Where the Ghosts Lie

Chapter Eight

Toby pulled off to the side of the road after half an hour of racing across town. He walked around to the back of the ambulance and opened the doors. "You guys okay?"

Nolan was sitting on top of a built-in cot near the floor as Grace shuffled around through the medical equipment for bandages.

"Fine." Nolan said.

"If you say that one more time..." Grace muttered.

"Did you get shot?' Toby asked, climbing in.

"The bullet went through the skin, so we don't need to dig it out." Grace explained, grabbing a scalpel from a metal tray. "This isn't going to feel nice." She warned, gently leaning Nolan forward.

Toby watched as she cut away part of his shirt and pressed a stack of gauze pads against his wound with firm pressure. Nolan's features contorted with pain as Grace taped it in place.

"There."

Nolan sat up with a grimace. "Thanks."

They stood around awkwardly for an uncomfortable amount of time. Grace sat on the rubber-padded couch, taking measured breaths.

Nolan didn't know what could be said; Sorry you had to watch your team being tortured and killed, not to mention the total annihilation of the paramedics back there. Do you want to go get some coffee?

"How did they know to come?" Grace asked, breaking the tension.

Nolan thought for a moment. "What'd you call the ambulance with, Toby?"

"My cell phone." He shrugged.

"That explains it." Nolan nodded. "Hackers like that could've easily picked up local radio waves."

Grace twirled the scalpel around in her fingers. "Yeah, but where did they come from? There were only three back in the ice house and there shouldn't have been any more until morning."

He shook his head. "I don't know."

Another awkward silence filled the space between them.

"I'm Toby, by the way." Toby said.

Grace looked up at him with the tiniest of grins. "Hello."

Nolan couldn't take it anymore. "Okay, we need to get this together. We need to find somewhere safe to stay and then get whatever information Grace has on that drive to Howard as soon as possible."

"Does anyone have a cellphone or an earpiece that's working?" Toby asked. "My phone died."

Nolan felt around for his earpiece and found that it had been crushed at some point. "No way to contact anyone." He sighed. "Fantastic."

"We also need a computer to send those files." Grace said, wrapping a strand of black hair around her finger.

"Maybe if you hadn't thrown them out the window..." Nolan muttered, his mind foggy with pain.

She cut her eyes at him sharply. "Those laptops were bugged, thank you very much. But if you really wanted a terrorist's computer, you should've asked them nicely before you killed them."

"Would you rather we hadn't?"

"No, I appreciated it very much, actually. But next time you accuse me of doing something stupid, you try thinking rationally after a week of psychological torture."

"All I was saying is that we could've cleaned up those laptops and used them, that's all."

"And who do you think, out of the three of us, could hack into a hacker's computer and erase all the bugged material? You? Me? Toby? We'd have a better chance at arm wrestling John Cena."