Midnight Fire

by Lisa Marie Rice

  His friends? This man had friends?

  “Jacko, meet Summer Redding.”

  The man Jack called Jacko stuck out an enormous dark hand to her and said, “How do you do, ma’am? I’m a big admirer of Area 8.”

  His voice was the deepest she’d ever heard. Jack had a deep voice, a very pleasant one. This guy seemed to subvocalize, like a human woofer.

  In an act of amazing courage, Summer offered her hand, trying very hard not to tremble. “P-pleased to meet you, Jacko. Thank you for saying that about Area 8.”

  Her hand disappeared in his and then an instant later he gave it back to her, none the worse for wear. Amazing.

  He looked at both of them while he talked, which Summer appreciated. She hated it when men talked to each other over her.

  “This is how it’s going to work,” he said in his basso profundo voice. “I’ve got an SUV with treated windows. I’m going to bring it to the bottom of the stairs. You guys stay here until I come back in to get you.” He handed them two broad-brimmed hats and long scarves. “Hide your faces with these until you get into the vehicle.” He turned to Summer and if she squinted, she thought maybe she could detect a hint of a smile in those black eyes. “Summer, I have about a billion bags from Macy’s for you. I swung by. And Isabel ordered some clothes for Jack. Said she’d had enough of that homeless look.”

  He disappeared out the door and Summer waited obediently.

  Jack took her hand. “It’s going to be okay. No, wait. I can’t guarantee that. But I can guarantee it’s going to be better. We have a team now.”

  “I’m beginning to feel it,” she said. “I miss my own team, though. Are you sure I can’t—”

  Jack shook his head sorrowfully. “No, sweetheart. A lot depends on you having disappeared. I’ll have Nick or someone in DC contact them. Be patient.”

  Summer nodded. Jack had waited six months for justice. Was still waiting. She could wait a few days to contact Zac and Marcie.

  Jacko stuck his head in the cabin then disappeared again.

  Jack wrapped the scarf Jacko had brought around the lower part of her face, then put the felt wide-brimmed hat on her head. He stood back as if in admiration.

  “You’re beautiful,” he pronounced.

  Summer rolled her eyes. “I’m hidden beneath about a hundred pounds of material.”

  “I know what’s under there. That’s what counts.” He wrapped his head so much he looked like the Mummy and put on his own hat over it. They were unrecognizable as they quickly moved down the stairs and into the SUV. Treated windows, Jacko had said. They weren’t treated, they looked perfectly normal. Except...she peered more closely. You couldn’t see inside. You couldn’t see anything, not even if there were people inside or not.

  Jack rode shotgun and slid the backseat door open for her. When she climbed inside it was very light. Most SUVs had tinted windows, but this one had perfectly clear windows. Though they weren’t transparent from the outside.

  Cool.

  The third row seats had been lowered and she saw lots of huge white bags with the familiar red star. Their clothes. It would be nice to have clean clothes. She’d been wearing this outfit for over twenty-four hours. She’d been to Hector’s funeral, to Hector’s secret lair, Jack’s safe house. She’d made love to Jack and been flown across the country in these clothes.

  So much had happened in the past day, most of it centered around the man sitting in front of her, conversing quietly with Jacko.

  If she asked, they’d clue her in on the conversation, she knew that much. Or at least Jack would include her. But she was all convo’ed out. They were going to figure out what horrible things Hector had planned. Secretly, the FBI was all over it in the person of Nick Mancino and the Director. Jack was on it as were the people he thought of as his team.

  She could stop trying to puzzle this thing out for the moment and focus on herself. And on her feelings for the big man sitting in front of her.

  Jack. Jack Delvaux. The man who’d broken her heart. She hadn’t been kidding when she told him that. And to his credit, he’d understood.

  But the girl whose heart had been broken had been a train wreck in waiting. She’d spent a miserable childhood under the uncertain protection of careless parents. Miss Darby’s school had given her a solid structure and allowed her to grow but there hadn’t been any boys to speak of and she’d had so little experience of them. They’d been like alien creatures to her.

  That first week at Harvard, she’d been so lost and lonely. Boys had come on to her and she’d had no idea—no clue—how to respond. There seemed to be a code, a rhythm to it that escaped her completely. She’d been painfully aware of her virginity and unable to think of a way to overcome that handicap, how to date a man who’d understand and then, bam!

  Jack had appeared right in front of her. Like magic.

  Beautiful, kind Jack, who had immediately taken her under his wing, introduced her around, made her feel at ease around his friends.

  And he’d seduced her. Yeah. She’d been so happy that Jack was her first lover. He’d been gentle and funny and tender. And oh so passionate. She couldn’t possibly have asked for a better introduction to sex.

  Girls talked and not everyone’s first time was magic. If anything, the opposite.

  She’d been so young and foolish and had somehow convinced herself that she and Jack were Meant To Be, when they’d been such kids.

  Jack was right when he said he was a different person. He was. He and Jacko were discussing something quietly but every minute or so he turned slightly in his seat, as if to check to see whether monsters might have infiltrated the vehicle in the minute of time since he last looked.

  He seemed more than willing to stay this time.

  Was she?

  He looked around again and this time met her eyes and smiled.

  It wasn’t the patented, brilliant Jack Delvaux smile that dazzled everyone he came across. It was a man’s smile—someone who’d seen trouble and tragedy but could still smile.

  Was she going to stick around afterward?

  She smiled back at him.

  Maybe.

  “We’re here,” Jacko announced and Summer realized she hadn’t even noticed her surroundings. Jack had knocked her off kilter because she was always aware of where she was—a legacy of her troubled childhood.

  Even in the midst of trouble, Jack had managed to make her feel safe enough to get lost in her thoughts.

  The area was gentrifying. Low rise brick buildings at least a century old. Some abandoned, some done up. Jacko rounded a corner of a building that was surrounded by a twelve foot wall, pressed on the accelerator and drove straight into the wall.

  Summer caught her breath to scream but before she could, a section of the wall simply opened, Jacko drove in fast and braked hard, slewing the car so that it fit precisely between the lines of a parking space.

  It was a remarkable piece of driving, though he’d nearly given her a heart attack.

  Jacko looked back at her and again, there was a hint of a smile. “I love where I work.”

  Jack helped her down and she studied her surroundings. A low rise beautifully restored brick building surrounded by incredibly landscaped grounds. Healthy looking plants, a Zen garden, amazing teak and wrought iron benches strategically placed. An arbor that would be gorgeous come spring.

  “I thought this was a security company,” Summer said as they started walking along a brick herringbone walkway with inset lighting.

  “It is,” Jack said as they walked straight into a wall that, like the gate, opened fast at the very last minute. “One of the owners is married to a designer. This was her building and her business originally.”

  “Best-looking security company in the world,” Jacko rumbled as they walked down a corr
idor with terracotta wall sconces and thriving lemons in big enameled vases. Turning into a door on the left—by this time Summer wasn’t surprised to see it whoosh open as they approached and whoosh closed at their backs—they were in a huge, posh space. Cool, neutral tones. Elegant, not fussy. Prosperous but not over the top.

  It gave exactly the impression a security company should give—solidity and discretion with an extra dollop of beauty. If this was the work of one of the co-owner’s wives, she knew what she was doing.

  They walked straight past the receptionist—Jack gave the stern looking middle-aged lady a wink and got a wry smile in return—into another huge room.

  This was a command center. All business but still somehow beautiful. Giant monitors everywhere, several work stations. The monitors all showed various disasters as they were unfolding.

  A big, lean man with black hair, snow white hair at the temples, rose and walked toward them. He was followed by a young blonde woman with her hair in a ponytail, wearing blue sweats and a TARDIS necklace.

  The big man took her hand. “Ms. Redding. John Huntington. It’s a pleasure to meet you, though I wish it were under better circumstances. Everyone in this office admires Area 8 and we hope that when we find those responsible for the Massacre, you will write a full exposé.”

  “Count on it,” Summer said, meaning every word. If she had to go into hiding for the rest of her life, the story would come out. “Traitors working against us. It’s monstrous.”

  Jack’s hand fell on her shoulder, a warm, heavy, reassuring weight. “There’s no one better than Summer to break the story.”

  The blonde girl peeped from around Huntington’s shoulder. She held one hand out to shake Summer’s and the other out for the laptop Summer was carrying. “Hey, hi! We met onscreen when you were on the plane. I’m Felicity, I belong to that big lug over there—” Metal twirled around in his office chair, sketched a salute then turned back to his monitor. “I’m the IT person around here and I can’t wait to get going on Blake’s laptop and flash drives. These people are driving newscasters and journalists nuts.” She waved at the bank of monitors, each with its own personal disaster.

  Summer recognized her. “You’re the one who saw that the Fontana Dam footage was fake?”

  “Sure am,” Felicity said, pretty face sober. “But that doesn’t mean they all are. Figuring out how many of these are false-flag digital fakes is taking a lot of bandwidth. The fake ones have been planned for a long time and some of the footage is real but old. These people are doing major damage—every single emergency service in the country is on alert. We’re running through huge amounts of money, tying up resources, clocking up overtime on a vast scale.”

  “Do you think this is...it?” Summer asked. “What everything has been leading up to? What the Washington Massacre was about?”

  They’d all drifted over to where Metal was manning a computer. What was on his screen was also up on one of the wall monitors.

  Metal reached up a big hand, without taking his eyes from his monitor. “Summer. Nice to meet you in person. I feel like I know you from Area 8.”

  She clasped his hand. “Thanks. How many incidents do we have so far?”

  “Twenty one.” One of the monitors switched images. The sound on all was off. Graphics were enough to give the important facts. The monitor showed a school—Fairmont Elementary School was carved in the stone of the façade. The feed showed little kids being rushed out of the school, masks being handed out, the kids and teachers being ushered into waiting medic vans. Anthrax released in elementary school was the caption. “Twenty two,” Metal said.

  Summer clenched her fists. “That better be one of the fake ones.”

  The men all nodded soberly.

  She looked at all of them. “Whoever these people are, we have to bring them down. Because I think they are showing us how easy it would be for them to create havoc in this country. How easily they can bring us to our knees.”

  John Huntington nodded soberly. “We’re on it, though we don’t have much to go on. You know, Ms. Redding—”

  “Summer, please,” she said.

  He nodded again. He had a natural authority. Part of it was his physique and good looks. But most of it was something that just flowed from him, a leader’s calm. The whole company had an amazingly reassuring vibe to it.

  “Summer. As you know, we’re working with an element in the FBI. Both of us have immense resources. It’s just a question of time. Plus” —he indicated Felicity, whose fingers were blurring over Hector’s keyboard—”we have a secret weapon. If there’s anything to be found in Blake’s computers, she’ll find it. No question. Then we analyze it and go on the offensive.”

  “Yes, sir,” Summer said. “You understand that both Jack and I fear that there is CIA complicity in all of this, don’t you?”

  “I do. We do. Which is why the FBI has set up a secret task force with only very trusted agents. Headed by Special Agent Nick Mancino. The operation is compartmented and there will be no leaks.”

  Summer stiffened at that. “I hope you’re not implying that Area 8 will leak anything? I would never do that. As a matter of fact, Area 8 is offline for the moment.”

  He was already shaking his head. “I wasn’t implying anything of the sort. It’s clear from what you write that you are a true patriot. Though the whole story will have to come out some day and I hope you’ll write that story once we have the leaders behind bars.”

  “Gladly.” Oh yeah. She was going to write a series of exposés and then a book and then she was going to go on TV and report on the group of traitors who sold out the country and killed hundreds of people. For money.

  And they weren’t finished yet.

  A dull ringing sound and Metal clicked on Skype. Nick Mancino’s face showed. He looked pale and drawn. “Hey, man. Is Summer there?”

  Her eyes grew wide and her heart thumped. What did Nick want with her? Had something worse than her apartment being blown up happened?

  Metal rose from his chair, opened his hand. Summer sat, because her knees felt suddenly weak. Jack stood at her back, his hand still on her shoulder. She reached up to hold it, like a touchstone, something solid to cling to.

  “I dispatched an agent to provide protection for your two editors, Zac Burroughs and Marcie Thompson.”

  Oh God! Summer’s head swam. Zac and Marcie. So smart and so energetic. They’d help her make Area 8 what it was. Her throat was so dry she had to take a sip of water to be able to speak. “And?”

  “We couldn’t find either of them. They weren’t anywhere and their cells were off. My agent let himself into Burroughs’ apartment and made a thorough search. One door was closed, and he was unable to open it. Some kind of liquid cement had been placed in the lock and the door was stuck in the jamb. Circumstances warranted his breaking the door down and it wasn’t easy. This is what he found.”

  On the screen was a long plastic...thing. Several screenshots carouselled across the screen until she realized what she was looking at. A body bag. She gasped and Jack’s hand tightened on her shoulder.

  Nick nodded. “I won’t show you the next pictures, but Zac Burroughs is dead, Summer. I’m really sorry.”

  Grief washed over her. Funny, smart Zac. Who’d had crazy parents like hers, only loving grandparents. Who’d studied his heart out at journalism school. Who believed in the power of the written word with every fiber of his being. Who’d fought alongside her to build Area 8 to what it was. Zac, who’d had a secret crush on her but rarely let it show.

  “So they’re going to get away with this, too?”

  Nick gave a grim smile. “Not quite. As a matter of fact we have a lead.”

  Everyone leaned forward. “Spill it, Nick,” John Huntington ordered.

  “Yes, sir. So we backtracked and Zac had had a latte at a corn
er bar.”

  “Trigo’s.” Summer blinked her tears back. “We met there a lot. He said his apartment was too messy to have meetings there.”

  “Yeah, Trigo’s.” Nick leaned forward too, though he was three thousand miles away. The picture and sound were so clear it was as if he were sitting across the table from them.

  “So the guy left no forensic evidence, and the street cameras showed this.”

  On the monitor there was the photograph of a man with a baseball cap on and white fuzz where his face would be.

  “IR lights in the bill,” Jack said. Summer glanced at him. He was all business, face gone completely cold. The man on the screen was linked to the people who’d destroyed his family. His eyes travelled as they took in every detail.

  “Put that up on the wall,” John Huntington said, and the photograph showed on the wall monitor. It was very clear. She could see every wrinkle in the man’s jeans, every zipper on his backpack. They just couldn’t see his face.

  “Later, the fucker must have worn latex gloves,” Nick said. “But on the street he was glove-free.”

  “What did he touch?” Jack asked. “Please let him have touched something.”

  “He touched Zac’s body when he injected him with what the autopsy showed to be ketamine.”

  Summer’s eyes widened. “Isn’t that used on animals?”

  “It is,” Nick said grimly. “Kid didn’t have a chance. And the fucker sprayed the kid’s upper body with bleach so there aren’t any prints or any DNA we can pull. However...” He held up a forefinger. “Our entire forensics lab is top flight, of course, but we have a particular forensic scientist who is off the charts brilliant. He lost his wife in the Massacre and he’s pledged to work day and night without sleep if he has to until we bring those responsible to justice. And to tell the truth, he’s already done something amazing. Now pay attention.”

  Everyone was practically quivering with attention, except Jack, who was as still as stone.

  “Watch this photo,” Nick said. It was another shot of the man with the blurred face, in mid-stride, one hand reaching for his backpack, open palm facing the lens.