“For the past year, I was convinced that your father was bribing some line guard to smuggle him over the wall. That’s how most fetches get east. But I couldn’t find any evidence of it. And then I remembered the exodus tunnels.”
The projected images were shadowy, though clear enough that I could see the door on the right slide open.
“After the West closed,” Spurling went on, “the tunnels were backfilled with twenty feet of rubble. But if someone wants something badly enough …”
The chamber brightened as a flashlight beam appeared in the open door. It took me a second to realize that it was part of the recorded projection.
Spurling’s expression turned smug. “When I had the cameras installed last week, I didn’t expect such a fast payoff.”
I watched with dismay as a ghostly version of my father stepped through the steel door, his messenger bag in one hand. I scooted out of the way as he walked past, and then I caught Spurling’s faint amusement. When the ghostlike form of my dad was halfway across the chamber, a red light started flashing. Behind him, the door began to slide shut. My father whirled and raced for the tunnel, darting right through me. At the last second, he slipped sideways into the opening, but the messenger bag in his hand was too big and he dropped it just as the door closed.
Spurling frowned and froze the image. “He tripped the motion sensor, which was supposed to lock down this chamber with him in it. That way he and I could have had a face-to-face chat. Instead, I have an overflowing case file, damning evidence, and a missing fetch. That wasn’t the plan.”
A knot of pain tightened in my gut. It tightened and tightened, hard and cold, until it was the only thing I felt. Why had she shown me this? My father was all I had and she knew it. “What do you want?”
She turned off the projection and the lights came back on. “I just told you,” she said, tucking the tablet under her arm. “I want to talk to Mack privately, but at this point, that’s not going to happen.”
By “talk to” she meant “arrest.” Why didn’t she just say it?
Because she doesn’t want to arrest him, I realized with icy clarity. She wants something else.
Spurling watched me without a word, as if willing me to piece it together.
I drew in a shuddering breath. So, what did she want? To talk to Mack privately, or so she’d said. But that wasn’t really it. No, what Director Spurling specifically wanted was to talk to a fetch. One who had been all the way to Chicago and back … My heart rose in my chest. Maybe my dad’s fate wasn’t sealed after all. “You want him to fetch something for you. Something you left behind in Chicago.”
“Aren’t you the bright one?” Spurling took a cream-colored envelope from her suit pocket. “If Mack brings me what I want, I’ll destroy the recording and his file. All the information he’ll need is in here.” She handed me the envelope.
I stiffened, seeing the catch. “I can’t give it to him. I don’t know where he is.”
“Oh, but you do.” She tipped her head toward the twin steel doors.
A heavy wave of cold moved through me. “You want me to go into the Feral Zone?”
“Of course not. You’d never make it across the river. Go as far as Arsenal Island.”
My vision tunneled. Spurling, the envelope, the chamber, all slipped back as if to give me room to think. She was offering me the chance to save my dad. I didn’t need to think. I’d do whatever it took — even cross the quarantine line.
Spurling watched me with sharp eyes. “You want to help your father, don’t you?”
I nodded, not trusting my voice.
“Good.” She began putting my dad’s things back into the messenger bag, all except the rolled canvas and the map. “There’s a doctor on Arsenal Island — Dr. Vincent Solis.” She spread the map on the table and pointed to a rectangular island in the middle of the Mississippi River. “Dr. Solis will probably know where your father is. He has an ongoing deal with Mack.”
“What kind of deal?”
Spurling gave me a thin smile. “I’m not at liberty to say. Just know that I have chosen to look the other way when it comes to Dr. Solis’s activities … for now anyway.”
The map had been printed pre-exodus — there was no symbol on it to indicate the Titan wall, which ran from the Canadian border with its trenches and electrified fence to the Gulf of Mexico. Also, the map showed dozens of bridges crossing the Mississippi River when only one was still in existence. Known as “the last bridge,” it crossed into the quarantine zone by way of Arsenal Island. Everybody knew that. Everybody also knew that the last bridge was heavily guarded.
“Isn’t Arsenal Island a line patrol camp?”
“It is. Dr. Solis lives there with the guards. So, don’t get caught,” Spurling said as if it was no big deal. “If you do, don’t expect me to intervene on your behalf. I’ll deny everything. By the way, when you find Mack, tell him that he has five days to complete the fetch.”
“Why only five days?”
“The patrol is shoring up the rubble along the east side of the wall. They start work on these tunnels Thursday morning.” She flicked a hand at the two steel doors.
“Tell them not to!”
Spurling arched a penciled brow. “The line guards work for the Titan Corporation. They don’t take orders from government officials, not even me.”
“But what if it takes me five days to find him?”
“Arsenal Island is directly on the other side of the wall. It should take you ten minutes to get there. After that, either Dr. Solis knows where Mack is hiding or he doesn’t. If he doesn’t, do not go looking for your father. Just come back here and press the call button outside that door. I’ll come get you.”
“If I try but don’t find my dad, will you still destroy the evidence against him?”
“Please. Why would I put myself at risk if I have nothing to show for it?”
“But —”
“The more time you waste now, the less Mack will have for the fetch.”
Before my legs locked up entirely, I slung the deadweight of the messenger bag over my shoulder and picked up the map. I would find my father and give him the letter and then he’d do the fetch and everything would go back to normal. I could do this. I would do this. And I wasn’t going to freak out about it … much.
I lifted my dial. “I need to call our housekeeper and tell him that I’m okay.” Howard had to have heard from some parent that I’d been hauled off by biohaz agents. He was probably outside the quarantine center at this moment, trying to kick down the door.
“Howard was arrested hours ago.” Spurling’s tone was offhanded. “I have to say, for an old guy, he’s a tough nut to crack.”
“Crack?”
“He’s being questioned about his knowledge of your father’s illegal activities.”
I stared at her, wanting to shout that Howard didn’t know anything. But was that true? I wasn’t sure of anything anymore.
“By the way,” she went on, “we dropped off your pets at the local shelter. You have until the end of the week to claim them.”
And I’d thought this woman couldn’t make me hate her any more. “What if I can’t?”
“Well, someone might adopt the one-eyed dog or the diabetic cat, but the rest? Even you have to admit they’re a pretty sorry lot.”
I drew a breath against the tightness in my chest. Director Spurling had just painted a bulls-eye on everyone and everything I loved. And if I didn’t do what she wanted, she was going to start pulling the trigger. I cleared my throat. “I’d like to get going now, if that’s okay.”