, turned slightly, and searchlights stripped away the plateau of darkness between Tango and Key West.
To the naked eye, the darkness would look as empty as a stage the morning after a rock concert. Thanks to the goggles, Sheppard saw four red blobs of heat in the distance. “See them, Goot?” He spoke into the mike connected to his collar and hoped Gutierrez could hear him in spite of the whine of the engine.
“Got them, yeah. About a mile north of us.”. Sheppard raised his binoculars to his goggles. They didn’t appear to be moving very fast, the boat sat low in the water, the blobs were crowded closely together. He guessed their collective weight was too much for a boat with a puny outboard.
He positioned himself at the front of the airboat with his bag of weapons, unzipped it, pulled out his M4. Its maximum range was 3,600 meters, about two and a quarter miles. It became less accurate with distance, of course, but for this moment, it was perfect.
“Head straight toward them, Goot.”
Gutierrez flashed a thumbs up and the airboat picked up speed. Keel and Delgado’s airboat came up alongside them, searchlight brilliant. Keel piloted, Delgado was positioned at the front, like Sheppard. Delgado’s voice crackled in Sheppard’s earbud. “Low, at the outboard.”
“Now!”
Sheppard aimed low at the back of their boat, where the engine was, and he and Delgado fired simultaneously. Within seconds, a tremendous wave of energy slammed into them, spun them around like a needle on a compass. Sheppard grabbed onto the railing in front of him, Gutierrez whipped the airboat around, waves crashed over the sides. Sheppard took aim again, and fired repeatedly at the area where the blobs seemed to meet the surface of the water.
Flames arced into the sky and struck the water to the right of the airboat. “Searchlight off!” Sheppard shouted.
Their light winked out and so did the one on the other airboat. It meant Gutierrez and Keel had to navigate on instruments and both cut back slightly on speed. Sheppard aimed and fired repeatedly. The blobs trembled, shook, then they all melted together and Sheppard guessed their vessel had capsized.
Gutierrez turned on the searchlight again. The capsized boat was now visible. Two Crows clung to it and a third floundered in the water, struggling to keep the fourth crow afloat. A wounded Crow. Given that they were visible, Sheppard guessed the injured C
row was Nico. But he didn’t have any idea what to do with this information. Charge them or fall back?
They moved in closer, Keel and Delgado on the north side of the capsized canoe, Sheppard and Gutierrez on the south side, their boat idling now. Sheppard realized Red was in the water, trying to keep Nico from drowning, and Trixie struggled to keep Squirt above water as he clutched the capsized canoe. In other words, the three Lethals weren’t in any position to defend themselves. He could get clear, fatal shots at all of them.
And that would be murder, not self-defense.
He signaled Gutierrez to stop. The throbbing of the engine died and in that silence Sheppard heard the panicked shouts and cries from the crows. His earbud crackled and Keel’s voice came through. “What’s your plan?”
Keel’s voice, so loud and direct, snapped Sheppard out of his uncertainty. “We come along them on either side. Rescue the injured crow—Nico, the albino—and get plump boy out of the water and stun the two women.”
“That order of things sucks, Shep. We stun, then rescue.”
“Fine. Let’s do it. And then we continue to the Key West dock.”
“I’ll take Trixie,” Sheppard said, and he and Delgado fired their stun guns.
Red and Trixie flailed, arms and legs thrashing wildly, and Sheppard leaped into the water to grab onto them before they went under. He reached Red first, slung his arm around her neck and grabbed onto the back of Nico’s shirt and pulled him along as he kicked his way to the airboat.
Gutierrez hauled Red on board, then slid his arms under Nico’s shoulders and pulled him up and out. As he scrambled up the ladder, Sheppard glanced at the other airboat. Keel was at the foot of the ladder with Trixie and Squirt, who was coughing and sobbing. Delgado pulled the kid up first and he stumbled across the foot of the airboat, then fell to his knees. Then Delgado grabbed onto Trixie and brought her onboard too.
In front of him, Red groaned and Gutierrez slipped a needle into her arm, injecting her with morphine. Sheppard hurried over to Nico, turned him over. Blood covered the front of his shirt. Sheppard tore it open and nearly gagged at the sight of the blood that poured from an injury to his stomach. “Jesus, he’s going to bleed to death, Goot. Get us to Key West. Is there a medical kit on this airboat?”
“Not that I’ve seen.” He thrust a towel at Sheppard. “Press this over his injury.” He ran toward the controls.
Sheppard had basic paramedic training for administering first aid, but it hadn’t covered anything like this. He kept pressure on the towel and radioed their position to the Key West bureau office. The dispatcher told him an ambulance waited at the dock, that the holding area was ready, and a public health doc would be standing by.
“One of them is bleeding out,” Sheppard added.
“I’ll patch you through to the doc,” the dispatcher said, and moments later, a woman spoke.
“Agent Sheppard, this is Dr. Risa Griffin. I removed the chip from the man found in the alley in 1985. Dr. Rincon brought me back in on this when the stone woman was found. What’s the Crow’s injury?”
Sheppard vaguely recalled Mira mentioning this woman. She’d been with Mira and Pam the producer the evening the weather Crow had killed Pam. Things seemed to be coming full circle. “He’s losing a lot of blood. Injury to the stomach area.” My fault, shit, I fired that last shot.
“Keep pressure applied to the area. Which, uh, Crow is this?”
“The albino. Invisibility.”
“I’m assuming he’s visible now?”
“Yes.”
“I suspect that if he starts to fade, you’ll know he’s dying.”
“We’re nearly to the Key West dock.”
“I’m waiting there now.”
“Thanks.”
He disconnected and leaned in close to Nico. “I’m doing what I can, I didn’t want to hurt or kill any of you. But you… you took Mira and Ian, you… decimated Tango. You…”
Nico’s eyes fluttered open. “… need water…”
Sheppard thrust his hand into his pack and pulled out a bottle of water. He spun the cap, lifted Nico’s head, brought the bottle to his mouth. “Sip.”
He sipped, then his hands gripped the bottle and he gulped. The movement seemed to exhaust him. His hands fell to his sides again and he breathed heavily, panting like a dog. “You… have to… defeat him… Hal tricked… all of us into… coming here.”
“Don’t talk. Conserve your strength.”
“No… you need to… listen. He… I believe he has a failsafe… a way to annihilate the island if he’s… killed… He’s a con… a liar.”
“Where is he?”
“Liz… got taken. She contacted Hal… said they… put her in the pharmacy. He’s going to rescue her… says they’ll join us… he’s full of shit…”
Yeah, dude, we took her but not to any pharmacy. Sheppard suddenly understood that Mira had messaged Hal, pretending to be Liz.
“Hang on, man, just hang on.”
Nico gasped for air, started convulsing, then fading. He went motionless—and invisible—in Sheppard’s arms.