by David Archer
It took him almost ten minutes to cover the distance, and then he was standing in the alley just underneath Randy’s fourth-floor apartment window. “I’m at the lower goalpost,” he said, letting Neil know that he had reached the building. “Checking out entry routes.”
“Ten four,” Neil said. “Let’s go silent until your exit.”
“Acknowledged,” Noah said.
The fire escapes were a modern style that couldn’t be reached from ground level, but a quick leap up onto a dumpster allowed Noah to throw himself upward high enough to catch a window on the second floor. He scrambled for a moment, then got onto the ledge of the window and managed to crab sideways until he got to the fire escape. From that level, there were stairs that led all the way up the side of the building.
Randy’s apartment didn’t have a window that opened directly onto the fire escape. There was a door that opened onto it from the main hallway, but it could be opened only from the inside with an alarm bar, which meant that Noah had to climb into the window of a neighboring apartment. He carefully checked the window for signs of an alarm system and didn’t find any, so it was the work of only a few seconds to slide a knife blade between the upper and lower panes and flip the security latch. The window, which was fairly new, slid up silently, and Noah peeked inside to find himself entering the bedroom of a small child.
He moved as silently as he could, stepping over the sill and carefully, slowly, letting his right foot make contact with the floor. There was something under his heel, and he adjusted his foot to come down off it as he looked down, then realized that it was a small toy car. He brought the other foot in and positioned it carefully as well, then turned and closed the window behind him. He latched it again, then moved slowly and silently toward the door.
The door was not completely closed, a precaution many parents take so that they can hear a child cry in the night. Noah reached for the knob and began to pull it slowly open, ready to stop instantly if the hinges were to make any noise. His luck held, though, and he was able to step into the hallway and pull the door back to its not quite closed position. He passed what must be the master bedroom, its door also slightly ajar, and then moved into the living room.
The apartment’s front door was secured with a dead bolt, but there was a knob on the inside that allowed it to be turned. Noah opened it and pulled the door slowly toward himself, relieved once again when it made no noise, then stepped into the main hallway and shut it behind himself. Randy’s apartment door would be the next one on the left down the hallway, and he moved quickly toward it.
A careful examination of the door showed that it was also locked with a dead bolt, but part of Noah’s training had involved handling locks. He withdrew a set of picks from his pocket and had the dead bolt and doorknob both unlocked in less than a minute. He turned the knob carefully and stepped quickly inside, shutting the door behind him and securing both dead bolt and doorknob once again.
Like most agents, Randy would likely be a light sleeper. Noah needed to be as silent as possible if he wanted to reach the man without waking him. The apartment was a mirror image of the one he had entered through, a two-bedroom flat with a living room, kitchen, and bathroom. It was no trouble for Noah to figure out which bedroom would most likely be the master, and he was relieved to find the door standing half-open.
Randy, of course, being a childless bachelor, wasn’t so concerned about modesty. A quick glance through the door showed Noah that the man was sprawled across the bed on his back, sleeping the way a man does when he feels safe in his own home.
Noah moved as if he were in slow motion, taking one step every two to three seconds as he made his way toward Randy. The slightest sound, he knew, the slightest vibration, could be enough to wake the other agent and result in a fight that could force him to kill. His goal at that moment was to keep Randy alive, and he didn’t want to risk failing over a simple misstep.
Finally, after several agonizing seconds, he stood beside the bed where Randy Mitchell lay. He withdrew the hypodermic and filled it from the little glass vial, thumped out the tiny bubble of air, and dropped the bottle back into his pocket. In one smooth motion, he leaned forward, pressing a hand to Randy’s mouth as he stabbed the needle into the flesh of his pectoral muscle and drove the plunger home.
Randy’s eyes flew open and his hands came up, but the shock of being awakened by an attack had disoriented him. Noah yanked out the needle and dropped it on the floor, then gathered Randy’s hands into his own free right and clutched them to his chest as the potent drug took effect. The struggle lasted only a dozen seconds before Randy started to lose muscle control, and after twenty seconds Noah was able to let go. Randy’s arms dropped to the bed beside him, barely able to move, and his eyes seemed to glaze over just a few seconds later.
Noah felt for a pulse and found none. He knew, of course, that this was the direct effect of the TTX in the mixture, but something about it still struck him with a sense of awe. There was no sign of breath or heartbeat in Randy Mitchell, and yet he was—hopefully—still alive.
He leaned over Randy and looked into his open eyes. “The mole took the bait and contacted me,” he said softly, “and his very first order to me was to kill you. I didn’t want to do that, so the drug I’ve just used on you will make you appear to be dead for the next thirty-six hours or so. During that time, Allison will make sure you’re set up with a completely new identity, because the Dragon Lady isn’t done with you yet. I know this is going to be frightening, but hold on. You’ll get through it.”
Noah watched his eyes but saw absolutely no sign that Randy had either heard or understood anything he had said. The possibility that the dosage had been lethal after all crossed his mind, but he had been authorized to kill Randy if there was no other way. He decided he would have to simply wait and see whether it had worked, so he picked up the hypodermic and slipped the safety cover back over the needle before dropping it back into his pocket.
The struggle had been so brief that nothing in the bedroom had actually been disturbed. Noah glanced around for a moment and saw Randy’s iPhone on the nightstand at the opposite side of the bed, plugged in and charging. He stepped quickly around and picked it up, yanking the plug out of the wall and shoving both charger and phone into a pocket before leaving the master bedroom and moving into the second.
He opened the window and looked down, but it was a sheer drop of four stories. Situated on the back corner of the building, there was only an alleyway at the ground level, and nothing close that Noah could use in making his way down. He closed that window and turned to the one on the perpendicular wall and looked out.
Another sheer drop, but four feet to the right was a drainpipe from the gutters that ran around the top of the building. The pipe was made of cast aluminum and was about eight inches in diameter, a series of connecting sections about four feet long. Each section was flared at the top so that the section above it fit neatly into the flare, and the whole thing was connected to the building with sturdy steel brackets on each section.
Noah climbed out the window and stood on the edge of its ledge, holding on to the upper frame of the window with his fingertips as he closed it. Once that was done, he carefully stood on the ledge and focused on the drainpipe, then swung his body hard into a flying leap. He caught the lip of an upper flange of the pipe with his hands and then managed to get his feet on the one just below.
The pipe was too close to the building to allow him to wrap his arms or hands around it, so his descent consisted of simply sliding down each section until he met the flange of the next. There were three sections to each story of the building, so the trip to the ground took him all of a minute.
“I’m out,” he said softly. “On the ground outside the building, preparing to head back.”
“Roger that,” Neil said. “Operation Diversion in twenty seconds.”
Noah looked around carefully and made sure that no one had seen him, then began moving just as stealthily th
rough the alley as he had before, making his way back to his pickup. He hung back and watched the truck for a full minute from the cover of a bush, just to be sure no one was watching it closely, and that’s when he heard the sirens.
While he stayed out of sight, Noah saw four squad cars roar past on the way to investigate at least three different bank alarms going off. He waited an extra minute to see if any others might be passing by, then walked calmly over and climbed in behind the wheel.
“I’m rolling,” he said.
“You’re good to go,” Neil replied. “Every cop in the county is headed for the banking district. There’s nobody between you and home base, so we’ll see you in just a bit.”
“Roger, out,” Noah said as he put the truck in gear and drove sedately out of the parking lot.
The ride across town and out the country roads to his place took nearly forty-five minutes, and both Neil and Sarah were waiting at the barn as he pulled the truck inside. He and Neil swung the doors closed, and the three of them walked back into the house.
“He definitely looks dead,” Noah said. “I couldn’t detect any sign of life at all.”
“That’s the idea,” Neil said. “If the stuff works as advertised, he’s probably having about one barely detectable heartbeat every twenty seconds or so, and respirations would be so minute that normal medical equipment wouldn’t even pick them up. I guess the chemicals suppress the metabolism just enough that the oxygen he does get is enough to prevent any significant physical damage.”
Sarah was standing beside Noah in their kitchen, her arms wrapped around his waist and her cheek against his chest. “I gotta say,” she said softly, “I know we don’t want him to really be dead, but there’s a part of me that’s feeling some relief right now. Whether he lives through this or not, either way seems like a fitting punishment for what he’s done.”
“Yeah,” Neil said, nodding. “I would imagine that he’s going to spend the next day and a half just wondering if he’s even alive. According to all the literature, brain activity is pretty suppressed by TTX. There won’t be any detectable signs of brain activity, but he’s supposedly going to be at least marginally aware of everything that happens to him. I think that’s gotta make the victim wonder if it’s possible to be aware of your surroundings after you die, right?”
“That’s what I mean,” Sarah said. “Either way, fitting punishment.”
“Well, all we can do now is wait,” Noah said. He withdrew Randy’s iPhone from his pocket and handed it to Neil. “You want to make sure nobody can find this?”
Neil grinned and used a tool from his pocket to remove the back and take out the battery, then popped out a second part. “Most people don’t realize that this little gizmo has a capacitor in it that can keep the GPS working for up to four hours after the battery is removed. Right now, nobody in the world could find this phone. We can pass it off to Mr. Jefferson when the time comes. I’ll keep it hidden until then.” He rubbed his eyes and reached out to pat Noah on the shoulder. “I’m going home to get some sleep, boss,” he said. “I’ve got a hunch things are going to get busy in the morning.”
Neil turned and walked out the front door, and Noah took Sarah’s hand and led her toward the bedroom. They stripped and got into the bed and curled up together, and then Sarah suddenly began crying.
Though he had no idea how she was feeling, Noah understood that some part of her was experiencing a mixture of relief and guilt at the thought of Randy’s suffering. He tightened his arms around her and let her weep.
* * * * *
Noah woke at just before 8:00 a.m. and was already showered and dressed by the time his phone rang. The caller ID told him that it was Allison, of course.
“Camelot.”
“Something I thought you should know, Camelot,” Allison said. “I just got the word that Randy Mitchell was discovered dead in his apartment this morning. It seems nobody had been able to get him on the phone, so Jenny went by to check on him. Oh, and I got a cryptic email from Wally this morning saying that somebody seems to have made off with something special from his department last night.”
Noah nodded, even though she couldn’t see him. The way she was praising things told him that she was fully aware of what Noah had done, and that Randy was probably not dead after all.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Noah said. “Any idea what happened to him?”
“No, but it doesn’t really matter. I just thought you’d like to know since your team worked with his, recently.”
“Well, he was a good agent. What happens to him now?”
“Well, we don’t go into autopsies and such on our own people, simply because they are all expendable in any case. Funny thing, though, Wally’s email also mentioned that they are in need of a few cadavers for research purposes. Seems to me that Randy would volunteer, if he was able, don’t you think?”
“I think that would be an admirable idea,” Noah said. “It’s still a pity, though. Randy seemed like a pretty decent sort.”
“He had his good days,” Allison said. “Hopefully, this trip out to R&D will allow him to have a few more before he’s done.”
The phone went dead, and Noah slipped it back into his pocket. He had been standing in the bedroom when it had rung, and he glanced over his shoulder to see Sarah sitting up in the bed.
“Jenny found Randy’s body already this morning,” he said, “and Wally sent Allison an email that clued her in on what’s going on. He also added a request for cadavers for testing uses, so that’s where Randy is going. I’m sure Wally is going to have his people take care of him until this wears off, and Allison will probably have his new identity all set up by then.”
Sarah looked at him sleepily but nodded. “So now we just wait for the mole to contact you again?”
“That’s the plan. Somehow, I don’t think it will be long.”
Sarah nodded and fell backward onto the bed again. Noah left her to get a little more sleep and went to the kitchen to make coffee.
Neil tapped lightly on his back door about ten minutes later. “Saw your kitchen light come on,” he said. “Any word yet?”
“Yeah,” Noah said. “Allison called. Jenny found Randy’s body this morning, and Wally found a way to let Allison know what’s happening. As soon as they get done with the body at the morgue, it’ll be going out to R&D as planned.”
“Awesome. How bad is the coffee?”
Noah poured them each a cup and sat down at the table with Neil. Neil took a sip and made a face that said it wasn’t too terrible.
“So, now we wait again? See what the mole thinks about all this?”
“Yes. Hopefully, Randy’s death will look realistic enough. The only thing I’m concerned about is that he might wonder why the body disappeared so quickly. According to Renée, though, it’s not uncommon for the bodies of our personnel to end up out there, so it might not be all that surprising to him.”
They sat and talked for a few minutes, and then Neil followed Noah into the living room. Noah logged on to his computer, but there was no message waiting from the auto website. He logged off again, and the two of them were simply sitting there when Sarah came out of the bedroom, still dressed in one of Noah’s T-shirts.
“I just called Doc Parker,” she said, “and said I had a rough night and didn’t feel like coming in today. He said that was okay, so you might want to let Jackson know you won’t be coming. It feels like a good day to just stay home.”
Noah nodded and took out his phone, but before he could dial Jackson’s number, it rang. The caller ID told him that it was Allison calling once more.
“Camelot,” he said.
“Briefing at eleven. We have a mission, and I think this one calls for your particular abilities.” The line went dead.
Neil’s phone went off a few seconds later, and he got the same message. Sarah hurried back to the bedroom to grab her own and found a missed call from Allison, so she called back quickly and was told the same thing.
“So much for taking it easy,” she grumbled. “What time is it, anyway?”
“It’s almost nine,” Noah said. “We’ve got a little time.”
Sarah nodded and wandered into the kitchen, coming back a moment later with a cup of coffee of her own. She sat down beside Noah on the couch and leaned against him.
“Hold me,” she said, and Noah put an arm around her. She snuggled in against him and closed her eyes for a few moments, then opened them again and took a sip of her coffee. “I thought they were going to leave us inactive for a little while.”
“Parker must have given you a clean bill of health,” Noah said. “I don’t know what the mission is, but Allison said it needed me. We’ll play it by ear, like always.”
Sarah picked up the remote and turned on the television, flipping channels until she found a talk show she liked. The three of them sat there and watched it, and when it ended at ten she got up and went to get dressed.
Neil waited until she was out of earshot and looked at Noah. “Boss? You really think she’s ready for the field again?”
“That isn’t my call,” Noah said. “I have to assume that Parker feels like she is, and I trust Allison to help me keep her out of harm’s way. We’ll just have to handle it however is necessary.”
Neil shook his head. “Well, I’ll do my best to keep my eye on her whenever you’re not around.”
Noah looked at him, and the faintest ghost of a smile crossed his face for a split second. “Thank you,” he said. “I genuinely appreciate that.”
CHAPTER TEN
The three of them rode together in Neil’s Hummer to the briefing and found Marco pulling into the garage just ahead of them. When they had entered the elevator together, Marco looked over at Noah.
“Guess you heard the news about old Randy, right? Bit the dust last night, I hear.”
“Yes,” Noah said. “I understand it was a shock to everyone who knew him.”
Neil and Marco both had to stifle their laughter, but a quick glare from Sarah was enough to do the trick. By the time the elevator opened, both of them wore the sober faces of men who had just learned of the passing of a friend.