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“Find her, Rikki. Please?”
Try as he might, Rakkim could not recall a single previous occasion when Redbeard had used the word please. It was almost enough of a surprise to stop him from thinking. Almost. “Why did Sarah leave now?”
“What…what do you mean?”
“Why didn’t she leave a week ago? Or next week? Why now? What was the trigger?”
“There was no trigger.”
“That’s not what you taught me. You said that whenever someone makes an abrupt decision, a hard choice that changes their life, that there’s always a trigger. Find the trigger and you learn the truth, that’s what you said.”
“This wasn’t an abrupt decision, so there was no trigger,” said Redbeard. “She fooled me. I thought she had accepted her betrothal, but she was pla
“You can’t think of any other reason why she would run away?”
Redbeard looked him in the eye. “None at all.”
“I’ll find her.” Rakkim set down the empty Coca-Cola bottle. Redbeard, he knew, was lying.
CHAPTER 6
Rakkim watched the military jets flying formation over the city as he drove from Redbeard’s villa, the old, but reliable, F-117 Stealths on their regular patrol over the capital’s restricted airspace. The faint thunder of their passage was comforting. He craned his neck for one more look, then headed home, driving east on I-90, taking the roundabout way back to the city in case he was being followed. He wasn’t worried about State Security tracking him-the silent-ru
Most of the vehicles on the road at 3 A.M. were tractor-trailers hauling goods over the mountain passes to eastern Washington, and snow buggies on their way to Snoqualmie Summit. Rakkim held the Ford to just above the speed limit and checked the rearview screen. A green delivery van changed lanes when it didn’t have to.
Rakkim was still stuffed from the postmidnight breakfast Angelina had insisted he eat, blueberry pancakes and eggs and sausage. While she harangued him for being too ski
Rakkim called Mardi’s number at the Blue Moon. “Howdy,” he said when she picked up, his greeting alerting her that the call might be monitored. “I’m taking some time off.”
Mardi hesitated. “Everything okay?”
“Doing a favor for a friend. I’ll see you in a few-”
“I hope it wasn’t anything I said tonight.”
“I’ll survive.” Rakkim broke the co
The freeway was potholed, the roadway buckled in places from the storms last fall. He took the off-ramp at Issaquah, one of the region’s high-tech centers, its office parks and underground research centers protected behind layers of biometric trip wires. The green van took the same exit, turned right at the traffic signal, and kept going. Rakkim watched it leave in his rearview screen, driving on, waiting. A mile later, he picked up a second tail, this one a silver sedan. Even on full magnification, he couldn’t see the driver. A family car with full security screen? Right.
A half hour later he was heading back to the city on one of the alternative routes, the traffic thi
A light rain was falling now, the wipers seesawing back and forth across the windshield. The silver sedan had fallen back, careful in the treacherous terrain. There were no streetlights, no shoulders, just a sheer drop-off on one side, and deep woods on the other. The car had a programmable steering computer-all he had to do was key in his destination and sit back, take a nap if he wanted, but he didn’t want to input his destination, and the computer didn’t know the way through the badlands. Rakkim knew the road, knew where it dipped and fell, where it was underwater in the rainy season. He used the badlands to ferry people out of the country, Jews and homosexuals and runaway fundamentalists, all of them desperate for the relative safety of Canada, or the Mormon territories. He kept driving.
Rakkim had spent an hour in Sarah’s suite at the villa, Rakkim dizzy with the scent of her. Her favorite stuffed animal still rested on her bed, a wreck of a calico bu
The car skidded, kicking up gravel, and Rakkim forced himself to slow down. He didn’t know if Redbeard had deliberately lied to him about the timing of Sarah’s departure, but he did know she hadn’t pla
The photo was Sarah’s most precious possession, kept tucked away in a secret compartment inside her music box. She had shown it to him once, made him promise not to tell, and he had kept the promise. The snapshot was of Sarah and her father. Sarah an infant, sleeping peacefully in his arms while her father looked directly at the camera. There were many official portraits of James Dougan-the first State Security chief was considered one of the nation’s greatest martyrs-but this was the only photo Rakkim had ever seen where he looked truly happy. Rakkim had never asked Sarah why she hid the photo away. Only someone who had not grown up in that house would have wondered-any secret kept from Redbeard was a victory. He patted his pocket for reassurance. If Sarah knew she was leaving that morning, she would never have left it behind.
A clear-cut section of forest gave a brief glimpse of Seattle glittering in the distance, dozens of airships drifting over Queen A