The Milestone Protocol Ernest Dempsey (best short novels of all time .txt) 📖

through the tunnel until they came to a left turn. She continued around the corner and kept moving through the long, straight corridor. The exodus seemed to take forever, but within two minutes the couple arrived at a nondescript gray door. She turned the two deadbolt locks, unlocked the floor stop wedged against the bottom of the door, and twisted the latch.

Alex gripped the edge of the door for her and held it open as a rush of cool winter air, along with a burst of bright light, flooded the passage.

The sounds and smells of the street filled the tunnel: engines, squeaky brakes, exhaust pluming out of trucks, and construction machines.

Tara stepped out into the chilly air and looked around. The road overhead was propped up by massive concrete columns. Another street ran by in front of them. The parking deck for the Falcons/Atlanta United stadium to the left was mostly empty, save for a few cars from employees at the nearby CNN Center or surrounding businesses.

Alex let the door close behind him and relocked it. A red sign hung on the door that said Authorized Access Only in white letters.

“Malcom,” Tara said, holding her phone up so she could see the screen. “Switch camera view to my phone, please.”

“With pleasure,” the voice said through her device’s speakers.

“Smart idea, connecting him to our phones,” Alex said.

“Thanks.” She winked at him as he led the way down the sidewalk toward the IAA backup car. Tara watched the screen as she followed her husband. The lab was still empty, and the only sign that they’d been there was the coffee pot she’d just started. She cursed herself for leaving it on. It was one of the few pieces of equipment Malcom wasn’t connected to. The FBI agents would either think something was amiss, or they would assume the young couple would be returning shortly. Either way, the outcome wasn’t good.

Alex stopped at a metal roll-up garage door and pressed a button on a key fob. The door clattered as the opener started rolling it up to reveal a hidden garage within. Once the bottom of the garage door was over his head, Alex circled around to the driver’s side of a black 1969 Camaro and unlocked the door.

“Why do you get to drive?” Tara asked.

“Because I had the keys,” Alex defended with a fiendish flash of his teeth.

“Fine. But I get to next time.”

The vintage muscle car was the emergency getaway vehicle of choice because, for one, it wasn’t connected to any kind of electronics that could be tracked like so many of the newer automobiles, and two, because it was awesome.

Alex turned the key in the ignition. The engine roared to life, much to the couple’s satisfaction. Tara groaned in longing. “Come on,” she said. “Let me do it.”

“Tell you what,” he conceded, “I’ll drive us halfway to the McElroys’ place. We’ll need to take some backroads on the way and maybe make a pit stop.”

Her frown flipped, and she looked through the windshield, petting the dash with her fingers.

Alex shook his head and shifted into gear. He stepped on the gas, and they felt the push against their chests as the rear wheels bit into the concrete and thrust the car out onto the street. It fishtailed slightly, and after Alex corrected, he looked over at his wife and shared a pleased grin.

20

Atlanta

Desmond peered through the forest. Birds chirped and sang, some probably desperate for a handout of seed or breadcrumbs. During this part of the year, seeds were hard to come by, and for the winged creatures who fed on worms, things were even more desperate.

Clouds of breath puffed out of Desmond’s nose and mouth in the cold afternoon air. There was no snow on the ground. Getting any kind of decent accumulation of the white stuff almost never happened before Christmas in Atlanta, though there’d been a dusting once when he was an infant. He only knew that because of the pictures his parents had showed him, insisting that sometimes even things that seem impossible can still happen.

He stepped cautiously, though not cautiously enough, as the sole of his shoe pressed down on a twig and snapped it. Dry leaves rustled underfoot, too, and with every sound he cringed for fear of giving away his position. If they knew where he was, that he was coming, he’d lose the advantage. The last thing he wanted to do was spook his quarry, at least not yet.

Desmond paused next to the trunk of a tulip poplar and scanned his surroundings once more. There was no sign of them. A shiver trickled up his spine as the icy breeze cut across his face. Dark, foreboding clouds churned overhead.

He sensed something to his left and whipped around, but only found a leaf fluttering through the air, tumbling and circling until it crashed to the ground with millions of others like it. Desmond inwardly grunted in disappointment, then heard a faint noise directly behind him. It was the unmistakable sound of a sniffle.

Grinning with satisfaction, Desmond maneuvered through the rows of tree oak, maple, poplar, and pine until he reached a wide-trunk cedar. He shifted his weight onto his right foot and then jumped around to the other side. The grin left his face. No one was there.

Then a laugh erupted from above him, and he tilted his head back to find Diego straddling a thick branch twelve feet above the ground.

“Clever,” Desmond said.

“I thought so,” Diego chimed.

“How did you get up there?” Desmond searched for lower branches but only found a few small stubs where limbs had broken off sometime in the past.

“Climbed.” Diego flashed a mischievous expression, one that said he would never give up the secret.

“Okay, smart guy. Where’s your sister?”

Diego leaned to the right and pointed at a small rise about ninety feet away. “I think she’s hiding in that hump of leaves over there. Between the two oaks.”

Desmond had to change his stance to see through