Taken

Wakeman nodded. “All right, let’s think about it then. Suppose they don’t know where she is because her signal is turned off.”

“But how would they have lost her? She’s with one of them.”

“That’s a very good question,” Wakeman admitted. “What are you thinking?”

Mary considered this a moment, then said, “The man who was driving the car back at the station. That was Tom Clarke. Lisa’s uncle.”

“I thought I recognized him. He’s getting a little long in the tooth.”

“I had the office upload all my grandfather’s files, everything we had on Tom Clarke. You know my grandfather went to Texas once.”

“And got the bejesus scared out of him by Jacob Clarke.”

“Tom Clarke still owns his mother’s farmhouse. The place where my grandfather went to get Jacob.”

“You think that’s where they’ve gone?”

“I’m all for taking a look.”

“What if they’re there?” Wakeman asked. “Then what?”

The look in Mary’s eyes gave him the only answer he needed.

When Mary entered the shower, Wakeman picked up the receiver and dialed information. “For Austin, Texas. Tom Clarke.” He dialed Tom’s number, but got only the answering machine.

By the time he began to leave his message, the bullet had struck, and the phone was dropping from his hand.

Mary stood above his fallen body, her eyes glistening. She knew that no one would ever love her as he had loved her, and the fact that she could put such love aside had now sealed her fate.

She placed the gun on the small table beside the bed, picked the phone off the floor and dialed the number.

“General Beers’ office.”

“I’d like to speak to General Beers,” Mary said. “Tell him Mary Crawford is calling.”

Moments later, the general arrived. He glanced at Wakeman’s body, then at Mary.

There was no need to conceal anything, and so she told it all in a wild rush, everything that had happened to her, to Wakeman, everything they’d learned and everything they had surmised, down to Wakeman himself, how he’d changed, gone over to the “visitors,” so that she’d had no choice but…

“Dear God,” Beers breathed. “You are one cold and nasty bitch, Mary.”

“Will you help me?”

The general peered at her darkly. “When we’re through with all this, I’m going to see that you’re held accountable for what you’ve done,” he said.

Mary made no protest, and because of that, understood that she was ready to make the ultimate sacrifice. “Do you want to know how we can find Allie?” she asked matter-of-factly.

“Yes,” Beers said sharply. “Tell me.”

“You’ve been monitoring the reports from the northwest?” Mary asked. “The lights?”

“So far that’s all they’ve been.”

“Dr. Wakeman believed that this is it. They’re coming for Allie.”

“Why don’t they just take her then?”

“Because right at this moment, they don’t know where she is.”

“But she’s with one of them, the one from the gas station.”

“Maybe he’s the one who shut her off. Maybe he’s the one who’s protecting her.”

“Why would he be doing that?”

“Remorse?” Mary asked.

The general considered this silently for a moment, then said, “Go on.”

“I came after Allie in a parking lot,” Mary said. “She got away from me in a car with the help of that alien. She’s spent, General. And she’s also alone. At least until… they find her.”

“You want to get her before they do,” the general said.

“I want to finish what we started,” Mary said grimly. “Right now you need someone who understands what you might be dealing with. Right now, you need me with you.”

General Beers studied her a moment. “I want you to know that it disgusts me that I have to work with you,” he said finally.

Mary smiled thinly. “I can understand that,” she said.

Tom and Charlie stood outside the farmhouse, staring silently into the surrounding fields. After a time, Lisa came out to join them.

“How’s Allie?” Tom asked.

“The same,” Lisa answered. “You think they’re coming? Mary and the…”

Charlie nodded. “It’s just a matter of time.”

“There’s no point in ru

Charlie considered this a moment, then said, “Something like this… the government can only do what they do because nobody’s watching.” He smiled. “I have an idea.” He looked at Tom. “How far do you have to go to make a phone call?”

Allie lay sleeping in her bed, breathing softly, John watching her silently, his form human again, complete with downy hair on the arms, five fingers on each hand. He touched her softly, and her eyes opened.

“I thought if I looked human again, it might be easier to say good-bye,” John told her. His smile was sad and gentle. “I can’t stay with you anymore, Allie. If I do, sooner or later, you’ll be found.”

“How?” Allie asked.

“Because the thing in your head, when it went off, it wasn’t just people who lost track of you. But once I’m gone, no one will know where you are, and so you’ll have a chance to be a little girl again.” He touched her hair. “If things get too hard, if you feel that you can’t stay here, you can find us again. You can find the part of you that is us. We’ll know where you are… and we’ll come for you. But that will be your choice, Allie. It won’t be because we’ve… taken you.”

He rose and walked out of the room, and for a time, Allie waited in her bed. Then the urge overtook her, a need, strange but vibrant, to see John again. She leaped from her bed and ran out of the house and along a deserted road until she saw him up ahead, his human form now shed, so that he stood, smooth and gleaming, in the dark night air.

“Can I walk with you a minute?” she asked.

“Just to the edge of the woods.”

They walked down the road together, and at last came to the woods. “This is as far as you can go,” John told her.

She saw that his wide, almond-shaped eyes were filled with something new and wondrous… emotion.

Then he turned and headed off into the trees, leaving Allie more alone than she had ever been.

They found a diner just inside the town. Tom got out of the car, walked to a nearby phone and dialed the number. “It’s about that little girl, Bill,” he said when William Jeffreys answered.

“Is this the caller I think it is?” Jeffreys asked. “Tom Clarke from Texas, it says on my screen. Talk to me.”

“It’s about that little girl,” Tom repeated. “The one the Army is looking for. Your listeners have been calling about her.”

“We’ve been getting a lot of calls, yes,” Jeffreys said.

“The people who have been calling you are telling the truth,” Tom said. “I know this little girl, and I’m hoping your listeners will be able to help me.”

A few hours later, after they’d returned to the farmhouse, they began to see dust clouds rising from the road, then William Jeffreys’ battered old Wi