4-1-1: Where Are Our Children (A Serial Novel) Episode 1 of 9

by Gary Sapp

arms, but he seemed content to prolong his own dance a while longer.

  Belle gritted her teeth and left her feet as she pushed at an area she’d targeted between his eyes with all of her strength…and failed.

  Morgan had knocked the knife harmlessly to the floor.

  And what…will…you do with your…victory, Quincy?

  Morgan had lost his smile and mouthed something that Chris could only dream to articulate considering this distance…and his worsening condition.

  Morgan glanced in his direction for a single moment in time, then moved with quickness and agility of a born acrobat, flipped behind Belle, landed at her heels, grasp her slender neck with his left hand and snapped bone after bone in it with his right.

  Luna Bell’s body collapsed.

  Quincy Morgan glanced in his direction one final time.

  And then Christopher Prince saw angels.

  And then he saw at least one Angel.

  “Christopher. Christopher.” The Angel he’d know so very long was speaking, her big brown eyes nearly tearing up. “Thank, God, you’re alive! You are alive.”

  And he believed it for certain when the spasms of coughing and choking worked him over again. Don’t complain, Chris, it could have been far worse. In addition to his back being sore as hell, his legs, side and his chest were burning as well.

  A medical team full of faces he recognized moved him further away from the theatre out into the open air. He reasoned that it was the only way he could have made it there. “What are you doing here?” He smiled, thankful for gift of painless lip and mouth. “And what have you screwed up this time?”

  Chris best friend in the entire world laughed in spite of herself. And fresh tears threatened to fall from her eyes. Through all that the woman had been through, he’d never seen her cry before.

  “I haven’t gotten into trouble yet,” She rubbed his cheek. “But the night is still young and so am I.”

  Chris caught her hand and gave it a couple of long squeezes. She must have noted the seriousness etched in his face, the agent in him filtering through, so she gives him the edited version of this genesis of this operation that had extracted him and the hostages from The Fox Theatre. She told him how Romeo Kendall’s plan evolved from the way the FBI initially conceived it. Agent Nicholas Sheridan, in the overseer over field operations, thought that using the specialized gas they’d taken from the Russians probably was a dangerous overreach. For that plan to have worked, everyone and I do mean everyone would have had to unconscious at the same time, or Chris realized that any captor remaining conscious would have panicked and started killing hostages as a preemptive measure for a likely incursion from FBI and ATF agents.

  Out of the corner of his eye Chris saw his partner Tabitha Blue approaching. She halted her progress at a respectful distance, stuck her hands in her pockets and allowed the two friends to complete any private conversations they were having, Blue being Blue, he used some of his reserve strength to beckon her closer.

  “You are a sight for sore eyes, Tabitha.”

  She kneeled next to him. “I’m glad to see you made it, partner.”

  Chris knew this personal exchange was Blue’s equivalent of crying. If Angel had a tough exterior then Blue was made of steel. No matter how many more years they might work together he doubted he’d ever break through to see what feelings Tabitha Blue might have buried on the other side and that was fine by him. Though he suspected that his partner looked at the FBI like her family, and took the desertions into Pandora personally

  “So this was all Justin Ryan’s master plan, huh?” Chris asked. “He’s a son of a bitch alright. I can just imagine he and the good old doctor got along just fine, while I was busy right, Blue?”

  Blue flashed her overbite and nodded. “Perfectly,”

  “Tell me you didn’t try to intimate him, Doc?”

  Angel matched Blue with a smile of her own. “Yeah, well, someone had to keep him straight.”

  “Waste of time, Doc,” Chris took a deep breath and tried to mask the pain he was feeling from two very important women in his life. “Don’t you know you can’t intimidate a man who has raised seven daughters?” He said as his memory continued to unclog he asked, “I had one helluva run in with Stanton, did he—“

  “Well, that explains all the bruises on this face. Anyway, he’s dead.” Blue said without emotion. “Somehow he survived his fight with you long enough to pick himself up and shot right between the eyes by one of the Mobile Team members.”

  But how could have that happened? Stanton had been unconscious just as Chris had been. Federal training or not, Biology is biology, so he couldn’t have recovered fast enough to become a menace again. And if Stanton had gained consciousness even for a few minutes, he would have finished me off.

  What?” Blue wanted to know. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost or something, Chris.”

  “Yeah, it was probably a ghost or something to that effect,” He agreed, then shook his head to get further cobwebs out. “Luna Belle was his second in command. Have the medics recovered—“

  This time it was Angel’s turn to nod. “Yea, they’ve recovered something alright. The medical examiner is unclear yet on how she broke her neck but she had a bullet hole in her forehead as well.”

  He wanted to know if what he’d seen had been accurate. I’m not going to put my voice to any official report about the last moments in there until I’m clearer about what I saw.

  Suddenly exhausted, Chris turned away from both women as if the conversation has zapped away the last of his strength, which in truth, it has.

  And then he saw body bags.

  He saw piles and piles of body bags.

  “How many,” He asked without turning back to face them. He knew that Catherine, the woman of Indian descent who had been his date, who he was responsible for protecting, was one of those lying dead in one of those body bags. And he couldn’t even supply the medics her damned last name.

  Blue Answered. “At least 18 confirmed civilian casualties, but expect that number to grow in the coming days by at least another handful. If you count both Stanton and Belle, then 14 Pandora agents also perished, while I know personally that two of Commander’s Kendall’s men bought it as well, while a third clings by a thread as we speak.”

  Damn.

  The human part of him…the part that defied death, at least for another day, selfishly turned his thoughts away from the dead and dying to…his own little world. Chris had to admit he was looking to getting home to his condo for a warm shower and a meal after a debriefing from Sheridan and a mandatory visit to a company doctor.

  And yet, he felt the need to answer some of the unanswerable questions, especially before he made any official statements to Sheridan. What really happened to Benny Stanton and Luna Belle? Was he dreaming or hallucinating when he saw Quincy Morgan kill Luna Belle, did the man have something to do with shooting either one of them? For now, at least, he was forced to swallow those questions, especially in front of the partner, Tabitha Blue.

  Chris personal cell phone buzzes. What? How and when did I get my phone back? Cell phones and any and all other means of communication were taken by Stanton’s people as soon they had secured the theatre as their very own. His screen was telling him that he had multiple messages awaiting his password to retrieve them.

  I’ll add this to the list of mysteries I have to solve, he thought. And as thrilled as he as that he had recovered his personal cell phone, he hated loose ends even more passionately. Wincing in pain, he lay flat on his back and handed his phone to Angel and gave her the ten word password that put a smile on her thick lips.

  “It’s wonderful that even after all these years, that you still honor your father’s memory.”

  “Yea,” He said looking for a quick change of subject. “Angel, scroll back at far as you can to see who left the last message or two.”

  “Sure.” She did as he had asked her, then handed the phone back to him without reading the
actually message itself.”

  He read three messages; two were from his personal doctor, who he had missed the follow up with today with the message saying that it was vital that he spoke with him at Chris’ earliest convenience.

  And yet it was the latest text, sent nearly 24 hours ago, that parted Special Agent Christopher Princes’ lips into a visible O and rewarded him with a new pain in his gut and around hit heart. This evenings plans of returning to his condo for a shower and meal would need to be on hold, as well at visit to the company doctor… and even Sheridan’s debriefing would have to be rescheduled.

  The message said:

  “On the day that you escape The Fox Theatre Siege, meet me at 2:00 AM in Piedmont Park. Come alone. Your prudency and cooperation are appreciated in this manner. And your stepdaughter’s life may depend on it.”

  FBI Special Agent Christopher Prince searched for a sign that he would receive absolution for all of his past sins.

  After he read the text again, he now wondered if that sign would ever come.

  End of Episode 1

  Thank you for reading

  Dedication:

  This one is for…well me. This tale has been in my pipeline for a long time.

  Nest Egg Publishing Presents Gary Sapp.

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  (Coming in