Brian O'Grady - Hybrid

He stretched his long arms and listened as the rain pelted the metal roof. He yawned and made the decision to take the small risk and leave before it was dark. The back roads would be patrolled by the local or state police, not by the military, and would be relatively easy to handle. He gathered his things and carried them into the small-attached garage. The Theimes owned a Ford F150 pickup that was made in the last century, but despite its age, was in excellent condition. The thirty-gallon gas tank was always filled, a fact that Elmer had shared with Reisch the day before he died, so his range was easily five hundred miles. More than enough. He opened the single garage door, bid Elmer and Rose a final farewell, and backed their truck onto the gravel driveway. The rain was coming down in sheets, which presented Klaus with a dilemma; leaving the garage door open would be a sign to anyone who happened along that something was wrong. Closing the garage door meant that he would be soaked and driving for hours in wet clothes, something that was very unappealing to the fastidious German. He looked around the small cab for an umbrella and found nothing. He waited a minute for the rain to ease up, but the steady drumming continued. It wasn’t a small point; someone, either the sheriff or a family member would be checking on the Theimes soon, and if they found the garage door open and their truck missing, they would be rightly suspicious. However, if they knocked, and no one answered they would check the garage, see that the truck was gone and would have an explanation as to why Elmer and Rose hadn’t been answering their phone. He looked at his watch and decided that he would give the rain exactly three minutes to let up and then he would be forced to close the door.

“We have a heat signature,” the analyst announced. The keyhole satellite platform had just cleared the horizon and turned every instrument it had on a twenty-five mile radius of eastern New Mexico; its infrared sensors had found a small gap in the cloud cover and downloaded the images to a ground station in North Carolina. “Small engine, probably a car. Give the computers a few more minutes and we’ll have a better image.” The senior analyst reviewed the live feed and agreed. It took less than a minute to relay the message to Ron Benedict.

“It’s either house nine or ten, that’s as precise as the techies can be,” he relayed to the agent on the scene. “Have him start there.” It had only taken two hours to transport Phil, Amanda, Greg, and an entire field support team to Clayton, New Mexico. Reisch was a hundred miles to the west, and everyone was hoping that he still had his claws retracted.

“The roads are clear,” the agent briefed Phil. “There’s a thunderstorm about seventy miles from here, but it’s moving north at twenty miles an hour, I doubt you’ll even see it, but it left the roads wet. Drive fast, but get there safely. We think that he may be in one of these two houses, and on the move,” he gave Phil a map with two red circles. “If he is, then he has to drive north along this road before he reaches Highway 58. If we’re right about Dallas, he should turn east and come right at you.”

Phil climbed into the unmarked police cruiser. Amanda opened the passenger door and sat down. “I thought you weren’t coming?” Phil asked, hoping that she had changed her mind. They both had very nearly mastered retracting their own claws, and he only felt anticipation in the air between them.

“I’m not,” she said and his heart fell. “Don’t try and be a hero, Phil. We don’t want a confrontation; otherwise, I’d be going. Draw him out, and then get the hell out of there. Twenty, thirty miles should do it. He should pick you up before you sense him, so when you feel him, use this police interceptor engine and put some distance between the two of you.”

“He’ll know it’s a trap,” Phil said. From the moment Amanda had suggested that they use Phil as bait, he saw the transparency of the plan. “You should just let me take care of him.” Phil had grown surprisingly confident in the force that was developing inside him. From a raw power standpoint, he was at least Amanda’s equal.

“Thinking like that will get you killed, Phillip Rucker. This isn’t about power,” she said answering his thoughts. “This is about harnessing the force and directing it, and right now, he can do that far better than you can.” Her tone was stern, almost angry. “He will know it’s a trap, but it’s one he won’t be able to resist. It will offend him greatly that you were sent instead of me; he’ll want to send a message, and if you approach him full of naïve bravado, he will send that message.”

Fully chastened, Phil nodded his head. “As soon as I can feel him, I’ll turn around. I sure hope I don’t run out of gas, or get a flat tire.” Phil tried to be funny.

Reisch smiled when he first felt the tickle that could only be the mind of Phillip Rucker. “So you survived after all,” he said to himself. He glanced over his shoulder for his ethereal companion, but Pushkin hadn’t shown himself in days.

They were still much too far apart for Klaus to read Phil, much less control him, but the very fact that he was here was a complication. He was driving in from the east, which meant that they had divined his plan; it probably also meant that Amanda was waiting for him to turn west.

He leaned forward and looked at the thick cloud cover. He wasn’t an expert on satellite surveillance, but he was fairly certain that the Americans didn’t have cameras that could see through miles of clouds. They must have found the stolen Au di.

“Damn,” he said to himself. He had meant to move it to the Theimes’, but old Elmer wasn’t much help, especially after he was dead. Klaus laughed. He wasn’t worried about the pathologist, or anyone who would have sent him. He could deal with all of them.

“Aren’t you getting tired of having to adapt your plans because of these irritating Americans?” Pushkin asked.

“I thought you had left for good.” Pushkin’s sudden and unexpected appearances usually irritated Reisch, but today he was glad to see the Russian.

“Why do you suppose they would send him after you?”

“It’s obviously a trap. I’m guessing that they want me to turn west into the lovely arms of Amanda Flynn, either that, or they have far too much faith in Dr. Rucker.”

“It’s a little too obvious for my liking.” Pushkin was always the voice of doubt and restraint. Reisch had grown up respecting the man, but could never understand this character flaw.

The rain had stopped and Klaus pushed the old pickup to its limit, which was just over the legal limit. He reached Highway 58 and had to make a decision, turn east, kill Rucker and face what waited behind him, or do what they wanted and turn west. He let the truck idle at the intersection and turned his mind west.

“Ah, there you are Amanda.” She had shut down her mind, but this close, she could never fully hide from him. Twice they had shared a mind, and he would always be able to find her. “It’s not a bad plan,” he said to Pushkin. “Only one road for me to take, and they have both ends covered. It’s too bad I’m not going to play nice.” He turned the wheel and the truck to the east. With Amanda accounted for, Phil and the entire U.S. Army posed no real threat to him.

“Make it fast; this pig of a truck couldn’t outrun a snake.” Reisch looked at Pushkin. “It’s a Russian expression.”

“Snakes don’t run, they slither.”

“It loses something in translation. Pay attention.”

Rucker was about fifty miles away, but the distance was closing at a rate of two miles a minute. Amanda was almost as far away, and once he had turned away from her, she began to give chase and was slowly closing the distance. “She’s at least forty-five minutes behind me, and if she gets too close, I can always slow her down.”