The Traveler Page 16

  The disciplined world of martial arts was the true power that pulled Hollis away from the church. After receiving a fourth-degree black belt in karate, Hollis followed one of his teachers to South America. He ended up in Rio de Janeiro and lived there for six years, becoming an expert in a Brazilian style of martial arts called capoeira.

  "Then he came back to Los Angeles," Vicki said. "I met him at his sister's wedding. He started a martial arts school in South Central."

  "Describe him to me. What's he look like? Big? Small?" "Broad shoulders, but slender. Nappy hair, like a Rastafarian." "And what's his personality?"

  "Confident, and vain. He thinks he's God's gift to women."

  Hollis Wilson's martial arts school was on Florence Avenue

  , wedged between a liquor store and a video rental outlet. Someone had painted words on the sidewalk window in garish reds and yellows. DEFEND YOURSELF! KARATE, KICKBOXING, AND BRAZILIAN CAPOEIRA. NO CONTRACTS. BEGINNERS WELCOME.

  They heard drumming as they approached the school and the sound got louder when they opened the front door. Hollis had taken sheets of plywood and built a reception area with a desk and folding chairs. Pinned to a bulletin board was a class schedule and posters advertising local karate tournaments. Maya and Vicki walked past two small dressing rooms with old bedspreads hung in place of doors and looked into a long windowless room.

  An old man was playing a conga drum in one corner and the sound bounced off the concrete walls. Wearing T-shirts and white cotton pants, the capoeiristas stood in a circle. They clapped their hands in rhythm with the drum and watched two people fighting. One of the fighters was a short Latino man wearing a Think Critically! T-shirt. He was trying to defend himself against a black man in his twenties who was giving instructions between the kicks. The black man glanced at the visitors and Vicki touched Maya's arm. Hollis Wilson had long legs and muscular arms. His braided dread locks came down to his shoulders. After watching for a few minutes, Maya turned and whispered to Vicki, "That's Hollis Wilson?" "Yes. With the long hair."

  Maya nodded. "He'll do."

  Capoeira was a peculiar mixture of grace and violence that looked like a ritualized dance. After Hollis and the Latino stopped sparring, two other people entered the circle. They began lunging at each other, mixing in cartwheels and punches and spinning kicks. If one person went down, he knew how to kick upward with his hands flat on the floor. The motion was continuous, and everyone's T-shirt was damp with sweat.

  They passed around the circle once, Hollis cutting in to attack or defend. The drummer beat faster and each person fought a second time and then a final series of matches that emphasized leg sweeps and lightning-fast side kicks. Hollis nodded to the drummer and the fighting was over.

  Exhausted, the students sat on the floor. They stretched their legs and took deep breaths. Hollis didn't look tired at all. He paced back and forth in front of them, speaking in the cadence of a Jonesie preacher.

  "There are three kinds of human responses: the deliberate, the instinctive, and the automatic. Deliberate is when you think about your actions. Instinctive is when you just react. Automatic is when you do something from habit because you've done it before."

  Hollis paused and stared at the students sitting in front of him. He seemed to be evaluating their strengths and weaknesses. "In New Babylon, many of the people you know think they're being deliberate when they're just on automatic. Like a bunch of robots, they drive their car down the freeway, go to work, get a paycheck in exchange for sweat and pain and humiliation, then drive back home to listen to fake laughter coming from the television set. They're already dead. Or dying. But they don't know it.

  "Then there's another group of people—the party boys and girls. Smoke some weed. Drink some malt liquor. Try to hook up for a little quick sex. They think they're connecting with their instincts; their natural power, but you know what? They're on automatic, too.

  "The warrior is different. The warrior uses the power of the brain to be deliberate and the power of the heart to be instinctive. Warriors are never automatic except when they're brushing their teeth."

  Hollis paused and spread his hands. "Try to think. Feel. Be real." He clapped his hands together. "That's all for today."

  The students bowed to their teacher, grabbed gym bags, slipped rubber flip-flop sandals on their bare feet, and left the school. Hollis wiped some sweat off the floor with a towel and turned to smile at Vicki.

  "Now this is a real surprise," he said. "You're Victory From Sin Fraser Josetta Fraser's daughter."

  "I was a little girl when you left the church."

  "I remember. Wednesday night prayer service. Friday night youth group. Sunday night potluck social. I always liked the singing. There's good music in the church. But it was a little too much praying for me."

  "Obviously you weren't a believer."

  "I believe in a lot of things. Isaac T. Jones was a great prophet, but he's not the final one." Hollis walked over to the doorway. "So why are you here and who's your friend? Beginner classes are Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday night."

  "We're not here to learn how to fight. This is my friend, Maya." "And what are you?" he asked Maya. "A white convert?" "That's a foolish comment," Vicki said. "The Prophet accepted all races."

  "I'm just trying to get the facts, Little Miss Victory From Sin. If you're not here for lessons, then you're here to invite me to some church function. I guess Reverend Morganfield thought he'd get a better reaction sending two pretty women to talk to me. That might be true, but it still doesn't work."

  "This has nothing to do with the church," Maya said. "I want to hire you as a fighter. I'm assuming that you have weapons or access to them."

  "And who the hell are you?"

  Vicki glanced at Maya, asking for permission. The Harlequin moved her eyes slightly. Tell him.

  "This is Maya. She's a Harlequin who's come to Los Angeles to search for two unborn Travelers."

  Hollis looked surprised, and then laughed loudly. "Right! And I'm the Goddamn King of the World. Don't give me this garbage, Vicki. There aren't any Travelers or Harlequins left. They've all been hunted down and killed."

  "I hope everyone thinks that," Maya said calmly. "It's easier for us if no one believes we exist."

  Hollis stared at Maya, raising his eyebrows as if questioning her right to be in the room. Then he spread his legs into a fighting stance and snapped off a punch at half speed. Vicki screamed, but Hollis continued the attack with a head punch and crossing kick. As Maya stumbled backward, the sword carrying case fell off her shoulder and rolled a few inches across the tile floor.

  Hollis went into a cartwheel that ended in a crossing kick and Maya managed to block it. He moved faster, attacking with full power and speed. Using kicks and punches, he pushed Maya toward the wall. She knocked his fists away with her hands and forearms, shifted her weight onto the right foot, and aimed a front kick at Hollis's groin. Hollis fell backward, rolled across the floor, and jumped up with another combination.

  They were fighting hard now, trying to hurt each other. Vicki shouted for them to stop, but neither person seemed to hear her. Now that Maya had recovered from her initial surprise, her face was calm, her eyes intense and focused. She moved in close, throwing quick punches and kicks that tried to achieve maximum damage.

  Hollis danced away from her. Even in this situation, he had to show everyone that he was a graceful and inventive fighter. With roundhouse punches and spinning back kicks, he began to push Maya across the room. The Harlequin stopped when the sword case touched her shoe.

  She faked a punch at Hollis's head, reached down, and grabbed the case. And then the sword was out, the hilt clicking into place, as she lunged toward her attacker. Hollis lost his balance, fell backward, and Maya stopped moving. The point of the sword blade was two inches away from Hollis Wilson's neck.

  "Don't!" Vicki shouted, and the spell was broken. The violence and anger vanished from the room. Maya lowered her sword as Hollis got
to his feet.

  "You know, I've always wanted to see one of those Harlequin swords."

  "The next time we fight like this, you'll be dead."

  "But we're not going to fight. We're on the same side." Hollis turned his head and winked at Vicki. "So how much are you pretty women going to pay me?

  Chapter 23

  Hollis drove the blue delivery van and Vicki sat in the passenger seat. Maya crouched in back, away from the window. As they cut through Beverly Hills, she saw scattered images of the city. Some of the homes were built in the Spanish style with red tile roofs and courtyards. Others looked like modern versions of Tuscan villas. Several of the houses were simply big, lacking any identifiable style; they had elaborate porticos over the front door and fake Romeo-and-Juliet balconies. It was strange to see so many buildings that were both grandiose and bland.

  Hollis crossed Sunset Boulevard and began to drive up Coldwater Canyon. "Okay," he said. "We're getting close."

  "They may be watching the place. Slow down and park before we get there."

  Hollis pulled over a few minutes later and Maya came forward to peer through the windshield. They were parked on a hillside residential street where the homes were built close to the curb. A Department of Water and Power truck had stopped a few feet away from Maggie Redneck's house. A man in an orange jumpsuit was climbing a power pole while two other workers watched him from below.

  "Seems okay," Hollis said.

  Vicki shook her head. "They're looking for the Corrigan brothers. A truck just like that has been outside my house for the last two days."

  Crouched on the floor of the van, Maya took the combat shotgun out of its case and loaded it with shells. The shotgun had a metal stock and she folded it down so that the weapon resembled a large pistol. When she returned to the front seat area, an SUV had parked behind the phone truck. Shepherd got out, nodded to the fake repairmen, and climbed the wooden steps that led to the entrance of the two-story house. He rang the bell and waited until a woman came to the door.

  "Start the van," Maya said. "And drive up to the house." Hollis didn't obey her. "Who's the guy with the blond hair?" "He's a former Harlequin named Shepherd."

  "What about the other two men?"

  "Tabula mercs."

  "How do you want to handle this?" Hollis asked.

  Maya didn't say anything. It took a few seconds for the others to realize that she was going to destroy Shepherd and the mercs. Vicki looked horrified, and the Harlequin saw herself in the young woman's eyes.

  "You're not killing anybody," Hollis said quietly.

  "I hired you, Hollis. You're a mercenary."

  "I gave you my conditions. I'll help you and protect you, but I won't let you walk up to some stranger and blow him away." "Shepherd is a traitor," Maya said. "He's working for ..."

  Before she could finish her explanation, the garage door rolled open and a man came out riding a motorcycle. As he bumped over the curb, one of the telephone repairmen spoke into a handheld radio.

  Maya touched Vicki's shoulder. "That's Gabriel Corrigan," she said. "Linden said that he rides a motorcycle."

  Gabriel turned right onto Coldwater Canyon Drive

  and headed up the hill toward Mulholland. A. few seconds later, three motorcycle riders wearing black helmets shot past the van and chased after him.

  "Looks like some other people were waiting for him." Hollis started the engine and slammed his foot on the accelerator. Fishtailing on its worn tires, the delivery van headed up the canyon. A few minutes later, they were turning onto Mulholland Drive

  , the two-lane road that followed the ridge of the Hollywood hills. If you looked to the left you could see a brown haze covering a valley filled with homes, light-blue swimming pools, and office buildings.

  Maya traded places with Vicki and sat by the passenger window with her shotgun. The four motorcycles were already well ahead of them and they lost sight of the pack for a few seconds when the van went into a curve. The road straightened out again. Maya watched one of the riders pull out a weapon that looked like a flare gun. He approached Gabriel, fired the weapon at the motorcycle, and missed. The bullet hit the thin asphalt near the edge of the road and the pavement exploded.

  "What the hell was that?" Hollis shouted.

  "He's shooting a Hatton round," Maya said. "The slug is a mixture of wax and metal powder. They're trying to take out the back tire."

  Immediately the Tabula rider fell behind while his two companions continued the chase. A pickup truck came from the opposite direction. The terrified driver honked his horn and waved his hands, trying to warn Hollis about what he had just seen.

  "Don't kill him!" shouted Vicki as they approached the first rider.

  Staying near the edge of the road, the Tabula loaded another shell into his flare gun. Maya stuck the barrel of her shotgun out of the open window and fired, blowing away the motorcycle's front tire. The bike jerked to the right, slammed into a concrete retaining wall, and the rider was thrown sideways.

  Maya pumped a new round into the shotgun's firing chamber. "Keep going!" she shouted. "We don't want to lose them!"

  The delivery van was shuddering like it couldn't go any faster, but Hollis pressed the gas pedal to the floor. They heard a booming sound, and when they came around the next curve, they saw that a second rider had fallen back to load a new shell into his flare gun. He snapped the barrel shut and turned onto the road before they could reach him.

  "Faster!" Maya shouted.

  Hollis gripped the steering wheel as they skidded into another turn. "I can't. One of these tires is going to break apart." "Faster!"

  The second rider was holding the flare gun in his right hand while he gripped the handlebar with his left. He hit a pothole and almost lost control of his bike. When the rider slowed down, the van caught up with him. Hollis cut around to the left. Maya shot out the bike's back tire and the rider was flung over the handlebars. The van kept moving and hit another turn. A large green sedan came toward them, honking its horn and swerving. Turn back, the driver gestured, turn back.

  They passed the turn to Laurel Canyon, honking and swerving around other cars as they ran through a red light. Maya heard a third booming sound, but she couldn't see Gabriel and the third rider. Then they came out of a curve and looked down the narrow road. Gabriel's back tire had been hit, but the bike continued moving. Smoke rose up from the shredded tire and there was a raspy sound of steel grinding on asphalt.

  "Here we go!" shouted Hollis. He steered the van into the middle of the road and came up on the left of the rider.

  Maya leaned out the window, the butt of her shotgun pressed against the van's door, and squeezed the trigger. Shotgun pellets hit the motorcycle's fuel tank and it exploded like a gasoline bomb. The Tabula was thrown into a ditch.

  Five hundred yards up the road, Gabriel turned into a driveway. He stopped his motorcycle, jumped off, and began running. Hollis turned into the driveway and Maya leaped out of the van. She was too far from Gabriel. He was going to get away. But she sprinted after him and shouted the first thing that passed through her mind. "My father knew your father!"

  Gabriel stopped on the edge of the hillside. In a few steps, he would be falling down a steep slope of chaparral.

  "He was a Harlequin!" Maya shouted. "His name was Thorn!"

  And those words—her father's name—reached Gabriel. He looked startled and desperate to know. Ignoring the shotgun in Maya's hands, he took one step toward her.

  "Who am I?"

  Chapter 24

  Nathan Boone looked down at Michael as the private jet headed east over the squares and rectangles of Iowa farmland. Before they left Long Beach Airport, the young man appeared to be sleeping. Now his face was slack and unresponsive. Perhaps the drugs were too strong, Boone thought. There could be permanent brain damage.

  He swiveled around in the leather seat and faced the physician sitting behind him. Dr. Potterfield was just another mercenary, but he kept acting lik
e he had special privileges. Boone enjoyed ordering him around.

  "Check the patient's vital signs."

  "I did that fifteen minutes ago."

  "Do it again."

  Dr. Potterfield knelt beside the stretcher, touched Michael's carotid artery, and took his pulse. He listened to Michael's heart and lungs, pulled back his eyelid and studied the iris. "I wouldn't recommend keeping him under for another day. His pulse is strong, but his breathing is getting shallow."

  Boone glanced at his watch. "What about four more hours? It'll take us that long to land in New York and get him to the research center."

  "Four hours won't change anything."

  "I expect you to be there when he wakes up," Boone said. "And if there's any problem, I'm sure you'll be glad to take full responsibility."

  Potterfield's hands trembled slightly as he took a digital thermometer out of his black bag and slipped the sensor into Michael's ear. "There won't be any long-term problems, but don't expect him to climb a mountain right away. This is just like recovering from general anesthesia. The patient is going to be confused and weak."

  Boone swiveled back to the small table in the middle of the plane. He was annoyed that he had to leave Los Angeles. One of his employees, a young man named Dennis Prichett, had inter-viewed the injured motorcycle riders who chased after Gabriel Corrigan. It was clear that Maya had acquired allies and captured the young man. The team in Los Angeles needed direction, but Boone's instructions were clear. The Crossover Project had highest priority. The moment he obtained control of either of the brothers, Boone was supposed to personally escort him back to New York.

  He had spent most of the flight using his computer to search for Maya. All these efforts were channeled through the Brethren's Internet monitoring center located in an underground site in central London.

  Privacy had become a convenient fiction. Kennard Nash once lectured on that subject to a group of Evergreen Foundation employees. The new electronic monitoring had changed society; it was as if everyone had been moved into a traditional Japanese house with interior walls constructed of bamboo and paper. Although you could hear people sneezing, talking, and making love, the social assumption was that you shouldn't pay attention to it. You had to pretend the walls were solid and soundproof. People felt the same way when they walked past a surveillance camera or used a cell phone. These days the authorities were using special X-ray machines at Heathrow Airport that could see through passengers' clothes. It was disturbing to realize that different organizations were watching you, listening to your conversations, and tracking your purchases—so most people pretended that it wasn't true.