She looked like she wanted to believe him but was having a hard time. Brandon knew he should do something, but didn’t know what. Josie didn’t seem to have the same problem. She walked over to Ginny and put her arms around the girl.
I should have done that, Brandon thought at the time.
And now, as he remembered what Ginny had told them before they’d all finally gone to sleep, he had the same thought again. He wasn’t sure why, but somewhere in the middle of her story, he had started to feel protective of her. Maybe it was because she was about the same age he was, or maybe it was because she’d done the same thing he would have done if their roles had been reversed.
He entered the motel lobby and walked over to the door behind the counter. Carefully, he opened it a few inches. There was just enough light for him to see the cellophane wrapper he’d shoved in the room the night before. While a few crumbs had been left behind, all the crackers were gone.
The cat whined.
Brandon nearly snapped the door shut in surprise. The animal was much closer than he expected, not more than a few feet behind the door. He reached into his pocket and found he still had a couple sticks of the string cheese he’d been snacking on during the drive yesterday. He peeled back the wrapper on one, but instead of tossing it inside as he first intended, he held the stick out so that it protruded beyond the edge of the door.
The cat made a sound that was part whine, part meow. Quiet for a moment, then the sound again, much closer.
“Come and get it,” Brandon said. “All yours.”
A low, audible whine, as if the cat really wanted the cheese, but couldn’t bring itself to close the remaining distance.
“It’s right here. All for you. Come on, kitty.”
A silent standoff.
Finally, a nose topped by long tan fur peeked around the door. A sniff was all it took for the head to follow. The cat looked at the cheese, and then at Brandon. Another meow.
Are you going to give that to me, or what? That’s what it sounded like to Brandon.
“Sure,” he set the cheese stick on the floor and let go.
The cat looked at it again before taking two hesitant steps forward. It lowered its mouth, and nibbled at the end of the stick before it seemed to remember Brandon was there. It clamped down on the cheese and dragged it away from the door, out of sight.
Brandon pulled out the second stick, but before he could open it, he heard Josie’s voice. It wasn’t quite a yell, but it was plenty loud enough for him to hear his name. He pulled the apartment door closed so that whatever heat was still in there would remain, and headed for the door. When he stepped out onto the pathway, he saw Josie looking in the other direction.
“Brandon, where are you?” she said.
“Right here.”
She twirled around. “Why did you take so long to answer me?”
“Because I just heard you.”
“Where were you?”
“Why is that important?” While there was really no reason not to tell her, he didn’t like the tone of her voice.
“I’m…because…never mind. Dad wanted me to get you.”
“You could have said that first.”
The door near the far end opened, and Matt stepped out. “You two done waking everyone up?” he asked.
“Oh, sorry,” Brandon said.
“Sorry,” Josie chimed in. “I was looking for my brother.”
“It’s all right,” Matt said, laughing. “It’s time we all got up anyway. Do me a favor and spread the word — meeting in my room in fifteen minutes.”
WHEN SIMS AND his team reached the junction of the I-90 and I-15 outside Butte the night before, there was no reason to set down. If any tracks had been left showing the direction the others had taken, the storm had completely obliterated them.
He ordered the pilot to continue on to Butte, where they found shelter for the night in a large house near the outskirts of town. They removed the bodies inside — a task that was nearly second nature at this point — and fell asleep on mattresses arranged around the fireplace.
Upon waking in the morning, Sims checked outside to get a sense of the weather. It was still snowing, maybe a tad less than the night before, but not by much.
“Dammit,” he said under his breath.
It would be hours at the earliest before they could get underway again, and if the storm kept up like this, they might not be able to leave at all.
He pulled out his phone, knowing it was time to update the principal director.
12
Rachel Hamilton leaned against the wall of the communications room, exhausted. Unlike the comm room in the Bunker back in Montana, the one at the Resistance’s alternate headquarters, hidden in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, was a confined space where only three people could fit comfortably. At the moment, five were present.
If Rachel hadn’t been the one in charge during her brother’s absence, she would have slipped out into the comparatively fresh air of the narrow corridor. But since that was not currently an option, she ignored as best she could her growing sense of claustrophobia by focusing on the terminal Leon Owen was manning.
“There,” Leon said, pressing the left side of his headphones closer to his ear. With his other hand, he tapped one of the arrow keys on his keyboard several times. “Got it. Much clearer now.” He flicked another button, and suddenly static burst from a set of speakers on his desk.
Rachel leaned forward but it all sounded like white noise to her.
“There it is again,” Leon said.
The other three nodded.
“Yeah,” Crystal agreed. “Sounds like coordinates.”
“Or a phone number,” Dennis suggested.
Rachel frowned. “I don’t hear a damn thing.”
“It’s very faint,” Crystal said. “It took me a few seconds to pick it out.”
Rachel smirked. “What you’re really saying is that I’m old and my hearing sucks.”
“You’re not old,” Paul said.
“Thanks for that.”
The other four focused once more on the speaker, and Leon began jotting something down on the pad of paper by his keyboard. When he finished, they all looked at what he’d written.
Rachel tapped Dennis on the back. “May I see?”
“Oh, sorry,” he said, and moved to the side.
Written on the top sheet was a twelve-digit number.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but you need two sets of numbers for coordinates,” she said.
“No, you’re right,” Leon replied. “This is the only one they’ve been repeating. I’m sure of it.”
“So was Dennis right, then?” Rachel said. “Is it a phone number?”
Leon brought up a list of country codes. The number he’d written down started with 881, but the only codes on the list that began with 88 were 880 for Bangladesh and 886 for Taiwan.
“№ 881,” he said.
“Maybe you wrote it down wrong,” Paul suggested.
Leon looked at him, annoyed. “Neither zero nor six sounds anything like one.”
“Yeah, but there’s a lot of interference,” Dennis countered.
“Be my guest, then.” Leon brought up the phone application on his screen and held out his headset.
“I’m just trying to look at all the angles,” Dennis told him without taking it from him.
“We should at least try, don’t you think?” Rachel said. “Leon, give it a go.”
Leon didn’t exactly scoff as he put the headset back on, but he came close. He dialed the number using the 880 Bangladesh prefix. It took only a couple of seconds before a series of tones came out of the speakers. These were followed by a message informing them in heavily accented English that no such number existed.