Part 15 (1/2)

”Go.” Yos.h.i.+ let go of him. ”Think about it. She loves you.”

”Fine, thank you.” I don't know if you're right about that, kid. Someone like her isn't going to love someone like me. It's ridiculous. ”Ammo?”

Yos.h.i.+ handed over five clips, and Del stashed them in his kitbag as Yos.h.i.+ said, ”Call in if you need directions to a cache. Keep in contact. We'll send as many teams as we can-”

”No, you'll just get them killed. Just me.” He slung the bag across his body, picked up his duffel and stepped past Yos.h.i.+ and out into the hall. ”Tell Henderson not to worry. I'll bring her back safe and sound.”

The other man didn't reply. Del hoped he was praying. He barely saw the rest of Headquarters on his way down to the garage. He was too busy trying to breathe through the ma.s.sive ball of panic in his chest.

Just stay alive, angel. Just stay alive until I can get to you.

Chapter Twenty-Three.

Four days later the green slopes of the Santiago City Veteran's Cemetery lay drowsing under mist and the shadows of rain clouds. Dripping trees stood guard over the silence of the dead, fog sliding between slender boles of lamp posts and the thick green-clad lines of cedar and juniper. Rowan, safe in the shadow of a large cedar, scanned the cemetery once again. She'd parked on the east side, in the warren of back streets she knew from growing up, and jumped the fence. Her head was stuffed with pain and the persistent wrapping of cotton-wool. She'd barely slept, impelled by the sudden, irrational, but undeniable desire to see her father's grave, for maybe the first and last time.

I never even got to go to his funeral. Someone else took the flag draped over his coffin. Someone else was here, probably his friends from the VA and the Moose Lodge. Maybe Marta from the bridge club. I think Dad really liked her.

She breathed in the familiar wet air of Saint City-green and damp and smelling of vegetation and the salt breath of the bay, growth exploding from rain-soaked ground and held cupped in air full of humidity. And under that smell of saturated Nature lurked the other smells of cities: car exhaust, humanity, desperation, money, danger.

Tears lodged hard and unforgiving in her throat. Memory turned like a wheel, shattering inside her head.

Her father, grinning as he lifted a six-year-old Rowan into his arms. Teaching her how to change the oil filter in Tuna, Mom's old silver Volvo. Celebrating with a bottle of Dom Perignon when Rowan had graduated from college, and celebrating again with a supper at La Tourelle's in the University District when she graduated from nursing school. Dad's hands, veined and old, chopping garlic for chicken noodle soup, and his younger hands bandaging a sc.r.a.pe on Rowan's knee. And his hand solid and firm on Rowan's shoulder, as they watched her mother's coffin lower into the ground. Rowan had sobbed into a handkerchief, numb with grief and wondering guiltily why her talent hadn't warned her of her mother's death, while her father's weeping was done privately. How much had it cost him to be strong for her sake? She had never thought about it until now.

They were so in love, she thought. Her mother had been laughing and affectionate, a counter to her father's stalwart military rect.i.tude. Dad hadn't been distant or severe, just ... well, too martial to engage in spontaneous hugs or celebrations. Despite that, Rowan had never felt a moment's worth of uneasiness about her parents' love for her or for each other. It was the one thing that had saved her sanity in the face of her freakish talents and her inability to control them. The unconditional acceptance of both her mother and father had rea.s.sured her at every turn.

Her best friend, Hilary, was buried at Mount Hope. Much as she wanted to visit the grave, Rowan didn't think she could stand seeing Hil's name on a headstone. Although it was anybody's guess when she would have another chance to come back and visit.

Fury rose inside her again, rage and the weird twisting headache that seemed to burrow into her head, impelling her through the increasing haze of exhaustion. She decided it looked safe enough and slipped out from the shelter of the cedar, brus.h.i.+ng bark off her hands. Each step was a struggle. Even the slight hill up to the section housing her father's simple white marker seemed to steal the breath from her lungs and the strength from her legs. She was gasping by the time she fought her way up the slight rise, glad n.o.body was among the headstones to hear her.

Justin had given her the photos and the map of her father's gravesite, trying in his own way to help her deal with the shattering grief. The thought of Justin tore at her head. For some reason the headache got worse when she thought of him. No amount of pain medication or quiet meditation would make theheadache go away. It was as if her head was a large gla.s.s pumpkin balanced on her wobbling neck. It invaded her sleep, this harsh sucking pain, until she could barely think straight.

She checked the markers. No. No. No.

Oh, G.o.d. G.o.d help me. There it was.

Major Henry Price, US Marine Corps. His rank, his date of birth and death. The carved letters were rough under her fingers as she knelt, tracing her father's name.

”Oh, Dad,” she whispered. ”I miss you. G.o.d, how I miss you.”

He'd liked Justin, liked him almost immediately. Of course, Justin had chased off that Sig in the parking lot. At the time, neither she nor her father had any idea that a government agency would be trying to kidnap or kill her. Now Rowan wondered how much of Dad's liking Justin had been a small push, nothing harmful, just enough to insert this seemingly innocent stranger into their lives.

Her head gave another sharp twist of pain. It hurt to think of Justin. But what else could she think of?

What else-and who else-did she have left?

n.o.body, that's who. Sigma had robbed her of everything.

”I'm going to make them pay.” Her voice shook as her fingertips brushed the P, the R, and the I in Price.

Dad believed in honor and truthfulness. It would have hurt him to think that the government and country he'd fought for was responsible for the things Rowan had seen Sigma do. Broken bodies, battered minds, psions screaming as they suffered through Zed withdrawal-a whole parade of horror unreeling through her memory. If she hadn't seen it with her own eyes, been shot at, lived with the suffocating fear, she might not have believed it. Probably wouldn't have believed it. It defied belief.

”Anton.” That was the name of her enemy. Colonel Anton.

But if you want to know who's in charge of the program, it's Anton ... Sig Zero-Fifteen ... the worst Sig installation in the country.

Where's that?

New Mexico.

Henderson had cautioned her never to go near White Sands in New Mexico, or near Mount Shasta in California. ”Big Sig installations, like Langley. Just isn't worth the risk,” he'd said, and his face had been so grim she hadn't asked more. She should have asked more, maybe she could have done something sooner, maybe stopped this endless parade of pain and death.

The sight of her father's headstone blurred as tears slid down her cheeks, welling up hot and acid from the deepest part of her grief. Oh, Daddy. I'm going to do what I can. I'm so sorry.

It occurred to her that this was her fault too, this bare white stone with the bloodless carving on it-nothing to tell how her father was one of the greatest cooks alive, how he could turn anything into a feast, how he loved books on hauntings, the unexplained, psychic phenomena, all sorts of woo-woo, and how just the sound of his voice could make a little girl feel safe and special. There was nothing here but this chunk of rock, carved with birth, death, name, and rank. No color, no life, her father's comfortable old age in the house he'd paid for with the daughter he loved all cut short by the G.o.dd.a.m.n f.u.c.king Sigs.

Because his daughter was, to put it kindly, a freak.Rowan straightened. She scanned the cemetery again. No sign of any activity except herself, the fog, and the silent trees keeping watch over the brave dead.

”I love you, Daddy,” she whispered, and wished she had time to visit her mother's grave. It suddenly didn't seem right that they were buried in separate cemeteries, her mother on Mount Hope with Grandma Parker, and Dad here. They should be together.

Yet another thing Sigma would pay for.

Rowan ghosted through the cemetery, found a handy spot and muscled herself over the high stone wall. If there were video cameras or the like, let them see her. She hadn't been here before because it was too dangerous, the one place Sigma could be sure of kidnapping her. It was anticlimactic to show up and have nothing happen. Of course, Sigma couldn't be watching all the time, and they probably were busy with the teams Henderson had sent out to cause havoc all over the US in order to cover the withdrawal to Headquarters.

She found the car-the faithful blue Subaru, this time with Missouri plates instead of Georgia-undisturbed and got in, resting her aching head against the steering wheel for a moment.

Justin.

Thinking of him hurt, but it paradoxically made the pain easier to bear. She was used to missing him, true, but the brief period of being near him again drove home just how much she missed him. It would have been just as true to call her Delgado's shadow. She had never felt very comfortable away from him for very long. He was the only stability in her fragmented world.

Her fault, again, that he'd been taken and tortured, suffered G.o.d-knew-what that he didn't want to talk about, not even to her. Self-loathing crawled over Rowan's skin like the soft maggot fingers that had squirmed inside her brain.

When she surfaced, staring at the world outside the car, the fog had thickened. She twisted the key in the ignition and was rewarded with a softly-purring engine. She switched on the headlights and spent a few minutes driving aimlessly down the hills. When she found herself on the very north end of Smyrna Avenue, she knew miserably what she was about to do, and couldn't stop herself. It was like a train wreck or an automobile accident. She simply could not look away. She drove down Smyrna, stopping at stop signs and creeping through uncontrolled intersections, pa.s.sing the laurel hedge that blocked the sight of the dilapidated old Taylor house. She didn't want to look. Gooseflesh stood out hard and k.n.o.bbed on her arms. A right on Ninth Street, two blocks ... and she brought the car to a halt, her heart rising in her throat.

The neat, well-kept two-story house they had worked so hard on was now a shambles. Rowan made a small, hurt sound in the back of her throat as she stared at the broken windows, and the lawn rank with weeds. n.o.body had bought the house. Had it stood abandoned since that night? Yellow crime scene tape fluttered on the porch where Rowan had sat so many summer evenings, where her mother had almost fallen off while watering the roses-and oh, the roses themselves were dead or dying, brown rot all over their lovely leaves and stems. Dead leaves cl.u.s.tered under the old oak trees, and a fallen branch lay buried in weeds and leaves. The door was broken down, barred only by the yellow crime scene tape.

She wondered if anyone had cleaned out the fridge, if her books were still upstairs swelling with moisture from the damp coming in through the front door and broken windows. And if there were still stains on the kitchen floor. Big, dark, b.l.o.o.d.y stains.

There were no cars behind her, but Rowan started violently as if hearing the blast of a horn. She sat upright, wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. More tears spilled down her cheeks.Got to get going. She checked over her shoulder for nonexistent traffic and pulled out, hoping she wasn't weaving. Her vision ran and blurred with both pain and tears. She navigated with ease through familiar streets, each new change-the Martin's house was repainted, and yards were redone, businesses had gone up and others had faded-slamming into her stomach like a badly taken punch. Each time she lost a little more air.

Oh, Justin, she thought, ignoring the spike of pain his name sent through her. I need you. I'm sorry.

Then she hit the freeway heading south. She would cut east past the state line and start wending her way into the land of desert, rattlesnakes, Four Corners, and White Sands. She just had to get close enough to Sig Zero-Fifteen and get herself arrested or caught, and Sigma would take care of the rest.