The Impossible Future: Complete set by Frank Kennedy (mini ebook reader .txt) 📕

around for the gruesome end the Chancellors planned for him.

He spoke to no one in particular. “Why did they do this to me?”

He twitched, his left foot starting to turn, his ears deaf to the officer’s warnings. And then, with no understanding of why, Jamie dropped the pistol into the stream. Through his tears, he looked up and saw two officers.

“Step back, get down on your knees, and place your hands behind your head,” the first officer said. “Do it. Now.”

Jamie obliged. He didn’t care anymore.

 

46

R APID POPS SHATTERED the still morning as Michael and Sammie fled. Michael imagined his best friend lying in a bloody heap, decorated in bullet holes and eyes staring at the sky. Sammie, on the other hand, brightened her smile as a second volley echoed through the woods.

“That’s him,” she whispered. “He’s still alive. He’s fighting. He’ll make it, just like us.”

Michael followed Sammie in a crouch. They headed due north, parallel to a highway so close he could almost see it through the brush. They ran no more than twenty yards at a time before Sammie raised a hand, and they ducked behind bramble, a log, whatever was convenient.

A third volley – this time a mix of automatic fire and two distinctive shotgun blasts – whipped through the forest. Michael’s heart cringed.

“Why the hell did you let him go? He’s gonna die out there.”

Sammie swallowed. “Jamie wants you to get home safe, Coop. Nothing else mattered to him. You heard him.”

“That don’t mean …”

“Look, he’s fast, Coop. Real fast. He’s a runner.”

Sammie picked her next destination and waved him forward. The bramble to their immediate north was too thick, so she led him west toward the highway. His confidence grew, assuming they were making a beeline to safety. Then, thirty seconds into their sprint, Sammie waved him to the ground. They both lay flat on their bellies as Sammie pointed through a narrow gap between trees.

Michael saw a familiar face in camouflage pants, a black t-shirt and a cigarette dangling from his lips. Christian Bidwell’s back was turned. Michael needed a few seconds before he saw Christian’s rifle extended in an aggressive posture. Michael turned to Sammie, who was studying her fingers, counting off as she moved her lips. She spoke, but in a whisper so faint Michael heard part of her message.

“They kept him back in case we used a decoy. Be ready.”

“For what?”

Sammie took aim. Michael stopped breathing.

As her trigger finger started backward, Michael grabbed his own weapon and prepared to aim. However, Christian took off in a dead run, and Samantha pulled back.

“Whoa,” Michael whispered. “What are you doing? Waste him. That dude shoved a gun down my throat. Waste him.”

“No. We have to be smart. He’s not a threat. It’s time to go.”

Michael heard his pounding heart and panicked breaths as they sprinted to the highway. When at last he saw a speed limit sign, Michael allowed a smile. He did not think anything about racing out of the forest and onto the road, rifle in hand as he waved for help. He was a body length away from doing just that when Sammie threw him to the ground.

“Oh, c’mon,” he spouted. “What’d you do that for?”

She told him to be quiet and pointed to the south, just beyond the tree line bordering the highway. Michael’s heart leaped. He saw a pair of patrol cars, a white van and a black helicopter more than a hundred yards away crowding the highway. At least three officers and two others, one of whom wore a blue jacket with the gold letters FBI, milled together.

Sammie nodded. “A roadblock. I knew there were police close by, but I didn’t think …” Her eyes softened as a giant smile formed.

“Oh,” she whispered. “Oh, god. Jamie.”

Michael moved forward a few feet and got a better look. Two policemen emerged from the woods with a tall boy whose long white hair and shirtless profile were recognizable.

Michael whispered, “Yeah, dude. That’s what I’m talking about.”

Then he rose to his feet and started out into the open. Sammie grabbed him from behind and yanked him down.

“Just hold on, Coop. Look again. They’ve got Jamie in handcuffs.”

Michael didn’t care. Jamie was alive, and that was good enough for him. He told Sammie as much, but her giant smile disappeared.

“We’ve got a problem, Coop,” she said. “A big problem. Listen to me very carefully.”

 

47

8:23 a.m.

A GATHA WONDERED WHAT might be her greater humiliation: That she was an inept tactician; that her stubborn pride cost the lives of at least ten people who also called themselves Chancellors; or that her grand and glorious mission to provide moral justice was reduced to being stuck in traffic on a rural highway.

She fidgeted in the back seat of the Camaro, a pistol equipped with suppressor in her hands, and she wondered whether this roadblock was the final straw of the biggest failure of her life. One hour earlier, she sat in this same spot and laid out plans to hunt down and kill the Jewel. Since then, she botched negotiations for Jamie’s surrender and failed to give three well-trained soldiers sufficient advantage over their target.

Only Christian’s safe return – a narrow dodge of the officers closing in – proved to be the sole bright spot. His report on Jamie’s capture, however, sent her reeling.

Now, as she and two of her three remaining soldiers found themselves trapped on the highway between a tractor-trailer and a school bus packed with children, Agatha knew she was the king of fools, a shell of the woman who once led battalions into combat.

“Walter anticipated everything,” she told Arthur. “He even knew he was going to die, and he did nothing to disrupt the outcome. All but guaranteed