Dreams in the Tower Part 3 Read Online Free PDF Page B

takin’ the long way around. I still haven’t had word if we’ve been discovered.” He swung his legs down, sat straight up, and turned to face her with an uncharacteristically morose look. “He may be dead,” he said. “Nkimba.” His Gulf-coast drawl stressed the ‘N’ when he said the name. “I sent him out on the speedboat. Maybe not quite enough gas to get to the coast. Definitely not a solid enough ID to be safe if he does make it there.” he paused sullenly. “Either way, if anyone was following us, they’ll be following Nkimba now. At least until they realize the boat they’re following is about a hundred times too small.”
    “I’m sorry,” she said, looking through the large windows at the churning sea to avoid his eyes. “But you know why I have to get to Georgia and the CDC as soon as I can.”
    When she turned to look at him again, he was back to his absently jovial self. “Yeah, yeah,” he said. “I just always imagined humanity’s savior as some sort of buff action hero guy or something.”
    “Well I’m not the one who can save us,” Dellia said, turning her chair to face the front of the boat. “That honor goes to a little mutant strain of Silvan’s virus that probably would’ve come about eventually on its own without my interference. I’m more like a conduit or a catalyst or something.”
    “Whatever you are,” Lester said, “I’d put my whole crew at your disposal if that’s what it took.” He turned back to his console and control panels and produced another cigarette from a battered pack in his chest pocket. He stuck it between his lips, lit it with a silver zippo and sucked heavily on it for a while.
    “So we’ll make it to Savannah before dawn?” Dellia asked. “Like late tonight?” She turned her head away to avoid breathing in the smoke he was exhaling.
    “No,” he said. “Early tomorrow morning. Around four.”
    “Four a.m.” She got up from her seat and grabbed the rail along the wall to steady herself against the boat’s rocking. “Then I’ll be back here at three-thirty. I’m counting on you to get me off of the boat quickly and quietly.”
    “Oh, don’t you worry about that. They’ve already worked that stuff out.” He put his feet up again and leaned back as far as his chair would allow, puffing on the cigarette that stuck out of his mouth like some absurd paper and ash tongue, trailing smoke curls to the ceiling. “See you in the morning, then, Miss Dellia.”
    She nodded and left the captain to his relaxation, holding her breath against his most recent puff of smoke. She went down the first set of stairs, but instead of continuing on down to the level where the cabins and facilities were she went behind the stairs and out onto the deck. As soon as she got outside, the late afternoon sun hit her face, making her squint and turn away, so she went around the towering wheelhouse section to the port side of the deck. There, she leaned on the rail and looked out at the steadily rolling water, breathing in the brine and the fishiness wafting up in the spray off the sea. As far as her eyes could see there was nothing but white-crested, slowly churning ocean stretching on like infinite space. If she stayed here a few more hours, she might just be able to make out a slim strip of distant land before it became too dark for her to see anything more than the moon and stars and their shimmering mirror images on the water’s surface. Then there would be nothing else until the lights of Georgia’s coast glittered in the distance.
    The wind whipped her hair around over her face. Time to do something about that , she thought as she swept it to the side. She had gotten by unnoticed without much effort up until now because of the help the crafty AC hackers had given her, but that help would end now; she didn’t want it anymore if it meant she was under their control. So the hair would have to come off, just to make it a little harder for her to be