by Simon King
“Uhm, we, uhm,” she began, but John didn’t need an explanation, only too aware of what was happening.
“Tim, listen to me. We have people closing in on the van. You need to follow the Highlander. Tim. Tim, are you listening?” Tim’s only reply was to rip the earpiece out and toss it over his shoulder, severing the conversation before it began. Sam continued to listen, now caught in the middle as Tim turned to look at her. “Sam?” John said, turning to her instead.
Sam looked at Tim as he accelerated out of the airport’s side gate. He turned to look back at her a single time, his expression needing no words as their eyes spoke for them instead. He turned back to the road, weaving their way through the traffic as Sam looked back at the cell. As John continued to talk inside her ear, Sam reached up, removed the device and silenced him with a flick of her wrist.
“Thank you,” Tim whispered to her as he passed a Volkswagen on the wrong side. Sam didn’t respond, her heart beating furiously as she continued watching the screen. Disobeying instructions had never been something she practiced and doing it now not only felt foreign to her, but it also felt like she had betrayed the very core of her relationship with John. And that was what struck her the hardest.
Back in the control room, John continued to try and get the attention of his team. But as the minutes passed and no reply came, he knew the situation was hopeless.
“Should I kill the feed to their cell?” Mumma asked. John looked at her, then slowly shook his head.
“If he’s going to head that way, I’d rather not waste an extra opportunity. Swing CC4 around and tell them to pursue the Highlander.” Mumma did as instructed, contacting the clean-up crew still 20 minutes short of its original destination and swinging them back around.
“Bring up the battle map,” John asked, once Mumma had finished relaying the updated instructions.
The battle map had been an initial request from Xavier Ward. As a young boy, he had always pictured himself running a war room during WW2, the big tabletop map with flashing buttons of both friendly and enemy units scattered around the battlefield. When John had first heard of the concept, he thought it childish and, more importantly, ineffective for what they needed.
But, at the time, John had only held half the controlling share of MW, Xavier holding the other. He had as much right to add his own unique touch to the organization as John had and thus, the younger man gave in.
Rather than a giant tabletop battle map, John had surprised Xavier by having one of his many programming designers plan out a number of options that could be displayed on a wall-mounted screen and they didn’t disappoint. The final design chosen by Xavier himself, was a pixelated blue and green map, dotted with old-fashioned light globes that flashed on and off in regular patterns. As the globes traveled across the map, they appeared to pop out small white dotted lines, highlighting their track.
After sitting in on several sessions which Xavier had taken charge of, John found that the battle map grew on him. With the death of his friend, despite the circumstances surrounding it and his demons, John often preferred to watch the battle map, as a nod to someone he considered one of his greatest mentors.
Mumma pressed a few buttons on her keypad and the largest screen before them flashed briefly, before birthing to life the battle map. John stood as it appeared, took a step around the desk and focused on the flashing white globe currently pursuing the red one. After a minute or so, the white dotted line showed Tim and Sam’s origin and he could see that they had adjusted their track for intercepting, rather than pursuing.
Sam sat silently beside Tim, as he continued navigating his way along Route 131. He would steal occasional glances in her direction, as if trying to sense her mood. He had no doubt she was pissed at him, but he knew what the score was. He also knew that the van held the answers he needed and thus had differing priorities.
There was single thought repeatedly running through his mind that made focusing on the here and now almost impossible. Evie. The woman he had considered his true soulmate, his best friend and the mother of his unborn child. The piece of the shit in the van had murdered them both, ripped them from his life and blinked them out of existence.
He gripped the steering wheel tight enough for his fingers to cramp, but his mind didn’t respond, caught up in the whirlpool of emotions playing out like a never-ending movie reel. Her face stared back at him from across that yard, her expression of bitter disappointment. Disappointment that he had been responsible for. She died believing that he doubted her commitment, her faith in him. He watched her die with his unborn child in her womb, while thinking that he doubted her and that was something that compounded the grief he’d been unable to lay to rest since the night of the explosion.
Despite going against instructions, they would all understand his reasons and that was something he truly believed. Even Sam, who’d already followed him into battle on several occasions would understand if she really saw him as family. Because that’s what family did, didn’t it? It trusted each and every member without question.
John continued to monitor the teams converge on various points. A northbound CC unit had managed to intercept the two vehicles on Route 127. The Suzuki had built almost a five minute lead over the Chrysler and this gave the unit enough time to first swing round and follow the lead car for a bit, then to overtake it and confirm the identity of the driver as matching the registration details. A pimply-faced girl gazed briefly at them through her glasses, before looking back down at the cell sitting in her hand.
Once they pulled over and waited for the Chrysler to pass them, the chase resumed and the identification process restarted, only concluding when they finally managed to overtake the old classic and returning the wave the old man threw at them.
“Route 127 all clear. They’re not our suspect,” the man in the passenger seat called in to Mumma, who immediately rerouted the unit to join another crew desperately trying to catch up to the Highlander.
Meanwhile, Tim and Sam continued their pursuit in almost complete silence, Sam occasionally offering a quicker detour along the way. Tim accepted each, quietly trying to control the rage that continued to grow inside him. Sam had all but given up hope of Tim somehow realizing the error of his ways, and now wondered what the ramifications would be for her own insubordination. As if reading her thoughts, Tim offered his own support.
“This is my doing, not yours. Once we get back to the compound, I’ll make sure John understands that.” Sam looked at him, her vacant expression matching her mood.
“I’d rather stand on my own two feet, thanks. I chose to ignore John just as much as you did. We’re a team and if that comes into question, then I’ll deal with it accordingly.”
“Point taken,” Tim replied, turning to her and offering a smile. Sam returned it, then screamed as a mother, completely oblivious to their approach, stepped out in front of them, pushing her pram. Tim’s reaction time was razor sharp, but whilst he managed to avoid the screaming mother, he clipped the side of the pram, sending it barreling along the road. The pram was still cartwheeling as Tim desperately tore the steering wheel to one side, but the slick road failed to follow his command, the rear tires sliding off into the loose gravel. The Silverado’s driver never saw the much smaller Corolla slide into his lane, his eyes fixed on the dash as he tried to tune his radio in.
The two vehicles hit hard, with the corolla sent spinning off into the ditch. The bigger truck had crushed the rear door of the corolla halfway into the cabin and while Tim was relatively unscathed, Sam wasn’t as lucky. The last thing she saw was the world spin around like a crazy kaleidoscope, before something exploded into the side of her head.
Sam awoke in a private room at the Wyoming Central Medical Center two days later. She looked a lot worse than her actual injuries, but that didn’t stop Tim from refusing to leave her side. As she tried to look around the room, she saw him sitting beside her, curled up on a sofa chair. He was asleep and Sam felt her throat burning from a lack of moistur
e.
“Tim,” she croaked quietly at him, but he didn’t stir, his usual soft snores rising and falling in the quiet room. “Tim,” she tried again, trying to reach out to him. A bolt of pain shot up her arm as she tried to move it and she looked to see it wrapped in plaster.
She tried to sit up, the myriad of cables coming off her, shuffling across the floor. It was enough for Tim to slowly open his eyes.
“Tim, can I get water,” she asked hoarsely, her voice barely a whisper. His eyes sprung fully open and he half fell out of his chair.
“Sam,” he said, surprised. “Thank God.”
“Water please?” she repeated and he nodded, grabbed a jug and filled a cup for her. He held it to her mouth as she drank, her blackened face painfully staring back at him like an accusatory finger.
“I’m so sorry,” he offered as she tried to swallow, the first two sips barely wetting her mouth as her throat spasmed. “I really screwed up.”
Tim waited for her to finish drinking before speaking again. The doctors had been unable to ascertain just how bad her injuries to the head had been. They believed there may have been a possibility for some irreversible brain damage, leaving Tim sitting in a virtual nightmare as he prayed whilst sitting beside her.
Sam sat up a little more and looked around the room. There were half a dozen vases, each overflowing with flowers. Several balloons hovered above her, each with the standard “Get Well” messages stenciled across them.
“Where am I?” she asked, finally sitting up enough to stretch her back a little.
“Wyoming Central. Been here for two days now.” She looked shocked as she heard the news.
“Two days?” Tim simply nodded.
“What happened? Did they catch him?” Tim stood, walked to the curtained window and drew them back, allowing sunshine to fill the room. Sam could tell he was stalling. Before he had a chance to answer, a nurse came in and briefly checked Sam’s vitals.
“Doctor will be by shortly to see you,” she said, before leaving again.
“Catch the van? Yes they did,” Tim finally said.
“It wasn’t him, was it?” she said quietly. Tim looked at her over his shoulder, then back out of the window, watching traffic shooting along one of the motorways.
“No, it wasn’t. He was in the Highlander all along.” Tim’s voice was barely a whisper as he filled her in as best he could. After getting another cup of water into her, Sam listened intently, temporarily forgetting the pain that was stabbing into her from multiple points.
None of the crews ever got to within striking distance of the Highlander before it disappeared into the outer limits of Detroit. The traffic quickly swallowed the offender and his precious cargo, hamstringing the operation instantly. Once the Highlander became an impossible target, all the teams could do was follow possible directions for 982 miles.
But everyone knew that the task was next to impossible. After a very quick stop, the Highlander’s driver simply exchanged vehicles and continued on, barely pausing long enough to take a breath.
The screw-up fell squarely on Tim’s shoulders and he knew it. He had allowed his emotional baggage to weigh him down and take control, effectively costing someone their life. Carry Orr was found sitting in the operator’s seat of an excavator at a roadside construction site near Chipley, Florida the very next morning. The crew had arrived for work and given the vehicle’s operator an almighty scare after discovering a corpse sitting at the controls of his vehicle.
Mumma, still busy monitoring the circuits for any signs of the killer, quickly notified the team of the location. But by then the culprit had again vanished into thin air, despite her massive attempts to scan camera footage from around the drop site.
Sam listened intently while Tim went through the events until the doctor came in. After asking him to momentarily step outside, she did her checks, sat on the edge of the bed and briefly explained to Sam what injuries she had acquired. After telling her just how lucky she had been, she gave her the grim news that the bed she was in would be her home for at least another two days.
“But Doctor,” Sam began, but she was cut off by a held-up hand.
“I’ve already cleared it with Mr. Milton. Two days, Miss Rader.” Sam blushed a little as the doctor gave a final smile, then left.
Tim returned a moment later, quietly talking into his cell. Sam tried to pivot herself around and stand, but her hip flared with white-hot pain and she gave up on the idea almost instantly. Tim sat on the edge of the bed and handed her his cell.
“Hey child. How are you feeling?” Mumma asked with a motherly tone. Sam’s face instantly lit up.
“Feeling like I went a few rounds with Mike Tyson.”
“I can imagine. You had us all worried here. Please don’t rush to try and get out of there. Take your time. I promise we have things under control.” Sam felt a connection to the woman that most would compare to that between mother and daughter. Sam only had the vaguest of memories when it came to her own mother and Mumma had somehow managed to fill the void in a very short amount of time.
“Thank you, Mumma. For everything you do.”
“Oh shucks. Now don’t go embarrassing me. I just try my best to keep you guys safe. Now you heal yourself, you hear me?”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Sam finished with a bemused grin. She handed the phone back to Tim, before sliding back down into the bed’s blankets. Once Tim said his own goodbyes, he sat back down on the sofa chair and looked at Sam.
“I’m so sorry. I did this to you.”
“Just tell me the mother and her baby are OK,” Sam said, suddenly remembering the accident.
“Both are fine. Turns out that the pram was one of those kinds made up of a car capsule, so the baby was strapped in. They said that if it had been a regular pram, things may have been very different.”
“What did John say?” Sam asked, reaching for her cup of water.
“Well, he wasn’t happy. Gave me a grand old reprimand. Thought I was gonna get grounded or something. But he understood. Although we did agree for me to get some more counseling. Turns out there’s some deep issues I have to resolve regarding some ‘un-dealt with’ grief.” He tried to smile as he mentioned the grief, but didn’t pull it off.
“Tim, I need to know that,” Sam began, reaching for his hand. Tim reached up and Sam cupped his hand in her own. “I need to know that we work together, regardless of the situation. We have to trust each other. If we can’t do that, then we shouldn’t be doing this together.” She tried to sound as diplomatic as possible.
Tim’s cheeks flushed a little as he listened, only too aware of his error. He had almost cost his partner her life, had very nearly killed a mother and her infant child, all because of a brain snap.
“You’re right and I’m so sorry. I promise it will never happen again.” He looked her in the eye as he spoke, and Sam could see how much it hurt him. He knew he screwed up and he owned it the best way he could.
“I’m your back-up and you are mine. I’m sure the time will come where I might need you to take over because of an extremely vulnerable moment. It’s times like that where our bond needs to kick in and save us.”
“I get it,” he replied, squeezing her hand some.
“So, what’s the plan?” Sam said, changing the subject.
“Mumma’s monitoring everything with both John and Jim Lawson. They had a couple of false alarms, but there might be a hit in North Dakota.”
“North Dakota?” Sam asked, ignoring the pain and sitting up again. She groaned as the pain ripped into her. “Oh shit, this is gonna get old real quick,” she whispered, Tim feeling the guilt as he watched.
“Grave robber. You know, I never realized just how common grave robbing really is. Do you know how many people go and dig up recently buried bodies and steal jewelry and stuff loved ones left in coffins? I mean we’re talking several per day around the country.”
“Seriously?” Sam asked.
“There was one fo
und in North Dakota a couple of hours ago. Mumma heard mention of,” he paused to refocus, his face suddenly washed over with grief. “Sam, if they find Nicholas in that grave.” She understood, Tim blaming himself for letting them get away.
“You can’t think like that. Whatever happened, it’s done. We need to move on.” He slowly nodded.
“Of course. Anyway, Mumma is monitoring that situation and will let us know if anything pops up.” He reached under his chair and pulled out a plastic bag, waving it in front of Sam’s face.
“In the meantime,” he chuckled, pulling a fresh deck of cards from the bag. “It’s time you learnt the art of playing Euchre.”
11
Mumma continued working through the leads in her control room as Sam learnt to play a card game Tim held close to his heart. There were four separate reports currently under investigation regarding graves and she had one monitor open per incident. But despite each looking the same as the others, Mumma relied on her instincts that she had developed over the years.
North Dakota had been the one she was following the closest, because it had fallen into line with another discovery she had made a couple of days prior. John had been sitting beside her when the thought crossed her mind and after showing her revelation to him, he had agreed whole-heartedly.
As she monitored the police radio traffic continuing in Elgin, the words she had been dreading the most came through.
“Chief,” a young-sounding voice said into their radio.
“Yah, Brock,” came the reply a few moments later, that voice carrying the authoritative tone she was expecting.
“Chief, we got a problem here.”
“A problem? Geez, kid, it’s a grave. What is it?” the Chief responded.
“It’s not him.”
“Him who? What, the caretaker?” Mumma felt like interjecting and telling the Chief to pull his head in, but she refrained, closing her eyes as she pictured the last time she had seen Nicholas Potts. It had been a month before, during one of the many Sunday afternoon barbecues John hosted in the community park.