Page 49 of I Dream of Danger
He didn’t give a shit about any of it. This fucking brochure had practically reached out and grabbed him by the balls, so why wasn’t he getting what it was supposed to tell him?
He looked it over again and again, even flipping it upside down which did nothing but give him a headache. The reflection off the glossy paper nearly blinded him. He narrowed his eyes.
Catherine was watching him closely. “What, Nick?”
He shook his head, like shaking off water. A sharp movement.
The contact info—the address seemed to leap out at him.
1657 McGraw Drive, Palo Alto.
Palo Alto.
“Hey!” Jon shouted, just as Nick dropped the paper as if it burned his fingers.
Jon swiveled the screen. He’d turned the hologram function off—the screen was showing a newspaper article with no photographs. “Corona Labs was bought a year ago by none other than Arka Laboratories.” He turned to Nick. “Whatever it is that’s calling to you, buddy, it’s not good.”
Arka Laboratories had kept their former commander and three of their teammates prisoner, conducting experiments that would have done the Nazis proud, for over a year. The year he, Mac, and Jon had been in exile, convinced their commander had betrayed them. Lucius Ward hadn’t betrayed them, he’d been betrayed himself and had paid a terrible price.
Catherine had worked for a company owned by Arka and they still had men out looking for her. Arka was a multi-billion-dollar company with a whole board full of people who would testify that it was run by angels. Nobody would ever believe that an Arka-run lab had tortured highly-decorated soldiers. Nobody would believe that they would kill Catherine on sight.
Of course now she was in Haven, their high-tech community of misfits where, like everyone else, she fit right in. She was now revered, actually, as the community doctor. Not to mention the fact that she had Mac guarding her day and night, and if anything ever happened to Mac, then he and Jon would step right in. Both of them would give their lives to keep Catherine safe. Arka wasn’t getting its hands on her.
And now Arka was somehow involved in a threat to Elle, too. She was under threat right now and he didn’t know where the fuck she was, except that she was in some seedy motel with a faded green façade…
“Palo Alto!” Nick shouted, and all but smacked himself in the face. Somehow hidden in the distress call was the image of Corona Labs. Maybe she worked there, maybe she didn’t. The fact was that Corona Labs was mixed up in the threat to her, and Corona Labs was headquartered in Palo Alto. The city was less than an hour away by helo. “She’s got to be there, that’s why I couldn’t keep my eyes off that goddamned brochure. Jon?—”
But Jon was grimly tapping on the conference table surface, connected to four monitors. “On it,” he said.
Nick rushed to his side, skin prickling. He’d been paralyzed with fear, but now urgency rushed over him like a flood that had been dammed up but now released. Elle was in Palo Alto! He knew it, could feel it. He’d been blasted with a distress signal but with no way to know the point of origin, and it had been driving him insane. Elle could have been in New York, Alaska, fucking France. All places it would take him hours and hours to get to. But she was in Palo Alto, and their helo could get him to her in half an hour. Oh Jesus…
Jon had pulled up a Google map and was checking a list of motels. It was painstaking work because it wasn’t like facial recognition with known parameters. A faded green façade wasn’t much of an identifier, and they needed night shots to see a sign with a letter missing.
“Go to a 40-mile perimeter,” Nick said, and the first screen zoomed out. “Go dark.” Jon tapped the table and all the screens showed night shots, most illegally hacked from the Keyhole 18 satellites, some from their own drones.
The second screen was flashing hotels and motels. They stopped at a shot of a building with a neon sign flashing VACA CIES. Nick studied it. A tall red-brick relic from the 30s, it looked like. A distinctive tattered awning over the entrance. It felt dull and lifeless. Wrong, in every sense. He shook his head. “No.”
Ten minutes later they had it. A low building set in a depressed-looking strip mall. V CANCI S a neon sign posted on top of a pole advertised.
“Day shots coming up—now!” Jon switched the screen and yes, there it was. A low-lying building once painted light green, now faded. The address was underneath—2442 Century Way. The GPS data was there, and it gave distance from landmarks around Palo Alto. Nick was an excellent orienteerer. He could get to the place on the monitor blindfolded. Now that he knew Elle was there, he’d walk over glass shards barefoot to get there. The screen shot pulsed with meaning. From the depths of his being came the certainty. Elle was there, in that building, right now.
If she wasn’t dead.
“She’s there!” he shouted. “I can feel it. Jon, start Little Bird up!”
Jon was their pilot. He could start Little Bird up from a remote that was kept in the armory. On mission, it was set on the inside of his wrist with Derma Glue. If he started it up now, Little Bird would be already firing up its rotors by the time they made it down to the hangar.
Nick was at the door, but he was alone. No Jon.
He looked over his shoulder, wild with urgency. Now that he knew where Elle was, the rush was in his blood like a fever. Even this extra minute might mean the difference between life and death for Elle. What the fuck was Jon waiting for?
“Jon!” he said sharply. “Come on!”
But Jon was shaking his head, and if Nick didn’t know better, if he didn’t know that Jon didn’t do emotion, he’d swear he saw sadness in Jon’s eyes. “Can’t.” His voice was lifeless, dull. “Little Bird’s rotorhead is broken. I went down to Fort Benson today to steal a new one, but I haven’t had time to install it. It’ll take a couple of hours at least. I’ll step on it, you know I will, but I’m working alone. The only other guy who knows enough about it to help is Pelton.”
Catherine gasped. Pelton, one of the men they’d rescued from Arka’s dungeon three months ago, had only recently come out of a coma. He was in their infirmary, flat on his back still, IVs running in and tubes running out. No way was Pelton going to be any help.
Well fuck it. Nick wasn’t going to waste any time with regrets. It was what it was. “Send me a drone over the motel! I’m taking the hovercar!” he shouted over his shoulder as he ran for the hangar.
