Three (Article 5) (12 page)

“I’ll ask you to keep what you see here confidential,” said DeWitt, standing before an old classroom, also guarded by a man with a rifle.

We nodded.

He pushed through the door, and my mouth fell agape at the walls of radio equipment—it was tenfold what we’d had in Knoxville. Machines beeped and thrummed, attached by wires to what looked like car batteries, all bound together in the center of the room. Two women and three men wearing headphones sat in front of various machines, reading monitors and adjusting dials.

“What is…”

“Perfect timing.” I was interrupted by one of the men, in his early thirties with a sharp nose and deeply set eyes. He ripped back his headphones. “I got him, sir. He’s on another frequency this time. That makes four channels and counting.”

DeWitt strode over to him quickly and pressed a button on the switchboard.

Static, and then Tucker’s voice, muffled, despite their superior radio equipment.

“Mayday. Mayday. If you can hear this, clear the area. Roanoke, Virginia, is under FBR control. Do not attempt to evacuate to the safe house. It’s gone. I repeat, the safe house is gone.”

CHAPTER

8

I FELT
the blood drain from my face. Beside me, Chase had grown still.

“The family in Knoxville, Chicago, and Virginia are gone,” Tucker continued, and I twitched as he referenced the resistance under the One Whole Family banner used in MM propaganda. Even though the signal was weak his tension was obvious. “My team was hit this morning in Roanoke. We lost four. Half are injured, six are missing.”

Static.

“You know this person,” said DeWitt.

I nodded, frantically trying to process what Tucker had said. Who had been killed in the fight? The carriers? Truck from Chicago?

“Our radio was damaged,” Chase said. “We’ve been in contact with them until today.”

“Well he’s telling everyone what happened,” a tech said. “With the tower we have access to most underground frequencies, and he’s working his way up the ladder.”

I recalled the crooked pole emerging from behind the north wing.

“The MM can’t hear him, can they?” I asked.

“No,” said DeWitt. “He’s still using an old frequency. One the Bureau doesn’t monitor anymore.”

“If you’re still out there, we could really use some good news.”

Now I had the distinct impression Tucker was talking just to me. The seconds ticked by. If Chase or I didn’t respond soon, he was going to end the transmission.

“His name is Tucker Morris,” I said. “He’s looking for us.”

DeWitt scowled at the receiver. Across the room, a woman with unruly auburn curls pushed a red pin into a map of the states. I tracked her hand to a location in western Virginia, and found another in Knoxville, and still another on the coast, in South Carolina. All places the MM had destroyed. Three more pins were scattered across the Midwest.

The static crackled over my nerves.

“We need to answer him.” I said, hoping this was clearer.

DeWitt appraised me with caution, then tilted his head in consent. The tech who’d found the signal stood and directed me into his chair, then moved a small black microphone close to my mouth. Chase bent over my shoulder.

“Ready?” asked the tech.

When I nodded he flipped another switch. A small red light on the board turned to green.

Apprehension seized me. Answering a call on a CB radio in the wilderness surrounded by people I knew was a lot different than receiving a transmission in Three’s operating room. Everyone was looking at me, and I was suddenly scared of saying the wrong thing.

“I can hear you,” I said. “I’m here.”

Static. And then, “About time.”

A grin came, unbidden and unwelcome. This was Tucker I was talking to, not a friend.

“What happened? You said you’d be there.”

“Our radio was damaged.”

Pause. “Are you okay?”

I wasn’t particularly comfortable with how worried he sounded. Chase huffed behind me, unwilling to believe the sentiment was genuine.

“You said you were hit. How are the drivers?”

Dread filled the moments that followed. Only the carriers knew where the other resistance pockets were—taking the posts’ reports had been their job with Three. If they were gone, the other bases wouldn’t receive warning about the safe house’s destruction, and communication between those fighting the MM would effectively stop.

“The one with the bad teeth is MIA. He never came back. I think … I think they might have him.”

I closed my eyes.

“The driver from Knoxville—he didn’t make it. I told you Grandma’s house was empty? He’d heard a tip of another place she’d relocated to so we went to check it out. It was like they knew we were coming. Me and a few other guys barely got out.”

The carrier, Tubman, came to mind, with his ragged scar and kind smile, opening the garage door to the auto shop in Knoxville where he hid refugees in need of a safe house.

I fumbled for words. Tucker’s raw confession had made me want to raise a shield between us. He must have sensed this, too, because before I could answer, he said, “How about you? Please tell me you found something. We could really use some good news.”

DeWitt moved beside me, watching me closely.

“We did,” I said. “Though not as many as we hoped for.” I couldn’t find it in my heart to have him relay the news to his team that so many had perished in the safe house. Not after all they’d been through.

Static. A short laugh. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it’s good to hear your voice.”

Beside me, Chase stiffened.

As much as I hated to admit it, it was good to hear from Tucker, too. As crazy as it was, I was relieved he was alive. Still, his report was bleak. They’d been attacked. The resistance posts were being destroyed.

I looked to DeWitt, then to their map on the wall with the red pins. We needed to do something.

“Where are you?” Tucker asked.

Before I could answer, DeWitt flipped the switch. The green light turned red.

“Wait!” I tapped the microphone, then reached for his hand, still covering the switch. “Wait, we weren’t done!”

“He’ll attempt contact again tomorrow,” said DeWitt. “After he reaches the next post.”

I stood up, furious, the chair tipping behind me. “They might not make it until tomorrow! You heard him, they’re in trouble. The post—”

“We’re well aware of the issue,” he said.

My fists tightened at my sides. “Then you’ll send people to help them? Warn the other posts? You’ll do
something.
”

DeWitt’s lips formed a thin line. “Do not forget that you’re a guest in our home, Ms. Miller.”

“The carrier he was talking about—if they captured him like Tucker thinks, he’s as good as dead.”

DeWitt made no response. The eyes of the others in the room bore holes straight through me. I became instantly aware that Chase and I were outnumbered.

“How?” I asked, trying to keep myself calm. “How do you know they’ll go to the next post?”

“He’ll follow the carrier’s directives. That’s protocol in the case something like this happens. Unless, of course, you have reason to believe he would do something different?”

I shook my head, aware he was implying Tucker would run, or worse, go back to the MM. Just a week ago I might have considered it, but now, after hearing the distress in his voice, it didn’t seem possible.

“You were prepared for this?” I asked.

DeWitt inhaled. “We are prepared for many things.”

“Ember.” Chase was facing the opposite side of the room where a dozen pictures had been tacked to the wall.

I joined him, keeping my eye on DeWitt until the last possible moment. When I finally saw what Chase was staring at my hand rose to my mouth. I bit my knuckles to hold back the groan.

My mug shot was there, but only half was revealed, because overtop it lay another photo. A grainy black and white of the reception area at a hospital, just within the exit door, where two figures—a soldier and a Sister of Salvation—crouched over a body. The blood that spread from it was black, as if someone had spilled oil.

“You asked how I knew your name,” said DeWitt. “Chase Jennings and Ember Miller, sighted in Chicago, at the Rehabilitation Center right there on Reformation Parkway. Bold, I think, to go back to the place where it all began for you, Jennings.”

In a sudden burst of fury, Chase ripped the picture from the wall, balled it in his fist, and chucked it against the door. His shoulders were heaving, his face red. He strode out of the room into the hall, leaving me alone to face Three’s leader.

DeWitt crossed his arms over his chest. After a moment he exhaled through his nostrils.

“It comes as a surprise the Bureau is looking for you?”

I shook my head, breathless. Tucker could have given me the head’s up on one of his calls, but even if he knew what was he going to say?
Hey Ember, I saw your picture up on the side of a building again!
It was better he hadn’t mentioned it.

A chair was nearby, and I gripped the back, watching my knuckles turn white. Believing that Harper would remain our secret had been wishful thinking. Of course the MM knew. Apparently
everyone
knew.

“It isn’t what it looks like,” I whispered, nodding to the picture slowly uncurling on the floor.

He placed a cautious hand on my shoulder.

“Believe me,” he said. “That is something you do not have to explain here.”

I nodded, thinking of the soldiers he’d killed in Virginia. Wondering what had actually transpired that day.

“I was surprised to see you with those from the safe house,” he continued. “Last I heard you’d been captured in Greeneville.”

“No,” I said. “I was only captured once. Knoxville.”

A muscle in DeWitt’s neck jumped. “Interesting.”

“There was another girl,” I said, closing my eyes tightly. “She was with us. The MM shot her when we were in Greeneville. I heard they thought it was me.”

I burned, hot and bright, just at the thought of the girl I’d met in Knoxville—the person I was sure was the sniper—and how the MM had framed me for her crimes, but the fire was extinguished as quickly as it had come. Cara had paid for her actions. She’d been killed by soldiers while out with Tucker. At least, that’s what Tucker had said. It would never be easy taking his word for anything.

“What do you want from us?” I asked, looking around the roomful of equipment.

DeWitt turned to the pins pressed into the map.

“I want you to help me figure out who is giving away our locations to the FBR.”

I unfolded my fingers slowly, forcing my damp palms to lay flat at my sides. “What makes you think we know anything about that?”

I followed DeWitt’s gaze as it wandered across the wall. Runaways, mug shots, and even sketches were pinned up, a mosaic of faces, stats, and handwritten notes. It occurred to me that DeWitt suspected these people of ratting out the resistance.

That he suspected
us
of ratting out the resistance.

The room seemed to grow smaller.

“I’d like to trust you, Ember,” he said.

I wasn’t sure what to say; it wasn’t like I trusted
him
. We’d only just met, and so far he seemed to know a lot more about me than I knew about him.

“Endurance is deep in the Red Zone. We don’t have access to the mainframe here, so you’ll have to forgive me if some of my information is outdated. We rely on the intelligence delivered from our informants in the interior, not all of which is delivered in a timely manner.”

The carriers, I realized, who brought their messages to the safe house for Three.

“You escaped reform school and a base,” DeWitt said. It may have been a simple statement of fact, but it felt like an accusation.

There was a photo high above the rest, a girl with dirty blond hair who couldn’t have been more than twelve. It was only her profile, but you could tell she was laughing. He removed the picture and folded it carefully into his hip pocket before I could get a closer look.

“I had help,” I said.

“You know what they say, good help is hard to find.”

I checked the exit; Endurance didn’t feel so safe anymore. The urge to run was rearing up inside of me.

“You were in Chicago and Knoxville. Both of those places were destroyed by the Bureau.”

“They were,” I said.

“Destroyed,” he repeated. “Like another of our long-standing resistance posts, as your friend just reported.”

I jerked at the word
friend
. Tucker wasn’t a friend. “I guess. That was the first I’d heard of Virginia.”

Coming here had been stupid. I didn’t know these people, and they didn’t seem in any hurry to help us. I decided to cut to the point.

“You think I’m telling the FBR where to attack,” I said.

DeWitt studied me for a long moment. “I think someone is.”

I looked away, disgusted and disappointed.

“They killed my mother,” I said. “They killed my friends in Knoxville, and all those people in the tunnels in Chicago and at the safe house. I would
never
tell them anything.”

He considered this. “And the people that helped you, would they talk?”

Chase’s face flashed to the forefront of my mind. Never.
Never
would he do such a thing. But there were others that had been with us, too. Sean. Billy.
Tucker
. Suspicion jabbed at me like needles in tender flesh.

They had suffered beside me. Even Tucker had nearly been killed. If he was a mole, they wouldn’t have left him to die.

I shook my head. As much as I hated DeWitt’s accusations, I understood them. In his place I might have suspected the same things.

“A team to warn the resistance posts that the safe house was gone,” I said. “You yourself said that was protocol. When they left, only the carriers knew the locations of the bases.”

He nodded, and then was quiet for some time.

“We’ll send a team out to find your people first thing tomorrow,” he finally said.

It didn’t fix everything, but it was a start.

“When he calls back, will you find me?” I asked.