Scavenger (10 page)

“Mostly because of the United States and its military requirements, there are a large number of global positioning satellites, twenty-six that the government admits to having,” the voice continued. “But your receiver needs only to establish a link with three. More is better for accuracy, but three is sufficient. In this valley, the usual number of links is five. The satellites are thirty miles above us, beaming signals at a mere fifty watts, and yet they’re amazingly precise.”

Amanda watched vertical bars appear on the bottom of her unit’s screen. Five of them darkened.

“These receivers work best in open spaces,” the voice said. “Buildings and dense forest restrict the signals. But now that you’re outdoors, your units have registered your current position. Pay attention to the following coordinates. They indicate your destination. North ...” The voice dictated a series of numbers. “West . . .” The voice dictated other numbers.

Amanda was bewildered as Ray, Bethany, Derrick, and Viv pressed buttons on their receivers.

“Not so fast,” Bethany objected, adjusting her microphone. “Tell me the second set of numbers again.”

The voice repeated them.

“Okay,” Bethany said.

Amanda continued to be baffled.

“It’s easy.” Sounding annoyed, Viv took the receiver from her. “The buttons on each side cycle through the main pages and access the menus on them: a compass, an altimeter, a map.”

“No map on mine,” Ray said.

“Mine neither,” Bethany said.

“Great. So we still don’t know where we are.” Viv showed Amanda how each button worked. “With a little practice, you won’t have trouble remembering what they do. Here, I’ll enter the coordinates for you.”

Viv showed Amanda how it was done, then handed the receiver back to her.

“Excellent,” the voice said. “Team spirit.” “Anything to get out of here,” Viv said.

“That depends on how everyone performs. The forty hours begin . . .” The voice paused, as if double-checking something “...
now
.”

Everyone frowned.

“I advise you not to waste time,” the voice warned.

They continued to remain in place.

“You’ll find something you need at the coordinates I gave you.”

“Water?” Bethany asked. “Food?”

The voice didn’t answer.

“Hell, if there’s water and food, let’s go.” Derrick glanced at his GPS receiver.

Amanda did the same. On the screen, a red needle pointed away from her. Above it, a box was marked DIST TO DEST and indicated one mile.

“In this mode, the compass doesn’t aim north but instead toward the coordinates we entered,” Viv explained. “Looks like we’re supposed to head toward that clump of trees in the distance.”

The trees were opposite the valley’s exit, Amanda noticed. She assumed that her thoughts were the same as the others’. The moment she was far enough from the building that she couldn’t see it any longer, she’d watch for a chance to escape.

The guarded expression in everyone’s eyes told her that the rest of the group had the same plan.

They started walking. Dry grass crunched under Amanda’s boots. The sun’s glare pained her eyes. Despite its heat, she shivered. Staying behind the others, she couldn’t help noticing how unnatural the combination of their blue, green, gray, red, and brown jumpsuits looked. When she looked around, the expanse of the sky seemed overpowering.

A sudden movement attracted her attention. Ahead, something darted from a bush. A rabbit. It zigzagged away from them, racing toward the mountains.

At once, something else appeared, a larger animal bounding from a depression in the ground, chasing the rabbit. For an instant, Amanda thought it was a wolf, but then she realized that its markings didn’t match any pictures of wolves that she’d seen.
It’s a German shepherd
, she realized. The dog and the panicked rabbit disappeared down a hidden slope.

No one spoke. It struck Amanda as odd that when they were in the building, they hadn’t hesitated to talk, but now that they were in the open, a hush fell over them, broken only by the sound of their boot steps.

“Ever see Hitchcock’s
North by Northwest
?” Bethany asked unexpectedly.

Her voice came from two places—Bethany herself and Amanda’s earphones. A schizoid effect. Amanda didn’t know how long she could bear this.
Frank, where
are
you? God, don’t let him be dead. I’ll go crazy if he’s dead.

You’re not crazy now
? She was terribly aware that she addressed herself in the second person, something else that was schizoid.

The others, too, looked startled by Bethany’s question. It was as incongruous as the way Bethany’s expensive necklace, rings, bracelet, and watch contrasted with her jumpsuit.

Ray answered, self-conscious about being overheard. “Is that the one with Cary Grant on Mount Rushmore?”

“Yeah, the faces of four presidents are carved into the mountain.” Derrick sounded subdued. “I saw
North by Northwest
in a course in college. The bad guys chase Cary Grant and, what’s her name, Eva Marie Saint, across the faces.”

“In an earlier scene, he gets off a bus at a cornfield,” Viv said.

Amanda sensed a change of tone now, their voices less tentative, as if they hoped that a conversation about something familiar would help them feel normal.

“The cornfield,” Bethany said. “Yes. Grant gets off a bus in farm country. He’s been told to meet somebody and get information about whoever’s trying to kill him.”

Two large birds circled above them.

“Vultures,” Derrick said.

As the shadows passed over them, Bethany returned to the safety of talking about the movie. “After a long time, a car goes by, and Grant keeps waiting. The situation seems even stranger because Grant’s standing on this deserted farm road, wearing a suit.”

Hiking through the brittle grass, Amanda saw a gully ahead.

“Then a truck comes from the side of the cornfield,” Bethany said. “This is after about a minute of Grant doing nothing but stand there. A woman lets a farmer out. The truck leaves. The farmer and Grant nod to each other. We hear a drone in the background, a crop duster flying over a field. Then another bus shows up, and the farmer climbs aboard, but not before telling Grant how strange it is that the plane’s dusting crops where there aren’t any. Grant thinks about this. The bus drives away. Grant thinks some more, glances toward the crop duster, which starts flying in his direction, and suddenly Grant races toward the cornfield. The plane sprays machine-gun bullets at him.”

“Right!” Derrick said. “Grant dives among the corn rows. The pilot drops the fertilizer or herbicide or whatever his plane is carrying, almost suffocating Grant.”

They neared the gully.

“I read somewhere,” Bethany said, “that Hitchcock made several movies with a lot of scary enclosed spaces, that spooky old mansion in
Rebecca
, for example, but in
North by Northwest
, he wanted to try the reverse—to make open spaces threatening.”

They paused at the top of the gully.

“So quiet.” Ray turned in a circle, surveying the expanse of the valley and the mountains that encircled them. “I’m used to the noise of jets and cars and cities. Activity. Lots of things happening.”

“It’s like being in that awful rubber boat.” Bethany sounded as if her dry tongue swelled in her mouth. “Nothing but sky and ocean around me. So damned quiet.”

“Not for Derrick and me,” Viv told her. “This sort of place is mostly where we spend our time. Under different circumstances, it would be paradise.”

“Yeah, right, paradise.” Bethany pointed. “How far do you suppose those mountains are?”

“Hard to tell,” Derrick answered. “Maybe fifteen miles. Maybe more. When everything’s open like this, our eyes play tricks.”

Ray pressed a button on his GPS receiver. “The altimeter says we’re at fifty-five hundred feet.” He looked at Bethany. “A mile above sea level. If you’re not used to it, the altitude would be another reason you’re thirsty.”

“No, I’m thirsty because the son of a bitch didn’t give us water.”

“Quiet,” Viv cautioned. “He hears everything we say.”

Bethany adjusted the bill of her cap, shielding her eyes. “The sun’s so bright, my contact lenses feel like they’re cooking. Hey, you out there!
Are you listening
?”

No response.

“At least, you could have given us sunglasses!”

Still no response.

“Maybe the bastard
isn’t
listening.” Bethany looked around. “Do you suppose there are cameras out here?”

Amanda took for granted there were. But before she could say it, Bethany asked, “Where? In those trees we’re heading toward? Or long lenses watching from the house? Or on posts somewhere, scanning the valley?”

They slid down into the gully. Dust rose under their boots. The gully was about five feet wide, higher than their heads. The shadow at the bottom cooled them.

“I used to love sailing, couldn’t wait to get on the water with nothing around me except the horizon.” Bethany shuddered. “It made me feel like something inside me was reaching out toward God or something. But after two weeks in that rubber boat, all that open space sucked the soul right out of me. I haven’t been near the water since. It’s hard to get people to buy sailboats when the thought of being on one terrifies me. ”

Amanda dug her boots into the slope ahead, raising dust as she climbed. The dust coated her lips and tasted bitter. Emerging into the heat of the sun, she looked back and saw Bethany peering up from the shadow of the gully.

“It’s nice and cool down here,” Bethany said.

“This isn’t the ocean,” Derrick emphasized. “At least, it’s steady under your feet. It doesn’t ripple.”

“Maybe not to you, it doesn’t ripple. But my legs haven’t felt steady since I woke up. At least, in that building, I had walls around me.”

“Think of the mountains as walls.”

Bethany looked bleak. “Mouth’s drier.”

“The voice said there was water at the coordinates we were given.”

“No!” Bethany objected. “The voice said we’d find something we needed. Whatever that means. He didn’t say anything about water. We added what we wanted to hear.” She pulled her headset from beneath her cap.

“Climb out of there,” Viv said.

“We’re not going to be any stronger than we are now.” Bethany stared at the headset in her hand. With disgust, she dropped it.

“No,” Derrick said.

“What can the bastard do to me?” Bethany spread her arms, making herself a target. “Shoot me? How? He can’t see me down here!”

Amanda looked around and felt a naked spot between her shoulders. Above the gully, everything was a potential sniper site: clumps of sagebrush, the row of trees they were headed toward, the rocks next to it. In the open, we’re all easy targets, she realized.

“Take your chance now,” Bethany urged. “If we all run in a different direction, how’s he going to keep track of us all? How’s he going to be everywhere at once to stop us? He can’t.”

The logic’s so tempting
, Amanda thought.
While we’re together, we don’t have a chance
. She almost told Bethany she was right, almost slid down the dust to join her, but something made Amanda hesitate, a limbic suspicion that things weren’t as simple as Bethany believed, that escaping couldn’t be as easy as five people fleeing in five different directions.

Then Amanda did slide into the gully, not to join Bethany but to try to stop her. She put a hand on Bethany’s shoulder. “I’ve got a bad feeling. Don’t do this.”

“Hey, the voice said he wanted us to be self-reliant, didn’t he?” Bethany tugged Amanda’s fingers away, took a deep breath, and walked along the concealing gully. Her pace increased. If the gully maintained its direction, it would lead toward the exit from the valley, Amanda saw.

Running now, raising dust, Bethany disappeared around a curve. Amanda heard the receding noise of her boot steps in the dust, then stared up at Ray, Derrick, and Viv, uncertain what to do.

“Are the rest of you going to join her?” the voice abruptly asked.

The intimate sound in Amanda’s ears made her flinch.

“There’s always a chance that she’ll succeed,” the voice said. “Do you want to take the same chance?”

No one replied.

“What about
you
, Amanda?”

“How the hell does he know what Bethany’s doing?” Ray murmured.

“In that case, keep moving,” the voice ordered. “Don’t waste the little time you have.”

Amanda turned toward the curve beyond which Bethany had disappeared.

“It’s unfortunate that she took off her headset,” the voice said. “That prevents me from trying to reason with her.”

“How does he know she took off her headset?” Ray demanded.

With a chill, Amanda picked up the headset and blew dust from it. She brought it close to her eyes, examining the headband, the ear buds, and the microphone stub. “The microphone.” Her words were filled with despair.

“Brava,” the voice said.

“The microphone?” Derrick asked from the top of the slope. “What about it?”

Amanda could hardly speak. “It’s not just a ... ”

Viv tore off her headset and stared at the microphone stub. “My God, it’s a camera.”

She dropped the headset and stumbled back.

“Derrick, tell your wife to pick it up,” the voice said.

Derrick looked paralyzed.

“Tell your wife to pick it up,” the voice emphasized.

“Viv, he wants you to pick up your headset.”

“No.”

“Everyone step back from her,” the voice said.

Derrick’s dark features tightened. “What are you going to do?”

“Teach you not to make me repeat myself. Step back.”

In a rush, Derrick grabbed the headset from the dirt and made Viv take it. “Put it on.”

Seeing the fright in Derrick’s eyes, Viv trembled and did what he wanted.

“Amanda, climb to the top of the gully,” the voice ordered. “Join the others. Look toward the east.”

“East?”

“The exit from the valley,” Ray said.

Amanda felt something cold squeeze her heart. “That’s the direction Bethany went.” She scrambled up the side of the gully. Dust crumbled under her hiking boots, but she kneed and clawed and reached the top. She straightened, focusing her gaze toward the continuation of the gully. Amid grass and sagebrush, the gully meandered toward the distant pass. Amanda saw glimpses of Bethany’s gray cap and the gray shoulders of her jumpsuit as she hurried.