The Survival Code, page 16
Act natural.
A little bell rings when I push open the door.
“Hey,” Toby says with a nod.
Maybelline is nowhere to be seen.
“Jinnkess,” Charles says, his mouth completely stuffed with food. He swallows and points to his plate. “Maybelline makes the best French toast. In the universe.”
Great.
“You’re having too much sugar,” I say automatically. Stepping closer, I check his plate where a river of maple syrup runs down the center of two fluffy pieces of toast. “Oh, Charles.”
“Wut?” His green eyes widen as he scoops up another drippy bite.
“You’re going to make yourself sick.”
Toby and MacKenna can never say no to Charles, but I don’t have time to deal with them.
The place is empty except for the four of us. The counter is the only part of the diner that’s usable, because jagged remnants of porcelain plates and coffee cups litter the main part of the restaurant. The smashed-up pie case has been dragged into the walkway, blocking access to most of the diner.
Maybelline emerges from the kitchen carrying an orange coffeepot. “A spot of homemade French toast won’t hurt the boy.” She props the door open with a large coffee can.
Make conversation.
I take a breath and try my best to sound normal. “He’s got type 1 diabetes. Since he was a baby. He has to take medicine and watch his sugar intake.”
The look on her face. A mixture of motherly concern. And guilt. Navarro called it. We’re in danger, and I need to get my brother as far away from here as possible.
Keep it casual.
“Let me fix you up somethin’ good, sweetie.” Maybelline’s wearing an apron over her olive-green polyester outfit. It’s got a skeleton sitting next to the Arizona flag and the words, But It’s a Dry Heat. At least the woman sending me to prison for the rest of my life has a sense of humor.
“Aw. Thanks. I’m really not hungry.” I glance into the kitchen for a sign of Navarro. Even though I want to crawl out of my own skin, I will my feet to stay firmly planted. “We’ve had a long day and I should get my brother to bed.”
“Bed? I thought we were leaving?” MacKenna mutters.
“I’ll explain on the way.” I tug Charles off his stool.
Toby and I exchange a tense look.
“Jinx. What are you doing? I’m not finished,” Charles said.
“We’ve taken up too much of Miss Maybelline’s time. We have to find Dad, remember?”
At the mention of our father, Charles straightens up and stops resisting. It’s kind of depressing, the way we’re conditioned to follow orders. Like soldiers in an undefined army. Fighting a hidden war.
“Let’s go.”
Toby tosses his napkin on his plate. “What do we owe you for the meal?”
The clang of metal rings out from the kitchen. A frying pan wobbles on the tile floor in the kitchen doorway.
Navarro’s making mistakes too.
He’s not perfect. And not as careful as Dad.
“Let’s go. Now.” I grab Charles by his collar.
“Come on, Mac,” Toby says.
I’m one pace from the door when Mernice emerges from the kitchen, nudging Navarro forward with the barrel of a shotgun. “Well, well, Maybelline. We got ourselves a new guest checking in.”
My heart nearly explodes.
Mernice has an old Remington 870 Wingmaster. Five rounds in a standard mag tube. Enough ammo to shoot all of us, including Navarro, who’s wearing a very sheepish expression.
“Oh now, Mernice. This ain’t the time for none of your damn jokes.” Maybelline pours a cup of coffee and motions for me to sit at the counter. “These poor kids are scared to death. We can at least make them comfortable until Sheriff Dan arrives.”
MacKenna’s shoulders tense and her mouth falls open. “What the hell is happening?”
I tuck Charles behind my back. “They’re turning us in. For the reward.”
“These poor kids,” Mernice sneers, “are wanted by every county in the state.”
“Miss Maybelline?” Charles says, peeking out from behind my back.
“Try to understand,” she says to my brother, pleading, her pleasant veneer disappearing for a second. “We sunk our lifesavings into this place, and since the New Depression...well, the people who mighta wanted to stay in this kind of place can’t afford to travel. We thought we’d be able to retire. To help our grandkids...and now this thing with the banks... Fifteen people walked outta here without payin’ this morning, and on the TV they say it could get worse.”
What is it that MacKenna had said? That The Opposition wanted to keep people desperate enough to do anything.
Maybelline makes a tortured face, but it passes and she smiles at me. “You’ve got time for a patty melt, dearie. I can whip that right up.” She turns to go back into the kitchen but freezes in the doorway. She cranes her neck toward her husband. “Although. You think I oughta go change? What if Sheriff Dan wants to take pictures with that fancy camera of his?”
“You look fine, Maybelline.”
“Why didn’t you just call 911?” MacKenna asks with a confused look.
Toby casts a sideways look in her direction. One thing we don’t need is more cops coming for us.
Mernice scowls. “I don’t trust those Rural Metro units. Sheriff Dan will make sure I get my money.”
“How much is the reward?” I ask.
“I’m guessin’ it’ll be enough so my wife won’t be scrubbin’ toilets most afternoons,” Mernice says. He keeps Navarro on the opposite side of the counter.
“We didn’t do anything,” I say, as calmly as I can. Breathe.
“Sure.” Mernice snorts. “Because the jails are full of innocent people. The government wouldn’t be lookin’ for you if they didn’t have to.”
“I don’t want to be in the newspaper in my house dress, Mernice,” Maybelline says, frowning down at her Hush Puppies shoes.
“Dammit. You look fine, Maybelline.”
“This would be the same government that can’t end the depression,” MacKenna says.
The color drains from the old man’s face. He bares his teeth. “Don’t you talk about things you don’t understand. You. You. Kids like you in your copper houses. Sitting in coffee shops drinking ten-dollar, almond-milk-caramel-mocha-whatevers. Talkin’ about whether monkeys have rights and how we all need self-driving cars. And we’re out here...”
Mernice is panting, and the fingers wrapped around the butt of the shotgun are turning white. He’s unstable.
You can never really know what someone is capable of.
Toby’s leaning closer to MacKenna, the muscles in his arms tense and taut, ready to spring into action if anything happens. He wants to do something. He’s on the verge of doing something. I need to do something first, because Toby didn’t sit through fifty hours of How to Disarm Your Enemy with Dr. Doomsday.
“Why don’t you drink your coffee, sweetie?” Maybelline almost yells this. Her husband is making her nervous too. She comes out from behind the counter and extends her arm to draw me to the cup of steaming coffee.
This is a mistake.
Their first mistake.
I don’t dare look at Navarro. But if he’s spent a significant amount of time with my dad, he’ll know this is the opening we’ve been waiting for.
One more step.
I need Maybelline to take one more step. I try to keep my face soft even as my body is getting ready to spring into action. I bend my knees ever so slightly.
One more step.
Focus. Behind me, Charles huddles closer to my back. My father always says that the way to overcome fear is to imagine the worst-case scenario. Picture yourself overcoming it. Imagine what will happen if you don’t. These people. They’re going to sell my eight-year-old, diabetic brother to the highest bidder. My fear burns away.
I will beat this old lady to a pulp if I have to in order to save Charles.
Then. She puts one tattered brown velcro walking shoe in front of the other. Because I don’t breathe, I hear them squeak against the clean linoleum. One. Two.
Go.
DR. DOOMSDAY’S GUIDE TO ULTIMATE SURVIVAL
RULE EIGHT: IT IS ESSENTIAL TO ESTABLISH A CHAIN OF COMMAND.
Leg. Sweep. Kick.
I hook my foot around Maybelline’s ankle and sweep my leg toward me. It works like I’ve practiced. She falls flat against the hard floor, landing with a sickening crack. Charles jumps back as Maybelline screams. Her hip is probably broken.
While I throw myself on the ground and use the duct tape to bind Maybelline’s hands and feet, Toby’s already scrambling over the top of the counter to the opposite side, where I can hear Navarro wrestling with Mernice. There’s a bang and my ears ring.
I jump up in time to see a pile of drywall and plaster fall onto MacKenna’s head. It doesn’t hurt her. Charles wraps his arms around her, and the two of them stand locked in a terrified embrace.
Navarro has the gun.
“Susan. Tape,” he yells.
I take one last strip for Maybelline’s mouth and toss him the roll. Things seem calmer after I gingerly cover her mouth. At least it’s quieter without her screaming bloody murder.
Mernice may be scrawny and gaunt, but he’s strong as a horse and gives Toby and Navarro the fight of their lives as they subdue him. It takes the two of them working together for several minutes to get the motel man’s hands secured behind his back and a thick band of tape wrapped around his ankles.
Navarro wipes a few drops of blood off his top lip.
I force myself to look at the ceiling.
“God... I am tired...of getting decked...in the mouth,” he says, struggling to catch his breath. “Okay. Okay. Get her.” He shrugs in Maybelline’s direction. “There’s a walk-in freezer in the back.”
“You’re going to freeze them to death?” MacKenna shrieks.
“Of course not,” Toby says as he grabs Mernice’s upper body. “Calm down. We’ll unplug it or something.”
Navarro takes Mernice’s feet, and together he and Toby go into the kitchen.
Maybelline moans as I drag her petite form behind me.
“Aren’t you guys a pair of regular badasses?” Mernice says. “Beatin’ up an old man and his wife. They’re gonna find you. They’re gonna—”
Navarro fishes the roll of tape from his jacket pocket and slaps a strip over the old man’s mouth. We never hear what they’re gonna do. Mernice’s prophecy remains in the air. One more thing for me to be worried about.
Maybelline whimpers. Blackened pots swing from a rack hanging from the ceiling.
We push them into the freezer. Navarro reaches into Mernice’s jacket pocket for a set of keys, and then we leave the man and his wife sitting on the floor between two empty metal shelves. I lock the door, and Navarro gets Toby to help him move a heavy stainless-steel worktable in front of the freezer. Toby fiddles with the controls, turning the cooling feature off.
It’s over.
Sort of.
Navarro has a better sense of the ticking clock than I do, because he’s still in full-on, mission-critical role. He leads us out the back door. Once we’re outside he turns to me. “Move one of the trash dumpsters in front of the door. Then pull the truck around front.”
“What are we doing that for?” MacKenna asks.
“Mac, take Charles and wait in the truck,” Toby tells her.
Either Toby is keyed in to Navarro’s plan or he’s prepared to roll with it. We push one of the half-full dumpsters behind the café flush up against the back door.
I run around to the back of the truck and let Toby, Charles and MacKenna into the camper. As I slam the door, I see Navarro jump out of Mernice’s old Ford pickup.
It continues on without him, smashing through the café’s glass doors and demolishing most of the counter area where Charles was eating French toast only minutes before.
Glass cracks, crashes and explodes.
I climb into the driver’s seat and move the truck in Navarro’s direction.
MacKenna opens the window that divides the truck from the camper and pokes me on the shoulder. “Care to fill me in on what’s going on?”
“It’s a diversion tactic,” I tell her.
In the back, Toby takes over the explanation. “Right. It’ll take the cops a while to even get in that building to figure out if we’re inside. By the time they get on the road, we’ll be long gone. That’s smart. Mercenary. But smart.”
I roll down my window.
Glass crunches under Navarro’s boots as he makes his way to the driver’s side of the truck. He pulls something small and black from his pocket. One of my Dad’s programmable key chains. He presses a button, and there’s another explosion in the motel office. Thick, black smoke fills the parking lot.
When Navarro did his laps around the motel, he was busier than I thought.
“Jesus,” MacKenna says.
Navarro opens my door. “Susan. I’ll take it from here.”
I’m tempted to argue, but fighting about who gets to drive seems like a waste of very precious time. I move to the passenger seat.
Scattered glass sparkles against the asphalt in the glow cast by the motel’s neon sign, and the smoke from Mernice’s burning truck rises into the evening sky.
Navarro steers the truck onto a street behind the motel.
MacKenna pushes as much of her head and shoulders that will fit in through the small window, bringing her face very near to mine. “I’m not on board with this,” she says. “Do you hear me? We need to destroy that computer and...and...”
“And what?” Navarro snaps. “Pray for the invention of a time machine to go back to Thursday when Jay Novak wasn’t the most hated man in the country?”
Behind her, Toby tries to be reassuring. “MacKenna. Let’s talk about this later.”
She returns to the camper. “Toby Oscar Novak! Don’t you MacKenna me. Jinx and Major Manic just stuffed two geezers in a freezer and destroyed a diner.”
It’s getting dark. Toby and MacKenna are two silhouettes facing each other. Charles is huddled at the camper’s table. MacKenna waves a rectangle in the air while Toby matches her movements, the two of them stepping from side to side.
MacKenna has the laptop.
A new, frantic anger surges through me. I turn around, shoving my face into the camper. “Do not break that! MacKenna! Seriously!”
“You had your chance to look at it,” she says. “What did you find that could help us? Nothing!”
I make another grab for the computer while Toby tries to reason with his sister. “Mac, come on,” he says.
Navarro somehow manages to ignore all this and turns on to Gila Bend’s main drag. Ours is the only car on the road.
Putting my entire upper body through the window, I wave my arms around. I’m desperate to stop MacKenna from destroying what I think is our only chance to figure out what’s happening. I have to do something, I have to say something. “I found out one thing. I know where they’re keeping Jay,” I blurt out. Like if I can tell her something useful, she’ll understand why we can’t destroy the laptop.
Navarro makes a disgruntled noise.
He thinks I’ve said the wrong thing.
I’ve said the wrong thing.
But it works. She looks like she wants to murder me but she hands the laptop off to Toby who promptly puts it in one of the storage bins.
“Well,” she says. “You have your damn computer. Where is my dad?”
I turn around and face front even as MacKenna leans in to get my attention. “Um...Goldwater Airfield. I guess. According to Terminus.”
“Terminus? What? Where is that?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” I say.
She clucks her tongue and shakes her head. Behind her, Toby is saying something I can’t make out. He might be talking to Charles.
“I don’t!” I say with more force. “I don’t remember seeing it on any of Dad’s maps. It could be a lone airstrip or something. They don’t mark those.”
I wipe my sweaty hands on the truck’s grimy, velour upholstery. We pass by Gila Bend’s now-closed Slam Burger and a small park. Everything is vacant. The streetlights switch on.
MacKenna’s face is very close to mine, and she’s breathing hard. “They’re not gonna hold a suspected terrorist at a lone airstrip, stupid! We should be able to figure out where he is!”
Navarro’s hands tighten on the steering wheel. “It doesn’t matter. We aren’t going there.”
My hot anger gives way to a cold, growing panic.
Navarro knows.
He knows how to find Goldwater Airfield.
“It isn’t up to you, jerkface! We make decisions together,” MacKenna tells him.
I realize that this is what I’ve been avoiding all along. I don’t want to make a decision. I follow the drills.
And now.
If we know where Jay is, we’ll have to decide what to do with that knowledge.
The destruction of the motel grows smaller and darker in my side-view mirror.
Navarro stares straight ahead. “We’ll discuss this later. Right now, we stick to the plan.”
Spoken exactly like Dr. Doomsday.
Except the plan should be to stay on the backroads and make our way south to the border. Navarro is driving on the town’s main road, through its small business district.
I glance at him. “Where are we going?”
He grips the wheel even harder. “We have to ditch this vehicle. Those wrinkled old prunes have seen it and probably got the license plate. I hid my truck behind a billboard at the gas station.”
MacKenna moves to the back of the camper where she and Toby continue to argue.
We stop at a gas station. It’s got a sandwich board sign in front at the edge of the curb.
A little bell rings when I push open the door.
“Hey,” Toby says with a nod.
Maybelline is nowhere to be seen.
“Jinnkess,” Charles says, his mouth completely stuffed with food. He swallows and points to his plate. “Maybelline makes the best French toast. In the universe.”
Great.
“You’re having too much sugar,” I say automatically. Stepping closer, I check his plate where a river of maple syrup runs down the center of two fluffy pieces of toast. “Oh, Charles.”
“Wut?” His green eyes widen as he scoops up another drippy bite.
“You’re going to make yourself sick.”
Toby and MacKenna can never say no to Charles, but I don’t have time to deal with them.
The place is empty except for the four of us. The counter is the only part of the diner that’s usable, because jagged remnants of porcelain plates and coffee cups litter the main part of the restaurant. The smashed-up pie case has been dragged into the walkway, blocking access to most of the diner.
Maybelline emerges from the kitchen carrying an orange coffeepot. “A spot of homemade French toast won’t hurt the boy.” She props the door open with a large coffee can.
Make conversation.
I take a breath and try my best to sound normal. “He’s got type 1 diabetes. Since he was a baby. He has to take medicine and watch his sugar intake.”
The look on her face. A mixture of motherly concern. And guilt. Navarro called it. We’re in danger, and I need to get my brother as far away from here as possible.
Keep it casual.
“Let me fix you up somethin’ good, sweetie.” Maybelline’s wearing an apron over her olive-green polyester outfit. It’s got a skeleton sitting next to the Arizona flag and the words, But It’s a Dry Heat. At least the woman sending me to prison for the rest of my life has a sense of humor.
“Aw. Thanks. I’m really not hungry.” I glance into the kitchen for a sign of Navarro. Even though I want to crawl out of my own skin, I will my feet to stay firmly planted. “We’ve had a long day and I should get my brother to bed.”
“Bed? I thought we were leaving?” MacKenna mutters.
“I’ll explain on the way.” I tug Charles off his stool.
Toby and I exchange a tense look.
“Jinx. What are you doing? I’m not finished,” Charles said.
“We’ve taken up too much of Miss Maybelline’s time. We have to find Dad, remember?”
At the mention of our father, Charles straightens up and stops resisting. It’s kind of depressing, the way we’re conditioned to follow orders. Like soldiers in an undefined army. Fighting a hidden war.
“Let’s go.”
Toby tosses his napkin on his plate. “What do we owe you for the meal?”
The clang of metal rings out from the kitchen. A frying pan wobbles on the tile floor in the kitchen doorway.
Navarro’s making mistakes too.
He’s not perfect. And not as careful as Dad.
“Let’s go. Now.” I grab Charles by his collar.
“Come on, Mac,” Toby says.
I’m one pace from the door when Mernice emerges from the kitchen, nudging Navarro forward with the barrel of a shotgun. “Well, well, Maybelline. We got ourselves a new guest checking in.”
My heart nearly explodes.
Mernice has an old Remington 870 Wingmaster. Five rounds in a standard mag tube. Enough ammo to shoot all of us, including Navarro, who’s wearing a very sheepish expression.
“Oh now, Mernice. This ain’t the time for none of your damn jokes.” Maybelline pours a cup of coffee and motions for me to sit at the counter. “These poor kids are scared to death. We can at least make them comfortable until Sheriff Dan arrives.”
MacKenna’s shoulders tense and her mouth falls open. “What the hell is happening?”
I tuck Charles behind my back. “They’re turning us in. For the reward.”
“These poor kids,” Mernice sneers, “are wanted by every county in the state.”
“Miss Maybelline?” Charles says, peeking out from behind my back.
“Try to understand,” she says to my brother, pleading, her pleasant veneer disappearing for a second. “We sunk our lifesavings into this place, and since the New Depression...well, the people who mighta wanted to stay in this kind of place can’t afford to travel. We thought we’d be able to retire. To help our grandkids...and now this thing with the banks... Fifteen people walked outta here without payin’ this morning, and on the TV they say it could get worse.”
What is it that MacKenna had said? That The Opposition wanted to keep people desperate enough to do anything.
Maybelline makes a tortured face, but it passes and she smiles at me. “You’ve got time for a patty melt, dearie. I can whip that right up.” She turns to go back into the kitchen but freezes in the doorway. She cranes her neck toward her husband. “Although. You think I oughta go change? What if Sheriff Dan wants to take pictures with that fancy camera of his?”
“You look fine, Maybelline.”
“Why didn’t you just call 911?” MacKenna asks with a confused look.
Toby casts a sideways look in her direction. One thing we don’t need is more cops coming for us.
Mernice scowls. “I don’t trust those Rural Metro units. Sheriff Dan will make sure I get my money.”
“How much is the reward?” I ask.
“I’m guessin’ it’ll be enough so my wife won’t be scrubbin’ toilets most afternoons,” Mernice says. He keeps Navarro on the opposite side of the counter.
“We didn’t do anything,” I say, as calmly as I can. Breathe.
“Sure.” Mernice snorts. “Because the jails are full of innocent people. The government wouldn’t be lookin’ for you if they didn’t have to.”
“I don’t want to be in the newspaper in my house dress, Mernice,” Maybelline says, frowning down at her Hush Puppies shoes.
“Dammit. You look fine, Maybelline.”
“This would be the same government that can’t end the depression,” MacKenna says.
The color drains from the old man’s face. He bares his teeth. “Don’t you talk about things you don’t understand. You. You. Kids like you in your copper houses. Sitting in coffee shops drinking ten-dollar, almond-milk-caramel-mocha-whatevers. Talkin’ about whether monkeys have rights and how we all need self-driving cars. And we’re out here...”
Mernice is panting, and the fingers wrapped around the butt of the shotgun are turning white. He’s unstable.
You can never really know what someone is capable of.
Toby’s leaning closer to MacKenna, the muscles in his arms tense and taut, ready to spring into action if anything happens. He wants to do something. He’s on the verge of doing something. I need to do something first, because Toby didn’t sit through fifty hours of How to Disarm Your Enemy with Dr. Doomsday.
“Why don’t you drink your coffee, sweetie?” Maybelline almost yells this. Her husband is making her nervous too. She comes out from behind the counter and extends her arm to draw me to the cup of steaming coffee.
This is a mistake.
Their first mistake.
I don’t dare look at Navarro. But if he’s spent a significant amount of time with my dad, he’ll know this is the opening we’ve been waiting for.
One more step.
I need Maybelline to take one more step. I try to keep my face soft even as my body is getting ready to spring into action. I bend my knees ever so slightly.
One more step.
Focus. Behind me, Charles huddles closer to my back. My father always says that the way to overcome fear is to imagine the worst-case scenario. Picture yourself overcoming it. Imagine what will happen if you don’t. These people. They’re going to sell my eight-year-old, diabetic brother to the highest bidder. My fear burns away.
I will beat this old lady to a pulp if I have to in order to save Charles.
Then. She puts one tattered brown velcro walking shoe in front of the other. Because I don’t breathe, I hear them squeak against the clean linoleum. One. Two.
Go.
DR. DOOMSDAY’S GUIDE TO ULTIMATE SURVIVAL
RULE EIGHT: IT IS ESSENTIAL TO ESTABLISH A CHAIN OF COMMAND.
Leg. Sweep. Kick.
I hook my foot around Maybelline’s ankle and sweep my leg toward me. It works like I’ve practiced. She falls flat against the hard floor, landing with a sickening crack. Charles jumps back as Maybelline screams. Her hip is probably broken.
While I throw myself on the ground and use the duct tape to bind Maybelline’s hands and feet, Toby’s already scrambling over the top of the counter to the opposite side, where I can hear Navarro wrestling with Mernice. There’s a bang and my ears ring.
I jump up in time to see a pile of drywall and plaster fall onto MacKenna’s head. It doesn’t hurt her. Charles wraps his arms around her, and the two of them stand locked in a terrified embrace.
Navarro has the gun.
“Susan. Tape,” he yells.
I take one last strip for Maybelline’s mouth and toss him the roll. Things seem calmer after I gingerly cover her mouth. At least it’s quieter without her screaming bloody murder.
Mernice may be scrawny and gaunt, but he’s strong as a horse and gives Toby and Navarro the fight of their lives as they subdue him. It takes the two of them working together for several minutes to get the motel man’s hands secured behind his back and a thick band of tape wrapped around his ankles.
Navarro wipes a few drops of blood off his top lip.
I force myself to look at the ceiling.
“God... I am tired...of getting decked...in the mouth,” he says, struggling to catch his breath. “Okay. Okay. Get her.” He shrugs in Maybelline’s direction. “There’s a walk-in freezer in the back.”
“You’re going to freeze them to death?” MacKenna shrieks.
“Of course not,” Toby says as he grabs Mernice’s upper body. “Calm down. We’ll unplug it or something.”
Navarro takes Mernice’s feet, and together he and Toby go into the kitchen.
Maybelline moans as I drag her petite form behind me.
“Aren’t you guys a pair of regular badasses?” Mernice says. “Beatin’ up an old man and his wife. They’re gonna find you. They’re gonna—”
Navarro fishes the roll of tape from his jacket pocket and slaps a strip over the old man’s mouth. We never hear what they’re gonna do. Mernice’s prophecy remains in the air. One more thing for me to be worried about.
Maybelline whimpers. Blackened pots swing from a rack hanging from the ceiling.
We push them into the freezer. Navarro reaches into Mernice’s jacket pocket for a set of keys, and then we leave the man and his wife sitting on the floor between two empty metal shelves. I lock the door, and Navarro gets Toby to help him move a heavy stainless-steel worktable in front of the freezer. Toby fiddles with the controls, turning the cooling feature off.
It’s over.
Sort of.
Navarro has a better sense of the ticking clock than I do, because he’s still in full-on, mission-critical role. He leads us out the back door. Once we’re outside he turns to me. “Move one of the trash dumpsters in front of the door. Then pull the truck around front.”
“What are we doing that for?” MacKenna asks.
“Mac, take Charles and wait in the truck,” Toby tells her.
Either Toby is keyed in to Navarro’s plan or he’s prepared to roll with it. We push one of the half-full dumpsters behind the café flush up against the back door.
I run around to the back of the truck and let Toby, Charles and MacKenna into the camper. As I slam the door, I see Navarro jump out of Mernice’s old Ford pickup.
It continues on without him, smashing through the café’s glass doors and demolishing most of the counter area where Charles was eating French toast only minutes before.
Glass cracks, crashes and explodes.
I climb into the driver’s seat and move the truck in Navarro’s direction.
MacKenna opens the window that divides the truck from the camper and pokes me on the shoulder. “Care to fill me in on what’s going on?”
“It’s a diversion tactic,” I tell her.
In the back, Toby takes over the explanation. “Right. It’ll take the cops a while to even get in that building to figure out if we’re inside. By the time they get on the road, we’ll be long gone. That’s smart. Mercenary. But smart.”
I roll down my window.
Glass crunches under Navarro’s boots as he makes his way to the driver’s side of the truck. He pulls something small and black from his pocket. One of my Dad’s programmable key chains. He presses a button, and there’s another explosion in the motel office. Thick, black smoke fills the parking lot.
When Navarro did his laps around the motel, he was busier than I thought.
“Jesus,” MacKenna says.
Navarro opens my door. “Susan. I’ll take it from here.”
I’m tempted to argue, but fighting about who gets to drive seems like a waste of very precious time. I move to the passenger seat.
Scattered glass sparkles against the asphalt in the glow cast by the motel’s neon sign, and the smoke from Mernice’s burning truck rises into the evening sky.
Navarro steers the truck onto a street behind the motel.
MacKenna pushes as much of her head and shoulders that will fit in through the small window, bringing her face very near to mine. “I’m not on board with this,” she says. “Do you hear me? We need to destroy that computer and...and...”
“And what?” Navarro snaps. “Pray for the invention of a time machine to go back to Thursday when Jay Novak wasn’t the most hated man in the country?”
Behind her, Toby tries to be reassuring. “MacKenna. Let’s talk about this later.”
She returns to the camper. “Toby Oscar Novak! Don’t you MacKenna me. Jinx and Major Manic just stuffed two geezers in a freezer and destroyed a diner.”
It’s getting dark. Toby and MacKenna are two silhouettes facing each other. Charles is huddled at the camper’s table. MacKenna waves a rectangle in the air while Toby matches her movements, the two of them stepping from side to side.
MacKenna has the laptop.
A new, frantic anger surges through me. I turn around, shoving my face into the camper. “Do not break that! MacKenna! Seriously!”
“You had your chance to look at it,” she says. “What did you find that could help us? Nothing!”
I make another grab for the computer while Toby tries to reason with his sister. “Mac, come on,” he says.
Navarro somehow manages to ignore all this and turns on to Gila Bend’s main drag. Ours is the only car on the road.
Putting my entire upper body through the window, I wave my arms around. I’m desperate to stop MacKenna from destroying what I think is our only chance to figure out what’s happening. I have to do something, I have to say something. “I found out one thing. I know where they’re keeping Jay,” I blurt out. Like if I can tell her something useful, she’ll understand why we can’t destroy the laptop.
Navarro makes a disgruntled noise.
He thinks I’ve said the wrong thing.
I’ve said the wrong thing.
But it works. She looks like she wants to murder me but she hands the laptop off to Toby who promptly puts it in one of the storage bins.
“Well,” she says. “You have your damn computer. Where is my dad?”
I turn around and face front even as MacKenna leans in to get my attention. “Um...Goldwater Airfield. I guess. According to Terminus.”
“Terminus? What? Where is that?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” I say.
She clucks her tongue and shakes her head. Behind her, Toby is saying something I can’t make out. He might be talking to Charles.
“I don’t!” I say with more force. “I don’t remember seeing it on any of Dad’s maps. It could be a lone airstrip or something. They don’t mark those.”
I wipe my sweaty hands on the truck’s grimy, velour upholstery. We pass by Gila Bend’s now-closed Slam Burger and a small park. Everything is vacant. The streetlights switch on.
MacKenna’s face is very close to mine, and she’s breathing hard. “They’re not gonna hold a suspected terrorist at a lone airstrip, stupid! We should be able to figure out where he is!”
Navarro’s hands tighten on the steering wheel. “It doesn’t matter. We aren’t going there.”
My hot anger gives way to a cold, growing panic.
Navarro knows.
He knows how to find Goldwater Airfield.
“It isn’t up to you, jerkface! We make decisions together,” MacKenna tells him.
I realize that this is what I’ve been avoiding all along. I don’t want to make a decision. I follow the drills.
And now.
If we know where Jay is, we’ll have to decide what to do with that knowledge.
The destruction of the motel grows smaller and darker in my side-view mirror.
Navarro stares straight ahead. “We’ll discuss this later. Right now, we stick to the plan.”
Spoken exactly like Dr. Doomsday.
Except the plan should be to stay on the backroads and make our way south to the border. Navarro is driving on the town’s main road, through its small business district.
I glance at him. “Where are we going?”
He grips the wheel even harder. “We have to ditch this vehicle. Those wrinkled old prunes have seen it and probably got the license plate. I hid my truck behind a billboard at the gas station.”
MacKenna moves to the back of the camper where she and Toby continue to argue.
We stop at a gas station. It’s got a sandwich board sign in front at the edge of the curb.
