Ambush by Sigmund Brouwer Read Free Book Online Page A

into the air lock.
    â€œMom!” I shouted. “Dad!”
    â€œTyce!” Dad croaked.
    Dr. Jordan pushed my wheelchair away from the window as Mom and Dad struggled to their feet. “Bring them back in,” he told the security guy. “I don’t want to waste any hostages. If they die, it will be on video so that all of Earth can see what happens if they don’t do as we demand.” He began to wheel me away.
    I twisted frantically, trying to look back.
    â€œAre you all right?” I heard Dad yell.
    â€œYes!” I shouted.
    â€œSilence,” Dr. Jordan said. “Or I’ll put them back in there.”
    I bit my lower lip to keep from crying. They’d nearly died, yet Dad was concerned about how I was doing. It was that kind of sacrificial love that Mom and Dad had for me that had first convinced me there must be a God—and that he did care about me.
    Seconds later, we were in the corridor leading back to the storage room. When we reached the storage room that was my prison, the other security guy stood from his chair in front.
    Dr. Jordan shook his head and smiled sadly for my benefit. “I could almost admire your stubbornness. It’s a pity you aren’t one of ours.”
    One of ours? What did that mean?
    Then Dr. Jordan’s smile vanished as abruptly as the air had been sucked out of the air lock. “I’m wondering if you out-bluffed me. So tomorrow I’m going to put them in the air lock again. But this time I promise I won’t let them out alive unless I get what I want from you.” Back came the smile.
    â€œLet him out once for a bathroom break,” Dr. Jordan said to the security guy. “Just once. That’s it until morning. He can brood in the darkness about how his silence is going to kill his parents.”

CHAPTER 13
    Hours later I was thirsty.
    They had left water with me, but I hadn’t touched any of it. With a meeting at midnight, I didn’t want to risk the possibility of filling my bladder.
    Those hours of thirst gave me plenty of time to think and wonder in my wheelchair in the silent, dark isolation of the storage room.
    Was Ashley somehow alive? Or was someone setting me up? If it was someone else, why?
    One part of me desperately wanted to believe it was Ashley. I’d found the silver cross on my wheelchair, and only she could have left it there, right? Yet I’d seen her fly the Hammerhead into a moon. I’d seen the explosion, and later I’d used the dome telescope to see the crater the dome had named Ashley’s Crater. If Ashley was alive, why was she in hiding? And why hadn’t she secretly found a way to talk to me in the days since the explosion? Maybe someone else had stolen the silver cross from her before she died, and that someone just wanted me to believe Ashley was somewhere under the dome. But if that was the case, why?
    All my hope hung on one single thing: the note. It had been signed with the shape of the cross of Ashley’s earring. As if she had really placed it in my hand while I was sleeping. But that would have been impossible. The security guards would have seen her go into the storage room. I would have woken up as the door was opened. So I couldn’t believe it was Ashley.
    If not Ashley, then who?
    It seemed that only Dr. Jordan or Blaine Steven had the authority to direct the security guards. But how could Jordan or Steven have done it without waking me up? Why would either one give me the note? And the robot pack? Was one betraying the other by giving me the robot pack? Or was it just another way to try to get me to tell them what I didn’t know?
    What was it that Dr. Jordan wanted so badly?
    Whatever was happening, I had a lot more to worry about than just myself. Rawling and the other three scientists were hours closer to running out of air. Mom and Dad were among the hostages and would face the air lock again tomorrow if I didn’t give Jordan what he