The 6th Extinction (Page 9)

“I can’t take it anymore,” Kenny said, balling his fists, his face bright red with aggravation. “You have to talk some sense into him.”

“Where is he?”

Kenny waved toward the backyard, looking both irritated and embarrassed.

“What’s he doing outside in the rain?” Gray headed toward the rear of the house.

“You tell me.”

Gray reached the yard. The single lamp above the kitchen back door offered little light, but he had no trouble spotting the tall man standing near a row of oleanders that bordered the fence. The sight stopped Gray for a moment as he tried to comprehend what he was seeing.

His father stood barefoot and naked, except for a pair of boxers, which clung damply to his bony physique. His thin arms were raised, his face upturned to the rain, as if praying to some storm god. Then those arms scissored together in front of the bushes.

“He thinks he’s trimming the oleanders,” Kenny explained, calmer now. “I found him wandering in the kitchen earlier. It’s the second time this week. Only I couldn’t get him back to bed. You know how stubborn he can be, even before . . . before all of this.”

Alzheimer’s.

Kenny would rarely say the word, as if fearful he might catch it by talking about it.

“That’s when I called you,” Kenny said. “He listens to you.”

“Since when?” he muttered.

While growing up, Gray and his father had had a tumultuous relationship. His father was a former Texas oilman, rugged and hard, with a personal philosophy of grit and independence. That is, until an industrial accident at a drilling rig sheared one of his legs off at the knee. After that, his outlook soured into one of bitterness and anger. Much of which he directed at his eldest son. It eventually drove Gray away, into the Army and finally into Sigma.

Standing here now, Gray sought that infuriatingly hard man in the frail figure in the yard. He gaped at the ribs, the sagging skin, the map of his spine. This was not even a shadow of his father’s former self. It was a shell, stripped of all by age and disease.

Gray stepped over to his father and gently touched his shoulder. “Dad, that’s enough.”

Eyes turned to him, surprisingly bright. Unfortunately it was old anger that shone there. “These bushes need to be cut back. The neighbors are already complaining. Your mother—”

Is dead.

Gray bit back a twinge of guilt and kept a firm grip on his father’s shoulder. “I’ll do it, Dad.”

“What about school?”

Gray stumbled to match the old man’s timeline, then continued smoothly. “I’ll do it after school. Okay.”

The fire dulled in his father’s bleary blue eyes. “You’d better, boy. A man is only as good as his word.”

“I’ll do it. I promise.”

Gray led him to the back porch and into the kitchen. The motion, the warmth, and the brighter light seemed to slowly help his father focus.

“Gr . . . Gray, what are you doing here?” his father asked hoarsely, as if seeing him for the first time.

“Just stopped by to check on how you were doing.”

A thin hand patted the back of his arm. “How ’bout a beer then?”

“Another time. I’ve got to get back to Sigma. Duty calls.”

Which was the truth. Kat had caught him en route from his apartment, asking him to join her at Sigma command in D.C. After he had explained about the situation with his father, she had given him some latitude. Still, he had heard the urgency in her voice and didn’t want to let her down.

He glanced to Kenny.

“I’ll get him up to bed. After episodes like this, he usually sleeps the rest of the night.”

Good.

“But, Gray, this isn’t over.” Kenny lowered his voice. “I can’t keep doing this night after night. In fact, I talked with Mary about this earlier today.”

Gray felt a twinge of irritation at being left out of this conversation. Mary Benning was an RN who watched over their father during the day. The nights were mostly covered by Kenny, with Gray filling in when he could.

“What does she think?”

“We need around-the-clock care, with safeguards in place. Door alarms. Gates for the stairs. Or . . .”

“Or find a home for him.”

Kenny nodded.

But this is his home.

Kenny must have read the stricken expression. “We don’t have to decide right away. For now, Mary gave me the numbers for some nurses that could start covering the night shift. I think we could both use the break.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll get it all arranged,” Kenny said.

A twinge of suspicion rang through Gray, wary that his brother’s sudden resourcefulness was driven more by a desire to wash his hands of their father and escape back to California. But at the same time, Gray recognized his brother was likely right. Something had to be done.

As Kenny led their father toward the stairs and the bedrooms above, Gray pulled out his cell phone and dialed Sigma command. He reached Kat almost immediately.

“I’m coming in now.”

“You’d better hurry. The situation is growing worse.”

Gray glanced toward the stairs.

It certainly is.

11:33 P.M.

Gray reached Sigma command in fifteen minutes, pushing his Yamaha to its limits on the nearly deserted streets, chased as much by the ghosts behind him as he was drawn forward by the urgent summons to D.C. He could have begged off on coming in, but he had nothing but worries waiting for him at his apartment. Even his bed was presently cold and empty, as Seichan was still in Hong Kong, working with her mother on a fund-raising project for impoverished girls in Southeast Asia.

So for the moment, he simply needed to keep moving.

As soon as the elevator doors opened onto the subterranean levels of Sigma command, Gray strode out into the hallway. The facility occupied long-abandoned World War II–era bunkers and fallout shelters beneath the Smithsonian Castle. The covert location at the edge of the National Mall offered Sigma members ready access both to the halls of power and to the Smithsonian Institution’s many labs and research materials.

Gray headed toward the nerve center of the facility—and the mastermind who ran Sigma’s intelligence and communication net.

Kat must have heard his approach and stepped out into the hallway to meet him. Despite the midnight hour and the long day she’d had, she was dressed in a crisp set of navy dress blues. Her short auburn hair was combed neatly in a boyish coif, but there was nothing boyish about the rest of her. She nodded to him, her eyes hard and focused.