Chapter 16: Discoveries
Benton woke up to the sound of the alarm the next morning, and Jonny started awake, too. After reaching out to turn off the noise, Benton gazed fondly at his son, who was blinking up at him blearily. "How are you this morning, Jonny?" he asked.
"Dad!" Jonny sat up, wincing a little. Benton suppressed the surge of rage, not wanting it to spoil this time together. "Are you okay? When did you come in? Why didn't you wake me?"
"You looked so peaceful, and I was tired myself," Benton said. "It was well after seven when I got here." There was a clicking sound on the tile floor and they looked over to see that Bandit was coming into the room. The little dog jumped up next to Jonny who started stroking his head.
"Wow," Jonny said. "I must have slept for hours."
"No doubt. Why don't you get cleaned up and I'll meet you in the kitchen for breakfast." Jonny nodded and got up slowly. Benton watched him, concerned. No doubt he was just stiff from all the bruises and such. "Be careful of those stitches when you shower!" he called as Jonny went out the bedroom door followed by his dog.
Benton took a quick shower himself, then started to go to the kitchen to fix something for breakfast. On the way there, he noticed the portrait of Rachel and him, and the twin pictures of Hadji and Jonny. He stopped to look at them, contemplating how much he missed both of the two who weren't here. Not that he wanted either of them to be here, but it had been years since he and Jonny had been alone together. After Rachel had died, Race came, and they both had another person in the house to relate to. Then Hadji had come, providing a playmate for Jonny, but also becoming a firm addition to the family. It seemed very odd now to think that Rachel had never known Hadji.
He continued on into the kitchen. After picking up the mess from Jonny's meals yesterday, he looked in the cupboards. There was cereal, milk and fruit, so Benton set the table and got everything together. Then he sat down and waited for Jonny. It seemed to take quite a while, but then adolescents had a tendency to dawdle over their ablutions. Even Hadji, with his different ways, had developed a sudden fascination with grooming as he'd entered his teen years.
When Jonny came in with Bandit, though, his hair wasn't wet, and since he wasn't given to using the blow dryer, Benton raised an eyebrow. "Didn't you take a shower, son?"
"Nah. I'll take a bath later." Benton nodded. "Hey, Frosted Flakes. Where do they get this stuff, I wonder."
"They probably import it. I'm sure there is a network of covert businesses they operate through to buy supplies from legitimate businesses."
"Yeah, I guess."
Jonny seemed very quiet this morning, but Benton supposed that, under the circumstances, that wasn't surprising. "So, what did you do yesterday?" Benton asked.
"Not much," Jonny said. "I watched a little TV. They have Pokemon, if you can believe it. And a bunch of other kids' cartoons. And Teletubbies." Jonny grimaced.
"I do believe I've managed to avoid that horror," Benton remarked. "Did you get a chance to look around the garden?"
"No, the door was locked."
"Maybe we can get someone to unlock it for you today."
Jonny shrugged, then winced. "I hate this place." His eyes widened suddenly. "Hey, Dad, did you look around last night at all?"
"Just enough to find you and my dinner," Benton said.
"I think they may be planning to bring Hadji here," Jonny said urgently. "It's weird. The only photos we have are of you and me, Mom and Hadji. Not even Grandpa Doug."
Benton felt a chill. "The pictures of Race and Jessie –"
"Are gone. And anyone else who's alive. I saw the picture of your parents on your dresser, but not the one of Mom's parents. And there's an extra room, between mine and yours. I'd bet they have suites of all different sizes, so I just wonder why they gave us one with three bedrooms." Jonny shook his head. "It's like they're trying to erase certain people from our lives. I don't know, like Hadji would say, 'out of sight, out of mind.'"
"That's very alarming, Jonny."
"You're telling me," Jonny said fervently. "I'm just freaked that all of our stuff is here. Your music CDs are in the living room, in that CD rack, my PlayStation games are in there, except for that one you didn't want me to buy, that really violent one." Benton nodded. "And my roller blades, and my posters, and my clothes. It's kind of creepy."
"It's very creepy," Benton agreed.
"Do they think that if they hide all the pictures of people like Race that we'll forget about them?" Jonny asked earnestly. "Because there's not a chance of it!"
Benton stood up and started clearing the table. "Nope," he agreed. "Not the slightest chance."
Jonny got up and started to help him, but Benton waved him away. It looked like he was in a lot of pain. "Have you had any pain pills today?" he asked.
Jonny shrugged, his face creasing with pain. "I checked around. There aren't any in here."
"I'll see what I can do about that," Benton said.
"It doesn't matter," Jonny said. Before Benton could respond to this, his son asked, "When do you have to leave?"
"I'm due at the lab at nine."
Jonny glanced at the wall clock with showed it was a quarter to seven, and grinned. "So we still have a couple of hours?"
"Probably." Jonny's face fell at this qualifier, and Benton put his arm around his shoulders. "Let's just make the most of the time we have, okay, Jonny?" He nodded and Benton gave him a tight squeeze. Jonny let out a yelp and pulled away, his face going suddenly very pale. "Jonny? What is it, what's wrong?"
Benton, already alarmed, grew even more anxious when Jonny just said, "Nothing." The boy turned stiffly and started to leave the kitchen. Bandit, who was always sensitive to Jonny's moods, was watching his young master with concern.
"Jonny, I can see that you're in more pain than you were yesterday morning. What's wrong?"
Jonny shrugged, wincing again. "I just haven't had anything for the pain," he said, and Benton thought he sounded evasive. "There's a phone in the living room, and it says to dial 4 to get the infirmary. I'll just go call."
Jonny started to leave the room again, but he wasn't watching where he was going and bumped into the counter. He let out a gasp of pain and his hand flew to the right side of his rib cage, his face twisting into a mask of agony.
Benton went swiftly to Jonny's side. "What is it?"
"Nothing!" Jonny said through clenched teeth.
"Jonny, take off your shirt," Benton ordered.
"Dad, don't be weird!" Jonny exclaimed and walked out into the living room.
Benton followed. "Jonathon Benton Quest!" he said. Jonny stopped walking. "Take off your shirt at once."
Jonny turned around. "I don't want to, Dad, okay?"
Benton swallowed and took a deep breath. Between the stress of the situation and his worry for Jonny, he could feel anger welling up in him, but he refused to take it out on his son. When he felt he could trust his voice to sound reasonable, he said, "Can you take off your shirt?" One of the side effects of Jonny's somewhat monochromatic taste in clothing was that it could be difficult, barring stains or rips, to tell if he had changed his shirt.
Jonny shook his head, and Benton could see how stiffly he was holding himself. "Can you raise your arms any?" He started to raise his arms, but his eyes screwed shut abruptly. Benton walked forward and lifted Jonny's shirt. On his right side was a livid red and black bruise. Benton stared at it for a moment, then said, "When did this happen?"
"Yesterday," Jonny said. "It's no big deal."
"This is a big deal, Jonny. Who did this? Did Crandall –"
"No, it was Marcus."
Benton let go of Jonny's shirt and kissed him on the forehead. Then he went to the phone and dialed 4. A voice that sounded like Patricia's answered, "Infirmary."
"This is Dr. Quest. My son needs medical attention."
"I'll be there immediately, Dr. Quest. Is he bleeding?"
"I don't know. I think he might have cracked ribs."
"I see. I'll be there in five minutes."
When Benton hung up the phone, he turned back to Jonny. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"It didn't seem like a big deal," Jonny said, looking down at the floor. "I didn't want to bother you."
Benton sat down in the chair by the phone because his legs wouldn't hold him up any more. "Jonny, it would not have been a bother. You have to tell me when you've been hurt. I need to know."
Jonny turned away. "I don't want to be a whiner."
Benton surged to his feet and walked around to put his hands, gently, on Jonny's shoulders and look him in the face. "You are not and have never been a whiner, Jonny. Who said that to you?" Jonny looked down at the floor again. "Was it Marcus?"
Jonny's head flipped up and Benton could see blind fury in his eyes. "He tried to kick Bandit!"
"When?"
"On the way here. He could have killed him with as hard as he was kicking."
"How hard did he kick?" Benton asked quietly. "Did he kick you in the ribs?"
"No, I got in the way and he kicked my leg. Then, when I'd picked Bandit up, he shoved me and I ran into the stair railing."
There was a knocking at the door and then it opened to reveal Patricia carrying a medical bag. She rushed across the room and put the bag down on the floor next to Jonny. "I'm going to need to remove his shirt."
Jonny looked up at her with disgust in his expression. "I don't want you here," he said in an angry voice. "And what's the point of doing anything about it? Someone will just hurt me again!"
"Let's not give them any more of a head start than we have to," Patricia snapped back. "Can you take off your shirt?"
"No, he can't," Benton said.
Nodding, she reached into her bag and came out with a pair of scissors. Jonny glared, but under his father's watchful eye he allowed her to start snipping through his shirt. When she'd cut the whole of it away, revealing the injury, Benton had to sit down again. The handprint on his left arm was turning an amazing mixture of yellow and green, while the one on his right was a fading purple. Benton had to clench his fists to keep from launching into a tirade.
"Who did this?" Patricia asked. "And why?"
"Marcus did," Benton said. "Apparently because Jonny had the audacity to stop him from kicking the dog. You'd better get a look at his leg, too. Which leg did he kick?"
"He kicked him in the leg?" Patricia exclaimed. "That's crazy!"
"No kidding," Jonny said, then hissed as she probed the bruise on his ribs.
"Well, they may be cracked, we couldn't tell for sure without an X-ray, and the doctor won't be here until tomorrow."
"Where's Dr. Pascale?" Benton asked.
Patricia's face was suddenly shuttered and very grim. "She's dead." Benton felt his breath catch and he stared at the girl in shocked horror. "According to Crandall, when we were leaving the other facility, she fell down the stairs and died. There wasn't time to retrieve her body."
"Do you believe that?" he exclaimed without thinking, remembering that the last time he'd seen Dr. Pascale was when she'd told him that she would have Crandall removed from this assignment.
Patricia looked up at him with wide, innocent eyes. "Why, of course, Dr. Quest. Why would Mr. Crandall lie?" As she spoke she glanced toward the ceiling and Benton got the hint. Naturally the rooms were bugged.
"Of course, you're right," he agreed. "I must just be getting paranoid." Jonny was looking back and forth between them like they were nuts, and Benton caught his eye and gave him a Look to keep him from saying anything. Jonny subsided but looked thoughtful. After a moment, his eyes widened with realization.
Benton was silent, contemplating the fact that, with Dr. Pascale dead, there might not be anybody to stand between Jonny and the brutality of Crandall and his goons.
"All I can do is tape his ribcage to immobilize him somewhat," Patricia said. "Does it hurt to breathe, Jonny?"
"Yeah," Jonny muttered. "A little."
"Translation," Benton said grimly, "it hurts a lot. Jonny, don't be stoic."
Jonny looked perplexedly at him. "What?"
"It means don't pretend like there's nothing wrong when there is," Patricia said. Jonny glared at both of them. "I can't help you if I don't know something's wrong."
"Who says I want you to help me?" Jonny demanded. "You're one of the bad guys."
Benton shook his head. "Actually, she's not." Both of them turned surprised looks at him. "Patricia's as much a victim as you are, Jonny."
"That's ridiculous!" Patricia exclaimed, but Jonny blinked thoughtfully.
"After all, her family was brought here the same way we were when she was little."
Jonny pursed his lips. "Well, she's old enough to know better, now."
Benton nodded. "Yes, she is."
"The two of you are crazy. I'm not a victim. I'm happy in the corporation."
Jonny looked up at her in astonishment. "You're happy with what they're doing to me?" he asked in a small voice. "You really are a bad guy." Benton wanted to punch somebody, preferably either Crandall or Marcus, but he held his anger in. Jonny sounded so pathetic, so overwrought. Benton wondered how much of it was sincere and how much of it was Jonny's attempt to hit Patricia over the head with a really big sledgehammer.
Patricia's brows knit, and she rushed to say, "Of course not, Jonny, but this won't last."
Benton watched her wind the tape around Jonny's chest. Bandit was watching her with curiosity. Jonny seemed withdrawn and thoughtful. Benton wondered what he was thinking about.
After a few moments, Jonny said, "Will you be the one who comes to take my body away when they kill me?"
Benton's jaw dropped; he was speechless. Patricia stopped winding to give the boy a worried look. "No!"
Jonny sighed disconsolately. "Oh. 'Cause Marcus already treats me like a sack of potatoes. I hate the thought of him just slinging me over his shoulder and dropping me somewhere." Patricia just stared at him, her eyes wide and alarmed, her mouth gaping. Benton really hoped Jonny was playing on her sympathies. He wasn't really worried about that, was he?
"They're not going to kill you, Jonny!" she exclaimed.
Jonny tilted his head and looked up at her. "What will they do with my body, anyway? I want to be buried next to my mother." His eyes were imploring. "Is there a graveyard here? Where is Pamela buried?"
Patricia gave him a troubled look. "I think she was cremated."
"I don't want to be burned!" Jonny exclaimed and Benton nearly swallowed his teeth. He turned away to hide his expression and put his face in his hands. They'd all talked about this subject on their last camping trip. Children can be very morbid, and they had all insisted on discussing the pros and cons of burial versus cremation. Jonny had come down firmly on the side of cremation.
"Jonny, you're upsetting your father," Patricia said gently. Benton didn't turn around, and he was glad he hadn't when Jonny spoke.
"He doesn't want to be burned either!"
"No one is going to be burned. You're not going to die, Jonny. No one will kill you!"
Jonny let out a sad little sigh. "So who will do it, do you think? Will Crandall kill me himself, or will he have Marcus do it? Or Chris?"
"Not Chris!" Patricia exclaimed, and Benton's head whipped around. 'Not Chris' implied that the other two might very well kill his son. Jonny stared at her, open-mouthed. "I mean, no one is going to kill you! You're not going to die!"
Jonny took in a deep breath that obviously hurt, then he spoke in a voice Benton could barely hear. "Would you kill me?" he asked. Benton stared, unable to think, unable to cope with the question. He didn't – he couldn't mean it. "I mean, if you did it, you could probably just give me an overdose of something like morphine, and it wouldn't hurt."
"I would never do anything to hurt you, Jonny!" Patricia exclaimed. "I would not kill you!"
Jonny's lips quivered. "Is it cowardly to prefer something like that to being pummeled?" he asked.
Benton buried his face in his hands for real this time, feeling tears sting his eyes. A twelve-year-old boy shouldn't have a reason to ask questions like this, he thought savagely. Damn Crandall for putting such thoughts in his head.
"No one is going to kill you, Jonny, not Crandall, not Marcus, not Chris and certainly not me."
"Do you promise?"
There was a distinct pause before she answered. "No one is going to kill you."
Jonny was silent, and Benton didn't move, listening with all his might for what the boy might say next. His voice was so quiet as to be nearly inaudible. "Do you promise?" he asked again, his tone more intense this time.
"Jonny, listen to me, no one is going to –"
"Oh," Jonny said in a voice that was full of desolation. "You think they are going to kill me, don't you?"
"No, I don't. No one is –"
"But you won't promise. You must think it could happen if you won't promise."
There was a fraught silence during which Benton barely breathed. Finally, Patricia let out a long, shuddering breath. "All right, Jonny, I promise. No one is going to kill you." Jonny sniffed, and she said, "Don't cry now. You'll be right as rain in a few days."
When Benton looked up, he saw that Patricia had finished with Jonny's ribs and was checking out his mobility. Then she sent him into the bedroom to change into shorts so that she could look at his leg and started writing in what looked like a chart. She brought it over to him and put it in front of Benton. "Dr. Quest, I'm going to need you to fill out this form, and then sign at the bottom."
Benton looked down at the page and saw a fairly standard medical information disclosure form, but there was a sticky note on top of it on which she had written in extremely tiny letters, "Bannon's cell?" He stared at the little note for a moment, wondering if this was a trap. But after Jonny's emotional outburst, he thought he could risk it. Throwing caution to the four winds, he swiftly wrote Race's number down on the sticky, then filled out the form and handed it back to her.
She took it and tucked it away into her bag without looking at it. Jonny came out and Benton saw the bruise on his leg for the first time. The guards all wore heavy boots, and Marcus was no exception. From the look of Jonny's leg, the kick might not have killed Bandit outright, but it would have injured him severely enough that it might have been very difficult for a qualified vet to save the little dog. Somehow he doubted the corporation had a vet at this site if they didn't even have a doctor here yet.
Patricia gave Jonny instructions on what to do to treat his injuries. Benton glanced up at the clock and saw that it was now 8:25. He'd have to be leaving soon, no doubt. And just as he thought that, there was a knock at the door and then it opened. Chris walked in. "Dr. Quest, it's time for you to come to the lab, now." Bandit jumped up from where he was lying by Jonny's feet and started barking at the intruder.
Jonny looked up, alarmed, but Patricia said. "It will be all right, Jonny." She looked at Dr. Quest. "I'll make sure he gets his medication. We don't like to have children medicate themselves, you know. It's not safe." She smiled down at Jonny's head. "I'll be in and out all day, so Jonny won't be alone all the time."
Benton walked over to his son and kissed him on the forehead. "Do what they tell you, Jonny," he said quietly. "I love you."
Jonny grabbed his hand and squeezed it. "I love you, too."
Taking a deep breath and squaring his shoulders, Benton went out the door with Chris.
Race was frustrated. The satellite tracking was going slowly because there were just too many planes traveling through the skies. The kids were having moderate success in tracing the computer hacking, but he and Diana had nothing they could directly do. The four kids from the boat had been transferred to the United States, and I-1 was putting Pauline's family up at a hotel near the holding facility.
Estella, too, was feeling the strain of inactivity, to the point that Corvin had asked her to look at some of the artifacts that had been brought in over the years.
Race sat in the room with Hadji and Jessie, watching what they were doing and not understanding how they got half of it to happen.
Suddenly his cell phone rang and, pulling it out of his pocket, he got up and left the room so as not to disturb kids' work. "Bannon," he said.
"Mr. Race Bannon?" asked an unfamiliar female voice in hushed tones.
"Yes. Who is this?"
"My name is Patricia. I'm with the corporation."
Race's attention sharpened, and he walked swiftly toward the stairs. This was the medical assistant if he remembered rightly. On the first floor there was a room where a handful of geniuses who could trace any call they got their hands on worked their magic. Race headed there as fast as he could. "I see. What can I do for you?"
"I don't have much time. I will give you some information about where the Quests are, but I need you to do something for me."
"Yes, what?"
"There is a woman, Penelope Miller, who lives at 487 Maple Manor Lane in Clarksville, Florida. Can you see that she's moved someplace where the corporation can't find her?"
"Who is she?"
"My mother."
"I'll do what I can. What can you tell me about Jonny and Dr. Quest?"
"We're on an island. All I know for sure is that it's south of the Equator and close to the International Date Line." Race had just entered the tracing room, and he was immediately the center of attention. Somebody held up a sign that said, "Do you need me to trace your call?" and he nodded fervently while reaching out to grab a pen and a piece of paper off somebody's desk.
"Okay. I got that. There's an awful lot of islands down there, though. What's the climate?"
"Tropical. I'm sorry, I'm a medical assistant. Knowing locations isn't part of my job."
"Right. When did they arrive?" he asked.
"Ten o'clock a.m. local time," she said.
"That's really very helpful," he said. "How are they?"
"Dr. Quest is quite well," she said, then paused.
"And Jonny?" Race demanded.
"He's hurt," she said slowly. "He has a bad gash in his leg, and –"
"We have Dr. Pascale's report on his condition at the time he left the first facility."
"Oh." She paused again. "Dr. Pascale is dead."
"Yes, I know. We found the report on her body."
In a whisper so low he could barely hear her, she said, "I think Crandall killed her."
"I'm sure he did," Race said. "She left a message for us."
"Ohhh!" She was silent for a moment. "He's still in charge of the project. She meant to have him removed, but . . ." Her voice trailed off.
"How is Jonny?" Race asked again. "Has anything happened since the move?"
"Since then he, well," She hesitated and Race had to resist the urge to yell at her to just spit it out. "I'm not sure. His ribs are either badly bruised or he may have one or two cracked. We don't have a new doctor yet, and I'm not trained to use the X-Ray machine."
"How did he get hurt?" Race asked, struggling to keep his voice calm.
"Someone was stupid," she said. Then, her voice sharper with anxiety, she added, "I can't stay on. Someone could come in here at any time."
"Please, tell me more," Race said, trying to keep her on the line. "How are they? Not just physically."
"I have to go, there are footsteps coming down the hall." And there was a click and the line went dead. Race shut off his phone and glanced up at the sign waver who shrugged.
"Sorry, not enough time."
Race nodded and left, going in search of Phil who was, in his own words, babysitting the satellite team. One look at Race's expression, and Phil followed him out into the hall. "What is it?"
"I just got a call, supposedly from that medical assistant, Patricia."
"What? Did you trace it?"
"I couldn't keep her on long enough."
"Damn! What did she want? Was it another call like the one to Hadji yesterday?" Phil had been livid when he heard about the attempt to manipulate Hadji.
"No. She claimed she wanted to help. Asked me to see to it that her mother was moved to somewhere that the corporation couldn't find her."
"Her mother?" Race nodded. "Do you buy it?"
"I think we'd better check it out. Her name is Penelope Miller, and I wrote down her address here." He handed Phil the paper. "Also, she said that Dr. Quest and Jonny are being held on an island south of the Equator, near the International Date Line. And that they landed at ten a.m. local time."
Phil gazed at the page in front of him, the nodded. "I'll send someone to fetch Mrs. Miller," he said. "And we'll focus some attention on planes in that vicinity around that time." Corvin pulled out his phone and gave the necessary orders, then said, "What else, Race? I can tell there's something."
"Jonny may have cracked ribs, now. She says they're either badly bruised or cracked."
"Hell!"
"And there's no telling what she didn't mention."
"Well, I sure hope she's on the up and up. Maybe you're right. Maybe we'd better have a little chat with Mrs. Penelope Miller."
