Zero Hour: Where are our Children (A Serial Novel) Episode 5 of 9

by Gary Sapp

as he had. Mathew is safe, thank God. He’s recovered somewhat from his escape from Pandora…

  Angel sat up and put her gun down. The word going around the room a couple of hours ago was That Mathew Clifton had mended from a physical sense, but had been tightlipped ever since he had regained consciousness. Perhaps he was ready to step up and aid authorities in leading the FBI to the other children the way Christopher had done 30 years earlier. Angel’s mind raced with all of the possibilities.

  “It was a miracle, Mrs. Clifton. And it’s one that can help the FBI perform more miracles in turn by paying it forward. There are more lives at stake. Your family may be able to help. Are you calling from home right now? I can send—“

  “No, you won’t be sending anyone over here.” The other woman said in a frightened voice. “I’m taking all of my children and we are leaving the city tonight.”

  “You’re leaving?”

  “You heard me. We are Katrina survivors, Doctor.” She said and Angel noted her Cajun accent for the first time. “I’ve learned that standing your ground when the levies are unstable and a killer storm is coming is the wrong thing to do. By this time tomorrow Atlanta is going to be a war zone. God has given me a second and third chance to get my family—all of my family out. I’m going to do just that.”

  “You are right about a war, Mrs. Clifton. The reappearance of Mathew may have stayed the inevitable off for a while longer. If he has something useful to say publicly, cooler heads may prevail and this confrontation may not happen at all.” Angel tried to reason with her. “Listen to me, America needs to see your child alive and well to assure it that this has any chance of working out for the better. The FBI is still searching for the others. You may buy them valuable time—“

  “I don’t trust the FBI.”

  And no person of color probably should. “Then you should trust me. You called me, Mrs. Clifton? I’ll be very blunt here: Deep down, you know that your family running away from all this is a death sentence for all of your friends and family that you leave behind.”

  Mrs. Clifton said nothing into the other end for a very long time. Angel used the absence of conversation to put on her jacket and shoes…hoping for the very best.

  Her mind raced.

  She had to convince this woman to stay here in the city somehow.

  “What if I came to you?”

  Angel knew that the idea would probably work better anyhow. It would save her time…save all of them time. “Would that be better for you?”

  “No, it won’t, Doctor.” Mrs. Clifton replied just as bluntly. “You are asking me to risk everything I love on too many assumptions. I don’t even know if that Serena woman is going to try and seek retribution against my family. And I’ve refused a House in Chains involvement because I believe their presence makes our situation worse not better.” But before Angel could interrupt her, the other woman added: “I’ll give you to dark, Doctor. No longer than that to reach me.”

  “I’ll be there.” Angel said and disconnected the line.

  She checked the gun’s chamber one last time.

  She would prove to Nicholas Sheridan that his instructions could indeed be followed to the letter by her.

  She would find a non-lethal spot on Agent Reed’s body and shoot him…twice.

  As long as Dr. Angel Hicks- Dupree lived…as long as she breathed, she knew that the possibility of her redemption was still at hand.

  She was alive.

  She opened the door to the where Agent Reed was reading through a magazine.

  She was alive and this man was in the way of an appointment she had to keep.

  Seth

  Atlanta residents were abandoning ship like rats on the sinking Titanic.

  He was riding shotgun in a stolen car next to Roxanne Sanchez when he got his first intimate look out of the window as they drove past parts of the inner city. The eased through one neighborhood slow enough for him to hear one family praying as they held hands in the front yard. The oldest male figure was asking God to help those who conflict to turn away from their hostile ways.

  A half a dozen shot gun houses had the grills out. Dr. Seth Dupree surmised that perhaps they were preparing themselves for a loss of power in the nest night or two.

  Roxanne Sanchez drove on and looked ambivalent at best, her pistol resting on the seat between them. Seth could only remember the uncertainty in the days before Y2K and the weeks after 911 where people openly took preparations, awaiting disaster to befall them.

  Another family was boarding up their windows. Two others were squeezing the last of their belongings into a minivan before hitting the road out of the danger zone.

  He could see I75 up and to his right in the distance lined in both directions with unmoving cars.

  The Zero Hour was nearing but the exodus had already begun.

  This is serious, Seth’s mind told him.

  This is the calamity that your beloved wife helped create. Another voice said as an answer to the first one.

  Seth had given up calling her and in fact he had finally ditched the phone before Roxanne had returned from her conversation she had with Christopher Prince at some bar on the other side of town. As for the phone, he never really cared for the things, but understood the need and use for them, especially in his profession.

  The sweat was building on his brown, despite the cool night and the two of them riding with the front windows half way down. The wildfires were as ambivalent as the Latino woman sitting next to him. They rolled on.

  And yet it wasn’t every day that a man was riding to where his wife was with the thought of killing her rattling around in his brain. Well, perhaps he wasn’t going to do the deed himself, but the curvy assassin dressed in tight black jeans was. Angel had hurt him so many times before. And she had disappointed him countless times more than that, his heart aching with the mere thought of it.

  But it was her part of the events going on here—in real time that had caused him to consider such vile methods of dealing with her.

  He remembered a specific conversation the two of them had about eight months ago. She had told him in confidence about Pandora’s mandates. He remembered because it was one of the few times his wife had really opened up to him about anything really.

  Angel had admitted to at least understanding this Caretaker’s mandates—his words. She understood Serena’s vision…even if she had not embraced the methodology she was willing to carry out to achieve all of her goals.

  And Angel had told him that it was her professional desire to see Louis Keaton conquer all of his personal demons by any means necessary.

  So did you train him to do…to do what he’s done? Angel.

  And could he train his own mind to accept the fact that she had to be stopped by any means necessary as well?

  “Let me out.”

  “Relax, Doctor,” Roxanne said without taking her eyes off of the road. “We’re almost where I think she is—“

  “Roxanne, I want out right now. I can’t do this.”

  “Just sit back,” Roxanne said, her voice growing impatient and testy.

  Seth snatched the pistol off of the seat, pulled it out of the holder and had the barrel targeted between her dark eyes in seconds. “All I want from you is for you to pull this car over and let me out of it.” He said to her. “I swear to you that I will kill you if you don’t have us pulled over to the curve in the next ten seconds.”

  Roxanne toed the gas instead. “She doesn’t deserve your loyalty.”

  “I know. She doesn’t deserve my love either, but I still love her all the same.”

  “Look around you, Seth. All of this ciaos…all of this suffering and fear is directly linked to her. You’re wife help create much of this mess that you see before you right now.”

  “I know that too, Roxanne.” Seth focused on his breathing as Roxanne finally slowed the car and pulled over. “In a far more perfect world than the one you and I live in, she deserves to be judged by a jury of her peers…
and eventually by a higher power.”

  “We’re living in an imperfect world, Doctor.”

  “So very true,” Seth nodded, but held on to her pistol anyway. “I don’t think you are wrong about most of what you feel about Angel. I certainly can’t control what you do after I’m out of this car. Still, I won’t accept the added responsibility of murdering her without knowing all of the facts, Roxanne. I won’t.”

  After the car came to a full stop Roxanne faced him down. “Well, I guess that means that you will have to kill me, Seth. I am willing to take on that responsibility that you mentioned. Someone has to stop her. I’m going to stop her once and for all.”

  Seth methodically unbuckled his seatbelt, got out of his seat and closed the door without taking his eyes off of the car’s driver. He only had a passing familiarity with guns so he takes his time removing the clip from this one using the very techniques that this woman had taught him earlier in the day.

  He sat the hardware back on the seat from which it came empty and tossed the clip into the backseat. He knew that she was probably armed with a smaller gun strapped to her ankle or something like they do in the movies, but he was willing to take the chance that she wouldn’t kill him in cold blood, especially now that any threat he posed to her or her plans had been removed.

  “This stuff is yours. I won’t try and stop you.” Seth let out a chuckle. “And my wife is pretty resourceful. I wouldn’t count her headstones too quickly if I were you.”

  Seth began to back away from the vehicle.

  Roxanne’s face remained stoic. “Have you ever seen what a war looks like, Seth?”

  “I’m a surgeon, Roxanne. I’ve treated many patients who have suffered gunshot wounds and knife induced trauma.”

  Roxanne sadly shook her head. “You’re not answering my question.” She looked at the neighborhoods that served as a perimeter around her car. And then she found his eyes again. “In a few hours this neighborhood and neighborhoods just like it across the city will be a hell on earth. I don’t think you are prepared to see the ugliness in humanity manifest itself it right in your lap. Most people aren’t.”

  “You’re probably right again.” He could visualize it all and it frightened him. “I’m a doctor, Roxanne. I can help. Somewhere I could be of assistance to someone in need. We are going to achieve unity as a community as a country. I still believe that.”

  “Then you are a fool.”

  “Maybe I am at that.”

  Seth turned to leave. If Roxanne chose to shoot him or run him over for that matter, so be it.

  Instead, he heard her say: “She’ll let you down in the end. The ones we love the most always do.”

  Seth twisted back around to face his wife’s potential killer one last time. “She’s my wife, Roxanne.” He announced to her as if she already didn’t know that as a legal fact. “My pack is gone. Everyone who I ever have loved is dead already. Angel’s all that I have left.”

  “What about you, Doctor? What about your life?”

  “What do you mean?”

  The Gray man thought that he saw a flash of sadness flicker in her dark eyes. In all honesty he didn’t know her well enough to tell.

  “I mean that you won’t survive the night out here. You won’t live long past the Zero Hour once the unrest begins.”

  Seth surprised them both by…grinning.

  “I’m tougher than you give me credit for, young lady.”

  “No you’re not. None of us are.”

  And with her final statement Roxanne Sanchez spun her tires as she drove off. Seth watched her speed though the neighborhood until he could see the angry red of her taillights no more.

  Would Roxanne carry out her threats against his wife?

  Should he have stopped her?

  Was Roxanne right about everything when it came to Angel?

  The only answer that he had ready had been to the newest question forming in his thoughts: I am alone out here. What am I to do now?

  You keep on keeping on, Gray man.

  Yet, one block later he watched from behind a shed as three black men drug a white man out of his car at a stop sign and began beating him. They bashed his head with bricks and sticks and kicked at his lower extremities until the man was unable to defend himself further.

  He took a single, giant step in their direction…to do what exactly when he arrived he could not say. He’d thrown away his cell phone and had no way of calling the cops to assist the fallen man.

  The worse part of the altercation was watching another young black family cheering on the beat down as if they were at some type of sporting event.

  It was if the world was a fabric that was ripping at the seams.

  Everything that he though was good and wholesome about this country and more importantly its people was coming apart.

  The little beacon of light that the rest of the world had both admired and begrudged about the greatest nation on the planet was soon to be doused by its people’s citizen’s blood on its streets.

  I don’t think you are prepared to see the ugliness in humanity manifest itself it right in your lap. Roxanne had told him just a short while ago. Most people aren’t.

  He’d been so naïve.

  He’d been so encased in a box: He’d been sheltered from the real world’s problems by hiding behind his work, his troubled marriage and the images and memories of his past.

  He had dared utter the words unity to Roxanne.

  And now he was seeing the much prophesized split in the country’s unity happening before his very eyes, even before the Zero Hour dawned on the city.

  So Dr. Seth Dupree didn’t see the shadows rushing to approach him from behind until it was far too late—

  He felt the crack upside the back of his head though.

  And all of the light he knew in the world went out.

  Thomas

  Where in the hell were these people taking him?

  Four Peacekeepers had walked into Vera Café in south Atlanta, announced their presence and immediate intention to Thomas Pepper where he had been seated alone in a booth nearest the window, smacked him upside his head in front of the overflowing lunch crowd, blindfolded him and tossed him unceremoniously into the back of a car.

  He’d felt the first tinge of anger bypass all of his fear when he could feel his elbows and knees burning from the bruising of being dragged across the floor of the café. It was still far too soon if he’d erred in contacting a friend of a friend of a friend of Grace Edwards to arrange a private meeting with the Circle. He had a get-together with this person serving as an initial contact at a local pub. She assured him that his message would be relayed through the proper channels. Thomas believed it came to pass because his life had gotten progressively worse ever since.

  And now he had been manhandled and kidnapped.

  He had grown hot during the transit. Perhaps his captors could tell because they ripped his jacket off of him. He let off a series of curses at that: That jacket had been expensive. Cursing at them had proven to be the latest in a long line of mistakes on his part. A rough pair of fingers worked a gag over his big mouth with duct tape before they pushed him to his feet.

  Whatever the destination was…they’d appeared at long last to have reached it.

  After three or four dozen steps he heard Grace Edward’s voice telling him to calm down. She warned him against making trouble, especially here. He’d had asked for an audience with the Circle and that request had been granted. She instructed one of the Peacekeepers to remove the duct tape from his lips and the rough pair of fingers had returned and ripped the tape from his mouth. He had lost some skin from his lips and mouth from the deal but was otherwise unharmed.

  Well, he was safe for at least for the moment.

  Everything and everyone grew silent.

  Thomas Pepper thought that they might kill him them, but someone pulled the hood off of his head instead. His eyes struggled to refocus themselves even in this compact room with th
e very low lighting it was offering. He tried to take in his surroundings as quickly as he could: The tallest and brightest skinned man in the room wore an eye patch but was otherwise instantly recognizable to him as Warren Washington, although Thomas never had called himself a sports fan. He knew the slender woman wearing braids as Grace Edwards of course. There were two other men and women who were dressed in Khaki suits, sneakers and donned in skeleton masks. They were members of the Peacekeepers no doubt.

  Yet, seated directly in front of him, was a squat man whose eyes bared the stress that only the man who carried the weight of the world on his shoulders would know. Thomas had only seen Xavier Prince on television over the last couple of years. That much time and that much distance had caused him to forget what a small presence the other man ushered. But your legend grows with every passing minute doesn’t it, Xavier?

  The room seemed to only be lit by candles and the smell of incents only verified that conclusion to Thomas.

  Xavier Prince sighed deeply. “You shouldn’t have come here, Thomas.”

  Thomas caught the other man’s meaning. The larger of the two men didn’t have the luxury of time on his side so he got right to it. “You wouldn’t have seen me any other way, One, and you wouldn’t have admitted me if you weren’t the least curious to what I had to say.”

  “Don’t you think that you’ve said enough already.”

  “What was that?” Thomas stood at his full height. “What are you talking about?” He waved a thick, accusing finger at the Peacekeepers most likely responsible for bringing him here under heavy duress. “And where is all of this animosity being directed at me coming from anyway?”

  “You haven’t begun to know animosity from my people yet, Thomas.”

  Thomas took a step forward and halted his progress as quickly as his bulk allowed him to. Grace grabbed his left arm while two of the Peacekeepers trained their guns at his temple. Warren struck him across the back of his neck for all his troubles, putting him on his knees.

  Thomas wanted to believe that the tears misting in his eyes were originating from the physical pain he was feeling. He spat blood on the floor. He gathered himself as quickly, as gracefully as his large frame allowed him, eventually picking himself up off of the floor. If Xavier ordered his Peacekeepers to kill him, he would be damned if he were doing anything but standing on his feet when he took his last breath.

  “Have you forgotten that Mayor Johnson, a once valued member of your Circle, recruited me to answer the three questions that every Person of Color in this country wanted to know?” Thomas said to one and all who would listen. “I granted an honorable dying woman her wish to the best of my abilities.” He glanced over his left shoulder to where Grace Edwards was standing. “You have the premiere intelligence operative in this hemisphere working for your House, but it was I who provided most of your information. Your Zero Hour would probably lack credibility without my investigation giving you and your cause the ammunition to impose such a threat on Pandora, the FBI and the general public as a whole.”

  “Thomas—“Xavier