Deadlock by Robert Liparulo Read Free Book Online Page B

He said, “Look, we’ll ease him back in. This’ll be a reconnaissance mission, no contact. Happy?”
    â€œA little better,” Ian said. “No firepower?”
    â€œSince when does an Outis squad not pack?” He shrugged. “What good’s an aircraft carrier without any aircraft?” He went to the door and turned back. “Remember what Sun-Tzu said. Keep your friends close . . .”
    â€œAnd your enemies closer.”
    â€œI have to get ready,” Page said, opening the door. “Company’s coming.”

SEVEN
    Hutch carried a big bowl of popcorn into the living room. Laura had taken a position on the couch, looking comfortable with her leg tucked under her. She watched hearty flames consume a log in the fireplace. Dillon came up behind him, his own bowl in his hands. The boy was warming up to Hutch again, going on about life in Fiddler Falls: how fourth grade didn’t seem much different from third, since all of the town’s twenty-eight elementary students shared a single room; how last summer he’d helped old man Nelson stock and clean his mercan-tile—“For real money!”—and how the town was still rebuilding the structures Declan had demolished with his satellite weapon.
    Hoping to change the subject, Hutch said, “What did you think of my office building?”
    They’d driven by the Denver newspaper agency’s downtown digs on their way to the restaurant.
    Dillon made a face. “Kinda ugly.”
    Hutch couldn’t disagree. It was an eleven-story structure that looked as if it might have been made out of white Legos. On one side of the facade rose a scaffoldlike structure with green-tinted panels. It could have been stacked balconies off low-rent apartments. “It’s nice inside, though,” Hutch said.
    Dillon scrambled into a big La-Z-Boy next to the couch. He crossed his legs Indian-style and parked the bowl of popcorn in his lap. He said, “In Fiddler Falls, everything is five minutes away—walking! It took us ten minutes just to get from your work to the restaurant, then a half hour to go from there to your house. I timed it.” He tapped the big watch on his wrist.
    Hutch saw that it was his hunting watch, which he had given Dillon before heading home last year. “Hey, you still have it.”
    Dillon smiled.
    Laura said, “Tell him it’s okay to change the alarm time, or at least turn it off.”
    â€œIt’s good luck!” Dillon said. He looked at Hutch. “Remember how it woke us up when we were hiding in the cabinet—early enough for us to get away before the bad guys woke up?”
    â€œEarly enough? That was—what?—four in the morning?”
    â€œFour in the morning,” Laura confirmed, sounding exasperated. “Four o’clock, every morning, beep-beep-beep-beep-beep .”
    Hutch moved around the coffee table and sat on the couch beside Laura. He raised his eyebrows at Dillon, who simply shrugged. He asked, “So do you get up that early?”
    Dillon shook his head, an emphatic no .
    Laura touched his knee. “We went back to the mine. He found one of the arrows you lost there. He has sort of a collection of . . . mementos, I guess you’d call them.”
    The puzzlement on Hutch’s face must have showed. She gave him a half shrug and put her index finger to her mouth in a way Dillon couldn’t see.
    Hutch said, “You’re into a new school year now. How’s that going?”
    â€œLike nothing changes,” she said. “I’m still teaching third, fourth, and fifth grades, so only a third of the faces are new. I love it. They’re great kids.”
    Hutch said to Dillon, “Does she cut you any slack, being your teacher and all?”
    The boy made a face. “Are you kidding? The teacher’s kid can’t do anything wrong. It’s not so cool.”
    A slight lisp still clung to his S s,