Thomas went very still. "How did you get here?"
Alpha motioned at Jamie. "You carry her."
He spoke fast while his thoughts raced. "Leave the child. I'm a better hostage." He didn't know what would happen if Jamie woke up alone, but she knew not to leave the house by herself, and Lattie would be here in the morning.
"You humans lose all logic when your children are in danger," Alpha said. "She comes with us."
Sweat beaded on Thomas's forehead. He had thought that during these past few days Alpha had shown signs of conscience. But why should she? Charon had no reason to program it into her, and Alpha had plenty of reason to be hostile about her captivity.
"Now," Alpha said. She raised the gun, pointing it directly at his head.
He took a deep breath. Then he carefully lifted Jamie out of the covers. She mumbled in protest and settled against him, holding her kitten.
"Mommy?" she said sleepily.
"It's Grandpa," Thomas said in a low voice.
"I have a car," Alpha said. "You drive. I'll hold the kid."
Thomas felt ill. "Alpha, don't do this. You only need me. I'm worth far more than a child."
"To the government, maybe. She's worth more to you."
That was an understatement beyond all others. He couldn't walk out of the house and get in a car with Jamie as a hostage. He would give his life first. But if he refused, Alpha might shoot. To kill.
"Grampy?" Jamie was awake now and watching Alpha. "Why does the lady have a gun?"
"Shhhh." Sweat trickled down his temple. "We'll talk later."
Alpha jerked her rifle at the door. "Go."
Had it been only him, Thomas would have challenged her. But he couldn't risk it with Jamie. He left the room, aware of Alpha at his back, and went down the stairs. Her footsteps were almost silent behind him. Almost. He could see her in the mirror at the bottom of the stairs, her face devoid of expression. A machine. Jamie clung to him and to her kitten.
Outside, a cool wind blew across them. Thomas nestled Jamie deeper in his arms. He was wearing his jeans and sweater, but he had no jacket he could pull around to keep her warm.
"Where are we going?" she asked in a small voice.
"Just for a ride." He kept his answer calm, but his mind was working furiously. If Alpha took them away, a good chance existed they would never make it back alive. Jamie was especially vulnerable. She had no use to Alpha beyond forcing Thomas's cooperation while Alpha transported him to someplace better secured. He could face any torture or hardship for himself, but he would die before he let them touch his granddaughter.
"In the carport," Alpha said behind him, to his left. He shifted Jamie to his right arm.
A beige car waited in the hover port, dimly visible in the light from a window of his house. The vehicle resembled the cars used by the NIA to transport prisoners, the type of vehicle that blended with traffic. No one would notice it.
"Put her in the back," Alpha said.
Thomas glanced around the yard, desperate for anything that could help. His own vehicle sat at the front curb. "She needs her car seat. I can get it from my car."
"I don't think so." Alpha spoke tightly, though why she would simulate tension, he had no idea. "Put her in the back of my car, General. If you make trouble, I'll shoot."
"I'm no use to you if I'm dead."
Alpha shrugged. "I'm just carrying out orders. I didn't write the program. I just execute it."
Thomas wished she had used a different word than execute. Holding Jamie close, he went to the carport.
"Grampy?" Her voice was shaking. "I'm cold."
"Don't worry," he murmured. "I'll take care of everything." He reached Alpha's car and held Jamie in one arm while he opened the back door. He was aware of Alpha behind him, though he wasn't sure where. She was unnaturally quiet, more than a human could manage. His muscles clenched as he put Jamie on the backseat. She stared up with huge, frightened eyes, and he knew, absolutely knew, he couldn't go through with this.
Stay, he mouthed to her. Don't talk. Don't move.
She stayed completely still, not even nodding her head. He hoped she understood.
Thomas turned slowly to Alpha. He took in everything he could, how she held her gun in her right hand, the tautness of her posture, the way she kept too far back for him to reach her with a lunge.
"Get in the driver's seat," she said. "Keys are on the dash."
"All right." He gauged the distance between them. Two steps. And she had enhanced reflexes. No way could he reach her before she shot him. But if she took them in that car, Jamie could die, not because Alpha wished to kill her but because Jamie could become a liability. At a gut level, Thomas didn't believe Alpha could shoot Jamie without cause. The same relentless logic that drove her to carry out Charon's orders would keep her from killing without reason. If he attacked Alpha, she would shoot him to avoid becoming a prisoner again, but then she would have no reason to take Jamie. If he wasn't deluding himself about Alpha's intent, she would leave the girl and escape. If.
"Move," Alpha told him.
So he moved—at her.
As Thomas lunged, he shouted to wake up his neighbors. In the instant before he barreled into Alpha, he felt as if he were floating. It would take only one serrated bullet from her gun to liquefy his internal organs and tear apart his back.
Then he slammed into Alpha and they crashed to the ground. He struggled for the gun, but he was woefully outclassed by her strength and speed. He heard a sharp crack, but he felt nothing—yet.
Alpha wrenched away from him and rolled to her feet. She hit him across the shoulders with the stock of her gun, and he sprawled on the ground. In the few seconds it took him to recover, she disappeared. When he scrambled to his feet, his right leg collapsed and he lurched toward the car. It was only then that he realized his next-door neighbors had come out on their porch.
"Grampy!" Jamie stared round-eyed from the car, seated in exactly the same place, her face terrified. He staggered to the vehicle, putting all his weight on his left leg, and grabbed her in his arms. He held her tight as he slid down against the car and sat heavily on the ground. His vision blurred. Voices were yelling, but none of them sounded like Alpha.
"Wharington!" Someone crouched next to him, his neighbor, a heavy fellow named Travis.
"Your leg!" Travis said. "How could it bend that way?"
Thomas didn't want to look at his leg, which was beginning to hurt. "The woman—did you see her?"
"Woman?" Travis asked. "Someone ran between your house and mine. Too tall for a woman."
A female voice drawled behind him, Travis's Southern-born wife. "I meshed 911. They'll be here right away."
"Grampy, don't die," Jamie pleaded.
"I won't," he whispered. And neither will you. Everything was dimming around him. He sagged against the car, refusing to unfold his protective curl around Jamie.
Somewhere a siren wailed. The light from Travis's porch showed several bystanders on the sidewalk. Travis's wife was talking into the comm on her silver mesh glove. "He's hurt! Maybe shot. I don't know about the child. Hurry, please!"
"Wharington?" Travis asked. "Can you hear me?"
"Yes." Thomas barely croaked the word.
Jamie struggled in his hold. At first Thomas thought she was trying to get free, but then he realized she was shrinking away from Travis.
"These are neighbors," he rasped. "They won't hurt you."
"Grampy." She was crying now. "They said the lady shot you."
"She didn't."
"She?" Travis asked. "It looked like a man."
"Bad lady," Jamie said. "Mean lady." She clutched her kitten.
The siren swelled until it drowned out their voices. An ambulance cut around the corner and swerved to the curb while the onlookers scattered out of the way.
Thomas looked up at his neighbor. "Don't let them . . . separate Jamie from me. She'll be scared."
"I won't," Travis promised.
Medics jumped out of the ambulance and grabbed a stretcher from the back. As they ran to the carport, Thomas slipped into oblivion.
The room was dimly lit. Thomas gradually became aware that he lay under a sheet and blankets. It took him a while to get his bearings as he awoke, but then he remembered: Alpha, Jamie, Travis. He was in a hospital room, one with blue walls rather than institutional white. A carpet softened the floor and pastoral landscapes hung on the walls. Apparently that exorbitantly priced insurance his children had insisted on buying to augment his regular plan had useful benefits after all.
The lamp on his nightstand shed enough light to reveal Jamie sleeping on a nearby cot, her arms around a new stuffed animal. Visceral relief spread through him. She was all right. Moisture filled his eyes, but fortunately no one was here to see the iron general cry. He wiped it away before it could leak down his face.
He had been right about Alpha, that she wouldn't hurt the child without reason. Incredibly, it appeared Alpha wouldn't hurt him, either, even with reason. Perhaps she wasn't as calloused as she would have everyone believe. He couldn't be sure, though. She could have had any number of reasons for sparing his life.
Urgency replaced his relief: he had to contact the Pentagon and brief General Chang. He pulled down the covers and assessed his situation. Instead of a hospital gown, he had on white pajamas. The extra insurance was worth it for that alone, if he didn't have to wear one of those blasted open-back smock things. An accelerator-cast covered his right leg from foot to mid-thigh. The injury wasn't as serious as he had feared, if they were already accelerating the bone growth. Then again, he didn't know what "already" meant. He could have been here for days.
As Thomas sat up, his head swam, and he had to sit still for a while, until his dizziness subsided. Then he eased off the bed and stood up, favoring his broken leg. He laboriously made his way to the bureau against the wall. His clothes were folded in one drawer, and he found his mesh glove crumpled in the pocket of his jeans. Holding the glove, he limped to a chair by the bed and half sat, half fell into it, with his broken leg stretched in front of him.
He did his best to smooth out the wrinkles in the glove. "I ought to take better care of you," he muttered. Then he felt silly for talking to a glove. He shouldn't scrunch it in his pocket, though. Meshes were hardy, but they could be scratched just as easily as his reading glasses when he crammed them into his pocket without their case.
He pulled on the glove and put in a call to Matheson. The screen on his palm gave the time as three minutes before midnight, and the date hadn't changed. He had only been here a few hours.
A drowsy voice came out of the mesh. "Matheson, here."
"C.J., this is Thomas Wharington."
"Sir! How are you?"
"Fine. How is our guest?"
"We're trying to find out why she left."
So they knew Alpha had escaped. That sounded like they hadn't located her, though. He couldn't ask for details until he was on a secured line or at the base. "I'll be in tomorrow morning."
"I didn't know the hospital released you," Matheson said. "The last I heard, you were unconscious."
"You knew I was here?"
"I found out when I tried to contact you about our guest's change in plans. General Chang had you transferred to the Bethesda National Medical Center."
It made sense. Bethesda wasn't far from where he lived, and the Air Force could have people with the proper clearances assigned to him, in case he mumbled classified information in his sleep or while he was groggy. The President and members of Congress came here for treatment, and the center kept up to speed on the latest medical advances.
"I'll need to notify my regular doctor," Thomas said.
"It's Daniel Enberg, isn't it?" Matheson asked. "I called his emergency number. He'll be in to see you first thing tomorrow."
"Thanks." He had known Daniel for decades and trusted him. Since Thomas's heart attack, Daniel had kept close watch on him, monitoring his health and doing periodic tests.
"How is your granddaughter?" Matheson asked.
Thomas looked at the small figure. "She's right here, sleeping and safe." Thank God.
"That's good to hear. She's a fine girl."
"Yes. She is."
"We reached her parents. They're on their way home."
It relieved him that they had already taken care of the calls. It would be good for Jamie to be with Leila and Karl. Thomas knew he could never tell them about those moments he had feared Jamie would die. No parent should ever have to go through that.
"Thanks, C.J." He was growing woozy. "I . . . appreciate it."
"Thomas? Are you all right?"
"Fine. I'll see you in the morning."
"Good night."
"Good night." As Thomas toggled off his glove, the door opened and a nurse came in, a tall, large-boned woman with dark hair. She took one look at Thomas and scowled.
"You should be in bed," she admonished.
Thomas doubted it was coincidence she entered after he finished his call. It seemed this place had other advantages, too, at least enough that they stayed out while he was on the comm. He would have preferred more privacy, but given his situation, this would do.
"I wasn't tired," he said. It was sort of true. When he had awoken, he had been too worried about Alpha to notice his fatigue.
"You look terrible."
"I'm fine," Thomas grumbled. Her bedside manner left something to be desired. Knowing his children, it wouldn't surprise him if they tried to put some stipulation in his insurance about his nurse being a dragon. They had always insisted he needed someone tough looking after him, or he wouldn't behave himself when he was sick.
Thomas stood up, swayed, and fell against the bed. The nurse strode over, her long legs eating up distance. "Into bed with you."
Despite his dizziness, he smiled at her. "Who am I to argue when a beautiful woman says that to me?"
She frowned as she helped him lie down, but her expression wasn't convincing. It looked like she was covering a laugh. "Get on with you."
He let her pull up the covers. "How is Jamie?"
"Your little girl? She's fine."
"My granddaughter."
"Really? You must have married young."
He couldn't help but laugh. "You're flattering me. Not that I mind."
The nurse started to smile, then caught herself. "Humph."
"So how am I?" he asked.
"Lucky, that's what." She tucked the blankets around him. "What were you doing, attacking a burglar? You ought to know better. Let him have whatever he was stealing. Better that than your life."
So that was the story making the rounds. His neighbors had probably made that assumption, and Matheson let it stand. Even if anyone mentioned Thomas's claim that a woman attacked him, most people would doubt a woman could do so much damage to a man his size, with his combat training.
"I'll remember that," he told her.
Curiosity showed on her face. "So you're a general, eh?"
He grinned at her. "You bet."
She put one hand on her hip. "Don't try that devilishly handsome smile on me, mister. I'm immune."
Devilishly handsome indeed. He should tell his sons, who seemed to think their old man was over the hill. "Well, in that case, ma'am, I'll have to do what you say."
This time when the corners of her mouth curved upward, she didn't stop them. "Good."
After she left, he sank back into sleep.
"Wake up," the insistent voice said. A hand tugged his arm. "Uppy up."
Thomas groaned and opened his eyes. Jamie was sitting crosslegged on the bed, holding a teddy bear with a hospital logo on it. Early morning sunlight trickled in the window. He doubted it was much after dawn.
"Are you all right, Grampy?" she asked, her face concerned.
He peered at her groggily. "I was."
"I'm bored," Jamie announced. "Want to go home."
"We'll go home later," Thomas mumbled. "I need sleep."
"I don't like it here."
"Jamie, do you know how to call the nurse?"
To his surprise, she said, "Yes. Press button."
"Good. You call her." Surely in a hospital they had people to look after a child while the patient slept.
Jamie climbed off the bed and went to her cot. He watched long enough to see her press the button. As he was falling back asleep, the nurse came in . . .
"Father?" The voice infiltrated his sleep. This time Thomas opened his eyes to see Leila standing by his bed, her face drawn with lines of worry. She looked just like Jamie, except older.
"Leila!" Disoriented, he pushed into a sitting position. He had fallen asleep wearing his glove, and its mesh glittered black against the hospital sheets. "When did you get in?"
"My plane landed an hour ago at BWI. I came straight here." She glanced at the empty cot. "Where is Jamie?"
"With the nurse." He rubbed his eyes. "You must have taken the red-eye."
"The soonest I could catch." Her face was pale. "Father, what were you thinking, attacking a burglar?"
He couldn't tell her. He did manage a rueful smile, though. "Just your hardheaded dad."
"I'm so glad you're all right."
The door creaked open. "Mommy!" Jamie ran across the room and hurled herself at Leila as her mother crouched down.
"Ah, baby, thank God." Leila folded Jamie into her arms and stood up, hugging and kissing her daughter until Jamie squirmed.
An angry voice came from behind them. "Mrs. Harrows! You must notify us if you take your daughter out of childcare."
"What?" Leila turned around, confusion on her face.
The big-boned nurse was striding into the room. "We had no idea where she was! You must let me know if you take her."
"Not lost," Jamie said.
Leila gaped at the nurse. "I didn't take her. She just came into this room."
The nurse took a moment to absorb that. Then she glared at Jamie. "Young lady, did you walk off when I went to get your mother?"
"Not my mother," Jamie stated.
Alarm flashed on the nurse's face. "This isn't your mother?"
Jamie put her arms around Leila's neck. "This is Mommy."
Leila gave Jamie an exasperated look. "Honey, what do you mean?" To the nurse, Leila said, "There must be a mistake. How did you know I was in here? The doctor just brought me up."
"I got a call at my desk," the nurse said. "The visitor's station told me that you had arrived to see your father."
"What visitor's station?" Leila asked.
"It wasn't you," Jamie told Leila. "It was the other lady."
A chill went through Thomas. "What other lady?"
Jamie snuggled closer to Leila. "The bad lady, Grampy."
Thomas suddenly felt cold. He toggled on his glove and put in a call to the base.
"I don't understand," Leila said. "What lady?"
"A tall woman came in," the nurse said. "She was looking for your father. Security called me down to talk to her, but she left before I got there."
Leila glanced at Jamie. "How did you know who it was?"
"I saw her on the screen," Jamie said.
"She must mean at my station," the nurse said. "The other nurses let her sit in my seat while I went to the visitor's center."
A voice crackled out of the comm on Thomas's glove. "Matheson here." He sounded much more awake than the last time Thomas had talked to him.
Thomas lifted his glove. "C.J., this is Thomas. I want a twenty-four-hour guard on my daughter and her family. The woman who broke into my house may have come to the hospital this morning. Security here can give you more information."
Matheson didn't miss a beat. "I'll take care of it right away."
"Dad, what's going on?" Leila asked.
Thomas knew he had to give her an explanation, but he could hardly tell her that the NIA had lost a highly secured project. He spoke to Leila, knowing Matheson could overhear. "The woman who attacked me last night may have escaped from a mental hospital. She has a fixation on me, we aren't sure why."
"Good Lord," Leila said. "Will you be all right?"
"I'll be fine." He felt like a monster, though, knowing his work had endangered his family. He just prayed it didn't end with any of their deaths.