“See, this is why I hate all these new rules. Working with the phone company instead of the phone company working for us. They still haven’t sent the May records!” Rick complained.
The conversation was miles above Theo’s head, but he willed his every molecule to listen, seeking even the slightest hint of what was coming next.
“This drive has been a waste, but we really don’t need to apprehend them today. They are on the move, but so what? It’s the summer. Kids go out,” Tilly said.
“But he lied. A second time. And in the back of my very comfortable vehicle, of all places. No teen is naturally that bold. Something’s up.”
Theo felt his bowels tighten.
“Maybe, Rick, but he’s not going to budge, and I’m not going to make him. At least not in the middle of the park. What if they really are just going to do some more tags? Are we supposed to just roll up and take them in because we’re pretty sure they’re involved? This case can’t have any weaknesses.”
“If some shit goes down tonight and we didn’t at least try to find out what it was, we’ll have more problems than a weak case!”
Theo focused on his aching wrists. His lack of comprehension was too taxing, each gap in his understanding too bottomless to draw any conclusion but death.
“We have tried. We asked and he lied, and we have no more leads, so now we’re waiting for the phone records to come through. If we move now, all we have is surveillance footage from a system that isn’t even supposed to exist that shows them driving near McPherson. Even a flunky pre-law student from University of Phoenix could get that dropped.”
“Tilly, we’re the fucking feds! Everybody lies to us!” Rick insisted.
“We’re also cybercrime specialists. Data first,” Tilly calmly whispered. “Admissible data,” she added.
Theo relaxed, settling into the supple leather of the back seat, relishing its softness. They needed him, desperately. He was in control. New paths began to open up, the future unfurling, death retrieving its anchor and retreating into the horizon. But the leather wasn’t that soft.
If Rick and Tilly were waiting on phone records, he couldn’t take the fall alone, especially if tonight’s bombing happened while he was in their custody. He had to contact everyone, tell them to call it off, that their lives were at stake. He had planned on sabotaging it anyway. From the second Kai had invited him, he’d known he’d be stopping them. He couldn’t bear more fires, more destruction, more guilt. He couldn’t have wished for a more perfect scenario. He’d get to save his friends and repent at the same damn time. All he needed now was a phone. He had to get out of this damn Navigator.
A shrill ringtone brought him back to reality. “It’s Houndum. Turn that shit off,” Tilly hissed, motioning at the radio console. Who is Houndum? Theo wondered, listening intently as the car rattled off, Tilly’s phone call immediately the only source of sound. “Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir,” Tilly fired off in different tones, her vocabulary suddenly restricted. The call ended.
“For ‘safety reasons,’” Tilly began, her fingers unhappily scrunching into air quotes, “he told the fucking news that we’re onto the perps.” She paused. “And he gave a description of the fucking car.”
“Christ, looks like we’re reeling them in tonight, whether you like it or not,” Rick sneered. “I’ll do the honors,” he announced, cracking his knuckles then stepping out of the car.
Rick opened the door, and Theo greeted him with a punishing kick to the throat, leaping out of the car and bolting into the park. Twilight stretched before him, dwindling rivulets of sunlight disintegrating into darkness. Theo scanned ahead as he dashed toward the woods. A few people were on the walking trail: a trotting older woman, a girl his age who was jogging steadily, and a duo of hulking dudes, probably football players, who were practicing sprints. He made the sensible choice.
“Ma’am, can I use your phone?” he asked as he approached the woman. She screamed and threw her phone off the path. “That works!” Theo said as he retrieved the phone without losing speed. I should have said thank you, he thought.
From over his shoulder he snuck a glimpse of the scene. The woman was replaced by Tilly, who was gaining on him with surprising speed. The sight of her gun rocking on her hip supercharged his resolve.
He thought of Jerry’s infamous return lob as the world blurred into a single purpose. Towering conifers welcomed him into the woods on the edge of the park, where he continued his frantic pace, his legs kicking up layers of leaves and sticks. No sunlight pierced the canopy of the Georgia woods, but Theo navigated the forest nimbly, too scared to misstep. He was running so fast, he was winded after his first few steps, but a second wind would come. It had to.
He found himself on the perimeter of a junky backyard, a small plot strewn with multiple kiddie pools and a duty-knotted garden hose. Sucking down the impossibly hot air, he leaned on a short chain link fence, gasping for relief. Tilly was nowhere in sight, but Theo didn’t trust the situation. The forest was too peaceful, too welcoming. Irritated, he swatted at the air, declaring his suspicion. The mosquitoes and cicadas and heat had always conspired against him. Why should they stop now?
Somewhat rested, he started to take off again, but then survival gave way to purpose, reminding him that he had messages to send. Brandishing the stolen phone, he leaped in excitement when it didn’t have a password; he hadn’t even considered that possibility. Crouching into a squat, he paused, struggling to remember Apollo’s phone number. It seemed important to text everyone.
The memory came suddenly, a rush of numbers that felt obvious as he saw them appear on the brightly illuminated screen. “Of course,” he muttered. His message was straightforward. “Hey, this is Theo! Stop the bombing. Erase the phone records. I’ve been caught. Love you guys! Kai the most.” He hesitated before sending it. It felt too much like a farewell, too formal. He sent it anyway, immediately regretting it and sending a follow-up. “stop the bombing. erase the phone records. on the run. FBI knows everything but can’t prove it or catch me. I’m Kendrick in this bitch.” He laughed, wondering if his call had been picked up. Apollo had once told him about a device called Hailstorm that could surveil phones. “Hailstorm, Hailstorm, what was the range on that?” he wondered aloud, tossing the phone behind him and standing up.
“Same range as a cell tower,” Tilly answered. “You move, I shoot,” she decreed.
Theo froze, the darkness settling over him, unsure of where she was. She didn’t sound even remotely winded, he noted.
Theo stood completely still, straining to hear Tilly’s breath over the thundering symphony of his pulse, the cicadas, and cars on a nearby road.
She spoke again, her voice taunting. “You almost got away, kid, but that old lady wasn’t senile. She gave us her phone number.”
Theo remained quiet as she continued. “The Hailstorm cannot detect the content of phone communications, but I don’t have to guess what you sent or who you sent it to. What are your friends doing tonight?”
“Bombing,” Theo said, his voice faint.
“Bombing what?”
“A mural or two.”
“More graffiti?”
“Like we always do.”
“Of course. Get over here, kid. You’re wasting my time.”
Theo approached her slowly. He’d won. Abruptly, a light flashed to his left, and he felt a thud near his ribs and a ripping in his back. He yowled deeply but then felt another thud, then a rip near his lungs, curtailing his scream. He collapsed onto the forest floor, squirming, amazed at how two instances of pain could rivet his entire body. Wasn’t pain supposed to be local? Footsteps approached, but Theo didn’t move. The ground was cool. He liked it there.
Tilly and Rick crouched over him, their faces obscured, their bodies agitated, hot. Why so serious? Theo considered asking, wondering if he was clever enough to pull it off. They spo
ke first, their words about him but not to him. So rude, Theo thought.
“You shot an unarmed teen. What the fuck is your problem? Are rights just a concept to you?”
“He’s a terrorist. He has no rights. Plus, he assaulted me and ran into the woods. He could have been armed.”
“With what? Handcuffs?”
“It doesn’t matter. Not only are we post-Tsarnaev, but the details will be classified for thirty years anyway. Back up off me, Tilly.”
“He’s not dead,” Tilly declared, her warm fingers gliding over Theo’s neck. “We need to evacuate him.” Theo prayed she didn’t move her hand.
Rick didn’t respond. Theo imagined him crossing his arms, thinking. He seemed like a thinking man. A breeze swept over Theo’s body, unnaturally cool. He didn’t like it.
“We didn’t mean to hurt anyone. We just wanted to have our say in the city,” Theo said.
“Fuck him,” Rick said, addressing Tilly. “Fuck him and all his friends. Wasting my time with graffiti. There’s a war on terror going on, and these kids want to have style wars. Let’s wrap this up and find his friends. ”
“This won’t be ‘wrapped up’ until we get a medevac. You should have thought of that before you shot him!”
Another thud rocked Theo’s torso and exploded out of his back, the ground beneath him suddenly hot, his skin sizzling and numb all at once. He watched Tilly stand up and dissolve into the darkness, her heat gone.
° ° °
Tilly flicked on her flashlight, searching for the stolen phone. A notification cut her search short, the phone springing to consciousness with a loud chirp. It was to her left. She retrieved it. An unlisted number had replied, “Love you too.” Tilly read the three-message exchange multiple times, her eyes avoiding the boy’s still body.
Rick returned with crime scene tape. Tilly shone her flashlight on the body and rolled up her sleeves, wondering if Rick had just been caught in the moment or if he had planned to shoot the kid. She didn’t care enough to ask him. Their partnership worked better in silence.
Rick seemed to be on the verge of grinning as they prepared the crime scene for processing, but Tilly never caught him. She could feel his smugness though, and she accepted, definitively, that he had arranged for Sims to visit their office. It hurt to be both the target and beneficiary of so much conniving, and it was otherworldly how perfectly everything had worked out. Rick was right that they wouldn’t get reprimanded for killing the kid. And he was right that they didn’t really need the kid anymore. He’d ensnared his friends as soon as he’d sent that text message. And Rick was right that this case was whatever they made it to be. They’d known graffiti was a factor, the only factor, ever since they’d connected the J seared into the mountain to Jerry Urich, the dead kid’s dead friend with a rap sheet as long as a Greek poem. But nobody would have accepted the bland truth that kids are foolish and reckless and artful, small humans with big ideas. So, Rick made the case too big to fail, too important to end with such a straightforward explanation. And she’d drank the Kool-Aid and shared the recipe, priming Houndum and the press and presumably the entire city to await a grand ending for their grand story.
Tilly felt nauseated as she climbed into Rick’s Navigator, but her stomach and her thoughts settled as they left the park. Change had come.
Kai gnawed at a gas station cinnamon roll as flurries of charcoal exhaust drifted past the car windshield. Liquefied sugar swished around her mouth, settling between her molars, her tongue seeking cinnamon but only finding more gooey molasses. The rolls were on sale for a reason, she realized as she took her last bite.
The detour down Bankhead was failing gloriously, the night’s journey into the city obstructed by a gassy tractor trailer and miles of traffic. Faint traces of sunlight sputtered in the side mirror, a long kiss goodnight. Kai had thought she was doing everyone a favor by avoiding I-75/85 on the night of a Gucci concert and a Braves game, but her traffic app told her otherwise. Bankhead was backed up.
Upon receiving Theo’s oblique texts, the car had become silent. Kai couldn’t stop locking and unlocking her phone. Aimlessly, she scrolled through her apps, tweaking settings, changing fonts, relocating widgets, and locking the phone. Seconds later, she’d unlock her phone and the cycle would resume.
The car remained idle, and the four-wheeler’s fumes remained insouciant; stasis was in the air.
Zed flicked on the radio, cracking through the silence. A deep, silky voice oozed from the speakers, sweet yet mealy, pure honeycomb. NPR, of course. Zed shrieked when she realized the content of the broadcast.
“I repeat, the license plate number is GXC6879, and the car is a black, four-door 2013 MINI Cooper. The suspects are considered armed and highly dangerous. Do not approach. I repeat—”
Zed tuned the radio to 107.9. Different voice, same news. Zed turned off the radio.
“We’re fucked,” Kai declared. “We can’t erase phone records, and now the whole city knows our getaway car. Christ.” It felt good to speak, she realized.
No one responded.
Kai regretted talking. The tetchy silence descended again. The car was wedged between two towering four-wheelers, but Kai could feel the vultures overhead, could hear the heavy wings suddenly energized by the imminence of a meal. The pillars of exhaust floating into the sky suddenly became lost opportunities for cover.
Kai found herself focusing on the sidewalk, the only place where people seemed to be moving. Each passerby drew her suspicion: a boy with a soiled Checkers bag, an older woman with an oversized Chanel purse, two suited men, both with immaculate dreadlocks. They were all feds, she felt, her eyes trailing them through the window until they evaporated into the twilight.
Kai’s mind eventually settled on the plan. It was really going down. They were going to hack more satellites and then destroy them, the ultimate tag. If they weren’t caught first.
Sol opened the car door and stepped out, leaving the door ajar. Kai watched as she crouched behind the car. What the hell was she doing? Kai wondered, rolling down the window to peek out. Sol returned with the license plate. “Stop worrying so much,” she said dryly. Kai rolled her window back up.
“Finally,” Zed exhaled as the four-wheeler suddenly inched forward. The MINI followed, gliding behind it. Kai felt that they should take back roads, but she held her tongue, wary of further devaluing the clearly worthless currency that were her thoughts. After a few lights, they passed the source of all the backup: two trucks hauling giant grills had collided, face-on. Cops and emergency workers buzzed around the cleared wreckage, which was still smoking. The smell of scorched, contorted metal and sweet charred ribs was acute, assaulting the car from all sides. Images of smoldering witch cauldrons formed in Kai’s mind, disparate materials forced into forbidden congress, the foulest intercourse.
“I know this is weird, but that smell makes me really hungry,” Apollo confessed, speaking for the first time since Kai had gotten into the car. By the time Kai turned around to respond, he was already sunken into his laptop, his jagged widow’s peak twinkling in the harsh light of the screen. Kai always wondered what kind of battery his computer used. The screen seemed excessively bright, almost confrontational. As she swiveled around to face forward, Kai saw a blip of a smile materialize on Zed’s face, but it vanished just as quickly, a glitch.
The city skyline came into view, a canopy of lights and steel. Kai felt more vulnerable as adjacent vehicles disappeared down side streets. Anything seemed possible.
She glanced at her phone. Still no word from Theo. Not even an emoji. She placed the phone on silent and again rolled down the window. The noise and the air were thick and warm, like fresh grits. Kai breathed through her mouth, savoring the taste before exhaling into the night. She wished she had some bud so she could smoke it and see her breath as it floated away. Zed rolled down the remaining windows.
Bank
head terminated at Northside Drive. Zed tapped her fingers on the wheel as they waited for the light. Kai hummed along.
“Left?” Zed asked.
“Left,” Kai confirmed.
“Thanks,” Zed replied.
Kai was surprised when she continued talking.
“Hey, I know where we are! This is the backside of Tech!”
“Yeah, it is,” Kai said. “Right on Tenth.”
The MINI eased onto Tenth Street, cutting through Georgia Tech’s campus. The campus was a little bland, Kai thought. Apollo and Zed could have done better. But ever since they’d gone to orientation, Apollo and Zed had seemed ambivalent about attending, so she didn’t mention it. And Sol wasn’t going anywhere. Kai wasn’t sure what that meant, but her mom had implied it was some sort of tragedy; Kai felt bad when she realized she didn’t disagree.
Kai’s phone received a call as they crossed over Williams Street. The designated image for Theo’s number blinked the screen awake. The picture was a selfie they’d taken on Good Friday. Theo had insisted they listen to Kanye West all day, and she had obliged, but only on the condition that they take a selfie mimicking Kanye at his angriest. It took fifteen minutes of snapping and seven minutes of editing to find the correct combination of disdain and ego, but this picture was the one. Their jaws were rigidly square, their eyes scornful. Kai loved the theatricality of it. They could never be that upset with anything, especially when they were together.
“You can start looking for parking,” Kai might have heard Sol say. Her voice was obstructed by the hot phone pressed against Kai’s left ear.
“Hello? Are you okay?”
“I’m perfectly fine, thank you,” Rick said.
“Who is this? You’re not Theo.”
“I’m not. I’m Rick Herrington, an FBI agent. Theo’s dead, I’m afraid.”
“Fuck you.”
“I have no reason to lie to you, young lady.”
“Fuck you!” Kai shouted as Zed eased into an on-street parking spot on Peachtree Place.
In the Heat of the Light Page 17