The Survival Code, page 19
Navarro wants to stay off-road, so progress is slow. It takes us till a little after eleven to make it the twenty-five miles he wanted. When we stop, I climb out of the camper.
I have to hand it to Navarro.
We are in the absolute middle of nowhere.
We can see every star that’s ever been in the sky. They hang over us like a glittery blanket.
Navarro goes into the camper. He comes back out with battery-operated lanterns and distributes them to me and MacKenna. “Keep it on the lowest setting. And keep it close to you. You can never tell who, or what, is out here in the desert. We don’t want to be seen if we can avoid it.”
“It’s cold,” MacKenna says with a shiver.
“Yeah. It’s January,” I say. She’s right though. Even for wintertime, it seems worse than normal. Charles stands, frozen in place, staring out into the abyss. I make a mental note to scan his blood sugar again before bed.
Navarro and Toby get lighter fluid and matches from the camper and build a fire using dried brush and a couple of pieces of deadwood.
“Charles. You need food and some water.” I bring out the rations and hand him a self-heating, foil bag of beef stew and a bottle of water.
We bring out the sleeping bags and take seats around the fire.
I start to feel sleepy and warm.
I open up my own meal. It’s cheese tortellini, and it’s not too bad. After I eat, I usher my brother into the camper. Because we’re so cramped for space, I make a bed for him on the bench at the tiny kitchen table. I kiss my brother on the forehead and snuggle him into his sleeping bag. His blood sugar has come down closer to normal. He kind of stretches and gives a tiny yawn.
After MacKenna and I change into fresh leggings and sweaters from the supply bins, Navarro comes in and stows the weapons.
Toby puts his sleeping bag down in the aisle that runs down the center of the camper, leaving the bed in the back for me and MacKenna to share.
Navarro moves to sleep in the cabin of the truck.
I grab a few supplies from the first-aid bin and follow him over there. If Tork did any real damage, there won’t be anything I can do. But I can check out the cuts and scrapes.
The night is quiet and unbroken by the sound of a passing car or a plane overhead. I find Navarro hunched over behind the steering wheel.
“Is anything broken?” I ask.
“I’m fine.” He keeps his face turned forward. The dome light from overhead casts long shadows across his face.
I finally get a decent look at him. A blue-black circle surrounds his eye. There are patches of dried blood on his lips.
“That isn’t what I asked you,” I say. When it seems like he won’t say anything else, I add, “First aid is part of the drill.”
Navarro picks at the scab forming on his lower lip. “Nothing’s broken. I’ve got some bruising. Cuts and scrapes. I’ve had worse.”
I glance at a deep gash on his forearm. “Really? When?”
“Get some sleep, Susan—”
I’m already ripping open an alcohol wipe.
“Wait. What are you doing? Hey—”
He tries to dodge me, but I’m able to land the wipe on the open wound. The muscles in his arm tense as I clean and bandage the wound.
And I notice he’s hunched over. Forward. Leaning away from the seat.
“I need to see your back.”
He flashes me a wide grin. “Oh. Do you?”
In spite of everything, my face heats up. “Maybe I should have let Tork keep dragging you across the parking lot.”
Navarro’s smile fades, and he raises his shirt. His muscular back looks like someone drove a truck across it. I tend to the scrapes and burns as best I can. Navarro flinches the first time I touch him.
I tell myself it’s because the alcohol wipes are so cold.
After a few minutes, I pack up my stuff.
He gives me a small smile. “Good night, Susan.”
I smile a little too. “Good night.”
And.
And.
“And thanks,” I say. “For, uh, not letting Tork shoot me.”
Navarro laughs. “Well, thank you, I guess. For not letting him drag me across the parking lot.”
“Yeah. Uh. Good night.” I shiver. From the cold.
Charles and MacKenna are already snoring when I return to the camper. I climb in bed, toss a few times and finally drift off.
* * *
A sharp pain jabs through my ribs. MacKenna is poking me and saying, “Jinx. Jinx.”
My eyes flutter open.
It’s barely morning, and still mostly dark. The first thing I see is MacKenna’s frantic face. “There’s someone out there,” she says.
I blink stupidly.
“Out there,” she repeats, jabbing her finger toward the narrow window next to the bed.
I sit up, scoot over and press my eyes to the glass.
Fight off the cold panic on the verge of overtaking me.
She’s right.
Outside, a few feet from the camper, there’s a hulking male figure in a black hoodie sitting on a red camping pack with his back to our camper.
MacKenna wraps her arms around herself. She’s terrified.
All right.
I slide off the bed.
Slowly.
Trying not to shake the camper with my movements.
Making as little noise as I can.
I don’t even dare breathe.
I shove my feet into my shoes. There’s no choice but to creep out and jump the guy. I’m not sure if it will help or hurt the situation.
I tiptoe around Charles.
Over to the cabinets.
Which creak so loud.
A sound to deafen everything in the desert.
I open the bin that contains the weapons.
Luckily, the Glock is right on top along with a couple of preloaded magazines. I take the gun, pull the slide back until it catches and insert the magazine. Index finger always on the frame, I tell myself, following Dad’s step-by-step instructions.
All right.
I meet MacKenna’s wide, horrified eyes as I put my hand on the camper door.
Okay.
Go.
Slow. Slow. Slow.
I push the door open.
One foot goes down to the dirt.
Then the other.
The man doesn’t move.
I take a slow step.
Then another.
“Trying to sneak up on your old man, eh?” says a familiar voice, and my knees seem to turn to water.
My father.
I remember all the times I would race home on my bike to see what he was doing. What we could work on together.
Everything hits me.
The hope that he’ll fix this mess we’re in.
The fear that he can’t.
The gnawing sensation in my stomach every time I think of Dad’s work. The Spark. The Opposition. The Guide to Ultimate Survival.
It’s all there.
Dr. Doomsday has come to camp.
DR. DOOMSDAY SAYS:
IF YOU CAN’T OUTRUN THE PAST, YOU CAN HIDE FROM IT.
“Dad?” I ask.
What are you doing here?
Where have you been?
What is happening?
WHAT THE HELL ARE WE GOING TO DO?
These questions don’t come out.
Instead, Charles bounds out of the camper. “Dad? Dad!” My brother wears a massive grin on his face as he runs by my frozen form and jumps into our father’s arms.
Dad musses Charles’s reddish-brown hair. “Hello, sonny boy,” he says.
It’s dawn in the desert with the sun creeping up and sending first light over the yellowing brush. From the horizon, the golds of the sunrise burst over the low cholla into the early morning sky. Nearer to us, scattered saguaros are rendered in cool violet and indigo hues.
Navarro has taken us to a pretty good position, nestled in between two buttes, keeping us out of sight of anyone traveling across the open landscape.
I take slow steps toward my father. He appears to be clean, well fed and well rested. He’s even trimmed his beard. I’m covered in dirt and grime and splotches of blood, and look like I’ve been sleeping under the Adams Street Bridge for the past week. Dad looks like he just returned from free waffles at the Ramada Inn.
He’s sitting in front of a cheerful fire made of wood he must have brought with him.
I’ve got a thousand questions. “What...how did you find us?” is the one that comes out.
Dad eyes the distance between us. “Hello to you too,” he says. “Gustavo has a geolocation device. He gave me the coordinates.”
Navarro has a way to get in contact with my dad and I don’t. There’s something about it that feels like a betrayal. I glance around looking for the traitor but don’t find him. “Dad...” I say.
He smiles. “Jinx. Get some breakfast. Sit down. We have a lot to discuss and we need to get moving as soon as we can.”
“Like the fact that Mom thinks you can get Jay away from The Opposition,” I say.
His smiles fades. “Yes. Like that. After we eat.”
The fire crackles and pops.
MacKenna slowly steps out of the camper, putting her hair in a ponytail while she walks. As she approaches, she clears her throat. In addition to everything else, I’ve got bad manners, because it doesn’t immediately occur to me to introduce her. Dad’s book didn’t cover remote campsite etiquette.
It’s Charles who plops down next to Dad on the camping pack and says, “Hey! Dad! Did you ever meet MacKenna?”
The answer is no.
The fact that Mom got remarried so soon after the divorce really messed him up. He never made an effort to meet Jay. Or MacKenna and Toby.
“She’s awesome,” Charles goes on. “She knows everything. She reads everything. She writes for the newspaper.”
“The school newspaper,” MacKenna says quietly.
Charles grins. “She knows everything about The Spark. She was the teen volunteer coordinator for Rosenthal. Everyone’s for Rosenthal.”
I shake my head at my brother. “Dad is for The Opposition.”
“I’m not for anyone,” Dad says in a low tone. “Not anymore.”
But Dad doesn’t seem surprised to see them.
My anger builds as I realize Dad’s spoken to Navarro.
Toby comes out of the camper, a yawn breaking through his surprise at the odd new scene. “That’s my stepbrother, Toby.” I point at Dad. “My dad, Max Marshall.”
“That’s Toby,” Charles begins. “He’s—”
“My father isn’t a terrorist,” MacKenna blurts out. Loud. Forceful. Her voice carries across the open desert.
“I know,” Dad says with a finality that doesn’t invite more questions.
Behind me, a horse whinnies.
A horse.
I turn, and there are two of them. About twenty feet from the camper. Navarro is doing his best to get them to drink from a silver bucket. He gives me a sheepish wave.
MacKenna smiles. A real, genuine smile. I haven’t seen that in so long that I’m caught off guard. She glances from the large dark reddish mare to the slightly smaller, creamy-blonde one. Dad rode out here. On horseback.
So he has to have some kind of base of operations nearby.
I move away from Dad, toward MacKenna and the horses.
“Quarter horses,” she says. Her mouth widens into a grin. “Stock type?” she asks.
I shake my head. I have no idea what kind of horses these are, and I’m kind of surprised that she does. We’re both from big cities, not ranch towns.
MacKenna shrugs. “My dad sent me to Crossogue.” When I continue to stare blankly, she continues, “Some bougie equestrian camp. In Ireland.”
I squint at her.
She sighs. “Right after my mom died, Toby studied all the time, but I don’t think Dad knew what to do with me. Anyway, the camp did this whole unit on the different kinds of horses.” She joins Navarro and helps him with the water bucket. A couple of seconds later, they’re actually laughing as one of the horses snorts and sneezes right in Navarro’s face.
I want to sneeze in his face.
From all our weekend drills, I know that arguing with my dad when he’s got a big master plan going is a pointless waste of time. Nothing’s gonna happen until we have breakfast. So, I return to the camper and get busy pulling food out. I locate several rations, mostly of maple-flavored oatmeal and what looks like the last of our remaining water bottles. From inside, I can still hear Charles giving Dad a detailed list of every plant he’s seen since leaving the house on Tuesday.
MacKenna comes in and kneels alongside me. “You know, he’s surprisingly handsome. For an old guy.”
“What? My dad?” I ask, nearly dropping one of the bottles of water.
She stands up and looks out the camper window. “He’s actually kind of hot. In an over-the-hill action hero kind of way. Like an aging movie star. The kind of guy who looks great but everyone says they paint on his abs in the makeup trailer, you know?”
No, I don’t. I think MacKenna needs to stop reading so many celebrity blogs. I roll my eyes and hand her the bags of oatmeal. I bundle up the sleeping bags and bring them outside so we’ll all have something to sit on.
I toss Dad some oatmeal.
It rebounds off his chest. He’s staring into the open desert, unusually unalert.
I drop the sleeping bags at intervals around the campfire and take a seat on mine. Toby and MacKenna join me. They regard my father with unnerved faces, staring at him the way someone might stare at a spaceman. Or a ghost.
Something odd and unreal.
Toby starts with a softball. “What exactly are you a doctor of?”
Charles pipes up. “Computer science and cryptography. Dad did his undergraduate work at Stanford University. He has a master’s degree in computer simulation from Cornell and a PhD in data science from—”
“I don’t think they need my whole résumé, son,” Dad interrupts, reaching out to ruffle my brother’s hair. “I used to teach computer science at Arizona State until I decided to...”
Build a bunker in your backyard and drive your family nuts with disaster drills?
“Write your book,” Charles says with enthusiasm.
I glance sideways at my stepsister. “MacKenna knows all about this. She did a report on Dad for school.”
Her lips pucker in an embarrassed grimace.
It’s silent again except for the occasional scuff of horses’ hooves in the dirt.
We all watch Dad open his oatmeal. Eat a few bites. Stare into space some more.
Sit there while his bearded chin moves up and down.
It’s excruciating.
I check my brother’s blood sugar and give him a small dose of insulin. Then I can’t take it anymore.
“Dad, can you do anything to help Jay?” I say.
He stops. “There’s nothing I, or anyone else, can do at this point.”
MacKenna folds her arms over her chest.
This is exactly what she thought would happen.
I continue on. “Mom thinks you know people.”
Dad continues to stare out into the creosote bush. “She knows better than anyone that I’ve burned my bridges with The Opposition.”
My sweater smells like the mothballs Dad must have put in the supply bins. “But you know Ammon Carver.”
“Yes. I do.” The way he says this. Like it settles the whole matter.
Beads of sweat break out on my forehead. I have to believe that he’s just not getting it. I get up, go back to the camper and return with the laptop. I hand it to Dad, who reluctantly accepts it.
“You in need of tech support?” he asks with a wan smile.
“You have to listen to me. Terminus said—”
Dad snorts. “Terminus? You mean Harold? My old student? That’s where you’re getting your information from?”
My face heats up. “He hacked into the Rancho Mesa PD mainframe and—”
Dad shakes his head. “Of course he did.”
“Dad, the explosions at the banks were triggered remotely. By a software program that used the built-in speaker systems to detonate explosive materials that had been—”
“Jinx,” Dad says, his lips pressing into a thin frown. But he’s thinking.
“You were doing research along those lines,” MacKenna says, in a blend of a question, a statement and an accusation.
“I could never work out the details,” Dad says, stroking his dark beard absently. “In my tests, the sonic device had to be too close to the explosives for the whole thing to be of any value. It would have been less conspicuous to detonate a conventional bomb.”
“—previously placed there by—”
“Somebody must have gotten it to work,” Toby says.
“Maybe,” Dad says, unconvinced.
Navarro’s head swivels back and forth from me to my dad, like a spectator at a tennis match. He heads toward the horses.
I sigh in frustration. “It does work, because the code is on that laptop. Jay’s laptop. And if we could figure out who put it there and when and why...well, maybe we could help Jay.”
Dad holds the laptop in front of his face, as if he’s contemplating opening it.
“We know where my dad is being held,” MacKenna says. “At Goldwater Airfield.”
“Mom is there too,” I add.
Dad shifts uncomfortably on the red pack. “Jinx...” His voice is full of warning.
I find myself trying to fight off a mounting sense of dread by brushing dust off the knees of my jeans. MacKenna continues to observe my father the way an anthropologist might regard a stranger from an undiscovered country.
