Anderson, Kevin J - Ignition by Anderson Kevin J

Author:Anderson, Kevin J
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf

But why had the strangers left him here unattended? Cecelia had mentioned something about the CIA . . . but he doubted that story.

Or were they still around?

On his desk Amos saw his windup orange space shuttle, his jar of jawbreakers, and the cans of now warm Jolt Cola, just the way he had left them.

Then he spotted Cecelia's shoes and her outstretched legs poking from behind her desk.

His heart leaped, and adrenaline slammed him fully awake. They must have tranquilized her, too. Weaving like a drunkard, he worked his way over to her.

He held the edge of his own desk, then grabbed a battered swivel chair that threatened to throw him off balance again.

"Cecelia," he gasped, "hey, wake up." He reached her desk; then he thought again of the two "CIA" strangers in their NASA jumpsuits . . . how nervous Cecelia had been.

Now she lay sprawled on the floor in her bright flower-print blouse and black slacks. Her once dusky skin looked waxen. Another scarlet dart protruded from the flesh of her plump neck just above the collarbone.

This time, though, the hypodermic vial was completely empty.

Amos felt his heart sink like a mainframe dropped in water. "Cecelia," he said again, but his voice came out in a hoarse croak. With the remnants of dizziness from his drugged state, and the shock of seeing her like this, his legs turned wobbly. He knelt by Cecelia's side, propped up her head, and brushed her dark hair away from her face. He had always wanted to run his fingers through her hair. . .

Her big brown eyes remained closed. Amos gently touched her eyelids but received no response. Her skin felt unnatural, like vinyl.

He put his ear next to her nose, sensed no warm exhalation coming from her.

After swallowing hard and hesitating more from fear than embarrassment, he laid his head on her breast, listening for a heartbeat.

He found none.

Amos sat with Cecelia's head cradled in his lap. He kept stroking her hair, but it brought him no pleasure. He wanted to say things to Cecelia, to ask her questions and tell her his thoughts, things he hadn't had the nerve to do before. But no words came.

Amos knew the two CIA impostors must have been up to some fiendish job. He felt anger burning through him, enough to drive back his grief. He pictured the cocky freckle-faced redhead, and the blond Amazon woman who had shot him with a blow dart; only through his own blind luck had Amos averted a fatal dose of the drug himself.

But they had taken care of Cecelia. Oh, yes, he could see that. Suddenly coming to himself, Amos noted again the acrid smoke in the air, like gunpowder-something burning, a sharp chemical flame. He struggled to his feet and saw daylight shining around the blast corridor, where the bunker's heavy shield door had been closed.

He carefully straightened Cecelia's hair, folded her arms across her ample chest, then staggered toward the blockhouse entryway. He passed

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