Neil McMahon - Revolution No.9

“How’s it going, Rasp?” The voice was young, insolent-unquestionably Glenn’s.

Monks swallowed drily. “Glenn, are you all right?”

“Number nine,” Glenn crooned mockingly. “Number nine, Number nine-”

“Okay, get out of here,” Freeboot told Glenn, cutting back in. “Me and your dad got to talk in private.”

“Freeboot, I don’t hold any grudge,” Monks said. “I don’t have any desire to send you to jail.” Those were lies, but he was making the swift and frightening realization that he was willing to stay quiet about the pendant. “I’ll never tell anybody I heard from you. I just want my son safe.”

Freeboot answered conversationally, like one old friend catching up with another.

“You look like you recovered pretty good from your hike. Grew that patch of hair back. Put on a little weight.”

“All right, you’ve been watching me,” Monks said. “I figured that.”

“You’ve seen me, too. Within the last two weeks, fifty feet away. Looked right at me.”

Freeboot waited, letting the point sink in-he had altered his appearance to the point where Monks wouldn’t recognize him. It might not be true, but Monks’s gut told him that it was.

Freeboot was on the loose and invisible.

“Now let’s talk about my son,” Freeboot said. “He’s in Sacramento, at that Coulter Hospital, right?”

Warily, Monks said, “What makes you think that?”

“Marguerite told me that’s where he got took. Then we helped ourselves to their records. They didn’t exactly give their permission.” Freeboot sounded smug, throwing out another boast-hospital records security and computer firewalls tended to be top-notch.

Monks winced, wondering if Glenn was involved in this hacking, too. It was no big secret that Mandrake had been taken to Coulter. But then he had been officially discharged and placed in the long-term care ward under a changed name, precisely for fear that Freeboot might come looking for him. Probably the hospital had kept the same ID number or other telltale data, not dreaming that his father would be able to penetrate that far.

“I want to see him,” Freeboot said. “And they ain’t exactly going to give me visiting privileges, are they? So, being as how you’re the one that took him away, you’re going to give him back. We trade-your kid for mine.”

“What?”

“Let’s quit fucking around and get down to business.” Freeboot’s voice was steely now. “Coil’s doing fine. At least, that’s what he thinks. But the truth is, I’m sick of the little shit. He’s whiny and cocky, both-thinks we can’t get along without him because he’s so fucking smart. He’s wrong, dude.”

The threat was flat and matter-of-fact.

“He’ll stay fine,” Freeboot said. “Long as I get my own son back. Tonight.”

“That’s”-Monks started to say insane, but the memory of Freeboot’s explosive ego stopped him. “Impossible.”

“I don’t want you to have time to get yourself in trouble. Sacramento ’s not that far. You leave right now, you can be there by eight, nine P.M.”

“Whoa, hold on. I can’t just walk in and ask for him.”

“How you do it is your problem,” Freeboot said coldly. “You know your way around those hospitals. Figure something out. Then you and I are done. You’ll never hear from me again. Your kid stays safe, he never knows anything about this.”

“What about Mandrake?” Monks said. “He’s going to die if you treat him like you did before.”

“No, no, man, I’m going to take him someplace where he’ll have a great hospital and doctors.” Freeboot was earnest now, in his persuasive mode. “I got it all set up. See, I learned some things from you. I’m admitting you were right. But I want him with me, you know?”

“Freeboot, don’t do this,” Monks said, the words rushing out in a plea. “The police aren’t looking hard for you now. But if one of those kids dies, that changes everything.”

“Nobody’s going to get hurt unless you fuck up.”

Monks clamped his jaw tight, recognizing the psychopath’s logic at work again. If anything bad happened, it would be his fault.

“If I can get Mandrake, what am I supposed to do with him?”

“I’ll be calling you,” Freeboot said. “You better understand something real clear-you get this one chance. You try to pull anything, it’s all over.”

The connection ended.

Monks set down the phone with a shaking hand. His concerns that had seemed so earth-shaking a minute ago were ancient history now. All that mattered was being in the vise of sacrificing either Glenn or Mandrake.

Monk was sure that Freeboot was lying about continuing Mandrake’s medical care, and that crystallized his suspicions about Motherlode. Freeboot had murdered her, to wipe away the stain that she had brought to his imagined genetic superiority.

And he intended to do the same thing to his son.

“I should have killed you when I had the chance, you son of a bitch,” Monks whispered, and jammed the Bronco into gear.

He drove east toward the town of Philo, in the direction of Sacramento, moving as fast as he dared. It was night now, and the road through the coastal mountains narrowed down to one lane in places, with a lot of steep slopes and tight curves.

The impossible choices hammered his brain. On top of everything else, there was no reason to think that Freeboot would keep his word about Glenn. Monks thought again about trying to use the jade pendant as a bargaining chip-promising to stay quiet about it in return for having Glenn delivered safely to him. But threatening Freeboot was likely to get Glenn killed.

The only faint hope that Monks could see was to throw out a net and hope that Freeboot slipped up.

Monks picked up his cell phone, but hesitated. Freeboot knew that he had the phone and might call for help; he had to have planned for that possibility. The maquis would be watching him from moving vehicles or stationary ones posted along the way. They would vaporize at any sign of police. They might even have bugged the Bronco while he had been at the far end of the beach. He looked around helplessly. It was the size of a shortbed pickup truck, its rear compartment packed with the traveling gear he carried, its massive undercarriage thick with years of grease and mud. There were thousands of places to hide microphones that could be as small as pinheads. But stopping to use another phone would be a red flag to anyone who was watching.

He punched 0.

“Operator, this is an emergency. I need your help,” he said to the woman who answered.

“You can dial nine-one-one, sir.”

“No, I can’t,” Monks said quickly. “Listen to me, please. I need you to call the San Francisco office of the FBI, now. Tell them-”

“Sir, I’ll give you that number and you can make the call.”

“Ma’am, I’m driving fast on a mountain road, and I’m dealing with a serial killer who’s at large. This is a matter of national security, and if you don’t help me out here, you’re endangering that. Do you understand?”

There was a three-second pause. No doubt she was activating whatever alarm or recording device was used for lunatics.

“Look, I know how this sounds,” he said. “My name’s Dr. Carroll Monks. Ask for an agent named Duane Baskett. If he’s not there, tell them it’s about Freeboot, okay? Freeboot. I repeat, this has to happen very fast, and in absolute secrecy.”

“All right, sir,” she said, maybe with a trace more respect. “I’ll connect you. Stay on the line.”

The FBI had been aware of Freeboot’s group for a couple of years, but considered them relatively inconsequential-in a league with hundreds of other little enclaves that had paramilitary leanings. Monks’s kidnaping, the camp’s conflagration, and the possible murder of Motherlode had put them on the map in a much bigger way. Baskett was a Special Agent in Charge who had come up from San Francisco to investigate after the fire. Monks had spent a fair amount of time talking with him, and hadn’t much cared for him. He was good-looking, athletic, in his early thirties, with the condescending air of a cop who thought he knew far more about what was going on than anyone else. His youth made it a notch harder to take. But he seemed efficient, he knew who Monks was, and it was his case.