Along the water the numerous flags flapped in the brisk breeze off the bay. Container ships sat off shore and a huge, white cruise ship stood docked at the cruise ship center like a white magnet for all the tourist shavings that crowded the sidewalks, excited to be here in Seattle.
Vallon stared out the window. If they only knew the risk they’d placed themselves in, they’d run screaming.
But instead everything looked normal, even though her muscles were so taut with tension she could scream. Restaurants. Tourist gift shops. The elevated 99 viaduct. Then the ferry terminals to Bremerton and Bainbridge Island.
Back from the water’s edge the cityscape changed. No longer the glistening modern towers. South of the city center the buildings reduced to red brick and narrower walking streets.
Xavier found a place to park under the raised viaduct. He helped Fi out of the car and leaned a hand in to Vallon. Fi stood, head up, sniffing the salt air and diesel. She turned, faced uphill towards Pioneer Square.
“It’s darn tight in here.” Vallon accepted Xavier’s hand and started to uncramp her legs just as another tremor hit.
The ground heaved. The parking lot pavement groaned and cracked. Car alarms sounded along the line of cars, and Vallon grabbed Xavier’s arm as he staggered. But Fi squealed and took off like a bat outta hell.
“Fi, no!”
No use. The woman raced up the sidewalk and threw herself into traffic in disarray from the quake. Vallon took off after her and knew Xavier followed in her wake.
Up the hill, past Western and Post streets, toward Pioneer Square proper. Another earth shudder tossed Vallon against the brick wall next to the Best Western Hotel. Brick crashed down around her. Xavier threw himself against her, shielding her from the worst of it.
She shoved him back, leapt out of the way of more falling brick. People flooded the sidewalk from out of the building. Where was Fi? Vallon stood on tiptoes, craned for her.
“Can you see her?” she asked, aware Xavier’s gaze was on her.
“Are you all right?”
She tossed him a cool glance even though her nose, her whole body seemed full of his cedar and incense scent. “I didn’t know you cared.”
She shoved through the excited tourists and scoured the crowd. “There!”
Wasn’t that Fi, plowing into the people filling Yesler Street between First and Second Avenue? She couldn’t sure, but had to take the chance. She elbowed her way through the people, Xavier at her back.
The earth lurched. It lurched again so hard people fell to their knees. The excited conversations changed to screams.
“We have to find her. She’s our best chance of locating Rebecca.”
“If she is the one we want.”
She glanced over her shoulder. “Who else could it be?”
“Vallon.”
A hand fell on her shoulder and she spun around, but not before she saw the displeasure on Xavier’s face.
“Jason. What the hell….”
Another shudder, and the rumble of brick fall filled the air. From Pioneer Square came screams and a roar, and a surge of people slammed Vallon against a wall, Xavier on one side of her, Jason on the other. From where she was, it looked like one of the buildings had come down.
“This is about the least safe place to be in a quake.” Jason grabbed her arm.
She jerked back. “Not just a quake.” She drove into the surging crowd, using her height and her elbows to gain headway against the wall of people.
“Vallon, are you telling me this is….”
“Change. And you should get the hell away while you can.” She kept on up the hill and into Pioneer Square proper.
“Like hell, I will.”
She ignored him and pressed on. Xavier caught her hand, and awareness of him over-filled her. She yanked away and yet missed him when she did.
Yesler Street was filled with Gore-tex-clad tourists unsure where to go. Around them the heritage building walls swayed and broke. Once this had been the skid road for logs heading down the hill to mills along Elliott Bay. Then it had been the skid road for Seattle’s down-and-outs. Now it was the home to trendy carpet and clothing stores and a Mecca for bookstore lovers.
Where? Where had Fi gone? The warehouse where Vallon had found her before? She started uphill.
Pioneer Square proper was filled with debris from the collapse of the face of the building on the west side of First Avenue. The street was filled with bricks and mortar, crushing parked cars, and a line of traffic that had been in the street. Screams came from people crushed and caught underneath. More debris had crushed the famous glass pergola.
And still the ground lurched and groaned.
The crowd parted around Vallon and she found herself in the open.
Had Fi been caught? Fear clutched at her. She had to know. She plunged toward the wreck of metal and glass.
“Hold it right there, Drake.”
The voice stopped her cold. She started to turn.
“Don’t move. You, too, Bryson. And you.”
Someone stepped up to Jason and yanked his arms behind him. Wolf Amundson stepped around the others to face her, a drawn pistol in his hand. Beside him, unbelievably, came Landon.
“I’m arresting you on suspicion of activities undermining United States security.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Her glare shifted to her mentor. “Landon, what the hell is he talking about, and why are you here?”
Landon only shrugged, his gaze shifting to Xavier; and that made her skin go cold. “Landon? I’m trying to do what you asked me to. All hell’s going to break loose if you don’t let me—us—go.”
The little man looked even more gnomish today, still clad incongruously in pajamas and moccasins and huddled in his jacket against the brisk wind. His body seemed almost to convulse at each lurch underfoot.
“Landon?” Through clenched teeth.
Something must have shaken loose in him, because suddenly he grabbed Amundson’s arm. The gun went off into the pavement, but on top of the earth quaking, it sent the crowd nearest them screaming and surging. Landon was lost in it. Amundson went down.
Xavier threw a suddenly free fist at their captors. He grabbed Jason, and suddenly the metal cuffs on Jason’s wrists fell free.
Vallon bolted through the crowd, Jason and Xavier at her heels. They went straight up Yesler, but Jason grabbed her arm.
“This way.”
He dragged her left to where James Street joined Yesler, towards a storefront.
“Where the hell are you taking us?”
He threw a wicked grin in her direction. “I held out on you. The cameras always caught Rebecca Murdoch near the Seattle Underground.”
Xavier surged past her, Jason and Vallon at his heels, but something grabbed her jacket and hauled her back. Amundson. She tried to turn and punch him. His grip on the back of her jacket made it impossible. He grabbed for her arm and she blocked him, then. wrenched free of the jacket and dove after Jason.