Desmond lay on the metal floor of the cargo container in almost complete darkness.
At the burned ruins of his childhood home, the soldiers had zip-tied his hands and placed a black bag over his head. They hadn’t pulled it off until they’d shoved him in the container.
His cell, such as it was, had six round holes about a foot off the floor, each about an inch in diameter. Desmond figured they were there to let air in, or perhaps for warehouse employees to verify the container’s contents without opening it. He pressed an eye to one of them. Rows and stacks of cargo containers sat on a concrete floor.
After a few minutes of searching, he found a twisted edge on the corrugated metal wall. In the dim light, he carefully placed the zip-tie against the sharp metal, then sawed back and forth until his hands came free.
He heard tapping against the wall of another container. A pattern—Morse code, he thought. Someone in another container? Desmond didn’t know Morse code. He tapped three times to acknowledge that he had heard the signal. Three taps responded from the original location. Then three more, and three more—both from different locations.
So, including himself, there were four of them. He was sure Avery would have captured William and Peyton. William was probably the one who’d started the Morse code tapping. Who was the fourth captive? Charlotte, because they’d told her too much?
Someone tapped a new pattern. This one wasn’t Morse code, and it was familiar to Desmond. He squinted, listened, then grinned. The taps mimicked the theme song to The X-Files. It ended with a single large tap. He rolled to the metal wall, began tapping the same refrain back.
Twenty years ago, he had sat on a cloth couch in a living room in a small home in Palo Alto and watched the show every Friday night, Peyton beside him, a cup of tea in her hands, occasionally a glass of wine if she’d had a tough week at med school. Desmond would have given anything to go back there and start over. He wondered if it was too late for the two of them. He knew Peyton had been hiding how sick she was. How much time did she have? The thought filled Desmond with energy. He had to find a way out of the box.
Conner McClain sat at the head of the conference table, waiting for the call to connect. He was nervous. The Citium were on the cusp of completing their great experiment. In the following days, two thousand years of work would come to fruition. Or fail.
And now he had the last piece they needed: Desmond Hughes. If Avery had completed her mission, the man had recovered his memories—and the details of how to retrieve Rapture. Letting him go had been a risk, but one he’d felt he had to take.
The call connected, and the screen showed a view of an industrial office with cheap furniture. Plate glass windows looked down on a warehouse full of metal shipping containers. A man in woodland camo stood next to a solid wood desk covered in nicks and scratches, papers strewn across its surface. Avery stood beside the man, her arms crossed just below her breasts, her blond hair hanging down, her gray-blue eyes cold. Conner found her incredibly attractive. He wondered what might develop between them when this was over. She’d had no interest before—but soon he would be the second most powerful person in the world. That might change things.
The man spoke first. “We’ve got them.”
“Why were they in Australia?”
“A woman,” Avery said. “Charlotte Christensen.”
Conner had never heard the name. “Who is she?”
“A relief worker who took care of Desmond after the Ash Wednesday fires.”
“Interesting.”
“We captured her as well, just in case she’s connected somehow.” Avery leaned off the desk. “We’ll bring them to you.”
“No.”
“We need—”
“I’ll come there when this is finished.”
Avery’s eyes flashed. Conner couldn’t read the expression, but he thought it was anger.
“We had a deal,” she said, her voice hard.
“We still have a deal.”
“I want in.”
“You’ll get in. When I say so.” Conner paused, letting his words hang in the air.
Avery exhaled, broke eye contact with him, and slouched back against the desk.
“I want him well guarded,” Conner said. “As you know, he’s a very resourceful man.”
Chapter 103
Elim opened the truck door. The driver yelled at him to stay inside, but Elim knew that what he was about to do was his only choice, perhaps his convoy’s only hope of surviving the ambush. Into his radio, he called for everyone to stay inside their vehicles. His white coat made him less likely to be gunned down than the rifle-carrying men in the canvas-backed trucks behind him.
He stepped down from the box truck’s cab, held his hands up, and marched forward. The troops exiting the armored personnel carriers came into focus. Elim exhaled when he saw their uniforms: Kenyan army. When he had seen the ambush, he had assumed the worst—that it was gang-related.
An officer strode forward. He was coughing. The lapels of his uniform were stained red, and his eyes were yellow and bloodshot.
His voice was much stronger than his appearance. “Who are you?”
“Dr. Elim Kibet. We’re survivors. And we’re here to help.”
Elim found the Kenyan Ministry of Health in shambles. The Emergency Operations Center wasn’t staffed, and the phones were ringing constantly.
To Dhamiria, he said, “Get people in here, have them start answering these phones. Tell callers that we will send help when we can and to do their best until we get there. They need to hear that.”