THEY CAME FOR the Traveler just before dawn.
Victor One was sitting with him inside the cabin. The big, rangy bodyguard was squeezed into a chair built, he thought, for a delicate old grandma about one-third his size. He was sipping coffee out of a cup that looked like it was meant for a dollhouse. Plus it was lousy coffee, black as sin and almost as sour.
Still, it had been kind of the Traveler to let him come in and warm himself. It was cold on the hilltop at this hour.
“Any idea when they’ll be here?” the Traveler asked him. The small, bald scientist was seated at his desk, his laptop and his packed bag on the floor by his feet. He had his own coffee cup lifted to his lips. The steam fogged the lenses of his glasses so that his thoughtful, dreamy eyes disappeared behind them. It looked pretty silly to Victor One, but the Traveler didn’t seem to mind being blinded like that.
Victor One shook his head. “No way to know. No phones. No Wi-Fi. No commo at all. That was the whole point of this place, I guess. But it does make it hard to find out what’s going on, doesn’t it? Shouldn’t be too long now—that’s my guess.”
The Traveler set his cup in the saucer, set cup and saucer down on the desk beside the photo of his family and the cross that until last night had decorated the wall. Victor One found it touching that the Traveler had left these—the picture and the cross—out of his bag until the last minute. It was as if the scientist couldn’t bear to be without them even for a few hours.
“Guess you’re pretty eager to see your people again, huh, Doc,” said the bodyguard.
The Traveler nodded absentmindedly, his eyes meditative and far away. “There’s a verse in the Bible I particularly like,” he said. “ ‘Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’ ”
Victor One nodded. He remembered the passage, part of a hymn he’d always liked. “ ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you . . .’ ”
“What I find fascinating about that advice—the advice not to worry about tomorrow”—the Traveler spoke in a mild, speculative tone, as if he were talking about a mathematical problem or a dissected frog—“is how clearly wise it is and yet how nearly impossible it is to follow!”
Victor One laughed, nodding into his lousy coffee. “It is a tough one, isn’t it? You think God is just messing with us?”
The Traveler laughed back. “Somehow I doubt it.” He pulled his misted glasses off and wiped them clean on his sweater. His laughter subsided, and the weariness was plain on his face. “I wanted to keep them safe—my family,” he said. “That was the whole point of all this.” He gestured at the cabin. “To be where no one could find me. Where no one could give me away. I thought it was the best way to protect them. But I seem to have done just the opposite.”
Victor One tried to think of something to say to that. “It’s just not a safe world, Doc,” he said finally. “We do the best we can . . .”
But the Traveler shook his head, gazing sadly into the middle distance. “I trusted Leila . . .”
Victor One didn’t want to get into that at all. He had overheard part of the argument between the Traveler and Leila Kent, but he wasn’t sure how much he was supposed to know. Officially, Leila was Victor One’s boss on this mission, and he didn’t want to say anything that would get him in trouble with her. To give himself time to figure out how to respond, he drained his cup. Man, he thought, that is one bad cup of coffee. Then, when he lowered the cup, he said, “I’m sure Miss Kent wouldn’t do anything to hurt you, Doc. Not on purpose, anyway.”
“Are you?” said the Traveler. “Are you really sure?”
“Oh yeah. Oh yeah, definitely. I mean, anyone can see how she feels about you . . .” The minute the words came out of his mouth, Victor One regretted them. He thought it was so obvious that Leila Kent was in love with the Traveler that for a moment, he hadn’t considered the idea that a smart guy like the Traveler wouldn’t have noticed. But, of course, the Traveler was so absentminded, his mind so occupied with his work and his God and his family, that he hadn’t noticed Leila Kent’s feelings at all. Until the moment Victor One opened his big mouth, he had had no idea.
He stared at the bodyguard. “Leila? How she feels about me? What do you mean?”
Wishing he could stuff the words right back into his stupid piehole, Victor One stammered, “Well, you know, I’m just . . . just looking at her you can see . . . I’m just saying it’s kind of obvious . . .”
“Are you talking about romantic feelings?” said the incredulous Traveler. “But all that’s been over between us for a long time!”
“Uh . . . ,” responded Victor One.
He was rescued by the sound of footsteps on the leaves outside. Quickly, he set his grandma cup aside and jumped to his feet.
“Sounds like they’re on their way,” he said.
Just to be on the safe side, he put his hand on the holster of his gun as he moved to the dark window. But there was no reason to expect trouble in this isolated place.
Sure enough, he looked outside and saw the flashlights coming—and then there they were: Alpha Twelve and Bravo Niner escorting Leila Kent up over the hill.
Victor One opened the door for them. The Traveler got clumsily to his feet as Leila Kent stepped over the threshold. Victor One was amused to see that the Traveler’s cheeks turned bright red as he faced the elegant woman with her sleek clothes and golden hair. Now that the Traveler knew the truth, he could barely meet Leila Kent’s eyes. If Victor One could have slapped himself in the face, he would’ve.
“We have to move,” said Leila briskly. “Quickly. Now.”
A moment later, as the sky began to lighten with sunrise, they were on their way, Leila Kent and the Traveler hurrying down the hillside together, while the three bodyguards surrounded them, their hands on their weapons, their eyes scanning the trees in the new gray dawn.
A large black Mercedes was waiting for them on the dirt road at the bottom of the slope. The bodyguards escorted their two charges into the backseat. Then Bravo Niner slid in behind the wheel and Victor One got in the passenger seat beside him.
Alpha Twelve shut the rear door on Leila and the Traveler. He would stay behind on the mountaintop, waiting for the team that would come up to disassemble the cabin and remove every trace that the Traveler had ever been there.
A moment more, and they were rolling, the leaves and gravel crunching under the tires as they accelerated quickly over the forest path, heading for the road.
In a few minutes, they were clear of the trees and winding down the mountain. The road was perilously narrow; the drop over the side was perilously steep. Though the sky was growing lighter by the minute, it was still dark down here in the shadows of the towering pines. Victor One looked out the windshield. Saw the Mercedes’ headlights picking out a few yards of twining pavement as it rolled ahead. He glanced out his window and saw the frail, wooden railing flashing by him, the cliff beyond.
“You’re going awfully fast for this road,” he said to the driver.
Bravo Niner was dark and stringy, like a piece of beef jerky. He had hard eyes, and a permanent sneer on his mouth. He was a tough guy, Victor One knew, and had driven Humvees through some of the most battle-hot cities in the world.
“We’ll be okay,” he said, with a small smile at the corner of his mouth.
But now Victor One heard the Traveler in the backseat. “Are we expecting trouble?” he asked Leila Kent.
“We’re just being careful,” she told him. “The faster we move, the less chance anyone will catch up to us. We’re eager to get you to the new compound and out of harm’s way.”
After that, they raced on in silence. Victor One could practically feel the tension between the two passengers in back of him. Maybe he was just imagining it, but he didn’t think so. He pretended to check the rear window for following cars—and looked them over. He saw Leila Kent staring straight ahead, and the Traveler stealing sidelong glances at her. He was probably curious to see these signs of romantic attachment Victor One had stupidly told him about.
After a while, he heard Leila Kent say quietly behind him, “This is almost over, Traveler. You’ll be with your family very soon.” To Victor One, she sounded sad about it, but again, that might have been his imagination.
Just then, headlights appeared on the road ahead of them.
“Someone coming,” murmured Bravo Niner, working the wheel.
Victor One drew a breath, growing tense.
Behind him, Leila Kent said, “It’s a public road. There’s going to be some traffic. Just keep driving.”
Bravo Niner obeyed, but Victor One discreetly drew the pistol from underneath his arm. He kept his eye on the windshield, sitting very still as the headlights of the oncoming car grew bigger and bigger, brighter and brighter. There was enough daylight now to see that it was a red BMW. It came toward them on the far side of the narrow two-lane. It was about to pass by.
But it didn’t pass.
Suddenly, the Beamer swerved in front of them. Its tires screeched as it braked to a halt before it could crash through the railing and go flying off the side of the mountain. It lay across the road now, cutting off the way.
The tires of the Mercedes let out an answering screech as Bravo Niner reacted. He hit the brakes hard and spun the wheel to the left. The Mercedes turned to the side and stopped, just before it struck the other car broadside. For a moment, it sat parallel to the Beamer. Victor One looked out and saw men—four men—pouring out of the Beamer’s doors. All of them were carrying machine guns.
Bravo Niner threw the Mercedes into reverse. Victor One swung around to scream into the backseat. “Get your heads down, both of you!”
But the Traveler didn’t duck. Instead, he reached out and grabbed Leila by the back of the neck. He pulled her down and toward him so that her head went beneath the level of the windshield. Then he bent his body protectively over hers.
Right, thought Victor One. He would.
At the same time, the Mercedes straightened out and started to back up fast—and the men with machine guns opened fire.
Leila let out a scream, muffled by the Traveler’s body. Starbursts appeared on the Mercedes’ windshield as the bullets struck the reinforced glass. As the Mercedes kept careening backward, Victor One ducked his head, buzzed down the window, then popped up and leaned out, firing off several rounds in answer to the barrage.
“Stay down, stay down!” Bravo Niner shouted. He stopped the car short, smacked it into gear, and hit the gas.
The Mercedes shot forward, straight into the hail of bullets from the machine guns. Victor One heard Leila scream again. Then a starburst appeared on the windshield and his arm flared with searing pain.
“I’m hit!” he shouted, falling back against the seat.
He felt the Mercedes swerve to avoid the Beamer in its path.
Then they were past the ambush. They were speeding down the winding road again. There were a few final shots as the gunmen tried to stop them. Then the sound of gunfire fell away completely.
Victor One held his arm, grimacing with pain. He turned to look at the passengers.
“You all right back there?”
Slowly, carefully, the Traveler sat up. Leila sat up beside him. They looked over their shoulders out the rear window to see if they were being chased, and Victor One looked, too. The attackers and their car were already out of sight around a bend.
Victor One faced front. He saw dawn lighting the sky ahead. Good thing, too: both the Mercedes’ headlights had been shot out.
“Will they come after us?” asked Leila Kent, her voice trembling.
“They can try,” said Bravo Niner. “But it won’t do them much good. I can outrace them in this baby easy.”
As if to prove it, he kept his foot down hard on the gas pedal, twisting the wheel this way and that as the Mercedes rocketed around one narrow curve after another.
The Traveler spoke now—and Victor One was impressed by his calm, steady voice. He sounded like a man who got shot at every day.
“You said you were hit,” he said to Victor One. “Is it bad? We have to get you medical attention.”
Victor One was already examining the tear in his windbreaker and his sleeve, and the hole in the seat behind him. “No, I’m good,” he said. “It just burned me as it went past. There’s nothing in me. I’ll be fine.”
“Soon as we’re down within cell range, we’ve got to let MindWar know we’re heading for B Site,” said Leila Kent.
“Better be careful who you tell,” said Victor One.
“What do you mean? That’s ridiculous . . . ,” Leila Kent began to say, but her voice faltered as the Mercedes’ tires let out another screech and the car took yet another curve at high speed. When it steadied, she continued, “We haven’t sent out a single electronic communication in months. There’s no way Kurodar could have used the Realm to intercept any intel.”
Victor One nodded. “That’s right,” he said. “Which means someone must have told him.”
“What are you saying?” said Leila Kent.
Victor One was about to answer her, but the Traveler had already figured it out.
“It means someone in the MindWar Project is working for the enemy,” he said. “Someone very high up. Mars. Miss Ferris. One of us.”
Leila Kent could only turn and stare at him as the car continued racing through the day’s first light.
“Someone can’t be trusted,” said the Traveler.