by Mike McCrary
“Dr. Peyton.” Lady Brubaker extends a hand. “We haven’t been introduced formally, but I’m familiar with your work. Big fan.”
Peyton shakes her hand but has no words to offer.
Murphy watches her closely.
The tingle of disaster reaches his fingertips. He studies Peyton’s reaction as he did on the rooftop with Thompson. A sliver of mistrust is still there for him. Even after all that happened moments ago. His desire to have Kate return, to have the girls back in his life, that want and desire have all but erased the risk Peyton took for him. The risk she took decommissioning the explosive in his skull was ballsy—not lost on Murphy or Noah—but that’s his family we’re talking about.
He knows what Peyton has to gain.
He’s a walking gold mine to her.
Thompson was right; the possibilities of her science are endless. The profit potential can’t be measured. Murphy zeros in on Dr. Peyton’s body language. Her eyes. Taking in what she’s saying through her physical traits.
She stands stiff as a board staring into Brubaker’s dead eyes.
Those green, beautiful, dark and empty eyes.
Murphy can’t begin to understand what Peyton’s thinking. How strange it must be to be surrounded by her creations. Some she didn’t know existed until recently. She must be a ball of fear spinning in a puddle of wonder.
Sickened by what her life’s work has become, yet excited by it.
Concerned before, sure, but to have it all face-to-face with her? That’s a whole new brand of crazy. The woman Peyton’s watched over and over in the horrifying escape video is here. Brubaker is alive, in the flesh and standing in front of her.
“Please.” Peyton’s voice breaks as she speaks. “Whatever you’re doing—”
“Don’t do that,” Brubaker says.
“What am I—”
“I have only one question for you. And I will ask it in a moment.” Brubaker turns away from her. Zeroes in on Murphy. “Where’s the other one?”
“Thompson?” Murphy says. “Oh, I killed him.”
Brubaker jams her tongue in her cheek, nods, then shrugs.
“How are you doing?” Brubaker asks him. “Good flight? Get some rest?”
There’s a turn in Brubaker’s expression.
A new light shines in her eyes. Her mannerisms changed in a snap. Murphy can’t help but take a step back. Such a sudden shift. It hits him like a freight train. He can see Kate inside of her. There’s not a shred of doubt in his mind.
It can’t be, he thinks.
She has control over her sides?
She just turned into Kate in the blink of an eye.
The Noah inside of him wants to hold her tight. Wants to tell her they will work this out. That they can make everything the same, exactly like it was before.
The Murphy inside of him screams.
Don’t let her do this to us.
She’s fucking with our head, man.
Murphy is now the voice of reason.
“What did you see,” Brubaker asks, “while you were sleeping on the plane? What was playing during the in-flight movie? The one in your head.”
“It was a real tearjerker.”
She smiles, reaches out toward his stomach. Toward his wound. He steps back, pushing her hand away on instinct.
“Hey.” She holds up her hands showing she means him no harm. “Just wanted to see how it was going down there. Sorry I had to do that to you.”
Peyton watches them. She seems fascinated and terrified all at the same time.
Murphy’s mind flashes to Brubaker jamming the blade into his stomach, then to the bone-rattling slam of the wreck. The searing pain of steel piercing his skin. Sharp steel stabbing him in the same place on his body. Blood coating his fingers, in both memories.
“Now.” Brubaker checks the time, then turns to Peyton. “That question I had for you.”
Peyton’s mouth goes dry.
Murphy holds his breath.
“Where are our children?” Brubaker asks. “Where are our girls?”
Chapter 35
She asked the question.
The only one that matters.
Brubaker asked the question about their children—where are our girls—as if she were asking for directions to a coffee place. As if she wasn’t surrounded by the powder keg she constructed.
“What?” Dr. Peyton’s heart skips a row of beats. “Who?”
“Our daughters,” Brubaker says. “You know, the ones who were left without parents. Because of you.”
Murphy continues studying Peyton. Her reaction to that billion-dollar question.
Did she know?
“Children? I didn’t…” Peyton loses all color in her face. “You have kids? Little girls?”
She looks to Murphy. He nods a cold, solemn confirmation.
Answer truthfully, Dr. Peyton.
Truthfully and very carefully.
“Oh my God. Please listen to me,” Peyton says. “I had no idea. I didn’t know anything about that, nothing about the life you had. I didn’t even know about Kate until less than an hour ago.”
Brubaker is on her in a snap.
Rushing in like an animal on raw meat, inches from Peyton’s face. Brubaker pulls a gun, shoving it into Peyton’s stomach. Murphy fights the urge to pull her back. But the hurt is fresh and unresolved. What they did to him, to Kate, to their children. An exposed nerve feeling it all.
Divided by how she saved his life only minutes ago.
“Look around, Dr. Peyton.” Brubaker’s face is still. Raging underneath the surface. “The park is a blink away from a bonfire. I can watch it burn. Or I can snuff it out.” Bounces her eyebrows. “Your call.”
“I don’t know anything.”
Brubaker looks to the two men standing beside her. Eyes communicating between one another. The men nod in recognition then scan the area, pulling their phones. Fingers texting. Something is happening. Murphy watches them as his shoulders creep up toward his ears.
“Nothing?” Brubaker asks her.
Peyton’s mouth opens, but nothing comes out. Her eyes helpless, begging the universe for answers she does not have.
“Okay.” Brubaker cocks her head. “No need to drag this out, waste everyone’s time. I’ll just put a bullet or six into your body, then keep looking. Somebody somewhere knows.”
“Hey.” Murphy steps in closer, but not too close. “You don’t have to kill her. We need her.”
“Not sure we do,” Brubaker says.
“Look.” Murphy motions around the park. “Whatever you’re about to do, let’s talk about it first. Before something happens that can’t be undone.”
“Who am I talking to?” Brubaker turns to him, searching his eyes. “Who’s in there right now? I need the one with balls.”
“Nobody else needs to die.”
“Odd coming from the dude who just killed Thompson.”
“Ya got me there.” Murphy nods.
“We really going to argue about this?”
“All these people, this park, they have nothing to do with any of this. We can find the girls. You don’t need to jump-start a riot to find them.”
“Oh, sweetheart, a riot is only the opening act. I’m inches away from bringing down the whole fucking thing.”
Brubaker moves her gun from Peyton’s stomach, now placing it between Peyton’s eyes.
“Wait.” Murphy places his hand on his gun. “We do need her.”
“You sweet on her?” Brubaker asks. “You like the bad boys, Dr. Peyton?”
Peyton’s entire body shakes.
Brubaker isn’t the kind who plays games. This can and will go horribly wrong if he doesn’t do something.
“Hey,” Murphy says, looking into her eyes. “Talk to me, Kate. You got some time for me?”
She smiles. Her eyes gloss.
“Help me do this,” Brubaker says.
“I will, just not like this. I want to talk to Kate.”
; “This is the only thing they understand.”
“I know, but—”
“Blood, aggression. It’s the only language they speak.”
“I want to talk to my wife.”
She bites her lip. Murphy sees an opening. A shine in her eyes.
“Think, Kate. Fight to remember. Think of our life. When we met. When the girls were born. Kate would never do anything even vaguely like this.”
Brubaker moves her gun, placing it between his eyes.
“If you’re gonna do it, do it,” he says.
Brubaker pushes the gun harder between his eyes. Her finger tightens on the trigger. Her eyes almost jumping from her head as veins pop along her neck. Murphy places his hands on the sides of the gun, holding it to his head. His eyes locked with hers.
“Kate,” he whispers. “If this is what you want, then go right ahead.”
She shakes her head hard.
She yanks the gun back, takes a beat, takes in a deep breath. A reset behind her eyes.
“Kate,” Murphy says, relieved. “We have to—”
“Set it off.” Brubaker circles her gun in the air.
The two men beside her nod.
“No.” Murphy reaches out for her. Fingers grasping empty air.
Brubaker kicks Murphy in the stomach with all the hate she has.
Chapter 36
Her foot hits like a sledgehammer.
Could have gone straight through him, if she wanted it to.
She aimed her strike right where she stabbed him.
Murphy falls to the ground. He felt a rip in his healing wound. The meds hold back some of the stampeding pain, but even through chemical numbness the agony roars. Peyton leans down, doing what she can.
The pain from Brubaker’s kick triggers his mind again.
Thoughts burn.
Murphy pounds his fist to the ground over and over. Grits his teeth, working to level out his mind, balancing his mindset for the pain. Trying to find a baseline of how this will feel and then accepting it.
Craning his neck, he looks up, searching the park through the white spots clouding his vision. Shaking his head hard knocking loose the spike of adrenaline, he looks again.
Brubaker is gone.
She can’t be.
“She’s not goddamn magic. Where…” he whispers. “Wait.”
In the distance up ahead, he can see people being pushed aside as she cuts through the crowd. The two men follow her while on their phones.
Two phones, two calls. One man turns, looking back and to the right. There’s a cop on his phone standing in the middle of the bridge looking back toward him. He’s only about ten feet from Murphy and Peyton but has a raised vantage point above them.
Murphy focuses on the cop on the bridge.
Something is off. Something about him doesn’t ring true.
Murphy makes a quick scan of the area.
The officers who broke up the earlier fight stand off to the side of Murphy. They have their eyes trained on the crowd. Intense focus on everyone and everything in front of them. Standing ready. Heads constantly moving, monitoring, assessing the growing unrest in the park.
The cop on the bridge is looking right at Murphy and Peyton.
His focus is singular.
“He’s not a cop.” Murphy pushes himself up off the ground.
“What?” Peyton helps him to his feet. “Who?”
The cop on the bridge breaks into a chilling smile. Murphy feels an odd connection to him. Something familiar. The first time he’s truly looked into the face of one of them. The cop on the bridge looks dead at them. Murphy waves.
The cop drags a finger across his throat.
“No, no, no…” Murphy’s words trail off as he reaches for his gun.
The cop pulls his gun, shooting a man unfortunate enough to be closest to him.
The crowd screams.
Another gunshot rings out.
It removes the head of the cop on the bridge. Sends him tumbling down, landing on the sidewalk a few feet from Murphy and Peyton. People scream. Murphy whips around, pulling his Glock. Another man—glasses, ratty hair, in a dirty T-shirt—holds a gun aimed toward the bridge where the cop was standing.
Ratty hair made a perfect headshot from a considerable distance.
Not a shot an amateur could make with a handgun. Not one an amateur could successfully pull off during the heat of the moment. That kill was planned. No question. Only a handful of people on the planet could make that shot.
Murphy could make that shot.
The insanity of the insane sacrificing one another to… set it off.
“This is her. This is her plan,” Murphy says, somewhat impressed. “This is so Brubaker.”
A part of him smiles.
A part of him does not.
There’s a strange moment of calm. The park goes eerily quiet. Not for long, only lasting a blink. But it was there. A tiny pulse of peace under the stars.
Perhaps the last moment of calm they will ever know.
The volume jumps. Intensity grips tighter. The energy of violence has arrived. Police sirens wail. Lights flash like electric red and blue gumdrops popping in the night. Officers draw their weapons, screaming for peace. Ordering calm. The crowd scatters in all directions with the roar of madness rolling across the park.
More gunshots ring out.
Bullets zip from all directions. Hard to tell from where or from whom. Another officer goes down, as does another civilian. A woman’s leg blows out from under her. A piñata of flesh and bone. A large man takes a shot to the shoulder, spinning like a top to the ground. A cop chokeholds a man in a suit. No way to understand who’s doing what in the swarm of men and women. A tangle of bodies moving, jumping, charging, falling in every direction.
Murphy stares at it all. Stunned. Taken back to war.
Peyton grabs him by the hand, pulling him through the crowd best she can. They push and shove, fighting for every inch. Murphy snaps out of his trance.
Back in the game.
He’s lost sight of Brubaker. She could be anywhere in this ocean of meat and bone. He’s seen war zones worse than this. Seen better ones too. Been here before, just never like this.
A fire breaks out in a playground.
A police dog takes down a man with a baseball bat. The beast’s teeth lock into his arm, thrashing back and forth. A woman pulls at the dog, only to be taken to the ground by a cop.
A bottle gets smashed over the head of another cop.
SWAT teams pour out from vans.
A madman has taken over a horse-drawn buggy. Yelling while standing up firing a gun into the air. People dive clear. Some don’t make it, getting plowed down by the wheels.
Murphy knows he has to find Brubaker.
He has to find out where she is going.
Has to know if Kate is truly gone. Is she gone forever? He fights the urge to hate himself, but he can’t. Furious at himself for thinking there was a chance. That there was even a possibility of salvaging the good. Foolish to try. To think he could save Kate from inside that monster.
Yet part of him will not abandon all hope.
Noah will never completely give up—ever.
Think. She took Pruitt for a reason.
Murphy ducks as a pipe swings past his face. He lands a gut punch before shoving the man clear. Creating a hole, a partial path, for him and Peyton to move through. Murphy's mind sets.
Anyone in their way will be removed.
How bad it hurts, that is their choice.
“She talked about taking down the country,” Murphy yells to Peyton.
“Riots in Colorado, and in North Carolina.” She scrolls her phone. “There’s already a video of the cop shooting that man on the bridge. Social media is all over it.”
Murphy considers as he grabs a construction guy by the shirt, shoving him aside.
“This is bad, but it will die down on its own.” Murphy thinks as he pushes through. “The cops and military wi
ll take control, eventually.”
This is shortsighted Brubaker thinking.
Guns and blood for now, but not a big-picture plan.
Kate?
Kate would have a bigger plan.
Is she feeding off what Kate brings to the party? Is Brubaker mining her for ideas, points of view?
A bullet zips past his ear. He pulls Peyton down to the ground. Multiple shots ring out. Cries of pain. They get back up on their feet. Time is at a premium. Fires now litter the park giving a flickering glow to the night. This will all spread out into the city in no time.
“There’s so much,” Peyton says as she scrolls her phone. Unfazed by the surrounding insanity. “Videos. Pics. Global market futures are tanking.”
One big shove, she said.
She went after Pruitt. She went after the hedge fund asshole.
Not random. Curated targets.
“Did they crack that laptop I took?” Murphy asks. “Were they able to get into the email?”
“No. They’re still working on it.”
“Shit.” Murphy lands a punch, dropping a man who charged them.
Peyton fires her palms into the chest of a screaming man with all she has. Screaming back at him until her face reaches a new shade of red.
“Here.” Murphy shoves his phone in her hand. “Pictures I took of some of the emails from the hedge fund house.”
More rioters charge their way.
Murphy wants to use his gun to end this quick but thinks better of it. Gunfire will draw the cops his way, or even more bullets from the random insanity of the crowd. He does not have time for that shit. He spins one woman into a hold, then plants his foot in the throat of a guy who’s closing in on him. Fists fly. Bones crunch. Blood sprays.
They keep coming.
“One email about Pruitt going to Baghdad,” she says, searching his pics.
“Keep looking.” Murphy lands his elbow to some asshole’s face. “There’s one, several people on it.”
“Looking.”
Bullets carve up the night. Beside their feet, pops of dirt explode.
“Something about a meeting,” she continues, unfazed by the blasts. “Wait… Holy shit!”
“What?” Murphy shoves a limp body aside.
“There’s wrath of God names on this email. Including Pruitt, it’s the heads of the three largest tech firms in the world.”