Dog Years

I was manipulating cards in the front seat, keeping an eye out for the red crab truck while I listened to Angela giving us a running travelogue about the Outer Banks, which she was cobbling together from the web. I’m not sure why she was doing this. There was better than a fifty-fifty chance that the crab truck was rolling down I-95 and we’d be turning around. I guess the travelogue was her version of manipulating cards. She was nervous. Busy lips.

“Virginia Dare was the first child born in America to English parents. August 18, 1587. She was born in the Roanoke Colony on Roanoke Island near the present-day city of Manteo …”

Boone stared through the windshield with a look of concern. We hadn’t heard from John Masters since he took the exit forty minutes ago.

“OBX is a two-hundred-mile-long string of barrier islands that runs the entire length of North Carolina. It’s sometimes called the Graveyard of the Atlantic …”

I hoped it didn’t turn out to be our graveyard, or Malak’s, or Bethany’s, or John’s.

“Ocracoke Island was home base for the pirate Edward Teach, also known as Blackbeard. He was killed on the island by Lieutenant Robert Maynard in 1718. Maynard cut Blackbeard’s head off and put it on the bowsprit of his sloop so the bounty could be collected …”

I was kind of interested in this factoid, although I have to say that my taste for blood and gory death had changed over the past week or so.

“Orville and Wilbur Wright made history on a windy beach at Kill Devil Hills near the town of Kitty Hawk in North Carolina on December 17, 1903, when they piloted the first plane ever to fly with an engine.”

Croc began to growl. We had come up behind a semitruck.

Boone dropped back and tapped his Bluetooth.

“Felix?”

“Yeah.”

“Turn around. We have the truck. Stop at the hospital and pick up the coach.”

◊ ◊ ◊

John Masters had never felt more vulnerable in his life as he pushed the shopping cart across the dark parking lot. He kept his head down. If they were out there, they were watching through night scopes. Trailer Guy would not be scanning the lot for active threats. He’d be hunkered down making a beeline for his trailer, completely unaware that his stocking cap might be in the crosshairs of a sniper scope. The closer he got to the cluster of RVs, the better he felt. If they were going to take a shot, they’d do it in the open. But he still didn’t let his guard down. He pushed the cart between two motor coaches and stopped at the beat-up trailer parked behind them. The next part of the ruse could prove to be a little tricky. He grabbed two bags and banged on the trailer door.

Lights came on. He banged again. A few seconds later the door opened, revealing the real trailer guy, who was big, bald, and annoyed in his T-shirt and underpants.

“What the—”

“You won!” John said, handing him two of the grocery bags.

He had never seen this fail. If you smile and hand someone something, they take it. It could be a live grenade and they’d take it. And with their hands full, they couldn’t take a swing at you.

“Who are—”

“Proud Wal-Mart employee. And you’re our four-bag winner!”

“At four o’clock in the—”

“Four at Four we call it. Rain or shine every morning we pick one of our parking lot guests and give them four bags of groceries. I’ll grab the other two bags. I’m getting kind of wet out here. All I have to do is get some information from you so you can get back to sleep.”

All I have to do is get inside your trailer so the terrorists think I live here and they don’t try to kill me.

“I guess that’d be okay.”

John grabbed the two remaining bags and jumped into the trailer before Trailer Guy woke up enough to change his mind. He closed the door behind him and set the bags on the kitchen table.

“Be with you in a second,” the real trailer guy said as he disappeared into a room in the back.

The trailer was a lot better looking on the inside than it was on the outside. It was clean and well organized. All John had to do now was to stay inside long enough to convince the terrorists that he belonged there.

The man came back out wearing a pair of jeans. “Is this for real?”

“Absolutely,” John said. “Usually we don’t wake people up. We just leave the groceries outside with a note, but because of the rain my boss thought it would be best to knock.”

“I’m not sure it was a good idea or not, but thanks … I guess. Kind of weird you picking the groceries out for someone you don’t know.”

John grinned. “I hear you. The receipt’s in one of the bags. You’re welcome to exchange what’s in there for anything you want. It’s over a hundred bucks worth of stuff. The only thing I have to do is …” He started checking his pockets. “Dang I left the form back at the store.”

“What form?”

“It’s just your name, address, and phone number. I’ll run over and get it and come back.”

“No offense, but how about if I write the information down on a piece of paper so I can go back to sleep.”

“Sure. That’ll work.”

The man scratched the information down and handed it to him. John looked the information over. If terrorists were watching, he’d been inside plenty of time to convince them he wasn’t a threat.

“You’re a lifesaver, Mr. Timmons,” he said, and stepped outside into the rain.

He followed the same path he had taken to the store, scooping up his kit on the way. Before getting into his SUV, he checked it for tampering. It was clean. He booted up the computer and turned on the tracking software. The Tahoe was 1.6 miles away, traveling east on 64, which meant they’d been watching him when he left Wal-Mart and they had made a mistake. They had neglected to check their vehicle for tampering.

Now I’m watching you.

◊ ◊ ◊

Croc had stopped growling. He was sitting up in the backseat, staring through the windshield at the taillights of the semitruck we were following, like they were juicy rabbits. Angela had stopped her OBX travelogue and had her head poked between the front seats again.

“What if it’s not the right truck?” she asked.

It was a good question. There were no markings on the back of the truck and we hadn’t seen the side.

“It’s the right truck,” Boone said.

I wasn’t feeling the itch, and Angela definitely wasn’t feeling it. I doubted she had ever felt itchy.

“How old is Croc?” she asked out of the blue.

What did this have to do with anything?

“In dog years?” Boone asked.

“There is no such thing as dog years,” Angela said. “They’re just years. Dogs simply don’t live as long as people. Someone didn’t like the idea of dogs dying after a few short years so they came up with the one human year equals seven dog years. Dogs have a median age of twelve point eight years.”

Only Angela would know something like this. But why was she bringing the subject up?

“Croc is older than twelve point eight years,” Boone said. “How much older I can’t say.”

“Can’t or won’t?” Angela asked.

There was an edge of frustration to her question, and I was beginning to see where she was coming from. When it came to personal questions (not that “how old is your dog” is a personal question), Boone was usually annoyingly obtuse. At least I think that’s the word. He either answered with some kind of riddle, or chose not to answer at all. This time he decided not to answer at all. He stared through the windshield as if he hadn’t heard the question.

My mom and Speed were both surprised that Boone was still alive. He was an old guy when they were young. Mom had also been surprised that Croc was still with him. She thought he must be Croc version 2.0 or 3.0, because the original Croc could not possibly still be alive in human or dog years.

“How old are you?” I asked.

Boone tried to grin the questions off. “Two against one?”

“How old is Croc?” Angela repeated. No grin.

“We’re both older than we look.” Grin.

“That’s not exactly an answer,” I said. No grin.

“It might be the best you’re going to get right now.” Grin.

Two frowns.

Boone’s grin disappeared. He stared through the windshield. We waited.

“I don’t know how old I am,” he finally said. “I don’t know how old Croc is. But I can tell you this. We are older than anyone you have ever met, or ever will meet. When you’re gone, we’ll still be here like we’ve always been here.”

I looked at Angela. Her mouth was hanging open and I’m sure mine was too. Boone was not talking about dog years here. He was talking about something entirely different. Something impossible.

“Are you saying you’re a vampire?” I asked.

“No,” Boone answered. “We killed the last vampire a hundred years ago.”

We? I had been joking, but I don’t think he was.

“I know it’s hard to wrap your mind around the idea,” Boone continued. “When this is all over, I’ll try to explain it in more detail.”

More detail? He hadn’t given us any detail at all. If anyone but Boone had told me he and his dog were eternal, immortal, or whatever he was saying, I would have thought he was kidding, lying, or crazy. But this was Tyrone Boone. The guy who always seemed to show up in the right place at the right time. The guy who appeared to live on nothing but water and never seemed to sleep. The guy who the president of the United States was trusting with the life of his daughter. The guy who everyone was surprised was still alive.

“Ageless,” Angela said quietly.

I was surprised she seemed to be buying into this so easily. She was usually more skeptical than me.

“Something like that,” Boone said. “And there’s something else you need to know.”

“As if what you just told us isn’t enough for us to know,” I said.

Angela cracked a smile.

Boone actually laughed, then said, “Here’s the deal. By this time in a mission, Croc and I are usually pretty much on our own, meaning that we separate from the SOS team and operate out of their view.”

“Why?” Angela asked.

“Let’s just say that the team doesn’t know about some of my special talents. It would freak them out, just like it will freak you out if you happen to see something …” He hesitated. “Impossible I guess you’d call it. I didn’t expect to have you with me. My plan was to pass you off to one of the other team members, but since I’m …” He hesitated again.

“Stuck with us,” I said.

“I wouldn’t put it like that. But I’ll admit having you with me could be a little awkward. If down the road I do something a little unusual, I need your word that you won’t tell anyone about it, including the other members of the SOS team.”

“What do you mean by unusual?” I asked.

“Kind of like magic,” Boone said.

I looked at Croc. He was sitting up and appeared to be listening to everything we said, and I had a feeling he understood what we were saying. It creeped me out and made me feel bad. I’d said some things to him over the past week that weren’t exactly kind. I probably wouldn’t have said them if I thought he understood what I was saying. And then there were his startling appearances, like when he was on the other side of the overpass and a second later he was at my side.

“Croc seems to move pretty fast at times,” I said.

Boone gave me a curious look, then nodded. “He’s pretty spry for his age … at times.”

“What are you talking about?” Angela asked.

Apparently she hadn’t seen him do this. I hadn’t actually seen him do it either. He didn’t move from one place to another. He simply appeared.

“He moves fast,” I said, which was lame, but I didn’t know how else to explain it. One thing I did know. I was going to pay a lot more attention to Croc from now on. I was going to keep a closer eye on Boone as well.

“I’m not saying with certainty that you’re going to see anything,” Boone said. “But if you do, I need your word that you’ll keep it to yourself. We’ve been over this before, but I have to ask: Will you trust me?”

I looked at Angela. “The president does. Malak does.”

After a pause, she said, “Fine. I trust you and I won’t say anything.”

Boone glanced over at me. “And you?”

“My lips are sealed, but I do have one more question.” Actually I had a thousand questions, but I didn’t think he’d answer them because they had to do with magic. Magicians never reveal the secrets to their tricks.

“You want to know how old the SOS crew is,” Boone said.

“That wasn’t what I was going to ask, but now that you mention it.”

“X-Ray and Vanessa are the oldest of the bunch. They’re in their mid-seventies.”

“But you’re older,” Angela said.

“That’s right.”

“And Croc is older too,” I added.

“Much older.”

Boone’s cell chimed. It was John Masters.

“Saved by the bell,” I said.

Boone smiled.

Memorial

John told us about his Wal-Mart terrorist encounter.

“No doubt about it,” he ended. “They’re pros. Taking them out is not going to be easy.”

“The woman you saw is definitely not Malak Tucker,” Boone said. “And just to clarify, our primary mission is not to take them out. If we eliminated them, four more would pop up. We’re after the guy moving the pawns and his lieutenants. No player, no game.”

“Understood,” John said.

“I’m going to bring everyone into the conversation. X-Ray will link the Tahoe you’re tracking to our computers. He’ll hack into the Wal-Mart surveillance tapes and try to get some intel on the four bad guys. If they’re pros, they’re bound to be in a database somewhere. Hang on while I patch them in.”

A moment later X-Ray came on the line, complaining how boring it was following a bomb.

“Until it goes off,” Uly added.

“They’re heading south now,” Vanessa said.

Boone ignored the banter and told them what was happening on our end. Within seconds X-Ray had the Tahoe John was following on Angela’s computer and added Felix’s cell signal so we could track him as well.

“We’re only a half a mile behind John,” Angela said. “John’s a quarter of a mile behind the Tahoe. Felix is just about at the hospital.”

“I have a feeling we’re all headed to the same place,” Boone said. “The Wal-Mart stop wasn’t just a supply stop. They were waiting for the truck to catch up.”

Ziv checked in, saying their Tahoe had reached its destination.

“Where?”

“The U.S.S. Cole Memorial.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

Of course Know-It-All knew the answer. “In October 2000, terrorists detonated a boat filled with explosives next to the U.S.S. Cole, which was refueling in a Yemeni port. Seventeen sailors were killed and thirty-nine were wounded.”

“Is there a bomb in the car?” Boone asked.

“Yes,” Ziv said. “The wires run from the engine to the back of the vehicle. Beneath the carpet is enough plastic explosives to blow up another ship.”

“What’s around the memorial?”

“Water. A parking lot. A jogging path. Essentially nothing. They parked next to the memorial, then got into an empty car waiting for them in the parking lot. Eben dropped me off here and followed them. They checked into a hotel. He checked their new car. No explosives.”

“Are you there, Eben?” Boone asked.

“In the Rover watching the hotel,” Eben said.

“Let them go. They aren’t important. X-Ray? See if there is anything scheduled for the Cole Memorial today.”

X-Ray came on a minute later. “Nothing that I can find.”

“Then it’s symbolic,” Boone said. “As long as we can do it without any collateral damage, we’ll let the Tahoe explode. They can erect another memorial. Felix blew the first bomb prematurely. We’ll do this one early too. Hopefully they’ll conclude it was faulty timers, not outside interference. X-Ray will walk you through the procedure for resetting the timer.”

“Go ahead, Ziv,” Eben said. “I’ll pick you up after you have it done.”

“Very humorous,” Ziv said.

Several people laughed. Boone didn’t.

“After the Tahoe goes up,” he said, “get down here as soon as you can. He hasn’t said it, but I don’t think it will be too long before J.R. sends the troops in to get his daughter back. I can’t blame him. If he does, and Malak doesn’t have the head ghost in hand, this will all be for nothing. The ghost cell will go dark. We need options. If the head ghost isn’t at the other end, we need a way to keep Malak in the game. We may need to bring back our rogue Mossad agent.”

“Providing the rogue Mossad agent survives the blast,” Eben said.

“Best be careful,” Boone said.

◊ ◊ ◊

Felix pulled into the hospital parking lot wishing he could climb inside the coach and go to sleep for about three and a half days. He also wished there were some clothes inside that weren’t singed and torn that would fit him. But he knew fresh clothes and a long sleep were not on the agenda.

At least I’ll be able to get something to eat.

Then he remembered that Roger and Blaze were vegetarians and there wasn’t anything inside that he would want to put into his mouth. His only hope was that Q had a secret cache of eatable food he could raid. He would have gotten something at the Cracker Barrel, but thought better of it when he saw his reflection in the window of the restaurant. He looked like a grizzly bear that had been caught in a terrible forest fire, or a very large man who had fallen on a live grenade and somehow survived. He felt it would be best if he stayed out of sight until he got himself cleaned up. He had found a pink cell phone in an old Ford Taurus with plenty of battery left. He didn’t mind the color, but the constant buzzing of incoming calls was annoying. Whoever owned it was popular, or else they were calling their own phone trying to find out where it was. He’d thought about heisting the Taurus, but it didn’t look roadworthy. Instead he decided on the Benz, but not before switching license plates with the Taurus to confuse the cops.

He parked next to the coach and got out. The weather had improved. It was still raining, but not nearly as hard as it had been. The wind had died down to about fifteen miles an hour. He stretched. His whole body felt brittle as if it might shatter if he fell down or bumped into something. He would have liked to get right into the coach and take off, but Boone wanted him to find out what had happened to Q’s dad.

Out of sight, out of mind and good riddance to him, Felix thought. What’s he doing down here anyway?

But Felix knew Boone wouldn’t have asked him to check unless he thought it was important, so he trudged across the wet parking lot to the entrance and walked inside. The woman behind the desk looked surprised. Then alarmed, as Felix got closer.

“May I help you?” she asked nervously.

Felix looked at the name tag on her scrubs. Her name was Betty.

“I’m looking for Speed Paulsen.”

She gave him a fake smile and checked her computer terminal. “I’m afraid we don’t have a Paulsen as a patient here.”

“He’s not a patient. He was visiting.”

Two uniformed security men hurried around the corner.

Felix glanced at them. They split up and flanked him. One to the right, one to the left.

Here we go.

“We don’t give out information about our visitors, or our patients,” Betty said.

The security guards moved in on him. Felix reached into his tattered coat and pulled out his wallet and flipped it open.

“Federal agent,” he said. “Stand down.”

The security guards stopped in their tracks. The one on his right looked at his creds. Felix moved the badge so Betty could read it. The badge read: “Special Agent Felix Park, Homeland Security.” If they were to call in to check the creds, they would find that Felix Park was an active agent of the federal government currently assigned to Homeland Security, compliments of the magic-hacking fingers of Raymond Brock. Felix also had creds for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, National Security Agency, Department of Defense, and the Central Intelligence Agency. The SOS team all carried a pocketful of creds.

“What in the world would Homeland Security want with Speed Paulsen?” Betty asked.

“We don’t give out information about our fugitives, or perpetrators.”

Felix was beginning to enjoy himself now, a little. “Where is he?”

“He was here, but he left,” Betty said. “It was a little confusing, really. He came in with his son, then his son disappeared, then he asked about some patients that were in a truck accident, but we didn’t have any record of them ever being here. Then his car wouldn’t start.”

“We managed to get it going,” one of the security guards said. The name on his badge was Ralph. “Then he took off. Said he was heading down to the Florida Keys.”

“What about his alleged son?”

“I don’t know what all that was about,” Betty answered. “He was concerned when we couldn’t find him, but he seemed to forget the whole thing after a while. He couldn’t have been nicer. He signed autographs and talked to everyone.”

“Weird night,” Ralph said. “While we were trying to get Speed’s car started, one of the doctors discovered that his car had been stolen.”

“Thanks for the information.”

“What happened to you?” Ralph asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Your clothes. You look like you’ve been beat up.”

“You look like you were set on fire,” the other guard said.

“That’s classified.”

Felix walked out of the hospital and back to the coach. He fumbled around in the wheel well for the magnetic lockbox with the spare key. It wasn’t exactly where Boone said it would be, but he finally found it.

He stepped inside the coach and fired up the diesel engine. While it was warming up, he checked out Q’s bunk for food and was rewarded with a half a bag of stale potato chips and a candy bar with a bite out of it.

Better than nothing.

The candy bar was gone by the time he got back to the driver’s seat. He buckled in, put the chip bag between his legs, and booted up the dashboard computer. Boone and Masters were almost to the town of Manteo on Roanoke Island. The intellimobile was a couple of hundred miles away, heading south on I-85 toward Atlanta. Ziv and Eben were getting ready to set a car bomb off. He was glad he wasn’t with them. He’d had enough of car bombs for one day.

Boom

Eben stood at the back of the Tahoe with a flashlight in one hand and a cell phone in the other. Ziv was standing next to him, holding a screwdriver and a pair of wire cutters. Everyone was listening in, but X-Ray was the only one giving instructions. Ziv had just gently peeled back the carpet in the cargo area. Beneath it were several pounds of C-4 plastic explosives. Dozens of stainless steel balls had been embedded into the soft plastic to increase the damage. There was a digital timer clicking off the minutes, one second at a time. It was set to go off in a little less than three hours.

“You sure it takes both of us?” Eben asked.

“Yeah,” X-Ray said. “One to hold the camera phone so I can see what you’re doing, and one to disarm the bomb.”

“I hate bombs,” Eben said.

“It’s a lot of explosive for a little memorial,” X-Ray said, ignoring him. “This might have been their secondary target.”

“Can we just get this over with,” Ziv said impatiently.

“Sure,” X-Ray said. “Cut the blue wire.”

“Just like that?” Ziv said.

“Snip,” X-Ray said. “But cut it up toward the lead because you’re going to need to reattach it. You’ll need some slack to reach.”

“Why don’t I just disconnect it from the lead?” Ziv asked.

“Because the bomb would explode,” X-Ray said.

Ziv pointed to what he thought was the blue wire.

Eben leaned down with the flashlight for a closer look. “Blue.”

Ziv cut it. Both men closed their eyes as if this would help if the Tahoe exploded. It didn’t explode.

“Show me the timer again.”

Eben pointed the camera phone at the timer. The numbers had stopped.

“Perfect,” X-Ray said. “Now detach the green wire. Don’t cut it. Just pull it away from the contact. Gently.”

“So this one we don’t cut,” Ziv said.

“Weird, isn’t it? Detonators all have their little quirks. You cut this one and the bomb goes boom.”

Ziv pulled the wire off the lead. Gently.

“Set the countdown timer for five minutes.”

“Five minutes!” Eben said.

“Any longer and a jogger or someone might show up. You heard Boone. He doesn’t want any collateral damage. Five minutes should give you plenty of time to get out of the blast radius.”

“Our vehicle is two hundred feet away in the parking lot,” Ziv said.

“You’ll have to run.”

Ziv looked at Eben. “Make sure you have your keys out, ready to go.”

Eben nodded. “I hope the car starts.”

Ziv set the timer for five minutes.

“Okay,” X-Ray said. “Hook the green wire up again. Gently.”

Ziv reattached the green wire to the lead.

“Now the blue wire. You’ll have to expose the end and hook it to the lead as best as you can, but make sure it’s secure. If it pops off. Boom.”

Ziv took out a small knife and exposed the copper on the wire.

“This is the tricky part. The timer is going to start the moment it touches the lead. And remember to make sure you don’t lose contact or—”

“We know,” Ziv said. “Boom.”

“Exactly.”

Ziv looked at Eben. Sweat ran down both of their faces. “Ready?”

“Do it,” Eben said.

Ziv wrapped the wire around the contact.

04:59 … 04:58 … 04:57…

“Run!” Ziv shouted.

Eben was the first to reach the Range Rover.

04:23…

He jumped in and started the engine.

04:19 …

Ziv dove into the passenger seat and slammed the door.

04:13…

Eben put the Rover into gear but kept his foot on the brake. “Do you see anyone coming?”

They looked up and down the road for headlights and people.

“I don’t see anyone,” Ziv said.

04:01…

“Shall we go?” Ziv said. “There is a leopard waiting for us down south.”

Eben stepped on the gas and peeled out of the parking lot. He decided that if he saw an approaching car, he would swerve into it to stop it. There was nothing he could do if a car came up behind him.

Ziv stared down at his watch. “Two minutes give or take a few seconds.”

Eben rounded a curve, relieved to see no oncoming cars and hoping none were coming up behind them.

“Forty-five seconds.”

They were two point five miles away when they heard the boom.

Bridges

“Listen,” Malak said.

“I don’t hear anything,” Bethany said.

“The clicking sound. Every four seconds or so. Here it comes.”

Click …

“What is it?”

“The tires running over something across the road at regular intervals. I think we’re on a bridge. A long bridge. We must be going over a body of water. I don’t know this part of the country very well.”

“Lucky for us I do,” Bethany said. “I virtually lived on buses through two long presidential campaigns. You think we turned west of I-95?”

“I’m pretty sure.”

“How long ago?”

“Two hours.”

“Then we’re on Highway 64. We’re crossing the bridge to Roanoke Island. If we cross another bridge after this, we’ll be on the Outer Banks.”

“You’re certain?”

“As certain as a blind person can be about where they are. But I can’t think of any other long bridges in this part of the country.”

“Blind person,” Malak said. “Brilliant.”

“What are you talking about?” Bethany asked.

“I’m going to find out what else they have in this truck. I’ll have to do it by feel.”

“I’ll help you.”

“No. You need to stay where you are. You’re supposed to be unconscious. We can’t risk them stopping and finding you out of place. I’ll be back.”

Bethany laughed. “Where else are you going to go?”

“Good point.”

Ten feet from the back doors was a heavy curtain of plastic suspended from the ceiling hanging all the way to the floor. Malak had noticed it when they got into the truck, but had thought nothing of it. She’d assumed it was there to keep the cool air from escaping when the doors were opened. She had also assumed that the truck was empty. That she and Bethany were the only cargo. She crawled under the plastic and discovered that she was wrong. The curtain was concealing something quite large. But what?

She crawled along the right side of the trailer trying to make sense of what it was by nothing more than touch. The bottom part was made out of square metal tubing. It felt like a frame of some kind. It was strapped down with webbed cinch straps as tight as bowstrings. She crawled farther along and came across a different texture. It was rubbery, pliant. Beneath the rubber she felt metal again, with small protuberances sticking out from it.

Lug nuts. It’s a tire.

She felt farther along and came to another tire.

It’s not a car. The tires are too close together.

The truck slowed. She braced herself and listened. The clicking had stopped. She stood and put her hands out. She felt something smooth, almost slick. It wasn’t metal.

What is this thing?

She stretched her hands above her head, following the smooth surface upward until she felt an edge sticking out a foot or so above her head. It was rougher than the other surface. It was rounded on the side and flat on the top. It felt like wood. And suddenly she knew what she was touching.

A gunwale. This is a boat. A good-sized boat.

The truck was moving steadily, but it had definitely slowed. Now that she knew what it was she debated going back and joining Bethany, but thought better of it. The best way to defend yourself against the cell was to know things about them they didn’t think you knew. They wouldn’t be hauling a boat unless they planned to use it. She hooked her fingers over the gunwale and pulled herself up, wishing she had paid better attention to all the boats she’d been in during her life. It was on a trailer so the bow had to be pointing toward the doors.

Maybe.

She hadn’t followed the boat for its entire length. There was a chance they had pulled it straight into the trailer and the vehicle was still attached. One thing was certain, it was too big to have been pushed, or pulled, into the trailer by hand. She crawled to her right until she bumped into what felt like steps. There were four of them. They led to a door. She fumbled for the handle, opened it, stood, and stepped through. She felt the wheel. To the right of the wheel were several knobs and levers and …

A key.

She turned it one notch. Instrument lights came on, dimly, but enough for her to see her surroundings. There was a flashlight bolted to the wall. She grabbed it and turned it on. She wasn’t sure what she was searching for. She started opening cupboards, then she heard the clicking again.

Click … click… click …

They were passing over the second bridge.

Poof!

“Drop back,” Boone said. “Get a visual on the truck to confirm, then pull in several cars behind us. That way we can hopscotch with the truck down the road.”

“Roger that,” John said.

We had just crossed Roanoke Island, bypassing Manteo, and were rolling onto the Washington Baum bridge toward the Outer Banks. The truck was several car lengths ahead of us, but it was easy to see in the distance because it was the only truck on the road.

A couple minutes later John called back. “Maryland Fish Company,” he said. “Big red crab on the side. The Tahoe and the truck are heading north on 158.”

Boone’s cell buzzed the second he ended the call with John. It was the president.

“Just got word of a car bomb obliterating the Cole Memorial,” J.R. said. “You know anything about that?”

“Yep,” Boone said, then explained why he had allowed the car bomb to go off.

“It was a good decision. They’re reporting no casualties. The same can’t be said for another explosion on I-95. They’re telling me there were at least two fatalities.”

“When they finally pick up all the pieces, they’re going to find out there were four fatalities. They were all bad guys.”

“Any more car bombs?”

“Probably, but we’re on them.”

“And my daughter?”

“She’s right in front of us.”

“Any idea when I can have her back?”

“I can have her free in five minutes if that’s what you want,” Boone said. “She’s your daughter. It’s totally up to you.”

He didn’t mention that we had lost Bethany for several hours during the night.

“You think she’s safe?” the president said.

“No, I don’t,” Boone said. “None of us is safe as long as the ghost cell is operational. But I do think Malak will do everything she can to protect her.”

After a long pause, J.R. said, “I moved the SEAL team to Norfolk.”

“I thought you might,” Boone said.

“The weather’s flyable. They can be where you are in less than an hour.”

“We might need them yet. I’ll let you know.”

Boone ended the call.

John came back on again. “I’m behind you. Maybe twenty cars back. What’s with all this traffic?”

He was right. There were a lot of cars and they were barely moving. The road was flat and straight and stretched for miles. There were cars for as far as we could see. Red and blue emergency lights flashed in the distance. The traffic came to a complete stop.

“This is going to make them nervous,” Boone said.

“Is it a roadblock?” Angela asked.

“Don’t think so,” Boone said. “If it was a roadblock, we’d have oncoming traffic. They’d be letting cars through after checking them. It must be an accident or maybe a road problem.”

People started opening their doors and getting out of their cars. Boone rolled his window down. A guy walked by and Boone asked him what was going on.

“Power pole went down up ahead. I have a buddy closer to where it happened. Cops say it’ll be at least twenty minutes before they get it cleared up.”

“Why’s there so much traffic?”

“Commuters. No work in OBX unless you want to clean hotel rooms or sling hash in a restaurant. We work in Norfolk. Hour and a half on a good day each way. This isn’t a good day.”

“I guess not,” Boone said. “Is there a way around the jam?”

“You could cut through the residential area and get ahead of it, but it’d be a hassle. There are a lot of dead ends. I’m a local and I don’t know how to do it. Most of us just wait it out here, or turn around and find someplace to get coffee.”

It looked like a lot of people were choosing the coffee option by jockeying their cars out of line and turning around.

“Thanks for the info,” Boone said.

The man wandered off. Boone undid his seat belt.

“Where are you going?” Angela asked.

“I’m going to check some things out. I’ll be back soon. You two stay here.”

Croc squeezed between the seats and joined him outside on the road. I glanced at Angela. When I looked back, Boone and Croc were gone. I looked out to the front, back, and sides. There was no sign of them.

Angela was craning her neck looking for them too. “Where’d they go?”

I jumped out of the Audi. Angela joined me.

“There!” She was pointing up the road.

It was dark, but in the headlights we could just make out a guy and his dog walking up the empty left-hand lane. They were at least a hundred and fifty yards away, well beyond the crab truck and probably the Tahoe as well. An Olympic sprinter could not have covered that much distance in the seconds it had taken them to get where they were.

“Impossible,” Angela said.

“Poof,” I said.

“I’m serious, Q.”

“So am I.” I told her about Croc’s impossible move on the overpass.

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“This is the first time we’ve been alone,” I said. “And you wouldn’t have believed me anyway.”

“Probably not,” Angela admitted.

Boone and Croc were now too far away for us to see.

“Where do you think they’re going?” I asked.

Angela didn’t answer. She had turned her attention to the truck, which was about seventy-five yards in front of us.

“I’m not sure which is weirder,” she said. “Boone and Croc teleporting, or whatever you want to call it, or knowing my mom and the president’s daughter are in the back of that truck.”

For me it wasn’t even close. Boone and Croc hands down.

But why had they only gone a hundred and fifty yards? If they could teleport, why not go directly to where they wanted to go? Maybe there was a limit to how far they could travel. Or maybe they had ended up exactly where they wanted to be before switching to walking mode. I wondered if he could teach me to …

“Then there’s that whole ageless thing,” Angela said, interrupting my busy mind. “That has to go on the weird list. What do you think of—”

Angela was interrupted by a man and a woman holding guns to our heads.

The man yanked our arms behind our backs, zipped flexcuffs around our wrists, and had us into the backseat of the Audi within seconds. No chance to run. No chance for Angela to kick him in the head. No chance to call for help. Not that anyone would have heard us. Two cars behind us and the one in front had bugged out for coffee, or to find a way around the jam.

“Search them,” the woman said. “If they resist, shoot them.”

We didn’t resist. The man tossed Angela’s backpack to the woman, then he proceeded to pull everything we had out of our pockets. Angela’s pockets were pretty easy. All she had was her cell phone. He showed it to the woman.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” she said, taking it.

My pockets were a little more of a challenge for the man. I had six large pockets in my cargo pants. He pulled out four decks of cards, three lengths of rope, silk hankies, seven magic coins, flashlight, camera, sunglasses, baseball cap, Goldfinger by Ian Fleming (paperback), a Leatherman tool, and a stack of “special” dollar bills.

“How about leaving me one deck of cards,” I said.

“How about if I break your neck?”

“Keep the cards,” I said.

He stuffed everything into a plastic bag, tossed it off into the dark, then climbed into the driver’s seat and slammed the door. The woman returned, minus Angela’s pack and cell phone, and got into the passenger seat. She was tall. Her black hair was pulled back in a severe ponytail. It had to be the same woman John had run into in Wal-Mart. T3 he called her.

“Hot wired,” the man said, pointing at the wires dangling from the transmission.

The woman nodded, turned to us, and pointed her gun at Angela. “Where’s the old man?”

“You mean our grandfather?” Angela asked.

The woman cocked the pistol. “It would be best not to lie to me.”

“He’s walking his dog,” I said.

“We’ll continue this conversation in a few minutes. Someplace more private.”

“I think you’re mistaking us for someone else,” Angela said.

“I don’t make mistakes.” The woman turned to the man. “Get us out of here.”

The man fiddled with the dangling wires. The engine started.

Now would be a good time for Boone and Croc to reappear and scare the living daylights out of them. Or for John Masters to show up and shoot them.

But no one came.

The man backed the Audi out of the traffic, hung a U-turn, and took a side street to someplace more private.

Poof! We’re gone.

Blink

Boone stood at the roadblock with all the other bystanders and watched the road crew clear away the debris from the power pole. The highway was ten minutes from opening up. He called John as he started back and told him to track his cell signal.

“I’m already tracking it,” John said. “You just walked up to the head of the traffic jam. How long before we start moving?”

“Shouldn’t be too long, but that’s the least of our problems.”

“What’s up?”

“Just let me know when I’m even with the Tahoe.”

“A white Chevy Tahoe shouldn’t be too hard to see for yourself,” John said. “Even in the dark.”

“Humor me,” Boone said. “Is Angela’s cell signal stationary?”

“Yep. It’s exactly where it was when you went for your walk. There was a little glitch with your signal. It kind of shot ahead for a moment, then settled down.”

“Yeah, it does that,” Boone said, thinking that he needed to be more careful with his signal. “I guess I need to get a better phone. Let me know about the Tahoe.”

Seven minutes later John let him know.

There wasn’t a white Chevy Tahoe within two hundred feet in either direction from where Boone was standing. The closest vehicle to him was a red truck. Boone walked over to talk to the driver. A middle-aged man drinking coffee from a thermos cup lowered the window.

Boone squatted down so they could talk face-to-face. “Did you see a white SUV in line?”

“Yeah. There was one parked right in front of me. A gal got out of it and asked what was going on. Tall. Pretty. Squatted down like you. Told her about the power pole. She got back in and they did a U-turn.” He pointed to a side street. “Looking for a way around I guess.”

“How long ago?” Boone ran his hand under the door frame.

“Twenty minutes. Maybe a bit longer.”

“How many were in the car?” Boone found what he was looking for.

“I don’t know. Looked like four of them. Are you a cop?” The man laughed. “Well … an ex-cop?”

Boone smiled. “No. They’re friends of mine. I walked up here to say hello and was surprised they were gone. I better get back to my car before the traffic starts moving.”

He walked away, flipping the switch on the device he had found under the man’s door frame. His cell phone buzzed.

“The Tahoe just went off-line,” John said.

“The Tahoe isn’t here,” Boone said. “They found the tracker and stuck it on another car.”

“When?”

“Half hour ago or so, so they’re not too far away. But they’re onto us. And that’s a big problem. Hang on … X-Ray is calling in.”

“I’ve taken a look at the Wal-Mart video,” X-Ray said. “We’ve got four really bad guys … Correction. Three really bad guys and one really bad girl. Like Masters thought, they are definitely a team. They’ve been all over the world blowing things up and killing people for a variety of terrorist groups. The woman has more aliases than I have fingers and toes, and if you connect the dots, there’s a good chance that she not only knows the Leopard, but they’ve worked together. Masters was also right about who’s in charge. It’s T3 all the way. I ran a program on their micro-expressions. The three tough guys are actually afraid of her.”

“Keep data mining and let me know what else you come up with.”

Boone bent down and gave Croc a scratch on the head. “Time to move, partner.” He looked around to see if anyone was watching, then blinked himself back to the Audi.

When they materialized, Croc started growling, but there was nothing to growl at. The Audi wasn’t there.

Boone swore.

Croc walked over to Angela’s phone, picked it up, dropped it next to Boone’s cowboy boots, then trotted away again.

Boone picked up the phone and put it in his pocket.

I shouldn’t have left them alone. Mistake.

His cell phone buzzed. It was John.

“Your tracking signal had that weird glitch again.”

“We have bigger problems. The Audi’s gone and so are the kids.”

Boone heard John’s car fire up. “I’ll be right there.”

Less than a minute later, John’s black SUV came roaring up the left lane and screeched to a stop next to him. He got out.

“A lot of cars have turned around and driven by me,” he said. “But the Audi wasn’t one of them.”

“Then they took a side road,” Boone said. “There were several of them in front and behind them.”

“What do you want to do?”

What Boone wanted to do was call in J.R.’s SEAL team and tell them to take out every terrorist within a hundred miles, but he knew from long experience that wasn’t the answer. Not yet anyway. T3 and her crew were told to take Q and Angela. He didn’t think they would have acted on their own. And there was a decent chance that they had waited until he went for his little walk. He wondered if they had seen him blink. That’s what he had always called it because of the speed at which it happened. He doubted they had seen it. If they had, they probably would have waited for him to come back. He looked down the road at the truck. He wished he could blink himself inside and talk to Malak, but it didn’t work that way. He could blink himself anywhere, but not through solid matter. If he was inside something and wanted to leave, he had to use an opening like everyone else.

“We’ll stick with the truck,” Boone said. “For the time being anyway. I don’t think they’ll hurt Angela and Q until they know exactly what’s going on. They’re running security on the truck and they’re not going to stray too far from it. And when Malak sees they have Q and Angela, she’s certainly not going to let anything happen to them.”

“Those kids must be scared out of their minds,” John said.

“I wouldn’t count on it. After what they’ve been through the past couple weeks, they don’t scare too easily. They know what’s at stake here.”

“This your dog?” John asked.

Boone looked down. Croc was sitting at his feet with five playing cards in his mouth. “Yeah,” he said. Boone took the cards from him and fanned them out. It was the ace through the ten of hearts.

“Royal flush, huh. Winning hand. We’ll see.”

John was staring at him and Croc.

“The cards belong to Q,” Boone said by way of explanation. He could see from John’s expression that it wasn’t good enough.

“His name’s Croc,” he said. “He’s a little quirky.”

His phone buzzed. It was the president.

“I’m tracking Q and Angela’s signals and it doesn’t appear they’re with you,” J.R. said.

The Seamaster watches. He’d forgotten they were wearing them. The terrorists hadn’t taken everything. Boone had his Seamaster in the coach. He didn’t want the president tracking his every move, but he was obviously tracking his cell phone signal. How else would he know that Angela and Q weren’t with him? He wondered what he had thought of the blink.

“That’s right,” Boone said. “They’re not with us at the moment. Don’t have time to give you more details than that. Can you transfer their signals over to John’s rig? I’m riding with him.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem. Is everything okay, Boone?”

“Better now. You know how things go at this stage of the game. Everything’s fluid. Talk to you soon.” He looked at John. The traffic had started to move. “Let’s go.”

John climbed into the driver’s seat. Boone walked around the SUV and squatted down so John couldn’t see him. He reached into his pocket and came out with the tracking device he’d taken from the red truck.

“Go find them,” he whispered into Croc’s ear. “Stick this back on the Tahoe. And don’t worry about Angela and Q seeing you blink. They’re onto us. But the terrorists aren’t. It would be best if they didn’t catch that trick.”

Croc gently took the tracking device into his mouth and vanished.

Boone climbed in next to John. J.R. had been right. The years had been kind to John Masters. He looked alert and very fit. “It’s good to see you again, John.”

“You too.” John gave him a curious look. “You haven’t changed.”

“Oh, I’m a lot older than the last time we met, and I’m feeling it right now, but thanks.”

“We have two new blips on the screen.”

“That would be Q and Angela. They’re both wearing Seamasters.”

John looked at his watch. “He can track us with these things?”

Boone nodded. “He likes to know where his friends are.”

“Where’s your dog?” John asked as he started to crawl forward with the other cars.

“He’s around,” Boone said. “He’ll find us down the road. He always does.”

T3

We pulled up behind a white Chevy Tahoe with two guys standing next to it. I wondered if there was a bomb inside.

T3 looked at us from the front seat. “I’ll be back in a minute,” she said. “And when I get back, you better have the right answers.”

She and the driver got out to talk to the two other terrorists.

“Did they take your watch?” Angela asked.

“I’m not sure. My hands are asleep.”

“Let me see.”

I turned around so she could see my wrists.

“It’s there,” she said.

Hers was there too.

“At least the president will be able to find our bodies,” I said.

“I don’t think they’re going to kill us,” Angela said. “At least not yet. Let me handle the questioning.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m a better liar than you.”

She had me there. She was a better liar than me, but I was improving.

“You should have seen me lying to my dad,” I said. “It would have blown you away.”

“I’m sure,” Angela said. “Any chance you can get out of your cuffs?”

“I’m working on it.”

I had flexed my wrists when he ratcheted them down. There was some play in them, but not enough to get my hands free. Yet. The trick was to take your time and not fight the cuffs. If you start yanking and struggling, your wrists swell and the cuffs get tighter. And getting out of them was only half the problem. I’d still have to figure out a way to get Angela out of hers. Without something to cut them with, that wasn’t going to be easy.

“Another thing,” Angela said. “We need to act more afraid.”

“I don’t know about you,” I said. “But I am terrified.”

“I am too,” she said. “But we’re not acting terrified.”

“You want me to start shivering, or pee my pants?”

“No, but I think we need to start acting like two kids who have no idea why they’ve been abducted and are afraid they might be murdered.”

“That shouldn’t be too hard since we don’t know why they’ve taken us, and T3 seems more than willing to kill us.”

“You know what I mean,” Angela said.

“Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean. But I’d skip the ‘Boone is our grandfather’ story. That’s not working.” I looked out the window. T3 and the driver were on their way back to us. “Get ready to act scared.”

T3 opened the back door on my side and pointed her gun at me. I smashed myself up against Angela as if that would somehow save me from a bullet.

“Let’s start again,” T3 said. “And this time I hope you get it right because if you don’t, one of you is going to die right here, right now. Who are you?”

“My name is Angela Tucker,” Angela said, her voice quaking and her lips trembling. She looked pretty scared to me. “This is my stepbrother, Quest Munoz.”

I wanted to correct her over the Quest thing, but that probably wasn’t what someone who was ready to pee his pants would say.

“Finally we have a little truth,” T3 said. “But we already knew what your names were. We also know who your parents are and that you were at their concert last night in the White House.”

This was information, or intel as Boone would call it, that anyone who could read could get off the Internet. It didn’t mean there was another mole in the White House feeding them information.

“What I want to know is, who is Tyrone Boone? Why is he following us? Who else is with him? Why did he put a tracking device on our car when we were inside the store?”

This was great news. If she thought Boone had placed the tracking device on their car at Wal-Mart, then she didn’t know about John Masters.

“Boone is our parents’ driver,” Angela said shakily. And it was pretty convincing. “He’s also in charge of tour security. He’s been acting kind of strange lately. Paranoid. He was supposed to be driving us to our parents’ concert date in San Antonio. On the way there, he said the guys driving the equipment truck were in an accident. We stopped by the hospital to see if they were okay, then Boone showed up in this car and drove us out this way. When we asked him why, he said that he had uncovered a plot to kidnap us. I guess he knew you were after us.”

A look of confusion crossed T3’s face. I tried to hide my own confusion. Where was Angela going with this?

“Why did you tell me that Tyrone was your grandfather?”

“It just slipped out. I didn’t know who you were. We still don’t know!”

That was pretty lame, but T3 let it go.

“What about the tracking device?” she asked.

“I don’t know anything about it,” the petrified Angela said, talking fast like you would if you were scared to death. “I don’t even know what it is. Boone stopped at a Wal-Mart … well, about a block away from a Wal-Mart. He told us he had to do something, and for us to wait in the car. We talked about getting away from him, but we didn’t know where we were, or where to go. He wasn’t gone for more than ten minutes.”

“Was he looking at a GPS?”

“He was looking at his phone, but he’s always looking at his phone, even when he drives. It could be a GPS.”

“What about your motor coach?” T3 asked. “What about the stolen car?”

Oops. She obviously knew a lot more about us and the situation than she was saying. There had to be someone else feeding her information, because they hadn’t been anywhere near the hospital when Boone had jacked the car. The only explanation could be that they had a countersurveillance team out there that we didn’t know about. It was lucky they hadn’t spotted John Masters. And it could be that the reason they didn’t spot him was that they were watching us.

“Boone said the coach had broken down,” Angela said in a rush. “He said he had borrowed the car from someone at the hospital. We didn’t know it was stolen until your driver pointed it out!” She literally shrieked this last part out, which I thought was a nice touch.

T3 wasn’t nearly as fond of the screech as I was. She lunged forward and hit me in the face. It was shocking and it hurt, but the pain was lessened by my automatic reflex to defend myself. My hands were still behind my back, but they were free of the flex-cuff.

“Keep you voice down,” T3 said.

“I didn’t say anything,” I said. I felt warm blood running out my nose.

“Here’s how it works,” T3 said. “If one does something to annoy me, the other gets punished.”

She backed out and slammed the door.

“Are you okay?” Angela asked.

“Next time I’ll do the talking and you take the punishment,” I said, then wiped my nose.

“Your hands!” Angela said.

“Pretty cool, huh?”

“Don’t let them see.”

I’d been watching them the whole time. They were talking to each other outside the Tahoe, paying absolutely no attention to us.

“Keep an eye on them.” I tilted my head back and pinched my nostrils closed.

“Can you free my hands?”

I slipped my left hand behind her back. There was absolutely no play in her flex-cuff.

“Have you been trying to get yourself free?” I asked, which probably sounded pretty weird with my nose pinched shut.

“Yes,” Angela answered.

“Well, stop,” I said, releasing my nose. The pinch seemed to have done the trick. “Your wrists are swollen. You’re making it worse. Any chance you can do tae kwon do with your hands tied behind your back?”

Angela shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

We looked out the window. The terrorists had turned toward us and were lit up by the headlights of the Tahoe. That’s when I saw Croc appear. He materialized three feet behind them right next to the SUV. One of the terrorists must have heard something. He turned his head, but by the time his eyes got there, Croc was gone.

“Poof,” Angela said.

“You saw it?”

“I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t. Do you think Boone is with him?”

“I didn’t see him.”

“Where do you think they go when they vanish?”

“I’m not sure they vanish,” I said.

“What do you mean? We just saw Croc vanish.”

“I’m not exactly sure what we saw,” I said. “I know a lot about tricks and illusions. Smoke and mirror stuff. But this is way beyond me. I think if you disappear, you have to appear someplace else. I don’t think they vanish. I think they move from one place to another faster than we can see.”

“And you know this how?”

“I don’t really know it. I’m guessing. The terrorist that turned felt something. Or maybe he smelled something. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Croc has some personal hygiene issues.”

“He stinks,” Angela said.

“Exactly, but I wouldn’t say that in front of him. It might hurt his feelings. He can’t communicate with us beyond barking, growling, belching, and farting, but I think he understands everything we say.”

“I’ve said some terrible things in front of him.”

“Me too,” I said. “I think Croc not only moves fast, he can see fast. I bet this applies to Boone as well, otherwise people would have been onto him years ago. It’s like the old Superman comics where Clark Kent goes into a phone booth to put on his blue Spandex and cape faster than the eye can see. Croc’s probably been off in the shadows watching for a while. He must have waited for them to turn and look in our direction before he made his final move.”

“But we saw Boone disappear, or move, on the highway.”

“We saw him move because he wanted us to see him move. He showed us what he was capable of so when we saw it down the road we wouldn’t completely freak out.”

“I’m pretty freaked out,” Angela said.

“Me too, but I’m getting used to the idea.”

“Croc showed himself so we’d know he was here,” Angela said.

I was hoping that when this was all over, Boone could show me how to move like this. If a dog could do it, why couldn’t I? But I didn’t mention this to Angela.

“I think that’s exactly what Croc did,” I said.

T3 got into the Tahoe with two of the other men. The fourth terrorist walked over to the Audi. I put my hands behind my back, hoping that he wasn’t going to shoot us in the backseat. It would be just my luck to be murdered before I got a chance to talk to Boone about his and Croc’s unusual abilities. It was the same guy that had driven us here. He opened the driver’s door and slid in.

“I don’t want to hear a word out of either one of you,” he said without looking at us, and started the engine.

I wasn’t interested in talking to him anyway. He pulled in behind the Tahoe and headed north on back roads. The sky was lightening. Angela and I kept our eyes glued to our windows. Croc appeared twice on my side and three times on Angela’s side. It was good to know he was with us.