CHAPTER 73
ALL FOUR OF US JUMPED. I only managed not to scream because I’d seen the door move. “Nightcrawler, was that drama really necessary?”
“Yes. Link up, fast.” We did. White held my upper arm so my gun hand was technically free and Siler grabbed my left hand. Felt the tingle that meant we were blending.
Just in time, as another Darryl Lowe walked out through the revolving doors. He was carrying what looked like a stun gun, but he had a semiautomatic pistol on his hip. “They have to be here,” Lowe said as Kellogg walked through the revolving doors now, too, also carrying a stun gun but with two semis on his hips. “I saw them clearly. My ‘sister’ is with them. But I think we should kill her, too.”
So the cloning worked like it did for Multiple Man—he could see what his clones saw. Hoped he could feel what they felt, too, but didn’t bet on it.
“No, the boss wants them alive,” Kellogg said. “All of them. He has plans.”
“Why hasn’t he cloned you yet?” Lowe asked as they started off at a leisurely stroll, heading for where we’d just been. We followed, walking slowly and carefully.
“He said it’s because my talents don’t transfer the way yours do. Yours are innate, mine are learned.”
Interesting. So they’d lost the ability to transfer their minds’ knowledge back and forth. Good and go team. Nice to know our raid during Operation Infiltration had done some lasting damage to Cliff’s side.
“Think we’re going back to the States soon?” Lowe asked now. Apparently this was just a day at the park for them. Or it was the first time they were able to talk alone.
Kellogg shrugged. “Don’t care. It’s better here. You ask me, the boss should stick with G-Company.”
“He has bigger plans, you know that.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard. Look, all I know is that we’ve spent more time locked up than not following his plans. We’re finally in with a solid organization. I say we stay here, shut up, and just enjoy what G-Co had to offer.”
“Yeah, I see your point.” Lowe shrugged. “Well, we’ll take care of the remaining problems and then worry about it tomorrow, right?”
Kellogg laughed. “Yeah. Tomorrow’s definitely going to be another day.”
Figured we had less than a minute before they realized we weren’t where they expected us to be. Had a choice. We could find out what Cliff’s plans were or we could kill these two right now. Figured I knew what Cliff’s plans were, the likelihood that we’d get any intel we could use out of these two was slim to none, my gun was fully loaded and in my hand, and there was literally no time like the present. My music changing to “Shoot to Thrill” by AC/DC was also something of a clue.
Let go of Siler and pulled away from White. Moved into the position Mom had taught me—body straight, shoulders over hips, legs just a bit more than shoulder length apart. Aimed for Kellogg. Took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and shot to kill.
Hit him three times in his torso and one in the back of the head. As he went down, Lowe spun around and aimed his stun gun at me. Would have shot him but White pulled me aside and down. He had Mahin and Abigail down already.
Tried to get up to shoot again, but it turned out I didn’t have to. Lowe’s neck twisted around in a way human necks are not supposed to. Then Siler unblended and put three bullets into Lowe’s head. He added two more into Kellogg’s head, presumably because he believed in the double-tap. I didn’t fault this at all.
“I wasn’t expecting you to shoot anyone in the back,” Siler said as we trotted over to him and he searched the bodies. “But well done.”
“Yeah, that Old West honor thing sounds great, but in real life, you get better results if you choose to just kill the known, irredeemable bad guys the fastest and easiest way possible.”
Lowe wanting to kill Mahin had been more than enough proof for me that he was a lost cause, and Kellogg was a hired killer who couldn’t wait to move up in G-Company. Felt no remorse at all. Wondered if I should and decided this was a talk I could have with Jeff and Mom later. I first needed to assure that Jeff and the others all got to have a later.
“What happened to everyone else?” White asked.
“No idea,” Siler said as he took their guns and handed them to me. Dropped said guns into my purse. Noted I had Poofs on Board, all snoozing. The Poofs who normally traveled with me, plus all the Poofs who belonged to everyone inside the restaurant. This boded. “I tried to reach James, got no response, and stopped trying. I was closest to you four, and on my way, I spotted these two,” he indicated the dead bodies, “coming here, cheerfully discussing how much fun they were going to have hurting the four of you since they weren’t allowed to kill you.”
“Charming. Do we think this is the real Lowe? I mean that seriously.” Filled Siler in on the Multiple Man situation.
“Kellogg was treating him like a real person,” Siler said. “Barring both of these being clones and all of this an elaborate ruse to pass misinformation to you.”
“Where’s your watch and Bluetooth?” Abigail asked. “Kitty had us destroy ours.”
Siler shot me a proud smile. “Well done.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out trashed tech. White got out our Tech Trash Bag and Siler added his in. “The moment I couldn’t reach the person who was supposed to be waiting to share intel back and forth, I figured we were compromised. You stay uncompromised longer if they can’t take your teammate’s tech and track you with it.”
“Go team. So, where to now? I mean, now we have to save even more people and I have no idea what you guys were doing while we were skeet shooting creepy clones.”
“I’d assume that some of the team is still loose. The Turleen went into the ventilation system immediately, and he never took any of the tech in the first place.”
“He didn’t?” Shockingly, I hadn’t paid attention to that.
“No. Trust me, he doesn’t think he needs any of us to effect whatever rescue he’s planning.”
“More power to him and all that. So, what about the others?”
“James, Tim, Lorraine, Claudia, and Rahmi were going down to the floor below. Malcolm, Jeremy, Butler, and I went up to the hundred and fifty-fourth floor, which is one of the ones you identified as being partly owned by G-Company. Christopher was checking all the floors going all the way up. We lost contact with him when he was around floor one hundred and fifty-nine. Jeremy, Butler, and Malcolm went to look for him. I stayed because I’d found something.”
“What?”
“A diary written in English. I think it’s Goodman’s. It sounded crazy enough. There was some information that I figured we might be able to use, if we can decipher the crazy. Which I know will be your job.” He pulled a small leather notebook out of his back pocket and handed it to me. “Put this somewhere safe, just in case.”
Looked at White, who opened the big purse. Dropped it in, he closed the big purse. We were a well-oiled team. “So, what about the others?”
“James was supposed to advise me when they’d surveyed their floor and were ready to go down, and I was to let him know what we found up on my level. He didn’t answer when I told him Christopher had gone out of communication. That’s when I figured we were screwed.”
“Sounds like Thursday, yeah.” Turned my iPod off. Pulled my phone out, turned my music on, and slid it into my back pocket as “The Rescue” by American Hi-Fi came on. “Richard, I’m sorry, but we need to focus on the people we came here to rescue, not the captured rescuers.”
“I agree,” White said. “I truly trust that Christopher and the others will be fine.”
“If not, we’ll make them suffer for it,” Siler said. “I promise you that.”
My music changed mid-song to “Come to My Window” by Melissa Etheridge. Went to the nearest exterior window and looked around. As I did so the sun officially slipped all the way down. There were lots of lights I could see now, and the building itself was lit up. Didn’t see anything else, but looked down to check if I could still see the haboob. And saw something else.
“Meanwhile, I have a crazy idea that just might work.”
“What’s that?” Siler asked.
Turned around and smiled brightly. “There’s a window washing rig one floor below us.”